certain authors, even by Paracelsus in his Celestial Medicine, who, as well as Pico, Prince of Mirandola, is to be censured for saying that barbaric and meaningless words have more magic power than those which are understood. For in such cases it is Satan who secretly causes death or casts the evil spell. And if we find it written that Medea and Mahomet brought the moon down from the sky, we must not take this for the truth; but rather we should think that these witches cast a glamour over peoples’ eyes and made them see what was not. For Satan and his witches are wont to act in this way, as we have remarked in another place.
Chapter XXVII.
Whether Witches Afflict with Looking.
Fifthly, witches cause injury by their looking. I. 2.
II. 1. c. 12.Sprenger observes that little children are more liable to be hurt in this way than are people; and he adds further that witches, by merely looking at them, can corrupt and soften the hearts of their judges. Cattle also are subject to this evil:
Verg. Eclog.Some evil eye has witched my lambs.
