#how did the magisterium grab control of europe?

[hyperpotamianarch]

Well, another reblog - this time following some vague phrasing in a reply to this post. @audioandart has suggested that the Magisterium may have wiped out other religions when they "won" or whatever it is they did, which led me to realize more fully the issue with answering my first question: that Pullman had not, in fact, gave us much detail on how the world became the way it is.

What do we actually know about the history of Lyra's World, even the Christian side of it? We know John Calvin was a pope in this world. We know he paved the way for the rise of the Magisterium and founded the Consistorial Court of Discipline. We know the papacy was abolished after him. We know that America was colonised by France at the very least. We know that there was an Office of Inquisition that is inactive during the time of the books, but there's talk of reviving it. We know that by the time of the book, no one is actually free to truly speak up against the Magisterium. We know that the Church has such a chokehold on science that Physics is now Experimental Theology. These are all random, loose facts that include historical events alongside their eventual outcome, without much about the how - how did these events transpire? And how did they lead to this state of affairs? In other words, how did the Magisterium end up "winning"?

In addition to that, there's of course the fact that this comment was in the context of the Magisterium wiping out other religions. Thing is, we mostly see only Europe, at least in the original trilogy. Even there, we do get non-Christians - the Witches, with their own original Pagan worship that somehow still allows them to have a prophecy about the second Eve. I'm given to understand that the Secret Commonwealth also gets into the Ottoman Empire, which I'd expect to still be Muslim in this setting. In short, this "winning" is largely limited to Europe. Though I don't necessarily have enough evidence for that.

I don't have a clear cut answer to what happened. I don't know how exactly the Magisterium grabbed control over Europe and what it did to minority religions in it. The Consistorial Court of Discipline and the existence of the Office of Inquisition as a historical organization that seems to have had power over all of Europe might indicate the generalization of the Alhambra Decree as official policy across Europe. For designated infidels like Jews and Muslims (and others) that would mean expulsion, conversion, or death. Those are things Jews experienced in the past, and it doesn't necessarily negate the option of Jews existing in Europe after the Office of Inquisition was closed. Even if they don't, though, I don't expect this to have successfully wiped out Judaism. Only move most Jews to other parts of the world.

This would be inconvenient to me if I'm determined to write about Lyra meeting Jewish scholars as per my new direction of a Jewish HDM fic. I do have the freedom to decide which is true, though, so it's a bit less of a problem.

All right. So, first: if you are either Jewish, like His Dark Materials, or both, please reblog. If you aren't any of those but know someone who is - please share it with them. I want to get as many thoughts on this as possible.

In essence, I just want to ask two simple questions. I have the beginnings of answers for myself, but Judaism is nothing if not full of discourse and many opinions on one topic. So, again: reblog. Share your thoughts and opinions. Hopefully, it will give us a wide variety of possibilities and answers.

The two questions are: where are Jews in Lyra's world? And what are the theological and Halachic concequences of having dæmons?

I intend to share my opinions in two separate reblogs, but please share your thoughts even if you don't see mine. The short version is that I looked about events in Jewish history around John Calvin's time for the first question (pope John Calvin being the major alternation of history in HDM). As for the second question - I have some thoughts relating to the Chabad thought stream. Elaborations, again, going in reblogs.

Thank you in advance!

(PS, question number 1 was handled once by the sadly deactivvated user the Tea Detective, though their full post disappeared. Link to a reblogging of the first half: here. Note, another reblog mentions other religions - feel free to discuss them, I'm focusing on Judaism because I'm Jewish. Another post asking this question was posted here, so have fun with it. Meanwhile, this post is about dæmons and religions in general and lightly touches Judaism.)