In a special work on occult medicine that which is stated here will be proved, however strange and paradoxical it may seem at first sight to men of science.[254] Such were the bases of medicine as put forward by Paracelsus; he cured by sympathy of light; he administered medicaments not to the outward material body, which is entirely passive, which can be rent and cut up without feeling anything when the astral body has withdrawn, but to the inward medium, to that vehicle which is the source of sensations. The quintessence of these he renewed by sympathetic quintessences. For example, he healed wounds by applying powerful reactives to the spilt blood, thus sending back its physical soul and purified sap to the body. To cure a diseased limb he made a limb of wax and, by will-power, transferred thereto the magnetism of the diseased limb. Then he treated the wax with vitriol, iron and fire, thus reacting by imagination and magnetic correspondence on the sick person himself, to whom the limb of wax had become an appendix and supplement. Paracelsus knew the mysteries of blood; he knew why the priests of Baal made incisions with knives in their flesh, and then brought down fire from heaven; he knew why orientals poured out their blood before a woman to inspire her with physical love; he knew how spilt blood cries for vengeance or mercy and fills the air with angels or demons. Blood is the instrument of dreams and multiplies images in the brain during sleep, because it is full of the Astral Light. Its globules are bisexual, magnetised and metalled, sympathetic and repelling. All forms and images in the world can be evoked from the physical soul or blood. “At Baroche,” says the estimable traveller Tavernier,[255] “there is a first-class English house, which I reached on a certain day with the English president, on my way from Agra to Surat. There came also certain jugglers, asking leave to exhibit some of their professional skill, and the president was curious to see it. In the first place they lighted a great fire, at which they heated iron chains, then wound them about their bodies and pretended that they were suffering in consequence, but no harm followed. They next took a morsel of wood, set it in the ground and asked one of the spectators to choose what fruit he liked. His choice fell upon mangoes, and thereupon one of the performers put a shroud about him and squatted on the ground five or six times. I had the curiosity to ascend to an upper room, where I could see through a fold in the sheet what was being done by the man. He was actually cutting the flesh under the arm-pits with a razor, and rubbing the wood with his blood. Each time he rose up the wood grew visibly; on the third occasion there were branches and buds thereon, on the fourth the tree was covered with leaves, and on the fifth it was bearing flowers.