The Rosicrucians: Their Rites and Mysteries, by Hargrave Jennings

'Le Théologien érudit ordonna qu’on fît immédiatement dans la chambre de la jeune fille une fumigation de vapeur. On apporte en conséquence une marmite neuve en terre transparente; on y met une once de canne aromatique, de poivre cubèbe, de racines d’aristoloche des deux espèces, de cardomome grand et petit, de gingembre, de poivre long, de caryophyllée, de cinnamome, de canelle caryophyllée, de macis, de noix muscades, de storax calamite, de benjoin, de bois d’aloès, et de trisanthes, le tout dans trois livres d’eau-de-vie demipure; on place la marmite sur des cendres chaudes, afin de faire monter la vapeur fumigante, et l’on tient la chambre close. La fumigation fait arriver l’Incube, mais qui, cette fois, n’osa jamais pénétrer dans la chambre. Seulement, si la jeune fille en sortait pour se promener dans le jardin ou dans le cloître, il lui apparaissait aussitôt tout en restant invisible aux autres, et lui jetant ses bras autour du cou, lui dérobait ou plutôt lui arrachait des baisers, ce qui faisait cruellement souffrir cette honnête pucelle, Enfin, après nouvelle consultation, notre Théologien ordonna à la jeune fille de porter sur elle de petites boulettes composées de parfums exquis, tels que musc, ambre, civette, baume de Pérou et autres. Ainsi munie, elle s’en alla se promener dans le jardin où sur-le-champ lui apparut l’Incube, furieux et menaçant; toutefois, il n’osa point l’approcher, et après s’être mordille le doigt, comme s’il méditait une vengeance, il disparut pour ne plus revenir.--Confesseur de Nonnes, homme grave et très-digne de foi.'

Je sais que beaucoup de mes lecteurs, la plupart peut-être, diront de moi ce que les Epicuriens et bon nombre de Philosophes Stoïciens disaient de S. Paul (Actes des Apôtres, c. 17, v. r8): 'Il semble qu’il annonce des divinités nouvelles', et tourneront ma doctrine en ridicule. Mais ils n’en seront pas moins tenus de détruire les arguments qui précèdent, de nous dire ce que c’est que ces Démons Incubes, vulgairement appelés Follets, qui n’ont peur ni des exorcismes, ni des objets sacrés, ni de la Croix du Christ; et enfin de nous expliquer les divers effets et phénomènes relatés par nous dans l’exposition de cette doctrine.

The above passage is very curious, since it gives the key (a matter which has puzzled every speculator) as to the meaning of the masquerade and 'Folly' and antic system which prevails in the Catholic application of the Christian Doctrine at the 'Pre-Lent' period, and the recurring Festivals, or the Jovial, Mercurial, Venus-patronized periods. Folle: Follets (m), Follettes (f), Folletins (m.), Folletinnes (f). These are the names of the male and female masquerading, gambolling 'Follies', or Fays or Elves or Sprightly Spirits -- under their various fanciful names, and in their picturesque, sportive, masquerading disguises -- the 'pied-populace' of that 'world-turned-upside-down', in the general male and female interchange and frolicsome 'Glorying' -- the Carnival, or Grotesque (in reality, religious) Celebration of all countries. Dancing is also sacred in certain senses. The 'Precentor' of the Cathedrals was originally the Leader of the Choirephists, or Chorephists, or Corephests. Thence Coriphes, or Coryphées, for female dancers.

See also "Timaeus," by Plato

"When the creator had made all these ordinances he remained in his own accustomed nature, and his children heard and were obedient to their father's word, and receiving from him the immortal principle of a mortal creature, in imitation of their own creator they borrowed portions of fire, and earth, and water, and air from the world, which were hereafter to be restored—these they took and welded them together, not with the indissoluble chains by which they were themselves bound, but with little pegs too small to be visible, making up out of all the four elements each separate body, and fastening the courses of the immortal soul in a body which was in a state of perpetual influx and efflux...And they did in fact at that time create a very great and mighty movement; uniting with the ever-flowing stream in stirring up and violently shaking the courses of the soul, they completely stopped the revolution of the same by their opposing current, and hindered it from predominating and advancing; and they so disturbed the nature of the other or diverse, that the three double intervals (i.e. between 1, 2, 4, 8), and the three triple intervals (i.e. between 1, 3, 9, 27), together with the mean terms and connecting links which are expressed by the ratios of 3:2, and 4:3, and of 9:8—these, although they cannot be wholly undone except by him who united them, were twisted by them in all sorts of ways, and the circles were broken and disordered in every possible manner, so that when they moved they were tumbling to pieces, and moved irrationally, at one time in a reverse direction, and then again obliquely, and then upside down, as you might imagine a person who is upside down and has his head leaning upon the ground and his feet up against something in the air; and when he is in such a position, both he and the spectator fancy that the right of either is his left, and the left right. If, when powerfully experiencing these and similar effects, the revolutions of the soul come in contact with some external thing, either of the class of the same or of the other, they speak of the same or of the other in a manner the very opposite of the truth; and they become false and foolish, and there is no course or revolution in them which has a guiding or directing power; and if again any sensations enter in violently from without and drag after them the whole vessel of the soul, then the courses of the soul, though they seem to conquer, are really conquered. And by reason of all these affections, the soul, when encased in a mortal body, now, as in the beginning, is at first without intelligence; but when the flood of growth and nutriment abates, and the courses of the soul, calming down, go their own way and become steadier as time goes on, then the several circles return to their natural form, and their revolutions are corrected, and they call the same and the other by their right names, and make the possessor of them to become a rational being."