Three Books of Occult Philosophy · 184 of 186

Book III, Ch. 63: What things may be called holy, what consecrated, and how these become so betwixt us and the Dieties; and of sacred times

Now those things are called sacred, which are made holy by the gods themselves, or their Demons, being (as I may say) dedicated to us by the gods themselves. By this account we call Demons holy, because in them God dwells, whose name they are often said to hear. Whence it is read in Exodus: I will send my Angel who shall go before thee; observe him, neither think that he is to be despised, because my name is in him. So also mysteries are called sacred. For a mystery is that which hath a holy and an occult vertue, and favour given by the gods or Demons, or dispensed by the most high God himself; such as are those sacred names and Characters, which have been spoken of. So the crosse is called holy and mysterious, being made so by the passion of Jesus Christ. Hence also certain prayers are called holy, and mysticall, which are not instituted by the devotion of man, but by divine Revelation, as we read in the Gospel that Christ instituted the Lords prayer. In like manner certain confections are called holy, into which God hath put the especiall beam of his vertue, as we read in Exodus of the sweet perfume, and oil of anointing, and as with us there is a sacred fountain, and a sacred ointment; There is also another kind of holiness, whereby we call those things holy which are dedicated and consecrated by man to God, as vows, and sacrifices, of which we have spoken already: Whence Virgil, But Cesar [Caesar] with a tripple [triple] triumph brought Into the City Rome, as most devout, Did dedicate unto the Italian gods An immortall vow ----- And Ovid in his Metamorphosis sings thus, A feast was kept, wherein Aeacides For Cicnus death with heifers blood did please Propitious Pallas, when the entralls laid On burning altars, to the Gods convaid An acceptable smell; a part addrest To sacred use, the board receiv’d the rest. In like manner the representations, resemblances, Idols, Statues, Images, Pictures, made after the similitudes of the Gods, or dedicated to them, are called sacred, even as Orpheus singeth in his hymn to Lycian Venus, The chieftains that the sacred things protect Of our country, did for our town erect A Sacred Statue ----- And Virgil.

O father, take the household gods, and hold Them in thy sacred hands ----- Hence divine Plato in his eleventh book of Lawes, commanded that the sacred Images and Statues of the Gods should be honoured, not for themselves, but because they represent the Gods to us, even as the ancients did worship that Image of Jupiter, thus interpreting it: for in that he bares the resemblance of a man, was signified that he is a mind which produceth all things by his seminary power; he is feigned to sit, that his immutable and constant power might he expressed; he hath the upper parts bare and naked, because he is manifest to the intelligences and the superiors; but the lower parts are covered, because he is hid ftom the inferior creatures: he holdeth a scepter in his left hand, because in these parts of the body the most spiritual habitation of life is found. For the Creator of the intellect is the King and the vivifying spirit of the world; but in his right hand he holdeth forth both an Eagle and victory; the one, because he is Lord of all the Gods, as the Eagle is of other birds; the other, because all things are subject to him; in like manner we also reverence the Image of a Lamb, because it representeth Christ, and the picture of a Dove, because it signifieth the holy Ghost, and the forms of a Lion, Oxe, Eagle, and a man, signifying the Evangelists, and such like things, which we find expressed in the Revelations of the Prophets, and in divers places of the holy Scripture: moreover those things confer to the like revelations and dreams, and therefore are called sacred pictures; there are also sacred rites and holy observations, which are made for the reverencing of the Gods, and religion, viz. devout gestures, genuflexions, uncoverings of the head, washings, sprinklings of Holy water, perfumes, exterior expiations, humble processions, and exterior Ornaments for divine praises, as musical Harmony, burning of wax candles and lights, ringing of bells, the adorning of Temples, Altars and Images, in all which there is required a supream and special reverence and comeliness; wherefore there are used for these things, the most excellent, most beautifull and pretious [precious] things, as gold, silver, pretious stores, and such like: which reverences and exterior rites are as it were lessons and invitations to spiritual sacred things, for the obtaining the bounty of the Gods; concerning which Proserpina beareth witness in these verses, Who ever did the brazen statues slight, The yellow gifts of gold, or silver white, Who would not wonder, and not say that these Are of the Gods? ----- The priests also are called sacred, and the ministers of the divine powers, and Gods, and they themselves being consecrated do both administer all the holy things, and also consecrate them, whence Lucan.

