more interested in literature than in clerical affairs, and in 1670 he published his first and most important book, Comte du Gabalis. Ostensibly a novel, this volume is largely a veiled satire on the writings of La Calprenède, at this time very popular both in France and in England; but the satirical element in Villars' paper is supplemented by a curious blend of history, philosophy and mysticism; and, as much of the last-named is of a nature distinctly hostile to the dogmas of Rome, the author soon found himself in ill odour with his brother clerics. Probably it was for this reason that he renounced the pulpit, yet his literary activities were not vitiated by persecution; and in 1671 he issued De la Délicetesse, a speculative treatise, couched in the form of dialogues, in which the author takes the part of one, a priest who had lately been writing in opposition to Port Royal doctrines. Like its predecessor this new book made a considerable stir, and Villars began to write voluminously, at the same time plunging deeply into the study of various kinds of mysticism; but his activities were suddenly terminated in an unexpected fashion, for in 1673 he was murdered on the public highroad not far from Lyons, whither he was journeying from Paris. Presumably he had incurred the hatred of some one but the question is shrouded in mystery; and, be the solution what it may, no attempt appears to have been made to frustrate the posthumous publication of divers works from Villars' pen. Within the first decade succeeding his death three such works appeared, L'Amour sans Faiblesse, Anne de Bretague et Ailmanzaris, and Critique de la Bérénice de Racine et de Corneille, the last-named subsequently winning the enconiums of a shrewd judge, Mme. de Sévigné; while so late as 1715 a further production by Villars was issued, a sequel to the Comte du Gabalis, bearing the significant title of Nouveaux Entretiens sur les Sciences secrètes. This volume elicited ready and wide interest among thinkers in the eighteenth century, and it may be briefly defined as a treatise opposing the philosophical theories of Descartes, or rather, opposing the popular · misapprehension and abuse of these. Vintras, Eugene: A Norman peasant of great devoutness, who in the year 1839 was fixed upon by the Saviours of Louis XVII. (q.v.), as a fitting successor to their prophet Martin who had just died. They addressed a letter to the pretended Louis XVII. and arranged that it should fall into the hands of Vintras. It abounded in good promises for the reign to come and in mystical expressions calculated to inflame the brain of a person of weak and excitable character such as Vintras was. In a letter Vintras himself describes as follows the manner in which this communication reached him :

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"Towards nine o'clock I was occupied in writing, when there was a knock at the door of the room in which I sat, and supposing that it was a workman who came on business, I said rather brusquely, Come in.' Much to my astonishment, in place of the expected workman, I saw an old man in rags. I asked merely what he wanted. He answered with much tranquillity, 'Don't disturb yourself, Pierre Michel.' Now, these names are never used in addressing me, for I am known everywhere as Eugène, and even in signing documents I do not make use of my first names. I was conscious of a certain emotion at the old man's answer, and this increased when he said: 'I am utterly tired, and wherever I appear they treat me with disdain, or as a thief.' The words alarmed me considerably, though they were spoken in a saddened and even a woeful tone. I arose and placed a ten sous piece in his hand, saying, I do not take you for that, my good man,' and while speaking I made him understand that I wished to see him -out. He received it in silence but turned his back with a pained air. No sooner had he set foot on the last step

Visions

than I shut the door and locked it. I did not hear him go down, so I called a workman and told him to come up to my room. Under some business pretext, I was wishing him to search with me all the possible places which might conceal my old man, whom I had not seen go out. The workman came accordingly. I left the room in his company, again locking my door. I hunted through all the nooks and corners, but saw nothing.

"I was about to enter the factory when I heard on a sudden the bell ringing for mass, and felt glad that, notwithstanding the disturbance, I could assist at the sacred ceremony. I ran back to my room to obtain a prayer book and, on the table where I had been writing, I found a letter addressed to Mme. de Generès in London; it was written and signed by M. Paul de Montfleury of Caen, and embodied a refutation of heresy, together with a profession of orthodox faith. The address notwithstanding, this letter was intended to place before the Duke of Normandy the most important truths of our holy Catholic, Apostolic and Roman religion. On the document was laid the ten sous piece which I had given to the old man.”

