M. Carre de Montgeron, for the year 1738, and, in contra-

distinction to the other, claimed satirically to be printed in heaven.
Almoganenses : The name given by the Spaniards to certain people who, by the flight and song of birds, meetings with wild animals, and various other means, foretold coming events, whether good or evil. " They carefully preserve among themselves," says Laurent Valla, " books which treat of this science, where they find rules of all sorts of prognostications and predictions. The soothsayers are divided into two classes, one, the masters or principals, the other the disciples and aspirants."
Another kind of knowledge is also attributed to them, that of being able to indicate not only the way taken by horses and other beasts of burden which are lost, but even the road followed by one or more persons. They can specify the kind and shape of the ground, whether the earth is hard or soft, covered with sand or grass, whether it is a broad road, paved or sanded, or narrow, twisting paths, and tell also how many passengers are on the road. They can thus follow the track of anyone, and cause thieves to be pursued and apprehended. Those writers who mention the Almoganenses, however, do not specify either the period when they flourished, or the country or province they occupied, but it seems possible from their name and other considerations that they were Moorish.
Alocer : A powerful demon, according to Wierius, Grand Duke of Hades. He appears in the shape of a knight mounted on an enormous horse. His face has leonine characteristics ; he has a ruddy complexion and burning eyes ; and he speaks with much gravity. He is said to give family happiness to those whom he takes under his protection, and to teach astronomy and liberal arts. Thirty- six legions are controlled by him.
Alomancy : Divination by means of salt, of which process little is known. It is this science which justifies people in
saying that misfortune is about to fall on the household when the salt cellar is overturned.
Alopecy : A species of charm by the aid of which one can fascinate an enemy against whom he has a grudge, and whom he wishes to harm.
Alphabet, Magical : (See Kabala.)
Alphabet of the Magi : (See Tarot.)
Alphitomancy : A method of divination carried out with the help of a loaf of barley, which has been practised since the earliest days. It was used to prove the guilt or innocence of a suspected person. When many persons were accused of a crime, and it was desired to find the true culprit, a loaf of barley was made and a portion given to each of the sus- pected ones. The innocent people suffered no ill-effects, while the criminal betrayed himself by an attack of indiges- tion. This practice gave rise to a popular imprecation : " If I am deceiving you, may this piece of bread choke, me." By means of it a lover might know if his mistress was faithful to him, or a wife, her husband. The procedure was as follows : A quantity of pure barley flour was kneaded with milk and a little salt, and without any leaven. It was then rolled up in greased paper, and cooked among the cinders. It was afterwards taken out and rubbed with verbena leaves, and given to the person suspected of deceit, who, if the suspicion was justified, would be unable to digest it.
There was said to be near Lavinium a sacred wood, where Alphitomancy was practised in order to test the purity of the women. The priests kept a serpent, or, as some say, a dragon, in a cavern in the wood. On certain days of the year the young women were sent thither, blind-folded, and carrying a cake made of barley flour and honey. The devil, we are told, led them by the right road. Those who were innocent had their cakes eaten by the serpent, while the cakes of the others were refused.
Alpiel : An angel or demon, who, according to the Talmud, presides over fruit-trees.
Alraun : Images made of the roots of the ash tree, which are sometimes mistakenly called mandrakes, (q.v.)
Airlines : Female demons or sorceresses, the mothers of the Huns. They took all sorts of shapes, but without changing their sex. The name was given by the Germans to little statues of old sorceresses, about a foot high. To these they attributed great virtues, honouring them as the negroes honour their fetishes ; clothing them richly, housing them comfortably, and serving them with food and drink at every meal. They believed that if these little images were neglected they would cry out, a catastrophe which was to be avoided at all costs, as it brought dire misfortunes upon the household. They may have been mandrakes, and it was claimed for them that they could foretell the future, ans- wering by means of motions of the head, or unintelligible words. They are still consulted in Norway.
Alruy, David : A Jewish magician, mentioned in his Voyages by Benjamin the Jew. Alruy boasted himself a descendant of King David. He was educated in Bagdad, receiving instruction in the magic arts to such good purpose that he came to be more proficient than his masters. His false miracles gained so much popularity for him that some of the Jews believed him to be that prophet who was to restore their nation to Jerusalem. The King of Persia caused him to be cast into prison, but no bolts and bars could hold for long so redoubtable a magician. He escaped from his prison and appeared before the eyes of the aston- ished king, though the courtiers standing round saw noth- ing, and only heard his voice. In vain the king called angrily for someone to arrest the imposter. No one could see him, and while they groped in search of him, like men blind- folded, he slipped from the palace, with the king in pursuit, all the amazed assembly running after their prince. At.
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length they reached the sea shore, and Alruy turned and showed himself to all the people. Then, spreading a scarf on the surface of the water, he walked over it lightly, before the boats which were to pursue him were ready. This adventure confirmed his reputation as the greatest magician who had lived within the memory of man. But at last a Turkish prince, a subject of the Persian king, bribed the father-in-law of the sorcerer to kill him, and one night, when Alruy was sleeping peacefully in his bed, a dagger thrust put an end to his existence.
Althotas : The presumed " master " and companion of Cagliostro. Considerable doubt has been expressed re- garding his existence. Figuier states that he was no imaginary character ; that the Roman Inquisition collected many proofs of his existence, but none as regards his origin or end, as he vanished like a meteor. " But," states the French author, " he was a magician and doctor as well, possessed divinatory abilities of a high order, was in pos- session of several Arabic manuscripts, and had great skill in chemistry." His connection with Cagliostro will be found detailed in the article on that adept. Eliphas Levi states that the name Althotas is composed of the word " thot " with the syllables " al " and " as," which if read cabalistically are sala, meaning messenger or envoy ; the name as a whole therefore signifies " Thot, the Messenger of the Egyptians," and such, says Levi, in effect he was. Althotas has been sometimes identified with Kolmer, the instructor of Weishaupt in magic, and at other times with the Comte de Sainte-Germain (both of whom see). It would indeed, be difficult to say with any definiteness whether or not A Ithotas was merely a figment of Cagliostro's brain. The accounts concerning him are certainly con- flicting, for whereas Cagliostro stated at his trial in Paris that A Ithotas had been his lifelong preceptor, another account says that; he met him first on the quay at Messina, and the likelihood is that his character is purely fictitious, as there does not appear to be any exact evidence that he was ever encountered in the flesh by anyone.
Alu-Demon : This Semitic demon owes his parentage to a human being ; he hides himself in caverns and corners, and slinks through the streets at night. He also lies in wait for the unwary, and at night enters bed-chambers and terrorises folks, threatening to pounce upon them if they shut their eyes.
Amadeus : A visionary who experienced an apocalypse and revelations, in one of which he learned the two psalms composed by Adam, one a mark of joy at the creation of Eve, and the other the dialogue he held with her after they had sinned. Both psalms are printed in Fabricius' Codex Pseudepigraphus Veteris Testamenti.
Amaimon : One of the four spirits who preside over the four parts of the universe. Amaimon, according to the magic- ians, was the governor of the eastern part.
Amandinus : A variously coloured stone, which enables the wearer of it to solve any question concerning dreams or enigmas.
Amaranth : A flower which is one of the symbols of immortal- ity. It has been said by magicians that a crown made with this flower has supernatural properties, and will bring fame and favour to those who wear it.
Ambassadors, Demon : {See Demonology.)
Amduseias : Grand Duke of Hades. He has, according to Wierius (q.v.), the form of a unicorn, but when evoked, appears in human shape. He gives concerts, at the com- mand of men, where one hears the sound of all the musical instruments but can see nothing. It is said that the trees themselves incline to his voice. He commands twenty- nine legions.
America, United States of : Occultism amongst the aborig-" inal tribes of America will be found dealt with under the
article " North-American Indians." The occult history of the European races which occupy the territory now known as the United States of America does not commence until some little time after their entrance into the North Ameri- can continent. It is probable that the early English and Dutch settlers carried with them the germs of the practice of witchcraft, but it is certain that they brought with them an active belief in witchcraft and sorcery. It is significant, however, that no outbreak of fanaticism occurred in connection with this belief until nearly the end of the seventeenth century, in 1692, when an alarm of witchcraft was raised in the family of the Minister of Salem, and several black servants were charged with the supposed crime. It is quite likely that these negroes practised voodoo or obeah (q.v.), but, however this may be, the charges did not stop at them. The alarm spread rapidly, and in a brief space numerous persons fell under suspicion on the most frivolous pretexts. The new Governor of the Colony, Sir William Phipps, appears to have been carried away with the excitement, and authorised judicial prose- cutions. The first person tried, a woman named Bridget Bishop, was hanged, and the Governor feeling himself embarassed among the extraordinary number of charges made after this, called in the assistance of the clergy of Boston. 3k.s events proved, this was a fatal thing to do. Boston, at this time, possessed a distinguished family of puritanical ministers of the name of Mather. The original Mather had settled in Dorchester in 1636, and three years later had a son born to him, whom he called Increase Mather. He became a clergyman, as did his son. Cotton Mather, born in 1663. Increase was President of Harvard College, and his son occupied a distinguished position therein, and also preached at Boston. The fanaticism and diabolical cruelty of these two men has probably never been equalled in the history of human persecution. Relying implicitly upon the scriptural injunction : " Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live," and blinded by their fanatic zeal, they cost the colony many precious lives. Indeed, beside their regime, the rigours of Sprenger (q.v.) and Bodin (q.v.), pale into insignificance. That ministers professing to preach a gospel of charity and love could have so far descended as to torture and condemn thousands of human beings to the gallows and the stake, can only be regarded as astounding. In 1688 an Irish washer woman, named Glover, was em- ployed by a mason of Boston, one Goodwin, to look after his children, and these shortly afterwards displayed symptoms which Cotton Mather, on examination, stated were those of diabolical possession. The wretched washer- woman was brought to trial, found guilty, and hanged ; and Cotton Mather launched into print upon the case under the title of Late Memorable Providences Relating to Witchcraft and Possession which displayed an extraordinary amount of ingenuity and an equally great lack of anything like sound judgment. As was the case with the works of the European writers on witchcraft and sorcery, this book fanned the flame of credulity, and thousands of the ignor- ant throughout the colony began to cast about for similar examples of witchcraft. Five other persons were brought to trial and executed, and a similar number shortly met the same fate, among them a minister of the Gospel, by name George Borroughs, who disbelieved in witchcraft. This was sufficient, and he was executed forthwith. Popular sentiment was on his side, but the fiendish Cotton Mather appeared at the place of execution on horseback, denounced Borroughs as an impostor, and upheld the action of his judges. Another man, called Willard, who had been employed to arrest suspected witches, refused to continue in his office, and was himself arrested. He attempted to save himself by flight, but was pursued and overtaken, and duly executed. Even dogs accused of witchcraft were put
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to death, but the magistrates who had undertaken the proceedings, ignorant as they were, began to have some suspicion that the course they had adopted was a violent and dangerous one, and popular sentiment rose so high that the Governor requested Cotton Mather to write a treatise in defence of what had been done. The result was the famous volume, Wonders of the Invisible World, in which the author gives an account of several of the trials at Salem, compares the doings of witches in New England with those in other parts of the world, and discourses elaborately on witchcraft generally. The witch mania now spread throughout the whole colony. One of the first checks it received was the accusation of the wife of Mr. Hale, a minister. Her husband had been a zealous promotor of the prosecutions, but this accusation altered his views, and he became convinced of the injustice of the whole movement. But certain persons raised the question as to whether the Devil could not assume the shape of an inno- cent and pious person as well as a wicked one for his own purposes, and the assistance of Increase Mather, President of Harvard College, was called in to decide this. He wrote a book, A Further Account of the Trials of the New England Witches, and added many cases concerning witchcraft and evil spirits personating men, in the course of which he un- hesitatingly affirmed that it was possible for the enemy of mankind to assume the guise of a person in whom there was no guile. A new scene of agitation was the town of Andover, where a great many persons were accused of witchcraft and thrown into prison, until a certain justice of the peace, named Bradstreet, who deserves special mention for his enlightened policy, refused to grant any more warrants for arrest. The accusers immediately fastened upon him, and declared that he had killed several people by means of sorcery, and so alarmed was he that he fled from the town. But the fanatics who made it their business to accuse, became bolder, and aimed at persons of rank, until at last they had the audacity to impeach the wife of Governor Phipps himself. This withdrew from them the countenance of the Governor, and a certain Bostonian who was accused, brought an action of damages against his accusers for defamation of character. After this, the whole agitation died down, and scores of persons who had made confessions retracted ; but the Mathers obstinately persisted in the opinions they had published, and regarded the reactionary feeling as a triumph of Satan. A Boston girl, named Margaret Rule, was seized with con- vulsions, and when visited by Cotton Mather, was found by him to be suffering from a diabolical attack of obsession. He did his best to renew the agitation, but to no purpose, for a certain Robert Calif, an influential merchant of the town, also examined the girl, and satisfied himself that the whole thing was a delusion. He penned an account of his examination exposing the theories of the Mathers, which is published under the title of More Wonders of the Invisible World. This book was publicly burned by the partisans of the fanatical clergy, but the eyes of the public were now opened, and opinion generally was steadfastly against the accusation and prosecution of reputed witches. The people of Salem drove from their midst the minister, Paris, with whom the prosecution had begun, and a deep remorse settled down upon the community. Indeed, most of the persons concerned in the judicial proceedings pro- claimed their regret ; the jurors signed a paper stating their repentance and pleading delusion. But even all this failed to convince the Mathers, and Cotton wrote his Magnalia, an ecclesiastical history of New England, pub- lished 1700, which repeats his original view of the power of Satan at Salem, and evinces no regret for the part he had taken in the matter. In 1723, he edited The Remarkables of his father, in which he took occasion to repeat his theories.
Increase Mather died in 1723, at the age of eighty-five, and Cotton lived on to 1728. It has been claimed that they acted according to their lights and conscience, but there is no doubt that their vanity would not permit them to retract what they had once set down regarding witchcraft, and their names will go down to posterity with those of the inquisitors and torturers of the middle ages, as men, who with less excuse than these, tormented and bereft of life hundreds of totally innocent people.
For the history of Spiritualism in America, See Spirit- ualism, where a full summary of the subject will be found.
Apart from the doings at Salem, colonial America has little to offer in the way of occult history ; but the modern United States of America is extremely rich in occult history. This, however, is a history of outstanding individuals — Thomas Lake Harris, Brigham Young, the Foxes, Andrew Jackson Davis, and so on, biographies of whom will be found scattered throughout this work. But that is not to say that various occult movements have not from time to time either originated in, or found a home in the United States. Indeed, the number of occult or semi-occult sects which have originated there, is exceedingly great, and the foundation of occult communities has been frequent. Such were the Mountain Cove community of Harris ; the Society of Hopedale, founded by Ballou ; and so on. The notorious community, or rather nation of Mormons had undoubtedly a semi-occult origin. Its founder, Joseph Smith, and its first great prophet, Brigham Young, both had occult ideas, which rather remind us of those of Blake (q.v.), and were decidedly of biblical origin. Smith pur- ported to discover tablets of brass upon which was en- graved the new law. This was the germ of the Book of Morman the Prophet, and a certain pseudo-mysticism was associated with the Mormon movement. This, however, wore off after a while. More fresh in the recollection are the blasphemous absurdities of the prophet Dowie, who purported to be a prophet of the new Christianity, and succeeded in amassing very considerable wealth. Later, however, he became discredited, and many of his disciples seceded from him. Sects of Adventists have also been fairly numerous. These persons at the call of their leaders have met in cemeteries and elsewhere arrayed in white robes, in the belief that the Last Day had arrived ; but finding themselves duped, they invariably turned upon the charlatans who had aroused these false hopes. There is an instance on record, however, where one such person succeeded in bringing about the repetition of such a scene.
Theosophy, as will be seen in the central article on that subject, owes much to America, for it may be said that in the United States it received an almost novel interpreta- tion at the hands of William Q. Judge, and Katherine B. Tingley, the founder of the theosophic colony at Point Loma, California.
The United States is frequently alluded to as the home and birth-place of " queer " religions par excellance. If Paris be excepted this charge holds good, for nowhere is pseudo-occultism so rife. It would indeed be difficult to account for this state of things. Shrewd as the average American is, there is no question that he is prone to extremes, and the temper of the nation as a whole is not a little hysterical. Such sects are often founded by unscrupulous foreign adventurers, and worshippers of Isis, diabolic societies and such-like abound in the larger cities, and even in some of the lesser communities. But on the other hand many such cults, the names of which for obvious reasons we cannot mention here, are of native Ameiican origin. In course of time these duly invade Europe, with varying fortunes. There exist, how- ever, in America, numbers of cultured persons who make a serious study of the higher branches of mysticism
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and occultism, and who compare favourably in erudition and character with advanced European mystics. It might indeed with truth be said that America has produced the greatest occult leaders of the last quarter of a century.
American Indians. Among the various native races of the American continent, the supernatural has ever flourished as universally as among peoples in an analo- gous condition of civilisation in other parts of the world. They will be treated in the present article accord- ing to their geographical situation. Mexico, Central America and Peru have been noticed in separate articles.
North American Indians. The oldest writers on the North American Indians agree that they practised sorcery and the magic arts, and often attributed this power of the Indians to Satan. The Rev. Peter Jones, writing as late as the first decade of the nineteenth century, says : " I have sometimes been inclined to think that if witchcraft still exists in the world, it is to be found among the abori- gines of America." The early French settlers called the Nipissing Jongleurs because of the surprising expertness in magic of their medicine men. Carver and Fletcher observed the use of hypnotic suggestion among the Menomi- nee and Sioux about the middle of last century, and it is generally admitted that this art, which is known to modern Americanists as orenda, is known among most Indian tribes as Mooney has proved in his Ghost Dance Religion. Brinton, alluding to Indian medicine-men and their connection with the occult arts, says : " They were also adepts in tricks of sleight of hand, and had no mean acquaintance with what is called natural magic. They would allow themselves to be tied hand and foot with knots innumer- able, and at a sign would shake them loose as so many wisps of straw ; they would spit fire and swallow hot coals, pick glowing stones from the flames, walk with naked feet over live ashes, and plunge their arms to the shoulder in kettles of boiling water with apparent impunity.
