Bygone Beliefs: Being a Series of Excursions in the Byways of Thought
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Title: Bygone Beliefs: Being a Series of Excursions in the Byways of Thought
Author: H. Stanley Redgrove
Release date: April 1, 1998 [eBook #1271]
Most recently updated: August 15, 2008
Language: English
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BYGONE BELIEFS: BEING A SERIES OF EXCURSIONS IN THE BYWAYS OF THOUGHT ***
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BYGONE BELIEFS BEING A SERIES OF EXCURSIONS IN THE BYWAYS OF THOUGHT
By H. Stanley Redgrove
_Alle Erfahrung ist Magic, und nur magisch erklarbar_.
NOVALIS (Friedrich von Hardenberg).
Everything possible to be believ'd is an image of truth.
WILLIAM BLAKE.
TO MY WIFE
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PREFACE
THESE Excursions in the Byways of Thought were undertaken at different
times and on different occasions; consequently, the reader may be able
to detect in them inequalities of treatment. He may feel that I have
lingered too long in some byways and hurried too rapidly through others,
taking, as it were, but a general view of the road in the latter case,
whilst examining everything that could be seen in the former with,
perhaps, undue care. As a matter of fact, how ever, all these excursions
have been undertaken with one and the same object in view, that, namely,
of understanding aright and appreciating at their true worth some of the
more curious byways along which human thought has travelled. It is easy
for the superficial thinker to dismiss much of the thought of the past
(and, indeed, of the present) as _mere_ superstition, not worth the
trouble of investigation: but it is not scientific. There is a reason
for every belief, even the most fantastic, and it should be our object
to discover this reason. How far, if at all, the reason in any case
justifies us in holding a similar belief is, of course, another
question. Some of the beliefs I have dealt with I have treated at
greater length than others, because it seems to me that the truths of
which they are the images--vague and distorted in many cases though they
be--are truths which we have either forgotten nowadays, or are in danger
of forgetting. We moderns may, indeed, learn something from the thought
of the past, even in its most fantastic aspects. In one excursion at
least, namely, the essay on "The Cambridge Platonists," I have ventured
to deal with a higher phase--perhaps I should say the highest phase--of
the thought of a bygone age, to which the modern world may be completely
debtor.
"Some Characteristics of Mediaeval Thought," and the two essays on
Alchemy, have appeared in _The Journal of the Alchemical Society_.
In others I have utilised material I have contributed to _The Occult
Review_, to the editor of which journal my thanks are due for permission
so to do. I have also to express my gratitude to the Rev. A. H. COLLINS,
and others to be referred to in due course, for permission here to
reproduce illustrations of which they are the copyright holders. I have
further to offer my hearty thanks to Mr B. R. ROWBOTTOM and my wife for
valuable assistance in reading the proofs. H. S. R.
BLETCHLEY, BUCKS, _December_ 1919.
CONTENTS PAGE
PREFACE........................... ix
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.................... xiii
1. SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF MEDIAEVAL THOUGHT......... 1
2. PYTHAGORAS AND HIS PHILOSOPHY............... 8
3. MEDICINE AND MAGIC..................... 25
4. SUPERSTITIONS CONCERNING BIRDS .............. 34
5. THE POWDER OF SYMPATHY: A CURIOUS MEDICAL SUPERSTITION.. 47
6. THE BELIEF IN TALISMANS.................. 57
7. CEREMONIAL MAGIC IN THEORY AND PRACTICE.......... 87
8. ARCHITECTURAL SYMBOLISM..................111
9. THE QUEST OF THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE............121
10. THE PHALLIC ELEMENT IN ALCHEMICAL DOCTRINE.........149
11. ROGER BACON: AN APPRECIATION...............183
12. THE CAMBRIDGE PLATONISTS..................193
{the LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS are incomplete and raw OCR output!}
PAGE 46. Symbolic Alchemical Design from Mutus Liber (1677).
PLATE: 25, to face p.176
47. Symbolic Alchemical Design illustrating the Work of Woman,
from MAIER's Atalanta Fugiens...,, 26,,, 178
48. Symbolic Alchemica Design, Hermaphrodite,
from MAIER's Atalanta Fugiens..,, 27,,, 180
49. ROGER BACON presenting a Book to a King, from a Fifteenth Century
Miniature in the Bodleian Library, Oxford...,, 28,,, 184
50. ROGER BACON, from a Portrait in Knole Castle..,, 29,,, 188
51. BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE, from an engraved Portrait
by ROBERT WHITE....30...194
52. HENRY MORE, from a Portrait by DAVID LOGGAN, engraved ad vivum, 1679
...,, 31,,, 198
53. RALPH CUDWORTH, from an engraved Portrait by VERTUE, after LOGGAN,
forming the Frontispiece to CUDWORTH's Treatise Concerning Morality
(1731) ,, 32,,, 3~
BYGONE BELIEFS
I. SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF MEDAEVAL THOUGHT
IN the earliest days of his upward evolution man was satisfied with
a very crude explanation of natural phenomena--that to which the name
"animism" has been given. In this stage of mental development all the
various forces of Nature are personified: the rushing torrent, the
devastating fire, the wind rustling the forest leaves--in the mind of
the animistic savage all these are personalities, spirits, like himself,
but animated by motives more or less antagonistic to him.
I suppose that no possible exception could be taken to the statement
that modern science renders animism impossible. But let us inquire
in exactly what sense this is true. It is not true that science robs
natural phenomena of their spiritual significance. The mistake is often
made of supposing that science explains, or endeavours to explain,
phenomena. But that is the business of philosophy. The task science
attempts is the simpler one of the correlation of natural phenomena, and
in this effort leaves the ultimate problems of metaphysics untouched. A
universe, however, whose phenomena are not only capable of some degree
of correlation, but present the extraordinary degree of harmony and
unity which science makes manifest in Nature, cannot be, as in animism,
the product of a vast number of inco-ordinated and antagonistic wills,
but must either be the product of one Will, or not the product of will
at all.
The latter alternative means that the Cosmos is inexplicable, which not
only man's growing experience, but the fact that man and the
universe form essentially a unity, forbid us to believe. The term
"anthropomorphic" is too easily applied to philosophical systems, as if
it constituted a criticism of their validity. For if it be true, as
all must admit, that the unknown can only be explained in terms of
the known, then the universe must either be explained in terms of
man--_i.e_. in terms of will or desire--or remain incomprehensible. That
is to say, a philosophy must either be anthropomorphic, or no philosophy
at all.
Thus a metaphysical scrutiny of the results of modern science leads us
to a belief in God. But man felt the need of unity, and crude animism,
though a step in the right direction, failed to satisfy his thought,
long before the days of modern science. The spirits of animism, however,
were not discarded, but were modified, co-ordinated, and worked into a
system as servants of the Most High. Polytheism may mark a stage in this
process; or, perhaps, it was a result of mental degeneracy.
What I may term systematised as distinguished from crude animism
persisted throughout the Middle Ages. The work of systematisation had
already been accomplished, to a large extent, by the Neo-Platonists
and whoever were responsible for the Kabala. It is true that these main
sources of magical or animistic philosophy remained hidden during the
greater part of the Middle Ages; but at about their close the youthful
and enthusiastic CORNELIUS AGRIPPA (1486-1535)(1) slaked his thirst
thereat and produced his own attempt at the systematisation of magical
belief in the famous _Three Books of Occult Philosophy_. But the waters
of magical philosophy reached the mediaeval mind through various devious
channels, traditional on the one hand and literary on the other. And of
the latter, the works of pseudo-DIONYSIUS,(2) whose immense influence
upon mediaeval thought has sometimes been neglected, must certainly be
noted.
(1) The story of his life has been admirably told by HENRY MORLEY (2
vols., 1856).
(2) These writings were first heard of in the early part of the sixth
century, and were probably the work of a Syrian monk of that date, who
fathered them on to DIONYSIUS the Areopagite as a pious fraud. See Dean
INGE'S _Christian Mysticism_ (1899), pp. 104--122, and VAUGHAN'S _Hours
with the Mystics_ (7th ed., 1895), vol. i. pp. 111-124. The books have
been translated into English by the Rev. JOHN PARKER (2 vols.1897-1899),
who believes in the genuineness of their alleged authorship.
The most obvious example of a mediaeval animistic belief is that in
"elementals"--the spirits which personify the primordial forces of
Nature, and are symbolised by the four elements, immanent in which they
were supposed to exist, and through which they were held to manifest
their powers. And astrology, it must be remembered, is essentially a
systematised animism. The stars, to the ancients, were not material
bodies like the earth, but spiritual beings. PLATO (427-347 B.C.) speaks
of them as "gods". Mediaeval thought did not regard them in quite this
way. But for those who believed in astrology, and few, I think, did
not, the stars were still symbols of spiritual forces operative on man.
Evidences of the wide extent of astrological belief in those days are
abundant, many instances of which we shall doubtless encounter in our
excursions.
It has been said that the theological and philosophical atmosphere of
the Middle Ages was "scholastic," not mystical. No doubt "mysticism," as
a mode of life aiming at the realisation of the presence of God, is
as distinct from scholasticism as empiricism is from rationalism,
or "tough-minded" philosophy (to use JAMES' happy phrase) is from
"tender-minded". But no philosophy can be absolutely and purely
deductive. It must start from certain empirically determined facts. A
man might be an extreme empiricist in religion (_i.e_. a mystic),
and yet might attempt to deduce all other forms of knowledge from the
results of his religious experiences, never caring to gather experience
in any other realm. Hence the breach between mysticism and scholasticism
is not really so wide as may appear at first sight. Indeed,
scholasticism officially recognised three branches of theology, of which
the MYSTICAL was one. I think that mysticism and scholasticism both had
a profound influence on the mediaeval mind, sometimes acting as opposing
forces, sometimes operating harmoniously with one another. As Professor
WINDELBAND puts it: "We no longer onesidedly characterise the philosophy
of the middle ages as scholasticism, but rather place mysticism beside
it as of equal rank, and even as being the more fruitful and promising
movement."(1)
(1) Professor WILHELM WINDELBAND, Ph.D.: "Present-Day Mysticism," _The
Quest_, vol. iv. (1913), P. 205.
Alchemy, with its four Aristotelian or scholastic elements and its
three mystical principles--sulphur, mercury, salt,--must be cited as
the outstanding product of the combined influence of mysticism and
scholasticism: of mysticism, which postulated the unity of the Cosmos,
and hence taught that everything natural is the expressive image and
type of some supernatural reality; of scholasticism, which taught men
to rely upon deduction and to restrict experimentation to the smallest
possible limits.
The mind naturally proceeds from the known, or from what is supposed to
be known, to the unknown. Indeed, as I have already indicated, it must
so proceed if truth is to be gained. Now what did the men of the Middle
Ages regard as falling into the category of the known? Why, surely, the
truths of revealed religion, whether accepted upon authority or upon
the evidence of their own experience. The realm of spiritual and moral
reality: there, they felt, they were on firm ground. Nature was a realm
unknown; but they had analogy to guide, or, rather, misguide them.
Nevertheless if, as we know, it misguided, this was not, I think,
because the mystical doctrine of the correspondence between the
spiritual and the natural is unsound, but because these ancient seekers
into Nature's secrets knew so little, and so frequently misapplied what
they did know. So alchemical philosophy arose and became systematised,
with its wonderful endeavour to perfect the base metals by the
Philosopher's Stone--the concentrated Essence of Nature,--as man's soul
is perfected through the life-giving power of JESUS CHRIST.
I want, in conclusion to these brief introductory remarks, to say a
few words concerning phallicism in connection with my topic. For some
"tender-minded"(1) and, to my thought, obscure, reason the subject is
tabooed. Even the British Museum does not include works on phallicism
in its catalogue, and special permission has to be obtained to consult
them. Yet the subject is of vast importance as concerns the origin
and development of religion and philosophy, and the extent of phallic
worship may be gathered from the widespread occurrence of obelisks and
similar objects amongst ancient relics. Our own maypole dances may be
instanced as one survival of the ancient worship of the male generative
principle.
(1) I here use the term with the extended meaning Mr H. G. WELLS has
given to it. See _The New Machiavelli_.
What could be more easy to understand than that, when man first
questioned as to the creation of the earth, he should suppose it to have
been generated by some process analogous to that which he saw held in
the case of man? How else could he account for its origin, if knowledge
must proceed from the known to the unknown? No one questions at all
that the worship of the human generative organs as symbols of the dual
generative principle of Nature degenerated into orgies of the most
frightful character, but the view of Nature which thus degenerated is
not, I think, an altogether unsound one, and very interesting remnants
of it are to be found in mediaeval philosophy.
These remnants are very marked in alchemy. The metals, as I have
suggested, are there regarded as types of man; hence they are
produced from seed, through the combination of male and female
principles--mercury and sulphur, which on the spiritual plane are
intelligence and love. The same is true of that Stone which is perfect
Man. As BERNARD of TREVISAN (1406-1490) wrote in the fifteenth century:
"This Stone then is compounded of a Body and Spirit, or of a volatile
and fixed Substance, and that is therefore done, because nothing in
the World can be generated and brought to light without these two
Substances, to wit, a Male and Female: From whence it appeareth, that
although these two Substances are not of one and the same species, yet
one Stone doth thence arise, and although they appear and are said to be
two Substances, yet in truth it is but one, to wit, _Argent-vive_."(1)
No doubt this sounds fantastic; but with all their seeming intellectual
follies these old thinkers were no fools. The fact of sex is the most
fundamental fact of the universe, and is a spiritual and physical as
well as a physiological fact. I shall deal with the subject as concerns
the speculations of the alchemists in some detail in a later excursion.
(1) BERNARD, Earl of TREVISAN: _A Treatise of the Philosopher's Stone_,
1683. (See _Collectanea Chymica: A Collection of Ten Several Treatises
in Chemistry_, 1684, p. 91.)
II. PYTHAGORAS AND HIS PHILOSOPHY
IT is a matter for enduring regret that so little is known to us
concerning PYTHAGORAS. What little we do know serves but to enhance
for us the interest of the man and his philosophy, to make him, in many
ways, the most attractive of Greek thinkers; and, basing our estimate
on the extent of his influence on the thought of succeeding ages, we
recognise in him one of the world's master-minds.
PYTHAGORAS was born about 582 B.C. at Samos, one of the Grecian isles.
In his youth he came in contact with THALES--the Father of Geometry,
as he is well called,--and though he did not become a member of THALES'
school, his contact with the latter no doubt helped to turn his mind
towards the study of geometry. This interest found the right ground for
its development in Egypt, which he visited when still young. Egypt is
generally regarded as the birthplace of geometry, the subject having, it
is supposed, been forced on the minds of the Egyptians by the necessity
of fixing the boundaries of lands against the annual overflowing of the
Nile. But the Egyptians were what is called an essentially practical
people, and their geometrical knowledge did not extend beyond a few
empirical rules useful for fixing these boundaries and in constructing
their temples. Striking evidence of this fact is supplied by the AHMES
papyrus, compiled some little time before 1700 B.C. from an older
work dating from about 3400 B.C.,(1) a papyrus which almost certainly
represents the highest mathematical knowledge reached by the Egyptians
of that day. Geometry is treated very superficially and as of subsidiary
interest to arithmetic; there is no ordered series of reasoned
geometrical propositions given--nothing, indeed, beyond isolated rules,
and of these some are wanting in accuracy.
(1) See AUGUST EISENLOHR: _Ein mathematisches Handbuch der alten
Aegypter_ (1877); J. Gow: _A Short History of Greek Mathematics_ (1884);
and V. E. JOHNSON: _Egyptian Science from the Monuments and Ancient
Books_ (1891).
One geometrical fact known to the Egyptians was that if a triangle be
constructed having its sides 3, 4, and 5 units long respectively, then
the angle opposite the longest side is exactly a right angle; and the
Egyptian builders used this rule for constructing walls perpendicular to
each other, employing a cord graduated in the required manner. The
Greek mind was not, however, satisfied with the bald statement of mere
facts--it cared little for practical applications, but sought above all
for the underlying REASON of everything. Nowadays we are beginning to
realise that the results achieved by this type of mind, the general laws
of Nature's behaviour formulated by its endeavours, are frequently
of immense practical importance--of far more importance than the mere
rules-of-thumb beyond which so-called practical minds never advance.
The classic example of the utility of seemingly useless knowledge is
afforded by Sir WILLIAM HAMILTON'S discovery, or, rather, invention of
Quarternions, but no better example of the utilitarian triumph of the
theoretical over the so-called practical mind can be adduced than that
afforded by PYTHAGORAS. Given this rule for constructing a right angle,
about whose reason the Egyptian who used it never bothered himself, and
the mind of PYTHAGORAS, searching for its full significance, made that
gigantic geometrical discovery which is to this day known as the Theorem
of PYTHAGORAS--the law that in every right-angled triangle the square
on the side opposite the right angle is equal in area to the sum of the
squares on the other two sides.(1) The importance of this discovery
can hardly be overestimated. It is of fundamental importance in most
branches of geometry, and the basis of the whole of trigonometry--the
special branch of geometry that deals with the practical mensuration of
triangles. EUCLID devoted the whole of the first book of his _Elements
of Geometry_ to establishing the truth of this theorem; how PYTHAGORAS
demonstrated it we unfortunately do not know.
(1) Fig. 3 affords an interesting practical demonstration of the truth
of this theorem. If the reader will copy this figure, cut out the
squares on the two shorter sides of the triangle and divide them along
the lines AD, BE, EF, he will find that the five pieces so obtained can
be made exactly to fit the square on the longest side as shown by the
dotted lines. The size and shape of the triangle ABC, so long as it
has a right angle at C, is immaterial. The lines AD, BE are obtained
by continuing the sides of the square on the side AB, _i.e_. the side
opposite the right angle, and EF is drawn at right angles to BE.
After absorbing what knowledge was to be gained in Egypt, PYTHAGORAS
journeyed to Babylon, where he probably came into contact with even
greater traditions and more potent influences and sources of knowledge
than in Egypt, for there is reason for believing that the ancient
Chaldeans were the builders of the Pyramids and in many ways the
intellectual superiors of the Egyptians.
At last, after having travelled still further East, probably as far as
India, PYTHAGORAS returned to his birthplace to teach the men of his
native land the knowledge he had gained. But CROESUS was tyrant over
Samos, and so oppressive was his rule that none had leisure in which to
learn. Not a student came to PYTHAGORAS, until, in despair, so the story
runs, he offered to pay an artisan if he would but learn geometry. The
man accepted, and later, when PYTHAGORAS pretended inability any longer
to continue the payments, he offered, so fascinating did he find
the subject, to pay his teacher instead if the lessons might only be
continued. PYTHAGORAS no doubt was much gratified at this; and the
motto he adopted for his great Brotherhood, of which we shall make the
acquaintance in a moment, was in all likelihood based on this event. It
ran, "Honour a figure and a step before a figure and a tribolus"; or, as
a freer translation renders it:--
"A figure and a step onward Not a figure and a florin."
"At all events," as Mr FRANKLAND remarks, "the motto is a lasting witness
to a very singular devotion to knowledge for its own sake."(1)
(1) W. B. FRANKLAND, M.A.: _The Story of Euclid_ (1902), p. 33
But PYTHAGORAS needed a greater audience than one man, however
enthusiastic a pupil he might be, and he left Samos for Southern
Italy, the rich inhabitants of whose cities had both the leisure and
inclination to study. Delphi, far-famed for its Oracles, was visited _en
route_, and PYTHAGORAS, after a sojourn at Tarentum, settled at Croton,
where he gathered about him a great band of pupils, mainly young people
of the aristocratic class. By consent of the Senate of Croton, he formed
out of these a great philosophical brotherhood, whose members lived
apart from the ordinary people, forming, as it were, a separate
community. They were bound to PYTHAGORAS by the closest ties of
admiration and reverence, and, for years after his death, discoveries
made by Pythagoreans were invariably attributed to the Master, a fact
which makes it very difficult exactly to gauge the extent of PYTHAGORAS'
own knowledge and achievements. The regime of the Brotherhood, or
Pythagorean Order, was a strict one, entailing "high thinking and low
living" at all times. A restricted diet, the exact nature of which is
in dispute, was observed by all members, and long periods of silence, as
conducive to deep thinking, were imposed on novices. Women were admitted
to the Order, and PYTHAGORAS' asceticism did not prohibit romance,
for we read that one of his fair pupils won her way to his heart, and,
declaring her affection for him, found it reciprocated and became his
wife.
SCHURE writes: "By his marriage with Theano, Pythagoras affixed _the
seal of realization_ to his work. The union and fusion of the two lives
was complete. One day when the master's wife was asked what length of
time elapsed before a woman could become pure after intercourse with a
man, she replied: 'If it is with her husband, she is pure all the time;
if with another man, she is never pure.'" "Many women," adds the writer,
"would smilingly remark that to give such a reply one must be the wife
of Pythagoras, and love him as Theano did. And they would be in the
right, for it is not marriage that sanctifies love, it is love which
justifies marriage."(1)
(1) EDOUARD SCHURE: _Pythagoras and the Delphic Mysteries_, trans. by F.
ROTHWELL, B.A. (1906), pp. 164 and 165.
