We will not be placing random items in the store. You’ll find no plasma televisions or sports memorabilia. What you will find are products which our users have shown an interest in while using our old Amazon.com links (yes, Amazon.com has told us quite a bit about you scallywags). These may be in the form of books, DVDs and even relevant clothing (college kids need swag, too), but they will always stay close to the theme and subject of this web site and related subjects such as Demonology, modern witchcraft and WIcca, as well as some relevant Christian writing on these subjects. Our aim will be to provide access to the many different viewpoints surround the Malleus Maleficarum and its related subject matter.  As ever, we leave you to make up your own mind and simply hope to make the information available.

It has been asked if our Amazon.com affiliate links were insufficient to support the web site, and if we will continue to provide those links. Our income from the Amazon.com links has always been negligible, at best. Consider that according to Amazon.com’s own reports we have generated around $4,000 in sales for Amazon.com thus far in 2010. Our commissions from those sales total around $90. That is nowhere near enough to cover our yearly server costs. So we have entered into an agreement with another party that will allow us to sell the same products ourselves. We do not receive the full amount of each sale, but receive a portion of it the same as we did with Amazon.com. The primary difference is that now our portion will be more significant. It’s a war of averages, really. If this web site is to survive, we must receive a larger slice of the pie.

As for the Amazon.com links that exist, we will consider those on a case-by-case basis. There are some products that are available on Amazon.com that are unavailable for us to place in the store. We will continue to provide links to those products if it makes sense to do so. But wherever possible, we will be changing those external Amazon.com links to internal links that will take users instead to that product in our store.

We have partnered with PayPal to make our online transactions as secure as possible. You can purchase items from us without having a PayPal account, using any credit card or debit card, secure in the knowledge that no one involved in the Malleus Maleficarum Online project will ever see your credit card number. This is a layer of protection for our customers that I insisted upon from the very beginning when we first began discussing the possibility of an online store at MalleusMaleficarum.org.

Rest assured that no one at Malleus Maleficarum Online will be getting rich from this endeavor. All we’re trying to do is cover our expense after operating at a loss for over a decade. Like millions of other Americans, our fortunes suffered greatly during the recent economic downturn. Quite frankly, if this web site cannot find a way to support its own weight, it may not survive. There’s nothing left in our collective pockets these days but lint.

I am very proud of the work we’ve done over the past decade or so. Our intent from the beginning was to make sure that the Malleus Maleficarum did not fade from general consciousness. We believe strongly that those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it. Or, as we used to say on the web site, “Some things should not be forgotten”. We here at the Malleus Maleficarum Online project have helped raise awareness of the Malleus Maleficarum and its dark role in World history. It’s not time to decide where we will go from here.

There will, no doubt, be those who will cry foul that we have placed a store on the web site, confusing our efforts to provide our users with the means to help support this effort with rampant capitalism. These same people admonish all of us quite often that information, music, health care and even housing should be free. I’ve often noticed that those people who determinedly take whatever they please still expect paycheck at the end of the work week from their employers. It wasn’t their labor they were talking about when they said everything should be free.  Rest assured that while we are trying to find ways to monetize the traffic which this web site receives, there will never be a charge for accessing the text of the Malleus Maleficarum. It has always been, and will always be, free to the public.

In closing, I hope these changes will be met with an open mind and a willingness for our users to participate in the ongoing survival of this project. Only together can we ensure that the Malleus Maleficarum Online project will continue to survive and thrive. Our mission going into a few decade may evolve. A lot has changed over the last ten years. Awareness of the Malleus Maleficarum has risen significantly. In that regard we have been successful beyond our wildest dreams. The next ten years will no doubt bring more changes. Perhaps in our lifetime we may find a time when we cannot look around us and hear the echoes of the Malleus Maleficarum and the Inquisition that it sprang from. But that is not today. Until we can relegate hatred, religious extremism and fear-mongering to the dustbin of history, the Malleus Maleficarum will remain relevant to our contemporary society. As long as it is, we will be here bearing witness.

Walk in light and peace.

I am, as ever, your servant…

~ Wicasta Lovelace

Between the 14th and 18th centuries, somewhere between 40,000 and 60,000 people on the European continent were tried and executed for witchcraft. Most of these people were burned alive in the public square of the nearest town, and most were also tortured before burning. Between 70% and 80% of all “witches” executed were women, but many men, children, and even animals were executed as well.