" Nor was this all. With a skill not inferior to that of the jugglers of India, they could plunge knives into vital parts, vomit blood, or kill one another out and out to all appearances, and yet in a few minutes be as well as ever ; they could set fire to articles of clothing and even houses, and by a touch of their magic restore them instantly as perfect as before. Says Father Bautista : ' They can make a stick look like a serpent, a mat like a centipede, and a piece of stone like a scorpion.' If it were not within our power to see most of these miracles performed any night in our great cities by a well-dressed professional, we should at once deny their possibility. As it is they astonish us but little.
" One of the most peculiar and characteristic exhibitions of their power, was to summon a spirit to answer inquiries concerning the future and the absent. A great similarity marked this proceeding in all northern tribes, from the Eskimos to the Mexicans. A circular or conical lodge of stout poles, four or eight in number, planted firmly in the ground was covered with skins or mats, a small aperture only being left for the seer to enter. Once in, he carefully closed the hole and commenced his incantations. Soon the lodge trembles, the strong poles shake and bend as with the united strength of a dozen men, and strange, un- earthly sounds, now far aloft in the air, now deep in the ground, anon approaching near and nearer, reach the ears of the spectators.
" At length the priest announces that the spirit is present, and is prepared to answer questions. An indispenpalve preliminary to any inquiry is to insert a handful of tobacco, or a string of beads, or some such douceur under the skins, ostensibly for the behoof of the celestial visitor, who would seem not to be above earthly wants and vanities. The replies received, though occasionally singularly clear and
correct, are usually of that profoundly ambiguous purport which leaves the anxious inquirer little wiser than he was before.
" For all this, ventriloquism, trickery, and shrewd knavery are sufficient explanations. Nor does it mater- ially interfere with this view, that converted Indians, on whose veracity we can implicitly rely, have repeatedly averred that in performing this rite they themselves did not move the medicine lodge ; for nothing is easier than in the state of nervous excitement they were then in to be self-deceived, as the now familiar phenomenon of table- turning illustrates.
" But there is something more than these vulgar arts now and then to be perceived. There are statements sup- ported by unquestionable testimony, which ought not to be passed over in silence, and yet I cannot but approach them with hesitation. They are so revolting to the laws of exact science, so alien, I had almost said, to the experience of our lives. Yet is this true, or are such experiences only ignored and put aside without serious consideration ? Are there not in the history of each of us passages which strike our retrospective thought with awe, almost with terror ? Are . there not in nearly every community in- dividuals who possess a mysterious power, concerning whose origin, mode of action, and limits, we and they are alike, in the dark ?
" I refer to such organic forces as are popularly summed up under the words clairvoyance, mesmerism, rhabdom- ancy, animal magnetism, physical spiritualism. Civilised thousands stake their faith and hope here and hereafter, on the truth of these manifestations ; rational medicine recognises their existence, and while she attributes them to morbid and exceptional influences, confesses her want of more exact knowledge, and refrains from barren theoris- ing. Let us follow her example, and hold it enough to show that such powers, whatever they are, were known to the native priesthood as well as the modern spiritualists and the miracle mongers of the Middle Ages.
" Their highest development is what our ancestors called ' second sight.' That under certain conditions knowledge can pass from one mind to another otherwise than through the ordinary channels of the senses, is shown by the examples of persons en rapport. The limit to this we do not know, but it is not unlikely that clairvoyance or second sight is based upon it."
In his autobiography, the celebrated Sac chief, Black Hawk, relates that his great grandfather " was inspired by a belief that at the end of four years he should see a white man, who would be to him a father." Under the direction of this vision he travelled eastward to a certain spot, and there, as he was forewarned, met a Frenchman, through whom the nation was brought into alliance with France.
No one at all versed in the Indian character will doubt the implicit faith with which this legend was told and heard. But we may be pardoned our scepticism, seeing there are so many chances of error. It is not so with an anecdote related by Captain Jonathan Carver, a cool- headed English trader, whose little book of travels is an unquestioned authority. In 1767 he was among the Killistenoes at a time when they were in great straits for food, and depending upon the arrival of the traders to rescue them from starvation. They persuaded the chief priest to consult the divinities as to when the relief would arrive. After the usual preliminaries, their magnate announced that the next day precisely, when the sun reached the zenith, a canoe would arrive with further tidings. At the appointed hour, the whole vilage, to- gether with the incredulous Englishman, was on the beach, and sure enough, at the minute specified, a canoe swung
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round a distant point of land, and rapidly approaching the shore, brought the expected news. Charlevoix is nearly as trustworthy a writer as Carver. Yet he de- liberately relates an equally singular instance.
But these examples are surpassed by one described in the Atlantic Monthly, of July, 1866, the author of which, the late Col. John Mason Brown, has testified to its accuracy in every particular. Some years since at the head of a party of voyageurs, he set forth in search of a band of Indians somewhere on the vast plains along the tributaries of the Copper-mine and Mackenzie rivers. Danger, disappointment, and the fatigues of the road, induced one after another to turn back, until of the original ten only three remained. They also were on the point of giving up the apparently hopeless quest, when they were met by some warriors of the very band they were seeking. These had been sent out by one of their medicine men to find three whites, whose horses, arms, attire, and personal appearance he minutely described, which description was repeated to Col. Brown by the warriors before they saw his two companions. When afterwards, the priest, a frank and simple-minded man, was asked to explain this extra- ordinary occurrence, he could offer no other explanation than that " he saw them coming, and heard them talk on their journey."
Many tales such as these have been recorded by travellers, and however much they may shock our sense of probability, as well-authenticated exhibitions of a power which sways the Indian mind, and which has ever prejudiced it so un- changeably against Christianity and civilisation, they can- not be disregarded. Whether they too are but specimens of refined knavery, whether they are instigations of the devil, or whether they must be classed with other facts as illustrating certain obscure and curious mental faculties, each may decide as the bent of his mind inclines him, for science makes no decision.
Those nervous conditions associated with the name of Mesmer were nothing new to the Indian magicians. Rub- bing and stroking the sick, and the laying on of hands, were very common parts of their clinical procedures, and at the initiations to their societies they were frequently exhibited. Observers have related that among the Nez Perces of Oregon, the novice was put to sleep by songs, incantations, and " certain passes of the hand," and that with the Dakotas he would be struck lightly on the breast at a pre- concerted moment, and instantly " would drop prostrate on his face, his muscles rigid and quivering in every fibre."
There is no occasion to suppose deceit in this. It finds its parallel in every race and every age, and rests on a characteristic trait of certain epochs and certain men, which leads them to seek the divine, not in thoughtful con- templation on the laws of the universe and the facts of self-consciousness, but in an entire immolation of the latter, a sinking of their own individuality in that of the spirits whose alliance they seek.
The late Washington Mathews, writing in Bulletin 30 of the Bureau of American Ethnology, says :
" Sleight-of-hand was not only much employed in the treatment of disease, but was used on many other occasions. A very common trick among Indian charlatans was to pretend to suck foreign bodies, such as stones, out of the persons of their patients. Records of this are found among many tribes, from the lowest in culture to the highest, even among the Aztecs. Of course, such trickery was not with- out some therapeutic efficacy, for, like many other pro- ceedings of the shamans, it was designed to cure disease by influence on the imagination. A Hidatsa, residing in Dakota, in 1865, was known by the name of Cherry-in-the- mouth, because he had a trick of producing from his mouth, at any season, what seemed to be fresh wild cherries. He .
had found some way of preserving cherries, perhaps in whisky, and it was easy for him to hide them in his mouth before intending to play the trick ; but many of the In- dians considered it wonderful magic.
" The most astonishing tricks of the Indians were dis- played in their fire ceremonies and in handling hot sub- stances, accounts of which performances pertain to various tribes. It is said that Chippewa sorcerers could handle with impunity red-hot stones and burning brands, and could bathe the hands in boiling water or syrup ; such magicians were called ' fire-dealers ' and ' fire-handlers.' There are authentic accounts from various parts of the world of fire-dancers and fire-walks among barbarous races, and extraordinary fire acts are performed also among widely separated Indian tribes. Among the Arikara of what is now North Dakota, in the autumn of 1865, when a large fire in the centre of the medicine lodge had died down until it became a bed of glowing embers, and the light in the lodge was dim, the performers ran with apparently bare feet among the hot coals and threw these around in the lodge with their bare hands, causing the spectators to flee. Among the Nahavo, performers, naked except for breech- cloth and moccasins, and having their bodies daubed with a white infusorial clay, run at high speed around a fire, hold- ing in their hands great faggots of flaming cedar bark, which they apply to the bare backs of those in front of them and to their own persons. Their wild race around the fire is continued until the faggots are nearly all consumed, but they are never inj ured by the flame. This immunity may be ac- counted for by supposing that the cedar bark does not make a very hot fire, and that the clay coating protects the body. Menominee shamans are said to handle fire, as also are the female sorcerers of Honduras.
" Indians know well how to handle venomous serpents with impunity. If they can not avoid being bitten, as they usually can, they seem to be able to avert the fatal consequences of the bite. The wonderful acts performed in the Snake Dance of the Hopi have often been described.
" A trick of Navaho dancers, in the ceremony of the mountain chant, is to pretend to thrust an arrow far down the throat. In this feat an arrow with a telescopic shaft is used ; the point is held between the teeth ; the hollow part of the handle, covered with plumes, is forced down toward the lips, and thus the arrow appears to be swallowed. There is an account of an arrow of similar construction used early in the eighteenth century by Indians of Canada, who pretended a man was wounded by it and healed in- stantly. The Navaho also pretend to swallow sticks, which their neighbours of the peublo of Zufii actually do in sacred rites, occasionally rupturing the oesophagus in the ordeal of forcing a stick into the stomach. Special societies which practise magic, having for their chief object rain- making and the cure of disease, exist among the south- western tribes. Swallowing sticks, arrows, etc., eating and walking on fire, and trampling on cactus, are per- formed by members of the same fraternity.
" Magicians are usually men ; but among the aborigines of the Mosquito Coast in Central America, they are often women who are called sukias, and are said to exercise great power. According to Hewitt, Iroquois women are reported traditionally to have been magicians.
" A trick of the juggler among many tribes of the North was to cause himself to be bound hand and foot and then, without visible assistance or effort on his part to release himself from the bonds. Civilised conjurers who perform a similar trick are hidden in a cabinet, and claim super- natural aid ; but some Indian jugglers performed this feat under observation. It was common for Indian magic- ians to pretend they could bring rain, but the trick con- sisted simply of keeping up ceremonies until rain fell, the
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America
last ceremony being the one credited with success. Catlin describes this among the Mandan, in 1832, and the practice is still common among the Pueblo tribes of the arid region. The rain-maker was a special functionary among the Menominee.
" To cause a large plant to grow to maturity in a few moments and out of season is another Indian trick. The Navaho plant the root stalk of a yucca in the ground in the middle of the winter, and apparently cause it to grow, blossom, and bear fruit in a few moments. This is done by the use of artificial flowers and fruit carried under the blankets of the performers ; the dimness of the firelight and the motion of the surrounding dancers hide from the spectators the operations of the shaman when he exchanges one artificial object for another. In this way the Hopi grow beans, and the Zufii corn, the latter using a large cooking pot to cover the growing plant."
South American Indians. Throughout South America the magician caste analogous to the medicine men or shamans of North America are known as piajes or piaes. Of those of British Guiana, Brett writes :
" They are each furnished with a large gourd or calabash, which has been emptied of its seeds and spongy contents, and has a round stick run through the middle of it by means of two holes. The ends of this stick project — one forms the handle of the instrument, and the other has a long string to which beautiful feathers are attached, wound round it in spiral circles. Within the calabash are a few small white stones, which rattle when it is shaken or turned round. The calabash itself is usually painted red. It is regarded with great awe by the heathen Indians, who fear to touch it, or even to approach the place where it is kept.
" When attacked by sickness, the Indians cause them- selves to be conveyed to some friendly sorcerer, to whom a present of more or less value must be made. Death is sometimes occasioned by those removals, cold being taken from wet or the damp of the river. If the patient cannot be removed, the sorcerer is sent for to visit him. The females are all sent away from the place, and the men must keep at a respectful distance, as he does not like his pro- ceedings to be closely inspected. He then commences his exorcisms, turning, and shaking his marakka, or rattle and chanting an address to the yauhahu. This is con- tinued for hours, until about midnight the spirit is sup- posed to be present, and a conversation to take place, which is unintelligible to the Indians, who may overhear it. These ceremonies are kept up for successive nights.
"If the patient be strong enough to endure the disease, the excitement, the noise, and the fumes of tobacco in which he is at times enveloped, and the sorcerer observe signs of recovery he will pretend to extract the cause of the complaint by sucking the part affected. After many ceremonies he will produce from his mouth some strange substance, such as a thorn or gravel-stone, a fish-bone or bird's claw, a snake's tooth, or a piece of wire, which some malicious yauhahu is supposed to have inserted in the affected part. As soon as the patient fancies himself rid of this cause of his illness his recovery is generally rapid, and the fame of the sorcerer greatly increased. Should death, however, ensue, the blame is laid upon the evil spirit, whose power and malignity have prevailed over the counteracting charms. Some rival sorcerer will at times come in for a share of the blame, whom the sufferer has unhappily made his enemy, and who is supposed to have employed the yauhahu in destroying him. The sorcerers being supposed to have the power of causing, as well as of curing diseases, are much dreaded by the common people, who never wilfully offend them. So deeply rooted in the Indian's bosom is this belief concerning the origin of
diseases, that they have little idea of sickness arising from other causes. Death may arise from a wound or a con- tusion, or be brought on by want of food, but in other cases it is the work of the yauhahu.
" I once came upon a Warau practising his art upon a woman inflicted with a severe internal complaint. He was, when I first saw him, blowing violently into his hands and rubbing them upon the affected part. He very candidly acknowledged his imposture when I taxed him with it, put up his implements, and went away. The fate of the poor woman, as it was relate.l to me some time after- wards, was very sad. Though a Venezuelan half-breed, and of the Church of Rome, she was wedded to the Indian superstitions, and after trying the most noted sorcerers without relief, she inflicted on herself a mortal wound with a razor in the vain attempt to cut out the imaginary cause of her internal pain.
" Some have imagined that those men have faith in the power of their own incantations fn>m their performing them over their own children, and even causing them to be acted over themselves when sick. This practice it is indeed difficult to account for. The juggling part of their busi- ness is such a gross imposture as could only succeed with a very ignorant and credulous people ; but it is perhaps in their case, as in some others, difficult to tell the precise point where credulity ends and imposture begins. It is certain that they are excited during their incantations in a most extraordinary way, and • positively affirm • that they hold intercourse with spirits ; nor will they allow them- selves to be laughed out of the assertion however ridiculous it may appear to us.
" The Waraus, in many points the most degraded of the tribes, are the most renowned as sorcerers. The huts which they set apart for the performance of their super- stitious rites are regarded with great veneration.
" Mr. Nowers, on visiting a Warau settlement, entered one of those huts, not being aware of the offence he was committing, and found it perfectly empty, with the excep- tion of the gourd, or mataro, as it is called by the tribe. There was, in the centre of the hut, a small raised place about eighteen inches high, on which the fire had been made for burning tobacco. The sorcerer being asked to give up the gourd, peremptorily refused, saying that if he did so his ' two children would die the same night.' "
Keller, in his Amazon and Madeira Rivers, says : " As with the shamans of the North Asiatic nations, the influence a Paje may secure over his tribe depends entirely on the success of his cures and his more or less imposing personal qualities. Woe to him if by some unlucky ministration or fatal advice he forfeits his prestige. The hate of the whole tribe turns against him, as if to indemnify them for the fear and awe felt by them until then ; and often he pays for his envied position with his life.
" And an influential and powerful position it is. His advice is first heard in war and peace. He has to mark the boundaries of the hunting-grounds ; and, when quarrels arise, he has to decide in concert with the chieftain, some- times even against the latter's wishes. By a majestically distant demeanour, and by the affectation of severe fasting and of nightly meetings with the spirits of another world, these augurs have succeeded in giving such an appearance of holiness to the whole caste, that their influence is a mighty one to the present day, even with" the Indians of the Aldeamentos, where contact with the white race is sure by-and-by to produce a certain degree of scepticism.
" When I was at the Aldeamento of San Ignacio, on the Paranapanema, Cuyaba, chieftain and Paje of an indepen- dent horde of Cayowa Indians made his appearance, and I had the honour of being introduced to this magnificent sample of a conjurer. He was a man of about fifty, with
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Amethyst
large well-cut features, framed within a dense, streaming mane of long black hair. The long xerimbita on his under lip (a long, thin, cylinder of a resin resembling amber), a great number of black and white beads covering his chest in regular rows like a cuirass, and a broad girdle holding his cherapi (sort of apron), which was fringed all round with rich, woven ornaments, gave him quite a stately, majestic appearance."
Their magicians were called by the Chilians gligua or dugol, and were subdivided into guenguenu, genpugnu and genplru, meaning respectively " masters of the heavens," " of epidemics," and " of insects or worms." There was also a sect called calcu, or " sorcerers," who dwelt in caves, and who were served by ivunches, or " man-animals," to whom they taught their terrible arts. The Araucanians believed that these ' wizards had the power to transform themselves at night into nocturnal birds, to fly through the air, and to shoot invisible arrows at their enemies, besides indulging in the malicious mischief with which folklore credits the wizards of all countries. Their priests proper they believed to possess numerous familiars who were attached to them after death — the belief of the " magicians " of the Middle Ages. These priests or diviners were celibate, and led an existence apart from the tribe, in some communities being garbed as women. Many tales are told of their magical prowess, which lead us to believe that they were either natural epileptics or ecstatics, or that disturbing mental influences were brought about in their case by the aid of drugs. The Araucanians also held that to mention their real personal names gave magic power over them, which might be turned to evil ends. Regarding the wizards of the inhabitants of the territory around the River Chaco, in Paraguay, Mr. Barbrooke- Grubb in his book, An Unknown People in an Unknown Land, says :
" The training necessary to qualify an Indian to become a witch-doctor consists, in the first place, in severe fastings, and especially in abstention from fluid. They carry this fasting to such an excess as to affect the nervous system and brain. Certain herbs are eaten to hasten this stage. They pass days in solitude, and, when thoroughly worked up to an hysterical condition, they see spirits and ghosts, and have strange visions. It is necessary, furthermore, that they should eat a few live toads and some kinds of snakes. Certain little birds are plucked alive and then devoured, their power of whistling being supposed to be thus communicated to the witch-doctor. There are other features in the preliminary training which need not be mentioned, and when the initiatory stage has been satis- factorily passed, they are instructed in the mysteries under pledge of secrecy. After that their future depends upon themselves.
