4525. CONCERNING MAGICAL ARTS WHICH ARE ABUSED. I was shown the quality of [certain] magical arts which are most absurd. They were like those of a harlequin. The performers move and twist their loins and feet in various ways, then their bodies and arms; clasping their hands together they put them upon their heads, and then turn themselves to all quarters; they observe that certain things in the world of spirits correspond to these gestures, so that other evil spirits are present, each kind in their own quarters, and some with staves. These harlequins act out the grossest absurdities; they throw themselves down, they roll themselves over, they make themselves scarcely visible; while some exercise magical arts by means of a breathing which they exhale, at the same time fixing their thoughts upon some subject, as the blood, for instance, or the animal spirits, or anything else, observing what effect such things have upon the affections, and these affections, though poisonous and magical, they inspire into others, whose capacity goes no farther than to be affected by whatever they suppose to be good: Adlerheim.