134 PARACELSUS 



all that belongs to heaven and hell, to know God and 

 His kingdom, the angels and spirits, and the origin of 

 evil. If a man is to go to a certain place, it will be 

 useful to him to know all about that place before he 

 goes there ; he will then after his arrival be enabled to 

 move about freely, and to go wherever he pleases. The 

 quality of each thing created by God, whether it be 

 visible or invisible to the senses, may be perceived and 

 known. If man knows the essence of things, their attri- 

 butes, their attractions, and the elements of which they 

 consist, he will be a master of Nature, of the elements, 

 and of the spirits "^ (Fhilosophia Sagax). 



" The truth does not grow from your speculation and 

 phantastry ; but he who understands his own nature in 

 the light of Nature possesses true knowledge. It is not 

 sufficient that we should have a theory of the truth, but 

 we should know the truth in ourselves " (De Feste.). 



"There are two kinds of intelligence, that of the 

 carnal man and that of the spirit; the former argues, 

 the latter knows. Animals also have reasoning qualities ; 

 but their understanding is not from the (direct) light of 

 the spirit " (De Generat. Homin). 



"The light of Nature teaches us that each form, 

 reasonable and unreasonable, conscious ones and such 

 as are without consciousness, has its natural spirit. The 

 Nectromanticus (seer) must know these spirits, for with- 

 out that knowledge he will not find their true character. 

 By his art he can sense them, and having perceived 

 them with his inner sense he will find their forms. 

 Such spirits may be perceived in crystals ; they guide 

 the divining-rod and attract it as a magnet attracts 

 iron; they turn the sieve and the key,^ and draw the 



^ Here Paracelsus does not refer merely to the faculty of ordinary 

 clairvoyance, but to the true inner comprehension, to the "spirit of 

 Nature" which reveals all things in its own light. It is, in other 

 words, the Holy Ghost or the true spiritual understanding within the 

 higher region of the mind, above the ** constellation." 



' Such modes of divination are well known to modern spiritualists. 



