viz. If you would drive away any venemous serpent or noysom beast make the figure thereof in some certain matter under some convenient constellation and inscribe thereupon the name of the signe ascending and the name of the thing you would expell c. And for the contrary effect do it after a contrary constellation c. And observe the like in alluring to love or in provoking to hatred in curing of diseases and procuring of health c. But by no means so conscientious or cautious they are ascribe the effect to the Image for that 's say they idolatry superstition witchcraft but to the constellation and I pray what 's that But I am weary with reckoning up in part things of so great folly and of greater impiety Onely I ask not them but the sound and sober if indeed they be not so I mean if the businesse and folly of the world brought and sought to be directed by the businesse and folly of an Art be not very much repugnant to humane prudence and to divine providence much more CHAP. XXVI From the conviction of Confession WHether Magicians and Astrologers themselves have not plainly and plentifully discovered and acknowledged the vanity and impiety of Magick and Astrology And whether it be not an Argument irrefragable against an Art or operation whenas the Arch-Artists are so far convinc't as to confesse the pravity and obliquity thereof themselves For who can more truly and fully set them forth then they that have given themselves over to study and practise them How many things of old and of late have been spoken either through a spirit of recantation a conscience of conviction or a fury of exclamation by magicians against Magick and by Astrologers against Astrology Hear what one of them saith both against himself and all the rest of what kind or sort soever Whatsoever things have here already and shall afterward be said by me I would not have any one assent to them nor shal I my self any further then they shall be approved of by the universal Church and the Congregation of the faithful Magicians and those who were the authors of this Art amongst the Antients have been Chaldeans Aegyptians Assyrians Persians and Arabians all whose Religion was perverse and polluted idolatry We must very much take heed lest we should permit their errors to war against the grounds of the Catholike Religion For this was blasphenious and subject to the curse and I also should be a blasphemer if I should not admonish you of these things in this science Wheresoever therefore you shall find these things written by us know that these things are onely related out of other Authors and not put down by us for truth but for a probable conjecture which is allyed to truth and an instruction for imitation in those things that are true Of Magick I wrote whilst I was very young three large books which I called Of Occult Philosophie in which what was then through the curiosity of my youth erroneous I now being more advised am willing to have retracted by this Reeantation For I have heretofore spent very much time and cost in these vanities At length I grew so wise as to understand how and by what reasons I was bound to dehort others from this destruction For whosoever do not in the truth nor in the power of God but in the delusions of Devils according to the operation of the evil spirits presume to divine and prophecy and by magical vanities exorcisms inchantments love potions allurements and other devilish works and deceits of Idolatry exorcising prestigious things and making ostentation of phantasms boasting themselves to work miracles presently vanishing all these with Jannes and Iambres and Simon Magus shall be destinated to the torments of eternal fire The antient Philosophers teach us to know the nature of the genius of every man by stars their influx and aspects which are potent in the nativity of any one but with instructions so diverse and differing amongst themselves that it is much difficult to understand the mysteries of the Heavens by their directions c. Cicero following the stoicks affirms that the foreknowing of future things belongs onely to the Gods And Ptolomie the Astrologer saith that they onely that are inspired with a deity foretel particular things To them Peter the Apostle consents saying Prophesying is not made according to the will of man but holy men spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost Take heed that you be not deceived by them that are deceived Neither can the great reading of books direct you here since they are but as riddles How great writings are there made of the irresistible power of magical Art of the Prodigious Images of Astrologers of the monstrous transmutations of Alchimists of the blessed stone by which Mydas like all mettals that were touched were presently transmuted into Gold or Silver All which are found vain fictitious and false c. Whatsoever the monstrous Mathematicians the prodigious Magicians the envious Alchymists and bewitching Necromancers can do by spirits See where their Faith is placed where their hope is reposed who endeavour to subject the Elements Heavens Fate Nature Providence God and all things to the command of one