Veterum Sophorum Sigilla et Imagines Magicae (pseudo-Trithemian, 1612)

Sigils: A Memory Remedy and Celestial Images

The passage gives a learned occult-medical remedy for strengthening memory, then turns from such preparations to the astrological conditions under which planetary images may receive celestial influence.

Source register: ocr_damaged_prose (OCR quality 2-3/5).

SEALS

Moreover, from almost the same foundations and causes, gilded and silvered plates, round, square, or triangular, have even now begun to be made, on which certain [conjectured: signatures] and characters of the planets are engraved for certain positions and configurations, or constellations, of the heavens, in order to win the favor and influence of each of the Planets; for that the influence of the planets is impressed, received, and retained in such seals and images, marked with a definite form and images, is consonant with reason and experience.

Meanwhile this must be observed with the greatest care: that the Planet whose influence you seek should be strong and fortunate, that is, in its own house, exaltation, or triplicity, in the angle of the East or in midheaven, free from the harmful rays of Saturn or Mars, [conjectured: supported] by the trine or sextile of Venus or Jupiter, or joined with them, direct, swift in course, not combust, ascending in the circle of the apogee.

MAGIC.

45

ERECTION OF THE SIGNATURE OF MERCURY, for sharpening the memory.

Let Mercury serve as an example. If anyone wishes to win its influence for sharpening intellect, natural ability, and memory, let him observe at what time of the year Mercury, in Gemini or Virgo, in which signs it has its house, is strong and fortunate in the East or in midheaven. When the hour and the minute of the hour have been found, let a single celestial figure be made, with careful delineation of the aspects, and with diligent and artful engraving on pure silver; afterwards, enclosed in white silk, it is kept, and sewn into a cap, at that part where it precisely touches the cerebellum, with a few grains of the best musk added. But [unclear] at night, and more evidently at that hour and time at which the engraving was both begun and completed, to carry out the operation, [unclear].

In this year 1608 Mercury was found strong and fortunate around 11 May, at about the second morning hour; and again it will be strongest and most fortunate around the 14th and 15th day of the month of September, a little before and after the fifth morning hour, at which time it precedes the Sun in the eastern cardinal point, in its own house, exaltation, and the favorable trine of Jupiter.

SEALS

And this is the method of sharpening the intellectual power and memory from the powers of the heavens. From plants and animals too, I hope I shall gain no little favor among those who are of fragile and [unclear] memory, although stirred up for understanding, if I bring forth certain remedies for strengthening the memory, which I know that very distinguished and learned men have happily used, and which until now have lain hidden among secrets; I do not begrudge what can be of public use. Many things, however, are present in them which adhere neither to temperament, nor to matter, nor to any manifest quality, but must be attributed to a certain hidden property alone.

Take the hearts of swallows, still beating, no. 7; of turtle-doves, no. 2; dried mint, pennyroyal, vervain, eyebright, prepared coriander, [unclear], each 1 ounce; flowers of rosemary, 1 ounce; aromatic calamus, cinnamon, each 2 ounces; cloves, 1 ounce [unclear]; musk and muscat galingale, each 6 grains; anacardine honey and storax calamite, each [unclear] ounce. Those of these which can endure grinding should be reduced to a fine powder; with as much fennel-water as is needed, let them be made into pastilles in the form of a date-stone. The use will keep this order: after the body has been purged, for [unclear] nights he will dine on nothing except raisins with a few almonds and a little bread; lunch

Sigils and Planetary Correspondences

The passage gives planetary correspondences for sigils and then defends occult stellar influence against reduction to manifest sensible qualities alone.

Source register: ocr_damaged_prose (OCR quality 2-3/5).

Magic

[unclear] will be roasted hen, or a young domestic chicken, a turtledove, a partridge, or something similar; the drink will be wine one year old, [conjectured: moderately diluted]. On each night, moreover, near the hour of sleep, a lozenge is to be inserted into the right nostril and it will be stopped with cotton; and you will keep it thus until you have recited no more than twenty verses of Virgil. After some days have elapsed, when a lozenge moistened with rose-water has been put into the left nostril, you will retain everything that you are going to read, or you will quickly attain understanding.

