To view censored passages, see the discussion section.

Clearly fraudulent and aberrant, the witch trials were sanctioned during a period of several centuries. The witch-hunts started to occur in Switzerland around 1450's, reaching their height around the times of the Thirty Years' War, when witch trials became ubiquitous throughout Western Europe and spread to the American colonies. The upsurge in witch burning during these years reflected the heightened tensions between Protestants and Catholics, as each side of this religious controversy was convinced that the opposing side was inspired by the devil. However, with respect to burning witches, there was no dispute between Protestants and Catholics as both sides engaged in this practice. Catholic sovereigns of Spain staged auto-da-fes. England prided herself in upholding modesty by burning women at the stake, as quartering (a penalty reserved for men accused of witchcraft) would have involved nudity. Calvin’s administration of Geneva burned people not only on charges of witchcraft, but also on charges of blasphemy and adultery.

Duration of witch trials

The witch burning lasted three-and-half centuries. Switzerland, where the which hunts started around 1450's was also the last country to give up the witch burning; often given date and place of the last legal execution of a witch is Switzerland, 1782. However, August Franzen in his Kirchengeschichte (History of the Church, 2006) gives the date of the last burning of a witch as late as 1793.

Extent of witch trials

Church archives on concremiret trials remain closed even to academic scholars and thus the estimates of the number of victims of these trials differ. However, the ongoing controversy about the number of victims of religious fanaticism has many parallels with the controversy surrounding holocaust deniers who do not deny that Holocaust occurred, but try to diminish its extent. In a similar vein, theologians and religious scholars do not deny that the Christian churches mandated the witch trials and burning of live human beings, but to try to diminish the number of victims of these trials.

It is impossible to chart a Christian future that leaves behind the reality of torture and burning of human beings that took place for over more than three centuries. It is difficult, if not impossible, to envision a positive expression of Christianity with the bruloirs it helped to construct at its center. Instead, what occurs is an attempt by theologians, Christian scholars, and fundamentalist Christians to deny the extent of human suffering and the number of deaths the collusion of ecclesiastic and secular institutions projecting power via the justice system inflicted on innocent human beings.

Severity of suffering

Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm’s fairy tales drew inspiration from folk sources. Their stories include such classics as Rapunzel, Rumpelstiltskin, and Hansel and Gretel. In Grimm's original Kinder und Hausmarchen (1812, p.68) written from oral peasant narration, the burning of the witch in the oven is described as follows.

"Hu! da fing sie an zu heulen, ganz grauselich; aber Gretel lief fort, und die gottlose Hexe muste elendiglich verbrennen."

In most English translations of Hansel und Gretel, the word "irreligious" is missing. Did the informant of brothers' Grimm have elaborated on actual events of witch burning? (cf., Krus, Nelsen, & Webb, 1998)

Bruloirs were large ovens, built to expedite burning of individuals convicted in the course of criminal justice proceedings that resulted in the death penalty with increased severity of punishment (Mǖllendorf, 1911, p. 100; Sindelar, 1986, p.182). In these ovens were also burned children sentenced to death by fire in the course of criminal proceedings against their parents (Cavendish, 1987). In Spain, these ovens were called "quemadero" or "brassero." In a study on the agony of dying based on judgments of forensic pathologists (Rhyne, et.al., 1995), the most excruciating way to die is by fire, followed by pain of death resulting from cutting the throat and by stabbing the abdomen. The bruloirs intensified the pain of death by fire by slowing down the process and increasing its psychological impact by the horror of being enclosed in a small, dark place where the temperature was steadily raising. This method of execution is salient among the cruelest methods designed to intensify the agony of death.

Scorched bodies

Preserved in numerous engravings, the faces of people about being burned look at us across the time. Surrounded by flames with hair already singed, their eyes are dilated by fear. Jean Bodin (1529-1596), a well-known jurist who taught and practiced law in Toulouse and Paris was unmoved by the suffering experienced by people that were burned alive. In his book Demonomanie des Sorciers (On the Demon-mania of Witches, 1581) Bodin maintained that burning is too lenient for serious crimes because the suffering does not last more than one hour. Bodin, a staunch advocate of Huguenots at the court of Catherine de Medici looked for inspiration to Calvinist Scotland. He recommended that the Calvinist practice of placing boxes in every church into which parishioners were advised to put names of persons they suspected of witchcraft was also adapted in France. Bodin also approved of torture during criminal interrogations, including the torture of children to compel them to testify against their parents.

