The Witches’ Ointment Audiobook Libro.fm

Description

An exploration of the historical origins of the witches ointment and medieval hallucinogenic drug practices based on the earliest sources

Details how early modern theologians demonized psychedelic folk magic into witches ointments

Shares dozens of psychoactive formulas and recipes gleaned from rare manuscripts from university collections all over the world as well as the practices and magical incantations necessary for their preparation

Examines the practices of medieval witches like Matteuccia di Francisco who used hallucinogenic drugs in her love potions and herbal preparations

In the medieval period preparations with hallucinogenic herbs were part of the practice of veneficium or poison magic This collection of magical arts used poisons herbs and rituals to bewitch heal prophesy infect and murder In the form of psychemagical ointments poison magic could trigger powerful hallucinations and surrealistic dreams that enabled direct experience of the Divine Smeared on the skin these entheogenic ointments were said to enable witches to commune with various local goddesses bastardized by the Church as trips to the Sabbatclandestine meetings with Satan to learn magic and participate in demonic orgies

Examining trial records and the pharmacopoeia of witches alchemists folk healers and heretics of the 15th century Thomas Hatsis details how a range of ideas from folk drugs to ecclesiastical fears over medicine women merged to form the classical witch stereotype and what history has called the witches ointment He shares dozens of psychoactive formulas and recipes gleaned from rare manuscripts from university collections from all over the world as well as the practices and magical incantations necessary for their preparation He explores the connections between witches ointments and spells for shape shifting spirit travel and bewitching magic He examines the practices of some Renaissance magicians who inhaled powerful drugs to communicate with spirits and of Italian folkwitches such as Matteuccia di Francisco who used hallucinogenic drugs in her love potions and herbal preparations and Finicella who used drug ointments to imagine herself transformed into a cat

Exploring the untold history of the witches ointment and medieval hallucinogen use Hatsis reveals how the Church transformed folk drug practices specifically entheogenic ones into satanic experiences