| Popis: |
Jean Bodin was one of the most esteemed European writers on satanic witchcraft, and also among the most radical. Demonologists resorted to confession as a weapon for convicting and condemning the members of what they perceived to be a satanic cult threatening the very fabric of society. While witches were charged with supplying confessions, demonology reserved for itself the privilege of deciphering them. Demonology soon claimed for itself an authoritative status as demonologists interpreted puzzling features of witchcraft in light of the work of other demonologists. The idea of the “spell of silence” in demonology is structurally analogous to the mechanism of repression in psychoanalysis. The authority here comes in the form of two inquisitors, Paolo Grillando and Jacob Sprenger, who “state that they were never able to make a single witch cry”. Cross-referencing to other demonological treatises was by Bodin’s time a common strategy. Demonology had become in effect its own self-legitimating discourse. |
