Criminologia e Scienze Strategiche si propone di trattare in particolar modo tutte quelle tematiche afferenti ai due oggetti in esame. Crimini, Sette e Culti, Profiling, Scene del Crimine, Nozioni di Intelligence, Sicurezza, Terrorismo, etc.
Cercheremo attraverso una analisi seria, documentata e minuziosa di creare un ponte informativo tra queste discipline, gli esperti del settore e i semplici appassionati.
Lettera aperta a satanisti, maghi, sette esoteriche e maniaci massacratori di piccoli felini. "Per favore, smettete di ammazzare questi poveri mici neromantati che da secoli sono ingiustamente considerati portasfortuna, per usare un termine gentile - scrive l'Aidaa, l'Associazione italiana in difesa di animali e ambiente -. Ma i gatti neri non hanno alcun potere occulto, mentre sono la superstizione e la caccia alle streghe ad aver confuso le idee fin dal medioevo trasmettendo questa assurda idea che i gatti neri portano sfortuna. Ora occorre sfatare questo mito e allo stesso tempo occorre smascherare maghi, gruppi esoterici e tutti coloro che uccidendo i gatti neri pensano in buona fede (ma anche in cattiva fede sapendo cioe' che questo non e' affatto vero) che uccidendo un gatto nero possano evocare spiriti o realizzare strani esorcismi". L'associazione non si limita a lanciare un'appello alla pieta' di chi 'per lavoro o vocazione' massacra i gatti, ma anche all'istituzione ecclesiastica. "Ci rivolgiamo anche alla chiesa - dice Lorenzo Croce presidente nazionale dell'Aidaa - perche' dica una volta per tutte che i gatti neri non sono la longa manus delle streghe cosi' come era stato scritto nientemeno che in una bolla papale del medioevo quando migliaia di gatti neri furono bruciati vivi sui roghi assieme alle streghe". L'appello, spiega ancora l'associazione, ha registrato la risposta di una delle maggiori sette che si rifa' al culto del satanismo che ha sede a Bologna che si chiama fuori dalla mattanza dei gatti neri e che addirittura condanna come satanisti eretici coloro che invece praticano questi riti a base di gatti neri e di sangue di gatti neri morti. "A noi non interessa sapere chi sono o meno i satanisti doc - conclude Croce - quello che ci preme e' di far cessare questa assurda mattanza che viene realizzata in nome del profitto e della antica arte della superstizione".
VENICE FAMILY CLINIC ANNOUNCES SERVICES FOR PEOPLE WHO HAVE LEFT CULTS OR OTHER HIGH DEMAND GROUPS
The program, first of its kind in the U.S., is designed specifically for people who have left cults or other tightly controlled groups, often burdened by their previous acculturation to beliefs and behaviors foreign to mainstream society: "It was a huge shock to me leaving, like stepping onto another planet. "I grew up in a Bible based cult. I felt so claustrophobic in my group I felt that I had to leave. I thought that the group was right in their beliefs but I wasn't good enough for the group. I also thought that I would die quite shortly after leaving the group because I had sinned against God by leaving. But still I left. I was one of 9 children and while not the oldest child I was the first in my family to leave and as with others who had also left the group, my whole family and everybody else in the cult stopped speaking to me when I left. "I had real trouble shopping after I left. I remember finding it so hard to work out how to dress, how to decide which clothes to buy. I felt very alone and knew that no one understood where I had come from. I was frightened, young, very naive and faced with a culture which I had no experience of and which was completely alien to me." --"Joan " People who have left cults may be confused, frightened, and reluctant or unable to articulate the extent of their disorientation from and, sometimes, fear of mainstream culture. The new service, an innovation developed in cooperation with the International Cultic Studies Association and supervised by Dr. Doni Whitsett of the University of Southern California School of Social Work, postulates that people like Joan can benefit from specialized assistance based on an understanding of cultic characteristics and cult dynamics. While providing aid and referrals for clients' practical needs like medical and mental health care, housing, education, and job training, the service will also help them recognize and cope with issues arising from their cultic experience. Venice Family Clinic welcomes referrals beginning September 15, 2008. There is no charge for this service, which is available to both English and Spanish speakers. Please distribute this letter to staff members who might know of prospective clients and ask them to post the enclosed/attached announcement. For more information, or an appointment, prospective clients can call 310-664-7522. A flyer with contact information is enclosed/attached.
