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have you looked at the “thanks button” that TH-cam offers? I just saw it for the first time on another channel - Idk how it works but thought I’d mention!
@Patricia Avant I believe in them but I don't think they have or can reach our planet. Basically I'm convinced by the statistical likelihood not any evidence of contact
At our last sabbat, we arrived in cars and planted herbs in lil jars and ate a frankly frightening amount of cheese. So I guess as much as things change, they stay the same. I mean, whats more hedonistic than cheese? And internal combustion engines are pretty magical.
3 weeks on plows?..i understand COMPLETELY! Wrote my semester term paper at U Texas about land usage differences of Angles, Saxons & Jutes. How topography, soil type, PLOW varieties and legal land tenure terms determined size/shape of fields and later inheritence customs. I feel your pain.
Wow I took a world history class and never once got to actual history. A student bring up ancient aliens and the whole class was conspiracies, ancient aliens and pyramid power etc. Found out he loved that stuff ! Never had a test nor papers To do ! He decided to give all of us a A ! Just talking about weird stuff that has nothing to do about history......lol. it was actually kind of fun and stress free :) !
I think the flight trope was created by an early tortured victim accused of witchcraft. The inquisition would’ve wanted information on how they would get to the sabbath, as well as what they do there. Being honest and saying that they never did such a thing would just incite more torture, which is why they probably made flight up in hopes that the torture would cease, if only for a while. Afterwards, it just caught on and became a trope
You have me thinking about how I can work the word “heretification” into more conversations. …I may need to get some new friends for this. 😉😂 Thank you for your excellent, informative, and humourous content. 🙏
You have just spoken my new wise saying... If you slow down crazy far enough, the people falling into that abyss don't tend to see it. Sir, you are admirable. :)
Thank you for this!!! Really enjoyed hearing the scholarly history of witches. My birthday is near Halloween and the image of the witch has always fascinated me. Loved this explanation.
"Wow Bartholemew, did you draw this all by yourself? Emilio come look! Look at the very nice Ritual and Sabbat imagery Bartholemew has drawn!" "Very good, it shows their little hats and everything! "This is going on the door to the ice room."
The trials break my heart, especially when I read in Buckland's Complete Book of Witchcraft, an estimated 9 million women, men and children were murdered in the name of eliminating Witchcraft. Astounding numbers. Thankyou 🤘💜🤘~🦘🇦🇺🦘
Great episode! It would be interesting to know how much was a genuine survival from a pre-Christian past. What happened to cause it to be called a new heresy in the 15th century if it already existed in the 9th? A lot of medieval witchcraft seems to owe more to Jewish, Christian, Alchemical and Hermetic traditions.
The scariest part about witches as a small kid was actually none of the evil magic, being abducted and having your fat rendered to make flight ointment was the real fear lol
Even in modern times, through Black market sells, there are nasty evil people who take abandoned, neglected children off the streets in many second and third world nations to sell their parts. Believing there is magical properties in them. Even Santeria has its darker sister Palo and there are some who worsen the practice doing this shit. Not all who practice Palo does this, but the few who do really messes it up for the rest of us. Even if there were bones involved, we make sure it was from a volunteered donator within the family so that there is concentrated positive energy when doing some rituals. We never use children, because children could never consent. They don't have enough knowledge to do it correctly and their energy is actually weaker, despite what people say. That is why I don't understand child sacrifice. It is evil onto itself, but it also doesn't make any sense from a magic/spell casting sense. I personally don't even like to use young animals in some rituals in Santeria, because it feels weaker to me. I feel that age has more potency to it. Anyways those who do sacrifice humans and especially do rituals using children, make the rest of us of the practice look like horrible people. It sickens me at times, because originally it was a way to communicate with ones ancestors for guidance (a sort of ancestor worship using actual body parts of ones ancestors like the ancients did) and it has been turned into something ugly.
@@senecanzallanute4066 That was when i was still very small, generally the fear of being abducted by a witch was scarier than the "black magic" aspect, maybe our german fairy tales played a role in that. A bit older but still pretty young i saw the movie "Warlock" that also has the flying potion trope but gladly i didn't "get inspired" like these two in this article lol: "Two boys kill another to make flying potion from victim’s fat Sandy Charles (14) and an unnamed accomplice beat and slash the neck of Johnathan Thimpsen (7), and cut strips of his flesh believing they will be able to fly According to Charles, he had watched the movies Warlock and its sequel Warlock: The Armageddon approximately 10 times preceding the murder. In the first movie, fat cut from an unbaptized male child can be used to make a flying potion, and Charles was convinced he could make such a potion." 1993 Associated Press
Thanks again, Dr. Sledge. This gave me some great inspiration for the channel I'm working on. I'm going to take on some of these topics from a less academically constrained (since I have no degree or institutional affiliations), but hopefully almost as well researched angle. My goal is to present some of my perspectives in a rather unfiltered way while inviting dialogue with trained academics on the topic and referring my audience to the academic material that informed those perspectives. It seems likely that I may end up referring to your material with some frequency, but if I do I will be sure to let you know ahead of time so you can correct any misunderstandings or distance yourself from opinions you'd rather not be connected to. My understanding of these topics is evolving, but I'd like to expand the process by opening it up to an online community in the most honest way I can. I feel like we need more data about how the academic process works for people outside the patronage of academic institutions, so I'd like to provide about 8 years worth of it.
