Cause Principle Unity

On magic
apprehends all things, however diverse and distant, which are around it
outside of its body. This is a sign that the soul is not included in the body
as its first act and substance, 6 and that it is not circumscribed by the body.
Rather, in itself and by itself, it should be understood only as a second act.
This principle is the cause of innumerable marvellous effects, although its
nature and power need to be investigated. This soul and divine substance
cannot be inferior to the accidents which issue from it as its effects, traces
and shadows. I declare that if the voice operates outside the body which
produces it, and enters as a whole into innumerable ears on all sides, then
why cannot the whole substance, which produces the voice which is tied to
certain organs of the body, be located in different places and parts?
Furthermore, it must be noted that occult intelligence is not heard or
understood in all languages. For the voices spoken by humans are not heard
in the same way as the voices of nature. As a result, poetry, especially of the
tragic type (as Plotinus says), has a very great effect on the wavering
thoughts of the soul.
Likewise, not all writings have the same impact as those markings which
signify things by the particular way in which they are drawn and configured.
Thus, when certain symbols are arranged in different ways, they represent
different things: in a circle, the attraction of love; when opposed, the
descent into hate and separation; when brief, defective and broken, they
point to destruction; when knotted, to bondage; when strung out, to dissolution.
Furthermore, these symbols do not have a fixed and definite
form. Rather, each person, by the dictate of his own inspiration or by the
impulse of his own spirit, determines his own reactions of desiring or
rejecting something. And thus, he characterizes for himself each symbol
according to his own impulse, and as the divine spirit personally exerts certain
powers which are not expressed in any explicit language, speech, or
writing.
Such were the figures, so well designed by the Egyptians, which are
called hieroglyphics or sacred symbols. These were specific images selected
from natural objects and their parts to designate individual things. The
Egyptians used these symbols and sounds to converse with the gods to
accomplish extraordinary results. Later, when Theuth, 7 or someone else,
invented the letters of the type we use today for other purposes, this
6 This sentence is an explicit rejection of Aristotle’s definition of the soul in De anima, II, 1
(412.a.28–30).
7 See Plato, Phaedrus, 274 c–e, for an account of this legend about the origins of written language.
114