Scourge same period we meet with the private use of the "discipline" by such saintly persons as King Louis IX of France and Elisabeth of Hungary. Semi-literal usages such as "the scourge of God" for Attila the Hun (i.e. "God's whip with which to punish the nations") led to metaphoric uses to mean a severe affliction, e.g. "the scourge of drug abuse". The scourge is described as one of the tools used in Wicca, primarily in the Gardnerian Tradition. The purpose of using the scourge is not to cause pain or to torture, but for purification purposes, particularly for Initiates. The
Scourge Dominic Loricatus and St. Peter Damian (died 1072). The latter wrote a special treatise in praise of self-flagellation; though blamed by some contemporaries for excess of zeal, his example and the high esteem in which he was held did much to popularize the voluntary use of a small scourge known as a discipline, as a means of mortification and penance. From then on the practice appeared in most medieval religious orders and associations. The practice was, of course, capable of abuse, as demonstrated in the thirteenth century by the rise of the fanatical sect of the Flagellants, though in the