The Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft, chapter 17: Of the sorce and efficacy of Words or Charms (part 2 of 4)

These are the most material passages that in our reading we can find in credible and learned Authors, to prove thereby the effects of charms de facto, and we confess they are all short, and not sufficiently evidential, as such a case may justly require; and therefore we shall here add some testimonies of good Authors that do strongly affirm and aver the same. As not to stand upon the authorities of the Cabalists, Platonists or Arabians, we find the truth of the charming of Serpents avouched by Paracelsus (whose credit in this point, may be equivalent to any others) who saith thus: But (he saith) answer me from whence is this, that a Serpent in Helvetia, Algovia, or Suevia, doth understand the Greek Idions, Osy; Osya, Osy, &c. When notwithstanding the Greek tongue is not so common in this age, with the Helvetians, Algovians, or Suevians, that the venenous worms should be able to learn it? Tell me (he saith) how, where and from what causes; Serpents do understand these words, or in what Academics have they learned them, that they should forthwith at the first hearing of those words, stop their ears, with their tail turned back, lest they should be compelled to hear the words again reiterated? For assoon as they hear them, they contrary to their nature and cunning do forthwith lie immoveable, and do pursue or hurt no man with their venemous biting, when notwithstanding otherwise they on the sudden fly from the noise of a mans going as soon as they hear it, and turn into their holes. From whence it is manifest that Paracelsus knew of his own experience that the charm (which it seems he knew) would make Serpents lie immoveable, and so that there was power and efficacy in words naturally without superstition to work and operate.

Also the learned person Tobias Tandlerus Doctor of Physick and publick Professor at Witteberge, in his smart and pithy Oration de fascino & incantatione, tells us this: That Tucci[…] a Woman belonging to the Temple of Vesta being accused of Incest, did by the help of prayer carry water in a sieve, as Pliny witnesseth: lib. 28. c. 2. natur. Histor. Who there with many examples, doth extol the efficacy of words. And further saith: They are found that stay wild beasts with words, that they efcape not the throwing of the dart. And those that render Rats being seen in any place, stupid with secret murmuring, that they may be taken with the hand and strangled.

Augerius Ferrerius, whom Thuanus calls Medicus Doctissimus, in his treating of Homerical medication, after he hath quoted Galen's recantation from Trallianus, and divers arguments and examples to prove the efficacy of words, charms and characters from him, from Aetius and others, he concludeth thus: Quorum experientiam cum ob oculos positam, & tot illustrium virorum authoritate confirmata videris, quid facies? Nam iis quae sensibus exposita sunt contravenire, sani hominis non est: Doctorum vero experimenta infirmare, temerarium.

Lastly, for authorities sake we shall add the opinion of sagacious Helmont, who writ a Book by him styled, In verbis, herbis, & lapidibus est magna virtus; and of the efficacy of words saith only thus much: De magna virtute verborum quaedam ingenuè dixi, quae magis admiror quam applico. By which it is manifest that though Helmont did not make use of words or charms, yet knowing the efficacy of them he could not but admire them.

These authorities joyned with the examples may suffice to convince any rational man that at some times and places, and by some persons, the using of charms have produced strange effects: and therefore taking the matter of fact to be a truth, we should come to examine the cause of these effects; but first it will be necessary to premise some cautions and necessary considerations, which we shall pursue in this order.

1. We are to consider the intricacy and difficulty of this point, which hath exercised the wits of the learned in all ages, and forced Pliny to say: Maximae quaestionis, & semper incertae est, valeantne aliquid verba & incantamenta carminum. And again more particularly: Varia circa haec opinio, ex ingenio cujus q; vel casu, mulceri alloquio foras: quippe ubi etiam Serpentes extrahi cantu cogi q; in poenas, verum falsumne sit, vita non decreverit. It seems by Pliny that learned men of old have been very much divided in their opinions about this matter, insomuch that he dares not take upon him to decide it, but leaves it free to every man to believe as they shall see cause. And therefore we ought not to be condemned, if we do not absolutely decide it neither, it is enough if we bring so much light to the matter that it may be better understood, though not absolutely determined, In magnis voluisse sat est.

