During many ages there were witches. The Bible said so. The Bible commanded
that they should not be allowed to live. Therefore the Church, after eight hundred
years, gathered up its halters, thumb-screws, and firebrands, and set about
its holy work in earnest. She worked hard at it night and day during nine centuries
and imprisoned, tortured, hanged, and burned whole hordes and armies of witches,
and washed the Christian world clean with their foul blood.
Then it was discovered that there was no such thing as witches, and never had
been. One does not know whether to laugh or to cry.....There are no witches.
The witch text remains; only the practice has changed. Hell fire is gone, but
the text remains. Infant damnation is gone, but the text remains. More than
two hundred death penalties are gone from the law books, but the texts that
authorized them remain.
- "Bible Teaching and Religious Practice," Europe and Elsewhere
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