Amanda (Amanda Prestigiacomo)

speaker

1,029 appearances 3 recordings 1 series first heard Jul 2026 last heard 21 Jul

Amanda (Amanda Prestigiacomo)’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 3 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 3.

Appearances

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We Can Do Hard Things · The Wild, Untold Story of How They Made Abortion Political: Witches, Healers & Liars | Amanda with Jessica Valenti · 21 Jul 2026 podcast

Female healing by laywomen for the benefit of the peasant class was

expressly outside the control of and credit to the church was not acceptable.

Significantly, it was not that the church believed the women healers were not effective.

The opposite was true.

They knew these women healers were effective.

And since their healing happened outside the church, it was not authorized by God.

In terms of healing, the church believed that there were two equally effective options.

One, the spiritual power of prayer authorized by God through the church.

And two, the spiritual power of the magic authorized by the devil through the women lay healers.

This was an existential problem for the church because the stronger the midwives and healers' powers to help the peasants, the weaker the peasants' dependence was on the church.

And just as bad, the powers and authority of the healers were beyond the control and authority of the church and contrary to key teachings of the church.

For example, these wise women used botanical, herbal, and fungal remedies like opium, belladonna, ergot, and mandrake.

to effectively ease women's pain and labor.

But the Catholic Church demanded that women be in agony during childbirth as divine punishment for Eve's original sin.

So the midwives alleviating women's labor pain was an interference with God's will and church teachings and therefore heretical witchcraft.

But the greatest threat the wise women midwife healers posed

was their empirical scientific methods.

A worldview that could effectively collapse the Catholic royal world order.

Note here the anti-science suspicion that is ever present today.

Here's what I mean.

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