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CHAP. LXXXIIII. Of Sympathetical Medium's or Means. (Book 84)
I Deferred above, to close up the Treatise concerning things Injected, until it should be sufficiently and over-manifested concerning things conceived: For I have conjoyned things Injected, unto things Conceived, because they stood connexed in the root of the imaginative faculty: But I have shewn how much both of them may hurt and weaken us: one indeed as it were a forreign being drawn from some other place, and derived from far into the Body, heaping up a various Calamity; but the other bred at home in our possession: There was only remaining to be searched, Whether those Brans had nothing of fine Wheat adhering unto them? whether nothing could be fetched from the same Begin∣nings, which might be as a recompence for so great maladies? I have therefore discerned first of all, that Sympathetical Medium's are co-bound together with them. In the year 1639, a little Book came forth, whose Title was the Sympathetical Powder of Ericius Mohyns of Eburo, whereby Wounds are Cured without application of the Medicine unto the part affected, and without superstition; it being sifted by the Sieve of the reasons of Galen and Aristotle; wherein it is Aristotelically, Sufficiently proved, whatsoever the Title pro∣miseth: but it hath neglected the ditective Faculty or Virtue, which may bring the Vir∣tues of the Sympathetical Powder received in the bloody Towel, unto the distant Wound: Truly from a Wound, the venal Blood, or corrupt Pus, or Sanies from an Ulcer being re∣ceived in the Towel, do receive indeed a Balsam from a sanative or healing Being: I say from the Power of the Vitriol, a Medicinal Power connexed and limited in the aforesaid Mean: But the Virtues of the Balsome received, are directed unto the wounded Object, not indeed by an influential virtue of the Stars, and much less do they fly forth of their own accord, unto the Object at a distance: Therefore the Idea's of him that applyeth the Sympathetical Remedy, are con-nexed in the Mean, and are made the directresses of the Balsam unto the Object of his desire: Even as we have above also minded in Injecti∣ons, concerning Idea's of the desire. Mohyns supposeth that the Power of Sympathy doth issue from the Stars, because it is an imitator of Influences: But I do draw it out of a far more near Subject: To wit, out of directing Idea's, begotten by ther Mother Chari∣ty, or a desire of good will: For from hence doth that Sympathetical Powder operate more succesfully, being applyed by the hand of one, than of another: Therefore I have alwayes observed the best process, where the Remedy is instituted with an amorous desire, and care of Charity: but that it doth succeed with small success, if the Operater be a car∣less, or drunken Person: And therefore I have thenceforth, made more esteem of the Stars of the Mind, in Sympathetical Remedies, than of the Stars of Heaven.
But that Images being conceived, are brought unto an Object at a distance; a Woman great with Child doth manifestly prove; because she is she; who presently transferres all the Idea's of her Conceptions on her Young, which dependeth no otherwise on the Mother, than from a Communion of vniversal nourishment. Truly seeing such a directi∣on of desire is plainly natural, it's no wonder that the evil Spirit doth require the Idea's of the desire of his Imps, to be con-nexed unto a Mean offered by him. Indeed the Idea's of desire, are after the manner of the Influences of Heaven, cast into a proper Object, how locally remote soever; To wit, they are directed by the desire, specificating, or specially pointing out an Object for it self; even as the sight of the Basilike, or Nod of the Cramp-fish, is reflected on their willed Object: For I have already shewn in diverse foregoing places, that the Devil doth not attribute so much as any thing in the directions of things Injected; but that he hath need of a free directing and operating Power or Fa∣culty. But not that I will disgrace Sympathetical Remedies, because the Devil operates something about things Injected into the Body: For what have Sympathetical Remedies in common, although the Devil doth co-operate in Injections by wicked natural Means required from his Bond-slaves: For every thing shall be judged guilty, or good, from its ends and intents: And it is sufficient that Sympathetical Remedies do agree with things injected in natural Means or Medium's.