2. Again we are to note that some Authors of great credit and learning do hold these things to be but meer Aniles fabulae, of which opinion (it seems) Aristotle, and Galen were, though Trallianus doth affirm (though some say falsly) that he made a retractation of that opinion, and this was the judgment of the learned Spaniard Valesius, who in his book, De sacra Philosophia, hath taken great pains to perswade men, though he deny not supernatural operations by Devils and Spirits, that inchanting by magical words are impossible, and whatsoever is alledged by any ancient or late writer to that purpose, he doth reject as meerly fabulous. But upon as good grounds may any one reject this his single opinion as fabulous, because there are a whole cloud of witnesses against him, of as great credit and authority as himself, and experience every day will make it manifest, that great effects do follow from the appension of charms and characters, not determining here whether they cause those effects causally as efficients, or but meerly accidentally and occasionally, and therefore in this point Dr. Casaubon saith well: As for Valesius opinion (he saith) though a learned Man, and for ought I know Pious and Wise; yet it is no wonder to me, that any one man, though pious and learned, should fall into an opinion very Paradoxical and contrary to most other mens belief, especially in a thing of this nature, which most depends of experience.

3. Notwithstanding all this, for the most part all charms, spells and characters are inefficacious, fallacious, superstitious and groundless, and hardly fit for an honest and wise man to use, except only to settle the imaginations of patients, that they may more readily and hopefully take those things that may effectually cure them. I say for the most part, not alwayes, because I grant that they do sometimes either efficiently or accidentally produce real effects. But that they are sometimes fallacious is manifest in the Charmer of Saltzburg, who though with his charms he could prevail against the little serpents, yet that great one that came prevailed against him, and threw him into the ditch and killed him. And how vain it is to put any confidence in these idle trifles, and how fallacious and ineffectual and destructive they are, may appear by two deplorable examples. Amatus Lusitanus a learned and experienced Physician, and a man of great repute and veracity doth relate this: That in the end of the Spring, the Summer coming on, two young men did go from Ancona to the City Auximum, and by the way, the one of them turning aside to make water, found a Viper in an hole at the bottom of a Tree, with a great deal of rejoicing, but with an unhappy success. He did contend with his companion, that he could take the Viper with his hand, without any hurt, and did brag that with the murmuring of certain words, he could make all Serpents obey him, lying still as stupid. The other did laugh him to scorn. At last they come to a wager. But the Viper more audacious than was right, remained always truculent and unaltered. At last when he stretched forth his hand to take her, it being stirred up with a mad and venemous fury, lifting up the neck did bite him in the finger, which beginning to pain him, he quickly put his finger to his mouth perhaps to suck forth the blood, but within a small while the unhappy young-man died by his own fault, neither did medical helps yield him any succour, but he might have escaped, if he had not put the poyson of the Serpent to his mouth. And this wofull example may be a sufficient warning to all that they be not too hasty to put confidence in these fallacious trifles. Another story we shall give of our own knowledge, and is this. I had dismembred a pretty Young-mans leg by reason of a Gangrene, his name Robert Taylor, a good Scholar, and had been a Clerk to a Justice of Peace, and about three weeks after when the stump was near healed, I being gone from home, his Mother lying in the same room with him, but having gotten too much drink, he calling upon her to help him to the Close-stool, but she not hearing, he scrambled up himself as well as he could, but hit the end of the stump that was not quite closed, whereby the arteries were opened, and a great Hemorrhage followed. And there being an honest simple man that owed the house where he lay, having a vain confidence that with a charm he said he had, he could undoubtedly stay the bleeding, and therefore would not suffer them to call up my man to stay the Flux until day; which continuing so long, the vain and fruitless charm prevailing nothing, though my man when he came did stop it, yet had he lost so much blood that he died the next day; and this may serve for a sufficient caution against vain confidence in charms.

