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hey weirdos I'm Ash and I'm Elena and this is more [Music] bad I decid to be a little silly all
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right a little silly goofy just a little bit it's October everyone obviously it's
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October oober it is October and I'm very excited about that cuz you know October
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is the best bur there is yeah I didn't have a comeback for that I I like my brain just was like she the
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thing was Ash looked up like she was going to say something and then just just froze yeah yeah yeah you know but
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either way it's unavoidable to talk about October is great I [ __ ] love October leaves are changing we're in New
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England so we get the best of it nny nanny boo boo she said [ __ ] y'all I was going to say Salem night oh the Sal
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night [ __ ] spooky movies there you go there's going to be a [ __ ] saw prequel there's a hell
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House LLC prequel uh the new Monster High movie premieres this weekend very excited about that weird that I like
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that because I only like it because my nieces showed it to me we're going to have a movie night for it's going to be
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a lot of fun just spooky [ __ ] the the Saw movie the new Saw movie My Girl Sydney at horror Chronicles I've shouted
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her out her Tik Tok before on here she's awesome I trust her implicitly with horror movie recommendations and reviews
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like seen if she tells me something isn't good I'm like [ __ ] it I'm not going to try that like I just I'm like I
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get she gets it she said that the new saw is her favorite horror movie of the entire year wow and she was like barely
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able to even contain how much she loved it she said it was phenomenal I want to see movies early I want to have that
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privilege I know I like that I like that too um I really want to see it though remember one day when we just watched
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all the Saw movies and John came home and was like what are you guys doing my God it was before I had kids yeah and I
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had like no I think I was still a teenager so I had like no responsibilities we watch however many
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were out at that time we watched them back to back yeah I think it took us two days actually I think I ended up coming
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back like a week or so later and John was like are you guys doing this again like what is happening you guys all
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right those were the days you know sitting down and watching a movie uh but yeah so you know lots of fun stuff
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happening all it's a great month hey hey hey I'm what's happening I hope you're having a great month I hope everybody
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kills it this month so I think we should just get into our next spooky really uh kind of off-putting story oh
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great uh because we're going to talk about the torer witch trials torer torker T they
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are Swedish o uh which was a journey in the pronunciation department but yeah here's the thing to our Swedish
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listeners um Tobias Forge if you're listening that includes you obious but of course I iully went through and I
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tried my damnest on each of these pronunciations can confirm yep I said them out loud several times I listened
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to several versions of the pronunciation with no warning yeah I really I did my due diligence here I tried I know I'm
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not going to kill it because I myself am not Swedish I don't know I thought you sounded great thank you I appreciate
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that but to my Swedish listeners and anyone who loves a Swedish listener uh I'm trying so hard and I hope I do you
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proud yeah Elena uh randomly just started listening to pronunciations and practicing them while I was working on
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my case so I was typing and then all of a sudden it was like I'm not going to try cuz I I that'll be like bad but I
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was like uh what's happening like what are you calling me literally I was like excuse me I was like don't worry
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fighting words but yeah this one's going to be interesting it's one that I didn't
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know about until recently it's we we have a very like obviously everybody thinks of the Salem
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Witch Trials yeah which again wild in the US not a scarier or more cited example of mass hysteria and
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scapegoating than the Salem witch trials in 1692 to 1693 but even though they were super
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they're obviously very significant very horrifying they were kind of small in scale when compared to the centuries
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long witch hunts and trials that occurred across Europe cuz we've mentioned that before with some of the
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ones that you've like dived in dove into dived into dived into dived Dove Dove it
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dove into oh no dived sorry I became Swedish for this so I don't know how to do this no I think I think I can't help
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you like I dove right into that sounds good to me either way uh the trials in the uh the trials and witch Huts that
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happened in Europe over the 16th and 17th centuries are the scale is massive it's uncomprehensible to be
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incomprehensible I'm Swedish I'm sorry I forgot how to speak English like I forgot we just forgot English entirely I
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guess I'm going trip over all the English and say the Swedish perfectly but either way while countries
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with high rates of accusations and executions like Germany and England tend to kind of be the thing that people
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focus on when they think about Western interest in witch hunts they were definitely not the only European
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countries where supposed and alleged witches were pursued with much Vigor yeah evidently in the Swedish Parish of
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tour shorer I believe that's how you say it uh for example years of Hysteria over
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Witchcraft and black magic led to a massive trial known as the torer witch trials in 1674 and
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1675 so before the Salem wit trials okay um this is where a truly unbelievable amount of people were executed in one
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single day oh in one day one day damn and we'll get to it so let's talk about fear of Witchcraft in Europe at the time
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because it really is a wild thing to peek through fear of Witchcraft is lame so throughout the early modern period of
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1350 to 1500s so this is way back I like that it said early modern period of Europeans understanding of witchcraft
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in sorcery was a little different to what it would become in the centuries that came after witchcraft was
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considered a crime and could result in the death penalty but accusations of sorcery were seldom taken literally and
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executions of supposed witches were very uncommon uh this is not to suggest that
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you know Swedish people or Europeans for that matter didn't take the subject seriously but they just kind of adhered
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to the Catholic Church's position and then and the Catholic Church's position at the time was that belief in or
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practice of Witchcraft or black magic was the product of devil induced delusions and was considered heresy oh
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so the biggest change to how Europeans understood witchcraft came around 1486 and that was with the publication of a
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truly wild book called The malus maleficarum Hammer witches uh it was written by Fame Dominican demonologist
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and witch hunter Hinrich Kramer now this book took a much stronger position than that of the
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church they basically said that sorcery and Witchcraft were a direct result of satanic influence no so the church is
