Witchcraft and Black Magic

123 Pages·2012·57.62 MB·English

by  Montague Summers

CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAM
li \ H ~How doe* One becom« k Witch?—The EnentUl Pact 13
CHAPTER II
t„. III I fuman Shape and Animal—How Acquired—The Sacrileges of
til > I lie Reward of Blood . . . . . . . . 43
CHAPTER III
4. ,ii I ;mibrid|c and Oxford—The Mankbee Sorcerer»—Revolutiooary
I »ill T he Witchcraft of the Templar^Witcbcraft and Politics 68
CHAPTER IV
lilt III Wiichcraft—The Sons of God and the Daughters of Men—Who
iir I ii'ii Witch?—Assyrian and Egyptian Witchcraft—The Mummies
• Tiiiiiiic Cult" . . . . . . . I 99
CHAPTER V
») I .,iiy III (lie Witches—The Sibylline Books—The Grimoires—le Grand
.• llii- Witches' Bible—Zekerboni—Printed and Manuscript Books
. , III I’licSceneofCoajuraiiondescribedbyResufdelaBretonne 116
CHAPTER VI
, .»Hiliiii) ofFrancisBarretl—Ceremonial Magic—The Evil Eye—Ranks
■ • iiuMi-i Necromancy—Evocations—Ebcneaer Sibly—Satanism Today
It ill Witchcraft in M auritius.............................................................
CHAPTER VII
t. til M.igic—Wax Images—Figurines—The Covens—The Grand Master
I It |1И1» -The Sabbat—Incubi and Succubae—The Black Mass . 191
’ I
I
.4
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
1« h Witchcraft?—How doe$ One becotoe • Witch?—The Enential Pact 13
CHAPTER II
• I .imiliar, in Human Shape and Animal—How Acquired—The Sacrilege* of
Wlichei The Reward of Blood 43
CHAPTER III
Uii'lirraft at Cambridge and Oxford—The Manichee Sorceiei* Rerolutionary
Witchcraft—The Witchcraft oi the Templan—Witchcraft and Polide* 68
CHAPTER IV
I III- Origins of Witchcraft—The Sons of God and the Daughters of Men—Who
was the First Witch?—Assyrian and Egyptian Witchcraft—The Mummies
—The “Dianic Cult"............................................................................................99
Bibliographical NoU
Thii Dover edition, first published in 2000, is an unabridged republi-
CHAPTER V
calion of Wite/uT^ and Black M(^c, originally published ca. 1946 by
Rider & Co., Ltd., London and New York. riie Library of the Witches—The Sibylline Books—The Grimoires—le Grand
Albert—The Witches' Bible—Zeketboni—Printed and Manuscript Books
of Spells—The Scene of Conjuration described by Restif de la Bretonne 116
Library of Congress Catalogit^-in-PublicaHon Data
Summers, Montague, 1880-1948.
CHAPTER VI
Witchcraft and black magic / Montague Summers,
p. cm. The Magus (i8oi) of Francis Barrett—Ceremonial Magic—The Evil Eye—Ranks
Originally published; London ; New York : Rider, 1946. of Demons—Necromancy—Evocations —Ebenexer Sibly—Satanism Today
Includes index. —Obeah—Witchcraft is M auritius.............................................................160
ISBN0-486-4ll25-7(pbk.)
1. Witchcraft. 2. Magic. 1. Tide.
BPI566 -S86 2000 CHAPTER VII
l33.4-dc21
Sympathetic Magic—Wax Images—Figurines—The Covens—The Grand Master
99-053054 —Levitation—The Sabbat—Incubi and Succubae—The Black Mass . igi
Manufactured in the United States of America
Dover Publicabooi, Inc., 31 East 2nd Street, Mineóla, N.Y. 11501
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
I'lnls Faring pagt
I. The Black Mysteries op Witchcrapt. Abomination
DES SoRCiERs. An engraving by Jaspar Isaac (1614) . 16
II. Saducisuvs Triumphatus. ^ Joseph Glanvil.
Frontispiece to Part the Second, edition 1681, by W.
