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built out of chaos, nor gathered, but formed by combination, as two tinctures mixed form a third of new virtues. Some superfluities of creation became spirits, herbs, and stones. Just as grass devoured by an ox turns into flesh; so did the great mystery become changed, and its changes also changed.

Whatever became compact became as wood; the rest remained thin, as air and water. This separation is the greatest miracle in philosophy, and is not divine but a natural magic, never to be repeated. All things enjoy free will, and, in consequence, hate or love each other, and will till the last day, the harvest of creation.

At the creation, fire became heaven and the wall of the firmament; the air became a void space; the sea, a place for nymphs and monsters; earth, a chest to hold all things that grow. Each is independent of the other, and earth is propped up by these invisible pillars.

Then came a second separation, and the stars arose from the fire, which is heaven, as flowers from a meadow, rising as a color does in a tincture. Before this all the sky was fire. Soon the air mixed with all elements. Then salt, weeds, and fish arose from the sea; all made manifest in a moment of time. Next, the mortal and the eternal separated in the earth; and all plants, and metals, and gems appeared.

Man alone is a mixture of the eternal and the mortal; and it baffles sages to see the mortal domineer over the eternal. Hence arises a perpetual struggle, for man desires a perfect and final separation. Man's inclination is always to evil. All the elements have a soul, which is their life, and is invisible like that of men. The fire that we see is not that soul or life, but merely a result; for it may be in a green stick as much as in a flame.

There are four elementary worlds, each with its plants and spirits, and one God eternal obeyed in all. Man knows most of the element of earth, because from that he came. All that we have is found in the other elements; even air has its stones and plants. What we account phenomena are natural sequences unknown to us.

There are more worlds than one; and we are not the noblest or the happiest of creatures. There are even more beings than merely the eternal and mortal, could we know them. Some mortal things are

meant to feed the eternal; some of the eternal are for power, and others for ornament. Flowers are eternal, and will appear at the judgment as well as all things created out of chaos. When the four elements perish, others will arise, or a new chaos be created as a starting point of new worlds. At present they nourish each other, and yet are self-supporting, as plants. The elementary is but an inn where the eternal resides for a time. The last day will be a conjunction, a meeting, a reunion.

Paracelsus also believed in attending spirits, prophetic genii, and ghosts which remain on the earth after a man is dead. The ghosts lead men in their sleep, and enable men to prophesy.

Life desires life, the mortal desires immortality, because it proceeded from it; hence God ordained that the invisible should become body, and then again become invisible. All things are created fumes: they end in a steam, are constantly evaporating, and when the boiling ceases the smoke ceases also. Man is a coagulated fume. What we eat melts and passes into this smoke. Life consumes all things, and digestion is but a separation. All colors and elements lie hid in every thing. The invisible becomes visible through the body, and is seen in it as fire is in wood which it sets alight. The visible is, then, nothing but a manifestation of one side of the invisible.

In summary of these mysteries, we may say that Paracelsus believed in the simultaneous emerging of the elements from chaos, at divine command. From the four elements came again all created things, each element being a self-supporting world, and yet nourishing its fellows. All will eventually return to the great mystery of chaos.

HIS MYTHOLOGY.

From the superfluities of creation there arose sea-monsters, rock, air, and earth spirits; the melosines who dwell in man's blood, and the neuferans who inhabit the pores of the earth: each has its own habitation, and may not change. There are also giants, wood-monsters, and spirits of the night. By conjunction with men, they may converse with him, and bear him children; but each spirit turns again to whence it came, fire or water, as man does to earth.

The sylphs, the salamanders, and the | Venus-so the cabalists interpreted old undines, are all of this philosopher's man- mythology. ufacture; for with Christianity he blended a poetical pantheism, which the occult sciences had handed down from Pagan times, and of which the superstitions of witches and goblins preserved remembrance. In every thing he saw spirits; they moved in the dew-drop and in the spray of the torrent, murmured in the fire, and spoke to him in the wind and in the echo.

These pigmies loved those who loved them, and hated those who hated them. Woe to the man who signed their bonds and yielded himself to their power. Knowing men's thoughts and wishes, they were easily ruled by those who had faith: but if the wretched necromancer who backed their bills, angered or disobeyed them, they either maimed or killed him. Sometimes he was found dead, with blue face, staring eyes, and twisted neck, just as those whom the devil, who had not this power, drove to suicide and despair.