I really enjoy your scholar approach and quite frankly neutral and understanding view of all subjects , ty for all your hard work 😊. BTW I'm a "demonolater"/ demonosapher, not worship but to convene and understand spirits and their points of view, I really enjoy your work.
So...I looked that up. Demon vs Daemon/Daimon spellings of your words and my already current understanding that the origin word has been altered over time, like so many words in any language..not only in spelling, but also in meaning..from just meaning spirits in general to something not kind at all..with all the programming over the centuries, it is difficult for most people, including myself, to not immediately think something nefarious, even if false, until new learned interpretations kick in. My search was quick, with a gloss-over, not in-depth. Images I saw appeared to be related to a type of belief system, you say you study...not worship. Are you studying all aspects old and new... meanings, interpretations, changes, etc...or are you focusing on the newer more modern interpretations...or only the older interpretations? (I know your words were 'convene and understand'...I took that as study regardless of actual convening..as you want to understand their points of view.) My curiosity stems from my personal current study of religions/beliefs, their origins/changes, similarities/differences, and so forth as I try to expand my current understanding and knowledge.
@@vegastrina If I may recommend there is a lecture on Egyptian demonolatry I saw here on TH-cam by a college professor, both the names of the school and the teacher escape me though . Personally my research has come from my own curiosity as well. My own experiences have left me speechless, they are definitely not the bad guys in a black and white world.
@@mau48310 Thank you for responding. I just subscribed to this channel today and came here from Let's Talk Religion. I have also recently subscribed to Religion for Breakfast. Perhaps the video you are referring to is located in one of those places. I feel that all aspects of study help to broaden the mind and understanding, even if someone doesn't believe it, having knowledge regardless, from as many angles as possible, is beneficial. Edit: I'm not saying there are no negative entities...but I definitely understand that misunderstandings exist.
It's interesting the type of fantasy people when driven by fear. This idea that there were armies of witches serving the devil sounds like it's from a tabletop plot not real life. But that's how illogical one's mind becomes when you believe there's an invisible enemy out to destroy you.
lol how is it in any way made up? Is it that hard to imagine that women would abort their kids and people would act out their sexual kinks? We literally have abortion clinics and pride/furrie parades in San Francisco, how is it any different or unrealistic?
Ginzburg did know how to waive a tale, with thousands of scholarly notes! But beware, his fuzzy thinking ('aria di famiglia') can lead you astray. His "Cheese and worms" (Il formaggio e i vermi) and "Night battles" are still grounded in data -- but his most recent scholarly work ('Storia notturna') is way too speculative.
Some things here reminded me of South Slavic magic & witch & dragonlore. In Serbian, Romanian and Bulgarian mythology, benevolent shapeshifting dragons and, to use the Serbian name, Zduhači (male magicians who control the wind using their disembodied spirits while sleeping) fight witches, demons, and malevolent dragons, all of which at least sometimes fly, who seek to undermine the fertility of the land, I wonder if they have more of a connection to human fertility and children, following the pattern of other early European witch and wild hunt lore. The benevolent dragons are individually fertile (they seem to always produce a son) and horny and can stop defending the land and start spending all their time having sex with noblewomen but I have yet to find any mention of dragons protecting from human infertility in secondary sources or the Serbian epic poems that I have read so far. Instead the traditional protection is to proclaim that you will name your next child Wolf (Vuk or Valk) because the witches that cause infertility, miscarriages, and infant deaths are afraid of wolves. Most of the stuff I described here is Serbian centric because l have the most access to Serbian primary sources, but many of the ideas apply to the Bulgarosphere (Bulgaria & Slavic Macedonia) and some to Romania, the dragon format at least is universal, Macedonia has Zduhači but calls them Dragon Men, and the closest thing in Romania are Solomonari wizards, also notably Zduhači only protect their region and will actively undermine neighbouring areas, with there being 6 known Zduhač alliances (Herzegovinian, Bosnian, Rascian/inland Serbian, Zetan/Dioclean/Montenegrin, Albanian, and Ultramarine/Italian/Apulian, the last two maybe only consisting of local Slavic communities) and even a king of the Zduhači that united them all for a time
I always find it interesting when religious people say that witches are just silly notions and could never be real but demons, angels and a tribrid ghost is most assuredly real. How do you decide witch psychosis is worst??
there's a paper I read a little while ago, Babyfat and Belladonna: Witches’ Ointment and the Contestation of Reality by Michael Ostling (2016), basically arguing that the historical evidence doesn't support the psychoactive ointment model. I'd like to compare it to Hatsis 2015 if I can ever actively focus again. It's a little combative, and personally I'm still a big fan of the phytochemical... hypothesis, but I'd be interested in your thoughts [edit] for anyone interested in this topic or who just enjoys an academic slapfight, Hatsis clapped back in Those Goddamn ointments: Four histories in Journal of Psychedelic Studies Volume 3 (2019): Issue 2 (Jun 2019), which is Open Access, meaning it's free to read online
Going to put that on my reading list! Right now I’m reading The Immortality Key, which you might like. I’m not finished it but it’s basically about psychedelics being used in Greece snd then in early Christian rituals.
