Book I, chapters 1–5: The causes of wonderful effects

The FIRST BOOK OF Natural Magick: Wherein are searched out the Causes of things which produce wonderful Effects.

CHAP. I.

What is meant by the name of Magick.

POrphyry and Apuleius, great Platonicks, in an Oration made in the defence of Magick, do witness, that Magick took her name and original from Persia. Tully, in his book of Divination, saith, that in the Persian language, a Magician is nothing else but one that expounds and studies divine things; and it is the general name of Wise-men in that country. S. Jerome writing to Paulinus, saith that Apollonius Tyanaeus was a Magician, as the people thought; or a Philosopher, as the Pythagoreans esteemed him. Pliny saith, that it is received for a certainty among most Authors, that Magick was begun in Persia by Zoroastres the son of Orimasius; or, as more curious Writers hold, by another Zoroastres, surnamed Proconnesius, who lived a little before. The first Author that ever wrote of Magick, was Osthanes, who going with Xerxes king of Persia in the war which he made against Greece, did scatter by the way as it were the seeds and first beginnings of this wonderful Art, infecting the world with it wheresoever he came; insomuch that the Grecians did not onely greedily desire this knowledge, but they were even mad after it. So then Magick is taken amongst all men for Wisdom, and the perfect knowledge of natural things: and those are called Magicians, whom the Latines call Wise-men, the Greeks call Philosophers, of Pythagoras onely, the first of that name, as Diogenes writes: the Indians call them Brackmans, in their own tongue; but in Greek they call them Gymnosophists, as much to say as naked Philosophers: the Babylonians and Assyrians call them Chaldeans, of Chaldaea a county in Asia: the Celtes in France call them Druids, Bards, and Semnothites: the Egyptians call them Priests; and the Cabalists call them Prophets. And so in divers countries Magick hath divers names. But we finde that the greatest part of those who were best seen into the nature of things, were excellent Magicians: as, amongst the Persians, Zoroastres the son of Orimasius, whom we spake of before; amongst the Romanes, Numa Pompilius; Thespion, amongst the Gymnosophists; Zamolxis, amongst the Thracians; Abbaris, amongst the Hyperboreans; Hermes, amongst the Aegyptians: and Budda, amongst the Babylonians. Beside these, Apuleius reckons up Carinondas, Damigeron, Hismoses, Apollonius, and […] danus, who all followed Zoroastres and Osthanes.

CHAP. II.

What is the Nature of Magick.

