Fourthly, If a Christian had made an express compact with the devil, practised enchantments by magic, with instruments, circles, characters, or diabolical signs; by invoking and consulting demons, with the hope of a reply, and placing confidence in them; by offering them incense, or the smoke of good or bad substances; by offering sacrifices to them; in abusing sacraments or holy things; by promising obedience to them, and adoring or worshipping them in any manner.
Fifthly, If any one constructed, or procured mirrors, rings, phials, or other vessels, for the purpose of attracting, enclosing, and preserving a demon, who replies to his questions, and assists him in obtaining his wishes; or who had endeavoured to discover the future, by interrogating the demons in possessed people; or tried to produce the same effect by invoking the devil under the name of holy angel or white angel, and by asking things of him with prayers and humility; by practising other superstitious ceremonies with vases, phials of water, or consecrated tapers; by the inspection of the nails, and of the palm of the hand rubbed with vinegar; or by endeavouring to obtain representations of objects by means of phantoms, in order to learn secret things, or which had not then happened.
Sixthly, If any one had read or possessed, or read or possessed at present, any manuscript or book on these matters, or concerning all other species of divination, which is not performed by natural and physical effects.
Although the edicts and punishments for sorcery were extremely severe, they have appeared from time to time in different parts of Spain. The history of the sorceresses of the valley of Bastan, in Navarre, has been particularly celebrated. These women were taken before the Inquisition of Logroño, and confessed the greatest extravagancies. They were condemned to an auto-da-fé, in 1610; their history was published at Madrid, in 1810, with very pleasant remarks by the Moliere of Spain, Don Leandro de Moratin, who deserves a better fate than he experiences.
History of a famous Magician.
The history of Doctor Eugene Torralba, a physician of Cuença, ought not to be passed over, as it offers several remarkable events, and is mentioned in the History of the famous knight, Don Quixote de la Mancha. This person is also introduced in different parts of a poem, entitled, Carlos Famoso[10], composed by Louis Zapata, dedicated to Philip II., and printed at Valencia, in 1556.
The author of Don Quixote, in the adventure of the Countess Trifaldi, represents that famous knight, as mounted upon Clavileno, with Sancho Panza behind him, having their eyes covered; the squire wishes to uncover his eyes to see if they had arrived at the region of fire. Don Quixote says, "Take care not to do it, and remember the true history of the licentiate Torralba, who being mounted on a cane, with his eyes covered, was conveyed through the air by devils, and arrived at Rome in twelve hours, and descended on the tower of Nona, which is in a street of that city, where he saw the tumult, assault, and death of the Constable de Bourbon, and returned to Madrid before morning, where he gave an account of what he had seen. He also related that while he was in the air, the devil told him to open his eyes, and that he saw himself so near the moon that he might have touched it with his hand, and that he did not dare to look towards the earth for fear of fainting."
The Doctor Eugene Torralba was born in the town of Cuença. In an examination he stated, that at the age of fifteen he went to Rome, where he was made a page of Don Francis Soderini, Bishop of Volterra, who was made a cardinal in 1503. He studied medicine under several masters, who in their disputes attacked the immortality of the soul, and though they did not succeed in convincing him, caused him to incline to pyrrhonism. Torralba was a physician in 1501, at which period he became intimately acquainted with Master Alphonso of Rome, who had renounced the law of Moses for that of Mahomet, which he quitted for the Christian doctrine, and finished by preferring natural religion. Alphonso told him that Jesus Christ was only a man, and supported his opinion with several arguments: this doctrine did not entirely eradicate the faith of Torralba, but he no longer knew on which side the truth lay.
Among the friends he acquired at Rome, was a monk of St. Dominic, called Brother Peter. This man told him one day that he had in his service one of the good angels, whose name was Zequiel, so powerful in the knowledge of the future, that no other could equal him; but that he abhorred the practice of obliging men to make a compact with him; that he was always free, and only served the person who placed confidence in him through friendship, and that he allowed him to reveal the secrets he communicated, but that any constraint employed to force him to answer questions made him for ever abandon the society of the man to whom he had attached himself. Brother Peter asked him if he would not like to have Zequiel for his friend, adding that he could obtain that favour on account of the friendship which subsisted between them; Torralba expressed the greatest desire to become acquainted with the spirit of Brother Peter.
Zequiel soon appeared in the shape of a young man, fair, with flaxen hair, dressed in flesh colour, with a black surtout; he said to Torralba, I will belong to thee as long as thou livest, and will follow thee wherever thou goest. After this promise Zequiel appeared to Torralba at the different quarters of the moon, and whenever he wished to go from one place to another, sometimes in the figure of a traveller, sometimes like a hermit. Zequiel never spoke against the Christian religion, or advised him to commit any bad action; on the contrary, he reproached him when he committed a fault, and attended the church service with him: he always spoke in Latin or Italian, although he was with Torralba in Spain, France, and Turkey: he continued to visit him during his imprisonment but seldom, and did not reveal any secrets to him, and Torralba desired the spirit to leave him, because he caused agitation and prevented him from sleeping; but this did not prevent him from returning and relating things which wearied him.