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A62397 The discovery of witchcraft proving that the compacts and contracts of witches with devils and all infernal spirits or familiars are but erroneous novelties and imaginary conceptions : also discovering, how far their power extendeth in killing, tormenting, consuming, or curing the bodies of men, women, children, or animals by charms, philtres, periapts, pentacles, curses, and conjurations : wherein likewise the unchristian practices and inhumane dealings of searchers and witch-tryers upon aged, melancholly, and superstitious people, in extorting confessions by terrors and tortures, and in devising false marks and symptoms, are notably detected ... : in sixteen books / by Reginald Scot ... ; whereunto is added an excellent Discourse of the nature and substance of devils and spirits, in two books : the first by the aforesaid author, the second now added in this third edition ... conducing to the compleating of the whole work, with nine chapters at the beginning of the fifteenth [sic] book of The discovery.; Discoverie of witchcraft Scot, Reginald, 1538?-1599.; Scot, Reginald, 1538?-1599. Discourse concerning the nature and substance of devils and spirits. 1665 (1665) Wing S945A; ESTC R20054 529,066 395

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Aesops dog who greedily coveting to catch and snatch at the shadow of the flesh which he carried in his mouth over the water lost both the one and the other as they do their increase and their principal But to break off abruptly from this matter and to leave these hypocrites for why may they not be so named who as Homer speaking in detestation of such rakehells saith very divinely and truely Odi etenim seu claustra Erebi quicunque loquuntur Ore aliud tacitoque aliud sub pectore claudunt Englished by Abraham Fleming I hate even as the gates of Hell Those that one thing with tongue do tell And notwithstanding closely keep Another thing in heart full deep To leave these hypocrites I say in the dregs of their dishonesty I will conclude against them peremptorily that they with the rabble above rehearsed and the rout hereafter to be mentioned are rank Couseners and consuming Cankers to the Common-wealth and therefore to be rejected and excommunicated from the fellowship of all honest men For now their art which turneth all kind of metals that they can come by into mist and smoak is no less apparent to the world than the clear sunny rayes at noonsted insomuch that I may say with the Poet Hos populus ridet multumque torosa juventus Ingeminat tremulos naso crispante cachinnos Englished by Abraham Fleming All people laugh them now to scorn each strong and lusty blood Redoubleth quavering laughters loud with wrinkled nose a good So that if any be so addicted unto the vanity of the art Alchymisticall as every fool will have his fancy and that beside so many experimented examples of divers whose wealth hath vanished like a vapour whiles they have been over rash in the practice hereof this discourse will not move to desist from such extream dotage I say to him or them and that aptly dicitque facitque quod ipse Non sani esse hominis non sanus juret Orestes Englished by Abraham Fleming He saith and doth that every thing which mad Orestes might With Oath averre became a man bereft of reason right BOOK XV. CHAP. I. Of Magical Circles and the reason of their Institution MAgitians and the more learned sort of Conjurers make use of Circles in various manners and to various intentions First when convenience serves not as to time or place that a real Circle should be delineated they frame an imaginary Circle by means of Incantations and Consecrations without either Knife Pensil or Compasses circumscribing nine foot of ground round about them which they pretend to sanctifie with words and Ceremonies spattering their Holy Water all about so far as the said Limit extendeth and with a form of Consecration following do alter the property of the ground that from common as they say it becomes sanctifi'd and made fit for Magicall uses How to consecrate an imaginary Circle LEt the Exorcist being cloathed with a black Garment reaching to his knee and under that a white Robe of fine Linnen that falls unto his ankles fix himself in the midst of that place where he intends to perform his Conjurations And throwing his old Shooes about ten yards from the place let him put on his consecrated shooes of russet Leather with a Cross cut on the top of each shooe Then with his Magical Wand which must be a new hazel-stick about two yards of length he must stretch forth his arm to all the four Windes thrice turning himself round at every Winde and saying all that while with fervency I who am the servant of the Highest do by the vertue of his Holy Name Immanuel sanctifie unto my self the circumference of nine foot round about me ✚ ✚ ✚ from the East Glaurah from the West Garron from the North Cabon from the South Berith which ground I take for my proper defence from all malignant spirits that they may have no power over my soul or body nor come beyond these Limitations but answer truely being summoned without daring to transgress their bounds Worrh worrah harcot Gambalon ✚ ✚ ✚ Which Ceremonies being performed the place so sanctified is equivalent to any real Circle whatsoever And in the composition of any Circle for Magical feats the fittest time is the brightest Moon-light or when storms of lightning winde or thunder are raging through the air because at such times the infernal Spirits are nearer unto the earth and can more easily hear the Invocations of the Exorcist As for the places of Magical Circles they are to be chosen melancholly dolefull dark and lonely either in Woods or Deserts or in a place where three wayes meet or amongst ruines of Castles Abbies Monasteries c. or upon the Sea-shore when the Moon shines clear or else in some large Parlour hung with black and the floor covered with the same with doors and windowes closely shut and Waxen Candles lighted But if the Conjuration be for the Ghost of one deceased the fittest places to that purpose are places of the slain Woods where any have killed themselves Church-yards Burying-Vaults c. As also for all forts of Spirits the places of their abode ought to be chosen when they are called as Pits Caves and hollow places for Subterranean Spirits The tops of Turrets for Aerial Spirits Ships and Rocks of the Sea for Spirits of the Water Woods and Mountains for Faries Nymphs and Satyres following the like order with rall the rest The reason that Magitians give for Circles and their Institution is That so much ground being blest and consecrated by holy Words hath a secret force to expel all evil Spirits from the bounds thereof and being sprinkled with holy water which hath been blessed by the Master the ground is purified from all uncleanness besides the holy Names of God written all about whose force is very powerful so that no wicked Spirit hath the ability to break through into the Circle after the Master and Scholler are entered and have closed up the gap by reason of the antipathy they possesse to these Mystical Names And the reason of the Triangle is that if the Spirit be not easily brought to speak the truth they may by the Exorcist be conjured to enter the same where by virtue of the names of the Sacred Trinity they can speak nothing but what is true and right But if Astral Spirits as Faries Nymphs and Ghosts of men be called upon the Circle must be made with Chalk without any Triangles in the place whereof the Magical Character of that Element to which they belong must be described at the end of every Name As for Spirits of the Air Water Fire Woods Caves Mountains Mines Desolate Buildings CHAP. II. How to raise up the Ghost of one that hath hanged himself THis experiment must be put in practice while the Carcass hangs and therefore the Exorcist must seek out for the straightest hazel wand that he can find to the top whereof he must binde
ravine theft and violence and yet none of them all are so just but that the very best and uprightest of them fall into great infirmities both doing and suffering much wrong and injury And what is their fortitude but to arm them to indure misery grief danger and death it self But what happiness or goodness is to be reposed in that life which must be waited upon with such calamities and finally must have the help of death to finish it I say if it be so miserable why do they place Summum bonum therein S. Paul to the Romans sheweth that it cannot be that we should attain to justice through the moral and natural actions and duties of this life because that never the Jews nor the Gentiles could e●press so much in their lives as the very law of Nature or of Moses required And therefore he that worketh without Christ doth as he that reckoneth without his host CHAP. II. Mine own opinion concerning this Argument to the disproof of some Writers hereupon I For my part do also think this Argument about the Nature and Substance of Devils and Spirits to be so difficult as I am perswaded that no one Author hath in any certain or perfect sort hitherto written thereof In which respect I can neither allow the ungodly and prophane sects and doctrines of the Sadduces and Peripateticks who deny that there are any Devils or Spirits at last nor the fond and superstitious Treatises of Plato Proclus Plotinus Porphyrie or yet the vain and absurd opinions of Psellus Nider Sprenger Cumanus Bodin Michael Andreas Janus Matchaeus Laurentius Ananias Jambilchus who with many others write so ridiculously in these matters as if they were babes frayed with bugges Some affirming That the souls of the dead become spirits the good to be Angels the bad to be Devils Some That Spirits or Devils are only in this life Some That they are men Some That they are women Some That Devils are of such gender as they list themselves Some That they had no beginning nor shall have ending as the Manichees maintain Some That they are mortal and die as Plutarch affirmeth of Pan Some That they have no bodies at all but receive bodies according to their phantasies and imaginations Some That their bodies are given unto them Some That they make themselves Some say They are wind Some That they are the breath of living creatures Some That one of them begat another Some That they were created of the least part of the mass whereof the Earth was made and some That they are substances between God and Man and that of them some are Terrestrial some Celestial some Watery some Airy some Firy some Starry and some of each and every part of the Elements and that they know our thoughts and carry our good Works and Prayers to God and return his benefits back unto us and that they are to be worshipped wherein they meet and agree jump with the Papists as if you read the notes upon the second chapter to the Colossians in the Seminaries Testament printed at Rhemes you shall manifestly see though as contrary to the Word of God as black to white as appeareth in the Apocalypse where the Angel expresly forbad John to worship him Again some say That they are mean betwixt Terrestrial and Celestial bodies communicating part of each nature and that although they be eternal yet that they are moved with affections and as there are Birds in the air Fishes in the water and Worms in the earth so in the fourth Element which is the fire is the habitation of Spirits and Devils And lest we should think them idle they say They have charge over men and Government in all Countries and Nations Some say That they are only imaginations in the mind of man Tertullian saith They are Birds and fly faster then any fowl of the air Some say That Devils are not but when they are sent and therefore are called evil Angels Some think That the Devil sendeth his Angels alroad and he himself maketh his continual abode in Hell his Mansion place CHAP. III. The opinion of Psellus touching Spirits of their several Orders and a Confutation of his Errors therein PSellus being of authority in the Church of Rome and not impugnable by any Catholick being also instructed in these supernatural or rather Diabolical matters by a Monk called Marcus who had been familiarly conversant a long time as he said with a certain Devil reporteth upon the same Devils own word which must needs understand best the state of this question That the bodies of Angels and Devils consist not now of all one element though perhaps it were otherwise before the fall of Lucifer and That the bodies of Spirits and Devils can feel and be felt do hurt and be hurt in so much as they lament when they are striken and being put to the fire are burnt and yet that they themselves burn continually in such sort as they leave ashes behind them in places where they have been as manifest tryal thereof hath been if he say truly in the borders of Italy He also saith upon like credit and assurance That Devils and Spirits do avoid and shed from out of their bodies such seed or nature as whereby certain vermin are ingendered and that they are nourished with food as we are saving that they receive it not into their mouths but suck it it up into their bodies in such sort as sponges soke up waser Also he saith They have names shapes and dwelling places as indeed they have though not in temporal and corporal sort Furthermore he saith That there are six principal kind of Devils which are not only corporal but temporal and worldly The first sort consist of fire wandering in the Region neer to the Moon but have no power to go into the Moon The second sort consisting of air have their habitation more low and neer unto us These saith he are proud and great boasters very wise and deceitful and when they come down are seen with streams of fire at their tail He saith That these are commonly conjured up to make Images laugh and Lamps burn of their own accord and that in Assyria they use much to prophesie in a Bason of Water Which kind of Incantation is usual among our Conjurors but it is here commonly performed in a Pitcher or Pot of water or else in a Vial of Glass filled with water wherein they say at the first a little sound is heard without a voyce which is a token of the Devils coming Anon the water seemeth to be troubled and then there are heard small voyces wherewith they give their answers speaking so softly as no man can well hear them because saith Cardan they would not be argued or rebuked of lyes But this I have elsewhere more largely described and confuted The third sort of Devils are earthly the fourth watery or of the Sea
