The Devil and the Black Arts
Of Divination, Sorcery, the Black-Art, Pawawing, and such like Pretenders to Devilism, and how far the Devil is or is not concern’d in them.
THO’ I am writing the History of the Devil, I have not undertaken to do the like of all the Kinds of People, Male or Female, who set up for Devils in the World: This would be a Task for the Devil indeed, and fit only for him to undertake, for their Number is and has been prodigious great, and may, with his other Legions be rank’d among the Innumerable.
What a World do we inhabit! where there is not only with us a great Roaring-Lyon-Devil daily seeking whom of us he may devour, and innumerable Millions of lesser Devils hovering in the whole Atmosphere over us, nay, and for ought we know, other Millions always invisibly moving about us, and perhaps in us, or at least in many of us; but that have, besides all these, a vast many counterfeit Hocus Pocus Devils; human Devils, who are visible among us, of our own Species and Fraternity, conversing with us upon all Occasions; who like Mountebanks set up their Stages in every Town, chat with us at every Tea-Table, converse with us in every Coffee-House, and impudently tell us to our Faces that they are Devils, boast of it, and use a thousand Tricks and Arts to make us believe it too, and that too often with Success.
It must be confess’d there is a strong Propensity in Man’s Nature, especially the more ignorant part of Mankind, to resolve every strange Thing, or whether really strange or no, if it be but strange to us, into Devilism, and to say every Thing is the Devil, that they can give no Account of.
Thus the famous Doctors of the Faculty at Paris, when John Faustus brought the first printed Books that had then been seen in the World, or at least seen there, into the City, and sold them for Manuscripts: They were surpriz’d at the Performance, and question’d Faustus about it; but he affirming they were Manuscripts, and that he kept a great many Clarks employ’d to write them, they were satisfied for a while.