PYTHAGORAS was not merely a mathematician, he was first and foremost a
philosopher, whose philosophy found in number the basis of all things,
because number, for him, alone possessed stability of relationship. As I
have remarked on a former occasion, "The theory that the Cosmos has its
origin and explanation in Number... is one for which it is not difficult
to account if we take into consideration the nature of the times in
which it was formulated. The Greek of the period, looking upon Nature,
beheld no picture of harmony, uniformity and fundamental unity. The
outer world appeared to him rather as a discordant chaos, the mere sport
and plaything of the gods. The theory of the uniformity of Nature--that
Nature is ever like to herself--the very essence of the modern
scientific spirit, had yet to be born of years of unwearied labour
and unceasing delving into Nature's innermost secrets. Only in
Mathematics--in the properties of geometrical figures, and of
numbers--was the reign of law, the principle of harmony, perceivable.
Even at this present day when the marvellous has become commonplace,
that property of right-angled triangles... already discussed... comes
to the mind as a remarkable and notable fact: it must have seemed a
stupendous marvel to its discoverer, to whom, it appears, the regular
alternation of the odd and even numbers, a fact so obvious to us that
we are inclined to attach no importance to it, seemed, itself, to be
something wonderful. Here in Geometry and Arithmetic, here was order and
harmony unsurpassed and unsurpassable. What wonder then that Pythagoras
concluded that the solution of the mighty riddle of the Universe was
contained in the mysteries of Geometry? What wonder that he read mystic
meanings into the laws of Arithmetic, and believed Number to be the
explanation and origin of all that is?"(1)
(1) _A Mathematical Theory of Spirit_ (1912), pp. 64-65.
No doubt the Pythagorean theory suffers from a defect similar to that
of the Kabalistic doctrine, which, starting from the fact that all words
are composed of letters, representing the primary sounds of language,
maintained that all the things represented by these words were created
by God by means of the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. But at
the same time the Pythagorean theory certainly embodies a considerable
element of truth. Modern science demonstrates nothing more clearly
than the importance of numerical relationships. Indeed, "the history of
science shows us the gradual transformation of crude facts of experience
into increasingly exact generalisations by the application to them of
mathematics. The enormous advances that have been made in recent years
in physics and chemistry are very largely due to mathematical methods
of interpreting and co-ordinating facts experimentally revealed, whereby
further experiments have been suggested, the results of which have
themselves been mathematically interpreted. Both physics and chemistry,
especially the former, are now highly mathematical. In the biological
sciences and especially in psychology it is true that mathematical
methods are, as yet, not so largely employed. But these sciences are far
less highly developed, far less exact and systematic, that is to say,
far less scientific, at present, than is either physics or chemistry.
However, the application of statistical methods promises good results,
and there are not wanting generalisations already arrived at which
are expressible mathematically; Weber's Law in psychology, and the law
concerning the arrangement of the leaves about the stems of plants in
biology, may be instanced as cases in point."(1)
(1) Quoted from a lecture by the present writer on "The Law of
Correspondences Mathematically Considered," delivered before The
Theological and Philosophical Society on 26th April 1912, and published
in _Morning Light_, vol. xxxv (1912), p. 434 _et seq_.
The Pythagorean doctrine of the Cosmos, in its most reasonable form,
however, is confronted with one great difficulty which it seems
incapable of overcoming, namely, that of continuity. Modern science,
with its atomic theories of matter and electricity, does, indeed, show
us that the apparent continuity of material things is spurious, that all
material things consist of discrete particles, and are hence measurable
in numerical terms. But modern science is also obliged to postulate an
ether behind these atoms, an ether which is wholly continuous, and hence
transcends the domain of number.(1) It is true that, in quite recent
times, a certain school of thought has argued that the ether is
also atomic in constitution--that all things, indeed, have a grained
structure, even forces being made up of a large number of quantums
or indivisible units of force. But this view has not gained general
acceptance, and it seems to necessitate the postulation of an ether
beyond the ether, filling the interspaces between its atoms, to obviate
the difficulty of conceiving of action at a distance.
(1) Cf. chap. iii., "On Nature as the Embodiment of Number," of my _A
Mathematical Theory of Spirit_, to which reference has already been
made.
According to BERGSON, life--the reality that can only be lived, not
understood--is absolutely continuous (_i.e_. not amenable to numerical
treatment). It is because life is absolutely continuous that we cannot,
he says, understand it; for reason acts discontinuously, grasping only,
so to speak, a cinematographic view of life, made up of an immense
number of instantaneous glimpses. All that passes between the glimpses
is lost, and so the true whole, reason can never synthesise from that
which it possesses. On the other hand, one might also argue--extending,
in a way, the teaching of the physical sciences of the period between
the postulation of DALTON'S atomic theory and the discovery of the
significance of the ether of space--that reality is essentially
discontinuous, our idea that it is continuous being a mere illusion
arising from the coarseness of our senses. That might provide a complete
vindication of the Pythagorean view; but a better vindication, if not
of that theory, at any rate of PYTHAGORAS' philosophical attitude,
is forthcoming, I think, in the fact that modern mathematics has
transcended the shackles of number, and has enlarged her kingdom, so as
to include quantities other than numerical. PYTHAGORAS, had he been
born in these latter centuries, would surely have rejoiced in this,
enlargement, whereby the continuous as well as the discontinuous is
brought, if not under the rule of number, under the rule of mathematics
indeed.
PYTHAGORAS' foremost achievement in mathematics I have already
mentioned. Another notable piece of work in the same department was
the discovery of a method of constructing a parallelogram having a side
equal to a given line, an angle equal to a given angle, and its area
equal to that of a given triangle. PYTHAGORAS is said to have celebrated
this discovery by the sacrifice of a whole ox. The problem appears in
the first book of EUCLID'S _Elements of Geometry_ as proposition 44. In
fact, many of the propositions of EUCLID'S first, second, fourth, and
sixth books were worked out by PYTHAGORAS and the Pythagoreans; but,
curiously enough, they seem greatly to have neglected the geometry of
the circle.
The symmetrical solids were regarded by PYTHAGORAS, and by the Greek
thinkers after him, as of the greatest importance. To be perfectly
symmetrical or regular, a solid must have an equal number of faces
meeting at each of its angles, and these faces must be equal regular
polygons, _i.e_. figures whose sides and angles are all equal.
PYTHAGORAS, perhaps, may be credited with the great discovery that there
are only five such solids. These are as follows:--
The Tetrahedron, having four equilateral triangles as faces.
The Cube, having six squares as faces.
The Octahedron, having eight equilateral triangles as faces.
The Dodecahedron, having twelve regular pentagons (or five-sided
figures) as faces.
The Icosahedron, having twenty equilateral triangles as faces.(1)
(1) If the reader will copy figs. 4 to 8 on cardboard or stiff paper,
bend each along the dotted lines so as to form a solid, fastening
together the free edges with gummed paper, he will be in possession of
models of the five solids in question.
Now, the Greeks believed the world to be composed of four
elements--earth, air, fire, water,--and to the Greek mind the conclusion
was inevitable(2a) that the shapes of the particles of the elements
were those of the regular solids. Earth-particles were cubical, the cube
being the regular solid possessed of greatest stability; fire-particles
were tetrahedral, the tetrahedron being the simplest and, hence,
lightest solid. Water-particles were icosahedral for exactly the reverse
reason, whilst air-particles, as intermediate between the two latter,
were octahedral. The dodecahedron was, to these ancient mathematicians,
the most mysterious of the solids: it was by far the most difficult to
construct, the accurate drawing of the regular pentagon necessitating a
rather elaborate application of PYTHAGORAS' great theorem.(1) Hence the
conclusion, as PLATO put it, that "this (the regular dodecahedron) the
Deity employed in tracing the plan of the Universe."(2b) Hence also
the high esteem in which the pentagon was held by the Pythagoreans. By
producing each side of this latter figure the five-pointed star (fig.
9), known as the pentagram, is obtained. This was adopted by the
Pythagoreans as the badge of their Society, and for many ages was held
as a symbol possessed of magic powers. The mediaeval magicians made use
of it in their evocations, and as a talisman it was held in the highest
esteem.
(2a) _Cf_. PLATO: The Timaeus, SESE xxviii--xxx.
(1) In reference to this matter FRANKLAND remarks: "In those early days
the innermost secrets of nature lay in the lap of geometry, and the
extraordinary inference follows that Euclid's _Elements_, which are
devoted to the investigation of the regular solids, are therefore in
reality and at bottom an attempt to 'solve the universe.' Euclid,
in fact, made this goal of the Pythagoreans the aim of his
_Elements_."--_Op. cit_., p. 35.
(2b) _Op. cit_., SE xxix.
Music played an important part in the curriculum of the Pythagorean
Brotherhood, and the important discovery that the relations between
the notes of musical scales can be expressed by means of numbers is a
Pythagorean one. It must have seemed to its discoverer--as, in a sense,
it indeed is--a striking confirmation of the numerical theory of the
Cosmos. The Pythagoreans held that the positions of the heavenly bodies
were governed by similar numerical relations, and that in consequence
their motion was productive of celestial music. This concept of "the
harmony of the spheres" is among the most celebrated of the Pythagorean
doctrines, and has found ready acceptance in many mystically-speculative
minds. "Look how the floor of heaven," says Lorenzo in SHAKESPEARE'S
_The Merchant of Venice_--
"... Look how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold:
There's not the smallest orb which thou behold's"
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins;
Such harmony is in immortal souls;
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it."(1)
(1) Act v. scene i.
Or, as KINGSLEY writes in one of his letters, "When I walk the fields I
am oppressed every now and then with an innate feeling that everything
I see has a meaning, if I could but understand it. And this feeling
of being surrounded with truths which I cannot grasp, amounts to an
indescribable awe sometimes! Everything seems to be full of God's
reflex, if we could but see it. Oh! how I have prayed to have the
mystery unfolded, at least hereafter. To see, if but for a moment, the
whole harmony of the great system! To hear once the music which the
whole universe makes as it performs His bidding!"(1) In this connection
may be mentioned the very significant fact that the Pythagoreans did
not consider the earth, in accordance with current opinion, to be a
stationary body, but believed that it and the other planets revolved
about a central point, or fire, as they called it.
(1) CHARLES KINGSLEY: _His Letters and Memories of His Life_, edited by
his wife (1883), p. 28.
As concerns PYTHAGORAS' ethical teaching, judging from the so-called
_Golden Verses_ attributed to him, and no doubt written by one of his
disciples,(2) this would appear to be in some respects similar to that
of the Stoics who came later, but free from the materialism of the Stoic
doctrines. Due regard for oneself is blended with regard for the gods
and for other men, the atmosphere of the whole being at once rational
and austere. One verse--"Thou shalt likewise know, according to Justice,
that the nature of this Universe is in all things alike"(3)--is of
particular interest, as showing PYTHAGORAS' belief in that principle of
analogy--that "What is below is as that which is above, what is above is
as that which is below"--which held so dominant a sway over the minds of
ancient and mediaeval philosophers, leading them--in spite, I suggest,
of its fundamental truth--into so many fantastic errors, as we shall
see in future excursions. Metempsychosis was another of the Pythagorean
tenets, a fact which is interesting in view of the modern revival
of this doctrine. PYTHAGORAS, no doubt, derived it from the East,
apparently introducing it for the first time to Western thought.
(2) It seems probable, though not certain, that PYTHAGORAS wrote nothing
himself, but taught always by the oral method.
(3) Cf. the remarks of HIEROCLES on this verse in his _Commentary_.
Such, in brief, were the outstanding doctrines of the Pythagorean
Brotherhood. Their teachings included, as we have seen, what may justly
be called scientific discoveries of the first importance, as well as
doctrines which, though we may feel compelled--perhaps rightly--to
regard them as fantastic now, had an immense influence on the thought of
succeeding ages, especially on Greek philosophy as represented by PLATO
and the Neo-Platonists, and the more speculative minds--the occult
philosophers, shall I say?--of the latter mediaeval period and
succeeding centuries. The Brotherhood, however, was not destined to
continue its days in peace. As I have indicated, it was a philosophical,
not a political, association; but naturally PYTHAGORAS' philosophy
included political doctrines. At any rate, the Brotherhood acquired a
considerable share in the government of Croton, a fact which was greatly
resented by the members of the democratic party, who feared the loss of
their rights; and, urged thereto, it is said, by a rejected applicant
for membership of the Order, the mob made an onslaught on the
Brotherhood's place of assembly and burnt it to the ground. One account
has it that PYTHAGORAS himself died in the conflagration, a sacrifice
to the mad fury of the mob. According to another account--and we like to
believe that this is the true one--he escaped to Tarentum, from which he
was banished, to find an asylum in Metapontum, where he lived his last
years in peace.
The Pythagorean Order was broken up, but the bonds of brotherhood still
existed between its members. "One of them who had fallen upon sickness
and poverty was kindly taken in by an innkeeper. Before dying he traced
a few mysterious signs (the pentagram, no doubt) on the door of the inn
and said to the host: 'Do not be uneasy, one of my brothers will pay my
debts.' A year afterwards, as a stranger was passing by this inn he saw
the signs and said to the host: 'I am a Pythagorean; one of my brothers
died here; tell me what I owe you on his account.'"(1)
(1) EDOUARD SCHURE: _Op. cit_., p. 174.
In endeavouring to estimate the worth of PYTHAGORAS' discoveries and
teaching, Mr FRANKLAND writes, with reference to his achievements in
geometry: "Even after making a considerable allowance for his pupils'
share, the Master's geometrical work calls for much admiration"; and,
"... it cannot be far wrong to suppose that it was Pythagoras' wont
to insist upon proofs, and so to secure that rigour which gives to
mathematics its honourable position amongst the sciences." And of his
work in arithmetic, music, and astronomy, the same author writes: "...
everywhere he appears to have inaugurated genuinely scientific methods,
and to have laid the foundations of a high and liberal education";
adding, "For nearly a score of centuries, to the very close of the
Middle Ages, the four Pythagorean subjects of study--arithmetic,
geometry, astronomy, music--were the staple educational course, and were
bound together into a fourfold way of knowledge--the Quadrivium."(1)
With these words of due praise, our present excursion may fittingly
close.
(1) _Op. cit_., pp. 35, 37, and 38.
III. MEDICINE AND MAGIC
THERE are few tasks at once so instructive and so fascinating as the
tracing of the development of the human mind as manifested in the
evolution of scientific and philosophical theories. And this is,
perhaps, especially true when, as in the case of medicine, this
evolution has followed paths so tortuous, intersected by so many
fantastic byways, that one is not infrequently doubtful as to the true
road. The history of medicine is at once the history of human wisdom and
the history of human credulity and folly, and the romantic element (to
use the expression in its popular acceptation) thus introduced, whilst
making the subject more entertaining, by no means detracts from its
importance considered psychologically.
To whom the honour of having first invented medicines is due is unknown,
the origins of pharmacy being lost in the twilight of myth. OSIRIS and
ISIS, BACCHUS, APOLLO father of the famous physician AESCULAPIUS, and
CHIRON the Centaur, tutor of the latter, are among the many mythological
personages who have been accredited with the invention of physic. It
is certain that the art of compounding medicines is extraordinarily
ancient. There is a papyrus in the British Museum containing medical
prescriptions which was written about 1200 B.C.; and the famous EBERS
papyrus, which is devoted to medical matters, is reckoned to date
from about the year 1550 B.C. It is interesting to note that in the
prescriptions given in this latter papyrus, as seems to have been the
case throughout the history of medicine, the principle that the efficacy
of a medicine is in proportion to its nastiness appears to have been the
main idea. Indeed, many old medicines contained ingredients of the
most disgusting nature imaginable: a mediaeval remedy known as oil of
puppies, made by cutting up two newly-born puppies and boiling them with
one pound of live earthworms, may be cited as a comparatively pleasant
example of the remedies (?) used in the days when all sorts of excreta
were prescribed as medicines.(1)
(1) See the late Mr A. C. WOOTTON'S excellent work, _Chronicles of
Pharmacy_ (2 vols, 1910), to which I gladly acknowledge my indebtedness.
Presumably the oldest theory concerning the causation of disease is that
which attributes all the ills of mankind to the malignant operations of
evil spirits, a theory which someone has rather fancifully suggested is
not so erroneous after all, if we may be allowed to apply the term "evil
spirits" to the microbes of modern bacteriology. Remnants of this theory
(which does--shall I say?--conceal a transcendental truth), that is,
in its original form, still survive to the present day in various
superstitious customs, whose absurdity does not need emphasising: for
example, the use of red flannel by old-fashioned folk with which to
tie up sore throats--red having once been supposed to be a colour very
angatonistic to evil spirits; so much so that at one time red cloth hung
in the patient's room was much employed as a cure for smallpox!
Medicine and magic have always been closely associated. Indeed, the
greatest name in the history of pharmacy is also what is probably the
greatest name in the history of magic--the reference, of course, being
to PARACELSUS (1493-1541). Until PARACELSUS, partly by his vigorous
invective and partly by his remarkable cures of various diseases,
demolished the old school of medicine, no one dared contest the
authority of GALEN (130-_circa_ 205) and AVICENNA (980--1037). GALEN'S
theory of disease was largely based upon that of the four humours
in man--bile, blood, phlegm, and black bile,--which were regarded as
related to (but not identical with) the four elements--fire, air, water,
and earth,--being supposed to have characters similar to these. Thus, to
bile, as to fire, were attributed the properties of hotness and dryness;
to blood and air those of hotness and moistness; to phlegm and water
those of coldness and moistness; and, finally, black bile, like earth,
was said to be cold and dry. GALEN supposed that an alteration in the
due proportion of these humours gives rise to disease, though he did not
consider this to be its only cause; thus, cancer, it was thought, might
result from an excess of black bile, and rheumatism from an excess of
phlegm. Drugs, GALEN argued, are of efficiency in the curing of disease,
according as they possess one or more of these so-called fundamental
properties, hotness, dryness, coldness, and moistness, whereby it was
considered that an excess of any humour might be counteracted; moreover,
it was further assumed that four degrees of each property exist, and
that only those drugs are of use in curing a disease which contain the
necessary property or properties in the degree proportionate to that
in which the opposite humour or humours are in excess in the patient's
system.
PARACELSUS' views were based upon his theory (undoubtedly true in a
sense) that man is a microcosm, a world in miniature.(1) Now, all things
material, taught PARACELSUS, contain the three principles termed in
alchemistic phraseology salt, sulphur, and mercury. This is true,
therefore, of man: the healthy body, he argued, is a sort of chemical
compound in which these three principles are harmoniously blended (as
in the Macrocosm) in due proportion, whilst disease is due to a
preponderance of one principle, fevers, for example, being the result
of an excess of sulphur (_i.e_. the fiery principle), _etc_. PARACELSUS,
although his theory was not so different from that of GALEN, whose views
he denounced, was thus led to seek for CHEMICAL remedies, containing
these principles in varying proportions; he was not content with
medicinal herbs and minerals in their crude state, but attempted
to extract their effective essences; indeed, he maintained that the
preparation of new and better drugs is the chief business of chemistry.
(1) See the "Note on the Paracelsian Doctrine of the Microcosm" below.
This theory of disease and of the efficacy of drugs was complicated by
many fantastic additions;(1) thus there is the "Archaeus," a sort
of benevolent demon, supposed by PARACELSUS to look after all the
unconscious functions of the bodily organism, who has to be taken into
account. PARACELSUS also held the Doctrine of Signatures, according to
which the medicinal value of plants and minerals is indicated by their
external form, or by some sign impressed upon them by the operation of
the stars. A very old example of this belief is to be found in the use
of mandrake (whose roots resemble the human form) by the Hebrews and
Greeks as a cure for sterility; or, to give an instance which is still
accredited by some, the use of eye-bright (_Euphrasia officinalis_, L.,
a plant with a black pupil-like spot in its corolla) for complaints of
the eyes.(2) Allied to this doctrine are such beliefs, once held, as
that the lungs of foxes are good for bronchial troubles, or that the
heart of a lion will endow one with courage; as CORNELIUS AGRIPPA put
it, "It is well known amongst physicians that brain helps the brain, and
lungs the lungs."(3)
(1) The question of PARACELSUS' pharmacy is further complicated by the
fact that this eccentric genius coined many new words (without regard to
the principles of etymology) as names for his medicines, and often used
the same term to stand for quite different bodies. Some of his disciples
maintained that he must not always be understood in a literal sense,
in which probably there is an element of truth. See, for instance, _A
Golden and Blessed Casket of Nature's Marvels_, by BENEDICTUS FIGULUS
(trans. by A. E. WAITE, 1893).
(2) See Dr ALFRED C. HADDON'S _Magic and Fetishism_ (1906), p. 15.
(3) HENRY CORNELIUS AGRIPPA: _Occult Philosophy_, bk. i. chap. xv.
(WHITEHEAD'S edition, Chicago, 1898, P. 72).
In modern times homoeopathy--according to which a drug is a cure,
if administered in small doses, for that disease whose symptoms it
produces, if given in large doses to a healthy person---seems to bear
some resemblance to these old medical theories concerning the curing of
like by like. That the system of HAHNEMANN (1755--1843), the founder
of homoeopathy, is free from error could be scarcely maintained, but
certain recent discoveries in connection with serum-therapy appear to
indicate that the last word has not yet been said on the subject, and
the formula "like cures like" may still have another lease of life to
run.
To return to PARACELSUS, however. It may be thought that his views were
not so great an advance on those of GALEN; but whether or not this be
the case, his union of chemistry and medicine was of immense benefit
to each science, and marked a new era in pharmacy. Even if his theories
were highly fantastic, it was he who freed medicine from the shackles of
traditionalism, and rendered progress in medical science possible.