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AMITE — The Hosanna Church child-rape trial defendant is the former leader of a Christian cult with congregants who veered from mainstream charismatic teachings by focusing on prophetically inspired public confessions and by vomiting in order to cast out demons of sin, three defense witnesses testified Thursday. Their testimony in the trial of Louis D. Lamonica offered insight into the decline of Hosanna Church from the spiritual center built by Lamonica’s father into a cult that witnesses said had lost touch with reality. Lamonica’s attorney, Michael Thiel, has maintained that his client falsely confessed to child rape because he was being controlled by a woman claiming to have prophetic visions. The state’s case, presented by Assistant District Attorney Don Wall, includes accusations that children were molested as part of satanic cult rituals. Lamonica, 49, of Hammond, faces four counts of aggravated rape of his two sons when they were age 11 or younger. He is the second of seven church members indicted in 2005 for their roles in an alleged child-sex ring to be tried in the 21st Judicial District Court. Two young woman, Karen Bushey and Desireé Louque, testified Thursday that their membership in the Hosanna youth group was solely about worshipping God. They testified they never saw any satanic symbols or rituals at the church. Even though they had been named as participants by some of the suspects and Lamonica’s sons, both women said they never had sex with Lamonica or other church members. Instead, they described what they referred to as a Christian cult. Once Lois Mowbray became Hosanna’s associate pastor, sermons ended and Sunday worship services varied from praising God for many hours to altar calls where Mowbray claimed God had told her of a sin that a congregant had to confess publicly, Bushey and Louque said. “People would go up, start kneeling at the front praying,” Bushey, 24, of Tickfaw, testified. “The worship team would crowd around them and pray over them. This would make them start to throw up.” Mowbray, 56, formerly of Ponchatoula, had been arrested by the Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff’s Office in May 2005 and booked with being an accessory after the fact to rape and failure to report a felony. She was never charged with the crimes by the District Attorney’s Office or a parish grand jury. Toward the end of the church’s existence, strangers seeking to drop in on services were turned away at the doors, the women said. In fact, they, too, had no contact with others outside the church. Bushey moved out of her parents’ home and into the residence of the youth pastor after her parents had an argument with Lamonica and told her to leave the church or get out of their home. Six months later, Bushey said, she contacted her sister in order to visit her on her birthday. Before she knew it, Bushey said, she was dropped off at a park where her mother picked her up.
No one at the church talked to her again, she testified. Louque’s break with the church came after she told her boyfriend, Christopher Labat, that she was tired of Labat’s practice of confessing every aspect of their personal relationship to Mowbray. Labat, 27, of Hammond, is the former Tangipahoa Parish sheriff’s deputy who faces child-rape charges in this case. Six months later, Louque, 23, of Hammond, said she hung out with Labat for a couple of hours. The next day, Labat, after confessing his visit to Mowbray, arrived at her place of employment and pulled her aside, she testified. Labat then cut off the head of a rubber snake and handed the head to her, Louque tearfully related. “He told me it was me,” Louque said. Harvest Family Church Senior Pastor Bray Sibley testified he was concerned when Lamonica decided to become pastor of his late father’s church after Hosanna Church began to decline under the senior Lamonica’s successors. Sibley leads a nondenominational church along Interstate 12 in Hammond with more than 3,000 members. However, Sibley once ran a ministry near Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond that was a “seed” planted from Hosanna’s congregation and later became the Harvest Family Church. Previously, Sibley had been a youth pastor at Hosanna under Lamonica’s father.Lamonica had participated in a church praise band but had no pastoral experience, Sibley testified. But Lamonica had a “fever dream” in which his dead father asked him to finish his work, Sibley said. “I know it was frustrating to him watching his father’s church disappear,” Sibley said. “I knew he felt an obligation with this dream he had.”At some point, the founding families left and Hosanna no longer was part of the Assemblies of God affiliation, two moves that worried Sibley because it reduced the accountability of the church leadership, Sibley testified. The lack of the authority of the others and the accountability created an environment where a person with spiritual gifts could misuse them to control others, Sibley said. “You need a church with accountability,” Sibley said. “You can’t have people become hyper spiritualized because they lose touch with reality.” The trial is scheduled to resume today in state District Judge Zoey Waguespack’s courtroom.
'Arming' for Armageddon Militant Joel's Army Followers Seek Theocracy
By Casey Sanchez Photography by Lowell Handler Intelligence Report September 2008
LAKELAND, Fla. — Todd Bentley has a long night ahead of him, resurrecting the dead, healing the blind, and exploding cancerous tumors. Since April 3, the 32-year-old, heavily tattooed, body-pierced, shaved-head Canadian preacher has been leading a continuous "supernatural healing revival" in central Florida. To contain the 10,000-plus crowds flocking from around the globe, Bentley has rented baseball stadiums, arenas and airport hangars at a cost of up to $15,000 a day. Many in attendance are church pastors themselves who believe Bentley to be a prophet and don't bat an eye when he tells them he's seen King David and spoken with the Apostle Paul in heaven. "He was looking very Jewish," Bentley notes.
