"A witch hunt is a search for people who have been labeled witches or a search for evidence of witchcraft."
"In current language, 'witch hunt' metaphorically means an investigation that is usually conducted with much publicity, supposedly to uncover subversive activity, disloyalty, and so on, but with the real purpose of intimidating political opponents."
"Witch hunts can also involve elements of moral panic and mass hysteria."
"Belief in witchcraft has been shown to have similarities in societies throughout the world. It presents a framework to explain the occurrence of otherwise random misfortunes such as sickness or death, and the witch sorcerer provides an image of evil."
"Reports on indigenous practices in the Americas, Asia and Africa collected during the early modern age of exploration have been taken to suggest that not just the belief in witchcraft but also the periodic outbreak of witch hunts are a human cultural universal."
"Witch hunts were often conducted by vigilantes. A popular method called 'scoring above the breath' meant slashing across a woman's forehead in order to remove the power of her magic... A kind of emergency procedure which could be performed in absence of judicial authorities."
"Witch-hunts still occur today in societies where belief in magic is prevalent. In most cases, these are instances of lynching and burnings."
"A moral panic is a widespread feeling of fear, often an irrational one, that some evil person or thing threatens the values, interests, or well-being of a community or society."
"It is 'the process of arousing social concern over an issue,' usually perpetuated by moral entrepreneurs and the mass media, and exacerbated by politicians and lawmakers."
"Moral panic happens when 'a condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values & interests.' While the issues identified may be real, the claims 'exaggerate the seriousness, extent, typicality and/or inevitability of harm.'"
"An auto-da-fé was the ritual of public penance carried out of condemned heretics and apostates imposed by the Spanish, Portuguese, or Mexican Inquisition as punishment and enforced by civil authorities. Its most extreme form was death by burning."
"Ferdinand II and Isabella I received permission from Pope Sixtus IV to name inquisitors throughout their domains. Autos-da-fé became quite popular throughout the Spanish realm, competing with bullfights for the public's attention and attended by royalty."
"Once granted permission from the Pope to conduct inquisitions, the monarchs began establishing permanent trials and developing bureaucracies to carry out investigations in most of the cities and communities in their empire."
"Salem witch trials: a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts. More 200 people accused. 30 found guilty, 19 executed by hanging (14 women and 5 men). One other man, Giles Corey, was pressed to death for refusing to plead."
"The episode is one of Colonial America's most notorious cases of mass hysteria. It has been used in political rhetoric and popular literature as a vivid cautionary tale about the dangers of isolationism, religious extremism, false accusations, and lapses in due process."
"It was not unique, but a Colonial American example of the much broader phenomenon of witch trials in the early modern period, which took place also in Europe."
"Human sacrifice is the act of killing one or more humans as part of a ritual, which is usually intended to please or appease gods, a human ruler, an authoritative/priestly figure or spirits of dead ancestors."
"Human sacrifice has been practiced in many different cultures. The various rationales behind human sacrifice are the same that motivate religious sacrifice in general. Human sacrifice is typically intended to bring good fortune and to pacify the gods."
"Human sacrifice may be practiced in a stable society, may even be conducive to enhance societal unity, creating a bond unifying the community -- and combining human sacrifice and capital punishment, removing individuals that have a negative effect on societal stability."
"Ostracism (Greek: ὀστρακισμός, ostrakismos) was an Athenian democratic procedure in which any citizen could be expelled from the city-state of Athens for ten years. While some instances clearly expressed popular anger at the citizen, ostracism was often used preemptively."
"Each year the Athenians were asked in the assembly whether they wished to hold an ostracism. If they voted 'yes', then an ostracism would be held. Citizens gave the name of those they wished to be ostracised to a scribe. The person with the most votes would be banished."
"The person nominated had ten days to leave the city. If he attempted to return, the penalty was death."
"'Year Zero' is an idea put into practice by Pol Pot in Cambodia, that all culture and traditions within a society must be completely destroyed or discarded, and a new revolutionary culture must replace it, starting from scratch."
"In this sense, all of the history of a nation or a people before Year Zero would be largely deemed irrelevant, because it would ideally be purged and replaced from the ground up."
"Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, most of whom were French-educated Communists, took inspiration from the concept of 'Year One' in the French Revolutionary Calendar, during the French Revolution after the abolition of the French monarchy on 20 September 1792."