Demonologia : $b or, natural knowledge revealed; being an exposé of ancient and modern superstitions, credulity, fanaticism, enthusiasm, & imposture, as connected with the doctrine, caballa, and jargon, of amulets, apparitions, astrology, charms, demonology, devils, divination, dreams, deuteroscopia, effluvia, fatalism, fate, friars, ghosts, gipsies, hell, hypocrites, incantations, inquisition, jugglers, legends, magic, magicians, miracles, monks, nymphs, oracles, physiognomy, purgatory, predestForsyth, J. S.
History
Demonologia : $b or, natural knowledge revealed; being an exposé of ancient and modern superstitions, credulity, fanaticism, enthusiasm, & imposture, as connected with the doctrine, caballa, and jargon, of amulets, apparitions, astrology, charms, demonology, devils, divination, dreams, deuteroscopia, effluvia, fatalism, fate, friars, ghosts, gipsies, hell, hypocrites, incantations, inquisition, jugglers, legends, magic, magicians, miracles, monks, nymphs, oracles, physiognomy, purgatory, predest
Forsyth, J. S.
Demonology; Superstition; Witchcraft
that is, consult not the tables or planetary calculations used by
Astrologers of Babylonish origin. This therefore was the opinion of the
Romans on the subject of Astrology. Others have ascribed the invention
of this deception to the Arabs: be this as it may, judicial Astrology
has been too much used by the priests of all nations to increase their
own power and emoluments.
The Egyptians, the Chaldeans, the Greeks and Romans, furnish us with
innumerable instances of the extent to which Astrology was carried for
interested purposes. Brahmins in India, who take upon themselves to be
the arbiters of good and evil hours, and who set an extravagant price
upon their pretended knowledge of planetary influence and predictions,
maintain their authority at the present day by similar means. Nor among
the Christians, notwithstanding the enlightened era in which we live,
are we without our Astrologers, as well as its admirers and advocates;
for though they may not have all pursued and adopted the same technical
method, still it is certain, that whoever pretends to discover future
events by other means than through the light of Divine revelation, may
be properly classed under the species of judicial Astrologers.
_Astrological Schemes, &c._
Those who pretend to reduce the practice of Astrology to a system,
present the world with certain schemes formed upon the ASPECTS of the
planets, and attribute certain qualities or powers to each sign. Thus,
to discover the influence of the heavens over the life of a person, they
erect a THEME, at the given time of the moment the person was born, by
which the Astrologers pretend to discover the star that presided, or in
what part of the hemisphere it was placed, when the individual came into
the world. The erection of this THEME they perform, or at least pretend
to reform, with the assistance of the celestial globe, or planisphere,
with regard to the fixed stars; but with respect to the planets, they do
it with Astronomical tables. To accomplish these, they have recourse to
a semi-circle, which they call POSITION, by which they represent the six
great circles passing through the intersection of the Meridian and
Horizon, and dividing the Equator into twelve equal parts. The spaces
included between these circles, are what they call the twelve HOUSES;
which they refer to the twelve triangles marked in their theme; placing
six of those HOUSES above and six underneath the horizon.
The first of the HOUSES under the horizon toward the East, they call the
HOROSCOPE, or HOUSE OF LIFE; the second, the HOUSE OF WEALTH; the third,
the HOUSE OF BROTHERS; the fourth, the HOUSE OF PARENTS, &c.; as is
clearly expressed in the following lines:
Vita, lucrum, fratres, genitor, natique Valetud,
Uxor, Mors, pietas, et munia, amici inimici.
Which, translated by some English students in Astrology, runs thus:
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