Faithomc. The six pictures represent: The Drummer of
Tedworth; the Somersetshire witch, Julian Cox; the
levitation of Richard Jones, ofShepton Mallet; the ren­
dezvous of witches near Tristcr Gate, Wincanton;
Margaret Jackson, the Scott sh witch, devoting herself
to the demon; the celestial Apparition at Amsterdam 17
III. Witches Adore the Demon.
The Baptism of Hell.
From Guazzo's Compendium Maltficarum . . . 3a
IV. The Spectral Witches on Their Sabbat Fught . 33
V. A Witch and Her Famiuar.
The Transvection of Witches. Witches in semi-animal
shapes being carried through the air to the sabbat.
From Ulrich Molitor’s Treatise upon Witches, 1489 . 64
VI. The Departure for the Sabbat. By David Tenien . 65
VII. Witches Trample on the Cross.
Witches Swear Fealty to the Demon.
From Guazzo’s Compendium Malefiearum . . . 80
VIII. The Evil Eye. Effects of the Evil Eye. Title-page to
a Treatise on the Evil Eye and Witchcraft.
By John Christian Frommann. Published, Nuremberg,
1674 . . . . . . . . . 81
IX. The Blocksbero Sabbat.
From BlockeS‘Btrges Verrichtung, of Johannes Praetorius,
published, Leipzig, 1668...........................................................m
X. Matthew Hopkins Examinino Two Witches.
From The Discooery 0/ Witches, by Matthew Hopkins,
published, London, 1647.
The Murder op Dr. Lambe. Dr. John Lambe, a notorious
London wizard and conjurer, was killed in a City riot
on Friday, 23 June, 1628. A contemporary pamphlet
describing the event was “Printed in Amsterdam, 1628“ . 113
XI. A Chinese Sorcerer with His Toad Familiar.
The Enchanted Castle. Frontispiece to Richard Bovet’s
Pandemonium, published, London, 1684 . . . 128
O LIST OP ILLUSTRATIONS
XII. A Yorkshire Witch, J ennet Dibb, or Dibble, with her
Familiar, a Great Black Cat named Gibb, and Other
Imps. Jennet Dibb was one of the accused in the Fairfax
case, 1622. This cotatemporary drawing, British Museum, INTRODUCTION
Add. MS. 33496, is said to have been done by the Rev.
Miles Gale, Rector of Keighley.
’■'1Ъе most interesting and instructive work that could be written,”
Chinese Wizards at Wo r k ............................................ tag I'll Dr. Johnson, “would be a History of Magick.”
XIII. Heads of Evil Demons. Powers op Evil. U has been observed that “it is quite impossible to appreciate and
Astaroth, Abaddon, and Mammon. ■’■i'l<'rstand the true and inner lives of men and women in Elizabethan
Fallen Angels. A Deceiver, ApoUyon. Vessels of Iniquity, '■III Stuart England, in the France of Louis Х1П and during the long
Belial. • of his son and successor, in Italy of the Renaissance and the CathoUc
From The Magus, by Francis Barrett. Published, London, f»iiirtion—to name but tbm European countries and a few definite
1801.................................................................................... 160 iH-iiiKls—unless we have some realization of the part that Witchcraft
XIV. The Magician’s Armoury. The Magic Wand of black I'l.iycd in those ages amid the affairs of these Kingdoms. All classes
wne afiected and concerned from Pope to peasant, from Queen to cottage
ebony with golden characters to be used in Invocadons
»’111.”
by the Crystal. Two holy waxlights. The Crystal set in
It is hardly surprising, then, that during the last five-and-twenty
pure gold. The Tripod, or brazier, in which the perhunes
vi'.irs the history of witchcraft should have engaged the particular
are to be burned. The Magic Circle. The Lamen, or
iiicntion of a large number of writers, some of whom, scholars, after
Holy Table of the Archangel Michael.
■li'voting to the subject much preparadvc thought and ripe reflection,
From Barrett’s The Magus, 1801. . , 161
,iiid as me result of long and patient research, have enricbed the literature
XV. The Book of Spirits to be Made of Virgin Vellum. иГ demonology with contributions, which, however divergent, maybe,
The Book is open at the Invocation of Saturday, the ilic angles of approach and hence the logical conclusions arrived at, are
Spirit Cassiel.
"Г permanent and essential value.
