remedy; the sorcerer will accomplish nothing, because there is present a spirit at enmity to that of which he is persuaded. For the cause of the healing lies in the virtue of the trusting spirit being in agreement with that of the patient.” So says Auger Ferrier.
Again, witches make use of characters and words when they heal, and yet nothing can be more certain than that such words and characters have no healing property. For who will maintain that the letters P and A are good for the malady of the eyes? Who will believe that the words Abracadabra Abracadabra, etc. drive away the fever? Who will assert that the verses Gaspar fert myrrham, etc. preserve the patient from the falling sickness? Who will believe that the verse which Cæsar pronounced had the power to prevent his bed from being overset? Or that Ulysses was cured of his bloody flux by saying certain words? It enrages me to speak of the other obscure and barbaric words which these people use for the scrofula, for dislocated bones, for the bite of a mad dog, for the toothache and the gout. For they claim to cure all sorts of ills by their words and characters. This may be seen from the case of Paracelsus, who should have made himself the richest man in Europe; but perhaps he took no payment in money. For that is the common practice of witches, who are content to receive as payment the soul of him who consults them for their Master, from whom they have learned this trick, so that by this means the number of those who have recourse to their remedies may be increased. No, no:
