Witchcraft-Documentary Review: Mysteries of History, History Channel International
I watched the History Channel Internationals documentary this morning on Witchcraft. Being previously encouraged from watching the main History Channel’s documentary on Halloween, I thought that the international channel viewpoint would be just as open ended. And for the majority of the hour long episode there was some educational handling of the witchcraft subject, just not through the duration of the program.
Please, keep in mind that the following information is from the review and notes taken during the documentary. I am aware that not all this information is correct historically, even though that is how all of the information was present by the History International Channel. So, let us begin on the review portion of today’s post on Simple Abnormality.
The documentary begins with a segment on the beginnings of a witch. Examples of an early religious view of witches are equated to the Scandinavian Freya, the Greek Circe and the Hebrew Lilith. Those examples are shown they say, to help indicate when being a witch started to become the representation of a female’s dark side and a part of society’s nightmare. They state that the early creation goddess cults date back to three millennia before Christ. The three examples that are given as historical representations of the early goddess cults are: Inanna, Isis and Asherah. They pinpointed then on the Middle Eastern creation goddesses and the priestess “wise women” that would convene in sacred circles made of salt. The creation goddess cults were based on a tribal society.
The next segment begins to explain when the shift started from a goddess and earth centered culture to a god driven and sky worshiping culture. They say that the male warrior gods of the Indo-European tribes were forced upon the less dominant female goddesses when said tribes invaded an earth centered religious area. What I see as one of the documentaries more interesting ideals, is that they mention the main religious and cultural shifting point as started and enforced by the Hebrews, who at the time they reported where a male dominated, warring tribe. In order to further contain the newly conquered Canaan area tribes, they took the patron creation goddess of Asherah and made her into Eve. Essentially, they state that this is the point at which the banning of witchcraft began biblically as the Hebrews created laws based off of their one God.
The rest of the cultural shift is pointed out as beginning with the Black Death (Plague). People were looking for a cause to the ravages of the horror and turned to the groups of women who had previously been the healers of the local communities. Also, with the rise and reach of the power of the Church, anyone during that time period that questioned the Church were seen as heretics. Heretics are described as people who were in line with the Devil and known as the Devil’s accomplices. In combination of the religious shifting and the gained political power of the Church, two German Monks wrote the Malleus Maleficarum and the Burning Times/Inquisition began.
The Malleus Maleficarum was a mass printed book that was only second in popularity to The Bible. The book went into detail on how to find a witch, what they looked like and how to force them into confession with various and horrendous torture devices. The program narrator states that up until this point torture has been outlawed in Europe and that the only way that the Church could legally kill as many people as thy did was to get a confession; explaining that without a confession then the accused witches supposedly could not have even been arrested. The phrasing of the “3rd Degree” was also explained, stating that by the 3rd degree many of the tortured victims were dead and were lucky if they had made it that far at all.
The Burning Times in Europe, they claim killed an estimated number of between 60,000-300,000 people. An exact number could not be agreed upon by the historians involved. The hysteria reached such a religious fervor that in Wurzburg, Germany 600 people were killed. Some towns were left without any women at all from the witchcraft persecution. After the witchcraft hysteria died down in Europe, America began with their own witch hunts. The show states that there were a total of 24 towns surrounding Salem during the Salem Witchcraft Trails that arrested 200 people in all as being accused of witchcraft. Only 27 people out of the 200 were condemned to death. The explanation given for the ending of the witchcraft hysteria in America was due to the wife of the Governor of Massachusetts being accused of witchcraft, at which point the higher authorities started to call for a stop to the madness. There was no explanation given for the phasing out of the Burning Times in Europe.
The documentary wraps up with a look at Wicca, developed from the ancient witchcraft and based on the ancient phrase law of “an it harm none, do what thou will”. They credit anthropologist Margaret Murray with the rise of modern witchcraft in today’s world. Paganism is brought up as an aside but Wicca is what they focus on as being a revival from the “old ways” of witchcraft. In response to this section, they splice interviews of Marie Guerriero, Barbara Amedea and a very short few second interview with Janet Farrar.
Now, this is the review. As I stated before, personally I am aware that there is quite a bit of false information, assumptions and no actual showing of thoroughly researched history. This means that I will be covering more on this topic to point out the mistakes and discuss the differences between actual histories and assumed or created histories.
Another point is that when covering Wicca… I really wish that they would have shown the whole interview with Janet instead of splicing it all up.
If you would like to contact the History International Channel you can do so through their website at: http://www.historyinternational.com or through their parent company the History Channel at http://www.history.com Currently, you can only view the excerpt on the Salem Witch Trails from this documentary on Witchcraft and the program is not offered for sale on DVD.