The Anatomy of Melancholy

Some of these were absolutely good, such as gods; some evil; some neither, “between gods and humans,” such as heroes and daemons, which governed people and were called genii. Or, as Proclus and Iamblichus maintain, they are intermediaries between God and humans: Principalities and Princes that commanded and ruled kings and countries. Perhaps they had different places in the spheres, since the higher each sphere stands, the more excellent its inhabitants are.

Presumably this is what Galileo Galilei and Kepler are aiming at in the Starry Messenger, with its inhabitants of Saturn and Jupiter; and what Tycho Brahe touches on or hints at in one of his letters. But Zanchi rightly rejects these ideas, in book 4, chapter 3; so does Peter Martyr in his commentary on Samuel 28.

Thus, according to these men, the number of ethereal spirits must necessarily be infinite. For if what some of our mathematicians say is true—if a stone could fall from the starry heaven, or eighth sphere, travelling a hundred miles every hour, it would take sixty-five years or more to reach the ground,

because of the great distance between heaven and earth, which some put at 170,000,803 miles—then, besides the further heavens, whether crystalline or watery, which Magini adds and which perhaps contain as much space again, how many such spirits could it hold? Yet for all this, Thomas Aquinas, Albertus and most others hold that there are far more angels than devils.

But whether there are more or fewer, “What is above us is no concern of ours.” However, as Martianus foolishly supposes, “Ethereal spirits do not concern themselves with human affairs”: they do not care about us, attend to our actions or look after us. Presumably those ethereal spirits have other worlds to reign over or business to attend to.

For now we need speak only briefly of the spirits or devils beneath the moon. As for the rest, our theologians conclude that the devil has no power over the stars or heavens. “With spells they can draw the moon down from heaven,” and so on: these are poetic fictions. That they can “halt the water in rivers and turn the stars backwards,” as Canidia does in Horace—it is all false.

They are confined to this world beneath the moon until Judgement Day, and can act only within the four elements and as God permits. Therefore, although others classify these sublunary devils differently according to their respective places and offices, Psellus distinguishes six kinds: fiery, aerial, terrestrial, watery and subterranean devils, besides fairies, satyrs, nymphs and so forth.

Fiery spirits or devils commonly act through comets, fiery dragons or will-o’-the-wisps, which often lead people “into rivers or over precipices,” says Bodin, book 2 of his Theatre of Nature, folio 221.

“If travellers wish to ward them off,” he says, “they must call loudly upon God or worship lying face down with their face touching the ground; and for this protective charm we must give our ancestors credit,” and so on. They also counterfeit suns, moons and often stars, and settle on ships’ masts: “They are seen at the tops of ships,” and are called the Dioscuri.