satisfactorily to establish spirit identity, to ascertain whether the communicator is actually the individual he or it purports to be; the information imparted is not such as would naturally be expected from those who have passed beyond this life but trivial and idle to a degree; the statements which the spirits make concerning their own condition are most contradictory and confused; the moral tone which pervades these messages, at first vague and unsatisfactory, generally becomes repulsive and even criminally obscene. All these particulars unmistakably point to demoniac intervention and deceit.[26] The Second Plenary Council of Baltimore (1866) whilst making due allowance for fraudulent practice and subtle sleights in Spiritism declares that some at least of the manifestations are to be ascribed to Satanic intervention, for in no other manner can they be explained. (_Decreta_, 33-41.) A decree of the Holy Office, 30 March, 1898, condemns Spiritistic practices, even though intercourse with evil spirits be excluded and intercourse sought only with good angels. Not only with miracles but also in prophecies does Lucifer seek to emulate that God Whose Throne he covets. This point is dealt with by Bishop Pierre Binsfeld, who in his _De Maleficis_ (1589) writes: “Nunc uidendum est an dæmones præscientiam habeant futurorum et secretorum, ita ut ex eorum reuelatione possit homo prognosticare[27] et occulta cognoscere?... Prima conclusio: Futura, si in seipsis considerentur, anullo præterquam a solo Deo cognosci possunt.” (Next we will inquire whether devils can have any foreknowledge of future events or of hidden things so that a man might from their revelations to him foretell the future and discover the unknown?... First conclusion: The future, precisely considered, can be known to none save to God alone.) But it must be borne in mind that the intelligence of angels, though fallen, is of the acutest order, as Simon Maiolo in his _Dies caniculares_ explains: “Astutia, sapientia, acumine longe superant homines, et longius progrediuntur ratiocinando.” (In shrewdness, knowledge, perspicuity, they far excel mankind, and they can look much further into the future by logical deduction.) And it is in this way that a demon will often rightly divine what is going to happen, although more often the response will either be a lie or wrapped up in meaningless and ambiguous phrase, such as were the pagan oracles. A notable example of false prophets may be found in the Camisards (probably from _camise_, a black blouse worn as a uniform), a sect of evil fanatics who terrorized Dauphiné, Vivarais, and chiefly the Cévennes at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Their origin was largely due to the Albigensian spirit, which had never been wholly stamped out in that district, and which was fanned to flame by the anarchical preaching and disordered pamphlets of the French Calvinists, such as Jurieu’s _Accomplissement des prophéties_. Pope Clement XI styles