After the horrific events of the Spanish Inquisition, Crypto-Jews have been present in other parts of the world. When the false Messiah, Shabbetai Zvi, converted to Islam some of his followers did the same but they continued to live and act as Jews under cover.

More recently the Jews of Russia under Communism had to secretly keep their Judaism. They did so under great sacrifice with danger to their lives.

Today it is quite popular to say that you are a Crypto-Jew and it can be hard to verify if this is really true. Among famous people that are said to be Crypto-Jews we find the Queen of Sweden, Silvia Bernadotte. Her case is quite intriguing since her father was known as a German with a Nazi past.

If Crypto-Jews are really Jews depends on the maternal line. You can read more about if Crypto-Jews are really Jews in this article, http://foolcheck.com/are-crypto-jews-really-jews/

When people discover their Crypto-Jewish past they either obsess about it and end up converting to Judaism or find it an intriguing part of their past. Sign of Crypto-Judaism can be traditions like lighting candles Friday night, not eating meat and milk together, not pointing a finger at stars and the moon and funnily enough not to understand that these are the traditions of the Jews who are still around in our world.

Till today, practicing Crypto-Jews keep their traditions a great secret and they will not even let Jews learn easily about their beliefs and past. So great is the fear that was implanted in their forefather’s hearts by tyrants who gave them the option of death or conversion.

Torture took place in rooms specially designed and equipped for the purpose, or in a public town square. Apart from providing entertainment for law-abiding citizens, public tortures also discouraged a person from pursuing a life of crime – or at least, from getting caught.

1. The Pear

This devilish little item is on display at the Torture Museum in Amsterdam. The Pear was inserted into the mouth, anus or vagina of the unlucky victim.

Once inserted, the Pear opened and closed like a claw, forcing the orifice wide open, and ripping the flesh inside. It was used as punishment, and to obtain confessions. Victims were usually witches, homosexuals, and women accused of inducing a miscarriage.

2. Water torture

Water torture devices ranged from a simple funnel with tube, to a complex network of hoses and pumps. Tubes and hoses were inserted into the mouth and various body cavities, and the interrogators pumped water into the victim.

The stomach and other body cavities swelled to the point of bursting. This torture could go on for days.

In the developing field of science, there was great interest in the effects of torture on the human body and mind. Students of science often attended torture sessions for educational purposes.

3. Head or Limb Crusher

The head or limb crusher was another popular form of torture, and appeared in many forms, ranging from a helmet style with screws, to the spiked device shown above. The victim could hear his bones cracking as the vice tightened.

Interrogators might use this torture device in combination with other tools, such as breast-rippers and skin flayers, prods and pokers, thumbscrews, or the Pear.

4. The Saw Torture

Often, a prisoner’s torment involved watching others get tortured. The shrieks of agony, and the horrific visuals, added a depth of psychological terror to the punishment.

The Saw Torture was particularly gruesome. It was both a torture, and a method of execution after various other tortures had been inflicted on the prisoner.

5. The Torture Chair

The many sharp spikes were not enough to kill a person immediately. The straps could be tightened or loosened at the torturer’s discretion, and the prisoner was often hit with a mallet, or fitted with weights.

Rarely were the torture devices cleaned. Thus, the chair would be rusty, and splattered with the flesh and blood of other victims.

If a prisoner didn’t die in the chair, he or she would probably later die of blood poisoning or infection. The chair, also known as the Judas chair, was used until the late 1800s in Europe.

6. The Rack

A favorite torture device, this rack resides at the Tower of London. There are many variations on the rack. Designs range from a crude wheel, to an intricate system of ropes, chains and pulleys. Later developments included cleverly-placed spikes.

Over a period or hours or days, a prisoner’s limbs were slowly and painfully pulled from their sockets. The torturer usually used a stretch-and-release technique to prolong the agony.

7. The Torture Cage

Torture Cages were a popular form of punishment and execution. This one is on display at the History Museum in Key West, Florida. The cage allowed the victim almost no movement.

The cage sometimes hung in the main torture chamber, allowing the prisoner to witness the sights and sounds of others being tortured. It might also hang in the public square or church yard, subjecting the victim to the ridicule of passersby.

