Demonologia

Part 1

=Demonologia;=

OR,

NATURAL KNOWLEDGE REVEALED.

W. WILSON, PRINTER, 57, SKINNER-STREET, LONDON.

DEMONOLOGIA; OR, NATURAL KNOWLEDGE REVEALED;

BEING

AN EXPOSÉ

=Ancient and Modern Superstitions,=

CREDULITY, FANATICISM, ENTHUSIASM, & IMPOSTURE,

AS CONNECTED WITH THE

DOCTRINE, CABALLA, AND JARGON,

AMULETS, APPARITIONS, ASTROLOGY, CHARMS, DEMONOLOGY, DEVILS, DIVINATION, DREAMS, DEUTEROSCOPIA, EFFLUVIA, FATALISM, FATE, FRIARS, GHOSTS, GIPSIES, HELL, HYPOCRITES, INCANTATIONS, INQUISITION, JUGGLERS, LEGENDS, MAGIC, MAGICIANS, MIRACLES, MONKS, NYMPHS, ORACLES, PHYSIOGNOMY, PURGATORY, PREDESTINATION, PREDICTIONS, QUACKERY, RELICS, SAINTS, SECOND SIGHT, SIGNS BEFORE DEATH, SORCERY, SPIRITS, SALAMANDERS, SPELLS, TALISMANS, TRADITIONS, TRIALS, &c. WITCHES, WITCHCRAFT, &c. &c.

THE WHOLE UNFOLDING

MANY SINGULAR PHENOMENA IN THE PAGE OF NATURE.

=By J. S. F.=

“The earth hath bubbles, as the water has, “And these are of them.”

“All which, by long discourse, I’ll prove anon.”

=London:= JOHN BUMPUS, 23, SKINNER-STREET.

1827.

CONTENTS.

Page

Observations on Ancient and Modern Superstitions, &c. 1

Proofs and Trials of Guilt in Superstitious Ages 9

Astrology, &c. 18

Practical Astrology, &c. 25

Natural Astrology 26

Judicial or Judiciary Astrology 27

Origin of Astrology 28

Part 2

Astrological Schemes, &c. 29

Table of the Twelve Houses 30

Signs to the Houses of the Planets 32

Angles or Aspects of the Planets 33

The Application of Planets 34

Prohibition 35

Separation 35

Translation of Light and Virtue 35

Refrenation 35

Combustion 35

Reception 36

Retrogradation 36

Frustration 36

The Dragon’s Head and Tail 36

Climacteric 37

Lucky and Unlucky Days 39

Genethliaci 41

Genethliacum 42

Barclay’s Refutation of Astrology 43

On the Origin and Imaginary Efficacy of Amulets and Charms, in the Cure of Diseases, Protection from Evil Spirits, &c. 51

Definition of Amulets, &c. 56

Effect of the Imagination on the Mind, &c. 59

History of Popular Medicines, &c.—How influenced by Superstition 67

Alchemy 73

Origin, Objects, and Practice of Alchemy, &c. 81

Alkahest, or Alcahest 85

Magician 91

Magi, or Mageans 96

Part 3

Magic, Magia, Mateia 99

Magic of the Eastern nations,—a brief View of the Origin and Progress of Magic, &c.—

Chaldeans and Persians 101

Indians 109

Egyptians 110

Jews 115

Prediction 123

Fatalism, or Predestination 136

Divination 142

Artificial Divination 142

Natural Divination 142

Axinomancy 143

Alectoromantia 143

Arithmomancy 144

Belomancy 144

Cleromancy 145

Cledonism 145

Coscinomancy 146

Capnomancy 146

Catoptromancy 147

Chiromancy 147

Dactyliomancy 148

Extispicium 148

Gastromancy 149

Geomancy 149

Hydromancy 150

Necromancy 150

Oneirocritica 150

Part 4

Onomancy, or Onomamancy 152

Onycomancy, or Onymancy 154

Ornithomancy 155

Pyromancy 155

Pyscomancy, or Sciomancy 155

Rhabdomancy 156

Oracle 157

Ouran, or Uran, Soangus 163

Dreams, &c. 164

Brizomancy 164

Origin of interpreting Dreams 164

Opinions on the cause of Dreams 166

Fate 168

Physiognomy 171

Apparitions 178

Deuteroscopia, or Second-sight 194

Witches, Witchcraft, Wizards, &c. 204

Witchcraft proved by Texts of Scripture 225

Dr. More’s Postscript 226

The Confessions of certain Scotch Witches, taken out of an authentic copy of their Trial at the Assizes held at Paisley, in Scotland, Feb. 15, 1678, touching the bewitching of Sir George Maxwell 259

Depositions of certain persons, agreeing with confessions of the above-said witches 264

The Confession of Agnes Sympson to King James 267

The White Pater-noster 270

The Black Pater-noster 270

Sorcery 272

Sortes—Sortilegium 273

Sibyls 282

Talismans 283

Part 5

Philters, Charms, &c. 285

Hell 286

Inquisition 297

Inquisition, or the Holy Office 297

Demon 307

Demonology 308

Derivation of the strange and hideous forms of Devils, &c. 315

The Narrative of the Demon of Tedworth, or the disturbances at Mr. Monpesson’s house, caused by Witchcraft and Villainy of a Drummer 338

The Demon of Jedburgh 355

The Ghost of Julius Cæsar 360

The Ghosts of the slain at the Battle of Marathon 360

Familiar Spirit, or ancient Brownie 361

Gipsies—Egyptians 362

Jugglers, their Origin, Exploits, &c. 378

Legends, &c.—Miracles, &c. 393

Monks and Friars.—Saints and Hermits 405

Of the Hermit of the Pillar—(St. Simeon Stylites, St. Telesephorus, St. Syncletia) 427

Holy Relique-Mania, &c. &c. &c. 431

PREFACE.