Tattooed across his sternum are military dog tags that read "Joel's Army." They're evidence of Bentley's generalship in a rapidly growing apocalyptic movement that's gone largely unnoticed by watchdogs of the theocratic right. According to Bentley and a handful of other "hyper-charismatic" preachers advancing the same agenda, Joel's Army is prophesied to become an Armageddon-ready military force of young people with a divine mandate to physically impose Christian "dominion" on non-believers.
"An end-time army has one common purpose — to aggressively take ground for the kingdom of God under the authority of Jesus Christ, the Dread Champion," Bentley declares on the website for his ministry school in British Columbia, Canada. "The trumpet is sounding, calling on-fire, revolutionary believers to enlist in Joel's Army. … Many are now ready to be mobilized to establish and advance God's kingdom on earth."
Joel's Army followers, many of them teenagers and young adults who believe they're members of the final generation to come of age before the end of the world, are breaking away in droves from mainline Pentecostal churches. Numbering in the tens of thousands, they base their beliefs on an esoteric reading of the second chapter of the Old Testament Book of Joel, in which an avenging swarm of locusts attacks Israel. In their view, the locusts are a metaphor for Joel's Army.
Despite their overt militancy, there's no evidence Joel's Army followers have committed any acts of violence. But critics warn that actual bloodletting may only be a matter of time for a movement that casts itself as God's avenging army.
This video was posted on YouTube by a detractor.
Those sounding the alarm about Joel's Army are not secular foes of the Christian Right, few of whom are even aware of the movement or how widespread it's become in the past decade. Instead, Joel's Army critics are mostly conservative Christians, either neo-Pentecostals who left the movement in disgust or evangelical Christians who fear that Joel's Army preachers are stealing their flocks, even sending spies to infiltrate their own congregations and sway their young people to heresy. And they say the movement is becoming frightening.
"The pitch and intensity of the military rhetoric of this branch of the global Dominionist movement has substantially increased since the beginning of 2008," writes The Discernment Research Group, a Christian watchdog group that tracks what they call heresies or cults within Christianity. "One can only wonder how long before this transforms into real warfare with actual warriors."
'Snorting Religion' Joel's Army believers are hard-core Christian dominionists, meaning they believe that America, along with the rest of the world, should be governed by conservative Christians and a conservative Christian interpretation of biblical law. There is no room in their doctrine for democracy or pluralism.
Dominionism's original branch is Christian Reconstructionism, a grim, Calvinist call to theocracy that, as Reconstructionist writer Gary North describes, wants to "get busy in constructing a Bible-based social, political and religious order which finally denies the religious liberty of the enemies of God."
Notorious for endorsing the public execution by stoning of homosexuals and adulterers, the Christian Reconstructionist movement is far better known in secular America than Joel's Army. That's largely because Reconstructionists have made several serious forays into mainstream politics and received a fair amount of negative publicity as a result. Joel's Army followers eschew the political system, believing the path to world domination lies in taking over churches, not election to public office.
Another key difference between the two branches of dominionism, which maintain a testy, arms-length relationship with one another, is Christian Reconstructionism's buttoned-down image and heavy emphasis on Bible study, which contrasts sharply with Joel's Army anti-intellectual distrust of biblical scholars and its unruly style.
"Some people snort cocaine, others snort religions," Joel's Army Pastor Roy said while ministering a morning program at Todd Bentley's Lakeland, Fla., revival in late May.
As this article went to press, Bentley's "Florida Outpouring" had been running for more than 100 days straight. Many attendees came in search of spontaneous physical healing and a desire to be part of a mystical community marked by dancing, shouting, gyrating, speaking in tongues and other forms of ecstatic release.
Snide jabs at traditional church services are fairly common at Bentley's revivals. In fact, what takes place onstage at the Florida Outpouring looks more like a pro wrestling extravaganza than church. On stage, Bentley and his team of pastors, yell, chant, and scream "Fire!" and "Bam!" while anointing followers.
"The Call," a 12-hour revival of up to 20,000 young people held in a different city each year, is led by Joel's Army pastor Lou Engle.
