Book Claims Witchcraft 'Hard-Wired' Into Us All

[icymist]

A new book by one of Britain's leading experts on the history of witchcraft argues that it is "hard-wired" into human nature and we should not be complacent about the continued potential for persecution.

Dr Malcolm Gaskill, reader in early modern history at the University of East Anglia (UEA), says that far from being consigned to the past witchcraft and witch-hunting are still "potent" issues in developing countries and rich nations alike, particularly where poverty, lack of education, and social and political turmoil come together.

"Witchcraft is culturally durable, relevant, and potent - hard-wired into us all, even those who have consigned it to history's dustbin with other relics of primitivism," said Dr Gaskill, of the School of History at UEA. "We are all a little bit superstitious and people who feel under pressure or that they are being threatened tend towards persecution.

"More recently, published photos of Satan's face in smoke from the burning Twin Towers, and girders on Ground Zero twisted into a cross, played to real fears and beliefs, beliefs that make political mandates. Chances are you're lucky enough to live in an ordered society, but order is endangered whenever it is defended too zealously or unjustly. We remain vulnerable to fears that secret forces may be working against us, an 'axis of evil' conspiring to destroy Western civilisation."

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