From Barrett's The Magus, 1801. On the other hand, witchcraft has proved an irresistible lure to not
Modern Necromancers . . . . . . 176 .1 few freakish and facile pros, and there have appeared far too many
XVI. The Phantom Monk of the Haunted Pool. hooks made of paste and scissors, which are either the veriest rag-bag of
»77
lolk-lore, or else bold and rather blatant paraphrases from the work of
iccent authoridea.
For the history of English Witchcraft the material collected and so
iibly commented with ample annotations by Mr. C. L’Estrange Ewen
in his JViUk Hunling and Witeh Trials (igsg), Witchcraft and Demomamsm
(»933). »b* privately printed Witchcraft in the Star Chamber {193З),
is of the very first importance. A useful reprint with an excellent Intro­
duction is Dr. G. B. Harrison’s The Trial of the Lancestrr Witches, A.D.
M DCXII (1929). To Dr. Harrison we are also obliged for a reprint
of the Damonologie (1597) of King James I, and Mewes from Scotland{t$Qi)
in "The Bodlcy Head Quartos”. The Age of Arsenic (1931J, by Mr. W.
Branch Johnson, is a good survey of witchcraft as practised ш Paris under
Louis XIV, the infamies of La Voisin and her gang. Two very scholarly
studies by the Rev. Joseph J. Williams, S.J., Voodoos and Obeahs (1932),
and Psychic Phenomena of Jamaica (1935), are our authority for the grue­
some workings of the Black Man’s witchcraft in the West Indies,
Poltergeists (1940), by Mr. Sacheverell Sitwell, examines at con­
siderable length and most masterly these extraordinary happenings,
which are often so nearly allied to satanic supcmaturalism.
The late Professor George Lyman Kittredge’s Witchcraft in Old
and New England (1928) to some extent suffen, in my opinion at leiat,
from the fact that it presents a series of unconnected essays, their unity
9
IO I N T Il-O D U C T J 0 N
being that the eighteen chapten one and all relate to the same sut^t.
Nevertheless it b a notable piece of work, although curiously unsympa*
thetic and even sceptical In ia survey, a bias which can hardly fail to
lead to error, or at any rate misunderstanding, in some important
detaib.
It were ungenerous and u n ^ to animadvert upon the late Or.
Henry Charles Lea’s M ciaials Toward a Histo^ of tVilehtrafi, a book M
incomplete and unrevised by the author. These three volumes, pubUshed
in 1939, must necessarily remain and be regarded as a c(^ection of
synopses and excursuses, references and notes, material often of much
value, but on account of the circumstances of the case in some essential
features lacking and inchoate. Thb b all the more to be regretted
since a redaction must, I think, have led the author not unseldom to
modify hb judgements, when both facts and deductions would doubtless
have been mai^allcd in correcter and clearer penpective.
Long and intensive inquiry into the sutnect of witchcraft has fully
convinced me that if one b endeavouring after a more intelligent and
wider comprehending of thb universal and darkly intricate cult, it b
necessary to studv the wbdom of the days of old, to turn to the masters
for guidance and direction. For example, as a mere prcliminVry, the
serious student must read carefully and digest that n№le treatise, the
MidUtis McUeficanm. Nor can he be considered even initially equipped
unless be has something more than an acquaintance with the work of
such high authorities as Guazzo, Anania, Remy, de Lancre, Delrio,
Thyraeus, Sinbtrari, Glanvil, Boulton, Romanus, Brückner, Görres,
Baumgarten.
It b no mere academic question upon which he engages. Professor
Burr, of Cornell University, is of opinion that certain of my writings on
witchcraft savour too much of theology. But, vrith rarest and very special
exceptions, it is only the theologian who b competent to treat the subjMt,
and who b best able to diagnose the essential malice of witchcraft. The
very problems of evil and man’s essay to put himself in touch with and
in some sense to control wicked spirits at once enter into the domain
of theology, and cannot be divorew from it. The authors of the MalUus
Maltficanm, James Sprenger and Henry Kramer, were trained theo-
lonans, Thombts. Two hundred yean later a divine of a very different
school, a learned and acute mind, the Rev. Cotton Mather, defines
witchcraft in almost exactly the same terms. Guazxo, Delrio, Thyraeus,
Sinbtrari, were theologians of the first rank. In fact, it u unusual to find
an authority on demonology who has not been thus specially trained,
unless, indeed, hebe a jurist, treating the crime purely fium ale^ stand-
pmnt.
