# An Examen of Witches/Chapter 35

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Chapter XXXV.
Whether Witches are Able to Heal.
We have treated of the hurts which witches do to man and beast. Let us now consider whether they are able also to heal. It appears they are able, since we have many examples to prove it. The Emperor Hadrian was by witchcraft cured of a dropsy into which he had fallen, as Dion relates in his Life. We read that Apollonius of Tyana gave sight to the blind and made the lame to walk, and that he delivered the town of Ephesus from a great pestilence which was afflicting it. Marie Perrier was restored to ​health after her nephew Pierre Perrier had threatened Clauda Gaillard, who was suspected of having cast the spell upon her. Jacques Bocquet, one of the great witches of his time, told Françoise Secretain that she would heal Loyse Maillat, into whose body she had sent five devils, if she gave her some bread which she had had from Loyse’s house and had kept for three days. I have seen another woman who healed several kinds of sickness by her prayers; but I noticed that all these prayers were full of superstition and impiety. For example, if a horse had been stung, she would say certain words in the form of a prayer, and would plant in the ground a nail which she would not draw out again; but what virtue could there be in a nail so planted? Vair, de Incant. I. 4.I find that the Romans, who were as superstitious as any nation in the world, when they wished to drive away the plague used to fix a nail into a stone on the right-hand side of the temple of Jupiter, and that they did the same as a remedy against charms and when any faction arose between the citizens. Wier, de praestig. IV. 9.There are also others who, in order to prevail over their enemies in battle, drive a nail into a tree.
When this woman of whom I speak wished to still a storm or tempest, she first came out of her house muttering I know not what between her teeth, and then went forward little by little, never taking the least step backward; for, she said, she must not do so on pain of her life. Then she gave to some poor person a just alms, that is to say, as much bread as the poor person could eat at one meal; and to Satan she gave the largest pine in the neighbouring forest. In thus sacrificing to Satan she did neither more nor less than ​the ancients, who used to sacrifice to him in the name of Hercules Canopianus in order to rid themselves of lice, and in the name of Acor Cyrenaicus to free themselves of flies, and in the name of Apollo Parnopianus that they might not be plagued with rats. The Romans also used to sacrifice to Fever, and the Indians to the Evil Spirit, so that they might not be invisible and harmful to them.
When this woman said the prayer for the foaling of horses, she raised herself upon her right hand and usually turned herself towards the church. And when she came to heal certain cows, before saying her prayer she used to ask the owner of the animals for bread and salt; but she never made the cows eat of either the bread or the salt. She used to practise countless other similar prayers.
A neighbour of mine was cured in this superstitious manner by an old woman who was suspected of being a witch. He was in his cradle taken with a very strange illness; for he had the hiccups so badly that at each spasm (and these were almost continuous) he could be heard at a distance of twenty-five or thirty paces, and also his eyes were so bleared and covered with wax that he could hardly see. They had recourse to doctors, but without any avail; and so it was thought that the sickness was due to witchcraft. They then consulted the old woman of whom I spoke, because she had previously used certain threats to the child’s father, and so prevailed upon her with their words that she promised to heal the child. She had herself shut in a room alone with him, after having asked for a tile, a salt-cat, and a blanket. They watched what she did ​through a window which gave on to the room; and she warmed the salt-cat and the tile, and then took the child from the cradle into her arms and completely covered herself and it with the blanket so that no part of their bodies could be seen, and remained so for half an hour; then she arose and recalled those whom she had caused to leave the room, and the child was healed from that time. It is likely that the old woman, when she was under the blanket, used certain other words and ceremonies which she did not wish to be seen.
Now all these superstitions make me believe that when witches heal it is entirely due to the help of Satan. Among other indications that this is the true opinion is the fact that it is necessary to believe firmly that the witch will cure you, or you will never recover your health; for it is always necessary for the sick man to have complete faith in his doctor. Do we not see many who have no trust at all in their doctor, and yet they do not fail to regain their health?
