Double, double toil and trouble 🍲🧹🪄

 

Round about the cauldron go. 

🦇🧙🧙🧙🎃

......

From Macbeth by Shakespeare.

... 

The three witches, casting a spell

Round about the cauldron go;   

In the poison’d entrails throw.   

Toad, that under cold stone    

Days and nights hast thirty one   

Swelter’d venom sleeping got,   

Boil thou first i’ the charmed pot.   

     Double, double toil and trouble; 

     Fire burn and cauldron bubble.   

Fillet of a fenny snake,   

In the cauldron boil and bake;   

Eye of newt, and toe of frog,   

Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,   

Adder’s fork, and blind-worm’s sting,   

Lizard’s leg, and howlet’s wing,   

For a charm of powerful trouble, 

Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.   

     Double, double toil and trouble;   

     Fire burn and cauldron bubble.  

Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,      

Witches’ mummy, maw and gulf     

Of the ravin’d salt-sea shark,     

Root of hemlock digg’d i’ the dark,     

Liver of blaspheming Jew,      

Gall of goat, and slips of yew     

Sliver’d in the moon’s eclipse,     

Nose of Turk, and Tartar’s lips,     

Finger of birth-strangled babe      

Ditch-deliver’d by a drab,     

Make the gruel thick and slab:     

Add thereto a tiger’s chaudron,     

For the ingredients of our cauldron.

     Double, double toil and trouble;   

     Fire burn and cauldron bubble

Paranormal Law's..👻🚫

 

US, Paranormal law's.

👻🦇🎃☠️🧟‍♀️🧟👹💀🧛‍♀️

law #1

Vampires.🧛‍♀️🩸

Louisiana has a Long history with vampires...

Louisiana has a law that states that vampires cannot bite their victims without permission, and that they should "please ask before you bite.

,.........,

Law #2 

Necromancy🧟‍♀️🧟

In San Francisco, you can practice necromancy, or communicating with the dead by reanimating flesh, if you have a fortunetelling permit from the police department. California also has laws about becoming a licensed necromancer.

..........

Law #3

Selling haunted houses 👻🏚️

Most states follow a "buyer beware" approach and don't require sellers to disclose paranormal activity in their homes. However, some states do have laws that address this:

New York: The only state that requires some form of disclosure to prospective buyers. In the 1991 case of Stambovsky v. Ackley, a buyer sued the seller and realtor for not disclosing the house's ghostly reputation. The appeals court ruled that the house was haunted as a matter of law because of the widespread reports of its haunted status, and that the reputation would impair the property's value.

New Jersey: Sellers must truthfully tell a buyer if their property is haunted if asked.

Massachusetts and Minnesota: These states consider paranormal activity to be a "psychologically affected" attribute that doesn't need to be disclosed.

.......

Other states also have a supernatural “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” laws on the books. Mississippi, Florida, Texas, Maryland, and Georgia all say that a seller and/or his or her agent is not liable and doesn’t have to disclose a death on the property. It follows then, that they also have no obligation to disclose the presence of spirits.

.......

Law #4 

Voodoo 💀😈

In New Orleans, there are restrictions on the practice of Voodoo and the supernatural, including advertising for fortune telling to settle lovers' quarrels and bringing people together to effect marriages.

..........

Other Louisiana laws ..

 fortunetelling (chronology, phrenology, astrology, palmistry), telling or pretending to tell fortunes, either with cards, hands, water, letters or other methods is unlawful. But this doesn’t apply to medical science or to “any religious worship.” But Louisiana Voodoo is “a set of spiritual beliefs and practices developed from the traditions of the African diaspora in Louisiana.

......

Law #5

Witchcraft 🧹🧙‍♀️

A Massachusetts law dating back to the early days of the state, and leading up to the  Salem witch trials.

The primary English law about witchcraft was the so-called Witchcraft Act of 1604, actually An Act against Conjuration, Witchcraft and Dealing with Evil and Wicked Spirits.

The law makes witchcraft felony. A witch convicted of a minor offense could be imprisoned for a year; a witch found guilty twice was sentenced to death....

