Page:Three Books of Occult Philosophy (De Occulta Philosophia) (1651).djvu/172

 altogether abstracted from the body, as Celsus relates of a certain Presbyter, who as oft as he pleased, could make himself senseless, and lie like a dead man, that when any one pricked, or burnt him, he felt no pain, but lay without any motion or breathing, yet he could, as he said, hear mens voices as it were afar off, if they cryed out aloud. But of these abstractions we shall discourse more fully in the following Chapters.

Chapter lxv. How the Passions of the Mind can work out of themselves upon anothers Body.
The Passions of the Soul which follow the phantasie, when they are most vehement, cannot only change their own body, but also can transcend so, as to work upon another body, so that some wonderfull impressions are thence produced in Elements, and extrinsecall things, and also can so take away, or bring some disease of the mind or body. For the Passions of the Soul are the chiefest cause of the temperament of its proper body. So the Soul being strongly elevated, and inflamed with a strong imagination, sends forth health or sickness, not only in its proper body, but also in other bodies. So Avicen is of the opinion, that a Camell may fall by the imagination of any one. So he which is bitten with a mad Dog presently fals into a madness, and there appear in his Urine the shapes of Dogs. So the longing of a woman with Child, doth act upon anothers body, when it Signs the infant in the womb with the mark of the thing longed for. So, many monstrous generations proceed from monstrous imaginations of women