" It is unquestionable that a few of these wizards under- stand to a slight degree the power of hypnotism. They appear at times to throw themselves into a hypnotic state by sitting in a strained position for hours, fixing their gaze upon some distant object. In this condition they are believed to be able to throw their souls out — that is, in order to make them wander. It seems that occasionally, when in this state, they see visions which are quite the •opposite of those they had desired. At other times they content themselves with concentrating their attention for a while upon one of their charms, and I have no doubt that occasionally they are sincere in desiring to solve some perplexing problems.
" One of the chief duties of the wizard is to arrange the weather to suit his clansmen. . If they want rain it is to him they apply. His sorceries are of such a kind that they may be extended over a long period. He is never lacking in excuses, and so, while apparently busy in combating the
opposing forces which are hindering the rain, he gains time to study weather signs. He will never or rarely venture an opinion as to the expected change until he is nearly certain of a satisfactory result. Any other Indian could foretell rain were he to observe signs as closely as does the wizard. The killing of a certain kind of duck, and the sprinkling of its blood upwards, is his chief charm. When he is able to procure this bird he is sure that rain cannot be far off, because these ducks do not migrate southwards until they know that there is going to be water in the swamps. These swamps are filled by the overflowing of the rivers as much as by the local rainfalls, and the presence of water in the rivers and swamps soon attracts rain-clouds.
" The wizards also observe plants and animals, study the sky and take note of other phenomena, and by these means can arrive at fairly safe conclusions. They are supposed to be able to foretell events, and to a certain extent they succeed so far as these events concern local interests. By judicious questioning and observation, the astute wizard is able to judge with some amount of exacti- tude how certain matters are likely to turn out.
" After we had introduced bullock-carts into their country, the people were naturally interested in the return of the carts from their periodical journeys to the river. When the wizards had calculated carefully the watering- places, and had taken into consideration the state of the roads, the character of the drivers, and the condition and number of the bullocks, all that they then required to know was the weight of the loads and the day on which it was expected that the carts would leave the river on their return journey. The last two items they had to obtain from us. When they had these data, by a simple calcula- tion they could make a very shrewd guess, not only at the time when they might be expected to arrive at the village, but also at what particular part of the road they might happen to be on any given day. A great impression was made upon the simple people by this exhibition of power, but when we discovered what they were doing, we with- held the information, or only gave them part, with the result that their prophecies either failed ignominiously or proved very erroneous. Their reputation accordingly - began to wane.
" The wizards appear to be authorities on agricultural matters, and when application to the garden spirit has failed, the witch-doctor is called in. He examines the crop, and if he thinks it is likely to be a poor one, he says it is being blighted by an evil spirit,,-but that he will use what sorceries he can to preserve it. If, on the other hand, he has reason to believe that the crop will be a good one, he spits upon it here and there, and then assures the people that now they may expect a good harvest.
" Some of the chief duties of the witch-doctor consist in laying ghosts, driving off spirits, exorcising kilyikhama in cases of possession assisting wandering souls back to their bodies, and generally in the recognising of spirits. When a ghost is supposed to haunt a village, the wizard and his assistants have sometimes an hour's arduous chanting, in order to induce the restless one to leave. When he con- siders that he has accomplished this, he assures the people that it is done, and this quiets their fears. Evil spirits frequenting a neighbourhood have also to be driven off by somewhat similar chanting." Amethyst : " This gem," says Camillus Leonardus, " is reckoned among the purple and transparent stones, mixed with a violet colour, emitting rosy sparkles." The Indian variety is the most precious. When made into drinking cups or bound on the navel, it prevented drunkenness. It is also held to sharpen the wit, turn away evil thoughts, and give a knowledge of the future in dreams. Drunk in a potion, it was thought to expel poison and render the
Amiante
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Anamelech
barren fruitful. It was frequently engraved with the head of Bacchus, and was a favourite with the Roman ladies.
Amiante : A species of fire-proof stone, which Pliny and the demonologists recommended as an excellent specific against the charms of magic.
Amniomancy : Divination by means of the caul, or mem- brane which sometimes envelopes the head of a child at birth. From an inspection of this caul, the wise women predict the sort of future the baby will have. If it be red, happy days are in store for the child, or if lead-coloured, he will have misfortunes.
Anion: A great and powerful marquis of the infernal empire. He is represented as a wolf with a serpent's tail, vomiting flame. When he appears in human form, his head re- sembles that of a large owl with canine teeth. He is the strongest of the princes of the demons, knows the past and the future, and can reconcile, when he will, friends who have quarelled. He commands forty legions.
Amoymon : One of the four kings of Hades, of which the eastern part falls to his share. He may be invoked in the morning from nine o'clock till midday, and in the evening from three o'clock till six. He has been identified with Amaimon (q.v.) Asmodeus (q.v.) is his lieutenant, and the first prince of his dominions.
Amphiaraus : A famous soothsayer of ancient times, who hid himself so that he might hot have to go to the war of Thebes, because he had foreseen that he should die there. This, indeed happened, but he came to life again. A temple was raised to him in Attica, near a sacred fountain by which he had left Hades. He healed the sick by showing them in a dream the remedies they must use. He also founded many oracles. After sacrifice, those who consulted the oracle slept under a sheep skin, and dreamed a dream which usually found plenty of interpreters after the event. Am- phiaraus himself was an adept in the art of explaining dreams. Some prophecies in verse, which are no longer extant, are attributed to him.
Amulets : The charm, amulet, or mascot, is, of course, directly derived from the conception of the fetish (q.v.), which was believed by savage and semi-barbarous people to contain a spirit. Amulets may be said to be of two classes : those which are worn as (i) fetishes, that is the dwelling-place of spiritual entities, who are active on behalf of the wearer ; or (2), mascots to ward off bad luck or such influences as the evil eye.
That charms were worn by prehistoric man there is little room for doubt, as objects which in many cases partake of the appearance and general description of amulets are discovered in neolithic tombs. The ancient Egyptians possessed a bewildering variety of amulets, which were worn both by the living and the dead. Indeed, among the latter, every part of the body had an amulet sacred to itself. These were, as a rule, evolved from various organs of the gods : as, for example, the eye of Isis, the backbone of Osiris, and so forth. Among the savage and semi-civilised peoples, the amulet usually takes the form of a necklace, bracelets, or anklets, and where belief in witchcraft and the evil eye is strong, the faith in these, and in charms, is always most intense. Among civilised races it has been observed that it is usually the ignorant classes who adopt the use of amulets : such as sailors, miners, beggars, Gypsies, and criminals. But amulets are also to be found in use among educated persons, although, of course, the superstitious part of the practice has in these cases often disappeared. Universally speaking, stones, teeth, claws, shells, coral and symbolic emblems, are favoured amulets. The reason for the wearing of these is exceedingly difficult to arrive at, but a kind of doctrine of correspondences may be at the root of the belief — the idea that like produces like, or that an effect resembles its
cause, or that things which have once been in contact but have ceased to be so, continue to act on each other by magical means. For example, the desert goat is a sure- footed animal ; accordingly, its tongue is carried as a powerful amulet against falling by certain Malay tribes. Beads resembling teeth are often hung round the necks of Kaffir children in Africa to assist them in teething, and the incisor teeth of the beaver are frequently placed round the necks of little American-Indian girls to render them in- dustrious, like that animal. Again, certain plants and minerals indicate by their external character the diseases for which nature intended them as remedies. Thus the euphrasia, or eyebright, was supposed to be good for the eyes because it contains a black pupil-like spot ; and the blood-stone was employed for stopping the flow of blood from a wound.
It is strange that wherever prehistoric implements, such as arrowheads and celts, are discovered, they are thought by the peasantry of the locality in which they are found to be of great virtue as amulets. Some light is cast on this custom by the fact that stone arrowheads were certainly in use among mediaeval British witches. But in most countries they are thought to descend from the sky, and are therefore kept to preserve people and cattle from lightning. This does not, how- ever, explain away the reason why water poured over a prehistoric arrowhead is given to cure cows in Ire- land. Certain roots, which have the shape of snakes, are kept by the Malays to ensure them against snake-bite ; and instances of this description of correspondence, known as the doctrine of signatures, could be multiplied ad in- finitum. Among the Celts a great many kinds of amulets Were used : such as the symbolic wheel of the sun god, found so numerously in France and Great Britain ; pebbles, amulets of the teeth of the wild boar, and pieces of amber. The well-known serpent's egg of the Druids was also in all probability an amulet of the priestly class. Indian amulets are numerous, and in Buddhist countries their use is uni- versal, especially where that religion has become degraded, or has in any way degenerated. In Northern Buddhist countries almost everyone constantly wears an amulet round the neck. These generally represent the leaf of the sacred fig-tree, and are made in the form of a box which contains a scrap of sacred writing, prayer, or a little picture. Women of position in Tibet wear a chatelaine containing a charm or charms, and the universal amulet of the Buddhist priests in that country is the thunderbolt, supposed to have fallen direct from Indra's heaven. This is usually imitated in bronze or other metal, and is used for exorcising evil spirits. Amulet types are for the most part very ancient, and present much the same characteristics in all parts of the world.
Amy : Grand President of Hades, and one of the princes of the infernal monarchy. He appears there enveloped with flame, but on earth, in human form. He teaches the secrets of astrology and of the Lberal arts, and gives faith- ful servants. He reveals to those who possess his favour, the hiding-place of treasures guarded by demons. Thirty- six of the infernal legions are under his command. The fallen angels acknowledge his orders, and he hopes that at the end of 200,000 years, he shall return to heaven to occupy the seventh throne.
Anachitis : Used in divination to call up spirits from water ; another stone, called synochitis, obliged them to remain while they were interrogated.
Anamelech: An obscure demon, bearer of ill hews. He was worshipped at Sepharvaun, a town of the Assyrians. He always reveals himself in the figure of a quail. His name, we are told, signifies a "good king," and some authorities de- clare that this demon is the moon, as Andramelechisthesun.
Anancithidus
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Angels
Anancithidus : Leonardus describes this as " a necromantic stone, whose virtue is to call up evil spirits and ghosts."
Anania, or Agnany (Jean d') : A lawyer of the fifteenth cen- tury, who wrote four books, entitled, Be Natura Bcemo- num, (On the Nature of Demons), and a treatise on Magic and Witchcraft, neither of which works are well known. He died in Italy in 1458.
Ananisapta : A Kabbalistic word made up from the initial letters of the prayer : Antidotum Nazareni Auferat Necene Intoxicationis ; Sanctificet Alimenta, Poculaque Trinitas Alma. When written on virgin parchment, it is a powerful talisman to protect against disease.
Anarazel : One of the demons charged with the guardianship of subterranean treasure, which he carries about from one place to another, to hide them from men. It is he who, with his companions Gaziel and Fecor, shakes the founda- tions of houses, raises the tempests, rings the bells at mid- night, causes spectres to appear, and inspires a thousand terrors.
Anathema : The name was given by the ancients to certain classes of votive offerings, to the nets that the fisherman lays on the altar of the sea-nymphs, to the mirror that Lais consecrated to Venus ; to offerings of vessels, gar- ments, instruments, and various other" articles. The word was also applied to the victim devoted to the infernal gods, and it is in this sense that it is found among Jews and Christians, referring either to the curse or its object. The man who is anathematized is denied communication with the faithful, and delivered to the demon if he dies without absolution. The Church has often lavished anathemas upon its enemies, though St. John Chrysostom has said that it is well to anathematize false doctrine, but that men who have strayed should be pardoned and prayed for. Formerly, magicians and sorcerers employed a sort of anathema to discover thieves and witches. Some limpid water was brought, and in it were boiled as many pebbles as there were persons suspected. The pebbles were then buried under the door-step over which the thief or the sorcerer was to pass, and a plate of tin attached to it, on which was written the words : " Christ is conqueror ; Christ is king ; Christ is master." Every pebble must bear the name of one of the suspected persons. The stones are removed at sunrise, and that representing the guilty person is hot and glowing. But, as the devil is malicious, that is not enough. The seven penitential psalms must then be recited, with the Litanies of the Saints, and the prayers of exorcism pronounced against the thief or the sorcerer. His name must be written in a circular figure, and a triangular brass nail driven in above it with a hammer, the handle of which is of cypress wood, the exorcist saying meanwhile : " Thou art just, Lord, and just are Thy judg- ments." At this, the thief would betray himself by a loud cry. If the anathema has been pronounced by a sorcerer, and one wishes merely to escape the effects of it and cause it to return to him who has cast it, one must take, on Saturday, before sunrise, the branch of a hazel tree of one year, and recite the following prayer : "I cut thee, branch of this year, in the name of him whom I wish to wound as I wound thee." The branch is then laid on the table and other prayers said, ending with " Holy Trinity, punish him who has done this evil, and take him from among us by Thy great justice, that the sorcerer or sorceress may be anathema, and we safe." Harrison Ainsworth's famous novel, The Lancashire Witches, deals with the subject and the Pendleton locality.
Ancient War of the Knights, Commentary on the : {See Alchemy.)
Andre, Franeolse : (See France.)
Andrews, Mrs. : (See Materialisation.)
Androdamas : Androdamas resembles the diamond, and is said
to be found in the sands of the Red Sea, in squares or dies. Its name denotes the virtue belonging to it, namely, to restrain anger, mitigate lunacy, and lessen the gravity of the body.
Android : A man made by other means than the natural mode of reproduction. The automaton attributed to Albertus Magnus, which St. Thomas destroyed with his stick because its answers to his questions puzzled him, was such an android. Some have attempted to humanize a root called the mandrake, which bears a fantastic resem- blance to a human being. (See Mandragora.)
Angekok, Eskimo Shamans : (See Eskimos.)
Angelic Brethren : (See Visions.)
Angels : The word angel, " angelos " in Greek, " malak " in Hebrew, literally signifies a " person sent " or a " mes- senger." It is a name, not of nature but of office, and is applied also to men in the world, as ambassadors or repre- sentatives. In a lower sense, angel denotes a spiritual being employed in occasional offices ; and lastly, men in office as priests or bishops. The " angel of the congrega-' tion," among the Jews, was the chief of the synagogue. Such is the scriptural usage of a term, which, in common parlance, is now limited to its principal meaning, and denotes only the inhabitants of heaven.
The apostle of the Gentiles speaks of the angels as " minis- tering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation," in strict keeping with the import of the term itself. In Mark i., 2, it is applied to John the Baptist : " Behold I send my messenger (' angel ') before my face," and the word is the same (" malak ") in the corresponding prophecy of Malachi. In Hebrews xii., 22, 24, we read : " Ye have come to an innumerable company of angels, to the spirits of the just," etc., and this idea of their great number is sustained by the words of our Lord himself, where, for example, he declares that " twelve legions " of them were ready upon His demand. In the Revelation of St. John, a vast idea of their number is given. They are called the " armies " of heaven. Their song of praise is described as " the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings." In fine, the sense of number is over- whelmed in the effort to compute them.
As to their nature, it is essentially the same as that of man, for not only are understanding and will attributed to them, but they have been mistaken for men when they appeared, and Paul represents them as capable of disobe- dience (Heb. ii., 7, 16.) The latter possibility is exhibited in its greatest extent by Jude, who speaks of the " angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habita- tion," and upon this belief is founded the whole system of tradition concerning angels and demons. The former term was gradually limited to mean only the obedient ministers of the will of the Almighty, and the influence of evil angels was concentrated into the office of the great adversary of all good, the devil or Satan. These ideas were common to the whole Eastern world, and were probably derived by the Jewish people from the Assyrians. The Pharisees charged the Saviour with casting out devils " by Beelzebub the prince of the devils." But that evil spirits acted in multitudes under one person, appears from Mark v., 9, where the evil spirit being asked his name, answered : " My name is ' Legion ' for we are many."
It is generally held that two orders are mentioned in scripture, " angels " and " archangels " ; but the latter word only occurs twice, namely, in Jude, where Michael is called " an archangel," and in I. Thess. iv., 16, where it is written : " the Lord shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God." This is a slender foundation to build a theory upon. The prefix simply denotes rank, not another order
Angels
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Angels
of intelligence. There is nothing in the whole of Scripture, therefore, to show that intelligent beings exist who have other than human attributes. Gabriel and Michael are certainly mentioned by name, but they appeared to Daniel, Zacharias, and the Virgin Mary, in fulfilment of a function, correspondent to the high purpose of which, may be the greater power, wisdom, and goodness, we should attribute to them ; and hence the fuller representation of the angelic hosts, as chief ang'-ls.
The mention of Michael by name occurs five times in Scripture, and always in the character of a chief militant :— In Daniel, he is the champion of the Jewish church against Persia ; in the Revelation, he overcomes the dragon ; and in Jude he is mentioned in personal conflict with the devil about the body of Moses. He is called by Gabriel, " Michael, your prince," meaning of the Jewish church. In the alleged prophecy of Enoch, he is styled : " Michael, one of the holy angels, who, presiding over human virtue, commands the nations " ; while Raphael, it says, " pre- sides oper the spirits of men " ; Uriel, " over clamour and terror " ; and Gabriel, " over Paradise, and over the cherubims." In the Catholic services, St. Michael is invoked as a " most glorious and warlike prince," " the receiver of souls," and " the vanquisher of evil spirits." His design, according to Randle Holme, is a banner hang- ing on a cross ; and he is armed as representing victory, with a dart in one hand and a cross on his forehead. Bishop Horsley and others considered Michael only another designation for the Son of God. We may add as a certain biblical truth, that the Lord Himself is always meant, in an eminent sense, by any angel named as His minister ; and he is called the angel of the Covenant, because he em- bodied in his own person the whole power and representa- tion of the angelic kingdom, as the messenger, not of separate and temporary commands, but of the whole Word in its fulness.
