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Modern Magic

by M. Schele de Vere · English · Gutenberg #38448 · 721,168 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Modern Magic

Author: M. Schele de Vere


        
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Language: English

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  MODERN MAGIC.

  BY

  M. SCHELE DE VERE.

  _Non fumum ex fulgore, sed ex fumo dare lucem
  Cogitat, ut speciosa dehinc miracula promat._

  HORACE.

  [Illustration]

  NEW YORK:
  G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS,
  FOURTH AVENUE AND TWENTY-THIRD STREET.
  1873.




  Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1878, by
  G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS,
  In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

  LANGE, LITTLE & HILLMAN,
  PRINTERS, ELECTROTYPERS AND STEREOTYPERS,
  108 TO 114 WOOSTER STREET, N. Y.




PREFACE.


The main purpose of our existence on earth--aside from the sacred and
paramount duty of securing our salvation--is undoubtedly to make
ourselves masters of the tangible world around us, as it stands revealed
to our senses, and as it was expressly made subject to our will by the
Creator. We are, however, at the same time, not left without information
about the existence of certain laws and the occurrence of certain
phenomena, which belong to a world not accessible to us by means of our
ordinary senses, and which yet affect seriously our intercourse with
Nature and our personal welfare. This knowledge we obtain sometimes, by
special favor, as direct revelation, and at other times, for reasons as
yet unknown, at the expense of our health and much suffering. By
whatever means it may reach us, it cannot be rejected; to treat it with
ridicule or to decline examining it, would be as unwise as
unprofitable. The least that we can do is to ascertain the precise
nature of these laws, and, after stripping these phenomena of all that
can be proved to be merely incidental or delusive, to compare them with
each other, and to arrange them carefully according to some standard of
classification. The main interest in such a task lies in the discovery
of the grain of truth which is often found concealed in a mass of
rubbish, and which, when thus brought to light, serves to enlarge our
knowledge and to increase our power. The difficulty lies in the absence
of all scientific investigation, and in the innate tendency of man to
give way, wantonly or unconsciously, to mental as well as to sensual
delusion.

The aim of this little work is, therefore, limited to the gathering of
such facts and phenomena as may serve to throw light upon the nature of
the magic powers with which man is undoubtedly endowed. Its end will be
attained if it succeeds in showing that he actually does possess powers
which are not subject to the general laws of nature, but more or less
independent of space and time, and which yet make themselves known
partly by appeals to the ordinary senses and partly by peculiar
phenomena, the result of their activity. These higher powers, operating
exclusively through the spirit of man, are part of his nature, which has
much in common with that of the Deity, since he was created by God "in
His own image," and the Lord "breathed into his nostrils the breath of
life and man became a living _soul_." This soul is not, as materialists
maintain, merely the sum of all perceptions obtained by the collective
activity of bodily organs--a conclusion which would finally make it the
product of mere material atoms, subject to constant physical and
chemical changes. Even if it were possible--which we deny--to reduce our
whole inner life, including memory, imagination, and reason, to a system
of purely physical laws, and thus to admit its destruction at the moment
of death, there would still remain the _living soul_, coming directly
from the Most High, and destined to continue throughout eternity. This
soul is, hence, independent of time. Nor is it bound by space, except so
far as it can commune with the outer world only by means of the body,
with which it is united in this life. The nature of this union is a
mystery as yet unfathomed, but precisely because it is such a mystery,
we have no right to assume that it is altogether indissoluble during
life; or, that it ceases entirely at the moment of death. There is, on
the contrary, overwhelming evidence that the soul may, at times, act
independently of the body, and the forces developed on such occasions we
have, for the sake of convenience rather than on account of the special
fitness of the term, preferred to call _magic_ powers.

There is no evidence whatever before us as to the mutual relations of
soul and body after death. Here, necessarily, all must be mere
speculation. Nothing more, therefore, will be claimed for the following
suggestions. When the body becomes unfit to serve any longer as an abode
and an instrument to the soul, the tie which was formed before or at the
moment of birth is gradually loosened. The soul no longer receives
impressions from the outer world such as the body heretofore conveyed to
it, and with this cessation of mutual action ends, also, the community
of sensation. The living soul--in all probability--becomes conscious of
its separation from the dead body and from the world; it continues to
exist, but in loneliness and self-dependence. Its life, however, becomes
only the more active and the more self-conscious as it is no longer
consumed by intercourse with the world, nor disturbed by bodily
disorders and infirmities. The soul recalls with ease all long-forgotten
or much-dimmed sensations. What it feels most deeply at first is, we
may presume, the double grief at being separated from the body, with
which it has so long been closely connected, and at the sins it has
committed during life. This repentance will be naturally all the
heartier, as it is no longer interrupted by sensual impressions. After a
while this grief, like all sorrows, begins to moderate, and the soul
returns to a state of peace: sooner, of course, in the case of persons
who in their earthly life already had secured peace by the only means
revealed to man; later, by those who had given themselves entirely up to
the world and their passions. At the same time the living soul enters
into communion with other souls, retaining, however, its individuality
in sex, character, and temper, and, possibly, proceeds on a course of
gradual purification, till it reaches the desired haven in perfect
reconciliation with God. During this intermediate time there is nothing
known to us which would absolutely forbid the idea that these living
souls continue to maintain some kind of intercourse with the souls of
men on earth, with whom they share all that constitutes their essential
nature, save only the one fact of bondage to the body. Nor is there any
reason why the soul in man should not be able, by its higher powers, to
perceive and to consort with souls detached from mortal bodies, although
this intercourse must needs be limited and imperfect because of the
vast difference between a free soul and one bound to an earthly, sinful
body. For man, when he dies, leaves behind in this world the body, dead
and powerless, a corpse. He continues, however, to live, a soul, with
all the peculiar powers which make up our spiritual organism; that is to
say, the true man, in the higher sense of the word, exists still, though
he dwell in another world. This soul has now no longer earthly organs of
sense to do its bidding, but it still controls nature which was made
subject to its will; it has, moreover, a new set of powers which
represent in the higher world its higher body, and the character of its
new active life will be all the more elevated, as these organs are more
spiritual. Man cannot but continue to develop, to grow, and to ripen, in
the next world as he did in this; his nature and his destiny are alike
incompatible with sudden transitions and with absolute rest. The soul
must become purer and more useful; its organs more subtle and more
powerful, and it is of this life of gradual improvement and purification
that we may occasionally obtain glimpses by that communion which no
doubt still exists between earth-bound souls and souls freed from such
bondage.

There are, it is well known, many theologians who sternly deny any such
further development of man's spiritual part, and insist upon looking at
this life as the only time of probation accorded to him, at the end of
which immediate and eternal judgment is rendered. Their views are
entitled to the utmost consideration and respect. But different opinions
are entertained by some of their brethren, not less eminent in piety,
profound learning, and critical acumen, and hence at least equally
deserving of being attentively listened to and carefully regarded. So it
is also with the belief in the possibility of holding intercourse with
disembodied spirits. Superficial observers are ready to doubt or to
deny, to sneer haughtily, or to scoff contemptuously. But men of great
eminence have, from time immemorial, treated the question with great
attention and deep interest. Melanchthon wrote: "I have myself seen
ghosts, and know many trustworthy people who affirm that they have not
only seen them, but even carried on conversations with them" (De Anima
Recogn.: Wittemb. 1595, p. 317), and Luther said nearly the same; Calvin
and Knox also expressed similar convictions. A faith which has lasted
through all ages of man's history, and has such supporters, cannot but
have some foundation, and deserves full investigation. Alchemy, with its
visionary hopes, contained, nevertheless, the germ of modern chemistry,
and astrology taught already much that constitutes the astronomy of our
day. The same is, no doubt, the case with Modern Magic, and here, also,
we may safely expect to find that "out of darkness cometh light."




CONTENTS.


  I.
  WITCHCRAFT                 13

  II.
  BLACK AND WHITE MAGIC      43

  III.
  DREAMS                     94

  IV.
  VISIONS                   116

  V.
  GHOSTS                    155

  VI.
  DIVINATION                270

  VII.
  POSSESSION                340

  VIII.
  MAGNETISM                 376

  IX.
  MIRACULOUS CURES          429

  X.
  MYSTICISM                 448




MODERN MAGIC.




I.

WITCHCRAFT.

    "Witchcraft is an illegitimate miracle; a miracle is legitimate
    witchcraft."

    --JACOB BOEHME.


Perhaps in no direction has the human mind ever shown greater weakness
than in the opinions entertained of witchcraft. If Hecate, the oldest
patroness of witches, wandered about at night with a gruesome following,
and frightened lovers at their stealthy meeting, or lonely wanderers on
open heaths and in dark forests, her appearance was at least in keeping
with the whole system of Greek mythology. Tacitus does not frighten us
by telling us that witches used to meet at salt springs (Ann. xiii. 57),
nor the Edda when speaking of the "bearers of witches' kettles," against
whom even the Salic Law warns all good Christians. But when the Council
of Ancyra, in the fifth century, fulminates its edicts against women
riding at night upon weird animals in company with Diana and Herodias,
the strange combination of names and the dread penalties threatened,
make us almost think of witches as of real and most marvelous beings.
And when wise councillors of French Parliaments and gray dignitaries of
the Holy German Empire sit in judgment over a handful of poor old women,
when great English bishops and zealous New England divines condemn
little children to death, because they have made pacts with the Devil,
attended his sabbaths, and bewitched their peaceful neighbors--then we
stand amazed at the delusions, to which the wisest and best among us are
liable.

Christianity, it is true, shed for a time such a bright light over the
earth, that the works of darkness were abhorred and the power of the
Evil One seemed to be broken, according to the sacred promises that the
seed of woman should bruise the serpent's head. Thus Charlemagne, in his
fierce edict issued after the defeat of the Saxons, ordered that death
should be inflicted on all who after pagan manner gave way to devilish
delusions, and believed that men or women could be witches, persecuted
and killed them; or, even went so far as to consume their flesh and give
it to others for like purposes! But almost at the same time the belief
in the Devil, distinctly maintained in Holy Writ, spread far and wide,
and as early as the fourth century diseases were ascribed not to organic
causes, but to demoniac influences, and the Devil was once more seen
bodily walking to and fro on the earth, accompanied by a host of smaller
demons. It was but rarely that a truly enlightened man dared to combat
the universal superstition. Thus Agobard, archbishop of Lyons, shines
like a bright star on the dark sky of the ninth century by his open
denunciation of all belief in possession, in the control of the weather
or the decision of difficulties by ordeal. For like reasons we ought to
revere the memory of John of Salisbury, who in the twelfth century
declared the stories of nightly assemblies of witches, with all their
attending circumstances, to be mere delusions of poor women and simple
men, who fancied they saw bodily what existed only in their imagination.
The Church hesitated, now requiring her children to believe in a Devil
and demons, and now denouncing all faith in supernatural beings. The
thirteenth century, by Leibnitz called the darkest of all, developed the
worship of the Evil One to its fullest perfection; the writings of St.
Augustine were quoted as confirming the fact that demons and men could
and did intermarry, and the Djinns of the East were mentioned as spirits
who "sought the daughters of men for wives." The first trace of a
witches' dance is found in the records of a fearful Auto-da-fe held in
Toulouse in the year 1353, and about a century later the Dominican monk,
Jaquier, published the first complete work on witches and witchcraft. He
represented them as organised--after the prevailing fashion of the
day--in a regular guild, with apprentices, companions, and masters, who
practised a special art for a definite purpose. It is certainly most
remarkable that the same opinion, in all its details, has been
entertained in this century even, and by one of the most famous German
philosophers, Eschenmayer. While the zeal and madness of
devil-worshippers were growing on one side, persecution became more
violent and cruel on the other side, till the trials of witches assumed
gigantic proportions and the proceedings were carried on according to a
regular method. These trials originated, invariably, with theologians,
and although the system was not begun by the Papal government it
obtained soon the Pope's legal sanction by the famous bull of Innocent
VIII., _Summis desiderantes_, dated December 4, 1484, and decreeing the
relentless persecution of all heretical witches. The far-famed _Malleus
maleficatum_ (Cologne, 1489), written by the two celebrated judges of
witches, Sprenger and Gremper, and full of the most extraordinary views
and statements, reduced the whole to a regular method, and obtained a
vast influence over the minds of that age. The rules and forms it
prescribed were not only observed in almost all parts of Christendom,
but actually retained their force and legality till the end of the
seventeenth century. Nor were these views and practices confined to
Catholic countries; a hundred and fifty years after the Reformation, a
great German jurist and a Protestant, Carpzon, published his _Praxis
Criminalis_, in which precisely the same opinions were taught and the
same measures were prescribed. The Puritans, it is well-known, pursued a
similar plan, and the New World has not been more fortunate in avoiding
these errors than the Old World. A curious feature in the
above-mentioned works is the fact that both abound in expressions of
hatred against the female sex, and still more curious, though
disgraceful in the extreme, that the special animosity shown by judges
of witchcraft against women is solely based upon the weight which they
attached to the purport of the Mosaic inhibition: "Thou shalt not suffer
a _witch_ to live" (Exodus xii. 18).

These are dark pages in the history of Christendom, blackened by the
smoke of funeral piles and stained with the blood of countless victims
of cruel superstition. For here the peculiarity was that in the majority
of cases not the humble sufferers whose lives were sacrificed, but the
haughty judges were the true criminals. The madness seems to have been
contagious, for Protestant authorities were as bloodthirsty as
Catholics; the Inquisition waged for generations unceasing war against
this new class of heretics among the nations of the Romanic race.
Germany saw great numbers sacrificed in a short space of time, and in
sober England, even, three thousand lost their lives during the Long
Parliament alone, while, according to Barrington, the whole number who
perished amounted to not less than thirty thousand! If only few were
sacrificed in New England, the exception was due more to the sparse
population than to moderation; in South America, on the contrary, the
persecution was carried on with relentless cruelty. And all this
happened while fierce war was raging almost everywhere, so that, while
the sword destroyed the men, the fire consumed the women! Occasionally
most startling contrasts would be exhibited by different governments. In
the North, James I., claiming to be as wise as Solomon, and more learned
than any man in Christendom, imagined that he was persecuted by the Evil
One on account of his great religious zeal, and saw in every Catholic an
instrument of his adversary. His wild fancy was cunningly encouraged by
those who profited by his tyranny, and Catholics were represented as
being, one and all, given up to the Devil, the mass and witchcraft, the
three unholy allies opposed to the Trinity! In the South, the Republic
of Venice, with all its petty tyranny and proverbial political cruelty,
stood almost alone in all Christendom as opposed to persecutions of
wizards and witches, and fought the battle manfully on the side of
enlightenment and Christian charity. The horrors of witch-trials soon
reached a height which makes us blush for humanity. The accused were
tortured till they confessed their guilt, so that they might lose not
only life upon earth, but also hope for eternity. If, under torture,
they declared themselves innocent, but ready to confess their guilt and
to die, they were told that in such a case they would die with a
falsehood on their lips, and thus forfeit salvation. Some of the
sufferers were found to have a stigma on their bodies, a place where the
nerves had been paralysed, and no pain was consequently felt--this was a
sure sign of their being witches, and they were forthwith burnt; if they
had no such stigma, the judge decided that the Devil marked only his
doubtful adherents, and left his trusty followers unmarked! The terror
became so great that in the seventeenth century repentant "witches
abounded, because it had become customary" merely to hang or to
decapitate those who confessed, while all others were burned alive.
Hundreds suffering of painful diseases or succumbing to unbearable
privations, forthwith fancied themselves bewitched, or actually sought
relief from the ills of this life by voluntarily appearing before the
numerous tribunals for the trial of witchcraft. The minds of men were so
thoroughly blinded, that even when husbands testified the impossibility
of their wives having attended the witches' sabbath, because they had
been lying all night by their side in bed, they were told, and quite
ready to believe, that a phantom had taken the place of their absent
wives! In one of the most famous trials five women confessed, after
suffering unspeakable torture, that they had disinterred an infant, the
child of one of their number, and supped upon it with the Devil; the
father of the child persevered till the grave was opened, and behold,
the child's body was there unharmed! But the judges declared it to be a
phantom sent by the Evil One, since the confession of the criminals was
worth more than mere ocular proof, and the women were burnt accordingly.
(Horst. Demonomagie, i. p. 349.) The most signal proof of the absurdity
of all such charges was obtained in our own country. Here the number of
those who complained of being plagued and injured by demoniac agencies
became larger in precise proportion as trials increased and
condemnations succeeded. But when nineteen of the accused had been
executed, and the judges becoming appalled at the daily growing number
of complaints, set some of the prisoners free, and declined to arrest
others, there was suddenly an end of these grievances, no more accounts
of enchantment and witchcraft were heard, and soon the evil disappeared
entirely.

It was a similar return to reason which at last led in Europe also to a
reaction. The Doge of Venice and the Great Council appealed to the pope,
Leo X., to put a curb upon the intemperate zeal of his ministers, and he
saw himself forced to check the merciless persecution. Occasionally
voices had been raised, already before that public appeal, condemning
such wholesale slaughter; among these were men like Bacon of Verulam,
Reginald Scotus, and, marvel of marvels, two famous Jesuits, Tanner and
Spee. And yet even these merciful and enlightened men never, for a
moment, doubted the genuineness of witchcraft and its fatal effects.
Father Spee, a most learned man, writing against the ceaseless
persecutions of pretended witches, nevertheless declared, in 1631, in
his renowned _Cautio criminalis_, by far the best work written on that
side of the question, that "there are in the world some few wizards and
enchanters, which could not be denied by any body without frivolity and
great ignorance," and even Bayle, while condemning the cruelty of
witches' trials, seriously proposes to punish witches for their
"ill-will." Vaude, the well-known librarian of Cardinal Mazarin, wrote
an able work as an apology of all the great men who had been suspected
of witchcraft, including even Clemens V., Sylvester II., and other
popes, and a renowned Capuchin monk, d'Autun, pursued the same subject
with infinite subtlety of thought and great happiness of diction in his
_L'incredulite savante et la credulite ignorante_. A witch was, however,
still condemned to be burned in 1698, in Germany; fortunately the judge,
a distinguished jurist of the University of Halle, was remonstrated with
by an esteemed colleague, and thus induced to examine himself as well as
the whole grievous subject with unsparing candor. This led him to see
clearly the error involved in trials of witchcraft, and he wrote, in
1701, a most valuable and influential work against the Crime of Magic.
He succeeded, especially, in destroying the enormous prestige heretofore
enjoyed by Del Rio's great work _Disquisitiones magicae_, the favorite
hand-book of judges of all lands, which was even adopted, though from
the pen of a Jesuit, by the Protestants of Germany. In no case, however,
were the personal existence of the Devil, and his activity upon earth,
denied by these writers; on the contrary, it is well known that Luther,
Melanchthon, and even Calvin, continued always to speak of Satan as
having a corporeal existence and as being perceptible to human senses.
The negation contended for applied only to his direct agency in the
physical world; his moral influence was ever readily admitted. Sporadic
cases of witchcraft, and their trial by high courts of justice, have
continued to occur down to our day. Maria Theresa was the first
peremptorily to forbid any further persecutions on account of
_Veneficium_, as it had become the fashion to call the acts of magic by
which men or beasts were said to be injured. There are, however, writers
who maintain, in this century, and in our generation, even, the direct
agency of the Devil in daily life, and see in demoniac sufferings the
punishment of the wicked in this life already.

The question of how much truth there may have been in this belief in
witchcraft, held by so many nations, and persevered in during so many
centuries, has never yet been fully answered. It is hardly to be
presumed that during this long period all men, even the wisest and
subtlest, should have been completely blinded or utterly demented. Many
historians as well as philosophers have looked upon witchcraft as a mere
creation of the Inquisition. Rome, they argue, was in great danger, she
had no new dogma to proclaim which would give food to inquiring minds,
and increase the prestige of her power; she was growing unpopular in
many countries heretofore considered most faithful and submissive, and
she was engaged in various dangerous conflicts with the secular powers.
In this embarrassment her Inquisitors looked around for some means of
escape, and thought a remedy might be found in this new combination of
the two traditional crimes of heresy and enchantment. Witchcraft, as a
crime, because of the deeds of violence with which it was almost
invariably associated, belonged before the tribunal of the secular
judge; as a sin it was to be punished by the bishop, but as heresy it
fell, according to the custom of the day, to the share of neither judge
nor bishop, but into the hands of the Inquisition.

