But in fact everything follows its own Kind; the birth is a horse because it comes from the Horse Kind, a man by springing from the Human Kind; offspring answers to species. Allow the kosmic circuit its part, a very powerful influence upon the thing brought into being: allow the stars a wide material action upon the bodily part of the man, producing heat and cold and their natural resultants in the physical constitution; still does such action explain character, vocation and especially all that seems quite independent of material elements, a man taking to letters, to geometry, to gambling, and becoming an originator in any of these pursuits? And can we imagine the stars, divine beings, bestowing wickedness? And what of a doctrine that makes them wreak vengeance, as for a wrong, because they are in their decline or are being carried to a position beneath the earth- as if a decline from our point of view brought any change to themselves, as if they ever ceased to traverse the heavenly spheres and to make the same figure around the earth. Nor may we think that these divine beings lose or gain in goodness as they see this one or another of the company in various aspects, and that in their happier position they are benignant to us and, less pleasantly situated, turn maleficent. We can but believe that their circuit is for the protection of the entirety of things while they furnish the incidental service of being letters on which the augur, acquainted with that alphabet, may look and read the future from their pattern- arriving at the thing signified by such analogies as that a soaring bird tells of some lofty event.
That which follows in the next place, descends from a divine alienation of mind to an ecstasy of the reasoning power which leads it to a worse...
(1) That which follows in the next place, descends from a divine alienation of mind to an ecstasy of the reasoning power which leads it to a worse condition, and absurdly says, “ that the cause of divination is the mania which happens in diseases .” For, as we may conjecture, it assimilates enthusiasm to the redundancy of the black bile, to the aberrations of intoxication, and to the fury which happens from mad dogs. It is necessary, therefore, from the beginning, to divide ecstasy into two species, one of which leads to a worse condition of being, and fills us with stupidity and folly; but the other imparts goods which are more honourable than human temperance. One species also deviates to a disorderly, confused, and material motion; but the other gives itself to the cause which rules over the orderly distribution of things in the world. And the one, indeed, as being deprived of knowledge, wanders from wisdom; but the other conjoins with natures that transcend all our wisdom. The one, likewise, is unstable, but the other is immutable. The one is preternatural, but the other is above nature. The one draws down the soul, but the other elevates it. And the one entirely separates us from a divine allotment, but the other connects us with it.
A certain thing of this kind also may take place in the harmony and crasis of the universe: for the same things may be the salvation of the whole,...
(4) A certain thing of this kind also may take place in the harmony and crasis of the universe: for the same things may be the salvation of the whole, through the perfection of the things inherent and the recipients; but may be noxious to the parts, through their partible privation of symmetry. In the motion, therefore, of the universe, all the circulations preserve the whole world invariably the same; but some one of the parts is frequently injured by another part, which we see is sometimes the case in a dance. Again, therefore, corruptibility and mutability are passions connascent with partial natures. But it is not proper to ascribe these to wholes and first causes, either as if they existed in them, or as if they proceeded to terrestrial substances from them. Hence, through these things it is demonstrated, that neither the celestial Gods, nor their gifts, are effective of evil.
Proceeding, therefore, in this way, in what remains of the present discussion, and fitly distinguishing the inspirations of the Nymphs, or of Pan,...
(3) Proceeding, therefore, in this way, in what remains of the present discussion, and fitly distinguishing the inspirations of the Nymphs, or of Pan, and the other differences of them, according to the powers of the Gods, we shall separate them conformably to their appropriate peculiarities; and we shall also be able to explain through what cause they leap and dwell in mountains, why some of them appear to be bound, and why they are worshiped through sacrifices. All these, likewise, we shall ascribe to divine causes, as containing in themselves all the authority of these particulars; but we shall not say that either a certain collected redundancy of body or soul requires to be purified, or that the periods of the seasons are the causes of such like passions, or that the reception of the similar, and the ablation of the dissimilar, bring with them a certain remedy for an excess of this kind. For all such like particulars are corporeal-formed, and are entirely separated from a divine and intellectual life. But each thing energizes conformably to its nature; so that the spirits which are excited by the Gods, and which produce in men Bacchic inspiration, expel every other human and physical motion; and it is not proper to assimilate their energies to those which are usually exerted after our manner; but it is fit to refer them to perfectly different and primordial divine causes. One species, therefore, of divine inspiration is of this kind, and is after this manner produced.
