WITCHCRAFT (AS. wiecccralt, wiccralt, from niece, mieca, wizard. witch craft, 011G. ehraft, Ger. Kraft, strength, power, art). The art and trade of a witch or of a wizard. To a certain extent the witch may be considered the predecessor of the modern scientist. At a time when no systematic knowledge of nature existed, it was taken for granted that the future could be predicted and controlled by appropriate actions and expressions. through 'sympathetic magic' or potent formulas, of which the 'wise' man or woman was the repository, often possessing also such skill in the use of drugs. simples, or sur gery as belonged to the period. Another and more essential element, however, entered into the conception. inasmuch as it was believed that these powers were attainable through intimacy with spirits whose supernatural force was at the disposal of their representative. In this de pendence on spiritual beings the witch only fol lowed universal belief and practice, exercising the same powers as the priest or medicine man, whose recognized business it was to converse with unseen powers. The only difference lay in the fact that the priest occupied an accepted position. and served spirits recognized as friends or masters of the tribe, whereas the witch em ployed private demons. not so universally ac credited, and therefore supposed to be inclined to malevolence. Professional jealousy would cause the irrkular practitioners to be opposed and detested by the official mediums, while the independent attitude of the former would natu rally result in a lewd"' ethical status, as freer front restraints of public opinion. Witches were ready. therefore, to put their knowledge and energy at the disposal of any person who would pay them, and were equally willing to work evil and good, not only to foreigners. but to mem bers of the community. Hence the witch, or supposed witch, has been always and everywhere the object of general hatred and assault.
That in Rome the witch was also exposed to the public vengeance is manifest from the account Horace gives in his fifth Epode of Canidia, whom he threatens with stoning at the hands of the people. The crimes attributed to her form a curious parallel to those ascribed to her class in modern times, and show that these accusa tions depended on world-old superstition. She is made to devise the death of a boy, who is buried to the neck in the earth, and mocked by the offer of food out of his reach, to the end that the marrow of the victim, being full of desire, may be used as a love charm. Her rites in cluded invention of the gods below, the use of the poison of a toad, the plumage of birds of darkness, and the sprinkling of water from Acheron; yet it is not to be supposed that lloraee, herein like all his contemporaries of the higher class, actually believed in the efficacy of sueh witchcraft, and in this incredulity must be sought the reason why the laws of Creece and linine were so lax. There could be no general prohibition of a trade which corresponded to that rf the accepted augur (see ArottatEs AND ..kuseicEs), and enchantment, when directed against individuals with murderous intent, would be criminal exactly as any other attack on their welfare. Considering that the employ ment of such practitioners was universal, and their activity must constantly have been in tended to destroy, it is singular that legal pro ceedings offer few processes. Evidently the law givers and judges were not in sympathy with the popular fear and indignation. and were inclined to regard the business rather as one followed by charlatans than as the work of persons really endowed with supernatural influence.
This laxity was handed down to Christian time. The opinion of the Church oscillated be tween contempt of witehery as a delusion and abhorrence of it as a form of intercourse with evil spirits. One opinion was that belief in the existence of such power was in itself heretical. and that Christians were bound to believe in the impotence of magicians. This was the doc trine expressed in the decree of an unidentified council called that of Anquira, which has been traced as far back as the ninth century. During the Middle Ages, therefore, the Church had little to do with promoting the punishment of witches, who suffered rather from the fury of the popu lace, or at times from the severity of secu lar authority. The accepted punishment, as in the case of heresy, was by fire. These punish ments. however, were sporadic, and involved no systematic attempt to suppress the practice. It is one of the anomalies of history that the legal crusade against witchcraft should be modern, be longing to the time of theRenaissance. The impulse was religious. and witchcraft was identified with heresy, as consisting in converse with the source of all evil. With this movement the Inquisition had much to do, and the bull Salamis desider antcs, of Innocent VIII., in I4S4, gave the oc casion for unexampled severity. The composi tion by Sprengel, one of the Inquisitors ap pointed by Innocent, of the Mattel's maleficarum, or Hammer of Witches. gave precision and fixed
