Although toward the beginning of the IV. century, people began to speak of the nocturnal meeting of witches and sorcerers, under the name of "Assembly of Diana," or "Herodia," it was not until canon or church law, had become quite engrafted upon the civil law, that the full persecution for witchcraft arose. A witch was held to be a woman who had deliberately sold herself to the evil one; who delighted in injuring others, and who, for the purpose of enhancing the enormity of her evil acts, choose the Sabbath day for the performance of her most impious rites, and to whom 'all black animals had special relationship; the black cat in many countries being held as her principal familiar. "To go to the Sabbath" signified taking part in witch orgies. The possession of a pet of any kind at this period was dangerous to woman. One who had tamed a frog, was condemned to be burned in consequence, the harmless amphibian being looked upon as a familiar of Satan. The devil ever being depicted in sermon or story as black, all black animals by an easy transition of ideas, became associated with evil and witches. And its rhyming answer: "To sweep the cobwebs from the sky, doubtless owes its origin to the witchcraft period. A song said to be in use during witch dances ran: "Har, Har, Diabole, Diabole; Sali huc, Although the confirmation by the church in the "In order to obtain forfeit property, the same persons act as accusers and judges, and invent a thousand stories as proof." The Parliament of Toulouse burned 400 witches at one time. Four hundred women at one hour on the public square, dying the horrid death of fire for a crime which never existed save in the imagination of those persecutors and which grew in their imagination from a false belief in woman's extraordinary wickedness, based upon a false theory as to original sin. Remy, judge of Nancy, acknowledged to having burnt eight hundred in sixteen years; at the rate of half a hundred a year. Many women were driven to suicide in fear of the torture in store for them. In 1595 sixteen of those accused by Remy, destroyed themselves rather than fall into his terrible hands. Six hundred were burnt in one small bishopric in one year; nine hundred during the same period in another. Seven thousand lost their lives in Treves; a thousand in the province of Como, in Italy, in a single year; five hundred were executed at Geneva, in a single month. While written history does not fail to give abundant record in regard to the number of such victims of the church, largely women whose lives were forfeited by accusation of witchcraft, hundreds at one time dying agonizingly by fire, a new and weird evidence as Pacini found in all the sensible nerves of the fingers many elliptical whitish corpuscles. He compared them to the electrical organs of the torpedo and described them as animal magneto-motors, or organs of animal magnetism, and so did Henle and Holliker, two German anatomists who have studied and described these corpuscles very minutely. In the human body they are found in great numbers in connection with the nerves of the hand, also in those of the foot * * * The ecstatic dances of the enthusiasts and the not-sinking of somnambulists in water, or their ability to use the soles of their feet as organs of perception, and the ancient art of healing by the soles of the feet-all these facts explain the mystery. They are found sparingly on the spinal nerves, and on the plexuses of the sympathetic, but never on the nerves of motion * * * Anatomists are interested in these Pacinian corpuscles because of the novel aspect in which they present the constituent parts of the nerve-tube, placed in the heart of a system of concentric membranous capsules with intervening fluid, and divested of that layer which they (the anatomists) First; that in which she ordinarily was when she appeared to be awakened but on the contrary was the first stage of her inner life, many persons of whom it was not expected and who was not aware of it themselves, being in this state. Second; the magnetic dream, which she believed to be the condition of many persons who were regarded as insane. Third; the half wakening state when she spoke and wrote the inner language, her spirit then being in intimate conjunction with her soul. Fourth; her clairvoyant state. With the investigation of Dr Kerner, the discoveries of Galvani, Pacini, and those more recently connected with electricity, notably of Edison and Nikolas Tesla, the world seems upon the eve of important knowledge which may throw full light upon the peculiar nerve action of the witch period, when a holocaust of women were sacrificed, victims of the ignorance and barbarity of the church, which thus retarded civilization and delayed spiritual progress for many hundred years. Besides the natural psychics who formed The German word Heke, (witch) is a compound word from "hag" and "idisan" or "disan." Hag means Through its opposition