What is most strange about the witchcraft trials of medieval Europe is that, despite being studied in great detail by historians and scholars of many stripes and biases, no single persuasive explanation has emerged for why they took place.

What is also interesting is that medieval “witches” had much in common with today’s “abductees”, and the witch hunters also resemble some of today’s abduction “researchers” in surprisingly consistent ways.

Something fairly powerful has to be going on either inside the public imagination or out in the real world or both, in order to sustain nearly four centuries of torture, carnage, and religious persecution. The Church did not simply try and burn witches: It aggressively sought them out to try and burn them.

The infamous Malleus Maleficarum (compiled in 1486) is a detailed instructional Church manual on how to identify a witch and what to do when you find one. Professional witch hunters, employed by the Church, roamed the European countryside searching out witches and delivering them into the hands of Church inquisitors who usually ended up torturing and killing them to save their souls.

Although the Malleus isn’t a word-for-word precursor to Intruders or Missing Time, many elements are similar enough to warrant a closer look.

Read Full Article >>

According to the owner, this edition was published by John Rodker of London in 1928. There were 1,275 numbered copies in this edition, this book being number 79. Red leatherette at the spine, gilt titling to spine, gilt decoration on front cover, 277 pages with no illustrations. Front hinge is cracked and there is a slight bowing of the boards. Rubbed boards. Tight binding. Rough uncut fore edge pages as called for.

None of us can afford original editions of the Malleus Maleficarum. They’re scattered about the world in museums and private collections. But here’s an opportunity to own at least the first English translation of the work. A more accurate translation has since been published by Dr. Christopher Mackay, but the Summers translation will always bear a historical significance.

For the first time ever, an international investigation team joins forces to unravel the mysteries of the Malleus Maleficarum, or Hammer of Witches. Written in 1486, this infamous medieval manual changed the way the Western world saw evil. With detailed instructions on how to find, prosecute and punish witches, the Malleus inspired centuries of accusation and bloodshed on both sides of the Atlantic.

NEXT PRIMETIME AIRING
SUN MAY 9, 2010 – 10P

THE HAMMER OF THE WITCHES

One of the most controversial and infamous texts of all time, The Hammer of the Witches put many innocent people to death. But who wrote this book? What did it say? And how did it convince so many people of the dangers of witchcraft?

THE HAMMER

• The witch hunter’s bible was referred to in Latin as the Malleus Maleficarum, which translates to mean The Hammer of the Witches.
• This text was written in 1486, published in 1487, and consisted of 256 pages of facts proving that witches were real and must be killed.
• Between the 16th and 17th centuries, researchers speculate that over 30,000 copies were in circulation throughout Europe, during which an estimated 60,000 “witches” were put to death.
• The text contains three separate sections: the first is a philosophical explanation of witches’ existence, the second is a clergy guide to recognize a witch, and the third is a legal manual for the accusation, persecution, and death penalty for witchcraft.

THE MAN WITH THE HAMMER

• A man named Heinrich Kramer, one of the most infamous witch hunters in history, eventually became the author of The Hammer of the Witches. His initial motivation for writing the text was to prove his theory to many of his critics because he had, thus far, failed as a witch hunter.
• The most powerful endorsement the Hammer ever saw was the Papal Bull, a document signed by the Pope himself stating an official church opinion, making it the only book on witchcraft to receive this approval.
• It is said that in order to persuade the Pope to condone the Hammer of the Witches, Kramer brought him a sum of money.
• Kramer’s favorite punishment for witchcraft is called the “strappado,” which is a device that attaches to the wrists and pulls upward, hanging its victims by their arms until they dislocate.
• In Kramer’s first successful trial, he implements this type of torture until two women confess to committing acts of demonic sorcery; for this, they were burned alive.

THE HAMMER’S STRATEGY

• The text’s two objectives are to warn the general public against the danger of witches and to give Kramer official authority to hunt them.
• The Hammer of the Witches put fear into the general public by warning them that witches were accomplices of the devil.
• The text also convinced its readers that witches were a sign of the apocalypse.
• The book attempted to persuade its audience that female sexual seduction is another sign of witchcraft.
• Often women were blamed for conjuring a hailstorm with the intention of destroying the area’s crops.
• According to the Hammer, the weak are the most dangerous; it condemned women who were poverty-stricken, mentally ill, and even those who simply practiced herbal medicine.

