The Malleus Maleficarum

How Devils may enter the Human Body and the Head without doing any Hurt, when they cause such Metamorphosis by Means of Prestidigitation.

Concerning the method of causing these illusory transmutations it may further be asked: whether the devils are then inside the bodies and heads of those who are deceived, and whether the latter are to be considered as possessed by devils; how it can happen without injury to the inner perceptions and faculties that a mental image is transferred from one inner faculty to another; and whether or not such work ought to be considered miraculous.

First we must again refer to a distinction between such illusory glamours; for sometimes the outer perceptions only are affected, and sometimes the inner perceptions are deluded and so affect the outer perceptions.

In the former case the glamour can be caused without the devils’ entering into the outer perceptions, and merely by an exterior illusion; as when the interposition of some other body, or in some other way; or when he himself assumes a body and imposes himself on the vision.

But in the latter case it is necessary that he must first occupy the head and the faculties. And this is proved by authority and by reason.

And it is not a valid objection to say that two created spirits cannot be in one and the same place, and that the soul pervades the whole of the body. For on this question there is the authority of S. John Damascene, when he says: Where the Angel is, there he operates. And S. Thomas, in the Second Book of Sentences, dist. 7, art. 5, says: All Angels, good and bad, by their natural power, which is superior to all bodily power, are able to transmute our bodies.

And this is clearly true, not only by reason of the superior nobility of their nature, but because the whole mechanism of the world and all corporeal creatures are administered by Angels; as S. Gregory says in the 4th Dialogue: In this visible world nothing can be disposed except by an invisible creature. Therefore all corporeal matters are governed by the Angels, who are also called, not only by the Holy Doctors but also by all the Philosophers, the Powers which move the stars. It is clear also from the fact that all human bodies are moved by their souls, just as all other matter is moved by the stars and the Powers which move them. Any who wish may refer to S. Thomas in the First Part, Quest. 90, art. 1.

From this it is concluded that, since devils operates there where they are, therefore when they confuse the fancy and the inner perceptions they are existing in them.

Again, although to enter the soul is possible only to God Who created it, yet devils can, with God’s permission, enter our bodies; and they an then make impressions on the inner faculties corresponding to the bodily organs. And by those impressions the organs are affected in proportion as the inner perceptions are affected in the way which has been shown: that the devil can draw out some image retained in a faculty corresponding to one of the senses; as he draws from the memory, which is in the back part of the head, an image of a horse, and locally moves that phantasm to the middle part of the head, where are the cells of imaginative power; and finally to the sense of reason, which is in the front of the head. And he causes such a sudden change and confusion, that such objects are necessarily thought to be actual things seen with the eyes. This can be clearly exemplified by the natural defect in frantic men and other maniacs.

But if it is asked how he can do this without causing pain in the head, the answer is easy. For in the first place he does not cause any actual physical change in the organs, but only moves the mental images. And secondly, he does not effect these changes by injecting any active quality which would necessarily cause pain, since the devil is himself without any corporeal quality, and can therefore operate without the use of any such quality. Thirdly, as has been said, he effects these transmutations only by a local movement from one organ to another, and not by other movements through which painful transformations are sometimes caused.

And as for the objection that two spirits cannot separately exist in the same place, and that, since the soul exists in the head, how can a devil be there also? It is to be said that the soul is thought to reside in the centre of the heart, in which it communicates with all the members by an outpouring of life. An example can be taken from a spider, which feels in the middle of its web when any part of the web is touched.

However, S. Augustine says in his book On the Spirit and Soul, that it is all in all, and all in every part of the body. Granting that the soul is in the head, still the devil can work there; for his work is different from the work of the soul. The work of the soul is in the body, to inform it and fill it with life; so that it exists not merely locally, but in the whole matter. But the devil works in such a part and such a place of the body, effecting his changes in respect of the mental images. Therefore, since there is no confusion between their respective operations, they can both exist together in the same part of the body.

There is also the question whether such men are to be considered obsessed or frenzied, that is, possessed of devils. But this is considered separately; namely, whether it is possible through the work of witches for a man to be obsessed with a devil, that is, that the devil should actually and bodily possess him. And this question is specially discussed in the following chapter, since it has this special difficulty, namely, whether this can be caused through the operations of witches.

