Chapitre xxii. De ce qui se fait au Sabbat.
1. _Les Sorciers y adorent Satan, estăt en forme d’homme noir, ou de bouc, & luy offrent des chandelles, & le baisent aux
## parties honteuses de derriere._
2. _Ils y dansent, & de leurs danses._
3. _Ils se desbordent en toutes sortes de lubricitez, & comme Satan se fait Incube & Succube._
4. _Incestes, & paillardises execrebles des Euchites & Gnostiques._
5. _Les Sorciers banquettent au Sabbat, de leurs viandes, & breuuages, & de la façon qu’ils tiennent à benir la table, & à rendre graces._
6. _Ils ne prennent cependant point de gout aux Viandes, & sortent ordinairement auec faim du repas._
7. _Le repas paracheué, ils rendent conte de leurs actions à Satan._
8. _Ils renoncent de nouueau à Dieu, au Chresme, &c. Et comme Satan les sollicite à mal faire._
9. _Ils y font la gresle._
10. _Ils y celebrent messe, & de leurs chappes, & eau benite._
11. _Satan se consume finalement en feu, & se reduit en cendre, de laquelle les Sorciers prennent tous, & a quel effet._
12. _Satan Singe de Dieu en tout._
[66] Vouloir donner une description du Sabbat, c’est vouloir decrire ce qui n’existe point, & n’a jamais subsisté que dans l’imagination creuse & séduite des Sorciers & Sorcieres: les peintures qu’on nous en fait, sont d’après les rêveries de ceux & de celles qui s’imaginent d’être transportés à travers les airs au Sabbat en corps & en ame. _Traité sur les Apparitions des Esprits_, par le R. P. Dom Augustin Calmet, Abbé de Sénones. Paris, 1751, I. p. 138.
[67] See the woodcut upon the title-page of Middleton & Rowley’s _The World tost at Tennis_, 4to, 1620.
[68] De Lancre, _L’Incrédulité_, p. 769.
[69] Boguet, _Discours des Sorciers_.
[70] De Lancre, _Tableau_, p. 217.
[71] De Lancre, _L’Incrédulité_, p. 800.
[72] Görres, _La Mystique Divine_, traduit par Charles Sainte-Foi. V. viii. 19. p. 208.
[73] George Sinclar, _Satan’s Invisible World Discovered_, Relation XVII.
[74] _La Mystique Divine_, 1902 (Nouvelle édition). III. p. 381.
[75] _Tractatus_, xxi. c. 11. P. xi. n. 179.
[76] _Disquisitiones Magicæ_, Lib. II. qᵗᵒ x.
[77] _Compendium Maleficarum_, p. 78.
[78] “Solent ad conuentum delatæ dæmonem conuentus præsidem in solio considentem forma terrifica, ut plurimum hirci uel canis, obuerso ad illum tergo accedentes, adorare ... et deindo, homagii quod est indicium, osculari eum in podice.”[K] Guazzo notes: “Ad signum homagii dæmonem podice osculantur.”[L] And Ludwig Elich says: “Deinde quod homagii est indicium (honor sit auribus) ab iis ingerenda sunt oscula Dæmonis podici.”[M]
[K] _Disquisitiones Magicæ_, Lib. II. qto xvi.
[L] _Compendium Maleficarum_, I. 13.
[M] _Dæmonomagia_, Quæstis x.
[79] _Mystery of Witchcraft._
[80] It may be remembered that, as related elsewhere, there is strong reason to suppose Francis Stewart, Earl of Bothwell, grandson of James V, was “the Devil” on this occasion, as he was certainly the Grand Master of the witches and the convener of the Sabbat.
[81] _Newes from Scotland, declaring the damnable Life of Doctor Fian._ London. W. Wright. [1592].
[82] Dudum ad audientiam nostram peruenit, quod uenerabilis frater noster G. Conuentrensis et Lichefeldensis episcopus erat in regno Angliæ et alibi publice defamatur quod diabolo homagium fecerat et eum fuerat osculatus in tergo eique locutus multotius.
[83] Confessa ledit sire Guillaume ... avoir fait hommage audit ennemy en l’espèce et semblance d’ung mouton en le baisant par le fondement en signe de révérence et d’hommage. Jean Chartier, _Chronique de Charles VII_ (ed. Vallet de Viriville). Paris, 1858. III. p. 45. Shadwell, who has introduced this ceremony into _The Lancashire Witches_, II, (The Scene Sir _Edward’s_ Cellar), in his notes refers to “Doctor _Edlin_ ... who was burn’d for a Witch.”
[84] _Reliquiæ Antiquæ_, vol. I. p. 247.
[85] Il a veu [le diable] quelque fois en forme d’homme, tenant son cheval par le frein, & qu’ils le vont adorer tenans vue chandelle de poix noir en leurs mains, le baisent quelque fois au nombril, quelque fois au cul. De Lancre, _L’Incredulité_, p. 25.
[86] Tum candelis piceis oblatis, vel vmbilico infantili, ad signum homagii eum in podico osculantur, Liber I. xiii.
[87] _Satan’s Invisible World Discovered_, Relation III.
[88] ... qui apparait là, tantost en forme d’vn grand homme noir, tantost en forme de bouc, & pour plus grand hommage, ils luy offrent des chandelles, qui rendent vne flamme de couleur bleüe. _Discours des Sorciers_, p. 131.
[89]
εἴθε λύρα καλὴ γενοίμην ἐλεφαντίνη, καί με καλοὶ παίδες φέροειν Διονύσιον ες χορόν.
(Fain would I be a fair lyre of ivory, and fair boys carrying me to Dionysus’ choir.)
[90] Sequuntur his choree quas in girum agitant semper tamen ad læuam progrediendo. _Compendium Maleficarum_, I. xiii.
[91] Les Sorciers, dansent & font leurs danses en rond doz contre doz.
[92] Quelquefois, mais rarement, ils dansent deux à deux, & par fois l’vn çà & l’autre là, & tousiours en confusion.
[93] On n’y dançoit que trois sortes de bransles.... La premiere c’est à la Bohemienne.... La seconde c’est à sauts: ces deux sont en rond. Sir John Davies in his _Orchestra or A Poeme on Dauncing_, London, 18mo, 1596, describes the seven movements of the Cransles (Crawls) as:
_Upward_ and _downeward_, _forth_ and _back againe_, _To this side_ and _to that_, and _turning round_.
[94] II. 1.
[95] Sinclar, _Satan’s Invisible World Discovered_, III.
[96] _Newes from Scotland_,(1592).
[97] Tota turba colluuiesque pessima fescenninos in honorem dæmonum cantat obscenissimos. Hæc cantat _Harr, harr_; illa Diabolo, Diabolo, salta huc, salta illuc; altera lude hic, lude illic; alia Sabaoth, Sabaoth, &c.; immo clamoribus, sibilis, ululatibus, propicinis furit ac debacchatur. _Dæmonomagia_, Quæstio x.
[98] Hi habent mensas appositas & instructas accumbunt & incipiunt conuiuari de cibis quos Dæmon suppeditat uel iis quos singuli attulere, _Compendium Maleficarum_, I. xiii.
[99] Les liures disent que les sorciers mangent au Sabbat de ce que le Diable leur a appresté: mais bien souue̅t il ne s’y trouue que des viandes qu’ils ont porté eux mesmes. Parfois il y a plusieurs tables seruies de bons viures & d’autres fois de tres meschans. “Les Sorciers ... banquettent & se festoient,” remarks Boguet, “leur banquets estans composez de plusieurs sortes de viandes, selon les lieux & qualitez des personnes.” _Tableau_, p. 197. _Discours des Sorciers_, p. 135.
[100] Sinclar, _Invisible World Discovered_, Relation XXIX.
[101] Ils banquêtent, dressant trois tables selon les trois diversités des gens susnommés. Ceux qui ont la charge du pain, ils portent le pain qu’ils font de blé dérobé aux aires invisiblement en divers lieux. Ils boivent de la malvoisie, pour eschauffer la chair à la luxure, que les députés portent, la dérobant des caves où elle se trouve. Ils y mangent ordinairement de la chair des petits enfants que les députés cuisent à la Synagogue et parfois les y portent tout vifs, les dérobant à leurs maisons quand ils trouvent la commodité. Père Sébastien Michaëlis, O.P. _Histoire admirable de la possession_, 1613.
[102] On y boit aussi du vin, et le plus souvent de l’eau.
[103] Conuiuant de cibis a se uel a dæmone allatis, interdum delicatissimis, et interdum insipidis ex infantibus occisis aut cadaueribus exhumatis, præcedente tamen benedictione mensæ tali coetu digna. _Salamanticenses_, Tr. xxi. c. 11. P. 11. n. 179.
[104] Uinum eorum præterea instar atri atque insinceri sanguinis in sordido aliquo scipho epulonibus solitum propinari. Nullam fere copiam rerum illic deesse afferunt præterqua̅ panis et salis. Addit Dominica Isabella apponi etiam humanas carnes. _Compendium Maleficarum_, I. xiii.
[105] _De la Démonomanie_, III. 5.
[106] _Dæmonomagio_, Quæstio vii.
[107] Il n’y a jamais sel en ces repas. _Discours des Sorciers_.
[108] On se met à table, où il n’a iamais veu de sel.
Shadwell draws attention to this detail: _The Lancashire Witches_, II, the Sabbat scene; where Mother Demdike says:
See our Provisions ready here, To which no Salt must e’er come near!
[109] Père Sébastien Michaëlis, O.P. _Histoire admirable_, 1613.
[110] Isti uero qui expressam professionem fecerunt, reddunt etiam expressum cultum adorationis dæmoni per solemnia sacrificia, quæ ipsi faciunt diabolo, imitantes in omnibus diuinum cultum, cum paramentis, luminaribus, et aliis huiusmodi, ac precibus quibusdam et orationibus quibus instructi sunt, adeo ipsum adorant et collaudant continue, sicut nos uerum Creatorem adoramus. _De Sortilegiis_, Liber II. c. iii. n. 6.
[111] _The Wonders of the Invisible World_. A Hortatory Address, p. 81.
[112] J. Hutchinson, _History of Massachusett’s Bay_, II. p. 55. (1828.)
[113] _Euchologion_ of the Orthodox Church, ed. Venice, 1898, p. 63.
[114] Baissac, _Les grands jours de la Sorcellerie_ (1890), p. 391.
[115] Calmeil, _De la folie_, I. p. 344.
[116] Sébastien Michaëlis, _Histoire admirable_. 1613. Translated as _Admirable Historie_. London, 1613.
[117] Desmarest, _Histoire de Magdelaine Bavent_. Paris. 4to. 1652.
[118] For full details see François Ravaisson, _Archives de la Bastille_, Paris, 1873, where the original depositions are given.
[119] _Là-Bas_ appeared in the _Echo de Paris_, 1890-1.
[120] _Tableau_, p. 401. For the full account of these ceremonies I have chiefly relied upon Guazzo; Boguet, _Discours_, XXII, 10; De Lancre, pp. 86, 122, 126, 129; and Görres, _Mystique_, V. pp. 224-227. It hardly seems necessary to give particular citations here for each circumstance.
[121] De Lancre, _Tableau_, IV. 4.
[122] _Corriere Nazionale di Torino_, Maggio. 1895.
[123] De Lancre, _Tableau_, p. 401.
[124] Görres, _Mystique_, V. p. 230.
[125] Roland Brévannes, _L’Orgie Satanique_, IV. Le Sabbat, p. 122.
[126] _Discours_, p. 141.
[127] S. Caleb, _Messes Noires_, p. 153.
[128] _Confession faicte par Messire Loys Gaufridi_, A Aix. MVCXI.
[129] A vne Chasuble qui a vne croix; mais qu’elle n’a que trois barres.
[130] Le Diable en mesme temps pisse dans vn trou à terre, & fait de l’eau beniste de son vrine, de laquelle celuy, qui dit la messe, arrouse tous les assistants auec vn asperges noir. Boguet, _Discours_, p. 141.
[131] ... lors que Tramesabot disoit la Messe, & qu’auant la commencer li iettoit de l’eau beniste qui estoit faicte de pissat, & faisoit la reverence de l’espaule, & disoit _Asperges Diaboli_. De Lancre, _L’Incredulité_.
[132] L’eau beniste est iaune comme du pissat d’asne, & qu’apres qu’on la iettée on dit la Messe.
[133] Michaëlis _Histoire admirable_, 1613. Miss Murray, _The Witch-Cult_, p. 149, suggests that this sprinkling was “a fertility rite”! An astounding theory. This blasphemy, of course, alludes to the curse of the Jews, S. Matthew xxvii. 25.
[134] Que le Diable dit le Sermo au Sabbat, mais qu’on n’entend ce qu’il dit, parce qu’il parle com̅e en gro̅dant. Which suggests the wearing of a mask, or, at least, a voice purposely disguised.
[135] Dit qu’il a veu bailler au Sabbat du pain benist & de l’encens, mais il ne sentoit bon comme celuy de l’Eglise.
[136] So in the Orleans trial Gentil le Clerc confessed that the Devil “tourne le dos à l’Autel quand il veut leuer l’Hostie & le Calice, qui sont noirs.”
[137] Silvain Nevillon, (1614-1615). Dit aussi auoir veu des Sorciers & Sorcieres qui apportoient des Hosties au Sabbat, lesquelles elles auoient gardé lors qu’on leur auoit baillé à communier à l’Eglise.
[138] Presumably S. Cæsarius of Arles, 470-543, who incidentally was famous for eradicating the last traces of Pagan superstitions and practices. He imposed the penalty of excommunication upon all those who consulted augurs and wore heathen amulets. The Gnostics were especially notorious for their employment of such periapts, talismans, and charms.
[139] J. F. Bladé, _Quatorze superstitions populaires de la Gascogne_, pp. 16 _sqq._ Agen. 1883.
[140] _Decisions._ Edinburgh, 1759.
[141] Ie laisse à penser si l’on n’exerce pas là toutes les especes de lubricités veu encor que les abominations, qui firent foudre & abismer Sodome & Gomorrhe, y font fort communes. Boguet, _Discours_, c. xxii. p. 137.
[142] _Histoire admirable_, 1613.
[143] Finalement, ils paillardent ensemble: le dimanche avec les diables succubes ou incubes; le jeudi, commettent la sodomie; le samedi la bestialité; les autres jours à la voie naturelle.
[144] The Louviers process lasted four years, 1643-7.
[145] Après la Messe on dance, puis on couche ensemble, hommes auec hommes, & auec des femmes. Puis on se met à table.... Dit qu’il a cognu des hommes & s’est accouplé auec eux; qu’il auoit vne couppe on gondolle par le moyen de laquelle toutes les femmes le suiuoient pour y boire.
[146] Apres la danse finie les diables se couchere̅t auecques elles, & eure̅t leur co̅pagnie.
[147] ... grand nombre d’hommes & femmes furent bruslees en la ville d’Arras, accusees les vns par les autres, & co̅fesserent qu’elles estoient la nuict transportees aux danses, & puis qu’ils se couploient auecques les diables, qu’ils adoroient en figure humaine.
[148] ... toutes generalement sans exception, confessoient que le diable auoit copulation charnelle auec elles, apres leur auoir fait renoncer Dieu & leur religion.
[149] ... c’est à sçauoir que les diables, ta̅t qu’elles auoient esté Sorcieres, auoie̅t eu copulation auec elles. Henry de Cologne confirmant ceste opinion dit, qu’il y a rien plus vulgaire en Alemaigne.
[150] ... quod sacrificia dabant dæmonibus in animalibus uiuis, quæ diuidebant membratim et offerebant distribuendo in inferne quadruuiis cuidam dæmoni qui se facit appellari Artis Filium ex pauperioribus inferni. _Dame Alice Kyteler_, ed. T. Wright. Camden Society. 1843. pp. 1-2.
[151] _Highland Papers_, III. p. 18.
[152] _Æneid_, VI. 243-251.
[153] Horace, _Sermonum_, I. viii.
[154] _Dictionnaire Infernal_, ed. 1863, p. 590.
[155] Salgues, _Des erreurs et des prejugés_, I. p. 423.
[156] III. 44-45.
[157] Alludit ad Haruspicis officium, qui exta & viscera inspiciebat. Plinius inquit: _Ex ranæ rubetæ uisceribus; id est, lingua, ossiculo, licne, corde, mira fieri posse constat, sunt enin plurimis medicaminibus referta_. Forte intelligit rubetam uel bufonem, indicans se non esse ueneficum, nec rubetarum extis uti ad uenefica. Cf. also Pliny, _Historia Naturalis_, XXXII. 5.
[158] Ravaisson, _Archives de la Bastille_, VI. p. 295 _et alibi_. The interrogatories of these scandals may be found in volumes IV and V of this work.
[159] L. Strackerjan, _Aberglaube und Sagen aus dem Herzogthum Oldenburg_ (1867), I. 70.
[160] _Königsberger Hartung’sche Zeitung_, 1866. No. 9.
[161] V. Fossel. _Volksmedicin und medicinischer Aberglaube in Steiermark_, Graz, 1886.
[162] U. Jahn, _Zauber mit Menschenblut und anderen Teilen des menschlichen Körpers_, 1888.
[163] A. Löwenstimm, _Aberglaube und Strafecht_, (_Die Volksmedizin_), 1897.
[164] V. Fossel, _Volksmedicin_, _ut supra_.
[165] Adrian Kembter, C.R.P., writing in 1745 enumerates 52 instances, and his last is dated 1650. This number might be doubled, and extends until the present century. H. C. Lee, in an article, _El santo nino de la Guardia_, has signally failed to disprove the account. See the series of forty-four articles in the _Osservatore Cattolico_ March and April, 1892, Nos. 8438-8473.
[166] _Le Temps_, Paris, 1 Feb. and 23 March, 1892.
[167] _Fetichism in West Africa_, New York, 1904.
[168] De Lancre, _Tableau_, p. 154.
## CHAPTER V
THE WITCH IN HOLY WRIT
In the course of the Holy Scriptures there occur a great number of words and expressions which are employed in connexion with witchcraft, divination, and demonology, and of these more than one authority has made detailed and particular study. Some terms are of general import, one might even venture to say vague and not exactly defined, some are directly specific: of some phrases the signification is plain and accepted; concerning others, scholars are still undecided and differ more or less widely amongst themselves. Yet it is noteworthy that from the very earliest period the attitude of the inspired writers towards magic and related practices is almost wholly condemnatory and uncompromisingly hostile. The vehement and repeated denunciations launched against the professors of occult sciences and the initiate in foreign esoteric mysteries do not, moreover, seem to be based upon any supposition of fraud but rather upon the “abomination” of the magic in itself, which is recognized as potent for evil and able to wreak mischief upon life and limb. It is obvious, for example, that the opponents of Moses, the sorcerers[1] Jannes and Mambres, were masters of no mean learning and power, since when, in the presence of Pharaoh, Aaron’s rod became a live serpent, they also and their mob of disciples “fecerunt per incantationes Ægyptiacas et arcana quædam similiter,” casting down their rods, which were changed into a mass of writhing snakes. They were able also to bring up frogs upon the land, but it was past their wit to drive them away. We have here, however, a clear acknowledgement of the reality of magic and its dark possibilities, whilst at the same time prominence is given to the fact that when it contests with the miraculous power divinely bestowed upon Moses it fails hopelessly and completely. The serpent, which was Aaron’s rod, swallows all the other serpents. The swarms of mosquitoes and gadflies which Aaron caused to rise in myriads from the dust the native warlocks could not produce, nay, they were constrained to cry “Digitus Dei est hic”; whilst a little later they were unable to protect even their own bodies from the pest of blains and swelling sores. None the less a supernatural power was possessed by Jannes and Mambres as truly as by Moses, although not to the same extent, and derived from another, in fact, from an opposite and antagonistic source.
Even more striking is the episode of Balaam, who dwelt at Pethor, a city of Mesopotamia (the Pitru of the cuneiform texts), and who was summoned thence by Balak, King of Moab, to lay a withering curse upon the Israelites, encamped after their victory over the Amorrhites at the very confines of his territory. The royal messengers come to Balaam “with the rewards of divination in their hand,” a most illuminating detail, for it shows that already the practice of magical arts is rewarded with gifts of great value.[2] In fact when Balaam refuses, although with reluctance, to accompany the first embassy, princes of the highest rank are then sent to him with injunctions to offer him rank and wealth or whatsoever he may care to ask. “I will promote thee to very great honour, and I will do whatsoever thou sayest unto me; come, therefore, and curse this people,” are the king’s actual words. After great difficulties, for Balaam is, at first, forbidden to go and only wins his way on condition that he undertakes to do what he is commanded and to speak no more than he is inspired to say, the seer commences his journey and is met by the king at a frontier town, and by him taken up “unto the high places of Baal,” to the sacred groves upon the hill-tops, where seven mystic altars are built, and a bullock and a ram offered upon each. Balaam then senses the imminent presence of God, and withdraws swiftly apart to some secret place where “God met” him. He returns to the scene of sacrifice and forthwith blesses the Israelites. Balak in consternation and dismay hurries him to the crest of Pisgah (Phasga), and the same ceremonies are performed. But again Balaam pours forth benisons upon the people. A third attempt is made, and this time was chosen the summit of Peor (Phogor), a peculiarly sacred sanctuary, the centre of the local cult of Baal Peor, whose ancient worship comprised a ritual of most primitive obscenity.[3] Again the sevenfold sacrifice is offered upon seven altars, and this time Balaam deliberately resists the divine control, a vain endeavour, since he passes into trance, and utters words of ineffable benediction gazing down the dim avenues of futurity to the glorious vision of the Madonna, Stella Jacob, and her Son, the Sceptre of Israel. Beating his clenched hands together in an access of ungovernable fury the choused and exasperated king incontinently dismisses his guest.
It must be remarked that throughout the whole of this narrative, the details of which are as interesting as they are significant, there is on the part of the writer a complete recognition of the claims put forth by Balaam and so amply acknowledged and appreciated by Balak. Balaam was a famous sorcerer, and one, moreover, who knew and could launch the mystic Word of Power with deadly effect. Among the early Arabs as among the Israelites the magic spell, the Word of Blessing or the Curse, played a prominent part. In war, the poet, by cursing the enemy in rhythmic runes, rendered services not inferior to the heroism of the warrior himself. So the Jews of Medina used to bring into their synagogues images of their hated enemy Malik b. al-Aglam; and at these effigies they hurled maledictions each time they met. The reality of Balaam’s power is clearly the key-note of the Biblical account. Else why should his services be transferred to the cause of Israel? Balak’s greeting to the seer is no empty compliment but vitally true: “I wot that he whom thou blessest is blessed, and he whom thou cursest is cursed.” Not impertinent is the bitter denunciation in the song of Deborah, Judges v. 23, “Curse ye me Meroz, said the angel of the Lord, curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof; because they came not to the help of the Lord against the mighty!” (A.V.) Belief in the potency of the uttered word has existed at all times and in all places, and yet continues to exist everywhere to-day.
Although Balaam prophesied it must be borne in mind that he was not a prophet in the Scriptural sense of the term; he was a soothsayer, a wizard; the Vulgate has _hariolus_,[4] which is derived from the Sanskrit _hira_, entrails, and equivalent to _haruspex_. This term originally denoted an Etruscan diviner who foretold future events by an inspection of the entrails of sacrificial victims. It was from the Etruscans that this practice was introduced to the Romans. It is probable that Balaam employed the seven bullocks and rams in this way, the technical _extispicium_, a method of inquiry and forecasting which seems to have been almost universal, although the exact manner in which the omens were read differed among the several peoples and at various times. It persisted, none the less, until very late, and indeed it is resorted to, so it has been said, by certain occultists even at the present day. It is known to have been practised by Catherine de’ Medici, and it is closely connected with the dark Voodoo worship of Jamaica and Hayti. S. Thomas, it is true, has spoken of Balaam as a prophet, but the holy doctor hastens to add “a prophet of the devil.” The learned Cornelius à Lapide, glossing upon Numbers xxii and xxiii writes: “It is clear that Balaam was a prophet, not of God, but of the Devil.... He was a magician, and he sought for a conference with his demon to take counsel with him.”[5] He is of opinion that the seven altars were erected in honour of the Lords of the Seven Planets. Seven is, of course, the perfect number, the mystic number, even as three; and all must be done by odd numbers. The woman in Vergil who tries to call back her estranged lover Daphnis by potent incantations cries: _numero deus impare gaudet_. (Heaven loves unequal numbers.) Eclogue viii. 75 (_Pharmaceutria_). S. Augustine, S. Ambrose, and Theodoret consider that when Balaam on the first occasion withdrew hastily saying “Peradventure the Lord will come to meet me,” he expected to meet a demon, his familiar. But “God met Balaam.” The very precipitation and disorder seem to point to the design of the sorcerer, for as in the Divine Liturgy all is done with due dignity, grace, and comeliness, so in the functions of black magic all is hurried, ugly, and terrible.
One of the most striking episodes in the Old Testament is concerned with necromancy, the appearance of Samuel in the cave or hut at Endor. Saul, on the eve of a tremendous battle with the Philistines, is much dismayed and almost gives away to a complete nervous collapse as he sees the overwhelming forces of the ruthless foe. To add to his panic, when he consulted the Divine Oracles, no answer was returned, “neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets.” And although he had in the earlier years of his reign shown himself a determined represser of Witchcraft, in his dire extremity he catches at any straw, and bids his servants seek out some woman “that hath a familiar spirit,” and his servants said to him, “Behold there is a woman that hath a familiar spirit at Endor,” which is a miserable hamlet on the northern slope of a hill, lying something south of Mount Tabor.
The phrase here used, rendered by the Vulgate “pytho” (Quærite mihi mulierem habentem pythonem) and by the Authorized Version “familiar spirit,” is in the original _’ôbh_,[6] which signifies the departed spirit evoked, and also came to stand for the person controlling such a spirit and divining by its aid. The Witch of Endor is described as the possessor of an _’ôbh_. The LXX. translates this word by ἐγγαστράμυθος, which means ventriloquist, either because the real actors thought that the magician’s alleged communication with the spirit was a mere deception to impose upon the inquirer who is tricked by the voice being thrown into the ground and being of strange quality—a view which mightily commends itself to Lenormant [7] and the sceptical Renan[8] but which is quite untenable—or rather because of the belief common in antiquity that ventriloquism was not a natural faculty but due to the temporary obsession of the medium by a spirit. In this connexion the prophet Isaias has a remarkable passage: Quærite a pythonibus, et a diuinis qui strident in incantationibus suis. (Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep and that mutter. _A.V._) Many Greek and Latin poets attribute a peculiar and distinctive sound to the voices of spirits. Homer (_Iliad_, XXIII, 101; _Odyssey_, XXIV, 5, and 9) uses τρίξειν, which is elsewhere found of the shrill cry or chirping of partridges, young swallows, locusts, mice, bats,[9] and of such other sounds as the creaking of a door, the sharp crackling of a thing burned in a fire. Vergil _Æneid_, III, 39, speaks of the cry of Polydorus from his grave as _gemitus lacrimabilis_, and the clamour of the spirits in Hades is _uox exigua_. Horace also in his description of the midnight Esbat on the Esquiline describes the voice as _triste et acutum;_ (_Sermonum_, I. viii, 40-1):
singula quid memorem, quo pacto alterna loquentes umbrae cum Sagana resonarent triste et acutum.
Statius, _Thebais_, VII, 770, has “stridunt animæ,” upon which Kaspar von Barth, the famous sixteenth-century German scholar, annotates “Homericum hoc est qui corporibus excedentes animas stridere excogitauit.” So in Shakespeare’s well-known lines, _Hamlet_ I, 1:
the sheeted dead Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets.
When he had been informed of this witch Saul, accordingly, completely divested himself of the insignia of royalty and in a close disguise accompanied only by two of his most trusted followers similarly muffled in cloaks, he painfully made his way at dead of night to her remote and squalid hovel. He eagerly requested her to exercise her powers, and to raise the spirit of the person whom he should name. At first she refused, since some years before the laws had been stringently enforced and the penalty of death awaited all sorcerers and magicians. Not unreasonably she feared that these mysterious strangers might be laying a trap for her, to imperil her life. But the concealed king persuaded her, and bound himself by a mighty oath that she should come to no harm. Whereupon she consented to evoke the soul of the prophet Samuel, as he desired. The charm commenced, and after the vision of various familiars—the woman said: Deos uidi ascendentes de terra—and S. Gregory of Nyssa explains these as demons, τὰ φαντάσματα,—Samuel appeared amid circumstances of great terror and awe, and in the same moment the identity of her visitant was recognized (we are not informed how) by the sybil.[10] In a paroxysm of rage and fear the haggard crone turned to him and shrieked out: “Why hast thou deceived me? For thou art Saul.” The king, however, tremblingly reassured her for her own safety, and feeling that he was confronted by no earthly figure—he could not see the phantom, although he sensed a presence from beyond the grave—he asked: “What form is he of?” And when the beldame, to whom alone the prophet was visible, described the spirit: “An old man cometh up, and he is covered with a mantle,” Saul at once recognized Samuel, and fell prostrate upon the ground, whilst the apparition spake his swiftly coming doom.
[Illustration: PLATE VI
THE WITCH OF ENDOR.
[_face p. 178_]
Here we have a detailed scene of necromancy proper. There are, it is true, some remarkable, and perhaps unusual, features: the witch alone sees the phantom, but Saul instantly knows who it is from her description; he directly addresses Samuel, and he hears the prediction of the dead prophet. The whole narrative undoubtedly bears the impress of actuality and truth.
There are several interpretations of these incidents. In the first place some writers have denied the reality of the vision, and so it is claimed that the witch deceived Saul by skilful trickery. This hardly seems possible. It is not likely that she would have run so grave a risk as the exercise, or pretended exercise, of magical arts must entail were she a mere charlatan; an accomplice of remarkably quick wit and invention would have been necessary to carry out the details of the plot; it is surely incredible that they should have ventured upon so uncompromising a denunciation of the king and have foretold so evil an end to his house. In fact the whole tenor of the story conflicts with this explanation, which is not allowed by the Fathers. Theodoret, it is true, inclines to suppose that some deception was practised, but he hesitates to maintain an unequivocal opinion in the matter. In his _Quæstiones in I Regum_ Cap. xxviii he asks πῶς τὰ κατὰ τὴν ἐγγαστρίμυθον νοητέον;[11] and says that some think that the witch actually evoked Samuel, others believe the Devil took the likeness of the prophet. The first opinion he characterizes as impious, the second foolish.
S. Jerome, whose authority would, of course, be entirely conclusive, does not perhaps pronounce definitely; but his comments sufficiently show, I think, that he regarded the apparition as being really Samuel. In his tractate _In Esaiam_, III, vii, he writes: “Most authors think that a clear sign was given Saul from the earth itself and from the very depths of Hades when he saw Samuel evoked by incantations and magic spells.”[12] And again, _In Ezechielem_, Lib. IV; xiii, the holy doctor, speaking of witches, has: “they are inspired by an evil spirit. The Hebrews say that they are well versed in baleful crafts, necromancy and soothsayings, such as was the hag who seemed to raise up the soul of Samuel.”[13]
Some authors directly attribute this appearance of Samuel to an evil spirit, who took the form of the prophet in order to dishearten Saul and tempt him to despair. Thus S. Gregory of Nyssa in his letter _De pythonissa ad Theodosium_[14] says that the Devil deceived the witch, who thus in her turn deceived the king. S. Basil expressly lays down (_In Esaiam_, VIII. 218): “They were demons who assumed the appearance of Samuel.”[15] And he conjectures that, inasmuch as the denunciation of Saul was strictly true in every detail, the demons having heard the sentence delivered by God merely reported it. Among the Latins Tertullian, more than a century before, had written: “And I believe that evil spirits can deceive many by their lies; for a lying spirit was allowed to feign himself to be the shade of Samuel.”[16]
The preponderance of opinion, however, is decidedly in favour of a literal and exact understanding of the event, that it was, in effect, Samuel who appeared to the guilty monarch and foretold his end. Origen argues upon these lines, basing his reasons upon the plain statements of Holy Writ: “But it is distinctly stated that Saul knew it was Samuel.”[17] And later he adds: “The Scripture cannot lie. And the words of Scripture are: And the woman saw Samuel.”[18] Elsewhere when treating of evil spirits he precisely states: “And that souls have their abiding place I have made known to you from the evocation by the witch of Samuel, when Saul requested her to divine.”[19] S. Ambrose also says: “Even after his death Samuel, as Holy Scripture informs us, prophesied of what was to come.”[20] We have further the overwhelming witness of S. Augustine, who in more than one place discusses the question at some length, and decides that the phantom evoked by the sibyl was really and truly the soul of the prophet Samuel. Thus in that important treatise _De Doctrina Christiana_, commenced in 397 and finally revised for issue in 427, he has: “The shade of Samuel, long since dead, truly foretold what was to come unto King Saul.”[21] Whilst a passage in the even more famous and weighty _De Cura pro mortuis gerenda_, written in 421, asserts: “For the prophet Samuel, who was dead, revealed the future to King Saul, who was yet alive.”[22]
Josephus believed the apparition to have been summoned by the witch’s necromantic powers, for in his _Jewish Antiquities_, VI, xiv, 2, when dealing with the story of Endor, he chronicles: “[Saul] bade her bring up to him the soul of Samuel. She, not knowing who Samuel was, called him out of Hades,”[23] a remarkable testimony.
Throughout the whole of the Old Testament the sin of necromancy is condemned in the strongest terms, but the very reiteration of this ban shows that none the less evocation of the dead was extensively and continuously practised, albeit in the most clandestine and secret manner. The Mosaic law denounces such arts again and again: “Go not aside after wizards, neither ask any thing of soothsayers, to be defiled by them: I am the Lord your God” (Leviticus xix. 31); “The soul that shall go aside after magicians and soothsayers, and shall commit fornication with them, I will set my face against that soul, and destroy it out of the midst of its people” (Leviticus xx. 6). Even more explicit in its details is the following prohibition: “Neither let there be found among you any one ... that consulteth soothsayers, or observeth dreams and omens, neither let there be any wizard, nor charmer, nor any one that consulteth pythonic spirits, or fortune tellers, or that seeketh the truth from the dead. For the Lord abhorreth all these things” (Deuteronomy xviii. 10-12). Hence it is obvious that the essential malice of the sin lay in the fact that it was _lèse-majesté_ against God, such as is also the sin of heresy.[24] This is, moreover, clearly brought out in the fact that the temporal penalty was death. “A man, or woman, in whom there is a pythonical or divining spirit, dying, let them die” (Leviticus xx. 27). And the famous statute, Exodus xxii. 18, expressly says: “Wizards thou shalt not suffer to live.” Nevertheless, necromancy persisted, and on occasion, such as during the reign of Manasses, thirteenth king of Juda (692-638 B.C.),[25] it no longer lurked in dark corners and obscene hiding-holes, but flaunted its foul abomination unabashed in the courts of the palace and at noon before the eyes of the superstitious capital. In the days of this monarch divination was openly used, omens observed, pythons publicly appointed, whilst soothsayers multiplied “to do evil before the Lord, and to provoke Him” (4 Kings [2 Kings] xxi. 6). The ghastly rites of human sacrifice were revived, and it was common knowledge that the sovereign himself, upon the slightest and most indifferent pretexts, resorted to _extispicium_, the seeking of omens from the yet palpitating entrails of boys devoted to this horrid purpose. “Manasses shed also very much innocent blood, till he filled Jerusalem up to the mouth” (4 Kings [2 Kings] xxi. 16). We may parallel the foul sorceries of the Jewish king with the detailed confession of Gilles de Rais, who at his trial “related how he had stolen away children, detailed all his foul cajolements, his hellish excitations, his frenzied murders, his ruthless rapes and ravishments: obsessed by the morbid vision of his poor pitiful victims, he described at length their long-drawn agonies or swift torturings; their piteous cries and the death-rattle in their throats; he avowed that he had wallowed in their warm entrails; he confessed that he had torn out their hearts through large gaping wounds, as a man might pluck ripe fruit.”[26] The demonolatry of the sixth century before Christ is the same as that of fourteen hundred years after the birth of Our Lord.
As has been previously noticed, Balaam employed bullocks and rams for _extispicium_, and nine centuries later, in the book of Ezechiel (xxi. 21), Esarhaddon is represented as looking at the liver of an animal offered in sacrifice with a view to divination. “For the king of Babylon stood in the highway, at the head of two ways, seeking divination, shuffling arrows: he inquired of the idols, and consulted entrails. On his right hand was the divination of Jerusalem, to set battering rams, to open the mouth in slaughter.” The mode of sortilege by arrows, belomancy, to which allusion is here made was extensively practised among the Chaldeans, as also by the Arabs. Upon this passage S. Jerome comments: “He shall stand in the highway, and consult the oracle after the manner of his nation, that he may cast arrows into a quiver, and mix them together, being written upon or marked with the names of each people, that he may see whose arrow will come forth, and which city he ought first to attack.”
Among the three hundred and sixty idols which stood round about the Caaba of Mecca, and which were all destroyed by Mohammed when he captured the city in the eighth year of the Hejira, was the statue of a man, made of agate, who held in one hand seven arrows such as the pagan Arabs used in divination. This figure, which, it is said, anciently represented the patriarch Abraham, was regarded with especial awe and veneration.
The arrows employed by the early Arabs for magical practices were more generally only three in number. They were carefully preserved in the temple of some idol, before whose shrine they had been consecrated. Upon one of them was inscribed “My Lord hath commanded me”; upon another “My Lord hath forbidden me”; and the third was blank. If the first was drawn the inquirer looked upon it as a propitious omen promising success in the enterprise; if the second were drawn he augured failure; if the third, all three were mixed again and another trial was made. These divining arrows seem always to have been consulted by the Arabs before they engaged in any important undertaking, as, for example, when a man was about to go upon a particular journey, to marry, to commence some weighty business.
In certain cases and in many countries rods were used instead of arrows. Small sticks were marked with occult signs, thrown into a vessel and drawn out; or, it might be, cast into the air, the direction they took and the position in which they fell being carefully noted. This practice is known as rhabdomancy. The LXX, indeed, Ezechiel xxi. 21, has ῥαβδομαντεία not βελομαντεία, and rhabdomancy is mentioned by S. Cyril of Alexandria.
In the Koran, chapter V, The Table or The Chapter of Contracts, “divining arrows” are said to be “an abomination of the work of Satan,” and the injunction is given “therefore avoid them that ye may prosper.”
It is noticeable that in the early Biblical narrative one form of divination is mentioned, if not with approval, at any rate without overt reproach. Upon the occasion of the second journey of Jacob’s sons to Egypt to buy corn in the time of famine, Joseph gave orders that their sacks were to be filled with food, that each man’s money was to be put in the mouth of his sack, but that in the sack of Benjamin was also to be concealed the “cup, the silver cup.” And the next morning when they had set out homewards and were gone a little way out of the city they were overtaken by a band of Joseph’s servants under the conduct of his steward who arrested their progress and accused them of the theft of the cup: “Is not this it in which my lord drinketh, and whereby indeed he divineth? Ye have done evil in so doing” (_A.V._). The Vulgate has: “Scyphus quem furati estis, ipse est in quo bibit dominus meus et in quo augurari solet: pessimam rem fecistis” (Genesis xliv. 5). And later when they are brought back in custody and led into the presence of Joseph he asks them: “Wot ye not that such a man as I can certainly divine?” Vulgate: “An ignoratis quod non sit similis mei in augurandi scientia?”
In the first place it cannot be for a moment supposed that Joseph’s claim, which here he so publicly and so emphatically states, to be a diviner of no ordinary powers was a mere device for the occasion. From the prominence given to the cup in the story it is clear that his steward regarded it as a vessel of especial value and import, dight with mysterious properties.
This cup was used for that species of divination known as hydromantia, a practice almost universal in antiquity and sufficiently common at the present day. The seer, or in some cases the inquirer, by gazing fixedly into a pool or basin of still water will see therein reflected as in a mirror a picture of that which it is sought to know. Strabo, XVI, 2, 39, speaking of the Persians, writes: παρὰδε τοῖς πέρσαις οἱ Μάγοι καὶ νεκυομάντεις καὶ ἔτι οἱ λεγόμενοι λεκανομάντεις καὶ ὑδρομάντεις. King Numa, according to one very ancient tradition, divined by seeing gods in a clear stream. “For Numa himself, not being instructed by any prophet or Angel of God, was fain to fall to hydromancy: making his gods (or rather his devils) to appear in water, and instruct him in his religious institutions. Which kind of divination, says Varro, came from Persia and was used by Numa and afterwards by Pythagoras, wherein they used blood also and called forth spirits infernal. Necromancy, the Greeks call it, but necromancy or hydromancy, whether you like, there it is that the dead seem to speak” (_S. Augustine De Ciuitate Dei_. VII. 35).[27]
Apuleius in his _De Magia_,[28] quoting from Varro, says: “Trallibus de euentu Mithridatici belli magica percontatione consultantibus puerum in aqua simulacrum Mercuri contemplantem, quæ futura erant, centum sexaginta uersibus cecinisse.” In Egypt to-day the Magic Mirror is frequently consulted. A boy is engaged to gaze into a splash of water, or it may be ink or some other dark liquid poured into the palm of the hand, and therein he will assuredly see pictorially revealed the answers to those questions put to him. When a theft has been committed the Magic Mirror is invariably questioned thus. In Scandinavia the country folk, who had lost anything, would go to a diviner on a Thursday night to see in a pail of water who it was had robbed them.[29] All the world over this belief prevails, in Tahiti and among the Hawaiians, in the Malay Peninsula, in New Guinea, among the Eskimos.
Similar forms of divination are those by things dropped into some liquid, a precious stone or rich amulet is cast into a cup, and the rings formed on the surface of the contents were held to predict the future. Again warm wax or molten lead is poured into a vessel of cold water, and significant letters of the alphabet may be spelled out or objects discerned from the shapes this wax or lead assumes; or again, the empty tea-cup is tilted and from the leaves, their size, shape, and the manner in which they lie, prognostications are made. This is common in England, Scotland, Ireland, Sweden, Lithuania, whilst in Macedonia coffee-dregs are employed in the same manner.
But whether the seer be Hebrew patriarch or Roman king and the divination dignified by some occult name, Ceromancy (the melting of wax), Lecanomancy (basins of water), Oinomancy (the lees of wine), or whether it be some old plaid-shawled grandam by her cottage fire peering at the leaves of her afternoon tea, the object is the same throughout the ages, for all systems of divination are merely so many methods of obscuring the outer vision, in order that the inner vision may become open.
As was inevitable hydromantia lent itself to much trickery, and Hippolytus of Rome, presbyter and antipope (_ob._ _circa_ A.D. 236), in his important polemic against heretics, _Philosophumena_,[30] IV, 35, explains in detail how persons were elaborately duped by the pseudo-magicians. A room was prepared, the roof of which was painted blue to resemble the sky, there was set therein a large vessel full of water with a glass bottom, immediately under which lay a secret chamber. The inquirer gazed steadfastly into the water, and the actors walking in the secret chamber below would seem as though they were figures appearing in the water itself.
In view of the severe and general condemnation of magical practices found throughout Holy Writ it is remarkable that the Pentateuchal narrative does not censure Joseph’s hydromantic arts. Indeed, except in the book Genesis, it is seldom that any forms of presaging or the use of charms are noted save with stern reprobation. In Isaias iii. 2, however, the Kōsēm, magician or diviner, is mentioned with singular respect. “Ecce enim dominator Dominus exercituum auferet a Jerusalem et a Juda ualidum et fortem omne robur panis et omne robur aquæ, fortem, et uirum bellatorem, iudicem, et prophetam, et _hariolum_, et senem.” Here the Authorized Version deliberately mistranslates and obscures the sense: “For, behold, the Lord, the Lord of hosts, doth take away from Jerusalem and from Judah, the stay and the staff, the whole stay of bread and the whole stay of water, the mighty man and the man of war, the judge and the prophet, and _the prudent_, and the ancient.” “The Prudent” is by no means a rendering of Kōsēm which “hariolus” perfectly represents.
In the thirteenth chapter of Genesis we have a most detailed and striking narrative of sympathetic magic. Jacob, who is serving Laban, is to receive as a portion of his hire all the speckled and spotted cattle, all the brown among the sheep, and the spotted and speckled among the goats. But the crafty old Syrian prevented his son-in-law by removing to a distance, a journey of three days, all such herds as had been specified, “and Jacob fed the rest of Laban’s flocks. Thereupon Jacob took rods of green poplar, hazel, and chestnut, and peeled these rods in alternate stripes of white and bark, and he put them in the gutters in the watering-troughs when the flocks came to drink.” The animals duly copulated, and “the flocks conceived before the rods, and brought forth cattle, ringstraked, speckled, and spotted.” Moreover, it was only when the stronger cattle conceived that Jacob set the rods before their eyes, so that eventually all the best of the herds fell to his share. The names of the trees are in themselves significant. The poplar in Roman folklore was sacred to Hercules,[31] and as it grew on the banks of the river Acheron in Epirus it was connected with Acheron, the waters of woe in the underworld, a confused tradition which is undoubtedly of very early origin. So Pausanias has: τὴν λευκην ὁ Ἡρακλῆς πεφυκυῖαν παρὰ τὸν Ἀχέροντα εὔρετο ἐν Θεσπρωτιᾳ ποταμόν· In seventeenth-century England poplar-leaves were accounted an important ingredient in hell-broths and charms. The hazel has been linked with magic from remotest antiquity, and the very name witch-hazel remains to-day. The chestnut-tree and its nuts seem to have been associated with some primitive sexual rites. The connexion is obscure, but beyond doubt traceable. In that most glorious marriage song, the Epithalamium of Catullus, as the boys sang their Fescennines of traditional obscenity nuts were scattered among the crowd.[32] Petronius (Fragmentum XXXIII, ed. Buecheler, Berolini, 1895) mentions chestnuts as an amatory gift:
aurea mala mihi, dulcis mea Marcia, mittis mittis et hirsutae munera castaneae.
In Genesis again is recorded a most interesting and instructive example of the belief in the magic efficacy of plants. “And Reuben went in the days of wheat harvest and found mandrakes in the field and brought them to his mother Leah” (xxx. 14 A.V.). Reuben brings his mother mandrakes (Love Apples), which Rachel desires to have. Whereupon Leah bargains with Rachel, and the latter for a portion of the fruit consents that Jacob shall that night return to the bed of his elder wife, who indeed conceives and in due time she bare Issachar. Leah ate of the mandrake as a charm to induce pregnancy, and no disapproval of such use is expressed.
A similar theme is treated in Machiavelli’s famous masterpiece of satirical comedy _La Mandragola_,[33] written between 1513 and 1520, and performed by request before Leo X in the April of the latter year. It had already been acted in Florence. In this play Callimaco is bent upon securing as his mistress Lucrezia, the wife of a gullable doctor of laws, Messer Nicia, whose one wish in life is to get a son. Callimaco is introduced as a physician to Nicia, to whom he explains that a potion of mandragora administered to the lady will remove her sterility, but that it has fatal consequences to the husband. He must perish unless some other man be first substituted whose action will absorb the poison, and leave Lucrezia free to become the mother of a blooming family. This plot is fully worked out, and by the services of his supple confederates Callimaco is introduced to Lucrezia’s bedchamber as the necessary victim, and gains his desire.
Mandrakes and mallows were potent in all forms of enchantment, and about the mandrake in particular has grown up a whole library of legend, which it would require much time and space thoroughly to investigate. Western lore is mainly of somewhat a grim character, but not entirely, and by the Orientals mandrake is regarded as a powerful aphrodisiac. So in Canticles VII, 13, we have: Mandragoræ dederunt odorem. (The mandrakes give a fragrant smell.) In antiquity mandrakes were used as an anæsthetic. Dioscorides alludes to the employment of this herb before patients have to be cut or burned; Pliny refers to its odour as causing sleep during an operation; Lucian speaks of it as used before cautery; and both Galen and Isidorus have passages which mention its dormitive quality. The Shakespearean allusions have rendered this aspect familiar to all.
The Arabs and ancient Germans thought that a powerful spirit inhabited the plant, an idea derived, perhaps, from the fancied resemblance of the root to the human form. Ducagne has under Mandragore: “Pomi genus cuius mentio fit, Gen. xxx. 14. nostris etiam notis sub nomine _Mandragores_, quod pectore asseruatum sibi diuitiis acquirendis idoneum somniabunt.” And Littré quotes the following from an old chronicle of the thirteenth century: “Li dui compaignon [un couple d’éléphants] vont contre Orient près du paradis terreste, tant que la femelle trouve une herbe que on apele mandragore, si en manjue, et si atize tant son masle qu’il en manjue avec li, et maintenant eschaufe la volenté de chascun, et s’entrejoignent à envers et engendrent un filz sanz plus.” In the _Commentaria ad Historiam Caroli VI et VII_ it is related that several mandrakes found in the possession of Frère Richard, a Cordelier, were seized and burned as savouring of witchcraft.
It seems certain that the teraphim, which Rachel stole from her father (Genesis xxxi, 19, and 31-35), and which when he was in pursuit she concealed by a subtle trick, were used for purposes of divination. From the relation of the incident it is obvious that they were regarded of immense value—he who had conveyed them away was, if found, to die the death—and invested with a mysterious sanctity. Centuries later, during the period of drastic reform, King Josias (639-608 B.C.) would no longer tolerate them: “Moreover the workers with familiar spirits, and the wizards, and the images [teraphim], and the idols, and all abominations that were spied in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem did Josiah put away” (2 Kings xxiii. 24. A.V.). The Vulgate has: “Sed et pythones, et hariolos, et figuras idolorum, et immunditias, et abominationes, quæ fuerant in terra Juda et Jerusalem, abstulit Josias.” In Ezechiel xxi. 21, Esarhaddon is said to have divined by teraphim as well as by belomancy; and in Zacharias (x. 2) the teraphim are stated on occasion to have deceived their inquirers, “simulacra locuta sunt inutile,” “the idols have spoken vanity.” Notwithstanding this it is obvious from Osee (Hosea) iii. 4, that divination by teraphim was sometimes permitted: “Dies multos sedebunt filii Israel sine rege, et sine principe, et sine sacrificio, et sine altari, et sine ephod, et sine teraphim.” “The children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and without teraphim.”
The learned Cornelius à Lapide glossing on Genesis xxxi writes: “Idola, _teraphim_ quod significat statuæ humanæ siue humaneas formas habentes ut patet, I. Reg. xix.” The allusion is to the deception practised by Michal on Saul’s messengers, when putting one of the teraphim in bed and covering it with quilts she pretended it was David who lay sick. “Secundo,” continues à Lapide, “nomen _theraphim_ non appropriatum est in eas statuas, quæ opera dæmonorum deposci debent, ut patet Judicum, xviii, 18,” the reference being to the history of Micas. Calvin very absurdly says: “Theraphim sunt imagines quales habent papistæ.”
Spencer[34] is of opinion that these teraphim were small images or figures, and the point seems conclusively settled by S. Jerome, who in his twenty-ninth Epistle, _De Ephod et Teraphim_, quotes 1 Kings xix. 15, and uses “figuras siue figurationes” to translate μορφώματα of Aquila of Pontus. This writer was the author of a Greek version of the Old Testament published _circa_ A.D. 128. About eight years before he seems to have been expelled from the Christian community, by whom he was regarded as an adept in magic. The work of Aquila, who studied in the school of Rabbi Akiba, the founder of Rabbinical Judaism, is said by S. Jerome to have attained such exactitude that it was a good dictionary to furnish the meaning of the obscurer Hebrew words. The Targum of Jonathan commenting upon Genesis xxxi. 19, puts forward the singular view that the teraphim, concealed by Rachel, consisted of a mummified human head.
In the book Tobias we have a detailed and important account of exorcism, and one, moreover, which throws considerable light upon the demonology of the time. Tobias, the son of Tobias, is sent under the guidance of the unknown Angel, S. Raphael, to Gabelus in Rages of Media, to obtain the ten talents of silver left in bond by his father. Tobias, whilst bathing in the Tigris is attacked by a monstrous fish, of which he is told by his Angel protector to reserve the heart, liver, and gall; the first two of these are to prevent the devil who had slain seven previous husbands of Sara, the beautiful daughter of Raguel, from attacking him. They arrive at the house of Raguel, and Tobias seeks the hand of Sara. She, however, is so beloved by the demon Asmodeus that seven men who had in turn married her were by him put to death the night of the nuptials, before consummation. Tobias, however, by exorcism, by the odour of the burning liver of the fish, and by the help of S. Raphael, routs Asmodeus, “Then the Angel Raphael took the Devil, and bound him in the desert of upper Egypt.” The story which must be accepted as fact-narrative was originally written during the Babylonian exile in the early portion of the seventh century, B.C. It plainly shows that demons were considered to be capable of sexual love, such as was the love of the sons of God for the daughters of men recorded in Genesis (vi. 2). One may compare the stories of the Jinns in Arabian lore. Asmodeus is perhaps to be identified with the Persian _Aëshma daêva_, who in the _Avesta_ is next to Angromainyus, the chief of the evil spirits. The introduction of Tobias’s dog should be remarked. The dog accompanies his master on the journey and when they return home “the dog, which had been with them in the way, ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail.” Among the Persians a certain power over evil spirits was justly assigned to the faithful dog.
The New Testament evidence for the reality of magic and divination is such that cannot be disregarded by any who accept the Christian revelation.
In the Gospels we continually meet with possession by devils; the miracle wrought in the country of the Gerasenes (Gergesenes) (S. Matthew viii. 28-34), the dumb man possessed by a devil (S. Matthew ix. 32-34), the healing of the lunatic boy who was obsessed (S. Matthew xvii. 14-21), the exorcism of the unclean spirit (S. Mark i. 23-27), the casting out of devils whom Christ suffered not to speak (S. Mark i. 32-34), the exorcism in the name of Jesus (S. Mark ix. 38), the demons who fled our Lord’s presence crying out “Thou art Christ, the son of God” (S. Luke iv. 41), the healing of those vexed with unclean spirits (S. Luke vi. 18), and many instances more.
Very early in the Apostolic ministry appears one of the most famous figures in the whole history of Witchcraft, Simon, who is as Simon Magus, sorcerer and heresiarch. At the outbreak of that persecution (_circa_ A.D. 37) of the Christian community in Jerusalem which began with the martyrdom of S. Stephen, when Philip the Deacon went down to Samaria, Simon, a native of Gitta, was living in that city. By his magic arts and by his mysterious doctrine, in which he announced himself as “the great power of God,” he had made a name for himself and gained many adherents. He listened to Philip’s sermons, was greatly impressed by them, he saw with wonder the miracles of healing and the exorcisms of unclean spirits, and like many of his countrymen was baptized and united with the community of believers in Christ. But it is obvious that he only took this step in order to gain, as he hoped, greater magical power and thus increase his influence. For when the Apostles S. Peter and S. John came to Samaria to bestow upon those who had been baptized by Philip the outpouring of the Holy Ghost which was accompanied by heavenly manifestations Simon offered them money, saying, “Give me also this power,” which he obviously regarded as a charm or occult spell. S. Peter forthwith sharply rebuked the unholy neophyte, who, alarmed at this denunciation, implored the Apostles to pray for him.
Simon is not mentioned again in the New Testament, but the first Christian writers have much to say concerning him. S. Justin Martyr, in his first _Apologia_ (A.D. 153-155) and in his dialogue _Contra Tryphonem_ (before A.D. 161), describes Simon as a warlock who at the instigation of demons claimed to be a god. During the reign of the Emperor Claudius, Simon came to Rome, and by his sorceries won many followers who paid him divine honours. He was accompanied by a lewd concubine from Tyre, Helena, whom he claimed was Heavenly Intelligence, set free from bondage by himself the “great power.”
