1&quot;6 AtVAS cEMEffr Of LfcAnxt&amp;gt;w. BOOK v. 



the Deity s presence, which the ancients called by the uan.e 

 of sacred fury, whereas in native divination the soul IK 

 rather at its ease and free. 



Fascination is the power and intense act of the imagina 

 tion upon the body of another. And here the school of 

 Paracelsus, and the pretenders to natural magic, abusively 

 so called, have almost made the force and apprehension of 

 the imagination equal to the power of faith, and capable 

 of working miracles ; others keeping nearer to truth, and 

 attentively considering the secret energies arid impressions of 

 things, the irradiations of the senses, the transmissions of 

 thought from one to another, and the conveyances of mag 

 netic virtues, are of opinion that impressions, conveyances, 

 and communications, might be made from spirit to spirit, 

 because spirit is of all things the most powerful in opera 

 tion and easiest to work on; whence many opinions have 

 spread abroad of master spirits, of men ominous and un 

 lucky, of the strokes of love, envy, and the like. And this 

 is attended with the inquiry, how the imagination may be 

 heightened and fortified ; for if a strong imagination has 

 such power, it is worth knowing by what means to exalt 

 and raise it. f 



But here a palliative or defence of a great part of cere 

 monial magic would slily and indirectly insinuate itself, under 

 a specious pretence that ceremonies, characters, charms, ges 

 ticulations, amulets, and the like, have not their power from 

 any tacit or binding contract with evil spirits, but that these 

 serve only to strengthen and raise the imagination of such 

 as use them, in the same manner as images have prevailed 

 in religion for fixing men s minds in the contemplation of 

 things and raising the devotion in prayer. But allowing 

 the force of imagination to be great, and that ceremonies 

 do raise and strengthen it; allowing also, that ceremonies 

 may be sincerely used to that end, as a physical remedy, 

 without the least design of thereby procuring the assist 

 ance of spirits ; yet ought they still to be held unlawful, 



The ways of working upon or with the imagination, are touched 

 l&amp;gt;y the author, in his &quot; Sylva Sylvarum,&quot; under the article Imagination. 

 See more to this purpose in &quot;Des Cartes upon the Passions,&quot; &quot; Ca- 

 saubon upon Enthusiasm,&quot; Father Malbranche s &quot; Recherche tie 1* 

 &quot;Write , &quot; and Lord Shaftesbury s &quot; Letter upon Enthusiasm.&quot; Shaw, 



