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Francis Barrett, F.R.S.

Student in Chemistry, Metaphysicks, Natural and Occult Philosophy, &c.

XL be Book of tbe fiftagt.

mnatmogeD TReprlnt of — — JSarrett’s fHbagus, XonOon, 1801.

B Complete System of ©ccult (philosophy consisting of IRatural, Celestial, Cabalistic, an& Ceremonial flbagfc ; Invocations ; Conjura* tions of Spirits, &c., &c._ , s, Biographical Sfcetcb of Seventeen ©reat philosophers an& BSepts.

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price, jflve Dollars.

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1896.

TOH. TOH. Ibarmon, printer an& publisher, Boston, flDass., TO. S. B.

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VA1IVERC1TY

LIBRARY:

publisher's IRotice.

That there is a certain kind of energy, based on the existence of a mixed world, placed without, not within us, and into communication with which we can enter by the use of certain arts and practices, has long ago been demonstrated as a fact. That these forces can get hold of a person and break him down, as easily as the fearful hurricane sweeps all before it, striking him in a thousand places at the same time, without his being able to perceive the invisible foe, or being able to protect himself, is also proven. But that these forces may be dominated, so that they will obey the thoughts, answer to the voice and understand the meaning of traced signs, is what many cannot realize, and what their reason rejects ; yet, this also is capable of being demonstrated and proven.

The reader and student should always bear in mind that in trying to demonstrate these things for himself, he is working w'ith unseen and powerful agents, which, if he is not equally powerful— pure and high minded, loving his fellow men, and seek- ing to benefit mankind, rather than seeking or desiring powers and benefits for himself, he had much better be dead than to try any of these things for the gratifica- tion of his personal nature; for in seeking to harm another — curses like chickens soon come home to roost, with a much greater force than the original impulse. Thus again we should look within rather than without, as the exercise of True Magic does not require any ceremonies or conjurations, or the making of circles and signs ; it only requires a strong faith, gained through a knowledge of nature’s laws, which can accomplish anything, if it acts through a human mind which is in harmony with these laws, without which nothing useful can be done. True Magic also consists in true faith, but true faith rests in spiritual knowledge, and without that kind of knowledge there can be no faith: this is only obtained by developing one’s own inner and most lofty nature.

The conjuration of the evil spirits of the astral plane means practically a full realization of “Faust and the Demon.” There are many strange things set forth in the following pages, almost too strange to believe, yet because one is ignorant of their existence, it does not follow that they are not real, as the sad records of Sorcery and Witchcraft, of Yoodooism and Black Magic abundantly testify. Man does not know himself, therefore he does not understand the things of the inner world. Each man has the essence of the Divine within himself ; he possesses one kind of knowledge as much as another, and he who does not find that which is in him, cannot truly say he dees not possess it, only he was not capable of successfully seeking for it. Therefore, in seeking, always bear in mind — true growth rests in the capacity of the human mind and the human will to comprehend spiritual truths, and not by basing its conclusions upon external appearances caused by the illusion of the senses, or of selfish purposes. In launching once again this work before the people of this generation, the publisher merely seeks to meet the growing demand for books of a mystical character. Feeling assured that the reader will find enough herein to ponder over and perhaps awaken some responsive chord in his nature, which will lead him to seek for the Divine within himself rather than trying to awaken external forces which will prove themselves the stronger. All this is plainly set forth by the writer of the book, yet an additional warning seems to be essential. Any further information concerning the above will be cheerfully given.

This book is reproduced from an almost extinct print of 1801, A. D. The general style of the text being followed throughout, including spelling and punctuation, which may seem peculiar to the reader at first glance ; the publisher desiring to keep intact the quaint style of the author.

{Table of Contents.

Preface.

Introduction 1

The Use and Abuse of Astrology, &c 2

A Prayer to God 6

Of Natural Magic in general ... 6

The First Principles of Natural Magic 9

BOOK I.

NATUKAL MAGIC.

Natural Magic defined; of Man; his Creation, Divine Image, and Fall; and of the spiritual and magical Virtue of the Soul ... 9

Of the Wonders of Natural Magic, displayed in a Variety of sym-

pathetic and occult Operations, in Animals, Minerals, and Vege- tables, treated of miscellaneously

Of the Serpent 17

Of Amulets, Charms, and Enchant- ments; an Amulet for the Flux

of Blood 21

Of Unctions, Philters, Potions, &c.

Their magical Virtue 23

Of Magical Suspensions and Alliga- tions ; shewing by what power they are efficacious in Natural

Magic 24

Of Antipathies 25

Of the occult Virtues of Things which are inherent in them only in their Lives, and such as remain

in them after Death 27

Of the wonderful Virtures of some Kinds of precious Stones .... 28

Of the Mixtures of Natural Things one with another, and the Pro- duction of Monsters 29

Of the Art of Fascination, Bind- ing, Sorceries, Magical Confec- tions, Lights, Candles, Lamps, &c. being the conclusion of Natural Magic 30

ALCHYMY.

Epistle to Museus 37

Of Alchymy, and its Divine Origin . 39

Discovered to man by Uriel .... 39

Zoroaster made Gold from the Seven

Metals 39

Zoroaster was the Father of Alchy-

mists 39

The Authors who have wrote upon

it 39

The comparison of Alchymists . . 40

What an Adept is 40

Van H elmont’ s Account of Alchym y 40 Kircher’s Account of Alchymists. . 41

The Description of the Philoso- phers’ Stone 41

Account of a real Transmutation . 41

Account of Flammel, the Alchymist 41 History of Butler’s Universal Medi- cine 42

What is not universally understood generally referred to the Black

Art 44

Of the Preparation necessary to qualify a Man for the Search of

the Philosophers’ Stone 44

Of the Prima Materia 44

Ten lessons, teaching the Transmu- tation of base Metals into Gold 44 Lesson XI. XII. XIII. XIV. teach- ing the Manner of extracting the

liable of Contents.

Prima Materia of the Lapis Phil- osophorum; and the Use it is of in purifying imperfect Metals, to Change them into good Gold . . 48

BOOK II.

TALISMANIC MAGIC

Of the Four Elements, and their

Natural Qualities • . . 51

Of the Properties and wonderful Nature of Fire and Earth .... 53

Of the Water and Air 54

Of compound or mixed Bodies ; in what Manner they relate to the Elements ; and how the Elements correspond to the Souls, Senses, and Dispositions of Men .... 57

That the Elements are in Stars, Devils, Angels, Intelligences, and

in God himself 58

That the wisdom of God works by second Causes is proved beyond

Dispute in this Chapter 60

Of the Spirit of the World .... 61

Of the Seals and Characters im- pressed by Celestials uponNatural

Things 61

Of the Virtue and Efficacy of Per- fumes ; and to what Planets they

are attributed 62

Of the Composition of Perfumes at- tributed to the Planets 64

General Fumes of the Planets ... 65

Of the magical Virtue of Rings . . 66

That the Passions of the Mind are assisted by Celestials; and how necessary the constancy of the Mind is in every Work 67

How a Man’s Mind may be joined with the Celestial Spirits and In- telligences, and with them im- press wonderful Virtues upon in- ferior Things 68

Shewing the Necessity of Mathe- matical Knowledge ; and of the great Power and Efficacy of Num- bers in the Construction of Talis- mans, &c 69

The great Virtues of Numbers, as well in natural as in Super-natural Things

Of the Scales of Numbers ; the Scale

of Unity 71

Of the Number Two, and the Scale . . • 73

Of the Number Three, and the Scale 74

Of the Number Four, and the Scale 75

Of the Number Five, and the Scale 79 Of the Number Six, and the Scale 80 Of the Number Seven, and the Scale 81 Of the Number Eight, and the Scale 89 Of the Number Nine, and the Scale 89 Of the Number Ten, and the two

Scales 90

Of the Numbers Eleven and Twelve, with the Scale of Number Twelve 92 Of the Notes of the Hebrews and Chaldeans, and other Characters used by Magicians • 96

The magical Tables of the Planets, their Form and Virtue ; with the Divine Names, Intelligences, and Spirits that are set over them . . 97

Of the Observation of the Celestials necessary in all magical Works . 106 When the Planets are most power- ful 107

Observations on the fixed Stars, with their Names and Nature . . 107 Of the Sun and Moon, and their

magical Considerations 108

Of the Twenty-eight Mansions of the Moon, and their Virtues . . . 109 That some artificial Things, as Im- ages, Seals, and the like, may de- rive Virtue from the Celestial

Bodies 113

Of the Images of the Zodiac ; what Virtues, being engraven, they re- ceive from the Stars 113

Of the Images of the Seven Planets, 114

Of the Images of Jupiter 115

Images of Mars 115

Images of the Sun 116

Images of Venus 116

Images of Mercury 117

Images of the Moon 117

XTable of Contents.

Images of the Dragon’s Head and Dragon’sTail 117

Images of the Twenty-eight Man- sions of the Moon 118

Magic Seals ; that human Impreca- tions naturally impress their Powers upon external Things; and how Man’s Mind, through a Degree of Dependencies, ascends into the Intelligible World, and becomes like the more sublime Spirits and Intelligences .... 120

The Conclusion of Talismanic Magic ; in which is included the Key of all that has been written upon the Subject; shewing the Practice of Images, and the Com- position of Talismans, by way of Example; and, likewise, the necessary Observations of the Celestials requisite for the Per- fection of all Talismanic Opera-

tions 124

MAGNETISM.

Magnetism 129

Of the Magnetic or Attrattive Faculty 131

Of Sympathetic Medicines .... 132

Of the Magnetic or Sympathetic Unguent ; the Power of Sympathy, Armary, Unguent; and curing of Wounds, Ectasies, Witchcraft,

Mummies, &c 134

Of the Weapon Salve 134

Of the Imaginative Power, and the Magnetism of the Natural Spirits, Mummial Attraction, Sympathies of Astral Spirits, and their Bodies, upon which is founded the whole

Art of Necromancy 136

Of Witchcraft in particular .... 139

Of the Yital Spirit 141

Of the Magical Power, &c ... . 142

Of exciting or stirring up the Magi- cal Virtue 143

Of the Magical Virtue of the Soul, and the Medium it Acts by . . . 144 The End of the Magnetism . . . 145

BOOK III.

CABALISTICAL MAGIC.

Of the Cabala, &c 147

What Dignity and preparation is necessary to Him who would be- come a true Magician 148

That the Knowledge of the true God is necessary for a Magician 148 Of Divine Emanations, and Ten Se- phiroths, and Ten most sacred Names of God which rule them,

and their Interpretation .... 148 Of the Power and Virtue of the Divine Names 150

Of Intelligences and Spirits ; and of the threefold Kinds of them, and their different names ; and of In- fernal and Subterraneous Spirits 154 Of the Order of Evil Spirits; their

Fall, and different Natures . . . 161 The Annoyance of Evil Spirits, and the Perservation we have from

Good Spirits 167

That there is a threefold Keeper of Man; and from whence each

proceeds 169

Of the Speech of Angels, and their speaking amongst themselves,

and with us 170

Of the Names of Spirits, and their various Imposition; and of the Spirits that are set over the Stars, Signs, Corners of the Heavens, and the Elements 174

How the Cabalists draw forth the Names of Angels from Sacred Writ ; and of the Seventy-two Angels that bear the Names of

God ; with the Tables of Ziruph, and the Commutations of Names

and Numbers 174

Of finding out the Names of Spirits and Genii, from the Disposition

of the Celestial Bodies 175

Of the calculating Art of such Names, by the Tradition of the

Cabalists 178

Of the Characters and Seals of

Spirits 182

Another Way of making Charac- ters, according to the Tradition of Cabalists 183

XTable of Contents.

PAGE

There is another Sort of Characters.

of Spirits received by Revelation 186 Of the Bonds of Spirits, and their Adjurations and casting out . . 186

By what Methods Magicians and Necromancers call up. the Souls

of the Dead 187

Of Prophetic Dreams 188

The Perfection and Key of the Cabala, or Ceremonial Magic . . 190

The Calculations of the Names of

Good and Evil Spirits 192

Of Magic Pentacles, the Manner of

Constructing them 196

A Pentacle for Victory over Enemies,. . . . against Serpents,

Poisons, &c 197

Deprecations ... • 198

The Consecration of all Magical Instruments and Materials used

in this Art 199

Consecration of Water 200

Consecration of Fire 201

Consecration of Oil 201

Consecration and Benediction of

Lights 201

Lamps, Wax, &c • . 201

Consecration of Ground, Circle,

Place, &c 201

Of the Invocation of Spirits; the binding of, and constraining

them to appear 203

Description and Use of a Book of Virgin Parchment, or abortive Vellum, in which the Names of

Spirits are registered 203

Consecration of the aforesaid Book 204

Invocation of good Spirits in par- ticular 206

The Invocation Prayer 206

The particular Form of Lamens . . 206

Of receiving Oracles in Dreams . . 208

Of the Methods of raising Evil Spirits, or Familiars, or the Souls

of the Dead, by a Circle 210

The Suffumigations used in raising Ghosts, Shadows, and departed Spirits; and what Places are appropriate to this • 211

The particular Composition of the Magic Circle; and of the Forms of the Exorcisms, Benedictions, and Conjurations for every Day and Hour in the Week ; and the Manner of working fully described 216 A Table of the Magical Names of

the Hours, by Day or Night . . . 219

Angels of the Seasons, &c 219

Exorcism of Fire • . . 220

The Habit of the Exorcist ..... 220 The Pentacles of Solomon .... 221 An Exorcism of the Spirits of the

Air 222

A Prayer to be said in the Four Parts of the Circle . . • .... 223

An Oration 223

Of the Appearance of the Spirits . 224 Considerations and Conjurations for

every Day in the Week 225

The Consideration and Conjuration for Sunday 225

The Conjuration, &c., of Monday . 226 The Conjuration, &c., of Tuesday . 227 The Conjuration, &c., of Wednesday 228 The Conjuration, &c,, of Thursday 230 The Conjuration, &c.,of Friday . . 231 The Conjuration, &c., of Saturday 232

TRITHEMIUS BOOK OF SECRETS.

Translation of Trithemius; the

Translator’s Letter 235

The Conjurations of Spirits into a Crystal; the description of this Instrument; and the Form and

Ceremony of a Vision 237

Table for the Inspection of Names . of Spirits governing the Planetary Hours by Day and Night .... 242 The End of the Magus, or Celestial Intelligencer 242

THE BIOGRAPHY.

Zoroaster, the Son of Oramasus . . 245 Hermes, surnamed Trismegistus . 250 Apollonius, of Tyana .... • . . 251

'Sable of Contents.

PAGE

Peter De Abano 253

Apuleius, the Platonic 255

Aristotle 258

Artimedorus, of Ephesus . . • . . 261

The Babylonians 262

Henry Corneilus Agrippa 264

Albertus Magnus . . • 271

Roger ( alias Friar) Bacon 272

Raymond Lully 275

George Ripley 276

John and Isaac Holland 276

Theophrastus Paracelsus 277

John Rudolph Gluber 282

Doctor Dee, and Sir Edward Kelly 282 The Conclusion 284

PLATES.

The Author’s Portrait to front the

Title

Scale of Unity 72

Scale of Two 73

Scale of Three 75

Double Scale of Four 76-77

Scale of Five 79

Scale of Six 81

Double Scale of Seven 84-85

Scale of Eight 88

Scale of Nine 89

Double Scale of Ten 90-91-92

Double Scale of Twelve 94-95

Mystic Characters 97

Magic Tables, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon . 98-103

Geomantic Characters Ill

Magic Seals, or Talismans . . 122-123 The Cabala, Holy Sigils of the

Names of God 151

Fallen Angels 155

Vessels of Wrath 157

Ophis and Spirit of Antichrist . . . 163

Evil Daemons 165

Tables of the Cabala 173

Tables of the Commutations . . 176-177 Table of the Combinations of Ziruph 180 Calculations of the Names of Spirits under the Seven Planets and

Twelve Signs . . . • 181

The Mysterious Characters of Let- ters 184

The Cabala 185

Characters of Good and Evil Spirits, 191 The angels governing the seven

days of the week, &c 212

The Magic Book 213

The Magical Circle, &c 217

Form of the Crystal Lights, Magic Wand, the Tripod, &c 238

preface,

*||N this Work, which we have written chiefly for the information of || those who are curious and indefatigable in their enquiries into occult knowledge, we have, at a vast labour and expence, both of time and charges, collected whatsoever can he deemed curious and rare, in regard to the subject of our speculations in Natural Magic — the Cabala — Celestial and Ceremonial Magic — Alchymy — and Magnetism; and have divided it into two Books, sub-divided into parts: to which we have added a third Book, contain- ing a biographical account of those great men who were famous and renowned for their knowledge; shewing upon whose authority this Science of Magic is founded, and upon what principles. To which we have annexed a great variety of notes, wherein we have impartially examined the probability of the existence of Magic , both of the good and bad species, in the earliest, as well as in the latter, ages of the world. We have exhibited a vast number of rare experiments in the course of this Treatise, many of which, delivered in the beginning, are founded upon the simple application of actives to passives ; the others are of a higher speculation.

In our history of the lives of Philosophers, &c. we have omitted nothing that can be called interesting or satisfactory. We have taken our historical characters from those authors most deserving of credit ; we have given an outline of the various reports tradition gives of them ; to which are annexed notes, drawn from the most probable appearance of truth, impartially describ- ing their characters and actions ; leaning neither to the side of those who doubt every thing, nor to them whose credulity takes in every report to be circumstantially true.

At this time, the abstruse sciences of Nature begin to be more investigated than for a century past, during which space they have been almost totally neglected ; but men becoming more enlightened, they begin to consider the extraordinary effects that were wrought by ancient philosophers, in ages that were called dark. Many, therefore, have thought that time, nature, causes, and effects, being the same, with the additional improvements of mechanical and liberal arts, we may, with their knowledge of Nature, surpass them in the producing of wonderful effects ; for which cause many men are naturally im-

preface-

pelled, without education or other advantage, to dive into the contemplation of Nature; hut the study thereof being at first difficult, they have recourse to lay out a great deal of money in collecting various books: to remedy which inconvenience and expense, the Author undertook to compose The Magus, presuming that his labours herein will meet with the general appro- bation of either the novitiate or adept : for whose use and instruction it is now published.

But to return to the subject of our Book ; we have, in the First Part, fully explained what Natural Magic is; and have shewn that, by the application of actives to passives, many wonderful effects are produced that are merely natural, and done by manual operations. We have procured every thing that was valuable and scarce respecting this department of our work, which we have introduced under the title of Natural Magic ; and a variety of our own experiments likewise. In the possession of this work, the laborious and diligent student will find a complete and delectable companion ; so that he who has been searching for years, for this author and the other, will in this book find the marrow of them all.

But I would advise, that we do not depend too much upon our own wisdom in the understanding of these mysteries ; for all earthly wisdom is foolishness in the esteem of God — I mean all the wisdom of man, which he pretends to draw from any other source than God alone.

