Note 764 — Chapter XXIV

Andreas Celichius, “Notwendige Erinnerung,” etc., Wittenberg, 1595, Bl. A 3 ff. He enumerates with terror thirty possessed persons in Mecklenburg alone, among whom, however, he probably includes many who were simply mad. “Here, in the immediate vicinity,” he says, “three preachers have lost their minds, and would even appear to be bodily possessed.” J. Moehsen (“Gesch. der Wissenschaften in der Mark Brandenburg,” Berlin, 1781, p. 500) rightly remarked: “The plentiful writings and sermons on the devil’s power, ... on the portents of the Last Judgment, such as comets, meteors, bloody rain, etc., cost many their reason during the latter half of the 16th century.”