• Episode 5: Death was Before Their Eyes

  • Apr 28 2020
  • Length: 18 mins
  • Podcast

Episode 5: Death was Before Their Eyes

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  • Summary

  • Resuming his comments from the last episode, the author here mounts a spirited criticism of fortune-tellers, cunning men, astrologers, conjurers, witches, and deceivers, but he doesn’t spare their audiences and followers, either, whose ignorance leads them into “a thousand weak, foolish, and wicked things.”  He’s particularly keen in observing how, despite the restoration of the Church of England, a multitude of sects continued to attract devotees and how, in their terror, the people flocked to religious leaders of all types, ignoring sectarian divisions in their overwhelming need for consolation. But when the plague abated and the terror had passed, the usual sectarian barriers were re-erected.   A significant portion of this episode is devoted to quacks, faith-healers, and purveyors of useless and sometimes poisonous remedies against the plague, a practice that continues even today. In these matters, Defoe displays a dry sense of humor.  In one of his accounts, a woman
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