The Discoverie of Witchcraft

by Reginald Scot

The eleventh Chapter.

Of the noble balme used by Moses, apishlie counterfeited in the church of Rome.

HE noble balme that Moses made, having indeed manie excellent vertues, besides the pleasant and comfortable savour thereof; wherewithall Moses in his politike lawes enjoined kings, queenes, and princes to be annointed in their true and lawfull elections and coronations, untill the everlasting king had put on/239. man upon him, is apishlie counterfeited in the Romish church, with diverse terrible conjurations, three breathings, crossewise, (able to make a quezie stomach spue) nine mumblings, and three curtsies, saieng thereunto, Ave sanctum oleum, ter ave sanctum balsamum. And so the divell is thrust out, and the Holie-ghost let into his place. But as for Moses his balme, it is not now to be found either in Rome or elsewhere that I can learne. And according to this papisticall order, witches, and other superstitious people follow on, with charmes and conjurations made in forme; which manie bad physicians also practise, when their learning faileth, as maie appeare by example in the sequele./

The twelfe Chapter.173.

The opinion of Ferrarius touching charmes, periapts, appensions, amulets, &c. Of Homericall medicines, of constant opinion, and the effects thereof.

RGERIUS FERRARIUS,Arg. Fer. lib. de medendi methodo. 2. cap. 11.
De Homerica medicatione. a physician in these daies of great account, doth saie, that for somuch as by no diet nor physicke anie disease can be so taken awaie or extinguished, but that certeine dregs and relikes will remaine: therefore physicians use physicall alligations, appensions, periapts, amulets, charmes, characters, &c., which he supposeth maie doo good; but harme he is sure they can doo none: urging that it is necessarie and expedient for a physician to leave nothing undone that may be devised for his patients recoverie; and that by such meanes manie great cures are done. He citeth a great number of experiments out of Alexander Trallianus, Aetius, Octavianus, Marcellus, Philodotus, Archigines, Philostratus, Plinie, and Dioscorides; and would make men beleeve that Galen (who in truth despised and derided all those vanities) recanted in his latter daies his former opinion, and all his invectives tending against these magicall cures: writing also a booke intituled De Homerica medicatione, which no man could ever see, but one Alexander Trallianus, who saith he saw it:/240. and further affirmeth, that it is an honest mans part to cure the sicke, by hooke or by crooke, or by anie meanes whatsoever. Yea he saith that Galen (who indeed wrote and taught that Incantamenta sunt muliercularum figmenta, and be the onlie clokes of bad physicians) affirmeth, that there is vertue and great force in incantations.This would be examined, to see if Galen be not slandered. As for example (saith Trallian) Galen being now reconciled to this opinion, holdeth and writeth, that the bones which sticke in ones throte, are avoided and cast out with the violence of charmes and inchanting words; yea and that thereby the stone, the chollicke, the falling sicknes, and all fevers, gowts, fluxes, fistulas, issues of bloud, and finallie whatsoever cure (even beyond the skill of himselfe or anie other foolish physician) is cured and perfectlie healed by words of inchantment. Marie M. Ferrarius (although he allowed and practised this kind of physicke) yet he protesteth that he thinketh it none otherwise effectuall, than by the waie of constant opinion: so as he affirmeth that neither the character, nor the charme, nor the witch, nor the devill accomplish the cure; as (saith he) the experiment of the toothach will manifestlie declare, wherein the cure is wrought by the confidence or diffidence as well of the patient, as of the agent; according to the poets saieng:

Nos habitat non tartara, sed nec sidera cœli,

Spiritus in nobis qui viget illa facit.

Englished by Abraham Fleming.Not hellish furies dwell in us,

Nor starres with influence heavenlie;

The spirit that lives and rules in us,

Doth every thing ingeniouslie,/

174.This (saith he) commeth to the unlearned, through the opinion which they conceive of the characters and holie words: but the learned that know the force of the mind and imagination, worke miracles by meanes thereof; so as the unlearned must have externall helps, to doo that which the learned can doo with a word onelie. He saith that this is called Homerica medicatio, bicause Homer discovered the bloud of the word suppressed, and the infections healed by or in mysteries.

The xiii. Chapter.241.

Of the effects of amulets, the drift of Argerius Ferrarius in the commendation of charmes, &c: foure sorts of Homericall medicines, & the choice thereof; of imagination.

S touching mine opinion of these amulets, characters, and such other bables, I have sufficientlie uttered it elsewhere: and I will bewraie the vanitie of these superstitious trifles more largelie hereafter. And therefore at this time I onelie saie, that those amulets, which are to be hanged or carried about one, if they consist of hearbs, rootes, stones, or some other metall, they maie have diverse medicinable operations; and by the vertue given to them by God in their creation, maie worke strange effects and cures: and to impute this vertue to anie other matter is witchcraft. And whereas A. Ferrarius commendeth certeine amulets, that have no shew of physicall operation; as a naile taken from a crosse, holie water, and the verie signe of the crosse, with such like popish stuffe: I thinke he laboureth thereby rather to draw men to poperie, than to teach or persuade them in the truth of physicke or philosophie. And I thinke thus the rather, for that he himselfe seeth the fraud hereof; confessing that where these magicall physicians applie three seeds of three leaved grasse to a tertian ague, and foure to a quartane, that the number is not materiall.

But of these Homericall medicinesFoure sorts of Homericall medicines, and which is the principall. he saith there are foure sorts, whereof amulets, characters, & charmes are three: howbeit he commendeth and preferreth the fourth above the rest; and that he saith consisteth in illusions, which he more properlie calleth stratagems. Of which sort of conclusions he alledgeth for example, how Philodotus did put a cap of lead upon ones head, who imagined he was headlesse, whereby the partie was delivered from his disease or conceipt. Item another cured a woman that imagined, that a serpent or snake did continuallie gnaw and/242. teare hir entrailes; and that was done onelie by giving hir a vomit, and by foisting into the matter vomited a little serpent or snake, like unto that which she imagined was in hir bellie.

Item,The force of fixed fansie, opinion, or strong conceipt. another imagined that he alwaies burned in the fier, under whose bed a fier was privilie conveied, which being raked out before his face, his fancie was satisfied, and his heate allaied. Hereunto perteineth, that the hickot is cured with sudden feare or strange newes: yea by that meanes agues and manie other strange and extreame diseases have beene healed. And some that have lien so sicke and sore of the gowt, that they could not remove a joint, through sudden feare of fier, or ruine/175. of houses, have forgotten their infirmities and greefes, and have runne awaie. But in my tract upon melancholie, and the effects of imagination, and in the discourse of naturall magicke, you shall see these matters largelie touched.