An Antidote Against Atheism/Book III/Chapter XI

by Henry More

Chap. XI.

1. Of Fairy-Circles. 2. Questions propounded concerning Witches having their bodies, as also concerning their Transformation into bestial shapes. 3. That the Resons of Wierus and Rennigius against reall Transformation are but weak. 4. The Probabilities for, and the Manner of, reall Transformation. 5. An argumentation for their being out of their bodies in their Ecstasies. 6. That the Soul's leaving the Body thus is not Death, nor her return any proper Miracle. 7. That it is in some cases most easie and natural to acknowledge they do leave their bodies, with an instance out of Wierus that suits to that purpose. 8. The Author's Scepticism in the point, with a favourable interpretation of the proper extravagances of Temper in Bodinus and Des-Cartes.

1. It might be here very seasonable, upon the foregoing Story, to enquire into the nature of those large dark Rings in the grass which they call Fairy-Circles, whether they be the Rendezvous of Witches or the dancing-places of those little Puppet-Spirits which they call Elves or Fairies. But these curiosities I leave to more busie wits. I am onely intent now upon my serious purpose of proving there are spirits; which I think I have made a pretty good progress in already, and have produced such Narrations as cannot but gain credit with such as are not perversly and wilfully incredulous.

2. There is another more profitable Question started, if it could be decided, concerning these Night-revellings of Witches, Whether they be not sometimes there, their Bodies lying at home; as sundry Relations seem to favour that opinion: ** Magor. Dæmonom. lib. 2. cap. 5.
* Remig. Dæmonolatr. lib. 1. cap. 14. Bodinus is for it, * Remigius is against it.

It is the same Question, Whether when Witches or Wizards profess they will tell what is done within so many miles compass, and afterwards to give a proof of their skill, first anoint their Bodies, and then fall down dead in a manner, and so lie a competent time sensless, whether, I say, their Souls goe out of their Bodies, or all be but represented to their Imagination.

We may adde a third, which may haply better fetch off the other two; and that is concerning your Bodin. Magor. Dæmon. lib.2. cap. 6.Λυκάνθρωποι (which the Germans call Were-Wolff the French Loup garous) Men transformed into Wolves: and there is much-what the same reason of other Transformations. I shall not trouble you with any Histories of them, though I might produce many. But as well those that hold it is but a delusion of the Devil, & mere Tragedies in Dreams, as they that say they are real transactions, do acknowledge, that those parties that have confessed themselves thus transformed have been weary and sore with running, have been wounded, and the like. Bodinus here also is deserted of Remig. Dæmonolatr. l. 2. c. 5.Remigius, who is of the same minde with Wierus, that sly, smooth Physician, and faithful Patron of Witches, who will be sure to load the Devil as much as he can, his shoulders being more able to bear it, and so to ease the Haggs.

3. But for mine own part, though I will not undertake to decide the Controversie; yet I think it not amiss to declare that Bodinus may very well make good his own, notwithstanding any thing those do alledge to the contrary. For that which * De Præstig. Dæmon. lib. 3. c. 10. l. 1. c. 24. l. 2. c. 8. l. 4. c. 20.
* Remig. Dæmonolatr. l. 2. cap. 5.* Wierus and * Remigius seem so much to stand upon, that it is too great a power for the Devil, and too great indignity to Man, that he should be able thus to transform him, are, in my minde, but slight Rhetorications, no sound Arguments.

For what is that outward mis-shapement of Body to the inward deformity of their Souls, which he helps on so notoriously? And they having given themselves over to him so wholly, why may he not use them thus here, when they shall be worse used by him hereafter? And for the changing of the species of things, if that were a power too big to be granted the Devil, yet it is no more done here, when he thus transforms a Man into a Wolf, then when he transforms himself into the shape of a Man. For this Wolf is still a Man, and that Man is still a Devil. For it is so as the Poet sayes it was in Ulysses his Companions which Circe turned into Hoggs, They had the Head, the Voice, the Body and Bristles of Hogs;

——Αὐτὰρ ὄ νοῦς ἦν ἔμπεδος ὡς τὸ πάροσπερ,

but their Understanding was unchanged, they had the Mind and Memory of a Man as before. As Petrus Bourgotus professeth, that when his companion Michael Verdung had anointed his body and transform'd him into a Wolf, when he look'd upon his hairy Feet, he was at first afraid of himself.