The fift under the Earth The sixt sort are Lucifugi that is such as delight in darkness and are scant indued with sense and so dull as they can scarse be moved with Charms or Conjurations The same man saith That some Devils are worse than other but yet that they all hate God and are enemies to man But the worser moity of Devils are Aquei Subterranei and Lucifugi that is watery under the Earth and shunners of light Because saith he these hurt not the souls of men but destroy mens bodies like mad and ravening beasts molesting both inward and outward parts thereof Aquei are they that raise tempests and drown Seafaring men and do all other mischiefs on the water Subterranei and Lucifugi enter into the Bowels of men and torment them that they poss●ss with the phrinsie and the falling evill They also assault them that are miners or pioners which use to work in deep and dark holes under the earth Such Devils as are earthy and airy he saith enter by subtilty into the minds of men to deceive them provoking men to absurd and unlawful affections But herein his Philosophy is very unprobable for if the Divel be earthy he must needs be palpable if he palpable he be must needs kill them into whose bodies he entereth Item if he be of earth created then must he also be visible and untransformable in that point for Gods creation cannot be annihilated by the creature So as though it were granted that they might add to their substance matter and form c. yet it is most certain that they cannot diminish or alter the substance whereof they consist as not to be when they list spiritual or to relinquish and leave earth water fire air or this and that element whereof they are created But howsoever they imagine of water air or fire I am sure earth must alwayes be visible and palpable yea and air must alwayes be invisible and fire must be hot and water must be moist And of these three latter bodies specially of water and air no form nor shape can be exhibited to mortal eyes naturally or by the power of any creature CHAP. IV. More absurd Assertions of Psellus and such others concerning the actions and passions of Spirits his definition of them and of his experience therein MOreover the same Author saith That Spirits whisper in our minds and yet not speaking so lowd as our ears may hear them but in such sort as our souls speak altogether when they are dissolved making an example by lowd speaking afar off and a comparison of soft whispering neer at hand so as the Devil entreth so neer to the mind as the Ear need not hear him and that every part of a Devil or Spirit seeth heareth and speaketh c. But herein I will believe Paul better then Psellus or his Monk or the Monks Devil For Paul saith If the whole body were an eye where were hearing If the whole body were hearing where were smelling c. Whereby you may see what accord is betwixt Gods Word and Witchmongers The Papists proceed in this matter and say That these Spirits use great knavery and unspeakable bawdery in the breach and middle parts of man and woman by tickling and by other lecherous devices so that they fall jump in judgment and opinion though very erroneously with the foresaid Psellus of whose doctrine also this is a parcel to wit That these Devils hurt not Cattel for the hate they bear unto them but for love of their natural and temperate heat and moisture being brought up in deep dry and cold places Marry they hate the heat of the Sun and the Fire because that kind of heat dryeth too fast They throw down stones upon men but the blows thereof do no harm to them whom they hit because they are not cast with any force for saith he The Devils have little and small strength so as the stones do nothing but fray and terrifie men as scare-crows do Birds out of the Corn-fields But when these Devils enter into the pores then do they raise wonderful tumults in the body and mind of man And if it be a subterrene Devil it doth writhe and bow the possessed and speaketh by him using the spirit of the Patient as his instrument But he saith that when Lucifugus poss●ss●th a man he maketh him dumb and as it were dead and these be they that are cast out saith he only by F●sting and Prayer The same Psellus with his mates Bodin and the penners of M. Mal. and others do find fault with the Physitians that affirm such infirmities to be curable with diet and not by inchantments saying That Physitians do only attend upon the body and that which is perceiveable by outward sense and that as touching this kind of divine Philosophy they have no skill at all And to make D●vels and Spirits seem yet more corporal and terrene he saith That certain Devils are belonging to certain Countries and speak the language of the same Countries and none other some the Assyrian some the Chaldaean and some the Persian tongue and that they feel stripes and fear hurt and specially the dint of the Sword in which respect Conjurors have Swords with them in their Circles to terrifie them and that they change shapes even as sodainly as men do change colour with blushing fear anger and other moods of the mind He saith further That there be brute beasts among them and yet Devils and subject to any kind of death insomuch as they are so foolish as they may be compared to Flies Fleas and Worms who have no respect to any thing but their food not regarding or remembring the whole from out of whence they came last Marry Devils compounded of Earth cannot often transform themselves but abide in some one shape such as they best like and most delight in to wit in the shape of Birds or Women and therefore the Greeks call them Neidas Nereidas and Dreidas in the feminine gender which Dreidae inhabited as some write the Islands beside Scotland called Druidae which by that means had their denomination and name Other Devils that dwell in dryer places transform themselves into the masculine kind Finally Psellus saith They know our thoughts and can prophesie of things to come His definition is That they are perpetual mindes in a passible body To verifie these toyes he saith That he himself saw in a certain night a man brought up by Aletus Lybius into a Mountain and that he took an hearb and spat thrice into his mouth and anointed his eyes with a certain Ointment so as thereby he saw great troops of Devils and perceived a Crow to flie into his mouth and since that hour he could prophesie at all times saving on Good-friday and Easter-sunday If the end of this tale were true it might not only have satisfied the Greek Church in keeping the day of Easter together with the Church
we may certainly know the same we ought to content and frame our selves faithfully to believe the words and sense there delivered unto us by the high Spirit which is the Holy Ghost who is Lord of all spirits alwayes considering that evermore spirits are spoken of in Scripture as of things spiritual though for the help of our capacities they are sometime more grossly and corporally expressed either in Parables or by Metephors than indeed they are As for example and to omit the History of Job which elsewhere I handle it is written The Lord said Who shall entice Ahab that he may fall at Ramoth Gilead c. Then came forth a spirit and stood before the Lord and said I will go entice him And the Lord said Wherewith And he said I will go and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his Prophets Then he said Go forth thou shalt prevail c. This story is here set forth in this wise to bear with our capacities and specially with the capacity of that age that could not otherwise conceive of spiritual things than by such corporal demonstrations And yet here is to be noted that one spirit and not many or divers did possess all the false Prophets at once Even as in another place many thousand Devils are said to possess one man yet it is also said even in the self same place that the same man was possessed only with one Devil For it is there said that Christ met a man which had a Devil and he commanded the foul spirit to come forth of the man c. But Calvin saith Where Satan or the Devil is named in the singular number thereby is meant that power of wickedness that standeth against the Kingdom of justice And where many Devils are named in the Scriptures we are thereby taught that we must fight with an infinite multitude of enemies lest despising the fewness of them we should be more slack to enter into battel and so fall into security and idleness On the other side it is as plainly set down in the Scripture That some are possessed with the Spirit of God as that the others are endued and bound with the spirit of the Devil Yea sometimes we read That one good Spirit was put into a great number of persons and again That divers Spirits rested in and upon one man and yet no real or corporal spirit meant As for example The Lord took of the spirit that was upon Moses and put it upon the seventy Elders and when the Spirit rested upon them they prophesied Why should not this be as substantial and corporal a spirit as that wherewith the Maid in the Acts of the Apostles was possessed Also Elisha intreated Elias that when he departed his spirit might be double upon him We read also that the Spirit of the Lord came upon Othniel upon Gideon Jeptha Samson Balaam Saul David Ezekiel Zachary Amasay yea it is written that Caleb had another spirit than all the Israelites beside and in another place it is said that Daniel had a more excellent spirit than any other So as though the spirits as well good as bad are said to be given by number and proportion yet the quality and not the quantity of them is alwayes thereby meant and presupposed Howbeit I must confess that Christ had the Spirit of God without measure as it is written in the Evangelist John But where it is said that spirits can be made tame and at commandment I say to those gross conceivers of Scripture with Solomon who as they falsly affirm was of all others the greatest Conjuror saith thus in express words No man is lord over a spirit to retain a spirit at his pleasure CHAP. XVII Whether Spirits and Souls can assume bodies and of their Creation and Substance wherein Writers do extreamly contend and vary SOme hold opinion that Spirits and Souls can assume and take unto them bodies at their pleasure of what shape or or substance they list of which mind all Papists and some Protestants are being more gross than another sort which hold that such bodies are made to their hands Howbeit these do vary in the Elements wherewith these spiritual bodies are composed For as I have said some affirm That they consist of fire some think of air and some of the Stars and other celestial powers But if they be celestial then as Peter Martyr saith must they follow the circular motion and if they be elementary then must they follow the motions of those Elements of which their bodies consist Of air they cannot be for air is Corpus homogeneum so as every part of air is air whereof there can be no distinct members made For an organical body must have bones sinews veins flesh c. which cannot be made of air Neither as Peter Martyr affirmeth can an anybody receive or have either shape or figure But some ascend up into the clouds where they find as they say divers shapes and forms even in the air Unto which objection Peter Martyr answereth saying and that truly That Clouds are not altogether air but have a mixture of other elements mingled with them CHAP. XVIII Certain Popish Reasons concerning Spirits made of Air of Day-Devils and Night-Devils and why the Devil loveth no Salt in his Meat MAny affirm upon a fable cited by M. Mal. that Spirits are of air because they have been cut as he saith in sunder and closed presently again and also because they vanish away so suddenly But of such Apparitions I have already spoken and am shortly to say more which are rather seen in the imagination of the weak and diseased than in verity and truth Which sights and apparations as they have been common among the unfaithful so now since the preaching of the Gospel they are most rare And as among faint-hearted people namely women children and sick folks they usually swarmd so among strong bodies and good stomachs they never used to appear as elsewhere I haved proved which argueth that they were only phantastical and imaginary Now say they that imagine Devils and Spirits to be made of air that it must needs be that they consist of that element because otherwise when they vanish suddenly away they should leave some earthy substance behind them If they were of water then should they moisten the place where they stand and must needs be shed on the floor If they consisted of fire then would they burn any thing that touched them and yet say they Abraham and Lot washed their feet and were neither scalded nor burnt I find it not in the Bible but in Bodin that there are Day-Devils and Night-Devils The same fellow saith That Deber is the name of that Devil which hurteth by night and Cheleb is he that hurteth by day howbeit he confesseth that Satan can hurt both by day and night although it be certain
whence proceed fears cogitations superons fastings labours and such like This maketh sufferance of torments and as some say fore sight of things to come and preserveth health as being cold and dry it maketh men subject to leanneses and to the Quartane Ague They that are vexed therewith are destroyers of themselves stout to suffer injuries fearful to offer violence except the humor be hot They learn strange tongues with small industry as Aristotle and others affirm If our Witches phantasies were not corrupted nor their wills confounded with this humor they would not so voluntarily and readily confess that which calleth their life in question whereof they could never otherwise be convicted J. Bodin with his Lawyers Physick reasoneth contrarily as though melancholy were furthest of all from those old women whom we call Witches deriding the most famous and noble Physitian John Wier for his opinion in that behalf But because I am no Physitian I will set a Physitian to him namely Erastus who hath these words that these Witches through their corrupt phantasie abounding with melancholick humors by reason of their old age do dream and imagine they hurt those things which they neither could nor do hurt and so think they know an Art which they neither have learned nor yet understand But why should there be more credit given to Witches when they say they have made a real bargain with the Devil killed a Cow bewitched Butter infeebled a Child fore-spoken her neighbour c. than when she confesseth that she transubstantiateth her self maketh it rain or hail flyeth in the air goeth invisible transferreth Corn in the Grass from one field to another c. If you think that in the one their confessions be sound why should you say that they are corrupt in the other the confession of all these things being made at one instant and affirmed with like constancy or rather audacity But you see the one to be impossible and therefore you think thereby that their confessions are vain and false The other you think may be done and see them confess it and therefore you conclude Aposse ad esse as being perswaded it is so because you think it may be so But I say both with the Divines and Philosophers that that which is imagined of Witchcraft hath no truth of action or being besides their imagination the Witch for the most part is occupied in false causes For whosoever desireth to bring to pass