Agrippa: The Philosophy of Natural Magic, Chapter LI — Of Certain Observations, Producing Wonderful Virtues · 1 of 2 · tr. Henry Morley; L. W. de Laurence ed.
Chapter LI, Section 1a
CHAPTER LI.
Of Certain Observations, Producing Wonderful Virtues .
They say that certain acts and observations have a certain power of natural things; that they believe diseases may be expelled, or brought thus and thus.
So they say that quartanes may be driven away if the parings of the nails of the sick be bound to the neck of a live eel, in a linen cloth, and she be let go into the water.
And Pliny saith that the parings of a sick man's nails of his feet and hands being mixed with wax, cure the quartan, tertian, and quotidian ague; and if they be before Sunrising fastened to another man's gate, will cure such like diseases.
In like manner, let all the parings of the nails be put into the caves of ants, and the first ant that begins to draw at the parings must be taken and bound to the neck of the sick, and by this means will the disease be cured.
They say that by wood, stricken with lightning, and cast behind the back with one's hands, any disease may be removed; and, in quartanes, a piece of a nail from a gibbet, wrapped up in wool, and hung about the neck, cures them; also, a rope doth the like that is taken from a gallows and hid under ground so that the Sun cannot reach it.
The throat of him that hath a hard swelling, or imposthume, being touched with the hand of him that died by an immature death, will be cured thereby.
They say, also, that a woman is presently eased of her hard labor if any one shall put into her bed a stone or dart with which a boar or a bear or man hath been killed with one blow.
The same doth a spear that is pulled out of the body of a man, if it shall not first touch the ground; also, they say, that arrows, pulled out of the body of a man, if they have not touched the earth, taken and stealthily placed under any one lying down, will procure love.
The falling sickness is cured by meat made of the flesh of a wild beast, slain in the same manner as a man is slain.
A man's eyes that are washed three times with the water wherein he hath washed his feet shall never be sore or blear.
It is said that some do cure diseases of the groin with thread taken out of a weaver's loom and tying into it seven or nine knots, the name of some widow being named at every knot.
The spleen of cattle, extended upon painful spleens, cures them if he that applies it saith that he is applying a medicine to the spleen to cure and ease it.
After this, they say, the patient must be shut into a sleeping room, the door being sealed up with a ring, and some verse be repeated over nineteen times.
The water of a green lizard cures the same disease if it be hanged up in a vessel before the patient's bed-chamber so that he may, as he passes in and out, touch it with his hand.
And a little frog climbing up a tree, if any one shall spit in his mouth, and then let him escape, is said to cure the cough.
It is a wonderful thing, but easy to experience, that Pliny speaks of, that if any one shall be sorry for any blow that he hath given another, afar off or nigh at hand, if he shall presently spit into the middle of that hand with which he gave the blow, the party that was smitten shall presently be freed from pain.
This hath been approved of in a four-footed beast that hath been sorely hurt.
Some there are that aggravate the blow before they give it.
§ Ask Guru about this passage →Themes
Cosmic Sympathycosmology
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 efficacy of actions performed on one object (eel, nail) is believed to resonate with the sick person's condition.
All passages →Word Power Incantationpraxis
The doctrine and practice that spoken or sung word carries causal-magical force — that uttering names, formulas, songs, or incantations alters reality directly rather than merely communicating about it. Vainamoinen's runo-songs that move mountains and command iron, Norse galdr, Vedic mantra, Shinto kotodama, the magician's barbarous names in the Greek Magical Papyri, Iamblichean arcane signatures and inexplicable symbols, biblical creation-by-word. Distinct from sacred_names (the ontological power of names themselves) and prayer (address to the divine); word_power_incantation is the magical-causal efficacy of the spoken word as such.
The repetition of a verse nineteen times is presented as a magical formula to induce change in the patient's state.
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