The Iron Fist of Will - body/body or body/spirit

[Ceridwen]

No: HPFGUIDX 142520

a_svirn:
> 
> What distinction? Were there any demons in the Garden of Eden?

Ceridwen:
Not that I recall from the Biblical accounts.  The serpent offers 
possibilities, but most point to him as the possessed manifestation 
of the devil.

a_svirn:
> 
> I don't know about "ordinarily", but any number of witches was 
> burned at the stake for not only touching demons, but having sexual 
> relationship with them and bearing them children.

Ceridwen:
The hysteria of the witch trials was just that.  The 'withces' burned 
at the stake in Europe, the ones who were drowned, the ones who were 
tortured to death, hung, pressed, were not witches.  We are not in 
the Potterverse.  They were people who, for some reason or another, 
were hated by enough people to be brought to 'trial' and murdered, 
for their property, or because they were busybodies or otherwise 
unpleasant neighbors.

Claims of having relations and bearing children to these disembodied 
spirits are false.  Confessions were made to make the torture stop, 
and they repeated what their torturers insisted they repeat.

The Potterverse is the creation of JKRowling.  She is a middle-aged 
woman who was born in the mid-twentieth century.  She very briefly 
mentions the 'burning times' in Europe, with reference to a witch who 
deliberately got caught because she enjoyed the tickle of the flames, 
or some such derangement.  But her world was never part of the 
shameful ignorance of the witch trials.

What those women were accused of was impossible in our world.  Many 
confessed to impossible things because they were being tortured 
beyond endurance.  Then of course they were burned at the stake 
(Europe) or hung (Colonies).  One man was pressed.  Or, should we 
accept that witches really flew naked on broomsticks as well?

Ceridwen.