You shall not suffer a witch to live

Computer search of both the Old and New Testaments shows only two occurrences of the word ‘witch:’ Deuteronomy 18:10 and Exodus 22:18. On inspection, the context of the word ‘witch’ in Deuteronomy involves fire:

There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch.

The context of the Exodus is ominous

Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.

Aside of Deuteronomy 18:10, the death penalty by fire was justified by the Biblical verse from the Gospel of John:

"If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned."

The burning of witches is closely associated with the burning of heretics (from Latin haereticus, able to choose), i.e., persons who maintained opinions other than those accepted by the church or rejected doctrines prescribed by the church. As Martin Del Rio observed in his (1599) book Disquisitionum Magicarum Libri Sex, heresy, magic and witchcraft are intrinsically linked:

..all heresy is prone to



violence at the start, but because it cannot maintain this and cannot return to the truth whence it came, it degenerates into magic or atheism. Magic follows heresy, as plague follows famine.

E pur si muove

Among the victims of the heretics' trials was Giordano Bruno (1548-1600), perhaps the best-known philosopher of the Italian Renaissance. He taught at Toulouse, Oxford, Marburg, Wittenberg, Prague, and Frankfurt. In 1592 he returned to his native Italy where, in Venice, he was imprisoned by the Inquisition and burned as a heretic in 1600. In his book De Umbris Idearum (On Shadows of Ideas), Bruno stressed that reality is constituted by the mind. Giordano’s central thesis was that both Judaism and Christianity perverted religion. He hoped that Christianity would be replaced by a new religion which would be able to effect a social change. Bruno also taught Copernicus’ heliocentric explanation of planetary motions. His last cry from the stake was E pur si muove! - 'And still, she is turning!' referring to Copernicus' heliocentric theory that the Earth revolves around the Sun. This exclamation is sometimes erroneously ascribed to Galileo Galilei.

The urban legend has it that it was Giordano Bruno and not Aristide Torchia who published in 1599 De Umbrarum Regis Novum Portis (Door to the Kingdom of Shadows), rumored to be copied from the apocryphal Delomelanicon, (from Gr. δηλοω, to show, make clear, summon, and μελας, black, dark) a book purportedly written by the devil himself and containing within its pages knowledge to raise the devil. These notions are based on the Roman Polanski's movie The Ninth Gate, the film adaptation of The Dumas Club, written by Arturo Pérez-Reverte. However, Arturo Pérez-Reverte says that, Aristide Torchia, though fictional, was inspired by the life of Giordano Bruno; both arrested in Venice and burned at Campo del Fiori, Torchia in February, 1666, Bruno in February, 1600.

The maid of Orleans

Among the victims of concremiret trials, perhaps the best known is Joan of Arc. The story of Jeanne d'Arc (1412-1431) unfolds against the background of the Hundred Years’ War between the British and French. Jeanne d’Arc was a girl who led the French against the army of England after hearing voices of Saint Catherine, Saint Margaret, and Saint Michael telling her that her destiny is to liberate France from English domination. After being tested by a group of theologians, Jeanne was given command of the French army and lifted the English siege of Orleans. Captured by the English and turned over to a church court in Rouen, she was tried on charges of heresy and witchcraft and burned alive. Jeanne was nineteen years old.

Witch trials in American colonies

European immigrants to America brought with them beliefs in witches and immigrants from England carried with them also memories of the British criminal justice courts, dispensing sentences of death by hanging for about 200 offences. These memories likely included the remembrance of hanging, in 1708, of Michael Hammond, seven-years-old and his sister, Ann, eleven-years-old, for shoplifting.

Religious zealots attempted to implant the witch trials in America, starting a series of witch trials in Connecticut, Boston, and Salem, Massachusetts. In Salem, two girls in the household of the Reverend Samuel Parris were accused of witchcraft and the prominent colonial Mather family pressed for their prosecution. Cotton Mather, an influential Puritan pastor and author of over 450 religious books is perhaps the best known member of that family. In the course of the trial more people got accused of which two died in prison, 19 were hung, and one person was pressed to death.