It should, perhaps, be mentioned here that there are not the least
grotinds for the very empty suggestion that Sinbtrari’s important treatise,
Dim onali^, was disapproved “by an ecclesiastical censor”. The work
U has, in fact, been care^y read by tira professed theologians, the one a
regular, a Capuchin, and the other a secular of much experience. Both
pronounce it to be a good book, and without grave error. There may
be some slight and supefidal corrigenda, but nothing of moment.
CHAPTER I
WiUhcra/t?— Hew dots One bttomt a Wiu/i?—Tht Esstnlial Paet.
■ ><> I ‘jjvnnant with Death, your Agreement with Hell.”— Jsaiak xxviit, i8.
M iMkI experienced Oxford tutor throughout nearly half a century
t- .Mill to give the men who had read with him and attended his
li I •«. I, when they had ñnished their residence and came to say good-
|i ■ .1 very precious parting legacy which consisted of just three simple
. .1. Ill' advice—“Define your terms”. So, at the outset, in writing
«I- -.ii .tad examining into witchcraft we can hardly do better than
h' |Miir precisely what witchcraft is, in what sense we are going to use
■ I' wiKl, what ground it covers, what were and are the aims and objects
I I III members of this horrid craft.
Ill the first place, for our present general purpose, it b mere waste
I lime and hair-splitting to attempt to draw minute and cavilling dis-
•III! lions, to chop up words and quibble and subdivide, to argue that
I. • liiiically and etymologically a sorcerer differs from a witch, a witch
■>.•111 a necromancer, a necromancer from a satanbt. In actual (act and
i.i.iiiirc all these names are correlative; in use, synonymous. Thus,
ililioiigh originally and in its first implication a sorcerer strictly means
••III' who casts lots, and b derived from the late Latín sortiarias, son
Ih mg a lot or chance, our standard authority, Tht Oxford English Die-
luimry has: “Sorcerer, One who practises sorcery; a wizard, magidan”,
ivliilst Sorcery b “The use of magic or enchantment; the practice of
iii.i{(ic arts; witchcraft”. Necromancer comes through the Greek, and
means one who can reveal future events or disclose secrets by communi-
I.Ilion with the dead. There has in thb word been some confusion of
I tic Greek prefix J^ekros, a corpse, with the Latin niger, nigr—, black;
and in Middle Englbh, (Jiat b to say roughly from 1200 to 1500, we have
Ihc form “nigromancer”, one skilled in the black art. {Manor b the
Greek Manteia, foretelling, divination.) Satanbt, as b plain, means a
devotee of Satan, a person who b regarded as an adherent and follower
of Satan. It b significant, however, and worth remembering, that whm
fint employed the word Satanbt was equivalent to an athebt, and it is
used in thb sense by John Aylmer, who was Bbhop of London under
Queen Elizabeth. In hb poUtical pamphlet. An Harbour for Faithful and
Trut Subjects, published in 1559 at Strassburg, where he was then living,
he speaks of Satanbts, implying infidels and unbelievers gener^y.
Later the word became more restricted and changed its complenon,
since, whatever ebc, the witch is certainly no athebt. In The Life of
Mrs. Lynn Linton, publbhed in igor, the following passage occurs: “ITiere
are two sects, the Satanists and the Luciferists—and Üiey pray to these
names as Goib.” Thb b a distinction without a diSerence, Satan and
Lucifer being identically the same entity and power. Dr. Charles H. H.
Wright, sometime Grinfield lecturer on the Septuagint, Oxford, may
«3
»4 WtTOHCRAPT AND BLACK UAOIC WITCHCRAFT AND BLACK UACIC I5
*ay of Ludfer, “the word in Scripture has nothing to do with the devil”, < «iitiiblcs of every sort. At Ravenna in the year 1512 was bom a
but he is wrong. In English, all accepted undentanding and ordinary .i I rrcature with a kind of wings instead of arms, and marked with
use are against him, and we parallel the words of Isaiah (xiv, 12), “How ..........linary signs. Another monster, of the male kind, represented a
art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!" with the I , I liild of hideous deformity. It was bom in the year 1597 at Aries,
gospel {St. Luke x, 18); “I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.” и riiwcnce, and lived but a few days, terrifying all who beheld it.
