Page:Three Books of Occult Philosophy (De Occulta Philosophia) (1651).djvu/473

 to us, and confesse, and are forced to go out of possessed bodies, and either presently leap out, or by degrees vanish, according as the faith of the Patient is helping, or grace of the swearer aspires. And Athanasius in his book De Variis Questionibus saith that there is no word more terrible and more destructive to the power of Devils then the beginning of the 68. Psalm, Arise O God, and let thine enemies be scattered; For assoon as that word is spoken, the devill vanisheth away howling. And Origen against Celsus saith, that the naming the name Jesus hath oftentimes cast many devils as well out of the souls of men as their bodies, and hath exercised much power in them out of whom the devils were cast. Also we do oftentimes with threats and revilings bind or repell evil spirits, especially the lesser, as Haggs, Incubi, and such like, as we read in Lucan concerning that witch saying,

I will now call you up by a true name, The stygian dogs I in the light supreme Will leave, and follow you also through grave, From all the Urnes in death I will you save, Thee O Hecate, unto the gods will shew, (To whom t' addresse thy self in other hew,   Thou wast wont) in wan form, and without grace, And thee forbid to change Erebus his face.

And in Philostratus we read, when Apollonius and his companions were travelling in a bright Moon-shining night, that the Phantasme of a Hagge met them, and some times changed it self into this shape, & some times into that, and some times vanished out of their sight. Now assoon as Apollonius knew what it was, grievously reviling it advised his companions to do the like: for he knew that that was the best remedy against such invasions. His companions did as he advised, and the Phantasme presently with a noise vanished away like a shadow: For so fearfull is this kind of spirits, that they are moved, tremble, and are compelled by a feigned terrour, and false and impossible threats. Whence Chereon the holy scribe saith that these are those things by which especially the spirits