IV. These speculative principles appear to have been

united with some form of practical magic. Now magic is
a term which conjures up into the mind of the ordinary
reader some hazy notions either of gross imposture or
diabolical compacts and hellish rites ; it seems necessary,
therefore, to state what it really was in the opinions of
those who professed it. According to Paracelsus, magic is
that great and hidden wisdom which discovers the interior
constitution of everything. " It teaches the true nature of
the inner man as well as the organization of his outward
body." It includes " a knowledge of visible and invisible
nature." It is the only true teacher of the art of healing. If
physicians possessed it, their books might be burnt and their
medicines be thrown into the ocean. " Magic and sorcery
are two entirely different things, and there is as much dif-
ference between them as there is between light and dark-
ness, and between white and black." The same authority

1 Robertas de Fluctibus, "Apologia Compendiana Fraternitateir*
de Rosea Cruce."

206 HISTORY OF THE ROS1CRUCIANS.

teaches that the great agent in magic is the imagination
confirmed by that faith which perfects will-power, and that
the imagination thus strengthened can create its own ob-
jects. " Man has a visible and invisible workshop. The
visible one is his body ; the invisible one his imagination.
. . . The imagination is a sun in the soul of man, acting in
its own sphere as the sun of the earth acts in his. Wher-
ever the latter shines, germs planted in the soil grow, and
vegetation springs up ; and the sun of the soul acts in a
similar manner, and calls the forms of the soul into exist-
ence. . . . The spirit is the master, imagination the tool,
and the body the plastic material. Imagination is the
power by which the will forms sidereal entities out of
thoughts. It is not fancy, which latter is the corner-stone
of superstition and foolishness. . . . The power of the
imagination is a great factor in medicine. It may produce
diseases in man and in animals, and it may cure them." l
This theory covers all the phenomena of visions, ecstacies,
evocations, and other pseudo-miracles, recognising that they
are facts, and accounting for the futility of their results.