Note 118.1 — Chapter IX · WITCHCRAFT: SYMPATHETIC MAGIC.

In the last chapter we dealt with that branch of witchcraft which has been called Sympathetic Magic. There is another branch that will repay a little attention, namely, the composition and administration of philtres. Many philtres are of course potions compounded of herbs and other substances known to ancient pharmacopœia. They are believed to have an effect partly inherent, partly conferred by spells. It is probable, indeed, that all medicine has arisen out of witchcraft, in the same way as chemistry, the true science, has emerged from alchemy, the false, and astronomy from astrology. Witchcraft, alchemy and astrology are all related by very close ties. They are the practical application of early beliefs and speculations growing out of one and the same theory of the universe. So far as I know, the history of the evolution of medicine from witchcraft has not received the attention which the corresponding evolution of chemistry and astronomy has had; but it is not less interesting, and in some respects it is even more surprising. Among love-potions made of herbs or of portions of the lower animals it is often difficult, or impossible, to estimate how far the virtue of the dose is conceived to be inherent in the ingredients, and how far it is conferred by spells or other observances with which it is concocted. Sometimes the inherent virtue seems to preponderate; at other times the spell. In extreme cases on the one hand the spells are absent, or are reduced to the simple direction to cull the materials at a certain time, as in the case of the Gipsy philtre consisting of the bones of a green frog powdered and mixed with cantharides and a well-sweetened dough, and baked into a cake. Here the frog must be caught on Saint John’s day, put into a pot having holes in the sides, and sunk into an ant-hill until the ants have picked the bones clean.118.1 On the other hand, the ingredients are almost disregarded, and the spell it is that is relied on. So a philtre reported by M. Laisnel de la Salle consists, like the other, of a little cake, of whose substance we are told nothing. Its power is obtained by being placed under the altar-cloth, so that the priest unwittingly says mass and sheds his benediction over it.118.2