Money was it that made me undertake this Task Now of the well-fram'd parts of our body I would know why we have three joints in our Legs and Arms as also in our fingers but that it was much better then having but two or four And why are our fore-teeth sharp like Chizzels to cut but our inward teeth broad to grind but this is more exquisite then having them all sharp or all broad or the fore-teeth broad and the other sharp but we might have made a hard shift to have lived though in that worser condition Again Why are the Teeth so luckily placed or rather Why are there not Teeth in other bones as well as in the Jaw-bones for they might have been as capable as these But the reason is Nothing is done foollshly nor in vain I will shew you how to prolong life and to return from age to youth and how to change alter and amend the state of the body but that I intend in a Treatise entituled The Wise Mans Crown To keep the body in perfect health is my present design and to cure all Diseases without reward for there is a Divine Providence that orders all things Again to say nothing of the inward curiosity of the Ear Why is that outward frame of it but that it is certainly known that it 's for the bettering of our hearing I might add That Nature hath made the hind-most parts of our body which we sit upon most fleshy as providing for our ease making us a Natural Cushion as well as for Instruments of Motion for our Thighs and Legs she hath made the hinder part of the Head more strong as being otherwise unfenced against falls and other casualties She hath made the Backbon of several Vertebrae as being more fit to bend more tough and less in danger of breaking then if they were all one intire bone without those gristly Junctures She hath strengthened our fingers and toes with Nailes whereas she might have sent out that substance at the end of the first and second Joints which had not been so handsom and useful nay rather somewhat troublesome and hurtful And lastly She hath made all bones devoid of sense because they were to bear the weight of themselves and of the whole body and therefore if they had had sense our life had been painful continually and dolorous And now I have considered the fitness of the parts of mans bodie for the good of the whole let me but consider briefly his sences and his nature and then I intend more solidly to demonstrate the cause of all Diseases and with that the Cure because I intend a Method of Rosie Crucian Physick promised in my way to Blisse By our several Organs we have several Conceptions of several qualities in the objects for by sight we have a conception or image composed of colour and figure which is all the notice and knowledge the object imparteth to us of its nature by the excellency of the eye By Hearing we have a conception called Sound which is all the knowledge we have of the quality of the object from the Ear And so the rest of the Sences are also conceptions of several qualities or natures of their objects Because the Image in vision consisting of colour and shape is the knowledge we have of the qualities of the object of that Sence it is no hard matter for a man to fall into this opinion That the same colour shape are the very qualities themselves and for the same cause that sound noise are the qualities of a piece of Canon or Culvering charged with sulphurous Powder fired or of the Air And this opinion hath been so long received that the contrary must needs appear a great Paradox The same qualities are easier in a bell and yet the introduction of species visible and intelligible which is necessary for the maintenance of that opinion passing to and fro from the object is worse then any Paradox as being a plain impossibility I shall therefore endeavor to make plain these points That the subject wherein colour and image are inherent is not the object or thing seen That there is nothing really which we call an Image or Colour That the said Image or Colour is but an apparation unto us of the motion agitation or alteration which the object worketh in the brain or spirits or some internal substance of the Head That as in vision so also in conceptions that arise from the other senses the subject of their inherence is not the object but the continent That conceptions and apparitions are nothing really but motion in some internal substance of the Head which motion not stopping there of necessity must there either help or hinder the motion which is called Vital when it helpeth it is called Delight Contentment or Pleasure which is nothing really but motion about the heart as conception is nothing but motion in the head and the objects that cause it are called Pleasant or Delightful and the same Delight with reference to the object is called Love but when such motion weakneth or hindreth the vital motion then it is called Pain and in relation to that which causeth it Hatred There are two sorts of pleasures whereof one seemeth to affect the corporeal Organ of the sence and that I call sensual the greatest part whereof is that by which we are invited to give continuance to our species and the next by which a man is invited to meat for preservation of his individual person The other sort of Delight is not particularly any part of the body and is called The Delight of the mind is that which we call Joy Likewise of pains some affect the body and are therefore called The pains of the body and some not and those are called grief CHAP. III. Of the nature of the Soul of Man whether she be a meer Modification of the body or a Substance really distinct and then whether corporeal or incorporeal and of the temper of the bodie HEre I am forced to speak what I have in my Familiar Spirit and it is not impertinent to my purpose therefore if we say that the soul is a meer modification of the body the soul then is but one universal faculty of the body or a many faculties put together and those operations which are usually attributed unto the soul must of necessity be attributed unto the body I demand therefore To what in the body will you attribute spontaneous motion I understand thereby a power in our selves of wagging or holding still most of the parts of our body as our hand suppose or little finger If you will say that it is nothing but the immission of the spirits into such and such Muscles I would gladly know what does immit these spirits and direct them so curiously is it themselves or the brains or that particular piece of the brain they call the Pine-Kernel What ever it be that which doth thus immit them and direct them must have
