N00531:74
Cases of conscience concerning evil spirits personating men, witchcrafts, infallible proofs of guilt in…
Cases of conscience concerning evil spirits personating men, witchcrafts, infallible proofs of guilt in such as are accused with that crime. All considered according to the Scriptures, history, experience, and the judgment of many learned men. / By Increase Mather, president of Harvard College, at Cambridge, and teacher of a church at Boston in New-England. ; [Six lines of quotations]
Boston printed, : and sold by Benjamin Harris at the London Coffee-House., 1693
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
9. Sometimes Antipathies in Nature have strange and unaccountable Effects. I have read of a man that at the sight of his own Son, who was no Wizard would fall into Fits. There ⟨p. 51⟩that find in their Natures an averseness to some persons whom they never saw before, of which they—give no better an account then he in Martial. Concerning Sabidius.
9. Sometimes Antipathies in Nature have strange and unaccountable Effects. I have read of a man that at the sight of his own Son, who was no Wizzard would fall into Fits. There ⟨p. 51⟩that find in their Natures an averseness to some persons whom they never saw before, of which they—give no better an account then he in Martial. Concerning Sabidius.
Non Amo te Sabidi, nec possum dicere quare.
That some Persons at the sight of Brute-Creatures Cats, Spiders, &c. Nay, at the sight of Cheeses, Milk, Apples, will fall into Fits, is too well known to be denied. De••singius in his Learned Discourse De Pulvere Sympat••tico. P. 128. Saith, there was one in the City of Groaning that could not bear the sight of a Swines Head. And that he knew another who was not able to look on the Picture thereof. Amatus Lusitanus speaks of one that at the sight of a Rose would swoon away. This proveth that the Falling into a Fit, at the Sight of another is not always a sign of Witchcraft. It may proceed from Nature and the Power of Imagination.