II.

Sorcery

Simple sorcery, or the use of magic accessible to ordinary people, such as setting out offerings to helpful spirits or using charms, can be found in almost all traditional societies. Although the distinctions are often blurred, practices such as these differ both from religion, in which gods are worshiped in awe or implored through prayer to help, and from the sophisticated arts of alchemists and ceremonial magicians. Sorcery is intended to force results rather than achieve them through entreaty, and it is worked by simple and ordinary means.

From a sociological point of view, the widespread practice of sorcery within a tribe or peasant community serves to reinforce and consolidate beliefs about the supernatural world and the relation of humans to that world. Psychologically, sorcery provides a means of establishing a sense of control over nature and thus mitigates the anxieties caused by disease, uncertain seasons, and natural disasters. When such eventualities occur despite preventive measures, they can be interpreted as the result of malicious witchcraft, and the alleged perpetrators may then be sought out and driven from the community. The function of the so-called witch doctor or medicine man in many societies is to counter the power of evil witchcraft through good magic. Shamans may also heal through comparable means by performing rites that expel pestilential spirits or by retrieving lost and stolen souls. Characteristically, they do this with the aid of helping spirits or gods invoked through incantations and rites.

Practices such as these were known to the ancient Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans. In the Old Testament, the apocryphal book of Tobit contains an account in which, at the instruction of an angel, an evil spirit is expelled from a bridal chamber by the odor of a smoldering fish heart and liver (Tobit 6:14-18). Nevertheless, the Bible also contains injunctions against witchcraft, such as “You shall not permit a witch to live” (Exodus 22:18), a command that was used to justify the persecution of witches in medieval Europe. The Greco-Roman world was permeated by belief in witchcraft. Roman poet Horace refers to hags who clawed the earth to invoke spirits of the underworld, and philosopher and novelist Apuleius mentions the practice of nailing owls over doors with wings outspread to deflect storms. After the Christianization of the Mediterranean world in the 4th century, countless customs like these—as well as comparable practices in northern Europe—were perpetuated as folk magic or were superficially Christianized in such practices as inscribing the Lord’s Prayer on a piece of paper and keeping it in one’s shoe as an amulet against bewitchment. Certain local sages or “wise women” were experts in popular witchcraft or sorcery, which often represented remnants of pre-Christian religion.