THere are two sorts of Magick: the one is infamous, and unhappie, because it hath to do with foul spirits, and consists of Inchantments and wicked Curiosity; and this is called Sorcery; an art which all learned and good men derest; neither is it able to yeeld any truth of Reason or Nature, but stands meerly upon fancies and imaginations, such as vanish presently away, and leave nothing behinde them; as Jamblichus writes in his book concerning the mysteries of the Aegyptians. The other Magick is natural; which all excellent wise men do admit and embrace, and worship with great applause; neither is there any thing more highly esteemed, or better thought of, by men of learning. The most noble Philosophers that ever were, Pythagoras, Empedocles, Democrites, and Plato, forsook their own countries, and lived abroad as exiles and banished men, rather then as strangers; and all to search out and to attain this knowledge; and when they came home again, this was the Science which they professed, and this they esteemed a profound mysterie. They that have been most skilfu[…] in dark and hidden points of learning, do call this knowledge the very highest point, and the perfection of natural Science; insomuch that if they could find out or devise amongst all natural Sciences, any one thing more excellent or more wonderful then another, that they would still call by the name of Magick. Others have named it the practical part of natural Philosophy, which produceth her effects by the mutual and fit application of one natural thing unto another. The Platonicks, as Plotinus imitating Mercurius, writes in his book of Sacrifice and Magick, makes it to be a Science whereby inferiour things are made subject to superiours, earthly are subdued to heavenly; and by certain pretty allurements, it fetcheth forth the properties of the whole frame of the world. Hence the Aegyptians termed Nature her self a Magician, because she hath an alluring power to draw like things by their likes; and this power, say they, consists in love: and the things that were so drawn and brought together by the affinity of Nature, those (they said) were drawn by Magick. But I think that Magick is nothing else but the survey of the whole course of Nature. For, whilst we consider the Heavens, the Stars, the Elements, how they are moved, and how they are changed, by this means we find out the hidden secrecies of living creatures, of plants, of metals, and of their generation and corruption; so that this whole Science seems meerly to depend upon the view of Nature, as afterward we shall see more at large. This doth Plato seem to signifie in his Alcibiades, where he saith, That the Magick of Zoroastres, was nothing else, in his opinion, but the knowledge and study of Divine things, wherewith the Kings Sons of Persia, amongst other princely qualities, were endued; that by the example of the Common-wealth of the whole world, they also might learn to govern their own Common-wealth. And Tully, in his book of Divinations, saith, That amongst the Persians no man might be a King, unless he had first learned the Art of Magick: for as Nature governs the world by the mutual agreement and disagreement of the creatures; after the same sort they also might learn to govern the Common-wealth committed unto them. This Art, I say, is full of much vertue, of many secret mysteries; it openeth unto us the properties and qualities of hidden things, and the knowledge of the whole course of Nature; and it reacheth us by the agreement and the disagreement of things, either so to s[…]nder them, or else to lay them so together by the mutual and fit applying of one thing to another, as thereby we do strange works, such as the vulgar sort call miracles, and such as men can neither well conceive, nor sufficiently admire. For this cause, Magick was wont to flourish in Aethiopia and India, where was great store of herbs and stones, and such other things as were fit for these purposes. Wherefore, as many of you as come to behold Magick, must be perswaded that the works of Magick are nothing else but the works of Nature, whose dutiful hand-maid Magick is. For if she find any want in the affinity of Nature, that it is not strong enough, she doth supply such defects at convenient seasons, by the help of vapours, and by observing due measures and proportions; as in Husbandry, it is Nature that brings forth corn and herbs, but it is Art that prepares and makes way for them. Hence was it that Antipho the Poet said, That we overcome those things by Art, wherein Nature doth overcome us; and Plotinus calls a Magician such a one as works by the help of Nature onely, and not by the help of Art. Superstitious, profane, and wicked men have nothing to do with this Science; her gate is shut against them: neither do we judge them worthy to be driven away from this profession onely, but even out of Cities, and out of the world, to be grievously punished, and utterly destroyed. But now, what is the […], and what must be the learning of this professor, we purpose to […] in that which floweth.

CHAP. III.

The Instruction of a Magician, and what manner of man a Magician ought to be.

