The History of Witchcraft
Early in the Middle Ages, almost anything women did could be described as witchcraft because their daily lives invoked the Goddess with a thousand small ceremonies as well as the larger ones connected with major holidays. Martin of Braga said women must be condemned for "decorating tables, wearing laurels, taking omens from footsteps, putting fruit and wine on the log in the hearth, and bread, in the well, what are these but worship of the devil? For women to call upon Minerva when they spin, and to observe the day of Venus at weddings and to call upon her whenever they go out upon the public highway, what is that but worship of the devil?"1 Outside the official religion, where they were kept, women passed down their private family recipes and charms, curses and blessings, telling traditional tales of the past and foretelling the future from omens and "signs." The Dominican Johann Herolt declared: "Most women believe their catholic faith with charms and spells, after the fashion of Eve their first mother, who believed the devil speaking through the serpent rather than God himself . . . Any woman by herself knows more of such superstitions and charms than a hundred men."2
Up to the 15th century, women's "charms and spells" were virtually the only repository of practical medicine. Churchmen avoided doctoring, on the ground that all sickness came from demonic possession, and the only permissible cure was exorcism.3
Europe's traditional witch doctors were women: clan mothers, priestesses of healing shrines, midwives, nurses, and vilas. In pre-Christian Gaul and Scandinavia, medicine was entirely in the hands of omen.4 Even in the Christian era, the village wise-woman was still every peasant's family doctor. Paracelsus said witches taught him everything he knew about healing.5 Dr. Lambe (died, 1640), the Duke of Buckingham's famous "devil," was said to have learned secrets of medicine by consorting with witches.6
In 1570 the gaoler of Canterbury Castle released a condemned witch, citing the popular opinion that she did more good for the sick with her homely remedies than all the priests' prayers and exorcisms.7 Agrippa von Nettesheim thought witches superior to male practitioners: "Are not philosophers, mathematicians, and astrologers often inferior to country women in their divinations and predictions, and does not the old nurse very often beat the doctor!"8 The men who learned doctoring from witches were allowed to practice, but their female teachers were persecuted. Scot observed that a male "conjurer" was permitted to cure disease by magic arts, whereas a woman was condemned to death for doing so.9
Ordinary folk had no doctors. Physicians were available chiefly to the rich. The poor took their troubles to the local witch. Irish farmers still say a "fairy doctor" is needed for charms against the evil eye. In Greece, "both priests and witches are available for emergencies created by the evil eye. The priest burns incense and recites appropriate prayers. The witch also burns incense as she recites appropriate incantations."10
It wasn't unusual for the witches' healing charms to be preferred to those of the church, or for the two to be regarded as identical in essence. Ramesey wrote that the witches' cures were indistinguishable from the "magical and juggling cures" professed by the clergy, including "saints, images, relics, holy-waters, shrines, avemarys, crucifixes, benedictions, charms, characters, sigils of the planets, and of the signs . . . all such cures are rather to be ascribed to the forces of the imagination, than any virtue in them."11
Officially, women were often forbidden to do any kind of healing. In 1322 a woman named Jacoba Felicie was arrested and prosecuted by the medical faculty of the University of Paris for practicing medicine, although, the record said, "she was wiser in the art of surgery and medicine than the greatest master or doctor in Paris."12
Reginald Scot (1538 - 1599) said witch mongers gave the witches as much power as Christ, and even more, when they claimed witches could raise the dead, as Christ raised Lazarus; they could turn water into other fluids, like wine or milk; they could control the weather, the crops, animals, men; they could see into the past and future. Reading of witches' trials, he said, "you shall see such impossibilities confessed, as none, having his right wits, will believe."13 Hermann Löher also declared that the "sins" for which witches were brought to the stake were such "that they could not possibly commit."14
Churchmen, however, viewed the impossibility of witches' miracles as perfectly good ground for believing them, "because the performance of the impossible proved that demons were at work."15 It was never explained how the performance of a miracle demonstrated the intervention of a saint in one case and of a demon in another. For example, Marie Bucaille was burned as a witch, though her "miracles" were saint like: she healed the sick, saw holy visions, displayed stigmata, and performed many of the acts that led to canonization in other cases.16
The same acts were differently interpreted by churchmen in different times. Witchcraft was allowed through the first half of the Christian era. It was not called a "heresy" until the 14th century. In 500 CE, the Franks' Salic Law recognized witches' right to practice. In 643, an edict declared it illegal to burn witches.17 In 785, the Synod of Paderborn said anyone who burned a witch must be sentenced to death.18 France's first trial to declare witchcraft a crime took place in 1390.19
