Sweden celebrates something called “Easter Witch.” The Easter Witch is a mythical creature that goes into hiding each year, but when it comes around Easter, the Witch is welcomed in by Satan and has Sex. They stay up at a tall mountain for the whole week and eat wonderful meals for the whole time. What the people eat is what the Witch and Satan eats. During the holiday they eat Pickled fish, including Salmon, cake, candy, sweets,ice cream, and other goodies. Their traditional food is cured salmon, and janssons temptation which is potato, onion, and pickled anchovies baked in cream. During dinner they eat roast pork. During the parties they have, they have like a mini halloween and go around like we do in America go house to house and get candy.
They wear old dresses and rags, dressed as Witches. People come far far away to get to the country to celebrate the Easter Witch. The Country gets about $246 billion just from tourist visiting the country for the Easter Witch Celebration. One U.S dollar equals Eleven Cent in Sweden Kromo. We should appreciate this holiday because we all have different ways to celebrate each holiday. We need to appreciate everything other places celebrate. There are different meaning to each holiday for each different place, and we should respect all. They also start fires to celebrate with joy that the Easter Witch came back for another week. They use the fires to also burn and destroy all bad demons and monsters. Now about the Devil. Do they worship him? Well, no. They use the Devil as a ¨good Spirit”sort of thing. Even though the Devil is a monster, sort of, they believe Satan was treated very wrong, and think he deserves another chance. To many people in Sweden, they think Satan should not be in their joyful celebration, but it is tradition to all Swedes. Nobody doesn´t not celebrate Sweden's Easter Witch, because, just like us, itś for the kids. The kids fun. The parents enjoy it also. People in Sweden loves Easter Witch holiday/ Celebration.
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
What I said was altogether false against my grandfather and Mr. Burroughs, which I did to save my life and to have my liberty; but the Lord, charging it to my conscience, made me in so much horror that I could not contain myself before I denied my confession…”(Godbeer 147).
Witchcraft had always fascinated many people and been a very controversial topic in North America during (seventeenth) 17th century. Many People believe that witchcraft implies the ability to injure or using supernatural power to harm others. People believed that a witch represents dark side of female present and were more likely to embrace witchcraft than men. There are still real witches among us in the Utah whom believe that witchcraft is the oldest religion dealing with the occult. However the popular conception of a witch has not changed at least since the seventeenth century; they still caused panic, fear and variety of other emotions in people…………………….
Supernatural traditions was basically people in the “sixteenth and seventeenth centuries” (Dr.Heffner) who believed that the reason somebody was acting different was the doing of the devil, the supernatural tradition is also known as the “demonological method” (Dr.Heffner) during the stone age they would perform some type of surgery, where they would cut open the victim’s skull and drain the evil spirits out of there brain, “Ancient Chinese, Ancient Egyptians, and Hebrews, believed that these were evil demons or spirits and advocated exorcism” (Dr.Heffner) if after the exorcism the victim still did not show and improvements, the victim was then torture to leave them with a body that was no use for the evil
The growing practice of Neo-Paganism in America has caused many to turn their heads. The misunderstanding of the religion has caused many to equate the practitioners with the popular conception of typical "witches," that perform black magic rituals, satanic sacrifices, and engage in devil-inspired orgies. After many years, the Neo-Pagan community has cleared up many misconceptions through the showing that many of them do not engage in activities, and are rather participating in a religion, just as those would that participate in a Christian community. It's unacceptance continues, perhaps due to its non-conformity to the ideal of worshipping a Christian God. Through the use of ethnography, anthropologists and sociologists are able to present the public with a much different view than what we are bombarded with in popular media.
The Wiccan religion is highlighted throughout the WB television series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Produced by Josh Whedon, he showcases the character Willow as a young witch learning to control her powers. She begins her journey as a shy and mousy girl. But upon discovering her gift, it is revealed that she is incredibly powerful. As she develops, Willow joins a Wicca group at Sunnydale University. Unfortunately, she ends up dismissing their values as they do not pertain to her views. However, through the Wicca group Willow meets Tara, her future girlfriend (Whedon, “Hush”). Once Willow begins to mature, she grows into a confident and formidable witch. This was executed carefully, not to offend the Wiccans or be considered as promoting paganism.
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...