I do not deny that it is a great help to the sick that he should have faith in his doctor. Riol. ad Fernel. de abdit. rer. caus. II. 18.For Galen and Avicenna said that the doctor who cured most sick men was he in whom they felt most faith. But such faith is not a necessary condition in medicine: yet in a case of witchcraft all the witch’s brews and remedies are useless without it. Metho. II. 11.This point has, in my opinion, been brought out by the physician Auger Ferrier better than anyone else in the following words: “If it so happen that the sick man has no faith in the sorcerer, but considers the remedy to be ridiculous; or if he is prevented from having such faith by the bystanders who in his presence make mock of the ​remedy; the sorcerer will accomplish nothing, because there is present a spirit at enmity to that of which he is persuaded. For the cause of the healing lies in the virtue of the trusting spirit being in agreement with that of the patient.” So says Auger Ferrier.
Again, witches make use of characters and words when they heal, and yet nothing can be more certain than that such words and characters have no healing property. For who will maintain that the letters P and A are good for the malady of the eyes? Who will believe that the words Abracadabra Abracadabra, etc. drive away the fever? Who will assert that the verses Gaspar fert myrrham, etc. preserve the patient from the falling sickness? Who will believe that the verse which Cæsar pronounced had the power to prevent his bed from being overset? Or that Ulysses was cured of his bloody flux by saying certain words? It enrages me to speak of the other obscure and barbaric words which these people use for the scrofula, for dislocated bones, for the bite of a mad dog, for the toothache and the gout. For they claim to cure all sorts of ills by their words and characters. This may be seen from the case of Paracelsus, who should have made himself the richest man in Europe; but perhaps he took no payment in money. For that is the common practice of witches, who are content to receive as payment the soul of him who consults them for their Master, from whom they have learned this trick, so that by this means the number of those who have recourse to their remedies may be increased. No, no:
In the same class I consider the numbers observed by witches in their healing. v. Concil. Trid. Sess. 22. in Decret. de Observat. & Aut. in celeb. miss. sub fin.For they make the sick man fast for so many days, or offer so many candles, or say so many Paternosters; and if he fail in but one point he will never be healed. For in Magic it is a maxim that if a man fails in the smallest possible point, he can derive no benefit at all.
Furthermore, witches in their healing sometimes make use of matters which are contrary to God and Nature; as the Chaldeans did in the case of a gladiator whom they caused to be killed and then gave his blood to drink to Faustina, the wife of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, so that she might lose the love which she bore to that gladiator. Democritus also prescribed as the cure for the dropsy, that a man’s throat should be cut and his blood given to the patient to drink while it was still warm; or else that he should be given certain forbidden and unlawful matters to eat. Riol. ad. Fernel. de abdit. rer. caus. II. 13.Apollonius of Tyana, to cleanse the town of Ephesus from the plague, caused an old man to be stoned by the people. To pass to the Master of ​witches, the Oracle of Delphi once replied to the Ionians, Wier, de praestig. I. 6.who were seeking some remedy against the plague, that they must sacrifice every year before the altar of Diana a beautiful youth for one Melanippus, and a maiden for one Comethone whom Melanippus had raped in the temple of Diana; and the Ionians did so thereafter. Another Oracle told the Emperor Hadrian that he would never bring his charms to a successful issue until he found a man who would voluntarily sacrifice himself; and Antinous, his chief favourite, freely gave himself up to die. All this conforms with the religion, or rather irreligion, of the Gauls, Caes. lib. 6. Suet. Claud. Wier, ibid.who according to the teaching of their Druids believed that a man’s life could only be redeemed by the life of another man, and therefore they did not scruple, when they were seriously ill, to sacrifice men as victims, so that they might recover their health. This practice was forbidden to them under Augustus. Later, Constantine the Great made a most humane use of this custom; for when he was tortured with a leprosy which was the despair of his physicians, there were certain Greeks who advised him to make a bath of the blood of several newly-killed children; but this good Emperor would never agree to this, but on the contrary had himself and one of his sons baptised by the Pope St. Sylvester, and was