"Should We Fear Witches?"

Rev. Dr. Morris Hudgins.
October 22, 2000.

Introduction
It is that time of year again when the ghosts and goblins enter our rather rational world. Periodically, we also see some religions that oppose the celebration of Halloween. When Marti and I were in France last year we saw Halloween taken to a whole new level. They have not been celebrating Halloween long, only a few years I understand, but they have taken to it big-time. Even McDonalds restaurants were decorated to the hilt. On the other side, we have churches that oppose any celebration of Halloween, and one church that sponsors a house of horrors that includes abortion and aides as evidence that the devil needs our attention.

I find Halloween rather amusing and fun. We do decorate at our house. I usually buy a pumpkin. Marti gets her witches out of the Halloween box places them on the front windows. At our house you are greeted this time of year by two lovely ladies. I enjoy the children coming around with their trick or treat bags and their humorous costumes.

I also remember the times of my youth when I would get around the neighborhood with my costume and my large bag. My most memorable costume was when I would dress up like a girl. We won't discuss what that meant. Let's not go there.

As you know many churches oppose Halloween. They must think that such a tradition only encourages the devil. We can respond by blaming all of this on Shakespeare. Look at this description of Macbeth's witches by Pennetbourne Hughes:

She had nutcracker jaws, rags, and a hat . . .She possessed a cat (in spite of the fact that the domestic cat as we know it was not introduced into England until the 16th century) and a cauldron. She was given to the preparation of hellish brews from toads and herbs, and to association largely with corpses. She lived in the heart of a forest, in a little hut with small children in the oven, and her name was Old Mother Something. . . .(Witchcraft, p. 15)

Old tales die hard. On the other hand, there were quite different pictures of witches. Hughes continue:

The other sort of witches were, by this popular estimate not witches at all, but poor harmless old women living on the outskirts of the village, and hated because they were deaf. The brews they made were not hellish, but tremendously beneficent and packed with traditional wisdom.

These two pictures summarize one of the points I will make this morning: Witches in my view are harmless, but what we do with them is often very harmful. I must confess this morning that I am rather puzzled by the people who believe in witchcraft as well as those who are alarmed by those who believe in witchcraft. My rational self comes through.

On the one hand, I know there are religious cults out there that need to be carefully watched. Jim Jones was not the figment of someone's imagination. He was a religious leader that had control over a group of people. One day he decided to lead them to a cauldron of poison and they drank. I am not proud of the fact that Jim Jones was interested in becoming a UU Minister. I am proud of the fact that our association told him to go to theological school—that his personal style of charismatic leadership would not work in our denomination. So he went elsewhere and found a group of people who would follow him. Should we be concerned about people like Jim Jones? Yes. Should we be hysterical about witches? No.

Joan of Arc
Let's look at two examples of witches this morning: Joan of Arc and the Salem Witch Trials this morning? They may give us some answers to the tricky business of witchcraft and the hysteria that happens around witches. First, Joan of Arc. In 1431 Joan of Arc was charged with witchcraft and heresy and burned at the stake. That trial was annulled by Charles VII in 1456. I have never understood how an annulment changes anything. In the case of a witch burning it is difficult to give back a person's life. To make a worse mockery of the proceedings Joan was beatified in 1919 and canonized in 1920. A person who was burned at the stake now has a feast day.

On our trip to France last year we visited the Chapel honoring Joan of Arc. It was a busy place, quite an inspiration. Someone who caused great concern by politicians and religious leaders is now viewed as a role model. Things do change.

One could argue that the beatification was the church's way of coming to grips with its own past—as we are doing with W. H.G. Carter. All church's make mistakes. As in the case of Joan of Arc, as one writer proclaims: "Probably her most serious crime was the claim of direction inspiration from God; in the eyes of the court this refusal to accept church heirarchy constituted heresy." (Columbia Encyclopedia, p. 1416)

Joan of Arc is a good example of the dilemma of thousands of people during the Reformation—many of them labeled as witches—but in reality people who rejected the final authority of the Catholic Church. Mental instability was often used as part of the argument of the Inquisitors. In some cases they may have even been correct. But mental instability is not a valid reason for execution. Unfortunately, in the history of religion reason and logic have not always won out in the end.

