that said, some lessons in logic unfortunately come from experience:

Shimon the son of Shotach would say: Increasingly cross-examine the witnesses. Be careful with your words, lest they learn from them how to lie

The Talmud reports that Shimon ben Shetach’s court executed eighty women on sorcery charges in one day in Ashkelon; it relates that their relatives responded by bringing perjured charges against his son, who was convicted and also executed. The rule that a court cannot execute more than one person in one day is also attributed to this incident, along with other admonitions against repeating such an event. Given Rabbi Akiva’s comment that a Sanhedrin which executes more than once in 70 years is a “bloodthirsty Sanhedrin”, the whole incident was clearly characterized as regrettable. But it is part of the tradition.

But we agree that the biblical injuction to kill witches implies that witches, like Amalekites, actually exist, or at least existed?

Not necessarily. IIRC, there’s a Talmudic analysis of a Bible verse that says a father must kill a disobedient son. (Or something equally horrible.) But in the context of the entire passage, and of Jewish interpretation of the Torah as a whole, this doesn’t mean just any disobedient son. He must be old enough for moral responsibility, and yet still under his father’s authority. And the rabbis continue to discover restrictions until they conclude that there never has been and never will be a person that meets them all.

So why is there a divinely dictated verse about a person who cannot exist? To provide students of the Torah and the Talmud with practice in logic.

Einhverfr: I have never cast spells involving impotency and I can’t really imagine too many occasions where that would be called for. I suppose OTOH if someone were trying to seduce my wife, that might be a good reason to do so.

Hmmm.

So you don’t trust your wife to resist? Yet you’re not doing anything to her? After all, she’s the one who promised to be faithful. ;-)

A couple of years ago a local lothario was named to a board my wife was on. He asked me (joking?) if I trusted him around her. “Of course I do,” I said. “I taught her how to shoot.”

Umm… Who says it is untraceable. I would expect such a charm to involve a direct confrontation in person along with a declaration as to what would happen. Who knows? Might be more akin to hypnosis than magic.

Interestingly all the cases I can find regarding impotancy magic in Scandinavia involved either a direct confrontation (a wife looking in her husband’s eyes and saying “you will get no enjoyment from your mistress” for example) or a public declaration (standing up at a marriage feast and making such a declaration).

These things seem to have been largely public.

To my Christian brain, your post reads: “I’ll cast a hex on a fool if I damn well please.”

This does not inspire confidence. For such a person, I do not offer a Chuck Norris-style rescue.

–This is because the real prize is the rule of law.–

This is also what bugs me about the stupid fad of magic and vampires and etc: it’s unaccountable power. Einhverfr, flaunting your untraceable and unaccountable power doesn’t endear you to me. In truth, I don’t believe in it, but you and the Saudis do! So I’m inclined to say, let you and the Saudis fight it out.

For any pagan to qualify for rescue by a hairy-chested karate master with machine guns in both hands, that magician must first submit their spells to DNA trace, or some other empirical authority. Otherwise, the factions of “I’ll secretly cast a spell on you,” and “he’s a witch!” can duke it out, medieval-style.

Your support of secret power is the reason why people are killing and dying for superstition. Either seek out the Odin-version of a notary seal, or (I’m sorry to say) there’s no B-movie-style rescue for you.

Well, now this is interesting. I suppose as a Norse pagan and Runic magician (who has published books on the subject) I should now place Saudi Arabia on my list of countries never to visit.

As I understand it, it’s illegal to practice any religion other than Islam in Saudi Arabia, including Judaism and Christianity. The U.S. military reached a sort of gentleman’s agreement in which Saudi authorities would stay off base and look the other way so long as U.S. soldiers confined religious practices to base and didn’t do anything overtly religious while off-base. But my undestanding is that any overt practice of any religion other than Islam could get one in serious trouble, although I gather Judaism and Christianity get one less than the death penalty.

No worries. I have never cast spells involving impotency and I can’t really imagine too many occasions where that would be called for. I suppose OTOH if someone were trying to seduce my wife, that might be a good reason to do so. Whether such charms work by magic or suggestion is an interesting question however.

The more interesting question, in my mind, however is the cosmological assumptions surrounding witchcraft. When I look at medieval attitudes (from religious authors) towards witchcraft and compare it with what source material I can find on the subject, I find that many of the accusations seem to be based largely on this idea of a role of cosmic evil.

