Prospero's Values

At some point in the reading, I came to the realization that Prospero is one of, if not the first fictional characters that we've learned about that actually has some sort of support system: Family. This being said, I think because Prospero has family it changes what he values and how he uses his "magic". Family is such an important value to hold, it means that a persons not alone, they have someone to rely on and relate to. I think family can completely change your objective, you have someone looking up to you and even relying on you too. Prospero having better values than some of the the main characters we have read about before makes him a little more relatable and realistic to me. He doesn't seem like some far out, power maniac, he seems like a person.

Margery: A Crybaby? Or A Savage?

Margery's life seems to be very strange to me as she is nothing like Julian or Hildegard. She was raised middle class, didn't learn to ready, and clearly loved sex. She reminds me loosely of Mary Magdalene but not as a prostitute. Margery never became an anchoress either. She was just a plain woman, for the most part who had a vision of God some time after giving birth to her own child. Which is understandable for the time and ibuprofen or morphine hasn't been invented yet so I can relate to her almost losing her mind. I also found it interesting that she found her own way of devoting herself to God through prayer and tears. This isn't a discussion question but why? Is it because she thought her sins kept her from doing so? She is no mere woman for she also had a business or two (though they failed), and "wrote" her own book. She gave birth to 14 children and tried to hold a vow of chastity (though her husband was a dick about it). Margery is a special mystic in her own right though she took a different path compared to the other mystics we have learned so far. 

Chatting with Jesus and rally

Margery was going insane trying to throw herself out a window, and biting at her own wrists. Then John hired keepers to lock her up, Margery was chained up in that room for eight months. And boom, Jesus shows up chats her up and a miracle happens she is no longer insane. Then John believes that she is not crazy any more, and she gets to leave the room. Then she decides to get big into clothes and brewing, which is where I got a little confused with her journey. I felt that if a miracle happens to you by chatting with Jesus that suddenly makes you not insane, you don't decide to change up your look or start brewing beer. Unless for some reason Jesus decided to tell you to change up your look and start a brewing company, I highly doubt that but I have never had a vision. But anyways she did this while having a crazy amount of kids and surviving which is like a miracle in itself. I would think you would devote the rest of your life or give some time to the church or doing some religious stuff. But it took both of her businesses failing and Jesus himself to come down and tell her to devote herself to service. I just think that it shouldn't take Jesus telling you straight up go to church and devote some of your time to it, especially since he gave you multiple miracles already. Also you'd think that if you became tight with Jesus and God, which you are able to talk to already, by devoting your time to the church that more miracles would come your way. 

A Nut, A Tree, Prospering into Possibility

An image that really stood out to me while reading about Julian was the vision she had of God holding a nut within his hand. It said, "She describes seeing God holding a tiny thing in his hand, like a small brown nut, which seemed so fragile and insignificant that she wondered why it did not crumble before her eyes. She understood that the thing was the entire created universe, which is as nothing compared to its Creator, and she was told, 'God made it, God loves it, God keeps it.'" This fragility described by her of the entire universe was perplexing--balance is required for it to remain, and balance, especially by God's creation of humanity, is difficult to maintain.

Her relation to this created universe being lesser than God himself was a little over the top for me. I'm not a religious person, but if this universe was created by someone, do we think the creation is better than the Creator? Personally, I think the former is more important, more impactful, and more compelling. The universe theoretically would not exist without the creator, sure, but then when God separates himself completely as Julian described, does that really make him better?

Especially when going into what was later pointed out in the document of when Julian was living during the plague--as many religions point out similarly to Julian, there is no mercy or good fortune without some suffering. But such levels of anguish and disparity between people seems immoral, at the very least. It was what the universe, or the creation, does with this suffering that becomes more important and impactful than God's creation of them. Julian had a very holistic view of the universe, which I think is apt to her idea that if we are all created by God, then we are all intentionally connected to one another. What exactly do we do with this connection, and how do we hold ourselves accountable to our impact on one another? Going back to the imagery of the nut, humanity is fragile and significant, and I feel that especially now that nut is on the verge of cracking.

Love Visions

After reading about both Hildegard von Bingen and Julian of Norwich, I feel more aware of the concept of mysticism and how it relates to the blossoming, influential perspective that magic primarily stems from a benevolent or malevolent religious origin. Julian's visions heavily assert that God is made of love, that "before He made us, He loved us, which love was never slaked nor ever shall be. And in this love he has done all his work" (Kiefer 2).

