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Johann Weyer &Witchcratf

by Lewis Dowell III
51119902

History credits Johann Weyer the so called father of modern psychiatry as being some form

of protector or defender of those women labelled as witches in the mid to late 16 th century. The

vast number of women labelled witches were often charged and condemned for their alleged

witchcraft, which supposedly wreaked havoc upon society and men in particular. Many of the

arguments against these witches, who were mostly women stemmed from their allegiance or pacts

with the devil and the various curses they allegedly pronounced. It is not without some curiosity

that certain magistrates and clergymen believed the witches to have sexual dalliances with the devil,

which sealed the pact. In a time where superstition and religious passion was high, many people

assumed that with a simple evil stare or demonic wish a witch could inflict severe damage to their

enemies or people believed to have slighted them somehow. Under the tense climate of witchcraft

hunting many women accused each other of being practitioners of the black arts, and began to

blame their neighbours for domestic problems, including curses upon their physical and financial

well-being and other strange occurrences such as unexpected deaths, weird illnesses, and animal

funny time for example. In the eyes of the government the moral fibre of society was at risk, and

the spiritual corruption of the populace meant the decay and destruction of civilization. One might

argue then, that in an age where many saw the Catholic Church as the visible authority of God on

earth, very few people questioned the Church’s judgements concerning matters of the

spirit where witchcraft was at issue.

So enters Johann Weyer with his medical science and otherwise multi-dimensional approach

to the problem of witchcraft. One biographical scholar of Weyer has suggested, “His main aim was

to criticise the Catholic Church. He lived in the age of Luther and Calvin and he had already used a

number of other themes to criticise the church such as the sale of indulgences” 1 (KU Leuven). The

scholar goes on to say that Weyer ”wanted a new tool to combat the church and decided to use the

witch hunt”2 (KU Leuven). Though it appears from his writings that he was not an unbeliever in the

powers of demons and the devil, he seems to be one who looked beyond the unseen world in
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relation to certain evil vexations, to the more physical manifestations of the women’s ailments, such

as ‘pathological rage,’ for example, a medical condition which historians and psychiatrists accredit

Weyer with discovering3 (KU Leuven). While he believed that the powers of the devil were stronger

than those of man, he was certain that it was not necessarily always the devil at work, but some sour

old women in need of proper medical care. As a man of faith Weyer proposed to bring truthfulness

and clarity to the blinded throng of people who had been somehow deluded, blinded and altogether

corrupted by Satan and his minions. He thought it wrong, however, to place blame upon the

women, and argued that the witch hunts were a mockery of the divine justice of the good Lord God

Almighty, who is the judge of the quick and the dead. He argued that since these supposed female

witches were the weaker vessels it was improper to place judgement on them in the natural world,

because the majority suffered from what he determined to be mental illness, whereas in other cases

they were being manipulated by the devil. He writes, “The story of the manner in which the witch

gives herself to the devil is unreasonable and untrue….That all this nonsense does not deserve any

credence is clear. This alliance comes about merely through the fact that the devil poisons human

fantasies so that the individual sees all sorts of visions and hears all sorts of voices. There is,

however, no question of a real contract to which one of the parties forces the other by means of

deception”4 (Zilboorg 137). Weyer understood the wiles of the devil, as his understanding as both

physician and demonologist afforded him the knowledge to combat such devices. He juxtaposed his

medical training and skills as a demonologist with the care of his patients whom he held were

deluded, weak-minded and basically mentally ill. He writes, “If one finds several bewitched or

demonical persons at one and the same place, as ordinarily happens in monasteries and converts,

particularly in the latter, because women are the most convenient butt for the evil pranks of Satan,

it is necessary before all things to separate them from each other and to see to it that they be sent

back to their respective parents or relatives, in whose homes they could more conveniently be

cured”5 (Zilboorg p. 184).Therefore in his line of thinking the judgements which befell the poor old

women, who were so weak willed as to fall for the tricks and allusions of Satan were erroneous ones,

and should have never taken place.

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In his passion for truth and as a truth bearer, “Weyer argued that where God wished

humans to see clearly, the devil wanted to strew illusions and falsehoods. To fool the senses was to

do the devil’s work”6 (Elisa Stattery p. 4). And what was witchcraft if not the manipulation of things

in the natural world of which only God, and in some cases the devil were only capable. Weyer does

not seem to hold that women were really capable of receiving or possessing such powers from the

devil, nor does he appear to believe that the devil required the frailty of humans to execute his

designs. However as a champion of free will Weyer was aware of the devil’s power and ability to

confuse and beguile those with weaker wills.

It has been argued by some historians that Weyer may have inadvertently given cause or

contributed to the persecutions, as witch hunt activity increased after the publication of his books.

Of course in his works such as Pseudomanarchia Damonum, for example Weyer does not appear to

give particular instruction on the uses of Satan’s power, but to examine the folly and give name to

the obsessions by which many people were gripped with. He writes, “My intent is not to present

before all people blasphemies of the bewitched kind of men who are not ashamed to call themselves

magi, their curiosities, deceptions, vanity, tricks, impostures, deliriums, deceiving the mind, and

obvious lies, but rather that they may be unwilling, when they can be seen in the bright light of day,

to let their minds run wild (hallucinari),1 in this most infamous age, where the kingdom of Christ is so

attacked by the immense and unpunished tyranny of those who openly perform the sacraments of

Belial, who will no doubt soon receive their just reward”7 (Weyer, Pseudomonarchia Daemonum).