The audience members behave as if they are at a psychedelic counterculture festival. One couple jumps up and down twirling red and silver metallic flags. Dyed-haired teenagers pulled in by the revival's presence on Facebook and MySpace wander around looking dazed. Women lay facedown on the floor, convulsing and howling. Fathers wail in tongues as their confused children look on. Strangers lay hands on those who fail to produce tongues or gyrate wildly enough, pressuring them to "let it out."
Bentley is considered a prophet both by his followers and by other leaders of the Joel's Army movement, whose adherents claim to be reviving a "five-fold ministry" of prophets, apostles, elders, pastors and teachers, as outlined in the Book of Ephesians. Not every five-fold ministry is connected to the Joel's Army movement, but the movement has spurred an interest in modern-day apostles and prophets that's troubling to the Assemblies of God, the world's largest Pentecostal church, which has officially disavowed the Joel's Army movement.
In a 2001 position paper, Assemblies of God leaders wrote that they do not recognize modern-day apostles or prophets and worried that "such leaders prefer more authoritarian structures where their own word or decrees are unchallenged." They are right to worry. Joel's Army followers believe that once democratic institutions are overthrown, their hierarchy of apostles and prophets will rule over the earth, with one church per city.
Warrior Nation According to Joel's Army doctrine, the enforcers of the five-fold ministry will be members of the final generation, for whom the landmark Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade constituted a new Passover.
"Everyone born after abortion's legalization can consider their birth a personal invitation to take part in this great army," writes John Crowder, another prominent Joel's Army pastor, who bills his 2006 book, The New Mystics: How to Become Part of the Supernatural Generation, as a literal how-to guide for joining Joel's Army.
Both Bentley and Crowder are enormously popular on Elijah's List, an online watering hole for a broad spectrum of Joel's Army enlistees, from lightweight believers who merely share an affection for military rhetoric and pastors who dress in army camouflage (several Joel's Army pastors are addressed by their congregants as "commandant" or "commander") to hardliners who believe the church is called to have an active military role in end-times that have already begun. Elijah's List currently has more than 125,000 subscribers on its electronic mailing list.
Rick Joyner, a pastor whose books, The Harvest and The Call, helped popularize Joel's Army theology by selling more than a million copies each, goes the furthest on Elijah's List in pushing the hardliner approach. In 2006, he posted a sermon called "The Warrior Nation — The New Sound of the Church," in which he claimed that a last-day army is now gathering and called believers "freedom fighters."
"As the church begins to take on this resolve, they [Joel's Army churches] will start to be thought of more as military bases, and they will begin to take on the characteristics of military bases for training, equipping, and deploying effective spiritual forces," Joyner wrote. "In time, the church will actually be organized more as a military force with an army, navy, air force, etc."
In a sort of disclaimer, Joyner writes at one point that God's army "will bring love, peace and stability wherever they go." But several of his books narrate with glee what he describes as "a coming civil war within the church." In his 1997 book The Harvest he writes: "Some pastors and leaders who continue to resist this tide of unity will be removed from their place. Some will become so hardened they will become opposers and resist God to the end."
Two years later, in his book The Final Quest, Joyner described a vision (taken as prophecy in the Joel's Army world, where Joyner is considered an "apostle") of the coming Christian Civil War in which demon-possessed Christian soldiers enslave other, weaker Christians who resist them. He also describes how the hero of the novel — himself — ascends a "Holy Mountain" in order to learn new truths and to acquire new, magic weapons.
Kids on Fire Bentley, who claims to be a supernatural healer, is no less over the top, playing his biker-punk appearance and heavy metal theatrics to the hilt. On YouTube, where clips of his most dramatic healings have been condensed into a three-minute highlight reel, Bentley describes God ordering him to kick an elderly lady in the face: "I am thinking, 'God, why is the power of God not moving?' And He said, 'It is because you haven't kicked that women in the face.' And there was, like, this older lady worshipping right in front of the platform and the Holy Spirit spoke to me and the gift of faith came on me. He said, 'Kick her in the face … with your biker boot.' I inched closer and I went like this [makes kicking motion]: Bam! And just as my boot made contact with her nose, she fell under the power of God."
The atmosphere is less charged with violence at "The Call," a 12-hour revival of up to 20,000 youths led by Joel's Army pastor Lou Engle and held every summer in a major American city (this year's event was scheduled for Washington, D.C. in August).
Attendees are called upon to fast and pray for 40 days and take up culture-war pledges to lead abstinent lives, reject pornography and fight abortion. They're further asked to perform "identificational repentance," lugging along family trees and genealogies to see where one of their ancestors may have enslaved or oppressed another so that they can make amends. (Many in the Joel's Army movement believe in generational curses that must be broken by the current generation).