The Atropine/Scopolmine/Hyoscine was the main pychedellic ingredient in the ungent. Animal fat was the norm carrier of the ungent, pork fat was far more common. Without going into the detail why human fat was mentioned. In short worshipping the devil required desicrating any covenant and sacridness with God. This is why they performed certain ceremonies or ritual practices like incest and indescriminate sex orgies, and more likely performed before the ungent was applied to the body. Atropine/Scopolmine cause paralysis during OBE trances and thus they could not perform any of their ceremonies effectively. For some it caused memory loss, or paranoid frenzy, or restless psychosis, at worse death. Also in some countries witches were adding other stuff to the ungent recipe. Some added mandrake, some added henbane, some added absinthe, some added frog skin, this is relevant to the area it was available. There is a species of European frog that is hallucinogenic when licked. It is more likely the milder of the Bufotine species.
I always enjoy your videos; this is a scenario though where you just need to experience it. I went to the Sabbat once, as part of the Trident craft workings by Mark Alan Smith. It follows initiatory workings and is an initiatory experience itself. The ‘flying’ is due to it being done in a dream state/astral. It is an ecstatic experience and it is sexual, but no infants are harmed etc, the Goddess would not allow that. It is not ‘demonic’ and you don’t need psychedelics to get there. Have you ever done the actual work? The experience is worthwhile and it stops you tying yourself in knots overthinking things. It’s a lot more simple (and beautiful) than your academic ruminations here. Thanks again for your brilliant videos. X
Can you please talk more about the Goddess related to the pre-Malleus witchcraft? So can you talk about the worship of the Queen of Elphame, Perchta, Holda, Herodias, Abundia, Madonna Oriente, the Lady of the Game, the Ladies from Outside, Irodeada, etc? And its connection with the Wild Hunt/Procession of the Dead phenomenon and wild hunters such as Hellequin? Thank you!
Transformation, trance battles, spiritual flight and flight 'vehicles' are all extremely ancient and widespread shamanic principles. It would have been really important for the church to literally demonize these practices (which were usually assisted by hallucinogenic compounds) precisely because they were so universal, deeply historical and presumably trusted. Don't try datura or henbane, kids; the last person I knew who did the former spent three days puking and literally shitting his pants hiding under a car thinking a demonic swat team was perched in the trees around him. Three. Damn. Days.
Hi, I recently found your channel and became a fan. Watched videos on necromancy, Kabalah, Crowley, enochian magic, gnostics, and a few more. Found your channel through your Collab with let's talk religion, another great channel. I deeply appreciate your content but a great curiosity arose within me. The same I have regarding let's talk religion. Wich is: are you a practicioner of something?(no need to tell me what you practice I'd just like to know if your interest in the esoteric is purely scholar or if it goes beyond academic research. Even if you don't wish to answer, I'm very thankful to you and your work. Much love brother!
Another of your videos had me wondering about the use of Jewish/Hebrew terms like "sabbat" and "synagogue" in association with witches as just one more way to be anti-semitic on top of all the other awfulness. I appreciate you discussing it here!
This episode reminded me of the book The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name by y Brian C. Muraresku. Have you read it Dr. Sledge? I'm curious to know what do you think about the religion with no name?
Thank you as a baby wiccan I never truly understood what the broom really was for. I finally understood it later and through the years the flying ungent that helped them to experience a sort of OBE experience. Thank you for elaborating. Very timely 👏 #herticalwitcharmy
The placement of the ungent on specific body parts is upmost important for the flying OBE. It must be also rubbed on the ankles first and wrist next for the true flying experience as described by the ancients.
😉😉🥰🥰 everyone who doesn’t know anything about different was and is still called a witch! We have so many ppl in life thinking I’m a witch because I’m psychic and have dreams and do mediumship but I’m not a witch! I don’t identify as anything but a person who knows we’re all connected and once u tune in u can all do the same! Love and light!
Modern Traditional Witchcraft uses Medieval Witchcraft mythos as a visionary esostasis for dream hibernation/incubation and ritual drama for means of poetic liberation. Not so much the inquisition side of it, but the folk lore of witch-flight (Pythonic-vehiculation), spirit revelry (Malefi-Phantasmagoria) and ritual structure (Modus-Pythos). Much of the lore surrounding the witch craze, outside of the devilry, the fearee traditions were quite real and has roots in previous magico-spiritual relationships of an animistic nature within the Old Faith.
Yes in deed the middle ages were extremely horrifically weird and somehow in the history of humanity represents a great fall off of the knowledge of man into superstition in stead of the great knowledge of the times before of roman , Greek, Egyptian, and sumerian wisdom reasoning and technological intelligence of man!!!!! What the hell happened??????
Thanks for differentiating between the elaborated theory of Catholic and protestant snake oil salesman and us people who see Witchcraft as our religion. And yes, we still worship Diana. :)
If my grandmother was not afraid she has to tell how to flight with animals or broom I got her earlier night buy told never say this she can talk to animals like wild animals to take her to where the herb is in the forest like a hyenas and elephants👂👂👂
I hope that Christians (I was one, once) can start to see that they are, or were, the actual baddies throughout history, among other people needing gods to keep them in line...