Up to a surprisingly late date, nobility and clergy alike employed the services of witches. In 1382 the Count of Kyburg hired a witch to stand on the battlements of his castle and raise a thunderstorm to disperse an army of enemies.20 This practice was soundly based on theological opinion that witches could raise storms at will, "either upon sea or land." 21 Churchmen said witches controlled the weather "with God's permission," and they didn't begin to punish what God permitted until the beginning of the Renaissance.22
Witches were summoned to court by Louis d'Orleans to cure his brother's madness, after priestly exorcisms had failed. (The witches also failed.) Guichard, Bishop of Troyes, used the classic pierced-puppet kind of witchcraft to kill his enemy. Queen Blanche of Navarre.23
English law was fairly tolerant of witchcraft until the reign of James 1. As late as 1371 a male witch was arrested in Southwark for possessing magical articles: a skull, a grimoire, and a corpse's head for divination. He was released after he had promised not to do it again.24 In 1560, a lenient period, eight men confessed to conjuration and sorcery, and were released with a reprimand. Only three years later the same acts were made punishable by imprisonment or a death penalty.25
The Council of Treves in 1310 outlawed conjurations, divinations, and love potions. 26 Further prohibitions seemed to be aimed at supporting husbands who wished to cast off their wives. Stringent laws threatened a witch to whom an abandoned wife might apply, for revenge through malefica, since she had no recourse under law.27 The church distinguished between sorcery, which was generally acceptable, and witchcraft, which was heresy. Von Nettesheim's books of sorcery were published under church auspices, accompanied by a statement of ecclesiastical approval; indeed, his instructor in magic had been John Trithemius, an abbot. What the distinction between sorcery and witchcraft boiled down to was that men could practice magic, women could not.28
When the church discovered that common folk couldn't understand the doctrinal subtleties of heresy and didn't care about theological arguments, persecution was extended into areas that were accessible to the public mind, so the church could maintain its control of that mind. For example, in the region of Bonn a late spring frost of 1610 ruined crops and was officially described as an act of God. Twenty years later, after the witch judges came to the area, the same kind of natural disasters were blamed exclusively on witches.29
Churchmen fostered the public delusion that witches were engaged in a vast secret plot, under the devil's guidance, to overthrow the kingdom of God on earth. They created and embellished the concept of the black mass, and made laymen believe it frequently occurred, whereas it was largely a fraud supported only by spurious "evidence" from the torture chamber. The Inquisition needed this public delusion, because the work it was created for was finished when the Albigensian, Waldensian, and other heretic groups of the south of France had been finally crushed. In order to continue its profitable existence, the Inquisition needed new victims. The witchcraft mania was the solution to its problem.30 Whatever secular crimes the witches were supposed to have committed, the one crime that was decisive in sending all of them to the stake was the one crime of which all of them were completely innocent, because it was impossible: the crime of collaborating with a real devil. As for secret continuation of a pre-Christian religion: that was more often done by the church itself, in the guise of saint-worship, festivals, healing shrines, etc.
Scholars aren't sure how much pagan religion survived in the form of actual group worship, at the beginning of the era of persecution. Pico della Mirandola's La Strega (The Witch) described a cult in northern Italy where a pagan Goddess presided over sexual orgies; she was said to bear a close resemblance to the Mother of God.31 Another group at Arras was said to have centered on "a prostitute" called Demiselle, or The Maiden. Her consort was the Abbot of Little Sense, otherwise known as the Prince of Fools, a composer and singer of popular songs–in other words; it was a cult of minstrelsy.32
There is a vast body of "information" about what went on at the witches' Sabbat–all of it worthless, because its source was the torture chamber. The late Renaissance saw a frivolous interest in "black masses" among the wealthy, who tried to model a new cult group on what they had read of earlier trials. In 1610, Pierre de l'Ancre wrote of "great Lords and Ladies and other rich and powerful ones who handle the great matters of the Sabbath, where they appear cloaked, and the women with masks, that they may keep themselves always hidden and unknown."33 In the reign of Louis XIV, half the Parisian clergy and most of the court, including Madame de Montespan, were involved with a society witch called La Voisin, who staged black masses for them.34 But their rituals were based on ecclesiastical literature, not on a true folk tradition.
