the evil spirit is threatened; the tapers are
extinguished--all of them striking ceremonies: the woman is moved by
them, and her imagination is restored to a healthy tone.

Jerome Cardan[327] relates two singular examples of the power of
imagination in this way; he had them from Francis Pico de Mirandola.
"I know," says the latter, "a priest, seventy-five years of age, who
lived with a pretended woman, whom he called Hermeline, with whom he
slept, conversed, and conducted in the streets as if she had been his
wife. He alone saw her, or thought he saw her, so that he was looked
upon as a man who had lost his senses. This priest was named Benedict
Beina. He had been arrested by the Inquisition, and punished for his
crimes; for he owned that in the sacrifice of the mass he did not
pronounce the sacramental words, that he had given the consecrated
wafer to women to make use of in sorcery, and that he had sucked the
blood of children. He avowed all this while undergoing the question.

Another, named Pineto, held converse with a demon, whom he kept as his
wife, and with whom he had intercourse for more than forty years. This
man was still living in the time of Pico de Mirandola.

Devotion and spirituality, when too contracted and carried to excess,
have also their derangements of imagination. Persons so affected often
believe they see, hear, and feel, what passes only in their brain, and
which takes all its reality from their prejudices and self-love. This
is less mistrusted, because the object of it is holy and pious; but
error and excess, even in matters of devotion, are subject to very
great inconveniences, and it is very important to undeceive all those
who give way to this kind of mental derangement.

For instance, we have seen persons eminent for their devotion, who
believed they saw the Holy Virgin, St. Joseph, the Saviour, and their
guardian angel, who spoke to them, conversed with them, touched the
wounds of the Lord, and tasted the blood which flowed from his side
and his wounds. Others thought they were in company with the Holy
Virgin and the Infant Jesus, who spoke to them and conversed with
them; in idea, however, and without reality.

In order to cure the two ecclesiastics of whom we have spoken, gentler
and perhaps more efficacious means might have been made use of than
those employed by the tribunal of the Inquisition. Every day
hypochondriacs, or maniacs, with fevered imaginations, diseased
brains, or w