The gnomes, or mountain spirits, he says, have flesh and blood as men, and are not mere essence, like the beings of the air and fire. They delight in guarding riches, either in mountains or mines, These elementary spirits were God's where they count it over with all the messengers and executioners: they warnpride of successful capitalists. The deviled and admonished man, watched and himself, though said to abound in riches defended him, and could even deliver and to reward his followers, is, according him from prison. They answer, in fact, to to Paracelsus, the poorest of creatures, the guardian angels admitted by many but infinitely skillful in all arts, which he modern Christians as real beings. They can teach to his favorites; he does not were the same as night-mares, haunting require a bond sealed with your blood, as the sick man, and increasing the melansome have written. choly of the hypochondriac.

These pigmies live long, but have not the gift of immortality. They appear in sudden flames to miners, whom they vex with blows and scorchings; warning them of danger by knocking, or disclosing a treasure. They can appear small or large, foul or fair; but have latterly become extinct or invisible, though once common among men. Some thought them good spirits sent from God; others, the souls of suicides, wandering till the judgment, having given themselves to the devil; others have thought them mere phantasies, disclosing treasure; a few, the creations of enchantment. We should be inclined to think them explosions of firedamp, or will-o'-the-wisps floating round the damp mouths of mines, seen by errant woodmen, and hunters tracking the boar. They could not but by God's will bring either fortune or misfortune. A few thought them the souls of men who had buried treasure, and kept guard till it was discovered, founding the opinion on the perverted text "Where your treasure is, there shall your heart be also." These, said the alchymists, were the gods of the early nations mentioned in the first commandment.

The mountain of Uvus, in Italy, was once full of these spirits; and this was the kingdom and paradise of the nymph

Paracelsus, though a needy man, wrote much about hid treasure. He relates the signs which indicate its locality. Strange noises were heard round the spot; and those that went by, particularly on Sabbath nights, were cast into cold sweats, and felt their hair stand on end. Meteors fell round the house, and bellowings of wind shook the roof at midnight. These noises were oftentimes indications that somebody's mortgage was nearly up, and the devil was about to call in the money. Sometimes it was the soul of a wicked man forced to wander round the house of clay it had just quitted. Sometimes it was a stray devil driven from a possessed body, and now looking out for a vacancy. If the treasure was human, it could be recovered, but not so easily if it was the coin of nymphs or sylphs.

The seekers used divining-rods, which deceived them by pointing indiscriminately to lost money, or magical mirrors and crystals. These were to be dug for when the moon transits Taurus, without ceremonies or incantations, with faith, courage, and cheerfulness. The pigmies, unwilling to lose their treasure, had many ways of baffling mortals; now they would flame in visions; and now, just as the spade reached the casket, turn it into clay or wood. This, however, when

forced by fire, turned to its former es

sence.

The searcher, however, had always some escape for self-delusion, for he either thought what he saw was only the metal in a changed form; or if he could not rechange it, would attribute it to the failure of some one ingredient in the spell.

The spirits, if suddenly surprised, had no power to change the treasure, and fled, foiled and baffled. But if they had time, they sank the gold deeper, and out of reach. The greater the noise they made, the greater the treasure. Hid treasure was often searched for, not from covetousness, but to render ancient houses and castles habitable, and to free them from the sound of clanking chains and hollow groans.

Paracelsus not only believed in those mine spirits, whom the light of Sir Humphry Davy's lamp forever scared, but in the possession of devils, apart from pure epilepsy.

He recommends that they should be driven out by prayer, and not by dangerous incantations, which did not send the devils into hell, but into some other being, whom they destroyed. The worst of it was, that the Red Sea could no longer hold any more, and if they were dispatched to brooks or rivers, they turned into Kelpies, and attracted travelers, mocking at them, as they were drowning, by waving their hands and laughing behind the torrent or below the ford; in fact, they preferred such places of entertainment to the dull confinement of a single body. They desired, also, earnestly to get into a castle, where they would soon drive out the inhabitants, as they frequently did according to Paracelsus' own knowledge.

The Doctor, therefore, advises you in such cases, (and the receipt may be useful to any readers who are troubled by a man in possession,) not to talk much with the sufferer, but to fast, repeating these words: "O thou unclean spirit! by the word, power, and virtue whereby thou wert cast out by Christ and his Apostles, go out of this man!"

