The Burning Times: fascinating docu on women's power before Christianity

Thing is dominant views that I would say hold about as much weight are presented like that. I'm pretty skeptical of a lot of history.

If you want more, I read this download the other day, which I found interesting. Not promoting it as the ultimate truth - I don't think there is such a thing, but an insight into different history.

Btw, that site does have dodgy (!) credentials, but I think they're not wrong about the statistics - someone on here was talking about witch trials a few days ago, in the context of feminism, and saying the popular perception isn't very accurate. I wish I could remember better what she said!

Yeah, I agree. I think it would have been better if they'd either done a sort of imaginative recreation of what modern pagans think the beliefs might have been (which could have been great with all that beautiful camera work), or if they'd made it obvious they were speculating and not being factual - trying to make it as a documentary was maybe the problem.

I really wish they'd talked more about pre-Christian stuff and the evidence there is instead of moving on so quickly - I liked the look of that three-women image of Sulis and wish they'd said more about that, but I assume because there's so little written evidence they didn't feel able to.

interesting credentials on that site

My mind's pretty open on this stuff, but I don't buy the idea of having some factual version of the history of religion and belief. It's belief. It's all tied up in the social structures that surround it.

More on the burning times

www.religioustolerance.org/wic_burn.htm

Ok, I've watched a bit more (trying to be fair).

Sorry, I would love this to be a good documentary but it is just not. I really want to know about women's power before Christianity, and about women and non-Christian European religion, both sound fascinating. But this is not a documentary, it's someone making unsubstantiated and occasionally simply wrong claims. It's either dishonest or crashingly ignorant. I've got to the bit about Christianity being 'new' in Europe in 1132 and had to stop there - utter rubbish.

It would have been really interesting to hear about women and witchcraft, too.

Thanks for posting Sakura. I had no idea of the witches stuff until a talk a couple of years ago at uni. Remember it being fascinating then. And afterward being really conscious of how prevalent all the witch stuff is and its links to women.

Sorry, I've got halfway through the first link - does it get any better?

So far it is coming across as a load of guff, tba! I really think this sory of thing is dishonest and offensive.

Your link isn't working do you mean this