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Science and Witchcraft
water or molten lead. In the water torture, the question de
l'eau, water was poured down the throat of the accused, along
with a soft cloth to cause choking. The cloth was pulled out
quickly so that the entrails would be torn. The thumbscrews
[gresillons] were a vise designed to compress the thumbs or
the big toes to the root of the nails, so that the crushing of the
digit would cause excruciating pain.
In addition, and more routinely applied, were the strappado and
squassation and still more ghastly tortures that I will avoid
describing. After torture, and with the instruments of torture in
plain view, the victim was asked to sign a statement. This was then
described as a 'free confession', voluntarily admitted to.
At great personal risk, von Spee protested the witch mania. So
did a few others, mainly Catholic and Protestant clergy who had
witnessed these crimes at first hand - including Gianfrancesco
Ponzinibio in Italy, Cornelius Loos in Germany and Reginald Scot
in Britain in the sixteenth century; as well as Johann Mayfurth
('Listen, you money-hungry judges and bloodthirsty prosecutors,
the apparitions of the Devil are all lies') in Germany and Alonzo
Salazar de Frias in Spain in the seventeenth century. Along with
von Spee and the Quakers generally, they are heroes of our
species. Why are they not better known?
In A Candle in the Dark (1656), Thomas Ady addressed a key
question:
Some again will object and say, If Witches cannot kill, and do
many strange things by Witchcraft, why have many confessed
that they have done such Murthers, and other strange matters,
whereof they have been accused?
To this I answer, If Adam and Eve in their innocency were
so easily overcome, and tempted to sin, how much more may
poor Creatures now after the Fall, by persuasions, promises,
and threatenings, by keeping from sleep, and continual
torture, be brought to confess that which is false and impossible,
and contrary to the faith of a Christian to believe?
It was not until the eighteenth century that the possibility of
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