NOw it is meet to instruct a Magician, both what he must know, and what he must observe; that being sufficiently instructed every way, he may bring very strange and wonderful things to pass. Seeing Magick, as we shewed before, is a practical part of Natural Philosophy, therefore it behoveth a Magician, and one that aspires to the dignity of that profession, to be an exact and a very perfect Philosopher. For Philosophy teaches, what are the effects of fire, earth, air, and water, the principal matter of the heavens; and what is the cause of the flowing of the Sea, and of the divers-coloured Rain-bowe; and of the loud Thunder, and of Comets, and firy lights that appear by night, and of Earth-quakes; and what are the beginnings of Gold and of Iron; and what is the whole witty force of hidden Nature. Then also he must be a skilful Physician: for both these Sciences are very like and neer together; and Physick, by creeping in under colour of Magick, hath purchased favour amongst men. And surely it is a great help unto us in this kinde: for it teaches mixtures and temperatures, and so shews us how to compound and lay things together for such purposes. Moreover, it is required of him, that he be an Herbalist, not onely able to discern common Simples, but very skilful and sharp-sighted in the nature of all plants: for the uncertain names of plants, and their neer likeness of one to another, so that they can hardly be discerned, hath put us to much trouble in some of our works and experiments. And as there is no greater inconvenience to any Artificer, then not to know his tools that he must work with: so the knowledge of plants is so necessary to this profession, that indeed it is all in all. He must be as well seen also in the nature of Metals, Minerals Gems and Stones. Furthermore, what cunning he must have in the art of Distillation, which follows and resembles the showers and dew of heaven, as the daughter the mother; I think no man will doubt of it: for it yeelds daily very strange inventions, and most witty devices, and shews how to finde out many things profitable for the use of man: As for example, to draw out of things dewy vapours, unsavoury and gross sents or spirits, clots, and gummy or slimy humours; and that intimate essence which lurks in the inmost bowels of things, to fetch it forth, and sublimate it, that it may be of the greater strength. And this he must learn to do, not after a rude and homely manner, but with knowledge of the causes and reasons thereof. He must also know the Mathematical Sciences, and especially Astrologie; for that shews how the Stars are moved in the heavens, and what is the cause of the darkning of the Moon; and how the Sun, that golden planet, measures out the parts of the world, and governs it by twelve Signes: for by the sundry motions and aspects of the heavens, the celestial bodies are very beneficial to the earth; and from thence many things receive both active and passive powers, and their manifold properties: the difficulty of which point long troubled the Platonicks mindes, how these inferiour things should receive influence from heaven. Moreover, he must be skilful in the Opticks, that he may know how the sight may be deceived, and how the likeness of a vision that is seen in the water, may be seen hanging without in the air, by the help of certain Glasses of divers fashions; and how to make one see that plainly which is a great way off, and how to throw fire very far from us: upon which sleights, the greatest part of the secrecies of Magick doth depend. These are the Sciences which Magick takes to her self for servants and helpers; and he that knows not these, is unworthy to be named a Magician. He must be a skilful workman, both by natural gifts, and also by the practise of his own hands: for knowledge without practice and workmanship, and practice without knowledge, are nothing worth; these are so linked together, that the one without the other is but vain, and to no purpose. Some there are so apt for these enterprises, even by the gifts of Nature, that God may seem to have made them hereunto. Neither yet do I speak this, as if Art could not perfect any thing: for I know that good things may be made better, and there are means to remedy and help foward that which lacks perfection. First, let a man consider and prepare things providently and skilfully, and then let him fall to work, and do nothing unadvisedly. This I thought good to speak of, that if at any time the ignorant be deceived herein, he may not lay the fault upon us, but upon his own unskilfulness: for this is the infirmity of the scholar, and not of the teacher: for if rude and ignorant men shall deal in these matters, this Science will be much discredited, and those strange effects will be accounted haphazard, which are most certain, and follow their necessary cause. If you would have your works appear more wonderful, you must not let the cause be known: for that is a wonder to us, which we see to be done, and yet know not the cause of it: for he that knows the causes of a thing done, doth not so admire the doing of it; and nothing is counted unusual and rare, but onely so far forth as the causes thereof are not known. Aristotle in his books of Handy-trades, saith, that master-builders frame and make their tools to work with; but the principles thereof, which move admiration, those they conceal. A certain man put out a candle; and putting it to a stone or a wall, lighted it again; and this seemed to be a great wonder: but when once they perceived that he touched it with brimstone, then, saith Galen, it ceased to seem a wonder. A miracle, saith Ephesius, is dissolved by that wherein it seemed to be a miracle. Lastly, the professor of this Science must also be rich: for if we lack money, we shall hardly work in these cases: for it is not Philosophy that can make us rich; we must first be rich, that we may play the Philosophers. He must spare for no charges, but be prodigal in seeking things out; and while he is busie and careful in seeking, he must be patient also, and think it not much to recal many things; neither must he spare for any pains: for the secrets of Nature are not revealed to lazie and idle persons. Wherefore Epicharmus said very well, that men purchase all things at Gods hands by the price of their labour. And if the effect of thy work be not answerable to my description, thou must know that thy self hast failed in some one point or another; for I have set down these things briefly, as being made for wrtty and skilful workmen, and not for rude and young beginners.

CHAP. IV.

The opinions of the antient Philosophers touching the causes of strange operations; and first, of the Elements.

