222 PARACELSUS 



a malicious person can affect another (sensitive) person, 

 not only while the former is awake, but also during his 

 sleep ; because when the physical body is asleep, the 

 sidereal body is free to go wherever it pleases or wher- 

 ever it may be attracted. 



" The life that is active in the organs is the anima 

 vegetiva (the animal soul). It is an invisible fire (sulphur), 

 that can easily be blown into a flame by the power of 

 the imagination. Imagination creates hunger and thirst, 

 produces abnormal secretions, and causes diseases ; but a 

 person who has no evil desires will have no evil imagina- 

 tion, and no diseases will spring from his thoughts." 



" A person who has evil desires will have an evil 

 imagination, and the forces created in the sphere of his 

 mind can be projected by powerful will into the mental 

 sphere of another. Thoughts are not empty nothings, 

 but they are formed out of the substance that forms the 

 element of the mind, in the same sense as a piece of ice 

 is made out of the substance of water. The will is the 

 power that concentrates the image formed in the mind, 

 in the same way as the power of cold will cause a body 

 of water to freeze into solid ice ; and as an icicle may 

 be thrown from one place to another, likewise an evil 

 thought, formed into substantial shape by an intense 

 will, may be hurled into the mental sphere of another, 

 and enter his soul if it be not sufficiently protected." 



" Imagination is the cause of many diseases ; faith is 

 the cure for all. If we cannot cure a disease by faith, 

 it is because our faith is too weak ; but our faith is 

 weak on account of our want of knowledge ; if we were 

 conscious of the power of God in ourselves, we could never 

 fail. The power of amulets does not rest so much in the 

 material of which they are made as in the faith with which 

 they are worn ; the curative power of medicines often con- 

 sists, not so much in the spirit that is hidden in them, as 

 in the spirit in which they are taken. Faith will make 

 them efficacious; doubt will destroy their virtues," 