Outside, the prisoner had no defense against the weather, or hungry birds such as crows and ravens. He could only endure helpless agony as he was slowly eaten alive. If he lost consciousness, passersby would hurl rocks or poke him with sticks, to wake him up.

8. The Pyramid, or Judas Cradle

The Pyramid at left is in the Torture Museum, Amsterdam. Made of wood or iron, the device included a collar, often spiked, and restraints for hands and feet. The point of the pyramid protruded into the anus, vagina, or under the scrotum or tailbone of the prisoner.

An elaborate pulley system pulled the victim’s arms and legs upward and apart, and allowed the torturer to apply as much of the victim’s body weight as desired. The prisoner could be rocked, or raised, lowered and dropped onto the point. This device is still used in some countries, with modern additions such as electrified pyramid tip and restraints.

The Pyramid was rarely washed, and usually covered with streaks of blood, feces, urine and bits of flesh.

9. The Iron Maiden

No torture chamber was complete without the famous Iron Maiden. Although she’s associated with torture in the Middle Ages, the Iron Maiden was not invented until the late 18th century, in Germany.

The Iron Maiden could be a plain box lined with spikes, or a detailed hollow sculpture of a woman, with spikes placed in the most precise locations. The head of the maiden might have a separate hinged door, with a wicked iron spike to pierce the victim’s face. In some designs, the maiden wrapped her arms around the victim.

Torturers prolonged the agony by opening and closing the hinged doors, slowly allowing the spikes to pierce the flesh of the prisoner over and over again. Some designs featured a trapdoor, to drop the expired victim onto a rack of knives. Others had a tube, allowing to victim to watch his own blood drip. A prisoner would last about two days in the Iron Maiden.

10. The Brazen Bull

The Brazen Bull, also known as the Sicilian or Bronze Bull, was one of the most horrible torture devices in existence. It’s another example of the complex refinement of the torturer’s art.

The Bull originated in ancient Greece. The first Brazen Bull was designed by the brass-founder Perillos, for the entertainment of the Sicilian tyrant Phalaris. The hollow Bull had a door in its side, which locked once the victim was in place. A fire burned beneath the belly of the bull, and the device heated slowly, roasting the victim alive. A system of tubes and pipes converted the victim’s screams into the sounds of a bellowing bull.

The tyrant Phalaris decreed that the Bull’s designer would test the device himself. Perillos underwent hideous torture, but did not die in the Bull. Phalaris ordered him thrown to his death from a mountain, instead.

Early Christians were among the Bull’s victims, including Saint Eustace and Saint Antipas, whose death site is now a shrine.  Eventually, common use of the Brazen Bull spread throughout Europe. Sometimes, whole families were roasted together. The bones of victims were often made into jewelry.

As I read all this tripe, it dawned on me that these people, all of them, including Dick Cheney, are people I have met before. They are the grownup version of the high-school bully.

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I can remember how these types of people would terrorize people using their strength, their size. If anyone disagreed with their views, their stance, their clothes, they were made fun of and publicly humiliated. They were sometimes even tortured (though, of course, they would not consider themselves torturers, even then). How many of you reading this remember titty twisters, kids put into lockers, those “funny funny” wedgies, or a ton of other intimidation tactics? I remember the popular girl in high school who teased me unmercifully, making my life a living hell at times. Their abuse, and setting themselves up as superior to others, was how they caught and held their supposed power. The people abused by them often just cowered, or hoped that the bullies would be caught in the act. (At the time, none of us had ever heard of Columbine, except as being our state flower).

For my part, I remember finding two such boys picking on the smallest kid in the school. He was afraid of everything, typically nerdy. He had glasses, looked funny, wore very conservative clothes, and jumped if someone looked at him. His folks had told him not to take anything, like candy, from anyone because it might contain LSD (they were, obviously, not very helpful to the poor young man). The day the bullying happened, the two bullies had put the young boy’s books (which he carried with him, so no one could hurt them) in the trash and had just picked him up to do the same. I came around the corner and laced into them, both of them towered over me, but I didn’t back down. In the face of my anger, they gave him his books back and let him go. I was so angry at them that there was no fear in me. These bullies were laughable to me, and I had righteous hot anger. Wrong was wrong. I wonder why we, in general, don’t remember this.