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saying it's heresy you can't believe in that [ __ ] but he's saying oh no no no Satan himself has induced you to do this
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and they said and he was and so this person this Hinrich here Kramer was saying that it presented a very real
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threat to God-fearing people everywhere and in response to that threat Kramer advocated that the use of like
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mindbending torture physical psychological emotional torture was the only means of getting any suspected
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witch to confess to their heresy and death was the only way to eradicate witchcraft in Europe the [ __ ] you could
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not cure the person of Witchcraft or the black magic that they have dabbled in you have to kill them that's it seems
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seems a bit much now when it was first written malas there was received actually very poorly by the church they
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did not like it they labeled it zealotry they said this guy's like over the top wow like we're looking at it as pretty
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black and white here he's like he's going wild it's really intense and they vehemently contested Kramer's
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interpretation of religious texts which in the book malas maleficarum he uses a lot of different uh like you know he
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looks at the Bible he looks at religious texts and he interprets them his own way
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mm and talks about it like it's fact so although the Catholic Doctrine stated that Witchcraft and sorcery were a kind
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of mental illness that was influenced by the devil those who fell under Satan's influence according to the church could
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be saved okay so you didn't have to die like you you could be saved damn Kramer's assertion though was that a
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person was a witch and remained a witch Once he or she had been accused okay so that's the say that unlike the church
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Kramer insisted a person could not be saved from Satan's influence the only way to solve the problem kill the witch
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the end well that makes sense that he believes that because malus maleficarum translates into the hammer of witches
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yeah that's what that's what um exactly that's yeah the Hammer Of God now in modern analysis of malus maleficarum
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many writers and historians have noted a ton I mean it's a staggering amount of misogyny in profound sexism influenced
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in this text that check Kramer was so misogynistic and sex it's unbelievable when you read it and don't you worry I'm
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going to give you a few little little things from the text because I read the whole thing you read the whole thing the
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thing you read the whole Hammer of witches I read the whole Hammer of witches I have it in my library right
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now as a witch you spent $16 on that research my friend Kidd uh so I think it's funny that his book sells for $16
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now what a douche there you go uh but according to Kramer women were far more likely to be witches than men because
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quote their flesh is lecherous and their minds feeble what a [ __ ] so basically they're
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like they're they're lustful and stupid my skin is lecherous and my mind is dumb
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yep cool um Kramer was actually obsessed with the purity of women and that they should be pure but he also believed them
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to be inherently evil and vastly inferior to men isn't it strange how like he technically is probably a serial
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killer because like his work probably led to the death of so many women yeah that's pretty and then he shares that in
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common with serial killers like that pathology of being like women are dirty and we must save our with the purity of
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women but thinks them inherently evil and very inferior to men but like that's very much a modern day serial Killer's
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view you're right of women it's wild it's interesting how those two things like really correlate but he said
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because they're so evil inherently and so stupid uh that we were more susceptible to evil influence and far
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more like more likely to engage in Witchcraft and sorcery because of that this guy's so rude um so his hatred of
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women can also be found um not explicitly stated but in the section of the text devoted to interrogation and
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Punishment uh because many of the suggested techniques of torture that you should use to get a confession from a
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witch so that you can then burn her at the stake um involved a lot of exposing and destruction of women's bodies in
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particular and a lot of sexual humiliation I was just going to say like humiliation he's gross um this guy's
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[ __ ] while malus maleficar may not have been endorsed by the Catholic Church it definitely spoke directly to
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the fears and anxieties felt by ordinary people across Europe who were emerging from the late Middle Ages into a pretty
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unfamiliar era at that time so thanks to the invention of the printing press just
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40 years earlier his text was able to be reproduced and distributed and for a time it was second only to the Bible as
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the most popular book in Europe okay lady whistle down damn yep so the result of this popularity was that the public
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so those outside of the church developed extreme and very d dangerous and outlandish beliefs about witches that
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would shape centuries of witch hunts to come so this is a very powerful book did
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anybody even know who this man was before he wrote this he just came right on the scene and was like just like
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listen to me [ __ ] women and witches let's go I love that everybody fell at their Fe fell at his feet so would you
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like to hear a few things from this book no but I know that it's necessary so there's a section that is titled what
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sort of women are found to be above all other super ious and witches me don't you want to know the answer is any woman
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who is Unfaithful which remember that could be like she opened her eyes after blinking and a man happened to be in the
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room but the next is that she's ambitious wait Unfaithful was like looking at another man Even well back
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then you could be considered adulterous by just like showing an ankle like so wild like it there was very the borders
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there were were big but the next was an ambitious woman oh you're [ __ ] oops and the last is if they are
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lustful lame so she breathes near any other men she has Ambitions and she [ __ ] that's like essentially which
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which which what's his name it literally uh Heinrich Kramer like Hinrich We're Here for a Good Time not a long time it
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literally says in the book quote it follows that those among ambitious women are more deeply infected who are more
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hot to satisfy their filthy lust and such are alter alteres fornicates and the concubines of the great the
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concubines of the great I've never been more flattered there is also a section called that witches deserve the heaviest
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punishment above all the criminals in the world basically they want to confiscate all the witches things and
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then decapitate her that's what they think the the punishment should be oh my God take all her [ __ ] and then
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decapitate her and worse than any other criminal murderer child rapist everything like the worst of the worst
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it was said that witches couldn't cry that was the belief so which I cry all the time so interrogators were
