Work and Critical Reception
Weyer's works include medical and moral works as well as his more famous critiques of magic and witchcraft:
- De Praestigiis Daemonum et Incantationibus ac Venificiis (On the Illusions of the Demons and on Spells and Poisons), 1563.
- Pseudomonarchia Daemonum (The False Kingdom of the Demons), an appendix to De Praestigiis Daemonum, 1577.
- "Medicarum Observationum rararum liber, 1567, (A book of medical observations on rare, hitherto undescribed diseases), translated into German as:
- "Artzney-Buch von etlichen biß anher unbekandten unnd unbeschriebenen Kranckheiten," 1580
- "De lamiis liber item de commentitiis jejuniis," 1577, (A book on witches together with a treatise on false fasting), translated into German as:
- "De Lamiis, Das ist: Von Teuffelsgespenst Zauberern und Gifftbereytern, kurtzer doch gründtlicher Bericht... 1586
- "De ira morbo," 1577. (On the disease of anger), translated into German as:
- "Vom Zorn, iracundiae antidotum ... : Buch. Von der gefehrlichen Kranckheit dem Zorn, und desselbigen philosophischer, und theologischer Cur oder Ertzney," 1585
- "De scorbuto epitome," 1564 (On scurvy)
- "Histoire Disputes et Discours des Illusions et Diables, des Magiciens Infame, Sorcieres et Empoisonneurs: des Ensorcelez et Demoniaques et de la Guerison D'Iceux: Item de la Punition que Meritent les Magiciens les Empoisonneurs et les Sorcieres,". 1579. 1885 translation printed aux Bureaux du Progres Medical, Paris France. Two volume set.
"About 40 people at Casale in Western Lombardy smeared the bolts of the town gates with an ointment to spread the plague. Those who touched the gates where infected and many died. The heirs of the dead and diseased had actually paid people at Casale to smear the gates in order to obtain their inheritances more quickly." -From The Deceptions of Demons, 1583
Weyer criticised the Malleus Maleficarum and the witch hunting by the Christian and Civil authorities; he is said to have been the first person that used the term "mentally ill" or melancholy to designate those women accused of practicing witchcraft. In a time when witch trials and executions were just beginning to be common, he sought to derogate the law concerning witchcraft prosecution. He claimed that not only were examples of magic largely incredible but that the crime of witchcraft was literally impossible, so that anyone who confessed to the crime was likely to be suffering some mental disturbance (mainly "melancholy," which was at that time a very flexible category with many different symptoms).
Some scholars have said that Weyer intended to mock the concept of the hellish hierarchy that previous grimoires had established by writing those two books and entitling his catalogue of demons Pseudomonarchia Daemonum (The False Kingdom of the Demons).
Nevertheless, while he defended the idea that the Devil's power was not as strong as claimed by the orthodox Christian churches in De Praestigiis Daemonum, he defended also the idea that demons did have power and could appear before people who called upon them, creating illusions; but he commonly referred to magicians and not to witches when speaking about people who could create illusions, saying they were heretics who were using the Devil's power to do it, and when speaking on witches, he used the term mentally ill.
Moreover, Weyer did not only write the catalogue of demons Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, but also gave their description and the conjurations to invoke them in the appropriate hour and in the name of God and the Trinity, not to create illusions but to oblige them to do the conjurer's will, as well as advice on how to avoid certain perils and tricks if the demon was reluctant to do what he was commanded or a liar. In addition, he wanted to abolish the prosecution of witches, and when speaking on those who invoke demons (which he called spirits) he carefully used the word exorcist.
Weyer never denied the existence of the Devil and a huge number of other demons of high and low order. His work was an inspiration for other occultists and demonologists, including an anonymous author who wrote the Lemegeton (The Lesser Key of Solomon). There were many editions of his books (written in Latin), especially Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, and several adaptations in English, including Reginald Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584).
Weyer's appeal for clemency for those accused of the crime of witchcraft was opposed later in the sixteenth century by the Swiss physician Thomas Erastus and the French legal theorist Jean Bodin.
Read more about this topic: Johann Weyer
Famous quotes containing the words work and, work, critical and/or reception:
“To-day ... when material prosperity and well earned ease and luxury are assured facts from a national standpoint, woman’s work and woman’s influence are needed as never before; needed to bring a heart power into this money getting, dollar-worshipping civilization; needed to bring a moral force into the utilitarian motives and interests of the time; needed to stand for God and Home and Native Land versus gain and greed and grasping selfishness.”
—Anna Julia Cooper (1859–1964)
“Poetry is the only life got, the only work done, the only pure product and free labor of man, performed only when he has put all the world under his feet, and conquered the last of his foes.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The principle goal of education in the schools should be creating men and women who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done; men and women who are creative, inventive and discoverers, who can be critical and verify, and not accept, everything they are offered.”
—Jean Piaget (1896–1980)
“But in the reception of metaphysical formula, all depends, as regards their actual and ulterior result, on the pre-existent qualities of that soil of human nature into which they fall—the company they find already present there, on their admission into the house of thought.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)