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This might be arrived at deductively with perfect accuracy, and arguing solely from our knowledge of humanity under certain conditions; but I may mention that in Ceylon instances of people reverting to their devil-worship are common amongst the native Christians, and instances might, no doubt, be soon collected in India, if anyone thought it worth the trouble.
The Egyptian ancestors of that mysterious people of Indian origin, the gypsies of the present day, simply used to drug their clients with hashish, a practice that fully accounts for broomstick rides and flights up the chimney, the real-seeming visions, so to speak, of old crones transformed into young damsels, the frantic dances, the exquisite music, and all the fantastic tales of devil-worship.
There was the devil-worship of our poor, damned human race, where the most civilized nations of the world were on each side of the bonfires. It was worth watching by a human ant. I remember the noise of our guns as all our batteries took their parts in a vast orchestra of drumfire. The tumult of the fieldguns merged into thunderous waves.
When this notion of the alliance between demons and women had become a commonplace, "the whole tradition was directed against woman as the Devil's instrument, basely seductive, passionate and licentious by nature." Man's fear of woman found a frantic and absurd expression in her supposed devil-worship.
One is the bias which makes the observer deny any religion to the native race, except devil-worship. The other is the bias which lends him to look for traces of a pure primitive religious tradition.
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