In the _Pseudo-Clementine Homilies_ (probably second century) Simon appears as the chief antagonist of S. Peter, by whom his devilish practices are exposed and his enchantments dissolved. The apocryphal _Acts of S. Peter_, which are of high antiquity,[35] give in detail the well-known legend of the death of Simon Magus. By his spells the warlock had almost won the Emperor Nero to himself, but continually he was being foiled and thwarted owing to the intercession of the Apostle. At last when Cæsar demanded one final proof of the truth of his doctrines, some miracle that might be performed at midday in the face of all Rome, Simon offered to take his flight into the heavens—a diabolical parody of the Ascension—so that men might know his power was full as mighty as that of Him whom the Christians worshipped as God.
A mighty concourse gathered in the Forum: Vestal Virgins, Senators, Equites, their ladies, and a whole rabble of lesser folk. In the forefront of a new Imperial box sat the Lord Nero Claudius Cæsar Augustus Germanicus, on one side his mother, Agrippina, on the other Octavia his wife. Magic staff in hand the magician advanced into the midst of the arena: muttering a spell he bade his staff await his return, and forthwith it stood upright, alone, upon the pavement. Then with a deep obeisance to the ruler of the known world Simon Magus stretched forth his arms, and a moment more with rigid limbs and stern set face he rose from the ground and began to float high in air toward the Capitol. Like some monstrous bird he rose, and hovered fluttering in space awhile. But among the throng stood S. Peter, and just as the sorcerer had reached the topmost pinnacles of the shrine of Juno Moneta, now Santa Maria in Aracœli, where brown Franciscans sing the praises of God, the first Pope of Rome kneeled down, lifted his right hand and deliberately made a mighty Sign of the Cross towards the figure who usurped the privileges of the Incarnate Son of Mary. Who shall say what hosts of hells fled at that moment? The wizard dropped swift as heavy lead; the body whirled and turned in the air; it crashed, broken and breathless, at the foot of the Emperor’s seat, which was fouled and bespattered with black gouts of blood. At the same moment with a ringing sound the staff fell prone on the pavement. The flag upon which S. Peter kneeled may be seen even until this day in the Church of Santa Francesca Romana. For, in order to commemorate the defeat of the warlock, Pope S. Paul I (757-767) built a church upon the site of his discomfiture, and in 850 Pope S. Leo IV reconstructed it as Santa Maria Nova, which gave place to the present fane dedicated in 1612.
But the fame of Simon Magus as a wizard has been swallowed up in his ill repute as a heretic; so early do heresy and magic go hand in hand. He was the first Gnostic, whose disciples the Simonians, an Antinomian sect of the second century, indulged the sickest fantasies. Menander, the successor of Simon, proclaimed himself the Messiah and asserted that by his baptism immortality was conferred upon his followers. He also was regarded as a mighty magician, and the sect which was named after him, the Menandrians, seems to have lasted for no inconsiderable time.
In his missionary journeys S. Paul was continually combating Witchcraft. At Paphos he was opposed by the sorcerer Elymas; in Philippi a medium, “a certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination,” “spiritum pythonem,” followed him along the streets crying out and naming him as “a servant of the most high God,” until he exorcized the spirit; at Ephesus, a hotbed of sorcery and superstition, he converted many diviners and witches, who cleansed their souls by the Sacrament of Penance, and burned their conjuring books, a library of no mean value. It amounted indeed to fifty thousand drachmas (£2000), and one may suppose that in addition to manuscripts there were amulets of silver and gold, richly wrought and jewelled. In Ephesus, also, had foregathered a large number of vagabond Jews, exorcists. The chief characteristic of a Jewish exorcism was the recitation of names believed to be efficacious, principally names of good angels, which were used either alone, or in combination with El (God); and, indeed, a blind reliance upon the sound of mere names had long been a settled practice with these amateur sorcerers, who considered that the essence of their charms lay in the use of particular names declaimed in a particular order, which differed on several occasions. It was this belief, no doubt, that induced the seven sons of Sceva, who had witnessed S. Paul’s exorcisms in the name of Jesus, to try upon their own account the formula “I conjure thee by Jesus whom Paul preacheth,” an experiment disastrous to their credit. For in one case the patient cried out “Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are ye?” and leaped upon them with infernal strength, beating and wounding them, so that they fled for safety from the house, their limbs bruised and their garments torn, to the great scandal of the neighbourhood.
For the fact of demoniac possession the authority of Christ Himself is plainly pledged; whilst Witchcraft is explicitly ranked by S. Paul with murder, sedition, hatred, and heresy (Galatians v. 20-21). S. John, also, twice mentions sorcerers in a hideous catalogue of sinners. There can be no doubt whatsoever that the reality of Witchcraft is definitely maintained by the New Testament writers,[36] and any denial of this implicitly involves a rejection of the truth of the Christian revelation.
Among the Jews of a later period, and probably even to-day, various diseases are said to be induced by demons, who, it is instructive to notice, haunt marshy places, damp and decayed houses, latrines, squalid alleys, foul atmospheres where sickness is bred and ripened.
Josephus (_ob._ A.D. 100) relates that God taught Solomon how demons were to be expelled, a “science useful and sanitative to men.” He also gives an account of Eliezar, a celebrated exorcist of the time, whom, in the presence of the Emperor Vespasian, the historian actually saw casting out evil spirits. The operator applied to the nose of the possessed a ring having attached to it a root which Solomon is said to have prescribed—“Baaras,” a herb of magical properties, and one dangerous for the uninitiate to handle. As the devils came forth Eliezar caused them to pass into a basin filled with water, which was at once poured away. It may be noticed also that demonology plays an important part in the Book of Enoch (before 170 B.C.). Even in the Mishna there are undoubted traces of magic, and in the Gemara demonology and sorcery loom very largely. Throughout the Middle Ages Jewish legend played no insignificant
## part in the history of Witchcraft, and, especially in Spain, until the
nineteenth century at least, there were prosecutions, not so much for the observance of Hebrew ceremonies as is often suggested and supposed, but for the practice of the dark and hideous traditions of Hebrew magic. Closely connected with these ancient sorceries are those ritual murders, of which a learned Premonstratensian Canon of Wilthin, Adrian Kembter, writing in 1745, was able to enumerate no less than two-and-fifty,[37] the latest of these having taken place in 1650, when at Cadan in Bohemia, Matthias, a lad of four years old, was killed by certain rabbis with seven wounds. In many cases the evidence is quite conclusive that the body, and especially the blood of the victim, was used for magical purposes. Thus with reference to little S. Hugh of Lincoln, after various very striking details, the chronicler has: “Et cum exspirasset puer, deposuerunt corpus de cruce, et nescitur qua ratione, euiscerarunt corpusculum; dicitur autem, quod ad magicas artes exercendas.” In 1261 at Forcheim in Bavaria the blood of a murdered boy was used to sprinkle certain thresholds and doors. In 1285 at Munich a witch was convicted of selling Christian children to the Jews, who carefully preserved the blood in curious vessels for secret rites. In 1494 at Tyrnau twelve vampires were executed for having opened the veins of a boy whom they had snared, and having drunk his warm blood thence whilst he was yet alive. A deed of peculiar horror was discovered at Szydlow in 1597 when the victim was put to death in exquisite tortures, the blood and several members of the body being partaken of by the murderers. In almost every case the blood was carefully collected, there can be no doubt for magical purposes, the underlying idea being the precept of the Mosaic law: Anima enim omnis carnis in sanguine est:[38] For the life of all flesh is in the blood thereof.
NOTES TO CHAPTER V
[1] _Khartummim._ The same word is used to describe the magicians whom Pharaoh summoned to interpret his dream, _Genesis_ xli. 8, where the Vulgate has _coniectores_. _Exodus_ viii. 11, the Vulgate reads: “Uocauit autem Pharao sapientes et maleficos.”
[2] It is perhaps worth mentioning that even the most modernistic commentators assign the history of Balaam to the oldest document of the Hexateuch, that they call the Jehovistic.
[3] In his commentary on the ninth chapter of the prophet Osee (Hosea), S. Jerome says: “Ingressi [sunt] ad Beel-Phegor, idolum Moabitarum quem nos PRIAPUM possumus appelare.” And Rufinus on the same prophet has: “Beel-Phegor figuram Priapi dixerunt tenere.” (They entered in unto Beel-Phegor, the idol of the Moabites, whom we may identify with PRIAPUS.... Beel-Phegor is said to have had the same shape as Priapus.)
[4] Balaam hariolus a Domino mittitur ut decipiat Balac filium Beor. _In Ezechielem_, IV. xiv. Migne, _Patres Latini_, XXV. p. 118. (Baalam, a soothsayer, is sent by God to deceive Balac, son of Beor.)
[5] Balaam fuisse prophetam non Dei, sed diaboli constat.... Fuit ipse magus, et dæmonis alloquium quærebat, eumque consulere.
[6] The word is usually found with _yidde ’onim_ (from _yada_, “to know,”) and they are generally considered to be identical in meaning. But W. R. Smith, _Journ. Phil._, XIV. 127, makes the following distinction: Yidde ’oni is a familiar spirit, one known to him who calls it up; the ’ôbh is any spirit who may be invoked by a spell and forced to answer questions.
[7] _Divination, et la science des présages_, Paris, 1875. p. 161 ff.
[8] _History of the People of Israel_, 3 vols., London, 1888-91. I. p. 347.
[9] Cf. Ovid, _Metamorphoseon_, IV, 412-3, of bats:
Conatæque loqui, minimam pro corpore uocem Emittunt; peraguntque leues stridore querelas.
[10] Josephus says that Samuel told the witch it was Saul.
[11] Migne, _Patres Græci_, LXXX. p. 589.
[12] Plerique putant Saulem signum accepisse de terra et de profundo inferni quando Samuelem per incantationes et artes magicas uisus est suscitasse. Migne, _Patres Latini_, XXIV. p. 106.
[13] ... inspirantur diabolico spiritu. Has autem dicunt Hebræi maleficis artibus eruditas per necromantias et pythicum spiritum qualis fuit illa quæ uisa est suscitare animam Samuelis. _Idem_, XXV. p. 114.
[14] Migne, _Patres Græci_, XLV. pp. 107-14.
[15] Δαίμονες γαρ ἦσαν οἱ κατασχηματίζουτες ὲαυτοὺς εἰς τὸ τοῦ Σαμουὴλ πρόσωπον. _Idem_, XXX. p. 497.
[16] Et credo quia [spiritus immundi] mendacio possunt; nec enim pythonico tunc spiritui minus liciut animam Samuelis effingere. (_De Anima_, LVII.) Migne, _Patres Latini_, II. p. 749.
[17] Ἀλλὰ γέγραπται, ὁτὶ ἔγνω Σαουλ ὅτι Σαμουὴλ ἔστι.
[18] ἐπεὶ οὐ δύναται ψευδέσθαι ἡ Γραφη. τὰ δε ῥήματα τῆς Γραφῆς ἐστὶν· Καὶ εἶδεν ἡ γυνὴ τὸν Σαμουήλ. (_In librum Regum._ Homilia II.) Migne, _Patres Græci_, XII. p. 1013.
[19] καὶ ὅτι μένουσιν αὶ ψυχαὶ, ἀπέδειξα ὑμῖν ἐκ τοῦ καὶ τὴν Σαμουὴλ ψυχὴν κληθῆναι ὑπὸ τῆς ἐγγαστριμμύθου, ὡς ἠξίωσιν ὁ Σαουλ. (_In I. Regum._ XXVIII.) _Idem_, XII.
[20] Samuel post mortem, secundum Scripturæ Testimonium futura non tacuit. _I. Regum._ XXVIII. 17 _et seq._ (_In Lucam._ I. 33.) Migne, _Patres Latini_. XV. p. 1547.
[21] Imago Samuelis mortui Saul regi uera prænuntiauit. _Idem_, XXXIV. p. 52. And _De Cura_, XL. p. 606.
[22] Nam Samuel propheta defunctus uiuo Sauli etiam regi futura prædixit.
[23] Whiston’s translation. Ed. 1825. Vol. I, p. 263.
[24] So _1 Kings_ (_Samuel_) xv. 23: “Because it is like the sin of witchcraft, to rebel.” Heresy and rebellion are fundamentally the same.
[25] Schrader, _Die Keilenscheiften und das alte Testament_, Giessen, 2nd ed., 1883.
[26] ... raconta ses rapts d’enfants, ses hideuses tactiques, ses stimulations infernales, ses meurtres impétueux, ses implacables viols; obsédé par la vision des ses victimes, il décrivit leurs agonies ralenties ou hâtées, leurs appels et leurs râles; il avoua s’être vautré dans les élastiques tiédeurs des intestins; il confessa qu’il avait arraché des cœurs par des plaies élargies, ouvertes, telles que des fruits mûrs. _Là-Bas_, J. K. Huysmans, c. xviii.
[27] Healey’s translation, 1610.
[28] _De Magia_, XLVII.
[29] _The Primitive Inhabitants of Scandinavia_, Sven Nilsson. 3rd edition. 1868. p. 241.
[30] The original title is κατὰ πασῶν αἱρέσεων ἔλεγχος. A Refutation of all Heresies. The first book had long been known; books IV-X, which had been discovered a short time previously, were first published in 1851 (Oxford) by Miller as the work of Origen, but edited by Duncker and Schneidewin as by Hippolitus, eight years later, Göttingen, 1859. The first chapters of the Fourth, and the whole of the Second and Third Books are still missing.
[31] Theocritus, II. 121. Κρατὶ δ’ ἔχων λεύκαν Ἡρακλέος ἱερὸν ἔρνος. Vergil. _Eclogue_ VIII, 61: Populus Alcidæ gratissima. _Æneid_, VIII, 276: Herculea bicolor quem populus umbra....
[32] Pliny (_Historia Naturalis_, XV. 86) says walnuts were thrown, and it appears from an inscription that this custom prevailed on birthdays as well as at weddings. But originally, at any rate, chestnuts were also used. In time the meaning became obscured, and as nuts were used in all kinds of games they merely became synonymous with playthings.
[33] The play is referred to in 1520 as _Messer Nicia_, and the first edition printed at Florence _circa_ 1524 has the title _The Comedy of Callimaco and Lucrezia_, but the Prologue definitely gives the name _La Mandragola_ (_The Mandrake_), and this is used in all later editions. The story has been imitated by La Fontaine; the play itself (which is still acted in Italy) has been repeatedly translated, at least six times into French and five times into German, but as yet no English version has been published.
[34] _De Legibus Hebræorum ritualibus earumque rationibus_, 2 vols., Tubingæ, 1732.
[35] Not later than A.D. 200. They were well known to Commodian, who wrote about A.D. 250.
[36] This is, of course, the view of the Fathers, and even later theological writers (e.g. Alfred Edersheim, Delitzsch, Rev. Walter Scott) accept this literal truth.
[37] In his book _Acta pro Ueritate Martyrii corporis, & cultus publici B. Andreæ Rinnensis_, Innsbruck, 1745. Blessed Andrew, a child, was killed at Rinn in the Tyrol, 12 July, 1462. A systematic investigation would, no doubt, wellnigh double the number of instances recorded by Kembter, and there are 15 for the eighteenth, 39 for the nineteenth century. In 1913 Mendil Beiliss was tried upon the charge of ritually murdering a Russian lad, Yushinsky.
[38] Leviticus xvii. 14.
## CHAPTER VI
DIABOLIC POSSESSION AND MODERN SPIRITISM
The phenomenon of diabolic possession, the mere possibility of which materialists and modernists in recent years have for the most part stoutly denied, has, nevertheless, been believed by all peoples and at all periods of the earth’s history. In truth he who accepts the spiritual world is bound to realize all about him the age-long struggle for empery of discarnate evil ceaselessly contending with a thousand cunning sleights and a myriad vizardings against the eternal unconquerable powers of good. Nature herself bears witness to the contest; disease and death, cruelty and pain, ugliness and sin, are all evidences of the mighty warfare, and it would be surprising indeed if some were not wounded in the fray—for we cannot stand apart, each man, S. Ignatius says, must fight under one of the two standards—if some even did not fall.
The ancient Egyptians, whose religion of boundless antiquity is pre-eminent in the old world for its passionate earnestness, its purity, and lofty idealism certainly held that some diseases were due to the
## action of evil spirits or demons, who in exceptional circumstances had
the power of entering human bodies and of vexing them in proportion to the opportunities consciously or unconsciously given to their malign natures and influences. Moreover, the Egyptians were regarded as being supremely gifted in the art of curing the diseases caused by demoniacal possession, and one noteworthy instance of this was inscribed upon a stele and set up in the temple of the god Khonsu at Thebes so that all men might learn his might and his glory.[1] When King Rameses II was in Mesopotamia the various princes made him many offerings of gold and gems, and amongst other came the Prince of Bekhten, who brought his daughter, the fairest maiden of that land. When the king saw he loved her and bestowed upon her the title of “Royal spouse, chief lady, Rā-neferu” (the beauties of Ra, the Sun-god), and taking her back to Egypt he married her with great pomp and hallowed solemnity. In the fifteenth year of the king’s reign there arrived at his court an ambassador from the Prince of Bekhten, bearing rich presents and beseeching him “on behalf of the lady Bent-ent-resht, the younger sister of the royal spouse Rā-neferu, for, behold, an evil disease hath laid hold upon her body,” “wherefore,” said the envoy, “I beseech thy Majesty to send a physician[2] to see her.” Rameses ordered the books of the “double house of life” to be brought and the wise men to choose from their number one who might be sent to Bekhten. They selected the sage Tehuti-em-heb, who in company with the ambassador forthwith departed on their journey, and when they had arrived the Egyptian priest soon found the lady Bent-ent-resht was possessed of a demon or spirit over which he was powerless. Wellnigh in despair the Prince of Bekhten sent again to the king begging him to dispatch even a god to his help.
When the ambassador arrived a second time Rameses was worshipping in the temple of Khonsu Nefer-hetep at Thebes, and he at once besought that deity to allow his counterpart Khonsu to go to Bekhten and to deliver the daughter of the prince of that country from the demon who possessed her. Khonsu Nefer-hetep granted the request, and a fourfold measure of magical power was imparted to the statue of the god which was to go to Bekhten. The god, seated in his boat, and five other boats with figures of gods in them, accompanied by a noble attendance of horses and chariots upon the right and the left, set out for Bekhten, where in due course they were received with great honour. The god Khonsu was brought to the place where the princess was, magical ceremonies were performed, and the demon incontinently departed. Khonsu remained in Bekhten three years, four months, and five days, being worshipped with the utmost veneration. One night, however, the Prince had a dream in which he saw a hawk of gold issue from the sacred shrine and wing its way towards Egypt. In the morning the Egyptian priests interpreted his dream as meaning that the god now wished to return, and accordingly he was escorted back in superb state, and with him were sent grateful gifts and thank offerings innumerable to be laid in the temple of Khonsu Nefer-hetep at Thebes.
The Greeks of the earlier civilization were inclined generally to attribute all sickness to the gods, who again often by this particular means took almost immediate revenge upon those who had insulted their images, profaned their sanctuaries, or derided their worship. Thus Pentheus who resists the introduction of the mysteries of Dionysus into Thebes is driven mad by the affronted deity.[3] The madness of Ajax, and that of the daughters of Proetus,[4] who imagined themselves changed into cows, shows us that this belief went back to heroic times. In later days Demaratus and his brother Alopecos were driven lunatic (παραφρονήσαν) after having found the statue of Artemis Orthosia, and this was considered to be the power of the goddess.[5] The frenzy which attacked Quintus Fulvius was regarded as a punishment, a possession by evil spirits on account of his sacrilege in having stolen the marble roof of the temple of Juno Lacinia at Locri.[6]
Pythagoras taught that the ailments both of men and of animals are due to demons who throng the regions of the air, and this doctrine does no more than state clearly what had been more or less vaguely believed from the dawn of human history. Wherefore Homer in the _Odyssey_, speaking of a man who is racked by a sore disease, says that a hateful demon is tormenting him: στυγερὸς δέ οἱ ἔχραε δαίμων, V, 396. (But a hateful demon griped him fast.) The word κακοδαιμονία, possession by an evil spirit, in Aristophanes signifies “raving madness,” and the verb κακοδαιμονάω, to be tormented by an evil spirit, is used by Xenophon, Demosthenes, Dinarchus, and Plutarch[7] amongst other authors.
Many philosophers believed that each man has a protecting daimon, who in some sense personifies his individuality. It followed that lunatics and the delirious were afflicted with madness by these spirits who guided them, and accordingly the Greek names for those distraught are highly significant: ἐνεργούμενοι (in later Greek, persons possessed of an evil spirit), δαιμονιόληπτοι (influenced by devils), θεόληπτοι, θεόβλαβες (stricken of God), θεόμανες (maddened by the gods); and so Euripides has λύσσα θεομανής, and again θεομανης πότμος.[8] The very name μανία given by the Greeks to madness was derived from the root-word _man, men_,[9] which occurs in the Latin _Manes_, and indeed the Romans thought that a madman was tormented by the goddess Mania, the mother of the Lares, the hallucinations of lunatics being taken to be spectres who pursued them.[10] And so a madman was _laruarum plenus_, _laruatus_,[11] one whom phantoms disturbed; as in Plautus, where the doctor says: “What kind of a disease is this? Explain. Unfold, old sire, I say. Art thou crazed (_laruatus_) or lunatic? Tell me now.”[12]
The frantic exaltation which thrilled the Galli, and the Corybantes when they celebrated the Dionysia, seems to have been epidemic, and was universally attributed to divine possession. There are many allusions to the connexion between the rites of Cybele and Dionysus. Apollodorus[13] says Dionysus was purified from madness by Rhea at the Phrygian Cybela, and was then initiated into her rites and took her dress; thence he passed into Thrace with a train of Bacchanals and Satyrs. Strabo,[14] on the other hand, thinks the rites were brought from Thrace by colonists from that country into Phrygia; he even quotes a fragment from the _Edoni_ of Æschylus[15] as proving the identity of the cultus of Dionysus and Cybele. So also we have in Euripides, _Bacchæ_, 58,
Up, and wake the sweet old sound, The clang that I and mystic Rhea found, The Timbrel of the Mountains.[16]
It is interesting to remark that Nicander of Claros,[17] who was a physician, in his _Alexipharmaca_ (Ἀλεξιφάρμακα), speaking of a
## particular form of lunacy, compares the shrieks uttered by patients with
those of a priestess of Rhea, when on the ninth day she makes all whom she encounters in the streets tremble at the hideous howl of the Idæan Mother; κερνοφόρος ζάκορος βωμίστρια Ῥείης is the exact phrase.[18]
In the _Hippolytus_ (141 _sqq._) the Chorus speaking to Phædra says:
Is this some spirit, O child of man? Doth Hecat hold thee perchance, or Pan? Doth She of the Mountains work her ban, Or the Dread Corybantes bind thee?[19]
And in the _Medea_ (1171-2) we have: “She seemed, I wot, to be one frenzied, inspired with madness by Pan or some other of the gods.”[20]
Here τινὸς θεῶν, says Paley, alludes to Dionysus or Cybele. Madness was sometimes thought to be sent by Pan for any neglect of his worship, so in the _Rhesus_ Hector cries (36-7): “Can it be that you are scared by the fear-causing stroke of Pan of old Kronos’s line?”[21]
Aretæus, the medical writer, who is especially celebrated for his accuracy of diagnosis, in his _De signis chronicorum morborum_, VI, describes Corybantic frenzy as a mental malady and says that patients may be soothed and even cured by the strains of soft music.[22] We have here then the same remedy as was applied in the case of Saul, whom, we are told, “an evil spirit from the Lord troubled,”[23] and to whose court David, the sweet harper, was summoned. This seems to be the only instance of demoniac possession in the Old Testament and although the Hebrew word _rûah_ need not absolutely imply a personal influence, if we may judge from Josephus[24] the Jews certainly gave the word that meaning in this very passage.
It may be well here clearly to explain the difference between possession and obsession, two technical terms sometimes confounded. By obsession is meant that the demon attacks a man’s body from without;[25] by possession is meant that he assumes control of it from within. Thus S. Jerome describes the obsessions which beset S. Hilarion: “Many were his temptations; day and night did the demons change and renew their snares.... As he lay down how often did not nude women encircle him? When he was an hungered how often a plenteous board was spread before him?”[26] S. Antony the Great, also was similarly attacked: “The devil did not let to attack him, at night assuming the form of some maiden and imitating a woman’s gestures to deceive Antony.”[27] These painful phenomena are not uncommon in the lives of the Saints. Very many examples might be cited, but one will suffice, that of S. Margaret of Cortona,[28] the Franciscan penitent,[29] who was long and terribly tormented: “Following her to and fro up and down her humble cell as she wept and prayed [the devil] sang the most filthy songs, and lewdly incited Christ’s dear handmaid, who with tears was commending herself to the Lord, to join him in trolling forth bawdy catches ... but her prayers and tears finally routed the foul spirit and drove him far away.”[30] The theologians, however, warn us to be very cautious in dealing with so difficult a matter, and the supreme authority of S. Alphonsus Liguori advises us that by far the greater part of these obsessions are distressing hallucinations, neurasthenia, imagination, hysteria, in a word, pathological: “It is advisable always to be very suspicious of such diabolic attacks, for it cannot be gainsaid that for the most part they are fancy, or the effect of imagination, or weakness, especially when women are concerned.”[31] Dom Dominic Schram presses home the same point with equal emphasis: “Very often what are supposed to be demoniacal obsessions are nothing else than natural ailments, or morbid imaginings, or even distractions or actual lunacy. Wherefore it is necessary to deal with these cases most carefully, until the peculiar symptoms clearly show that it is actual obsession.”[32]
Demoniac possession is frequently presented to us in the New Testament, and we have the authority of Christ Himself as to its reality. The infidel argument is to deny the possibility of possession in any circumstances, either on the hypothesis that there are no evil spirits in existence, or that they are powerless to influence the human body in the manner described. But whatever view Rationalists may adopt—and they are continually shifting their ground—no reader of the Scriptural narrative can deny that Christ by word and deed showed His entire belief in possession by evil spirits. And if Christ were divine how came He to foster and encourage a delusion? Why did He not correct it? Only two answers can be supposed. Either He was ignorant of a religious truth, or He deliberately gave instructions that He knew to be false, frequently
## acting in a way which was something more than misleading. To a Christian
either of these explanations is, of course, unthinkable. The theory of accommodation formulated by Winer[33] may be accepted by Modernists, but will be instantly condemned by all others. Accommodation is understood as the toleration of harmless illusions of the day having little or no connexion with religion. Even if this fine piece of profanity were allowed, which, of course, must not be the case, the argument could not be applied here, indeed it seems wholly repugnant even in regard to a Saint, but entirely impossible in consideration of the divinity of Christ.
The victims of possession were sometimes deprived of speech and sight: “Then was offered to him one possessed of a devil, blind and dumb: and he healed him, so that he spoke and saw” (S. Matthew xii. 22). Sometimes they had lost speech alone: “Behold, they brought him a dumb man, possessed with a devil, and after the devil was cast out the dumb man spoke” (S. Matthew ix. 32, 33); also “And he was casting out a devil, and the same was dumb: and when he had cast out the devil the dumb spoke” (S. Luke xi. 14). In many cases the mere fact of possession is mentioned without further details: “they presented to him such as were possessed by devils, and lunatics ... and he cured them” (S. Matthew iv. 24); “and when evening was come, they brought to him many that were possessed with devils, and he cast out the spirits with his word” (S. Matthew viii. 16); “And, behold a woman of Canaan, who came out of those coasts, crying out, said to him: Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David: my daughter is grievously troubled by a devil ... Then Jesus answering, said to her: O woman, great is thy faith: be it done to thee as thou wilt: and her daughter was cured from that hour” (S. Matthew xv. 22-28); “And when it was evening after sunset they brought to him all that were ill and that were possessed with devils”; “And he cast out many devils, and he suffered them not to speak, because they knew him”; “And he was preaching in their synagogues, and in all Galilee, and casting out devils” (S. Mark i. 32, 34, 39); “And the unclean spirits, when they saw him, fell down before him: and they cried, saying: Thou art the Son of God” (S. Mark iii. 11, 12); “And devils went out from many, crying out and saying: Thou art the Son of God” (S. Luke iv. 41); “And they that were troubled with unclean spirits were cured” (S. Luke vi. 18); “And in that same hour, he cured many of their diseases, and hurts, and evil spirits” (S. Luke vii. 21). The exorcism of the man “who had a devil now a very long time,” and who dwelt among the tombs in the country of the Gerasens (Gadarenes) is related by S. Luke (viii. 27-39). The possessed is tormented by so many unclean spirits that they proclaim their name as Legion: he is endowed with supernatural strength so that he breaks asunder bonds and fetters: the devils recognize Christ as God, and Our Lord converses with them, asking how they are called. Immediately the devils have been cast out the man is clothed, peaceable, reasonable, and quiet, “in his right mind.”
At the foot of Mount Tabor a young man is brought by his father to be healed. The youth is possessed of a dumb spirit, “who, wheresoever he taketh him dasheth him, and he foameth, and gnasheth with the teeth, and pineth away.” When Jesus approached, “immediately the spirit troubled him; and being thrown down upon the ground, he rolled about foaming.” The patient had been thus afflicted “from his infancy, and oftentimes hath he cast him into the fire and into waters to destroy him.” Our Lord threatened the spirit, and forthwith expelled it. (S. Mark ix. 14-28.) It should be noticed that it is the demons who are addressed on these occasions, not their victims. In the face of this catena of Biblical evidence and the various circumstances attending these exorcisms it is impossible to maintain that the possessed suffered merely from epilepsy, paralysis, acute mania, or any other such disease. In fact the Evangelists carefully separate natural maladies from diabolic possession: “He cast out the spirits with his word: and all that were sick he healed” (S. Matthew viii. 16); “They brought to him all that were ill and that were possessed with devils ... and he healed many that were troubled with divers diseases and he cast out many devils” (S. Mark i. 32, 34). In the original Greek the distinction is still more clearly and unmistakably shown: πάντας τοὺς κακῶς ἔχοντας καὶ τοὺς δαιμονιζομένους. Saint Matthew, again, differentiates: “they presented to him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases [ποικίλαις νόσοις] and torments [βασάνοις] and such as were possessed by devils [δαιμονιζομένους] and lunatics [σεληνιαζομένους] and those who had the palsy [παραλυτικούς] and he cured them,” iv. 24. Moreover, Our Lord expressly distinguishes between possession and natural disease; “Behold I cast out devils and do cures,” are the Divine Words; ἰδοὺ ἐκβάλλω δαιμόνια καὶ ἰάσεις ἀποτελῶ (S. Luke xiii. 32).
That the demoniacs were often afflicted with other diseases as well is highly probable. The demons may have attacked those who were already sick, whilst the very fact of obsession or possession would of itself produce disease as a natural consequence.
According to S. Matthew x. 1, Our Lord gave special powers to the Apostles to exorcize demons: “And having called his twelve disciples together, he gave them power over unclean spirits to cast them out, and to heal all manner of diseases, and all manner of infirmities.” And S. Peter, when describing the mission and miracles of Christ, stresses this very point: “Jesus of Nazareth: how God anointed him with the Holy Ghost, and with power, who went about doing good, and healing all that were possessed by the devil,” τοὺς καταδυναστευομένους ὑπὸ τοῦ διαβόλου (Acts x. 38). Our Lord Himself directly appeals to His power over evil spirits as a proof of His Messiahship: “If I by the finger of God cast out devils; doubtless the kingdom of God is come upon you”; εἰ δὲ ἐν δακτύλῳ Θεοῦ ἐκβάλλω τά δαιμόνια, ἄρα ἔφθασεν ἐφ’ ὑμᾶς ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ Θεοῦ (S. Luke xi. 20).
Whilst yet on earth Christ empowered the Apostles to cast out demons in His Name, and in His last solemn charge He promised that the same delegated power should be perpetuated: “These signs shall follow them that believe: in my name they shall cast out devils”; σημεῖα δὲ τοῖς πιστεύσασι ταῦτα παρακολουθήσει· ἐν τῷ ὀνόματί μου δαιμόνια ἐκβαλοῦσι (S. Mark xvi. 17.) But the efficacy of exorcism was conditional, not absolute as in the case of Our Lord Himself, for He explained, upon an occasion when the Apostles seemed to fail, that certain spirits could only be expelled by prayer and fasting. Moreover, a perfect belief and complete command are necessary for the exorcizer. τότε προσέλθοντες οἱ μαθηταὶ τῷ Ἱησοῦ κατ ἰδίαν εἶπον, Διατί ἡμεῖς οὐκ ἠδυνήθημεν ἐκβαλεῖν αὐτό; ὁ δὲ Ἰησοῦς λέγει αὐτοῖς, Διὰ τὲν ὀλιγοπιστίαν ὑμῶν· ... τοῦτο δὲ τὸ γένος οὐκ ἑκπορεύεται εἰ μὴ ἐν προσευχῇ καὶ νηστείᾳ ... (S. Matthew xvii. 19-21). S. Paul, and no doubt the other Apostles and Disciples, regularly made use of this exorcizing power. Thus, at Philippi, where the girl “having a pythonical spirit ... who brought to her masters much gain by divining” (παιδίσκην τινὰ ἔχουσαν πεῦνμα πύθωνα ... ἥτις ἐργασίαν πολλὴν παρεῖχε τοῖς κυρίοις αὐτῆς μαντευπμένη)[34] met S. Paul and S. Luke and proclaimed them as servants of the most high God, S. Paul “being grieved, turned, and said to the spirit: I command thee, in the name of Jesus Christ, to go out from her. And he went out the same hour” (Acts xvi. 16-18). And at Ephesus, a hot-bed of magic and necromancy, “God wrought by the hand of Paul more than common miracles. So that even there were brought from his body to the sick, handkerchiefs and aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the wicked spirits went out of them” (Acts xix. 11, 12). Those who do not imagine that the powers Our Lord perpetually bestowed upon the Apostles and their followers abruptly ceased with the thirty-first verse of the twenty-eighth chapter of The Acts of the Apostles, realize that the charisma of exorcism has continued through the ages, and in truth the Church has uninterruptedly practised it until the present day.
The Exorcist is ordained by the Bishop for this office, ordination to which is the second of the four minor orders of the Western Church. Pope Cornelius (251-252) mentions in his letter to Fabius that there were then in the Roman Church forty-two acolytes, and fifty-two exorcists, readers, and door-keepers, and the institution of these orders together with the organization of their functions, seems to have been the work of the predecessor of Cornelius, Pope Saint Fabian the Martyr (236-251).
The rite of the Ordination of Exorcists, “De Ordinatione Exorcistarum,” is as follows: First, the Book of Exorcisms, or in its place the Pontifical or Missal must be ready at hand; _Pro Exorcistis ordinandis paretur liber exorcismorum, cuius loco dari potest Pontificale uel Missale_ (A Book of Exorcisms must be prepared for those who are to be ordained Exorcists. Howbeit in place thereof the Pontifical or the Missal may be handed to them) runs the rubric. When the Lectors have been ordained, the Bishop resuming his mitre takes his place upon his seat or faldstool at the Epistle side of the altar, and the Missal with the bugia being brought by his acolytes he proceeds to read the Gradual, or (if it be within the Octave of Pentecost) the _Alleluia_. Meantime the Gradual is sung by the choir. When it is finished, he rises, takes off his mitre, and turning to the altar intones the third collect. He next sits again, resumes his mitre, and the third Lection is read. Two chaplains assist him with bugia and book whence he reads the Lection. The Archdeacon now summons the ordinandi, who approach, holding lighted tapers in their hands, and kneel before the Bishop, who solemnly admonishes them with the prayer:
“Dearest children who are about to be ordained to the office of Exorcists, ye must duly know what ye are about to undertake. For an Exorcist must cast out devils; and announce to the people that those that may not be present at the sacrifice should retire; and at the altar minister water to the priest. Ye receive also the power of placing your hand upon energumens, and by the imposition of your hands and the grace of the Holy Spirit and the words of exorcism unclean spirits are driven out from the bodies of those who are obsessed. Be careful therefore that as ye drive out devils from the bodies of others, so ye banish all uncleanness and evil from your own bodies lest ye fall beneath the power of those spirits who by your ministry are conquered in others. Learn through your office to govern all imperfections lest the enemy may claim a share in you and some dominion over you. For truly will ye rightly control those devils who attack others, when first ye have overcome their many crafts against yourselves. And this may the Lord vouchsafe to grant you through His Holy Spirit.”[35] After which the Bishop hands to each severally the Book of Exorcisms (or Pontifical or Missal), saying: “Receive this and commit it to thy memory and have power to place thy hands upon energumens, whether they be baptized, or whether they be catechumens.”[36] All kneel, and the Bishop, wearing his mitre, stands and prays:
“Dearest brethren, let us humbly pray God the Father Almighty that He may vouchsafe to bless these his servants to the office of Exorcists that they may have the power to command spirits, to cast forth from the bodies of those who are obsessed demons with every kind of their wickedness and deceit. Through His only begotten Son Jesus Christ Our Lord who with Him liveth and reigneth in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end. _R._ Amen.”[37] Then, his mitre having been removed, he turns to the altar with “Oremus” to which is given the reply “Flectamus genua” with “Leuate,” and the last prayer is said over the kneeling exorcists: “Holy Lord, Almighty Father, Eternal God vouchsafe to bless these thy servants to the office of Exorcists; that by the imposition of our hands and the words of our mouth they may have power and authority to govern and restrain all unclean spirits: that they may be skilful physicians for Thy Church, that they may heal many and be themselves strengthened with all Heavenly Grace. Through Our Lord Jesus Christ Thy Son who with Thee liveth and reigneth in the unity of the Holy Spirit one God world without end. _R._ Amen.” And then, at a sign from the Archdeacon, they return to their places.[38]
It should be remarked that the Exorcist is specifically ordained “to cast out demons,” and he receives “power to place his (your) hands upon the possessed, so that by the imposition of his (your) hands,[39] the grace of the Holy Ghost, and the words of exorcism, evil spirits are driven out from the bodies of the possessed.” The very striking term _spiritualis imperator_ is strictly applied to him, and God the Father is earnestly entreated to grant him the grace “to cast out demons from the bodies of the possessed with all their many sleights of wickedness.” Nothing could be plainer, nothing could be more solemn, nothing could be more pregnant with meaning and intention. The Order and delegated power of Exorcists cannot be minimized; at least, so to do is clean contrary to the mind of the Church as emphatically expressed in her most authoritative rites. In actual practice the office of Exorcist has almost wholly been taken over by clerics in major orders, but this, of course, in no way affects the status and authority of the second of the four minor orders.
Every priest, more especially perhaps if he be a parish priest, is liable to be called upon to perform his duty as Exorcist. In doing so he must carefully bear in mind and adhere to the prescriptions of the _Rituale Romanum_, and he will do well to have due regard to the laws of provincial or diocesan synods, which for the most part require that the Bishop should be consulted and his authorization obtained before exorcism be essayed.
The chief points of importance in the detailed instructions under twenty-one heads prefixed to the rite in the _Rituale_ may thus be briefly summarized: (1) The priest or exorcist should be of mature age, humble, of blameless life, courageous, of experience, and well-attested prudence. It is fitting he should prepare himself for his task by special acts of devotion and mortification, by fervent prayer and by fasting (S. Matthew xvii. 20). (2) He must be a man of scholarship and learning, a systematic student and well versed in the latest trends and developments of psychological science. (3) Possession is not lightly to be taken for granted. Each case is to be carefully examined and great caution to be used in distinguishing genuine possession from certain forms of disease. (4) He should admonish the possessed in so far as the latter is capable, to dispose himself for the exorcism by prayer, fasting, by confession, and Holy Communion, and while the rite is in progress he must excite in his heart a most lively faith in the goodness of God, and perfect resignation to the divine will. (5) The exorcism should take place in the Church, or some other sacred place, if convenient, but no crowd of gazers must be suffered to assemble out of mere curiosity. There should, however, be a number of witnesses, grave and devout persons of standing, eminent respectability, and acknowledged probity, not prone to idle gossip, but discreet and silent. If on account of sickness or for some legitimate reason the exorcism takes place in a private house it is well that members of the family should be present; especially is this enjoined, as a measure of precaution, if the subject be a woman. (6) If the patient seems to fall asleep, or endeavours to hinder the exorcist in any way during the rite he is to continue, if possible with greater insistence, for such actions are probably a ruse to trick him. (7) The exorcist, although humble and having no reliance upon himself alone, is to speak with command and authority, and should the patient be convulsed or tremble, let him be more fervent and more insistent; the prayers and adjurations are to be recited with great faith, a full and assured consciousness of power. (8) Let the exorcist remember that he uses the words of Holy Scripture and Holy Church, not his own words and phrases. (9) All idle and impertinent questioning of the demon is to be avoided, nor should the evil spirit be allowed to speak at length unchecked and unrebuked. (10) The Blessed Sacrament is not to be brought near the body of the obsessed during exorcism for fear of possible irreverence; Relics of the Saints may be employed, but in this case every care must be most scrupulously observed that all due veneration be paid to them; the Crucifix and Holy Water are to be used. (11) If expulsion of the evil spirit, who will often prove obstinate, is not secured at once, the rite should be repeated as often as need be.
It will be seen that the Church has safeguarded exorcism with extraordinary precautions, and that everything which is humanly possible to prevent superstition, indecorum, or abuse is provided for and recommended. Again and again the warning is repeated that so solemn, and indeed terrible, an office must not lightly be undertaken. The actual form in present use is as follows:[40]
THE FORM OF EXORCISING THE POSSESSED
[TRANSLATED FROM THE “ROMAN RITUAL.”]
_The Priest, having confessed, or at least hating sin in his heart, and having said Mass, if it possibly and conveniently can be done, and humbly implored the Divine help, vested in surplice and violet stole, the end of which he shall place round the neck of the one possessed, and having the possessed person before him, and bound if there be danger of violence, shall sign himself, the person, and those standing by, with the sign of the Cross, and sprinkle them with holy water, and kneeling down, the others making the responses, shall say the Litany as far as the prayers._
_At the end the Antiphon._ Remember not, Lord, our offences, nor the offences of our forefathers, neither take Thou vengeance of our sins.
Our Father. _Secretly._
℣ And lead us not into temptation. ℟ But deliver us from evil.
_Psalm_ liii.
_Deus, in Nomine._
_The whole shall be said with_ Glory be to the Father.
℣. Save Thy servant, ℟. O my God, that putteth his trust in Thee.
℣. Be unto him, O Lord, a strong tower, ℟. From the face of his enemy.
℣. Let the enemy have no advantage of him, ℟. Nor the son of wickedness approach to hurt him.
℣. Send him help, O Lord, from the sanctuary, ℟. And strengthen him out of Sion.
℣. Lord, hear my prayer, ℟. And let my cry come unto Thee.
℣. The Lord be with you, ℟. And with thy spirit.
Let us pray.
O God, Whose property is ever to have mercy and to forgive: receive our supplications and prayers, that of Thy mercy and loving-kindness Thou wilt set free this Thy servant (or handmaid) who is fast bound by the chain of his sins.
O holy Lord, Father Almighty, Eternal God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who hast assigned that tyrant and apostate to the fires of hell; and hast sent Thine Only Begotten Son into the world, that He might bruise him as he roars after his prey: make haste, tarry not, to deliver this man, created in Thine Own image and likeness, from ruin, and from the noon-day devil. Send Thy fear, O Lord, upon the wild beast, which devoureth Thy vine. Grant Thy servants boldness to fight bravely against that wicked dragon, lest he despise them that put their trust in Thee, and say, as once he spake in Pharaoh: I know not the Lord, neither will I let Israel go. Let Thy right hand in power compel him to depart from Thy servant N. (or Thy handmaid N.) ✠, that he dare no longer to hold him captive, whom Thou hast vouchsafed to make in Thine image, and hast redeemed in Thy Son; Who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the Unity of the Holy Spirit, ever One God, world without end. Amen.
_Then he shall command the spirit in this manner._
I command thee, whosoever thou art, thou unclean spirit, and all thy companions possessing this servant of God, that by the Mysteries of the Incarnation, Passion, Resurrection and Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ, by the sending of the Holy Ghost, and by the Coming of the same our Lord to judgment, thou tell me thy name, the day, and the hour of thy going out, by some sign: and, that to me, a minister of God, although unworthy, thou be wholly obedient in all things: nor hurt this creature of God, or those that stand by, or their goods in any way.
_Then shall these Gospels, or one or the other, be read over the possessed._
The Lesson of the Holy Gospel according to S. John i. 1. _As he says these words he shall sign himself and the possessed on the forehead, mouth, and breast._ In the beginning was the Word ... full of grace and truth.
The Lesson of the Holy Gospel according to S. Mark xvi. 15. At that time: Jesus spake unto His disciples: Go ye into all the world ... shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.
The Lesson of the Holy Gospel according to S. Luke x. 17. At that time: The seventy returned again with joy ... because your names are written in heaven.
The Lesson of the Holy Gospel according to S. Luke xi. 14. At that time: Jesus was casting out a devil, and it was dumb ... wherein he trusted, and divideth his spoils.
℣. Lord, hear my prayer, ℟. And let my cry come unto Thee.
℣. The Lord be with you, ℟. And with thy Spirit.
Let us pray.
Almighty Lord, Word of God the Father, Jesus Christ, God and Lord of every creature: Who didst give to Thy Holy Apostles power to tread upon serpents and scorpions: Who amongst other of Thy wonderful commands didst vouchsafe to say—Put the devils to flight: by Whose power Satan fell from heaven like lightning: with supplication I beseech Thy Holy Name in fear and trembling, that to me Thy most unworthy servant, granting me pardon of all my faults, Thou wilt vouchsafe to give constancy of faith and power, that shielded by the might of Thy holy arm, in trust and safety I may approach to attack this cruel devil, through Thee, O Jesus Christ, the Lord our God, Who shalt come to judge the quick and the dead, and the world by fire. Amen.
_Then defending himself and the possessed with the sign of the Cross, putting part of his stole round the neck, and his right hand upon the head of the possessed, firmly and with great faith he shall say what follows._
℣. Behold the Cross of the Lord, flee ye of the contrary part, ℟. The Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, hath prevailed.
℣. Lord, hear my prayer, ℟. And let my cry come unto Thee.
℣. The Lord be with you, ℟. And with thy spirit.
Let us pray.
O God, and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, I call upon Thy Holy Name, and humbly implore Thy mercy, that Thou wouldest vouchsafe to grant me help against this, and every unclean spirit, that vexes this Thy creature. Through the same Lord Jesus Christ.
THE EXORCISM.
I exorcise thee, most foul spirit, every coming in of the enemy, every apparition, every legion; in the Name of our Lord Jesus ✠ Christ be rooted out, and be put to flight from this creature of God ✠. He commands thee, Who has bid thee be cast down from the highest heaven into the lower parts of the earth. He commands thee, Who has commanded the sea, the winds, and the storms. Hear therefore, and fear, Satan, thou injurer of the faith, thou enemy of the human race, thou procurer of death, thou destroyer of life, kindler of vices, seducer of men, betrayer of the nations, inciter of envy, origin of avarice, cause of discord, stirrer-up of troubles: why standest thou, and resistest, when thou knowest that Christ the Lord destroyest thy ways? Fear Him, Who was sacrificed in Isaac, Who was sold in Joseph, was slain in the Lamb, was crucified in man, thence was the triumpher over hell. _The following signs of the Cross shall be made upon the forehead of the possessed._ Depart therefore in the Name of the Father ✠, and of the Son ✠, and of the Holy ✠ Ghost: give place to the Holy Ghost, by this sign of the holy ✠ Cross of Jesus Christ our Lord: Who with the Father, and the same Holy Ghost, liveth and reigneth ever one God, world without end. Amen.
℣. Lord, hear my prayer. ℟. And let my cry come unto Thee.
℣. The Lord be with you. ℟. And with thy spirit.
Let us pray.
O God, the Creator and Protector of the human race, Who hast formed man in Thine own Image: look upon this Thy servant N. (_or_ this Thy handmaid N.), who is grievously vexed with the wiles of an unclean spirit, whom the old adversary, the ancient enemy of the earth, encompasses with a horrible dread, and blinds the senses of his human understanding with stupor, confounds him with terror, and harasses him with trembling and fear. Drive away, O Lord, the power of the devil, take away his deceitful snares: let the impious tempter fly far hence: let Thy servant be defended by the sign ✠ (_on his forehead_) of Thy Name, and be safe both in body, and soul. (_The three following crosses shall be made on the breast of the demoniac._) Do Thou guard his inmost ✠ soul, Thou rule his inward ✠ parts, Thou strengthen his ✠ heart. Let the attempts of the opposing power in his soul vanish away. Grant, O Lord, grace to this invocation of Thy most Holy Name, that he who up to this present was causing terror, may flee away affrighted, and depart conquered; and that this Thy servant, strengthened in heart, and sincere in mind, may render Thee his due service. Through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
THE EXORCISM.
I adjure thee, thou old serpent, by the Judge of the quick and the dead, by thy Maker, and the Maker of the world: by Him, Who hath power to put thee into hell, that thou depart in haste from this servant of God N., who returns to the bosom of the Church, with thy fear and with the torment of thy terror. I adjure Thee again ✠ (_on his forehead_), not in my infirmity, but by the power of the Holy Ghost, that thou go out of this servant of God N., whom the Almighty God hath made in His Own Image. Yield, therefore, not to me, but to the minister of Christ. For His power presses upon thee Who subdued thee beneath His Cross. Tremble at His arm, which, after the groanings of hell were subdued, led forth the souls into light. Let the body ✠ (_on his breast_) of man be a terror to thee, let the image of God ✠ (_on his forehead_) be an alarm to thee. Resist not, nor delay to depart from this person, for it has pleased Christ to dwell in man. And think not that I am to be despised, since thou knowest that I too am so great a sinner. God ✠ commands thee. The majesty of Christ ✠ commands thee. God the Father ✠ commands thee. God the Son ✠ commands thee. God the Holy ✠ Ghost commands thee. The Sacrament of the Cross ✠ commands thee. The faith of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, and of all the other Saints ✠, commands thee. The blood of the Martyrs ✠ commands thee. The stedfastness (_continentia_) of the Confessors ✠ commands thee. The devout intercession of all the Saints ✠ commands thee. The virtue of the Mysteries of the Christian Faith ✠ commands thee. Go out, therefore, thou transgressor. Go out, thou seducer, full of all deceit and wile, thou enemy of virtue, thou persecutor of innocence. Give place, thou most dire one: give place, thou most impious one: give place to Christ in Whom thou hast found nothing of thy works: Who hath overcome thee, Who hath destroyed thy kingdom, Who hath led thee captive and bound thee, and hath spoiled thy goods: Who hath cast thee into outer darkness, where for thee and thy servants everlasting destruction is prepared. But why, O fierce one, dost thou withstand? why, rashly bold, dost thou refuse? thou art the accused of Almighty God, whose laws thou hast broken. Thou art the accused of Jesus Christ our Lord, whom thou hast dared to tempt, and presumed to crucify. Thou art the accused of the human race, to whom by thy persuasion thou hast given to drink thy poison. Therefore, I adjure thee, most wicked dragon, in the Name of the immaculate ✠ Lamb, Who treads upon the lion and adder, Who tramples under foot the young lion and the dragon, that thou depart from this man ✠ (_let the sign be made upon his forehead_), that thou depart from the Church of God ✠ (_let the sign be made over those who are standing by_): tremble, and flee away at the calling upon the Name of that Lord, of Whom hell is afraid; to Whom the Virtues, the Powers, and the Dominions of the heavens are subject; Whom Cherubim and Seraphim with unwearied voices praise, saying: Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Sabaoth. The Word ✠ made Flesh commands thee. He Who was born ✠ of the Virgin commands thee. Jesus ✠ of Nazareth commands thee; Who, although thou didst despise His disciples, bade thee go bruised and overthrown out of the man: and in his presence, having separated thee from him, thou didst not presume to enter into the herd of swine. Therefore, thus now adjured in His Name ✠, depart from the man, whom He has formed. It is hard for thee to wish to resist ✠. It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks ✠. Because the more slowly goest thou out, does the greater punishment increase against thee, for thou despisest not men, but Him, Who is Lord both of the quick and the dead, Who shall come to judge the quick and the dead, and the World by fire. ℟. Amen.
℣. Lord, hear my prayer. ℟. And let my cry come unto thee.
℣. The Lord be with you. ℟. And with thy spirit.
Let us pray.
O God of heaven, God of earth, God of the Angels, God of the Archangels, God of the Prophets, God of the Apostles, God of the Martyrs, God of the Virgins, God, Who hast the power to give life after death, rest after labour; because there is none other God beside Thee, nor could be true, but Thou, the Creator of heaven and earth, Who art the true King, and of Whose kingdom there shall be no end: humbly I beseech Thy glorious majesty, that Thou wouldest vouchsafe to deliver this Thy servant from unclean spirits, through Christ our Lord. Amen.
THE EXORCISM.
I therefore adjure thee, thou most foul spirit, every appearance, every inroad of Satan, in the Name of Jesus Christ ✠ of Nazareth, Who, after His baptism in Jordan, was led into the wilderness, and overcame thee in thine own stronghold: that thou cease to assault him whom He hath formed from the dust of the earth for His own honour and glory: and that thou in miserable man tremble not at human weakness, but at the image of Almighty God. Yield, therefore, to God ✠ Who by His servant Moses drowned thee and thy malice in Pharaoh and his army in the depths of the sea. Yield to God ✠ Who put thee to flight when driven out of King Saul with spiritual song, by his most faithful servant David. Yield thyself to God ✠ Who condemned thee in the traitor Judas Iscariot. For He touches thee with Divine ✠ stripes, when in His sight, trembling and crying out with thy legions, thou saidst: What have I to do with Thee, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? Art Thou come hither to torment us before the time? He presses upon thee with perpetual flames, Who shall say to the wicked at the end of time—Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. For thee, O impious one, and for thy angels, is the worm that dieth not; for thee and thy angels is the fire unquenchable prepared: for thou art the chief of accursed murder, thou the author of incest, thou the head of sacrileges, thou the master of the worst actions, thou the teacher of heretics, thou the instigator of all uncleanness. Therefore go out ✠ thou wicked one, go out ✠, thou infamous one, go out with all thy deceits; for God hath willed that man shall be His temple. But why dost thou delay longer here? Give honour to God the Father ✠ Almighty, before Whom every knee is bent. Give place to Jesus Christ ✠ the Lord, Who shed for man His most precious Blood. Give place to the Holy ✠ Ghost, Who by His blessed Apostle Peter struck thee to the ground in Simon Magus; Who condemned thy deceit in Ananias and Sapphira; Who smote thee in Herod, because he gave not God the glory; Who by his Apostle Paul smote thee in Elymas the sorcerer with a mist and darkness, and by the same Apostle by his word of command bade thee come out of the damsel possessed with the spirit of divination. Now therefore depart ✠, depart, thou seducer. The wilderness is thy abode. The serpent is the place of thy habitation: be humbled, and be overthrown. There is no time now for delay. For behold the Lord the Ruler approaches closely upon thee, and His fire shall glow before Him, and shall go before Him; and shall burn up His enemies on every side. If thou hast deceived man, at God thou canst not scoff: One expels thee, from Whose Sight nothing is hidden. He casts thee out, to Whose power all things are subject. He shuts thee out, Who hast prepared for thee and for thine angels everlasting hell; out of Whose mouth the sharp sword shall go out, when He shall come to judge the quick and the dead, and the World by fire. Amen.