to the use of anæsthetics by the women physicians of the witch period, the church again interposed the weight of her mighty arm to crush science, leaving the load of preventable suffering of all kinds upon the world for many hundred years longer, or until the light of a scientific civilization threw discredit upon her authority. History proves that women were the earliest chemists. The witch period also shows us the germs of a medical system, the Homeopathic, supposed to be of modern origin, in similia similibus curantur. Among the strange epidemics of these ages, a dancing mania appeared; Belladonna among whose effects is the desire of dancing, was employed as a cure of the "Dancing Mania," and thus the theory of Hahnemann was forestalled. During the witch period these sages or wise-women were believed to be endowed with a supernatural or magical power of curing diseases. They were also regarded as prophets to whom the secrets of the future were known. The women of ancient Germany, of Gaul and among the Celts were especially famous for their It is computed from historical records that nine millions of persons were put to death for witchcraft after 1484, or during a period of three hundred years, and this estimate does not include the vast number who were sacrificed in the preceding centuries upon the same accusation. The greater number of this incredible multitude were women. Under catholicism, those condemned as sorcerers and witches, as "heretics," were in reality the most advanced thinkers of the christian ages. Under that protestant pope, the Eighth Henry, an Act of Parliament condemning witchcraft as felony was confirmed. Enacted under Henry V, it had fallen into disuse, but numerous petitions setting forth that witches and sorcerers were "wonderful many," and his majesty's subjects persecuted to death by their devices, led to its re-enactment. The methods used to extort confession without which it was impossible in many cases to convict for witchcraft, led to the grossest outrages upon woman. Searching the body of the suspected witch for the marks of Satan, and the practice of shaving the whole body before applying torture were occasions of atrocious indignities. It was asserted that all who consorted The protestant clergy equally with the catholic priesthood, were charged with fostering a belief in witchcraft for the purpose of gain. At no period of the world has a more diabolical system of robbery existed. For the sake of a few pounds or pence, the most helpless of human beings, made helpless through church teaching as to their unworthiness, were by the church daily brought under accusation, exposing them to a cruel death at the hand of irresponsible tyranny. The system of thugery in India, shines white by side of this christian system of robbery, inaugurated by the church and sustained by the state. In the name of religion, the worst crimes against humanity have ever been perpetrated. On the accession of James I. he ordered the learned work of Reginald Scott against witchcraft, to be burned. She had not confessed because she was guilty but being a poor creature who wrought for her meat and being defined for a witch, she knew she would starve, for no person thereafter would give her either meat or lodging, and that all men would beat her and hound dogs at her and therefore she desired to be out of the world, whereupon she wept bitterly and upon her knees called upon God to witness what she said. Even under all the evidence of the persecution and cruel tortures that innocent women endured during the witchcraft period, no effort of the imagination can portray the sufferings of an accused woman. The death this poor woman chose, in voluntarily admitting a crime of which she was innocent, rather than to accept a chance of life with the name of "witch" clinging to her, was one of the most painful of which we can conceive, although in the diversity of torture inflicted upon the witch it is scarcely possible to say which one was the least agonizing. In no country has the devil ever been more fully regarded as a real personage, ever on the watch for souls, than in Christian Scotland. Sir George says: Another told me she was afraid the devil would For 10 loads of coal to burn the witches
