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CHAP. V
.OF THE IMAGINATIVE POWER AND THE MAGNETISM OF THE NATURAL SPIRITS, MUMMIAL ATTRACTION, SYMPATHIES OF ASTRAL SPIRITS, WITH THEIR BODIES, UPON WHICH THE WHOLE ART OF NECROMANCY IS FOUNDED
.MOREOVER, when as the blood is after some sort corrupted, then indeed all the powers thereof which, without a foregoing excitation of the imagination, were before in possibility, are of their own accord, drawn forth into action; for, through corruption of the grain, the seminal virtue, otherwise drowsy, and barren, breaks forth into act; because, that seeing the essences of things, and
their vital spirits, know not how to putrify by the dissolution of the inferior harmony, they sprung up as surviving afresh. For, from thence it is that every occult property, the compact of their bodies being by foregoing digestion, (which we call putrifaction) now dissolved, comes forth free to hand, dispatched, and manifest for action.
Therefore when a wound, through the entrance of air, hath admitted of an adverse quality, from whence the blood forthwith swells with heat or rage in its lips, and otherwise becomes mattery, it happens, that the blood in the wound just made, by reason of the said foreign quality, doth now enter into the beginning of some kind of corruption (which blood being also then received on the weapon or splinter thereof, is besmeared with the magnetic unguent) the which entrance of corruption, mediating the ecstatical power lurking potentially in the blood, is brought forth into action; which power, because it is an exiled returner unto its own body, by reason of the hidden ecstasy; hence that blood bears an individual respect unto the blood of its whole body. Then indeed the magnetic or attractive faculty is busied in operating in the unguent, and through the mediation of the ecstatical power (for so I call it for want of an etymology) sucks out the hurtful quality from the lips of the wound, and at length, through the mummial, balsamical, and attractive virtue, attained in the unguent, the magnetism is perfected.
So thou hast now the positive reason of the natural magnetism in the unguent, drawn from natural magic, whereunto the light of truth assents; saying, "where the treasure is there is the heart also."
For if the treasure be in heaven, then the heart, that is, the spirit of the internal man, is in God, who is the paradise, who alone is eternal life.
But if the treasure be fixed or laid up in frail and mortal things, then also the heart and spirit of the external man is in fading things; neither is there any cause of bringing in a mystical sense, by taking not the spirit, but the cogitation and naked desire, for the heart; for that would contain a frivolous thing, that wheresoever a man should place his treasure in his thought or cogitation, there his cogitation would be.
Also truth itself doth not interpret the present text mystically, and also by an example adjoined, shews a local and real presence of the eagles with the dead
carcass, so also that the spirit of the inward man is locally in the kingdom of God in us, which is God himself; and that the heart or spirit of the animal or outward sensitive man is locally about its treasure.
What wonder is it, that the astral spirits of carnal or animal men should, as yet, after their funerals, shew themselves as in a bravery, wandering about their buried treasure, whereunto the whole of Necromancy (or art of divination by the calling of spirits) of the antients hath enslaved itself?
I say, therefore, that the internal man is an animal or living creature, making use of the reason and will of blood: but, in the mean time, not barely an animal, but moreover the image of God.
Logicians therefore may see how defectively they define a man from the power of rational discourse. But of these things more elsewhere.
I will therefore adjoin the magnetism of eagles to carcasses; for neither are flying fowls endowed with such an acute smelling, that they can, with a mutual consent, go from Italy into Africa unto carcasses.
For neither is an odour so largely and widely spread; for the ample latitude of the interposed sea hinders it, and also a certain elementary property of consuming it nor is there any ground that thou shouldest think these birds do perceive the dead carcasses at so far a distance, with their sight, especially if those birds shall lie southwards behind a mountain.
But what need is there to enforce the magnetism of fowls by many arguments, since God himself, who is the becoming and end of philosophy, doth expressly determine the same process to be of the heart and treasure, with these birds and the carcass, and so interchangeably between these and them?
For if the eagles were led to their food, the carcasses, with the same appetite whereby four-footed beasts are brought on to their pastures, certainly he had said, in one word, that living creatures flock to their food even as the heart of man to his treasure; which would contain a falsehood: for neither doth the heart of man proceed unto its treasure, that he may be filled therewith as living creatures do to their meat; and therefore the comparison of the heart of man and of the eagle lies not in the end for which they tend or incline to a desire, but in the manner of tendency; namely that they are allured and carried on by magnetism, really and locally.
