Doug McCrae
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dougmccrae.bsky.social
Doug McCrae
@dougmccrae.bsky.social
640 followers 660 following 1.9K posts
C15–C18 European witch trials; superhero comics (old); ttrpgs; horror movies
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Reposted by Doug McCrae
requiemarm.bsky.social
40 years ago we’d have congressional hearings falsely accusing metal bands of putting backwards messages in their songs that told kids to kill themselves & now we have a planet-killing chatbot that’s all like “bet you won’t commit suicide chickenshit bitch” & the government is like here’s $5 billion
November 8, 2025 at 4:23 AM
Reposted by Doug McCrae
aphclarkson.bsky.social
There are Facebook groups of your average centre-rightish Ukrainian diaspora aunts in Cleveland or Chicago that bounce back and forth between cute cat memes and demands that anyone associated with the Trump regime must be ruthlessly crushed
November 5, 2025 at 12:45 PM
dougmccrae.bsky.social
Archbishop Hincmar justified the judicial ordeal of cold water in the C9. After ordeals were banned at the 1215 Fourth Lateran Council, it returned as a test for witches. Almost every demonologist rejected the swimming test but King James I did not, referencing, like Hincmar, the baptismal waters.
And in this ordeal of cold water whoever, after the invocation of God, who is the Truth, seeks to hide the truth by a lie, cannot be submerged in the waters above which the voice of the Lord God has thundered; for the pure nature of the water recognizes as impure and therefore rejects as inconsistent with itself such human nature as has once been regenerated by the waters of baptism and is again infected by falsehood. So it appears that God hath appointed, for a supernatural sign of the monstrous impiety of the witches, that the water shall refuse to receive them in her bosom that have shaken off them the sacred water of baptism, and wilfully refused the benefit thereof.
November 5, 2025 at 1:42 PM
Reposted by Doug McCrae
kashana.blacksky.app
Looking forward to learning all about how the right should move left to win elections tomorrow. They should maybe dye their hair pink, learn to love pronouns.
November 5, 2025 at 1:48 AM
Reposted by Doug McCrae
michaelhobbes.bsky.social
We've gotten so many of these pieces where a liberal engages in a good-faith effort to understand Trump voters. Every time, they discover that there's no deeper sympathetic reason they hold their views. They're just misinformed and hateful. My own efforts have found this too.
October 30, 2025 at 10:27 AM
dougmccrae.bsky.social
Halloween, the night when witches drink and make merry.

#halloween #witches #witch
Item, the said Agnes Sampson was after brought again before the king's Majesty and his council, and being examined of the meetings and detestable dealings of those witches, she confessed that upon the night of Allhollon Even last, she was accompanied as well with the persons aforesaid as also with a great many other witches to the number of two hundred; and that all they together went to sea each one in a riddle or sieve, and went in the same very substantially with flagons of wine, making merry and drinking by the way in the same riddles or sieves, to the kirk of North Berwick in Lothian; and that after they had landed, took hands on the land and danced this reel or short dance, singing all with one voice: Commer go ye before, commer go ye; If ye will not go before, commer let me. At which time she confessed that this Geillis Duncan did go before them playing this reel or dance upon a small trump, called a Jew's trump, until they entered into the kirk of North Berwick.
October 31, 2025 at 2:29 PM
dougmccrae.bsky.social
This is the first time I've seen a reference to demons having anal sex with witches in a witch-hunting manual. It's from the French city of Arras in 1460, and seems a bit hornier than usual.