�3 06.8 " A tar barrel 0 14.0 " towes 0 06.0 " hurdles to be jumps for them 3 10.0 " making of them 0 08.0 " one to go to Tinmouth for the lord to sit upon the assize as judge 0 06.0 " the executioner for his pains 8 14.0 " his expenses there 0 16.4 What was the special office of the executioner does not appear; whether to drag the victims upon hurdles, to the places of burning, to light the fire, to keep it well blazing, is not mentioned although his office was important and a well paid one; eight pounds and fourteen shillings above his expenses, sixteen shillings and four pence more; in all nine pounds, ten shillings and four pence, a sum equal to one hundred and fifty or two hundred dollars of the present day. At these rates it was easy to find men for the purpose desired. It is worthy of note that under the frequency of torture the payment lessened. Strange experiences sometimes befell those who were tortured: a cataleptic or hypnotic state coming on amid their most cruel sufferings causing an entire insensibility to pain. To the church this condition was sure evidence of help from Satan and caused a renewal of torture as soon as sensibility returned. In the year 1639 a poor widow called Lucken, who Paid two men that sat by the kettle and boiled him 1s To three men that carried his quarters to the gate and set them up 1s For a woman that scoured the kettle 2d Boiling was a form of torture frequently used for women. The official records of Paris show the price paid for torture in France was larger than in England; boiling in oil in the former country costing forty eight francs as against one shilling in the latter. It must be remembered these official prices for torture, are not taken from the records of China or Persia, two thousand years ago, nor from among the savages of Patagonia, Australia or Guinea, but two European countries Burning a witch, probably because of its greater frequency, cost, but little over one-half as much as boiling in oil. The battle of gladiators with wild beasts in the Coliseum at Rome in reign of Nero, had in it an element of hope. Not the priesthood but the populace were the arbiters of the gladiator's destiny, giving always a chance for life in cases of great personal bravery. But in France and England the ecclesiastical code was so closely united with the civil as to be one with it; compassion equally with justice was forgotten, despair taking their place. Implements of torture were of frequent invention, the thought of the The reformers were more cruel than those from whose superstitious teachings they professed to have escaped. All the tortures of the old church were repeated and an unusual number of new and diabolical ones invented to induce confession. Nor were these tortures applied to the suspected witch alone; her young and tender children against whom no accusation has been brought, were sometimes tortured in her presence in order to wring confession from the mother. Towards the end of the sixteenth century, a woman accused of witchcraft endured the most intense torture, The evidence was of the most paltry character; as when out of door a little thing like a bee flew upon the witness face, putting a ten penny nail with a broad head into her mouth. Lath nails and pins said to have been vomited by the children were produced in court. When arraigned the accused pleaded not guilty nor did they ever change this plea. Great pressure was upon them to induce confession, but they could not be prevailed upon to thus criminate themselves and were executed the seventeenth of March, just one week after trial, confessing nothing. Not alone the clergy and the legal fraternity wrought in unison, but the medical as well, gave the weight of their authority in favor of witchcraft; and many persons needing the wisest medical appliance for their relief from disease were executed as witches. Half-witted and insane persons met with the same persecution as old women. It was an era of the strong against the weak, the powerful against the helpless. Even Sir Thomas Browne, himself a physician, regarded the fainting fits to which one of the accused women had long been subject as fuller evidence of her guilt. In his character of medical examiner he asserted that the devil had taken opportunity of her natural fits, to operate with her malice. An almost equally notable trial as that of Bury St. Edmunds before Sir Matthew Hale, was known as the Sommers Trial, or that of the "Lancashire Witches," in 1612. Among the accused were two extremely aged women decrepit and nearly blind, tottering into second childhood, incapable of understanding whereof they were accused, or the evidence against them which, as in the case argued before Sir Matthew Hale, was of the most worthless character. One needs but refer to This Annie Whittle, alias Chattox, was a very old withered and decrepit creature, her sight almost gone, a dangerous witch of very long continuance, her lips ever chattering and walking (talking)? but no one knew what. She was next in order to that wicked, fierce bird of mischief, old Demdike. This poor old creature "confessed" that Robert Mutter had offered insult to her married daughter; and the court decreed this was a fair proof of her having bewitched him to his death. No condemnation of the man who had thus insulted her daughter, but death for the aged mother who had resented this insult. Designated as "Old Demdike, a fierce bird of mischief" this woman of four score years of age, had not only brought up a large family of her own, but her grand children had fallen to her care. She had lived a blameless life of over eighty