an impossible thing hath a vain and idle and childish perswasion bred by an unsound mind for Sanae mentis voluntas voluntas rei possibilis est The will of a sound mind is the desire of a possible thing CHAP. XII A Confutation of Witches Confessions especially concerning their League BUt it is objected that Witches confess they renounce the faith and as their confession must be true or else they would not make it so must their fault be worthy of death or else they should not be executed Whereunto I answer as before that their confessions are extorted or else proceed from an unsound mind Yea I say further that we our selves which are sound of mind and yet seek any other way of salvation than Christ Jesus or break his Commandements or walk not in his steps with a lively faith c. do not only renounce the faith but God himself and therefore they in confessing that they forsake God and imbrace Satan do that which we all should do As touching that horrible part of their confession in the league which tendeth to the killing of their own and others children the seething of them and the making of their potion or pottage and the effects thereof their good fridayes meeting being the day of their deliverance their incests their return at the end of nine moneths when commonly women be neither able to go that journey nor to return c. it is so horrible unnatural unlikely and unpossible that if I should behold such things with mine eyes I should rather think my self dreaming drunken or some way deprived of my senses than give credit to so horrible and filthy matters How hath the Oyl or Pottage of a sodden child such vertue as that a staffe anointed therewith can carry folk in the air Their potable liquor which they say maketh Masters of that faculty Is it not ridiculous And is it not by the opinion of all Philosophers Physitians and Divines void of such vertue as is imputed thereunto Their not fasting on fridayes and their fasting on sundays their spitting at the time of elevation their refusal of Holy-water their despising of superstitious Crosses c. which are all good steps to true Christianity help me to confute the residue of their confessions CHAP. XIII A Confutation of Witches Confessions concerning making of Tempests and Rain of the natural cause of Rain and that Witches or Devils have no power to do such things ANd to speak more generally of all the impossible actions referred unto them as also of their false Confessions I say that there is none which acknowledgeth God to be only Omnipotent and the only worker of all Miracles nor any other indued with mean sense but will deny that the Elements are obedient to Witches and at their Commandement or that they may at their pleasure send Rain Hail Tempests Thunder Lightning when she being but an old doting woman casteth a flint-stone over her left shoulder towards the West or hurleth a little Sea-sand up into the Element or wetteth a Broom-sprig in water and sprinkleth the same in the air or diggeth a pit in the earth and putting water therein stirreth it about with her finger or boileth Hogs bristles or layeth sticks across upon a bank where never a drop of water is or buryeth Sage till it be rotten all which things are confessed by Witches and affirmed by writers to be the means that Witches use to move extraordinary Tempests and Rain c. We read in M. Maleficarum that a little Girl walking abroad with her Father in his land heard him complain of drought wishing for rain c. Why Father quoth the child I can make it rain or hail when and where I list He asked where she learned it She said of her Mother who forbad her to tell any body thereof He asked her how her Mother taught her She answered that her Mother committed her to a Master who would at any time do any thing for her Why then said he make it rain but only in my field And so she went to the stream and threw up water in her Masters name and made it rain presently And proceeding further with her father she made it hail in another field at her fathers request Hereupon he accused his wife and caused her to be burned and then he new christened his child again which circumstance is common among Papists and Witch-mongers And howsoever the first part hereof was proved there is no doubt but the latter part
Lords or Ladies he shall not be condemned with false witness nor taken with Fairies or any manner of Axes nor yet with the Falling-evil Also if a woman be in Travel lay this writing upon her belly she shall have easie deliverance and the child right shape and Christendom and the mother Purification of holy Church and all through vertue of these holy Names of Jesus Christ following ✚ Jesus ✚ Christus ✚ Messias ✚ Soter ✚ Emmanuel ✚ Sabbath ✚ Adonai ✚ Unigenitus ✚ Majestas ✚ Paracletus ✚ Salvatur noster ✚ Agiros iskiros ✚ Agios ✚ Adonatos ✚ Gasper ✚ Melchior ✚ Balthasar ✚ Matthaeus ✚ Marcios ✚ Lucos ✚ Johannes The Epistle of S. Saviour which Pope Leo sent to King Charles saying that whosoever carrieth the same about him or in what day soever he shall read it or shall see it he shall not be killed with any Iron-tool nor be burned with fire nor be drowned with water neither any evil man or other creature may hurt him The Cross of Christ is a wonderful defence ✚ the cross of Christ be alwayes with me ✚ the cross is it which I do alwayes worship ✚ the cross of Christ is true health ✚ the cross of Christ doth lose the bands of death ✚ the cross of Christ is the truth and the way ✚ I take my journey upon the cross of the Lord ✚ the cross of Christ beareth down every evil ✚ the cross of Christ giveth all good things ✚ the cross of Christ taketh away pains everlasting ✚ the cross of Christ save me ✚ O cross of Christ be upon me before me and behind me ✚ because the ancient Enemy cannot abide the sight of thee ✚ the cross of Christ save me keep me govern me and direct me ✚ Thomas bearing this note of thy divine Majesty ✚ Alpha ✚ Omega ✚ first ✚ and last ✚ midst ✚ and end ✚ beginning ✚ first begotten ✚ wisdom ✚ vertue ✚ A Popish Periapt or Charm which must never be said but carried about one against Theeves I Do go and I do come unto you with the love of God with the humility of Christ with the holiness of our blessed Lady with the Faith of Abraham with the Justice of Isaac with the Vertue of David with the Might of Peter with the Constancy of Paul with the Word of God with the Authority of Gregory with the Prayer of Clement with the Flood of Jordan p p p c g e g a q q est p t 1 k a b g l k 2 a x t g t b a m g 2 4 2 1 que p x c g k q a 9 9 p o q q r. Oh only Father ✚ oh only Lord ✚ And Jesus ✚ passing through the midst of them ✚ went In ✚ the Name of the Father ✚ and of the Son ✚ and of the Holy Ghost ✚ Another Amulet JOseph of Arimathea did find this Writing upon the wounds of the side of Jesus Christ written with Gods finger when the Body was taken away from the Cross Whosoever shall carry this writing about him shall not dye any evil death if he believe in Christ and in all perplexities he shall soon be delivered neither let him fear any danger at all Fons Alpha Omega ✚ figa ✚ figalis ✚ Sabbaoth ✚ Emmanuel ✚ Adonai ✚ o ✚ Neray ✚ Ela ✚ Ihe ✚ Rentone ✚ Neger ✚ Sahe ✚ Pangeton ✚ Commen ✚ a ✚ g ✚ l ✚ a ✚ Mattheus ✚ Marcus ✚ Lucas ✚ Johannes ✚ ✚ ✚ titulus triumphalis ✚ Jesus ✚ Nasarenus rex Judaeorum ✚ ecce dominica crucis signum ✚ fugite partes adversae vicit leo de tribu Judae radix David aleluijah Kyrie eleeson Christe eleeson Pater noster Ave Maria ne nos veniat super nos salutare tuum Oremus c. I find in a Primer intituled The Hours of our Lady after the use of the Church of York printed anno 1516. a Charm with this titling in red letters To all them that afore this Image of pity devoutly shall lay five Pater nosters five Avies and one Credo piteously beholding these arms or Christ's passion are granted thirty two thousand seven hundred fifty five years of pardon It is to be thought that this pardon was granted in the time of Pope Boniface the ninth for Platina saith that the Pardons were sold so cheap that the Apostolical Authority grew into contempt A Papistical Charm SIgnum sanctae crucis defendat me a malis praesentibus praeteritis futuris interioribus exterioribus That is The sign of the Cross defend me from evils present past and to come inward and outward A Charm found in the Canon of the Mass ALso this charm is found in the Canon of the Mass Haec sacrosancta commixtio corporis sanguinis domini nostri Jesu Christi fiat mihi omnibusque sumentibus salus mentis corporis ad vitam promerendam capessendam praeparatio salutaris that is Let this holy mixture of the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ be unto me and unto all receivers thereof health of mind and body and to the deserving and receiving of life an healthful preparative Other Papistical Charms Aqua benedicta sit mihi salus vita Englished by Abraham Fleming Let holy water he both health and life to me Adque nomen Martini omnis haereticus fugiat pallidus When Martins name is sung or said Let Hereticks flie as men dismaid But the Papists have a harder Charm than that to wit Fire and fagot Fire and fagot A Charm of the Holy-Cross Nulla salus est in domo Nisi cruce munit homo Superliminaria Neque sentit gladium Nec amisit filium Quisquis egit talia No health within the house doth dwell Except a man do Cross him well At every door or frame He never feeleth the Swords point Nor of his Son shall lose a joynt That doth perform the same Furthermore as followeth I sta suos fortiores Semper facit victores Morbos sanat languores Reprimit Daemonia Dat captivis libertatem Vitae confert novitatem Ad antiquam dignitatem Crux reducit omnia O Crux lignum triumphale Mundi vera salus vale Inter ligna nullum tale Fronde flore germine Medicina Christiana Salva sanos aegros sana Quod non valet vis humana Fit in tuo nomine c. Englished by Abraham Fleming It makes her souldiers excellent And crowneth them with victory Restores the lame and impotent And healeth every malady The Devils of Hell it conquereth Releaseth from imprisonment Newness of life it offereth It hath all at commandement O Cross of Wood incomparable To all the world most wholesome No Wood is half so honourable In branch in bud or blossome O medicine which Christ did ordain The sound save every hour The sick and sore make whole again By vertue of thy power And that which mans unablenss Hath never comprehended Grant by thy Name
same with the sweat of his brows and nevertheless hath the best hand and conveyance I think of any man that liveth this day Neither do I speak as they say without Book herein For if time place and occasion serve I can shew so much herein that I am sure Bodin Spinaeus and Vairus would swear I were a Witch and had a familiar Devil at Commandement But truly my study and travel herein hath only been employed to the end I might prove them fools and find out the fraud of them that make them fools as whereby they may become wiser and God may have that which to him belongeth And because the manner of these juggling conveyances is not easily conceived by discourse of words I have caused to be set down divers forms of Instruments used in this Art which may serve for patterns to them that would throughly see the secrets thereof and make them for their own private practices to try the event of such devices as in this Tract of Legierdemain are shewed Where note that you shall find every Instrument that is most necessarily occupied in the working of these strange feats to bear the just and true number of the page where the use hereof is in ample words declared Now will I proceed with another cosening point of Witchcraft apt for the place necessary for the time and in mine opinion meet to be discovered or at the least to be defaced among deceitful Arts. And because many are abused hereby to their utter undoing for that it hath had passage under the protection of learning whereby they pretend to accomplish their works it hath gone freely without general controlment through all Ages Nations and People Here follow patterns of certain Instruments to be used in the former juggling knacks To pull three Bead-stones from off a Cord while you hold fast the ends thereof without removing of your hand To draw a Cord through your Nose Mouth or Hand which is called the Bridle To be instructed in the right use of the said Bead-stones read pag. 190. 191. As for the Bridle read pag. 198. To thrust a Bodkin into your Head and through your Tongue c. The hithermost is the Bodkin with the Bowt the middlemost is the Bodkin with the hollow haft the furthermost is the plain Bodkin serving for shew To be instructed and taught in the right use and ready practice of these Bodkins read pag. 196. To thrust a Knife through your Arm and to cut half your Nose asunder c. The middlemost knife is to serve for shew the other two be the Knives of device To be ready in the use and perfect practice of these Knives here portrayed see pag. 196. To Cut off ones Head and to lay it in a Platter which the Jugglers call the decollation of John Baptist The form of the plancks c. The order of the action as it is to be shewed What order is to be observed for the practising hereof with great admiration read pag. 197 198. BOOK XIV CHAP. I. Of the Art of Alchymistry of their words of Art and devices to blear mens Eyes and to procure credit to their Profession HEre I thought it not impertinent to say somewhat of the Art or rather the craft of Alchymistry otherwise called Multiplication which Chaucer of all other men most lively deciphereth In the bowels hereof doth both Witchcraft and Conjuration lie hidden as whereby some cosen others and some are cosened themselves For by this mystery as it is said in the Chanons mans prologue They take upon them to turn upside down All the Earth between Southwark and Canterbury town And to pave it all of silver and gold c. But ever they lack of their conclusion And to much folk they do illusion For their stuffe slides away so fast That it makes them beggers at the last And by this craft they do never win But make their purse empty and their wits thin And because the practicers hereof would be thought wise learned cunning and their crafts Masters they have devised words of Art Sentences and Epithets obscure and confections so innumerable which are also compounded of strange and rare simples as confound the capacities of them that are either set on work herein or be brought to behold or expect their conclusions For what plain man would not believe that they are learned and jolly fellows that have in such readiness so many mystical terms of Art as for a taste their subliming amalgaming englutting imbibing incorporating cementing retrination terminations mollifications and indurations of bodies matters combust and coagular ingots tests c. Or who is able to conceive by reason of the abrupt confusion contrariety and multitudes of drugs simples and confections the operation and mystery of their stuffe and workmanship For these things and many more are of necessity to be prepared and used in the execution of this indeavour namely orpiment sublimed Mercury Iron squames Mercury crude groundly large Bole Armoniack Verdigreece Horace Boles Gall Arsenick Sal Armoniack Brimstone Salt Paper burnt Bones unslaked Lime Clay Salt-Peter Vitriol Saltartre Alcalie Sal preparat Clay made with Horse-dung Mans-hair Oil of Tartre Allum Glass Wort Yest Argol Refagor Gleir of an eye Powders Ashes Dung Piss c. Then have they Waters corrosive and lincal Waters of Albification and Water ru●ifying c. Also Oils Ablutions and Metals fusible Also their Lamps their Urinals Discensories Sublimatories Alembecks Viols Crossets Cucurbits Stillatories and their Furnace of Calcination also their soft and subtle fires some of Wood some of Coal composed specially of Beech c. And because they will not seem to want any point of cosenage to astonish the simple or to move admiration to their enterprizes they have as they affirm four spirits to work withal whereof the first is Orpiment the second Quick-silver the third Sal-Armoniack the fourth Brimstone Then have they seven celestial Bodies namely Sol Luna Mars Mercury Saturn Jupiter and Venus to whom they apply seven terrestrial bodies to wit Gold Silver Iron Quick-silver Lead Tin and Copper attributing unto these the operation of the other specially if the terrestrial bodies be qualified tempered and wrought in the hour and day according to the feats of the celestial bodies with more like vanity CHAP. II. The Alchymisters drift the Chanons Yeomans Tale of Alchymistical Stones and Waters NOw you must understand that the end and drift of all their works is to attain unto the composition of the Philosophers Stone called All●er and to the stone called Titanus and to Magnatia which is a Water made of the four Elements which they say the Philosophers are sworn neither to discover nor to write of And by these they mortifie Quicksilver and make it malleable and to hold touch hereby also they convert any other metal but specially Copper into Gold This Science forsooth is the secret of secrets even as Solomon's Conjuration is said among the Conjurers to be