It has been claimed that witchcraft constituted a coherent underground organization from the beginning, with well-defined chains of command and communication. "Witch books" purporting to come from the ancient tradition speak of a Brotherhood (not Sisterhood): "If you are condemned, fear not, the Brotherhood is powerful, they will help you to escape if you stand steadfast . . . Be sure, if steadfast you go to the pyre, drugs will reach you, you will feel naught. You but go to death and what lies beyond, the Ecstasy of the Goddess."35 But during the real persecutions, few witches seemed indifferent to their sufferings, and virtually none escaped.
Monstrelet described a typical early example of persecution in 1459: "In this year, in the town of Arras and county of Artois, arose, through a terrible and melancholy chance, an opinion called, I know not why, the Religion of Vaudoisie. This sect consisted, it is said, of certain persons, both men and women, who, under cloud of night, by the power of the devil, repaired to some solitary spot, amid woods and deserts, where the devil appeared before them in a human form–save that his visage is never perfectly visible to them–read to the assembly a book of his ordinances, informing them how he could be obeyed; distributed a very little money and a plentiful meal, which was concluded by a scene of general profligacy; after which each one of the party was conveyed home to her or his own habitation. "On accusations of access to such acts of madness, several creditable persons of the town of Arras were seized and imprisoned along with some foolish women and persons of little consequence. These were so horribly tortured that some of them admitted the truth of the whole accusations, and said, besides, that they had seen and recognized in their nocturnal assembly many persons of rank, prelates, seigneurs, and governors of bailliages and cities, being such names as the examiners had suggested to the persons examined, while they constrained them by torture to impeach the persons to whom they belonged. Several of those who had been thus informed against were arrested, thrown into prison, and tortured for so long a time that they also were obliged to confess what was charged against them. After this those of mean condition were executed and inhumanly burnt, while the richer and more powerful of the accused ransomed themselves by sums of money, to avoid the punishment and the shame attending it. Many even of those also confessed being persuaded to take that course by the interrogators, who promised them indemnity for life and fortune. Some there were, of a truth, who suffered with marvelous patience and constancy the torments inflicted on them, and would confess nothing imputed to their charge; but they, too, had to give large sums to the judges, who exacted that such of them as, notwithstanding their mishandling, were still able to move, should banish themselves from that part of the country . . . [l]t ought not to be concealed that the whole accusation was a stratagem of wicked men for their own covetous purposes, and in order, by these false accusations and forced confessions, to destroy the life, fame, and fortune of wealthy persons." Those prisoners who found themselves condemned to death immediately shrieked aloud that they had been tricked; they were promised a light sentence, such as a pilgrimage, if they confessed as the inquisitors wanted.37
Witchcraft persecutions picked up momentum when inquisitors were seeking new victims to keep their organization going. In 1375 a French inquisitor lamented that all the rich heretics had been exterminated; there were none left whose wealth could support the Inquisition, and "it is a pity that so salutary an institution as ours should be so uncertain of its future." Then Pope John XXII empowered the Inquisition to prosecute anyone who worked magic, and "the Inquisition slowly and unevenly developed its concept of witchcraft."38 Soon the church was making sweeping claims, such as the claim that the entire population of Navarre consisted of witches.39
Witch hunting sustained itself because it became a major industry, supporting the income of many. Local nobles, bishops, kings, judges, courts, townships, magistrates, and other functionaries high and low all received a share of the loot collected by inquisitors from their victims' assets. Victims were charged for the very ropes that bound them and the wood that burned them. Each procedure of torture carried its fee. After the execution of a wealthy witch, officials usually treated themselves to a banquet at the expense of the victim's estate.40
Inquisitors were no less zealous in wringing the last penny out of their poorer victims than in helping themselves to the estates of the rich. In 1256, a woman named Raymonde Barbaira died before her sentence could be carried out, leaving to her heirs a chest of linens, her clothes, several cows, and four sous in cash. The inquisitor demanded from the heirs forty sous for all the property. "Such petty and vulgar details," Lea said, "give us a clearer insight into the spirit and working of the Inquisition, and of the grinding oppression which it exercised on the subject populations."41