years, much of it devoted to the care of children and children's children. But when decrepit and almost blind she fell under suspicion of a crime held by Church and State as of the most baleful character, her blameless and industrious life proved of no avail against this accusation. She seems to have originally been a woman of great force of character and executive ability, but frightened at an accusation she could not understand and overpowered by all the dread majesty of the law into whose merciless power she had fallen, she "confessed" to communion This Annie Whittle, alias Chattox, of the Forest of Pendle, in the countie of Lancaster, widow, being indicted for that she feloniously had practiced, used and exercised divers wicked and divelish artes, called witchcraftes, inchantments, charms and sorceries, in and upon one Robert Mutter of Greenhead, in the Forest of Pendle, in the countie of Lane; and by force of the same witchcraft, feloniously the sayed Robert Mutter had killed, contra pacem, etc. Being at the barre was arraigned. To this indictment, upon her arraignment, she pleaded, not guiltie; and for the tryall of her life put herself upon God and her country. One of the chief witnesses at this trial was a child of nine years. Now against these witches the justice of the peace may not always expect direct evidence, seeing all their works are works of darkness and no witness permitted with them to accuse them, and therefore for their better discovery I thought good here to set down certain observations out of the methods of discovery of the witches that were arraigned at Lancaster, A. D. 1612 before Sir James Altham and Sir Edward Bromley, judges of Assize there. 1. They have ordinarily a familiar or spirit which appeareth to them. 2. The said familiar hath some bigg or place upon their body where he sucketh them. 3. They have often pictures of clay or wax (like a man, etc.) found in their house. 4. If the dead body bleed upon the witches touching it. 5. The testimony of the person hurt upon his death. 6. The examination and confession of the children or servants of the witch. 7. Their own voluntary confession which exceeds all other evidence. At this period many persons either in hope of a The American Colonies adopted all the unjust previsions of European christianity as parts of their own religion and government. Fleeing from persecution, the Puritans yet brought with them the spirit of persecution in the belief of woman's inferiority and wickedness, as taught by the church from whence they had fled. The "Ducking Stool" for women who too vigorously protested against their wrongs, and the "Scarlet Letter" of shame for the woman who had transgressed the moral law, her companion in sin going free, or as in England, sitting as juror in the box, or judge upon the bench. With them also came a belief in witchcraft, which soon caused Massachusetts Colony A terrible summer for Salem village and its vicinity was that of 1692--a year of worse than pestilence or famine. Bridget Bishop was hanged in June; Sarah Good, Sarah Wilder, Elizabeth Howe, Susanna Martin and Rebecca Nurse in July; George Burroughs, John Proctor, George Jacobs, John Willard and Martha Carrier in August; Martha Corey, Mary Easty, Alice Parker, Ann Pudeator, Margaret Scott, Wilmit Reed, Boston as "The Bloody Town" rivalled Salem in its persecution of women who dared express thoughts upon religious matters in contradiction to the Puritanic belief; women were whipped because of independent religious belief, New England showing itself as strenuous for "conformity" of religious opinion as Thus the old world restrictions upon woman, and their persecutions, were soon duplicated in the new world. Liberty of opinion became as serious a crime in America as in England, and here as in Europe, the most saintly virtue and the purest life among women were not proof against priestly attack. While Mistress Hutchinson was the first woman thus to suffer, many others were also persecuted. When Mary Fisher and Anne Austin, two Quaker women who had become famous for their promulgation of this heretical doctrine in many parts of the world, arrived in Boston harbor, July 1656, they were not at first permitted to land, but were ultimately transferred to the Boston jail, where they were closely confined, and notwithstanding the heat of the weather their one window was boarded up. Their persons were also stripped and examined for signs of witchcraft, but fortunately not a mole or a spot could be found. Boston--"The Bloody Town"--was the center of this persecuting spirit and every species of wanton cruelty upon woman was enacted. Stripped nude to the waist they were tied to a whipping-post on the south side of King Street and flogged on account of their religious opinions; but it was upon the famous "Common" that for the crime of free speech, a half nude woman with a new born babe at her breast was thus publicly whipped; and it