Mathematical Figures adapted to the names and natures of separated Substances whither good or evil Now the form of Consecrating such Magical Pentacles is to name the vertue of the holy Names and Figures their Antiquity and Institution with the intention of the Consecration purifying the Pentacle by consecrated fire and waving the same over the flames thereof When the Exorcist would consecrate Places or Utensils Fire or Water for magical uses he must repeat the Consecration or Dedication of Solomon the King at the building of the Temple the Vision of Moses at the Bush and the Spirit of the Lord on the tops of the Mulberry-trees repeating also the Sacrifice of it self being kindled the Fire upon Sodom and the Water of Eternal Life Wherein the Magitian must still remember to speak of the seven golden Candlesticks and Ezekiels Wheels closing the Consecration with the deep and mysterious Names of God and holy Daemons When particular Instruments are to be sanctified the Magitian must sprinkle the same with consecrated Water and fumigate them with fumigations anoint them with consecrated Oyl And lastly Seal them with holy Characters after all which is performed an Oration or Prayer must follow relating the particulars of the Consecration with Petitions to that Power in whose Name and Authority the Ceremony is performed And in like manner shalt thou consecrate and sanctifie every Utensil whatsoever by Sprinklings Fumigations Unctions Seals and Benedictions commemorating and reiterating the sanctifyings in the holy Scripture of the Tables of the Law delivered to Moses of the two Testaments in the New Covenant of the holy Prophets in their Mothers wombs and of Aholiah and Aholibah whom the Spirit of God inspired to frame all sorts of curious workmanship for the Tabernacle This is the sum of Consecrationn CHAP. V. Treating more practically of the Consecration of Circles Fires Garments and Fumigations IN the Construction of Magical Circles the hour day or night and season of the year and the Constellation are to be considered as also what sort of Spirits are to be called and to what Region Air or Climate they belong Therefore this method is to be followed for the more orderly and certain proceeding therein First a Circle nine foot over must be drawn within which another Circle three inches from the outermost must be also made in the Center whereof the name of the hour the Angel of the hour the Seal of the Angel the Angel of the day predominant wherein the work is undertaken Note these attributes are to be inscribed betwixt the Circles round about with Alpha at the beginning and Omega at the close When the Circle is composed it must be sprinkled with holy Water while the Magician saith Wash me O Lord and I shall be whiter then Snow And as for the Fumigations over them this Benediction must be said O God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob bless these thy subservient creatures that they may multiply the force of their excellent odors to hinder evil spirits and phantasms from entring the Circle through our Lord. Amen An Exorcism for the fire The Exorcist ought to have an earthen Censer wherein to preserve the fire for magical uses and the expiations and fumigations whose consecration is on this manner By him that created Heaven and Earth and is the God and Lord of all I exorcize and sanctifie thee thou creature of Fire that immediately thou banish every phantasm from thee so that thou prove not hurtful in any kind Which I beseech thee O Lord to confirm by sanctifying and making pure this creature of fire that it may be blessed and consecrate to the honour of thy holy Name Amen At the putting on the Garments Let the Magician say By the figurative mystery of this holy Stole or Vestment I will cloath me with the armour of Salvation in the strength of the highest Ancor Amacor Amides Lheodonias Anitor That my desired end may be effected through thy strength Adonai to whom the praise and glory will for ever belong Which Ceremonies being finished the Exorcist shall proceed to the practical part of Invocation and Conjuration of all degrees of Spirits having every utensil and appendix in readiness for the performance and proceeding according to the method in these following Chapters CHAP. VI. How to raise and exorcize all sorts of Spirits belonging to the Airy Region THe Garment which the Exorcist is cloathed withall at the performance of this action ought according to the opinions of the chiefest Magicians to be a Priestly Robe which if it can no where be procured may be a neat and cleanly linnen Vest with the holy Pentacle fastned thereunto upon Parchment made of a Kids skin over which an Invocation must be said and then the Pentacle must be sprinkled with holy Water At the putting on the Magical Garment this Prayer must be repeated By thy holy power Adonai Sabaoth And by the power and merit of thine Angels and Archangels and by the vertue of holy Church which thou hast sanctified do I cloath me with this consecrated Garment that what I am to practice may take effect through thy Name who art for ever and ever Now as for the time of operation and the manner thereof The Instructions before set down are sufficient to direct the Exorcist only the Acter and his Scholar must be mindful in the way as they go towards the place of Conjuration to reiterate the sacred forms of Consecrations Prayers and Invocations the one bearing an Earthen Vessel with consecrated fire and the other the Magical Sword the Book and Garments till approaching nigh the place where the Circle is to be drawn they must then proceeed to compose it after the aforesaid manner And at last Exorcize the Spirits on this following manner Seeing God hath given us the power to bruise the Serpents head and command the Prince of Darkness much more to bear rule over every airy Spirit Therefore by his strong and mighty Name Iehovah do I conjure you naming the Spirits and by his secret commands delivered to Moses on the Mount and by his holy Name Tetragrammaton and by all his wonderful Names and Attributes Sadai Ollon Emillah Athanatos Paracletos c. That ye do here immediately appear before this Circle in humane form and not terrible or of monstrous shape on pain of eternal misery that abides you unless you speedily fulfil my commands Bathar Baltar Archim Anakim Nakun Amen When the Exorcist hath finished this Conjuration he and his companion shall continue constantly turning themselves to the East West North and South saying with their Caps in their hands Gerson Anek Nephaton Basannah Cabon and within a little space they will behold various apparitions upon the ground and in the air with various habits shapes and instruments after that he shall perceive a troop of armed men with threatning carriage appear before the Circle who after they are conjured to leave
otherwise called Belelah LVridan is a Familiar Domestick Spirit of the North who is now become servant to Balkin Lord and King of the Northern Mountains he calls himself the Astral Genius of Pomonia an Island amongst the Orcades beyond Scotland But he is not particularly resident there for in the dayes of Solomon and David he was in Jerusalem or Salem being then under the name of Belilah after that he came over with Julius Caesar and remained some hundred of years in Cambria or Wales instructing their Prophetical Poets in British Rhimes being then surnamed Urthin-Wadd Elgin from thence he betook himself unto this Island Anno 1500. and continued there for 50 years after which he resigned his Dominion to Balkin and hath continued ever since an attendant unto this Prince He is a Spirit of the Air in the order of Glauron and is said to procreate as mortals do He is often sent by his Master upon errands to Lapland Finland and Strik-finia as also to the most Northern parts of Russia bordering on the Northern frozen Ocean His office being called by Magicians is to demolish strong holds of Enemies destroying every night what they build the day before to extinguish fires and make their Gunshot that it hath no power to be enkindled for his nature is to be at enmity with fire and under his Master with many Legions he wageth continual warrs with the fiery Spirits that inhabit the Mountain Hecla in Ise-land where they endeavour to extinguish these fiery flames and the inhabiting Spirits defend the flames from his Master and his Legions In this contest they do often totally extirpate and destroy one another killing and crushing when they meet in mighty and violent Troops in the Air upon the Sea and at such a time many of the fiery Spirits are destroyed when the Enemy hath brought them off the Mountain to fight upon the water on the contrary when the battle is on the Mountain it self the Spirits of the Air are often worsted and then great mournings and doleful noises are heard both in Iseland and Russia and Norway for many days after O ye Powers of the East Athanaton of the West Orgon of the South Boralim of the North Glauron I charge and command you by the dreadful Names here mentioned and the Consecration of this terrible Mountain to present your selves one of every sort before this Circle by the power of Immanuel and his holy Name After this hath with fervency been thrice repeated the Exorcist will hear great noises of Swords and fighting Horses neighing and Trumpets sounding and at last there will appear four little Dwarfs or Pigmies naked before the Circle their speech will be antient Irish which afterwards being confined to a Triangle they will interpret the substance thereof will be from whence they came last and what wonderful things they can do Then the Magician must ask them if they know one Luridan a familiar they will answer Hamah ni trulloh Balkin he is Secretary or servant unto Balkin and after the Exorcist hath charged them to bring the said Luridan unto him they will immediately bring him like a little Dwarf with a crooked nose and present him before the Magician in the triangle then the Magician shall bind and tye him with the bond of obligation and with his own blood without any contract of conditions to be performed that he will attend him constantly at his thrice repeating Luridan Luridan Luridan And be ever ready to go whether he will to the Turks or to the uttermost parts of the Earth which he can do in an hour and destroy all their Magazines After the Magician hath so bound him he shall receive from the Spirit a scrole written in this manner 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the Indenture to serve him for a year and a day and then the Magician shall dismiss him for that time in the form of dismission CHAP. IX How to Conjure the Spirit Balkin the Master of Luridan AS in the former Chapter the Exorcist is instructed to draw the form of the Mountain Hecla within the circle so in this form of Conjuration he must do the same adding these names to be written round the Mountain Mathiel Rahuniel Seraphiel Hyniel Rayel Fraciel These are the names of Olympick Angels governing the North and ruling over every airy Spirit that belongs unto the Northern Climate so that the authority of these names must be used in the calling up of this Spirit because he is a great Lord and very lofty neither will he appear without strong and powerful Invocations Therefore the Magician must make upon Virgin Parchment the two Seals of the Earth and provide unto himself a Girdle made of a Bears skin with a rough side next his body and these names wrote round about in the outerside ✚ Alpha ✚ Coronzon Yah Laniah Adonay ✚ Soncas ✚ Damael ✚ Angeli fortes ✚ pur pur ✚ Elibra Elohim ✚ Omega ✚ per flammam ignis ✚ per vitam Coronzon ✚ Amen ✚ Also he must provide a black Priestly Robe to reach to his ankles and a new Sword with Agla on the one side and On upon the other having likewise been very continent and chast for three days before the execution of his design and when the appointed night approacheth he must take with him an earthen pan with fire therein and a little Viol with some of his own blood as also some of the Gum or Rozin that comes from the Firr-tree And coming to the appointed place in some solitary Valley the circle must be drawn with chalk as the former one circle within another and these powerful names in the circumference Otheos on Panthon ✚ Breshit Hashamaim Vaharetz Vahayah ✚ Lohu ✚ va Bohu ★ ✚ ✚ ✚ ★ magnus es tu ben Elohim qui super alas ventorum equitaris ✚ This Circumscription is accounted amongst Magicians of all the most powerful and prevalent After this the Circle Mountain Fire Turpentine Girdle Garments Sword and Blood must be consecrated according to the foregoing forms of Consecration adding also this to the end of the consecration Mighty art thou O Adonay Elohim Ya Ya Aie Aie Acimoy who hast created the light of the day and the darkness of the night unto whom every knee bows in Heaven and on Earth who hast created the Lohu and the Bohu that is stupor or numbness in a thing to be admired and mighty are thy magnificient Angels Damael and Guael whose influence can make the winds to bow and every airy Spirit stoop Let thy right hand sanctifie these consecrated utensils exterminating every noxious thing from their bodies and the circumference of this Circle Amen Calerna Shalom Shalom Agla on Sassur Lafrac Angeli fortes In Nomine Patris Filii Spiritus Sancti Amen Amen Amen After that he shall sweep the circle gently with a Foxes tayl and sprinkle the same round with his blood dipping also the Sword or anointing
