It will be noted that the word "Devil" is invariably capitalized by the mediaeval writers, and to them he must have been a very real personage, and these curious beliefs terrible truths. Indeed, if true, what could be more terrible? Even so learned a man as Bacon, we are told—whose soul was promised to the devil, no matter "whether he died in or out of the church"—endeavoured to cheat the devil out of his due, and had his body buried in the wall of the church—thus being neither in nor out of it—and so he hoped to cheat the devil of his due!
With the coming of Reginald Scott there arose a certain scepticism throughout Europe, which was later echoed in America. Scott wrote a monumental work entitled The Discoverie of Witchcraft, in which he bitterly attacked the credulity of the people, and showed himself entirely incredulous of any of the alleged phenomena. Some years before, had he published such a book, it was likely that he would have been burned himself; but the times were probably ripe for just such a publication; there was already much unrest and uneasiness afoot, and his book appeared in the nick of time. Scott attempted to account for the phenomena of witchcraft on a rational basis, and showed himself completely sceptical of the reality of most of the manifestations. He even went so far as to attack many of the older "miracles," which apparently supported the newer, even taking the very bold course (in that day) of attacking some of the Biblical miracles. Thus we read:
"The Pythoness (speaking of the Witch of Endor) being ventriloqua, that is, speaking as it were from the bottom of her belly, did cast herself into a trance, and so abused Saul in Samuel's name in her counterfeit hollow voice."
Indeed, something was necessary to check the rank credulity of the times. If an old woman scolded a carter, and later on in the day his cart got stuck in the mud or overturned, it was positive evidence that he and his cart and horse had been "bewitched"! If an old woman kept a black cat or a pet toad, it was most assuredly her "familiar," and she was branded as a witch forthwith. If cows sickened and died, it was because a "spell" had been cast over them; and so on and so on. The superstitions of witchcraft were as innumerable as they were extraordinary. Are there any facts, amid all this superstition and ignorance, tending to show that genuine supernormal phenomena ever occurred at all? And if so, what are they?
It must be remembered that, in the days of witchcraft, virtually nothing was known of hysteria, epilepsy, the varied forms of insanity, hallucination, hypnotism, or of the possibilities of mal-observation and lapse of memory: while such a matter as first-hand circumstantial evidence seems to have been lost to sight entirely. If any mental or extraordinary physical disturbance took place, if the witch went into a trance and described things that were not, this was held to be proof positive that she was bewitched and under the influence of the devil. But we now know that most of these facts really indicated disease—mental and bodily—or the results of hysteria or trance, spontaneous or induced. Possibly there were also traces of hypnotism and telepathic influence, upon occasion. Of course, fraud pure and simple would account for many of the phenomena—the vomiting of pins and needles, for instance. But there remain certain facts which cannot be accounted for on any of these theories. Let us see, briefly, what these are.
First there are the "witches' marks." These were anaesthetic patches or zones on the body that were quite insensible to pain. They were searched for with the aid of sharp needles, and often found! It was thought that these were the spots which the devil had touched; this was his "trade-mark," so to speak, by which all witches were known. Now we know that just such anaesthetic patches occur in hysterical patients, and are not due to supernatural causes at all, but to pathological states.
Then, again, there is the possible occurrence of hallucinations. Edmund Gurney pointed this out in Phantasms of the Living, vol. i. p. 117, where he said:
"We know now that subjective hallucinations may possess the very fullest sensory character, and may be as real to the percipient as any object he ever beheld. I have myself heard an epileptic subject, who was perfectly sane and rational in his general conduct, describe a series of interviews that he had had with the devil with a precision and an absolute belief in the evidence of his senses equal to anything that I ever read in the records of the witches' compacts. And further, we know now that there is a condition, capable often of being induced in uneducated and simple persons with extreme ease, in which any idea that is suggested may at once take sensory form, and may be projected as an actual hallucination. To those who have seen robust young men, in an early stage of hypnotic trance, staring with horror at a figure which appears to them to be walking on the ceiling, or giving way to strange convulsions under the impression that they have been changed into birds or snakes, there will be nothing very surprising in the belief of hysterical girls that they were possessed by some alien influence, or that their distinct persecutor was actually present to their senses. It is true that in hypnotic experiments there is commonly some preliminary process by which the peculiar condition is induced, and that the idea which originates the delusion has then to be suggested ab extra. But with sensitive 'subjects' who have been much under any particular influence, a mere word will produce the effect; nor is there any feature in the evidence for witchcraft that more constantly recurs than the touching of the victim by the witch. Moreover, no hard and fast lines exist between the delusions of induced hypnotism and those of spontaneous trance, or of the grave hystero-epileptic crises which mere terror is now known to develop."
Unquestionably, hypnotism and hallucination played their part; also perhaps telepathy; and, as Gurney points out elsewhere, "The imagination which may be unable to produce, even in feeble-minded persons, the belief that they see things that are not there, may be quite able to produce the belief that they have seen them, which is all, of course, that their testimony implies" (p. 118).
Doubtless a large part of witchcraft, particularly that portion of it which relates to the Sabbath and the scenes said to be enacted there, can be explained as being due to the morbid workings of the mind while in a trance state. It is asserted on good authority that salves and ointments were rubbed into the pores of the skin all over the body; and that soon after this the witch would feel drowsy and lie down, and frequently remain in a semitrance state for several hours. During that time she would visit the Sabbath,—so it was said; but her body remained on the bed meanwhile, clearly showing that it had not been there.[48]