I

The social backgrounds within which witch-hunt occurred,I emphasise,should be paid ultimate attention.Both the 1768 Sorcery Scare in China and witch-hunt in almost contemporary Europe embodied severe social changes and the incidental impacts,which we can respectively read from the reign of Emperor Qianlong in Qing Dynasty,and the early modern period when diverse elements of‘modernity’sprouted in Western European society.In late seventeenth-and early eighteenth-century China,especially in the most commercialised Jiangnan region,commodity economy enjoyed its rapid growth.What flourished simultaneously was a freer labour market,and interacting with the unbalanced economic development of different local areas,it gave rise to the steep increase of population mobility.Moreover,the booming population and the considerably increasing good price,in particular the price of rice,broke the originally harmonious proportion among population,good price and currency.^[4]All these constituted serious impact on the entire society and to some extent caused the loss of the original order and the occurrence of instability,which constituted the cradle of social crises.Comparable circumstances happened in Europe during the early modern period.The population growth as well as the overall good price rebounded quickly after long decrease and stagnation.Cities and towns experienced enormous growth in terms of number and size.More importantly,a new economic mode,namely the commercial and agricultural capitalism,began to be introduced to many regions.The series of new elements,together with the periodical natural disasters,famines and plagues,collectively made Europe one of the most fiercely changing places in the world then.^[5]European people in the period must have profound insight into these changes,not to mention religious and political conflicts.Being born in great changes was what can help us rationalise the happenings of the two seemingly‘accidental’witch-hunts.

What impacts did the greatly changing society make on the psychology of the public at that time,and how did it relate to the witch-hunt?We may investigate the question from two perspectives,the rulers and the ruled.The great social changes stimulated the upper rulers to concern the security and stability of their own rule.Particularly in respect of social order and state security,the rulers would attach much more emphasis and would increasingly intend to create the image of their‘imaginary enemies’.When these sorts of concern,anxiety and the intention of labelling imaginary enemies were embodied in certain incidents or figures,it became understandable to see that the rulers took what they regarded as necessary means to facilitate‘effective’ guard.The embodiment of the psychology saw an eloquent example that Emperor Qianlong equated braid-cuttings made by sorcerers and witches with treason,which prompted the spread of witch-hunt all over the whole empire.^[6]Similar encounter can be seen in the witch-hunt in early modern Europe.In late sixteenth-century Scotland,King James VI initiated a series of trials for sorcery,whose nature lied profoundly in the fact that the king felt the stability of his rule threatened.^[7]In contemporary England,the establishment of An Act against Conjuration,Enchantment and Witchcraft(Statute 5 Eli.I,cap.16)as well as the incidental witch-hunts also suggested the anxious interaction between sovereignty and sorcery.^[8]For instance,someone was recorded to have used witchcraft to reckon how long the life and reign of Queen Elizabeth I would be.^[9]

For the ruled,enormous social changes and impacts proceeded with the accumulation of greater worries about their status and survival,and generally,these changes had not brought most of the public instant and practical benefits.As Phillip Kuhn suggests in his study on the 1768 Sorcery Scare in China,if standing at the position of an eighteenth-century ordinary Chinese,the commercial development might not necessarily imply that he could earn a fortune or better secure his life.On the contrary,in a crowded society full of competition,his living space became even narrower.For most commoners at that time,the actual outcome that this flourishing age brought to them was the struggle and suffering which they experienced in order to survive in the unpredictable environment.^[10]Early modern European commoners shared the compatible mentality with eighteenth-century Chinese counterparts.For them,as B.P.Levack describes,changes in every respect of life were anxious experience,which produced a pessimistic,depressing emotion,and strong fear toward the new world that they felt unstable,uncertain and difficult to address.^[11]Witch-hunt,on this occasion,provided an effective approach for the public to release great mental pressure.In hunting sorcerers and witches,the public often ascribed various misfortune or all potential danger and threat around to them.^[12]Moreover,changes and impacts themselves also aggravated the tension of the entire social relations,which was particularly evident among the lower social circle.When life became more difficult,for their own benefits,most commoners would involve in more frequent conflicts with others.In many conditions,witch-hunt was,with or without consciousness,applied as a‘weapon’to protect personal interests and reframe social network.Therefore,the poor could quarrel with the rich on the availability and size of charity;^[13]the creditors could be insulted as‘witches’;personal conflicts could be transformed into persecution and accusation cases toward witchcraft.^[14]The common fear toward sorcery could even be used to attack pears or competitors.^[15]Kuhn's metaphor well depicts the circumstance:Here was a loaded weapon thrown into the street,one that could as well be used by the weak as by the strong,by the scoundrel as by the honest man.To anyone oppressed by tyrannical kinsmen or grasping creditors,it offered relief.To anyone who needed‘quick cash’,it offered rewards.To scoundrel,it means power.^[16]

It was the mental mechanisms of these two groups of people and their interaction that contributed to the emergence and breakout of the witch-hunt.In the process of proceeding large-scale witch-hunts,different social groups reflected and expressed different mentalities,yet they unconsciously arrived at a‘conspiracy’when targeting at sorcery as the subject of their anxiety.