On the Origin, Idea, Scope, and History of Ancient and Modern Magic

As with the Greeks and Romans, it prevailed, albeit under manifold modifications, among the Egyptians, Phoenicians, Persians, Chaldeans, and all other more or less famous nations.

If we want to be sincere, we must admit that it not only prevailed among the Jews at the time of Christ, but that the belief of the New Testament and of Christianity itself is no other, as the following passages irrefutably prove. Ephes. II. 2, VI. 11–13, 16. Matth. IV. 1 f., VIII. 28–34, XIII. 24–30, 37–43. 2 Cor. IV. 4. Joh. VIII. 44. 1 Petr. V. 8, 9, etc. Because of his manifold great effectiveness and his powerful influence, the head of the evil spirit world, Satan, is even called the prince of this world in the New Testament. Joh. XII. 31, XIV. 30, XVI. 11, 2 Cor. IV. 4. It is in vain to explain away the devil and his angels from these passages. Such an exegesis critical explanation or interpretation is refuted by the entire world-belief of that time. If the passages are to mean whatever we now want them to—why then did no one in all of antiquity understand them thus? If we have become smarter, we may rejoice in that, but we may not therefore let those venerable writers say what they neither wanted to, nor could, say in their time.

As it was in the old world among cultivated and uncultivated peoples, so it is still now in our world and present day.

How general the belief in the powerful influence of good and evil spirits on the earth is among the Greenlanders, and how their magic-doctrine is founded upon this,