Woe is me!

             At this point I think we have read just about everything there is to know about witchcraft, what stood out to me in this week’s reading was the writings of Johann Geiler von Kaysersberg. I thought it was extremely interesting how he reasoned that witchcraft was not actually being done by the witch him or herself, but by the devil. The witches are simply just gesturing or signaling the devil to do something. To me this is the most logical explanation of witchcraft we’ve read yet, of course logical for the time period and for believing in the existence of the devil. He also explains that witches aren’t really traveling at night, but simply dreaming. He says that the devil can get into the minds of people create impressions. I think Kaysersberg was a pretty smart guy for recognizing that people don’t actually have magical powers. If more people at this time had these same beliefs we maybe would have seen a different treatment of witches. Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola’s Strix was fun read to me. It seemed like a very simplistic play and the short, basic dialogue was entertaining. I especially liked how Apistius changes his mind almost instantly and then declares that he has been convinced.

                I really loved the illustrations in this chapter. It’s fascinating to me to see all the interpretations what witches were. The pictures are so detailed and some really tell a story on their own. While the illustrations depict witches doing different things they also showed how they were similar ideas of witches coming from different artists.