powers over evil spirits.[278]

Psychological evidence is therefore important. One can never be quite
sure to what extent civilised man is free from creating fresh myths in
place of acquired scientific result, and to what extent this
influences the production of primitive beliefs, or allows of the
acceptance of traditional belief on new ground. The great mass of
traditional belief has come through the ages traditionally, that is,
from parent to child, from neighbour to neighbour, from class to
class, from locality to locality, generation after generation.
Occasionally this main current of the traditional life of a people is
swollen by small side streams from fresh psychological sources.
Individual examples, such as those I have cited, have perhaps always
been present, but their effect must have died away with the passing of
those with whom they originated. There are, however, stronger effects
than these, coming not from individuals, but from classes. Thus the
votaries and enemies of witchcraft produced a more lasting effect.
Witchcraft, as Dr. Karl Pearson, I think, conclusively proves, and as
I have helped to prove,[279] is founded upon traditional belief and
custom, but its remarkable revival in the Middle Ages was in the main
a psychological phenomenon. Traditional practices, traditional
formulae, and traditional beliefs are no doubt the elements of
witchcraft, but it was not the force of tradition which produced the
miserable doings of the Middle Ages and of the seventeenth century
against witches. These were due to a psychological force, partly
generated by the newly acquired power of the people to read the Bible
for themselves, and so to apply the witch stories of the Jews to
neighbours of their own who possessed powers or peculiarities which
they could not understand, and partly generated by the carrying on of
traditional practices by certain families or groups of persons who
could only acquire knowledge of such practices by initiation or family
teaching. Lawyers, magistrates, judges, nobles, and monarchs are
concerned with witchcraft. These are not minds which have been crushed
by civilisation, but minds which have misunderstood it or have misused
it. It is unnecessary, and it is of course impossible on this occasion
to trace out the psychic issues which are contained in the facts of
witchcraft, but it may be advisable to illustrate the point by one or
two references.

I will note a few modern examples of the