_All the aforesaid things being said and done, so far as there shall be need, they shall be repeated, until the possessed person be entirely set free._
_The following which are noted down will be of great assistance, said devoutly over the possessed, and also frequently to repeat the_ Our Father, Hail Mary, _and_ Creed.
_The Canticle._ Magnificat.
_The Canticle._ Benedictus.
_The Creed of S. Athanasius._
_Quicunque uult._
Psalm xc. _Qui habitat._
Psalm lxvii. _Exurgat Deus._
Psalm lxix. _Deus in adiutorium._
Psalm liii. _Deus, In Nomine Tuo._
Psalm cxvii. _Confitemini Domino._
Psalm xxxiv. _Iudica, Domine._
Psalm xxx. _In Te, Domine, speraui._
Psalm xxi. _Deus, Deus meus._
Psalm iii. _Domine, quid multiplicasti?_
Psalm x. _In Domino confido._
Psalm xii. _Usquequo, Domine?_
_Each Psalm shall be said with_ Glory be to the Father, &c.
_Prayer after being set free._
We pray Thee, O Almighty God, that the spirit of wickedness may have no more power over this Thy servant N. (_or_ Thy handmaid N.), but that he may flee away, and never come back again: at Thy bidding, O Lord, let there come into him (_or_ her) the goodness and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ, by Whom we have been redeemed, and let us fear no evil, for the Lord is with us, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee, in the Unity of the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. ℟. Amen.
A shorter form of exorcism, which, being general, differs in aim and use, was published by order of Pope Leo XIII and may be found in the later editions of the _Rituale Romanum_, “Exorcismus in Satanam et Angelos apostalicos.”[41] After the customary invocation _In nomine_ ... the rite begins with a prayer to S. Michael, the solemn adjuration of some length follows with versicles and responses, a second prayer is next recited, and the whole concludes by three aspirations from the Litany: “From the deceits and crafts of the Devil; O Lord, deliver us. That it may please Thee to rule Thy Church so it shall alway serve Thee in lasting peace and true liberty; We beseech Thee, hear us. That Thou wouldst vouchsafe to beat down and subdue all the enemies of Thy Holy Church; We beseech Thee, hear us.” _And the place is sprinkled with Holy Water_,[42] is the final rubric.
The Baptismal Exorcism and exorcisms such as those of water, salt,[43] and oil, it were perhaps impertinent to treat of here. It may, however, be noticed that in the ceremony of the Blessing of the Waters[44] (approved by the Sacred Congregation of Rites, 6 December, 1890), performed on the Vigil of the Epiphany, there occurs a solemn “Exorcismus contra Satanam et Angelos apostalicos,” followed by “Exorcismus salis” and “Exorcismus aquæ.”
There are recorded throughout history innumerable examples of obsession and demoniacal possession, as also of potent and successful exorcism. It is, of course, quite possible, and indeed probable, that many of these cases were due to natural causes, epilepsy, acute hysteria, incipient lunacy, and the like. But, none the less, when every allowance has been made for incorrect diagnosis, for ill-informed ascriptions of rare and obscure forms of both physical and mental maladies, for credulity, honest mistakes, and exaggerations of every kind, there will yet remain a very considerable quota which it seems impossible to account for and explain save on the score of possession by some evil and hostile intelligence. But nobody is asked to accept all the instances of diabolic possession recorded in the history of the Church, nor even to form any definite opinion upon the historical evidence in favour of any particular case. That is primarily a matter for historical and medical science. And, perhaps, even at the present day and among civilized races this phenomenon is not so rare as is popularly supposed.
The annals of Bedlam, of many a private madhouse, and many an asylum could tell strange and hideous histories. And if we may judge from the accounts furnished by the pioneers of the Faith in missionary countries the evidences of diabolical agency there are as clearly defined and unmistakable as they were in Galilee in the time of Christ.[45]
Demoniacal possession is frequently described and alluded to by the early fathers and apologists in matter-of-fact terms which leave no shadow of doubt as to their belief in this regard. Indeed the success of Christian exorcism is often brought forward as an argument for the acceptance of the Divinity of the founder of Christianity. It would be an easy, but a very lengthy process, to make a catena of such passages from Greek and Latin authors alike.[46] S. Justin Martyr (_ob._ _circa_ A.D. 165) speaks of demons flying from “the touch and breathing of Christians” (_Apologia_, II, 6), “as from a flame that burns them,” adds S. Cyril of Jerusalem (_ob._ 385-6: _Catechesis_, XX, 3). Origen (_ob._ 253-4) mentions the laying on of hands to cast out devils, whilst S. Ambrose[47] (_ob._ 397), S. Ephrem Syrus[48] (_ob._ 373), and others used this ceremony when exorcizing. The holy sign of the Cross also is extolled by many Fathers for its efficacy against all kinds of diabolic molestation; thus Lactantius writes: “Nunc satis est, huius signi [Crucis] potentiam, quantum ualeat exponere. Quanto terrori sit dæmonibus hoc signum, sciet, qui uiderit, quatenus adiurati per Christum, de corporibus, quæ obsederint, fugiant,”[49] _Diuinarum Institutionum_, IV, xxvii.[50] S. Athanasius (_ob._ 373), _De Incarnatione Uerbi_, XLVII; S. Basil (_ob._ 379), _In Esaiam_, XI, 249; S. Cyril of Jerusalem, _Catechesis_, XIII; S. Gregory of Nazianzus (_ob._ _circa_ 389), _Carmen aduersus Iram_, 415 _sqq._, all have passages of no little weight to the same effect. S. Cyril, _Procatechesis_, IX; and S. Athanasius, _Ad Marcellum_, XXIII, recommend that the prayers of exorcism and the adjuration should as far as possible repeat the exact words of Holy Scripture.
In the annals of hagiography we find from the earliest days until our own time very many instances of possession, very many cases where a poor afflicted wretch has been released and relieved by the power and prayer of some Saint or holy servant of God.[51]
Thus in the life of S. Benedict, that noble, calm, dignified, prudent, great-souled, and high-minded hero, there are recorded several occasions upon which he was confronted by extraordinary manifestations of evil spirits who resisted the building of his monastery upon the crest of Monte Cassino, where Satanism had been previously practised. It is not said that there were any visible appearances, save to S. Benedict alone,[52] but a succession of untoward accidents, of abnormal occurrences and constant alarms, plainly showed that the Saint was contending against superhuman difficulties. More than once he found it necessary to exorcize certain of his monks,[53] and so marked was his triumph over these malignant and destructive influences that he has always been venerated in the Church as a most potent “effugator dæmonum,” and is confidently invoked in the hour of spiritual peril and deadly attack. Great faith also is placed in the Medal of Saint Benedict. This medal, originally a cross, is dedicated to the devotion in honour of the Patriarch. One side bears the figure of the Saint holding a cross in his right hand, and the Holy Rule in his left. Upon the other is a cross together with the following letters arranged on and around it: C.S.P.B., Crux Sancti Patris Benedicti (The Cross of the holy Father Benedict). C.S.S.M.L., Crux Sacra Sit Mihi Lux (May the holy Cross be my Light). N.D.S.M.D., Non Draco Sit Mihi Dux (Let not the Devil be my guide). U.R.S.: N.S.M.U.: S.M.Q.L.: I.U.B.: Uade Retro Satana: Nunquam Suade Mihi Uana: Sunt Mala Quæ Libas: Ipse Uenena Bibas. (Begone, Satan, never suggest things to me, what thou offerest is evil, drink thou thyself thy poison).[54] The “Centenary” form of the medal (struck at Monte Cassino in 1880 to commemorate the 13th centenary of the birth of S. Benedict in 480) has under the figure the words: _Ex S.M. Cassino MDCCCLXXX_. Upon the same side round the edge runs the inscription: Eius in obitu n̅r̅o præsentia muniamur (May we be protected by his presence at the hour of our death), and the word PAX appears above the cross.
It is doubtful when the Medal of S. Benedict originated, but during a trial for Witchcraft at Natternberg, near the abbey of Metten, in Bavaria, during the year 1647, the accused women testified that they had no power over Metten which was under the particular protection of the cross. Upon investigation a number of painted crosses surrounded by the letters which are now engraved upon Benedictine medals were found on the walls of the abbey, but their signification had been wholly forgotten. At length, in an old manuscript, written in 1415, was discovered a picture representing S. Benedict holding in one hand a staff which ended in a cross, and in the other a scroll. On the staff and scroll were written in full the formulas of which the mysterious letters were the initials. Medals with the figure of S. Benedict, a cross, and these letters began now to be struck and rapidly spread over Europe. The medals were first authoritatively approved by Benedict XIV in his briefs of 23 December, 1741, and 12 March, 1742.
In the case of the possessed boys of Illfurt (Alsace) they exhibited the utmost horror and dread of a Medal of S. Benedict.
These medals are hallowed with a proper rite[55] in which the adjuration commences: “Exorcizo uos, numismata, per Deum Patrem ✠ omnipotentem....” “I exorcize ye, medals, through God the Father ✠ Almighty.... May the power of the adversary, all the host of the Devil, all evil attack, every spirit and glamour of Satan, be utterly put to flight and driven far away by the virtue of these medals....”[56] The prayer runs: “O Lord Jesus Christ ... by Thy most Holy Passion I humbly pray and beseech Thee, that Thou wouldest grant that whosoever devoutly invoketh Thy Holy Name in this prayer and petition which Thou Thyself hast taught us, may be delivered from every deceit of the Devil and from all his wiles, and that Thou wouldest vouchsafe to bring Thy servant to the harbour of salvation. Who livest and reignest....”[57]
S. Maurus also, the beloved disciple of S. Benedict, was famous for the cures he wrought in cases of possession.[58] Visiting France in 543 he became founder and superior of the abbey of Glanfeuil, Anjou, later known by his name, St. Maur-sur-Loise.[59] The relics of S. Maurus after various translations were finally enshrined at St. Germain-des-Prez. In the eleventh century an arm of the Saint had been with great devotion transferred to Monte Cassino, where by its touch a demoniac was delivered. This is related by Desiderius,[60] who was abbot at that time, and afterwards became Pope, Blessed Victor III (_ob._ 16 September, 1087). Throughout the Middle Ages the tomb of S. Maur at St. Germain was a celebrated place of pilgrimage, and the possessed were brought here in large numbers to be healed.[61]
The Holy Winding Sheet of Besançon, again, was greatly resorted to for the relief and cure of possession. This venerable relic, being one of the linen cloths used at the burial of Christ, was brought to Besançon in 1206 by Otto de la Roche, and the feast of its arrival (_Susceptio_) was ordered to be kept on 11 July. At present it is a double of the first class in the cathedral, St. Jean, and of the second class throughout the diocese.
Novenas made in the church at Bonnet, near Nantes, were popularly supposed to be of especial efficacy in healing possession.
It is, of course, impossible even briefly to catalogue the most important and striking of the numberless cases of possession recorded throughout the centuries in every country and at every era. Of these a great number are, no doubt, to be attributed to disease; very many to a commixture of hysteria and semi-conscious, or more frequently unconscious, fraud; some few to mere chousing; and, if human evidence is worth anything at all, many actually to diabolic influence.
There were some curious episodes in England during Queen Elizabeth’s reign, when a third-rate Puritan minister, John Darrel, made a considerable stir owing to his attempts at exorcism. This idea seems to have been suggested to him by the exorcisms of the famous Jesuit missionary priest, William Weston, who after having been educated at Oxford, Paris, and Douai, entered the Society on 5 November, 1575, at Rome. He then worked and taught in Spain, until he was called to his native mission, actually arriving in England, 20 September, 1584. In the course of his labours, which at that dangerous time were carried on in circumstances of extremest peril, he was required to perform the rite of exorcism upon several distressed persons, who were for the most part brought to him at the houses of two zealous Catholics, Sir George Peckham of Denham, near Uxbridge, and Lord Vaux of Hackney, both of which gentlemen had suffered in many ways for their faith. With regard to the patients we can only say that we lack evidence to enable us to decide whether the cases were genuine, or whether they were merely sick and ailing folk; but we can confidently affirm that there is no suspicion of any fraud or cozenage. Father Weston is acknowledged to have been a man of the most candid sincerity, intensely spiritual, and of no ordinary powers. Although the rites, in which several priests joined, were performed with the utmost secrecy and every precaution was taken to prevent any report being spread abroad, somebody gossiped, and in about a year various exaggerated accounts were being circulated, until the matter came before the Privy Council. A violent recrudescence of persecution at once followed, many of the exorcists were seized and butchered for their priesthood, the rest, including Weston, were flung into jail, August, 1586. A long period of imprisonment ensued, and in 1599 Weston was committed to the Tower, where he suffered such hardships that he wellnigh lost his sight. Eventually in 1603 he was banished, and spent the rest of his days at Seville and Valladolid. He was rector of the latter college at the time of his death, 9 June, 1615.[62]
It was in 1586, just when the exorcisms of the Jesuit fathers had unfortunately attracted so widespread attention and foolish comment, that John Darrel, although a Protestant and lacking both appropriate ordination and training, rashly resolved to emulate their achievements. He was young, not much more than twenty, he was foolhardy and he was ignorant, three qualities which even in our own time often win cheap notoriety. It seems that he was first called in to cure a young girl of seventeen, Katherine Wright, who lived at Mansfield, Nottingham. Darrel forthwith pronounced that she was afflicted by an evil spirit, and he prayed over her from four o’clock in the morning till noon, but entirely without result. He then declared that the wench had been bewitched and that the demon, moreover, was sent by one Margaret Roper, with whom the patient had recently quarrelled. The girl backed his story, and the accused woman was at once taken into custody by the constable. When, however, she appeared before Mr. Fouliamb, a justice of the peace, not only was she incontinently discharged, but Darrel received a smart rebuff and found himself in no small danger of arrest.
This mischance sufficiently scared the would-be exorcist, and for some ten years he disappeared from view, only to come before the public again at Burton-upon-Trent, where he was prominent in the sensation and the scandal that centred round Thomas Darling, a young Derbyshire boy. This imaginative juvenal was subject to fits—real or feigned—during which he had visions of green angels and a green cat. Betimes his conversation became larded with true Puritan cant, and he loved to discourse with godly ministers. A credulous physician suggested that the lad was bewitched, and very soon afterwards it was noticed that the reading aloud of the Bible, especially certain verses in the first chapter of S. John’s Gospel, threw him into frantic convulsions. He also began a long prattling tale about “a little old woman” who wore “a broad thrimmed hat,” which proved amply sufficient to cause two women, Elizabeth Wright, and her daughter, Alse Gooderidge, long vehemently suspected of sorcery, to be examined before two magistrates, who committed Alse to jail. Next those concerned summoned a cunning man, who used various rough methods to induce the prisoner to confess. After having been harried and even tortured the wretched creature made some rambling and incoherent acknowledgements of guilt, which were twisted into a connected story. By now Darling had been ill for three months, and so far from improving, was getting worse.
At this juncture, exactly the dramatic moment, John Darrel, full of bluff and bounce, appeared upon the scene, and forthwith took charge of affairs. According to his own account his efforts were singularly blessed; that is to say the boy got better and the sly Puritan claimed all the credit. Alse Gooderidge was tried at the assizes, convicted by the jury, and sentenced to death by Lord Chief Justice Anderson; “She should have been executed but that her spirit killed her in prison,” says John Denison the pamphleteer! The whole affair greatly increased Darrel’s reputation.
Not long after a much-bruited case of alleged possession in Lancashire gave him further opportunity to pose in the limelight. Ann Starchie, aged nine, and John, her brother, aged ten, were seized with a mysterious disorder; “a certaine fearefull starting and pulling together of her body” affected the girl, whilst the boy was “compelled to shout” on his way to school. Both grew steadily worse until their father, Nicholas Starchie, consulted Edmund Hartley, a notorious conjurer of no very fair repute. Hartley seems to have quieted the children by means of various charms, and the father paid him something like a retaining fee of forty shillings a year. This, however, he insisted should be increased, and when any addition was denied, there were quarrels, and presently the boy and girl again fell ill. The famous Dr. Dee was summoned, but he was obviously nonplussed, and whilst he “sharply reproved and straitly examined” Hartley, in his quandary could do or say little more save advise the help of “godlie preachers.” The situation in that accursed house now began to grow more serious. Besides the children three young wards of Mr. Starchie, a servant, and a visitor, were all seized with the strange disease. “All or most of them joined together in a strange and supernatural loud whupping that the house and grounde did sounde therwith again.” Hartley fell under suspicion, and was haled before a justice of the peace, who promptly committed him to the assizes. Evidence was given that he was continually kissing the Starchie children, in fact, he kept embracing all the possessed, and it was argued that he had thus communicated an evil spirit to them. He was accused of having drawn magic circles upon the ground, and although he stoutly denied the charge, he was convicted of felony and hanged at Lancaster. John Darrel and his assistant, George More, minister of a church in Derbyshire, undertook to exorcize the afflicted, and in a day or two, after long prayers and great endeavours, they managed to expel the devils. Here we have folly, imposture, and hysteria all blended together to make a horrible tale.
At this time Darrel was officiating as a minister at Nottingham, where there happened to be living a young apprenticed musician, a clever and likely lad, William Somers, who some years before had met Darrel at Ashby-de-la-Zouch, where both had been resident. It appears that the boy had once met a strange woman, whom he offended in some way, and suddenly he “did use such strang and idle kinde of gestures in laughing, dancing, and such like lighte behaviour, that he was suspected to be madd.” The famous exorcist was sent for on the 5th of November, 1597, and forthwith recognized the signs of possession. The lad was suffering for the sins of Nottingham. Accordingly sermons were delivered and prayers were read in true ranting fashion, and when Darrel named one after the other fourteen signs of possession the patient, who had been most carefully coached, illustrated each in turn.
It is possible that Darrel had to some extent mesmeric control over Somers, whose performance was of a very remarkable nature at least, for “he tore; he foamed; he wallowed; his face was drawn awry; his eyes would stare and his tongue hang out”; together with a thousand other such apish antics which greatly impressed the bystanders. Finally the boy lay as if dead for a quarter of an hour, and then rose up declaring he was well and whole.
However, obsession followed possession. The demon still assailed him, and it was not long before Master Somers accused thirteen women of having contrived his maladies by their sorcery. Darrel, the witch-finder, had by this time attained a position of no small importance in the town, being chosen preacher at S. Mary’s, and he was prepared to back his pupil to the uttermost. Yet even his influence for some reason did not serve, and all but two of the women concerned were released from prison. Next certain unbelieving citizens had the bad taste to interfere, and to carry off the chief actor to the house of correction, where he pretty soon confessed his impostures, in which, as he acknowledged, he had been carefully instructed by Darrel. The matter now became a public scandal, and upon the report of the Archdeacon of Derby the Archbishop of York appointed a commission to inquire into the facts. Brought before these ministers, not one of whom could possibly have had any means of forming a correct judgement, Somers retracted his words, asserted that he had been induced to slander Darrel, and thereat fell into such fits, foamings, and contortions that the ignoramuses were convinced of the reality of his demoniac possession.
At the Nottingham assizes, however, things went differently. Summoned to court and encouraged by the Lord Chief Justice, Sir Edmund Anderson,[63] to tell the truth the wretched young man made a clean breast of all his tricks. The case against Alice Freeman, the accused, was dismissed, and Sir Edmund, shocked at the frauds, wrote a weighty letter to Whitgift, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Darrel and More were cited to the Court of High Commission, where Bancroft, Bishop of London, two of the Lord Chief Justices, the Master of Requests, and other high officials heard the case. It is obvious that Bancroft really controlled the examination from first to last, and that he combined the rôles of prosecutor and judge. Somers now told the Court how he had been in constant communication with Darrel, how they had met secretly when Darrel taught him “to doe all those trickes which Katherine Wright did” and later sent him to see and learn of the boy of Burton. In fact Darrel made him go through a whole series of antics again and again in his presence, and it was after all these preliminaries and practice that the lad posed as a possessed person at Nottingham and was prayed over and exhibited. The vulpine Puritan was fairly caught. No doubt the Bishop of London may have been a trifle arbitrary, but after all he was dealing with a rank impostor. Darrel and More were deposed from the ministry, and committed to close prison.
The whole of this case is reported by Samuel Harsnett, chaplain to Bancroft, in a book of three hundred and twenty-four pages, _A Discovery of the Fraudulent Practises of John Darrel, Bacheler of Artes_.... London, 1599, and a perfect rain of pamphlets followed. Both Darrel and More answered Harsnett, drawing meantime a number of other persons into the paper fray. We have such works as _An Apologie, or defence of the possession of William Sommers, a young man of the towne of Nottingham.... By John Darrell, Minister of Christ Jesus_ ... a black letter brochure which is undated but may be safely assigned to 1599; _The Triall of Maist. Dorrel, or A Collection of Defences against Allegations_ ... 1599;[64] and Darrel’s abusive _A Detection of that sinnful, shamful, lying, and ridiculous discours of Samuel Harshnet_, 1600. There are several allusions in contemporary dramatists to the scandal, and Jonson in _The Divell is an Asse_, acted in 1616, V, 3, has:
It is the easiest thing, Sir, to be done. As plaine as fizzling: roule but wi’ your eyes, And foame at th’ mouth. A little castle-soape Will do’t, to rub your lips: And then a nutshell, With toe and touchwood in it to spit fire, Did you ner’e read, Sir, little _Darrel’s_ tricks, With the boy o’ _Burton_, and the 7 in _Lancashire_, Sommers at _Nottingham_? All these do teach it. And wee’l give out, Sir, that your wife ha’s bewitch’d you.
It is probable that in his books Harsnett is to a large extent the mouthpiece of the ideas of Bancroft,[65] whose opinions must have carried no small weight seeing that in 1604 he became Archbishop of Canterbury. But Harsnett himself was also a man who could well stand alone, a divine marked out for the highest preferments. As Master of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, Vice-chancellor of that University, Bishop of Chichester, Bishop of Norwich, and finally in 1628 Archbishop of York,[66] he was certainly one of the most prominent men of the day. His views, therefore, are not only of interest, but may be regarded as an expression of recognized Anglican authority. Bancroft, who was a bitter persecutor of Catholics, seems to have turned over a quantity of material he had collected to Harsnett, who in 1603 published a verjuiced attack upon the priesthood in particular and upon the supernatural in general under the title of _A Declaration of Egregious Popish Impostures_.[67] This violent and foolish polemic with its heavy periods of coarse ill-humour and scornful profanity jars upon the reader like the harsh screeching of some cankered scold. True, it has a certain force due to the very vehemence and elaborate gusto of the wrathful ecclesiastic, the force of Billingsgate and deafening vituperation bawled by leathern lungs and raucous tongue. As a sober argument, a reasoned contribution to controversy and debate, the thing is negligible and has been wholly forgotten. Nevertheless, historically Harsnett and Bancroft are important, for it was the latter who drew up, or at least inspired, carried through Convocation, and at once enforced the Canons generally known as those of 1604, of which number 72 lays down: “No minister or ministers shall ... without the license or direction (_mandatum_) of the Bishop ... attempt upon any pretence whatsoever either of possession or obsession, by fasting or prayer, to cast out any devil or devils, under pain of the imputation of imposture or cozenage, and deposition from the ministry.”
This article seems definitely intended to fix the position of the Church of England.[68] The whole question of exorcism had, in common with every other point of Christian doctrine, caused the most acrid disagreement. The Lutherans retained exorcism in the baptismal rite and were both instant and persevering in their exorcisms of the possessed. Martin Luther himself had a most vivid realization of and the firmest belief in the material antagonism of evil. The black stain in the castle of Wartburg still marks the room where he flung his ink-horn at the Devil. The silly body, the blind, the dumb, the idiot, were, as often as not, afflicted by demons; the raving maniac was assuredly possessed. Physicians might explain these evils as natural infirmity, but such physicians were ignorant men; they did not know the craft and power of Satan. Many a poor wretch who was generally supposed to have committed suicide had in truth been seized by the Fiend and strangled by him. The Devil could beget children; had not Luther himself come in contact with one of them?[69] At the close of the sixteenth century, however, an interminable and desperate struggle took place between the believers in exorcism and the Swiss and Silesian sectaries who entirely discarded exorcism,[70] either declaring it to have belonged only to the earliest years of Christianity or else trying to explain away the Biblical instances on purely rationalistic grounds. In England baptismal exorcism was retained in the First Prayer Book of 1549, but by 1552, owing to the authority of Martin Bucer, we find it entirely eliminated. Under Elizabeth the ever-increasing influence of Zurich and Geneva, to which completest deference was paid, thoroughly discredited exorcisms of any kind, and this misbelieving attitude is repeatedly and amply made clear in the sundry “Apologies” and “Defences” of Jewel and his followers.
A letter of Archbishop Parker in 1574[71] with reference to the proven frauds of two idle wenches, Agnes Bridges and Rachel Pinder,[72] shows that he was thoroughly sceptical as to the possibility of possession, and his successor, the stout old Calvinist Whitgift, was certainly of the same mind.
In 1603 five clergymen attempted exorcism in the case of Mary Glover, the daughter of a merchant in Thames Street, who was said to be possessed owing to the sorceries of a certain Elizabeth Jackson. John Swan, “a famous Minister of the Gospel,” took the lead in this business, which made considerable noise at the time. The Puritans were not unnaturally anxious to vindicate their powers over the Devil and they seem avidly to have grasped at any such opportunity that offered. Swan did not fail to advertise his supposed triumph in _A True and Breife Report of Mary Glover’s Vexation and of her deliverance by the meanes of fastinge and prayer_, 1603; moreover, after her deliverance he took her home to be his servant “least Satan should assault her again.” Old Mother Jackson was indicted, committed by Sir John Crook, the Recorder of London, and actually sentenced by Sir Edmund Anderson, the Lord Chief Justice, to be pilloried four times and be kept a year in prison. Unfortunately for the would-be exorcists and their pretensions King James, whose shrewd suspicions were aroused, sent to examine the girl, a physician, Dr. Edward Jorden, who detected her imposture, in which, I doubt not, she had been well coached by the Puritans. Dr. Jorden recounted the circumstance in his pamphlet _A briefe discourse of a disease called the Suffocation of the Mother, Written uppon occasion which hath beene of late taken thereby to suspect possession of an evill spirit_ (London, 1603). The ministers were extremely chagrined, and one Stephen Bradwell even took up the cudgels in a tart rejoinder to Jorden, which was singularly futile as his lucubrations remain unpublished.[73] It is not improbable that this performance had its share of influence on Bancroft when he drew up article 72 of the 1604 Canons.
Francis Hutchinson in his _Historical Essay on Witchcraft_ (1718)[74] doubts whether any Bishop of the Church of England ever granted a licence for exorcism to any one of his clergy, and indeed the case which is given by Dr. F. G. Lee,[75] who relates how Bishop Seth Ward of Exeter assigned a form under his own signature and seal in January, 1665, to the Rev. John Ruddle, vicar of Altarnon, is probably unique. And even so, this was not strictly speaking an instance of exorcism, at least there was no deliverance of a person possessed. Mr. Ruddle records in his MS. Diary that in a lonely field belonging to the parish of Little Petherick[76] an apparition was seen by a lad aged about sixteen, the son of a certain Mr. Bligh. The ghost, which was that of one Dorothy Durant, who had died eight years before, appeared so frequently to the boy at this same spot which he was obliged to pass daily as he went to and from school, that he fell ill and at last confessed his fears to his family, who treated the matter with ridicule and scolded him roundly when they saw that jest and mockery were of no avail. Eventually Mr. Ruddle was sent for to argue him out of his foolishness. The vicar, however, was not slow to perceive that young Bligh was speaking the truth, and he forthwith accompanied his pupil to the field, where they both unmistakably saw the phantom just as had been described. After a little while Mr. Ruddle visited Exeter to interview his diocesan and obtain the necessary licence for the exorcism. The Bishop, however, asked: “On what authority do you allege that I am entrusted with faculty so to do? Our Church, as is well known, hath abjured certain branches of her ancient power, on grounds of perversion and abuse.” Mr. Ruddle quoted the Canons of 1604, and this appears to have satisfied the prelate, who called in his secretary and assigned a form “insomuch that the matter was incontinently done.” But the worthy vicar was not permitted to depart without a thoroughly characteristic caution: “Let it be secret, Mr. Ruddle,—weak brethren! weak brethren!” The MS. Diary gives some details of the manner in which the ghost was laid, and it is significant to read that the operator described a circle and a pentacle upon the ground further making use of a rowan “crutch” or wand. He mentions “a parchment scroll,” he spoke in Syriac and proceeded to demand as the books advise; he “went through the proper forms of dismissal and fulfilled all, as it was set down and written in my memoranda,” and then “with certain fixed rites I did dismiss that troubled ghost.” It would be interesting to know what form and ceremonies the Bishop prescribed. It does not sound like the details of a Catholic exorcism, but rather some superstitious and magical ritual. From what is related the form can hardly have been arranged for the nonce.
Although exorcism was not recognized by Protestants there are instances upon record where an appeal has been made by English country-folk for the ministrations of a Catholic priest. In April, 1815, Father Edward Peach of the Midland District, was implored to visit a young married woman named White, of King’s Norton, Worcestershire. She had for two months been afflicted with an extraordinary kind of illness which doctors could neither name nor cure. Her sister declared that a young man of bad repute, whose hand had been rejected, had sworn revenge and had employed the assistance of a reputed wizard at Dudley to work some mischief. However that might be, the unhappy girl seemed to lie at death’s door; she raved of being beset day and night by spirits who mocked and moped at her, threatening to carry her away body and soul, and suggesting self-destruction as the only means to escape them. The clergyman of the parish visited and prayed with her, but no good resulted from all his endeavours. It so happened that a nurse who was called in was a Catholic, and horrified at the hideous ravings of the patient she procured a bottle of holy water, with which she sprinkled the room and bed. A few drops fell upon the sufferer, who uttered the most piercing cries, and screamed out, “You have scalded me! You have scalded me!” The paroxysm, however, passed, and she fell for the first time during many weeks into a sound slumber. After some slight improvement for eight and forty hours she was attacked by violent convulsions, and her relatives, in great alarm, on Tuesday in Rogation Week, 2 May, 1815, sent a special messenger to beg Father Peach to come over immediately.
When the priest appeared the girl was being held down in bed by two women who were forced to put forth all their strength, and as soon as she saw him—he was a complete stranger to her nor could his sacred profession be recognized by his attire—so terrible were her struggles that her husband was bound to lend his aid also to master her writhing limbs. Presently she fell into a state of complete exhaustion, and Father Peach, dismissing the rest of the company, was able to talk to her long and seriously. He seems to have been quite satisfied that it was a genuine case of diabolic possession, and his evidence, carefully expressed and marshalled with great moderation, leave no reasonable doubt that this strange sickness owned no natural origin. In the course of conversation it appeared that she had never been baptized. A simple instruction was given and finding her in excellent dispositions Father Peach at once baptized her. During the administration of this sacrament she trembled like a leaf, and as the water fell upon her she winced pitifully, a spasm of agony distorting her countenance. She afterwards averred that it gave her as much pain as if boiling water had been poured upon her bare flesh. Immediately afterwards there followed a truly remarkable change in her health and spirits; her husband and sister were overjoyed and thought it no less than a miracle. The next day Father Peach visited her again and noticed a rapid improvement. Save for a slight weakness she seemed perfectly restored, and, says the good father, writing a twelvemonth later than the event from notes he had taken at the time, there was no return, nor the least lingering symptom of her terrible and distressing malady.
In its issue of 11 October, 1925, _The Sunday Express_, under the heading “Evil Spirit Haunts A Girl,” devoted a prominent column to the record of some extraordinary happenings. The account commences:
“Haunted for twelve months and more by a mischievous spirit—called a Poltergeist—driven almost to a state of distraction, threatened with a lunatic asylum, and then cured by the help of a band of spirit Indians, is the extraordinary experience of the nineteen-year-old Gwynneth Morley, who lives with her widowed mother at Keighley, and who was employed in the spinning mills of Messrs. Hay and Wright.”
These phenomena were communicated to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who informed Mr. Hewet McKenzie, with the result that the girl was brought to London for psychic treatment, Mr. McKenzie being “honorary principal of the British College of Psychic Science,” an institution which is advertised as the “Best equipped Centre for the study of Psychic Science in Britain,” and announces “Lectures on Practical Healing,” “Public Clairvoyance,” “A Small Exhibition of notable water colours ... representing Soul development, or experience of the Soul in ethereal conditions.” “The College” is, I am given to understand, a well-known centre for spiritistic séances.
Gwynneth Morley worked in Mr. McKenzie’s family for three months “as a housemaid, under close observation, and receiving psychic treatment.
“Day by day the amazing manifestations of her tormenting spirit were noted down. In between the new and full moon the disturbances were worse. Everything in the room in which Gwynneth happened to be would be thrown about and smashed. Tables were lifted and overturned, chairs smashed to pieces, bookcases upset, and heavy settees thrown over.
“In the kitchen of Holland Park the preparation of meals, when Gwynneth was about, was a disconcerting affair. Bowls of water would be spilt and pats of butter thrown on the floor.
“On another occasion when Gwynneth was in the kitchen the housekeeper, who was preparing some grape fruit for breakfast, found that one half had disappeared and could be found neither in the kitchen nor in the scullery. She got two bananas to take its place, and laid them on the table beside her; immediately the missing grape fruit whizzed past her ear and fell before her and the bananas vanished. Some ten minutes later they were found on the scullery table.
“All this time Gwynneth was being treated by psychic experts. Every week the girl sat with Mr. and Mrs. McKenzie and others. It was found that she was easily hypnotised, and that tables moved towards her in the circle.
“At other times during the cure the Poltergeist seemed to accept challenges. One night after a particularly exciting day, Mrs. Barkel magnetised her head and quietened her, and Mrs. McKenzie suggested that she should go to bed, saying ‘Nothing happens when you get into bed.’ Going up the stairs a small table and a metal vase crashed over, and a little later a great noise of banging and tearing was heard in Gwynneth’s room. When Mrs. McKenzie went into the room it looked as if a tornado had swept over it.
“After an active spell from June 21 to June 25 the spirit behaved itself until July 1, when the girl had a kind of fit. Suddenly she fell off her chair with her hands clenched. They laid her on a bed, and she fell into another fit. She gripped her own throat powerfully.
“Since that evening she has had no further attacks, nor have there been any disturbances.”
The main cause of this apparent cure is said to be the mediumship of Mrs. Barkel.
“On many occasions Mrs. Barkel gave Gwynneth excellent clairvoyance, describing deceased relatives, friends, and incidents in her past life which the girl acknowledged and corroborated.
“One near relative, says Mr. McKenzie, whose life had been misspent, and who had been a heavy drinker, was clearly seen. The girl feared and hated this personality, in life and beyond death, and had herself often seen him clairvoyantly before the disturbances began at all. Through Mrs. Barkel’s spirit guide, Mr. McKenzie got into touch with him, and he promised to carry out any instructions that might be given for the benefit of the girl.
“The request was made that he should withdraw altogether from any contact with her and not return except by request. ‘Professor J.,’ a worker on the other side, became interested. Mr. McKenzie asked that a band of Indians, who sometimes profess to be able to help, should take Gwynneth in hand and protect her from the assaults of disturbing influences.
“The following day Mrs. Barkel described an Indian who had come to help, and improvements were noted from about this date. The ‘professor’ encouraged the treatment by suggestion, and told Mr. McKenzie that in a few weeks, with the help of the Indian workers, he would place the medium in an entirely new psychic condition. Mr. McKenzie says that the promise was kept.”
I have quoted this case at some length owing to the prominence afforded it in a popular and widely read newspaper. That the facts are substantially true I see no reason at all to doubt. It is an ordinary instance of obsession, and will be easily recognized as such by those priests whose duty has required them to study these distressing phenomena. That the interpretation put upon some of the occurrences is utterly false I am very certain. The clairvoyance is merely playing with fire—I might say, with hell-fire—by those who cannot understand what they are about, what forces they are thus blindly evoking. “Professor J.” and “the band of Indians,” indeed all these “workers on the other side” are nothing else than evil, or at the least gravely suspect intelligences, masquerading as spirits of light and goodness. If, indeed, the girl is relieved from obsession one cannot but suppose some ulterior motive lurks in the background; it is but part of a scheme organized for purposes of their own by dark and secret powers ever alert to trick and trap credulous man. The girl, Gwynneth Morley, should have been exorcized by a trained and accredited exorcist. These amateurs neither know nor even faintly realize the harm they may do, the dangers they encounter. A bold mind, such as that of Guazzo, might specify their attempts—well-meaning as they are, no doubt—in terms I do not care to use.
At Illfurt, five miles south of Mulhausen in Alsace, is a monument consisting of a stone column thirty feet high surmounted with a statue of the Immaculate Conception, and upon the plinth of the pillar may be read the following remarkable inscription: _In memoriam perpetuam liberationis duorum possessorum Theobaldi et Josephi Burner, obtentæ per intercessionem Beatæ Mariæ Uirginis Immaculatæ, Anno Domini 1869_.
Joseph Burner[77] and Anna Maria, his wife, were poor but intelligent persons, who were not merely respected but even looked up to for their probity and industry by their fellow-villagers of Illfurt. The family consisted of five children, the eldest son, Thiébaut, being born on 21 August, 1855, and the second, Joseph, on 29 April, 1857. They were quiet lads of average ability, who, when eight years old, were sent in the usual course to the local elementary school. In the autumn of 1864 both were seized with a mysterious illness which would not yield to the ordinary remedies. Dr. Levy, of Altkirch, who was called in to examine the case acknowledged himself completely baffled, and a number of other doctors who were afterwards consulted declared themselves unable to diagnose such extraordinary symptoms. From 25 September, 1865, the two boys displayed most abnormal phenomena. Whilst lying on their backs they spun suddenly round like whirling tops with the utmost rapidity. Convulsions seized them, twisting and distorting every limb with unparalleled mobility, or again their bodies would for hours together become absolutely rigid and motionless so that no joint could be bent, whilst they lay motionless as stocks or stones. Fearful fits of vomiting often concluded these attacks. Sometimes they were dumb for days and could only gibber and mow with blazing eyes and slabbering lips, sometimes they were deaf so that even a pistol fired close to their ears had not the slightest effect.[78] Often they became fantastically excited, gesticulating wildly and shouting incessantly. Their voices were, however, not their normal tones nor even those of children at all, but the strong, harsh, hoarse articulation of rough and savage men. For hours together they would blaspheme in the foulest terms, cursing and swearing, and bawling out such hideous obscenities that the neighbours took to flight in sheer terror at the horrible scenes, whilst the distracted parents knew not whence to turn for help or comfort. Not only did the sufferers use the filthy vocabulary of the lowest slums, but they likewise spoke with perfect correctness and answered fluently in different languages, in French, Latin, English, and even in most varied dialects of Spanish and Italian, which could by no possible means have been known to them in their normal state. Nor could they at any time have heard conversation in these languages and subconsciously assimilated it. A famous case is on record where a servant girl of mean education fell ill and during a delirium began to mutter and babble in a language which was recognized as Syriac. This was considered to be accounted for when it was discovered that formerly she had been in service in a house where there was lodging a theological student, who upon the eve of his examinations used to walk up and down stairs and pace his room saying aloud to himself Syriac roots and vocables, which she thus often overheard and which in this way registered themselves in her brain. But there could not be any such explanation in the case of Thiébaut and Joseph Burner, since they did not merely reel out disconnected words and phrases in any one or two tongues, but conversed easily and sensibly in a large variety of languages and even in dialects. This has always been considered one of the genuine signs of diabolic possession, as is stated in the third article of _De Exorcizandis Obsessis a Dæmonio_: “3. In primis, ne facile credat, aliquem a dæmonio obsessum esse, sed nota habeat ea signa, quibus obsessus dignoscitur ab iis, qui uel atra bile, uel morbo aliquo laborant. Signa autem obsidentis dæmonis sunt: ignota lingua loqui pluribus uerbis, uel loquentem intelligere; distantia et occulta patefacere; uires super ætatis seu conditionis naturam ostendere; et id genus alia, quæ cum plurima concurrunt, maiora sunt indicia.” Moreover, both Thiébaut and Joseph Burner repeatedly and in exactest detail described events which were happening at a distance, and upon investigation their accounts were afterwards found to be precisely true in every particular. Their strength was also abnormal, and often in their paroxysms and convulsions it needed the utmost exertions of three powerful men severally to hold these lads who were but nine and seven years old.
It was noticed at the very beginning of these maladies that the patients were thrown into the most violent fits and every symptom of disease and disorder exacerbated by the presence of any sacramental such as holy water, or medals, rosaries, and other objects which had been blessed according to the ritual. They seemed particularly enraged by the blessed Medal of S. Benedict and pictures of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour. On one occasion Monsieur Ignace Spies, the _Maire_ of Selestat, a man of exceptional devotion and piety, held before their eyes a Relic of S. Gerard Majella,[79] the Redemptorist thaumaturge, when their shrieks and yells were truly terrific, finally dying away in inhuman whines and groans of despair. It so happened that a Corpus Christi procession passed the house, opposite which an Altar of Repose had been erected. The children, who were in bed, knew nothing of this and seemed to lie in a deep stupor. However, as the Blessed Sacrament approached their behaviour is said to have been indescribable. They poured forth torrents of filth and profanity, distorting their limbs into a thousand unnatural postures, their eyes almost starting from their heads, a crisis which was succeeded by a sudden horrible composure, whilst they crept away into the furthest corners of the room moaning, panting, and retching as if in mortal agony. Above all, pictures and Medals of Our Lady and the invocation of Her Most Holy Name filled the possessed with terror and rage. At any mention of “the Great Lady,” as they termed Her, they would curse and howl in so monstrous a way that all who had heard them shook and sweated with fear.
The abbé Charles Brey, parish priest of Illfurt, quickly made up his mind as to the diabolic nature of the phenomena. It was an undoubted case of possession, since in no other way could what was taking place be explained. Accordingly he sent to his diocesan, Monsignor Andreas Räss (1842-87) a full account of such extraordinary and fearful events. The Bishop, however, was far from satisfied that these things could not be accounted for naturally. In fact it was only after three or four years’ delay that at the instance of the Dean of Altkirch he decided to order a special ecclesiastical investigation. He finally appointed for this task three acute theologians, Monsignor Stumpf,[80] Superior of his Grand Seminary at Strasburg; Monsignor Freyburger, Vicar-General of the diocese; and Monsieur Sester, rector of Mulhausen. These priests, then, presented themselves unexpectedly at the Burner’s house on Tuesday morning, 13 April, 1869, at 10 o’clock. It was found that Joseph Burner had already concealed himself, and it was only after a prolonged search he could with difficulty be dragged from under his bed where he had taken refuge. Thiébaut feigned to be unconscious of the presence of strangers. The inquiry lasted for more than two hours, and it was not until past noon that the investigators left the house. Meanwhile they had witnessed the most hideous scenes, and their minds were quite made up as to the reality of the possession. They shortly presented their report to the Bishop, who then, and not until then, allowed himself to be convinced of the facts.
Even so, the prudent prelate ordered fresh precautions to be taken. At the beginning of September, 1869, Thiébaut was conveyed in the company of his unhappy mother, to the orphanage of S. Charles at Schiltigheim, where he was to be lodged whilst the case was investigated _de nouo_ by Monsignor Rapp, Monsignor Stumpf, and Father Eicher, S.J., Superior of the Jesuit house at Strasburg. At the same time Father Hausser, the chaplain of S. Charles, and Father Schrantzer, a well-known scholar and psychologist, were to keep the boy systematically but secretly under the closest observation.
It was decided to proceed to exorcism, and a priest of great reverence and experience, Father Souquat, was commissioned by the Bishop to perform the solemn rite. At two o’clock on Sunday, 3 October, Thiébaut was forcibly brought into the chapel of S. Charles, which hitherto he had always sedulously avoided, and when compelled to enter he uttered without intermission such hoarse yells that it was necessary to remove him for fear of scandal and alarming the other inmates. The lad, however, was now held fast by the abbés Schrantzer and Hausser, assisted by Charles André, the gardener of the establishment, a stalwart and muscular Hercules. The sufferer stood upon a carpet spread just before the communion rails, his face turned towards the tabernacle. He struggled and writhed in the grasp of those who were restraining him; his face was scarlet; his eyes closed; whilst from his swollen and champing lips there flowed down a stream of thick yellowish froth which fell in great viscous gouts to the floor. The Litanies began, and at the words “Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis” a hideous yell burst from his throat. The exorcizer unmoved continued the prayers and gospels of the Ritual. Meanwhile the possessed blasphemed and defied their utmost efforts. It was resolved to recommence upon the following day. Thiébaut, accordingly, was confined in a strait jacket and strapped down in a red arm-chair, around which stood the three guards as before. The evil spirit roared and howled in a deep bass voice, raising a terrific din; the boy’s limbs strained and contorted but the bonds held tight; his face was livid; his mouth flecked with the foam of slobbering saliva. In a firm voice the priest adjured the demon; he held the crucifix before his eyes, and finally a statue of Our Lady with the words: “Unclean spirit, disappear before the face of the Immaculate Conception! She commands! Thou must obey! Thou must depart!” The assistants upon their knees fervently recited the _Memorare_, when the air was rent by a yell of hideous agony, the boy’s limbs were convulsed in one sharp convulsion, and suddenly he lay still wrapped in a deep slumber. At the end of about an hour he awoke gently and gazed about him with wondering eyes. “Where am I?” he asked. “Do you not know me?” questioned the abbé Schrantzer. “No, father, I do not,” was the reply. In a few days Thiébaut was able to return home, worn and weak but bright and happy. Of all that happened during those fateful years he had not the smallest recollection. He returned to school, and was in every respect a normal healthy boy.
Joseph, who had grown steadily worse, was meantime secluded from his brother, pending the preparations for his exorcism. On 27 October he was taken very early in the morning to the cemetery chapel near Illfurt. Only the parents, Mons. Ignace Spies, Professor Lachemann, and some half a dozen more witnesses were present, as the affair was conducted in the utmost privacy. At six o’clock the abbé Charles Brey said Mass, after which he exorcized the unhappy victim. During three successive hours they renewed prayers and adjurations, until at last some present began to feel discouraged. But the glowing faith of the priest sustained them, and at length with a loud groan that sounded like a deep roar the boy, who had been struggling and screeching in paroxysms of frantic fury all the while, fell back into a deep swoon and lay motionless. After no long pause he sat up, opened his eyes as awaking from sleep, and was overcome with amazement to find himself in a church with strange people around him.
Neither Thiébaut nor Joseph ever experienced any recurrence of this strange malady. The former died when he was only sixteen years old on 3 April, 1871. The latter, who obtained a situation at Zillisheim, died there in 1882 at the age of twenty-five.
An even more recent case of possession, which has been authoritatively studied in minutest detail and at first hand, presents many of the same features.[81] Hélène-Joséphine Poirier, the daughter of an artisan family—her father was a mason—was born on 5 November, 1834, at Coullons, a small village some ten miles from Gien in the district of the Loire. Whilst still young she was apprenticed to Mlle Justine Beston, a working dressmaker, and soon became skilful with her needle and a remarkable embroideress. Already she had attracted attention by her sincere and modest piety, and was thought highly of by the parish priest, M. Preslier, a man of unusual discernment and the soundest common sense. On the night of 25 March, 1850, she was suddenly awakened by a series of sharp raps, which soon became violent blows, as if struck upon the walls of the small attic where she slept. In terror she rushed into her parents’ room next door, and they returned with her to search. Nothing at all could be discovered, and she was persuaded to go back to bed. Although they could actually see no cause for alarm her parents had heard the extraordinary noises. “From this date,” says M. Preslier, “the life of Hélène in the midst of such terrible physical and moral suffering that she might well have given utterance to the complaints of holy Job.”[82]
These manifestations to Hélène Poirier may not unfittingly be compared with the famous “Rochester knockings,” the phenomenon of the rappings at Hydesville in 1848 at the house of the Fox family, which by many writers is considered to be the beginning of that world-wide movement known as Spiritism or Spiritualism in its modern manifestations and recrudescence.[83]
Some months after this event Hélène suddenly fell rigid to the ground as if she had been thrown down by some strong hands. She was able to get up immediately but only to fall again. It was thought she was epileptic or at any rate seized with some unusual attack, some fit or convulsion. But after a careful observation of her case Dr. Azéma, the local practitioner, shrewdly remarked: “Nobody here but the Priest can cure you.” From this time disorders of spirit and physical maladies increased with unprecedented rapidity and violence. “Her physical and mental sufferings, which began on 25 March, 1850, continued until her death on 8 January, 1914, that is to say during a period of sixty-four years. But those of diabolic origin ceased towards the end of 1897. So the diabolic attacks actually lasted for some seven-and-forty years, and for six years of this time she was possessed.”[84] It was in January, 1863, it first became undeniably evident that her sufferings, her spasms, and painful trances had a supernatural origin. The abbé Bougaud, Archdeacon of Orleans, having interviewed her, advised that she should be brought to the Bishop, Monsignor Dupanloup, and made arrangements for her to stay at a Visitation convent in the suburbs, promising that a commission of theologians and doctors should examine her case. On Thursday, 28 October, 1865, Hélène accordingly commenced a retreat at the convent, where she was kindly received. M. Bougaud saw her for about two minutes, and she was handed an official order which would allow her access to the Bishop without waiting for a summons from his lordship or any other undue delay. But there was some misunderstanding, for on the Friday a doctor of high repute called at the convent, as he had been requested, interrogated and examined her for some three-quarters of an hour and then roundly informed the Mother Superior that she was mad, stark mad, and had better be sent home at once. He seems to have impressed the Bishop with his report, for Monsignor Dupanloup sent a messenger to direct the nuns to dismiss her forthwith, and accordingly she was perforce taken back to Coullons after a fruitless journey of bitter disappointments and discouragement. Many persons now began to regard her with suspicion, but in the following year, 1866, the Bishop, whilst visiting Coullons for an April confirmation, granted her an interview which caused him very considerably to modify his first opinion, and M. Bougaud, who saw her in September, declared himself convinced of the supernatural origin of the symptoms she displayed.
The most terrible obsessions now attacked her, and more than once she was driven to the verge of suicide and despair. “From 25 March, 1850, until March, 1868, Hélène was _only obsessed_. This obsession _lasted 18 years_. At the end of this time she was _both obsessed and possessed_ for 13 months. From this double agony of obsession and possession she was completely delivered by the exorcisms, which the Bishop had sanctioned, at Orleans, on 19 April, 1869. Four months’ peace followed, until with heroic generosity she voluntarily submitted to new inflictions.
“At the end of August, 1869, she accepted from the hands of Our Lord the agony of a new obsession and possession in order to obtain the conversion of the famous general Ducrot. When he was converted, she was delivered from her torments at Lourdes on 3 September, 1875, the cure being effected by the prayers of 15,000 pilgrims who had assembled there. _The obsession and possession in their new form_ had lasted five years. During the forty years which passed before her death, she was never again subject to possession, but she was continually obsessed, the attacks now being of short duration, now long and severe. The sufferings of every kind which she endured as well she offered with the intention of the triumph and good estate of God’s priests. Why she was originally thus persecuted by the Devil for nineteen years, and with what intention she offered those torments from which she was delivered by the exorcisms directed by the Bishop, must always remain a secret.”[85] On Tuesday, 13 August, 1867, a supernormal impulse came over her to write a paper full of the most hideous blasphemies against Our Lord and His Blessed Mother, and, what is indeed significant, to draw blood from her arm and to sign therewith a deed giving herself over body and soul to Satan. This she happily resisted after a terrible struggle. Upon the following 28 August reliable witnesses saw her levitated from the ground on two distinct occasions. With this phenomenon we may compare the levitation of mediums at spiritistic séances. Sir William Crookes in _The Quarterly Journal of Science_, January, 1874, states that “There are at least a hundred recorded instances of Mr. Home’s rising from the ground.” Of the same medium he writes: “On three separate occasions have seen him raised completely from the floor of the room.”
In March, 1868, it became evident that the poor sufferer was actually possessed. Fierce convulsive fits seized her; she suddenly fell with a maniacal fury and a deep hoarse voice uttered the most astounding blasphemies; if the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary were spoken in her presence she gnashed her teeth and literally foamed at the mouth; she was unable to hear the words _Et caro Uerbum factum est_ without an access of insane rage which spent itself in wild gestures and an incoherent howling. She was interrogated in Latin, and answered the questions volubly and easily in the same tongue. The case attracted considerable attention, and was reported by the Comte de Maumigny to Padre Picivillo, the editor of the _Civiltá Cattolica_, who gave an account thereof to the Holy Father. The saintly Pius IX[86] showed himself full of sympathy, and even sent through the Comte de Maumigny a message of most salutary advice recommending great caution and the avoidance of all kinds of curiosity or advertisement.
In February, 1869, when interrogated by several priests Hélène gave most extraordinary details concerning bands of Satanists. “In order to gain admission it is necessary to bring one or more consecrated Hosts, and to deliver these to the Devil, who in a materialized form visibly presides over the assembly. The neophyte is obliged to profane the Sacred Species in a most horrible manner, to worship the Devil with humblest adoration, and to perform with him and the other persons present the most bestial acts of unbridled obscenity, the foulest copulations. Three towns, Paris, Rome, and Tours, are the headquarters of the Satanic bands.”[87] She also spoke of a gang of devil-worshippers at Toulouse. It is obvious that a mere peasant woman could have no natural knowledge of these abominations, the details concerning which were unhappily only too true.
In the following April Hélène was taken to Orleans to be examined and solemnly exorcized. The interrogatories were conducted by Monsieur Desbrosses, a consultor in theology for the diocese, Monsieur Bougaud, and Monsieur Mallet, Superior of the Grand Seminary. They witnessed the most terrible crisis; the sufferer was tortured by fierce cramps and spasms; she howled like a wild beast; but they persisted patiently. Mons. Mallet questioned her on difficult and obscure points in theology and philosophy using now Latin, now Greek. She replied fluently in both tongues, answering his queries concisely, clearly, and to the point, incontestable proof that she was influenced by some supernormal power. Two or three days later the Bishop was present at a similar examination, and forthwith commissioned his own director, Monsieur Roy, a professor at the Seminary, to undertake the exorcisms. With him were associated Monsieur Mallet, the parish priest of Coullons, and Monsieur Gaduel, Vicar-General of the diocese. Two nuns and Mlle Preslier held the patient. It was found necessary to repeat the rite five times upon successive days. On the last occasion the cries of the unhappy Hélène were fearful to hear. She writhed and foamed in paroxysms of rage; she blasphemed and cursed God, calling loudly upon the fiends of hell; she broke free from all restraint, hurling chairs and furniture in every direction with the strength of five men; it was with the utmost difficulty she could be seized and restrained before some serious mischief was done; at last with an unearthly yell, twice repeated, her limbs relaxed, and after a short period of insensibility she seemed to awake, calm and composed, as if from a restful slumber. The possession had lasted thirteen months from March, 1868, to April, 1869.
