NEUOFFENBARUNGAbout witches and witch trials (22 February 1847)
1. There will hardly be a person who has never heard of the so-called witches; for it is not so long ago that the courts still held witch trials, and under this name transported a large number of the most innocent people from this world into the other world with the most painful death.
2. But how did mankind come to witches? We want to answer this question with a few little stories.
3. In earlier times, when people lived much more simply than now, there were often those who had the so-called second sight and lived naturally in both worlds. People in this time could easily get there if their food were simpler, but the present complicated food is mostly harmful to them. With this fare they so bungle and stultify their nature that in itself, the soul becomes entangled and agglutinated like a bird under the spindles of glue, so that it cannot possibly attain to that agility and dexterity in which a free upward and outward flight would be possible for it.
4. What, then, was the diet of those earlier plain people?
5. The food consisted mostly of pulses, which were cooked very simply, softly, somewhat salted and then never eaten hot; so was also simple bread, milk and honey also an ancient simple food, with which the people mostly reached a very high age, and were continuously in possession of the second sight until the last moment of their lives.
6. Everyone can enjoy wine moderately now and then, but never so much that he would feel intoxicated.
7. Meat dishes should be eaten only at certain times, and never more than seven days in succession, very moderately, and always from freshly slaughtered animals, and there the meat of fish is better than the meat of pigeons, the meat of pigeons better than that of chickens, and the meat of chickens better than the meat of lambs, and this better than the meat of goats, and this better than the meat of calves and cattle; as among breads, wheat bread is the most useful; however, of the foods indicated, never more than one with some bread, as well as fruit should always be enjoyed only moderately and always of the best ripeness; likewise, some root fruits, but only one at a time.
8. With such a diet, the body would never reach that heaviness in which it becomes sluggish, sleepy and cumbersome, so that then the soul has to work over it's head and neck to keep such a cumbersome machine in motion, let alone that it should occupy itself with something else besides such work.
9. See, such simply-living people, as already mentioned above, there were many in former times, and especially simple lived those people who had erected their dwellings on the mountains. These people constantly had the second sight, and had a natural contact with the spirits by day and night, and let themselves be instructed by them in the most manifold things. The spirits showed them the effects of the herbs, and also indicated to them where here and there one or the other noble or base metal lay hidden in the mountains, taught them also how to get the metal out of the mountains, and to make it useful for all kinds of useful things by smelting and forging.
10. In short, there was seldom a house on the mountains that did not have it's own house spirits, which belonged to the house just like other household servants; therefore there were also a lot of wise people, especially on the mountains, who lived in the greatest familiarity with the secret forces of nature, namely with our spirits; or these forces or spirits were, so to speak, almost always at their disposal.
11. When people from the lower regions, as well as from larger villages, markets and cities, came to these wise mountain people, then they must of course have noticed a lot of things that were uncanny and mysterious for them, and especially when often evil-minded people wanted to take up a dispute with such a mountain dweller in some matter; because such a fighter surely got some – for him incomprehensible – so-called Merks' oaf, of which he of course could not think anything else than this was taught to him by the incarnate Satan, or at least by his accomplices.
12. What was the consequence? The thus shrewd marketer, villager, or city dweller immediately went to his local clergyman, who at that time was usually either even more stupid, or at least more mischievous than the plaintiff. There masses, processions and exorcisms were ordered – of course for cash – which always had to amount to quite a considerable sum, if not the entire property including house and yard of the in any case bewitched, if not already thoroughly demonized plaintiff.
13. If the plaintiff has satisfied his clergyman in this way, the case was reported to the secular court; this then went with all kinds of consecrated anti-hex and anti-devil apparatuses ordered by the clergyman to the house where the plaintiff was supposedly bewitched or demonized. This secular court then usually captured the entire population in a horrible way, and often led them straight to the burning pyre without further interrogation, and took all the treasures including house and land, but of course after firstly a seven times exorcistic consecration in the seizure, for which consecration but of course again had to be paid for quite handsomely.
14. In later times, it was often done even worse, because in the end, anyone who was seen in a black coat except for the clergy and who could walk faster than anyone else, was considered to be a devil – and it only took a somewhat malicious accusers, and the black-clad man was brought before the witch's court; until in the present newer time, the natural scientists and chemists have finally brought it about that the exceedingly stupid mankind has begun to realize that their "alleged witchcraft" is a "most very barbarous stupidity".
15. But they went from one extreme to the other, and forgot the proverb: In medio beati; for as wrong as it is to – as a natural man – want to be all about spirits, so and even more wrongful it is to banish the whole spirit-realm and to declare it null and void.
16. Of course, it cannot be denied that in this earlier time, people sometimes got into conflict with evil spirits, with whose help they sometimes caused some local damage; but just these evil ones always had a very efficient control, and were very efficient disciplinarians on their good neighbors, who knew on a hair's breadth what some evil one had in his evil mind. But in those days, as now, the clergy took no account of this, and everything, whether angel or devil, had to go into the fire; for there they did not see whether it was good or evil, but only whether it brought in something. If the plaintiff had no fortune, and the alleged sorcerer also none, then it was: leave it in peace! Only if one or the other part sensed some fortune, the matter did not go so well and peacefully; it was then with these witches almost as at present with the funerals, where with the rich all possible ceremonies and prayers are performed, and the poor must be content merely with a Pater Noster and requiescat in pace [rest in peace]; and if the poor can pay nothing at all, he may be content merely with the consecrated earth.
17. Doesn't that also mean practicing sorcery? Ah, no! It means that the poor will go to heaven without any trouble; only the rich will have to sweat a little before the gates of heaven are opened to him. Oh, that will make for some pretty comedies in the spirit realm!
18. Everyone considered these ways of acting honorable and legal, while they are spiritually much worse than all previous witch trials; for their reason was usually ignorance, but here it is pure greed, and a
witch trial out of greed is much worse than one out of ignorance. And what is such an exegesis other than a witch trial, through which one still thinks to exorcise away many a devilish thing about the deceased.
19. I think that this thing is clear; therefore, another few little historical accounts, and then continue!