“Pope Sylvester was publicly accused by Cardinal Benno with being a sorcerer and enchanter. The brazen oracular head made by his Holiness was of the same kind as the one fabricated by Albertus Magnus. The latter was smashed to pieces by Thomas Aquinas, not because it was the work of or inhabited by a demon, but because the spook, that was fixed inside by mesmeric power, talked incessantly and disturbed the eloquent saint. These heads and other talking statues, trophies of the magical skill of monks and bishops, were fac-similes of the animated gods of the ancient temples. It was demonstrated that this Pope was constantly attended by demons or spirits. Benedict IX, John XX and the VI and VII Gregory were all known as magicians. The latter Pope, it was said, could shake lightning out of his sleeve. In the latter part of the sixteenth century there was hardly a parish to be found in which the priests did not study magic and alchemy. John Reuchlin, father of the Reformation and teacher of Luther, was a Kabalist and occultist. The occult knowledge gleaned by religion from the fat fields of theurgy was sedulously guarded for its own use, and it sent to the stake only those practitioners who poached on its preserves. Between 1580 and 1595 in the single province of Lorraine, the President Remigius burned nine hundred witches.”—Isis Unveiled, 2-57. “The gorgeous standard of the Inquisition is represented as waving in the Heavenly breezes at the foot of the Great White Throne of the Almighty. On its crimson, damask face is the cross, the symbol of the Son of God who died for mankind, with an olive branch on one side and a sword stained to the hilt with human gore on the other.” “The true origin of the daily accusations and death sentences for witchcraft are traced by Dr. Soldan, of Stuttgart, to personal, political and religious enmities. Prince Bishop, John George II, of Bamberg, caused six hundred to be burned for sorcery in five years. The petty princes were not unwilling to seize upon any pretence to fill their coffers, the persons most persecuted being those whose property was a matter of consideration.”—Sorcery and Magic, 2-185. A horse was burnt at the stake in Lisbon in 1601 for witchcraft, because it could tell the number of spots on a card.