As even his critics note, Engle is a sweet, humble and gentle man whose persona is difficult to reconcile with his belief in an end-time army of invincible young Christian warriors. Yet while Engle is careful to avoid deploying explicit Joel's Army rhetoric at high-profile events like The Call, when he's speaking in smaller hyper-charismatic circles to avowed Joel's Army followers, he can venture into bloodlust.
This March, at a "Passion for Jesus" conference in Kansas City sponsored by the International House of Prayer, or IHOP, a ministry for teenagers from the heavy metal, punk and goth scenes, Engle called on his audience for vengeance.
"I believe we're headed to an Elijah/Jezebel showdown on the Earth, not just in America but all over the globe, and the main warriors will be the prophets of Baal versus the prophets of God, and there will be no middle ground," said Engle. He was referring to the Baal of the Old Testament, a pagan idol whose followers were slaughtered under orders from the prophet Elijah.
"There's an Elijah generation that's going to be the forerunners for the coming of Jesus, a generation marked not by their niceness but by the intensity of their passion," Engle continued. "The kingdom of heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force. Such force demands an equal response, and Jesus is going to make war on everything that hinders love, with his eyes blazing fire."
Although Joel's Army theology is mainly directed at people in their teens and early 20s via events like The Call and ministries like IHOP, sometimes the target audience is even younger. In some of the most arresting images in "Jesus Camp," a 2006 documentary about the Kids on Fire bible camp in North Dakota, grade school-aged kids dressed in army fatigues wield swords and conduct military field maneuvers. "A lot of people die for God and they're not afraid," one camper told ABC News reporters in a follow-up segment.
"We're kinda being trained to be warriors," added another, "only in a funner way."
Cain and the Intellectuals Both Christian and secular critics assailed the makers of "Jesus Camp" for referring to the camp's extremist, militant Christianity as "evangelical." There is a name, however, that describes Kids on Fire's agenda, if you're familiar with their theology: Joel's Army. Pastor Becky Fischer, who runs the camp, said that a third of the kids at her camp were under 6 years old because they are "more in touch in the supernatural" and proclaimed them to be "soldiers for God's Army." Her camp's blend of end-times militancy and supernaturalism is perfectly emblematic of the Joel's Army movement, whose adherents believe their cause is prophesied in the Old Testament chapter titled "An Army of Locusts."
The stark, evocative passages of that chapter describe a locust swarm that lays waste to Israel (to this day, the region suffers periodic locust invasions): "Like dawn spreading across the mountains a large and mighty army comes, such as never was of old nor ever will be in ages to come." As remarkable as the language is, most biblical scholars agree that it is a literal description of a locust invasion and resulting famine that occurred sometime between the 9th and 5th centuries B.C.E.
In the Book of Joel, the locust invasion is described as an omen that an Assyrian army to the north may attack Israel if it fails to repent as a nation. But nowhere is the invasion described as an army of God. According to an Assemblies of God position paper: "It is a complete misinterpretation of Scripture to find in Joel's army of locusts a militant, victorious force attacking society and a non-cooperating Church to prepare the earth for Christ's millennial reign."
The story of how an ancient insect invasion came to be a rallying flag for 21st-century dominonists begins just after World War II in Canada. Out of a small town in Saskatchewan, a Pentecostal preacher named William Branham spearheaded a 1948 revival in which he claimed that his followers lived in a new biblical time of "Latter Rain."
The most sinless and ardent of his flock would be called "Manifest Sons of God." By the next year, the movement was so strong — and seemed so subversive to some — that the Assemblies of God banned it as a heretic cult. But Branham remained a controversial figure with a loyal following; many of his followers believed him to be the end-times prophet Elijah.
Michael Barkun, a leading scholar of radical religion, notes that in 1958, Branham began teaching "Serpent Seed" doctrine, the belief that Satan had sex with Eve, resulting in Cain and his descendants. "Through Cain came all the smart, educated people down to the antediluvian flood — the intellectuals, bible colleges," Branham wrote in the kind of anti-mainstream religion, anti-intellectual spirit that pervades the Joel's Army movement to this day. "They know all their creeds but know nothing about God."
The Gates of Hell Branham was killed in a car accident in 1965, but his Manifest Sons of God movement, the direct predecessor of Joel's Army, lived on within a cluster of hyper-charismatic churches. In the 1980s, Branham's teachings took on new life at the Kansas City Fellowship (KCF), a group of popular self-styled apostles and prophets who used the Missouri church as a launching pad for national careers promoting outright Joel's Army theology.
The Joel's Army movement began with the 1940s preaching of William Branham, whose group was banned as heretical by the Assemblies of God.