whole and holy company of Heaven and by the dreadful day of doom and by all Angels and Archangels Thrones Dominations Principates Potestates Virtutes Cherubim and Seraphim and their vertues and powers I conjure thee and bind thee Sibylia that thou shalt not depart out of the circle wherein thou art appeared nor yet to alter thy shape except I give thee licence to depart I conjure thee Sibylia by the blood that ran out of the side of our Lord Jesus Christ crucified and by the vertue hereof I conjure thee Sibylia to come to me and to appear to me at all times visibly as the Conjuration of words leadeth written in this Book I conjure thee Sibylia O blessed Virgin of Fairies by the opening of Heaven and by the renting of the Temple and by the darkness of the Sun at the time of his death and by the rising of the dead in the time of his glorious Resurrection and by the unspeakable Name of God ✚ Tetragrammaton ✚ and by King and Queen of Fairies and by their vertues I conjure thee Sibylia to appear before the Conjuration be read over four times and that visibly to appear as the the Conjuration leadeth written in this Book and to give me good counsel at all times and to come by treasures hidden in the earth and all other things that is to do me pleasure and to fulfil my will without any deceit or tarrying nor yet that thou shalt have any power of my body or soul earthly or ghostly nor yet to perish so much of my body as one hair of my head I conjure thee Sibylia by all the royal words aforesaid and by their vertues and powers I charge and bind thee by the vertue thereof to be obedient unto me and to all the words aforesaid and this bond to stand between thee and me upon pain of everlasting condemnation Fiat fiat fiat Amen CHAP. XVIII A License for Sibylia to go and come by at all times I Conjure thee Sibylia which art come hither before me by the commandement of thy Lord and mine that thou shalt have no power in thy going or coming unto me imagining any evil in any manner of wayes in the earth or under the earth of evil doings to any person or persons I conjure and command thee Sibylia by all the royal words and vertues that be written in this Book that thou shalt not go to the place from whence thou camest but shalt remain peaceably invisibly and look thou be ready to come unto me when thou art called by any conjuration of words that be written in this Book to come I say at my commandement and to answer unto me truly and duly of all things my will quickly to be fulfilled Vade in pace in Nomine Patris Filii Spiritus Sancti And the holy ✚ cross ✚ between thee and me or between us and you and the Lion of Juda the root of Jess the kindred of David be between thee and me ✚ Christ cometh ✚ Christ commandeth ✚ Christ giveth power ✚ Christ defend me ✚ and his innocent blood ✚ from all perils of body and soul sleeping and waking Fiat fiat Amen CHAP. XIX To know of Treasure hidden in the Earth WRite in paper these characters following on the Saturday in the hour of ☽ and lay it where thou thinkest Treasure to be if there be any the paper will burn else not And these be the characters This is the way to go invisible by these three Sisters of Fairies IN the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost First go to a fair Parlor or Chamber and an even ground and in no loft and from people nine dayes for it is the better and let all thy cloathing be clean and sweet Then make a Candle of Virgin Wax and light it and make a fair fire of Charcoles in a fair place in the middle of the Parlour or Chamber Then take fair clean water that runneth against the East and set it upon the fire and if thou washest thy self say these words going about the fire three times holding the Candle in thy right hand ✚ Panthon ✚ Craton ✚ Muriton ✚ Bisecognaton ✚ Siston ✚ Diaton ✚ Maton ✚ Tetragrammaton ✚ Agla ✚ Agarion ✚ Tegra ✚ Pentessaron ✚ Tendicata ✚ Then rehearse these names ✚ Sorthie ✚ Sorthia ✚ Sorthios ✚ Milia ✚ Achilia ✚ Sibylia ✚ In Nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti Amen I conjure you three sisters of Fairies Milia Achilia Sibylia by the Father by the Son and by the Holy Ghost and by their vertues and powers and by the most merciful and living God that will command his Angel to blow the trump at the day of Judgment and he shall say Come come come to judgment and by all Angels Archangels Thrones Dominations Principates Potestates Virtutes Cherubim and Seraphim and by their vertues and powers I conjure you thre sisters by the vertue of all the royal words aforesaid I charge you that you do appear before me visibly in form and shape of fair women in white vestures and to bring with you to me the Ring of Invisibility by the which I may go invisible at mine own will and pleasure and that in all hours and minutes In Nomine Patris Filii Spiritus Sancti Amen Being appeared say this bond following O blessed Virgins ✚ Milia ✚ Achilia ✚ I conjure you in the Name of the Father in the Name of the Son and the Name of the Holy Ghost and by their vertues I charge you to depart from me in peace for a time And Sibylia I conjure thee by the vertue of our Lord Jesus Christ and by the vertue of his flesh and precious blood that he took of our blessed Lady the Virgin and by all holy company in Heaven I charge thee Sibylia by all the vertues aforesaid that thou be obedient unto me in the Name of God that when and what time and place I shall call thee by this foresaid Conjuration written in this Book look thou be ready to come unto me at all hours and minutes and to bring unto me the Ring of Invisibility whereby I may go invisible at my will and pleasure and that at all hours and minutes Fiat fiat Amen And if they come not at the first night then do the same the second night and so the third night until they do come for doubtless they will come and lie thou in thy bed in the same Parlor or Chamber And lay thy right hand out of the bed and look thou have a fair silken Kercher bound about thy head and be not afraid they will do thee no harm For there will come before thee three fair women and all in white cloathing and one of them will put a Ring upon thy finger wherewith thou shalt go invisible Then with speed bind them with the bond aforesaid When thou hast this Ring on thy finger look in
a Glass and thou shalt not see thy self And when thou wilt go invisible put it on thy finger the same finger that they did put it on and every new ☽ renew it again For after the first time thou shalt ever have it and ever begin this work in the new of the ☽ and in the hour of ♃ and the ♋ ♐ ♓ CHAP. XX. An Experiment following of Citrael c. Angeli diei Dominici Michael ☉ Gabriel ☽ Samael ♂ Raphael ☿ Sachiel ♃ Anael ♀ Cassiel ♄ SAy first the Prayers of the Angels every day for the space of seaven dayes O ye glorious Angels written in this square be you my coadjutors and helpers in all questions and demands in all my business and other causes by him which shall come to judge both the quick and the dead and the world by fire O Angeli gloriosi in hac quadra scripti estote coadjutores auxiliatores in omnibus quaestionibus interrogationibus in omnibus negotiis caeterisque causis per eum qui venturus est judicare vivos mortuos mundum per ignem Say this Prayer fasting called Regina linguae ✚ Lemae ✚ Solmaac ✚ Elmay ✚ Gezagra ✚ Raamaasin ✚ Ezierego ✚ Mial ✚ Egziephiaz ✚ Iosamin ✚ Sahach ✚ ha ✚ aem ✚ re ✚ he ✚ esapha ✚ Sephar ✚ Ramar ✚ Semoit ✚ Lamajo ✚ Pheralon ✚ Amic ✚ Phin ✚ Gergain ✚ Letos ✚ Amin ✚ Amin ✚ In the Name of the most pitifulliest and mercifulliest God of Israel and of Paradise of Heaven and of Earth of the Seas and of the Infernals by thine Omnipotent help I may perform this work which livest and reignest ever one God world without end Amen O most strongest and mightiest God without beginning or ending by thy clemency and knowledge I desire that my questions work and labour may be fully and truly accomplished through thy worthyness good Lord which livest and reignest ever one God world without end Amen O holy patient and merciful great God and to be worshipped the Lord of all wisdom clear and just I most heartily desire thy holiness and clemency to fulfil perform and accomplish this my whole work through thy worthiness and blessed power which livest and reignest ever one God Per omnia saecula saeculorum Amen CHAP. XXI Howw to inclose a Spirit in a Crystal-stone THis operation following is to have a Spirit inclosed into a Crystal-stone or Beryl-glass or into any other like instrument c. First thou in the new of the ☽ being cloathed with all new and fresh and clean aray and shaven and that day to fast with bread and water and being clean confessed say the seven Psalms and the Letany for the space of two days with this Prayer following I desire thee O Lord God my merciful and most loving God the giver of all graces the giver of all Sciences grant that I thy wel-beloved N. although unworthy may know thy grace and power against all the deceits and craftiness of Devils And grant to me thy power good Lord to constrain them by this Art for thou art the true and lively and eternal God which livest and reignest ever one God through all Amen Thou must do this five dayes and the sixt day have in a readiness five bright Swords and in some secret place make one circle with one of the said Swords And then write this name Sitrael which done standing in the circle thrust in thy Sword into that name And write again Malanthon with another sword and Thamaor with another and Falaor with another and Sitrami with another and do as ye did with the first All this done turn thee to Sitrael and kneeling say thus having the Crystal-stone in thine hands O Sitrael Malantha Lhamaor Falaur and Sitrami Written in these circles appointed to this work I do conjure and I do exorcise you by the Father by the Son and by the Holy Ghost by him which cast you out of Paradise and by him which spake the word and it was done and by him which shall come to judge the quick and the dead and the world by fire that all you five infernal Masters and Princes do come unto me to accomplish and to fulfil all my desire and request which I shall command you Also I conjure you Devils and command you I bid you and appoint you by the Lord Jesus Christ the Son of the most highest God and by the blessed and glorious Virgin Mary and by all the Saints both of men and women of God and by all the Angels Archangels Patriarchs and Prophets Apostles Evangelists Martyrs and Confessors Virgins and Widows and all the elect of God Also I conjure you and every of you ye infernal Kings by the Heaven by the Starrs by the ☉ and by thee ☽ and all the Planets by the Earth Fire Air and Water and by the terrestrial Paradise and by all things in them contained and by your Hell and by all the Devils in it and dwelling about it and by your vertue and power and by all whatsoever and with whatsoever it be which may constrain and bind you Therefore by all the aforesaid vertues and powers I do bind you and constrain you into my will and power that you being thus bound may come unto me in great humility and to appear in your circles before me visibly in fair form and shape of mankind Kings and to obey unto me all things whatsoever I shall desire and that you may not depart from me without my licence And if you do against my precepts I will promise unto you that you shall descend into the profound deepness of the Sea except that you do obey unto me in the part of the living Son of God which liveth and reigneth in the unity of the Holy Ghost by all world of worlds Amen Say this true Conjuration five courses and then shalt thou see come out of the North-part five Kings with a marvellous company which when they are come to the circle they will alight down off from their Horses and will kneel down before thee saying Master command us what thou wilt and we will out of hand be obedient unto thee Unto whom thou shalt say See that ye depart not from me without my licence anll that which I will command you to do let it be done truly surely faithfully and essentially And then they all will swear unto thee to do all thy will and after they have sworn say the Conjuration immediately following I conjure charge and command you and every of you Sitrael Malanthan Lhamaar Falaur and Sitrami you Infernal Kings to put into this Crystal-stone one spirit learned and expert in all Arts and Sciences by the vertue of this Name of God Tetragrammaton and by the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ and by the blood of the innocent Lamb which redeemed all the world and by all their vertues and power I charge you ye noble Kings that the said spirit may
