Witches, from the notes of Angel....
(as always, click on pics for a bigger version)
 

The Fear Of Witchcraft

'Two personages ensconced in a fortified castle are pointinig out the witch from the top of the towers to a third personage who is setting two dogs upon a witch and bolting into the castle by the open door.'

This scene indicates very plainly the terror formerly caused by witches and their powers.
    It is almost impossible to give an exact definition of a sorceror. Their function being so various, and both sorcerors and witches were various in kind.
    The chief function of the sorceror - as his name indicates - was to cast a 'sors' (or spell) over wished evil.
    Sorceror was a term applied - often abusively - to persons occupying very different places in the social scale and far removed from oneself in their degree of culture.
 
 

What is a Spell anyway?

1. A word or words believed to have magic powers
2. Any strong influence

The six research committees to study

1. Thought transference, later renamed Telepathy by Myers
2. Mesmerism, Hypnotism, Clairvoyance and related phenomena
3. German scientist Baron Karl von Reichenach's research into "sensitives"
4. Apparitions of all types, and hauntings
5. Physical phenomena associated with spiritualistic mediums
6. The collection of of data on the history of the above subjects.

The spr then embarked on a massive amount of research. The Siagwick Group, with its high level of contacts, attracted the interest of numerous emminent people. This included researcher Wlliam Crookes, Oliver Lodge, author Arthur Conan Doyle, philosopher and psychologist William James, and later psychiatris Sigmund Freud, Carl G. Jung, and others.

The Six Pentacles to Influence Good Spirits Favourably
La Clavicule de Solomon (eighteenth century) Bibliotheque de l'Arsenal Manuscript
# 2349

Witchcraft

Magical art in the west is both a system of magic and an organized religion.
As a magical art, witchcraft is usuallly regarded with fear and uncertainty. In reality, it actually provides a social function by enabling the redress of wrongs and grievances, as well as hope for the end of ilnesses and problems.
As a religion, witchcraft is often called "wicca" (an old english term for witch) in order to counter the negative stereotypes of witches as ugly, evil devil worshippers.
Witchcrsft as an art of magic exists universally. It is a type of sorcery involving the mechanistic casting of spells since divination.

Persecution Of Witches

Over about two hundred and fifty years one hundred and fity to two hundred thousand people were executed for witchcraft. Some were burned alive at the stake, others were strangled first and then drowned. Still others were hung, as in Salem in America.
Many of the executions took place in Europe, especially in Germany. In England, which escaped the inquisition, witchcraft was prosecuted largely as civil crime rather than heresy.
In America the worst single case was in Salem at the witch trials of 1692 and 1693. One hundred and forty one people were falsely arrested on the basis of accusations by hysterical children. Nineteen were hung and one was pressed to death by great rocks. This was dramatized in Arthur Miller's play 'The Crucible.'
Victims of the inquisition included village wise women and men who had reputed magical, healing, or clairvoyant powers, and virtually any person accused of witchcraft. Political figures would invent a charge of witchcraft as a way to get rid of their political enemies. Others did same to exact revenge upon someone.


 

The original notes:

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