Ernie Gruen, a local pastor who initially promoted and gave citywide credibility to KCF pastors in the early 1980s, cut his connections in 1990. Concerned about KCF's plans to push its teachings worldwide, Gruen published a 132-page insider's account, based on taped sermons and conversations and interviews with parents who had enrolled their kids in KCF's Dominion school.
According to Gruen's report, students at the school were taught that they were a "super-race" of the "elected seed" of all the best bloodlines of all generations — foreknown, predestined, and hand-selected from billions of others to be part of the "end-time Omega generation."
Though he'd once promoted these doctrines himself, Gruen became convinced that the movement was turning into an end-times cult, marked by what he summarized as "spiritual threats, fears, and warnings of death," "warning followers to beware of other Christians" and exhibiting "a 'super-race' mentality toward the training of their children."
When contacted by the Intelligence Report, Gruen's spokesman said that Gruen stands by everything he published in the report but no longer grants media interviews.
The Kansas City Fellowship remains in operation and has served as a farm team for many of the all-stars of the Joel's Army movement. Those larger-than-life figures include John Wimber, the founder of a California megachurch, The Vineyard, who, before his death in 1997, proclaimed that Joel's Army would not only conquer the earth but defeat death itself. Lou Engle founded The Call based on the Joel's Army visions that KCF "prophet" Bob Jones (not to be confused with Bob Jones III of Bob Jones University) received while at KCF. Mike Bickle, another KCF member, stayed in Kansas City to form the International House of Prayer.
IHOP members and other Joel's Army adherents are well aware of how their movement is perceived by other conservative Christians.
"Today, you can type 'Joel's Army' into a search engine and a thousand heresy hunter websites pop up, decrying the very mention of it," writes John Crowder in The New Mystics. Crowder doesn't exactly allay critic's fears. "This is truly warfare," he writes. "This battle is not a game. They [Joel's Army warriors] will not be on the defense; they will be on the offense — and the gates of hell will not be able to hold up against them."
So far, few members of the secular media have taken notice of Joel's Army, even as they report on Protestant dominionists like Pat Robertson or the more outrageous calls for the stoning of gays and lesbians emanating from Reconstructionist circles. There are exceptions, however. On the DailyKos, a well-read, politically liberal blog, a diarist has been blogging for two years about her experiences as a walkaway from a Joel's Army church. She writes under a pseudonym out of fear of physical reprisals.
She may have real cause for concern. As Wimber, the late founder of The Vineyard, put it in one of his most famous and fiery sermons, one that is still frequently cited by Joel's Army followers: "Those in this army will have His kind of power. … Anyone who wants to harm them must die."
Ecco alcune note storiche in breve sulla stregoneria:
Già nel 340 d.c. troviamo notizie di persecuzioni contro chi praticava la magia nera, nel 643 l'Editto di Rotari oltre a condannare le streghe indicava anche i provvedimenti da prendere nei confronti di chi arrecava loro danno, in quanto venivano considerate soltanto vittime della propria superstizione.
Nel 727 l'Editto di Liutprando poneva attenzione, invece, sull'aspetto eretico delle stregoneria in quanto a causa dell'atteggiamento pagano offendeva la religione cristiana. Nei testi medioevali, i giuristi consideravano le streghe dedite ai rapimenti dei bambini per succhiar loro il sangue e pur ammettendo che alcuni aspetti, come il volo, non fossero reali, sostenevano che avessero rapporti con ed il diavolo.
Nel 1218 Federico II decise che la stregoneria era imputabile di offesa alla maestà divina e nel 1231 il Papa accogliendo questa decisione decretò che per i colpevoli di stregoneria non bastava più la scomunica, ma dovevano essere puniti con il rogo.
Nacque così l'Inquisizione con Papa Innocenzo III che nominò dei Legati, indipendenti dall'autorità dei vescovi. Nell'agosto del 1320 il Papa dava ordine di intervenire contro chi praticava la stregoniera, mentre Bernardo Gui scriveva come dovevano essere interrogati gli accusati.
Due domenicani furono incaricati, in base alle loro esperienze di inquisitori, di scrivere un volume sulla stregoneria. Iniziò così la lunga persecuzione verso la stregoneria dove ad essere bruciate vive in maggioranza erano solo povere donne malate di epilessia, pazze visionarie o soltanto colpevoli di essersi fatte dei nemici.
Si calcola che circa nove milioni di persone siano state uccise nel corso di cinque secoli in tutto il mondo. Gli interrogatori che precedevano i processi, erano un susseguirsi di torture in cui la maggior parte delle volte l'imputata confessava solo per porre fine al dolore.
