L. S.

According to Sir William Blackstone, " To deny the possibility, nay, the actual existence of witchcraft and sorcery is at once flatly to contradict the revealed Word of God in various passages of the Old and New Testaments, and the thing itself is a truth to which every nation in the world hath in its turn borne testimony."
At very early periods the Church fulminated against those who practised it. In 696 a Canon of Council held at Berkhampstead condemned to corporal punishment those who made sacrifices to evil spirits, and at subsequent dates Statutes against Witchcraft were enacted by the Parliaments of Henry VIII., Elizabeth and James I. Mr. Inderwick says, " For centuries in this country strange as it may now appear, a denial of the existence of -uch demoniacal agency was deemed equal to a confession of Atheism and to a disbelief in the Holy Scriptures them- selves. But not only did Lord Chancellors, Lord Keepers, benches of Bishops and Parliament attest the truth and the existence of witchcraft, but Addison writing as late as 1711, in the pages of the Spectator, after describing him- self as hardly pressed by the arguments on both sides of
this question expresses his own belief that there is and has been, witchcraft in the land."
It is in the twelfth Century that a first distinct glimpse is obtained of the bond between the Evil One and his vic- tim. The tale of the old woman of Berkeley which Southey's Ballad has familiarised, is related by William of Malmesbury on the authority of a professed eye-witness. When the devil informed the witch of the near expiry of her contract, she summoned the neighbouring monks and her children, and after confessing her criminal compact displayed great anxiety lest Satan should secure her body as well as her soul. She gave directions to be sewn in a stag's hide and placed in a stone coffin, shut in with lead and iron, to be loaded with heavy stones and the whole fastened down with three iron chains. In order to baffle the power of the demons, she further directed fifty psalms to be sung by night, and fifty masses to be sung by day, and that at the end of three nights, if her body was still secure, she said that it might be buried with safety. All these precautions however, proved of no avail. The monks bravely resisted the efforts of the fiends on the first and second nights, but on the third night in the middle of a ter- rific uproar an immense demon burst into the monastery and in a voice of thunder commanded the dead witch to rise. She replied that she was bound with chains, which however the demon snapped like thread, the coffin lid fell aside, and on the witch arising the demon bore her off on a huge black horse and galloped into the darkness, while her shrieks resounded through the air. The first trial for witchcraft in England occurred during the tenth year of the reign of King John, when according to the Abbreviato- Placitorum, the wife of Ado the merchant, accused one Gideon of the crime. He proved his innocence however, by the ordeal of the red-hot iron. A trial was reported with more detail in the year 1324. Certain citizens of Coventry had suffered at the hands of the prior whose extortions were approved of and supported by two of Edward II. 's favourites. By way of revenge they plotted the death of the prior, the favourites, and the King.
In order to carry this into effect they consulted John of Nottingham, a famous Magician of the time, and his servant Robert Marshall of Leicester. Marshall however, betrayed the plot and stated that together with his master they fashioned images of wax to represent the King, his two favourites, the prior, his caterer and steward, and one Richard de Lowe — the latter being brought in merely as an experimental lay-figure in which to test the effect of the charm. At an old ruined house near Coventry, on the Friday following Holy Cross Day, John gave his man a sharp pointed leaden branch and commanded him to plunge it into the forehead of the figure representing Rich- ard de Lowe. This being done John dispatched his servant to Lowe's house to find out the result of the experiment. Lowe it seems had lost his senses and went about screaming " Harrow." On the Sunday before Ascension John with- drew the branch from the image's forehead, and thrust it into the heart, where it remained till the following Wed- nesday when the unfortunate victim died. Such was the evidence of Marshall, but the judges gave it little belief, and after several adjournments the trial was aban- doned.
The first enactment against witchcraft in England was by the Parliament of 1541. In 1551 further enactments were levelled at it, but it was not until 1562 that Parlia- ment defined witchcraft as a Capital Crime. Thenceforth followed the regular persecutionn of Witches. Many burnings occurred during the latter years of Elizabeth's reign.