what time he will be in such a place what day and hour and this and all other things to declare plainly on pain of Hell fire Fiat Amen A Licence to Depart DEpart out of the sight of this Crystal-stone in peace for a time and ready to appear therein again at any time or times I shall call thee by vertue of our Lord Jesus Christ and by the bonds of words which are written in this Book and to appear visibly as the words be rehearsed I constrain thee Spirit N. by the divinity of the Godhead to be obedient unto these words rehearsed upon pain of everlasting condemnation both in this world and in the world to come Fiat fiat fiat Amen CHAP. XXIX When to talk with Spirits and to have true answers to find out a Theif THe days and hours of ♄ ♂ ☿ and the ☽ is best to do all crafts of Necromancy and for to speak with Spirits and for to find theft and to have true answer thereof or of any other such like And in the days and hours of ☉ ♃ ♀ is best to do all experiments of love and to purchase grace and for to be invisible and to do any operation whatsoever it be for any thing the ☽ being in a convenient sign * As when thou labourest for theft see the Moon be in an earthy sign as ♉ ♍ ♑ or of the air as ♊ ♎ ♒ * And if it be for love favour or grace let the ☽ be in a sign of the fire as ♈ ♌ ♐ and for hatred in a sign of the water as ♋ ♏ ♓ For any other experiment let the ☽ be in ♈ * And if thou findest the ☉ and the ☽ in one sign that is called in even number then thou mayst write consecrate conjure and make ready all manner of things that thou wilt do c. To speak with Spirits CAll these names Orimoth Beltmoth Lymock and say thus I conjure you up by the names of the Angels Satur and Azimor that you intend to me in this hour and send unto me a Spirit caded Sagrigrit that he do fulfill my commandement and desire and that also can understand my words for one or two years or as long as I will CHAP. XXX A Confutation of Conjuration especially of the raising binding and dimissing of the Divel of going invisible and other lewd practices THus far have we waded in shewing at large the vanity of Necromancers Conjurors and such as pretend to have real conference consultation with Spirits and Divels wherein I trust you see what notorious blasphemy is committed besides other blind superstitious Ceremonies a disordered heap which are so far from building up the endeavors of these Black Art practitiers that they do altogether ruinate and overthrow them making them in their follies and falsehoods as bare and naked as an Anatomy As for these ridiculous Conjurations last rehearsed being of no small reputation among the ignorant they are for the most part made by T.R. for so much of his name he bewrayeth and John Cockars invented and devised for the augmentation and maintenance of their living for the edifying of the poor and for the propagating and inlarging of Gods glory as in the beginning of their Book of Conjurations they protest which in this place for the further manifestation of their impiety and of the Witchmongers folly and credulity I thought good to insert whereby the residue of their proceeding may be judged or rather detected For if we seriously behold the matter of Conjuration and the drift of Conjurors we shall find them in mine opinion more faulty then such as take upon them to be Witches as manifest offenders against the Majesty of God and his holy Law as apparent violators of the laws and quietness of this Realm although indeed they bring no such thing to pass as is surmised and urged by credulous persons coseners lyars and Witchmongers For these are alwayes learned and rather abusers of others than they themselves by others abused But let us see what appearance of truth or possibility is wrapped within these mysteries and let us unfold the deceit They have made choice of certain words whereby they say they can work miracles c. And first of all that they call Divels and souls out of Hell though we find in the Scripture manifest proofs that all passages are stopped concerning the egress out of Hell so as they may go thither but they shall never get out for Ab inferno nulla est redemptio out of hell there is no redemption Well when they have gotten them up they shut them in a circle made with Chalk which is so strongly beset and invironed with crosses and names that they cannot for their lives get out which is a very probable matter Then can they bind them and loose them at their pleasures and make them that have been lyers from the beginning to tell the truth yea they can compel them to do any thing And the Devils are forced to be obedient unto them and yet cannot be brought to due obedience unto God their Creator This done I say they can work all manner of miracles saving blew miracles and this is to believed of many to be ttue Tam credula mens hominis arrectae fabulis aures Englished by Abraham Fleming So light of belief is the mind of man And attentive to tales his ears now and than But if Christ only for a time left the power of working miracles among his Apostles and Disciples for the confirmation of his Gospel and the faith of his elect yet I deny altogether that he left that power with these Knaves which hide their cosening purposes under those lewd and foolish words according to that which Peter saith With faigned words they make merchandize of you And therefore the counsel is good that Paul giveth us when he biddeth us Take heed that no man deceive us with vain words For it is the Lord only that worketh great wonders and bringeth mighty things to pass It is also written that Gods Word and not the words of Conjurors or the Charms of Witches healeth all things maketh tempests and stilleth them But put case the Devil could be fetched up and fettered and loosed again at their pleasure c. I marvel yet that any can be so bewitched as to be made to believe that by vertue of their words any earthly creature can be made invisible We think it a lye to say that white is black and black white but it is a more shameless assertion to affirm that white is not or black is not at all and yet more impudency to hold that a Man is a Horse but most apparent impudency to say that a Man is no Man or to be extenuated into such a quantity as thereby he may be invisible and yet remain in life and health and that in the clear light of the day even in the presence of them that are
whatsoever shall be touched thereby or sprinkled therewith may be void of all uncleanness and all resistance of spiritual iniquity through our Lord. Amen What can be made but a Conjuration of these words also which are written in the Canon or rather in the Saccaring of Masse This holy commixtion of the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ let it be made to me and to all the receivers thereof health of mind and body and a wholesome preparative for the deserving and receiving of everlasting life through our Lord Jesus Amen CHAP. XXXVII That Popish Priests leave nothing unconjured a form of Exercism for Incense ALthough the Papists have many Conjurations so as neither Water nor Fire nor Bread nor Wine nor Wax nor Tallow nor Church nor Church-yard nor Altar nor Altar-cloth nor Ashes nor coals nor Bells nor Bell-ropes nor Copes nor Vestments nor Oyl nor Salt nor Candle nor Candlestick nor Beds nor Bed-staves c. are without their form of Conjuration yet I will for brevity let all pass and end here with Incense which they do conjure in this sort ✚ I conjure thee most filthy and horrible Spirit and every vision of our enemy c. that thou go and depart from out of this creature of Frankincense with all thy deceipt and wickedness that this creature may be sanctified and in the name of our Lord ✚ Jesus ✚ Christ ✚ that all they that taste touch or smell the same may receive the virtue and assistance of the holy Ghost so as wheresoever this Incense or Frankincense shall remain that there thou in no wise be so bold as to approach or once presume or attempt to hurt but what unclean Spirit soever thou be that thou with all thy craft and subtilty avoid and depart being conjured by the name of God the Father Almighty c. And that wheresoever the fume or smoke thereof shall come every kind and sort of Devils may be driven away and expelled as they were at the increase of the liver of fish which the Archangel Raphael male c. CHAP. XXXVIII Toe Rules and Laws of Popish Exorcists and other Conjurors all one with a confutation of their whole power How S. Martin conjured the Devill THe Papists you see have their certain general Rules and Laws as to abstain from sin and to fast as also otherwise to be clean from all pollutions c. and even so likewise have the other Conjurors Some will say that Papists use Divine Service and Prayers even so do common Conjurors as you see even in the same Papistical form no whit swarving from theirs in faith and doctrin nor yet in ungodly and unreasonable kinds of petitions Methinks it may be a sufficient argument to overthrow the calling up and miraculous works of Spirits that it is written God only knoweth and searcheth the hearts and only worketh great wonders The which argument being prosecuted to the end can never be answered in so much as that Divine power is required in that action And if it be said That in this Conjuration we speak to the Spirits and they hear us and therefore need not know our thoughts and imaginations I first ask them Whether King Bael or Amaymon which are Spirits raigning in the furthest regions of the East as they say may hear a Conjurors voyce which calleth for them being in the extreamest parts of the West there being such noises interposed where perhaps also they may be busie and set to work on the like affairs Secondly Whether those Spirits be of the same power that God is who is everywhere filling all places and able to hear all men at one instant c. Thirdly Whence cometh the force of such words as raise the dead and command Devils If sounds do it then may it be done by a taber and a pipe or any other instrument that hath no life If the voyce do it then may it be done by any Beasts or Birds If words then a Parret may do it if in mans words only where is the force in the first second or third syllable If in syllables then not in words If in imaginations then the Devil knoweth our thoughts But all this stuffe is vain and fabulous It is written All the generations of the earth were healthful and there is no poyson of destruction in them Why then do they conjure wholesome creatures as Salt Water c. where no Divels are God looked upon all his works and saw they were all good What effect I pray you had the seven sons of Sceva which is the great objection of Witchmongers They would needs take upon them to conjure Devils out of the possessed But what brought they to pass Yet that was in the time whilest God suffered miracles commonly to be wrought By that you may see what Conjurors can do Where is such a promise to Conjurors or Witches as is made in the Gospel to the faithful where it is written In my name thay shall cast out Devils speak with new tongues if they shall drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them they shall take away Serpents they shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover According to the promise this grant of miraculous working was performed in the primitive Church for the confirmation of Christs doctrin and the establishing of the Gospel But as in another place I have proved the gift thereof was but for a time and is now ceased neither was it ever made to Papist Witch or Conjuror They take upon them to call up and cast out Devils and to undo with one Devil that which another Devil hath done If one Devil could cast out another it were a Kingdom divided and could not stand Which argument Christ himself maketh and therefore I may the more boldly say even with Christ That they have no such power For besides him there is no Saviour none can deliver out of his hand Who but he can declare set in order appoint and tell what is to come He destroyeth the tokens of Soothsayers and maketh the Conjecturers fools c. He declareth things to come and so cannot Witches There is no help in Inchanters and Soothsayers and other such vain sciences For Devils are cast out by the finger of God which Matthew calleth the Spirit of God which is the mighty power of God and not by the virtue of the bare name only being spoken or pronounced for then might every wicked man do it And Simon Magus needed not then to have proffered money to have bought the power to do Miracles and Wonders for he could speak and pronounce the name of God as well as the Apostles Indeed they may soon throw out all the Devils that are in Frankincense and such like creatures wherein no Devils are but neither they nor all their holy-water can indeed cure a man possessed with a Devil either in body or mind as Christ did Nay why do they not cast out the
Spirit into six significations saying that it is sometimes taken for the air sometimes for the bodies of the blessed sometimes for the souls of the blessed sometimes for the power imaginative or the mind of man and sometimes for God Again he saith That of spirits there are two sorts some created and some uncreated A spirit uncreated saith he is God himself and it is essentially taken and agreeth unto the three Persons notionally to the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost personally A spirit created is a creature and that is likewise of two sorts to wit bodily and bodiless A bodily spirit is also of two sorts for some kind of spirit is so named of spiritualness as it is distinguished from bodiliness otherwise it is called Spiritus a spiriando id est a flando of breathing or blowing as the wind doth A bodiless spirit is one way so named of spiritualness and then it is taken for a spiritual substance and is of two sorts some make a full and compleat kind and is called compleat or perfect as a spirit angelical some do not make a full and perfect kind and is called incompleat or unperfect as the soul There is also the spirit vital which is a certain subtil or very fine substance necessarily disposing and tending unto life There be moreover spirits natural which are a kind of subtil and very fine substances disposing and tending unto equal complexions of bodies Again there be spirits animal which are certain subtil and very fine substances disposing and tempering the body that it might be animated of the form that is that it might be perfected of the reasonable soul Thus far he In whose division you see a Philosophical kind of proceeding though not altogether to be condemned yet in every point not to be approved Now to the Spirit of spirits I mean the principal and holy Spirit of God which one defineth or rather describeth to be the third Person in the Trinity issuing from the Father and the Son no more the charity dilection and love of the Father and the Son than the Father is the charity dilection and love of the Son and Holy Ghost Another treating upon the same argument proceedeth in this reverent manner The holy Spirit is the vertue or power of God quickning nourishing fostering and perfecting all things by whose only breathing it cometh to pass that we both know and love God and become at the length like unto him which Spirit is the pledge and earnest penny of grace and beareth witness unto our heart whiles we cry Abba Father This Spirit is called the Spirit of God the Spirit of Christ and the Spirit of him which raised up Jesus from the dead Jesus Christ for that he received not the Spirit by measure but in fulness doth call it his Spirit saying When the Comforter shall come whom I will send even the Holy Spirit he shall testifie of me This Spirit hath divers Metaphorical names attributed thereunto in the Holy Scriptures It is called by the name of water because it washeth comforteth moistneth softeneth and maketh fruitful with all godliness and vertues the mindes of men which otherwise would be unclean comfortless hard dry and barren of all goodness whereupon the Prophet Isaiah saith I will pour water upon the thirsty and floods upon the dry ground c. Wherewithal the words of Christ do agree He that believeth in me as saith the Scripture out of his belly shall flow rivers of waters of life And elsewhere Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never be more athirst Other places likewise there be wherein the Holy Spirit is signified by the name of water and flood as in the 13. of Isaiah the 29. of Ezek. the 146. Psalm c. The same Spirit by reason of the force and vehemency thereof is termed fire For it doth purifie and cleanse the wholeman from top to toe it doth burn out the soil and dross of sins and setteth him all in a flaming and hot burning zeal to prefer and further Gods