The Story of Witches

The first chapter of this book gives some specific names of people and how many individuals they were responsible for having killed on charges of being a witch. These include: Nicholas Remy, French, around 900 dead; Pierre Binsfield, Bishop of Treres, France: 6,500 dead; Bishop of Wurtzburg: 900 plus. It also pegs the total number killed in the “hundreds of thousands.”

The first US death was Alse Young on May 26, 1647.

The second chapter goes into the “old time” witches, and says they worshiped the Devil, and that modern witches worship God. This, of course, totally overlooks the fact that most of the women killed for being witches were not witches, in the first place, and in the second they were mostly old women who were into things like healing and helping others. The chapter also overlooks the fact that many of the modern-day witches are goddess worshippers.

The next chapter talks about sabbats, gatherings of witches, and comes up with some very fanciful material indeed, including the tidbit that, if the number of attendees was not high enough, you could always have an incubus or succubus or several attend to fill out the roster.

The book briefly mentions specific groups, like the Templars, that would considered heretics (and hence, witches) and killed, then goes into the legal aspect of a witch trial. No lawyer for the accused, and the accused was presumed guilty until proven innocent. Torture was an acceptable method to obtain a confession.

The book offers some explanations for witch behavior, including paranoia, hysteria, schizophrenia, epilepsy, Tourette's Syndrome, Huntington's Chorea, and convulsive ergotism (results from a fungus obtained by eating contaminated bread).

The book is sort of interesting, especially the explanations given for witch behavior, but parts of it are not totally accurate, to say the least.


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