In many groups around the world, shamans or sorcerers are thought to possess the twin abilities to hurt or heal, kill or cure. Where they exist, shamans often possess detailed knowledge of the local psychedelic plants. They use (the herbs) in healing rituals and to commune with the supernatural .... It is in the powerful figures of shamans and sorcerers that we find the predecessors of our white-coated physicians ... whom we, like our ancestors, imbue with great powers.
—Robert Adler
Science journalist
For thousands of years humans were oppressed—as some of still are— by the notion that the universe is a marionette whose strings are pulled by a god or gods, unseen and inscrutable. Then 2,500 years ago, there was a glorious awakening in Ionia: on Samos and the other nearby Greek colonies that grew up among the islands and inlets of the busy eastern Aegean Sea. Suddenly there were people who believed that everything was made of atoms; that human beings and other animals had sprung from simpler forms; that diseases were not caused by demons or the gods; that the Earth was only a planet going around the Sun. And that the stars were very far away. This revolution made Cosmos out of Chaos.
—Carl Sagan
Cosmos: A Personal Voyage
It is probably part of the human condition that cosmologists (or shamans of any age) always think they are knocking on eternity’s door, that the final secret of the universe is in reach. It may also be part of the human condition that they are always wrong. Science, inching along by trial-and-error and by doubt, is a graveyard of final answers.
—Dennis Overbye
Lonely Hearts of the Cosmos: The Scientific Quest for the Secret of the Universe
In the ancient world of dualism, the powers of light and darkness were believed in and worshipped with the same level of energy. The apparent equal strength of both good and evil arose in the minds of humans when man observed the dualism of nature and compared the opposing forces in his own life.
Early man recognized that he was “inhabited” by opposing forces, because in thought and action, good and evil are so tightly connected that he could not always tell which was which. Additionally, good intentions can oftentimes result in evil, and criminal thoughts could be a tool of good. Both these observations seemed to be perennial, and in nature both light and darkness have their function.
In the east, good rain falls and promotes crop growth and enhances the land, while in the west destructive rain arrives bringing catastrophic floods. The south wind drives pestilence and fever ahead of itself, while north winds sweeps the air clean and drives away disease and crop failure.
One can understand why primitive men would conjure up good and evil spirits all around himself. Knowing that theses spirits were there, man would conjure them up, flatter them, tell lies to them, and use every method which he considers favorable to produce a favorable result and with equal energy to avoid the negative results. Out of fear of reprisal and disaster men typically paid more attention to evil spirits. When the hunter failed to bring home meat, the failure was attributed to evil forces rather than to a lack of skill, speed, or strength.
As civilizations grew, man became more worldly and understood that he had personal strengths and personal responsibilities. The Chaldean star religion preached that good luck and disaster are not haphazard happenings that depended upon the whims of good and evil spirits, rather these events are controlled by heavenly bodies that send good and evil according to unimpeachable mathematical laws.
Primitive man believed that he was powerless to fight the desires of the celestial divinities. Yet as time went on, wise men fostered ethics and self-determination into man’s fate believing the will of the stars could be altered. Man’s efforts were strangely intertwined with the decisions of the stars and man learned of the give and take between heaven and earth.
Belief in Magic to Defeat Illness
Magic and religion were intertwined into the Egyptians daily life. Evil gods and demons were believed to be the cause of many diseases, crop failures, and infertility of humans, flocks, and herds.
Egyptian disease treatment and management almost always began with prayers and ceremonies that were designed to gain the help and favor of gods and planets. Egyptian healers that were sanctioned by authorities were multi-taskers: there did not seem to be a clear distinction between priests and physicians. The healers, priests of Sekhmet, were expected to use incantations and magic as parts of their therapies.
The widespread use of the mix of religion, medicine, and magic by the Egyptians and other early civilizations, are thought to have developed because of a powerful placebo effect. Those who believed in the treatments and the priest/physicians capacity to communicate with the gods received pain relief and the healer-priests were credited with the patient’s recovery and survival.
The concentration of the efforts of magic is directly related to the selection of the spells and remedies used. Selected ingredients were derived from an element, plant, or animal that had features that looked like or acted like symptoms or signs of the disease or illness in the patient. This Egyptian concept was based on the belief that “simila similibus” or “like treats like.” This ancient Egyptian concept has flourished and survived into modern day homeopathy. For instance, an ostrich egg shell or the skull bones of a human or animal would be used to treat a skull injury and an amulet with the likeness of a hedgehog would be used to treat baldness.
Amulets were universally employed by Egyptian priests, physicians, and healers of all callings for magical approaches to healing diseases. These healing and protective amulets were put into three separate classes: (1) homeopoetic— these amulets portrayed animals or parts of animals that the owner wanted to gain, including strength, speed, or fertility; (2) phylactic—these amulets (such as the Eye of Horus) protected against the evil and devastating effects of destructive gods and demons; (3) theophoric—these were representations of Egyptian gods, and they were usually constructed of bone attached to a leather strap.
In the 7th century BC the king of Assyria, Ashurbanipal, sent his prayer to the star Sirius:
Speak, and the stars may assist thee,
Judge, give thine oracle,
Accept the raising of my hand, harken to my imprecation.
Take away the enchantment, blot out my sin.
A spell had been launched against the ruler, who then asked himself whether he deserved this misfortune because he had committed a sin. The favor of the star is asked for not only to remove the spell, but also to erase the evil deed. In this case Sirius is addressed as the messenger of higher gods who will assist him and whose will he trumpets.
It is thought that it was in Ashurbanipal’s time that Zoroaster, the Median prophet, declared that evil, while powerful and ever present, can be avoided and eventually overcome. Zoroaster clarified the ancient belief in the hosts of good and evil spirits—rulers of the dualistic universe. He traced these legions back to their origins: Ormazd (Ahura Mazda), king of light; and Ahriman (Ahura Mainyu), prince of darkness. The good demons of older traditions were dethroned by Zoroaster. However, since they could not be totally eliminated from common beliefs, they were allowed a place in the ranks of evil spirits.
Led by Ahriman, these spirits no longer opposed good in chaotic swarms. The kingdom of evil became organized like that of good. The two armies were marshaled in battle positions, much like the game of chess where the black and white pieces oppose each other in equal strength, and the spirits of good and evil, light and darkness confront each other. Victory in any one battle is not permanent— the war between good and evil rages for eternity.
Not all of the sacred books of Zoroastrianism have been preserved, and only a small part of the surviving sections can be attributed to Zoroaster’s personal writings, such as the 17 psalms or Gathas. The rules and laws of worship and sacrifice are from earlier times. Additional books of the Magian cult are the hymns, the daily prayers, and the liturgies. The books called Vendidad, accumulations of anti-demoniac lore, were compiled after the middle of the fifth century BC. They contain rituals that are more of a purely magical form; the dogmatic theory and theology of Zoroastrianism is essentially religious. However, the rituals of dealing with demons is magic.
In the 17th chapter of the Vendidad there is a prescription devoted to paring of nails and clippings of hair, which as soon as they are separated from the body belong to the evil one as houses of uncleanliness. Hair and nails collected from the dead are noted in the fable on the method of Zoroaster for converting the royal family to the new doctrine and how he thwarted a plot against his own life.
According to the legend, courtiers had hidden bones, hair, and nails collected from the dead in his room. Zoroaster, accused of wizardry, was condemned to death by hanging. At the same time the king’s horse fell ill. Its legs had entered its body. “Free me,” said the prophet, “and I will restore one leg.” Zoroaster’s freedom was granted, and the leg came forth. “Lord,” said Zoroaster, “if thou wilt embrace my creed, I will restore the second leg.” After the King’s conversion, the two remaining legs were also restored, but only after the remaining members of the royal family and the court had become Zoroastrians.
Hair and nails, which were used by wizards to conjure up the dead, were thought to live “a life apart” from the body. Hair and nails lack the senses of pressure, heat, cold, and pain and are seemingly dead, yet they grow, and grow more rapidly than the tissues from the body itself. This unusual rate of growth and lack of sensory response led wizards and witches to look at these bloodless tissues as “individuals” or “parasites” growing upon living beings like parasitic plants:
1. Zarathustra (Zoroaster) asked Ahura Mazda (Ormazda): O Ahura Mazda, most beneficent spirit, maker of the material world, thou holy one. Which is the most deadly deed whereby a man increases the most baleful strength of the daevas, as he would do by offering them sacrifice?
2. Ahura Mazda answered: It is when a man here below, combing his hair or shaving it off or paring his nails, drops them into a hole or into a crack.
3. Then for want of the lawful rites being observed, daevas are produced on the earth which we call lice, which eat up the corn in the cornfield and the clothes in the wardrobe.
4. Therefore, O Zarathustra, whenever, here below thou shalt comb thy hair or shave it off, or pare thy nails, thou shalt take them away ten paces from the faithful, twenty paces from the fire, thirty paces from the water, fifty paces from the consecrated bundles of baresma (holy twigs).
5. Then thou shalt dig a hole, ten fingers deep if the earth is hard, twelve fingers deep if it is soft; thou shalt take thy hair down there and thou shalt say aloud these fiend-smiting words: out of his pity Mazda made plants grow.
6. Thereupon thou shalt draw three furrows with a knife of metal around the hole, or six, or nine, and thou shalt chant the Ahuna Vairya three times, or six, or nine.
7. For the nails, thou shalt dig a hole, out of the house, as deep as the top joint of the little finger; thou shalt take the nails down there and thou shalt say aloud these fiend-smiting words: The words are heard from the pious in holiness and good thought.
Zoroaster’s detailed approach to the handling and disposal of hair and nails gave support to the importance of these rituals. His support flew in the face of those who considered the hair and nail rituals a common superstition. Similar hair and nail rites detailing the handling and disposal of these tissues are found throughout many primitive cultures, even now in the 21st century.
Hair and nails are commonly squirreled away by primitive cultures, or in some instances brought to sacred sites to be stored or burned, thus preventing them from finding their way into the custody of sorcerers who would then employ them as tools to conjure up evil spells to terrorize or kill the original human source. These beliefs are common amongst many tribes leading to the fear of being bewitched via the spells inflicted on hair and pared nails.
