Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft

by Walter Scott

So many causes acting thus upon each other in various degrees, or sometimes separately, it must happen early in the infancy of every society that there should occur many apparently well-authenticated instances of supernatural intercourse, satisfactory enough to authenticate peculiar examples of the general proposition which is impressed upon us by belief of the immortality of the soul. These examples of undeniable apparitions (for they are apprehended to be incontrovertible), fall like the seed of the husbandman into fertile and prepared soil, and are usually followed by a plentiful crop of superstitious figments, which derive their sources from circumstances and enactments in sacred and profane history, hastily adopted, and perverted from their genuine reading. This shall be the subject of my next letter.

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LETTER II.

Consequences of the Fall on the Communication between Man and the
Spiritual World—Effects of the Flood—Wizards of Pharaoh—Text in
Exodus against Witches—The word Witch is by some said to mean
merely Poisoner—Or if in the Holy Text it also means a Divineress,
she must, at any rate, have been a Character very different to be
identified with it—The original, Chasaph, said to mean a person
who dealt in Poisons, often a Traffic of those who dealt with
familiar Spirits—But different from the European Witch of the
Middle Ages—Thus a Witch is not accessary to the Temptation of
Job—The Witch of the Hebrews probably did not rank higher than a
Divining Woman—Yet it was a Crime deserving the Doom of Death,
since it inferred the disowning of Jehovah’s Supremacy—Other Texts
of Scripture, in like manner, refer to something corresponding more
with a Fortune-teller or Divining Woman than what is now called a
Witch—Example of the Witch of Endor—Account of her Meeting with
Saul—Supposed by some a mere Impostor—By others, a Sorceress
powerful enough to raise the Spirit of the Prophet by her own
Art—Difficulties attending both Positions—A middle Course adopted,
supposing that, as in the Case of Balak, the Almighty had, by
Exertion of His Will, substituted Samuel, or a good Spirit in his
Character, for the Deception which the Witch intended to
produce—Resumption of the Argument, showing that the Witch of Endor
signified something very different from the modern Ideas of
Witchcraft—The Witches mentioned in the New Testament are not less
different from modern Ideas than those of the Books of Moses, nor do
they appear to have possessed the Power ascribed to
Magicians—Articles of Faith which we may gather from Scripture on
this point—That there might be certain Powers permitted by the
Almighty to Inferior, and even Evil Spirits, is possible; and in
some sense the Gods of the Heathens might be accounted Demons—More
frequently, and in a general sense, they were but logs of wood,
without sense or power of any kind, and their worship founded on
imposture—Opinion that the Oracles were silenced at the Nativity
adopted by Milton—Cases of Demoniacs—The Incarnate Possessions
probably ceased at the same time as the intervention of
Miracles—Opinion of the Catholics—Result, that witchcraft, as the
Word is interpreted in the Middle Ages, neither occurs under the
Mosaic or Gospel Dispensation—It arose in the Ignorant Period, when
the Christians considered the Gods of the Mahommedan or Heathen
Nations as Fiends, and their Priests as Conjurers or
Wizards—Instance as to the Saracens, and among the Northern
Europeans yet unconverted—The Gods of Mexico and Peru explained on
the same system—Also the Powahs of North America—Opinion of
Mather—Gibb, a supposed Warlock, persecuted by the other
Dissenters—Conclusion.

What degree of communication might have existed between the human race and the inhabitants of the other world had our first parents kept the commands of the Creator, can only be subject of unavailing speculation. We do not, perhaps, presume too much when we suppose, with Milton, that one necessary consequence of eating the “fruit of that forbidden tree” was removing to a wider distance from celestial essences the beings who, although originally but a little lower than the angels, had, by their own crime, forfeited the gift of immortality, and degraded themselves into an inferior rank of creation.

Some communication between the spiritual world, by the union of those termed in Scripture “sons of God” and the daughters of Adam, still continued after the Fall, though their inter-alliance was not approved of by the Ruler of mankind. We are given to understand—darkly, indeed, but with as much certainty as we can be entitled to require—that the mixture between the two species of created beings was sinful on the part of both, and displeasing to the Almighty. It is probable, also, that the extreme longevity of the antediluvian mortals prevented their feeling sufficiently that they had brought themselves under the banner of Azrael, the angel of death, and removed to too great a distance the period between their crime and its punishment. The date of the avenging Flood gave birth to a race whose life was gradually shortened, and who, being admitted to slighter and rarer intimacy with beings who possessed a higher rank in creation, assumed, as of course, a lower position in the scale. Accordingly, after this period we hear no more of those unnatural alliances which preceded the Flood, and are given to understand that mankind, dispersing into different parts of the world, separated from each other, and began, in various places, and under separate auspices, to pursue the work of replenishing the world, which had been imposed upon them as an end of their creation. In the meantime, while the Deity was pleased to continue his manifestations to those who were destined to be the fathers of his elect people, we are made to understand that wicked men—it may be by the assistance of fallen angels—were enabled to assert rank with, and attempt to match, the prophets of the God of Israel. The matter must remain uncertain whether it was by sorcery or legerdemain that the wizards of Pharaoh, King of Egypt, contended with Moses, in the face of the prince and people, changed their rods into serpents, and imitated several of the plagues denounced against the devoted kingdom. Those powers of the Magi, however, whether obtained by supernatural communications, or arising from knowledge of legerdemain and its kindred accomplishments, were openly exhibited; and who can doubt that—though we may be left in some darkness both respecting the extent of their skill and the source from which it was drawn—we are told all which it can be important for us to know? We arrive here at the period when the Almighty chose to take upon himself directly to legislate for his chosen people, without having obtained any accurate knowledge whether the crime of witchcraft, or the intercourse between the spiritual world and embodied beings, for evil purposes, either existed after the Flood, or was visited with any open marks of Divine displeasure.

