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Witch-hunt
A witch-hunt, or a witch purge, is a search for people who have been labeled witches or a search for evidence of witchcraft. The Witch trials in the early modern period, classical period of witch-hunts in Early Modern Europe and European Colonization of the Americas, Colonial America took place in the Early Modern period or about 1450 to 1750, spanning the upheavals of the Protestant Reformation, Reformation and the Thirty Years' War, resulting in an estimated 35,000 to 50,000 executions. The last executions of people convicted as witches in Europe took place in the 18th century. In other regions, like Africa and Asia, contemporary witch-hunts have been reported from sub-Saharan Africa and Papua New Guinea, and official legislation against witchcraft is still found in Saudi Arabia and Cameroon today. In current language, "witch-hunt" metaphorically means an investigation that is usually conducted with much publicity, supposedly to uncover subversive activity, disloyalty, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Witchcraft
Witchcraft traditionally means the use of magic or supernatural powers to harm others. A practitioner is a witch. In medieval and early modern Europe, where the term originated, accused witches were usually women who were believed to have used malevolent magic against their own community, and often to have communed with evil beings. It was thought witchcraft could be thwarted by protective magic or counter-magic, which could be provided by cunning folk or folk healers. Suspected witches were also intimidated, banished, attacked or killed. Often they would be formally prosecuted and punished, if found guilty or simply believed to be guilty. European witch-hunts and witch trials in the early modern period led to tens of thousands of executions. In some regions, many of those accused of witchcraft were folk healers or midwives. European belief in witchcraft gradually dwindled during and after the Age of Enlightenment. Contemporary cultures that believe in magic and the superna ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Witch Trials In The Early Modern Period
Witch trials in the early modern period saw that between 1400 to 1782, around 40,000 to 60,000 were killed due to suspicion that they were practicing witchcraft. Some sources estimate that a total of 100,000 trials occurred at its maximum for a similar period. Groundwork on the concept of witchcraft (a person's collaboration with the devil through the use of magic) was developed by Christian theologians as early as the 13th century. However, prosecutions for the practice of witchcraft would only reach a highpoint from 1560 to 1630 during the Counter-Reformation and the European wars of religion, with some regions burning those who were convicted at the stake, of whom roughly 80% were women,, mostly over the age of 40. Medieval background Christian doctrine Throughout the medieval era, mainstream Christian doctrine had denied the belief in the existence of witches and witchcraft, condemning it as a pagan superstition. Some have argued that the work of the Dominican Thomas Aquin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Moral Panic
A moral panic is a widespread feeling of fear, often an irrational one, that some evil person or thing threatens the values, interests, or well-being of a community or society. It is "the process of arousing social concern over an issue", usually perpetuated by moral entrepreneurs and the mass media, and exacerbated by politicians and lawmakers. Stanley Cohen, who developed the term, states that moral panic happens when "a condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests". While the issues identified may be real, the claims "exaggerate the seriousness, extent, typicality and/or inevitability of harm". Moral panics are now studied in sociology and criminology, media studies, and cultural studies. Examples of moral panic include the belief in widespread abduction of children by predatory pedophiles; belief in ritual abuse of women and children by Satanic cults; and concerns over the effects of music lyrics ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Magic (paranormal)
Magic, sometimes spelled magick, is an ancient praxis rooted in sacred rituals, spiritual divinations, and/or cultural lineage—with an intention to invoke, manipulate, or otherwise manifest supernatural forces, beings, or entities in the natural, incarnate world. It is a categorical yet often ambiguous term which has been used to refer to a wide variety of beliefs and practices, frequently considered separate from both religion and science. Although connotations have varied from positive to negative at times throughout history, magic continues to have an important religious and medicinal role in many cultures today. Within Western culture, magic has been linked to ideas of the Other, foreignness, and primitivism; indicating that it is "a powerful marker of cultural difference" and likewise, a non-modern phenomenon. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, Western intellectuals perceived the practice of magic to be a sign of a primitive mentality and also commo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Babylonia