It is not uncommon for primitive cultures to cut off the hair of war prisoners before they are set free because the hair is held as a “hostage,” a guarantee of appropriate behavior in the released prisoner. Failure to adhere to the terms of surrender results in the punishment of the released prisoner from afar when punishment inflicted on the original owner of the hair.
Today, in the 21st century, this Zoroastrian belief is followed in Europe. The America’s Chilean gauchos and the Turks hoard their hair in wall spaces; Armenians hide their shorn hair in churches, hollow trees, and columns; French peasants who live in the Vosges Mountains bury their hair along with teeth in a specific hidden location so that these tokens could be reclaimed on the day of resurrection.
In the Irish village of Drumconrath there is a belief that their hairs were all numbered by the Almighty, and they are expected to have to account for each hair on the day of judgment. The people of Liege, Belgium, are taught to remove each hair carefully from their combs and brushes to prevent the hair from coming into the hands of a witch or demon.
Zoroaster’s belief that hair and nails could generate insects and other animals was not original to him. This belief is older than the nation of Iran and was continued through the sixteenth century of the Christian era.
Women’s hair that had been buried in cattle dung was thought to generate snakes.
The Copernican system, published in 1543 by the Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, placed the sun at the center of the solar system, overturning previous belief, not only of the cosmos, but also of man’s station within the universe. Prior to Copernicus, the prevailing belief was the Ptolemaic system. In this view of the universe, Earth was at the center and stars were embedded in a large celestial sphere and additional planets were in smaller spheres in between.
Ptolemy’s system included epicycles, smaller circles in which the planets moved while they orbited the Earth, in order to explain the apparent reverse motion that the planets sometimes exhibited.
Copernicus described his system of the heavens by pointing out that the motions of heavenly bodies are uniform, eternal, and either circular or made up of several circles or epicycles. He said the center of the universe is near the sun, and around the sun, in a specific order, are Mercury, Venus, Earth and its moon, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and the fixed stars. It took 200 years for the Copernican model to replace the Ptolemaic model.
In 1603 a French judge, Henri Boguet, published a book on witchcraft that contained notes from St. Thomas, who thought that “rotten sticks can (spontaneously mutate and) turn into snakes.” Paracelsus had said, “Nihil est sine spermate,” meaning nothing exists without semen. This old belief of spontaneous generation survived into the epoch of Leibniz and Newton.
“Imperfect” animals such as snakes, bugs, frogs, lice, and flies were thought to reproduce in the presence of “corruption or decomposition” rather than semen. This line of thinking related the apparent spontaneous appearance of these animals to a relationship with “infernal powers” rather than a sperm and egg fertilization.
Imperfections of human flesh, including birth defects (monsters), were attributed directly to evil spells directed personally from the devil according to Christianity and popular thinking of the times. It was believed that the evil one never appears in a perfect human form: Either “he limps or has a horse’s hoof, (thus) betraying his true nature.”
“Witches,” says Paracelsus, “give their hair to Satan as a deposit on the contract they make with him. But the evil one does not waste this hair, for he cuts it up small and mixes it with the exhalation from which he forms hail; thus it has come to pass that we ordinarily find little hairs in hail.”
The belief that hair is a refuge par excellence for devilish spells was shared by the persecutors of witches. Before being dragged to the torture chamber, women thought to be witches had their hair cut off, a practice which caused many a witch to confess to unholy practices even before torture was inflicted.
Jean Bodin (1530–96), a French legal expert recorded that in the year 1485, forty witches in northern Italy confessed their “crimes” as a group after having their hair shorn. Bodin noted that Apollonius of Tyana had his locks shorn when the Emperor Domitian had him arrested for wizardry. As recently as World War II, in liberated France, as an extension of this ancient belief, women who had consorted with the Germans had their hair shaved off by French patriots.
In AD 77 Pliny the Elder dedicated his books on natural history to the Emperor Titus, and while recognizing the powerful impact of magic upon many nations in the past and present, Pliny declared that magicians are “tricksters or fools” whose doctrines were created from the contempt they have for mankind. He claimed that magic is vanity and nonsense and that humanity was indebted to the Roman government for abolishing that monstrous magical rite, the human sacrifice, which was considered to be the ultimate offering to a god in return for favors and blessings.
Pliny claimed that the founder of magic was the Persian, Zoroaster, but ignored the fact that Zoroastrians despised human sacrifice. It is interesting to note that despite Pliny’s scorn for that “invalid and empty” wisdom, his own writings were heavily impregnated with magical references and followed the Roman tradition of praising the benefits of herbs, stones, animals, amulets, and charms.
While raising arguments against magic, Pliny references the Emperor Nero, who had performed many occult experiments, but none were deemed to be successful. Pliny then notes that the Emperor Tiberius suppressed magicians in Gaul. In fact, many of the Roman emperors were aggressively opposed to magic, and Pliny, an admiral of the Roman fleet, found it of great political value to agree.
Nero, whom Pliny lists among the naysayers of magic, was publicly against magic and philosophy, studies that he deemed illegal, saying they were “frivolous and served as a pretext for those who wished to know the future.” Nero believed that magic was dangerous to the government, and in fact it would have been, if citizens were allowed to read in the stars the destiny that awaited the rulers.
The stars might predict conspiracies. Nero’s wife, Poppaea, had a diviner in residence in her house staff, and a gaggle of astrologers occupied her private chambers. And Nero, despite his official public position on magic, still consulted magicians in political decisions. The astrologer Babilus read from the stars the names of Nero’s enemies, and based upon these celestial directives, Nero had the enemies rounded up and executed without trial.
Tiberius, whom Pliny credits with the destruction of magic in Gaul, oftentimes consulted with the astrologer Thrasyllus. This astrologer predicted the elevation of Tiberius to the throne. Tiberius, in order to test Thrasyllus’s belief in his own predictions, had decided to execute the astrologer if he predicted incorrectly. Tiberius then demanded that Thrasyllus predict his own destiny, whereupon Thrasyllus declared himself to be in immediate danger. Tiberius then stated, “That is true,” and “the exactness of the prophecy guarantees the one concerning my person.” Tiberius then comforted the trembling prophet and embraced him.
In the book Isis and Osiris, Plutarch (AD 45–126) stated that the Sphinx symbolizes the secrets of the occult wisdom. He further describes the Sphinx as a “magnificent creature having wings of ever changing hue.” When directed towards the sun, the wings glitter like gold; when they are turned towards the clouds, they shine with the colors of the rainbow. Yet, with all his investigative skills Plutarch failed to uncover the complete meaning and mysteries of the great Sphinx.
For untold numbers of years, the Sphinx stood out as the protector of the secrets of Egyptian magic. In their desire to learn the secrets of the Sphinx, a parade of Greek philosophers, including Solon, Thales, Pythagoras, Eudoxus, and Lycurgus ventured to Egypt to confer with the priests.
English Witches
When traveling through the eastern counties of England (such as East Anglia, Essex, and others), one can regularly find monuments of the victims of religious and medical persecutions from the reign of Mary I in the first half of the 16th century. During that time 277 who were found guilty of witchcraft and sorcery were burnt at the stake. The primary objective of the Reformers (religious, royal, and medical) was “the elimination of the practitioners of magic and sorcery.”
In the year 1563, The Elizabethan Witchcraft Act was passed into law. This law imposed the penalty of death for murder by sorcery, and the pillory and imprisonment for non-lethal witchcraft. The first person to be punished after the act was enacted was a sixty-three year old woman by the name of Agnes Waterhouse who was hanged in Chelmsford in 1566 for the crime of bewitching William Fynee to death. Her co-defendant was her “familiar,” a cat named Satan.
The first of the victims of this act was like those who followed her, a peasant. The affluent, physicians, and royals were protected by their wealth from being accused of witchcraft. The crimes for which the guilty were punished were simple “maleficia,” baleful acts related to the jealousies and vindictiveness of witches. The county of Essex became the center of the witch hunt persecutions, with the major numbers of these trials occurring in 1566, 1579, 1582, and 1589.
An examination of the old court records reveals that the outbreak of “witch mania” in East Anglia had all of the characteristics of mass hysteria. The entire book of witch folklore and witchcraft was lodged against the accused along with trumped-up evidence.
The accusers in the very heart of this conspiracy were the village soothsayers, referred to as Cunning Men and Cunning Women who were witch doctors and physicians who freely and wantonly denounced their competitors. This had been their habit since the beginnings of English history. Originally the punishment was limited to ecclesiastical punishment or the drawing of the witch’s blood to “neutralize the spell.” With the state now being the official witch hunter, influential physicians were empowered by the government to give a diagnosis that guaranteed misery, torture and death to each and every one of the accused.
Handbooks for magistrates, including Michael Dalton’s Country Justice (1618), and Richard Bernard’s Guide to Grand Jurymen (1627), noted that the primary evidence for guilt of witchcraft was the possession of an animal “familiar” (a cat, dog, mouse, or other pet). “Bona fide physicians, as fallible as their unofficial allies, the Cunning People, were generally prepared to diagnose many of the illnesses that they were unable to cure as caused by witchcraft.”
The type of individual to be diagnosed as a witch has been of historical interest to the psychiatrist Sir Charles Oman, the historian, who divided witches and wizards into four categories: the conscious charlatan, the malignant person who truly believed they could harm their enemies, the sheer lunatic, and those who were themselves the victims of torture and duress.
One Newmarket woman who believed that her pet toad was a “familiar” spirit was visited by Dr. William Harvey, a physician of King Charles I and the original illustrator of the complete anatomy of the circulation of human blood.
Dr. Harvey killed and dissected the toad, thus demonstrating that the toad was not cursed with any unusual anatomy or physiology. Harvey was considered to be many years ahead of his professional colleagues, who were very comfortable in pointing a finger at witchcraft as an “alibi” for diseases inflicted upon their patient that they themselves could not cure.
