Book I.

46
civet-cat, also, abounds with sorceries ; for the posts of a door being touched with her blood, the arts of jugglers and sorcerers are so invalid that evil spirits can by no means be called up, or compelled to talk with them : — This is Pliny’s report. Also, those that are anointed with the oil of her left foot, being boiled with the ashes of the ancle bone of the same and the blood of a weasel, shall become odious to all. The same, also, is to be done with the eye being decocted. If any one hath a little of the strait-gut of this animal about him, and it is bound to the left arm, it is a charm ; that if he does but look upon a woman, it will cause her to follow him at all opportunities ; and the skin of this animal’s forehead withstands witchcraft.
We next come to speak of the blood of a basilisk, which magicians call the blood of Saturn. — This procures (by its virtue) for him that carries it about him, good success of petitions from great men ; likewise makes him amazingly successful in the cure of diseases, and the grant of any privilege. They say, also, that a tike, if it be taken out of the left ear of a dog, and it be altogether black, if the sick person shall answer him that brought it in, and who, standing at his feet, shall ask him concerning his disease, there is certain hope of life ; and that he shall die if he make him no answer. They say, also, that a stone bitten by a mad dog causes discord, if it be put into drinks ; and if any one shall put the tongue of a dog, dried, into his shoe, or some of the powder, no dog is able to bark at him who hath it ; and more powerful this, if the herb hound’s-tongue be put with it. And the membrane of the secundine of a bitch does the same ; likewise, dogs will not bark at him who hath the heart of a dog in his pocket.
The red toad (Pliny says) living in briers and brambles, is full of sorceries, and is capable of wonderful things : there is a little bone in his left side, which being cast into cold water, makes it presently hot ; by which, also, the rage of ■dogs are restrained, and their love procured, if it be put in their drink, making them faithful and serviceable ; if it be bound to a woman, it stirs up lust. On the contrary, the bone which is on the right side makes hot wrater cold, and it binds it so that no heat can make it hot while it there remains. It is a •certain cure for quartans, if it be bound to the sick in a snake’s skin ; and like-
wise
Chap. X. NATURAL MAGIC. 47
wise cures all fevers, the St. Anthony’s fire, and restrains love and lust. And the spleen and heart are effectual antidotes against the poisons of the said toad. Thus much Pliny writes.
Also it is said, that the sword with which a man is slain hath wonderful power ; for if the snaffle of a bridle, or bit, or spurs, be made of it, with these a horse ever so wild is tamed, and made gentle and obedient. They say, if we dip a sword, with which any one was beheaded, in wine, that it cures the quartan, the sick being given to drink of it. There is a liquor made, by which men are made as raging and furious as a bear, imagining themselves in every respect to be changed into one ; and this is done by dissolving or boiling the brains and heart of that animal in new wine, and giving any one to drink out of a skull, and, while the force of the draught operates, he will fancy every living creature to be a bear like to himself ; neither can any thing divert or cure him till the fumes and virtue of the liquor are entirely expended, no other distemper being perceivable in him.
The most certain cure of a violent head-ache, is to take any herb growing upon the top of the head of an image ; the same being bound, or hung about one with a red thread, it will soon allay the violent pain thereof.
OF MAGICAL LIGHTS, CANDLES, LAMPS, &c.
There are made, artificially, some kinds of lamps, torches, candles,, and the like, of some certain and appropriate materials and liquors opportunely gathered and collected for this purpose, which, when they are lighted and shine alone, produce some wonderful effects. There is a poison from mares, after copulation, which, being lighted in torches composed of their fat and marrow, doth represent on the walls a monstrous deformity of horses’ heads, which thing is both easy and pleasant to do : the like may be done of asses and flies. And the skin of a serpent or snake, lighted in a green lamp, makes the images of the same to appear ; and grapes produce the same effect, if, when they are
in
NATURAL MAGIC.
48 NATURAL MAGIC. Book I.
in their flowers, you shall take a phial, and bind it to them, filled with oil, and shall let them remain so till they are ripe, and then the oil be lighted in a lamp, you shall see a prodigious quantity of grapes ; and the same in other fruits. If centaury be mixed with honey and the blood of a lapwing, and be put in a lamp, they that stand about will be of a gigantic stature ; and if it be lighted in a clear evening, the stars will seem scattered about.
The ink of the cuttle-fish being put into a lamp, makes Blackamoors appear. So, also, a candle made of some saturnine things, such as man’s fat and marrow, the fat of a black cat, with the brains of a crow or raven, which being extin- guished in the mouth of a man lately dead, will afterwards, as often as it shines alone, bring great horror and fear upon the spectators about it.
Of such like torches , candles , lamps , &c., (of which we shall speak further in our Book of Magnetism and Mummies) Hermes speaks largely of ; also Plato and Chyrannides ; and, of the later writers,, Albertus Magnus makes particular mention of the truth and efficacy of these, in a treatise on these particular things relative to lights, &c.
OF THE ART OF FASCINATION, OR BINDING BY THE LOOK OR SIGHT.
We call fascination a binding, because it is effected by a look, glance, or observation, in which we take possession of the spirit, and overpower the same, of those we mean to fascinate or suspend ; for it comes through the eyes, and the instrument by which we fascinate or bind is a certain, pure, lucid, subtil spirit, generated out of the ferment of the purer blood by the heat of the heart, and the firm, determined, and ardent will of the soul which directs it to the object previously disposed to be fascinated. This doth always send forth by the eyes rays or beams, carrying with them a pure subtil spirit or vapour into the eye or blood of him or her that is opposite. So the eye, being opened and intent upon any one with a strong imagination, doth dart its beams, which are the
vehicle
Chap. X. NATURAL MAGIC. 49
vehicle of the spirit, into whatever we will affect or bind, which spirit striking the eye of them who are fascinated, being stirred up in the heart and soul of him that sends them forth, and possessing the breast of them who are struck, wounds their hearts, infects their spirits, and overpowers them.
Know, likewise, that in witches, those are most bewitched, who, with often looking, direct the edge of their sight to the edge of the sight of those who bewitch or fascinate them ; whence arose the saying of “ Evil eyes, &c.” For when their eyes are reciprocally bent one upon the other, and are joined beams to beams, and lights to lights, then the spirit of the one is joined to the spirit of the other, and then are strong ligations made ; and most violent love is stirred up, only with a sudden looking on, as it were, with the darting a look, or piercing into the very inmost of the heart, whence the spirit and amorous blood, being thus wounded, are carried forth upon the lover, and enchanter ; no otherwise than the spirit and the blood of him that is murdered is upon the murderer, who, if standing near the body killed, the blood flows afresh, which thing has been tried by repeated experiments.
So great power is there in fascination that many uncommon and wonderful things are thereby effected, especially when the vapours of the eyes are sub- servient to the affection ; therefore collyries, ointments, alligations, &c. are used to affect and corroborate the spirit in this or that manner : to induce love, they use venereal collyriums, as hippomanes, blood of doves, &c. To induce fear, they use martial collyriums, as the eyes of wolves, bear’s fat, and the civet-cat. To procure misery, or sickness, they use saturnine, and so on.
Thus much we have thought proper to speak concerning Natural Magic, in which we have, as it may be said, only opened the first chamber of Nature’s storehouse ; indeed we should have inserted many more things here , but as they fall more properly under the heads of Magnetism , Mummy, &c., to which we refer the reader, we shall take our leave of the reader for the present, that we may give him time to breathe, likewise to digest what he has here feasted upon ; and, while he is preparing to enter the unlocked chambers