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encouraged to do any manner of [ __ ] up things to force the accused to cry so then what if they cried basically do the
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worst you can imagine to get them to cry because if they don't then they're a witch forget shock I was just going to
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say shock can happen or other reasons why someone wouldn't cry under severe torture because human beings do have
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different ways of expressing emotion well and a lot of times like like you just said forget shock but people
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disassociate like like there's so many different reasons why you wouldn't cry during something so crazy now lawfully
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they were told that when they go to a witch's home to um an alleged witch to pick her up after she's been accused
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they were told to physically pick up an accused witch at their home and put her on a plank or in a basket to carry her
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out of the home a without allowing her feet to touch the ground if she was allowed to touch the ground she would be
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given Powers by the devil through her feet I guess oh CU hell which these dudes had this dude had a weird Kinks I
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think and if they kept her from touching the ground then she would have to confess because she would lose her
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powers and they said in this book that a lot of time before being burned alive witches would ask to just touch the
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ground one last time and that wasn't because they were about to die a her rically painful and senseless death but
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they said it's because they wanted their powers to kill everyone with lightning no I don't everything I just
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said is in that book I think they just missed the Earth and they were like let me hit her up one more time before they
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were like I'm about to be burned alive can I just touch the grass what the [ __ ]
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and they were like nah you want to kill everyone with lightning with your feet and that's like what that's really what
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they felt they can't argue that like it would be hilarious if this wasn't if they didn't use it like when you
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think about the words themselves you're like that's [ __ ] hilarious and then you think the power behind those words
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and you're like scary oh [ __ ] people took this as true like whoa I just can't believe that
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they literally like went around and took them out of their homes via Basket in front of their kids everything that's so
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sad there was a belief that the devil gave witch's powers to deal with torture without crying or confessing the truth
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so again if she stayed quiet shock or doesn't confess then she is being helped by the devil I'm also like why are you
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making the devil sound Humane right now well and then if she confesses though it's because God has compelled via a
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Holy Angel to force the devil to Desert her so either way she's a witch just one
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side says that the devil's still helping her and the second one says that apparently the devil deserted her so
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either way she was help you guys are rooting for the wrong guy because if the devil is helping her that's Fantastico
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and then if God is making her confess that she's a witch she's going to die anyway well you're not really rooting
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for your guy here why would God compel a Holy Angel to force the devil to Desert
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her I don't know I mean to make her you're going to kill her anyway that's but that's exactly it that's what I'm
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saying like that doesn't make sense yeah uh when they were taken according to this book they are to be stripped
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completely um and that is to look for obviously witch marks like that's a thing we hear from the tri but also to
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look for the limbs of unbaptized children hidden in their clothes I wish I was making up that's
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the thing because you I wish I was making this up because your first reaction is to like chuckle because it's
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absurd because it's absolutely absurd but then you're like holy [ __ ] hundreds and hundreds of years ago men were
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stripping the clothes off of women they believe to be cohorting with the devil and looking for the limbs of babies yep
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like that's a wild sentence and that's true it puts you on such a roller coaster of emotions cuz your initial
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like you said your first thing is like that's [ __ ] ridiculous like I'm laughing at that and then you're like no
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I can't laugh at that no that's not funny like when you your mind bends the other way and it's like oh no this isn't
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satire like this is a real book that was second to the Bible and it's just by this random man like it's not like the
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[ __ ] po wrote this like who the [ __ ] is Hinrich that's even if the pop R what
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the [ __ ] even if he did but do you see what I'm saying like he's just some random [ __ ] dude who clearly has a
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lot of I'd like to know about his mother he's a demonologist and witch hunter like he was a known demonologist and
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witch hunter so he wasn't like just some guy that came out of the woodwork but he
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didn't still that's ridiculous I also really want to know about his mother I also want to know that I have so many
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questions well if they found anything that they beli to be a witch's Mark or they found any instrument of Witchcraft
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during the stripping um he literally wrote that they would gather up some quote honest men zealous for the faith
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and they were instructed to bind her with cords and place her on some engine of torture no and no [ __ ] they were to
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be instructed to make themselves the torturers put a look of dis to look Disturbed while torturing her they were
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told need to be told that they were told not to smile or appear joyful even if they might be they said you have to try
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to look Disturbed as you torture this woman wow these this just I'm speechless the accused lawfully
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could be told by a judge that if she confessed her life would be spared even though they had no intention of doing
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that they would either just do that and then kill her or do that and promise her
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impis imprisonment but then later burn her unexpectedly take her out of her cell and just burn her or the judge
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could promise her her life and then at the last second go oops a new judge is stepping in to take my place and the new
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judge would say you're you're going to die this is just like psychological physical emotional torture it says the
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accused should be frequently exposed to torture be uh beginning with quote the more gentle of them and a notary is to
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be present for the torture and write down how she was tortured and her answers to each level of torture oh my
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God then if she confesses under torture they bring her directly to another room and ask her again so that she doesn't
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quote confess only under the great stress of torture oh my if she doesn't confess
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after torture then other quote engines of torture should be brought in by the judge and she will be told that she will
00:22:14
have to endure those if she does not confess it says quote if then she is not induced by Terror to confess the torture
00:22:22
must be continued on the second and third day but not rep repeated at the present time unless there should be some
00:22:28
fresh indication of its probable success one of the sections of the book is titled and I [ __ ] you not with this