But as to the question whether the temporal works of witches and devils are to be considered as miracles or of a miraculous nature; it is to be said that they are so, in so far as they are beyond the order of created nature as known to us, and are done by creatures unknown to us. But they are not properly speaking miracles as are those which are outside the whole of created nature; as are the miracles of God and the Saints. (See what was written in the First Part of this work, in the Fifth Question, in the refutation of the third error.)

But there are those who object that this sort of work must not be considered miracles, but simply works of the devil; since the purpose of miracles is the strengthening of the Faith, and they must not be conceded to the adversary of the Faith. And also because the signs of Antichrist are called lying signs by the Apostle.

First it is to be said that to work miracles is the gift of freely given grace. And they can be done by bad men and bad spirits, up to the limits of the power which is in them.

Wherefore the miracles wrought by the good can be distinguished from those wrought by the wicked in at least three ways. First, the signs which are given by the good are done by Divine power in such matters as are beyond the capacity of their own natural power, such as raising the dead, and things of that sort, which the devils are not able to accomplish in truth, but only by an illusion: so Simon Magus moved the head of a dead man; but such manifestations cannot last long. Secondly, they can be distinguished by their utility; for the miracles of the good are of a useful nature, as the healing of sickness, and such things. But the miracles done by witches are concerned with harmful and idle things; as when they fly in the air, or benumb the limbs of men, or such things. And S. Peter assigns this difference in the Itinerarium of Clement.

The third difference relates to the Faith. For the miracles of the good are ordained for the edification of the Faith and of good living; whereas the miracles of the wicked are manifestly detrimental to the Faith and to righteousness.

They are distinguished also by the way in which they are done. For the good do miracles in a pious and reverent invocation of the Divine Name. But witches and wicked men work them by certain ravings and invocations of devils.

And there is no difficulty in the fact that the Apostle called the works of the devil and Antichrist lying wonders; for the marvels so done by Divine permission are true in some respects and false in others. They are true in so far as they are within the limits of the devil’s power. But they are false when he appears to do things which are beyond his power, such as raising the dead, or making the blind to see. For when he appears to do the former, he either enters into the dead body or else removes it, and himself takes its place in an assumed aerial body; and in the latter case he takes away the sight by a glamour, and then suddenly restores it by taking away the disability he has caused, not by bringing light to the inner perceptions, as is told in the legend of Bartholomew. Indeed all the marvellous works of Antichrist and of witches can be said to be lying signs, insasmuch as their only purpose is to deceive. See S. Thomas, dist. 8, de Uirtute Daemonum.

We may also quote here the distinction which is drawn in the Compendium of Theological Truth between a wonder and a miracle. For in a miracle four conditions are required: that it should be done by God; that it should be beyond the existing order of nature; thirdly, that it should be manifest; and fourthly, that it should be for the corroboration of the Faith. But since the works of witches fail to fulfil at least the first and last conditions, therefore they may be called wonderful works, but nor miracles.

It can also be argued in this way. Although witches’ works can in a sense be said to be miraculous, yet some miracles are supernatural, some unnatural, and some preternatural. And they are supernatural when they can be compared with nothing in nature, or in natural power, as when a virgin gives birth. They are unnatural when they are against the normal course of nature but do not overstep the limits of nature, such as causing the blind to see. And they are preternatural when they are done in a manner parallel to that of nature, as when rods are changed into serpents; for this can be done naturally also, through long putrefaction on account of seminal reasons; and thus the works of magicians may be said to be marvellous.

