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Bodenham, Anne – 06 Other shamanic and magical abilities
Identifier
029008
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
An Antidote Against Atheism by Henry More - Book III: Chapter VII
……………she boasted of to Mr Tucker's Clerk concerning a purse that hung about her neck in a green strings that she could doe many feats with it; and that if he would give her half a dozen of Ale, she would make a Toad spring out of it.
Her confession to Mr Langley of Sarum, that she lived with Dr Lamb, and learn'd the art of raising Spirits from him, which she also confessed to Edmond Bower; to whom also she acknowledged her skill of curing diseases by Charms and Spells, that she could discover stolen goods, and shew any one the thief in a Glass: and being asked by him for the Red Book half wrote over with blood, being a Catalogue of those that had sealed to the Devil, she denied not the knowledge of the book, but said it was with one in Hampshire. She also professed that she used many good Prayers, and said the Creed backwards and forwards, and that she prayed to the Planet Jupiter for the curing of Diseases.
She also acknowledged she had a Book whereby she raised Spirits, calling it a Book of Charms, and said it was worth thousands of other books; and that there was a particular Charm in it for the finding of a Treasure hid by the old Earl of Pembroke in the North part of Wilton Garden.
To another party, being asked by him whether there were any Spirits, she made this reply. That she was sure there were; and confirmed it to him by several passages of late, and particularly by that of one forced to walk about all night with a bundle of Pales on his back in a pond of water, which is mentioned at the end of the fourth Conjuration above recited. She did also highly magnifie her own art to him, venturing at Astrological terms and phrases, and did much scorn and blame the ignorance of the people; averring to him with all earnestness and confidence that there was no hurt in these Spirits, but that they would doe a man all good offices, attending upon him and guarding him from evil all his life long.
But certainly her ragged Boyes were no such.