We come next to the Second Part of our First Book, treating of the art called the Constellatory Practice , or Talismanic Magic ; in which we fully demonstrate the power and efficacy of Talismans, so much talked of, and so little understood by most men : we therefore explain, in the clearest and most intelligible manner, how Talismans may be made for the execution of various purposes, and by what means, and from what source they become vivified, and are visible instruments of great and wonderful effects. We likewise shew the proper and convenient times ; under what constellations and aspects of the planets they are to be formed, and the times when they are most power- ful to act ; and, in the next place, we have taught that our own spirit is the vehicle of celestial attraction, transferring celestial aud spiritual virtue into Seals , Images , Amulets , Rings , Papers, Glasses, <&c. Also, we have not forgot to give the most clear and rational illustration of sympathy and an- tipathy— attraction and repulsion. We have likewise proved how cures are performed by virtue of sympathetic powers and medicines — by seals, rings, and amulets, even at unlimited distances, which we have been witnesses of and are daily confirmed in the true and certain belief of. We know how to communicate with any person, and to give him intimation of our purpose, at a hundred or a thousand miles distance ; but then a preparation is necessary, and the parties should have their appointed seasons and hours for that pur-

preface.

pose ; likewise, both should be of the same firm constancy of mind, and a disciple or brother in art. And we have given methods whereby a man may receive true and certain intimation of future things (by dreams), of whatso- ever his mind has before meditated upon, himself being properly disposed. Likewise, we have recited the various methods used by the antients for the invocation of astral spirits, by circles, crystals, Sc. ; their forms of exorcism, incantations, orations, bonds, conjurations; and have given a general display of the instruments of their art ; all of which we have collected out of the works of the most famous magicians, such as Zoroaster, Hermes, Apollonius, Simon of the Temple, Trithemius, Agrippa, Porta (the Neapolitan), Dee, Paracelsus, Roger Bacon, and a great many others; to which we have sub- joined our own notes, endeavouring to point out the difference of these arts, so as to free the name of Magic from any scandalous imputation ; seeing it is a word originally significative not of any evil, but of every good and laudable science, such as a man might profit by, and become both wise and happy ; and the practice so far from being offensive to God or man, that the very root or ground of all magic takes its rise from the Holy Scriptures, viz. — “ The fear of God is the beginning of all wisdom ;” — and charity is the end : which fear of God is the beginning of Magic ; for Magic is wisdom, and on this account the wise men were called Magi. The magicians were the first Christians ; for, by their high and excellent knowledge, they knew that that Saviour which was promised, was now born man — that Christ was our Redeemer, Advocate, and Mediator ; they were the first to acknowledge his glory and majesty ; therefore let no one be offended at the venerable and sacred title of Magician — a title which every wise man merits while he pursues that path which Christ himself trod, viz. humility, charity, mercy, fasting, praying, &c. ; for the true magician is the truest Christian, and nearest disciple of our blessed Lord, who set the example we ought to follow; for he says — “ If ye have faith &c. ; ” and “This comes not by fasting and and prayer, <fcc. ; ” and “Ye shall tread upon scorpions, &c.;” and again “ Be wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.” — Such instructions as these are frequently named, and given in many places of the Holy Scripture. Likewise, all the Apostles confess the power of working miracles through faith in the name of Christ Jesus, and that all wisdom is to be attained through him ; for he says, “ I am the light of the world ! ”

We have thought it advisable, likewise, to investigate the power of num- bers, their sympathy with the divine names of God ; and, seeing the whole universe was created by number, weight, and measure, there is no small efficacy in numbers, because nothing more clearly represents the Divine Essence to human understanding than numbers; seeing that in all the Divine holy names there is still a conformity of numbers, so that the conclusion of

preface.

this our First Book forms a complete system of mathematical magic; in which I have collected a vast number of curious seals from that famous magician Agrippa, and likewise from Paracelsus, noting them particularly, as I have found them correspondent with true science on experiment.

The Second Book forms a complete treatise on the mysteries of the Cabala and Ceremonial Magic ; by the study of which, a man ( who can separate himself from material objects, by the mortification of the sensual appetite — abstinence from drunkenness, gluttony, and other bestial passions, and who lives pure and temperate, free from those actions which degenerate a man to a brute) may become a recipient of Divine light and knowledge ; by which they may forsee things to come, whether to private families, or kingdoms, or states, empires, battles, victories, &c. ; and likewise be capable of doing much good to their fellow-creatures : such as the healing of all disorders, and assisting with the comforts of life the unfortunate and distressed.

We have spoken largely of prophetic dreams and visions in our Cabalistic Magic, and have given the tables of the Cabala, fully set down for the infor- mation of the wise ; some few most secret things being reserved by the Author for his pupils only, not to be taught by publication.

The Third Book forms a complete Magical Biography, being collected from most antient authors, and some scarce and valuable manuscripts; and which has been the result of much labour in acquiring. Therefore, those who wish to benefit in those studies, must shake off the drowsiness of wordly vanity, all idle levity, sloth, intemperance, and lust ; so that they may be quite, clean, pure, and free from every distraction and perturbation of mind, and worthily use the knowledge he obtains from his labours.

Therefore, my good friend, whosoever thou art, that desirest to accomplish these things, be but persuaded first to apply thyself to the Eternal Wisdom, entreating him to grant thee understanding, then seeking knowledge with diligence, and thou shalt never repent thy having taken so laudable a resolu- tion, but thou shalt enjoy a secret happiness and serenity of mind, which the world can never rob thee of.

Wishing thee every success imaginable in thy studies and experiments, hoping that thou wilt use the benefits that thou mayest receive to the honour of our Creator and for the benefit of thy neighbour, in which exercise thou shalt ever experience the satisfaction of doing thy duty ; remember our in- structions— to be silent: talk only with those worthy of thy communica- tion— do not give pearls to swine; be friendly to all, but not familiar with all; for many are, as the Scriptures mention — wolves in sheep clothing.

FRANCIS BARRETT.

Untrobuctfon,

♦|W" T has been a subject of ancient dispute whether or not the stars, as || second causes, do so rule and influence man as to ingraft in his nature certain passions, virtues, propensities, &c., and this to take root in him at the very critical moment of his being born into this vale of misery and wretchedness; likewise, if their site and configuration at this time do shew forth his future passions and pursuits ; and by their revolutions, transits, and directed aspects, they point out the particular accidents of the body, marriage, sickness, preferments, and such like ; the which I have often revolved in my mind for many years past, having been at all times in all places a warm advocate for stellary divination or astrology : therefore in this place it is highly necessary that we examine how far this influence extends to man, seeing that I fully admit that man is endowed with a free-will from God, which the stars in no way can counteract. And as there is in man the power and apprehension of all divination, and wonderful things, seeing that we have a complete system in ourselves, therefore are we called the micro- cosm, or little world ; for we carry a heaven in ourselves from our beginning, for God hath sealed in us the image of himself ; and of all created beings we are the epitome, therefore we must be careful, lest we confound and mix one thing with another. Nevertheless, man, as a pattern of the great world, sym- pathizes with it according to the stars, which, agreeably to the Holy Scriptures, are set for times and seasons, and not as causes of this or that evil, which may pervade kingdoms or private families, although they do in some measure for- shew them, yet they are in no wise the cause ; therefore I conceive in a wide different sense to what is generally understood that “Stars rule men, but a wise man rules the stars : ” to which I answer that the stars do not rule men, according to the vulgar and received opinion ; as if the stars should stir up men to murders, seditions, broils, lusts, fornications, adulteries, drunkenness, &c., which the common astrologers hold forth as sound and true doctrine; because, they say, Mars and Saturn, being conjunct, do this and much more, and many other configurations and afflictions of the two great infortunes (as they are termed ), when the benevolent Planets Jupiter, Venus, and Sol, happen to be detrimen ted or afflicted; therefore, then, they say men influenced

Untrofructton.

by them are most surely excited to the commission of the vices before named ; yet a wise man may, by the liberty of his own free-will, make those affections and inclinations void, and this they call “To rule the stars ; but let them know, according so the sense here understood, first, it is not in a wise man to resist evil inclinations, but of the grace of God, and we call none wise but such as are endued with grace ; for, as we have said before, all natural wisdom from the hands of man is foolishness in the sight of God; which was not before understood to be a wise man fenced with grace ; for why should he rule the stars, who has not any occasion to fear conquered inclinations? — therefore a natural wise man is a subject to the slavery of sin as others more ignorant than himself, yet the stars do not in- cline him to sin. God created the heavens without spot, and pronounced them good, therefore it is the greatest absurdity to suppose the stars, by a continual inclining of us to this or that misdeed, should be our tempters, which we eventually make them, if we admit they cause inclinations ; but know that it is not from without, but within, by sin, that evil inclinations do arise; according to the Scriptures, “Out of the heart of man proceed evil cogitations, murmurs, adulteries, thefts, murders, &c.” Because as the heavens and apprehension of all celestial virtues are sealed by God in the soul and spirit of man ; so when man becomes depraved by sin and the in- dulgence of his gross and carnal appetite, he then becomes the seat of the Infernal Powers, which may be justly deemed a hell ; for then the bodily and fleshly sense obscures the bright purity and thinness of the spirit, and he becomes the instrument of our spiritual enemy in the exercise of all infernal lusts and passions.

Therefore it is most necessary for us to know that we are to beware of granting or believing any effects from the influences of the stars more than they have naturally; because there are many whom I have lately conversed with, and great men, too, in this nation, who readily affirm that the stars are the causes of any kinds of diseases, inclinations, and fortunes ; likewise that they blame the stars for all their misconduct and misfortunes.

Nevertheless, we do not by these discourses prohibit or deny all influence to the stars ; on the contrary, we affirm there is a natural sympathy and anti- pathy amongst all things, throughout the whole universe, and this we shall shew to be displayed through a variety of effects ; and likewise that the stars} as signs, do forshew great mutations, revolutions, deaths of great men, governors of provinces, kings and emperors ; likewise the weather, tempests, earthquakes, deluges, &c. ; and this according to the law of Providence. The lots of all men do stand in the hands of the Lord, for he is the end and beginning of all things ; he can remove crowns and sceptres, and displace the most cautious arrangements and councils of man, who, when he thinks him-

IFntro&uctton. 3

self most secure, tumbles headlong from the seat of power, and lies grovelling in the dust.

Therefore our astrologers in most of their speculations seek without a light, for they conceive every thing may he known or read in the stars ; if an odd silver spoon is hut lost, the innocent stars are obliged to give an account of it ; if an old maiden loses a favourite puppy, away she goes to an oracle of divination for information of the whelp. Oh ! vile credulity, to think that those celestial bodies take cognizance of, and give in their configurations and aspects, continual information of the lowest and vilest transactions of dotards the most trival and frivolous questions that are pretended to be resolved by an inspection into the figure of the heavens. Well does our legislature justly condemn as juggling impostors all those idle vagabonds who infest various parts of this metropolis, and impose upon the simple and unsuspecting, by answering, for a shilling or half-crown fee, whatever thing or circumstance may be proposed to them, as if they were God’s vicegerents on earth, and his deputed privy counsellors.

They do not even scruple ever to persuade poor mortals of the lower class, that they shew images in glasses, as if they actually confederated with evil spirits : a notable instance I will here recite, that happened very lately in this city. Two penurious Frenchmen, taking advantage of the credulity of the common people, who are continually gaping after such toys, had so con- trived a telescope or optic glass as that various letters and figures should be reflected in an obscure manner, shewing the images of men and women, &c. ; so that when any one came to consult these jugglers, after paying the usual fee, they, according to the urgency of the query, produced answers by those figures or letters ; the which affrights the inspector into the glass so much, that he or she supposes that they have got some devilish thing or other in hand, by which they remain under the full conviction of having actually be- held the parties they wished to see, though perhaps they may at the same time be residing many hundreds of miles distant therefrom ; they, having re- ceived this impression from a pre-conceived idea of seeing the image of their friend in this optical machine, go away, and anon report, with an addi- tion of ten hundred lies, that they have been witness of a miracle. I say this kind of deception is only to be acted with the vulgar, who, rather than have their imaginations balked, would swallow the most abominable lies and con- ceits. For instance, who would suppose that any rational being could be persuaded that a fellow-creature of proper size and stature should be able by any means to thrust his body into a quart bottle? — the which thing was advertised to the public by a merry knave (not thinking there was such fools in existence), to be done by him in a public theatre. Upwards of 600 per- sons were assembled to behold the transaction, never doubting but the fellow

Untro&uction.

meant to keep his word, when to the great mortification and disgrace of this long-headed audience, the conjuror came forth amidst a general stir and buz of “Ay, now ! see ! now ! see ! he is just going to jump in.” — “Indeed,” says the conjuror, “ ladies and gentlemen, I am not ; for if you were such fools as to believe such an absurdity, I am not wise enough to do it : ” — therefore, making his bow, he disappeared, to the great discomfort of these wiseheads, who straightway withdrew in the best manner they could.

As for the telescope magicians, they were taken into custody by the gentle- men of the police office, in Bow Street; nor would their familiar do them the kindness to attempt their rescue.

But to have done with these things that are unworthy our notice as philoso- phers, and to proceed to matters of a higher nature : it is to be noted what we have before said, in respect of the influences of the stars ; that Ptolemy, in his quadrapartite, in speaking of generals , comes pretty near our ideas on the subject of planetary influence, of which we did not at any time doubt, but do not admit (nay, it is not necessary, seeing there is an astrology in Nature), — that each action of our life, our afflictions, fortunes, accidents, are deducible to the influential effects of the planets : they proceed from our- selves ; but I admit that our thoughts, actions, cogitations, sympathize with the stars upon the principle of general sympathy. Again, there is a much stronger sympathy between persons of like constitutions and temperament, for each mortal creature possesses a Sun and system within himself ; there- fore, according to Universal sympathy, we are affected by the general influence or universal spirit of the world, as the vital principle throughout the universe; therefore we are not to look into the configurations of the stars for the cause or incitement of man’s bestial inclinations, for brutes have their specifical inclinations, from the propagation of their principle by seed, not by the sign of the horoscope ; therefore as man is oftentimes capable of the actions and excesses of brutes, they cannot happen to a man naturally from any other source than the seminal being infused in his composition ; for, seeing likewise that the soul is immortal, and endued with free-will, which acts upon the body, the soul cannot be inclined by any configuration of the stars either to good or evil : but from its own immortal power of willingly being seduced by sin, it prompts to evil ; but enlightened by God, it springs to good, on either principle, according to its tendency, the soul feeds while in this frail body ; but what further concerns the soul of man in this, and after this, we shall fully investigate the natural magic of the soul, in which we have fully treated . every point of enquiry that has been suggested to us by our own imagination, and by scientific experiments have proved its divine virtue originally sealed therein by the Author of its being.

flrttro&nctfon.

Sufficient it is to return to our subject relative to astrology, especially to know what part of it is necessary for our use, of which we will select that which is pure and to our purpose, for the understanding and effecting of various experiments in the course of our works, leaving the tedious calcula- tions of nativities, the never-ceasing controversies and cavillations of its pro- fessors, the dissensions which arise from the various modes of practice ; all which we leave to the figure-casting plodder, telling him, by the by, that whatever he thinks he can forshew by inspecting the horoscope of a nativity, by long, tedious, and night-wearied studies and contemplations; I say, what- ever he can shew representing personal or natural mutations, changes, acci- dents, &c. &c., all this we know by a much easier and readier method; and can more comprehensively, clearly, and intelligibly, shew and point out, to the very letter, by our Cabal, which we know to be true, without diviation, juggling, fallacy, or collusion, or any kind of deceit or imposture whatso- ever: which Cabal or spiritual astrology we draw from the Fountain of Knowledge, in all simplicity, humility, and truth ; and we boast not of our- selves, but of Him who teaches us through his divine mercy, by the light of whose favour we see into things spiritual and divine : in the possession of which we are secure amidst the severest storms of hatred, malice, pride, envy, hypocrisy, levity, bonds, poverty, imprisonment, or any other outward cir- cumstance ; we should still be rich, want nothing, be fed with delicious meats, and enjoy plentifully all good things necessary for our support : all this we do not vainly boast of, as figurative, ideal, or chimerical ; but real, solid, and everlasting, in the which we exult and delight, and praise his name for ever and ever : Amen.

All which we publicly declare to the world for the honour of our God, being at all times ready to do every kindness we can to our poor neighbour, and, as far as in us lies, to comfort him, sick or afflicted ; in doing which we ask no reward ; it is sufficient to us that we can do it, and that we may be acceptable to Him who says — “I am the light of the world ; to whom with the Father and Holy Spirit, be ascribed all power, might, majesty, and dominion : Amen.”

To the faithful and discreet Student of Wisdom.

Greeting :

Take our instructions; in all things ask counsel of God, and he will give it; offer up the following prayer daily for the illumination of thy under- standing : depend for all things on God, the first cause ; with whom, by whom, and in whom, are all things ; see thy first care be to know thyself ; and then in humility direct thy prayer as follows.

Untrotmctlon.

H pta^Ct tO (30&. Almighty and most merciful God, we thy ser- vants approach with fear and trembling before thee, and in all humility do most heartily beseech thee to pardon our manifold and blind transgres- sions, by us committed at any time ; and grant, O, most merciful Father, for his sake who died upon the cross, that our minds may be enlightened with the divine radiance of thy holy wisdom ; for seeing, O, Lord of might, power, majesty, and dominion, that, by reason of our gross and material bodies, we are scare apt to receive those spiritual instructions that we so earnestly and heartily desire. Open, O, blessed Spirit, the spiritual eye of our soul, that we may be released from this darkness overspreading us by the delusions of the outward senses, and may perceive and understand those things which are spiritual. We pray thee, oh, Lord, above all to strengthen our souls and bodies against our spiritual enemies, by the blood and righteousness of our blessed Redeemer, thy Son, Jesus Christ; and through him, and in his name, we beseech thee to illuminate the faculties of our souls, so that we may clearly and comprehensively hear with our ears, and understand with our hearts ; and remove far from us all hypocrisy, deceitful dealing, profaneness, inconstancy, and levity ; so that we may, in word and act, become thy faith- ful servants, and stand firm and unshaken against all the attacks of our bodily enemies, and likewise be proof against all illusions of evil spirits, with whom we desire no communication or interest ; but that we may be instructed in the knowledge of things, natural and celestial : and as it pleased thee to be- stow on Solomon, all wisdom, both human and divine ; in the desire of which knowledge he did so please thy divine majesty, that in a- dream of one night, thou didst inspire him with all wisdom and knowledge, which he did wisely prefer before the riches of this life ; so may our desire and prayer be graciously accepted by thee; so that, by a firm dependence on thy word, we may not be led away by the vain and ridiculous pursuits of worldly pleasures and delights, they not being durable, nor of any account to our immortal happiness. Grant us, Lord, power and strength of intellect to carry on this work, for the honour and glory of thy holy name, and to the comfort of our neighbour : and without design of hurt or detriment to any, we may proceed in our labours, through Jesus Christ, our Redeemer : Amen.

©f Natural /IDaQtC. Before we proceed to particulars, it will not be amiss to speak of generals; therefore, as an elucidation, we shall briefly show what sciences we comprehend under the title of Natural Magic; and to hasten to the point, we shall regularly proceed from theory to practice ; therefore, Natural Magic undoubtedly comprehends a knowledge of all Nature, which we by no means can arrive at but by searching deeply into her treasury, which is inexhaustible ; we therefore by long study, labour,

Tlntrotmctton.

and practice, have found out many valuable secrets and experiments, which are either unknown, or are buried in the ignorant knowledge of the present age. The wise ancients knew that in Nature the greatest secrets lay hid, and wonderful active powers were dormant, unless excited by the vigorous faculty of the mind of man ; but as, in these latter days, men give themselves almost wholly up to vice and luxury, so their understandings have become more and more depraved ; ’till, being swallowed up in the gross senses, they become totally unfit for divine contemplations and deep speculations in Nature; their intellectual faculty being drowned in obscurity and dulness, by reason of their sloth, intemperance, or sensual appetites. The followers of Pythagoras en- joined silence, and forbade the eating of the flesh of animals ; the first, be- cause they were cautious, and aware of the vanity of vain babbling and fruit- less cavillations : they studied the power of numbers to the highest extent ; they forbade the eating of flesh not so much on the score of transmigration, as to keep the body in a healthful and temperate state, free from gross humours ; by these means they qualified themselves for spiritual matters, and attained unto great and excellent mysteries, and continued in the exercise of charitable arts, and the practice of all moral virtues: yet, seeing they were heathens, they attained not unto the high and inspired lights of wisdom and knowledge that were bestowed on the Apostles, and others, after the coming of Christ; but they mortified their lusts, lived temperately, chaste, honest and virtuous ; which government is so contrary to the practice of modern Christians, that they live as if the blessed word had come upon the earth to grant them privilege to sin. However, we will leave Pythagoras and his followers, to hasten to our own work ; whereof we will first explain the foundation of Natural Magic, in as clear and intelligible a manner as the same can be done.

Book tbe fftrst.

