This is an academic text that links with the history of witch hunts to the rise of capitalism. Relations between the young and the old were seen as a threat to the productivity of capitalism. Relations between the children of the bourgeoisie and their servants was seen as a threat to class hierarchies.
Excerpt from page 194
“ The witch-hunt condemned female sexuality as the source of every evil, but it was also the main vehicle for a broad restructuring of sexual life that, conforming with the new capitalist work-discipline, criminalized any sexual activity that threatened procreation, the transmission of property within the family, or took time and energies away from work
The witch trials provide an instructive list of the forms of sexuality that were banned as "non-productive": homosexuality, sex between young and old, 34 sex between people of different classes, anal coitus, coitus from behind (reputedly leading to sterile relations), nudity, and dances. Also proscribed was the public, collective sexuality that had prevailed in the Middle Ages, as in the Spring festivals of pagan origins that, in the 16th. century, were still celebrated all over Europe. Compare, in this context, the way in which
P. Stubbes, in Anatomy of Abuse (1583), described the celebration of May Day in England. with the standard accounts of the Sabbat which charged that the witches always danced at these gatherings. jumping up and down at the sound of pipes and lutes, and indulged in much collective sex and merrymaking.“
Here is a summary: https://atropa-belladonna.espivblogs.ne ... -witch.pdf
Here is the book: https://files.libcom.org/files/Caliban% ... 0Witch.pdf
Caliban and the Witch
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lovefindsaway
- Posts: 17
- Joined: Tue Dec 30, 2025 1:40 pm
Caliban and the Witch
MAP, organizer, youth liberationist, trans man, 32
"Part of being a revolutionary is creating a vision that is more humane. That is more fun, too. That is more loving. It's really working to create something beautiful."- Assata Shakur
"Part of being a revolutionary is creating a vision that is more humane. That is more fun, too. That is more loving. It's really working to create something beautiful."- Assata Shakur
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anarchist of love
- Posts: 167
- Joined: Mon Feb 09, 2026 2:18 pm
Re: Caliban and the Witch
In other words, they made targets of the peoples' power spots. (And continue to steadily erase such, even from our memory of what is natural vs what is labeled 'abuse', etc.)
Having not read this title you touch on, i'm glad for your summary. However, you should also read these five other books on witches, to better formulate your view, i think:
"...the great witch mania of the 16th century was a counteroffensive directed by the Church against the people in an effort to maintain its authority and its privileges. Witches were merely so much expendable fuel used to kindle the passion for conformity in time of crisis" -- WITCH HUNT: The Revival of Heresy by Carey McWilliams, 1950; p.257
and:
Quotes from The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology by Russell Hope Robbins, 1959.
"[Witches were a] powerful subversive force, [according to the hype of those days;] working day and night to destroy true religion and to prevent the establishment of God's Kingdom...Witchcraft was treason against God..." p.5
Said one who was fully unprepared for this propaganda: "I was asked so often that I could not help seeing what people the inquisitor wanted me to denounce. So I mentioned the names of the person about whom people had been whispering." p.14
The young
"...from their earliest years, children were brainwashed into accepting witchcraft as something which existed [without question]; and adults were terrorized into fearful silence and nervous conformity. Yet why should they not believe what their pastors and priests, judges and jurists, professors and theologians all told them was true? Would such leaders mislead?" p.15
the industry of witch hysteria
"...by the beginning of the 17th Century, witchcraft had developed into a vested interest and industry." p.15
"While providing a living for those connected with the [witch] trials, the property of the condemned witches also yielded extensive booty for whatever local authority had jurisdiction [including an entire town, local noblemen, the king, the bishop, several courts, etc.]" p.16
"...the clergy led the persecutions and condoned them in the name of Christianity, while the lawyers and judges and professors abetted them in the name of reason." p.17
Warfare kills all in its path (as if this was anything new)
Quoting an eye-witness of the time:
"The victims of the funeral pyres are for the most part male witches. Half the city must be implicated; for already professors, law students, pastors, canons, vicars, and monks have been arrested and burned...
