These contracts were not always binding, however. A male magus signed an official contract in his own blood. Broadly speaking, female witches sealed their diabolical pact with sexual intercourse and allowed demonic spirits (usually in animal form) to suck their blood, leaving a devil’s mark on their bodies. Not only could the Devil snatch your soul after death, but in life as well, by enticing you to witchcraft or black magic.Īs James VI of Scotland (later James I of England) outlines in his Demonologie, the process for making a deal with the Devil varied depending on whether the would-be necromancer was a witch or a magus, and contracts were formed in different ways. ‘There is’, wrote English cleric Thomas Becon in 1594, ‘no ravening wolf that so earnestly seeketh greedily to devour his pray as the enemy of mankind’: the devil ‘hunteth and studieth every moment of an hour how he may destroy and bring to everlasting damnation mortal men’. Such shape-shifting prowess, along with a capacity to play tricks on their victims and ensnare their souls, made the Devil a central figure of fear. As we see in Doctor Faustus, devils didn’t appear in a set form, but could assume whatever shape they pleased. Belief in, and fear of, the Devil was widespread in early modern culture.
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