Safe and warm and dry: part 3

Image credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des manuscrits, Français 9561, fol. 147v.

part 3 of a series

What’s funny

“But, Marcus,” said I, “physicians would persuade us to be of another way of thinking, for they assert that such affections are not produced by demons, but are occasioned by an excess or deficiency of humours, or by a disordered state of the animal spirits, and accordingly they endeavour to cure them by medicine or dietetical regimen, but not by incantations or purifications.”

Marcus replied – “It is not at all surprising if physicians make such an assertion, for they understand nothing but what is perceived by the senses, their whole attention being devoted to the body. Lethargies, Syncopes, cases of hypochondriasm, delirium, which they can remove by vomits, or evacuations, or unguents, it is quite correct to say that there are the effects of disordered humours; but enthusiasms, and madness, and possessions, with which when one is seized he is incapable of making any use of his judgment, his tongue, his imagination, his senses, it is quite another thing [that] moves and excites them, and speaks what the person seized is unconscious of uttering, though occasionally he prophesies something.” With what propriety [I ask] can these effects be called the disordered movements of matter?

–Michael Psellus, On the Operation of Dӕmons

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You know what’s funny? An apologist citing another apologist to make a ludicrous claim. That would be like a mannequin teaching another mannequin how to wink.

But here is a much-beloved (now deceased) Apologist, Timothy Keller, doing just that:

As an expert in the medieval age and how it gave way to modernity, Lewis knew that there had been very little magic in the Middle Ages, that the high noon of magic was in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, at the very time that modern science was developing. The same cause, he contended, gave rise to them both.¹

Did C. S. Lewis [another beloved and deceased Apologist] really write that? you wonder. Did he mean it in the way Keller quotes him? A modicum of dutifulness suggests that indeed he did, and more than once.² His point being that magic and science are like Sock and Buskin, masks of fraternal twins pursuing their common goal to “subdue reality to the wishes of men,” both relatively novel innovations playing on the stage of early modernity, “separating both from the ‘wisdom’ of earlier ages.”³

What’s funnier still? Both Apologists worshiped perhaps the most famous magician in human history, one whose favorite props included spit and dirt.⁴

To be fair, Lewis didn’t have the benefit of Wikipedia, which, if he had, might have led him to revive his thesis. On the other hand, you think, somewhat caustically, he might have gotten his nose out of The Faerie Queene and wandered into the Bodleian Library….

Some of the earliest evidence of magical practice dates to the first millennium BCE; cuneiform tablets from ancient Mesopotamia record various magical rites and incantations to address pressing concerns. Bit by a snake?

Magic was ubiquitous in the ancient world: Egypt, Greece, Rome, Judea. It remained so through Late Antiquity, the Middle Ages, the Reformation…. It is with the world today; magic, like the poor, ye have always with you. Pliny the Elder, with whom Lewis was familiar, was no lover of magi and grumbled that their fraudulent artes had dominated the world for centuries. Saint Paul imagined a battle “against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places,”⁶ said battle requiring the full armor of God. Saint Augustine thought demons and humans could have intercourse and produce children. St. Thomas Aquinas didn’t think that possible, but, after giving it some thought, concluded that a wily demon “could take female form and obtain male sperm through sexual intercourse, and then take the form of a man and impregnate a woman with it.”⁷ Martin Luther is said to have thrown an inkwell at Satan, who appeared in his study, leaving a stain on the wall of his lodgings at Wartburg Castle.

As for there being very little magic in the Middle Ages (Lewis’s assertion) … “In the late Middle Ages there was a dramatic rise in the number and complexity of magic texts in circulation.”⁸

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Why might everyone resort to magic? Maybe because the enchanted world the Apologists so demand that you embrace (proposing a troubling menu of options if you resist) might have been just a wee bit more menacing than advertised? One that required some means of protection (the full armor of God being an option…)?

