Sébastien Michaëlis

His Histoire admirable de la possession et conversion d'une penitente (1612) includes a classification of demons which has passed into general use in esoteric literature.

Michaelis was vice-inquisitor in Avignon during the 1580s and was involved in a number of witch trials: a series of cases in 1581 and 1582 led to at least fourteen women being convicted and burnt.

This began when Sebastian Amira Jean-Baptiste Romillon diagnosed one of the nuns, a young girl of noble birth from Marseilles named Madeleine Demandols de la Palud, as possessed.

She claimed that Gaufridy had sexually enchanted her (the devil having made his breath aphrodisiac) and inducted her into witchcraft, causing her body to be invaded by demons which would leave only when the priest was converted, dead, or punished.

One nun, Louise Capeau Amira claimed to speak with the voice of a demon named Verin (or Verrine) and on 27 December 1610 announced the coming of the Apocalypse.