1. Though we generally take death to be a perfect separation of the Soul from the Body, which is most certainly a great truth, yet when this is certainly brought to pass, is a most difficult point to ascertain, because that when the Soul ceases to operate in the Body so as to be perceived by our Senses, it will not follow, that therefore the Soul is absolutely departed and separated.
Observ. Medic. p. 617, 618.
2. It is manifest that many persons through this mistake have in the times of the Plague been buried quick, and so have some Women been dealt withal that lay but in fits of the suffocation of the Womb, and yet were taken to be dead. So that from the judgment of our Senses, no certain conclusion can be made that the Soul is totally departed, because it goeth away invisibly; for many that not only to the judgment of the vulgar, but even in the opinion of learned Physicians, have been accounted dead, yet have revived, as learned Schenckius hath furnished us with this story from Georgius Pictorius, “that a certain Woman lay in a fit of the Strangulation of the Womb, for six continual days without sense or motion, the arteries being grown hard, ready to be buried, and yet revived again, and from Paræus of some that have lain three days in Hysterical suffocations, and yet have recovered, and of divers others that may be seen in the place quoted in the Margent.
3. So that though the organs of the Body may by divers means, either natural or violent, be rendered so unfit, that the Soul cannot perform its accustomed functions in them, or by them, so as they may be perceptible to our senses, or judgments; yet will not that at all conclude, that the Soul is separated, and departed quite from the Body, much less can we be able to define or set down the precise time of the Souls aboad in the Body, nor the ultimate period when it must depart, for the union may be (and doubtless is) more strong in some than in others, and the Lamp of life far sooner and more easily to be quenched in some than in others. And the Soul may have a far greater amorosity to stay in some Body that is lively, sweet, and young, than in others that are already decaying and beginning to putrifie, and it may in all probability both have power and desire to stay longer in that lovesome habitation, from whence it is driven away by force, especially that it may satisfie it self in discovering of the murderer, the most cruel and inhumane disjoyner of that loving pair that God had divinely coupled together, and to see it self, before its final departure, in a hopeful way to be revenged.
4. If we physically consider the union of the Soul with the Body by the mediation of the Spirit, then we cannot rationally conceive that the Soul doth utterly forsake that union, untill by putrefaction, tending to an absolute mutation, it be forced to bid farewel to its beloved Tabernacle; for its not operating ad extra to our senses, doth not necessarily inferr its total absence. And it may be that there is more in that of Abels blood crying unto the Lord from the ground, in a Physical sense, than is commonly conceived, and God may in his just judgment suffer the Soul to stay longer in the murthered Body, that the cry of blood may make known the murtherer, or may not so soon, for the same reason, call it totally away.
Explic. Astro. p. 654.
There is another kind of supposed Apparitions, that are believed to be done in Beryls, and clear Crystals, and therefore called by Paracelsus Ars Beryllistica, and which he also calls Nigromancy, because it is practised in the dark by the inspection of a Boy or a Maid that are Virgins, and this he strongly affirmeth to be natural and lawful, and only brought to pass by the Sydereal influence, and not at all Diabolical, nor stands in need of any Conjuration, Invocations or Ceremonies, but is performed by a strong faith or imagination. And of this he saith thus: Sed ante omnia (ait) notate proprietatem Beryllorum. Hisunt, in quibus spectantur præterita, præsentia, & futura. Quod nemini admirationi esse debet, ideò, quia sydus influentiæ imaginem, & similitudinem in Crystallum imprimit, similem ei, de quo quæritur. And a little after he saith: Præterea sideribus nota sunt omnia, quæ in natura existunt. Cumq; Astra homini subjecta sint: potest is utiq; illa in subjectum ita cogere, ut voluntati ejus ipsa obsecundent. What truth there may be in this his assertion, I have yet met with no reasons or experiments that can give me satisfaction, and therefore I leave it to every Man to censure as he pleaseth.
Hist.
The only story that seems to carry any credit with it, touching the truth of Apparitions in Crystals, is that which is related of that great and learned Physician Joachimus Camerarius in his Preface before Plutarchs Book De Defectu Oraculorum, from the mouth of Lassarus Spenglerus, a person excellent both for Piety and Prudence, and is, in effect this: “Spengler said, that there was one person of a chief family in Norimberge, an honest and grave Man, whom he thought not fit to name. That one time he came unto him, and brought, wrapt in a piece of Silk, a Crystalline Gemm of a round figure, and said that it was given unto him of a certain stranger, whom many years before, having desired of him entertainment, meeting him in the Market, he took home, and kept him three days with him. And that this gift when he departed, was left him as a sign of a grateful mind, having taught such an use of the Crystal as this. If he desired to be made more certain of any thing, that he should draw forth the glass, and will a male chast Boy to look in it, and should ask of him what he did see? For it should come to pass, that all things that he required, should be shewed to the Boy, and seen in the Apparition. And this Man did affirm, that he was never deceived in any one thing, and that he had understood wonderful things by the boys indication, when none of all the rest did by looking into it, see it to be any thing else but a neat and pure Gemm. He tells a great deal more of it, and that doubtful questions being asked, an answer would appear to be read in the Crystal: but the Man being weary of the use of it, did give it to Spengler, who being a great hater of superstition, did cause it to be broken into small pieces, and so with the Silk in which it was wrapped, threw it into the sink of the House.”
I confess I have heard strange stories of things that have been revealed by these supposed apparitions, from persons both of great worth and learning; but seeking more narrowly into the matter I found them all to be superstitious delusions, fancies, mistakes, cheats and impostures. For the most part the child tells any thing that comes into his fancy, or doth frame and invent things upon purpose, that he never seeth at all, and the inquirers do presently assimilate them to their own thoughts and suspicions. Some that pretended to shew and foretel strange things thereby to get money, have been discovered to have had confederates, that conveied away mens goods into secret places, and gave the cunning Man notice where they were hid, and then was the child taught a straight framed tale, to describe what a like Man took them away, and where they were, which being found brought credit enough to the couzeners, and this I knew was practised by one Brooke and Bolton. Some have had artificial glasses, whereinto they would convey little pictures, as Dr. Lambe had.