For example, in the Middle Ages, witches were accused of making men impotent, of causing abortions, of making women sterile, of exhuming bodies for use in magical workings, and especially in killing children (and then exhuming the bodies) for use in making the flying ointments. They were also accused of stealing harvests or milk from neighbors (this is actually such an old accusation it is prohibited even in the Twelve Tables). They were also sometimes accused of bewitching the opposite sex to fall in love with them.

The material I can find regarding making men impotent in Scandinavia are interesting. These are usually done by women who are trying to prevent rivals from enjoying men they are after. In this regard they seem to be closely parallel to the Greek erotic binding spells which are well attested in archaeology (see the example in the Louvre). Similarly, love magic is well attested in the Hellenistic period, in Norse myth, in later Scandinavian magical traditions, etc.

Abortions? Seems like an old debate. Folklore concerning abortion is interesting. Many of the formulas seem to be recorded in witchcraft manuscripts even though they look like chemically active formulas. See “The Black Books of Elverum” for some examples.

Not sure about female sterility (if this is just scapegoating or of there were practices relating to it). However, control of female fertility was a critical concern for ancient Greek prostitutes.

The necromantic side is far more interesting. Scandinavian literature talks about a “tilberi” which is a sort of demon made from a dead man’s rib and some grey wool which is capable of stealing neighbors’ milk. There are also the corpse breeches, which are made from the skin (waist down, flayed in one piece) of a dead man who gave his permission beforehand, and are supposed to draw money.

One has to wonder at some point whether cosmology is largely a force at work here which was exaggerating folk practices, or whether the folk practices were following the church writings. Either way it is an interesting field of study.

This reality is key if we ever want to get Saudi Arabia to stop killing palm readers.

einhverfr: “The problem though is that these are based on unprovable assumptions…”

That is a problem. I believe that punishing or killing someone for their crimes requires proof, and I think that most Saudis would agree with me. After all, those who believe in witches also believe in not-witches- it’s good to discern between the two. But I think I would disagree with most Saudis thusly: I don’t believe that proving you worship Norse Gods is proof that you have sold your soul in service to the dark lord of the universe.

But the conversation between myself and a Saudi would be couched in terms of sufficient proof. And I think unfortunately that it would be harder for a Pagan to convince a devout Abrahamic that Pagans are _not_ servants of the devil than it would be to convince a devout that he needs more proof. So yeah, please don’t travel to Saudi. In fact, if you were somehow in Saudi and detained by the police under even ‘legitimate’ witchcraft charges, I’d fully support the argument that using force to break free and escape is self-defense and not obstruction of justice or resisting arrest or assault or etc. In fact, I can envision a few righteous Chuck-Norris style Delta Force scenarios involving your rescue.

But more importantly, I think that most moral people would believe that someone who’s truly sold their soul in eternal obedience to the dark lord of the universe should be put to death, or at least detained for the duration of the ‘war’ (fur-ev-er). Also, those who use spells to turn love to hate or hate to love would be guilty of a form of rape or assault. Rendering a man impotent against his will is an actionable offense, and I imagine we can come up with some agreeable crimes to go with necromancy.

So einhverfr, if you cast a spell that makes me impotent, then yes, you should be punished. If you mail me a notarized document swearing that you have sold your eternal soul in service to the dark lord of the universe, then I think you should be: a) committed to a mental facility and evaluated, or b) detained for the rest of your life as a prisoner of ‘war’. Execution is so Old Testament, and I think that when it comes to my final judgement, I’d rather be guilty of false imprisonment than manslaughter/2nd degree murder.

Let’s complicate this a little and explain why this ensures that I will NEVER EVER UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES travel to Saudi Arabia.

I am a Norse Pagan as some here know. My religious practice centers mostly around Odin, Thorr, and Freyr What you may not know is that I practice magic using a number of old Runic systems (both Elder and Younger Futharks) and that I have further written a book on the subject which has been well received in that community.

The problem here is that, to a devout Christian (and to a devout Muslim), all pagan gods are either devils or servants of the devil. Thus if you accept such a view of religion, my writings would be sufficient to convict me of what you describe. The problem though is that these are based on unprovable assumptions dictated by a religious system. Furthermore my tradition includes past material well attested in the archaeological and historical record which is almost stereotypical witchcraft stuff including:

1) turning hearts and minds of people from love to hate and from hate to love
2) charms rendering men impotent
3) the necromantic stuff is quite interesting but I won’t go into it here (“Scandinavian Folklore” by Jaqueline Simpson however is worth reading in this area).

Under these circumstances, it would seem to be advised to stay away from places like Saudi Arabia. In your religious view, though, do you think I should be put to death?