ATURAL MAGIC is, as we have said, a comprehensive knowledge of ■1*1 all Nature, by which we search out her secret and occult opera- tions throughout her vast and spacious elaborate ry ; whereby we come to a knowledge of the component parts, qualities, virtues, and secrets of metals stones, plants, and animals ; but seeing, in the regular order of the creation man was the work of the sixth day, everthing being prepared for his vice- gerency here on earth, and that it pleased the omnipotent God, after he had formed the great world, or macrocosm, and pronounced it good, so he created man the express image of himself ; and in man, likewise, an exact model of the great world. We shall describe the wonderful properties of man, in which we may trace in miniature the exact resemblance or copy of the uni- verse ; by which means we shall come to the more easy understanding of whatever we may have to declare concerning the knowledge of the inferior nature, such as animals, plants, metals, and stones ; for, by our first declaring the occult qualities and properties that are hid in the little world, it will serve as a key to the opening of all the treasures and secrets of the macrocosm, or great world ; therefore, we shall hasten to speak of the creation of man, and his divine image ; likewise of his fall, in consequence of his disobedience ; by which all the train of evils, plagues, diseases, and miseries, were entailed upon his posterity, through the curse of our Creator, but deprecated by the mediation of our blessed Lord, Christ.

XTbC jfdll Of flRan. According to the word of God, which we take in all things for our guide, in the 1st chapter of Genesis, and the 26th verse, it is said — “ God said, let us make man in our image, after our likeness ; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” — Here is the origin and beginning of our frail human nature ; hence every soul was created by the very light itself, and Fountain of Life, after his own express image, likewise immortal, in a beautiful and well-formed body, endued with a most excellent mind, and dominion or unlimited monarchy over all Nature, every thing being subjected

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^natural flftaatc.

to his rule, or command ; one creature only being excepted, which was to re- main untouched and consecrated, as it were, to the divine mandate : “ Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat ; ” “ But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it ; for in the day thou eatest of it, thou shalt surely die.” Gen. ii. ver. 16. Therefore Adam was formed by the finger of God, which is the Holy Spirit ; whose figure or out- ward form was beautiful and proportionate as an angel ; in whose voice, (before he sinned) every sound was the sweetness of harmony and music: had he remained in the state of innocency in which he was formed, the weak- ness of mortal man, in his depraved state, would not have been able to bear the virtue and celestial shrillness of his voice. But when the deceiver found that man, from the inspiration of God, had began to sing so shrilly, and to repeat the celestial harmony of the heavenly country, he counterfeited the engines of craft: seeing his wrath against him was in vain, he was much tormented thereby, and began to think how he might entangle him into dis- obedience of the command of his Creator, whereby he might, as it were, laugh him to scorn, in derision of his new creature, man.

Yan Helmont, in his Oriatrike, chap, xcii., speaking of the entrance of death into human nature, &c., finely touches the subject of the creation, and man’s disobedience ; indeed, his ideas so perfectly coincide with my own, that I have thought fit here to transcribe his philosophy, which so clearly explains the text of Scripture, with so much of the light of truth on his side, that it carries along with it the surest and most positive conviction.

“ Man being essentially created after the image of God, after that, he rashly presumed to generate the image of God out of himself ; not, indeed, by a certain monster, but by something which was shadowly like himself. With the ravishment of Eve, he, indeed, generated not the image of God like unto that which God would have inimitable, as being divine ; but in the vital air of the seed he generated dispositions ; careful at some time to receive a sensi- tive, discursive, and motive soul from the Father of Light, yet mortal , and to perish ; yet, nevertheless, he ordinarily inspires, and of his own goodness, the substantial spirit of a mind showing forth his own image ; so that man, in this respect, endeavoured to generate his own image ; not after the manner of brute beasts, but by the copulation of seeds, which at length should obtain, by request, a soulified light from the Creator ; and the which they call a sensitive soul.

“For, from thence hath proceeded another generation, conceived after a beast-like manner, mortal, and uncapable of eternal life, after the manner of beasts; and bringing forth with pains, and subject to diseases, and death; and so much the mox-e sorrowful, and full of misery, by how much that very propagation in our first parents dared to invert the intent of God.

Natural flOagtc,

“Therefore the unutterable goodness forewarned them that they should not taste of that tree ; and otherwise he foretold, that the same day they should die the death, and should feel all the root of calamities which accom- panies death.”

Deservedly, therefore, hath the Lord deprived both our parents of the benefit of immortality ; namely, death succeeded from a conjugal and brutal copulation ; neither remained the spirit of the Lord with man, after that he began to be flesh.

Further ; because that defilement of Eve shall thenceforth be continued in the propagation of posterity, even unto the end of the world, from hence the sin of the despised fatherly admonition, and natural deviation from the right way, is now among other sins for an impurity, from an inverted, carnal, and well nigh brutish generation, and is truly called original sin ; that is, man being sowed in the pleasure of the concupiscence of the flesh, shall therefore always reap a necessary death in the flesh of sin ; but the knowledge of good and evil, which God placed in the dissuaded apple, did contain in it a semi- nary virtue of the concupiscence of the flesh, that is, an occult forbidden con- junction, diametrically opposite to the state of innocence, which state was not a state of stupidity ; because He was he unto whom, before the corruption of Nature, the essences of all living creatures whatsoever were made known, ac- cording to which they were to be named from their property, and at their first sight to be essentially distinguished : man , therefore, through eating of the apple, attained a knowledge that he had lost his radical innocency ; for, neither before the eating of the apple was he so dull or stupified that he knew not, or did not perceive himself naked; but, with the effect of shame and brutal concupiscence, he then first declared he was naked.

For that the knowledge of good and evil signifies nothing but the concu- piscence of the flesh, the Apostle testifies ; calling it the law, and desire of sin. For it pleased the Lord of heaven and earth to insert in the apple an incentive to concupiscence ; by which he was able safely to abstain, by not eating of the apple, therefore dissuaded therefrom ; for otherwise he had never at any time been tempted, or stirred up by his gential members. Therefore the apple being eaten, man, from an occult and natural property ingrafted in the fruit, conceived a lust, and sin became luxurious to him, and from thence was made an animal seed, which, hastening into the previous or foregoing dispositions of a sensitive soul , and undergoing the law of other causes, reflected itself into the vital spirit of Adam ; and, like an ignis-fatuus, presently received an archeus or ruling spirit, and animal idea, it presently conceived a power of propagating an animal and mortal seed, ending into life.

Furthermore, the sacred text hath in many places compelled me unto a per- fect position, it making Eve an helper like unto Adam ; not, indeed, that she

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Hlatural /Iftaptc.

should supply the name , and room of a wife , even as she is called, straight- way after sin, for she was a virgin in the intent of the Creator, and afterwards filled with misery : but not, as long as the state of purity presided over innocency, did the will of man overcome her ; for the translation of man into Paradise did forshew another condition of living than that of a beast; and therefore the eating of the apple doth by a most chaste name cover the con- cupiscence of the flesh , while it contains “ the knowledge of good and evil ” in this name, and calls the ignorance thereof the state of innocence : for, surely, the attainment of that aforesaid knowledge did nourish a most hurtful death, and an irrevocable deprivation of eternal life : for if man had not tasted the apple, he had lived void of concupiscence, and offsprings had appeared out of Eve (a virgin) from the Holy Spirit.

But the apple being eaten, “presently their eyes were opened,” and Adam began lustfully to covet copulation with the naked virgin, and defiled her, the which God had appointed for a naked help unto him. But man prevented the intention of God by a strange generation in the flesh of sin ; whereupon there followed the corruption of the former nature, or the flesh of sin, ac- companied by concupiscence : neither doth the text insinuate any other mark of “ the knowledge of good and evil,” than that they '•'■knew themselves to be naked,” or, speaking properly, of their virginity being corrupted, polluted with bestial lust, and defiled. Indeed, their whole “ knowledge of good and evil” is included in their shame within their privy parts alone; and there- fore in the 8th of Leviticus, and many places else in the Holy Scriptures, the privy parts themselves are called by no other etymology than that of shame ; for from the copulation of the flesh their eyes were opened, because they then knew that the good being lost, had brought on them a degenerate nature, shamefulness, an intestine and inevitable obligation of death ; sent also into their posterity.

Alas! too late, indeed they understood, by the unwonted novelty and shamefulness of their concupiscence, why God had so lovingly forbade the eating of the apple. Indeed, the truth being agreeable unto itself, doth attest the filthiness of impure Adamical generation; for the impurity which had received a contagion from any natural issues whatsoever of menstrues or seed, and that by its touching alone is reckoned equal to that which should by de- grees creep on a person from a co-touching of dead carcases, and to be expiated by the same ceremonious rite that the text might agreeably denote, that death began by the concupiscence of the flesh lying hid in the fruit for- bidden ; therefore, also, the one only healing medicine, of so great an impurity contracted by touching, consisted in washing: under the similitude or likeness thereof, faith and hope, which in Baptism are poured on us, are strengthened.

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For as soon as Adam knew that by fratricide the first born of mortals, whom he had begotten in the concupiscence of the flesh, had killed his brother, guiltless and righteous as he was; and forseeing the wicked errors of mortals that would come from thence, he likewise perceived his own miseries in himself; certainly knowing that all these calamities had happened unto him from the sin of concupiscence drawn from the apple, which were un- avoidably issuing on his posterity, he thought within himself that the most dis- creet thing he could do, was hereafter wholly to abstain from his wife, whom he had violated; and therefore he mourned in chastity and sorrow, a full hundred years; hoping that by the merit of that abstinence, and by an oppo- sition to the concupiscence of the flesh, he should not only appease the wrath of the incensed Diety, but that he should again return into the former splendour and majesty of his primitive innocence and purity. But the re- pentance of one age being finished, it is most probable the mystery of Christ’s incarnation was revealed unto him ; neither that man ever could hope to re- turn to the brightness of his ancient purity by his own strength, and much less that himself could reprieve his posterity from death ; and that, there- fore, marriage was well pleasing, and was after the fall indulged unto him by God because he had determined thus to satisfy his justice at the fulness of times, which should, to the glory of his own name, and the confusion of Satan, elevate mankind to a more sublime and eminent state of blessedness.

From that time Adam began to know his wife, ins. after he was an hundred years old, and to fill the earth, by multiplying according to the blessing once given him, and the law enjoined him — “ Be fruitful and multiply.” — Yet so, nevertheless, that although matrimony, by reason of the great want of propa- gation, and otherwise impossible coursary succession of the primitive divine generation, be admitted as a sacrament of the faithful.

If, therefore, both our first parents, after the eating of the apple, were ashamed, they covered only their privy parts; therefore that shame doth pre- suppose, and accuse of something committed against justice — against the intent of the Creator — and against their own proper nature : by conse- quence, therefore, that Adamical generation was not of the primitive consti- tution of their nature, as neither of the original intent of the Creator; therefore, when God foretels that the earth shall bring forth thistles and thorns, and that man shall gain his bread by the sweat of his brow, they were not execrations, but admonitions, that those sort of things should be obvious in the earth: and, because that beasts should bring forth in pain — should plow in sweat — should eat their food with labour and fear, that the earth should likewise bring forth very many things besides the intention of the husbandman; therefore, also, that they ought to be nourished like unto brute beasts, who had begun to generate after the manner of brute beasts.

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It is likewise told Eve, after her transgression, that she should bring forth in pain. Therefore, what hath the pain of bringing forth common with the eating of the apple, unless the apple had operated about the concupiscence of the flesh, and by consequence stirred up copulation ; and the Creator had intended to dissuade it, by dehorting from the eating of the apple. For, why are the genital members of women punished with pains at child-birth, if the eye in seeing the apple, the hands in cropping it, and the mouth in eating of it, have offended ? for was it not sufficient to have chastised the life with death, and the health with very many diseases? — Moreover, why is the womb afflicted, as in brutes, with the manner of bringing forth, if the conception granted to beasts were not forbidden to man ?

After their fall, therefore, their eyes were opened, and they were ashamed: it denotes and signifies that, from the filthiness of concupiscence, they knew that the copulation of the flesh was forbidden in the most pure innocent chastity of nature, and that they were overspread with shame, when, their eyes being opened, their understandings saw that they had committed filthi- ness most detestable.

But on the serpent and evil spirit alone was the top and summit of the whole curse, even as the privilege of the woman, and the mysterious peroga- tive of the blessing upon the earth viz., That the woman’s seed should bruise the head of the serpent. So that it is not possible that to bring forth in pain should be a curse ; for truly with the same voice of the Lord is pronounced the blessing of the woman, and victory over the infernal spirit.

Therefore Adam was created in the possession of immortality. God in- tended not that man should be an animal or sensitive creature, nor be born, conceived, or live as an animal ; for of truth he was created unto a living soul, and that after the true image of God ; therefore he as far differed from the nature of an animal, as an immortal being from a mortal, and as a God-like creature from a brute.

I am sorry that our school-men, many of them, wish, by their arguments of noise and pride, to draw man into a total animal nature (nothing more), drawing (by their logic) the essence of a man essentially from an animal nature: because, although man afterwards procured death to himself and posterity, and therefore may seem to be made nearer the nature of animal creatures, yet it stood not in his power to be able to pervert the species of the divine image : even so as neither was the evil spirit, of a spirit, made an animal, although he became nearer unto the nature of an animal, by hatred and brutal vices. Therefore man remained in his own species wherein he was created; for as often as man is called an animal, or sensitive living creature, and is in earnest thought to be such, so many times the text is falsi- fied which says, “ But the serpent was more crafty than all the living creatures

Natural flftagtc.

15

of the earth, which the Lord God had made;” because he speaks of the natural craft and subtilty of that living and creeping animal. Again, if the position be true, man was not directed into the propagation of seed or flesh , neither did he aspire unto a sensitive soul; and therefore the sensible soul of Adamical generation is not of a brutal species, because it was raised up by a seed which wanted the original ordination and limitation of any species; and so that, as the sensitive soul in man arose, besides the intent of the Creator and Nature ; so it is of no brutal species, neither can it subsist, unless it be continually tied to the mind , from wjience it is supported in its life.

Wherefore, while man is of no brutal species, he cannot be an animal in respect to his mind, and much less in respect to his soul, which is of no species.

Therefore know, that neither evil spirit, nor whole nature also, can, by any means or any way whatever, change the essence given unto man from his Creator, and by his foreknowledge determined that he should remain con- tinually such as he was created, although he, in the mean time, hath clothed himself with strange properties, as natural unto him from the vice of his own will; for as it is an absurdity to reckon man glorified among animals, because he is not without sense or feeling, so to be sensitive does not shew the in- separable essence of an animal.

Seeing, therefore, our first parents had both of them now felt the effect throughout their whole bodies of the eating of the apple, or concupiscence of the flesh in their members in Paradise, it shamed them; because their members, which, before, they could rule at their pleasure, were afterwards moved by a proper incentive to lust.

Therefore, on the same day, not only mortality entered through concu- piscence, but it presently after entered into a conceived generation ; for which they were, the same day, also driven out of Paradise: hence followed an adulterous, lascivious, beast-like, devilish generation, and plainly incapa- able of entering into the kingdom of God, diametrically opposite to God’s ordination ; by which means death, and the threatened punishment, corrup- tion, became inseparable to man and his posterity.

Therefore, original sin was effectively bred from the concupiscence of the flesh, but occasioned only by the apple being eaten, and the admonition despised : but the stimulative to concupiscence was placed in the dissuaded tree, and that occult lustful property radically inserted and implanted in it. But when Satan (besides his hope , and the deflowering of the virgin, nothing hindering of it) saw that man was not taken out of the way, according to the forewarning (for he knew not that the Son of God had constituted himself a surety, before the Father, for man) he, indeed, looked at the vile, corrupted, and degenerated nature of man, and saw that a power was withdrawn from

t6 Natural /IDagtc.

him of uniting himself to the God of infinite majesty, and began greatly to rejoice. That joy was of short duration, for, by and by, he likewise knew that marriage was ratified by Heaven — that the divine goodness yet inclined to man — and that Satan’s own fallacies and deceits were thus deceived : hence conjecturing that the Son of God was to restore every defect of con- tagion, and, therefore, perhaps, to be incarnated. He then put himself to work how, or in what manner, he should defile the stock that was to be raised up by matrimony with a mortal soul, so that he might render every concep- tion of God in vain : therefore he stirred up not only his fratricides, and notoriously wicked persons, that there might be evil abounding at all times ; but he procured that Atheism might arise, and that, together with Heathenism, it might daily increase, whereby indeed, if he could not hinder the co-knit- ting of the immortal mind with the sensitive soul, he might, at least, by de- destroying the law of Nature, bring man unto a level with himself under infernal punishment : but his special care and design was to expunge totally the immortal mind out of the stock of posterity.

Therefore he ( the Devil ) stirs up, to this day, detestable copulations in Atheistical libertines : but he saw from thence, that nothing but brutish or savage monsters proceeded, to be abhorred by the very parents themselves ; and that the copulation with women was far more plausible to men ; and that by this method the generation of men should constantly continue; for he endeavoured to prevent the hope of restoring a remnant, that is, to hinder the incarnation of the Son of God ; therefore he attempted, by an application of active things, to frame the seed of man according to his own accursed desire; which, when he had found vain and impossible for him to do, he tried again whether an imp or witch might not be fructified by sodomy ; and when this did not fully answer his intentions every way, and he saw that of an ass and a horse a mule was bred, which was nearer a-kin to his mother than his father ; likewise that of a coney and dormouse being the father, a true coney was bred, being distinct from his mother, only having a tail like the dor- mouse ; he declined these feats, and betook himself to others worthy, indeed, only of the subtile craft of the Prince of Darkness.

Therefore Satan instituted a connexion of the seed of man with the seed and in the womb of a junior witch, or sorceresss, that he might exclude the dispositions unto an immortal mind from such a new, polished conception : and afterwards came forth an adulterous and lascivious generation of Faunii, Satyrs, Gnomes, Nymphs, Sylphs, Driades, Hamodriades, Neriads, Mermaids Syrens, Sphynxes, Monsters, &c., using the constellations, and disposing the seed of man for such like monstrous prodigious generations.

And, seeing the Faunii and Nymphs of the woods were preferred before the others in beauty, they afterwards generated their offspring amongst them-

THatural flDagic.

n

selves, and at length began wedlocks with men, feigning that, by these copu- lations, they should obtain an immortal soul for them and their offspring ; but this happened through the persuasions and delusions of Satan to admit these monsters to carnal copulation, which the ignorant were easily per- suaded to ; and therefore these Nymphs are called Succubii : although Satan afterwards committed worse, frequently transchanging himself, by assuming the persons of both Incubii and Succubii, in both sexes; but they conceived not a true young by the males, except the Nymphs alone. The which, indeed, seeing the sons of God (that is, men) had now, without distinction, and in many places, taken to be their wives, God was determined to blot out the whole race begotten by these infernal and detestable marriages, through a deluge of waters, that the intent of the evil spirit might be rendered frustrate.

Of which monsters before mentioned, I will here give a striking example from Helmont: for he says, a merchant of iEgina, a countryman of his, sailing various times unto the Canaries, was asked by Helmont for his serious judgment about certain creatures, which the mariners frequently brought home from the mountains, as often as they went, and called them Tude- squils ; * for they were dried dead carcasses, almost three footed, and so small that a boy might easily carry one of them upon the palm of his hand, and they were of an exact human shape ; but their whole dead carcass was clear or transparent as any parchment, and their bones flexible like gristles; against the sun, also, their bowels and intestine were plainly to be seen; which thing I, by Spaniards there born, knew to be true. I considered that, to this day, the destroyed race of Pygmies were there ; for the Almighty would render the expectations of the evil spirit, supported by the abominable actions of mankind, void and vain ; and he has, therefore, manifoldly saved us from the craft and subtilty of the Devil, unto whom eternal punishments are due, to his extreme and perpetual confusion, unto the everlasting sanctifying of the Divine Name.

©f 5)0lTipatb)?. The wonders of Animal Magic we mean fully to display under the title of Magnetism. But here we hasten to investigate by what means, instruments, and effects, we must apply actives to passives, to the producing of rare and uncommon effects; whether by actions , amulets , alliga- tions and suspensions — or rings , papers , unctions , suffumigations, allure- ments, sorceries , enchantments , images , lights , sounds , or the like. Therefore, to begin with things more simple: — If any one shall, with an entire new knife, cut asunder a lemon, using words expressive of hatred, contumely, or dislike, against any individual, the absent party, though at an unlimited dis- tance, feels a certain inexpressible and cutting anguish of the heart, together

*Stude-quill9, or stew’d quills.