Paul speaks of a " third heaven," which must be under- stood not as a distinct order of created intelligences, but in the same sense as the Lord's declaration : " In my Father's house are many mansions." For Jesus Christ always speaks of His kingdom as essentially one, even in both worlds, the spiritual and natural.
Dionysius, or St. Denis, the supposed Areopagite, des- cribes three hierarchies of angels in nine choirs, thus : Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones, Dominions, Principalities, Powers, Virtues, Angels, Archangels. And Vartan, or Vertabied, the Armenian poet and historian, who flourished in the thirteenth century, describes them under the same terms, but expressly states : " these orders differ from one another in situation and degree of glory, just as there are different ranks among men, though they are all of one nature." He also remarks that the first order are attracted to the Deity by love, and hardly attributes place to them, but states of desire and love, while the heaven which con- tains the whole host is above the primum mobile, which, again is superior to the starry firmament. This description, and all others resembling it, the twelve heavenly worlds of Plato, and the heaven succeeding it, the heaven of the Chinese, for example, are but as landmarks serving to denote the heights which the restless waves of human in- telligence have reached at various times in the attempt to represent the eternal and infinite in precise terms. Boeheme recognises the " whole deep between the stars," as the heaven of one of the three hierarchies, and places the other two above it ; " in the midst of all which," he says, " is the Son of God ; no part of either is farther or nearer to him, yet are the three kingdoms circular about him." The Revelations of Swedenborg date a century later, and begin all these subjects de novo, but his works are accessible to all, and therefore we do not further allude to them.
The Jewish rabbi's hold the doctrine of another hier- archy superior to these three, and some of them, as Bechai and Joshua, teach that " every day ministering angels are created out of the river Dinor, or fiery stream, and they sing an anthem and cease to exist ; as it is written, they are new every morning." This, however, is only a mis- understanding, for to be " renewed " or " created " in the scriptural sense, is to be regenerated ; and to be renewed every morning is to be kept in a regenerate state ; the fiery stream is the baptism by fire or divine love.
The following represent the angelic hierarchies answering to the ten divine names : — ■
i. Jehovah, attributed to God the Father, being the pure and simple essence of the divinity, flowing through Hajoth Hakados to the angel Metratton and to the minister- ing spirit, Reschith Hajalalim, who guides the primum mobile, and bestows the gift of being on all. These names are to be understood as pure essences, or as spheres of angels and blessed spirits, by whose agency the divine providence extends to all his words.
2. Jah, attributed to the person of the Messiah or Logos, whose power and influence descends through the angel Masleh into the sphere of the Zodiac. This is the spirit or word that actuated the chaos, and ultimately produced the four elements, and all creatures that inherit them, by the agency of a spirit named Raziel, who was the ruler of Adam.
3. Ehjeh, attributed to the Holy Spirit, whose divine light is received by the angel Sabbathi, and communicated from him through the sphere of Saturn. It denotes the beginning of the supernatural generation, and hence of all living souls.
The ancient Jews considered the three superior names which are those above, to be attributed to the divine essence as personal or proper names, while the seven follow- ing denote the measures {middothj'or attributes which are visible in the works of God. But the modern Jews, in opposition to the tripersonalists, consider the whole as attributes. Maurice makes the higher three denote the heavens, and the succeeding the seven planets or worlds, to each of which a presiding angel was assigned.
4. El, strength, power, light, through which flow grace, goodness, mercy, piety, and munificence to the angel Zadkiel, and passing through the sphere of Jupiter fashion- eth the images of all bodies, bestowing clemency, benevo- lence and justice on all.
5. Elohi, the upholder of the sword and left hand of God. Its influence penetrates the angel Geburah (or Gamaliel) and descends through the sphere of Mars. It imparts fortitude in times of war and affliction.
6. Tsebaoth, the title of God as Lord of hosts. The angel is Raphael, through whom its mighty power passes into the sphere of the sun, giving motion, heat and bright- ness to it.
7. Elion, the title of God as the highest. The angel is Michael. The sphere to which he imparts its influence is Mercury, giving benignity, motion, and intelligence, with elegance and consonance of speech.
8. Adonai, master or lord, governing the angel Haniel, and the sphere of Venus.
9. Shaddai, the virtue of this name is conveyed by Cherubim to the angel Gabriel, and influences the sphere of the moon. It causes increase and decrease, and rules the jinn and protecting spirits.
10. Elohim, the source of knowledge, understanding and wisdom, received by the angel Jesodoth, and imparted to the sphere of the earth.
The division of angels into nine orders or three hier- archies, as derived from Dionysius Areopagus, was held in the Middle Ages, and gave the prevalent character to
Angels
26
Anonymous
much of their symbolism. With it was held the doctrine of their separate creation, and the tradition of the rebel- lious hierarchy, headed by Lucifer, the whole of which was rendered familiar to the popular mind by the Epic of Milton. Another leading tradition, not so much interwoven with the popular theology, was that of their intercourse with women, producing the race of giants. It was supposed to be authorised by Gen. vi. 2 in the adoption of which the Christian fathers seem to have followed the opinion of Philo-Judseus, and Josephus. A particular account of the circumstances is given in the book of Enoch, already men- tioned, which makes the angels, Uriel, Gabriel, and Michael, the chief instruments in the subjugation of the adulterers and their formidable off-spring. The classic writers have perpetuated similar traditions of the "hero" race, all of them born either from the love of the gods for women, or of the preference shown for a goddess by some mortal man. The Persian, Jewish, and Mohammedan accounts of angels all evince a common origin, and they alike admit a difference of sex. In the latter, the name of Azazil is given to the hierarchy nearest the throne of God, to which the Mohammedan Satan (Eblis or BLiris) is supposed to have belonged ; also Azreal, the angel of death, and Asrafil (probably the same as Israfil) , the angel of the resurrection. The examiners, Moukir and Nakir, are subordinate angels of terrible aspect, armed with whips of iron and fire, who interrogate recently deceased souls as to their lives. The parallel to this tradition in the Talmud is an account of seven angels who beset the paths of death. The Koran also assigns two angels to every man, one to record his good, and the other his evil actions ; they are so merciful that if an evil action has been done, it is not recorded till the man has slept, and if in that interval he repents, they piace on the record that God has pardoned him. The Siamese, beside holding the difference of sex, imagine that angels have offspring ; but their traditions concerning the govern- ment of the world and the guardianship of man are similar to those of other nations.
The Christian fathers, for the most part, believed that angels possessed bodies of heavenly substance (Tertullian calls it " angelified flesh"), and, if not, that they could assume a corporeal presence at their pleasure. In fact, all the actions recorded of them in Scripture, suppose human members and attributes. It is not only so in the historic portions, but in the prophetic, even in the Apocalypse, the most replete with symbolic figures. (See Magic.)
Anglieri : A Sicilian younger brother of the seventeenth century, who is known by a work of which he published two volumes and promised twenty-four, and which was entitled Magic Light, or, the origin, order, and government of all things celestial, terrestial, and infernal, etc. Mongi- tore mentions it in his Sicilian Library.
Anglo-Saxons : (See England.)
Angurvadel : The sword, possessing magical properties, which was inherited by Frithjof, the hero of an Icelandic saga. It had a golden hilt, and shone like the Northern Lights. In times of peace certain characters on its blade were dull and pale ; but during a battle they became red, like fire.
Anima Mundi : The soul of the world ; a pure ethereal spirit which was said by some ancient philosophers to be diffused throughout all nature. Plato is considered by some to be the originator of this idea ; but it is of more ancient origin, and prevailed in the systems of certain eastern philo- sophers. By the Stoics it was believed to be the only vital force in the universe ; it has been entertained by many philosophical sects in a variety of forms, and in more modern times by Paracelsus and others. It is also in- corporated in the philosophy of Schelling. Rich says : " The anima mundi, or heaven of this world, in which the
stars are fixed, is understood to be a receptivity of the empyrean or heaven in which God dwells, so that the forms or seminal conceptions of the one correspond to the divine ideas of the other." Animal Magnetism : {See Hypnotism and Spiritualism.) Animism : The doctrine of spiritual beings, or the concept that a great part, if not the whole, of inanimate nature, as well as of animate beings, are endowed with reason and volition identical with that of man. It is difficult to distinguish this conception from that of personalisation, but the difference exists. The savage hears the wind whistle past him, and thinks that in it he can distinguish voices. He sees movement in streams, trees, and other objects, which he believes to be inhabited by spirits. The idea of a soul probably arose through dreams, apparitions, or clairvoyance, hallucinations and shadows, and perhaps through the return to life after periods of unconsciousness. Movement, therefore, argued life. The cult of fetishism well instances the belief in animism, for it posits the en- trance into an inanimate body of a separate spiritual entity deliberately come to inhabit it. There is no necessity in this place to go into the question whether or not animism is at the basis of religious belief ; but it is distinctly at the root of magical belief and practice. Annali Dello Spiritismo : {See Italy.)
Anneberg : A demon of the mines, known principally in Germany. On one occasion he killed with his breath twelve miners who were working in a silver mine of which he had charge. He is a wicked and terrible demon, repre- sented under the figure of a horse, with an immense neck and frightful eyes. Annie Eva Fay : Medium. (See Spiritualism.) Annius de Viterbo : A learned ecclesiastic, born at Viterbo in 1432, who, either deceived himself, or a deceiver of others, published a collection of manuscripts full of fables and absurdities, falsely attributed to Berosus, Fabius Victor, Cato, Manettio and others, and known under the name of The Antiquities of Annius. He was also responsible for a treatise on The Empire of the Turks, and a book on the Future Triumphs of the Christians over the Turks and the Saracens, etc. These two works are explanations of the Apocalypse. The author claims that Mahomet is the Antichrist, and that the end of the world will take place when the Christians will have overcome the Jews and the Mohammedans, which event did not appear to him to be far distant. Annwyl : The Celtic Other-world. (See Hell.) Anonymous Adept (fl/1750) : A noted German Jesuit of the eighteenth century, known to his clerical confreres and his flock as Athanasius the Churchman. He composed two folio volumes of semi-alchemistic writing, which were published at Amsterdam in 1768. In the course of these voluminous works, he alludes to an alchemist whose name he refrains from revealing, and who is usually hailed in consequence by the elusive title heading this article. Athanasius, we find, having long en- deavoured to discover the Philosopher's Stone, and having met with no success, chanced one day to encounter a venerable personage, who addressed him thus : "I see by these glasses and this furnace that you are engaged in search after something very great in chemistry, but, believe me, you will never attain your object by working as you are do^ng." Pondering on these words, the shrewd Jesuit suspected that his interlocutor was truly learned in alchemy, wherefore he besought him to display his erudition, and thereupon out Anonymous Adept took a quill, and wrote down a receipt for the making of transmutatory powder, together with specific directions for using the same. " Let us proceed together," said the great unknown ; nor were the hopes of Athanasias frustrated, for in a little while a
Anpiel
27
Antichrist
fragment of gold was duly made, the wise pedagogue dis- appearing immediately afterwards. The Jesuit now fancied himself on the verge of a dazzling fortune, and he proceeded straightway to try and manufacture nuggets ; but, alas ! Try as he might, his attempts all proved futile. Much enraged, he went to the inn where the Anonymous Adept was staying, but it need scarcely be said, perhaps, that the bird was flown. " We see by this true history." remarks Athanasius, by way of pointing a moral, " how the devil seeks to deceive men who are led by a lust of riches " ; while he relates further, that having been duped in this wise, he destroyed his scientific appliances, to renounce alchemy for ever.
Anpiel : One of the angels charged by the rabbis with the government of the birds, for every known species was put under the protection of one or more angels.
Anselm de Parma : An astrologer, born at Parma, where he died in 1440. He wrote Astrological Institutions, a work which has never been printed. Wierius, and some other demonologists, classed him with the sorcerers, because certain charlatans, who healed sores by means of mysterious words, had taken the name of " Anselmites." But Naudo observes that they boasted that they had obtained their gift of healing, not from Anselm of Parma, but from St. Anselm of Canterbury, just as the Salutadores in Spain recognised in Catherine, their patron saint, and those who healed snake-bites in Italy, St. Paul.
Ansitif : A little known demon, who, during the possession of the nuns of Louviers, in 1643, occupied the body of Sister Barbara of St. Michael.
Answerer, or Fragarach : A magical sword belonging to the Irish Sea-God, Lir. It was brought from the Celtic Other- world by LugR, the Irish Sun-God, and it was believed that it could pierce any armour.
Anthony St. : A great demon of enormous stature one day ap- proached St. Anthony to offer his services. By way of response the saint looked at him sideways and spat in his face. The demon took the repulse so much to heart that he vanished without a word, and did not dare to appear on earth for a long time afterwards. It is hardly conceivable that St. Anthony could have treated the devil so rudely, if one did not know how many temptations he had suffered from him, though it is difficult to admit that he was the object of so many attacks on the part of the devil, when he himself said : "I fear the demon no more than I fear a fly, and with the sign of the cross I can at once put him to flight." St. Athanasius, who wrote the life of St. Anthony, mingled with his hero's adventures with the devil, certain incidents which contrast strangely enough with these. Some philosophers, astonished at the great wisdom of A ntkony, asked him in what book he had discovered so fine a doctrine. The saint pointed wrth one hand to the earth, with the other to the sky. " There are my books," said he, " I have no others. If men will design to study as I do the marvels of creation, they will find wisdom enough there. Their spirit will soon soar from the creation to the Creator." And certainly these were not the words of a man who trafficked with the devil.
Anthropomancy : Divination by the entrails of men or women. This horrible usage is very ancient. Herodotus said that Menelaus, detained in Egypt by contrary winds, sacrificed to his barbarous curiosity, two children of the country, and sought to discover his destiny by means of anthropomancy. Heliogabalus practised this means of divi- nation. Julian the Apostate, in his magical operations, during his nocturnal sacrifices, caused, it is said, a large number of children to be killed, so that he might consult their entrails. In his last expedition, being at Carra, in Mesopotamia, he shut himself in the Temple of the Moon, and having done all manner of evil there, he sealed the
doors and posted a guard, whose duty it was to see that they were not opened until his return. However, he was killed in battle with the Persians, and those who entered the Temple of Carra, in the reign of Julian's successor, found there a woman hanging by her hair, with her liver torn out. It is probable that Gillesde Retz (q.v.) also practised this dreadful species of divination. Antichrist : The universal enemy of mankind, who will in the latter days be sent to scourge the world for its wickedness. According to the Abbot Bergier, A ntichrist is regarded as a tyrant, impious and excessively cruel, the arch enemy of Christ, and the last ruler of the earth. The persecutions he will inflict on the elect will be the last and most, severe ordeal which they will have to undergo. Christ, himself, according to several commentators, foretold that they would have succumbed to it if its duration had not been *• shortened on their behalf. He will pose as the Messiah,
and will perform things wonderful enough to mislead the >
elect themselves. The thunder will obey him, according to St. John, and Leloyer asserts that the demons below watch over hidden treasures by means of which he will be able to tempt many. It is on account of the miracles that he will perform, that Boguet calls him the " Ape of God," and it is through this scourge that God will pro- claim the final judgment and the vengeance to be meted out to wrong-doers.
Antichrist will have a great number of forerunners, and
will appear just before the end of the world. St. Jerome claims that he will be a man begotten by a demon ; others, a demon in the flesh, visible and fantastical, or an incarnate demon. But, following St. Ireneus, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, and almost all the fathers, Antichrist will be a
man similar to, and conceived in the same way as all others,
differing from them only in a malice and an impiety more worthy of a demon, than of a man. ' Cardinal Bellarmin, at a later date, and contrary to their authority, asserts however, that Antichrist will be the son of a demon incubus and a sorceress. •~-^_jje will be a Jew of the tribe of Dan, according to Mal- venda] who supports nis'view by the "words of the dying Jacob to his sons : " Dan shall be a serpent by the way — ^T an adder in the path ; " — by those of Jeremiah : — " The armies of Dan will devour the earth " ; and by the seventh chapter of the Apocalypse, where St. John has omitted the tribe of Dan in his enumeration of the other tribes.
Antichrist willbe always at war, and will astonish the earth with his miracles. He will persecute the upright, and will mark his own by a sign on the face or the hand.
Elijah and Enoch will come at length and convert the Jews and will meet death, at last by order of Antichrist, Then will Christ descend from the heavens, kill Antichrist with the two-edged sword, which will issue from His mouth, and reign on the earth for a thousand years, according to some ; an indefinite time, according to others.
It is claimed by some that the reign of Antichrist will last fifty years : the opinion of the majority is that his reign will last but three and a-half years, after which the angels will sound the trumpets of the day of judgment, and Christ will come and judge the world. The watchword of Antichrist, says Boguet, will be r "I abjure baptism." Many commentators have foreseen the return of Elijah in these words of Malachi : " I will send Elijah, the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord." But it is not certain that Malachi referred to this ancient prophet, since Christ applied this prediction to John the Baptist, when he said : " Elias is come already, and they knew him not; " and when the angel foretold to Zacharias the birth of his son, he said to him : " And he shall go forth before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elias."
Antichrist
28
Apollonius
By Antichrist may probably be meant the persecutors of the Church. Again, the Protestants give the name to the Pope and the Catholics to all their enemies. Napoleon even has been called Antichrist,
The third treatise in the Hisloire Veritable et Memorable des Trois Possedees de Flandre, by Father Sebastien Mich- alies, dominican friar, throws much light in the words of exorcised demons, on Antichrist. " Conceived through the medium of a devil, he will be as malicious as a madman, with such wickedness as was never seen on earth. An inhuman martyr rather than a human one, he will treat Christians as souls are treated in hell. He will have a multitude of synagogue names, and he will be able to fly when he wishes. Beelzebub will be his father, Lucifer his grandfather."