While I was once also a Christian and am still working with the trauma of that, I would respectfully caution against calling anyone “baddies”. People aren’t bad or good, they’re people. All of us are a mixture of good and bad within a framework of history and our community. While much of Christianity and organized religion in general can and does get used for awful things, it’s damn near impossible to pinpoint it as all bad, as some good did and does come from it as well, since it is a human thing and all religions or politics or whatever have that same potential of ultimate Evil or benefit for humans.
Dr. Sledge, I am an independent researcher on Norse traditions on east coast (due north of D.C.). Correlating old pirate and European edicts to release prisoners willing to marry prostitutes and move across the pond to multiply. Seducing Native men as justification for genocide due to mixed pregnancy was common. African American peoples have passed this down as well. The babies were killed. Remember the bottled infants in European art at this time? Norse traditions my friend. My own birth mother planned to kill me as mixed. My intuition kept me alive, and finished high school as house help. Anyway, you failed to acknowledge the power of clitoris on broom why? The path to levitation, no? Best.
I propose a metal festival called Sledgestock where all of the bands who picked up your names come together and open portals in the space-time continuum with their riffs. I'll probably be heading up Apostasis Of The Archons.
Thank you for not using the inflated figures of estimated witches who perished during the trials. The lower numbers are certainly significant and we gain nothing by exaggerating them. Your position on the "flying ointment" question is also sensible. I don't close the door to there having been use of hallucinogens by certain "cunning folk", but we need to separate attractive ideas from ascertainable facts if we have too little evidence to make a reasonable conclusion. As you say, "scholarly content" is found here.
@@davewolf8869 like the people Alex Jones sicced on those poor grieving parents? Like his fanatics who made them move nine times? Maybe like the mobs that keep threatening election workers like Rusty Bowers and Shae Moss? Or the ones who were literally calling for the head of Mike Pence? Nice try flipping the script. But we all know who wields the pitchforks.
QAnon? No way. I think you need to study your occult and mystical histories and practices, then discover that the only conspiracy actually involved was what the Patriarchy decided - and that's a hard one to unpack! Otherwise, all these women - what they did and what was wriitten about them showed how pioneering they were in advancing knowledge or scaring the 'sh*t' out of the Establishment at that time.
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have you looked at the “thanks button” that TH-cam offers? I just saw it for the first time on another channel - Idk how it works but thought I’d mention!
@Patricia Avant I believe in them but I don't think they have or can reach our planet. Basically I'm convinced by the statistical likelihood not any evidence of contact
I have to listen to this at least ten times
'Man the middle ages was completely crazy.'
That line had me ROLLING omg 😂
The thing is it wasn't really the middle ages it was mostly the early modern period.
At our last sabbat, we arrived in cars and planted herbs in lil jars and ate a frankly frightening amount of cheese. So I guess as much as things change, they stay the same.
I mean, whats more hedonistic than cheese? And internal combustion engines are pretty magical.
Cheese based hedonism… I think I just found the base of my occult powers.
I took a middle ages history class in college and we spent 3 weeks discussing plows...your class is much better. 😉
I can imagine that plows can be important from a certain point of view.
@@user-xq4st9ie7r true, but three weeks was a bit much 😉
3 weeks on plows?..i understand COMPLETELY!
Wrote my semester term paper at U Texas about land usage differences of Angles, Saxons & Jutes. How topography, soil type, PLOW varieties and legal land tenure terms determined size/shape of fields and later inheritence customs.
I feel your pain.
Ooohhhhh, what kind of plows?!!!
Wow I took a world history class and never once got to actual history. A student bring up ancient aliens and the whole class was conspiracies, ancient aliens and pyramid power etc. Found out he loved that stuff ! Never had a test nor papers To do ! He decided to give all of us a A ! Just talking about weird stuff that has nothing to do about history......lol. it was actually kind of fun and stress free :) !
I think the flight trope was created by an early tortured victim accused of witchcraft. The inquisition would’ve wanted information on how they would get to the sabbath, as well as what they do there. Being honest and saying that they never did such a thing would just incite more torture, which is why they probably made flight up in hopes that the torture would cease, if only for a while. Afterwards, it just caught on and became a trope
It goes back to the canon episcopi in some form
You have me thinking about how I can work the word “heretification” into more conversations. …I may need to get some new friends for this. 😉😂 Thank you for your excellent, informative, and humourous content. 🙏
You have just spoken my new wise saying... If you slow down crazy far enough, the people falling into that abyss don't tend to see it. Sir, you are admirable. :)
Thank you for this!!! Really enjoyed hearing the scholarly history of witches. My birthday is near Halloween and the image of the witch has always fascinated me. Loved this explanation.
Having recently read The Witch by Ronald Hutton, for me this video was a nice refresher. Also love the phrase "conspiracy comorbidity" :D
"Wow Bartholemew, did you draw this all by yourself? Emilio come look! Look at the very nice Ritual and Sabbat imagery Bartholemew has drawn!" "Very good, it shows their little hats and everything! "This is going on the door to the ice room."
Wow! I have always wondered about the historical origins of witchcraft...Very clarifying. Thanks.
