Silas Marner, the protagonist in George Eliot’s novel by the same name was a strange man. Set in the 19th century England, this novel tells the story of a man called Silas, who had come from an unknown place (which we know is Lantern Yard) and who had settled in the quiet hamlet, Raveloe for long sixteen years. He was a weaver who worked incessantly through out the day. He stayed inside his house for most of the time and hardly spoke with anyone from the village. Moreover, Silas had a curious “fit” which completely made him go blank. For some time, he became completely unconscious. Only he became unconscious and with his eyes open. Some said that these fits were actually his soul travelling to the devil and back. We are told that Silas also had learnt the “science” of herbs and their medicinal use. However, when he helped a villager for her disease and cured her, he was said to be a definite messenger of evil who had sold his soul to the devil. Most of the people were very scared of him.
Now, imagine the similar thing happening to a woman in a similar situation. A spinster, a loner who lives all by herself and who has knowledge of a mysterious wisdom. She would most definitely have been marked as a witch and burnt like so many women of her kind. The truth behind the witch burnings were simple. Kill all the women who knew and who understood. The term “witch” comes from the word “wizard” which literally means a person “who knows”.
Christianity has been a male dominated religion since its very inception. The pagan religions before the beginning of Christianity were mostly necessarily matriarchal in nature. The worship of Mother Nature was the basic element of all these religions. Women were the epitome of power and were considered to be as great as any other creation in the entire world. Any concept of hierarchy was absent from this religion all together.
But once Christianity started spreading its wings, every thing pagan was propagated to be despised. The concept of women being the all comprehensive power was directly opposite to the Christian beliefs of man being the supreme entity.
In some Roman Catholic churches of the strictest orders, women were not even let to enter. Others had two different passageways, one for men, which was the main entrance. The other was for women. Those entrances were in the backsides of the church, through dingy narrow alleyways. All this was to show the women their rightful place in society.
In the eyes of the Roman Catholic Church, all women were sub-humans. They were nothing but catalysts that are responsible for the downfall of, otherwise virtuous men. The women were beings of utmost carnal desires. That is why most of the legends of witches were marked with sexual connotations. The Forbidden Fruit was first tasted by Eve. She was the one who tempted Adam, to have the fruit and finally commit the Ultimate Sin. It was of course always the women who instigated sexual behavior in the otherwise harmless man.
Take Da Vinci Code for example. The concept of Holy Grail is rightly captured by Dan Brown in this highly controversial novel. If you look at the Last Supper, the world famous painting by Leonardo Da Vinci, one would notice a Great “V” created between Christ and his immediate neighbor. Brown says that this neighbor is no one but Mary Magdalene and the Great “V” is nothing but the symbol of the Holy Grail, which contrary to popular belief is not a chalice but a woman. This is the symbol of woman hood, where the V stands for the woman’s reproductive organ, The Ultimate chalice. While the manhood is represented by an inverted V. It is like the two divided parts of a single puzzle, one incomplete without the other. This again was a pagan belief that man is incomplete without the women and vice versa. They were supposed to complement each other. In traditional Christianity, the man of course was a supreme creation of God who didn’t need any compliments. He was an all powerful entity.
The idea of Jesus Christ being married was not a threat to the Christianity but the concept of him indulging himself with a woman, who is an inferior being, was a bigger threat. Unfortunately, the controversy of Christ’s bloodline got better of the question regarding the gender politics. Interestingly in the times of Christ, in the language he spoke, there was no word for the term unmarried. It was an unexciting thing, a kind of a taboo, not to be married. It is obvious logic that a person of such a high stature and influence would be guilty of committing any kind of unsocial activity. The secret society, The Priory of Sion resorted to sexual activities in order to respect womanhood and to give her the respect she owes.
Coming back to the concept of witchcraft, it is closely associated to the concept of broom. There is also hegemony in this. In those times, women were essentially beings who were meant to be residing only inside the kitchen. There is also a notion of gender politics behind a witch riding a broom and flying away. The witches were women who were more learned and scholarly. They would not be confined into the walls of a mere kitchen. So, the broom became the sign of freedom. It became the symbol to break free the barriers of the society and be independent.
In short, Witchcraft and wizardry, in Wiccan traditions are the celebrations of woman hood and knowledge. This knowledge goes beyond the traditional teachings of the church. Pantheism is one of the major belief systems of Wicca. The notion to respect the entire humanity and the Mother Nature was most important. This is the reason that any woman who had knowledge and was a free thinker was taken in as a witch. Under inhumanly tortures they were compelled to admit almost anything that they were convicted of.
The witch-burnings had killed millions of women in Europe and went beyond it. The Sabbath trials of America are again an example of such deadly concepts travelling beyond the shores of Europe. In India, there has been examples of witch killings too. Every where, histories of women being killed in the suspicions that they are witches are laden with ugly gender politics. It is difficult to trace the beginnings of this kind of superstitions in the Southern Asian, but it is obvious that the witch huntings of Europe had a significant impact upon these nations. However, it is generally believed that India is a nation bound by the shackles of superstitions. No one bothers to examine the reasons for that. Before the Colonial rule, India had always been a sexually liberated nation. It was under the concept of the “ideal” British womanhood that the women in India began to suffer because of similar concepts related to the inferiority of women those were so predominant in Europe at that time. It is ironical that the flag bearers of the ideal Indian woman and Indian culture have imbibed their notion of the shame and ideal womanhood from the British.
It is also noticeable that the earliest traces of witch killings in India were heard only after the instances of witch trials and burnings of Europe became famous.
Tracing the traditions and hegemony it is remarkable that in all these countries, women were the most prominent victims. Witch burnings may have reduced significantly, but the traditions and trails of sabotages remain. Mostly the trails are marked by blood and gags of the innocents.
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