On the Manner of Discerning and Healing the Bewitched

The devil enters into human bodies through despair, or through some other sin, or else it is granted him for trial. The first two ways are ordained to the vengeance of the Majesty of God, according to St. Jerome upon Joel, as is recalled in the Decretum, Causa 23, Question 5, where he says that not only men are ministers of the Divine wrath against those who do evil, whence not without cause do they bear arms, but the demons also. The third way is for the health of souls, as we read of certain saints who, even to the end of their life, were afflicted by evil spirits.

When the devil enters into human bodies, he first appears to them in the likeness of some man who has died an evil death, or else he represents to them some kinsman of theirs, or he appears in the form of some dreadful beast, and seems at once to vanish, but forthwith enters upon them; and this occurs almost always by night, or in stony places; whence afterward in those thus oppressed there appear the signs which we shall speak of below. He enters also into some by the mouth, or by the ears, or as though he were a mouse, according to what various afflicted persons have related to me; to some of whom, in sleeping, and in dream, it has seemed that the demons ran behind them, and, being awakened, they have given the underwritten signs of the entrance of evil spirits into their bodies, as afterward became manifestly apparent. Into some he has entered by striking them upon the neck, or upon their other limbs. Finally they enter in a thousand other manners, according to the disposition of the subject, which for brevity’s sake I here omit.

After Canale’s treatises conclude, the copy of the Milan 1663 printing from Giuseppe Marelli’s press, in part the copy from which this volume was prepared, carries several flyleaves written over by hand in Latin. This was an interesting bit of provenance, but the most interesting thing about the passages is that they are unsigned. If the writing was made near the time of the Index decrees of 1706 and 1707, whether before or after, it would make sense for the writer to leave his name out of it; an unsigned leaf leaves no paper trail of ownership in that legal and ecclesiastical climate. I saw no harm in including an English translation of these passages as the concluding appendix of this volume. Had they not found their way here, the words on these flyleaves might never have found the readers, or the appreciation, I believe they deserve, surviving as they do in a single copy of a work that is now nearly extinct. I am glad to have spared them that fate.

An Exorcism for Those Hindered from Marriage by the Maleficia of the Devil

Let the priest, laying his hand upon the head of the bewitched person, say: Let every diabolical power be extinguished in thee, N., through the laying-on of my hands, and yet more through the invocation of all the Saints: the Angels, the Archangels, the Patriarchs, the Prophets, the Apostles, the Martyrs, the Confessors, and the Virgins, and of all the Blessed together. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.