Among the multifarious absurdities and chicaneries, which at different epocha of society have clung to, and engaged the attention of man, absorbing, as it were, his more active intelligence, the marvellous and the ridiculous have alternately and conjointly had to contend for pre-eminence; that, whether it were a mountain in the moon or a bottle conjuror; a live lion stuffed with straw or a mermaid; a Cocklane ghost or a living skeleton; a giant or a pigmy; the delusive bait has invariably been swallowed with avidity, and credited with all the solemnity of absolute devotion.

If we look back towards what are called the dark ages of the worlds that is, at times when men were mere yokels, and when the reins of tyranny, superstition and idolatry, were controlled by a few knowing ones, we shall see the human mind at its lowest ebb of debasement, grovelling either under the lash of despotism, or sunk beneath the scale of human nature by the influence of priestcraft,—a time, when the feelings of men were galloped over, rough shod, and the dignity of the creation trampled under foot with impunity and exultation, by a state of the most passive and degenerate servility: how much must it now excite our wonder and admiration of that supreme Providence, who, in his merciful consideration for the frailest of mortals, by a variety of ways and means best suited to his omnipotent ends, has dragged us gradually, and, as it were, reluctantly to ourselves, from darkness to daylight, by extinguishing the stench and vapour of the train oil of ignorance and superstition, lighting us up with the brilliant gas of reason and comparative understanding, while, under less despotic and more tolerant times, we are permitted the rational exercise of those faculties which formerly were rivetted to the floor of tyranny by the most humiliating oppression!

The pranks of popes and priests, conjurors and fire-eaters, have comparatively fled before the piercings of the intellectual ray. Witches no longer untie the winds to capsise church-steeples, and “topple” down castles,—they no longer dance round the enchanted cauldron, invoking the “ould one” to propitiate their cantrip vows:—Beelzebub himself with his cloven foot is seldom if ever seen above the “bottom of the bottomless pit;” ghosts and apparitions are “jammed hard and fast” in the Red sea; demons of every cast and colour are eternally spellbound; legends are consigned to the chimney-corner of long winter-nights; miracles to the “presto, quick, change and begone!” of the nimble-fingered conjuror; and holy relics to the rosary of the bigot. Amulets and charms have lost their influence; saints are uncanonized, and St. Patrick, St. Dennis, & Co. are flesh and blood like ourselves; monks and holy friars no longer revel in the debauches of the cloister; the hermit returns unsolicited from the solitude of the desert, to encounter with his fellow-men; the pilgrim lays by his staff, leaves the Holy Land to its legitimate possessors, and the tomb of St. Thomas-à-Becket, to enjoy, unmolested, the sombre tranquillity of the grave. Quacks and mountebanks begin also to caper within a narrower sphere; to be brief, the word of command, to use a nautical phrase, has long been given, “every man to his station, and the cook to the fore-sheet,”—worldly occupations have superseded ultramundane speculations. Astrologers themselves, who once ruled the physical world, have long ago been virtually consigned to the grave of the Partridges; and floods and storms are found to be phenomena perfectly consistent with the natural world. We also know that the sun is stationary, that the moon is not made of green cheese, and that there are stars yet in the firmament which the centifold powers of the telescope of a Herschell will never be able to explore.

The Reformation, which originated in the trammels of vice itself, gave the Devil in hell and his agents on earth, such a “belly-go-fister,” that they have never since been able to come to the scratch, but in such a petty larceny-like manner, as to set all their demonological efforts at defiance. This is the first time “old Nick” was ever completely floored; though, it would appear, from the recent number of new churches, built no doubt with the pious intention of keeping him in abeyance, that he has latterly been making a little head-way;—these, however, with the “Holy alliance,” like stern-chasers on a new construction, should the “ould one” attempt to board us again in the smoke of superstition, will, without much injury to the hull of the church, pitch him back to Pandemonium, there to exhaust his demonological rage in the sulphuretted hydrogen of his own hell; while the lights of revealed religion, emanating from these soul-saving foundations, like Sir Humphrey Davy’s safety-lamp, will give us timely warning of the choke-damp of damnation before it have time to explode about our ears.

It behoves us, nevertheless, to pray that we may merit this protection, and to watch, for we know not at what hour the cracksman may pay us an unwelcome visit; for, whatever pampered hypocrites and mercenary prayer-mongers may pretend to the contrary, our worldly goods, although but of a temporary and perishable nature, are as essential to our existence and respectability here below, as our spiritual faith is necessary to our heavenly and eternal happiness above, however unequal the comparison.

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