In Denmark the most wicked witches flew on priests at times :P
lucky priests
Your videos are so much more exciting and interesting than my so-called academic training. I'm so grateful you are in TH-cam. Thank you!
Uh, you're not actually in TH-cam...🙃
I would love to see you do a video on the Benandanti.
I'll cover them more in depth in the episode on shapeshifting
The trials break my heart, especially when I read in Buckland's Complete Book of Witchcraft, an estimated 9 million women, men and children were murdered in the name of eliminating Witchcraft. Astounding numbers. Thankyou 🤘💜🤘~🦘🇦🇺🦘
No scholars accept such estimates now - the numbers are now thought to be between 40-60k between 1450-1750
I love your channel content and they way you present this subject
Great episode! It would be interesting to know how much was a genuine survival from a pre-Christian past. What happened to cause it to be called a new heresy in the 15th century if it already existed in the 9th? A lot of medieval witchcraft seems to owe more to Jewish, Christian, Alchemical and Hermetic traditions.
The new heresy was the supposed pact with the devil.
Amazing episode!! I love the topic and I love your approach!!!
The scariest part about witches as a small kid was actually none of the evil magic, being abducted and having your fat rendered to make flight ointment was the real fear lol
That is pretty damn scary.
Even in modern times, through Black market sells, there are nasty evil people who take abandoned, neglected children off the streets in many second and third world nations to sell their parts. Believing there is magical properties in them. Even Santeria has its darker sister Palo and there are some who worsen the practice doing this shit. Not all who practice Palo does this, but the few who do really messes it up for the rest of us. Even if there were bones involved, we make sure it was from a volunteered donator within the family so that there is concentrated positive energy when doing some rituals. We never use children, because children could never consent. They don't have enough knowledge to do it correctly and their energy is actually weaker, despite what people say. That is why I don't understand child sacrifice. It is evil onto itself, but it also doesn't make any sense from a magic/spell casting sense. I personally don't even like to use young animals in some rituals in Santeria, because it feels weaker to me. I feel that age has more potency to it. Anyways those who do sacrifice humans and especially do rituals using children, make the rest of us of the practice look like horrible people. It sickens me at times, because originally it was a way to communicate with ones ancestors for guidance (a sort of ancestor worship using actual body parts of ones ancestors like the ancients did) and it has been turned into something ugly.
may be it motivated you to exercise more? Just trying to see the bright side... :-)
@@senecanzallanute4066 That was when i was still very small, generally the fear of being abducted by a witch was scarier than the "black magic" aspect, maybe our german fairy tales played a role in that. A bit older but still pretty young i saw the movie "Warlock" that also has the flying potion trope but gladly i didn't "get inspired" like these two in this article lol:
"Two boys kill another to make flying potion from victim’s fat
Sandy Charles (14) and an unnamed accomplice beat and slash the neck of Johnathan Thimpsen (7), and cut strips of his flesh believing they will be able to fly
According to Charles, he had watched the movies Warlock and its sequel Warlock: The Armageddon approximately 10 times preceding the murder. In the first movie, fat cut from an unbaptized male child can be used to make a flying potion, and Charles was convinced he could make such a potion." 1993 Associated Press
“Baby Lotion” ? maybe it’s really, ‘Flying cream’?
Thanks again, Dr. Sledge. This gave me some great inspiration for the channel I'm working on. I'm going to take on some of these topics from a less academically constrained (since I have no degree or institutional affiliations), but hopefully almost as well researched angle. My goal is to present some of my perspectives in a rather unfiltered way while inviting dialogue with trained academics on the topic and referring my audience to the academic material that informed those perspectives. It seems likely that I may end up referring to your material with some frequency, but if I do I will be sure to let you know ahead of time so you can correct any misunderstandings or distance yourself from opinions you'd rather not be connected to. My understanding of these topics is evolving, but I'd like to expand the process by opening it up to an online community in the most honest way I can. I feel like we need more data about how the academic process works for people outside the patronage of academic institutions, so I'd like to provide about 8 years worth of it.
always good to learn about heretification
I really enjoy your scholar approach and quite frankly neutral and understanding view of all subjects , ty for all your hard work 😊. BTW I'm a "demonolater"/ demonosapher, not worship but to convene and understand spirits and their points of view, I really enjoy your work.
So...I looked that up.
Demon vs Daemon/Daimon spellings of your words and my already current understanding that the origin word has been altered over time, like so many words in any language..not only in spelling, but also in meaning..from just meaning spirits in general to something not kind at all..with all the programming over the centuries, it is difficult for most people, including myself, to not immediately think something nefarious, even if false, until new learned interpretations kick in. My search was quick, with a gloss-over, not in-depth. Images I saw appeared to be related to a type of belief system, you say you study...not worship. Are you studying all aspects old and new... meanings, interpretations, changes, etc...or are you focusing on the newer more modern interpretations...or only the older interpretations? (I know your words were 'convene and understand'...I took that as study regardless of actual convening..as you want to understand their points of view.) My curiosity stems from my personal current study of religions/beliefs, their origins/changes, similarities/differences, and so forth as I try to expand my current understanding and knowledge.
