PSEUCHOGRAPHIA ANTHROPOMAGICA: OR, A Magical Description OF THE SOUL: Wherein is set forth The Nature, Genesis and Exodus of it.  
By Agricola Carpenter,  Vivitur ingenio. 
LONDON, Printed for John Browne, at the Sign of the guilded Acorn in Paul's Churchyard. 1652.   

 depiction of Apollo and the labour of the author 
Apollo  Redit Agricolae labor actus in Orbem. Spes alit Agricolam. Non est e Terris Mollis ad astra Via   

The Author's EPISTLE to his Honoured Friend TEM. Hermophrod.  
THis imperfect brat and Embryo of my brain was dedicated thine in its first conception; it hath not been the labour of many days, or the product of serious hours, but the repose of my minutiall vacancies; therefore as its travail hath been but short, and its birth basty, so it cannot evade the greatest monstrosity without the largest candour, which as it cannot hope for from the world, whose eyes behold with prejudice, so this is not intended for it, but thee, who knows to entertain a Truth though it cannot plead prescription, and embrace a verity without a Panceroll. Superstitious credulity will condemn me as a heretic, and by the world (whose native dialect is reproach) I stand excommunicated; I walk secure while Truth is my passport, and as long as I enjoy her for my gauntlet, my station is above the reach of envy. If I have failed in my relation, I hope that Ingenuity will extenuate the lapses of my minority, and I promise my more mature judgement shall correct what my flexible infancy hath unwarily imbibed. I cannot contest with Calumnies, nor know I for the stile of heretic, to return my adversaries the name of Antichrist: that devotion I own to knowledge, engageth me upon conviction to repeal by Writ of Error what they accuse as heresy: till than my zeal must crave its liberty (the end being knowledge) cannot be suppressed; it hath many heads, which if it lose its current in one place, it will break forth into some other; thus Truth can triumph in its martyrdom, and being naked can best defend itself.  
Since the depravitie of the protoplast distraction hath been imposed upon the weal of knowledge, and the obstinacy of posterity hath increased it to a paroxysm of madness beyond the power of Hellebore, unless the discretion and policy of future ages coerce credulity, and commit to flames what our stubborn parents have obtruded upon the tender infancy of their successors: 
Lame knowledge that expects no Cure  
Till books confess a Calenture.  Every man's soul is his living library, whose activity must needs flag in the channels of an other body, and whose wings are clipped whilst its nature is confined to a Ne plus ultra, and thus to expire in the arms of our fathers, is a slavery equalizing the torment of Mezentius.  
Dear Friend, that ingenuity I always found in thee whilst we were Chamber fellows, doth promise to me thy connivance at those errors that shall occur, and a minoration of grosser crimes to venial peccadilloes, and likewise an entertainment of the cradle-service of this disguised brat, whose little desert, though it cannot expect thy perusal, yet its diligence to kiss thy hands, may merit thy acceptance, whereby he shall be encouraged to higher designs, whose highest ambition is to be.  
thy Friend to serve thee AG. CARPENTER.  An Antidote Rideo. Fortiter contemno.  


To Mr A. C.  
My much to be admired Friend,  
I Sufficiently know that these drops of mine cannot add to that stream of Eloquence which hath such a current through the veins of that little Book of thine; I pronounce to the world that I am none of the least Travellers, neither have I so much delighted in the smoke of my own chimney, as not to seek out the society of the most learned men: to find thy second I despair; Epictetus' Lantern is superannuate: to rob the world of thy invention, were to degenerate and anticipate the end of thy creation, which after-service to a deity is to gratify thy friend. It is not the first favour I have begged, nor the greatest courtesy which I have received, if you honour the Press, and inform the World with your Soul, it will be enough for your Apology to insert this unworthy paper, which will be sufficient testimony that it was the importunate entreaty of  
Your Friend and servant HOGLANDUS de BOYS. Paris, May 3. 1652.   

To Mr A. C.  
FEar not to let thy active spirit fly,  
'Tis not thy own but others destiny;  
If Carpers' carp, or rustics keep a coil,  
The fairest face seems fairer for a foil.  
