Page:Three Books of Occult Philosophy (De Occulta Philosophia) (1651).djvu/531

 it was given to utter divine things, they having drank much wine did strange things. There was also a propheticall fountain of Father Achaia, constituted before the temple of Ceres, where they that did enquire of the event of the sick did let down a glass by degrees tied to a small cord, to the top of the water, and certain supplications and fumes being made, the event of the thing did appear in the glass. There was also not far from Epidaurus a City of Laconia a deep Fen, which was called the water of Juno, into which cakes of corn being cast, answers were given, fortunate, if the waters did quietly retain what was cast in; but unhappy, if they did as it were, scorning of them, cast them back. The like they say do the caves of Aetna, into which money or sacrifices did shew the same presage of good or ill, by being retained, or rejected. The like things reports Dion in his Romane History, in a place which they call the Nymphs: where Frankincense being cast into the flames, Oracles were received concerning all those things which he did desire to know, especially concerning death, and those things which belonged to marriages. Wonderfull also is that which Aristotle relates of a certain fountain of the Paliscans of Sicilia, to which they that did take an oath did go, and whatsoever they did affirm upon oath writ it upon tables, which they cast into the fountain. If those things were true, the tables would swim; if false, sink; then fire coming suddenly forth burned him that was perjured into ashes. There was also in the City Dodona an Oak, which assoon as any one entered in to receive an answer, did forthwith move, and make a sound; there was also a statue holding a wand, which did strike a bason, whereby the bason made answer by moderated strokes. Whence it is read in the Epistle of Austinus to Paulinus,

"Answers did give the Dodonean brass, With moderated strokes; so docile t'was."

Chapter xlix. Of the fourth kinde of Phrensie, from Venus. Now the fourth kind of Phrensie proceeds from Venus, and it doth by a fervent love convert, and transmute the mind to God, and makes it altogether like to God, as it were the proper image of God; whence Hermes saith, O Asclepius! Man is a great miracle, an animal to be honoured and adored: for he passeth into the nature of God, whereby he becomes God: He knows the rise of Demons, and he knows himself to have his originall with them, despising the part of his humane nature in himself, having a sure confidence of the divinity of the other; The soul therefore being converted, and made like to God, is so formed of God, that it doth above all intellect, know all things by a certain essential contract of Divinity: therefore Orpheus describes love to be without eyes, because it is above the intellect. Now then the soul being so converted into God by love, and sublimated above the intellectuall spear, doth beside that it hath by its integrity obtain'd the spirit of prophecie, sometimes work