immediately healed by this sacred bath. For the rest, it should not appear strange that Satan causes men to be sacrificed in order to cure a person. For in every case he acts in the same way, as we read of Creon’s son, of Iphigeneia, and Quintus Curtius. Plin. V. 36.The Thracians also and the Carthaginians, and the tribes of Brittany, used to sacrifice men under the pretext of ​securing good fortune. Strab. VII.The Cymbri had nuns with white hair and white robes who, in time of war, used to cut the throat of one of their prisoners of war over a cauldron, and then poured the blood into a tankard, and as it dripped they foretold what was to happen; while others opened his belly and, after examining his entrails, announced that their people would gain the victory. And the people of Temistitan, before the Spaniards conquered that town, used to immolate more than 2000 persons every year, and all of them innocent of any crime; Vigener. Comment. on Cæsar.but what is even more strange is that they had two chief idols of an enormous size, which they renewed each year, on a certain day, made of a flour composed from every vegetable and seed which can be used for human purposes, and mixed with the blood of those whom they had immolated. Julian the Apostate, in order to know the future, delighted in cutting people’s throats; Niceph. X. 35.so that after his death they found the bodies of several of those whom he had murdered in his wells and cisterns and drains; and in another town, after having performed horrible sacrifices to the Devil, he had a woman hanged by her hair, after he had first had her cut open while she was alive.
Again, consider how Satan caused the mother of Vitellius to die. Through the mouth of Aurinia he gave this Emperor to understand that he would have a long and secure reign if he survived his mother. Vitellius believed this, and hastened his mother’s end. But I am weary of these bloody examples: let us continue after our former method, and consider less violent matters than those of which we have just spoken, by which none the less we may conclude that it is ​Satan, and not the witches, who effects such cures.
Witches claim to heal by means of a messenger, that is to say, by contriving that the messenger shall take the medicine prepared for his master. Dioscor. VI. 46.The hermit of whom Mattioli speaks acted in this manner. He asked the messenger if he would take a medicine for his master; and when the messenger said that he would, he made him take off his right shoe and place his bare foot upon the ground, and then took a knife and with the point traced the form of the messenger’s foot all round, and then told him to raise his foot. Then with the same knife he scratched within the tracing of the foot the following words: Caro Caruse, etc. After this, always with the same knife, he raked up the earth where the words had been scratched until there remained no trace of a letter, and cast the earth into a little earthen pot filled with water. After it had remained for some time in the pot, he strained it through the messenger’s shirt and gave it to him to drink, after having made the sign of the Cross; and by this means the patient was cured without any further mystery. Mattioli adds that he who used this cure was his friend, and that he had seen him use it several times, and that he had even assured him that this cure was the greatest secret of those who boast that they are of the race of St. Paul.
The following examples are similar. When a man is wounded, his doublet is fetched from a distance and a plaster is applied to the opening of it, and the patient is made to drink clear water, and is immediately healed. And if a man is wounded by the Tareronde, they take its tail and apply it to an oak, which withers and dies, and ​by this means the patient is cured. But who can doubt that in such cases it is the Devil who heals, just as he does mischief and hurt by means of the images of which we have treated above?
I wish also to mention certain more ridiculous matters, which nevertheless go to prove the same conclusion. In order to cure the falling sickness, witches would have a man use the powder from the skull of a robber who had been hanged. This is an altogether detestable practice. And when they wish to cure someone of sexual impotence, they make him piss, etc. Or else they make him go into a forest and look at the nest of a pie, etc. Also, in such a case, they make him who has been prevented from lying with his wife piss through the wedding ring, etc. Again, when a man is in doubt whether he is a victim of witchcraft, they send him to take bread and salt in the house of the suspected witch; as if the bread and salt thus taken without the witch’s knowledge had the power to heal him. I was forgetting to say that sometimes in their cures they make use of the brain of a cat or a raven’s head, which are true poisons.
