Sorcery

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There may be, and there are, sorcerers for whose services a demand makes itself felt, and for this purpose there are brought to them pancakes and flasks; but it is difficult to imagine the existence of sorcerers whose spells are useless to every one, and who boldly demand that they shall be luxuriously supported because they exercise sorcery. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Such were the appalling conceptions which ages of bigotry and ignorance annexed to the notion of sorcery, and with these they scared the unhappy beings over whom this notion had usurped an ascendancy into lunacy, and prepared them for the perpetrating flagitious and unheard-of deeds.
The result of these horrible incantations was not less tremendous, than the preparations might have led us to expect. The demons possessed all the powers of the air, and produced tempests and shipwrecks at their pleasure. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ... ”

“ 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. ”

“ Sorcery is held by some to be properly what the ancients called Sortilegium, or divination by means of Sortes or lots.
Lord Coke (3 Instit. fol. 44,) describes a Sorcerer, qui utitur sortibus, et incantationibus dæmonium. Sorcery, by Stat. 1o.Jac. is felony. In another book it is said to be a branch of heresy; and by Stat. 12, Carolus II. it is excepted out of the general pardons.
Sorcery is pretended to have been a very common thing formerly; the credulity, at least, of those ages made it pass for such; people frequently suffered for it. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ With those peoples that have no further conception of the religious sentiment there obtains for the most part, at least, the magical use of sorcery.166 Superstition, ever varying, at some future date may [278] assume, even in Europe, a form as pernicious or irrational as any of a past or of the present age; for in every age 'religion, which should most distinguish us from beasts, and ought most peculiarly to elevate us as rational creatures above brutes, is that wherein men often appear most irrational and more senseless than beasts themselves.'167 ”

“ But the belief in witchcraft is continuous. So also are the methods practised, and the modes of detection. The proofs offered in support of sorcery in the seventeenth century are precisely similar to those credited by savages in the lowest stage of human culture. ”

“ WHILE, as we have seen, princes and warriors were toying with the dangerous mysteries of the occult sciences, influencing the destinies of states, there had been for half a century a gradually increasing development of sorcery in a different direction among the despised peasantry, which, before it ran its course, worked far greater evils than any which had thus far sprung from the same source, and left an ineffaceable stain upon the civilization and intelligence of Europe. ”

“ THE ORDEAL OF THE BALANCE.
We have seen above that a belief existed that persons guilty of sorcery lost their specific gravity, and this superstition naturally led to the use of the balance in the effort to discover and punish the crime of witchcraft, which all experts assure us was the most difficult of all offences on which to obtain evidence. ”

“ 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. ”

“ By using the proper sorcery, this image can be developed and the last thing the dead man saw can be brought out.
"But it's a difficult process even under the best of circumstances, and usually the conditions aren't right. ”

“ 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 ”

“ I revoke and condemn these following conclusions, to wit, that there are no such beings as sorcerers, who renounce God and worship the Devil, who bring on tempests, and do the work of Satan and such like, but that all these things are dreams. 6. Moreover that magic is not to be called sorcery, nor its practisers to be deemed sorcerers, and that that that place of Exod. xxii, ('Ye shall not suffer sorcerers to live') is to be understood of those who slay with material poison, naturally administered. 7. That no contract exists or can exist between man and the demon. ”

“ He observes that when the cruelties of the Inquisition against the imaginary crime of sorcery were the most barbarous, this singular frenzy led numbers to accuse themselves of sorcery. The publication and celebrity of the crime begat the desire of the crime. ”

“ These are but a very small proportion of the minor species of superstitions which influence weak and uninstructed minds in all countries. The vulgar, even in the most enlightened periods, are not entirely exempt from belief in the powers of sorcery and magic, and other fantastical and imaginary agencies, such as Exorcisms, Charms, and Amulets. ”

“ One generation of follies after another, strangely affiliated, waits on the successive descendants of man, and perpetuates in another shape the superstition which seemed to be eradicated. In its most vulgar and abhorrent form, we recognize it in the fearful epidemic of sorcery and witchcraft which afflicted the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries ”

“ In another passage Celsus again closely connected sorcery with the knowledge of occult virtues in nature, arguing that men need not pride themselves upon their power of sorcery when serpents and eagles know of antidotes to poisons and amulets and the virtues of certain stones which help to preserve their young. ”

“ And more and more widely is the fact becoming recognized that sorcery and witchcraft and magic were as far from being popular delusions as they were remote from being implicated with Christian mythology, to the imputed extent of siding with the devil against Heaven. ”

“ At a much earlier period many persons had suffered death for sorcery, in addition to other offences; but no executions took place for attending the witches’ sabbath, raising tempests, afflicting cattle with barrenness, and all the fantastic trumpery of the continent. ”

“ In answer to these, I allow that there is indeed very often a great deal of illusion, prepossession, and imagination in all that is termed magic and sorcery; and sometimes the devil by false appearances combines with them to deceive the simple ”

“ But because by such speakings and murmurings evil affections were excited by the evil, and enchantments thus became magical, they also are enumerated among the magical arts, and severely prohibited; as in Deut. xviii. 9-11; Isaiah xlvii. 9, 12; Rev. xviii. 23; xxii. 15. (A. E. n. 590.)
Sorcerers are those who pervert Divine order, that is the laws of order. Sorcery and magic are nothing else, as is evident from sorcerers; and especially in the other life, where they abound. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A religious idea was cultivated into a mania and the taste for human flesh was developed.1097 Here also we find the usage that shamans ate the flesh of corpses, in connection with fasting and solitude, as means of professional stimulation.1098 Preuss emphasizes the large element of sorcery in the eating of parts of a human sacrifice, as practiced in Mexico.1099 The combination of sorcery, religious ritual, and cannibalism deserves very careful attention. ”

“ It is a most impudent kind of sorcery to attempt to blind us with the smoke, without convincing us that the fire has existed. ”

“ After deep metaphysical observations in nature, and arguing in mitigation of sorcery, witchcraft, and divination, effects that far outstrip the belief in Amulets, he observes “we should not reject all of this kind, because it is not known how far those contributing to superstition depend on natural causes. Charms have not their power from contracts with evil spirits, but proceed wholly from strengthening the imagination; in the same manner that images and their influence, have prevailed in religion; being called from a different way of use and application, sigils, incantations, and spells. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”