ts of an ancient folk religion, essentially a fertility cult, that prevailed throughout Europe before the advent of Christianity. According to this theory, the old religion continued to exist alongside Christianity through medieval times, although constantly losing adherents and importance. As Christianity gained the ascendancy, it persuaded most people to regard the gods of the old religion as devils. Those who practiced the old religion became witches in the eyes of ecclesiastical authorities and orthodox Christians (Briggs, 1996, pp. 135-138).
This model predicates a pool of practices and beliefs that pre-medieval European witches could draw from. This was in fact certainly available. The belief in magical practices, through the agency of spirits and demons, was almost universal in ancient times. Egyptian records tell of conjurers and soothsayers who derived their powers from alien gods or devils. In the Egyptian account of the encounter between Moses and Pharaoh, Moses appears as a practitioner of witchcraft and his followers as servants of an alien
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