Hellish Hoax
The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology.
By Rossell Hope Robbins. (Peter Nevill, 63s.) I HOPED that Dr. Robbins's exhaustive, impressive, sick-making, suicidal compilation would turn out to be the crazy fantasy of a Manichean monk, Unfortunately, this prodigy of scholarship betrays
the bloody fingerprint of truth on every page. It is an indictment of Christian and ecclesiastical in- humanity which makes the arraignment of the Nazis at Nuremburg, the evidence against Neville Heath at the Old Bailey, the eye-witness accounts of Nero and Tiberius at play, the memories of Attila and Genghis Khan at work, read like a prosecution for dropping litter in Petticoat Lane. Dr. Robbins is not pro-witch—he devotes a good deal of close argument and detailed citation to proving that the popular-historical view of witch- craft as an underground cult of Mithras and Gnosticism is nonsense. Nor is he noticeably anti- Christian—wherever possible he stresses the oppo- sition of courageous and humane theologians to the wild bloodlust which intoxicated Europe and the Americas as the safe, dark ages fled before the false dawn of a new and pitiless enlightenment. But the cumulative effect of his brilliant compen- dium is to show the crucifixion of the old and senile, the young and innocent, the naïve and faithful, upon the swastika of dogma by the sadists, fanatics, money-grubbers and monsters who ruled Christendom for more than 200 years.
This is a real encyclopaedia. It contains care-
fully authenticated, meticulously bibliographed entries upon every person and incident which might reveal some information about the most horrifying hoax ever perpetrated upon rational beings—eleven-year-old Abigail Williams smell- ing out the Satan-lovers among the besieged Puritans of Salem, the amatory black masses of the Chambre Ardente consecrated over the naked thighs of royal whores, the nuns of Loudun staging exhibitions which would have shocked the habitues of an Algerian brothel. Dr. Robbins spares no blushes and minces no words. Some entries are conies droles worthy of Balzac, at once hilarious, incredible and devastating.
Dr. Robbins reveals only one worrying weak-
ness. It is difficult to discover from his encyclo- pxdia just how far he believes that there existed any widespread cult of witches which might have excused, at least a little, the otherwise monstrous tyranny of the witch-hunters. He in- cludes seven and a half eye-popping pages on 'Sexual Relations with Devils.' Most of the evi- dence is taken from tortured victims or credulous and frustrated tale-gatherers. But in an era when the majority of citizens undoubtedly believed in the physical presence of the Devil's invisible king- dom, did no perverted revolutionary ever pretend to be the Devil for his own peculiar satisfaction? Readers of the News of the World will find this hard to believe.
But those in search of anti-clerical kicks, or
Roman scandals, impure and simple, will event- ually be disappointed. I began by exclaiming to my cynical friends : 'Listen to this.' I ended by plunging them all into the deepest, most pessi- mistic gloom by reading out the appalling litany of horrors which were performed in the name of justice and brotherhood, God and the Pope, con- science and truth. Marrow drips from aged bones, tiny tots confess to fornication with the devil. saintly recluses are torn limb from socket, hysterical informers and epileptics terrify whole provinces for the greed of a few Inquisitors, the envy of a few Puritans, the glory of an Old Testa- ment God, and the guilty thrill of nations of believers. Almost The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology persuades me to believe in a personal Devil—but a Devil who came down upon earth in the guise of the Church Militant, Protestant and Catholic, and burned his opponents in the living fires of Hell. This is a book which should be read by every Christian who regards his Church as the sole guardian of the tradition of mercy and love.
ALAN miler"
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