(1) Let us, therefore, now direct our attention to another species of divination, which is not public, but of a private nature, concerning which you say, “ that some become enthusiastic by standing on characters, as those that are filled from the intromission of spirits .” This species, therefore, through those who badly use it, cannot easily be comprehended in one definition. But it is obvious and superficial, and known to many, and employs a falsehood and deception which are not to be endured; nor is it at all attended with the presence of a certain divinity, but it produces a certain motion of the soul, which is adverse to the Gods, and attracts from them an obscure and adumbrative representation, which, through the evanescent nature of its power, is usually disturbed by dæmoniacal depraved spirits. That, however, which is truly a representation of the Gods, is in other respects genuine and pure, immutable and true, and is inaccessible to, and unimpeded by, spirits of a contrary nature. For, as darkness is not adapted to sustain the splendour of the glittering light of the sun, but suddenly becomes totally invisible, entirely recedes, and immediately vanishes; thus, also, when the power of the Gods, which fills all things with good, abundantly shines forth, no place is left for the tumult of evil spirits, nor can it present itself to the view; but, as if it was nothing, it departs into nonentity, not being able to be at all moved, when more excellent natures are present, or to disturb such natures in their illuminations.

(22) Therefore it happens often, that the Spirit of a deceased Man is seen walking, also many Times it is seen riding in the perfect Form of Fire; also many Times in [some] other Manner of Disquietude; all according as the Clothing of the Soul has been in the Time of the Body, just so has its Source [or Condition] been; and such a Form, according to its Source, it has (after the Departing of the Body) in its Figure, and so rides (in such Form) in the Source [or Working] of the Stars, till that Source also be consumed; and then it is wholly naked, and is never seen more by any Man. But the deep Abyss without End and Number is its eternal Dwelling-House, and its Works which it has here wrought, stand in the Figure, in its Tincture, and follow after it.

(69) Therefore we must consider, that the Noise in the Tincture of Man is [of a] higher [Nature] than [that] in the Beasts; for Man searches and distinguishes all Things which give a Sound, and knows from whence it comes, and how it exists, which the Beasts cannot do, but stare at it, and knows not what it is; whereby it may be understood, that the Original of Man, is out of the Eternal, because he can distinguish all Things that in the Out-Birth came out of the Eternal. And hence it is, that the Body (seeing all Things out of the eternal Nothing are caused to be Something which is comprehensible [or palpable,] and yet there, that Nothing is not a mere Nothing, but is a Source) after the Corrupting shall stand in the eternal Figure, and not in the Spirit, because it is not out of the eternal Spirit; for otherwise, if it were out of the [eternal] Spirit, then it should also search out the Beginning of every Thing, as [well as] Man, who in his Sound receives and distinguishes all Things.

(1) That, however, which is the greatest thing is this, that he who [appears to] draw down a certain divinity, sees a spirit descending and entering into some one, recognizes its magnitude and quality, and is also mystically persuaded and governed by it. But a species of fire is seen by the recipient, prior to the spirit being received, which sometimes becomes manifest to all the spectators, either when the divinity is descending, or when he is departing. And from this spectacle the greatest truth and power of the God, and especially the order he possesses, as likewise about what particulars he is adapted to speak the truth, what the power is which he imparts, and what he is able to effect, become known to the scientific. Those, however, who, without these blessed spectacles, draw down spirits invisibly, are without vision, as if they were in the dark, and know nothing of what they do, except some small signs which become visible through the body of him who is divinely inspired, and certain other things which are manifestly seen, but they are ignorant of all the most important particulars of divine inspiration, which are concealed from them in the invisible.

(1) But we sometimes see that take place which is now proposed to be considered. For it happens that spirits are commanded [to do this or that] who do not use a reason of their own, and have not the principle of judgment. Nor does this occur irrationally. For our dianoia naturally possessing the power of reasoning about and judging of things as they are, and comprehending in itself many powers of life, is accustomed to command the most irrational spirits, and such as derive their perfection from one energy alone. Hence, it invokes these as more excellent natures, because it endeavours to attract to particulars from the whole world, in which we are contained, things which contribute to wholes. And it commands them as inferior natures, because frequently certain parts of things in the world [such as our reasoning power] are more pure and perfect than things which extend themselves to the whole world.