I must not conclude these brief notes without some reference to the
medical theory of the medicinal efficacy of words. The EBERS papyrus
already mentioned gives various formulas which must be pronounced when
preparing and when administering a drug; and there is a draught used by
the Eastern Jews as a cure for bronchial complaints prepared by writing
certain words on a plate, washing them off with wine, and adding three
grains of a citron which has been used at the Tabernacle festival. But
enough for our present excursion; we must hie us back to the modern
world, with its alkaloids, serums, and anti-toxins--another day we will,
perhaps, wander again down the by-paths of Medicinal Magic.
NOTE ON THE PARACELSIAN DOCTRINE OF THE MICROCOSM
"Man's nature," writes CORNELIUS AGRIPPA, "_is the most complete Image
of the whole Universe_."(1) This theory, especially connected with the
name of PARACELSUS, is worthy of more than passing reference; but as
the consideration of it leads us from medicine to metaphysics, I have
thought it preferable to deal with the subject in a note.
(1) H. C. AGRIPPA: _Occult Philosophy_, bk. i. chap. xxxiii.
(WHITEHEAD'S edition, p. 111).
Man, taught the old mystical philosophers, is threefold in nature,
consisting of spirit, soul, and body. The Paracelsian mercury, sulphur,
and salt were the mineral analogues of these. "As to the Spirit," writes
VALENTINE WEIGEL (1533--1588), a disciple of PARACELSUS, "we are of God,
move in God, and live in God, and are nourished of God. Hence God is in
us and we are in God; God hath put and placed Himself in us, and we are
put and placed in God. As to the Soul, we are from the Firmament and
Stars, we live and move therein, and are nourished thereof. Hence the
Firmament with its astralic virtues and operations is in us, and we in
it. The Firmament is put and placed in us, and we are put and placed in
the Firmament. As to the Body, we are of the elements, we move and live
therein, and are nourished of them:--hence the elements are in us, and
we in them. The elements, by the slime, are put and placed in us, and we
are put and placed in them."(1) Or, to quote from PARACELSUS himself, in
his _Hermetic Astronomy_ he writes: "God took the body out of which He
built up man from those things which He created from nothingness into
something... Hence man is now a microcosm, or a little world, because
he is an extract from all the stars and planets of the whole firmament,
from the earth and the elements, and so he is their quintessence.... But
between the macrocosm and the microcosm this difference occurs, that the
form, image, species, and substance of man are diverse therefrom. In man
the earth is flesh, the water is blood, fire is the heat thereof, and
air is the balsam. These properties have not been changed but only the
substance of the body. So man is man, not a world, yet made from the
world, made in the likeness, not of the world, but of God. Yet man
comprises in himself all the qualities of the world.... His body is from
the world, and therefore must be fed and nourished by that world from
which he has sprung.... He has been taken from the earth and from the
elements, and therefore, must be nourished by these.... Now, man is not
only flesh and blood, but there is within the intellect which does not,
like the complexion, come from the elements, but from the stars. And
the condition of the stars is this, that all the wisdom, intelligence,
industry of the animal, and all the arts peculiar to man are contained
in them. From the stars man has these same things, and that is called
the light of Nature; in fact, it is whatever man has found by the light
of Nature.... Such, then, is the condition of man, that, out of the
great universe he needs both elements and stars, seeing that he himself
is constituted in that way."(1b)
(1) VALENTINE WEIGEL: "_Astrology Theologised": The Spiritual
Hermeneutics of Astrology and Holy Writ_, ed. by ANNA BONUS KINGSFORD
(1886), p. 59.
(1b) _The Hermetic and Alchemical Writings of_ PARACELSUS, ed. by A. E.
WAITE (1894), vol. ii. pp. 289-291.
It is not difficult to discern a certain truth in all this, making
allowances for modes of thought which are not those of the present day.
The Swedish philosopher SWEDENBORG (1688-1772) reaffirmed the theory
in later years; but, as he points out,(2) the reason that man is a
microcosm lies deeper than in the facts that his body is of the elements
of this earth and is nourished thereby. According to this profound
thinker, FORM, spiritually understood, is the expression of USE, the
uses of things being indicated by their forms. Now, the human form is
the highest of all forms, because it subserves the highest of all uses.
Hence, both the world of matter and the world of spirit are in the
human form, because there is a correspondence in use between man and
the Cosmos. We may, therefore, call man as to his body a microcosm, or
little world; as to his soul a micro-uranos, or little heaven. Or we may
speak of the macrocosm, or great world, as the Grand Man, and we may
say that the Soul of this Grand Man, the self-existent, substantial, and
efficient cause of all things, at once immanent within yet transcending
all things, is God.
(2) See especially his _Divine Love and Wisdom_, SESE 251 and 319.
IV. SUPERSTITIONS CONCERNING BIRDS
AMONGST the most remarkable of natural occurrences must be included
many of the phenomena connected with the behaviour of birds. Undoubtedly
numerous species of birds are susceptible to atmospheric changes (of
an electrical and barometric nature) too slight to be observed by man's
unaided senses; thus only is to be explained the phenomenon of migration
and also the many other peculiarities in the behaviour of birds whereby
approaching changes in the weather may be foretold. Probably, also, this
fact has much to do with the extraordinary homing instinct of pigeons.
But, of course, in the days when meteorological science had yet to be
born, no such explanation as this could be known. The ancients observed
that birds by their migrations or by other peculiarities in their
behaviour prognosticated coming changes in the seasons of the year and
other changes connected with the weather (such as storms, _etc_.); they
saw, too, in the homing instincts of pigeons an apparent exhibition of
intelligence exceeding that of man. What more natural, then, for them
to attribute foresight to birds, and to suppose that all sorts of coming
events (other than those of an atmospheric nature) might be foretold by
careful observation of their flight and song?
Augury--that is, the art of divination by observing the behaviour of
birds--was extensively cultivated by the Etrurians and Romans.(1) It
is still used, I believe, by the natives of Samoa. The Romans had an
official college of augurs, the members of which were originally three
patricians. About 300 B.C. the number of patrician augurs was increased
by one, and five plebeian augurs were added. Later the number was again
increased to fifteen. The object of augury was not so much to foretell
the future as to indicate what line of action should be followed, in
any given circumstances, by the nation. The augurs were consulted on all
matters of importance, and the position of augur was thus one of great
consequence. In what appears to be the oldest method, the augur, arrayed
in a special costume, and carrying a staff with which to mark out the
visible heavens into houses, proceeded to an elevated piece of ground,
where a sacrifice was made and a prayer repeated. Then, gazing towards
the sky, he waited until a bird appeared. The point in the heavens where
it first made its appearance was carefully noted, also the manner and
direction of its flight, and the point where it was lost sight of. From
these particulars an augury was derived, but, in order to be of effect,
it had to be confirmed by a further one.
(1) This is not quite an accurate definition, as "auguries" were
also obtained from other animals and from celestial phenomena (_e.g_.
lightning), _etc_.
Auguries were also drawn from the notes of birds, birds being divided by
the augurs into two classes: (i) _oscines_, "those which give omens by
their note," and (ii) _alites_, "those which afford presages by their
flight."(1) Another method of augury was performed by the feeding of
chickens specially kept for this purpose. This was done just before
sunrise by the _pullarius_ or feeder, strict silence being observed. If
the birds manifested no desire for their food, the omen was of a
most direful nature. On the other hand, if from the greediness of the
chickens the grain fell from their beaks and rebounded from the
ground, the augury was most favourable. This latter augury was known as
_tripudium solistimum_. "Any fraud practiced by the 'pullarius'," writes
the Rev. EDWARD SMEDLEY, "reverted to his own head. Of this we have a
memorable instance in the great battle between Papirius Cursor and the
Samnites in the year of Rome 459. So anxious were the troops for battle,
that the 'pullarius' dared to announce to the consul a 'tripudium
solistimum,' although the chickens refused to eat. Papirius
unhesitatingly gave the signal for fight, when his son, having
discovered the false augury, hastened to communicate it to his father.
'Do thy part well,' was his reply, 'and let the deceit of the augur fall
on himself. The "tripudium" has been announced to me, and no omen could
be better for the Roman army and people!' As the troops advanced, a
javelin thrown at random struck the 'pullatius' dead. 'The hand of
heaven is in the battle,' cried Papirius; 'the guilty is punished!' and
he advanced and conquered."(1b) A coincidence of this sort, if it really
occurred, would very greatly strengthen the popular belief in auguries.
(1) PLINY: _Natural History_, bk. x. chap. xxii. (BOSTOCK and RILEY'S
trans., vol. ii., 1855, p. 495).
(1b) Rev. EDWARD SMEDLEY, M.A.: _The Occult Sciences_ (_Encyclopaedia
Metropolitana_), ed. by ELIHU RICH (1855), p. 144.
The _cock_ has always been reckoned a bird possessed of magic power. At
its crowing, we are told, all unquiet spirits who roam the earth
depart to their dismal abodes, and the orgies of the Witches' Sabbath
terminate. A cock is the favourite sacrifice offered to evil spirits
in Ceylon and elsewhere. Alectromancy(2) was an ancient and peculiarly
senseless method of divination (so called) in which a cock was employed.
The bird had to be young and quite white. Its feet were cut off and
crammed down its throat with a piece of parchment on which were written
certain Hebrew words. The cock, after the repetition of a prayer by the
operator, was placed in a circle divided into parts corresponding to the
letters of the alphabet, in each of which a grain of wheat was placed.
A certain psalm was recited, and then the letters were noted from which
the cock picked up the grains, a fresh grain being put down for each
one picked up. These letters, properly arranged, were said to give the
answer to the inquiry for which divination was made. I am not sure what
one was supposed to do if, as seems likely, the cock refused to act in
the required manner.
(2) Cf. ARTHUR EDWARD WAITE: _The Occult Sciences_ (1891), pp. 124 and
125.
The _owl_ was reckoned a bird of evil omen with the Romans, who derived
this opinion from the Etrurians, along with much else of their so-called
science of augury. It was particularly dreaded if seen in a city, or,
indeed, anywhere by day. PLINY (Caius Plinius Secundus, A.D. 61-before
115) informs us that on one occasion "a horned owl entered the very
sanctuary of the Capitol;... in consequence of which, Rome was purified
on the nones of March in that year."(1)
(1) PLINY: _Natural History_, bk. x. chap. xvi. (BOSTOCK and RILEY'S
trans., vol. ii., 1855, p. 492).
The folk-lore of the British Isles abounds with quaint beliefs and
stories concerning birds. There is a charming Welsh legend concerning
the _robin_, which the Rev. T. F. T. DYER quotes from _Notes and
Queries_:--"Far, far away, is a land of woe, darkness, spirits of evil,
and fire. Day by day does this little bird bear in his bill a drop of
water to quench the flame. So near the burning stream does he fly,
that his dear little feathers are SCORCHED; and hence he is named
Brou-rhuddyn (Breast-burnt). To serve little children, the robin
dares approach the infernal pit. No good child will hurt the devoted
benefactor of man. The robin returns from the land of fire, and
therefore he feels the cold of winter far more than his brother birds.
He shivers in the brumal blast; hungry, he chirps before your door."(2)
(2) T. F. THISELTON DYER, M.A.: _English Folk-Lore_ (1878), pp. 65 and
66.
Another legend accounts for the robin's red breast by supposing this
bird to have tried to pluck a thorn from the crown encircling the brow
of the crucified CHRIST, in order to alleviate His sufferings. No doubt
it is on account of these legends that it is considered a crime, which
will be punished with great misfortune, to kill a robin. In some places
the same prohibition extends to the _wren_, which is popularly believed
to be the wife of the robin. In other parts, however, the wren is (or
at least was) cruelly hunted on certain days. In the Isle of Man the
wren-hunt took place on Christmas Eve and St Stephen's Day, and is
accounted for by a legend concerning an evil fairy who lured many men to
destruction, but had to assume the form of a wren to escape punishment
at the hands of an ingenious knight-errant.
For several centuries there was prevalent over the whole of civilised
Europe a most extraordinary superstition concerning the small Arctic
bird resembling, but not so large as, the common wild goose, known as
the _barnacle_ or _bernicle goose_. MAX MUELLER(1) has suggested that
this word was really derived from _Hibernicula_, the name thus referring
to Ireland, where the birds were caught; but common opinion associated
the barnacle goose with the shell-fish known as the barnacle (which
is found on timber exposed to the sea), supposing that the former was
generated out of the latter. Thus in one old medical writer we find:
"There are founde in the north parts of Scotland, and the Ilands
adjacent, called Orchades (Orkney Islands), certain trees, whereon
doe growe certaine shell fishes, of a white colour tending to russet;
wherein are conteined little liuing creatures: which shells in time of
maturitie doe open, and out of them grow those little living things;
which falling into the water, doe become foules, whom we call
Barnakles... but the other that do fall vpon the land, perish and come
to nothing: this much by the writings of others, and also from the
mouths of the people of those parts...."(1b)
(1) See F. MAX MUELLER'S _Lectures on the Science of Language_ (1885),
where a very full account of the tradition concerning the origin of the
barnacle goose will be found.
(1b) JOHN GERARDE: _The Herball; or, Generall Historie of Plantes_
(1597). 1391.
The writer, however, who was a well-known surgeon and botanist of
his day, adds that he had personally examined certain shell-fish from
Lancashire, and on opening the shells had observed within birds in
various stages of development. No doubt he was deceived by some purely
superficial resemblances--for example, the feet of the barnacle fish
resemble somewhat the feathers of a bird. He gives an imaginative
illustration of the barnacle fowl escaping from its shell, which is
reproduced in fig. 12.
Turning now from superstitions concerning actual birds to legends of
those that are purely mythical, passing reference must be made to the
_roc_, a bird existing in Arabian legend, which we meet in the _Arabian
Nights_, and which is chiefly remarkable for its size and strength.
The _phoenix_, perhaps, is of more interest. Of "that famous bird of
Arabia," PLINY writes as follows, prefixing his description of it with
the cautious remark, "I am not quite sure that its existence is not all
a fable." "It is said that there is only one in existence in the whole
world, and that that one has not been seen very often. We are told that
this bird is of the size of an eagle, and has a brilliant golden plumage
around the neck, while the rest of the body is of a purple colour;
except the tail, which is azure, with long feathers intermingled of a
roseate hue; the throat is adorned with a crest, and the head with a
tuft of feathers. The first Roman who described this bird... was the
senator Manilius.... He tells us that no person has ever seen this bird
eat, that in Arabia it is looked upon as sacred to the sun, that it
lives five hundred and forty years, that when it becomes old it builds a
nest of cassia and sprigs of incense, which it fills with perfumes, and
then lays its body down upon them to die; that from its bones and marrow
there springs at first a sort of small worm, which in time changes
into a little bird; that the first thing that it does is to perform the
obsequies of its predecessor, and to carry the nest entire to the city
of the Sun near Panchaia, and there deposit it upon the altar of that
divinity.
"The same Manilius states also, that the revolution of the great year
is completed with the life of this bird, and that then a new cycle comes
round again with the same characteristics as the former one, in the
seasons and the appearance of the stars. ... This bird was brought to
Rome in the censorship of the Emperor Claudius... and was exposed to
public view.... This fact is attested by the public Annals, but there is
no one that doubts that it was a fictitious phoenix only."(1)
(1) PLINY: _Natural History_, bk. x. chap. ii. (BOSTOCK and RILEY'S
trans., vol. ii., 1855, PP. 479-481).
The description of the plumage, _etc_., of this bird applies fairly
well, as CUVIER has pointed out,(2) to the golden pheasant, and a
specimen of the latter may have been the "fictitious phoenix"
referred to above. That this bird should have been credited with the
extraordinary and wholly fabulous properties related by PLINY and others
is not, however, easy to understand. The phoenix was frequently used
to illustrate the doctrine of the immortality of the soul (_e.g_. in
CLEMENT'S _First Epistle to the Corinthians_), and it is not impossible
that originally it was nothing more than a symbol of immortality which
in time became to be believed in as a really existing bird. The fact,
however, that there was supposed to be only one phoenix, and also that
the length of each of its lives coincided with what the ancients
termed a "great year," may indicate that the phoenix was a symbol
of cosmological periodicity. On the other hand, some ancient writers
(e_.g_. TACITUS, A.D. 55-120) explicitly refer to the phoenix as a
symbol of the sun, and in the minds of the ancients the sun was closely
connected with the idea of immortality. Certainly the accounts of
the gorgeous colours of the plumage of the phoenix might well be
descriptions of the rising sun. It appears, moreover, that the Egyptian
hieroglyphic _benu_, {glyph}, which is a figure of a heron or crane (and
thus akin to the phoenix), was employed to designate the rising sun.
(2) See CUVIER'S _The Animal Kingdom_, GRIFFITH'S trans., vol. viii.
(1829), p. 23.
There are some curious Jewish legends to account for the supposed
immortality of the phoenix. According to one, it was the sole animal
that refused to eat of the forbidden tree when tempted by EVE. According
to another, its immortality was conferred on it by NOAH because of its
considerate behaviour in the Ark, the phoenix not clamouring for food
like the other animals.(1)
(1) The existence of such fables as these shows how grossly the real
meanings of the Sacred Writings have been misunderstood.
There is a celebrated bird in Chinese tradition, the _Fung Hwang_, which
some sinologues identify with the phoenix of the West.(2) According to
a commentator on the '_Rh Ya_, this "felicitous and perfect bird has a
cock's head, a snake's neck, a swallow's beak, a tortoise's back, is of
five different colours and more than six feet high."
(2) Mr CHAS. GOULD, B.A., to whose book _Mythical Monsters_ (1886) I am
very largely indebted for my account of this bird, and from which I have
culled extracts from the Chinese, is not of this opinion. Certainly the
fact that we read of Fung Hwangs in the plural, whilst tradition asserts
that there is only one phoenix, seems to point to a difference in
origin.
Another account (that in the _Lun Yu Tseh Shwai Shing_) tells us that
"its head resembles heaven, its eye the sun, its back the moon,
its wings the wind, its foot the ground, and its tail the woof."
Furthermore, "its mouth contains commands, its heart is conformable to
regulations, its ear is thoroughly acute in hearing, its tongue utters
sincerity, its colour is luminous, its comb resembles uprightness, its
spur is sharp and curved, its voice is sonorous, and its belly is the
treasure of literature." Like the dragon, tortoise, and unicorn, it was
considered to be a spiritual creature; but, unlike the Western phoenix,
more than one Fung Hwang was, as I have pointed out, believed to exist.
The birds were not always to be seen, but, according to Chinese records,
they made their appearance during the reigns of certain sovereigns. The
Fung Hwang is regarded by the Chinese as an omen of great happiness and
prosperity, and its likeness is embroidered on the robes of empresses
to ensure success. Probably, if the bird is not to be regarded as purely
mythological and symbolic in origin, we have in the stories of it no
more than exaggerated accounts of some species of pheasant. Japanese
literature contains similar stories.
Of other fabulous bird-forms mention may be made of the _griffin_ and
the _harpy_. The former was a creature half eagle, half lion, popularly
supposed to be the progeny of the union of these two latter. It is
described in the so-called _Voiage and Travaile of Sir_ JOHN MAUNDEVILLE
in the following terms(1): "Sum men seyn, that thei ben the Body upward,
as an Egle, and benethe as a Lyoun: and treuly thei seyn sothe, that
thei ben of that schapp. But o Griffoun hathe the body more gret and
is more strong thanne 8 Lyouns, of suche Lyouns as ben o this half; and
more gret and strongere, than an 100 Egles, suche as we ben amonges us.
For o Griffoun there will bere, fleynge to his Nest, a gret Hors, or
2 Oxen zoked to gidere, as thei gon at the Plowghe. For he hathe his
Talouns so longe and so large and grete, upon his Feet, as thoughe thei
weren Hornes of grete Oxen or of Bugles or of Kyzn; so that men maken
Cuppes of hem, to drynken of: and of hire Ribbes and of the Pennes of
hire Wenges, men maken Bowes fulle strong, to schote with Arwes
and Quarelle." The special characteristic of the griffin was its
watchfulness, its chief function being thought to be that of guarding
secret treasure. This characteristic, no doubt, accounts for its
frequent use in heraldry as a supporter to the arms. It was sacred to
APOLLO, the sun-god, whose chariot was, according to early sculptures,
drawn by griffins. PLINY, who speaks of it as a bird having long ears
and a hooked beak, regarded it as fabulous.
(1) _The Voiage and Travaile of Sir_ JOHN MAUNDEVILLE, _Kt. Which
treateth of the Way to Hierusalem; and of Marvayles of Inde, with other
Ilands and Countryes. Now Publish'd entire from an Original MS. in The
Cotton Library_ (London, 1727), cap. xxvi. pp. 325 and 326.
"This work is mainly a compilation from the writings of William of
Boldensele, Friar Odoric of Pordenone, Hetoum of Armenia, Vincent de
Beauvais, and other geographers. It is probable that the name John de
Mandeville should be regarded as a pseudonym concealing the identity
of Jean de Bourgogne, a physician at Liege, mentioned under the name of
Joannes ad Barbam in the vulgate Latin version of the Travels." (Note in
British Museum Catalogue). The work, which was first published in French
during the latter part of the fourteenth century, achieved an immense
popularity, the marvels that it relates being readily received by the
credulous folk of that and many a succeeding day.
