H ERE I cannot omit to shew, how fondlie diverse writers; and namelie, James Sprenger,1 and Henrie Institor doo gather and note the cause, why the divell maketh choise to possesse men at certeine times of the moone; which is (saie they) in two respects: first, that they may defame so good a creature as the moone; secondly, bicause the braine is the moistest part of the bodie. The divell therefore considereth the aptnesse and conveniencie thereof (the 2moone having dominion over all moist things) so as they take advantage therby, the better to bring their purposes to passe. And further they saie, that divels being conjured and called up, appeere and come sooner in some certeine constellations, than in other some: thereby to induce men to thinke, that there is some godhead in the starres. But when Saule was releeved with the sound of the harpe, they saie that the departure of the divell was p. 514 by meanes of the signe of the crosse imprinted in Davids veines. Whereby we maie see how absurd the imaginations and devises of men are, when they speake according to their owne fansies, without warrant of the word of God. But me thinks it is verie absurd that Josephus3 affirmeth; to wit, that the divell should be thrust out of anie man by vertue of a root. And as vaine it is, that Ælianus writeth of the magicall herbe Cynospastus, otherwise called Aglaphotis; which is all one with Salomons root named Baaros, as having force to drive out anie divell from a man possessed.
Discourse, Chap. 15: Of the possessed with divels.
From The Discoverie of Witchcraft (Reginald Scot, first edition, 1584), p. 513.