Magician and seek for the preservation of a kingdom from Devils the enemies of publike preservation Saying in their heart with Ochoziâ—s there is not a God in Israel let us go and consult Beelzebub the God of Acbron c. Are they not delivered over to a reprobate sense who desire the certainty of secret counsels from the Devil the father of lies and hope for victory elsewhere them from the Lord of Hosts All these ungodly follies are wont to bring destruction to the admirers thereof to which truly they who especially confide are made the most unfortunate of all men Surely it is unknown to these Fools and Slaves of the Devil for to finde out things to come and to pronounce truth concerning those things which hang over our heads and are occult and from heaven portended unto men and to effect things which exceed the common course of Nature c. O Fools and wicked Who by these Arts would establish a kingdom by which formerly most potent Empires have fallen and have been utterly overthrown It is now time to speak of the Mathematical disciplines which are reputed to be the most certain of all other and yet they all consist not but in the opinions of their own Doctors to whom much faith is given who also have erred in them not a little Which Albumasar one of them attests to us saying that the Antients even since Aristotles time have not plainly known the Mathematicks For seeing all these Arts are chiefly conversant about the spherical or round whether figure or number or motion they are forced at length to confesse that a perfect round or spherical is no where to be found neither according to Art nor according to Nature And these disciplines although they have
gain Physiognomy Metoposcopy Chiromancy Aruspicy the Speculatory the Onirocritical whichis the interpretation of dreams and the Oracles of the furious here challenge their seat Now all these artifices are of no solid doctrine neither do consist of any certain reasons but inquire of occult things either by fortuitous lot or agnition of spirit or certain appearing conjectures which are taken up from quotidian observations of long time For all these prodigious arts of divination are wont to defend themselves no other way but by the title of experience and to extricate themselves out of the bonds of objections so often as they teach or promise any thing above faith and beside reason Of all which it is thus commanded in the Law There shall not he found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to passe through the fire or that useth divination or an observer of times or an inchanter or a witch or a charmer or a consulter with familiar spirits or a wizzard or a Necromancer For all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord. Physiognomy following from the inspection of the whole body presumeth it can by probable signs attain to know what are the affections of body and mind and what a mans fortune shall be so far forth as it pronounceth him Saturnial or Jovial and him Martial or Solar another Venereal Mercurial or Lunar and collecting their horoscopes from the habitude of the body and from affections transcending as they say by little and little unto causes namely Astrological out of which they afterward trifle as they list Metoposcopy out of a sagacious ingenie and learned experience boasts her self to foresent all the beginnings the progresses and the ends of men out of the sole inspection of the forehead making her self also to be the pupil of Astrologie Chiromancie feigns seven mounts in the palm of the hand according to the number of the seven Planets and supposes it can know from the lines there to be seen what a mans complexion is what his affections and what his fortune c. But we need no other reason to impugn the error of all these Arts then this self-same namely that they are void of all reason Yet very many of the Antients have written of these c. But they all can deliver nothing beyond conjectures and observations of experience Yet that there is not any rule of truth to these conjectures and observations is manifest from this because they are voluntary figments and upon which their teachers even of equal learning and authority are not agreed But this trifling kind of men is wont so to doat through the instinct of devils drawing them from error into superstition and from this by degrees into infidelity To the art of Augury they make faith who teach that certain lights of presagition do descend from the coelestials upon all those inferior living creatures as certain signes constituted in their motion site gesture going flight voice meat colour work event by which as by a certain ingraffed hidden force and firm consent they so agree with the coelestial bodies with whose powers they are affected that they can presage all things whatsoever that the coelestial bodies intend to do whereupon it is manifest that this divination followes not but from conjectures partly taken from the influences of the stars as they say and partly from certain parabolical similitudes then which nothing can be more fallacious Wherefore Panaetius Carneades Cicero Chrysippus Diogenes Antipater Josephus and Philo