THE OCCULT SCIENCES. 



merely, made use of magic words or verses for their charms or enchant- 

 ments ; the ' necromancers and magicians added to their incantations a whole 

 ritual of dark and sinister ceremonies ; the sorcerers and the sorceresses, stri/yes 

 and faiturieres, did not hesitate to resort to the most abominable practices 

 in order to get into direct communication with Satan. The characteristic 

 difference between the acts of magic and of sorcery is precisely stated in 

 the following passage from a theological work by Cardinal de Richelieu : 

 " Magic is an art of producing effects by the power of the devil ; there is 

 this difference between magic and sorcery, that the principal aim of magic 

 is ostentation, and that of sorcery mischief." This definition will explain 

 how it was that the sorcerers and sorceresses were proceeded against and 

 punished in the sixteenth century with more severity than the necro- 

 mancers and magicians had been in the Middle Ages. The enchanters 

 and charmers were only proceeded against for any specific injuries they 

 might have caused, and the astrologers who confined themselves to the 

 astrological art had nothing to fear in the shape of legal repression, 

 though they were liable to the censures and anathemas of the ecclesiastical 

 authority. 



It was not until the fifteenth century that sorcerers and sorceresses began 

 to attend the Sabbath, which henceforward became the council of sorcery 

 and the supreme court of the demon. There is a difference of opinion as to 

 the true origin of the name and of the thing itself. There were nocturnal 

 meetings of the sorceresses among all the early peoples, but these were not 

 the Sabbath, which, when first instituted, was essentially of an obscene and 

 impious character, obnoxious alike to human and Divine laws. The starting- 

 point of the Sabbath was, perhaps, what was termed, in the twelfth century, 

 the messe cles Vaudois, a denomination afterwards transformed into mezcle drs 

 Vaudois. This messe was originally a secret meeting of the Vaudois proselytes 

 of the heretic Pierre Valdo in the mountains of Dauphiny. It was said that 

 the Vaudois met in this way to assist at magic ceremonies, the object of 

 which was to destroy the crops and disturb the elements, "and that they were 

 accompanied by devilish feasts and infernal dances, with unintelligible incan- 

 tations, resembling those of the Jews at their synagogue meetings on the day 

 of the Sabbath. These mysterious assemblies continued to be held in the 

 dark, but their aspect and purpose changed when vaulderie became synony- 

 mous with sorcery, and the heretics had made way for the sorcerers. Hence- 