4. Further we are to consider, that there are many notorious impostures, frauds and cheats committed upon the poor ignorant, credulous and silly common people, while some make the people believe that their diseases are inflicted by such and such Saints, and therefore they must use such and such strange lustrations, suffumigations and other vain superstitious Rites and Ceremonies. Others pretend to drive away evil Spirits by exorcisms and conjurations, and others to cure all diseases (in a manner) with words, charms, characters, amulets, and the like, when the most of these pretenders are meer ignorant Knaves and Impostors, that do nothing but cheat the too credulous people of their money, and defame and dishonour the most noble Art of Medicine, of which we have known divers sorts, some of which we have mentioned before in this Treatise. To such as these that ancient Author (supposed by some to be Hippocrates) De morbo sacro, doth give sufficient reproof, and of whom he saith thus: Ac mihi certè qui primi hunc morbum ad Deos retulerunt tales esse videntur, quales sunt magi, expiatores, circulatores, ac arrogantes ostentatores, qui se valde pios esse plurimum q; scire simulant. A most large Catalogue of these kind of pestiferous impostors, and many others, you have at full and to the life painted forth by Paracelsus in his Preface to his less Chirurgery, where he hath sufficiently stigmatized them with all those wicked marks and brands that justly belong unto them. The same also is fully performed by learned Langius in his Epistles, to whom I referr the readers.

5. We are to consider that though we should grant that words or charms had in them no energie, nor efficiency at all, by any natural power, and that the Devils power doth not concur to make them operative; yet (as we have partly shewed before) they are of singular use and benefit to a learned Physician, whereby he may settle the fancies of his patients, to cause them more chearfully and confidently to commit them to his hands, and to take what he shall order and prescribe them, and this manner of their use is no way to be dispraised or condemned, and we leave it as excepted forth of the dispute we have in hand.

There are chiefly three opinions, amongst those that grant the truth of the matter of fact, concerning the proper cause of these effects produced by words. 1. Of which the first sort are those that hold there is no efficiency at all in the words themselves, which are nothing but the sign of the league and compact betwixt the Charmer and the Devil, and that whatsoever is brought to pass is only effected by the Devils power, and of this opinion are the greatest part of the learned. 2. Are those that hold that the words or charms are but means to heighten, the imagination, and that it is the strength of the exalted imagination only that produceth those things that seem to be effected by those words or charms, and of this opinion was Avicen and many of the Arabians, Ferrerius, Montanus and many others. 3. There are those that hold that there is a natural efficiency in words and characters rightly fitted and conjoined together in proper and agreeable constellations, and of this opinion were Johannes Ludovicus de la Cerda, Johannes Branus Camisius Lusitanus, Paracelsus, Galeottus Martius, Henricus Cornelius Agrippa, and many others; and of these we shall speak in order.

1. The first opinion doth takeup a false supposition for its ground, to wit that the Devil doth make a visible and corporeal league with the Charmer, by virtue of which compact the effects are produced; and if this compact be not explicite, yet it may be implicite, and so the Devil operateth the effects, thereby to draw the Charmer into his league and service: But we have before sufficiently proved the nullity of any such Covenant, and shewed plainly that it is a false, impious and diabolical Tenent, and that there is not, nor can be any other league betwixt the Devil and wicked men, but what it spiritual, internal and mental, and therefore that the Devil doth not bring those effects to pass, by pretence of a league, that hath no being or existence.

2. We have proved by the unanimous consent of all the whole army of the learned, that the Devil can work no alteration or change in natural bodies, but by the applying of fit agents to agreeable patients; but what agent could the Devil have applied to make the iron that stuck in the Souldiers shoulder-bone related by Benevenius, to come forth without pain? surely none at all. For where an agent in nature is awanting to produce an effect, there the Devil must needs also be lame, and can effect nothing; and if either the words had a sufficient natural power to cause the iron to come forth, or the Souldiers imagination exalted by confidence in the Charm and Charmer, then the Devils help is in vain implored, or he brought in to be an actor of that he hath no power at all to perform, and there was no other natural agent applied, and therefore it must of necessity be one of the two that produced the effect, and not a Demon.

