Page:Three Books of Occult Philosophy (De Occulta Philosophia) (1651).djvu/72

 there were some certain women in Scythia, and amongst the Illyrians, and Triballians, who as often as they looked angrily upon any man, were said to slay him. Also we read of a certain people of Rhodes, called Telchines, who corrupted all things with their sight, wherefore Jupiter drowned them. Therefore Witches, when they would after this manner work by witchcraft, use the eyes of such kind of Animals in their waters for the eyes, for the like effects. In like manner do Pismires fly from the heart of a Lapwing, not from the head, foot, or eyes. So the gall of Lizards being bruised in Water is said to gather Weesels together, not the taile or the head of it; and the gall of Goats put into the Earth in a brazen Vesel, gathers Frogs together; and a Goats liver is an enemy to Butterflies and all Maggots, and dogs shun them that have the heart of a Dog about them, and Foxes will not touch those poultry that have eaten the liver of a Fox. So divers things have divers vertues dispersed variously through several parts, as they are from above infused into them according to the diversity of things to be received; as in a mans body the bones receive nothing but life, the eyes sight, the ears hearing. And there is in mans body a certain little bone, which the Hebrews call LVZ, of the bigness of a pulse that is husked, which is subject to no corruption, neither is it overcome with Fire, but is alwaies preserved unhurt, out of which, as they say, as a Plant out of the seed, our Animall bodies shall in the Resurrection of the dead spring up. And these vertues are not cleared by reason, but by experience.

Moreover we must know that there are some properties in things only whilest they live, and some that remain after their death. So the litle fish Echeneis stops the ships, and the Basilisk, and Catablepa kill with their sight, when they are alive; but when they are dead