To sum up, sorcerer, witch, necromancer are essentially all one, so
it is convenient, as well as—what is unusual with convenience—per­ Where children thus are born with hairy coati
fectly correct to employ the word “witch” to cover them all, whilo Heaven’s wrath unto the kingdom it denotes.
witchcraft is the cult, together with the practices, of a witch.
A well-known Elizabethan writer, a preacher and theologian of Thus runs the old distich, truly exemplified in that unhappy region,
some note in his day, George Giffard, the minister of Maldon, Essex, wliich men to each other were more like brute beasts than human
understands a witch to be “one that worketh by the Devil, or by some I Mifiii, Another monster was born at Nazara in the year 1581. It had
devilish or curious art, either hurting or healing, revealing things secret, • 41 .trms and four legs. In Flanders, in a village between Antwerp and
or foretelling things to come, which the Devil hath devised to entangle ■J«i hlin, a poor woman was delivered of a child which had pvo heads
and snare men’s souls withal to damnation. The conjuror, the enchanter, ■1.1 four arms, seemingly two girls joined together. “Likewise in the
the sorcerer, the diviner, and whatsoever sort there is, are in deed com­ .. of Henri III of France (1574-1589) there was a woman delivmd
passed within this circle.” I .t child having two heads and four arms, and the bodies were joined
Incidentally, it may be noted that the word “witch", although now t <)'r(her at the back; the heads were so placed that they looked con-
popularly and almost exclusively intended to denote a woman, can be .1 IIу ways; each had two distinct arms and hands. They wodd both
used of a man, and in some remoter country places it may still ^ heard I iii|5h, both spes^ and both cry, and be hungry tc^ether; sometimes the
with its old meaning: “He’s a feaw (foul) witch.” Actually “witch” is I Mil’ would speak and the other keep silence, and sometimes both S(>eak to­
from the Old English masculine noim-substandve wiaa, “A man who ri Ihcr. They lived several years, but one outlived the other three умп,
practises witchcraft or magic; a magician, sorcerer, wizard”—a pretty . irrying the dead one (for there was no parting them) till the survivor
comprehensive definition. t.iiiited and expired with the burden, and more with the stench of the
In a Latin Glossary of about 1100, King Henry I’s reign, the two ili-.id carcass.” ТЪезе examples are mentioned in the work known as
words augur and ariolus are translated by wicea. .Ifwiotii’s Problems or Aristotle's Masterpiece, a curious volume, which has,
Lewis and Short m their Latin Dictionary derive the word augur III’ course, nothing to do vrith the great ОгеЛ philowpher, al^ough
from avis, a bird, and the Sanscrit gar, to make known, They define the riTOneously passing under his name. The earliest edition in Latin wm
word as: “an aunr, diviner, soothMyer; at Rome, a member of a par­ jirinted in Rome, 1475, under the title The Problems of Aristotle. As it
ticular college of priests, much reverenced in earlier ages, who made went through many editions, various contemporary happenings were
known the future by observing the lightning, the flight or notes of birds, .idded. There are translations into nearly all modem languages. Thus in
the feeding of the sacred fowls, certain appearances of quadrupeds and 1597 there was published in London The Problems of Aristotle with other
any unusual occurrences”. That copious but rather arid rhetorician, Philosophers and rhisitions. An almost identical version had appeared in
Cicero, in the most interesting of his treatises. On Divination, has a good Edinburgh two years before. In 1710 we have “The Twenty-Fifth English
deal to say with regard to the sacred birds. He is rationalistic, tmd en­ Edition”, and there are innumerable reprints.
