In Holland, the minister Balthasar Bekker is finding inspiration in the new scientific ideas sweeping Europe, and he is deeply critical of the widespread belief in sorcery.
In 1693, he publishes a book lambasting the superstitious Danes. The reason is that the headmaster of the Herlufsholm boarding school, Johan Brunsmand, published a book twenty years ago on demonic possession in the town of Køge.
The book, called Køge huskors (The Cursed House of Køge) includes a dramatic tale of how the Devil terrorised a local family. But the book is picked apart by the Dutch minister. The tall tales of demonic laughter under people’s conjugal beds and of local women having sex with the Devil and pissing in the baptismal font at the church gets trounced.
This sharp critique of the Danes’ superstitious beliefs hardly describes a modern country built on reason and sense. The Danish high court judges, all of whom have studied at Dutch universities, are deeply embarrassed at this European condemnation and fear becoming a laughing stock.
Denmark comes across as a backward country with an ignorant population believing in witchcraft and supernatural tales. The censure of the outside world also has a noticeable effect on the Danish judiciary: One prominent high court judge later describes the superstitious beliefs of the Danes as a web of pure nonsense.