Vintras immediately concluded that the bringer of the letter was a messenger from heaven, and became devoted to the cause of Louis XVII. He became a Visionary. He had bloody sweats, he saw hearts painted with his own blood appear on hosts, accompanied by inscriptions in his own spelling. Many believed him a prophet and followed him, among them several priests, who alleged that they partook of his occult vision. Doctors analysed the fluid which flowed from the hosts and certified it to be human blood. His enemies referred these miracles to the Devil. Vintras' followers regarded him as a new Christ. But one of them, Gozzoli, published scandalous accounts of his doings, alleging that horrible obscenities and sacrilegious masses took place in their private chapel at Tilly-sur-seules. The unspeakable abominations alluded to are contained in a pamphlet entitled Le Prophète Vintras (1851). The sect was formally condemned by the Pope, and Vintras constituted himself sovereign Pontiff. He was arrested on a charge of exploiting his cult for money, was tried at Caen, and sentenced to five years' imprisonment. When freed in 1845 he went to England, and in London resumed the head-ship of his cult which seems to have flourished for some time afterwards.

The

Waldenses: The name of a Christian sect which arose in the south of France about 1170. They were much the same in origin and ethics as the Albigenses (q.v.), that is, their religious system rested upon that of Manichæism, which believed in dualism and severe asceticism. It undoubtedly arose from the desire of the bourgeois class to have changes made in the clerical discipline of the Roman Church. Its adherents called themselves cathari thus demonstrating the eastern origin of their system. There were two classes of these, credentes and perfecti, or neophytes and adepts,the perfecti only being admitted to the esoteric doctrines of the Waldensian Church. Outwardly its aim and effort was rationalistic; but the inner doctrine partook more of the occult. It was in 1170 that Peter Waldo, a rich merchant of Lyons, sold his goods and gave them to the poor, and from him the sect was named. The earliest account of Waldensian beliefs is that of an enemy, Sacconi, an inquisitor of the Holy Office, who wrote about the middle of the thirteenth century. He divides the Waldensians into two classes, those of Lombardy, and those north of the Alps. The latter believed that any layman might consecrate the sacrament of the altar, and that the Roman Church was not the Church of Christ; while the Lombardian sect held that the Roman Church was the Scarlet Woman of the Apocalypse. They also believed that all men were priests. As their opinions became more widespread, persecution became more severe, and the Waldensians latterly withdrew themselves altogether from the Church of Rome, and chose ministers for themselves by election. Papal bulls were issued for their extermination, and a crusade was directed against them; but they survived these attacks, and so late as the time of Cromwell were protected by him against the Duke of Savoy and the French king. Their ministers were later subsidised by the government of Queen Anne, and this subsidy was carried on until the time of Napoleon, when he granted them an equivalent. Latterly they have received much assistance from various Protestant countries of Europe, especially from England; and at the present time number some 12,000 to 13,000 communicants.

During the Middle Ages, it was strongly held by the priesthood of the Roman Church that, like the Albigenses, the Waldensians had a diabolic element in their religion and they have been from time to time classed with the various secret societies that sprang up in medieval Europe, such as the Knights Templar, the Rosicrucians, and so forth; but although they possessed an esoteric doctrine of their own, there is no reason to believe that this was in any way magical, nor in any manner more esoteric than the inner doctrine of any other Christian sect. Walder, Phileas : A Swiss, originally a Lutheran minister, a well-known occultist and spiritualist, and friend of Eliphas Levi (q.v.). He is represented by the pseudohistorians of "Satanism" as a right-hand man of Albert Pike (q.v.) in his alleged diabolic practices at Charleston, U.S.A. (See Devil Worship.) In reality Walder was an earnest mason and mystic.

Wallace, Alfred Russel: A distinguished British naturalist, who discovered the theory of evolution independent of Darwin. He was born at Usk, in Monmouthshire, on the 8th of January, 1823. His scientific studies included an enquiry into the phenomena of spiritualism, and he became a firm believer in the genuineness of these manifestations. Dr. Wallace had unique opportunities for studying these in connection with Mrs. Guppy, who, as Miss Nichols, lived for a time with his sister. Among his works was one entitled Miracles and Modern Spiritualism, published in 1881. Dr. Wallace's views on psychic phenomena remained unchanged until his death in 1903. His scientific position made him a tower of strength to the spiritualists.

War

Wallenstein, Albert Von, Duke of Friedland: (See Astrology.) Wandering Jew, The: A mediæval German legend which has several forms. Through various writers, and differing in detail, the essential features of the narratives which have been handed down to us, are the same. The legend is that as Christ was dragged on his way to Calvary, he passed the house of a Jew, and stopping there, sought to rest a little, being weary under the weight of his cross. The Jew, however, inspired with the adverse enthusiasm of the mob, drove Him on, and would not allow Him to rest there. Jesus, looking at him, said, "I shall stand and rest, but thou shalt go till the last day." Ever afterwards the Jew was compelled to wander over the earth, till this prophecy should be fulfilled.

