CHAPTER II

"To deny the possibility, nay actual evidence of witchcraft and sorcery,
is at once to flatly contradict the revealed word of God in various
passages both of the Old and New Testaments." _Blackstone's
Commentaries_ (Vol. 4, ch. 4, p. 60).

"It was simply the natural result of Puritanical teaching acting on the
mind, predisposing men to see Satanic influence in life, and
consequently eliciting the phenomena of witchcraft." LECKY's
_Rationalism in Europe_ (Vol. I, p. 123).


Witchcraft's reign in many lands and among many peoples is also attested
in its remarkable nomenclature. Consider its range in ancient, medieval
and modern thought as shown in some of its definitions: Magic, sorcery,
soothsaying, necromancy, astrology, wizardry, mysticism, occultism, and
conjuring, of the early and middle ages; compacts with Satan, consorting
with evil spirits, and familiarity with the Devil, of later times; all
at last ripening into an epidemic demonopathy with its countless victims
of fanaticism and error, malevolence and terror, of persecution and
ruthless sacrifices.

It is still most potent in its evil, grotesque, and barbaric forms, in
Fetichism, Voodooism, Bundooism, Obeahism, and Kahunaism, in the devil
and animal ghost worship of the black races, completely exemplified in
the arts of the Fetich wizard on the Congo; in the "Uchawi" of the
Wasequhha mentioned by Stanley; in the marriage customs of the Soudan