(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Books So Bad They're Good: Hammering Witches for Fun and Profit [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-09-07 Welcome back to my diary series, Books So Bad They’re Good. This long-running series ran pretty much interrupted from February of 2011 until the spring of 2023. That was when I took a hiatus to write my first novel, The Black Robe of Flanders, and I fully expected that I’d be back sometime after the holidays. Clearly that didn’t happen. Between my cat getting sick, minor hand surgery, changes at work, and major abdominal surgery that knocked me out of circulation for a month, something had to give, and it was these diaries. I spent most of the first six months of the year worrying, healing, and figuring out how to give prednisone shots to a finicky cat, and I’m still paying off some of the medical bills for both of us. Fortunately life has settled down. Gil the Wonder Cat is thinner than I’d like but eating, grooming, and drinking from the toilet bowl as if he hadn’t been at death’s door in February. I have a fine collection of scars but will never have to worry about post-menopausal bleeding again. My finances are slowly recovering thanks to a promotion at work although I’d still appreciate the occasional book sale to pay for a cup or two of coffee at the overpriced bougie coffee joint across the street from the office. I have my friends, my family-of-choice, and plenty of books to read, and who can ask for more than that? So it’s back to the diaries for me, as least as long as hordes of angry kaiju larvae don’t come boiling up through the plumbing, attack Gil the Wonder Cat as he slurps up the cold fresh water from the Giant Porcelain Water Bowl in Mama’s Litter-Free Litterbox, and come for my computer...to which I say “good luck, you nasty little Things From Another World,” since Gil is old but fierce, his compatriot Astraea Heightclimber is even fiercer, and I’ve been studying shuri-ryu karate and need to practice my side kicks. “Bring it on,” as they say in the Common Speech of the West, and good [deleted] luck, you cyan-blooded [deleted] [deleted] [deleted] [deleted]. We are prepared. Before we start, however, it’s probably a good idea to remind readers of what these diaries discuss, what they don’t, and some of the people and places who’ll turn up along the way: What these diaries discuss : laughably awful books, writers, and ancillary media such as comic books, movies, and TV shows. We’re not talking category romances, serial killer-of-the-month thrillers, collections of home cleaning hacks that do not work, or oversized coffee table books about Famous Archaeological Sites of Ruritania. Oh no no no, Books So Bad They’re Good are the worst of the worst, the wastes of paper and linotype that, to quote Dorothy Parker, should be thrown with great force, preferably straight at the television during a particularly stupid infomercial. : laughably awful books, writers, and ancillary media such as comic books, movies, and TV shows. We’re not talking category romances, serial killer-of-the-month thrillers, collections of home cleaning hacks that do not work, or oversized coffee table books about Famous Archaeological Sites of Ruritania. Oh no no no, Books So Bad They’re Good are the worst of the worst, the wastes of paper and linotype that, to quote Dorothy Parker, should be thrown with great force, preferably straight at the television during a particularly stupid infomercial. What these diaries also discuss : books and/or authors that are that unusual to the nth degree. Weird manuscripts, strange subjects, authors with personal lives — these are all fair game. : books and/or authors that are that unusual to the nth degree. Weird manuscripts, strange subjects, authors with personal lives — these are all fair game. What these diaries do not discuss : Books that advocate/inspire genocide. This should be obvious, and yes, it includes some books that otherwise might qualify. Books by children. Daisy Ashford, Opal Whiteley, Alexandra Sheedy, and Christopher Paolini were all under the age of 18 when they wrote and/or published their first books. That automatically excludes them from mockery regardless of the quality of their work. Books considered holy by major religions. Yes, I know that Mark Twain considered The Book of Mormon literary chloroform, but after nearly two centuries it’s pretty clear it’s not going anywhere. Modern cults like Urantia, the many-named Adi Da, and Theosophy are another matter entirely, and thank William Ellery Channing for that. Books by famous criminals. Sorry, OJ, but you aren’t getting a single pixel’s worth of attention from me. : Who I