Interview with translator of Malleus Maleficarum (The Hammer of Witches)
I found this to be a pretty interesting interview with ahistory professor, Christopher MacKay, who has recently translated the Malleus Maleficarum--the book that was often used as justification for the prosecution and burning of women as witches in the 15th and 16th centuries. For one thing the description of the way in which women became witches seems to me to indicate not only misogyny but echoes current homophobic conspiracy theories: "One of his big notions of how women get involved in this is by being sluts, being dumped, and being recruited not by Satan directly but usually by an old woman. He says it’s old women who recruit young women."
It was also sad thinking of how the invention of moveable type, which had only happened 35 years before, allowed the ideas in this text to spread so quickly.
MacKay notes that the persecution of witches did not happen from the masses ('ala the villagers in Frankenstein) but from the authorities.
And probably the most important point he makes is the one about the lessons we can take away from this: "The thing that I find most relevant to today is how you view the world around you. You see what you think you’ll see and you don’t see what you don’t think you’ll see. On “CSI,” Grissom says that the facts speak for themselves, but the facts don’t speak for themselves. It’s how you interpret the facts."
(ps: I love this guy's picture :-)