A little something I've been working on

[Darth Grief]

I call it HEXENHAMMER!

Please be kind in your reviews.

 

THE FIRST PART TREATING OF THE THREE NECESSARY CONCOMITANTS OF WITCHCRAFT, WHICH ARE THE DEVIL, A WITCH, AND THE PERMISSION OF ALMIGHTY GOD

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PART I. QUESTION I.

Here beginneth auspiciously the first part of this work. Question the First.

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Whether the belief that there are such beings as witches is so essential a part of the Catholic faith that obstinately to maintain the opposite opinion manifestly savours of heresy. And it is argued that a firm belief in witches is not a Catholic doctrine: see chapter 26, question 5, of the work of Episcopus. Whoever believes that any creature can be changed for the better or the worse, or transformed into another kind or likeness, except by the Creator of all things, is worse than a pagan and a heretic. And so when they report such things are done by witches it is not Catholic, but plainly heretical, to maintain this opinion.

Moreover, no operation of witchcraft has a permanent effect among us. And this is the proof thereof: For if it were so, it would be effected by the operation of demons. But to maintain that the devil has power to change human bodies or to do them permanent harm does not seem in accordance with the teaching of the Church. For in this way they could destroy the whole world, and bring it to utter confusion.

Moreover, every alteration that takes place in a human body - for example, a state of health or a state of sickness - can be brought down to a question of natural causes, as Aristotle has shown in his 7th book of Physics. And the greatest of these is the influence of the stars. But the devils cannot interfere with the stars. This is the opinion of Dionysius in his epistle to S. Polycarp. For this alone God can do. Therefore it is evident the demons cannot acctually effect any permanent transformation in human bodies; that is to say, no real metamorphosis. And so we must refer the appearance of any such change to some dark and occult cause.

And the power of God is stronger than the power of the devil, so divine works are more true than demoniac operations. Whence inasmuch as evil is powerful in the world, then it must be the work of the devil always conflicting with the work of God. Therefore as it is unlawful to hold that the devil's evil craft can apparently exceed the work of God, so it us unlawful to believe that the noblest works of creation, that is to say, man and beast, can be harmed and spoiled by the power of the

devil.

Moreover, that which is under the influence of a material object cannot have power over corporeal objects. But devils are subservient to certain influences of the stars, because magicians observe the course of certain stars in order to evoke the devils. Therefore they have not the power of effecting any change in a corporeal object, and it follows that witches have even less power than the demons possess.

For devils have no power at all save by a certain subtle art. But an art cannot permanently produce a true form. (And a certain author says: Writers on Alchemy know that there is no hope of any real transmutation.) Therefore the devils for their part, making use of the utmost of their craft, cannot bring about any permanent cure - or permanent disease. But if these states exist it is in truth owing to some other cause, which may be unknown, and has nothing to do with the operations of either devils or witches.

But according to the Decretals (33) the contrary is the case. ”œIf by witchcraft or any magic art permitted by the secret but most just will of God, and aided by the power of the devil, etc . . . . ”

[Anakin T Skywalker]

Well, that was... intellectual.

 

What genre is this? I mean, I don't want to be unkind, but this read more like one of my college textbooks than like something I'd read for fun, unless I happened to be intensely interested in the topic. If it is a setup chapter for a story, it was waaay too long; you need to split it up and put a bit at the beginning of each chapter.

 

Don't get me wrong, it's not that it's bad writing; it's just that it's extremely intimidating and long and contains quite a few terms that people who have not already studied the topic bit are not going to understand. Very few people are going to read past the first couple of paragraphs; the only reason I did is because I made myself for the sake of my pride.

 

It's imressive; but it's a bit overwhelming. Unless you were gearing it toward a specific audience (well-educated on the topics of witchcraft and the Catholic faith), I would suggest toning it down a bit.

[Tiana Calthye]

I just want to know... did you write this for FUN? LITTLE?

 

It reads definately like a discourse or educational thing someone might write as an essay for college. By far not fiction/story feeling--oh, incidentially, doublespacing for online reading's a great idea--this reads very much like a textbook.

 

It's definately GOOD for all that, I would expect to have seen something like this published and used in schools. Feels quite 1800ish. Like I'd have expected some priest to write back then. It's facinating for all that... I have a decent amount of religious background so I could understand what you were saying with it.

 

I keep imagining this printed in some old fashioned English caligraphy script, the first letter of each page illuminated and huge, pictures around the edges...

 

Quite an, er, intense discourse. Not what I'd read for fun, necessarily, but educational and very textbooky. Well written, for that 'genre'.

 

Just...

 

You wrote this for fun? What are you doing HERE, go make your fortune writing religious textbooks in the 1700s!

