Agrippa: The Philosophy of Natural Magic, Chapter LX — Of Madness, and Divinations which are made when men are awake, and of the Power of a Melancholy Humor, by which Spirits are sometimes induced into Men's Bodies · 3 of 3 · tr. Henry Morley; L. W. de Laurence ed.
Chapter LX, Section 1c
There are also some prognostics which are in the middle, betwixt natural and supernatural divination, as in those who are near to death, and, being weakened with old age, do sometimes foresee things to come, because, as saith Plato, by how much the more men are less hindered by their sense, so much the more accurately they understand, and because they are nearer to the place whither they must go (and their bonds being, as it were, a little loosed, seeing they are no more subject to the body) easily perceive the light of divine revelation.
Themes
◆Body As Obstacleanthropology
The material body viewed as a prison, tomb, or source of error that hinders spiritual knowledge and return.
The passage states that being weakened by old age and subject to the body hinders accurate understanding.
All passages →◆Divine Lighttheology
The uncreated luminous quality of the divine, sometimes experienced directly in mystical states; illumination as revelation.
The passage explicitly mentions 'perceive the light of divine revelation' as a key mechanism of understanding.
All passages →Related passages · 1 parallel
◆neoplatonism|Iamblichus: On the Mysteries|Chapter III
“I wish, in the next place, to reply to such assertions as calumniate divine prediction. For you compare with it “ certain other methods which are conversant with the prediction of future events .” To me, however, it does not appear to be an…”
Both passages discuss the nature of divine prediction and its distinction from natural or human methods of foretelling the future. They explore the boundaries between natural and supernatural means of divination, though from different philosophical perspectives.