About tempests, Paracelsus is very unsound. He says they all flow from four fountains, N. S. E. and W. Hurricanes, he says, are decidedly devilish, and proclaim the presence of spirits; for, as a stranger will not enter a house without speaking, so these spirits must knock at

the world's door with thunderbolts, to show they are arrived, and to put in an appearance. In such cases bells and trumpets are of great efficacy, as spirits dislike all jarring and piercing sounds; but in thunder and hail the monk's bellringing is of no use, as many a burnt belfry testifies. As for incense burning, and smoking balm, and scented candles, they only attract spirits as flowers do bees. Not knowing much about lightning-conductors, our Doctor recommends bushes of mug-wort and celandine being tied to the four corners of a house, which preserve it from the blue arrows of the lightning and the artillery of the bruising hail. We prefer a conductor, but the Doctor considered coral and azoth as perfect amulets, which, as he was never struck, proved quite sufficient for his purpose.

Of dreams Paracelsus knew about as much as we do. He classes them as natural and supernatural, being sometimes ambassadors from God, as the dreams of the Patriarchs and Balaam; sometimes the mere result of care and diseased blood; sometimes mere delusions of the devil and the spirit of the night, as when the pirate dreams of spoil, and the son of Bacchus of cups. Generally speaking, dreams are false; they come by contraries, and are not to be credited. By prayer and faith he thought we could obtain comforting visions, or could be even lifted to God, so as to see the glory of the elect and the punishment of the damned. Sometimes the dead appear to man, and would, if cross-examined, though no man had the courage, reveal the future. But such spirits, unless sent of God, did nothing but lie and deceive.

Magic, our philosopher considers only sinful when abused by superstition. What he calls superstition, though, is not very certain. He despises all crosses, circles, fires, fumigations, seals of Solomon, pentacles, crowns, girdles, and all the properties of the real sorcerer, and demands only faith and prayer, which are sufficient to preserve any Dr. Faustus, though his anti-chamber were full of creditor devils, crying out, "Time's up.”

Nigro-Necro-Pyro-Geo- all the mancies, do not, he says, prevent the devil carrying off a necromancer in a high wind. God having once blessed the world, all further consecrations are useless

and sinful. He prudently, however, I cover the right hour and place to use excepts the sacraments of the Church. them. Ingenious subterfuge and avenue of escape!

These conjurations, invented in Babylon and Egypt, and handed down by the Jews, deserved, he thought, the severity of the magistrate. They forced spirits to appear in terrible pomp, he allows; but he declares that only faith could blind the fallen angels. The necromancer invoked spirits and afflicted them with toil and punishment, till the hour of God's vengeance came: then the wretch misspelt his amulet, or forgot his belt, or drew the circle a little awry; and the spirit leaped up, and miserably destroyed him, listening no more to his cries than the hangman to one sent to be whipped.

These spirits are God's hangmen, sent to punish all sinners against his words and the light of nature.

AMULETS.

These magical remedies Paracelsus only resorted to when no medicine-not even his potable gold or antimony, could any more help. If the secrets of herbs would not do, he says, he tried the secrets of minerals; if they would not do, he tried the secret of words; and if all three failed, he resorted to astronomical influences. He was very angry on being called a necromancer, and told that he took God's name in vain, and was, perhaps, rather afraid of the damp cell and the hot stake, for he compares himself to David accused of eating the shew-bread, and uses many texts of Scripture to cover over the mys teries of his magic.

He keeps repeating his prayers, just as a disguised Englishman would in a mosque, to show he is of the true religion.

WITCHCRAFT.

Magic, he says, is the most occult and supernatural of all sciences. It certainly is the most unintelligible, yet hints at great secrets, of which we still know nothing. He professes to know more than Cornelius Agrippa, Peter de Aburne, and certainly than Tritemius. The foundation of his art is the doctrine and faith of Christ, the chief corner-stones of phi

In his remarks on imagination, this great theorizer manifests more than usual common-sense. To show its power he mentions cases of men who died of fear in battle, and of those who caught the pestilence merely from alarm. From the great effect of amulets on the mind, he recommends their use; and it is a question if modern medicine does not too much neglect the curative effects of such appeals as stimulants to the vital power. Diseases of the imagination are still occult and un-losophy. In this, as in all his tenets, he written upon.

"Without faith," says this shrewd enthusiast, "all such (amulets) are vague and void of strength, for faith it is that exalts and confirms."

No doubt he believed in the Bible containing occult meanings, and in astronomical influences. But still, here is the germ of the system of amulets lying hid in a single sentence.

Of spells he says again, with mingled wisdom and credulity, "many thousands of them are not worth a nutshell," especially those unknown words that fill the magician's parchments. But he would not throw up the whole scheme, and pleads hard for Adonai and Tetiagrammaton, names of God, with certain triangles and crosses, as of acknowledged power and virtue.

