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By True - 9 Nov 2012 (2)
In Reference to: 24 November 2012 - Halloween Versus God’s Heavenly Will
As stated in your sermon, "In addition, don’t they also scapegoat cats, particularly black cats, and seek to bring them harm?"
Yes Frank, "they" the Christians are responsible for the demonization & murder of black cats - and the myths which perpetuate it to this day ...
As is illustrated in the last entry, these behaviors are in proportion to the prevalence & stronghold of Christianity in a geographic area.
Here are some historical facts ...
For a long time in Europe pagan religions such as witchcraft were the dominate belief. These religions were tightly associated with the animals of nature, including the cat.
During the rise of the Christian religion in Europe, the church decided that witchcraft was evil and since they attributed cats to witches, cats were deemed evil by proxy.
During witch trials, cats were often tortured and killed by Christian puritans along with the supposed witches. Some thought that witches had the ability to change shape into a cat, others thought that both cats and witches are evil so they must be in cahoots. Many people also think that witches sacrifice cats during their rituals which is foolish because witchcraft is a very nature-friendly religion.
http://www.listal.com/list/black-cats
witches kept black cats as familiars. A familiar is a sort of companion to a witch but not only that, has powers of its own. This used to be a tip-off to the community. If a woman owned a black cat, she was highly suspected of being a witch. And the community might either shun or even harm her just because she owned a black cat.
This association gave black cats a bad name in the Christian realm.
Christians believed a witch could morph into another being, that of a black cat, so many black cats were killed along with their owners.
But Wiccans and Pagans believed they were more like guardian angels or helpful spirits.
Another myth is if a black cat crosses your path, you're in big trouble because something bad will happen to you. This probably came about because of the many symbolic beliefs of Christians. Because they believed black cats were demonic, they surely didn't want one coming close to them.
The mysteries about black cats are still with us to this day.
http://www.helium.com/items/1819909-myths-about-black-cats
The bottom of all this to my opinion, is the colour black.
It was the colour of the old European (Roman, Celtic German goddess of fertility Mother Earth, giving the later "black madonna's". Which was not exclusively European ( Compare ISIS!!)
Black was regarded as the colour of the earth, the goddesses' first element.
Her second element was water, giving the colour blue.
The elements of the male god ( in the sky) were air and fire ( sun) While druids were dressed in white, with red ribbons ( white= air, red = fire, sun ) it is too little known that there were female druids that were dressed in black with blue ribbons.
Being mother earth, "the life-giving one ", her "home" was the black earth below, That became the HELL for Christianity A HOLE in the ground was an entrance to her home, and HOLY were the days of her feasts, or a tree dedicated to her.
A Hell- or Holestreet on the European mainland goes from the centre to the North, as North was the direction to find the mother goddess the dark/black night where the sun never shines( North).
As Ger/Cella /Hella was the wise (mother nature) and gave life those female priests were the "wisewoman" - les Femmes Sages ( = midwifes) that assisted on birth. They knew also a lot of herbal medicine: they had a huge knowledge of nature, their goddesses products.
And the honour they payed to to Ger was by masses were black was THE colour.
Christianity convicted those black masses and this "black magic" and it got a bad name, as well as the colour black itself.
The female druids where mostly accompanied by a cat with the holy black color. And as black was "from the devil" since Christianity black cats where too.
Much later, when Inquisition wanted to chase the new religions in the cities, they still encountered the rest of the old one in the
countryside: the wiccas.
They where burned as witches together with their black cats, or the cats where thrown from the belfry towers.
I have no info why in England or elsewhere black cats are harmless.
But as England is very traditional, and still very Celtic... knowing that black was a GOOD colour in Celtic times, one should look in that direction...
The old idea that black colour being "a good colour" was not totally erased by Christianity, it seems.
Till very recent, black was regarded as a "female" colour and my mother used to where it in mass before. The black for funerals (life/death, mother earth) is the same.
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Where_does_the_black_cat_superstition_originate
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