On the Marvelous Occurrences in the World

a castle, and the like. A fearful person thinking of someone deceased, upon entering a room, will judge that they see their father who died long ago. A miser at night, at the movement of a mouse or the sound of a door, will judge that a thief is present. One laboring under heroic love a medieval term for lovesickness suspects, from mere phantasia, that he is embracing his beloved. It is not to be wondered at if passions corrupt judgments, since we see many even to judge corruptly because of passion. Furthermore, it is very much to be noted that such people who think they see demons or the spirits of the dead are for the most part sick, or disposed toward a notable and lasting infirmity: such as apoplexy, paralysis, epilepsy, a twisting of the neck, or spasm, or a darkening of the color, and the like, which are known to physicians; this is because of the inordination of humors and corrupt vapors, from which the judgmental faculty is corrupted. Therefore, just as to one who is phrenetic, or suffering from a melancholic passion, or entering into epilepsy, and such difficult diseases, many and wonderful things appear, without mode and without law, so it is possible that such things happen healthily for an hour, and after the hour, they cease. Hence, a small amount of humor or a pestilential vapor, especially in the cognitive members, causes wonderful appearances and phantasias. Such things rarely happen to prudent people who are well-complexioned; but they happen to the melancholic, or the passionate, or those of strong imagination but weak reason, or to lunatics, or to the timid: because of