De betoverde weereld ... in vier boeken

(28.)

In the prejudice with which we have entered, as also the fear and the terror that overcomes us at such an occurrence, in the first chapter: as well as in the lack of knowledge of what the powers of Nature are capable of, whether to produce something, in the second, or whether only to make something appear that is not, in the third chapter; or whether also to notice the deception of people, and the power of the practice of arts, which make us regard and believe things that are only natural to be witchcraft. Of this, I give various proofs in the fourth chapter: and then concerning the other part, the often overlooked opportunity to get behind the secret of the art or Nature, in the fifth.

I begin the examples in the same fifth chapter with Spokerij ghostly activity/hauntings; in the sixth, I speak of the Besetenen possessed and of the Betoverden bewitched who have crossed my path. I judge from that very famous Parrot, which people believed was bewitched; comparing that incident with another experience known to me personally, in the seventh chapter. I go from that enchantment of the body to the Soul: and report in the eighth chapter my own experience with more than one person, and in various places, and particularly at Franeker. In the ninth, I present a noteworthy history that occurred in this city, and which has exercised me most of all. Next to that, I consider it most fitting to place the deception of Toverye witchcraft, recently clearly discovered at Kampen, and sent to me in writing after a verbal report, by very intelligent persons who had themselves well examined the whole affair. That I then inserted word for word in the tenth chapter. And having meanwhile come to light, the discovered deception of those famous practices of Toverye witchcraft performed upon the Ursulines at Loudun in France, which caused the innocent Grandier to lose his life in the fire: so I give that history the next place, which it finds in the eleventh chapter.

The instruction of the second part, now easily following from the first: I give entirely in the twelfth chapter, without more: and proceed therewith, according to all the rules presented in both, and which I consider deserve general agreement, to accept no reports or assurances as truth without legal investigation, to put the test itself into practice on all such occurrences and examples as have been reported as ontwerpselzijk fictional or illustrative.

(29.)

In this, I make this distinction, that, in order to leave no obscurity in my own work, I first let all those examples, mentioned here and there by me in the Book to open up matters that I explain there, precede in four chapters: and first those concerning the ancient Pagans, mentioned in the second chapter of my first book, here in the thirteenth chapter; thereafter those of the modern Pagans cited in the sixth, eighth, ninth, and tenth chapters there, in the fourteenth; then those of the Jews and Mohammedans, told of in the thirteenth and fourteenth chapters there, in the fifteenth; and finally those of the Papacy mentioned in the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first, here refuted by me in the sixteenth chapter.

Thereafter I go through the world with my Book, and treat in sixteen chapters (17-32) nothing other than all kinds of examples, which are most famous and also considered the most powerful to prove the common opinion: first in general, of Spokerij ghostly activity and Toverye witchcraft which is considered common and ordinary; like the witte Wijven White Women/Wise Women of whom people speak in our country, the White Woman of Rosenberg, and more such things, together in the seventeenth chapter. The eighteenth speaks of those who are said to be schoot en stekelig immune to shot and stabbing; proving that everything said about that is false.

Thereafter I set myself to examine many particular stories: and first of such to which one can give no certain name, whether it be Spokerij ghostly activity, or Wiccherij divination/sorcery, or Toverye witchcraft, and also mostly to be called Besetenheid possession; because in one story several varieties come together: in the nineteenth and twentieth; thereafter of Spokerij in the twenty-first and twenty-second, of Wicchelarij divination in the twenty-third, and further of Toverye in chapters twenty-four to thirty-two.

Of the first sort, I treat only three examples: the first of the children's departure from Hamelin, in the year 1284. The other of the Devil Zacharias, told by Liegenbolcius an author/historian in his history of the Slavonian churches, which I show as a mirror of more other fictions in the nineteenth chapter; thereafter that which happened twelve years ago at Bolsward, and about which there has been much to say in these parts, in the twentieth.

Proceeding to such as belong particularly to Spokerij or Toverye, if they were true; concerning those of the first sort, I let the famous Devil of Mascon precede, and having unmasked him, I deal in like manner with the spirit of Tedworth...