I also find it fascinating, as I always have, how people choose to depict God and the controversy that surrounds those images. The Norton Anthology source talks about Christ's humanity and how he died to "clear the debt" humanity owed Him as a moral obligation (Greenblatt, Abrams 355). Julian's visions about God's relationship to his greatest creation, an 'endlessness' of love and rebirth, feels like an answering balm to the suffering of life and the impossible chasm between human violence and God's magnificence. The line, "Julian never leaves the sight of the wounded, bodily Christ, whose very physical suffering is somehow simultaneous with these almost immaterial visions," perfectly encapsulates, to me, what Julian's life of solitude was about (Greenblatt, Abrams 371). If God can love us through endless time despite our flaws, then, Julian seems to say, we should devote ourselves to Him and simultaneously remember our physical bodies while ascending into our spiritual selves.

Overall, the concept of a loving and forgiving God reminds me of modern platitudes/sayings passed around as band-aids to a bad day or an assurance that "everything happens for a reason," and that sometimes "bad things happen to good people." I wonder if this welcoming perspective on God was semi-founded or made popular by Julian of Norwich.

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Religious Dilemmas & Spiritual Death

It was strange that as Faustus goes through a religious dilemma in lines 80 to 100 that God never shows up to him in person (at least not yet, if it ever does happen) but Lucifer himself pulls out all his minions to come and visit Faustus. The most God does is send a Good Angel but that waste of space is always losing to the Bad Angel. Based on this I'm not quite sure what Marlowe's idea of free will is because it almost seems like he is implying that the body doesn't have free will but the spirit does. This comes from the fact that the Good Angel doesn't try to persuade Faustus with earthly goods but says to "repent, and they shall never raze thy skin" (ll. 89). By choosing to repent, free will is possible. Maybe because God is so powerful the devil has to work harder to obtain spirits/souls? Also, the footnotes said that the "Seven Deadly Sins [were] (so called because they cause spiritual death)" which I thought was interesting because I always assumed they led to physical death or moral degradation but I didn't know Christians believed in spiritual death (ll. 110). This was a new concept for me to think about.

The Reasons for Torture

This past weekend’s chapter in Witchcraft in Europe had some of the most interesting documents. Yet, what stood out to me the most was not in a document itself but in the preface of document 48 “The Prosecutions in Scotland”. It is here that Kors and Peters point out that in Scotland, there is the “denunciation of one alleged witch extracted under torture from another accused witch” (318). This is further seen in the reading as it does not talk about trying to get names of other witches from those that were accused. Instead, every event of torture is coupled with interrogations on how they were set into a contract with a devil and how or what magic they have performed in their lives. This idea of not being able to use accusations that precipitate from torturing was shocking as it is against what I had always thought of. My viewpoint of witch trials was that those interrogating the witches were looking for the other witches in the community. They did not care why or how they got into witchcraft as they were already thought to be guilty. To them, they saw witches as knowing each other and the easiest way to find others without them causing harm to the innocent. Perhaps this was an idea unique to Scotland but still interesting as it leads me to the question of if you can question others accused by a "witch" if there was no torture inflicted upon him/her.

Women: Equal or Evil?

I found the explanations on why women are more often witches than men to be very ironic to what it would mean to actually be a witch and be capable of wielding that kind of power. In the Malleus Maleficarum, one their reasons is "women are naturally more impressionable, and more ready to receive the influence of a disembodied spirit; and when they use this quality well they are good, but when they use it ill they are very evil." (page 183) Women are also called weak, feebler in both mind and body, intellectually like children, and an "imperfect animal" who always deceives.
All of this really sounds like the men who wrote this were rejected by a woman at some point in their lives and they're still salty about it.
It is ironic because they are insulting women and saying that they're weak and therefore more susceptible to being influenced by the devil, but they are also admitting that women can have a kind of power that they cannot even really comprehend. Deep down, it seems like they are just afraid that women are more powerful than them and they feel threatened by that. Especially since they consider a "normal" and "good" woman to be as innocent and obedient as a child.

Eve, The Witch?

