The Count de Gabalis: being a diverting history of the Rosicrucian doctrine of spirits, viz. slyphs, salamanders, gnomes, and dæmons; shewing their various influences upon human bodies. Done from the Paris edition. To which is prefixed, Monsieur Bayle's account of this work: and of the sect of Rosicrucians ... / [ Villars].

  • Villars, abbé de (Nicolas-Pierre-Henri), 1635-1673.
Date:
1714
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Count de Gabalis: being a diverting history of the Rosicrucian doctrine of spirits, viz. slyphs, salamanders, gnomes, and dæmons; shewing their various influences upon human bodies. Done from the Paris edition. To which is prefixed, Monsieur Bayle's account of this work: and of the sect of Rosicrucians ... / [ Villars]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Emperors believ’d it too ^ and To far went this ridiculous Chimera, that the wife Charlemagne, and after him, Louis the Debonaire inflicted grie¬ vous Penalties on all thofe pretended Tyrants of the Air. / You may fee an Account of this, in the firft Chapter of the Capitularies of thole two Emperors. The Sylphs feeing the Populace, the Pedants, and Crown’d Heads themfelves fo outrageous a- gainft them, refolv d (in order to deftroy the evil Opinion that was had of their innocent Fleet) to take up Men into the Air, and carry ’em to let ’em fee their handfome Wives, their Republick, their Manner of Government -, and then to fet them down again upon the Earth, in divers Places : They did fo. The People feeing thefe Men, as they were defcending, flock'd to them from all Parts, and having a Notion that they were Magicians, detach’d from their Companions, to come and fcatter Poifon upon the Corn and in the Rivers and Springs : According to the Fury which fuch Imaginations are apt to infpire, they dragged thefe innocent Men to Goal. ’Tis incredible what Numbers of them were cut off' by Fire and Water thro’out the Kingdom. It fell out, that one Day among others, at Lyons, were feen defcending from thofe Aerial , Ships, three Men and one Woman : The whole City flocks round them -, make an outcry that the}7- are Magicians, and that they were fent by Grimoaldus Duke of Beneventum, Charlemagne s E- nemy, to deftroy their Harveft. In vain the four'Innocents pleaded that they were their Country-men *, that they had been lately car¬ ry’d away by miraculous Men, who had Ihewn