Animadversion and the same that hath Animadversion hath Memory and Reason also Now I would know whether the spirits themselves be capable of Animadversion Memory and Reason for it indeed seems altogether impossible for these animal spirits are nothing else but matter very thin and liquid whose nature consists in this that all the particles of it be in motion and being loose from one another frigge and play up and down according to the measure and manner of agitation in them I therefore demand which of these particles in these so many loosly moving one from another hath Animadversion in it if you say that they all put together have I appeal to him that thus answers how unlikely it is that that should have Animadversion that is so utterly uncapable of Memory and consequently of Reason for it is impossible to conceive memory competible to such a subject as it is how to write Characters in the Water or in the Wind. If you say the Brain immits and directs these spirits how can that so freely and spontaneously move it self or another that hath no Muscles Besides Doctor Culpepper tells you that though the Brain be the instrument of sence yet it hath no sense at all of it self how then can that that hath no sence direct thus spontaneously and arbitrariously the animal spirits in to any part of the body an Act that plainly requires determinate sense and perception But let the Physicians and Anatomists conclude what they will I shall I think little lesse then demonstrate that the brains have no sence for the same in us that hath sence hath likewise animadversion and that which hath animadversion in us hath also a faculty of free and arbitrarious Fancy and Reason Let us now consider the nature of the brain and see how competible those alterations are to such a subject verily if we take a right view of this Laxe pith or marrow in mans head neither our sence nor understanding can discover any thing more in this substance that can pretend to such noble operations as free imagination and sagacious collections of Reason then we can discern in a lump of fat or a pot of honey for this loose pulpe that is thus wrapped up within our Cranium is but a spongie and porous body and pervious not onely to the animal spirits but also to more Juice and Liquor else it could not well be nourished at least it could not be so soft and moistned by drunkenness and excess as to make the understanding inept and sottish in its operations Wherefore I now demand in this soft substance which we call the brain whose softness implies that it is in some measure liquid and liquidity implies a several motion of loosened parts in what part or parcel thereof does Fancy Reason and Animadversion lie In this laxe consistence that lies like a Net all on heaps in the water I demand In what Knot Loope or Interval thereof does this faculty of free Fancy and active Reason reside I believe not a Doctor in England nay not Dr. Culpepper himself were he alive nor his men Doctor Freeman and the rest can assign me any and if any will say in all together they must say that the whole brain is figured into this or that representation which would cancel memory and take away all capacity of there being any distinct notes and places for the several species of things there presented But if they will say there is in every part of the brain this power of Animadversion and Fancy they are to remember that the brain is in some measure a liquid body and we must enquire how these loose parts understand one anothers several Animadversions and notions and if they could which is yet very unconceivable yet if they could from hence do any thing toward the immission and direction of the animal spirits into this or that part of the body they must do it by knowing one anothers minds and by a ioint contention of strength as when many men at once the word being given when they weigh Anchor put their strength together for the moving of that Massie body that the single strength of one could not deal with but this is to make the several particles of the brain so many individual persons a fitter object for laughter then the least measure of belief Besides how come these many Animadversions to seem but one to us our mind being these as is supposed Or why if the figuration of one part of the brain be communicated to all the rest does not the same object seem situated both behind us and before us above and beneath on the right hand and on the left and every way as the impress of the object is reflected against all the parts of the brains but there appearing to us but one animadversion and one sight of things it is a sufficient Argument that there is but one or if there be many that they are not mutually communicated from the parts one to another and therefore there can be no such joint endeavor towards one design whence it is manifest that the brains cannot immit or direct these animal spirits into what part of the body they please CHAP. IV. Of Spontaneous Motion of the