Into the details of her second possession from 23 August, 1869, until 3 September, 1874, it is hardly necessary to enter at any length. Monsieur Preslier noted: “The second crisis of possession was infinitely more terrible than the first; 1st, owing to the length; the first lasted thirteen months, the second five years. 2nd, the first was relieved with a number of heavenly consolations, but very little solace was obtained during the second. 3rd, there was much bodily suffering in the first, in the second there were far keener mental sufferings and more exquisite pain.”[88] She was finally and completely delivered at Lourdes on Thursday, 3 September, 1874. It is not to be supposed that she passed the remaining forty years of her life without occasional manifestations of extraordinary phenomena. After much sickness, cheerfully and smilingly borne, she made a good end in her eightieth year, on 8 January, 1914, and is buried in the little village cemetery of her native place.
We have here the case of a woman who was mediumistic and clairvoyant to an almost unexampled degree, and it is very certain that if these would-be fortune-tellers and mages who so freely advertise their powers in many spiritistic journals to-day truly realized to what terrible dangers and very real psychic perils the use and even the mere possession of such faculties expose them, they would, so far from trafficking in the presumption of abnormal gifts, regard them with caution and indeed shrink from any occult practice at all, lest haply they become the prey of controls and influences so cunning, so potent for evil, as to merge them body and soul in untold miseries and shadows darker even than the bitterness of death.
The modern Spiritistic movement, so strongly supported by recent scientific utterances, is increasingly affecting all classes and conditions of society, and is beginning in every direction to undermine and actually to usurp the religious belief and convictions of thousands of earnest and seriously inclined but not very accurately informed or well-instructed persons. The basis of the movement is the claim that the spirits of the dead are continually seeking to communicate and, indeed, communicating with us through the agency of sensitives, so that it is possible to get into touch and to converse with our dear ones who have passed from this life. It is hardly necessary to emphasize the almost infinite consolation and comfort such a doctrine holds for the bereaved, how eagerly and with what yearning mourners will embrace such teaching, and how perseveringly and with what tender agonies of an hungered love they will devote themselves to the practices they imagine will place them in closest connexion and communion with those whom they have lost awhile, but whose voices they ever long to hear, whose faces they long to see once again. It is a matter of common knowledge that during and since the Great War Spiritism has increased tenfold; many who were wont to laugh at it, who refused to listen to its claims and scorned it as futile nonsense, are now among its most enthusiastic devotees. In truth there must be few of us who cannot appreciate the irresistible influence such beliefs will have upon the mind. Spiritism is seemingly full of joy, and hope, and promise, and happiness. It will wipe all tears of sorrow from poor human eyes; it is balm to the wounded heart; divine solace and sympathy; the barriers of death are broken down; mortality is robbed of its terrors.
Were it true, could we summon to our side the spirits of those whom we have so fondly cherished and converse with them of things holy and eternal, could we learn wisdom from their fuller knowledge, could we be assured in their own sweet accents of their fadeless love, could we now and again be comforted with a sight of their well-known faces, the touch of their hands upon ours, were it God’s will that this should be so, then assuredly Spiritism is a most blessed and sacred thing, consolation to the afflicted, succour to the distressed, a shining light upon earth’s dark ways, a very ready help to us all. But if on the other hand there is reason and grave reason to suppose that the spirits, with whom it is possible under certain exceptional conditions and by certain remarkable devices to establish a contact, although often claiming to be departed friends or relatives and supporting their contention (we acknowledge) with no little plausibility, are again and again found to be masquerading intelligences, in some cases undoubtedly actors of excellence who play their part for a time with consummate skill, but who have never at any séance whatsoever anywhere been able conclusively to demonstrate their identity, if in fact these manifesting intelligences are deceivers, imposing for purposes of their own a fraudulent impersonation upon those who with breaking hearts are so eagerly longing to communicate with son or husband fallen in battle, it may be, or on some lone shore, if they are proven liars, if their messages are trivial, ambiguous, cryptic, incapable of verification, shifty, ignorant, nay worse, blasphemous and hideously obscene, then are we justified—and we are in point of fact fully and completely justified—in concluding that the spirits are not those of the departed, but evil intelligences who never have been and never will be incarnate, unclean spirits, demons, and then assuredly Spiritism is most foul, most loathly, most dangerous, and most damnable.
The mediums, who of their own will freely open the door to these spirits, who invite them to enter, stand in the most deadly peril. A Spiritist of many years’ experience who saw not too late the hazard and abandoned that creed, writes as follows: “Spirit communion soon absorbs all the time, faculties, hopes, fears, and desires of its devotees, and herein lies one of the greatest dangers of spiritualism. Infatuated by communication with the unseen inhabitants of the hidden world, the medium loses his or her interest in the things pertaining to everyday life and interest. A soft and pleasing atmosphere appears to surround them. The realities of flesh and blood are lost in ideal dreaming and there is no incentive to break away from a state of existence so agreeable, no matter how monstrous are the delusions practised by the spirits. Their consciences are so callous as if seared with a hot iron, sin has to them lost its wickedness, and they are willing dupes to unseen beings who delight to control their every faculty. Very seldom has a full-fledged spiritualist been able to comprehend the necessity and blessedness of the religion of Jesus Christ, and to withdraw from the morbid conditions into which he has fallen....
“For about three months I was in the power of spirits, having a dual existence, and greatly tormented by their contradictory and unsatisfactory operations.... They tormented me to a very severe extent, and I desired to be freed from them. I lost much of my confidence in them, and their blasphemy and uncleanness shocked me. But they were my constant companions. I could not get rid of them. They tempted me to suicide and murder, and to other sins. I was fearfully beset and bewildered and deluded. There was no human help for me. They led me into some extravagances of action, and to believe, in a measure, a few of their delusions, often combining religion and devilry in a most surprising manner.”[89]
[Illustration: PLATE VII
S. JAMES VISITS THE WARLOCK’S DEN. Breughel
[_face p. 250_]
In my own experience, I myself, not once, but over and over again, have seen all these symptoms unmistakably marked in those whose sole interest and aim in life seemed to be a constant attendance at séances. I have watched, in spite of every effort unable to check and dissuade, the fearfully rapid development of such characteristics in persons who have begun to dabble with Spiritism, at first no doubt in moods of levity and wanton curiosity, but soon with hectic anxiety and the most morbid absorption. Some fifteen years ago in a well-known English provincial town a circle was formed by a number of friends to experiment with table-turning, psychometry, the planchette, ouija-boards, crystal-gazing, and the like. They were, perhaps, a little tired of the usual round of social engagements, dances, concerts, bridge, the theatre, dinner
## parties, and all those mildly pleasurable businesses which go to make
up life, or at least a great portion of life, for so many. They wanted some new excitement, something a little out of the ordinary. A lady, just returned home from a prolonged visit to London, had (it seems) been taken to some Spiritistic meeting, and she was full of the wonders both witnessed and heard there. The sense of the eerie, the unknown, lent a spice of adventure too. The earlier meetings were informal, first at one house, now at another. They began by being infrequent, almost casual, at fairly long intervals. Next a certain evening each week was fixed for these gatherings, which soon were fully attended by all concerned. No member would willingly miss a single reunion. Before long they met twice, three times, every evening in the week. Professional mediums were engaged who travelled down from London and other great cities, some at no small distance, to give strange exhibitions of their powers. I myself met two of these experts, a man and a woman, both of whose names I have since seen advertised in Spiritistic journals of a very recent date, and I am bound to say that I was most unfavourably impressed in each instance. Not that I for a moment think they were fraudulent, nor do I suspect any vulgar trickery or pose; they were undoubtedly honest, thoroughly convinced and sincere, which makes the matter ten times worse. And so from being mere idle triflers at a new game, incredulous and a little mocking, the whole company became besotted by their practices, fanatics whose thoughts were always and ever centred and concentrated upon their communion with spirits, who talked of nothing else, who seemed only to live for those evenings when they might meet and enter—as it were—another world. Argument, pleading, reproof, authority, official admonishment, all proved useless; one could only stand by and see the terrible thing doing its deadly work. The symptoms were exactly as above described. In two cases, men, the moral fibre was for a while apparently destroyed altogether; in another case, a woman, there was obsession, and persons who either knew nothing of, or had no sort of belief in, Spiritism, whispered of eccentricities, of outbursts of uncontrolled passion and ravings, which pointed to a disordered mind, to an asylum. All sank into a state of apathy; former interests vanished; the amenities of social intercourse were neglected and forgotten; old friendships allowed to drop for no reason whatsoever; a complete change of character for the worse, a terrible deterioration took place; the physical health suffered; their faces became white and drawn, the eyes dull and glazed, save when Spiritism was discussed, and then they lit with hot unholy fires; one heard covert gossip that hinted of crude debauch, of blasphemous speeches, of licence and degradation. Fortunately by a series of providential events the circle was broken up; outside circumstances compelled the principals to fall away, and what was doubtless a more potent factor than any, one or two were suddenly brought to realize the deadly peril and the folly of their proceedings. It proved a hard struggle indeed to rid themselves of the controls to which they had so blindly and so utterly submitted; their wills were weakened, their health impaired; more than once they slid back again into the old danger zone, more than once they were on the verge of giving up the contest in despair. But under direction and availing themselves of those means of grace the Church so bounteously proffers they persevered, and were at length made clean.
There must be many who have had similar experiences, who know intimately, even if they have not actually had to rescue and to guide, those who have been meshed and trapped by Spiritism and are endeavouring to escape. They will appreciate how difficult is the task, they will realize how pernicious, how potent, how evil, such toils may be. Nobody who has had to deal with sensitives, with poor dupes who are eager to abandon their practices, can think lightly of Spiritism.
That Spiritism opens the door to demoniac possession, so often classed as lunacy, is generally acknowledged by all save the prejudiced and superstitious. As far back as 1877 Dr. L. S. Forbes Winslow wrote in _Spiritualistic Madness_: “Ten thousand unfortunate people are at the present time confined in lunatic asylums on account of having tampered with the supernatural.” And quoting an American journal he goes on to say: “Not a week passes in which we do not hear that some of these unfortunates destroy themselves by suicide, or are removed to a lunatic asylum. The mediums often manifest signs of an abnormal condition of their mental faculties, and among certain of them are found unequivocal indications of a true demoniacal possession. The evil spreads rapidly, and it will produce in a few years frightful results.... Two French authors of spiritualistic works, who wrote _Le Monde Spirituel_ and _Sauvons le genre humain_, died insane in an asylum; these two men were distinguished in their respective professions; one as a highly scientific man, the other as an advocate well learned in the Law. These individuals placed themselves in communication with spirits by means of tables. I could quote many such instances where men of the highest ability have, so to speak, neglected all and followed the doctrines of Spiritualism only to end their days in the lunatic asylum.”
Some half a dozen years ago an inquiry was undertaken and there was circulated an interrogatory or _enquête_ which invited opinions upon (1) “the situation as regards the renewed interest in psychic phenomena”; (2) whether this “psychic renewal” denoted a “passing from a logical and scientific (deductive) to a spiritual and mystic (inductive) conception of life,” or “a reconciliation between the two, that is between science and faith”;[90] (3) “the most powerful argument for, or against, human survival”; (4) “the best means of organizing this (psychic) movement in the highest interest, philosophical, religious and scientific, of the nation, especially as a factor of durable peace.” Five-and-fifty of the answers were collected and published under the title _Spiritualism: Its Present-Day Meaning_,[91] a book which certainly makes most interesting and illuminating if extremely varied reading. Being a symposium, all schools of thought are represented, and I would venture to add that among the contributions are some outpourings which evince no thought at all, a fact which is of itself not without considerable significance. We have the unflinching logic and sound common-sense of Father Bernard Vaughan, whose verdict is reiterated by the Rev. James Adderley and the Rev. J. A. V. Magee; the concise, outspoken, pertinent and telling comments of General Booth; the vague hopelessly inadequate flotsam of Dr. Percy Dearmer,[92] vapid stuff which makes a theologian writhe; the sweet sugary sentimentalism of Miss Evelyn Underhill, so anæmic, so obviously popular, and so ingenuously miscalled mysticism; the dull worthless dross of Mr. McCabe’s superstitious materialism; the feverish panicky special pleading of the convinced Spiritists. Here, too, we have much that directly bears out our present contention, the medical evidence of such names as Sir Bryan Donkin; Dr. W. H. Stoddart, who treats of “The Danger to Mental Sanity”; with Dr. Bernard Hollander on “The Peril of Spirits”; and Dr. A. T. Schofield on “The Spiritist Epidemic.” Thus Dr. Stoddart writes: “In some cases the spiritualistic hallucinations so dominate the whole mental life that the condition amounts to insanity; and I can confirm Sir Bryan Donkin’s statement that spiritualistic inquiries tend to induce insanity.”[93] Dr. Hollander is even more emphatic: “The practice is a dangerous one. Persons become intoxicated with spirits of that nature as others do with spirits of another kind. And similarly, as not all persons who take alcohol get drunk, so not all spiritualists show the effects of their indulgences.... But that is no proof against the harmful nature of these practices, and, as a mental specialist, I confess I have seen victims of both, and that the one addicted to material spirits is the easier to treat.”[94] Spiritism, Dr. Schofield points out, “has been known to Christians for 2000 years. Any benefit derived therefrom is more than neutralized by the very doubtful surroundings and character of the supposed revelation (I say ‘supposed’ because it has been known so long). If, however, it must be coupled with the dangers, horrors, and frauds that so often in modern Spiritism accompany the knowledge of the unseen, we are almost as well without it, at any rate from such a source.... There can be no doubt the epidemic will eventually subside, but before it does, the vast mischief of a spiritual tidal wave of very doubtful origin will be most disastrously done, and thousands of unstable souls will be wrecked in spirit, if not in mind and body as well.... To class it as a religion is an insult to the faith of Christ.”[95]
Sir William Barrett utters a word of grave import: “All excitable and unbalanced minds need to be warned away from a subject that may cause, and in many cases has caused, serious mental derangement.”[96] “Spiritualism,” says Father Bernard Vaughan, “only too often means loss of health, loss of morals and loss of faith. Consult not Sir Oliver Lodge or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle or Mr. Vale Owen, but your family medical adviser, and he will tell you to keep away from the séance-room as you would from an opium den. In fact, the drug habit is not more fatal than the practice of Spiritualism in very many cases. Read the warning note sounded by Dr. Charles Mercier, or by Dr. G. H. Robertson or by Colonel R. H. Elliot, and be satisfied that yielding to Spiritualism is qualifying for an asylum. You may not get there but you deserve to be an inmate.”[97] The following letter written by Miss Mary G. Cardwell, M.B., Ch.B., from the Oldham Union Infirmary, speaks for itself: “One day recently I admitted a woman of thirty-five years to the hospital of which I have the honour to be resident medical officer. She was sent in as incapable of looking after herself or her family. She told me that she was a medium, having been introduced into Spiritualism by a man, also a medium, who said he could thereby help her over some family worries. As a direct result of this, she has neglected her children, so that the public authorities have removed them from her care, her home is ruined, and she herself is a mental and moral wreck. She had paid the other medium for his services by the sacrifice of her virtue.”[98] And this is no isolated, no exceptional, instance. I have myself known precisely similar cases.
Occasionally some particularly shocking incident will find its way into the public Press and we have records such as the following, which was headed “Family of Eleven Mad. Burning Mania after Séance. Child to be Sacrificed.
“The story of an entire family of eleven persons, in the village of Krucktenhofen, Bavaria, going out of their minds after a spiritualistic séance is sent by the Exchange Paris correspondent, quoting the _Berliner Tageblatt_.
“Renouncing the goods of this world, the father, mother, three sons, two elder daughters, and subsequently the remaining four younger members of the family, joined in burning their furniture and bedding.
“Finally, the three-months-old child of one of the daughters was about to be burnt when neighbours interfered. The whole family is now in an asylum.” (_Daily Mirror_, 19 May, 1921.)
“Camouflage it as you will, Spiritualism with its kindred superstitions, such as necromancy and occultism, is a recrudescence of the old, old practices cultivated in the days of long ago.”[99] In other words this “New Religion” is but the Old Witchcraft. There is, I venture to assert, not a single phenomenon of modern Spiritism which cannot be paralleled in the records of the witch trials and examinations; not a single doctrine which was not believed and propagated by the damnable Gnostic heresies of long ago.
Some of the definitions of Spiritism given by spiritists themselves are sufficiently startling. They frankly tell us that “Spiritualism is the science or art of communion with spirits.... It does not follow that because a communication comes from ‘the unseen,’ it is therefore from God, as a revelation. It may be from the latest dead lounger, as an amusement,”[100] or, I would add, from a demon as a snare. There is something inexpressibly ugly and revolting about this cold-blooded necromancy defined in set categorical terms.
Modern Spiritism is usually considered to have had its origin in America. In the year 1848 there lived at Hydesville, Wayne, New York State, a family of the Methodist persuasion named Fox; a father, mother, and two daughters, Margaretta and Katie, aged fifteen and twelve respectively. During the month of March all the household began to declare that they were kept awake at night by the most extraordinary noises, loud knockings on the wall, and footsteps. The children amused themselves by trying to imitate the noises; they tapped on the wainscot, and to their great surprise answering taps came back, so that they found they could get into communication with the unknown agency. They would ask a question and invite it to respond with one sharp rap for “no” and three for “yes,” and thus it continually replied. They further held actual conversations in this way by repeating the alphabet and establishing a regular code. Mrs. Fox then began to make inquiries concerning the former occupants of the house, and soon discovered that a pedlar named Charles Rayn was said to have been murdered in the very bedroom where her two girls were sleeping, and that his body had been buried in the cellar. Public curiosity was aroused, and it was now generally believed that it was the spirit of the unfortunate victim who haunted the farm-house, endeavouring to convey some message to those whom he had left. Actually no body was found in the cellar, and the alleged murderer whose name was given, appeared at Hydesville and “threw very hot water on the story.” Later when the family moved to Rochester—it is said they were practically driven out of Hydesville by the Methodist minister there—the rappings followed them, and the whole town was speedily on the tiptoe of excitement. It was then given out that the noises were communications from the spirits of those recently dead, and that the Fox girls, who apparently attracted them, were gifted with some special faculty which rendered intercourse of this kind possible. People soon began to flock round them asking their assistance in getting messages from their departed relatives and friends; the two girls held regular séances, and netted a fair sum of money. It was not long before other persons discovered that they also possessed this extraordinary faculty of attracting spirit manifestations, and of getting into communication with the other world at will. But the Fox sisters were first in the field, and to them came a continuous stream of persons with well-filled pockets from all parts of America. There was also opposition, which sometimes took a very violent form. As early as November, 1850, an attack was made upon Margaretta Fox, who was staying at West Troy in the house of a Mr. Bouton. A rough mob surrounded the premises, stones were thrown at the windows, and shots fired, whilst both men and women uttered threats and imprecations against the “unholy witch-woman within.” At one of the séances Dr. Kane, a famous Arctic explorer was present, and he was so fascinated by the beauty of Margaretta Fox that he never rested until he had taken her away from her sordid and harmful surroundings, had her educated at Philadelphia, and finally, much to the annoyance of his relations, who loathed any connexion with the Fox family, made her his wife.
Dr. Kane died soon after his marriage, but in the book published by his widow there are several references to his abhorrence of Spiritism. “Do avoid spirits,” he urges, “I cannot bear to think of you as engaged in a course of wickedness and deception.” For ten years Mrs. Kane did indeed abandon it; in fact in August, 1858, she was baptized as a Catholic at New York; but then,[101] owing perhaps to the pinch of poverty, she again took up work as a medium, and was received back with acclamations by the whole Spiritistic community. From that moment dates her steady deterioration, both physical and moral.
Kate Fox, Mrs. Jencken as she had become, the wife of a London barrister, was the mother of a baby whom popular talk credited with mediumistic powers of the most extraordinary kind. The whole Spiritistic following prophesied a brilliant future for the poor child, of whom, however, there is nothing recorded save that he was sadly neglected by his miserable mother, who died of chronic alcoholism in June, 1892. Mrs. Kane survived her sister for nine months, a pitiable and hopeless wreck, craving only for drink. The last few weeks of her life were spent in a derelict tenement house. “This wreck of womanhood has been a guest in palaces and courts. The powers of mind now imbecile were the wonder and the study of scientific men in America, Europe, and Australia.... The lips that utter little else now than profanity, once promulgated the doctrine of a new religion.”[102] It would, indeed, be difficult to conceive anything more sordid and more miserable than this sad and shocking story of utter degradation. The collapse and moral corruption of the first apostles of modern Spiritism should surely prove a timely warning and a danger signal not to be mistaken.[103]
In the earliest days of Spiritism the subject was investigated by men like Horace Greeley, William Lloyd Garrison, Robert Hare, professor of chemistry in the University of Pennsylvania, and John Worth Edmonds, a judge of the Supreme Court of New York State. Conspicuous among the spiritists we find Andrew Jackson Davis, whose work _The Principles of Nature_ (1847), dictated by him in trance, contained theories of the universe closely resembling those of the Swedenborgians. From America the movement filtered through to Europe, and when in 1852 two mediums, Mrs. Haydon and Mrs. Roberts, came to London, not merely popular interest but the careful attention of the leading scientists of the day was attracted. Robert Owen, the Socialist, frankly accepted the Spiritistic explanation of the various phenomena, while Professor De Morgan, the mathematician, in his account of a sitting with Mrs. Haydon declared himself convinced that “somebody or some spirit was reading his thoughts.” In the spring of 1855 Daniel Dunglas Home (Hume)—Home was the son of the eleventh Lord Home and a chambermaid at the Queen’s Hotel, Southampton, but was brought up in America—who was then a young man of twenty-two, crossed to England from America. In 1856 Home was received into the Church at Rome by Father John Etheridge, S.J., and he then gave a promise to refrain from all exercise of his mediumistic powers, but in less than a year he had broken his pledge and was living as before. This famous medium is almost the only one who, as even Podmore admits, was never clearly convicted of fraud. Sir David Brewster, the scientist, and Dr. J. J. Garth Wilkinson, a scholar of unblemished integrity and one of the leading homœopathic physicians, both avowed that they were incapable of explaining the phenomena they had witnessed by any natural means. It was in 1855 that the first English periodical dealing exclusively with the subject, _The Yorkshire Spiritual Telegraph_, was published at Keighley, in Yorkshire. In 1864 the Davenport brothers visited England, and in 1876 Henry Slade. Amongst English mediums the Rev. William Stainton Moses became prominent in 1872,[104] and about the same year Miss Florence Cook, so well known for the materializations of “Katie King,” which were scrupulously investigated by the late Sir William Crookes. In 1873 and in 1874, however, the trickery of two mediums, Mrs. Bassett and Miss Showers, was definitely exposed.[105] In 1876 and 1877 the sensitive “Dr.” Monck was at the height of his reputation, and both Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace, F.R.S., and the late Archdeacon Colley state that in various séances with him they witnessed on several occasions phenomena, including materialization, under rigid test conditions which admitted of no dispute as to their genuineness. It is true that in 1876 Monck had been in trouble and was sentenced to a term of imprisonment under the Vagrant Act. About the same time William Eglinton, who figures in Florence Marryat’s work _There is No Death_, appeared on the scenes and for a while loomed largely in the public eye. He became famous for his slate-writing performances as well as his materializations. He was, however, exposed by Archdeacon Colley, who during the discussion which had centred round a medium named Williams, detected in fraudulent practices during séances in Holland, wrote to _The Medium and Daybreak_ to say: “It unfortunately fell to me to take muslin and false beard from Eglinton’s portmanteau.... Some few days before this I had on two several occasions cut pieces from the drapery worn by, and clipped hair from the beard of, the other figure representing Abdullah. I have the pieces so cut off beard and muslin still. But note that when I took these things into my possession I and a medical gentleman (25 years a Spiritualist and well known to the old members of the Movement) found the pieces of muslin cut fit exactly into certain corresponding portions of the drapery thus taken.”[106]
The medium Slade, who was famous for slate-writing, was upon one occasion suddenly seized as he was about to put the slate under the table. His hands were held fast, and when the slate was snatched from him it was seen to be already covered with characters. Anna Rothe, who died in 1901, a medium well known for her apports of flowers, suffered a term of imprisonment in Germany on a charge of fraud. When Baily, the Australian sensitive, visited Italy he refused to sit under the strict conditions which were arranged in answer to a challenge of his powers. Charles Eldred of Clowne, an adept at materialization, employed a chair skilfully made with a double seat, and in this recess were discovered the whole paraphernalia he employed in his performances.
Mrs. Williams, an American medium, who for a long while was a centre of spiritistic attention at Paris, used to materialize a venerable doctor with a flowing beard who was sometimes accompanied by a young girl dressed in white. At one circle Mons. Paul Leymaric gave a prearranged signal. He and a friend each laid hold of one of the apparitions; a third spectator seized Mrs. Williams’ assistant; and a fourth turned on the lights. Mons. Leymaric was seen to be struggling with the medium, who had donned a grey wig and a long property beard; the young girl was a mask from which were draped folds of fine white muslin and which she manipulated with her left hand. Miller, a Californian medium, was more than suspected of producing spirits from gauze and nun’s veiling.[107] From one of the mediums of Mons. de Rochas, Valentine, there emanated mysterious lights, which moved quickly hither and thither during the séances. Colonel de Rochas, when this manifestation was once at its height, suddenly switched on a powerful electric torch and Valentine was seen to have slipped off his socks and to be waving in the air his feet, which were covered with some preparation of phosphorus.[108] As early as June, 1875, a photographer named Buguet was convicted of selling faked photographs of spirits by which he netted a very pretty sum.[109]
It is notorious that in Spiritistic séances and circles charlatanry and swindling of every kind are rife; that again and again mediums have been convicted of fraud; that not infrequently all kinds of properties, stuffed gloves, gauzes, yards of diaphanous muslin, invisible wires, hooks, beards, wigs, have been discovered; that the use of luminous paint is very effective and far from uncommon; that a sliding trap or panel may on occasion prove of inestimable service; that we must allow for self-deception, delusions, suggestion, hypnotism even; but when all has been said, when we candidly acknowledge the imposture, the adroit legerdemain, the conjurer’s clever tricks, the significant _mise en scène_, the verbal wit and quibbling, the deliberate and subtle cozenage contrived by shrewd minds and the full play of dramatic instinct and energy, nevertheless there yet remain numbers of instances when it has been repeatedly proven that acute and trained observers have witnessed phenomena which could not by any possibility whatsoever have been fraudulently produced; that clear-headed, cold-hearted, suspicious, hard men of science with every sense keenly alert at that very moment have conversed with, inspected, nay, actually handled, materialized forms and figures no personation could have devised and manifested.
The proceedings against Monck plainly showed that he had at any rate a firm belief in his own psychic powers, and although Eglinton was detected in a trick upon more than one occasion there is irrefutable evidence to prove that in other instances when he assisted at séances any normal mode of production of the phenomena seen there was quite impossible. A large number of Miller’s manifestations also were genuine.[110] The same may be said of very many mediums. This means, in fine, that although the manifestations of almost any medium may in some cases have been artificially contrived, such phenomena are not on any account to be adjudged _always_ fraudulent, and even if the charge of imposture could be brought home far more conclusively than has so far been possible as regards the majority of sensitives, yet it were a false inference indeed to deduce therefrom that all phenomena are equally fraudulent and devised. It is only the recklessly illogical mind and the loose thinker who will in the face of absolutely conclusive proof of genuine manifestations continue to maintain that a certain quota of quackery can invalidate the whole. Writers of the temper of Messrs. Edward Clodd, Joseph McCabe, J. M. Robertson must, of course, be expected to condemn Spiritism without knowing the facts or weighing the evidence as an obvious absurdity which calls for no serious refutation. But this, I think, matters little. The superstitious dogmatism of the materialist is gravely discredited nowadays. True, the sort of book he produces is widely circulated and very successful within certain limits. We should expect tenth-rate ideas which could only emanate from a lack of understanding, a total want of imagination, and no training in metaphysics or philosophy, to have a direct appeal to the immature intelligences, the uneducated vulgar and the blatant yet presumptuous ignorance, which alone are eager for this kind of outmoded fare.
In France Spiritism was first proclaimed by a pamphlet of Guillard _Table qui danse et Table qui répond_. The way had been long paved owing to the interest which was generally taken in the doctrines of Emanuel Swedenborg. Balzac had published in 1835 his esoteric hybrid _Séraphita_ (_Séraphitus_), a fanciful yet interesting work, in which there are many pages of theosophic philosophy. Perhaps he meant these seriously, but it is impossible to take them as other than flights of romance. In 1848 Cohognet more immediately heralded Guillard by publishing at Paris the first volume of his _Arcanes de la vie future devoilées_, which actually contains what purport to be communications from the dead. In 1853 séances were being held at Bourges, Strasburg, and Paris, and a regular furore ensued. Nothing was talked of but the wonders of Spiritism, which, however, soon met an opponent, Count Agénor de Gasparin, a Swiss Protestant, who carefully investigated table-turning with a circle of his friends and came to the conclusion that the phenomena originated in some physical force of the human body. It must be admitted that his _Des Tables Tournantes_ (Paris, 1854) is unconvincing and to some extent superficial, but more perhaps could hardly be expected from a pioneer in so tortuous an investigation. The Baron de Guldenstubbe, on the contrary, declared his firm belief in the reality of these phenomena and spirit intervention in general. His work _La Réalité des Esprits_ (Paris, 1857) eloquently argued for his convictions, whilst _Le Livre des Esprits_ (Paris, 1853) by M. Rivail or Rival, better known under his pseudonym Allan Kardec, became a world-wide textbook to the whole subject. In these early days the most distinguished men were wont to meet in the rue des Martyrs at Paris for séances. Tiedmen Marthèse, governor of Java; the academician Saint-René-Taillandier; Sardou, with his son; Flammarion; all were constant visitors. The notorious Home was, it is said, expelled from France after a séance at the Tuileries, during which he had touched the arm of the Empress with his naked foot, pretending that it was a caress from the tiny hands of a little child who was about fully to materialize. No one, I think, could be surprised to know that the famous Joris Karl Huysmans, an epicure in the byways of the occult, made many experiments in Spiritism, and séances were frequently held at No. 11 rue de Sèvres where he lived. Extraordinary manifestations took place, and upon one occasion at least the circle effected a materialization of General Boulanger, or an apparition of the General appeared to them.
At the present time Spiritism is as widely spread in France as in England, if indeed not far more widely. Thus _La Science de l’Ame_ is a new bi-monthly journal issued under the auspices of _La Revue Spirite_. It has articles on Magnetism and Radio-activity, the analysis of the soul, and vital radiations. In the number of _La Revue Spirite_, which commences the year 1925, Mons. Camille Flammarion prints a signed letter from Heliopolis, which describes a first experience of a séance, where the death of the writer’s father was predicted in six months and took place ten days after the allotted time. Elsewhere in the issue are
## particulars of the International Congress of Spiritism which was to be
held at Paris in September, 1925, and would be open to all Federations, Societies, and Groups everywhere. An immense concourse was expected. The President is Mr. George F. Berry, a well-known name in English Spiritistic circles, and the compliment of honorary membership is paid to Léon Denis,[111] Gabriel Delanne, Sir William Barrett, and Ernest Bozzano.
A glance at the pages of any Spiritistic journal in England will show almost endless activities in every direction. In one issue of the weekly _Light_ (Saturday, 21 February, 1925) we have amongst other announcements nine “Sunday’s Society Meetings” in various districts of London, with addresses on Wednesdays and Thursdays. The following seems sufficiently startling and a close enough imitation: “_St. Luke’s Church of the Spiritual Evangel of Jesus the Christ, Queen’s-road, Forest Hill, S.E._—Minister: Rev. J. W. Potter. February 22nd, 6.30, Service, Holy Communion and Address. Healing Service, Wed., Feb. 25th, 7 p.m.” In the next column are details of “Rev. G. Vale Owen’s Lecture Tour.” The “London Spiritualist Alliance, Ltd.” has a list of meetings. There are discussion classes and demonstrations of clairvoyance, psychometry, and Mystic Pictures. Among “Books that will Help you” we find _Talks with the Dead_, _Report on Spiritualism_, _The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ_—(is this used at St. Luke’s Church of the Spiritual Evangel?)—_Spirit Identity, Spiritualism_, and many more of similar import. There is a “British College of Psychic Science” where Mr. Horace Leaf, a medium of some repute, lectures on “The Psychology and Practice of Mediumship,” Mrs. Barker demonstrates Trance Mediumship, and Mrs. Travers Smith the Ouija-Board and Automatic Writing. There is a “London Spiritual Mission” and a “Wimbledon Spiritualist Mission.” At Brighton “St. John’s Brotherhood Church” provides “The Spiritual Evangel of Jesus the Christ,” “Minister, Brother John.” And all this is scarcely a tithe of the various announcements and advertisements.
However grotesque, and indeed often puerile in its bombast and grandiloquence, such a mass of heterogeneous notices may seem we must remember that these people are in deadly earnest, and I doubt not but their meetings and assemblies are well attended by enthusiastic devotees. In a report of an address by the Rev. G. Vale Owen at the “Spiritualist Community Services in the County Hall” on Sunday evening, 15 February, 1925, I read “all seats were filled long before the advertised hour for starting. The doors were closed and many for a time were denied admission. A little later they were allowed to enter and take up positions along the edges of the dais and other odd places about the hall.”[112] This, of course, was possibly some exceptional occasion, but there is no indication that such was the case. Mr. Vale Owen may be a very eloquent speaker and able to hold his audience spell-bound with the magic of his words. It must assuredly be his manner and not his matter, for his so-called revelations of the life beyond the grave, written under control and presumed to be directly derived from spirit agency, which appeared in _The Weekly Dispatch_ are vapid, inept, idle, and insipid to the last degree. Such banal ramblings would provoke a smile, were it not for the pity that any person can be so self-deluded, and can apparently induce others to give credit to his silliness.
There have been large numbers of mediums in recent years who owing to one cause or another attracted considerable attention from time to time, and there are many well-known contemporary sensitives widely practising to-day. Mrs. Verrall and Mrs. Holland, who were believed to have obtained spirit messages from the late F. W. H. Myers, occupied the serious attention of the Society of Psychical Research[113] for a considerable period; Mrs. Piper is an automatic writer of no little repute; Mr. Vout Peters specializes in psychometry and clairvoyance; Mr. Vearncombe and Mrs. Deane have recently enjoyed their full share of notoriety;[114] the Rev. Josie K. Stewart (Mrs. Y.), a lady hailing from the United States, has a gift for the production of “writing and drawings on cards held in her hand”; Mrs. Elizabeth A. Tomson, in spite of being detected of fraud at a Spiritistic “Church” in Brooklyn, still has devoted followers; Franek Kluski, Stella C., and Ada Besinnet, are in the forefront of American mediums; whilst the famous Goligher circle at Belfast was carefully and patiently investigated for no less than three months by Dr. Fournier d’Albe, who has published the result of his experiences.[115] The very cream of these occult manifestations is materialization, the most complex problem of all, which has been described as “the exercise of the power of using of the matter of the medium’s and the sitters’ bodies in the formation of physical structures on a principle totally unknown to ordinary life, although probably present there.”[116] Recently (1922) Erto, the Italian medium, appears to have been the subject of careful experiments at the French Metaphysical Institute during a period of several months, those who assisted being pledged to silence until a decision had been reached. The particular phenomena produced by or in his presence were chiefly characterized by the radiation of an extraordinary light about his person. At the end of 1922 two papers appeared in _La Revue Métapsychique_ on the part of Dr. Sanguinetti and Dr. William Mackenzie of Genoa indicating their assurance (1) that every scientific precaution had been taken, and (2) that the phenomena were genuine. However, the experiments seem to have continued and later there appeared in _Le Matin_ an enthusiastic contribution by Dr. Stephen Chauvet, which caused Dr. Gustave Geley, Director of the Metaphysical Institute, to come forward in confirmation of the testimony. It is only fair to add that immediately afterwards Dr. Geley to a certain extent retracted his statement, as he suggested that the psychic lights could be produced with _ferro-cerium_, and it was thought that traces of this substance could be found on Erto’s clothes. The medium protested his innocence of any deception, and offers himself for further experiments. A writer in _Psychica_ is inclined to believe that the phenomena were genuine, but that later some fraud may have been practised owing to waning power. This is possibly the case, for that the radiations were at first supernormal cannot, I think, be gainsaid in view of the high testimony adduced. For this phenomenon Mr. Cecil Hush and Mr. Craddock have sat repeatedly; of the extraordinary manifestations of the late Eusapia Palladino there can be no reasonable doubt at all; the materializations of Mlle “Eva Carrère,”[117] although on several occasions not altogether successful, are at other times supported by the strongest evidence; Nino Pecoraro, who is described as “a remarkably muscular young Neapolitan,” is famous for “ectoplasmic effects”; and Stanislava P., Willy S., the Countess Castelvicz, and very many more psychics possess these supernormal powers, although, as we might expect, they have to be used with the utmost caution and often prove very exhausting to the subject. After all, it must be remembered that probably under certain conditions materialization cannot take place, whilst under favourable conditions it can be completely effected. For an exhaustive and authoritative discussion of the whole matter the Baron Von Schrenck-Notzing’s _Phenomena of Materialization_ (Kegan Paul, 1923), should be consulted. The 225 photographic reproductions are of the utmost importance, whilst the investigations were carried on under conditions of such pitiless severity to eliminate any hypothesis of fraud that the mediums cannot but have been subjected to the intensest physical and moral strain.
Among recent psychic phenomena very general attention has been attracted by what is known as “The Oscar Wilde Script,” which was widely discussed in 1923-24. Briefly, this purports to be a number of communications which were delivered by the spirit of the late Oscar Wilde at the rate of 1020 words in an hour by means of automatic writing through the mediumship of Mrs. Travers Smith (Mrs. Hester M. Dowden)[118] and a certain Mr. V. True, there were published in _The Sunday Express_ pages which had a superficial resemblance to the more flashy characteristics of Wilde’s flamboyant style, but it seemed as if the wit and point had vanished, leaving only a somewhat heavy and imitative prose; one had a sense of damp fireworks, and personally I do not for a moment accept this script as being inspired or dictated by Wilde. I hasten to add that I do not suggest there was any conscious fraud or trickery on the part of those concerned; it is quite probable that these psychic messages were conveyed by some intelligence of no very high standing, and the result in fine is not of any value. It is said that a three act play is being or has been communicated through the ouija-board from what purports to be Wilde. This I have not read, and therefore I am not in a position to pronounce upon it.
Spiritism is upheld by many distinguished names. Sir Oliver Lodge, F.R.S., has battled on its behalf, as also have Sir William Barrett, F.R.S., and Sir William Crookes, F.R.S., Professors Charles Richet, Janet, Bernheim, Lombroso, and Flammarion lend it the weight of their authority, whilst Sir Conan Doyle has poured forth his benedictions upon occultism of every kind.[119] He has even presided over the opening of a most attractive bookshop in Victoria Street, Westminster, where Spiritistic publications are sold.
How then are we to regard this mighty movement at which it were folly to sneer, which it is impossible to ignore? The Catholic Church does neither. But none the less she condemns it utterly and entirely. Not because she disbelieves in it, but because she believes in it so thoroughly, because she knows what is the real nature of the moving forces, however skilfully they may disguise themselves, however quick and subtle their shifts and turns, the intelligences which inform and direct the whole. It is a painful subject since (I reiterate) many good people, no doubt many thoughtful seekers after truth, have been fascinated and swept along by Spiritism. They are as yet conscious of neither physical nor moral harm, and, it may be, they have been playing with the fire for years. Nay more, Spiritism has been a sweet solace to many in most poignant hours of bitter sorrow and loss; wherefore it is hallowed in their eyes by tenderest memories. They are woefully deceived. Hard as it may seem, we must get down to the bed-rock of fact. Spiritism has been specifically condemned on no less than four occasions by the Holy Office,[120] whose decree, 30 March, 1898, utterly forbids all Spiritistic practices although intercourse with demons be strictly excluded, and communication sought with good spirits only. Modern Spiritism is merely Witchcraft revived. The Second Plenary Council of Baltimore (1866), whilst making ample allowance for prestidigitation and trickery of every kind, warns the faithful against lending any support whatsoever to Spiritism and forbids them to attend séances even out of idle curiosity, for some, at least, of the manifestations must necessarily be ascribed to Satanic intervention since in no other manner can they be understood or explained.
NOTES TO CHAPTER VI
[1] E. de Rougé, _Étude sur une stèle Égyptienne_, Paris, 1858: E. A. W. Budge, _Egyptian Magic_, VII.
[2] _Rekh Khet_, “knower of things.”
[3] Euripides, _Bacchæ_: passim; Ovid, _Metamorphoses_, III. 513, _sqq._; Apollodorus, III. v. 2.; Hyginus, _Fabulæ_, 184; Nonnus, _Dionysiaca (Bassarica)_, XIV, 46.
[4] Sophocles, _Ajax_; Pindar, _Nemea_, VII, 25; Ovid, _Metamorphoses_, XIII, 1-398.
[5] Pausanias, III, xvi, 6.
[6] Valerius Maximus, I, 11, 5. Lacinium was a promontory on the east coast of Bruttium, a few miles south of Croton, and forming the western boundary of the Tarentine gulf. The remains of the temple of Juno Lacinia are still extant, and have given the modern name to the promontory, _Capo delle Colonne_ or _Capo di Nao_ (ναός).
[7] Xenophon, _Memorabilia_, II. i. 5; Demosthenes, XCIII, 24; Dinarchus, CI, 41; Plutarch, _Lucullus_, IV.
[8] Euripides, _Orestes_, l. 854, and l. 79.
[9] Cf. μάντις.
[10] Cf. Vergil _Æneid_, IV. 471-3:
Agamemnonius scænis agitatus Orestes armatam facibus matrem et serpentibus atris cum fugit, ultricesque sedent in limine Diræ.
(Or as the Atridan matricide Runs frenzied o’er the scene, What time with snakes and torches plied He flees the murdered queen, While at the threshold of the gate The sister-fiends expectant wait.)
[11] Plautus, _Amphitruo_, II. 2. 145. Nam hæc quidem edepol lauarum plenast.
[12]
Quid esset illi morbi, dixeras? Narra, senex. Num laruatus, aut cerritus? fac sciam.
_Menæchmei._ V. I, 2. Apuleuis has _laruans_ = a madman: “hunc [pulcherrimam Mercurii imaginem] denique qui laruam putat, ipse est laruans.” (_Laruatus_ is a poorer reading in this passage.) _Cerritus_, a rare word, is contracted from _cerebritus_ (_cerebrum_), and not connected with Ceres, as was formerly suggested. Cf. Horace, _Sermonum_, II, iii. 278.
[13] _Bibl._ III, v, 1.
[14] 471, _sqq._
[15] 56, Nauck.
[16]
τἀπιχώρἰ ἐν πόλει φρυγῶν τύμπανα, Ῥέας τε μητρὸς ἐμά θ’ εὑρήματα.
[17] _Circa_ 185-135 B.C.
[18] Professor Leuba, _The Psychology of Religious Mysticism_ Kegan Paul, London, 1925, p. 11 _sqq._ has some very important references to the worship of Dionysus.
[19]
σὺ γὰρ ἔνθεος, ὦ κούρα, εἴτ’ ἐκ Πανὸς εἴθ’ Ἑκάτας ἢ σεμνῶν Κορυβάντων φοιτᾷς, ἢ ματρὸς ὀρείας.
[20]
δόξασά που ἢ Πανὸς ὀργὰς ἢ τινὸς θεῶν μολεῖν.
[21]
ἀλλ’ ἦ Κρονίου Πανὸς τρομερᾷ μάστιγι φοβεῖ;
[22] Pythagoras prescribes music for mental disorders, Eunapius _Uita philosophurum_, 67; and Cælius Aurelianus by his references shows that this was a common remedy in such cases, _De Morbis Chronicis (Tardarum Passionum)_ VI. Origen, _Aduersus Celsum_, III, x, and Martianus Capella _De Nuptiis Philologiæ et Mercurii_ IX, 925, have similar allusions.
[23] 1 Kings xvi. 14 (A.V. 1 Samuel xvi. 14): “Exagitabat eum [Saul] spiritus nequam a Domino.”
[24] _Antiquitates Iud._, VI, viii, 2; ii, 2.
[25] _La Mystique Divine_, Ribet, II, ix, 4, it is true, speaks of “l’obsession intérieure,” but he makes the above distinction, and further says: “L’obsession purement intérieure ne diffère des tentations ordinaires que par la véhémence et la durée.”
[26] Multæ sunt tentationes eius, et die noctuque uariæ dæmonum insidiæ.... Quoties illi nudæ mulieres cubanti, quoties esurienti largissimæ apparuere dapes? _Uita S. Hilarionis._ VII. Migne. vol. XXIII. col. 32.
[27] Sustinebat miser diabolus uel mulieris formam noctu induere, feminæque gestus imitari, Antonium ut deciperet. S. Athanasius, _Uita S. Antonii_, V. Migne. vol. XXVI. col. 847.
[28] Feast (duplex maius apud Minores), 22 February.
[29] It may perhaps not be amiss to point out that S. Margaret before her conversion was by no means the woman of scandalous life so many biographers have painted her.
[30] Sectando per cellam orantis et flentis, cantauit [diabolus] turpissimas cantationes, et Christi famulam lacrymantem et se Domino commendantem procaciter inuocabat ad cantum ...; tentantem precibus et lacrymis repulit ac eiecit. Bollandists, 22 February. Vol. VI.
[31] Ceterum consilium est semper de talibus inuasionibus suspicionem habere, non enim negandum maiorem earum partem esse aut fictiones, aut imaginationes, aut infirmitates, præsertim in mulieribus. _Praxis confessariorum_, n. 120.
[32] Sæpissime, quæ putantur dæmonis obsessiones, non sunt nisi morbi naturales, aut Naturales imaginationes, uel etiam inchoata aut perfecta amentia. Quare caute omnino procedendum, usquedum per specialissima signa de obsessione constet. _Theologia mystica_, I. n. 228.
[33] _Biblisches Realworterbuch_, Leipsig, 1833.
[34] This word is found nowhere else in the New Testament, and wherever it is used in the LXX, it is invariably of the sayings of lying prophets, or those who practised arts forbidden by the Jewish Law. Thus of the witch of Endor (1 Kings (1 Samuel) xxviii. 8) μάντευσαι δή μοι ἐν τῷ ἐγγαστριομύθῳ, and (Ezechiel xiii. 6) βλέπουτες ψευδῆ, μαντευόμενοι μάταια.
[35] Ordinandi, filii charissimi, in officium Exorcistarum, debitis noscere quid suscipitis. Exorcistam etenim oportet abiicere dæmones; et dicere populo, ut, qui non communicat, det locum; et aquam in ministerio fundere. Accipitis itaque potestatem imponendi manum super energumenos, et per impositionem manuum uestrarum, gratia spiritus sancti, et uerbis exorcismi pelluntur spiritus immundi a corporibus obsessis. Studete igitur, ut, sicut a corporibus aliorum dæmones expellitis, ita a mentibus, et corporibus uestris omnem immunditiam, et nequitiam eiiciatis; ne illis succumbatis, quos ab aliis, uestro ministerio, effugatis. Discite per officium uestrum uitiis imperare; ne in moribus uestris aliquid sui iuris inimicus ualeat uindicare. Tunc etenim recte in aliis dæmonibus imperabitis, cum prius in uobis eorum multimodam nequitiam superatis. Quod nobis Dominus agere concédât per Spiritum suum sanctum.
[36] Accipite, et commendate memoriæ, et habete potestatem imponendi manus super energumenos, siue baptizatos, siue catechumenos.
[37] Deum Patrem omnipotentem, fratres charissimi, supplices deprecamur, ut hos famulos suos bene ✠ dicere dignetur in officium Exorcistarum; ut sint spirituales imperatores, ad abiiciendos dæmones de corporibus obsessis, cum omni nequitia eorum multiformi. Per unigenitum Filium suum Dominum nostrum Iesum Christum, qui cum eo uiuit et regnat in unitate Spiritus sancti Deus, per omnia sæcula sæculorum. _R._ Amen.
[38] Domine sancte, Pater omnipotens, æterne Deus, bene ✠ dicere dignare hos famulos tuos in officium Exorcistarum; ut per impositionem manuum, et oris officium, potestatem, et imperium habeant spiritus immundos coercendi: ut probabiles sint medici Ecclesiæ tuæ, gratia curationum uirtuteque cœlesti confirmati. Per Dominum nostrum Iesum Christum Filium tuum, qui tecum uiuit, et regnat in unitate Spiritus sancti Deus, per omnia sæcula sæculorum. _R._ Amen. _Post hæc, suggerente Archidiacono, redeunt ad loca sua._
[39] Sulpitius Severus (d. 420-5) in his _Dialogues_, III (II), 6; (Migne, _Patres Latini_, XX, 215) tells us that S. Martin of Tours was wont to cast out demons by prayer alone without the imposition of hands or the use of the formulæ recommended to the clergy. Similar instances occur in the lives of the Saints.
[40] Translated from the _Rituale Romanum_. There are several forms extant, some authorized, but more, perhaps, unauthorized. There is an authorized form in the Greek _Euchologion_. It commences with the Trisagion, and Psalms, _Domine exaudi_ (cxlii.), _Dominus regit me_ (xxii.), _Dominus illuminatio mea_ (xxvi.), _Esurgat Deus_ (lxvii.), _Miserere_ (lvi.), _Domine ne in furore_ (vi.), _Domine exaudi orationem_ (ci.). Then follows the Consolatory Canon, with a long Hymn addressed to Our Lord, Our Lady, and All Saints. Next the priest anoints the patient, saying a prayer over him, and so the office closes.
[41] It is also given in the _Horæ Diurnæ O.P._, Rome, 1903, where an indulgence of 300 days is attached, plenary once a month.
[42] Ab insidiis diaboli, libera nos Domine; Ut Ecclesiam tuam secura tibi facias libertate seruire, te rogamus, audi nos; Ut inimicos sanctæ Ecclesiæ humiliare digneris, te rogamus, audi nos. _Et aspergatur locus aqua benedicta._
[43] Holy water, the commonest of the sacramentals, is a mixture of exorcised salt and exorcised water.
[44] Of Eastern origin. It should be remembered that the Baptism of Christ in Jordan is commemorated on the Epiphany. In the present Breviary office in Nocturn I the first response for the day, the Octave, and the Sunday within the Octave deal with the Baptism, as does the second response. The antiphon to the Benedictus and the Magnificat antiphon at Second Vespers also make mention of the same mystery. In Rome the Latin rite of the Blessing of the Waters is pontificated by a Cardinal at S. Andrea della Valle on 5 January, about 3.30 p.m., at the church of the Stimmate of S. Francesco at 9.30 a.m. on the Feast itself. On the Vigil the Oriental rite is performed at the Greek church of S. Atanasio, beginning about 3.30 a.m.
[45] See Wilson, _Western Africa_; and the article “Possession diabolique” by Waffelaert in the _Dictionnaire apologétique de la foi catholique_, Paris, 1889. The opinion of the Cistercian Dom Robert de la Trappe (Dr. Pierre-Jean-Corneille Debreyne), who, whilst acknowledging that the demoniac possessions as detailed in the New Testament are _de fide_, supposes that all other cases are to be attributed to fraud or disease, must be severely censured as regrettably rash and even culpable. _Essai sur la théologie morale_, IV. p. 356.
[46] S. Justin. Martyr, _Apologia_, VI; _Dialogues_, XXX, LXXXV: Minutius Felix, _Octavius_, XXVII; Origen, _Contra Celsum_, I, 25; VII, 4, 67: Tertullian, _Apologia_, XXII, XXIII.
[47] Paulinus, _Uita Ambrosii_, 28, 43.
[48] S. Gregory of Nyssa, _De Uita Ephraem_.
[49] Upon this passage Servatius Galle (1627-1709), a Dutch minister at Haarlem, in his edition of Lactantius, 1660, writes the most absurd note I have ever met with in any commentator.
[50] Published between 304-313. De Labriolle, _Histoire de la Littérature Latine Chrétienne_, p. 272.
[51] A very full and scholarly monograph upon this subject may be recommended: _La Réalité des Apparitions Démoniaques_, by Dom Bernard-Marie Maréchaux, Olivetan, O.S.B., Paris, Téqui, 1899.
[52] It is true that on one occasion S. Maurus, who was with S. Benedict, beheld an apparition, and S. Benedict once enabled a monk to see a similar vision.
[53] One of Sodoma’s exquisite frescoes at Monte Oliveto (Siena) depicts an exorcism by S. Benedict.
[54] The letters have been thus translated by Dom Benedict McLaughlin of Ampleforth:
Holy Cross be thou my light, Put the evil one to flight. Behind me Satan speedily, Whisper not vain things to me. You can give but evil, then Keep it for yourself. Amen.
[55] All English Benedictine priests hold the special faculty to use this (bestowed 23 February, 1915), and it has also been granted to many others, religious and seculars.
[56] Omnis virtus aduersarii, omnis exercitus diaboli, et omnis incursus, omnis phantasma Satanæ, eradicate et effugare ab his numismatibus....
[57] Domine Iesu Christe ... per hanc tuam sanctissimam passionem humiliter exoro; ut omnes diabolicas insidias et fraudes expellas ab eo, qui nomen sanctum tuum, his litteris ac characteribus a te designatis, deuote inuocauerit, et eum ad salutis portum perducere digneris. Qui uiuis et régnas....
[58] The _Rituale Romanum_ has “Benedictio Infirmorum cum Ligno SS. Crucis, D.N.J.C. _seu_ Signum S. Mauri Abbatis.” This is a blessing of the sick with a Relic of the Holy Cross and the invocation of S. Benedict and S. Maurus.
[59] The _Uita S. Mauri_ (Mabillon, _Acta S.S. O. S.B._, I, 274) is ascribed to a companion, the monk Faustus of Monte Cassino. Père Delehaye, in his unfortunate and temerarious work _Légendes Hagiographiques_ (translation. London, 1907), indecorously attacks this and treats S. Maurus with scant respect. A worthy defence was made by Adlhoch, _Stud. u. Mittheil._, 1903, 3; 1906, 185. According to Peter the Deacon he also wrote a _Cantus ad B. Maurum_.
[60] Blessed Victor III. _Dialogues_, I, 2.
[61] Abbé Lebeuf. _Histoire du diocèse de Paris_, V. 129 _sqq._
[62] Portraits of him are preserved at Rome and Valladolid.
[63] A hearty believer in witchcraft. He had sent at least one witch to the gallows, and another to prison.
[64] Apparently the work of Darrel himself, but in the Huth catalogue (V, 1643) ascribed to James Bamford.
[65] Darrel in his _Detection of that sinnful, shamful, lying, and ridiculous discours of Samuel Harshnet_, 1600, writes: “There is no doubt but that S.H. stand for Samuell Harsnet, chapline to the Bishop of London, but whither he alone, or his lord and hee, have discovered this counterfeyting and cosonage there is the question. Some think the booke to be the Bishop’s owne doing: and many thinke it to be the joynt work of them both.”
[66] On 10 November, 1629, he was sworn of the Privy Council.
[67] Whence Shakespeare derived the names of various evil spirits whom Edgar mentions in _King Lear_.
[68] I do not conceive that at the present time many, if any, Bishops of the Church of England would license exorcism. Certainly the more scientifically minded and modernistic Lords Spiritual of the Anglican bench have rid themselves of such an idle superstition. How they would explain Our Blessed Lord’s words and actions I do not pretend to know, but I suppose that according to their wider knowledge Christ—_sit uenia uerbis_—was mistaken in this as in other particulars.
[69] _Colloquia Mensalia_, passim.