The legend of the Wandering Jew is to be regarded as the epic of the Semite people in the Middle Ages.

In some parts of Germany we find the Wandering Jew identified with the Wild Huntsman, whilst in several French districts that mythical character is regarded as the wind of the night. The blast in his horn, which, rushing through the valleys creates a hollow booming sound not unlike a great bugle. In this legend we have in all probability the clue to the mythological side of the story of the wandering Jew. Or perhaps the idea of the Wandering Jew has been fused with that of the conception of the wind. The resemblance between the two conceptions would be too strong to escape the popular mind. From a literary point of view this legend has been treated by Eugene Sué and Croly. Wannein Nat: An evil spirit. (See Burma.) War, Occult Phenomena during the: A surprising number of ideas regarding the supernatural have crystallized around the circumstances of the war. Perhaps the most striking of these was the alleged vision of angels at Mons. The first notice regarding this, or at least the most important and public record of the occurrence, was that contained in the Evening News for September 14th, 1915, in Which Mr. Machen described the evidence as given to him by an officer who was in the retreat from Mons. This officer was a member of a well-known army family and was a person of great credibility, who stated that on August 26th, 1914, he was fighting in the battle of Le Cateau, from which his division retired in good order. "On the night of the 27th," he says, I was riding along the column with two other officers. . . . As we rode along I became conscious of the fact that in the fields on both sides of the road along which we were marching I could see a very large body of horsemen. . . . the other two officers had stopped talking. At last one of them asked me if I saw anything in the fields. I told them what I had seen. The third officer confessed that he, too, had been watching these horsemen for the past twenty minutes. So convinced were we that they were really cavalry, that at the next halt one of the officers took a party of men out to reconnoitre and found no one there. The night then grew darker and we saw

no more."

"

Mr. Harold Begbie in his book On the Side of the Angels states that a vision of angels was seen in the retreat from Mons and gives the narrative of a soldier, who states that an officer came up to him in a state of great anxiety and pointed out to him a strange light which seemed to be quite distinctly outlined and was not a reflection of the moon, nor were there any clouds in the neighbourhood. The light became brighter and I could see quite distinctly three shapes, one in the centre having what looked like outspread wings. The other two were not so large, but were quite plainly distinct from the centre one. They appeared to have a long, loose-hanging garment of a golden tint and they were above the German line facing us. We stood watching them for about three-quarters of an hour." All the men in the battalion who saw this with

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"

Mr. Shirley has also written an excellent pamphlet on Prophecies and Omens of the Great War with the various oracular utterances on the gigantic dealing struggle, which may be referred to with confidence.

Stories, too, were current in the earlier times of the war regarding the appearance of saintly and protective figures resembling the patrons of the several allied countries. Thus the English were convinced that in certain engagements they had beheld the figure of Saint George mounted on a white charger and the French were equally sure that the figure in question was either Saint Denis or Joan of Arc. Wounded men in base hospitals asked for medallions or coins on which the likenesses of these saints were impressed in order to verify the statements they made. Wayland Smith: A famous character in German mythological romance and father of Weltich, whom he trained in the art of warfare and sent to the Court of Dietrich in Bern. To him he gave the sword Miming and told him of a meṛmaid, his ancestress, to whom he was to apply when in difficulty. He is also referred to in the Sigfried story, being in company with a smith named Mimi, when Sigfried joins the smithy. His workmanship is praised in the Beowulf Saga and he is mentioned there and elsewhere as a maker of impregnable armour. He is the supernatural

smith of the Teutonic peoples, and is comparable to Vulcan in Roman, and to Hephaistos in Greek mythology. Weir, Major: (See Scotland.)

Weirtz: (See Hypnotism.)

Weishaupt: (See Illuminati.)

Werner, Dr. Heinrich: (See Spiritualism.)

Werwolf: A man temporarily or permanently transformed into a wolf, from the Anglo-Saxon wer, wulf, a wolf. It is a phase of Lycanthropy (q.v.), and a man, and in ancient and medieval times was of very frequent Occurrence. It was, of course, in Europe where the wolf was one of the largest carnivorous animals, that the superstition gained currency, similar tales in other countries usually introducing bears, tigers, and so forth.

