This is an article I found and Clerwitch and Meastro asked me to make a thread about it. It's lengthy, so I am posting it in the way that makes most sense:

Here is an article written by Jenny Gibbons. She has an MA in medieval history and minored in the history of the witchcraft trials. She’s a solitary witch, and her essays have appeared in Pan-Gaia, Reclaiming Quarterly, Green Egg, Enchante, and The Pomegranate.

A New History Of Witchcraft
By Jenny Gibbons

History Changes. Or rather, our knowledge of the past changes. During the 1970’s and 1980’s, historians began to study the Witch-trial records. Prior to this time, our knowledge of the persecution of Witches was mainly based on Witch-hunting propaganda: manuals, sermons, and other dogmatic information. Historians have studied a handful of trial records from larger, more infamous cases, but it was not until about twenty years ago that scholars began to compile serious databases of every known witch trial. Through their efforts, a wealth of new information was found. Today, we can list approximately thirty times as many Witch trials as we could twenty years ago. This new evidence has shown us that almost everything we thought about Witch hunting was wrong. For the first time n history we have a good idea what the average trial and the average Witch looked like.
In the past, people tended to see the burning times as a dualistic fairy tale. There were good guys(Witches and Pagans and Wise Women), and there were bad guys(the Inquisition, Witch-hunters, male doctors). The bad guys were said to have done awful things to the good guys. The truth actually, is a bit more complicated and uncomfortable: that is every section of society bears some of the blame. No one group committed all the horrors; no-one can claim their hands were clean. Not even traditional Witches.
For many of us Witches that’s a hard pill to swallow. But when we turn a blind eye to the truth simply because it’s painful, we lose the lessons that history can teach us. And the people who suffered through the burning times deserve better.
Here is a short list exposing some of the formerly unknown truths about what some of the involved groups did and did not do during the burning times.

THE CHRISTIAN CHURCHES:
WHAT THEY DID – The churches laid the groundwork that made the persecution possible. During the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church taught that there was no such thing as neutral magic. All magic was evil and all of it came from Satan. While there weren’t many witch trials during the Middle Ages, this teaching set the stage for the tragedy to come. Moreover, in the eleventh century the church suppressed religious diversity y executing “heretics”. Their methods, such as burning at the stake – became the traditional method for killing a Witch. When Protestant churches arose during the religious turmoil of the Reformation, they carried on the Catholic Church’s footsteps, prohibiting magic and violently persecuting religious minorities.
WHAT THEY DIDN’T DO – During the Middle Ages, when the Church controlled most Witch trials, very few witches were killed. Witch hunting didn’t skyrocket until the Early Modern Period in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries after the Reformation split “the Church into warring Catholic and Protestant sects. Even then, church courts killed very few witches – generally less than one percent of the people they tried. Most Witches were killed by local, non-religious courts. People were put to death by their own neighbors.

THE INQUISITION
WHAT THEY DID – The Inquisition encouraged the stereotypes that drove the panics. The earliest Witch hunting manuals were written by inquisitors. At the height of the persecution of Witches, most manuals were written by non-religious authors. However, these letter writers had built off of the earlier writings of the inquisition. In fact, the most influential anti-Witch manual of all times was written by two men, Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger. Non-religious courts seized upon the text and followed many of it’s horrifoc uidelines. The Inquisition inspired others to commit atrocities, even if their own trails were generally more restrained.
WHAT THEY DIDN’T DO – The Inquisition didn’t kill many Witches. When it was first created in the early thirteenth century, the Inquisition was not allowed to try Witches, as the Church did not consider Witchcraft a heresy. This changed in the early fourteenth century. Yet, even then, the Inquisition did more talking than killing. Scholars could only find a few hundred witches who were definitely killed by the Church and Inquisition from 300-1500. By the time of the main persecution in the mid-sixteenth century, the Inquisition no longer existed in most countries. Odder still, the place where the Inquisition did try Witches (Spain, Italy and Portugal) had some of the lowest death tolls in Europe. In Spain, the Inquisition actually opposed the witch trials.

