Book I.

aloft in a chimney, by the legs, and set under him a dish of yellow wax, to receive whatsoever may come down, or fall from his mouth ; let him hang in this po- sition, in our sight, for three or four days, at least till he is dead ; now we must not omit frequently to be present in sight of the animal, so that his fears and inbred terror of us, with the ideas of strong hatred, may encrease even unto death.
So you have a most powerful remedy in this one toad, for the curing of forty thousand persons infected with the pest or plague.
Van Helmont’s process for making a preservative amulet against the plague is as follows : —
“In the month of July, in the decrease of the moon, I took old toads, whose eyes abounded with white worms hanging forth into black heads, so that both his eyes were totally formed with worms, perhaps fifty in number, thickly compacted together, their heads hanging out ; and as oft as any one of them attempted to get out, the toad, by applying his fore-foot, forbade its utterance. These toads being hung up, and made to vomit in the manner before men- tioned, I reduced the insects and other matters ejected from the toad, with the waxen dish being added thereto ; and the dried carcass of the toad being re- duced into powder I formed the whole into troches, with gum-dragon ; which, being borne about the left breast, drove speedily away all contagion ; and being fast bound to the place affected, thoroughly drew out the poison : and these troches were more potent after they had returned into use divers times than when new. I found them to be a most powerful amulet against the plague ; for if the serpent eateth dust all the days of his life, because he was the instrument of sinning ; so the toad eats earth, (which he vomits up) all the days of his life ; and, according to the Adeptical philosophy, the toad bears an hatred to man, so that he infects some herbs that are useful to man with his poison, in order for his death. But this difference note between the toad and the serpent : the toad, at the sight of man, from a natural quality sealed in him, called antipathy, conceives a great terror or astonishment ; which ter- ror from man imprints on this animal a natural efficacy against the images of the affrighted archeus in man For, truly the terror of the toad kills and anni- hilates
Chap. II. NATURAL MAGIC. 27
hilates the ideas of the affrighted archeus in man, because the terror in the toad is natural, therefore radical.”
F or the poison of the plague is subdued by the poison of the toad, not by an action primarily destructive, but by a secondary action ; as the pestilent idea of hatred or terror extinguishes the ferment, by whose mediation the poison of the plague subsists, and proceeds to infect : for seeing the poison of the plague is the product of the image of the terrified archeus established in a fermental, putrified odour, and mumial air, this coupling ferments the appropriate mean, and immediately the subject of the poison is taken away.
Therefore the opposition of the amulet formed from the body, &c., of the toad, takes away and prevents the baneful and most horrible effects of the pestilential poison and ferment of the plague.
Hence it is conjectured that he is an animal ordained by God, that the idea of his terror being poisonous indeed to himself, should be to us, and to our plague, a poison in terror. Since, therefore, the toad is most fearful at the beholding of man, which in himself, notwithstanding, forms the terror con- ceived from man, and also the hatred against man, into an image and active real being, and not consisting only in a confused apprehension ; hence it happens that a poison ariseth in the toad, which kills the pestilent poison of terror in man ; to wit, from whence the archeus waxeth strong, he not only perceiving the pestilent idea to be extinguished in himself ; but, moreover, because he knoweth that something inferior to himself is terrified, dismayed, and doth fly. Again, so great is the fear of the toad, that if he is placed directly before thee, and thou dost behold with an intentive furious look, so that he cannot avoid thee, for a quarter of an hour, he dies,* being fascinated with terror and astonishment.
* I have tried this experiment upon the toad, and other reptiles of his nature, and was satisfied of the truth of this affirmation.
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NATURAL MAGIC.