Chapter VI, Section 1c

For the species of things, although of their own proper nature they are carried to the senses of men, and other animals in general, may notwithstanding get some impression from the Heaven whilst they be in the Air, by reason of which, together with the aptness and disposition of him that receives them, they may be carried to the sense of one rather than of another. And hence it is possible naturally, and far from all manner of superstition, no other spirit coming between, that a man should be able in a very little time to signify his mind unto another man abiding at a very long and unknown distance from him; although he cannot precisely give an estimate of the time when it is, yet of necessity it must be within twenty-four hours; and I myself know how to do it, and have often done it. The same also in time past did the Abbot Trithemius both know and do. Also, when certain appearances, not only spiritual but also natural, do flow forth from things (that is to say, by a certain kind of flowing forth of bodies from bodies and do gather strength in the Air), they offer and show themselves to us as well through light as motion, as well to the sight as to other senses, and sometimes work wonderful things upon us, as Plotinus proves and teacheth. And we see how by the south wind the Air is condensed into thin clouds, in which, as in a looking-glass, are reflected representations at a great distance of castles, mountains, horses and men and other things which, when the clouds are gone, presently vanish. And Aristotle, in his Meteors, shows that a rainbow is conceived in a cloud of the Air, as in a looking-glass. And Albertus saith that the effigies of bodies may, by the strength of nature, in a moist Air be easily represented, in the same manner as the representations of things are in things. And Aristotle tells of a man to whom it happened, by reason of the weakness of his sight, that the Air that was near to him became, as it were, a looking-glass to him, and the optic beam did reflect back upon himself, and could not penetrate the Air, so that whithersoever he went he thought he saw his own image, with his face towards him, go before him. In like manner, by the artificialness of some certain looking-glasses, may be produced at a distance in the Air, beside the looking-glasses, what images we please; which when ignorant men see, they think they see the appearances of spirits, or souls; when, indeed, they are nothing else but semblances kin to themselves, and without life. And it is well known, if in a dark place where there is no light but by the coming in of a beam of the sun somewhere through a little hole, a white paper or plain looking-glass be set up against that light, that there may be seen upon them whatsoever things are done without, being shined upon by the sun. And there is another sleight or trick yet more wonderful: If any one shall take images artificially painted, or written letters, and in a clear night set them against the beams of the full moon, whose resemblances, being multiplied in the Air, and caught upward, and reflected back together with the beams of the moon, any other man that is privy to the thing, at a long distance sees, reads and knows them in the very compass and circle of the moon; which Art of declaring secrets is indeed very profitable for towns and cities that are besieged, being a thing which Pythagoras long since did often do, and which is not unknown to some in these days; I will not except myself. And all these and many more, and greater than these, are grounded in the very nature of the Air, and have their reasons and causes declared in mathematics and optics.