The Encyclopedia Of Demons And Demonology

232 Seven in Lancashire Possessions
Satan quickly fans its flames. Uncontrolled anger
lays waste to all landscapes, physical, emotional,
and spiritual. Anger is symbolized by fanged animals
such as a leopard or a raging wild boar.
Cassian said that anger clouds discretion and
right judgment and must be rooted out from the
“inmost corners of the soul.”
Patience is the opposing virtue.
7. Sloth—Belphegor: The second carnal sin is sloth,
which spawns laziness, carelessness, apathy, and
negligence. Aquinas said that sloth breeds ignorance,
which in turn creates a host of other sins.
BELPHEGOR, who is worshipped with offerings of
excrement, rules this sin. Sloth is symbolized by a
donkey. Diligence is the opposing virtue.
FURTHER READING:
Cassian, John. On the Training of the Monk and the Eight
Deadly Sins. Available online. URL: http://www.thenaz
areneway.com/Institutes%20of%20John%20Cassian/
the_eight_deadly_sin s.htm. Downloaded December 27,
2007.
Mack, Carol K., and Dinah Mack. A Field Guide to Demons:
Fairies, Fallen Angels, and Other Subversive Spirits. New
York: Owl Books/Henry Holt, 1998.
Thomas Aquinas. Summa Theologiae. Edited by Timothy
McDermott. Allen, Texas: Christian Classics, 1989.
Seven in Lancashire Possessions (1595–1597) En glish
case of possessed children and adults, involving John Dee
and the Puritan minister the REVEREND JOHN DARREL.
The case bears similarities to the children in the THROCK-
MORTON POSSESSIONS, in that the children probably faked
fits in order to avoid religious studies and attending
church and perhaps to gain attention. An accused witch
was executed. Accounts of the case were written by Darrel
and another minister who performed the EXORCISMs,
George More, and were published in 1600.
The Seven in Lancashire case began in 1595 in the
household of Nicholas Starkie of Cleworth, Lancashire.
His two children, Ann, 10, and John, 12, began having
fits and convulsions. Starkie spent 200 pounds—a huge
sum of money—trying to cure the children, to no avail.
He consulted a priest—his wife had been a Catholic—but
the priest had no instructions for exorcism.
Starkie then turned to a cunning man, Edmund Hartley,
and hired him at the annual salary of two pounds.
Hartley was skilled in herbal remedies and charms.
Shortly after the arrival of Hartley in the household, three
other children who were being raised by Starkie became
possessed. So did a maid, Jane Ashton, and a poor relative,
Margaret Byrom, 33.
The behavior of the DEMONIACs conformed to that of
other demoniacs. They screamed, howled, and writhed.
They went into fits whenever Scripture was read, and they
burst out with foul language during church services. John
Starkie ranted for hours on sin and the wrath of God.
One of the girls made a hole in her wall to let her DEMON
enter.
Hartley successful calmed the demoniacs for about 18
months, using CHARMs and herbs. Oddly, he was subject
to fits himself.
By autumn 1596, Starkie, perhaps wishing for more
dramatic results, consulted Dee, who was famous for his
contact with spirits and who had had an experience with
a possessed woman in his employ. Dee recommended
calling in some “godly preachers” and treating the children
with fasting and prayer, common Protestant remedies
for POSSESSION.
Starkie then consulted Darrel and More. Darrel interviewed
Hartley and criticized his approach. The children
had no fits for three weeks.
Hartley fell under suspicion. Dee’s curate, Matthew
Palmer, identified him as a witch because he could not
say the Lord’s Prayer without stumbling—a common test
for discovering witches that was employed in witch trials.
Hartley was accused of bewitching the demoniacs by
kissing them. He was brought to trial in March 1597 and
was found guilty. However, the court had no grounds for
execution. Conjuring spirits was against the law and punishable
by death, but there was no evidence that Hartley
had done so.
Then Starkie “remembered” an incident. He said that
prior to his consulting Dee—and the reason for it—he
had been with Hartley in a wood. The cunning man had
made a circle on the ground with “crosses and partitions”
and asked Starkie to walk it. He allegedly said, “Now I
shall trouble him that troubled me, and be meete with
him that sought my death.”
Hartley denied this, but it was all the court needed
to dispatch him, and he was hanged for conjuring. The
rope broke, giving Hartley a chance to make a confession
and repent, but the court had him hanged again, this time
successfully.
The demoniacs seemed mollified by his death, but
Starkie called in Darrel and More to exorcise them just
the same. When the preachers arrived, the demoniacs resumed
their fits and even rejoiced in the death of Hartley.
They made a terrific show of screaming blasphemies and
convulsing for a day. Then, all were dispossessed. All but
one were never to be troubled so again. The maid, Jane
Ashton, continued to suffer fits and went to live with a
Catholic uncle, who sent her to priests to be exorcised.
FURTHER READING:
Walker, D. P. Unclean Spirits: Possession and Exorcism in
France and England in the Late Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth
Centuries. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 1981.
Shamsiel FALLEN ANGEL who is by some accounts a
good ANGEL. Shamsiel means “light of day” or “mighty
son of God.”