Dream
I had a funny dream last night that must have been based on the book I recently read about the Spanish Inquisition (good book, by the way, although quite long).
Background: The Spanish Inquisition, in the 16th-18th centuries, went to cities throughout Spain and when they got there they would proclaim a really long list of heresies you could confess to. If you did, you would be taken off to jail for a little bit, do some relatively light penance, and then be released. You could only do this for about 30 days and it was called the Edict of Grace (the term "grace period" would seem to come from this practice). After that time if someone accused you and the inquisitors thought the evidence was credible (and they were pretty credulous by modern standards), you'd be locked up until trial time and might be tortured to get a confession out of you (contrary to the Black Legend, less than 10% of those arrested were actually tortured and the torture was almost humane compared to what was practiced in the rest of Europe at the time).
Dream: In my dream some sort of inquisition had come to the United States and
ofadoubt,
nicamo,
panache62, and I had all gone to accuse ourselves, I guess, but they only cared about sins that had to do with babies. When
ofadoubt went up to the inquisitor (a tall middle-aged woman with black hair who told me she wanted to be a journalist), instead of accusing herself, the inquisitor started handing her printed sheets of paper that documented her sins and she was saying the sins aloud. The only one that I can remember was that she had mocked babies on her Facebook and said that she liked to eat them (which I surmised was due to her ex-boyfriend
murmur000's influence). I thought that this was rather absurd since it was clearly a joke.
ofadoubt got really offended and left and then everyone was complaining, except I went to talk to the inquisitor in the hallway (we seemed to be in a school) and asked her if she had just googled the names of everyone who had signed up to confess the night before and she said yes. I was fascinated by this whole procedure since it seemed so antiquated and I imagined that other bishops would forbid it. I also asked what the penance was and she showed me a small teapot and said that the penitents have to drink a pot of tea. I asked if it had to be a specific type of tea, but she said it didn't matter so long as you didn't like it (but she was joking)!
Background: The Spanish Inquisition, in the 16th-18th centuries, went to cities throughout Spain and when they got there they would proclaim a really long list of heresies you could confess to. If you did, you would be taken off to jail for a little bit, do some relatively light penance, and then be released. You could only do this for about 30 days and it was called the Edict of Grace (the term "grace period" would seem to come from this practice). After that time if someone accused you and the inquisitors thought the evidence was credible (and they were pretty credulous by modern standards), you'd be locked up until trial time and might be tortured to get a confession out of you (contrary to the Black Legend, less than 10% of those arrested were actually tortured and the torture was almost humane compared to what was practiced in the rest of Europe at the time).
Dream: In my dream some sort of inquisition had come to the United States and
ofadoubt,
nicamo,
panache62, and I had all gone to accuse ourselves, I guess, but they only cared about sins that had to do with babies. When
ofadoubt went up to the inquisitor (a tall middle-aged woman with black hair who told me she wanted to be a journalist), instead of accusing herself, the inquisitor started handing her printed sheets of paper that documented her sins and she was saying the sins aloud. The only one that I can remember was that she had mocked babies on her Facebook and said that she liked to eat them (which I surmised was due to her ex-boyfriend
murmur000's influence). I thought that this was rather absurd since it was clearly a joke.
ofadoubt got really offended and left and then everyone was complaining, except I went to talk to the inquisitor in the hallway (we seemed to be in a school) and asked her if she had just googled the names of everyone who had signed up to confess the night before and she said yes. I was fascinated by this whole procedure since it seemed so antiquated and I imagined that other bishops would forbid it. I also asked what the penance was and she showed me a small teapot and said that the penitents have to drink a pot of tea. I asked if it had to be a specific type of tea, but she said it didn't matter so long as you didn't like it (but she was joking)!