rturned, it was positive evidence that
he and his cart and horse had been "bewitched"! If an old woman kept a
black cat or a pet toad, it was most assuredly her "familiar," and she
was branded as a witch forthwith. If cows sickened and died, it was
because a "spell" had been cast over them; and so on and so on. The
superstitions of witchcraft were as innumerable as they were
extraordinary. Are there any facts, amid all this superstition and
ignorance, tending to show that genuine supernormal phenomena ever
occurred at all? And if so, what are they?

It must be remembered that, in the days of witchcraft, virtually nothing
was known of hysteria, epilepsy, the varied forms of insanity,
hallucination, hypnotism, or of the possibilities of mal-observation and
lapse of memory: while such a matter as first-hand circumstantial
evidence seems to have been lost to sight entirely. If any mental or
extraordinary physical disturbance took place, if the witch went into a
trance and described things that were not, this was held to be proof
positive that she was bewitched and under the influence of the devil.
But we now know that most of these facts really indicated
disease--mental and bodily--or the results of hysteria or trance,
spontaneous or induced. Possibly there were also traces of hypnotism and
telepathic influence, upon occasion. Of course, fraud pure and simple
would account for many of the phenomena--the vomiting of pins and
needles, for instance. But there remain certain facts which cannot be
accounted for on any of these theories. Let us see, briefly, what these
are.

First there are the "witches' marks." These were anaesthetic patches or
zones on the body that were quite insensible to pain. They were searched
for with the aid of sharp needles, and often found! It was thought that
these were the spots which the devil had touched; this was his
"trade-mark," so to speak, by which all witches were known. Now we know
that just such anaesthetic patches occur in hysterical patients, and are
not due to supernatural causes at all, but to pathological states.

Then, again, there is the possible occurrence of hallucinations. Edmund
Gurney pointed this out in _Phantasms of the Living_, vol. i. p. 117,
where he said:

"We know now that subjective hallucinations may possess the very
fullest sensory character, and may be as real to the percipient as
any object he ever beheld. I have myself heard an epileptic
sub