The harpies (_i.e_. snatchers) in Greek mythology are creatures like
vultures as to their bodies, but with the faces of women, and armed with
sharp claws.
"Of Monsters all, most Monstrous this; no greater Wrath God sends
'mongst Men; it comes from depth of pitchy Hell: And Virgin's Face, but
Womb like Gulf unsatiate hath, Her Hands are griping Claws, her Colour
pale and fell."(1)
(1) Quoted from VERGIL by JOHN GUILLIM in his _A Display of Heraldry_
(sixth edition, 1724), p. 271.
We meet with the harpies in the story of PHINEUS, a son of AGENOR,
King of Thrace. At the bidding of his jealous wife, IDAEA, daughter of
DARDANUS, PHINEUS put out the sight of his children by his former wife,
CLEOPATRA, daughter of BOREAS. To punish this cruelty, the gods caused
him to become blind, and the harpies were sent continually to harass
and affright him, and to snatch away his food or defile it by their
presence. They were afterwards driven away by his brothers-in-law,
ZETES and CALAIS. It has been suggested that originally the harpies were
nothing more than personifications of the swift storm-winds; and few
of the old naturalists, credulous as they were, regarded them as real
creatures, though this cannot be said of all. Some other fabulous
bird-forms are to be met with in Greek and Arabian mythologies, _etc_.,
but they are not of any particular interest. And it is time for us to
conclude our present excursion, and to seek for other byways.
V. THE POWDER OF SYMPATHY: A CURIOUS MEDICAL SUPERSTITION
OUT of the superstitions of the past the science of the present has
gradually evolved. In the Middle Ages, what by courtesy we may term
medical science was, as we have seen, little better than a heterogeneous
collection of superstitions, and although various reforms were
instituted with the passing of time, superstition still continued for
long to play a prominent part in medical practice.
One of the most curious of these old medical (or perhaps I should say
surgical) superstitions was that relating to the Powder of Sympathy, a
remedy (?) chiefly remembered in connection with the name of Sir KENELM
DIGBY (1603-1665), though he was probably not the first to employ it.
The Powder itself, which was used as a cure for wounds, was, in fact,
nothing else than common vitriol,(1) though an improved and more elegant
form (if one may so describe it) was composed of vitriol desiccated by
the sun's rays, mixed with _gum tragacanth_. It was in the application
of the Powder that the remedy was peculiar. It was not, as one might
expect, applied to the wound itself, but any article that might have
blood from the wound upon it was either sprinkled with the Powder or
else placed in a basin of water in which the Powder had been dissolved,
and maintained at a temperate heat. Meanwhile, the wound was kept clean
and cool.
(1) Green vitriol, ferrous sulphate heptahydrate, a compound of iron,
sulphur, and oxygen, crystallised with seven molecules of water,
represented by the formula FeSO4<.>7H2O. On exposure to the air it loses
water, and is gradually converted into basic ferric sulphate. For long,
green vitriol was confused with blue vitriol, which generally occurs
as an impurity in crude green vitriol. Blue vitriol is copper sulphate
pentahydrate, CuSO4<.>5H2O.
Sir KENELM DIGBY appears to have delivered a discourse dealing with the
famous Powder before a learned assembly at Montpellier in France; at
least a work purporting to be a translation of such a discourse was
published in 1658,(1) and further editions appeared in 1660 and 1664.
KENELM was a son of the Sir EVERARD DIGBY (1578-1606) who was executed
for his share in the Gunpowder Plot. In spite of this fact, however,
JAMES I. appears to have regarded him with favour. He was a man of
romantic temperament, possessed of charming manners, considerable
learning, and even greater credulity. His contemporaries seem to have
differed in their opinions concerning him. EVELYN (1620-1706), the
diarist, after inspecting his chemical laboratory, rather harshly speaks
of him as "an errant mountebank". Elsewhere he well refers to him as "a
teller of strange things"--this was on the occasion of DIGBY'S relating
a story of a lady who had such an aversion to roses that one laid on her
cheek produced a blister!
(1) _A late Discourse... by Sir_ KENELM DIGBY, _Kt.&c. Touching the Cure
of Wounds by the Powder of Sympathy...rendered... out of French into
English by_ R. WHITE, Gent. (1658). This is entitled the second edition,
but appears to have been the first.
To return to the _Late Discourse_: after some preliminary remarks, Sir
KENELM records a cure which he claims to have effected by means of
the Powder. It appears that JAMES HOWELL (1594-1666, afterwards
historiographer royal to CHARLES II.), had, in the attempt to separate
two friends engaged in a duel, received two serious wounds in the hand.
To proceed in the writer's own words:--"It was my chance to be lodged
hard by him; and four or five days after, as I was making myself ready,
he (Mr Howell) came to my House, and prayed me to view his wounds; for
I understand, said he, that you have extraordinary remedies upon such
occasions, and my Surgeons apprehend some fear, that it may grow to a
Gangrene, and so the hand must be cut off....
"I asked him then for any thing that had the blood upon it, so he
presently sent for his Garter, wherewith his hand was first bound: and
having called for a Bason of water, as if I would wash my hands; I took
an handfull of Powder of Vitrol, which I had in my study, and presently
dissolved it. As soon as the bloody garter was brought me, I put it
within the Bason, observing in the interim what Mr _Howel_ did,
who stood talking with a Gentleman in the corner of my Chamber, not
regarding at all what I was doing: but he started suddenly, as if he had
found some strange alteration in himself; I asked him what he ailed? I
know not what ailes me, but I find that I feel no more pain, methinks
that a pleasing kind of freshnesse, as it were a wet cold Napkin
did spread over my hand, which hath taken away the inflammation that
tormented me before; I replied, since that you feel already so good an
effect of my medicament, I advise you to cast away all your Plaisters,
onely keep the wound clean, and in a moderate temper 'twixt heat and
cold. This was presently reported to the Duke of _Buckingham_, and a
little after to the King (James I.), who were both very curious to know
the issue of the businesse, which was, that after dinner I took the
garter out of the water, and put it to dry before a great fire; it was
scarce dry, but Mr _Howels_ servant came running (and told me), that his
Master felt as much burning as ever he had done, if not more, for the
heat was such, as if his hand were betwixt coales of fire: I answered,
that although that had happened at present, yet he should find ease in
a short time; for I knew the reason of this new accident, and I
would provide accordingly, for his Master should be free from that
inflammation, it may be, before he could possibly return unto him: but
in case he found no ease, I wished him to come presently back again, if
not he might forbear coming. Thereupon he went, and at the instant I
did put again the garter into the water; thereupon he found his Master
without any pain at all. To be brief, there was no sense of pain
afterward: but within five or six dayes the wounds were cicatrized, and
entirely healed."(1)
(1) _Ibid_., pp. 7-11.
Sir KENELM proceeds, in this discourse, to relate that he obtained the
secret of the Powder from a Carmelite who had learnt it in the East.
Sir KENELM says that he told it only to King JAMES and his celebrated
physician, Sir THEODORE MAYERNE (1573-1655). The latter disclosed it to
the Duke of MAYERNE, whose surgeon sold the secret to various persons,
until ultimately, as Sir KENELM remarks, it became known to every
country barber. However, DIGBY'S real connection with the Powder has
been questioned. In an Appendix to Dr NATHANAEL HIGHMORE'S (1613-1685)
_The History of Generation_, published in 1651, entitled _A Discourse
of the Cure of Wounds by Sympathy_, the Powder is referred to as Sir
GILBERT TALBOT'S Powder; nor does it appear to have been DIGBY who
brought the claims of the Sympathetic Powder before the notice of
the then recently-formed Royal Society, although he was a by no means
inactive member of the Society. HIGHMORE, however, in the Appendix
to the work referred to above, does refer to DIGBY'S reputed cure of
HOWELL'S wounds already mentioned; and after the publication of DIGBY'S
_Discourse_ the Powder became generally known as Sir KENELM DIGBY'S
Sympathetic Powder. As such it is referred to in an advertisement
appended to _Wit and Drollery_ (1661) by the bookseller, NATHANAEL
BROOK.(1)
(1) This advertisement is as follows: "These are to give notice, that
Sir _Kenelme Digbies_ Sympathetical Powder prepar'd by Promethean fire,
curing all green wounds that come within the compass of a Remedy; and
likewise the Tooth-ache infallibly in a very short time: Is to be had at
Mr _Nathanael Brook's_ at the Angel in _Cornhil_."
The belief in cure by sympathy, however, is much older than DIGBY'S or
TALBOT'S Sympathetic Powder. PARACELSUS described an ointment consisting
essentially of the moss on the skull of a man who had died a violent
death, combined with boar's and bear's fat, burnt worms, dried boar's
brain, red sandal-wood and mummy, which was used to cure (?) wounds in a
similar manner, being applied to the weapon with which the hurt had been
inflicted. With reference to this ointment, readers will probably recall
the passage in SCOTT'S _Lay of the Last Minstrel_ (canto 3, stanza 23),
respecting the magical cure of WILLIAM of DELORAINE'S wound by "the
Ladye of Branksome":--
"She drew the splinter from the wound
And with a charm she stanch'd the blood;
She bade the gash be cleans'd and bound:
No longer by his couch she stood;
But she had ta'en the broken lance,
And washed it from the clotted gore
And salved the splinter o'er and o'er.
William of Deloraine, in trance,
Whene'er she turned it round and round,
Twisted as if she gall'd his wound.
Then to her maidens she did say
That he should be whole man and sound
Within the course of a night and day.
Full long she toil'd; for she did rue
Mishap to friend so stout and true."
FRANCIS BACON (1561-1626) writes of sympathetic cures as follows:--"It
is constantly Received, and Avouched, that the _Anointing_ of the
_Weapon_, that maketh the _Wound_, wil heale the _Wound_ it selfe. In
this _Experiment_, upon the Relation of _Men of Credit_, (though my
selfe, as yet, am not fully inclined to beleeve it,) you shal note
the _Points_ following; First, the _Ointment_... is made of Divers
_ingredients_; whereof the Strangest and Hardest to come by, are the
Mosse upon the _Skull_ of a _dead Man, Vnburied_; And the _Fats_ of a
_Boare_, and a _Beare_, killed in the _Act of Generation_. These Two
last I could easily suspect to be prescribed as a Starting Hole; That if
the _Experiment_ proved not, it mought be pretended, that the _Beasts_
were not killed in due Time; For as for the _Mosse_, it is certain
there is great Quantity of it in _Ireland_, upon _Slain Bodies_, laid
on _Heaps, Vnburied_. The other _Ingredients_ are, the _Bloud-Stone_
in _Powder_, and some other _Things_, which seeme to have a _Vertue_ to
_Stanch Bloud_; As also the _Mosse_ hath.... Secondly, the same _kind_
of _Ointment_, applied to the Hurt it selfe, worketh not the _Effect_;
but onely applied to the _Weapon_..... Fourthly, it may be applied to
the _Weapon_, though the Party Hurt be at a great Distance. Fifthly, it
seemeth the _Imagination_ of the Party, to be _Cured_, is not needfull
to Concurre; For it may be done without the knowledge of the _Party
Wounded_; And thus much hath been tried, that the _Ointment_ (for
_Experiments_ sake,) hath been wiped off the _Weapon_, without the
knowledge of the _Party Hurt_, and presently the _Party Hurt_, hath been
in great _Rage of Paine_, till the _Weapon_ was _Reannointed_. Sixthly,
it is affirmed, that if you cannot get the _Weapon_, yet if you put an
_Instrument_ of _Iron_, or _Wood_, resembling the _Weapon_, into the
_Wound_, whereby it bleedeth, the _Annointing_ of that _Instrument_ will
serve, and work the _Effect_. This I doubt should be a Device, to keep
this strange _Forme of Cure_, in Request, and Use; Because many times
you cannot come by the _Weapon_ it selve. Seventhly, the _Wound_ be at
first _Washed clean_ with _White Wine_ or the _Parties_ own _Water_; And
then bound up close in _Fine Linen_ and no more _Dressing_ renewed, till
it be _whole_."(1)
(1) FRANCIS BACON: _Sylva Sylvarum: or, A Natural History... Published
after the Authors death... The sixt Edition_ ù.. (1651), p. 217.
Owing to the demand for making this ointment, quite a considerable trade
was done in skulls from Ireland upon which moss had grown owing to
their exposure to the atmosphere, high prices being obtained for fine
specimens.
The idea underlying the belief in the efficacy of sympathetic remedies,
namely, that by acting on part of a thing or on a symbol of it, one
thereby acts magically on the whole or the thing symbolised, is the
root-idea of all magic, and is of extreme antiquity. DIGBY and others,
however, tried to give a natural explanation to the supposed efficacy
of the Powder. They argued that particles of the blood would ascend from
the bloody cloth or weapon, only coming to rest when they had reached
their natural home in the wound from which they had originally issued.
These particles would carry with them the more volatile part of the
vitriol, which would effect a cure more readily than when combined with
the grosser part of the vitriol. In the days when there was hardly any
knowledge of chemistry and physics, this theory no doubt bore every
semblance of truth. In passing, however, it is interesting to note
that DIGBY'S _Discourse_ called forth a reply from J. F. HELVETIUS
(or SCHWETTZER, 1625-1709), physician to the Prince of Orange, who
afterwards became celebrated as an alchemist who had achieved the magnum
opus.(1)
(1) See my _Alchemy: Ancient and Modern_ (1911), SESE 63-67.
Writing of the Sympathetic Powder, Professor DE MORGAN wittily argues
that it must have been quite efficacious. He says: "The directions were
to keep the wound clean and cool, and to take care of diet, rubbing the
salve on the knife or sword. If we remember the dreadful notions upon
drugs which prevailed, both as to quantity and quality, we shall readily
see that any way of NOT dressing the wound would have been useful. If
the physicians had taken the hint, had been careful of diet, _etc_.,
and had poured the little barrels of medicine down the throat of a
practicable doll, THEY would have had their magical cures as well as the
surgeons."(2) As Dr PETTIGREW has pointed out,(3) Nature exhibits very
remarkable powers in effecting the healing of wounds by adhesion, when
her processes are not impeded. In fact, many cases have been recorded in
which noses, ears, and fingers severed from the body have been rejoined
thereto, merely by washing the parts, placing them in close continuity,
and allowing the natural powers of the body to effect the healing.
Moreover, in spite of BACON'S remarks on this point, the effect of
the imagination of the patient, who was usually not ignorant that a
sympathetic cure was to be attempted, must be taken into account; for,
without going to the excesses of "Christian Science" in this respect,
the fact must be recognised that the state of the mind exercises a
powerful effect on the natural forces of the body, and a firm faith is
undoubtedly helpful in effecting the cure of any sort of ill.
(2) Professor AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN: _A Budget of Paradoxes_ (1872), p 66.
(3) THOMAS JOSEPH PETTIGREW, F.R.S.: _On Superstitions connected with
the History and Practice of Medicine and Surgery_ (1844), pp. 164-167.
VI. THE BELIEF IN TALISMANS
THE word "talisman" is derived from the Arabic "tilsam," "a magical
image," through the plural form "tilsamen." This Arabic word is itself
probably derived from the Greek telesma in its late meaning of "a
religious mystery" or "consecrated object". The term is often employed
to designate amulets in general, but, correctly speaking, it has a more
restricted and special significance. A talisman may be defined briefly
as an astrological or other symbol expressive of the influence and power
of one of the planets, engraved on a sympathetic stone or metal (or
inscribed on specially prepared parchment) under the auspices of this
planet.
Before proceeding to an account of the preparation of talismans proper,
it will not be out of place to notice some of the more interesting and
curious of other amulets. All sorts of substances have been employed
as charms, sometimes of a very unpleasant nature, such as dried toads.
Generally, however, amulets consist of stones, herbs, or passages from
Sacred Writings written on paper. This latter class are sometimes
called "characts," as an example of which may be mentioned the Jewish
phylacteries.
Every precious stone was supposed to exercise its own peculiar virtue;
for instance, amber was regarded as a good remedy for throat troubles,
and agate was thought to preserve from snake-bites. ELIHU RICH(1) gives
a very full list of stones and their supposed virtues. Each sign of the
zodiac was supposed to have its own particular stone(2) (as shown in the
annexed table), and hence the superstitious though not inartistic custom
of wearing one's birth-
Month (com-
Astrological mencing 21st
Sign of the Zodiac. of preceding
Symbol. month). Stone.
Aries, the Ram . {} April Sardonyx.
Taurus the Bull . {} May Cornelian.
Gemini the Twins . {} June Topaz.
Cancer, the Crab . {} July Chalcedony.
Leo, the Lion . . {} August Jasper.
Virgo, the Virgin . {} September Emerald.
Libra, the Balance . {} October Beryl.
Scorpio, the Scorpion {} November Amethyst.
Sagittarius, the Archer {} December Hyacinth (=Sapphire).
Capricorn, the Goat . {} January Chrysoprase.
Aquarius, the Water- {} February Crystal.
bearer
Pisces, the Fishes . {} March Sapphire.(=Lapis lazuli).
stone for "luck". The belief in the occult powers of certain stones
is by no means non-existent at the present day; for even in these
enlightened times there are not wanting those who fear the beautiful
opal, and put their faith in the virtues of New Zealand green-stone.
(1) ELIHU RICH: _The Occult Sciences (Encyclopaedia Metropolitana_,
1855), pp. 348 _et seq_.
(2) With regard to these stones, however, there is much confusion and
difference of opinion. The arrangement adopted in the table here
given is that of CORNELIUS AGRIPPA (_Occult Philosophy_, bk. ii.). A
comparatively recent work, esteemed by modern occultists, namely, _The
Light of Egypt, or the Science of the Soul and the Stars_ (1889), gives
the following scheme:--
{}=Amethyst. {}=Emerald. {}=Diamond. {}=Onyx (Chalcedony).
{}=Agate. {}=Ruby. {}=Topaz. {}=Sapphire (skyblue).
{}=Beryl. {}=Jasper. {}=Carbuncle. {}=Chrysolite.
Common superstitious opinion regarding birth-stones, as reflected, for
example, in the "lucky birth charms" exhibited in the windows of the
jewellers' shops, considerably diverges in this matter from the views of
both these authorities. The usual scheme is as follows:--
Jan.=Garnet. May =Emerald. Sept.=Sapphire,
Feb.=Amethyst. June=Agate. Oct. =Opal.
Mar.=Bloodstone. July=Ruby. Nov. =Topaz.
Apr.=Diamond. Aug.=Sardonyx. Dec. =Turquoise.
The bloodstone is frequently assigned either to Aries or Scorpio, owing
to its symbolical connection with Mars; and the opal to Cancer, which in
astrology is the constellation of the moon.
Confusion is rendered still worse by the fact that the ancients whilst
in some cases using the same names as ourselves, applied them to
different stones; thus their "hyacinth" is our "sapphire," whilst their
"sapphire" is our "lapis lazuli".
Certain herbs, culled at favourable conjunctions of the planets and worn
as amulets, were held to be very efficacious against various diseases.
Precious stones and metals were also taken internally for the same
purpose--"remedies" which in certain cases must have proved exceedingly
harmful. One theory put forward for the supposed medical value of
amulets was the Doctrine of Effluvia. This theory supposes the amulets
to give off vapours or effluvia which penetrate into the body and effect
a cure. It is, of course, true that certain herbs, _etc_., might, under
the heat of the body, give off such effluvia, but the theory on the
whole is manifestly absurd. The Doctrine of Signatures, which we have
already encountered in our excursions,(1) may also be mentioned in this
connection as a complementary and equally untenable hypothesis.
According to ELIHU RICH,(2) the following were the commonest Egyptian
amulets:--
1. Those inscribed with the figure of _Serapis_, used to preserve
against evils inflicted by earth.
2. Figure of _Canopus_, against evil by water.
3. Figure of a _hawk_, against evil from the air.
4. Figure of an _asp_, against evil by fire.
PARACELSUS believed there to be much occult virtue in an alloy of
the seven chief metals, which he called _Electrum_. Certain definite
proportions of these metals had to be taken, and each was to be added
during a favourable conjunction of the planets. From this electrum he
supposed that valuable amulets and magic mirrors could be prepared.
(1) See "Medicine and Magic." (2) _Op. Cit_., p. 343
A curious and ancient amulet for the cure of various diseases,
particularly the ague, was a triangle formed of the letters of the word
"Abracadabra." The usual form was that shown in fig. 19, and that shown
in fig. 20 was also known. The origin of this magical word is lost in
obscurity.
The belief in the horn as a powerful amulet, especially prevalent in
Italy, where is it the custom of the common people to make the sign of
the _mano cornuto_ to avoid the consequence of the dreaded _jettatore_
or evil eye, can be traced to the fact that the horn was the symbol
of the Goddess of the Moon. Probably the belief in the powers of the
horse-shoe had a similar origin. Indeed, it seems likely that not only
this, but most other amulets, like talismans proper--as will appear
below,--were originally designed as appeals to gods and other powerful
spiritual beings.
\ ABRACADABRA / \ ABRACADABRA |
\ ABRACADABR / \ BRACADABRA |
\ ABRACADAB / \ RACADABRA |
\ ABRACADA / \ ACADABRA |
\ ABRACAD / \ CADABRA |
\ ABRACA / \ ADABRA |
\ ABRAC / \ DABRA |
\ ABRA / \ ABRA |
\ ABR / \ BRA |
\ AB / \ RA |
\ A/ \ A |
\/ \ |
(1) See FREDERICK T. ELWORTHY'S _Horns of Honour_ (1900), especially pp.