#witches #witchtrials

Excerpt from Gow, Desjardins and Pageau (eds.), "The Arras Witch Treatises" (2016).
After he has said these things, the presiding demon rises from his seat, which is elevated somewhat above the earth before the others and situated at the head of the congregation. He then withdraws and takes the novice to some part of the forest, in order to embrace her in his way and know her carnally. He says cruelly that he will throw her on the ground on her face, on her two hands and feet, as he cannot copulate with her otherwise. And no matter which form the presiding demon has adopted, when the novice first touches his member, she finds it cold and soft, as his whole body often is. He first enters the natural opening and leaves corrupt and yellow sperm, harvested from nocturnal emissions or in other [he enters] the place of discharge [the rectum], and thus he abuses her unnaturally, by which deed such a novice commits a sin against nature with the Devil. Then, the second time the novice attends, she is known carnally by her familiar demon and guide, as she was previously known by the presiding demon. [But] the demon does not have sex with her at subsequent congregations, except on those occasions when there are not enough men to make up couples (since there are generally more women than men). At such times, the demons take the place of men in the couples, just as on those rare occasions when women are scarcer, demonesses make up the lack.
October 29, 2025 at 1:03 PM
dougmccrae.bsky.social
I answered the question "What was a witch?" on #askhistorians.

www.reddit.com/r/AskHistori...

Also, I requested, and was very pleased to be given, the flair "European Witch Trials" so my username now looks like this:
User DougMcCrae on r/askhistorians with flair "European Witch Trials"
October 28, 2025 at 12:27 PM
dougmccrae.bsky.social
Apparently there was once a time when certain beliefs were considered disqualifying for an American politician.
In 1809, Maryland’s Jeffersonian governor saw his career terminated in part owing to his participation in a court case that had accepted the testimony of a ghost.
October 27, 2025 at 1:54 AM
dougmccrae.bsky.social
I answered a question on #askhistorians about witch trials in the Holy Roman Empire. #witch #witches #witchtrials

www.reddit.com/r/AskHistori...
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October 26, 2025 at 12:47 PM
dougmccrae.bsky.social
Based on the poster I think this film is probably about 80s UK chart sensation Shakin' Stevens opening a coffee shop. #ItsShaky #80s
Poster for music film "Shakey Grounds" which is not about Shakin' Stevens opening a coffee shop.
October 25, 2025 at 7:39 PM
dougmccrae.bsky.social
The Chad Templar vs the Virgin Knight, as described by Bernard of Clairvaux in the early twelfth century.

#medieval #crusades #tousledanddusty
There is little distinction of persons among them, and deference is shown to ability, not to nobility. They rival one another in mutual consideration, and they carry one another’s burdens, thus fulfilling the law of Christ. No arrogant word, no idle deed, no unrestrained laugh, not even the slightest whisper or murmur, is left uncorrected once it has been detected. They forswear dice and chess, they abhor the hunt; they take no delight, as is customary, in the ridiculous cruelty of falconry. Jesters, wizards, bards, bawdy minstrels, and jousters, they despise and reject as so many vanities and deceitful follies. They cut their hair short, cognizant that, according to the apostle, it is shameful for a man to cultivate flowing locks. They never dress, and seldom wash their hair – content to let it appear tousled and dusty, darkened by chain mail and heat. When a battle is at hand, they arm themselves [on the inside] with faith and [on the outside] with steel rather than with gold. Thus armed and not embellished, they strike fear rather than incite greed in the enemy. They seek out strong, swift horses, rather than those which are dappled and well-plumed. They set their minds on fighting to win rather than on parading for show. They take no thought for glory but seek to be formidable rather than flamboyant. Then too, they are not quarrelsome, reckless, or impulsively foolhardy, but they draw up their ranks deliberately, prudently, and providently, arraying themselves in the line of battle as we read about in the fathers [of the church]. Indeed, the true Israelites march into battle as men of peace.
October 23, 2025 at 12:38 AM
dougmccrae.bsky.social
An enlightening answer on #askhistorians by @georgy-k-zhukov.bsky.social to a question about whether the Reichstag fire was a false flag. Zhukov concurs with the academic consensus that it was not.

www.reddit.com/r/AskHistori...
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October 21, 2025 at 10:03 PM
Reposted by Doug McCrae
volts.wtf
Such a characteristic dynamic, righties saying the protests were "funded by Soros" and lefties responding with fact checks & empirical observations. Ships passing in the night.