The extreme uniformity of witchcraft from the Tagus to the Vistula, and
in New England as in Old England, is adduced as an additional evidence
of its having been "manufactured" by the Inquisition. Nothing is gained,
however, by looking upon it as a mere invention; nor would such an
explanation apply to the wizards and witches who are repeatedly
mentioned and condemned in Holy Writ. Witchcraft was neither purely
artificial, a mere delusion, nor can it be accounted for upon a purely
natural basis. The essential part in it is the magic force, which does
not belong to the natural but to the spiritual part of man. Hence it is
not so very surprising, as many authors have thought it, that thousands
of poor women should have done their best to obtain visions which only
led to imprisonment, torture, and death by fire, while they procured for
them apparently neither comfort nor wealth, but only pain, horror, and
disgrace. For there was mixed up with all this a sensation of pleasure,
vague and wild, though it was in conformity with the rude and coarse
habits of the age. It is the same with the opium eater and hasheesh
smoker, only in a more moderate manner; the delight these pernicious
drugs afford is not seen, but the disease, the suffering, and the
wretched death they produce, are visible enough. The stories of witches'
sabbaths taking place on certain days of the year, arose no doubt from
the fact that the prevailing superstition of the times regarded some
seasons as peculiarly favorable for the ceremony of anointing one's self
with narcotic salves, and this led to a kind of spiritual community on
such nights, which to the poor deluded people appeared as a real meeting
at appointed places. In like manner there was nothing absolutely absurd
or impossible in the idea of a compact with the Devil. Satan presented
himself to the minds of men in those ages as the bodily incarnation of
all that is evil and sinful, and hence when they fancied they made a
league with him, they only aroused the evil principle within themselves
to its fullest energy and activity. It was in fact the selfish, covetous
nature of man, ever in arms against moral laws and the commandments of
God, which in these cases became distinctly visible and presented itself
in the form of a vision. This evil principle, now relieved from all
constraint and able to develop its power against a feebly resisting
soul, would naturally destroy the poor deluded victim, in body and in
spirit. Hence the trials of witchcraft had at least some justification,
however unwise their form and however atrocious their abuses. The
majority of the crimes with which the so-called witches were charged,
were no doubt imaginary; but many of the accused also had taken real
delight in their evil practices and in the grievous injury they had done
to those they hated or envied. Nor must it be forgotten that the age in
which these trials mainly occurred was emphatically an age of
superstition; from the prince on his throne to the clown in his hut,
everybody learnt and practiced some kind of magic; the ablest statesmen
and the subtlest philosophers, the wisest divines and the most learned
physicians, all were more or less adepts of the Black Art, and many
among them became eminently dangerous to their fellow-beings. Others,
ceaselessly meditating and brooding over charms and demoniac influences,
finally came to believe in their own powers of enchantment, and
confessed their guilt, although they had sinned only by volition,
without ever being able really to call forth and command magic powers.
Still others labored under a regular panic and saw witchcraft in the
simplest events as well as in all more unusual phenomena in nature. A
violent tempest, a sudden hailstorm, or an unusual rise in rivers, all
were at once attributed to magic influences, and the authorities urged
and importuned to prevent a recurrence with all its disastrous
consequences by punishing the guilty authors. Has not the same insane
fury been frequently shown in contagious diseases, when the common
people believed their fountains poisoned and their daily bread infected
by Jews or other suspected classes, and promptly took justice into their
own hands? It ought also to be borne in mind, as an apology for the
horrible crimes committed by judges and priests in condemning witches,
that in their eyes the crime was too enormous and the danger too
pressing and universal to admit of delay in investigation, or mercy in
judgment. The severe laws of those semi-barbarous times were immediately
applied and all means considered fair in eliciting the truth. Torture
was by no means limited to trials of witches, for some of the greatest
statesmen and the most exalted divines had alike to endure its terrors.
Moreover no age has been entirely free from similar delusions, although
the form under which they appear and the power by which they may be
supported, differ naturally according to the spirit of the times.
Science alone cannot protect us against fanaticism, if the heart is once
led astray, and fearful crimes have been committed not only in the name
of Liberty but even under the sanction of the Cross. Basil the Great
already restored a slave _ad integrum_, who said he had made a pact with
the Devil, but the first authentic account of such a transaction occurs
in connection with an Imperial officer, Theophilus of Adana, in the days
of Justinian. His bishop had undeservedly humiliated him and thus
aroused in the heart of the naturally meek man intense wrath and a
boundless desire of revenge. While he was in this state of
uncontrollable excitement, a Jew appeared and offered to procure for him
all he wanted, if he would pledge his soul to Satan. The unhappy man
consented, and was at once led to the circus where he saw a great number
of torch-bearers in white robes, the costume of servants of the church,
and Satan seated in the midst of the assembly. He obeyed the order to
renounce Christ and certified his apostacy in a written document. The
next day already the bishop repented of his injustice and restored
Theophilus in his office, whereupon the Jew pointed out to him how
promptly his master had come to his assistance. Still, repentance comes
to Theophilus also, and in a new revelation the Virgin appears to the
despairing man after incessant prayer of forty days and nights--a fit
preparation for such a vision. She directs him to perform certain
atoning ceremonies and promises him restoration to his Christian
privileges, which he finally obtains by finding the certificate of his
apostasy lying on his breast, and then dies in a state of happy relief.
After that similar cases of a league being made with Satan occur quite
frequently in the history of saints and eminent men, till the belief in
its efficacy gradually died out and recent efforts like those recorded
by Goerres (III. p. 620) have proved utterly fruitless.

Among the magic phenomena connected with witchcraft, none is more
curious than the so-called witches' sabbath, the formal meeting of all
who are in league with Satan, for the purpose of swearing allegiance to
him, to enjoy unholy delights, and to introduce neophytes. That no such
meeting ever really took place, need hardly be stated. The so-called
sabbaths were somnambulistic visions, appearing to poor deluded
creatures while in a state of trance, which they had produced by
narcotic ointments, vile decoctions, or even mere mental effort. For the
most skillful among the witches could cause themselves to fall into the
Witches' Sleep, as they called this trance, whenever they chose; others
had to submit to tedious and often abominable ceremonies. The knowledge
of simples, which was then very general, was of great service to cunning
impostors; thus it was well known that certain herbs, like aconite,
produce in sleep the sensation of flying, and they were, of course,
diligently employed. Hyosciamus and taxus, hypericum and asafoetida were
great favorites, and physicians made experiments with these salves to
try their effect upon the system. Laguna, for instance, physician to
Pope Julius III., once applied an ointment which he had obtained from a
wizard, to a woman, who thereupon fell into a sleep of thirty-six hours'
duration, and upon being aroused, bitterly complained of his cruelty in
tearing her from the embraces of her husband. The Marquis d'Agent tells
us in his _Lettres Juifs_ (i. l. 20), that the celebrated Gassendi
discovered a drug which a shepherd used to take whenever he wished to go
to a witches' assembly. He won the man's confidence, and, pretending to
join him in his journey, persuaded him to swallow the medicine in his
presence. After a few minutes, the shepherd began to stagger like an
intoxicated person, and then fell into profound sleep, during which he
talked wildly. When he roused himself again many hours afterwards, he
congratulated the physician on the good reception he had met at Satan's
court, and recalled with delight the pleasant things they had jointly
seen and enjoyed! The symptoms of the witches' sleep differ, however;
while the latter is, in some cases, deep and unbroken, in other cases
the sleepers become rigid and icy cold, or they are subject to violent
spasms and utter unnatural sounds in abundance. The sleep differs,
moreover, from that of possessed people in the consciousness of bodily
pain which bewitched people retain, while the possessed become
insensible. Invariably the impression is produced that they meet kindred
spirits at some great assembly, but the manner of reaching it differs
greatly. Some go on foot; but as Abaris already rode on a spear given to
him by Apollo (Iamblichus De Vita, Pyth. c. 18), others ride on goats.
In Germany a broomstick, a club, or a distaff, became suitable vehicles,
provided they had been properly anointed. In Scotland and Sweden the
chimney is the favorite road, in other countries no such preference is
shown over doors and windows. The expedition, however joyous it may be,
is always very fatiguing, and when the revellers awake they feel like
people who have been dissipated. The meetings differ in locality
according to size: whole provinces assemble on high, isolated mountains,
among which the Brocken, in the Hartz Mountains, is by far the most
renowned; smaller companies meet near gloomy churches or under dark
trees with wide-spreading branches.

In the north of Europe the favorite resort is the Blue Mountain,
popularly known as Blokulla, in Sweden, and as Blakalla in Norway, an
isolated rock in the sea between Smoland and Oland, which seems to have
had some association in the minds of the people with the ancient
sea-goddess Blakylle. In Italy the witches loved to assemble under the
famous walnut tree near Benevent, which was already to the Longobards an
object of superstitious veneration, since here, in ancient times, the
old divinities were worshipped, and afterwards the _strighe_ were fond
of meeting. In France they had a favorite resort on the Puy de Dome,
near Clermont, and in Spain on the sands near Seville, where the
_hechizeras_ held their sabbaths. The Hekla, of Iceland, also passes
with the Scandinavians for a great meeting-place of witches, although,
strangely enough, the inhabitants of the island have no such tradition.
It is, however, clear that in all countries where witchcraft prospered,
the favorite places of meeting were always the same as those to which,
in ancient times, the heathens had made pilgrimages in large numbers, in
order to perform their sacrifices, and to enjoy their merry-makings.

In precisely the same manner the favorite seasons for these ghastly
meetings correspond almost invariably with the times of high festivals
held in heathen days, and hence, they were generally adopted by the
early Christians, with the feast and saints' days of Christendom. Thus
the old Germans observed, when they were still pagans, the first of May
for two reasons: as a day of solemn judgment, and as a season for
rejoicing, during which prince and peasant joined in celebrating the
return of summer with merry songs and gay dances around the May-pole.
The witches were nothing loth to adopt the day for their own festivities
also, and added it to the holidays of St. John the Baptist and St.
Bartholomew, on which, in like manner, anciently the holding of public
courts had brought together large assemblies. The meetings, however,
must always fall upon a Thursday, from a determined, though yet
unexplained association of witchcraft with the old German god of
thunder, Donar, who was worshipped on the Blocksberg, and to whom a goat
was sacrificed--whence also the peculiar fondness of witches for that
animal. The hours of meeting are invariably from eleven o'clock at night
to one or two in the morning.

The assembly consists, according to circumstances, of a few hundred or
of several thousands, but the female sex always largely prevails. For
this fact the famous text-book of judges of witchcraft, the _Malleus_,
assigned not less than four weighty reasons. Women, it said, are more
apt to be addicted to the fearful crime than men because, in the first
place, they are more credulous; secondly, in their natural weakness they
are more susceptible; thirdly, they are more imprudent and rash, and
hence always ready to consult the Devil, and fourthly and mainly,
_femina_ comes from _fe_, faith and _minus_, less, hence they have less
faith!

The guests appear generally in their natural form, but at times they are
represented as assuming the shape of various animals; the Devil's
followers having a decided preference for goats and for monkeys,
although the latter is a passion of more recent date. The crowd is
naturally in a state of incessant flowing and ebbing; the constant
coming and going, crowding and pressing admits of not a moment's quiet
and even here it is proven that the wicked have neither rest nor peace.

Among this crowd flocks are seen, consisting of toads and watched over
by boys and girls; in the centre sits Satan on a stone, draped in weird
majesty, with terrible but indistinct features, and uttering short
commands with an appalling voice of unnatural and unheard of music. A
queen in great splendor may sit by his side, promoted to the throne from
a place among the guests. Countless demons, attending to all kinds of
extraordinary duties, surround their master; or, dash through the crowd
scattering indecent words and gestures in all directions. English
witches meet, also, innumerable kittens on the Sabbath and show the
scars of wounds inflicted by the malicious animals. Every visitor must
pay his homage to the lord of the feast, which is done in an
unmentionable manner; and yet they receive nothing in return--according
to their unanimous confessions--except unfulfilled promises and delusive
presents. Even the dishes on the table are but shams; there is neither
salt nor bread to be found there. They are bound, besides, to pledge
themselves to the performance of a certain number of wicked works, which
are distributed over the week, so that the first days are devoted to
ordinary sins and the last to crimes of special horror. Music of
surpassing weirdness is heard on all sides, and countless couples whirl
about in restless, obscene dances; the couples joining back to back and
trying in vain to see each other's faces. Very often young children are
brought up by their mothers to be presented to the Master; when this is
done, they are set to attend the flocks of toads till the ninth year,
when they are called up by the Queen to abjure their Christian faith and
are regularly enrolled among witches.

The descriptions of minor details vary, of course according to the
individual dispositions of the accused, whose confessions are invariably
uniform as to the facts stated heretofore. The coarser minds naturally
see nothing but the grossest indecency and the vilest indulgences, while
to more refined minds the apparent occurrences appear in a light of
greater delicacy; they hear sweet music and witness nothing but gentle
affection and brotherly love. But in all cases these witches' sabbaths
become a passion with the poor deluded creatures; they enjoy there a
paradise of delight,--whether they really indulge in sensual pleasure or
surrender mind and will so completely to the unhallowed power that they
cease to wish for anything else, and are plunged in vague, unspeakable
pleasure. And yet not even the simple satisfaction of good looks is
granted them; witches are as ugly as angels are fair; they emit an evil
odor and inspire others with unconquerable repugnance.

How exclusively all these descriptions of witches' sabbaths have their
origin in the imagination of the deluded women is seen from the fact
that they vary consistently with the prevailing notions of those by whom
they are entertained; with coarse peasants, the meetings are rude feasts
full of obscene enjoyments; with noble knights, they become the rovings
of the wild huntsman, or a hellish court under the guise of a Venus'
mountain; with ascetic monks and nuns, a subterranean convent filled
with vile blasphemies of God and the saints. This only is common to all
such visions, that they are always conceived in a spirit of bitter
antagonism to the Church: all the doctrines not only but also the
ceremonies of the latter are here travestied. The sabbath has its
masses, but the host is desecrated, its holy water obtained from the
lord of the feast; its host and its candles are black, and the _Ite
missa est_ of the dismissing priest is changed into: "Go to the Devil!"
Here, also, confession is required; but, the penitent confesses having
omitted to do evil and being guilty of occasional acts of mercy and
goodness; the penalty imposed is to neglect one or the other of the
twelve commandments.

When witches were brought to trial, one of the first measures was to
search for special marks which were believed to betray their true
character. These were especially the so-called witches' moles, spots of
the size of a pea, on which for some reason or other the nerves had lost
their sensibility, and where, in consequence, no pain was felt. These
were supposed to have been formed by being punctured, the Evil One
performing the operation with a pin of false gold, with his claws or his
horns. Other evidences were found in the peculiar coloring of the eyes,
which was said to represent the feet of toads; in the absence of tears
when the little gland had been injured, and, above all, in the specific
lightness of the body. In order to ascertain the latter the accused were
bound hand and foot crosswise, tied loosely to a rope, and then, three
times, dropped into the water. If they remained floating their guilt was
established; for either they had been endowed by their Master with
safety from drowning, or the water refused to receive them because they
had abjured their baptism! It need not be added that the executioners
soon found out ways to let their prisoners float or sink as they
chose--for a consideration.

Witches' trials began in the earliest days of Christianity, for the
Emperor Valens ordered, as we learn from Ammianus Marcellinus, all the
wizards and enchanters to be held to account who had endeavored by
magic art to ascertain his successor. Several thousands were accused of
witchcraft, but the charge was then, as in almost every later age, in
most cases nothing more than a pretext for proceedings against obnoxious
persons. The next monster process, as it began to be called already in
those early days, was the persecution of witches in France under the
Merovingians. The child of Chilperic's wife had died suddenly and under
suspicious circumstances, which led to the imprisonment of a prefect,
Mummolus, whom the queen had long pursued with her hatred. He was
accused of having caused her son's death by his charms, and was
subjected to fearful tortures in company with a number of old women.
Still, he confessed nothing but that the latter had furnished him with
certain drugs and ointments which were to secure to him the favor of the
king and the queen. A later trial of this kind, in which for a time calm
reason made a firm stand against superstition, but finally succumbed
ingloriously, is known as the _Vaudoisie_, and took place in Arras in
1459. It was begun by a Count d'Estampes, but was mainly conducted by a
bishop and some eminent divines of his acquaintance, whose inordinate
zeal and merciless cruelty have secured to the proceedings a peculiarly
painful memory in the annals of the church. A large number of perfectly
innocent men and women were tortured and disgracefully executed, but
fortunately the death of the main persecutor, DuBlois, made a sudden end
to the existence of witchcraft in that province. One of the most
remarkable trials of this kind was caused by a number of little
children, and led to most bloody proceedings. It seems that in the year
1669 several boys and girls in the parish of Mora, one of the most
beautiful parts of the Swedish province of Dalarne, and famous through
the memory of Gustavus Vasa and Gustavus III., were affected by a
nervous fever which left them, after their partial recovery, in a state
of extreme irritability and sensitiveness. They fell into fainting fits
and had convulsions--symptoms which the simple but superstitious
mountaineers gradually began to think inexplicable, and hence to ascribe
to magic influences. The report spread that the poor children were
bewitched, and soon all the usual details of satanic possession were
current. The mountain called Blakulla, in bad repute from of old, was
pointed out as the meeting-place of the witches, where the annual
sabbath was celebrated, and these children were devoted to Satan. Church
and State combined to bring their great power to bear upon the poor
little ones, an enormous number of women, mostly the mothers of the
young people, were involved in the charges, and finally fifty-two of the
latter with fifteen children were publicly executed as witches, while
fifty of the younger were condemned to severe punishment! More than
three hundred unfortunate children under fourteen had made detailed
confessions of the witches' sabbath and the ceremonies attending their
initiation into its mysteries. A similar fearful delusion took hold of
German children in Wuertemberg, when towards the end of the seventeenth
century a large number of little boys and girls, none of whom were older
than ten years, began to state that they were every night fetched away
and carried to the witches' sabbath. Many were all the time fast asleep
and could easily be roused, but a few among them fell regularly into a
trance, during which their little bodies became cold and rigid. A
commission of great judges and experienced divines was sent to the
village to investigate the matter, and found at last that there was no
imposture attempted, but that the poor children firmly believed what
they stated. It became, however, evident that a few among them had
listened to old women's tales about witches, with eager ears, and, with
inflamed imaginations, retailed the account to others, till a deep and
painful nervous excitement took hold of their minds and rapidly spread
through the community. Many of the children were, as was natural at
their age, led by vanity to say that they also had been at the sabbath,
while others were afraid to deny what was so positively stated by their
companions. Fortunately the commission consisted, for once, of sensible
men who took the right view of the matter, ordered a good whipping here
and there, and thus saved the land from the crime of another witches'
trial.

