Page:Hermetic and Alchemical Writings of Paracelsus Vol I (IA cu31924092287121).djvu/137

Rh over its praises in silence, we should consider that we were doing it an injury: but since its operation and mighty power surpass belief, we deem it necessary to pronounce an eulogium on its virtues and efficacy. We will defer for the moment any mention of the rude and solid metals, since they admit of no comparison with our electrum. If any appliance used for food or drink be made of this material and diligently watched, it will be impossible for any poison or drug to be placed in it, because in our electrum there is so much sympathy towards man through the force, efficacy, and influence of the planets and the stars of Olympus, that for very pity, and as though in difficulty, directly it is taken in hand it betrays the poison by breaking out into a sweat and projecting spots. For this reason our ancestors used to have their drinking-cups, dishes, and other utensils made of the said material. There still remain in our age many necklaces and ornaments, such as rings, bracelets, remarkable coins, seals, figures, bells, shekels, made out of this, which of old were hidden in the earth. When they were dug up nobody, or very few, understood them, and in their ignorance they gilded them over or tinged them with silver. It is just a mark of the ignorance of our age that it cares nothing for such objects as these. But God would not have it that such a mystery of Nature and such a great treasure of His own should be hid any longer, but that what had been hidden by the more than Cimmerian darkness of the sophists should now, after a long season, come to light again. We do not assume to exhaust the virtues of our electrum. The ribald genius of the sophists would be hurt; the crowd of fools would be offended, and would receive what we said with idiotic laughter. Over and over again we have been on our guard against scandalising this impious crowd; so to avoid such a result it will be safest to pass over these matters in silence. Not, however, that we can altogether pass unnoticed certain stupendous effects of our electrum; since they came under our own eyes we shall be able to speak the more freely concerning them, without any suspicion that we are romancing or making up a story. We have seen rings, for instance, which removed all fear of paralysis or spasm from those who wore them on their fingers. These people, too, never suffered from apoplexy or epilepsy. If an epileptic patient put such a ring on the third finger, even though he be so overcome by the violence of the paroxysm as to be prostrated on the ground, he comes to himself and gets up.

Here, too, should be added something which we do not give from the report of others, for the same we have seen with our own eyes and know by experience. If the abovementioned ring be worn on the third finger by a man in whom any ailment is latent and growing, so that it would presently break forth in an eruption, the ring would forthwith give an indication by bursting out in a sweat, and as if seized with a sudden sympathy would put forth spots and become depraved in appearance, as we shall shew more fully in our book entitled "Sympathy."