download PDF version: 38.1MB - Global Grey

206 HISTORY OF THE ROS1CRUCIANS.
teaches that the great agent in magic is the imagination
confirmed by that faith which perfects will-power, and that
the imagination thus strengthened can create its own ob-
"
jects. Man has a visible and invisible workshop. The
visible one is his body ; the invisible one his imagination.
. . . The imagination is a sun in the soul of man, acting in
its own sphere as the sun of the earth acts in his. Wher-
ever the latter shines, germs planted in the soil grow, and
vegetation springs up ; and the sun of the soul acts in a
similar manner, and calls the forms of the soul into exist-
ence. . . . The
spirit is the master, imagination the tool,
and the body the plastic material. Imagination
power by
is the
which the will forms sidereal entities out of
thoughts. It is not fancy, which latter is the corner-stone
of superstition and foolishness. . . . The power of the
imagination is a great factor in medicine. It may produce
diseases in man and in animals, and it may cure
l them."
This theory covers all the phenomena of visions, ecstacies,
evocations, and other pseudo-miracles, recognising that they
are facts, and accounting for the futility of their results.
V. Whether the Eosicrucians pretended to manufacture
material gold is a question which is difficult to decide from
the materials contained in their manifestoes. They acknow-
ledge the fact of transmutation, and call it a " great gift of
God ;
" but "as it bringeth not always with it a knowledge
of Nature, while this knowledge bringeth forth both that
and an infinite number of other natural miracles, it is right
that we be rather earnest to attain to the knowledge of
philosophy, nor tempt excellent wits to the tincture of
metals sooner then to the observation of Nature." What-
ever may be thought of this reasoning, it definitely places
1 "Confessio Fraternitatis," c. xi.
2 Ibid.