CHAPTER CIV—That the Works of Magicians are not due solely to the Influence of the Heavenly Spheres715715It would be superfluous to translate this chapter. The one point of
interest which it contains is the enumeration of wonders ascribed to magicians in
the thirteenth century. Such wonders are answers given about the whereabouts of
things stolen, about buried treasures, about future events, also about points of
science: speaking apparitions: statues that move and speak: locks opening on a person’s
mere approach: people becoming invisible. St Thomas writes: “If any one says that
such apparitions are not in the external sense but are simply imaginary, that explanation
has its difficulties: for no one takes imaginary forms for true ones except in cases
of alienation of the mind from exterior impressions: only when the natural judgement
of sense is impaired can phantoms be attended to as though they were realities:
but these conversations and apparitions occur to men who have the full use of their
external senses.” He mentions “statues made by the necromantic art,” but does not
explicitly refer to that evocation of the spirits of the departed, which is the
pretence of modern spiritualism.