Here, again, we must first show the falsity of the view that the belief in witches is a specifically Christian experience. To the diffusion of this error the celebrated work of J. Michelet, “La Sorcière,” has especially contributed, for in this book the witch is represented as a Christian medieval discovery. But the Christian religion, as such, is as little blameworthy for this belief as are all the other confessions of faith. =The belief in witches, with its religio-sexual basis, is a primitive general anthropological phenomenon=, a fixture, a part of primitive human history arising from the primeval relations between religious magic and the sexual life. “When we look deeply into the province of psychology,” says G. H. von Schubert, “we not only suspect, but recognize with great certainty, that there exists a secret combination between the activities of the animal carnal sexual impulse and the receptivity of human nature for magical manifestations. “We stand here in the depths of the abyss in which the lust of the flesh becomes inflamed to the lust of hell, and in which the flesh, with all its indwelling forces of sin and death, celebrated its greatest triumph over the spirit appointed by God to command the flesh.”[63] The animism of primitive man, and of savage man at the present day, sees in all frightful natural phenomena shaking his innermost being to its foundation the manifestation and action of demons and sorcerers. The rutting impulse also, which attracts primitive man to woman, appears to him to be due to the influence of a demon, =and soon woman herself came to seem to man something uncanny, something magical=. Thus, in its origin the belief in witchcraft arises from the =sexual impulse=, and =throughout its history sorcery in all its forms remained associated with the sexual impulse=. This sexual origin of the belief in witches and in magic has been carefully described by the celebrated ethnologist K. Fr. Ph. von Martius, on the basis of his observations amongst the indigens of Central Brazil. “=All sorcery arises from rutting=,” said an old Indian to him. Magic propagates itself by means of sexual desire, and, according to Martius, will predominate among primitive peoples as long as these =remain unchaste=.[64] Secret arts, voluptuousness, and unnatural vice are inseparable one from another. This is proved by the entire history of human civilization and morals. Among the indigens of Brazil, the “pajé” or “piache,” the sorcerer or medicine-man, plays the same part as the medieval or Christian witch.