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HOWEVER That be, I very well know that when the Soul is elevated and inflam’d with a fervent IMAGINATION, it may not only affect its own proper Body, but also That of Another.

FOR the Longing of a Woman that has conceiv’d, acts apparently upon Another’s Body, when it marks the Infant in her Womb with the Figure or Mark of the Thing long’d for: Besides, who knows not that one Body may be easily affected with the Vapours of another diseased Body? As is plain in Cases of Plague, Leprosy, and several other Distempers. Thus also in the Effluvia’s or Vapours of the Eyes, there is so great a Power, that they can bewitch and infect the Beholders about them; as the monstrous Catoblepas, and Cockatrice or Basilisk, kill People with their very Looks^[45]. So in like manner Witches by their intent Desire to hurt, have been thought to bewitch Persons most perniciously by their steady malicious Looks only, directed and inforc’d by IMAGINATION.

NOW this Force of IMAGINATION affecting other Bodies, holds good even among Brute-Creatures; as One bit by a Mad Dog, presently falls a-raging, and the Likeness of Dogs is clearly impressed upon his Urine. Moreover, by IMAGINATION in time of copulating, Peacocks and other Birds, impress a particular Colour upon the Wings, &c. of their Brood; and from hence it is, that the Curious may have store of white young-ones, by hanging the Places where they couple with white Linnen-Cloths, Papers, &c: As in Snowy Mountainous Countries we find always white Peacocks, Quails, Wolves, Hares, and other Creatures.