13th September, 2007
The Witchcraft Enigma

Contact Information:
•	Professor Sean Mulligan
•	mulligan@uwo.ca
•	UWO Office:  TC 352A
–	Tuesday 2:30-3:30, by appointment.
–	(519) 661-3453
•	Huron Office: HUC A207B
–	Wednesday 1:30-2:30, by appointment
–	(519) 438-7224 ext. 249
•	http://instruct.uwo.ca/philosophy/145e
•	Lecture notes will be available for download.

Today’s Reading:
•	Klaits, J. “Servants of Satan”
•	Introduction and Chapter 1

Next Class:
•	Read:  Baroja
•	“Magic and Religion in the Classical World”
•	CP p33-38

The New World:
•	While the craze was largely limited to western Europe, the problem was mobile.
•	16th and 17th centuries, white settlers in the New World succumbed to the same fears.
•	Why?

The Colonists:
•	Religious Refugees
•	Puritans (Radical Protestantism)
•	“The New Jerusalem”
•	Theocracy

The Witch at Salem:
•	Lived in the imagination, and was thought to live in the world
•	“…a supremely dangerous, uncontrollable menace”(K.1)
•	Had definite characteristics

Powers of the Witch – Salem:
•	Made a pact with the devil
•	Could act through an immaterial form or “specter”
•	Could travel over long distances
•	Could pass through walls
•	Could cause seizures and convulsions in their victims even during the trials

Powers of the Witch – Generally:
•	Cause sudden death via illness or accident
•	Devastate crops with blight, insects
•	Cause disease among livestock
•	Cause disease among people
•	Control weather, hail, storms
•	Cause impotence, infertility, miscarriage, stillbirth, infant death

New Battles in an Old War:
•	There was a belief that for thousands of years, a war had been waged between God and Satan.
•	Lucifer fell from grace because of the sin of pride. 
•	Michael the Archangel led the armies of Heaven and cast Lucifer out.
•	Lucifer waits for revenge, and uses people in the fight.
•	Witch-hunters saw themselves as Soldiers of God.

A Modern View of History’s  Problems:
•	Bad Luck.  We have the notion of ‘impersonal cause’ in the universe.
•	Limited knowledge about proper crop and livestock care.
•	Germs.
•	Psychological/Medical difficulties

Sex and Gender:
•	4 out of 5 suspects were women
•	By signing a demonic pact she became the servant of Satan
•	Also became his willing sexual slave
•	Participated in ‘sabbats’ described as orgiastic and blasphemous
•	Given the occasional services of an Incubus

More Sex…
•	The incubus was thought to impregnate witches with a new generation of witches.
•	The sins of the mother could be passed on to the child.
•	Incubus/Succubus

The Black Cat:
•	Witches were given a ‘familiar’
•	Demon in animal form
•	Witch would suckle the familiar at her “witch’s tit”
•	Third nipple given her by Satan
•	This could be any of a number of different marks on her body - birthmark, mole, wart, sore, etc.

The Invisible Mark:
•	Satan’s mark could also be invisible.
•	A portion of flesh that was numb to the touch, or did not bleed if lightly stabbed.
•	There were professionals who were employed to find these marks with needles.

Did Judges Fabricate Evidence?
•	In some cases, undoubtedly YES.
•	Majority of accused were poor and powerless.
•	Result: little material or political advantage to be gained on a case by case basis.

Klaits’s Thesis:
•	“The evidence produced in this book will show that the typical judges and accusers sincerely believed that by executing witches society was cleansing itself of dangerous pollution.”(K.3)
•	Part of the dominant world-view, intellectuals and peasants alike had the fear.

Commonplace Magic:
•	Christians mistook paganism for Satanism.
•	It is true that there was a significant amount of folk magic.
•	Villages employed folk remedies, hired wandering conjurers who entertained, and soothsayers who predicted future events.
•	Love magic, charms, rituals were common.

