“. . . millions of witches, sorcerers, possessed and obsessed were an enormous mass of severe neurotics [and ] psychotics. . . for many years the world looked like a veritable insane asylum. . . .” (Gregory Zilboorg).
“. . . the witch-craze was neither a lynching party nor a mass suicide by hysterical women. Rather, it followed well-ordered, legalistic procedures. The witch-hunts were well-organized campaigns, initiated, financed and executed by Church and State. . . .” (Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English)
I. Introduction: The Apparatus and the Witch
In the study of cultural phenomena, cultural studies has often focused on the notion of the Cultural
Apparatus (C.W. Mills), or the Ideological State Apparatus (L. Althusser), as a motor of cultural change, a regulator of cultural maintenance, and even a powerful eugenic mechanism that the State deploys to discipline individuals and to shape them psychologically into obedient, docile citizens who can toil their whole lives trying to be good souls and prepare to inhabit paradise after death!
https://docs.google.com/document/d/17eKF33E3rPxIBHWwl1wk9lBwWU8ZiyOa0XEC-NzdDjk/edit
