Mi.sog.y.ny, Religion And The Witch Hunts~Part II

The Witch Hunts~
The classic evocation of the deranged misogyny 0f the Witch hunts is the Malleus Maleficarum (The Hammer of Witches) became the guidebook for prosecuting witches in Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It too emphasized the sexual nature of witchcraft. This work by Pope Innocent VIII, published by Catholic inquisition authorities told stories of men losing their genitalia and consulting with female witches for treatment. It also explained why women were more likely to become witches.

"Because the female sex is more concerned with things of the
flesh than men; because being formed from a man's rib, they are only 'imperfect
animals' and 'crooked' whereas man belongs to a privileged sex from whose midst
Christ emerged."12
"All wickedness," write the authors, "is but little to
the wickedness of a woman. ... What else is woman but a foe to friendship, an
inescapable punishment, a necessary evil, a natural temptation, a desirable
calamity, domestic danger, a delectable detriment, an evil nature, painted with
fair colours. ... Women are by nature instruments of Satan -- they are by nature
carnal, a structural defect rooted in the original creation." (Quoted in Katz,
The Holocaust in Historical Context, Vol. I, pp. 438-39.)

The Malleus Maleficarum ("The Hammer of Witches" or the "Hexenhammer") is considered by many to be the classic Roman Catholic text on witchcraft, First published in 1487, the book is notorious for its use in the witch-hunt craze of the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries.

I Ask you "Have the Witch Hunts really ended?"