External Phaenomena of the nature of the Essence of the Soul her self what it is and whether it be corporeal or incorporeal NOW I must tell you that the brain hath no sence therefore cannot impress spontaneously any motion on the animal spirits it is no slight Argument that some being dissected have been found without brains and this I saw a Captain in Chrisley in Arabia that was accidentally kill'd by an Alcade and an Arabian the story is pleasant but not pertinent to our purpose but this man had nothing but a limpid water in his head instead of brains and the brains generally are easily dissolvable into a watery consistence which agrees with what I intimated before Now I appeal to any free Judge how likely these liquid particles are to approve themselves of that nature and power as to be able by erecting and knitting themselves together for a moment of time to bear themselves so as with one joint contention of strength to cause an arbitrarious obligation of the spirits into this or that determinate part of the body but the absurdity of this I have sufficiently insinuated already The Nerves I mean the Marrow of them which is of the same substance with the brain have no sence as is demonstrated from a Catalepsâ—e or Catâ—chus but I will not accumulate Arguments in a matter so palpable As for that little sprunt piece of the brain which they call the Conacion that this should be the very substance whose natural faculty it is to move it self and by its motion and nods to determine the course of the spirits into this or that part of the body seems to me no less foolish and fabulous then the Storie of this entituled Doctor Freeman so much commended by
ignorantly innocent people If you heard but the magnificent storie that is told of the little lurking Mushrome how it does not onely hear and see but imagines reasons commands the whole fabrick of the body more dexterously then an Indian Boy does an Elephant what an acute Logician subtile Geometrician prudent Statesman skilful Physician and profound Philosopher he is and then afterwards by dissection you discover this worker of miracles to be nothing but a poor silly contemptible Knob or Protuberancy consisting of a thin Membrane containing a little pulpous matter much of the same nature with the rest of the Brain Spectatum admissi risum teneatis amici Would you not sooner laugh at it then go about to confute it and truly I may the better laugh it now having already confuted it in what I have afore merrily argued concerning the rest of the Brain I shall therefore make bold to conclude That the impress of Spontaneous Motion is neither from the animal spirits nor from the Brain c. therefore that those operations that are usually attributed unto the soul are really incompetible to any part of the body and therefore as in the last Chapter I hinted I say That the soul is not a meer modification of the body but a substance distinct therefrom Now we are to enquire Whether this substance distinct from what we ordinarily call the body be also it self a Corporeal Substance or whether it be incorporeal If you say that it is a corporeal substance you can understand no other then matter more subtile and tenuious then the animal spirits themselves mingled with them and dispersed through the vessels and porosities of the body for there can be no penetration of dimensions But I need no new arguments to confute this fond conceit for what I said of the animal spirits before is applicable with all ease and fitness to this present case and let it be sufficient that I advertise you so much and so be excused from the repeating of the same things over again It remains therefore that we conclude That that which impresses Spontaneous Motion upon the body or more immediately upon the animal spirits That which imagines remembers and reasons is an immaterial substance distinct from the body which uses the animal spirits and the brain for Instruments in such and such operations And thus we have found a spirit in a proper notion and signification that hath apparently these faculties in it it can both understand and move corporeal matter And now this prize that we have won will prove for our design in this new Method of Physick and Philosophy of very great consequence for it is obvious here to observe that the soul of man is as it were {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} a compendious statue of the Deity her substance is a solid Essigies of God and therefore as with ease we consider the substance and motion of the vast Heavens on a little Sphere or Globe so we may with like facility contemplate the nature of the Almighty in this little Model of God the soul of Man enlarging to Infinity what we observe in our selves when we transfer it unto God as we do imagine these Circles which we view on the Globe to be vastly bigger while we fancy them as described in the heavens Wherefore we being assured of this That there is a spiritual substance in our selves in which both these properties do reside viz. of the understanding and of moving the corporeal matter let us but enlarge our minds so as to conceive as well as we can of a spiritual substance that is able to move actuate all matter whatsoever never so far extended and after what way manner soever it please and that it hath not onely the knowledge of this or that particular thing but a distinct and plenary cognizance of all things and we have indeed a very competent apprehension of the nature of the eternal and invisible God who like the soul of man does not indeed fall under sence but does everywhere operate so that his person is easily to be gathered from what is discovered by our outward sences CHAP. V. Of Plants that the meer motion of the matter may do something yet it will not amount