French Witches
The appearance of witchcraft in Europe, as it developed in the period of “great persecutions,” was found in two different forms. The first was described as “cottage industry witchcraft” which employed spells and potions to perform black or white magic. The second was framed in the belief that witches were the “shock warriors” of the devil.
The witch was no longer a simple wise-woman, who could produce a healing treatment charm as well as a poison—the witch (male or female) was now fully devoted to evil and had consciously joined the corrupted army of Satan.
In the beginning of the “age of witches,” the French witch was the most often observed. The age drew heavily on the accusations and incriminations heaped upon heretical sects. The guilt of the witch was confirmed by posing leading questions to accused witches and torturing them until a confession was extracted. The guilty was then required to point fingers at others as witches, who were then questioned and tortured until they confessed.
The confessions and the great quantities of information were reported by the persecutors and a distinct picture of “witch behavior and witch beliefs” was accumulated. In a strange way, this notoriety attracted many to let it be known that they were witches.
A central theme of the new witch religion was the Sabbath, the meeting during which the Devil was worshipped. The first accounts that have survived of this occurrence came in 1335 from Toulouse, in the south of France. A woman, Anne-Marie de Georgel, confessed that a “tall dark man, who had fiery eyes and was clothed in skins, appeared to her while she was washing. He asked her to give herself (sexually) to him and she agreed. He breathed into her ear, and on the following Saturday, merely by willing it, she was somehow taken to the witches’ meeting. The meeting was presided over by a goat, which taught her secret ways to work evil. She had used these secrets ever since and had done all the harm she could.”
Anne-Marie de Georgel stated, “God ruled in heaven and Satan on earth. They were equal partners, locked in conflict throughout the ages;” however, she believed that “Satan would soon triumph.”
Another woman, Catherine Delort, claimed that “every Saturday she fell into a curious sleep in which she was transported to the gathering of witches. There she worshipped the goat and submitted her body to him and to the other witches. They worked evil by spoiling harvests and killing cattle, and at their meetings they feasted on the bodies of babies.”
The French magistrate and witch-hunter, Pierre de Lancre, devoted the last years of his life to proactively rooting out evidence, “real or imaginary,” of devil-worship and witchcraft. He bragged about “having consigned 600 witches to the flames.” In his Tableau de l’inconstance des mauvais anges (Description of the Faithlessness of Evil Angels) published in 1612, he records his personal account of his witch hunt in the Basque region of France.
The great preponderance of the accusations against witches’ practices and behavior at the Sabbath had in the beginning been launched against non-Christian heretical sects that were accused of the worship of the Devil and his animal forms (“familiars”), the obscene kiss, the violent hatred of Christianity, the cannibalism of eating babies, and the promiscuous orgy.
In the beginning of the fourteenth century even the Knights Templar were accused of worshipping the Devil by trampling on crucifixes, copulating with demons, and obscene kissing. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries there were various trials of important individuals, such as Joan of Arc and Gilles de Rais, in which charges of witchcraft were featured and played a part in creating the wide spread belief that there were large numbers of witches throughout the land.
Everyone knows of Joan of Arc, but few know that she was burned at the stake after being found guilty of practicing witchcraft. The opinion of her judges at her trial in 1431 was that “her visions were worthless. They denied her the gift of prophecy, accused her of sorcery, and above all censured the heretical pride which induced her to believe that she was answerable only to God and not God’s ministers on earth.”
When at her trial Joan was charged as a sorceress and a witch, there were varying accounts of her background, including that she was an illegitimate daughter of Louis d’Orleans and Queen Isabeau, widow of Charles VI, and therefore the half-sister of the Dauphin, Charles II. Although there is some debate as to whether or not these claimed birth rights are correct, it is a fact that the Dauphin gave her a royal coat of arms, an azure shield, and a silver sword with gold grip, which carried a gold crown and two gold fleurs-de-lis—an unheard of honor for an “uneducated peasant girl.” It is believed that the truth is that she was the daughter of successful and well-to-do peasants from the village of Domremy in Lorraine, close to the border of the kingdom of France, which at that period was the location of Paris and was being marauded and plundered by the English.
Joan’s sudden rise to fame was due to her conviction that she alone could “deliver France from the English,” a power which she believed was “divinely conferred upon her for this purpose.” Joan claimed that strange voices she identified as those of St. Gabriel, St. Michael, St. Marguerite, and St. Catherine began communicating with her when she was only thirteen. In the shade of a “fairies’ tree” she had made a vow of a celibate life. Initially the voices instructed her to travel to France, but when the news of the city of Orleans being under siege, reached Joan in Domremy, she was then told to rescue the city.
As a small child Joan was told of the kingdom of France that had been lost by an evil Queen Isabeau who had defected to France’s enemies and that a virgin would reclaim France. There was another story that originated in the beginning of the 15th century that was told to the region’s children: “A soothsayer named Marie d’Avignon had gone to the King and told him that the country was about to be ravaged by war, but that a maid would come and lead France to victory.”
In 1429 Joan asked an officer in command of her area, Robert de Baudricourt, to give her a horse and military escort to go to ask for an audience with the Dauphine. After she asked for and received an exorcism from a local priest, the officer complied. Now armed with an introduction to the Dauphine, Joan travelled across occupied France to Chinon.
Joan was able to pass through road blocks, ambushes, sentries, and highway robbers. When she arrived, the court ministers of Chinon were seriously concerned and untrusting of this young woman who claimed she was sent by saints and angels and God. Joan agreed to be interviewed by an extensive ecclesiastical assembly at Poitiers, and she passed the test and convinced the clerics.
Subsequently, with Charles, Joan declared that she would fight and drive France’s enemies from their territory “through the grace of St. Michael.” Charles was sufficiently convinced that he provided Joan with armor and troops and dispatched her to Tours. Her standard bore the image of the King of Heaven holding an orb with the words “Jesus Maria.” She gathered her troops and headed to join the French army at Blois for the relief of Orleans.
Her military campaigns were successful, the siege of Orleans ended, and the English were chased back home; Charles was crowned at Rheims as Joan had predicted. The following year Joan was captured and turned over to John of Luxembourg, the Burgundian commander, who sold her to the English.
After two attempts at escape, Joan was sent to the English military facility of Rouen and placed under tight guard in the castle. Joan’s trial for sorcery and heresy began in the year 1431. For political reasons, the English were determined that Joan would be convicted and no amount of ransom could save her.
Joan was put into the custody of an anglophile Bishop, Pierre Cauchon, who had asked for the office of judge for personal benefit; he then elected a tribunal that would guarantee a conviction. The question that the trial was designed to answer was “whether it was God or the Devil who guided her.”
The theologians of the Church, the clerics, and masters of the University of Paris were in agreement that Joan had used witchcraft. It was said that the judges had proof that “Joan was a magician, a heretic, a schismatic.” It was charged that the voices she claimed she had heard were the result of her consumption of mandrake, an herb that produces a narcotic-like substance that causes delirium and has magical powers, including the effect of hearing voices, and Joan was known to carry mandrake in her bodice. Her judges insisted that, “her apparitions were in fact infernal spirits, that her voices were satanic interventions, that her premonitions were witchcraft and that her (successful) battles were diabolical crimes.”
The exact charges against Joan was that she was “superstitious, a soothsayer, an idolater, an invoker of devils, a blasphemer against God and his saints.” The indictment produced a list of “her detestable and wicked crimes and sins as fruits of her proud spirit.” The Inquisition refused to believe that saints had either spoken to her or visited her, and they believed that Charles VII’s coronation had been “a work of hell” because Joan had evoked evil spirits. The Inquisition further reported that Joan was perfidious, cruel, and tainted with human blood. The University of Paris affirmed that Joan was “a woman of Balial, Satan, and Behemoth.”
To all these charges Joan was found guilty of heresy and would be burned at the stake unless she submitted. Totally at a loss because of the verdict and punishment, she recanted her claims and was given a sentence of prison.
Sometime later, Joan recanted her confession and was burned at the stake on May 30, 1431, as a “relapsed heretic.” After the fire had consumed her body, the executioner was ordered to remove the ashes and expose her charred body. The executioner then cut open her belly and chest and destroyed her entrails. He was commanded to throw Joan’s heart and her ashes into the Loire to prevent any “miracle-working” pieces to be claimed and used to restore her.
During Joan’s trial, only Jean Gerson, Master of the University, had defended her and declared her innocence. In 1456 eminent judges “proclaimed the inequities of the first trial and Joan’s innocence, reasserted her orthodoxy and admirable merits, and further annulled the judgment of 1431.”
In 1909, almost five centuries later, Joan was beatified, and in 1920 she was canonized by the Roman Catholic Church. Joan was now St. Joan of Arc! She became the only “witch” to ever have been elevated to the level of sainthood.
German Witchcraft
Dominating the consciousness of witch hunters during the period of the European persecutions was the belief that it was the God-given duty of Christians to “rescue” heretics and pagans from the unspeakable fate that awaited them after death. Earlier, St. Augustine had stated his position that “not only every pagan, but that every Jew, heretic and schismatic will go to the eternal fire . . . unless before the end of his life he be reconciled and restored to the Catholic Church.”
The result of St. Augustine’s public attitude was the creation of a living hell on Earth for thousands people with the purpose of “saving them from the terrors of hell in the next world.” The terrors inflicted by the persecution were considered to be worse in Germany than in any other part of Europe. Witch trials began in Germany in the mid-fithteenth century with the greatest numbers occurring after 1570, during the period of the Counter Reformation, when the Roman Catholic Church seriously began to turn back the rise of Protestantism and all forms of heresy and witchcraft.
Between 1609 and 1622 more than 300 Germans were executed for practicing witchcraft in the state of Bamberg alone. The accused were mercilessly tortured without concern of age or gender. In 1614 a seventy-four-year-old woman died while “undergoing torments up to the third grade.”
