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
There is a work extant, though rather scarce, by Hevelius, under the
title of _Annus Climactericus_, wherein he describes the loss he
sustained by his observatory, &c. being burnt; which, it would appear,
happened in his grand climacterick. Suetonius says, that Augustus
congratulated his nephew upon his having passed his first grand
climacterick, of which he was very apprehensive.
Some pretend that the climacterick years are fatal to political bodies,
which perhaps may be granted, when they are proved to be so to natural
ones; for it must be obvious that the reason of such danger can by no
means be discovered, nor what relation it can have with any of the
numbers above-mentioned. Though this opinion has a great deal of
antiquity on its side; Aulus Gellius says, it was borrowed from the
Chaldeans, who, possibly, might receive it from Pythagoras, whose
philosophy turned much on numbers, and who imagined an extraordinary
virtue in the number 7.
The principal authors on the subject of climactericks, are PLATO,
CICERO, MACROBIUS, AULUS GELLIUS, among the ancients; ARGOL, MAGIRUS,
and SALMATIUS, among the moderns. ST. AUGUSTINE, ST. AMBROSE, BEDA, and
BŒTIUS, all countenance the opinion.
_Lucky and Unlucky Days._
Astrologers have also brought under their inspection and controul the
days of the year, which they have presumed to divide into lucky and
unlucky days; calling even the sacred scriptures, and the common belief
of Christians, in former ages, to their assistance for this purpose.
They pretend that the 14th day of the first month was a blessed day
among the Israelites, authorised therein, as they pretend, by the
several following passages out of _Exodus_, c. xii. v. 18, 40, 41, 42,
51. _Leviticus_, c. xxiii. v. 5. _Numbers_, c. xxviii. v. 16. “_Four
hundred and thirty years being expired of their dwelling in Egypt, even
in the self same day departed they thence._”
With regard to evil days and times, Astrologers refer to _Amos_, c. 5,
v. 13, and c. vi. v. 3. _Ecclesiasticus_, c. ix. v. 12. _Psalm_, xxxvii.
v. 19. _Obadiah_, c. xii. _Jeremiah_, c. xlvi. v. 21, and to Job cursing
his birth day, chap. iii. v. 1 to 11. In confirmation of which they also
quote a calendar, extracted out of several ancient Roman catholic prayer
books, written on vellum, before printing was invented, in which were
inserted the unfortunate days of each month, as in the following
verses;—
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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