Una delle credenze più comuni era che una strega potesse essere purificata soltanto dal dissanguamento, venivano perciò sfregiate sopra il naso e la bocca e lasciate dissanguare fino alla morte. Nei paesi cattolici si pensava che prima del giudizio l'anima della strega dovesse essere purificata perciò veniva costretta ad ingerire a forza acqua calda o sapone.
In America e in Gran Bretagna era uso comune legare la donna su di uno sgabello, con le braccia immobilizzate, lo sgabello veniva poi immerso in uno stagno o in in luogo paludoso. Innumerevoli sono stati i tipi di torture fatte per indurre a confessare di essere una strega e potevano susseguirsi per giorni, alcune erano fatte pubblicamente.
Una delle punizioni più conosciute era la morte per mezzo di roghi di solito in manifestazioni pubbliche, stessa sorte che toccava anche gli eretici.
Accanto ad una magia “positiva” volta a propiziare le forze della natura e a sottometterle alla volontà degli uomini, c’è, ed è sempre stata presente, una forma negativa, notturna, spesso proibita: la magia nera o stregoneria. In molte società africane si sostiene l’esistenza di streghe o stregoni che tramano nottetempo azioni negative contro gli esseri umani; le malattie sono spesso attribuite all’intervento nefasto della stregoneria. Ma in Europa il termine stregoneria ha un significato molto più preciso e storicamente determinato. Esso fa riferimento a quel complesso di situazioni che portarono alla cosiddetta caccia alle streghe, che ebbe il suo culmine nel periodo del Rinascimento. La cultura contemporanea occidentale ha sviluppato un intenso e inaspettato interesse per la stregoneria, per il suo sviluppo e la sua natura. Numerosi studi di storici, sociologi e antropologi di tutto rispetto vertono principalmente ...
... sulle origini della stregoneria occidentale e sui suoi rapporti con culti e rituali pre-cristiani. Fino ad un’ottantina di anni fa l’interpretazione razionalista e positivista negava tout-court l’esistenza della stregoneria, anche perché ciò avrebbe implicitamente comportato l’ammissione dell’esistenza di elementi soprannaturali. In questa interpretazione, che si riteneva definitiva, la stregoneria era spiegata come il frutto della teologia medioevale e dei processi istituiti dall’organizzazione ecclesiastica: sotto le torture, o a causa di uno stato mentale disturbato, le streghe confessavano nefandi rituali mai compiuti ma suggeriti dagli stessi inquisitori, a loro volta sotto l’influsso della demonologia scolastica. Il testo che influenzò direttamente la moderna stregoneria fu Il culto delle streghe nell’Europa Occidentale di Margareth Murrey, pubblicato nel 1921.
Questo libro e la sua susseguente versione popolare, Il dio delle streghe, provocarono una notevole impressione tra i dilettanti, ma furono considerati con circospezione dagli specialisti. La Murrey proponeva una interpretazione della stregoneria completamente diversa da quella allora considerata definitiva. La stregoneria non sarebbe stata (solo) una rivolta contro il Cristianesimo, in cui si esprimeva un culto satanico, ma una vera e propria organizzazione rituale che esprimeva la sopravvivenza di una religione precedente il Cristianesimo e del tutto indipendente da esso: il paganesimo pre-cristiano. Reinterpretando le prove derivanti dai processi alle streghe, volle dimostrare che le streghe avevano adorato non Satana, ma un “dio cornuto” con due fronti, e una “grande dea” di una religione pagana della natura. Questo culto contadino e agreste e pagano (da pagus, villaggio, dove la conversione al cristianesimo era stata spesso molto superficiale), consisteva in una vera e propria religione ancora attiva nel Medioevo, diffusa soprattutto nelle classi sociali più ignoranti e nelle zone meno popolate. Le pratiche di questo culto, contraffatte e distorte, non erano considerate malefiche dalla comunità, ma anzi necessarie per il benessere e la prosperità. Gli inquisitori confusero il dio con le corna con Satana, e il rito fu denominato sabba.
