A Lesson in the Effects of Graphic Media
"The terror in the occupied areas had as first aim: the extermination of the Jewish population and the intimidation of all residents who did not subject themselves completely to the regime. The Gestapo brought women and children to be shot."
-- Caption in Illustrierte Geschichte des Zweiten Weltkriegs (Illustrated History of WWII) by K. Zentner, page 490.
Here, Rabbi Shmuel Lipshitz Schmeckelbaumer of Temple Beth-xxxxxx, Teaneck, New Jersey, provides insight and inspiration to his congregation by the application of a few "harmless ancestral rites" (per Dr. Cecil Roth), spreading love for humanity all over the world.
The images below are frame captures from the Swedish film Häxan, produced by Benjamin Christensen in 1922. Actually, in reference to the "Lipshitz" graphic above, the movie wasn't anti-Jewish at all, but coyly anti-Western and mocking in classic leftist style; I turned things around a bit for "entertainment". Just the application of a bogus caption to a certain picture, alone, can serve a strong propagandistic purpose.
The topmost pic above is your standard "Holocaust" graphic. Should you just believe at face value the caption provided? How do you know how true it is? The pic itself has a "pasted-in" look, and the caption could be purely spurious.
It's easy to make things look very convincing in a movie. Such may be obvious in a film which has such fantastic subject matter as does Häxan, but in films with more topical content, it is easy to swallow the notion that you're looking at "history come alive". Take Schindler's List, for example. It has very convincing content, having been produced in Hollywood by rich Jews, and filmed in black-and-white with shaky hand-held cameras, etc. But don't think it's gospel, because it isn't. If I were so bold so as to presume Christensen's motives, I might think he produced Häxan as subtle propaganda to discredit real accounts of ritual murder.
Just because these images may appear ridiculous, that is not to say that "Satanic" happenings have not occurred, that no one has ever believed in witchcraft, that cannibalism doesn't exist, or that ritual murders have never happened -- but the reason we know this is from solid historical documentation, logic and knowledge of human behavior, not from movies. In any case, see Arnold S. Leese, et al. for a sampling of the real evidence.
The witches' paraphernalia. Note dead baby at left.
Here the Devil's helper administers "baptism".
Ritual sacrifice.
Odd dietary laws!
Kissing the Devil's ass, literally!
He's gonna getchya!
Witch giving birth to a demon. And another one came out after this one!
A naughty witch approaches her master...