to the production of Plants That it is no botch in Nature that some Phaenomena be the results of Motion others of substantial forms That beauty is not a meer fancy and that the beauty and vertue of Plants is an Argument that they are made for the use of our bodies from an intellectual principle HOW weak is Man if you consider his nature what faculties he hath and in what order he is in respect of the rest of the creatures And indeed though his body be but weak and disarm'd yet his inward abilities of Reason and artificial contrivance is admirable both for finding out those secret Medicines which God prepared for the use of Man in the Bowels of the Earth of Plants and Minerals And first of Vegetables where I shall touch onely these four heads their form and beauty their seed their signatures and their great use as well for medicines as sustenance and that we may the better understand the advantage we have in this closer contemplation of the works of nature we are in the first place to take notice of the condition of the substance which we call matter how fluid and slippery and undeterminate it is of it self or if it be hard how unfit it is to be changed into any thing else and therefore all things rot into a moisture before any thing can be generated of them as we soften the wax before we set on the seal Now therefore unless we will be foolish as because the uniform motion of the Air or some more subtil corporeal Element may so equally compress or bear against the parts of a little vaporous moisture as to form it into round drops as we see in the dew and other experiments and therefore because this more rude and general motion can do something to conclude that it does all things We must in all reason confess that there is an eternal Mind and Vertue whereof the matter is thus usefully formed and changed But meer rude and undirected motion because naturally it will have some kind of results that therefore it will reach to such as plainly imply a wise contrivance of counsel is so ridiculous a Sophism as I have already intimated that it is more fit to impose upon the inconsiderate souls of fool children then upon men of Mature Reason and well exercised in Philosophy or the grave and well practised seraphically illuminated Rosie Crucians Admit that Rain and Snow and Wind and Hail and Ice and Thunder and Lightning and a Star I mention for example that may be let in amongst Meteors by some called Hellens-star and is well known at Sea I have seen it melt Copper Vessels a-board a ship it cometh of an heap of such vapors as are carryed
A NEW METHOD OF Rosie Crucian physick Wherein is shewed the Cause and therewith their experienced Medicines for the Cure of all DISEASES {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Freely given to the inspired CHRISTIANS BY {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} And in obedience fitted for the understanding of mean capacities by the Adorer and the most unworthy of their LOVE John Heydon a Servant of God and Secretary of Nature Penes nos unda Tagi London Printed for Thomas Lock 1658. An Apologue for an Epilogue I Shall here tel you what Rosie Crucians are and that Moses was their Father and he was {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} some say they were of the order of Elias some say the Disciples of Ezekiel others define them to be {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} i.e. The Officers of the Generalissimo of the world that are as the eyes and cares of the great King seeing hearing all things they are Seraphically illuminated as Moses was according to this order of the Elements earth refin'd to water water to air air to fire so of a man to be one of the Heroes of a Heros a Daemon or good genius of a genius a partaker of Divine things and a companion of the holy company of unbodied souls and immortall Angels and according to their vehicles a versatile life turning themselves Proteus-like into any shape But there is yet arguments to procure Mr. Walfoord and T. Williams Rosie Crucians by election and that is the miracles that were done by them in any sight for it should seeme Rosie Crucians were not only initiated into the Mosaicall Theory but have arrived also to the power of working miracles as Moses Elias Ezekiel and the succeeding Prophets did as being transported where they please as Habakkuk was from Jewry to Babylon or as Philip after he had baptized the Enuch to Arotus and one of these went from me to a friend of mine in Devonshire and came and brought me an answer to London the same day which is four dayes journey they taught me excellent predictions of Astrologie and earthquakes they slack the plague in Cityes they silence the violent winds and tempests they calme the rage of the Sea and rivers they walk in the Air they frustrate the Malicious aspect of Witches they cure all diseases I desired one of these to tell me whether my complexion were capable of the society of my good Genius when I see you again said he I will tell you which is when he pleases to come to me for I know not where to go to him when I saw him then he said Ye should pray to God for a good and holy man can offer no greater nor more acceptable sacrifice to God then the oblation of himself his soul He said also that the good Genii are as the benigne eyes of God running to and fro in the world with love and pitty beholding the innocent endeavours of harmless and single hearted men ever ready to do them good and to help them and at his going away he bid me beware of my seeming friends who would do me all the hurt they could and cause the Governors of the Nations to be angry with me and set bounds to my liberty which truly hapned to me as they did indeed many things more he told me before we parted but I