(1) Moreover, neither is it sufficient to assert, “ that nature, art, and the sympathy of things in the universe, as if they were the parts of one animal, contain premanifestations of certain things with reference to each other; nor that bodies are so prepared, that there is a presignification of some by others .” For these things, which are very clearly seen, exhibit a certain divulsed vestige of divine prediction, in a greater or less degree; since it is not possible for any thing to be perfectly destitute of divine divination. But as in all things the image of good exhibits a similitude of divinity; thus, likewise, in all things a certain obscure or more manifest image of divine prediction shines forth to the view. Nevertheless, no one of these is such as the divine species of divination; nor must the one, divine, and unmingled form of it be characterized from the many phantasms which proceed from it into generation.

(31) Man was so altogether dead in death, and so bolted up in the outermost birth or geniture in the dead palpability; or else they could have thought, that in this palpability there must needs be a divine power hidden in the centre, which had so created this palpability, and moreover preserveth, upholdeth and ruleth the same.

(8) There then the poor Soul in the first Principle moves in the Door of the Deep, being clothed with the Virtue [or Power of the Dominion or] Region of the Stars, appearing in that [Shape or] Form of the Body, which it had here; and many of them desire this or that, which was their last Will, in Hope thereby to attain Abstinence, and [Quietness or] Rest; also many by Night (according to the syderial Spirit) show themselves very disquiet with Tumbling and Tossing of the Body; which our learned Men from the School of this World ascribe to the Devil, but they have no Knowledge [or Understanding] in it.

(510) but they begin with them, and go on until they arrive at last, and in a consistent manner, at their conclusion? Yes, he said, I know. And do you not know also that although they make use of the visible forms and reason about them, they are thinking not of these, but of the ideals which they resemble; not of the figures which they draw, but of the absolute square and the absolute diameter, and so on—the forms which they draw or make, and which have shadows and reflections in water of their own, are converted by them into images, but they are really seeking to behold the things themselves, which can only be seen with the eye of the mind? That is true. And of this kind I spoke as the intelligible, although in the search after it the soul is compelled to use hypotheses; not ascending to a first principle, because she is unable to rise above the region of hypothesis, but employing the objects of which the shadows below are resemblances in their turn as images, they having in relation to the shadows and reflections of them a greater distinctness, and therefore a higher value.

(2) The greatest remedy, therefore, for all such doubts is this, to know the principle of divination, that it neither originates from bodies, nor from the passions about bodies, nor from a certain nature, and the powers about nature, nor from any human apparatus, or the habits pertaining to it. But neither does it originate from a certain art, externally acquired, about a certain part of such things as are subservient to life. For the whole authority of it pertains to the Gods, and is imparted by them; it is also effected by divine works, or signs; and it possesses divine spectacles, and scientific theorems. All other things, however, are subjected as instruments to the gift of foreknowledge transmitted from the Gods; viz. such things as pertain to our soul and body, and such as are in the nature of the universe, or are inexistent in particular natures. But some things are previously subjacent, as in the order of matter, such as places, or certain other things of the like kind.

(1) After another manner, also, this doubt may be dissolved. For in men, indeed, who are detained in matter, bodies deprived of life produce a certain stain; because that which is not alive inserts a certain defilement in that which is living, in the same manner as the impure in that which is pure, and that which is in privation in that which is in habit; and also because that which is dead produces a certain pollution, through a physical aptitude to a worse condition, in consequence of having possessed the power of dying. But a dead body cannot produce any defilement in a dæmon who is perfectly incorporeal, and does not receive any corruption. For it is necessary that he should transcend a corruptible body, and not participate of any representation of corruption from it. And thus much in answer to the contrariety of the doubt.

(12) But the reasoning faculty, being peculiar to the human soul, ought not to be impelled similarly with the irrational animals, but ought to discriminate appearances, and not to be carried away by them. The powers, then, of which we have spoken hold out beautiful sights, and honours, and adulteries, and pleasures, and such like alluring phantasies before facile spirits; as those who drive away cattle hold, out branches to them. Then, having beguiled those incapable of distinguishing the true from the false pleasure, and the fading and meretricious from the holy beauty, they lead them into slavery. And each deceit, by pressing constantly on the spirit, impresses its image on it; and the soul unwittingly carries about the image of the passion, which takes its rise from the bait and our consent.

(27) And of causes that are occult, some are occult temporarily, being hidden at one time, and at another again seen clearly; and some are occult by nature, and capable of becoming at no time visible. And of those who are so by nature, some are capable of being apprehended; and these some would not call occult, being apprehended by analogy, through the medium of signs, as, for example, the symmetry of the passages of the senses, which are contemplated by reason.