56 _et seq_.
To turn our attention, however, to the art of preparing talismans
proper: I may remark at the outset that it was necessary for the
talisman to be prepared by one's own self--a task by no means easy as
a rule. Indeed, the right mental attitude of the occultist was insisted
upon as essential to the operation.
As to the various signs to be engraver on the talismans, various
authorities differ, though there are certain points connected with the
art of talismanic magic on which they all agree. It so happened that the
ancients were acquainted with seven metals and seven planets (including
the sun and moon as planets), and the days of the week are also seven.
It was concluded, therefore, that there was some occult connection
between the planets, metals, and days of the week. Each of the seven
days of the week was supposed to be under the auspices of the spirits of
one of the planets; so also was the generation in the womb of Nature of
each of the seven chief metals.
In the following table are shown these particulars in detail:--
Planet. Symbol. Day of Metal. Colour.
Sun. {} Sunday Gold Gold or yellow.
Moon. {} Monday Silver Silver or white.
Mars. {} Tuesday Iron Red.
Mercury {} Wednesday (1)Mercury Mixed colours or purple.
Jupiter {} Thursday Tin Violet or blue.
Venus {} Friday Copper Turquoise or green.
Saturn. {} Saturday Lead Black.
(1) Used in the form of a solid amalgam for talismans.
Consequently, the metal of which a talisman was to be made, and also the
time of its preparation, had to be chosen with due regard to the planet
under which it was to be prepared.(1) The power of such a talisman was
thought to be due to the genie of this planet--a talisman, was, in fact,
a silent evocation of an astral spirit. Examples of the belief that a
genie can be bound up in an amulet in some way are afforded by the story
of ALADDIN'S lamp and ring and other stories in the _Thousand and
One Nights_. Sometimes the talismanic signs were engraved on precious
stones, sometimes they were inscribed on parchment; in both cases the
same principle held good, the nature of the stone chosen, or the colour
of the ink employed, being that in correspondence with the planet under
whose auspices the talisman was prepared.
(1) In this connection a rather surprising discovery made by Mr W.
GORNOLD (see his _A Manual of Occultism_, 1911, pp. 7 and 8) must be
mentioned. The ancient Chaldeans appear invariably to have enumerated
the planets in the following order: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus,
Mercury, Moon--which order was adopted by the mediaeval astrologers.
Let us commence with the Sun in the above sequence, and write down every
third planet; we then have-- Sun . . . . Sunday.
Moon. . . . Monday.
Mars. . . . Tuesday.
Mercury. . . . Wednesday.
Jupiter.. . . Thursday.
Venus. . . . Friday.
Saturn. . . . Saturday.
That is to say, we have the planets in the order in which they were
supposed to rule over the days of the week. This is perhaps, not so
surprising, because it seems probable that, each day being first divided
into twenty-four hours, it was assumed that the planets ruled for one
hour in turn, in the order first mentioned above. Each day was then
named after the planet which ruled during its first hour. It will be
found that if we start with the Sun and write down every twenty-fourth
planet, the result is exactly the same as if we write down every third.
But Mr OLD points out further, doing so by means of a diagram which
seems to be rather cumbersome that if we start with Saturn in the first
place, and write down every fifth planet, and then for each planet
substitute the metal over which it was supposed to rule, we then have
these metals arranged in descending order of atomic weights, thus:--
Saturn . . . Lead (=207).
Mercury . . . Mercury (=200).
Sun. . . . Gold (=197).
Jupiter . . . Tin (=119).
Moon. . . . Silver (=108).
Venus . . Copper (=64).
Mars. . . . Iron (=56).
Similarly we can, starting from any one of these orders, pass to the
other two. The fact is a very surprising one, because the ancients could
not possibly have been acquainted with the atomic weights of the metals,
and, it is important to note, the order of the densities of these
metals, which might possibly have been known to them, is by no means the
same as the order of their atomic weights. Whether the fact indicates a
real relationship between the planets and the metals, or whether there
is some other explanation, I am not prepared to say. Certainly some
explanation is needed: to say that the fact is mere coincidence is
unsatisfactory, seeing that the odds against, not merely this, but any
such regularity occurring by chance--as calculated by the mathematical
theory of probability--are 119 to 1.
All the instruments employed in the art had to be specially prepared and
consecrated. Special robes had to be worn, perfumes and incense burnt,
and invocations, conjurations, _etc_., recited, all of which depended
on the planet ruling the operation. A description of a few typical
talismans in detail will not here be out of place.
In _The Key of Solomon the King_ (translated by S. L. M. MATHERS,
1889)(1) are described five, six, or seven talismans for each planet.
Each of these was supposed to have its own peculiar virtues, and many of
them are stated to be of use in the evocation of spirits. The majority
of them consist of a central design encircled by a verse of Hebrew
Scripture. The central designs are of a varied character, generally
geometrical figures and Hebrew letters or words, or magical characters.
Five of these talismans are here portrayed, the first three described
differing from the above. The translations of the Hebrew verses, _etc_.,
given below are due to Mr MATHERS.
(1) The _Clavicula Salomonis_, or _Key of Solomon the King_, consists
mainly of an elaborate ritual for the evocation of the various planetary
spirits, in which process the use of talismans or pentacles plays a
prominent part. It is claimed to be a work of white magic, but, inasmuch
as it, like other old books making the same claim, gives descriptions
of a pentacle for causing ruin, destruction, and death, and another for
causing earthquakes--to give only two examples,--the distinction between
black and white magic, which we shall no doubt encounter again in later
excursions, appears to be somewhat arbitrary.
Regarding the authorship of the work, Mr MATHERS, translator and editor
of the first printed copy of the book, says, "I see no reason to
doubt the tradition which assigns the authorship of the 'Key' to King
Solomon." If this view be accepted, however, it is abundantly evident
that the _Key_ as it stands at present (in which we find S. JOHN
quoted, and mention made of SS. PETER and PAUL) must have received some
considerable alterations and additions at the hands of later editors.
But even if we are compelled to assign the _Clavicula Salomonis_ in its
present form to the fourteenth or fifteenth century, we must, I think,
allow that it was based upon traditions of the past, and, of course,
the possibility remains that it might have been based upon some earlier
work. With regard to the antiquity of the planetary sigils, Mr MATHERS
notes "that, among the Gnostic talismans in the British Museum, there is
a ring of copper with the sigils of Venus, which are exactly the same as
those given by mediaeval writers on magic."
In spite of the absurdity of its claims, viewed in the light of modern
knowledge, the _Clavicula Salomonis_ exercised a considerable influence
in the past, and is to be regarded as one of the chief sources of
mediaeval ceremonial magic. Historically speaking, therefore, it is a
book of no little importance.
_The First Pentacle of the Sun_.--"The Countenance of Shaddai the
Almighty, at Whose aspect all creatures obey, and the Angelic Spirits
do reverence on bended knees." About the face is the name "El Shaddai".
Around is written in Latin: "Behold His face and form by Whom all things
were made, and Whom all creatures obey" (see fig. 21).
_The Fifth Pentacle of Mars_.--"Write thou this Pentacle upon virgin
parchment or paper because it is terrible unto the Demons, and at
its sight and aspect they will obey thee, for they cannot resist its
presence." The design is a Scorpion,(1) around which the word Hvl is
repeated. The Hebrew versicle is from _Psalm_ xci. 13: "Thou shalt go
upon the lion and adder, the young lion and the dragon shalt thou tread
under thy feet" (see fig. 22).
(1) In astrology the zodiacal sign of the scorpion is the "night house"
of the planet Mars.
_The Third Pentacle of the Moon_.--"This being duly borne with thee when
upon a journey, if it be properly made, serveth against all attacks by
night, and against every kind of danger and peril by Water." The design
consists of a hand and sleeved forearm (this occurs on three other
moon talismans), together with the Hebrew names Aub and Vevaphel. The
versicle is from _Psalm_ xl. 13: "Be pleased O IHVH to deliver me, O
IHVH make haste to help me" (see fig 23)
_The Third Pentacle of Venus_.--"This, if it be only shown unto any
person, serveth to attract love. Its Angel Monachiel should be invoked
in the day and hour of Venus, at one o'clock or at eight." The design
consists of two triangles joined at their apices, with the following
names--IHVH, Adonai, Ruach, Achides, AEgalmiel, Monachiel, and Degaliel.
The versicle is from _Genesis_ i. 28: "And the Elohim blessed them, and
the Elohim said unto them, Be ye fruitful, and multiply, and replenish
the earth, and subdue it" (see fig. 24).
_The Third Pentacle of Mercury_.--"This serves to invoke the Spirits
subject unto Mercury; and especially those who are written in this
Pentacle." The design consists of crossed lines and magical characters
of Mercury. Around are the names of the angels, Kokaviel, Ghedoriah,
Savaniah, and Chokmahiel (see fig. 25).
CORNELIUS AGRIPPA, in his _Three Books of Occult Philosophy_, describes
another interesting system of talismans. FRANCIS BARRETT'S _Magus, or
Celestial Intelligencer_, a well-known occult work published in the
first year of the nineteenth century, I may mention, copies AGRIPPA'S
system of talismans, without acknowledgment, almost word for word. To
each of the planets is assigned a magic square or table, _i.e_. a square
composed of numbers so arranged that the sum of each row or column is
always the same. For example, the table for Mars is as follows:--
11 24 7 20 3
4 12 25 8 16
17 5 13 21 9
10 18 1 14 22
23 6 19 2 15
It will be noticed that every number from 1 up to the highest possible
occurs once, and that no number occurs twice. It will also be seen that
the sum of each row and of each column is always 65. Similar squares
can be constructed containing any square number of figures, and it is,
indeed, by no means surprising that the remarkable properties of such
"magic squares," before these were explained mathematically, gave rise
to the belief that they had some occult significance and virtue. From
the magic squares can be obtained certain numbers which are said to be
the numbers of the planets; their orderliness, we are told, reflects
the order of the heavens, and from a consideration of them the magical
properties of the planets which they represent can be arrived at. For
example, in the above table the number of rows of numbers is 5. The
total number of numbers in the table is the square of this number,
namely, 25, which is also the greatest number in the table. The sum of
any row or column is 65. And, finally, the sum of all the numbers is
the product of the number of rows (namely, 5) and the sum of any row
(namely, 65), _i.e_. 325. These numbers, namely, 5, 25, 65, and 325, are
the numbers of Mars. Sets of numbers for the other planets are obtained
in exactly the same manner.(1)
(1) Readers acquainted with mathematics will notice that if _n_ is the
number of rows in such a "magic square," the other numbers derived as
above will be n<2S>, 1/2_n_(_n_<2S> + 1), and 1/2_n_<2S>(_n_<2S> + 1).
This can readily be proved by the laws of arithmetical progressions.
Rather similar but more complicated and less uniform "magic squares" are
attributed to PARACELSUS.
Now to each planet is assigned an Intelligence or good spirit, and an
Evil Spirit or demon; and the names of these spirits are related to
certain of the numbers of the planets. The other numbers are also
connected with holy and magical Hebrew names. AGRIPPA, and BARRETT
copying him, gives the following table of "names answering to the
numbers of Mars":--
5. He, the letter of the holy name. <hb >
25. <hb ___>
65. Adonai. <hb ____>
325. Graphiel, the Intelligence of Mars. <hb _______>
325. Barzabel, the Spirit of Mars. <hb _______>
Similar tables are given for the other planets. The numbers can be
derived from the names by regarding the Hebrew letters of which they
are composed as numbers, in which case <hb > (Aleph) to <hb > (Teth)
represent the units 1 to 9 in order, <hb > (Jod) to <hb > (Tzade) the
tens 10 to 90 in order, <hb > (Koph) to <hb > (Tau) the hundreds 100 to
400, whilst the hundreds 500 to 900 are represented by special terminal
forms of certain of the Hebrew letters.(2) It is evident that no little
wasted ingenuity must have been employed in working all this out.
(2) It may be noticed that this makes <hb _______> equal to 326, one
unit too much. Possibly an Alelph should be omitted.
Each planet has its own seal or signature, as well as the signature of
its intelligence and the signature of its demon. These signatures were
supposed to represent the characters of the planets' intelligences and
demons respectively. The signature of Mars is shown in fig. 26, that of
its intelligence in fig. 27, and that of its demon in fig. 28.
These various details were inscribed on the talismans each of which was
supposed to confer its own peculiar benefits--as follows: On one side
must be engraved the proper magic table and the astrological sign of
the planet, together with the highest planetary number, the sacred names
corresponding to the planet, and the name of the intelligence of
the planet, but not the name of its demon. On the other side must be
engraved the seals of the planet and of its intelligence, and also the
astrological sign. BARRETT says, regarding the demons:(1) "It is to be
understood that the intelligences are the presiding good angels that are
set over the planets; but that the spirits or daemons, with their names,
seals, or characters, are never inscribed upon any Talisman, except to
execute any evil effect, and that they are subject to the intelligences,
or good spirits; and again, when the spirits and their characters are
used, it will be more conducive to the effect to add some divine name
appropriate to that effect which we desire." Evil talismans can also be
prepared, we are informed, by using a metal antagonistic to the signs
engraved thereon. The complete talisman of Mars is shown in fig. 29.
(1) FRANCIS BARRETT: _The Magus, or Celestial Intelligencer_ (1801), bk.
i. p. 146.
ALPHONSE LOUIS CONSTANT,(1) a famous French occultist of the nineteenth
century, who wrote under the name of "ELIPHAS LEVI," describes yet
another system of talismans. He says: "The Pentagram must be always
engraved on one side of the talisman, with a circle for the Sun, a
crescent for the Moon, a winged caduceus for Mercury, a sword for Mars,
a G for Venus, a crown for Jupiter, and a scythe for Saturn. The other
side of the talisman should bear the sign of Solomon, that is, the
six-pointed star formed by two interlaced triangles; in the centre there
should be placed a human figure for the sun talismans, a cup for those
of the Moon, a dog's head for those of Jupiter, a lion for those of
Mars, a dove's for those of Venus, a bull's or goat's for those of
Saturn. The names of the seven angels should be added either in Hebrew,
Arabic, or magic characters similar to those of the alphabets of
Trimethius. The two triangles of Solomon may be replaced by the double
cross of Ezekiel's wheels, this being found on a great number of ancient
pentacles. All objects of this nature, whether in metals or in precious
stones, should be carefully wrapped in silk satchels of a colour
analogous to the spirit of the planet, perfumed with the perfumes of the
corresponding day, and preserved from all impure looks and touches."(2)
(1) For a biographical and critical account of this extraordinary
personage and his views, see Mr A. E. WAITE'S _The Mysteries of Magic: a
Digest of the writings of_ ELIPHAS LEVI (1897).
(2) _Op. cit_., p. 201.
ELIPHAS LEVI, following PYTHAGORAS and many of the mediaeval magicians,
regarded the pentagram, or five-pointed star, as an extremely powerful
pentacle. According to him, if with one horn in the ascendant it is the
sign of the microcosm--Man. With two horns in the ascendant, however,
it is the sign of the Devil, "the accursed Goat of Mendes," and an
instrument of black magic. We can, indeed, trace some faint likeness
between the pentagram and the outline form of a man, or of a goat's
head, according to whether it has one or two horns in the ascendant
respectively, which resemblances may account for this idea. Fig. 30
shows the pentagram embellished with other symbols according to ELIPHAS
LEVI, whilst fig. 31 shows his embellished form of the six-pointed star,
or Seal of SOLOMON. This, he says, is "the sign of the Macrocosmos,
but is less powerful than the Pentagram, the microcosmic sign," thus
contradicting PYTHAGORAS, who, as we have seen, regarded the pentagram
as the sign of the Macrocosm. ELIPHAS LEVI asserts that he attempted the
evocation of the spirit of APOLLONIUS of Tyana in London on 24th July
1854, by the aid of a pentagram and other magical apparatus and ritual,
apparently with success, if we may believe his word. But he sensibly
suggests that probably the apparition which appeared was due to the
effect of the ceremonies on his own imagination, and comes to the
conclusion that such magical experiments are injurious to health.(1)
(1) _Op cit_. pp. 446-450.
Magical rings were prepared on the same principle as were talismans.
Says CORNELIUS AGRIPPA: "The manner of making these kinds of Magical
Rings is this, viz.: When any Star ascends fortunately, with the
fortunate aspect or conjunction of the Moon, we must take a stone and
herb that is under that Star, and make a ring of the metal that is
suitable to this Star, and in it fasten the stone, putting the herb
or root under it--not omitting the inscriptions of images, names, and
characters, as also the proper suffumigations...."(1) SOLOMON'S ring
was supposed to have been possessed of remarkable occult virtue. Says
JOSEPHUS (_c_. A.D. 37-100): "God also enabled him (SOLOMON) to learn
that skill which expels demons, which is a science useful and sanative
to men. He composed such incantations also by which distempers are
alleviated. And he left behind him the manner of using exorcisms, by
which they drive away demons, so that they never return; and this method
of cure is of great force unto this day; for I have seen a certain man
of my own country, whose name was Eleazar, releasing people that were
demoniacal in the presence of Vespasian, and his sons, and his captains,
and the whole multitude of his soldiers. The manner of the cure was
this; he put a ring that had under the seal a root of one of those sorts
mentioned by Solomon, to the nostrils of the demoniac, after which he
drew out the demon through his nostrils: and when the man fell down
immediately, he abjured him to return unto him no more, making still
mention of Solomon, and reciting the incantations which he composed."(2)
(1) H. C. AGRIPPA: _Occult Philosophy_, bk. i. chap. xlvii. (WHITEHEAD'S
edition, pp. 141 and 142).
(2) FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS: _The Antiquities of the Jews_ (trans. by W.
WHISTON), bk. viii. chap. ii., SE 5 (45) to (47).
Enough has been said already to indicate the general nature of
talismanic magic. No one could maintain otherwise than that much of it
is pure nonsense; but the subject should not, therefore, be dismissed as
valueless, or lacking significance. It is past belief that amulets and
talismans should have been believed in for so long unless they APPEARED
to be productive of some of the desired results, though these may have
been due to forces quite other than those which were supposed to be
operative. Indeed, it may be said that there has been no widely held
superstition which does not embody some truth, like some small specks of
gold hidden in an uninviting mass of quartz. As the poet BLAKE put it:
"Everything possible to be believ'd is an image of truth";(1) and the
attempt may here be made to extract the gold of truth from the quartz of
superstition concerning talismanic magic. For this purpose the various
theories regarding the supposed efficacy of talismans must be examined.
(1) "Proverbs of Hell" (_The Marriage of Heaven and Hell_).
Two of these theories have already been noted, but the doctrine of
effluvia admittedly applied only to a certain class of amulets, and, I
think, need not be seriously considered. The "astral-spirit theory" (as
it may be called), in its ancient form at any rate, is equally untenable
to-day. The discoveries of new planets and new metals seem destructive
of the belief that there can be any occult connection between planets,
metals, and the days of the week, although the curious fact discovered
by Mr OLD, to which I have referred (footnote, p. 63@@@), assuredly
demands an explanation, and a certain validity may, perhaps, be allowed
to astrological symbolism. As concerns the belief in the existence
of what may be called (although the term is not a very happy one)
"discarnate spirits," however, the matter, in view of the modern
investigation of spiritistic and other abnormal psychical phenomena,
stands in a different position. There can, indeed, be little doubt that
very many of the phenomena observed at spiritistic seances come under
the category of deliberate fraud, and an even larger number, perhaps,
can be explained on the theory of the subconscious self. I think,
however, that the evidence goes to show that there is a residuum of
phenomena which can only be explained by the operation, in some way,
of discarnate intelligences.(1) Psychical research may be said to
have supplied the modern world with the evidence of the existence of
discarnate personalities, and of their operation on the material plane,
which the ancient world lacked. But so far as our present subject is
concerned, all the evidence obtainable goes to show that the phenomena
in question only take place in the presence of what is called "a
medium"--a person of peculiar nervous or psychical organisation.
That this is the case, moreover, appears to be the general belief of
spiritists on the subject. In the sense, then, in which "a talisman"
connotes a material object of such a nature that by its aid the powers
of discarnate intelligences may become operative on material things, we
might apply the term "talisman" to the nervous system of a medium:
but then that would be the only talisman. Consequently, even if one is
prepared to admit the whole of modern spiritistic theory, nothing is
thereby gained towards a belief in talismans, and no light is shed upon
the subject.
(1) The publications of The Society for Psychical Research, and
FREDERICK MYERS' monumental work on _Human Personality and its Survival
of Bodily Death_, should be specially consulted. I have attempted a
brief discussion of modern spiritualism and psychical research in my
_Matter, Spirit, and the Cosmos_ (1910), chap. ii.
