Do you know that the Hammer of Witches has been peer reviewed?

In or around 1487, the theological faculty of the University of Cologne peer reviewed the Hammer of Witches (the quoted edition is Mackay, The Hammer of Witches: A Complete Translation of the Malleus Maleficarum. Cambridge University Press(1)):

“The proceedings are then carried out under the careful guidance of Lambertus de Monte, the head of the theological faculty of the University of Cologne, who first states his own approval of the questions to be approved, and is then followed with greater or lesser enthusiasm by other members of the faculty who were present. The proceedings were based on the faculty members’ prior reading of the work.” (p. 9)

The Hammer of Witches “educated” its readers on the presumed witchcraft and encouraged them to take action against alleged witches. Among other things, it accused the supposed witches of causing what is currently called extreme weather events:

“THE METHOD BY WHICH THEY [WITCHES] STIR UP HAILSTORMS AND RAIN STORMS AND ALSO MAKE LIGHTNING STRIKE HUMANS AND DOMESTIC ANIMALS (Chapter Fifteen)

NEXT, THAT DEMONS AND their disciples can cause such acts of sorcery in stirring up lightning, hailstorms and rain storms …” (p. 380)

The analogy between the Hammer of Witches and the IPCC texts runs much deeper than it seems. In both cases, the spiteful texts benefited from recent advances in information technology. The Hammer of Witches was published soon after the invention of the printing press. Use of the printing press made the Hammer widely accessible. Similarly, IPCC texts and their interpretations were widely distributed over the Internet, totally outmatching real scientific works on the subject (such as the Nierenberg Report) that were available only in the printed form until recently.

More “weather cooking”(2) quotes from the Hammer of Witches:

“There is a story in the Ant Hill about someone who was under arrest. When asked by the judge how they stir up hailstorms and rain storms and whether it was easy for them to cause them, he answered, ’It is easy for us to cause hailstorms … Then, when a certain demon comes, we sacrifice a black rooster to him at a crossroads by casting it up into the air. Having accepted it, the demon obeys and immediately stirs up a breeze. Yet, he does not always cast the hailstorms and lightning bolts into the places intended by us …’” (p. 382)

“It is good idea to turn to events discovered by us. In the diocese of Constance, twenty-eight German miles from Ravensburg in the direction of Salzburg, a very savage hailstorm was stirred up, and for a distance of one mile it crushed the produce, crops and vineyards to such an extent that two years later the harvest in the vineyards was hardly judged to be plentiful. Then the matter was reported by the notary of the Inquisition, a the popular outcry necessitating an inquisition, since certain people, or rather virtually all the inhabitants of the town, deemed that these events had taken place through acts of sorcery. Hence, with the agreement of the chief magistrates, an inquisition in accordance with legal requirements (concerning the Heresy of Sorceresses) was conducted by us for half a month. The trail led to two persons in particular (though the number of other suspects was not small). One was called Agnes the bathkeeper, the other Anna of Mindelheim. They were arrested … the bathkeeper was exposed to questioning under the lightest torture … Without a doubt, she had on her person the sorcery of silence (which judges must always beware of), since she asserted her innocence during the first onslaught …” (p. 383)

Among other things, the Hammer of Witches listed traits allegedly shared by witches. The modern analogy of a witch is a “climate denier.” IPCC texts do not identify those who disagree with them, but the government of California, headed by Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown, does so right on its website: “Many of the deniers share some traits …”

IPCC uses the phrase “warm spell.” It claims that warm spells are already “likely in large parts of Europe, Asia and Australia” (2013, IPCC AR5 WG1, SpaM, Table SPM.1, p.7) and that they kill people. And the finger is pointed at us.

updated from February 9, 2017

(1) Incidentally, the Cambridge University Press also publishes the IPCC reports.

(2) For comparison, see the video of Dr. Sally Baliunas talking about weather cooking allegations, issued by the modern climate alarmists.