shall not name them here For this Rosie Crucian Physick or Medicines I happily and unexpectedly light upon in Arabia which will prove a restauration of health to all that are afflicted wh that sickness which we ordinarily cal natural all other diseases as the Gour Dropsie Leprosie and falling sickness and these men may be said to have no small insight in the body and that Walfoord Williams and others of the Fraternity now living may bear up in the same likely Equipage with those noble Divine spirits their predecessors though the unskilfullness in men commonly acknowledge more of supernaturall assistance in hot unsetled fancies and perplexed melancholy then in the calme and distinct use of reason yet for mine own part but not without submission to better judgements I looke upon these Rosie Crucians above all men truly inspired and more than any that professed or pretended themselves so this sixteen hundred yeares and I am ravished with admiration of their miracles and transcendent mechanicall inventions for the salving the Phaenomena in the world I may without offence therefore compare them with Bezaliel and Aholiab those skilfull and cunning workers of the tabernacle who as Moses testifies were filled with the spirit of God and therefore were of an excellent understanding to find out all manner of curious work Nor is it any more argument that these Rosie Crucians are not inspired because they do not say they are then that others are inspired because they say they are which to me is no argument at all but the suppression of what so hapned would argue much more sobriety modesty whenas the profession of it with sober men would be suspected of some peice of melancholy and distraction especially in these things where the grand pleasure is the evidence and exercise of reason not a bare beliefe or an ineffable sense of life in respect whereof there is no true christian but he is inspired but if any more zealous pretender to prudence and righteousness wanting either leasure or ability to examine these Rosie Crucian Medicines to the bottom shall notwithstanding either condemn them or admire them he hath unbecommingly and indiscreetly vetered out of his own sphere and I cannot acquit him of injustice or folly Nor am I a Rosie Crucian nor do I speake of spite or hope of gain or for any such matter there is no cause God knows I envie no man be he what he will be I am no physitian never was nor never mean to be what I am it makes no matter as to my profession Lastly these holy and good men would have me know that the greatest sweet and perfection of a vertuous soul is the kindly accomplishment of her own nature in true wisdom and divine love and these miraculus things that are done by them are that that worth and knowledge that is in them may be taken notice of and that God thereby may be glorified whose witnesses they are but no other happiness accrues to them from this but that hereby they may be in a better capacity of makeing others happy From my house in Spittle fields next door to the red Lyon this 10. of May 1658. Iohn Heydon A New METHOD OF Rosie Crucian Physick CHAP. I. Of the Accurate Structure of Mans body I Admire the goodness of God towards us in the frame and structure of our bodies the admirable Artifice whereof Galen though a Naturalist was so taken with that he could not but adjudge the honor of a hymn to the wise Creator of it The continuance of the whole and every particular is so evident an Argument of
have fled and do daily flie from the daily toil and trouble of their fruitless and barren dead Sea Now let us shift our Sailes and flie further too I hope of wind and tide and all which we have But let us mount up to the main-mast top of our Knowledge and see if we can describe the Haven of Rosie Crucian Medicines and see what marks it hath and how it differs from other Creeks adjoining lest at our journeys end we miss with more shame and grief and suffer shipwrack A medicine is that which kills the face of that which hurts us and this it doth many waies and yet also to one end which is is the end of all doing and working as I said before for his food and sustenance CHAP. XIII Medicines against Witchcraft and to cure those that are afflicted thereby although their bodies be possessed with evill spirits that cause them to vomit up Needles Thimbles Pots Glasses Hair and shreds of cloth which by the Divil were conveyed into the body That Winds and Tempests are raised by Witches upon meer ceremonies of Medicines and of poysons with the examples also of other supernatural effects of unclean spirits and of imagination How to cure a Witch and to take away her power A Servant of God and Secretary of Nature must be well advised of what he writes especially in this age and of this matter viz. of the Rosie Crucian Physick lest he should as I said before fail in this design and so it may be a shame that he should be reproved by the pretenders to those wise truths he alone hath opened to publick view then let us come again and sort our speeches A Medicine heals us and kills our enemie either by dulling or consuming it for when it meets with a contrary of even strength as when oyl and poyson c. joyn then in strength they neither eat up nor destroy one another but both are dulled and weakned and make one heavy thing which nature casteth out for an unlike and unkindly dead thing which they call an excrement or Leaving but in case it be of more strength and power then our enemie then it quite destroyes devours and turns him into his own nature And this consumer is either like the thing that hurts us in which sort even as every herb of sundry qualities draws and feeds upon his own juice in a Garden so one Poyson doth cure another and all purging and drawing things do heal us