Witch Beliefs and Witch Trials in the Middle Ages

Hello Dr Maxwell-Stuart has been busy anoteht book review
http://metapsychology.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=book&id=6474&cn=139

Long memories theseChristians.
My dad's mum 'Nana' was a Jowett before she wed. Southcottian blue bloods are Jowetts and descendant of one of the Pendle mediums hanged for a witch in Lancaster in 1612.
So what?
Well a group of nice people have had permission to put a massive 520 metre wide 1612
date in biodegradable dye along one side of Pendle Hill. As well as being a very active Spiritualist district the area has a witchy tourist micro industry and its for that as much to commemorate the four hundredth anniversary of the legalised murders of those nine brave martyrs.
Up pops the local C of E Bishop of Burnley Rt Rev John Goddard who has Pendle in his diocese trying to get it stopped. He says it is 'distasteful and should not be allowed'.
Article in Daily Telegraph today page 12

You have me quite entrigued about Pendle Hill,KK.
Very curious about this place.

Why shouldn't it be allowed?
It is history.

Joan

Typical flippin' Anglicans. Any time some Spiritualists and their chums want to do anything public the State Church does all in its considerable power and influence to scupper the plans. The CofE don't want folk to remember what they were really like.
No smiley Vicar of Dibley when they were having mediums hung or burnt at the stake Joan and there's them amongst 'em would do it to us again today if it they could.
My Dad sat with Helen Duncan. She was imprisoned for 'witchcrat'. Persecution's as recent as that.
I don't wish ill on anybody but if that Bishop gets turned into a frog then he'll only have himself to blame for it.

There has always been a lot of differences between the Spiritualism religion and the normal run of the churches.
I wonder why.

petal34 wrote:There has always been a lot of differences between the Spiritualism religion and the normal run of the churches.
I wonder why.

That is debatable, Petal.

Churches are political and patriarchal. Always have been. That is partly the reason for the witch trials.

Human beings can be truly awful to each other.

I saw a spiritualist church here throw someone out two years ago. It was somewhat like a witch trial but no burning at the stake. We did have one of the worst hailstorms in recorded history during that event, however. . My car still bears some of the dints.

I am sure the same could happen in other spiritualist communities as well. The UK seems to have echoes of the unpleasantness behind this stuff in your SNU conflicts and other things.

Quiet wrote:

petal34 wrote:There has always been a lot of differences between the Spiritualism religion and the normal run of the churches.
I wonder why.

That is debatable, Petal.

Churches are political and patriarchal. Always have been. That is partly the reason for the witch trials.

Human beings can be truly awful to each other.

I saw a spiritualist church here throw someone out two years ago. It was somewhat like a witch trial but no burning at the stake. We did have one of the worst hailstorms in recorded history during that event, however. . My car still bears some of the dints.

I am sure the same could happen in other spiritualist communities as well. The UK seems to have echoes of the unpleasantness behind this stuff in your SNU conflicts and other things.

This is the part of spiritualism I do not like,Quiet.
The battles and unpleasantness.
The war mongering and who is better than others.
I tend to put that side of it out of my mind.
My main interest is communication with the spirit world.
I know very little about the politics of what goes on in the management side.
I am only interested in learning what I can, mainly about the after life.

PN has been back for ten issues that's twenty weeks and in that short time there has been two big bust ups reported. It seems to be almost constant recently with fallings out,resignations and sackings. You sort of expect that kind of thing in business and commerce but in a Spiritualist organization it's a shame it goes on. That said it has been like that since the beginning. As soon as organizations came in so did disagreements at the top. I must have been lucky in the churches I have been a member of due to moving with work. All four were/are really harmonious. One did get kicked out of SNU but that was them not us.
I'm not down on SNU at all,still in SNUi and there are good people in it at every level but the politicking at the top is something else. There's no perfect organization though. You get people you get problems and where status, ego and money come in as well then you get even bigger problems. I work along the lines of let them get on with it these days. When I was involved the only outcome was stress. Life's too short for that sort of carry on even though it does seem to be meat and drink to some.

I think we all have the capacity to be judgemental and unkind.

Some of the most cruel examples of this I've seen in people who either don't know how unkind they are (ignorance) or who are motivated mainly by fear (and possibly don't know that either). So I use the word 'cruel' in a detached sense.

In a development circle once I saw talented young medium-in-training who came from a very privileged background who was scathing of those less fortunate when they did things which were clearly partly a result of their backgrounds. She actually used the word 'scum'. She was in her late 20's but that is young to me and I was more than a little surprised.

I have seen platform mediums act in ways which were unacceptable. You don't comment on someone's drug habits from a platform. I doubt that even Spirit would want that. There is a time and a place. You don't force a message on to someone who doesn't want it just because you think it is right.

But then, one teacher said that being a medium does not necessarily mean that you are a 'good' person. . She said she some fairly unethical mediums in their lives outside Spiritualism.

