THE GEOGRAPHY OF WITCHCRAFT

mysterious power; it was haloed with supernaturalism. Thither resorted the individual who wished to learn Heaven’s will, and before many generations had passed, these places were famous as oracles, as shrines, and as centers of pilgrimage.

Naturally, in the course of years, the priest would take care to fix his abode in some spot that was most suited to his purpose—perhaps due to its remoteness, the beauty or grandeur of its landscape, the loneliness of its woodland glades, the terror of its looming crags, the reverence of its snow-capped hills, or for some accidental reason altogether—which was most impressive to the impressionable mind of the seeker, whether he came from near or far. And so, we have the oracle of Dodona amid the forest of huge-girthed oaks; Apollo speaks from the chasm of legend-haunted Delphi where Parnassus towers above; the horned HammonAnother name for the Egyptian god Amun, identified with Zeus by the Greeks. is sought amid the sandy wastes of distant Libya; the phallic Baal upon the lonely heights of Peor in the land of Moab.

The priests to whose charge these sanctuaries belonged were veritable sorcerers. They delivered the oracles; they chanted incantations as the smoke of sacrifice ascended; they directed, they expounded, they advised; they healed, and they dispensed noxious potions; they pretended to lord it over nature by their arts; they tamed wild beasts and charmed serpents, as Pliny tells; they controlled the winds just as the witches of Lapland and Norway were accustomed to do; they could avert the hailstorm (khalazophylakes),Greek: "guardians against hail." or on the other hand, they could cover a smiling sky with the menace of dark clouds and torrential rain (nephelodiōktai).Greek: "cloud-chasers" or "bringers of clouds." “In the discipline of the augurs, it is certainly established that neither ill-omens nor any auspices pertain to those who, when embarking on any matter, have declared that they would not observe them; than which privilege of divine indulgence there is no greater. What? Are there not in the Twelve Tables of the laws themselves the words: ‘He who has bewitched the crops’? And elsewhere, ‘He who has sung an evil charm’?”Original Latin text: "In augurum certe disciplina constat... Qui fruges excantasset... Qui malum carmen incantasset." These are references to ancient Roman legal prohibitions against magic.

These priest-sorcerers had, moreover, the power to turn human beings into brute animals; a superstition upon which Saint Boethius philosophizes aptly in the Fourth Book of his De Consolatione Philosophiæ (The Consolation of Philosophy), when he says that man’s evil passions, if uncurbed, degrade him lower than the beasts. “It happens, therefore, that you cannot count him a man whom you see transformed by vices. Avarice serves others' wealth...”Original Latin: "Euenit igitur, ut quem transformatum uitiis uideas hominem æstimare non possis. Auaritia seruet alienarum opum."