Three Books of Occult Philosophy/Book 1/Chapter 38
CHAP. XXXVIII.
How we may draw not only Celestiall, and vitall, but also certain Intellectuall, and divine gifts from above.
MAgicians teach that Celestial gifts may through inferiors being conformable to superiors be drawn down by opportune influencies of the Heaven; and so also by these Celestial the Celestial Angels, as they are servants of the Stars, may be procured, and conveyed to us. samblichus, Proclus, and Synesius, with the whole School of Platonists confirm, that not only Celestiall, and vitall, but also certain Intellectuall, Angelicall, and divine gifts may be received from above by some certain matters, having a naturall power of divinity (i. e.) which have a naturall correspondency with the superiors, being rightly received, and opportunely gathered together according to the rules of Naturall Philosophy, and Astronomy: And Mercurius Trismegistus writes, that an Image rightly made of certain proper things, appropriated to any one certain Angel, will presently be animated by that Angel. Of the same also Austin makes mention in his eighth book De Civitate Dei. For this is the harmony of the world, that things supercelestiall be drawn down by the Celestiall, and the super-naturall by naturall, because there is one operative vertue that is diffused through all kinds of things, by which vertue indeed, as manifest things are produced out of occult causes; so a Magician doth make use of things manifest, to draw forth things that are occult, viz. through the rays of the Stars, through fumes, lights, sounds, and naturall things, which are agreeable to Celestiall: in which, besides corporeall qualities, there is a kind of reason, sense, and harmony, and incorporeall, and divine measures, and orders. So we read that the Ancients were wont often to receive some divine, and wonderfull thing by certain naturall things: so the stone that is bred in the Apple of the eye of a Civet Cat, held under the tongue of a man, is said to make him to divine, or prophesie: The same is Selenite, the Moon stone, reported to do, so they say that the Images of Gods may be called up by the stone called Anchitis, and that the Ghosts of the dead may be, being called up, kept up by the stone Synochitis. The like doth the Hearb Aglauphotis do, which is called Marmorites, growing upon the Marbles of Arabia, as saith Pliny, and the which Magicians use. Also there is an Hearb called Rheangelida, which Magicians drinking of, can prophesie. Moreover there are some Hearbs by which the dead are raised to life; whence Xanthus the Historian tels, that with a certain Hearb called Balus, a young Dragon being killed, was made alive again, also that by the same a certain man of Tillum, whom a Dragon killed, was restored to life: and Juba reports, that in Arabia a certain man was by a certain Hearb restored to life. But whether or no any such things can be done indeed upon man by the vertue of Hearbs, or any other naturall thing, we shall discourse in the following Chapter. Now it is certain, and manifest that such things can be done upon other animals. So if flies, that are drowned, be put into warm ashes, they revive. And Bees being drowned, do in like manner recover life in the juice of the hearb Nip; and Eels being dead for want of water, if with their whole bodies they be put under mud in vineger, and the blood of a Vultur being put to them, will all of them in a few dayes recover life. They say that if the fish Echeneis be cut into peices, and cast into the sea, the parts will within a little time come together, and live. Also we know that the Pellican doth restore her yong to life, being killed, with her own blood.