Chapter 7: Of the Court, Place and Dwelling, also of the Government of Angels, how these things stood at the Beginning, after the Creation, and how they became as they are. (64)
Only thou must not think that the angelical kingdom with its creatures was so rolled, wheeled and turned round about, as now the stars are, which are...
(64) Only thou must not think that the angelical kingdom with its creatures was so rolled, wheeled and turned round about, as now the stars are, which are only powers, and in regard of the birth or geniture of this world are thus wheeled or turned about, whose birth or geniture stands in the moving, boiling anguish in evil and good, in corruption and redemption, till the end of this enumeration, or till the last day. Now observe:
Chapter 16: Of the noble Mind of the Understanding, Senses and Thoughts. Of the threefold Spirit and Will, and of the Tincture of the Inclination, and what is inbred in a Child in the Mother's Body [or Womb.] Of the Image of God, and of the bestial Image, and of the Image of the Abyss of Hell, and Similitude of the Devil, to be searched for, and found out in a [any] one Man. The noble Gate of the noble Virgin. And also the Gate of the Woman of this World, highly to be considered. (21)
Mind P often like a Wolf, a churlish Dog, crafty, fierce, and greedy; and P often like a Lion, stern, cruel, sturdy and active in devouring of his Pre...
(21) And thereupon it comes, that Man many Times in the Dwelling of the Brains, and of the Heart, as also in all the five Senses, in the Region [or Dominion] of the Stars, is in his Or according to the Complexions. Mind P often like a Wolf, a churlish Dog, crafty, fierce, and greedy; and P often like a Lion, stern, cruel, sturdy and active in devouring of his Prey; P often like a Dog, snappish, envious, malicious; often like an Adder and Serpent, subtle, venomous, stinging, poisonous, slanderous in his Words, and mischievous in his Deeds, ill-conditioned and lying, like the Quality of the Devil in the Shape of a Serpent at the Tree of Temptation; P often like a Hare, timorous, or fearful, starting and running away; P often like a Toad, whose Mind is so very venomous, that it poisons a tender [or weak] Mind to the temporal Death by its Imagination, which many Times makes Witches and Sorcerers, for the first Ground serves enough to it; P often like a tame Beast; and P often like a merry Beast, &c. all according as the Constellation stood, in its Incarnation in the wrestling Wheel, with its Virtue of the Quinta Essentia, so is the Starry Mind on rit region figured; although the Hour of Man's Birth alters much, and does hold in the first, whereof I will write hereafter in its Place, concerning Man's Birth [or Nativity.]
We shall collect, therefore, what happens from these conclusions. For if certain invocators employ the physical or corporeal powers of the universe,...
(1) We shall collect, therefore, what happens from these conclusions. For if certain invocators employ the physical or corporeal powers of the universe, an involuntary gift of energy [from these powers], and which is without vice, takes place. He, likewise, who uses this gift [sometimes] perverts it to things of a contrary nature, and to base purposes. And the gift, indeed, is moved contrarily together with the passions, and sympathetically through similitude; but he who uses the thing which is imparted, deliberately draws it, contrary to justice, to what is evil and base. And the gift, indeed, causes things which are most remote to cooperate through the one harmony of the world. But if some one understanding this to be the case should iniquitously endeavour to draw certain portions of the universe to other parts, these parts are not the cause of the evil that ensues; but the audacity of men, and the transgression of the order in the world, pervert things that are beautiful and legal. Hence neither do the Gods effect what appears to be base, but this is accomplished by the natures and bodies that proceed from them; nor do these very natures and bodies impart improbity from themselves, as it is thought they do; but they send their proper effluxions to places about the earth, for the salvation of wholes, and those who receive them transmute them by their commixture and perversion, and transfer what is given to a purpose different from that for which it was imparted. From all these particulars, therefore, it is demonstrated that a divine nature is not the cause of evils and unjust deeds.
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 di...
(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.
Chapter 2: An Introduction, shewing how men may come to apprehend The Divine, and the Natural, Being. And further of the two Qualities. (25)
Now if we consider rightly of the sun and stars, with their corpus or body, operations and qualities, then the very divine being may be found...
(25) Now if we consider rightly of the sun and stars, with their corpus or body, operations and qualities, then the very divine being may be found therein, and we may find that the virtues of the stars are nature itself.
Chapter 8: Of the Creation of the Creatures, and of the Springing up of every growing Thing; as also of the Stars and Elements, and of the Original of the a Substance of this World. (13)
Though Men must not cast the Pearl in the Way that the Beasts may tread it under Foot, much less must Men throw it among the Grains [or Husks] to be...