have derided it the Law and the Church hath condemned it They who endeavour to perswade that nothing is dream't in vain say that like as the coelestial influxes do produce divers forms in corporal matter so from the same influxes in the phantastical faculty which is organical there are phantasms impressed by the coelestial disposition consentaneous to the producing any kind of effect especially in Dreams because the mind is then more freed from the body and external cares and so receives those divine influxes more freely whence it comes to passe that many things are made known in dreams to men sleeping which are concealed from them waking By this reason chiefly they labour to reconcile an opinion of truth to dreams and yet of the causes of dreams both intrinsical and extrinsical they do not all of them agree in one opinion c. Of dreams nothing is delivered but meer dreams c. To these dreameâ—s we may number those who give a faith of divinity to the vaticinations of madmen and think they have attained to a divine prescience of things to come who have lost all knowledge of things present all memory of things past together with all humane sense and that mad men and sleepers see those things which wise men and waking are ignorant of as if God were neerer to them then to the sound watchâ—ul intelligent and premeditating In truth they are unhappy men who believe these vanities and obey these impostures who cherish these kind of artificers and submit their wits and faith to these their vain delusions All these artifices of divination have their rooting and foundation in Astrologie For whether the body the face or the hand be inspected whether a dream or a prodigie be seen whether an auspicie or a Fury be inspired they consult to erect a figure of Heaven out of whose tokens together with conjectures of similitudes signs they hunt for opinions of things signified and so all Divinations challenge to themselves the Art and use of Astrologie and confesse this to be as it were the key to the necessary knowledge of all secret things Wherefore all those arts of divination how far they are from truth they plainly discover themselves in this in that they use principles so manifestly false and feigned by a poeticall temerity which neither are nor have been nor ever shall be yet are they made the causes and signes to which all events of things are to be referred contrary to all evident truth Magick is so neer joyned to and of affinity with Astrologie so that he who professeth Magick without Astrologie doth nothing but erreth altogether There is an Art given to mortal men whereby they might generate certain latter things not partaking of truth and divinity but might deduce certain images like unto themselves and Magicians most audacious men have gone so farre to perpetrate all things that old and strong Serpent the promiser of Sciences especially favouring them that they like to him Apes have endeavoured to emulate both God and nature To such a height of madnesse some of the Magicians are grown that from diverse constellations of the Stars through internals of times and by a certain reason of proportions being rightly observed they think that a fabricated image of the heavenly creatures may with a becke receive the spirit of life and understanding whereby it may answer those that consult it and reveale the secrets of hidden truth Hence it is plain that this
naturall Magick sometimes enclined towards Goetie and Theurgie is insnared very osten in the wiles and errours of evill spirits Of ceremoniall Magick there are two parts Goetie and Theurgie Goetie unfortunately began by the commerce with unclean spirits compacted of the rites of wicked curiosity unlawfull charms and deprecations is exerated banished by the verdicts of all Lawes These are they who carry about them familiar spirits doe feigne themselves to prophecy Some of them study to call and compell evill spirits adjured by some certain powers especially of divine names c. Others most wicked and by mischiefe detestable and to be punished with all fires submit themselves to devils sacrifice to them and adore them and are become guilty of idolatry and the vilest abasements to which crimes if the former be not obnoxious yet they expose themselves to manifest dangers For even compelled divels doe watch to the intent they may alwaies deceive us in our errours From this Sect or rather sinke of the Goeticks have issued all these books of darknesse c. excogitated by men of deplored wits Which books to him that more acutely looks into them and into the canon of their precepts the custome of rites the kind of words and characters the order of extruction and the insulsate phrase doe openly bewray themselves to containe nothing else but mere toyes and impostures and to be pulcht up in latin Hims by the forlorne artificers of perdition ignorant of all ancient Magick out of certain profane observations mixt with the ceremonies of our religion many unknown names and seales inserted that they might terrifie the rude and simple and be an amazement to the sencelesse and such as know not good Letters But this is the reason why these