Our own experiences in New England, at the time when Sir William Phipps
was governor of the colonies, have been forcibly reported by the great
Cotton Mather. Nearly every community had its young men and women who
were addicted to the practices of magic; they loved to perform
enchantments, to consult sieves and turning keys, and thus were
gradually led to attempt more serious and more dangerous practices. In
Salem, men and women of high standing and unimpeached integrity, even
pious members of the church, were suddenly plagued and tortured by
unknown agencies, and at last a little black and yellow demon appeared
to them, accompanied by a number of companions with human faces. These
apparitions presented to them a book which they were summoned to sign or
at least to touch, and if they refused they were fearfully twisted and
turned about, pricked with pins, burnt as if with hot irons, bound hand
and foot with invisible fetters, and carried away to great distances.
Some were left unable to touch food or drink for many days; others,
attempting to defend themselves against the demons, snatched a distaff
or tore a piece of cloth from them, and immediately these proofs of the
real existence of the evil spirits became visible to the eyes of the
bystanders. The magic phenomena attending the disease were of the most
extraordinary character. Several men stated that they had received
poison because they declined to worship Satan, and immediately all the
usual sequences of such treatment appeared, from simple vomiting to most
fearful suffering, till counteracting remedies were employed and began
to take effect. In other cases the sufferers complained of burning rags
being stuffed into their mouths, and although nothing was seen, burnt
places and blisters appeared, and the odor and smoke of smouldering rags
began to fill the room. When they reported that they were branded with
hot irons, the marks showed themselves, suppuration took place, and
scars were formed which never again disappeared during life--and all
these phenomena were watched by the eager eyes of hundreds. The
authorities, of course, took hold of the matter, and many persons of
both sexes and all ages were brought to trial. While they were tortured
they continued to have visions of demoniac beings and possessed men and
women; when they were standing, blindfolded, in court, felt the approach
of those by whom they pretended to be bewitched and plagued, and
urgently prayed to be delivered of their presence. Finally many were
executed, not a few undoubtedly against all justice, but the better
sense of the authorities soon saw the futility, if not the wickedness of
such proceedings, and an end was made promptly, witchcraft disappearing
as soon as persecution relaxed and the sensation subsided.

Similar trials have nevertheless continued to be held in various parts
of Europe during the whole of the last century, and many innocent lives
have been forfeited to this apparently ineradicable belief in
witchcraft. Even after torture was abandoned in compliance with the
wiser views of our age, long imprisonment with its attending sufferings
and great anxiety as to the issue, proved fully sufficient to extort
voluntary confessions, which were, of course, of no value in themselves,
but served the purpose of keeping alive the popular superstition. In
1728 a specially fearful trial of this kind took place in Hungary,
during which nearly all the disgraceful scenes of mediaeval barbarity
were reenacted, and which ended in a number of cruel executions. The
last witches' trial in Germany took place in 1749, when the
mother-superior of a convent near Wuerzburg, in Bavaria, known as Emma
Renata, was condemned to be burnt, but by the leniency of the
authorities, was allowed to die by decapitation. Switzerland was the
scene of the last of these trials ever held, for with this act of
justice, as it was called by the good people of Glarus, the persecution
ended.

Even in England, however, the feeling itself seems to have lingered long
after actual trials had ceased. Thus it is well known that the terrible
trial of witches held at Marlboro, under Queen Elizabeth, led to the
establishment of a so-called witches' sermon to be delivered annually at
Huntingdon, and this custom was faithfully observed down to the latter
part of the eighteenth century. Nearly about the same time--in 1743--an
earnest effort was made in Scotland to kindle once more the fire of
fierce persecution. In the month of February of that year, the Associate
Presbytery, in a public document addressed to the Presbytery of the
Seceded Churches, required for certain purposes a solemn acknowledgment
of former sins, and a vow to renounce them forever. Among these sins
that austere body enumerated the "_abolition_ of the death penalty for
witchcraft," since the latter was forbidden in Holy Writ, and the
leniency which had taken the place of the former severity in punishing
this crime, had given an opening to Satan to tempt and actually to
seduce others by means of the same old accursed and dangerous
snares.--(_Edinb. Rev._, Jan. 1847.)




II.

BLACK AND WHITE MAGIC.

    "Peace!--the charm's wound up."

    --MACBETH.


The most startling of all scenes described in Holy Writ--as far as they
represent incidents in human life--is, no doubt, the mysterious
interview between unfortunate King Saul and the spirit of his former
patron, the prophet Samuel. The poor monarch, abandoned by his friends
and forsaken by his own heart, turns in his utter wretchedness to those
whom he had but shortly before "put out of the land," those godless
people who "had familiar spirits and the wizards." Hard pressed by the
ancient enemy of his people, the Philistine, and unable to obtain an
answer from the great God of his fathers, he stoops to consult a witch,
a woman. It seems that Sedecla, the daughter of the Decemdiabite--for so
Philo calls her according to Des Mousseaux--had escaped by her cunning
from the fate of her weird sisters, and, having a familiar spirit,
foretold the future to curious enquirers at her dwelling in Endor. At
first she is unwilling to incur the penalty threatened in the king's
decree, but when the disguised monarch, with a voice of authority
promises her impunity, she consents to "bring up Samuel." As soon as
the fearful phantom of the dread prophet appears, she becomes
instinctively aware of the true character of her visitor, and, far more
afraid of the power of the living than of the appearance of the
departed, she cries out trembling: "Why hast thou deceived me? Thou art
Saul!" Then follows the appalling scene in which Samuel reproves the
miserable, self-despairing king, and foretells his death and that of his
sons.

There can be no doubt that we have here before us an instance of genuine
magic. The woman was evidently capable of casting herself into a state
of ecstasy, in which she could at once look back into the past and
forward into the future. Thus she beholds the great prophet, not sent by
God from on high, as the Holy Fathers generally taught, but according to
the then prevailing belief, rising from Sheol, the place of departed
spirits, and then she utters, unconsciously, his own words. For it must
not be overlooked that Samuel makes no revelations, but only repeats his
former warnings. Saul learns absolutely nothing new from him; he only
hears the same threatenings which the prophet had pronounced twice
before, when the reckless king had dared to sacrifice unto God with his
own hand (I. Sam. xiii.), and when he had failed to smite the Amalekite,
as he was bidden. Possessed, as it were, by the spirit of the living
Samuel, the woman speaks as he had spoken in his lifetime, and it is
only when her state of exaltation renders her capable of looking into
the future also, that she assumes the part of a prophetess herself, and
foretells the approaching doom of her royal visitor.

That the whole dread scene was fore-ordained and could take place only
by the will of the Almighty, alters nothing in the character of the
woman with the familiar spirit. It is a clear case of necromancy, or
conjuring up of the spirits of departed persons, such as has been
practised among men from time immemorial. Among the chosen people of God
persons were found from the beginning of their history who had familiar
spirits, and Moses already fulminates his severest anathemas against
these wizards (Lev. xx. 27). They appear under various aspects, as
charmers, as consulters of familiar spirits, as wizards, or as
necromancers (Deut. xviii. 11); they are charged with passing their
children through the fire, with observing times (astrologers); with
using enchantments; or they are said in a general way to "use
witchcraft" (II. Chron. xxxiii. 6). That other nations were not less
familiar with the art of evoking spirits, we see, for instance, in the
"Odyssey," which mentions numerous cases of such intercourse with
another world, and speaks of necromancers as forming a kind of close
guild. In the "Persius" of AEschylus the spirit of Darius, father of
Xerxes, is called up and foretells all the misfortunes that are to
befall poor Queen Atossa. The greatest among the stern Romans could not
entirely shake off the belief in such magic, in spite of the
matter-of-fact tendencies of the Roman mind, and the vast superiority of
their intelligence. A Cato and a Sylla, a Caesar and a Vespasian, all
admitted, with clear unfailing perception, the small grains of truth
that lay concealed among the mass of rubbish then called magic. Even
Christian theology has never absolutely denied the existence of such
extraordinary powers over the spirits of the departed, although it has
consistently attributed them to diabolic influences.

In this point lies the main difference between ancient and modern magic.
For the oldest Magi whom we know were the wise men of Persia, called,
from _mah_ (great), Mugh, the great men of the land. They were the
philosophers of their day, and, if we believe the impartial evidence of
Greek writers--not generally apt to overestimate the merits of other
nations--they were possessed of vast and varied information. Their aim
was the loftiest ever conceived by human ambition; it was, in fact,
nothing less than the erection of an intellectual Tower of Babel. They
devoted the labors of a lifetime, and the full, well-trained vigor of
their intelligence to the study of the forces of nature, and the true
character of all created beings. Among the latter they included
disembodied spirits as well as those still bound up with bodies made of
earth, considering with a wisdom and boldness of conception never yet
surpassed, both classes as one and the same eternal creation. The
knowledge thus acquired they were, moreover, not disposed merely to
store away in their memory, or to record in unattractive manuscripts;
they were men of the world as well as philosophers, and looked for
practical results. Here the pagan spirit shone forth unrestrained; the
end and aim of all their restless labors was Power. Their ambition was
to control, by the superior prestige of their knowledge, not only the
mechanical forces of Nature, but also the lesser capacities of other
created beings, and finally Fate itself! Truly a lofty and noble aim if
we view it, as in equity we are bound to do, from their stand-point, as
men possessing, with all the wisdom of the earth, as yet not a particle
of revealed religion.

It was only at a much later period that a distinction was made between
White Magic and Black Magic. This arose from the error which gradually
overspread the minds of men, that such extraordinary powers--based,
originally, only upon extraordinary knowledge--were not naturally given
to men; but, could only be obtained by the special favor of higher
beings, with whom the owner must needs enter into a perilous league. If
these were benevolent deities, the results obtained by their assistance
were called White Magic; if they were gods of ill-repute, they granted
the power to perform feats of Black Magic, acts of wickedness, and
crimes. Christianity, though it abolished the gods of paganism,
maintained, nevertheless, the belief in extraordinary powers accorded by
supernatural beings, and the same distinction continued to be made.
Pious men and women performed miracles by the aid of angels and saints;
wicked sinners did as much by an unholy league with the Evil One. The
Egyptian charmer, of Apulejus, who declared that no miracle was too
difficult for his art, since he exercised the blind power of deities who
were subject to his will, only expressed what the lazzarone of Naples
feels in our day, when he whips his saint with a bundle of reeds, in
order to compel him to do his bidding. Magicians did not change their
doctrine; they hardly even modified their ceremonies; their allegiance
only was transferred from Jupiter to Jehovah, even as the same column
that once bore the great Thunderer on Olympus, is now crowned by a
statue of Peter Boanerges. Nor has the race of magicians ever entirely
died out; we find enough notices in classic authors, whose evidence is
unimpeachable, to know that the Greeks were apt scholars of the ancient
Magi and transferred the knowledge they had thus obtained and long
jealously guarded, to the priests of Egypt, who in their turn became the
masters of the two mightiest nations on earth. First Moses sat at their
feet till, at the age of forty, he "was learned in all the wisdom of the
Egyptians," and could successfully cope with their "magicians and
sorcerers." Then the land of the Nile fell into the hands of the Romans,
and poverty and neglect drove the wise men of Egypt to seek refuge in
the capital of the world, where they either lived upon the minor arts
and cunning tricks of their false fate, or, being converted to
Christianity, infected the pure faith with their ill-applied knowledge.
Certain portions of true magic survived through all persecutions and
revolutions; some precious secrets were preserved by the philosophers of
later ages and have--if we believe the statements made by trustworthy
writers of every century--ever since continued in the possession of
Freemasons and Rosicrucians; others became mixed up with vile
superstitions and impious practices, and only exist now as the Black Art
of so-called magicians and witches.

Wherever magic found a fertile soil among the people, it became a
science, handed down from father to son, and such we find it still in
the East Indies and the Orient generally; when it fell into the hands of
skeptics, or weak, feeble-minded men, it degenerated with amazing speed
into imposture and common jugglery. What is evident about magic is the
well-established fact that its ceremonies, forms, and all other
accessories are almost infinite in variety since they are merely
accidental vehicles for the will of man, and real magicians know very
well that the importance of such external aids is not only overrated but
altogether fallacious. The sole purpose of the burning of perfumes, of
imposing ceremonies and awe-inspiring procedures, is to aid in producing
the two conditions which are indispensable for all magic phenomena: the
magician must be excited till his condition is one resembling mental
intoxication or becomes a genuine trance, and the passive subject must
be made susceptible to the control of the superior mind. For it need not
be added, that the latter will all the more readily be affected, the
feebler his will and the more imperfect his mental vision may be by
nature or may have been rendered by training and careful preparation.
Hence it is that the magic table of the dervish; the enchanted drum of
the shaman; the medicine-bag of the Indian are all used for precisely
the same purpose as the ring of Hecate; the divining rod and the magic
wand of the enchanter. Legend and amulet, mummy and wax-figure, herb and
stone, drug and elixir, incense and ointment, are all but the means,
which the strong will of the gifted Master uses in order to influence
and finally to control the weaker mind. Thus powerful perfumes, narcotic
odors, and anaesthetic salves are employed to produce enervation and
often actual and complete loss of self-control; in other cases the
neophyte has to turn round and round within the magic circle, from east
to west, till he becomes giddy and utterly exhausted. It is very curious
to observe how, as far as these preparations go, in the most distant
countries and among the most different forms of society the same means
are employed for the same purpose: the whirling dance of the fanatic
dervish is perfectly analogous to the wild raving of our Indian
medicine-man, who ties himself with a rope to a post and then whirls
around it in fierce fury. Thus, also, the oldest magicians speak with
profound reverence of the powers of a little herb, known to botanists as
_Hypericum perforatum L._, and behold! in the year 1860 a German author
of eminence, Justinus Kerner, still taught seriously, that the leaves
of that plant were the best means to banish evil spirits! Mandrake and
elder have held their own in the false faith of nations from the oldest
times to our day, and even now Germans as well as slaves love to plant
the latter everywhere in their graveyards, as suggestive of the realm of
spirits!

White Magic, though strictly forbidden by the Church in all ages, seems
nevertheless to have had irresistible attractions for wise and learned
men of every country. This charm it owes to the many elements of truth
which are mixed up with the final error; for it aims at a thorough
understanding of the mysteries of Nature--and so far its purpose is
legitimate and very tempting to superior minds--but only in order to
obtain by such knowledge a power which Holy Writ expressly denies to
man. When it prescribes the study of Nature as being the outer temple of
God and represents all the parts of this vast edifice, from the central
sun of the universe to the minutest living creation, as bound up by a
common sympathy, no objection can be made to its doctrines, and even the
greatest minds may fairly enroll themselves here as its pupils. But when
it ascribes to this sympathy an active power and attributes to secret
names of the Deity, to certain natural products, or to mechanically
regulated combinations of the stars, a peculiar and supernatural effect,
it sinks into contemptible superstition. Hence the constant aim of all
White Magic, the successful summoning of superior spirits for the
purpose of learning from them what is purposely kept concealed from the
mind of man, has never yet been reached. For it is sin, the same sin
that craved to eat from the tree of knowledge. Hence, also, no
beneficial end has ever yet been obtained by the practices of magic,
although wise and learned men of every age have spent their lives and
risked the salvation of their souls in restless efforts to lift the veil
of Isis.

Black Magic, the Kishuph of the Hebrews, avows openly its purpose of
forming a league with evil spirits in order to attain selfish ends,
which are invariably fatal to others. And yet it is exactly here that we
meet with great numbers of well-authenticated cases of success, which
preclude all doubt and force us to admit the occasional efficiency of
such sinful alliances. The art flourishes naturally best among the
lowest races of mankind, where gross ignorance is allied with blind
faith, and the absence of inspiration leaves the mind in natural
darkness. We cannot help being struck here also with the fact that the
means employed for such purposes have been the same in almost all ages.
Readers of classic writers are familiar with the drum of Cybele--the
Laplanders have from time immemorial had the same drum, on which heaven,
hell, and earth are painted in bright colors, and reproduce in pictorial
writing the letters of the modern spiritualist. A ring is placed upon
the tightly stretched skin, which slight blows with a hammer cause to
vibrate, and according to the apparently erratic motions of the ring
over the varied figures of gods, men, and beasts, the future is
revealed. The consulting savage lies on his knees, and as the pendulum
between our fingers and the pencil of Planchette in our hand write
apparently at haphazard, but in reality under the pressure of our
muscles acting through the unconscious influence of our will, so here
also the beats of the hammer only seem to be fortuitous, but, in
reality, are guided by the ecstatic owner. For already Olaf Magnus
("Hist. Goth." L. 3, ch. 26) tells us that the incessant beating of the
drum, and the wild, exulting singing of the magician for hours before
the actual ceremony begins, cause him to fall into a state of
exaltation, without which he would be unable to see the future. That the
drum is a mere accident in the ceremony was strikingly proved by a
Laplander, who delivered up his instrument of witchcraft to the pious
missionary (Tornaeus) by whom he had been converted, and who soon came
to complain that even without his drum he could not help seeing hidden
things--an assertion which he proved by reciting to the amazed minister
all the minute details of his recent journey. Who can help, while
reading of these savage magicians, recalling the familiar ring and
drumstick in the left hand of the Roman Isis--statues with a drum above
the head, or the rarely missing ring and hammer in the hands of the
Egyptian Isis? It need hardly be added that the Indians of our continent
have practised the art with more or less success from the day of
discovery to our own times. Already Wafer in his "Descr. of the Isthmus
of Darien" (1699) describes how Indian sorcerers, after careful
preparation, were able to inform him of a number of future events, every
one of which came to pass in the succeeding days. The prince of Neu-Wied
again met a famous medicine-man among the Crea Indians, whose prophecies
were readily accepted by the whites even, and of whose power he
witnessed unmistakable evidence. Bonduel, a well-known and generally
perfectly trustworthy writer, affirms, from personal knowledge, that
among the Menomonees the medicine-men not only practise magic, but are
able to produce most astounding results. After beating their drum,
Bonduel used to hear a heavy fall and a faint, inarticulate voice,
whereupon the tent of the charmer though fifteen feet high, rose in the
air and inclined first on one and then on the other side. This was the
time of the interview between the medicine-man and the evil spirit.
Small doll-like figures of men also were used, barely two inches long,
and tied to medicine-bags. They served mainly to inflame women with
loving ardor, and when efficient could drive the poor creatures to
pursue their beloved for days and nights through the wild forests. Other
missionaries also affirm that these medicine-men must have been able to
read the signs and perhaps to feel in advance the effects of the weather
with amazing accuracy, since they frequently engaged to procure storms
for special purposes, and never failed. It is interesting to notice
that according to the unanimous testimony of all writers on Indian
affairs, these medicine-men almost invariably find a violent and
wretched death.

It is not without interest to recall that the prevailing forms of the
magic of our day, as far as they consist of table-moving,
spirit-rapping, and the like, have their origin among the natives of our
continent. The earliest notice of these strange performances appeared in
the great journal of Augsburg, in Germany (_Allgemeine Zeitung_), where
Andree mentioned their occurrence among Western Indians. Sargent gave us
next a more detailed description of the manner in which many a wigwam or
log-cabin in Iowa became the scene of startling revelations by means of
a clumsy table which hopped merrily about, or a half-drunk, red-skinned
medium, from whose lips fell uncouth words. (Spicer, "Lights and
Sounds," p. 190.) It was only in 1847 that the famous Fox family brought
these phenomena within the pale of civilization: having rented a house
in Hydeville, N. Y., already ill-reputed on account of mysterious
noises, they reduced these knockings to a kind of system, and, by means
of an alphabet, obtained the important information that they were the
work of a "spirit," and that his name was Charles Ray. Margaret Fox
transplanted the rappings to Rochester; Catherine, only twelve years
old, to Auburn, and from these two central places the new Magic spread
rapidly throughout the Union. Opposition and persecutions served, as
they are apt to do, only to increase the interest of the public. A Mrs.
Norman Culver proved, it is true, that rappings could easily be produced
by certain muscular movements of the knee and the ankle, and a committee
of investigation, of which Fenimore Cooper was a member, obtained ample
evidence of such a method being used; but the faith of the believers was
not shaken. The moving of tables, especially, furnished to their minds
new evidence of the actual presence of spirits, and soon circles were
established in nearly all the Northern and Western States, formed by
persons of education without regard to confession, who called themselves
Spiritualists or Spiritists, and their most favored associates Media. A
number of men, whose intelligence and candor were alike unimpeachable,
became members of the new sect, among them a judge, a governor of a
State, and a professor of chemistry. They organized societies and
circles, they published journals and several works of interest and
value, and produced results which more and more strengthened their
convictions.

