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The witch-cult hypothesis is a discredited theory that the witch trials of the Early Modern period were an attempt to suppress a pre-Christian, pagan religion that had survived the Christianisation of Europe. According to its proponents, this witch-cult revolved around the worship of a Horned God of fertility whom the Christian persecutors referred to as the Devil, and whose members participated in nocturnal rites at the witches' Sabbath in which they venerated this deity. The theory was pioneered by German scholars Karl Ernst Jarcke and Franz Josef Mone in the early nineteenth century, before being adopted by the French historian Jules Michelet, American feminist Matilda Joslyn Gage, and American folklorist Charles Leland later in that century. The hypothesis received its most prominent exposition when adopted by the British Egyptologist Margaret Murray, who presented her version of it in ''The Witch-Cult in Western Europe'' (1921), before further expounding it in books like ''The God of the Witches'' (1931) and in her contribution to the ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. Although the "Murrayite theory" proved popular among sectors of academia and the general public in the early and mid twentieth century, it was never accepted by specialists in the Early Modern witch trials, who publicly discredited it through in-depth research conducted in the 1960s and 1970s. Specialists in Europe's Early Modern witchcraft beliefs view the pagan witch-cult theory as pseudohistorical; there is an academic consensus among experts that those accused and executed as witches during the period were not members of any witch religion, whether pre-Christian or Satanic in nature. Critics highlight that the theory rested on a highly selective use of the evidence from the trials, thereby heavily misrepresenting the events and the actions of both the accused and their accusers. Further, they point out that it relied on the erroneous assumption that the claims made by accused witches were truthful and not distorted by coercion and torture. They also note that despite claims that the witch-cult was a pre-Christian survival, there is no evidence of such a pagan witch-cult throughout the intervening Middle Ages. The witch-cult hypothesis influenced literature, being adapted into fictional forms in the work of authors like John Buchan and Robert Graves. It greatly affected the origins of Wicca, a contemporary Pagan new religious movement that emerged in mid-twentieth century Britain, claiming to be the survival of the pagan witch-cult. Since the 1960s, scholars like Carlo Ginzburg have argued that surviving elements of pre-Christian religion in European folk culture influenced the Early Modern stereotypes of witchcraft, with scholars debating how this relates to the Murrayite witch-cult hypothesis. ==Early modern precedents== The witch-hunt of the 16th and 17th centuries was an organized effort by authorities in many countries to destroy a supposed conspiracy of witches thought to pose a deadly threat to Christendom. According to these authorities, witches were numerous, and in conscious alliance with Satan, forming a sort of Satanic counter-religion. Witch-hunts in this sense must be separated from the belief in witches, the evil eye, and other such phenomena, which are common features of folk belief worldwide. The belief that witches are not just individual villains but conspirators organized in a powerful but well-hidden cult is a distinguishing feature of the early modern witch-hunt. This idea of an organized witch-cult originates in the second half of the 15th century, notoriously expounded in the 1486 ''Malleus Maleficarum''. In the following two centuries, witch trials usually included the charge of membership in a demonic conspiracy, gathering in sabbaths, and similar. It was only with the beginning Age of Enlightenment in the early 18th century, that the idea of an organized witch-cult was abandoned. Early Modern testimonies of accused witches "confirming" the existence of a witch cult are considered doubtful. Norman Cohn has argued that they were determined largely by the expectations of the interrogators, partly under torture, and free association on the part of the accused, and reflect only popular imagination of the times.〔Cohn, Norman (1977) ''Europe's Inner Demons''〕 Carlo Ginzburg and Éva Pócs hold that some of these testimonies can still give insights into the belief systems of the accused. Ginzburg discovered records of a group calling themselves ''benandanti'', the "good walkers" who believed that they combatted witches (''streghe'') by magical means. The benandanti were persecuted for heresy in the period of 1575 to 1675.〔Ginzburg, Carlo. ''Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witches' Sabbath''.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Witch-cult hypothesis」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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