Witchcraft Skeptics And The Spanish Inquisition (E306)
Annie Kelly brings Jake, Julian, and Travis tales of the lesser known figures of the European witch hunts during the early modern period: the skeptics who openly doubted that every accused woman was actually a witch.
At the time, it was common for village communities in England, Spain, and France to accuse local women of cursing cows and similar satanic mischief. But a handful of men didn’t believe the mainstream belief that witchcraft was widespread. Doubts were raised by the Spanish royal physician Andrés Fernández de Laguna, the English gentleman Reginald Scot, and the inquisitor Alonso de Salazar Frías. Salazar even established rules on investigating witchcraft that set a high standard of proof. This subsequently saved an untold number of accused witches from being hanged or burned at the stake.
What can all of this tell us about the modern right’s use of the language of demonology to describe their enemies? Listen to get exclusive analysis from the National Baby.
To get a better background on the history of witch hunting, Annie interviewed Professor Marion Gibson from the University of Exeter, and author of the book Witchcraft: A History in 13 Trials.
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Annie Kelly
https://bsky.app/profile/annieknk.bsky.social
Witchcraft: A History in 13 Trials by Marion Gibson
https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Witchcraft/Marion-Gibson/9781668002438
Editing by Corey Klotz. Theme by Nick Sena. Additional music by Pontus Berghe. Theme Vocals by THEY/LIVE (https://instagram.com/theyylivve / https://sptfy.com/QrDm). Cover Art by Pedro Correa: (https://pedrocorrea.com)
QAA was known as the QAnon Anonymous podcast.
Comments (48)
Annie episode?.... TOADS! In wizards outfits!? Omg
I have fallen into a terrible rabbit hole: this podcast. I may have to start a new podcast: QAAA, to help get myself out! 😂
What is the clip at the end of the episode?
it’s really inspiring how julian manifested that exploding tesla with the sheer power of his hatred for elon
Julian wishing cybertrucks would catch fire and then one explodes on new years day in front of trump tower. ☠️ He's a witch!
Annie has an amazing radio voice. I'd def pay for an anny kelly read game of thrones audiobooks. Shed have to do different voices for each character though.
The rant at 16:30ish reminds me of Invader Zim.
I felt like I was hearing about the very first conspiracy theory ever listening to this podcast.
This really was an amazing gift of an episode, I'm currently researching and writing my second graphic novel about the English witch-hunts and Gaule and Hopkins have been a major focus. It is wild (and not great) to see the modern parallels.
Hey what's your thing called sounds cool
Annie Kelly 🍠
Hi, does anyone know what this ep’s Auto Q at the end is from (or how to find out?)
Gosh I really want to know too, don't want to give them views but like, morbidly fascinated
Excellent work as usual, Annie. Now I must get back to knitting unique outfits for toads before they report me to the Devil.
I invoke the will of Saint Boner!
🍆
Ooft. Down for this episode when I get the chance. Read Caliban and The Witch (Sylvia Federici) and thought it was absolutely wild how much we talk about capitalism without reference to its creation and the role of the witch trials
Able-bodied White Supremacist Cisheteropatriarchy was baked into the very foundations of capitalism in a very literal way. First [EDIT: technically not first - there was of course the enclosure of the commons before this. A significant power grab from women, in particular (and from the working class, overall). In fact there's a few blows in the run up to the witch trials - it's in the book!) via the Europe-wide witch trials (lasting 3 centuries) then additionally on foreign lands, whereby after the 'success' of the European witch trials to dominate/divide and conquer the working class, witch trials were then exported and replicated as part of the capitalist expansion beyond state borders -e.g. colonialism, *and sometimes embedded witch hunting culture there before departing* before ponderously pointing a finger from the colonial homelands at how 'barbaric and superstitious' they are sometime after the enlightenment got cooking. Just to note that antisemitism was also part of the European witch trials, because they just couldn't leave that out of course.
You should mention in English the book translates to the Hammer of Witches. Very metal
Wow this was really great!
Annie always makes me giggle, no matter how grim the story. Great job everyone. Sending a great set of holiday wishes to the entire crew of my favorite pod!
Always a treat to hear from Annie. Also sending love to The National Baby Jr.--Christmas is more fun with kids in the family ❤️
Annie Kelly 🫶
Great episode. We really are in a bizzaro world where we are represented by genocide joe and antony butcher of gaza blinken
Annie Kelly
This was great, thanks Natl Baby et al.!
The national baby
Omg how could I forget
Annie Kelly! ❤️
Fuckin' Kramer, man. Dude hated women and got so many people tortured and killed.
And he had that fucking awful racist set at the Laugh Factory
An episode about the Eternal Travis
What’s strange is that while I was listening to this episode I dropped my phone in water and it started to float because it’s a WITCH
love to hear the gang recreate the “the very much did kill Jesus” tumblr classic
I'm catching up with episodes and I came here to comment just for that 😂
Love this episode except when Jake sells out to Christmas. Can’t you just grow a pair and cancel your fomo and just relax like a normal Jewish person? Be glad you don’t have to buy everyone presents.
Merry Witchmas! 🧙♀️🧹
I was just thinking about witches and witchcraft, thank you folks
The Spanish Inquisition? I didn’t see that coming
Don’t worry, nobody else ever expects them, either.
I've heard that accusations of witchcraft also shifted the healing arts from women to men
Yes! And as a result of what unfolded, midwives were turned from being an ally to people -often women- giving birth, into becoming informants to the state (abortion attempts or anything interpreted that way, with extreme punishment for not reporting people to the state for perceived attempts to abort). I think it's important to understand what was lost with the witch trials! And this is the medical culture around pregnancy that we've come from in recent centuries. Bodies are treated as vessels for creating future workers, regardless of the needs or wishes of the pregnant person.
witches, amirite? call Larry Nichols
Liv agaric
Is Jake proposing a witchcraft barometer to determine whether tImes are happy or sad? We can weigh the amount of hocus pocus content against True Detective
In 30 years I'll be telling kids "back in my day we called it a vibe check"
Witchcraft + Annie = Best. XMas. Gift. Ever.
It's a Christmas miracle from the National Baby!