Show I I SEES SECS WITCH WITCHCRAFT RAFT AS OLD RELIGION I New Theory Concerning Ancient Superstition Science has a n new brand and ond very ery Intel Interesting estin theory theor to explain the belief be lief Ilef In witches which at various times in the past both hoth on this continent and andi andin i In Europe has been heen the source of so soI I much munch worry orry to God fearing Christians SU says S 'S the Louisville Ille Courier Journal theOl witchcraft According to this theory was uns a n religion which preceded Christianity Christianity Chris Chrls- in western Europe h b by man many I I centurIes and which after the coming coining of the new faith flourished there for fOI forn fora a n time side h by side with it In it its primitive e form the witch delt deity was ryas Incarnate In a n man or a woman or an m animal Later Luter on this delt deity was elected from among the members of ot the cult I And dill did the er believer In Jn witchcraft at one time worship the devil as ns some of our ancestors thou thought ht when the they jailed and han hanged ed supposed witches so soI relentlessly in the time Massachusetts I town of Salem Miss Margaret A A. A Murray an En Eng Eng- U lIch who hn has Vino hr been studying t ti the l' l subject bj t o of witchcraft f for man ninny many years says there Is no positive e I proof that they did so except what Is Isto Isto isto to be he found in the testimony of or the cults cult's bitter hitter enemies The mysterious rites of witchcraft were alwa always s 's cele cele- celebrated In the strictest secrecy Miss Murray hurray thinks that the adherents adherents adherents of or this older oIlier religion nt at last may have lime be been n driven by the growing strength of Christianity to regard the I devil as their god In those lays Christianity's chief strength th was among the upper classes and witchcraft's witchcraft's witchcraft's witch witch- crafts craft's among the lower This fact intensified the hostility of the adherents adherents of the two religions Christianity was unalterably opposed opposed op op- op posed to the barbaric rites of the witches and to their simple conception of the universe As a n result the witches eventually may have been heen forced to include In their ritual of Initiation Initiation In In- a specific denial of the entire Christian faith God faith God the Immortality of the soul and everything else the followers followers fol fol- lowers of Christ hold dear Miss Iss Murray sug suggests ests that possibly it was as the Christians themselves who first fastened the Idea of devil worship worship worship wor wor- ship upon the witches The chief deity of the tho witch cult was first worshiped under a variety of names Since the witches regarded this being as the supreme su an- I Bu-I preme ruler of the universe It was WAS' only natural for the Christians to term him the devil Lucifer Beelzebub the Foul Fiend the time Enemy of Salvation and the Evil One |