Sorceress

“ A sorcerer, I would remind you, is one who knowingly employs a devilish art, or devilish arts, for the attainment of a certain object. Well, these two persons, the man and the woman, I find to be sorcerers both in intention and in fact; the man because, as the evidence states, he gave to this woman the balm of the Witches’ Sabbath, and made his visage like unto Lucifer so as to obtain money from her and the satisfaction of his wanton desires. And the woman also I find to be a sorceress because she submitted herself to the man, taking him for a devil and abandoning herself to his will. ”

“ There were, and according to the belief of many still are, sorcerers and sorceresses; they are looked upon as outsiders, feared, hated and never touched. It is a form of our ancient and respectable belief in witchcraft. ”

“ Some have believed that demons took the form of the sorcerers and sorceresses who were supposed to be at the sabbath, and that they maintained the simple creatures in their foolish belief, by appearing to them sometimes in the shape of those persons who were reputed witches, while they themselves were quietly asleep in their beds. ”

“ In the second place come the Sorcerers and Sorceresses, who are people of a middle condition, and these performe the same kind of adoration with the former, kneeling vpon the ground, but not prostrating themselves as doe the other; although they kisse the hands and feet of the Diuell as the first likewise doe. ”

“ In the civilized countries I believe there are no witches left, nor wizards, nor sorceresses, nor magicians. ”

“ The sorcerer answered: “I want to find out whether you know anything about those three doves that used to bathe in my brother’s pond.”
“Of course I know about them, for I have been driving them before me. They are bathing in the Red Sea now.”
The sorcerer said: “You must take up this man and carry him as far as their gold-roofed palace,” and he took the lad aside and whispered in his ear:
“When the devil asks you how quick he is to take you, if he says: ‘As quickly as the wind blows?’ say ‘No’; and if he says, ‘As quickly as the step goes?’ say ‘No’ again. ”

“ The sorcerer took the hair, saliva, or other substance, which had belonged to his victim, to his house, or marae, performed his incantations over it, and offered his prayers; the demon was then supposed to enter the substance (called tubu) , and through it to the individual who had suffered from the enchantment.”— (“Polynesian Researches,” vol. ii. p. 228, quoted in “The Nat. Trib. of S. Australia,” p. 25.)
“If the death of any obnoxious person is desired to be procured by sorcery, the malevolent native secures a portion of his enemy’s hair, refuse of food, or excrement ”

“ Thence came the idea, so fruitful in the development of sorcery, of compacts with Satan by which sorcerers became his slaves, binding themselves to do all the evil they could to follow their example. Thus the sorcerer or witch was an enemy of all the human race as well as of God, the most efficient agent of hell in its sempiternal conflict with heaven. ”

“ In the island of Nias, when a man is seriously ill and other remedies have been tried in vain, the sorcerer proceeds to exorcise the devil who is causing the illness. A pole is set up in front of the house, and from the top of the pole a rope of palm-leaves is stretched to the roof of the house. Then the sorcerer mounts the roof with a pig, which he kills and allows to roll from the roof to the ground. The devil, anxious to get the pig, lets himself down hastily from the roof by the rope of palm-leaves, and a good spirit, invoked by the sorcerer, prevents him from climbing up again. ”

“ But even these ghosts can be controlled by those who [pg 298] know the magic words or the mystic rites which they are compelled to obey. Between the ghost and his victim the sorcerer or medicine-man can interpose, and by means of his spells force the spirit to quit the body of the sufferer or enter the body of an enemy. By the side of the ghost, therefore, stands the sorcerer, who is at once the master and the minister of the spirit-world.
With the progress of civilisation an organised body of sorcerers necessarily grows up. ”

“ Meantime his mates behind him are reckoning up the names of all the men near and far who are suspected of sorcery, and a portion of the village youth have clambered up trees and are on the look-out for the ghost. If they do not see his body they certainly see his eye twinkling in the gloom, though the uninstructed European might easily mistake it for a glow-worm. No sooner do they catch sight of it than they bawl out, "Come hither, fetch the fire, and burn him who burnt thee." If the tinder blazes up at the name of a sorcerer, it is flung towards the village where the man in question dwells. ”

“ The Dead Sea fruit assumes the most glorious mystic appearance ... although it is the intention that decides primarily whether white or black magic is exercised, yet the results even of involuntary sorcery cannot fail to be productive of bad Karma.... Sorcery is any kind of evil influence exercised upon other persons, who suffer, or make other persons to suffer, in consequence ... ”

“ Europeans have resided among savages for years without discovering some of their capital articles of faith, and in the end the discovery has often been the result of accident. Above all, the savage lives in an intense and perpetual dread of assassination by sorcery; the most trifling relics of his person—the clippings of his hair and nails, his spittle, the remnants of his food, his very name—all these may, he fancies, be turned by the sorcerer to his destruction, and he is therefore anxiously careful to conceal or destroy them. ”

“ In respect to all those prodigies and spells which the common people attribute to sorcery and intercourse with the demon, it is proved that they can only be done by means of natural magic; this is the opinion of the greater number of the fathers of the church.
3d. All that demons have to do with the criminal practices of those who are commonly called sorcerers is suggestion, by which he invites them to the abominable research of all those natural causes which can hurt our neighbor. ”

“ We have already seen that when a man sustains a misfortune of any kind, he consults the diviners, and they find whether the misfortune is due to a fault committed by the sufferer or whether it is the result of sorcery. In the latter case, they say by whose magic the misfortune has been produced, and the sorcerer is then propitiated and removes the spell, the nature and details of the process varying according to the method of sorcery used and the offence which had led the sorcerer to exert his powers. ”