Babylonia (; Akkadian: , ''māt Akkadī'') was an ancient Akkadian-speaking state and cultural area based in the city of Babylon in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq and parts of Syria). It emerged as an Amorite-ruled state c. 1894 BCE. During the reign of Hammurabi and afterwards, Babylonia was called "the country of Akkad" (''Māt Akkadī'' in Akkadian), a deliberate archaism in reference to the previous glory of the Akkadian Empire. It was often involved in rivalry with the older state of Assyria to the north and Elam to the east in Ancient Iran. Babylonia briefly became the major power in the region after Hammurabi ( fl. c. 1792–1752 BCE middle chronology, or c. 1696–1654 BCE, short chronology) created a short-lived empire, succeeding the earlier Akkadian Empire, Third Dynasty of Ur, and Old Assyrian Empire. The Babylonian Empire rapidly fell apart after the death of Hammurabi and reverted to a small kingdom. Like Assyria, the Babylonian state retained ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Age Of Exploration
The Age of Discovery (or the Age of Exploration), also known as the early modern period, was a period largely overlapping with the Age of Sail, approximately from the 15th century to the 17th century in European history, during which seafaring Europeans explored and colonized regions across the globe. The extensive overseas exploration, with the Portuguese and Spanish at the forefront, later joined by the Dutch, English, and French, emerged as a powerful factor in European culture, most notably the European encounter and colonization of the Americas. It also marks an increased adoption of colonialism as a government policy in several European states. As such, it is sometimes synonymous with the first wave of European colonization. European exploration outside the Mediterranean started with the maritime expeditions of Portugal to the Canary Islands in 1336, and later with the Portuguese discoveries of the Atlantic archipelagos of Madeira and Azores, the coast of West Afri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Law Code
A code of law, also called a law code or legal code, is a systematic collection of statutes. It is a type of legislation that purports to exhaustively cover a complete system of laws or a particular area of law as it existed at the time the code was enacted, by a process of codification. Though the process and motivations for codification are similar in different common law and civil law systems, their usage is different. In a civil law country, a code of law typically exhaustively covers the complete system of law, such as civil law or criminal law. By contrast, in a common law country with legislative practices in the English tradition, modify the existing common law only to the extent of its express or implicit provision, but otherwise leaves the common law intact. A code entirely replaces the common law in a particular area, leaving the common law inoperative unless and until the code is repealed. In a third case of slightly different usage, in the United States and other ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Code Of Hammurabi
The Code of Hammurabi is a Babylonian legal text composed 1755–1750 BC. It is the longest, best-organised, and best-preserved legal text from the ancient Near East. It is written in the Old Babylonian dialect of Akkadian, purportedly by Hammurabi, sixth king of the First Dynasty of Babylon. The primary copy of the text is inscribed on a basalt stele tall. The stele was rediscovered in 1901 at the site of Susa in present-day Iran, where it had been taken as plunder six hundred years after its creation. The text itself was copied and studied by Mesopotamian scribes for over a millennium. The stele now resides in the Louvre Museum. The top of the stele features an image in relief of Hammurabi with Shamash, the Babylonian sun god and god of justice. Below the relief are about 4,130 lines of cuneiform text: one fifth contains a prologue and epilogue in poetic style, while the remaining four fifths contain what are generally called the laws. In the prologue, Hammurabi claims ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Divination
Divination (from Latin ''divinare'', 'to foresee, to foretell, to predict, to prophesy') is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an occultic, standardized process or ritual. Used in various forms throughout history, diviners ascertain their interpretations of how a querent should proceed by reading signs, events, or omens, or through alleged contact or interaction with a supernatural agency. Divination can be seen as a systematic method with which to organize what appears to be disjointed, random facets of existence such that they provide insight into a problem at hand. If a distinction is to be made between divination and fortune-telling, divination has a more formal or ritualistic element and often contains a more social character, usually in a religious context, as seen in traditional African medicine. Fortune-telling, on the other hand, is a more everyday practice for personal purposes. Particular divination methods vary by culture and reli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Holy River
Sacred waters are sacred natural sites characterized by tangible topographical land formations such as rivers, lakes, springs, reservoirs, and oceans, as opposed to holy water which is water elevated with the sacramental blessing of a cleric. These organic bodies of water have attained religious significance not from the modern alteration or blessing, but were sanctified through mythological or historical figures. Sacred waters have been exploited for cleansing, healing, initiations, and death rites. Ubiquitous and perpetual fixations with water occur across religious traditions. It tends to be a central element in the creations accounts of almost every culture with mythological, cosmological, and theological myths. In this way, many groups characterize water as "living water", or the "water of life". This means that it gives life and is the fundamental element from which life arises. Each religious or cultural group that feature waters as sacred substances tends to favor cer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