am, and what I do : I’m Ellid, I’m a writer with a day job at a housing agency, and I’ve been blogging here at DKos for fourteen years. I have an AB from Smith College, an MA from Hartford Seminary, have written scholarly papers on medieval and Renaissance textiles, and have been involved in various aspects of SF fandom and historic re-enactment for most of my adult life. I currently live in Western Massachusetts with the Double Felinoid, Gil the Wonder Cat and Astraea Heightclimber, and oh yeah, I was on Jeopardy! back in 2007 (spoiler: I won). : I’m Ellid, I’m a writer with a day job at a housing agency, and I’ve been blogging here at DKos for fourteen years. I have an AB from Smith College, an MA from Hartford Seminary, have written scholarly papers on medieval and Renaissance textiles, and have been involved in various aspects of SF fandom and historic re-enactment for most of my adult life. I currently live in Western Massachusetts with the Double Felinoid, Gil the Wonder Cat and Astraea Heightclimber, and oh yeah, I was on Jeopardy! back in 2007 (spoiler: I won). Other people/places/things that may appear in these diaries : Assorted relatives (especially my mother and her sister, my Aunt Betty), all of whom are long dead and cannot read what I’ve written about them. Assorted pets (especially Toto Barbarossa, my childhood dog, and the late Siren Stumptail, a part-Siamese cat whose yowl nearly deafened my vet). The Last Homely Shack East of the Manhan, a bland but fully paid-off raised ranch in a nice little subdivision in Easthampton, Massachusetts. My former husband, Wingding, and his much younger current wife, Secunda. My BFF, Beata, and her husband Hot Toddy, who are the closest I have to family. The two unofficial and copyrighted by others mascots of these diaries: Pavo de Pluma, the GIANT TURKEY PUPPET O’DOOM, and Captain America, the Sentinel of Liberty. : I hope this clears up any questions you might have, good gentles all, but if you’re still curious, ask away in the comments. I previously being mentioned being prepared in case kaiju suddenly showed up in my peaceful little town, and I most definitely am. I’m not a doomsday prepper by any any means, but I’m fully prepared to slam the toilet seat down on the bastard offspring of Gamera and Rodan if it invades my plumbing. I wasn’t a Boy Scout (obviously), but I agree that being ready in case of emergency is always a good thing. Preparation of an entirely different sort is the subject of tonight’s book, which is actually two books. Written during the early German Renaissance, they were written as guides to what was then seen as a great social evil, a peril both practical and spiritual. That one comes across today as bewildering and the other as unintentionally hilarious does not change this; remember that what one era finds terrifying may be laughable a century later, that a crime in one area may be seen as harmless behavior in another, and that human culture, practices, and folkways are infinitely variable no matter how much we like to pretend otherwise: Hazards of the Dark Arts: Advice for Medieval Princes on Witchcraft and Magic, translated by Richard Kieckhefer — one of the great concerns of late Middle Ages/early Renaissance was witchcraft. By this I don’t mean modern witchcraft/neo-paganism, a religious movement that seeks to reconstruct the spiritual and folk traditions of pre-Christian Europe. No, “witchcraft” in pre-modern Europe basically meant what we’d now call “demonology,” or a sort of anti-Christianity that calls upon evil spirits to gain material wealth, political and social power, and sexual partners, often at the expense of one’s enemies. Selling one’s soul to the Devil, hexing Farmer Nextdoor’s crops, giving Heather Prettygirl a terminal case of acne because she flirted with Handsome Dumbstud during a harvest festival, sending a pack of ravening seagulls after Sailor Sam’s fishing smack because he claimed that Granny Camp Follower wore army boots, kissing Old Scratch’s gluteal area…this is the sort of witchcraft that became an obsession from the late 1400s to the early 1700s. Around 100,000 people, the vast majority of them middle-aged or elderly women, were accused, often based on “evidence” obtained thanks to horrific torture, and approximately 40-60,000 unfortunates were executed. Many myths have grown up around the witch persecutions, primarily that this was a deliberate femicide directed at stamping out the remnants of pre-Christian religion in Europe. Modern scholars believe otherwise; Ronald Hutton in particular has done some excellent work on this subject, and his work is critical to understanding what actually happened. However, it is indeed true that