Other popes had
since reiterated the appeal; and, though none of these documents
touched on the blame of witchcraft for diabolic possession, the
inquisitors charged with their execution pointed it out most
clearly in their fearful handbook, the _Witch-Hammer_, and
prescribed the special means by which possession thus caused
should be met. These teachings took firm root in religious minds
everywhere; and during the great age of witch-burning that
followed the Reformation it may well be doubted whether any
single cause so often gave rise to an outbreak of the persecution
as the alleged bewitchment of some poor mad or foolish or
hysterical creature. The persecution, thus once under way, fed
itself; for, under the terrible doctrine of "excepted cases," by
which in the religious crimes of heresy and witchcraft there was
no limit to the use of torture, the witch was forced to confess
to accomplices, who in turn accused others, and so on to the end
of the chapter.[[118]]
The horrors of such a persecution, with the consciousness of
an ever-present devil it breathed and the panic terror of him it
inspired, could not but aggravate the insanity it claimed to
cure.
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