I’m about to take an Educational Research Trip to Italy to uncover (and eventually turn into a book) the TRUE story of Italy’s Medicine Women, aka Witches, from medieval times and beyond, who had an astounding power to actually cure disease, who had a vast knowledge of plants and their uses. So great were the powers of these humble women to cure, to bring new life to this planet as midwives, so beyond their education level was the quality of their medical knowledge that doctors as far aways as France were baffled, doctors who had a much lower success rate with patients than these women! It’s also reported that people who went to monks simply died waiting for a miracle.
In times when life meant everything, these women were able to preserve lives and make them better…but somewhere along the way they were deemed evil and against life, and I will also explore how this happened.
Most of what we know about witches and indigenous Medicine women in general is from outside sources like folklore, which tend to be stories created to have a social control impact and to incite fear. Sometimes we have information, published by scholars who are just re-publishing information that historians, archaeologists and anthropologists have published. Then there’s religious dogma.The trouble with all of these sources is that they are all telling stories from OUTSIDE a spiritual practice. They are interpreting things they have seen, or remnants in forms of objects through their own ideas from an outside view of a way of life they’ve never taken part of, so often their reports MIS-represent important parts of our spiritual history.
WHY ITALY:
ITALY happens to have been a most exciting melting pot of simultaneously existing sub”cult”ures from other countries, who practiced alongside their own indigenous Medicine Women: Celtic female Druids, esoteric Jews, Dianic cults, followers of the Goddess Isis of Egypt, Scandinavian Longobards, who had a ritual of riding around a magical tree on their horses, a tree which housed a golden viper, ancient Turkish Goddess cults, mystery cults from Greece and Ancient Iran. Most of these were matrilinear cults, and at the heart of all this spiritual practice were the indigenous Medicine Women of Italy, who not only practiced a spirituality in which nature served as a conduit for higher consciousness, but who were also on the receiving end of this legacy of higher information that defied their humble daily life limitations and lack of education. These humble country “miracle workers,” were for some reason were attacked in a strategic genocide that lasted over 700 years, aka The Inquisition.
While writing “Salem’s Wounds”, I expected to connect more deeply to the history of witch burnings in the U.S., but my exposure to this story would wind its way back to my stay in Tuscany, Italy, when I was introduced to the Old Ways there. It’s now my turn to give back to these women, who were targeted by a 700 year inquisition in Europe.
My book won’t focus on that genocide, but I will touch on its breadth, its cause, the strategy and planning of it, what was truly behind it, and how it STILL affects all modern women and men.
My focus is more spectacular and wonderful: the great power these women had to cure disease and how they got it, and of the personal connection to the Spirit World available to all of us, empowering us to ask the most deep searching questions and to receive back immediate answers.
About a year ago into my own research on this subject matter, my husband translated two book that he bought for me in Benevento (known as “City of theWitches” in South Italy) from Italian to English by authors Carlo Napolitano and Fabio Garuti. In those books I found that there are places still existing where it is claimed these women carried out their lives: dancing under the moon around a magic walnut tree, places where they were burned, where their lives were spared, and a specific river where they did rituals.
Carlo specifically has written extensively about the location of the magic walnut tree of Benevento, its legends, and how we discovered its original location. He’s agreed to take me to this site, as well as to a specific river, alleged to be the riverbank of the Janara by locals who claim it is haunted. In his book, Carlo describes apparitions people see there of old women dancing around a fire, how people see lights and apparitions of ritual-clothing clad people, strange distortions of time that occur there, and how automobiles go dead.
There are other places I would like to visit on this trip as well: I’d like to return to Tuscany and visit the places I stayed in before but also go to Volterra, to see the remains of Diana’s Temple on the receded lake bed of Lago di Nemi, several hillside towns where women still practicing these old ways are said to live, to speak with locals, the island of Sardegna, and Benevento and its surrounding areas. Benenveto, called “City of Witches” in the south where no witches were burned I’ve been told by locals, seems to be a living legacy of these old ways. My Italian husband reported it to be a city of psychics and Mediums who heal people with songs from the spirit world, who give free divinations and readings, and where doctors heal ailments with spells. There is an obelisk to the Goddess Isis here, and from its base I was given a loose stone that turned from tan to black. There is also a city of witches in the north called “Triora.” I’ve located a places where witches were burned here.
As a Medium who communicates with the Spirit world of passed on relatives, loved ones, Guides of all types, and has helped spirit people cross over from “stuck” places, I well know the importance of going to a location where trauma has occurred, or where wonderful ceremonies have taken place to fully experience, as much as possible, the resonance of those happenings and to communicate with any spirit people residing there and who may have messages about what occurred there.
As a researcher, it is imperative I go speak with locals from the land on which these stories originated.
QUESTIONS and ANSWERS
Some of the questions I’d like to ask, and the answers I’d like to ask are as follows:
+ Who were the WITCHES and MEDICINE WOMEN of Italy’s medieval and ancient past?
+If they cured disease, brought babies into the world, helped people by reading their futures through divination, gathered other information psychcically and with help from Spirit World which made life better for those around them, why were they deemed evil? Did their communities turn on them?
+Is there evidence of the 700 year Inquisition being a strategically planned anti-campaign by the church and military to wipe out a feminine, receptive spiritual way of life through psychic sensing and spirit world communication to prevent all people from loving this natural way of life?
+where did this word “witch,” or in Italian “strega,” come from, and what are some of the other names these medicine women were called in their regions?
+ Why were people in Italy so lovingly devoted to Goddess cults, even after the church tried to wipe out all cults through torture, rape, and murder? What were they experiencing and why were they so accepting of Goddesses from other cultures?
+ The Medicine Women have been documented , these witches, as having vast knowledge of over 3,000 plants and their healing properties. Where did they get this information?
+ Does the magic Walnut Tree of Benevento still exist? And is there resonance in the spot of its original location?
+Are there as many Goddesses as there are names for them?
+There is still much fear and “evilness” associated with using psychic senses and channeling-is it because a threat to church-who puts empowerment outside the self, while waiting on God, whereas a medium can get answers now?
+What is the importance of the color black in this spiritual culture?
+Are trees really magic?
+If these women were truly so evil and anti-life, why didnt’ they destroy the military and church?
+If they really were so powerful why couldn’t they prevent their own rapes and deaths? Why didn’t they run?
+If they truly were so evil, why did church subsume all their rituals and holidays?
+Has the demonization of women resulted in a world-wide in change of connection to natural world to synthetic control of it, and subsequent decline in quality of life and health of the planet?