Between 1623 and 1632 the German state of Bamberg was described as “the shrine of horror.” This state was ruled by Prince-Bishop Gottfried von Dornheim, a fanatical witch-hater who was known as “the Witch Bishop.” He organized an aggressive witch-hunting organization under the leadership of Suffragan Bishop Friedrich Forner, who was supported by a council of lawyers. Witch prisons were established; the most ruthless was the Hexenhaus, the “Witches’ House.” Suspected witches were interrogated and tortured in the Hexenhaus, and it is believed that at least 600 humans were burnt at the stake after their confessions.
It was considered mandatory that the accused confess to practicing witchcraft, and all efforts were employed to obtain the confession. Extreme techniques of torture were employed, including “roasting (the accused) on an iron chair, rending the flesh with red-hot pinchers, crushing the legs, dislocating the shoulders, and applying thumb screws.”
It was very dangerous for anyone to question the result of the torture or interrogation by the court because the friends and employees of the court saw to it that once charged with witchcraft none of the accused would be found innocent and could not avoid being burnt at the stake. The kindly Dr. Hann, Vice-Chancellor of Bambergh, who had demonstrated kindness towards accused witches, was himself accused as a witch. By means of torture, he was caused to admit guilt and name five of his leading burgomasters as “fellow sorcerers.” In 1628 the humanitarian Vice-Chancellor, his wife, and daughter were burned at the stake as witches.
After the year 1630 the German witch hunt was reduced in scope and intensity. In that year Bishop Forner died, and two years later his master, the Witch Bishop, died. The invasion of Germany by Gustavus Adolphus, the Protestant King of Sweden, distracted the efforts of witch hunting to the crisis provoked by the occupation of Germany by “an arch-heretic on Catholic soil.” By1630 executions of witches were reduced to 24 and then the next year there were zero.
The terrors of German witch hunting were carried out by Protestants as well as Roman Catholics. It is well documented that Benedict Carpzov, a Lutheran, admitted ordering the executions of more than 20,000 confessed witches in Saxony!
Italian Witchcraft
The witches of Italy were famous for being masters of their craft and the most successful of the witch covens of Europe. They inherited the traditions of the Roman and the Etruscan witches and were so successful that even in the 21st century they are still a force to be reckoned with in Sicily and the southern portions of the Italian peninsula.
La Vecchia (the Old Religion) is the name given to the two branches of what is called black and white witchcraft that is still practiced in Italy and Sicily. These forms of Italian witchcraft have their foundations in the practices and beliefs of the historical colonizers.
Greek, Etruscan, and Egyptian practices and ceremonies were folded into the sanctioned Roman religion. Astrology, augury, and divination were consulted before official policies were decided upon.
Pagan power brokers denounced the “dark side of magic” as fervently as did the Inquisition courts. All sorcerers were at risk of being driven from Rome if an accuser made charges that they were a danger to the state or the emperor by virtue of their evil powers.
Italian witchcraft featured night-time ceremonies designed to conjure up the evil spirits and gods backed by a devil, with the construction of wax likenesses into which needles were thrust and knots were cinched tight to show pain infliction, sexual failure, and death. And to speed up the evil spirits’ effect, the Italian witches resorted to quick acting poisons. If the Roman courts found the accused guilty they would be punished by crucifixion or being fed to the lions in the coliseum.
Horace, the classical Roman poet (100 BC), wrote several detailed treatises on the gruesome practice of black and white magic. Another classic Roman writer, Apuleius (2nd century AD), documented the evil art and craft of gnarled old women in The Golden Ass, the tale of a handsome young man who is tinkering with witchcraft and through a series of horrible mistakes he is turned into an ass.
The two writers gave similar examples and accounts of the horrors of Italian witchcraft that were described again 1400 years later when those accused of witchcraft were tortured, crucified, and burnt at the stake.
The Apologia, a second book written by Apuleius, made an effort to separate evil and what was considered beneficial magic of astrology, medicine, and conjuring up spirits to learn details and outcomes of the future. The Roman witch “strix” (nocturnal bird),” “saga” (wise woman),” and “volantica” (night flyer),” were the earliest forms of the Italian witch called the “strega,” whose terrible persecutions, crucifixions, and burnings lasted from the 15th to the 18th centuries.
During the early years of Christianity all private magic ceremonies were banned and public rites were restricted by law to augury. In the 5th century, the Ostrogoths (Arian Christians) led by Theodoric invaded Italy and listed divination as a form of illegal paganism that was punishable by death. In 500 AD sorcerers were chased from Rome under the threat of imprisonment or death. In 600 AD the Lombards invaded Italy and rounded up and sold magicians into slavery regardless of whether or not their magic was beneficent.
Many centuries were required to pass before the greater numbers of Italian peasant farmers totally embraced Christian beliefs and practices. It was a slow process to rededicate pagan temples into Catholic cathedrals, and even then Christianity was considered to be a “veneer” that masked the old witchcraft customs. Local priests were often uneducated and not any better informed than their congregations. “Evidence” collected by the Inquisitions indicated that paganism and Christianity were blended into a “paradoxical faith.”
The witch hunts of Europe appeared in Italy in the mid-15th century, with the northern states near Germany being the worst affected. The more the Inquisition looked and tortured, the more witches it discovered. A Papal Bull put forth by Innocent VIII in 1484 AD set off a plague of rabid Inquisition investigators; in the following year after its publication forty-one people were burned at the stake as witches.
Edwin Smith Papyrus Hysterical reports that in Naples and Rome there soon appeared a church notice that charged, “Witches outnumbered Christian believers!” Their followers tended to be the very educated and they frequently studied divination and astrology, alchemy, medicine, and astronomy. In 1510, 140 witches were burned at the stake in Bresica, and 300 were sacrificed by fire in Como four years later. Outlandish tales circulated that 25,000 attended a black Sabbath near Bresica. Seventy additional witches who had confessed at the hands of the Inquisition were burned in Valcanonica, and an Inquisitor there bragged that there were 5,000 additional accused witches under investigation.
Venetian civil leaders complained because their areas of responsibility were threatened with depopulation as a result of the Inquisition and witch hunts! The civil authority was supposed to carry out the judgment and punishment demanded by the Inquisition. The Inquisition was given the right to excommunicate court members if they did not carry out the sentence of burning, beheading, hanging, or other punishments issued against those found guilty of witchcraft and heresy. The Venetian Council of Ten countered with an “enlightened reply,” saying “The witch hunter’s greed for money and property prevented anyone from being found innocent and if so many of the ignorant peasantry were in error they had need of really good preachers rather than persecutors.”
Even in these times two forms of Italian witchcraft could be identified. The first were the wise women who incited love and healing brews, and the second were those who resided in the rural reaches, would tell one’s fortune, gather herbs by moonlight for good and evil, and chant to direct the decisions of spirits good and evil.
In these times high-profile witches, or those who were accused of witchcraft for other’s sinister purposes, were hung or burnt at the stake, while the quiet, peasant wise woman survived in the dark attics of the believer’s homes.
According to Man, Myth, and Magic: The Illustrated Encyclpopedia of Mythology, Religion, and the Unknown, edited by Richard Caendish, “Almost more than anywhere else in modern Europe, the people in southern Italy and Sicily still retain the customs of La Vecchia. The Evil Eye is feared and the phallic sign invoked to destroy its power. Wax hearts and images are stuck with pins, and wise women consulted for charms to make people fall in or out of love, and to gain lucky lottery ticket numbers.”
American Witches
Salem Witch Trials
The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693. Despite commonly being described as the Salem witch trials, the initial hearings in 1692 were conducted in Salem Village (Danvers), Ipswich, Andover, and Salem Town.
The most horrible of the early trials were held by the Court of Oyer and Terminer in 1692 in Salem Town. According to Robert Calef, who opposed Cotton Mather and wrote a book denouncing the Salem Witch Trials titled More Wonders of the Invisible World, a reporter of the time described the trials this way:
And now Nineteen persons having been hang’d, and one prest to death, and eight more condemned, in all Twenty and Eight, of which above a third part were members of some of the Churches of N. England, and more than half of them of a good Conversation in general, and not one clear’d; about Fifty having confest themselves to be Witches, of which not one Executed; above an Hundred and Fifty in Prison, and Two Hundred more accused; the Special Commission of Oyer and Terminer comes to a period . . .
In 17th century colonial North America, the supernatural was part of everyday life, and there was a ubiquitous belief that Satan and his evil agents of witches, sorcerers, and magicians were everywhere and actively promoting evil events, such as disease, death, and environmental calamity. These beliefs were birthed in Europe in the 15th century and then spread to North America as it became colonized.
Witchraft, practiced as “white magic,” with charms and herbal medicines were used by subsistence peasant farmers to ensure personal health, fertility of their flocks and herds, and successful crop yields. Gradually the practice of a positive and proactive white magic evolved into dark or “black magic,” the form of witchcraft that is associated with demons, evil spirits, and their evil deeds that by call or command are launched against health, life, herds, flocks, crops, and the land.
Between 1560 and 1570, black magic and its various practices were pervasive in colonial America. “Witch hunts,” persecutions, and executions were everyday events!
In Against Modern Sadducism, in 1668, Joseph Glanvill claimed that “he could prove the existence of witches and ghosts of the supernatural realm.” Glanvill’s writings addressed the “denial of the bodily resurrection, and the [supernatural] spirits.” In his publications he claimed that “ingenious men should believe in witches and apparitions; if they doubted the reality of spirits, they not only denied demons, but also the almighty God.”
Glanvill wanted to prove that the supernatural could not be denied; he claimed those who did deny apparitions were considered heretics for it also disproved their beliefs in angels. Written texts and speeches by Glanvill and Cotton Mather tried to prove to their followers and anyone who would listen that “demons were alive,” which literally produced a mass hysteria in those who believed that demons were actively controlling events on earth.
Men and women in Salem believed that all of their personal and community misfortune was due to the evil works and spells of the devil. When infant death, crop failures, and revolution involving church congregations occurred, they were blamed on people who were thought to be practicing witchcraft or black magic and conspiring with evil forces.