Salem
The Witch Trials of Salem, Massachusetts are a good example. I find the Salem Witch Trials fascinating as well as tragic history. The theories concerning what happened at Salem are varied, paradoxical and perplexing. Listen to a list of some of the possibilities:

1. No witchcraft was practiced at Salem.
2. Witchcraft was practiced. The fears of the magistrates, the clergy and community were real.
3. The hysteria in Salem was caused by radical clergy who excited the public.
4. The clergy were temperate mild-mannered men who were more interested in treating the condemned.
5. The clergy inspired, stimulated and encouraged the young girls into witchcraft and in so doing bolstered their declining power in the community.
6. The accused were mentally ill and in need of treatment. Instead they received condemnation, interrogation, and execution.
7. There was little opposition to the trials.
8. There was a growing amount of opposition to the trials, including some clergy and magistrates.
9. The young girls were harmless with their magic who told the truth before the courts.
10. The young girls were destroying the fabric of puritan society, the community, and lies before the magistrates.
11. The young girls were innocent.
12. They were guilty.
13. The Salem Witch Trials reveal the harm of practicing witchcraft.
14. The trials reveal the harm of the fear of witchcraft.
15. The trials at Salem were unique in the history of New England and the Western World.
16. The trials were part of a historical movement going back hundreds of years.
17. The trials were the end of a tragic part of our history.
18. Witch hunts were common before Salem and continued after Salem.

The Facts
Let's look at some of the facts. The Salem Witch Trials occurred in Salem between 1692 and 1693. A total of 141 people were arrested, 20 people were put to death. There were persecutions in New England before Salem and they would continue afterwards but the Salem Witch Trials were a turning point in American justice.

Witchcraft was practiced in New England and in Salem. We must realize that the puritan culture believed in the devil and in witchcraft. Salem was part of a culture that cannot be denied. As Chadwick Hansen concludes:

One cannot fully understand any aspect of the events at Salem without a recognition of the genuine power of witchcraft in a society that believes in it. . .We must bear in mind that in a society which believes in witchcraft, it works. If you believe in witchcraft and you discover that someone has been melting your wax image over a slow fire or muttering charms over your nail-parings, the probability is that you will get extremely sick. To be sure, your symptonms will be psychosomatic rather than organic. But the fact that they are obviously not organic will make them only more terrible, since they will seem the result of malefic and demonic power. So it was in seventeenth-century Europe, and so it was in seventeenth-century Massachusetts. (p. 10)

Chadwick shows his 20th century rationalism when he concludes that the cause of the hysteria in Salem:

". . .was not witchcraft itself but the victim's fear of it, and that is why so many innocent persons were executed." (p. 11) Chadwick, in my view has a very balanced view of Salem. He concludes that a majority of the people who were executed were innocent, but there were some who were guilty as charged. (p. 11).

This is not to deny the fact that these young women were being influenced by some power beyond themselves. Chadwick concludes:

We can say with surety that some of these young girls who were charged with witchcraft were indeed having hallucinations, were becoming sick, and having apparitions. They saw the people even in the court room that were not there.

He wonders if they did not have multiple personality disorders.

There are other facts to be noted: Some clergy incited the hysteria, some participated in the witchcraft, and others were temperate voices while most people were losing their sanity. The clergy were part of the hysteria but not the main reason for it. Cotton Mather, the clergy most often blamed for the puritan response was in fact one of the saner voices, was concerned about the progress of the trials, and was at times a temperate voice. He says the clergy were from beginning to end the chief opponents to the events at Salem.

One can conclude from his study that the Salem Witch Trials were part of a culture that dealt with mental illness, fanaticism, and the occult with the most severe of punishment. Belief in witchcraft contributed to the illness, but so did the way the society responded to the beliefs.

Conclusions
Can we blame the narrow-minded puritans for Witch Trials? Yes, we can. But we can also blame all the major religions of the 16th and 17th century for belief in witchcraft. The Anglicans, the Quakers and the Roman Catholics all believed in witchcraft during this same period. Executions existed before Salem in Europe and in America and continued afterwards for over 100 years.

Witchcraft was against the law in Europe and America. In England and New England it was a felony punishable by hanging. In Scotland and on the Continent it was heresy punishable by burning at the stake. In relative terms Americas punishment was easier. The reason for burning in Europe was twofold: burning was a painful death and it was believed to have prevented a resurrection of the body. It is no wonder why some question the credulity of Christianity. The enlightenment was bound to question such barbarism.

We do see the seeds of enlightenment during this 17th century that would flower in the 18th and 19th centuries. It was during this period that Unitarian and Universalism would come to life as part of the reaction against the extreme forms of Calvinism reflected in the puritan culture.

