The Phantom World

es combines with them to deceive the simple; but oftener, without the evil spirit being any otherwise a party to it, wicked, corrupt, and interested men, artful and deceptive, abuse the simplicity bot

him in which he has no share; they give him the honor of predictions, revelations, secrets, and discoveries, which are by no means the effect of his power, or pen

so many persons are infatuated with the power of charms and convicted of holding commerce with the devil, to procure a number of effects which pass for supernatural. Now it is the folly, the vain credulity, the prepossession of such people that the law of God interdicts, that Moses condemns to death, and that the Christian Church punishes by its censures, and which the secular judges repress with the greatest rigor. If in all these things there was nothing but a diseased i

gicians of Pharaoh, that of Simon, of Bar-Jesus, of the Pythoness of the Acts of the Apostles? Did not the first-mentioned perform many wonders before Pharaoh? Did not Simon the magician rise into the air by means of the devil? Did n

reality are demonstrated. He shows that he believes there are magicians; he shows by Scripture, both in the Old and New Testament, and by the authority of the ancient fathers, some passages from whose works are cited in that

profane, concur in maintaining this truth. In all kinds of writers we may remark an infinity of stories of magic, spells and sorcery. The Parliaments of France, and t

the same rules of jurisprudence in what concerns magic and sorcery; that they acknowledged the existence of such things and condemn them. This author cites several facts, and several sentences given on this matter in the Parliaments of Paris, Aix,

us, and to condemn those who practice magic, sorcery, spells, and crimes of the same nature, to death, and the most rigorous punishments, if they were merely illusive, and the effect only of a diseased and prejudiced imagination? Father le Brun, of the Oratoire, who has written so well upon the subject of superstitions, substantiates the fact that the Parliament of Paris recognizes that there are sorcerers, and that it punish

who would maintain the contrary. He shows that magicians and those who make use of charms, ought to be punished and held in execration; but he adds that no punishment must be inflicted till after cert

ies, there to pay homage to the devil. The Capitularies of the kings[141] recommend the pastors to instruct the faithful on the subject of what is termed the Sabbath; at any r

banishment. The Ordonnances of Charles VIII. in 1490, and of Charles IX. in the States of Orleans in 1560, express themselves formally on this point, and they were renewed by King Louis XIV. in 1682. The third article

ly, even to the pain of death, conformably to the ancient Capitularies of the kingdom,[142] and the royal Ordonnances. Bodin, who wrote in

de use of malpractices towards animals, and having thus killed a great number in Champagne. Hocque died suddenly, miserably, and in despair, after having discovered, when drunken with wine, to

Paris acknowledges that the spells by which people do injury to their neighbors ought to be rigorously punished; that the devil has very extensive power, which he too often exercises over men and animals, and that he would exercise it oftener, and with greater extension and fury, if he were not limited and hindered by the power of God, and

tno

Acts x

age 31,

iii de Sortilegiis et

ar. in 872, x

Eph. v