Fascination, βασχανία; an evil effect produced by a strong imagination, which acts on a weak mind or body.

Linder, in his Treatise on Poisons , pp. 166-8, believes that a body can enthrall another without the help of the imagination. For example, that the emanations which come from the insensible perspiration of the body of an old woman can, with her wanting it, harm a child’s delicate organs. But this case, that some authors call natural fascination , is useful only for its difference and has only a distant relation with ‘ fascination ’ properly called.

William Perkins, in his Bascanology , defines the art of magical fascination as an impious art, which makes wonders appear through the help of demons and with the permission of God. This definition appears too vague, it encompasses all the parts of magic, at the least following many philosophers who never acknowledge the real parts of this art, other than the appearances which it creates.

Frommann prepared a quite prolix collection in the form of a treatise de fascinatione , in which (in Book III, Part IV, Section 2, he extends fascination not only to animals, as the ancients did, but also to plants, minerals, winds and works of human art. Beyond the ordinary boundaries of compilations, one could reproach this author for his extreme credulity, his ridiculous stories about monks and his gross calumny against St. Ignatius of Loyola, who he dares to call a witch. In Appendix 4 of the book, where Frommann wants to show that the Devil is God’s monkey, is quite amazing.

Frommann, following Delrio, distinguishes three types of fascination : one which is vulgar and poetic, a second which is natural and a third which is magical. He rejects the first, although he acknowledges the other two, but are the Poets able to conceive of Fascination as being linked to Physics or to magic?

It is conceivable that a man’s imagination can seduce him; that, when inspired, it changes objects into ideas, that it distorts morality, that it makes false steps. However, without making itself evident, it also influences the opinions and will of another, which is difficult to dislodge. Chancellor Bacon, in Book IV, Ch. 3, m. 130 of his de augmento scientiar., believed that one conjectured that minds were more active and mobile than bodies, necessarily being more susceptible to effects analogous to magnetic fields, contagious diseases and other similar phenomena.

There is perhaps no more sensible proof of the dangerous communication between strong imaginations than that taken from the stories of werewolves, so common in demonographies. It is found in Malebranche’s Recherche de la vérité , (in the last chapter of Book II). F. Claude, a religious prior of the order of Friars (minor) of the Observance, in folio 20 of his Dialogue on Lycanthropy , printed in Louvain in 1596, claimed that men could not know how to change themselves other than by divine power, but could change their exterior appearance and persuade themselves of it. Folio 71 verso.

J. de Nynauld, a medical doctor, in his écrit sur la lycanthropie & extase des sorciers , printed in Paris in 1615, disputes Bodin’s view of reality and attributes the visions of witches to a mania, to melancholia and to the susceptibility to herbals which he employed, among which, were those, he said (at p. 25) who would see good and bad angels.

The Church Fathers and commentators explained the metamorphosis of Nebuchadnezzar into a cow by an attack of mania, which God had sacrificed to the truth in order to punish that Prince. Another change of form is spoken of, a man changed into a mule, in the Gospel of the childhood of Jesus in the apocryphal writings of Fabricius concerning the New Testament. P. 183, 1st part.

Plutarch tells us that Eutelidas enthralled himself and became so enamored of his own charms that he fell ill; see Symposium, book V, p.m. 682. (This is probably the explanation of the fable of Narcissus.) The same author also tells us how much the ancients feared the flourishing of those who were overly praised or envied.

Hippocrates observed περί παρθενίων [“About Diseases of Young Girls”] that the women were more likely to succumb to the apparations of spirits than men and gave as a reason that women had less courage and strength. Mercurialis thought that the bodies of women and children were more likely to be captivated because children’s bodies could not protect their souls and women’s souls were weak and timid. See his Opuscules , p.m. 276, de morbis puer. Book I, Ch. 3.

