On the Illusions of Demons

DEDICATORY

I feel more and more daily how much more [this poison] breathes out than ever before. That old deceiver A reference to the Devil observes every opportunity with such vigilance, while those whose duty it was to strike and utterly overthrow his bulwarks with the engines of Gospel doctrine Gospel doctrine; the teachings of the New Testament day and night have sleepily permitted his arts.

While, therefore, almost all theologians turn a blind eye in silence to this grave impiety; while physicians tolerate the falsehood of opinions regarding the causes of diseases and their ungodly cures; while legal experts here pronounce sentences based on conviction, through a long series of years and tradition—not so much discussed by reason as seized through a certain prejudice without contradiction; while, finally, I hear no one who, pitying mortals, has either opened this whole labyrinth Weyer uses the "labyrinth" as a metaphor for the confusing and illogical nature of witch trials to us or at least applied a hand to healing this fatal wound: it seemed worthwhile to me if I—like a jackdaw among the Muses original Greek: "koloiòs en taîs mousais," a classical proverb for an unlearned or simple person speaking among experts—might at least shake the lethargy from others with my chatter.

I hoped to provide some sort of opportunity, through a more extensive discourse and whatever small demonstration I can offer, for more deeply examining and discussing this arduous matter, which brings the greatest insult to our Christian religion.

A wicked opinion is an indelible stain.

Although I was not unaware that the stubbornness of a wicked opinion held without reason is an indelible stain original: "tinctura," literally a dye or tint that cannot be washed away, as is skillfully written by our Galen Galen of Pergamon (129–216 AD), the most influential physician of antiquity in these words: “There is no dye so hard to remove as the passion of self-directed reasoning for wretched dogmas. For it is not possible to persuade those who have been nurtured by them...” original Greek: "esti de oudemia baphē dyspoios houtōs, hōs to tou auth_ logismou pros ta mochthēra dogmata pathos. ou gar esti metapeisai tous autois syntrophon..."