witch hunting became something of an obsession during a time that prided itself on rationality, humanism, and progressive ideals. The Satanic Panic of the 1980s and 1990s was but a faint echo of what happened during the Renaissance and Enlightenment. The seminal text of the witch persecutions was Heinrich Kramer’s 1487 treatise Malleus Maleficarum (The Hammer of Witches), a manual for hunting, exposing, and torturing interrogating the accused. Described by one scholar as “a superstitious psychopath,” Kramer was so intent on ferreting out witches, and so angry at being opposed, that his masterwork seems to have been written largely in response to the acquittal of an Innsbruck woman, Helena Scheuberin, whom he accused of being a witch because she refused to attend his sermons and publicly called him a bad monk. The book, which the Inquisition condemned for advocating torture and ignoring Church teaching about witchcraft, nonetheless became something of a bestseller, especially after the publishers slapped the name of a respected professor and monastic, Jacob Sprenger, onto post-1519 editions of Malleus Maleficarum. Sprenger’s involvement has been questioned ever since, partly due to lack of evidence, partly due to him having died in 1495, or some twenty-four years earlier. Regardless of who actually wrote it, or why, secular authorities eager to stamp out heresy, witchcraft, and dissent seized upon Malleus Maleficarum as a guidebook for cleansing their own lands. It was particularly popular in Germany, but as late as the 1690s Puritan divine Increase Mather (father of Cotton, who was not a textile merchant despite his first name) cited “Sprenger” as a source on witchcraft during the Salem Witch Trials. For all its popularity, Malleus Maleficarum was not the only witchcraft manual of its time. Heresy, sorcery, and black magic were a major concern in pre-modern Europe; religious and political turmoil was commonplace, calls for reform were dismissed as squalling discontent, and reformers like Jan Hus all too often were tried and executed. Rulers and churchmen seeking guidance had their choice of guidebooks, and if Malleus Maleficarum is the best remembered today, well, Hammer of the Witches is catchy enough that it just as easily could be the title of a Swedish black metal album, let alone attract the attention of a 15th century lawman trying to put down those pesky anti-establishment types. Two of the alternatives were translated a few years back by Northwestern University professor Richard Kieckhefer, then published in a double volume by Penn State Press. Both are interesting, both ultimately quite ridiculous, and the second is surprisingly funny, especially in light of modern attitudes toward witchcraft, sorcery, and what the author called “pythonesses,” which are not female snakes no matter what you might think. The first, Johannes Hartlieb’s Book of All Forbidden Arts, was written in German sometime in the 1450s, then published in 1465. An overstuffed look at seven types of evil magic, it was originally intended to advise Hartlieb’s brother-in-law, the Margrave of Brandenburg-Kulmbach, against the dangers of fortune-telling, necromancy, palmistry, and attempting to divine the future from clouds, soil, and, I kid you not, analysis of the shoulder bones of dead animals. (No, I do not know why shoulder bones were so much more dangerous than any other kind of animal bone. Some things are clearly too dangerous for mere mortals, especially childless post-menopausal women, to know. (Oh well) As to why Hartlieb thought his brother-in-law needed such advice...it seems that the Margrave was a mediocre ruler who was far more interested in alchemical transformation than actually ruling his territory. His subjects were not impressed, and if his father hadn’t basically transferred him to another family territory, it’s entirely possible that a popular uprising might have resulted in an ex-Margrave pining for the fjords civil unrest, to put it mildly. Unfortunately for both author and Margrave, the Book of All Forbidden Arts is not precisely a sterling example of its genre. What is supposed to be a comprehensive guide to What Not to Patronize is repeatedly interrupted by accounts of divination using small children, anecdotes cribbed from other, better writers, and accounts of Hartlieb’s own interrogations of a palm reader and a condemned witch. Repetitive descriptions of sorcerous rituals alternate with appeals to his feckless brother-in-law’s native wisdom (ha!) and good sense (hahahahaha!), while a pointless rant warning against using goose bones to predict the weather (????) gets nearly as much space as the exploitation of “pure children” by evil