woman is so active that in conceiving seed into her body she can transmute the fœtus in different ways: since her interior stars are so strongly directed to the foetus that they produce impression and influence. Wherefore an infant in the mother's womb is, during its formation, as much in the hand and under the will of the mother as clay in the hand of the potter, who from it forms and makes what he likes and whatever pleases him. So the pregnant mother forms the fruit in her own body according to her imagination, and as her stars are. Thus it often happens that from the seed of a man are begotten cattle or other horrible monsters, as the imagination of the mother was strongly directed towards the embryo.[1]
But as you have already heard that many and various things are generated and quickened out of putrefaction, so you should know that from different herbs, by a process of putrefaction, animals are produced, as those who have experience of such matters are aware. Here, too, you should learn that such animals as are produced in and by putrefaction do all of them contain some poison and are venomous; but one contains far more and more potent virus than another, and one is in one form, another in another, as you see in the case of serpents, toads, frogs, basilisks, spiders, bees, ants, and many worms, such as canker-worms, in locusts, and other creatures, all of which are produced out of putrefaction. For many monsters are produced amongst animals. There are those monsters, too, which are not produced by putrefaction, but are made by art in the glass, as has been said, since they often appear in very wonderful form and horrible aspect; frequently, for instance, with many heads, many feet, or many tails, and of diverse colours; sometimes worms with fishes' tails or birds' wings, and other unwonted shapes, the like of which one had never before seen. It is not, therefore, only animals which have no parents, or are born from parents unlike themselves, that are called monsters, but those which are produced in other ways. Thus you see with regard to the basilisk, which is a monster above all others, and than which none is to be more dreaded, since a man can be killed by the very sight and appearance of it, for it possesses a poison more virulent than all others, with which nothing else in the world can be compared. This poison, by some unknown means, it carries in
- ↑ Here, as elsewhere throughout his writings, Paracelsus lays special stress on the power exercised by the imagination.—It is necessary that you should know what can be accomplished by a strong imagination. It is the principle of all magical action.—De Peste, Lib. I. The imagination of man is an expulsive virtue.—De Peste, s. v. Additamenta in Lib. I. The imagination dwelling in the brain is the moon of the microcosm.—De Pestilitate, Track II, c. 2, De Pyromatitica Peste. All our sufferings, all our vices are nothing else than imagination. . . . And this imagination is such that it penetrates and ascends into the superior heaven, and passes from star to star. This same heaven it overcomes and moderates. . . . Whatsoever there is in us of immoderate and inhuman, all that is an imaginative nature, which can impress itself on heaven, and, this done, heaven has, on the other hand, the power of refunding that impression.—De Peste, Additamenta in Lib. I., Prol. So, also, a strong imagination is the source of both good and evil fortune.—De Peste, Lib. II., c. 2. Any strong appetite, desire, or inclination nourished by the imagination of a pregnant woman can be and is often impressed upon the fœtus. It is also possible for such a woman, by persistently thinking upon a wise and great man, such as Plato or Aristotle; an illustrious soldier, such as Julius Cæsar or Barbarossa; a great musician, like Hoffhammer; or a painter, like Durer; so to work upon the plastic tendencies of her offspring, that it will exhibit similar qualities. But there must be something also in the mother which shall correspond to the special talents which she has imagined.—De Origine Morborum Invisibilium, Lib. III. Imagination can distort and deform the fœtus, and in this manner many wonders are produced, when there are no physical peculiarities in the parent.—Ibid.
