The Anatomy of Melancholy

Take one drachm of sulphur; boil it again in white-bryony water so that the sulphur is more diluted; give it to the patient, for demons are diseases, says Richard Argentine in the final chapter of On the Deceptions of Demons.

Vigetus has a much more extensive prescription for this purpose, which the same Wecker quotes from Wierus: Take sulphur, wine, bitumen, opopanax, galbanum, castoreum, and so on.

Ernestus Burgravius, in The Lamp of Life and Death, and Fortunius Lycetus give this reason for using sweet perfumes, fires and so many lights in such places: because these attract good spirits and repel evil ones; because good spirits are pleased with them, while evil spirits abhor them.

And therefore the ancient pagans, present-day Muslims and Roman Catholics keep lamps burning continually in their places of worship, all day and all night, and use lights at funerals and in their tombs: lamps burning from liquefied gold, to last for many ages, says Lazius, so that demons may not harm the body; lights burning perpetually, as the Vestal Virgins and prophetic priestesses formerly maintained, with many similar practices,

on which read Tostatus on 2 Kings, chapter 6, question 43; Thyreus’s On Haunted Places, chapters 57, 58, 62 and others; Pictorius’s Introduction on Demons; and so on. Consult them for further examples.

In such a case Cardan would have the sufferer keep his eyes entirely shut if he sees anything that troubles him, or slash the air with a sword in the places where the spirits walk and dwell—for swords and spears terrify them—or fire a pistol at them. For, being bodies composed of air, as Caelius Rhodiginus in book 1, chapter 29, Tertullian, Origen, Psellus and many others maintain, they feel pain if struck.

Roman Catholics commonly prescribe and employ crosses, holy water, blessed prayer beads, amulets, music and the ringing of bells—for this purpose the bells are consecrated and, as they put it, baptized—magical signs, counterfeit relics, quantities of Masses, pilgrimages, offerings, adjurations, and what else besides?

Alexander Albertinus a Rocha, Petrus Thyreus and Hieronymus Mengus, with many other Roman Catholic writers, prescribe and set down various forms of exorcism, both for houses possessed by devils and for possessed people. But I agree with Lemnius: it is merely a harmful adjuration, or rather a mockery, sheer deception, a counterfeit charm serving no purpose. These are follies and inventions,

among them the absurd story of a penitent woman seduced by a magician in France, at S. Bawne, and exorcised by Domphius, Michaelis and a company of deceitful friars.