H. B.   

In Pseuchographiam Anthropomagicam, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  
ABdit a mellipluis funduntur dicta labellis,  
O qui Paeoniaem demereare chelyn!  
Nil pareas populo reserans penetralia rerum,  
Ne fias rabidi praeda lupina chori?  
Siccine vecordis fugias suffragia plausûs,  
Dum cupis acclivem doctus inire viam?  
Non tibi polliceor fundos, viridaria, gemmas,  
Praemia nec rutuli fulgida vota Tagi.  
Hoc speres lectura tuos Philomuse, labores,  
Te decus Aurorae secula sera putent.  
Seria graendaevus tractet, juvenilia quisquis  
Se delirantem non cupit esse senem.  
Lusit sub trino annis eo. T.M.   

To His much admired Friend, A. C. Upon the Publishing of that Ingenuous Piece, PSEUCHOGRAPHIA ANTHROPOMAGICA.  

OThers on stilts may curvet out thy praise,  
My hiccop Muse can only belch out Lays:  
Her Sacrifice (brave Aesculape) I pray,  
Accept as Cocks to usher in thy day.   

Whilst others Volumes write, thou picklest here,  
Like Archimedes the Heavens in a Sphere:  
Their Elephantine Books will now want joints  
To go, since thou hast cramped all their points:  
Such Iliads in a Nutshell we may penned,  
So little kernel have they being all Lent:  
Here every word's Elixir, and our sense,  
In every phrase perceives a Quintessence:  
Giants not wonders are, thy Book's a Flag,  
Whose pygmy stature will all others gag:  
Geryon's so admired, Triumvirate  
Is made by thee to be a common State.  
The Soul that I'll of man shown us by thee,  
Enlargeth Learning's Maps, th' arts Heptarchee:  
A second Drake whose searches have at last,  
Put Girdles to the lesser worlds wide waste;  
Here's no Coranting, no Strappado phrase,  
Thy bays preserved thee from those thundering lays:  
But words are weighed, and decently annexed,  
Things as their natures are so well expressed:  
That this Topick an argument doth give,  
Thou truly hast a soul intuitive:  
Thou scornest those cripple Scholars which do rest  
In others words, swear Aristotle's Text;  
Their steps do not thee fit, the children's three,  
Make no Cothurnus for a Sophocles:  
Charleton's translated Paradoxes three,  
Give way to thy man's Compound Ternaree;  
And though some think him worthy to be hist,  
Yet from these three we count thee Trismegist.   
G. Scot   

To the no less Honoured then Ingennuous Author, A. C.  
WHat stupefactive Opium did infect  
The Protoplasts intuitive Intellect?  
Sure th' Apple was Narcotick, or some charm,  
Whose Magic did so powerfully transform  
The Microcosm, that it hath seemed a dark  
And indigested Hylas, till this spark  
Of thy Impregnate spirit drives away  
That missed obscured the Tria omnia,  
Thou makest us know ourselves, who until now,  
Thought only we were men, not knowing how:  
Go on, (brave youth) let thy sublimed strains  
Inform th' Mercurial moisture of those brains,  
Whose ruder apprehensions ne'er could fix yet,  
'Bove Entelecheie's or an Ipse dixit:  
Sure, thy mere Divine Spirit was created,  
Whereas that others are but propagated;  
Which blessing that it may extend to thee,  
(Whereby Cognition might ebettered be)  
We could wish thee to some Heroic Madam,  
Unless thou art designed to be the Adam.  
J. M.    

PSEUCHOGRAPHIA ANTHROPOMAGICA.  