Massachusetts witch laws were based on the English Witchcraft Act of 1604, which made witchcraft a felony. The laws were also influenced by the Puritans' religious beliefs, which were central to their legal system. In 1641, the Massachusetts Bay Colony's General Court established the Body of Liberties, the first legal code in New England, which included a law that made witchcraft the second capital crime in the colony. The law stated, "If any man or woman be a witch, that is, hath or consulteth with a familiar spirit, they shall be put to death". The law also included passages from the Bible, such as Exodus 22:18, Leviticus 20:27, and Deuteronomy 18:10-11. 

During the Salem Witch Trials of 1692, the accused could file defamation charges against their accusers, but they usually lost. Some accused people also admitted guilt to avoid execution, after being told they would receive mercy if they confessed. In 1693, the new Superior Court of Judicature began hearing the remaining witch trials, and the governor instructed the judges not to accept spectral evidence as proof of guilt. As a result, most of the remaining trials ended in acquittals, and the governor pardoned the rest

.....

A short history of Witches ...

                             ---Halloween pinup witches rarity by alkven- on deviantart---



The Halloween season is in full swing and what's one of first images that comes too mind
 when you think of Halloween, ?..

For most people its a witch flying across  the moon light sky ...

Witches to today are seen as one of the most iconic symbols of this holiday .




But in the past those unfortunate enough to be labeled as such often met with a gruesome end.
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Deep in the forest lies a cabin surrounded by tree's and often shrouded in the mist..this is where you find the woodwives or the forest witch...

In times long ago  people sought out witches for versus reasons some for medicinal  cures,  others for  potions and  tonics and even curses.

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Some would shoot arrows into the forest with messages attached,  hoping for the witches within too grant there wishes.

No matter where you go, witches exist is some form or another, In the UK the druids and Celts, in Europe before Christianity took hold those that practiced the old ways could be found all over the continent .

In modern times witchcraft / wicca is not viewed as poorly as it once was.

However witchcraft in many regions around the world  is still largely views as evil do to the stigma placed upon it by the church.

However that was not always the case, witches at one point were healers and nursemaids, versed in herbal cures.

Some were said to have the ability of prophesy or divination foretelling events that have yet to occur..
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History and biblical accounts.....


Exactly when the term "witches" was first used in a historical scene is unclear, but one of the earliest records of a witch can be found in the Bible in the book of 1 Samuel, thought to be written sometime between 931 B.C. and 721 B.C.

It tells of a time  when King Saul sought the Witch of Endor to summon the dead prophet Samuel’s spirit to help him defeat the Philistine army.

The witch was said to have brought forth Samuel, who then prophesied the death of Saul and his sons. The next day, according to the Bible, Saul’s sons died in battle, and Saul committed suicide.

                                    Saul and the witch of Endor


Other Old Testament verses condemning witches, include the well known verse from Exodus 22:18, which says, “thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” Additional Biblical passages caution against divination, chanting or using witches to contact the dead. basically if  the church doesn't support it it's Eeeevvviiillll....

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============== The Malleus Maleficarum================
The Witches Hammer..Or Hammer of Witches depending on translation
==================================================

The Malleus Maleficarum was written by a Catholic clergyman named Heinrich Kramer (under his Latinized name Henricus Institoris) and  submitted to the University of Cologne on May 9th, 1487 then then later  published in the German city of Speyer shortly after.

Between the years 1500 and 1660, the witch hystaria claimed the lives of up to 80,000 suspected witches in Europe.

Roughly 80 percent of the victims  were women thought to have formed a pact with the Devil. Germany had the highest witchcraft execution rate, while Ireland had the lowest.

The “Malleus Maleficarum"  tells of ways  to identify, hunt and interrogate suspected witches.

"Malleus Maleficarum" labeled witchcraft as heresy in the eyes of the church, and quickly became the go to source on information for Protestants and Catholics trying to flush out witches living among them.

For more than a century, this book out sold every other book in  Europe with the exception of  the Bible.