Before the constitutional upheaval of the 1680s, the government of Massachusetts had primarily been filled with and dominated by Puritan secular leaders. Puritans, influenced by Calvinism, opposed many of the ceremonial traditions of the Protestant Church of England, including the Book of Common Prayer, the use of priestly vestments of caps and gowns during services, the use of the Holy Cross during baptism, and kneeling during the sacrament—all of which constituted “Popery.”
Hostile policies of King Charles I and active repression by Anglican Church officials of these dissenting non-Anglican views accelerated in the 1620s and 1630s, resulting in a mass migration of Puritans and other religious minorities to North America.
The new immigrants established many colonies in New England, of which the Massachusetts Bay Colony was the largest and most economically viable. Self-governance fit their philosophy of life because building a self-governed colony based on their religious beliefs was their priority. Their community leaders were elected by the freemen of the members of the church, whose religious beliefs were formally examined, and then they were formally admitted into a Puritan congregation of the colony. The colonial leadership tended to be well thought of members of their Congregations, and were known to consult regularly with the local ministers on the important issues that would confront the colony.
In Salem Village, as in the main colony, daily life was directed by the precepts of the church, which was Calvinist in the extreme. Music, dancing, and participation in holiday celebrations of Christmas and Easter were absolutely forbidden, as they supposedly had their roots in paganism.
The only music allowed in the colonies was the unaccompanied singing of hymns. Even in the 17th century, the folk songs of the day glorified love and nature, and were therefore thought by believers to be against God. Toys, especially dolls, were forbidden and were universally considered frivolous and a waste of time.
Schooling of children was limited to religious studies and Bible literacy. All members of the colony were expected to attend three-hour sermons every Wednesday and Sunday at the community meeting house. Village life centered on the meeting house where sanctioned meetings and events took place.
Prior to 1692, there had been reports of witchcraft swirling through neighboring Salem Village and other towns. Cotton Mather, a well-known minister of Boston’s North Church (not to be confused with the later Anglican North Church of Paul Revere fame), was a prolific writer of pamphlets and a loud trumpeter of warnings of witchcraft.
In his book Memorable Providences Relating to Witchcrafts and Possessions (1689), Mather describes his “oracular observations” and how “stupendous witchcraft” had affected the children of Boston mason John Goodwin. Mather illustrates how Goodwin’s eldest child had been tempted by the devil and stole linen from the washerwoman Mary Glover.
Glover was an unhappy old woman whom her husband had often described as a witch. This is perhaps a contributing factor to why she was accused of casting spells on the Goodwin children. After the initial witchcraft accusation, four of the six Goodwin children began to have strange behaviors, or what some observers referred to as “the disease of astonishment.”
The symptoms of the afflicted Goodwin children included neck and back pain, feelings as though their tongues were being drawn from their throat, and loud unpredictable screams. Other noted symptoms included their bodies becoming limp, bird-like flapping of their arms, attempts to inflict self-harm, and actions to inflict physical pain on others.
The children were brought to the local physician, namely one Dr. William Griggs, who declared that he could not heal the children, as “their afflictions were due to the spells of witchcraft!” It was Dr. William Griggs’ pronouncement and diagnosis of “witchcraft as being the cause of the Goodwin children’s afflictions” that would fuel the Salem craze of witch hunts in 1692.
A short time later in Salem Village, in the winter of 1692, nine-year-old Betty Parris and her eleven-year-old cousin Abigail Williams, the daughter and niece of the Reverend Parris, began displaying signs of “fits” described as “beyond the power of Epileptic Fits or natural disease” by John Hale, a minister from nearby Beverly.
The afflicted girls screamed, uttered strange sounds, threw dishes around the room, crawled under furniture, contorted themselves like pretzels, and complained of being pinched and pricked by pins. Again, Dr. William Griggs, recorded this, saying that he “could find no physical evidence of any disease” and declared the cause of the girl’s afflictions to be witchcraft!
The first three people to be accused and arrested as witches and charged with afflicting the young patients Betty Parris, Abigail Williams, twelve-year-old Ann Putnam, Jr., and Elizabeth Hubbard were Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne, and Tituba (who was a slave).
Sarah Good was a local homeless beggar; Sarah Osborne rarely attended church and was considered to be unworthy because she married an indentured servant; and Tituba was a slave who was a fortune teller who led young girls astray by telling them of enchanting stories of Malleus Maleficarum (evil spells). All three of these women fit the description of “usual suspects” for witchcraft accusations and no one came forward to defend them.
By May 1692 accusations of witchcraft began to pour into Salem Village authorities. Up until that point, the proceedings and arrests were only investigative. However, on May 27,1692, William Phips ordered the establishment of a Special Court of Oyer and Terminer for Suffolk, Essex, and Middlesex counties to prosecute the cases of those in jail.
Many methods were employed to gain confessions of participating in witchcraft from those accused, including making a “witch cake.” The cake was made from rye meal and the urine of the victim of witchcraft or sorcery, and then was fed to a dog; when the dog ate the cake, the witches themselves would feel pain and scream out. The concept of the “witch cake” was based on Cartesian “Doctrine of Effluvia,” which stated that witches afflicted their victims by means of “venomous and malignant particles that were ejected from the eye.”
Another test based on effluvia, and used to identify a witch, was the “touch test” from the Old Testament and was used again in Andover in September 1692. If the accused witch touched the victim while the victim was having a fit or some form of attack and the fit ceased, that meant that the accused was the witch who had afflicted the victim.
Other evidence included the confessions of the accused (even confessions extracted through torture), the testimony of a person who had confessed to being a witch identifying others as being a witch, the finding of books of palmistry and horoscopes, or pots of ointments or healing herbs in the home of the accused, and the discovery of a “witches teat” on the skin of the accused in the form of a mole or blemish that was insensitive to touch.
Warrants were issued for thirty-six more people, with more examinations for signs of witchcraft (including torture) taking place in Salem Village. When the Court of Oyer and Terminer convened at the end of May, the number of those accused of witchcraft and in custody had risen to sixty two!
In August grand juries indicted George Burroughs, Mary Eastey, Martha Corey, and George Jacobs, Sr., and trial juries convicted Martha Carrier, George Jacobs, Sr., George Burroughs, John Willard, Elizabeth Proctor, and John Proctor. Elizabeth Proctor was given a temporary stay of execution because she was pregnant. On August 19, 1692, Martha Carrier, George Jacobs, Sr., George Burroughs, John Willard, and John Proctor were executed.
In September, grand juries indicted eighteen more people. On September19, 1692, Giles Corey refused to plead at arraignment, and was subjected to peine forte et dure, a form of torture in which the subject is pressed beneath an increasingly heavy load of stones, in an attempt to make him enter a plea. Four pled guilty and eleven others were tried and found guilty of witchcraft.
On September 22, 1692, eight more were executed, “After Execution Mr. Noyes turning him to the bodies, said, ‘what a sad thing it is to see Eight Firebrands of Hell hanging there.’”
Because of the long duration and widespread nature of the Salem witch hunts and trials, the historical and contributing factors of these mass hysterias are worth investigating.
Historian Clarence F. Jewett included a list of people executed in New England in The Memorial History of Boston: Including Suffolk County, Massachusetts (1630–1880). He wrote:
The following is the list of the 12 persons who were executed for witchcraft in New England before 1692, when 24 other persons were executed in Salem, whose names are well known. It is possible that the list is not complete; but I have included all of which I have any knowledge, and with such details as to names and dates as could be ascertained; 1647–Margaret Jones, of Charlestown, at Boston. 1648–Mary Johnson, at Hartford, 1650–Henry Lake’s wife, of Dorchester. 1650–Mrs. Kendall, of Cambridge. 1651–Mary Parsons, of Springfield, at Boston. 1651–Goodwife Bassett, at Fairfield, Conn. 1653–Goodwife Knap, at Hartford. 1656–Ann Hibbins, at Boston. 1662–Goodman Greensmith, at Hartford. 1662–Goodwife Greensmith, at Hartford. 1688–Goody Glover, at Boston.
On February 21, 1693, Governor William Phips said:
When I put an end to the Court there were at least fifty persons in prison in great misery by reason of the extreme cold and their poverty, most of them having only spectre evidence against them and their mittimusses being defective, I caused some of them to be let out upon bayle and put the Judges upon consideration of a way to relief others and to prevent them from perishing in prison, upon which some of them were convinced and acknowledged that their former proceedings were too violent and not grounded upon a right foundation... The stop put to the first method of proceedings hath dissipated the black cloud that threatened this Province with destruccion; . . .
When the Salem witch hunts had ended 150 had been accused, 62 had been imprisoned, 19 had been executed by hanging, 4 died in prison and one eighty-year-old man had been crushed to death by stones over a four day period for refusing to enter a plea.
The precipitating event that produced, what is perhaps the most horrible example of a mass hysteria in America, was the pontification of Dr. William Griggs, who diagnosed the strange behavior and afflictions in eight Puritan girls and young women as “bewitchment, the result of witchcraft.” Because of the religious and political environment that pervaded New England at the time, Dr. Griggs’ diagnosis of witchcraft had the same effect as yelling “fire in a crowded theater.”
A rational explanation for the appearance of symptoms of the “victims” of witch craft in New England is the contamination of stored grains with ergot, the exotoxin of a mold that causes constriction of vascular muscles resulting in the lack of oxygen in the brain as well as other tissues.
Historically, the consumption of grains, particularly rye, and breads contaminated with the fungus called ergot (“cockspur” or Claviceps pupurea) resulted in convulsive and gangrenous symptoms produced by the exotoxin lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD). Diluted tinctures of cockspur (ergot) were used by alchemists and early physicians to speed up child birth and stop postpartum bleeding.
The initial infestation of ergot in the seed head of grain causes the flowers to eject a sweet, yellow-pigmented mucus (“honey dew”), which contains the fungal spores that then spreads the infestation. The growing fungus then invades the developing grain with a web of filaments that become a purplish-black sclerota. Sclerota are usually thought to be large hypercolored grains of rye.
