{"id":939,"date":"2007-10-16T21:30:00","date_gmt":"2007-10-16T21:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=939"},"modified":"2007-10-16T21:30:00","modified_gmt":"2007-10-16T21:30:00","slug":"switzerlands-last-witch-exonerated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=939","title":{"rendered":"Switzerland’s Last ‘Witch’ Exonerated"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Swiss woman executed for witchcraft in 1782 is the subject of a new museum<\/a>. A new book examines her case and calls for judicial exoneration. From Newsweek’s<\/em> article:<\/p>\n

In the hamlet of Mollis, population 3,000, a road the width of a single car was renamed Anna G\u00f6ldi Way for the 225th anniversary of her death on June 13. In a mansion along the road, on a grassy gated lot, a new permanent exhibition at the local museum details G\u00f6ldi’s ordeal. Just as American schoolchildren read Arthur Miller’s<\/a> McCarthy-era<\/a> parable “The Crucible<\/a>,” about 17th-century superstition and persecution in Salem, Mass., Swiss children learn of G\u00f6ldi. Europe too was the stage for accusations of sorcery and the burning of outcasts deemed witches by maniacal courts. The death toll is estimated to have been 50,000 in Europe.<\/p>\n

Today, historians trying to explain the flights of anxiety that sparked witch hunts blame everything from high inflation to cyclical poor weather and low crop yields to the tensions of the Protestant Reformation and Catholic Counter-Reformation of the day. But the difference, the shame, of the Glarus story is that when G\u00f6ldi was beheaded with a sword in 1782, 90 years after Salem, Europe should have known better. “Witch” killings on the continent had dropped off precipitously after 1650. Other Swiss cantons, Geneva in 1652 and Zurich in 1701, had long since executed their last alleged witches. Europe was awash with the Enlightenment, and superstition was meant to have ceded to reason. It was, after all, only about 100 years before Le Corbusier and Paul Klee, Louis Chevrolet and Carl Jung, modern Swiss who are today part of our globalized lexicon.<\/em><\/p>\n

In a semi-related vein, Jason Pitzl-Waters covers an attempted suit against someone’s dead witch Halloween display<\/a>. No, I don’t think it’s a “hate crime” either (but Senator Clinton’s supporters might, since the “witch” is apparently her).<\/p>\n

But read the comments and see what you think.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Swiss woman executed for witchcraft in 1782 is the subject of a new museum. A new book examines her case and calls for judicial exoneration. From Newsweek’s article: In the hamlet of Mollis, population 3,000, a road the width of a single car was renamed Anna G\u00f6ldi Way for the 225th anniversary of her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[66,29],"class_list":["post-939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-halloween","tag-witchcraft"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-f9","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11816,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11816","url_meta":{"origin":939,"position":0},"title":"Call for Papers: Pagans and Museums","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 16, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"NOTE UPDATED DEADLINES AT BOTTOM Museums and contemporary Paganism are inextricably linked. Gerald Gardner, founder of modern pagan witchcraft, first publicized Wicca in 1951 at Cecil Williamson\u2019s Folklore Centre of Superstition and Witchcraft at Castletown (later The Museum of Magic and Witchcraft) on the Isle of Man. Some of his\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"museums\"","block_context":{"text":"museums","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=museums"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/ray-buckland-34-17-at-museum.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/ray-buckland-34-17-at-museum.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/ray-buckland-34-17-at-museum.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":12980,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12980","url_meta":{"origin":939,"position":1},"title":"How about Museum of Witchcraft Version 4.0?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 6, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"You can buy the former mill (built 1828) in Castletown, Isle of Man, that once housed housed Cecil Williamson and Gerald Gardner's \"Folklore Centre of Superstition and Witchcraft,\" whose name went through various permutations, even as its little restaurant went from being \"The Folklore Restaurant\" to \"The Witches' Kitchen.\" All\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Gerald Gardner\"","block_context":{"text":"Gerald Gardner","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=gerald-gardner"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tindle-web-prod.brightsites.co.uk\/tindle-static\/image\/2022\/06\/28\/11\/newFile.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tindle-web-prod.brightsites.co.uk\/tindle-static\/image\/2022\/06\/28\/11\/newFile.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tindle-web-prod.brightsites.co.uk\/tindle-static\/image\/2022\/06\/28\/11\/newFile.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":375,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=375","url_meta":{"origin":939,"position":2},"title":"Helen Duncan, accidental godmother of Wicca","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 5, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"A movement is underway in Britain to clear the name of Helen Duncan, a Scottish Spiritualist medium sent to prison during World War II under the Witchcraft Act of 1735.She was convicted of faking mediumistic abilities, but as this reviewer says, some people thought she was a true medium at\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"England\"","block_context":{"text":"England","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=england"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":793,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=793","url_meta":{"origin":939,"position":3},"title":"Helen Duncan’s Family Tries Again for a Pardon","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 17, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Mary Martin was 11 years old when her father taught her to box. She would come home from school scratched and bruised, her ears ringing with abuse from the playground. Mary Martin had the unhappy distinction of being the granddaughter of Britain's last convicted witch.Descendants of Helen Duncan, the \"last\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"England\"","block_context":{"text":"England","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=england"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11858,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11858","url_meta":{"origin":939,"position":4},"title":"“Childish and Credulous Fantasy”: How the BBC Viewed Witchcraft in 1962","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 1, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Pop over to the BBC archive to watch presenter llan Whicker pontificate about witchcraft in a short television segment from Hallowee 1962. Among other non-information, Whicker trots out the bogus \"nine million witches executed\" figure from the Renaissance and Early Modern witch trials. He also interviews Cecil Williamson, Gerald Gardner's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Britain\"","block_context":{"text":"Britain","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=britain"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/williamson.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/williamson.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/williamson.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1200,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1200","url_meta":{"origin":939,"position":5},"title":"Sex and Witchcraft","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 3, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"The popular image of the sexually alluring witch goes back to Circe at least, was notable in the early modern period in the work of artists such as Hans Baldung, and got a big boost from Jules Michelet.It keeps popping up today. Sometimes it is lightly disguised, as in the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"sexuality\"","block_context":{"text":"sexuality","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=sexuality"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/939\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}