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Rabbi Moises, out of the book of Galen, which Patriarcha translated, makes mention of a man who
was suffocated for six days, and did neither eat nor drink, and his arteries became hard. And it is said,
in the same book, that a certain man, being filled with water, lost the pulse of his whole body, so that
the heart was not perceived to move, and he lay like a dead man. It is also said that a man, by reason
of a fall from a high place, or great noise, or long staying under the water, may fall into a swoon,
which may continue forty-eight hours, and so may lay as if he were dead, his face being very green.
And in the same place there is mention made of a man that buried a man, who seemed to be dead,
seventy-two hours after his seeming disease, and so killed him because he buried him alive; and there
are given signs whereby it may be known who are alive, although they seem to be dead, and, indeed,
will die, unless there be some means used to recover them, as phlebotomy, or some other cure. And
these are such as very seldom happen. This is the manner by which we understand magicians aud
physicians do raise dead men to life, as they that were tried by the stinging of serpents, were, by the
nation of the Marsi and the Psilli, restored to life. We may conceive that such kind of extasies
[ecstasies] may continue a long time, although a man be not truly dead, as it is in dormice and
crocodiles and many other serpents, which sleep all winter, and are in such a dead sleep that they can
scarce be awakened with fire. And I have often seen a dormouse dissected and continue immovable,
as if she were dead, until she was boiled, and when put into boiling water the dissected members did
show life. And, although it be hard to be believed, we read in some approved historians, that some
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Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa: Of Occult Philosophy, Book I, (part 3)
men have slept for many years together; and, in the time of sleep until they awaked, there was no
alteration in them so as to make them seem older. The same doth Pliny testify of a certain boy, whom,
he saith, being wearied with heat and his journey, slept fifty-seven years in a cave. We read, also, that
Epimenides Gnosius slept fifty~seven years in a cave. Hence the proverb arose -- to outsleep
Epimenides. M. Damascenus tells that in his time a certain countryman in Germany, being wearied,
slept for the space of a whole autumn and the winter following, under a heap of hay, until the summer,
when the hay began to be eaten up; then he was found awakened as a man half dead and out of his
wits. Ecclesiastical histories confirm this opinion concerning the seven sleepers, whom they say slept
196 years. There was in Norvegia a cave in a high sea shore, where, as Paulus Diaconus and
Methodius, the martyr, write, seven men lay sleeping a long time without corruption, and the people
that went in to disturb them were contracted, or drawn together, so that after a while, being
forewarned by that punishment, they dared not disturb them. Xenocrates, a man of no mean repute
amongst philosophers, was of the opinion that this long sleeping was appointed by God as a
punishment for some certain sins. But Marcus Damascenus proves it, by many reasons, to be possible
and natural, neither doth he think it irrational that some should, without meat and drink, avoiding
excitements, and without consuming or corruption, sleep many months. And this may befall a man by
reason of some poisonous potion, or sleepy disease, or such like causes, for certain days, months or
years, according to the intention or remission of the power of the medicine, or of the passions of their
mind. Physicians say that there are some antidotes, of which they that take too great a potion shall be
able to endure hunger a long time; as Elias, in former time, being fed with a certain food by an angel,
walked and fasted in the strength of that meat forty days. And John Bocatius makes mention of a man
in his time, in Venice, who would every year fast four days without any meat; also, a greater wonder,
that there was a woman in lower Germany, at the same time, who took no food till the thirteenth year
of her age, which, to us, may seem incredible, but that he confirmed it. He also tells of a miracle of
our age, that his brother, Nicolaus Stone, an Helvetian by nation, who lived over twenty years in the
wilderness without meat till he died. That also is wonderful which Theophrastus mentions concerning
a certain man, called Philinus, who used no meat or drink besides milk. And there are also grave
authors who describe a certain herb of Sparta, with which, they say, the Scythians can endure twelve
days' hunger, without meat or drink, if they do but taste it, or hold it in their mouth.
Chapter lix. Of Divination by Dreams.
There is also a certain kind of divination by dreams which is confirmed by the traditions of
philosophers, the authorities of divines, the examples of histories and by daily experience. By dreams
I do not mean vain and idle imaginations, for they are useless and have no divination in them, but
arise from the remains of watchings, and disturbance of the body. For, as the mind is taken up about
and wearied with cares, it suggests itself to him that is asleep. I call that a true dream which is caused
by the celestial influences in the phantastic spirit, mind or body, being all well disposed. The rule of
interpreting these is found amongst astrologers, in that part which is wrote concerning questions; but
yet that is not sufficient, because these kinds of dreams come by use to divers men after divers
manners, and according to the divers qualities and dispositions of the phantastic spirit. Wherefore,
there cannot be given one common rule to all for the interpretation of dreams. But, according to the
doctrine of Synesius, seeing there are the same accidents to things, and like befalls like, so be which
hath often fallen upon the same visible thing, hath assigned to himself the same opinion, passion,
fortune, action, and event. As Aristotle saith, the memory is confirmed by sense, and by keeping in
memory the same thing, knowledge is obtained; as also, by the knowledge of many experiences, by
little and little, arts and sciences are thus obtained. After the same account you must conceive of
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