THat the nature of several species had their existence by creation is undeniable, and the humble concession of all ages, yet how inconsistent with their definition will easily be evidenced upon indifferent arbitration; for if the latitude of creation as they suppose consist in the production of a thing whose term from which is nothing, than they must ampliate their vocabulary, and coin some exotic name for man's production, whose principle was an entity, and his materials a subject consentaneous, of its own nature capable of that composure; for if the body of man be reducible to those originals by natural chemistry, the law of contraries knows no natural incapacity to its return, or inability reopposing its regression: else our hopes of reviving a plant out of its ashes, would be as frivolous as our endeavours fruitless: and therefore Paracelsus opinion of composing man in his Alembeck (though his insuccedable undertaking anticipated by the destinies, and determined by the strength of Saturn, did not conclude directly,) yet his attempts herein were not unwarrantable, nor his conceit ridiculous: for the possibility of production not transcending the manual contrivance of art, the effect had been no artificial imposture, we rather suppose creation to be terminated to the production of a new species, which before in nature had no existence and generation: to challenge the successive continuation of those beings, each private species were the real effect of creation, but their succession knows no other means but generation; for since the protoplast, the manner of our fouls production cannot be christened creation without a catachreese, neither have we an alledgment of reason for their exile from increase and multiply, or a confinement of the blessing to a limitation of the body.  
The essence of the soul as it fell not within the cognition of the Grecians, so it exceeded the nicest Mathematics of the Arabians, and antedated the demonstration of later age, whose Optics not reaching beyond its operations, pitching upon its praecincts and bordering on the confines, do peremptorily determine its nature beyond dispute, so that those honest endeavours at any time in the scrutiny of its nature, as they cannot evade the sentence of singularity, so they must expect the censure of curiosity, and their ingenuous employments stand condemned by whole Counsels as not reaching beyond punctillioes. Surely posterity cannot but condemn the poverty of our conceptions, and admire the barrenness of our inventions, whose satisfied reasons as far below the sublimed thoughts of antiquity, as coming short of the verity of its nature, sit down in an ignorant acquiescence and an implicit faith of obtruded opinion, & though the positions of heathens run not parallel with the nature of their souls, yet their advanced thoughts therein (which hitherto have degenerated into a sensible imparement) have been so far from detracting from its dignity, that some thereto have not stuck to level their devotions, who knew no other deity. And therefore the cabalists have defined it to be Lumen dei & ad imaginem verbi, Causa causarum primi exemplaris creata substantia, Dei sigilloque figurata, cujus character est verbum aeternum: this hath had patrons of later times but surreptitiously fathered upon Predecessors: As Trismegist, (whose Antiquity is pretended, & the number of whose years is fare exceeded by the usurped date of his Book) who derives its Pedigree from the highest Principle, 
Cap. 12. Poemand.  conceives the Soul a drop of God's Essence and an invisible Ray of the first Luminary.  
Aristotle confuted no less than a whole Jury of Philosophers with an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and his Dixit, being evidence sufficient to prevail upon Posterity; whereto the Schools having prostituted their Reason by slavish Adherence, and engaged their Faith beyond Belief, introduce his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to confute Experience, and control Verity in her best Apparel.  
I am a Freeborn Subject; and the Law of Nature which is indispensible knows no slavery: and therefore I shall now think it a breach of Devotion in suspecting the truth of our Parents naked Positions, being not backed with the infallible Testimony of Reason or Experience, and dissenting from them by adherence to more rational probations, and more undeniable principles; for none (I think) since the Magic of the Apple, could challenge to themselves the Pope's Chair: as knowledge is not by Propagation, so infallibility (which requires the industry of many Ages) is not by a Natural Succession or Inheritance. I could never resolve my Reason into the Opinion of Antiquity, or surrender my Experience upon a different determination; the bare assertions of the most Authentic have never been embraced by me as Oracles: therefore I shall assume the liberty a little to unmask the Nature of the soul; an ample discovery whereof would deride the insufficiency of Galilaeus perspective.  
The Spirit Soul and Body are the Tria omnia, the three Ingredients in the Composition of man: (had the Philosophers been sensible of the diversity of Soul and Spirit confounded by the Doctrine of Aristotle) and considered an alteriety of Nature in those two principles, their friendly society had not been impossible, nor their Opposition excluding reconcilement.  
The Spirit is the breath of God, which being at first the effect of Creation, hath been observant of the blessing, and successively continued by Propagation, and participating of the nature of its principle knows not Mortality beyond a Metaphor: therefore the Primitive Transgression did not induce a real death, but a deperdition of happiness, and a degeneration of the Spirit from a State as desirable, as the present is deplorable.  