The new art met, naturally, with much opposition, especially among the
ministers and members of the different churches. Some of the opponents
laughed at the whole as a clever jugglery, which deserved its great
success on account of the "smartness" of the performers; others
denounced it as a heresy and a crime; the former, of course, saw in it
nothing but the hand of man, while the latter admitted the agency of
spirits, but of spirits from below and not from above. An amusing
feature connected with public opinion on this subject was, that when
trade was prosperous and money abundant, spiritualism also flourished
and found numerous adherents, but when business was slow, or a crisis
took place, all minds turned away from the favorite pastime, and
instinctively joined once more with the pious believers in the
denunciation of the new magic. Thus a kind of antagonism has gradually
arisen between orthodox Christians and enthusiastic spiritualists; the
controversy is carried on with great energy on both sides, and, alas! to
the eye of the general observer, magic is gaining ground every day, at
least its adherents increase steadily in numbers, and even in social
weight. (Tuttle, "Arena of Nature.") Not long ago the National
Convention of Spiritualists, at their great meeting at Rochester, N.Y.
(August, 1868), laid down nineteen fundamental principles of their new
creed; their doctrines are based upon the fact that we are constantly
surrounded by an invisible host of spirits, who desire to help us in
returning once more to the father of all things, the Great Spirit.

Modern magic met with the same opposition in Europe. The French Academy,
claiming, as usually, to be supreme authority in all matters of science,
declined, nevertheless, to decide the question. Arago, who read the
official report before the august body, closed with the words: "I do not
believe a word of it!" but his colleagues remembered, perhaps, that
their predecessors had once or twice before committed themselves
grievously. Had not the same Academy pronounced against the use of
quinine and vaccination, against lightning-rods and steam-engines? Had
not Reaumur suppressed Peyssonel's "Essay on Corals," because he thought
it was madness to maintain their animal nature; had not his learned
brethren decreed, in 1802, that there were no meteors, although a short
time later two thousand fell in one department alone; and had they not,
more recently still, received the news of ether being useful as an
anaesthetic with scorn and unanimous condemnation? Perhaps they recalled
Dr. Hare's assertion that our own Society for the Advancement of Useful
Knowledge had, in 1855, refused to hear a report on Spiritualism,
preferring to discuss the important question: "Why do roosters always
crow between midnight and one o'clock?" At all events they heard the
report and remained silent. In the same manner Alexander von Humboldt
refused to examine the question. This indifference did not, however,
check the growth of Spiritualism in France, but its followers divided
into two parties: spiritualists, under Rivail, who called himself Allan
Cardec, and spiritists, under Pierard. The former died in 1869, after
having seen his _Livre des Esprits_ reappear in fifteen editions; to
seal his mission, he sent, immediately after his death, his spirit to
inform his eager pupils, who crowded around the dead body of their
leader, of his first impressions in the spirit world. If the style is
the man (_le style c'est l'homme_), no one could doubt that it was his
spirit who spoke.

Perhaps the most estimable high-priest of this branch of modern magic is
a well known professor of Geneva, Roessinger, a physician of great
renown and much beloved by all who know him. He is, however, a rock of
offense to American spiritualists, because he has ever remained firmly
attached to his religious faith, and admits no spiritual revelations as
genuine which do not entirely harmonize with the doctrines of Christ and
the statements of the Bible. Unfortunately this leads him to believe
that his favorite medium, a young lady enjoying the mystic name of
Libna, speaks under the direct inspiration of God himself! In England
the new magic has not only numerous but also influential adherents, like
Lord Lytton and the Darwinian Wallace; papers like the _Star_ and
journals like the _Cornhill Magazine_, support it with ability, and
names like Home in former years and Newton in our day, who not only
reveal secrets but actually heal the sick, have given a new prestige to
the young science. The works of Howitt and Dr. Ashburner, of Mrs. Morgan
and Mrs. Crossland have treated the subject under various aspects, and
in the year 1871, Crookes, a well-known chemist, investigated the
phenomena of Home's revelations by means of an apparatus specially
devised for the purpose. The result was the conviction that if not
spiritual, they were at least not produced by any power now known to
science.--_Quart. Journ. of Science_, July, 1871.

In Germany the new magic has been far less popular than elsewhere, but,
in return, it has been there most thoroughly investigated. Men of great
eminence in science and in philosophy have published extensive works on
the subject, which are, however, more remarkable for zeal and industry
than for acute judgment. Gerster in Regensburg claimed to have invented
the Psychography, but Szapary in Paris and Cohnfeld in Berlin discovered
at the same time the curious instrument known to us as Planchette. The
most practical measure taken in Germany for the purpose of ascertaining
the truth was probably the formation of a society for spirit studies,
which met for the first time in Dresden in 1869, and purposes to obtain
an insight into those laws of nature which are reported to make it
possible to hold direct and constant intercourse with the world of
spirits. Here, as in the whole tendency of this branch of magic, we see
the workings not merely of idle curiosity but of that ardent longing
after a knowledge of the future and a certainty of personal eternity,
which dwells in the hearts of all men.

The phenomena of modern magic were first imperfect rappings against the
wall, the legs of a table or a chair, accompanied by the motion of
tables; then followed spirit-writing by the aid of a psychograph or a
simple pencil, and finally came direct "spirit-writings," drawings by
the media, together with musical and poetical inspirations, the whole
reaching a climax in spirit-photographs. The ringing of bells, the
dancing of detached hands in the air, the raising up of the entire body
of a man, and musical performances without human aid were only
accomplished in a few cases by specially favored individuals. Two facts
alone are fully established in connection with all these phenomena: one,
that some of the latter at least are not produced by the ordinary forces
of nature; and the other, that the performers are generally, and the
medium always, in a more or less complete state of trance. In this
condition they forget themselves, give their mind up entirely into the
hands of others--the media--and candidly believe they see and hear what
they are told by the latter is taking place in their presence. Hence
also the well-established fact that the spirits have never yet revealed
a single secret, nor ever made known to us anything really new. Their
style is invariably the same as that in which ecstatic and
somnambulistic persons are apt to speak. A famous German spiritualist,
Hornung, whose faith was well known, once laid his hands upon his
planchette together with his wife, and then asked if there really was a
world of spirits? To the utter astonishment of all present, the
psychograph replied No! and when questioned again and again, became
troublesome. The fact was simply that the would-be magician's wife did
not believe in spirits, and as hers was the stronger will, the answer
came from her mind and not from her husband's. On the other hand, it
cannot be denied that media--most frequently delicate women of high
nervous sensibility, and almost always leading lives of constant and
wearying excitement--become on such occasions wrought up to a degree
which resembles somnambulism and may really enable them, occasionally,
in a state of clairvoyance, to see what is hidden to others. It is they
who are "vitalized," as they call it, and not the knocking table, or the
writing planchette, and hence arises the necessity of a medium for all
such communications. That there are no spirits at work in these
phenomena requires hardly to be stated; even the most ardent and
enthusiastic adherents of the new magic cannot deny, that no original
revelation concerning the world of spirits has yet been made, but that
all that is told is but an echo of the more or less familiar views of
men. It is far more interesting to notice, with Coleman, the electric
and hygroscopic condition of the atmosphere, which has evidently much to
do with such exhibitions. The visions of hands, arms, and heads, which
move about in the air and may occasionally even be felt, are either mere
hallucinations or real objective appearances, due to a peculiar
condition of the air, and favorably interpreted by the predisposed mind.
Hence, also, our own continent is, for its superior dryness of
atmosphere, much more favorable to the development of such phenomena
than that of Europe.

Spiritualists in the Old as in the New World are hopeful that the new
magic will produce a new universal religion, and a better social order.
In this direction, however, no substantial success has yet been
obtained. Outsiders had expected that at least an intercourse with
departed spirits might be secured, and thus the immortality of man might
be practically demonstrated. But this also has not yet been done. What
then can we learn from modern magic? Only this: that there are evidently
forces in nature with whose character and precise intent we are not yet
acquainted, and which yet deserve to be studied and carefully analyzed.
Modern magic exhibits certain phenomena in man which are not subject to
the known laws of nature, and thus proves that man possesses certain
powers which he fails or does not know how to exert in ordinary life.
Where these powers appear in consequence of special preparation or an
exceptional condition of mind, they are comparatively worthless, because
they are in such cases merely the result of physical or mental disease,
and we can hope to profit only by powers employed by sound men. But
where these powers become manifest by spontaneous action, apparently as
the result of special endowment, they deserve careful study, and all the
respect due to a new and unknown branch of knowledge.

Nor must it be overlooked, that, although modern magic as a science is
new, most of the phenomena upon which it is based, were well known to
the oldest nations. The Chinese, who seem to have possessed all the
knowledge of mankind, ages before it could be useful to them, or to
others, and to have lost it as soon as there was a call for it, had,
centuries ago, not only moving tables, but even writing spirits. Their
modern planchette is a small board, which they let float upon the water,
with the legs upward; they rest their hands upon the latter, and watch
the gyrations it makes in the water. Or they hold a small basket with a
camel's-hair brush attached to one end suspended over a table upon which
they have strewn a layer of flour; the brush begins to move through the
flour and to draw characters in it, which they interpret according to
their alphabet. The priests of Buddha in Mongolia, also, have long since
employed moving tables, and for a good purpose, usually to detect
thieves. The lama, who is appealed to for the purpose, sits down before
a small four-legged table, upon which he rests his hands, whilst reading
a book of devotion. After perhaps half an hour, he rises, and as he does
so, holding his hand steadily upon the table, the table also rises and
follows his hand, which he raises till hand and table are both level
with his eyes. Then the priest advances, the table precedes him, and
soon begins to move at such a rate that it seems to fly through the air,
and the lama can hardly follow. Sometimes it falls down upon the very
spot where the stolen goods are hidden; at other times it only indicates
the direction in which they are to be sought for; and not unfrequently
it refuses altogether to move, in which event the priest abandons the
case as hopeless. (_Nord. Biene_, April 27, 1853.) Here also it is
evident that the table is not the controlling agent, but the will of the
lama, whom it obeys by one of those mysterious powers which we call
magic. It is the same force which acts in the divining rod, the
pendulum, and similar phenomena.

The name of Medium is an American invention, and is based upon the
assumption that only a few favored persons are able to enter into direct
communication with spirits, who may then convey the revelations they
receive to others. They are generally children and young persons, but
among grown men also certain constitutions seem to be better adapted to
such purposes than others. In almost all cases it has been observed,
that the electric condition of the medium is a feature of greatest
importance; the more electricity he possesses, the better is he able to
produce magic phenomena, and when his supply is exhausted by a long
session, his power also ceases. Hence, perhaps, the peculiar
qualification of children; while, on the other hand, the fact that they
not unfrequently are able to answer questions, in languages, of which
they are ignorant, proves that they also do not themselves give the
reply, but only receive it from the questioner, and state it as it
exists in the mind of the latter. Hence, also, the utter absurdity of
so-called spirit paintings, and, still worse, of poetical effusions like
Mr. Harris' "Lyric of the Golden Age," in eleven thousand four hundred
and thirty wretched verses. For what the "circle" does not know
individually or collectively, the medium also is not able to produce.
This truth is made still more evident by the latest phenomena developed
in spiritualistic circles, the so-called trance speaking, which may be
heard occasionally in New York circles, and which requires no
interposition of a medium. For here, also, we are struck by the utter
absence of usefulness in all these revelations; the inspired believers
speak, they recite poetry, but it remains literally _vox et praeterea
nihil_, and we are forcibly reminded of the words of AEschylus, who
already said in his "Agamemnon" (v. 1127),

    "Did ever seers afford delight?
     The long practised art of all the seers whom
     Ever the gods inspired, revealed
     Naught but horrors and a wretched fate."

Among the media of our day, Home is naturally _facile princeps_. A
Scotchman by birth, he claims that his mother already possessed the gift
of Second Sight, and that in their home near Edinburgh similar
endowments were frequent among their neighbors. At the age of three
years he saw the death of a cousin, who lived in a distant town, and
named the persons who were standing around her couch; he conversed
constantly in his childish way with spirits and heard heavenly music;
his cradle was rocked by invisible hands, and his toys came unaided into
his hands. When ten years old he was taken to an aunt in America, in
whose house he had no sooner been installed than chairs and tables, beds
and utensils, began to move about in wild disorder, till the terrified
lady sent the unlucky boy away. Attending once an exhibition of
table-moving he fell into fits and suddenly became cataleptic; during
the paroxysm he heard a summoning, then the spirits announced the
wrecking of two sailors, the table began to rock as in a storm, the
whistling of the wind through the tackle, the creaking of the vessel,
and the dull, heavy thud of the waves against her bows, all were
distinctly heard, and finally the table was upset, while the spirits
announced the name and the age of the perishing seamen. From that day
Home carefully cultivated his strange gifts, and developed what he
considered a decided talent for reading the future. As a young man he
returned to Europe and soon became famous. Florence was, for a time, the
principal stage of his successes; here he not only summoned the spirits
of the departed, but was raised by invisible powers from the ground and
hovered for some time above the heads of his visitors. The superstitious
Italians finally became excited and threatened him with death, from
which a Count Branichi saved him at great personal peril. In Naples the
spirits suddenly declared their intention to leave him on February 10,
1856, and to remain absent for a whole year; they did so, and during the
interval Home enjoyed better health than ever in his life! In Rome he
became a Catholic, and good Pio Nono himself offered him his crucifix to
kiss, with the words: "That is the only true magic wand!"--unfortunately
this was not Home's view always; at least we find him in 1864 in the
same city in conflict with the papal police, who ordered him to cease
all intercourse "with higher as well as with lower spirits," and finally
compelled him to leave the Eternal City. He then claimed publicly,
what, it must not be forgotten, he had consistently maintained from the
beginning of his marvelous career, that he was the unwilling agent of
higher powers, which affected him at irregular times, independent of his
will, and often contrary to his dearest wishes. It must be added that he
gave the strongest proof of his sincerity by never accepting from the
public pecuniary compensation for the exhibition of peculiar powers.

His exterior is winning; he is of medium height, light-haired and
light-complexioned, of slender figure; simple and well-bred in his
manners, and of irreproachable morale. The highest circles of society
have always been open to him, and his marriage with a daughter of the
Russian general Stroll has given him wealth and an agreeable position in
the world. As the spirits had predicted, they returned on the 10th of
February, 1857, and announced themselves by repeated gentle
knockings--in other words, Home's former nervous disease returned, and
with it his exceptionable powers. He was then in Paris, and soon excited
the attention of the fair but superstitious Empress, whose favor he
speedily obtained by a revelation concerning the "Empereur de l'avenir,"
as the spirits had the gallantry to call her infant son. Napoleon also
began to take an interest in the clever, talented man, whose special
gifts did not prevent him from being a pliant courtier and a cunning
observer. He showed himself grateful for the kindness with which Eugenie
provided for his sister's education by exerting his powers to the
utmost at the Tuileries, and by revealing to the Emperor the secrets he
had skillfully elicited during his spiritual sessions, from statesmen
and generals. At the house of Prince Murat he performed, perhaps, the
most surprising feats he has ever accomplished: seated quietly in his
arm-chair, he caused tables to whirl around, the clocks in two rooms to
stand still or to go at will, all the bells in the house to ring
together or separately, and handkerchiefs to escape irresistibly from
the hands and the pockets of several persons, the Emperor included. Then
the floor seemed to sink, all the doors of the house were slammed to and
opened again, the gaslights became extinct, and when they as suddenly
blazed up again, Home had disappeared without saying good-bye. The
guests left the house quietly and in a state of great and painful
excitement. At another exhibition in Prince Napoleon's house, a renowned
juggler was present by invitation to watch Home, but he declared, soon,
that there was no jugglery, such as he knew, in what he saw, and the
meeting, during which the most startling phenomena were exhibited, ended
by Home's falling into a state of fearful catalepsy. Perhaps nothing can
speak more clearly of the deep interest felt in the modern magician by
the highest in the land, than the fact that more than once private
sessions were held at the Tuileries, at which, besides himself, the
Emperor and the Empress, only one person was allowed to be present, the
Duke of Montebello. It is said, though not by Home himself, that at one
of these meetings the sad fate of the Empire was clearly predicted, and
even the time of the Emperor's death ascertained. One achievement of
modern magic in which Home is unique, is the raising of his body into
the air; no other person having as yet even attempted the same exploit.
He is lifted up in a horizontal position, sometimes only to a short
distance from the floor, but not unfrequently, also, nearly to the
ceiling; on one occasion, in Bordeaux, he remained thus suspended in the
sight of several persons for five minutes. Another speciality of his, is
the lengthening of his body. According to a statement deserving full
credit ("Human Nature," Dec. 1868), he can, when in a state of trance,
add four inches to his stature! Finally, he has been repeatedly seen
passing in the air out of one window of the room in which his visitors
were assembled, and returning through another window, an exhibition
which almost always ended in the complete exhaustion and apparent
illness of the magician.

Home himself maintains that he performs no miracles, and is not able to
cause the laws of nature to be suspended for a moment, but that he is
gifted with an exceptional power to employ faculties which he possesses
in common with all his brethren. In him they are active; in the vast
majority of men they lie dormant, because man is no longer conscious of
the full and absolute control over Nature, with which he has been
endowed by the Creator. He adds that it is faith alone, without the aid
of spirits, which enables him to cause mysterious lights to be seen, or
heavy pieces of furniture to move about in the air, and to produce
strange sounds and peculiar visions in the mind of his friends. On the
other hand, when he is lifted up into the air, or enabled to read the
future, and to reveal what absent persons are doing at the moment, he
professes to act as a willingless instrument of spirits, having neither
the power to provoke his ability to perform these feats, nor to lay it
aside at will. Occasionally he professes to be conscious of an electric
current, which he is able to produce at certain times and in a certain
state of mind; this emanation protects his body against influences fatal
to others, and enables him, for instance, to hold live coals in his
hand, and to thrust his whole head into the chimney fire. This "certain
state of mind," as he calls it, is simply a state of trance. Hence the
extremely variable nature of his performances, and his great reluctance
to appear as a magician at the request of others. Nor is he himself
always quite sure of his own condition; thus, in the winter of 1870,
when he wished to exhibit some of the simplest phenomena in the presence
of a number of savants in St. Petersburg, he failed so completely in
every effort, that the committee reported him virtually, though not in
terms, an impostor. The same happened to him at a first examination held
by Mr. Crookes, a well-known professor of chemistry, in company with
Messrs. Cox and Huggins; they did not abandon their purpose, however,
and at the next meeting, when certain antipathic spectators were no
longer present, Home displayed the most remarkable phenomena. The
committee came to the conclusion that he was enabled to perform these
feats by means of a new "psychic force," which it was all-important for
men of science to investigate thoroughly.

The number of men and women who possess similar endowments, though
generally in an inferior degree only, is very great, especially in the
United States. Only one feature is common to them all--the state of
trance in which they are enabled to produce such startling phenomena--in
all other respects they differ widely, both as to the nature of their
performances and as to their credibility. For, from the first appearance
of media in spiritualistic circles, in fact, probably already in the
exhibitions of the Fox family, delusion and willful deception have been
mixed up with actual magic. Tables have been moved by clever
legerdemain; spirit rappings have been produced by cunning efforts of
muscles and sinews; ventriloquists have used their art to cause
extraordinary noises in the air, and Pepper's famous ghosts have shown
the facility with which the eye may be deceived and the other senses be
taken captive. The most successful deception was practised by the
so-called Davenport Brothers, whose well-known exhibitions excited
universal interest, as long as the impression lasted that they were the
work of invisible spirits, while they became even more popular and
attractive when their true nature had been discovered, on account of the
exquisite skill with which these juggling tricks were performed.