form to the charges of witchcraft. The weight of accusation now consisted, not in the evil use made of the enchanter's power. but in every exercise of that power: the witch was punished as an idolater and servant of Satan. This atti tude was promoted by the imperfectly understood language of the Bible, in which witchcraft was identified with the worship of idols, and by the command of Exod. xxii. IS. "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." Judicial procedure, by the employment of torture, placed in the hands of the judge a means to enforce confession of any charges he might please to approve. Very soon, therefore, a body of evidence was constructed, supported apparently by irresistible experience. The accusations took a definite form, which was repeated with uniform persistency. The sup posed witches were made to confess that they were able to fly through the air on brooms or by the aid of their familiar spirits, and thus to resort to desolate localities, where they held a 'Sabbath' or religious festival, in the presence of Satan, to whom they offered worship, and with whom they had erbninal relations. The char acter of the serviees at the Sabbath consisted in the Black 'Mass, a parody and inversion of the ceremony of the mass: homage was paid to the demon in the shape of goat, dog, or ape; the wor shipers held lighted candles and spat on the wound; a banquet was attended with sacrifice of children and cannibalism, and the NVII0le meet ing concluded with an orgy. Herein lies an im portant source of modern Satanism (q.v.). The w itches, who it all times might call on the aid of their Satanic master, were supposed to have the power of transformation (especially into cats and hares), and could torment whom they wished to injure by thrusting needles into their flesh. All this account of the gatherings and potency of sorcerers depended on world-old superstitions, now reinforced. for mulated, and j id icially attested. Aceusitt ions were multiplied by malicious intentions, and in many eases a charge of witchcraft was only a method of getting rid of an enemy or of confiscating the property of the rich. During two centuries the destruction was terrible; one judge of Nancy is said to have put to death 8(10 culprits in six years; at Toulouse 400 perished in a single exe cution; in the city of Treves alone 7000 perished. The whole 1111111her of victims has liven estimated at 300.000. In Great Britain a peculiarly bad record belongs to Scotland. In England the law enacted in 1603 against those invocation or conjuration of any evil and wicked spirit, or taking up any (lead person with view to employ ing in sorcery, or practicing witeheraft," re mained on the statute book for a century. Ex aminations were conducted in the spirit of pure superstition; one way of ascertaining guilt was by forcing the witch to swim, it being believed that the devotee of Satan would be lighter than water. Certain bodily marks, insensible to pain, were supposed to indieate guilt, and were sought by pricking with a needle.
At all times there were incredulous persons, but their disbelief was generally held to be synonymous with atheism; this was the attitude of Luther, and of John Wesley as late as 1768. In America prosecutions for witeheraft during the seventeenth century occurred in setts, Connecticut, Virginia, and elsewhere, but the only extensive panic was that which prevailed at Salem, Mass., in 1692, near the end of the delusion, being especially nourished by the ex travagant opinions of Cotton Slather. The ac cusations were only an echo of those en;dited through Europe, but the colony soon litcame ashamed of its credulity. In England the last trial for witchcraft was that of Jane \Venham in 1712, who was not put to death; in Seotland an execution took place in 1722, and the witch craft statute was repealed in 1735. Among the people belief in witches everywhere continued, and has hardly become extinct even yet.
Consult: Griisse, Bibliot hem Nagica (Leipzig, 1843) ; Schindler, Abrrgla Ow des Mille/alters (Breslau, 1858) ; Lecky, History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe ( New York, 181i6) Roskoff, eseh irh r des Ten f els ( Leipzig, 1869) ; Nippold, Die gegenwartigc derbelebung des Bexenglaubens (Berlin, Soldan, Geschichte der Ilexenprozesse (2d ed. by Heppe, Stuttgart, 1880) ; :Meier, Die Periode der lIcrenprozesse (Hanover. 1882) ; Adams, Witch, Warlock. and Magician (London. 1889) ; Religion and Ifexenproz•ess (Leipzig, 1888) ; 1/vxeicprozcsse and Geistessturung (Mu nich, 1891) ; Henne am Rhyn, Der Teufel- and Ilexenalaubc (Leipzig, 1892) ; Steinhausen, and Studien zur tIeschichle der Ilexcn prozcs,se (Weimar, 1898) : lansen, rtrahn, min is it ion u nd iicitt'llprOZCSS it/ cte/ter (Munich, 1900) ; id., chollen nod Untersuchan gen ;Nit. Gcschichte des. Iii hits and der flexentaTfolgung •im Mille/a/1(T ( Bonn, 191(1) ; tfarinet, If istoire de la magic cut Prance (Paris,