It is expedient to recount an actual example, and then to explain it step by step. There is a town in the diocese of Strasburg, the name of which it is charitable and honourable to withhold, in which a workman was one day chopping some wood to burn in his house. A large cat suddenly appeared and began to attack him, and when he was driving it off, another even larger one came and attacked him with the first more fiercely. And when he again tried to drive them away, behold, three of them together attacked him, jumping up at his face, and biting and scratching his legs. In great fright and, as he said, more panic-stricken than he had ever been, he crossed himself and, leaving his work, fell upon the cats, which were swarming over the wood and again leaping at his face and throat, and with difficulty drove them away by beating one on the head, another on the legs, and another on the back. After the space of an hour, while he was again engaged upon his task, two servants of the town magistrates came and took him as a malefactor and led him into the presence of the bailiff or judge. And the judge, looking at him from a distance, and refusing to hear him, ordered him to be thrown into the deepest dungeon of a certain tower or prison, where those who were under sentence of death were placed. The man cried out, and for three days bitterly complained to the prison guards that he should suffer in that way, when he was conscious of no crime; but the more the guards tried to procure him a hearing, the more furious the judge became, expressing in the strongest terms his indignation that so great a malefactor had not yet acknowledged his crime, but dared to proclaim his innocence when the evidence of the facts proved his horrible crime. But although these could not prevail upon him, yet the judge was induced by the advice of the other magistrates to grant the man a hearing. So when he was brought out of prison into the presence of the judge, and the judge refused to look at him, the poor man threw himself before the knees of the other magistrates, pleading that he might know the reason for his misfortune; and the judge broke into these words: You most wicked of men, how can you not acknowledge your crime? At such a time on such a day you beat three respected matrons of this town, so that they lie in their beds unable to rise or to move. The poor man cast his mind back to the events of that day and that hour, and said: Never in all my life have I struck or beaten a woman, and I can prove by credible witnesses that at that time on that day I was busy chopping wood; and an hour afterwards your servants found me still engaged on that task. Then the judge again exclaimed in a fury: See how he tries to conceal his crime! The women are bewailing their blows, they exhibit the marks, and publicly testify that he struck them. Then the poor man considered more closely on that even, and said: I remember that I struck some creatures at that time, but they were not women. The magistrates in astonishment asked him to relate what sort of creatures he had struck; and he told, to their great amazement, all that hadNow concerning this it may be asked, whether the devils appeared thus in assumed shapes without the presence of the witches, or whether the witches were actually present, converted by some glamour into the shapes of those beasts. And in answering this it should be said that, although it was equally possible for the devils to act in either way, it is rather presumed that it was done in the second manner. For when the devils attacked the workman in the shapes of cats, they could suddenly, by local motion through the air, transfer the women to their houses with the blows which they received as cats from the workman; and no on doubts that this was because of a mutual pact formerly made between them. For in the same way they can cause injury or wound in a person whom they wish to bewitch, by means of puncturing a painted or molten image which represents the person whom they wish to injure. Many examples of this could be adduced.

And it cannot be validly objected that perhaps those women who were so injured were innocent, because according to previously quoted examples it is shown that injuries may happen even to the innocent, when someone is unknowingly hurt by a witch by means of an artificial image. The example is not apposite; for it is one thing to be hurt by a devil through a witch, and another thing to be hurt by the devil himself without any witch. For the devil receives blows in the form of an animal, and transfers them to one who is bound to him by a pact, when it is with such an one’s consent that he acts in this manner in such a shape. Therefore he can in this way hurt only the guilty who are bound to him by a pact, and never the innocent. But when devils seek to do injury by means of witches, then, with the permission of God for the avenging of so great a crime, they often afflict even the innocent.

Nevertheless, devils at times, with God’s permission, in their own persons hurt even the innocent; and formerly they injured the Blessed Job, although they were not personally present, nor did the devils make use of any such illusory apparition as in the example we have quoted, when they used the phantasm of a cat, an animal which is, in the Scriptures, an appropriate symbol of the perfidious, just as a dog is the symbol of preachers; for cats are always setting snares for each other. And the Order of Preaching Friars was represented in its first Founder by a dog barking against heresy.

Therefore it is presumed that those three witches attacked the workman in the second manner, either because the first manner did not please them so much, or because the second suited more with their curiosity.

And this was the order which they observed. First, they were urged to do this at the instance of the devils, and not the devils at the instance of the witches. For so we have often found in their confessions, that at the instance of devils who constantly spur them on to commit evil, they have to do more than they would. And it is likely that the witches would not, on their own account, have thought of attacking the poor man.

And there is no doubt that the reason why the devils urged them to do this is that they knew well that, when a manifest crime remains unpunished, God is the more offended, the Catholic Faith is brought into disrepute, and the number of witches is the more increased. Secondly, having gained their consent, the devils transported their bodies with that ease which belongs to a spiritual power over a bodily power. Thirdly, having in the way which has been told been turned into the forms of beasts by some glamour, they had to attack the workman; and the devils did not defend them from the blows, although they could have done so just as easily as they had transported them; but they permitted them to be beaten, and the one who beat them to be known, in the knowledge that those crimes would, for the reasons we have mentioned, remain unpunished by faint-hearted men who had no zeal for the Faith.

