folk, were accordingly objects of superstitious fear to their Scandinavian neighbours and oppressors. In the middle ages the name of Finn was, as it still remains among sea-faring men, equivalent to that of sorcerer, while Lapland witches had a European celebrity as practitioners of the black art. Ages after the Finns had risen in the social scale, the Lapps retained much of their old half-savage habit of life, and with it naturally their witchcraft, so that even the magic-gifted Finns revered the occult powers of a people more barbarous than themselves. Rühs writes thus early the last century: 'There are still sorcerers in Finland, but the skilfullest of them believe that the Lapps far excel them; of a well-experienced magician they say, "That is quite a Lapp," and they journey to Lapland for such knowledge.'[1] All this is of a piece with the survival of such ideas among the ignorant elsewhere in the civilized world. Many a white man in the West Indies and Africa dreads the incantations of the Obi-man, and Europe ascribes powers of sorcery to despised outcast 'races maudites,' Gypsies and Cagots. To turn from nations to sects, the attitude of Protestants to Catholics in this matter is instructive. It was remarked in Scotland: 'There is one opinion which many of them entertain, .... that a popish priest can cast out devils and cure madness, and that the Presbyterian clergy have no such power.' So Bourne says of the Church of England clergy, that the vulgar think them no conjurers, and say none can lay spirits but popish priests.[2] These accounts are not recent, but in Germany the same state of things appears to exist still. Protestants get the aid of Catholic priests and monks to help them against witchcraft, to lay ghosts, consecrate herbs, and discover thieves;[3] thus with unconscious irony judging the relation of Rome toward modern civilization.
The principal key to the understanding of Occult Science
1 F. Rühs, 'Finland,' p. 296; Bastian, 'Mensch.' vol. iii. p. 202.
2 Brand, 'Pop. Ant.' vol. iii. pp. 81-3; see p. 313.
3 Wuttke, 'Deutsche Volksaberglaube,' p. 128; see p. 239.