Natural flDagic.

18

with a cold chilliness and failure throughout the body: — likewise of living animals, if a live pigeon be cut through the heart, it causes the heart of the party intended to affect with a sudden failure; likewise fear is induced by suspending the magical image of a man by a single thread; — also, death and destruction by means similar to these ; and all these from a fatal and magical sympathy.

Likewise of the virtues of simple animals, as well as manual operations, of which we shall speak more anon: — The application of hare’s fat pulls out a thorn ; — likewise any one may cure the tooth-ache with the stone that is in the head of the toad ; also, if any one shall catch a living frog before sun-rise, and he or she spits in the mouth of the frog, will be cured of an asthmatic consumption; — likewise the right or left eye of the same animal cures blind- ness; and the fat of a viper cures a bite of the same. Black hellebore easeth the head-ache, being applied to the head, or the powder snuffed up the nose in a moderate quantity. Coral is a well-known preservative against witchcraft and poisions, which if worn now, in this time, as much round children’s necks as usual, would enable them to combat many diseases which their tender years are subjected to, and to which, with fascinations, they often fall a victim. I know how to compose coral amulets, or talismans, which, if suspended even by a thread, shall (God assisting) prevent all harms and accidents of violence from fire, or water, or witchcraft, and help them to withstand all their diseases.

Paracelsus and Helmont both agree, that in the toad, although so irrever- ent to the sight of man, and so noxious to the touch, and of such strong violent antipathy to the blood of man, I say, out of this hatred Divine Providence hath prepared us a remedy against manifold diseases most inimical to man’s nature. The toad hath a natural aversion to man ; and this sealed image, or idea of hatred, he carries in his head, eyes, and most power- fully throughout his whole body : now that the toad may be highly prepared for a sympathetic remedy against the plague or other disorders, such as the ague, falling sicknesses, and various others ; and that the terror of us, and natural inbred hatred may the more strongly be imprinted and higher ascend in the toad, we must hang him up aloft in a chimney, by the legs, and set under him a dish of yellow wax, to receive whatsoever may come down, or fall from his mouth ; let him hang in this position, in our sight, for three or four days, at least till he is dead ; now we must not omit frequently to be present in sight of the animal, so that his fears and imbred terror of us, with the ideas of strong hatred, may encrease even unto death.

So you have a most powerful remedy in this one toad, for the curing of forty thousand persons infected with the pest or plague.

^natural /Iftaptc. l9

Van Helmont’s process for making a preservative amulet against the plague is as follows : —

“ In the month of July, in the decrease of the moon, I took old toads, whose eyes abounded with white worms hanging forth into black heads, so that both his eyes were totally formed with worms, perhaps fifty in number, thickly compacted together, their heads hanging out; and as oft as any one of them attempted to get out, the toad, by applying his fore-foot, forbade its utter- ance. These toads being hung up, and made to vomit in the manner before mentioned, I reduced the insects and other matters ejected from the toad, with the waxen dish being added thereto; and the dried carcass of the toad being reduced into powder I formed the whole into troches, with gum- dragon ; which, being borne above the left breast, drove speedily away all contagion ; and being fast bound to the place affected, thoroughly drew out the poison : and these troches were more potent after they had returned into use divers times than when new. I found them to be a most powerful amulet against the plague; for if the serpent eateth dust all the days of his life, because he was the instrument of sinning; so the toad eats earth, (which he vomits up) all the days of his life ; and, according to the Adeptical philoso- phy, the toad bears an hatred to man, so that he infects some herbs that are useful to man with his poison, in order for his death. But this difference note between the toad and the serpent : the toad, at the sight of man, from a natural quality sealed in him, called antipathy, conceives a great terror or astonishment; which terror from man imprints on this animal a natural efficacy against the images of the affrighted archeus in man. For, truly the terror of the toad kills and annihilates the ideas of the affrighted archeus in man, because the terror in the toad is natural, therefore radical.”

For the poison of the plague is subdued by the poison of the toad, not by an action primarily destructive, but by a secondary action ; as the pestilent idea of hatred or terror extinguishes the ferment, by whose mediation the poison of the plague subsists, and proceeds to infect : for seeing the poison of the plague is the product of the image of the terrified archeus established in a fermental, putrified odour, and mumial air, this coupling ferments the appropriate mean, and immediately the subject of the poison is taken away.

Therefore the opposition of the amulet formed from the body, &c., of the toad, takes away and prevents the baneful and most horrible effects of the pestilential poison and ferment of the plague.

Hence it is conjectured that he is an animal ordained by God, that the idea of his terror being poisonous indeed to himself, should be to us, and to our plague, a poison in terror. Since, therefore, the toad is most fearful at the beholding of man, which in himself, notwithstanding, forms the terror conceived from man, and also the hatred against man, into an image and

20 Natural /ifiaaic.

active real being, and not consisting only in a confused apprehension ; hence it happens that a poison ariseth in the toad, which kills the pestilent poison of terror in man ; to wit, from whence the archeus waxeth strong, he not only perceiving the pestilent idea to be extinguished in himself ; but, more- over, because he knoweth that something inferior to himself is terrified, dis- mayed, and doth fly. Again, so great is the fear of the toad, that if he is placed directly before thee, and thou dost behold with an intentive furious look, so that he cannot avoid thee, for a quarter of an hour, he dies,* being fascinated with terror and astonishment.

©f tbe SCCpCUt. Hippocrates, by the use of some parts of this animal, attained to himself divine honours ; for therewith he cured pestilence and contagion, consumptions, and very many other diseases ; for he cleansed the flesh of a viper. The utmost part of the tail and head being cut off, he stripped off the skin, casting away the bowels and gall ; he reserved of the intestines only the heart and liver ; he drew out all the blood, with the vein running down the back-bone ; he bruised the flesh and the aforesaid bowels with the bones, and dried them in a warm oven until they could be powdered, which powder he sprinkled on honey; being clarified and boiled, until he knew that the fleshes in boiling had cast aside their virtue, as well in the broth as in the vapours ; he then added unto this electuary the spices of his country to cloak the secret. But this cure of diseases by the serpent con- tains a great mystery, viz. that as death crept in by the serpent of old, itself ought to be mitigated by the death of the serpent ; for Adam being skilful in the properties of all beasts, was not ignorant also that the serpent was more crafty than other living creatures, and that the aforesaid balsam, the remedy of death, lay hid in the serpent; wherefore the spirit of darkness could not more falsely deceive our first parents than under the guileful serpent’s form ; for they foolishily imagined they should escape the death, so sorely threatened by God, by the serpent’s aid.

Amber is an amulet : — a piece of red amber worn about is a preservative against poisons and the pestilence.

Likewise, a sapphire stone is as effectual. Oil of amber, or amber dis- solved in pure spirit of wine, comforts the womb being disordered : if a suffumigation of it be made with the warts of the shank of a horse, it will cure many disorders of that region.

The liver and gall of an eel, likewise, being gradually dried and reduced to powder, and taken in the quantity of a filbert-nut in a glass of warm wine, causes a speedy and safe delivery to women in labour. The liver of a ser- pent likewise effects the same.

*1 have tried this experiment upon the toad, and other reptiles of his nature, and was satisfied of the truth of this affirmation.

Natural flPagtc.

21

Rhubarb, on account of its violent antipathy to choler, wonderfully purges the same. Music is a well-known specific for curing the bite of a tarantula, or any venomous spider ; likewise, water cures the hydrophobia. Warts are cured by paring off the same ; or by burying as many pebbles, secretly, as the party has warts. The king’s evil may be cured by the heart of a toad worn about the neck, first being dried. — Hippomanes excites lust by the bare touch, or being suspended on the party. If any one shall spit in the hand with which Jie struck, or hurt, another, so shall the wound be cured; — likewise, if any one shall draw the halter wherewith a malefactor was slain across the throat of one who hath the quinsey, it certainly cures him in three days ; also, the herb cinque-foil being gathered before sun-rise, one leaf thereof cures the ague of one day ; three leaves, cures the tertian ; and four, the quartan ague. Rape seeds, sown with cursings and imprecations, grows the fairer, and thrives; but if with praises, the reverse. The juice of deadly nightshade, distilled, and given in a proportionate quantity, makes the party imagine al- most whatever you chuse. The herb nip, being heated in the hand, and afterwards you hold in your hand the hand of any other party, they shall never quit you, so long as you retain that herb. The herbs arsemart, com- frey, flaxweed, dragon-wart, adder’s-tongue, being steeped in cold water, and if for some time being applied on a wound, or ulcer, they grow warm, and are buried in a muddy place, cureth the wound, or sore, to which they were applied. Again, if any one pluck the leaves of asarabacca, drawing them upwards, they will purge another, who is ignorant of the drawing, by vomit only ; but if they are wrested downward to the earth, they purge by stool. A sapphire, or a stone that is of a deep blue colour, if it be rubbed on a tumour, wherein the plague discovers itself, (before the party is too far gone) and by and by it be removed from the sick, the absent jewel attracts all the poison or contagion therefrom. And thus much is sufficient to be said concerning natural occult virtues, whereof we speak in a mixed and mis- cellaneous manner coming to more distinct heads anon.

CbamtS. The instrument of enchanters is a pure, living, breathing spirit of the blood, whereby we bind, or attract, those things which we desire or delight in ; so that, by an earnest intention of the mind, we take posses- sion of the faculties in a no less potent manner than strong wines beguile the reason and senses of those who drink them ; therefore, to charm, is either to bind with words, in which there is great virtue, as the poet sings —

“ Words thrice she spake, which caus’d, at will, sweet sleep ;

“ Appeas’d the troubled waves, and roaring deep.”

Indeed, the virtue of man’s words are so great, that, when pronounced with a fervent Constance of the mind, they are able to subvert Nature, to

22

Natural /n>agtc.

cause earthquakes, storms, and tempests. I have, in the country, by only speaking a few words, and used some other things, caused terrible rains and claps of thunder. Almost all charms are impotent without words, because words are the speech of the speaker, and the image of the thing signified or spoken of; therefore, whatever wonderful effect is intended, let the same be performed with the addition of words significative of the will or desire of the operator ; for words are a kind of occult vehicle of the image conceived or begotten, and sent out of the body by the soul; therefore, all the forcible power of the spirit ought to be breathed out with vehemency, and an arduous and intent desire ; and I know how to speak, and convey words together, so as they may be carried onward to the hearer at a vast distance, no other body intervening, which thing I have done often. Words are also oftentimes de- livered to us, seemingly by others, in our sleep, whereby we seem to talk and converse ; but then no vocal conversations are of any effect, except they pro- ceed from spiritual and occult causes : such spirits have often manifested singular things to me, while in sleep, the which, in waking, I have thought nought of, until conviction of the truth taught me credulity in such like matters. In the late change of Administration, I knew, at least five days before it actually terminated, that it would be as I described to a few of my friends. These things are not alike manifested to every one ; only, I believe, to those who have long seriously attended to contemplations of this abstruse nature; but there are those who will say it is not so, merely because they themselves cannot comprehend such things.

However, not to lose time, we proceed. There are various enchantments, which I have proved, relative to common occurrences of life, viz. a kind of binding to that effect which we desire ; as to love, or hatred ; or to those things we love, or against those things we hate, in all which there is a magical sympathy above the power of reasoning ; therefore those abstruse matters we feel, are convinced of, and reflect upon, and draw them into our use. I will here set down, while speaking of these things, a very powerful amulet for the stopping, immediately, a bloody-flux ; for the which (with a faith) I dare lay down my life for the success, and entire cure.

An Amulet for Flux of Blood.

“In the blood of Adam arose death — in the blood of Christ death is ex- “ tinguished — in the same blood of Christ I command thee, O, blood, that “thou stop fluxing!”*

In this one godly superstition there will be found a ready , cheap, easy remedy for that dreadful disorder the bloody-flux, whereby a poor miserable wretch will reap more real benefit than in a whole shop of an apothecary’s •Let the party who pronounces these words hold the other’s hand.

Natural flDaqtc.

23

drugs. These four letters niff are a powerful charm, or amulet, against the common ague ; likewise, let them be written upon a piece of clean and new vellum, at any time of the day or night, and they will be found a speedy and certain cure, and much more efficacious than the word Abracadabra : how- ever, as that ancient charm is still (amongst some who pretend to cure agues, &c.) in some repute, I will here set down the form and manner of its being written ;* likewise it must be pronounced, or spoken, in the same order as it is written, with the intent or will of the operator declared at the same time of making it.

©t TUnCtiOttS. Unguents, or unctions, collyries, philters, &c., conveying the virtues of things natural to our spirits, do multiply, transform, transfigure, and transmute it accordingly; they also transpose those virtues, which are in them , into it, so that it not only acts upon its own body , but also upon that which is near it, and affects that (by visible rays, charms, and by touching it) with some agreeable quality like to itself. For, because our spirit is the pure , subtil , lucid, airy, and unctuous vapour of the blood, nothing, therefore, is better adapted for collyriums than the like vapour, which are more suitable to our spirit in substance ; for then, by reason of their likeness, they do more stir up, attract, and transform the spirit. The same virtue have other ointments, and confections. Hence, by the touch, often plague, sickness, faintings, poisoning, and love, is induced, either by the hands or clothes being anointed ; and often by kissing, things being held in the mouth, love is likewise excited.

Now the sight, as it perceives more purely and clearer than the other senses, seals in us the marks of things more acutely, and does, most of all, and before all others, agree with our fantastic spirit ; as is apparent in dreams, when things seen do more often present themselves to us than things heard, or anything coming under the other senses. Therefore, when colly- riums transform the visual spirits, that spirit easily affects the imagination, which, being affected with divers species and forms, transmits the same, by the same spirit, unto the outward sense of sight, by which there is formed in it a perception of such species and forms, in that manner, as if it were moved by external objects, that there appear to be seen terrible images, spirits, and the like. There are some collyriums which make us see the images of

•It is here to be particularly noticed by us, that, in forming of a charm, or amulet, ^bRACADABRA it will be of no effect except the very soul of the operator is strongly and intensely exerted and impressed, as it were, and the image of the idea sealed on the charm, or amulet; for, without this, in vain will be all the observation of times, hours and constellations; therefore, this I have thought fit to mention, once for all, that it may be almost always uppermost in the mind of the operator, for, without this one thing being observed and noticed, many who form seals, &c., do fall short of the wished-for effect. A

RACADABRA

ACADABRA

CADABRA

ADABRA

DABRA

ABRA

BRA

RA

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Natural /Iftagtc.

spirits in the air , or elsewhere ; which I can make of the gall of a man , and the eyes of a black cat, and some other things. The same is made, like- wise, of the blood of a lapwing, bat, and a goat ; and if a smooth shining piece of steel be smeared over with the juice of mugwort, and be made to fume, it causes invocated spirits to appear. There are some perfumes, or suffumigations and unctions, which make men speak in their sleep, walk, and do those things that are done by men that are awake, and often what, when awake, they cannot, or dare not do ; others, again, make men hear horrid or delightful sounds, noises, and the like.

And, in some measure, this is the cause why mad and melancholy men believe they hear and see things equally false and improbable, falling into most gross and pitiful delusions, fearing where no fear is, and angry where there is none to contend. Such passions as these we can induce by magical vapours , confections, perfumes , collyries, unguents , potions, poisons, lamps , lights, &c. ; likewise by mirrors, images, enchantments, charms, sounds, and music; also by divers rites, observations, ceremonies, religion , &c.

firlacfcal Suspensions. When the soul of the world, by its virtue, doth make all things (that are naturally generated, or artificially made) fruitful, by sealing and impressing on them celestial virtues for the working of some wonderful effect, then things themselves not only applied by collyry, or suf- fume, or ointment, or any other such like way ; but when they are conven- iently bound to, or wrapped up, or suspended about the neck, or any other way applied, although by ever so easy a contact, they do impress their virtue upon us ; by these allegations, &c., therefore, the accidents of the body and mind are changed into sickness or health, valour, fear, sadness or joy, and the like ; they render those that carry them, gracious, terrible, acceptable, rejected, honoured, beloved, or hateful and abominable.

Now these kind of passions are conceived to be infused no otherwise than is manifest in the grafting of trees, where the vital life and virtue is com- municated from the trunk to the twig, engrafted into it, by way of contact and alligation ; so in the female palm-tree, when she comes near to the male, her boughs bend to the male, which the gardener seeing, he binds them together by ropes across, but soon becomes straight, as if by the continuation of the rope she had received a propagating virtue from the male. And it is said, if a woman takes a needle, and bewray it with dung, and put it up in earth in which the carcass of a man has been buried, and carry it about her in a piece of cloth used at a funeral, no man can defile her as long as she carries that.

Now, by these examples we see how, by certain alligations of certain things, also suspensions, or by the most simple contact or continuation of any

Natural flDagtc-

25

thread, we may be able to receive some virtues thereby ; but it is necessary to know the certain rule of magical alligation and suspension ; and the man- ner that the art requires is this, viz. that they must be done under a certain and suitable constellation; and they must be done with wire, or silken threads, or sinews of certain animals; and those things that are to be wrapped up, are to be done in the leaves of herbs, or skins of animals, or membraneous parchments, &c. For, if you would procure the solary virtue of anything, this is to be wrapped up in bay leaves, or the skin of a lion, hung round the neck with gold, silk, or purple or yellow thread ; while the sun reigns in the heavens, so shalt thou be endured with the virtues of that thing. So if a saturnine quality or thing be de'sired, thou shalt in like man- ner take that thing, while Saturn reigns, and wrap it up in the skin of an ass, or in a cloth used at a funeral, especially if melancholy or sadness is to be induced, and with a sad, or ash, or leaden, or black silk or thread, hang it about thy neck ; and so in the same manner we must proceed with the rest.

©f Hnttpatbies. It is necessary, in this place, to speak of the antipathies of natural things , seeing it is requisite, as we go on, to have a thorough knowl- edge of that obstinate contrariety of Nature, where anything shuns its con- trary, and drives it, as it were, out of its presence. Such antipathy as this has the root rhubarb against choler; treacle against poison ; the sapphire stone against hot biles, feverish heats, and diseases of the eyes ; the amethyst against drunkenness; the jasper against the bloody-flux and offensive imagi- nations ; the emerald, and agnus castus against lust ; achates or ayates against poison ; piony against the falling sickness ; coral against the ebullition of black choler, and pains of the stomach ; the topaz against spiritual heats, such as are covetousness, lust, and all manner of love excesses. The same anti- pathy is there, also, of pismires against the herb organ, and the wing of a bat, and the heart of a lapwing, from the presence of which they fly. Also, the organ is contrary to a certain poisonous fly which cannot resist the sun, and resists salamanders, and loaths cabbage with such a deadly hatred that they cannot endure each other. So they say cucumbers hate oil. And the gall of a crow makes even men fearful, and drives them from the place wherein it is placed. A diamond disagrees with a loadstone ; that being present, it suffers no iron to be drawn to it. Sheep avoid frog-parsley as a deadly thing ; and, what is more wonderful, Nature hath depictured the sign of this antipathy upon the livers of sheep, in which the very figure of frog- parsley doth naturally appear. Again, goats hate garden-basil, as if there was nothing more pernicious. And, amongst animals, mice and weasels dis- agree ; so a lizard is of a contrary nature to a scorpion, and induces great terror to the scorpion with its very sight, and they are therefore killed with

26 Natural flDagtc.

the oil of them ; which oil will likewise cure the wounds made by scorpions. There is a great enmity between scorpions and mice ; therefore if a mouse be applied to the bite of a scorpion, he cures it. Nothing is so much an enemy to snakes as crabs ; and if swine be hurt by them, they are cured by crabs ; the sun, also being in Cancer, serpents are tormented. Also, the scorpion and crocodile kill one another ; and if the bird ibis does but touch a crocodile with one of his feathers, he makes him unmoveable. The bird called a bustard flies away at the sight of a horse ; and a hart at the sight of a ram, or a viper. An elephant trembles at the hearing of the grunting of a hog; so doth a lion at the crowing of a cock; and a panther will not touch them that are anointed with the fat of a hen, especially if garlick has been put into it. There is also an enmity between foxes and swans ; bulls and jackdaws. And some birds are at a perpetual variance, as daws and owls ; kites and crows ; turtle and ring-tail; egepis and eagles; also, harts and dragons. Amongst water animals, there is a great antipathy between dolphins and whirlpools; the mullet and pike ; lamprey and conger ; pourcontrel and lobster, which latter, but seeing the former, is nearly struck dead with fear ; but the lobster tears the conger. The civet-cat cannot resist the panther ; and if the skins of both be hung up against each other, the skin or hairs of the panther will fall off. Apollo says, in his hieroglyphics, if any one be girt about with the skin of a civet-cat, he may pass safe through his enemies. The lamb flies from the wolf ; and if the tail, skin, or head of lupus be hung up in the sheep’s cot, they cannot eat their meat for very fear. And Pliny mentions the bird called the marlin, that breaks the eggs of the crow, whose young are annoyed by the fox ; that she also will pinch the whelps of the fox, and the fox likewise, which, when the crow sees, they help the fox against her as against a common enemy. The linnet lives in, and eats thistles ; yet she hates the ass, because he eats the thistles and flowers of them. There is so great an enmity between the little bird called esalon and the ass, that their blood will not mix ; and that, at the simple braying of the ass, both the esalon’s eggs and young perish together. There is, also, a total antipathy of the olive-tree to the harlot ; that, if she plant it, it will neither thrive nor pros- per, but wither. A lion fears lighted torches, and is tamed by nothing sooner. The wolf fears not sword or spear, but a stone ; by the throwing of which a wound being made, worms breed in the wolf. A horse fears a camel so much that he cannot endure the picture of that beast. An elephant, when he rages, is quieted by seeing a cock. A snake is afraid of a naked man, but pursues one clothed. A mad bull is tamed by being tied to a fig-tree. Amber attracts all things to it but garden-basil, and things smeared with oil, between which there is a natural antipathy.

