Recovering perfectionist. Unicorn Fairy Godmother. Passions: women's empowerment, creating connection, sustainability, authenticity in life and work Check out the resources I offer below, and sign up for my newsletter!
This King was Witch-Crazy
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In 1532 the Holy Roman Empire (i.e., the Pope and the Catholic church) adopted a new law about witchcraft - it made it harder to accuse someone of witchcraft because you needed to have actual evidence of harm, AND you had to have at least 2 accusers. Scholars think this was done largely to curb the ridiculous number of witch trials and executions (over 25,000 people were killed in Germany alone!). But King James (yup, the one who made that Bible) ignored the new recommendations in favor of his preferred method of trial: trial by ordeal. This could look like tying an accused person up and throwing her in the sea (to see if she'd float), or making her hold a burning iron and then seeing how long it took to heal. Or maybe they'd make her walk around in circles without stopping for DAYS to see if any of her familiar spirits came to visit her. And once, when a jury found a woman King James had accused to be innocent, he then ACCUSED THE WHOLE JURY of witchcraft and put them on trial until they agreed to change their ruling. I learned all this today in some of the research I'm doing for my Witch Trials workshop (Coming up October 30th) and honestly.... it reminds me a LOT of a certain former president. And I'm not surprised. Because for all the black hats, and fun costumes, movies, and books..... the witch trials were not used as a weapon against witches (which a 1700's era English law finally decided WERE NOT REAL) but against WOMEN. Women who were unmarried. Women who earned money on their own. Women who made other women & men feel intimidated. And as the patriarchy starts to rise up again, angry and fuming, because women are finally beginning to embrace their true power in this world Maybe it's time to bring our inner witches out to play! Get your ticket to our Witchy Workshop below! (Good Girl Deprogramming clients get in free! Check your email for the code!) <3Megan
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Hi! I'm Megan Gillman!
Recovering perfectionist. Unicorn Fairy Godmother. Passions: women's empowerment, creating connection, sustainability, authenticity in life and work Check out the resources I offer below, and sign up for my newsletter!
About 10 years back I went to Ireland and was floored by how many more cousins I had in Ireland than I did in the U.S. Imagine, I thought, if I had grown up in Ireland, surrounded by hundreds of generations of my family’s history, instead of just 2. There are thousands of years of my heritage that I don't know about, because I don't normally think of my "family" as more than the people I grew up with. But how much family history do I *actually* have? How much do *you* have? Let’s do some...
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Do you remember when you first learned about the Salem Witch Trials? I asked a few friends (aka I made an instagram poll) and we all seemed to agree our first encounter with this particular historical event was in elementary school, age 7 or 8 maybe. I'm not surprised we learn about this so early, because HOLY SHIT what an effective tool to teach young girls to behave, be "good", and not cause trouble. We learn about it again in High School, where Arthur Miller's The Crucible is still...