A person, "possessed," is one affected with the form of trance-waking called double consciousness, with the addition of being deranged when in the paroxysm, and then, out of the suggestions of her own fancy, or catching at the interpretation put on her conduct by others, believing herself tenanted by the fiend. We may quite allowably heighten the above picture by supposing that the person in her trance, in addition to being mad, might have displayed some of the perceptive powers occasionally developed in trance; and so have evinced, in addition to her demoniacal ferocity, an "uncanny" knowledge of things and persons. To be candid, Archy, time was, when I should myself have had my doubts in such a case. We have by this time had intercourse enough with spirits and demons to prepare us for the final subject of witchcraft. The superstition of witchcraft stretches back into remote antiquity, and has many roots. In Europe it is partly of Druidical origin. The Druidesses were part priestesses, part shrewd old ladies, who dealt in magic and medicine. They were called _all-rune_, all-knowing. There was some touch of classical superstition mingled in the stream which was flowing down to us;--so an edict of a council of Treves, in the year 1310, has this injunction: "Nulla mulierum se nocturnis horis equitare cum Diana propitiatur; haec enim doemoniaca est illusio." But the main source from which we derived this superstition, is the East, and traditions and facts incorporated in our religion. There were only wanted the ferment of thought of the fifteenth century, the vigour, energy, ignorance, enthusiasm, and faith of those days, and the papal denunciation of witchcraft by the famous Bull of Innocent the VIII. in 1459, to give fury to the delusion. And from this time for three centuries, the flames, at which more than 100,000 victims perished, cast a lurid light over Europe. One ceases to wonder at this ugly stain in the page of history, when one considers all things fairly. The Enemy of mankind, bodily, with horns, hoofs, and tail, was believed to lurk round every corner, bent upon your spiritual, if not bodily harm. The witch and the sorcerer were not possessed by him against their will, but went out of their way to solicit his alliance, and to offer to forward his views for their own advantage, or to gratify their malignity. The cruel punishments for a crime so monstrous were mild, compared with the practice of our own penal code fifty or sixty years ago against second-class offences. And for the startling bigotry of the judges, which appears the most discreditable part of the matter, why, how could they alone be free from the prejudices of their age? Yet they did strange things.