“Magic” whether brought about by the aid of spirits or simply through an understanding of secret natural laws, is of two kinds, “white” and “black,” according as its intent and consequences are evil or good, and in this respect does not differ from the use made of the well known laws of nature, which are ever of good or evil character, in the hands of good or evil persons. To the church in its powerful control of the human will, must be attributed the use of “black magic,” in its most injurious form. Proof that knowledge of the mysterious laws governing ordinary natural phenomena still exists even among civilized people, is indubitable. Our American Indians in various portions of the continent, according to authorities, also possess power to produce storms of thunder, lightning and rain.[29]
A vast amount of evidence exists, to show that the word “witch” formerly signified a woman of superior knowledge. Many of the persons called witches doubtless possessed a super-abundance of the Pacinian corpuscles in hands and feet, enabling them to swim when cast into water bound, to rise in the air against the ordinary action of gravity, to heal by a touch, and in some instances to sink into a condition of catalepsy, perfectly unconscious of torture when applied. Many were doubtless psychic sensitives of high powers similar perhaps to the “Seeress of Prevorst,” whose peculiar characteristics were the subject of investigation by Dr. Kerner, about the end of the witch period, his report forming one of the most mysteriously interesting portions of psychic literature. The “Seeress” was able to perceive the hidden principles of all vegetable or mineral substances, whether beneficial or injurious. Dr. Kerner stated that her magnetic condition might be divided into four degrees.
First: that in which she ordinarily was when she appeared to be awakened but on the contrary was the first stage of her inner life, many persons of whom it was not expected and who was not aware of it themselves, being in this state.
Second: the magnetic dream, which she believed to be the condition of many persons who were regarded as insane.
Third: the half wakening state when she spoke and wrote the inner language, her spirit then being in intimate conjunction with her soul.
Fourth: her clairvoyant state.
With the investigation of Dr. Kerner, the discoveries of Galvani, Pacini, and those more recently connected with electricity, notably of Edison and Nikolas Tesla, the world seems upon the eve of important knowledge which may throw full light upon the peculiar nerve action of the witch period, when a holocaust of women were sacrificed, victims of the ignorance and barbarity of the church, which thus retarded civilization and delayed spiritual progress for many hundred years. Besides the natural psychics who formed a large proportion of the victims of this period, other women with a natural spirit of investigation made scientific discoveries with equally baleful effect upon themselves; the one fact of a woman’s possessing knowledge serving to bring her under the suspicion and accusation of the church. Henry More, a learned Cambridge graduate of the seventeenth century wrote a treatise on witchcraft explanatory of the term “witch” which he affirmed simply signified a wise, or learned woman. It meant “uncommon” but not unlawful knowledge or skill. It will assist in forming an opinion to know that the word “witch” is from wekken, to prophesy, a direct bearing upon the psychic powers of many such persons. The modern Slavonian or Russian name for witch, vjedma, is from the verb “to know” signifying much the same as Veda.[30] Muller says Veda means the same as the wise, “wisdom.” The Sanskrit word Vidma answers to the German wir wissen, which literally means “we know.” A Russian name for the witch Zaharku, is derived from the verb Znat, to know.[31] A curious account of modern Russian belief in witchcraft is to be found in Madame Blavatsky’s Isis Unveiled. The German word Heke, that is, witch, primarily signified priestess, a wise or superior woman who in a sylvan temple worshiped those gods and goddesses that together governed earth and heaven. Not alone but with thousands of the people for whom she officiated she was found there especially upon Walpurgis Night, the chief Hexen (witch) Sabbat of the north. A German scholar furnished this explanation.
The German word Heke, (witch) is a compound word from “hag” and “idisan” or “disan.” Hag means a beautiful landscape, woodland, meadow, field, altogether. Idisen means female deities, wise-women. Hexen-Sabbat, or Walpurgis Night is May twelfth. Perfume and avocation—originally the old gods—perverted by the priests. It is a remnant of the great gathering to worship the old deities, when Christianity had overshadowed them. A monument of the wedding of Woden or Odin with Freia—Sun and Earth at spring time.