00:22:36
title this is the title of the section no no no of the continuing of the torture and
00:22:42
of the devices and Signs by which the judge can recognize a witch and how he ought to protect himself from their
00:22:47
spells also how they are to be shaved in those parts where they use to conceal their Devil's masks and tokens together
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with the due setting forth of various means of overcoming their obstinacy in keeping silent and refusal to confess
00:23:00
and it is the 10th action that's the title of the chapter concise wow and he said they need to be
00:23:08
shaved in Parts where they hide their Devil's Mask Yep this guy's [ __ ] on every level I'm also like did you have
00:23:15
an editor my guy that was like I feel like you should clean that one up cuz that's long I feel like we can get to
00:23:20
the point of that one a little quicker I think that probably took a full 45 seconds for you to say now yeah that's a
00:23:26
dynamic ad now rule of thumb for judges uh don't use the same old torture be creative in the words of the book quote
00:23:35
if the sons of Darkness were to become accustomed to one general rule they would provide means of evading it as
00:23:41
well as well-known snare set for their discre destruction as an example quote is he wishes to find out whether she is
00:23:49
endowed with a witch's power of preserving silence let him take note whether she is able to shed tears when
00:23:55
standing in his presence or when being tortured if she be a witch she will not be able to uh weep although she will
00:24:02
assume tearful aspect and smear her cheeks and eyes with spittle to make it appear she is weeping oh so even if you
00:24:09
do cry they're just going to go you're faking so you either don't cry and you're with the devil or you cry and
00:24:16
they go that's fake you just can't win you wi your eyes with spit can um you cannot let the accused
00:24:24
see the judge before he sees her because this is a method of bewitching him oh okay uh in fact he says what you should
00:24:33
do is bring the accused into the trial backwards all the time uh oh and the judge should always wear salt around his
00:24:40
neck consecrated salt that's holy obviously um oh and also they should strap holy relics and [ __ ] to their
00:24:46
naked bodies but it's the witches that are weird for sure what the [ __ ] right like the
00:24:53
witches are the ones that are odd and strange and [ __ ] up and like you think about the women just being sub to all
00:25:00
this like the confusion and the just like what the like the pure just [ __ ] of this all every like we said before
00:25:10
every part of the accused is to be shaved because witches hold witchy [ __ ] in their hair oh and just like how
00:25:15
demean or quote in the most secret part of their bodies which must not be named oh my God so they would shave
00:25:23
their heads as well everything yeah oh my God um he has he has another suggestion uh make sure you torture your
00:25:31
witches on a Friday if you can uh that's when everyone else is gathered together
00:25:35
at Holy Mass to await their savior so usually a confession can be tortured out of the accused then you know when no one
00:25:42
else is around yeah that tricks yeah uh if she endures so deeply disturbing yeah
00:25:49
if she endures all torture you can come up with while drinking bruskies at a local Tavern then the J judge is allowed
00:25:55
to bring her somewhere else where she will be fed and given drink and treated okay for a minute um then the judge
00:26:02
comes in and speaks nicely to her telling her to confess to him in confidence and he will promise under God
00:26:08
to be merciful sounds like a lie right considering what we just read say well it is so we all said I I think a lot of
00:26:17
us said well wait isn't God not into lying sacks of [ __ ] isn't that like kind of the whole that's supposed to be the
00:26:23
whole deal like lying is bad that shall not lie I think is one of the things don't uh well don't worry because these
00:26:29
people knew how to do some serious mental gymnastics to make all this holy stuff work according to the book he can
00:26:36
lie like this to the witch because quote with the mental reservation that he means he will be merciful to himself or
00:26:43
the state for whatever is done for the safety of the state is merciful so he's not lying when he tells her he'll be
00:26:51
merciful he's not saying I'll be merciful to you he's saying I'll be merciful and that
00:26:58
means the state wow uh they would subject a wish a witch to purgation I believe is how you
00:27:06
say it what is that uh that is forcibly inducing bowel movements for cleansing purposes so they would give her some
00:27:12
kind of laxative to completely clear her out why cleansing what uh and the last thing is
00:27:23
there was a trial by Red Hot Iron that they would Ed and they would make the accused carry a huge heavy red hot iron
00:27:31
bar like several like as long as possible and if you get burned you're guilty if you don't get burned by that
00:27:39
hot iron bar that you have to carry a mile then you're innocent so let's give it to Hinrich and see if he gets burned
00:27:45
mhm that what like what those are just a few of the things I picked out of there
00:27:51
as I was reading to be like wow this is nuts if you get burned you're guilty if you get burned you're a [ __ ] human
00:27:57
it's like how they used to do the drowning thing where if you sunk when they dunk you then you were innocent but
00:28:02
you were dead you drowned and if you floated then you were guilty and we talk about witch prickers
00:28:09
which we'll get to and they also [ __ ] with those too witch prickers I'm upset so while the malus maleficarum may have
00:28:16
proven profoundly influential when it came to kind of getting the idea in Europeans minds of what a witch is it
00:28:25
wouldn't have been of what they wanted you to think witches it wouldn't have been anywhere near as influential had it
00:28:31
not been for the Protestant Reformation in 1517 the Reformation was one of the most
00:28:36
significant events in the history of Western civilization and it broke apart the Catholic Church um it established a
00:28:43
number of religious reform movements that basically created new denominations like Calvinism and protestantism Y these
00:28:50
denominations posed a direct threat to the Consolidated power of the Catholic Church who labeled the reformers
00:28:57
Heretics and idolators um the Reformation contributed to the social upheaval of early 16th
00:29:03
century Europe and led to religious wars across Europe I'm sure a lot of people know about this I remember that large
00:29:11
destabilizing effect on the people of Europe Sweden was a very religious Nation so the Church of Sweden largely
00:29:19
rejected the ideas of reformation at the time they lumped the movement in with supposed you know Heretics their beliefs
00:29:26
and you know their BAS basically like Pagan ancestry kind of stuffff uh in 1555 Swedish Catholic Archbishop Magnus
00:29:34
gothis which is a pretty cool name that's a dope name I'm willing to bet he was a witch he addressed witchcraft
00:29:40
directly in his Opus I think it's viai v v I think it is Opus V history of the northern peoples in which quote he
00:29:49
demonizes Pagan beliefs as well as Lutheran beliefs conquering Sweden um gothis followed Kramer's lead
00:29:58
by interpreting witchcraft not as a metaphor or some kind of vague threat uh but as a real and actual danger in the
00:30:06
lives of Swedish people fantastic for example among a lot of the one of the many claims in the history of the
00:30:12
northern peoples was that blockula a supposed Gathering Place for witches on the Sabbath in Swedish folklore wasn't
00:30:20
folklore at all but was in fact a real place and thing where witches flew to perform a Sabbath and Cort with the
00:30:26
Devil now I looked up what bacula is it is an island it's an actual island in the
00:30:33
Calmar Street and it's referred now to Now by its name blo youngren which means the blue Maiden oh that's cool uh it's
00:30:41
known as a gathering place for you know you can go and visit it like tourists can go see it now um but it was known in
00:30:48
folklore as a Gathering Place for witches for hundreds of years and there's something called The trojaborg
00:30:54
Labyrinth on this island and if you look it up it's cool it's a series of stones
00:30:59
in the form of a maze like a labyrinth and it's said to be created by witches over hundreds of years of rituals well
00:31:06
that's cool and it's like a a it's a labyrinth that like bends in on itself like snakes back in on itself tell me
00:31:12
what it's called again the trojaborg Labyrinth t r o g j a b o r g uh most people believe it's from Pagan times and
00:31:22
probably was created during fertility rituals and stuff like that like you know Earth rituals like very cool [ __ ]
00:31:30
this is really beautiful it's a national park now and if you're visiting just like you know it is very much advised
00:31:37
not to take any rocks from that troia Borg Labyrinth I love that but people are stupid and apparently get a [ __ ] ton
00:31:42
of bad luck if they do temp fate and they end up coming back to return them don't mess with [ __ ] like so don't take
00:31:47
[ __ ] like from that stuff uh as a text gothic' history of the northern peoples
00:31:52
was not really intended just to address witchcraft or sorcery directly it's just
00:31:58
kind of one's short passage in that text it's about a lot of other things but along with the larger issues of heresy
00:32:05
there in the book it's did have a big influence on the subsequent books that dealt with directly with witchcraft in
00:32:12
lenus penus gothic' eth christiani and ericus johanes PR's MAA in Contrix for example both authors Echo
00:32:25
the sentiment and idea of history of the northern peoples by talking about witchcraft as a very real and present
00:32:33
threat in fact in the Ma I think it's Maj and Contrix I'm pretty sure that's how you say it um it draws heavily on