A history of the Inquisition written by a Catholic in 1909 had to admit that it "invented the crime of witchcraft and . . . relied on torture as the means of proving it." At first the Inquisition encountered skepticism everywhere. Even theologians shocked the inquisitors by attributing natural disasters to chance, or God, rather than to witchcraft. The public disbelieved witches' confessions, saying they were extracted only by torture. Peasants in some sub alpine valleys broke into open rebellion against the judges' wholesale burnings. It took decades of ceaseless propagandizing, and ruthless measures to stop the mouths of critics, before the persecution could be said to have won public support.42
Severe persecution dated from the bull of Pope Innocent VIII, Summis desiderantes, wherein God's vicar "infallibly" declared that witches could blast crops and domestic animals, cause disease, prevent husbands and wives from copulating, and in general "outrage the Divine Majesty and are a cause of scandal and danger to very many."43 The Divine Majesty being apparently unable to look after its own interests without human help, the churchmen took it upon themselves to carry out God's vengeance, which developed into a "hideous nightmare" as the church's mailed fist stretched over the western world for five centuries.44
The earlier Canon Episcopi ruled that witchcraft was nothing but a delusion, and it was heresy to believe in it. But that was before the church discovered how to profit from the witchcraft belief. After Pope Innocent's reign, it was heresy not to believe in witchcraft. According to Martin Del Rio, S.J., anyone who thought witchcraft was only a deception must be suspected of being a witch. No one was allowed to speak against the extermination of witches. Inquisitor Heinrich von Schultheis said, "He who opposes the extermination of the witches with one single word can not expect to remain unscathed."45
Superstitious belief in the "evil" of witchcraft persisted to a very late date. The last English witch trial took place in 1712. The last official witch burning in Scotland was in 1727, with unofficial incidents even later. Only a century ago, an elderly woman in the Russian village of Wratschewe was locked in her cottage and set afire for bewitching cattle. Her murderers were tried, and sentenced only to a light ecclesiastical penance.46 In January, 1928, a family of Hungarian peasants beat an old woman to death, claiming she was a witch. A court acquitted them, on the ground that they acted out of "irresistible compulsion."47
The real reason for persistence of the witchcraft idea was that Christian authorities couldn't let it die, without admitting that God's word was wrong, and God's servants had committed millions of legal murders and tortured millions of helpless people without cause. Dr. Blackstone, England's, ultimate authority on jurisprudence, wrote: "To deny the possibility, nay, actual existence of Witchcraft and Sorcery, is at once flatly to contradict the revealed Word of God in various passages both of the Old and New Testament; and the thing itself is a truth to which every Nation in the World hath in its turn borne testimony." When skepticism about witchcraft seemed to be on the rise, John Wesley cried bitterly, "The giving up of witchcraft is in effect the giving up of the Bible."48 Calvin and Knox also protested that denial of witchcraft meant denial of the Bible's authority.49 Joseph Glanvill, chaplain to Charles II, said all who disbelieved in witchcraft were atheists.50
Despite such protests, skepticism grew with the slow advance of the Age of Enlightenment. In 1736, Scottish laws against the "crime" of witchcraft were formally repealed. Yet the church refused to keep pace with the law. Forty years later, ministers of the Associated Presbytery passed a resolution declaring their unabated belief in witchcraft.51 As late as the 1920s a rector of four parishes in Norfolk could still write: "If I were to take a census of opinion in all four villages I am certain that I should find a majority of people seriously professing belief in witchcraft, the policy of the 'evil eye,' and the efficacy of both good and evil spells."52 The churches wouldn't let these beliefs die.
Christianity, then, has been chiefly responsible for the survival and growth of witchcraft as an article of faith. It seems so still. In the 1940s, Seabrook estimated that "half the literate white population in the world today believe in witchcraft"; and the non-literate nonwhite population attains a much higher proportion.53 A Galiup poll taken in 1978 showed that ten percent of all Americans believe in witches.54
But what is meant by "believe in"? It could mean a belief that there are people who call themselves witches; this is self-evident enough. It could mean a belief that such people erroneously think they have supernatural powers. It could mean a belief that such people really do have supernatural powers. It could mean a belief that, as the church has always maintained, witches are agents of the devil, seeking to destroy the world out of sheer perversity. Or, it could mean a belief that witches preserved an older and better religion based on worship of Nature and the female principle.
