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and others in the light of the sun, or some other celestial body." The whole, however, of this kind of divination of which you now speak, since it is multiform, may be comprehended in one power, which may be called the eduction of light.[1] But this illuminates with divine light the etherial and luciform vehicle[2] with which the soul is surrounded, from which divine visions occupy our phantastic power, these visions being excited by the will of the Gods. For the whole life of the soul and all the powers that are in it, being in subjection to the Gods, are moved in such a way as the Gods, the leaders of the soul, please.
- ↑ "The Platonists," says Psellus (ad Nazianzenum) "assert that light is spread under divine substances, and is rapidly seized, without any difficulty, by some who possess such an excellent nature as that which fell to the lot of Socrates and Plotinus. But others, at certain periods, experience a mental alienation about the light of the moon."
- ↑ Concerning this vehicle, in which the phantastic power resides, see vol. ii. of my translation of Proclus on the Timæus of Plato, p. 407; the Introduction to my translation of Aristotle on the Soul; and the long extract from Synesius on Dreams, in vol. ii. of my Proclus on Euclid.
πραγματος ουκ ελαθεν ημας. i.e. "There was a sacred woman who possessed in a wonderful manner a divinely gifted nature. For pouring pure water into a certain glass cup, she saw in the water that was within the cup the luminous appearances of future events, and from the view of these she entirely predicted what would happen. But of this experiment we also are not ignorant."
