Scot has the ideomotor effect in 1584, in one sentence, and then does something better: he offers a test.
What this is
If one piece of English folk magic was genuinely universal it was this. Scot calls it “a great practise in all countries” and he is not exaggerating. Divination by sieve is recorded across Europe for centuries.
It is here because it manufactures accusations. It is the most interesting entry in the collection for a different reason: Scot does not merely say it is nonsense. He says, correctly and three centuries early, how it works.
What the text was understood to do
To name a thief from among suspects by the turning of a suspended sieve.
A note before the text. What follows is a historical document and a reading of it. It is recorded, not recommended.
The text, the reading of it, and where to find it.
The passage as Reginald Scot printed it in 1584, quoted in full and unaltered; the same passage in modern English; how the working was put together and what each part of it was for; the commentary; and the book, chapter and page it stands on.
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