VIII.

OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY,

Josephus Flavius Josephus (c. 37–100 AD), a Romano-Jewish historian. also reports the wonderful nature of a certain river between the cities of Arcaea and Raphanea in Syria: which, though it flows with a full channel, soon fails through the entire Sabbath as if its springs were stopped, providing a dry crossing of its bed for six whole days. Then, on the seventh day, by unknown causes of nature, it returns to its former abundance of water; for which reason the inhabitants called it the Sabbatical River, on account of the seventh day sacred to the Jews. The Gospel Referring to the Gospel of John 5:2–4. also testifies to us concerning the Pool of Bethesda original: "piscina probatica"; literally the "Sheep Pool." into which, after the water was stirred by an angel, whoever descended first was freed from whatever sickness he had. The same force and power is read to have belonged to the spring of the Ionides Nymphs, which stood in the territory of the Eleans at the village of Heraclea near the river Cytheron: into which, if one with a diseased body descended, they would depart sound and whole, with every bodily defect driven away. Pausanias A Greek traveler and geographer of the 2nd century AD. tells that on Mount Lycaeus in Arcadia there is a spring called Agria, to which, as often as the dryness of the region threatened the destruction of the crops, the priest of Lycaean Jupiter original: "Iovis Lycæi"; the local Arcadian form of Zeus. would enter. After sacrificing victims and venerating the sacred waters with holy prayers, holding an oak branch in his hand, he would lower it into the surface of the sacred spring. Then, the waters being stirred, a vapor was carried upward into the air and gathered into clouds; with the mists rushing together, the whole sky was covered in clouds, which shortly after dissolved into rain and healthfully irrigated the entire region. Indeed, concerning the miracles of waters, besides many other authors, Rufus of Ephesus A prominent Greek physician and anatomist. wrote many marvelous things which are found in no other author that I know of.

It remains to speak of the Air. This is the vital spirit vital spirit: a life-force believed to permeate the body and the universe, acting as the bridge between soul and matter, permeating all beings, providing life and consistency to all things, binding, moving, and filling everything. Hence the doctors of the Hebrews do not number it among the elements, but regard it as a medium and glue, joining diverse things together, and as it were the resounding spirit of the world's instrument. For it most closely receives the influx of all celestial bodies into itself and communicates them to the other elements, as well as to individual mixed bodies. Not least, it also receives and retains within itself the species species: in ancient physics, these are the "forms" or "images" that objects emanate, allowing them to be perceived by the senses of all things, whether natural or artificial, and of whatever speeches, like a certain divine mirror. Carrying these with it, and entering through the pores of the bodies of men and animals, it impresses them upon them both in sleep and in waking, providing the material for various wonderful dreams, presages, and omens. Hence also they say it happens that one passing a place where a man has been killed, or where a fresh corpse is hidden, is moved by fear and dread: because the air in that place is full of the horrible species of homicide, and while it is inhaled, it affects and disturbs the spirit of the man with similar images; from which it happens that fear follows. For everything that makes a sudden impression astounds nature. Hence many philosophers have thought that the air is the cause of dreams and many other impressions on the soul, through the carrying of idols idols: from the Greek "eidolon," meaning phantom images or mental representations that travel from an object to the observer, or likenesses, or species, which fall away from things and speeches multiplied in the air itself, until they reach the senses, and finally the imagination and the soul of the receiver—namely, that soul which is free from cares and not hindered, which...