The revelations of exorcised demons show that Anti- christ was alive in 1613. It appears that he has not yet attained his growth " He was baptised on the Sabbath of the sorcerers, before his mother, a Jewess, called La Belle-Fleur. He was three years old in 1613. Louis Gaufridi is said to have baptised him, in a field near Paris. An exorcised sorceress claimed to have held the little A nti- christ on her knees. She said that his bearing was proud, and that even then he spoke many divers languages But he had talons in the place of feet, and he wore no slippers. He will do much harm, but there will be comforters, for • the Holy Ghost still lives." (See Merlin.) His father is shown in the figure of a bird, with four feet, a tail, a bull's head much flattened, horns and black shaggy hair. He will mark his own with a seal representing this in miniature. Michaelis adds that things execrable will be around him. He will destroy Rome on account of the Pope, and the Jews will help him. He will resuscitate the dead, and, when thirty, will reign with Lucifer, the seven-headed dragon, and, after a reign of three years, Christ will slay him.
Many such details might be quoted of Antichrist, whose appearance has long been threatened, but with as yet no fulfilment. (See End of the World.) We must mention, however, a volume published many years ago at Lyons, by Rusand, called, Les Prdcurseurs de V Antechrist. This work shows that the reign of A nlichrist, if it has not begun, is drawing near ; that the philosophers, encyclopedists and revolutionaries of the eighteenth century were naught but demons incarnated to precede and prepare the way for Antichrist. In our own time it has frequently been averred ' that A ntichrist is none other than the ex- Kaiser of Germany. Antipathy : The old astrologers, who wished to explain everything, claimed that the dislike which one feels for a person or thing is caused by the stars. Thus, two persons born under the same aspect, will be mutually attracted one to the other, and will love without knowing why. Others, again, born under opposite conjunctions, will feel an unreasoning hate for each other. But how can that antipathy be explained which great men sometimes have for the commonest things ? There have been many such cases, and all are inexplicable. Lamothe-Levayer could not bear to hear the sound of any instrument, and dis- played the liveliest pleasure at the noise of thunder. Caesar could not hear the crowing of a cock without shuddering ; Lord Bacon fell into despondency during the eclipse of the moon ; Marie de Medicis could not bear to look on a rose, even in a painting, though she loved all other flowers. Cardinal Henry of Cardonne had the same antipathy, and fell into a swoon when he felt the odour of roses ; Marshal d'Albret became ill at dinner when a young wild boar or a sucking-pig was served ; Henry III. of France could not remain in a chamber where there was a cat ; Marshal de Schomberg had the same weakness ; Ladislas, King of Poland, was much disturbed at the sight of apples ; Scaliger trembled in every limb at the sight of cress ; Erasmus
could not taste fish without having the fever ; Tycho- Brahe felt his knees give way when he met a hare or a fox ; the Duke of Epernon fainted at the sight of a leveret ; Cardan could not suffer eggs ; Ariosto, baths ; the son of Crcesus, bread ; Caesar of Lescalle, the sound of the vielle or violin.
The causes of these antipathies are sometimes to be found in childish impressions. A lady who was very fond of pictures and engravings, fainted away when she found them in a book. She explained her terror thus : When she was a child her father had one day seen her turning over the leaves of the books in his library, in search of pictures. He had roughly taken the book from her hand, telling her in terrible tones that there were devils in these books, who would strangle her if she dared to touch them. These absurd threats occasionally have baneful effects that can- not be overcome. Pliny, who was fairly credulous, assures us that there is such an antipathy between the wolf and the horse, that if a horse pass by the way a wolf has gone, he feels his legs become so numbed that he cannot walk. But the instinct of animals does not err. A horse in America could detect the presence of a puma, and obsti- nately refused 1 3 go through a forest where his keen sense of smell announced to him that the enemy was at hand. Dogs also can tell when a wolf is near. Perhaps, on the whole, human beings would be wiser if they followed the dictates of these sympathetic or antipathetic impressions.
Antiphates : A shining black stone, used as a defence against witchcraft.
Antracites, or Antrachas, or Anthrax : A stone, sparkling like fire, supposed by Albertus Magnus to be the carbuncle. It cures " imposthumes." It is girdled with a white vein. If smeared with oil it loses its colour, but sparkles the more for being dipped in water.
Anupadaka Plane : (See Monadic World.)
Aonbarr : A horse belonging to Manaanan, son of the Irish Sea-God, Lir. It was believed to possess magical gifts, and could gallop on land or sea.
Apantomancy : Divination by means of any objects which happen to present themselves. To this class belong the omens drawn from chance meetings with a hare, an eagle, etc.
Apepi, Book of Overthrowing of : An Egyptian work which forms a considerable portion of the funerary papyrus of Nesi-Amsu. It deals with the diurnal combat between Ra, the Sun-God, and Apepi, the great serpent, the im- personation of spiritual evil, and several of the chapters, notably 31, 33, and 35 to 39 are obviously borrowed from the Book of the Dead (q.v.). It contains fifteen chapters, in which there is a great deal of repetition, and details the various methods for the destruction of Apepi, including many magical directions. It is set forth that the name of Apepi must be written in green on a papyrus and then burnt. Wax figures of his attendant fiends were to be made, mutilated, and burnt, in the hope that through the agency of sympathetic magic their prototypes might be injured or destroyed. Another portion of the work details the creative process and describes how men and women were formed from the tears of the god Khepera. This portion is known as The Book of Knowing the Evolutions of Ra. The work is evidently of high antiquity, as is shown by the circumstance that many variant readings occur. Only one copy, however, is known. The funeral papyrus in which it is contained was discovered at Thebes in i860, was purchased by Rhind, and sold to the trustees of the British Museum by Mr. David Bremner. The linen on which it is written is of very fine texture, measures 19 feet by 9 1 inches, and it has been translated by Mr. Wallis Budge in Archaeologia, Vol. 52, Part IT.
Apollonius of Tyana : A Neo-Pythagorean philosopher of Greece, who had a great reputation for magical powers.
The Reign of Antichrist
After an engraving by Michael Volgemuth in the Liber Chronicorum, 1493
(Cabinet of Engravings, Bibliotheque Nationale, Pans)
ANTICHRIST
[face p. 28
Apollonius
29
Apparitions
Born at Tyana, in Asia Minor, Apollonius was contemporary with Christ. He was educated at Tarsus and at the Temple of jEsculapius, at jEgae, where he became an adherent of the sect of Pythagoras, to whose strict discipline he sub- mitted himself throughout his life. In his desire for know- ledge he travelled widely in Eastern countries, and is said to have performed miracles wherever he went. At Ephesus, for instance, he warned the people of the' approach of a terrible plague, but they gave no heed to him until the pestilence was actually in their midst, when they bethought ' them of the warning, and summoned the potent magician who had uttered it. Apollonius pointed out to the people a poor, maimed beggar, whom he denounced as the cause of the pestilence and an enemy of the gods, bidding them stone the unfortunate wretch to death. The citizens were at first .reluctant to comply with so cruel an injunction, but something in the expression of the beggar confirmed the prophet's accusation, and the wretch was soon covered with a mound of stones. When the stones were removed no man was visible, but a huge black dog, the cause of the plague, which had come upon the Ephesians. At Rome he raised from death — or apparent death — his biographer does not seem to know which — a young lady of consular family, who had been betrothed, and was lamented by the entire city. Yet another story relates how Apollonius saved a friend of his, Menippus of Corinth, from marrying a vampire. The youth neglected all the earlier warnings of his counsellor, and the preparations for the wedding proceeded till finally all was in readiness for the ceremony. At this juncture Apollonius appeared on the scene, caused the wedding feast, the guests, and all the evidences of wealth, which were but illusion to vanish, and wrung from the bride the confession that she was a vampire. Many other similar tales are told of the philosopher's clairvoyant and magical powers.
The manner of his death is wrapped in mystery, though he is known to have lived to be nearly a hundred years of age. His disciples did not hesitate to say that he had not died at all, but had been caught up to heaven, and his biographer casts a doubt upon the matter. At all events, when he had vanished from the terrestial sphere, the in- habitants of his native Tyana built a temple in his honour, and statues were raised to him in various other tem- ples.
A life of Apollonius, written by Philostratus at the instance of Julia, mother of the Emperor Severus, is the only extant source of information concerning the sage, though other lives, now lost, are known to have existed. The account given by Philostratus purports to have been compiled from the memoirs of " Damis the Assyrian," a disciple of Apollonius, but it has been suggested that Damis is but a literary fiction. The work is largely a romance ; fictitious stories are often introduced, and the whole account is mystical and symbolical. Nevertheless it is possible to get a glimpse of the real character of Apol- lonius beyond the literary artifices of the writer. The purpose of the philosopher of Tyana seems to have been to infuse into paganism a morality more practical combined with a more transcendental doctrine. He himself practised a very severe asceticism, and supplemented his own know- ledge by revelations from the gods. Because of his claim to divine enlightenment, some would have refused him a place among the philosophers, but Philostratus holds that this in no wise detracts from his philosophic reputation. Pythagoras and Plato and Democritus he points out, were wont to visit Eastern sages, even as Apollonius had done, and they were not charged with dabbling in magic. Divine revelations had been given to earlier philosophers-; why not also to the Philosopher of Tyana ? It is probable that Apollonius borrowed considerably from Oriental
sources, and that his doctrines were more Brahminical than magical. Apparel, Phantom : (See Phantom Dress.) Apparitions : An apparition (from Latin apparel's, to appear) is in its literal sense merely an appearance, that is, a sense- percept of any kind, but in every-day usage the word has a more restricted meaning and is used only to denote an abnormal or superabnormal appearance or percept, which cannot be referred to any natural objective cause. Taken in this sense the word covers all visionary appearances, hallucinations, clairvoyance, and similar unusual perceptions. " Apparition " and " ghost " are frequently used as synony- mous terms, though the former is, of course, of much wider significance. A ghost is a visual apparition of a deceased human being, and the term implies that it is the spirit of the person it represents Apparitions of animals and of inanimate objects are also sufficiently frequent. All apparitions do not take the form of visual images ; auditory and tactile false perceptions, though less common, are not unknown, and there is record of a house that was " haunted " with the perpetual odour of violets.
Evolution of the Belief in Apparitions. — -There is no doubt that the belief which identifies an apparition with the spirit of the creature it represents — a belief widely current in all nations and all times — is directly traceable to the ancient doctrine of animism, which endowed everything in nature, from man himself to the smallest insect, from the heavenly bodies to an insignificant plant or stone, with a separable soul. It is not difficult to understand how the conception of souls may have arisen. Sir J. Frazer, in his Golden Bough, says : "As the savage commonly explains the processes of inanimate nature by supposing that they are produced by living beings working in or behind the phenomena, so he explains the phenomena of life itself. If an animal lives and moves, it can only be, he thinks, because there is a little animal inside which moves it. If a man lives and moves, it can only be because he has a little man or animal inside, who moves him. The animal inside the animal, the man inside the man, is the soul. And as the activity of an animal or man is explained by the presence of the soul, so the repose of sleep or death is explained by its absence ; sleep or trance being the temporary, death being the per- manent absence of the soul." Sometimes the human soul was represented as a bird — an eagle, a dove, a raven — or as an animal of some sort, just as the soul of a river might be in the form of a horse or a serpent, or the soul of a tree in human shape ; but among most peoples the belief was that the soul was an exact reproduction of the body resembling it in every feature, even to details of dress, etc. Thus, when a man saw another in dream, it was thought either that the soul of the dreamer had visited the person dreamed of, or that the soul of the latter had visited the dreamer. By an easy process of reasoning, the theory was extended to include dreams of animals and inanimate things, which also were endowed with souls. And thus it is quite probable that the hallucinations with which primitive peoples as well as those at a later stage of culture were at times visited, and which they doubtless knew well how to induce, should be regarded as the souls of the things they represent. If it be granted that telepathy and clairvoyance operate sometimes at the present day, and among civilised peoples, it may be conceded on still more abundant testimony that they were known to primitive races. And it is obvious that these faculties would have a powerful effect in the development of a belief in appari- tions. The apparition of a deceased person, again, would inevitably suggest the continuance of the soul's existence beyond the grave, and the apparition of a sick person, or one in some other grave crisis— such as might now-a-days be accounted for telepathically — would also be regarded
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as the soul, which at such times was absent from the body. There is a widely diffused opinion that ghosts are of a filmy, unsubstantial nature, and this also would seem to have taken its rise in the first animistic concepts of primitive man. At a very early stage of culture we find spirit and breath confused — they are identified in the Latin spiritus and the Greek pneuma. as well as in other languages. How natural it is, therefore, that the breath, condensed in the cold air to a white mist, should be regarded as the stuff that ghosts are made of. On another hypothesis, the shadowy nature of the ghost may have resulted from an early confusion of the soul with the shadow. Thus ani- mistic ideas of the soul have given rise to the belief in apparitions. But animism has a further contribution to make towards this belief in the host of spirits which have not, and never have had, bodies, true supernatural beings, as distinct from souls — gods, elementary spirits, and those evil spirits to which were attributed disease, disaster, possession, and bewitchment. This class of beings has evolved into the fairies, elves, brownies, bogies, and goblins of popular folklore, of which many apparitions are recorded. Savage Instances of Apparitions. In classic and mediaeval times the concept of the ghost was practically identical with that of savage peoples. It is only within the last two generations that scientific investigation was deemed necessary, as the result of the birth of a scepticism hitherto confined to the few, and in the general mind weak or non-existent. (For details of such research see, Spiritual- ism and Psychical Research.) One of the most noteworthy features of ghosts in savage lands is the fear and antagonism with which they are regarded. Almost invariably the spirits of the deceased are thought to be unfriendly towards the living, desirous of drawing the souls of the latter, or their shadows, into the spirit-world. Sometimes, as with the Australian aborigines, they are represented as malign- ant demons. Naturally, everything possible is done to keep the ghost at a distance from the habitation of the living. With some peoples thorn bushes are planted round the beds of the surviving relatives. Persons returning from a funeral pass through a cleft tree, or other narrow aperture, to free themselves from the ghost of him whom they have buried. Others plunge into water to achieve the same purpose. The custom of closing the eyes of the dead is said to have arisen from the fear that the ghost would find its way back again, and the same reason is given for the practice, common among Hottentots, Hindus, North American Indians, and many other peoples, of carrying the dead out through a hole in the wall, the aperture being immediately afterwards closed. The Mayas of Yucatan, however, draw a line with chalk from the tomb to the hearth, so that the soul may return if it desires to do so. Among uncultured races, the names of the departed, in some mysterious manner bound up with the soul, if not identified with it, are not mentioned by the survivors, and any among them possessing the same name, changes it for another. The shape in which apparitions appear among savages may be the human form, or the form of a beast, bird, or fish. Animal ghosts are common among the Indians of North and South America. Certain African tribes believe that the souls of evil-doers become jackals on the death of the body. The Tapuya Indians of Brazil think that the souls of the good enter into birds, and this belief is of rather wide diffusion. When the apparition is in human shape it is generally an exact counterpart of the person it represents, and, like the apparitions of more civilised countries, its dress is that worn by the deceased in his lifetime. This last feature, of course, implies the doctrine of object-souls, which has its roots in animism. Though it is generally accepted by savage peoples that the shades of the departed mingle with the living, coming and
going with no particular object in view, yet the revenant may on occasion have a special purpose in visiting the scene of his earthly life. It may be that the spirit desires that its body be buried with the proper ceremonial rites, if these have been omitted. In savage, as in civilised countries, it is believed that the spirits of those who have not been buried at all, cannot have any rest till the rite has been duly performed. In China, the commonest ghost is that of a person who has been murdered, and who seeks to be avenged on his murderer. The spirit of one who has been murdered, or has died a violent death, is considered in Australia also to be especially likely to walk abroad, while in many barbarous or semi -barbarous lands the souls of women who have died in childbirth, are supposed to become spirits of a particularly malignant type, dwelling in trees, tormenting and molesting passers-by. There is another reason for which apparitions sometimes appear : to reveal the site of hidden treasure. The guardians of buried hoards are, however, supernatural beings rather than human souls, and the shapes they take are often grotesque or terrible. It is customary for ghosts to haunt certain localities. The favourite spot seems to be the burial-place, of which there is an almost universal superstitious dread ; but the Indians of Guiana go a step farther in maintaining that every place where anyone has died is haunted. Among the Kaffirs and the Maoris of New Zealand a hut wherein a death has occurred is taboo, and is often burnt or deserted. Sometimes, even a whole village is abandoned on account of a death — a practice, this, which must be attended with some inconvenience. There is one point on which the apparitions of primitive peoples differ from those of more advanced races — the former seldom attain to the dignity of articulate human speech. They chirp like crickets, for instance, among the Algonquin Indians, and their " voices " are only intelligible to the trained ear of the shaman. The ghosts of the Zulus and New Zealanders, again, speak to the magicians in thin, whistling tones. This idea of the semi-articulate nature of ghosts is not confined to savage concepts ; Shakespeare speaks of " the sheeted dead," who, " did squeak and gibber in the streets of Rome," and the " gibbering " ghost appears in other connections. Naturally the articulate- apparition is doubly convincing, since it appeals to two separate senses. Dr. Tylor says : " Men who perceive evidently that souls do talk when they present themselves in dream or vision, naturally take for granted at once the objective reality of the ghostly voice, and of the ghostly form from which it proceeds." Spirits which are generally invisible may appear to certain persons and under certain circumstances. Thus in the Antilles, it is believed that one person travelling alone may see a ghost which would be invisible to a number of people. The shamans, or medicine-men, and magicians are able to perceive apparitions which none but they can see. The induction of hallucinations by means of fasts, rigid ascetic- ism, solitude, the use of narcotics and intoxicants, dances, and the performing of elaborate ceremonial rites, is known all over the world, and among uncultured as well as cul- tured peoples. Coincidental apparitions, it may be re- marked en passant, are comparatively rare in savage countries. Naturally, a great many savage instances of apparitions are concerned with supernatural beings other than human souls, but such cases are dealt with elsewhere. Ancient and Modem Ideas Concerning Apparitions. The belief in apparitions was very vivid among ancient Oriental peoples. The early Hebrews atrtibuted them to angels, demons, or the souls of the dead, as is shown in the numerous Scriptural instances of apparitions. Dreams were re- garded as apparitions if the predictions made in them were fulfilled, or if the dream-figure revealed anything unknown to the dreamer which afterwards proved to be true. That
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the Hebrews believed in the possibility of the souls of the dead returning, is evident from the tale of the Witch of Endor. Calmet says, in this connection : " Whether Samuel was raised up or not, whether his soul, or only a shadow, or even nothing at all appeared to the woman, it is still certain that Saul and his attendants, with the generality of the Hebrews, believed the thing to be pos- sible." Similar beliefs were held by other Eastern nations. Among the Greeks and Romans of the classic period. apparitions of gods and men would seem to have been fairly common. Calmet, in his Dissertation on Apparitions, says :
" The ancient Greeks, who had derived their religion and theology from the Egyptians and Eastern nations, and the Latins, who had borrowed theirs from the Greeks, were all firmly persuaded that the souls of the dead appeared some- times to the living — that they could be called up by necro- mancers, that they answered questions, and gave notice of future events ; that Apollo gave oracles, and that the priestess, filled with his spirit, and transported with a holy enthusiasm, uttered infallible predictions of things to come. Homer, the most ancient of all the Greek writers, and their greatest divine, relates several apparitions, not only of gods, but of dead men and heroes. In the Odyssey, he introduces Ulysses consulting Teresias, who, having pre- pared a pit full of blood, in order to call up the Manes, Ulysses draws his sword to hinder them from drinking the blood for which they were very thirsty, till they had ans- wered the questions proposed to them. It was also a prevailing opinion, that the souls of men enjoyed no repose, but wandered about near their carcases as long as they continued unburied. Even after they were buried, it was a custom to offer them something to eat, especially honey, upon the supposition that after having left their graves, they came to feed upon what was brought them. They believed also, that the demons were fond of the smoke of sacrifices, of music, of the blood of victims, and the com- merce of women ; and that they were confined for a deter- minate time to certain houses or other places, which they haunted, and in which they appeared.
