Şeytanların Hileleri Üzerine

Furthermore, this is the kind of person who is most targeted: one who, by their temperament or external causes, is easily moved by a demon's specter, tempted by its suggestion, or, as a fitting instrument for its will, is easily manipulated by a deceptive induction. Such are the melancholic and those who are sad due to a loss or any other cause, as Chrysostom testifies. His words are these: "The magnitude of grief is more powerful for harm than any diabolical action; for whatever person the demon overcomes, he overcomes through grief." Likewise, those who distrust God, the impious, the illicitly curious, those perversely instructed in the Christian religion, the envious, the malicious, and old women who are hardly in control of their minds are susceptible. So too are those of slippery faith, for he who believes easily, also falls away easily. Truly, that crafty old deceiver most often draws the female sex toward this end. This is by reason of their temperament, which is slippery, credulous, malicious, and of an ungovernable mind; they are prone to melancholy because of those passions which they find difficult to command. But above all, he leads on worn-out, stupid, and mentally wavering old women. He attacks, pursues, and entices each individual as he learns the specific interests and passions of their mind through certain signs. He does this either by assuming a pleasing form or by variously agitating and corrupting their thoughts and imagination, until at last they consent to his purpose and surrender themselves to his persuasion. Since from their first moment of assent he has corrupted their minds with empty images, either lulling to sleep or stirring up the bodily humors and spirits for this work, he introduces certain appearances into the appropriate organs of sense, just as if they were occurring truly from the outside. Thus, certain things are thought to exist or happen externally which, in reality, neither exist nor happen, and often have no place in the nature of things. Such is the incomprehensible subtlety and tireless fraud of these unclean spirits, eluding the senses of men.