[70] It is difficult to see how the teachings of such a Protestant leader as Gaspar von Schwenckfeld (1489-90—1561) are anything save tantamount to mere personal morality and a vague individual pietism. A critical edition of his numerous works is in course of publication under the editorship of Hartranft, Schlutter, and Johnson: _Corpus Schwenckfeldianorum_, I, Leipzig, 1907.
[71] Parker’s _Correspondence_, Parker Society, Cambridge, 1856, pp. 465-6.
[72] By vomiting pins and straws they had made many believe that they were bewitched, but the tricks were soon found out and they were compelled to public penance at S. Paul’s. There is a black letter pamphlet _The discloysing of a late counterfeyted possession by the devyl in two maydens within the Citie of London_ [1574], which describes this case. See also Holinshed, _Chronicles_ (ed. London, 1808), IV, 325, and Stow _Annales_, London, 1631, p. 678. But the fact that there are malingerers does not mean there are none sick.
[73] _Marie Glover’s late woefull case.... A defence of the truthe against D. J. his scandalous Impugnations_, British Museum, Sloane MSS., 831. Sinclar, _Satan’s Invisible World Discovered_, Edinburgh, 1685, Relation XII quotes an account of Mary Glover from Lewis Hughes’ _Certaine Grievances_ (1641-2); and hence Burton, _The Kingdom of Darkness_, and Hutchinson, _Historical Essay concerning Witchcraft_, both assign a wrong date (1642) to the occurrence.
[74] Enlarged edition, 1720.
[75] _The Other World_, London, 1875, I, pp. 59-69. The incident is narrated by Fortescue Hitchins, _The History of Cornwall_, Helston, 1824, II, pp. 548-51; and also in fuller detail by the Rev. R. S. Hawker, _Footprints of Former Men in Far Cornwall_, London, 1870, who quotes from Ruddle’s MS. Diary.
[76] Six miles north of S. Columb and three miles due south from Padstow.
[77] A full and documented account of these strange happenings may be found in _Lucifer, or the True Story of the Famous Diabolic Possession in Alsace_, London, 1922, with the Imprimatur of the Bishop of Brentwood. Compiled from original documents by the abbé Paul Sutter and translated by the Rev. Theophilus Borer.
[78] Jesus ... comminatus est spiritui immundo, dicens illi: Surde et mute spiritus, Ego præcipio tibi, exi ab eo: et amplius ne introcas in eum. _Euan. sec. Marcum._ IX. 25.
[79] 1726-1755. This great Saint was then Venerable; he was beatified by Leo XIII, 29 January, 1893, and canonized by Pius X, 11 December, 1903. His feast is kept on 16 October.
[80] Peter Paul Stumpf succeeded Andreas Räss as Bishop of Strasburg, 1887-1890.
[81] _Une Possédée Contemporaine_ (1834-1914). _Hélène Poirier de Coullons_ (_Loiret_). Paris, Téqui, 1924. An ample study, profusely documented, of 517 pages, edited by M. le Chanoine Champault of the diocese of Orleans.
[82] A partir de cette époque, la vie d’Hélène s’écoulera au milieu de souffrances physiques et morales si grandes, que dans sa bouche les plaintes de Job ne seraient point déplacées.
[83] Mr. G. R. S. Mead, however, in this connexion not impertinently recalls the “controlling” of members of the Shaker communities by what purported to be spirits of North American Indians. This was prior to 1848.
[84] Ses souffrances physiques et morales, commencées le 25 mars, 1850, se poursuivirent jusqu’à sa mort, 8 janvier, 1914, soit pendant soixante-quatre ans. Toutefois les vexations diaboliques cessèrent vers la fin de 1897. Ces vexations durèrent donc près de quarante-sept années, dont six de possession.
[85] Du 25 mars, 1850, au courant de mars, 1868, Hélène _fut seulement obsédée. Cette obsession dura donc 18 années_. Au bout de ce temps et pendant 13 _mois_ elle fut _obsédée et possédée tout ensemble_.
De I’obsession et de la possession elle fut complètement délivrée par les exorcismes officiels, à Orléans, le 19 avril, 1869.
Suivirent quatre mois de tranquillité, jusqu’au recommencement volontaire et généreux de ses peines.
A la fin d’août, 1869, elle accepta de la main de Notre Seigneur les tourments d’une nouvelle obsession et possession afin d’obtenir la conversion du célèbre général Ducrot. La conversion obtenue, elle fut délivrée à Lourdes le 3 septembre, 1875, par les prières des 15,000 pèlerins qui s’y trouvaient réunis. _Obsession et possession renouvelées_ avaient duré cinq ans.
Plus jamais, pendant les quarante ans qu’elle avait encore à vivre, elle ne fut possédée; mais elle continua à être obsédée tantôt plus, tantôt moins. Les souffrances de toutes sortes, qu’elle endura alors, eurent pour but d’obtenir le salut et le triomphe du clergé.
Quant aux raisons et au but des premières persécutions diaboliques qu’elle subit pendant dix-neuf ans et dont elle fut délivrée par les exorcismes officiels, ils sont restés inconnus. _Une Possédée Contemporaine_ (1834-1914), pp. 171-2.
[86] A fragment of the soutane of this most holy Pontiff was taken to Hélène and during one of her fits placed upon her forehead. At the contact she cried out: “Le Pape est un saint, oui un grand saint.” (The Pope is a Saint, truly a great Saint!)
[87] Pour y être admis, il faut apporter une ou plusiers hosties consacrées, les remettre au démon qui, sous forme corporelle ou visible, préside l’assemblée. Il faut les profaner d’une manière horrible, adorer le démon lui-même et commettre avec lui et les autres sociétaires les actes d’impudicité les plus révoltants. Trois villes: Paris, Rome, et Tours sont les sièges de cette société infernale.
[88] La seconde possession fut plus terrible que la première. 1ᵉ: Par la durée; la première fut de treize mois, la seconde de cinq ans. 2ᵉ: La première fut adoucie par de nombreuses consolations surnaturelles; la seconde très peu. 3ᵉ: Les dévices abondèrent dans la première; dans la seconde les avanies morales l’emportèrent de beaucoup sur les avanies physiques. _Une Possédée Contemporaine_ (1834-1914), p. 405.
[89] _Spirit Possession_, Henry M. Hugunin, published in Sycamore, Ill., U.S.A.
[90] One should note the implication that science and faith are opposed. Dr. Wilfred T. Grenfell pointedly comments: “This question seems inept. To me the terms are not in antithesis, i.e. logical _v._ spiritual.”
[91] Edited by Huntly Carter. Fisher Unwin, 1920.
[92] Whose contribution, _From Non-Religion to Religion_, opens with the following ineptitude: “I think that the renewal of Spiritualism is mainly due to a real increase in our knowledge of psychical facts.” This phrase could only have been written by one wholly ignorant of mystical theology, and, it would seem, of historical Christianity.
[93] _Spiritualism, Its Present-Day Meaning_, p. 258.
[94] _Idem_, p. 269.
[95] _Idem_, pp. 270-1.
[96] _Idem_, p. 245.
[97] _Idem_, p. 206.
[98] _Idem_, pp. 206-7.
[99] _Idem_, p. 205. The words are those of Father Bernard Vaughan.
[100] “Seventeen Elementary Facts concerning Spiritualism.” _Light_, 21 February, 1925. Here we also have the frank avowal: “Modern Spiritualism is only a revival of phenomena and experiences that were well known in ancient times.” It should be remarked that similar phenomena, believed to be a genuine case of haunting, occurred at the house of Mr. Samuel Wesley, at Epworth, Lincolnshire, in 1716, and attracted universal attention. It is said that the knockings at the house of Parsons, Cock Lane, West Smithfield, in 1760, were proved to be fraud, but I do not know that the case has ever been candidly studied.
[101] She took part in a séance on 25 October, 1860, but this seems to have been exceptional.
[102] _Washington Daily Star_, 7 March, 1893, quoted in _The Medium and the Daybreak_, 7 April, 1893.
[103] In the “educational” primers prepared by certain spiritists for use by children the story of the Fox Sisters is told in glowing colours to a point, but the history of their downfall is suppressed.
[104] He died at Bedford, 5 September, 1892. His control was the spirit Imperator, who claimed to be the prophet Malachias. For a very full biography see Arthur Lillie’s _Modern Mystics and Modern Magic_. London. 1894.
[105] For Mrs. Bassett see _The Medium_, 11 April and 18 April, 1873, pp. 174 and 182; for Miss Showers, _The Medium_, 8 May and 22 May, pp. 294 and 326.
[106] _Medium and Daybreak_, 15 November, 1878, p. 730.
[107] _L’Eclair_, 6 April, 1909.
[108] Dr. Grasset, _L’Occultisme_, pp. 56, _sqq._; p. 424.
[109] _Procès des Spirites_, 8vo. Paris. 1875.
[110] _La Revue Spirite_ and _L’Echo du Mentalisme_, Nov., 1908.
[111] Who apparently believes that Spiritism is authorized by the Scriptures, and that many of the prophets, nay, even Our Divine Lord Himself, were but mediums.
[112] _Light._ Saturday, 21 February, 1925, p. 89.
[113] Organized in 1882 for the scientific examination of “debatable phenomena.”
[114] See the Report presented 11 May, 1922, and published by The Magic Circle, Anderton’s Hotel, Fleet Street.
[115] _The Goligher Circle, May to August, 1921._ Experiences of E. E. Fournier d’Albe, D.SC. London, Watkins, 1922.
[116] _The Classification of Psychic Phenomena_, by W. Loftus Hare. _The Occult Review_, July, 1924, p. 38.
[117] Her real name appears to be Marthe Béraud. Professor Richet is satisfied that in his experiments with this medium at the Villa Carmen (Algiers) in 1905 genuine materialization was effected.
[118] Who, as noted above, specializes in the Ouija-Board and Automatic Writing.
[119] He has written such works as _The New Revelation_, and compiled _The Spiritualists’ Reader_, “A Collection of Spirit Messages from many sources, specially prepared for Short Readings.”
[120] In all of whose documents the distinction is clearly drawn between legitimate scientific investigation and superstitious abuses.
## CHAPTER VII
THE WITCH IN DRAMATIC LITERATURE
The English theatre, in common with every other form of the world’s drama, had a religious, or even more exactly a liturgical, origin. At the Norman Conquest as the English monasteries began to be filled with cultured French scholars there is evidence that Latin dialogues, the legends of saints and martyrs, something after the fashion of Hrotsvitha’s comedies, which we do not imagine to have been a unique phenomenon, found their way here also, and from recitation to the representation of these was an easy and indeed inevitable step. For it is almost impossible to declaim without appropriate action. From the very heart of the liturgy itself arose the Mystery Play.
The method of performing these early English guild plays has been frequently and exactly described, and I would only draw attention to one feature of the movable scaffold which passed from station to station, that is the dark cavern at the side of the last of the three sedes, Hell-mouth. No pains were spared to make this as horrible and realistic as might be. Demons with hideous heads issued from it, whilst ever and anon lurid flames burst forth and dismal cries were heard. Thus the Digby S. Mary Magdalen play has the stage-direction: “a stage, and Helle ondyrneth that stage.” At Coventry the Cappers had a “hell-mouth” for the Harrowing of Hell, and the Weavers another for Doomsday. This was provided with fire, a windlass, and a barrel for the earthquake. In the stage-directions to Jordan’s Cornish Creation of the World Lucifer descends to hell “apareled fowle wᵗʰ fyre about hem” and the place is filled with “every degre of devylls of lether and spirytis on cordis.” Among the “establies” required for the Rouen play of 1474 was “Enfer fait en maniere d’une grande gueulle se cloant et ouvrant quant besoing en est.” The last stage-direction of the _Sponsus_, a liturgical play from Limoges,—assigned by M. M. W. Cloetta and G. Paris to the earlier half of the twelfth century—which deals with the Wise and Foolish Virgins runs as follows: “_Modo accipiant eas [fatuas uirgines] dæmones et præcipitentur in infernum_.”
The Devil himself is one of the most prominent characters in the Mystery, the villain of the piece. So the York cycle commences with _The Creation and the Fall of Lucifer_. Whilst the Angels are singing “Holy, Holy, Holy” before the throne of God, Satan appears exulting in his pride to be cast down speedily into hell whence he howls his complaint beginning “Owte, owte! harrowe!” There is a curious incident in the episode of the Dream of Pilate’s wife. Whilst she sleeps Satan whispers in her ear the vision which moves her to try to stay the condemnation of Jesus whereby mankind is to be redeemed. The last play of the York cycle is the _Day of Judgement_.
In like manner the Towneley cycle opens with _The Creation_, and presently we have the stage-direction _hic deus recedit à suo solio & lucifer sedebit in eodem solio_. The scene soon shifts to hell when we hear the demons reproaching Lucifer for his pride. After the creation of Adam and Eve follows Lucifer’s lament. In the long episode of _Doomsday_ a number of demons appear and are kept inordinately busy.
The Devil was represented as black, with goat’s horns, ass’s ears, cloven hoofs, and an immense phallus. He is, in fact, the Satyr of the old Dionysiac processions, a nature-spirit, the essence of joyous freedom and unrestrained delight, shameless if you will, for the old Greek knew not shame. He is the figure who danced light-heartedly across the Aristophanaic stage, stark nude in broad midday,[1] animally physical, exuberant, ecstatic, crying aloud the primitive refrain, Φαλῆς, ἑταῖρε Βακχίου, ξύγκωμε, νυκτεροπλάνητε, μοιχε, παιδεραστά, (Phales, boon mate of Bacchus, joyous comrade in the dance, wanton wanderer o’ nights, fornicating Phales), in a word he was Paganism incarnate, and Paganism was the Christian’s deadliest foe; so they took him, the Bacchic reveller, they smutted him from horn to hoof, and he remained the Christian’s deadliest foe, the Devil.[2]
It was long before the phallic demon was banished the stage, for strange as it may seem, positive evidence exists that he was known there as late as Shakespeare’s day. In 1620 was published in London by Edward Wright _A Courtly Masque: The Deuice called, The World tost at Tennis_. “As it hath beene diuers times Presented to the Contentment of many Noble and Worthy Spectators: By the Prince his Seruants.” It was “Inuented and set downe by Tho: Middleton, Gent, and William Rowley, Gent.” The title-page presents a rough engraving of the various characters in this masque, doubtless from a sketch made at the actual performance. Outside the main group stands a hideous black figure “The Diuele,” who made his appearance towards the end to take part in the last dance, furnished with horns, hoofs, talons, tail, and a monstrous phallus. It may be remarked that these horns are prominent on the goat-like head (a clear satyr) of the Devil in _Doctor Faustus_ as depicted on the title-page of the Marlovian quarto. A phallus, to which reference is made in the text, was also worn by the character dressed up as the monkey (_Bavian_) in the May-dance
## scene in Shakespeare & Fletcher’s _The Two Noble Kinsman_, Act III, 5,
1613. It is worth remembering that troops of phallic demons formed a standing characteristic of the old German carnival comedy. Moreover, several of the grotesque types of the Commedia dell’ arte in the second decade of the seventeenth century were traditionally equipped in like manner.[3] That the Devil was so represented in the English theatre is important. It gives us the popular idea of the Prince of Evil, and incidentally throws a side-light upon much of the grotesque and obscene evidence in the contemporary witch-trials.
In Skelton’s lost _Nigramansir_ one of the stage directions is stated to have been “Enter Balsebub with a beard,” no doubt the black vizard with an immense goatish beard familiar to the old religious drama. Presumably the chief use of the Necromancer, who gives his name to this play, was indeed but to speak the Prologue which summons the Devil who buffets and kicks him for his pains. However, we only know the play from Warton, who describes it as having been shown him by William Collins, the poet, at Chichester, about 1759. He says: “It is the Nigramansir, a morall _Enterlude_ and a pithie, written by Maister Skelton laureate, and plaid before the King and other estatys at Woodstoke on Palme Sunday. It was printed by Wynkyn de Worde in a thin quarto, in the year 1504. It must have been presented before Henry VII, at the royal manor or palace at Woodstock in Oxfordshire, now destroyed. The characters are a Necromancer or conjurer, the devil, a notary public, Simony, and Philargyria or Avarice. It is partly a satire on some abuses in the Church.... The story, or plot, is the trial of Simony and Avarice.” Beyond what Warton tells us nothing further is known of the play. Ritson, _Bibliographia Poetica_, 106, declared: “it is utterly incredible that the _Nigramansir_ ... ever existed.” It has been shown, too, that Warton as a literary historian is not infrequently suspect, and E. G. Duff, _Hand Lists of English Printers_, can trace no extant copy of this “morall _Enterlude_.”
In the English moralities the Devil plays an important part, and, as in their French originals or analogues, he is consistently hampering and opposing the moral purpose or lesson which the action of these compositions is designed to enforce. In the later English plays also which evolved with added regularity from these interludes the Devil is always a popular character. He is generally attended by the Vice, who although in some sort a serving-man or jester in the fiend’s employ, devotes his time to twitting, teazing, tormenting, and thwarting his master for the edification, not unmixed with fun, of the audience. In _The Castell of Perseverance_ Lucifer appears shouting in good old fashion “Out herowe I rore,” just as he was wont to announce himself in the Mysteries, and he is wearing his “devil’s array” over the habit of a “prowde galaunt.” Wever’s _Lusty Juventus_ has unmistakable traces of the slime of the evil days of Edward VI, in whose reign it was written, and when the Devil calls Hipocrisy to his aid we are prepared for a flood of empty but bitter abuse which embodies the sour Puritan hatred against the Catholic Church, and towards the end, under the misnomer God’s Merciful Promises, we are not surprised to meet a tiresome old gentleman who cantingly expounds the doctrine of Justification by Faith.
In the interlude to which Collier has assigned the name _Mankind_ Mischief summons to her aid the fiend Titivillus, who had appeared in the _Judicium_ of the Towneley Mysteries. Once the Devil’s registrar and tollsman, he is best known as “Master Lollard.” According to a silly old superstition Titivillus was an imp whose business it was to pick up the words any priest might drop and omit whilst saying Mass.
When we pass to the beginnings of the regular drama we find an extremely interesting play that introduces, if not magic, at least fortune-telling, John Lyly’s “Pleasant Conceited Comedie” _Mother Bombie_, acted by the children of Paul’s and first printed in 1594. Although the plot is of the utmost complexity and artificiality it does not seem to be derived, as are most of Lyly’s stories, from any classical or pseudo-classical source, whilst the cunning old woman of Rochester, who supplies the title, has in fact little to say or do, except that her intervention helps to bring about the unravelling of a perfect maze and criss-cross of incidents. When Selena addresses the beldame with “They say, you are a witch,” Mother Bombie quickly retorts “They lie, I am a cunning woman,” a passage not without significance.
Upon a very different level from Lyly’s play stands Marlowe’s magnificent drama _The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus_. The legend of a man who sells his soul to the Devil for infinite knowledge and absolute power seems to have crystallized about the sixth century, when the story of _Theophilus_ was supposed to have been related in Greek by his pupil Eutychianus. Of course, every warlock had bartered his soul to Satan, and throughout the whole of the Middle Ages judicial records, the courts of the Inquisition, to say nothing of popular knowledge, could have told of a thousand such. But this particular legend seems to have captured the imagination of both Western and Eastern Christendom; it is met with in a variety of forms; it was introduced into the collections of Jacopo à Voragine; it found its way into the minstrel repertory through Rutebeuf, a French _trouvère_ of the thirteenth century; it reappeared in early English narrative and in Low-German drama. Icelandic variants of the story have been traced. It was made the subject of a poem by William Forrest, priest and poet, in 1572; and it also formed the material for two seventeenth-century Jesuit “comedies.”
That the original Faust was a real personage,[4] a wandering conjurer and medical quack, who was well known in the south-west of the German Empire, as well as in Thuringia, Saxony, and the adjoining countries somewhere between the years 1510-1540, does not now admit of any serious doubt. Philip Begardi, a physician of Worms, author of an _Index Sanitatis_ (1539), mentions this charlatan, many of whose dupes he personally knew. He says that Faust was at one time frequently seen, although of later years nothing had been heard of him. It has indeed been suggested the whole legend originated in the strange history of Pope S. Clement I and his father Faustus, or Faustinianus, as related in the _Recognitions_, which were immensely popular throughout the Middle Ages. But Melanchthon knew a Johannes Faustus born at Knütlingen, in Wurtemberg, not far from his own home, who studied magic at Cracow, and afterwards “roamed about and talked of secret things.” There was a doctor Faustus in the early part of the sixteenth century, a friend of Paracelsus and Cornelius Agrippa, a scholar who won an infamous reputation for the practice of necromancy. In 1513 Conrad Mutt, the Humanist, came across a vagabond magician at Erfurt named Georgius Faustus Hermitheus of Heidelberg. Trithemius in 1506, met a Faustus junior whose boast it was that if all the works of Plato and Aristotle were burned he could restore them from memory. It seems probable that it was to the Dr. Faustus, the companion of Paracelsus and Cornelius[5] Agrippa, that the legend became finally and definitely attached. The first literary version of the story was the _Volksbuch_, which was published by Johann Spies in 1587, at Frankfort-on-the-Main, who tells us that he obtained the manuscript “from a good friend at Spier,” and it soon afterwards appeared in England as _The History of the Damnable Life and Deserved Death of Dr. John Faustus_, a chap-book to which Marlowe mainly adhered for the incidents in his play. The tragedy was carried across to Germany by the English actors who visited that country in the last years of the sixteenth and the earlier part of the seventeenth century, and thus, while it was itself derived from a German source, it greatly influenced, if it did not actually give rise to, the treatment of the same theme by the German popular drama and puppet-play. These were seldom printed, and usually for the most part extemporized, keeping all the while more or less closely to the theme. Scheible in his _Kloster_ (1847), Volume V, gives the excellent Ulm piece, and there are marionette versions edited by W. Hamm (1850; English translation by T. C. H. Hedderwick, 1887), O. Schade (1856), K. Engel (1874), Bielschowsky (1882), and Kralik and Winter (1885).
Lessing projected two presentations of the story, and Klinger worked the subject into a romance, _Fausts Leben, Thaten, und Höllenfahrt_ (1791; translated into English by George Barrow in 1826). A bombast tragedy was published by Klingemann in 1815, whilst Lenau issued his epico-dramatic _Faust_ in 1836. Heine’s ballet _Der Doctor Faust, ein Tanzpoem_ appeared in 1851. The libretto for Spohr’s opera (1814) was written by Bernard.
Goethe’s masterpiece, planned as early as 1774, was given to the world in 1808, but the second part was delayed until 1831.
General evidence points to 1588 as the date of the first production of Marlowe’s _Doctor Faustus_, for it seems certain that the ballad of the _Life and Death of Doctor Faustus the great Conjurer_, entered in the Stationers’ Register, February, 1589, did not precede but was suggested by the drama. The first extant quarto is 1604, but already it had been subjected to more than one revision. Upon the stage _Doctor Faustus_ long remained popular, and in England, at least, however fragmentary Marlowe’s tragedy may be it has never been supplemented by any other literary handling of its theme. Old Prynne in his _Histriomastix_ (1633) retails an absurd story to the effect that the Devil _in propria persona_ “appeared on the stage at the _Belsavage_ Playhouse in Queen _Elizabeth’s_ days” whilst the tragedy was being performed, “the truth of which I have heard from many now alive who well remember it.” It was revived after the Restoration, and on Monday, 26 May, 1662, Pepys and his wife witnessed the production at the Red Bull, “but so wretchedly and poorly done that we were sick of it.” It was being performed at the Theatre Royal in the autumn of 1675, but no details are recorded. In 1685-6 at Dorset Garden appeared William Mountfort’s _The Life and Death of Doctor Faustus, Made into a Farce, with the Humours of Harlequin and Scaramouch_, a queer mixture of Marlowe’s scenes with the Italian _commedia dell’ arte_. Harlequin was acted by nimble Thomas Jevon, the first English harlequin, and Scaramouch by Antony Leigh, the most whimsical of comedians. At the end of the third act after Faustus has been carried away by Lucifer and Mephistopheles, his body is discovered torn in pieces. Then “Faustus _Limbs come together. A Dance and Song_.” This farce was continually revived with great applause, and during the whole of the eighteenth century Faust was the central figure of pantomime after pantomime. Nearly forty dramatic versions of the Faust legend might be enumerated. Many are wildly romantic and were especially beloved of the minor theatres: such are _Faustus_ by G. Soane and D. Terry, produced at Drury Lane 16 May, 1825, with “O” Smith as Mephistopheles; H. P. Grattan’s _Faust, or The Demon of the Drachenfels_ performed at Sadlers Wells, 5 September, 1842, with Henry Marston, Mephistopheles, T. Lyon, Faust, “the Magician of Wittenberg,” Caroline Rankley, Marguerite; T. W. Robertson’s _Faust and Marguerite_, played at the Princess’s Theatre in April, 1854: some are operatic; the ever-popular _Faust_ of Gounod, with libretto by Barbier and Carré, first seen at the Théâtre Lyrique, Paris, in 1859; and Hector Berlioz’ _The Damnation of Faust_, which, adapted to the English stage by T. H. Friend, was performed at the Court, Liverpool, 3 February, 1894; many more are burlesques, descendants of the eighteenth-century farces, amongst which may be remembered F. C. Burnard’s _Faust and Marguerite_, S. James, 9 July, 1864; C. H. Hazlewood’s _Faust: or Marguerite’s Mangle_, Britannia Theatre, 25 March, 1867; Byron’s _Little Doctor Faust_ (1877); _Faust in Three Flashes_ (1884); _Faust in Forty Minutes_ (1885); and the most famous of all the travesties _Faust Up to Date_, produced at the Gaiety, 30 October, 1888, with E. J. Lonnen as Mephistopheles and Florence St. John as Marguerite. In France the _Faust_—après Goethe—of Theaulou and Gondelier first seen at the Nouveautés, 27 October, 1827, had a great success, and in the following year no less than three pens, Antony Béraud, Charles Nodier, and Merle, combined to produce a _Faust_ in three acts, the music of which is by Louis Alexandre Piccini, the grandson of Gluck’s famous rival. In 1858 Adolphe Dennery gave the Parisian stage _Faust_, a “drame fantastique” in five acts and sixteen tableaux, a drama of the Grattan school, effective enough in a lurid Sadlers Wells way, which is, at any rate, a vein greater dramatists have exploited with profit and applause.
Of more recent English dramas which have the Faust legend as their theme the most striking is undoubtedly the adaptation by W. G. Wills from the first part of Goethe’s tragedy, which was produced at the Lyceum 19 December, 1885, with H. H. Conway as Faust; George Alexander, Valentine; Mrs. Stirling, Martha; Miss Ellen Terry, Margaret; and Henry Irving, Mephistopheles. Not merely in view of the masterpieces of Marlowe and Goethe, but even by the side of theatrical versions of the legend from far lesser men the play itself was naught, a superb pantomime, a thing helped out by a witches’ kitchen, by a bacchanalia of demons, by chromo-lithographic effects, by the mechanist and the brushes of Telbin and Hawes Craven, but it was informed throughout and raised to heights of greatness, nay, even to awe and terror, by the genius of Irving as the red-plumed Mephistopheles, that sardonic, weary, restless figure, horribly unreal yet mockingly alert and alive, who dominated the whole.
To attempt a comparison between Marlowe and Goethe were not a little absurd, and it is superfluous to expatiate upon the supreme merits of either masterpiece. In Goethe’s mighty and complex work the story is in truth refined away beneath a wealth of immortal philosophy. Marlowe adheres quite simply to the chap-book incidents, and yet in all profane literature I scarcely know words of more shuddering dread and complete agony than Faust’s last great speech:
Ah, Faustus, Now hast thou but one bare hour to live. And then thou must be damned perpetually!
The scene becomes intolerable. It is almost too painful to be read, too overcharged with hopeless darkness and despair.
As it is in some sense at least akin to the Faust story it may not be impertinent briefly to mention here an early Dutch secular drama, which has been called “one of the gems of Dutch mediæval literature,” _A Marvellous History of Mary of Nimmegen, who for more than seven years lived and had ado with the Devil_,[6] printed by William Vorsterman of Antwerp about 1520. It is only necessary to call attention to a few features of the legend. Mary, the niece of the old priest Sir Gysbucht, one night meets the Devil in the shape of _Moonen with the single eye_. He undertakes to teach her all the secrets of necromancy if she will but refrain from crossing herself and change her name to Lena of Gretchen. But Mary, who has had a devotion to our Lady, insists upon retaining at least the M in her new nomenclature, and so becomes Emmekin. “Thus Emma and Moonen lived at Antwerp at the sign of the Golden Tree in the market, where daily of his contrivings were many murders and slayings together with every sort of wickedness.” Emma then resolves to visit her uncle, and insists upon Moonen accompanying her to Nimmegen. It is a high holiday and she sees by chance the mystery of _Maskeroon_ on a pageant-waggon in a public square. Our Lady is pleading before the throne of God for mankind, and Emma is filled with strange remorse to hear such blessed words. Moonen carries her off, but she falls and is found in a swoon by the old priest, her uncle. No priest of Nimmegen dared shrive her, not even the Bishop of Cologne, and so she journeyed to Rome, where the Holy Father heard her confession and bade her wear in penitence three strong bands of iron fastened upon neck and arms. Thus she returned to Maestricht to the cloister of the Converted Sinners, and there her sorrow was so prevailing and her humility so unfeigned that an Angel in token of Divine forgiveness removed the irons as she slept.
And go ye to Maestricht, an ye be able And in the Converted Sinners shall ye see The grave of Emma, and there all three The rings be hung above her grave.[7]
Magic and fairy-land loom large in the plays of Robert Greene, whose place in English literature rests at least as much upon his prose-tracts as on his dramas. It seems to me fairly obvious that _The Honourable History of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay_, which almost certainly dates from 1589, although the first quarto is 1594, was composed owing to the success of Marlowe’s _Doctor Faustus_. Greene was not the man to lose an opportunity of exploiting fashion, and with his solid British bent I have no doubt he considered an old English tale of an Oxford magician would be just as effective as imported legends from Frankfort and Wittenberg. To say that the later play is on an entirely different level is not to deny it interest and considerable charm. But in spite of Bacon’s avowal
Thou know’st that I have divèd into hell And sought the darkest palaces of fiends; That with my magic spells great Belcephon, Hath left his lodge and kneeled at my cell,
his sorceries are in lighter vein than those of Faustus; moreover neither his arts nor the magic of Friar Bungay form the essential theme of the play, which also sketches the love of Edward, Prince of Wales (afterwards Edward I) for Margaret, “the fair Maid of Fressingfield.” It is true Bacon conjures up spirits enough, and we are shown his study at Brasenose with the episode of the Brazen Head. It may be noted that Miles, Bacon’s servant, is exactly the Vice of the Moralities, and at the end he rides off farcically enough on the Devil’s back, whilst Bacon announces his intention of spending the remainder of his years in becoming penitence for his necromancy and magic.
In Greene’s _Orlando Furioso_, 4to, 1594, which is based on Ariosto,
## canto XXIII, we meet Melissa, an enchantress: and in _Alphonsus, King
of Arragon_, 4to, 1599, which is directly imitative of _Tamburlaine_, a sibyl with the classical name Medea, conjures up Calehas “in a white surplice and cardinal’s mitre,” and here we also have a Brazen Head through which Mahomet speaks. A far more interesting play is _A Looking Glasse for London and England_, 4to, 1594, an elaborated Mystery upon the history of the prophet Jonah and the repentance of Nineveh. Among the characters are a Good Angel, an Evil Angel, and “one clad in Devil’s attire,” who is soundly drubbed by Adam the buffoon. In 1598 was published, “As it hath bene sundrie times publikely plaide,” _The Scottish Historic of Iames the fourth, slaine at Flodden. Entermixed with a pleasant Comedie, presented by Oboram, King of Fayeries._ But the fairies only appear in a species of prose prologue, and in brief interludes between the acts.
George Peele’s charming piece of folk-lore _The Old Wives’ Tale_ introduces among its quaint commixture of episodes the warlock Sacripant, son of a famous witch Meroe,[8] who has stolen away and keeps under a spell the princess Delia. His power depends upon a light placed in a magic glass which can only be broken under certain conditions. Eventually Sacripant is overcome by the aid of a friendly ghost, Jack, the glass broken, the light extinguished, and the lady restored to her lover and friends.
Other magicians who appear in various dramas of the days of Elizabeth and her immediate successors are Brian Sansfoy in the primitive _Sir Clyomon and Sir Clamydes_, 4to, 1599; the Magician in _The Wars of Cyrus_; Friar Bacon, Friar Bungay, and Jaques Vandermast in Greene’s _Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay_, Merlin and Proximus in the pseudo-Shakespearean _The Birth of Merlin_, where the Devil also figures; Ormandini and Argalio in _The Seven Champions of Christendom_, where we likewise have Calib, a witch, her incubus Tarpax, and Suckabus their clownish son; Comus in Milton’s masque; Mago the conjurer with his three familiars Eo, Meo, and Areo in Cokain’s _Trappolin Creduto Principe, Trappolin suppos’d a Prince_, 4to, 1656, excellent light fare, which Nahum Tate turned into _A Duke and No Duke_ and produced at Drury Lane in November, 1684, and which in one form or another, sometimes “a comic melodramatic burletta,” sometimes a ballad opera, sometimes a farce, was popular until the early decades of the nineteenth century.
Seeing that actors are “the abstracts and brief chronicles of the time,” it is not surprising to find that Witchcraft has a very important part in the theatre of Shakespeare. Setting aside such a purely fairy fantasy as _A Midsummer-Night’s Dream_, such figures as the “threadbare juggler” Pinch in _The Comedy of Errors_, such scenes as the hobgoblin mask beneath Herne’s haunted oak, such references as that to Mother Prat, the old woman of Brainford, who worked “by charms, by spells, by the figure,” or the vile abuse by Richard, Duke of Gloucester, of “Edward’s wife, that monstrous witch, Consorted with that harlot strumpet Shore,” we have one historical drama _King Henry VI_, Part II, in which an incantation scene plays no small part; we have one romantic comedy _The Tempest_, one tragedy _Macbeth_, the very motives and development of which are due to magic and supernatural charms. It must perhaps be remarked that _King Henry VI_, Part I, is defiled by the obscene caricature of S. Joan of Arc, surely the most foul and abominable irreverence that shames English literature. It is too loathsome for words, and I would only point out the enumeration in one scene where various familiars are introduced of the most revolting details of contemporary witch-trials, but to think of such horrors in connexion with S. Joan revolts and sickens the imagination.
In _King Henry VI_ (Part II) the Duchess of Gloucester employs John Hume and John Southwell, two priests; Bolingbroke, a conjurer; and Margery Jourdemain, a witch, to raise a spirit who shall reveal the several destinies of the King, and the Dukes of Suffolk and Somerset. The scene is written with extraordinary power and has not a little of awe and terror. Just as the demon is dismissed ’mid thunder and lightning the Duke of York with his guards rush in and arrest the sorcerers. Later the two priests and Bolingbroke are condemned to the gallows, the witch in Smithfield is “burn’d to ashes,” whilst the Duchess of Gloucester after three days’ public penance is banished for life to the Isle of Man.
The incidents as employed by Shakespeare are fairly correct. It is certain that the Duchess of Gloucester, an ambitious and licentious woman, called to her counsels Margery Jourdemain, commonly known as the Witch of Eye, Roger Bolingbroke an astrologer, Thomas Southwell, Canon of S. Stephen’s, a priest named Sir John Hume or Hun, and a certain William Wodham. These persons frequently met in secret, and it was discovered that they had fashioned according to the usual mode a wax image of the King which they melted before a slow fire. Bolingbroke confessed, and Hume also turned informer; and in 1441 Bolingbroke was placed on a high scaffold before Paul’s Cross together with a chair curiously carved and painted, found at his lodging, which was supposed to be an instrument of necromancy, and in the presence of Cardinal Beaufort of Winchester, Henry Chicheley, Archbishop of Canterbury, and an imposing array of bishops, he was compelled to make abjuration of his wicked arts. The Duchess of Gloucester, being refused sanctuary at Westminster, was arrested and confined in Leeds Castle, near Maidstone. She was brought to trial with her accomplices in October, when sentence was passed upon her as has been related above. Margery Jourdemain perished at the stake as a witch and relapsed heretic; Thomas Southwell died in prison; and Bolingbroke was hanged at Tyburn, 18 November.
In _The Tempest_ Prospero is a philosopher rather than a wizard, and Ariel is a fairy not a familiar. The magic of Prospero is of the intellect, and throughout, Shakespeare is careful to insist upon a certain detachment from human passions and ambitions. His love for Miranda, indeed, is exquisitely portrayed, and once—at the base ingratitude of Caliban—his anger flashes forth, but none the less, albeit superintending the fortunes of those over whom he watches tenderly, and utterly abhorring the thought of revenge, he seems to stand apart like Providence divinely guiding the events to the desired issue of reconciliation and forgiveness. Even so, the situation was delicate to place before an Elizabethan audience, and how nobly and with what art does Shakespeare touch upon Prospero’s “rough magic”! In Sycorax we recognize the typical witch, wholly evil, vile, malignant, terrible for mischief, the consort and mistress of devils.
There are few scenes which have so caught the world’s fancy as the wild overture to _Macbeth_. In storm and wilderness we are suddenly brought face to face with three mysterious phantasms that ride on the wind and mingle with the mist in thunder, lightning, and in rain. They are not agents of evil, they are evil; nameless, spectral, wholly horrible. And then, after the briefest of intervals, they reappear to relate such exploits as killing swine and begging chestnuts from a sailor’s wife, to brag of having secured such talismans as the thumb of a drowned pilot, businesses proper to Mother Demdike or Anne Bishop of Wincanton, Somerset. Can this change have been intentional? I think not, and its very violence and quickness are jarring to a degree. The meeting with Hecate, who is angry, and scolds them “beldames as you are, Saucy and overbold” does not mend matters, and in spite of the horror when the apparitions are evoked, the ingredients of the cauldron, however noisome and hideous, are too material for “A deed without a name.” There is a weakness here, and it says much for the genius of the tragedy that this weakness is not obtrusively felt. Nevertheless it was upon this that the actors seized when for theatrical effect the incantation scenes had to be “written up” by the interpolation of fresh matter. Davenant also in his frankly operatic version of _Macbeth_, produced at Dorset Garden in February, 1672-3 elaborated the witch scenes to an incredible extent, although by ample conveyance from Middleton’s _The Witch_ together with songs and dances he was merely following theatrical tradition.[9]
There seems no reasonable doubt that _The Witch_ is a later play than _Macbeth_, but it is only fair to say that the date of _The Witch_ is unknown—it was first printed in 1778 from a manuscript now in the Bodleian—and the date of _Macbeth_ (earlier than 1610, probably 1606) is not demonstrably certain. _The Witch_ is a good but not a distinguished play. Owing to the incantation scenes and its connexion with _Macbeth_ it has acquired an accidental interest, and an enduring reputation. The witches themselves, Hecate and her crew, stand midway between the mystic Norns of the first scene in _Macbeth_, and the miserable hag of Dekker in _The Witch of Edmonton_; they are just a little below the Witches in _Macbeth_ as they appear after the opening lines. There is a ghastly fantasy in their revels which is not lessened by the material grossness of Firestone the clown, Hecate’s son. They raise “jars, jealousies, strifes, and heart-burning disagreements, like a thick scurf o’er life,” and although their figures are often grotesque their power for evil is not to be despised. Much of their jargon, their charms and gaucheries complete, are taken word for word from Reginald Scott’s _Discoverie of Witchcraft_, London, 1584.
The village witch, as she appeared to her contemporaries, a filthy old doting crone, hunch-backed, ignorant, malevolent, hateful to God and man, is shown with photographic detail in _The Witch of Edmonton; A known True Story_ by Rowley, Dekker, and Ford, produced at the Cockpit in Drury Lane during the autumn or winter of 1621. It seems to have been very popular at the time, and not only was it applauded in the public theatre, but it was presented before King James at Court. It did not, however, find its way into print until as late as 1658.
[Illustration: PLATE VIII
THE WITCH OF EDMONTON. The First Quarto
[_face p. 290_]
The trial and execution (19 April, 1621) of Elizabeth Sawyer attracted a considerable amount of attention. Remarkable numbers of ballads and doggerel songs were made upon the event, detailing her enchantments, how she had blighted standing corn, how a ferret and an owl constantly attended her, and of many demons and familiars who companied with her in the prison. Not only were these ditties trolled out the day of the execution but many were published as broadsides, and sold widely. Accordingly the Newgate Ordinary hastened to pen _The Wonderfull Discoverie of Elizabeth Sawyer, a Witch, Late of Edmonton, Her Conviction, and Condemnation, and Death, Together with the Relation of the Divels Accesse to Her, and Their Conference Together_, “Written by Henry Goodcole, Minister of the Word of God, and her Continual Visiter in the Gaole of Newgate,” Published by Authority, 4to, 1621. This tractate is in the form of a dialogue, question and answer, between Goodcole and the prisoner, who makes ample confession of her crimes.
In some ways _The Witch of Edmonton_ is the most interesting and valuable of the witch dramas, because here we have the hag stripped of the least vestige of glamour and romance presented to us in the starkest realism. We see her dwelling apart in a wretched hovel, “shunned and hated like a sickness,” miserably poor, buckl’d and bent together, dragging her palsied limbs wearily through the fields, as she clutches her dirty rags round her withered frame. And if she but dare to gather a few dried sticks in a corner she is driven from the spot with hard words and blows. What wonder her mouth is full of cursing and revenge?
’Tis all one To be a witch as to be counted one.
Then appears the Black Dog and seals a contract with her blood. She blights the corn and sends a murrain on the cattle of her persecutors; here a horse has the glanders, there a sow casts her farrow; the maid churns butter nine hours and it will not come; above all a farmer’s wife, whom she hates, goes mad and dies in frantic agony; mischief and evil run riot through the town. But presently her familiar deserts her, she falls into the hands of human justice, and after due trial is dragged to Tyburn shrieking and crying out in hideous despair. It is a sordid and a terrible, but one cannot doubt, a true picture.
It is obvious that in this drama[10] Frank Thorney, a most subtle and minute study of weakness and degeneracy, is wholly Ford’s. Frank Thorney may be closely paralleled with Giovanni in _’Tis Pity She’s a Whore_. Winnifride, too, has all the sentimental charm of Ford’s heroines, Annabella and Penthea.
Carter is unmistakably the creation of Dekker. Simon Eyre and Orlando Friscobaldo are the same hearty, bluff, hospitable, essentially honest old fellows. To Dekker also I would assign Mother Sawyer herself.
Rowley’s hand is especially discernible in the scenes where Cuddy Banks and the clowns make their appearance.
It may be mentioned that Elizabeth Sawyer figures in Caulfield’s _Portraits, Memoirs, and Characters of Remarkable Persons_, 1794; and she is also referred to in Robinson’s _History and Antiquities of the Parish of Edmonton_ with a woodcut “from a rare print in the collection of W. Beckford, esq.”
A second drama which was also actually founded upon a contemporary trial is Heywood and Brome’s _The Late Lancashire Witches_, “A Well Received Comedy” produced at the Globe in 1634.[11] In the previous year, 1633, a number of trials for Witchcraft had drawn the attention of all England to Pendle Forest. A boy, by name Edmund Robinson, eleven years of age, who dwelt here with his father, a poor wood-cutter, told a long and detailed story which led to numerous arrests throughout the district. Upon All Saints’ Day when gathering “bulloes” in a field he saw two greyhounds, one black, the other brown, each wearing a collar of gold. They fawned upon him, and immediately a hare rose quite near at hand. But the dogs refused to course, whereupon he beat them with a little switch, and the black greyhound started up in the shape of an old woman whom he recognized as Mother Dickenson, a notorious witch, and the other as a little boy whom he did not know. The beldame offered him money, either to buy his silence or as the price of his soul, but he refused. Whereupon taking something like a Bridle “that gingled” from her pocket she threw it over the little boy’s head and he became a white horse. Seizing young Robinson in her arms they mounted and were conveyed with the utmost speed to a large house where had assembled some sixty other persons. A bright fire was burning on the hearth with roast meat before it. He was invited to partake of “Flesh and Bread upon a Trencher and Drink in a Glass,” which he tasted, but at once rejected. He was next led into an adjoining barn where seven old women were pulling at seven halters that hung from the roof. As they tugged large pieces of meat, butter in lumps, loaves of bread, black puddings, milk, and all manner of rustic dainties fell down into large basins which were placed under the ropes. When the seven hags were tired their places were taken by seven others. But as they were engaged at their extraordinary task their faces seemed so fiendish and their glances were so evil that Robinson took to his heels. He was instantly pursued, and he saw that the foremost of his enemies was a certain Mother Lloynd. But luckily for himself two horsemen, travellers, came up, whereupon the witches vanished. A little later when he was sent in the evening to fetch home two kine, a boy met him in the dusk and fought him, bruising him badly. Looking down he saw that his opponent had a cloven foot, whereupon he ran away, only to meet Mother Lloynd with a lantern in her hand. She drove him back and he was again mauled by the cloven-footed boy.[12]
Such was the story told to the justices and corroborated by Robinson’s father. A reign of terror ensued. Mother Dickenson and Mother Lloynd were at once thrown into jail, and in the next few days more than eighteen persons were arrested. The informer and his father netted a good sum by going round from church to church to point out in the congregations persons whom he recognized as having been in the house and barn to which he was led. A little quiet blackmail of the wealthier county families, threats to disclose the presence of various individuals at the witches’ feast, brought in several hundreds of pounds.
The trial took place at Lancaster Assizes and seventeen of the accused were incontinently found guilty. But the judge, completely dissatisfied with so fantastic a story, obtained a reprieve. Four of the prisoners were sent up to London, where they were examined by the Court physicians. King Charles himself also questioned one of these poor wretches and, discerning that the whole history was a fraud, forthwith pardoned all who had been involved. Meantime Dr. John Bridgeman, the Bishop of Chester, had also been holding a special inquiry into the case. Young Robinson was lodged separately, being allowed to hold no communication with his relatives, and when closely interrogated he gave way and confessed that the scare from beginning to end had been manœuvred by his father, who carefully coached him in his lies. In spite of this fiasco the talk did not die down immediately, and there were many who continued to maintain that Mother Dickenson was indeed a witch, however false the evidence on this occasion might be. It must be remembered, moreover, that twenty-two years before, in the very same district, a coven of thirteen witches, of whom the chief was Elizabeth Demdike, had been brought to justice, “at the Assizes and Generall Gaole-Delivery, holden at Lancaster, before Sir Edward Bromley and Sir James Eltham.” Old Demdike herself—she was blind and over eighty years of age—died in prison, but ten of the accused were executed, and the trial, which lasted two days, occasioned a tremendous stir.
It seems not at all improbable that Heywood had written a topical play in 1612 dealing with this first sensational prosecution, and that when practically the same events repeated themselves in the same place less than a quarter of a century after he and the ever-ready Brome fashioned anew the old scenes. In the character of the honourable country-gentleman Master Generous, whose wife is discovered to be guilty of Witchcraft, there is something truly noble, and his tender forgiveness of her crime when she repents is touched with the loving pathos that informs _A Woman Kilde with Kindnesse_, whilst his agony at her subsequent relapse is very real, although Heywood has wisely refrained from any attempt to show a broken heart save by a few quite simple but poignant words. The play as a whole is a faithful picture of country life, homely enough, yet not without a certain winsome beauty. The comic episodes are sufficiently broad in their humour; we have a household turned topsy-turvy by enchantment, a wedding-breakfast bewitched: the kitchen invaded by snakes, bats, frogs, beetles, and hornets, whilst to cap all the unfortunate bridegroom is rendered impotent. In Act II we have the incident of a Boy with a switch (young Edmund Robinson) and the two greyhounds. Gammer Dickison carries him off against his will “to a brave feast,” where we see the witches pulling ropes for food:
Pul for the poultry, foule and fish, For emptie shall not be a dish.
In Act V the Boy tells Doughty the story of his encounter with the Devil: “He came to thee like a boy, thou sayest, about thine owne bisnesse?” they ask him, and the whole scene meticulously follows the detailed evidence given before the judge at Lancaster. Of the witches, Goody Dickison, Mal Spencer, Mother Hargrave, Granny Johnson, Meg, Mawd, are actual individuals who were accused by Robinson; Mrs. Generous alone is the poet’s fiction. When Robin, the blunt serving-man, refuses to saddle the grey gelding she shakes a bridle over his head and using him as a horse makes him carry her to the satanical assembly. There is a mill, which is haunted by spirits in the shape of cats, and here a soldier undertakes to watch. For two nights he is undisturbed, but on the third “_Enter_ Mrs. Generous, Mal, _all the_ Witches and _their Spirits_ (_at severall dores_).” “_The_ Spirits _come about him with a dreadfull noise_,” but he beats them thence with his sword, lopping off a tabby’s paw in the hurly-burly. In the morning a hand is found, white and shapely, with jewels on the fingers. These Generous recognizes as being his wife’s rings, and Mrs. Generous, who is in bed ill, is found to have one hand cut off at the wrist. This seals her fate. All the witches are dragged in and in spite of their charms and bug-words are identified by several witnesses including the boy who “saw them all in the barne together, and many more, at their feast and witchery.”
The play was evidently produced just after the Lancaster Assizes, whilst four of the accused were in the Fleet prison, London, for further examination, and the King’s pardon had not as yet been pronounced. This is evident from the Epilogue, which commences:
Now while the witches must expect their due, By lawfull justice, we appeale to you For favourable censure; what their crime May bring upon ’em ripens yet of time Has not reveal’d. Perhaps great mercy may, After just condemnation, give them day Of longer life.
It will be convenient to consider in this connexion a drama largely founded upon Heywood and Brome, and produced nearly half a century later at the Duke’s House, Dorset Garden, Shadwell’s _The Lancashire Witches and Teague o Divelly, the Irish Priest_, which was first seen in the autumn of 1681 (probably in September). The idea of using magic in a play was obviously suggested to Shadwell by his idolized Ben Jonson’s _Masque of Queens_, performed at Whitehall, 2 February, 1609. In close imitation of his model Shadwell has further appended copious notes to Acts one, two, three, and five, giving his references for the details of his enchantments. In the Preface (4to, 1682) he naïvely confesses: “For the magical part I had no hopes of equalling _Shakespear_ in fancy, who created his witchcraft for the most part out of his own imagination (in which faculty no man ever excell’d him), and therefore I resolved to take mine from authority. And to that end there is not one action in the Play, nay, scarce a word concerning it, but is borrowed from some antient, or modern witchmonger. Which you will find in the notes, wherein I have presented you a great part of the doctrine of witchcraft, believe it who will.” And he has indeed copious citations from Vergil, Horace, Ovid, Propertius, Juvenal, Tibullus, Seneca, Tacitus, Lucan, Petronius, Pliny, Apuleius, Aristotle, Theocritus, Lucian, Theophrastus; S. Augustine, S. Thomas Aquinas; Baptista Porta; Ben Jonson (_The Sad Shepherd_); from the _Malleus Maleficarum_ of James Sprenger, O.P., and Henry Institor (Heinrich Kramer), written _circa_ 1485-89, from Jean Bodin’s (1520-96) _La Demonomanie des Sorciers_, 1580; the _Dæmonolatria_, 1595, of Nicolas Remy; _Disquisitionum Magicarum libri six_ of Martin Delrio, S.J. (1551-1608); _Historia Rerum Scoticarum_, Paris, 1527, of Hector Boece (1465-1536); _Formicarius_, 5 vols., Douai, 1602, of John Nider, O.P. (1380-1438); _De Præstigiis Dæmonum_, 1563, by the celebrated John Weyer, physician to the Duke of Cleves; _De Gentibus Septentrionalibus_,[13] Rome, 1555, by Olaus Magnus, the famous Archbishop of Upsala; _Discoverie of Witchcraft_, 1584, by Reginald Scot; _Dæmonomagia_, by Philip Ludwig Elich, 1607; _De Strigimagis_, by Sylvester Mazzolini, O.P. (1460-1523), Master of the Sacred Palace and champion of the Holy See against the heresiarch Luther; _Compendium Maleficarum_ (Milan, 1608), by Francesco Maria Guazzo of the Congregation of S. Ambrose; _Disputatio de Magis_ (Frankfort, 1584), by Johan Georg Godelmann; _Tractatus de Strigiis et Lamiis_ of Bartolommeo Spina, O.P.; the _Decretum_ (about 1020) of Burchard, Bishop of Worms; the _De Sortilegiis_ (Lyons, 1533) of Paolo Grilland; the _De Occulta Philosophia_ (Antwerp, 1531) of Cornelius Agrippa; the _Apologie pour tous les Grands Hommes qui ont este faussement supconnez de Magie_ (1625) of Gabriel Naudé, librarian to Cardinal Mazarin; _De Subtilitate_ (libri XXI, Nuremberg, 1550) of Girolamo Cardano, the famous physician and astrologer; _De magna et occulta Philosophia_ of Paracelsus; _IIII Livres des Spectres_ (Angers, 1586) by Pierre le Loyer, Sieur de Brosse, of which Shadwell used the English version (1605) _A treatise of Specters_ ... translated by Z. Jones.
It will be seen that no less than forty-one authors, authorities on magic, are quoted by Shadwell in these notes, whilst not infrequently the same author is cited again and again, and extracts of some length, not merely general references, are given.
But for all this parade of learning, perchance because of all this parade of learning, Shadwell’s witch scenes are intolerably clumsy, they are gross without being terrible. Shadwell was a clever dramatist, he was able to draw a character, especially a crank, with quite remarkable vigour, and his scenes are a triumph of photographic realism. True, he could not discriminate and select; he threw his world _en masse_ higgledy piggledy on to the stage, and as even in the reign of the Merry Monarch there were a few tedious folk about, so now and again—but not very often—one chances upon heavy passages in Shadwell’s robust comedies. On the other hand _The Sullen Lovers_, _Epsom Wells_, _The Virtuoso, Bury Fair_, _The Squire of Alsatia_, _The Volunteers_, in fact all his native plays, are full of bustle and fun, albeit a trifle riotous and rude as the custom was. Dryden, who very well knew what he was about, for purposes of his own cleverly dubbed Shadwell dull. And dull he has been dubbed ever since by those who have not read him. But Shadwell had not a spark of poetry in his whole fat composition. And so his witches become farcical, yet farcical in a grimy unpleasant way, for we are spared none of the loathsome details of the Sabbat, and should anyone object, why, there is the authority of Remy or Guazzo, the precise passage from Prierias or Burchard to support the author. Indeed we feel that these witches are very real in spite of their materialism. They present a clear picture of one side of the diabolic cult, however crude and crass.
Even so, these incantation scenes are not, I venture to think, the worst thing in the play. The obscene caricature of the Catholic priest, Teague o Divelly, is frankly disgusting beyond words. He is represented as ignorant, idle, lecherous, a liar, a coward, a buffoon, too simiously cunning to be a fool, too basely mean to be a villain. It is a filthy piece of work, malignant and harmful prepense.[14]
But Shadwell showed scant respect for the Protestants too, since Smerk, Sir Edward Hartfort’s chaplain, is described as “foolish, knavish, popish, arrogant, insolent; yet for his interest, slavish.”
