Vid. de inject. mater. 601, 602.
2. Helmont holdeth, “that every man, in respect that they have been partakers of the image of God, hath power to create certain entities, by the power of imagination, and that these conceived Ideas do cloath themselves with a body in the shape of the image fabricated in the imagination, and it is by these that those strange things are effected, that are falsly attributed to Demons.” And that man solely hath this power. Which (if his argument be well grounded) doth prove plainly, that these strange effects are brought to pass by the sole power of the phantasie of the person imaginant, or using the charms, and neither by the power of the Devil nor of the charms.
Argum. 3.
De occulta Philos. lib. 3. c. 40 p. 419, & p. 137.
Of Credul. and Incredul. p. 110.
3. The argument to prove these things by, that they are brought to pass by the strength of imagination, used by Cornelius Agrippa, is this: Non mediocri experientia (ait) comprobatum est, insitam a natura homini, quandam dominandi, & ligandi vim. And that there is an active terror in man, (if it be rightly resuscitated in him, and that he know how to direct and make use of it) impressed in him by the Creator, which is as it were a terrifical character and signacle of God instamped upon man, by which all creatures do fear, and reverence man, as the image of his Creator, and as by the law of creation, to be Lord, and to bear rule over them all. And here I cannot but mention that lepid (though tedious & ludicrous) tale that Dr. Casaubon gives us of an horse-rider called John Young, “that could tame the most fierce Bulls and unruly Horses, as also by pipeing to make the most couragious and fierce Mastiff to lie close down and to be quiet, by the force of his imagination and charms. And this John Young’s Philosophy was agreeable to this of Agrippa’s, to wit, That all creatures were made by God, for the use of Man and to be subject unto him; and that if men did use their power rightly, any man might do what he did.” Fides sit apud authorem.
Argum. 4.
Vid. Thom. Fien. de virib. imagin. Quæst. 12. p. 202. &c.
4. Avicenna, Algazel, Alkindus, Marsilius Ficinus, Jacobus de Forluio, Pomponatius Paracelsus and others, do sometimes hold, “that the Soul (the sensitive and corporeal it must be understood) not by a nude apprehension, or meer impery, but by the emission of spirits (or corporeal beams, as we have shewed before) do work upon external bodies, and so move and alter them. Sometimes they hold, that the whole Soul (sensitive must be meant) doth go quite forth of the Body, and wander into far distant places, and there not only see what things are done, but also to act something it self.” And to this opinion (only meaning of the immortal, and immaterial Soul) Dr. Moore and Mr. Glanvil do seem to agree, namely that the Soul may for a time depart forth of its Body, and return again. And to prove this the argument of Avicen is this: Superior things (he saith) have dominion over the inferior, and the Intelligences do rule and change corporeal things. And that the Soul is a spiritual and separable substance. And therefore after the same manner, may act in corporeal things, and change them as may be seen at large, with responsions in the book of Fienus.
Now we come to the third and last opinion of those that positively hold, that there is a force in words and characters (if rightly framed) to effect strange things withal, and this is as strongly denied by many. Therefore we shall only offer the most convincing arguments, that we meet withal, and leave it to the censure of others, and that in this order.