# Compendium Maleficarum/Book 1/Chapter 1

Compendium Maleficarum
Book I ☆ Chapter I
The Nature and Extent of the Force of Imagination.
Argument.
Many authors have written at length concerning the force of imagination: for example Pico della Mirandola, De Imaginationibus; Marsilio Ficino, De Theologia Platonica, Book 13; Alonso Tostado, On Genesis, Chapter 30; Miguel de Medina, De Recta in Deum Fide, II, 7; Leonard Vair, De Fascino, II, 3; and countless others. All are agreed that the imagination is a most potent force; and both by argument and by experience they prove that a man’s own body may be most extensively affected by his imagination. For they argue that as the imagination examines the images of objects perceived by the senses, it excites in the appetitive faculty either fear or shame or anger or sorrow; and these emotions so affect a man with heat or cold that his body either grows pale or reddens, and he consequently becomes joyful and exultant, or torpid and dejected. Therefore S. Thomas (Contra Gent. III, 103) has well said that a man’s body can be affected by his imagination in every way which is naturally correspondent with the imaginative faculty, such as local motion in those ​who are asleep; but that his other bodily dispositions which bear no natural relation with the imagination cannot be so affected; so that imagination cannot, for example, cause any man to add one cubit to his stature.
The argument is proved also by the daily experience of sleep-walkers who do wonderful things in their sleep: for it is agreed that such things are done through the power of imagination while the senses are asleep. Many such matters are discussed by Martin Delrio, Disquisitiones Magicae, Quaest. I, 3.
Examples.
Martin Delrio tells of what happened at a monastery at Liège a few years ago. There was a certain lay brother whose duty it was during the day to teach the rudiments of the Catechism to a class of boys: and when he slept his thoughts were occupied with the same subject, so that he used to teach in his sleep, encouraging and scolding the boys as loudly and fervently as he did when he was awake; and in this way he disturbed the sleep of those near him. Another lay brother who slept next to him often complained to him about it; and one day he jokingly threatened that, if he made that noise again, he would get up in the night and go to his bed and beat him with a rope whip. And what did Gundislaus, as his name was, do? In the middle of the night he arose in his sleep and went from his bed to his fellow’s cubicle with a pair of scissors in his hand which he pointed straight at the bed of the other who had threatened him. But see the providence of God! The moon was shining, and the night was clear and cloudless; so that the brother, who was awake, saw him coming and at once threw himself from the bed on that side where the partition was farthest removed. The sleeper came up to the bed and stabbed the mattress three or four times with the scissors, and quickly went back where he came from. In the morning he was questioned, and said that he remembered nothing of it, adding that he had never had the least thought of doing such a thing; but that he had only contemplated frightening that brother and driving him off with the scissors if he had approached him with a whip.
Two friends were travelling together back to their own country and came one day to a town where one of them had an acquaintance with whom he lodged, while the other went to an inn for the night, intending to resume their journey the next day. But while his guest was sleeping the innkeeper, conceiving a greedy desire to take his money, killed him; and having done so began to think how he could smuggle the body out of the town to ​bury it. The same night the murdered man appeared in a dream to his companion who was sleeping in his friend’s house, and said: “My friend, my friend, help me; for the innkeeper means to kill me.” An hour or two later he appeared again, saying: “Ah, my friend, you did not help me; and behold, the cruel innkeeper has destroyed me.” A little later on the same night he came the third time in his dream, and said: “My friend, you did not help me to escape from my murderer’s hands, and now I am lying dead. And the murderer is considering how to dispose of and bury my body in the fields outside the town walls; and already he has hidden it in a cart-load of dung. I beg you, as you love me, not to allow this, but at least to see to it that I go to my burial in an honourable and befitting manner.” In the morning the man awoke and, terrified by his dream, went to look for his friend. He asked the innkeeper: “Where is my friend?” He answered, in the words of Cain: “Am I his keeper? He arose and went away, taking his belongings with him. I do not know where he went.” The friend stood for a while in doubt what he should do: but meanwhile he saw in the yard a cart laden with dung. The unhappy man was then struck with the vision he had seen in his imagination and, since he could not find his friend, quietly thought the matter over with himself. He waited some time to see whether his friend would come back; and when he did not return, he said that perhaps he had started on his journey, and added: “Good-bye then: if my friend comes, say that I have gone on, and tell him to follow me.” He then went straight to the mayor and told what had happened to his friend, mentioning the load of dung and adding all other necessary information. The mayor sent his officers, who stood at a distance and watched what the innkeeper would do. The murderer, thinking that all was safe since the dead man’s friend had gone away, started off with his cart to go out of the town. Seeing this the officers ran up and said: “Where are you off to, my good fellow, and what is this dung for? We have been ordered to take possession of it.” And overturning the cart they found the murdered man lying amidst the dung. The murderer was taken, and met with the terrible punishment which his crime deserved.
* ↑ “Mirandola.” Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, 1463–1494. There are many editions of his Complete Works: Bologna, 1496; Venice, 1498; Strasburg, 1504; Basle, 1557; 1573; 1601.
* ↑ “Marsilio Ficino.” 1433–1499. “Theologia Platonica de animarum Immortalitate,” perhaps his most important work, was published at Florence 1482.
* ↑ “Alonso Tostado.” Circa 1400–1455. A famous exegete often quoted as Abulensis or Alonso Abulensis owing to his having been consecrated Bishop of Avila in 1449. The latest edition of his works is 27 volumes, folio, Venice, 1728.
* ↑ “Miguel de Medina.’’ 1489–1578. A Spanish Franciscan, esteemed as one of the most distinguished theologians of his day. “Annales Ordinis Minorum,” xix, xxi.
* ↑ “Leonard Vair.” Born at Benevento, of Spanish descent, c. 1540; Bishop of Pozzuoli, where he died in 1603. His “De Fascino,” Libri III, Paris, 1583; Venetiis apud Aldum, 1589, is a work of singular erudition.
* ↑ “Martin Delrio.” This famous Jesuit scholar was born at Antwerp, 17 May, 1551, and died at Louvain, 19 October, 1608. His encyclopaedic “Disquisitionum Magicarum Libri Sex,” 3 vols., 5to, 1599, was frequently reprinted. Of these the folio, 1603, Mainz, is among the most highly esteemed. It is sometimes said that the first edition of Delrio’s work was Mainz, 1593, but this folio is a mere myth.
* ↑ “Delrio.” “Disquisitiones Magicae,” III, q. 3.
* ↑ “Two friends.” This history is very famous in English literature as having been introduced by Chaucer into the Nonne Preestes Tale of the Cok and Hen, Chauntecleer and Pertelote. Guazzo had it from Cicero, “De Diuinatione,” I, 27. It is also related by Valerius Maximus, I, 7 (“De Somniis”), where Warton wrongly supposed that Chaucer had found it. But it is plain that Cicero was the author to whom Chaucer refers, since in the “De Diuinatione” are two histories and both these the poet gives, but in a changed order and notes before the second narrative: And certes, in the same book I rede, Right in the nexte chapitre after this …