(13) Though Men must not cast the Pearl in the Way that the Beasts may tread it under Foot, much less must Men throw it among the Grains [or Husks] to be devoured by the Swine; (for that would not be beneficial to the wanton World, because that seeks nothing thereby but to misuse itself therewith; for the Devil whom the World serves teaches it, when it learns the Ground of the Heaven, and of the Stars, to will presently to be a God, as Lucifer did:) Yet I will write somewhat of the Beginning and Virtue or Power of the Stars, (because Man and all Or the wise Men's Masters, or Teachers. Creatures live in the Virtue, Working, and Essences of them, and that every Creature receives its Property from them,) for the Sake of him that seeks, who would willingly fly from the bestial Man, and would fain live in the true Man, who is the Image and Similitude of God; for to such it is very highly necessary to be known; also for the Lily's Sake which grows in the Tree of the sour Wrath towards the North in the Matrix.
Will not, therefore, he who surveys this conspicuous statue of the Gods, thus united to itself, be ashamed to have a different opinion of the Gods,...
(4) Will not, therefore, he who surveys this conspicuous statue of the Gods, thus united to itself, be ashamed to have a different opinion of the Gods, who are the causes of it, so as to introduce among them sections, and separations, and corporeal-formed circumscriptions? I, indeed, should think, that every one would be thus disposed. For if there is no ratio, no habitude of symmetry, no communion of essence, nor a connexion either in capacity or in energy, between that which is adorned and the adorning cause; if this be the case, there will neither be found in the world a certain extension according to interval, nor local comprehension, nor partible interception, nor any other such like connascent equalization in the presence of the Gods [with mundane natures]. For in things which are of a kindred nature, according to essence and power, or which are, in a certain respect, of the same species, or homogeneous, a certain comprehension, or conservation, may be discovered. But in such things as are entirely exempt from all mundane wholes, what opposing circumstance, or transition through all things, or partible circumscription, or local comprehension, or any thing else of this kind can justly be perceived? I think, therefore, that the several participants of the divinities are of such a nature, that some partake of them etherially, others aerially, and others aquatically; which also, the art of divine works perceiving, employs adaptations and invocations, conformable to such a division. And thus much concerning the distribution of the more excellent genera into the world.
Chapter 16: Of the noble Mind of the Understanding, Senses and Thoughts. Of the threefold Spirit and Will, and of the Tincture of the Inclination, and what is inbred in a Child in the Mother's Body [or Womb.] Of the Image of God, and of the bestial Image, and of the Image of the Abyss of Hell, and Similitude of the Devil, to be searched for, and found out in a [any] one Man. The noble Gate of the noble Virgin. And also the Gate of the Woman of this World, highly to be considered. (19)
All this the Glimpse [or Discovery] of the Senses brings into the Will of the Mind [and sets it] before the King, before the Light of the Life, and...
(19) All this the Glimpse [or Discovery] of the Senses brings into the Will of the Mind [and sets it] before the King, before the Light of the Life, and there it is tried. And the King gives it first to the Eyes, which must see what God is among all these, and what pleases them. And here now begins the wonderful Form [or Framing] of Man, 1 out of the Complexions, where the Constellation has formed the Child in the Mother' Body [or Womb] so variously in its Regions. For according to what the Constellation, in the Time of the Incarnation of the Child, in the Wheel that stands therein, and has its Aspect, (when the Dwelling of the four Elements, and the House of the Stars in the Head, in the Brains, are built by the Fiat,) according to that is the Virtue also in the Brains, and so in the Heart, Gall, Lungs, and Liver; and according to that is the Inclination of the Region of the Air; and according to that also a Tincture springs up, to [be] a Dwelling of the Life, as may be seen in the wonderful [Variety in the] Senses and Forms [or Shapes] of Men.
Chapter 12: Of the Opening of the Holy Scripture, that the Circumstances may be highly considered. The golden Gate, which God affords to the last World, wherein the Lily shall flourish [and blossom.] (23)
The Gate of the highest Depth of the Life of the Tincture.
(23) But now in the Tincture only is the Understanding, which governs the Mind, and makes the [Thoughts or] Senses; therefore all is as it were dead, and the Constellation now only rules in the Root of the first Principle, where the Deity, like a Glance, [Luster,] or Virtue, works in all Things: There the starry Spirit in the Glance of the Glass of the divine Virtue in the Element of Fire looks into the Matrix of the Water, and sets its Jaws open after the Tincture, but that is void of Power; and therefore he takes the Virtue of the Tincture, (viz. the Mind,) and mingles, [or qualifies] with it, and then the Mind seals the Elements, and works therein Dreams and Visions, all according to the Virtue of the Stars; for it stands in the Working and quality of the Stars; and these are the Dreams and Visions of the Night in the Sleep. The Gate of the highest Depth of the Life of the Tincture.
