[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

excommunication which was decreed against him, but this explains neither his
passionate haste to confess all, and more than all, of which he was accused,
nor his earnest and eager desire to die. How much of his confession was true
A Collection of Sacred Magick | The Esoteric Library | www.sacred-magick.com
cannot be determined now, but it is very evident that he was resolved to
make his own death certain. His action in this may be compared with that of
Major Weir in 1670, who also was executed on his own voluntary confession of
witchcraft and crime. Gilles's last words, though couched in Christian
phraseology, show that he had not realized the enormity of the crimes which
he confessed: 'We have sinned, all three of us', he said to his two
companions, 'but as soon as our souls have left our bodies we shall all see
God in His glory in Paradise.' He was hanged on a gibbet above a pyre, but
when the fire burned through the rope the body was snatched from the flames
by several ladies of his family, who prepared it for burial with their own
hands, and it was then interred in the Carmelite church close by. His two
associates were also hanged, their bodies being burned and the ashes
scattered.
On the spot where Gilles was executed his daughter erected a monument, to
which came all nursing mothers to pray for an abundance of milk. Here again
is a strong suggestion that he was regarded as the Incarnate God of
fertility. Another suggestive fact is the length of time-nine years-which
elapsed between the death of Joan and the death of Gilles. This is a usual
interval when the Incarnate God is given a time-limit.
It required twenty-five years before an action of rehabilitation could be
taken for Joan. In the case of Gilles, two years after the execution the
King granted letters of rehabilitation for that 'the said Gilles, unduly and
without cause, was condemned and put to death'.
An intensive study of this period might reveal the witch organization at the
royal Court and possibly even the Grand-master to whom Joan owed allegiance,
the 'God' who sent her. Giac, the King's favourite, was executed as a witch,
and Joan's beau duc, the Duke d'Alençon, was also of the fraternity.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
APPENDIX V
FLYING OINTMENTS
------------------------------------------------------------------------
IMPORTANT NOTE
As noted in the text, several of the ingredients listed here are DEADLY
POISONS. Some of these ingredients can KILL YOU simply through SKIN CONTACT.
We include this appendix because it is an integral part of the original text
of the book the Witch-Cult in Western Europe. We do not recommend attempting
to duplicate this formula or using ANY of the ingredients in this formula.
NOTE: sacred-texts.com will not be held responsible for the outcome of
anyone attempting to use this formula or any of these ingredients. CONSIDER
YOURSELF WARNED.
Here is a quote from an interview with Sharon Devlin, an experienced wiccan
herbalist, from the book Drawing Down the Moon by Margot Adler:
"One day I decided to make a flying ointment. I was doing it in
front of a student who I wanted to impress. Well, I made it about
a thousand-fold stronger than I should have because I was using
denatured alcohol instead of sprits of wine to extract it, which
is what they did in the old days. And instead of lard I was using
hydrophilic ointment. As a result I increased the potency about
two hundred to three hundred percent, and I got enough under my
fingernails just by mixing it to kill me. And I would have died if
it hadn't been for a friend of mine who was a doctor and a
magician, whom I called immediately. I learned a very heavy
lesson. It was my first heavy experience with death, and a lot of
bullshit pride went down the toilet with the rest of the flying
ointment."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE three formulae for the 'flying' ointment used by witches are as follows:
1. Du persil, de l'eau de l'Aconite, des feuilles de Peuple, et de la suye.
2. De la Berle, de l'Acorum vulgaire, de la Quintefeuille, du sang de
chauuesouris, de la Morelle endormante, et de l'huyle.
3. De graisse d'enfant, de suc d'Ache, d'Aconite, de Quintefeuille, de
Morelle, et de suye.
These formulae may be translated as follows -
1. Parsley, water of aconite, poplar leaves, and soot.
2. Water parsnip, sweet flag, cinquefoil, bat's blood, deadly night. shade,
and oil.
3. Baby's fat, juice of water parsnip, aconite, cinquefoil, deadly
nightshade, and soot.
.
These prescriptions show that the society of witches had a very creditable
knowledge of the art of poisoning: aconite and deadly nightshade or
belladonna are two of the three most poisonous plants growing freely in
Europe, the third is hemlock, and in all probability 'persil' refers to
hemlock and not to the harmless parsley, which it resembles closely.
The other ingredients have no marked toxic action, unless 'berle' and 'ache'
refer not to the harmless water parsnip but to the poisonous water hemlock
or cowbane. The baby's fat and bat's blood would of course have no action.
Aconite was one of the best-known poisons in ancient times; indeed it was so
extensively used by professional poisoners in Rome during the Empire that a
law was passed making its cultivation a capital offence. Aconite root
contains about 0.4 percent of alkaloid and one-fifteenth of a grain of the
alkaloid is a lethal dose. The drug has little effect upon the
consciousness, but produces slowing, irregularity, and finally arrest of the
heart.
The use of belladonna as a poison was also known in classical times;
fourteen of the berries have been known to produce death; a moderate dose
will produce wild excitement and delirium.
Hemlock is also a well-known and ancient poison; the fruit may contain as
much as 0.9 per cent. of alkaloid, and * grain of the alkaloid may produce
death. The action of hemlock usually is to produce a gradual motor
paralysis, consciousness being unimpaired, and death being caused by
paralysis of respiration, but sometimes hemlock may produce delirium and
excitement.
There is no doubt, therefore, about the efficacy of these prescriptions and
their ability to produce physiological effects. They were administered by
being rubbed into the skin, which is not an efficient way of introducing
most drugs into the body, indeed some have denied that alkaloids can be
absorbed from the unbroken skin; but there is no doubt that alkaloids can be
absorbed when rubbed into scratches or into the quick of the nails, and it
must be remembered that an unbroken skin is only possessed by those who are
free from vermin and who wash regularly, and neither of these conditions
would be likely to apply to a mediaeval witch. Cases of poisoning associated
with delirium have actually been recorded following the application of
belladonna plasters to the skin.
Of the three prescriptions the first is a watery solution and would not be
very efficacious when rubbed into the skin, but the second and third are
ointments, and if they were rubbed into the skin in sufficient quantities
definite physiological results would be produced. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]