00:32:41
Kramer and Goth this's ideas and it identifies maleficarum idolatry and devil worship as types of heresy and
00:32:50
that all of those should be punished by death and that's it great and they all he also Echoes Kramer's belief that
00:32:56
women were were far more likely to be seduced into sorcery uh maleficar by the way like
00:33:02
think I think you mentioned that Al together it Loosely translates malice maleficarum to hammer of witches yeah
00:33:09
mif um maleficum is Loosely defined as an act of Witchcraft performed with the intention of causing damage or in injury
00:33:18
the resultant harm okay so they would say that maleficum was something that witches did now it's also worth noting
00:33:27
that although Christianity had firmly taken root across Europe by the 17th century and completely replaced older
00:33:34
belief systems that had been labeled Pagan heresy at that time that doesn't mean the old ways had been forgotten
00:33:40
entirely pre-christian beliefs and magic and you know a magical realm and you know Fay all that stuff they had just
00:33:47
kind of transformed from The Real World belief of that into kind of folklore that was viewed through the now
00:33:55
Christian lens as like malevolent and menacing okay so it turned yeah it turned from being this magical thing
00:34:04
that that people actually believed was real into like no this means bad stuff now although this is incredibly
00:34:10
complicated obviously one of the most obvious forms of this transformation can be seen in the folktales that had women
00:34:18
who were once benevolent like healers and you know like respected and midwives and this that it just all those all
00:34:27
those kind of women now they were Twisted by the church and presented as figures that were more similar to
00:34:33
Kramer's view of women as quote treacherous and lecherous female entities who dwell in the forest so now
00:34:39
they're Forest witches and they're like hags you know it's also like y'all need us to continue the world so true maybe
00:34:46
don't [ __ ] us all over again these examples in themselves are not all that useful in the daily lives of s 17th
00:34:53
century Swedish people but when they're combined they help form an idea of whiches as not only physical spiritual
00:35:02
and psychological threats but one that is female always female it's really hammering that idea in so by the mid
00:35:11
17th century the Catholic Church which again had once very much rejected Kramer's position on witchcraft and
00:35:18
sorcery yeah cuz you said that in the beginning called that extreme zealotry right suddenly they'd begun to embrace
00:35:25
the Deep MOG in Wild hysteria presented in the malus maleficar and that was because it was
00:35:33
after the reformation and they needed to get back that power um and they were also starting to get into the other
00:35:39
texts that we mentioned above like gothis and you know pri's text um to be clear the church had again for centuries
00:35:46
pursued Heretics with Vigor obviously um and they' used such people as scape goots that was a thing um but by
00:35:55
embracing this new propaganda of Kramer and others like him they hope to position themselves as the one true
00:36:01
Faith among the growing number of competing religions that were happening because of the Reformation Lu
00:36:08
Protestants like good way to do that is just kill everyone yeah Didn't I don't think it really it's not a great way to
00:36:14
go now for a period of roughly three centuries beginning with the publication of the malas
00:36:20
maleficarum and ending in about 1750 witch hunts and trials across Europe led to the state sanction murders of
00:36:29
approximately a 100,000 people wow most of them women um as was the case here in
00:36:37
Colonial New England The Witch Trials served to restore whatever power the church had lost to new belief systems
00:36:44
but it also gave everybody a new scapegoat in the form of anyone who resisted or defied papal Authority right
00:36:53
now in Sweden as in other countries the the whole idea of the heretic or witch was often projected on those who we're
00:37:01
kind of still connected to that pre-christian culture you know people who practice
00:37:06
herbalism or non-western Traditions like healers like you said you know like like
00:37:11
cunning women they were called and according to Jenny t uh tierman osterberg from the Swedish Witch Trials
00:37:18
how to confront dark Heritage in Smithsonian Magazine um she they said quote ideas of cunning women and men who
00:37:25
magically cured the sick through herbs and ointments were reinterpreted and given threatening meanings at a as a
00:37:31
strategy for demonizing folk beliefs which is so sad that they took like something so simple and connected to the
00:37:41
Earth and very pure that's thing in a way and and twisted it this way like to make it evil yeah and it it was all
00:37:49
really to help people not to hurt anybody exactly and at this at that time as far as the church at that time was
00:37:55
concerned only God and those who acted on his behalf CU remember at that time they could choose who acted on his
00:38:01
behalf uh and doctors had the ability to cure sickness so anyone else who tried to do that they considereda flagrantly
00:38:09
challenging the authority of the church so you were a herdic and you were subject to punishment so to get this
00:38:15
straight only God and doctors and the and a few priests that decided that they were a direct connect to God they were
00:38:22
the only ones who were allowed to heal that's it and if some woman said hey I I know how to heal this person and I would
00:38:29
love to make their life better by healing them with these things that I grew in my garden which then you're a
00:38:36
piece of [ __ ] you're directly challenging the authority of of man upstairs these men at that time who were
00:38:45
pissed that you came up with a better cure than they ever could yep and so they just kill you yeah like that
00:38:51
doesn't make sense instead of saying wow these people are helping the sick like but it's because they're not doing it
00:38:59
and then they don't want what people to rely on women too much exactly it's just
00:39:02
it was a wild time now we're going to talk about the great Noise Okay in Sweden the worst of the witch trials
00:39:11
fell between 1668 and 1676 in a period known as the great noise wow so not too far before right before the Salem on and
00:39:21
in Swedish it is De sto endet m I tried guys Deo endet okay look at me SW Swedish
00:39:32
listeners let us know I'm trying I'm try to do you proud I like it um although not the only period of witch trials in
00:39:39
Sweden's history it was the most intense and certainly had the highest body count
00:39:45
is this the one that happened all in one day yeah we're going to get to it don't
00:39:48
worry but many of whom were women who worked in the fiab which was Scandinavian summer Farms okay I think
00:39:56
it's F or that one was tough faab I believe I tried uh Scandinavian summer Farms that's how you says but much like
00:40:06
the Witch Trials of sa Massachusetts the great noise began with the thoughtless accusation of a child oh uh one
00:40:14
afternoon in 1668 in a rural area near delara in harid dalan a young Shepherd girl named G Gertrude sven's daughter
00:40:24
and her friend matz neelen were tending to a her and they gotten some kind of argument uh they were young gerre was
00:40:31
like 12 so they were kids um so they were like too focused on their own little squabble and they didn't notice
00:40:37
when some of the goats strayed away from the herd wandered out into the SandBar in the dollar River and were like stuck
00:40:44
out there oh no now they were too frightened to go on the or excuse me the boy mattz was too frightened to go out
00:40:50
on The Sandbar so he refused to help okay and Gertrude had to Wrangle the goats on her own she did it herself
00:40:56
right later when they returned to the Village mattz feared that he was going to be made fun of if anyone found out
00:41:03
that he was too scared to go out there and recapture the goats so he decided to undermine gude by telling villagers that
00:41:09
he watched her Wrangle up the goats because she walked on water oh my God and they all [ __ ]
00:41:16
believed so his shitty little ego couldn't handle just being like I didn't want to go on the water and she went in
00:41:21
and we're all just going to take this 12-year-old motherfucker's like so he's saying this
00:41:27
to villagers and Pastor Lars elvas hears this yeah and he called Gertrude to the
00:41:33
church and began questioning her oh my God and she's 12 and like questioning her so like who knows I mean what we've
00:41:41
seen in the malus maleficarum there who knows they were going by it at this point um so under duress Gertrude told
00:41:51
the pastor that she when she lived in Lily hardle a maid by the name of morett Jon's daughter from a neighboring Farm
00:41:58
took her and 12 other children to Blacula and made them participate in Black Mass oh my God and we're going to
00:42:05
take a 12-year-old's word for it a 12-year-old in distress yeah exactly Jean's daughter gude said had a birth
00:42:12
mark on one of her left fingers that looked like the devil's Mark as it was described in the malus
00:42:18
maleficarum uh there were also these [ __ ] I mentioned it before called Witch prickers by the way um and just
00:42:25
speaking of a devil's Mark uh they would be brought in to stab the accused all over their body to see if there was a
00:42:33
place where they didn't bleed fantastic um that was where they claimed that the witches Mark was in the place that it
00:42:39
didn't bleed uh and sometimes these [ __ ] would use a fake blade like a retractable one to make it look like
00:42:46
they stabbed when they didn't so then it wouldn't bleed and they go whoop there it is just playing games now a firm
00:42:54
believer in Satan's ability to seduce women into practicing black magic elvas our pastor here put the 12-year-old
00:43:01
Gertrude on trial for witchcraft and she was found guilty and sentenced to die a