glory Which plainly appeared in the Apostles who when they had received the Spirit they spake fiery words yea such words as were uncontrollable in somuch as in none more than in them this saying of the Prophet Jeremy was verified Nunquid non verba mea sunt quasi ignis Are not my words even as it were fire This was declared and shewed by those fiery tongues which were seen upon the Apostles after they had received the Holy Spirit Moreover this Spirit is called annointing or ointment because that as in old time Priests and Kings were by annointing deputed to their office and charge and so were made fit and serviceable for the same even so the elect are not so much declared as renewed and made apt by the training up of the Holy Spirit both to live well and also to glorifie God Whereupon dependeth the saying of John And ye have no need that any should teach you but as the same ointment doth teach you It is also called in Scripture The Oil of gladness and rejoycing whereof it is said in the Book of Psalms God even thy God hath annointed thee with the Oil of joy and gladness c. And by this goodly and comfortable name of Oil in the Scriptures is the mercy of God oftentimes expressed because the nature of that doth agree with the property and quality of this For as Oil doth float and swim above all other liquors so the mercy of God doth surpass and over-reach all his works and the same doth most of all disclose it self to miserable man It is likewise called the Finger of God that is the might and power of God by the vertue whereof the Apostles did cast out Devils to wit even by the finger of God It is called the Spirit of Truth because it maketh men true and faithful in their vocation and for that it is the touch-stone to try all counterfeit devices of mans brain and all vain Sciences prophane Practices deceitful Arts and circumventing Inventions such as be in general all sorts of Witchcrafts and Inchantments within whose number are comprehended all those wherewith I have had some dealing in my Discovery to wit Charms or Incantations Divinations Augury Judicial Astrology Nativity-casting Alchymistry Conjuration Lot-share Popery which is meer paltry with divers other not one whereof no nor altogether are able to stand to the tryal and examination which this Spirit of Truth shall and will take of those false and evil spirits Nay they shall be found when they are laid into the balance to be lighter than vanity very dross when they once come to be tryed by the fervent heat of this Spirit and like chaffe when this Spirit bloweth upon them driven away with a violent whirlwind such is the perfection integrity and effectual operation of this Spirit whose working as it is manifold so it is marvellous and
food is the Gas of the Water and the Blas of the Air And in their Aspects or countenances they differ as to vigour and cheerfulness They occupy various places of this world as Woods Mountains Waters Air fiery Flames Clouds Starrs Mines and hid Treasures as also antient Buildings and places of the slain Some again are familiar in Houses and do frequently converse with and appear unto mortals 15. They are capable of hunger grief passion and vexation they have not any thing in them that should bring them unto God being meerly composed of the most spiritual part of the Elements And when they are worn out they return into their proper essence or primary quality again as Ice when it is resolved into Water They meet in mighty Troops and wage warr one with another They do also procreate one another and have power sometimes to make great commotions in the Air and in the Clowds and also to cloath themselves with visible bodies out of the four Elements appearing in Companies upon Hills and Mountains and do often deceive and delude the observers of Apparitions who take such for portents of great alterations which are nothing but the sports and pastime of these frolick Spirits as Armies in the Air Troops marching on the Land noises and slaughter Tempest and Lightning c. 16. These Astral Spirits are variously to be considered some are beings separate and absolute that are not constitute to any work or service Others are subservient to the Angels that have dominion over the Influences of the Stars Others are the Astral Spirits of men departed which if the party deceased was disturbed and troubled at his decease do for many years continue in the source of this world amongst these airy Spirits to the great disquietness of the soul of the person to whom they belong Besides the causes are various that such Spirits rest not 1. When by Witchcraft they are inchanted and bound to wander so many years as thrice or fourtimes seven before they can be resolved into nothing 2. When the person hath been murthered so that the Spirit can never be at rest till the crime be discovered 3. When desires and lusts after Wife or Children House Lands or Money is very strong at their departure it is a certain truth that this same spirit belonging to the Starrs will be hanckering after these things and drawn back by the strong desires and fixation of the Imagination which is left behind it Nor can it ever be at rest till the thing be accomplished for which it is disturbed 4. When Treasure hath been hid or any secret thing hath been committed by the party there is a magical cause of something attracting the starry spirit back again to the manifestation of that thing Upon all which the following Chapters do insist more largely and particularly CHAP. II. Of the Good and Evil Daemons or Genii Whither they are what they are and how they are manifested also of their names powers faculties offices how thy are to be considered 1. ACcording to the disposition of the mind or soul there is a good or evil Daemon that accompanies the party visibly or invisibly and these are of such rancks and orders and names as the capacity of the persons soul is to whom they belong Their Office is said to be fore-warning the person of eminent danger sometimes by inward instinct sometimes by dreams in the night and sometimes by appearing outwardly The Daemon or Genius changeth its nature and power as the person changeth his and if from good the party degenerate to iniquity then by degrees the good Angel leaves him and an evil Daemon doth naturally succeed for each thing draws after that which is like it self 2. Magicians mention three several wayes of enjoying the society of the Bonus Genius first by intellectual association when secret and mental instigations do arise in their hearts to do this or that and to forbear the other as in the Manuscript of Nagar the Indian his own testimony of himself is to this effect My blessed Guardian Damilkar hath now so sweetly communicated himself unto me That by all the manifestations whereby a holy Daemon can attend and converse with mankind he appeareth unto me first in the intellectual way he is ever present and every moment prompts me what to act what to forbear from acting Ah had he not rushed up through the powers of my soul and suddenly warned me in my Travel to Quiansi in China through the airy Region to turn nimbly to the right hand at an instant a mighty Troop of Devils whose Leader was Grachnoek coming through that tract of air had crusht me into a thousand peices This is the first degree of its appearing 3. Then he proceedeth in the language of Sina describing the second way of its manifestation And when the deepest sleep hath over-poured we I am never without him sometimes my Damilkar stands before me like a glorious Virgin administring to me a Cup of the drink of the Gods which my Intellectual man exhausteth sometimes he brings caelestial Companies and danceth round about me and when after the weariness of the Senses through contemplation I fell into gentle sleep on the holy Mountain of Convocation which is called Adan he shewed me the motion of the Heavens the nature of all things and the power of every evil Daemon 4. Thirdly he continueth to describe the External appearance of the Genius to this effect Damilkar appears before me at my desire for my desires are as his desires When I slept a long space in my private dwelling he appeared outwardly and watering me with the dew of the fourth Heaven I awakned when he had thrice said Nankin Nagar so the time being come we mounted through the Air unto the holy Mountain of Convocation 5. In this Example the three degrees of the Apparition of the Bonus Genius or Good Daemon are excellently deciphered which is also the same in the appearance of the bad Genius and according to the deepest Magicians there be seven good Angels who do most frequently become particular Guardians of all others each to their respective capacities and also seven evil Daemons that are most frequent in association with depraved persons as Guardians to them 6. These are the seven good Angels or Daemons Iubanladace a mighty Prince in the Dominion of Thrones he cometh unto such as follow national affairs and are carryed forth unto warr and conquest he beareth alwayes a flaming Sword and is girded about having a helmet upon his head and appearing still before the party in the Air he must be sollicited and invocated with Chastity Vows Fumes and Prayers and this his is Character to be worn as a Lamin ● Yah-li-Yah one of the Powers accompanying such as are Virgins and devoted to Religion and a Hetmits life he teacheth all the names and powers of Angels and gives holy Charms against the assaults of Evil Daemons he
is to blast with Mildew Lightning and Thunder any Vegetative proper to their Planet To deprive any Animal of sight or the motion of the nerves under their Dominion And lastly bring Plagues Pestilence and Famine Storms and Tempests or on the Contrary to bring sweet and excellent Influences upon Animals or Vegetatives under their Planetary Regiment if well and honourably dignified 4. Innumerable are the Spirits that inhabit the Aiery Region germinating amongst themselvs as Magicians affirm and begetting one another after a Mystical manner It is their property to be instant in storms and boistrous weather which is said to be joy and delight unto them And in such a season they may with most facility be calld upon and make their appearance which they do accordingly to their age and youthfulness seeming young or old at their appearance answerable to their years Besides they march in mighty Troops through the Aiery Region waging warr amongst themselves and destroying one anothers beings or Existences after which they are reduced to the primary source or nature of the Starrs This is likewise to be observed that according to the Language Vigour Life and Habit of that Region wherein they live such is their Habit Language and Ability one Caterva or Company being ignorant of their Neighbours or Enemies Language so that they have need of the Assistance of such Spirits as dwell in omnibus Elementis to be their Interpreters 5. And doubtless from hence arise the various deceptions thut men are incident unto in their judgments of Apparitions perswading themselves that they are portents and foretokens of Warr and Famine when such numerous Spirits are beheld Fighting or Marching either in the Air Earth or Water whereas it is nothing else but the bare effect of the Natures and Tempers of such Aerial beings to fight and randevouse immediately after sun-set or else later in the Summer evenings which is their principal time of such Conventions And though it must be confest that such Spirits may be and are the Devils Instruments as appertaining to the Kingdom whereof he is Ruler Yet considered in themselves their Nature is wholly harmless as to ought that may be called innate Evill having nothing in them that is eternal as the Soul of Man and consequently nothing in them that is able to make them capable of enjoying Heaven or induring the torments of Hell 6. And it is believed by some that according to the motion of the spheres there are certain companies of Aerial Spirits good and bad that follow them in their motions round the earth the good distilling influences that are good and the bad such influences as are destructive to every thing that is under their Dominion It is also believed that by the assistance of Devils and damned Spirits such Aerial Spirits are given for Familiars to some Magicians add Witches with whom they are said to have actual copulation and the enjoyment of every dainty meat through their assistance being able thereby to go invisible to fly through the air and steal Treasures and Jewels from the Coffers of Princes as also carouse in Wine-sellers and Pantries of those that are most amply provided with the choisest Daynties 7. Subordinate unto these of the Air are the Terrestrial Spirits which are of several degrees according to the places which they occupy as Woods Mountains Caves Fens Mines Ruins Desolate places and Antient Buildings calld by the Antient Heathens after various names as Nymphs Satyrs Lamii Dryades Sylvanes Cobali c. And more particularly the Faeries who do principally inhabit the Mountains and Caverns of the Earth whose nature is to make strange Apparitions on the Earth in Meddows or on Mountains being like Men and Women Souldiers Kings and Ladyes Children and Horse-men cloathed in green to which purpose they do in the night steal hempen stalks from the fields where they grow to Convert them into Horses as the Story goes Besides it is credibly affirmed and beleev'd by many That such as are real Changlings or Lunaticks have been brought by such Spirits and Hobgoblins the true Child being taken away by them in the place whereof such are left being commonly half out of their wits and given to many Antick practices and extravagant fancies which passions do indeed proceed from the powerful influence of the Planet in their nativity and not from such foolish conjectures 8. Such jocund and facetious Spirits are sayd to sport themselvs in the night by tumbling and fooling with Servants aad Shepherds in Country houses pinching them black and blew and leaving Bread Butter and Cheese sometimes with them which if they refuse to eat some mischief shall undoubtedly befall them by the means of these Faeries And many such have been taken away by the sayd Spirits for a fortnight or a month together being carryed with them in Chariots through the Air over Hills and Dales Rocks and Precipices till at last they have been found lying in some Meddow or Mountain bereaved of their sences and commonly of one of their Members to boot 9. Certainly the Lares and Penates or houshold Gods of the antient Heathens were no other then such like Spirits who for several years would keep their residence in one house till upon some displeasure offered or offences done by any of the sayd Family they departed and were never afterwards heard of There are plenty of such examples to be found in Olaus magnus and Hector Boethus in his History of Scotland relating wonderful passages of Robin-good fellows and such as have been familiar amongst mankind 10. Luridan a familiar of this kinde did for many years inhabit the Island Pomonia the largest of the Orcades in Scotland suplying the place of Man-servant and Maid-servant with wonderful diligence to these Families whom he did haunt sweeping their rooms and washing their dashes and making their fires before any were up in the morning This Luridan affirmed That he was the genius Astral of that Island that his place or residence in the dayes of Solomon and David was at Jerusalem That then he was called by the Jewes Belelah and after that he remaind Long in the Dominion of Wales instructing their Bards in Brittish Poesy and Prophesies being called Vrthin Wadd Elgin And now said he I have removed hither and alas my continuance is but short for in 70 years I must resigne my place to Balkin Lord of the Northern mountains 11. Many wonderful and incredible things did he also relate of this Balkin whom he called the Lord of the Northern Mountains affirming that he was shaped like a Satyr and fed upon the Air having Wife and Children to the number of 12 thousand which were the brood of the Northern Faeries inhabiting Southerland and Catenes with the adjacent Islands And that these were the Companies of Spirits that hold continual wars with the Fiery Spirits in the Mountain Heckla that vomits fire in Islandia That their speech was antient Irish and
