, but they
soon lost sight of him; and no doubt was entertained that the devil
had flown away with him to be the companion of his tortures, and to
bear the pain of his excesses and his violence.

It is, then, not absolutely impossible that a person may be raised
into the air and transported to some very high and distant place, by
order or by permission of God, by good or evil spirits; but we must
own that the thing is of rare occurrence, and that in all that is
related of sorcerers and witches, and their assemblings at the
witches' sabbath, there is an infinity of stories, which are false,
absurd, ridiculous, and even destitute of probability. M. Remi,
attorney-general of Lorraine, author of a celebrated work entitled
_Demonology_, who tried a great number of sorcerers and sorceresses,
with which Lorraine was then infested, produces hardly any proof
whence we can infer the truth and reality of witchcraft, and of
wizards and witches being transported to the sabbath.

Footnotes:

[241] Petrus Venerab. lib. ii. de Miraculis, c. 1, p. 1299.

CHAPTER XXIII.

OBSESSION AND POSSESSION OF THE DEVIL.

It is with reason that obsessions and possessions of the devil are
placed in the rank of apparitions of the evil spirit among men. We
call it _obsession_ when the demon acts externally against the person
whom he besets, and _possession_ when he acts internally, agitates
them, excites their ill humor, makes them utter blasphemy, speak
tongues they have never learnt, discovers to them unknown secrets, and
inspires them with the knowledge of the obscurest things in philosophy
or theology. Saul was agitated and possessed by the evil spirit,[242]
who at intervals excited his melancholy humor, and awakened his
animosity and jealousy against David, or who, on occasion of the
natural movement or impulsion of these dark moods, seized him,
agitated him, and disturbed from his usual tenor of mind. Those whom
the Gospel speaks of as being possessed,[243] and who cried aloud that
Jesus was the Christ, and that he was come to torment them before the
time, that he was the Son of God, are instances of possession. But the
demon Asmodeus, who beset Sara, the daughter of Raguel,[244] and who
killed her first seven husbands; those spoken of in the Gospel, who
were simply struck with maladies or incommodities which were thought
to be incurable; those whom the Scripture sometimes calls _lunatics_,
who foamed at the mouth, who were conv