Sunday, March 13, 2022

The Witches of Scotland


                                                                   The Witches of Macbeth

 Earlier last week I told you about a crackpot pastor in the United States who railed against the six witches in his congregation in a tirade worthy of the Middle Ages. I suggested that it reflects a misogynistic tone which has been amplified in recent years by conservative Christians here, there, and everywhere. I notes that Margaret Atwood's novel The Handmaid's Tale gives homage to her grandmother's story of witchcraft in the family, as well as her prescient concern for the rise of misogyny in connection to religion. 

Well, later that same day I read that Scotland had apologized on International Women's Day for the persecution of women as witches in earlier centuries. According to the New York Times Nicola Spurgeon extended the apology: 

“As first minister, on behalf of the Scottish government,” she continued, “I am choosing to acknowledge that egregious, historic injustice and extend a formal, posthumous apology to all those accused, convicted, vilified or executed under the Witchcraft Act of 1563.” ...

In Scotland, witch trials were especially politicized, encouraged by the Protestant clergy and conducted at the local level, where judges had less oversight and could use torture with more laxity and extract more confessions, said Michelle Brock, an associate professor at Washington and Lee University in Virginia who teaches about the histories of the supernatural. 

“It was an environment of heightened religious anxiety,” she said. The clergy, local magistrates and the monarchy “cooperated in the project of building a godly state,” Professor Brock said. 

“And a godly state can’t countenance witches,” she said. Women were especially vulnerable to accusations of witchcraft, in part because they were seen as more susceptible to Faustian bargains, Professor Brock said.

“Who is most likely to be vulnerable to the devil, who is most likely to make a pact to exchange their soul in return for goods and power,” she said. “People imagined women because they didn’t have the same degree of power in society.”

This is fascinating and disturbing and a curious coincidence, given my blog. 

Read more about the campaign called The Witches of Scotland that worked toward the apology and pardon for those wrongfully convicted. https://www.witchesofscotland.com/

More "hear the bird of the Lord" in today's Groundling blog groundlingearthyheavenly.blogspot.com/2022/03/more-h


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