Witchcraft-and-the-Gay-Counterculture-1

tom of the country (Wright, 31-32). The bishop apparently believedhim, because he was allowed to keep his job. Can you imagine whatwould happen if a Catholic priest did that today in Boston?In the 14th century a group of Armenians, probably Cathers,practiced sun worship and held orgies (Russell, 93, n. 49). In1353, Boccaccio’s Decameron mentioned a secret society called“rovers” (reminiscent of the Benandanti) that met twice a monthfor feasting and orgies (Russell, 193). In 1375 an Italian woman,Gabrina Albetti, was brought to trial at Reggio for teaching otherwomen to take off their clothing at night and pray to the stars. Shewas condemned by a secular court, branded, and her tongue wascut out (Russell, 210). In the 15th century, John Zizka charged thatBohemian heretics called Adamites were practicing nudity, ritualdances around fires, and sodomy (Lerner, 123). This report probablyreferred to pagan practices, since fire dances were a regular feature ofthe pagan holiday that survived under Christianity as the Feast of St.John the Baptist (Midsummer Eve). Around 1455, Pope Calixtus IIIforbade religious practices that were still being celebrated in his dayin caves decorated with horses. One art historian thinks this refers toStone-Age caves, since these often had animals painted on them andwere originally used as shamanistic religious sites (Rawson, 10).In the 16th century, we find more links between stone-ageand bronze age sites and charges of witchcraft. In 1514, the EnglishmanJohn Panter was accused of visiting a location annually on theeve of the Feast of St. John the Baptist for the purpose of consultingdemons. The place he went to was in the parish of Doulting, neara location of 12 bronze-age burial mounds (Grinsell, 73). In 1566,John Walsh of Netherburg in England said he consulted “fairies” thatresided in large heaps of earth and that he got his power of witchcraftfrom them. These heaps were prehistoric burial mounds (Grinsell,73-74). In this same century, blatantly pagan practices continuedeven within some churches. In 1562, a large wood and leather dildowas worshipped in the Catholic church of St. Eutropius at Orangeand was publicly seized and burned by Protestants (Wright, 51).In 17th-century England, many bronze-age monumentswere reputed to be the sites of witches’ sabbats and were mentionedrepeatedly in witch trials. In northwestern France, the sites of bronzeagemonuments were often associated in folklore with witches’ sabbats.Some burial mounds were even named from witchcraft, such asone in Brabant called Le Lieu du Sabbat (The Place of the Sabbat”)(Grinsell, 76-77).These reports bring to mind stories about magic mounds inItaly. In 1630, Diel Breull of Assia said that he had traveled to theMound of Venus, where he met Frau Holt, who was a protector ofthe fertility of the land. In 1632, Breull was tortured by the Inquisitioninto confessing that he had worshipped the Devil there (Ginzburg,64-65). In 1694, a group of people called the Brotherhood of82know God was to obey those who occupied the next highest rung inthe church’s hierarchy, since hierarchy in and of itself was an imageof divinity. Dionysius made obedience more than just a moral duty;it became the means of grace itself, as bureaucracy was raised to thelevel of a mystical principle. Later, Protestantism threw off the conceptof the hierarchical dispensation of grace, but retained the ideaof the mystical importance of its own hierarchy. As a result, in bothCatholicism and Protestantism, church and hierarchy have becomesynonymous.Christianity viewed learning as a bookish practice, and setup a system of universities across Europe. Learning became impersonaland objective, consisting of the study of documents and booksin a classroom under the control of a central bureaucracy. The churchcarefully outlawed and destroyed those books that the faithful wereforbidden to read. The effect of these practices was to separate reasonfrom feeling and to make learning into an objective, intellectualizedpursuit conducted within the confines of an institution. Learningbecame bureaucratized.Christianity and the old religion differed in the way theyviewed nudity, hair, drugs, and animals. Among the Celts, nuditywas never regarded as shameful since the nude body was respected asa source of religious power. Celtic warriors sometimes fought nudein order to increase their magical powers on the battle field (Chadwick,The Celts, 134). The chief deities of the old religion were generallyshown nude, and the male deity had an erect cock. Small leadamulets, depicting both male and female genitals, continued to beused as good-luck charms by the peasants in Europe long after Christianitybecame the official religion (Hamilton).Christianity’s contempt for the nude body was logically con-91