сн. vi Of the Witches Pact with the Devil

(...) in witchcraft with a certain sign, as we learn from Irenaeus, I, 24, and Tertullian, de praescript. adiurs. hatret., post medium.

Eleventh, when they have been so marked they make many vows : as never to adore the Eucharist; that they will both in word and deed heap continual insults and revilings upon the Blessed Virgin Mary and the other Saints; that they will trample upon and defile and break all the Relics and images of the Saints; that they will abstain from using the sign of the Cross, Holy Water, blessed salt and bread and other things consecrated by the Church; that they will never make full confession of their sins to a priest; that they will maintain an obstinate silence concerning their bargain with the devil, and that on certain stated days they will, if they can, fly to the witches' Sabbat and zealously take part in its activities; and finally that they will recruit all they can into the service of the devil. And the devil in his turn promises that he will always stand by mem, that he will fulfil then* prayers in this world and bring them to happiness after death.

It must be known too that, as Remy notes (I, 13}, it is an inviolable rule among witches that, when several of them are met together for the purpose of doing ill to some person, and . through the will of God their plans come to nothing since, perhaps, he whom they wish to harm daily commends himself to God in bis prayers, defending himself from their devilish works with Holy Water and the Sacrament; then they have to settle among themselves which of their number shall herself incur the evil, so that they may observe their contract, which provides that, if they try to send misfortune upon another and fail, it must return upon themselves. For the devil will not endure that the injunctions he has laid upon them should all come to nothing. And she to whom the fateful lot falls has to suffer the evil for them all. The devil exacted this condition in the case of Catherine Praevotte in the town of Frcising. This woman had a wish to poison the only daughter of her neighbour Michael Cocus, and tried often to do so, but in vain (for the mother guarded her every day with (...)