I use this as an example of what happens when bullies get power over others. All these bullies know is fear because down deep they are truly afraid, usually of everything. Both the boys I stopped that day, as I found out later, had horrible home lives. Their anger and fear was the reason they wanted to make this young man’s life awful. This is what, I believe, we have had happen here in America with torture. It was fear that made our government’s representatives reach out and break the law, putting in place policy designed to hurt the people who represented to them all that happened on 911, and, in this way, resolve their own guilt of inaction. It didn’t matter whether or not the people were guilty. I don’t think it mattered to them whether or not they got correct information. To them, these were not people anymore, they were objects to take out their anger on. It is this same fear that makes the people defending the torturers not stand up and call them into account. They truly buy into the fear that if we take away these advanced interrogation methods, we will be in danger. They also want the ability to watch all their fellow Americans, just in case we might do something they fear. It’s why all we hear from the Right Wing is fear mongering. If they can keep people afraid of whatever (Russians, Terrorists, or whatever other booga-boo), they can do whatever they want to.

However, I believe we must stand up to the bullies, if we want to remain the free country we have been until now. If we don’t stand up to the Cheneys, Rumsfelds, and Bushes of this world, we become part of the problem. The boys in the hall each had me by over one foot in height and one of them, a football player, by at least 75 pounds, but I stood them down. Why did it work? Because in their heart they knew what they were doing was wrong. When I hear Vice President Cheney talking about how with this torture policy they kept us safe, I see his fear, and so far, he is keeping all the other children in the political playground buffaloed, because there are people who are still afraid of everything. 

Now, I come to the historical part of this. The first example I chose was the Spanish Inquisition.

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Oh, the image here says, “Exurge Domine et Judicia Causam Tuam (Psalm 73), or Rise up, Lord and Judge Your Cause. (”They that are far from thee shall perish…”–Motto of the Inquisition, Psalm 73)

How many of you remember that from history? The bully (or bullies) in the playground at that time was the church. They sought out heresy and witchcraft with great zeal. Their confessors tortured people, and their proof the accused were guilty was the fact they were accused. They were tortured until they confessed or they died. The whole thing was about moving the church into new territories (make your own comparisons here–you know–oil fields, spreading democracy the hard way, and so on, and so on) and about the removal of women from power. It was not about truth or proof. The accused were killed. Right or wrong, they were killed. There was a huge change of power and property during that time, all in the name of God.

What did we learn from this time in history? We learned that an individual will confess to anything if you hurt them enough. They will say things that aren’t true, just to keep from being injured, just as they were trying to get today’s accused terrorists to say what the people in power wanted them to say. Everything I have heard indicates the “enhanced interrogation techniques” resulted in wrong information, and I still can’t believe there isn’t an absolute outcry for the past administration’s heads on a proverbial platter. After all, remember this, all of you, it was false information that got us into Iraq, false WMD. They were false leads who put our children in harm’s way, who got our sons and daughters killed, not to mention the Iraqi dead or dead from our allied countries. (I say our children because my children also served in the military during this time, and my nieces and nephews, as well. So far we have been lucky in our family). 

By the way, the wisdom about what was known about witches in those days dictated that they be thrown in water to see if they were witches. If they drowned, they were not. If they floated, then they were and were put to death. There were also marks to look for, a second nipple, for instance, for “the devil to suckle on.” I have a relative who has one of these, by the way. It does happen. They can look like a mole and often occur under the arm. Under these guidelines, they would have put my relative to death (she happens to be a devout Christian). In some cases, people were stretched on the rack until they confessed. On confession, they were put to death (the pain stopped too). If they didn’t confess, they died under torture or languished in prison until they died. This is why many confessed, even though burning was often how they were executed (burning purged the soul).

In this country, we also had our witch madness. The most famous was in the town of Salem, Massachusetts. I recently visited the “Witch Museum” there. I knew the story because in our tiny town in Colorado when I was growing up, my sister was in the play, “The Crucible.”

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For those of you unaware of this story, some young women (teenagers) in the town proclaimed they were cursed by witches in the town, having fits to prove it whenever the ones accused of witchcraft were near. Anyone thus accused was put to the “question.” Many languished in prison (we saw the prison, horrible ugly thing).

