Page:The history of Witchcraft and demonology.djvu/148

 consecration.” (The servant of God during Holy Mass was twice elevated in the air to a height of two hand-breadths from the ground both before and after the Consecration.) It is well known that in a certain London church a holy religious when he said Mass was not unseldom levitated from the predella, which manifestation I have myself witnessed, although the father was himself unconscious thereof until the day of his death.

But, as Görres most aptly remarks, although many examples may be cited of Saints who have been levitated in ecstasy, and although it is not impossible that this phenomenon may be imitated by evil powers—as, indeed, it undoubtedly is in the cases of spiritistic mediums—yet nowhere do we find in hagiography that a large number of Saints were in one company raised from the earth together or conveyed through the air to meet at some appointed spot. Is it likely, then, that the demons would be allowed seemingly to excel by their power a most extraordinary and exceptional manifestation? It must be remembered, also, that save in very rare and singular instances, such as that of S. Joseph of Cupertino, levitation is only for a height of a foot or some eighteen inches, and even this occurs seldom save at moments of great solemnity and psychic concentration.

A question which is largely discussed by the demonologists then arises: Do the witches actually and in person attend the Sabbat or is their journey thither and assistance thereat mere diabolic illusion? Giovanni Francesco Ponzinibio, in his De Lamiis, wholly inclines to the latter view, but this is superficial reasoning, and the celebrated canonist Francisco Peña with justice takes him very severely to task for his temerity. Peña’s profound work, In Bernardi Comensis Dominicani Lucernam inquisitorum notæ et eiusdem tractatum de strigibus, a valuable collection of most erudite glosses, entirely disposes of Ponzinibio’s arguments, and puts the case in words of weighty authority.

Sprenger in the Malleus Maleficarum, I, had already considered “How witches are bodily transported from one place to another,” and he concludes “It is proven, then, that sorcerers can be bodily transported.” Paul Grilland inquires: “Whether magicians & witches or Satanists are