"Students and boys of noble birth [(surely also of peasant birth--ed)], of nine, ten, eleven, twelve, 13, and 14 years of age have been burned. To sum up, things are in such a pitiful state, that one does not know with [whom] the people one may talk and associate." p.16
"Protectors" as "conscience" leaders "Throughout these centuries [of witch persecution], those who should, by their birth, training, and position, have been the conscience of the world, accepted the delusion and promoted it." p.17
"The logic of the demonologists, all highly educated men, leaders in their own disciplines, is the most terrifying feature of [the hysteria]. ...[T]urning rational thinking on its head--[was] far [worse] than the most foul act of a torturer or witch judge..." p.17
Thirdly,
Here's what Marvin Harris in Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches: The Riddles of Culture says:
The witchcraft mania built upon existing lifestyle consciousness, but with totally different consequences. Where people were empowered to trust and love strangers, as in the 1960s and 70s movements, "witchcraft mania...dispersed and fragmented all the latent energies of protest. It demobilized the poor and the dispossessed, increased their social distance, filled them with mutual suspicions...isolated everyone..." p.239
The witch craze mysteriously started at a time when "third age" prophesies of Utopia and independent movements threatened the Church and its allies. p.234
"The witch-hunt system was too well designed, too enduring, to grim and stubborn [(unlike investigations into internal or allied "corruptions"--ed)]. It could only have been sustained by interests that were equally enduring, grim and stubborn [(sounds like your average "institutionalized human being" to me--ed)]. The witchcraft system and the witch craze had practical and mundane uses apart from the stated goals of the witch hunters...confiscation of property and fees charged for [specialist work were] rewards [that] help explain why the technicians of the witch hunt went about their work with lively enthusiasm." p.236
"I suggest that the best way to understand the cause of the witch mania is to examine its earthly results rather than its [professed] intentions." p.237
"...[first,] old women and lower-class, [then] children of both sexes and men [were attacked]." 1,258 executions in Germany altogether. Inquisitors themselves and some members of clergy were also attacked, but doctors, lawyers and university professors were "seldom threatened" and "as the flames licked closer to [society's powerful policy and decision makers], judges lost confidence...and panics ceased." p.238
Fourthly,
a quarter of a million persons put to death for witchcraft between the 15th and 18th centuries, says British Historian Hugh Trevor-Roper in ARE WE ALL NAZIS? by Jewish Holocaust survivor Hans Askenasy; Lyle Stuart Ltd; NJ, 1978
"The Grand Inquisitors...were not cruel or self-indulgent men. They were often painfully conscientious and austere in their personal lives...
"But for [people] who, having opportunities of worshipping right, chose wrong, no remedy was too drastic. So the faggots were piled and lit, and the misbelievers and their books were burnt, and those gentle old bishops went home to sup on white fish and inexpensive vegetables, to feed their cats and canaries and to meditate on the Penitential Psalms, while their chaplains sat down in their studies to compose their biographies and explain to posterity the saintly lives, the observances and austerities, the almsgivings and simplicity, of those examplary pastors, knowing (as Cardinal Newman said) that it is better that all humanity should perish in extremest agony than that one single venial sin should be committed." p.59
Finally,
Arthur Evans' 1978 (?) book WITCHCRAFT AND THE GAY COUNTERCULTURE takes on the topic in depths that these others don't mention, curiously!
(i'd provide some excerpts, but don't have them prepared at this time)
Having not read this title you touch on, i'm glad for your summary. However, you should also read these five other books on witches, to better formulate your view, i think:
"...the great witch mania of the 16th century was a counteroffensive directed by the Church against the people in an effort to maintain its authority and its privileges. Witches were merely so much expendable fuel used to kindle the passion for conformity in time of crisis" -- WITCH HUNT: The Revival of Heresy by Carey McWilliams, 1950; p.257
and:
Quotes from The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology by Russell Hope Robbins, 1959.
