An Examen of Witches/Chapter 17
Chapter XVII.
Whether Witches go in Spirit to the Sabbat.
There Bodin, Demonom. II. 5.are others who maintain that for the most part it is only in spirit that witches go to the Sabbat; and they substantiate their opinion by examples taken from certain witches, who after having remained in their houses as dead for the space of two or three hours have confessed that they were at that time at the Sabbat in spirit, and have given an exact account of all that took place there. In this connexion, Groz-Jacques said that it was quite possible to go to the Sabbat in spirit only; but Clauda Coirieres said that, if her spirit had been to the Sabbat, she knew nothing about it. One Holy Thursday night George Gandillon lay in his bed for three hours as if he were dead, and then suddenly came to himself; and he has since had to be burned in this place, together with his father and one of his sisters. Some little time ago there was a man of the village of Unau in the district of Orgelet, who brought his wife to this place and accused her of being a witch, saying among other things that when they were in bed together one Thursday night he noticed that his wife was absolutely still without even breathing; whereupon he began to shake her, but could not waken her, and became so frightened that he tried to get up to call his neighbours; but try as he might, he could not move from his bed, and he seemed to be caught fast by the legs, and was not even able to cry out. This lasted for two or three hours until the cock crew; and then his wife suddenly awoke, and when he asked her what was amiss, she answered that she was so tired from the work she had done the day before that she was weighed down with sleep and had felt nothing of what her husband had done to her. The man then supposed that she had been to the Sabbat, for he had already had some suspicion of her because the cattle of some of their neighbours, whom she had threatened, had been dying.
Indeed it appears very probable that this woman had been in spirit to the Sabbat. For first, the seizure of which we have told came to her on a Thursday night, which is the customary night for the Sabbat. Secondly, when the cock crew she awoke suddenly; now the Sabbat is held by night and lasts until the cock crows, but after it has crowed everything vanishes. Thirdly, the excuse she gave clearly proves that there was deceit on her part; for who has ever known a man to be so tired from his labour and toil that he could not easily be awakened? George Gandillon used the same excuse when he was asked why he had not been awakened even when he was frequently and violently shaken. Fourthly, it is obvious that there was devil’s work, since the husband was as it were caught by the legs, and unable to cry out. And finally, the Magistrates of Unau who adjudicated for the husband stated that the woman was descended from parents who had already been suspected of witchcraft.
So much, then, for the contention that witches go to the Sabbat in spirit and soul only; a view which is in agreement with what Pliny wrote: “We have found it stated of Hermontinus of Clazomenæ that the soul used often to leave his body and go wandering here and there and bring back news of things that could only be known to such as were present to witness them, all the time leaving the body in a state resembling death, until his enemies, called the Cantarides, burned the body and so took away from the returning soul its casing, as it were.”
But everyone will form his own opinion of this matter. For my part I have never been able to believe that such a thing is in any way possible; for if it is true that when the soul is separated from the body, death must necessarily follow, how can it be possible for a witch, after having been in spirit to the Sabbat, to return to life by the help of the Devil? Ps. 135.
S. Thom.
Grilland, de Sortileg. 10. 1.
Richer, des Images, c. 38.This cannot be except by a miracle, which belongs only to God and not to Satan, who only works by secondary and natural causes and therefore has no power to raise the dead to life. For although one of the poets has written that Erichtho, a witch of Thessaly, brought to life a dead soldier who foretold to Sextus Pompeius the success of the Pharsalian war, this must not be believed as the truth; it was the Devil who had entered into the dead man’s body and spoke through his mouth; or perhaps made use of some fantastic body as he did when Saul consulted the witch of Endor to summon the spirit of Samuel, that he might know whether he should give battle to the Philistines or postpone it to some other time.
I am aware also that it is written that at Rome Apollonius of Tyana raised from the dead a girl on the day of her wedding; but who shall say that this philosopher, who had no other object but to glorify himself, did not first cause the bride to fall into a sleep so deep that she seemed to be dead and that when the strength of the drug had been spent and the girl awoke, he gave out that it was he who had brought her to life?
I for my part stoutly maintain that in every case where it has been a plain question of raising the dead, witches have proved utterly powerless. We read of such as Simon Magus, Eunomianus and Polychronius Monothelita, who laboured to bring certain dead men to life, and lost their whole repute in the attempt. Certain heretics also have meddled in this matter, such as Luther, as Cochlæus tells us in his Life of him; but what are we to think when such men have effected the converse of what they set out to do? For we read that, in pretending to bring living men to life, they have caused the death of the men; and as examples of this we may quote Calvin, of whom Jerome Bolsecque speaks in his Life; and another Minister from the borders of Poland and Hungary, whom Alanus Copus mentions in the sixth book of his Dialogues, and, later, Cardinal Bellarmine in his Controversies. In this manner also Cyril the Patriarch of the Arians rendered one blind who was but pretending to be blind. But indeed how should heretics have power to raise the dead to life, seeing that the Prophets of Baal could not bring fire down from Heaven, and Mani could not heal the sick King’s son, and Luther was brought into great danger when he wished to cast out the Devil from the body of a woman that was his disciple? Grilland, de Sortileg. VII. 4.I prefer, then, to say that sometimes witches are present at the Sabbat, and sometimes they are not; and that when they are so present they go there both in body and in spirit, and that Satan then places a fantom in their likeness so that a husband very often embraces an illusion instead of his wife, in just the same way that the poets pretend that Ixion embraced a cloud instead of Juno. Sometimes again Satan at that time makes himself a Succubus with whom the husband lies as if it were his wife. There can be no doubt that there are times when witches go to the Sabbat both in body and spirit without Satan putting any fantom in their place; Remy, Demonol. c. 4.but in such case the Devil induces so profound a sleep in those of the house, with mandragora or some other narcotic draught, that they cannot be awakened by any noise soever, and the husband, who has seen his wife come to bed before he went to sleep, will think in the morning that she has not moved throughout the night, even though she has, in fact, been to the Sabbat for as long as two or three hours.
As for those witches who remain unconscious and as it were dead, it is probable that Satan sends them to sleep as he does those of whom we have just spoken, and reveals to them in their sleep what happens at the Sabbat so vividly that they think they have been there; c. episcopi 26. q. 5.
Spina de Strigib. c. 14.
Binsfeld, de confessio. malef. conclus. 7 dub. 5.and therefore they can give a marvellously accurate account or it. But I hold that this never happens except to such as have previously attended in person the witches’ assembly, and have already enlisted beneath Satan’s standard.