Natural ZlPagtc.

27

©ccult Virtues Of Ublncjs. It is expedient for us to know that there are some things whieh retain virtue only while they are living, others even after death. So in the cholic, if a live duck be applied to the belly, it takes away the pain, and the duck dies. If you take the heart out of any animal, and, while it is warm, bind it to one that has a quartan fever, it drives it away. So if any one shall swallow the heart of a lapwing, swallow, weasel, or a mole, while it is yet living and warm with natural heat, it improves his intellect, and helps him to remember, understand, and foretell things to come. Hence this general rule, — that whatever things are taken for magical uses from animals, whether they are stones, members, hair, excrements, nails, or any thing else, they must be taken from those animals while they are yet alive, and, if it is possible, that they may live afterwards. If you take the tongue of a frog, you put the frog into water again ; — and Democritus writes, that if any one shall take out the tongue of a water-frog, no other part of the animal stick- ing to it, and lay it upon the place where the heart beats of a woman, she is compelled, against her_will, to answer whatsoever you shall ask of her. Also, take the eyes of a frog, which must be extracted before sun-rise, and bound to the sick party, and the frog to be let go again blind into the water, the party shall be cured of a tertian ague ; also, the same will, being bound with the flesh of a nightingale, in the skin of a hart, keep a person always wakeful without sleeping. Also, the roe of the fork fish being bound to the navel, is said to cause women an easy child-birth, if it be taken from it alive, and the fish put into the sea again. So the right eye of a serpent being applied to the soreness of the eyes, cures the same, if the serpent be let go alive. So, likewise, the tooth of a mole, being taken out alive, and afterwards let go, cures the tooth-ache ; and dogs will never bark at those who have the tail of a weasel that has escaped. Democritus says, that if the tongue of the cameleon be taken alive, it conduces to good success in trials, and likewise to women in labour; but it must be hung up on some part of the out- side of the house; otherwise, if brought into the house, it might be most dangerous.

There are very many properties that remain after death ; and these are things in which the idea of the matter is less swallowed up, according to Plato , in them: even after death, that which is immortal in them will work some wonderful things : — as in the skins we have mentioned of several wild beasts, which will corrode and eat one another after death ; also, a drum made of the rocket-fish drives away all creeping things at what distance soever the sound of it is heard ; and the strings of an instrument made of the guts of a wolf, and being strained upon a harp or lute, with strings made of sheep-guts, will make no harmony.

28 Natural /Iftagfc

precious Stones. It is a common opinion of magicians, that stones in- herit great virtues, which they receive through the spheres and activity of the celestial influences, by the medium of the soul or spirit of the world. Authors very much disagree in respect of the probability of their actually having such virtues in potentia, some debating warmly against any occult or secret virtue lying hid in them ; others, as warmly, shewing the causes and effects of these sympathetic properties. However, to leave these trifling arguments to those who love cavil and contentions better than I do, and, as I have neither leisure nor inclination to enter the lists with sophists, and tongue-philosophers ; I say, that these occult virtues are disposed throughout the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms, by seeds, or ideas originally emanating from the Divine mind, and through supercelestial spirits and intel- ligence always operating, according to their proper offices and governments alotted them ; which virtues are infused, as we before said, through the medium of the Universal Spirit, as by a general and manifest sympathy and antipathy established in the law of Nature. Amongst a variety of examples, the load- stone is one most remarkable proof of the sympathy and antipathy we speak of. However to hasten to the point. Amongst stones, those which resem- ble the rays of the sun by their golden sparklings, (as does the glittering stone aetites) prevent the falling-sickness and poisons, if worn on the finger; so the stone which is called oculis solis, or eye of the sun, being in figure like to the apple of the eye, from which shines forth a ray, comforts the brain, and strengthens sight; the carbuncle, which shines by night, hath a virtue against all airy and vaporous poisons ; the chrysolite stone, of a light green colour, when held against the sun, there shines in it a ray like a star of gold; this is singularly good for the lungs, and cures asthmatical complaints; and if it be bored through, and the hollow filled with the mane of an ass, and bound to the left arm, it chases away all foolish and idle imaginations and melancholy fears, and drives away folly. The stone called iris, which is like crystal in colour, being found with six corners, when held in the shade, and the sun suffered to shine through it, represents a natural rainbow in the air. The stone heliotropium, green like a jasper or emerald, beset with red specks, makes the wearer constant, renowned, and famous, and conduces to long life ; there is, likewise, another wonderful property in this stone, and that is, that it so dazzles the eyes of men, that it causes the bearer to be invisible ; but then there must be applied to it the herb bearing the same name, viz. heliotropium, or the sun-flower ; and these kind of virtues Albertus Magnus, and William of Paris, mention in their writings. The jacinth also possesses virtue from the sun against poisons, pestilences, and pestiferous vapours ; likewise it ren- ders the bearer pleasant and acceptable; conduces, also, to gain money; being simply held in the mouth, it wonderfully cheers the heart, and strengthens

Natural /IDapte.

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the mind. Then there is the pyrophilus, of a red mixture, which Albertus Magnus reports that ^Esculapius makes mention of in one of his epistles to Octavius Caesar, saying, “ There is a certain poison, so intensely cold, which preserves the heart of man, being taken out, from burning ; so that if it be put into the fire for any time, it is turned into a stone, which stone is called pyrophilus it possesses a wonderful virtue against poison; and it infallibly renders the wearer thereof renowned and dreadful to his enemies. Apol- lonius is reported to have found a stone called pantaura, (which will attract other stones, as the loadstone does iron) most powerful against all poisons : it is spotted like the panther, and therefore some naturalists have given this stone the name of pantherus: Aaron calls it evanthum; and some, on account of its variety, call it pantochras.

iprofcmdng monstrous BnimalS. Magicians, students, and observers of the operations of Nature, know how, by the application of active forms to a matter fitly disposed, and made, as it were, a proper recipient, to effect many wonderful and uncommon things that seem strange, and above Nature, by gathering this and that thing beneficial and conducive to that effect which we desire ; however, it is evident that all the powers and virtues of the in- ferior bodies are not found comprehended in any one single thing, but are dispersed amongst many of the compounds here amongst us ; wherefore it is necessary, if there be a hundred virtues of the sun dispersed through so many animals, plants, metals, or stones, we should gather all these together, and bring them all into one form, in which we shall see all the said virtues, being united, contained. Now there is a double virtue in commixing: one, viz. which was once planted in its parts, and is celestial ; the other is obtained by a certain artificial mixture of things, mixed among themselves, according to a due proportion, such as agree with the heavens under a certain constellation ; and this virtue descends by a certain similitude or likeness that is in things amongst themselves, by which they are drawn or attracted towards their superiors, and as much as the following do by degrees correspond with them that go before, where the patient is fitly applied to its agent. So from a certain composition of herbs , vapours , and such like, made according to the rules of Natural and Celestial Magic, there results a certain common form ; of which we shall deliver the true and infallible rules and experiments in our Second Book, where we have written expressly on the same.

We ought, likewise, to understand that by how much more noble and ex- cellent the form of any thing is, by so much the more it is prone, and apt to receive, and powerful to act. Then the virtue of things do indeed become wonderful; viz. when they are applied to matters, mixed and prepared in fit seasons to give them life, by procuring life for them from the stars, our own

30

Natural /IDagic.

spirit powerfully co-operating therewith; for there is so a great a power in prepared matters, which we see do then receive life, when a perfect mixture of qualities do break the former contrariety; for so much the more perfect life things receive, by as much the temper and composition is free from con- trariety. Now the heavens, as a prevailing cause, do, from the beginning of every thing, (to be generated by the concoction and perfect digestion of the matter) together with life, bestow celestial influences and wonderful gifts, according to the capacity that is in that life and sensible soul to receive more noble and sublime virtues. For the celestial virtue otherwise lies asleep, as sulphur kept from flame ; but in living bodies it doth always burn, as kindled sulphur, which, by its vapour, fills all the places that are near.

There is a book called, “ A Book of the Laws of Pluto,” which speaks of monstrous generations, which are not produced according to the laws of Nature. Of these things which follow we know to be true ; viz. of worms are generated gnats; of a horse, wasps; of a calf and ox, bees. Take a living crab, his legs being broken off, and he buried under the earth, a scorpion is produced. If a duck be dried into powder, and put into water, frogs are soon generated; but if he be baked in a pie, and cut into pieces, and be put in a moist place under ground, toads are generated. Of the herb garden- basil, bruised, and put between two stones, are generated scorpions. Of the hairs of a menstruous woman, put under dung, are bred serpents ; and the hair , of a horse’s tail, put into water, receives life, and is turned into a most pernicious worm. And there is an art wherewith a hen, sitting upon eggs, may be generated the form of a man, which I myself know how to do, and which magicians call the mandrake, and it hath in it wonderful virtues.

You must, therefore, know which and what kind of matters are either of art or nature, begun or perfected, or compounded of more things, and what celestial influences they are able to receive. For a congruity of natural things is sufficient for the receiving of influence from celestial ; because, nothing hindering, the celestials send forth their light upon inferiors ; they suffer no matter to be destitute of their virtue. Wherefore as much matter as is perfect and pure is, as we before said, fitted to receive celestial in- fluences; for that is the binding and continuing of the matter of the soul to the world, which doth daily flow in upon things natural, and all things which Nature hath prepared , that it is impossible that a prepared matter should not receive life, or a more noble form.

©f 3Blnt)in0. We have so far spoken concerning the great virtues, and wonderful efficacy, of natural things; it remains now that we speak of a wonderful power and faculty of fascination; or, more properly, a magical and occult binding of men into love or hatred, sickness or health; — also the bind-

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31

ing of thieves, that they cannot steal in any place ; or to bind them that they cannot remove, from whence they may be detected ; — the binding of mer- chants that they cannot buy nor sell; the binding of an army, that they cannot pass over any bounds ; the binding of ships, so that no wind, though ever so strong, shall be able to carry them out of that harbour; — the binding of a mill, that it cannot, by any means whatsoever, be turned to work; — the bind- ing of a cistern, or fountain, that the water cannot be drawn up out of them ; — the binding of the ground, so that nothing will bring forth fruit, or flourish in it; also, that nothing can be built upon it; — the binding of fire, that, though it be ever so strong, it shall burn no combustible thing that is put to it; — also, the binding of lightnings and tempests, that they shall do no hurt; — the binding of dogs that they cannot bark ; — also, the binding of birds and wild beasts, that they shall not be able to run or fly away; and things familiar to these, which are hardly creditable, yet known by experience. Now how it is that these kind of bindings are made and brought to pass, we must know. They are thus done : by sorceries, collyries, unguents, potions, binding to and hanging up of talismans, by charms, incantations, strong imaginations, affec- tions, passion, images, characters, enchantments, imprecations, lights, and by sounds, numbers, words, names, invocations, swearings, conjurations, consec- rations, and the like.

SOrCCrtCS. The force of sorceries are, no doubt, very powerful; indeed, they are able to confound, subvert, consume, and change all inferior things; likewise there are sorceries by which we can suspend the faculties of men and beasts. Now, as we have promised, we will shew what some of these kind of sorceries are, that, by the example of these, there may be a way opened for the whole subject of them. Of these, the first is menstruous blood, which, how much power it has in sorcery, we will now consider: — -First, if it comes over new wine, it will turn it sour ; and if it does but touch a vine, it will spoil it for ever; and, by its very touch, it renders all plants and trees barren, and those newly set, die; it burns up all the herbs in the garden, and makes fruit fall from trees ; it makes dim the brightness of a looking-glass, dulls the edges of knives and razors, dims the beauty of polished ivory, and makes iron rusty ; it likewise makes brass rusty, and to smell very strong ; by the taste, it makes dogs run mad, and, being thus mad, if they once bite any one, that wound is incurable; it destroys whole hives of bees, and drives them away, if it does but touch them ; it makes linen black that is boiled with it; it makes mares cast their foals by touching them with it, and women miscarry ; it makes asses barren if they eat of the corn touched by it. The ashes of menstruous clothes cast upon purple garments, that are to be washed, change their colour, and likewise take away the colour of flowers. It also

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Natural fl&agtc.

drives away tertian and quartan agues, if it be put into the wool of a black ram, and tied up in a silver bracelet; as also if the soles of the patient’s feet be anointed therewith, and especially if it be done by the woman herself, the patient not knowing what she uses. It likewise cures the falling sickness; but most especially it cures them that are afraid of water or drink after they are bitten by a mad dog, if only a menstruous cloth be put under the cup. Likewise, if a menstruous woman shall walk naked, before sun-rise, in a field of standing corn, all hurtful things perish ; but if after sun-rise, the corn withers; also, they are able to expel hail, rain, thunders and lightnings; more of which Pliny mentions. Know this, that if they happen at the de- crease of the moon, they are a much greater poison than in the increase, and yet much greater if they happen between the decrease and change ; but if they happen in the eclipse of the sun or moon, they are a most incurable and violent poison. But they are of the greatest force, when they happen in the first years of the virginity, for then if they but touch the door-posts of a house, no mischief can take effect in it. And some say that the threads of any garment touched therewith cannot be burnt, and if they are cast into a fire, it will spread no farther. Also it is noted, that the root of piony being given with castor, and smeared over with a menstruous cloth, it certainly cureth the falling sickness.

Again, let the stomach of a hart be roasted, and to it be put a perfume made with a menstruous cloth; it will make cross-bows useless for the killing of any game. The hairs of a menstruous woman, put under dung, breeds serpents ; and if they are burnt, will drive away serpents with the fume. So great and powerful a poison is in them, that they are a poison to poisonous creatures.

We next come to speak of hippomanes, which, amongst sorceries, are not accounted the least: and this is a little venemous piece of flesh, the size of a fig, and black, which is in the forehead of a colt newly foaled, which, unless the mare herself doth presently eat, she will hardly ever love her foies, or let them suck ; and this is a most powerful philter to cause love, if it be pow- dered, and drank in a cup with the blood of him that is in love : such a potion was given to Medea by Jason.

There is another sorcery which is called hippomanes, viz. a venomous liquor issuing out of the share of a mare at the time she lusts after the horse. The civet-cat, also, abounds with sorceries ; for the posts of a door being touched with her blood, the arts of jugglers and sorcerers are so invalid that evil spirits can by no means be called up, or compelled to talk with them: — This is Pliny’s report. Also, those that are anointed with the oil of her left foot, being boiled with the ashes of the ancle bone of the same and the blood of a weasel, shall become odious to all. The same, also, is to be done with

Natural /Iftapic.

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the eye being decocted. If any one hath a little of the strait-gut of this animal about him, and it is bound to the left arm, it is a charm ; that if he does but look upon a woman, it will cause her to follow him at all oppor- tunities ; and the skin of this animal’s forehead withstands witchcraft.

We next come to speak of the blood of a basilisk, which magicians call the blood of Saturn. — This procures (by its virtue) for him that carries it about him, good success of petitions from great men ; likewise makes him amazingly successful in the cure of diseases, and the grant of any privilege. They say, also, that a tike, if it be taken out of the left ear of a dog, and it be altogether black, if the sick person shall answer him that brought it in, and who, stand- ing at his feet, shall ask him concerning his disease, there is certain hope of life; and that he shall die if he make him no answer. They say, also, that a stone bitten by a mad dog causes discord, if it be put into drinks; and if any one shall put the tongue of a dog, dried, into his shoe, or some of the powder, no dog is able to bark at him who hath it; and more powerful this, if the herb hound’s-tongue be put with it. And the membrane of the secundine of a bitch does the same; likewise, dogs will not bark at him who hath the heart of a dog in his pocket.

The red toad (Pliny says) living in briers and brambles, is full of sorceries, and is capable of wonderful things: there is a little bone in his left side, which being cast into cold water, makes it presently hot ; by which, also, the rage of dogs are restrained, and their love procured, if it be put in their drink, making them faithful and serviceable ; if it be bound to a woman, it stirs up lust. On the contrary, the bone which is on the right side makes hot water cold, and it binds it so that no heat can make it hot while it there re- mains. It is a certain cure for quartans, if it be bound to the sick in a snake’s skin ; and like- wise cures all fevers, the St. Anthony’s fire, and re- strains love and lust. And the spleen and heart are effectual antidotes against the poisons of the said toad. Thus much Pliny writes.

Also, it is said, that a sword with which a man is slain hath wonderful power; for if the snaffle of a bridle, or bit, or spurs, be made of it, with these a horse ever so wild is tamed, and made gentle and obedient. They say, if we dip a sword, with which any one was beheaded, in wine, that it cures the quartan, the sick being given to drink of it. There is a liquor made, by which men are made as raging and furious as a bear, imaging themselves in every respect to be changed into one ; and this is done by dissolving or boil- ing the brains and heart of that animal in new wine, and giving any one to drink out of a skull, and, while the force of the draught operates, he will fancy every living creature to be a bear like to himself ; neither can any thing divert or cure him till the fumes and virtue of the liquor are entirely expended, no other distemper being perceivable in him.

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Natural Magic.

The most certain cure of a violent head-ache, is to take any herb growing upon the top of the head of an image; the same being bound, or hung about one with a red thread, it will soon allay the violent pain thereof.

flnagfcal 3Li(jbtS. There are made, artificially, some kinds of lamps, torches, candles, and the like, of some certain and appropriate materials and liquors opportunely gathered and collected for this purpose, which, when they are lighted and shine alone, produce some wonderful effects. There is a poison from mares, after copulation, which, being lighted in torches com- posed of their fat and marrow, doth represent on the walls a monstrous de- formity of horses’ heads, which thing is both easy and pleasant to do : the like may be done of asses and flies. And the skin of a serpent or snake, lighted in a green lamp, makes the images pf the same to appear; and grapes produce the same effect, if, when they are in their flowers, you shall take a phial, and bind it to them, filled with oil, and shall let them remain so till they are ripe, and then the oil be lighted in a lamp, you shall see a prodi- gious quantity of grapes ; and the same in other fruits. If centaury be mixed with honey and the blood of a lapwing, and be put in a lamp, they that stand about will be of a gigantic stature ; and if it be lighted in a clear evening, the stars will seem scattered about.

The ink of the cuttle-fish being put into a lamp, makes Blackamores appear. So, also, a candle made of some saturnine things, such as man’s fat and mar- row, the fat of a black cat, with the brains of a crow or raven, which being extinguished in the mouth of a man lately dead, will afterwards, as often as it shines alone, bring great horror and fear upon the spectators about it.

