DISCLAIMER: SOME DISGUSTING AND GROSS STUFF MAY APPEAR IN THIS BLOG, ALSO SOME REFERENCE TO THE DEVIL AND DEMONS, IF THIS OFFENDS OR FRIGHTENS ANYONE, STAY AWAY, YOU’VE BEEN WARNED!

Witches and Witchcraft: Secrets, myth-busting and enlightened research on some of the most misunderstood people in history.

I have decided to dig into a subject that has fascinated me for many years. Witches, witchcraft and all that goes with it. Since I technically follow the Wiccan path, I am a witch, it is witch for both genders, warlocks are entirely different. Like I did with my mythology dictionary, I am going to take a few entries out of the Encyclopedia of Witches & Witchcraft, 2^nd edition, compiled by Rosemary Ellen Guiley, Checkmark Books. I will not go through all 26 letters like I did with the Myth dictionary but I will select a few really good or obscure entries. Like the one I am beginning this search into the unknown lives and history of real life witches with. I really hope you enjoy this and feel free to comment either on this blog or email me. Thank you and here we go: (ps: unlike the Dictionary of mythology which had short and concise entries the encyclopedia of witches and witchcraft has long entry, I will be paraphrasing some, to see the complete entry I highly suggest seeking out this book or googling our topics)

Part 1: Allotriophagy: The vomiting or disgorgement (love that word, surely not used enough) of strange or foul objects, usually associated with the Devil or other demons AND DEMONIC POSSESION. Such actions also once were seen as illusions or spells caused by witches or as attempts at suicide by the mentally deranged. Most treatises on possession written during the Renaissance and later included the vomiting of unusual objects as an indication that the devil had entered a person’s body. The objects vomited by the victim could be anything from live animals, such as butterflies, toads, snakes or worms to pieces of iron, nails, small files, pins, needles, feathers, stones, cloth, shards of glass, hair, seaweed or foam. (The entry goes on to recount three cases of possession in medieval times that many people witnessed such acts of allotriophagy, including one case in Amsterdam in 1566 were 30 children became frenzied, vomiting pins, needles, thimbles, bits of cloth and pieces of broken jugs and glass).

     Of course, the first thing I think of is the classic scene from The Exorcist, when the possessed girl projectile vomits a pea soup like substance all over the place. I believe Scary Movie did a satire of that scene, it was hilarious but in all honesty this was just another thing to blame witches for. As we will see in my coming blog posts, witches have been persecuted and blamed since the spread of Catholicism began and in some cases even way before that. Every ancient culture had shamans and or witches who were trusted members of their societies, sages and wise men and women who healed, led and advised. They were often the targets of envious tribal leaders or later on, religious leaders. It is the reason they were hunted, tortured and killed for hundreds of years. Without social media or a very reliable system of communication many cases of mass possessions or hexings were reported. As we shall see in later entries the entire Salem Witch trial was nothing more than mass hysteria and a few power hungry men in the village trying to scoop up some widow’s land. Seriously, the entire Salem witch trial was nothing more than a land grab by powerful church leaders. Back in the early Dark ages and beginnings of the Medieval ages The new rising religion was Catholicism and it was doing everything in its power to pacify and ultimately convert the numerous pagan tribes that were being conquered or already were part of the Roman Empire. Conversion was done by force in some instances or by combining the local people’s mythology with that of the Catholic religion, kind of blending the two together but in the end twisting it to be the Catholic way. Those who failed to convert were dealt with swiftly and those wise old men and women who once were an integral part of the tribal society were dubbed heretics and branded as witches. There was nothing more evil than a witch except for maybe Satan himself and the church and its leaders from the Pope down to the local vicar had their eyes and ears open for a good witch to find and burn. These people, mostly woman but a surprising amount of men as well, were doing nothing more than practicing their own, ancient ways of religion ad dealing with everyday problems.  Witchcraft was illegal to practice in England until the 1950s and in Canada, not until the 1980s! Illegal to practice, do you understand what that means? A whole religion, an ancient religion at that was banned, why? Simply because the Catholic church began one of the largest smear campaigns in history in order to further their agenda and reign in their newly converted sheep.  Oh, I know there were a few rotten eggs, a few women (and men) who took advantage of the fear mongering and furthered the relentless assault on witches and those who practiced witchcraft and as we shall see in the next few chapters of my blog, there is so much more to this ancient belief than mere green skinned ladies, flying on brooms trying to steal ruby slippers, witches and witchcraft have a deep rooted history that connects way back to our ancient ancestors and our own ancient beliefs. I hope I got your attention with the vomit spewing and I hope you come back for many more interesting tidbits about this and other mysterious and strange topics. This encyclopedia of Witches & Witchcraft has a ton of good stuff and I cannot wait to share some of it with you all. See you again soon for another chapter. Until then take care and as always, PEACE!!!!