The sclerota contain ergot alkaloids, including lysergic acid (the source of LSD) and ergotamine, often used as a treatment for migraine headaches. The alkaloids have a direct effect on the central nervous system and produce contraction of smooth muscle in the vascular system and the internal organs.
It is well documented that consuming ergot-contaminated food will produce convulsions, severe muscle spasms, vomiting, delusions, hallucinations, and “creepy crawlies” under the skin (formication), all of which were reported in the victims of the accusers of the Salem witchcraft trials.
Ergot will proliferate in warm, damp, and rainy spring and summer weather— these were exactly the environmental conditions recorded in Salem in 1691. All of the accusers lived in the western part of Salem Village, an ecosystem of swampy meadows that would be a perfect breeding ground for ergot. At the time, rye was the staple grain of Salem residents. The rye crop would have been consumed in the fall and winter of 1691–1692—just when the accuser’s victim’s symptoms were reported. The summer of 1692 was dry, which is thought to be the explanation for the sudden end of the “bewitchments.”
Symptoms included painful seizures and spasms, diarrhea, paresthesia (itching and prickling), formication (a feeling that ants are crawling under the skin), vomiting, mania, psychosis, hallucinations, headaches, vertigo, and tinnitus. Dry gangrene is the result of vasoconstriction induced by the ergotamine-ergocristine alkaloids produced by the fungus.
The gangrene is caused by the effects of ergot on the most poorly vascularized structures of the body including ears, fingers, and toes. Advanced symptoms include desquamation or peeling of the skin, weak peripheral pulse, peripheral neuropathies, edema, and total loss of affected tissues.
The earliest references to ergotism in 857 AD are found in the Annales Xantenses: “a Great plague of swollen blisters consumed the people by a loathsome rot, so their limbs were loosened and fell off before death.”
In 944 AD, in southern France 40,000 people died of ergotism. In the Middle Ages, the gangrenous plague was called “ignis sacer” (“holy fire”) or “Saint Anthony’s fire.” The 12th century writer, Geoffroy du Breuil of Vigeois, reported the mysterious outbreaks in the Limousin region in France, where the gangrenous form of ergotism was associated with the local Saint Martial as much as Saint Anthony.
Georgia Witch Hunt
In 1977, while working as a pathologist at the Yerkes Primate Research Center, Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, Wallach discovered the first non-human case of cystic fibrosis in a young rhesus monkey.
Wallach’s findings were confirmed by experts in the field of cystic fibrosis pathology; the experts included Dr. Robert Beale, an MD who would later become the director of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.
When Wallach announced that cystic fibrosis was not a genetic disease, but rather a congenital deficiency of the trace mineral selenium in the embryo or early postnatal life, Wallach was summarily terminated in April of 1978 from his position at Yerke’s without the ability to defend his observations as would be the case for a PhD candidate.
In 1978 Wallach was hired by St. Louis University to be the Director of the Laboratory Animal Research colony in the medical school. However, after learning of his termination from the Yerkes facility by Emory University and the NIH, he was summarily terminated before he even moved into his new offices.
In June 2, 2005, an article appeared in the International Laboratory Animal Research Journal (ILAR Journal) by W. R. Morton and K. Swindler titled “Serendipitous Insights Involving Nonhuman Primates”:
CYSTIC FIBROSIS
Emory University (1978) reported that “a classic textbook case” of cystic fibrosis as found in humans had been identified in a nonhuman primate, an animal in which the disease had not been described previously. An assistant veterinary pathologist (whose name {Wallach} was withheld by Emory) unexpectedly discovered the disease during the routine autopsy of a 6-month-old male rhesus monkey that had died of unknown causes. The diagnosis was confirmed by Dr. Victor Nassar, an Emory pediatric pathologist at Atlanta’s Grady Memorial Hospital, and by Dr. John Easterly, a pathologist at the Chicago Lying-in Hospital and national authority on cystic fibrosis. The monkey, one of a group being studied for the space program, instead provided the first nonhuman primate model of cystic fibrosis.
Nevada Witch Hunt
In July of 2011 Wallach and Ropp sent several case reports of children that had recovered from muscular dystrophy (by following Wallach’s diet and supplemental protocol) to Jerry Lewis Productions in Las Vegas, NV. The case reports showed very clearly that a nutritional supplement program and a special diet had reversed the symptoms of MD in several children.
Wallach and Ropp contacted Lewis through his personal assistant Violet and alerted him of the fact that a probable “cure” for muscular dystrophy had been discovered. They did not ask for money, but rather had asked if Lewis would like to be the one who made the announcement that a major breakthrough had been discovered that could resolve the childhood plague muscular dystrophy at last!
Lewis became excited, took the data to the medical committee of the MD Foundation. After Lewis insisted that they give serious consideration to Wallach’s and Ropp’s claims, Jerry Lewis was fired by the MD Foundation.
Jerry Lewis’s personal assistant Violet confirmed that “If it were up to Mr. Lewis he would continue to participate in and host the Muscular Dystrophy Telethon.”
North Carolina Witch Hunt
Following the publication of the Flexner Report (initiated in 1914 by the Rockefeller Institute and Andrew Carnegie Foundation to determine which group of doctors and healers to support and which ones to “deep six”), an endless “witch hunt” had been perpetrated against the alternative healers in America by the medical associations at the city, state, and federal levels—the purpose being “to cleanse America of all medical competition of the M.D. medical system by alternative healers.” A classic example of the medical witch hunts in America was the trial of a Wise Women by the name of Belle Howard.
In 1992 Wallach was recruited to be an expert witness for the defense in a bizarre trial that was a 20th century witch hunt. The defendant was a fifty-something wise woman, an herbalist by the name of Belle Howard. Howard was charged with twenty-three felonies including murder, practicing medicine without a license, and fraud, etc.
Wallach had been recruited by a defense attorney, William Moore of Savannah, Georgia, who was also a medical doctor who was famous for his successful defenses of alternative healers and doctors of all philosophies.
Wallach had been recruited by the defense for his skills as an investigative comparative pathologist. The government’s contention was that “Howard had treated a military veteran for cancer two years before his death and that her treatment had kept him away from life-saving medical procedures that he should have gotten from the VA hospital and as a result he had died unnecessarily from a treatable cancer.”
Upon arrival in Fayetteville, NC, Wallach was presented with a letter that was written on state letterhead from the state medical examiner claiming that the patient had died from a treatable cancer. Wallach immediately requested the written autopsy report, tissue slides, and tissue chemistry results that had been collected from the patient’s autopsy. In addition, Wallach requested the terminal VA hospital admission records for the patient.
The judge sent a state trooper to collect all of the requested material and recessed the trial until the appropriate papers and materials were collected and reviewed by Wallach on behalf of the defense.
A cursory look at the tissue slides and a review of the treatment records showed that the patient did not die from a “treatable cancer,” but instead had died from the complications of poly-pharmacy and flagrant drug overdoses.
If the VA medical doctors had just buried the patient and signed the death certificate with the cause of death listed as cancer no one would have paid any attention. But the opportunity “to get rid of a thorn in their side” was too good to pass up. They could get rid of this little old wise woman who was dissing them— by blaming the patient’s death on the herbalist!
The medical community thought that they were going to get a “two-fer” by deflecting blame from themselves and at the same time getting rid of the herbalist!
When the prosecuting attorney called his expert witness, the state medical examiner, he asked the usual questions, including “is this the autopsy report, did you do the autopsy on the deceased, patient, etc.
When the medical examiner was turned over to Moore, the defense attorney, the witness was presented with a copy of the PDR (the Physician’s Desk Reference) that Wallach had prepared for this very moment.
The PDR was marked for the seven drugs that had been used to treat the patient during his terminal admission. Each drug was ear-marked and the warnings highlighted. Moore asked the medical examiner to state the name of the drug, what it was typically used for, and read the contents in the high-lighted black box warnings.
After complying with Moore’s request through the first two marked prescriptions, the medical examiner caught on to the direction of the questioning. Wallach had recognized that the seven drugs used to treat the patient should not be employed at the same time: four were pain relievers and three of the drugs were sedatives.
The black box warnings stated that each of the drugs used to treat the patient should not be concurrently employed with the others because of an additive effect which could be fatal to the patient.
By the third marker the medical examiner understood that he was being used to expose the wrongs of his colleagues. He stood up in the witness stand, slammed the PDR on the judge’s bench, and declared, “I will not read any more from this book!
The judge banged his gavel in anger and said loudly, “Sir, you will sit down and answer Mr. Moore’s questions or I will hold you in contempt of court.” The medical examiner sat down and through his tears and sobbing he read the rest of the marked and highlighted pages out loud to the jury.
The jury deliberated for only a day and found Belle Howard innocent of all twenty-three felony charges. The potential for a national “witch hunt” against alternative healers had been derailed.
Montana Witch Hunt
In November 2012 Wallach was in Mizzoula, Montana, giving one of his 300 per year free lectures when the “witch hunt” mentality raised its ugly head again. Wallach was being interviewed live by Peter Christian on local station KGVO (Town Square Media), to promote Wallach’s lecture in Mizzoula that evening.
During the interview, a man identifying himself as Dr. ****** called in and said, “Put Wallach on the line,” apparently believing he was on a one-to-one phone connection with Wallach rather than live on the air. He said, “I am Dr. *******. I am the anesthetist for the ****** surgical group in Mizzoula, and I am telling you, Wallach, not to show up in our emergency room unconscious,” to which Wallach responded, “Sir, are you threatening to kill me?” At that moment one of his staff alerted the doctor to the fact that he was on an open, live radio show and he hung up (the radio station refused to give up the disc of the interview to the Wallach team).
Washington Witch Hunt
In February 2013 Wallach was in Walla Walla, Washington, giving yet another free health lecture. At the meeting that night, one attendee alerted the team to the fact that a local, well known pastor, during his Sunday sermon, had admonished his flock not to attend Wallach’s lecture as it was quackery and intended to defraud them.