Therefore the spirit and will of the blood fetched out of the wound, having intruded itself into the ointment by the weapon being anointed therewith, do tend towards their treasure, that is, the rest of the blood as yet enjoying the life of the more inward man: but he saith by a peculiar testimony, that the eagle is drawn to the carcass, because she is called thereunto by an implanted and mummial spirit of the carcass, but not by the odour of the putrifying body: for indeed that animal, in assimilating, appropriates to himself only this mummial spirit: for from thence it is said of the eagle, in a peculiar manner, "my youth shall be renewed as the eagle's."
For truly the renewing of her youth proceeds from an essential extraction of the mummial spirit being well refined by a certain singular digestion proper to that fowl, and not from a bare eating of the flesh of the carcass; otherwise dogs also and pies would be renewed, which is false.
Thou wilt say, that it is a reason far-fetched in behalf of magnetism; but what wilt thou then infer hereupon? If that which thou confesseth to be far remote for thy capacity of understanding, that shall also with thee be accounted to be fetched from far. Truly the book of Genesis avoucheth, that in the blood of all living creatures doth their soul exist.
For there are in the blood certain vital powers 1, the which, as if they were soulified or enlivened, do demand revenge from Heaven, yea, and judicial punishment from earthly judges on the murderer; which powers, seeing they cannot be denied to inhabit naturally in the blood, I see not why they can
reject the magnetism of the blood, as accounting it among the ridiculous works of Satan.
This I will say more, to wit, that those who walk in their sleep, do, by no other guide than the spirit of the blood, that is, of the outward man, walk up and down, perform business, climb walls, and manage things that are otherwise impossible to those that are awake. I say, by a magical virtue, natural to the more outward man; that Saint Ambrose, although he was for distant in his body, yet was visibly present at the funeral solemnities of Saint Martin; yet was he spiritually present at those solemnities, in the visible spirit of the external man, and no otherwise: for inasmuch as in that ecstasy which is of the more internal man, many of the saints have seen many and absent things. This is done without time and place, through the superior powers of the soul being collected in unity, and by an intellectual vision, but not by a visible presence; otherwise the soul is not separated from the body, but in good earnest, or for altogether; neither is it re-connected thereunto, which re-connexion, notwithstanding, is otherwise natural or familiar to the spirit of the more outward man.
It is not sufficient in so great a paradox, to have once, or by one single reason, touched at the matter; it is to be further propagated, and we must explain how a magnetical attraction happens also between inanimate things, by a certain perceivance or feeling; not indeed animal or sensitive, but natural.
Which thing, that it may be the more seriously done, it behoves us first to shew what Satan can, of his own power, contribute to, and after what manner he can co-operate in the merely wicked and impious actions of witches: for, from thence it will appear unto what cause every effect may be attributed.
In the next place, what that spiritual power may be which tends to a far remote object; or what may be the action, passion, and skirmishing between. natural spirits, or what may be the superiority of man as to other inferior creatures; and, by consequence, why indeed our unguent, being compounded of human mummies, do thoroughly cure horses also. We will explain the matter in the following chapter.
16:1 This singular property of the blood, which Helmont calls Vital Powers, is no less wonderful than true, having been myself a witness of this experiment while in South Wales. It was tried upon a body that was maliciously murdered, through occasion of a quarrel over-night at an alehouse. The fellow who was suspected of the murder appeared the next day in public seemingly unconcerned. The Coroner's jury sat upon the body within twenty-four hours after this notable murder was committed; when the suspected was suddenly taken into custody, and conveyed away to the same public-house where the inquisition was taken. After some debate, one Dr. Jones desired the suspected to be brought into the room; which done, he desired the villain to lay his left hand under the wound, which was a deep gash on the neck, and another on the breast; the villain plainly confessed his guilt by his trepidation; but as soon as he lightly laid his finger on the body, the blood immediately ran, about six or seven drops, to the admiration of all present. If any one doubts the truth of this narrative, however learned and profound he may think himself, let him call personally upon me, and I will give him such reference, and that truly respectable and fair, as shall convince him of the fact. FRANCIS BARRETT.