Page:Three Books of Occult Philosophy (De Occulta Philosophia) (1651).djvu/517

 as we read of Peter the Apostle and of Peter the Exorcist: He may the less wonder at this, who hath seen those famous melancholick men, who walk in their sleepes and passe through places even unpassible, and ascend even unaccessible places, and exercise the works of those that are awake, which they themselves being awake could not do; of the which things there is no other reason in nature, then a strong and exalted imagination: but this power is in every man, & it is in the soul of man from the root of his Creation; but it is varied in diverse men, in strength and weakness, and is encreased and diminished according to his exercise and use, by the which it is drawn forth from power into act, which thing he that rightly knoweth, can ascend by his knowledge, even untill his imaginative faculty doth transcend and is joyned with the universall power, which Alchindus, Bacon, and Gulielmus Parisiensis do call the sense of nature; Virgil the Etheriall sense, and Plato the sense of the vehicle: and his imagination is made most strong, when that etherial and Celestiall power is poured out upon it, by whose brightness it is comforted, untill it apprehend the species, notions and knowledge of true things, so that that which he thought in his mind, cometh to passe even as he thought, and it obtaineth so great power, that it can plunge, joyn and insinuate it self into the minds of men, and make them certain of his thoughts, and of his will and desire, even thorow large and remote spaces, as if they perceived a present object by their senses; and it can in little time do many things, as if they were done without time; yet these things are not granted to all, but to those whose imaginative and cogitative power is most strong and hath arrived to the end of speculation; and he is fitted to apprehend and manifest all things, by the splendour of the universall power, or intelligence and spirituall apprehension which is above him: and this is that necessary power, which everyone ought to follow and obey, who followeth the truth; if therefore now the power of the imagination is so great, that it can ininuate itself unto whom it pleaseth, being neither hindered nor let by any distance of