Agrippa: The Philosophy of Natural Magic, Chapter XLV — Of Collyries, Unctions, Love-Medicines, and Their Virtues · 1 of 2 · tr. Henry Morley; L. W. de Laurence ed.
Chapter XLV, Section 1a
CHAPTER XLV.
Of Collyries, Unctions, Love-Medicines, and Their Virtues .
Moreover , collyries and unguents, conveying the virtues of things natural and celestial to our spirit, can multiply, transmute, transfigure, and transform it accordingly, as also transpose those virtues which are in them into it; that so, it cannot act only upon its own body, but also upon that which is near it, and affect that by visible rays, charms, and by touching it with some like quality.
For because our spirit is the subtile, pure, lucid, airy, and unctuous vapor of the blood, it is therefore fit to make collyries of the like vapors, which are more suitable to our spirit in substance, for then, by reason of their likeness, they do the more stir up, attract, and transform the spirit.
The like virtues have certain ointments and other confections.
Hence by the touch sometimes sickness, poisonings, and love is induced; some things, as the hands or garments, being anointed.
Also by kisses, some things being held in the mouth, love is induced; as in Virgil we read that Venus prays Cupid That when glad Dido hugs him in her lap At royal feasts, crown’d with the cheering grape, When she, embracing, shall sweet kisses give, Inspire hid flame, with deadly bane deceive, He would—— Now the sight, because it perceives more purely and clearly than the other senses, and fastening in us the marks of things more acutely and deeply, doth most of all and before others, agree with the phantastic spirit, as is apparent in dreams, when things seen do more often present themselves to us than things heard, or any thing coming under the other senses.
Therefore, when collyries or eye-waters transform visual spirits, that spirit doth easily affect the imagination, which indeed being affected with divers species and forms, transmits the same by the spirit unto the outward sense of sight; by which occasion there is caused in it a perception of such species and forms in that manner, as if it were moved by external objects, that there seem to be seen terrible images and spirits and such like.
So there are made collyries, making us forthwith to see the images of spirits in the air or elsewhere; as I know how to make of the gall of a man, and the eyes of a black cat, and of some other things.
The like is made also of the blood of a lapwing, of a bat, and a goat; and, they say, if a smooth, shining piece of steel be smeared over with the juice of mug-wort, and made to fume, it will make invoked spirits to be seen in it.
So, also, there are some suffumigations, or unctions, which make men speak in their sleep, to walk, and to do those things which are done by men that are awake; and sometimes to do those things which men that are awake cannot or dare not do.
Some there are that make us to hear horrid or delectable sounds, and such like.
And this is the cause why maniacal and melancholy men believe they see and hear those things without which their imagination doth only fancy within; hence they fear things not to be feared, and fall into wonderful and most false suspicions, and fly when none pursueth them; are also angry and contend, nobody being present, and fear where no fear is.
Such like passions also can magical confections induce, by suffumigations, by collyries, by unguents, by potions, by poisons, by lamps and lights, by looking-glasses, by images, enchantments, charms, sounds and music.
The universal fluid or medium of occult philosophy — Lévi's Great Magical Agent — that transmits will, thought, and magical influence between minds and matter, and preserves the impress of all forms and actions as a book of consciences; cognate with akasha and the anima mundi. Distinct from cosmic_sympathy (a doctrine of hidden affinity) in being a substantival medium that can be charged, directed, and abused.
The spirit is described as a 'subtile, pure, lucid, airy, and unctuous vapor' that can be charged with celestial virtues and transmit forms and species to the imagination, functioning as a medium through which magical influence passes between substances and the spirit.
The Hermetic axiom that the structure of the cosmos is reflected at every scale — 'as above, so below; as within, so without' — making each level a legible map of the others.
The passage explicitly grounds magical operation in likeness: 'by reason of their likeness, they do the more stir up, attract, and transform the spirit,' making each level a legible map of the others through qualitative similarity.
The Stoic and Plotinian doctrine that all parts of the cosmos are bound by hidden affinities, so that a movement in one part resonates through the whole; the metaphysical basis for astrology, magic, and divination.
The passage states that the spirit can affect nearby objects by visible rays and transmute virtues into them through likeness.
A non-physical dimension of reality, interpenetrating the physical world, populated by forces, beings, and forms ordinarily imperceptible to physical senses and instruments, that can affect embodied life without being seen — Dion Fortune's 'mind-side of nature,' the astral plane of Western esotericism broadly construed. Distinct from astral_light (a specific transmitting medium or fluid operating within this realm, not the realm itself), pleroma (the divine fullness at the summit of a cosmic hierarchy, not a parallel plane coextensive with ordinary life), and animism (particular indwelling spirits bound to specific natural objects, not the general unseen dimension itself).
The passage describes spirits visible in the air, the phantastic spirit, visual spirits that can be transformed, and the ability to perceive non-physical images through collyries, establishing a non-physical dimension interpenetrating the physical world.
A temporary mental construct given visible form on the astral plane by directed imagination — ordinarily without independent life, and dispellable by the same imaginative act that made it, unless invocation of elemental essence or projection of the maker's own force gives it sufficient sustained power to resist unmaking, at which point it escalates into an artificial_elemental. Distinct from artificial_elemental (the escalated, quasi-independently-alive entity this concept precedes and can turn into) and astral_light (the ambient medium in which a thought-form is formulated, not the construct itself).
The passage describes how the imagination, when affected by collyries, transmits 'species and forms' that produce perceptions 'as if it were moved by external objects, that there seem to be seen terrible images and spirits' — mental constructs given visible form that appear external.