Montague Summers

“ The history of Witchcraft, a subject as old as the world and as wide as the world,—since I understand for the present purpose by Witchcraft, Sorcery, Black Magic, Necromancy, secret Divination, Satanism, and every kind of malign occult art,—at once confronts the writer with a most difficult problem. He is called upon to exercise a choice, and his dilemma is by no means made the easier owing to the fact he is acutely conscious that whichever way he may decide he is laying himself open to damaging and not impertinent criticism. ”

“ Nobody can refuse to believe that the witches bestrode sticks and poles and in their ritual capered to and fro in this manner, a sufficiently grotesque, but by no means an impossible, action. And this bizarre ceremony, evidence of which—with no reference to flying through the air—is frequent, has been exaggerated and transformed into the popular superstition that sorcerers are carried aloft and so transported from place to place, a wonder they were all ready to exploit in proof of their magic powers. ”

“ It is true that Witchcraft has formed the subject of a not inconsiderable literature, but it will be found that inquirers have for the most part approached this eternal and terrible chapter in the history of humanity from biassed, although wholly divergent, points of view, and in consequence it is often necessary to sift more or less thoroughly their partial presentation of their theme, to discount their unwarranted commentaries and illogical conclusions, and to get down in time to the hard bed-rock of fact. ”

“ Miss Murray does not seem to suspect that Witchcraft was in truth a foul and noisome heresy, the poison of the Manichees. Her “Dianic cult,” which name she gives to this “ancient religion” supposed to have survived until the Middle Ages and even later and to have been a formidable rival to Christianity, is none other than black heresy and the worship of Satan, no primitive belief with pre-agricultural rites, in latter days persecuted, misinterpreted, and misunderstood. ”

“ The Worship of the Witch
In order clearly to understand and fully to realize the shuddering horror and heart-sick dismay any sort of commerce between human beings and evil spirits, which is the very core and kernel of Witchcraft, excited throughout the whole of Christendom, to appreciate why tome after tome was written upon the subject by the most learned pens of Europe, why holiest pontiffs and wisest judges, grave philosopher and discreet scholar, king and peasant, careless noble and earnest divine, all alike were of one mind in the prosecution of sorcery ”

“ But when every allowance has been made, as we examine in detail the long and bloody history of Witchcraft, as we recognize the fearful fanaticism and atrocious extravagances of the witch mania, as we are enabled to account for in the light of ampler knowledge, both psychological and physical, details and accidents which would have inevitably led to the stake without respite or mercy, as we can elucidate case after case—one an hysterical subject, a cataleptic, an epileptic, a sufferer from some obscure nervous disorder even to-day not exactly diagnosed ”

“ Even those that show the appropriation by the cult of evil of the more hideous heathen practices, both of lust and cruelty, which prevailed among savage or decadent peoples, afford no evidence whatsoever of any continuity of an earlier religion, whilst by far the greater number of the facts she quotes are deflected, although no doubt unconsciously, and sharply wrested so as to be patent of the signification it is endeavoured to read on into them. ”

“ The sorcery of the Middle Ages, says Carl Haas, a learned and impartial authority, was born from the heresies of earlier epochs, and just as Christian authority had dealt with heresy, so did it deal with the spawn witchcraft. Both alike are the result of doubts, of faithlessness, a disordered imagination, pride and presumption, intellectual arrogance; sick phantasy both, they grow and flourish apace in shadow and sin, until right reasoning, and sometimes salutary force, are definitely opposed to them. The authors of the Malleus Maleficarum clearly identify heresy and Witchcraft. ”

“ It may seem strange that those rebellious spirits who rose against their Maker should be subordinate to and obey one of their fellows who led them to destruction, but this in itself is a proof that Lucifer is a superior intelligence, and the knowledge of the angels would show them that they can effect more mischief and evil by co-operation and organization, although their unifying principle is the bond of hate, than by anarchy and division. ”