00:43:07
12-year-old all because this little [ __ ] ass [ __ ] wouldn't go to The Sandbar his little ego couldn't handle
00:43:12
that he didn't that a girl went out onto the SandBar and he didn't loser now fortunately before the execution could
00:43:19
happen the larger body of the church did intervene that's good and Gertrude and the 12 children she' name as accomplish
00:43:26
accompli were spared the death penalty and instead just got flogged severely oh my God so they just 13 kids just had the
00:43:35
absolute [ __ ] kicked out of them in public [ __ ] because she was tortured into naming them oh yep the maid though
00:43:48
morett Jan's daughter was less fortunate based on these false accusations which again were born out out of Matt neel's
00:43:57
childish lies to save his own little ego y the maid was arrested and executed for
00:44:02
being a witch wow and and burned alive this is what kicked off The Great noise okay now the incident involving Gertrude
00:44:10
sven's daughter not only illustrates the way that Witch Hunt spread like [ __ ] Wildfire but also how the influence of
00:44:17
earlier works like malus maleficarum were still fueling hysteria centuries after it was published in this case as
00:44:26
well as a bunch of others that followed this a child typically acting out of guilt or shame or boredom MH made some
00:44:34
outrageous accusation something that was usually completely impossible like walking on water yeah we're looking at
00:44:40
you and putam and then rather exactly and [ __ ] putam we don't forget you never rather than just all the adults
00:44:48
acknowledging it as a lie and the community treating it as such as like childlike Behavior it would be it would
00:44:54
be this and it would just be looked at as like Yep this is obviously real like what nobody questioned it and this was
00:45:00
in part due to the fear of witches spread by the church but it was also due to Kramer's assertion that once a person
00:45:07
is accused of Witchcraft you remain a witch until you can prove that you are not cannot do this of course put the
00:45:15
accused in a impossible position there was no way to dispute this accusation as we aligned out for you mhm and the
00:45:23
result was a completely irrational cycle in which a person again obviously most often times a child made some
00:45:30
thoughtless baseless wild accusation it would inevitably lead to the conclusion that according to the church's position
00:45:38
a they were a witch and then a sham trial would follow and an execution of the accused and it would all keep
00:45:45
cycling and during that whole thing they would try to get that accused to name other people once they're named they're
00:45:51
a witch you can't stop being a witch so now you're brought in and the whole cycle continues you can't win now at the
00:45:58
trial outside haradin Gertrude sven's daughter accused 19 more village women of Witchcraft under torturous
00:46:07
interrogation ger the 12-year-old yeah she was being tortured again oh no uh yeah and then those 19 Village women who
00:46:15
were being tortured and interrogated they accused more women of Witchcraft because it was like you had to they they
00:46:23
Tri you and the trend began spreading to other Villages and now conscious of how
00:46:29
such hysteria could divide communities the Swedish government responded to the growing rate of accusations by
00:46:36
establishing a commission and this commission was priests and government officials and they were used to address
00:46:42
the fears of witches and sorcery according to tman uh osterberg who we mentioned before the Smithsonian
00:46:48
Magazine article right the purpose of the commission was to relieve the Public's sense of responsibility for
00:46:54
dealing with the problem and then they were going to do this by sending government and church officials quote to
00:47:00
the mo most witch infested areas to free the nation from the fury of Satan okay but this only increased the
00:47:09
witch hysteria no way spreading to all other parts I couldn't imagine that and the trials became a national catastrophe
00:47:18
this is horrific so like the initial hysteria itself the commission and government sanctioned Witch Trials
00:47:24
quickly escalated from being something that they were trying to keep a lid on and trying to keep kind of orderly and
00:47:31
at least have some kind of process like due process in these things it they quickly devolved into chaos and
00:47:38
increased violence like this all began as like [ __ ] up but they were at least trying to make some kind of dup process
00:47:46
happen here so people weren't just being like wildly executed and accused somewhat didn't work I was going to say
00:47:52
it doesn't seem like it did it was very quick that it escalated ated into chaos um uh AER tman osterberg writes
00:48:00
previously torture was forbidden but to execute a person the court of appeal H hon must confirm the sentence
00:48:08
indisputable evidence was required which meant a confession hence the authorities
00:48:13
deemed torture necessary also the courts allowed children once deemed untrustworthy as key Witnesses wow
00:48:21
priests even paid some to testify and the stories of children became the B for many death sentences it gets even worse
00:48:28
and kids will say anything under distress most people will say anything under adult will yeah exactly now in
00:48:35
hamr in the province of housing land the entire Village was caught in this frenzy
00:48:40
in 1673 because a woman named Kirsten L's daughter was pulled out of her home in
00:48:46
front of her children after being accused of Witchcraft by local children what tman osterberg says given
00:48:53
the rate at which the hysteria had grown in such a small period it's pretty possible that L's daughter and many of
00:49:00
the other women in the village expected this to happen to be honest god um but obviously it was unbelievably
00:49:07
traumatizing for her and for her children uh kirs and L's daughter's trial before the commission lasted 4
00:49:14
days and during this trial this 4-day trial 54 local children and a handful of other locals suspected of Witchcraft
00:49:23
accused her of sorcery and of participating in Black Mass at blockula my God good now according to one local
00:49:30
boy he said that Kirsten fed him food that turned out to be a live snake and he could feel it moving around in his
00:49:39
stomach and he said so he says that that alone is like I don't know little boy like the kids say I don't know about
00:49:47
that bet I'm cool what does that mean is that lie or truth bet I think that just means
00:49:54
like yeah I bet oh really is that what that means that's how I I never knew uh sounds good to me I think cap means lie
00:50:02
oh that's the one I was think what you're thinking of yeah bet just means like I bet oh okay so you just take away
00:50:07
the eye yeah I kind of like it we really just we're really getting lazy um so the
00:50:12
boy was like yeah totally like she fed me food it was a snake um it's living in my stomach now and it's like I think
00:50:17
that's just a tapeworm but okay I also think that's just indigestion yeah so the boy then was like oh but you know
00:50:24
what's cool an angel appeared to me later that day and told me the only way to rid myself of the snake was to go to
00:50:30
the Paris priest priest confess my sins and I did that and then what's awesome is I regurgitated the snake after that
00:50:38
so the angel was right but this [ __ ] she gave me the snake nice during the trial the boy's story was confirmed by
00:50:46
his parents and two other adults [ __ ] y'all this is real [ __ ] life I did not make that up that is a real real
00:50:56
trial that happened a little boy said Kirsten L's daughter fed him a [ __ ] sandwich or something that had a live
00:51:05
snake in it it was living in his tum tum a Holy Angel appeared to this little [ __ ] said if you go to the priest and
00:51:13
confess all your sins you'll puke out the snake and be fine so he did he puked out the snake and his parents were like
00:51:20
yep confirmed what yeah what yeah the other children in the village told similarly in just wild stories
00:51:32
insane yeah and they were they were talking about consorting with serpents renouncing God turning their backs on
00:51:38
the Altar and this was all Kirsten's fault uh Kirsten uh for her part strongly and consistently denied having
00:51:47
any knowledge of any of this or any knowledge of Witchcraft or doing anything of the sort she's like I'm just
00:51:54
raising my kids out here but it did no good she'd already been accused there's no way to undo it once you've been
00:52:00
accused the toothpaste cannot go back in the tube at the end of a 4-day trial kired and was found guilty and sentenced
00:52:06
to death by beheading and after that her body was burned at the stake holy [ __ ]
00:52:12
after she was beheaded her beheaded body was burned at a stake and they wondered
00:52:16
where the plagues came from now among the many problems with Sweden's witch hunting commissions was that it put like
00:52:24
like we've already mentioned a billi problems but one of the the offshoot problems of this commission was that it
00:52:30
put an impossible burden even on the like just random men that they put on these commissions cuz they made them
00:52:36
responsible for quelling the growing fears and anxieties of everyone in the village but everyone's getting accused
00:52:42
but that's the thing so they specifically were being told to root out and eradicate Witches by the church and
00:52:48
in that way they were being responsible for proving and dealing with something that was impossible to prove and deal
00:52:55
with with but then their failure to meet the demands of the state and their neighbors meant that even the best on
00:53:01
the commission were INE effective and at worst they would then be accused of Witchcraft
00:53:07
themselves so this was a horrible cycle with which pulled everyone into it even the people
00:53:15
that were placed on this commission some of them were simply doing it so they themselves wouldn't get wrapped in it