was upon the "Common" that Mary Dyer, another Quaker woman, was hung in 1659. In 1736, the statute against witchcraft was repealed by the English Parliament, yet a belief in witchcraft is still largely prevalent even among educated people. Dr. F. G. Lee the vicar of an English church, that of All Saints in Lambeth, a few years since publicly deprecated the abolition of its penalties in a work entitled "Glimpses of the Twilight," complaining that the laws against witchcraft had been "foolishly and short-sightedly repealed." A remarkable case occurred in Prussia 1883 when the father of a bed-ridden girl, having become persuaded that his daughter was bewitched by a woman who had occasionally given her apples and pears, was advised the child would be 3. "It is not a little remarkable, though perfectly natural, that the introduction of the cat gave a new impulse to tales and fears of ghosts and enchantments. The sly, creeping, nocturnal grimalkin took rank at once with owls and bats, and soon surpassed them both as an exponent of all that is weird and supernatural. Entirely new conceptions of witchcraft were gained for the world when the black cat appeared upon the scene with her swollen tail, glistening eyes and unearthly yell."--Ex. 4. Steevens says it was permitted to a witch to take on a cattes body nine times.-Brand 3, 89-90. 5. Mr. E, F. Spicer, a taxidermist of Birmingham, whose great specialty is 7. Italian women usually became cats. The Witch Hammer mentioned a belief in Lycanthropy and Metamorphosis. It gave the story of a countryman who was assaulted by three cats. He wounded them, after which three infamous witches were found wounded and bleeding. 9. The conventicle of witches was said to be held on Mt. Atlas, "to which they rode upon a goat, a night crow, or an enchanted staff, or bestriding a broom staff. Sundry speeches belonged to these witches, the words whereof were neither Hebrew, Greek, Latin, French, Spanish, Italian, nor indeed deriving their Etymology from any known language." 13. Lea.--Superstition and Force. 16. Witchcraft was supposed to have power of subverting religion.--Montesquieu. 17. The question why the immense majority of those who were accused should be women, early attracted attention; it was answered by the inherent wickedness of the sex, which had its influence in pre-disposing men to believe in witches, and also in producing the extreme callousness with which the sufferings of the victims were contemplated.--Rationalism in Europe I, 88. 19. (Witch Hammer.) 20. The Court of Rome was fully apprized that power cannot be maintained without property, and thereupon its attention began very early to be riveted upon every method that promised pecuniary advantage. All the wealth of Christendom was gradually drawn by a thousand channels into the coffers of the Holy See. Blackstone.--Commentaries 4, 106. "The church forfeited the wizard's 22. A MS. upholding the burning of witches as heretics, written in 1450 by the Dominican Brother Hieronymes Visconti, of Milan, is among the treasures of the White Library, recently presented to Cornell University. 24. Lenormant.--Chaldean Magic and Sorcery, 385. 25. Institutes of Scotland. 27. In those terrible trials presided over by Pierre de Lancre, it was asserted that hundreds of girls and boys flocked to the indescribable Sabbats of Labourd. The Venitians record the story of a little girl of nine years who raised a great tempest, and who like her mother was a witch. Signor Bernoni,--Folk Lore. 28. Some very strange stories of such power at the present time have become known to the author, one from the lips of a literary gentleman in New York City, this man of undoubted veracity declaring that he had seen his own father extend 31. Isis Unveiled, I, 354. 33. Anacalypsis, Vol. I, p. 35. 34. Bacchus was not originally the god of wine, but signified books. Instruction of old, when learning was a secret science, was given by means of leaves. "Bacchus Sabiesa" really signified "book wise" or learned, and the midsummer-day festival was celebrated in honor of learning. In the Anacalypsis Higgins says: "From Celland I learn that in Celtic, Sab means wise, whence Saba and Sabasius, no doubt wise in the stars. From this comes the Sab-bath day, or day dedicated to wisdom, and the Sabbat, a species of French masonry, an account of which may be seen in Dulare's History of Paris. Sunday was the day of instruction of the Druids, whence it was called Sabs.--Ibid I, 716. 35. From the preachment of the Sabs, or Sages, or wise Segent Sarcedos.--Ibid I, 716. 38. Within the past fifty years the death rate in childbirth was forty in a thousand, an enormous mortality, and although the advances in medical knowledge have somewhat lessened the rate, more women still lose their lives during childbirth than soldiers in battle. 