MAGIC AND SORCERY 139 



" Nothing can come out of the sphere of the mind 

 except what is drawn into it, and that which is drawn 

 into it can come out. If a pregnant woman craves for 

 strawberries, the image of strawberries will be drawn 

 into her mind, and her imagination may impress a mark 

 resembling a strawberry upon the child. Frogs do not 

 grow in the sky, and if (as has happened) a multitude 

 of frogs come down from it during a rain, these frogs 

 must have been drawn up somewhere before they came 

 down." 



" The imagination of women is usually stronger than 

 that of men. They are more passionate, stronger in 

 love and stronger in hate, and their imagination may 

 carry them during their sleep (in their astral forms) 

 to other places, where they may be seen by others who 

 are in the same state. They are then really at those 

 places, and will remember what they have seen, although 

 they were there without their physical bodies ; for their 

 minds were active at such places, and the mind is the 

 real person, not the body that is asleep." ^ 



If a pregnant woman forms an image in her mind 

 and projects it by her desire, it will impress itself on 

 the body of the child. " If, for instance, a woman in 

 her imagination strongly conceives of a snail, and then 

 puts her hand upon her knee, then will the image of 

 the snail appear upon the knee of the child. Her will 

 (although unconsciously) acts in this way like a master, 

 bidding a painter to paint him a snail. Wherever the 

 touch of the hand goes, there will be the image " {De 

 Virtute Imaginativa). 



"If a person dies, and seriously desires that another 

 person should die with him, his imagination creates a 

 force that will draw a vehicle from his dead body and 



^ This passage refers to the excursions of witches on the Hartz Moun- 

 tains and other places, often spoken of in the witch trials. Many supposed 

 witches were burnt to death for having confessed that they had attended 

 at such meetings. 



