CHAPTER XVI. 

 MAGIC AND SORCERY. 



"Occult Philosophy relates things which God -would not do, 

 which the Devil could not do, which none but a liar would assert 

 and none but a fool believe." 



OHEMIA, in the reign of Rudolph II., shared with 

 the rest of central Europe an inheritance from 

 bygone time of mystical , lore which had attained 

 ; in the Middle Ages to the dignity of a philoso- 

 phical system. An extraordinary "medley of fact and false- 

 hood, of enthusiasm and imposture, of profundity and 

 absurdity" which was current among the unlettered, inex- 

 perienced, common people, had been accepted as truth by men 

 of superior intellectuaj attainments and of the highest repu- 

 tation for probity, and in their hands this volume of super- 

 stitious beliefs exerted immense influence on natural and 

 metaphysical philosophy. " Philosophers in the infancy of 

 science are as imaginative as poets," and phenomena now 

 explained by reference to known physical laws were regarded 

 by them as manifestations of supernatural forces, controlled 

 by evil demons or by beneficent spirits. . Every branch of 

 thought and learning became imbued with the supernatural; 

 theology, philosophy, science and medicine were entrapped 

 in "superstition's thrice entangled web." 



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