"Mother( Judges) knows Best"

 

“Sometime the witch hunting takes on atrocious dimensions — the Nazi persecution of Jews, the Salem witch trials, the Ku Klux Klan scapegoating of blacks. Notice, however, that in all such cases the persecutor hates the persecuted for precisely those traits that the persecutor displays with a glaringly uncivilized fury. At other times, the witch hunt appears in less terrifying proportions—the cold war fear of a "Commie under every bed," for instance. And often, it appears in comic form—the interminable gossip about everybody else that tells you much more about the gossiper than about the object of gossip. But all of these are instances of individuals desperate to prove that their own shadows belong to other people……..”( Ken Wilber, No Boundary: Eastern and Western Approaches to Personal Growth).

 

We need to give this question serious consideration because it can shed light on remarkably similar behavior in our courts today. The most important thing to understand about those people make these accusation is that they did not believe themselves to be ignorant or savage. Witch trials were carried out in courts of law and were given the same serious consideration that trials today are given. Evidence was presented and testimony was heard. Honorable judges would then render a verdict constructed from the information given, the laws of those times, and their basic understand of the world. Judges were the most educated and respected people of their time.One thing that everyone understood at that time was that witches existed and harmed others with magic. Most of the judges who convicted people for practicing witchcraft believed that they were protecting their citizens and acting for the public good. The important thing to understand is that these judges did not see themselves as we see them now. They saw themselves in exactly the same way that judges see themselves now; modern intelligent honorable people acting in the best interests of their citizens. When most of us think of witch hunters we imagine people running around with pitch forks carrying off old women and burning them at the stake. But witch hunt happen every day without us even thinking about it