Agrippa: The Philosophy of Natural Magic, Chapter LV — How Auspicias Are Verified by the Light of Natural Instinct, and of Some Rules of Finding It Out · 3 of 4 · tr. Henry Morley; L. W. de Laurence ed.
Chapter LV, Section 1c
Many, being much moved with these words, went to see, and so it was, as Apollonius said, at which they much wondered.
Phorphyrius, the Platonist, in his third book of sacrifices, saith that there is certainly a swallow language, because every voice of every animal is significative of some passion of its soul, as joy, sadness, or anger, or the like, which voices, it is not so wonderful a thing, could be understood by men conversant about them.
But Democritus himself declared this art, as saith Pliny, by naming the birds, of whose blood mixed together was produced a serpent, of which whosoever did eat should understand the voices of birds.
And [paragraph continues] Hermes saith that if any one shall go forth to catch birds on a certain day of the Kalends of November, and shall boil the first bird that he catcheth with the heart of a fox, that all that shall eat of this bird shall understand the voices of birds and all other animals.
Also, the Arabians say that they can understand the meaning of brutes who shall eat the heart and liver of a dragon.
Proclus, also, the Platonist, believed and wrote that the heart of a mole conduceth to presages.
There were also divinations and auspices which were taken from the inwards of sacrifices, the inventor whereof was Tages, of whom Lucan sang: And if the Inwards have no credit gained, And if this Art by Tages was but feigned.
The Roman religion thought that the liver was the head of the inwards.
Hence the soothsayers enquiring after future things in the inwards, did first look into the liver, in which were two heads, whereof the one was called the head for the city, the other for the enemy; and the heads of this, or another part, being compared together, they then gave judgment and pronounced for victory; as we read, in Lucan, that the inwards did signify the slaughter of Pompey's men and the victory of Cæsar's, according to these verses: In the inwards all defects are ominous One part and branch of the entrails doth increase, Another part is weak, and flagging lies, Beats, and moves with quick pulse the arteries.
Then, the bowels being finished, they search the heart.
Now, if there were a sacrifice found without a heart, or a head was wanting in the liver, these were deadly presages, and were called piacularia.
Also, if a sacrifice fled from the altar, or, being smitten, made a lowing, or fell upon any part of his body than he ought to do, it was the like ominous.
We read that when Julius Cæsar on a day went forth to procession with his purple robe, and sitting in a golden chair and sacrificing, there was twice a heart wanting.
When C.
Marius Utica was sacrificing, there was wanting a liver.
Also when Caius, the prince, and M.
Marcellus, C.
Claudius and L.
Petellius Coss, were offering sacrifices, that the liver was consumed suddenly away and, not long after, one of them died of a disease, another was slain by men of Lyguria, the entrails foretelling so much; which was thought to be done by the power of the Gods, or help of the devil.
The doctrine and worldview that natural phenomena, places, and objects possess inherent spirit, soul, or personality — and that the cosmos is populated by countless local, plural, embodied divine agents: kami in mountain and tree, sidhe in cairn and well, landwights in field and stone, nymphs in spring and grove, haltija in forest and lake, lares and penates in household and threshold, Iamblichean daemons in element and place. Distinct from monotheism (single transcendent God), pantheism (one underlying substance), and emanation_hierarchy (cascading single source); animism's signature is the plurality, locality, and embodied-in-landscape character of the divine.
The passage describes animals possessing souls that express passions through voices intelligible to humans.
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 presupposes that physical signs in entrails, bird voices, and animal sounds are bound by hidden affinities to future events and divine will, making them legible to the trained observer.
The ritual practice of discerning hidden knowledge — future events, concealed causes, or the will of higher powers — through a structured technique applied to cards, lots, astrological configuration, entrails, oracle, or other sortilege, rather than through direct unmediated insight. Distinct from gnosis_direct_knowledge (unmediated inner apprehension of ultimate truth, not a technique applied to an external medium) and cosmic_sympathy (the underlying doctrine of hidden affinity that many divinatory techniques presuppose, rather than the practice of consulting it).
The entire passage is a compendium of divinatory techniques: reading bird auspices, interpreting animal voices, and haruspicy (reading sacrificial entrails), with historical case studies of each.