and Latine Poets all together to be sleighted in this particular for many verities are inter-woven with their fictions they speak of vocal Forrests as Dodona of Talkative Rivers as Seamander of sensitive Fountains as Arethusa Menippa and Aegle Which more credible Historians have partly confirmed in the Relation of Dodona asserting that the trees do seem to speak by reason of the various Apparitions Phantasms that attend the Forrest And also in the Story of the River Scamander which is sayd at this day to afford plenty of spectres and prophetical Spirits that have nightly conversation with the Turkish Sailers coming by that way with Gallyes into the Mediterranean 21. The like is reported of a Castle in Norweigh standing over a Lake wherein a Satyr appeareth sounding a Trumpet before the death of any Souldier or Governour belonging to the same t is sayd to be the Ghost of some murdered Captain that hath become so Fatal and Ominous to his Successors But with more probability may be called a Spectre proper to the place according to the Constellation 22. And it hath been the conjecture of eminent speculators that from the Loins of such arise the numerous brood of Elves Faeryes Lycanthropi And Pigmyes sometimes visible sometimes invisible in Green-Land and the adjacent rocks where they have no concomitants but bears and scurvy-grass to mix and make merry withal except they pass from thence to the Northern parts of America where they shall find their off-spring adored for Gods and Goddesses by the ignorant Inhabitants about new Albion and as far South as Mexico as is amply related in the discourses of Drake Cortes and Purchas concerning the conquest and discovery of these Territoryes 23. By Apparitions upon the water many have been tempted to leap into the Sea in pursuit thereof till they were drowned of which spectres there is a sort called by Psellus Ordales who do appear like Ducks or other Water fouls till they by fluttering upon the water do entice their followers to pursue them so farr that many perish in the attempt which doth greatly delight these faithless Spirits who as we have said before do long to accompany their Astral Spirits after their decease An Example of this kinde I my self knew besides the numerous relations I have had from the mouths of others which confirm the opinions of the antient Magicians concerning these water Spirits that of all the rest they are the most deceitful and dangerous like the flattering Seas and swift gliding Torrents that when they have wonn any thing to admire and sound them do carry them violently into the abysse of their own Element 24. But we will leave the waters and insist a little on the nature of Igneous or Fiery Spirits that inhabit the Mountains in Hecla Aetna Propo Champ and Poconzi Where the Courts and Castles of these puissant Champions are kept The opinion of some is That they are not Astral but Infernal Spirits and D●mned Souls that for a term of years are confined to these burning Mountains for their Iniquities Which opinion although it be granted yet we may assert That for the most part the apparitions sounds noices clangors and clamors that are heard about the Mountan Hecla in Island and other places are the effects of separated Starry beings who are neither capable of good nor evill but are of a middle vegetative nature and at the dissolution of the Media Natura shall be again reduced into their primary Aether 25. And from natural Causes it may be easily demonstrated That there is great Correspondence betwixt such substances and the Element of fire by reason of the Internal Flagrat and Central Life proceeding from the Quintessence or one only Element which upholds them in Motion Life and Nourishment As every natural and supernatural being is upheld and maintain'd out of the self-same root from whence it had its original or rise So the Angels feed upon the Caelestial Manna The Devils of the fruits of Hell which is natural to their appetite as trash for swine the Astral beings of the source of the stars the Beasts Birds or Reptiles of the fruits of the Earth and the gas of the Air the fishes of the blass of the Water But more particularly every thing is nourished by its Mother as Infants at the Breast either by exhausting or fomentation 26. Such Spirits are very officious in the burnings of Towns or Cole-pits delighting much to dance and exult amidst the flames and become Incendiaries worse then the material Cause of the Combustion often tempting men in drukenness to burn their own Houses and causing Servants carelesly to sleep that such unlucky accidents may happen As the Story of Kzarwilwui a Town in Poland doth confirm which was reduced to ashes by three of these pestilentious Animals called Saggos Broundal and Baldwin who after many open Threatnings for six months together that they would destroy the City and Citizens did on a dark and stormy night set all on fire on a suddain in twenty or thirty several places which irrecoverably destroyed the Inhabitants 27. As for the nourishment of fiery Spirits it is radical heat and the influence of the Aery Region their sport and pastime consisteth for the most part in tumbling and fooling one with another when the flames are most impetuous and violent in the Mountains And it is likewise credited by some that their office is to cruciate and punish some Evil Livers retaining and tormenting their Souls or Astral Spirits for many years after the Bodies decease which is too empty a notion to be hearkened unto by any that are well informed of their natures 28. Neither is it to be wondered at that they are so much delighted with the fiery quality in regard of their affinity and appropriation with infernal spirits whose state and being is altogether damnable and deplorable for although they have not the ability of attaining either the Heavenly or Infernal quality by reason that they are utterly voyd of the innermost Center and may be rather called bruits then rational Animals yet because they belong to the outermost principle such is their innate Affinity and Unity with the dark World or infernal Kingdome that they do often become the Devils Agents to propagate his works upon the face of the Earth 29. By the Instigations of infernal Spirits they are often sent to terrifie men with nocturnal visions in the likeness of monstrous Beasts or Ghosts of their deceased Friends They are moreover often abetted to tempt and provoke melancholy people to execute themselves besides innumerable wayes they have of executing the pleasures of iniquous Spirits through malicious Instigations and secret Stratagems projected by them to the destruction of mortal men especially when the work to be effected by the Devil is too too hard for his subtle and spiritual nature to bring to pass because the same belongs to the Astral source or outward principle to which
affirighted with monstrous appearances and Ideas represented continually to their imaginations And there is not any loathsome taste in the Kingdome of this World either Animal Vegetative or Mineral which they are at any time void of being continually pestered and suffocated with filthy fumes and smoaks of hellish fruits as of Sulphurean stinks and abominations 42. Neither are the other Sences of the Touch and Smell behind in participation of the like Torments which their own iniquities do perpetually excite and create unto them besides they are ever vexing one another and if any be in the same misery with whom they had acquaintance here on eath the very Magical knowledge and perceivance or remembrance thereof doth beyond utterance or conception most miserably afflict and macerate their Souls and all their Sences 43. For the nature of their habitation is such that their torment is exceedingly aggravated thereby because the extremity of the four Elements is there converted into a whole Principle of wrath and vexation The excess of cold and heat drought and moisture are continually raging amongst them by intercourse Neither is there any light or lustre to be seen within their Courts but that which comes from their fiery Eyes as a deadly glance or glimmering being sudden fiery flashes and sparkling as the enkindling of Gunpowder or Aurum fulminans for a similitude 44. And as every kinde of Being feeds upon somewhat of its own nature property and element whither it be Plant Animal or Metalline kinde so the Devils are neither destitute of meat drink nor cloathing according to their own Kingdom and quality having fruits springing and growing before them of hellish sour and poysonous natures which are real and palpable unto them and not imaginary or typical though to us magical and invisible neither is this to be wondered at if we consider the nature of Man's Soul In Media Natura for if it feed not upon the internal and substantial Word which is the very Bread of Life it self it must of necessity ruminate on something else viz. the fruits of Iniquity which it takes in and drinketh up as the Oxe drinks water so that to the soul the sin becomes palpable glutting and satiuting yea so substantial unto the Soul as Dirt or Ink upon fair white Linnen is to our external Eyes neither can the Soul be freed from these spots till the water above the Firmament wash them away 45. Also in respect of the Astral source they are not destitute of food when they bring themselves into the same for the gas of the air and blas of the water is their nourishment while they stay here as is before alledged These influences of the air and water they take into their Limbus and convert into their own poysonous natures as of sweet and wholsome herbs the filthy Toads and other venemous Beasts do make their poyson converting them into a nature like themselves And on the contrary the poysonous herbs are converted into good and wholesome nourishment by other cleanly Beasts 46. And as the Infernal Troops are considered in respect of the four Elements they have a distinct and peculiar tone or language which they exercise and speak one amongst one another as mortals do But they have utterly lost the dignity of their sounds according to the eternal nature And are likewise totally corrupted in their pronouncing or Dialect since they fell from their first caelestial glory so that their speech is harsh doleful and terrible like the fruits they feed upon and the life they dwell in Which depravation is very apparent in the Kingdom of this World in the divided Languages of every Region according to the Constellation under which they are situated The true and magical Language of nature being hid from all the Countreys of the earth 47. But when they appear in the outward Elements they do many times express themselves in Irish Welch Latine or Russian which are the Languages most affected by them to answer unto Conjurations or Compacts So that if any Magician who is ignorant of these aforesaid Languages do at any time Raise or Exorcise such Spirits he must be mindful to confine them to his mother tongue least their gibberish prove altogether unintelligible for as every thing appears in what it most affecteth or is addicted to even so the Spirits have their distinct affections passions and postures both in word habit shape and gesture so that the Magician must be wary in Exorcizing with them that he confine them to a different place posture shape and language to answer their intentions without impediment 48. For they are very variable and unconstant in their dealings with mankind nor will they stand to any thing that hath not bound them by the obligations of Words Characters and Imprecations except the skill of the Exorcist be such that he is able to confine them into a Magical Triad which hath the certain force of obliging or compelling them to utter truth and nothing false in all their Answers or Informations But with such miserable men and women as they have made Covenants and Indentures for body soul and works with such I say they keep no faith nor are they lyable to their commands but on the contrary have them hampered and subjected to their will and power till they have terminated their lives in their destruction 49. Yet have not any of the most potent Princes in the Hellish Power the least ability to destroy the least of the sons of men without the consent of the mind and senses of the Soul for until the will of the Soul be opened unto him his threatnings sleights and stratagems are without any power or force as the nerves of a dead man Although naturally every evil Spirit boasteth as if all the world were at its command and every Soul were subject to its authority and beck with the Goods or Possessions of the external World 50. When any evil Spirit is raised up by Conjurations without League or Compact these Spirits so raised are exceeding fraudulent and deceitful as stubborn servants that do their Masters will by constraint and not by any natural act of obedience unto his Commands But with such as they have compacted they are frequent and officious imploying them as Agents for the destruction of others and their substance and being marryed unto such they are even become one with them being incorporated into them so that they are nothing different from incarnate Devils save that the spark of divine Light which was the gift of God unto repentance is not totally eradicated until the body fall away 51. From such as Covenant with these unconstant Spirits do they daily obtain Fumigations Odours and Offerings or Sacrifices of Blood Fire Wine Ointments Incense Fruits Excrements Herbs Gums Minerals and other Ingredients by which from a Magical cause they have more influence and authority over the bewitched party to insinuate into their affection peircing