In the cases which we are considering, therefore, it is Satan who effects the cure. And he does so by making use of second and natural causes, and the methods used by physicians. Bodin, Demonom. III. 2. de not. Eccl. lib. 4. c. 14.For, as the learned Cardinal Bellarmine says, when a sickness is naturally curable the Devil can bring remedies to the sick man. Or else it is merely a case of the Devil ceasing to do ill, as Tertullian says, speaking of the blind and the lame whom the Emperor Vespasian caused to see and walk, In Apolog. c. 22.according to Suetonius: “The Devil insinuates himself into the eyes of the blind and the legs of ​the lame so that they may not use these members, in order that, when he ceases to torment them, he may appear to heal them.”
Nevertheless there is always this evil in cures effected by witches, or rather by the Devil: the cure is only effective for a limited time, or else it is necessary for the sickness to be transferred to someone else; and sometimes we find both these conditions operating at the same time.
The first point is proved in the case of those who have their wounds charmed away; for this only lasts for a time. I knew a French gentleman who, because he had had some wounds received in battle charmed away, thought that he was entirely healed; but three years later, after making a slight effort in spurring his horse, the wounds opened again and he died.
The second point can be proved by the example of Mumol, Grand Master of France, whose life the witches saved by causing the death of the grandson of King Childebert. Demonom. III. 2.Several similar examples may be found in Bodin. But it has been noticed that in such cases Satan never loses by the exchange; for if the witch wishes to heal an old man, he will wish the sickness upon a younger man; or if the person bewitched is of low rank, he will transfer the spell to one who is of higher rank and quality. At other times the witch, having failed to give the sickness to someone else, has himself had to suffer the pain of it: Ibid.this happened to the scholar of whom Bodin speaks, who wished to cause the death of a child who was still at the breast, so as to heal its father. For as he ran after the nurse who had run away with the child on learning of the plot formed by the witch and the father, and was crossing the ​threshold of the room where the sick man was, he fell stark dead. In nearly the same way the Devil caused the death of Jeanne Platet, whom we held in our prisons not long since. This woman was accused of having sent devils into the body of a girl named Guillauma Blondan; Guillauma’s parents importuned the witch to cure the girl, and she at last consented, and told the girl that she must keep a nine days’ fast, during which she must every day go to stool; and that she, on her own part, would observe the same novena, which was to be begun on a Friday. The girl obeyed and kept her novena; but it happened that on the night of the last day the witch died in prison; but nevertheless the girl was shortly afterwards healed, having voided by the back passage several little animals in the form of lizards, as the witch had told her. Also she vomited through her mouth a deal of green matter in which was found a piece of coal as big as a nut; and then there were found two little holes going right through the floor of the room. The witch confessed when she died.
Yet I maintain that such matters are entirely concerned with the pact formed between the witch and Satan. For I know for a fact that a witch who wishes to heal a person sometimes casts the spell upon a beast, as was done in the case of a man named Mathieu Andrey of the village of Pierrecourt. For when he could find no cure for the sickness which was consuming him, he at last consulted a passer-by, who asked him if he was willing that his sickness should be cast upon a cock which he had in his house. The patient agreed, whereupon the stranger had the cock buried in Mathieu’s garden, and he was ​healed. But not for long, for two or three years later he fell ill again and died.
This example will serve as a proof of the last point on which we touched, namely, that a witch’s cure is sometimes only temporary, and also is conditional upon the ailment being transferred to another creature.
I shall here set down one more example to show that when witches wish to heal a person they often cast the spell upon a beast. I know a man who, at the age of ten or twelve, became as it were frenzied. It was at once believed that he had been bewitched by a man who was suspected because he had threatened the father that he would harm him in that which he loved best. One day it happened that the father’s husbandman was passing with a hen in his hands before the house of the suspected man, who asked him where he was going. The husbandman answered that he was going to see his master’s son, who was sick; and the other replied that he was very sorry for it, but that he had the means of healing him, and told the husbandman that, on arriving at his master’s house, he must put the hen he was carrying on the ground, and that if the boy killed it he would be cured; but that they were to take great care not to eat this hen. When the husbandman reached his master’s house he did as he had been told, and put the hen on the ground. The hen went straight up to the sick boy, who took it by the neck and killed it, and was immediately cured. Who, then, can doubt that the spell was cast upon this hen?