Page:Hermetic and Alchemical Writings of Paracelsus Vol I (IA cu31924092287121).djvu/138

Lastly, since I would not pass over or omit any word in favour of electrum, it is a preservation and an antidote against evil spirits. There is latent in it an operation and a conjunction of planetary influence which make us the more easily believe that the old Magi in Persia and Chaldæa attempted and accomplished much by its aid. If we sought to enumerate all the cases specifically, we should indeed enter upon a marvellous chronicle. Not, however, to give any occasion of offence or allow persons to make a handle of this, it will suffice to have touched the subject in few words. The Sophists, who are my deadliest enemies, would not hesitate to proclaim me Arch-Necromancer. But I cannot refrain from telling a miracle which I saw in Spain when I was at the house of a certain necromancer. He had a bell weighing, perhaps, two pounds, and by a stroke of this bell he used to summon, and to bring, too, visions of many different spectres and spirits. In the interior of the bell he had engraved certain words and characters, and as soon as the sound and tinkle were heard, spirits appeared in any form he desired. Moreover, the stroke of this bell was so powerful that he produced in the midst many visions of spirits, of men, and even of cattle, whatever he wished, and then drove them away again. I saw many instances of this, but what I particualarly noticed was that when he was going to do anything new, he renewed and changed the characters and the names. I did not, however, get so far as to induce this man to impart to me the secret and mystery of the names and characters. At length I began to speculate more thoroughly about this circumstance; and there came into my mind — ideas which we will pass over in silence here. There was more in that bell than one can put into words; and of this be very sure, that the material of which it was composed was this electrum of ours. You will therefore have no difficulty in believing that Virgil's bell (Nola) was of such a kind as this. At its stroke all the adulterers and adulteresses in the king's palace were so excited and alarmed that suddenly, as if struck with lightning, they rushed over the bridge into the river. Think not this story a mere fable: the thing really happened. Nor be so dense as to hesitate as to whether such properties can exist. For if, as you know to be the case, a visible man can call another visible man to him by a word, and force him to do what he wants — when a mere word, without the aid of arms, can effect so much, much more can it be that an invisible man can do this, since he commands both the visible and the invisible man, not by the aid of a word, but by the direction of his thought. The inferior always obeys the superior, and stands to him in the light of a subject. So, then, you will easily come round to our opinion if you settle it that the interior or invisible man is a kind of constellation or firmament. For he remains latent in the senses and thoughts of the exterior, visible man, and discloses or reveals himself only by imagination. You will concede, therefore, that there are stars in man and that their constellation is so arranged by the Olympian spirit that the man can be led and changed into quite another man. So, then, I say that