Lay healers and sorcerers in Malta (1770-1798)

Abstract

What is the power of the mind over the body? What is the degree of psychological or psychic manipulation that may be exercised over any person? Selecting numerous cases indicating popular beliefs in the supernatural, and methods of folk medicine 鈥� from confessions before the Inquisition Tribunal 鈥� Francis Ciappara here throws some light on the dubious faith of the simple man in moments of pain, including some most weird superstitious practices caused partly by medical insufficiency and party by an exotic, if not actually magical, disposition to life. We may laugh, but these extreme cases are recorded as having actually happened throughout the Maltese islands not so many generations ago; nor are beliefs relating to such things as the evil eye and 鈥渘atural doctors鈥� alien to contemporary Maltese society: and indeed there appear to be no ultimate explanation of the phenomenon other than, possibly, the simplistic disdain for 鈥渋gnorance鈥�. A more profound analysis would certainly make a worthwhile contribution to our understanding of social history.