Another theory concerning talismans which commended itself to many of
the old occult philosophers, PARACELSUS for instance, is what may be
called the "occult force" theory. This theory assumes the existence of
an occult mental force, a force capable of being exerted by the human
will, apart from its usual mode of operation by means of the body. It
was believed to be possible to concentrate this mental energy and infuse
it into some suitable medium, with the production of a talisman, which
was thus regarded as a sort of accumulator for mental energy. The theory
seems a fantastic one to modern thought, though, in view of the many
startling phenomena brought to light by psychical research, it is not
advisable to be too positive regarding the limitations of the powers of
the human mind. However, I think we shall find the element of truth in
the otherwise absurd belief in talismans by means of what may be called,
not altogether fancifully perhaps, a transcendental interpretation of
this "occult force" theory. I suggest, that is, that when a believer
makes a talisman, the transference of the occult energy is ideal, not
actual; that the power, believed to reside in the talisman itself, is
the power due to the reflex action of the believer's mind. The power
of what transcendentalists call "the imagination" cannot be denied; for
example, no one can deny that a man with a firm conviction that such a
success will be achieved by him, or such a danger avoided, will be far
more likely to gain his desire, other conditions being equal, than one
of a pessimistic turn of mind. The mere conviction itself is a factor in
success, or a factor in failure, according to its nature; and it seems
likely that herein will be found a true explanation of the effects
believed to be due to the power of the talisman.
On the other hand, however, we must beware of the exaggerations into
which certain schools of thought have fallen in their estimates of the
powers of the imagination. These exaggerations are particularly
marked in the views which are held by many nowadays with regard to
"faith-healing," although the "Christian Scientists" get out of the
difficulty--at least to their own satisfaction--by ascribing their
alleged cures to the Power of the Divine Mind, and not to the power of
the individual mind.
Of course the real question involved in this "transcendental theory
of talismans" as I may, perhaps, call it, is that of the operation of
incarnate spirit on the plane of matter. This operation takes place only
through the medium of the nervous system, and it has been suggested,(1)
to avoid any violation of the law of the conservation of energy, that
it is effected, not by the transference, as is sometimes supposed, of
energy from the spiritual to the material plane, but merely by means
of directive control over the expenditure of energy derived by the body
from purely physical sources, _e.g_. the latent chemical energy bound up
in the food eaten and the oxygen breathed.
(1) _Cf_ Sir OLIVER LODGE: _Life and Matter_ (1907), especially chap.
ix.; and W. HIBBERT, F.I.C.: _Life and Energy_ (1904).
I am not sure that this theory really avoids the difficulty which it is
intended to obviate;(1) but it is at least an interesting one, and
at any rate there may be modes in which the body, under the directive
control of the spirit, may expend energy derived from the material
plane, of which we know little or nothing. We have the testimony of many
eminent authorities(2) to the phenomenon of the movement of physical
objects without contact at spiritistic seances. It seems to me that the
introduction of discarnate intelligences to explain this phenomenon is
somewhat gratuitous--the psychic phenomena which yield evidence of the
survival of human personality after bodily death are of a different
character. For if we suppose this particular phenomenon to be due to
discarnate spirits, we must, in view of what has been said concerning
"mediums," conclude that the movements in question are not produced by
these spirits DIRECTLY, but through and by means of the nervous
system of the medium present. Evidently, therefore, the means for the
production of the phenomenon reside in the human nervous system (or, at
any rate, in the peculiar nervous system of "mediums"), and all that
is lacking is intelligence or initiative to use these means. This
intelligence or initiative can surely be as well supplied by the
sub-consciousness as by a discarnate intelligence. Consequently, it does
not seem unreasonable to suppose that equally remarkable phenomena may
have been produced by the aid of talismans in the days when these
were believed in, and may be produced to-day, if one has sufficient
faith--that is to say, produced by man when in the peculiar condition of
mind brought about by the intense belief in the power of a talisman. And
here it should be noted that the term "talisman" may be applied to
any object (or doctrine) that is believed to possess peculiar power or
efficacy. In this fact, I think, is to be found the peculiar danger of
erroneous doctrines which promise extraordinary benefits, here and now
on the material plane, to such as believe in them. Remarkable results
may follow an intense belief in such doctrines, which, whilst having no
connection whatever with their accuracy, being proportional only to the
intensity with which they are held, cannot do otherwise than confirm the
believer in the validity of his beliefs, though these may be in every
way highly fantastic and erroneous. Both the Roman Catholic, therefore,
and the Buddhist may admit many of the marvels attributed to the relics
of each other's saints; though, in denying that these marvels prove the
accuracy of each other's religious doctrines, each should remember that
the same is true of his own.
(1) The subject is rather too technical to deal with here. I have
discussed it elsewhere; see "Thermo-Dynamical Objections to the
Mechanical Theory of Life," _The Chemical News_, vol. cxii. pp. 271 _et
seq_. (3rd December 1915).
(2) For instance, the well-known physicist, Sir W. F. BARRETT, F.R.S.
(late Professor of Experimental Physics in The Royal College of Science
for Ireland). See his _On the Threshold of a New World of Thought_
(1908), SE 10.
In illustration of the real power of the imagination, I may instance the
Maori superstition of the Taboo. According to the Maories, anyone who
touches a tabooed object will assuredly die, the tabooed object being
a sort of "anti-talisman". Professor FRAZER(1) says: "Cases have
been known of Maories dying of sheer fright on learning that they had
unwittingly eaten the remains of a chief's dinner or handled something
that belonged to him," since such objects were, _ipso facto_, tabooed.
He gives the following case on good authority: "A woman, having partaken
of some fine peaches from a basket, was told that they had come from
a tabooed place. Immediately the basket dropped from her hands and she
cried out in agony that the atua or godhead of the chief, whose divinity
had been thus profaned, would kill her. That happened in the afternoon,
and next day by twelve o'clock she was dead." For us the power of the
taboo does not exist; for the Maori, who implicitly believes in it, it
is a very potent reality, but this power of the taboo resides not in
external objects but in his own mind.
(1) Professor J. G. FRAZER, D.C.L.: _Psyche's Task_ (1909), p. 7.
Dr HADDON(2) quotes a similar but still more remarkable story of a young
Congo negro which very strikingly shows the power of the imagination.
The young negro, "being on a journey, lodged at a friend's house; the
latter got a wild hen for his breakfast, and the young man asked if it
were a wild hen. His host answered 'No.' Then he fell on heartily, and
afterwards proceeded on his journey. After four years these two met
together again, and his old friend asked him 'if he would eat a wild
hen,' to which he answered that it was tabooed to him. Hereat the host
began immediately to laugh, inquiring of him, 'What made him refuse it
now, when he had eaten one at his table about four years ago?' At the
hearing of this the negro immediately fell a-trembling, and suffered
himself to be so far possessed with the effects of imagination that he
died in less than twenty-four hours after."
(2) ALFRED C. HADDON, SC.D., F.R.S.: _Magic and Fetishism_ (1906), p.
56.
There are, of course, many stories about amulets, _etc_., which cannot
be thus explained. For example, ELIHU RICH gives the following:--
"In 1568, we are told (Transl. of Salverte, p. 196) that the Prince of
Orange condemned a Spanish prisoner to be shot at Juliers. The soldiers
tied him to a tree and fired, but he was invulnerable. They then
stripped him to see what armour he wore, but they found only an amulet
bearing the figure of a lamb (the _Agnus Dei_, we presume). This was
taken from him, and he was then killed by the first shot. De Baros
relates that the Portuguese in like manner vainly attempted to destroy
a Malay, so long as he wore a bracelet containing a bone set in gold,
which rendered him proof against their swords. A similar marvel is
related in the travels of the veracious Marco Polo. 'In an attempt of
Kublai Khan to make a conquest of the island of Zipangu, a jealousy
arose between the two commanders of the expedition, which led to an
order for putting the whole garrison to the sword. In obedience to this
order, the heads of all were cut off excepting of eight persons, who
by the efficacy of a diabolical charm, consisting of a jewel or amulet
introduced into the right arm, between the skin and the flesh, were
rendered secure from the effects of iron, either to kill or wound. Upon
this discovery being made, they were beaten with a heavy wooden club,
and presently died.'"
(1) I think, however, that these, and many similar stories, must be
taken _cum grano salis_.
In conclusion, mention must be made of a very interesting and suggestive
philosophical doctrine--the Law of Correspondences,--due in its explicit
form to the Swedish philosopher, who was both scientist and mystic,
EMANUEL SWEDENBORG. To deal in any way adequately with this important
topic is totally impossible within the confines of the present
discussion.(2) But, to put the matter as briefly as possible, it may be
said that SWEDENBORG maintains (and the conclusion, I think, is valid)
that all causation is from the spiritual world, physical causation being
but secondary, or apparent--that is to say, a mere reflection, as it
were, of the true process. He argues from this, thereby supplying a
philosophical basis for the unanimous belief of the nature-mystics, that
every natural object is the symbol (because the creation) of an idea or
spiritual verity in its widest sense. Thus, there are symbols which are
inherent in the nature of things, and symbols which are not. The
former are genuine, the latter merely artificial. Writing from the
transcendental point of view, ELIPHAS LEVI says: "Ceremonies, vestments,
perfumes, characters and figures being...necessary to enlist the
imagination in the education of the will, the success of magical works
depends upon the faithful observance of all the rites, which are in
no sense fantastic or arbitrary, having been transmitted to us
by antiquity, and permanently subsisting by the essential laws of
analogical realisation and of the correspondence which inevitably
connects ideas and forms."(1b) Some scepticism, perhaps, may be
permitted as to the validity of the latter part of this statement, and
the former may be qualified by the proviso that such things are only of
value in the right education of the will, if they are, indeed, genuine,
and not merely artificial, symbols. But the writer, as I think will
be admitted, has grasped the essential point, and, to conclude our
excursion, as we began it, with a definition, I will say that _the power
of the talisman is the power of the mind (or imagination) brought into
activity by means of a suitable symbol_.
(1) ELIHU RICH: _The Occult Sciences_, p. 346.
(2) I may refer the reader to my _A Mathematical Theory of Spirit_
(1912), chap. i., for a more adequate statement.
(1b) ELIPHAS LEVI: _Transcendental Magic: its Doctrine and Ritual_
(trans. by A. E. WAITE, 1896), p. 234.
VII. CEREMONIAL MAGIC IN THEORY AND PRACTICE
THE word "magic," if one may be permitted to say so, is itself almost
magical--magical in its power to conjure up visions in the human mind.
For some these are of bloody rites, pacts with the powers of darkness,
and the lascivious orgies of the Saturnalia or Witches' Sabbath; in
other minds it has pleasanter associations, serving to transport them
from the world of fact to the fairyland of fancy, where the purse of
FORTUNATUS, the lamp and ring of ALADDIN, fairies, gnomes, jinn, and
innumerable other strange beings flit across the scene in a marvellous
kaleidoscope of ever-changing wonders. To the study of the magical
beliefs of the past cannot be denied the interest and fascination which
the marvellous and wonderful ever has for so many minds, many of whom,
perhaps, cannot resist the temptation of thinking that there may be some
element of truth in these wonderful stories. But the study has a
greater claim to our attention; for, as I have intimated already, magic
represents a phase in the development of human thought, and the magic
of the past was the womb from which sprang the science of the present,
unlike its parent though it be.
What then is magic? According to the dictionary definition--and this
will serve us for the present--it is the (pretended) art of producing
marvellous results by the aid of spiritual beings or arcane spiritual
forces. Magic, therefore, is the practical complement of animism.
Wherever man has really believed in the existence of a spiritual world,
there do we find attempts to enter into communication with that world's
inhabitants and to utilise its forces.Professor LEUBA(1) and others
distinguish between propitiative behaviour towards the beings of
the spiritual world, as marking the religious attitude, and coercive
behaviour towards these beings as characteristic of the magical
attitude; but one form of behaviour merges by insensible degrees into
the other, and the distinction (though a useful one) may, for our
present purpose, be neglected.
(1) JAMES H. LEUBA: _The Psychological Origin and the Nature of
Religion_ (1909), chap. ii.
Animism, "the Conception of Spirit everywhere" as Mr EDWARD CLODD(2)
neatly calls it, and perhaps man's earliest view of natural phenomena,
persisted in a modified form, as I have pointed out in "Some
Characteristics of Mediaeval Thought," throughout the Middle Ages.
A belief in magic persisted likewise. In the writings of the Greek
philosophers of the Neo-Platonic school, in that curious body of
esoteric Jewish lore known as the Kabala, and in the works of later
occult philosophers such as AGRIPPA and PARACELSUS, we find magic, or
rather the theory upon which magic as an art was based, presented in
its most philosophical form. If there is anything of value for modern
thought in the theory of magic, here is it to be found; and it is, I
think, indeed to be found, absurd and fantastic though the practices
based upon this philosophy, or which this philosophy was thought to
substantiate, most certainly are. I shall here endeavour to give a
sketch of certain of the outstanding doctrines of magical philosophy,
some details concerning the art of magic, more especially as practiced
in the Middle Ages in Europe, and, finally, an attempt to extract from
the former what I consider to be of real worth. We have already wandered
down many of the byways of magical belief, and, indeed, the word "magic"
may be made to cover almost every superstition of the past: To what we
have already gained on previous excursions the present, I hope, will add
what we need in order to take a synthetic view of the whole subject.
(2) EDWARD CLODD: _Animism the Seed of Religion_ (1905), p. 26.
In the first place, something must be said concerning what is called the
Doctrine of Emanations, a theory of prime importance in Neo-Platonic
and Kabalistic ontology. According to this theory, everything in the
universe owes its existence and virtue to an emanation from God, which
divine emanation is supposed to descend, step by step (so to speak),
through the hierarchies of angels and the stars, down to the things of
earth, that which is nearer to the Source containing more of the divine
nature than that which is relatively distant. As CORNELIUS AGRIPPA
expresses it: "For God, in the first place is the end and beginning
of all Virtues; he gives the seal of #the _Ideas_ to his servants, the
Intelligences; who as faithful officers, sign all things intrusted
to them with an Ideal Virtue; the Heavens and Stars, as instruments,
disposing the matter in the mean while for the receiving of those forms
which reside in Divine Majesty (as saith Plato in Timeus) and to be
conveyed by Stars; and the Giver of Forms distributes them by the
ministry of his Intelligences, which he hath set as Rulers and
Controllers over his Works, to whom such a power is intrusted to things
committed to them that so all Virtues of Stones, Herbs, Metals, and all
other things may come from the Intelligences, the Governors. The Form,
therefore, and Virtue of things comes first from the _Ideas_, then from
the ruling and governing Intelligences, then from the aspects of the
Heavens disposing, and lastly from the tempers of the Elements
disposed, answering the influences of the Heavens, by which the
Elements themselves are ordered, or disposed. These kinds of operations,
therefore, are performed in these inferior things by express forms,
and in the Heavens by disposing virtues, in Intelligences by mediating
rules, in the Original Cause by _Ideas_ and exemplary forms, all which
must of necessity agree in the execution of the effect and virtue of
every thing.
"There is, therefore, a wonderful virtue and operation in every Herb
and Stone, but greater in a Star, beyond which, even from the governing
Intelligences everything receiveth and obtains many things for itself,
especially from the Supreme Cause, with whom all things do mutually and
exactly correspond, agreeing in an harmonious consent, as it were in
hymns always praising the highest Maker of all things.... There
is, therefore, no other cause of the necessity of effects than the
connection of all things with the First Cause, and their correspondency
with those Divine patterns and eternal _Ideas_ whence every thing hath
its determinate and particular place in the exemplary world, from whence
it lives and receives its original being: And every virtue of herbs,
stones, metals, animals, words and speeches, and all things that are of
God, is placed there."(1) As compared with the _ex nihilo_ creationism
of orthodox theology, this theory is as light is to darkness. Of
course, there is much in CORNELIUS AGRIPPA'S statement of it which is
inacceptable to modern thought; but these are matters of form merely,
and do not affect the doctrine fundamentally. For instance, as a nexus
between spirit and matter AGRIPPA places the stars: modern thought
prefers the ether. The theory of emanations may be, and was, as a
matter of fact, made the justification of superstitious practices of the
grossest absurdity, but on the other hand it may be made the basis of
a lofty system of transcendental philosophy, as, for instance, that of
EMANUEL SWEDENBORG, whose ontology resembles in some respects that of
the Neo-Platonists. AGRIPPA uses the theory to explain all the marvels
which his age accredited, marvels which we know had for the most part no
existence outside of man's imagination. I suggest, on the contrary, that
the theory is really needed to explain the commonplace, since, in the
last analysis, every bit of experience, every phenomenon, be it ever
so ordinary--indeed the very fact of experience itself,--is most truly
marvellous and magical, explicable only in terms of spirit. As ELIPHAS
LEVI well says in one of his flashes of insight: "The supernatural
is only the natural in an extraordinary grade, or it is the exalted
natural; a miracle is a phenomenon which strikes the multitude because
it is unexpected; the astonishing is that which astonishes; miracles are
effects which surprise those who are ignorant of their causes, or assign
them causes w hich are not in proportion to such effects."(1b) But I am
anticipating the sequel.
(1) H. C. AGRIPPA: _Occult Philosophy_, bk. i., chap. xiii. (WHITEHEAD'S
edition, pp. 67-68).
(1b) ELIPHAS LEVI: _Transcendental Magic, its Doctrine and Ritual_
(trans. by A. E. WAITE, 1896), p. 192.
The doctrine of emanations makes the universe one vast harmonious whole,
between whose various parts there is an exact analogy, correspondence,
or sympathetic relation. "Nature" (the productive principle), says
IAMBLICHOS (3rd-4th century), the Neo-Platonist, "in her peculiar way,
makes a likeness of invisible principles through symbols in visible
forms."(2) The belief that seemingly similar things sympathetically
affect one another, and that a similar relation holds good between
different things which have been intimately connected with one another
as parts within a whole, is a very ancient one. Most primitive peoples
are very careful to destroy all their nail-cuttings and hair-clippings,
since they believe that a witch gaining possession of these might work
them harm. For a similar reason they refuse to reveal their REAL names,
which they regard as part of themselves, and adopt nicknames for common
use. The belief that a witch can torment an enemy by making an image of
his person in clay or wax, correctly naming it, and mutilating it with
pins, or, in the case of a waxen image, melting it by fire, is a very
ancient one, and was held throughout and beyond the Middle Ages. The
Sympathetic Powder of Sir KENELM DIGBY we have already noticed, as well
as other instances of the belief in "sympathy," and examples of
similar superstitions might be multiplied almost indefinitely. Such are
generally grouped under the term "sympathetic magic"; but inasmuch as
all magical practices assume that by acting on part of a thing, or a
symbolic representation of it, one acts magically on the whole, or on
the thing symbolised, the expression may in its broadest sense be said
to involve the whole of magic.
(2) IAMBLICHOS: _Theurgia, or the Egyptian Mysteries_ (trans. by Dr
ALEX. WILDER, New York, 1911), p. 239.
The names of the Divine Being, angels and devils, the planets of the
solar system (including sun and moon) and the days of the week, birds
and beasts, colours, herbs, and precious stones--all, according to
old-time occult philosophy, are connected by the sympathetic relation
believed to run through all creation, the knowledge of which was
essential to the magician; as well, also, the chief portions of the
human body, for man, as we have seen, was believed to be a microcosm--a
universe in miniature. I have dealt with this matter and exhibited
some of the supposed correspondences in "The Belief in Talismans".
Some further particulars are shown in the annexed table, for which I
am mainly indebted to AGRIPPA. But, as in the case of the zodiacal gems
already dealt with, the old authorities by no means agree as to the
majority of the planetary correspondences.
TABLE OF OCCULT CORRESPONDENCES
Arch- Part of Precious
angel. Angel. Planet. Human Animal. Bird. stone.
Body.
Raphael Michael Sun Heart Lion Swan Carbuncle
Gabriel Gabriel Moon Left foot Cat Owl Crystal
Camael Zamael Mars Right hand Wolf Vulture Diamond
Michael Raphael Mercury Left hand Ape Stork Agate
Zadikel Sachiel Jupiter Head Hart Eagle Sapphire
(=Lapis lazuli)
Haniel Anael Venus Generative Goat Dove Emerald
organs
Zaphhiel Cassiel Saturn Right foot Mole Hoopoe Onyx
The names of the angels are from Mr Mather's translation of _Clavicula
Salomonis_; the other correspondences are from the second book of
Agrippa's _Occult Philosophy_, chap. x.
In many cases these supposed correspondences are based, as will be
obvious to the reader, upon purely trivial resemblances, and, in any
case, whatever may be said--and I think a great deal may be said--in
favour of the theory of symbology, there is little that may be adduced
to support the old occultists' application of it.
So essential a part does the use of symbols play in all magical
operations that we may, I think, modify the definition of "magic"
adopted at the outset, and define "magic" as "an attempt to employ the
powers of the spiritual world for the production of marvellous results,
BY THE AID OF SYMBOLS." It has, on the other hand, been questioned
whether the appeal to the spirit-world is an essential element in magic.
But a close examination of magical practices always reveals at the root
a belief in spiritual powers as the operating causes. The belief in
talismans at first sight seems to have little to do with that in a
supernatural realm; but, as we have seen, the talisman was always a
silent invocation of the powers of some spiritual being with which it
was symbolically connected, and whose sign was engraved thereon. And,
as Dr T. WITTON DAVIES well remarks with regard to "sympathetic magic":
"Even this could not, at the start, be anything other than a symbolic
prayer to the spirit or spirits having authority in these matters. In so
far as no spirit is thought of, it is a mere survival, and not magic at
all...."(1)
(1) Dr T. WITTON DAVIES: _Magic, Divination, and Demonology among the
Hebrews and their Neighbours_ (1898), p. 17.
