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Thoughts and reflections on witchcraft now and before
Introduction on witchcraft thesis
Thoughts and reflections on witchcraft now and before
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A theme of Walpurgis Night is very popular in various art forms such as theatre, dance, literature, music, film, and television. A number of different European cultures have their traditions and celebrations. In most cultures celebrating Walpurgis Night, the event usually takes place on April 30 or May 1 and is associated with the celebration of spring. There is a lot of mystery and uncertain information about the origins of Walpurgis Night. Casanova’s Catholic Encyclopedia states that it was named after the English missionary Saint Walpurga who was canonized on May 1 (Casanova). But if it was just a celebration of spring, if would not be so interesting for artists creating in different art forms. In Richard Golden’s Encyclopedia Of Witchcraft : The Western Tradition it is also stated that Walpurgis Night was named after “the Anglo-Saxon princess Walpurga, who was the niece of St. Boniface and abbess of a nunnery at Heidenheim in Germany” (1178). A century after her death, her corps was transported to Eichstätt on May 1, 870, and this date became her feast day. Pagans used to celebrate this day with festivals. They chose the most inaccessible places for their festivals in order not to be caught by the Christians who tried to extinguish the memory of the feast. That might be the reason why the myth of witches gathering was born. There is a belief in popular culture that on the night between April 30 and May 1 all witches meet at the top of the Blocksberg (now called Brocken) in the Harz Mountain Range in Germany to worship the Devil with lighting bonfires and dancing (Golden 1178). This belief has become inspirational for many outstanding works in literature, music, chorography, art, film and television. The use and interpretations... ... middle of paper ... ...me that I was working on and allowed to form my own interpretation of it and create a concept for the original work piece. Works Cited Bolshoi. State Academic Bolshoi Theatre of Russia, n.d. Web. 6 Dec. 2013. . Bulgakov, Mikhail. The Master and Margarita. Kindle file. Golden, Richard M. Encyclopedia Of Witchcraft : The Western Tradition. Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO, 2006. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 5 Dec. 2013 Casanova, Gertrude. "St. Walburga." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 15. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1912. 6 Dec. 2013 . Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. "Goethe's Collected Works." Faust I & II. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1994. 101. Vol. 2 of Goethe's Collected Works. 3 vols. Rpt. in Goethe's Collected Works. Trans. Stuart Atkins. Print.
In Richard Wunderli’s Book Peasant Fires: The Drummer of Niklashausen, Wunderli presents idea of “Enchanted Time.” The idea of “Enchanted Time” centers on Holy Days such as Advent, Carnival, Lent, Easter, and Walpurgisnacht where men and women could worship and celebrate their religion, as well as, feel closer to God, the angels, and the saints who resided in the “powerful realm.” Hand Behem and all other Europeans believed in this separation of realms, and in Peasant Fires Behem and the other peasants used these enchanted times to “make an appeal to supernatural forces to find justice for their discontent and meaning for their misery.” (Wunderli) Through the dissection and summation of Lent and Walpurgisnacht the concept of “Enchanted Time”
When people lose their dignity, they also lose a part of the very thing that makes them human. Despair, hopelessness, fear and apathy are all ways a human can lose their humanity. The eyes provide a window onto the soul, and thus a view on the person’s mental state. The eyes also function in reverse, as a symbolic gesture of control over someone. All of this is present in Night, by Elie Wiesel, an account of human tragedy, human cruelty, human dignity, and the loss thereof.
Edward, Bever, 'Witchcraft Prosecutions and the Decline of Magic', Journal of Interdisciplinary History vol.11 no.2 (Autumn 2009)
Dutto, Rev. L. A. The Life of Bartolomé de Las Casas and the First Leaves of American Ecclesiastical History St. Louis, MO: B. Herder 1902
Kocic, Ana. (2010). Salem Witchcraft Trails: The Perception of Women In History, Literature And Culture. Linguistics and Literature, Vol. 8 (Issue N1), 1-7. http://facta.junis.ni.ac.rs/lal/lal201001/lal201001-01.pdf
The witch hunts in early modern Europe were extensive and far reaching. Christina Larner, a sociology professor at the University of Glasgow and an influential witchcraft historian provides valuable insight into the witch trials in early modern Europe in her article 'Was Witch-Hunting Woman-Hunting?'. Larner writes that witchcraft was not sex-specific, although it was sex-related (Larner, 2002). It cannot be denied that gender plays a tremendous role in the witch hunts in early modern Europe, with females accounting for an estimated 80 percent of those accused (Larner, 2002). However, it would be negligent to pay no heed to the remaining 20 percent, representing alleged male witches (Larner, 2002). The legal definition of a witch in this time, encompassed both females and males (Levack, 1987). This essay will explore the various fundamental reasons for this gender discrepancy and highlight particular cases of witchcraft allegations against both women and men. These reasons arise from several fundamental pieces of literature that depict the stereotypical witch as female. These works are misogynistic and display women as morally inferior to men and highly vulnerable to temptations from demons (Levack, 1987). This idea is blatantly outlined in the text of the 'Malleus Maleficarum' written by James Sprenger and Henry Kramer in the late fifteenth century. This book is used as the basis for many of the witch trials in early modern Europe (Levack, 1987). The text describes women as sexually submissive creatures and while remarking that all witchcraft is derived from intense sexual lust, a women is thus a prime candidate for witchcraft (Sprenger & Kramer, 1487). In this time period, men are seen as powerful and in control and thus rarely...
Many believed that these witches observed a nocturnal Sabbath where they worshipped the devil and paid their homage to him. They were also accused of being an organization known for its cannibalistic practices of infanticide incest. Another component of this cumulative concept was the belief of the flight of witches. The belief for this was contributed to by the assumption that witches took flight from their homes to goto nocturnal meetings without their absence from home being detected. The belief in “flying night witches” was shared by many cultures in the modern world. These women were referred to as strigae, which was one of the many Latin terms for witches. As the reader first opens the legal foundations of witch-hunting, one finds that historically it was a judicial process from discovery to elimination. Levack states that before the thirteenth century European courts used a system of criminal procedure that made all crimes difficult to prosecute.
1 Nachman Ben-Yehuda The European Witch Craze of the 14th to 17th Centuries: A Sociologist’s Perspective. The University of Chicago, 1980. 15. 2 Levack! 123.3 Levack 164.
During this time a lot of witches were tortured and killed as a model for society and undiscovered witches, to prevent any future attempts to practice this evil deed and eventually ...
Sidky, H. Witchcraft, lycanthropy, drugs, and disease: an anthropological study of the European witch-hunts. New York: Peter Lang Publishing Inc., 1997.
Gonzalez, Justo L. 1984. The early church to the dawn of the Reformation. San Francisco: Harper & Row.
HIST303 Witch Hunting 1400-1700 Essay 1: Describe the nature of "witchcraft"and explain why it was threatening to Christianity. Prepared by: Sikiki Angela Lloyd Due: 4 April 2014 Student Number: 203139861 Image: The Witches' Sabbath.
Lehmann A. C. & Myers J. E. Magic, Witchcraft and Religion – An anthropological Study of the Supernatural (Fourth Edition) (Mayfield Publishing Company, 1997)
Pollen, John Hungerford. "St. Ignatius Loyola." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 7. New York: Robert Appleton Company,1910. 23 Mar. 2014 .
Bainvel, Jean. The New Catholic Encyclopedia. New York City: Robert Appleton Company, 1912. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15006b.htm (accessed September 23, 2011).