Modern witches usually uphold some version of the latter belief. A modern witch, Leo Louis Martello, says: We worship and identify with the Horned God, Lord of the Hunt and the Underworld, and the Mother Goddess, especially the latter (Mother Earth, Mother Nature). Without the female principle (women) man wouldn't be here . . . Witchcraft is a pre-Christian faith . . . It tends to be matriarchal whereas both Christianity and Satanism are patriarchal and male chauvinist. The latter two are merely opposite sides of the same coin. Witchcraft, as the Old Religion, is a coin of a different vintage, predating both.55 Asked how he feels about belonging to a heavily matriarchal tradition, one male witch answered: "I'd rather be first mate on a ship that is solid than captain on a ship that has a rotten hull, a ship that is sinking. Patriarchy is such a ship." Witches have defined patriarchy as "manipulative and domineering." The matriarchal world view, on the other hand, values "feelings of connectedness and intuition . . . nonauthoritarian and nondestructive power relationships." It is claimed that witchcraft tends to correct what W. Holman Keith called the fundamental religious error of our time: "to substitute force as the divine and ruling principle in place of beauty and love, to make destruction, in which the prowess of the male excels, more important in life than the creativity of the female."56
Certainly the history of witchcraft shows men persecuting women in order to maintain a male monopoly of profitable enterprises, such as medicine and magic. Women of outstanding reputation in any field were at risk, since almost any woman's accomplishment could be defined as witchcraft. When the church declared war on female healers, healing became a crime punishable by death if it was practiced by a woman. Women were forbidden to study medicine, and "if a woman dare to cure without having studied, she is a witch and must die."57 Doctors eagerly participated in witch hunts, to eliminate their competition. It was all done very deliberately. "Given the number of instances in which the church combined with various economic groups from doctors to lawyers to merchant guilds, not only to make pronouncements about the incapacities of women, but often to accomplish the physical liquidation of women through witchcraft and heresy trials, one can hardly say that it all happened without anyone intending it."58
Churchmen who availed themselves of witches' services sometimes persecuted even those who helped them, in remarkable examples of ingratitude. Alison Peirsoun of Byrehill was so famous as a healing witch that the archbishop of St. Andrews sent for her when he was sick, and she cured him. Later he not only refused to pay her fee, but had her arrested, charged with witchcraft and burned.59
The muddy illogic of persecutors' sexist thinking is nowhere better illustrated than in the notion of the witch's "poppet," (wax doll), which could be mistreated by piercing or melting in order to make a human victim suffer corresponding stabbing pains, fevers, and other troubles. When the witch destroyed the doll altogether, the victim would die. Yet oddly enough, when male authorities discovered the doll and destroyed it, the victim would not die but would recover. A similar sexist attitude was apparent in the whole idea of traffic between human beings and demons. Burton's Criminal Trials of Scotland stated that a male sorcerer is the master of demons, but a female witch is the slave of demons.60 Yet her offense was usually considered more punishable than his.
Modern witches, male and female, seem inclined to restore the sexual balance of old romances, where men's magical skills were acquired under feminine instruction. 61 The witches appear to be reconstructing an old religion in a new format, gradually working out a theology that owes more to ancient Indo-European models than to the "reverse Christianity" associated with the idea of Satanism. Important points upon which this theology differs from Christianity are the following:
1. The female principle is deified, equal to or greater than the male.
2. Body and soul are seen as one and the same; one cannot exist without the other.
3. Nature is sacred, not to be abused or "conquered."
4. The individual will has intrinsic value and is not to be subordinated to the "revealed" will of a deity.
5. Time is circular and repetitive; existence is cyclic; the figures of the Triple Goddess symbolize constant repetitions of growth and decay.
6. There is no original sin, and no hard-and-fast separation of "good" and "evil" (for example, a feast of fresh beef is good for the feasters but evil for the once-living main dish).
