_ "is familiar with potions, philtres, and with
various preparations of poisons."[241]

It is obvious that all these have now passed into the realms of science
and are no longer regarded as magical arts; but the further categories
enumerated by Fludd and comprised under the general heading of
_Necromantic Magic_ retain the popular sense of the term. These are
described as (i) _Goetic_, which consists in "diabolical commerce with
unclean spirits, in rites of criminal curiosity, in illicit songs and
invocations, and in the evocation of the souls of the dead"; (2)
_Maleficent_, which is the adjuration of the devils by the virtue of
Divine Names; and (3) _Theurgic_, purporting "to be governed by good
angels and the Divine Will, but its wonders are most frequently
performed by evil spirits, who assume the names of God and of the
angels." (4) "The last species of magic is the _Thaumaturgic_, begetting
illusory phenomena; by this art the Magi produced their phantoms and
other marvels." To this list might be added _Celestial Magic_, or
knowledge dealing with the influence of the heavenly bodies, on which
astrology is based.

The forms of magic dealt with in the preceding part of this chapter
belong therefore to the second half of these categories, that is to say,
to Necromantic Magic. But at the same period another movement was
gradually taking shape which concerned itself with the first category
enumerated above, that is to say, the secret properties of natural
substances.

A man whose methods appear to have approached to the modern conception
of scientific research was Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim,
commonly known as Paracelsus, the son of a German doctor, born about
1493, who during his travels in the East is said to have acquired a
knowledge of some secret doctrine which he afterwards elaborated into a
system for the healing of diseases. Although his ideas were thus
doubtless drawn from some of the same sources as those from which the
Jewish Cabala descended, Paracelsus does not appear to have been a
Cabalist, but a scientist of no mean order, and, as an isolated thinker,
apparently connected with no secret association, does not enter further
into the scope of this work.

Paracelsus must therefore not be identified with the school of so-called
"Christian Cabalists," who, from Raymond Lulli, the "doctor illuminatus"
of the thirteenth century, onward, drew their inspiration from the
Cabala of the Jews. This is not