The Wiccan religion is one of the fastest growing religions in the United States as well one of the most misunderstood due to the controversies surrounding its history and mystery shrouding its beliefs and doctrines. Due to a series of popular TV series that have shown Witchcraft in a positive light, such as Sabrina, the Teen-aged Witch and Charmed, the popularity of Wicca has grown, especially amongst teenagers; but sadly this popularity has not been partnered with a growth in understanding and respect (Kaminer). Although Wicca offers a nature-oriented, egalitarian belief system with a rich collection of customs and rituals, ignorance and historically-rooted misconceptions still dominate public opinion.
The book Witches! The Absolutely True Tale Of Disaster In Salem by Rosalyn Schanzer is about the Salem Witch Trials. In January 1692, three women were accused of being witches by two girls who claimed to be “tortured” by them. More and more women and men were accused for about a year until the trials stopped. Overall, more than 200 people were accused, but why? There had to be a reason for these people to be accused. Some of the top reasons for people to be accused of witchcraft were poorness, feuds or revenge, and different opinions/beliefs.
“Ecrasons l’infame,” which is interpreted, “We must crush the vile thing.” This is the expression Voltaire used to articulate his feelings for organized religion. With many natural theists soon to follow his path, Voltaire expressed his hatred for cultural religions, opting for a universal God of nature. Given a few more centuries, Darwin would have given Voltaire the scientific theory to support his desire for atheism. But alas, with no other theory in place, intelligent individuals of 18th century France were forced to use creationism to explain the world in its beauty and organization. This, as previously stated, was not a problem for Voltaire. His issue was the moral implications that separated religious groups, often to the point of war with one another. Religious intolerance was a subject he dealt with in many of his works, especially Candide. The religious characters in this work were mostly negative with the exception of Brethren predecessor, the Anabaptist, and the old woman. His opinion of various religions was also established in Candide, although it was simply a vague one, clumping all organized religions into an “evil superstitions” category. The conclusion of this work also gave us insight on Voltaire’s view of religion as either positive or detrimental to society and the individual.
The Issue on discussion here is the different theories on why the witch-hunts took place. This is a topic that has a lot of different views and opinions. It is doubtful we will ever truly understand the exact reasons but historians can make educated and logical conclusions based on supporting information and evidence. Not all ideas have as much evidence as others and some theories have pretty much been ignored or disproved.
I. INTRODUCTION The Enlightenment and the emerging of modern rationalism have paved the way to a worldview where the suspicion of witchcraft is not needed to explain the mysterious phenomena of this world. This is not the case in Africa. The belief in the existence of witches, evil persons who are able to harm others by using mystical powers, is part of the common cultural knowledge. Samuel Waje Kunhiyop states, “Almost all African societies believe in witchcraft in one form or another.
Easter is a religious holiday that celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ three days after his death by crucifixion about 2,000 years ago. For Christians, Easter is a day of religious services and the gathering of family. In many churches Easter comes after a season of prayer, abstinence, and fasting called Lent. This is observed in memory of the 40 days' fast of Christ in the desert. In Eastern Orthodox churches Lent is 50 days. In Western Christen religions Lent is observed for six weeks and four days.
In the Christian religion, Easter has become a grand day of celebration in honor of the resurrection of Christ. Easter falls on the first Sunday following the first full moon after a specific time and varies on how the day is followed throughout. Each denomination of the faith varies on the celebration day, hosting various outings and activities. Specifically, the Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox denominations of Christianity view and celebrate the Holy Day of Easter differently. In addition to the various amounts of changes throughout the denominations, Easter has become modernized to what the world now sees as a big bunny handling colorful, candy-filled eggs for little children, making smiles appear left and right. However, the real question
When September ends and October begins, there is one thing on everybody's mind: «Halloween ». Halloween is around 2,000 years old and first originated with the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain; The Celts had rituals to avoid ghosts coming to haunt them, including dressing up in terrifying costumes to scare the ghosts and get together to party on the evening of October 31st. Nowadays, Halloween is one of the biggest holidays along with Christmas. From the beginning of October, people decorate their whole house in the colors of Halloween, wear entertaining costumes and, you can hear disguised children go from door to door to ask for treats as they shout "Trick or treat !". While it is a very a fun holiday