These words, written on pancakes, and swallowed, cured enchanted men and suborned all spirits, if you only could dis

shows us how far removed he was from the stupid atheism he was accused of by his enemies, whose belief was habit, and their immutability indifference. He wished that all divines should know magic, to be able to cast out devils, heal the sick, and to distinguish a philosopher from a witch. It is great misfortune to the professors of medicine that they can no longer attribute all diseases that baffle them to supernatural malice.

At witches Paracelsus shudders. No bolts or armor can save a man from them, he declares. They send spirits to torment men, and can wound and slay them without producing any external sore. A good remedy is a linen shirt worn the wrong end upward; but how that is to be put on the philosopher does not relate. These witches, when they wished to injure an enemy, made an image of clay resembling him, and pricked or bruised it in certain spots, producing corresponding suffering

in the living creature. All sudden pim- | ples, rashes, and unaccountable pains, were attributed to this cause. The remedy was to make a rival image, and burn it to ashes, when the disease generally disappeared, if the patient's eyes and imagination had been first properly directed to it. If the sufferer had had a recent quarrel, he proclaimed his enemy a witch, and accused him of his disease. The charge so easily made was difficult, as most slander is, of disproof: the only consolation is that public opinion generally fixed the charge on some reprobate whose death was a blessing to the world.

Sometimes men believed they discovered ashes, hairs, and bristles, buried in their feet by witches, and causing intense pain till they were removed. They were supposed to be extracted by plasters of oak leaves and celandine, and had then to be wedged into an alder that faced the east, which effected a cure. Paracelsus refutes an opinion that no witch could inflict an injury on a man who did not fear her. Though we believe a basis of truth lies at the root of all superstitions, however absurd, we can not make much of witchcraft. It is possible that cankered, persecuted old women sometimes poisoned their enemies, or drove them mad from fear. Their confessions were the result of torture, and of minds weakened by age and suffering. It is a question, however, whether our disbelief in the actual visitations of the devil is the result of more wisdom or less religion. The belief in the devil's own presence and bodily form showed, at least, a recognition and dread of evil in the abstract.

MAGNETIC CURES.

On magnetic and sympathetic cures, Paracelsus is very eloquent, or rather he speaks profusely. He wonders that any can doubt God's power of giving virtue to metals, which have life, and yield oils and essences. The influence of amulets on the body he compares to the quickening influence of the spring air on the earth.

We wish diseases could still be cured by hanging medicines round the neck, the plan is so cheap and simple. To confirm his fables, he quotes corroborative fables, a favorite system in some men's argument. Grecian snakes, as soon as they hear any one repeat the Greek words, Osic, Osuc,

Osii, stop their ears with their tails, lie still, refuse to bite, or run into their holes. The same words, written on parchment, and laid on a new-caught snake, instantly tame him. Such arguments are, we need scarcely say, irrefragable, as is the fact of a dead kingfisher's skin moulting and renewing its feathers.

Lamens or amulets were, he says very prudently, used only in connection with medicines. They were of various shapes, round or triangular, made of gold in thin flakes, and stamped with astrological signs at certain fixed moments of planetary conjunction. They were worn round the neck, or tied to the limb affected. They are, no doubt, the origin of the modern lockets and charms, still the playthings of ladies. These were celestial medicines; not unfrequently the patient had to drink wine in which the amulet was steeped, like the Scotch lee penny, which is of almost undoubted Oriental origin. Occasionally the charm was written on slips of parchment, and bound round the neck or arm: every nine days, the old bandages being burnt to ashes, were mixed with wine, and used as a draught.

There was not a business or profession in which amulets were not useful: the groom made his bridles of lion's skin, and stamped every thong with mystic signs, to insure his horses length of life and speed; the bridegroom had his consecrated ring with its astrological emblems, which made the devils who hate wedlock shiver; the duellist had his ointment, not to apply to his wound, but to rub the weapon that produced it; the seal of Scorpio drove away scorpions, and an amulet of steel bewitched flies.

The doctors used them for every thing, particularly for diseases with names now disused, as the falling sickness, (epilepsy,) the trembling of the heart, dryness of the brain, leprosy. There were peculiar sigils for soldiers and travelers. Leaden mice, magically prepared, drove away vermin from a house; and sheep moulded in clay, and set in sheep-folds, kept off the rot. There were circles that drawn on walls no fly could escape that had once entered.

However it happens, there can be no doubt that these rules are of eastern origin. The Tartars still write prayers on slates, then wash them off, and drink the dirty water. The Turks have amulets, and believe in spells, which are probably relics of early magic, and the devil wor

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