Page "Margaret Murray" Paragraph 31

Raised a devout Christian by her mother, Murray had initially become a Sunday School teacher in order to preach the faith.

However, after entering the academic profession she rejected religion, gaining a reputation amongst other members of the Folklore Society as a noted sceptic and a rationalist.

Despite her rejection of religion, she continued to maintain a personal belief in a God of some sort, relating in her autobiography that she believed in " an unseen over-ruling Power ," " which science calls Nature and religion calls God.

" She was also a believer and a practitioner of magic, performing curses against those whom she felt deserved it: as Ronald Hutton noted, " Once she carried out a ritual to blast a fellow academic whose promotion she believed to have been undeserved, by mixing up ingredients in a frying pan in the presence of two colleagues.

The victim actually did become ill, and had to change jobs.

This was only one among a number of such acts of malevolent magic she perpetrates, and which the friend who recorded them assumed ( rather nervously ) were pranks, with coincidental effects.