WITCHCRAFT

 

WITCHCRAFT is always connected with deception. It can only be practiced by a deceiving spirit. It is selfish in its objects and aims. No spirit, in this sphere, is selfish; consequently, witchcraft belongs to a condition where selfishness reigns, where ignorance shields the performer from detection, where fill things conspire to work in a secret manner the design of the worker, and where the secret works of darkness admit of no exposure. Nothing secret can be done in this sphere. Nothing is hidden from the inspection of spirits, and nothing can be concealed from them which they desire to know. Deception, therefore, belongs to a sphere where circumstances prevent a disclosure of the work of deceivers.

 

When the tricks of imposters shall be exposed, the means by which they deceive shall be understood, and the credulity of the ignorant shall be overcome, then wisdom will assert her sway over mind, and truth be sought as the grand object of human industry. No good can accrue to any one from what is not wise, nor can any one gain wisdom from that which is not true. We will explain. Witchcraft is a deception. It is a cheat. It is a delusion. It is false. It is worse than false. It does no good. It does much harm. Therefore, it is an evil which should be destroyed.

 

When notions of witches and wizards prevailed, no man, or woman, or child was safe—all was in a state of jeopardy—all were every moment liable to penalties and pains. No one could escape the pains and penalties suspected of such possessions. He who was concerned in what others did not understand, was without a good spirit, and under the control of evil spirits. She who was in any way connected with operations which were inconsistent with the operations of popular understanding, must be subjected to penalties more unworthy of enlightened government than the barbarous cruelties of savage inhumanity. Such were the results of ignorance on the one hand, and such were the effects of superstition on the other, that they need not here be recited by us.

 

Instances of this once popular delusion surfeit the page of history. Even the Bible, venerated as a book of inspiration, contains allusions and warnings against witchcraft. It is there associated with the vilest crimes, which develope themselves in the work of minds. We find it classified with seditious, murders, drunkenness, and various other works of darkness. We will now answer our inquiry, What is witchcraft?

 

We have said, witchcraft is a deception, a cheat, and a delusion. It is a minister of misery, a work of an evil spirit, a war upon the happiness of man, a libel on the goodness of God, a wisdom that is devilish, a folly that is often unchecked, a craft that is worked by man. It is a work which is dark to the uninitiated, but clear to the performer. It is a work which has been attributed to spirits out of the body, but it belongs to those in the body. Spirits of this sphere have no connection with it; they do not aid it, neither will they permit the accusation to go unrebuked and undenied. We will expose the secret of the whole matter in due time.

 

Interested individuals are not wanting who wish for some scape-goat to conceal their own abominations. They have sometimes charged their follies upon those who are innocent, to excuse themselves from the censure of their own wrongs. They have sought a justification of their own misdeeds, when they could not find a better apology, by imputing their own iniquities to witches and wizards; and yet more frequently their own wrongs to the devil. It is a covering worse than fig leaves for a guilty conscience. It is a phantom through which spirits can gaze. It is a lie which is not half told. It is a work which may deceive the blind, but it can not deceive the revealer and judge of all works, and can find no approbation save in the chambers of superstition and credulity. But the witches and wizards of former days have not all vanished without a posterity. Their children have learned something from their father's experience, but their learning has not altogether finished its work.

 

What are the works of witchcraft? The witch of Endor is not alone in her achievements. We find witches who outvie her, who fairly eclipse her fame, who work into comparative insignificance the wonders of her extraordinary genius. We find what those in the body do not find men and women of high pretensions to respectability and refinement, canvassing all methods to force their works of deception into the minds of the credulous and unwary.

 

They compass sea and land to propagate their delusion. They make the unsuspecting victims of their miserable pretensions, two-fold more the children of deception than they were before. This is one species of witchcraft.

 

