Precisely. The Templar wealth wasn't just from their initial plunder, though, the majority of it was accrued through a formidable business organization which was revolutionary at the time. They made more money from their money, hand over fist. So many people and organizations owed them principle or interest from loans…

Yes like the Templars and the cult of Baphomet (Mohammad). The Templars were a rich, rich order having plundered successfully through the crusades. The pope didn't like that the money wasn't his, so the whole cult of Baphomet and kissing the devil's ass stuff was made up to break up the order and allow for the…

Whenever Dawkins fanboy New Atheists go into tirades about how religion is the only force that makes good people do bad and rabble rabble rabble I like to bring up either this or the Soviet Union.

Your "time and place" point is made more relevant by the fact it was the convent of St Ambrose. Ambrose's writings and teachings weighed heavily in emphasizing celibacy and purity for parishioners. Her actions were not just against the Church's views of pious but the morals on which the convent's patron had stood.

Sister Racked

IT'S PAINTER BOTTICELLI TIME! PAINTER BOTTICELLI TIME!

In Russia there were the Khlysts (Хлысты), an Orthodox Christian sect that believed it was necessary to sin before one could be forgiven and redeemed in the eyes of God. They engaged in orgies and drug-fueled rituals, among other things. Grigori Rasputin was rumored to belong to the sect, but he never did despite…

Well, are we really free of this? Seems to me that humans find new ways to be stupid, both individually or collectively, all the time. Religion isn't alone in driving this.

Some of the embers of the Satanic Panic were still alive in the 1990's when I went to school, and we had to watch a bullshit "documentary" about a totally true story of real life Satanic cults recruiting youths and practicing blood sacrifice. Afterwards I've talked with actual Satanists who went through that period,…

You have the love how those founders didn't quite grasp the irony of forming a religion of anti-religious beliefs.

"This is a shame, because contact with the outside world might have helped new novices realize that initiation into a convent shouldn't involve large amounts of oral sex with the mistress of novices."

Yes, it was the last time for literal witch hunts. Sadly, not the last for metaphorical ones as the 1950's anti-Communism insanity, among too many others, proves.

I was really hoping you'd mention more than just the Salem witch trials. Those were really on the end of a little over a century of such trials throughout the Great Witch Craze. Usually I'm all for promoting the USA as the lead but, really, Europe should be taking the cake on this. Salem was only a very small…

A group of friends and I went to a seminar during the Satanic Panic given by a local cop who claimed it was all true and kids were in danger RIGHT HERE! When one of my friends contradicted his claims, he put his hand on his service revolver. A couple of us got interviewed on TV, and shortly thereafter, his seminars…

Harold Camping and his 2011 May 21 End of the World fiasco? Sure, the majority of us laughed it off, but it still managed to take pretty bad advantage of some crazy people (and their unfortunate children) who gave up their livelihoods for the campaign.

Those sort of condemnations of "deviant" (in the context of the time and place) sexual practices went hand-in-hand with nearly any testimony to the Holy Inquisition. You couldn't say someone was too pious or gaining too much power and following, you had to smear them for something everyone could agree was both…

And it turns out his takeover of Florence was thanks to an alien mind control.

I think what annoys me so much about that mass hysteria was how it hurt a lot of people in the Wicca and Pangan communities. A lot of my family and friends are Wicca, some for over four generations and I've heard and seen of times where they've been harassed and abused by the overly moral Christians (which are a small…

"Except it wasn't. If anything, it encouraged the Cult of Saint Agnese."

Umm, NSFW?