THE DECLINE OF WITCH BELIEFS AND TRIALS
I. Judicial, procedural changes as most immediate cause of decline of trials
Spanish Inquisition, 1610: FRA ALONSO SALAZAR
report to Suprema on Logroño
Roman Inquisition, 1620: Instructions on Witch Trials
France: 1620 University of Paris bans demonic testimony
(demon speaking through possessed person)
1624 Parlement of Paris requires appeal in w/c cases (central France)
Germany, 1631:
Frederick Spee, Cautio Criminalis (K&P #65, pp. 425-429)
Jesuit confessor to witches, controversial, published anonymously
New England, Salem 1693: Recantation of the Salem Jurors (K&)
#67 (pp. 436-37)
1703: Massachusetts bans spectral evidence
II.
Intellectual changes: decline of witch beliefs occurs AFTER the decline of trials
due to 17th C. Scientific Revolution & 18th C. Enlightenment
***********************************************************************************
IMPACT OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION ON W/C THEORY
I. Copernican Revolution end of Ptolemaic, geocentric universe
Nicholas Copernicus 1543 published
On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres
1633 Galileo tried for heresy by Roman Inquisition scharge is "Copernicanism"
II.
The New Philosophy: Mechanical World View
"Disenchantment of universe"
by experimental & mathematical method
Empiricist epistemology (theory of
knowledge)
concept that ideas arise from sensation & experience
no prior "innate ideas"
- against Platonic theory
FRANCIS BACON (1626) against "idols of the mind"
Empiricism, induction, sense experience
(against deduction from abstract principles)
Goal of knowledge is power over nature (compare this
with sorcerer)
Technology versus
abstract science.
RENE DESCARTES (1650) Discourse on Method
Cartesian dualism: separation of matter and spirit; only link = human pineal gland
Result: spirits cannot act on material world
JOHN
LOCKE 1690 Essay concerning Human Understanding
radical statement of empiricist empistemology
mind is a blank slate (tabula
rasa)
sensation causes "grooves"
or "impressions" on the mind
ISAAC NEWTON: PRINCIPIA MATHEMATICA, 1687
Natural law (mathematical)
Three laws of motion (earthly and celestial bodies)
God = "clockmaker"; no miracles, no intervention
III. The Growth of Skepticism about demons and witches
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE
(K&P #61) ESSAYS, 1580's French
skeptical motto, "Que sais-je?" (What do I know?)
fideism: trust in faith not in reason (opposite
of scholasticism)
give witches "rather hellebore than hemlock"
THOMAS HOBBES (English
Protestant) Leviathan, 1651: political theory of strong state
Philosophical materialism: no demons exist
PIERRE GASSENDI (1655) Experiments on Swiss peasants with narcotic drugs; power of suggestion
MALEBRANCHE (French
Catholic, influenced by Descartes) Search for Truth, 1674
empiricist epistemology: knowledge created in mechanical way by impact of sensory datat
creating "grooves" in brain
Imagination as a kind of "inflammation of the brain" = the source of witch beliefs
story of a shepherd telling stories to wife and children about travel to the Sabbath
IV. 17th C. Defenders
of Witch Beliefs
Cambridge Platonist movement: orthodox backlash against skepticism about demons
HENRY MORE, JOSEPH GLANVIL:
Sadducismus Triumphatus 1666 to defend against materialism, want to prove reality of spirits
"No devil, no God": Devil as proof of God's existence
(document poltergeist events, haunted houses)
V. Critiques of witch beliefs
Balthasar Bekker, The Enchanted World, 1691 (Dutch) first systematic refutation of witch theory
Pierre
Bayle, skeptical, undermining even mocking approach Historical & Critical Dictionary, 1703
Response to the Questions of a Provincial, 1703 (K&P #68)
Growing gap between learned
and popular beliefs due to Enlightenment 18th C.