THose effects of Nature which oft-times we behold, have so imployed the antient Philosophers minds in the searching forth of their causes, that they have taken great pains, and yet were much deceived therein; insomuch that divers of them have held divers opinions: which it shall not be amiss to relate, before we proceed any farther. The first sort held that all things proceed from the Elements, and that these are the first beginnings of things; the fire, according to Hippasus Metapontinus, and Heraclides Ponticus; the air, according to Diogenes Apolloniates, and Anaximenes; and the water, according to Thales Milesius. These therefore they held to be the very original and first seeds of Nature; even the Elements, simple and pure bodies (whereas the Elements that now are, be but counterfeits and bastards to them; for they are all changed, every one of them being more or less medled with one another) those, say they, are the material principles of a natural body, and they are moved and altered by continual succession of change; and they are so wrapt up together within the huge cope of heaven, that they fill up this whole space of the world which is situate beneath the Moon; for the fire being the lightest and purest Element, hath gotten up aloft, and chose it self the highest room, which they call the element of fire. The next Element to this is the Air, which is somwhat more weighty then the fire, and it is spread abroad in a large and huge compass; and passing through all places, doth make mens bodies framable to her temperature, and is gathered together sometimes thick into dark clouds, sometimes thinner into mists, and so is resolved. The next to these is the water; and then the last and lowest of all, which is scraped and compacted together out of the purer Elements, and is called the Earth; a thick and grosse substance, very solid, and by no means to be pierced through: so that there is no solid and firm body but hath earth in it, as also there is no vacant space but hath air in it. This Element of earth is situate in the middle and centre of all, and is round beset with all the rest; and this only stands still and unmoveable, whereas all the rest are carried with a circular motion round about it. But Hippon and Critias held that the vapours of the Elements were the first beginnings: Parmenides held that their qualities were the principles; for all things (saith he) consist of cold and heat. The Physitians hold that all things consist of four qualities, hear, cold, moisture, drouth, and of their predominancy when they meet together; for every Element doth embrace as it were with certain armes his neighbour-Element which is next situate to him; and yet they have also contrary and sundry qualities whereby they differ: for the wisdom of nature hath framed this workmanship of the world by due and set measure, and by a wonderful fitnesse and conveniency of one thing with another; for whereas every Element had two qualities, wherein it agreed with some, and disagreed with other Elements, nature hath bestowed such a double quality upon every one, as finds in other two her like, which she cleaves unto: as for example, the air and the fire; this is hot and dry, that is hot and moist: now dry and moist are contraries, and thereby fire and air disagree; but because either of them is hot, thereby they are reconciled. So the Earth is cold and dry, and the water cold and moist; so that they disagree, in that the one is moist, the other dry; but yet are reconciled, in as much as they are both cold; otherwise they could hardly agree. Thus the fire by little and little is changed into air, because either of them is hot; the air into the water, because either of them is moist; the water into the earth, because either of them is cold; and the earth into fire, because either of them is dry: and so they succeed each other after a most provident order. From thence also they are turned back again into themselves, the order being inverted, and so they are made mutually of one another: for the change is easie in those that agree in any one common quality; as fire and air be easily changed into each other, by reason of heat: but where either of the qualities are opposite in both, as in fire and water, there this change is not so easie. So then, heat, cold, moisture and drouth, are the first and principal qualities, in as much as they proceed immediately from the Elements, and produce certain secondary effects. Now two of them, namely heat and cold, are active qualities, fitter to be doing themselves, then to suffer of others: the other two, namely moisture and drouth, are passive; not because they are altogether idle, but because they follow and are preserved by the other. There are certain secondary qualities, which attend as it were upon the first; and these are said to work in a second sort; as to soften, to ripen, to resolve, to make lesse or thinner: as when heat works into any mixt body, it brings out that which is unpure, and so whilst it strives to make it fit for his purpose, that it may be more simple, the body becometh thereby smaller and thinner: so cold doth preserve, binde, and congeal; drouth doth thicken or harden, and makes uneven; for when there is great store of moisture in the utter parts, that which the drouth is not able to consume, it hardens, and so the utter parts become rugged; for that part where the moisture is gone, sinking down, and the other where it is hardened, rising up, there must needs be great roughnesse and ruggednesse: so moisture doth augment, corrupt, and for the most part works one thing by it self, and another by some accident; as by ripening, binding, expelling, and such like, it brings forth milk, urine, monethly flowers, and sweat; which the Physitians call the third qualities, that do so wait upon the second, as the second upon the first: and sometime they have their operations in some certain parts, as to strengthen the head, to succour the reins; and these, some call fourth qualities. So then, these are the foundations, as they call them, of all mixt bodies, and of all wonderful operations: and whatsoever experiments they proved, the causes hereof rested (as they supposed) and were to be found in the Elements and their qualities. But Empedocles Agrigentinus not thinking that the Elements were sufficient for this purpose, added unto them moreover concord and discord, as the causes of generation and corruption: There be four principal seeds or beginnings of all things; Jupiter, that is to say, fire; Pluto, that is to say, earth; Juno, that is to say, air; and Nestis, that is to say, water: all these sometimes love and concord knits together in one, and sometimes discord doth sunder them and make them flie apart. This concord and discord, said he, are found in the Elements by reason of their sundry qualities wherein they agree and disagree: yea, even in heaven it self, as Jupiter and Venus love all Planets save Mars and Saturn, Venus agrees with Mars, whereas no Planet else agrees with him. There is also another disagreement amongst them, which ariseth from the oppositions and elevations of their houses: for even the twelve signs are both at concord and at discord among themselves, as Manilius the Poet hath shewed.