Mercurialis, ibid . 277, said that enthrallment was the cause of that incurable thinness of nursing infants, which was not attributable to their constitution nor that of their wet-nurses. According to Sennert, Book VI, prax. med. Part IX, p.m. 1077, Vol. IV., considers spells as the source of illnesses that Doctors do not understand and canot treat and those which, without apparent cause, rapidly become life-threatening, marked by a general pain and convulsions. Willis, de morb. Convuls., Ch. 7, p.m. 44, says with certainty that convulsions that require supernatural strength and canot be imitated by a healthy man, must be diabolical. He agrees with Frommann, lib. cit. p. 916, and several others, who attribute to demons the excretion of things that a man’s body canot create. Thus, as Hippocrates said, περὶ ἱερῆς νούσου , men look to a supernatural power when they have no knowledge, but do they always have a basis for doing so? [“About the sacred disease”] men had recourse to a supernatural power in things as to which they had no knowledge, but did they do so with any basis?

In the ancient calendars of natural curiosities, there are several examples of illnesses caused by fascination . The observation of similar ailments are also found in the new reports from this academy, but they are treated more philosophically. Westphalus, in his Demonaic Pathology , p. 50, does not admit that fascination is not magic. This book was printed in 1707. It seems that since that time, magic has lost much of its credibility in Germany.

Frommann, lib. cit. p. 595 ., believes that the sense of touch could be enthralled, in a way that resists the action of fire and of cutting tools and even balls of musk. This author goes to great pains, ibid. p. 815-6, to explain how the demon can produce this toughening of the skin. He went on at some length on the use of baths and mercury for a similar ailment, as an Italian doctor had done with success, who had recently published the report of this recovery, which Vandermonde translated. Man’s health is thus linked to the destruction of prejudices and to the progress of good Science.

One hardly finds any vestige of fascination , properly called, in the Hebrew text of the Bible, except perhaps in Proverbs 23:7 where, instead of the enviousness of which the Vulgate Bible speaks, the Hebrew says “the evil eye” or râ aiin , (Don Ramirez de Prado cited these words in their Hebrew characters, which he had to read as ouâ tin , which does not make any sense). Grotius explains, however, with great likelihood, that this evil eye is that of avarice, in his notes on Ch. 25:15 of the Gospel of St. Matthew. The Romans believed that it was necessary to place the gods in opposition to the evil powers who enthrall men: they created the god Fascinus and the goddess Cunina. We learn from Varron that the god Fascinus’ symbols were infamous and that they were hung around the neck of children, which is confirmed by Pliny, Natural History, Book XVIII, Ch. 4. Hardoüin, Vol. II, p. 451, col. 1, says that the children’s amulets of which Pliny spoke were never obscene. He reproached the commentators for being wrong; but we should pity him, if he believed he was obliged to support this paradox. See below Fascinus.

The cult in which the Greeks worshipped Priapus, was doubtless shameful, but the cult born perhaps of profound considerations. They had received from the Egyptians, whose hieroglyphics were known to often present these attributes of this god. They conveyed the image of fecundity and taught to the common people that nature is nothing but a procession of generations, depicted on the Egyptian’s monuments, with the eye as the symbol of prudence, (See Pignorius, mens. isiac. p. 32. ). They implied to men that a supreme intelligence ceaselessly recreated the universe.

These allegories were lost to the Greeks, the Etruscans and the Romans. They continued nevertheless to regard the image of Priapus as a powerful protector. They did not see it as more than a ridiculous object which disarmed the envious and distracted their attention, weakening their grievous stares. Gori, in his Etruscan Museum, p. 143, assures us that the cabinets of curiosities in Tuscany are filled with these amulets which the Etruscan women carried and attached to the necks of their children. Thomas Bartholin, de puerperio vet. p. 161 . described one of these infamous amulets, with those that Pignorius had already described. The latter represented only a closed hand, in which the thumb is inserted between the index finger and the middle finger. Delrio, Vallefius and Gutierrisu, cited by Frommann, Book C, p. 60, assure us that the closed hand is still used in Spain. They are made of jet, silver or ivory and are hung from the neck of children. Spanish women are obliged to touch this had, when they see those from which they fear the evil eye. See Memoirs of the Chevalier d’Arvieux, Vol. III, p. 249.