De haeretico comburendo

In 1395, representatives of the ecclesiastical reform movement that originated at Oxford and was led by John Wyclif presented to the Parliament a petition with demands summarized on the left-hand side of the table below. The Parliament retorted by passing, in 1401, the statue De haeretico comburendo , legislating death by burning on the charges summarized on the right-hand side of the table.

These controversies preceded the Hussite Wars (1419 - 1436), Martin Luther (1500-1550) Reforms, and the Thirty Years' War (1618 -1648).

Malleus maleficarum

In 1484, Pope Innocent VIII issued an edict, Summis desiderantes affectibus, where he alleged that many men and women were in collusion with the Devil. All Christians were to extend their help to two Dominican monks the Pope placed in charge of fighting people who, in association with Satan, caused diseases, pestilence, harmed harvest and cattle, and perpetrated other heinous crimes. The names of these two Dominican monks were Jacob Sprenger and Heinrich Kramer, also known as Institoris. Sprenger and Kramer wrote Malleus Maleficarum in 1486. Malleus Maleficarum codified the charges, interrogation procedures and the means of judicial resolutions for the witchcraft trials. Kramer and Sprenger maintained that women are weaker than men and more likely to succumb to devil's temptations and, accordingly, about 80% of the victims of witch trials were women.

The trials

Accusations of witchcraft were obtained by soliciting the congregation to name suspected sorcerers or witches. The identity of the accusers was kept secret from the accused. The goal of the investigation was to obtain a confession of witchcraft. The confessions were forced by use of torture. Among the religious orders, a major role in the trials of both witches and heretics was played by the Dominican and Franciscan orders of friars.

Inquisitors who distinguished themselves by a large number of their victims were Bernard Gui, Conrad of Marburg, Pedro Arbues, Boblig of Edelstadt, Robert le Bougre, Nicolas Eymeric, and Tomas de Torquemada, who traveled with 50 cavalrymen and 200 foot soldiers as his bodyguards, well aware that his large-scale burnings have created him many enemies. The mass murderer Conrad "the butcher" of Marburg was killed in 1233 by a group of noblemen whose relatives he burned at stake. Inquisitor Pedro Arbues was killed in 1485 in Saragossa, Andalusia.

The wheel

Breaking a bone is painful and breaking bones is an old method of torture. This was frequently done by hitting the extremities or the rib cage with a wagon wheel. As the dislocated joint is more painful than a broken bone, the torture by wheel can be upgraded by torture on the rack

The rack

The rack was designed to stretch the body to dislocate its joints. The dislocations of joints can be heard as popping sounds, often mixed with the shrieks of agony.

The pain of stretching was sometimes further increased by gouging eyes, branding body with hot irons or tearing off tongue, nipples, ears, nose or male genitals with red hot pincers. The female genitals were torn from inside by spiked, pear shaped vaginal stretchers.

The intestinal crank

Among the instruments of torture, used during the criminal justice investigations to obtain information, was also the intestinal crank. This method of torture involved abdominal incision, separation of the duodenum from the pylorus, and attachment of the upper part of the thin intestine to the intestinal crank.

Witch hunters

Witch hunter was a term used to describe people who worked to locate and bring witches to justice. The

Another professional witch hunter was the Puritan lawyer Matthew Hopkins, who often described himself as the leading expert on the problem of witch crimes. Hopkins is best known for orchestrating the mass execution of witches in Chelmsford, Essex, in 1645.

Nicholas Remy, a jurist in Lorraine, was responsible for the death of more than nine hundred persons in witch trials between 1581 and 1591. According to Remy,

Devil appears as a man or in shape of an animal, seeking sexual relationships with women. In case they did not agree, rapes them.

Remy also thought that

"children should be burnt if they had a witch as a parent,"

and cited Bible to support this claim.

Remy described his methods for discovering witches and bringing them to justice in his book (1595) Demonolatria Libri Tres, which replaced Kramer and Sprenger’s Malleus as the updated manuals for the criminal justice proceedings concerning witchcraft.

