The Sorceress
A young Dominican friar named Etienne de Bourbon happened to visit a village in France. He had been sent to hunt heretics. Heresy is “a belief or opinion that does not agree with the official belief or opinion of a particular religion”. The primary theme in this film is the issue of sainthood as well as the practice of sorcery which is considered as a heresy according to the Catholic religion. After arriving in the village, Bourbon noticed that a forest woman name Elda had been engaging in some weird practices. The woman collected herbs that were meant to cure a variety of diseases but apart from that she also led the villagers into worshipping a legendary greyhound (The Sorceress, 1987). The movie is based on the clash that
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In my opinion, the priest’s acts might possibly mean that some religious believes are rigid therefore, denying other people the right to practice what is part of their lives. According to the catholic religion, anything that failed to conform to their religion was considered as a heresy. This can be seen when Etienne comes across the forest woman and is convinced that the woman practices sorcery in the name of helping the villagers. The woman uses her knowledge of nature to help the villages. She is aware of most herbs in the forest and is able to utilize them in order to heal those who seek her assistance (The Sorceress, 1987). She also helps the local noblemen perform a ritual that is part of their life but it is considered as devil worshipping according to the priest. On the other hand, Etienne displays ignorance of some sort due to the fact that he was unable to acknowledge that nature can be used to heal people. The religion he believed in was somehow rigid as it only believed that it is only through prayers and miracles that a person can get healed. Anyone who was capable of healing people was considered as a sorcerer according to Etienne and the Christian religion that he represented. However, anyone who watches the movie can clearly tell that Elda was a healer rather than an evil
Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft is a concise, 231 page informational text by Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum. Published in 1974, it explores the economic and social conditions present in the Salem village during the 1600s that led to the hysteria surrounding witchcraft. Multiple graphs and illustrations are present, as well as an average sized font, an abundance of footnotes typically on the left page, and a prominent voice from the authors. The book was written to serve as a more comprehensive informational piece on the Salem witch trials due to the authors finding other pieces written about the same topic to be inaccurate. Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum wanted to create something that utilized
“Jumping to conclusions is like playing with wet gun powder: both likely to go off in wrong direction.”-Charlie Chang. The puritans were a group of English Protestants who adhere to strict religious principles and oppose sensual enjoyment. The puritans had a strong belief that the Devil could be walking among them at anytime. Due to this belief, the puritans believed that people could sign there souls away to the devil. By signing their souls away to the devil, a person could become a witch or wizard. In Arthur Millers’ novel The Crucible, the puritans go on a hunt to rid their town of witches. The puritans also had a big emphasis on how one would act in society. For example, if one didn’t go to church often, the people would be very suspicious about that one. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short stories “Young Goodman Brown” and “The Minister’s Black Veil”, the puritans become suspicious of others because of a strange event. The strange events lead the puritans to mistrust and reject each other. In both of Hawthorne’s short stories “Young Goodman Brown” and “The Minister Black Veil” and in Miller’s The Crucible, a strange event makes the puritans jump to conclusions of witchcraft.
As we may already know, the town of Salem was subject to an epidemic of the accusations of witchcraft that lasted over ten months. Witchcraft of this time period was not taken lightly. In England alone over 40,000-60,000 people were killed after being found guilty of witchcraft. Needless to say the people found witchcraft as a virus that infected the town. The first cases started off with the daughters of Samuel Parris, the town minister, accusing his slave, Tituba, of being a witch. She claimed that she and others in the town were witches and there was even a wizard. The town broke out in hysteria in further months. Over 100 people were put in jail because of accusations. The council that were to find these people’s innocence or guilt were corrupted as well because to claim innocence meant you were guilty and if you were to claim guilt you could be redeemed. Many of the items found incriminating were pins and voodoo dolls. Many of these people faced the psychological terror of being pressured into claiming guilt to a crime, you didn’t commit in front of a committee and scared the community to death that they were going to be subjected to. Many of the witnesses to these trials were said to have undergone physical distress or act inhumanly. Many historians say to these records that since their body was put under so much strain and fear of the witchcraft that surrounded them all the time, their bodies going through strange changes such as paralysis or temporary blindness with no real cause rather than stress. But many historians also believe the witnesses were voluntarily acting and committing fraud against the others. But why was this such an enigma to understand why this small town in New England was all of a sudden becoming a cen...
Although Father Latour may possess few worldly desires, one may argue he wants what others can benefit from as well as pleasing himself. Along his journeys, Latour encounters various people, most associates of the Catholic Church like himself. It seems as each time Latour detects a sense of deceit in a person, he progresses in his own mission of morality. When one is trying so hard to embrace and follow the rules and restrictions of religion, as well as enjoy the worldly luxuries, a divided character is created within oneself. It is not until true and total devotion is committed to ones religion that material things become irrelevant and one can be at peace.
Witchcraft. The word in itself evokes a certain kind of eeriness. In past centuries, people who were accused of being witches were thought of to be the worst kinds of people there are. There were several kinds of witches and several ways in which they operated. Whatever the reason, the Catholic Church saw witches, or those accused of being witches, as sinful. Partly to stop this kind of sin and other forms, the Inquisition of the Catholic Church was implemented. It is important to know what the factors leading up to the Inquisition included to fully understand its implementation. Once the history is reviewed it is easy to see how the Faith of the Church and the reason behind its thinking were hand-in-hand at the time, and also the way in which they seemingly conflict today.