The belief is probably a relic of early cannibalism. Communities of semi-civilised people would begin to shun those who devoured human flesh, and they would be ostracised and classed as wild beasts, the idea that they had something in common with these would grow, and the conception that they were able to transform themselves into veritable animals would be likely to arise therefrom.

There were two kinds of werwolf, voluntary and involuntary. The voluntary would be, as has been said, those persons who, because of their taste for human flesh, had withdrawn from intercourse with their fellows. These appeared to possess a certain amount of magical power, or at least sufficient of it to transform themselves into the animal shape at will. This they effected by merely disrobing, by the taking off a girdle made of human skin, or, putting on a similar belt of wolf-skin, obviously a substitute for an entire wolf-skin. But we also hear of their donning the

Werwolf

entire skin. In other instances the body is rubbed with a magic ointment, or water is drunk out of a wolf's footprint. The brains of the animal are also eaten. Magnus says "that the werwolves of Livonia drained a Olaus cup of beer on initiation, and repeated certain magic words. In order to throw off the wolf shape the animal girdle was removed, or else the magician merely muttered a certain formula. In some instances the transformation was supposed to be the work of Satan.

The superstition regarding werwolves seems to have been exceedingly prevalent in France during the 16th century as is evidenced by numerous trials, in some of which it is clearly shown that murder and cannibalism took place. Self-hallucination, too, was accountable for some of these cases, the supposed werwolves fully admitting that they had transformed themselves and had slain numerous persons. But at the beginning of the 17th century, commonsense came to the rescue, and persons making such confessions were not credited. In Teutonic and Slavonic countries it was complained by men of learning that werwolves did more damage than the real criminals, and a regular "college the art of animal transformation was attributed to them. or institution for the practice of Involuntary werwolves were often persons transformed into an animal shape because of the commission of sin, and condemned to pass so many years in that form. Thus certain saints metamorphosed sinners into wolves. In Armenia it is thought that sinful women are condemned to pass seven years in the form of a wolf. a demon appears, bringing a wolf-skin. To such a woman to don it, from which moment she becomes a wolf with all He commands her the nature of a wild beast, devouring her own children and those of strangers, wandering forth at night, undeterred by locks, bolts, or bars, returning only with morning to resume her human form.

Romance, especially French romance, is full of werwolves, and one of the most remarkable instances of this is the Lay by Marie de France entitled Bisclaveret, the Lay of a werwolf.

Many werwolves were innocent persons suffering through the witchcraft of others. To regain their true form it was necessary for them to kneel in one spot for a hundred years, to lose three drops of blood, to be hailed as a werwolf, to have the sign of the cross made on their bodies, to be addressed thrice by their baptismal names, or to be struck thrice on the forehead with a knife.

which made me think that his memory was not hurt by the vehemence of his disease, though his imagination was so greatly damaged."

"Guillaume de Brabant, in the narrative of Wier, repeated by Goulart, has written in his History that a certain man of sense and settled understanding was still so tormented by the evil spirit that at a particular season of the year he would think himself a ravening wolf, and would run here and there in the woods, caves and deserts, chasing little children. It was said that this man was often found running about in the deserts like a man out of his senses, and that at last by the grace of God he came to himself and was healed. There was also, as is related by Job Fincel in the second book On Miracles a villager near Paule in the year 1541, who believed himself to be a wolf, and assaulted several men in the fields, even killing some. Taken at last, though not without great difficulty, he stoutly affirmed that he was a wolf, and that the only way in which he differed from other wolves was that they wore their hairy coats on the outside, while he wore his between his skin and his flesh. Certain persons, more inhuman and wolfish than he, wished to test the truth of this story, and gashed his arms and legs severely. Then, learning their mistake, and the innocence of the melancholiac, they passed him over to the consideration of the surgeons, in whose hands he died some days after. Those afflicted with this disease are pale, with dark and haggard eyes, seeing only with difficulty; the tongue is dry, and the sufferer very thirsty. Pliny and others write that the brain of a bear excites such bestial imaginations. It is even said that one was given to a Spanish gentleman to eat in our times, which so disturbed his mind, that imagining himself to be transformed into a bear, he fled to the mountains and deserts."