@@vegastrina If I may recommend there is a lecture on Egyptian demonolatry I saw here on TH-cam by a college professor, both the names of the school and the teacher escape me though . Personally my research has come from my own curiosity as well. My own experiences have left me speechless, they are definitely not the bad guys in a black and white world.
@@mau48310 Thank you for responding. I just subscribed to this channel today and came here from Let's Talk Religion. I have also recently subscribed to Religion for Breakfast. Perhaps the video you are referring to is located in one of those places. I feel that all aspects of study help to broaden the mind and understanding, even if someone doesn't believe it, having knowledge regardless, from as many angles as possible, is beneficial.
Edit: I'm not saying there are no negative entities...but I definitely understand that misunderstandings exist.
Love your style brother, thank you for shareing your passion! Keep it up.
I was hoping you would do something like this before Samhain, thank you 💕
It's interesting the type of fantasy people when driven by fear. This idea that there were armies of witches serving the devil sounds like it's from a tabletop plot not real life. But that's how illogical one's mind becomes when you believe there's an invisible enemy out to destroy you.
lol how is it in any way made up? Is it that hard to imagine that women would abort their kids and people would act out their sexual kinks? We literally have abortion clinics and pride/furrie parades in San Francisco, how is it any different or unrealistic?
Same mindset it takes to believe in demons, angels and tribrid holy ghost...
I recently read "Night Battles". Fascinating stuff
Indeed!
Ginzburg did know how to waive a tale, with thousands of scholarly notes! But beware, his fuzzy thinking ('aria di famiglia') can lead you astray. His "Cheese and worms" (Il formaggio e i vermi) and "Night battles" are still grounded in data -- but his most recent scholarly work ('Storia notturna') is way too speculative.
Excellent video, thank you so much for doing this series. :)
Some things here reminded me of South Slavic magic & witch & dragonlore. In Serbian, Romanian and Bulgarian mythology, benevolent shapeshifting dragons and, to use the Serbian name, Zduhači (male magicians who control the wind using their disembodied spirits while sleeping) fight witches, demons, and malevolent dragons, all of which at least sometimes fly, who seek to undermine the fertility of the land, I wonder if they have more of a connection to human fertility and children, following the pattern of other early European witch and wild hunt lore. The benevolent dragons are individually fertile (they seem to always produce a son) and horny and can stop defending the land and start spending all their time having sex with noblewomen but I have yet to find any mention of dragons protecting from human infertility in secondary sources or the Serbian epic poems that I have read so far. Instead the traditional protection is to proclaim that you will name your next child Wolf (Vuk or Valk) because the witches that cause infertility, miscarriages, and infant deaths are afraid of wolves. Most of the stuff I described here is Serbian centric because l have the most access to Serbian primary sources, but many of the ideas apply to the Bulgarosphere (Bulgaria & Slavic Macedonia) and some to Romania, the dragon format at least is universal, Macedonia has Zduhači but calls them Dragon Men, and the closest thing in Romania are Solomonari wizards, also notably Zduhači only protect their region and will actively undermine neighbouring areas, with there being 6 known Zduhač alliances (Herzegovinian, Bosnian, Rascian/inland Serbian, Zetan/Dioclean/Montenegrin, Albanian, and Ultramarine/Italian/Apulian, the last two maybe only consisting of local Slavic communities) and even a king of the Zduhači that united them all for a time
Interesting to read about south Slavic magic and mythology.
I always find it interesting when religious people say that witches are just silly notions and could never be real but demons, angels and a tribrid ghost is most assuredly real. How do you decide witch psychosis is worst??
The invisible ones that can't be tested are surely more believable.
27:05 Psilocybe cubensis is often found in horse dung, so that's a definite possibility, although far from conclusive
Was just researching on this, thanks
there's a paper I read a little while ago, Babyfat and Belladonna: Witches’ Ointment and the Contestation of Reality by Michael Ostling (2016), basically arguing that the historical evidence doesn't support the psychoactive ointment model. I'd like to compare it to Hatsis 2015 if I can ever actively focus again.
It's a little combative, and personally I'm still a big fan of the phytochemical... hypothesis, but I'd be interested in your thoughts
[edit] for anyone interested in this topic or who just enjoys an academic slapfight, Hatsis clapped back in Those Goddamn ointments: Four histories in Journal of Psychedelic Studies Volume 3 (2019): Issue 2 (Jun 2019), which is Open Access, meaning it's free to read online
Going to put that on my reading list! Right now I’m reading The Immortality Key, which you might like. I’m not finished it but it’s basically about psychedelics being used in Greece snd then in early Christian rituals.
The Atropine/Scopolmine/Hyoscine was the main pychedellic ingredient in the ungent. Animal fat was the norm carrier of the ungent, pork fat was far more common. Without going into the detail why human fat was mentioned. In short worshipping the devil required desicrating any covenant and sacridness with God. This is why they performed certain ceremonies or ritual practices like incest and indescriminate sex orgies, and more likely performed before the ungent was applied to the body. Atropine/Scopolmine cause paralysis during OBE trances and thus they could not perform any of their ceremonies effectively. For some it caused memory loss, or paranoid frenzy, or restless psychosis, at worse death.
