NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/alt/pagan/14859

Internet Message Format | 1993-01-03 | 3.5 KB

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From: [e-mail] (LeGrand Cinq-Mars)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: Quaker Witches
Date: 3 Jan 1993 17:20:09 GMT
Organization: University of Washington
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A little diversion here, from the main thread.

I just came across a remaindered Kraus reprint of an 1873 book by
Joseph Smith (not that one) called _Bibliotheca Anti-Quakeriana; or,
A Catalogue of Books Adverse to the Society of Friends ..."

The last entry on page 13 has a rather long title, but I thought I'd
quote it here for the edification of at least BA Davis-Howe...

_Strange and Terrible Newes from Cambridge, being a true *Relation*
of the *Quajers* bewitching of *Mary Philips* out of the Bed from her
Husband in the Night, and transformed her into the shape of a Bay Mare,
riding her from *Dinton* towards the *University*.  With the manner
of how she became visible again to the People in her own Likeness and Shape,
with her sides all rent and torn, as if they had been spur-gal'd,
her hands and feet worn as black as a Coal, and her mouth slit with
the Bridle-Bit.  Likewise, her *Speech* to the *Scholars* and
*Countrey-men*, upon this great and wonderful *Change*, her Oath before
the Judges and ZJustices, and the *Names* of the *Quakers* brought to
Tryal on *Friday* last at the Assizes held at *Cambridge.  With the
Judgement of the *Court*.  *As also,* the Devils *snatching of one from
his Company an hoisting of him up into the Air, with what hap'ned
thereupon*.    [1659]

The main reason I was reading this thing last night was that I had a
deadline for an article (with which it had almost nothing to do; I'd already
cleaned, sorted things, washed dishes...) -- but the *other* main
reason was that I wanted to see whether it could give me leads on
John Pordage, Jane Lead, and various other practitioners of "occult"
religion.  It didn't, really.  But it did provide some more examples of
religious invective; there were writers then who would have been quite at
home on the net...

It might also amuse you to know that Quakers were often regarded as
"Pagans" and almost (even) Papists, presumably on the basis of the
kind of bipolar thinking that was recently roundly denounced here
("There is True Religion and there is Papism; their religion is false --
so they must be Papists").

Swedenborg also makes brief appearance, and in some German "histories"
of anabaptists and other weirdoes, " Sabatai Sevi" pops up along with Johanna
Southcott, Robert Fludd, Valentine Weigel, Augustus Knipperdolling,
denunciations of "the Quaker and Fanatics Magic Art" [does this mean
what it seems to?], and so on.  And (not with these German tracts, but
elsewhere) thereare astrological treatises pro and con.

Which indicates (to me at least) again that the cake was sliced quite
differently (even when this book was compiled).  It's clear, for example,
that for some of the authors astrology was a "neutral science,"   a tool
ready to hand for main-stream as well as sectarian writers -- and not what
we would call an "occult" activity.

I didn't, by the way, notice any references to anything that looked
particularly Gardnerian...

--LeGrand