Why there are more witches than heretofore
Today I picked up a pile of medieval and Renaissance books on witchcraft, because of course, they dovetail with thinking about werewolves. It's very easy to dismiss these with a laughing reference to the witch trials in Monty Python, but it can't have been very funny if it was happening to you.
I glanced for a second at the Malleus Malificarum (The Hammer Against Witches) and noticed that there was a long explanation about why there were more witches now than there used to be, and why evil was multiplying . . .
It's sad to think that the more people look for evil, the more of it they find. Pretty soon they are finding evil everywhere, and making more misery everywhere, and sure enough, things are miserable, which is proof that there is still more evil than there used to be.
I don't really have any suggestions about this. Just some sadness. Also, let's not kid ourselves that we're better or smarter than people in the sixteenth century. God knows that it doesn't take much to send us off on a witch-hunt, and there is plenty of ignorance and hatred to go around.
I glanced for a second at the Malleus Malificarum (The Hammer Against Witches) and noticed that there was a long explanation about why there were more witches now than there used to be, and why evil was multiplying . . .
It's sad to think that the more people look for evil, the more of it they find. Pretty soon they are finding evil everywhere, and making more misery everywhere, and sure enough, things are miserable, which is proof that there is still more evil than there used to be.
I don't really have any suggestions about this. Just some sadness. Also, let's not kid ourselves that we're better or smarter than people in the sixteenth century. God knows that it doesn't take much to send us off on a witch-hunt, and there is plenty of ignorance and hatred to go around.