What I regard as the two essentials of magical practices, namely,
the use of symbols and the appeal to the supernatural realm, are most
obvious in what is called "ceremonial magic". Mediaeval ceremonial magic
was subdivided into three chief branches--White Magic, Black Magic, and
Necromancy. White magic was concerned with the evocations of angels,
spiritual beings supposed to be essentially superior to mankind,
concerning which I shall give some further details later--and the
spirits of the elements,--which were, as I have mentioned in "Some
Characteristics of Mediaeval Thought," personifications of the primeval
forces of Nature. As there were supposed to be four elements, fire,
air, water, and earth, so there were supposed to be four classes of
elementals or spirits of the elements, namely, Salamanders, Sylphs,
Undines, and Gnomes, inhabiting these elements respectively, and
deriving their characters therefrom. Concerning these curious beings,
the inquisitive reader may gain some information from a quaint little
book, by the Abbe de MONTFAUCON DE VILLARS, entitled _The Count of
Gabalis, or Conferences about Secret Sciences_ (1670), translated into
English and published in 1680, which has recently been reprinted. The
elementals, we learn therefrom, were, unlike other supernatural beings,
thought to be mortal. They could, however, be rendered immortal by means
of sexual intercourse with men or women, as the case might be; and it
was, we are told, to the noble end of endowing them with this great
gift, that the sages devoted themselves.
Goety, or black magic, was concerned with the evocation of demons and
devils--spirits supposed to be superior to man in certain powers, but
utterly depraved. Sorcery may be distinguished from witchcraft, inasmuch
as the sorcerer attempted to command evil spirits by the aid of charms,
_etc_., whereas the witch or wizard was supposed to have made a pact
with the Evil One; though both terms have been rather loosely used,
"sorcery" being sometimes employed as a synonym for "necromancy".
Necromancy was concerned with the evocation of the spirits of the dead:
etymologically, the term stands for the art of foretelling events by
means of such evocations, though it is frequently employed in the wider
sense.
It would be unnecessary and tedious to give any detailed account of the
methods employed in these magical arts beyond some general remarks. Mr
A. E. WAITE gives full particulars of the various rituals in his
_Book of Ceremonial Magic_ (1911), to which the curious reader may be
referred. The following will, in brief terms, convey a general idea of a
magical evocation:--
Choosing a time when there is a favourable conjunction of the planets,
the magician, armed with the implements of magical art, after much
prayer and fasting, betakes himself to a suitable spot, alone, or
perhaps accompanied by two trusty companions. All the articles he
intends to employ, the vestments, the magic sword and lamp, the
talismans, the book of spirits, _etc_., have been specially prepared and
consecrated. If he is about to invoke a martial spirit, the magician's
vestment will be of a red colour, the talismans in virtue of which
he may have power over the spirit will be of iron, the day chosen a
Tuesday, and the incense and perfumes employed of a nature analogous
to Mars. In a similar manner all the articles employed and the rites
performed must in some way be symbolical of the spirit with which
converse is desired. Having arrived at the spot, the magician first of
all traces the magic circle within which, we are told, no evil spirit
can enter; he then commences the magic rite, involving various prayers
and conjurations, a medley of meaningless words, and, in the case of the
black art, a sacrifice. The spirit summoned then appears (at least, so
we are told), and, after granting the magician's request, is licensed to
depart--a matter, we are admonished, of great importance.
The question naturally arises, What were the results obtained by these
magical arts? How far, if at all, was the magician rewarded by the
attainment of his desires? We have asked a similar question regarding
the belief in talismans, and the reply which we there gained undoubtedly
applies in the present case as well. Modern psychical research, as I
have already pointed out, is supplying us with further evidence for
the survival of human personality after bodily death than the innate
conviction humanity in general seems to have in this belief, and the
many reasons which idealistic philosophy advances in favour of it. The
question of the reality of the phenomenon of "materialisation," that is,
the bodily appearance of a discarnate spirit, such as is vouched for by
spiritists, and which is what, it appears, was aimed at in necromancy
(though why the discarnate should be better informed as to the future
than the incarnate, I cannot suppose), must be regarded as _sub
judice_.(1) Many cases of fraud in connection with the alleged
production of this phenomenon have been detected in recent times; but,
inasmuch as the last word has not yet been said on the subject, we
must allow the possibility that necromancy in the past may have been
sometimes successful. But as to the existence of the angels and
devils of magical belief--as well, one might add, of those of orthodox
faith,--nothing can be adduced in evidence of this either from the
results of psychical research or on _a priori_ grounds.
(1) The late Sir WILLIAM CROOKES' _Experimental Researches in the
Phenomena of Spiritualism_ contains evidence in favour of the reality of
this phenomenon very difficult to gainsay.
Pseudo-DIONYSIUS classified the angels into three hierarchies, each
subdivided into three orders, as under:--
_First Hierarchy_.--Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones;
_Second Hierarchy_.--Dominions, Powers, and Authorities (or Virtues);
_Third Hierarchy_.--Principalities, Archangels, and Angels,--
and this classification was adopted by AGRIPPA and others.
Pseudo-DIONYSIUS explains the names of these orders as follows: "... the
holy designation of the Seraphim denotes either that they are kindling
or burning; and that of the Cherubim, a fulness of knowledge or stream
of wisdom.... The appellation of the most exalted and pre-eminent
Thrones denotes their manifest exaltation above every grovelling
inferiority, and their super-mundane tendency towards higher things;...
and their invariable and firmly-fixed settlement around the veritable
Highest, with the whole force of their powers.... The explanatory
name of the Holy Lordships (Dominions) denotes a certain unslavish
elevation... superior to every kind of cringing slavery, indomitable
to every subserviency, and elevated above every dissimularity, ever
aspiring to the true Lordship and source of Lordship.... The appellation
of the Holy Powers denotes a certain courageous and unflinching
virility... vigorously conducted to the Divine imitation, not forsaking
the Godlike movement through its own unmanliness, but unflinchingly
looking to the super-essential and powerful-making power, and becoming
a powerlike image of this, as far as is attainable....The appellation of
the Holy Authorities... denotes the beautiful and unconfused good
order, with regard to Divine receptions, and the discipline of the
super-mundane and intellectual authority... conducted indomitably,
with good order towards Divine things.... (And the appellation) of the
Heavenly Principalities manifests their princely and leading function,
after the Divine example...."(1) There is a certain grandeur in these
views, and if we may be permitted to understand by the orders of the
hierarchy, "discrete" degrees (to use SWEDENBORG'S term) of spiritual
reality--stages in spiritual involution,--we may see in them a certain
truth as well. As I said, all virtue, power, and knowledge which man
has from God was believed to descend to him by way of these angelical
hierarchies, step by step; and thus it was thought that those of the
lowest hierarchy alone were sent from heaven to man. It was such beings
that white magic pretended to evoke. But the practical occultists, when
they did not make them altogether fatuous, attributed to these angels
characters not distinguishable from those of the devils. The description
of the angels in the _Heptemeron_, or _Magical Elements_,(2) falsely at
may be taken as fairly characteristic. Of MICHAEL and the other
spirits of Sunday he writes: "Their nature is to procure Gold, Gemmes,
Carbuncles, Riches; to cause one to obtain favour and benevolence; to
dissolve the enmities of men; to raise men to honors; to carry or take
away infirmities." Of GABRIEL and the other spirits of Monday, he says:
"Their nature is to give silver; to convey things from place to place;
to make horses swift, and to disclose the secrets of persons both
present and future." Of SAMAEL and the other spirits of Tuesday he says:
"Their nature is to cause wars, mortality, death and combustions; and
to give two thousand Souldiers at a time; to bring death, infirmities
or health," and so on for RAPHAEL, SACHIEL, ANAEL, CASSIEL, and their
colleagues.(1b)
(1) _On the Heavenly Hierarchy_. See the Rev. JOHN PARKER'S translation
of _The Works of_ DIONYSIUS _the Areopagite_, vol. ii. (1889), pp. 24,
25, 31, 32, and 36.
(2) The book, which first saw the light three centuries after its
alleged author's death, was translated into English by ROBERT TURNER,
and published in 1655 in a volume containing the spurious _Fourth
Book of Occult Philosophy_, attributed to CORNELIUS AGRIPPA, and other
magical works. It is from this edition that I quote.
(1b) _Op. cit_., pp. 90, 92, and 94.
Concerning the evil planetary spirits, the spurious _Fourth Book of
Occult Philosophy_, attributed to CORNELIUS AGRIPPA, informs us that
the spirits of Saturn "appear for the most part with a tall, lean, and
slender body, with an angry countenance, having four faces; one in the
hinder part of the head, one on the former part of the head, and on each
side nosed or beaked: there likewise appeareth a face on each knee, of
a black shining colour: their motion is the moving of the wince, with a
kinde of earthquake: their signe is white earth, whiter than any Snow."
The writer adds that their "particular forms are,--
A King having a beard, riding on a Dragon.
An Old man with a beard.
An Old woman leaning on a staffe.
A Hog.
A Dragon.
An Owl.
A black Garment.
A Hooke or Sickle.
A Juniper-tree."
Concerning the spirits of Jupiter, he says that they "appear with a body
sanguine and cholerick, of a middle stature, with a horrible fearful
motion; but with a milde countenance, a gentle speech, and of the colour
of Iron. The motion of them is flashings of Lightning and Thunder; their
signe is, there will appear men about the circle, who shall seem to be
devoured of Lions," their particular forms being--
"A King with a Sword drawn, riding on a Stag.
A Man wearing a Mitre in long rayment.
A Maid with a Laurel-Crown adorned with Flowers.
A Bull.
A Stag.
A Peacock.
An azure Garment.
A Sword.
A Box-tree."
As to the Martian spirits, we learn that "they appear in a tall body,
cholerick, a filthy countenance, of colour brown, swarthy or red, having
horns like Harts horns, and Griphins claws, bellowing like wilde Bulls.
Their Motion is like fire burning; their signe Thunder and Lightning
about the Circle. Their particular shapes are,--
A King armed riding upon a Wolf.
A Man armed.
A Woman holding a buckler on her thigh.
A Hee-goat.
A Horse.
A Stag.
A red Garment.
Wool.
A Cheeslip."(1)
(1) _Op. cit_., pp. 43-45.
The rest are described in equally fantastic terms.
I do not think I shall be accused of being unduly sceptical if I say
that such beings as these could not have been evoked by any magical
rites, because such beings do not and did not exist, save in the
magician's own imagination. The proviso, however, is important, for,
inasmuch as these fantastic beings did exist in the imagination of the
credulous, therein they may, indeed, have been evoked. The whole of
magic ritual was well devised to produce hallucination. A firm faith
in the ritual employed, and a strong effort of will to bring about the
desired result, were usually insisted upon as essential to the success
of the operation.(2) A period of fasting prior to the experiment was
also frequently prescribed as necessary, which, by weakening the body,
must have been conducive to hallucination. Furthermore, abstention
from the gratification of the sexual appetite was stipulated in certain
cases, and this, no doubt, had a similar effect, especially as concerns
magical evocations directed to the satisfaction of the sexual impulse.
Add to these factors the details of the ritual itself, the nocturnal
conditions under which it was carried out, and particularly the
suffumigations employed, which, most frequently, were of a narcotic
nature, and it is not difficult to believe that almost any type of
hallucination may have occurred. Such, as we have seen, was ELIPHAS
LEVI'S view of ceremonial magic; and whatever may be said as concerns
his own experiment therein (for one would have thought that the
essential element of faith was lacking in this case), it is undoubtedly
the true view as concerns the ceremonial magic of the past. As this
author well says: "Witchcraft, properly so-called, that is ceremonial
operation with intent to bewitch, acts only on the operator, and serves
to fix and confirm his will, by formulating it with persistence and
labour, the two conditions which make volition efficacious."(1b)
(2) "MAGICAL AXIOM. In the circle of its action, every word creates that
which it affirms.
DIRECT CONSEQUENCE. He who affirms the devil, creates or makes the
devil.
"_Conditions of Success in Infernal Evocations_. 1, Invincible
obstinacy; 2, a conscience at once hardened to crime and most subject
to remorse and fear; 3, affected or natural ignorance; 4, blind faith
in all that is incredible, 5, a completely false idea of God. (ELIPHAS
LEVI: _Op. cit_., pp. 297 and 298.)
(1b) ELIPHAS LEVI: _Op. cit_., pp. 130 and 131.
EMANUEL SWEDENBORG in one place writes: "Magic is nothing but the
perversion of order; it is especially the abuse of correspondences."(2)
A study of the ceremonial magic of the Middle Ages and the following
century or two certainly justifies SWEDENBORG in writing of magic as
something evil. The distinction, rigid enough in theory, between white
and black, legitimate and illegitimate, magic, was, as I have indicated,
extremely indefinite in practice. As Mr A. E. WAITE justly remarks:
"Much that passed current in the west as White (_i.e_. permissible)
Magic was only a disguised goeticism, and many of the resplendent angels
invoked with divine rites reveal their cloven hoofs. It is not too much
to say that a large majority of past psychological experiments were
conducted to establish communication with demons, and that for unlawful
purposes. The popular conceptions concerning the diabolical spheres,
which have been all accredited by magic, may have been gross
exaggerations of fact concerning rudimentary and perverse intelligences,
but the wilful viciousness of the communicants is substantially
untouched thereby."(1b)
(2) EMANUEL SWEDENBORG: _Arcana Caelestia_, SE 6692.
(1b) ARTHUR EDWARD WAITE: _The Occult Sciences_ (1891), p. 51.
These "psychological experiments" were not, save, perhaps, in rare
cases, carried out in the spirit of modern psychical research, with the
high aim of the man of science. It was, indeed, far otherwise; selfish
motives were at the root of most of them; and, apart from what may be
termed "medicinal magic," it was for the satisfaction of greed, lust,
revenge, that men and women had recourse to magical arts. The history of
goeticism and witchcraft is one of the most horrible of all histories.
The "Grimoires," witnesses to the superstitious folly of the past, are
full of disgusting, absurd, and even criminal rites for the satisfaction
of unlawful desires and passions. The Church was certainly justified in
attempting to put down the practice of magic, but the means adopted in
this design and the results to which they led were even more abominable
than witchcraft itself. The methods of detecting witches and the
tortures to which suspected persons were subjected to force them to
confess to imaginary crimes, employed in so-called civilised England and
Scotland and also in America, to say nothing of countries in which the
"Holy" Inquisition held undisputed sway, are almost too horrible to
describe. For details the reader may be referred to Sir WALTER SCOTT'S
_Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft_ (1830), and (as concerns America)
COTTON MATHER'S The _Wonders of the Invisible World_ (1692). The
credulous Church and the credulous people were terribly afraid of the
power of witchcraft, and, as always, fear destroyed their mental balance
and made them totally disregard the demands of justice. The result may
be well illustrated by what almost inevitably happens when a country
goes to war; for war, as the Hon. BERTRAND RUSSELL has well shown,
is fear's offspring. Fear of the enemy causes the military party to
persecute in an insensate manner, without the least regard to justice,
all those of their fellow-men whom they consider are not heart and soul
with them in their cause; similarly the Church relentlessly persecuted
its supposed enemies, of whom it was so afraid. No doubt some of the
poor wretches that were tortured and killed on the charge of witchcraft
really believed themselves to have made a pact with the devil, and were
thus morally depraved, though, generally speaking, they were no more
responsible for their actions than any other madmen. But the majority
of the persons persecuted as witches and wizards were innocent even of
this.
However, it would, I think, be unwise to disregard the existence of
another side to the question of the validity and ethical value of
magic, and to use the word only to stand for something essentially evil.
SWEDENBORG, we may note, in the course of a long passage from the work
from which I have already quoted, says that by "magic" is signified "the
science of spiritual things"(1) His position appears to be that there is
a genuine magic, or science of spiritual things, and a false magic, that
science perverted: a view of the matter which I propose here to adopt.
The word "magic" itself is derived from the Greek "magos," the wise man
of the East, and hence the strict etymological meaning of the term is
"the wisdom or science of the magi"; and it is, I think, significant
that we are told (and I see no reason to doubt the truth of it) that the
magi were among the first to worship the new-born CHRIST.(2)
(1) _Op. cit_., SE 5223.
(2) See The Gospel according to MATTHEW, chap. ii., verses 1 to 12.
If there be an abuse of correspondences, or symbols, there surely must
also be a use, to which the word "magic" is not inapplicable. As such,
religious ritual, and especially the sacraments of the Christian Church,
will, no doubt, occur to the minds of those who regard these symbols
as efficacious, though they would probably hesitate to apply the term
"magical" to them. But in using this term as applying thereto, I do
not wish to suggest that any such rites or ceremonies possess, or can
possess, any CAUSAL efficacy in the moral evolution of the soul. The
will alone, in virtue of the power vouchsafed to it by the Source of all
power, can achieve this; but I do think that the soul may be assisted by
ritual, harmoniously related to the states of mind which it is desired
to induce. No doubt there is a danger of religious ritual, especially
when its meaning is lost, being engaged in for its own sake. It is then
mere superstition;(1) and, in view of the danger of this degeneracy,
many robust minds, such as the members of the Society of Friends, prefer
to dispense with its aid altogether. When ritual is associated with
erroneous doctrines, the results are even more disastrous, as I have
indicated in "The Belief in Talismans". But when ritual is allied with,
and based upon, as adequately symbolising, the high teaching of genuine
religion, it may be, and, in fact, is, found very helpful by many
people. As such its efficacy seems to me to be altogether magical, in
the best sense of that word.
(1) As "ELIPHAS LEVI" well says: "Superstition... is the sign surviving
the thought; it is the dead body of a religious rite." (_Op cit_., p.
150.)
But, indeed, I think a still wider application of the word "magic" is
possible. "All experience is magic," says NOVALIS (1772-1801), "and
only magically explicable";(2a) and again: "It is only because of the
feebleness of our perceptions and activity that we do not perceive
ourselves to be in a fairy world." No doubt it will be objected that the
common experiences of daily life are "natural," whereas magic postulates
the "supernatural". If, as is frequently done, we use the term
"natural," as relating exclusively to the physical realm, then, indeed,
we may well speak of magic as "supernatural," because its aims are
psychical. On the other hand, the term "natural" is sometimes employed
as referring to the whole realm of order, and in this sense one can use
the word "magic" as descriptive of Nature herself when viewed in the
light of an idealistic philosophy, such as that of SWEDENBORG, in which
all causation is seen to be essentially spiritual, the things of this
world being envisaged as symbols of ideas or spiritual verities, and
thus physical causation regarded as an appearance produced in virtue of
the magical, non-causal efficacy of symbols.(1) Says CORNELIUS AGRIPPA:
"... every day some natural thing is drawn by art and some divine
thing is drawn by Nature which, the Egyptians, seeing, called Nature a
Magicianess (_i.e_.) the very Magical power itself, in the attracting of
like by like, and of suitable things by suitable."(2)
(2a) NOVALIS: _Schriften_ (ed. by LUDWIG TIECK and FR. SCHLEGEL, 1805),
vol. ii. p. 195
(1) For a discussion of the essentially magical character of inductive
reasoning, see my _The Magic of Experience_ (1915)
(2) _Op. cit_., bk. i. chap. xxxvii. p. 119.
I would suggest, in conclusion, that there is nothing really opposed
to the spirit of modern science in the thesis that "all experience
is magic, and only magically explicable." Science does not pretend
to reveal the fundamental or underlying cause of phenomena, does
not pretend to answer the final Why? This is rather the business
of philosophy, though, in thus distinguishing between science and
philosophy, I am far from insinuating that philosophy should be
otherwise than scientific. We often hear religious but non-scientific
men complain because scientific and perhaps equally as religious men do
not in their books ascribe the production of natural phenomena to the
Divine Power. But if they were so to do they would be transcending
their business as scientists. In every science certain simple facts of
experience are taken for granted: it is the business of the scientist
to reduce other and more complex facts of experience to terms of these
data, not to explain these data themselves. Thus the physicist attempts
to reduce other related phenomena of greater complexity to terms of
simple force and motion; but, What are force and motion? Why does force
produce or result in motion? are questions which lie beyond the scope
of physics. In order to answer these questions, if, indeed, this be
possible, we must first inquire, How and why do these ideas of force and
motion arise in our minds? These problems land us in the psychical or
spiritual world, and the term "magic" at once becomes significant.
"If, says THOMAS CARLYLE,... we... have led thee into the true Land of
Dreams; and... thou lookest, even for moments, into the region of
the Wonderful, and seest and feelest that thy daily life is girt with
Wonder, and based on Wonder, and thy very blankets and breeches are
Miracles,--then art thou profited beyond money's worth...."(1)
(1) THOMAS CARLYLE: _Sartor Resartus_, bk. iii. chap. ix.
