What caused witch hunts?

>>1918227
Misunderstanding of how disease works

>>1918227

A fear of witches

>>1918227
Crazy cat ladies freaking out the townspeople

>>1918227
Puritans moving to an area where the natives have an animalistic religion and so fear their faith being taken from them or influenced by these savage beliefs, a belief that mental problems are the result of the devil and can only be taken away by prayer and faith, Cotton Mathers being a conniving opportunistic fuckboy who stirred up religious fervor for personal and professional gain to the point where he made his father seem reasonable by comparison.

Opportunistic cunts will always find a movement they can take advantage of to fuck over people they don't like and get what they want.

>>1918392

This doesn't explain witch hunts preceding colonization of the Americas.

You know what does? Witch hunts were Jewish distractions.

>>1918397
stpaul.jpg

Witches did

Witches betrayed the Kingdoms of Poland and conspired to help the >H >R >E to invade so Radovid had them outlawed

>tfw dad goes to some weird Catholic forum and is convinced witches are still real and all the witch hunts were justified
kill me

>>1918227
Moral panic and hysteria brought on by the atmosphere of the Protestant Reformation/Wars of Religion. Witch hunts practically never a problem before early modern times. Before then the Church just called alleged cases of witchcraft superstitious bullshit and even put an end to the pagan witch-hunts in the areas they converted.

>>1918407
wow really made me think

>>1918414
Mohamet pls go

>>1919944
Witch hunts preceded the Reformation

>>1918227
An abundance of witches

>>1920456
In a few cases yes. But the Catholic Church in the medieval period, and most secular rulers at that time, condemned the belief that witches exist as a bad superstition.

>>1918227
Ergoline

>>1921744
AKA LSD

>>1921230
Adding to this, most ecclesiastical courts tried people for heresy, superstitious beliefs (such as using a consecrated host to ward off disease), or magical practices like soothsaying or whatnot. Even then, it was a somewhat rare occurrence. It wasn't until the social turmoil of the 14th and 15th centuries and the growth of towns that we see more explicit disapproval of those aforementioned practices and a hardening of the Church's attitude in general.

I hope this helps, OP.

>>1921744

DUDE ALKALIES N SHEET LMFAO

MYSTICS WERE CODE NAMES FOR TOKERS LOL XD 420 IS IN THE BIBBLE

>>1921805
Haha my man. You know about Mohammad and magic mushrooms too?

>>1921814

Bro native Americans didn't hunt witches they didn't even kill anything, they just got baked, smoke weed everyday and live in harmony bros, we can learn so much from them RIP in piece

>>1919414
My entire family is crazy religious. They believe in witches and whatnot, except for my brother who believes in his words that, "witches don't have powers but they can convince the weak minded that they do which is just as effective".

I don't believe in witches but I still don't fuck around with black magic and shit mainly because I'm a borderline schizo who will subsequently start hearing shit.

>>1921824
holy shit my man natives didn't even get baked they got straight roasted until the white ppl came along and took their joints and shit like what the fuck wihte ppl r u mad cuz ur pasty skin??? rip in peaces native americans 1000 AD - 1500 BCE

>>1918227
The presence of witches.

In the 1480's two Domincan Friars wrote the book which described what witches were, how to identify them, how to get confessions etc. The Pope sanctioned the book and it became the go-to guide for witch hunts.

At this point in time tensions were raised with the disagreements between Luther and the Pope along with the threateningly large empire of the Ottomans next door. They used witches as an excuse to burn heretics of their religion whether that be Protestants in Germany/Italy/Spain or Catholics in England/Netherlands/Parts of France.

Witch hunts only lasted a couple of hundred years (at least in England they did) But they were starting to drop in number as scepticism increased along with a great understand of scientific ideas and analytical thinking.

>>1918227
Protestants being stupid like always.

>>1921831
>"witches don't have powers but they can convince the weak minded that they do which is just as effective".
Not that I want to worsen any mental illness that you may have, but this is essentially correct. For example, practitioners of voodoo can actually kill people within their own cultural context (who also believe in voodoo) through their rituals. This is not because the rituals themselves have any actual power, but because the victim believes they do. The victim becomes so stressed about being "cursed" with death they have an extreme cortisol surge that does have a chemical effect on their heart and causes a heart attack. You don't see such an effect with non-voodoo believers, because they are not as extremely stressed by a "curse" as believers.

So essentially, by tricking you into believing that religious rituals have power, religious rituals can have actual power. It isn't about being weak minded or not, just being raised in a specific cultural context. But overall, if you do not actually believe in the "supernatural" (which doesn't exist) it cannot hurt you, whereas if you do believe then you can be taken advantage of, to the point of death.

File: john_todd_the_illuminati_n_witchcraft1.jpg (56KB, 387x537px) Image search: [Google]

56KB, 387x537px

>>1919414
link pls

>>1922605

/his/-History & Humanities: The Post

How come witches were the ones targeted when the true threat, vampires, werent?

>>1918227
bitches