It is hardly a matter for surprise that after the play had been in the actors’ hands about a fortnight complaints from such high quarters were lodged with Charles Killigrew, the Master of the Revels, that he promptly sent for the script, which at first he seems to have passed carelessly enough, and would only allow the rehearsals to proceed on condition that a quantity of scurrilous matter was expunged. Even so the dialogue is sufficiently offensive and profane. There was something like a riot in the theatre at the first performance, and the play was as heartily hissed as it deserved. Yet it managed to make a stand: those were the days of the Third Exclusion Bill and rank disloyalty, but the tide was on the turn, a rebel Parliament had been dissolved on the 28th March, on the 31st of August Stephen College, a perjured fanatic doubly dyed in treason and every conceivable rascality, had met his just reward on the gallows, whilst the atrocious Shaftesbury himself was to be smartly laid by the heels in the November following. That part of the dialogue which was not allowed to be spoken on the stage Shadwell has printed in italic letter,[15] and so we plainly see that the censor was amply justified in his demands. The political satire is of the muddiest; the railing against the Church is lewd and rancorous.
Such success as _The Lancashire Witches_ had in the theatre—and it was not infrequently revived—was wholly due to the mechanist and the scenic effects, the “flyings” of the witches, and the music, this last so prominent a feature that Downes does not hesitate to call it “a kind of Opera.”
In Shadwell’s Sabbat scenes the Devil himself appears, once in the form of a Buck Goat and once in human shape, whilst his satellites adore him with disgusting ceremonies. The witches are Mother Demdike, Mother Dickenson, Mother Hargrave, Mal Spencer, Madge, and others unnamed.
Elizabeth Demdike and Jennet Hargreaves belonged to the first Lancashire witch-trials, the prosecutions of 1612; Frances Dickenson and Mal Spencer were involved in the Robinson disclosures of 1633; so it is obvious that Shadwell has intermingled the two incidents. In his play we have a coursing scene where the hare suddenly changes to Mother Demdike; the witches raise a storm and carouse in Sir Edward’s cellar something after the fashion of Madge Gray, Goody Price, and Goody Jones in _The Ingoldsby Legends_; Mal Spencer bridles Clod, a country yokel, and rides him to a witches’ festival, where Madge is admitted to the infernal sisterhood; the witches in the guise of cats beset a number of persons with horrible scratchings and miauling, Tom Shacklehead strikes off a grimalkin’s paw and Mother Hargreave’s hand is found to be missing: “the cutting off the hand is an old story,” says Shadwell in his notes. It will be seen that the later dramatist took many of his incidents from Heywood and Brome, although it is only fair to add that he has also largely drawn from original sources.
Shortly after the Restoration was published a play dealing with one of the most famous of English sibyls, _The Life of Mother Shipton_. “A New Comedy. As it was Acted Nineteen dayes together with great Applause.... Written by T[homas] T[homson].” Among the Dramatis Personæ appear Pluto, the King of Hell, with Proserpina, his Queen; Radamon, A chief Spirit; Four other Devils. The scene is “The City of York, or Naseborough Grove in Yorkshire.” It is a rough piece of work, largely patched together from Middleton’s _A Chaste Maid in Cheapside_ and Massinger’s _The City Madam_, whilst the episodes in which Mother Shipton is concerned would seem to be founded on one of the many old chap-books that relate her marvellous adventures and prophetic skill. Agatha Shipton (her name is usually given as Ursula) is complaining of her hard lot when she encounters Radamon, a demon who holds high rank in the court of Dis. He arranges to meet her later, and returns to his own place to boast of his success. He reappears to her dressed as a wealthy nobleman; he marries her; and for a while she is seen in great affluence and state. At the commencement of Act III she finds herself in her poor cottage again. As she laments Radamon enters, he informs her who he really is, and bestows upon her magical powers. Her fame spreads far and wide, and as popular story tells, the abbot of Beverley in disguise visits her to make trial of her art. She at once recognizes him, and foretells to his great chagrin the suppression of the monasteries with other events. In the end Mother Shipton outwits and discomforts the devils who attempt to seize her, she is vouchsafed a heavenly vision, and turns to penitence and prayer. The whole thing is a crude enough commixture, of more curiosity than value.
There are some well-written episodes in Nevil Payne’s powerful tragedy _The Fatal Jealousie_,[16] produced at Dorset Garden early in August, 1672. Among the characters we have Witch, Aunt of Jasper, the villain of the piece. Jasper, who is servant to Antonio, applies to his aunt to help him in his malignant schemes. At first he believes she is a genuine sorceress, but she disabuses him and frankly acknowledges:
I can raise no Devils, Yet I Confederate with Rogues and Taylors, Things that can shape themselves like Elves, And Goblins——
Her imps _Ranter_ and _Swash_, _Dive_, _Fop_, _Snap_, _Gilt_, and _Picklock_, are slim lads in masquing habits, trained to trickery. None the less they manage an incantation scene to deceive Antonio and persuade him that his wife, Caelia, is false. An “Antick Dance of Devils” which follows is interrupted by the forcible entry of the Watch. The Aunt shows Jasper a secret hiding-place, whereupon he murders her and conceals the body in the hole. He pretends that she was in truth a witch and has vanished by magic. The Captain of the Watch, however, had detected her charlatanry long before, and presently a demon’s vizor and a domino are found on the premises. Later a little boy, who is caught in his devil’s attire, confesses the impostures, and trembling adds that in one of their secret chambers they have discovered their mistress’s corpse stabbed to death. Finally Jasper is unmasked, and only escapes condign punishment by his dagger. The character of the Witch is not unlike that of Heywood’s _Wise Woman of Hogsdon_, although in _The Fatal Jealousie_ the events take a tragic and bloody turn. Smith acted Antonio; Mrs. Shadwell, Caelia; Mrs. Norris, the Witch; and Sandford was famous in the rôle of Jasper.
There are incantation scenes in Dryden’s tragedies, but these hardly come within our survey, as the magicians are treated romantically, one might even say decoratively, and certainly here no touch of realism is sought or intended. We have the famous episode in _The Indian-Queen_ (produced at the Theatre Royal in January, 1663-4), when Zempoalla seeks Ismeron the prophet who raises the God of Dreams to prophesy her destiny;[17] in the fourth act of _Tyrannick Love_ (Theatre Royal, June, 1669), the
## scene is an Indian cave, where at the instigation of Placidius the
magician Nigrinus raises a vision of the sleeping S. Catharine, various astral spirits appear only to fly before the descent of Amariel, the Saint’s Guardian-Angel; in _Œdipus_, by Dryden and Lee (Dorset Garden, December, 1678), Teresias plays a considerable part, and Act III is mainly concerned with a necromantic spell that raises the ghost of Laius in the depths of a hallowed grove. In _The Duke of Guise_, moreover (Theatre Royal, December, 1682), there is something of real horror in the figures of Malicorne and his familiar Melanax, and the scene[18] when the miserable wizard, whose bond is forfeit, is carried shrieking to endless bale, cannot be read without a shudder even after the last moments of Marlowe’s _Faustus_. Act IV of Lee’s _Sophonisba_ (Theatre Royal, April, 1675) commences with the temple of Bellona, whose priestesses are shown at their dread rites. Cumana is inspired by the divinity, she raves in fury of obsession, there is a dance of spirits, and various visions are evoked.
In Otway’s curious rehandling of _Romeo and Juliet_ which he Latinized as _The History and Fall of Caius Marius_ produced at Dorset Garden in the autumn of 1679, the Syrian witch Martha only appears for a moment to prophesy good fortune to Marius and to introduce a dance of spirits by the waving of her wand.
Charles Davenant’s operatic _Circe_ (Dorset Garden, March, 1676-7) is an amazing distortion of mythological story. There are songs without number, a dance of magicians, storms, dreams, an apparition of Pluto in a Chariot drawn by Black Horses, but all these are very much of the stage, stagey, born of candle-light and violins, hardly to be endured in cold print. Ragusa, the Sorceress in Tate’s _Brutus of Alba: or the Enchanted Lovers_ (Dorset Garden, May, 1678) is a far more formidable figure. Tate has managed his magic not without skill, and the conclusion of Act III, an incantation, was deservedly praised by Lamb. Curiously enough the plot of _Brutus of Alba_ is the story of Dido and Æneas, Vergil’s names being altered “rather than be guilty of a breach of Modesty,” Tate says. But Tate supplied Henry Purcell with the libretto for his opera _Dido and Æneas_, wherein also witches appear. It must not be forgotten that _Macbeth_ was immensely popular throughout the whole of the Restoration period, when, as has been noted above, the witch scenes were elaborated and presented with every resource of scenery, mechanism, dance, song, and meretricious ornament. Revival followed revival, each more decorative than the last, and the theatre was unceasingly thronged. Duffett undertook to burlesque this fashion, which he did in an extraordinary Epilogue to his skit _The Empress of Morocco_, produced at the Theatre Royal in the spring of 1674, but for all his japeries _Macbeth_ never waned in public favour.
Spirits in abundance appear in the Earl of Orrery’s unpublished tragedy _Zoroastres_,[19] the principal character being described as “King of Persia, the first Magician.” He is attended by “several spirits in black with ghastly vizards,” and at the end furies and demons arise shaking dark torches at the monarch whom they pull down to hell, the sky raining fire upon them. It was almost certainly never acted, and is the wildest type of transpontine melodrama.
Edward Ravenscroft’s “recantation play” _Dame Dobson, or, The Cunning Woman_ (produced at Dorset Garden in the early autumn of 1683) is an English version of _La Devineresse; ou les faux Enchantements_ (sometimes known as _Madame Jobin_), a capital comedy by Thomas Corneille and Jean Donneau de Vise. This French original had been produced in 1679, and both the stage-craft and the adroit way in which the various tricks and conjurations are managed must be allowed to be consummately clever. An English comedy on a similar theme is _The Wise Woman of Hogsdon_, the intricacies of which are a triumph of technique. _La Devineresse_ was published in 1680 with a frontispiece picturing a grimalkin, a hand of glory, noxious weeds, two blazing torches and other objects beloved of necromancy. There are, moreover, eight folding plates which embellish the little book, and these have no small interest as they depict scenes in the comedy. But _Dame Dobson_ cannot be accounted a play of witchcraft; it is no more than an amusing study of dextrous charlatanry. The protagonist herself[20] is of that immortal sisterhood graced by Heywood’s sibyl, of whom it is said “She is a cunning woman, neither hath she her name for nothing, who out of her ignorance can fool so many that think themselves wise.”
Mrs. Behn, in her amusing comedy _The Luckey Chance; or, An Alderman’s Bargain_, produced at Drury Lane in the late winter of 1686, 4to, 1687, has made some play with pretended magic in the capital scenes where Gayman (Betterton) is secretly brought by the prentice Bredwel (Bowman), disguised as a devil, to the house of Lady Fulbank (Mrs. Barry). Here he is received by Pert, the maid, who is dressed as an old witch, and conducted to his inamorata’s embraces. But the whole episode is somewhat farcically treated, and it is, of course, an elaborate masquerade for the sake of an intrigue.[21]
Shadwell in 1681 took Witchcraft seriously, and notwithstanding the half-hearted disclaimer in his address “To the Reader” that prefaces _The Lancashire Witches_ I think he was sensible enough to recognize the truth which lies at the core of the matter in spite of the grotesqueness of the formulæ and spells doting hags and warlocks are wont to employ. Witchcraft was still a capital offence when some fifteen years later Congreve lightly laughed it out of court. Foresight (_Love for Love_), “an illiterate old Fellow, peevish and positive, superstitious, and pretending to understand Astrology, Palmistry, Phisiognomy, Omens, Dreams, etc.,” is in close confabulation with his young daughter’s Nurse, when Angelica his niece trips in to ask the loan of his coach, her own being out of order. He says no, and presses her to remain at home, muttering to himself some old doggerel which bodes no good to the house if all the womenfolk are gadding abroad. The lady fleers him, twits him with jealousy of his young wife: “Uncle, I’m afraid you are not Lord of the Ascendant, ha! ha! ha!” He is obstinate in his refusal; and she retorts: “I can make Oath of your unlawful Midnight Practices; you and the Old Nurse there.... I saw you together, through the Key-hole of the Closet, one Night, like _Saul_ and the Witch of _Endor_, turning the Sieve and Sheers, and pricking your Thumbs to write poor innocent Servants’ Names in Blood about a little Nutmeg-Grater, which she had forgot in the Caudle-Cup.” “Hussy, Cockatrice,” storms the old fellow beside himself with rage. Angelica mocks him even more bitterly, accuses him and the Nurse of nourishing a familiar, “a young Devil in the shape of a Tabby-Cat,” and with a few last thrusts she departs, trilling with merriment, in a sedan-chair.
To return for a brief space to an earlier generation when it would have hardly been possible, or at least highly inadvisable, to treat Witchcraft in this blithesome mood, of two plays that would almost certainly have been of great interest in this connexion we have only the names, _The Witch of Islington_, acted in 1597, and _The Witch Traveller_, licensed in 1623.
In addition to _The Masque of Queens_, which as has already been noted, served to some extent for a model to Shadwell when inditing his encyclopædic notes on magic, Ben Jonson in that sweet pastoral _The Sad Shepherd_ introduces a Scotch witch, Maudlin. The character is drawn with vigorous strokes; realism mingles with romance.
During the quarrel scene which opens _The Alchemist_ Face threatens Subtle:
I’ll bring thee, rogue, within The statute of sorcerie, _tricesimo tertio_ Of Harry the Eight.
Dapper the gull asks Subtle for a familiar, as Face explains (I, 2):
Why, he do’s aske one but for cups, and horses, A rifling flye: none o’ your great familiars.
And later in order to trick him thoroughly Dol Common appears as the “Queene of Faerie.” The Queen of Elphin or Elfhame, who is particularly mentioned in the Scotch witch-trials, seems to be identical with the French Reine du Sabbat. In 1670 Jean Weir confessed: “That when she keeped a school at Dalkeith, and teached childering, ane tall woman came to the declarant’s hous when the childering were there; and that she had, as appeared to her, ane chyld upon her back, and one or two at her foot; and that the said woman disyred that the declarant should imploy her to spick for her to the Queen of Farie, and strik and battle in her behalf with the said Queen, (which was her own words).”[22]
Beaumont and Fletcher afford us but few instances of witchcraft in the many dramas that conveniently go under their names. We have, it is true, a she-devil, Lucifera, in _The Prophetess_, but the incident is little better than clowning. Delphia herself is a severely classical pythoness far removed from the Sawyers, Demdikes, and Dickensons Sulpitia, in _The Custom of the County_ dons a conjurer’s robe and at Hippolita’s bidding blasts Zenocia almost to death by her spells, but yet she is more bawd than witch. Peter Vecchio in _The Chances_, “a reputed wizard,” is as sharp and cozening a practitioner as Forobosco, the mountebank, a petty pilferer, who is exposed and sent to the galleys at the end of _The Fair Maid of the Inn_; or Shirley’s Doctor Sharkino[23] whom silly serving-men consult about the loss of silver spoons and napkins; or Tomkis’s Albumazar; nay, Jonson’s Subtle himself.[24]
In Marston’s _Sophonisba_ (4to, 1606) appears Erictho, borrowed from Lucan. The Friar in Chapman’s _Bassy d’Ambois_ (4to, 1607) puts on a magician’s habit, and after a sonorous Latin invocation raises the spirits Behemoth and Cartophylax in the presence of Bussy and Tamyra.
A far more interesting drama than these is Shirley’s _S. Patrick for Ireland_, acted in Dublin, 1639-40, which has as its theme the conversion of Ireland by S. Patrick and the opposition of the Druids under their leader Archimagus. The character of S. Patrick moves throughout with a quiet spiritual dignity that has true beauty, and the magicians in their baffled potency for evil are only less effective. This drama is a work of stirling merit, to which I would unhesitatingly assign a very high place in Shirley’s theatre. We are shown the various attempts upon S. Patrick’s life: poison is administered in a cup of wine, the Saint drinks and remains unharmed; Milcho, a great officer, whose servant S. Patrick once was, locks him and his friends in a house and fires it. The Christians pass out unscathed through the flames which devour the incendiary. In the last scene whilst S. Patrick sleeps Archimagus summons a vast number of hideous serpents to devour him, but the Apostle of Ireland wakes, and expels for ever all venomous reptiles from his isle, whereon the earth gapes and swallows the warlock alive. Particularly impressive is the arrival of S. Patrick, when as the King and his two sons, his druids and nobles, are gathered in anxious consultation at the gates of their temple, they see passing in solemn procession through the woods a fair company with gleaming crosses, silken banners, bright tapers and incense, what time the sweet music of a hymn strikes upon the ear:
Post maris sæui fremitus Iernæ (Nauitas cœlo tremulas beante) Uidimus gratum iubar enatantes Littus inaurans.
(Now that we have crossed the fierce waves of ocean to Ireland’s coast, and Heaven has blessed its poor fearful wanderers, wending our way along with joy do we see a sunbeam of light gilding these shores.)
As Marlowe’s _Dr. Faustus_ has already been treated in this connexion it may not be altogether impertinent very briefly to consider some three or four other Elizabethan plays in which the Devil appears among the Dramatis Personæ, even if he act no very prominent part. These for the most part fluctuate between the semi-serious and merest buffoonery. Thus the prologue of _The Merry Devil of Edmonton_ (4to, 1608), in which the enchanter Peter Fabell tricks the demon who has come to demand the fulfilment of his contract, is at the opening managed with due decorum, but it soon adopts a lighter, and even trivial, vein. William Rowley’s _The Birth of Merlin, or The Childe hath found his Father_ (not printed until 1662) is a curious medley of farce and romance, informed with a certain awkward vigour and not wholly destitute of poetry. Dekker’s _If it be not good, the Divel is in it_ (4to, 1612), which may be traced to the old prose _History of Friar Rush_, depicts the exploits of three lesser fiends who are dispatched to spread their master’s kingdom in Naples. It is an unequal play, the satire of which falls very flat, since it is obvious that the poet was not sincere in his extravagant theme.[25]
Ben Jonson’s _The Devil is an Ass_, acted in 1616, is wholly comic. Pug, “the less devil,” who visits the earth, and engages himself as servant to a Norfolk squire, Fabian Fitzdottrel, is hopelessly outwitted on every occasion by the cunning of mere mortals. Eventually he finds himself lodged in Newgate, and in imminent danger of the gallows were he not rescued by the Vice, Iniquity, by whom he is carried off rejoicing to the nether regions. His fate may be compared with that of Roderigo in Wilson’s excellent comedy _Belphegor: or, The Marriage of the Devil_ (produced at Dorset Garden in the summer of 1690), who with his two attendant devils flies back to his native hell to escape the woes of earth.
In _The Devil’s Charter_, however, by Barnaby Barnes (1607), we have what is undoubtedly a perfectly serious tragedy, which if not exactly modelled upon, at least owes many hints to Marlowe’s _Faustus_. It is flamboyant melodrama and wildly unhistorical throughout, a very tophet of infernal horror. The chief character is a loathsome caricature of Pope Alexander VI,[26] and, as we might expect, all the lies and libels of Renaissance satirists and Protestant pamphleteers are heaped together to portray an impossible monster of lust and crime. The filthiest scandals of Burchard, Sanudo, Giustiniani, Filippo Nerli, Guicciardini, Paolo Giovio, Sannazzaro and the Neapolitans, have been employed with one might almost say a scrupulous conscientiousness. The black art, in particular, occupies a very prominent place in these lurid scenes. Alexander has signed a bond with a demon Astaroth, and it is to this contract that all his success is ascribed. In Act IV there is a long incantation when the Pope puts on his magical robes, takes his rod and pentacle, and standing within the circle he has traced conjures in strange terms, commencing a Latin exorcism which tails off into mere gibberish. Various devils appear, and he is shown a vision of Gandia’s murder by Cæsar,[27] with other atrocities. At the climax of the piece we have the banquet with Cardinal Adrian of Corneto, and whilst the guests talk “The Devill commeth and changeth the Popes bottles.” The Borgias are poisoned, and in a far too protracted “Scena Ultima” Alexander discourses and disputes frantically with the demons who appear to mock and torment him. There is the old device of an ambiguous contract; presently a “Devil like a Poast” enters winding a horn to summon the unhappy wretch, who raves and shrieks out meaningless ejaculations as he is dragged away amid thunder and lightning. This sort of thing pandered to the most brutalized appetites of the groundlings, and _The Devil’s Charter_ may be summed up as a disgusting burlesque not without its quota of vile stuff that is so repulsive as to be physically sickening.
Upon a careful consideration of those seventeenth-century plays which have Witchcraft as their main theme, and leaving on one side, for our purpose, the essentially romantic treatment of the subject, however realistic some details of the picture may be, it is, I think, beyond dispute that _The Witch of Edmonton_ in the figure of Mother Sawyer offers us the best contemporary illustration of the Elizabethan witch. The drama itself is one of no ordinary merit and power, whilst the understanding and restraint which set the play apart from its fellows also raises it to the level of genuine tragedy. It should be noticed that we see a witch, so to speak, in the process of making. Mother Sawyer is in truth the victim of the prejudices of the village hinds and ignorant yokels. When she first appears it is merely as a poor old crone driven to desperation by her brutal neighbours; the farmers declare she is a witch, and at length persecution makes her one. She is malignant and evil enough once the compact with the demon has been confirmed; she longs from the first to be revenged upon her enemies and mutters to herself “by what art May the thing called Familiar be purchased?” But, in one sense, she is urged and hounded to her destiny, and the authors, although never doubting her compact with the powers of darkness, her vile and poisonous life, show a detached but very real sympathy for her. It is this touch of humanity, the pathos and pity of the poor old hag, repulsive, wicked, and baleful as she may be, which must place _The Witch of Edmonton_ in my opinion among the greatest and most moving of all Elizabethan plays.
It is no pleasant task to turn now to the theatre of the eighteenth century in this connexion. The witch became degraded; she was comic, burlesqued, buffooned; a mere property for a Christmas pantomime: _Harlequin Mother Bunch_, _Mother Goose_, _Harlequin Dame Trot_, Charles Dibdin’s _The Lancashire Witches, or The Distresses of Harlequin_[28] whose tinsel, music, and mummery drew all the macaronis and cyprians in London to the Circus during the winter of 1782-3.
Some subtle premonition of the great success of Harrison Ainsworth’s powerful story _The Lancashire Witches_—for this and the macabre _Rookwood_ are probably the best of the work of a talented writer now unduly depreciated and decried—seems to have suggested to the prolific Edward Fitzball his “Legendary Drama in Three Acts,” _The Lancashire Witches, A Romance of Pendle Forest_, produced at the Adelphi Theatre, 3 January, 1848. It was quick work, for it was only a month before, 3 December, 1847, that Ainsworth, writing to his friend Crossley of Manchester, states that he has accepted the liberal offer of the _Sunday Times_—£1000 and the copyright to revert to the author on the completion of the work—that his new romance _The Lancashire Witches_ should make its appearance as a serial in the paper. He had already sketched out the plan, and he must have given Fitzball an idea of this, or at least have allowed the dramatist the use of some few rough notes, for although the play and the novel have little, one might say nothing essential, in common, the chief character in the theatre, Bess of the Woods, “140 years old, formerly Abbess of S. Magdalen’s, doomed for her crimes to an unearthly age,” is none other than the anchoress Isolde de Heton.[29] The fourth scene of the second act presents the ruins of Whalley Abbey by moonlight. During an incantation the picture gradually changes; the broken arches form themselves into perfect masonry; the ivy disappears from the windows to show the ruby and gold of coloured glass; the decaying altar glitters with piled plate and the gleam of myriad tapers. A choir of nuns rises from the grave to dance with spectral gallants. Among the votaries are Nutter, Demdike, and Chattox “Three Weird Sisters, doomed for their frailties to become Witches.” But they utter no word, and have no part save this in the action. This scene must have proved extraordinarily effective upon the stage. It owes much to the haunted convent in Meyerbeer’s _Robert le Diable_, produced at the Académie Royale in November, 1831, and given in a piratical form both at Drury Lane and Covent Garden within a few weeks. Nor is it comparable to its original. In Fitzball’s melodrama O. Smith appeared as Gipsy Dalian, a new character; and Miss Faucit (Mrs. Bland) as Bess of the Woods. The play, for what it is, a luridly theatrical and Surrey-side sensation, has merit; but to speak of it in the same breath as Middleton or even as Barnes would be absurd.
Shelley’s genius has with wondrous beauty translated for us scenes from Calderon’s _El Magico Prodigioso_, one of the loveliest songs of the Spanish nightingale. On another plane, admittedly, but yet, I think, far from lacking a simple comeliness of its own and surely not without most poignant pathos, is Longfellow’s New England Tragedy _Giles Corey of the Salem Farms_.[30] The honest sincerity of Cotton Mather, the bluff irascible heartiness of Corey himself, the inopportune scepticism of his wife—which to many would seem sound common sense—the hysteria of Mary Walcot, the villainy of John Gloyd, all these are sketched with extraordinary power, a few quiet telling touches which make each character, individual, alert, alive.
In the French theatre we have an early fourteenth-century _Miracle de Nostre Dame de Robert le Dyable_, and in 1505 was acted _Le mystère du Chevalier qui donna sa femme au Diable_, à dix personnages. As one might well expect during the long classical period of the drama Witchcraft could have found no place in the scenes of the French dramatists. It would have been altogether too wild, too monstrous a fantasy. And so it is not until the 24 floréal, An XIII (11 June, 1805) that a play which interweaves sorcery as its theme is seen at the Théâtre français, when _Les Templiers_ of Raynouard was given there. A few years later _Le Vampire_, a thrilling melodrama by Charles Nodier and Carmouche, produced on 13 August, 1820, was to draw all idle Paris to the Porte-Saint-Martin. In 1821 two facile writers quick to gauge the public appetite, Frédéric Dupetit-Mèré and Victor Ducagne, found some favour with _La Sorcière, ou l’Orphelin écossais_. Alexandre Dumas, and one of his many ghosts Auguste Maquet, collaborated (if one may use the term) in a grandiose five-act drama _Urbain Grandier_, 1850. _La Sorcière Canidie_, a one-act play by Aurélien Vivie, produced at Bordeaux in 1888 is of little account. _La Reine de l’Esprit_ (1891) of Maurice Pottecher is founded to some extent on the _Comte de Gabalis_, whilst the same author’s three-act _Chacun cherche son Trésor_, “histoire des sorciers” (1899) was not a little helped by the music of Lucien Michelet. There are many excuses for passing over with a mere mention _Les Noces de Sathan_ (1892), a “drama ésoterique,” by Jules Bois, and _Les Basques ou la Sorcière d’Espelette_, a lyric drama in three acts by Loquin and Mégret de Belligny, produced at Bordeaux in 1892, has an interest which is almost purely local. Alphonse Tavan’s _Les Mases_ (sorciers), a legendary drama of five acts of alternating prose and verse seen in 1897 was helped out by every theatrical resource, a ballet, chorus, mechanical effects, and confident advertisement. Serge Basset’s _Vers le Sabbat_ “évocation de sorcellerie en un acte” which appeared in the same year need not be seriously considered. Nor does an elaborate episode “Le Sabbat et la Herse Infernale,” wherein Mons. Benglia appeared as Satan, that was seen in the Folies Bergère revue, _Un Soir de Folie_, 1925-6, call for more than the briefest passing mention.
In more recent days Victor Sardou’s _La Sorcière_ is a violent, but effective, melodrama. Produced at the Théâtre Sarah-Bernhardt, 15 December, 1903, with De Max as Cardinal Ximenes and Sarah Bernhardt as the moresque Zoraya, it obtained a not undeserved success. The locale of the tragedy is Toledo, anno domini 1506; Act IV, the Inquisition scene; and Act V, the square before the Cathedral with the grim pyre ready for the torch, were—owing to the genius of a great actress—truly harrowing. Of course it is very flamboyant, very unbalanced, very unhistorical, but in its gaudy theatrical way—all the old tricks are there—_La Sorcière_ had an exciting thrill for those who were content to be unsophisticated awhile.
John Masefield’s adaptation from the Norwegian of Wiers-Jennsen, _The Witch_,[31] a drama in four acts, is a very different thing. Here we have psychology comparable to that of Dekker and Ford. Nor will the performances of Miss Janet Achurch as Merete Beyer and Miss Lillah McCarthy as Anne Pedersdotter easily be forgotten. As a picture of the horror of Witchcraft in cold Scandinavia, the gloom and depression of formidable fanaticism engendered by Lutheran dogma and discipline with the shadow of destiny lowering implacably over all, this is probably the finest piece of work dealing in domestic fashion with the warlock and the sorceress that has been seen on the English stage since the reign of wise King James three hundred years ago.
NOTES TO CHAPTER VII
[1] The _Floralia_, the most wanton of Roman festivals, commenced on the fourth day before the Kalends of May, and during these celebrations the spectators insisted that the _mimæ_ should play naked, “agebantur [_Floralia_] a meretricibus ueste exutis omni cum uerborum licentia, motuumque obscænitate,” says the old commentator on Martial I, 1. “Lasciui Floralia laeta theatri” Ausonius names them, _De Feriis Romanis_, 25. Lactantius, _De Institutionibus Diuinis_, I, 20, writes: “Celebrantur ergo illi ludi cum omni lasciuia, conuenientes memoriæ meretricis. Nam praeter uerborum licentiam, quibus obscænitas omnis effunditur; exuuntur etiam uestibus populo flagitante meretrices; quæ tunc mimorum funguntur officio; et in conspectu populi usque ad satietatem impudicorum luminum cum pudendis motibus detinentur.” Both S. Augustine and Arnobius reprehend the lewdness of these naked dances. At Sens during the Feast of Fools, when every licence prevailed, men were led in procession _nudi_. Warton (_History of English Poetry_, by T. Warton, edited by W. C. Hazlitt, 4 vols., 1871), II, 223, states that in the Mystery Plays “Adam and Eve are both exhibited on the stage naked, and conversing about their nakedness; this very pertinently introduces the next scene, in which they have coverings of fig-leaves.” In a stage-direction of the Chester Plays we find: “Statim nudi sunt.... Tunc Adam et Eua cooperiant genitalia sua cum foliis.” Chambers, _The Mediæval Stage_, II, 143, doubts whether the players were actually nude, and suggests a suit of white leather. Warton, however, is probably right.
[2] Phales was an early deity, very similar to Priapus, and closely associated with the Bacchic mysteries. For the refrain see _The Acharnians_, 263-265.
[3] See Callot’s series of character-etchings, _I Balli di Sfessanio_.
[4] Not to be confused with the printer Fust, as was at one time frequently supposed.
[5] In Marlowe’s play Faust welcomes “German Valdes and Cornelius.” Who Valdes is has not been satisfactorily explained. The suggestion of Dr. Havelock Ellis that Paracelsus seems intended is no doubt correct.
[6] Translated from the Middle Dutch by Harry Morgan Ayres, with an Introduction by Adriaan J. Barnouw. _The Dutch Library_, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. 1924.
[7] The International Theatre Society gave a private subscription performance of _Mary of Nimmegen_ at Maskelyne’s Theatre on Sunday, 22 February, 1925. But such a play, presenting crowded scenes of burgher life, the streets, the market-place, to be effective demands a large stage and costly production.
[8] Meroe is the hag “saga et diuina” in Apuleius, _Metamorphoseon_, I.
[9] _Macbeth_ was tinkered at almost from the first. Upon the revival of the play immediately after the Restoration the witch scenes were given great theatrical prominence. 7 January, 1667, Pepys declared himself highly delighted with the “divertissement, though it be a deep tragedy.”
[10] _The Witch of Edmonton_ was revived under my direction for two performances at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, 24 and 26 April, 1921. Sybil Thorndike played the Witch, Russell Thorndike, the Familiar; Ion Swinley, Frank Thorney; Edith Evans, Ann Ratcliffe; and Frank Cochrane, Cuddy Banks.
[11] 4to 1634: _Stationers’ Register_, 28 October.
[12] In a famous Scotch trial for witchcraft, 1661, Jonet Watson of Dalkeith confessed “that the Deivill apeired vnto her in the liknes of ane prettie boy, in grein clothes.”
[13] Liber III. _De Magis et Maleficis Finnorum._
[14] Tegue o’ Divelly was acted by Antony Leigh, the most famous comedian of his day, and an intimate friend of Shadwell.
[15] Curiously enough Halliwell in _The Poetry of Witchcraft_, a private reprint of Heywood and Shadwell’s plays, 80 copies only, 1853, has not reproduced the italic letter but gives all the dialogue in roman to the great detriment of this edition.
[16] Licensed for printing 2 November, 1672, and published quarto with date 1673.
[17] At a later revival Ismeron’s recitative “Ye twice ten hundred Deities” was set by Purcell.
[18] Dryden’s. He wrote the first scene of the first act, the whole of the fourth act, rather more than one-half of act five, and Lee is responsible for the rest of the tragedy.
[19] For a full analysis and critical examination of _Zoroastres_ see my article in the _Modern Language Review_, XII, Jan., 1917.
[20] The title-rôle Dame Dobson was played by Mrs. Corey, a mistress of broad comedy, who was much admired for her humour by Samuel Pepys.
[21] Mrs. Behn owes a hint to Shirley’s _The Lady of Pleasure_, licensed by Sir Henry Herbert, 15 October, 1635; 4to. 1637. It must be confessed that she has managed her scenes with more wit and spirit than the older dramatist, whose charming verse is perhaps too seriously poetical for the actual situation.
[22] George Sinclar, _Satan’s Invisible World Discovered_, 1685. Reprint, Edinburgh, 1871. Supplement, I, p. xii.
[23] _The Maid’s Revenge_, acted 1626, printed 1639.
[24] Compare Mopus in Wilson’s _The Cheats_ (acted in 1662); Stargaze in _The City Madam_; Rusee, Norbrett, and their accomplices in _Rollo_; Iacchelino in Ariosto’s _Il Negromante_; and a score beside.
[25] Sir Adolphus Ward, _English Dramatic Literature_, 1899, II, 465, says that Langbaine wrongly supposed the source of this play to be “Machiavelli’s celebrated _Novella_ on the marriage of Belphegor.” But this is hardly correct. Langbaine wrote: “The beginning of his Play seems to be writ in imitation of _Matchiavel’s_ Novel of _Belphegor_: where _Pluto_ summons the Devils to Councel.”
[26] For a fitting account of Alexander VI see _Le Pape Alexandre VI et les Borgia_, Paris, 1870, by Père Ollivier, O.P.; also Leonetti _Papa Alessandro VI secondo documenti e carteggi del tempo_, 3 vols., Bologna, 1880. _Chronicles of the House of Borgia_, by Frederick, Baron Corvo, 1901, may be studied with profit. Monsignor de Roo’s _Material for a History of Pope Alexander VI_, 5 vols., Bruges, 1924, is of the greatest value, and completely authoritative.
[27] The murderer of the Duke of Gandia is unknown to history, if not to historians.
[28] The songs only are printed, 8vo, 1783.
[29] Fosbrooke, _British Monachism_, says that in the reign of Henry VI one Isolde de Heton petitioned the King to let her be admitted as an anchoress in the Abbey of Whalley. But afterwards she left the enclosure and broke her vows, whereupon the King dissolved the hermitage.
[30] The incidents are historically correct. See Cotton Mather’s _Wonders of the Invisible World_. Corey refusing to plead was pressed to death.
[31] Originally produced 10 October, 1910, at the Royalty, Glasgow: in London, 31 January, 1911, at the Court. Revived at the Court, 29 October, 1913, when it ran for a month, and was afterwards included in the subsequent three weeks’ repertory season.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
This Bibliography does not aim at anything beyond presenting a brief and convenient hand-list of some of the more important books upon Witchcraft. It does not even purport to give all those monographs to which reference is made in the body of this study. A large number of books I have thought it superfluous to include. Thus I have omitted general works of reference such as the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, Du Cange’s _Glossarium ad scriptores mediæ et infimæ latinitatis_, Dugdale’s _Monasticon_; daily companions such as the Missal, the Breviary, the Bible; Homer, Vergil, Horace, Ovid, Petronius, Lucan; Shakespeare, Marlowe, Ford, Dryden, Burton’s _Anatomy of Melancholy_, and English classics; those histories which are on every library shelf, Gibbon, Lingard, Ranke; and such histories as the _Cambridge Modern History_.
On the other hand, I have of purpose included various books which may not seem at first sight to have much connexion with Witchcraft, although they are, as a matter of fact, by no means impertinent. In order to appreciate this vast subject in all its bearings, even the desultory or amateur investigator should at least be fairly grounded in theology, philosophy, and psychology. The student must be a capable theologian.
I have devoted some particular attention to the works of the demonologists, now almost universally neglected, but a close study of which is essential to the understanding of occultism and the appreciation of the grave dangers that may lurk there.
I am only too conscious of the plentiful lacunæ in this Bibliography. However, to attempt anything like a complete catalogue—if, indeed, it were possible to essay so illimitable a task—would involve the listing of very many thousands of books, and would itself require no inconsiderable a tale of volumes.
I need hardly point out that side by side with works of the highest importance it has been found necessary to include a few of no great value, which yet have their use to illustrate some one point or special phase.
GENERAL
CAILLET, ALBERT L. _Manuel bibliographique des sciences psychiques ou occultes, science des Mages, hermétique, astrologie, Kabbale, Francmaçonnerie, médecine ancienne, mesmérisme, sorcellerie, singularités, etc._ 3 vols. Paris, 1913.
GRÆSSE, JOHAN GEORG THEODOR. _Bibliotheca magica et pneumatica._ Leipzig, 1843. (In spite of obvious defects a very valuable bibliography.)
YVE-PLESSIS, R. _Bibliographie française de la sorcellerie._ Paris, 1900. (An immense and exhaustive work on French books.)
AARON THE GREEK [Simon Blocquel]. _La Magie rouge._ Paris, 1821.
ABNER, THEODORE. _Les apparitions du Diable._ Brussels, 1879.
ACONTIUS. _Stratagemata Satanæ._ Libri VIII. Basle, 1565.
_Acta Sanctorum._ Par les Bollandistes. Antwerp, Tongerloo, Brussels, 1644 _sqq._ Reprinted, Paris, 1863 _sqq._
ADHÉMAR DE CHABANNES. _Chronicle_: in _Monumenta Germaniæ historica_. Ed. G. A. Pertz, etc. Vol. IV.
AGOBARD, S. _Opera omnia._ Migne, _Patrologia latina_. Vol. CIV.
AGRIPPA, HEINRICH CORNELIUS. _La philosophie occulte de Henr. Corn. Agrippa ... traduite du latin_ [par A. Levasseur]. 2 vols. Hague, 1727.
_Œuvres magiques ... mises en français par Pierre d’Aban._ Rome, 1744. (Of the last rarity. There are other editions, Liège, 1788; Rome, 1800; Rome, 1744 (_circa_ 1830); but all these are extremely scarce.)
ALANUS (Alain de Lille). _Aduersus hæreticos et Waldenses._ Ed. J. Masson. Paris, 1612.
ALANUS, HENRICUS. _Ciceronis de Divinatione et de Fato._ 1839.
ALBERT, LE PETIT. _Alberti Parui Lucii libellus de mirabilibus Naturæ arcanis._ (This treatise which tells how to confect philtres, make talismans, use the hand of glory, discover treasures, etc., has been very frequently translated into French, generally under the running title _Les secrets merveilleux de la magie naturelle et cabalistique_....)
BL. ALBERTUS MAGNUS, O.P. _Opera omnia._ Ed. Father Peter Jammy, O.P. 21 vols. Lyons, 1651, etc.
_De alchimia._ (This treatise is said to be doubtful.)
_De secretis mulierum._ (This work is certainly not from the pen of the great Dominican doctor, to whom, however, it was universally ascribed. There are a vast number of editions, and translations, especially into French. _Les secretz des femmes et homes ... stampato in Torino par Pietro Ranot_, N.D. _circa_ 1540. _Les secrets admirables du grand Albert._ Paris, 1895.)
_Commentaria._ Lib. IV, dist. 34. _An maleficii impedimento aliquis potest impediri a potentia cocundi._ (_Nœud de l’aiguillette._)
ALEXANDER III, POPE. _Epistolæ_ apud _Regesta R. R. Pontificum_. Nos. 10, 584-14, 424. Ed. Jaffé. And Löwenfeld’s _Epistolæ Pontif. Rom. ineditæ_. Leipzig, 1885.
ALEXIS. _Secreti del reverendo Donno Alessio Piemontese._ Venice, 1555. (Attributed by Girolamo Muzio to the alchemist Girolamo Ruscelli.)
ALLARD, PAUL. _Histoire des persécutions._ 5 vols. Paris, 1892.
_Julien l’Apostat._ 3 vols. Paris, 1900.
ALPHONSUS LIGUORI, S. _Theologia Moralis._ 9 vols. Malines, 1828. Also ed. P. Gaudé, C. SS. R. Rome, 1905.
ALVARO, PELAYO. _De Planctu Ecclesiæ._ Venice, 1560.
AMBROISE DA VIGNATE (_c._ 1408). _Tractatus de Hæreticis._ Rome, 1581.
AMBROSE, S. _Opera omnia._ Ed. Paolo Angelo Ballerini. 6 vols. Folio. Milan, 1875.
ANANIA, GIOVANNI LORENZO. _De Natura Dæmonum._ Apud Vol. II. _Malleus Maleficarum._ 1669.
_Anonymi Gesta Francorum et Aliorum Hierosolymitanorum._ Oxford.
ANTONELLI, G. PROF. _Lo spiritismo._ _Fede e Scienza_, II. 11, 12. Rome.
ANTONINUS, O. P. S. _Confessionale._ Florence, 1496.
ANTONIO A SPIRITU SANCTO, O.D.C. _Directorium Mysticum._ Paris, 1904.
AREMI (LE SAGE). _Secrets de vieux Druide._ Lille, 1840.
ARETINI, ANGELO. _Tractatus de maleficiis._ 1521.
ARIES, MARTIN. _De superstitionibus maleficorum._ Rome, 1559.
ARIMINENSIS, AUGUSTINUS. _Additiones in Angeli Aretini Tractatum de maleficiis._ Milan, 1514.
ARNAULD DE VILLENEUVE. _De Maleficiis._ Lyons, 1509.
ARNOULD, ARTHUR. _Histoire de l’Inquisition._ Paris, 1869.
AROUX. _Mystères de la Chevalerie et de l’amour platonique._ 1857-8.
ARPE (PETR. FRID.). _De Prodigiosis Naturæ et Artis Operibus Talismanes et Amuleta._ Hamburg, 1717.
ATHANASIUS, S. _Opera omnia._ Migne, _Pat. Græci_. Vols. XXIII-XXVIII.
ATWOOD, M. A. _A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery._
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(A truly amazing defence of the Albigensians. The author has completely misunderstood their heresies.)
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(The works of Henry Charles Lea, lengthy and laborious as they are, must be used with the utmost caution and need continually to be corrected. They are insecure, and bitterly biased, since even when facts are not widely distorted a wrong interpretation is inevitably placed upon them. Their value and merit can but be regarded as fundamentally shaken. The following criticism will be found useful: Paul Maria Baumgarten: _Die Werke von Henry Charles Lea und verwandte Bücher_, 1908. Eng. tr.: _H. C. Lea’s Historical Writings: A critical inquiry into their method and merit_. 1909.)
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(Scholarly and valuable works.)
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_The Paradoxes of the Highest Science._ (Footnotes by a Master of the Wisdom.)
_Transcendental Magic._ (Translated, annotated, and introduced by Arthur Edward Waite.)
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SBARALEA. _Bullarium Franciscanum._ 5 vols. Rome, 1759 sqq.
SCHELTEMA, JACOBUS. _Geschiedenis der Heksenprocessen, eene bijdrage tot den roem des vaderlands._ Haarlem, 1828.
SCHERARTZ, SIGISMUND. _Libellus de spectris._ Wittenberg, 1620.
SCHMIDT. _Histoire et Doctrine de la secte des Cathares ou Albigeois._ Paris, 1849.
SCHRAM, DOMINIC, O.S.B. _Institutiones Theologiæ Mysticæ._ 2 vols. Ausburg, 1774. (A most valuable work.)
SCHWAB, J. B. _Jean Gerson._ Würzburg, 1858.
SCOTUS, DUNS. _Opera omnia._ 12 vols. Ed. Wadding. Lyons, 1639. Reprint, 26 vols. (Vives) Paris, 1891-95.
SIMANCAS. _De Catholicis Institutionibus._ Apud Zilettum, _q.u._
SINISTRARI, O.M., LUDOVICO MARIA. _Opera omnia._ Rome. 3 vols. 1753-4.
_De Dæmonialitate._ First published by Liseux. Paris, 1875. Eng. tr. _Demonality, or Incubi and Succubi._ Paris, 1879.
SOCINUS, MARIANUS. _De sortilegiis._ _Circa_ 1465.
SOLE, JACOBUS. _De Delictis et Pœnis._ Rome, 1920.
SPEE, S.J., FREDERICK. _Cautio criminalis._ 1631. Cologne, 1632.
SPENCE, LEWIS. _An Encyclopedia of Occultism: a Compendium of Information on the Occult Sciences, Occult Personalities, Psychic Sciences, Magic, Demonology, Spiritism, and Mysticism._ London, 1920.
_Spicilegium dæmonolatriæ._ _Circa_ 1330.
SPINA, BARTOLOMEO, O.P. _Tractatus de Strigibus et Lamiis._ Venice, 1523.
SPRENGER, O.P., JAMES and KRAMER (Institor), HEINRICH. (_Editio princeps_) _Malleus Maleficarum_. Nuremburg, 1494 and 1496. Cologne, 1489 and 1494. Frankfort, 1582. Cologne, 1511 and 1520. Lyons, 1595 and (a fuller edition) 1620. (There are several other issues.) Of this authoritative work I have used the Lyons edition.
_Sumptibus Claudii Bovrgeat._ 4 vols. 1669, which contains the following valuable collections:—
Vol. I.
NIDER, O.P., JOHN. _Formicarius de maleficiis._
SPRENGER and KRAMER. _Malleus Maleficarum._
Vol. II.
ANANIA, GIOVANNI LORENZO. _De Natura Dæmonum._
BASIN, BERNARD. _De Artibus magicis._
BERNARD OF COMO, O.P. _De Strigibus._ (With the annotations of Francesco Peña.)
CASTRO, O.M., ALFONSO À. _De impia Sortilegarum hæresi._
DE VIGNATE, AMBROSE. _Quæstio de Lamiis._ (With a commentary by Peña.)
GERSON, JOHN. _De Probatione Spirituum. De erroribus circa artem magicam reprobatis._
GRILLAND, PAUL. _De Sortilegiis._
LEONE, GIOVANNI FRANCESCO. _De Sortilegiis._
MOLITOR, ULRICH. _De Pythonicis mulieribus._
MURNER, O.M., THOMAS. _De Pythonico Contractu._
SIMANCAS, IAGO. _De Lamiis._
SPINA, O.P., BARTOLOMEO. _De Strigibus._
_In Ponzinibium de Lamiis Apolegia._
Vol. III
GORICHEN, HEINRICH DE. _De superstitioris quibusdam casibus._
MAMOR, PIETRO. _Flagellum maleficorum._
MENGO, GIROLAMO, CAPUCHIN. _Flagellum Dæmonum._
_Fustis Dæmonum._
STAMPA, PIETRO ANTONIO. _Fuga Satanæ._
Vol. IV.
_Ars exorcistica tribus partibus._
(It is hardly possible to overestimate the value of this collection.)
STEAD, W. T. _Real Ghost Stories._ Reprinted from “The Review of Reviews,” 1891-2. London, 1897.
STEINER, RUDOLF. _Les Mystères antiques et le Mystère chrétien._ Paris, 1920.
STENGESIUS, G. _De Monstris et Monstrosis._ 1647 (?).
STRIDTHECKH, CHRISTIAN. _De Sagis, siue Fœminis, commercium cum Malo Spiritu habentibus._ Leipzig, 1691.
SUTTER, PAUL ABBÉ. _Lucifer._ Tr. by the Rev. Theophilus Borer. London, 1922.
TAGEREAU, VINCENT. _Discours sur l’impuissance de l’homme et de la femme._ Paris, 1612.
TAILLEPIED, FRÈRE NOEL. _Psichologie, ou traité de l’apparition des Esprits._ Paris, 1588; and many other eds.
TARREGA, RAIMUNDUS. _De inuocatione dæmonum._ _Circa_ 1370.
TARTAROTTI, GIROLAMO. _Del Congresso Notturno delle Lammie._ Rovereto, 1749.
TAXIL, JEAN. _Traicté de l’Epilepsie._ Lyons, 1602. C. XVII (pp. 150-162) treats of demoniacs, sorcerers, and possession.
THEATINUS, JOHANN BAPISTA. _Aduersus artem magicam et striges._ _Circa_ 1510.
_Theatrum Diabolorum._ 1587.
S. THOMAS AQUINAS. _Opera omnia iussu edita Leonis XIII., P.M._ The Leonine edition.
THUMMIUS, THEODORE. _De Sagarum impictate._ Tubingen, 2nd ed., 1666.
TINCTOR, JOHANNES. _Sermo de secta Uaudensium._ 1460.
TOMASETTI. Ed. _Bullarium ... Romanorum Pontificum._ 22 vols. Turin, 1857, etc.; and Naples, 1867-85.
TRIEZ, ROBERT DU. _Les ruses, finesses, et impostures des Esprits malins._ Cambrai, 1563.
TRITHEMIUS, JOHANNES. _Liber Octo quæstionum._ 1508.
_Antipalus Maleficiorum._ 1508.
TUBERVILLE, A. S. _Mediæval Heresy and the Inquisition._ London, 1920.
UGOLINI, ZANCHINO. _De Hæreticis._ Apud Zilettum, _q.u._
ULRICHS, K. H. _Incubus, Urningsliebe, und Blutgier._ Leipzig, 1869.
ULYSSE, ROBERT. _Les signes d’infamie au Moyen Age._ Paris, 1891.
URSTISIUS. _Germanicæ historiæ scriptores._ Frankfort, 1585.
VAIR, LEONARD. _Trois livres des charmes, sorceleges, ov enchantments.... Faits en latin par Leonard Vair et mis en Francois par Iulian Bavdon, Angeuin._ Paris, 1583.
DE VALLE DE MOURA. _De incantationibus._ 1620.
VALOIS, N. _La France et le Grand Schisme d’Orient._ Paris, 1896-1902
VAUGHAN, THOMAS (Eugenius Philalethes). _Magical Writings of Thomas Vaughan._ Edited by Arthur Edward Waite. 1888.
_Veritable Dragon Rouge ou il est traite de l’Art de commander les esprits infernaux aeriens et terrestres, faire apparaitre les morts ... plus La Poule Noire._ Sur l’Edition de 1521 [_circa_ 1900].
VERPOORTEN, G. P. _De Dæmonum existentia._ 1779.
VICECOMES, GIROLAMO. _Lamiarum siue striarum opusculum._ 1460, printed 1490.
VILLALPANDO, FRANCISCO TORREBLANCA. _Dæmonologia sive de Magia Naturali, Dæmoniaca, licitia, et illicita._ Mainz, 1603.
VINCENTIUS, JOANNES. _Liber aduersus magicas artes et eos qui dicunt eisdem nullam inesse efficaciam._ _Circa_ 1475.
VINETUS, JOANNES. _Tractatus contra dæmonum inuocatores._ _Circa_ 1450. Printed 1480.
VIVET, O.P., JOHN. _Tractatus contra dæmonum inuocatores._ (_Sine l. et d._) Black letter.
WAITE, ARTHUR EDWARD. _Book of Black Magic, and of Pacts, including the Rites and Mysteries of Goëtic Theurgy, Sorcery, and Infernal Necromancy._ 1898.
_Mysteries of Magic._ A Digest of the Writings of Eliphas Lévi. 1886.
_The Occult Sciences._ 1891.
_The Real History of the Rosicrucians._ 1887
_Studies in Mysticism._ 1906.
WAKE, C. S. _Serpent Worship._ 1888.
WARD, J. S. M. _Freemasonry and the Ancient Gods._
WEYER, JOHAN (Wierus). _De præstigiis dæmonum et incantationibus et uenificiis._ Basle, 1563. _De Lamiis_ and _Pseudo-monarchia Dæmonum_ are appended to the ed. of 1577.
WRIGHT, DUDLEY. _Druidism._ London, 1924.
_The Eleusinian Mysteries and Rites._
_Masonic Legend and Tradition._
_Vampires and Vampirism._ 2nd ed. London, 1925.
WRIGHT, THOMAS. _Narratives of Sorcery and Magic._ 2 vols. 1851.
WULF, M. DE. _History of Mediæval Philosophy._ Eng. tr. 1909.
WÜNSCHELBURG, JOHANNES. _Tractatus de superstitionibus._ _Circa_ 1440.
ZANCHERIUS, UGOLINI. _Tractatus de hæreticis._ Mantua, 1567. Rome, 1579.
ZILETTUS. _Tractatus Uniuersi iuris._ Venice, 1633.
SCRIPTURAL AND ORIENTAL
BAUDISSEN, GRAFEN WOLF WILHELM. _Studien zur semitischen Religionsgeschichte._ 2 vols. Leipzig, 1876 and 1878.
BOCHARTUS, SAM. _Hierozoicon._ Ed. Tert. Lugd. et Traj., 1682.
BOUSSET, W. _The Antichrist Legend._ Trans, by A. H. Keane. London, 1896.
BRECHER. _Das transcendentale Magie und magische Heilarten im Talmud._ Wien, 1850.
BRINTON, D. G. _Religions of Primitive Peoples._ London and New York, 1897.
CHARLES, R. H. _The Book of Enoch._ Oxford, 1893.
CONSTANS. _Relation sur une epidemie d’hystero-demonopathie._ Paris, 1863.
CORNILL, CARL HEINRICH. _The Culture of Ancient Israel._
CROOK, W. _Folklore of Northern India._ 2 vols. 2nd ed. London, 1896.
DAVIES, T. WITTON. _Magic, Divination and Demonology._ London, 1898.
(This work should be used with reserve.)
DENNYS, B. N. _The Folklore of China._ London, 1876.
EDERSHEIM, ALFRED. _Life and Times of the Messiah._ London, 1888.
GINSBERG. _The Kabbalah._ London, 1865. Reprinted, 1925.
GRANGER, F. _The Worship of the Romans._ London, 1895.
GRANT, JAMES. _The Mysteries of all Nations._ Leith, 1880.
HILLEBRANDT. _Ritualliteratur. Vedische Opfer und Zauber._ Strasburg, 1897.
HUGHES, T. P. _Dictionary of Islam._ London, 1885.
HUMMELAUR DE, S. J. _Commentarius in libros Samuel._ (_I et II Regum._) Rome.
KING, J. _Babylonian Magic and Sorcery._ London, 1896.
KOHUT, A. _Jüdische Angel. und Dämonologie._ Leipzig, 1866.
LENORMANT, F. _Chaldean Magic._ London, 1877.
_Divination, et la science des presages._ Paris, 1875.
LESÊTRE. _Dictionnaire de la Bible._ (Sub uoce _Demoniaques_.)
MARTIGNY. _Dictionnaire des antiquités chrétiennes_ (p. 312). Paris, 1877.
MASPERO. _Histoire ancienne des peuples de l’Orient._
MEINERS, PROF. _Geschichte aller Religionen._ 2 vols. 1806.
MICHAELIS, J. D. _Commentaries on the Laws of Moses._ From the German. 4 vols. London, 1814.
PAUVERT. _La vie de N. S. Jésus-Christ._
PERRONE, S.J., GIOVANNI. _De Deo creatore._ Pt. I, c. v, prop. 1, 11.
