By What Means Magicians And Necromancers Call Forth The Souls Of The Dead

CHAP. XIX.

BY WHAT MEANS MAGICIANS AND NECROMANCERS CALL FORTH THE SOULS OF THE DEAD.

BY the things which have been already spoken it is manifest, that souls after death do as yet love their body which they left, as those souls do whose bodies want due burial or have left their bodies by violent death, and as yet wander about their carcasses in a troubled and moist spirit, being, as it were, allured by something that hath an affinity with them, the means being known, by which in times past, they were joined to their bodies, they may be easily called forth

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and allured by the like vapours, liquors and savours, certain artificial lights being also used, songs, sounds, and such like, which moves the imaginative and spiritual harmony of the soul; and sacred invocations, and such like, as belong to religion, ought not to be neglected by reason of the portion of the rational soul which is above nature.

Necromancy has its name because it works on the bodies of the dead, and gives answers by the ghosts and apparitions of the dead, and subterraneous spirits, alluring them into the carcasses of the dead by certain hellish charms, and infernal invocations, and by deadly sacrifices and wicked oblations.

There are two kinds of necromancy: raising the carcasses, which is not done without blood; the other sciomancy, in which the calling up of the shadow only suffices. To conclude, it works all its experiments by the carcasses of the slain and their bones and members, and what is from them; for there is in these things a spiritual power friendly to them: therefore they easily allure the flowing down of wicked spirits, by reason of the similitude and property of every familiar, by whom the necromancer, strengthened by their help, can do much in human and terrestrial things, and kindle unlawful lusts, cause dreams, diseases, hatred, and such like passions; to which also they can confer the powers of the soul, which as yet being involved in a moist and turbid spirit, wandering about their cast bodies, can do the same things that the wicked spirits commit, seeing therefore they, experimentally find, that the wicked and impure souls violently plucked from their bodies, and of men not expiated, and wanting burial, do stray about carcasses, and are drawn to them by affinity. The witches easily abuse them for effecting witchcraft, alluring these unhappy souls, by the opposition of their body, or by the taking of some parts thereof, and compelling them by their devilish charms, by entreating them by the deformed carcasses dispersed through the wide fields, and the wandering shadows of those who want burials, and by the ghosts sent back from Acheron, and the guests of hell, whom untimely death has precipitated into hell, and by the horrible desires of the damned and proud devils, revengers of wickedness. But he who

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could restore the souls truly to their bodies, must first know what is the proper nature of the soul from whence it went forth, with how many and how great degrees of perfection it is replenished, with what intelligence it is strengthened, by what means diffused into the body, by what harmony it shall be compacted with it, what affinity it hath with God, with the intelligences, with the heavens, elements, and all other things, whose image and resemblance it holds, To conclude, by what influences the body may be knit together again for the raising of the dead, requires all these things which belong not to men, but to God only, and to whom he will communicate them.