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Scots witches will not be pardoned posthumously.

The 1735 Witchcraft Act was repealed by the government in 1951.

The last woman to be convicted was Perthshire woman Helen Duncan, who spent nine months in Holloway Prison after being found guilty at a trial in 1944.
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:eye-poppi

I thought we were done with the witch-hunting some time in the 18th century.
 
She was NOT convicted because she was a witch (in terms of religious beliefs), but as a scam artist. No pardon is deserved or appropriate for her.

Other "witches" may well have been innocent of either witchcraft or of fraud, and I have a great deal of sympathy for anyone that was executed for either reason. A blanket pardon is still not appropriate given the use of the act to combat fraudulent mediums etc, and a case by case pardoning effort would be extremely difficult to achieve given the passage of time.

The act remained in place for this reason until repealed by the Fraudulent Mediums Act in '51, which itself has now been repealed.
 
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This film is today in Edinburgh. Is there any one who can go and give a report?

The Amazing Story of Helen Duncan. In The Canon's Gait Inn, 232
The Canongate, Royal Mile 7pm to 9pm £5 donation.

A film about the true story of a Scottish housewife who found herself in
the centre of a WWII legal battle resulting in her brutal conviction of
a 'crime' under Britain's ancient Witchcraft Act. She was jailed for
nine months simply for demonstrating her gift of mediumship.

www marykingsghostfest com/
For tickets, call 08702 430 160
Monday 12th May 2008
Sunday 18th May 2008
 
Oh lordy. I'll go to the Sunday showing if you insist.

Any other Scottish forumites fancy it?
 
...She was jailed for nine months simply for demonstrating her gift of mediumship.
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So, obviously we can expect a balanced, rational account in the film.
 
Sorry, you've lost me there. I really will go on Sunday if people are interested.
 
wahrheit said:
The 1735 Witchcraft Act was repealed by the government in 1951.

The last woman to be convicted was Perthshire woman Helen Duncan, who spent nine months in Holloway Prison after being found guilty at a trial in 1944.
Click to expand...

:eye-poppi

I thought we were done with the witch-hunting some time in the 18th century.
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At least they let her out after a little while, and didn't kill her.

Think about it. The law and prosecutors are presuming witchcraft actually exists. Therefore, aren't they risking their souls by letting her back out?
 
Beerina said:
At least they let her out after a little while, and didn't kill her.

Think about it. The law and prosecutors are presuming witchcraft actually exists. Therefore, aren't they risking their souls by letting her back out?
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Best read up on the 1735 Act (as distinct from the previous one of the same name). The whole point of it was to prosecute people who *pretended* to be "witches". The law assumed (being drafted in the age of Enlightenment) that we'd moved past actually believing in witchcraft.

It's often misrepresented as an archaic and repressive law, when in fact it was way ahead of its time and the Fraudulent Mediums Act that replaced it was a free meal ticket for charlatans.
 
@big les exactly. I just finished reading the "witch mania" in "extraodinary delusion....". There were earlier act saying that all witch should be actively hunted, tested (by the prick or the water judgement) and then burned after interrogation (read: torture). There was even a price for each "witch" and some very successful hunter all over continental europe and the british isle (read : upwards of 600 to 300 witches "found" by a single person). Only in the 17th apparently some judge thought it a bit too easy to extract confession during torture (the two jesuit and the judge anecdote where with elading question he make a supposed witch accuse the two jesuite of being in practice with the devil).

If you don't want to blanket pardon all witch, can you at least blanket pardon those under the age of , say 10 year old ? Or even blanket pardon those under the age of 5 year old ? There were some of those burned too.
 
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The Amazing Story of Helen Duncan. In The Canon's Gait Inn,
I went.
It was not a film supporting her Pardon that I expected. It was the 1999 Channel 4 docudrama (I had not seen it). It was a mix of various witness to the trial and family members speaking to camera and actors doing bits from the Trial and the Harry Price tests on her.