PICK, BERNHARD. _The Cabala._
SCHENKEL, D. _Bibel-Lexicon._
SCHRADER. _Die Keilinschriften u. d. alte Testament._ 2nd ed. Geissen, 1883.
SMIT, J. _De Demoniacis in Historia Evangelica Dissertatio Exegetico Apologetica._ Romæ, 1913.
SPENCER. _De Legibus Hebræorum ritualibus earumque rationibus._ Ed. C. M. Pfaff. 2 vols. Tubingæ, 1732.
STEHELIN, J. P. _Traditions of the Jews._ 2 vols. London, 1743.
STRAENE, A. W. _A Translation of the Treatise Chagigah, from the Babylonian Talmud._ Cambridge, 1891.
TERTULLIAN. _Apologia._ Migne, _Pat. Lat. I_.
TIELE, C. P. _Geschichte der Religion im Alterthum._ Vol. I. Gotha, 1896.
VIGOUROUX. _Les livres saints et la critique rationaliste._ Paris, 1891.
TORREBLANCA. _De Magia._ Ed. novissima. Lugduni, 1678.
WAFFELAERT. _Dictionnaire apologétique de la foi catholique._ Paris, 1889. (Sub uoce Possession diabolique.)
WEBER, TERD. VON. _Jüdische Theologie._ 2te verbesserte Auflage. Leipzig, 1897.
WIEDEMANN, ALFRED. _Religion of the Ancient Egyptians._ London, 1897.
ZIMMERN. _Die Beschwörungstafeln Surpu._ Leipzig, 1896.
ENGLAND, SCOTLAND, AND IRELAND
_Abbotsford Club Miscellany._ Vol. I. Edinburgh, 1837.
ADY, THOMAS. _A Candle in the Dark._ London, 1656.
ARNOT, HUGO. _Criminal Trials._ Edinburgh, 1785.
ASHTON, JOHN. _The Devil in Britain and America._ London, 1896.
BAXTER, RICHARD. _Certainty of the World of Spirits._ London, 1691.
BEAUMONT, JOHN. _Historical Treatise of Spirits._ London, 1705.
BEDE, VEN. _Ecclesiastical History_ (ed. Giles). London, 1843.
BERNARD, RICHARD. _Guide to Grand-Iury men._ London, 1627.
BLACK, G. F. _Scottish Antiquary_, Vol. IX. Edinburgh, 1895.
_Blackwood’s Magazine_, Vol. I. Edinburgh, 1817.
BOULTON, R. _Compleat History of Magick, Sorcery and Witchcraft._ 2 vols. London, 1715.
BOVETT, R. _Pandæmonium._ London, 1658.
BRAND, JOHN. _History and Antiquities of ... Newcastle._ London, 1789.
BROMHALL, THOMAS. _Treatise of Spectres._ London, 1658.
BURNS, BEGG. _Proceedings of Soc. of Antiquaries of Scotland._ New Series. Vol. X. Edinburgh.
BURTON, JOHN HILL. _Criminal Trials._ London, 1852.
BUTLER, SAMUEL. _Hudibras._ (Ed. Zachary Grey.) 2 vols. Cambridge, 1744.
_Calendar of State Papers. Domestic._ 1584. London, 1865.
_Camden Society. Lady Alice Kyteler._ London, 1843.
COOPER, THOMAS. _Mystery of Witchcraft._ London, 1617.
_Pleasant Treatise of Witches._ London, 1673.
COTTA, JOHN. _Infallible, true and assured Witch._ London, 1625.
_Trial of Witchcraft._ London, 1616.
_County Folklore_, III. London, 1901.
DALYELL, JOHN GRAHAME. _Darker Superstitions of Scotland._ Edinburgh, 1834.
DAVENPORT, JOHN. _Witches of Huntingdon._ London, 1646.
DAVIES, J. CEREDIG. _Welsh Folklore._ Aberystwith, 1911.
_Denham Tracts._ London, 1895.
DRAGE, W. _A Physical Nosonomy ... with Daimonomagia._ 1665.
FAIRFAX, EDWARD. _Demonologia_ (ed. W. Grainge). Harrogate, 1882.
FORBES, WILLIAM. _Institutes of the Law of Scotland._ Edinburgh, 1722-30.
FOSTER. _Tryall of Ann Foster._ Northampton, 1881.
FOUNTAINHALL, LORD. _Decisions._ Edinburgh, 1759.
FULLER, THOMAS. _Church History of Britain._ London, 1655. And edition of J. S. Brewer. Oxford, 1845.
GARDINER, RALPH. _England’s Grievance Discovered._ London, 1655.
GAULE, JOHN. _Select cases of Conscience._ London, 1646.
GERISH, WILLIAM BLYTH. _Relation of Mary Hall of Gadsden._ 1912.
_The Divel’s Delusions._ Bishops Stortford, 1914.
_The Severall Practices of Johane Harrison._ 1909.
GIBBONS, A. _Ely Episcopal Records._ Lincoln, 1891.
GIFFARD, GEORGE. _Discourse of the subtill Practices of Devilles._ London, 1587.
_Dialogue concerning Witches_, _Percy Society_, VIII. London, 1843.
GILBERT, WILLIAM. _Witchcraft in Essex._ London, 1909.
GLANVILL, JOSEPH. _Sadducismus Triumphatus._ London, 1681.
GOLDSMID, E. _Confessions of Witches under Torture._ Edinburgh, 1886.
HALE, JOHN. _A Modest Enquiry_ (ed. Burr). New York, 1914.
HALE, SIR MATTHEW. _Collection of Modern Relations._ London, 1693.
HECTOR, WILLIAM. _Judicial Records of Renfrewshire._ Paisley, 1876.
HELE, N. F. _Notes of Jottings about Aldeburgh._ Ipswich, 1890.
HIBBERT, SAMUEL. _Description of the Shetland Isles._ Edinburgh, 1822.
_Highland Papers. Vol. III. Witchcraft in Bute._ Edinburgh, 1920.
HOLLAND, HENRY. _A treatise against Witchcraft._ Cambridge, 1590.
HOLLINGSWORTH, A. G. _History of Stowmarket._ Ipswich, 1844.
HORNECK, ANTHONY. _Appendix to Glanvill’s Sadducismus Triumphatus._ London, 1681.
HORNES, N. _Dæmonologie and Theologie._ London, 1650.
HOWELL, JAMES. _Familiar Letters._ (Ed. Joseph Jacobs.) London, 1890-2
HOWELL, THOMAS BAYLY. _State Trials._ London, 1816.
HUNT, WILLIAM. _History of the English Church._ London, 1901.
HUTCHINSON, BISHOP FRANCIS. _Historical Essay._ London, 1718.
INCH. _Trial of Isabel Inch._ Ardrossan, _circa_ 1855.
JAMES, I. _Demonologie._ Edinburgh, 1597.
_Journal of Anatomy._ Vols. XIII and XXV. London, 1879, 1891.
_Justiciary Court of Edinburgh, Records of Proceedings._ Edinburgh, 1905.
KINLOCH, GEORGE RITCHIE. _Reliquiæ Antiquæ Scoticæ._ Edinburgh, 1848.
KNAPP AND BALDWIN. _Newgate Calendar._ London, 1825.
LAMONT, JOHN. _Diary, Maitland Club._ Edinburgh, 1830.
LAW, ROBERT. _Memorialls._ (Ed. Sharpe.) Edinburgh, 1818.
_Lawes against Witches and Conivration. Published by Authority._ London, 1745.
LYNN LINTON, MRS. _Witch Stories._ London, 1861 and 1883. (A diligent but uncritical work.)
MACKENZIE, SIR G. _Laws and Customs of Scotland._ Edinburgh, 1699.
MAITLAND, S. R. _Puritan Thaumaturgy._
_Maitland Club Miscellany._ Vol. II. Glasgow, 1840.
MASON, J. _Anatomie of Sorcery._ 1612.
MELVILLE, SIR CHARLES. _Memoirs._ _Bannatyne Club._ Edinburgh.
_Moore Rental._ _Chetham Society._ Vol. XII. Manchester, 1847.
MORE, HENRY. _Antidote against Atheism._ London, 1655.
_Narrative of the Sufferings of a young Girle._ Edinburgh, 1698.
NICHOLLS, JOHN. _History and Antiquities of the County of Leicester._ London, 1795-1815.
NICOLL, JOHN. _Diary._ _Bannatyne Club._ Edinburgh, 1836.
NOTESTEIN, WALLACE. _History of Witchcraft in England._ Washington, 1911.
OSBORNE, FRANCIS. _Traditional Memoirs of the Reigns of Q. Elizabeth and King James I._ London, 1658.
_Miscellany of Sundry Essays._ London, 1659.
OWEN, H. and BLAKEWAY, J. B. _History of Shrewsbury._ London, 1825.
_Percy Society_, _Giffard’s Dialogues of Witches_. London, 1843.
PERKINS, WILLIAM. _Discourse of the damned Art of Witchcraft._ Cambridge, 1608.
PETERSON. _Tryall of Mrs. Joan Peterson._ _Thomason Tracts._ London, 1652.
PETTO, SAMUEL. _A faithful Narrative._ London, 1693.
_Philobiblion Society._ _Examination of certain Witches._ London, 1863-4.
PIKE, L. O. _History of Crime in England._ London, 1873.
PITCAIRN, ROBERT. _Criminal Trials._ Edinburgh, 1833.
_Pittenweem, A true and full Relation of the Witches of._ Edinburgh, 1704.
POLLOCK and MAITLAND. _History of English Law._ 2nd ed. Cambridge, 1898.
_Prodigious and Tragicall History._ London, 1652.
QUIBELL, JAMES EDWARD. _Hierakonpolis._ II. London, 1902.
_Register of the Privy Council of Scotland._ Edinburgh, 1881.
_Registrum Magni Sigilli Regum Scotorum._ Edinburgh, 1886.
ROBERTS, ALEXANDER. _Treatise of Witchcraft._ London, 1616.
_Sadducismus Debellatus._ London, 1698.
SANDYS, GEORGE. _Relation of a Journey._ London, 1632.
SAUNDERS, W. H. B. _Legends and Traditions of Huntingdonshire._ 1888.
SCOT, REGINALD. _Discoverie of Witchcraft._ London, 1584.
SCOTT, SIR WALTER. _Demonology and Witchcraft._
_Scottish History Society._ Vol. XXV. Edinburgh, 1896.
SEYMOUR, S. JOHN D. _Irish Witchcraft and Demonology._ Dublin, 1913.
SHARPE, CHARLES K. _Historical Account of Witchcraft in Scotland._ London, 1884.
SHAW. _Elinor Shaw and Mary Phillips._ Northampton, 1866.
SINCLAR, GEORGE. _The Hydrostaticks._ Edinburgh, 1672.
_Satan’s Invisible World Discovered._ Edinburgh, 1871.
SMITH, CHARLOTTE FELL. _John Dee (1527-1608)._ London, 1909.
_Spalding Club Miscellany._ Aberdeen, 1841.
SPOTTISWODE, JOHN. _History of the Church of Scotland._ Edinburgh, 1847-50.
STEPHEN, SIR J. F. _History of the Criminal Law in England._ London, 1883.
STEVENSON, J. _Chronicon de Lanercost._ _Maitland Club._ Glasgow, 1839.
STEWART, WILLIAM GRANT. _Popular Superstitions of the Highlands._ Edinburgh, 1823.
STRYPE, JOHN. _Annals of the Reformation._ London, 1709-31. Oxford, 1824.
_Surtees Society._ Vol. XL. Durham, 1861.
TAYLOR, JOHN. _Tracts relating to Northamptonshire._ Northampton, 1866.
THORPE, BENJAMIN. _Monumenta Ecclesiastica._ London, 1840.
VETTER, THEODOR. _Relations between England and Zurich during the Reformation._ London, 1904.
VICKARS, K. H. _Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester._ London, 1907.
WAGSTAFFE, JOHN. _Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft._ London, 1671.
WALSH. _Examination of John Walsh._ London, 1566.
WHITAKER, T. D. _History of Whalley._ London, 1818.
WILKINS, DAVID. _Concilia Magnæ Britanniæ._ London, 1737.
WILSON, ARTHUR. _Life and Reign of James I._ London, 1653.
_Witchcraft, Collection of rare and curious tracts on._ Edinburgh, 1891.
_Witchcraft, Collections of rare and curious Tracts relating to._ London, 1838.
_Witchcraft Detected._ 1826.
ZIMMERMAN, G. _De Mutata Saxonum veterum religione._ 1839.
ENGLAND: THE PAMPHLET LITERATURE
(Arranged in chronological order)
_The Examination and confession of certaine Wytches at Chensforde in the Countie of Essex before the Quenes maiesties Judges, the XXVI daye of July Anno 1566._
_A Rehearsall both straung and true of hainous and horrible actes committed by Elizabeth Stile, alias Rockingham, Mother Dutten, Mother Devell, Mother Margaret. Fower notorious Witches apprehended at Winsore in the Countie of Barks, and at Abington arraigned, condemned and executed on the 28 daye of Februarie last anno 1579._
_A Detection of damnable driftes, practised by three Witches arraigned at Chelmsforde in Essex ... whiche were executed in Aprill 1579._ 1579.
_The apprehension and confession of three notorious Witches arraigned and by Justice condemnede in the Countye of Essex the 5 day of Julye last past._ 1589.
_A True and just Recorde of the Information, Examination and Confessions of all the Witches taken at St. Oses in the countie of Essex: wherefore some were executed, and other some entreated accordingly to the determination of Lawe.... Written orderly, as the cases were tryed by evidence, by W. W._ 1582.
_The most strange and admirable discoverie of the three Witches of Warboys, arraigned, convicted and executed at the last assizes at Huntingdon._ London, 1593.
(This was one of the most famous cases of English Witchcraft. A whole literature grew up in connexion therewith. In _Notes and Queries_, Twelfth Series, I, 1916, p. 283 and p. 304, will be found: “The Witches of Warboys: Bibliographical Note,” where twenty-eight entries are made.)
_The most wonderfull and true storie of a certaine Witch named Alse Gooderidge of Stapenhill, who was arraigned and convicted at Darbie.... As also a true Report of the strange Torments of Thomas Darling, a boy of thirteen years of age, that was possessed by the Devill, with his horrible Fittes and terrible apparitions by him uttered at Burton upon Trent, in the county of Stafford, and of his marvellous deliverance._ London, 1597. [By John Denison.]
_The Arraignment and Execution of 3 detestable Witches, John Newell, Joane his wife, and Hellen Calles; two executed at Barnett, and one at Braynford, 1 Dec. 1595._
_The severall Facts of Witchcrafte approved on Margaret Haskett of Stanmore, 1585._ Black letter.
_An Account of Margaret Hacket, a notorious Witch, who consumed a young Man to Death, rotted his Bowells and back bone asunder, who was executed at Tiborn, 19 Feb. 1585._ London, 1585.
_The Examination and Confession of a notorious Witch named Mother Arnold, alias Whitecote, alias Glastonbury, at the Assise of Burntwood in July, 1574: who was hanged for Witchcraft at Barking._ 1575.
(The four preceding pamphlets although referred to by Lowndes and other bibliographers apparently have not been traced.)
_A true report of three Straunge Witches, lately found at Newnham Regis._
(Not traced. Hazlitt, _Handbook_, p. 231.)
_A short treatise declaringe the detestable wickednesse of magicall sciences, as Necromancie, Coniuration of Spirites, Curiouse Astrologie and such lyke.... Made by Francis Coxe._ [London, 1561.] Black letter.
_The Examination of John Walsh, before Master Thomas Williams, Commissary to the Reverend father in God, William, bishop of Excester, upon certayne Interrogatories touchyng Wytch-crafte and Sorcerye, in the presence of divers gentlemen and others, the XX of August, 1566._ 1566. Black letter.
_The discloysing of a late counterfeyted possession by the devyl in two maydens within the Citie of London._ [1574.] Black letter.
_The Wonderfull Worke of God shewed upon a Chylde, whose name is William Withers, being in the Towne of Walsam ... Suffolk, who, being Eleven Yeeres of age, laye in a Traunce the Space of tenne Days ... and hath continued the Space of Three Weeks._ London, 1581.
_A Most Wicked worke of a Wretched Witch (the like whereof none can record these manie yeares in England) wrought on the Person of one Richard Burt, servant to Maister Edling of Woodhall in the Parrish of Pinner in the Countie of Myddlesex, a myle beyond Harrow. Latelie committed in March last, An. 1592 and newly recognized acording to the truth. By G. B. maister of Artes._ [London, 1593.]
_A defensative against the poyson of supposed prophecies, not hitherto confuted by the penne of any man; which being eyther uppon the warrant and authority of old paynted bookes, expositions of dreames, oracles, revelations, invocations of damned spirits ... have been causes of great disorder in the commonwealth and chiefly among the simple and unlearned people._ _Circa_ 1581-3.
_The scratchinge of the wytches._ 1579.
_A warnynge to wytches._ 1585.
_A lamentable songe of Three Wytches of Warbos, and executed at Huntingdon._ 1593.
(The three preceding are ballads. See Hazlitt, _Bibliographical Collections and Notes_, 2nd Series. London, 1882.)
_A poosye in forme of a visyon, agaynste wytche Crafte, and Sosyrye._
_A Breife Narration of the possession, dispossession, and repossession of William Sommers.... Together with certaine depositions taken at Nottingham._ 1598.
_An Apologie, or defence of the possession of William Sommers, a yong man of the towne of Nottingham.... By John Darrell, Minister of Christ Jesus._ [1599?] Black letter.
_The Triall of Maist. Dorrel, or A Collection of Defences against Allegations...._ 1599.
(Apparently written by Darrel himself; but the Huth catalogue (V. 1643) ascribes it to James Bamford.)
_A brief Apologie proving the possession of William Sommers. Written by John Dorrel, a faithful Minister of the Gospell, but published without his knowledge...._ 1599.
_A Discovery of the Fraudulent Practises of John Darrel, Bacheler of Artes...._ London, 1599. (By Samuel Harsnett.)
_A True Narration of the strange and grevous Vexation by the Devil of seven persons in Lancashire...._ 1600. Written by Darrel.
(Reprinted in 1641, and again in the _Somers Tracts_, III.)
_A True Discourse concerning the certaine possession and dispossession of 7 persons in one familie in Lancashire, which also may serve as part of an Answere to a fayned and false Discoverie.... By George More, Minister and Preacher of the Worde of God...._ 1600.
_A Detection of that sinnful, shamful, lying, and ridiculous discours of Samuel Harshnet._ 1600. (By Darrel in answer to Harsnett.)
_A Summarie Answere to al the Material Points in any of Master Darel his bookes, More especiallie to that one Booke of his, intituled, the Doctrine of the Possession and Dispossession of Demoniaks out of the word of God. By John Deacon [and] John Walker, Preachers._ London, 1601.
_A Survey of Certaine Dialogical Discourses, written by John Deacon and John Walker.... By John Darrell, minister of the gospel...._ 1602.
_The Replie of John Darrell, to the Answer of John Deacon, and John Walker concerning the doctrine of the Possession and Dispossession of Demoniakes...._ 1602.
_A True and Breife Report of Mary Glover’s Vexation, and of her deliverance by the meanes of fastinge and prayer.... By John Swan, student in Divinitie...._ 1603.
Elizabeth Jackson was indicted on the charge of having bewitched Mary Glover, but Dr. Edward Jorden, who examined the girl declared her an hysterical impostor in his pamphlet.
_A briefe discourse of a disease called the Suffocation of the Mother, Written uppon occasion which hath beene of late taken thereby, to suspect possession of an evill spirit...._ London, 1603.
_A history of the case of Catherine Wright._
_The strange Newes out of Sommersetshire, Anno 1584, tearmed, a dreadfull discourse of the dispossessing of one Maggaret Cooper at Ditchet, from a devill in the likenes of a headlesse beare. Discovery of the Fraudulent Practices of John Darrel._ 1584.
_The Most Cruell and Bloody Murther committed by an Inn-keepers Wife called Annis Dell, and her Sonne George Dell, Foure Years since.... With the severall Witch-crafts and most damnable practices of one Iohane Harrison and her Daughter, upon several persons men and women at Royston, who were all executed at Hartford the 4 of August last past 1606._ London, 1606.
_The Witches of Northamptonshire._
_Agnes Browne_ _Arthur Bill_ _Joane Vaughan_ _Hellen Jenkenson_ _Mary Barber_ _Witches_
_Who were all executed at Northampton the 22 of July last. 1612._ 1612.
_The severall notorious and lewd Cosenages of Iohn West and Alice West, falsely called the King and Queene of Fayries ... convicted.... 1613._ London, 1613.
_The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the countie of Lancaster. With the Arraignment and Triall of Nineteene notorious Witches, at the Assizes and Gaole deliverie, holden at the Castle of Lancaster, upon Munday, the seventeenth of August last, 1612. Before Sir James Altham, and Sir Edward Bromley._ London, 1613.
(Reprinted by the Chetham Society, edited James Crossley. 1845. One of the most famous of the witch-trials.)
_Witches Apprehended, Examined and Executed, for notable villanies by them committed both by Land and Water. With a strange and most true trial how to know whether a woman be a Witch or not._ London, 1613.
_A Booke of the Wytches Lately condemned and executed at Bedford, 1612-1613._
_A Treatise of Witchcraft.... With a true Narration of the Witchcrafts which Mary Smith, wife of Henry Smith, Glover, did practise ... and lastly, of her death and execution.... By Alexander Roberts, B.D. and Preacher of Gods Word at Kings-Linne in Norffolke._ London, 1616.
_The Wonderful Discoverie of the Witchcrafts of Margaret and Phillip Flower, daughters of Joan Flower neere Bever Castle: executed at Lincolne, March 11, 1618. Who were specially arraigned and condemned ... for confessing themselves actors in the destruction of Henry, Lord Rosse, with their damnable practises against others the Children of the Right Honourable Francis Earle of Rutland. Together with the severall Examinations and Confessions of Anne Baker, Joan Willimot, and Ellen Greene, Witches of Leicestershire._ London, 1619.
_Strange and wonderfull Witchcrafts, discovering the damnable Practises of seven Witches against the Lives of certain noble Personages and others of this Kingdom; with an approved Triall how to find out either Witch or any Apprentise to Witchcraft._ 1621. Another edition in 1635.
_The Wonderfull discoverie of Elizabeth Sawyer ... late of Edmonton, her conviction, condemnation and Death.... Written by Henry Goodcole, Minister of the word of God, and her continuall Visiter in the Gaole of Newgate...._ 1621.
(Reprinted in Vol. I (lxxxi-cvii) of Bullen’s recension of the Dyce-Gifford Ford. 3 vols. London, 1895.)
_The Boy of Bilson: or A True Discovery of the Late Notorious Impostures of Certaine Romish Priests in their pretended Exorcisme, or expulsion of the Divell out of a young Boy, named William Perry...._ London, 1622.
_A Discourse of Witchcraft As it was acted in the Family of Mr. Edward Fairfax of Fuystone in the County of York, in the year 1621._ Edited by R. Monckton Milnes (Lord Houghton) for Vol. V of _Miscellanies of the Philobiblon Soc._ London, 1858-1859. (The editor says the original MS. is still in existence.)
_A Most certain, strange and true Discovery of a Witch, Being overtaken by some of the Parliament Forces, as she was standing on a small Planck-board and sayling on it over the River of Newbury, Together with the strange and true manner of her death._ 1643.
_A Confirmation and Discovery of Witch-craft ... together with the Confessions of many of those executed since May, 1645.... By John Stearne._
_The Examination, Confession, Triall, and Execution of Joane Williford, Joan Cariden and Jane Hott: who were executed at Faversham, in Kent ... all attested under the hand of Robert Greenstreet, Maior of Faversham._
_A true and exact Relation of the severall Informations, Examinations, and Confessions of the late Witches arraigned ... and condemned at the late Sessions, holden at Chelmsford before the Right Honorable Robert, Earle of Warwicke, and severall of his Majesties Justices of Peace, the 29 of July, 1645._
_A True Relation of the Arraignment of eighteene Witches at St. Edmundsbury, 27th August, 1645.... As Also a List of the names of those that were executed._
_Strange and fearfull newes from Plaisto in the parish of Westham neere Bow foure miles from London._ London, 1645.
_The Lawes against Witches and Conjuration, and Some brief Notes and Observations for the Discovery of Witches. Being very Usefull for these Times wherein the Devil reignes and prevailes.... Also The Confession of Mother Lakeland, who was arraigned and condemned for a Witch at Ipswich in Suffolke.... By Authority._ London, 1645.
_Signes and Wonders from Heaven.... Likewise a new discovery of Witches in Stepney Parish. And how 20. Witches more were executed in Suffolk this last Assize. Also how the Divell came to Sofforn to a Farmer’s house in the habit of a Gentlewoman on horse backe._ London [1645].
_Relation of a boy who was entertained by the Devil to be Servant to him ... about Credition in the West, and how the Devil carried him up in the aire, and showed him the torments of Hell, and some of the Cavaliers there, etc., with a coppie of a Letter from Maior Generall Massie, concerning these strange and Wonderfull things, with a certaine box of Reliques and Crucifixes found in Tiverton Church._ 1645.
(A ridiculous, but not uninteresting, publication.)
_The Witches of Huntingdon, their Examinations and Confessions...._ London, 1646.
(The Dedication is signed by John Davenport.)
_The Discovery of Witches: in answer to severall Queries, lately Delivered to the Judges of Assize for the County of Norfolk. And now published by Matthew Hopkins, Witchfinder. For the Benefit of the Whole Kingdome...._ London, 1647.
(The most famous of the “Hopkins series.”)
_A strange and true Relation of a Young Woman possest with the Devill. By name Joyce Dovey dwelling at Bewdley neer Worcester.... Also a Letter from Cambridge, wherein is related the late conference between the Devil (in the shape of a Mr. of Arts) and one Ashbourner, a Scholler of S. Johns Colledge ... who was afterwards carried away by him and never heard of since onely his Gown found in the River._ London, 1647.
_The Full Tryals, Examination and Condemnation of Four Notorious Witches, At the Assizes held in Worcester on Tuseday the 4th of March.... As also Their Confessions and last Dying Speeches at the place of Execution, with other Amazing Particulars...._ London, no date.
_The Divels Delusions or A faithfull relation of John Palmer and Elizabeth Knot two notorious Witches lately condemned at the Sessions of Oyer and Terminer in St. Albans._ 1649.
_Wonderfull News from the North, Or a True Relation of the Sad and Grievous Torments Inflicted upon the Bodies of three Children of Mr. George Muschamp, late of the County of Northumberland, by Witchcraft.... As also the prosecution of the sayd Witches, as by Oaths, and their own Confessions will appear and by the Indictment found by the Jury against one of them, at the Sessions of the Peace held at Alnwick, the 24 day of April, 1650._ London, 1650.
_The strange Witch at Greenwich haunting a Wench, 1650._
_A Strange Witch at Greenwich, 1650._
_The Witch of Wapping, or an Exact and Perfect Relation of the Life and Devilish Practises of Joan Peterson, who dwelt in Spruce Island, near Wapping; Who was condemned for practising Witchcraft, and sentenced to be Hanged at Tyburn, on Munday the 11th of April, 1652._ London, 1652.
_A Declaration in Answer to several lying Pamphlets concerning the Witch of Wapping, ... shewing the Bloudy Plot and wicked Conspiracy of one Abraham Vandenhemde, Thomas Crompton, Thomas Collet, and others._ London, 1652.
_The Tryall and Examinations of Mrs. Joan Peterson before the Honourable Bench at the Sessions house in the Old Bayley yesterday._ [1652.]
_Doctor Lamb’s Darling, or Strange and terrible News from Salisbury; Being A true, exact, and perfect Relation of the great and wonderful Contract and Engagement made between the Devil, and Mistris Anne Bodenham; with the manner how she could transform herself into the shape of a Mastive Dog, a black Lyon, a white Bear, a Woolf, a Bull, and a Cat.... The Tryal, Examinations, and Confession ... before the Lord Chief Baron Wild.... By James [Edmond?] Bower, Cleric._ London, 1653.
_Doctor Lamb Revived, or, Witchcraft condemn’d in Anne Bodenham ... who was Arraigned and Executed the Lent Assizes last at Salisbury, before the Right Honourable the Lord Chief Baron Wild, Judge of the Assize.... By Edmund Bower, an eye and ear Witness of her Examination and Confession._ London, 1653. (Bower’s second and more detailed account.)
_A Prodigious and Tragicall History of the Arraignment, Tryall, Confession, and Condemnation of six Witches at Maidstone, in Kent, at the Assizes there held in July, Fryday 30, this present year, 1652. Before the Right Honorable, Peter Warburton.... Collected from the Observations of E. G. Gent, a learned person, present at their Convictions and Condemnation._ London, 1652.
_The most true and wonderfull Narration of two women bewitched in Yorkshire: Who comming to the Assizes at York to give Evidence against the Witch after a most horrible noise to the terror and amazement of all the beholders, did vomit forth before the Judges, Pins, wool.... Also a most true Relation of a young Maid ... who ... did ... vomit forth wadds of straw, with pins a crosse in them, iron Nails, Needles, ... as it is attested under the hand of that most famous Phisition Doctor Henry Heers...._ 1658.
_A more Exact Relation of the most lamentable and horrid Contract with Lydia Rogers, living in Pump-Alley in Wapping, made with the Divel.... Together with the great pains and prayers of many eminent Divines...._ 1658.
_The Snare of the Devill Discovered: Or, A True and perfect Relation of the sad and deplorable Condition of Lydia the Wife of John Rogers House Carpenter, living in Greenbank in Pumpe alley in Wappin.... Also her Examination by Mr. Johnson the Minister of Wappin, and her Confession. As also in what a sad Condition she continues...._ London, 1658.
_Strange and Terrible Newes from Cambridge, being A true Relation of the Quakers bewitching of Mary Philips ... into the shape of a Bay Mare, riding her from Dinton towards the University. With the manner how she became visible again ... in her own Likeness and Shape, with her sides all rent and torn, as if they had been spur-galled, ... and the Names of the Quakers brought to tryal on Friday last at the Assizes held at Cambridge...._ London, 1659.
_The Power of Witchcraft, Being a most strange but true Relation of the most miraculous and wonderful deliverance of one Mr. William Harrison of Cambden in the County of Gloucester, Steward to the Lady Nowel...._ London, 1662.
_A True and Perfect Account of the Examination, Confession, Tryal, Condemnation and Execution of Joan Perry and her two Sons ... for the supposed murder of William Harrison, Gent...._ London, 1676.
_A Tryal of Witches at the assizes held at Bury St. Edmonds for the County of Suffolk; on the tenth day of March, 1664._ London, 1682; and 1716.
_The Lord’s Arm Stratched Out in an Answer of Prayer or a True Relation o; the Wonderful Deliverance of James Barrow, the Son of John Barrow of Olaves Southwark, London, 1664._ (A Baptist tract.)
_The wonder of Suffolke, being a true relation of one that reports he made a league with the Devil for three years, to do mischief, and now breaks open houses, robs people daily ... and can neither be shot nor taken, but leaps over walls fifteen feet high, runs five or six miles in a quarter of an hour, and sometimes vanishes in the midst of multitudes that go to take him. Faithfully written in a letter from a solemn person, dated not long since, to a friend in Ship-Yard near Temple-bar, and ready to be attested by hundreds...._ London, 1677.
_Daimonomageia: a small Treatise of Sicknesses and Diseases from Witchcraft and Supernatural Causes.... Being useful to others besides Physicians, in that it confutes Atheistical, Sadducistical, and Sceptical Principles and Imaginations...._ London, 1665.
_Hartford-shire Wonder. Or, Strange News from Ware, Being an Exact and true Relation of one Jane Stretton ... who hath been visited in a strange kind of manner by extraordinary and unusual fits...._ London, 1669.
_A Magicall Vision, Or a Perfect Discovery of the Fallacies of Witchcraft, As it was lately represented in a pleasant sweet Dream to a Holysweet Sister, a faithful and pretious Assertor of the Family of the Stand-Hups, for preservation of the Saints from being tainted with the heresies of the Congregation of the Doe-Littles._ London, 1673. (Hazlitt, _Bibliographical Collections_, fourth series, _s. u._ Witchcraft.)
_A Full and True Relation of The Tryal, Condemnation, and Execution of Ann Foster ... at the place of Execution at Northampton. With the Manner how she by her Malice and Witchcraft set all the Barns and Corn on Fire ... and bewitched a whole Flock of Sheep...._ London, 1674.
_Strange News from Arpington near Bexby in Kent: Being a True Narrative of a yong Maid who was Possest with several Devils...._ London, 1679.
_Strange and Wonderful News from Yowell in Surry; Giving a True and Just Account of One Elizabeth Burgess, Who was most strangely Bewitched and Tortured at a sad rate._ London, 1681.
_An Account of the Tryal and Examination of Joan Buts, for being a Common Witch and Inchantress, before the Right Honourable Sir Francis Pemberton, Lord Chief Justice, at the Assizes...._ 1682. Single leaf.
_The Tryal, Condemnation, and Execution of Three Witches, viz., Temperance Floyd, Mary Floyd, and Susanna Edwards. Who were Arraigned at Exeter on the 18th of August, 1682._ London, 1682.
_A True and Impartial Relation of the Informations against Three Witches, viz., Temperance Lloyd, Mary Trembles, and Susanna Edwards, who were ... Convicted at the Assizes holden ... at ... Exon, Aug. 14, 1682. With their several Confessions ... as also Their ... Behaviour, at the ... Execution on the Twenty fifth of the said Month._ London, 1682.
_Witchcraft discovered and punished Or the Tryals and Condemnation of three Notorious Witches, who were Tryed the last Assizes, holden at the Castle of Exeter ... where they received sentence of Death, for bewitching severall Persons, destroying Ships at Sea, and Cattel by Land. To the Tune of Doctor Faustus; or Fortune my Foe._
(A ballad. Roxburghe Collection. Broadside.)
_The Life and Conversation of Temperance Floyd, Mary Lloyd and Susanna Edwards ...; Lately Condemned at Exeter Assizes; together with a full Account of their first Agreement with the Devil: With the manner how they prosecuted their devilish Sorceries...._ London, 1687.
_A Full and True Account of the Proceedings at the Sessions of Oyer and Terminer ... which began at the Sessions House in the Old Bayley on Thursday, June 1st, and Ended on Fryday, June 2nd, 1682. Wherein is Contained the Tryall of Jane Kent for Witchcraft._
_Strange and Dreadful News from the Town of Deptford in the County of Kent, Being a Full, True, and Sad Relation of one Anne Arthur._ 1684-5. One leaf, folio.
_Strange newes from Shadwell, being a ... relation of the death of Alice Fowler, who had for many years been accounted a witch._ London, 1685.
_A True Account of a Strange and Wonderful Relation of one John Tonken, of Pensans in Cornwall, said to be Bewitched by some Women: two of which on Suspition are committed to Prison._ London, 1686.
_News from Panier Alley; or a True Relation of Some Pranks the Devil hath lately play’d with a Plaster Pot there._ London, 1687.
_A faithful narrative of the ... fits which ... Thomas Spatchet ... was under by witchcraft...._ 1693.
_The Second Part of the Boy of Bilson, Or a True and Particular Relation of the Imposter Susanna Fowles, wife of John Fowles of Hammersmith in the Co. of Midd., who pretended herself to be possessed._ London, 1698.
_A Full and True Account Both of the Life: And also the Manner and Method of carrying on the Delusions, Blasphemies, and Notorious Cheats of Susan Fowls, as the same was Contrived, Plotted, Invented, and Managed by wicked Popish Priests and other Papists._
_The trial of Susannah Fowles, of Hammersmith, for blaspheming Jesus Christ, and cursing the Lord’s Prayer...._ London, 1698.
_The Case of Witchcraft at Coggeshall, Essex, in the year 1699. Being the Narrative of the Rev. J. Boys, Minister of the Parish._ Printed from his manuscript in the possession of the publisher (A. Russell Smith). London, 1901.
_A True and Impartial Account of the Dark and Hellish Power of Witchcraft, Lately Exercised on the Body of the Reverend Mr. Wood, Minister of Bodmyn. In a Letter from a Gentleman there, to his Friend in Exon, in Confirmation thereof._ Exeter, 1700.
_A Full and True Account of the Apprehending and Taking of Mrs. Sarah Moordike, Who is accused for a Witch, Being taken near Pauls’ Wharf ... for having Bewitched one Richard Hetheway.... With her Examination before the Right Worshipful Sir Thomas Lane, Sir Oven Buckingham, and Dr. Hambleton in Bowe-lane._ 1701.
_A short Account of the Trial held at Surry Assizes, in the Borough of Southwark; on an Information against Richard Hathway ... for Riot and Assault._ London, 1702.
_The Tryall of Richard Hathaway, upon an Information For being a Cheat and Imposter. For endeavouring to take away the Life of Sarah Morduck, For being a Witch at Surry Assizes...._ London, 1702.
_A Full and True Account of the Discovery, Apprehending, and taking of a Notorious Witch, who was carried before Justice Bateman in Well-Close on Sunday, July the 23. Together with her Examination and Commitment to Bridewel, Clerkenwell._ London, 1704.
_An Account of the Tryals, Examination, and Condemnation of Elinor Shaw and Mary Phillips...._ 1705.
_The Northamptonshire Witches...._ 1705.
_The Devil Turned Casuist, or the Cheats of Rome Laid open in the Exorcism of a Despairing Devil at the House of Thomas Bennington in Oriel.... By Zachary Taylor, M.A., Chaplain to the Right reverend Father in God, Nicholas, Lord Bishop of Chester, and Rector of Wigan._ London, 1696.
_The Surey Demoniack, Or an Account of Satan’s Strange and Dreadful
## Actings, In and about the Body of Richard Dugdale of Surey, near Whalley
in Lancashire. And How he was Dispossest by Gods blessing on the Fastings and Prayers of divers Ministers and People._ London, 1697.
_The Surey Imposter, being an answer to a late Fanatical Pamphlet, entituled The Surey Demoniack._ By Zachary Taylor. London, 1697.
_A Vindication of the Surey Demoniack as no Imposter: Or, A Reply to a certain Pamphlet publish’d by Mr. Zach. Taylor, called The Surey Imposter...._ By T. J., London, 1698.
_Popery, Supersitition, Ignorance and Knavery very unjustly by a letter in the general pretended; but as far as was charg’d very fully proved upon the Dissenters that were concerned in the Surey Imposture._ 1698. Written by Zachary Taylor.
_The Lancashire Levite Rebuked, or a Vindication of the Dissenters from Popery, Superstition, Ignorance, and Knavery, unjustly Charged on them by Mr. Zachary Taylor...._ London, 1698.
_The Lancashire Levite Rebuked, or a Farther Vindication._ 1698.
_Popery, Superstition, Ignorance, and Knavery, Confess’d and fully Proved on the Surey Dissenters, from a Second Letter of an Apostate Friend, to Zach. Taylor. To which is added a Refutation of T. Jollie’s Vindication...._ London, 1699. Written by Zachary Taylor.
_A Refutation of Mr. T. Jolly’s Vindication of the Devil in Dugdale; Or, The Surey Demoniack._ London, 1699.
_The Portsmouth Ghost, or A Full and true Account of a Strange, wonderful, and dreadful Appearing of the Ghost of Madam Johnson, a beautiful young Lady of Portsmouth, Shewing, 1. Her falling in Love with Mr. John Hunt, a Captain in one of the Regiments sent to Spain. 2. Of his promising her Marriage, and leaving her big With Child. 3. Of her selling herself to the Devil to be revenged on the Captain. 4. Of her ripping open her own Belly, and the Devil’s flying away with her Body, and leaving the Child in the room.... 7. Of her Carrying [the Captain] away in the night in a flame of fire._ Printed and sold by Cluer Dicey and Co. in Aldermary Church Yard, Bow Lane. _Circa_ 1704.
_A Looking Glass for Swearers, Drunkards, Blasphemers, Sabbath Breakers, Rash Wishers, and Murderers. Being a True Relation of one Elizabeth Hale, in Scotch Yard in White Cross Street; who having sold herself to the Devil to be reveng’d on her Neighbours, did on Sunday last, in a wicked manner, put a quantity of Poyson into a Pot where a Piece of Beef was a boyling for several Poor Women and Children, Two of which dropt down dead, and Twelve more are dangerously Ill; the Truth of which will be Attested by several in the Neighbourhood. Her Examination upon the Crowners Inquest and her Commitment to Newgate._ Printed by W. Wise and M. Holt in Fleet Street, 1708.
_The Witch of the Woodlands; Or, The Cobler’s New Translation._ Printed and Sold in Aldermary Church Yard, Bow Lane, London. No date, but about 1710. This pamphlet merely relates an old legend, but is interesting as reproducing with appropriate woodcuts intimate details of the mediæval Sabbat.
_An Account of the Tryal, Examination, and Condemnation of Jane Wenham, on an Indictment of Witchcraft, for Bewitching of Matthew Gilston and Anne Thorne of Walcorne, in the County of Hertford...._
_A Full and Impartial Account of the Discovery of Sorcery and Witchcraft, Practis’d by Jane Wenham of Walkerne in Hertfordshire, upon the bodies of Anne Thorn, Anne Street, &c. ... till she ... receiv’d Sentence of Death for the same, March 4, 1711-12._ London, 1712.
_Witchcraft Farther Display’d. Containing (I) An Account of the Witchcraft practis’d by Jane Wenham of Walkerne, in Hertfordshire, since her Condemnation, upon the bodies of Anne Thorne and Anne Street.... (II) An Answer to the most general Objections against the Being and Power of Witches: With some Remarks upon the Case of Jane Wenham in particular, and on Mr. Justice Powel’s procedure therein...._ London, 1712.
_A Full Confutation of Witchcraft: More particularly of the Depositions against Jane Wenham, Lately Condemned for a Witch; at Hertford. In which the Modern Notions of Witches are overthrown, and the Ill Consequences of such Doctrines are exposed by Arguments; proving that, Witchcraft is Priestcraft.... In a Letter from a Physician in Hertfordshire, to his Friend in London._ London, 1712.
_The Impossibility of Witchcraft, Plainly Proving, From Scripture and Reason, That there never was a Witch; and that it is both Irrational and Impious to believe there ever was. In which the Depositions against Jane Wenham, Lately Try’d and Condemned for a Witch, at Hertford, are Confuted and Expos’d._ London, 1712.
_The Belief of Witchcraft Vindicated; proving from Scripture, there have been Witches; and from Reason, that there may be Such still. In answer to a late Pamphlet, Intituled, The Impossibility of Witchcraft...._ By G. R., A.M. London, 1712.
_The Case of the Hertfordshire Witchcraft Consider’d. Being an Examination of a book entitl’d, A Full and Impartial Account...._ London, 1712.
_A Defense of the Proceedings against Jane Wenham, wherein the Possibility and Reality of Witchcraft are Demonstrated from Scripture.... In Answer to Two Pamphlets Entituled: (I) The Impossibility of Witchcraft, etc. (II) A Full Confutation of Witchcraft._ By Francis Bragge, A.B., London, 1712.
_The Impossibility of Witchcraft Further Demonstrated, Both from Scripture and Reason ... with some Cursory Remarks on two trifling Pamphlets in Defense of the existence of Witches._ 1712.
_An Account of The Tryals, Examination and Condemnation of Elinor Shaw and Mary Phillips (Two notorious Witches) on Wednesday the 7th of March, 1705, for Bewitching a Woman, and two children.... With an Account of their strange Confessions._ This is signed at the end, “Ralph Davis, March 8, 1705.” It was followed very shortly by a completer account, written after the execution, and entitled:
_The Northamptonshire Witches, Being a true and faithful account of the Births, Educations, Lives, and Conversations of Elinor Shaw and Mary Phillips (The two notorious Witches) That were Executed at Northampton on Saturday, March the 11th, 1705 ... with their full Confession to the Minister, and last Dying Speeches at the place of Execution, the like never before heard of.... Communicated in a Letter last Post, from Mr. Ralph Davis of Northampton, to Mr. William Simons, Merchantt in London._ London, 1705.
_The Whole Trial and Examination of Mrs. Mary Hicks and her Daughter Elizabeth, But of Nine Years of Age, who were Condemn’d the last Assizes held at Huntingdon for Witchcraft, and there Executed on Saturday, the 28th of July, 1716 ... the like never heard before; their Behaviour with several Divines who came to converse with ’em whilst under their sentence of Death; and last Dying Speeches and Confession at the place of execution._ London, 1716. There is a copy in the Bodleian Library.
(These last three pamphlets are almost certainly spurious.)
_A Terrible and seasonable Warning to young Men. Being a very particular and True Relation of one Abraham Joiner a young Man about 17 or 18 Years of Age, living in Shakesby’s Walks in Shadwell, being a Ballast Man by Profession, who on Saturday Night last pick’d up a leud Woman, and spent what Money he had about him in Treating her, saying afterwards if she wou’d have any more he must go to the Devil for it, and slipping out of her Company, he went to the Cock and Lyon in King Street, the Devil appear’d to him, and gave him a Pistole, ... appointing to meet him the next Night at the World’s End at Stepney; Also how his Brother perswaded him to throw the Money away, which he did; but was suddenly Taken in a very strange manner; so that they were fain to send for the Reverend Mr. Constable and other Ministers to pray with him, he appearing now to be very Penitent...._ Printed for J. Dulton, near Fleet Street. _Circa_ 1718.
_A Timely Warning to Rash and Disobedient Children Being a strange and wonderful Relation of a young Gentleman in the Parish of Stepheny in the Suburbs of London, that sold himself to the Devil for 12 years to have the Power of being revenged on his Father and Mother, and how his Time being expired, he lay in a sad and deplorable Condition to the Amazement of all Spectators._ Edinburgh: Printed Anno 1721.
_The Kentish Miracle, Or, a Seasonable Warning to all Sinners Shewn in The Wonderful Relation of one Mary Moore, whose Husband died some time ago, and left her with two Children, who was reduced to great Want.... How the Devil appeared to her, and the many great Offers he made to her to deny Christ, and enter into his Service; and how she confounded Satan by powerful Arguments ... with an Account how an Angel appeared to her and relieved her...._ Edinburgh: Printed in the Year 1741.
(This is probably a reprint. The style of the pamphlet seems some thirty or forty years earlier.)
_Trial of Thomas Colley, to which is annexed some Further Particulars of the Affair from the Mouth of John Osborne._ 1751. (The trial took place at Hertford Assizes, 30 July, 1751.)
_Remarkable Confession and Last Dying Words of Thomas Colley._ 1751.
FRANCE
BARTHÉTY, H. _La sorcellerie en Béarn et dans le pays basque._ Pau, 1879.
BERNOU, J. _La chasse aux sorcières dans le Labourd_ (1609). Agen, 1897.
BEUGNOT, A. _Histoire de la destruction du Paganisme en occident._ 2 vols. Paris, 1835.
BOIS, JULES. _Le Satanisme et la magie. Les Petites Religions de Paris._
BONNEMÈRE, EUGÈNE. _Histoire des Camisardes des Cévennes._ Paris, 1869.
BOUCHARD, H. E. _Annette Taudet, ou les sorciers du Poitou au XIXme siècle._ Paris, 1867.
BOURIGNON, ANTOINETTE. _La Parole de Dieu._ Amsterdam, 1683.
_La vie extérieure._ Amsterdam, 1683.
BOURNON, JACQUES. _Chroniques de la Lorraine._ Nancy, 1838.
BRÉVANNES, ROLAND. _L’Orgie Satanique._ Paris, 1904.
BRICAUD, JOANNY. _J. K. Huysmans et le Satanisme._ Paris, 1912.
_Huysmans, occultiste et magicien._ Paris, 1913.
_Un disciple de Cl. de Saint-Martin._ Paris, 1911.
_Eléments d’Astrologie._ Paris, 1911.
_Premiers Elements d’Occultisme._ Paris, 1912.
CANNAERT, J. B. _Olim: procès des sorcières en Belgique sous Philippe II._ Ghent, 1847.
CAUFEYNON ET JAF, DRS. _Les Messes Noires._ Paris, 1905. (A valuable work.)
CAUZONS, THEODORE DE. _La Magie et la Sorcellerie en France._ 4 vols. Paris, 1900, etc. (A very important study.)
CHABLOZ, FRITZ. _Les sorcières neuchatéloises._ Neuchatel, 1868.
CHRISTIAN, PAUL (Paul Pitois). _Histoire de la Magie._ Paris, 1870.
CLOSMADEUC, DR. G. DE. _Les sorciers de Lorient._ Vannes, 1885.
DEBAY, DR. A. _Histoire des sciences occultes._ Paris, 1860.
DE LA MARTINIÈRE. _Voyage des Pais Septentrionaux._ Paris, 1682.
_Discours sur la mort et condamnation de Charles de Franchillon Baron de Chenevieres, exécuté ... pour Crime de Sortilège et de Magie._ Paris, 1626.
DRAZOR, H. R. _Histoire tragique de trois magiciens qvi ont accvsé à la mort Mazarin en Italie._ Paris, 1649.
ELVEN, HENRY VON. _La Tradition._ Vol. V. Paris, 1891.
FIGUIER, LOUIS. _Histoire du merveilleux dans les temps modernes._ 4 vols. Paris, 1860-1.
FONTENELLE, BERNARD LE BOVIER DE. _Histoire des oracles._ Paris, 1687. (Often reprinted.)
FOURNIER, ALBAN. _Epidémie de Sorcellerie en Lorraine._ Nancy, 1891.
GARINET, JULES. _Histoire de la magie en France._ Paris, 1818.
GARSAULT, F. ALEXANDRE. _Faits des causes célèbres et intéressantes._ Amsterdam and Paris, 1757.
HARON, ALFRED. _La Tradition._ Vol. VI. Paris, 1892.
_Histoire prodigieuse et espouvantable de plus de deux cens 50 sorciers et sorcières emmenez pour leur estre fait et parfait leur procès au parlement de Tholoze._ Paris, 1649.
_Histoire véritable des crimes horribles commis à Boulogne par deux moynes, deux gentils-hommes, et deux damoiselles, sur le S. Sacrement de l’Autel, qu’ils out fait consumer à une Cheure et à un Oye, et sur trois enfants, qu’ils ont fait distiler sur la lambique._ Paris, 1651.
_Histoire véritable de l’exécrable Docteur Vanini, autrement nommé Luciolo._ Paris, 1619.
JAF, LE DR. _Physonomie du vice._ Paris, _circa_ 1903.
_L’Amour secret._ Paris, _circa_ 1904.
_Journal d’un bourgeois de Paris._ Panthéon Litteraire. Paris, 1838.
LADAME, DR. _Procès criminel de la dernière sorcière brulée à Genève, le 6 avril, 1652._ Paris, 1888.
LAVANCHY, L’ABBÉ J. M. _Sabbats ou synagogues sur les bords du lac d’Annecy._ Annecy, 1885.
LECANU, L’ABBE. _Histoire de Satan._ 1861.
LECOCQ, AD. _Les sorciers de la Beauce._ Chartres, 1861.
LEMOINE, JULES. _La Tradition._ Vol. VI. Paris, 1892.
_Les Enfers Lubriques._ Paris, _circa_ 1900.
LES GOUVELLES, LE VICOMTE HIPPOLYTE. _Apparitions d’une âme du Purgatoire en Bretagne._ 4th ed. Paris, 1919. (An apparition which visited Jeanne Audouis [Sœur Marie des Sept Douleurs]).
_Les sorceleries de Henry de Valois, et les oblations qu’il faisoit au Diable dans le bois de Vincennes._ 15 pp. Paris, 1589.
(This attack on Henry III has been reprinted several times; as by Cimber and Darignon _Archives curieuses de l’Histoire de France_. Vol. XII, and L’Estoile, _Journal de Henri III._)
LILLIE, ARTHUR. _The Worship of Satan in Modern France._ 1896.
LOUÏSE, TH. _De la sorcellerie et de la justice criminelle à Valenciennes._ Valenciennes, 1861.
_Magie._ 2 vols. Paris, _circa_ 1904.
MATTER, JACQUES. _Histoire critique du gnosticisme._ 3 vols. Paris, 1828.
MAURY, ALFRED. _Histoire des religions de la Grèce antique._ 3 vols. Paris, 1857-9.
_La Magie et l’Astrologie._ Paris, 1860. (Often reprinted.)
MONNOYER, JULES. _La sorcellerie en Hainault ... avec analyse de procès pour sortilèges (1568-1683)._ Mons, 1886.
MONSEUR, EUGÈNE. _Le folklore Wallon._ Brussels, 1892.
ROUÉ, PAUL. _Causes sales._ Paris, 1902.
SALVERTE, A. J. E. B. DE. _Essai sur la Magie._ Brussels, 1817.
SCHURÉ, EDOUARD. _Les grandes légendes de France._ 19th ed. Paris, 1922.
SIMONET, L’ABBE. _Realité de la Magie._ Paris, 1819.
THUIS, L’ABBÉ JEAN-BAPTISTE. _Traite des superstitions qui regardent les Sacraments._ 3 vols. Paris, 1703. Reprinted 4 vols., 1741; and 4 vols., 1777.
_Tradition, La._ Vol. V contains Van Elvan’s _Les Procès de sorcellerie au moyen âge_. Paris, 1891. Vol. VI contains Harou’s _Sorciers et sorcières_. Paris, 1892, also Lemoine’s _Sorcellerie contemporaine_. Paris, 1892.
UN BADAUD (Paul Marrin). _Coup d’œil sur la Magie as XIXme siècle._ Paris, 1891.
_Coup d’œil sur les thaumaturges et les médiums du XIXme siècle._ Paris, 1891.
WAITE, ARTHUR EDWARD. _Devil-Worship in France._ London, 1896.
FRANCE: SPECIAL CASES
_Madeleine Bavent_
YVELIN, DR. _Examen de la possession des religieuses de Louviers._ Paris, 1643.
_Responce à l’Examen de la possession des religieuses de Louviers_, n.d.
_Récit véritable de ce qui s’est fait et passé à Louviers, touchant les religieuses possédées_, n.d.
LE GAUFFRE. _Exorcismes de plusieurs religieuses de la ville de Louuiers en présence de Monsieur le Penitencier d’Evreux et de Monsieur Le Gauffre._
LE BRETON, JEAN. _La défense de la vérité touchant la possession des religieuses de Lovviers._ Evreux, 1643.
DELANGLE. _Procès-verbal de Monsieur le Penitencier d’Evreux._ Paris, 1643.
_Trois questions touchant l’accident arrivé aux religieuses de Louviers_, n.d.
DESMARETS, PÈRE. _Histoire de Magdelaine Bavent, religieuse du monastère de Saint-Louis de Louviers avec sa confession générale et testamentaire, ou elle déclare les abominations, impietez et sacrilèges qu’elle a pratiqué et veu pratiquer, tant dans ledit monastère qu’au Sabbat._ Paris, 1652.
HUMIER. _Discours théologique sur l’histoire de Magdelaine Bavent._ Nyort, 1659.
MORIN, LOUIS RENÉ. _Histoire de Louviers._ Rouen, 1822.
DIBON. _Essai historique sur Louviers._ Rouen, 1836.
DU BOIS, L. _Recherches archéologiques ... sur la Normandie._ Paris, 1843.
PIERART, Z. _La magnétisme, le somnambulisme et le spiritualisme dans l’histoire. Affaire curieuse des possédées de Louviers._ Paris, 1858.
_Marie Benoist, La Bucaille_
_Arrest donné par la chambre ordonée par le Roy au temps des vacations contre Marie Benoist._ Rouen, 1699.