...everence for nature--define the modern witch. Witchcraft is not devil worship or a cult of sex orgies and drug abuse, but is simply "...a way of life for hundreds of thousands--perhaps millions--of well adjusted adults who simply share a view of nature that is different from that of the majority," (Cunningham, xi). This is who witches are and what they do. Witches are good, moral, law-abiding people. Even those from the west.
"Women have a much better time than men in this world; there are far more things forbidden to them" (Oscar Wilde). As stated in this quote, all over the world women are restricted by their religions, from doing many things that men can do freely. An example would be to wear anything they want (pants), or pursue a career. Such situations are portrayed in various mediums including: Hillary Jordan's book When She Woke, Roland Joffé's film The Scarlet Letter, and Ida Lichter's article "Misogyny in the Muslim World: Bound by Culture or Religion?". In all three sources, religion is such a practice that imposes many restrictions on females, which results in women having to sacrifice their rights and face humiliation in front of society.
Witchcraft was relentlessly thought as the work of the devil with only sinful and immoral intentions. Julio Caro Baroja explains in his book on Basque witchcraft that women who were out casted from society and unable to fulfill their womanly duties became witches as a way to compensate for her failed life. They were thought to be a threat to society as they dwindled in evil magic. This misunderstanding may have originated from the literary works of Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger, in their published book, “Malleus Maleficarum”. Accusations of being adulterous, liars and dealing with the devil materialized because of the...
In order to understand the outbreak of the witchcraft hysteria in Salem, Massachusetts in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum, authors of Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft, explore the social and economic divisions and tensions within Salem and the surrounding communities. Both Boyer and Nissenbaum have a strong background in history. Paul Boyer (1935-2012) was the Merle Curti Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison as well as a cultural and intellectual historian who authored several other books. Stephen Nissenbaum was a Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst who authored several other books as well. In Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of
There are some critics that argue that Lewis Carroll wasn’t highly religious if religious at all. A popular topic relating to Lewis Carroll’s religious practices is whether or not he expressed any of his beliefs in his widely known story Alice in Wonderland. Hidden deep in the contexts of Alice in Wonderland, it’s clear that Alice in Wonderland is an allegory to the Christian Bible and contains multiple references to some biblical themes, characters, or events. Whether intentional or not, Lewis Carroll wrote characters, paragraph, and even chapters that mirror some of the most well-known scenes in the Bible.
The Renaissance period brought about changes in the cultural and social arrangements of the people living during this era. The Catholic Church was still the major religion during this era. One of the major strengths of the Catholic Church during the beginning of the Renaissance was its ability to hold the norms and traditions of the society. During the Renaissance period, the church was an integral part of the society. It defined what rules and regulations people were to follow and how they lived their lives. The Catholic Church provided an avenue for people to hold onto the cultural and social beliefs they had developed over time (Wolffe 89). In the midst of all the changes that were taking place at the time, it was important to find a way to retain the traditions that the people had followed for so long. Even with the growing opposition to the Catholic Church, people still held onto some of the teachings that had become part of them as taught by the church. In fact, even when people moved away from the Catholic Church, they still carried some of the traditions as defined by the Catholic Church. In addition the Catholic Church also provided a well defined hierarchy in the church. There lineage of the church was well developed and people had become familiar with it. This was a positive aspect since people were familiar with the structure of the Catholic Church.
Religion, Myth, and Magic in Robertson Davies’s Fifth Business. Interwoven with light and shadows, Robertson Davies’s Fifth Business is penetrated with fantastical elements that rub uneasily against feelings of guilt. A snowball thrown by young "Boy" Staunton misses Dunstan and hits Mary Dempster, causing the premature birth of Paul and the insanity of Mary. Guilt ensues and threatens to envelop Dunstable, Dunny, and Dunstan.
While doing research for this paper I decided to talk to some modern witches. When I informed some of my friends of this the most common remark was “Be careful!.” From these conversations it quickly became evident that most people have no idea what witches believe or even if they exist. However, almost everyone has an image of an ugly witch on a broom, who kidnaps and eats little children. Kids dress up like her during Halloween, and books like Hansel and Gretel introduce her to each new generation of children. I became interested in where all these stereotypes about witches come from and how they differ from the reality about witches and Wicca. It seems that most of the stereotypes can be traced to the Middle Ages and the time of the witch craze and the inquisition.
According to Merriam- webster’s Collegiate dictionary, sorcery is defined as the use of power gained from the assistance or control of evil especially for divining. Sorcery is a phenomenon that has spread all over the world. It mainly consists of direction of the world into a spiritual power which is mysterious and unexplainable.
The role of women in religious scripture dictates an inferior position in society. Beginning with the creation of Adam and then Eve, as his helpmate. Her purpose was that Adam would not be lonely. This origin provides the ground work for inequality of genders on the basis of religious scripture. The roles prescribed determined that women should be in a subordinate position to man. The female role and relationship with God is defined by the various books of the Old and New Testaments, the reported actions of Jesus Christ, and finally the Qur'an.