174.This (saith he) commeth to the unlearned, through the opinion which they conceive of the characters and holie words: but the learned that know the force of the mind and imagination, worke miracles by meanes thereof; so as the unlearned must have externall helps, to doo that which the learned can doo with a word onelie. He saith that this is called Homerica medicatio, bicause Homer discovered the bloud of the word suppressed, and the infections healed by or in mysteries.
The xiii. Chapter.241.
Of the effects of amulets, the drift of Argerius Ferrarius in the commendation of charmes, &c: foure sorts of Homericall medicines, & the choice thereof; of imagination.
S touching mine opinion of these amulets, characters, and such other bables, I have sufficientlie uttered it elsewhere: and I will bewraie the vanitie of these superstitious trifles more largelie hereafter. And therefore at this time I onelie saie, that those amulets, which are to be hanged or carried about one, if they consist of hearbs, rootes, stones, or some other metall, they maie have diverse medicinable operations; and by the vertue given to them by God in their creation, maie worke strange effects and cures: and to impute this vertue to anie other matter is witchcraft. And whereas A. Ferrarius commendeth certeine amulets, that have no shew of physicall operation; as a naile taken from a crosse, holie water, and the verie signe of the crosse, with such like popish stuffe: I thinke he laboureth thereby rather to draw men to poperie, than to teach or persuade them in the truth of physicke or philosophie. And I thinke thus the rather, for that he himselfe seeth the fraud hereof; confessing that where these magicall physicians applie three seeds of three leaved grasse to a tertian ague, and foure to a quartane, that the number is not materiall.
But of these Homericall medicinesFoure sorts of Homericall medicines, and which is the principall. he saith there are foure sorts, whereof amulets, characters, & charmes are three: howbeit he commendeth and preferreth the fourth above the rest; and that he saith consisteth in illusions, which he more properlie calleth stratagems. Of which sort of conclusions he alledgeth for example, how Philodotus did put a cap of lead upon ones head, who imagined he was headlesse, whereby the partie was delivered from his disease or conceipt. Item another cured a woman that imagined, that a serpent or snake did continuallie gnaw and/242. teare hir entrailes; and that was done onelie by giving hir a vomit, and by foisting into the matter vomited a little serpent or snake, like unto that which she imagined was in hir bellie.
Item,The force of fixed fansie, opinion, or strong conceipt. another imagined that he alwaies burned in the fier, under whose bed a fier was privilie conveied, which being raked out before his face, his fancie was satisfied, and his heate allaied. Hereunto perteineth, that the hickot is cured with sudden feare or strange newes: yea by that meanes agues and manie other strange and extreame diseases have beene healed. And some that have lien so sicke and sore of the gowt, that they could not remove a joint, through sudden feare of fier, or ruine/175. of houses, have forgotten their infirmities and greefes, and have runne awaie. But in my tract upon melancholie, and the effects of imagination, and in the discourse of naturall magicke, you shall see these matters largelie touched.
The xiiii. Chapter.
Choice of Charmes against the falling evill, the biting of a mad dog, the stinging of a scorpion, the toothach, for a woman in travell, for the Kings evill, to get a thorne out of any member, or a bone out of ones throte, charmes to be said fasting, or at the gathering of hearbs, for sore eies, to open locks, against spirits, for the bots in a horsse, and speciallie for the Duke of Albas horsse, for sowre wines, &c.