00:53:21
and executed and beheaded it's level not to say that the men on these commissions
00:53:26
were great or anything I'm just saying like there's so many layers to who got affected by this and who got pulled into
00:53:32
this like these kids these kids are not inherently evil kids no they're being pushed into it they're being terrified
00:53:39
into this like this is all everyone is working off of fear it's so scary it's fear that's being trickled down by this
00:53:48
giant Authority that's looming over them kind of like how that happens now and that's and it's like look what's
00:53:55
happening even the and and cuz I'm even going to give it to these men on the commission some of them were not
00:54:02
inherently evil like before this but they were just this was their job it's an impossible thing for anybody to be
00:54:08
involved in so [ __ ] up and then they're being told well if you don't do this you're going to be beheaded and
00:54:13
it's like what the [ __ ] like how does anybody act in this way want launch myself into the sun everyone's just
00:54:19
getting pitted against each other yeah and that's just to say like you know it it was just chaos it was chaos pure
00:54:26
Mayhem with zero kind of like clear thinking involved from anywhere no this [ __ ] is saying he threw up a
00:54:34
snake in front of his priest like that's not clear thinking my it's like you got
00:54:37
like nine-year-olds saying this kind of [ __ ] and these nine-year-olds aren't inherently evil they say stuff they make
00:54:42
up stories like [ __ ] Anne putam but like the like these nyear old listen an putam
00:54:47
is a special kind of [ __ ] up but like these nine-year-olds and [ __ ] like not
00:54:51
all of them were just dicks like a lot of them were just f [ __ ] terrified and they were acting from men and women
00:54:59
cuz there were women who were accusing these witches who were just trying to stay out of the well and they're just
00:55:04
they're trying not to get fogged it's everyone it's everyone is basing it out of fear and then there's those random
00:55:12
evil pieces of [ __ ] that are in here just having a [ __ ] party because this is what they couldn't wait for yeah and
00:55:19
it's hard to distinguish between everybody to be quite honest um so it's scary now this was particularly true in the
00:55:27
small village of torer which is what we this is all about in Sweden's anger manland it is actually spelled anger
00:55:36
manland I think that's more fun personally but I think you say it anger manland this whole play sounds like
00:55:41
anger man land the anger it does actually everyone is an angry man does in the land uh it's
00:55:48
Sweden's angr manland province in the northern part of the country okay uh in 1674 the commission contracted lenus
00:55:58
christophy Horus another is it wasn't there already a hornus no I was going to say you heard
00:56:05
me say it out loud cuz I was trying to pronounce it correctly yeah you didn't want to say it the wrong way so he had
00:56:11
served as the local clergyman for the year prior after the previous Minister had passed away R and as they had done
00:56:18
in the other Villages the commission tasked tornus with investigating and eradicating Witchcraft in the Paris
00:56:25
using whatever means necessary no thank you now in pursuit of his goal Cornus recruited a group of local boys oh first
00:56:34
mistake that's always good who claimed they could I and it gets worse cuz he recruited this local boy group that was
00:56:40
like we can actually identify those marked by the devil just by looking at their
00:56:45
face good how hornus was like this seems legit he like this checks what's kind of
00:56:53
interesting though is that he almost gets real checked himself for choosing to do this and I'll let you know how uh
00:57:01
so they're like yeah yeah we can totally we're going to figure out who's marked by the devil just by looking at their
00:57:05
[ __ ] mug um and he's like that sounds great so over time such people those who
00:57:10
capitalized on the hysteria like we talked about there were the bad people who were capitalizing on this there's
00:57:16
always the bad people capitalizing become common um but while it may appear that um as though these individuals
00:57:22
sought to benefit from this unspeakable horror going around them again it was more likely that most of them not the
00:57:29
little boys but some most of them were trying not to be accused themselves yeah so it was basically align yourself with
00:57:35
the witch Hunters or align yourself with the witch [ __ ] and it's like you situation and it's like or just run into
00:57:43
the forest and never stop running that would be what I would do just by truly but then if you're found in the forest
00:57:48
you're [ __ ] also speaking of witch trials again go read slooh foot it's really good oh yeah uh by uh by
00:57:55
Brum it's really good Brum so either way whatever their motivations these boys which they referred to as viscosa which
00:58:06
Loosely translates to something like wise boys or smart boys or Sage boys sounds like Biscoff cookies to me right
00:58:12
it does they became common in Witch Trials across Europe particularly in cases where children played a large part
00:58:18
of the trial which is so chilling to me it is it's [ __ ] up as like Witnesses or accusers in many cases these boys
00:58:25
such as those positioned outside the church in dll were paid for these Services I bet they [ __ ] were so like
00:58:32
many people who were in horus's position here uh he was a True Believer in the teachings of the church and saw himself
00:58:39
as a soldier in this battle against the Devil by and in a very short amount of time hornus had rounded up 71 people in
00:58:48
a small Parish 65 of those were women 65 out of the 71 oh my my God many of them
00:58:56
were elderly or poor and the accused were all identified by two boys The viscosa Who St who were stationed
00:59:06
outside of the doors of the church to identify them as they left church as they left church as they left church
00:59:15
these boys would be sitting out there and go her marked by the devil what the [ __ ] this is what's funny though because
00:59:23
one of the boys identified horus's wife horus's own baby mama r rufina as one marked by the devil
00:59:33
what a pretty name Bri rufina well and then this boy was slapped for having identified The Minister's Wife as a
00:59:39
witch and he corrected himself and said oops I must have been blinded by the sun
00:59:43
just kidding oh has that happened before my friend [ __ ] you wow and also [ __ ] you
00:59:50
hornus put your wife through the same [ __ ] my wife [ __ ] you your wife was I would I'd be like no no no no no no he
00:59:58
said what he said he said what he said he said brda get out there so the trial get her yeah so the trial began October
01:00:06
15th 16774 and Tor shooker that's like hard to say it is um with judge Johan Anderson hreus presiding over all 71
01:00:16
cases which included residents of torser doll and ET eter lanis uh all 71 had accused of practicing Witchcraft and
01:00:26
abducting children who were then forced to participate in whatever was happening
01:00:31
at blockula okay at the time the population total for all three villages was 675 people so the accused accounted
01:00:41
for more than 10% of everyone over the age of 15 in the entire Parish in this one day holy [ __ ] [ __ ] yep so as in
01:00:52
every other case of witch hunting the Accused at torer had already been accused almost all by children and so
01:00:59
stood no chance of proving themselves innocent that's it you're accused and not only that you're accused because two
01:01:06
little shits stood outside of a church and said you marked by the devil wow just at random yeah just at random
01:01:14
clearly cuz they accidentally got his wife yeah oops the sun was in my eyes wow in one case one of the accused
01:01:21
confessed to having made aara which is a magical bar ball of yarn and I was like
01:01:25
that sounds delightful F I like that um she they said they made it by dripping her blood onto the yarn and asking Satan
01:01:31
to give it life okay it's just weird how like they wrap Satan up so much in witchcraft cuz I'm
01:01:38
like witchcraft really doesn't have anything to no they don't even like give a [ __ ] it's not even real uh in another
01:01:44
case a girl of only 11 or 12 years old was forced to testify that her own mother had brought her to bacula oh oh
01:01:54
that is so [ __ ] on another level and she said when she was there she watched the women chop up and boil children in a
01:02:02
cauldron honey you've been watching too many programs but she was forced to testify wow now another young boy
01:02:10
accused his neighbor of kidnapping him and taking him to blockula where he watched her eat drink and dance in
01:02:16
blockula and lying with the evil one under the table and kneeling before Satan sounds pretty rad pardon I was
01:02:24
going to say like see you at 10 now according to Hans hogman uh many of the children who testified at the
01:02:32
trials in ch tchaker did so against their own family members and in some cases like we mentioned their own
01:02:38
mothers that's horrific uh Hans says in the course of the trials it seems that most of the accused had serious doubts
01:02:45
that the authorities would go to such lengths too impose the death penalty rather those who confess did so to
01:02:51
return home to their children as soon as possible Right a church sentence could could one always put up with so they
01:02:57
were like I'll deal with the church sentence that's what they thought they were going to get they had no idea it
01:03:02
was going to go this far but obviously those doubts were very misplaced Because by the end of the trial all 71 were
01:03:10
convicted and sentenced to die 71 on June 1st 1675 the accused along with a bunch of people from The Villages
01:03:21
were all gathered at the chiker church where they learned that they were going to all be beheaded and all of their
01:03:28
