1773 On WITCHES Witchcraft MAGIC Exorcism Devils Demonology Paradoxa Diabolica

+full transcript of exorcism of Maria Anna Ulrichin

 

An 18th-century discourse on pastoral theology including sermons and content on witches and witchcraft, demons and demonology, exorcisms, spirits, devils, and Satan. This is a guide for the rural curates of the Confratres Petrinos who would be assisting the parishioners in rural communities with their religious obligations. It establishes the rules of the confraternity and then gives guidance to the curate on his duties and the problems he may find.

 

A large portion of the text is devoted to diabolic appearances, nocturnal travels, spirits, exorcisms, magic etc. The first appendix devoted to "Paradoxa Diabolica" pages 288-367 and scattered throughout the text are numerous questions on occult matters. There is a full transcript of the exorcism of Maria Anna Elizabetha Ulrichin in 1724-6.

 

We do not find another example of this extremely rare title for sale worldwide

 

Main author: German church

 

Title: Aesopus epulans, sive discursus mensales inter confratres petrinos curatos innocenter sine omni offensa tertii promiscue pro- et contra habiti, ventilati et collecti per quendam J. sessionis assessorem, veteranum, et ruralem.

         

Published: Francofurti & Lipsiae : Krauss, 1773.

 

Language: Latin

 

Notes & content:

 

Anna Maria Schwegelin was born in poverty in the area near Kempten im Allgäu and served as a maid. In 1751, a Protestant was employed as a coachman, and converted to the Catholic faith. Schwegelin tried to prevent this. It is also said that she abandoned her Catholic faith in order to marry a Protestant, but that the marriage plans were broken off. In 1769, she injured her leg, and in 1770, she was put in the poor house. Suspicions of her (and the coachman's) involvement in Satanism led to an arrest; she reportedly freely confessed having made a pact with the Devil. She was judged guilty and sentenced to be executed on April 11, 1775. By July, 1775, however, the case seems to have been forgotten, and Schwegelin remained in jail, where she died of natural causes in 1781.

 

Many of the case citations are of the eighteenth century and represent the thinking of a traditionalist working in the period of the Great German Witch-Debate. It even contains a group of medical treatments that the curate may use. At the end are several poems devoted to the Confraternity. A curious and interesting view of the very end of the witch-craze.

 

The witch-hunt of the 16th and 17th centuries was an organized effort by authorities in many countries to destroy a supposed conspiracy of witches thought to pose a deadly threat to Christendom. According to these authorities, witches were numerous, and in conscious alliance with Satan, forming a sort of Satanic counter-religion. Witch-hunts in this sense must be separated from the belief in witches, the evil eye, and other such phenomena, which are common features of folk belief worldwide.

 

The belief that witches are not just individual villains but conspirators organized in a powerful but well-hidden cult is a distinguishing feature of the early modern witch-hunt.

This idea of an organized witch-cult originates in the second half of the 15th century, notoriously expounded in the 1486  ‘Malleus Maleficarum.’

 

In the following two centuries, witch trials usually included the charge of membership in a demonic conspiracy, gathering in Sabbaths, and similar. It was only with the beginning Age of Enlightenment in the early 18th century, that the idea of an organized witch-cult was abandoned.

 

It is very interesting that Germany was at the absolute center of the “witch craze” of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The most credible estimates for the number of executions for witchcraft between 1450-1750 are in the range of 40,000 to 60,000 people across Europe, with southern and central regions of Germany accounting for between 17,000 and 26,000 executions, as compared to between 5000-6000 executions for all of France, around 1000 executions for England and Wales, and a mere 50 estimated executions in Spain, where there was little religious diversity to fuel the fires.

 

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Wear: wear as seen in photos

Binding: tight and secure binding

Pages: complete with all 420 pages; plus indexes, prefaces, and such

Publisher: Francofurti & Lipsiae : Krauss, 1773.

Size: ~8in X 6.75in (20cm x 17.5cm)

 

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$599