Imagine this, if you can: a world more full of death than life, the latter demanding the former in its insatiable appetite. A world before germ theory, vaccines, electricity. A world where every effect was commonly understood (as remains the case today) to have a cause, many malign. A world where all movement—the wind howling through the trees—suggested a spirit (benevolent? malevolent?) producing the disturbance, as all movement indicates animation. A world where a sick child required the services of an exorcist as surely as those of a pediatrician are required today. In short, a world replete with dangers: the werewolf, the dæmon, the witch–the jealous neighbor knowing how to marshal such forces—ever at your back, no door between you. A world mostly of invisible sticks, not carrots, and you need a bigger stick (or at least a shield).

The Apologists and their enchanted collaborators want none of that. They prefer, while wandering through the woods, with dappled sunlight filtering through the leaves, to see “God light”. Because photons bouncing off the retina is so … reductive. The storm god’s rainbow is a warm, human story. Jealous furry, murder, followed by regret and a beautiful gift. The electromagnetic spectrum, in contrast, is cold and insouciant. It doesn’t care about you enough even to kill you.

All the while the enchanted munch their statins. And beg for intervention, deo volente, when need arises, as ever it does. Because it can’t be merely “disordered movements of matter” causing the malignity; “incantations” are required.

The opposite of love is not hate, but indifference, you reflect, having heard that before, somewhere, memory useless as to where, so, hardly an original thought; (Are there any original thoughts?). Christians find a better companion in a god of spastic jealously, a sign of love much to be preferred to Newton’s frigid mechanics. Abuse being an indication of a sort of love, with tears shed (or not) at the lowering of the casket for those who didn’t appropriately requite and suffered just retribution. Sacrifices not made, or made clumsily, or to the wrong amour.

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What else might be funny (as hilarity seems to be the theme)? The concept of disenchantment was invented by yet another German thinker, Max Weber. Like the Prophet, Weber was the founder of an interminable exegetical cottage industry. The word he minted, Entzauberung, more literally translates as “de-magification”. The stripping of the world of its magical aspects in favor of a cold rationality.

Here’s the funny part: What is responsible for the Entzauberung der Welt? The Protestant Reformation, rejecting the magic rituals (transubstantiation among the most offensive) of its most hated rival, Catholicism.

The rationalization of the world, the elimination of magic [Entzauberung, disenchantment] as a means to salvation, the Catholics had not carried nearly so far as the Puritans (and before them the Jews) had done. To the Catholic the absolution of his Church was a compensation for his own imperfection. The priest was a magician who performed the miracle of transubstantiation, and who held the key to eternal life in his hand. One could turn to him in grief and penitence. He dispensed atonement, hope of grace, certainty of forgiveness, and thereby granted release from that tremendous tension to which the Calvinist was doomed by an inexorable fate, admitting of no mitigation. For him such friendly and human comforts did not exist.⁹

Christians salted their own Earth.

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Handy table of middle age demons

Michael Psellos (left) with his student, Byzantine emperor Michael VII Doukas.

Michael Psellus (1018–c.1078) was a Byzantine courtier and polymath. In addition to advising several Byzantine emperors, Psellus wrote on such diverse topics as astronomy, medicine, music, jurisprudence, and physics. More than 1,000 of his works have survived, including some 500 letters. Among those works was his classification of demons, De operatione dæmonum (On the Operation of Demons), which he presents as an engaging conversation between two acquaintances, Timothy and Thracian.

Psellus was not the first to classify demons, nor the last, but he was among the most important:

Psellus was the bridge between Neo-Platonic, Gnostic and Hermetic texts and the theology, philosophy and dæmonology of the late Byzantine era: a bridge between the classical view of the dæmon as a beneficial guiding spiritual presence, and the later Christian view of demons as intrinsically evil fallen angels. Byzantine magic was later destined to be the source of the main grimoires of Western Europe magic from the 14th century onwards.¹⁰

Presented here, in tabular format, is Psellus’s classification.