Also in some countries witches were adding other stuff to the ungent recipe. Some added mandrake, some added henbane, some added absinthe, some added frog skin, this is relevant to the area it was available. There is a species of European frog that is hallucinogenic when licked. It is more likely the milder of the Bufotine species.
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I always enjoy your videos; this is a scenario though where you just need to experience it. I went to the Sabbat once, as part of the Trident craft workings by Mark Alan Smith. It follows initiatory workings and is an initiatory experience itself. The ‘flying’ is due to it being done in a dream state/astral. It is an ecstatic experience and it is sexual, but no infants are harmed etc, the Goddess would not allow that. It is not ‘demonic’ and you don’t need psychedelics to get there. Have you ever done the actual work? The experience is worthwhile and it stops you tying yourself in knots overthinking things. It’s a lot more simple (and beautiful) than your academic ruminations here. Thanks again for your brilliant videos. X
What a passive aggressive comment lol
I absolutely love your demeanor lol
Dame Alice was the original OG Witch. She said, I'm out, hey Pertranella, take this one for the team. Bye, Pertranella!
Can you please talk more about the Goddess related to the pre-Malleus witchcraft? So can you talk about the worship of the Queen of Elphame, Perchta, Holda, Herodias, Abundia, Madonna Oriente, the Lady of the Game, the Ladies from Outside, Irodeada, etc? And its connection with the Wild Hunt/Procession of the Dead phenomenon and wild hunters such as Hellequin?
Thank you!
man if I could fly on a broom I could get so much more done
Buahahaha 😂
Transformation, trance battles, spiritual flight and flight 'vehicles' are all extremely ancient and widespread shamanic principles. It would have been really important for the church to literally demonize these practices (which were usually assisted by hallucinogenic compounds) precisely because they were so universal, deeply historical and presumably trusted.
Don't try datura or henbane, kids; the last person I knew who did the former spent three days puking and literally shitting his pants hiding under a car thinking a demonic swat team was perched in the trees around him. Three. Damn. Days.
Hi, I recently found your channel and became a fan. Watched videos on necromancy, Kabalah, Crowley, enochian magic, gnostics, and a few more. Found your channel through your Collab with let's talk religion, another great channel. I deeply appreciate your content but a great curiosity arose within me. The same I have regarding let's talk religion. Wich is: are you a practicioner of something?(no need to tell me what you practice I'd just like to know if your interest in the esoteric is purely scholar or if it goes beyond academic research. Even if you don't wish to answer, I'm very thankful to you and your work. Much love brother!
I'm just an academic - thanks for the kind words!
Super awesome as usual. Can’t wait to become a patreon supporter. Student loan is just a few payments away from ending “Gott sie dank!”
Another of your videos had me wondering about the use of Jewish/Hebrew terms like "sabbat" and "synagogue" in association with witches as just one more way to be anti-semitic on top of all the other awfulness. I appreciate you discussing it here!
This episode reminded me of the book The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name by y Brian C. Muraresku.
Have you read it Dr. Sledge? I'm curious to know what do you think about the religion with no name?
Thank you as a baby wiccan I never truly understood what the broom really was for. I finally understood it later and through the years the flying ungent that helped them to experience a sort of OBE experience. Thank you for elaborating. Very timely 👏 #herticalwitcharmy
The placement of the ungent on specific body parts is upmost important for the flying OBE. It must be also rubbed on the ankles first and wrist next for the true flying experience as described by the ancients.
If you hadn't told me I was gonna die, I'd have tried a flying ointment
Thanks!
#hereticalwitcharmy, band name alert 😆 Love it! New to your channel, and appreciate your work! Many thanks and blessings! 🙏✨
Why were the inquisitors so credulous about the evidence obtained from terrified people by torture?
😉😉🥰🥰 everyone who doesn’t know anything about different was and is still called a witch! We have so many ppl in life thinking I’m a witch because I’m psychic and have dreams and do mediumship but I’m not a witch! I don’t identify as anything but a person who knows we’re all connected and once u tune in u can all do the same! Love and light!
this was very good
Thank you ❤
How lovely xxx
Two words... Rosemary's Baby
Incredible lecture! Incredible lecturer.
Yeshiva pro tip: Never rub occult substances in your eyes 👍🏾
Modern Traditional Witchcraft uses Medieval Witchcraft mythos as a visionary esostasis for dream hibernation/incubation and ritual drama for means of poetic liberation. Not so much the inquisition side of it, but the folk lore of witch-flight (Pythonic-vehiculation), spirit revelry (Malefi-Phantasmagoria) and ritual structure (Modus-Pythos). Much of the lore surrounding the witch craze, outside of the devilry, the fearee traditions were quite real and has roots in previous magico-spiritual relationships of an animistic nature within the Old Faith.
Can't find anything about that term you mentioned fascinorum. can you please elaborate?
Wonderful analysis. Thank you.
So let me make this question clear, flying ointments are based in lost pagan practices and rituals?
Yes,
22:40 - Who's the author of this painting? Thanx!
6:34 "heretical witch army, band name alert" lol
"not these guys, thats who'
I wouldn't call the stuff they used psychedelic. They're deliriants
This is great !!
