On Witches and Female Soothsayers

...they have brought about. Furthermore, from the confessions of these women made under torture, it has been discovered that they performed such acts and have handed down the methods for doing so. The text refers to the common judicial practice of the 15th century where confessions extracted through pain were used as primary evidence of witchcraft.

Sigmund: But I do not intend to rely on mere rumor, for the common people easily follow what is said. Nor will I be satisfied by a confession under torture, since through fear of torments one is sometimes induced to confess that which does not exist in the nature of things. Truly, those things which we do not perceive with our eyes, we desire to understand through authority as well as through conclusive reasoning; for a proper dispute is concluded by authority and reason.

Ulrich: Surely, experience is not to be held in contempt when deciding legal cases, since experience is said to be the "mistress of things," original: "rerum magistra" as is stated in the Canon Law original: "c. ubi periculum de electione, libro VI". Whence the proverb is well-worn among the common people: "Believe Robert, who has experienced it." original: "experto crede ruberto" — a medieval Latin proverb meaning one should trust the word of someone with first-hand experience.

Sigmund: A good argument To show, therefore, that these "lamiae" lamiae: a Latin term for witches or night-monsters, often used interchangeably with maleficae and evil-doing women know nothing, this is what moves me: namely, that if these cursed women knew such things and were able to bring them to pass, there would be no need for princes in times of war to hire retainers and soldiers to rush into the lands of enemies and devastate the fields, or to burn houses and villas with fires. Truly, it would be enough to summon such a "pythonic" woman original: "phitonicam" — referring to the Pythia or a woman possessed by a spirit of divination, grant her safe conduct, and urge her to provoke hailstorms, lightning, and tempests over the lands of the enemy, and thus strive to put the enemy's land in peril. Yet, because we see that they themselves cannot do such things even if they wanted to—even if they were induced to do so by princes (which God forbid)—I judge it must be inferred that they are unable to do such things. Furthermore, we hold by faith that God alone is the governor of the stars and the elements, He who commands the constellations to obey His law, and who, according to Boethius in the book On the Consolation of Philosophy, governs the world with perpetual reason, and "remaining stable, gives motion to all things." Sigmund quotes Boethius to argue for a divinely ordered universe that cannot be disrupted by human or demonic whims. How, therefore, could these "lamiae" women, with the help of demons, impede that Supreme Mover who governs all things by a fixed reason, or direct Him into another motion?

Conrad: The reasoning of the great Prince must indeed be weighed. But no less must we weigh that which is said in Exodus, chapter 7. For although Moses performed many signs before the face of Pharaoh, the King of Egypt...