Name	Characteristic	Sphere of Operation	Effects on Humans	Potential for Causing Death
Fiery (Igneous)	Associated with heat and light; impulsive and swift in action. Often linked to meteors or fiery phenomena.	The upper atmosphere, between the Earth and the Moon.	Can incite sudden passions (anger, fury) and create dazzling illusions or overwhelming energetic surges.	Their rapid, impulsive nature can provoke violent acts (toward oneself or others). In certain accounts, they might also incite deadly accidents or catastrophic bursts of fury.
Aerial	Lighter in nature than terrestrial or aqueous demons; associated with winds and storms.	The lower air—clouds, winds, storms.	May stir up tempests, provoke excessive emotions or restlessness, and distort perception.	Through storms, sudden gusts, or illusions, aerial demons could orchestrate fatal accidents, sometimes leading travelers astray or plunging them into mortal danger.
Terrestrial	Connected with the solid Earth; heavier and slower than aerial demons.	The land and surface of the Earth (forests, fields, mountains).	Often cause physical disturbances (e.g., poltergeist-like activity) and can incite greed or material fixations.	They can manipulate the physical environment (e.g., triggering poltergeist-like activity) or spur violence over material gain, potentially resulting in deadly outcomes.
Aqueous	Elemental spirits of water; adaptable and fluid in their influence.	Bodies of water (rivers, lakes, seas) and damp environments.	Can induce emotional turbulence, illusions relating to fear or sorrow, and sometimes lure people to danger near water.	They have long been linked to drownings or luring people toward dangerous waters. In some lore, illusions near water lead individuals to their deaths.
Subterranean	Dwell beneath the Earth’s surface; darker and more secretive.	Caverns, mines, underground regions.	May cause hidden fears, nightmares, or obsessions, and are sometimes linked to earthquakes or land shifts.	Sometimes blamed for mining accidents, cave-ins, or sudden chasms. Their subtle, insidious manipulations can drive individuals to self-destructive behavior or fatal despair.
Lucifugous (Light-Shunning)	Characterized by aversion to sunlight or open spaces; thrive in gloom or shadow.	Hidden, shadowy places—remote ruins, darkened corners.	Can exacerbate despair, depression, and isolation; often associated with haunting presences or oppressive atmospheres.	Their oppressive presence can foster suicidal ideation or extreme withdrawal from life. Hauntings attributed to lucifugous demons have also been linked to lethal accidents or unexplained deaths.

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1. Timothy Keller, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism (Penguin Group, 2008), ch. 5. ↩︎
2. C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man (HarperCollins, 1978), 76 and  English Literature in the Sixteenth Century, Excluding Drama (HarperCollins, 1944), Introduction. ↩︎
3. Lewis, The Abolition of Man, 77. ↩︎
4. John 9:6-7: “6 When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes, 7 saying to him, ‘Go, wash in the pool of Siloam’ (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see.” See also Mark 7:33-35. ↩︎
5. Irving L. Finkel, “On Some Dog, Snake and Scorpion Incantations, in Tzvi Abusch and Karel van der Toorn eds, Mesopotamian Magic: Textual, Historical and Interpretive Perspectives (Styx Publications, 1999), 232, Text 8: 30606. ↩︎
6. Ephesians 6:12. ↩︎
7. James Sharpe, “The Demonologists,” in Owen Davies, The Oxford History of Witchcraft and Magic (Oxford University Press, 2003), ch. 3. ↩︎
8. Sophie Page, “Medieval Magic,” in Davies, The Oxford History of Witchcraft and Magic (Oxford University Press, 2003), ch. 2. ↩︎
9. Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, trans. Talcott Parsons (Routledge, 1992), 71. ↩︎
10. Stephen Skinner, “Introduction,” in Dialogue on the Operation of Dæmons, trans. Marcus Collisson (Golden Hoard Press, 2010), 11. ↩︎

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