fio PARACELSUS 



planted into the proper soil it will rot. If sperma does 

 not come into the proper matrix it will not produce any- 

 thing good, but something useless. Therefore the Incubi 

 and Succubi grown out of corrupted seed, without the 

 natural order of things, are evil and useless ; and Thomas 

 of Aquinas has made an error by mistaking such a use- 

 less thing for a complete one." 



" This sperma, coming from the imagination, is born 

 in Amor Hereos. This means a kind of love in which 

 a man may imagine a woman, or a woman a man, to 

 perform the connubial act with the image created in the 

 sphere of the mind. From this act results the expulsion 

 of an ethereal fluid, impotent to generate a child, but 

 capable of bringing Larvae into existence. Such an 

 imagination is the mother of a luxurious unchastity, 

 which, if continued, renders man impotent and woman 

 sterile, because much of the true creative and forma- 

 tive power is lost by the frequent exercise of such 

 a morbid imagination. This is frequently the cause 

 of moles, abortions, miscarriages, and malformations. 

 Such corrupted sperma may be taken away by spirits 

 that wander about at night, and who will carry it to a 

 place where they may hatch it out. There are spirits 

 that will perform an * act ' with it, as may also be done 

 by witches, and, in consequence of that act, many curious 

 monsters of horrible shapes come into existence" {De 

 Orig. Morb. Invis.). 



" If such monsters are born from a powerful, conscious 

 imagination, consciousness will also be created in them. 

 The spirits of night can use all that is born from such 

 sperma according to their pleasure, but they can use 

 nothing of a human character or possessing true spirit." 

 " Amor hereos is a state of the invisible body, and is 

 caused by an overheated imagination, stimulated to such 

 an extent as to eject sperma, out of which Incubi and 

 Succubi grow. In ordinary pollutionihus noctumalis, the 

 body loses sperma without any effort of the imagination, 