We must not limit our criticisms to the puritan religion. As we all are aware the religion and the state were one in the puritan world. The court system was also part of the old world. Hearsay evidence was allowed. Magistrates were bullies who assumed your guilt. Here is a description of Thomas Hobbes, one of the magistrates in the case:

If you had been sticking pins in your neighbor's image or casting spells on his cow, you would not have wanted Thomas Hobbes to be your judge. He would not have believed in your occult powers, but he would have hanged you anyway, for your heresy and for your malice. . .He was convinced that witchcraft did not work, but it did not occur to him for one moment to doubt that people practiced it. In fact, nobody in the seventeenth century or before doubted the existence of witchcraft as a common practice; skepticism extended only to the questions of whether it worked, and if so whether by spiritual or natural means, and if those who practiced it should be held legally accountable. (p. 9)

One of the positive results of the trials was that people began to evaluate the rules of evidence in a case. During the trial "spectral evidence" was considered valid. If the accused said they were tormented by someone's "spectre" or ghost image this was good enough.

We can also blame the medical system for its failures during this period. When someone was brought to a physician with hallucinations and fits he would say it was witchcraft. Witchcraft was universally blamed for the problems of the society.

Another result of the Salem Witch Trials was the phrase "witch hunt" that would become forever a black mark on New England justice. Chadwick writes:

When a community looks only for evidence of guilt and ignores or suppresses all contradictory evidence, the result is a witch hunt. And a witch hunt was developing in Salem as the community felt itself so beset by evil that it was no longer capable of perceiving the good.

In conclusion, this is a warning that all democratic organizations need to heed. Liberals and conservatives alike can be so blinded by our views of evil that we can overlook the good. I have a feeling we will be reminded of this as we discuss the issue of the Boy Scouts of America. Let us not allow witch hunts inside these hallow halls. Chadwick ends his long study with sage advice:

A witch hunt can occur only when the majority of a community feels itself so beset by malice—real or imagined—that it loses the capacity to distinguish between the innocent and the guilty.

We should always look for witch hunts in our midst. Our liberal forebears saw them in the McCarthy hearings. Politicians saw communists behind every door. Chadwick reminds us why the Witch Trials ended. He writes:

Western civilization stopped executing witches when the literate and balanced portion of its members stopped believing in their capacity to harm. And since the witch's genuine power was a consequence of her victim's belief, the practice of witchcraft has very nearly vanished along with the penalties for it. But new figures have risen to take the spectral place in popular fears vacated by the witch; the spirit of the witch hunt is still with us. (p. 225)

You have probably noticed that there has been an increase in witchcraft in recent years. There has been some dispute in the Armed Forces whether or not to recognize witchcraft as a religion. Presidential Candidate George Bush has said it is not a religion.

Is this not a continuation of the old practices? Some religious views are valid and others are not. Witchcraft is a religion just as paganism is a religion. Some Unitarian Universalists call themselves pagans and at least one of our ministers now calls herself a witch.

I have studied the views of "Wicca"—the neo-pagan organization—and find them very different from those of the 16th century. For many it is a way of affirming earth-centered religion including the feminine divine. Listen to these words which are part of the "Cakes for the Queen of Heaven Curriculum" so popular in recent years, authored by Northern Hills first minister, Shirley Ranck:

Initially the witch craze focused on unmarried women, spinsters and widows, and served to rid society of these "unacceptable" groups. Eventually the craze got out of hand, and even the most docile married women were accused. Some villages were left with only one living woman. Every imaginable torture was used in attempts to obtain confessions and the names of other witnesses.

Even more unspeakable was the use and abuse of children. Not only did they watch their mothers being burned alive, but they were often used as legal witnesses against their mothers. Little girls as young as seven were forced to give testimony, which was used to condemn their mothers to death. The burden of self-hatred carried by these daughters has been handed down through the generations to our own time. In Mary Daly's words, "Without knowledge and consent, women are trained to continue the ritual murder of female divinity, burning the witch within themselves and each other.

We cannot deny the fact that the vast majority of witches burned were women and they were burned by the decisions of male judges. This is something to ponder. Should we fear witches today? I think not. Should we fear witch-hunts? Yes. They will always be with us.

Finally, let us remember that the people who died as a result of the witch-hunts were those who believed they were telling the truth. All many had to do to prevent their death was to deny their religious beliefs and affirm their Christianity. Many did and lived. Others could not lie about their faith and they died. Religion should be about truth-telling not witch-hunting.