Scot's Discovery of vvitchcraft proving the common opinions of witches contracting with divels, spirits, or familiars ... to be but imaginary, erronious conceptions and novelties : wherein also, the lewde unchristian all written and published in anno 1584, by Reginald Scot, Esquire.

CHAP. IIII.

More absurd assertions of Psellus and such others, concerning the actions and passions of spirits, his definition of them, and of his experience therein.

* 1.1MOreover, the same author saith that spirits whisper in our minds, and yet not speaking so lowd, as our eares may heare them: but in such sort as our soules speake tog••ther when they are dissolved; ma∣king an example by lowd speaking a farre oft, & a comparison of soft whis∣pering neere hand, so as the divell entreth so neere to the mind as the eare need not heare him; and that every part of a divell or spirit seeth, heareth, and speaketh, &c. But herein I will beleeve Paul better then Psellus, or his monke, or the monks divell. For Paul saith; if the whole body were an eye, where were hearing? If the whole body where hearing, where were smelling, &c. Whereby you may see what accord is betwixt Gods word and witchmongers.

The papists proceed in this matter, and say, that these spirits use great knavery and unspeakeable bawdery in the breach and middle parts of man and woman, by tickling, and by other lecherous devices; so that they fall jumpe in judgement and opinion, though very erroniously, with the foresaid Psellus,* 1.2 of whose doctrine also this is a parcell, to wit, that these divels hurt not cattell for the hate they beare unto them, but for love of their naturall and temperate heate and moisture, being brought up in deepe, dry and cold places; mary they hate the heate of the sun and the fire, because that kind of heate drieth too fast. They throwe down stones upon men, but the blowes thereof doe no harm to them whom they hit; because they are not cast with any force: for saith he the divell have little and small strength, so as these stones do nothing but fray and terrifie men, as scarecrowes do birds out of the corne fields. But when these divels enter into the pores, then do they raise wonderfull tumults in the body and mind of man. And if it be a subterrene divell 〈◊〉〈◊〉 doth writhe and bow the possessed, and speaketh by him, using the spirit of the patient 〈◊〉〈◊〉 his instrument. But he saith, that when Lucifugus possesseth a man, 〈…〉〈…〉 him dumbe, and as it were dead: and these be they that are cast out (saith he) only by fasting and prayer.

The same Psellus, with his mates Bodin and the penners of M. Ma••. and others, do find fault with the physitians that affirm such infirmities to be curable with diet, and not by inchantments; saying, that physitians do only attend upon the body, and that which is perceiveable by out∣ward sense; and that as touching this kind of divine philosophy, they have no skill at all: And to make divels and spirits seeme yet more cor∣porall and terrene, he saith that certaine divels are belonging to certaine countries, and speake the languages of the same countries, and none other; some the Assyrian, some the Chaldaean, and some the Persian tongue, and that they feele stripes, and feare hurt, and specially the di••t of the sword

(in which respect conjurors have swords with them in their circles, to ter∣rifie them) and that they change shapes, even as sodainly as men doe change colour with blushing, fear, anger, and other moods of the mind. He saith yet further,* 1.3 that there be brute beasts among them, and yet di∣vels, and subject to any kind of death; insomuch as they are so foolish, as they may be compared to flies, fleas, and wormes, who have no re∣spect to any thing but their food, not regarding or remembring the hole from out of whence they came last. Marry divels compounded of earth, cannot often transform themselves, but abide in someone shape, such as they best like, and most delight in; to wit, in the shape of birds or women; and therefore the Greeks call them N••idas, Noreidas, and Drei∣das, in the feminine gender; which Dreidae inhabited, (as some write) the Islands beside Scotland called Druidae, which by that means had their denomination and name. Other divels that dwell in dryer places transforme themselves into the masculine kind. Finally Psel∣lus saith they know our thoughts, and can prophesie of things to come. His definition is, that they are perpetuall mindes in a passible body.

To verify these toies he saith,* 1.4 that he himself saw in a certain night a man brought up by Aletus Libius into a mountain, and that hee took an hearb, and spat thrice into his mouth, and annointed his eyes with a certain ointment, so as thereby he saw great troops of divels, and per∣ceived a crow to flie into his mouth; and since that houre he could pro∣phesie at all times, saving on Good-friday, and Easter-sunday. If the end of this tale were true, it might not only have satisfied the Greek-church, in keeping the day of Easter, together with the church of Rome; but might also have made the pope (that now is) content with our Christ∣mas and Easter day, and not to have gathered the minutes together, and reformed it so, as to shew how falsly he and his predecessors (whom they say could not erre) hath observed it hitherto. And truly this, and the dan∣sing of the sun on Easter day morning sufficiently or rather miraculously proveth that computation, which the pope now beginneth to doubt of, and to call in question.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Psellus lib. de operat. daem. cap. 12.

  If this were spoken of the tentations, &c. of satan, it were tolerable. 1. Cor. 12.
• * 1.2

  Psellus ibid. cap. 13. If a babe of two yeares old throw stones from Pawles steeple, they will do hurt, &c.

  Howbeit I think the spirit of tentation to be that divel; & therefore 〈…〉〈…〉 Christ biddeth us watch and pray, lest we be tempted, &c. Psel. in operat. daem. cap. 14. Idem. cap. 17.
• * 1.3

  Beast like di∣vels.
• * 1.4

  But Ps••llus saw nothing himself. Probable and likely stuffe.