Medieval Torture Devices and the Goddess

There is a campy dinner and tournament “castle”, Medieval Times, in our city in which you can eat and watch a fully- costumed period play complete with stunning Spanish horses in an indoor arena. Inside of this building, for a mere additional $2, there is a “torture chamber” attraction, a mini museum with a dozen or so of actual torture relics used in the Medieval Inquisition (or accurate looking replicas of them!) along with illustrations from the era.

In this collection they have what appears to be an authentic orifice-expanding “pear” and a “breast ripper” (SEE & READ PHOTO) among other devices meant to inflict pain and often death to those misfortunately accused.

The actual “Medieval Times” period was a horrific and bloodstained era when the NEW ORDER (the established Catholic and new Protestant churches) set out to “Christianize Europe”. They succeeded and became beyond wealthy by creating a WIDESPREAD FEAR of WOMEN, gaining power over more than half of the population and confiscating their money and land.

There is an hour long film put out by the Canadian government called: “THE BURNING TIMES” https://youtu.be/YizdSL2_pMo that tells the story of the 9 million people (85% women) that were brutally killed over a 300 year period in what was the WOMEN’S HOLOCAUST.

Around 1100 AD the Church of Rome set up the Inquisition that began searching everywhere for signs of heresy.

Up until that point, GOD WAS considered FEMALE, the Mother. From the beginning of Earth’s history- ALL people were honored and respected, ALL people were nourished and protected. There was NO WAR. Women miraculously gave life and were revered. Women were the MIDWIVES, they were THE BRIDGE BETWEEN WORLDS.

The church did not like that WOMEN NATURALLY HAD THE POWER to do what they were training priests to try and do (and were charging for!)

As Starhawk wrote in her book “Dreaming the Dark”: “The history of patriarchal civilization could be read as a cumulative effort to break that bond [of peaceful communities and seasonal celebrations], to DRIVE A WEDGE between spirit and flesh, culture and nature, man and woman. ..when the persecutions.. shattered the peasants’ connection with the land, drove women out of the work of healing.. THAT RUPTURE underlies the entwined OPPRESSIONS of RACE, SEX, CLASS, and ecological destruction.”

They had created a epidemic paranoia where every woman who was considered: too pretty, too ugly, too old, too smart, too weird, too popular or too wealthy was in danger of being ACCUSED OF WITCHCRAFT. They claimed that these midwives, these “witches”, were inauspicious and inflicting disease, poisoning the crops and creating famine. The newly formed court system began their trials with new inventions of the printing presses and torture rooms full of torture tools, TRANSLATING THE ALTERED BIBLE for their profit.

They put naked, shaved women on public display and would torture them for days until the accused admitted to conspiring with the devil (whom they also invented) and had to name 7 friends or family members that were also “guilty”.

So, in this time of extreme fear the people were freakishly as “DEVOUT” and silent as possible because slant of the eye might cost the lives of everyone they knew. Many people are still are fearful and obeying due to some distant memory (whether from a collective consciousness or PAST LIFE MEMORIES) of that terrifying time. As in Starhawk’s quote- this fear, this false fear created by the Christian church in Rome so long ago about women being innately evil is the reason for the sexism, racism, and classism (and ageism!) so prevalent today.

Our Mother Prayer

Our Mother, Who is within us

We celebrate Your many names

Your Wisdom comes

Unfolding from the depths within us.

Each day You give us all that we need

You remind us of our limits,

And we let go.

For you are the dwelling place within us,

the empowerment around us, and the celebration among us.

As it was in the beginning, so shall it be now.

-Miriam Therese Winter