7. Sexuality, spontaneity, humor, and play activities may be incorporated into ritual, where the experience of pleasure is regarded as a positive force in life, rather than a temptation or a sin.62 The Goddess speaks to modern witches in somewhat the same vein as the speeches drawn from her ancient scriptures: "Mine is the secret that opens upon the door of youth and mine is the Cup of the Wine of Life and the Cauldron of Cerridwen, which is the Holy Grail of Immortality, l am the Gracious Goddess who gives the gift of joy unto the heart of man upon earth. I give the knowledge of the Spirit Eternal, and beyond death I give peace and freedom and reunion with those that have gone before . . . I who am the beauty of the Green Earth, and the White Moon amongst the stars and the mystery of the Waters, and the desire of the heart of man, I call unto thy soul to arise and come unto me. For I am the Soul of Nature who giveth life to the universe; from me all things proceed and unto me all things must return. . . . I have been with thee from the beginning, and I am that which is attained at the end of desire."63
References and Notes: 1. Smith, John Holland. The Death of Classical Paganism. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1976. Pg. 241.
2. Bullough, Vern L. The Subordinate Sex. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1973. Pg. 177.
3. White, Andrew D. A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christiandom (2 Vols.). New York: George Braziller, 1955. Vol. 2, Pg. 36.
4. Briffault, Robert. The Mothers (3 Vols.). New York: Macmillan, 1928. Vol. l, Pg. 488.
5. Lederer, Wolfgang. The Fear of Women. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Inc., 1968. Pg. 150.
6. Rosen, Barbara. Witchcraft. New York: Taplinger Publishing Co., 1972. Pg. 7.
7. Ewen, C.L'Estrange. Witchcraft and Demonianism. London: Heath Cranton Ltd., 1933. Pg. 69.
8. Agrippa, Henry Cornelius. The Philosophy of Natural Magic. Secaucus, N.J.: Univeristy Books, 1974. Pg. 270.
9. Scot, Reginald. The Discoverie of Witchcraft. Yorkshire, England: Rowmand & Littlefield, 1973. Pg. 20.
10. Gifford, Edward S., Jr. The Evil Eye. New York: Macmillan, 1958. Pg. 89.
11. Hazlitt, W. Carew. Faiths and Folklore of the British Isles (2 vols.). New York: Benjamin Blom, Inc., 1965. Pg. 103.
12. Tuchman, Barbara. A Distant Mirror. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978. Pg. 216.
13. Scot, Reginald. The Discoverie of Witchcraft. Yorkshire, England: Rowmand & Littlefield, 1973. Pgs. 43, 124, 141,403.
14. Robbins, Rossell Hope. Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology. New York: Crown Publishers, 1959. Pg. 308.
15. Cavendish, Richard. The Powers of Evil. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1975. Pg. 218.
16. Summers, Montague. The Geography of Witchcraft. New york: University Books Inc., 1958. Pgs. 429-30.
17. Tannahill, Reay. Flesh and Blood: A History of the Cannibal Complex. New York: Stein & Day, 1975. Pgs. 96-97.
18. Casliglioni, Arturo. Adventures of the Mind. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1946. Pg. 233.
19. Robbins, Rossell Hope. Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology. New York: Crown Publishers, 1959. Pg. 209.
20. Briffault, Robert. The Mothers (3 Vols.). New York: Macmillan, 1928. Vol. 3, Pg. 12.
21. Hazlitt, W. Carew. Faiths and Folklore of the British Isles (2 vols.). New York: Benjamin Blom, Inc., 1965. Pg. 655.
22. Wedeck, Harry E. A Treasury of Witchcraft. Secaucus, N. J.: Citadel Press, 1964. Pg. 78.
23. Givry, Grillot. Witchcraft, Magic and Alchemy. New York: Dover Publications, 1971. Pg. 193.
24. Lea, Henry Charles. The Inquisition of the Middle Ages. New York: Citadel Press, 1954.; unabridged version published by Macmillan, New York, 1961. Unabridged version, Pg. 786.
25. Robbins, Rossell Hope. Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology. New York: Crown Publishers, 1959. Pg. 161.
26. Robbins, Rossell Hope. Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology. New York: Crown Publishers, 1959. Pg. 547.