"[Witches were a] powerful subversive force, [according to the hype of those days;] working day and night to destroy true religion and to prevent the establishment of God's Kingdom...Witchcraft was treason against God..." p.5
Said one who was fully unprepared for this propaganda: "I was asked so often that I could not help seeing what people the inquisitor wanted me to denounce. So I mentioned the names of the person about whom people had been whispering." p.14
The young
"...from their earliest years, children were brainwashed into accepting witchcraft as something which existed [without question]; and adults were terrorized into fearful silence and nervous conformity. Yet why should they not believe what their pastors and priests, judges and jurists, professors and theologians all told them was true? Would such leaders mislead?" p.15
the industry of witch hysteria
"...by the beginning of the 17th Century, witchcraft had developed into a vested interest and industry." p.15
"While providing a living for those connected with the [witch] trials, the property of the condemned witches also yielded extensive booty for whatever local authority had jurisdiction [including an entire town, local noblemen, the king, the bishop, several courts, etc.]" p.16
"...the clergy led the persecutions and condoned them in the name of Christianity, while the lawyers and judges and professors abetted them in the name of reason." p.17
Warfare kills all in its path (as if this was anything new)
Quoting an eye-witness of the time:
"The victims of the funeral pyres are for the most part male witches. Half the city must be implicated; for already professors, law students, pastors, canons, vicars, and monks have been arrested and burned...
"Students and boys of noble birth [(surely also of peasant birth--ed)], of nine, ten, eleven, twelve, 13, and 14 years of age have been burned. To sum up, things are in such a pitiful state, that one does not know with [whom] the people one may talk and associate." p.16
"Protectors" as "conscience" leaders "Throughout these centuries [of witch persecution], those who should, by their birth, training, and position, have been the conscience of the world, accepted the delusion and promoted it." p.17
"The logic of the demonologists, all highly educated men, leaders in their own disciplines, is the most terrifying feature of [the hysteria]. ...[T]urning rational thinking on its head--[was] far [worse] than the most foul act of a torturer or witch judge..." p.17
Thirdly,
Here's what Marvin Harris in Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches: The Riddles of Culture says:
The witchcraft mania built upon existing lifestyle consciousness, but with totally different consequences. Where people were empowered to trust and love strangers, as in the 1960s and 70s movements, "witchcraft mania...dispersed and fragmented all the latent energies of protest. It demobilized the poor and the dispossessed, increased their social distance, filled them with mutual suspicions...isolated everyone..." p.239
The witch craze mysteriously started at a time when "third age" prophesies of Utopia and independent movements threatened the Church and its allies. p.234
"The witch-hunt system was too well designed, too enduring, to grim and stubborn [(unlike investigations into internal or allied "corruptions"--ed)]. It could only have been sustained by interests that were equally enduring, grim and stubborn [(sounds like your average "institutionalized human being" to me--ed)]. The witchcraft system and the witch craze had practical and mundane uses apart from the stated goals of the witch hunters...confiscation of property and fees charged for [specialist work were] rewards [that] help explain why the technicians of the witch hunt went about their work with lively enthusiasm." p.236
"I suggest that the best way to understand the cause of the witch mania is to examine its earthly results rather than its [professed] intentions." p.237
"...[first,] old women and lower-class, [then] children of both sexes and men [were attacked]." 1,258 executions in Germany altogether. Inquisitors themselves and some members of clergy were also attacked, but doctors, lawyers and university professors were "seldom threatened" and "as the flames licked closer to [society's powerful policy and decision makers], judges lost confidence...and panics ceased." p.238
Fourthly,
a quarter of a million persons put to death for witchcraft between the 15th and 18th centuries, says British Historian Hugh Trevor-Roper in ARE WE ALL NAZIS? by Jewish Holocaust survivor Hans Askenasy; Lyle Stuart Ltd; NJ, 1978
"The Grand Inquisitors...were not cruel or self-indulgent men. They were often painfully conscientious and austere in their personal lives...
"But for [people] who, having opportunities of worshipping right, chose wrong, no remedy was too drastic. So the faggots were piled and lit, and the misbelievers and their books were burnt, and those gentle old bishops went home to sup on white fish and inexpensive vegetables, to feed their cats and canaries and to meditate on the Penitential Psalms, while their chaplains sat down in their studies to compose their biographies and explain to posterity the saintly lives, the observances and austerities, the almsgivings and simplicity, of those examplary pastors, knowing (as Cardinal Newman said) that it is better that all humanity should perish in extremest agony than that one single venial sin should be committed." p.59
Finally,
Arthur Evans' 1978 (?) book WITCHCRAFT AND THE GAY COUNTERCULTURE takes on the topic in depths that these others don't mention, curiously!
(i'd provide some excerpts, but don't have them prepared at this time)
"...if we are afraid, we are almost always afraid of something, and the more clearly we can see what it is we are afraid of, the more likely we are to be able to cope with that fear."--John Holt in FREEDOM AND BEYOND p.32