Chapter 11: Of all Circumstances of the Temptation. (2)
Now the Thrones and princely Angels, are every one of them a great Fountain; as you may perceive the Sun is, in Respect of the Stars,as also in the...
(2) Now the Thrones and princely Angels, are every one of them a great Fountain; as you may perceive the Sun is, in Respect of the Stars,as also in the blossoming Earth. The great Fountain- Vein [or Well-Spring] in the Source, was in the Time of the Fiat in the dark Mind, the Prince or Throne- Angel: There out of each Fountain came forth again a Center in many thousand Thousands; for the Spirit in the Fiat manifested itself in the Nature of the Darkness, after the Manner of the eternal Wisdom. Thus the manifold various Properties that were in the whole Nature, went forth out of one only Fountain, according to the Ability of the eternal Wisdom of God; or as I may best render it to be understood by a Similitude; as if one princely Angel had generated out of himself, at one Time, many Angels; whereas yet the Prince does not generate them, but the Essences; and the Qualities go forth with the Center in every Essence, from the princely Angels, and the Spirit created them a with the Fiat, and they continue standing essentially. Therefore every bHost (which proceeded out of one [and the same] Fountain) got a Will in the same Fountain, which was their Prince, (as you see how the Stars give all their Will into the Virtue [or Power] of the Sun;) of this, much must not be said to my Master in Arts, he holds it impossible to know such Things, and yet in God ail Things are possible, and to him a thousand Years are as one Day.
Chapter 6: Of the Separation in the Creation, in the third Principle. (1)
IF we consider the Separation and the Springing forth in the third Principle of this World, how the starry Heaven should spring up, and how every...
(1) IF we consider the Separation and the Springing forth in the third Principle of this World, how the starry Heaven should spring up, and how every Star has a peculiar Form and Property in itself, in every of which a several Center is observed, so that every One of them is fixed [or steady] and Master [or Guider] of itself, and that every One of them rules in the Matrix of this World, and works and generates in the Matrix after their Kind; and then afterwards if we consider the Sun, which is their King, Heart, and Life, without whose Light and Virtue, they could neither act nor effect any Thing, but remain in the hard dark Death; and this World would be nothing but a fierce rough Hardness; and further, if we consider the Elements of Fire and Water, [and observe] how they continually generate one in another, and then how the Constellations rule in them, as in their own Propriety; and also consider what the Mother is, from whence all these Things must proceed; then we shall come to see the Separation, and the eternal Mother, the i Genetrix of all Things.
Chapter 4: Of the true Eternal Nature, that is, of the numberless and endless generating of the Birth of the eternal Essence, which is the Essence of all Essences; out of which were generated, born, and at length created, this World, with the Stars and Elements, and all whatsoever moves, stirs, or lives therein. The open Gate of the great Depth. (29)
Therefore consider from whence the Tincture proceeds, wherein the noble Life springs up, that thus becomes sweet from Harshness, Bitterness, and Fire,...
(29) For the Stars themselves are senseless, and have no Knowledge or Perception, yet their soft Operation in the Water makes a seething, flowing forth, or boiling up one of another, and in the Tincture of the Blood, they cause a Rising, Seeing, Feeling, Hearing, and Tasting. Therefore consider from whence the Tincture proceeds, wherein the noble Life springs up, that thus becomes sweet from Harshness, Bitterness, and Fire, and you shall certainly find no other Cause of it than the Light: But whence comes the Light, that it can shine in a dark Body? If you say it comes from the Light of the Sun. Then what shines in the Night, and enlightens your Senses and Understanding so, that though your Eyes are shut, you perceive and know what you do? Here you will say, the noble Mind leads you, and it is true. But whence has the Mind its Original? You will say, the Senses make the Mind stirring; and that is also true. But whence come they both? What is their Birth or Off- spring? Why is it not so with the Beasts?
We may, however, beginning from another hypothesis, demonstrate the same thing. We must admit that the corporeal parts of the universe are neither...