Don Ramirez de Prado, in his Pentecontarche, c. xxxj. p. 247 – 8, added that this hand is called higa which he derived from the [Greek: iynx [an Arcadian nymph]] (which makes the accusative [Greek: iyngza] ). He attributes this etymology to Dr. François Penna Castellon; but this doctor, in his verse, says that the Iynx is a bird with the power of fascination ; this is the motacella or hoche-queue. His opinion on the word ‘higa’ has no basis, but it has some relation with the word found in Suidas, that the [Greek: iynx] is a small machine, [Greek: organion ti or tool] which the magicians used to call for their lovers. Biser transcribed this passage from Suidas, in his Grecian Notes on the v. 1112. of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata. Psellus, in his Commentary on Chaldaic Oracles, p.74, gives a description of these machines: it is vague enough and one could well suspect that among these were the marionettes and automata of which Herodotus, Lucien and others spoke.

Don Ramirez de Prado was copied by Balthasar de Vias, a noble of Marseille, in his Sylvoe regioe, pp. 333 - 4. (note that Mencken, in his dissertation on fascination attributed to praises, has mis-cited this author’s la Via Regia instead of Sylvoe regioe). Ramirez teaches us, in the same place, that an old lady who looks at a child has to give him her fingers in the position called higa. We call that making the fig and the Germans call it figging; they also have a unique proverb: when they want to keep someone from fascination , they hope: er hat ihm eine feige bewiesen , that the Lord on high shows him the fig. Frommann, l. c. p. 335 .

Perkins, Book cited, Ch. 7 qu.3, and several others, rages against the preservation of Roman Catholics, the Agnus Dei, etc. These authors did not pay attention that similar amulets were used among the first Christians. See Casalé, de R. vet. christian. p. 267 . Chancellor Bacon regarded these amulets as illicit, which he confused with other magic rites, when they were used only as physical remedies, because, he said, this type of magic tends to reward men too easily instead of letting them earn their way through hard work: in sudore vultûs comedes panem tuum . De augm. scient. p. m. 130 .

Goropius Becanus reported in his “Origins of Antwerp” p.m. 26, that the most respectable women of that city would call to Priapus for help at the least accident. This superstition continued in his own time, although Geoffrey of Boullion, Marquis of Antwerp, as soon as he became master of Jerusalem, sent them the foreskin of Jesus, but the women could not break their old habit.

Although the Councils made several rules against phylacteries, they did not have a long term effect in catholic countries, some words of protection or formulas taken from sacred books to prevent fascination . One can see from the formula “l' opusculum primum de incantationibus seu ensalmis ,” of the Portugese inquisitor and doctor Emmanuel de Valle de Moura; a rare book from among other pleasant things of those that the author compares Jews to brambles which prick themselves, he concludes that it is necessary to burn them alive.

Enthrallment is the most universal of all evils and it could well be said that the world is enchanted, not in the sense that Beker used it, but because men, seduced by their passions and their imagination have created an endless chain of errors.

Julius Caesar Vanini, a famous atheist burned in Toulouse, undoubtedly believed that his system led to nothing but a healthy man becoming enthralled with another, il credere e cortesia, he said, because he thought that it was necessary to attribute this effect to magic. Or the existence of demons is known to him only by revelation. He fought them even under the names of Cardan and Pomponace; besides, he did not want demons to have power over infants who were too young to have sinned. He preferred to use natural abilities, but he was unhappy with his theories. tristi illa nocendi specie, quoe in illius imaginativâ residet, commoventur spiritus, imò & moestum induunt colorem, nam sanguis fit lividus . De admirandis naturae reginae, deaeque mortalium arcanis, dialog. 59. p. 73. [He thought that when a witch acted from anger, hate or envy, the desire to destroy rose up in him, excited the spirits and gave them a sad color, as shown by their blood becoming livid.] The spirits acquired some pernicious material that they were spotted by the eyes of the witch. As a result of this hypothesis, Vanini insisted that he had consulted those who were afraid of being bewitched if they were ashamed of turning their heads away in order to avoid it and of concentrating their minds and staring back at the magician, by which would have shocked him and weakened the harmful spirits. Finally, he claimed that a piece of coral would blanch and reveal an enchantment like a fever and that this is why it was hung from the neck of children to protect them.