{"collection":"Paganism & Neopaganism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/pag/mm/mm02a06a.htm","path":"pag/mm/mm02a06a.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/pag/mm/mm02a06a.htm","text":"How Witches Impede and Prevent the Power of Procreation.\nConcerning the method by which they obstruct the procreant function both in\nmen and animals, and in both sexes, the reader my consult that which has\nbeen written already on the question, Whether devils can through witches\nturn the minds of men to love or hatred. There, after the solutions of the\narguments, a specific declaration is made relating to the method by which,\nwith God's permission, they can obstruct the procreant function.\nBut it must be noted that such obstruction is caused both intrinsically and\nextrinsically. Intrinsically they cause it in two ways. First, when they\ndirectly prevent the erection of the member which is accomodated to\nfructification. And this need not seem impossible, when it is considered\nthat they are able to vitiate the natural use of any member. Secondly, when\nthey prevent the flow of the vital essences to the members in which resides\nthe motive force, closing up the seminal ducts so that it does not reach\nthe generative vessels, or so that it cannot be ejaculated, or is\nfruitlessly spilled.\nExtrinsically they cause it at times by means of images, or by the eating of\nherbs; sometimes by other external means, such as cocks' testicles. But it\nmust not be thought that it is by the virtue of these things that a man is\nmade impotent, but by the occult power of devils' illusions witches by this\nmeans procure such impotence, namely, that they cause man to be unable to\ncopulate, or a woman to conceive.\nAnd the reason for this is that God allows them more power over this act,\nby which the first sin was disseminated, than over other human actions.\nSimilarly they have more power over serpents, which are the most subject\nto the influence of incantations, than over other animals. Wherefore it has\noften been found by us and other Inquisitors that they have caused this\nobstruction by means of serpents or some such things.\nFor a certain wizard who had been arrested confessed that for many years he\nhad by witchcraft brought sterility upon all the men and animals which\ninhabited a certain house. Moreover, Nider tells of a wizard named\nStadlin who was taken in the diocese of\nLausanne, and confessed that in a certain house where a man and his wife\nwere loving, he had by his witchcraft successively killed in the woman's\nwomb seven children, so that for many years the woman always miscarried. And\nthat, in the same way, he had caused that all the pregnant cattle and\nanimals of the house were during those years unable to give birth to any\nlive issue. And when he was questioned as to how he had done this, and what\nmanner of charge should be preferred against him, he discovered his crime,\nsaying: I put a serpent under the threshold of the outer door of the house;\nand if this is removed, fecundity will be restored to the inhabitants. And\nit was as he said; for though the serpent was not found, having been\nreduced to dust, the whole piece of ground was removed, and in the same year\nfecundity was restored to the wife and to all the animals.\nAnother instance occurred hardly four years ago in Reichshofen. There was a\nmost notorious witch, who could at all times and by a mere touch bewitch\nwomen and cause an abortion. Now the wife of a certain nobleman in that\nplace had become pregnant and had engaged a midwife to take care of her, and\nhad been warned by the midwife not to go out of the castle, and above all to\nbe careful not to hold any speech or conversation with that witch. After\nsome weeks, unmindful of that warning, she went out of the castle to visit\nsome women who were met together on some festive occasion; and when she had\nsat down for a little, the witch came, and, as if for the purpose of\nsaluting her, placed both her hands on her stomach; and suddenly she felt\nthe child moving in pain. Frightened by this, she returned home and told the\nmidwife what had happened. Then the midwife exclaimed: \u201cAlas! you have\nalready lost your child.\u201d And so it proved when her time came; for she\ngave birth, not to an entire abortion, but little by little to separate\nfragments of its head and feet and hands. And the great affliction was\npermitted by God to punish her husband, whose duty it was to bring witches\nto justice and avenge their injuries to the Creator.\nAnd there was in the town of Mersburg in the diocese of Constance a certain\nyoung man who was bewitched in such a way that he could never perform the\ncarnal act with any woman except one. And many have heard him tell that he\nhad often wished to refuse that woman, and take flight to other lands; but\nthat hitherto he had been compelled to rise up in the night and to come very\nquickly back, sometimes over land, and sometimes through the air as if he\nwere flying.\nNext: Chapter VII How, as it were, they Deprive Man of his Virile Member.","title":"Malleus Maleficarum Part 2 Chapter VI","type":"page"}