and all Rosie Crucians hid and Divine properties do work by plain reason or else it is unlike and contrary to their custome after which manner as dry sticks and Tow and vinegar quench wild fire or other Fat Fires before water whose fatness feeds it for the strong contrary quality quelling and eating up the weaker so doth any cold and dry thing as Bolearminick Terra Lemnia c. cure a Rotten poyson and so are a great number of cures done which onely course in a word the Rosie Crucians use for Physick and not indeed without good success we heard even now of two hinderances of healing which our common Physicians did take unawares and Paracelse pretends to have found out before me gave any hint to the World of our experienced inventions of Gold dissolved and made potable being incorporated with its proper Veyle which we now use by the name of Aurum potabile but Paracelse straieth much in the making of it and knows it not no more than that tattered Doctor Freeman so shamefully called amongst Physicians Whither in their poisons on the other side when they think all cures thereby performed Now when the Consuming Medicines have done their duties Nature expells them for poison and unlike strange things according to the Rosie Crucian Axiomata as well as the Grecian Rules because all their Medicines were not approved by the Fraternity and were by their confession such But if they had either thought of the dulling nourisher which as I told you takes the nature of the leaving or excrement or had known the Rosie Crucian wholsome Medicine they would have made another reckoning But let them go and us see out in time towards the Haven of Health If the Art of Healing be nothing but destroying hurtful things And their stronger enemies but equality will sometimes serve the turn or likes together and the world be full of both these kinds of Creatures following the nature of their Parents of four beginnings which are as we see some like and some contrary one to another Then sure the Rosie Crucian Art of Healing is not as some may say impossible truly it wanteth nothing but a man well skilled in the Nature of things A servant of God and Secretary of Nature by name for I think I need not put in a Physician to know what other part the Causes of the diseases which must be known and matched because as Sr. Christopher Heydon the Seraphically Illuminated Rosie Crucian and learned Astrologer well saith He that knoweth the changes and chances of things in the great World may soon find them in the Little But our nought-Healing Bill-men that daub Medicines upon every Wall and Post and some Leaches will step in and say diseases are in some so great and in all so many and mans wit is so weak and shallow and the Medicines so hid and drowned in the deep of Nature that it is not possible to find them all or if they were found to apply them with such discretion as Nature might abide those poisoned Fraies and Battels within her And again admit all this untrue yet there be some diseases sent from Witchcraft and Sorcery and other means which have their cause and so their Cure I have read of som that have vomited uppieces of Cloth with Pins stuck in them Nails Needles such like stuff and this is ingested into the Stomach by the prestigious Sleights of Witches Others I have seen vomit up Hair Glass Iron and pieces of Wood with Pins stuck in it anothers Corps was dissected and ripping up the Ventricle there they found the Cause of the disease which was a round piece of Wood four Knives some even and sharp others were indented like a Saw Others do Miracles by casting Flint-stones behind their Backs towards the West or striking a River with Broom or flinging of Sand in the Air the stirring of Urine in a hole in the ground or boyling of Hogges Bristles in a pot some by whispering some words in the Ear of an horse or wild Stagg could direct him a journey according to their own desire But what are these things available to gather Clouds and to cover the Air with darkness and then to make the ground smoke with peals of Hail and Rain and make the Air terrible with frequent Lightning and ratling Claps of Thunder But this is from the power of the Divel as some fancy which he hath in his Kingdome of the Air For the Remedy of these mischiefs I have seen a man
stone a blast of wind puts standing water into Motion and it doth not presently give over moving as soon as the wind ceaseth or the Stone setleth so the Image or Conception remaineth but more obscure while we are awake because some object or other continually plyeth and solliciteth our eyes and ears keepeth the mind in a stronger Motion whereby the weaker doth not easily appear And this obscure conception is that we call Phantasie or Imagination Imagination being to define it conception remaining and by little and little decaying from and after the act of sense c. If some of these diseases spring as Mr. Moore Doctor Culpeper and some others hold and with good reason from neither of both these two roots named but from a foul and venomous breath sent forth from a poysoned temper of the Witches body through the windiness of hatefull eyes For Thought fashioneth the blood and Spirits almost at his pleasure then all the causes being ordinary and agreeing to the course of Nature they may be cured and put to flight by the same course and means which opinion if you please to bear with my tarrying it is worth the handling taketh hold upon this reason because as Rosie Crucians do witness some beasts of ranker venome do witch and hurt after the same manner as an old Toad by stedfast view not onely prevails but benums a Weasell but kills a young child And by the same means the Bever hunts the little fish and takes his prey But most fiercely and mischieously of all creatures in