42. You will hardly believe it, but I saw a real witch's skull, the other evening, at a supper party I had the pleasure of attending it was at the house of Dr. Dow, a medical gentleman of culture and great skill in his profession here. You will admit that a skull is not a pleasant thing to exhibit in a parlor, and some of the ladies did not care about seeing it; but the majority did, and you know one cannot see a witch's skull every day. So, after a little hesitation and persuasion on the part of the doctor, he produced the uncanny thing and gave us its history, or rather that of the witch. She lived at Terryburn, a little place near here. Almost indistinguished from the belief in witchcraft was the belief that persons subject to epilepsy, mania or any form of mental weakness, were possessed of a devil who could be expelled by certain religious ceremonies. Pike.--History of Crime in England, Vol. pp. 7-8. 46. Adrianus Ferrens. 48. It was observed they (devils) had a peculiar attachment to women with beautiful hair, and it was an old Catholic belief that St. Paul alluded to this in that somewhat obscure passage in which he exhorts women to cover their heads because of the angels.--Sprangler. "Merck's Bulletin," New York medical journal, in an editorial entitled Modern Witchcraft, December, 1892, relates some astonishing experiments recently made at the Hopital de la Charitè, Paris, in which the power to "exteriorize sensibility" has been discovered, reproducible at will; suggestion through means of simulated pinching producing suffering; photographs sensitive to their originals even having produced. Thus modern science stamps with truthfulness the power asserted as pertaining to black magicians, of causing suffering or death through means of a waxen image of a person. "The Accursed Sciences," although brought to the bar of modern investigating knowledge, seem not yet to have yielded the secrets of the law under which they are rendered possible. 54. The most exceptional conduct, the purest morals in constant practice of every day life, are not sufficient security against the suspicion of errors like these.--Montesquieu. 57. In its earliest phase the Black Mass seemed to betoken the redemption of Eve, so long accused by Christianity. The woman filled every place in the Sabbath. Following its celebration was the denial of Jesus, by whose authority the priests and barons robbed the serf of human hope--the paying of homage to the new master--the feudal kiss. To the closing ceremonies, "The Feast of Peace," no man was admitted unaccompanied by a woman.--La Sorcerie.--Ibid. 59. This important part of the woman being her own altar, is known to us by the trial of La Voisin, which M. Revanna Sen. published with other Papers of the Bastile.--Ibid. 61. Idiots, the lame, the blind and the dumb, are men in whom devils have established themselves, and all the physicians who heal these infirmities as though they preceded from natural causes are ignorant blockheads, who know nothing about the power of the demons.--Tishreden, p. 202. 64. Seen by Dr. Gray. 65. James believing in their (witches) influence, and Bacon partly sharing in "Who has not heard of the Langholm witches, and 'the branks' to subdue them? This was a simple instrument formed so as to fit firmly on the head, and 72. Excommunication was both of temporal and spiritual effect, the person under ban not only being deprived of absolution, extreme unction, consecrated burial, etc, but all persons were forbidden to deal with the recalcitrant. Under the strictest protestantism in Scotland, the clergy held almost entire control. When a woman fell under suspicion of being a witch, the minister denounced her from the pulpit, forbade any one harboring or sheltering her, and exhorted his parishoners to give evidence against her. To the clergy and Kirk Sessions were the first complaints made. It is scarcely more than 150 years since the last witch was burned in Scotland, having been accused of raising a thunder storm by pulling off her stockings.--Witchcraft Under Protestantism. 73. Many witches lost their lives in every part of England, without being brought to trial at all, from injuries received at the hands of the populace. Mackay.--Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions. 76. Ibid. 77. Which examination, although she was but very young, yet it was wonderful to the Court in so great a presence and audience.--Ibid. Ties of the tenderest nature did not restrain the inquisitors. Young girls were regarded as the best witnesses against their mothers, and the oaths of children of irresponsible age were received as evidence against a parent.--Superstition and Force, p. 93. 80. I seemed to have stepped back to Puritan time, when an old gentleman said to me. "I am descended from that line of witches; my grandmother and 120 others were under condemnation of death at New Bedford, when an order came from the king prohibiting farther executions."
And I'll be back by and by,"
Sali illuc; Lude hic, Lude illic;
Sabaoth, Sabaoth."
