500,000 Witches Tortured & Burned for Flying on Brooms:
Quotes from the book "Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches" (pg 207...) by famous Anthropologist Marvin Harris (this book is on the reading list for many Anthropology majors, just search for the books title, but limit search to .edu, and you will get a long list of professors recommending the book. Go to search.yahoo.com, select ADVANCE SEARCH, then select .edu only). OR just CLICK HERE (it will open a new window and leave this one open too).
And I Quote.....
"Five hundred Thousand people were convicted of witchcraft and burned to death in Europe between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries Their crimes: a pact with the Devil; journeys through the air over vast distances mounted on broomsticks; unlawful assembly at sabats; worship of the Devil; kissing the Devil under the tail; copulation with incubi, male devils equipped with ice-cold penises; copulation with succubi, female devils. Other mundane charges were often added: killing the neighbors's cow; causing hailstorms; ruining the crops; stealing and eating babies. But many a witch was executed for no crime other than flying through the air to attend a sabbat".
Confessions were obtained thru Torture using (pg 211) "the strappado (hands tied behind back, and hoisted by the wrists), the rack, the thumbscrew, the witch hunters used chairs with sharp points, heated from below, shoes with pricks, bands with needles, red-hot irons, red-hot pincers, starvation, and sleeplessness".
ONE (of many) RECORDED CASE(s)
The author tells about one Else Gwinner who was brought before examiners Oct 31, 1601, but denied being a witch, was given "the strappado", but she still would not confess and was tortured till she passed out. She was removed from prison and tortured again Nov 7 (3 times "the strappado", each time with more weights added), and the third hoist she confessed that she had enjoyed "the love of a demon". The examiners were dissatisfied and wanted to know more, and hoisted her again with the heaviest weights, after which she said her confession was forced upon her. Meanwhile her daughter was arrested and beaten till she admitted that she and her mother caused crop failures to raise bread prices. The mother was taken to another prison and worked over with thumb screws (Dec 11) after denying previous confessions, she passed out, had cold water splashed on her, was tortured again, and eventually confessed to "2 flights" to sabbats. the examiners wanted to know who she had seen at the sabbats. She named 2 women, but on Dec 13, she revoked her confessions. Dec 15th the examiners told her "they would continue torture without mercy or compassion until she should tell the truth" (pg 210).
Quote from a witness of witch torture wrote....
"I have seen the limbs forced asunder, the eyes driven out of the head, the feet torn from the legs, the sinews twisted from the joins, the shoulder blades wrung from their places, the deep veins swollen, the superficial veins driven in, the victim hoisted aloft and now dropped, now revolved around, head undermost and feet uppermost. I have seen the executioner flog with the scourge, and smite with rods, and crush with screws, and load down with weights, and sticks with needles, and bind around with cords, and burn with brimstone, and baste with oil and sing with troches. In short, I can bear witness I can describe, I can deplore how the human body is violated".
Then from pg 212 "Examiners were never satisfied until the confessed witches named additional suspects, who were routinely indicted and tortured themselves. (pg 213) "Even in Europe, it was only after 1480 that torture was used this way. Before 1000 A.D. no one was executed if a neighbor allegedly saw them with the Devil..... ....In fact the Catholic Church originally insisted that there were no such things as witches flying through the air. In the year 1000 A.D. it was forbidden to believe that such flights really took place; later after 1480, it was forbidden to believe that they did not take place. In 1000 A.D. the Church officially maintained that the ride of the witches was an illusion produced by the Devil. Five hundred years later, the Church officially maintained that those who claimed that the ride was merely an illusion were themselves in league with the Devil". Confessed Witches who cooperated, were sometimes strangled before being burned (to reduce their suffering). 500,000 people were put to death, for crimes committed in other peoples dreams. (One executioners wife used a green ointment made from hemlock, nightshade, henbane, and mandrake; which put the executioners wife in a trance for 36 hours, and when she awoke, she complained about being awakened". The use of the green ointment was apparently common, and the author puts the blame for the mentality behind all of this, due to the green ointment (especially in the last chapter).
Famous author Desmond Morris, as well as my ANTHROPOLOGY PROFESSOR (Mike Merrified, last known contact at Saddleback College, currently???) say that the human brain has not evolved much since the building of the Sphinx (10,500 B.C. i.e.. the official beginning of civilization). Mankind was actually smarter (higher IQ) back then, than we are today. (I asked my professor, "if we are not getting smarter with every generation, then why did we go from horse and buggy in the late 1800's to Man on the Moon in the 1960's? Professor Mike Merrifield replied "greater population density, leading to greater communications". So that is what I am doing here in the Internet, communicating, so that this type of thing does not happen over again (of course, who knows what they are doing with accused prisoners of war?).
But think of the MENTALITY behind this kind of Witch Torturing, Witch Burning logic. People with the same level of IQ back then, as we are today. Of course (except in war) we don't allow torture these days (thanks to greater population density, leading to greater communications), but other than that, we are of the same basic, physical MIND that they were. Perhaps they could have used more Vitamins (especially B vitamins which help the minds coherency), and Healthier Foods.
MORE TO COME on this later. TO BE CONTINUED.
Healthy Body, Healthy Mind
It is my view that the vegetarian manner of living by its purely physical effect on the human temperament would most beneficially influence the lot of mankind." - Albert Einstein Letter to 'Vegetarian Watch-Tower', 27 December 1930
"Nothing will benefit human health, and increase the chances for survival of life on Earth, as much as the evolution to a Vegetarian Diet" -ALBERT EINSTEIN "Bite-Size Einstein" pg 10 by Mayer & Holms QC16.E5A25
"Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages." -Thomas Edison (inventor)
"For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love." -Pythagoras, mathematician
"The time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look on the murder of men."
-Leonardo da Vinci, artist and scientist
"As long as there are slaughterhouses, there will be battlefields." - Leo Tolstoy author
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HUMANE SOCIETY www.hsus.org
SERIAL KILLERS & ANIMAL TORTURE
The Humane Society of the United States (www.hsus.org) had a detailed page on Case Studies of Serial Killers and their previous history of animal torture (photos, names, case studies). Admitedly, it was too much for me. That page (www.hsus2.org/firststrike/casestudies/index.html) has been removed, and a newer milder verification of the facts is now at http://www.hsus.org/ace/15866 which now reads as follows.....
Is there any evidence of a connection between animal cruelty and human violence?
Absolutely. Many studies in psychology, sociology, and criminology during the last 25 years have demonstrated that violent offenders frequently have childhood and adolescent histories of serious and repeated animal cruelty. The FBI has recognized the connection since the 1970s, when its analysis of the lives of serial killers suggested that most had killed or tortured animals as children. Other research has shown consistent patterns of animal cruelty among perpetrators of more common forms of violence, including child abuse, spouse abuse, and elder abuse. In fact, the American Psychiatric Association considers animal cruelty one of the diagnostic criteria of conduct disorder.
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