Awesome 😎 thanks brother 🙏
Yes in deed the middle ages were extremely horrifically weird and somehow in the history of humanity represents a great fall off of the knowledge of man into superstition in stead of the great knowledge of the times before of roman , Greek, Egyptian, and sumerian wisdom reasoning and technological intelligence of man!!!!!
What the hell happened??????
I know you don't often talk movies, but have you seen Haxan (1922) and if so what were your thoughts?
Thanks for differentiating between the elaborated theory of Catholic and protestant snake oil salesman and us people who see Witchcraft as our religion. And yes, we still worship Diana. :)
Yep really important those distinctions don't get lost
Thank you
I come for the occult knowledge - I stay for the languaging and rhetorical bullfighting
Meanwhile, many Saints were said to levitate in spiritual ecstasy. No flying ointment necessary!
Sounds like a lot of the world leaders
If my grandmother was not afraid she has to tell how to flight with animals or broom I got her earlier night buy told never say this she can talk to animals like wild animals to take her to where the herb is in the forest like a hyenas and elephants👂👂👂
The masses being told to persecute others based on different beliefs? That could never happen again
Don't try this at home, kids. Well, that's a fly in the ointment.
Brilliant😳🤩
The nature of Alchemy is personal experimentation...
If you enjoyed this informative video you may enjoy my similar video What Really Caused the Witch Hunts? th-cam.com/video/v8ofeGjsfZ8/w-d-xo.html
I hope that Christians (I was one, once) can start to see that they are, or were, the actual baddies throughout history, among other people needing gods to keep them in line...
While I was once also a Christian and am still working with the trauma of that, I would respectfully caution against calling anyone “baddies”. People aren’t bad or good, they’re people. All of us are a mixture of good and bad within a framework of history and our community. While much of Christianity and organized religion in general can and does get used for awful things, it’s damn near impossible to pinpoint it as all bad, as some good did and does come from it as well, since it is a human thing and all religions or politics or whatever have that same potential of ultimate Evil or benefit for humans.
There are those who do. It's that the craziest ones are those with the most positions of power.
Waldensia... Walt Disney,, Hmm
Isn't that the same slander the Gnostics were accused of?
Panic deludes truth❤
Yeah, but that's exactly what a witch would want you to believe.
Sounds like a party!!
Ointments....wideSPREAD....hmm. These unguents seem PUNgent to me
🫀🖤🫀
❤
💯❤
in some sense we enter the domain of public hysteria as policy
YAY! Apostasy!
This video had 666 likes when I watched it 😂 I was number 667, thanks for all the videos doc
Quote to Cohn’s Europe’s Inner Demons!
sup
Dr. Sledge, I am an independent researcher on Norse traditions on east coast (due north of D.C.). Correlating old pirate and European edicts to release prisoners willing to marry prostitutes and move across the pond to multiply. Seducing Native men as justification for genocide due to mixed pregnancy was common. African American peoples have passed this down as well. The babies were killed. Remember the bottled infants in European art at this time? Norse traditions my friend. My own birth mother planned to kill me as mixed. My intuition kept me alive, and finished high school as house help. Anyway, you failed to acknowledge the power of clitoris on broom why? The path to levitation, no? Best.
I propose a metal festival called Sledgestock where all of the bands who picked up your names come together and open portals in the space-time continuum with their riffs. I'll probably be heading up Apostasis Of The Archons.
😹🤙 BRILLIANT❣️
Personally I would like to have the Honor of introducing the "Relapsing Heretics"🤗💜🖤✨
Thanks!
Thanks Dr. Sledge--always a pleasure listening to you speak on any number of subjects.
Thank you for not using the inflated figures of estimated witches who perished during the trials. The lower numbers are certainly significant and we gain nothing by exaggerating them.
Your position on the "flying ointment" question is also sensible. I don't close the door to there having been use of hallucinogens by certain "cunning folk", but we need to separate attractive ideas from ascertainable facts if we have too little evidence to make a reasonable conclusion.
As you say, "scholarly content" is found here.
The resemblance to the Satanic Panic of the 1980s is ... not surprising.
Bored rural religious people can be very dangerous. Biblical tales of stonings seem similar as well.
I was born in 74, I had a difficult childhood and the Satanic Panic was about 20% of the problem.
Your delightfully deadpan sense of humor is always appreciated! Thank you for this presentation!
Agreed.
I love it. Has me laughing out loud
If they believed that flight potions really existed they would have tried to get some for their soldiers
Apparently the Norse Berserks did trip out and shapeshift with psychedelics.
The Qanon of the day.
Try not to be the pitchfork carrier of the same period if you can help it
yes, this
@@davewolf8869 and
@@davewolf8869 like the people Alex Jones sicced on those poor grieving parents? Like his fanatics who made them move nine times? Maybe like the mobs that keep threatening election workers like Rusty Bowers and Shae Moss? Or the ones who were literally calling for the head of Mike Pence?
Nice try flipping the script. But we all know who wields the pitchforks.
QAnon? No way. I think you need to study your occult and mystical histories and practices, then discover that the only conspiracy actually involved was what the Patriarchy decided - and that's a hard one to unpack! Otherwise, all these women - what they did and what was wriitten about them showed how pioneering they were in advancing knowledge or scaring the 'sh*t' out of the Establishment at that time.