We find men and women deceived by pretensions of sincerity, in matters of everlasting moment to the welfare of souls. We find them lured by men and women who have no confidence in their own declarations, men and women who pay absolution for their hypocrisy on an altar, consecrating to God thereon the blood of the innocent for the crimes of the guilty, by making the end justify the means when there is nothing in the end but evil, by willing the means to another end than good—the selfishness of a deceived soul. We find men and women, doing works of shame when darkness reigns, as though the watchman willed enjoyment in wrong, as though the sentries of heaven could expose no chastity violated, no widow or orphan neglected, no misery unmitigated, no corner unvisited by their guardian protection. We find what we call witchcraft in the merchandise which is made of men's bodies and souls, in the traffic of a gospel which was given to men without money and without price, in the acts and doings of legislative assemblies, in the contempt and ridicule of heavenly things, connected with which are consequences of everlasting importance; and, especially, so far as the manifestations of this age of progress, in the knowledge of things eternal, is concerned. We will not stop here. Witchcraft moves in a mysterious way its wonders, to accomplish its ends. It visits no hovel but to plunder, no dwelling but to sack, no habitation but to deceive. It avoids scrutinizing investigation, and warns its votaries what to say and what to do. But has this any thing to do with witchcraft? It has nothing to do but to expose the work of witches and wizards. Witches are sane, but selfish. Witches are witches, under whatever guise they wear. It is not so much the machinery as the production, that requires our counsel. It is not so much the manufacturer as the fabric that demands inspection. We have nothing to do with the machinery or the machinist; it is the production we wish to change. And when men become wise enough to see the good from the bad, in the productions manufactured by the wisdom of witches and wizards in the great workshop of nature's machinery, they will be able to overcome the deception to which they are now exposed. It is the work, the fabric, exposed to decoy, or concealed to allow the craft to circulate the industry of the interested with which we have to do. We will do our duty. And, in the sequel of this work, we trust we shall not be complained of for want of specifications in our treatment of the disease. At this stage, we design only to write a synopsis of what we intend shall accompany the same more fully in detail, and without exciting the execration of those whose gain may be temporarily interested in concealment. We shall write only what concerns the everlasting well-being of man, regardless of the provoked indignation of those who have shared in the craft which we propose to investigate, and lay before the public. We will do good. We will do our duty. We will serve God, and we will serve him, acceptably by doing good to those who are under the control of witches and wizards, that bind upon them grievous burdens, laden with the curse of ignorance and deception.

 

Witchcraft in wizards is worse, if possible, than in witches. Wise men will do more harm than unwise. Wise women will do more evil than unwise. Hence, selfish wisdom is justified by her children, as worldly wisdom is justified by worldly minds. So, works, good and bad, are justified or condemned, as the conditions of wisdom or ignorance prevail among men. So, what one man calls good, another calls evil. The pagan calls his idolatrous worship good, but the Christian calls it evil; under what circumstances can a thing be good, which is evil under other circumstances? When conditions are wrong, the thing is wrong, and what is wrong is not right. A depends on the conditions; consequently, every thing has its appropriate time and place. And when the wisdom of God is seen, which wills both good and evil, which makes peace and creates evil, which makes darkness and creates light, which withholds and bestows, which confers and takes away, which inspires and withdraws, which makes alive and destroys, which writes with this hand and not with another, and which works miracles in one age, but not in another; when the wisdom of the world can understand, why the golden harvest smiles in one land, and the hungry famine devours in another, why the avalanche buries its acres, and why the upheaving volcanic fires inundate whole citys and countries with the wrath of their eruptions, while the same God rules in other climes, and the people live in worldly wealth and glory; when they can understand the wisdom of these apparently conflicting conditions; when they can reconcile what is apparently inconsistent, and perceive a glorious harmony, wisdom, and love, in each and all of the varied phenomena of nature, in each and all of the conflicting conditions and circumstances which accompany the pilgrims of earth; it will not be difficult to find an explanation of the doings of men and women who have charged evil upon spirits, because their communications have not all corresponded with their notions of truth and right. It will not be difficult, when the wisdom of God is understood, to understand why one is taken and another left, why one is satisfied with the bread of angels and another perishes, why one reaps and reaps what he has sown, and another sows not, and begs in harvest.

 

When wisdom is understood, the folly of men will appear. But when "cunningly devised fables" are taken for the wisdom of God, the wisdom of God will not be seen, nor will that wisdom be justified of men. Nothing inharmonious with the laws of God in nature, can be right or wise. Nothing conflicting with the good of man, can be good and wise. Nothing is wise and good, but what is adapted to the conditions of human welfare, to the soul's progress in the knowledge of wisdom and truth. Nothing will contribute to such a result but the philosophy of truth, which is the wisdom of God manifest in his works. Nothing will control but power. Knowledge is power, wisdom is power; and when knowledge, wisdom, and truth erect a temple, it will stand. It will stand, because nothing can overthrow wisdom, nothing can demolish fact; and a work begun and completed on this foundation will stand forever.

 

Wise men may wonder, ignorant men may cavil, and indolent men may rest, while we work to erect a temple without hammer or chisel, where wisdom may find an abiding place, where fools shall no longer hate knowledge, where wise men shall instruct the less wise, where the witchcraft of unholy things, made unholy by misguided mind, which has misplaced them, shall weave no snare to entrap the worthy, and worthy minds will not have sought in vain for redress; where wise men shall control what is best with prudence and moderation; where the wants of the suffering shall not go unheeded, nor the cries of distress unrelieved; where the voice of unkindness shall not grate as it rolls over the crushed affections of innocence, nor the groan of despair with the flowers of hope; where control is universal and its effects beneficial, and where the millions of earth shall worship God, by doing, not saying merely, but doing good; where the wide world shall be filled with wisdom, and wisdom shall rule in wisdom the witchcraft of wizards and witches, the ignorance and selfishness of men; and when all shall write what is wise is true to the design of him who builds, who constructs a temple of many mansions, eternal in the heavens.