I came across a line in Wikipedia that so surprised me I wrote it down,
”The sociological causes of the witch-hunts have long been debated in scholarship.” wiki
The sociological causes…
hmmmm,
lets see…
Narcissistically inflated, gargantuan megabody, driven to dribbling insanity by its own self-importance seeps all its underlying aggression and unresolved sadism onto anyone who..
strangely..
had the courage to live on their own terms…
job done.
The idea that the evolution of consciousness through time is a macrocosm of individual human development suggests that we are at the cutting edge of the human race..
oh dear… so it does…
where you might want to be a bit cloudy about sociological factors..
given that killing people for their own good
isn’t very nice
but still
waaay more evolved in consciousness than even those of a few hundred years ago.
supposedly….
Actually this ‘more evolved’ that we’re supposed to be than even our recent ancestors feels like the same kind of prejudice we have against ‘primitive people’.
not a microwave between them…
Freud even suggested that the primitive mind ‘corresponded’ to neurotic states . (Totem and Taboo)
I wonder if Western Civilisation hasn’t all been a bit of a detour, a hiccup in the plan,
instead of all the noble questing through history up to the glorious present that kids are still sold in school.
The chronic inflation of Monotheism and its kings is just not the same as ego development. In fact it prevents it because the belief in our own rightness…
…..requires splitting off and projecting the dark brother.
And so we’re eternally divided.
buuut… with permission to behave like toddlers..
with a three scoop cone…
and a box of matches….
The number of people burned at the stake by the Church for heresy is hotly (sorry) contested, with wide ranging estimates. Whatever the figure is, its genocidal.
but what can you do wiv anyone wot got their own ways but burn them?
Yeah, so they get purified…
Understan’?
Leaving the fold is the sin qua non of the individuation process. If you just swallow what you’re spooned, the limit of your potential is set at being a law abiding citizen. Part and parcel of this is to be on the side of ‘good’, wherein the dark brother is projected and growth grinds to a halt.
The hieght of persecution against heretics is given by Wiki as 1560 – 1630, curiously tucked into the same time period as the Rennaissance. Would it be too much to suggest, given all the puzzling over ‘sociological factors’, that in order for the golden era to flourish the shadow had to be projected onto, well, millions of others, who were summarily tortured and put to gruesome deaths?
Individuation was forced underground as alchemy, hermeticism and gnostisism, all of which could get you into rather a lot of trouble.
Bellini for the few and the Inquisition for the many.
For those not moulding salt cellars out of silver or painting the Cistine Chapel, life was short nasty and brutish, not to mention full of fear at the possibility that some untoward remark might be overheard in the street.
Or someone just don’ like you maybe..
Simply refusing the Pope’s authority over your spiritual life could get you burned at the stake and having the priest as ‘intercessor’ effectively put a barrier between common people and religious experience. Anyone claiming to have had their own insight into spiritual life would be liable to a late night visit from horrible men with clanking bags.
Ah, the Golden Age…
of chivalrous kings!
an’, an’, an’,… Richard the Lionheart!
Most noble of them all!
Wot nobley executed 3000 hogtied prisoners, men women and children in cold blood at Acre in 1200 AD!
Yay!
yeah, but only cos the Sarascens didn’t give him what he wanted.
The True Cross
that’s it!
Which they didn’t have..
and a ton of gold
yeah, gold, loads of gold
which they didn’t have…
well that wasn’t his fault was it..?
And so the insignificant and paltry details of what actually happened and how people actually behave is lost in a blaze of archetypal glory and proudly beating hearts where one party takes the ermined route of least resistance, generally strewn with corpses, whilst the other party line the same streets waving flags.
Narcissistic collusion.
Mind your step now.