Witch Hunts Lecture 6
Friday, 22nd September, 2006
The Devils of Loudun:  Trial

Next Week:
Wednesday:  Film, “The Conqueror Worm”
Friday:  Fallacies and Rhetoric
Read “Relevance, Presumption, and Ambiguity” (CP p.21-34)

Similar Cases:
•	Madeleine de Demandolx de la Palud
•	Fr. Gaufridi
–	Klaits, “Servants of Satan” p.113

•	Mother Joan of the Angels
•	Fr. Grandier
–	Klaits, “Servants of Satan” p.115

Methods suit the Crime:
•	Trial was a farce by modern judicial standards.
•	Witchcraft considered a crimen exceptum.
•	An exceptional crime requires exceptional countermeasures.

Trajectory of Accusation:
•	Accused are usually innocent, represent some sort of otherness.
•	Accusation potentially used for a goal other than the one stated (ex: political purging, ethnic cleansing)
•	The fact of accusation presumes some degree of guilt, and the burden of proof is put on the accused, rather than on the accuser, a.k.a. the fallacy ad ignorantiam.
•	Data used in the accusation predicated on correlative data, a.k.a. stereotype.
•	Accusation of one crime usually predicated on the perceived guilt of a completely different crime.

Elements of a Witch Hunt:
•	The charge, the accused, the accuser, the crime, the presumption of guilt.
•	Restriction or removal of individual or collective rights in the interest of general security.

Part of the Divine Harmony
•	“What cause of benediction to see oneself made the Devil’s plaything, and how the Justice of God in this world makes sense of my sins! What a blessing to experience the state from which Jesus Christ has drawn me, no longer by hearsay, but by the sensation of that very state…”
•	(Surin, in alternate coursepack p.127L) 

Prerequisites for Witchcraft
•	A witch
•	The Devil
•	The permission of God

Belief in a Higher Good
•	“…and how good it is to have at one and the same time the ability to enter into that misery and to give thanks to the goodness which has delivered us from it with so many efforts!  That is how things stand with me at this time, almost every day.”
•	(Surin, in alternate coursepack p.127L)

Surin’s Demons
•	There were two – one of them was Leviathan, the Unholy Spirit of Hell.
•	There was usually one hanging around him in the mornings when he woke up to pray.
•	Occasionally they were inside him acting through his body without his will being able to intercede.
•	In such times he felt very much at peace.

Reliable Realities:
•	There were witches.
•	There were spies in France in the 1890s.
•	There were Jewish political agitators in Germany in the 1930s.
•	There were communists working in the U.S. State Department in the 1950s

Reliable Realities:
•	There were terrorists operating in the F.L.Q.
•	There were satanic lyrics in popular music in the 1980s.
•	There are people who pursue and distribute child pornography.
•	There are terrorists in the world, and in Canada.

POINT:  there were nowhere near as many guilty of these crimes as were punished for them.

After the London Transit Bombings
•	Jean Charles de Menezes.
•	Shot five times, in the head, at the Oval Tube Station.
•	July 22nd, 2006

Security vs. Security
 "It is human lives that are being targeted whether by terrorists or whether in this case unfortunately, by people who are supposed to be chasing or catching the terrorists." 
•	(Dr. Azzam Tamimi, Muslim Association of Britain)

•	"The police acted to do what they believed necessary to protect the lives of the public.”
•	"This tragedy has added another victim to the toll of deaths for which the terrorists bear responsibility." 
•	(Ken Livingstone, Mayor of London)

Al Qaida and the Taliban:
•	Canadian troops make their first combat airdrop since the Korean War
•	The International War on Terror

Canadian Conspirator:
•	Mubin Shaikh
•	Recruited by the Canadian Bombing Conspirators, working for CSIS.

Whipping Up Enthusiasm:
•	Photographs, after alteration and before, showing devastation following Israeli strikes into Lebanon.
•	 Crafting public opinion.

Learning About the Enemy:
•	Israeli Children encouraged to send messages, via ordninance, into Lebanon.
•	Another generation.

The Mumbai Bombings:
•	Troops guard the infrastructure in the wake of the train bombings.
•	No front lines.

Sacred Images, Holy War
•	Cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed spark waves of violence.
•	Demonizing the other.

In the interest of fairness…
“…by fire and the the sword.”
•	Comments at a recent speech by Pope Benedict in Germany have worsened interfaith tension.
•	Churches burned, clerics assaulted.

Highway to Hell:
•	Heavy metal thought responsible for criminal behaviour.
•	Corrupting the youth.

Meanwhile, at King’s Cross…
•	Harry Potter as every kid’s favourite sorceror.
•	Mediating magic and banning books.

One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter
“Remember, remember the 5th of November.  Gunpowder, treason, and plot…
•	“V for Vendetta”

END.