tirely unconvincing in his explanations, but happy in his examples. Ariolus (or hariolus), from the Sanscrit hira, entrails, is explained by
Thus in 217 B,c. the consul Flaminius, when facing the Carthaginians, Lewis and Short as “a soothsayer, prophet”, and given as the equivalent
was warned by the keeper of the sacred chickens not to give battle, as of augur. The word has a grim complexion, for the ariolus was introduced
the birds refill to eat. “A pretty kind of oraenl” jeered Flaminius. among the Romans from the Etruscans, masters of dark mysteries. Well
“Suppose they never ate, what then?” "You would do well to refuse to might Cicero write that the Etruscans were soaked in superttidon, and
enter into action,” was the reply. Upon this, with fine bravado, mocking that no folk were more skilled in splanchnomancy, which is to say the
Flaminius gave the signal for attack, and in the ensuing battle at Lake Etruscan diviners foretold future events from the inspection of the warm
Trasimene he was d^eated by Hannibal with the loss of 15,000 men, and palpitating entrails of victims, sometimes animal, sometimes human,
hin^lf falling on the field. Unusual occurrences were generally held and these horrid sacrifices were clandestinely offered in Rome itself,
to include monstrous births, of which there are many recorded, and especially under the Emperors. Strange and awful gods arc named in
which are believed to announce the especial wrath of the Deity. Such the ancient mythology of Etruria, “where once stood the proud city of
abortions all nations have held in horror, and there are warning instances Tarquinii, which gave kings to Rome, when Rome itself was but a thing
chronicled throughout all history. In his day, when a girl was bom of yesterday, sprung from an upstart settlement of outlaws and robbers”.
with two beads, Cicero notes, this shocking omen was follow^ by seditions There were Teramo, and Fufluns, and Lord Tinia, who has writhing
n
I6 W ITC H C R A FT AND BLACK UAOIC
serpents for legs, and who with frowning face and outstretched wings
grasps the red thunderbolt of destruction to hurl it forth furiously and
far. It is whispered even today that among the hamlets and farms where
Marta runs from Lake Bolsena to the sea there are still those descended
from the old stock who worshipped Tinia a long time before the she-wolf
suckled twin Romulus and Remus in her Sabine lair. With bated breath
men tell how an immemorial tradition has been handed down from that
race whose history and tongue are alike forgotten in the dust of ages,
that still a few initiates, skulung, secret and close, are all too weU versed
in nameless liturgies and practise ghostly conjurations, accuned rites,
fearfully banned by Mother Church. Three centuries ago, during his
brief reign of little more than a couple of years, Pope Gregory XV, no
unenlightened pontiff, was so apnaUed by what he learned of these carrion
creeds of corruption and gods of the grave that by special mandate and
by word of mouth he ordered the Holy Office to make sharp inquisition
without delay and purge of its rot and foulness the infected countryside.
Actually in the days of Hadrian (a.d. i 17-138), when Rome eagerly
embraced every hoodoo, every superstition, however grotesquely debased,
however gloatingly obscene, when there was a “divine invasion” from
exotic Egypt, from Syria, from furthest Asia and the East, whilst the
decadent devotee demanded the most frenzied delirium of the dervish
and the faquir, when Caesar himself was more than suspect of midnight
magic and sortilege, for very shame a law was passed strictly forbidding
human sacrifice; but none the less many of the later Emperors, particu*
larly Commodus, the sadistic Caracalia, the mad Maxentius, resorted to
these horrible rites to leam what fate held in store. On 25 May, a.d. 385,
Theodosius I, a Christian ruler, prohibited absolutely any tort of magic
sacrifice of any kind, and decreed that the punishment for diviners
attempting such abominations, especially the ritual inspection of human
viscera, was a painful, lingering, and ignominious death. Yet, as there
will be occasion to note, these bloody immolations have persisted through­
out all, and are not unknown in demon worship even today.
As has just been mentioned, the Old English word uiicca is explained
by the dictionaries as, “A man who practises witchcraft or magic”.
What is magic?
Whilst a much-talked-of case was being heard before Mr. Justice
Swift in the King’s Bench Division during April, 1934, the Judge*
asked the plaintiff “the short^t, and at the same time comprehensive,
definition of magic which he knew”. Answtr: “Magic is the science of
the art of causing change to occur in conformity with the will. White
АВСШГ^ЛТГОМ DCS SDCCIUUL , >
Magic if the will is righteous, and Black Magic if the will is perverse.” • iiJrl.'ft mkfUtiMmniVi. № tMi ii Imm MW« «wrisB - 6rrt w M cn ттЛш
M r. Justict Sw ifi: “Does that involve the invocation of spirits?” Ansmr: Оы* etttt Л£tпjгiч^'. иi» I tffiu U timiemlU. m CSSMt i«v «Мw Wwf¿MwAmsniwnr tW1^loj lМMИ1i1m1ИИ»*1'
“It may do so. It does involve the invocation of the Holy Guardian ir It» SaLr. M Q-
Angel, who is appointed by Almighty God to watch over each of us.”