" They held that souls, when separated from their gross and terrestial bodies, still retained a finer and more subtile body, of the same form with that which they had quitted ; that these bodies were luminous like the stars ; that they retained an inclination for the things which they had loved in their life-time, and frequently appeared about their graves. When the soul of Patroclus appeared to Achilles, it had his voice, his shape, his eyes, and his dress, but not the same tangible body. Ulysses relates, that when he went down into hell, he saw the divine Hercules, that is, adds he, his image : for he himself is admitted to the ban- quets of the immortal gods. Dido says, that after death she, that is, her image bigger than the life, shall go down to the infernal regions.
" 'Et mine magna mei sub terras ibit imago.'
" And iEneas knew his wife Creusa, who appeared to him in her usual shape, but of a taller and nobler stature than when she was alive.
" Infelix simulacrum, atque ipsius umbra Creuscs, Visa mihi ante oculos, et nota major imago.
" In the speech which Titus made to his soldiers, to persuade them to mount to the assault of the Tower An- tonia at Jerusalem, he uses this argument : ' Who knows not that the souls of those who bravely expose themselves to danger, and die in war, are exalted to the stars, are there received into the highest region of heaven, and ap- pear as good genii to their relations ; while they who die of sickness, though they have lived good lives, are plunged into oblivion and darkness under earth, and are no more remembered after death, than if they had never existed."
Again he says •
" We find that Origen, Tertullian, and St. Irenaus, were clearly of this opinion. Origen, in his second book against Celsus, relates and subscribes to the opinion of Plato, who says, that the shadows and images of the dead, which are seen near sepulchres, are nothing but the soul disengaged from its gross body, but not yet entirely freed from matter ; that these souls become in time luminous, transparent, and subtile, or rather are carried in luminous and trans- parent bodies, as in a vehicle, in wh'ch they appeal to the living. . . . Tertullian, in his book concerning the soul, asserts that it is corporeal, and of a certain figure, and appeals to the experience of those who have seen apparitions of departed souls, and to whom they have appeared as corporeal and tangible, though of an aerial colour and consistence. He defines the soul to be a breath from God, immortal, corporeal, and of a certain figure."
It is interesting to note that some of these classic spectres are nearly akin to the melodramatic conceptions of more modern times. The younger Pliny tells of haunted houses whose main features correspond with those of later haunt- ings — houses haunted by dismal, chained spectres, the ghosts of murdered men who could not rest till their mortal remains had been properly buried.
In the early centuries of the Christian era there was no diminution in the number of apparitions witnessed. Visions of saints were frequently seen, and were doubtless induced by the fasts, rigid asceticism, and severe penances practiced in the name of religion. The saints themselves saw visions, and were attended by guardian angels, and harassed by the unwelcome attentions of demons, or of their master, the devil. These beliefs continued into the Middle Ages, when, without undergoing any abatement in vigour, they began to take on a more romantic aspect. The witch and wer-wolf superstitions were responsible for many tales of animal apparitions. The poltergeist flourished in a congenial atmosphere. Vampires were terribly familiar in Slavonic lands, and nowhere in Europe were they quite unknown. The malignant demons, known as incubi and succubi, were no less common. In the northern countries familiar spirits or goblins, approximating to the Roman lares, or the wicked and more mischievous lemures, haunted the domestic hearth, and bestowed well-meant, but not always desirable, attentions on the families to which they attached themselves. These beings were accountable for a vast number of apparitions, but the spirits of the dead also walked abroad in the Dark Ages. Generally they wished to unburden their minds of some weighty secret which hindered them from resting in their graves. The criminal came to confess his guilt, the miser to reveal the spot where he had hidden his gold. The cowled monk walked the dim aisles of a monastery, or haunted the passages of some Rhenish castle, till the prayers of the devout had won release for his tortured soul. Perchance, a maiden in white flitted through the corridor of some old mansion, moaning and wringing her hands, enacting in pantomime some long-forgotten tragedy. At the cross-roads lingered the ghost of the poor suicide, uncertain which way to take. The old belief in the dread potency of the unburied dead continued to exercise sway. There is, for example, the German story of the Bleeding Nun. Many and ghastly had been her crimes during her lifetime, and finally she was murdered by one of her paramours, her body being left unburied. The castle wherein she was slain became the scene of her nocturnal wanderings. It is related that a 'young woman who wished to elope with her lover decided to disguise herself as this ghostly spectre in order to facilitate their escape. But the un- fortunate lover eloped with the veritable Bleeding Nun herself, mistaking her for his mistress. This, and other traditional apparitions, such as the Wild Huntsman, the
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Phantom Coach, the Flying Dutchman, which were not confined to any one locality, either originated in this period or acquired in it a wildly romantic character which lent itself to treatment by ballad-writers, and it is in ballad form that many of them have come down to us.
This hey-day of the apparition passed, however, at length, and in the eighteenth century we find among the cultured classes a scepticism as regards the objective nature of apparitions, which was destined two centuries later to become almost universal. Hallucination, though not yet very well understood, began to be called the " power of imagination." Many apparitions, too, were attri- buted to illusion.. Nevertheless, the belief in apparitions was sustained and strengthened by the clairvoyant powers of magnetic subjects and somnambules. Sweden- borg, who had, and still has many disciples, did much to encourage the idea that apparitions were objective and supernatural. To explain the fact that only the seer saw these beings and heard their voices, he says :
" The speech of an angel or of a spirit with man is heard as sonorously as the speech of one man with another : yet it is not heard by others who stand near, but by the man himself alone. The reason is, the speech of an angel or of a spirit flows in first into the man's thought, and by an internal way into the organ of hearing, and thus actuates it from within, whereas the speech of man flows first into the air, and by an external way into the organ of hearing which it actuates from without. Hence, it is evident, that the speech of an angel and of a spirit with man is heard in man, and, since it equally affects the organ of hearing, that it is equally sonorous."
Thus it will be seen that ancient and modern ideas on apparitions differ very little in essential particulars, though they take colour from the race and time to which they belong. Now they are thin, gibbering shadows ; now they are solid, full-bodied creatures, hardly to be distinguished from real flesh and blood ; again they are rich in romantic accessories ; but the laws which govern their appearance are the same, and the beliefs concerning them are not greatly different, in whatever race or age they may be found.
Present-Day Theories Concerning Apparitions.— At the present time apparitions are generally, though by no means universally, referred to hallucination (q.v.) Even those who advance a spiritualistic theory of apparitions fre- quently incline to this view, for it is argued that the dis- carnate intelligence may, by psychical energy alone, produce in the brain of a living person a definite hallu- cination, corresponding perhaps to the agent's appearance in life. Hallucinations may be either coincidental or non- coincidental. The former, also known as telepathic hallu- cinations, are those which coincide with a death, or with some other crisis in the life of the person represented by the hallucination. The Society for Psychical Research has been instrumental in collecting numerous instances of coincidental hallucinations, many of which are recorded in Phantasms of the Living, by Messrs. Myers, Podmore and Gurney. Mr. Podmore was indeed the chief exponent of the telepathic theory of ghosts (for which see also Telepathy) which he had adopted after many years of research and experiment. He suggested that apparitions result from a telepathic impression conveyed from the mind of one living person to that of another, an impression which may be doubly intense in time of stress or exalted emotion, or at the moment of dissolution. Apparitions of the dead he would account for by a theory of latent impressions, conveyed to the mind of the percipient during the agent's lifetime, but remaining dormant until some particular train of thought rouses them to activity. This view is largely
supported at the present day. Hallucinations, whether coincidental or otherwise, may, and do present themselves to persons who are perfectly sane and normal, but they are also a feature of insanity, hypnotism and hysteria, and of certain pathological conditions of brain, nerves, and sense- organs. The late Mr. Myers was of opinion that an appari- tion represented an actual " psychic invasion," that it was a projection of some of the agent's psychic force. Such a doctrine is, as Mr. Myers himself admitted, a reversion to animism. There is another modern theory of apparitions, particularly applicable to haunted houses. This is the theory of psychometry (q.v.). Sir Oliver Lodge, in his Man and the Universe, says :
" Occasionally a person appears able to respond to stimali embededd, as it were among psycho-physical surroundings in a manner at present ill understood and almost incredible: — as if strong emotions could be un- consciously recorded in matter, so that the deposit shall thereafter affect a sufficiently sensitive organism, and cause similar emotions to reproduce themselves in its sub- consciousness, in a manner analogous to the customary conscious interpretation of photographic or phonographic records, and indeed of pictures or music and artistic em- bodiment generally."
Take, for example, a haunted house of the traditional Christmas-number type, wherein some one room is the scene of a ghostly representation of some long past tragedy. On a psychometric hypothesis the original tragedy has been literally photographed on its material surroundings, nay, even on the ether itself, by reason of the intensity of emotion felt by those who enacted it ; and thenceforth in certain persons an hallucinatory effect is experienced cor- responding to such impression. It is this theory which is made to account for the feeling one has on entering certain rooms, that there is an alien presence therein, though it be in- visible and inaudible to mortal sense. The doctrine of psychometry in its connection with apparitions is of con- siderable interest because of its wide possibilities, but it belongs to the region of romance rather than to that of science, and is hardly to be considered as a serious theory of apparitions at least, until it is supported by better evidence than its protagonists can show at present.
Spiritualistic theories of apparitions also vary, though they agree in referring such appearances to discarnate intelligences, generally to the spirits of the dead. The opinion of some spiritualistic authorities is, as has been said, that the surviving spirit produces in the mind of the percipient, by purely psychic means, an hallucination representing his (the agent's) former bodily appearance. Others believe that the discarnate spirit can materialise by taking to itself ethereal particles from the external world, and thus build up a temporary physical organism through which it can communicate with the living. Still others consider that the materialised spirit borrows such temporary physical organism from that of the medium, and experi- ments have been made to prove that the medium loses weight during the materialisation. (See Materialisation.) The animistic belief that the soul itself can become visible is not now generally credited, since it is thought that pure spirit cannot be perceptible to the physical senses. But a compromise has been made in the ' psychic body, ' (q.v.), midway between soul and body, which some spiritualists consider clothes the soul at the dissolution of the physical body. The psychic body is composed of material particles, very fine and subtle, and perceptible as a rule, only to the eye of the clairvoyant. It is this, and not the spirit., which is seen as an apparition. We must not overlook the theory held by some Continental investigators., that " spirit materialisations " so-called are manifestations of psychic force emanating from the medium.
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Different Classes of Apparitions. — Many of the various classes of apparitions having been considered above, and others being dealt with under their separate headings, it is hardly necessary to do more than enumerate them here. Apparitions may be divided broadly into two classes — induced and spontaneous. To the former class belong hypnotic and post-hypnotic hallucinations (see Hypnotism) and visions (q.v.) induced by the use of narcotics and intoxicants, fasts, ascetic practices, incense, narcotic salves, and auto-hypnotisation. The hallucinatory ap- pearances seen in the mediumistic or somnambulistic trance are, of course, allied to those of hypnotism, but usually arise spontaneousjy, and are often associated with clair- voyance (q.v.). Crystallomancy (q.v.) or crystal vision is a form of apparition which is stated to be frequently clairvoyant, and in this case the theory of telepathy is especially applicable. Crystal visions fall under the heading of induced apparitions, since gazing in a crystal globe induces in some persons a species of hypnotism, a more or less slight dissociation of consciousness, without which hallucination is impossible. Another form of clair- voyance is second sight (q.v.). a faculty common among the Scottish Highlanders. Persons gifted with the second sight often see symbolical apparitions, as, for instance, the vision of a funeral or a coffin when a death is about to occur in the community. Symbolical appearances are indeed a feature of clairvoyance and visions generally. Clair- voyance includes retrocognition and premonition — visions of the past and the future respectively — as well as appari- tions of contemporary events happening at a distance. Clairvoyant powers are often attributed to the dying. Dreams are, strictly speaking, apparitions, but in ordinary usage the term is applied only to coincidental or veridical dreams, or to those " visions of the night," which are of peculiar vividness.
From these subjective apparitions let us turn to the ghost proper. The belief in ghosts has come to us, as has been indicated, from the remotest antiquity, and innumerable theories have been formulated to account for it, from the primitive animistic conception of the apparition as an actual soul to the modern theories enumer- ated above, of which the chief are telepathy and spirit materialisation. Apparitions of the living also offer a wide field for research, perhaps the most favoured hypothesis at the present day being that of the telepathic hallucination. A peculiarly weird type of apparition is the wraith (q.v.) or double, of which the Irish fetch is a variant. The wraith is an exact facsimile of a living person, who may himself see it ; Goethe, Shelley, and other famous men are said to have seen their own wraiths. The fetch makes its appearance shortly before the death of the person it represents, either to himself or his friends, or both. An- other Irish spirit which foretells death is the banshee (q.v.), a being which attaches itself to certain ancient families, and is regularly seen or heard before the death of one of its members. To the same class belong the omens of death, in the form of certain animals or birds, which fdllow some families. Hauntings or localised apparitions are dealt with under the heading " Haunted Houses." The pol- tergeist (q.v.), whose playful manifestations must cer- tainly be included among apparitions, suggests another classification of these as visual, auditory, tactile, etc., since poltergeist hauntings — or indeed hauntings of any kind — are not confined to apparitions touching any one sense. For apparitions of fairies, brownies, and others of the creatures of folk-lore, see Fairies.
In this article an attempt has been made to show as briefly as possible the universality of the belief in appara- tions, and the varied forms under which this belief ex- hibits itself in various times and countries among savage
and civilised peoples ; and to indicate the basic principles on which it rests — -namely, the existence of a spiritual world capable of manifesting itself in the sphere of matter, and the survival of the human soul after the dissolution of the body. While the beliefs in this connection of savage races and of Europeans in early and mediaeval times may arouse interest and curiosity for their own sakes, the scientific investigator of the present day values them chiefly as throwing light on modern beliefs. The belief in apparitions is a root principle of spiritualism. Many who are not spiritualists in the accepted sense have had experiences which render the belief in apparitions almost inevitable. A subject which touches so nearly a consider- able percentage of the community, including many people of culture and education, and concerning which there is a vast quantity of evidence extending back into antiquity, cannot be a matter of indifference to science, and the investigations made by scientific men within recent years arouse surprise that such investigation has been so long delayed. The Society for Psychical Research has gathered many well attested instances of coincidental apparitions, clairvoyance, and apparitions of the dead. As yet, however, the problem remains unsolved, and the various hypotheses advanced are conflicting and sometimes obscure. The theory of telepathic hallucination offered by Mr. Podmore seems on the whole to be the most con- formable to known natural laws, while at the same time covering the ground with fair completeness. But perhaps the best course to take at the present stage of our know- ledge is to suspend judgment in the meanwhile, until further light has been cast on the subject.
Apports : The name given to various objects, such as flowers, jewellery, and even live animals, materialised in the presence of a medium. The production of these apports have always been, and still are, one of the most prominent and effective features of spiritualistic seances. Sometimes they fly through the air and strike the faces of the sitters ; some- times they appear on the table, or in the laps of those present. A favourite form is the scattering of perfume on the company. Recent systematic experiments con- ducted in a purely scientific spirit have exposed fraud in numerous instances where ordinary precautions would not have sufficed for its detection. Frequently it has been found that the medium had skilfully concealed the apports in the room or about her person. Nevertheless, though the result is often produced by obviously unscrupulous means, it does not follow that all materialisations are per- formed with fraudulent intent. In cases where, so far as can be judged, the character of the medium is beyond reproach, as in the case of Helene Smith, the idea has been advanced that any preparations made beforehand, such as the secreting of flowers, etc., must result from a process of activity of the sublinimal consciousness. Other ex- planations are, that the apports are actually conveyed to the seance by spirits, or that they are drawn thither by magnetic power. Branches of trees, armfuls of fruit and flowers, money, jewels, and live lobsters are among the more extraordinary apports.