_Le tableau prétendu de la pénitence ou le caractère de la dévotion de sœur Marie Bucaille, accusé d’être sorcière._ Rouen, 1699.
_Almanach historique, ecclésiastique et politique du Diocèse de Coutances pour l’année 1774._
_La Cadière and Père Girard_
_Justification de demoiselle Catherine Cadière._ 1731.
_Factum pour Marie Catherine Cadière contre le Père J.-B. Girard, jésuite, où ce religieux est accusé de l’avoir portée par un abominable Quietisme aux plus criminels excès de l’impudicité._ Hague, 1731.
LOUIS, BISHOP OF TOULON. _Mémoires des faits qui se sont passés sous les yeux de M. l’Evêque de Toulon, lors de l’origine de l’affaire du P. Girard, jésuite, et de la Cadière._ Toulon, 1731.
CHAUDON. _Réponse a l’écrit qui a pour titre “Mémoires des faits, etc.”_ Aix, 1731.
_Les véritables sentiments de Mademoiselle Cadière ... écrits de sa propre main._ Aix, 1731.
BOYER D’AIGUILLES. _Conclusions de M. le procureur général du roi ... au sujet de procès d’entre le P. Girard...._ n.d.
_Sentence de monsieur l’official de l’évêché de Toulon, qui renvoie le P. Girard absous des accusations...._ n.d.
_Leonora Galigai_
_La Juste pvnition de Lycaon, Florentin, Marquis d’Ancre._ Paris, 1617.
_Arrest de la Cour de Parlement contre le marechal d’Ancre et sa femmé, prononce et exécuté à Paris le 8 juillet, 1617._
_Harangve de la marquise d’Ancre, estant sur l’echaffaut._ 1617.
_Bref récit de ce qui s’est passé pour l’exécution ... de la marquise d’Anchre._ Paris, 1617.
_Discours sur le mort de Eléonor Galligay, femme de Conchine, marquis d’Ancre._ Paris, 1617.
_La Médée de la France, dépeinte en personne de la Marguerite d’Ancre._ Paris, 1617.
_Louis Gaufridi and Madeleine de la Palud_
_Arrest de la Covr de Parlement de Provence, portant condamnation contre Messire Louis Gaufridi ... convaincu de Magie et autres crimes abominables...._ Aix, 1611.
_Confession faicte par Messire Lovys Gaufridi, prestre en l’église Accoules de Marseille, prince de magiciens depuis Constantinople jusques à Paris...._ Aix, 1611.
FONTAINE, JACQUES. _Discovrs des marqves des sorciers ... sur le subiect di procez de ... Louys Gauffridy._ Paris, 1611.
MICHAËLIS, PÈRE. _Histoire admirable de la possession et conversion d’une pénitente séduite par un magicien...._ Paris, 1612.
DOOMS. _Actes des exorcismes faits à la Sainte-Baume ... sur Louis Copeau, Magdeleine de la Palud et Louis Gauffridy._ Douai, 1613.
ROSSET, FRANÇOIS DE. _Les histoires tragiqves de nostre temps._ Paris, 1614.
LENORMANT DE CHIREMONT, J. _Histoire véritable, mémorable de ce qvi c’est passé sovs l’exorcisme de trois filles possédées ès pais de Flandre ... ou il est avssi traité de la police du Sabbat._ Paris, 1623.
GINESTE, RAOUL. _Louis Gaufridi et Magdeleine de la Palud._ Paris, 1904. (A modern study which must be used with reserve.)
_Urbain Grandier_
_Interrogatoire de maistre Urbain Grandier, prêtre, curé de Saint Pierre-du-Marché de Loudun, avec les confrontations des religieuses possédées contre ledict Grandier._ Paris, 1634.
_Arrest et condamnation de mort contre Maistre Vrbain Grandier ... atteint et convaincu du crime de magie._ Paris, 1634.
_Relation veritable de ce qui s’est passé à la mort du curé de Loudun, bruslé tout vif le vendredi 18 aoust 1634._
TRANQUILLE, PÈRE. _Véritable relation des justes procédures observées au faict de la possession des Ursulines de Loudun._ Paris, 1634.
_La démonomanie de Lodun, qui montre la véritable possession des religieuses urselines et autres séculières._ La Flèche, 1634.
DUNCAN, MARC. _Discours de la possession des religieuses Ursulines de Loudun._ 1634.
_Récit véritable de ce qui s’est passé à Loudun contre Maistre Urbain Grandier._ Paris, 1634.
LA FOUCAULDIÈRE, M. DE. _Les effets miraculeux de l’église romain sur les estranges et affroyables action des démons._ Paris, 1635.
_Relation de la sortie du démon Balam du corps de la mère prieure des ursulines de Loudun._ Paris, 1635.
SURIN, PÈRE. _Lettre écrite à Monseigneur l’Evêque de Poictiers par un des Pères Jésuites qui exorcisèrent à Loudun._ Paris, 1635.
_La gloire de St. Joseph, victorieux des principaux démons de la possession des Ursulines de Loudun._ Le Mans, 1636.
LUCHÉ, PÈRE MATHIEU DE. _Les interrogatoires et exorcismes nouvellement faites à un démon sur le sujet de la possession des filles urcellines de Loudun._ Paris, 1637.
SAINTE-CATHERINE. _Le grand pécheur converty, représenté dans les deux estats de la vie de M. de Queriolet._ Lyons, 1690.
AUBIN. _Histoire des diables de Loudun._ Amsterdam, 1693.
LA MÉNARDAYE, M. DE. _Examen et discussion critique de l’histoire des diables de Loudun._ Paris, 1747.
_Histoire abrégée de la possession des Ursulines de Loudun._ Paris, 1828.
DUMAS, ALEXANDRE. _Crimes célèbres._ 6 vols. Paris, 1839-41. (A highly romantic treatment. This survey must be used with caution.)
SAUZÉ, CHARLES. _Etude médico-historique sur les possédées de Loudun._ Paris, 1840.
LERICHE, L’ABBÉ. _Etudes sur les possessions en général et sur celle de Loudun en particulier._ Paris, 1859.
LEGUÉ, DR. G. _Documents pour servir à l’histoire médicale des possédées de Loudun._ Paris, 1874.
_Urbain Grandier et les possédées de Loudun._ Paris, 1880.
JEAN DE POITIERS. _Les diables de Loudun._ Paris, 1878.
_S. Joan of Arc_
LENGLET-DUFRESNOY, L’ABBÉ N. _Histoire de Jeanne d’Arc._ Paris, 1753-4.
GUILBERT. _Eloge historique de Jeanne d’Arc._ Rouen, 1803.
BUCHON, J. A. _Chronique et procès de la Pucelle d’Orléans._ Paris, 1817.
LE BRUN DES CHARMETTES. _Histoire de Jeanne d’Arc._ Paris, 1817.
QUATREMÈRE-ROISSY, J. A. _Quelques pièces curieuses sur le mariage prétendu de Jeanne d’Arc._ Paris, 1830.
QUICHERAT, JULES. _Aperçus nouveaux sur l’histoire de Jeanne d’Arc._ Paris, 1841.
_Relation inédite sur Jeanne d’Arc._ Orléans, 1879.
BEAUREGARD, B. DE. _Histoire de Jeanne d’Arc._ Paris, 1847.
MICHELET, JULES. _Jeanne d’Arc._ Paris, 1853.
BRIERE DE BOISMONT, DR. A. _De l’hallucination historique, ou étude ... sur les voix et les révélations de Jeanne d’Arc._ Paris, 1861.
VALLET DE VIRIVILLE. _Procès de condamnation de Jeanne d’Arc._ Paris, 1867.
O’REILLY, E. _Les Deux Procès de condamnation ... de Jeanne d’Arc._ Paris, 1869.
ROBILLARD DE BEAUREPAIRE. _Recherches sur le procès de condamnation de Jeanne d’Arc._ Rouen, 1869.
CHEVALIER, A. _Jeanne d’Arc. Bio-Bibliographie._ Montbeliard, 1878.
LUCE, SIMÉON. _Jeanne d’Arc à Domremy._ Paris, 1886.
LÉO TAXIL, G. J. P. and FESCH, PAUL. _Le Martyr de Jeanne d’Arc._ Paris, 1890.
BEAUREPAIRE, CHARLES DE. _Notes sur les juges et les assesseurs du procès de condamnation de Jeanne d’Arc._ Rouen, 1890.
_La Voisin and her Confederates_
DUFEY DE L’YONNE. _La Bastille, mémoires pour servir à l’histoire secrète...._ Paris, 1833.
CLÉMENT, PIERRE. _La police de Paris sous Louis XIV._ Paris, 1866.
RAVAISSON, FRANÇOIS. _Archives de la Bastille._ 17 vols. Paris, 1866-74.
MONTIFAUD, M. DE. _Racine et la Voisin._ Paris, 1878.
LOISELEUR, JULES. _La Saint-Barthélemy, l’affaire des poisons et Mme de Montespan._ Paris, 1882.
JOURDY, G. _La Citadelle de Besançon ... ou épilogue de l’Affaire des poisons._ 1888.
LEGUÉ, DR. G. _Medécins et empoisonneurs au XVIIme siècle._ Paris, 1890.
NASS, DR. L. _Les empoisonnements sous Louis XIV._ Paris, 1898.
FUNCK-BRENTANO, F. _Le drame des poisons._ Paris, 1899.
_Palladism_
BATAILLE (Dr. Hacks). _Le diable au XIXme siècle ou les mystères du Spiritisme._ Paris, 1893.
MARGIOTTA, D. _Le Palladisme. Culte de Satan._ Grenoble, 1895.
VAUGHAN, MISS DIANA. (i.e. LÉO TAXIL.) _Le Palladium régénéré et libre. Lien des groupes lucifériens independants._ Paris, 1895.
_Mémoires d’une ex-palladiste._ Paris, 1896.
_La Restauration du Paganisme. Transition décrétée par le Sanctum Regnum, pour préparer l’etablissement du culte public de Lucifer._ Paris, 1896.
SURLABRÈCHE, E. _La confusion de Satan._ Paris, 1896.
PAPUS. _Catholicisme, satanisme et occultisme._ Paris, 1897.
_Gilles de Rais_
MEURET, F. C. _Annales de Nantes._ Nantes, _circa_ 1840.
_Petite histoire nantaise ... du Barbe-Bleue nantais, ou du Maréchal de Retz._ Nantes, 1841.
STENDHAL, H. BEYLE. _Mémoires d’un touriste._ Paris, 1854.
GUERAUD, ARMAND. _Notice sur Gilles de Rais._ Rennes, 1855.
MARCHEGAY. _Récit authentique de l’exécution de Gilles de Rays._ Nantes, s.d.
LACROIX, PAUL. _Crimes étranges. Le maréchal de Rays._ Brussels, 1855.
BOSSARD, L’ABBÉ E. _Gilles de Rais ... dit Barbe-Bleue._ Paris, 1885.
HUYSMANS, J. K. _La Magie en Poitou. Gilles de Rais._ 1899.
_The Templars_
MESSIE, PIERRE (Pedro Mexia). _Les diverses leçons de Pierre Messie._ Paris, 1556.
DUPUY, PIERRE. _Traité concernant l’histoire de France._ Paris, 1654.
_Histoire de l’abolition de l’ordre des Templiers._ Paris, 1779.
NICOLAÏ, FREDERIC. _Essai sur les accusations intentées aux Templiers et sur le secret de cet ordre._ Amsterdam, 1783.
GROUVELLE, P. _Mémoires historiques sur les Templiers._ Paris, 1805.
RAYNOUARD, F. J. M. _Monumens historiques relatifs à la condamnation des Chevaliers du Temple._ Paris, 1813.
REY, E. _Etude sur les Templiers._ Arcis-sur-Aube, 1891.
HAMNER, JOSEPH DE. _Mémoires sur deux coffrets gnostiques du Moyen-Age du cabinet de M. le duc de Blacas._ Paris, 1832.
BARGINET, F. A. _Discours sur l’histoire civile et religieuse de l’ordre du Temple._ Paris, 1833.
MAILLARD DE CHAMBURE, C. H. _Régles et statuts secrets des Templiers._ Paris, 1841.
HAVEMANN. _Geschichte des Ausgangs des Tempelherrenordens._ Stuttgart, 1846.
MIGNARD, T. J. A. P. _Monographie du coffret de M. le duc de Blacas._ Paris, 1852.
DAUNANT, DE. _Le procès des Templiers._ Nimes, 1863.
LOISELEUR, JULES. _La doctrine secrète des Templiers._ Paris, 1872.
GAIDOZ, H. _Note sur un statuette en bronze représentant un homme assis les jambes croisées._
PRUTZ, HANS DR. _Geheimlehre und Geheimstatuten des Tempelherren-Ordens._ Berlin, 1879.
_Entwicklung und Untergang des Tempelherrenordens._ Berlin, 1888.
JACQUOT, F. _Défense des Templiers._ Paris, 1882.
CURZON, HENRI DE. _La Règle du Temple._ Paris, 1886.
SCHOTTMULLER. _Der Untergang des Tempelordens._ 2 vols. Berlin, 1887.
LAVOCAT. _Procès des frères et de l’ordre du Temple._ Paris, 1888.
NAEF, F. _Recherches sur les opinions religieuses des Templiers._ Nimes, 1890.
GMELIN. _Schuld oder Unschuld des Templerordens._ Stuttgart, 1893.
ITALY
_Archivio storico italiano._ 4 serie. Florence, 1842-85.
BOFFITO. _Gli eretici in Piemonte._ 1897.
BONNI, F. _L’Inquisizione e i Calabro-Valdesi._ Milan, 1864.
BORELLI. _Editti antichi e nuovi._ Turin, 1681.
BORGIA, STEFANO. _Memorie istoriche della pontificia cittá di Benevento._ Rome, 1769.
CANTÙ, CESARE. _Gli Eretici d’Italia._ 3 vols. Turin, 1865-7.
_Storia della Diocesi di Como._ 2 vols. Como, 1829-31.
CAPPELLETTI. _Le Chiese d’Italia._ Venice, 1844.
CARUTTI. _Storia della citta di Pinerolo._ Pinerolo, 1893.
CASTRO, G. DE. _Il Mondo Segreto._ 9 vols. Milan, 1864.
_Arnaldo da Brescia._ Leghorn, 1875.
CATTANI, FRA. _Discorso sopra la Superstizione dell’ Arte Magica._ Florence, 1567.
CIGOGNA, STROZZI. _Pelagii de gli incanti._ Vicenza, 1605
CORIO, B. _L’Istoria di Milano._ Padua, 1646.
DANDALO, C. T. _La Signora di Monza._ Milan, 1855.
DE BLASIO, PROF. ABELE. _La Mala Vita a Napoli._ Naples, 1905.
DEJOB. _De l’influence du concile de Trente._ Paris, 1884.
FOLENGO, GIROLAMO. _Opus Macaronicum._ 2 vols. Mantua, 1771.
GALVANI. _Osservazioni sulla Poesia de’ Trovatori._ Modena, 1839.
GIANNONE, P. _Istoria civile del Regno di Napoli._ 7 vols. Naples, 1770.
GORI. _Storia di Chiusi._
GRIMALDO, CONSTANTINI. _Dissertatione in cui si investiga quali sian le operazioni che dependono della magia._ Rome, 1751.
GUICCIARDINI, FRANCESCO. _Delle istorie d’Italia._ 8 vols. Florence, 1818. Also ed. Resini. 5 vols. Turin, 1874.
LAMI. _Lezioni d’antichitá toscane._ 2 vols. Florence, 1766.
LELAND, C. G. _Etruscan Remains._ London, 1892.
_Lettera dal Inquisitore da Barzalone allo Inquisitore de Novara_, n.d.
MASTRIANI, F. _I Vermi._ 2 vols. Naples, 1877.
_Misteri dell’ Inquisizione._ Paris, 1847. (A catchpenny.)
MONNIER, M. _La Camorra._ Paris, 1863.
MURATORI, L. A. _Rerum italicarum scriptores._ 28 vols. Milan, 1723 _et seq._
_Continuatio opera Jo. Mar. Tartini._ 2 vols. Florence, 1748-80.
_Antiquitates italicæ medii aevi._ 6 vols. Milan, 1738.
_Annali d’Italia._ 5 vols. Milan, 1838.
MUTINELLI. _Storia Arcana d’Italia._ 4 vols. Venice, 1858.
MUZI. _Memorie ecclesiastiche e civili di Cittá di Castello._ Rome, 1842-7.
NICEFORO, A. E SIGHELE. _La Mala Vita a Roma._ Rome, 1899.
_L’Italia barbara._ Rome, 1898.
NOVELLIS. _Biografia Saviglianese._ Turin, 1840.
OGNIBEN, ANDREA. _I Guglielmiti del secolo XIII._ Perugia, 1847.
PECCI, GIOVANNI ANTONIO. _Storia del vescovado della cittá di Siena._ Lucca, 1748.
PELLET, M. _Naples contemporaine._ Paris, 1894.
PERINI, O. _Storia delle Societá Segrete._ 2 vols. Milan, 1863.
ROSSETTI, GABRIELE. _Disquisitions on the Antipapal Spirit ... its Secret Influence...._ 2 vols. 1834. (Translated by Miss C. Ward.)
SEGNI, GIOVANNI BATTISTA. _Del vero cristiano contra l’arte planetaria._ Ferrara, 1592.
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_Successo di Giustitia fatta nella cittá di Munich di sei scelerati strigoni._ Genoa, 1641.
TOCCO. _L’Eresia nel medio Evo._ Florence, 1884.
TORRICELLO. _Dialogo di Otto Lupano, nel qual si ragiona delle statute e miracoli de demoni e spiriti._ Milan, 1540.
TURLETTI. _Storia di Savigliano._
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VAYRA, P. _Le Streghe nel Canarese (Curiositá di Storia Subalpina)._ 1874.
VIZZINI, A. _La Mafia._ Rome, 1880.
NORTH AMERICA
_A True though Sad Relation of Six Sea-men_ (_Belonging to the_ Margaret _of_ Boston) _Who Sold Themselves to the_ Devil _And were Invisibly Carry’d away_. A pamphlet of 8 pages. N.D. _Circa_ 1698.
BANCROFT. _History of the United States._
BURR, GEORGE LINCOLN. _Narratives of the Witchcraft Cases._ New York, 1914.
_The Witchcraft Persecutions._ Univ. of Pennsylvania Translations and Reprints. Vol. III. No. 4. Philadelphia, 1903.
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GERMANY
BUCHINGER. _Julius Echter von Melpresbrunn._
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GLAUBRECHT, OTTO. _Die Schreckensjahre von Lindheim._ Stuttgart, 1886.
_Handbuch der deutschen Mythologie._
HANSEN, JOSEPH. _Quellen und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des Hexenwahns und der Hexenverfolgung im Mittelalter._ Bonn, 1901. (A valuable and important study.)
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HORST, GEORG CONRAD. _Dæmonomagie, oder Geschichte des Glaubens an Zauberei und dæmonische Wunder._ Frankfort. 2 vols. 1818.
HORST, VICTOR. _Zauberbibliothek._ 6 vols.
KESSLER. _Mâni Forschungen über die manichäissche Religion._ 2 vols. Berlin, 1889, _sqq._
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KOPP. _Die Hexenprozesse und ihre Gegner in Tyrol._ Innsbruck, 1874.
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SPIRITISM
“ADEPTE, UN.” _Katie King, Histoire de ses Apparitions._ Paris, 1879.
BALLOU, ADIN. _Spirit Manifestations._ Boston, 1852; Liverpool, 1853.
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BLACKMORE, S.J., SIMON AUGUSTINE. _Spiritism, Facts and Frauds._ London, 1925. (The best concise study of the subject. The work is fairly and authoritatively written, and the conclusions are eminently sane.)
BROWSON. _The Spirit-Rapper._ Boston, 1854. In Vol. IX of Works. Detroit, 1884.
BUTT, G. BASEDEN. _Modern Psychism._ London, 1925.
CAPRON, E. W. _Modern Spiritualism._ New York, 1855.
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_The Reality of Psychic Phenomena._
_Some practical Hints for those investigating ... Spiritualism._
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DUNRAVEN, EARL OF. _Experiences in Spiritualism with D. D. Home._
DURVILLE. _Le Fântome des Vivants._ Paris, 1909.
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GUTHERLET. _Der Kampf und die Seele._ 2nd ed. Mainz, 1903.
JUNG, J. H. _Theorie der Geisterkunde._
LANSLOTO, O.S.B., D. I. _Spiritism Unveiled._ St. Louis, 1913. (An excellent and most valuable work.)
LEPICIER, O.S.M., ALEXIS. _The Unseen World._ London, 1906.
LILLIE, ARTHUR. _Modern Mystics and Modern Magic._ London, 1894.
LODGE, SIR OLIVER. _Raymond, or Life after Death._ London, 1916
PAILLOUX, C. S. _Le Magnetisme, le Spiritisme, et la possession._
RAUPERT, J. GODFREY. _Spiritistic Phenomena; their interpretation._
_New Black Magic._ 1924.
_Modern Spiritism._ London, 1907.
SARGENT, EPES. _Planchette or the Despair of Science._ Boston, 1869.
SCHRENCK-NOTZING, BARON VON. _Phenomena of Materialization._ Trans. by E. E. Fournier d’Albe. London, 1923.
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SPICER, HENRY. _Sights and Sounds; the Mystery of the Day._ London, 1853.
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_Spirites et mediums._ Paris, 1901.
THURSTON, S.J., HERBERT F. _The Problems of Materialization._ _The Month_, Oct., 1922. (And a number of valuable articles which have been published of recent years in _The Month_.)
TRETHEWY, A. W. _The Controls of Stainton Moses._ London, 1925.
WALLACE, A. R. _Miracles and Modern Spiritualism._ London, 1897.
INDEX
Abraham, Statue of, 183
Accommodation theory, false, 203
_Ad Abolendam_, Bull of Lucius III, 17
Ælian, 118, 158
Æneas sacrifices to Night, 158
Ætius, 158
African witchcraft, 163
Agrippa, Cornelius, 103, 296
Akiba, Rabbi, 190
Albertus Magnus, Blessed, 64
Albigenses, 17, 27, 28, 62, 87
_Alchemist, The_, 304-5
Aldonistæ, 17
Alduin, Count, 26
Alexander III, 17, 18
Alexander IV, 13, 43, 64
_Alphonsus, King of Arragon_ (Greene), 287
Alphonsus Liguori, S., 41, 68-9, 92, 126, 203
Alphonsus Rodriguez, S.J., 126
Ambrose, S., 14, 117, 176, 180, 224
Anania, Lorenzo, 128, 167
Andreas, S., of Rinn, 162, 197
Anne Catherine Emmerich, 126
Antony, S. (the Great), 202
Apollodorus, 201
Apuleius, Lucius, 111, 116, 184, 296
Aquila of Pontus, 190
Aquinas, S. Thomas, 45, 64, 91, 128, 176, 296
Arab witches, 5
Aretæus, 202
Ariberto, Archbishop of Milan, 16
Aristophanes, 98, 200
Aristotle, 296
Arnauld Amaury, 18
Arnobius, 99
Arrows, Divination with, 182-3
_Asceticus_, heretical treatise, 22
Asmodeus, 190
Asperges, mock, at witches’ mass, 154
Athanasius, S., 224
Augustine of Hippo, S., 13, 64, 100, 128, 176, 180, 184, 296
Aupetit, Pierre, 149, 152
Azor, S.J., Juan, 92
Bacon, Lord, 65
Bagnolenses, 17
Balaam, 174, _sqq._
Balac, 174, _sqq._
Baltimore, Second Council of, 61
Balzac, Honoré de, 263
Bancroft, Richard, Archbishop of Canterbury, 229-30
Baptism at the Sabbat, 84-5
Barbagli, Domenica (ecstatic), 126
Barrett, Sir William, 255, 264, 268
Basil, S., 180, 224
Basque Sabbats, 112-13, 115
_Basques, Les_, 311
Bavent, Madeleine, 87, 149, 153, 155, 157
Becquet, Isabel, 81
Beghards, 17
Bekhten, The Prince of, 198-200
Belon, Jean, 149
_Belphegor_, 307
Benedict XII, 65
Benedict XIV, 69, 92, 223
Benedict, S., 117, 222-23
Benedict, S., Medal of, 240
Benedictus (a sorcerer), 148
Bernard of Como, 120, 129
Berry, Mr. George F., 264
Besançon, The Holy Winding Sheet of, 224
Besinnet, Ada, 266
Billuart, O.P., Charles René, 92
Binsfeld, Bishop Pierre, 61, 94
_Birth of Merlin, The_, 287, 306
Bishop, Bridget, 76, 146
Black book or roll of witches, 85-6
Blackstone’s _Commentaries_, 63
Blessing of the Waters (Epiphany), 220
Blocksburg, The, 114, 115
Blockula, 121
Blood used to seal compacts, 67-8
Bocal, Pierre, 149
Bodin, Jean, 1, 65, 94, 114, 123, 145, 157, 296
Bogomiles, 17, 22, 23, 27
Boguet, Henri, 5, 6, 58, 94, 97, 113, 116, 117, 122, 130-3, 139, 141, 145, 157
Bois, Jules, 311
Bonacina, Martino, 92
Bonaventura, S., 64, 91, 128
Boulanger, General, 264
Boullé, Thomas, 150
Bourignon, Antoinette, 70, 83
Bournement, Abbé, 150
Bouvier, Jean-Baptist, Bishop of Le Mans, 92-3
Boyle, Robert, 65
Brey, Abbé Charles, 240-3
Bricaud, Joanny, 28
Brignoli, 96
Broomstick, The Witches’, 121-4
Browne, Sir Thomas, 65
_Brutus of Alba_, 302
Bulls dealing with sorcery, 46
Burchard of Worms, 100, 297
Burner, Thiébaut and Joseph, The Possession of, 238-43
Burroughs, George, 84, 147
Busembaum, S.J., Hermann, 106
Buskitt, Dr. F. G., 27
_Bussy d’Ambois_, 305
C., Stella, 266
Cæsarius, S., of Arles, 14
Cainites, 21
_Caius Marius_, 301-2
Caligula, 55
Calmet, Augustin Dom, 133
Camisards, 62, 78
Candles, black, used at Sabbat, 139
Canidia, 158
Carino, the Manichee, 17
Carpocrates, 22
Carrère, Mlle Eva, 267
Carrier, Martha, a Salem witch, 124, 145
_Castell of Perseverance, The_, 279
Castelvicz, Countess, 267
Castro, Alfonso de, 94, 128, 167
Cathari, 17, 23, 27, 37
Catherine de Medici, 176
Catherine de Ricci, S., 126
Catherine of Siena, S., 45, 126
Charles IX of France, causes black mass to be performed, 148
Charles de Sezze, Bl., 126
Charolais, Madame de, 150
Chesne, Pierre du, 148
Cincture of S. Monica, 82-3
Clement XI, 63
Clement of Alexandria, 99
Cockcrow, Sabbat ends at, 117-18
Colette, S., 126
College, Stephen, 298
Colley, Archdeacon, 260
Collin de Plancy, 158
Coman, Widow, 76
Concorrezenses, 17
Consolamentum, Manichæan rite, 23
Contract of witches with the Devil, 65-70, 81
Cook, Florence, 260
Cord of S. Francis, 82
Cornelius, Pope, 207
Cornelius à Lapide, 176
Covens, number of members in, 40; organization of, 83
Cox, Julian, 5, 123
Craddock, Mr., 267
Craisson, Mgr., 92
Crespet, Père, 128, 167
Crookes, F.R.S., Sir William, 124, 246, 260, 268
Cross, Recovery of the True, 56
Cullender, Rose, 76
_Custom of the Country, The_, 305
Cybele, The rites of, 201-2
Cyprian of Antioch, S., 69
Cyril, S., of Jerusalem, 224
Cyril, S., of Alexandria, 182
D’Abadie, Jeannette, 81, 84
_Dame Dobson_, 302-3
Dance, at the Sabbat, 139-43; Religious, 140; at Seville (Los Seises), 140-1
Danæus, Lambert, 58
Darling, Thomas, 226
Darrel, John, 224-30
Davenport brothers, 259
David, Abbé, 150
Davies, Sir John, 123
Deane, Mrs., 266
Deborah (Debbora), Song of, 175
Dee, Dr. John, 227
De Lancre, 58, 63, 87, 94, 98, 118, 120, 123, 141, 144, 149, 150, 151, 153, 154, 159
Delrio, S.J., Martin Anton, 71, 93, 116, 137, 296
Demaratus, 200
Demdike, Elizabeth, 84, 294, 299
Demosthenes, 200
Denobilibus, 149
_De Rebus Uenereis ..._, 92
Devil, a man, Grand Master of the Sabbat, 7; theological teaching concerning, 51-4; in animal disguise at the Sabbat, 134-7
_Devil’s Charter, The_, 307-8
_Devil is an Ass, The_, 307
Dianic cult, imaginary, 43
_Dido and Æneas_, 302
Dinarchus, 200
Diocletian, 13, 22, 36
Dionysus, The rites of, 201-2
Dioscorides, 158
Divine, men who have claimed to be, 55-7
Divining Cup of Joseph, The, 183-4
Domitian, 55
Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan, 235, 255, 268
Dryden, 301
Dualistic religion, 21
Ducrot, General, 245
_Duke and No Duke_, 287
_Duke of Guise, The_, 301
Duny, Amy, 76
Dupanloup, Mgr., Bishop of Orleans, 244-5
D’Urfey, Tom, 78
Echalar, Juan de (sorcerer), 159
Edeline, Guillaume, 66
Edmonds, John Worth, 259
Egbo sorcerers, 136-7
Eglinton, William, 60, 260, 262
Egyptian, belief in possession, 198-200; magicians and Moses, 59
Eicher, S.J., Father, 241
Elbel, O.F.M., Benjamin, 92
Eldred, Charles, 261
Eleusinian Mysteries, 44
Elich, Philip Ludwig, 143, 145, 296
Eliezar, 194-5
Elipandus of Toledo, 15, 56
Elymas the sorcerer, 193
_Empress of Morocco, The_ (Duffett), 302
Endor, The Witch of, 176-84
Ephrem Syrus, S., Doctor Ecclesiæ, 224
Ermanno of Parma, 17
Erto (medium), 266-7
Etheridge, S.J., Father John, 259
Euchites, 22
Eugenius IV, 83
Euripides, 201-2
Evagrius Scholasticus, 100
Executions, Last European, 46
Exorcism, The rite of, 209-19; A shorter, 220; Baptismal, 220
Exorcists, Anglican canon concerning, 230-3; Attempted by Puritan ministers, 232; Minor Order of, 207; Ordination of, 207-9
Eznih of Kolb, 27
Fabre des Essarts, 28
_Fair Maid of the Inn, The_, 305
False Christs, 57
Familiars, animal, 40, 41
Farnabie, Thomas, 159
Fascinum, 98-101
_Fatal Jealousie, The_, 300-1
_Faust_ (Goethe), 103
Faust Legend, Dramatic versions of the, 280-4
Feasting at the Sabbat, 144-5
Felix of Urgel, heretic, 15
Fian, Doctor, and his confederates, 72, 85, 88, 116, 124, 139, 142
Fiard, Abbé, 150
Filliucci, S.J., Vincenzo, 92
Fox family (mediums), 256-9
_Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay_, 285-6
Francis, Elizabeth, 102
Francis of Assisi, S., 125
Francis Xavier, S., 126
Fugairon, Dr., of Lyons, 28
_Gallicinium_, 117
Garrison, William Lloyd, 250
Gasparin, Agénor de, 263
Gaufridi, Louis, 72-3, 82, 84-5, 116, 144, 149, 155
Gazariens, 37
Gemma Galgani, 126
Gerard Majella, S., 126, 240
Gerson, 65
Gesner, 158
Gil, of Santarem, Blessed, 69
_Giles Corey_, 310
Gilles de Rais, 33, 34, 36, 89, 148, 160
Glanvill, 65
_Glossarium Eroticum_, 99
Gnostic, The first, 193
Gnostic Church of Lyons, 29
Gnostics, 20
“Goats, The” (secret society), 136
Godelmann, Johann, 297
Görres, Johann Joseph, 94, 127
Gothescalch of Fulda, heretic, 15, 16
Gottardo of Marsi, 17
Grandier, Urbain, 73
Greek heroes, The cult and relics of, 30, 31
Greeley, Horace, 259
Gregory VII, S., 19
Gregory IX, 20
Gregory XIII, 83
Gregory XV, 65
Gregory, S., of Nyssa, 178, 180
Gregory of Nanzianzus, S., 99, 224
Grilland, Paul, 94, 122, 127, 128, 145, 167, 297
Grimoires, 11, 68
Guardia, El santo Nino de la, 162
Guazzo, Francesco Maria, 65, 81-9, 95, 128, 137, 141, 144, 145, 167, 297
Guibourg, Abbé, 89 (and his confederates), 150, 153, 160
Guldenstubbe, Baron de, 263
Guthrie, Helen, a Forfar witch, 26
Hare, Robert, 259
Harold of Gloucester, 162
Harsnett, Samuel, 229-30
Hartley, Edmund, 227
Haydon, Mrs. (medium), 259
Heliogabalus, 55
Henry II of England, 16
Heraclius, 56
Herod Agrippa I, 55
Herodas, 98-9
Hilarion, S., 202
Hinemar, Archbishop of Rheims, 15
Hippolytus, 185
Holland, Mrs. (medium), 266
Holt, Lord Chief Justice, 102
Home, Daniel D. (medium), 125, 246, 259, 263
Homer, 201
Hopkins, Matthew, 4, 102
Horace, 296
Horner, Elizabeth, 76
Hosts, as used at witches’ mass, 15, 155, 156-7; Stolen from churches, 156
Hugh of Lincoln, S., 195
Humiliati, 17
Hush, Mr. Cecil, 267
Hutchinson, Bishop Francis, 101-2, 109
Huysmans, J. K., 29, 151, 264
Hydesville, Home of Fox family, 256-7
Hydromantia, 184
_If It Be Not Good, The Divel is in it_, 306-7
Ignatius Loyola, S., 126
Illfurt, Case of possession at, 238-43
Incense, noxious weeds burned for, in witches’ rites, 156
Incubi, 89-103
_Indian-Queen, The_, 301
Innocent III, 18
Innocent IV, 20
Innocent VIII, 12, 43, 44, 88, 94
_Institutiones Theologiæ Mysticæ_ (Schram), 93
Ireland, Witchcraft in, 25
Isidore of Seville, S., 13
_James the Fourth_ (Greene), 286
Janicot, Basque deity, 42
Jerome, S., 179, 182, 202
Jetzer, Brother, a Jacobin of Berne, 4
Joan, S., of Arc, false theories concerning, 33, 34
Johannites, 148
John XXII, 64
John Chrysostom, S., 13
John George II, Prince-Bishop of Bamberg, 24
John of the Cross, S., 45, 126
Jonson, Ben, 296
Joseph of Cupertino, S., 126-7
Josephins, 17
Jovio Paolo, 103
Judas Iscariot, 21
Juno Lacinia, 200
Justin Martyr, S., 224
Juvenal, 159, 296
Kembter, C.P.R., Adrian, 172, 195
Khlysti, 56
Khonsu, god of Thebes, 198-200
Khosroes (Khusran) II of Persia, 56
Kincaid, John, 74
_King Henry VI_ (Part II), 287-9
Kluski, Franek, 266
Kōsēm (magician), 186
Kyteler, Dame Alice, 25, 103, 124, 158
Laban and Jacob, 186
_Là-Bas_ (Huysmans), 151
Lactantius, 99-100, 224
_Lancashire Witches, The_ (Ainsworth), 309
_Lancashire Witches, The_ (Dibdin), 309
_Lancashire Witches, The_ (Fitzball), 309-10
_Lancashire Witches, The_ (Shadwell), 296-9, 303
Langton, Walter, Bishop of Coventry, 138
_Laruatus_ (= crazed), 201
_Late Lancashire Witches, The_, 292-6
Leaf, Mr. Horace, 265
Lecollet, Abbé, 150
Lemmi, Adriano, 8
Leo IV, Pope, S., 193
Leo XIII, 28, 90, 220
Levitation, 124-7, 246
_Liber Pœnitentialis_ of S. Theodore, 6, 88, 134
_Life of Mother Shipton, The_, 299-300
Lodge, Sir Oliver, 268
Louis XIV, 160, 161
_Love for Love_, 80, 303-4
Lucan, 296
Luciferians, 21
Lucius III, 17
_Luckey Chance, The_, 303
Lunacy, Induced by Spiritism, 253-6
_Lusty Juventus_, 279
Luther, Martin, 231
_Macbeth_, 289-90
Machiavelli Niccolo, 187
Magdalena de la Cruz, 69-70
_Magico Prodigioso, El_, 310
Maiolo, Simon, 61
_Malleus Maleficarum_, 24, 63, 94, 127, 129, 160, 296
Manasses, King of Juda, 181
Mandæans, 148
_Mandragola, La_, 187-8, 197
Mandrakes, 187-8
Mani, 21, 22
Mania, Roman goddess, 201
Manichees, 14, 15, 17, 20, 21, 25, 26, 27, 32, 36, 148
_Mankind_, 279
Manlius, 103
Margaret of Cortona, S., 202
Maria Maddalena de Pazzi, S., 126
Marion, Elie, 62, 78
Mark, The Devil’s, 70-5, 89
Martin, S., of Tours, 14
_Mary of Nimmegen_, 284-6
Masks worn at the Sabbat, 136-7
_Masque of Queens_, 296, 304
Mass, mock, 87
Mass of S. Sécaire, 156-7
Mass, Witches’, origin of, 42-3; liturgy of, 145-57
Maternus, Julius Firmicus, 99
Mather, Cotton, 83, 145
Maurus, O.S.B., S., 223-4
May-fires, 112
Mazzolini, O.P., Sylvester, 142, 296
Medal of S. Benedict, 222-3
Melancthon, 103, 128
Menander (heretic), 193
_Merry Devil of Edmonton, The_, 306
Messalians, 22
Michaelis, Sebastian Ven., 157
Middleton, Thomas, 9, 108
Midsummer bonfires, 43
_Midsummer-Night’s Dream_, 287
Miller (medium), 261-2
Missal, Devil’s, 87
Montanus, 56
Montespan, Madame de, 160
More, George, 227-9
Moses, 59, 173
Moses, William Stanton, 125, 259
_Mother Bombie_, 280
Mousseaux, Gougenot des, 94
Munnings, Mother, 102
Murray, Miss M. A., 31, 32, 33, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 75
Mystery Plays, 276-8
_Mystique Divine, La_ (Ribet), 90, 110
Naasseni, 21
Name given to witches, 85
Naudé, Gabriel, 297
Neo-Gnostic Church, 28
Neri, S. Philip, 44
Nevillon, Silvain, 84
_Newes from Scotland_, 9
Nicander, 158, 201
Nicephorus Calixtus, 100
Nicetas, 99
Nicniven, “a notabill sorceres,” 7, 85
Nider, O.P., John, 94, 296
_Nigramansir_, 278-9
Nipple, Supernumerary, 75-7
Norbert, S., 39, 49, 50
North-Berwick Kirk, 116, 121, 138, 142
Numa, Second King of Rome, 184
Odour of Sanctity, 45
_Œdipus_ (Dryden and Lee), 301
Ointment, Flying, 6
_Old Wives’ Tales, The_ (Peele), 286-7
Ophites, 21, 148
Origen, 180
_Orlando Furioso_ (Greene), 286
Orthodox Eucharist, 147-8
_Osculum infame_, 137-9
Ovid, 296
Owen, Rev. G. Vale, 255, 264-5
P., Stanislava, 267
Palladian Temple (_Templum Palladicum_), discovered in Rome, 152-3
Palladino Eusapia, 267
Palmer, John, a wizard, 76
Palud, Madeleine de la, 82, 149, 154, 157
Paolo de Caspan, O.P., Fra, 119
Pasagians, 17
Patarini, 17
Paterson, a pricker, 74-5
Paul, S., 193-4, 206-7
Paul I., Pope S., 193
Paul of the Cross, S., 126
Pauliciani, 17, 23
Pauper, Marcelline, 145-6
Pausanias, 187
Pauvres de Lyon, 17
Pax, burlesqued by witches, 155
Peach, Father Edward, 234-5
Peckham, Sir George, 224
Pecoraro, Nino, 267
Pelagius I, 14
Peña, Francesco, 127
Pentheus, 200
Peratæ, 21
Peter Damian, S., 128, 167
Peter, S., 191-3
Peter of Verona, S., 17
Peter Parenzo, S., 17
Peters, Mr. Vout, 266
Petronius Arbiter, 99, 109, 187, 296
Phædra, 201
Philip I of France, 19
Philip Neri, S., 44, 126
Philip the Deacon, 191
Philippi, a medium healed at, 206-7
Picard, Maturin, 150
Pike, Albert, of Charleston, 8
Piper, Mrs., 266
Pius IX, 246
Plautus, 201
Pliny, 118, 159, 296
Plutarch, 200
Poirier, Possession of Hélène-Josephine, 243-8
Ponzinibio, Giovanni Francesco, 127, 166, 167
Porta, Baptista, 296
Possession of devils in the Gospels, 191, 203-6
Prelati, Antonio Francesco, 148
Prickers of witches, Official, 74-5
Priscillian of Avila, heretic, 14
Propertius, 296
Prosecution of witches by the Cæsars, 11, 12
Protestant exorcism, 232-3
Prudentius, 117
Prynne, William, 282
Psychic Science, British College of, 235-8
Pythagoras, 200
Quintus Fulvius, 200
Raimond Rocco, 126
Rameses II, 198-9
Raphael, S., 190
Read, Mary, 76
Red Book of Appin, 86-7
Regino of Prüm, 121
Reid, Thom, 7
Relics, The cultus of, 31
_Religion of the Manichees, The_, 27
Remy, Nicolas, 118, 128, 167
Richet, Professor Charles, 268
Robert I of France, 25
_Robert le Diable_, 310
Robert of Bury S. Edmunds, 162
Robinson, Anne, 4
Rocheblanche, Abbé de, 150
Rosary, The Holy, 82
Rothe, Anne, 260
Rousseau, Abbé, 158
Rowley, William, 11
Rudolph, S., of Berne, 162
S., Willy (medium), 267
Sabazius, 111
Sabbat, Dances at the, 139-43; Derivation of name, 111; Feasting at, 143-5; Liturgy of, 145-7; Methods of travelling to the, 118-33; Music at the, 142-3; When held, 111-6; Where held, 113-7
Sacrament, Diabolical, of Salem witches, 146-7
Sacrifice, of animals, 158-60; of children, 88-9, 160; of the God, hypothetical, 33-6
_S. Patrick for Ireland_, 305-6
Salmanticenses, 91-2, 145
Samuel, Ghost of, 178-81
Saturday, why no Sabbat held on, 116
Saul, 202
Sawyer, Elizabeth, 58-9, 76, 102, 290-2, 308
Scapular, Carmelite, 82
Sceva, The seven sons of, 194
Schott, S.J., Gaspar, 94
Schram, O.S.B., Dominic, 93
Schrenck-Notzing, Baron von, 267
Scot, Reginald, 69, 88, 123
_Secret Commonwealth, The_ (Robert Hink), 71
Seneca, 296
Sethians, 21
_Seven Champions of Christendom, The_, 287
Seville Cathedral, Ritual dance at, 140-1
Shadwell, Mrs., 301
Shadwell, Thomas, 75, 296-9
Shrill voice of ghosts, 177-8
Sillé, Gilles de, 148
Silvester of Abula, 128, 167
Simon Abeles, 162
Simon Magus, 20, 191
Simon, S., of Trent, 162
Sinistrari, Ludovico Maria, 65, 71, 78, 95, 161
_Sir Clyomon and Sir Clamydes_, 287
Sisto da Siena, 128, 167
Slade (a medium), 260
_Soir de Folie, Un_ (revue), 151, 311
Somers, William, 227-30
_Sophonisba_ (Lee), 301
_Sophonisba_ (Marston), 305
_Sorcière Canidie, La_, 311
_Sorcière, La_ (Dupetit-Mèré and Ducagne), 310
_Sorcière, La_ (Sardou), 311
Soulis, Lord William, of Hermitage, 7
Speronistæ, 17
Spina, Bartolomeo de, 119, 128, 167, 297
Spiritism, Condemned by the Catholic Church, 268-9
Spiritism, Some present-day activities of, 264-5
Spiritistic churches and assemblies, 264-5, 266
Spiritualism, its present-day meaning, 254-5
Sprenger, James, vide _Malleus Maleficarum_
Stapleton, Thomas, 46
Starchie, Nicholas, 227
Statius, 178
Stearne, John, 102, 108
Stewart, Francis, Earl of Bothwell, 8
Stewart, Mrs. Josie K., 266
Strabo, 184, 201
Stridtheckh, Christian, 115
Stumpf, Peter-Paul, Bishop of Strasburg, 241
Suarez, S.J., Francesco, 52, 54, 68, 91
_Summis desiderantes_, Bull of Innocent VIII, 12, 43, 88
Symons, Arthur, 141
Tacitus, 296
Tamburini, S.J., Thomas, 92
Tanchelin and his anarchy, 36-40, 49
Targum of Jonathan, 190
Tartarins, 17
Tartary, Wizards in, 59, 60
Tea-leaves used in divination, 185
_Tempest, The_, 287, 289
Templars, The, 26, 138, 147-8
_Templiers, Les_, 310
Teraphim, 189-90
Teresa, S., 126
Tertullian, 180
Theodore, S., of Canterbury, 6, 88, 134
Theodoret, 99, 176, 179
Theodosius II, 23
Thurston, S.J., Father, 63
Thyraus, S.J., Hermann, 93
Tibullus, 99, 296
Titivillus, 279-80
Toads, associated with Sabbat, 158-9
Tobias, 190-1
Tomson, Mrs. Elizabeth A., 266
_Trappolin Creduto Principe_, 287
Travers-Smith, Mrs., 265, 267
_Trial of Witchcraft, The_ (John Bell), 70-1
Tuileries, Séance at, 263
Turrecremata (Torquemada), Juan de, 128
_Two Noble Kinsmen, The_, 278
_Tyrannick Love_, 301
V., Mr., 267
Valentine (medium), 261
Valentinian I, 22
Valentinian II, 22
Valentinian III, 23
Valentinians, heretical sect, 29
Valentinus, heretic, 29
_Vampire, Le_, 310
Vaudois, 26, 37, 87
Vaughan, S.J., Bernard, 254-5
Vearncombe, Mr., 266
Vergil, 176, 296
Veronica Giuliani, S., 126
Verrall, Mrs., 266
Vestments worn at witches’ mass, 153-4
Victor III Bl. (Desiderius), 224
Vio Gaetani, Tommaso de, 128, 167
Visigoth code, 36
Voisin, Catherine la, 89, 160
Voisin, Marguerite la, 153
Voodooism, 26, 158, 163
Walburga, S., 111-2
Waldenses, 17, 87
Walpurgis-Nacht, Die, 111
Ward, Seth, Bishop of Exeter, 233
_Wars of Cyrus, The_, 287
Weir, Major Thomas, 34-6, 120
Wenham, Jane, 102
Werner, S., of Oberwesel, 162
Weston, S.J., William, 224-5
Weyer, John, 103, 296
Wilde, Oscar, Alleged script by, 267-8
William of Paris, boy martyr, 162
William, S., of Norwich, 162
Williams, Mrs. (medium), 261
Willibrod, S., Ritual at shrine of, 140
Winer, 203
_Wise Woman of Hogsdon_, 303
_Witch, The_ (Middleton), 108, 290
_Witch, The_ (Wiers-Jennsen), 311-2
_Witch of Edmonton, The_ (Ford and Dekker), 102, 290-2, 308
_Witch of Islington, The_, 304
_Witch Traveller, The_, 304
Witchcraft forbidden in the Bible, 181-2
_World tost at Tennis, The_, Masque, 9, 10, 278
Wright, Elizabeth, 75-6
Wright, Katherine, 225-6
_Zoroastres_, 302
THE HISTORY OF CIVILIZATION
A COMPLETE HISTORY OF MANKIND FROM PREHISTORIC TIMES TO THE PRESENT DAY IN UPWARDS OF 200 VOLUMES DESIGNED TO FORM A COMPLETE LIBRARY OF SOCIAL EVOLUTION
_Editor_: C. K. OGDEN, of Magdalene College, Cambridge
_Consulting American Editor_: Professor HARRY ELMER BARNES.
A. PRE-HISTORY AND ANTIQUITY
I INTRODUCTION AND PRE-HISTORY
*Social Organization _W. H. R. Rivers_ The Earth Before History _E. Perrier_ Prehistoric Man _J. de Morgan_ *The Dawn of European Civilization _V. Gordon Childe_ A Linguistic Introduction to History _J. Vendryes_ A Geographical Introduction to History _L. Febvre_ Race and History _E. Pittard_ *The Aryans _V. Gordon Childe_ From Tribe to Empire _A. Moret_ *Woman’s Place in Simple Societies _J. L. Myers_ *Cycles in History _J. L. Myers_ *The Diffusion of Culture _G. Elliot Smith_ *The Migration of Symbols _D. A. Mackenzie_
II THE EARLY EMPIRES
The Nile and Egyptian Civilization _A. Moret_ *Colour Symbolism of Ancient Egypt _D. A. Mackenzie_ The Mesopotamian Civilization _L. Delaporte_ The Ægean Civilization _G. Glotz_
III GREECE
The Formation of the Greek People _A. Jardé_ *Ancient Greece at Work _G. Glotz_ The Religious Thought of Greece _C. Sourdille_ The Art of Greece _W. Deonna_ and _A. de Ridder_ Greek Thought and the Scientific Spirit _L. Robin_ The Greek City and its Institutions _G. Glotz_ Macedonian Imperialism _P. Jouguet_
IV ROME
Ancient Italy _L. Homo_ The Roman Spirit in Religion, Thought, and Art _A. Grenier_ Roman Political Institutions _L. Homo_ Rome the Law-Giver _J. Declareuil_ Ancient Economic Organization _J. Toutain_ The Roman Empire _V. Chapot_ *Ancient Rome at Work _P. Louis_ The Celts _H. Hubert_
V BEYOND THE ROMAN EMPIRE
Germany and the Roman Empire _H. Hubert_ Persia _C. Huart_ Ancient China and Central Asia _M. Granet_ *A Thousand Years of the Tartars _E. H. Parker_ India _(Ed.) S. Lévi_ *The Heroic Age of India _N. K. Sidhanta_ *Caste and Race in India _G. S. Ghurye_ *The Life of Buddha as Legend and History _E. H. Thomas_
B. CHRISTIANITY AND THE MIDDLE AGES
I THE ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY
Israel and Judaism _A. Lods_ Jesus and the Birth of Christianity _C. Guignebert_ The Formation of the Church _C. Guignebert_ The Advance of Christianity _C. Guignebert_ *History and Literature of Christianity _P. de Labriolle_
II THE BREAK-UP OF THE EMPIRE
The Dissolution of the Western Empire _F. Lot_ The Eastern Empire _C. Diehl_ Charlemagne _L. Halphen_ The Collapse of the Carlovingian Empire _F. Lot_ The Origins of the Slavs _(Ed.) P. Boyer_ *Popular Life in the East Roman Empire _N. Baynes_ *The Northern Invaders _B. S. Phillpotts_
III RELIGIOUS IMPERIALISM
Islam and Mahomet _E. Doutté_ The Advance of Islam _L. Barrau-Dihigo_ Christendom and the Crusades _P. Alphandéry_ The Organization of the Church _R. Genestal_
IV THE ART OF THE MIDDLE AGES
The Art of the Middle Ages _P. Lorquet_ *The Papacy and the Arts _E. Strong_
V RECONSTITUTION OF MONARCHIC POWER
The Foundation of Modern Monarchies _C. Petit-Dutaillis_ The Growth of Public Administration _E. Meynial_ The Organization of Law _E. Meynial_
VI SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC EVOLUTION
The Development of Rural and Town Life _G. Bourgin_ Maritime Trade and the Merchant Gilds _P. Boissonnade_ *Life and Work in Medieval Europe _P. Boissonnade_ *The Life of Women in Medieval Times _Eileen Power_ *Travel and Travellers of the Middle Ages _(Ed.) A. P. Newton_
VII INTELLECTUAL EVOLUTION
Education in the Middle Ages _G. Huisman_ Philosophy in the Middle Ages _E. Bréhier_ Science in the Middle Ages _Abel Rey_ and _P. Boutroux_
VIII FROM THE MIDDLE AGES TO MODERN TIMES
Nations of Western and Central Europe _P. Lorquet_ Russians, Byzantines, and Mongols _(Ed.) P. Boyer_ The Birth of the Book _G. Renaudet_ *The Grandeur and Decline of Spain _C. Hughes Hartmann_ *The Influence of Scandinavia on England _M. E. Seaton_ *The Philosophy of Capitalism _T. E. Gregory_ *The Prelude to the Machine Age _D. Russell_ *Life and Work in Modern Europe _G. Renard_
_A special group of volumes will be devoted to_
(1) SUBJECT HISTORIES
*The History of Medicine _C. G. Cumston_ *The History of Money _T. E. Gregory_ *The History of Costume _M. Hiler_ *The History of Witchcraft _M. Summers_ *The History of Taste _J. Isaac_ *The History of Oriental Literature _E. Powys Mathers_ *The History of Music _Cecil Gray_
(2) HISTORICAL ETHNOLOGY
*The Ethnology of India _T. C. Hodson_ *The Peoples of Asia _L. H. Dudley Buxton_ *The Threshold of the Pacific _C. E. Fox_ *The South American Indians _Rafael Karsten_
* An asterisk denotes that the volume does _not_ form part of the French collection, _L’Evolution de l’Humanité_.
_In the Sections devoted to MODERN HISTORY the majority of titles will be announced later. Many volumes are, however, in active preparation, and of these the first to be published will be_
*The Restoration Stage _M. Summers_ *London Life in the Eighteenth Century _M. Dorothy George_ *China and Europe in the Eighteenth Century _A. Reichwein_
The _New York Times_ calls this series “An adventure in letters and learning whose range is so audacious as to challenge the imagination to conceive it in its full implication.... A new type of vision on the whole perspective of historical science.”
The _Chicago Evening Post_: “The scope is to be comprehensive and the performance so far has been brilliant. Mr. Knopf will have done the public an invaluable service by thus putting at its disposal an authoritative history of the world, entirely in English, each field covered by a man who has mastered it.... The History of Civilization ought to prove a force not only in the spread of knowledge, but in the propagation of international good-will.”
James T. Shotwell writes: “The History of Civilization, edited by Mr. Ogden of Magdalene College, Cambridge, marks a new stage in the History of History. Hitherto we have had co-operative surveys of sections of European History, but they have all suffered from limitations of space. The various contributors have been obliged by the editors to put into a
## chapter material which ordinarily would call for a whole volume. This
great History leaves the author a real freedom to cover his subject adequately, and once this is granted, the chief editorial problem is to secure the outstanding authority in the particular subject. The list of authors in this series could hardly be bettered. Each writer can bring a distinct contribution apart from the data with which he deals; each great phase of human evolution is presented here in a masterful survey and fits well into the general synthesis.
“Turning from the special volumes to the work as a whole, one finds a conception of history which corresponds to the demands of those interested in the social and intellectual development of Europe, while alongside of it the political story still furnishes the traditional framework. It is a living picture of a vast movement, splendidly conceived and sure to be adequately executed.”