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About this: "A lot of the witch trials contained accusations about late night activities, which given that a lot of it was obviously fraudulent" The rationale

About this: "A lot of the witch trials contained accusations about late night activities, which given that a lot of it was obviously fraudulent" The rationale behind the accusations was 100% fraudulent (consorting with the devil) so 100% of the accusations were fraudulent under any modern understanding of due process. There might be some crazies out there who really do believe that the Devil exists and that people consort with him, but I assume most folks on Hacker News are part of the modern world and reject supernatural explanations for events. Possibly apocryphal, but I recall in The Crucible (1952), by Arthur Miller, one accusation is that a woman peed on the edge of a farmers field, and that peeing was a signal to the Devil, and a few months later the farmer's crop was destroyed by flood. This is not an accusation that would survive in a modern court room.

electromagnetic 12y ago
You're misinformed if you think all the witchcraft trials had anything to do with "consorting with the devil". A lot of women in the records appeared to have been healers and midwives. Many of the records contain evidence of the practice of folk medicine/magic. It not only brings in the issue of unhappy customers. They also take place when the apothecary system was beginning to form in Europe, who were skilled practitioners of herbal medicine. It's not hard to presume these early healers had the knowledge to produce poisons, much like their successors the apothecarist. The majority of witchcraft trials were performed by the Catholics and most were done so for heresy. Predominantly for pagan practices. It was the English witchcraft trials, and those that occurred later in the Americas that focused on the aspect of Satan/Devil. However, some of these get confusing when according to the records the accused admit to murder and poisoning/killing livestock before they're tortured, and we could well be seeing violent schizophrenics who could well have believed they're possessed. I'm not saying that any of these would pass modern due process, but assuming away all credibility to all the claims is equally naive. There was high levels of scepticism present right from the beginning with records of trials being dismissed due to mental illness and 'unbalanced humours'. Assuming they're 100% fraudulent would be extremely naive. You're no more intelligent than they were, we've just been gifted with easier access to more information than they ever were.

electromagnetic 12y ago

You're misinformed if you think all the witchcraft trials had anything to do with "consorting with the devil". A lot of women in the records appeared to have been healers and midwives. Many of the records contain evidence of the practice of folk medicine/magic. It not only brings in the issue of unhappy customers. They also take place when the apothecary system was beginning to form in Europe, who were skilled practitioners of herbal medicine. It's not hard to presume these early healers had the knowledge to produce poisons, much like their successors the apothecarist. The majority of witchcraft trials were performed by the Catholics and most were done so for heresy. Predominantly for pagan practices. It was the English witchcraft trials, and those that occurred later in the Americas that focused on the aspect of Satan/Devil. However, some of these get confusing when according to the records the accused admit to murder and poisoning/killing livestock before they're tortured, and we could well be seeing violent schizophrenics who could well have believed they're possessed. I'm not saying that any of these would pass modern due process, but assuming away all credibility to all the claims is equally naive. There was high levels of scepticism present right from the beginning with records of trials being dismissed due to mental illness and 'unbalanced humours'. Assuming they're 100% fraudulent would be extremely naive. You're no more intelligent than they were, we've just been gifted with easier access to more information than they ever were.