Apprentice : (See Adept.)
Apuleius : (See Greece.)
Aquin (Mardochee d') : A learned rabbi of Carpentras, who died in 1650. He became a Christian, and changed his name of Mardochee into Philip. He was the author of an Interpretation of the Tree of the Hebrew Kabala.
Aquinas (Thomas) who has been under the imputation of magic, was. one of the profoundest scholars and subtlest logicians of his day. He was a youth of illustrious birth, and received the rudiments of his education under the monks of Monte Cassino, and in the University of Naples.
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Arabs
But, not contented with these advantages, he secretly entered himself in the Society of Preaching Friars, or Dominicans, at seventeen years of age. His mother, being indignant that he should thus take the vow of poverty, and sequester himself from the world for life, employed every means in her power to induce him to alter his purpose, but all in vain. The friars, to deliver him from her impor- tunities, removed him from Naples to Terracina, from Terracina to Anagnia, and from Anagnia to Rome. His mother followed him in all these changes of residence, but was not permitted so much as to see him. At length she induced his two elder brothers to seize him by force. They waylaid him on his road to Paris, whether he was sent to complete his course of instruction, and carried him off to the castle of Aquino, where he had been born. Here he was confined for two years, but he found a way to corres- pond with the superiors of his order, and finally escaped from a window in the castle. St. Thomas Aquinas (for he was canonised after his death) exceeded perhaps all men that ever existed in the severity and strictness of his meta- physical disquisitions, and thus acquired the name of the Seraphic Doctor.
It was to be expected that a man, who thus immersed himself in the depths of thought, should be an enemy to noise and interruption. He dashed to pieces an artificial man of brass that Albertus Magnus, who was his tutor, had spent thirty years in bringing to perfection, being impelled to this violence by its perpetual and unceasing garrulity. It is further said, that his study being placed in a great thoroughfare, where the grooms were all day long exercising their horses, he found it necessary to apply a remedy to this nuisance. He made by the laws of magic a small horse of brass, which he buried two or three feet under ground in the midst of this highway, and, having done so, no horse would any longer pass along the road. It was in vain that the grooms with whip and spur sought to conquer the animals' repugnance. They were finally compelled to give up the attempt, and to choose another place for their daily exercises.
It has further been sought to fix the imputation of magic upon Thomas Aquinas by referring to him certain books written on that science ; but these are now acknowledged to be spurious. Arabs : The heyday of occultism among the Arab race was reached at the epoch when that division of them known as the Moors established their empire in the Spanish peninsula.
We first emerge from cloud and shadow into a precise and definite region in the eighth century, when an Arabian mystic revived the dreams and speculations of the alche- mists, and discovered some important secrets. Geber (q.v.) , who flourished about 720-750, is reputed to have written upwards of five hundred works upon the Philosophers' Stone and elixir vita. His researches after these desider- ata proved fruitless, but if he did not bestow upon mankind immortal life and boundless wealth, he gave them nitrate of silver, corrosive sublimate, red oxide of mercury, and nitric acid.
Among his tenets were a belief that a preparation of gold would heal all diseases in animals and plants, as well as in human beings ; that the metals were affected with maladies, except the pure, supreme, and precious one of gold ; and that the Philsophers' Stone had often been discovered, but that its fortunate discoverers would not reveal the secret to blind, incredulous, and unworthy man.
His Summa Perjectionis — a manual for the alchemical student — has been frequently translated. A curious English version, of which there is a copy in the British Museum, was published by an English enthusiast, one Richard Russell, at " the Star, in New Market, in Wapping,
near the Dock," in 16S6. Geber's true name was Abou Moussah Djafar, to which was added Al So5, or " The Wise," and he was a native of Houran, in Mesopotamia.
He was followed by Avicenna (q.v.), Averroes (q.v.} and others equally gifted and fortunate.
According to Geber and his successors the metals were not only compound creatures,- but they were also all com- posed of the same two substances. Both Prout and Davy lent their names to ideas not unlike this. " The improve- ments," says the latter, " taking place in the methods of examining bodies, are constantly changing the opinions of chemists with respect to their nature, and there is no reason to suppose that any real indestructible principle has yet been discovered. Matter may ultimately be found to be the same in essence, differing only in the arrangement of its particles ; or two or three simple substances may produce all the- varieties of compound bodies." The ancient ideas, therefore, of Demetrius the Greek physicist, and of Geber, the Arabian polypharmist, are still hovering about the horizon of chemistry.
The Arabians taught, in the third place, that the metals are composed of mercury and sulphur in different pro- portions. They toiled away at the art of making many medicines out of the various mixtures and reactions of the few chemicals at their command. They believed in transmutation, but they did not strive to effect it.. It belonged to their creed rather than to their practice. They were a race of hard-working, scientific artisans, with their pestles and mortars, their crucibles and furnaces, their alembics and aludels, their vessels for infusion, for decoc- tion, for cohobation, sublimation, fixation, lixiviation, filtration and coagulation. They believed in transmuta- tion, in the first matter, and in the correspondence of the metals with the planets, to say nothing of potable gold.
Whence the Arabians derived the sublimer articles of their scientific faith, is not known to any European histor- ian. Perhaps they were the conjectures of their ancestors according to the faith. Perhaps they had them from tha Fatimites of Northern Africa, among whose local pre- decessors it has been seen that it is just possible the doctrine of the four elements and their mutual convertibility may have arisen. Perhaps they drew them from Greece, modifying and adapting them to their own specific forms of matter, mercury, sulphur and arsenic.
Astrology. — Astrology was also employed by the oracles of Spain. Albatgni was celebrated for his astronomical science, as were many others ; and in geometry, arithmetic, algebraical calculations and the theory of music, we have a long list, Asiatic and Spanish, but only known by their lives and principal writings. The works of Ptolemy also exercised the ingenuity of the Arabians ; while Alchindi, as far as we may be allowed to judge from his multifarious volumes, traversed the whole circle of the sublimer sciences. But judicial astrology, or the art of foretelling future events from the position and influences of the stars, was with them a favourite pursuit ; and many of their philosophers, incited by various motives, dedicated all their labours to this futile but lucrative inquiry. They often speak with high commendation of the iatro-mathe- matical discipline, which could control the disorders to which man was subject, and regulate the events of life.
The tenets of Islamisiri, which inculcate an unreserved submission to the over-ruling destinies of heaven, are evidently adverse to the lessons of astrology ; but this by no means hindered the practitioners of old Spain and Arabia from attaining a high standard of perfection in the ■ art, which they perhaps first learned from the peoples of Chaldcsa, the past masters of the ancient world in astro- nomical science, in divination, and the secrets of prophecy. But in Arab Spain, where the tenets of Islam, were per-
Group of Arabian magicians repenting of their sorceries
[face p. 34
Aradia
35
Aristseus
haps more lightly esteemed than in their original home, magic unquestionably reached a higher if not more thought- ful standard.
From the Greeks, still in search of science, the Arabs turned their attention to the books of the sages who are esteemed the primitive instructors of mankind, among whom Hermes was deemed the first. They mention the works written by him, or rather by them, as they suppose, like other authors, that there were three of the name. To one the imposing appellation of Trismegistus has been given ; and the Arabians, from some ancient records, we may presume, minutely describe his character and person. They also published, as illustrative of their astrological discipline, some writings ascribed to the Persian Zoroaster.
For Sorcery, etc., see Semites.
Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches of Italy : (See Italy.)
Aracl : One of the spirits which the rabbis of the Talmud made princes and governors over the people of the birds.
Arariel : An angel who, according to the rabbis of the Talmud, takes charge of the waters of the earth. Fishermen invoke him so that they may take large fish.
Ararita : The verbum inenarrabile of the sages of the Alex- andrian School, " which Hebrew Kabalists wrote Javeh, and interpreted by the sound Ararita, thus expressing the triplicity of the secondary kabalistic principle, the dualism cf the means and the equal unity of the first and final principle, as well as the alliance between the triad and the triad and the tetrad Tn a word composed of four letters, which form seven by means of a triple and double repeti- tion."
Arbatel : A magical ritualpublished at Basle in 1575. The text is in Latin, and it appears to have been influenced by Paracelsus. It is of Christian, not Jewish origin, and although the authorship is unknown it is probably the work of an Italian. Only one of its nine volumes has come down to us. It deals with the institutions of magic, and is entitled Isagoge, which means essential or necessary instruction. In it we are introduced to the ritual of the Olympic spirits dwelling in the air and among the stars, who govern the world. There are, we are told, one hundred and ninety-six Olympic provinces in the universe : thus Aratron has forty-nine, Bethor forty-two, Phaleg thirty- five, Och twenty-eight, Hagith twenty-one, Ophiel fourteen, and Phul seven. Each of the Olympic spirits rule alter- nately for four hundred and ninety years. They have natural sway over certain departments of the material world, but outside these departments they perform the same operations magically. Thus Och, the ruler of solar affairs, presides over the preparation of gold naturally in the soil. At the same time, he presides magically over the preparation of that metal by means of alchemy. The Arbatel proceeds to say that the sources of occult wisdom are to be found in God, spiritual essences and corporeal creatures, as well as in nature, but also in the apostate spirits and in the ministers of punishment in Hell and the elementary spirits. The secrets of all magic reside in these, but magicians are born, not made, although they are assisted by contemplation and the love of God. It will be sufficient to describe the powers and offices of one of these spirits. Aratron governs those things which are ascribed astrologically to Saturn. He can convert any living thing into stone, can change coals into treasure, gives familiar spirits to men, teaches alchemy, magic and medicine, the secret of invisibility, and long life. He should be invoked on a Saturday in the first hour of the day. The A rbatel is one of the best authorities extant on spiritual essences, their powers and degrees.
Arcanum, Great : The great secret which was supposed to lie behind all alchemical and magical striving. " God
and Nature," says Eliphas Levi (q.v.), " alike, have closed the Sanctuary of Transcendent Science. ... so that the revelation of the great magical secret is happily impossible." Elsewhere he states that it makes the magician " master of gold and light."
Ardat-Ule : (Semitic Spirit). She is a female spirit or demon who weds human beings and works great harm in the dwellings of men.
Argentum, Potafcile : A marvellous remedy for which the al- chemists had a recipe. It was composed of sulphur, spirits of wine, and other ingredients, prepared according to specified direction, and was (if we credit these authorities) a sovereign remedy for all manner of ailments.
Ariel : A spirit. (See Beaumont, John.)
Arignote : Lucian relates that at Corinth, in the Cranaiis quarter, there was a certain house which no one would inhabit, because it was haunted by a spectre. A man named Arignote, well versed in the lore of the Egyptian magical books, shut himself in the house to pass the night and began to read peacefully in the court. Soon the spectre made its appearance, and in order to frighten Arignote, it first of all took the form of a dog, then that of a bull, and finally that of a lion. But Arignote was not at all disturbed. He conjured the spectre in formulae which he found in his books, and obliged it to retire to a corner of the court, where it disappeared. On the following day the spot to which the spectre had retreated was dug up, and a skeleton was found. When it was properly buried, the ghost was not seen again. This anecdote is an adapta- tion of the adventure of Athenodorus, which Lucian had read in Pliny.
Arioch : Demon of vengeance, according to some demono- logists. He is different from Alastor, and occupies him- self only with vengeance in particular cases where he is employed for that purpose.
Ariolists : Ancient diviners, whose special occupation was called ariolatio, because they divined by means of the altars. They consulted demons on their altars, says Dangis ; they observed whether the altar trembled or performed any marvel, and predicted what the Devil inspired them with. According to Francois de la Tour Blanche, these people ought to have been put to death as idolators. He based his opinion on Deuteronomy, chap, xviii., and on Revela- tion, chap, xxi., where it is said that idolators and liars shall be cast into the lake of fire and sulphur, which will be their second death. Deuteronomy orders only the first.
AristsellS : A charlatan who lived in the time of Crcesus. He said that his soul would leave his body whenever he wished, and then return to it. Some maintain that it escaped in the sight of his wife and children in the figure of a stag. Wierius said that it took the shape of a crow. However that may be, Herodotus relates in his fourth book that Arist&us entering one day into a fuller's shop, fell dead therein, that the fuller ran to break the news to his parents, who came to bury him. But no corpse was to be found. The whole town was astonished, when some men returning from a voyage assured them that they had met Aristaus on the way to Crotona. It appeared that he was a species of vampire. Herodotus adds that he reappeared at the end of seven years, composed a poem and died anew. Leloyer, who regarded Aristceus as a sorcerer or ecstatic, quoted a certain Apollonius, who said that at the same hour as the vampire disappeared for the second time, he was transported to Sicily, where he became a schoolmaster.. He is again heard of three hundred and forty years afterwards in the town of Metapontus, where he caused to be raised certain monuments which were to be seen in the time of Herodotus. So many wonderful hap- penings inspired the Sicilians with awe, and they raised a temple to him and worshipped him as a demi-god.
Arithmancy
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Ash Tree
Arithmancy : (Sometimes called wrongly Arithmomancy). Divination by means of numbers. The Greeks examined the number and value of the letters in the names of two combatants, and predicted that he whose name contained most letters, or letters of the greatest value, would be the victor. It was by means of this science that some diviners foretold that Hector would be overcome by Achilles. The Chaldeans, who also practised it, divided their alphabet into three parts, each composed of seven letters, which they attributed to the seven planets, in order to make predictions from them. The Platonists and the Pythagoreans were also strongly addicted to this method of divination, which comprehends also a part of the Jewish Kabala.
Armida : The episode of Armida, in Tasso, is founded on a popular tradition related by Pierre Delancre. This skil- ful enchantress was the daughter of Arbilan, King of Damascus. She was brought up by an uncle, a great magician, who taught his niece to become a powerful sorceress. Nature had so well endowed her that for per- sonal attractions she far surpassed the most beautiful women of the East. Her uncle sent her as a worthy foe against the powerful Christian army that Pope Urban XT. had collected under the leadership of Godfrey de Bouillon. And there, says Delancre, she made such havoc with her beautiful eyes, and so charmed the principal leaders of the crusaders, that she almost ruined the hopes of the Christians. She kept the valiant knight Renaud for a long time in an enchanted castle, and it was not without great difficulty that he was disenchanted.'
Armomancy : A method of divination which is effected by the inspection of the shoulders. The ancients judged by this means whether a victim was suitable for sacrifice to the gods.
Arnaud, Guillaume : (See France.1
Arnoux : Author of a volume published at Rouen, in 1630, with the title of On the Wonders of the Other World, a work written in a bizarre style, and calculated to disturb feeble imaginations with its tales of visions and apparitions.
Arnuphis : An Egyptian sorcerer who, seeing Marcus Aurelius and his army engaged in a pass whose entrance had been closed by their enemies, and dying of thirst under a burning sky, caused a miraculous rain to fall, which allowed the Romans to quench their thirst, while the thunder and hail obliged the enemy to give up their arms.
Arphaxat : A Persian sorcerer, who was killed by a thunder- bolt, according to Abdias of Babylon, at the same hour as the martyrdom of St. Simon and St. Jude. In tha account of the possession of the nuns of Loudun there is a demon Arphaxat, who took possession of the body of Louise de Pinterville.
Ars Aurifera : (See Avicenna.)
Ars Chimiea : (See Avicenna.)
Ars Notoria : The science of the Tarot (q.v.) signs and their application to the divination of all secrets, whether of nature, of philosophy, or even of the future.
Art Transmutatoire : (See Pope John XXII.)
Artephius : A well-known exponent of the hermetic philo- sophy, who died in the twelfth century, and is said to have lived more than a thousand years by means of alchemical secrets. Francois Pic mentions the opinion of certain savants who affirm that Artephius is identical with Appolonius of Tyana, who was born in the first century under that name, and who died in the twelfth century under that of Artep- hius. Many extravagant and curious works are attributed to him : De Vita Propaganda (The Art of Prolonging Life) which he claims, in the preface, to have written at the age of a thousand and twenty-five years ; The Key to Supreme , Wisdom ; and a work on the character of the planets, on the significance of the songs of birds, on things past and future, and on the Pilhosophers' Stone. Cardan spoke
of these books, and believed that they were composed by some practical' j oker who wished to play on the credulity of the partisans of alchemy. Arthur, King : The character of Arthur is strongly identified with the occult. Not only do we find his Court a veritable centre of happenings more or less supernatural, but his mysterious origin and the subsequent events of his career have in them matter of considerable interest from an occult standpoint. This is not the place to dispute re- garding his reality, but merely to deal with the romances which cluster around him, and their contents from the supernatural point of view. We find him first of all connected with one of the greatest magical names of early times — that of Merlin the Enchanter. The possibilities are that Merlin was originally a British deity, who in later times degenerated from his high position in the popular imagination. We possess many accounts concerning him, one of which states that he was the direct offspring of Satan himself, but that a zealous priest succeeded in baptising him before his infernal parent could carry him off. From Merlin, Arthur received much good advice both magical and rational. He was present when the King was gifted with his magic sword Excalibur, which endowed him with practical invulnerability, and all through his career was deep in his counsels. His tragic imprisonment by the Lady Viviana, who shut him up eternally in a rock through the agency of one of his own spells, removed him from his sphere of activity at the Arthurian Court, and from that time the shadows may be seen to gather swiftly around Arthur's head. Innumerable are the tales con- cerning the Knights of his Court who met with magical adventures, and as the stories grew older in the popular mind, additions to these naturally became the rule. Notably is this the case in that off-shoot of the Arthurian epic, which is known as the Holy Grail (q.v.), in which we find the knights who go in quest of it constantly encountered by every description of sorcery for the purpose of retarding their progress. Arthur's end is as strange as his origin, for we find him. wafted away by faery hands, or at least by invisible agency, to the Isle of Avillion, which probably is one and the same place with the Celtic other- world across the ocean. As a legend and a tradition, that of Arthur is undoubtedly the most powerful and persistent in the British imagination. It has employed the pens and enhanced the dreams of many of the giants in English lit- erature from the time of Geoffrey of Monmouth, to the pre- sent day ; and with the echoes of the poetry of Tennyson and Swinburne still ringing in their ears, the present generation is quite as justified in regarding the history of Arthur as a living reality as were the Britons of the twelfth century. Artois, Countess of : (See France.)