 

That said, it's very well written, I'm just not sure we're the audience you want... it's an excellent non-fiction textbook type discourse.

[Dartha Athanth]

Well, i once read Hume and Machiavelli for fun so I can understand you a bit... but you really sound like you're one of them philosophical texts with expressions like "The second part of our inquiry is this," etc. That's a compliment, by the way. However, you might want to make the paragraphing more obvious so it makes it easier to read.

[Tiana Calthye]

Well, i once read Hume and Machiavelli for fun so I can understand you a bit... but you really sound like you're one of them philosophical texts with expressions like "The second part of our inquiry is this," etc. That's a compliment, by the way. However, you might want to make the paragraphing more obvious so it makes it easier to read.

But reading's different. O_o I read a textbook on metal working once, for fun, as well as various spelling books and currently it's a book on imigration, but...

 

Writing it? For fun?

 

And yes, what she said--our comparing it to a textbook and everything IS a compliment. It's HARD to write that way and do it well.

[Darth Grief]

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PART I.

QUESTION II.

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If it be in accordance with the Catholic Faith to maintain that in order to bring about some effect of magic, the devil must intimately co-operate with the witch, or whether one without the other, that is to say, the devil without the witch, or conversely, could produce such an effect.

And the first argument is this: That the devil can bring about an effect of magic without the co-operation of any witch. So S. Augustine holds. All things which visibly happen so that they can be

seen, may (it is believed) be the work of the inferior powers of the air. But bodily ills and ailments are certainly not invisible, nay rather, they are evident to the senses, therefore they can be brought about by devils. Moreover, we learn from the Holy Scriptures of the disasters which fell upon Job, how fire fell from heaven and striking the sheep and the servants consumed them, and how a violent wind threw down the four corners of a house so that it fell upon his children and slew them all. The devil by himself without the co-operation of any witches, but merely by God's permission alone, was able to bring about all these disasters. Therefore he can certainly do many things which are often ascribed to the work of witches.

And this is obvious from the account of the seven husbands of the maiden Sara, whom a devil killed. Moreover, whatever a superior power is able to do, it is able to do without reference to a power superior to it, and a superior power can all the more work without reference to an inferior power. But an inferior power can cause hailstorms and bring about diseases without the help of a power greater than itself. For Blessed Albertus Magnus in his work De passionibus aeris says that rotten sage, if used as he explains, and thrown into running water, will arouse most fearful tempests and storms.

Moreover, it may be said that the devil makes use of a witch, not because he has need of any such agent, but because he is seeking the perdition of the witch. We may refer to what Aristotle says in the 3rd book of his Ethics. Evil is a voluntary act which is proved by the fact that nobody performs an unjust action, and aman who commits a rape does this for the sake of pleasure, not merely doing evil for evil's sake. Yet the law punishes those who have done evil as if they had acted merely for the sake of doing evil. Therefore if the devil works by means of a witch he is merely employing an instrument; and since an instrument depends upon the will of the person who employs it and does not act of its own free will, therefore the guilt of the action ought not to be laid to the charge of the witch, and in consequence she should not be punished.

But an opposite opinion holds that the devil cannot so easily and readily do harm by himself to mankind, as he can harm them through the instrumentality of witches, although they are his servants. In the first place we may consider the act of generation. But for every act which has an effect upon another some kind of contact must be established, and because the devil, who is a spirit, can have no such actual contact with a human body, since there is nothing common of this

kind between them, therefore he uses some human instruments, and upon these he bestows the power of hurting by bodily touch. And many hold this to be proven by the text, and the gloss upon the text, in the 3rd chapter of S. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians: O senseless Galatians, who hath bewitched you that you should not obey the truth? And the gloss upon this passage refers to those who have singularly fiery and baleful eyes, who by a mere look can harm others, especially young children. And Avicenna also bears this out, Naturalism, Book 3, c. the last, when he says; ”œVery often the soul may have as much influence upon the body of another to the same extent as it has upon its own body, for such is the influence of the eyes of anyone who by his glance attracts and fascinates anothers.”

[Lord Ar-Pharazon]

I just finished reading the second part again. It's probably some of the best non-fiction I've read this year.

[Lord Ar-Pharazon]

Did anyone ever figure out where this really came from?

 

[Kusanagi]

On 11/11/2008 at 3:18 PM, Lord Ar-Pharazon said:

Did anyone ever figure out where this really came from?

 

 

It's actually all from the Malleus Maleficarum. Copy pasted from the 1929 translation by Montague Summers. 

 

Yes I'm replying many, MANY years later than the OG post; but this stuff bugs me.