Natural Magick

OF i* Natural Magick: Wherein are fearched out the Caufes of things which produce wonderful Effects.

What it meant by the time of UMagick.

Orphyry and Aptfleius, great Platonicks, in an Oration made in the defence of Magick, do witnefs,that Magick took her name and original from Perfia. ThIIj> in his book of Divination, faith, that in the Pcrfian language, a Magician is nothing elfe but one that expounds and ftudies divine things; and it is the general name of Wife-men in that country. S.Jerome writing to?4«//’»«*,faith that Apolloniui Tfanatu was a Magician,as the people thought;or a Philofopher,as the Pythagoreans efteemed him. Pliny faith, that it is received for a certainty among moft Authors,that Magick was begun in Perfia by Zoroaftres the fon of Orimafttu; or, as more curious Writers hold, by another Zoroaftres furnamed Proconnefiut) who lived a little before. The fir ft Author that ever wrote of Magick, was Ofihanes9 who going with Xerxes king of Perfia in the war which he made againft Greece) did fcatcer by the way as it were the feeds andfirft beginnings of this wonderful Art,infeSing the world with it wherefoever he came; infomuch that the Grecians did not onely greedily defire this knowledge, but they were even mad after it. So then Magick is taken amongft all men for Wifdom, and the perfect knowledge of natural things: and thofe are called Magicians, whom the Latines call Wife-men, the Greeks call Philofophers, of ‘Pythagoras onely, the firft of that name, as Diogenes writes: the Indians call them Brackmans,in their own tongue; but in Greek they call them Gymnofophifts, as much co fay as naked Philofophers: the Babylonians and Affyrians call them Chaldeans, of Chaldxa a county in Afia: the Celtcs in France call them Druids, Bards, and Semnothites: the Egyptians call them Priefts; and the Cabalifts call them Prophets. And fo in divers countries Magick hath divers names. But we finde that the greateft part of thofe who were beft feen into the nature of things,were excellent Magicians: as, amongft the Perfians,Z0r*a/?rmhefon of Orimaftus^hom we fpake of before i amongft the Romanes, ‘Hyma Pompilitu; Thefpion, amongft the Gymnofophifts • Zamolxis, amongft the Thracians; Abbaris, amongft the Hyperboreans; Hermes amongft the ./Egyptians: and Budday amongft the Babylonians. Betide thefe, Apuleim reckons up Carinondas, Damigeron^Hifmofes^ApoUomtu^ta Dor* damti) who all followed Zoroaftres and Ofthanes,