III

Do the similarities analysed above mean that the 1768 Sorcery Scare in China was of the same nature as the witch-hunts in early modern Europe?Definitely not.One of differences is that to some extent,religion played merely a limited role in the Chinese sorcery scare of‘soulstealers’.In the following I will address the different roles of religious factors in the witchhunts in China and the West.

In the early modern European witch-hunt,religious factors had profoundly facilitated its development,which the 1768 Sorcery Scare did not represent very much.This difference,I suggest,should be considered within the two hunts'respective socio-cultural context.In early modern Europe,the Christian belief,which had existed for over a thousand years since the late antiquity and reached its climax in the High Middle Ages,had immersed into every aspect of people's daily life then.But at the same time,Christianity faced evident challenges and experienced incidental changes.The religious unity governed by Catholicism all over Europe had been threatened by divergent understandings of Christianity during the Reformation.Since then,the power of Protestants increased,and diverse Protestant branches such as Lutherans,Calvinists and Anglicanism flourished and rooted in northwestern Europe.The Reformation also influenced intensely the religious doctrines and thoughts then,such as the growing awareness of the Devil,the emphasis on the individual's religious piousness and saintliness,and the attacks to superstition,paganism and magic.Apart from that,it also consolidated the conception of holy secular states.We can see how these series of elements shaped witchcraft and witch-hunts then.For instance,the increasing consciousness of the Devil contributed to the growth of the consensus that sorcerers and witches,as the representatives of the Devil,should be eliminated.The fulfilment of religious piousness,for its difficulty in practical individual lives,usually produced considerable psychological burden and‘the sense of guilt’.And the best way for the believers to release their anxiety of not being pious enough was to prosecute witchcraft.The harsh punishment upon superstition,paganism and magic,by every means,led to more severe attacks to sorcerers and witches.The increasingly explicit conception of holy secular states witnessed the publication of a set of antiwitchcraft laws and regulations.^[37]Nevertheless,the religious conflicts during the Reformation diffused not only between Catholicism and Protestantism,but also among different branches of certain a religious sect.^[38]Often on such occasions,witch-hunts,with or without consciousness,became one of the‘weapons’among different sects and branches,which increased the possibility of persecutions toward witchcraft.To a large degree,religion had an essential influence on prompting early modern European witch-hunts.

The second difference lied in the characteristics and contents of the witch beliefs.As analysed above,the Reformation aroused people's increasing awareness of the Devil,which further contributed to the prevalence of many new witchcraft ideas such as the‘covenant or pact with the Devil’^[39],the Devil worship,witches’sabbath of the Devil,feeding familiars and so forth.^[40]In the period,cheap prints including books and pamphlets emerged rapidly about how witches were willing or forced to make contracts with the Devil driven by temptation or mental pressure.The circulation of witchrelated literature proceeded with the making and circulation of the new elements in contemporary witchcraft,which influenced later witch-hunts as well.They sometimes became an important drive for organising witch-hunt activities.And when defining the guilt of witches,people could apply certain ideas in the covenant or pact with the Devil to facilitate the judgment,thus increasing the ratio of guilt condemnation in addressing witchcraft cases in certain regions.^[41]The sensitive attention to proofs pertaining to the covenant or pact with the Devil,while prevalent in early modern European witch-hunt context,occurred much rarer in the 1768 scare toward‘soulstealer’.The nuclear concept in the Chinese Sorcery Scare was the soul,which meant that if someone's soul was stolen,then he or she would be hurt and even die.^[42]The‘soulstealing’was seriously scared since it was fatal.In this respect,the two witch-hunts presented very divergent feature of how people in the two cultural contexts understood the nature and effect of witchcraft.

In addition,one important difference related to religion was the prosecuted witches'‘confession’.It is not difficult to figure out many similarities concerning confessions in the two witch-hunts.For example,witches usually deny their identities at first,which made cruel torture be the most frequent means for the witch-hunters to complete condemnation proceedings.^[43]During the 1768 Sorcery Scare,we see that most witch suspects had been put to torture,and many of them had to confess that they practised sorcery.^[44]However,in early modern European witch-hunts,there were some cases in which witches themselves admitted they were witches during the investigation.This phenomenon,I suggest,was correlated with the belief of the Devil,the adherents’piousness and psychological insights within the indigenous religious context then.These witches often defined themselves as someone who was tempted or controlled by and had made contracts with the Devil,thus they felt seriously guilty and willing to admit their guilts and make confessions.The willingness to admit and confess for the guilt concerning the Devil could be a worth-noting motive of the witch-hunt,which we find exact cases in early modern France,Switzerland and Spain.^[45]