# An Examen of Witches/Chapter 43

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Chapter XLIII.
Witches must be Shaved and their Clothes Changed.
It remains for us to consider two other points concerning this witch: first, why her hair was cut; and secondly, why she was stripped to see if there was any mark upon her.
As for the first, it has always been the custom to take this precaution against witches, and to shave off all their hair when they fall into the hands of justice, in order to draw the truth from them more easily. Philost. vita Apollo. Aemig. Demon. III. 9.The Emperor Domitian did so to the Philosopher of Tyana, and several after him have done the same with advantage. There have even been witches who have begged the Judge to have their hair cut, saying that otherwise it would be impossible for them to confess the truth.
v. Marsil. in pract. d. nunc vivendum nu. 52. Bodin, Demonom. IV. 1.Now this is because witches have drugs which procure taciturnity, which is otherwise called the Spell of Silence, which they hide in their hair; and as long as they carry them they will never confess; and they feel no pain when they are tortured, when it is chiefly necessary to shave them. And since they frequently conceal ​these spells in their clothing, for this reason they are required to change their clothes.
Remy.Yet there are those who have condemned this practice as superstitious; but for my part I see no harm in it. For although the Spell of Silence is in itself of no profit to witches, yet it is a fact that they themselves firmly believe it to be so; and this it is which causes them to lose all feeling, in exactly the same sort as we find that some men die and others are cured, merely through their lively expectation of death or of health. Ovid writes: I have seen a dying man revived by hope. This presentiment or imagination was the cause of the death of a priest named Jean de Jean at the time when Strozzi was defeated with his army of Terceres in the Isle of S. Michel. For this priest, being the Maréchal de Camp’s chaplain, and finding himself aboard the galleon S. Matthieu, driven back to the last line of defence, died without being hurt at all through sheer terror and fear induced by the sight of the fires thrown by the French and the sound of the cannon, as I learn from the history of Portugal. De occult. philoso. c. 6.Again, Paracelsus says that it is imagination alone which causes the plague, or a man’s bravery or cowardice. And therefore, in my opinion, it is permissible to shave the hair of witches and to change their clothes, in order to deprive them of the firm faith which they have in this spell which may be hidden in their hair or their clothing.
Another reason which persuades me that there is no harm in this practice is that it is certain that witches, when they are shaved, are much ​tenderer and more susceptible to pain than those who are not shaved.
There have been cases of more cunning witches who have swallowed drugs to deaden their senses. And this is an easy matter for them to do, for even salt dissolved in clear water is unhappily productive of this result. Criminals nowadays are so well aware of this ruse that torture has become almost useless as a means of wresting the truth from them; and therefore it is necessary to keep a strict watch upon the gaolers, since it is usually they who procure such drugs for their prisoners in the hope of reaping some profit thereby.
There are others who use Characters and Prayers, and even certain verses and passages of Holy Scripture which I care not to quote here, seeing that they mingle with them the milk of the Holy Virgin Mary, making God as it were the author of their impunity for their witchcrafts: God, I say, who only commands us to punish the wicked, and to whom the sacrifice which the Magistrate and Justice make of such persons is pleasant and agreeable. But there can be no doubt that such witches also swallow drugs to deaden their senses, just as do those of whom we have just spoken. Chap. 26.For we have shown elsewhere that no words or characters are of any virtue as spells or charms.
I hold also that it is no more permissible to use such words, as some do, to cause the accused to confess when he is at the torture, than it is to use them for any other purpose. The reader is referred to my Instruction to Judges.