The final solution

Apart from Malleus Maleficarum, there were many books justifying the witch trials. Johann Geiler von Kayserberg maintained in his Die Emeis (1517) that the devil anesthetizes witches right before burning so they would not feel any pain.

Bartolomeo Spina’s Questio de Strigibus (1523) is polemics against people who did not believe in witch trials.

The French Calvinist Lambert Daneau, in his book Les Sorciers (1564), published in Geneva, proposed the final solution of the witch problem. He held that witches represent a major danger for humanity and must be exterminated.

Bishop Peter Biensfield in his Tractatus de Confessionibus Maleficorum (1589) maintained that since the sinfulness of the world increased, God also allowed increasing the stringency of punishments.

Henri Boquet in his Discours des Sorciers (1602) believed that witches multiply as worms in the garden do and wished to burn them all in one great fire.

Opposition to witch trials

To oppose witch trials was dangerous. The proponents of witch trials maintained that whoever opposes the trials is probably also a witch or a sorcerer. This opinion persists and a person who opposes a law or its severity is often suspected of ulterior motives and

has something to hide or something to be afraid of.

Walter Bromberg in his (1975) book From Shaman to Psychotherapist describes arrest and torture of Bernard Delicieux, who was burned alive for expressing the opinion that St. Peter and St. Paul, if tried by the Inquisition's methods, would certainly be convicted of heresy. These practices discouraged many people from opposing injustice;

tace pro pace

be silent and live in peace. However, the old Romans also used to say

qui tacet, consentire videtur

who remains silent, consents.

The physician Johannes Weyer was among the early opponents of witch trials. Weyer in his book De Praestigiis Daemonum, (On the Activities of Demons, 1563) Dr. Weyer writes:

"The uninformed and the unskilled physicians relegate all the incurable diseases, or all the diseases the remedy for which they overlook, to witchcraft. When they do this, they are talking about disease like a blind man does about color."

Called the Father of Psychiatry, he investigated the 1564 devil possession of the nuns of Cologne and found out that a group of teenage boys climbed the convent wall and made love to the nuns who, subsequently, covered up this amorous event by claiming possession by the devil.

The most courageous opponent of the witch trials was the Friedrich Spee von Langefeld who in his Cautio Criminalis (1631) told of confessions of hundreds of persons just before their executions. The condemned witches and sorcerers all confessed that their signed confessions were forced by torture and that they were innocent. He wrote:

Why do you search so diligently for sorcerers? I will show you at once where they are. Take the Capuchins, the Jesuits, all the religious orders, and torture them - they will confess. Should a few still be obstinate, keep on torturing - they will give in. If you want more, take the Canons, the Doctors, the Bishops of the Church - they will confess.

Reinstatement of torture

Torture was abolished throughout the Roman Empire around the 240 CE, was reinstated during the times of the Crusades, was abolished in the wake of the American and French revolutions separating the church and the state, and reappeared during the present decade. Among the prominent proponents of torture is Alan Dershowitz, Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard University, recommending insertion of (sterilized) needles under fingernails in the course of criminal investigations.

Napalm the witches

Some fundamentalists Christians call for deportations of atheists and non-Christians from the United States, which they define as a Christian nation and clamor for reinstitution of the burn them alive executions. Some also regard other world religions, such as Buddhism, Hinduism, and Taoism as forms of Satanism. Exhortations such as witches should be napalmed have been heard in the southern United States and signs as Witchcraft is an Abomination and Burn the Witches have appeared along Texas highways. (Shlachter, 1999).

Satan is a real being

The Talmud states that there is 7,405,926 demons in existence which number lead some believe that the number of the beast is not 666, but 6666, as 7,405,926 / 6666 equals 1111. In 1972, Pope Paul VI proclaimed that

"Sin affords a dark, aggressive evildoer, the Devil, an opportunity to act in us and in our world. Anyone who disputes the existence of this reality places himself outside biblical and Church teachings."

