Three books of occult philosophy written by Henry Cornelius Agrippa of Nettesheim ... ; translated out of the Latin into the English tongue by J.F.

CHAP. XXIII. Of Geometrical Figures and Bodies, by what vertue they are powerful in Magick, and which are agreeable to each Ele∣ment, and the Heaven.

GEometricall Figures also arising from numbers, are con∣ceived to be of no less power. Of these first of all, a Circle doth answer to Unity, and the number ten; for Unity is the Center, and circumference of all things; and the number ten being heaped together returns into a Unity from whence it had its beginning, being the end and complement of all numbers. A circle is called an infinite line in which there is no Terminus a quo, nor Terminus ad quem, whose beginning and end is in every point, whence also a circular motion is called infinite, not according to time, but according to place; hence a circular being the largest and perfectest of all is judged to be most fit for bindings and conjurations; Whence they who adjure evil spirits, are wont to environ themselves about with a circle. A Pentangle also, as with the vertue of the number five hath a very great command over evil spirits, so by its lineature, by which it hath within five obtuse angles, and without five acutes, five double triangles by which it is surrounded. The interior pentangle containes in it great myste∣ries, which also is so to be enquired after, and understood; of the other figures, viz. triangle, quadrangle, sexangle, septangle, octangle, and the rest, of which many, as they are made of many and divers insections, obtain divers significations and ver∣tues according to the divers manner of drawing, and propor∣tions of lines, and numbers. The Egyptians, and Arabians confirmed that the figure of the Cross hath very great power, and that is the most firm receptacle of all Celestial powers, and intelligencies, because it is the rightest figure of all, containing foure right angles, and it is the first description of the super∣ficies, having longitude and latitude: And they said it is inspired with the fortitude of the Celestials, because their fortitude

results by the straitness of angles and rayes: And stars are then most potent when they possess four corners in the figure of the heaven, and make a cross, by the projection of their rayes mutually. It hath moreover (as we shewed before) a very great correspondency with the numbers 5. 7. 9. most po∣tent numbers. It was also reckoned by the Egyptian Priests, from the beginning of Religion amongst sacred letters, signi∣fying amonst them allegorically the life of future salvation. It was also impressed on the Picture of Serapis, and was had in great veneration amongst the Greeks. But what here belongs to Religion we shall discuss elsewhere. This is to be observed, whatsoever wonderfull thing figures work when we write them in Papers, Plates, or Images, they do not do it but by the vertue acquired from sublimer figures, by a certain affecti∣on which a natural apitude or resemblance procures, in as much as they are exactly configured to them, as from an opposite wall the Eccho is caused, and in a hollow glass the collection of the solarie rayes, which afterward reflecting upon an oppo∣site body, either wood, or any combustible thing, doth forth∣with burne it: or as an Harpe causeth a resounding in an o∣ther Harpe, which is no otherwise but because a sutable and a like figure is set before it, or as two strings on a Harpe being touched with an equall distance of time, and modulated to the same intention, when one is touched the other shakes also: Also the figures, of which we have spoken, & what characters so∣ever concern the vertues of the Celestial figures as they shall be opportunely impressed upon things, those ruling, or be rightly framed, as one figure is of affinity with, and doth express an other. And as these are spoken of figures, so also they are to be understood of Geometrical bodies, which are a Sphear, a Tetracedron, Hexacedron, Octocedron, Icocedron, Dodeca∣cedron, and such like. Neither must we pass over what figures Phythagoras and his followers, Timeus, Locrus, and Plato assigned to the Elements and Heavens: for first of all they assigned to the earth a four square, and a square of eight solid angles, and of twenty four plains, and six bases in form of a Dice: to the fire, a Pryamis of a four triangular basis, and of

so many solid angles, and of twelve plaines; to the aire Octoce∣dron, of eight triangular bases, and six solid angles, and twenty four plains: and lastly, to Water they have assigned Icoce∣dron twenty bases, twelve solid angles: To the Heaven they have assigned Dodecacedron of twelve five cornered bases, and twenty solid angles, and sixty plaines. Now he which knows the powers, relations, and proprieties of these figures, and bodies, shall be able to work many wonderful things in Natural and Mathematical Magick, especially in Glasses. And I knew how to make by them wonderful things, in which any one might see whatsoever he pleased at a long distance.