PDF Marine Corps Heroes: Navy Cross (Korean War - Present) (Volume 3) by C. Douglas Sterner in History

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Malleus Maleficarum - The Hammer of the Witches – Written in 1486 – By Heinrich Kramer; Translated by Montague Summers – THE COMPLETE ORIGINAL 3 PART ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO THE HUNTING AND QUESTIONING OF WITCHES - Magic; sorcery; and witchcraft - It has been recognized even from the very earliest times; during the first gropings towards the essential conveniences of social decency and social order; that witchcraft is an evil thing; an enemy to light; an ally of the powers of darkness; disruption; and decay. Sometimes; no doubt; primitive communities were obliged to tolerate the witch and her works owing to fear; in other words; witchcraft was a kind of blackmail; but directly Cities were able to to co-ordinate; and it became possible for Society to protect itself; precautions were taken and safeguards were instituted against this curse; this bane whose object seemed to blight all that was fair; all that was just and good; and that was well-appointed and honourable; in a word; whose aim proved to be set up on high the red standard of revolution; to overwhelm religion; existing order; and the comeliness of life in an abyss of anarchy; nihilism; and despair. In his great treatise De Ciutate Dei S. Augustine set forth the theory; or rather the living fact; of the two Cities; the City of God; and the opposing stronghold of all that is not for God; that is to say; of all that is against Him. This seems to be a natural truth which the inspired Doctor has so eloquently demonstrated in his mighty pages; and even before the era of Christianity men recognized the verity; and nations who had never heard the Divine command put into practice the obligation of the Mosaic maxim: Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. (Vulgate: Maleficos non patieris uiuere. Douay: Wizards thou shalt not suffer to live. Exodus; xxii; 18.) It is true that both in the Greek and in the earlier Roman cults; worships often directly derived from secret and sombre sources; ancient gods; or rather demons; had their awful superstitions and their horrid rites; powers whom men dreaded but out of very terror placated; fanes men loathed but within whose shadowed portals they bent and bowed the knee perforce in trembling fear. Such deities were the Thracian Bendis; whose manifestation was heralded by the howling of her fierce black hounds; and Hecate the terrible “QUeen of the realm of ghosts;” as Euripides calls her; and the vampire Mormo and the dark Summanus who at midnight hurled loud thunderbolts and launched the deadly levin through the starless sky.