MAGIC AND SORCERY 15Q 



things, and thus they became themselves the servants of 

 their own servants. Even horses, dogs, and other animals 

 have thus been brought under the influence of such spells. 

 If women administer such things to men, the latter may 

 fall so deeply in love with the former as to be unable to 

 think of anything else but of them ; and if men ad- 

 minister such things to women, they will continually think 

 of them " {De Morbis Amentium). 



" But the things which such persons use for such 

 purposes are nothing else but substances that have long 

 been in contact with their own bodies, and which con- 

 tain a part of their own vitality. Women are more 

 successful in such experiments, because they are more 

 impulsive, more implacable in their revenge, and more in- 

 clined to envy and hate. If they are fully absorbed by 

 their own imagination, they call into existence an active 

 spirit that moves their imagination wherever they may 

 desire it to go. A wood-carver takes a piece of wood 

 and carves out of it whatever he has in his mind, and 

 likewise the imagination can create something out of 

 the essence of life. The Mumia is the vehicle of which 

 the imagination makes use for the purpose of taking 

 some form.^ It is lifted up and expanded by the power 

 of faith, and it contracts and penetrates the mind by 

 being impressed by the will. Women have a greater 

 power of imagination during their dreams and when they 

 are alone ; and they ought, therefore, not to be left alone 

 a great deal, but ought to be amused, because if they are 

 ill-disposed and harbouring evil thoughts, they may, by 

 the power of their imagination, poison the food which 

 they cook, or make it impure, without being themselves 

 aware of it. Women who are occupied a great deal with 

 an evil imagination, and who are unable to control it, 



^ The more the physical body is active, the more will it need material 

 food. The more the astral body is active, the more will it attract nutri- 

 ment from the astral plane. The more divine love is active in man, the 

 more will his soul receive of the 8u))8tance of Christ. Each of these three 

 states has its own functions and qualities. 