the world the two monsters in kind the Cockatrice and Apoblepas again for that the eye of a menstruous woman as all report doth spot the glass which it beholdeth and moreover Eugenius Theodidactus in the wisemans Crown telleth of many folk that through a poysoned prerogative which a monstrous Mark of a double-sighted eye gave unto them were able to bewitch to death all those upon whom that eye was angerly and surely set and fastned but chiefly because we see them that use this wicked trade to be by kind of a muddy and Earthlike complexion and nature brought by age as they be most commonly long life and gross diet to the pitch of melancholy that is to a cold and most dry nature in the world For certain proof whereof bring one of them out of that beast-like life brought unto merry company and fed full with dainty Diet and within twenty days as hath by a Rosie Crucian been tried a truth the whole state and nature of her body will be so changed as it shall not suffer her to bewitch and hurt again as you may read in my Familiar Spirit or Guardian Genius CHAP. XIV The Naturall effects of Medicine the force and power of mineralls in diseases with examples also that every disease-breeder hath the cure or remedy in it examples that poyson prepared cures poysoned people Rosie Crucian Arts the virtue and power of the Planets and heavenly Stars poured through the influence of the moon upon the Lower Creatures of Hot Stomachs of the Etherial first moisture of of man examples also of Rosie Crucian Natural and supernaturall cures of the understanding of these experienced truths by the wit of man of Paracelsus and Culpeper LEt us come to the next and chiefest point And there we must not say for shame that these helps and remedies lye hid in nature too far for the wit of man to find unless we will accuse our own sloth and dulness For nature hath brought them forth and laid them open aswel as the Poysons and hurtful things or else she were very cross and ill-willing to him for whose sake it seems she doth all things Nay further as Mr. Hobs saith her good will is such as she hath not only laid them open but given us wayes to come by them and means of speech hands and wit also far above all other living creatures And yet she hath not left us so but lest by chance we might go wide and miss them to shew her motherly love and affection towards us she hath guided as Mr. Moor saith many witless Beasts even by common sense unto their speedy helps and remdies in their diseases That we by the plainness and shame of the example as Mr. Gadbury wisely saith might be taught and moved to seek out the mysterious truths of nature in Celestial bodies as wel as beasts that seek and find us Medicines helpful in the like diseases for our Terrestial Tabernacle As to name a few not unworthy meaning she maketh the beast Hippotamus in time of his fulness and fatness to go to a reed and by rubbing a vain to let himself blood and to stop it again by laying mud upon it A sick dog to seek an Herb and purge himself and the bear to do the same after his long fast in Winter she leads the Panther when he is poysoned to her foul and nameless leaving and the Tortoyse after he hath eat a Viper to Summer Savery And the Hedg-hog is so good a natural Astronomer that he fortifies his hole against foul weather the Hog will gather Moss and straw to cover himself a little before it rains The dog knows the influence of Mars when he doth sleep by the fire and will not go out a dores when he is in any evil position and many such like examples hath nature laid before us for our instruction by which at last wise Plato Philo Apollonius Pythagoras and painful men of Greece as they themselves report be they Elias or Elisha from whom the order of the Rosie Cross came as some say or else as others will have it from Moses or Ezekiel or whosoever and by laying reason and further proof together first made the Art and rules of Healing to know whence diseases came and how to recover them And then seeking all about for remedies to serve each turne by little and little they matched the most part of the lesser rank with single Medicines and the greater ones they doubled and coupled many together insomuch as at last which was in Hippocrates time they were able to heal all saving four of the greatest and deepest diseases the Gout the Dropsie the Leprosie the Falling sickness which are now healed by the Rosie Crucians onely But this race is below the Seraphically illuminated Fraternity now not a Physician that is lined with Plush in England Spain Germany or France but holds that Long-life Health Youth not attainable they therefore with one consent amongst the other four call them impossible But to come to the point what wrong this was both to skill and nature they do easily see and laugh at which know that in this labour they did not onely oversee and skip the Minerals the stoutest helps in the whole store-house of Nature although they could dig them out well enough to other and worser uses but also which is in all did let the Rosie Crucian skill of preparing Medicines whereby weak things are made
