Three Books of Occult Philosophy · 171 of 186

Book III, Ch. 50: Of rapture, and extasie, and soothsayings, which happen to them which are taken with the falling sickness, or with a swoune, or to them in an agonie

A rapture is an abstraction, and alienation, and an illustration of the soul proceeding from God, by which God doth again retract the soul, being falled from above to hell, from hell to heaven. The cause of this is in us a continuall contemplation of sublime things, which as far as it conjoyns [conjoins] with a most profound intention of the mind, the soul to incorporeal wisdom, doth so far recall it self with its vehement agitations from things sensible and the body, and (as Plato saith) in such a manner sometimes, that it even flieth out of the body, and seemeth as it were dissolved: even as Aurelius Austin reporteth concerning a Priest of Calamia; (or whom we have made mention before) he lay (saith he) most like unto a dead man, without breath; and when he was burnt with fire and wounded, he felt it not; so great therefore is the command of the soul: viz. when it hath obtained its own nature, and is not oppressed by the allurements of the senses, that by its own power it suddenly ascendeth, not only remaining in the body, but even sometimes loosed from its fetters, and flyeth forth of the body to the supercelestiall habitations, where now it being most nigh, and most like to God, and made the receptacle of divine things, it is filled with the divine Light and Oracles. Whence Zoroastes [Zoroaster] saith, thou must ascend to the light it self, and to the beams of the Father, whence thy soul was sent thee, clothed with very much mind; and Trismegisius saith, it is nccessary that thou ascend above the heavens, and be far from the quire of spirits; and Pythagoras saith, if thou by leaving the body shalt pass into the spacious heavens, thou shalt be an immortall god. So we read that Hermes, Socrates, Xenocrates, Plato, Plotine [Plotinus], Heraclitus, Pythagoras and Zoroastes [Zoroaster], were wont to abstract themselves by rapture, and so to learn the knowledge of many things: also we read in Herodotus, that there was in Proconnesus a Philosopher of wonderfull knowledge, called Atheus, whose soul sometimes went out of the body, and after the visitation of places far remote, returned again into the body more learned: Pliny reporteth the same thing, that the soul of Harman Clazomenius was wont to wander abroad, his body being left, and to bring true tidings of things very far off; and there are even to this day in Norway and Lapland very many who can abstract themselves three whole dayes from their body, and being returned declare many things which are afar off; and in the meantime it is necessary to keep them, that not any living creature come upon them or touch them; otherwise they report that they cannot return into their body. Therefore we must know, that (according to the doctrine of the Aegyptians,) seeing the soul is a certain spirituall light, when it is loosed from the body, it comprehendeth every place and time, in such a manner as a light inclosed in a Lanthern [lantern], which being open, difffseth it self every where, and faileth not any where, for it is every where, and continually; and Cicero in his book of Divination saith, neither doth the soul of man at any time divine, [except] when it is so loosed that it hath indeed little or nothing to do with the body; when therefore it shall attain to that state, which is the supream [supreme] degree of contemplative perfection, then it is rapt from all created species, and understandeth not by acquired species, but by the inspection of the Ideas, and it knoweth all things by the light of the Ideas: of which light Plato saith few men are partakers in this life; but in the hands of the gods, all: also they who are troubled with the syncope and falling sickness, do in some manner imitate a rapture, and in these sicknesses sometimes as in a rapture do bring forth prophesie [prophecy], in which kind of prophesying we read that Hercules and many Arabians were very excellent, and there are certain kinds of soothsayings, which are a middle betwixt the confines of naturall predictions, and supernaturall Oracles, viz. which declare things to come from some excess of passion, as too much love, sorrow, or amongst frequent sights, or in the agony of death, as in Statius, of the mother of Achilles; ----------Nor she without parents dear Under the glassie [glassy] gulf the oars did fear. For there is in our minds a certain perspicuous power, and capable of all things, but encumbred and hindred by the darkness of the body and mortality, but after death it having acquired immortality, and being freed from the body it hath full and perfect knowledge. Hence it cometh to pass, that they who are nigh to death, and weakened by old age, have sometimes somewhat of an unaccustomed light, because the soul being less hindred by the senses, understandeth very acutely, and being now as it were a little relaxed from its bands, is not altogether subject to the body, and being as it were nigher to the place, to the which it is about to go, it easily perceiveth revelations, which being mixed with its agonies, are then offered to it; whence Ambrose in his book of the belief of the resurrection, saith, Which being free in the aerial motion, knoweth not whither it goeth, and whence it cometh; yet we know that it superviveth the body, and that it being freed, the chains of its senses being cast off, freely discerneth those things which it saw not before, being in the body, which we may estimate by the example of those who sleep, whose mind being quiet, their bodies being as it were buried, do elevate themselves to higher things, and do declare to the body the visions of things absent, yea even of celestial things.