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declaring that enchantments and spirits can work and speak without
tongues and without organic instruments-- without which it is
impossible to speak-- and can carry heaviest weights and raise
storms and rain; and that men can be turned into cats and wolves and
other beasts, although indeed it is those who affirm these things
who first became beasts.
And surely if this Necromancy did exist, as is believed by small
wits, there is nothing on the earth that would be of so much
importance alike for the detriment and service of men, if it were
true that there were in such an art a power to disturb the calm
serenity of the air, converting it into darkness and making
coruscations or winds, with terrific thunder and lightnings rushing
through the darkness, and with violent storms overthrowing high
buildings and rooting up forests; and thus to oppose armies,
crushing and annihilating them; and, besides these frightful storms
may deprive the peasants of the reward of their labours.--Now what
kind of warfare is there to hurt the enemy so much as to deprive him
of the harvest? What naval warfare could be compared with this? I
say, the man who has power to command the winds and to make ruinous
gales by which any fleet may be submerged, --surely a man who could
command such violent forces would be lord of the nations, and no
human ingenuity could resist his crushing force. The hidden
treasures and gems reposing in the body of the earth would all be
made manifest to him. No lock nor fortress, though impregnable,
would be able to save any one against the will of the necromancer.
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