[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

power of the whole perfection. Hence, every thing may be aptly reduced from these Inferiors to the Stars, from
the Stars to their Intelligences, and from thence to the First Cause itself -- from the series and order whereof all
Magic and all Occult Philosophy flows: For every day some natural thing is drawn by art, and some divine thing
is drawn by Nature, which, the Egyptians, seeing, called Nature a Magicianess (i.e.), the very Magical power
itself, in the attracting of like by like, and of suitable things by suitable.
Now, such kind of attractions, by the mutual correspondency of things amongst themselves, of superiors with
inferiors, the Grecians called sympathies. So the earth agrees with cold water, the water with moist air, the air
with fire, the fire with the heaven in water; neither is fire mixed with water, but by air; nor the air with the earth,
but by water. So neither is the soul united to the body, but by the spirit; nor the understanding to the spirit, but by
the soul. So we see that when Nature hath framed the body of an infant, by this very preparative she presently
fetcheth its spirit from the Universe. This spirit is its instrument to obtain of God its understanding and mind in its
soul and body, as in wood the dryness is fitted to receive oil, and the oil, being imbibed, is food for the fire, the
fire is the vehicle of light. By these examples you see how by some certain natural and artificial preparations we
are in a capacity to receive certain celestial gifts from above. For stones and metals have a correspondency with
Hearbs [herbs], Hearbs [herbs] with animals, animals with the heavens, the heavens with Intelligences, and they
with divine properties and attributes and with God himself, after whose image and likeness all things are created.
Now, the first image of God is the world; of the world, man; of man, beast; of beasts, the zeophyton otr zoophyte
(i.e.), half animal and half plant; of the zeophyton, plants, of plants, metals; and of metals, stones. And, again, in
things spiritual, the plant agrees with a brute in vegetation, a brute with a man in sense, man with an angel in
understanding, and an angel with God in immortality. Divinity is annexed to the mind, the mind to the intellect,
the intellect to the intention, the intention to the imagination, the imagination to the senses, and the senses, at last,
file:///M|/ PDF-Bücher/Esoterik & Magie/HTML/Agrippa1/agripp1b.htm (14 von 22) [20.02.2001 16:05:04]
Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa: Of Occult Philosophy, Book I, (part 2)
to things. For this is the band and continuity of Nature, that all superior vertue doth flow through every inferior
with a long and continued series, dispersing its rays even to the very last things; and inferiors, through their
superiors, come to the very Supreme of all. For so inferiors are successively joined to their superiors, that there
proceeds an influence from their head, the First Cause, as a certain string stretched out to the lowermost things of
all; of which string, if one end he touched the whole doth presently shake, and such a touch doth sound to the
other end; and at the motion of an inferior the superior also is moved, to which the other doth answer, as strings in
a lute well tuned.
Chapter xxxviii. How we may Draw not only Celestial and Vital but also
certain Intellectual and Divine Gifts from Above.
Magicians teach that celestial gifts may, through Inferiors being conformable to superiors, be drawn down by
opportime influences of the heaven; and so, also, by these celestial gifts, the celestial angels (as they are servants
of the stars) may be procured and conveyed to us. Iamblichus, Proclus and Synesius, with the whole school of
Platonists, confirm that not only celestial and vital but also certain intellectual, angelical and divine gifts may be
received from above by some certain matters having a natural power of divinity (i.e.), which have a natural
correspondency with the superiors, being rightly received and opportunely gathered together according to the
rules of natural 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 (St. Augustine) makes mention in his eighth book, De Civitate Dei (the City of God). For this is the
harmony of the world, that things supercelestial he drawn down by the celestial, and the supernatural by those
natural, 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 natural
things which are agreeable to those celestial, in which, aside from their corporeal qualities, there is, also, a kind of
reason, sense and harmony, and Incorporeal and divine measures and orders.
So we read that the ancients were wont often to receive some divine and wonderful thing by certain natural
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 prophesy; 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 [herb] aglauphotis do, which is also called marmorites,
growing upon the marbles of Arabia, as saith Pliny, and the which magicians use. Also there is an Hearb [herb]
called rheangelida with which magicians, drinking of, can prophesy. Moreover, there are some Hearbs [herbs] by
which the dead are raised to life; whence Xanthus the historian tells, that with a certain Hearb [herb] called balus,
a young dragon being killed, was made alive again; also, that by the same Hearb [herb] 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
[herb] restored to life. But whether or no any such things can be done, indeed, upon man by the vertue of Hearbs [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]