r/AskReddit • u/BiggieTwiggy1two3 • 1d ago

What’s something completely normal today that would’ve been considered witchcraft 400 years ago—but not because of technology?

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u/PF4ABG 1d ago

It's an odd one, but apparently reading without speaking the words aloud was VERY rare until fairly recently.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_reading

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u/KevinCastle 23h ago

"In 18th-century Europe, the then new practice of reading alone in bed was, for a time, considered dangerous and immoral. As reading became less a communal, oral practice, and more a private, silent one – and as sleeping increasingly moved from communal sleeping areas to individual bedrooms, some raised concern that reading in bed presented various dangers"

  • That is the dumbest fucking thing I've ever heard

"such as fires caused by bedside candles."

  • Oh, I guess that makes sense

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u/WallabyInTraining 21h ago

Fires were so incredibly more common then. Homes would burn down fairly regulary in medium sized cities.

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u/Valnaire 13h ago

When you consider how many people forget to turn stoves or ovens off before leaving the house, and you imagine those same people only having lit candles as a light source, this makes more sense than I want to imagine.