Three Books of Occult Philosophy · 170 of 186

Book III, Ch. 49: 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 [sphere], doth beside that it hath by its integrity obtain'd the spirit of prophecie [prophecy], sometimes work wonderfull things, and greater then the nature of the world can do, which works are called miracles. For as the heaven by its image, light, and heat, doth those things, which the force of the fire cannot do by its naturall quality (which in Alchymie [alchemy] is most known by experience) so also doth God by the image and light of himself do those things, which the world cannot do by its innate vertue. Now the image of God is man, at least such a man that by a phrensie [phrensy] from Venus is made like to God, and lives by the mind only, and receives God into himself. Yet the soul of man according to the Hebrew Doctors and Cabalists, is defined to be the light of God, and Created after the image of the word, the cause of causes, the first example, and the substance of God, figured by a seal whose Character is the eternall word. Which Mercurius Trismegistus considering, saith, that such a man is more excellent then they that are in heaven, or at least equall to them.