Of such like torches, candles, lamps, &c., (of which we shall speak further in our Book of Magnetism and Mummies) Hermes speaks largely of; also Plato and Chyrannides ; and, of later writers, Albertus Magnus makes parti- cular mention of the truth and efficacy of these, in a treatise on these particu- lar things, relative to lights, &c.

©f tbe Htt of ^fascination. We call fascination a binding, because it is effected by a look, glance, or observation, in which we take possession of the spirit, and overpower the same, of those we mean to fascinate or suspend; for it comes through the eyes, and the instrument by which we fascinate or bind is a certain, pure, lucid, subtil spirit, generated out of the ferment of the purer blood by the heat of the heart, and the firm, determined, and ardent will of the soul which directs it to the object previously disposed to be fasci- nated. This doth always send forth by the eyes, rays or beams, carrying with them a pure subtil spirit or vapour into the eye or blood of him or her that is opposite. So the eye, being opened and intent upon any one with a strong

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imagination, doth dart its beams, which are the vehicle of the spirit, into whatever we will affect or bind, which spirit striking the eye of them who are fascinated, being stirred up in the heart and soul of him that sends them forth, and possessing the breast of them who are struck, wounds their hearts, infects their spirits, and overpowers them.

Know, likewise, that in witches, those are most bewitched, who, with often looking, direct the edge of their sight to the edge of the sight of those who bewitch or fascinate them; whence arose the saying of “Evil eyes, &c.” For when their eyes are reciprocally bent one upon the other, and are joined beams to beams, and lights to lights, then the spirit of the one is joined to the spirit of the other, and then are strong ligations made ; and most violent love is stirred up, only with a sudden looking on, as it were, with the darting a look, or piercing into the very inmost of the heart, whence the spirit and amorous blood, being thus wounded, are carried forth upon the lover, and enchanter; no otherwise than the spirit and the blood of him that is murdered is upon the murderer, who, if standing near the body killed, the blood flows afresh, which thing has been tried by repeated experiments.

So great power is there in fascination that many uncommon and wonderful things are thereby effected, especially when the vapors of the eyes are sub- servient to the affection; therefore collyries, ointments, alligations, &c., are used to affect and corroborate the spirit in this or that manner: to induce love, they use venereal collyriums, as hippomanes, blood of doves, &c. To induce fear, they use martial collyriums, or the eyes of wolves, bear’s fat, and the civet-cat. To procure misery, or sickness, they use saturnine, and so on.

Thus much we have thought proper to speak concerning Natural Magic, in which we have, as it may be said, only opened the first chamber of Nature’s storehouse; indeed we should have inserted many more things here , but as they fall more properly under the heads of Magnetism , Mummy , &c., to which we refer the reader, we shall take our leave of the reader for the present, that we may give him time to breathe, likewise to digest what he has here feasted upon; and, while he is preparing to enter the unlocked chambers of Magic and Nature, we will procure him a rich service of most delicious meats, fit for the hungry and thirsty traveller through the vast labyrinths of wisdom and true science.

END OF THE NATURAL MAGIC.

NOTE. It seems unnecessary to add that all these things are not to be taken in their external and literal sense. The old philosophers always clothed their writings with metaphor and allegory, in which Mr. Barrett himself seems to have indulged to the fullest extent. They never gave detailed descriptions of processes that could be followed out by any one not possessing the necessary Magic (Magnetic) Power and those who possess this power will hardly require such descriptons wherein alle- gories are so strangely mixed with truths. The literal interpretation and practice of the filthy things in the preceeding pages, will be productive of no results without the Key — one should always bear in mind that we are dealing with finer essences and forces, not with such gross and vile materials. W.W.H.

JEpfstle to flfmseus.

“Thou, O, Museus! whose mind is high,

“ Observe my words, and read them with thine eye ; “These secrets in thy sacred breast repone,

“ And in thy journey think of God alone ;

“ The Author of all things, that cannot die ;

“ Of whom we now shall speak ”

fTELL thee here, Museus, to observe our words, and read them with thine eye, that is, the eye of thine understanding; for, know, there are many that hear us speak, that read not the meaning of our words. Wherefore shouldst thou contemplate these mysteries with so much constancy of mind, if thou didst not perceive in them some great good most desirable ? — Listen, then, O, young man, and hear our words! We will shew thee the dangerous precipice of vanity and head-long desire — we will describe to thee the stubborn and fatal will of our passions, even with tears of contrition, and heartfelt compassion for thy inexperience — we will lead thee, as it were, by the hand, through those labyrinths of vice, wherewith thou art daily sur- rounded ; and, however prejudiced thou mightest be against the receiving of our doctrine, yet, be assured, we have in our possession the magical virtue and power of binding thee to our principles, and making thee happy, in spite of thyself. Here is a great secret! thou shalt say — every man wishes to be happy — which I grant; but my answer is — most men prevent their own happiness; they destroy it, by suffering themselves to be governed by the outward principle of the flesh, thinking the greatest good to be in the satisfy- ing of their carnal appetites, or in the amassing together heaps of wealth, whereby they thrust down the meek and poor, raising up the standards of Pride, Envy, and Oppression. These things every day’s experience confirms; nay, there are some so blind, that, in the possession of much wealth, they think there is nothing beyond it ; insomuch, that they triumph in lust , oppression , revenge , and contumely. But how is it, thou wilt say, that, seeing man is a reasonable being, he can possibly give up his government so easily ? — I say, when man suffers the unreasonable and bestial part to deprave him, then he immediately becomes a slave, (and the vilest of slavery is that which deprives

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man of his social virtues;) for then, although in the possession of great world- ly things, such as houses, estates, and all other temporal gifts, yet he becomes an immediate instrument to the Prince of this World and the Powers of Dark- ness, seeing that those riches he inherits are merely given him in this life, to bestow upon others those necessaries and comforts which he himself does not feel the want of, and by which he might, if not blinded by his passions and lusts, secure himself an eternal and incorruptible treasure. But he who pos- sesses treasures without mercy, liberality, bounty, charity, &c., robs the Eternal Author of all good, of the honour due unto him, and, in short, is working destruction to his own soul; his riches, instead of benefitting himself and oth- ers, eventually and finally terminates as a curse : while he lives here he is a scourge to society; and, after he leaves this, it is plain enough pointed out in the New Testament what will be his situation and condition.

Therefore, thou young man, that hast but a few years to live, study how to attain the stone we teach of; it will protract the beauty of thy youth, though thou shouldst live for centuries — it will ever supply thee with the means of comforting the afflicted ; insomuch, that when thou hast attained this truly desirable and most perfect talisman, thy life will become soft and pleasant; no cares, nor corroding pangs — no self-torment will ever invade thy mind; neither shalt thou want the means to be happy, in respect of the possession of the goods of this life, but shalt have abundantly. But how, and from what source, all this is to proceed — out of what thing, or matter thou shalt attain thy wished-for end — the studying of the ensuing Treatise will sufficiently shew.

Thy Friend,

F. B.

2Ucbymt\\

fT is not necessary here to enter into a long detail of the merits of Alchymical Authors and Philosophers; suffice it to say, that Alchymy, the grand touch-stone of natural wisdom is of Divine origin : it was brought down from Heaven by the Angel Uriel. Zoroaster, the first philoso- pher by fire, made pure gold from all the seven metals; he brought the sun ten times brighter from the bed of Saturn, and fixed it with the moon, who thereby copulating, begot a numerous offspring of an immortal nature, a pure living spiritual sun, burning in the refulgency of its own divine light, a seed of a sublime and fiery nature, a vigorous progenitor. This Zoroaster was the father of alchymy, illumined divinely from above ; he knew every thing, yet seemed to know nothing ; his precepts of art were left in hieroglyphics, yet in such sort that none but the favourites of Heaven ever reaped benefit thereby. He was the first who engraved the pure Cabala in most pure gold, and, when he died, resigned it to his Father, who liveth eternally, yet begot him not: that Father gives it to his sons, who follow the precepts of Wisdom with vigilance, ingenuity, and industry, and with a pure, chaste, and free mind.

Hermes, Trismegistus, Geber, Artephius, Bacon, Helmont, Lully, and Basil Valentine, have written most profoundly, yet abstrusely, and all declare not. the thing sought for. Some say they were forbid ; others that they declared it obviously and intelligibly, yet some few little points they kept to them- selves. However far off the main point they lead us, of this be sure, — that something valuable is to be drained, as it were, out of each.

Geber is good — Artephius is better — but Flammel is best of all; — and better still than these is the instructions we give ; for with them a man (following our directions) shall never want gold; therefore to be an adept is possible, but first “ seek the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you.” This is truth incontrovertible, and herein lies a vast secret — “ seek and ye shall find ; ” — but remember, whatsoever ye ask, that shall ye receive.

The cabala, in its utmost purity, is contained in the many precepts given in this book. The cabala enables us to understand — to bring our under- standings to act, and, by that means, to attain knowledge; — knowledge

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makes us the children of God — God makes whom he pleases adepts in wis- dom. To be an adept, according to God’s will, is no contemptible calling.

The noble and virtuous Brethren of the Rosy Cross holds this truth sacred — that “ Virtue flies from no man ; ” therefore how desirable a thing is Virtue. She teaches us, first, wisdom, then charity, love, mercy, faith, and constancy; all these appertain to Virtue; therefore it is physically possible for any well-inclined man to become an adept, provided he lays aside his pride of reasoning, all obstinacy, blindness, hypocrisy, incredulity, supersti- tion, deceit, &c.

An adept, therefore, is one who not only studies to do God’s will upon earth, in respect of his moral and religious duties; but who studies, and ardently prays to his benevolent Creator to bestow on him wisdom and knowledge from the fulness of his treasury ; and he meditates, day and night, how he may attain the true aqua vita — how he may be filled with the grace of God; which, when he is made so happy, his spiritual and internal eye is open to a glorious prospect of mortal and immortal riches : — he wants not food, raiment , joy, or any other thing — he is filled with the celestial spiritual manna — he enjoys the marrow and fat things of the earth — he treads the wine-press, not of the wrath , but of the mercy of God — he lives to the glory of God, and dies saying “ Holy, holy, holy Lord of Sabaoth ! blessed is thy name, now and for evermore ! Amen.”

Therefore, to be an adept, as we have before hinted, is to know thyself, fear God, and love thy neighbour as thyself; and by this thou shalt come to the fulfilment of thy desires, O, man; but by no other means under the scope of Heaven.

When thy soul shall be made drunk by the divine ambrosial nectar, then shall thy understanding be more clear than the noontide sun ; — then, by thy strong and spiritualized intellectual eye, shalt thou see into the great treasury of Nature, and thou shalt praise God with thy whole heart; — then wilt thou see the folly of the world; and thou shalt unerringly accomplish thy desire, and shalt possess the true Philosophers’ stone, to the profit of thy neighbour. I say, thou shalt, visibly and sensibly, according to thy corporal faculties; not imaginary, not delusively, but real.

Helmont, an author of no mean repute, avouches that he has actually seen the stone which converts base metals into gold ; that he has seen it with his eyes, and handled it with his fingers : taken from his own relation of the fact; notwithstanding Kircher’s declamation against the possibility of obtaining it, noting them all who professed alchymy to be a set of impostors and jugglers, giving no better an exposition of their process of transmutation than this — “ An Alchymist,” says Kircher, “ procures or desires a crucible to be brought, wherein is put lead or any other base metal, which, while in fusion, he (the

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Alchymist) stirs about with an iron rod, and then,” he says, “ he drops in, from between his fingers, a bit of gold; and after stirring up for some time, and essay being made, gold is found.” This is, indeed, a very lame method of exploding alchymy; but, however, to leave Kircher as much in the dark as he was, we shall give you Van Helmont’s declaration, a philosopher of much greater note than this pseudo-chemist Kircher. Van Helmont says — “I have divers times handled that stone with my hands, and have seen a real transmutation of saleable quicksilver with mine eyes, which, in proportion, did exceed the powder which made the gold in some thousand degrees.

“It was of the colour that is in saffron, being weighty in its powder, and shining like bruised glass, when it should be the less exactly beaten. But there was once given unto me the fourth part of one grain, (I call, also, a grain the sixth hundredth part of an ounce). This powder I involved in wax, scraped off a certain letter, lest, in casting it into the crucible, it should be dispersed, through the smoak of the coals ; which pellet of wax I afterwards cast into the three-cornered vessel of a crucible upon a pound of quicksilver, hot and newly bought; and presently the whole quicksilver, with some little noise, stood still from flowing, and resided like a lump ; but the heat of that argent vive was as much as might forbid melted lead from recoagulating. The fire being straightway after increased under the bellows, the metal was melted; the which, the vessel of fusion being broken, I found to weigh eight ounces of the most pure gold.

“Therefore, a computation being made, a grain of that powder doth con- vert nineteen thousand two hundred grains of impure and volatile metal, which is obliterable by the fire, into true gold.

“For that powder, by uniting the aforesaid quicksilver unto itself, pre- served the same, at one instant, from an eternal rust, putrefaction, death, and torture, of the fire, howsoever most violent it was, and made it as an im- mortal thing, against any vigour or industry of art and fire, and transchanged it into the virgin purity of gold; at leastwise one only fire of coals is required herein.”

By which we see that so learned and profound a philosopher as Van Helmont could not so easily have been made to believe that there existed a possibility of transmutation of base metals into pure gold, without he had actually proved the same by experiment.

Again, let the standing monuments of Flammel’s liberal bounty to the poor, through this means, to be seen at Paris every day, stand as a testimony to the truth of the existing possibility of transmutation. Likewise, Helmont men- tions a stone that he saw, and had in his possession, which cured all disorders, the plague not excepted. I shall relate the circumstance in his own words, which are as follow : —

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“ There was a certain Irishman, whose name was Butler, being some time great with James, King of England, he being detained in the prison of the Castle of Yilvord; and taking pity on one Baillius, a certain Franciscan Monk, a most famous preacher of Gallo-Britain, who was also imprisoned, having an erisipelas in his arm ; on a certain evening, when the Monk did almost despair, he swiftly tinged a certain little stone in a spoonful of almond- milk, and presently withdrew it thence. So he says to the keeper — ‘Reach this supping to that Monk ; and how much soever he shall take thereupon, he shall be whole, at least within a short hour’s space.’ — Which thing even so came to pass, to the great admiration of the keeper and the sick man, not knowing from whence so sudden health shone upon him, seeing that he was ignorant that he had taken any thing : for his left arm, being before hugely swollen, fell down as that it could scarcely be discerned from the other. On the morning following, I, being entreated by some great men, came to Yilvord, as a witness of his deeds; therefore I contracted a friendship with Butler.

“ Soon afterwards, I saw a poor old woman, a laundress, who, from the age of sixteen years, had laboured with an intolerable megrim, cured in my pres- ence. Indeed he, by the way, lightly dipped the same little stone in a spoon- ful of oil of olives, and presently cleansed the same stone by licking it with his tongue, and laid it up into his snuff-box ; but that spoonful of oil he poured into a small bottle of oil, whereof one only drop he commanded to be anointed on the head of the aforesaid old woman, who was thereby straightway cured, and remained whole ; which I attest I was amazed, as if he was become another Midas; but he, smiling, said: —

‘ My most dear friend, unless thou come hitherto, so as to be able, by one only remedy, to cure every disease, thou shalt remain in thy young beginnings , however old thou shalt become.’ — I easily assented to this, because I had learned that from the secrets of Paracelsus ; and being now more confirmed by sight and hope. But I willingly confess, that that new mode of curing was unaccustomed and unknown to me: I therefore said, that a young Prince of our Court, Viscount of Gaunt, brother to the Prince of Episuoy, of a very great House, was so wholly prostrated by the gout, that he henceforth lay only on one side, being wretched, and deformed with many knots: he, therefore, taking hold of my right hand, said — ‘Wilt thou that I cure the young man ? I will cure him for thy sake.’ — ‘ But,’ I replied, ‘ he is of that obstinacy, that he had rather die, than drink one only medicinal potion.’

‘Be it so,’ said Butler; ‘for neither do I require any other thing, than that he do, every morning, touch this little stone, thou seest, with the top of his tongue ; for after three weeks from thence, let him wash the painful and un- painful knots with his own urine, and thou shalt soon afterwards see him

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cured, and soundly walking. Go thy ways, and tell him, with joy, what I have said.’

“ I therefore, being glad, returned to Brussels, and told him what Butler had said.

“ But the Potentate answered — « Go, tell Butler that if he shall restore me as thou hast said, I will give him as much as he shall require ; — demand the price, and I will willingly sequester that which is deposited for his security.

— And when I declared the thing to Butler, on the day following, he was very wrath, and said — ‘That Prince is mad, or witless and miserable, and therefore will I never help him : for neither do I stand in need of his money

— neither do I yield — nor am I inferior to him.’ — Nor could I ever induce him, afterwards, to perform what before he had promised ; wherefore I began to doubt whether the things I had before seen were dreams.

“ It happened, in the mean time, that a friend, overseer and master of the glass-furnace at Antwerp, being exceedingly fat, most earnestly requested of Butler that he might be freed from his fatness; unto whom Butler offered a small piece of that little stone, that he might once every morning lick, or speedily touch it with the top of his tongue : and, within three weeks, I saw his breast made more straight, or narrow, by one span, and him to have lived no less whole afterwards. Wherefore I began again to believe that the afore- said gouty Prince might have been cured, according to the manner Butler had promised.

“ In the mean time, I sent to Yilvord, to Butler, for a remedy, in the case of poison given me by a secret enemy; for I miserably languished — all my joints were pained; and my pulse, vehement, being at length become an in- termitting one, did accompany the faintings of my mind, and extinguishment of my strength.

“ Butler, being still detained in prison, commanded my house-hold servant, whom I had sent, that forthwith he should bring unto him a small bottle of oil of olives; and his little stone, aforesaid, being tinged therein, as at other times, he sent that oil unto me ; and told the servant, that with one only small drop of the oil, I should anoint only one place of the pain, or all the places, if I would ; the which I did, and yet felt no help thereby. In the mean time, my enemy, according to his lot, being about to die, bade that pardon should be craved of me for his sin ; so I knew that I had taken poison, the which I suspected ; and therefore, also, I procured with all care to extinguish the slow venom, which, through the grace of God favouring me, I escaped.

“ Seeing, that, afterwards, many other cures were performed upon certain gentlewomen, I asked Butler why so many women should be cured, but that I (while that I sharply conflicted with death itself, being also environed with

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pains of all my joints and organs) should not feel any ease ? — But he asked with what disease I had laboured? — And when he understood that poison had given a beginning to the disease, he said, — that, as the cause had come from within to without, the oil ought to be taken into the body, or the stone to be touched with the tongue ; because the grief being cherished within, it was not local or external; and also observed, that the oil did, by degrees, uncloath itself with the efficacy of healing, because the little stone being lightly tinged in it, it had not pithily charged the oil throughout its whole body, but had only ennobled it with a delible or obliterable besprinkling of its odour ; for truly that stone did present, in the eyes and tongue, sea-salt spread abroad, or rarified ; and it is sufficiently known that salt is not to be very intimately mixed with oil.

“ This same man, also, cured an Abbess, who, for eighteen years, had had her right arm swelled, with an entire deprivation of motion, and the fingers thereof stiff and unmoveable, only by the touching of her tongue with this admirable stone.

“ But very many being present witnesses of these same wonders, did sus- pect some hidden sorcery, or diabolical craft; for the common people have it for an ancient custom, that whatsoever honest thing their ignorance has de- termined not to comprehend, they do, for a privy shift of their ignorance, refer the same to be the juggling of an evil spirit. But I could never decline so far, because the remedy was supposed to be natural ; for neither words, ceremonies, nor any other suspected thing, was required. For neither is it lawful, according to man’s power of understanding, to refer the glory of God, shewn forth in Nature, unto the devil. For none of those people had re- quired aid of Butler, as from necromancy any way suspected; yea, the thing was at first made trial of with smiling, and without faith and confidence; yet this easy method of curing shall long remain suspected by many ; for the wit of the vulgar being inconstant and idle, they do more readily consecrate so great a bounty of restitution unto diabolical contrivance, than to Divine goodness, the framer, lover, saviour, refresher of human nature, and the father of the poor. And these vile prejudices are not only inherent in the common people, but also in those that are learned, who rashly search into the beginning of healing, being not yet instructed, or observing the common and blockish rules ; because they are always wise as children, who have never gone over their mother’s threshold, being afraid of every fable. For they who have not hitherto known the whole circuit of diseases to be in- cluded within the spirit of life, which maketh the assault ; or if they here- after, reading my studies by the way, shall imprint on themselves this moment or concernment of healing ; nevertheless, because they have been al- ready before accustomed from the very beginnings of their studies, to the

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precepts of the humorists, they will easily, at length, depart from me, and leap back to the favourite bigotry and ancient opinions of the schools.”