But one who altogether wishes to preserve memory in this way must abstain from drunkenness, sex, above all from crudity of the stomach, from all satiety, from green fruits, vegetables, salted cheeses, and everything that produces flatulence. Lastly, prepared coriander seed is to be taken. Above all, care must also be taken that it be prepared diligently and properly. It will also not be harmful, at intervals, to hold one lozenge in the mouth and swallow it. It will also help to throw a lozenge upon coals, so that the smoke may be well received into the nostrils, and, once received, may be retained, the nostrils being stopped with cotton so that it does not breathe out; or also to dissolve some lozenges in lavender-water, or rose-water, or anise-water, and frequently, morning and evening, to massage the forehead, the temples, the nostrils, and the back of the head around the seat of memory, and to put pure little linen cloths soaked in it into the nostrils. Yet this remedy has been disclosed to few.

Seals

But to return to celestial matters: in exactly the same mode and form as with Mercury, the powers and influences of the remaining planets will be able to be conciliated, as, for obtaining honors and dignities and the favor and goodwill of princes and magnates, an image of the Sun when it is in Leo and in the tenth house, in trine with Jupiter or the Moon. Yet in this year 1608 the solar influence is impeded because of the opposition of Mars from Aquarius, as the remarkable and unusual changes of the very air openly demonstrate. Hence in forming these figures this alone must be considered: that the planet whose power and influence one wishes to conciliate to oneself be entirely free from every impediment.

Magic

Demonstration of the reasons from which these magical images have such great force and efficacy. Treatise VII.

But why and whence rings, images, and figures engraved in a certain metal or stone possess the powers attributed to them is not to be assigned to temperament, nor to manifest qualities, nor to the whole substance, but to a divine and magical cause, that is, to a certain higher and more sublime cause, which some not inappropriately call a spiritual vehicle and bond. By this mediation, body and soul, substances distant from one another, are joined to each other; by this the magnet draws iron, and chicory follows the motion of the Sun.

With this vehicle and bond interceding or intervening, Mercury is efficacious in quicksilver, in sharpening or weakening memory and the cogitative faculty, in the alectory stone, in mixed color and taste, in Egypt, Greece, Flanders, and Silesia.

With this vehicle intervening, the Moon is efficacious in silver and glass, in the brain, in the left eye of a man and the right eye of a woman, in white, blue, and ashen color, in salty taste, in moderate odor, in crystal, in the seventh climate, in Flanders, Holland, Zeeland, and Denmark.

Saturn is efficacious in lead, in the right ear, in the spleen, bladder, and bones, in black, livid, and leaden color, in a styptic taste, in black and obscure stones, in the first climate, in the right side of the east, in Saxony, Styria, etc.

Jupiter is efficacious in tin, in the lung, ribs, pulse, semen, left ear, in dark, purple, yellow, and green color; in emerald, sapphire, and amethyst; in sweet taste, in the second climate, in the north, in Babylonia, Persia, Hungary, and Spain.

The Sun is efficacious in laurel, in the heart, arteries, the right eye, the right side; in golden, saffron, and somewhat reddish color; in hyacinth; in sharp and acrid taste, in good odor that is not excessive; in the fourth climate, in the east.

Mars is efficacious in iron, in the left ear, in the gall and kidneys; in jasper; in a bitter, bilious, sharp taste; in red color; in the third climate, in the north, in Sarmatia, Gaetulia, Lombardy, and Gothia.

Venus is efficacious in copper and mirrors of every kind; in the womb, kidneys, breasts, throat, genitals, and liver; in white color; in an oily, sweet, and fatty taste; in pearls, sapphire, and carbuncle; in the fifth climate, in Austria, Arabia, Campania, Poland, and Switzerland.