The 38% of contemporary Americans believe that Satan is a real being, and 48% of Born-Again Christian endorse the same belief; in June 1998, exorcist Baron Deacon attempted to exorcise the demons residing in the U.S. Congress. Some better known demons are

Different view of concremiret trials

Eternal Word Television Network based in Irondale, Alabama, is the largest religious media network in the world, transmitting programming 24 hours a day to over 100,000,000 homes in 126 countries, building the Civilization of Love around the world. Its web site provides Different Perspective on Burning at the Stake, as follows:

"To those watching someone being burned alive, as well as to the person being executed, it is clear that such a death was a vivid depicture of people's beliefs regarding hell, as hell is the eternal fire. Heretics were burned alive, with their mental faculties intact, to give them one last chance to repent before being sent into the eternal fire. Burning an individual at the stake was seen as a merciful death, as a means of giving that person one last chance to save his or her soul before final damnation. The unchanging teaching of the Church is that hell is the "the unquenchable fire" and that it is eternal."

Here the Eternal Word repeats the misericorditer argument of St. Augustine. Misericord is a dagger, used as the gesture of mercy to deliver the death stroke to a wounded soldier. In Latin, misericordia means pity, mercy, an act of clemency, from miserere, to pity and cor, cordis, the heart. To wage a just war is to really act misericorditer (the word Saint Augustine stressed) toward the enemy, as it is in the best interest of the enemy that their sins and vices are corrected.

Augustine’s vision of Hell

In most texts on philosophy and theology, Saint Augustine receives acclamation. His self-reflection is extolled, as is the ornate language of his psalms, and the depth of his faith. Let us look at one of the less well-known of Augustine’s narratives, as it is accessible only in Latin: the description of Hell in his 69th address to his fellow hermits Ad Fratres in Eremitate Sermo LXIX, where St. Augustine describes how Satan seized the female's damned soul and commanded his fellow devils to

"pierce her eyes with forks as she enjoyed looking at unclean things, pierce her mouth as she used them for blasphemy, pierce her heart, as she did not harbor piety, compassion, clemency, and forgiveness there, pierce her hands with the heavy fork forged in Hell since she reached with them at things unclean and did not use them to distribute alms and help her neighbors, use the fiery forks to pierce her legs she used to dance and meet her lovers."

After performing these tasks, devils spread out their black wings and transport the stabbed soul to the Hell. When the gates of Hell open,

"out steps a hideous, horrible dragon, always ready to devour souls. The dragon inserts the soul into his mouth, full of stench. After chewing and digesting the soul, the dragon vomits the soul into a fiery lake, where millions of other sinful souls wait for their trial by our Lord."

This is sick and sickening, as are the similar narratives about females fried for eternity in oil and males in their own sperm.

Secular humanism

The developments alluded to in the preceding paragraphs are viewed with extreme anxiety by both the secular and religious humanists. Thus the leading proponent of secular humanism, Paul Kurtz, observes that it is in contemporary America

where it has become impossible to express nonreligious viewpoints and where irrationality dominates. What is urgent is to keep church and state separate, to maintain our appeal to evidence and reason, and to reject the Bible, the Qur'an, and the Book of Mormon as ancient, out-of-date views of human existence.

Hans Kūng in the Declaration of the Religions for a Global Ethic (1999) observes that

"religions can effect a change in the inner orientation, the whole mentality, the "hearts," of people and move them to a "conversion" from a false path to a new orientation for life. Of course religions can act credibly only when they eliminate those conflicts which spring from the religions themselves."

The elimination of conflicts which spring from the religion themselves would require revisions of large parts of the Bible, the Qur'an, and the Book of Mormon. It would also preclude the fundamentalist's claims that the Bible is the inerrant, factual, and literal word of God that does not allow interpretation.

Qui bono?

The cardinal question remains who ultimately benefited from the concremiret trials. The reason usually given is that concremiret trials were sustained by material benefits obtained by confiscation of property of the condemned individuals. However, the elites with real power and real money could ultimately hardly benefit from depopulated villages and crippled economy. The reason elites tolerated the trials was that the widespread horror generated by mass burnings turned out to be one of the most effective tools for maintaining power. Over the centuries, hysteria of witch hunts intensified during the times of internal unrest or prior to initiation of wars of aggression, as notions that to counteract the supreme evil embodied by the devil justified even the most ruthless and cruel methods of inflicting violence on others.

After cessation of nuclear balance in the wake of fall of the Soviet Union, the remaining superpower decided to use this time-tested method, substituting psychological for the physical terror of the burning times.