Several days later on Friday, February 22, 2013, in the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin, Dr. Don Casebolt (for the Union-Bulletin) wrote:
Doctor’s visit raises quackery questions
Dr. DON CASEBOLT
For THE UNION-BULLETIN
You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time. This little jingle came to my mind as I thought about Dr. Joel Wallach’s visit to Walla Walla scheduled for earlier this week.
I first heard of Wallach some twenty years ago while living in Farmington, NM. I had learned about his book (and audio cassette tape) Dead Doctors Don’t Lie, and because I was intrigued by the title I bought a copy. After perusing the book it was my opinion that he was-either ignorant of current scientific evidence or he was deliberately ignoring it.
By the time you read this, the meeting already will have taken place, but I want to take the opportunity to write for two reasons.
One is that some people may have left his meeting convinced that they needed to buy the product or products he promotes. The second reason is to alert folks to the existence of the website Quack-watch, which is devoted to debunking false medical claims.
One of Wallach’s claims is that the average age at death of doctor is 58. I knew that was not true from reading the obituary column in the Journal of the American Medical Association for a number of years. Not only that, but I knew from my own medical school class that a significant number of my medical school classmates are still alive, and we all are over 80 years old.
In a presentation by Wallach I accessed while preparing for this column, I heard him say that he had done 3,000 autopsies on humans. He is a veterinary doctor and a naturopath. I know of no hospital or mortuary in this country that would allow either veterinarians or naturopaths to do autopsies on humans.
In the same presentation, he quoted from the U.S. Senate Document 264, which would have been entered during the 74th Congress, second session, in 1936.
Following are portions of that document: The alarming fact is that food now being raised on millions of acres of land that can no longer contain enough of certain minerals are now starving us—no matter how much we eat. No man of today can eat enough fruits and vegetables to supply his system with the minerals he requires for perfect health because his stomach isn’t big enough to hold them.
Laboratory tests prove that fruit, vegetables, grains, eggs and even the milk and meats of today are not what they were a few generations ago—it is bad news to learn from our leading authorities that 99 percent of the American people are deficient in these minerals.
What Wallach failed to mention—could that have been deliberate?—was that although this was in the Congressional record that the information did not come from any governmental research.
It was originally printed in a 1936 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine and was inserted in the Congressional record by a Florida senator.
It is my understanding that members of Congress are free to have things they are interested in inserted in the Congressional minutes. It needs to be emphasized that just because something has been entered in the Congressional minutes does not mean that it is official, that it represents governmental approval or that it represents good scientific studies.
The Quackwatch article on Wallach mentions a number of other statements he has made, such as that he has cured Alzheimer’s disease in pigs. Or that 50 percent of Americans 70 years old have Alzheimer’s disease. (The true figure is much lower in that age group.) Or that facial wrinkles and gray hair are caused by copper deficiency.
From my knowledge of Wallach, it appears he did not come to Walla Walla for his health but because he has products to sell.
One of the things he sells is colloidal mineral water. Someone needs to ask him to provide references from respected scientific journals that show the benefits of colloidal mineral water.
A number of other companies are peddling these waters. Most of them come from shale deposits in Utah. One of these companies is reportedly grossing $3 million per month. This makes it sound like plenty of people are buying in to the propaganda these companies publish. There have been reported adverse effects from using those waters.
As a final note, a question has been raised about ethics. It seems quite appropriate to me for someone to ask Wallach how ethical it is for him to promote products that have not been scientifically been proven.
On Friday March 1, 2013, Wallach responded in the Union-Bulletin to Casebolt’s quackery accusations with a rebuttal article entitled “Dead Doctors Don’t Lie!” (which is reprinted with permission by the Union-Bulletin):
DEAD DOCTORS DON’T LIE!
Dr. Casebolt’s arrogant attitude (being part of a protected monopoly) permeates America’s thinking. Dr. Casebolt should look in the mirror and ask himself—“How many people did I kill during my career?”
On Tuesday February 26, 2013, Fox News Service reported the results of a Johns Hopkins study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association that revealed that: “Each year in America, medical doctors make 190,000 diagnostic mistakes in their private practices resulting in the deaths or serious injuries of 150,000 patients.”
In his Walla Walla Union-Bulletin article, Dr. Casebolt is fixated on Wallach’s 1993 Dead Doctors Don’t Lie audio cassette which noted that based on 200 JAMA obituaries American medical doctor’s average age was 58 years. However, he fails to note that a follow-up study published in numerous medical journals in 1999 by medical doctors, noted that “the average age of medical doctors in America was 56 years.”
Dr. Casebolt, questions that Wallach had done 3,000 autopsies in humans because “He is a veterinary doctor and a naturopath.” Again Dr. Casebolt’s attitude is that only medical doctors have the right to pursue the truth. As a graduate student in comparative pathology at the University of Missouri, while still a veterinary student, Wallach had participated in more than 200 human autopsies and thousands of animal autopsies. In one study through The Center for the Biology of Natural Systems (funded by the National Institutes of Health), Wallach as a postdoctoral fellow, did more than 20,000 autopsies (17, 500 in more than 454 species of zoo animals and 3,000 humans under the watchful eye of Dr. Malcom Peterson, the pathologist for Barnes Hospital, School of Medicine, Washington University in St. Louis. The results were published in the book (1983: W.B. Saunders) The Diseases of Exotic Animals(a 1, 200 page reference book that is housed in the Smithsonian Institute as a “National Treasure”).
In another study Wallach did 1,700 autopsies on human children under the age of 10 years in Keshan Province China. “Keshan Disease” is a simple deficiency disease of the trace mineral selenium resulting in death by hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (sudden heart death). The purpose was to see if any of these children were also afflicted with cystic fibrosis, a disease long thought to be genetically transmitted by the medical system. Wallach, however, had discovered the first non-human case of cystic fibrosis in primates (1977) at the Yerkes Primate Research Center, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia. Wallach was fired summarily after Emory University had proudly announced the discovery (confirmed by experts in CF pathology) without being allowed to defend his findings which were confirmed by pancreas and liver biopsies in same aged cage mates.
Wallach’s crime was that he stated that the evidence showed clearly that cystic fibrosis was a disease of nutritional deficiency of the trace mineral selenium in the embryo or suckling infant (Wallach, J.D., Germaise, B.: “Cystic Fibrosis: A Perinatal Manifestation of Selenium Deficiency.” In: Hemphill, D.D. (ed): Trace Substances in Environmental Health XIII. University of Missouri Press, Columbia.1979. pp. 469-476).
The Wallach Keshan study (1,700 human autopsies) demonstrated that 35% of those children dying of Keshan Disease (a known selenium deficiency disease) had pancreatic and liver lesions consistent with cystic fibrosis (Wallach, JD, Lan, M., Wei Han Yu, Bo-Qi Gu, Feng Teng Yu, Goddard, RF (1990): Common denominators in the etiology and pathology of visceral lesions of cystic fibrosis and Keshan disease. Biol Trace El Res. 24:189-205.)
Dr. Casebolt also dissed Wallach’s reference to U. S. Senate Document 264 which was an agricultural report that was entered into the congressional record of the 74th Congress, second Session, 1936 and did not represent “that it is official, that it represents government approval or that it represents good scientific studies.” Medical doctors have little or no training in nutrition. Wallach is a graduate of the School of Agriculture from the University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri (1962) and his major was in animal husbandry and nutrition.
In April 16, 2012, the journal Food Chemistry, a very well respected research journal that looks at the nutritional levels and pollution loads in samples of American food crops, reported that “well known baby foods and infant formulas may contain less than 20% of the required minerals and micronutrients (vitamins) required by infants.” In contrast, dog food, laboratory rat pellets, chicken feed and livestock feed contains 100% of the animals nutritional requirements.
Wallach received the 2011 Klaus Schwarz Commemorative Medal (an international award previously only awarded to medical doctors and PhDs, Wallach is the first veterinarian and first naturopathic physician (ND) to receive the award), and according to the awards committee for the Biological Trace Element Research Institute: “From a historical perspective, Wallach is to be regarded as one of the first practitioners, if not founders, of epigenetics, the new research discipline that investigates heritable alterations in gene expression caused by mechanisms other than changes in DNA sequence.”
Wallach also noted in DDDL that Alzheimer’s disease could not be genetic because research reported in 1992 by the Salk Institute and UCSD demonstrated that “supplementation with only vitamin E demonstrated measureable improvement in advanced Alzheimer’s patients.” Wallach followed this research release with the statement, “Therefore, Alzheimer’s disease could not be genetic, for supplementation with a vitamin cannot change how a true genetically transmitted disease manifests itself.”
In a ten-year double blind, randomized “Gold Standard” study released in 2004 by Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, they report that by “supplementing with vitamin C and E and following a strict diet one can reduce their risk of Alzheimer’s disease by 78 percent.” By contrast, in a study reported in 2012, by following the current medical approach to Alzheimer’s disease, the experts predict that the number of cases will triple to 18.3 million by 2050. In 2012 the FDA also released warnings that the use of statin cholesterol-lowering drugs increased the risks of Alzheimer’s disease and type 2 diabetes—hardly a testimony to the theory of genetic transmission of Alzheimer’s disease.
Dr. Wallach has cured (in one week) a case of dementia/Alzheimer’s disease that was diagnosed by a primary care physician and confirmed by neurological specialty clinics and the head of the department of neurology in the Medical School of North Carolina. A patient had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease eight years before his sister called Wallach and asked for help (he was terminal at that point and being prepared for hospice).
Wallach always treats all four forms of dementia diagnosis simultaneously as 65% of the time the doctors get the wrong diagnosis—in this case the pateint was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease; however, he was afflicted with Korsakoff’s syndrome, a disease of a single vitamin deficiency (thiamin B1) first diagnosed and solved in the late 1700s by a Japanese naval surgeon. Because mega doses of thiamine were included in the treatment, the patient was cured in a week—if he had continued to treated only with Alzheimer’s drug programs he would have died of “the complications of Alzheimers”!