====================================

Scoltland would go on to have it' own version of the Malleus Maleficarum Written by King James the first called Demonology.

One of the earliest Scottish witch trials was hat of Janet Boyman a local  healer who was charged with sorcery, witchcraft and consorting with fairies.

Boyman, who was executed in 1572, predicted the death of the country’s regent, bore “five bairns” allegedly without feeling any pain and appealed to elvish spirits in hopes of curing a sick man.


Scotland experienced four major witch hunts between roughly 1590 and 1727.

Horne and her daughter were both  arrested and imprisoned in Dornoch in Sutherland on the accusations of her neighbors. At the time Horne was showing signs of senility, and her daughter had a deformity of her hands and feet.

The trial was conducted very quickly; the sheriff  had judged both her and her daughter  guilty and sentenced them to death by means of being  burned at the stake.

The daughter managed to escape, but Janet was stripped, smeared with tar, paraded through the town on a barrel and then burned alive. Nine years after her death the witchcraft acts were repealed in Scotland.

 Janet Horne was the last person in Scotland to be executed for witchcraft, she was burned at the stake in 1727.


The Witch's Stone in Littletown, Dornoch, marks the alleged spot of Horne's execution.

During the Scottish witch craze as many as 4,000 people lost there lives..

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Britans Last Witch..

                                                                  Helen Duncann

Helen Duncan a spiritual medium famous at the time for her séances, was arrested and tried and jailed for witchcraft... she is now best known as the last person to be imprisoned under the British Witchcraft Act of 1735


In November 1941, Duncan held a séance in Portsmouth  when she claimed the spirit materialization of a sailor told her that the HMS Barham had been sunk^.

 Because the sinking of HMS Barham  was revealed, in strict confidence, only to the relatives of casualties, and not announced to the public until late January 1942, the Navy   took an interest in her activities as a possible thereat.

Soon after two lieutenants were seated among her audience at a séance on 14 January 1944. One was  Lieutenant Worth who was not impressed as a white cloth figure had appeared behind the curtains claiming to be his aunt but he had no deceased aunt. In the same sitting another figure appeared claiming to be his sister but Worth replied his sister was alive and well.

Worth was disgusted by the séance and reported it to the police. This was followed up on January 19th, when undercover policemen arrested her at another séance as a white-shrouded manifestation  appeared.

This proved to be Duncan herself, in a white cloth which she attempted to conceal when discovered, and she was arrested.

In 1944, Duncan was one of the last people convicted under the Witchcraft Act which made falsely claiming to procure spirits a crime. She was sentenced to nine months' imprisonment. When convicted, she cried out "I have done nothing; is there a God?"


On her release in 1945, Duncan promised to stop conducting séances, but she was arrested during another one in 1956. She died at her home in Edinburgh not long after

 Duncan's trial almost certainly the main contributing factor  to the repeal of the Witchcraft Act, which was contained in the Frauulaent Medium Act of 195, promoted by Walter Monslow, a  Labour party Memmber of Parliament for Barrow-in-Furness However the campaign to repeal the Act had  been led for the most part by Thomas Brooks  another Labour MP, who was a spiritualist. Duncan's original conviction still stood, and it was the subject of a sustained campaign to have it overturne

Helen Duncan passed away on December 6th 1956.


                                         ===========================
                                       =====American Witch Hysteria ======

As the witch hysteria was slowly dying down in Europe, a new form was about to take hold in the New World...

The witch trials held in  Salem Massachusetts in 1692  were arguably the most well know in the US but not the only one to take place here.
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In 1647 a woman named Alse Young from Windsor, Connecticut was the first person in America to be executed for witchcraft. Before Connecticut’s final witch trial took place in 1697, forty-six people were accused of witchcraft in that state and 11 were put to death.

======


The Salem Trials.....


The  Salem Witch Trials are one of Americas darkest moments in history it all began when 9-year-old Elizabeth Parris and 11-year-old Abigail Williams began suffering from strange fits, body contortions and uncontrolled screaming (today, it is believed that they were poisoned by a fungus that caused spasms and delusions).