book of the nature and dignity of Angels by the divine art of God that ordered all things as you have read in the Introductory part of this book refined and sundred away round to the place and nature where it now standeth even so one of our gross bodies here below being a piece of the same lump also and all one with that which Heaven once was may by the like art and cunning be refined and parted from all his distempered dross and foul drossiness and brought into a Heavenly nature of the best and goodliest thing in Heaven And yet you must not take me as though I would have 〈…〉 wit of man which is bâ—t a spark of the divine g◠〈…〉 in my book called Ventus Ingens to be able to reach the excellency of his work and to make so great perfection if he do but shadow it and make a Counterfeit that is if he reach not so far as to make all things but to mend a few by this his Heaven all is well it is as much as I can look for at the hand of any man that is not a Rosie Crucian Now is the time to rest a little and pray for the good use and practice of those that shall read our writing CHAP. XV Of the Rosie Crucian Sun or Spiritual Oyl Of the Divine Works of God not yet observed How we make Aether Examples of Medicines Rosie Crucian and Grecian Of Poison Of the Supernatural Miracles of the Rosie Crucians with obedience to Reason Another Medicine of Supernatural effect Of the power and secret skill of Nature How to dissolve Minerals And how to prepare them for Mens Bodies EUgenius Theodidactus hath shewed you this Heaven Nay this Sun of ours which is nought else as I told you in one of my books of Astrologie but an Oyl full of heavenly Spirits and yet in Quality of his body just even and natural fine and piercing close and lasting able as well to rule this little World as Mr. Thomas Heydon saith the great Sun is able to governe the great World But what is he saies Mr. Iohn Cleeveland that can see this Divine Art and Way whereby God made his great and mighty work viz {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} as I shewed in my Book intituled Moses speech to God upon the second chapter of Genesis or if he saw it learne and match it by imitation I answer None but Rosie Crucians to whom I am a friend and they God hath enlightned and unsealed their eyes they have found the way lying open in all places and in all Natural changes they see them pass and travel I say still the course that Heydon calls soft and witty that is kindly separation and if he be not swift and rash as many such as Thomas Vaughan and Street but will have sober patience his own skill and labour will be but little if he please for Nature her self very kindly will in her due time performe all and even all that heavenly workmanship be easily performed and yet I mean not so but that Art must accompany and attend upon Nature though with no great pains and skill both forward and backward in this Journey Doctour French knows my meaning so doth Doctour Owen if his angry Censure will suffer his Natural judgement until he come to his wished rest and to the top of all perfection If you perceive not consider the way whereby we made our Ether in our book abovenamed and matched our own first moisture a thing Etherial I say and almost Temperate mark what I say there is a further end in the matter hold on the same means whereby you came so far through The wise mans Crown and are gone so far in the Way to bliss which is that I spake of and you may reach it Then you see the way to cure all diseases by the third way of Egyptian healing which they doe and we may well call it the Egyptians Heaven and yet it is a way far beneath the Rosie Crucian Art of Healing as we shall shew hereafter But if they will not yeeld yet to reason but mutter stil Thomas Street-like that these Heavenly Medicines of ours are very high for the reach of mens silly wits here strowed below upon the ground for other lesser and baser uses and that no man since the first man or if I will say Moses was the first that first found out these inventions as they call them after Adam and that none but the successors of Moses have been ever yet known to have found and wrought the same I will not stand to beat reason into such giddy-braindmen but go to the other two waies of healing which the Egyptians found out and used and called the first Mineral Medicines and these Moses taught the children of Israel in the valley of mount Sinai when he took the Golden Calf which he had made and calcined it in the fire and ground it to powder and incorporated it with a Solar Veagle and made the children of Israel drink Aurum potabile And the next mysteries and secrets as may appear by Riverius his speaking of Rosie Crucian Secrets we fitly may call this second kind because that is too large a Name if it be lawful for us as well as for all other Learned men where a fit word wants to make a new we may do well I say to call it a Cure it self because it is by that way of healing whereby every self same thing further broken may cure it self and this inward and hidden thing as they say the outward and apparent by the course of kind whereby the stronger like eates up in triall and consumes the weaker If this leave be once granted we will borrow a little more for the other two likewise because their names are not pertinent to our purpose and call that Heaven a Cure-all for so it doth and the next a Cure-the Great because the Order of the Rosie Crucians is alwayes to match the greater and more stubborn sort of diseases with the Stout and mighty minerals and the rest with those hidden cure-themselves or at least in the lower rank of lighter diseases with their likes onely raw as the Grecians use them without any curious dressing Let us draw nearer a conclusion of the matter because Grecians themselves are able and our English Physicians that learn of them to cure the lighter sort of diseases and to heal all but the four aforesaid we will leave the rest for them and so let this second kind of healing go called our hidden cure themselves and bend all our batteries against these four which they call incurable and see how by force of our Mineral Medicines they may be cured we see the Poysoned spirits and breaths of venomous things with what force they work upon our bodies things in Nature set against them and how they consume them If you do not see by imagination reason with your selves if not remember those above named that killed