VIII. ARCHITECTURAL SYMBOLISM
I WAS once rash enough to suggest in an essay "On Symbolism in Art"(1)
that "a true work of art is at once realistic, imaginative, and
symbolical," and that its aim is to make manifest the spiritual
significance of the natural objects dealt with. I trust that those
artists (no doubt many) who disagree with me will forgive me--a man
of science--for having ventured to express any opinion whatever on the
subject. But, at any rate, if the suggestions in question are accepted,
then a criterion for distinguishing between art and craft is at once
available; for we may say that, whilst craft aims at producing works
which are physically useful, art aims at producing works which are
spiritually useful. Architecture, from this point of view, is a
combination of craft and art. It may, indeed, be said that the modern
architecture which creates our dwelling-houses, factories, and even to
a large extent our places of worship, is pure craft unmixed with art On
the other hand, it might be argued that such works of architecture are
not always devoid of decoration, and that "decorative art," even though
the "decorative artist" is unconscious of this fact, is based upon rules
and employs symbols which have a deep significance. The truly artistic
element in architecture, however, is more clearly manifest if we turn
our gaze to the past. One thinks at once, of course, of the pyramids
and sphinx of Egypt, and the rich and varied symbolism of design and
decoration of antique structures to be found in Persia and elsewhere in
the East. It is highly probable that the Egyptian pyramids were employed
for astronomical purposes, and thus subserved physical utility, but it
seems no less likely that their shape was suggested by a belief in some
system of geometrical symbolism, and was intended to embody certain of
their philosophical or religious doctrines.
(1) Published in _The Occult Review_ for August 1912, vol. xvi. pp. 98
to 102.
The mediaeval cathedrals and churches of Europe admirably exhibit this
combination of art with craft. Craft was needed to design and construct
permanent buildings to protect worshippers from the inclemency of the
weather; art was employed not only to decorate such buildings, but
it dictated to craft many points in connection with their design. The
builders of the mediaeval churches endeavoured so to construct their
works that these might, as a whole and in their various parts, embody
the truths, as they believed them, of the Christian religion: thus the
cruciform shape of churches, their orientation, etc. The practical
value of symbolism in church architecture is obvious. As Mr F. E. HULME
remarks, "The sculptured fonts or stained-glass windows in the churches
of the Middle Ages were full of teaching to a congregation of whom
the greater part could not read, to whom therefore one great avenue of
knowledge was closed. The ignorant are especially impressed by pictorial
teaching, and grasp its meaning far more readily than they can follow a
written description or a spoken discourse."(1)
(1) F. EDWARD HULME, F.L.S., F.S.A.: _The History, Principles, and
Practice of Symbolism in Christian Art_ (1909), p. 2.
The subject of symbolism in church architecture is an extensive one,
involving many side issues. In these excursions we shall consider only
one aspect of it, namely, the symbolic use of animal forms in English
church architecture.
As Mr COLLINS, who has written, in recent years, an interesting work on
this topic of much use to archaeologists as a book of data,(2a) points
out, the great sources of animal symbolism were the famous _Physiologus_
and other natural history books of the Middle Ages (generally called
"Bestiaries"), and the Bible, mystically understood. The modern tendency
is somewhat unsympathetic towards any attempt to interpret the Bible
symbolically, and certainly some of the interpretations that have been
forced upon it in the name of symbolism are crude and fantastic enough.
But in the belief of the mystics, culminating in the elaborate system of
correspondences of SWEDENBORG, that every natural object, every event
in the history of the human race, and every word of the Bible, has a
symbolic and spiritual significance, there is, I think, a fundamental
truth. We must, however, as I have suggested already, distinguish
between true and forced symbolism. The early Christians employed the
fish as a symbol of Christ, because the Greek word for fish, icqus,
is obtained by _notariqon_(1) from the phrase <gr 'Ihsous Cristos Qeou
Uios, Swthr>--"JESUS CHRIST, the Son of God, the Saviour." Of course,
the obvious use of such a symbol was its entire unintelligibility to
those who had not yet been instructed in the mysteries of the Christian
faith, since in the days of persecution some degree of secrecy was
necessary. But the symbol has significance only in the Greek language,
and that of an entirely arbitrary nature. There is nothing in the nature
of the fish, apart from its name in Greek, which renders it suitable
to be used as a symbol of CHRIST. Contrast this pseudo-symbol, however,
with that of the Good Shepherd, the Lamb of God (fig. 34), or the Lion
of Judah. Here we have what may be regarded as true symbols, something
of whose meanings are clear to the smallest degree of spiritual sight,
even though the second of them has frequently been badly misinterpreted.
(2a) ARTHUR H. COLLINS, M.A.: _Symbolism of Animals and Birds
represented in English Church Architecture_ (1913).
(1) A Kabalistic process by which a word is formed by taking the initial
letters of a sentence or phrase.
It was a belief in the spiritual or moral significance of nature similar
to that of the mystical expositors of the Bible, that inspired the
mediaeval naturalists. The Bestiaries almost invariably conclude the
account of each animal with the moral that might be drawn from its
behaviour. The interpretations are frequently very far-fetched, and
as the writers were more interested in the morals than in the facts
of natural history themselves, the supposed facts from which they drew
their morals were frequently very far from being of the nature of facts.
Sometimes the product of this inaccuracy is grotesque, as shown by the
following quotation: "The elephants are in an absurd way typical of Adam
and Eve, who ate of the forbidden fruit, and also have the dragon for
their enemy. It was supposed that the elephant... used to sleep by
leaning against a tree. The hunters would come by night, and cut the
trunk through. Down he would come, roaring helplessly. None of his
friends would be able to help him, until a small elephant should come
and lever him up with his trunk. This small elephant was symbolic of
Jesus Christ, Who came in great humility to rescue the human race which
had fallen 'through a tree.' "(1)
(1) A. H. COLLINS: _Symbolism of Animals, etc_., pp. 41 and 42.
In some cases, though the symbolism is based upon quite erroneous
notions concerning natural history, and is so far fantastic, it is not
devoid of charm. The use of the pelican to symbolise the Saviour is a
case in point. Legend tells us that when other food is unobtainable, the
pelican thrusts its bill into its breast (whence the red colour of the
bill) and feeds its young with its life-blood. Were this only a fact,
the symbol would be most appropriate. There is another and far less
charming form of the legend, though more in accord with current
perversions of Christian doctrine, according to which the pelican uses
its blood to revive its young, after having slain them through anger
aroused by the great provocation which they are supposed to give it. For
an example of the use of the pelican in church architecture see fig. 36.
Mention must also be made of the purely fabulous animals of the
Bestiaries, such as the basilisk, centaur, dragon, griffin, hydra,
mantichora, unicorn, phoenix, _etc_. The centaur (fig. 39) was a beast,
half man, half horse. It typified the flesh or carnal mind of man, and
the legend of the perpetual war between the centaur and a certain tribe
of simple savages who were said to live in trees in India, symbolised
the combat between the flesh and the spirit.(1)
(1) A H. COLLINS: _Symbolism of Animals, etc_., pp. 150 and 153.
With bow and arrow in its hands the centaur forms the astrological
sign Sagittarius (or the Archer). An interesting example of this sign
occurring in church architecture is to be found on the western doorway
of Portchester Church--a most beautiful piece of Norman architecture.
"This sign of the Zodiac," writes the Rev. Canon VAUGHAN, M.A., a former
Vicar of Portchester, "was the badge of King Stephen, and its presence
on the west front (of Portchester Church) seems to indicate, what was
often the case elsewhere, that the elaborate Norman carving was not
carried out until after the completion of the building."(2) The facts,
however, that this Sagittarius is accompanied on the other side of the
doorway by a couple of fishes, which form the astrological sign Pisces
(or the Fishes), and that these two signs are what are termed, in
astrological phraseology, the "houses" of the planet Jupiter, the
"Major Fortune," suggest that the architect responsible for the design,
influenced by the astrological notions of his day, may have put the
signs there in order to attract Jupiter's beneficent influence. Or
he may have had the Sagittarius carved for the reason Canon VAUGHAN
suggests, and then, remembering how good a sign it was astrologically,
had the Pisces added to complete the effect.(1b)
(2) Rev. Canon VAUGHAN, M.A.: A Short History of Portchester Castle, p.
14.
(1b) Two other possible explanations of the Pisces have been suggested
by the Rev. A. HEADLEY. In his MS. book written in 1888, when he was
Vicar of Portchester, he writes: "I have discovered an interesting proof
that it (the Church) was finished in Stephen's reign, namely, the figure
of Sagittarius in the Western Doorway.
"Stephen adopted this as his badge for the double reason that it
formed part of the arms of the city of Blois, and that the sun was
in Sagittarius in December when he came to the throne. I, therefore,
conclude that this badge was placed where it is to mark the completion
of the church.
"There is another sign of the Zodiac in the archway, apparently Pisces.
This may have been chosen to mark the month in which the church was
finished, or simply on account of its nearness to the sea. At one time
I fancied it might refer to March, the month in which Lady Day occurred,
thus referring to the Patron Saint, St Mary. As the sun leaves Pisces
just before Lady Day this does not explain it. Possibly in the old
calendar it might do so. This is a matter for further research." (I have
to thank the Rev. H. LAWRENCE FRY, present Vicar of Portchester, for
this quotation, and the Rev. A. HEADLEY for permission to utilise it.)
The phoenix and griffin we have encountered already in our excursions.
The latter, we are told, inhabits desert places in India, where it can
find nothing for its young to eat. It flies away to other regions
to seek food, and is sufficiently strong to carry off an ox. Thus it
symbolises the devil, who is ever anxious to carry away our souls to
the deserts of hell. Fig. 37 illustrates an example of the use of this
symbolic beast in church architecture.
The mantichora is described by PLINY (whose statements were
unquestioningly accepted by the mediaeval naturalists), on the authority
of CTESIAS (_fl_. 400 B.C.), as having "A triple row of teeth, which fit
into each other like those of a comb, the face and ears of a man, and
azure eyes, is the colour of blood, has the body of the lion, and a tail
ending in a sting, like that of the scorpion. Its voice resembles the
union of the sound of the flute and the trumpet; it is of excessive
swiftness, and is particularly fond of human flesh."(1)
(1) PLINY: _Natural History_, bk. viii. chap. xxx. (BOSTOCK and RILEY'S
trans., vol. ii., 1855, p. 280.)
Concerning the unicorn, in an eighteenth-century work on natural history
we read that this is "a Beast, which though doubted of by many Writers,
yet is by others thus described: He has but one Horn, and that an
exceedingly rich one, growing out of the middle of his Forehead. His
Head resembles an Hart's, his Feet an Elephant's, his tail a Boar's, and
the rest of his Body an Horse's. The Horn is about a Foot and half in
length. His Voice is like the Lowing of an Ox. His Mane and Hair are
of a yellowish Colour. His Horn is as hard as Iron, and as rough as any
File, twisted or curled, like a flaming Sword; very straight, sharp, and
every where black, excepting the Point. Great Virtues are attributed to
it, in expelling of Poison and curing of several Diseases. He is not
a Beast of prey."(2) The method of capturing the animal believed in
by mediaeval writers was a curious one. The following is a literal
translation from the _Bestiary_ of PHILIPPE DE THAUN (12th century):--
(2) (THOMAS BOREMAN): _A Description of Three Hundred Animals_ (1730),
p. 6.
"Monosceros is an animal which has one horn on its head,
Therefore it is so named; it has the form of a goat,
It is caught by means of a virgin, now hear in what manner.
When a man intends to hunt it and to take and ensnare it
He goes to the forest where is its repair;
There he places a virgin, with her breast uncovered,
And by its smell the monosceros perceives it;
Then it comes to the virgin, and kisses her breast,
Falls asleep on her lap, and so comes to its death;
The man arrives immediately, and kills it in its sleep,
Or takes it alive and does as he likes with it.
It signifies much, I will not omit to tell it you.
"Monosceros is Greek, it means _one horn_ in French:
A beast of such a description signifies Jesus Christ;
One God he is and shall be, and was and will continue so;
He placed himself in the virgin, and took flesh for man's sake,
And for virginity to show chastity;
To a virgin he APPEARED and a virgin conceived him,
A virgin she is, and will be, and will remain always.
Now hear briefly the signification.
"This animal in truth signifies God;
Know that the virgin signifies St Mary;
By her breast we understand similarly Holy Church;
And then by the kiss it ought to signify,
That a man when he sleeps is in semblance of death;
God slept as man, who suffered death on the cross,
And his destruction was our redemption,
And his labour our repose,
Thus God deceived the Devil by a proper semblance;
Soul and body were one, so was God and man,
And this is the signification of an animal of that description."(1)
(1) _Popular Treatises on Science written during the Middle Ages
in Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Norman, and English_, ed. by THOMAS WRIGHT
(Historical Society of Science, 1841), pp. 81-82.
This being the current belief concerning the symbolism of the unicorn
in the Middle Ages, it is not surprising to find this animal utilised in
church architecture; for an example see fig. 35.
The belief in the existence of these fabulous beasts may very probably
have been due to the materialising of what were originally nothing
more than mere arbitrary symbols, as I have already suggested of the
phoenix.(1) Thus the account of the mantichora may, as BOSTOCK has
suggested, very well be a description of certain hieroglyphic figures,
examples of which are still to be found in the ruins of Assyrian and
Persian cities. This explanation seems, on the whole, more likely
than the alternative hypothesis that such beliefs were due to
mal-observation; though that, no doubt, helped in their formation.
(1) "Superstitions concerning Birds."
It may be questioned, however, whether the architects and preachers
of the Middle Ages altogether believed in the strange fables of the
Bestiaries. As Mr COLLINS says in reply to this question: "Probably they
were credulous enough. But, on the whole, we may say that the truth of
the story was just what they did not trouble about, any more than some
clergymen are particular about the absolute truth of the stories they
tell children from the pulpit. The application, the lesson, is the
thing!" With their desire to interpret Nature spiritually, we ought,
I think, to sympathise. But there was one truth they had yet to learn,
namely, that in order to interpret Nature spiritually, it is necessary
first to understand her aright in her literal sense.
IX. THE QUEST OF THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE
THE need of unity is a primary need of human thought. Behind the
varied multiplicity of the world of phenomena, primitive man, as I
have indicated on a preceding excursion, begins to seek, more or less
consciously, for that Unity which alone is Real. And this statement not
only applies to the first dim gropings of the primitive human mind,
but sums up almost the whole of science and philosophy; for almost all
science and philosophy is explicitly or implicitly a search for unity,
for one law or one love, one matter or one spirit. That which is the aim
of the search may, indeed, be expressed under widely different terms,
but it is always conceived to be the unity in which all multiplicity is
resolved, whether it be thought of as one final law of necessity, which
all things obey, and of which all the various other "laws of nature" are
so many special and limited applications; or as one final love for which
all things are created, and to which all things aspire; as one matter of
which all bodies are but varying forms; or as one spirit, which is the
life of all things, and of which all things are so many manifestations.
Every scientist and philosopher is a merchant seeking for goodly pearls,
willing to sell every pearl that he has, if he may secure the One Pearl
beyond price, because he knows that in that One Pearl all others are
included.
This search for unity in multiplicity, however, is not confined to
the acknowledged scientist and philosopher. More or less unconsciously
everyone is engaged in this quest. Harmony and unity are the very
fundamental laws of the human mind itself, and, in a sense, all mental
activity is the endeavour to bring about a state of harmony and unity
in the mind. No two ideas that are contradictory of one another, and are
perceived to be of this nature, can permanently exist in any sane man's
mind. It is true that many people try to keep certain portions of their
mental life in water-tight compartments; thus some try to keep their
religious convictions and their business ideas, or their religious
faith and their scientific knowledge, separate from another one--and, it
seems, often succeed remarkably well in so doing. But, ultimately, the
arbitrary mental walls they have erected will break down by the force
of their own ideas. Contradictory ideas from different compartments will
then present themselves to consciousness at the same moment of time,
and the result of the perception of their contradictory nature will
be mental anguish and turmoil, persisting until one set of ideas is
conquered and overcome by the other, and harmony and unity are restored.
It is true of all of us, then, that we seek for Unity--unity in mind and
life. Some seek it in science and a life of knowledge; some seek it in
religion and a life of faith; some seek it in human love and find it in
the life of service to their fellows; some seek it in pleasure and the
gratification of the senses' demands; some seek it in the harmonious
development of all the facets of their being. Many the methods, right
and wrong; many the terms under which the One is conceived, true
and false--in a sense, to use the phraseology of a bygone system of
philosophy, we are all, consciously or unconsciously, following paths
that lead thither or paths that lead away, seekers in the quest of the
Philosopher's Stone.
Let us, in these excursions in the byways of thought, consider for a
while the form that the quest of fundamental unity took in the hands
of those curious mediaeval philosophers, half mystics, half
experimentalists in natural things--that are known by the name of
"alchemists."
The common opinion concerning alchemy is that it was a pseudo-science or
pseudo-art flourishing during the Dark Ages, and having for its aim
the conversion of common metals into silver and gold by means of a most
marvellous and wholly fabulous agent called the Philosopher's Stone,
that its devotees were half knaves, half fools, whose views concerning
Nature were entirely erroneous, and whose objects were entirely
mercenary. This opinion is not absolutely destitute of truth; as a
science alchemy involved many fantastic errors; and in the course of its
history it certainly proved attractive to both knaves and fools. But if
this opinion involves some element of truth, it involves a far greater
proportion of error. Amongst the alchemists are numbered some of the
greatest intellects of the Middle Ages--ROGER BACON (_c_. 1214-1294),
for example, who might almost be called the father of experimental
science. And whether or not the desire for material wealth was a
secondary object, the true aim of the genuine alchemist was a much
nobler one than this as one of them exclaims with true scientific
fervour: "Would to God... all men might become adepts in our Art--for
then gold, the great idol of mankind, would lose its value, and we
should prize it only for its scientific teaching."(1) Moreover, recent
developments in physical and chemical science seem to indicate that the
alchemists were not so utterly wrong in their concept of Nature as has
formerly been supposed--that, whilst they certainly erred in both their
methods and their interpretations of individual phenomena, they did
intuitively grasp certain fundamental facts concerning the universe
ofthe very greatest importance.
(1) EIRENAEUS PHILALETHES: _An Open Entrance to the Closed Palace of the
King_. (See _The Hermetic Museum, Restored and Enlarged_, ed. by A. E.
WAITE, 1893, vol. ii. p. 178.)
Suppose, however, that the theories of the alchemists are entirely
erroneous from beginning to end, and are nowhere relieved by the merest
glimmer of truth. Still they were believed to be true, and this belief
had an important influence upon human thought. Many men of science
have, I am afraid, been too prone to regard the mystical views of the
alchemists as unintelligible; but, whatever their theories may be to us,
these theories were certainly very real to them: it is preposterous to
maintain that the writings of the alchemists are without meaning, even
though their views are altogether false. And the more false their views
are believed to be, the more necessary does it become to explain why
they should have gained such universal credit. Here we have problems
into which scientific inquiry is not only legitimate, but, I think, very
desirable,--apart altogether from the question of the truth or falsity
of alchemy as a science, or its utility as an art. What exactly was the
system of beliefs grouped under the term "alchemy," and what was its
aim? Why were the beliefs held? What was their precise influence upon
human thought and culture?
It was in order to elucidate problems of this sort, as well as to
determine what elements of truth, if any, there are in the theories of
the alchemists, that The Alchemical Society was founded in 1912, mainly
through my own efforts and those of my confreres, and for the first time
something like justice was being done to the memory of the alchemists
when the Society's activities were stayed by that greatest calamity of
history, the European War.
Some students of the writings of the alchemists have advanced a very
curious and interesting theory as to the aims of the alchemists, which
may be termed "the transcendental theory". According to this theory, the
alchemists were concerned only with the mystical processes affecting
the soul of man, and their chemical references are only to be understood
symbolically. In my opinion, however, this view of the subject is
rendered untenable by the lives of the alchemists themselves; for, as
Mr WAITE has very fully pointed out in his _Lives of Alchemystical
Philosophers_ (1888), the lives of the alchemists show them to have been
mainly concerned with chemical and physical processes; and, indeed, to
their labours we owe many valuable discoveries of a chemical nature. But
the fact that such a theory should ever have been formulated, and
should not be altogether lacking in consistency, may serve to direct our
attention to the close connection between alchemy and mysticism.
If we wish to understand the origin and aims of alchemy we must
endeavour to recreate the atmosphere of the Middle Ages, and to look at
the subject from the point of view of the alchemists themselves. Now,
this atmosphere was, as I have indicated in a previous essay, surcharged
with mystical theology and mystical philosophy. Alchemy, so to speak,
was generated and throve in a dim religious light. We cannot open a book
by any one of the better sort of alchemists without noticing how closely
their theology and their chemistry are interwoven, and what a remarkably
religious view they take of their subject. Thus one alchemist writes:
"In the first place, let every devout and God-fearing chemist and
student of this Art consider that this arcanum should be regarded, not
only as a truly great, but as a most holy Art (seeing that it typifies
and shadows out the highest heavenly good). Therefore, if any man desire
to reach this great and unspeakable Mystery, he must remember that it is
obtained not by the might of man, but by the grace of God, and that not
our will or desire, but only the mercy of the Most High, can bestow it
upon us. For this reason you must first of all cleanse your heart,
lift it up to Him alone, and ask of Him this gift in true, earnest and
undoubting prayer. He alone can give and bestow it."(1) Whilst another
alchemist declares: "I am firmly persuaded that any unbeliever who
got truly to know this Art, would straightway confess the truth of
our Blessed Religion, and believe in the Trinity and in our Lord JESUS
CHRIST."(2)
(1) _The Sophic Hydrolith; or, Water Stone of the Wise_. (See _The
Hermetic Museum_, vol. i. pp. 74 and 75.)
(2) PETER BONUS: _The New Pearl of Great Price_ (trans. by A. E. WAITE,
1894), p. 275.
Now, what I suggest is that the alchemists constructed their chemical
theories for the m
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