Goeticks onely make use of evill spirits because good Angels will hardly appeare for they expect the command of God and assemble not but with men of clean heart and holy life but the evill ones easily exhibite themselves to be invoked falsly favouring and belying a divinity are alwaies at hand to deceive by their subtilty to the intent they may be worshipped and adored Many think that Theurgie is not unlawfull as if this were governed by good Angels and a divine power when as very often under the names of God and Angels it is obstringed with the fallacies of evill spirits Of this schoole are the art Almadel the art Noterie the Pauline art the art of Revelations and many more of the same superstition which are so much the more pernicious as to the unskilfull they seem the more divine The Cabalie is an art as is reported very ancient and yet the name hath not been known among Christians but of later times This art of Cabalie which the Hebrews so boast of I sometimes have searched with much labour and I finde and confesse it to be nothing else but a meer rapsodie of superstition a certain theurgicall magick but if proceeding from God as the Jews boast it any whit conduced to the perfection of life to the salvation of men to the worship of God to the understanding of the truth verily that Spirit of truth which the Synagogue rejected came unto us to teach us all truth would not have concealed it from his Church until these last times which truly knoweth all things that are of God But that we try and see that by the revolutions as they call them of this art wonderful sentences of great mysteries are wrested out of sacred Letters the whole is nothing else but a certain playing upon Allegories which idle men busied in every letter point and number which this tongue and the manner of writing easily suffer do feign refeigne at their pleasure Therefore this Cabalie of the Iewes is nothing else but a certaine pernicious superstition which collecteth divideth transferreth words and names and letters scatteringly placed in the Scripture and as they list making one thing of another they dissolve the parts of truth the speeches the inductions and making parables here and there of their own fictions they would adopt unto them the words of God defaming the Scriptures saying that their figments do consist of them they calumniate the Law of God by their impudently extorted supputations of dictions syllables letters numbers they attempt to inferre violent and blasphemous proofe of their perfidiousnesse Furthermore being puft up with these trifles they boast themselves to finde out and to know the ineffable mysteries of God and secrets that are above the Scriptures by which they are not ashamed to lie with great boldnesse and without blushing that they themselves can prophecy and work miracles and mighty works But let us return unto Magick parcell where of is the artifice of prestigious things that is of illusions which are only done according to appearance by which Magicians shew phantasms play many miracles by circulatory frauds and cause dreams which is done not so much by Goeticall incantations imprecations and deceits of devils as also by certain vapors of perfumes lights phyltres collyries alligations and suspensions and besides by rings images glasses and such like drugs and instruments of magicall art and by a naturall and celestiall vertue Also many things are done by a prompt subtlety and industry of hand of which sort we see some are done daily by Stageplayers and juglers which therefore we call Chirosophists that is slight-handed And now by what hath been said it is plaine that Magick is nothing else but a collection or compact of idolatry Astrologie and superstitious Medicine And now also there is by Magicians a great company of Hereticks risen up in the Church who as Iannes and Iambres resisted Moses so have they resisted the Apostolicall truth All this is uttered against them by one Arch magician I mean Cornelius Agrippa not a little to the like effect might be collected out of another of them namely Johannes Trithemius yea undoubtedly he that had but the opportunity to peruse their Authors old and of late needs for their confutation to urge them with no more then their own confession Onely I would aske of them this one thing what doe they think of this one Magician for this one act of his Whether doe they conceive him in charity to have thus confessed retracted recanted repented returned c. or doe they uncharitably account him for it to be humorous cynicall satyricall invective distracted mad male content c And whether for this one undertaking of his will they have him called a Philosopher a Daemon an Heroe a God all things or nothing Does not he himselfe tell us what kind of censure he suspects from all kinds of Mag-astro-mancers Alas quoth he with how many of their machinations will they oppugne me with how many devices will they assaile me with what ignominies will they persecute me The impious Mathematician will prescribe me both earth and heaven The sortilegious Pythagorist will suppute for me unlucky numbers The pointing Geomantick will cast unhappy figures