27. Hazlitt, W. Carew. Faiths and Folklore of the British Isles (2 vols.). New York: Benjamin Blom, Inc., 1965. Pg. 341.
28. Agrippa, Henry Cornelius. The Philosophy of Natural Magic. Secaucus, N.J.: Univeristy Books, 1974. Foreword.
29. Robbins, Rossell Hope. Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology. New York: Crown Publishers, 1959. Pg. 330.
30. Robbins, Rossell Hope. Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology. New York: Crown Publishers, 1959. Pgs. 50, 207-8.
31. Masters, R.E.L. Eros and Evil. New York: Julian Press, 1962. Pg. 27.
32. Knight, Richard Payne. A Discourse on the Worship of Priapus. New York: University Books Inc., 1974. Pg. 207.
33. Givry, Grillot. Witchcraft, Magic and Alchemy. New York: Dover Publications, 1971. Pgs. 84-85.
34. Robbins, Rossell Hope. Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology. New York: Crown Publishers, 1959. Pg. 4
35. Book of Shadows. St. Paul, Minn. Llewellyn Publications, 1973. Pg. 11.
36. Scott, Sir walter. Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft. London: George Routledge & Sons, 1884. Pgs. 166-68.
37. Robbins, Rossell Hope. Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology. New York: Crown Publishers, 1959. Pg. 105.
38. Robbins, Rossell Hope. Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology. New York: Crown Publishers, 1959. Pg. 8.
39. Ravensdale, T., and Morgan, J. The Psychology of Witchcraft. New York: Arco Publishing Co., 1974. Pg. 105.
40. Robbins, Rossell Hope. Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology. New York: Crown Publishers, 1959. Pgs. 111, 113.
41. Lea, Henry Charles. The Inquisition of the Middle Ages. New York: Citadel Press, 1954.; unabridged version published by Macmillan, New York, 1961. Pg. 172.
42. Robbins, Rossell Hope. Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology. New York: Crown Publishers, 1959. Pgs. 9, 271.
43. Kramer, Heinrich and Sprenger, James. Malleus Mallificarum. New York: Dover Publications, 1971. Pg. xliii.
44. Masters, R.E.L. Eros and Evil. New York: Julian Press, 1962. Pg. xxvi.
45. Robbins, Rossell Hope. Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology. New York: Crown Publishers, 1959. Pgs. 108, 143.
46. Robbins, Rossell Hope. Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology. New York: Crown Publishers, 1959. Pgs. 169, 457, 336.
47. Summers, Montague. The Werewolf. New York: Bell Publishing Co, no date. Pg. 87.
48. Summers, Montague. The History of Witchcraft and Demonology. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1973. Pg. 63; Summers, Montague. The Geography of Witchcraft. New york: University Books Inc., 1958. Pg. 169.
49. Smith, Homer. Man and His Gods. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1952. Pg. 293.
50. Maple, Eric. The Dark World of Witches. Cranbury, N.J.: A.S. Barnes & Co., Inc., 1964. Pg. 98.
51. Robbins, Rossell Hope. Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology. New York: Crown Publishers, 1959. Pg. 457.
52. Summers, Montague. The Geography of Witchcraft. New york: University Books Inc., 1958. Pgs. 181-82.
53. Bromberg, Walter. From Shaman to Psychotherapist. Chicago: Henry Regnery Co., 1975. Pg. 179.
54. Newsweek, June 26, 1978. Pg. 32.
55. Cohen, Daniel. The New Believers. New York: M. Evans & Co., 1975. Pgs. 129-31.
56. Adler, Margot. Drawing Down the Moon. Boston: Becon Pres, 1981. Pgs. 122, 188, 204.
57. Dreifus, Claudia (ed.). Seizing Our Bodies. New York: Vintage Books, 1978. Pg. 7.
58. Boulding, Elise. The Underside of History. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1976. Pgs. 427, 505.
59. Baroja, Julio Caro. The World of Witches. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965. Pg. 126.
60. Wimberly, Lowry Charles. Folklore in the English and Scottish Ballads. New York: Dover Publications, 1965. Pg. 159.
61. Wimberly, Lowry Charles. Folklore in the English and Scottish Ballads. New York: Dover Publications, 1965. Pg. 219.
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