WITCH TRIALS LINKED WITH CROP CIRCLES

A recent study by Emily Oster, an economics student at Harvard University, came up with an interesting theory as to the nature of some witch trials.   She argues that the most active times of witch trial coincided with spells of low temperatures which in turn increased the likelyhood of crop failure and fish migration to northern Europe. She writes "Witches were targets for blame, because there was an existing cultural framework that both allowed their persecution and suggested that they could control the weather".   Looking at weather records she noted that decreases in temperature led to more witchcraft trials, the biggest number in 1740 just after the sharpest drop in temperature.   Looking at this theory I realised that there will have been other crop damage incidents which would most certainly led to the accusation of witchcraft. I have read reports on crop circles from the 1700's, they were thought, for the most part, to have been created by fairies dancing.  However, this depiction of the Devil dancing in a corn circle tells another story.    It would stand to reason then, that they thought that crop circles were the work of the devil, who had been summoned by witches.  It is widely known that the church took power from women by accusing them of being in league with the devil.  Subsequently they would be ostracised by the community and left to starve or lead very lonely lives.  Psychics and healers came under suspicion and were very lucky to have survived these times.  We just have to look at the bible with fresh eyes to see that we have been visited for all time by E.T's  and therefore there have always been contactees.  Assuming that crop circles are of extraterrestrial design and are messages for us to decipher, then we can also assume that they were meant to be understood even then. In Africa, to this day, witch hunts are rife. It would seem that the women killed are older and therefore least productive, making them the least important member of the family.  

 In South Africa there were 200 lynchings from 1985-1995. Here suspects are identified, ostracised, beheaded or burnt alive. The same thing goes on in Angola, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, Nigeria, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. In 2001 in Ituri,(a Congolese province) over 800 died during a single witch-hunt. In India, to this day at least 200 women are killed for being witches every year. On the 4th of October 2005, a barber from the southern Indian village of Muddireddypalli was attacked by a gang of 150 women who accused him of using black magic on the villagers.  There had been a spate of deaths and this attack was prompted by the death of another villager.  Police arrested sixty seven women who had attacked and beaten him, locked him in his shop and set fire to the building with him inside.  A government official said that he had been seen "throwing lemons here and there", which apparently is a sure sign of black magic.  The other women have fled the area to avoid capture by the police.  We should now think ourselves lucky that we no longer live in a society as superstitious as this, if it were, then I most certainly wouldn't want to live in Wiltshire after the recent spate of crop circles!  Sacha Christie.