Reviving Witchcraft by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Dec 15, 1909

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 36, No. 49.

Reviving Witchcraft

By Editor

Last August at Reading, Pa., in investigating the cases of six infants who had died in that neighborhood, the coroner found in every case that the children were “verhexed,” that is, bewitched, and had called in a witch doctor to drive away the evil. A few months before that a woman was charged in court at Butler, Pa., by a neighbor with being a witch and casting a spell over a cow, thus preventing it from giving milk. Cases are also mentioned in Cornwall, England, and in Cuba. Not long ago a party of Navajo Indians in Mexico stoned to death a squaw of their own tribe for casting a spell over other squaws.

These are what would be considered cases among the more ignorant people, we suppose; but we would like to know what different are the recent revelations in Christian Science circles. Mrs. Stetson is accused of “malicious animal magnetism;” which is, we suppose, casting a spell over some other persons. The logic seems to be fairly good that if a few sitting together and concentrating their minds upon a person can bring benefits, a similar circle could bring evil through “malicious animal magnetism” directed against the person. And yet we are asked to accept this sort of thing in lieu of Bible Christianity, of which the apostle declares that those who accept it have received from its Author “not a spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”