E89 Katherina Kepler and the European Witch Hunts

Gladio Free Europe

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In 1615, just days before the New Year, famed astronomer Johannes Kepler received the news that would change his life. His mother Katharina had been accused as a witch. Over the next 6 years, the Keplers would battle these charges with every means at their disposal, just as the world around them began to collapse into the carnage of the Thirty Years' War.

Gladio Free Europe continues our foray into the dusky world of European witchcraft with our account of the witch of Katharina Kepler. Liam and Russian Sam explore how at the cusp of modernity, one of the figures most responsible for heralding changes in science and reason found himself battling against the forces of superstition. While a belief in witchcraft is now rightfully considered archaic and irrational, many people in this time attempted to reconcile theories of black magic with modern techniques of logic and rhetoric. This makes Katharina's charges, and her son's attempts to fight them, an amazing chapter of the history of both science and magic in Early Modern Europe.

This episode touches on so many topics and themes explored on this podcast in previous years. The story of Katharina Kepler is a incredible skeleton key for understanding the changes that erupted out of Germany over 400 years ago and, in that bloody process, gave us the modern world.

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