There was no input at all from The Full Moon Investigations mediums except asking us to make our own minds up from seeing the film.

Of the film, all I can say is to repeat one of the witness at the trial. You see spirits if you are a believer or cheese cloth if you do not.

Interesting if you want to hear 1st hand accounts of Helen but not if you want a debate about if she should be pardoned.
 
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Wouldn't a posthumous pardon be a completely pointless and useless gesture? People were persecuted in Europe (and the Massachusetts Bay Colony) for supposed witchcraft for hundreds of years. Their mistreatment should certainly be considered a dark page in Western history, but would this posthumous pardon do anything other than make the descendants of the victims and perpetrators of the violence feel a little better?

By way of a recent analogy, does any thinking person believe that the recent mealy-mouthed pronouncements from the Vatican supposedly vindicating Galileo in any way make up for the barbaric persecution he suffered? The Catholic Church is in no way absolved from its actions in persecuting Galileo, and Galileo gets no benefit from it, indeed some may see him as less of a martyr to the cause of reason now that the organization directly responsible for his persecution has--sort of--apologized.

I say that "pardoning" past victims of religious persecution is an insult to their memory.
 
Also a blanket posthumous pardon for persons before 1735 is a problem, as under Scots Law there was the "Venefici" "Being Witches" and the "Public Cheats" the "Falsarii". Both were tried under the Witchcraft laws and death was the usual result.

The thing is the state did not believe the Falsarii had powers (Fraudulent Mediums) but pretended they had powers. They could still be tried for Witchcraft because of the Devilles rudiementes.
 
lucan said:
Also a blanket posthumous pardon for persons before 1735 is a problem, as under Scots Law there was the "Venefici" "Being Witches" and the "Public Cheats" the "Falsarii". Both were tried under the Witchcraft laws and death was the usual result.

The thing is the state did not believe the Falsarii had powers (Fraudulent Mediums) but pretended they had powers. They could still be tried for Witchcraft because of the Devilles rudiementes.
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From today's point of view, there is really only falsarii. Just saying :).
 
If you are a Skeptic, a Venefici MUST be innocent.
The Venefici were Persons who society and the state picked upon because of warts, deformities or just not getting on with your neighbours. Ie victims of a witch-hunt.

Falsarii was a person who play upon people's fear of witchcraft for money some even resorted to necromancy to extort money, like a person from the village of Muckhart near me.
 
lucan said:
The Amazing Story of Helen Duncan. In The Canon's Gait Inn,
I went.
It was not a film supporting her Pardon that I expected. It was the 1999 Channel 4 docudrama (I had not seen it). It was a mix of various witness to the trial and family members speaking to camera and actors doing bits from the Trial and the Harry Price tests on her.

There was no input at all from The Full Moon Investigations mediums except asking us to make our own minds up from seeing the film.
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Interesting, but I'm not sure I want to spend £5 to see an old documentary. Thanks for reporting back. I would have come along that night if I could, but it sounds like I'd have been disappointed.

Of the film, all I can say is to repeat one of the witness at the trial. You see spirits if you are a believer or cheese cloth if you do not.
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The important thing for me is that the cheesecloth does not cease being cheesecloth just because some believe that it's ectoplasm.

Interesting if you want to hear 1st hand accounts of Helen but not if you want a debate about if she should be pardoned.
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I'm not sure there is a debate. There's a political drive by Spiritualists to legitimise what they do by rewriting history. This isn't even as simple as the WW1 "shot at dawn" soldiers. Attitudes to moral fortitude and mental illness have changed in light of evidence. Whereas this woman committed an actual tangible crime. You can't just pardon her, it would need new evidence to have come to light, or a retrial. The alternative is to accept the spiritualist claims that she was a genuine medium. Why should we do that?
 
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If it is the TV programme I am thinking of it was good and would shake no one's sceptical foundations. Was the programme called something like "THE LAST WITCH TRIAL"?
 
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