To think it is time to quash all convictions for all convicted witches in the UK

[duvetcovereddissident]

Around 3500 executions, and many thousands more tortured and convicted after "confessing" - more than 90% of them women. Most of these in the 1600s.

These are women convicted on evidence such as loving their cats, and having hairy chins.

AIBU to say all these convictions should be quashed. It would have mattered to those who were convicted, and it matters as an illustration of the way our country has treated women, and still does, in allowing these convictions to stand.

It isn’t though. It’s been widely proven that Wicca is a 20th-century creation which combines elements of freemasonry and occultism. It’s about the same age as Scientology. The people who were killed for being witches were generally Christians, it’s offensive to try to recast them as pagans.

Haven’t the govt apologised for historical slavery? So there is actually a precedence for apologising for stuff from centuries ago which should not have happened. Who employed the witch finder general? Probably the olden day equivalent of Sulella Braverman. I think she should be the one to apologise 😁

Well yes, but those people had done something wrong, ie stolen some sheep. Witches were just women living their lives.

It's a part of history. I think it's valuable for them to exist.

I'm not sure how valuable it would be, there are lots of "crimes" that wouldn't exist now. I think your numbers are quite high estimates, in the UK it was a lot less. Though absolutely rampant on the continent and there's the case of it being heavily male in Iceland.

There's lots of great podcasts about it on history hit.

Women have been treated horrendous throughout history, martial rape was only outlawed late 20th century, age of consent was raised from 12 late 19th century. Poor women.

When I first read this, I was thinking "wow, yes, this is a really good idea".

But thinking on it a little more, quashed convictions should really be for things that could have a potential effect on individuals or wider society. That;s why we quash convictions for things like, say, homosexuality, or anit-Apartheid protesters. It makes a meaningful statement to the values of society today, and usually has some type of relative meaning in the modern world.

The thing with witch hunting (as in actually, physically believing someone is a magic weilding witch) is almost too far back in society's beliefs to have any meaningful impact today. I feel like there are better and already in practice ways to memorialise these women and acknowledge their suffering.

I'm not 100% closed to the idea still but that's where I sit.

Do you work for the government or are you just dismissing this fact because it upsets your narrative?

Of course it would incur a cost;you would be ignorant to assume it would not

I don’t think it would mean anything. Even if given, it would act as a pointless political gesture by a male prime minister using it as an easy way to pretend they are into women’s rights, rather than doing the actual hard work of thinking through what misogyny means and looks like, and enacting policies and laws to fight the real problem of actual misogyny.

If Keir Starmer, David Lammy et Al were to get in and smugly do this, after their own displays of blatantly misogynistic thinking, I think I would vomit. They need to learn to think through the implications for women of the views and policies they espouse, not look for gestures that have no deep coherent meaning for them,for a photo opportunity.

One of my ancestors was burnt at the stake for heresy. His crime was reading the Bible in English. I would be grateful if there was a quashing of these convictions too. I know it changes nothing but it would acknowledge the unfairness of it all. And I am aware that was the law at the time.

Witches that fly brooms and can make things levitate, green faces and covered in warts and whatever other tales don't exist.
But witches do absolutely exist. Always have, always will. Some do also work with a particular set of gods/goddesses and others do not. There's even people who call themselves christain witches.
Need to listen to Annie Hills Witches now.
But ultimately, I'm not sure. Those who did it or the victims are no longer alive nor in living memory. How far back do we go? Because women have suffered because of christainity for a long time. They even got rid of the Abrahamic gods first human, Lilith, not Adam. There is now a separation between church and state.

I think, really, the most meaningful thing to do, to honor them and recognise the injustice is to teach children about it, learn from it, treat women better today and I thr future.

Scotland doesn't even know what a woman is, what they did was meaningless.

This is an interesting thread!

I'm going to imagine I'm the ghost of a woman who was executed for witchcraft and I've watched society evolve since then and I now have a more modern day view, what would I like as my legacy?
(Please join me on this, its not speaking for the dead, its simply how YOU'D feel in their situation)

I personally would like something more basic like education on the times and something that links in to modern day hate crimes, crimes against women etc, I'm not sure what, but I'd definitely like some kind of recognition for what happened to me and others.
But quashing convictions is pointless for me as obviously I wasn't the star of room on the broom as is some disingenuous apology from absolute tool in parliament who couldn't give a toss about their own constituency, let alone women for 400 years ago.

But I'd like something to remind people that moving forward, we can't ever treat women, especially those who don't conform, like that ever again.

Times as backward as these, I think it's worth remembering history does repeat itself as dramatic as that sounds.
(Baby girls born in parts of America currently have less rights to their bodies than their grandmother's had etc)

Really made me think though this one @duvetcovereddissident nice one 👍

This. So this.

And I speak as a female with a hairy chin, who ancestors had hairy chins.

It’s not a wholly new creation though. Modern Wiccan is a reinvention of a pagan religion based on remnants of older paganism. They have two major dieties, the Lord and Lady, that are both based on older pagan dieties- their Lord is the Horned God and he is a direct reinvention of Cernunnos the Celtic horned god of the forest, some Wiccan texts even call him Cernunnos. Then they have the Triple Goddess, a reinvention of the Fates/Norns even down to the Maiden, Mother, Crone aspects of her. Although some Wiccans believe also that the Maiden is Artemis, the Mother is Selene and the Crone is Hecate- these are Greek pagan goddesses which were pagan and were worshipped in Britain after introduction by the Romans. Temples in Britain would often have all the God or Goddess’ names in Greek/Roman/Celtic inscribed on their altars as there were several deities considered to be one and the same, only with a different name.

It’s not a 20th century creation in the sense it is brand new, with new deities and new beliefs; its dieties and beliefs can all be traced back to older paganism.

The Wiccans of today are not the same as the Wicca in pagan Anglo-Saxon England that inspired the tweak to the language in Exodus 22:18. It’s a completely different religion despite the same name. Again the word Wicca is the old English version of the modern English word witch. This fact doesn’t mean that the Wicca of pagan Anglo Saxon England did not exist- they did exist and they were persecuted.

Yes the people killed in the 12th-18th centuries AD as suspected witches were almost exclusively Christians, they were not Wicca but they were accused of being Wicca/Witches- specifically that they were heretics.