Upon confession, they went to the hanging tree.

The one man put to death had made the mistake of thinking it was all hysteria and said so. He thought it would “pass.” He was pressed to death because he would not answer the “question” either yay or nay (he was not accused of witchcraft, just of “consorting” with them). He simply said, “More Rocks” and met his death bravely. I met a descendant of his here in our town. She explained that he did what he did to protect them. No matter how he answered, if he answered their “question” either way, his heirs would lose their inheritance. Amazing isn’t it? Once again, there were no real choices here, and people often confessed to whatever they were accused of simply to stop the pain.

When we move forward to more present-day torture examples, we have to go no further than the Vietnam War. During that one, our soldiers were tortured by the Vietcong to get them to say the Vietcong were good guys and we Americans were the bad guys.

Under torture, some of them broke and said that–though they recanted later. If you look just a bit further back, you find out why we agreed to the Geneva Convention agreement on torture–including water-boarding. Our own fathers and grandfathers were tortured by the Japanese, using (you guessed it) water-boarding and other tactics. We called the Japanese and Nazis war criminals and put them on trial for crimes against humanity.

My whole point here is that whether it is the bully on the playground, the bully in Vietnam, the bully in Salem, during the Spanish Inquisition, or the ones in Washington, they are bullies–just bullies. There is a very old saying, “You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.” This is something I agree with totally. The people I have met from the Middle East, way back when I was in college, were kind and friendly. They cooked for me, we ate together, and I learned some of their music. We were all just young college students trying to get a degree. I treated them like humans; they did the same. I came away with a good feeling about them and their country. I hope they felt the same. I feel the same way about other people I have met from many other countries–Africa, Japan, Germany, France, and Russia–just to name a few.

In this world, we have bad guys and bad guys, and not all of them are on the other side. However, what turns someone into a torturer is not seeing the tortured as a person who cries, hurts, sings, and loves. In the case of the schoolyard bully, the kid being tortured (according to the bully) deserves it because he is different, and inside, the bully fears him in some way. In the case of the government as a bully, their victims are usually from a group of people perceived as possible enemies. Please don’t take my word for it, research the concentration camps American Japanese were put into after World War II, simply because they were Japanese. The reasoning was that it was Japanese people who had attacked Hawaii. Therefore, we might be harboring evildoers among us. Remember, these were American Japanese. No matter how we okay it, it still boils down to the bully on the playground. One of the biggest “bullies on the playground,” at least politically, was Joseph McCarthy, who had a righteous goal of seeking out communists in our midst. Many of the same scare tactics he employed then have been used quite freely over the last eight ears. To be accused, to be on a list of possible “Reds” was as good as a conviction. Many innocent people lost their jobs, their freedom, and sometimes their lives. Being a student of history, when I heard people bandying about the word “socialist” so freely and people calling other people un-American if they didn’t agree with Bush-Cheney, I saw the bullies had returned to our country and, for a time, were in charge.

Now they aren’t. It is simple. We voted them out of office, and now they need to pay for playing fast and loose with the law, and our freedom. After all, we are bringing the bullies on the playground to justice. We now have zero-tolerance policies in place in schools all over our country. Do you remember why that came about? I mentioned Columbine above. It was that act, that horrible act, which came about because bullied kids rose up against those they perceived had wronged them (it certainly didn’t make them think those bullies were the good guys), and a bureaucracy that allowed it. Sad to say, our school bureaucracies did allow it. I say this as a teacher, and a student, who became aware of many teachers who thought it was a normal “trial of childhood” and ignored incidents they could have stopped.

The bullies in the government need to be brought to at least as much justice as children, for our government representatives, and therefore we, have broken the law. We were within our rights after 911 when we went into Afghanistan. However, when our government at the time lied to us over and over, broke the law, and said, as Nixon did, that when the president does something it is not wrong, we were wrong. People in this country go to jail for breaking the law. People get fined for speeding, and kids, for torturing and bullying other kids, get expelled and even get jail time. I want to make it clear that I feel the people who have done this, who have taken the country’s good name and smeared it all over the place, need to be punished. They need to face justice. We run our country by the law and our president and his staff should not be protected from that law. Might does not make right, and nobody should be exempt from justice. These acts, these horrible grotesque acts, were wrong. These people, our representatives, who led our children into harm’s way and left them open to retaliation, which is (as I said above) what people want for injustice (perceived or real) were quite simply wrong, and no suspiciously-authored, drive-by e-mail can make it okay.

