DEMONOLATRY
BOOK I
CHAPTER II
How Demons prepare, for those whom they
have won by their Cunning, Drugged
Powders,* Wands, Ointments and Various Venom's of the sort: some of which
cause Death, some only Sickness, and
some even Healing, And how these
things are not always, or for all Men,
poisonous: since there may be found
some who are uninjured by frequent
Applications of them, notably they whose
Office and Business it is to condemn
itches to Death.
FROM the very beginning the
Devil was a murderer (S. John
viii), and never has he ceased to
tempt the impious to commit slaughter
and parricide. Therefore it is no
wonder that, once he has caught men in his toils, his first care is to furnish
them with the implements and in-
struct them in the practices of witchcraft. And lest the business should be
delayed or hindered through lack of
poison or difficulty in administering
it, he provides them at the very first
with a fine powder which must infallibly cause the sickness or death of
those against whom it is used: nor
does its harmfulness of necessity depend upon its being mingled with a
man’s food or drink, or applied to his
bare flesh; for it is enough if but his
clothes be lightly dusted with it. The
powder which kills is black; that
which only causes sickness is ashen, or
sometimes reddish in color. And
since witches are often led by fear or
bribery, and sometimes even by pity
(of which they claim that they are not
entirely destitute), to heal those who
have been stricken in this manner,
they are not without a remedy to
their hand; for they are given a third
powder, white in color, with which
they dust the sick, or mix it with
their food or drink, and so the sickness is dispersed, And these drugs of
varying properties and virtue are distinguishable only by their color.
Claude Fellet (at Maziéres, 9th Nov.,
1584), Jeanne le Ban (at Masmunster, 3rd Jan., 1585), Colette Fischer
(at Gerbeville, 7th May, 1585),
and nearly all the women of their
fellowship, record that they always
found the effects of their powders
such as we have said. But this distinction in the colors is not so much
to ensure the selection of the required
poison (for the drugs owe their potency
to the Demon, not to any inherent
properties of their own), as a visible
sign of the pact between the witch
and the Demon, and a guarantee of
faith. Matteole Guilleraca (at Mazidres, 4th Dec., 1584) and Jeanne
Alberte (at S. Pierre-Mont, 8th Nov.,
1581) add that although the ashen-colored powder does not as a rule
cause a fatal sickness, it has nevertheless the power to kill when it is first
received by witches after their enlistment in that army of wickedness; for
that initial step has a kind of preference.
But it is a matter of no small wonder
that witches not only impregnate with
such poisons articles of which the purpose and use is to drive away Demons, but even make use of them during the
very time of prayer and the performance of the Sacraments. At Seaulx,
11th Oct., 1587, Jacobeta Weher was
envious of the lover of the daughter
of her fellow-countrymen Pétrone, but
could not injure her as she wished;
for the girl had emphatically bidden
her beware of trying to harm her.
But at last, under pretext of doing
something else, she infected an asperge
with the poison powder and sprinkled
the girl with it as she was praying in
church: and at once she was stricken with a mortal sickness and soon after
died. At Blainville, 16th Jan., 1587,
the whole neighbourhood, except
Alexée Belheure, had been invited to
a feast given by a noble knight named
Darnielle on the occasion of his son’s
baptism. Ill brooking this slight, she
evaded the observation of those who
were carrying the newly baptized
child and, sprinkling it with a poison
powder of this kind, killed it.
And since it is not convenient for
them always to keep this powder
ready in their hand to throw, they
have also wands imbued with it or
smeared with some unguent or other
venomous matter, which they commonly carry as if for driving cattle.
With these they often, as it were in
joke, strike the men or the cattle
which they wish to injure: and that
this is no vain or innocent touch is
testified by the confessions of Francois
Fellet (at Maziéres, 19th Dec., 1583),
Marguereta Warner (at Ronchamp, 1st Dec., 1586), Matteole Guilleret
‘at Pagny-sur-Moselle, 1584), and Jacobeta Weher whom I have just
mentioned.
Yet there are those who, thanks to
some singular blessing from Heaven,
are immune from such attacks ;* for
witches have not always unlimited power against all men, as Jeanne
Bransaint (at Condé-sur-l’Escaut, July, 1582) and Catharina Ruffe (at
ille-sur-Moselle, 28th July, 1587)
have recorded that they were more
than once informed by their Demons. I remember questioning that woman of
Nancy called Lasnier (Asinaria), from
her husband the ass-driver, upon the
statements of the witnesses, and especially concerning this particular point;
and she spoke with great indignation
as follows: “It is well for you Judges
that we can do nothing against you!
For there are none upon whom we
would more gladly work our spite
than you who are always harrying us
folk with every torture and punishment.” Jaqueline Xaluétia (at Grand-Bouxiéres-sous-Amance, 29th April,
1588), freely and without any previous questioning, acknowledged the same.
‘his woman, having long been suspected of witchcraft, was put in
chains; but after a little she was liberated by order of the Judge, because
she had endured all the torture of
her questioning in an obstinate silence.
After much turning of the matter over
in her mind, she could not rest until
she had worked some evil upon the
Judge who had treated her with such
severity; for the filthy rabble of
witches is commonly desirous of revenge. Therefore she ceased not to
pester her Demon to find some safe
and easy way for her to vent her spite: but he, knowing her folly
towards herself in this matter, kept
pleading different excuses for postponing the affair and inventing reasons
why he should not comply with her
wish. But at length, since Xaluétia
did not cease to importune him, he
told her in shame and grief that, in
place of that fortune which he had
often foretold for her, her own folly
and impotence would be exposed and
would betray her. “I have always,
my Xaluétia,” he said, “endured very
hardly the unbridled severity of those
executioners towards you, and often
in the past have I had a mind to be
revenged : but I openly admit that all
my attempts come to nothing. For
they are in His guardianship and protection who alone can oppose my
designs. But I can repay these officers
for their persecutions by causing them
to share in a common disaster, and
will strike the crops and the fields
far and wide with a tempest and lay
them waste as much as I am able.”
