The displaying of supposed witchcraft : $b Wherein is affirmed that there are many sorts of deceivers and impostors, and divers persons under a passive delusion of melancholy and fancy. But that there is a corporeal league made betwixt the devil and the witch, or that he sucks on the witches body, has carnal copulation, or that witches are turned into cats, dogs, raise tempests, or the like, is utterly denied and disproved. Wherein also is handled, the existence of angels and spirits, the truth Webster, John
Religion
The displaying of supposed witchcraft : $b Wherein is affirmed that there are many sorts of deceivers and impostors, and divers persons under a passive delusion of melancholy and fancy. But that there is a corporeal league made betwixt the devil and the witch, or that he sucks on the witches body, has carnal copulation, or that witches are turned into cats, dogs, raise tempests, or the like, is utterly denied and disproved. Wherein also is handled, the existence of angels and spirits, the truth
Webster, John
Witchcraft; Witchcraft -- Early works to 1800
_Polanus_ saith: _Debuisse animum ejus prorsus obbrutescere, & mentem
judiciúmq; animi humani amittere: non enim intelligendum hoc de
metamorphosi aliqua in corpore facta, sed de animo tantùm
obbrutescente_. So that from these examples it appeareth, that many
persons, by reason of Melancholy in its several kinds, have been
mentally and internally (as they thought, being depraved in their
imaginations) changed into Wolves and other kind of Creatures, and have
acted their parts, as though they had been really so, when the change
was only in the qualities and conditions of the mind, and not otherwise.
And so only was the change of _Nebuchadnezzar_, which notwithstanding
_Bodinus_, the Popish Writers, and Witchmongers have falsely and
ignorantly taken it to be a real transubstantiation, when it was only
mental: so apt are men to mistake and urge things amiss, when it lyes
for their own gain or interest. But if these persons that thought
themselves really changed into Wolves, had been covered with a Wolfes
skin fitted to their bodies, and gone upon all four, and so have acted
the parts of Wolves, then it might in all likelihood have more strongly
induced them to have believed a real transmutation indeed, though that
way neither had there been any change of substance, but only a
counterfeit and cunning disguisement: of which we shall here insert (for
diversion sake) a pleasant story from the Pen of _Vincent le Blanc_ of
_Marseilles_, and leave it to be judged of according to the credit of
the Author, which runs thus: “As concerning the _Anthropolychi_, I have
not heard (he saith) of any thing so strange, as that the Governor of
_Bagaris_, related once to me. He told me, that going with some of his
Company from _Lionac_ to _Montpelier_, they overtook an old man with a
Sack on his shoulders, going a great pace towards the same Town, a
Gentleman of the Company out of charity told him, if he would, one of
his Servants, to ease him, should carry his burden for him: at first he
seemed unwilling to be troublesom; but at length accepted the offer, and
a Servant of the Commanders Chamber called _Nicholas_ took the burden,
and being late, every one doubled his pace, that they might get in in
good time, telling the good old man, they would go before, and he should
find them at the _White Horse_. The Servant of the Chamber coming in
with the first, had a curiosity to see what was in the Sack, where he
found a Wolfes skin, so properly accommodated for the purpose, that he
had a strong fancy to disguise himself in it: whereupon he got it upon
his back, and put his head within the Head-piece of the Skin, as ’twere
to shew his Masters a Masquerade; but immediately a fury seized him,
that in the Hall where they supped, he made straight to the Company at
Table, and falling on them with teeth and nails, made a dangerous rude
havock, and hurt two or three of them, so as the Servants and others
fled to their Swords, and so plyed the Wolf with wounds, that they laid
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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