Magic and Witchcraft
George Moir
We have long wished that some English or foreign university would offer a prize for a history of magic and witchcraft. The records of human opinion would contain few chapters more instructive than one that should deal competently with the black arts. For gross and painful as the details of superstition may be, yet superstition, by its very etymology, implies a dogma or a system of practice standing upon some basis of fact or truth, and however vain or noxious the superstructure may be, the foundation of it is in some way connected with those deep verities upon which rest also the roots of philosophy and religion.
For a grand error, and such alone can at any time essentially affect the opinions of mankind in general, is ever the imitation or caricature of some grand truth. From one soil spring originally the tree that yields good fruit and the plant that distills deadly poison. The very discernment of the causes of error is a step toward the discovery of its opposite. The minds of man, when analyzed, afford a clue to the course of its movements from the right track or at least enable us to detect the point at which began the original separation between truth and error. Alchemy led, by no very circuitous route, to the science of chemistry; the adoption of false gods by the majority of the human race rendered necessary the dispensations of the Jewish and Christian schemes; and the corruption of true reverence for the good, the beautiful, and the holy, was the parent of those arts, which, under the several appellations of magic, witchcraft, sorcery, etc., drew their professors at first and the multitude afterward to put faith in the evil, the deformed, and the impure. Magic and witchcraft are little more than the religious instincts of mankind, first inverted, then polluted, and finally, like all corrupted matter, impregnated with the germs of a corrupt vitality.
Duration - 4h 30m.
Author - George Moir.
Narrator - Wayne Lee.
Published Date - Sunday, 22 January 2023.
Copyright - © 1800 George Moir ©.
Location:
United States
Description:
We have long wished that some English or foreign university would offer a prize for a history of magic and witchcraft. The records of human opinion would contain few chapters more instructive than one that should deal competently with the black arts. For gross and painful as the details of superstition may be, yet superstition, by its very etymology, implies a dogma or a system of practice standing upon some basis of fact or truth, and however vain or noxious the superstructure may be, the foundation of it is in some way connected with those deep verities upon which rest also the roots of philosophy and religion. For a grand error, and such alone can at any time essentially affect the opinions of mankind in general, is ever the imitation or caricature of some grand truth. From one soil spring originally the tree that yields good fruit and the plant that distills deadly poison. The very discernment of the causes of error is a step toward the discovery of its opposite. The minds of man, when analyzed, afford a clue to the course of its movements from the right track or at least enable us to detect the point at which began the original separation between truth and error. Alchemy led, by no very circuitous route, to the science of chemistry; the adoption of false gods by the majority of the human race rendered necessary the dispensations of the Jewish and Christian schemes; and the corruption of true reverence for the good, the beautiful, and the holy, was the parent of those arts, which, under the several appellations of magic, witchcraft, sorcery, etc., drew their professors at first and the multitude afterward to put faith in the evil, the deformed, and the impure. Magic and witchcraft are little more than the religious instincts of mankind, first inverted, then polluted, and finally, like all corrupted matter, impregnated with the germs of a corrupt vitality. Duration - 4h 30m. Author - George Moir. Narrator - Wayne Lee. Published Date - Sunday, 22 January 2023. Copyright - © 1800 George Moir ©.
Language:
English
Opening Credits
Duration:00:00:12
0001 preface
Duration:00:09:02
0002 magic and witchcraft
Duration:00:07:51
0003 the legendary lucifer
Duration:00:11:33
0004 sources of superstition
Duration:00:09:36
0005 monkish superstition
Duration:00:06:29
0006 executions for witchcraft
Duration:00:17:44
0007 self delusions
Duration:00:12:35
0008 spectral illusions
Duration:00:11:59
0009 coincidences in evidence
Duration:00:04:32
0010 sweden the blocula
Duration:00:04:34
0011 delusions
Duration:00:06:07
0012 confessions
Duration:00:02:31
0013 the reformation
Duration:00:09:39
0014 persecutions in germany
Duration:00:05:56
0015 persecutions in hungary
Duration:00:03:49
0016 edict of louis xiv
Duration:00:04:52
0017 persecution in england
Duration:00:07:24
0018 scottish superstition
Duration:00:17:34
0019 trials in scotland
Duration:00:00:46
0020 remarkable trials
Duration:00:06:11
0021 case of lady fowlis
Duration:00:16:45
0022 james the first
Duration:00:05:14
0023 tortures
Duration:00:07:43
0024 convention of witches
Duration:00:03:06
0025 dr fian
Duration:00:04:09
0026 euphemia macalzean
Duration:00:07:20
0027 charles the first
Duration:00:03:03
0028 the puritans
Duration:00:07:10
0029 the restoration
Duration:00:01:06
0031 amusements of witches
Duration:00:06:27
0032 anecdotes of witches
Duration:00:07:14
0033 superstitious enthusiasm
Duration:00:06:52
0034 pagan witchcraft
Duration:00:06:43
0035 lucian and apuleius
Duration:00:02:34
0036 the baker's wife
Duration:00:05:30
0037 high treason
Duration:00:06:23
0038 later pagan superstitions
Duration:00:11:56
Ending Credits
Duration:00:00:25