“ For we have seen that Witchcraft as it existed in Europe from the eleventh century was mainly the spawn of Gnostic heresy, and heresy by its very nature embraced and absorbed much of heathendom. In some sense Witchcraft was a descendant of the old pre-Christian magic, but it soon assumed a slightly different form, or rather at the advent of Christianity it was exposed and shown in its real foul essence as the worship of the Evil Principle, the Enemy of Mankind, Satan. ”

“ It is quite impossible to appreciate and understand the true lives of men and women in Elizabethan and Stuart England, in the France of Louis XIII and his son, in the Italy of the Renaissance and the Catholic Reaction—to name but three countries and a few definite periods—unless we have some realization of the part that Witchcraft played in those ages amid the affairs of these kingdoms. ”

“ Miss Murray has worked out her thesis with no inconsiderable ingenuity, but when details are considered, historically examined, and set in their due proportions, it must be concluded that the theory of the continuity of an ancient religion is baseless. Her book is called A Study in Anthropology, and here we can, I think, at once put our finger upon the fundamental mistake. Anthropology alone offers no explanation of Witchcraft. Only the trained theologian can adequately treat the subject. ”

“ The sceptic notoriously refuses to believe in Witchcraft, but a sanely critical examination of the evidence at the witch-trials will show that a vast amount of the modern vulgar incredulity is founded upon a complete misconception of the facts, and it may be well worth while quite briefly to view and correct some of the more common objections that are so loosely and so repeatedly maintained. ”

“ In truth it was not against heathenism that Innocent VIII sounded the note of war, but against heresy. There was a clandestine organization hated by the Church, and this was not sorcery nor any cult of witches renewing and keeping green some ancient rites and pagan creed, but a witch-cult that identified itself with and was continually manifested in closest connexion with Gnosticism in its most degraded and vilest shapes. ”

“ Possibly one reason for this neglect and ignorance lies in the fact that the heavy and crass materialism, which was so prominent a feature during the greater part of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in England, intellectually disavowed the supernatural, and attempted not without some success to substitute for religion a stolid system of respectable morality. Since Witchcraft was entirely exploded it would, at best, possess merely an antiquarian interest, and even so, the exhumation of a disgusting and contemptible superstition was not to be encouraged. ”

“ Nor do I think that the man who personated Satan at their assemblies was so much an unscrupulous and designing knave as himself a demonist, believing intensely in the reality of his own dark powers, wholly and horribly dedicated and doomed to the service of evil. We have seen that the witches were upon occasion wont to array themselves in skins and ritual masks and there is complete evidence that the hierophant at the Sabbat, when a human being played that rôle, generally wore a corresponsive, if somewhat more elaborate, disguise. ”

“ But, as Suarez justly observes, even if no response be obtained from the demon “either because God does not allow it, or for some other reason we may not know,” [43] the guilt of the experimenter in this dark art and his sin are in no wise lightened. [44] Towards the end of the eighteenth century a certain Juan Perez, being reduced to the utmost misery, vowed himself body and soul to Satan if he were revenged upon those whom he suspected of injuring him. He consulted more than one magician and witch, he essayed more than one theurgie ceremonial, but all in vain. Hell was deaf to his appeal. ”

“ The kingdoms of this world are not his to offer, but only its sins and follies, disappointment and death. But here the Devil is demanding that divine honours should be paid him. And this claim is perpetuated throughout the witch trials. The witches believed that their master, Satan, Lucifer, the fiend, the principle of evil, was God, and as such they worshipped him with latria, they adored him, they offered him homage, they addressed prayer to him, they sacrificed. ”

“ To some peak of the Brocken or lonely Cevennes they haste, to the orgies of the Sabbat, the infernal Sacraments, the dance of Acheron, the sweet and fearful fantasy of evil, “Vers les stupres impurs et les baisers immondes.” [3] Hell seems to vomit its foulest dregs upon the shrinking earth; a loathsome shape of obscene horror squats huge and monstrous upon the ebon throne; the stifling air reeks with filth and blasphemy; faster and faster whirls the witches’ lewd lavolta ”

“ They then begin to sing the names of various demons, as though they were chanting a litany, until suddenly they perceive that the Devil has appeared in the midst of them in the shape of some animal or other. As he would seem to be visible to them all in some mysterious way they immediately extinguish the lights, and each one of them as quickly as he can seizes upon the woman, who chances to be nearest at hand. ”