The Saxon festival “Eostre,” the christian Easter, was celebrated in April, each of these festivals at a time when winter having released its sway, smiling earth giving her life to healing herbs and leaves, once more welcomed her worshipers. In the south of Europe, the month of October peculiarly belonged to the witches.[32] The first of May, May-day, was especially devoted by those elementals known as fairies, whose special rites were dances upon the green sward, leaving curious mementoes of their visits in the circles known as “Fairies Rings.” In reality the original meaning of “witch” was a wise woman. So also the word Sab means sage or wise, and Saba a host or congregation;[33] while Bac, Boc and Bacchus[34] all originally signified book.[35] Sabs was the name of the day when the Celtic Druids gave instruction and is the origin of our words Sabbath and Sunday. But the degradation of learning, its almost total loss among christian nations, an entire change in the signification of words, owing to ignorance and superstition led to the strangest and most infamous results. The earliest doctors among the common people of christian Europe were women[36] who had learned the virtues and use of herbs. The famous works of Paracelsus were but compilations of the knowledge of these “wise women” as he himself stated. During the feudal ages women were excellent surgeons, wounded warriors frequently falling under their care and to the skill of these women were indebted for recovery from dangerous wounds. Among the women of savage races to much greater extent than among the men, a knowledge of the healing powers of plants and herbs is to this day found. But while for many hundred years the knowledge of medicine, and its practice among the poorer classes was almost entirely in the hands of women and many discoveries in science are due to them, yet an acquaintance of herbs soothing to pain, or healing in their qualities, was then looked upon as having been acquired through diabolical agency. Even those persons cured through the instrumentality of some woman, were ready when the hour came to assert their belief in her indebtedness to the devil for her knowledge. Not only were the common people themselves ignorant of all science, but their brains were filled with superstitious fears, and the belief that knowledge had been first introduced to the world through woman’s obedience to the devil. In the fourteenth century the church decreed that any woman who healed others without having duly studied, was a witch and should suffer death; yet in that same century, 1527, at Basle, Paracelsus threw all his medical works, including those of Hippocrates and Galen into the fire, saying that he knew nothing except what he had learned from witches.[37] As late as 1736, the persecution of her male compeers cast Elizabeth Blackwell, an English woman physician, into prison for debt. Devoting herself even behind the bars to her loved science, she prepared the first medical botany given to the world. The modern discovery of anaesthetics by means of whose use human suffering can be so greatly ameliorated, is justly claimed as the greatest boon that science has conferred upon mankind, yet it must not be forgotten that this medical art of mitigating pain, is but an olden one re-discovered. Methods of causing insensibility to pain were known to the ancient world. During the middle ages these secrets were only understood by the persecuted women doctors of that period, subjected under church rule to torture, burning at the stake or drowning as witches. The use of pain-destroying medicaments by women, can be traced back from five hundred to a thousand years. At the time that witchcraft became the great ogre against which the church expended all its terrific powers, women doctors employed anaesthetics to mitigate the pains and perils of motherhood,[38] throwing the sufferer into a deep sleep when the child entered the world. They made use of Solanae, especially Belladonna. But that woman should find relief at this hour of intense suffering and peril when a new being entered the world, provoked open hostility from the church. The use of mitigating herbs assailed that theory of the church which having placed the creation of sin upon woman, still further inculcated the doctrine that she must undergo continual penance, the greatest suffering being a punishment in nowise equal to her deserts. Its teachings that she had therefore been especially cursed by her Maker with suffering and sorrow at this period, rendered the use of mitigating remedies during childbirth, dangerous alike to the “wise woman” and the mother for whose relief they were employed[39]. Although the present century has shown similar opposition by the church to the use of anaesthetics for women at this time, it is almost impossible to depict the sentiment against such relief which made the witchcraft period one of especial terror to womankind—an age that looked upon the slightest attempt at such alleviation as proof of collusion with the devil. So strong was the power of the church, so universal the belief in the guilt of all women, that even those sufferers who had availed themselves of the knowledge of the “wise woman” did so in fear as calling in the aid of evil, and were ready to testify against her to whom they had been indebted for alleviation of pain, whenever required by the dread mandate of the church. A strong natural bias toward the study of medicine, together with deepest sympathy for suffering humanity, were required in order to sustain the “wise woman” amid the perils constantly surrounding her; many such women losing their lives as witches simply because of their superior medical and surgical knowledge. Death by torture was the method of the church for the repression of woman’s intellect, knowledge being held as evil and dangerous in her hands. Ignorance was regarded as an especial virtue in woman, and fear held her in this condition. Few women dared be wise, after thousands of their sex had gone to death by drowning or burning because of their knowledge. The superior learning of witches was recognized in the widely extended belief of their ability to work miracles. The witch was in reality the profoundest thinker, the most advanced scientist of those ages. The persecution which for ages waged against witches was in reality an attack upon science at the hands of the church. As knowledge has ever been power, the church feared its use in woman’s hands, and leveled its deadliest blows at her. Although the church in its myth of the fall attributes knowledge to woman’s having eaten of its tree, yet while not scrupling to make use of the results of her disobedience for its own benefit, it has been most earnest in its endeavors to prevent her from like use. No less today than during the darkest period of its history, is the church the great opponent of woman’s education, every advance step for her having found the church antagonistic.