But now we will hasten to the manner of preparation necessary to qualify a man for the attainment of these sublime gifts.

Of the Preparation of a Man to qualify him for the Search of this Treasure: and of the first Matter ( prima materia) of the Stone.

Lesson I. The preparation for this work is simply this : — Learn to cast away from thee all vile affections — all levity and inconstancy of mind; let all thy dealings be free from deceit and hypocrisy ; avoid the company of vain young men ; hate all profligacy, and profane speaking.

Lesson II. Keep thy own, and thy neighbours’ secrets; court not the favours of the rich; despise not the poor, for he who does will be poorer than the poorest.

Lesson III. Give to the needy and unfortunate what little thou canst spare ; for he that has but little, whatever he spares to the miserable, God shall amply reward him.

Lesson IV. Be merciful to those who offend thee, or who have injured thee ; for what must that man’s heart be, who would take heavy vengeance on a slight offence? Thou shalt forgive thy brother until seventy times seven.

Lesson V. Be not hasty to condemn the actions of others, lest thou shouldst, the next hour, fall into the very same error ; despise scandal and tattling; let thy words be few.

Lesson VI. Study day and night, and supplicate thy Creator that he would be pleased to grant thee knowledge and understanding; and that the pure spirits may have communication with, and influence, in thee.

Lesson VII. Be not overcome with drunkenness; for, be assured, that half the evils that befall mankind originate in drunkenness: for too great a quantity of strong liquors, deprive men of their reason ; then, having lost the use of the faculty of their judgment, they immediately become the recipient of all evil influences, and are justly compared to weathercocks, that are driven hither and thither by every gust of wind ; so those who drown the reasonable power, are easily persuaded to the lightest and most frivolous pursuits, and, from these, to vices more gross and reprobate ; for the ministers of darkness have never so favourable an opportunity of insinuating themselves into the minds and hearts of men, as when they are lost in intoxication. I pray you to avoid this dreadful vice.

Lesson VIII. Avoid gluttony, and all excess — it is very pernicious, and from the Devil: these are the things that constantly tempt man, and by which he falls a prey to his spiritual adversary ; for he is rendered incapable

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of receiving any good or divine gift. Besides, the divine and angelic powers or essences delight not to be conversant about a man who is defiled, and stinking with debauchery and excess.

Lesson IX. Covet not much gold, but learn to be satisfied with enough ; for to desire more than enough, is to offend the Deity.

Lesson X. Read often these ten preparatory Lessons to fit thee for the great work, and for the receiving of higher things ; for the more pure thou art in heart and mind, by so much quicker shall you perceive those high secrets we teach, and which are entirely hid from the discernment of the vicious and depraved, because it never can happen that such a source of treasure can be attained merely to satisfy our more gross, earthly, and vain desires and inclinations, because here nothing must be thought to be grasped, or wrested out of this book, but to the fulfilling of a good end and purpose. When thou shalt have so far purified thy heart, as we have spoken is indispensably neces- sary for the receiving of every good thing, thou shalt then see with other eyes than thou dost at present — thy spiritual eye will be opened, and thou shalt read man as plain as thou wilt our books; but, for all this, depend not on the strength of thy own wisdom, for even then, when we think our hearts secure, if we do not watch them that they sleep not, the Devil, or his minis- ters, immediately take us at this unguarded moment, and tempts us into the actual commission of some sin or other : either he excites our appetite for lust and concupiscence, or any other deadly sin ; therefore, using our blessed Redeemer’s words — “What I say unto you, I say unto you all — watch!”

Perhaps, I do not doubt but, there are some that will say, when they look at our works, this fellow is all rant, all preaching — he tells us what we knew before as well as himself. To such I say, let them read our book but twice ; if they do not gather something that they will acknowledge precious, (nay, be convinced that it is precious, to their own satisfaction) I will burn these writings, and they shall be no more remembered by me.

To conclude this Part: we say that the First Matter ( Prima Materia) Adam brought with him out of Paradise, and left it, as an inheritance, to us his successors ; had he remained in his original purity, he would have been permitted to have used it himself; but the eternal fiat was passed, that he was to “ earn his bread by the sweat of his brow ;” therefore he could not effect what was afterwards performed by some of his offspring.

Hermes Trismegistus, that ancient philosopher, wrote touching the attain- ment of this stone, which he pronounced to be of all benefit to man, and one of the greatest blessings he could possess; and although his writings contain much of the excellency of truth, being wrapped up in such symbolical figures, it renders them exceedingly difficult to be understood, yet, if comprehended, they, no doubt, contain some very great secrets by which mortal man may profit.

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Now it belongs to our purpose to know what it is from which we must ex- tract the first matter of this stone, to go on with our process, because we must have materials to work upon; for all philosophers agree that, the first matter being found, we may proceed without much difficulty. For the first matter , (I shall speak as plainly as possible) first, the grand question in debate is — Where is it to be found? — I say it is to be found in ourselves. We all possess this first matter, from the beggar to the king; every mothers’ son carries it about him; and, could our ingenious chemists but find a process for the extracting, how well would all their labours be repaid. The next ques- tion naturally comes to us — How are we to draw, or attract the secret matter of the stone out of ourselves? — Not by any common means; and yet it is to be drawn into very action, and that by the most simple means, and in a man- ner that the attaining of the philosophers’ stone would very soon follow it. I pray you, my friend, look into thyself, and endeavour to find out in what part of thy composition is the prima materia of the lapis philosophorum , or out of what part of thy substance can the first matter of our stone be drawn out. Thou sayest, it must either be in the hair , sweat , or excrement. I say in none of these thou shalt ever be able to find it, and yet thou shalt find it in thyself.

Many great philosophers and chemists, whom I have the pleasure to know, affirm that, admitting of the possibility of transmutation, it ( i . e. the first matter) must be taken from the purest gold. To this I say it must not; neither has it anything at all to do with extrinsical gold. They will say then that the pure ens of gold may be drawn from gold itself. True, it may be so; but then I would ask if they could ever produce more gold than that out of which the soul or essence was extracted; if they have, they have indeed found out a secret beyond the powers of our comprehension ; because it is against reason to suppose that if a pound of gold yields a drachm of the soul or essence, that that only will tinge any more than a pound of purified lead, or 5 ; because we have tried various experiments, and I have, in some of my first essays, turned both lead and mercury into good gold ; but no more than that out of which the soul was extracted. But, however, not to lose our time in vain and ridiculous disputation, know that whatever prodigious things or experiments have been tried with respect to the first matter, by external sub- jects, either in the mineral, animal, or vegetable kingdoms, as they are called, I say in us is the power of all wonderful things, which the supreme Creator has, of his infinite mercy, implanted in our souls ; out of her is to be extracted the first matter, the true argent vive , the 5 of the philosophers, the true ens of O, viz. a spiritual living gold, or waterish mercury, or first matter, which, by being matured, is capable of transmuting a thousand pts. of impure metal into good and perfect gold, which endure fire, test, or cupel.

48 aicbgmp.

Of the manner of extracting the first matter of the philosophers' stone, and the use it is put to in purifying the imperfect metals and transmuting them into good gold.

Lesson XI. Take the foregoing instructions as thy principal instrument, and know that our soul has the power, when the body is free, as we before said, of any pollution, the heart void of malice and offence; I say the soul is then a free agent, and has the power, spiritually and magically, to act upon any matter whatsoever; therefore I said the first matter is in the soul; and the extracting of it, is to bring the dormant power of the pure, living, breath- ing spirit and eternal soul into act. Note well that every agent has its power of acting upon its patient. Every essence that is distilled forth is received into a recipient, but that recipient must first be made clean. Even so must the soul and heart of man : the vile affections must be thrown away, and trampled under foot; then shalt thou be able to proceed in thy work, which do in the manner following.

Lesson XII. The expence thou must be at will be but a trifle: all the in- struments necessary are but three, viz. a crucible, an egg philosophical, and a retort with its receiver. Put your fine gold, in weight about 5 dwts., file it up, put it into your philosophic egg, pour upon it the twice of its weight of the best Hungarian 5 , close up the egg with an Hermetic seal, put it for three months in horse-dung, take it out at the end of that time, and see what kind of form thy gold and 5 has assumed; take it out, pour on it half its weight of good spirit of sal ammon., set them in a pot full of sand over the fire in the retort, let them distil into a pure essence, add to one pt. of this 5 two pts. of thy water of life, or prima materia , put them into thy philosophical egg, and Lesson XIII.

set them into horse-dung for another three months; then take them out, and see what thou hast — a pure etherial essence, which is the living gold; pour this pure spiritual liquor upon a drachm of molten fine gold, and you will find that which will satisfy thy hunger and thirsting after this secret ; for the increase of thy gold will seem to thee miraculous, as indeed it is. Take it to a jeweller’s or goldsmith’s; let him try it in thy presence, and thou wilt have reason to bless God for his mercy to thee. Do thy duty as he has com- manded thee, and use all the benefit thou shalt receive, in actions worthy of thy nature.

Lesson XIV. When thy spiritual eye is opened, and thou shalt begin to see what end thou wert created, thou shalt want no necessary thing either for thy comfort or support; only keep in the rules we have prescribed in the be- ginning of this little treatise — Fear God, and love thy neighbour as thyself; be not hasty to reveal any secrets thou mayest learn, for the good spirits, both

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day and night, will be thy instructors, and will continually reveal thee many secrets. Think not that thou canst either profit or benefit so much by the in- struction of those who profess great advantages in classical education and high schooling; be assured they are, in spiritual knowledge, much in the dark: for he who desires not spiritual knowledge cannot attain it by any means, but by, first, coming to God; secondly, by purifying his own heart; thirdly, by submitting himself to the will of the Holy Spirit, to guide and direct him in all truth, to the attaining of all knowledge, both human and divine; and by arrogating nothing to our own power or strength, but by referring all to the mercy and goodness of God. — Amen.

Book tbe Second

IT is necessary that we should know and understand the nature and quality of the four elements, in order to our being perfect in the principles and ground-work of our studies in the Talismanic, or Magical Art.

Therefore, there are four elements, the original grounds of all corporeal things, viz. fire, earth, water, and air, of which elements all inferior bodies are compounded ; not by way of being heaped up together, but by transmuta- tion and union ; and when they are destroyed, they are resolved into elements. But there are none of the sensible elements that are pure ; but they are, more or less, mixed, and apt to be changed the one into the other ; even as earth, being moistened and dissolved, becomes water , but the same being made thick and hard, becomes earth again ; and being evaporated through heat it passes into air, and that being kindled into fire, and this being extinguished, into air again, but being cooled after burning, becomes earth again, or else stone, or sulphur; and this is clearly demonstrated by lightning. Now every one of these elements have two specifical properties: the former whereof it retains as proper to itself ; in the other, as a mean, it agrees with that which comes directly after it. For fire is hot and dry — earth, cold and dry; — water, cold and moist — and air, hot and moist. And so in this manner the elements, according to two contrary qualities, are opposite one to the other : as fire to water, and earth to air. Likewise, the elements are contrary one to the other on another account : two are heavy, as earth and water — and the others are light, as fire and air; therefore the Stoics called the former, passives — but the latter, actives. And Plato distinguishes them after another manner, and assigns to each of them three qualities, viz. to the fire, brightness, thinness, and motion — to the earth, darkness, thickness, and quietness; and, according to these qualities, the elements of fire and earth are contrary. Now the other elements borrow their qualities from these, so that the air receives two quali- ties from 4he fire, — thinness and motion; and the earth one, viz. darkness. In like manner water receives two qualities of the earth, — darkness and thickness; and the fire one, viz. motion. But fire is twice as thin as air, thrice more moveable, and four times brighter; the air is twice more bright, thrice

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more thin, and four times more moveable. Therefore, as fire is to air, so is air to water, and water to the earth ; and again, as the earth is to the water, so is water to air, and air to fire. And this is the root and foundation of all bodies, natures, and wonderful works; and he who can know, and thoroughly understand these qualities of the elements, and their mixtures, shall bring to pass wonderful and astonishing things in magic.

Now each of these elements have a threefold consideration, so that the number of four may make up the number of twelve; and, by passing by the number of seven into ten, there may be a progress to the supreme unity upon which all virtue and wonderful things do depend. Of the first order are the pure elements, which are neither compounded, changed, or mixed, but are in- corruptible ; and not of which, but through which, the virtues of all natural things are brought forth to act. No man is able fully to declare their virtues, because they can do all things upon all things. He who remains ignorant of these, shall never be able to bring to pass any wonderful matter.

Of the second order are elements that are compounded, changeable, and impure; yet such as may, by art, be reduced to their pure simplicity; whose virtue, when they are thus reduced, doth, above all things, perfect all occult and common operations of Nature; and these are the foundation of the whole of Natural Magic.

Of the third order, are those elements which originally and of themselves are not elements, but are twice compounded, various and changeable into another. These are the infallible medium , and are called the middle nature , or soul of the middle nature ; very few there are that understand the deep mysteries thereof. In them is, by means of certain numbers, degrees, and orders, the perfection of every effect in what thing soever, whether natural , celestial, or super celestial : they are full of wonders and mysteries, and are operative as in Magic natural, so divine. For from these, through them, pro- ceeds the binding, loosing, and transmutation of all things — the knowledge and foretelling of things to come — also, the expelling of evil, and the gain- ing of good spirits. Let no one, therefore, without these three sorts of ele- ments, and the true knowledge thereof, be confident that he can work any thing in the Occult Science of Magic and Nature.

But whosoever shall know how to reduce those of one order into another, impure into pure, compounded into single, and shall understand distinctly the nature, virtue, and power of them, in number, degrees, and order, without dividing the substance, he shall easily attain to the knowledge and perfect operation of all natural things, and celestial secrets likewise; and ‘this is the perfection of the Cabala, which teaches all these before mentioned ; and, by a perfect knowledge thereof, we perform many rare and wonderful experiments.

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©f tbe ^Elements. There are two things, (says Hermes) viz. fire and earth, which are sufficient for the operation of all wonderful things: the former is active, and the latter passive. Fire, in all things, and through all things, comes and goes away bright; it is in all things bright, and at the same time occult and unknown. When it is by itself (no other matter coming to it, in which it should manifest its proper action) it is boundless and invisible; of itself sufficient for every action that is proper to it; — itself is one, and penetrates through all things ; also spread abroad in the heavens, and shining. But in the infernal place, straitened, dark, and tormenting; and in the mid- way it partakes of both. It is in stones, and is drawn out by the stroke of the steel; it is in earth, and causes it, after digging up, to smoke; it is in water, and heats springs and wells ; it is in the depths of the sea, and causes it, being tossed with the winds, to be hot; it is in the air, and makes it (as we often see) to burn. And all animals, and all living things whatsoever, as also vegetables are preserved by heat; — and every thing that lives, lives by reason of the inclosed heat. The properties of the fire that is above, are heat, making all things fruitful ; and a celestial light, giving life to all things. The properties of the infernal fire are a parching heat, consuming all things ; and darkness; making all things barren. The celestial and bright fire drives away spirits of darkness; — also, this our fire, made with wood, drives away the same, in as much as it hath an analogy with, and is the vehiculum of, that superior light; as also of him who saith, “ I am the light of the world,” which is true fire — the Father of lights, from whom every good thing that is given comes; — sending forth the light of his fire, and communicating it first to the sun and the rest of the celestial bodies, and by these, as by mediating instru- ments, conveying that light into our fire. As, therefore, the spirits of dark- ness are stronger in the dark — so good spirits, which are angels of lights, are augmented not only by that light (which is divine, of the sun, and celestial), but also by the light of our common fire. Hence it was that the first and most wise institutors of religions and ceremonies, ordained that prayers, sing- ings, and all manner of divine worships whatsoever, should not be performed without lighted candles or torches: hence, also, was that significant saying of Pythagoras — “Do not speak of God without a light!” — And they com- manded that, for the driving away of wicked spirits, lights and fires should be kindled by the carcasses of the dead, and that they should not be removed until the expiations were, after a holy manner, performed, and then buried. And the great Jehovah himself, in the old law, commanded that all his sacrifices should be offered with fire and that fire should always be burning upon the altar, which custom the Priests of the Altar did always observe and keep amongst the Romans. Now the basis and foundation of all the ele- ments is the earth; for that is the object, subject, and receptacle of all celes-

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tial rays and influences : in it are contained the seeds, and seminal virtues of all things: and therefore, it is said to be animal, vegetable, and mineral. It, being made fruitful by the other elements and the heavens, brings forth all things of itself. It receives the abundance of all things, and is, as it were, the first fountain from whence all things spring; — it is the centre, founda- tion, and mother of all things. Take as much of it as you please, separated, washed, depurated, and subtilized, and if you let it lie in the open air a little while, it will, being full and abounding with heavenly virtues, of itself bring forth plants, worms, and other living things; also stones, and bright sparks of metals. In it are great secrets : if, at any time it shall be purified, by the help of fire,* and reduced into its simple nature by a convenient washing, it is the first matter of our creation, and the truest medicine that can restore and preserve us.

The other two elements, viz. water and air, are not less efficacious than the former; neither is Nature wanting to work wonderful things in them. There is so great a necessity of water, that without it nothing can live — no herb no plant whatsoever without the moistening of water, can bring forth; in it is the seminary virtue of all things, especially of animals, whose seed is manifestly waterish. The seeds, also, of trees and plants, although they are earthy, must, notwithstanding, of necessity be rotted in water before they can be fruitful; whether they be imbibed with the moisture of the earth, or with dew, or rain, or any other water that is on purpose put to them. — For Moses writes, that only earth and water can bring forth a living soul ; but he ascribes a two-fold production of things to water, viz. of things swimming in the water, and of things flying in the air above the earth; and that those pro- ductions that are made in and upon the earth are partly attributed to the very water the same scripture testifies, where it saith, that the plants and the herbs did not grow, because God had not caused it to rain upon the earth. Such is the efficacy of this element of water, that spiritual regeneration can- not be done without it, as Christ himself testified to Nicodemus. Very great, also, is the virtue of it in the religious worship of God, in expiations and purifications ; indeed the necessity of it is no less than that of fire. Infinite are the benefits, and divers are the uses, thereof as being that, by virtue of which all things subsist, are generated, nourished, and increased. Hence it was that Thales of Miletus, and Hesiod, concluded that water was the begin- ning of all things; and said it was the first of all the elements, and the most potent; and that, because it hath the mastery over all the rest. For, as Pliny saith, — “Waters swallow up the earth — extinguish flames — ascend on

•Agrippa here, speaking of the element of earth being reduced to its utmost simplicity, by being purified by fire and a convenient washing, means, that it is the first and principal ingredient necessary to the production of the Philosopher’s stone, either of animals or metals.

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high — and, by the stretching forth of the clouds, challenge the heavens for their own ; the same, falling down, becomes the cause of all things that grow in the earth.” Very many are the wonders that are done by waters, accord- ing to the writings of Pliny, Solinus, and many other historians.

