Witchcraft has had its own times of power, as I had stated in, "Wind of Change". This slowly came to an end, starting in the eleventh century ad. It wasn't until then that the Catholic Church started to gain power and popularity. Two of the main things that separated Catholicism and Witchcraft were money and the demand to recruit new followers. The Catholic Church had its people donate money to the church to ensure their place in heaven. This led to vast real estate and political power in Europe.

To give you a better idea on how the Catholic Church was organized, I must first tell you that only Wealthy Men were allowed to learn to read. This left the poor, uneducated people of the masses to follow. Education is power. Note that I said Men were allowed to read. Women were not, and thus became, and remain servants in the Christian Church to this day. Hirearchy was now enforced. People had others to answer to. The Pope, of course, being at the top. Notice that I didn't say that God was at the top. Whatever the Pope said was "Gods Will", simply was. Without question. Absolute power, corrupts absolutely. That saying holds pretty true in my eyes. There are few exceptions.

The main reason that people were led to follow so blindly, is that they weren't educated. Even if they did know how to read, the Bible was written in Latin. This gave the Catholic Church an incredible amount of power. Power it used to influence its followers that there was no other way. This combined with the money the Church posessed, meant a sure following.

Only a couple hundred years later, the Catholic Church was both powerfull enough, and bold enough to convince its followers that Witchcraft was not only the wrong path, but the Devils path. The Catholic Church created Lucifer, and then made people to believe that we worshipped him. To convince its followers of this, they took our Horned God and made him look mosterous. He was illustrated in red. A hiddeous creature from the depths of hell now named, "Lucifer". In the ,"Old Testament" of the bible, Lucifer was a beutiful angel. So now if you asked a common uneducated catholic about pagans, they would simply say we worship a hiddeous entity known as ,"Lucifer". Well needless to say, this isn't true. In order to believe in Lucifer, we first have to believe in the Christian God. We don't. You see, in order to have one, you must have the other. It doesn't work any other way.

Suddenly viewed as Devil Worshippers, Witches started to become more and more secretive. It slowly became a means of survival. There was good reason for this. The Church began to punnish all those who were said to worship the devil. In the picture above, a woman is being suspended by ropes tied around her wrists, and stretched by ropes tied around her ankles. This is typical of things a person would have to face upon accusation of being a Witch. This is also of the more mild tortures to be had. The tortures, by the way always led to an eventual death. Death in itself was delivered in a wide variety of ways. Some were considdered to be merciful and others excruciating. Which one you were given, depended on a few things. One of those was your own personal coopperation with the church. One of the ways this was determined, was wether or not you met their demands. One of the most common demands was that you identify seven other Witches. Witches that would later be imprisoned and asked the same question. If you didn't identify any, you were tortured until you did. In most cases, people identified others simply out of fear or pain. Most of the time women were accused. Of those accused, it was usually someone of a lower class.

Torure is something that was highly developed during this time. It would seem the church had nothing better to do than torture people. This wasn't just sticks and stones, but a scientificaly developed means of prolonged pain leading to death after an indefinite amount of time. In an, "Iron Maiden" people are basicaly put into an iron coffin with knives inside of it. When closed, the knives would penetrate deep into your body, but carefully placed so as to not puncture any vital organs. With this, you lived. People would be left in the Iron Maiden for days, even weeks at a time living in pain.

Another of these devices, and a common one at that, "The Rack". This was a means of stretching people. Women and Men were suspended by their ankles and wrists, then stretched. Sometimes to the point of limbs being torn free of the torso. This was usually done publically as both a warning for those whom might otherwise practice Witchcraft, and amusement for all those whom believed the person to be "the Devils Bride".

Most tortures and executions at the time were made public. This was a demonstration of power made by the church. It was advertisement. This not only made "God Fearing" people afraid of Witches but also fear to even associate with them. In many cases people were accused of being a witch just because the accuser felt they were in danger. Nobody was safe. Christian or Witch. It didn't matter. There was no set of rules you could live by that would ensure your safety or survival. If you ever speak to an elderly Jewish person today, they would likely say the same thing to describe being in a concentration camp. You see, like Hitler, the Popes of the time knew the importance of visual power. With this, the Popes were able to make the masses disassociate "Witches" from their communities. When Witches were being systematically executed, people didn't see them as people. Therefore watching the torture and executions of innocent Women and Men was acceptable. It became a public service.

One of the reasons that this worked so well, was that in the public executions, women and men were almost allways defaced. People were made a mockery. These events spanned centuries and continents. Even in the United States we had Witch Trials. The famous, "Salem Witch Trials" is best known. The point I'm making is that there was nowhere to go. Even in a country boasting religious freedom. With events such as this, the only way to survive was to go underground. To practice in secret. As a result, we bacame ghost stories, jokes, costumes, almost completely a thing of the past. Some people don't even know that Witchcraft is a religion. One lesson we learned was to hide and keep our mouths shut. Even today, most aren't sure what to think of us. If a teenage daughter tells her parents that she is a Witch, her parents are likely to laugh and tell themselves its a phase. We aren't taken seriously.

Now to get back to why it became so easy for people to torture us in public. One thing that most all of the tortures performed had in common was that they defaced people. We were mutilated so badly that we were no longer looked upon as people. We were a sub-standard race. Thus, everything being done to us was acceptable. In one of the tortues, women whom were mothers were skinned alive. Their entire body. After that they would cut off their bloody breasts and put them into the mouths of their children. That reflected on their ability to be a good mother as well. After this terrifying ordeal, it was common to have one or more of the children be accused. A non-stop sadistic cycle.

I can go on for quite some time to describe in detail all the terrible things that have been done to us. I probably will in the future. Right now though, I think its important to think about things that are happening today. You see, things like this have always been happening and will likely happen again. People need to protect themselves mentaly; physically if necessary. None of us are truely safe. It can happen to all of us. Race, religion, gender, and even just the place we live can all be reasons for being singled out.

Separation breeds suspicion and paranoia. When you have two groups of people apart from one another, it is easy for them to make fun of each other simply because there is no interaction between the two. In such a situation, you would be forced to accept what you are told. In today's society, you would be told by the media. Unfortunately, the media often has a hidden agenda. So now you have been given information which you really have no choice but to accept, and it stays in the back of you mind. Every time you hear about the other group, you remember having watched the news and hearing bad things. This perpetually taints your view.

One of the first of oppression is separation. People don't have to be forced into different parts of town, they just need a label to separate them. Labels such as Black, Jew, White, Woman, Gay (lesbian), all dissasociate people. With labels such as those being used, it is hard for the targeted group to truely be part of society. When that happens, those people are no longer human beings. They no longer have the rights or compassion of others. They are no longer safe.

Unfortunately, it sometimes only takes one person to start the ball rolling. Adolf Hitler verbally assaulted the Jewish community in Germany. As a result, it wasn't long before Jews were being beaten up in the streets. It was forgotten that they were German citizens. Eventually this lead to death camps. An estimated six million Jews were systematically slaughtered durring WWII. Another six million suffered the same fate simply for being gay, dissabled, different.

To give you an example of what happens when you get your news from one source, here is a historical fact that you won't find in any American History books. Durring WWII, America was kidnapping Jewish refugees and selling them back to Nazi Germany in exchange for american POW's. At the time, America was so immersed in thinking that it was right that its population didn't think to question what we were doing. One thing about war is, nobody goes through war without getting their hands dirty. And besides, History is written by the winners. I guess thats my main point. History has always been written by those whom have killed great people. The victims never have the chance to defend themselves. The main problem I think, is that people tend to read only one book. Thus, history repeats itself...

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