4. Now therefore it being plain that nothing material is alledged to the contrary, and that Men confess they are turn'd into Wolves, and acknowledge the salvage cruelties they then committed upon Children, Women and Sheep, that they finde themselves exceeding weary, and sometimes wounded; it is more natural to conclude they were really thus transformed, then that it was a mere delusion of Phansy.

For I conceive the Devil gets into their Body, and by his subtile substance, more operative and searching then any fire or putrefying liquor, melts the yielding Compages of the Body to such a consistency, and so much of it as is fit for his purpose, and makes it pliable to his Imagination; and then it is as easie for him to work it into what shape he pleaseth, as it is to work the Aire into such forms and figures as he ordinarily doth. Nor is it any more difficulty for him to mollifie what is hard, then it is to harden what is so soft and fluid as the Aire.

5. And he that hath this power, we can never stick to give him that which is lesser, viz. to instruct men how they shall for a time forsake their Bodies, and come in again. For can it be a hard thing for him that can thus melt and take a-pieces the particles of the Body, to have the skill and power to loosen the Soul, a Substance really distinct from the Body and separable from it;. which at last is done by the easie course of Nature, at that final dissolution of Soul and Body which we call Death? But no course of Nature ever transforms the Body of Man into the shape of a Wolf; so that this is more hard and exorbitant from the order of Nature then the other.

6. I but, you'l say, the greatness and incredibleness of the Miracle is this, That there should be an actual separation of Soul and Body, and yet no Death. But this is not at all strange, if we consider that Death is properly a disjunction of the Soul from the Body by reason of the Body's unfitness any longer to entertain the Soul, which may be caused by extremity of Diseases, outward Violence or Age; and if the Devil could restore such Bodies as these to Life, it were a Miracle indeed. But this is not such a Miracle, nor is the Body properly dead, though the Soul be out of it. For the life of the Body is nothing else but that fitness to be actuated by the Soul. The conservation whereof is help'd, as I conceive, by the anointing of the Body before the Ecstasie, which ointment filling the pores, keeps out the cold, and keeps in the heat and spirits, that the frame and temper of the Body may continue in fit case to entertain the Soul again at her return. So the vital steams of the carcase being not yet spent, the pristine operations of Life are presently again kindled; as a Candle new blown out, and as yet reeking, suddenly catches fire from the flame of another, though at some distance, the light gliding down along the smoke.

7. Wherefore there being nothing in the nature of the thing that should make us incredulous, these Sorceresses so confidently pronouncing that they are out of their Bodies at such times, and see and doe such and such things, meet one another, bring messages, discover secrets and the like, it is more natural and easie to conclude they be really out of their Bodies then in them. Which we should the more easily be induced to believe, if we could give credit to that Narration Wierus tells of a Souldier, out of whose mouth whilest he was asleep a thing in the shape of a Weasel came, which nudling along in the grass, and at last coming to a brook side, very busily attempting to get over, but not being able, some one of the standers by that saw it made a bridge for it of his sword, which it passed over by, and coming back made use of the same passage, and then entred into the Souldiers mouth again, many looking on. When he awaked, he told how he dream'd he had gone over an iron bridge, and other particulars answerable to what the spectators had seen aforehand. * De Præstig. Dæmon. lib. 1. cap. 14.* Wierus acknowledgeth the truth of the Relation, but will by all means have it be the Devil, not the Soul of the Man; which he doth in a tender regard to the Witches, that from such a truth as this they might not be made so obnoxious to suspicion that their Ecstasies are not mere Dreams and Delusions of the Devil, but are accompanied with reall effects.

8. I will not take upon me to decide so nice a Controversie, onely I will make bold to intermeddle thus far, as to pronounce Bodinus his opinion not at all unworthy of a rational and sagacious man: and that though, by his being much addicted to such like speculations, he might attribute some natural effects to the ministery of Spirits, when there was no need so to doe; yet his Judgement in other things of this kinde is no more to be slighted for that, then Cartesius, that stupendious Mechanical Wit, is to be disallowed in those excellent inventions of the causes of those more general Phænomena of Nature, because by his success in those he was imboldened to enlarge his Principles too far, and to assert that Animals themselves were mere Machinas: like Aristoxenus the Musician, that made the Soul nothing else but an Harmony; of whom Tully pleasantly observes, Quòd non recessit ab arte sua.

Every Genius and Temper, as the sundry sorts of Beasts and living Creatures, have their proper excrement: and it is the part of a wise man to take notice of it, and to chuse what is profitable, as well as to abandon what is useless and excrementitious.