The masters of physical science have amply proved that table-moving is a
simple mechanical art. Faraday and Babinet already called attention to
the fact that the smallest muscles of the human body can produce great
effects, when judiciously employed, and cited, among other instances,
the so-called Electric Girl, exhibited in Paris, who hurled a chair on
which she had been sitting, by muscular power alone, to a great
distance. The same feat, it is well-known, has been repeatedly
accomplished by other persons also. Like muscular efforts are made--no
doubt often quite unconsciously--by persons whose will acts
energetically, and when several men co-operate the force of vibrations
produced in a kind of rhythmical tact, becomes truly astounding. We need
only remember, that the rolling of a heavily laden cart in the streets
may shake a vast, well-built edifice from roof to cellar, and that the
regular tramp of a detachment of men has more than once caused
suspension bridges, of great and well-tried strength, to break and to
bury hundreds of men under their ruins. Thus a few children and delicate
women alone can, by an hour's steady work and undivided attention, move
tables of such weight that a number of strong men can lift them only
with difficulty. The only really new force which has ever appeared in
this branch of modern magic is the Od of Baron Reichenbach; its
presence and efficacy cannot be denied, although the manner in which it
operates is still a mystery. In the summer of 1861 the German baron
found himself in a company of table-movers at the house of Lord William
Cowper, the son-in-law of Lord Palmerston. To prove his faith he crept
under the heavy dining-table, resting with his full weight on one of the
three solid feet and grasping the other two firmly with his hands. The
wood began to emit low, electric sounds, then came louder noises as when
furniture cracks in extremely dry weather, and finally the table began
to move. Reichenbach did his best to prevent the movement, but the table
rushed down the room, dragging the unlucky baron with it, to the intense
amusement of all the persons present. The German savant maintains that
this power, possessed only by the privileged few who are peculiarly
sensitive, emanates from the tips of the fingers, becomes luminous in
the dark, and acts like a lever upon all obstacles that come in its way.
As the existence of Od is established beyond all doubt, and its effects
are admitted by all who have studied the subject, we are forced to look
upon it as at least one of the mysterious elements of modern magic.

The Od is, as far as we know, a magnetic force; for as soon as certain
persons are magnetized they become conscious of peculiar sensations,
heat or cold, headache or other pains, and, if predisposed, of a
startling increase of power in all their senses. They see lights of
every kind, can distinguish even minute objects in a dark room, and
behold beautiful white flames upon the poles of magnets. Reichenbach
obtained, as he believed, two remarkable results from these first
phenomena. He concluded that polar lights, aurora boreales, etc., were
identical with the magnetic light of the earth, and he discovered that
sensitive, sickly persons, who were peculiarly susceptible to magnetic
influences, ought to lie with the head to the north, and the feet to the
south in order to obtain refreshing sleep. The next step was an effort
to identify the Od with animal magnetism; Reichenbach found that
cataleptic patients who perceived the presence of magnets with exquisite
accuracy, and followed them like mesmerized persons, were affected alike
by his own hands or those of other perfectly sound, but strongly
magnetic men. He could attract such unfortunate persons by his
outstretched fingers, and force them to follow him in a state of
unconsciousness wherever he led them. According to his theory, the two
sides of man are of opposite electric nature and a magnetic current
passes continually from one side to the other; sensitive persons though
blind-folded, know perfectly well on which side they approach others.

Gradually Baron Reichenbach extended the range of his experiments,
employing for that purpose, besides his own daughter, especially a Miss
Nowotny, a sad sufferer from cataleptic attacks. She was able to
distinguish, by the sensations which were excited in her whole system,
more than six hundred chemicals, and arranged them, under his guidance,
according to their electro-chemical force. Another sick woman, Miss
Maiss, felt a cool wind whenever certain substances were brought near
her, and by these and similar efforts in which the baron was aided by
many friends, he ascertained the fact, that there is in nature a force
which passes through all substances, the human body included, and is
inherent in the whole material world. This force he calls the Od. Like
electricity and magnetism, this Od is a polar force, and here also
opposite poles attract, like poles repel each other. The whole subject,
although as yet only in its infancy, is well deserving of careful study
and thorough investigation.

The manifestations of so-called spirits have naturally excited much
attention, and given rise to the bitterest attacks. In England,
especially, the learned world is all on one side and the Spiritualists
all on the other; nor do they hesitate to say very bitter things of each
other. The _Saturday Review_, more forcibly than courteously, speaks of
American spiritualists thus: "If this is the spirit world, and if this
is spiritual intelligence, and if all the spirits can do, is to whisk
about in dark rooms, and pinch people's legs under the table, and play
'Home, Sweet Home,' on the accordeon, and kiss folks in the dark, and
paint baby pictures, and write such sentimental, namby-pamby as Mr.
Coleman copies out from their dictation--it is much better to be a
respectable pig and accept annihilation than to be cursed with such an
immortality as this." To which the _Spiritual Magazine_ (Jan., 1862),
does not hesitate to reply. "We shall not eat breakfast bacon for some
time, for fear of getting a slice of the editor of the _Saturday
Review_, in his self-sought appropriate metempsychosis." It must be
borne in mind, however, that spiritualists everywhere appeal to their
own reason as the highest tribunal before which such questions can be
decided, and to the laws of nature, because as they say, they are
identical with the laws of practical reason. They believe, as a body,
neither in angels nor in demons. Their spirits are simply the purified
souls of departed men. Protestant theologians, who admit of no
purgatory, see in these exhibitions nothing but the deeds of Satan.
Catholic divines, on the other hand, and Protestant mystics, who, like
the German, Schubert, believe that there exist what they curiously
enough call a "more peaceful infernal spirit," ascribe them to the
agency of evil spirits. In the great majority of cases, however, the
spirits have clearly shown themselves nothing else but the product of
the media. The latter, invariably either of diseased mind by nature or
over-excited for the occasion, believe they see and hear manifestations
in the outer world, which in reality exist only in their own
consciousness. A Catholic medium is thus visited by spirits from heaven
and hell, while the Protestant medium never meets souls from purgatory.
Nothing has ever been revealed concerning the future state of man, that
was not already well known upon earth. Most diverting are the
jealousies of great spirits, of Solomon and Socrates, Moses and
Plato--when the media happen to be jealous of each other! A somewhat
satirical writer on the subject explains even the fact that spirits so
often contradict each other and say vile things of sacred subjects, by
the inner wickedness of the media, which comes to light on such
occasions, while they carefully conceal it in ordinary life! If these
spirits are really the creations of the inner magic life, of which we
are just learning to know the first elementary signs, then the powers
which are hidden within us may well terrify us as they appear in such
exhibitions, while we will not be surprised at the manner in which many
an ordinary mortal appears here as a poet or a prophet--if not as a
wicked demon. Nor must it be overlooked that our memory holds vast
treasures of knowledge of which we are utterly unconscious until, under
certain circumstances, one or the other fact suddenly reappears before
our mind's eye. The very fact that we can, by a great effort and
continued appeals to our memory, recall at last what was apparently
utterly forgotten, proves the presence of such knowledge. A state of
intense excitement, of fever or of trance, is peculiarly favorable to
the recovery of such hidden treasures, and there can be no doubt that
many a medium honestly believes to receive a new revelation, when only
old, long forgotten facts return to his consciousness. Generally
however, we repeat, nothing is in the spirit that is not in the medium.
The American spiritualist conjures up only his own countrymen, and
occasionally some world-renowned heroes like Napoleon or Caesar,
Shakespeare or Schiller, while the cosmopolitan German receives visits
from men of all countries. Finally it must be borne in mind that,
according to an old proverb, we are ever ready to believe what we wish
to see or hear, and hence the amazing credulity of the majority of
spiritualists. Even skeptics are not free from the influence of this
tendency. When Dr. Bell, the eminent physician of Somerville, Mass.,
investigated these phenomena of modern magic, many years ago, he
promptly noticed that the spirits never gave information which was not
already in the possession of one or the other person present. Only in a
few cases he acknowledged with his usual candor, and at once, at the
meeting itself, that a true answer was returned. But when he examined,
after his return home, these few exceptional revelations, he discovered
that he had been mistaken, and that these answers had been after all as
illusory as the others.

There can be no doubt therefore, that modern magic, as far as it
consists in table-moving and spirit-rapping, with their usual
accompaniments, is neither the work of mechanical jugglery exclusively,
nor, on the other hand, the result of revelations made by spirits. In
the mass of accumulated evidence there remain however, after sifting it
carefully, many facts which cannot be explained according to the
ordinary course of nature. The power which produces these phenomena
must be classified with other well-known powers given to man under
exceptional circumstances, such as the safety of somnambulists in
dangerous places; the cures performed by faith, and the strange
exhibitions made by diseased persons, suffering of catalepsy and similar
affections. If men, under the influence of mesmerism, in a state of
ecstatic fervor, or under the pressure of strong and long-continued
excitement, show powers which are not possessed by man naturally, then
modern magic also may well be admitted as one of the means by which such
extraordinary, and as yet unexplored forces are brought to light. All
that can be reasonably asked of those who so peremptorily challenge our
admiration, and demand our respect for the new science, is that it shall
be proved to be useful to man, and this proof is, as yet, altogether
wanting.

In Mexico the preparation for acts of magic seems to have been downright
intoxication; at least we learn from Acosta, in his _Hist. nat. y moral
de los Indias_ (lv.), that the priests, before sacrificing, inhaled
powerful perfumes, rubbed themselves with ointments made of venomous
animals, tobacco and hempseed, and finally drank chica mixed with
various drugs. Thus they reached a state of exaltation in which they not
only butchered numbers of human beings in cold blood, and lost all fear
of wild beasts, but were also able to reveal what was happening at a
great distance, or even future events. We find similar practices, also,
nearer home. The Indians of Martha's Vineyard had, before they were
converted, their skillful magicians, who stood in league with evil
spirits, and as pawaws discovered stolen things, injured men at a
distance, and clearly foretold the coming of the whites. The pious
Brainert gives us full accounts of some of the converted Delawares, who,
after baptism, felt the evil spirit depart from them, and lost the power
of magic. One, a great and wicked magician, deplored bitterly his former
condition, when he was a slave of the evil one, and became, in the good
missionary's words: "an humble, devout, hearty, and loving Christian."
It is more difficult to explain the magic of the so-called Archbishop
Beissel, the head of the brotherhood at Ephrata, in Pennsylvania, who,
according to contemporary authorities "oppressed by his magic the father
and steward of the convent, Eckerling, to such a degree, that he left
his brethren and sought refuge in a hermit's hut in the forest!" The
spirits of departed brethren and sisters returned to the refectory at
this bishop's bidding; they partook of bread and meat, and even
conversed with their successors. There can be no doubt that Beissel,
abundantly and exceptionally gifted, possessed the power to put his
unhappy subordinates, already exhausted by asceticism of every kind,
into a state of ecstasy, in which they sincerely believed they saw these
spirits, and were subjected to magic influences. That such power has by
no means entirely departed from our continent, may be seen in the
atrocities perpetrated at the command of the negroes' Obee, of which
well-authenticated records abound in Florida and Louisiana, as well as
in Cuba.

The Indo-Germanic race has known and practised black magic from time
immemorial, and the Vendidad already explains it as an act which
Ahriman, the Evil Spirit, brought forth when overshadowed by death. In
Egypt it flourished for ages, and has never become entirely extinct.
Jannes and Jambres, who led the priests in their opposition to Moses (2.
Tim. iii. 8), have their successors in our day, and the very miracles
performed by these ancient charmers have been witnessed again and again
by modern travelers. Holy Writ abounds with instances of every kind of
magic; it speaks of astrology, and prophesying from arrows, from the
entrails of animals, and from dreams; but, strangely enough, the
charming of serpents and the evil eye are not mentioned, if we except
Balaam. The Kabbalah, on the contrary, speaks more than once of the evil
eye (ain hara), and all the southern nations of Europe, as well as the
Slavic races, fear its weird power.

The eye is, however, by no means employed only to work evil; by the side
of their _mal occhio_ the Italians have another gift, called
_attrativa_, which enables man, apparently by the force of his eye only,
to draw to himself all whom he wishes to attract. The well-known Saint
Filippo Neri thus not only won all whom he wished to gain over, by
looking at them, but even dogs left their beloved masters and followed
him everywhere. Cotton Mather tells us in his "Magnolia" that quakers
frequently by the eye only--though often, also, by anointing or
breathing upon them--compelled others to accompany them, to join their
communion, and to be in all things obedient to their bidding. Tom Case,
himself a quaker, certainly possessed the power of overwhelming those at
whom he looked fixedly for a while, to such a degree that they fell down
as if struck with epilepsy; once, at least, he turned even a mad bull,
by the force of his eye, till it approached him humbly and licked his
hand like a pet dog. Even in our own age Goethe has admitted the power
of certain men to attract others by the strength of their will, and
mentions an instance in which he himself, ardently wishing to see his
beloved one, forced her unconsciously to come and meet him halfway.
(Eckermann, iii. 201.)

It avails nothing to stigmatize a faith so deeply rooted and so
universal as mere superstition. Among the mass of errors which in the
course of ages have accumulated around the creed, the little grain of
truth, the indubitable power of man's mind to act through the eye, ought
not to be overlooked.

It is the same with the magic known as such to the two great nations of
antiquity. If the Greeks saw in Plato the son of Apollo, who came to his
mother Perictione in the shape of a serpent, and in Alexander the Great
the son of Jupiter Ammon, they probably intended merely to pay the same
compliment to their countrymen which modern nations convey by calling
their rulers Kings and Kaisers "by the Grace of God." But the
consistency with which higher beings came to visit earth-born man in the
shape of favored animals, is more than an accident. The sons of God came
to see the daughters of men, though it is not said in what form they
appeared, and the suggestion that they were the "giants upon the earth,"
mentioned in Holy Writ, is not supported; but exactly as the gods came
from Olympus in the shape of bulls and rams, so the evil spirits of the
Middle Ages appeared in the shape of rams and cats. A curious instance
of the mixture of truth and falsehood appears in this connection. It is
well-known that the Italians of the South look upon Virgil as one of the
greatest magicians that ever lived, and ascribe to his tomb even now
supernatural power. The poet himself had, of course, nothing whatever to
do with magic; but his reputation as a magician arose from the fact
that, next to the Bible, his verses became, at an early period, a
favorite means of consulting the future. _Sortes Virgilianae_, the lines
which upon accidentally opening the volume first met the eye, were a
leading feature of the art known as stichomania.

The story of the greatest magician mentioned in the New Testament has
been thoroughly examined, and the main features, at least, are well
established. Simon Magus was a magician in the sense in which the
ancients used that term; but he possessed evidently, in addition, all
the powers claimed by better spiritualists, like Home in our day. A
native of Gitton, a small village of Samaria, he had early manifested
superior intellectual gifts, accompanied by an almost marvelous control
over the minds of others. By the aid of the former he produced a lofty
gnostic system, which crumbled, however, to pieces as soon as it came
into contact with the inspired system of Christianity. His influence
over others led him, in the arrogance which is inherent to natural man,
to consider himself as the Great Divine Power, which appeared in
different forms as Father, Son, and Spirit. He professed to be able to
make himself invisible and to pass, unimpeded, through solid
substances--precisely as was done in later ages by Saint Dominic and
other saints (Goerres. Mystic, ii. 576)--to bind and to loosen others as
well as himself at will; to open prison doors and to cause trees to grow
out of the bare ground. Before utterly rejecting his pretensions as mere
lies and tricks, we must bear in mind two facts: first, that modern
jugglers in India perform these very tricks in a manner as yet
unexplained, and secondly, that he, in all probability, possessed merely
the power of exciting others to a high state of exaltation, in which
they candidly believed they saw all these things. At all events, his
magic deeds were identical with the miracles of later saints, and as
these are enthroned in shrine and statue in Rome, so the Eternal City
erected to Simon Magus, also, a statue, and proclaimed him a god in the
days of Claudius! Another celebrated magician of the same race, was
Sedechias (Goerres. Mystic, iv. ii. 71), who lived in the days of Saint
Louis, and who, once, in order to convince the skeptics of his day of
the real existence of spirits, such as the Kabbalah admits, ordered them
to appear in human form before the eyes of the monarch. Instantly the
whole plain around the king's tent was alive with a vast army; long rows
of bright-colored tents dotted the lowlands, and on the slopes around
were encamped countless troops; whilst mounted squadrons appeared in the
air, performing marvelous evolutions. This was probably the first
instance of those airy hosts, which have ever since been seen in various
countries.

The Christian era gave to magic phenomena a new and specific character;
what was a miracle in apostolic times remained in the eyes of the
multitude a miracle to our day, when performed by saints of the
church--it became a crime and an abomination when the authors were
laymen, and yet both differed in no single feature. The most remarkable
representative of this dual nature of supernatural performances is, no
doubt, Dr. Faust, whom the great and pious Melanchthon states to have
well known as a native of the little village of Knittlingen, near his
own birth-place, and as a man of dissolute habits, whom the Devil
carried off in person. His motto, which has been discovered under a
portrait of his (Hauber's "Bibl. Mag."), was characteristic of his
faith: _Omne bonum et perfectum a Deo, imperfectum a diabolo_. His vast
learning, his great power over the elements, and the popular story of
his pact with the Evil One, made him a hero among the Germans, of whose
national tendencies he was then the typical representative.
Unfortunately, however, nearly every Christian land has had its own
Faust; such was, for instance, in Spain the famous Dr. Toralba, who
lived in the sixteenth century, and by the aid of a servile demon read
the future, healed the sick, traveled through the air, and even when he
fell into the hands of the Inquisition, obtained his release through the
Great Admiral of Castile. Gilles de Laval, who was publicly burnt in
1440, and Lady Fowlis, of Scotland, are parallel cases.

One of the most absurd ceremonies belonging to black magic, was the
well-known Taigheirm, of the Scotch Highlands, a demoniac sacrifice
evidently handed down from pagan times. The so-called magician procured
a large number of black cats, and devoted them, with solemn
incantations, and while burning offensive incense of various kinds, to
the evil spirits. Then the poor victims were spitted and slowly roasted
over a fire of coals, one after the other, but so that not a second's
pause occurred between the death of one and the sufferings of the next.
This horridly absurd sacrifice had to be continued for three days and
nights, during which the magician was not allowed to take any food or
drink. The consequence was, that if he did not drop down exhausted and
perish miserably, he became fearfully excited, and finally saw demons in
the shape of black cats who granted him all he desired (Horst.
"Deuteroscopia," ii. 184). It need hardly be added that in the state of
clairvoyance which he had reached, he only asked for what he well knew
was going to happen, and that all the fearful visions of hellish spirits
existed only in his overwrought imagination. But it will surprise many
to learn that such "taigheirms" were held as late as the last century,
and that a place is still shown on the island of Mull, where Allan
Maclean with his assistant, Lachlain Maclean, sacrificed black cats for
four days and nights in succession. The elder of the two passed for a
kind of high-priest and chief magician with the superstitious islanders;
the other was a young unmarried man of fine appearance, and more than
ordinary intelligence. Both survived the fearful ceremony, but sank
utterly exhausted to the ground, unable to obtain the revelation which
they had expected; nevertheless they retained the gift of second sight
for their lives.

It must not be imagined, finally, that the summoning of spirits is a
lost art; even in our day men are found who are willing to call the
departed from their resting-place, and to exhibit them to the eyes of
living men. The best explanation of this branch of magic was once given
by a learned professor, whom the Prince Elector of Brandenburg,
Frederick II., sent for from Halle, in order to learn from him how
spirits could be summoned. The savant declared that nothing was easier,
and supported his assertion by a number of actual performances. First
the spectator was prepared by strong beverages, such as the Egyptian
sorcerers already used to employ on similar occasions, and by the
burning of incense. Soon he fell into a kind of half-sleep, in which he
could still understand what was said, but no longer reflect upon the
sense of the words; gradually his brain became so disturbed, and his
imagination so highly excited, that he pictured to himself images
corresponding to the words which he heard, and called them up before his
mind's eye as realities. The magician, protected against the effects of
the incense by a sponge filled with an alcoholic mixture, then began to
converse with his visitor, and tried to learn from him all he could
concerning the person the latter wished to see, his shape, his clothes,
etc. Finally the victim was conducted into a dark room, where he was
suddenly asked by a stern, imperious voice: "Do you not see that woman
in white?" (or whatever the person might be,) and at once his
over-excited imagination led him to think that he really beheld what he
expected or wished to see. This was allowed to go on till he sank down
exhausted, or actually fainted away. When he recovered his
consciousness, he naturally recollected but imperfectly what he had seen
while in a state of great excitement, and his memory, impaired by the
intermediate utter exhaustion and fainting, failed to recall the small
errors or minute inaccuracies of his vision. All that was left of the
whole proceeding was a terrifying impression on his mind that he had
really seen the spirits of departed friends.

