What do you believe led to the development of Witch-hunting in

>>1803632
Life was scary for setters in New England the new world was dark and unknown added with fear of India attacks they were extremely paranoid. Protestantism was the only thing that made them feel safe, anything that strived little away from it was seen as dangers and so treated as such.

>>1803691
>Catholics settle in the new world.
>Burn no witches.

>>1803632

A lot of it had to do with misogyny. Men were rarely accused of being witches (John Proctor being the most notable exception thanks to The Crucible). And women accused of being witches were usually older women who were seen as useless and they were not valued in society. Typically these were women who had lived long enough that they had outlived their husbands and so they were head of household, and the idea of a woman being in charge of anything was a scary concept for puritans. Life in the New World was tough and people looked for scape-goats. Crops failed? Blame the ugly old lady down the street.

>>1803719
Interesting that most of the Witches accused in Russia were male

>>1803632
It was the witches actually existing, you massive fucktard.

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>>1803737

I honestly can't explain that. I didn't even know that Russia had witch-hunts.

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>>1803719
>curse people
>get executed
>YOUS A MISOGYNIST SHE DINDU NUFFEN

Women have always been the vessel of the devil.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fbSqFpiuik

Charles Taylor (the philosopher not the dictator) has an interesting theory where reformation is often followed by an increased interest in mysticism and superstition.

>>1803740
So you're saying specifically in the 16th-17th there was an alarming number of witches present within Europe, large enough to create these hunts?

>>1803769
Yes pretty much.

>>1803632
"Reason" started being applied to witchcraft. When before even priests dabbled in magic, it was all random and experimental work with rituals and concoctions. In the late 15th century one particular kind of witchcraft involving natural calamities was connected to consorting with demons because in the new rational approach to everything it only made sense that God gave permission to demons with some pact with a witch to call down storms and ruin crops because he hated the blasphemies a witch performed to make said pact.

God would keep punishing (allowing the demons to cause havoc) as long as the witch continued to blaspheme, so the only solution was to purge them.

>>1803719
A lot of witch hunts were actually dominated by male victims. Women victims only started to reach parity when a sexual element to the demon pact reached popular imagination.

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>>1803783

>Women victims only started to reach parity when a sexual element to the demon pact reached popular imagination.

That explains this picture.

>>1803747
>>1803737
another reason was because Witch-hunters/Inquisitors thought that a lot of male witches were gradually transformed into women to serve as sexual partners to entice new male witches, and the few males that existed were there to engage in sodomy during the witches sabbath

>>1803769
Yes.

The vast majority of spellbooks/occult texts/whatever that survive today were written between 1500 and 1700. The invention of the printing press lead to an unprecedented spread of occult knowledge, along with a proportional increase in the number of witches' covens. Worshipers of the Devil were at large in the world and sorcery had become a real public menace.

Whether or not magic is/was real, you have to think of this from the perspective of people who believed in magic. Consider for a moment the kind of fear that exists today in Europe around gun control, and now imagine for a moment that instead of something concrete like a gun, the threat was basically a meme. All someone needs is to have some little fragment of secret knowledge and they become a living weapon of mass destruction capable of bringing death and destruction with little more than a thought. If you really believe that, and you see this dark power spreading, is there anything you wouldn't do to put a stop to it?

>>1803632
Witch hunts preceded the Reformation

>>1803704
>Catholics settle in the new world
>slaughter millions and destroy civilizations