Perhaps the earliest example of how the church has used fear to control the masses comes from back when the catholic faith first rose to power around 452 AD. When Attila the Hun was terrorizing the Roman Empire pope Leo I traveled to negotiate with him, hoping to quell Attila’s desire to invade further into Roman territory. Shortly after the Pope’s visit, the mighty Attila died mysteriously, soothing the fears of Roman citizens while bestowing more power to the Catholic faith which was seen as responsible for the death of the Hun. It was the Pope who had last spoken to Attila, was it not God who had struck Attila down? Historians now believe it was a nosebleed or poison that caused Attila’s demise, but at the time it was viewed as the mighty hand of God. It would be difficult not to respect and fear a god who had brought such a powerful foe to ruin. It’s hard to resist the prospect of being protected by an all powerful being that is able to punish the enemies who pose a threat to one’s way of life.

Catholicism has not only exploited peoples’ fears in an indirect way by claiming responsibility for the removal of what has caused them, but in a very tangible way as well, by directly causing the fears itself. At many points in history it was extremely dangerous in some areas of the world to be anything but Catholic, the Spanish Inquisition and various accounts of witch burning during the middle ages are prime examples. There are many documented records of how the Catholic Church has persecuted those of different faiths (particularly Judaism and pagan religions) and forced them to convert to Catholicism. From methods as benign as assimilation to those as extreme as burning at the stake and torture, many people had little option but to convert. During the time period of the Inquisition it was a dire mistake to show faith in anything but the powerful Catholic Church and her representatives here on earth. So-called heathens such as sodomites and gypsies were brought to the fires, gallows, and dungeons to rid the world of their wickedness and corruption. Jews were weeded out through rigorous spying and testing of faith. In his article Inquisition Confessions and Lazarillo De Tormes, David Gitlitz gives a chilling account of a Jewish woman, Maria, trying desperately to convince the Catholic tribunal that she was a devout Catholic and her husband was responsible for forcing her to participate in Jewish beliefs. Her claims were refuted by her own family and Maria was burned at the stake in 1484.

Yet another way the fears of the general population have been monopolized upon is through manipulating the public during times of mass hysteria and confusion. When the bubonic plague hit Europe church officials claimed its cause to be the wrath of God against nonbelievers. The people were told if they converted god would save them, if not their body then at least their soul. The Salem witch trials also fall under this category. An unexplained illness (which is now believed to be the cause of LSA, a hallucinogenic byproduct of a bad rye harvest) overtook some of the young girls in the village causing them fits of convulsions and hallucinations. It was thought to be the cause of witchcraft. This original accusation against five local women sparked a movement in Massachusetts that led to the imprisonment and or hanging of hundreds of innocent men and women, although the majority were female. The trials at Salem took place in 1692, but witch hunts were most severe from 1580 to 1630 (“Witchcraft”), spreading throughout Europe like a plague of its own, fueled by the writings of Pope Innocent VIII in 1484 condemning the practice of witchcraft as Satanism.

Lastly, but perhaps the most effective way the Catholic Church has used fear as a tool is the prospect of eternal damnation into the darkest pits of Hell. The thought of being tortured for all eternity in a vast pit of fire and despair is enough to make many question the church before making any hasty decisions on what they deem right or wrong. “Thou shall make them as an oven of fire, in the time of thy anger: the Lord shall trouble them in his wrath, and fire shall devour them.” Ps. 20:10. Satan is an intimidating figure as portrayed by Catholicism, hoofed feet, terrifying horns, and a frightening visage of cruelty portrayed in monstrous fashion. If one was to let their guard down for even a moment, Satan might sneak into their homes or even their conscience, influencing them to engage in acts that would put their mortal soul at risk. If someone wanted to be saved from the lamentable fate of spending eternity with this monster, they would have to accept the teachings of Catholicism and repent of their sins. Are you afraid?

