Carol Dommermuth

Out of the Cauldron: the Life and Times of Europe's Witches Carol Dommermuth

Publisher Marketing: "All witchcraft comes from (desires), which in women is insatiable... Wherefore for the sake of fulfilling their (desires) they consort even with devils." There was a time in Europe when one could detect the sickening smell of roasted flesh throughout the countryside; when a ride through a town included dead bodies hanging from trees and scaffolds in the town square; a time when distrust and finger pointing were the staples of neighbors, siblings, and even a best friend; when screams of pain and torment could be heard above the cacophony of village life. This was a time when thousands of people, most of them women, were accused of witchcraft, of loving the Devil, of taking part in sabbats, of flying through the air on their broomsticks, of putting curses on those they didn't like, and of kidnapping babies from their cradles. The Catholic Church and men of power were the major contributors to this extermination; add in superstition and general ignorance, and it painted a perfect but tragic picture of one of the worst holocausts in history. In addition to copies of woodcuts demonstrating the process of witch hunting, this volume includes quotes from the Malleus Malificarum or the Witches Bible, one of the most important sources of information for witch-hunters, and additional quotes from other works of that time to support the author's belief that during this period, women were used as scapegoats for all the evils of society, and were part of an ethnic cleansing pogrom, tracing the history of women from goddesses, to evil and sinful beings.