Pacts - Demons - Exorcism. Signed record of pact made by the demon Asmodeus with the exorcist Jean Baptiste Gault, on 19 May 1629. The demon figure overlooking the pact is the water-stoup figure of Asmodeus in the church at Rennes-le-Chateau. The pact sets out the conditions by which the exorcised Asmodeus will leave the body of a nun he has been possessing, and (we presume) how three demons will leave the bodies of other possessed nuns. The text translates: I promise, in leaving the body of this creature, to make, below her heart, a slit the length of a pin (which will penetrate) at the same
Pacts - Demons - Exorcism. Signed record of pact made by the demon Asmodeus with the exorcist Jean Baptiste Gault, on 19 May 1629. The demon figure overlooking the pact is the water-stoup figure of Asmodeus in the church at Rennes-le-Chateau. The pact sets out the conditions by which the exorcised Asmodeus will leave the body of a nun he has been possessing, and (we presume) how three demons will leave the bodies of other possessed nuns. The text translates: I promise, in leaving the body of this creature, to make, below her heart, a slit the length of a pin (which will penetrate) at the same time her chemise, bodice and over-dress. The slit will be bleeding. This will be (done) tomorrow, the twentieth of May, at five o'clock in the afternoon (which is Saturday). I promise also that Gresil and Amand (two demons) will also make their openings, in a similar way, though smaller, and I ratify that which Leviatam, Behemot and Beherie have promised to do (along with) their companion, as a sign of their leaving (the body), on this register made in the church of Sainte Croix, on 19th May 1629. Asmodee. I have introduced some punctuation (there being little in the document), and with the help of bracketed words to make linguistic sense of what is, in effect, a badly written document. The demon offers the French names of his companions: three are better know as Asmodeus (the signator), Leviathan, Behemoth. Beherie, Gresil and Amand are not listed in the standard grimoires, but such names, like the demons themselves, are legion. I read the date given at the end of the manuscript as 19th May 1629, mainly because the 20th May was (as specified in the text) a Saturday. Other specialists - notably Grillot de Givry in 1929 - have read the date of the pact as 29th May 1624, yet the first numeral is evidently ambiguous. The text given here is an exact tracing of the document preserved in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, under 'fonds francais' No. 7618,
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Photo credit: © Charles Walker Collection / Alamy / Afripics
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Model Released: No
Keywords: -, archival, archive, art, artistic, artwork, asmodeus, colour, demon, demons, esoterica, exorcism., format, historic, historical, history, image, medium, pact, pact., pacts, paranormal, record, signed, transparency