We read also of a certain holy man, who once found the devil preaching in the form of a devout priest preaching in a church, and knowing in his spirit that is was the devil, observed his words, whether he was teaching the people well or ill. And finding him irreproachable and inveighing against sin, he went up to him at the end of the sermon and asked him the reason for this. And the devil answered: I preach the truth, knowing that, because they are hearers of the word only, and not doers, God is the more offended and my gain is increased. happened, as we have related it. So, understanding that it was the work of the devil, they released the poor man and let him go away unharmed, telling him not to speak of this matter to anyone. But it could not be hidden from those devout persons present who were zealous for the Faith.

Now concerning this it may be asked, whether the devils appeared thus in assumed shapes without the presence of the witches, or whether the witches were actually present, converted by some glamour into the shapes of those beasts. And in answering this it should be said that, although it was equally possible for the devils to act in either way, it is rather presumed that it was done in the second manner. For when the devils attacked the workman in the shapes of cats, they could suddenly, by local motion through the air, transfer the women to their houses with the blows which they received as cats from the workman; and no on doubts that this was because of a mutual pact formerly made between them. For in the same way they can cause injury or wound in a person whom they wish to bewitch, by means of puncturing a painted or molten image which represents the person whom they wish to injure. Many examples of this could be adduced.

And it cannot be validly objected that perhaps those women who were so injured were innocent, because according to previously quoted examples it is shown that injuries may happen even to the innocent, when someone is unknowingly hurt by a witch by means of an artificial image. The example is not apposite; for it is one thing to be hurt by a devil through a witch, and another thing to be hurt by the devil himself without any witch. For the devil receives blows in the form of an animal, and transfers them to one who is bound to him by a pact, when it is with such an one’s consent that he acts in this manner in such a shape. Therefore he can in this way hurt only the guilty who are bound to him by a pact, and never the innocent. But when devils seek to do injury by means of witches, then, with the permission of God for the avenging of so great a crime, they often afflict even the innocent.

Nevertheless, devils at times, with God’s permission, in their own persons hurt even the innocent; and formerly they injured the Blessed Job, although they were not personally present, nor did the devils make use of any such illusory apparition as in the example we have quoted, when they used the phantasm of a cat, an animal which is, in the Scriptures, an appropriate symbol of the perfidious, just as a dog is the symbol of preachers; for cats are always setting snares for each other. And the Order of Preaching Friars was represented in its first Founder by a dog barking against heresy.

Therefore it is presumed that those three witches attacked the workman in the second manner, either because the first manner did not please them so much, or because the second suited more with their curiosity.

And this was the order which they observed. First, they were urged to do this at the instance of the devils, and not the devils at the instance of the witches. For so we have often found in their confessions, that at the instance of devils who constantly spur them on to commit evil, they have to do more than they would. And it is likely that the witches would not, on their own account, have thought of attacking the poor man.

And there is no doubt that the reason why the devils urged them to do this is that they knew well that, when a manifest crime remains unpunished, God is the more offended, the Catholic Faith is brought into disrepute, and the number of witches is the more increased. Secondly, having gained their consent, the devils transported their bodies with that ease which belongs to a spiritual power over a bodily power. Thirdly, having in the way which has been told been turned into the forms of beasts by some glamour, they had to attack the workman; and the devils did not defend them from the blows, although they could have done so just as easily as they had transported them; but they permitted them to be beaten, and the one who beat them to be known, in the knowledge that those crimes would, for the reasons we have mentioned, remain unpunished by faint-hearted men who had no zeal for the Faith.

We read also of a certain holy man, who once found the devil preaching in the form of a devout priest preaching in a church, and knowing in his spirit that is was the devil, observed his words, whether he was teaching the people well or ill. And finding him irreproachable and inveighing against sin, he went up to him at the end of the sermon and asked him the reason for this. And the devil answered: I preach the truth, knowing that, because they are hearers of the word only, and not doers, God is the more offended and my gain is increased.