Witches and Halloween

 

One cannot grow up close to Salem, MA without knowing about the Salem witch trials.  

Lately there have been moves by governments to exonerate the witches that were drowned, beheaded, or burned to death.

Massachusetts did it for Elizabeth Johnson, although she was not executed. A group of middle school children fought for her exoneration, a great exercise in fighting the system.

Anna Goldi who was beheaded in 1782 in Switzerland was exonerated by the Swiss government in 2007. It did not restore her head to her body.

The Scottish Government is working on the exoneration of 2500 witches of the 4000 accused. They were killed by strangulation or burning or both. Scotland holds the record for number of witches found and killed.

 At first  I thought why bother. They will not be resurrected, but then in rethinking it strikes me that there is a similar ignorance today on a range of topics, especially when it comes to some religions be it Muslims or some far-right evangelical Christians, or Jews or or or... Ignorance becomes the motivating factor in injustice.

Granted there are not church-supported manuals such as the Witches Hammer (Malleus Maleficarum) that are being used today.

And there was King James VI's Deamonolgie written in 1597 which said witch hunting was fine. 

The majority of witches were women, usually women who didn't fit the society mold of what a woman should be. Their witchdom accusations came from an accuser's testimony: sometimes it was a person who would benefit from the witch's death. Crimes could include turning butter rancid or alleged dancing with Satan. 

Somehow the group belief in witches is no different from all the people who fell for the lie that the 2020 American election was stolen. 

There is the Wicca religion, a modern pagan religion. Scholars of religion categorize it as both a new religious movement and as part of the occultist stream of Western esotericism. Developed in England during the first half of the 20th century, it was introduced to the public in 1954. There is an estimate that it is practiced by a few hundred thousand. 

There are still places on earth where not following strict beliefs of a religion can cause arrest and even death. 

Meanwhile children may look for a witch costume to celebrate Halloween with no fear of arrest or death. They have little concept of the history of witches and the danger it represented even with the promise of exoneration centuries in the future.