As more young women began to exhibit symptoms, mass hysteria soon too root, and three women were accused of witchcraft: Sarah Good, Sarah Osborn and Tituba, an slaved woman owned by Parris’s father. Tituba confessed to being a witch and began accusing others of using black magic.

 On June 10, Bridget Bishop became the first accused witch to be put to death during the Salem Witch Trials when she was hanged at the Salem gallows. By the time this all died down, roughly 200  people were accused and 20 were put to death. most of the accused were woman but there were also  six men  convicted in all over 200 were accused and jailed (Many  died in jail before there trial)  19 were executed at the gallows and one has crushed to death with heavy stones.

Home of Judge Jonathan Corwin  Corwin served on the Court  hearings that ultimately sent 19 Innocent people to the gallows. -----

NOTE Bridget Bishop the first victim was sentenced under Judge Nathaniel Saltonstall, who resigned after her  execution.
==============================

In 1711, after judge Samuel Sewall and others involved in the Salem witch trials had admitted wrongdoing, the colony restored the good names of all accused and granted restitution to their heirs.


===============================================

People in Virginia at the time seemed far more rational about witches. In Lower Norfolk County in 1655, a law was passed making it a crime to falsely accuse someone of witchcraft. Still, witchcraft was a concern. About two-dozen witch trials (mostly of women) took place in Virginia between 1626 and 1730. None of the accused were executed.


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Modern witch hunts....


Three woman were surrounded and beaten, in Gujarat in 2014, sadly this was one of thousands of witch hunts that take place in India on a regular bases .

More than 2,500 Indians have been chased, tortured and killed in these hunts between 2000 and 2016, according to India’s National Crime Records Bureau. Activists and journalists say the number is much higher, because most states don’t list witchcraft as a motive of murder.

Witch hunts primarily target women and exploit India’s caste system. The accusations of sorcery are used to oust women from there land  Witches is  also blamed for the  rising infant mortality rates and deaths from malaria, typhoid and cholera.

Modern day superstiton and stigma can be just as harsh and violent as it was in the
midelages...

The Bell Witch, A haunting Tennessee legend

The Bell Witch or Bell Witch Haunting is a poltergeist legend from the 19th-century Bell family of Adams, Tennessee.

John Bell Sr., who made his living as a farmer, resided with his family in Adams, Tennessee in the early 1800s. According to folklore in 1817, his family came under attack by a witch.

In the 1894 book An Authenticated History of the Bell Witch, author Martin Van Buren Ingram claims that the poltergeist's name was Kate, and that she frequently cursed the Bell family out loud. The activity centered on the Bells' youngest daughter, Betsy, and worsened after she became engaged to one Joshua Gardner.

Several accounts report that during his military career, Andrew Jackson was intrigued with the story and was frightened away after traveling to investigate.

Other stories relate that the family was haunted by scratching noises outside their door after Bell found a half-dog, half-rabbit creature. Some stories end up with Bell being poisoned by the witch


Theory's vary about the witch being someone who had been cheated by Bell or a male slave whom Bell had killed

All of the above accounts of the legend are drawn from two sources.

 In part, the Goodspeed article was a source, but newspaper publisher Martin Van Buren Ingram provided most of the material. Seventy-five years after the Bell Witch events, he wrote An Authenticated History of the Bell Witch. Ingram states that he based his book on the diary of Richard Bell, who was a son of John Bell, Sr. The events happened when Richard Bell was 6–10 years old, but he didn't write the diary until he was 30. According to Brian Dunning no one has ever seen this diary, and there is no evidence that it ever existed:

"Conveniently, every person with firsthand knowledge of the Bell Witch hauntings was already dead when Ingram started his book; in fact, every person with secondhand knowledge was even dead." Dunning also concluded that Ingram was guilty of falsifying another statement, that the Saturday Evening Post had published a story in 1849 accusing the Bells' daughter Elizabeth of creating the witch. That article does not exist either.

According to Radford, the Bell Witch story is an important one for all paranormal researchers: "It shows how easily legend and myth can be mistaken for fact and real events and how easily the lines are blurred" when sources are not checked.

