Witch-finding

Witch-finding by the water ordeal, or swimming as it was often called, became an accepted method in England during the first half of the seventeenth century, when it was recommended by King James. So it appears, proclaimed James I, that God has appointed, for a supernatural sign of the monstrous impiety of witches, that the water shall refuse to receive them in her bosom, that have shaken off them the sacred water of baptism and willfully refused the benefit thereof. ... 

The inhabitants of Green Knowe become involved with black magic when a modern-day witch attempts to find books of witchcraft supposedly hidden in the old house by a mad seventeenth-century alchemist... 

Early in human history a natural bond formed between religion and the use of drugs. Those who became most proficient in the use of drugs to treat disease were the mediators between this world and the spirit world, namely, the priests, shamans, holy persons, witches, and soothsayers. Much of their power within the community was derived from the cures that they could effect with drugs. It was believed that the sick were possessed by demons and that health could be restored by identifying the demon and finding a way to cast it out. 

Belling identifies six practitioners described in the Annals as astrologer, magician, wizard, witch, and sorcerer, and in all sources she finds six irregular practitioners described as astrologers and another six as magician, sorcerer, and wizard Belling, Medical Conflicts, 156-7. 

Under the rainbow of the Sachamama is Canessa, the great tamer of snakes and jungle animals. She is accompanied by her princesses Uzela and Vedina, who attack with their magic nets. At the riverside you can find the tuyuyos [the jabiru stork, Jabiru mycteria], sorcerer birds that hatch their chicks at the top of the lupuna [Ceibasp.]. These animals are not food for ordinary people, but for the witch doctor. If ordinary people eat them, the birds make us thin like they are [see Vision 34]. 

Kao CW, Leu LS. Finding perfect stage of Aciculosperium (sic) take Miyake, the causal organism of bamboo witches broom disease and its conidial germination. Plant Prot Bull (Taiwan) 18 276-285, 1976. 

Specters of mechanism continued to haunt twentieth-century horror films. Apart from the many versions of Frankenstein, The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari 1919), Dr Cyclops (1940) and the three film versions of Wells The Island of Doctor Moreaf, the Romantic condemnation of rationalism and mechanism finds expression in numerous details. For example, we should know from film conventions that Dr Strangelove (1963) is suspect because his withered hand and his motorized wheelchair mark him as being cut off from Nature, just as, in medieval times, physical ugliness was believed to indicate the moral imperfection of alleged witches. 

Besides eliciting confessions, the principal method for diagnosing witchcraft was to find witch s marks on the body of the accused. Witch s marks were supernumerary nipples, a common anatomical variation, slightly more frequent in men than women, or any kind of skin lesion, such as a birthmark, mole, scar, or hemangioma. The mark was thought to indicate the spot on which the possessor was branded by the devil, like an animal by its owner, and constituted proof of a pact between that person and Satan. This made it easy enough to diagnose almost anyone as a witch. 

It is difficult to know how such superstitions get started, but most can be traced to our iimate desire to find causes for the calamities that befall us. When there is no ready scientific explanation, we invent one. That s why the Black Plague was blamed on witches and Jews, the waxy pallor of tuberculosis victims was blamed on vampires, and migraines were blamed on the evil eye. 

Employees must feel motivated and comfortable about reporting hazards as a part of an accident prevention effort of the company. In like manner, accidents and injuries should be reported so that the facts relevant to causes of events can be determined without becoming a fault-finding witch hunt. Fault-finding certainly will not foster an honest search for the root causes and possible prevention of the occurrence and reoccurrence of various types of serious occupational events. 

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