Neo-Platonists. Psellus describes a mode of divinition among the Assyrians
by a basin, which smacks strongly of the mesmeric practice. "The water,
which is poured into the basin, seems, as to its substance, to differ in
nothing from other water; but it possesses a certain virtue, infused into
it by incantations, whereby it is rendered more apt for the reception of
the demon." The effect of the waters of some sacred places on those
accustomed to their influence, was also such as is claimed for the
mesmerized waters of our present practitioners. Jamblichus gives this
account of the Colophonian oracle:--"There was a subterranean place at
Colophon, near Ephesus, in which was a fountain. The priest on stated
nights sacrificed, then drank the water, and afterwards prophesied, being
rendered invisible to the spectators. It might seem," he says, "to some
that the Divine Spirit passed into the priest through the water. But this
is not so; for the divine influence is not transmitted thus according to
the laws of distance and division, through these things which participate
in it, but comprehends them from without, and inwardly illuminates and
fills them with lucidity, and fills the water also with a certain virtue
conducive to the prophetic faculty, that is, a clarifying virtue; so that
when the priest drinks, it purifies the luminous spirit which is implanted
in him, and accommodates it to God, and by that purifying and
accommodating process, enables him to apprehend the deity. But there is
another kind of presence of the god, besides the virtue infused into the
wafer, which illumines all around, above, and within us, and which no man
wants, if he can only attain to the necessary state of congruity. And so
of a sudden it falls on the prophet, and makes use of him as an
instrument; and he in the meantime has no command of himself, and knows
not what he says, nor where he is, and with difficulty comes to himself
again, after the response given. Moreover, before drinking the water, he
abstains for a day and night from food, and partakes of certain mysteries
inaccessible to the vulgar; from which it is to be collected that there
are two methods by which man may be prepared for the reception of the
divine influence: one by the drinking of purgatorial water, endowed by the
Deity with a clarifying virtue; the other, by sobriety, solitude, the
separation of the mind from the body, and the intent contemplation of the
Deity."

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