Asal : Known as the King of the Golden Pillars, in Irish Celtic Myth. He was the owner of seven swine, which might be killed and eaten every night, yet were found alive every morning. Asbestos : Asbestos is so called from being inextinguishable even by showers and storms, if once set on fire. The Pagans made use of it for lights in their temples. It is of woolly texture, and is sometimes called the Salamander's feather. Leonardus says : " Its fire is nourished by an inseparable unctuous humid flowing from its substance ; therefore, being once kindled, it preserves a constant light without feeding it with any moisture." Asclepius : A hermetic book. (See Hermes Trismegistus.) Ash Tree : The Ash had a wonderful influence. The old Christmas log was of ash wood, and the use of it at this time was helpful to the future prosperity of the family. Venomous animals, it was said, would not take shelter under its branches. A carriage - with its axles made of ash wood was believed to go faster than a carriage with its
Ashipu
37
Ass
axles made of any other wood ; and tools with handles made of this wood were supposed to enable a man to do more work than he could do with tools whose handles were not of ash. Hence the reason that ash wood is gener- ally used for tool handles. It was upon ash branches that witches were enabled to ride through the air ; and those who ate on St. John's eve the red buds of the tree, were rendered invulnerable to witches' influence.
Ashipu : (See Babylonia.)
Ashtabula Poltergeist, The : The supposed cause of the extraordinary disturbances which took place about the middle of the nineteenth century in the presence of a lady of Ashtabula County, Ohio. First of all she became a medium on the death of her husband, and produced spirit- rappings and other manifestations. Then for a time she studied anatomy in Marlborough, and afterwards returned to her home in Austinburg, where an alarming outbreak of weird manifestations occurred. Stair-rods moved after- her when she went to her room, light articles flew about the house, and uncanny sounds were heard. At Marl- borough, when she resumed her anatomical studies, the disturbances increased in violence, and she and her room- mate had a ghastly vision of a corpse they had been dis- secting in the day-time. Dr. Richmond, a sceptic of the day, maintained that these phenomena were the result of magneto-odylic emanations from the medium.
Asiah : According to the Kabala, the first of the three classes or natural ranks among the spirits of men, who must ad- vance from the lower to the higher.
Asipu : Caste of priests. (See Semites.)
Aspects, Planetary : (See Astrology.)
Aspidomaney : A little known form of divination practised in the Indies, as we are told by some travellers. Del- ancre says that the diviner or sorcerer traces a circle, takes up his position therein seated on a buckler, and mutters certain conjurations. He becomes entranced and falls into an ecstasy, from which he only emerges to tell things that his client wishes to know, and which the devil has revealed to him.
Aspilette (Marie d') : Witch of Andaye, in the country of Labour, who lived in the reign of Henry IV. She was arrested at the age of nineteen years, and confessed that she had been led to the " sabbath," and there made to perform divers horrible rites.
Ass : The Egyptians traced his image on the cakes they offered to Typhon, god of evil. The Romans regarded the meeting of an ass as an evil omen, but the animal was honoured in Arabia and Judea, and it was in Arabia that the ass of Silanus spoke to his master. Other talking asses were Balaam's ass, which Mahomet placed in his paradise with Alborack ; the ass of Aasis, Queen of Sheba ; and the ass on which Jesus Christ rode into Jerusalem.
Some people have found something sacred and mysterious in the innocent beast, and there was practised formerly a species of divination in which the head of an ass was employed.
At one time a special festival was held for the ass, during which he was led into the church while mass was sung. This reverence in which he was held by Christians was doubtless due to the black cross which he wears on his back, and which, it is said, was given him because of the ass of Beth phage, who carried Christ into Jerusalem. But Pliny, who was almost contemporary with that ass, and who has carefully gathered all that related to the animal, has made no mention concerning the colour of its coat ! So we can only believe that the ass of to-day is as he always was.
It is not only the devout who respect the ass, for the wise Agrippa offered him an apology in his book, On the Vanity of the Sciences. Among the Indians of Madras,
one of the principal castes, that of the Cavaravadonques, claim to be descended from an ass. These Indians treat the ass as a brother, take his part, and prosecute those who over-burden or ill-treat him in any way. In rainy weather they will often give him shelter when they deny it to his driver.
An old fable gives us but a poor idea of the ass. Jupiter had just taken possession of Olympus. On his coming, men asked of him an eternal springtime, which he accord- ingly granted, charging the ass of Silenus to bear the precious treasure to earth. The ass became thirsty, and approached a fountain guarded by a snake, who refused to let the ass drink unless he parted with the treasure. The stupid animal thereupon bartered the gift of heaven for a skin of water, and- since that time snakes, when they grow old, can change their skin and become young again, for they have the gift of perpetual spring-time.
But all asses were not so stupid as that. In a village about half a league from Cairo, there dwelt a mountebank, who possessed a highly trained ass, so clever that the country people took it to be a demon in disguise. One day the mountebank mentioned in the ass's hearing that the Soldan wished to construct a beautiful building, and had resolved to employ all the asses in Cairo to carry the lime, mortar and stones. The ass immediately lay down and pretended to be dead, and his master begged for money to buy another. When he had collected some he returned to his old ass. " He is not dead," he said, " he only pre- tended to die because he knew I had not the wherewithal to buy him food." Still the ass refused to rise, and the mountebank addressed the company, telling them that the Soldan had sent out the criers commanding the people to assemble on the morrow outside Cairo to see the most wonderful sights in the world. He further desired that the most gracious ladies and the most beautiful girls should be mounted on asses. The ass raised himself and pricked up his ears. " The governor of my quarter," added the mountebank, " has begged me to lend my ass for his wife, who is old and toothless, and very ugly." The ass began to limp as though he were old and lame. " Ah, you like beautiful ladies ? " said his master. The animal bowed his head. " Oh, well," said the man, " there are many present ; show me the most beautiful." Which command the ass obeyed with judgment and discretion.
These marvellous asses, said the demonologists, were, if not demons, at least men metamorphosed, like Apuleius, who was, it is said, transformed into an ass. Vincent de Beauvais speaks of two women who kept a little inn near Rome, and who sold their guests at the market, after having changed them into pigs, fowls, or sheep. One of them, he adds, changed a certain comedian into an ass, and as he retained his talents under his new skin, she led him to the fairs on the outskirts of the city, gaining much money thereby. A neighbour bought this wise ass at a good price, and in handing it over the sorcerers felt obliged to warn the purchaser not to let the ass enter water. Its new master attended to the warning for some time, but one day the poor ass managed to get free and cast itself into a lake, when it regained its natural shape, to the great surprise of its driver. The matter was brought to the ears of the Pope, who had the two witches punished, while the comed- ian returned to the exercise of his profession.
Many stories are told of the ass which carried Jesus Christ into Jerusalem, and which is said to have died at Verona, where its remains are still honoured. The rabbis make quite as much ado over Balaam's ass, which has already been mentioned. It is, they say, a privileged animal whom God formed at the end of the sixth day. Abraham employed it to carry the wood for the sacrifice of Isaac ; it also carried the wife and son of Moses in the
Assassins
38
Assassins
desert. They also maintain that Balaam's ass is carefully nourished and kept in a secret place until the coming of the Jewish Messiah, who will mount it when He subdues all the earth. Assassins : (Hashishin, so-called from their use of the drug hashish, distilled from the hemp plant). A branch of that sect of Mahomedans known as Ismaelites, founded in the latter part of the eleventh century by Hassan Sabah, in Syria and Persia. Driven from Cairo, Hassan spread a modified form of the Ismaelite doctrine throughout Syria, and in 1090 he became master of the mountain stronghold, Alamut, in Persia, where he founded a society known as the Assassins, and from which he ostensibly promulgated the principles of the Ismaelite sect. The difference, how- ever, between the Assassins and other Ismaelites, was that they employed secret assassination against all the enemies of the sect. Their organisation was founded upon that of the Western Lodge at Cairo, and at the head of their sect was the Sheik- Al-Gebel, or " Old Man of the Mountain," as the name has been rather absurdly translated by Europ- eans authors, the more correct translation being " Chief of the mountain." The other officers of the society were the grand priors, lesser priors, initiates, associates, and the fedavi or " devoted ones," who were the assassins proper. These latter were young men from whose ranks those who were selected for the various deeds of blood for which the Assassins became notorious, were chosen. They were not initiated into the secret circle of the cult, and blind obedience was expected from them. When their services were required they were intoxicated with hashish, and in this condition were taken into the magnificent gardens of the Sheik, where they were surrounded by every pleasure. This they were told was a foretaste of what they might expect in Paradise, to which they would instantly proceed were they to lose their lives in the Sheik's service. Con- sequently these young men, for the most part ignorant peasants, displayed a degree of fanaticism which made them the fitting instruments of Hassan's policy. But the initiated amongst the Assassins were convinced of the worthlessness of religion and morality, held no belief, and sneered covertly at the Prophet and his religion.
The early history of the society is one of romantic and absorbing interest. Hassan had been a member of a secret Ismaelite society at Cairo, the head of which was the Caliph, " and of which the object was the dissemination of the doctrines of the sect of the Ismaelites. . . .
" This society, we are told, comprised both men and women, who met in separate assemblies, for the common supposition of the insignificance of the latter sex in the east, is erroneous. It was presided over by the Chief Missionary (Dai-al-Doat) who was e.lways a person of importance in the state, and not infrequently Supreme Judge (Kadhi-al-Kodhat). Their assemblies, called Societies of Wisdom (Mejalis-al-Hie;nel) , were held twice a week, on Mondays and Wednesdays. All the members appeared clad in white. The president, having first waited on the Caliph, and read to him the intended lecture, or, if that could not be done, having got his signature on the back of it, proceeded to the assembly and delivered a written discourse. At the conclusion of it, those present kissed his hand and reverently touched with their forehead the handwriting of the Caliph. In this state the societjr con- tinued till the reign of that extraordinary madman, the Caliph Haken-bi-emr-illah (Judge by the Command of God), who determined to place it on a splendid footing. He erected for it a stately edifice, styled the House of Wisdom (Dar-al-hicmct) , abundantly furnished with books and mathematical instruments. Its doors were open to all, and paper, pens and ink were profusely supplied for the use of those who chose to frequent it. " Professors of
law, mathematics, logic, and medicine were appointed to give instructions ; and at the learned disputations which were frequently held in presence of the Caliph, these professors appeared in their state caftans (Khalaa), which, it is said, exactly resembled the robes worn at the English universities. The income assigned to this establishment by the munificence of the Caliph, was 257,000 ducats an- nually, arising from the tenths paid to the crown.
" The course of instruction in this university proceeded, according to Macrisi, by the following nine degrees. (1) The object of the first, which was long and tedious, was to infuse doubts and difficulties into the mind of the aspirant, and to lead him to repose a blind confidence in the know- ledge and wisdom of his teacher. To this end he was perplexed with captious questions ; the absurdities of the literal sense of the Koran and its repugnance to reason, were studiously pointed out, and dark hints were given that beneath this shell lay a kernel sweet to the taste and nutritive to the soul. But all further information was most rigorously withheld till he had consented to bind himself by a most solemn oath to absolute faith and blind obedience to his instructor. (2) When he had taken the oath he was admitted to the second degree, which in- culcated the acknowledgement of the imams appointed by God as the sources of all knowledge. (3) The third degree informed him what was the number of these blessed and holy imams ; and this was the mystic seven ; for, as God had made seven heavens, seven earths, seas, planets, metals, tones, and colours, so seven was the number of these noblest of God's creatures. (4) In the fourth de- gree the pupil learned that God had sent seven lawgivers into the world, each of whom was commissioned to alter and improve the system of his predecessor ; that each of these had seven helpers, who appeared in the interval between him and his successor ; these helpers, as they did not appear as public teachers, were called the mute (samit), in contradistinction to the speaking lawgivers. The seven lawgivers' were Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, and Ismael, the son of Jaaffer ; the seven principal helpers, called Seats (soos) were Seth, Shem. Ishmael (the son of Abraham), Aaron, Simon, Alt, and Mohammed, the son of Ismael. It is justly observed that, as this last personage was not more than a century dead, the teacher had it in his power to fix on whom he would as the mute prophet of the present time, and inculcate the belief in, and obedience to, him of all who had not got beyond this degree. (5) The fifth degree taught that each of the seven mute prophets had twelve apostles for the dissemination of his faith. The suitableness of this number was also proved by analogy. There are twelve signs of the Zodiac, twelve months, twelve tribes of Israel, twelve joints in the four fingers of each hand, and so forth. (6) The pupil being led thus far, and having shown no symptoms of restiveness, the precepts of the Koran were once more brought under consideration, and he was told that all the positive portions of religion must be subordinate to philosophy. He was consequently instructed in the systems of Plato and Aristotle during the long space of time ; and (7) when esteemed fully qualified, he was ad- mitted to the seventh degree, when instruction was com- municated in that mystic Pantheism, which is held and taught by the sect of the Soofees. (8) The positive precepts of religion were again considered, the veil was torn from the eyes of the aspirant, all that had preceded was now declared to have been merely scaffolding to raise the edifice of knowledge, and was to be flung down. Prophets and teachers, heaven and hell, all were nothing ; future bliss and misery we're idle dreams ; all act.ons were permitted. (9) The ninth degree had only to inculcate that nought was to be believed, everything might be done."
Assassins
39
Assassins
It is worthy of mention that one of Hassan's early intimates was the famous Omar Khayyam, with whom he and another friend contracted a bargain that the most successful of the three would share his good fortune with the others. It is likely that the practical mystic and the astrologer would feel drawn to each other by many com- mon tastes, but we do not learn that Omar profited much from the bargain so far as Hassan was concerned. The third of the friends, Nizam-al-Melk, achieved an exalted position as vizier to the second of the Seljuk monarchs, and calling to mind his promise offered Omar a post under' the government, but the author of the Rubaiyat was too addicted to pleasure to accept active employment, and in lieu of the dazzling position offered him, was content with a pension of 1,200 ducats, with which he went into retirement.
Hassan clearly perceived that the plan of the society at Cairo was defective as a means of acquiring temporal power. The Dais might exert themselves and proselytes might be gained, but till possession was obtained of some strongholds, and a mode of striking terror into princes devised, nothing effectual could be achieved.
With this object in view he instituted the Fedavi, who unhesitatingly obeyed their chief, and, without inquiry or hesitation, plunge their daggers into the bosom of whatever victim was pointed out to them, even though their own lives should be the immediate sacrifice. The ordinary dress of the Fedavi was (like that of all the sects opposed to the house of Abbas), white ; their caps, girdles, or boots, were red. Hence they were named the White (Mubeiyazah) , and the Red (Muhammere) ; but they could with ease assume any guise, even that of the Christian monk, to accomplish their murderous designs.
Hassan was perfectly aware that without the compressing power of positive religion, no society can well be held to- . gether. Whatever, therefore, his private opinions may have been, he resolved to impose on the bulk of his fol- lowers the most rigid obedience to the positive precepts of Islam, and, actually put his own son to death, for a breach of one of them.
Hassan is said to have rejected two of the degrees of the Ismaelite society at Cairo, and to have reduced them to seven, the original number in the plan of Abdallah Maimoon, the first projector of this secret society Besides these seven degrees, through which the aspirants gradually rose to knowledge, Hassan, in what Hammer terms the breviary of the order, drew up seven regulations ■ or rules for the conduct of the teachers in his society. (1) The first of these, named Ashinai-Risk (Knowledge of Duty), inculcated the requisite knowledge of human nature for selecting fit persons for admission. To this belong the proverbial expressions said to have been current among the Dais, similar to those used by the ancient Pythagoreans, such as " Sow not on barren ground " (that is, " Waste not your labour on incapable persons), " Speak not in a house where there is a lamp " (that is, " Be silent in the presence of a lawyer "). (2) The second rule was called TeSnis (Gaining of Confidence), and taught to win the candidates by flattering their passions and inclinations.
(3) The third, of which the name is not given, taught to involve them in doubts and difficulties by pointing out the absurdities of the . Koran, and of positive religion.
(4) When the aspirant had gone thus far, the solemn •oath of silence and obedience, and of communicating his doubts to his teacher alone was to be imposed on the disciple ; and then (5) he was to be informed that the •doctrines and opinions of the society were those of the greatest men in church and state. (6) The Tessees ^Confirmation) directed to put the pupil again through all he had learned, and to confirm him in it. And, (7) finally,
the TeSvil (Instruction in Allegory) gave the allegorical mode of interpreting the Koran, and drawing whatever sense might suit their purposes from its pages. Any one who had gone through this course of instruction, and was thus become perfectly imbued with the spirit of the society, was regarded as an accomplished Dai, and employed in the important office of making proselytes and extending its influence.
Soofeism, a doctrine of this society, which is a kind of mystic Pantheism, viewing God in all and all in God, may produce, like fatalism, piety or its opposite. In the eyes of one who thus views God, all the distinctions between vice and virtue become fleeting and uncertain, and crime may gradually lose its atrocity, and be regarded as only a means for the production of a good end. That the Ismaelite Fedavi murdered innocent persons without compunction, when ordered so to do by his superiors, is an undoubted fact, and there is no absurdity in supposing that he and they may have thought that in so doing they were acting rightly and promoting the cause of truth.
The followers of Hassan Sabah were called the Eastern Ismaelites, to distinguish them from those of Africa. They were also named the Baiiniyeh (Internal or Secret), from the secret meaning which they drew from the text of the Koran, and Moblhad, or Moolahid (Impious) on account of the imputed impiety of their doctrines — names common to them with most of the preceding sects. It is under this last appellation that they were known to Marco Polo, the Venetian traveller. The name, however, by which they are best known in Europe, and which we employ, is that of Assassins. This name is very generally derived from that of the founder of their society ; but