| So, now we read that the witches cooked and ate their own children. Mind you, this is the level of stupidity the church had brought the people to by this time. Just imagine today, only the national enquirer would get away with a story where the headlines read: ”… group of women caught with boiling cauldron, cooking and eating their own children.“ Nobody would believe this propaganda for a second, and furthermore, it would be disgraceful for a government or leading authority to ever step forth and announce this was occurring. Continuing: “Here is another example from the same source. There was lately a general report, brought to the notice of Peter the Judge in Boltingen, that thirteen infants had been devoured in the State of Berne; and the public justice exacted full vengeance on the murderers. And when Peter asked one of the captive witches in what manner they ate children, she replied: “This is the manner of it. We set our snares chiefly for unbaptized children, and even for those that have been baptized, especially when they have not been protected by the sign of the Cross and prayers,” (Reader, notice that, at the devil's command, they take the unbaptized chiefly, in order that they may not be baptized) “and with our spells we kill them in their cradles or even when they are sleeping by their parents' side, in such a way that they afterwards are thought to have been overlain or to have died some other natural death. Then we secretly take them from their graves, and cook them in a cauldron, until the whole flesh comes away from the bones to make a soup which may easily be drunk. Of the more solid matter we make an unguent which is of virtue to help us in our arts and pleasures and our transportations; and with the liquid we fill a flask or skin, whoever drinks from which, with the addition of a few other ceremonies, immediately acquires much knowledge and becomes a leader in our sect.” (22) One has to wonder, after reading this, whether these were forced confessions or what they sound more like, planted propaganda. The reader is expected to believe that the unguent made from the dead unbaptized babies is used to transport the witches on their journeys from location to location. It sounds to me like the church inquisitors were well aware of the mushroom ointments being used, which were created by boiling virgin mushrooms in a cauldron and mixing with an absorbing oil and rubbing it on their bodies to take shamanic journeys. If it was not mushrooms, it was datura, henbane, or belladonna, and likely mixed with mushrooms due to the concepts being conveyed and words used concerning the “sacrifices.” A little more about the witches who transport themselves: “Chapter 10: How they are Transported from Place to Place. |
“Now the following is their method of being transported. They take the unguent which, as we have said, they make at the devil's instruction from the limbs of children, particularly of those whom they have killed before baptism, and anoint with it a chair or a broomstick; whereupon they are immediately carried up into the air, either by day or by night, and either visibly or, if they wish, invisibly; for the devil can conceal a body by the interposition of some other substance, as was shown in the First Part of the treatise where we spoke of the glamours and illusions caused by the devil. And although the devil for the most part performs this by means of this unguent, to the end that children should be deprived of the grace of baptism and of salvation, yet he often seems to affect the same transvection without its use. For at times he transports the witches on animals, which are not true animals but devils in that form; and sometimes even without any exterior help they are visibly carried solely by the operation of the devil's power.” Chapter 5: Dealing with Spells Through Sacraments of the Church, causes of illness and the Influence of the Stars. “Carnival.” These Pagan practices are sternly reprobated in the “Liber Poenitentialis” of S. Theodore, seventh Archbishop of Canterbury. In Book XXXVII is written: “If anyone at the Kalends of January goeth about as a stag or a bull-calf, that is, making himself into a wild animal, and dressing in the skins of a herd animal, and putting on the heads of beast; those who in such wise transform themselves into the appearance of a wild animal, let them do penance for three years, because this is devilish.” Remember, we real previously how the Council of Auxerre in 578 (or 585) forbade anyone “to masquerade as a bull-calf or a stag on the first of January or to distribute devilish charms.” (23) Interestingly, in the next paragraph, “archer wizards” are mentioned: “Question 2: Chapter 16: Of Three Ways in Which men and not Women May be Discovered to be Addicted to Witchcraft: Divided into three Heads: and First of the Witchcraft of Archers. “It is clear, therefore, that archer-wizards, and those mages who enchant other weapons, are to be considered as manifestly guilty of flagrant heresy, through some expressed pact with the devil, since it is obvious that their feats would not be possible without the devil's help.” (24) Based on what we just read and what we already know, it appears the church was strengthening their initial onslaught against the Knights Templars, Cathars and Albigensians in the second crusade. This was clearly a continuation of the purge already mentioned which I believe occurred. The inquisitors clearly knew what they were doing and who they were going after. Anyone who still had and used mushroom medicine and magic knowledge outside the sphere of the Catholic Church. It does not appear to me that this was just about women or just about herbal medicines, but more specifically, the Holy Mushroom. (22) p. 99 (23) p. 116, notes (24) p. 155 |