girl is screaming out against an invisible witch; a man, to please
her, makes a snatch at the empty air where she points, and finds in
his hand a fragment of stuff, which again is proved to be torn from
the witch's dress. It is easy to see how this trick could be
played. Again, a possessed girl cries that a witch is tormenting
her with an iron spindle, grasps at the spindle (visible only to
her), and, lo, it is in her hand, and is the property of the witch.
Here is proof positive! Again, a girl at Stoke Trister, in
Somerset, is bewitched by Elizabeth Style, of Bayford, widow. The
rector of the parish, the Rev. William Parsons, deposes that the
girl, in a fit, pointed to different parts of her body, 'and where
she pointed, he perceived a red spot to arise, with a small black in
the midst of it, like a small thorn'; and other evidence was given
to the same effect. The phenomenon is akin to many which, according
to medical and scientific testimony, occur to patients in the
hypnotic state. The so-called stigmata of Louise Lateau, and of the
shepherd boy put up by the Archbishop of Reims as a substitute for
Joan of Arc, are cases in point. But Glanvill, who quotes the
record of the trial (January, 1664), holds that witchcraft is proved
by the coincidence of the witch's confession that she, the devil,
and others made an image of the girl and pierced it with thorns!
The confession is a piece of pure folklore: poor old Elizabeth
Style merely copies the statements of French and Scotch witches.
The devil appeared as a handsome man, and as a black dog! Glanvill
denies that she was tortured, or 'watched'--that is, kept awake till
her brain reeled. But his own account makes it plain that she was
'watched' after her confession at least, when the devil, under the
form of a butterfly, appeared in her cell.

This rampant and mischievous nonsense was dear to the psychical