Witches

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30158, 15 June 1963, Page 3

Witches

The Witch-Cult In Western Europe. By M. A. Murray. Oxford University Press. 280 p.p. Bibliography and Index.

Witchcraft is as old as mankind. At no time in history has it been eliminated. Even today there are “Covens” (companies) of devotees scattered throughout Western Europe, though their influence is mild compared with ancient times. The cult takes many forms but one unalterable characteristic is its malevolence to Christianity.

The Bible recognised the fact of witchcraft and condemned it. In the Middle Ages the Popes took action to stamp it out, but the popular superstition, resting as it did on old pagan beliefs, did not die out.

Dr. Margaret A. Murray has done much research on witches and witchcraft and her book, published in 1921 and now reprinted as a paperback, is accepted as perhaps the most erudite as well as the easiest to read. Children’s ideas of a witch flying on a broomstick or as transformed into an animal are absurd. Witches, in spite of persecution, had great influence and their meetings, held in secret, were occasions of excitement and superstitious worship. The author describes the ‘‘Witches’ Mass” at which the bread, wine, and candles were black. The witches took the devil as their God. There were many obscene fertility rites, the phallus symbol being prominent.

Dr. Murray declares that Joan of Arc was a witch and that she was put to death as a witch: “She belonged to the ancient religion (the devil’s) not to the Christians’.” True, she was tried for witchcraft and heresy by the English but it is difficult to accept this as a true indictment. At a revision of her trial in 1456. Pope Calistus 111 declared her innocent. She was canonised in May, 1920. In the face of the calm verdict of history, Dr. Murray's statement that Joan of Arc was a witch rests on a shaky foundation, perhaps not unfounded in the author's own religious outlook.