'Them & Us' is constantly held to be a central pillar in UK life, presumably to create and maintain 'competitiveness. There are various shades of why this is so, but in our journey home we travel solo. Being able to see and work with this is the key to avoiding the herd mentality, which invariably results in conflict, even among the like-minded.
Our spiritual 'fruits' are home grown in every sense, although inevitably we can and do walk a while in the company of others.

Wise words h. Thing is down here if you do turn the other cheek some swine will likely nick your watch whilst you're looking the other way.

Talking about the C of E,remembering when Ken passed,I received a phone call from the vicar.
Would I like a 'counseller' to visit me to help me in my sorrow.
What sorrow? I knew that Ken was now in spirit. I was happy for him.

Up pops the counsellor....

I couldn't really think of anything to talk to her about.
What put me off was the gossipy expression on her face.
Avid for a bit a gossip.
Made me feel quite sick.

She'd be out of a job and so would the vicar if more folk could see the optimism in Spiritualism Joan.
When we were missioning the villages doing stage dems in village halls I got talking to a lady whose son in law had passed in an accident. She was a Brethren member but her daughter and son in law weren't. She was so upset because she had been told by the elders at her chapel that her son in law was in hell because he wasn't 'saved'.
One of the other mediums a lady about her own age sat with her and got some lovely evidence through from him. That lady went out from the meeting transformed she was all smiles.

hiorta wrote:'Them & Us' is constantly held to be a central pillar in UK life, presumably to create and maintain 'competitiveness. There are various shades of why this is so, but in our journey home we travel solo. Being able to see and work with this is the key to avoiding the herd mentality, which invariably results in conflict, even among the like-minded.
Our spiritual 'fruits' are home grown in every sense, although inevitably we can and do walk a while in the company of others.

Very true,Hiorta.
When our time comes to leave this 'mortal coil' we are completely on our own.
Joan

KatyKing wrote:She'd be out of a job and so would the vicar if more folk could see the optimism in Spiritualism Joan.
When we were missioning the villages doing stage dems in village halls I got talking to a lady whose son in law had passed in an accident. She was a Brethren member but her daughter and son in law weren't. She was so upset because she had been told by the elders at her chapel that her son in law was in hell because he wasn't 'saved'.
One of the other mediums a lady about her own age sat with her and got some lovely evidence through from him. That lady went out from the meeting transformed she was all smiles.

I always had utter faith in most religions,always believed in a God,I still do in many ways.
Who do we turn to when we need help?
But to send someone who is a stranger to speak about personal things in our lives is not on.
Joan

Very insensitive.
Puzzling too in a way.
My understanding is that church teaches that all go to heaven
...IF...
Some say all who are baptised
Some say all who are saved [that one I can't quite grasp]
All of em imply that if you are a paid up and fully repentant [no idea about that one either] member then you are in the clear and glory bound.
So why the big fuss?
Seems to me that some maybe don't actually believe in their own brand of church dogma.

Wasn't there a movie made some time ago?
Can't remember the title but it was about the Witch Finder,Matthew something or other?
Very good movie.
I wonder if the story was set in the Pendle Hill area?

Witchfinder General.
Patrick MacGoohan [Danger Man and The Prisoner] played Witchfinder General Matthew Hopkins.
Hammer Films, I think; made it.
If it was it would have been shot at Elstree Studios near Slough.
First Mrs K's dad was a Slough lad and told of playing in the woods as a kid when cavaliers and roundhead would be battling it out. He wasn't that old, they used the woods as a film location.

I claim still to be the only man alive to have had, by choice; a honeymoon in Slough.
At the then Mrs K's grans house in Mirador Crescent on the Upton Lee Council Estate.
It backed on to the Chappie Dog Food factory.
When they were canning the dog food fine jets sprayed perfume into the air to mask the stench.
It didn't work.
When we got back to Lancashire dogs followed us everywhere some even crossing the road just for a sniff.

KatyKing wrote:Witchfinder General.
Patrick MacGoohan [Danger Man and The Prisoner] played Witchfinder General Matthew Hopkins.
Hammer Films, I think; made it.
If it was it would have been shot at Elstree Studios near Slough.
First Mrs K's dad was a Slough lad and told of playing in the woods as a kid when cavaliers and roundhead would be battling it out. He wasn't that old, they used the woods as a film location.

That's it! Darned good movie,I would even watch a repeat of it.

Slough? I know Slough well.
Saturday morning was always done in Slough.
Ken's area for his work as well.
Ever had a tall,skinny electrician visit to fix the electrics?
He could tell you some spooky tales about Slough and surroundings area.

No we only had that one week there Joan.
It was enough. 1970 that was.

KatyKing wrote:No we only had that one week there Joan.
It was enough. 1970 that was.

Long before I hit the area. Though we lived outside of Windsor.
The population in Slough has now greatly changed and not for the better.

i think we must have lived in the most haunted house ever in Datchet....never again.