I have an older home and the current switches have an inbound and outbound wire. There is no ground or neutral wire.  I tried both of the following installation hacks and the light fixture just flickered on and off:

1. Created a ground wire in the box and attached both the ground and neutral wires from the switch to it
2. Just enclosed the ends of the ground and neutral wires from the switch in a wire nut that is not attached to anything.

In both cases, the light just flashed on and off, and the switch would not turn it off.

Any ideas?  If this switch will not work in my setup, is there one that will?