The consecrated priests, to whom great power Is granted ----- And Virgil saith of Helenus the priest of Apollo, He praies [prays] for peace of th’ Gods, and doth unloose The Garlands of his sacred head ----- Those holy rites are as it were certain agreements betwixt the Gods and us, exhibited with praise, reverence or obedience, by the means of which we very oft obtain some wonderfull vertue from that divine power, on whom such reverence is bestowed; so there are sacred Hymns, Sermons, Exorcismes, Incantations, and words, which are compounded and dedicated for the praises and divine services of the Gods, whence, Orpheus in a verse composed for the stars, saith.

With Holy words, now on the Gods I call. And the primitive Church did use certain holy incantations against diseases and snf tempests, which we either pronounce praying to some divine powers, or also sometimes carrying them along with us, written and hanging on our neck, or bound to us, we obtain very oft some power from such a Saint, which men very much admire; by this means also there are sacred names, figures, Characters, and seals, which contemplative men, in purity of mind, for their secret vows, have devoted, dedicated and consecrated to the worship of God; which things truly, if any man afterwards shall pronounce with the same purity of mind, with the which they were first instituted, he shall in like manner do miracles; further also, the manner and rules delivered by the first institutor must be observed, for they who are ignorant of these things, loose their labour, and work in vain; Thus not only by barbarous words, but also by Hebrew, Aegyptian [Egyptian], Greek, Latine, and the names of other languages, being devoted to God, and attributed and dedicated to his essence, power or operation, we sometimes do wonders; such names there are in Iamblicus, viz. Osyris, Icton, Emeph, Ptha, Epies, Amun; so in Plato, and amongst the Greeks, [Greek text omitted], so the Greeks call Jupiter [Greek text omitted] which signifieth to live, because he giveth life to all things; in like manner [Greek text omitted (Dia)] which signifieth through, because through him are all things made, so [Greek text omitted (Athanaton)], which signifieth Immortall; so amongst the Latines he is called Jupiter, as it were an adjuvant father, and such like, and also certain names are devoted to men, as Eutychis, Sophia, Theophilus, that is, prosperous, servant, dear to God. In like manner certain materiall things receive no little sanctity and vertue by consecration, especially if done by a priest, as we see those waxen seals, in which are imprinted the figure of Lambs, to receive vertue by the benediction of the Romane High priest, against lightnings and tempests, that they cannot hurt those who carry them, for a divine vertue is inspired into Images thus consecrated, and is contained in them, as it were in a certain sacred Letter, which hath the Image of God; the like vertue those holy waxed lights receive at Easter, and at the feast of the purification of the virgins; in like manner bells by consecration and benediction receive vertue, that they drive away and restrain lightnings, and tempests, that they hurt not in those places where their sounds are heard; in like manner salt and water, by their benedictions and exorcismes receive power to chase and drive away evil spirits; and thus in things of this kind, there are also sacred times alwaies observed by the nations of every religion with very great reverence, which are either commanded that we should sanctify by the Gods themselves, or are dedicated to them by our fore-fathers and Elders, for the commemoration of some benefit received of the Gods, and for a perpetual Thanksgiving. Thus the Hebrews have received their Sabbaths, and the Heathens their holy daies, and we the solemn dayes of our holy rites, alwaies to be reverenced with the Highest solemnity; there are also times contrary to these, which they call penitential, and we black dayes, because that in those daies the commomwealth hath suffered some notable blow, and calamity, of which sort amongst the Romans was the day before the fourth nones of August, because that on that day they suffered that extraordinary blow at the Battle of Canna. In like manner all Postriduan daies are called black dayes, because that most commonly battles succeeded ill on these dayes: So amongst the Jews the black dayes are the seventeenth day of June, because on that day Moses brake the Tables, Manasses erected an Idol in the Sanctum Sanctorum, & the walls of Jerusalem are supposed to have been pulled down by their Enemies; likewise the ninth of July is a black day with them, because on that day the destructions of both the Temples happened, by this neason they are called Ægyptian [Egyptian] dayes, in the old time observed by the Ægyptians, and every Nation by this way may easily make a like calculation of days fortunate or unfortunate to them, and the Magicians command that these holy and religious daies be observed no less then the planetary daies [days], and the celestial dispositions; for they affirm that they are far more efficacious, especially to obtain spiritual and divine vertues, because that their vertue is not from the Elements and celestial bodies, but descendeth from the intelligible and supercelestial world, and being helped by the common suffrages of the Saints, is not infringed by any adverse disposition of the heavenly bodies, nor frustrated by the corruptible contagion of the Elements, if so be that firm belief and religious worship be not wanting, that is, joyned with fear and trembling, for religion properly holdeth forth thus much; Hence those daies are called religious, which to violate is a sin, which if we carefully observe, we fear not any great mischief, which we may do, if we do otherwise.