Of this

Magic, Images, and Characters

The passage defends magical images and characters against superstition while denying that their efficacy comes from figure or inscription in itself, grounding any power instead in God, divine names, and hidden natural virtue.

Source register: ocr_damaged_prose (OCR quality 2-3/5).

MAGIC.

Therefore, to seek the principles of this hidden influence from [unclear] and from manifest qualities, from temperament or from the whole substance, is not so much absurd as ridiculous, since the actions of those things from which these powers proceed are not corporeal, and are poured in from heaven without a body. Therefore here there is no need of any measure taken from the senses, no ambitious battle of words, and no empty effort at demonstrations. That the beginning of every philosophical demonstration cannot be sought from the senses and qualities, but must be sought elsewhere, is clear even from this common example: if someone asks about the color of a white rose, whence, that is, it derives its origin, and wishes to ascribe the cause to a colder temperament, what, I ask, will he say about a red one? Will you say that species of endive pour forth a milky juice for this reason, because they are cold? Yet many very hot plants, such as the spurges, swell with and are moist with the same juice. And is aloe bitter for this reason, because it is hot? But in opium, which kills by a destructive coldness, there is extraordinary bitterness. And although it may be granted that such things proceed from the property of the whole substance, nevertheless in our mystery a higher and more excellent craftsman, engraver, and former must be discussed and sought above it. In vain, therefore, have the [conjectured: Alexandrians] attempted to refer everything to manifest qualities,

SEALS.

which Scaliger, in Exercise 318, says is the height of shamelessness; at least in the case of poisons it would have been fitting for them to acquiesce. We see certain things bursting forth from the bosom and lap of nature, whose causes, even if they are wholly inexplicable to us, meanwhile it nevertheless helps, and is a pleasure, for the lover of medicine and the diligent and sagacious investigator of natural things to devise probable reasons; if he does not fully attain them, he nevertheless does not detract from the credibility of manifest things, nor does he cavil at the effects, but follows nature and its maker with admiration.

Hence it is clear that those things are not altogether [conjectured: vain] which concern characteristic healing, which by engraved images hung from the neck accomplishes natural operations through the celestial properties of the stars, by a wondrous influence agreeing with our bodies. Not, I say, altogether [conjectured: vain] are those things which the most ancient investigators of nature wrote concerning the written word, or characters and seals, made at certain times according to the power and influence of heaven, apart from all superstition, which only ignorance of this mystery has devised, and apart from profanation of the divine name, offense, and any violation of faith and religion, although until now and in these latter times they have lain hidden and concealed among certain persons,

MAGIC.

who have abused them rather than used them lawfully, since, having slipped into superstitions and not understanding the beginnings, they dared to attribute more to them than God, the creator of all things, granted and willed to be made manifest through them.

Far be it, however, that I should attribute any power to these images in themselves, or affirm that characters or [unclear] constellated names have power by reason of their figure, since figure, number, magnitude, position, and the division of a continuum are principles of no action; rather, unless there is some other [conjectured: acting and moving] thing by whose power the characters are effective, I plainly deny it. God, through the Prophets, heals men by the mere utterance of a word: for God is living, and the name of the living God is also living, and the letters of the living name are also living. God lives because of himself; his name lives because of him; and the letters live because of the name. And just as God has life in himself, so also he has granted to his name that it have life in itself, and the name in turn has granted this to the letters.

Images or characters, therefore, are effective by reason of the power or office assigned by God or nature to such a name or character. For there is no power either in heaven or on earth that does not descend from God. Thus medicines are visible bodies, words invisible bodies. Whether an herb or a word heals, God is the cause, that is, the spirit of God [unclear] by the word Fiat. Hence the herb itself is not the medicine; rather, this lies hidden invisibly within it, evidently implanted by God. Therefore things that are more remote from the senses and have hidden causes are not immediately to be condemned all the way down to Orcus, nor foolishly derided.

THE END.

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