But in the law of Moses, dictated by the Divinity himself, was announced a text, which, as interpreted literally, having been inserted into the criminal code of all Christian nations, has occasioned much cruelty and bloodshed, either from its tenor being misunderstood, or that, being exclusively calculated for the Israelites, it made part of the judicial Mosaic dispensation, and was abrogated, like the greater part of that law, by the more benign and clement dispensation of the Gospel.

The text alluded to is that verse of the twenty-second chapter of Exodus bearing, “men shall not suffer a witch to live.” Many learned men have affirmed that in this remarkable passage the Hebrew word CHASAPH means nothing more than poisoner, although, like the word veneficus, by which it is rendered in the Latin version of the Septuagint, other learned men contend that it hath the meaning of a witch also, and may be understood as denoting a person who pretended to hurt his or her neighbours in life, limb, or goods, either by noxious potions, by charms, or similar mystical means. In this particular the witches of Scripture had probably some resemblance to those of ancient Europe, who, although their skill and power might be safely despised, as long as they confined themselves to their charms and spells, were very apt to eke out their capacity of mischief by the use of actual poison, so that the epithet of sorceress and poisoner were almost synonymous. This is known to have been the case in many of those darker iniquities which bear as their characteristic something connected with hidden and prohibited arts. Such was the statement in the indictment of those concerned in the famous murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, when the arts of Forman and other sorcerers having been found insufficient to touch the victim’s life, practice by poison was at length successfully resorted to; and numerous similar instances might be quoted. But supposing that the Hebrew witch proceeded only by charms, invocations, or such means as might be innoxious, save for the assistance of demons or familiars, the connexion between the conjurer and the demon must have been of a very different character under the law of Moses, from that which was conceived in latter days to constitute witchcraft. There was no contract of subjection to a diabolic power, no infernal stamp or sign of such a fatal league, no revellings of Satan and his hags, and no infliction of disease or misfortune upon good men. At least there is not a word in Scripture authorizing us to believe that such a system existed. On the contrary, we are told (how far literally, how far metaphorically, it is not for us to determine) that, when the Enemy of mankind desired to probe the virtue of Job to the bottom, he applied for permission to the Supreme Governor of the world, who granted him liberty to try his faithful servant with a storm of disasters, for the more brilliant exhibition of the faith which he reposed in his Maker. In all this, had the scene occurred after the manner of the like events in latter days, witchcraft, sorceries, and charms would have been introduced, and the Devil, instead of his own permitted agency, would have employed his servant the witch as the necessary instrument of the Man of Uzz’s afflictions. In like manner, Satan desired to have Peter, that he might sift him like wheat. But neither is there here the agency of any sorcerer or witch. Luke xxii. 31.

Supposing the powers of the witch to be limited, in the time of Moses, to enquiries at some pretended deity or real evil spirit concerning future events, in what respect, may it be said, did such a crime deserve the severe punishment of death? To answer this question, we must reflect that the object of the Mosaic dispensation being to preserve the knowledge of the True Deity within the breasts of a selected and separated people, the God of Jacob necessarily showed himself a jealous God to all who, straying from the path of direct worship of Jehovah, had recourse to other deities, whether idols or evil spirits, the gods of the neighbouring heathen. The swerving from their allegiance to the true Divinity, to the extent of praying to senseless stocks and stones which could return them no answer, was, by the Jewish law, an act of rebellion to their own Lord God, and as such most fit to be punished capitally. Thus the prophets of Baal were deservedly put to death, not on account of any success which they might obtain by their intercessions and invocations (which, though enhanced with all their vehemence, to the extent of cutting and wounding themselves, proved so utterly unavailing as to incur the ridicule of the prophet), but because they were guilty of apostasy from the real Deity, while they worshipped, and encouraged others to worship, the false divinity Baal. The Hebrew witch, therefore, or she who communicated, or attempted to communicate, with an evil spirit, was justly punished with death, though her communication with the spiritual world might either not exist at all, or be of a nature much less intimate than has been ascribed to the witches of later days; nor does the existence of this law, against the witches of the Old Testament sanction, in any respect, the severity of similar enactments subsequent to the Christian revelation, against a different class of persons, accused of a very different species of crime.