r, where their heated imagination
and prepossessed mind lead them to believe that they have done, seen,
and heard, what has no reality except in their own brain?

I shall be told that the parallel I make between the actions of
saints, which can only be attributed to angels and the operation of
the Holy Spirit, or to the fervor of their charity and devotion, with
what happens to wizards and witches, is injurious and odious. I know
how to make a proper distinction between them: do not the books of the
Old and New Testament place in parallel lines the true miracles of
Moses with those of the magicians of Pharaoh; those of antichrist and
his subordinates with those of the saints and apostles; and does not
St. Paul inform us that the angel of darkness often transforms himself
into an angel of light?

In the first edition of this work, we spoke very fully of certain
persons, who boast of having what they call "the garter," and by that
means are able to perform with extraordinary quickness, in a very few
hours, what would naturally take them several days journeying. Almost
incredible things are related on that subject; nevertheless, the
details are so circumstantial, that it is hardly possible there should
not be some foundation for them; and the demon may transport these
people in a forced and violent manner which causes them a fatigue
similar to what they would have suffered, had they really performed
the journey with more than ordinary rapidity.

For instance, the two circumstances related by Torquemada: the first
of a poor scholar of his acquaintance, a clever man, who at last rose
to be physician to Charles V.; when studying at Guadaloupe, was
invited by a traveler who wore the garb of a monk, and to whom he had
rendered some little service, to mount up behind him on his horse,
which seemed a sorry animal and much tired; he got up and rode all
night, without perceiving that he went at an extraordinary pace, but
in the morning he found himself near the city of Granada; the young
man went into the town, but the conductor passed onwards.

Another time, the father of a young man, known to the same Torquemada,
and the young man himself, were going together to Granada, and passing
through the village of Almeda, met a man on horseback like themselves
and going the same way; after having traveled two or three leagues
together, they halted, and the cavalier spread his cloak on the grass,
so that there was no crease in the mant