Mr. Justice Sw ifi: “Then it does involve invocation of spirits?” Answer: THE BLACK MYSTERIES OF WITCHCRAFT
“Of one spirit. God is a spirit, and they that worship Him must worship
An Engraving by Jaspar Isaac (1614)
Him in spirit and in truth.” Mr. Justice Swift: “Is it, in your view, the
* Ftom contemnoraiy newspaper reports; the Deity T^pefK flidap, 23 April, 1934.
"Judge esics; 'Wbat is Magic?' “
W ITCHCRAFT AND BLACK MAGIC 17
H f)f controlling spirits so as to affect the course of events?” Answer;
I li.it is part of magic, one small branch.” Mr. Justice Smjl: “If the
. .l•|lrt of the control is good, then it is White Magic?” Answer: “Yes.”
Ml. JusCice Swift: “If the object of the control is bad, then it is Black
'-l.igic?” Answer: "Yes.” Mr. Justice Swijl: “When the object of thecon-
■ >i>l is bad, what spirits do you invoke?” Answer: “You cannot invoke
. < il spirits. You must evoke them, and call them out.” Mr. Justice Swift:
When the object is bad, you evoke evil spirits?” Answer: “Yes. You
iHil yourself in their power. In that case it is possible to control evil
'liiiits or blind spirits for a good purpose, as we might if we use the
• t idgerous elements of fire and electricity for heating and lighting, etc.”
I Ills last reply is very sophistical, since anyone evoking evil spirits would
iii’vcr want to employ them for a good purpose, and even if it were
irmingly good, this would only be in order that eventually the greater
iiiiNChief might be wrought. When the plaintiff, in repl)? to the Judge’s
i[iiostion, “Then it [magic] does involve invocation of spirits?”, answered,
‘Of one spirit. God is a spirit . . he was quoting a mistranslation.
Hid in consequence a good deal ofconfusion must have arisen. The correct
ii.msladon oiSt. John iv, 24, is “God is spirit”, a vastly different thing.
I'o say “God is a spirit” is bad metaphysic and worse theology. In fact,
II makes no sense.
I very much doubt whether this drawing the line, this talk of “white’ ’
magic and “black” magic, is anything other than verbal emptiness, and
III effect a purely artificial (and rather perilous) discrimination between
I lie Good and the Bad. All magic, all witchcraft, depends on the Devil,
,md is fundamentally evil. It is true that we speak of “natural magic”,
which the dictionaries define as “that which did not involve recourse to
I lie agency of personal spirits”, but the phrase is no better than a vulgar-
itm and metaphor. It were a good thing, if possible, to get rid of these
.imbiguiries and misnomers from our common everyday speech. A recent
writer (1929) goes so far as to speak of “white witchcraft for the cure of
liisease and other purposes innocent in themselves”. Although what
he means is abundantly clear, actually there cannot be such a thing as
"white witchcraft”. The very words are contradictory, and little wonder
that a wiser age condemned this art, under whatever pretext it was
practised, as “heathenish and diabolical”. Ancient spells and charms,
a knowledge of herbs and planetary influences—these are neither witch­
craft nor magic, but leechdom. No conjuration, the evokir^ of demons
and malign spirits, is involved.
George Giffard, sometime minister of Maldon, Essex, uncomprom­
isingly condemns the “white witch”. His Dialogue Concerning IVilehes,
published in 1593, was reissued in 1603, three years after the writer’s
death. “These cunning men and women with charms, seeming to do
good, ought to be rooted out” is his verdict.
William Perkins, the eminent Elizabethan divine, in his posthumous
Damned Art of Witchcraft, published in 1608, lays down that all Witches
“convicted by the Magistrate” should be executed. He allows no excep­
tion, and under his condemnation fall “all Diviners, Charmers, Jugglers,
all Wizards, commonly called wise men and wise women”. All those