CHAP. V.

That divers operations of Nature proceed from the essential forms of things.

ALl the Peripatericks, and most of the latter Philosophers could not see how all operations should proceed from those causes which the Antients have set down; for they find that many things work quite contrary to their qualities, and therefore they have imagined that there is some other matter in it, and that it is the power and properties of essential formes. But now that all things may be made more plain, we must consider that it will be a great help unto us, for the making and finding out of strange things, to know what that is from whence the vertues of any thing do proceed: that so we may be able to discern and distinguish one thing from another, without confounding all order of truth. Whereas one and the same compound yeelds many effects of different kinds, as we shall find in the processe of this Book, yet every man confesseth that there is but one only original cause therein that produceth all these effects. And seeing we are about to open plainly this original cause, we must begin a little higher. Every natural substance (I mean a compound body) is composed of matter and form, as of her principles: neither yet do I exclude the principal qualities of the Elements from doing their part herein; for they also concur, and make up the number of three principles: for when the Elements meet together in the framing of any compound, the same compound retains certain excellent and chief qualities of theirs; whereof though all help together to bring forth any effects, yet the superiour and predominant qualities are held to do all, because they make the power of their inferiour; to become theirs: for unlesse some were stronger then other, their vertues could not be perceived. Neither yet is the matter quite destitute of all force: I speak here, not of the first and simple matter, but of that which consists of the substances and properties of the Elements, especially the two passible elements, the Earth and the Water: and those which Aristotle calleth sometimes secondary qualities, sometimes bodily effects, we may term them the functions and powers of the matter; as thinnesse, thicknesse, roughnesse, smoothnesse, easinesse to be cleft, and such like, are altogether in the power of the matter, howbeit they proceed all from the Elements. Therefore to avoid confusion, it is better to hold that the effects of the qualities come of the temperature or mixture of the Elements, but the effects of the matter from the consistence or substances of them. But the Form hath such singular vertue, that whatsoever effects we see, all of them first proceed from thence; and it hath a divine beginning: and being the chiefest and most excellent part, absolute of her self, she useth the rest as her instruments, for the more speedy and convenient dispatch of her actions: and he which is not addicted nor accustomed to such contemplations, supposeth that the temperature and the matter works all things, whereas indeed they are but as it were instruments whereby the form worketh: for a workman that useth a graving Iron in the carving of an Image, doth not use it as though that could work, but for his own furtherance in the quicker and better performance thereof. Therefore whereas there are three efficient and working causes in every compound, we must not suppose any of them to be idle, but all at work, some more and some lesse; but above all other, the form is most active and busie strengthening the rest; which surely would be to no purpose if the form should fail them, in as much as they are not capable of heavenly influences. And though the form of it self be not able to produce such effects, but the rest also must do their parts, yet are they neither confounded together, not yet become divers things; but they are so knit among themselves, that one stands in need of anothers help. He that scans these things well by the search of reason, shall find no obscurity herein, nor confound the knowledge of the truth. Wherefore that force which is called the property of a thing, proceeds not from the temperature, but from the very form it self.