1923 Witchcraft

# **WITCHCRAFT**

The belief in evil spirits, with which goes all of witchcraft and its accompanying arts, is as old as the beginnings of civilization. Far back in the early periods of Egyptian and Babylonian literature we find various spells and charms against evil spirits, proving that the belief in the existence of good and bad angels was universal at that time. The Babylonians, for instance, had all kinds of names for the demons, such as utukku, shedu, alu, gallu, all indicating strength, and the incantations of priests and sorcerers were directed towards the exorcising of all these demons.....

### Print Info

* Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners' Advocate
* Saturday 25 August 1923
* No 14,223
* Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia
* Page 2
* Author: None given.
* https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/139941641/15233565

Other Sources

* The San Francisco Examiner San Francisco, California 27 May 1923, Sun Page 129 who state "By American Weekly Inc.”

## WITCHCRAFT.

The belief in evil spirits, with which goes all of witchcraft and its accompanying arts, is as old as the beginnings of civilization. Far back in the early periods of Egyptian and Babylonian literature we find various spells and charms against evil spirits, proving that the belief in the existence of good and bad angels was universal at that time. The Babylonians, for instance, had all kinds of names for the demons, such as utukku, shedu, alu, gallu, all indicating strength, and the incantations of priests and sorcerers were directed towards the exorcising of all these demons:

"The utukku that seizes hold of a man,

The ekimmu that seizes hold of a man,

The ekimmu that works evil,

The utukku that works evil."

And then the inscription goes on to speak of all the ills that man suffers: 'Sickness of the entrails, of the heart, of the head, of the stomach, of the kidneys, of the limbs and muscles, of the skins, and of the senses," all of which are ascribed to the work of special demons. There were more sorceresses than sorcerers back in these times. For women, even in that distant day, were considered more skillful in raising the devil than men.

Among the Greeks and Romans witchcraft was well known, and often practiced, the Greeks asserting that three secret arts had been brought from Asia, the Romans developing their own system of demonology from ancient times. Plato accused Pythagoras of importing these superstitions from afar. The Romans claimed as their own one of the most famous of wonder-workers in Apollonius of Tyana, the greatest miracle-worker of paganism, born at the commencement of the Christian era. Philostratus, who wrote an account of the life of this remarkable man, claims that he had travelled over the whole East, including India, Greece, Spain, Northern Africa, and Ethiopia, gathering the knowledge of the black art. Hecate was originally Queen of Hades, and as such presided at the meetings of witches and sorcerers. She was taken over by the "sorcerers'' of the Middle Ages, becoming the type of the great witch, wandering about at night with the souls of the dead, terrifying the people of the land by appearing to them in many frightful shapes, together with her accompanying demons. She stood at the cross-roads, emerged suddenly from tombs or cemeteries and brooded over spots at which murders had been committed. The hobgoblins or malicious spirits and evil demons of the Middle Ages were lineal descendants of the Hecatean hobgoblins of Greece. It is, however, when we reach the fourth century that the superstition of witchcraft and its persecution take on tremendous proportions. According to the Justinian Code magic may be lawfully exercised only for the beneficial use of preserving or restoring the fruits of the earth or the health of the human body, while the practice of the noxious charms is punished by death. The "science" of those who, following the arts of magic, are detected either in attempts against the life and health of their fellow men, or in charming the minds of modest persons to debauchery is to be avenged by the severest penalties.

Constantine made a distinction, ignored by later Christian authorities, between the good and bad magic, the Church stating "all demons are infernal spirits, and all commerce with them is idolatry and apostasy." The tribunals of Rome and Antioch were crowded with persecutions for witchcraft during the fourth century under Valentinian and Valens when senators, matrons and philosophers alike were subjected to torture and death in the flames or by wild beasts. It has been calculated that no less than nine million human beings have been hanged, burned, or tortured to death on the charge of witchcraft believers during the second and the nineteenth centuries! Which is quite a harvest for ignorance and superstition. Varius, who lived in the 16th century, states: "By hate entereth a fiery inflammation into the eye of man, which being violently sent out by beams and streams infect and bewitch those bodies against which they are opposed. And therefore that is the cause that women are oftener found to be witches than men. They exhale a certain breath wherewith they bewitch whomsoever they list. And of all other women, lean, hollow-eyed, old, beetle-browed women are the most infectious." This was a mighty unfortunate ruling for poor old women who fitted into this description. If anything went wrong in their neighbourhood off they went at once to the torture chamber or the stake. Dr. Glanvil, who wrote in the latter half of the seventeenth century, says: "The act of bewitching is a supernatural work contrived between a corporal old woman and a spiritual devil." Another writer thus describes the way in which the old woman becomes a witch: "A decrepit, superannuated, old woman is tempted by a man in black to sign a contract to become his, both body and soul. On the conclusion of the agreement he gives her a piece of money and causes her to write her name and make her mark on a slip of parchment with her own blood. On departing he delivers to her an imp or familiar. The familiar, in the shape of a cat, a mote, miller-fly, or some other insect or animal, at stated times of the day sucks her blood in different parts of the body." Charlemagne gave very strict orders that all necromancers, astrologers, and witches should be driven from his states, and later decreed death to all who practiced any sort of magic, enchantment or witchcraft, or those who evoked the devil, compounded love-philters, afflicted either man or woman with barrenness, troubled the atmosphere, excited tempests, dried up the milk of cows or tormented their fellow creatures with sores and diseases. Of demons many opinions are held. Pompinatius, a Greek philosopher and a great observer of the nature of devils, holds they are corporeal, and live and die; that they feel pain, and if their bodies are cut with admirable celerity they come together again. One held that they feed on men's souls. They are supposed to fill the air, the earth, the water. Paracelsus says that "the air is not so full of flies in summer as it is of devils at all times." These imps are the familiars of the witches, through whom they work, by fascination of the evil eye, or bewitching in many ways. They sometimes make wax or clay figures like the person to be bewitched, and torturing these transfer the torture to their human victims. Probably the best known case of a pact between a man and the devil is that of Dr. Faustus, which has been told in every living language, and is immortalized in opera. There this delver into hidden secrets of science makes a contract with Satan, selling his soul for power over mankind. It is the typical instance with which all others may be compared.

#### Citations

Article identifier http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article139941641

Page identifier http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page15233565

##### APA citation

WITCHCRAFT. (1923, August 25). Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners' Advocate (NSW : 1876 - 1954), p. 2. Retrieved November 6, 2021, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article139941641

##### MLA citation

"WITCHCRAFT." Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners' Advocate (NSW : 1876 - 1954) 25 August 1923: 2. Web. 6 Nov 2021 <http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article139941641>.

##### Harvard/Australian citation

1923 'WITCHCRAFT.', Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners' Advocate (NSW : 1876 - 1954), 25 August, p. 2. , viewed 06 Nov 2021, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article139941641

##### Wikipedia citation

"WITCHCRAFT.", 25 August 1923, p. 2. Retrieved on 6 November 2021.