Hermit of St-Benoît-du-Lac

Primus inter pares of exponents of the religious humanism is Joe Palmer, hermit at the monastery of St-Benoît-du-Lac who writes (Palmer, 2003) that

People have forgotten that it is impossible to derive humane ethical principles from theological premises because reasoning and evidence are necessary to determine what is right or wrong, and religious dogma does not yield physical evidence or logical thinking.

and continues

If we do not test moral values with evidence and reason, we find ourselves falling back on ex cathedra and superstitious pronouncements, folkways, and fables instead of modifying our values in the light of consequences in a scientific manner. When we judge people using old tribal values, as in the Salem Witch Trials, we perpetuate the degradation of all individuals, taking away their freedom and dignity.

• Bodin, J. (1581) De la démonomanie des sorciers, Paris, Jacques Du Puys; De magorum daemonomania, Libri VI, Hildesheim. Olms, 2003.

• Boquet, H. (1602) Discours execrable des Sorciers . Lyon: Phenix Editions. ISBN 2745808427.

• Bromberg, W. (1975) From shaman to psychotherapist. Chicago: H. Regnery.

• Bruno, G. (1532) De umbris idearum. Joseph H. Peterson (Digital edition, 1997).

• Cavendish, R. (1987) A history of magic. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.

• Cazotte, J. (1772) The devil in love. Sawtry, England: Daedalus Ltd., 1991. ISBN 0-946626-73-1.

• Daneau, L. (1564) Les Sorciers, dialogue très utile et très necessaire pour ce temps. In Levack, B. (1992) The literature of witchcraft: articles on witchcraft, magic, and demonology. Garland. ISBN 0815310269.

• del Rio, M. (1599) Disquisitionum Magicarum Libri Sex. English translation: Maxwell-Stuart (ed.) Investigations into magic: Martin del Rio.Manchester University Press (2000). ISBN 0719049768.

• Franzen, A. (2006) Kleine Kirchengeschichte. Freiburg, Germany: Herder. ISBN 3451268965.

• Geiler, J. (1508) Die Emeis. Strassburg: Johann Grüninger.

• Grimm, J., & Grimm, W. (1812) Kinder und Hausmãrchen. Berlin, Germany: Realschulbuchhandlung.

• Kūng, H. (1999) Declaration of the Religions for a Global Ethic

• Krus, D.J, Nelsen, E.A. & Webb, J.M. (1998) Issues in oral history: elaboration of traumatic events: Perceptual and Motor Skills, 86, 928-930

• Monestier, M. (1994) Peines de mort. Paris, France: Le Cherche Midi Éditeur.

• Mǖllendorf, P. (1911) Geschichte der Spanischen Inquisition. Leipzig, Germany.

• Palmer, J. (2003) Viva Papa!; or, humanism betrayed. Nthposition, October 03.

• Remy, N. (1595) Daemonolatreiae libri tres. Lyon, France. English translation in Summers, ed. (1929) Demonolatry, reprinted by Kessinger Publishing (2003), ISBN 0766136302.

• Rhyne, C. E., Templer, D. I., Brown, L. G., & Peters, N. B. (1995) Dimensions of suicide: perceptions of lethality, time, and agony. Suicide & Life Threatening Behavior, 25(3), 373-380.

• Shlachter, B. (1999) Bothered and bewildered; Wiccans at Hood shrug off media hubbub. Fort Worth Star Telegram, 1999-AUG-7.

• Sindelar, B. (1986) Hon na carodejnice v zapadni a stredni Evrope v 16.-17.stoleti. Prague: Nakladatelstvi Svoboda.

• Spee, F. (1631) Cautio Criminalis oder Rechtliches Bedenken wegen der Hexenprozesse. Dtv (2000). ISBN 342330782X.

• Spina, B. (1523) Questio de strigibus: apologia de lamiis contra Ponzinibium. Rome, Italy: In aedibus populi Romani.

• Weyer, J. (1563) De Praestigiis Daemonum. English translation in Kohl, B. (1998) On Witchcraft: An Abridged Translation of Johann Weyer's De Praestigiis Daemonum. Pegasus Press. ISBN 188981802X.

See also

• Witch trial

Original version