Page:The history of Witchcraft and demonology.djvu/87

 that in the ritual of these outlaws, who were allied to the “Mala Vita” of Bari, “the neophytes drank blood-brotherhood with the captain of the band by sucking out and drinking the blood from a scratch wound, which he had himself made in the region of his heart.”

In several grimoires and books of magic, such as The Book of Black Magic and of Pacts, The Key of Solomon the King, Sanctum Regnum, may be found goetic rituals as well as invocations, and if these, fortunately for the operators, are occasionally bootless, it can only be said that Divine Power holds in check the evil intelligences. But, as Suarez justly observes, even if no response be obtained from the demon “either because God does not allow it, or for some other reason we may not know,” the guilt of the experimenter in this dark art and his sin are in no wise lightened. Towards the end of the eighteenth century a certain Juan Perez, being reduced to the utmost misery, vowed himself body and soul to Satan if he were revenged upon those whom he suspected of injuring him. He consulted more than one magician and witch, he essayed more than one theurgie ceremonial, but all in vain. Hell was deaf to his appeal. Whereupon he openly proclaimed his disbelief in the supernatural, in the reality of devils, and mocked at Holy Scripture as a fairy tale, a nursery fable. Naturally this conduct brought him before the Tribunal of the Holy Office, to whom at his first interrogation he avowed the whole story, declaring himself ready to submit to any penance they might seem fit to inflict.

Any such pact which may be entered into with the demon is not in the slightest degree binding. Such is the authoritative opinion of S. Alphonsus, who lays down that a necromancer or person who has had intercourse with evil spirits now wishing to give up his sorceries is bound: “1. Absolutely to abjure and to renounce any formal contract or any sort of commerce whatsoever he may have entered into with, demonic intelligences; 2. To burn all such books, writings, amulets, talismans, and other instruments as appertain to the black art (i.e. crystals, planchettes, ouija-boards, pagan periapts, and the like); 3. To burn the written contract if it be in his possession, but if it be believed that it is held by the demon, there is no need to demand its restoration since