Catholicism has been using the fears of the general population to gain followers and keep those it has. The benefits of this method are relatively obvious, by having a large following it gains money and influence which also leads to gained power. There are certain admirable aspects to Catholicism, as there are to most religions, but one must wonder how Catholicism is often promoted. I have stated merely four examples of how Catholicism has promoted itself by use of fear, but there are more to be found. Do you dare to uncover them, to face the fears rooted in legend and myth for centuries?

Before any trials or punishments were handed out by the Inquisition, the heretics first had to be found. When in a town an inquisitor would preach on how to spot a heretic, and would then leave it up to the population to either turn themselves in or to name someone they suspected of heresy. People who turned other people in were called denouncers and it required two witnesses to denounce somebody. Those that turned themselves in within a period of time set by the inquisitor (usually several weeks) usually were given little to no punishment and were forgiven. After the set period of time, those who had not come forward were sought out and were held on trial.

Those that were suspected of heresy were asked to come before the Inquisition for questioning. Attendance was not required but those who did not attend were generally treated as guilty. Lawyers were usually not allowed. Where it was allowed there rarely was one because the lawyers representing a person found guilty, they would be punished along with the heretic. The actual trial was quite simple. The accused were asked for names of people who would want them to be taken away. If the denouncers were named then the accused were usually let go. It was seen that the accused was actually innocent and the denouncer just wanted to get rid of them. If the denouncer was not named then it was taken that the accused actually was a heretic. Contrary to the popular belief that heretics were immediately killed and tortured, the accused was offered the chance to confess. Those who did so were let off with less severe punishments. Those who did not were not necessarily killed, but received less harsh punishments.

The punishments for those who confessed to heresy were called penances and would be something like going to a shrine, wearing a yellow cross on clothes or a short term in prison or if in Spain, lashings. The punishments for those who refused to confess were the more serious ones. They could be sent to prison for up to seven years, fined or lashing. At the very least in a case like this the Inquisition would confiscate all of the heretics property. At this point they still did not kill heretics. Their mission to save people from heresy also extended to the heretics themselves, so they still urged the heretics to confess and seek forgiveness.

The use of torture was only used in the case of a repeat heretic, one who has already been tried, found guilty, served their punishment and then proceeded to commit heresy again. Torture was approved as a method by Pope Innocent IV’s bull Ad extirpandum in 1252, but inquisitors were not allowed to torture heretics themselves. A heretic had to be turned over to secular authorities to be tortured or killed. Torture was used to get heretics to confess to their heresy. The most popular tortures were flogging, the rack, putting feet into hot coals and tying the hands behind the back and lifting them up with rope attached to the wrists and a pulley called the garrucha, used mainly in Spain and Italy. Confessions given under torture had to be re confessed outside of torture to make sure the confession was not given just to make the torturers stop the torture. If the heretic refused to give confession, then he would be tortured again.

Burnings were also only used in the case of a repeat heretic. The heretic would be told the day before the execution took place. Often multiple people were burned on the same day. These were always held in public and many people often showed up to watch. It started with reading the charges brought against each heretic. This was the longest part of the ordeal. The heretics were given a last chance to confess. If they did they were garroted to death before having their bodies be burned. Garroting is fastening somebody to a chair or vertical board with a ring of malleable metal or rope around their necks. At the back of the chair or board is a crank that when turned tightens the metal or rope until the victim is strangled to death. This causes less pain than being burned alive. The ones who refused to confess were burned alive at the stake. As further punishment, already burnt corpses would be placed next to others who had not been burned yet.

While the tortures and burnings may seem cruel, it is important to remember that heretics were given many chances to confess and be forgiven before they were killed. Those who did not seemed intent on killing themselves. Also only one third of all cases ended with some sort of punishment being given, even less being tortured or burnt which comes to a very small amount. With all the chances given by the Inquisition to heretics to repent it is clear that they were merciful and only punished the few to help save the many people who could have been swayed away from faith by a heretic. The cruelty portrayed to be common in the Inquisition is completely false, it should instead be thought of as a group dedicated to saving the public, not burning it.

The garrucha being used by the Inquisition

Torture on the rack

A mass burning with spectators