This is not unlike the statement of
Nicole Moréle {at Serre, 24th Jan.,
1587), that Demons are impregnated
and seared with an especial hatred
towards those who put into operation
the Jaw against witches, but that it is
in vain that they attempt or seek to
wreak any vengeance against them.
See how God defends and protects
the authority of those to whom He
has given the mandate of His power
upon earth, and how He has there-
fore made them partakers of His prerogative and honor, calling them
Gods even as Himself (Ps. lxxxii) : so
that without doubt they are sacrosanct and, by reason of their duty and
their office, invulnerable even to the
spells of witches. Indeed they are not
even bound in the least by the commands of the Demons themselves,
even though they may have previously
vowed allegiance to them and have
been touched with the stain of that
oath, For that witches benefit by the
protection of the sanctity of a Magistrate's office (at least for as long as
they hold such office), so that they are
free from all the most importunate
complaints and instigation of their
Little Masters, who testified by Didier Finance (at Saint-Dié, 14
July, 1581), who said that during the
whole period of his magistracy he
never once saw his familiar spirit,
who at all other times had been his
most sedulous adviser on every occasion. Therefore let the Magistrate
undertake his duties with confidence,
knowing that he is pursuing a vocation in which he will always have
God as his champion and protector.
By reason of a like sanctity Marcus,
in the De Operatione Daemonum of
Psellus, tells that his Demon uttered
no sound upon the days when the
Crucifixion and Resurrection are commemorated,* although he strove his
utmost to do so. Moreover, the poisons
which Demons give to witches are
thus harmless only to those Judges
whom I have just mentioned: for
there can be no doubt that the poisons
which they gather and concoct with
their own hands are equally injurious
to all men else and are imbued with
equal venom against all. It has, more-
over, often been proved by experience
that witches also have their own
laboratories stuffed full of animals,
plants and metals endowed with some
natural poison; and these are so
numerous and various that they ma
be reckoned as many as those ‘which
Agamedet in Homer (iliad, xi. 741)
is said to have known:
“Who knew all poisons that the wide
earth breeds.”
For they are in the discipline and
service of that Master who is ignorant
of nothing which has power to destroy
men.
But I would rather that such matters
remain hidden in the bosom of Nature
than that, through my naming them,
they should come to any man’s know-
ledge. And it is for this reason that I
have always been led, whenever I have
found such things written down in the
examination of prisoners, to have
them altogether suppressed: or at
least I would advise, or rather admonish, the actuary to omit them
when he reads out such examinations
in public. For in Lorraine it is the
custom to refer the judgement of
capital crimes to the votes of the
ignorant and excited multitude, given
them full power, and having no regard
to the provocation caused by a public
exhibition of the accused; although this is contrary to the recommendation of the Duumvirs of Nancy, to
whom the whole matter should first
be referred. Would that these matters
were not now so publicly known! But
it has indeed come to pass after the
wont of mankind, who with impetuous
rashness thrust into the light those
matters which should more particularly
be kept hidden; and the memory of
such things lives longer and is often
more curious and pleasant to dwell
upon than that of natural human
happenings. In this way the Scholiast
of Theocritus* wrote that after many
ages he saw with wonder at Mount
Selinus in Sicily the very mortars in
which Circe and Medea brewed their
poisons. And if men have so prized
the mere implements, as if they were
the earthen lamp of Epictetus, what
must we think they would have done if they had found the actual poisons,
or the secret rule of compounding
them inscribed upon some monument?
NOTES
* “drugged powders.’ It was believed that witches spread plague and pestilence by means of these diabolical powders. During the visitation of sickness at Milan in 1598 it was popularly held that a band of sorcerers had engaged themselves to disseminate the disease. For the same reason the plague of Milan in 1629-30 was known as “La Beste degli Untori.” These wrelches daubed walls, doors, and furniture with some purulent matter, and they also scat- tered magic powders in a circle up and down the streets. To set foot in one of these meant certain destruction. See my “Geography of Witchcraft,” pp. 2. See also Boguet, “An Examen of Witches” (John Rodker, 1929), chapter xxiii, “Of the Powder Used by Witches.”
* “immune from such attacks.” King James J in his ‘“Damonologie,” Second Book, chapter vi, discusses what power witches may have to harm the Magistrate. “If he be slothful towards them, God is very able to make them instruments to waken and punish his sloth.” But if he is diligent in examining and punishing of them: “GOD will not permit their master to trouble or hinder so good a work. ... For where God begins Justly to strike by his lawful Lieutenants, it is not in the Devils power to defraud or bereave him of the office, or effect of his powerful and revenging Scepter”
* The passage is thus turned by Pierre Morelle in his Latin version of the UWepi *Evepycas Aatusvev, I quote from the Paris edition of Gilbert Gaulmyn, 1615: ““Siquidem sub Cructs Passionisque dies, atque ipsam nobis uenerandam Resurrectionem, nihil omnino mthi, quamlibet exoptanti suggerere uult.””
+ xpeoBuréry 8 Osyarp’ dye tardy
“Ayanniny, Hréca déppaxa 787 doa rpépe etpea xOaiv.
The scholiast on Theocritus, I, 16, says that Agamede is the witch Perimede.
*Theocritus, II, 14-16: Xaip’ ‘Exéra BaowAjry xal és rédos Sup érdda Séppaxa ravt’ IpSoura xepeova pire re Képras paren MoSclas pajre gavbas DepyofSas.
No comments:
Post a Comment