The New Evangelism:
•	The Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Counter-Reformation were sweeping back and forth across Europe.
•	Both sides sent out missionaries to proselytize among the common people to seek converts and secure power.

Evangelism Cont’d…Klaits, p.4
•	Centralizing secular authorities generally cooperated with clerics in imposing new sets of values on lower social groups.
•	Purifying reformers were particularly concerned with prohibited sexual activity.
•	Saw it as a symptom of religious deviation.

Evangelism Cont’d…Klaits, p.5
•	Church and secular courts vigorously punished forbidden behaviour during the age of reform.
•	This behaviour centered on sexual activity, local superstition, and ‘white magic’.

Evangelism Cont’d…Klaits, p.5
•	Authorities were predisposed to think of common folk as followers of Satan, and associated all forms of deviation with ‘sinful’ behaviour.
•	In the lower classes, sexually deviant women were identified as diabolical.

The Potent Mixture:
•	The following terms came to be identified with one another:
–	Women
–	Popular Heresy or Paganism
–	Witchcraft

7 Deadly Sins:
•	Hubris, Pride (superbia)
•	Greed (avaritia)
•	Extravagance (luxuria)
•	Envy (invidia)
•	Gluttony (gula)
•	Wrath (ira)
•	Sloth (acedia)

7 Cardinal Virtues
1)  Humility (humilitas) opposes Pride
2)  Liberality (liberalitas) opposes Greed
3)  Chastity (virtus) opposes Lust
4)  Kindness (humanitas) opposes Envy
5)  Abstinence (frenum)opposes Gluttony
6)  Patience (patientia) opposes Wrath
7)  Diligence (industria) opposes Sloth

Witchcraft - Necessary Conditions
•	1)  A Witch
•	2)  The Devil
•	3)  The permission of God
•	…And #3 is the philosophically interesting point

The Problem of Evil:
•	The question is whether we can reconcile the presence of evil in the world with a God who wills only good things.
•	Even if God does not cause evil, why would God allow evil to occur?

Nature of God:
•	Omnipotent
•	Omniscient
•	Omnipresent/Eternal
•	Omnibenevolent

Framing the Problem:
•	God created this world.
•	There were other possible worlds.
•	God is perfect and makes no errors.
•	God would not make an imperfect world.
•	?

Result:
•	Conclusion:  we must be living in the best of all possible worlds.
•	After all, this is the possible world that God chose to generate.
•	Problem:  There is evil in the world.

Kinds of Evil…a Current View:
•	Moral:  the crimes and sins people commit against each other, and against God.
–	(Caused by an Agent)
•	Non-Moral:  the accidental things that happen to cause suffering - natural disasters, tragic death due to disease, etc.
–	(Caused by Circumstance)

Witch as Cause:
•	That wasn’t a universally accepted distinction, and all evils could be understood as having been personally caused, not impersonally caused.
•	Witches were charged with having caused both kinds of evil.
•	Nevertheless, ‘natural events’ were held to be within the power of the Angels and Saints to influence and control, hence the role of prayer.

Result:
•	All hardship is potentially reducible to evil.
–	(sometimes a storm is just a storm)
•	All evil is morally ascribable to an agent. 
•	Fallen humans have earned this suffering due to Adam and Eve’s original sin.

What about God’s Part?
•	Omniscience and Omnipresence guarantee that God must know about all evil acts and events.
•	Omnipotence guarantees that God is able to prevent it.
•	Events show that God chooses not to.

Resolutions to the Dilemma:
•	St. Augustine wrote that the problem is solved by recognizing the fact that God is not an agent, but a judge.
•	Leibniz wrote that even if we do not understand how it is the case, all things contribute to the best of all possible worlds. - including evils.

Resolutions to the Dilemma:
•	Some contemporary philosophers and theologians hold that evil affords two important opportunities:
•	1) For God to show us mercy and forgiveness.
•	2) For us to do good things for each other.

END.