Dissertation on the Natural Knowledge of Angelic Existence

and that this pact is made for the sake of inflicting harm upon other men. Wierus and his followers are also in vain when they think that an imaginative meaning: illusory or mental projection power can accomplish things that entirely exceed human strength, such as the breaking of iron chains, or the harming of men and beasts without physical contact. In vain, too, do they attribute to fascinated senses the fact that witches confess that spirits appear in visible form, and that men of sound mind report upon pacts and the exchange of words. But what shall I say of the nocturnal meetings of witches and demons, of which their own confessions speak and of which history is full? To demonstrate these against Wierus original: (μ), Ulrich Molitor original: (ν), Antonius Zimara original: (ξ), and others, Bodin original: (ο) devoted his efforts especially to collecting indubitable examples. He says: "I think there is no evidence of that transportation more significant among others than that most recent one concerning the Lochian witch. A certain man of humble means, perceiving that his wife was sometimes absent at night and spent a good part of the night away, and furthermore hearing her say that she was going out either to relieve her bowels or to wash, having caught her in a falsehood with her neighbor several times, conceived a suspicion of her treacherous lust and threatened death unless she indicated the place to which she was departing. Fearing for herself from the danger, she confessed the matter as it was, and said: 'If you wish to explore and see that these things are so, you will come to the same place.' Then she handed him an ointment with which they both anointed themselves, and having pronounced some words, the Devil carried them off from Lochia to the sandpits of Bordeaux (which are at least fifteen days' journey from Lochia). Seeing himself, therefore, in an unknown crowd of magi, witches, and devils (in human form, yet of horrific appearance), he began to say: 'My God, where are we?' With this utterance, the gathering suddenly disappeared. He, truly, seeing the nakedness of his body, wandered through the fields naked until in the morning he found rustics who guided him to the road. Having returned to Lochia, he went straight to the prosecutor of capital crimes, who, having heard the story thoroughly, ordered the woman to be arrested. She truly confessed everything we have said bit by bit and voluntarily acknowledged her sin." The same Bodin, in the place cited, from Jean Chartier, who wrote the history of Charles VII, tells of Guillaume Edelin, who was condemned for magical crimes and on the day before Christmas, 1493, confessed himself