“ Can anything further be needed to prove that the veneration of Holy Relics is merely a pagan survival?
Superficially the theory seems plausible enough, and yet it will not stand a moment before the judgement of history. The cultus of the Saints and their Relics is not an outcome of ancient hero-worship, but of reverence for the Martyrs, and this can be demonstrated without any possibility of question. ”

“ In fine, upon a candid examination of this theory of the continuity of some primitive religion, which existed as an underlying organization manifested in Witchcraft and sorcery, a serious rival feared and hated by the Church, we find that nothing of the sort ever survived, that there was no connexion between sorcery and an imaginary “Dianic cult.” ”

“ Within the limits imposed by the conventions of race and culture, the method of interpreting the emotions of the heart cannot be indefinitely varied, and it was natural that the new religion should appropriate and incorporate all that was good in a ritual much of which only required to be rightly interpreted and directed to become the language of the Christian soul aspiring to the one True God. ”

“ For we know that the Continental stories of witch gatherings are with very few exceptions the chronicle of actual fact. It must be confessed that such feeble scepticism, which repeatedly mars his summary of the witch-trials, is a serious blemish in Professor Notestein’s work, and in view of his industry much to be regretted.
Miss M. A. Murray does not for a moment countenance any such summary dismissal and uncritical rejection of evidence. Her careful reading of the writers upon Witchcraft has justly convinced her that their statements must be accepted. ”

“ God, so far as His ordinary presence and action in Nature are concerned, is hidden behind the veil of secondary causes, and when God’s ape, the Demon, can work so successfully and obtain not merely devoted adherents but fervent worshippers by human agency, there is plainly no need for him to manifest himself in person either to particular individuals or at the Sabbats, but none the less, that he can do so and has done so is certain, since such is the sense of the Church, and there are many striking cases in the records and trials which are to be explained in no other way. ”

“ As a most unprejudiced writer has well said: “The underlying and provocative phenomena had really been present in a huge number of cases.” [32] And there is no other way of accounting for these save by acknowledging the reality of Witchcraft and diabolic contracts. It must be steadily remembered that the most brilliant minds, the keenest intelligences, the most learned scholars, the noblest names, men who had heard the evidence at first hand, all firmly believed in Witchcraft. ”

“ Miss Murray actually postulates that “underlying the Christian religion was a cult practised by many classes of the community” which “can be traced back to pre-Christian times, and appears to be the ancient religion of Western Europe.” We are given a full account of the chief festivals of this imaginary cult, of its hierarchy, its organization, and many other details. The feasts and dances—the obscene horrors of the Sabbat—“show that it was a joyous religion”! It is impossible to conceive a more amazing assertion. ”

“ Inasmuch as the discovery of the devil-mark was regarded as one of the most convincing indications—if not, indeed, an infallible proof—that the accused was guilty since he bore indelibly branded upon his flesh Satan’s own sign-manual, it is easy to see how the searching for, the recognition and the probing of, such marks actually grew to be a profession in which not a few ingenious persons came to be recognized as experts and practical authorities. ”

“ But save in some highly specialized context when the most meticulous accuracy is required, we now use the words “devil,” “demon” indifferently, and employ the definite article to denote Lucifer (Satan) , chief of the devils, The Devil. So in S. Matthew xxv. 41, is written “the devil and his angels.” The Greek word διάβολος means a slanderer, an accuser, and in this sense is it applied to him of whom it is said “the accuser [ὁ κατήγορος] of our brethren is cast forth, who accused them before our God day and night” (Apocalypse xii. 10) . ”

“ Any appeal to authority is, of course, useless, as the sceptic repudiates all authority—save his own. Such things could not be. We must argue from that axiom, and therefore anything which it is impossible to explain away by hallucination, or hysteria, or auto-suggestion, or any other vague catch-word which may chance to be fashionable at the moment, must be uncompromisingly rejected, and a note of superior pity, to candy the so suave yet crushingly decisive judgement, has proved of great service upon more occasions than one. Why examine the evidence? ”