Be Kind to Black Cats & Crazy Cat Ladies!

Today is Halloween and my daughter is dressing up like a crazy cat lady.
​In the 13th century she would have been killed.  

Sounds ridiculous doesn't it?  

It's amazing what fear can do especially when its conduit is religion.  Fear and superstition can be passed down for centuries!

How many times have you or another remarked on the black cat that just crossed your path?!  

In graduate school, a man studying to be a therapist told me, in all seriousness, that demons took possession of cats so to be wary of them.  Years later a woman told me that black cats were associated with witchcraft and satanism so she would never own one.  A couple of years ago I told a friend how interesting it was that shortly after being trained in Reiki I noticed how our neighbor's 12-year-old cat began spending oodles of time at our house wanting to be petted. She said, "Well, you know what they say about cats and evil."  Clearly she did not trust cats or Reiki!    

All of these people are sincere, intelligent people, but their belief (or what they may even call truth) arose out of fear and superstition from around the year 1232.  

At that time, Pope Gregory IX wanted unity in the Church so he looked to weed out heretics and heretical beliefs (people and beliefs not conforming to the Catholic faith [now remember there was no Protestant faith at this time]).  He also wanted to stop local lords and their mobs from unjustly executing people for heresy before any kind of trial was held.  So he initiated the Papal Inquisition thinking it would bring more order to the process and give heretics an opportunity to return to the Church before being killed. He issued the Vox in Rama to Germany's King Henry hoping he would stop the spread of the heretical Luciferian cult.  In this papal bull he mentioned some of the cult's devil-worshiping practices, including how Satan took the form of a black cat.  And with that document, the demonizing of black cats and their owners began.  

Black cats were killed and any peasant woman who owned cats, especially black cats, was automatically suspect.  Soon the killing spread to all cats as fear heightened with the Black Plague.  Thinking that getting rid of evil cats would get rid of the evil disease, people unknowingly exterminated a needed predator of the rats that housed the fleas that later on many believed were to blame for the Plague.  

Choosing the fear-based path can have far-reaching consequences. From generation to generation others follow the fear trail marked out for them.
 
Here in America, Europeans brought with them their fear-based beliefs about black cats and witches which fueled the Salem Witch Trials in the late 1600s.  To this day, black cats' bad reputation continues to haunt them as shelters report that they are passed over for the brighter white and orange cats.  And violence toward cats, in particular the black cat, escalates on Halloween.  

So let's pause (no pun intended!) for a moment and let black cats beckon us away from the path of fear & superstition.  Let every cat and their owner be a reminder that we all hold such beliefs whatever person, people group, or animal we may choose to fear, blame, and even (God-forbid!) exterminate.  

In writing this post, I found I wanted to blame Pope Gregory IX but realized I needed to dig a little deeper into the story rather than automatically (and easily) demonizing him!  Each time we catch a fear and/or superstition-based belief arising within us (who or what we blame may clue us in), let us become aware of the fork in the road.

We don't have to continue down the same path tread by our ancestors.  Yes, it may be harder and take longer but as Deuteronomy and Proverbs urge, we can choose the path of life with discernment, wisdom, and kindness.

Black cats and crazy cat ladies will thank us.  Future generations will, too.    

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