"As for the lycanthropes, whose imagination was so damaged," says Goulart, that by some Satanic efficacy they appeared wolves and not men to those who saw them running about and doing all manner of harm, Bodin maintains that the devil can change the shape of one body into that of another, in the great power that God gives him in this elementary world. He says, then, that there may be lycanthropes who have really been transformed into wolves, quoting various examples and histories to prove his contention. In short, after many disputes, he believes in Colt's forms of lycanthropy. And as for the latter, there is represented at the end of this chapter the summary of his proposition, to wit, that men are sometimes transformed into beasts, retaining in that form the human reason; it may be that this comes about by the direct power of God, or it may be that he gives this power to Satan, who carries out his will, or rather his redoubtable judgments. And if we confess (he says) the truths of the sacred history in Daniel, concerning the transformation of Nebuchadnezzar, and the history of Lot's wife changed into motionless stone, the changing of men into an ox or a stone is certainly possible; and consequently the transformation to other animals as well."

G. Peucer says in speaking of lycanthropy: "As for me I had formerly regarded as ridiculous and fabulous the stories I had often heard concerning the transformation of men into wolves; but I have learnt from reliable sources, and from the testimony of trustworthy witnesses, that such things are not at all doubtful or incredible, since they tell of such transformations taking place twelve days after Christmas in Livonia and the adjacent countries; as they have been proved to be true by the confessions of those who have been imprisoned and tortured for such crimes. Here is the manner in which it is done. Immediately after Christmas day is past, a lame boy goes round the country calling these slaves of the devil,

Werwolf

of which there are a great number, and enjoining them to follow him. If they procrastinate or go too slowly, there immediately appears a tall man with a whip whose thongs are made of iron chains, with which he urges them onwards, and sometimes lashes the poor wretches so cruelly, that the marks of the whip remain on their bodies till long afterwards, and cause them the greatest pain. As soon as they have set out on their road, they are all changed into wolves. . . . . They travel in thousands, having for their conductor the bearer of the whip, after whom they march. When they reach the fields, they rush upon the cattle they find there, tearing and carrying away all they can, and doing much other damage; but they are not permitted to touch or wound persons. When they approach any rivers, their guide separates the waters with his whip, so that they seem to open up and leave a dry space by which to cross. At the end of twelve days the whole band scatters, and everyone returns to his home, having regained his own proper form. This transformation, they say, comes about in this wise. The victims fall suddenly on the ground as though they were taken with sudden illness, and remain motionless and extended like corpses, deprived of all feeling, for they neither stir, nor move from one place to another, nor are in any wise transformed into wolves, thus resembling carrion, for although they are rolled or shaken, they give no sign of life."

Bodin relates several cases of lycanthropy and of men changed into beasts.

"Pierre Mamot, in a little treatise he has written on sorcerers, says that he has observed this changing of men into wolves, he being in Savoy at the time. Henry of Cologne in his treatise de Lamiis regards the transformation as beyond doubt. And Ulrich in a little book dedicated to the emperor Sigismund, writes of the dispute before, the emperor, and says that it was agreed, both on the ground of reason, and of the experience of innumerable examples, that such transformation was a fact; and he adds that he himself had seen a lycanthrope at Constance, who was accused, convicted, condemned, and finally executed after his confession. And several books published in Germany say that one of the greatest kings of Christendom, who is not long dead, and who had the reputation of being one of the greatest sorcerers in the world, often changed into a wolf.'

"I remember that the attorney-general of the King, Bourdin, has narrated to me another which was sent to him from the Low Countries, with the whole trial signed by the judge and the clerks, of a wolf, which was struck by an arrow on the thigh, and afterwards found himself in bed, with the arrow (which he had torn out), on regaining his human shape, and the arrow was recognised by him who had fired it-the time and place testified by the confession of the person."

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Garnier, tried and condemned by the parliament of Dole, being in the shape of a werwolf, caught a girl of ten or twelve years in a vineyard of Chastenoy, a quarter of a league from Dole, and having slain her with his teeth and claw-like hands, he ate part of her flesh and carried the rest to his wife. A month later, in the same form, he took another girl, and would have eaten her also, had he not, as he himself confessed, been prevented by three persons who happened to be passing by; and a fortnight after he strangled a boy of ten in the vineyard of Gredisans, and ate his flesh; and in the form of a man and not of a wolf, he killed another boy of twelve or thirteen years in a wood of the village of Porouse with the intention of eating him, but was again prevented. He was condemned to be burnt, and the sentence was executed."

"At the parliament of Bezançon, the accused were Pierre Burgot and Michel Verdun, who confessed to having