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IMAGE COURTESY OF GL ARCHIVE/ALAMY
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The same book of the Bible that commands “Thou shalt not kill” has a different instruction for witches: “You shall not permit a witch to live,” Exodus 22:18 says.
Ancient admonitions from many authorities and religions led to the wrongful condemnation, torture, and death for thousands of people—most of them women. The witchcraft accusations have come in irrational, superstitious spasms through history—though authoritarian leaders often stirred up mobs to secure their rule.
Witchcraft was used as a catchall charge to slay a superior military opponent, such as Joan of Arc (pictured above in her last moments)—or to let England’s King Henry VIII kill his wife (Anne Boleyn) so he could marry another. In recent generations, higher education has diminished emotion-led witch hunts and killings, Daniel S. Levy writes for Nat Geo. Greater learning has not, he adds, ended the persecution entirely.
Read the full story here.
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