Josephus also makes relation of the wonderful nature of a certain river betwixt Arcea and Raphanea, cities of Syria, which runs with a full channel all the Sabbath-day, and then on a sudden stops, as if the springs were stopped, and all the six days you may pass over it dry-shod; but again, on the seventh day, no man knowing the reason of it, the waters return again, in abundance as before! wherefore the inhabitants thereabout called it the Sabbath-day River, because of the seventh day, which was holy to the Jews. — The Gospel, also, testifies of a sheep-pool, into which whosoever stepped first after the water was troubled by the Angel, was made whole of whatsoever disease he had. The same virtue and efficacy, we read, was in a spring of the Ionian Nymphs, which was in the territories belonging to the town of Elis, at a village called Heradea, near the river Citheron, which whosoever stepped into, being diseased, came forth whole, and cured of all his diseases. Pausanias also reports, that in Lyceus, a mountain, of Arcadia, there was a spring called Agria, to which, as often as the dryness of the region threatened the destruction of fruits, Jupiter, Priest of Lyceus, went; and, after the offer- ing of sacrifices, devoutly praying to the waters of the spring, holding a bough of an oak in his hand, put it down to the bottom of the hallowed spring; then, the waters being troubled, a vapour ascending from thence into the air, was blown into clouds, which being joined together, the whole heaven was overspread : which being, a little after, dissolved into rain, watered all the country most wholesomely. — Moreover, Ruffus, a physician of Ephesus, besides many other authors, wrote strange things concerning the wonders of waters, which, for aught I know, are found in no other author.

It remains, that I speak of the air. — This is a vital spirit passing through all beings — giving life and subsistence to all things — moving and filling all things. Hence it is that the Hebrew doctors reckon it not amongst the ele- ments; but count it as a medium, or glue, joining things together, and as the resounding spirit of the world’s instrument. It immediately receives into itself the influence of all celestial bodies, and then communicates them to the other elements, as also to all mixed bodies. Also, it receives into itself, as if it were a divine looking-glass, the species of all things, as well natural as artificial; as also of all manner of speeches, and retains them; and carrying them with it, and entering into the bodies of men, and other animals, through their pores, makes an impression upon them, as well when they are asleep as when they are awake, and affords matter for divers strange dreams and divi- nations. — Hence, they say, it is that a man, passing by a place where a man

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was slain, or the carcass newly hid, is moved with fear and dread; because the air, in that place, being full of the dreadful species of man- slaughter, doth, being breathed in, move and trouble the spirit of the man with the like species; whence it is that he becomes afraid. For everything that makes a sudden impression astonishes Nature. Whence it is that many philosophers were of opinion, that air is the cause of dreams, and of many other impres- sions of the mind, through the prolonging of images, or similitudes, or species ( which proceed from things and speeches, multiplied in the very air), until they come to the senses, and then to the phantasy and soul of him that receives them; which, being freed from cares, and no way hindered, expecting to meet such kind of species, is informed by them. For the species of things, although of their own proper nature they are carried to the senses of men, and other animals in general, may, notwithstanding, get some impression from the heavens whilst they are in the air; by reason of which, together with the apt- ness and disposition of him that receives them, they may be carried to the sense of one, rather than of another. And hence it is possible, naturally, and far from all manner of superstition (no other spirit coming between), that a man should be able, in a very small time, to signify his mind unto another man, abiding at a very long and unknown distance from him — although he cannot precisely give an estimate of the time, when it is, yet, of necessity, it must be within twenty-four hours; — and I, myself, know how to do it, and have often done it. The same also, in time past, did the Abbot Tritemius both know and do. — Also, when certain appearances (not only spiritual, but also natural) do flow forth from things, that is to say, by a certain kind of flowings forth of bodies from bodies, and do gather strength in the air, they shew themselves to us as well through light as motion — as well to the sight as to other senses — and sometimes work wonderful things upon us, as Pla- tonius proves and teacheth. And we see how, by the south- wind, the air is condensed into thin clouds, in which, as in a looking-glass, are reflected representations at a great distance, of castles, mountains, horses, men, and other things, which when the clouds are gone, presently vanish. — And Aris- totle, in his Meteors shews that a rainbow is conceived in a cloud of the air, as in a looking-glass. — And Albertus says, that the effigies of bodies may, by the strength of Nature, in a moist air, be easily represented; in the same man- ner as the representations of things are in things. — And Aristotle tells of a man, to whom it happened, by reason of the weakness of his sight, that the air that was near to him became, as it were, a looking-glass to him, and the optic-beam did reflect back upon himself, and could not penetrate the air, so that, whithersoever he went, he thought he saw his own image, with his face towards him, go before him. — In like manner, by the artificialness of some certain looking-glasses, may be produced at a distance, in the air, besides the

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looking-glasses, what images we please, which, when ignorant men see, they think they see the appearances of spirits or souls — when, indeed, they are nothing else but semblances a-kin to themselves, and without life. And it is well-known, if in a dark place, where there is no light but by the coming in of a beam of the sun somewhere through a little hole, a white paper or plain looking-glass be set up against the light, that there may be seen upon them whatsoever things are done without, being shined upon by the sun. And there is another slight or trick yet more wonderful: — if any one shall take images, artificially painted, or written letters, and, in a clear night, set them against the beams of the full moon, those resemblances being multipled in the air, and caught upward, and reflected back together with the beams of the moon, another man, that is privy to the thing, at a long distance, sees, reads, and knows them in the very compass and circle of the moon; which art of declaring secrets is, indeed, very profitable for towns and cities that are be- seiged, being a thing which Pythagoras long since did, and which is not un- known to some in these days; I will not except myself. And all these things and many more, and much greater than these, are grounded in the very nature of the air, and have their reasons and causes declared in njathematics and optics. And as these resemblances are reflected back to the sight, so also are they, sometimes, to the hearing, as is manifest in echo. But there are many more secret arts than these, and such whereby any one may, at a re- markable distance, hear, and understand distincly, what another speaks or whispers.

The next in order, after the four simple elements, are the four kinds of per- fect bodies compounded of them, viz. metals, stones, plants, and animals; and although in the generation of each of these, all the elements combine together in the composition, yet every one of them follows and resembles one of the elements which is most predominant; for all stones, being earthy, are natur- ally heavy, and are so hardened with dryness that they cannot be melted; — but metals are watery, and may be melted, which naturalists and chemists find to be true, viz. that they are composed or generated of a viscous water, or watery argent vive. Plants have such an affinity with the air, that unless they are out in it, and receive its benefit, they neither flourish nor increase. So also animals, as the Poet finally expresses it —

“ Have, in their natures, a most fiery force,

“ And also spring from a celestial source and fire is so natural to them that, being extinguished, they soon die.

Now, amongst stones, those that are dark and heavy, are called earthy — those which are transparent, of the watery element , as crystal, beryl, and pearls — those which swim upon the water and are spongious, as the pumice- stone, sponge, and sophus, are called airy — and those are attributed to the

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element of fire, out of which fire is extracted, or which are resolved into fire; as thunder-stones, fire-stones, asbestos. Also, amongst metals; lead and silver are earthy; quicksilver is watery; copper and tin, airy; gold and iron, fiery. In plants, also, the roots resemble earth — the leaves, water — flowers, the air

— and seed, the fire, by reason of their multiplying spirit. Besides, some are hot, some cold, some moist, others dry, borrowing their names from the qualities of the elements. Amongst animals, also, some are, in comparison of others, earthy, because they live in the very bowels of the earth, as worms, moles, and many other reptiles; others watery, as fish; others which always abide in the air, therefore airy; others, again, fiery, as salamanders, crickets; and such as are of a fiery heat, as pigeons, ostriches, eagles, lions, panthers, &c. &c.

Now, in animals, the bones resemble earth — vital spirit, the fire — flesh, the air — and humours, the water; and these humours also resemble the ele- ments, viz. yellow choler, the fire — the blood, the air — phlegm, the water

— and black choler, or melancholy, the earth. And, lastly, in the soul itself, the understanding resembles the fire — reason, the air — imagination, the water — and the senses the earth. And these senses again are divided amongst themselves, according to the elements: for the sight is fiery, because it cannot perceive without the help of fire and light — the hearing is airy, for a sound is made by the striking of the air — the smell and taste resemble water, without the moisture of which there is neither smell nor taste — and, lastly, the feeling is wholly earthly, because it takes gross bodies for its object. The actions, also, and operations of man are governed by the elements : for the earth signifies a slow and firm motion; the water, fearfulness, sluggishness, and remissness in working; air signifies cheerfulness, and an amiable disposi- tion; but fire, a fierce, working, quick, susceptible disposition. The elements are, therefore, the first and original matter of all things; and all things are of and according to them; and they in and through all things diffuse their virtues.

In the original and exemplary world, all things are all in all; so also in this corporeal world. And the elements are not only in these inferior things ; but are in the heavens, in stars, in devils, in angels, and likewise in God himself, the maker and original example of all things.

Now it must be understood that in these inferior bodies the elements are gross and corruptible; but in the heavens they are, with their natures and vir- tues, after a celestial and more excellent manner than in sublunary things : for the firmness of the celestial earth is there without the grossness of water ; and the agility of air without exceeding its bounds; the heat of fire without burning, only shining, giving light and life to all things by its celestial heat. — -Now amongst the stars, or planets, some are fiery, as Mars, and the Sun — airy, as Jupiter, and Yenus — watery, as Saturn, and Mercury — and earthy,

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such as inhabit the eighth orb, and the Moon (which by many is accounted watery), seeing that, as if it were earth, it attracts to itself the celestial waters, with which being imbibed it does, on account of its proximity to us, pour forth and communicate to our globe.

There are, likewise, among the signs, some fiery, some airy, some watery, and some earthy. The elements rule them , also, in the heavens, distributing to them these four threefold considerations of every element, according to their triplicities, viz. the beginning, middle, and end.

Likewise, devils are distinguished according to the elements : for some are called earthy devils, others fiery, some airy, and others watery. Hence, also, those four infernal rivers : fiery Phlegethon, airy Cocytus, watery Styx, earthy Acheron. Also, in the Gospel, we read of comparisons of the elements: as hell fire, and eternal fire, into which the cursed shall be commanded to go; — and in Revelations, of a lake of fire: — and Isaiah, speaking of the damned, says that the Lord will smite them with corrupt air; — and in Job, they shall skip from the waters of the snow to the extremity of heat; and, in the same, we read, that the earth is dark, and covered with the darkness of death, and miserable darkness.

And these elements are placed in the angels of heaven, and the blessed in- telligences: there is in them a stability of their essence, which is an earthy virtue, in which is the stedfast seat of God. By the Psalmist they are called waters, where he says — “ Who rulest the waters that are higher than the heavens;” — also, in them their subtile breath is air, and their love is shining fire; hence they are called in Scripture, the wings of the wind; and, in an- other place, the Psalmist speaks of them thus — “ Who makest angels thy spirits, and thy ministers, a flaming fire ! ” — Also, according to the different orders of spirits or angels, some are fiery, as seraphims, authorities, and powers — earthy, as cherubim — watery, as thrones and archangels — airy, as dominions and principalities.

And do we not read of the original Maker of all things, that the earth shall be opened and bring forth a Saviour ? — Likewise it is spoken of the same, that he shall be a fountain of living water, cleansing and regenerating; and the same spirit breathing the breath of life; and the same, according to Moses’ and Paul’s testimony — a consuming fire.

That the elements are, therefore, to be found everywhere, and in all things, after their manner, no man will dare to deny : first, in these inferior bodies, feculent and gross ; and in celestials, more pure and clear ; but in super- celestials, living and in all respects blessed. Elements, therefore, in the exemplary world, are ideas of things to be produced; in intelligences they are distributed powers; in the heavens, they are virtues; and in inferior bodies, are gross forms.

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It is to be noted, that God, in the first place, is the end and beginning of all virtue; he gives the seal of the ideas to his servants, the intelligences, who, as faithful officers, sign all things entrusted to them with an ideal virtue ; the heavens and stars, as instruments, disposing the matter, in the mean while, for the receiving of those forms which reside in Divine Majesty, and to be conveyed by stars. And the Giver of forms distributes them by the ministry of his intelligences, which he has ordained as rulers and comptrollers over his works; to whom such a power is entrusted, in things committed to them, that so all virtue in stones, herbs, metals, and all other things, may come from the intelligences, the governors. Therefore the form and virtue of things come first from the ideas — then from the ruling and governing intelligences — then from the aspects of the heavens disposing — and, lastly, from the tempers of the elements disposed, answering the influences of the heavens, by which the elements themselves are ordered or disposed. These kinds of operations, therefore, are performed in these inferior things by express forms; and in the heavens, by disposing virtues; in intelligences, by mediating rules; in the ori- ginal cause, by ideas and exemplary forms; all which must of necessity agree in the execution of the effect and virtue of everything.

There is, therefore, a wonderful virtue and operation in every herb and stone, hut greater in a star; beyond which, even from the governing intelli- gences, everything receives and obtains many things for itself, especially from the Supreme Cause, with whom all things mutually and exactly correspond, agreeing in a harmonious consent.

Therefore there is no other cause of the necessity of effects, than the con- nection of all things with the First Cause, and their correspondency with those divine patterns and eternal ideas, whence everything hath its determinate and particular place in the exemplary world, from whence it lives and receives its original being; and every virtue of herbs, stones, metals, animals, words, speeches, and all things that are of God, are placed there.

Now the First Cause (which is God), although he doth, by intelligences and the heavens, work upon these inferior things, does sometimes (these mediums being laid aside, or their officiating being suspended) work those things immediately by himself — which works are then called miracles. But whereas secondary causes do, by the command and appointment of the First Cause, necessarily act, and are necessitated to produce their effects; if God shall, notwithstanding, according to his pleasure, so discharge and suspend them that they shall wholly desist from the necessity of that command, then they are called the greatest miracles of God. For instance : the fire of the Chaldean furnace did not burn the children ; the sun stood still at the com- mand of Joshua, and became retrograde one whole day; also, at the prayer

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of Hezekiah, it went back ten degrees; and when our Saviour Christ was crucified, it became darkened, though at full moon.

And the reason of these operations can by no rational discourse, no magic or science, occult or profound soever, be found out or understood; but are to be learned by Divine oracles only.*

Now seeing that the soul is the essential form, intelligible and incorrupti- ble, and is the first mover of the body, and is moved of itself; but that the body, or matter, is of itself unable and unfit for motion, and does very much degenerate from the soul, it appears that there is need of a more excellent medium : now such a medium is conceived to be the spirit of the world, or that which some call a quintessence; because it is not from the four elements, but a certain first thing , having its being above and beside them. There is, therefore, such a kind of medium required to be, by which celestial souls may be joined to gross bodies, and bestow upon them wonderful gifts. This spirit is, in the same manner, in the body of the world, as our spirit is in our bodies; for as the powers of our soul are communicated to the members of the body by the medium of the spirit, so also the virtue of the soul of the world is diffused, throughout all things, by the medium of the universal spirit; for there is nothing to be found in the whole woi-ld that hath not a spark of the virtue thereof. Now this spirit is received into things, more or less, by the rays of the stars, so far as things are disposed, or made fit recipients of it. By this spirit, therefore, every occult property is conveyed into herbs, stones, metals, and animals, through the sun, moon, planets, and through stars higher than the planets. Now this spirit may be more advantageous to us if we knew how to separate it from the elements ; or, at least, to use those things chiefly which are most abounding with this spirit. For those things in which the spirit is less drowned in a body, and less checked by matter, do much more powerfully and perfectly act, and also more readily generate their like; for in it are all generative and seminal virtues. For which cause the alchymist endeavours to separate this spirit from gold and silver, which, being rightly separated and extracted, if it shall be afterwards projected upon any metal, turns it into gold or silver; which is no way impossible or improbable, when we consider that by art that may be done in a short time, what Nature, in the bowels of the earth (as in a matrix), perfects in a very long space of time.

All stars have their peculiar natures, properties, and conditions, the seals and characters whereof they produce through their rays even in these inferior things, viz. in elements, in stones, in plants, in animals, and their members; whence every thing receives from an harmonious disposition, and from its

•The foregoing Chapter, if well considered, will open the intellect to a more easy comprehension of the Magical Science of Nature, &c.; and will facilitate, in a wonderful degree, our studies in these sublime mysteries.

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star shining upon it, some particular seal or character stamped upon it, which is the significator of that star or harmony, containing in it a peculiar virtue, different from other virtues of the same matter, both generically, specifically, and numerically. Every thing, therefore, hath its character im- pressed upon it by its star for some peculiar effect, especially by that star which doth principally govern it; and these characters contain in them the particular natures, virtues, and roots of their stars, and produce the like operations upon other things on which they are reflected; and stir up and help the influences of their stars, whether they be planets, or fixed stars and figures, or celestial constellations, viz. as often as they shall be made in a fit matter, and in their due and accustomed times; which the ancient wise men (considering such as laboured much in finding out occult properties of things) did set down, in writing, the images of the stars, their figures, seals, marks, characters, such as Nature herself did describe by the rays of the stars in these inferior bodies : some in stones, some in plants, some in joints and knots of trees and their boughs, and some in various members of animals. For the bay-tree, lote-tree, and marigold, are solary herbs, and their roots and knots being cut, they show the characters of the sun; and in stones the charac- ter and images of celestial things are often found. But there being so great a diversity of things, there is only a traditional knowledge of a few things which human understanding is able to reach; therefore very few of those things are known to us, which the ancient philosophers and chiromancers attained to, partly by reason and partly by experience; and there yet lie hid many things in the treasury of Nature, which the diligent student and wise searcher shall contemplate and discover.

JEfRcacy Of IPCtfUlTICS. It is necessary, before we come to the opera- tive or practical part of Talismanic Magic, to show the compositions of fumes or vapours, that are proper to the stars, and are of great force for the oppor- tunely receiving of celestial gifts, under the rays of the stars — inasmuch as they strongly woi'k upon the air and breath ; for our breath is very much changed by such kind of vapours, if both vapours be of the other like. The air being also, through the said vapours, easily moved, or infected with the qualities of inferiors, or celestial (daily quickly penetrating our breast and vitals), does wonderfully reduce us to the like qualities. Let no man wonder how great things suff umigations can do in the air ; especially when they shall, with Porphyry, consider that, by certain vapours exhaled from proper suffumigations, serial spirits are raised ; also thunder and lightnings, and the like: as the liver of a cameleon being burnt on the house top, will raise showers and lightnings ; the same effect has the head and throat, if they are burnt with oaken wood. There are some suffumigations under the influences

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of the stars, that cause images of spirits to appear in the air, or elsewhere : for if coriander, smallage, henbane, and hemlock be made to fume, by invocations spirits will soon come together, being attracted by the vapours which are most congruous to their own natures ; hence they are called the herbs of the spirits. Also it is said, that if a fume be made of the root of the reedy herb sagapen, with the juice of hemlock and henbane, and the herb tapsus barbatus, red sanders, and black poppy, it will likewise make strange shapes appear; but if a suffume be made of smallage, it chases them away, and destroys their visions. Again, if a perfume is made of calamint, piony, mint, and palma christi, it drives away all evil spirits and vain imaginations. Like- wise, by certain fumes, animals are gathered together, and put to flight. Pliny mentions concerning the stone liparis, that, with the fume thereof, all beasts are attracted together. The bones in the upper part of the throat of a hart, being burnt, bring serpents together; but the horn of the hart, being burnt, chases away the same ; likewise, a fume of peacock’s feathers does the same. Also, the lungs of an ass, being burnt, puts all poisonous things to flight ; and the fume of the burnt hoof of a horse drives away mice ; the same does the hoof of a mule ; and with the hoof of the left-foot flies are driven away. And if a house, or any place, be smoaked with the gall of a cuttle-fish made into a confection with red storax, roses, and lignum aloes, and then there be some sea-water or blood cast into that place, the whole house will seem to be full of water or blood.

Now such kind of vapours as these, we must conceive, do infect a body, and infuse a virtue into it which continues long, even as the poisonous vapour of the pestilence, being kept for two years in the walls of a house, infects the inhabitants ; and as the contagion of pest or leprosy lying hid in a garment, will, long after, infect him that wears it.

Now there are certain suffumigations used to almost all our instruments of Magic (of which hereafter), such as images, rings, &c. For some of the magicians say, that if any one shall hide gold, or silver, or any other such like precious thing (the moon being in conjunction with the sun), and shall perfume the place with coriander , saffron , henbane , smallage, and black poppy, of each the same quantity and bruised together, and tempered with the juice of hemlock, that thing which is so hid shall never be taken away therefrom, but that spirit shall continually keep it ; and if any one shall endeavour to take it away by force, they shall be hurt, or struck