"First, because Witchcraft is a rife and common sinne in these our
daies, and very many are intangled with it, beeing either practitioners
thereof in their owne persons, or at the least, yielding to seeke for
helpe and counsell of such as practise it." _A Discovrse of the Damned
Art of Witchcraft_, PERKINS, 1610.

"And just as God has his human servants, his church on earth, so also
the Devil has his--men and women sworn to his service and true to his
bidding. To win such followers he can appear to men in any form he
pleases, can deceive them, enter into compact with them, initiate them
into his worship, make them his allies for the ruin of their fellows.
Now it is these human allies and servants of Satan, thus postulated into
existence by the brain of a monkish logician, whom history knows as
witches." _The Literature of Witchcraft_, BURR.


Witchcraft in its generic sense is as old as human history. It has
written its name in the oldest of human records. In all ages and among
all peoples it has taken firm hold on the fears, convictions and
consciences of men. Anchored in credulity and superstition, in the dread
and love of mystery, in the hard and fast theologic doctrines and
teachings of diabolism, and under the ban of the law from its beginning,
it has borne a baleful fruitage in the lives of the learned and the
unlearned, the wise and the simple.

King and prophet, prelate and priest, jurist and lawmaker, prince and
peasant, scholars and men of affairs have felt and dreaded its subtle
power, and sought relief in code and commandment, bull and anathema,
decree and statute--entailing even the penalty of death--and all in vain