Such skillful manoeuvres were more than once employed for sinister
purposes. Thus it is a well-known historical fact that the men who
obtained control over King Frederick William II., after his ascension to
the throne, and held it for a time by the visions which they showed him,
employed means like these to summon the spirits he wished to see. The
master in this branch of black magic was undoubtedly Joseph Balsamo, the
Count Cagliostro of French history. He was neither a magician in the
true sense of the word, nor even a religious enthusiast, but merely an
accomplished juggler and swindler, who had acquired, by natural
endowment, patient study, and consummate art, a great power over the
minds of others. He played upon the imagination of men as upon a
familiar instrument, and the greatest philosophers were as easily
victimized by him as the most clear-sighted women, in spite of the
natural instinct which generally protects the latter against such
imposition. His secret--as far as the summoning of the spirits of the
departed is concerned--has died with him, but that enlightened,
conscientious men candidly believed they had been shown disembodied
spirits, is too well established by memories of French and Dutch writers
to be doubted. In the meetings of his "lodges of Egyptian Freemasons"
he, as Grand Cophtha, or those whom he had qualified by breathing upon
them, employed a boy or a girl, frequently called up at haphazard from
the street, but at other times carefully prepared for the purpose, to
look into the hand or a basin of water. The poor child was, however,
first made half-unconscious, being anointed with the "oil of wisdom," no
doubt an intoxicating compound, and after numerous ceremonies, carried
into a recess called the Tabernacle, and ordered to look into the hand
or a basin of water. After the assembly had prayed for some time, the
"Dove," as they called the child, was asked what he saw. Ordinarily he
beheld first an angel or a priest--probably the image of Cagliostro
himself in his sacerdotal robes--but frequently also monkeys, the
offspring of a skeptical imagination. Then followed more or less
interesting revelations, some utterly absurd, others of real interest,
and at times actual predictions of future events. Cagliostro himself,
during his last trial before the Inquisition of Rome, while readily
confessing a large number of impostures, stoutly maintained the
genuineness of these communications and insisted that they were the
effects of a special power granted by God. His assertion has some value,
as the shrewd man knew very well how much more he was likely to gain by
a prompt avowal than by such a denial; his wife, also, although his
accomplice in former years, and now by no means disposed to spare her
quasi-husband, always stated that this was a true mystery which she had
never been able to fathom. If we add to these considerations the fact
that numerous masters of lodges, even in Holland and England, obtained
the same results, and that they cannot all have been impostors or
deluded victims, there remains enough in these well-established
phenomena to ascribe them to a mysterious, magic power. (_Compendio
della vita, etc. di G. Balsamo_, Roma, 1791.) It is in fact quite
evident that the unfortunate juggler possessed in a very rare degree a
power akin to that practised by a Mesmer, a Home, and other men of that
class, without having the sense to understand its true nature or the
ambition to employ it for other than the lowest selfish purposes. Trials
of magicians, who have conjured up the dead and compelled them to reveal
the future, are still taking place every now and then; in the year 1850
not less than four men, together with their associates, were accused of
this crime in enlightened Germany, and the proceedings in one case,
which occurred in Munich, created no small sensation.

Black magic, therefore, must also be looked upon as by no means a mere
illusion, much less as the work of evil spirits. The results it obtains
at times are the work of man himself, and exist only within his own
conscience. But if man can produce such marvelous effects, which lie
apparently beyond the range of the material world, how much more must
the Creator and Preserver of all things be able to call forth events
which transcend--to our mind--the limits of the tangible world. Such
occurrences, when they have a higher moral or religious purpose in view,
we call Miracles, and they remain incomprehensible for all whose
knowledge is confined to the physical world. Above the laws of nature
there rules the Divine Will, which can do what Nature cannot do, and
which we can only begin to understand when we bear in mind the fact that
by the side of the visible order of the world or above it, there exist
spiritual laws as well as spiritual beings. In a miracle, powers are
rendered active which ordinarily remain inactive, but which exist none
the less permanently in the world. Hence all great thinkers have readily
admitted the existence of miracles: a Locke and a Leibnitz as well as,
more recently, a Stahl and a Schopenhauer. Locke, in his "Discourse of
Miracles," goes so far as to call them the very credentials of a
messenger sent from God, and asserts that Moses and Christ have alike
authenticated the truth and the divine character of their revelations by
miracles. Even their possible continuance is believed in by those who
hope that men will ever continue among us who "have tasted the good word
of God and _the powers of the world to come_." (Hebrews vi. 5.)




III.

DREAMS.

    "To sleep--perchance to dream."

    --HAMLET.


Of the two parts of our being, one, spiritual and heaven-born, is always
active, the other, the bodily, earth-born part, requires frequent and
regular rest in sleep. During this time of repose, however, the mind
also ceases apparently its operations, merely, however, because it has
no longer servants at its command, who are willing and able to give
expression to its activity. When the senses are asleep the mind is
deprived of the usual means of communication with the outer world; but
this does not necessarily condemn it to inaction. On the contrary, it
has often been maintained that the mind is most active and capable of
the highest achievements when released from its usual bondage to the
senses. Already AEschylus in his "Eumenides" says:

    The mind of sleepers acts more cunningly;
    The glare of day conceals the fate of men.

It seems, however, as if the intermediate state between the full
activity of wakeful life and the complete repose of the senses in sound
sleep, is most favorable to the development of such magic phenomena as
occur in dreams. The fact that the susceptibility of the mind is at
that time peculiarly great is intimately connected with the statement
recorded in Holy Writ, that God frequently revealed His will to men in
dreams. If we admit the antiquity of the book of Job, we see there the
earliest known announcement of this connection. "In a dream, in a vision
of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the
bed; then He openeth the ears of men and sealeth their instruction"
(xxxiii. 15). Next we are told that "God came to Abimelech in a dream by
night" (Gen. xx. 3), and from that time we hear of similar revelations
made by night in dreams throughout the whole history of the chosen
people. Frequently, however, the dreams are called visions. Thus Balaam
prophesied: "He hath said, which heard the words of God and knew the
knowledge of the Most High, which saw the vision of the Almighty,
falling into a trance, but having his eyes open." Daniel had his secret
"revealed in a night vision," but such favor was denied to Saul, for
"the Lord answered him not, neither by dream nor by Urim, nor by
prophets." To Solomon, on the contrary, "the Lord appeared in a dream by
night" many times; Joel was promised that "old men should dream dreams
and young men shall see visions," a pledge quoted by St. Peter as having
been amply fulfilled in his day (Acts ii. 17). For dreams did not lose
their importance at the coming of Christ. To his reputed father "the
Angel of the Lord appeared in a dream," bidding him to take Mary to his
wife; again he was warned in a dream "not to return to Herod," and the
Lord spake "to Paul in the night by a vision" more than once, as he was
by a dream also sent to Macedonia.

What in these and similar cases is accepted as divine inspiration, is in
secular history generally looked upon as mysterious, magic revelation;
but the phenomena remain the same in all instances, and those appearing
in dreams are identical with the symptoms exhibited in revelations
occurring during the day, when the favored recipient is wide awake.
Clairvoyance by night differs in no way from clairvoyance during the
day; a state of ecstasy, a trance, is necessary in either case. That
prophetic dreams generally remain unknown--outside of Holy Writ--must be
ascribed to the fact that they leave no recollection behind, unless they
are continued into a state of half-sleep, from which a sudden awakening
takes place; and soon then they are invariably clothed in some allegoric
form, and become liable to be erroneously or, at least, imperfectly
interpreted. Thus dreams, like trances, often prefigure death under the
form of a journey, and represent the dying man as an uprooted tree, a
withered flower, or a drowning swimmer. The early Christians, foreseeing
martyrdom, very frequently received in dreams an intimation of their
impending fate under such symbolic forms, and, what was quite peculiar
to their visions was that they often extended to the pagan jailors and
keepers, whose minds had been excited by witnessing the sufferings and
the constancy of their victims, and who, in many cases, became, in
consequence of these dreams, converts to the new faith. The facility,
however, with which such symbols can be misunderstood, has been as fatal
to dreams in the estimation of most men, as the inaccurate manner in
which the real revelation is often presented to the still half-sleeping
mind. Hence the popular belief that dreams "go by contraries," as vulgar
slang expresses it. This faith is based upon the well-established fact
that a genuine dream, in the act of impressing itself upon memory, often
suffers not only mutilation but actual reversion. Thus Rogers saw, in a
dream, Hikey, a small, weak man, murder a powerful giant, Caulfield--in
the actual encounter, which he had really foreseen, the latter killed
his puny antagonist. It is, therefore, as dangerous to "believe in
dreams," as to deny their value altogether and to ascribe all
realizations of dreams, with, Macnish, to mere accident. ("Sleep," p.
81.) Men of cool judgment and clear mind have at all times been found on
the side of believers, and even our great Franklin, with his eminently
practical mind and well-known aversion to every kind of superstition,
firmly trusted in views which he believed to have come to him in dreams.

Antiquity believed in dreams, not only as means by which the Gods
revealed their will, but as special favors accorded to fortunate men.
Thus we are told that once two men were traveling together from Arcadia
to Megara; when they reached the city, one of the two remained at an
inn, while the other went to stay with a a friend. Both, wearied by the
journey, retired to rest; but the traveler who was at a private house
dreamt in the night that his friend urged him to come to his assistance,
as the innkeeper was about to murder him. Terrified by the vivid dream,
he jumped up; but, upon reflection, he concluded that the whole was but
an idle fancy, and lay down again. Thereupon the dream was repeated; but
this time his friend added, that it was too late to come to his aid now,
as he had been murdered, and his body would in the morning be carried
out of the city, concealed under a load of manure. This second dream
made such an impression upon the Arcadian that he went at an early hour
to the city gate, and to his amazement soon saw a wagon loaded with
manure approaching the place where he stood. He stopped the driver and
asked him what he had hidden in his wagon? The man fled, trembling; the
body of the murdered friend was found, and the treacherous innkeeper
paid with his life for his crime. (Cicero, _De divin._)

One of the oldest of well-authenticated dreams in Christian times,
revealed to St. Basil the death of Julian the Apostate. It seemed to him
in his sleep that he saw the martyr Mercurius receive from God the order
to kill the tyrant, and after a short time return and say: "O Lord,
Julian is killed as Thou hast commanded!" The saint was so firmly
convinced of having received a direct revelation from heaven, that he
immediately made the news known to the people, and thus gained new honor
when the official information at last arrived. (_Vita S. Basil._, etc.,
p. 692.) Here, also, the deep-seated hatred of the Christian priest
against the Emperor, who dared to renew the worship of the ancient gods
of the Pagans, no doubt suggested the vivid dream, while, on the other
hand, the transmission of the actual revelation was so imperfect as to
change the real occurrence--Julian's death by a Persian lance--according
to the familiar way of thinking of St. Basil, into his execution at
divine command by a holy martyr. There is no lack of renowned men of all
ages who have had their remarkable dreams, and who have, fortunately for
future investigation, recorded them carefully. Thus Melanchthon tells us
that he was at a convent with a certain Dr. Jonas, when letters reached
him requesting him to convey to his friend the sad news of his
daughter's sudden death. The great reformer was at a loss how to
discharge the painful duty, and driven by an instinctive impulse, asked
Dr. Jonas whether he had ever had any remarkable dreams. The latter
replied that he had dreamt, during the preceding night, of his return
home, and of the joyful welcome he had met from all his family, except
his oldest daughter, who had not appeared. Thereupon Melanchthon told
him that his dream had been true, and that he would never see his
daughter again, as she had been summoned to her eternal home. Petrarch
had a dream which was evidently also the reflex of his thoughts in the
day-time, but accompanied by a direct revelation. He had been, for some
days, very anxious about the health of his patron, a Colonna, who was
Bishop of Lombez, and one night saw himself in a dream walking by his
friend's side, but unable to keep pace with him; the bishop walked
faster and faster, bidding him stay behind, and when the poet insisted
upon following him, he suddenly assumed a death-like appearance, and
said, "No, I will not have you go with me now!" During the same night in
which Petrarch had this dream in Parma, the bishop died at his palace in
Lombez. The well-known Thomas Wotton, also, dreamt a short time before
his death, while residing in Kent, that he saw five persons commit a
robbery at Oxford. On the following day he added a postscript to a
letter which he had written to his son Henry, then a student at that
university, in which he mentioned his dream, and asked if such a robbery
had really taken place. The letter reached the young man on the morning
after the crime had been committed, when town and university were alike
in a state of intense excitement. He made the letter immediately known
to the authorities, who found in the account of the dream so accurate a
description of the robbers, that they were enabled at once to ascertain
who were the guilty persons, and to have them arrested before they could
escape. (Beaumont, p. 223.) The great German poet Gustav Schwab received
the first intimation of the French Revolution in 1848 through a
remarkable dream which his daughter had in the night preceding the 24th
of February. She had been attacked by a malignant fever, and was very
restless and nervously excited; during that night she saw, in her
feverish dreams, the streets of Paris filled with excited crowds, and
was forced to witness the most fearful scenes. When her father came to
her bedside next morning, she gave him a minute description of the
building of barricades, the bloody encounters between the troops and the
citizens, and of a number of sad tragedies which she had seen enacted in
the narrow and dark streets of the great city. The father, though deeply
impressed by the vivid character of the dream, ascribed it to a
reminiscence of the scenes enacted during the Revolution of 1789, and
dismissed the subject, although his child insisted upon the thoroughly
modern character of the buildings, and the costumes and manners of all
she had seen. Great was, therefore, the amazement of the poet and of all
who had heard of the dream, when, several days afterwards, the first
news reached them of the expulsion of the Orleans family, and much
greater still when the papers brought, one by one, descriptions of the
scenes which the feverish dream had enabled the girl to see in minute
detail, and yet with unerring accuracy. It is true that the poet, in
whose biography the dream with all the attending circumstances is
mentioned at full length, had for years anticipated such a revolution,
and often, with a poet's graphic power, conjured up the scenes that
were likely to happen whenever the day of the tempest should arrive.
Thus his daughter's mind had, no doubt, long been filled with images of
this kind, and was in a state peculiarly susceptible for impressions
connected with the subject. There remains, however, the magic phenomenon
that she saw, not a poet's fiction, but actual occurrences with all
their details, and saw them in the very night during which they
happened. In the papers of Sir Robert Peel was found a note concerning
his journey from Antibes to Nice, in 1854. He was on board the steamer
Erculano, which, on the 25th of April, so violently collided with
another steamer, the Sicilia, that it sank immediately, and two-thirds
of the passengers perished. Among those who were rescued were the great
English statesman and the maid of two ladies, the wife and the daughter
of a counselor of a French court of justice at Dijon. The young girl had
had a presentiment of impending evil, but her wish to postpone the
journey had been overruled. The father, also, though knowing nothing of
the precise whereabouts of his beloved ones, had been much troubled in
mind about their safety, and in the very night in which the accident
happened, saw the whole occurrence in a harassing dream. He distinctly
beheld the vessel disappear in the waves, and a number of victims, among
whom were his wife and his child, struggling for life, till they finally
perished. He awoke in a state of great anguish, summoned his servants to
keep him company, and told them what he had dreamt. A few hours later
the telegraph informed him of the accident, and of his own grievous
affliction. (_Journ. de l'ame_, Fevr. 1857, p. 253.)

While in these dreams events were made known which happened at the same
time, in other dreams the future itself is revealed. Cicero, in his work
on Divination (I. 27, and II. 66), and Valerius Maximus have preserved a
number of such dream-visions, which were famous already in the days of
antiquity; a dream concerning the tyrant Dionysius was especially well
known.

It seems that a woman, called Himera, found herself in a dream among the
gods on Olympus, and there saw chained to the throne of Jupiter a large
man with red hair and spotted countenance. When she asked the divine
messenger who had carried her to those regions, who that man was, he
told her it was the scourge of Italy and Sicily, a man who, when
unchained, would destroy many cities. She related her dream on the
following morning to her friends, but found no explanation, till several
years afterwards, when Dionysius ascended the throne. She happened to be
in the crowd which had assembled to witness the triumph of the new
monarch, and when she saw the tyrant, she uttered a loud cry, for she
had recognized in him the man in chains under Jupiter's throne. The cry
attracted attention; she was brought before Dionysius, forced to relate
her dream, and sent to be executed. Equally well known was the
remarkable dream which Socrates had a short time before his death. His
sentence had already been passed, but the day for its execution was not
yet made known, when Crito, one of his friends, came to him and informed
him that it would probably be ordered for the next morning. The great
philosopher replied with his usual calmness: "If such is the will of the
gods, be it so; but I do not think it will be to-morrow. I had, just
before you entered, a sweet dream. A woman of transcending beauty, and
dressed in a long white robe, appeared to me, called me by name, and
said, 'In three days you will return to your beloved Phthia' (Socrates'
native place)." He did not die till the third day.

Alexander the Great came more than once, during his remarkable career,
in peculiar contact with prophetic dreams. He was thus informed of the
coming of Cassander long before he ever saw him, and even of the
influence which the still unknown friend would have on his fate. When
the latter at last appeared at court, Alexander looked at him long and
anxiously, and recognized in him the man he had so often seen in his
dreams. It so happened, however, that before his suspicions assumed a
positive form, a Greek distich was mentioned to him, written to prove
the utter worthlessness of all dreams, and the effect of these lines,
combined with the discovery that Cassander was the son of his beloved
Antipater, induced him to lay aside all apprehensions. Nevertheless, his
friend subsequently poisoned him in cold blood. Not less famous was the
dream which warned Caius Gracchus of his own sad fate. He saw in his
sleep the shadow of his brother Tiberius, and heard him announce in a
clear voice, that Caius also would share his tragic end, and be murdered
like himself in the Capitol. The great Roman frequently related this
dream, and the historian Coelius records that he heard it repeated
during Gracchus' life-time. It is well known that the latter afterwards
became a tribune, and was killed while he held that office, in the same
manner as his brother. Cicero also had his warning dream. He was
escaping from his enemies, who had driven him out of Rome, and seeking
safety in his Antium villa. Here he dreamt, one night, that, as he was
wandering through a waste, deserted country, the Consul Marius met him,
accompanied by the usual retinue, and adorned with all the insignia of
his rank, and asked him why he was so melancholy, and why he had fled
from Rome. When he had answered the question, Marius took him by his
right hand, and summoning his chief officer to his side, ordered him to
carry the great orator to the temple of Jupiter, built by Marius
himself, while he assured Cicero he would there meet with new hopes. It
was afterwards ascertained that at the very hour of the dream, the
Senate had been discussing in the temple of Jupiter the speedy return of
Cicero. It would have been well for the great Caesar, also, if he had
deigned to listen to the warning voice of dreams, for in the night
before his murder, his wife, Calphurnia, saw him, in a dream, fall
wounded and copiously bleeding into her arms, and there end his life.
She told him of her dream, and on her knees besought him not to go out
on that day; but Caesar, fearing he might be suspected of giving undue
weight to a woman's dreams, made light of her fears, went to the Senate,
and met his tragic fate. Among later Romans the Emperor Theodosius was
most strikingly favored by dreams, if we may rely upon the statement of
Ammianus Marcellinus (I. 29). Two courtiers, anxious to ascertain who
should succeed the Emperor Valens on the throne, employed a kind of
magic instrument, resembling the modern psychograph, and succeeded in
deciphering the letters Theod. Their discovery became known to the
jealous emperor, who ordered not only Theodorus, his second secretary of
state, to be executed, but with him a large number of eminent personages
whose names began with the ominous five letters. For some unknown
reasons, Theodosius, then in Spain, escaped his suspicions, and yet it
was he, who, when Valens fell in the war against the Goths, was summoned
home by the next emperor, Gratianus, to save the empire and assume the
supreme command of the army. When the successful general returned to
Byzantium to make his report to the emperor, he had himself a dream in
which he saw the great Patriarch of Antioch, Meletius, invest him with
the purple, and place the imperial crown upon his head. Gratianus,
struck by the brilliancy of the victory obtained at the moment of
supreme danger, made Theodosius Emperor of the East, and returned to
Rome. During the following year (380) a great council was held in
Constantinople, and here, amid a crowd of assembled dignitaries of the
church, Theodosius instantly recognized the Bishop of Antioch, whom he
had never seen except in his dream.

