Research source

The Jews had no national system of magic or witchcraft

Date of account: Published 1908
Source: The book of witches
Reference: The book of witches · selected passage 108
Rights: public_domain
Language: English
Record updated: 2026-08-24

Record summary

Published source text

Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.

Source passage

Source text · mention only

The Jews had no national system of magic or witchcraft. Though Abraham migrated to Canaan from Ur of the Chaldees, the God of Abraham was sternly opposed to those beliefs and rites for which the Chaldeans have ever since been famous. These they partly inherited from that earlier Shumiro-Accadian people inhabiting the region between the lower courses of the Tigris and the Euphrates, whose country they invaded some forty centuries B.C. Besides peopling the universe with good and evil spirits, and having knowledge of the arts of writing and of metal-working, the Shumiro-Accadians practised sorcery and magic wherewith to conjure evil spirits, reserving prayers in the more ordinary sense of the word for the beneficent gods. At the coming of the Chaldeans, the old religion was superseded by the worship of the Sun-god Bel, whose priests were the first practising astrologers. Astrology, divination, conjuration, and incantation thus all had their part in the magico-religious practices of the Chaldeans. An elaborate system of demonology provided constant menace to the happiness of the poor Chaldeo-Babylonian, and, very naturally, by degrees he established a counter influence by whose aid to obtain relief from his tormentors.

Historical context

Contextual commentary · mention only

This is a historical account assembled under the reporting and publishing conventions of its period. It may preserve testimony, hearsay, retelling and editorial interpretation together.

Modern context

Contextual commentary · mention only

A modern comparison can identify recurring descriptions and possible explanations, but the account is not treated as independently verified evidence merely because it appeared in print.

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