bodies would be burned at the stake all 71 and can you imagine one day first of all what and second of all can you
01:03:36
imagine if one of those was your mom that you had to testify against and then you find out beheaded and burned because
01:03:41
of you she's being beheaded and burned and you they had no idea they thought they were just like let's get them they
01:03:47
can deal with the church sentence and their mom's probably told them that their mom was probably like I can deal
01:03:51
with it just you know what whatever it takes to get this done and I'll get home to you and then they're like no we're
01:03:57
going to cut off her head and burn her body at the Stak oh my God yep it's horrific so from the church after they
01:04:06
learned of their sentences they were all led up to a spot in the mountains known as hauret which
01:04:12
is Witch Mountain uh where three PES had been built to accommodate this unusually
01:04:18
large group um in many cases the prisoners fainted or became too weak to carry on because they were so upset and
01:04:25
family members were forced to carry them to their execution oh my God the executions were
01:04:33
overseen by the parish mayor and carried out by two or three executioners who worked all day beheading each of these
01:04:42
people how are you ever the same after that 71 PE what is 71 divided by three or two
01:04:50
even 71 divided by three the answer answer is approximately 23. 6666 everybody is is beheading that many
01:05:01
people likely or more if it was only two executioners cuz it's two or three 71 divided by
01:05:10
two the answer is 35.5 35 people I that's on another level and you just have to go about your life after
01:05:21
that and they would do these beheadings in the location below the PES where the PES were built
01:05:26
because they wanted to ensure that the blood flow wouldn't extinguish the Flames oh once the head had been cut off
01:05:33
the body was carried to the py a family member had to do this by the way carry your beheaded body over to the py uh
01:05:40
where you would be thrown on there and burned that's yep and after this was all done after all the EX I just have to say
01:05:50
it again sorry this is real this is real like this isn't a horror story this keep
01:05:54
having to tell yourself over and over again this [ __ ] happened the amount of times I like cognitively like
01:05:59
dissonance myself away from this and had to come back and be like oh no this is not a fiction story this this happened
01:06:07
to People's ancestors this happened that's so [ __ ] like there's listeners from that have Swedish
01:06:16
ancestry that that could be tied to either side of this wow yeah it's wild go on no it's true cuz I think that way
01:06:24
with the Salem WIS when I go into it it's hard to think of itous it sounds like fiction it does so when this was
01:06:32
all done the executions were concluded the clothing of the accused which also had been stripped before they were
01:06:38
executed um they were return to the family and then the family was instructed just go home sorry what was
01:06:44
returned to the family their clothing oh okay here and so they would say here's their clothes just go home I guess see
01:06:51
you guys on Sunday for Mass oh and you know you had to be at Mass on Sunday you know your ass was going to be there that
01:06:58
day oh my but then you don't know am I going to come out of Mass on Sunday and some little [ __ ] is going to point at me
01:07:03
and say I'm I jesus cuz did these so were there subsequent ones like afterwards there was but this is one of
01:07:11
the main like this is this is a wild one yeah and it's just I I and there are some sources that you can read records
01:07:22
that say that a couple of individ uals might have been spared that day because of uh they might have been
01:07:27
pregnant uh but if they were spared that day then they were waited give bir and the same fate befell them so that's
01:07:35
somehow that's like worse because you knew what was coming yeah it's all it's all bad now the trials and executions at
01:07:40
torer proved to be something of a turning point um there were trials but it changed after this um especially in
01:07:48
Sweden in particular um it proved if nothing else that when it came to accusations of what Witchcraft and
01:07:54
sorcery no one not even children were safe and later that year after the executions at hauret horus's own mother
01:08:03
and Aunt were accused of Witchcraft wow if that isn't Karma I don't know what is
01:08:08
for Real uh hornus himself was later shunned by the community and retired in shame bye hornus yeah [ __ ] you dude by
01:08:17
the following year 1676 public opinion on witches and accusations of Witchcraft shifted a bit this was a turning point
01:08:25
there were other things after this but this was a big Turning Point by the time the hysteria had reached Stockholm that
01:08:31
year it had all but petered out to be honest um there was still one final case to be tried though before everything
01:08:38
came to an end okay because just a few months after the executions at tors sherker a boy in Stockholm by the name
01:08:44
of Johan graas accused a neighbor melan Matt's daughter of Witchcraft Matt's daughter was put on trial and refused to
01:08:52
confess to being a witch and she was of course deemed guilty and burned alive at
01:08:57
the stake and how old was she I don't know how old she was but okay so I thought I missed no that's okay but she
01:09:02
was she was just a neighbor wow and he just a and she was burned alive at the Stak and a short time later it was
01:09:10
learned that Johan had lied when he accused Matt's daughter and when that was learned he was
01:09:18
executed so suddenly according to Jenny tman osterberg uh a majority began to question the truthfulness of child
01:09:27
Witnesses several of whom later confessed that they had lied and were they executed I don't know
01:09:34
how that but I'm like are we just going to execute and execute and execute till we can't execute no more well for a lot
01:09:41
of their role in spreading the hysteria some of them were executed wow and in the months and years that followed
01:09:48
accusations of Witchcraft and sorcery suddenly became increasingly rare I bet and when they were leveled they were
01:09:54
pretty quickly shut down either by neighbors or authorities cuz they were like we're not doing this again and with
01:10:00
that the great noise came to a rather unceremonious end in Sweden uh after having led to the death of nearly 300
01:10:08
people in the end mostly women wow but it's more likely that it's a very a much higher number I'm sure right like some
01:10:16
people just weren't documented now in the decades that followed the big noise there were attempts to obviously accuse
01:10:22
and try witches but they never really gained any attra any attaction and in some cases were just completely shut
01:10:28
down by authorities by then they had reached a more enlightened age and in 1858 for example a priest in delara um a
01:10:37
county in central Sweden accused an entire group of local women of Witchcraft so a priesthood hoping the
01:10:43
case would be brought to trial and instead the authorities went out of their way to silence him and the
01:10:49
accusations and they said that it brought embarrassment to their government that he even ACC accuse them
01:10:54
of this so Sweden turned it around I'm glad to hear that because Sweden turned it around yeah that's pretty [ __ ]
01:11:00
embarrassing they learned now um as tman osterberg wrote in Heritage discourse the histories of marginalized peoples
01:11:07
were as oppressed as the peoples themselves because Heritage is so often forged and preserve power and maintain
01:11:14
precedence the story of the women in the Swedish wish trials wit trial serves as
01:11:18
an example so torer has not tried to hide this brutal history of witch hunting um they've
01:11:26
actually just tried to kind of like Rebrand it a little bit as like they're a destination for like those with an
01:11:31
interest in history but they don't hide it they're like this happened yeah um they might like not give you like I
01:11:38
don't think they're out there like let me tell you all the Gory details but like they don't they don't hide from it
01:11:43
they're like this happened and you can come here and learn about it you have to recognize they actually have a memorial
01:11:48
to those executed that's been erected in the village and it was erected in 1975 wow like there yeah I don't know when
01:11:55
that one was erected you can visit tchaker know that they know what what happened there and that they have they
01:12:02
have you know done all they can do to get past it but it is Unthinkable that this is real it's
01:12:11
Unthinkable truly I'm like without words and then the fact that even more people
01:12:17
were executed after when they were like yeah I lied it's like two executions don't make one
01:12:24
exact it's just not a good and cuz I know some people when they see Witch Trials they're like oh okay whatever
01:12:30
like what but when you read about it well each one are different yeah you don't realize how how intense these
01:12:38
things are it's not just like oh they got on put on trial and some people were screaming and pretending they were being
01:12:43
bit by specters and [ __ ] it's like it's like no no no thissing against their own mothers yeah
01:12:49
this got real brutal so that is the story of some of the European witch trial Madness
01:12:56
and the malus maleficarum and The torer Witch Trials fun except not at all Sweden learned so good for Sweden good
01:13:06
job Sweden you've done you've done well for Sweden you know killing it since well
01:13:12
with that we hope you keep listening and we hope you keep it weird but not say wor that you put anybody on trial for
01:13:19
witchcraft because I think you're probably lying and then it's going to come out that you're lying and then
01:13:22
everybody's going to get executed and really who wins when that happens no one not you no one and putnam's a
01:13:30
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