Witchcraft: A History of the Black Art
by Walter B. Gibson
1973

EXCERPT:

Witchcraft has been classed properly as the world's oldest profession. Among the Australian aborigines, who are the earth's most primitive people, the only professional class is the witch doctor, who reputedly can kill victims at a distance or bring back a victim from the brink of death by counteracting the evil efforts of a fellow member of the craft.

Similar powers have been claimed by witches and their kind in every land in every period, and the scope and complexity of the powers of witches have increased as man has attained higher levels of civilization. But the basic pattern is the same and the potential — often solely for evil — is as great whether the practitioner is an ignorant native squatting in the Australian bush or the "god" of a modern witch coven disporting in a luxurious "temple" laden with the smoke of exotic incense and buoyed up by LSD.