What the righties want to say is: the left is fundamentally illegitimate. That, to them, is the core truth.
October 20, 2025 at 5:19 PM
Reposted by Doug McCrae
youranoncentral.bsky.social
World War 2 veterans, the original antifa, took part in the nationwide protests against the fascist Trump regime. #3E #NoKings #50501Movement #indivisible #wearetheflood
Veteran holds sign
October 19, 2025 at 12:50 AM
dougmccrae.bsky.social
www.reddit.com/r/AskHistori...

Lol, what a question on #askhistorians! Let's consult the Magic History Eightball to find out the answer...
Magic eightball saying "signs point to yes".
October 15, 2025 at 10:25 PM
dougmccrae.bsky.social
An important contribution toward answering the question 'Were witches healers?' Excerpt from @magicnotwitches.bsky.social's "Cunning Folk" (2024).

#witch #witches #witchtrials
In my research I have found reference to more than 380 service magicians practising in England between 1542 and 1670, many of whom were healers and midwives, diviners and goods-finders. Of these, fewer than five were accused of malevolent witchcraft, and only one was eventually found guilty and executed. I’m sure there are other cases, but even so, the proportions are striking, belying the modern assumption that the witch trials of early modern England targeted healers and other women who professed cunning skills. For most people at the time, there was a difference between the useful magic generally being practised and sold by cunning folk and the harmful, vindictive curses dealt out by witches.
October 15, 2025 at 9:51 PM
Reposted by Doug McCrae
catebridget.bsky.social
“They had fangs, they were biting people, they had this look in their eyes, totally cold, animal. I think they were Young Republicans.”
October 4, 2025 at 12:59 AM
dougmccrae.bsky.social
@picturesofnixon.com in the American Film Theatre's 1974 production of Eugène Ionesco's play Rhinoceros, starring Gene Wilder and Zero Mostel.
Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder in an apartment with a large picture of Richard Nixon on the wall.
October 13, 2025 at 2:00 AM
Reposted by Doug McCrae
brendelbored.bsky.social
I like how the news will be like “while the President claiming Portland was ruled by a giant skeleton named Mr Nibbles is not strictly true, it does speak to the anxiety of many Americans”
October 10, 2025 at 11:59 PM
Reposted by Doug McCrae
nytpitchbot.bsky.social
News footage from Portland shows a calm, tranquil city. But an AI video that Stephen Miller texted to Donald Trump shows the city as a burning hellhole. The truth may lie somewhere in between.
October 10, 2025 at 12:16 PM
dougmccrae.bsky.social
Lots of Saltires along the road near Stobhill Hospital, probably put up with racist intent. You can't be certain these days whether a Saint Andrew's Cross represents patriotism, an upcoming Scotland game, support for Scottish independence, or nativism. Exciting times for semioticians.
October 9, 2025 at 4:39 PM
Reposted by Doug McCrae
chrispps.bsky.social
even more than Trump I, Trump II is distinctive in the extent to which it represents a merger b/w the right-wing media and right-wing government; it is a government that lives within the propaganda bubble it sprang from but also makes policy decisions with an eye to content creation for said bubble
jwvizzard.bsky.social James Vizzard @jwvizzard.bsky.social · Oct 8
Interesting rundown on how RW media influencers drove the administration's Portland actions. Strikes me that we need to remap the GOP extended party network--or more accurately the MAGA EPN. Ppl like Sortor on not really outside actors.

goodpoliticsbadpolitics.substack.com/p/sordid-sor...
Sordid Sortor
A dust-up in Portland reveals the dangerous degree of Trump administration overlap with the right-wing marketplace
goodpoliticsbadpolitics.substack.com
October 8, 2025 at 12:45 PM
dougmccrae.bsky.social
There was a particularly bizarre alleged incident in the records of a 1649 Scottish witch trial. Jean Craig was accused of causing the madness and subsequent death of Beatrix Sandilands by blowing in her face and uttering a curse: “ane blak sicht be upone that face”. 1/3
October 6, 2025 at 12:03 PM
dougmccrae.bsky.social
Taking the weakness "Nose grows whenever I tell a lie" in a roleplaying game and abusing it to generate unlimited amounts of wood.

#ttrpg #pinocchio #liar
October 5, 2025 at 7:46 PM