LOCAL AUTHORITIES
WHAT THEY DID – It was the local authorities who killed the vast majority of Witches, mostly in community-based courts. Some of these courts were virtual slaughterhouses, killing ninety percent of all accused Witches. Germany offers the most horrific evidence of the dangers of local courts. Most countries had a national court that squelched the excesses of the local courts. But since Germany did not, it killed nearly half of all the witches that died in these times. Panics were not uncommon in Germany, and all of these panics occurred in local courts.
WHAT THEY DIDN’T DO – The local authorities didn’t kill millions of people. Historians are confident that somewhere between 40,000 and 60,000 Witches died. This is mainly because, in the past, no-one had counted the number of Witch trials in court records. There are millions of trials from this period, and only a small number have anything to do with Witchcraft. Estimates of the number of Witches executed were widely varying guesswork. Once historians actually began to count the number of executions, they found that trials were far less common than they thought. To date, fewer than 15,000 definite executions have been found. Compensating for lost records, and non-recorded deaths, this suggests that the death toll was nowhere near the millions once suggested.
Of course, the true horror of a Witch trial cannot be found in the cold statistics, but in the sad tales of Witches like Anna Gamperle, tortured to death in front of her husband and sons. That is, each individual unjustified death is a tragedy that we should remember, even if the number of tragedies is not so great as we once thought.
NATIONAL GOVERNMENTS
WHAT THEY DID – Contrary to what most people believe, Witch hunting was worst where the Church and State were weakest. Governments generally don’t like panics and chaos. The persecution Of Witches, then, was worst when and where the authorities couldn’t stop it in places along national borders, at times during periods of civil war, and in loose confederacies like Germany and Switzerland. There are some exceptions, such as in Scotland, where King James introduced Witch hunting. But in most areas, a strong government decreased Witch hunting.
WHAT THEY DIDN’T DO – The national governments didn’t kill many witches. National courts killed more witches than Church courts did, but nowhere near as many as the local courts. In many areas, roughly thirty percent of the Witches tried by national courts were killed.
NEIGHBORS AND COMMON FOLK
WHAT THEY DID – Neighbors and common folk accused the majority of Witches. Most Witches were accused by their neighbors, not by the church or professional Witch hunters. Since killing a Witch was believed to be the easiest way of breaking a perceived spell, average people commonly blamed misfortunes on Witchcraft and therefore often welcomed witch hunting. In fact, when courts would not kill “Witches” fast enough the public often took the law into their own hands and lynched suspects.
WHAT THEY DIDN’T DO – The common people did not blindly accept the churches demonology. A close examination of trial records turned up a surprising fact: many Witches were not convicted of the same crime they were accused of! Witches were usually accused by their neighbors and then tried by the church or state. These two groups disagreed over Witchcraft was. To most people, Witchcraft was harmful magic, and they accused witches of committing magickal crimes – like cursing and killing livestock. To the intellectuals of the Church and stet, Witchcraft was heresy, or Satanism. Once they had a Witch in custody, they questioned him or her mercilessly about an allegiance to the devil. There were often no traces of the devil in the original charge, but by the end of the trial, the Witch stood convicted of full-blown Satanism.
The difference is important, for it shows that people were not accusing Witches because they were forced to. They had their own concerns that were very different than the church or states. Also, they remind us that we have to be very careful before we assume that the diabolic aspects of a Witch trail are part of folklore.