Dr. Casebolt proudly touts “The Quackwatch article on Wallach” that disses Wallach’s statements that wrinkles and gray hair are caused by a copper deficiency. It is well documented that copper is a required nutrient and cofactor necessary for the healthy production of red blood cells, thyroid hormones, skin and hair color, and production and maintenance of healthy elastic fibers in the skin, blood vessels, and other internal organs.
Many common diseases are caused by a copper deficiency, including anemia, goiter, loss of skin and hair color (vitiligo), spider veins, varicose veins, hemorrhoids, aneurysms, wrinkled skin, tendonitis, BSE (mad cow disease, Cruitsfeld Jakob disease), and others.
“Quackwatch,” aka “Committee against medical fraud” is a private group originally established by four arrogant medical doctors for the purposes of preventing chiropractors and naturopathic physicians from competing with medical doctors. They want you to believe they are a government agency, but they are just a bunch of guys who as part of a protected monopoly decided over a glass of wine to harasses their competition. Two of the original four founders, Victor Herbert, MD and John Renner, MD are dead. Only Dead Doctors Don’t Lie!
Dr. Casebolt further states, “it appears he (Wallach) did not come to Walla Walla for his health but because he has products to sell.” In fact Wallach gives three hundred to four hundred free lectures on health each year, and has been doing two hours of interactive radio on health Monday through Friday for nineteen years. The programs pay for the caller’s telephone calls with toll free numbers. Wallach receives no monies from the sale of any of the nutritional products. His sole purpose is to educate Americans to be able to prevent and eliminate diseases in humans through nutrition that the medical community believes, falsely, are genetically transmitted.
Dr. Casebolt states, “Someone needs to ask him to provide the references from respected scientific journals that show the benefits of colloidal mineral water.” Wallach has had 75 peer-reviewed and refereed journal articles published on the deficiencies of these nutrients, has been the co-author of no less than four multi-author textbooks on trace minerals and rare earths and another book, Rare Earths: Forbidden Cures, which is the final word and the ultimate collection of references on colloidal minerals and the diseases that result from their deficiencies.
Lastly, Dr. Casebolt states that “One of those companies (that sells colloidal minerals) is reportedly grossing $3 million per month. This makes it sound like plenty of people are buying in to the propaganda these companies publish. There have been reported adverse effects from using those waters.”
In a September 2012 the highly regarded Institute of Medicine reported that $750 billion (3/4 trillion dollars) in medical financial waste per year is a fact and that 30 cents of each medical dollar paid to American doctors each year is for fraud and unnecessary treatment—only DEAD DOCTORS DON’T LIE!
In 2012 Wallach entered into an agreement with Clemson University’s Institute for Nutraceutical Research. Clemson University is one of the nation’s most prominent and respected academic institutions. The Institute of Nutraceutical Research (INR) is the national leader in nutritional research and one of its missions is to provide consumers greater confidence in product quality, safety, and efficacy.
With over 100 scientists working in various fields of medicine, nutrition, and science, INR is focused on using its vast knowledge base, innovation and cutting edge technology, and experience to accurately assess the value of various ingredients and nutraceuticals.
For over 17 years, Youngevity (a Wallach founded company) has continued a tradition of excellence and innovation with its Nutraceutical products by committing itself to research and science. Its core message of “90 For Life,” developed by world-renowned scientist and researcher, Dr. Joel Wallach, has resonated with and enhanced the lives of millions through its clinically-supported philosophy of the correlation of specific nutrients to overall health and wellness.
Working closely with the field’s most notable biochemists, medical professionals, nutritionists, and government organizations such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Youngevity has pioneered the use of nutrition and supplementation to aid in the support of health and defense of the body’s most debilitating health concerns.
In study one (LTB4 and PGH2 test-pro-inflammatory response in human cell lines): Taking healthy human cell lines to stimulate their differentiation/the Beyond Tangy Tangerine and Ultimate Classic (two liquid colloidal mineral multi-vitamin/mineral products) to examine two inflammatory responses, Leukotriene B4 (LTB4) and PGH2; these are indicators of inflammatory response.
Results: When Beyond Tangy Tangerine and Ultimate Classic were administered to healthy human cell lines, they did not induce or create any inflammatory response in levels above and below the recommended dosage.
In study two (IL-6 AND RAW 264.7 Test – Protection from Inflammation) IL-6 is an immune system modulator. It signals the body to respond and protect itself against inflammation. When there is a presence or heightened presence of IL-6, the body is thought to be in a protective and shielding response to inflammation. Beyond Tangy Tangerine and Ultimate Classic were administered and levels of IL-6 production was examined.
Results: Beyond Tangy Tangerine induced and increased the levels of IL-6 when there was no inflammation in the body, heightening the body’s protective responses to possible inflammation. At various concentrations above and below the recommended dosage, Beyond Tangy Tangerine induced a protective response by releasing levels of IL-6 in the body. The Beyond Tangy Tangerine response was more significant than the Ultimate Classic response.
USA TODAY WITCH HUNT
The June 19, 2013, USA TODAY headline reads “Identify and protect yourself from quackery” and the reporter, Liz Szabo quotes Dr. Arthur Caplan, the head of the division of bioethics at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City, “Many people fall victim to charismatic quacks when they’re at their most vulnerable and desperate, because they or a loved one are seriously ill.” If a Doctor “really had cured thousands of people, then they all ought to be at a convention,” Caplan says.
“If someone says that the mainstream is trying to hide this from you, that should be read as ‘I’m a crook,’” Caplan says.
Dr. Paul Offit, Chief of Infectious Disease at the Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia says that, “Little known risks, (are) posed by some forms of alternative medicine, a loosely regulated industry that includes everything from herbal supplements to crystal healing and acupuncture.”
Offit should look in the mirror and ask himself how many infections that cause death and extra days of hospital stay occur each year in his hospital simply because of the poor technique and failure to wash hands and properly sterilize instruments by his staff.
In June of 2013 a study by the University of Wisconsin stated that “The people of Philadelphia County had the best medical facilities available in America; however, the people of Philadelphia county had the worst health of any county in America.”
Individuals like Caplan are the reason people seek out “alternative” forms of healing. Caplan is ignorant and a dangerous protector of the medical monopoly because he has the credibility of a physician. As recently as ten years ago it was unethical for medical doctors to advertise. Today medical doctors, clinics, hospices, and hospitals advertise in newspapers, magazines, radio, TV, and billboards with the abandon of a used car salesman. Each year, according to a February 5, 2007 issue of the USA Today newspaper that quoted the Journal of the American Medical Association and the federal Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia, medical doctors “kill, injure and infect 15 million Americans in hospitals and clinics.”
According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Inspector General, a 2008 report titled “Adverse Events in Hospitals: National Incidence Among Medicare Beneficiaries,” by Daniel R. Lenson, Inspector General, November, 2010 (https://oig.hhs.gov/oei/reports/oei-06-09-00090.pdf) gives statistics on “adverse events,” meaning harm to a patient as a result of medical care such as an infection associated with the use of a catheter. The finding was that 13.5 percent of hospitalized Medicare beneficiaries experienced adverse events during their hospital stays and an additional 13.5 percent of Medicare beneficiaries experienced events during their hospital stay that resulted in temporary harm.
The report said physician reviewers determined that 44 percent of adverse and temporary harms events were clearly or likely preventable. Therefore medical doctors were responsible for an estimated 1.5 percent of Medicare beneficiaries experiencing an event that contributed to their deaths, which projects to 15,000 senior patients each month (180,000 per year), possibly included the deaths of Andy Rooney from 60 Minutes, Dick Clark from American Bandstand and Neil Armstrong, America’s top astronaut.
According to the CDC, medical doctors infect 2 million people each year alone in American hospitals of which 90,000 die; according to the FDA (in 2007) adverse event reports for nutritional supplements (herbs, vitamins, and minerals) totaled 600 and for the same year adverse events reports for prescription drugs totaled 483,000; according to the March 2012 issue of the monthly AARP Bulletin, medical mistakes in hospitals kill 6,000 patients each month (72,000 per year) alone from simple mistakes.
Dr. Wallach was fired from the Yerkes Primate Center in 1978, after discovering the first non-human case of cystic fibrosis, because he said he could reproduce the disease at will as it was a simple nutritional-deficiency disease rather than a genetically transmitted disease as was generally thought. Wallach was not allowed to defend his findings; rather he was summarily terminated by Emory University. As a result, hundreds of thousands of American kids with cystic fibrosis have died unnecessarily.
Jerry Lewis was fired as the national spokesman for the Muscular Dystrophy Foundation’s annual telethon because he brought Wallach and Ropp’s data on cured muscular dystrophy kids to the medical committee and insisted on a serious review of the data. THEY FIRED JERRY LEWIS!!!
In 2013 Todd H., a 24 year old man, joined Dr. Wallach’s nutrition system of 90 nutrients plus extra selenium. Todd had been diagnosed with muscular dystrophy when he was three years old. After one year on the nutritional supplement program, Todd was able to double his physical muscular output as documented on film on the Defying Muscular Dystrophy web site.
Prior to employing Dr. Wallach’s nutritional program, Todd, his mother, and his uncle (who also was in a wheel chair as a muscular dystrophy patient) had started a not-for-profit organization called, Defying Muscular Dystrophy (DMD). The purpose of the organization was to look at programs that could help muscular dystrophy patients and disseminate information to help others.
The DMD had already raised $50,000 to do an FDA approved study for an electrical muscle stimulator that could perhaps improve muscle strength for muscular dystrophy patients.
Dr. Wallach gives 300 free lectures to the general public each and personally takes no professional fees of any kind, or revenues from any sales of his nutritional formulas. (Does Dr. Arthur Caplan work for free?) Wallach’s formulas are based on billions of dollars-worth of double blind, randomized gold standard animal and human research.
At 74 years old, Dr. Wallach continues to fight for the American people and their right to have choices in health care by educating Americans for free that they do have economical, safe and effective treatment options to dangerous, expensive, and ineffective medical treatments and by eliminating the protected medical monopoly the American public will be better off. The age-old tool of “witch hunts” employed by the medical system to “burn their competition at the stake” must end!