And Christians thought it was a good idea, too. My concern with this issue is that there is no way to get Saudi justice to improve if people just keep saying ‘in order to be more fair, you must be less Muslim.’

That won’t work, and that doesn’t have to work… because Christians in the US favor non-lynchy procedures that were brought about without having to blame religion for every bad thing.

rc: No, the biggest change is that we started following the rules of law and evidence.

The biggest change is that we started writing laws based on something besides “I believe God says so.” Before that (for example) you could be asked whether, in communion, the bread and wine transubstantiate into the literal body and blood of Christ, or whether they are symbols. Depending on the religious government running the court either answer could be “wrong,” and lead to criminal sanctions including death.

Witnesses still swear on the Bible–

AFAIK in U.S. courts no witness is required to swear on the Bible, or include “so help me God.” I know there’s no actual Bible used in the courts where I live, and that’s in Texas.

religion does still have a positive impact on proper legal proceedings.

I’ll agree that religion does still have an impact in the U.S. See laws against the sins of gambling (except for state lotteries, which are apparently not “sinful”) and homosexuality, and Sunday sales laws to cite three examples. I don’t agree the impact is “positive.”

In other words, a proper Muslim must accept false witness and faulty data? Good luck selling that one in Saudi.

We have already seen one religious group stop killing witches. This change did not come about through smug people dissing their religion.

Instead, people who still believed in witches were reminded that there are also ‘not witches’.

You’re suggesting that someone must discard Islam in order to be honest. This is not true (as the evolution of Christian behavior demonstrates) and not productive.

Change the legal system, not the religion.

“even a rigorous legal system would not eliminate the problem caused by the religiously based criminalization…”

I agree, but one step at a time. What’s frustrating is that even in this cut-and-dry easy case, people immediately rocket their arguments toward how bad religion is, and how incompatible it is with justice. History and reason show that you start by changing the legal system, then religion and culture eventually comes around. Smug smacktalking vs religion is counterproductive.

Martinned: But we agree that the biblical injuction to kill witches implies that witches, like Amalekites, actually exist, or at least existed?

Dan Hamilton: It only means that they BELIEVED that witches existed!

If God tells you to kill all witches, doesn’t that mean he’s also telling you witches exist? So if someone believes in the Bible enough to believe that the earth is 6000 years old despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, wouldn’t one expect them to also believe in witches?

No, the biggest change is that we started following the rules of law and evidence.

Hardly. The Salem witch trials were conducted following the rules of law and evidence. The problem was what constituted evidence, and that problem was directly attributable to religious belief. Of course, if by “following the rules of … evidence” you mean “admitting only valid scientific evidence”, you are imposing a requirement incompatible with Islam.

Some problems with the Saudi courts are indeed due to the process, but even a rigorous legal system would not eliminate the problem caused by the religiously based criminalization of such things as leaving Islam, publicly practicing a religion other than Islam, criticizing Islam or the Saudi regime, consuming alcohol, consorting with an unrelated member of the opposite sex, wearing “revealing” clothing, driving (if female), or attempting to leave the country without the permission of one’s male guardian (if female).

It’s my nit, my quote, not Laura’s. I wish I hadn’t said it, and thus obscured the issue at hand. But briefly, if someone was proven to indeed have sold their soul in eternal obedience to the destroyer of worlds, then that person should rightly be punished or killed.

I mentioned it because the issue is not in fact that we are dealing with supernatural agents of the dark one, who do not exist. We are instead dealing with the falsely accused. It’s a matter of evidence, not a matter of morality or religion.

LarryA “The biggest change was that the church got separated from the government.”

No, the biggest change is that we started following the rules of law and evidence. Witnesses still swear on the Bible- religion does still have a positive impact on proper legal proceedings.

Religious zealots may believe in witches, but they also believe in not-witches. Wouldn’t even a zealot be interested in distinguishing between the two?

The solution here is to improve law, not to raze religion. How far do you really think you’re going to get, telling Saudis that in order to be good, you have to stop being Muslim?

Martinned: But we agree that the biblical injuction to kill witches implies that witches, like Amalekites, actually exist, or at least existed?

It only means that they BELIEVED that witches existed!

Sorry, no cigar.

The witches they are talking about aren’t Wiccans but followers of Satan. How were the witches found? They were believed to have DONE bad things by witchcraft. THEN evidence was found to prove they were witches. Evidence was ALWAYS required. It was just bad Evidence. The West learned to use better rules of Evidence. That is GOOD.