The Rational Soul being a Corporeal Extract and disliged from its grosser materials by the Chemistry of Nature, derives its Original from the Seminal Emission of both Individuals; and by its essential heat doth Ferment the Coagulum, which receiving its vitality from the irradiating Archaeus, cannot dissemble that impress whereby its suppositum is determined, which being the fertile effect of both Genitors will easily admit an united society with the soul of bruit, whose natures knowing no incompossibility, do not exclude a Composition; and therefore will perform the consequent effects of both Natures, which falls within the experience of those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. In particular, of one Drinking Cat's Blood, a prescription for the Epilepsy, the Patient had his Paroxysmes; that as he imitated their cries, so would catch at their preys: and pursue the fortuitous evasion of the frisking Mouse: these Miscellaneous principles engrossing the radicality of different forms, and meeting with Convenient promotion, their natural Consequences cannot be prevented, without an induction of Cadmus' Conflict, and an Hostile Subversion of both principles.  
Now to oppose the soul of our Saviour wanting a Coadjuvancy of both Sexes, is too weak to baffle solid Reason, whose whole life as it was miraculous, so the Manner of his Production supernatural.  
The Rational soul is the Mercurial moisture that marries the two extremes of Spirit and Body; Whose Affections are as Contrary as their natures are different; which after is remunerated with Vitality. For souls in their own Essence are insensible, till they be roused by the energy of the Spirit. And therefore the souls of Bruits being the same in Nature with that of man, but actuated with that more ignoble Spirit that moved upon the face of the waters, they come short of man's perfections, and cannot deliver their Conceptions in verbal Expressions.  
There are no Essential differences in the souls of Creatures, being but attenuated bodies by effectual Calidity. Which according to the Efficacy of heat may move in a higher Orb of Perfection, and by virtue of the impregnating Spirit may be raised an Animal; which without this subtiliating heat had rested in a lower Degree of Vegetation: and therefore the souls of Plants may challenge fraternity with that of Bruits; and Verity will admit no other difference but what is gradual, corresponding the intenseness of luminous Rays. For Vegetables peeping out of the pores of the earth the third day, when the Universe was equally sensible of the dispersed Rays, which after being Contracted to a Solary body, with greater Energy ferments the fuliginous Hylas: Which being separated from those grosser Adherents, whose Entertainments impede the reception of Vitality, by this Mundane Spirit have their Materials advanced to an animation: and therefore a more noble existence, as first of Fishes, did issue the confinement of these wand'ring Rays.  
This Mercurial Moisture being but an Analogical Spirit, cannot claim immortality without encroachment on higher Privileges, and usurping the property of higher Natures; and therefore being only sublimed by the Chemistry of irregular intellectuals, whose truth knows no Foundation in nature, may enter the grave with the more unrefined Mass, and admit of a Resurrection, which being the immediate Recipient of life, is termed life itself. We cannot define that Resurrection to whose existence immortality is appendent: as to the Spirit I am a Saducy, which being incapable of a lapse, cannot be restaurable by a Rise, and never dying cannot be said to live again; yet to believe the Resurrection of the Body, and the life, is part of my Creed; and thus as the souls Mortality is no impiety in sober Theology; so it is no riddle in judicious Philosophy: for he that shall but taste the strongest Spirits acquirable by natural Chemistry, may easily be convinced of the performance of noble operations by material principles, and its permeating each particular of the body in a time so imperceptible, as might easily impose that fallacy upon our sense, to determine its motion instantaneous.  
The Rational soul is determined to the visible Mass, commonly so called the body: whose too contracted nature cannot confine the Spirit; (hence was it that the Platonists conceded to it a kind of Ubiquity) for reason will not admit of any operation, where we deny the Essential presence of the Agent: and that there are  effects, appears in the formation of the Embryo; and in fascination performed beyond the visible body, and Organical circumscription; which cannot be executed by Mediation of qualities; for nature knows no such Deputy; 'tis ignorance that first gave the name of Accident.  
That there are Effluviums steaming from every visible Body, must be conceded, as falling under the demonstration of Experience, and prostituted by later invention of Perspectives.  