(3) For that, in order that a man should be complete in either part, observe that he hath been composed of elements of either part in sets of four;—with hands, and feet, both of them pairs, and with the other members of his body, by means of which he may do service to the lower (that is to say the terrene) world. And to these parts [are added other] four;—of sense, and soul, of memory, and foresight, by means of which he may become acquainted with the rest of things divine, and judge of them. Hence it is brought about that man investigates the differences and qualities, effects and quantities of things, with critical research; yet, as he is held back with the too heavy weight of body’s imperfection, he cannot properly descry the causes of the nature of [all] things which [really] are the true ones.

(3) Neither is it proper to say that the soul primarily consists of harmony and rythm. For thus enthusiasm would be adapted to the soul alone. It is better, therefore, to deny this, and to assert that the soul, before she gave herself to body, was an auditor of divine harmony; and that hence, when she proceeded into body, and heard melodies of such a kind as especially preserve the divine vestigie of harmony, she embraced these, from them recollected divine harmony, and tends and is allied to it, and as much as possible participates of it. Hence the cause of divine divination may, after this manner, be assigned in common.

(1) The wise, therefore, speak as follows: The soul having a twofold life, one being in conjunction with body, but the other being separate from all body; when we are awake we employ, for the most part, the life which is common with the body, except when we separate ourselves entirely from it by pure intellectual and dianoetic energies. But when we are asleep, we are perfectly liberated, as it were, from certain surrounding bonds, and use a life separated from generation. Hence, this form of life, whether it be intellectual or divine, and whether these two are the same thing, or whether each is peculiarly of itself one thing, is then excited in us, and energizes in a way conformable to its nature. Since, therefore, intellect surveys real beings, but the soul contains in itself the reasons of all generated natures, it very properly follows that, according to a cause which comprehends future events, it should have a foreknowledge of them, as arranged in their precedaneous reasons. And it possesses a divination still more perfect than this, when it conjoins the portions of life and intellectual energy to the wholes from which it was separated. For then it is filled from wholes with all scientific knowledge, so as for the most part to attain by its conceptions to the apprehension of every thing which is effected in the world. Indeed, when it is united to the Gods, by a liberated energy of this kind, it then receives the most true plenitudes of intellections, from which it emits the true divination of divine dreams, and derives the most genuine principles of knowledge.

(86) Now being thus agreed, they generated also such a spirit, which came forth at the mouth, at the eyes, at the ears, and at the nostrils, and affected or mixed itself with the Salitter that was without, distinct from the body.

(2) But as to Sense and all things similar, I will set forth the whole discourse when [I explain] concerning Spirit. For man is the sole animal that is twofold. One part of him is simple: the [man] “essential,” as say the Greeks, but which we call the “form of the Divine Similitude.” He also is fourfold: that which the Greeks call “hylic,” [but] which we call “cosmic”; of which is made the corporal part, in which is vestured what we just have said is the divine in man, —in which the godhead of the Mind alone, together with its kin, that is the Pure Mind’s senses, findeth home and rest, its self with its own self, as though shut in the body’s walls.

(1) There are many other contentious innovations also, which may be the subject of wonder. But some one may justly be astonished at the contrariety of opinions produced by admitting either that the truth of divination is with enchanters, the whole of which subsists in mere appearances alone, but has no real existence; or that it is with those who are incited by passion or disease, since every thing which they have the boldness to utter is fraudulently asserted. For what principle of truth, or what auxiliary of intelligence, either smaller or greater, can there be in those who are thus insane? It is necessary, however, not to receive truth of such a kind as that which may be fortuitous; for this, it is said, may happen to those that are rashly borne along. Nor must such truth be admitted as that which subsists between agents and patients, when they are concordantly homologous with each other; for truth of this kind is present with the senses and imaginations of animals.

(3) Let it be granted, therefore, that a God, a dæmon, or an angel, gives completion to more excellent works, yet we must not on this account admit what you adduce as a thing acknowledged, “ that they affect these things, in consequence of being drawn through us by the necessities with which invocation is attended .” For divinity is superior to necessity, and this is likewise the case with all the choir of more excellent natures that is suspended from him. Nor is he alone exempt from the necessity which is introduced by men, but also from that which comprehends in itself the world; because it is not the province of an immaterial nature, and which does not receive any adventitious order, to be subservient to any necessity introduced from any thing else. And in the next place, invocation, and the things performed by a scientific operator, accede and are conjoined to more excellent natures through similitude and alliance, and do not accomplish their energies through violence. Hence, the effects which are seen to take place in diviners, do not happen as you think, from the scientific theurgist being passively affected; nor is divination thus effected through necessity, passion preoccupying the predictor; for these things are foreign from, and incongruous to, the essence of more excellent natures.