Weyer appears to have been sincere in his attempts to assist those women charged with witchcraft;

however, his views on magicians are quite ambivalent. One might argue that perhaps Weyer could

not fully explain the relationship between men and the devil. Of magicians Weyer believed that

their powers of slight of hand, and strong wills allowed them to have freer reign. Unlike women

who were being manipulated by the devil men wilfully ‘gave themselves over’ to the devil and held

that they were harder to persecute because they did not exhibit some of the bizarre behaviours as

their female counterparts. The persecution of the witches is what Weyer believed contributed to

the decay of society, and not the women targeted as witches. By his account Weyer seems to
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believe that there was some type of mass hysteria brought upon susceptible women by mental

disease. He believed such ailments required the skills of a physician, not the persecution from

clergy.

Not doubting the existence of the devil we might argue that amidst the climate of

persecution Weyer saw the devil as any unseen entity which brought about mischief and confusion

in a person, yet believed the pathology of the illness caused by the devil could be treated by

medicine. Of course it was the Church’s belief that the illnesses were the manifestations of the

devil’s power incorporated into the very being of the witches. Therefore in the eyes of the Church it

only seemed reasonable to persecute those witches as they no longer belonged to themselves, but

had become agents of Satan. Weyer however, seems to partially refute this notion maintaining,

“We ought to resort now to other means than those which heretofore have been held by custom as

unassailable. And these means will conform much more with the doctrine of Jesus Christ and His

Apostles when we want to be rid of Satan and cure ourselves of his sorcery. First of all, and before

anything else is done, as soon as one observes some ailment which is engendered against the order

of nature, one has to resort, in accordance with the ordinance of the Lord, to him who is known

through doctrine, profession, and usage as one who well understands various maladies, their

differences, their signs, their causes, that is to say, to a physician in good standing” 8 (Zilboorg 138).

To further grasp the historical context one must understand that witchcraft was closely

linked with Christianity and Catholicism in its acknowledgement of the powers of Satan, and in

disavowing Christ and the Holy Spirit. The association of ritual practices and spiritual devotion to

demonic powers seemingly mirrored the prayers and supplication to the Holy Trinity, but in the

pronounced spiritual perversion of worshipping Satan and his minions. In Weyer’s opinion to wilfully

engage in such behaviour was one thing, but to be manipulated or forced to do so under the

influence of the devil was entirely different. He argued that it would be better to allow some of

those individuals as witches to have their freedom, rather than persecute a manipulated

individual under the influence and power of the devil. Weyer pointed out what he believed to be

the error within the Catholic Church, which was their eagerness to punish and persecute the alleged
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witches, with no regard to treating them medically.

In closing it has been suggested that many women confessed to practicing witchcraft while

under the influence of torture. Weyer no doubt was aware of this and understood the folly of

receiving false confessions from individuals who were subjected to manipulation and torture. To

prove that medicine could bring clarity to the eyes of the blind majority in a society which for the

most part hated women, seems to have been one of Weyer’s goals. It is interesting however, that

some historians consider him to be a misogynist due to his summation of the weak disposition of

women. It might be argued that as a product of his time Weyer spoke in a language familiar to his

peers. Perhaps the men folk would have been more ready to listen to his theories on the “weaker

sex” and how easily their minds could be corrupted and become the devil’s playground, rather than

allowing women equal standing with their male counterparts. At any rate The Malleus Maleficarum

(1486) is said to have influenced some of Weyer’s work, and the misogynistic tone of the document

may have carried over into his own. The Malleus Maleficarum is clear in its goals in providing

guidance on how to prosecute a witch and its purpose in asserting the susceptibility and weaknesses

of women and the power the devil is able to exert upon them. However historians are clear in

noting Weyer’s distinct departure from the notion that alleged witches should be persecuted and

tortured. It is this distinction and his medical and scientific methodologies which has afforded him

relevance into modern psychology and psychiatry.

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Works Cited

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. The Link Between Witches and Psychiatry: Johann Weyer. Internet.

Online. Available at: http://www.kuleuven.be/english/news/jan_wier.html 9.9.2011.

Accessed on 9.9.2012.

Slattery, Elisa. To Prevent a Shipwreck of Souls, Johannes Wier (Weyer, Wierus) De Praestigiis

Daemonum. Essays in History, vol 36. Corcoran Department of History at the University of

Virginia. 1994. Internet. Online. Available at: http://www.alex-sk.de/mirror/wier.html

Accessed 9.2.2012.

Weyer, Johann. Pseudomonarchia Daemonum. (Liber officiorum spirituum). Internet. Online.

Available at: http://www.esotericarchives.com/solomon/weyer.htm Digital edition by

Joseph H. Peterson, Copyright © 2000. All rights reserved.

Zilboorg, Gregory. MD. The medical man and the Witch During the Renaissance. New

York. Cooper Square Publishers Inc. 1969.

Endnotes

1
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. The Link Between Witches and Psychiatry: Johann Weyer
http://www.kuleuven.be/english/news/jan_wier.html 9.9.2011
2
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. The Link Between Witches and Psychiatry: Johann Weyer
3
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. The Link Between Witches and Psychiatry: Johann Weyer

4
Zilboorg, Gregory. MD. (1969). The medical man and the Witch During the Renaissance.
New York. Cooper Square Publishers Inc. p. 137.

5
Zilboorg, Gregory. MD. (1969). The medical man and the Witch During the Renaissance
p.184.
6
Slattery, Elisa. (1994). To Prevent a Shipwreck of Souls, Johannes Wier (Weyer, Wierus) De
Praestigiis Daemonum. Essays in History, vol 36. p. 4.
7
Weyer, Johann. Pseudomonarchia Daemonum. (Liber officiorum spirituum).
http://www.esotericarchives.com/solomon/weyer.htm
8
Zilboorg, Gregory. MD. (1969). The medical man and the Witch During the Renaissance p.138.