Islamic Governments cannot do that because everything is DEFINED by the Islamic Texts. They haven’t changed since they were formed about 1300 years ago and there is nothing to show that they will ever change or that they can change.

Islam is NOT just a religion, it is a form of government. For a Muslem an Islamic Government is the ONLY valid Government. He is required to work toward an Islamic Government.

I have lived in Saudi Arabia and worked with Saudis. Individual Saudis can be good people but in groups they have to prove to each other that they are GOOD MUSLEMS. This causes an insane sprial. Remember in Islam NOT being a GOOD MUSLEM can get you killed. It happens all the time. See Muslims killed by terrorists in Anwar and elsewere for not following the Islamic Laws as defined by the Terrorists. We in the West stopped killing heritics centuries ago.

Laura(southernxyl): Well, here I think you are nitpicking. When I say we don’t prosecute people for witchcraft b/c we don’t believe in witches, I mean that we don’t prosecute people for witchcraft when sickness and calamity occur because we look for other reasons they happen; we don’t think witches could do those things.

Okay, I’ll buy that. It just wasn’t what I got when you said, “If witches, in the tradition Christian sense, existed, then any moral society would be well advised to find them and punish them. Or kill them.”

It’s a pretty important nit.

rc: My point is this. Some Christians used to be just as prone to killin’ witches as some Saudis are today. But what changed over 300 years? Christians are still Christians, it’s just that they’re Christians who don’t punish people for crimes unless those crimes are proven.

The biggest change was that the church got separated from the government. Over the history of Christianity the worst excesses occurred when the church had the power to enforce moral rules by power of law. As in Saudi Arabia today. It’s the government connection that makes both official persecution of minorities and interdenominational wars possible.

If they had been civilized people, they would at worst hate us like France does–hate any Americans who support America’s interests while not actually hating Americans per se. You don’t see the French flying airplanes into buildings.

The French don’t hate America/Americans, they just look down on them. Don’t worry about it, nobody cares about the French. They’re not even the kings of cooking anymore. (And what may be worse for their self-image, the French are even starting to speak English at EU and other diplomatic negotiations.)

If the Taliban did not oppress their women and behead people in the soccer stadium, would we have military forces in Afghanistan? Or to put it a different way, are fighting the Taliban because they pose a threat to the US or to some US interest, or mostly because we find their social habits repellent? Or, to put it a third way, is our presence there mostly opposition to the kind of pre-medieval thinking represented in the original post about Saudi Arabia, but non-balanced by the level of international cooperation that SA displays.

I’d suggest that if the Taliban did not oppress and behead, we wouldn’t be fighting them. Not because the casus belli for the war was that they oppress their women–but rather that the same medieval attitudes that led them to oppress women and behead people also led them to hate and kill us in the first place. If they had been civilized people, they would at worst hate us like France does–hate any Americans who support America’s interests while not actually hating Americans per se. You don’t see the French flying airplanes into buildings.

I was thinking of Inquisitor Alonso de Salazar’s dissent in a 1610 witchcraft trial (tried before the Spanish Inquisition). The opinion can be read in “Witchcraft in Europe 400-1700: A Documentary History” edited by Alan Charles Kors and Edward Peters.

Einhverfr: Martinned:One possible way out for some folks is to note that the devil is quite capable of conjuring up the likeness of anyone else in an illusory manner.Therefore while witches should be put to death the various tactics of the witch hunts in history are invalid.
I believe that there was a rather famous dissent from a member of the Spanish Inquisition which said something along these lines.
I forget his name though and will have to look it up.

The Spanish Inquisition had dissenting opinions? Cool!
Actually, the connection between people’s beliefs about the devil and what the bible actually says about him is a fascinating issue all of its own, but I guess we’d better leave that one for another time.

By early autumn of 1692, Salem’s lust for blood was ebbing. Doubts were developing as to how so many respectable people could be guilty. Reverend John Hale said, ” It cannot be imagined that in a place of so much knowledge, so many in so small compass of land should abominably leap into the Devil’s lap at once.” The educated elite of the colony began efforts to end the witch-hunting hysteria that had enveloped Salem. Increase Mather, the father of Cotton, published what has been called “America’s first tract on evidence,” a work entitled Cases of Conscience, which argued that it “were better that ten suspected witches should escape than one innocent person should be condemned.” Increase Mather urged the court to exclude spectral evidence. Samuel Willard, a highly regarded Boston minister, circulated Some Miscellany Observations, which suggested that the Devil might create the specter of an innocent person. Mather’s and Willard’s works were given to Governor Phips. The writings most likely influenced the decision of Phips to order the court to exclude spectral evidence and touching tests and to require proof of guilt by clear and convincing evidence. With spectral evidence not admitted, twenty-eight of the last thirty-three witchcraft trials ended in acquittals. The three convicted witches were later pardoned. In May of 1693, Phips released from prison all remaining accused or convicted witches.