Dunning wrote that there was no need to discuss the supposed paranormal activity until there was evidence that the story was true. "Vague stories indicate that there was a witch in the area. All the significant facts of the story have been falsified, and the others come from a source of dubious credibility. Since no reliable documentation of any actual events exists, there is nothing worth looking into.

Dunning concludes, "I chalk up the Bell Witch as nothing more than one of many unsubstantiated folk legends, vastly embellished and popularized by an opportunistic author of historical fiction. Radford reminds readers that "the burden of proof is not on skeptics to disprove anything but rather for the proponents to prove... claims".

Joe Nickell has written that many of those who knew Betsy suspected her of fraud and the Bell Witch story "sounds suspiciously like an example of “the poltergeist-faking syndrome” in which someone, typically a child, causes the mischief."

There have been several movies based, at least in part, on the Bell Witch legend, including The Blair Witch Project in 1999, Bell Witch Haunting in 2004, An American Haunting in 2005, Bell Witch: The Movie in 2007, and The Bell Witch Haunting in 2013.

The Danish metal band Mercyful Fate have a song titled "The Bell Witch" on their 1993 album In the Shadows.

Seattle-based doom metal band Bell Witch took their name from this legend.
The American television series Ghost Adventures filmed an episode at the Bell Witch Cave.
There is a new series - "Cursed: The Bell Witch" - based on the latest members of the Bell family trying to end the curse. It aired October 2015 on the A&E Network.

Tennessee author William Gay wrote a novel, published posthumously in 2015, entitled Little Sister Death, about the Bell Witch.

Paranormal enthusiasts can still visit The Bell Witch Cave ..

La Befana... The Christmas Witch

La Befana: The Christmas Witch





In Italian folklore, Befana is an old woman who delivers gifts to children throughout Italy on Epiphany Eve (the night of January 5) in a similar way to St Nicholas or Santa Claus.

A popular belief is that her name comes from the Feast of Epiphany or in Italian La Festa dell'Epifania. Epiphania (Epiphany in English) is a Latin word with Greek origins. "Epiphany" means either the "Feast of the Epiphany" (January 6) or "manifestation (of the divinity) Some also suggest that Befana is descended from the Sabine/Roman goddess named Strina.


In popular folklore Befana visits all the children of Italy on the eve of the Feast of the Epiphany to fill their shoes with candy and presents if they are good. Or a lump of coal or dark candy if they are bad. In many poorer parts of Italy and in particular rural Sicily, a stick in a stocking was placed instead of coal. Being a good housekeeper, many say she will sweep the floor before she leaves.

To some the sweeping meant the sweeping away of the problems of the year. The child's family typically leaves a small glass of wine and a plate with a few morsels of food, often regional or local, for the Befana.

She is usually portrayed as an old lady riding a broomstick through the air wearing a black shawl and is covered in soot because she enters the children's houses through the chimney. She is often smiling and carries a bag or hamper filled with candy, gifts, or both.

She is also referred to as the Christmas Witch.

Christian Legends....
Christian legend had it that Befana was approached by the biblical magi, also known as the Three Wise Men (or the three kings) a few days before the birth of the Infant Jesus. They asked for directions to where the Son of God was, as they had seen his star in the sky, but she did not know. She provided them with shelter for a night, as she was considered the best housekeeper in the village, with the most pleasant home. The magi invited her to join them on the journey to find the baby Jesus, but she declined, stating she was too busy with her housework. Later, La Befana had a change of heart, and tried to search out the astrologers and Jesus. That night she was not able to find them, so to this day, La Befana is searching for the little baby.

Like Santa, She leaves all the good children toys and candy chocolate or fruit, while the bad children get coal.

La Befana’s broom is for more than just transportation - she also willclean up a messy house, and sweep the floors before she leaves for her next stop.

This is probably a good thing, since Befana gets a bit sooty from coming down chimneys, and it’s only polite to clean up after oneself. She may wrap up her visit by indulging in the glass of wine or plate of food left by parents as thanks.