Questa brillante e ingegnosa teoria è però piena di difetti e gli storici ne hanno rilevato gli innumerevoli e gravi errori, senza minimamente dissuadere quanti vi credevano. Il fatto che tante persone ne siano attratte è un segno dei tempi; il suo fascino particolare è costituito dal suo spirito anti-cristiano e contrario al potere stabilito, dalla sua elevazione della stregoneria in un culto della natura antico, pagano e sensuale, derivante da un’istintiva sapienza profonda e popolare aliena dalla scienza e dalla tecnologia moderna. Questa finzione è stata portata alla vita dai gruppi praticanti la Wicca (o “antica” religione pagana). Per quanto riguarda il moderno movimento della stregoneria, esso deriva, come già detto, in gran parte dalla ingegnosa e brillante teoria della Murrey della persistenza dell’antico culto al “dio cornuto” sottostante la religione cristiana; teoria che, ad una successiva analisi di storici e antropologi, ha perso tutta la sua credibilità. Le streghe erano accusate (e si autoaccusavano) di pratiche negative, orgiastiche, nonché di sacrifici umani e di cannibalismo. Indipendentemente dal giudizio morale sul come venivano raccolte queste confessioni (torture fisiche e/o psicologiche, ecc.), il paragonare queste pratiche a culti di fertilità è assai difficile da sostenere. E così è insostenibile assimilare le pratiche stregonesche.
Tutte dichiaratamente distruttive, determinanti grandine, epidemie, sterilità, morte, ecc., a culti positivi apportanti prosperità e fertilità. Le interpretazioni degli antropologi e storici contemporanei convergono con quella che era l’interpretazione ecclesiastica: per l’antica stregoneria, come per la moderna, il movente principale dei praticanti tale culto era la frustrazione, l’invidia di chi non è in grado di raggiungere le proprie mete con metodi convenzionalmente accettati. Secondo Edward J. Moody, gli adepti della moderna stregoneria, «desiderano il successo loro negato, il denaro, la fama, il rispetto, il potere e, poiché tutte le strade legittime sono loro bloccate, e non sembra esservi alcun mezzo legale affinché i loro sforzi siano ricompensati, si dedicano al satanismo e alla stregoneria»7. La grande attrazione dell’occultismo e della stregoneria, della magia bianca o nera è, quindi, per ogni secolo costituita dal loro essere una via verso il potere e il successo irraggiungibili con mezzi ordinari. Divulgatori e organizzatori della moderna stregoneria sono stati Aleister Crowley e soprattutto (negli anni ’40 e ’50) Gerald Brosseau Gardner e oggi siamo di fronte ad una proliferazione di streghe e stregoni più o meno inseriti in organizzazioni stabili. Un aspetto particolare, poi, è quello dato dall’incontro tra stregoneria e femminismo, che ha dato origine ad una forma particolare di culto della “dea” e che prevede evocazione di spiriti femminili, riti magici (magic) e balli intorno ad un calderone di liquido fumante. Dagli anni ’70 in poi le varie congreghe si sono date un rivestimento etnico (scandinavo, gallese, greco antico, ecc.) inserendosi in un modo più o meno nascosto nel revival di musica e cultura etnica.
Don Marcello Stanzione (Ri-Fondatore della M.S.M.A.)
(AGI) - Milano, 28 ago. - I gatti spariti a Brescia potrebbero essere finiti in padella, in alcuni ristoranti cinesi e orientali della regione. A insinuare il sospetto e' l'Aidaa (Associazione italiana difesa animali e ambiente), che si basa su decine di segnalazioni dei cittadini della provincia bresciana all'indirizzo mail salviamoigattineri@tiscali.it.
"Non dobbiamo meravigliarci - commenta Lorenzo Croce, presidente dell'associazione - che qualche ristorante orientale o cinese possa servire ai clienti piatti di gatto arrosto o in umido, del resto le indicazioni che stiamo ricevendo un po da tutta la bassa ed anche dalla citta' di Brescia vanno in quella direzione". Aidaa, che ha lanciato nei giorni scorsi una campagna contro la sparizione dei gatti neri, sta seguendo tre piste. Quella satanica, che vede i felini al centro di riti esoterici, ha individuato a Salo', localita' sul lago di Garda, l'epicentro delle sparizioni. Decine di gatti scomparsi che forse, sostiene l'associazione, sono stati sacrificati da maghi e sette della provincia di Brescia e Verona. Un'altra pista, che riguarda gatti sia neri che bianchi, e' quella della pelliccerie e, soprattutto, dei ristoranti orientali, dove un felino catturato potrebbe essere spacciato per una prelibatezza esotica. Finora sono state 270 le segnalazioni, via mail o telefono, di gatti scomparsi ricevuta da Aidaa. "Nei prossimi giorni - conclude Croce - consegneremo il dossier contenente tutte le segnalazioni ricevute alle forze dell'ordine, alle quali chiediamo un impegno solenne per individuare e punire chi a qualunque titolo rapisce, uccide ed in qualche caso forse serve a tavola i gatti". (AGI)