magicians. That Hartlieb never once addresses the question of someone who was interested in a common and accepted science (alchemy) needed advice against goose bone charms or black magic in the first place is another matter entirely, and one far beyond the scope of this diary. Worst of all, the more one reads, the more clear it becomes that Hartlieb himself was far, far more familiar with sorcery and witchcraft than an allegedly pious Christian should have been. He knows an awful lot about legendary magical manuals like The Key of Greater Solomon and the Picatrix, to the point that his warnings about the Devil’s power to delude and destroy become so fervent that one has to ask if he was speaking from personal experience rather than theoretical. Ulrich Molitoris, author of On Witches and Pythonesses which are not snakes, really truly was a lawyer gunning for a job at the court of Archduke Sigismund of Austria. The Archduke, who is now remembered primarily for reforming the local coinage, commissioned the ambitious young lawyer to write a response to the recently published Malleus Maleficarum in the form of a Socratic dialogue starring himself as the wise but skeptical ruler, Molitoris as the learned expert on witchcraft, and a local magistrate, Conrad Schatz, as an experienced, practical judge who has personal experience of witch trials. The result is a fascinating, surprisingly funny discussion of topics like what witches and fortunetellers can (supposedly) do with their spells and divinations, whether confessions extracted under torture are trustworthy, and whether accused witches deserve execution whether or not they are telling the truth about their activities. Sigismund’s increasingly exasperated attempts to counter his friends’ assertions about witchcraft using what we might call common sense will strike a chord with anyone who’s tried and failed to convince a True Believer that no, Conspiracy Theory X is not accurate, what the hell are you smoking, here are the sources, would you kindly read them instead of Wikipedia? Pretty please? while Conrad’s citations of case law and personal observation could be any know-it-all talking head on a Sunday morning talk show. Then there’s the Ulrich character, who is firmly on the side of accepted canon law rather than Heinrich Kramer’s theories about witchcraft. This is likely because Molitoris had witnessed Kramer’s unsuccessful attempt to try Helena Scheuberin and her friends for the horrible sin of calling him a bad monk. This is also likely why Ulrich comes out firmly against the use of torture during interrogations, pointing out that “fear of punishments incites men to say what is contrary to the nature of the facts,” which is advice that Increase Mather and his offspring Cotton could have used instead of relying on Malleus Maleficarum in 1692. This isn’t the only indication that Ulrich might have been as skeptical as the Archduke when it came the witchcraft question; at one point he states that witches might be driven straight into the arms of Satan by “desperation or poverty, or from hatred of their neighbors” rather than being evil. This unexpectedly modern analysis, as well as the repeated assertion that none of what witches claim to be able to accomplish can occur without God’s consent, hints that the author might have been more sympathetic to accused witches than he dared let on. At the same time, Ulrich is the character responsible for a truly ridiculous explanation of how the Devil can fool a witch into thinking she’s given birth to a demonic child through the clever use of very high winds and changelings...and no, I am not making this up. I wish I were, because it’s jaw-droppingly stupid, but then again Ulrich Molitoris might think the same about new-fangled inventions like, y’know, democracy and suchlike. Who’s to say? %%%%% Have you ever read a witch hunting manual? Read about the Salem Witch Trials? Seen one of the hilarious Witchfinder General videos on YouTube? Found a copy of Malleus Maleficarum stuffed into the crawl space in your knotty pine rumpus room? Would you admit any of the above if you had? It’s a rainy Saturday night in Massachusetts, so gather ‘round the fire and share…. %%%%% READERS & BOOK LOVERS SERIES SCHEDULE If you’re not already following Readers and Book Lovers, please go to our homepage (link), find the top button in the left margin, and click it to FOLLOW GROUP. Thank You and Welcome, to the most followed group on Daily Kos. Now you’ll get all our R&BLers diaries in your stream. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/9/7/2241404/-Books-So-Bad-They-re-Good-Hammering-Witches-for-Fun-and-Profit?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/