THE principal ingredient in this confection, is the moss of a dead man's skull, which Van Helmont calls the excrescencies or superfluities of the stars. Now the moss growing on the skull of a dead man, seeing it has received its seed from the heavens, but its increase from the mummial marrow of the skull of man, or tower of the microcosm, has obtained excellent astral and magnetic powers beyond the common condition of vegetables, although herbs, as they are herbs, want not their own magnetism.
Now, the magnetism of this unguent draws out that strange disposition from the wound (which otherwise, by a disunion of the parts that held together, and by which, I say, strange disposition and foreign quality is produced) from whence it slips, not being overburdened or oppressed by any accident, suddenly grow together; and this is effected by the armary unguent, or weapon salve. From this it appears that the unguent, or weapon salve, its property is to heal suddenly and perfectly without pain, costs, peril, or loss of strength; hence it is manifest that the magnetical virtue is from God.
It is now seasonable to discover the immediate cause of magnetism in the unguent.
First of all, by the consent of mystical divines, we divide man into the external and internal man, assigning to both the powers of a certain mind, or intelligence: for so there doth a will belong to flesh and blood, which may not be either the will of man or the will of God; and the heavenly Father also reveals some things unto the more inward man, and some things flesh and blood reveals, that is, the outward and sensitive, or animal man. For, how could the service of idols, envy, &c. be rightly numbered among the works of the flesh, seeing they consist only in the imagination, if the flesh had not also its own imagination and elective will?
Furthermore, that there are miraculous ecstasies belonging to the more inward man, is beyond dispute. That there are also ecstasies in the animal man,