VIDEO | PHOTOS | FACTS

In a dimly lit cave, a sorority of witches stands around a bubbling cauldron, cackling as they await the witching hour. Their faces are lousy with sores and their breath putrid with death. Behind their abysmally black eyes, the devil can be seen looking back… plotting. The night yields a full moon, magic is aplenty. They’ll need all the help they can get. After all, an unbaptized infant is a delicacy. The midnight bell tolls – time to act. And in devilish accordance, they snatch their broomsticks and vanish into the night.

Although a Medieval foreboding of a witch is a far cry from today’s understanding of one, it’s difficult to skirt the misconception. It has a permanent locale in our collective unconscious. Needless to say, a real witch lacks these stereotypical prerequisites.

Sixty-three-year-old Ellyn Darrah is a witch. In fact, she’s a High Priestess. She writes and orchestrates rituals, dances around campfires and drinks mead. She is not possessed, nor does she eat babies. She’s more like a hip grandmother than a spooky spell-caster. The depth of her quirkiness is immediately obvious as she orders a vegetarian pizza with pepperoni.

Twenty years ago, Darrah began her journey as a witch. It all started in her college years back at the University of Santa Barbara, California, when a poster read “Come Celebrate Mother Goddess” caught her attention.

• Read Full Article >>

With no separation of Church or State (they were essentially one and the same) the Catholic Church set into motion it’s own version of the “Final Solution” in an effort to rid society of witches, for according to Pope Innocent, “If ‘the abominations and enormities in question remain unpunished,’ the souls of multitudes face eternal damnation.” Clearly then, for the sake of “family values”, witches needed to be sought out and brought to justice. Carl Sagan summarizes the situation quite well in Chapter 7 of his book, “The Demon-Haunted World”:

What the Malleus comes down to, pretty much, is that if you’re accused of witchcraft, you’re a witch. Torture is an unfailing means to demonstrate the validity of the accusation. There are no rights of the defendant. There is no opportunity to confront the accusers. Little attention is given to the possibility that accusations might be made for impious purposes – jealousy, say, or revenge, or the greed of the inquisitors who routinely confiscated for their own private benefit the property of the accused. This technical manual for torturers also includes methods of punishment tailored to release demons from the victim’s body before the process kills her. The Malleus in hand, the Pope’s encouragement guaranteed, Inquisitors began springing up all over Europe.”

Read The Full Article >>

- Wicasta

We’re looking to relocate the Malleus Maleficarum to a new server soon, as soon as funds allow. In the meantime, please accept my assurances that I am hyper-vigilant in checking our scripts on a daily basis for changes that need to be corrected. And if anyone knows how we might more effectively fight the annoying IFRAME injections which hackers seem to be able to do to this web site with impunity, we would certainly appreciate any recommendations. But please keep in mind that all of the obvious issues (frequent password changes, virus scans and other security protocols) have already been addressed. So… recommending that we change our passwords will warrant a hearty “duh!” from us. Or from me, at least.

My apologies for the inconvenience. Apparently someone thinks this work is important enough to be disrupted. I suppose we should be flattered that some loser has made it his personal mission to disrupt this web site. But I’m not. I believe in the Three Fold Law, but take little comfort in knowing that some misfit is earning a whole lot of pain.

- Wicasta Lovelace

I want to personally apologize for the Malleus Maleficarum being offline for so long. We had expected to simply move to a new server, but with money being short and the economy being what it is, that just wasn’t in the cards. That’s the one thing we learned rather quickly. While thousands of people are quick to avail themselves of free resources, no one is willing to help support the effort. And why should they, really? Our PDF files have been widely distributed across the Internet, and many webmasters have no moral problem with illegally mirroring our web site and claiming the work as their own. My point is that while perhaps this web site has more functionality that most of the other available (legal or otherwise) resources, the material is out there if you know where to look. In the interim, when money was short and there was no material support from users to speak of, we simply did what we could when we could.

I assure you that we haven’t forgotten that our host provider maintained laughable security protocols and dismissed our complaints as the whining of clueless administrators who didn’t have the sense to change their own passwords. We don’t have much confidence in their assurances that security protocols have (finally) been addressed and the server has been hardened. Therefore, we are still setting up a new server and moving ahead with our plans to find a more permanent home for the Malleus Maleficarum online project.

Now if we can just figure out all this Linux stuff.

- Wicasta Lovelace