01 Magus F Barrett

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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 prosper, 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
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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.
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CHAP. VII.
OF THE OCCULT VIRTUES OF THINGS WHICH ARE INHERENT IN THEM ONLY IN THEIR
LIFE-TIME, AND SUCH AS REMAIN IN THEM EVEN AFTER DEATH.
IT is expedient for us to know that there are some things which 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 foretel 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 sticking 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 outside 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,
CHAP. VIII.
OF THE WONDERFUL VIRTUES OF SOME KIND OF PRECIOUS STONES.
IT is a common opinion of magicians, that stones inherit 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
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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
intelligence always operating, according to their proper offices and governments allotted
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 loadstone is one most remarkable proof of
the sympathy and antipathy we speak of. However to hasten to the point. Amongst
stones, those which resemble the rays of the sun by their golden sparklings, (as does the
glittering stone �tites) prevent the failing-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 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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