Witchcraft and the Black Art: A Book dealing with the Psychology and Folklore of the Witches. By J. W. Wickwar. (Herbert Jenkins, Ltd., London, 1925. Pp. 320. Price 8 s. 6 d.

This is an interesting account of some of the historical aspects of witchcraft. It deals on the whole with the subject in a conventional way, the main part of the book being taken up with historical aspects of certain trials. The epidemic nature of the witchcraft obsession and the remarkable way in which its component elements were temporarily fused into an obsession for some three centuries, after which it dissolved again into its elements, is not made clear. The importance of the relation to the Church and religion is inadequately dealt with. Above all the central part played by sexuality is kept entirely in the background. The book, therefore, though very interestingly written, gives a very imperfect presentation of the subject.

The author adopts, without mentioning her, Miss Murray's theory that witchcraft was in itself a religious cult, an extremely doubtful proposition. The psychopathology of the problem is grossly neglected: to mention a small instance alone, the author does not appear to know the connection between the 'witches' marks' and hysterical anæthesia.

No mention is made of the extensive work that has been done psycho-analytically on this subject, but the author has evolved an extraordinary and most original technique for the application of psycho-analysis to such problems. It is so nearly incredible that it must be described at length. Throughout the whole book there is not a glimmering of any psychological insight into the nature of the innumerable phenomena referred to. The nearest approach to an 'explanation' is an occasional remark of the kind that one is accustomed to find in books on folklore, invoking the label suggestion, imitation and the like. No hint is given that there are such factors as unconscious influences in the human mind. Nevertheless, on the very last page of the book the reader is startled to come across the following piece of bold effrontery:

One word more: although throughout this book the beliefs and practices