These Effluviums being the Badgers of heat, (desert the cumbersome society of Reason) which flying in the Air, may occur their Assimilables; and by the pregnancy of the Spirit may attain a visibility issuing from the union of hose disjointed pieces, as appear at the instance of death; for those Spectrums and Wafts are but the Effect of the Spirits fertility cooperating with the heat and Relics of moisture; the Emission of particles at that time being most copious. For Death (being to decide the Controversy, and to determine the Combat of the disease and nature) increaseth the heat, and agitating those corporeal Particles into Atomical Interstitiums, accompanieth them into the Air; where meeting with a proportionable number, salute each other; the Particles in this confused medley being not unmindful of their Office and Nature, seek out their proper situation, mould themselves into such a Method as not to dissemble their former shape; but meeting with something dismembering its imperfect reunition, or wanting Cement to retain them in this position, are presently shattered into invisible Existencies. Yet the Spirit as before Death, so after associates these divided Emissions till their heat confess a period: so after bodies are interred, the Relics of heat (which as it is well nigh insensible, so the operations are more feeble) doth excite a continued succession of these Atoms: which being as formerly fermented, and united by a Mummial Balsam, are those Noctambuloes that hover about the Cenotaphes, and haunt the Dormitures of the dead: but the Spirit sensible of a perpetuated impairment of heat in those Particles, and their invitation being too weak to obtain a grant of continuance from the Spirit, they dislodge their society; and the Spirit returns to him that gave it; where the sentence of their future condion, as it is infallible, so their hopes confirmed in the Centre of happiness knows no stagger to the circumference, or their wavering fears confined unto despair, are freed from that possibility, which is attendant on its adlidgements. Thus our Saviour as he envies not the happiness of Saints, so he is not injurious to the Justice of his Father, to gratify the Conceit of Origen, and sue for a release from hell, or obtain a Parole from the second Death: and therefore the raising of Lazarus, probably, was but the determining of his Spirit to the visible Mass; which otherwise was levaltoing in the scattered pieces. So the Spirits of wicked men (accompanying the steaming Emissions, being wanderers in the Airy Region, and their continuance there being determined by the duration of heat in those Particles. Which truth, excluding Concealment from Satan's Optics, knows not retirement from his Cognition, is waiting the Confinement of their Pilgrimage to a condition as immutable as their punishment inconceiveable; and hence he receives the Baptism of the Prince of the air.  
Reason and Memory are not essential to the Soul but the purchase of man, and the deplorable effect of his own invention, which after that Theomachy and contest with Heaven was obtruded upon posterity, and must be embraced as a penalty; and though we concede to Adam this continuating Mercurial moisture, yet as he was the proper product of his Creator, his perfection was as ignorant of reason, as his innocency should have known no punishment, and therefore whilst he retained his primitive station, his knowledge (as being little beholden to this torturing reason which after obscured those clearer apprehensions of his intellect) was intuitive, whereby inferior beings received their names not different from their natures, where if he had remained he had not stood in need of Logic, or been beholden to a Syllogism; his essence being the rule of proportion to determine, conclusions are the effect of sin, whose truth have their foundation in the spirit, which being there simply apprehended as they are in themselves, have the same verity as in divine essence, and therefore the things themselves own their errors and misconceptions to the extravagant exorbitancies of reason.  
So Memory an attendant of Reason, which being a superinduction of the same cause imposed upon the soul, and arresting inferior brutality, could not reach the spirit without impeachment of its privileges, and subverting the nature of its essence, which being framed according to the first Idea, must needs exclude the impossible society of imperfection: foe in a sleep the rational soul involving matter, requires this refreshment, and then being insensible of the spirits operations, acts in the organs, as with independency of reason so of memory, oft delivers in vocal expressions which exceeds the record of the actor, and is recited by some different auditor: Thus Amorists are their own betrayers, and malefactors expose themselves beyond suspicion, and in such extaticall conditions we approximate primitive integrity, and seem to anticipate the malice of the Serpent; for thus the spirit being sequestered from the obscurements of reason, is presently rapt into a third Heaven: whose essence being as immaterial as its nature is indefatigable, needs no such refreshment, nor can it sleep without a miracle, and some opium from its Creator: therefore we do not read that Adam slept, but that God cast him into a deep sleep, that he might be insensible of his helpers production; So Adam's sleep was not true sleep, as not proceeding from nature for his proper conservation, but from an external Narcotick, for the production of a second, the ruin of his posterity.  