It is not generally known that the prediction of future greatness which
Shakespeare causes the three witches to convey to Macbeth, rests on an
historic basis. The announcement came to him, however, probably not at
an actual meeting, but by means of a prophetic dream, which presented to
the ambitious chieftain the appearance of an encounter with unearthly
agents. This presumption is strengthened by the first notice of the
mysterious event, which occurs, it is believed, in "Wyntownis Cronykil,"
where Macbeth is reported to have had a vivid dream of three weird
women, who foretold him his fate. Boethius derived his information from
this source, and for unknown reasons added not only Banquo as a witness
of the scene, but described it, also, first of all chroniclers, as an
actual meeting in a forest.

The report that the discovery of the famous Venus of Milo was due to a
dream, is not improbable, but is as yet without sufficient
authentication. The French Consul, Brest, who was a resident of Milo,
dreamed, it is stated, two nights in succession, that he had caused
diggings to be made at a certain place in the island and that his
efforts had been rewarded by the discovery of a beautiful statue. He
paid no attention to the dream; but it was repeated a third time, and
now so distinctly that he not only saw clearly all the surroundings,
but, also, the traces of a recent fire on the spot that had been pointed
out to him before. When he went on the following day to the place, he
instantly recognized the traces of fire, began his researches, and
discovered not only the Venus, now the glory of the Louvre, but, also,
several other most valuable statues. The well-known dream concerning
Major Andre is open to the same objections, although it is quoted in
good faith by Mrs. Crowe (i., p. 59). We are told that the Rev. Mr.
Cunningham, the poet, saw in a dream a man who was captured by armed
soldiers and hanged on a tree. To his utter consternation, he recognized
on the following day, in Major Andre, who was then for the first time
presented to him, the person he had seen in his dream. The latter was
then just on the point of embarking for America, where he met with his
sad fate.

A large number of dreams which are looked upon as prophetic, are nothing
more than the result of impressions made on the mind during sleep by
some bodily sensation. A swelling or an inflammation, for instance, is
frequently announced beforehand by pain in the affected part of the
body; the mind receives through the nerves an impression of this pain
and clothes it, during sleep and in a dream, into some familiar garb,
the biting of a serpent, the sting of an insect, or, even, the stab of
a dagger. An occasional coincidence serves to lend prestige to such
simple and perfectly natural dreams. Thus Stilling ("Jenseits," p. 284)
records the well-known story of a young man in Padua, who dreamed one
night that he was bitten by one of the marble lions which stand before
the church of St. Justina. Passing by the place, on the following day,
with some companions, he recalled the dream, and putting his hand into
the mouth of one of the lions, he said, defiantly: "Look at the fierce
lion that bit me last night." But at the same moment he uttered a
piercing cry and drew back his hand in great terror: a scorpion, hid in
the lion's mouth, had stung him, and the poor youth died of the venom.
The German poet Conrad Gessner dreamed, in a similar manner, that a
snake bit him in his left breast; the matter was completely forgotten,
when five days later a slight rising appeared on the spot, which
speedily developed itself into a fatal ulcer, and caused his death in a
short time.

Far more interesting, and occasionally productive of good results, are
dreams which might be called retrospective, inasmuch as they reveal
events of the past, which stand in some connection with present or
impending necessities. Many of these, no doubt, arise simply from the
recovery of forgotten facts in our memory; others, however, cannot be
thus explained. Justinus tells us of Dido's dream, in which she saw her
departed husband, Sichaeus, who pointed out to her his concealed
treasures and advised her to seek safety in flight. St. Augustine also
has an account of a father who after death appeared to his son and
showed him a receipted account, the loss of which had caused his heir
much anxiety. (_De cura pro mortuis_, ch. xi.) After Dante's death the
thirteenth canto of his Paradise could nowhere be found, and the
apparent loss filled all Italy with grief and sorrow. His son, Pietro
Alighieri, however, saw a long time afterwards, in a dream, his father,
who came to his bedside and told him that the missing papers were
concealed under a certain plank near the window at which he had been in
the habit of writing. It was only when all other researches had proved
vain, that, attention was paid to the dream; but when the plank was
examined the canto was found in the precise place which the dream had
indicated.

A similar dream of quite recent occurrence was accidentally more
thoroughly authenticated than is generally the case with such events.
The beautiful wife of Baron Alphonse de Rothschild of Paris had lost a
valuable ring while hunting in the woods near her castle of Ferrieres.
It so happened that early associations made the jewel specially dear to
her, and she felt the loss grievously; a reward of fifteen hundred
francs was, therefore, offered at once for its recovery. The night after
the hunt, the daughter of one of the keepers saw in a dream an unknown
man of imposing appearance, who told her to go at daybreak to a certain
crossroad in the forest, where she would find the ring at the foot of a
beech-tree, close to the highway. She awakes, dresses herself at once,
and goes to the place of which she has dreamed; after half an hour's
walk she reaches the crossroads and almost at the same moment sees
something glittering and shining like a firefly, picks it up, and
behold! it is the ring. The girl had not even seen the hunt, nor did she
know anything of the loss of the jewel; the whole occurrence, and the
place where it was lost, all were pointed out to her in her dream. (_Le
Monde Illustre_, Dec. 15, 1860).

It has already been mentioned that the question has often been mooted
whether the mind was really quite at rest during sleep, or still
operative in dreams. Some authors deny its activity altogether; others
admit a partial activity. The philosopher Kant went so far as to
maintain that perceptions had during sleep were clearer and fuller than
those of the day, because of the perfect rest of the other senses.
Recollection, alone, he added, was missing, because the mind acted in
sleep without the cooperation of the body.

There are, however, certain facts which seem to prove that the mind
does, at least, not altogether cease its activity while the body is
asleep. How else could we explain the power many persons undoubtedly
possess to awake at a fixed hour, and the success with which, more than
once, great mental efforts have been made during profound sleep? Of the
latter, Tartini's famous sonata is a striking instance. He had
endeavored in vain to finish this great work; inspiration would not
come, and he had abandoned the task in despair. During the night he had
a dream in which he once more tried his best, but in vain; at the moment
of despair, however, the Devil appeared to him and promised to finish
the work in return for his soul. The composer, nothing loath, surrenders
his soul and hears his magnificent work gloriously completed on the
violin. He wakes up in perfect delight, goes to his desk, and at once
writes down his "Devil's Sonata." Even children are known occasionally
to be able to give intelligent answers while fast asleep; the questions,
however, must be in accordance with the current of their thoughts,
otherwise they are apt to be aroused. A case is quoted by Reil of two
soldiers who used, at times, to keep up an uninterrupted conversation
during a whole night, while they were to all appearances fast asleep. A
lady, also, was unable to refuse answers to questions put to her at
night, and had at last to lock herself in carefully whenever she went to
sleep.

Hence it is that some of the most profound thinkers who have discussed
the subject of dreams, like Descartes and Leibnitz, Jouffroy and Dugald
Stewart, Richard and Carus, with a number of others, assert the
uninterrupted wakefulness of the mind. Some authors believe that the
spiritual part of man needs no sleep, but delights in the comfort of
feeling that the body is in perfect repose, and of forgetting, by these
means, for a time the troubles of daily life, and the responsibilities
of our earthly existence. They base this view upon the fact, that, as
far as we can judge, the mind is, during sleep, independent of the body
and the outer world. Thinking is quite possible during sleep without
dreaming, and certain bodily sensations, even, are correctly perceived,
as when we turn over in our sleep, because lying on one side produces
pain or uneasiness. We not only talk while we are asleep, but laugh or
weep, sigh or groan. A slight noise, a whispered word, affect the course
of our thoughts, and produce new images in our dreams, as certain
affections and even the pressure upon certain organs are sure to produce
invariably the same dreams. Space and time disappear, however, and
naturally, because we can measure them only by the aid of our senses,
and these are, for the time, inactive. Hence Dugald Stewart ascribes the
manner in which a moment's dream often comprises a year, or a whole
lifetime, to the fact that, when we are asleep, the images created by
our imagination appear to be realities, while those which we form when
we are awake are known to us to be mere fictions, and hence not subject
to the laws of time.

It will not surprise us, therefore, to find that this activity of the
mind, deprived of the usual means of making itself known to others by
gesture, sound, or action, seeks frequently a symbolical utterance, and
this is the grain of truth here also hid under the vast amount of
rubbish, known as the interpretation of dreams. Troubles and
difficulties may thus appear as storms; sorrow and grief as tears;
troubled waters may represent pain, and smooth ice impending danger; a
dry river-bed an approaching famine, and pretty flowers great joy to
come, provided, always, we are disposed to admit a higher class of
prophetic dreams. Such a view is supported by high authority, for since
the days of Aristotle, great writers, divines as well as philosophers,
have endeavored to classify dreams according to their nature and
importance. The great reformer, Melanchthon, in his work on the soul,
divided them into common dreams, void of importance; prophetic dreams,
arising from the individual gifts of the sleeper; divine dreams,
inspired by God either directly or through the agency of angels, and
finally, demoniac dreams, such as the witches' sabbath. One great
difficulty attending all such classification arises, however, from the
well-known fact, already alluded to, that external sensations are by far
the most frequent causes of dreams. Even these have been systematically
arranged by some writers, most successfully, perhaps, in the work of
Maine de Biran, but he overlooks again the numerous cases in which
external noises and similar accidents produce a whole train of thoughts.
Thus Pope dreamed of a Spaniard who impudently entered his library,
ransacked the books on the shelves, and turned a deaf ear to all his
remonstrances. The impression was so forcible that he questioned all his
servants, and investigated the matter thoroughly, till he was finally
forced to acknowledge that the whole transaction was a dream caused by
the fall of a book in his library, which he heard in his sleep. A still
more remarkable case occurred once in a hotel in Dantzic, where not one
person only, but all the guests, without exception, dreamed of the
sudden arrival of a number of travelers, who disturbed the whole house,
and took possession of their rooms with unusual clatter and noise. Not
one had arrived, but during the night a violent storm had arisen,
causing doors to slam and window-shutters to flap against the house,
noises which had aroused in more than fifty people precisely the same
impressions.




IV.

VISIONS.

    Concipiendis visionibus quas phantasias vocant.

    --QUINTILIAN.


Visions, that is, the perception of apparently tangible objects in the
outer world, which only exist in our imagination, have been known from
time immemorial among all nations on earth. They are, in themselves,
perfectly natural, and can frequently be traced back without difficulty
to bodily affections or a disordered state of the mind, so that many
eminent physicians dispose of them curtly as mere incidental symptoms of
congestion or neuralgia. They may present real men and things, known
beforehand, and now reproduced in such a manner as to appear
objectively; or they may be ideal forms, the product of the moment, and
incompatible with the laws of actual life. Persons who have visions and
know nothing of their true nature, are apt to become intensely excited,
as if they had been transferred into another world. The images they
behold seem to them of supernatural origin, and may inspire them with
lofty thoughts and noble impulses, but only too frequently they disturb
their peace of mind and lead them to crime or despair.

When visions extend to other senses besides sight, and the peculiar
state of mind by which they are caused affects different parts of the
body at once, they are called hallucinations; most frequent among insane
people, of whom, according to Esquirol, eighty in a hundred are thus
affected, they are generally quite insignificant; while visions through
the eye, are often accompanied by very remarkable magic phenomena. Thus
the visions which great men like Cromwell and Descartes, Byron or
Goethe, record of their own experience, were evidently signs of the
great energy of their mental life, while in others they are as clearly
symptoms of disease. Ascribed by the ancients to divine influence,
Christianity has invariably denounced them--when not indubitably
inspired by God, as in the case of the martyr Stephen and the apostle
St. John--as works of the Devil. At all times they have been
communicated to others, either by contagion or, in rare cases, by the
imposition of hands, as they have been artificially produced. Thus
extreme bodily fatigue and utter prostration after long illness are apt
to cause hallucinations. Albert Smith, for instance, while ascending
Mont Blanc, and feeling utterly exhausted, saw all his surroundings
clearly with his eyes, and yet, at the same time, beheld marvelous
things with the so-called inner sense. A Swiss who, in 1848, during a
severe cold, crossed from Wallis to Kandersteg by the famous Gemmi Pass,
eight thousand feet high, saw on his way a number of men shoveling the
snow from his path, fellow-travelers climbing up on all sides, and
rolling masses of snow which changed into dogs; he heard the blows of
axes and the laughing and singing of distant shepherds, while his road
was utterly deserted, and not a human soul within many miles. His hands
and feet were found frozen when he arrived at last at his quarters for
the night, and ten days later he died from the effects of his exposure.
During the retreat of the French from Russia the poor sufferers, frozen
and famished, were continually tormented by similar hallucinations,
which increased their sufferings at times to such a degree as to lead
them to commit suicide. Another frequent cause of visions is
long-continued fasting combined with more or less ascetic devotion. This
is said to explain why the prophets of the Old Testament were so
vigorously forbidden to indulge in wine or rich fare. Thus Aaron was
told: "Do not drink wine nor strong drink, thou nor thy sons with thee,
when ye go into the tabernacle" (Levit. x. 9); Moses remained forty
days, and "neither did eat bread nor drink wine," when he was on Mount
Sinai (Deuter. ix. 9); the Nazarites were ordered not to "drink any
liquor of grapes, nor to eat moist grapes or dried," and even to abstain
from vinegar (Numbers vi. 3), and Daniel and his companions had nothing
but "pulse to eat and water to drink" (Dan. i. 12), in order to prepare
them for receiving "wisdom and knowledge and the understanding of dreams
and visions."

Narcotics also, and, in our day, most of the anaesthetics can produce
visions and hallucinations, but the result is in all such cases much
less interesting than when they are produced spontaneously. Tobacco and
opium, betel, hasheesh, and coca are the principal means employed; but
Siberia has besides its narcotic mushrooms, Polynesia its ava, New
Granada and the Himalaya the thorn-apple, Florida its emetic apalachine,
and the northern regions of America and Europe have their ledum. The
most effective among these narcotics seems to be the Indian hemp, since
the visions it produces surpass even the marvelous effects of opium, as
has been recently again most graphically described by Bayard Taylor.
Laughing-gas, also, has frequently similar effects, and affords,
besides, the precious privilege of freedom from the painful, often
excruciating consequences of other narcotics. When perfumes are employed
for the express purpose of producing visions, it is difficult to
ascertain how much is due to their influence, and how much to the
over-excited mind of the seer. Benvenuto Cellini describes--though
probably not in the most trustworthy manner--the amazing effect produced
upon himself and a boy by his side, by the perfumes which a priest burnt
in the Coliseum. The whole vast building seemed to him filled with
demons, and the boy saw thousands of threatening men, four huge giants,
and fire bursting out in countless places. The great artist was told, at
the same time, that a great danger was threatening him, and that he
would surely lose his beloved Angelica within the month; both events
occurred as predicted, and thus proved that in this case at least magic
phenomena had accompanied the visions. (_Goethe, B. Cellini_, l. iv. ch.
2.)

Among other external causes which are apt to produce visions, must be
mentioned violent motions, especially when they are revolving, as is the
case with the Shamans of the Laplanders and the dancing Dervishes of the
East; self-inflicted wounds, such as the priests of Baal caused in order
to excite their power of divination, and long-continued imprisonment, as
illustrated in the well-known cases of Benvenuto Cellini and Silvio
Pellico. The latter was constantly tormented by sighs or suppressed
laughter which he heard in his dungeon; then by invisible hands pulling
at his dress, knocking down his books or trying to put out his light,
till he began seriously to suspect that he might be the victim of
invisible malignant powers. Fortunately all these phenomena disappeared
at break of day, and thus his vigorous mind, supported by true piety,
was enabled to keep his judgment uninjured.

Diseases of every kind are a fruitful source of visions and some are
rarely without them; but the character of visions differs according to
the nature of the affections. Persons who suffer with the liver have
melancholy, consumptive patients have cheerful visions. Epileptics often
see fearful spectres during their paroxysms, and persons bitten by mad
dogs see the animal that has caused their sufferings. The case of the
bookseller Nicolai in Berlin is well known; the disease of which he
suffered, is not only very common in some parts of Russia, but
productive of precisely the same symptoms. The patients experience first
a sensation of great despondency, followed by a period of profound
melancholy, during which they see themselves surrounded by a number of
persons, with whom they converse and quarrel, half conscious of their
own delusion and yet not able to master it wholly. They are generally
bled, whereupon the images become transparent and shrink into smaller
and smaller space, till they finally disappear entirely. Affections of
the heart and the subsequent unequal distribution of the blood through
the system are apt to produce peculiar sounds, which at times fashion
themselves into loud and harmonious pieces. The excitement usually
attendant upon specially fatal plagues and contagious diseases increases
the tendency which the latter naturally have to cause hallucinations.
During a plague in the reign of Justinian, men were seen walking through
the crowd and touching here and there a person; the latter were at once
attacked by the disease and invariably succumbed. Upon another such
occasion marks and spots appeared on the clothing of those who had
caught the contagion, as if made by invisible hands, the sufferers began
next to see a number of spectres and died in a short time. The same
symptoms have accompanied the cholera in modern times, and more than
once strange, utterly unknown persons were not only seen but heard, as
they were conversing with others; what they said was written down in
many cases, and proved to be predictions of approaching visits of the
dread disease to neighboring houses. A magic power of foresight seems in
these cases to be developed by the extreme excitement or deep anxiety,
but the unconscious clairvoyance assumes the form of persons outside of
their own mental sphere, within which they alone existed.

By far the most frequent causes of visions are, however, those of
psychical nature, like fixed ideas, intense passions, or deep-rooted
prejudices, and concealed misdeeds. When they are produced by such
causes they have often the appearance of having led to the commission of
great crimes. Thus Julian the Apostate, who had caused the image of his
guardian angel to be put upon all his coins and banners, naturally had
this form deeply impressed upon his mind. In the night before a decisive
battle, he saw, according to Ammianus Marcellinus, this protecting
genius in the act of turning away from him, and this vision made so deep
an impression upon his mind that he interpreted it as an omen of his
impending death. On the following day he fell in battle. The fearful
penalty inflicted upon Charles IX. by his own conscience is well known;
after the massacre of St. Bartholomew he saw, by day and by night, the
forms of his victims around him, till death made an end to his
sufferings. On our own continent, one of the early conquerors gave a
striking instance of the manner in which such visions are produced. He
was one of the adventurers who had reached Darien, and was on the point
of plundering a temple; but, a few days before, an Indian woman had told
him that the treasures it held were guarded by evil spirits, and if he
entered it the earth would open and swallow up the temple and the
conquerors alike. Nothing daunted, he led his men to the attack; but, as
they came in sight, he suddenly saw, in the evening light, how the
colossal building rocked to and fro as in a tempest, and thoroughly
intimidated he rode away with his followers, leaving the temple and its
treasures unharmed. That visions are apt to precede atrocious crimes is
quite natural, since they are in such cases nothing but the product of
the intense excitement under which murders are often committed; but, it
would be absurd to look upon them as motive causes. Ravaillac had
constant visions of angels, saints, and demons, while preparing his mind
for the assassination of Henry IV., and the young student who attempted
the murder of Napoleon at Schoenbrunn repeatedly saw the genius of
Germany, which appeared to him and encouraged him to free his country
from the usurper. Persons who attempt to summon ghosts are very apt to
see them, because their mind is highly wrought up by their proceedings
and they confidently expect to have visions. But some men possess a
similar power without making any special effort or peculiar
preparations, their firm volition sufficing for the purpose. Thus Talma
could at all times force himself to see, in the place of the actual
audience before whom he was acting, an assembly of skeletons, and he is
said never to have acted better than when he gave himself up to this
hallucination. Painters, also, frequently have the power to summon
before their mind's eye the features of those whose portrait they are
painting; Blake, for instance, was able actually to finish likenesses
from images he saw sitting in the chair where the real persons had been
seated.

