Witches

STREGHE : V. MAGIA.

WITCHCRAFT AND MEDICINE. — Among primitive peoples, the sorcerer-priest receives, in a particular natural or induced state (shamanism, alcoholic intoxication, mediumship), a so-called “light of revelation” for therapeutic purposes; in demoiatrics, one who is capable of “marking” certain illnesses is born under particular conditions. At first the healer is merely the link between divinity and man, a priest standing between divinity and patient; later he arrogates to himself the power of good and evil, becoming a magician and deriving his power from special rites or practices; as such he is found both among primitive peoples and among present-day rural inhabitants. Among primitive peoples the sorcerer, at the head of the entire village population, is the centre of actual rites for driving out demons in cases of epidemics or illness affecting a member of the community; at other times, secretly or publicly, he performs rites or ceremonies in order to cause illnesses.

In demoiatrics, alongside the religious element stands the magical element; consequently, certain persons are attributed the faculty both of inflicting and removing evil, both of causing and curing diseases. Witches possess this power by birth or initiation and exercise it through “spells,” generally in an operation of a criminal character, either by acting directly upon the victim (lettatura) or upon some figure or object representing him or her (transfert). By the same methods they can undo what they have done.

Alongside that connected with “spells,” the activity of witchcraft was directed to the preparation of amulets, talismans, and philtres that bestowed youth, honours, love, and riches, but it was particularly connected with the treatment of diseases. Peasants and common people, when in their opinion official medical science failed to achieve its purpose, had recourse (and still do!) to the witch, who was well acquainted with the properties of simple remedies and administered herbal juices, especially those having a soothing effect, such as the solanaceae. Witches, besides possessing a drug for every ill, also had lethal ones and knew well how to handle poisons; they were likewise midwives and gynaecologists, often not for benevolent purposes; for every circumstance they had a remedy, from abortifacient methods to waters of chastity or aphrodisiacs. Particular characteristics are assigned to illnesses attributed to the work of witchcraft, above all that they cannot

be identified with a characteristic nosographic picture and that they present symptomatology extraordinary in its development and not explicable by ordinary pathogenesis; such as, for example, a dietary disorder, a traumatic, toxic, or infectious cause, etc. It is a matter of inexplicable and progressive wasting away (one of the most characteristic forms of the “spell”), or loss of sexual capacity or of memory. Such pathology due to witchcraft is clearly not susceptible to experimental verification; it therefore remains incapable of scientific ascertainment and definition, assuming a vague and debatable character that lends itself very readily to a subjective and fanciful interpretation. On the other hand, this sort of pathology must be distinguished from disorders and diseases actually caused by surreptitiously administered poisonous substances, by suggestion, or staged by crude tricks.

Witchcraft acquired especially sombre hues in the Middle Ages, an age in which it was not judged as it should have been from the psychopathological point of view as well, but solely from the religious one, as a grave fault of impiety and demonolatry. At present this medieval form of witchcraft is considered a toxic psychosis, often collective, connected with the abuse of narcotic substances through inhalation, rubbing, or drinks. Indeed, in a closed environment saturated with fumigations of narcotic substances, the witches anointed the whole surface of their bodies with ointments based on those same substances, sometimes also taking them internally in the form of philtres and decoctions. Such toxic substances used by witches were aconite, mandrake, belladonna, henbane, opium, Indian hemp (hashish), and narcotics (v.). Thus, in a state of delirium, witches genuinely believed that they had gone to the infernal “sabbaths,” and upon awakening were ready to swear to the reality of what they had seen in their delirium and even to end their lives at the stake.

(by courtesy of the Grey Sisters of Montréal)
WITCHCRAFT AND MEDICINE — Type of Eskimo sorcerer (pagan). Mission of the Grey Nuns of Montréal — Chesterfield.

The initial ceremony of the career was the pact with the devil, signed in one’s own blood on a virginal parchment of a child’s skin, in an environment saturated with narcotics, in a delirious atmosphere of satanic nightmare. Under such circumstances the devil appeared to bestow, in exchange for the soul of the witch being consecrated and her submission to his will, an initial period of happiness and

(courtesy of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, Rome) STREIT, ROBERT — Portrait.

wealth. On the other hand, the witch would acquire a power superior to every human power through special ceremonies involving bloody sacrifices culminating in ritual murders, with a liturgy in honour of Satan, aping the very rituals of divine worship; an apostate priest was often required for such rites. Crime was thus joined to the most shameful sacrilege. In reality, their work often, quite apart from any alleged diabolical intervention, was capable of marvellous effects, since they were knowledgeable about human nature, the powers of physical substances, and the virtues of herbs.

Popular tradition has portrayed witches in art as types of old women with ugly and repulsive appearances; on the contrary, they were generally very beautiful women, full of riches derived from their often shady and illicit earnings. With regard to the moral judgment of the s.,

V. MAGIA

Vedi tav. C.

Gustavo M. Apollon