Product Description A cultural history of witch-hunting, from the Romans through McCarthy
The term ?witch-hunt? is used today to describe everything from political scandals to school board shake-ups. But its origins are far from trivial. Long before the Salem witch trials, women and men were rounded up by neighbors, accused of committing horrific crimes using supernatural powers, scrutinized by priests and juries, and promptly executed. The belief in witchcraft--and the deep fear of evil it instilled in communities--led to a cycle of accusation, anger, and purging that has occurred repeatedly in the West for centuries.
Award-winning historian John Demos puts this cultural paranoia in context. He takes readers from the early Christians persecuted in Rome through the Salem witch trials, McCarthy?s hunt for communists, and the hysteria around child sex-abuse cases and satanic cults in the 1980s.
An original and fascinating look at the cultural, societal, and psychological practice of witch-hunts, The Enemy Within illuminates the dark side of communities driven to rid themselves of ?evil,? no matter what the cost.
Customer Reviews:
A dark chapter in human history November 23, 2008 The book deals primarily with the witchhunting in Europe during the middle ages and the equivalent in the American north-east. All in all an interesting book but at times a bit repetetive. Because of the title "2000 years of witch-hunting" I expected the book to cover more extensively also the ideological counterparts in contemporary society. Demos talks briefly about the "witch-hunt" against freemasons and other groups in the 18th and 19th century and also about the best-known example of our time: the "red scare". But all in all it feels tucked on. I wish he would have dealt with the contemporary "witch-hunts" more thoroughly.
It Wasn't Just in Salem November 20, 2008 Everyone knows about the witchcraft trials in Salem, Massachusetts. Few people know as much about them as John Demos, a professor of history who has written academic texts on the theme and about early American history. Demos explains that after writing _Entertaining Satan_ in 1982, he thought he had said his last about the history of witchcraft. "Yet the talk-show invitations kept coming each year at Halloween; there was still the occasional witchcraft conference to attend; there were even middle-of-the-night phone calls from people who thought themselves possessed by the Devil." So when he was invited to write a synthesis of the subject, he had reasons to take on the project, although he had been used to writing about specific cases from centuries ago, and doing so for an academic audience. _The Enemy Within: 2,000 Years of Witch-Hunting in the Western World_ (Viking) is the result, and while it inevitably covers the witch scare in New England, the longer view has to do with the larger pattern of blaming and scapegoating. People have done this for centuries, and although we might congratulate ourselves for graduating from the magical, supernatural thinking that brought forth the Salem trials, we are still demonizing. Demos's chapters are a set of historic essays on important themes, and his broad outlook on the subject is well-reasoned and fascinating.
Christianity developed a tolerance, even a complicity, to witch-magic. Sorcerers, usually women, might be despised or condemned, but they were also respected and consulted especially to work a bit of counter-magic against some curse large or small. Spells and charms were thought effective in battling against a mystifying world, and the church had similar remedies. Christians, for instance, used sacred relics to promote cures or they valued charms such as medallions made from paschal candles. By the end of the fourteenth century, the disarray from wars and plague, an increased emphasis on Satan as a foil to Christ, and inquisitorial investigations with the acceptance of torture to gain evidence all brought increased attention to witches. Demos devotes a chapter to the famous _Malleus Maleficarum_, first published in 1486, a guide to what witches do and how to catch them out. Pope Innocent VIII himself supported the book, which showed it was heresy not to believe in witches and their connection to the Devil, listed the leading forms of witchcraft and what witches did, and advised how to get evidence against them, including torturing them to get the truth. Demos summarizes the famous events at Salem, with a specific chapter on one of the chief participants, Cotton Mather. The Puritan minister was preoccupied with witches partly because they fitted into his vision of the imminent millennium and return of Christ, and he encouraged the Salem prosecutions. As society began to doubt the wisdom of the witch trials, so Mather lessened his emphasis on the scourge, but for him, to stop believing in witches would have been to stop believing in God, for the beliefs were closely linked. He even came to reconsider the trials years later, after they had hung their victims, and to regret what had happened and the errors that had been made. Unlike some others involved, however, he made no apology.
We don't persecute witches anymore like Mather wanted to, but in his final section, Demos shows that the persecution continues. It isn't for nothing that McCarthyism is called witch-hunting. The analogy was most sharply drawn in Arthur Miller's drama _The Crucible_ in 1952; Miller had researched the historic Salem trials before writing his play, which Demos commends for its accuracy in the depiction of the atmosphere of that time, and for enhancing the power of the term witch-hunting. Demos points out analogies (and differences) in the witch-hunting of other forms and other eras, like the anti-Masonry scares, the persecution of the Bavarian Illuminati, and others. A final chapter shows witch-hunting in a scary modern form, the child care sex-abuse crisis of only the past couple of decades. Accused of Satanism and crimes against children, operators of the Fells Acres Day School, for instance, were convicted and sentenced to up to forty years of prison, serving some years before the sentences were overturned. Demos cites day-care stories of rituals, a prosecutorial compulsion for punitive retribution, coercive or suggestive questioning of children, and a refusal to accept victims' denials as the same sort of processes involved at Salem. The ancient witch enemy is with us still.
Witch Hunting 101 November 9, 2008 In an unfortunate editorial decision, the book begins with an introductory "panorama," at once too long and too epigrammatic: a series of high-level observations too abstract to sink one's teeth into. I felt that things finally began to get interesting when the author focused on specific cases.
At times when reading this book, I felt as if I were back in college. The Enemy Within demands that kind of attention (and a certain quantity of black coffee as well). That said, however, I found myself making the effort. You might want to start on page 71.
seminal history of scapegoating October 24, 2008 4 out of 4 found this review helpful
"For witch-hunting was, and is, a cross-cultural, transhistorical phenomenon -- an attacker, a killer, of women almost everywhere."
To learn why, read this amazing revelatory work, which is not for the faint of heart. The scapegoating, sadistic torture and murder of so-called "witches" is an ancient cross-cultural practice alive and well today, and we should strive to understand it. The potential GOP president of the USA believes that people practice evil witchcraft under the guidance of Satan, so don't think this is moldy old pre-Enlightenment stuff that we don't have to worry about. I love that this is written by a man,(perhaps that will encourage some some readers balking at what they fear will be just another conspiracy-theory rabid "feminist" tract of agitproo). A flaw I forgive him for: his sideline vignettes are a bit awkward. He should stick with his classic didactic history; it works for me. Also read The Underside of History: A View of Women Through Time Volume 1, and The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets. ~Lesley Thomas, author of arctic witch-shaman novel Flight of the Goose
All rights reserved. Amazon.com is a trademark of Amazon.com Information about prices, products, services and merchants is provided by third parties and is for informational purposes only. Caribbean Travel Books does not represent or warrant the accuracy or reliability of the information, and will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or delays in this information or any losses, injuries, or damages arising from its display or use.