TRADITIONAL WITCHES
WHAT THEY DD – One of the most shocking facts to emerge from the new trial data is that may traditional witches actively supported the persecutions. During these times, most common people divided Witches into “black” and “white” categories (despite the fact that all Witches were evil). “Black” Witches cursed people. “White” Witches (also called wise women and cunning men) were healers and diviners who specialized in undoing the baneful spells of their “black sisters”. Witches blamed misfortune on harmful magic, and they helped Witch-hunters discover the “evil” Witches. This did not lead to much persecution during the Middle Ages, but at the height of the Witch scare, traditional Witchcraft suddenly became deadly. People looked for remedies against “black” magic beyond the simple protective charms. Many people took suspected practitioners of baneful magic to court. Thus, may of the people named were put to death. In France, for instance, twenty five percent of all Witches put on trial were accused by a wise woman or cunning man.
WHAT THEY DIDN’T DO – They didn’t die in grest numbers. Contrary to public opinion, most Witches were not herbal healers or traditional magic-users. Healers and traditional magic-users made up a small percentage (perhaps about twenty or thirty percent) of Witches. Most traditional Witches, in fact, lived through the burning times in absolute peace and safety. They were never accused of Witchcraft, simply because, as today, most people were able to distinguish between “good” magic and “bad”.
To Learn more about the real history of these times, Brian Levack’s The Witch Hunting Western Europe and Robin Brigg’s Witches and Neighbors are excellent summaries of the new evidence collected from trial records.


And that’s all she wrote… whatcha think about that!!!!??????

And the same article will be written about the "Operations Freedom"...

For reference, I believe the title of the "most influential anti-Witch manual of all times" was "Maleus Maleficorum". As for the article, I think more so-called "Witches" should get a better grip on their history, and I'm glad this gal has and that it seems to have filtered down to you others. There are so many SRW Wiccans who like to say "well it was all ok untill the evil christians came and mucked it up", or "there wouldn't be all this suffering if it wasn't for the Christians - they burned us you know!" - hopefuly this will get through to some of them, coming from what I could loosely term "their own kind..."

It's 'Malleus Maleficarum', hunnie...

:p I was nearly there, no..? I bow to your superior knowledge!

Ummm...... I think that some of your information is tainted....
For actual numbers please refer to my thread on the general board called "Everyone have a curfew or what?" ahh... the hell with it I will go there myself and put them here.... the numbers were actually very high..... Germany was amongst the worst perpetrators..... you are correct that some of the trial information lists some of the accused as being put to death for other reasons than witchcraft...... yet it was accusations of witchcraft which brought them before the court where they would be tried for the murder of an individual who lets say died of a heart attack.... yet his/her family accuses a witch for the death and they get tried and executed for murder..... not witchcraft.... and yet it was because of the initial charges that they died....
hrrrrmm... let me get the numbers....

The estimated European totals of Witches condemned to Death After being accused of witchcraft...... some of them may not have been witches at all..... in fact a lot of them were not..... well anyways the estimate as produced by the Boston Historical Society are 9 Million people...... France and Spain were the worst transgressors.... Germany coming in a close third.... England did not enter the picture until 1640 with the beginning of what they call "The Long Parlaiment".... which ended with 30,000 dead by 1660..... only 3,000 were killed in Scotland.....

I think only a couple were killed in Norway...but I'll see if I can find out.

5a, my dearest...it's amazing what an erratic taste in music can teach you... :p

well, I just typed the article here, I didn't write it......

Six black roses...

here you go, now read carefully and see if your opinion changes a bit about "Christians burning witches". It seems to me that many other factors were invovled, and we cannot blame Christianity in itself.

I'm just seeking the truth's dear, not trying to condemn...

I specifically said "those bastards" meaning those specific people that actually were responsible even in the slightest form, for burning witches. Hope that clears things up.

well actually you said it on the Christianity sucks thread in response to my post that said this

4. There is nothing wrong with any organized religion, as long as they don't strike out on other people, it's whatever each person needs...


so it was a valid tie-in.

Very true..... that is the only problem I have with organized religions.... thier asanine need to strike out or damn other ways of thought.... not all however are like that.... but the ones that are are very dangerous.....

~winks at Dyshade~ Hello sweet! Where you been? Very few posts from you lately...

that's the main reason I stay away from them I think, they have so much negative energy that surrounds them due to thier distaste fro that which is different.

It's "Malleorum quorundam maleficarum, tam veterum quam recentiorum autorum, tomi duo" and it's also called "Tertia pars mallei maleficarum". In Germany, where it was printed it is also known as "Hexenhammer".