Sacred and Truly Christian Philosophy, or Cosmic Meteorology

Section I. Port. IV. Part I. Book II.

So content with water, it also enjoys its own atmospheric phenomena original: "meteoris"; here referring to any transient natural phenomenon like storms or vapors, both on the earth and beyond it; for it is no more lacking in divine action and its ministers than the airy sea of the world. As the Psalmist says: God is present everywhere: in heaven, in hell, in the farthest reaches of the sea, in the night, and in the darkness. And elsewhere: God does whatever He wills, in the heavens and on the earth, through the seas and all the depths; He causes the clouds to rise from the ends of the earth, He makes lightning with the rain, and brings forth the wind from His treasuries, etc. (Psalm 135:6–7 The text cites Psalm 139:7, but the quoted passage matches Psalm 135.). Furthermore, daily experience in mineral mines tells us that the bowels of the earth are stuffed and filled with angels; there is also that passage in Samuel where it is said: I saw Elohim (that is, gods) ascending from the earth (1 Samuel 28). Moreover, the Apostle speaks of the "rulers of darkness" and "spiritual wickedness" in this world (Ephesians 6). By the action of these spirits, eruptions of fire from the earth are produced, along with the overturning of mountains—such as the one that destroyed the city of Piuro original: "Plurensem"; referring to the catastrophic landslide of 1618 in the Alps that buried the town of Piuro.. Similarly, various types of storms arise in the sea because of spirits dwelling in the waters, who hold power over them granted by divine will (of which we shall speak below in its proper place). However, some of the wiser men attribute the action of "central heat" to the servant of Archaeo-nature original: "Archaeonaturae"; a term used in alchemy and Paracelsian medicine to describe the "master craftsman" or vital force that governs natural processes., and they have their own specific ideas on this.

CHAPTER VII.

On the material cause of meteors in Man.

We have said that Man is composed of spirit and body—just as the world is made of heaven and earth—in no other way than the world itself. Because of this, philosophers have not unwisely called him the "Minor World" original: "Mundus Minor" or Microcosm.. Indeed, as Hermes Trismegistus testifies in Pymander 8, man is the image of the world, and in another place he called him the son of the world. Therefore, it is necessary that his dark body be derived from the world’s earth, and his airy spirit from the world’s heaven, and that both be sustained and nourished in succession through terrestrial foods and the perpetual drinking of the "airy cup." This is why Moses testifies that GOD created Adam from the mud of the earth, and breathed into his face the breath of life. From this it is clear that whatever the state of the external air may be, the human spirit must have the closest relationship to it, since the Macrocosmic spirit The spirit of the great universe. constantly mixes with the spirit of the Microcosm The spirit of the individual human. through various breaths. Thus, it is inevitable that air infects air, just as water colored with blood, snow, or saffron converts other water into its own condition. So too, the foul air of one place makes the sweet and fragrant air of another smell terrible; consequently, air defiled by rot and pestilent "seeds" converts healthy and clean air into its own nature.

This is exactly what Hippocrates and Galen proclaimed in various parts of their writings. For Galen recognized that our bodies are necessarily altered by the surrounding air. Elsewhere he says: Hotter states of the surrounding air, such as those occurring especially around the rising of the Dog Star, clearly heat the heart through breathing; and being poured around the body from the outside, they make the whole body hotter. But this is especially true of the arteries, as they draw in something of the substance of the surrounding air itself, from which the heart must necessarily be affected. Similarly, Hippocrates teaches us that through the surrounding air we can reach a knowledge of diseases. Elsewhere he says that at the beginning of winter, bile decreases because it is now cooling, and phlegm original: "pituita"; one of the four traditional humors believed to regulate health. increases anew, both from the following rains and from the length of the nights. Hippocrates himself seems to acknowledge this same thing in his book On Nature and throughout the first book of On Epidemics, where he appears to declare and predict the effects of epidemic diseases based on the rising of winds and the rising and setting of stars. Galen, his commentator, also acknowledges that animal bodies are altered by the air, so that they become wetter through rains and drier through heat or summer glow. He says that when heat prevails, the head will be firm; when cold is abundant, the head will be very light, but the chest and lungs will suffer. Furthermore, elsewhere he speaks in these words: Of those things which happen to bodies from the outside, one is certainly inseparable from it, adhering to it like a perpetual kinsman: namely, the surrounding air, which harms us by making us excessively hot, or cold, or wet, or dry. There are infinite other passages in both Hippocrates and Galen by which we are warned that the internal air has an inseparable union with the spirit of animals. Moreover, the method by which air is drawn into the lungs and "cooked" by them is demonstrated by Galen. Similarly, he explains how the air drawn in by breathing is carried in two directions: partly to the heart via the lungs, and partly to the brain with the help of the nostrils. Finally, in his famous booklet Whether Blood is Naturally Contained in the Arteries, he admits that inspired air is spread through every single member of the whole body by means of the lungs, heart, arteries, and nostrils.

But now we shall make a brief discourse concerning the air or spirit contained within man, and concerning its origin, seat, and motion in the human body. We have declared elsewhere that the living soul inhabits the center of this body, just as the bright influences of life sent down from the sun into these lower regions inhabit the innermost parts of the worldly...