After this divorce betwixt the Spirit and its adherents, there is no immediate possession of Beatifical Vision, nor actual enjoyment of happiness beyond a sentence, but are detained in a middle Mansion, till the Resurrection, which then shall be completed when our Saviour's intercession shall terminate in that heavenly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Come you blessed of my Father. So the damned in this Condition foresee the futurity of his punishment, from which there is no reprieve or release till Eternity be contracted, and Ubiquity confess a Circumscription: and therefore from the Moment of Separation, (the unalterable Decree being ushered in with final Despair) their being is a torment, and the time of Death their Critical day: which at the Resurrection ends in a Paroxysm, when hopes of Declination shall be as fruitless as its period is impossible.  
For I do not conceive the infliction of a positive torment, either on the damned Spirits, or the Devils themselves, till the day of judgement; and that the Devil knew the designation of time for punishment, appears upon his Expostulation with our Saviour: Why art thou come to torment us before the time? They have only now restraining shackles, which Eternity will advance to bonds of punishment.  
I do not mean any Purgatory by this middle Mansion, where there is a possibility of Repentance or Redemption; but a higher Court of God's Justice and mercy; where the unalterable Decree of the Synod of Trinity is Declared; where the Spirits in this Condition wait till the Resurrection, when as the Blessed shall possess their Jubilee; so the damned shall enjoy their Vulture.  
Thus being not tied to the wheel of Authority, I am not sworn to maintain their motion: but being hurried by the Primum Mobile of my private reason, I become irregular, yet shall not repine at the Name of Heretic: I am not married to any opinion, whereby I often make rubs in the leveled axioms of Predecessors, and disturb the tranquillity of those unlimited Oracles of Antiquity. Intellectual Slaveries have too much anticipated Genial Dispositions; and an Implicit faith of obtruded opinion have debarred them the ambition of Discoverers.  
Much Faith makes Truth despair, Salvation, see,  
Comes ushered in with Infidelity.  
An Infidel is the best Proficient in the School of Nature, whose Inquisition is not measured by the Endeavours of his Fathers, nor can his Freeborn soul brook those Manacles whereby its power is restrained, and its devotion limited. Me think it is an ingenuous cruelty whereby we may bring our Mother Nature to a Confession of her Secrets, though she run the hazard of emboweling, or the most bloody exenteration, and an act of Charity be a more direct line or clew of improved Reason to free our Ancestors treading in this Tract; but lost (by a weary pursuit of the cold sent of truth) in her labyrinths: I honour the Ashes of our Predecessors, yet cannot dispense with that Superstition of Devotion or Adherence: where truth looks two ways, to pin our credulous souls upon their sleeves, would deprive us of our Enfranchisement we obtained by the right of our Creation; the very end whereof doth entitle us to knowledge: and therefore a soul that is not tied to intellectual slaveries, in the Geography of knowledge will confute that conceit of Hercules Pillars, and a Ne plus ultra is but fantastical Dream to his more nice and subtle scrutinies; therefore I could extenuate that imputed crime of Nero's Matricide, the improvement of of his knowledge being the end of his ingenuous cruelty, to determine the Cabinet of his Conception. Truth is not engrossed by aged Parents; there is an America of knowledge yet unfound out, discoverable by the endeavours of some wiser Columbus, and the promised fertility of succeeding Ages. Those unsuccedable attempts of our incultivated Intellectuals, must needs stand condemned by the more sublimed Reason and acute Philosophy of Posterity: Whereby our Primitive imparement by additional Degrees of a betterment may obtain a parole from ignorance, and procure a Reverse to the first perfection. For if this be true, that the order and course of Nature is Circular, and that souls in Revolution of time receive a sensible improvement in their Cognition. Then surely succession in Nature must needs carry Degrees of Perfection, and the last man must be an Adam.  
FINIS.