While visions are quite common, delusions of the other senses are less
frequent. The insane alone hear strange conversations. Hallucinations of
the taste cause patients to enjoy delightful dishes, or to partake of
spoiled meat and other unpalatable viands, which have no existence.
Sweet smells and incense are often perceived, bad odors much less
frequently. The touch is of all senses the least likely to be deceived;
still deranged people occasionally feel a slight touch as a severe blow,
and persons suffering from certain diseases are convinced that ants,
spiders, or other insects are running over their bodies.

The favorite season of visions is night--mainly the hour about
midnight--and in the whole year, the time of Advent, but also the nights
from Christmas to New Year. This is, of course, not a feature of
supernatural life, but the simple effect of the greater quiet and the
more thoughtful, inward life, which these seasons are apt to bring to
busy men. The reality of our surroundings disappears with the setting
sun, and in deep night we are rendered almost wholly independent of the
influence exercised in the day by friends, family, and even furniture.
All standards of measurement, moreover, disappear, and we lose the
correct estimate of both space and time. Turning our thoughts at such
times with greater energy and perseverance inward, our imagination has
free scope, and countless images appear before our mind's eye which are
not subject to the laws of real life. Darkness, stillness, and solitude,
the three great features of midnight seasons, all favor the full
activity of our fancy, and set criticism at defiance by denying us all
means of comparison with real sounds or sights. At the same time, it is
asserted, that under such circumstances men are also better qualified to
perceive manifestations which, during the _turba_ of daily life, are
carelessly ignored or really imperceptible to the common senses. So long
as the intercourse with the world and its exigencies occupy all our
thoughts, and self-interest makes us look fixedly only at some one great
purpose of life, we are deaf and blind to all that does not clearly
belong to this world. But when these demands are no longer made upon us,
and especially when, as in the time of Advent, our thoughts are somewhat
drawn from earthly natures, and our eyes are lifted heavenward, then we
are enabled to give free scope to our instincts, or, if we prefer the
real name, to the additional sense by which we perceive intangible
things. A comparison has often been drawn between the ability to see
visions and our power to distinguish the stars. In the day, the
brilliancy of the sun so far outshines the latter, that we see not a
single one; at night they step forth, as it were, from the dark, and the
deeper the blackness of the sky, the greater their own brightness. Are
they, on that account, nothing more than creatures of our imagination,
set free by night and darkness?

As for the favorite places where visions most frequently are seen, it
seems that solitudes have already in ancient times always been looked
upon as special resorts for evil spirits. The deserts of Asia, with
their deep gullies and numerous caves, suggested a population of shy and
weird beings, whom few saw and no one knew fully. Hence the fearful
description of Babylon in her overthrow, when "Their houses shall be
full of doleful creatures, and owls shall dwell there and satyrs shall
dance there." (Isaiah xiii. 21). The New Testament speaks in like manner
of the deserts of Palestine as the abode of evil spirits, and in later
days the Faroe Islands were constantly referred to as peopled with weird
and unearthly beings. The deserts of Africa are full of Djinns, and the
vast plains of the East are peopled with weird apparitions. The
solitudes of Norwegian mountain districts abound with gnomes and
sprites, and waste places everywhere are no sooner abandoned by men than
they are occupied by evil spirits and become the scenes of wild and
gruesome visions.

Well-authenticated cases of visions are recorded in unbroken succession
from the times of antiquity to our own day, and leave no doubt on the
mind that they are not only of common occurrence among men, but
generally, also, accompanied by magic phenomena of great importance. The
ancients saw, of course, most frequently their gods; the pagans, who had
been converted to Christianity, their former idols threatening them with
dire punishment; and Christians, their saints and martyrs, their angels
and demons. Thus all parties are supported by authorities in no way
peculiar to one faith or another, but common to all humanity; and the
battle is fought, for a time at least, between faith and faith, and
between vision and vision. A famous rhetor, Aristides, who is mentioned
in history as one of the mightiest champions polytheism ever has been
able to raise against triumphant Christianity, saw, in his hours of
exaltation, the great AEsculapius, who gave him directions how to carry
on his warfare. At such times his public addresses became so attractive
that thousands of enthusiastic hearers assembled to hang upon his lips.
The story of the genius of Socrates is well known; Aulus Gellius tells
us how the great sage was seen standing motionless for twenty-four hours
in the same place, before joining the expedition to Potidea, so absorbed
in deep thought that it seemed as if his soul had left the body. Dion,
Plato's most intimate friend, saw a huge Fury enter his house and sweep
it with a broom; a conspiracy broke out, and he was murdered, after
having lost his only son a few days before. (Plutarch's "Life of Dion,"
55.) The same Simonides, who according to Valerius Maximus (_De
Somniis_, l. i. ch. 5), had escaped from shipwreck by the timely warning
of a spirit, was once dining at the magnificent house of Skopas at
Cranon, in Thessaly, when a servant entered to inform him that two
gigantic youths were standing at the door and wished to see him
immediately. He went out and found no one there; but, at the same
moment, the roof and the walls of the dining-room fell down, burying all
the guests under the ruins (Phaedrus' Fab., iv. 24). The ancients looked
upon the vision, in both cases, as merely effects of the prophetic power
of the poet, which saved him from immediate death; once in the form of a
spirit and the second time in the form of the Dioscuri. For, as
Simonides had shortly before written a beautiful poem in honor of Castor
and Pollux, his escape and the friendly warning were naturally
attributed to the heroic youths, who constantly appear in history as
protective genii. In Greece they were known to have fought, dressed in
their purple cloaks and seated on snow-white horses, on the side of the
Locri, and to have announced their victory on the same day in Olympia,
and Sparta, in Corinth, and in Athens (Justin, ix. 3). In Rome they were
credited with the victory on the banks of Lake Regillus, and reported to
have, as in Greece, dashed into the city, far ahead of all messengers,
to proclaim the joyful news. During the Macedonian war they met Publius
Vatinius on his way to Rome and informed him that, on the preceding day,
AEmilius Paulus had captured Perseus. Delighted with the news, the
prefect hastens to the Senate; but is discredited and actually sent to
jail on the charge of indulging in idle gossip, unworthy of his high
office. It was only when at last messengers came from the distant army
and confirmed the report of Perseus' captivity, that the unlucky prefect
was set free again and honored with high rewards.

In other cases the warning genius was seen in visions of different
nature. Thus Hannibal was reported to have traced in his sleep the whole
course and the success of all his plans, by the aid of his genius, who
appeared to him in the shape of a child of marvelous beauty, sent by the
great Jupiter himself to direct his movements, and to make him master of
Italy. The child asked him to follow without turning to look back, but
Hannibal, yielding to the innate tendency to covet forbidden fruit,
looked behind him and saw an immense serpent overthrowing all
impediments in his way. Then came a violent thunderstorm with fierce
lightnings, which rent the strongest walls. Hannibal asked the meaning
of these portents, and was told that the storm signified the total
subjection of Italy, but that he must be silent and leave the rest to
fate. That the vision was not fully realized, was naturally ascribed to
his indiscretion. The genius of the two Consuls, P. Decius and Manlius
Torquatus, assumed, on the contrary, the shape of a huge phantom which
appeared at night in their camp at the foot of Vesuvius, and announced
the decision that one leader must fall in order to make the army
victorious. Upon the strength of this vision the two generals decided
that he whose troops should first show signs of yielding, should seek
death by advancing alone against the Latin army. The legions of Decius,
therefore, no sooner began to fall back, than he threw himself, sword in
hand, upon the enemy, and not only died a glorious death for his
country, but secured a brilliant victory to his brethren.

At a later period a genius saved the life of Octavian, when he and
Antony were encamped at Philippi, on the eve of the great battle against
Brutus and Cassius. The vision appeared not to himself, however, but to
another person, his own physician, Artorus, who, in a dream, was ordered
to advise his master to appear on the battle-field in spite of his
serious indisposition. Octavian followed the advice and went out, though
he had to be carried by his men in a litter; during his absence the
soldiers of Brutus entered the camp and actually searched his tent, in
which he would have perished inevitably without the timely warning. Of a
very different nature was the vision of Cassius, the lieutenant of
Antony, who, during his flight to Athens, saw at night a huge black
phantom, which informed him that he was his evil spirit. In his terror
he called his servants and inquired what they had seen, but they had
noticed nothing. Thus tranquilized, he fell asleep again, but the
phantom returned once more, and disturbed his mind so painfully that he
remained awake the rest of the night, surrounded by his guards and
slaves. The vision was afterwards interpreted as an omen of his
impending violent death.

The Emperor Trajan was saved from death during a fearful earthquake by a
man of colossal proportions, who came to lead him out of his palace at
Antioch; and Attila, who, to the surprise of the world, spared Rome and
Italy at the request of Pope Leo the Great, mentioned as the true motive
of his action the appearance of a majestic old man in priestly garments,
who had threatened him, drawing his sword, with instant death if he did
not grant all that the Roman high-priest should demand.

In other cases, which are as numerous as they are striking, the genius
assumes the shape of a woman. Thus Dio Cassius ("Hist. Rome," l. lv.),
as well as Suetonius ("Claudius," l. i), relate that when Drusus had
ravaged Germany, and was on the point of crossing the Elbe, the
formidable shape of a gigantic woman appeared to him, who waded up to
the middle of the stream and then called out: "Whither, O Drusus? Canst
thou put no limit to thy thirst of conquest? Back! the end of thy deeds
and of thy life is at hand!" History records that Drusus fell back
without apparent reason, and that he died before he reached the banks of
the Rhine. Tacitus tells us, in like manner, a vision which encouraged
Curtius Rufus at the time when he, a gladiator's son, and holding a most
humble position, was accompanying a quaestor on his way to Africa. As he
walked up and down a passage in deep meditation, a woman of unusual
size appeared to him and said: "Thou, O Rufus, shalt be proconsul of
this province!" The young man, perhaps encouraged and supported by a
vision which was the result of his own ambitious dreams, rose rapidly by
his eminent ability, and after he had reached the consulate, really
obtained the province of Africa (Ann., xi. 21). The younger Pliny, who
tells the same story in his admirable letter to Sura on the subject of
magic, adds that the genius appeared a second time to the great
proconsul, but remained silent. The latter saw in this silence a warning
of approaching death, and prepared for his end, which did not fail soon
to close his career.

It is very striking to see how in these visions also the inner life of
man was invariably clearly and distinctly reflected. The ambitious youth
saw his good fortune personified in the shape of a beautiful woman,
which his excited imagination called Africa, and which he hoped some
time or other to call his own. Brutus, on the contrary, full of
anticipations of evil, and suffering, and perhaps unconsciously, bitter
remorse on account of Caesar's murder, saw his sad fate as a hideous
demon. The army, also, sharing, no doubt, their leader's dark
apprehensions, looked upon the black AEthiopian who entered the camp as
an evil omen. The appointed meeting at Philippi was merely an evidence
of the superior ability of Brutus, who foresaw the probable course of
the war and knew the great strategic importance of the famous town.

In the same manner a tradition was long cherished in Augsburg of a
fanatic heroine on horseback, who appeared to Attila when he attempted
to cross the river Lech on his way from Italy to Pannonia. She called
out to him: "Back!" and made a deep impression upon his mind. The
picture of the giant woman was long preserved in a Minorite convent in
the city, and was evidently German in features and in costume. It is by
no means impossible that the lofty but superstitious mind of the
ruthless conqueror, after having long busied itself with his approaching
attack upon a mighty, unknown nation, personified to himself in a
momentary trance the genius of that race in the shape of a majestic
woman.

This was all the more probable as Holy Writ also presents to us a whole
series of mighty women who exercised at times a lasting influence on the
fate of the chosen people, and the world's history abounds with similar
instances. There was Deborah, "a prophetess who judged Israel at that
time," and went to aid in the defeat of Sisera, and there was Huldah,
the prophetess, who warned Josiah, king of Judah. We have the same grand
images in Greek and in Roman history, and German annals mention more
than one Jettha and Velleda. The series of warnings given by the more
tender-hearted sex runs through the annals of modern races from the
oldest times to our own day. One of the latest instances happened to a
king well known for his sneering skepticism and his utter disbelief of
all higher powers. This was Bernadotte, who forsook his benefactor in
order to mount the throne of Sweden, and turned his own sword against
his former master. Long years after the fall of Napoleon, he was on the
point of sending his son Oscar with an army against Norway, and met with
much opposition in the Council of State. Full of impatience and
indignation, he mounted his horse and rode out to cool his heated mind;
as he approached a dark forest near Stockholm, he saw an old woman
sitting by the wayside, whose quaint costume and wild, disheveled hair
attracted his attention. He asked her roughly what she was doing there?
Her reply was: "If Oscar goes into the war which you propose, he will
not strike but receive the first blow." The king was impressed by the
warning and returned, full of thoughts, to his palace; after a sleepless
night he informed the Council of State that he had changed his views,
and would not send the prince to Norway (_La Presse_, May 4, 1844). Even
if we accept the interview with the woman as a mere vision, the effect
of the king's long and anxious preoccupation with an important plan upon
the success of which the security of his throne and the continuation of
his dynasty might depend, the question still remains, why a man of his
tastes and haughty skepticism should have clothed his doubts in words
uttered by an old woman, dressed in fancy costume?

The number of practical, sensible men who have, even in recent times,
believed themselves under the special care and protection of a genius
or guardian angel, is much larger than is commonly known. The ancients
looked upon a genius as a part of their mythology; and modern
Christians, who cherish this belief, refer to the fact that the Saviour
said of little children: "In heaven their _angels_ do always behold the
face of my Father" (Matt. xviii. 10). These visions--for so they must be
called--vary greatly in different persons. To some men they appear only
when great dangers are threatening or sublime efforts have to be made;
while in others, they assume, by their frequency, a more or less
permanent form, and may even be inherited, becoming tutelary deities of
certain houses, familiar spirits, or specially appointed guardian angels
of the members of a family or single individuals. Hence, the well-known
accounts of the genius of Socrates and the familiar spirits of the
Bible, in ancient times. Hence, also, the almost uninterrupted line of
similar accounts through the Middle Ages down to our own day. Thus,
Campanella stated that whenever he was threatened with misfortune, he
fell into a state half way between waking and sleeping, in which he
heard a voice say: "Campanella! Campanella!" and several other words,
without ever seeing a person. Calignan, Chancelor of Navarre, heard in
Bearn, his name called three times, and then received a warning from the
same voice to leave the town promptly, as the plague was to rage there
fearfully. He obeyed the order, and escaped the ravages of the terrible
disease (Beaumont, "Tractat.," etc., p. 208). The Jesuit Giovanni
Carrera had a protecting genius, whom he frequently consulted in cases
of special difficulty. He became so familiar with him, that he had
himself waked every night for his prayers, but when at times he
hesitated to rise at once, the spirit abandoned him for a time, and
Carrera could only induce him to come back by long-continued praying and
fasting ("Hist. S. J.," iii. p. 177).

The Bernadottes had a tradition that one of their ancestors had married
a fairy, who remained the good genius of the family, and long since had
predicted that one of that blood would mount a throne. The Bernadotte
who became a king never forgot the prophecy, and was largely influenced
by it, when the Swedish nobles offered him the throne. It is well known
that Napoleon himself either believed, or affected to believe, in a good
genius, who guided his steps and protected him from danger. He appeared,
according to his own statements, sometimes in the shape of a ball of
fire, which he called his "star," or as a man dressed in red, who paid
him occasional visits. General Rapp relates that, in the year 1806, he
once found the Emperor in his room, apparently absorbed in such deep
meditation that he did not notice his entrance, but that, when fairly
aroused, he seized Rapp by the arm and asked him if saw that star? When
the latter replied that he saw nothing, Napoleon continued: "It is my
star; it is standing just above you. It has never forsaken me; I see it
on all important occasions; it orders me to go on, and has always been
a token of success." The story, coming from General Rapp himself, is
quoted here as endorsed by the great historian, Amedee Thierry.

Des Mousseaux reports the following facts upon the evidence of
trustworthy personal friends. (_La Magie_, etc., p. 366.) A Mme. N., the
daughter of a general, was constantly visited by her mother, who had
died long ago, and received from her frequent information of secret
things, which procured for herself the reputation of being a prophetess.
At one time her mother's spirit warned her to try and prevent her
husband, who would die by suicide, from carrying out his purpose. Every
precaution was taken, and even the knives and forks were removed after
meals; but it so happened that a soldier of the National Guard came into
the house and left his loaded gun in an anteroom. The lady's husband
unfortunately chanced to see it, took it and blew his brains out on the
spot.

A peculiarly interesting class of visions are those to which great
artists have, at times, owed their greatest triumphs. Here, also, the
line between mere delusion and real magic phenomena is often so faint as
to escape attention. For artists must needs cultivate their imagination
at the expense of other faculties, and naturally live more in an ideal
world than in a real world. Preoccupied as they are, by the nature of
their pursuits, with images of more than earthly beauty, they come
easily to form ideals in their minds, which they endeavor to fix first
upon their memory, and then upon canvas or in marble, on paper or in
rapturous words. Raphael Sanzio had long in vain tried to portray the
Holy Virgin according to a vague ideal in his mind; at last he awoke one
night and saw in the place where his sketch was hanging a bright light,
and in the radiance the Mother of Christ in matchless beauty, and with
supernatural holiness in her features. The vision remained deeply
impressed upon his mind, and was ever after the original of which even
his best Madonnas could only be imperfect copies. Benvenuto Cellini,
when sick unto death, repeatedly saw an old man trying to pull him down
into his boat, but as soon as his faithful servant came and touched him,
the hideous vision disappeared. The artist had evidently a picture of
Charon and his Acherontic boat in his mind, which was thus reproduced in
his feverish dreams. On another occasion, when he had long been in
prison, and in despair contemplated suicide, an "unknown being" suddenly
seized him and hurled him back to a distance of four yards, where he
remained lying for hours half dead. In the following night a "fair
youth" appeared to him and made him bitter reproaches on account of his
sinful purpose. The same youthful genius appeared to him repeatedly when
a great crisis approached in his marvelously adventurous life, and more
than once revealed to him the mysteries of the future. (Goethe's "Benv.
Cell." i. p. 375.) Poor Tasso had fearful hallucinations during the time
when his mind was disordered, but above them all hovered, as it were,
the vision of a glorious Virgin surrounded by a bright light, which
always comforted and probably alone saved him from self-destruction.
Like Raphael, Dannecker also had long tried in vain to find perfect
expression for his ideal of a Christ on the Cross; one night, however,
he also saw the Saviour in a dream, and at once proceeded to form his
model, from which was afterwards copied the well-known statue of
transcendent beauty and power.

Paganini used to tell with an amusing air of assumed awe and reverence,
that his mother had seen, a few days before his birth, an angel with two
wings and of such dazzling splendor that she could not bear to look at
the apparition. The heavenly messenger invited her to express a wish,
and promised that it should be fulfilled. Thereupon she begged him on
her knees to make her Nicolo a great violinist, and was told that it
should be so. The vision--perhaps nothing more than a vivid form of
earnest desire and fervent prayer--had, no doubt, a serious influence on
the great artist, who was himself strangely susceptible to such
impressions. (_Moniteur_, Sept. 30, 1860.)

Nothing can here be said, according to the purpose of these sketches, of
the long series of visions vouchsafed to martyrs and saints; their
history belongs to

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