3. It cannot in any reason be imagined that the Devil, that for the space of above five thousand years hath been the bitter and inveterate enemy to the health of Man both in Soul and Body, should now be become a Physician & an healer. We read that God sent forth evil Angels amongst the people, but he sent forth his word and they were healed. But it is manifest that the evil Angels since their fall, are ordained of God to be the instruments and organs for the executing of his wrath, and the good Angels are his ministring Spirits for the good of his people both in Souls and Bodies: and therefore that the Devil should be the author, or instrument of curing any disease at all, were to make him to act contrary to that end for which God hath ordained him, for he is the destroyer, that is ordained to destroy, but not to heal.

4. But we shall take another argument or two from the learned pen of Henricus Brucaeus in his Epistle to Thomas Erastus, where about this point he saith this: What is that (he saith) that the most of the Grecian Physicians were ignorant of Demons; or that it should be agreeable to truth, that they have not judged that Demons had any power either in inflicting or taking away any diseases? For that sentence of Hippocrates, that there is somewhat that is divine in diseases, Galen doth shew in his Comment how it is to be understood, and Hippocrates himself in that Treatise of the Falling-sickness doth sufficiently open it. Notwithstanding these chief men being Physicians and Philosophers, by whom the power of natural things and words was principally looked into; they were more willing to assent to things that were evidently apparent, than take away the force of incantation by it self. By it self (he saith) Because they have had no remembrance of Demons, from whom the causes of such effects, which follow incantations, do seem only they can possibly be derived.

5. Before he argueth thus: But the curation of diseases, which are performed by conjurations and imprecations, he ascribeth unto the Devil. Notwithstanding (he saith) some things do move a scruple to me, because that some things of them do seem to be of that kind, which cannot at all be referred to Demons, in which no league or compact doth seem to interceed. For leagues or compacts seem to be contracted, for that also those things comprehended are to be performed to those that Covenant, that by that means those that Covenant with him, may be withdrawn from the worship of the true God, or that some may be confirmed in their impiety. Which causes in Men to whom the true God is utterly unknown, have no place; for neither are they to be withdrawn from the true God, whom they altogether ignore, or to be confirmed in impiety, when they have been brought up in the worship of Idols from their tender years. For (he saith) Aloisius Cadamustus in the 18 Chap. of the Indian Navigations relateth, that Serpents seeking to destroy Sheep in the Kingdom of Senega, which is given to Idolatrous Worship, they will on the night aim by heaps at the Sheep-folds, from whence they are driven away with certain conceived words, and this reason is not unknown to many others. And that Trallianus where he treateth of the stone, acknowledgeth the force of incantations in healing of diseases, and he witnesseth that Galen himself, taught by experience, did come over to this opinion. For though Galen before (as we have shewed) did account charms but as Aniles fabulae, yet this Author Trallianus doth quote a piece of Galens, wherein he maketh a retractation of that opinion, and it standeth with good reason that it might be so, Trallianus living near his time, and so might (notwithstanding what Guitterrius bawleth to the contrary) have that part of his writing that since might be lost; for I remember Paracelsus somewhere saith that in his travels he found the works of Galen, far more genuine and incorrupt than those that were published and extant.

6. A further reason this Author gives us thus: Furthermore (he saith) that it is not impious to frame to cure a disease with conceived words, and cannot be perswaded to believe it, especially seeing that those diseases that are caused by Magick, are only to be cured by Magick. But (he saith) I confess that compacts with Demons are not to be entred into, but that compacts being entred into with others, should pass to another, and should bind with the same impiety, that is not agreeable to truth, seeing that the consent of those that make the league, doth effect and confirm the compacts. Which if it be (he saith) far absent from us (that is a compact) and in the use of conceived words, by which the malady is taken away, there be contained nothing that is impious, and that we implore the divine assistance; I do not see (he saith) any thing hurtful to Religion, nor unbeseeming a good and Pious Man. For as if things that are salutiferous to mankind, should come from Men that were Atheists, we should imbrace them, not respecting the Authors: So if (he saith) things that are profitable should be shewed of a Demon, I should not think they were to be rejected.