At the end of Why Superstition is chiefly found in Women, it stated that basically Eve was kinda like a witch. "His name was Death. For though the devil tempted Eve to sin; yet Eve seduced Adam. And as the sin of Eve would not have brought death to our soul and body unless the sin had afterwards passed on to Adam, to which he was tempted by Eve, not the devil, therefore she is more bitter than death" (pg 187-88). As I read, I linked back almost every characteristic that a wicked woman, aka a witch, would have back to Eve. For example, "women are naturally more impressionable, and more ready to receive the influence of a disemboided spirit" (pg 183). So Eve was tempted by the devil and ate the forbidden fruit. Eve broke the one rule that God had...and it ended up making her more bitter than death?  It also states that women are basically as smart as children and have weak memories. Another thought I had was wasn't the Garden of Eden thing kinda necessary? Like when we talked about Hades in class, he was a nescessary evil. When the devil tempted Eve, she then began the whole domino effect of the human race being created. What this section states is that wicked women are "a foe to friendship, an unescapleble punishment, a necessary evil, a natural temptation, a desirable calamity...painted with fair colors" (pg 183). I feel like Eve was necessary, wicked woman or not, to a bigger picture. Yes, she intermingled with a demon, like most witches do...but does that make her a witch or just an enticeable person?

A New Perspective

As I have read the chapters in this book my perspective and understanding of what a witch was considered to be and the acts they were accused of has significantly changed. Coming into this course, I didn't have much background concerning this subject matter, but what I thought reflected what I would consider the stereotype of witches: casting spells, dancing around fires and being burned alive. Now, especially after reading the excerpts from The Malleus Maleficarum, I realize that the crimes that witches were accused of went beyond just casting spells. An example of my new understanding is the horrible things they were accused of doing to infants. While it is always disturbing to harm infants in any way, I have noticed a significant shift from chapter 2 to chapter 6 of this text. For instance, in chapter two they were said to transfix the corpse of an unbaptized infant onto a tree with a stake in order to prevent the child from emerging and injuring others. That has since progressed to:

“[After killing the infant in its cradles or next to the parents’ side and making it look natural] we secretly take them from their graves and cook them in a cauldron, until the whole flesh comes away from the bones to make a soup which may easily be drunk… whoever drinks [this] immediately acquires much knowledge and becomes a leader in our sect” (Kramer and Sprenger 193).

Prior to reading this book, and having discussions in class, my knowledge concerning the history of witchcraft did not include knowing that witches were said to eat and/or drink babies or create illusions that made men think their “virile members” disappeared.

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Is Our Boy Bernardino Hitler Sr.?

Hitler went on his own "witch hunt" and while doing so instilled fear of Jews into Germany. Is Bernardino doing the same with the catholic church? Bernardino preaches to his catholic crowd with some gruesome details about putting witches to death. Like Hitler, Bernardino is creating fear in his audience. He is telling them that if any witchcraft is done bring the accused and burn them to death. Now I don't know about you but I would be terrified that someone that didn't like me would falsely accuse me of witchcraft. Bernardino is publicly admitting to murder and no one sees a problem with this. I think it is because everyone is too scared to speak out against it. Bernardino says "there was also another woman taken who confessed that she had done like deeds… but she died in another manner: for she was not strangled before she was put upon the pyre, and the fire was kindled there while she was alive” (136). Is there any other reason for this much detail but fear? I think he is trying to scare his audience into burning witches in his name, he even said “I wish I could make it happen here too” (135). Just as Hitler was a major player in instilling the fear of Jews to Germans, Bernardino was a major player (I think) in getting the catholic people to fear witches.


                                                 

Gawain: Devoid of all vice

From a creative writing standpoint, I was annoyed with the redundancy of other characters loving Sir Gawain so, so much. I was able to discern his character for myself in the beginning when he declared, “I am the weakest of [the knights], I know, and the dullest-minded, / So my death would be least loss” (Lines 354-5). I figured he was excessively humble, but he was willing to take one for the team, so I mentally gave him a thumbs up. And then we get to Fitt 2, and Gawain is “reputed as virtuous […]/ Devoid of all vice” (Lines 634-5). I’m pretty sure that nobody is free of all vice, so I was already a little peeved at this point. Then, when Gawain gets to the other castle, everyone thinks he’s the greatest person ever! The writer states, “And all the men in the castle were overjoyed/ To make the acquaintance quickly then/ Of the man to whom all excellence and valor belongs” (Lines 910-2) and later the lord exclaims, “Indeed, Sir, as long as I live I shall be the better/ Because Gawain was my guest at God’s own feast” (Lines 1035-6). Mr. Writer-Man, we get it. We get you’re point. Everyone loves this guy. As a minor note, that’s super unrealistic, and it bothers me that nobody hates him. But more importantly, why beat your audience over the head with the constant reminders about how great your character is! Especially, especially, when Gawain’s actions don’t exactly reflect this reputation. We know some “great pleasure” happened in “private” (SEX) (probably), which is definitely not what a man of his religion is supposed to be doing. In short, the writer broke the “show, don’t tell” law, so we should consider arresting him.