The Middle Ages cherished Augustine's words: "If I had only seen myself, I would have seen You." But now there is a conviction that man, with his narrow egoism, self-will, and the violence of base passions (which manifested themselves with particular force in the disasters of the wars of the seventeenth century: in the Thirty Years' War, Germany lost two-thirds of its population) is far from the best aid for the study of God's law. In man, the action of these laws is clouded, distorted by the chaos of his affects. The physical world, on the other hand, reveals to the inquisitive mind the natural laws in their pure form. However, in order to comprehend them, man himself must first be cleansed of the filth of his self-will.

In fact, already in the fourth century, St. John Chrysostom cites as an example for man the movement of the stars, which do not deviate from their path, unlike man: "The heavens, and the sun, and the moon, and the choir of stars, and all other creatures are in great order, but our affairs are in disorder" (Discourse 1 on the Devil, 7).

But in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, a new form of spiritual vigilance and a willingness to distrust obvious statements emerged. The discovery of perspective in painting and the discovery of prejudice in philosophy are equally fundamental events of the Modern Age: the world as it appears and the world as it is are not one and the same. And all this requires the discipline of thought, the verification of what seems obvious. And here Copernicus explained that the truth can be found only in spite of the data of human senses (for the senses tell us that the Earth is motionless, and it is the Sun that walks in the sky).

Thus, "it is not the laughter and riot of the flesh of a medieval carnival, not the Renaissance brilliance of beauty and the desire for glory, but a deep inner concentration, in the silence of which one can hear the voice of personal fate and the meaning of life, that becomes the main orientation of life. The emergence of mechanistic philosophy, the formation of the experimental method in science and the flowering of the genre of still life in the XVII century have the same social roots. In still life, on the one hand, there is a rejection of worldly joys, and on the other hand, a keen interest in all the details of the world. For just "admiring" it was not necessary to kill nature. A similar mood for thinking about death was created in the seventeenth century by mechanical devices. If living nature was associated with the affects inherent in damaged human nature, then mechanical devices were associated with the complete control of the mind over oneself and the world. The image of the world as a clockwork mechanism and the image of God as a watchmaker were perceived as soul-saving. Paradoxically, the image of an artificial thing, "dead nature", a mechanism was opposed by Protestantism of the 17th century to the phenomena of living nature as an expression of higher spirituality in contrast to the old "soulfulness" [6].

It is precisely because of its opposition to the world of human affects and passions that the world of natural rationality and immutability looks like something morally attractive.

The world into which Europe is emerging from the Middle Ages (more precisely, from the period of the Renaissance crisis of the Middle Ages) is the world of the Reformation. The world of religious tension.

The Reformation, in its search for allies against Rome, appealed to the people. A new wave of intra-European missionary work began. And then it turned out that the average person is not actually familiar with Christianity. It turned out that paganism lives not only in the cardinal's chambers, but also in the peasant's hut. It turned out that the peasants saw the Catholic priest as a magician rather than a preacher and teacher. And since Protestantism had rejected the authority of the priest, it was easiest to find a substitute for him in the village witch, and not in the city professor of theology. The intellectual elite of Europe is discovering the world of nocturnal superstitions of the people – the world of witches. And the witch hunt begins. And the Inquisition began to flourish. And science is born.

Well, when talking about the birth of science, there is no way to get away from this vile word – "inquisition". And since we are talking about the Inquisition (and secular people always talk about it, it is only necessary to mention the Church), then let us dwell on this sad page of church history longer.

I must say right away that it is reading modern occult literature that makes you treat the Inquisition and the witch hunt in a different way. As long as people do not believe in witches, witchcraft and corruption, witch hunting seems to be an incredible savagery, purely shameful for Christians. But if this is serious? If such a black effect is really possible on a person for whom neither distance nor walls are an obstacle? And if there really are people who are ready to make the most terrible sacrifices for the sake of receiving "black grace"?

Людей Средневековья постоянно обвиняют в суевериях. Но ведь эти «суеверия» они вычитали не в Библии и не в патристических творениях. Молва распространяла секреты, выползшие за пределы колдовских кухонь. Ведьмы сами уверяли, что их ничто не берет, что они в огне не горят и в воде не тонут и что за некоторую плату они могут на любого порчу навести. Ведьмы убедили народ, а затем и иерархов в своей реальности и в своем могуществе – и последовал ответ, последовала реакция общественной самозащиты.

Прежде чем обвинять тех впечатлительных христиан (или меня) в нетерпимости и человеконенавистничестве, попробуйте сами спрогнозировать свою реакцию. Представьте, что вы поверили сообщению Блаватской о том, что «в древние времена фессалийские колдуньи к крови черного агнца примешивали кровь новорожденного младенца и с помощью этого вызывали тени умерших» [7]? А если при вас ваша соседка заявила о своей решимости возобновить древние колдовские обряды [8] и сказала, что духи, у которых она находится на выучке, считают ее колдуньей [9]?

Итак, сами ведьмы хвастаются своим искусством, причем нередко даже не маскируют свой антихристианский запал. И если обычные люди им поверят – как тогда им реагировать?

Не только русский бунт «бессмысленен и беспощаден», но любой. Люди искренне боялись нечисти и верили в реальность вреда от общения с ней. «Суд Линча» в таких случаях вспыхивал сам собою. Инквизиторы же вырывали обвиняемого из рук толпы и предлагали хоть какую-то формальную процедуру расследования, в которой можно было и оправдаться. И оправдывались (как оправдалась, например, от обвинения в колдовстве мать астронома Кеплера).

Интересно читать на одной и той же странице современной газеты: «В эпоху Средневековья, когда в Европе полыхали костры инквизиции…» [10] и – сообщение о том, что «молодое поколение одной из кенийских деревушек решило последовать примеру средневековой Европы и устроило облаву на ведьм» [11]. При чем здесь «пример Европы»? Помимо того, что как раз в средневековой Европе охоты на ведьм не было, стоит знать, что вера в порчу универсальна, а сторонников черной магии преследовали всюду.