Women who would in later years be branded only as vixen and harridans were burned at the stake for little more than female hysteria. Men today can only pine for the day when succubae were culled, leaving only the complaisant, obedient, and respectful. If there was a halcyon time of male authority, patriarchy, and status, it was certainly 17th century Salem.
It is enviable enough to watch Muslim men circle the fire three times and divorce their wives; another thing altogether to watch them and all their complaints go up in smoke.
There were indeed objective tests for witchery among which were bound submersion, Cartesian ‘Doctrine of Effluvia’, spectral evidence, and ‘Witch’s Teat’; and few women so accused could pass all of them. Accusation meant conviction, and by burning witches at the stake the community was rid of devilish possession and hysterical wives all at once.
It was a necessary tribunal, for the Puritans of New England never saw themselves as arbitrary, capricious judges of morality; but bound by Scripture and Biblical Law. Rather than burn known witches summarily, the deacons of Salem felt obliged to hear evidence and only then pass judgment. Of course they as well as the community knew who was possessed and who wasn’t; but the trials were testimony to Puritan sanctimony and Christian justice.
Witchcraft, of course, was not new to late 1600s Salem. In fact scholars have attributed many of the signs of demonic possession to Haiti which had itself imported pagan beliefs and ceremonies from Dahomey and Nigeria. Many if not most cultures have at one time or another attributed eccentric, antisocial behavior to the supernatural. Physical deformities, sudden illness, unexpected misfortune, and persistent bad luck were blamed on malevolent forces acting on their own or at the behest of a supplicant.
In past years when most physical phenomenon were unexplained, it was natural and normal to find fault or guilt with the gods, spirits, demons, and witches. How else to explain lightning, thunder, tornadoes, hurricanes, and eclipses?
Religion was and is big business in explaining the still unexplained, the phenomenal, unexpected, and disastrous.
Witchcraft in many ways can be attributed to Christ and his disciples who explained evil and evil behavior on the Devil. While this explanation exonerated the afflicted – all but the strongest and most militant faithful could resist the imprecations of The Evil One – it ironically laid ultimate responsibility for wrong behavior on the individual. Christ in his refutation of the Devil in the desert set the stage. Man is given free will and by its exercise reserve a place in heaven or be consigned to hell.
Eve, of course, was the first witch and vixen-wife. Adam would have been quite happy to live in the Garden of Eden if it hadn’t been for the seduction of his wife who in turn had been successfully tempted by the Devil.
Othello was in today’s feminist lexicon a misogynist. Facing his accusers after his murder of Desdemona, he said that he had done them and all men a favor by ridding the world of a duplicitous, lying, deceitful woman and setting an example for them. Yet he was only repeating Adam’s lament.
“She did it”.
Donald Trump’s calling Democratic investigations of his Russia links ‘a witch hunt’ is, within this context, a misnomer. The term has come to mean any investigation and trial without merit, based on specious and unfounded claims, and intent on weeding out evil enterprise.
Yet ironically there are many progressives who think that Trump is in fact evil. Not only do sexism, racism, and homophobia alone qualify him as immoral and dangerous; but no one person, let alone the President of the United States, could possibly be afflicted by all three at once; and therefore some unknown but compelling force must have lent a helping hand.
These progressives are therefore bent on applying the spectral test, the touch test, and especially the witch cake test. In this voodoo-inspired test, the ingredients were rye meal… and urine from the girls said to be afflicted by the witch’s evil incantations. The test had dogs eat this cake, after which the alleged witch should scream out in pain – for in the process of her cursing the victims, she sent invisible particles of herself (the embodiment of pure evil, that is), which would show up in the urine.
The allegations of witchcraft are especially intriguing because of the alleged involvement of members of the President’s family. Not only has the Devil infected and possessed Trump himself, but his son-in-law, his son, and his daughter.
So when Mr. Trump calls the Democratic investigation of him and his family ‘a witch hunt’, he is on the right track. Not only are investigators honing in on what he did or didn’t do and say with Russian counterparts and operatives, but what his blood and in-law relatives did.
The possession is complex, but as obvious to any 21st century liberal as it was to Salem’s Puritan gentry. Of course the President colluded with the Russians in an unholy alliance to deny the only legitimate heir to the Presidency, Hillary Clinton, her entitlement.
The story has one final ironic twist. There are many in Trump’s populist movement who have branded Hillary Clinton as a witch – an emasculating, godless, devilish succubus who was motivated by Satanic power and greed.
So Donald Trump is exactly right in calling the Russia inquiries a witch hunt, for the investigations, far from secular, have taken on a religious tone. Since progressives have branded the President as evil, then removing him from office and burning him at the political stake is the only outcome possible. Whether he is hanged, guillotined, shot, electrocuted, or immolated is irrelevant. He must be punished no less severely than the witches of Salem.
It there any truth to the allegations? Who knows and in fact who cares? A witch hunt has nothing to do with the truth, the facts, or even good or evil. It is, purely and simply, the act of exclusion, expulsion, and elimination of an enemy deemed unholy.
No President has been the subject of so many irrational fears and allegations. The progressive Left created this monster during the campaign, and now that he is President, they must justify their actions and burn him at the stake. Nothing else will suffice. If they truly believe what they have said about him, then they have no other recourse but to light the fire.
The populist Right on the other hand, cynical and appreciating the fundamental, unchanging quality of human nature and its self-serving ends, are surprised at the calls for Trump’s head. He has never once stepped out of character, never gone back on any of his promises, and has been as outrageously incorrect at every turn. So what? There is no such thing as ‘acting presidential’, only acting as genes and environment have so ordained. What you see is what you get.
The outcome of the Trump witch trials is to be seen. As in Salem the calls for the President’s burning have gone past the deacon stage and are now viral – the community at large now wants to see him go up in flames. As in Salem the accusations have proceeded far beyond the logical, objective, and temperate. No rational explanation, pro or con, can possibly make any difference.
Either the Devil succeeds and Donald Trump can continue his evil deeds unmolested; or he fails and the President is tried, convicted and set to flames. Either way, witchcraft has certainly been practiced in Washington.
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