Interestingly …

A period of atonement began in the colony following the release of the surviving accused witches. Samuel Sewall, one of the judges, issued a public confession of guilt and an apology. Several jurors came forward to say that they were “sadly deluded and mistaken” in their judgments. Reverend Samuel Parris conceded errors of judgment, but mostly shifted blame to others. Parris was replaced as minister of Salem village by Thomas Green, who devoted his career to putting his torn congregation back together. Governor Phips blamed the entire affair on William Stoughton. Stoughton, clearly more to blame than anyone for the tragic episode, refused to apologize or explain himself. He criticized Phips for interfering just when he was about to “clear the land” of witches. Stoughton became the next governor of Massachusetts.

(emphasis added)

It was ever thus.

One possible way out for some folks is to note that the devil is quite capable of conjuring up the likeness of anyone else in an illusory manner. Therefore while witches should be put to death the various tactics of the witch hunts in history are invalid.

I believe that there was a rather famous dissent from a member of the Spanish Inquisition which said something along these lines. I forget his name though and will have to look it up.

Well, you’re really not that sorry :P

My point is this. Some Christians used to be just as prone to killin’ witches as some Saudis are today. But what changed over 300 years? Christians are still Christians, it’s just that they’re Christians who don’t punish people for crimes unless those crimes are proven.

You claim that religion is Saudi Arabia’s biggest problem. But the problem isn’t in the religion, it’s in the proof. So why do you claim that religion is the biggest problem, when history has already shown one culture that improved their legal system by focusing on proper process, without discarding religion?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIHlMZSA4Vo

That is all.

rc: neurodoc: “No, Saudi Arabia’s religion is the biggest problem”So you’re saying that Muslims are incapable of establishing justice?‘Yer religion sux’ never creates positive change.

Sorry, but you really are obtuse both as to the concept of “due process” and Islam as practiced it Saudi Arabia. No, no one is saying that no Muslims are capable of “establishing justice,” whatever that may mean.

Ryan Waxx:
One would have to be a sucker on the level of accepting Nigerian scammail at face-value to accept that “expected audience” excuse.
Somehow, I suspect the only modifications you’d make for a muslim audience would be to turn the rhetoric up a notch, not switch the religion you are bashing.No, you are grinding the axe that you want to grind, and your audience isn’t forcing you to do otherwise.

I really shouldn’t be engaging in this kind of flaming, but since you insist, I’d like to thank you for enlightening me about my real reasons for commenting as I did, and to point out that above I quoted from the Quran as well as from both testaments of the bible, thus focusing my question on all three monotheistic religions at once.

yankee: So are claims of witchcraft “essentially fictitious, not realistically distinguishable from allegations of ‘little green men’ of the sort that Justice Souter recognized in Iqbal as properly dismissed on the pleadings”? May a court dismiss a wrongful death action because the plaintiff claims the victim was killed through defendant’s witchcraft?

IMO allegations of big green women are not meaningfully distinguishable from the Iqbal example, so yes.

Nick

Martinned: I’ll refer you back to what I replied to PatHMV about expected audience. Happy now?

One would have to be a sucker on the level of accepting Nigerian scammail at face-value to accept that “expected audience” excuse. Somehow, I suspect the only modifications you’d make for a muslim audience would be to turn the rhetoric up a notch, not switch the religion you are bashing.

No, you are grinding the axe that you want to grind, and your audience isn’t forcing you to do otherwise.

So you’re saying that Muslims are incapable of establishing justice?

I would suggest limiting the question to Wahhabis :-).

I am also part way through the “Witchcraft and Magic in Europe” series by Ankarloo and Clark. This series attempts to trace European ideas and practices relating to magic from the early Easternizing revolution (in pre-historic Greece) all the way through the 20th century. Certainly the idea that nobody believes in magic any more is downright false. Furthermore the recent defence of ideas that magic might “work” in some way (in both anthropological and historical circles) suggests that the pendulum might actually be swinging the other way.

I require no such guarantee, nor does any reasonable person.

neurodoc: “No, Saudi Arabia’s religion is the biggest problem”

So you’re saying that Muslims are incapable of establishing justice?

‘Yer religion sux’ never creates positive change.