(1) We may, however, beginning from another hypothesis, demonstrate the same thing. We must admit that the corporeal parts of the universe are neither sluggish nor destitute of power, but as much as they excel our concerns in perfection, beauty, and magnitude, by so much also is the power which is present with them greater. Each, likewise, by itself is capable of effecting different things, and produces certain different energies. They are also capable of effecting things much more numerous on each other. And besides this, a certain multiform production extends to parts from wholes; partly from sympathy, through similitude of powers, and partly from the aptitude of the agent to the patient. If, therefore, certain evils and destructions happen to parts, they are salutary and good as with reference to wholes and the harmony of the universe, but to parts they introduce a necessary corruption, either from not being able to bear the energies of wholes, or from a certain other commixture and temperament of their own imbecility, or, in the third place, from the privation of symmetry in the parts to each other.
With respect to the powers, therefore, which remain in the heavens in the divine bodies themselves, there can be no doubt that all of them are...
(2) With respect to the powers, therefore, which remain in the heavens in the divine bodies themselves, there can be no doubt that all of them are similar. Hence, it remains that we should discuss those powers which are thence transmitted to us, and are mingled with generation. These, therefore, descend with invariable sameness for the salvation of the universe, and connectedly contain the whole of generation after the same manner. They are likewise impassive and immutable, though they proceed into that which is mutable and passive. For generation being multiform, and consisting of different things, receives the one of the Gods, and that in them which is without difference, with hostility and partibility, conformably to its own contrariety and division. It also receives that which is impassive, passively; and, in short, participates of them according to its own proper nature, and not according to their power. As, therefore, that which is generated [or has a subsistence in becoming to be,] participates of being generatively, and body participates of the incorporeal, corporeally; thus, also, the physical and material substances which are in generation, participate of the immaterial and etherial bodies, which are above nature and generation, in a confused and disorderly manner. Hence they are absurd who attribute colour, figure, and contact to intelligible forms, because the participants of them are things of this kind; as likewise are those who ascribe depravity to the celestial bodies, because their participants sometimes produce evils.
These assertions, therefore, are unworthy of the conceptions which we should frame of the Gods, and foreign from the works which are effected in...
(2) These assertions, therefore, are unworthy of the conceptions which we should frame of the Gods, and foreign from the works which are effected in theurgy. But an investigation of this kind suffers the same thing as the multitude suffer, about the fabrication of the universe and providence. For not being able to learn what the mode is in which these are effected, and refusing to ascribe human cares and reasonings to the Gods, they wholly abolish the providential and fabricative energy of divinity. As, therefore, we are accustomed to answer these, that the divine mode of production and providential inspection is very different from that which is human, and which it is not proper wholly to reject through ignorance, as if it had not from the first any subsistence; thus, also, it may be justly contended against you, that all prediction, and the performance of divine works, are the works of the Gods, as they are not effected through other and these human causes, but through such as are alone known to the Gods.
But these are moved conformably to the mandates of the celestial Gods. For the most pure, agile, and supreme part of the air, is adapted to be enkindl...
(2) Moreover, the lations of the stars approximate to the eternal circulations of the heavens, not only locally, but also in powers, and the irradiations of light. But these are moved conformably to the mandates of the celestial Gods. For the most pure, agile, and supreme part of the air, is adapted to be enkindled [ i. e. is most inflammable], so that when the Gods assent, it is immediately set on fire. And if some one thinks that certain effluxions of the celestial bodies are imparted to the air, his opinion will not be discordant with what is frequently effected by the divine art. The union, also, and sympathy of the universe, and the simultaneous motion of the most remote parts, as if they were near, and belonged to one animal, cause these signs to be sent from the Gods to men in the most luminous manner, primarily, indeed, through the heavens, but afterwards through the air.
Chapter 8: Of the Creation of the Creatures, and of the Springing up of every growing Thing; as also of the Stars and Elements, and of the Original of the a Substance of this World. (5)
His Eternal Wisdom and Virtue [or Power] has formed itself with the Fiat in all Things, and he Himself is the Master- Workman; and all Things went for...
(5) So the Matter of this World, as also the Stars and Elements, must not be looked upon, as if God was not therein. His Eternal Wisdom and Virtue [or Power] has formed itself with the Fiat in all Things, and he Himself is the Master- Workman; and all Things went forth in the Fiat, every Thing in its own Essence, Virtue and Property. For as every Star in the Firmament has a Property different from the other; thus is it with the Mother also, out of which the fifth Essence of the Stars went forth. For when the fiery Form of the Stars was separated from her, she was not presently severed from the first eternal Birth-Right, but she kept her first eternal Virtue. Only the rising Power of the Fire is severed from her, so that she is become a pleasant Refreshment, and a kind Mother to her Children.