Page 34 - Paracelsus Three Books of Philosophy

begotten: by it the comets, those prodigious stars which are besides the usual course of
heaven, are shadowed. All impressions have their original from the Turban, not from
the firmament or stars. When any strange and uncouth thing is at hand, there are fore-
runners and harbingers sent forth, by whom the evil that shall befall a people is
presaged to them. And those presagings are not from nature, but from the prophetical
Evester. All pestilences, all wars, all seditions, have their presages from the Turban. He
that knows the Evester is a prophet, and can tell things to come. The most high over all
doth not discourse with mortals, nor doth he send his angels to them from his throne
and dwelling place to declare such things; but those things are fore-known and
understood from the great Turban, which many pagans and Jews, darkened in the true
sense and understanding, have worshipped as a God.

Since that the shadowed Evester begins and springs up with every creature, we
must know, that the fortune and life of that thing where the Evester is may be
prognosticated by it. For example. When a child is born, at the same time the Evester
is born with him, continually manifest in him, that it presages from the cradle to the
very hour of death, and can show what will become of that infant. So when one is
ready to die, death seizes not on him till the Evester hath first passed sentence, either
by blow, bruise, or fall, or some such other kind of example; by which if a man
perceive the Evester, he may see a sign of his approaching death. The Evester is united
to the eternal. For a man’s Evester remains in the earth after his death, and hints in its
kind whether the man be in bliss or misery. Nor ought we to say that it is the spirit or
soul of a man, as simple people speak, or that it is the dead man that walks; But it is
the dead man’s Evester, which departs not hence till the last minute when all things
shall come together. This Evester works strange things. Holy men wrought miracles by
their Evester only. As the Sun by his shining gives forth his heat, nature and essence;
so is it with the divining and prophetical Evesters in us, to which we should give credit.
These rule and moderate sleep, fond dreams, prefigurations of things to come, the
natures of things, reason, concupiscences and thoughts.

Whereas things to come may thus be known before in the Elements, by that
wherein the Evesters dwell; some Evesters will be in the water, some in looking
glasses, some in crystals, some in polished mussels; some will be known by the
commotions of waters, some by songs and by the mind. For all these can (as I speak)
Evestrate. The most great and blessed God hath a mysterious Evester, in which his
essence and property is beheld. Every good, and every enlightened thing is known by
the mysterious Evester. On the contrary, the damned hath his Evester in the world, by
which the evil is known, and all whatsoever violates and breaks the law of nature.

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