“ They breathed a new and unblest life into beings in whom existence had long been extinct, and by their hateful and resistless power caused the sepulchres to give up their dead.
WITCHCRAFT. Next to sorcery we may recollect the case of witchcraft, which occurs oftener, particularly in modern times, than any other alleged mode of changing by supernatural means the future course of events. The sorcerer, as we shall see hereafter, was frequently a man of learning and intellectual abilities, sometimes of comparative opulence and respectable situation in society. ”

“ For, indeed, it is a very probable opinion, that the several glaring instances of sorcery we meet, in our old law books and historians, if well inquired into, would be found at bottom, to have more human art and desperate malignity and vindictive cunning about them, than of demoniacal and preternatural agency. Were it not for a wellregulated 273police acting under wise regulations for the safety and harmony of society, sorcerers and evil spirits would be equally as prevalent and destructive at the present day, as they were some two or three hundred years ago. ”

“ He told them it was love for the witch maid by which the hand of the sorcerer kept every other man from touching her.––Even to take the heart from her breast, was an easier thing than to give her to the men of Te-gat-ha or of Povi-whah, who had looked on her face and asked for her, also he had wrapped about her his priestly robe of office before he laid her in the 320 earth where Satan had broken the rock to reach for her!
Their sorcerer had traded his robe of office for the evil love of an enchantress:––never again must a god be offended by sound of his prayers! ”

“ The magician of ancient times wrought his magic wonders, as the witch of our own days is said to do, either by the instrumentality of evil spirits, or by virtue of certain forms, ceremonies, and incantations which are of an immoral tendency. Accordingly we find that the sorcerer is a dangerous creature, whose sole aim is to secure his own personal benefit and the satisfaction of his evil passions ”

“ 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. ”

“ Belief in the powers of sorcery had been too strongly inculcated to disappear with the cessation of persecution. A modern writer assures us that all the old superstitions flourish as vigorously as ever—conjurations and formulas to cure or to kill, to foretell the future, to create love or hatred, to render men impotent and women barren, to destroy the flocks and herds and harvests, to bring tempests and hail-storms. ”

“ But never flees
Their sorcery of sorceries.
Truth, Grace, and Love
From worlds above—
Hints of the Pure and Holy Dove—
Divinely bright,
These gems of sight
Are throned upon their globes of light. ”

“ The sorcerer dies a terrible death. Many dogs bark and run away and come back; they look like fire, but they are not; they are the evil thoughts of the sorcerer. The river, too, makes a greater noise as it flows, as if somebody were dipping up water and pouring it out again. Uncanny, weird noises come from every part of the house, and all the people in it are much frightened. ”

“ True, in our enlightened classes, neither Protestant nor Catholic would enter upon a course of sorcery, of which there were so many instances but two or three centuries ago, and which were so often followed by condemnation and capital punishment. In our more remote country districts, however, the belief in sorcery is as strong as it was universal in the Middle Ages. ”

“ The rest must be told in the narrator’s own words:—
“At last, on the third morning, when the excitement of the people was at its height—when old and young, male and female, were frantic with the desire for revenge on the sorcerers—the doctor assembled them about him in the centre of the town, and began his final incantation, which should disclose the names of the murderous sorcerers.
“Every man and boy was armed,—some with spears, some with swords, some with guns and axes; and on every face was shown a determination to wreak bloody revenge on those who should be pointed out as the criminals. ”

“ He himself sees devils in the ancient gods evoked by his spells, but he nevertheless remains confident of their protection; he engages himself in their service by compacts, and fancies himself going to a witch-dance in their company. The greater [374] part of the magic of the Middle Ages bears this character and perpetuates the popular and superstitious rites of paganism in the mysterious and diabolical operations of sorcery. ”

“ When he goes into the field, may a snake sting him! When he goes to the chase, may a ravening beast attack him! And when he steps into a river, may the water sweep him away! When it rains, may the lightning strike him! May evil nights be his!” It is believed that in the knot the sorcerer has bound up the life of his enemy.1113 Babylonian witches and wizards of old used to strangle their victim, seal his mouth, wrack his limbs, and tear his entrails by merely tying knots in a cord, while at each knot they muttered a spell. ”

“ But as he tells us that all deaths are believed by these savages to be an effect of sorcery, we may conjecture that the sham fight is intended to delude the ghost into thinking that his death is being avenged on the sorcerer who killed him.524 In former lectures I shewed that similar pretences are made, apparently for a similar purpose, by some of the natives of Australia and New Guinea.525 If the explanation is correct, we can hardly help applauding the ingenuity which among these savages has discovered a bloodless mode of satisfying the ghost's craving for blood. ”

“ Disease and death were also attributed to the malignant charms of sorcerers, who, hired by an enemy of the sufferer, procured for the purpose the clipped hair or the spittle of their intended victim, the flowers or garment he had worn, or any object which had touched his person. But the real agents who were thought to give effect to the charms were the minor deities, whom the sorcerer employed to accomplish his nefarious ends. ”

“ When the misfortune comes, and the diviners have discovered its cause, the matter is arranged by a nedrvol as in the other kind of sorcery, and it is usually settled that the sufferer shall give a one- or a two-year-old calf to the sorcerer. ”

“ When the party returns from escorting out the evil influences, the sorcerer proceeds to take down his chart, burns incense and exhorts the family gods, packs up his sorcerer's paraphernalia, eats a hearty meal, counts the wages of divination and takes his departure. ”

“ Besides, there is still more convincing proof in the fact, that the same father establishes the truth of witchcraft in all his writings, and more particularly in his 'City of God;' and in his first volume, question the 25th, wherein he states that sorcery is a communion between man and the devil, which all good Christians ought to look upon with horror. ”