At the village of Worboise, (q.v.) in the County of Hunt- ingdon in 1589 dwelt two country gentlemen, Robert
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Throgmorton and Sir Samuel Cromwell. Mr. Thtog- morton's family consisted of his wife and five daughters of whom the eldest Joan, a girl of fifteen was possessed with a mind and imagination well stocked with ghost- and witch-lore. On one occasion she had to pass the cot- tage of a labouring family of the name of Samuel. This family consisted of a man, his wife, and their grown-up •daughter. Mother Samuel was sitting at the door wearing a black cap, and busily engaged in knitting. Joan declared that she was a witch, ran home and fell into strange con- vulsive fits, stating that Mother Samuel had bewitched her. In due course the other daughters respectively were attacked with similar fits, and attributed the blame to Mother Samuel. The parents now began to suspect that their children were really bewitched and reported the matter to Lady Cromwell, who, as an intimate friend of the family took the matter up and along with Sir Samuel ordered that the alleged witch should be put to ordeal. Meanwhile the children let loose their imagination and invented all sorts of weird and grotesque tales about the old woman. Eventually Throgmorton had the poor old woman dragged to his grounds where she was subjected to torture, pins being thrust into her body to see if blood could be drawn. Lady Cromwell tore out a handful of the old crone's hair which she gave to Mrs. Throgmorton requesting her to burn it as an antidote against witchcraft. Suffering under these injuries the old woman invoked a curse against her torturers which was afterwards remem- bered, though she was allowed her liberty. She thereafter suffered much persecution at the hands of the two families, all ills and misfortunes occurring amongst their cattle and stock being laid to her charge. Eventually Lady Crom- well was seized with an illness that caused her death, and upon old Mother Samuel was laid the responsibility. Re- peated efforts were made to persuade her to confess and amend what she had done. At last, tormented beyond endurance, she let herself be persuaded to pronounce an exorcism against the spirits and confessed that her husband and daughter were also associates with her and had sold themselves to the devil. On the strength of this confession the whole family were imprisoned in Huntingdon Gaol. At the following Session the three Samuels were put upon trial indicted with various offences and " bewitching unto death" the Lady Cromwell. In the agony of torture the old woman confessed all that was required, but her husband and daughter strongly asserted their innocence. All were sentenced to be hanged and burned. The executions were carried out in April 1595.
It is related that in 1594 the Earl of Derby attributed the cause of his death to witchery, though he had no idea of the person who had bewitched him.
The Accession of James I. himself a great expert in witchcraft and the author of the famous treatise on de- monology (q.v.) gave a great impetus to the persecution of witches in England. " Poor old women and girls of tender age were walked, sworn, shaved, and tortured, the gallows creaked and the fires blazed."
In 1606 there were tried at King's Lynn the wife of one Henry Smith a grocer, for cursing a sailor who had struck a boy, and for cursing her neighbours because they were more prosperous in their trades than she was.
After hearing the most absurd evidence she was con- victed and sentenced to death. Upon the scaffold she confessed to various acts of witchcraft.
In 1633 arose the famous case of the Lancashire Witches (q.v.). On the assertion of a boy called Robinson, that he had been carried off and witnessed a witches' Sabbath at the Hoare Stones, some eighteen women were brought to trial at Lancaster Assizes.
As the result of the severe legislation against witchcraft,
there arose a class of self-constituted impugners or witch- finders who to their personal advantage were the means of the sacrifice of many innocent lives.
The most famous of these witch-finders was Matthew Hopkins of Manningtree, in Essex. He assumed the title of " Witch-finder General," and with an assistant, and a woman whose duty was to examine female suspects for devil's marks, he travelled about the Counties of Essex, Sussex, Huntingdon, and Norfolk. In one year this mur- derer— for want of a better name — caused the death of sixty people. His general test was that of swimming. The hands and feet of accused were tied together crosswise. She was wrapped in a sheet and thrown into a pond. If she sank as frequently happened, she was deemed inno- cent, but at the cost of her life, if she floated she was pro- nounced guilty and forthwith executed. Another test was to repeat the Lord's Prayer without a single falter or stumble, a thing accredited impossible of a witch. On one occasion she was weighed against the Church Bible, obtaining her freedom if she outweighed it. It is alleged but without certainty, that on his impostures being found out an angry crowd subjected him to his own test by swim- ming, but whether he was drowned or executed authorities fail to agree.
In his Witch, Warlock and Magician Mr. Adams says, " I think there can be little doubt that many evil-disposed persons availed themselves to the prevalent belief in witch- craft as a cover for their depredations on the property of their neighbours, diverting suspicion from themselves to the poor witches, who through accidental circumstances had acquired notoriety as the devil's accomplices. It would also seem probable that not a few of the reputed witches similarly turned to account their bad reputa- tion."
It was not till the close of the seventeenth Century that convictions began to be discouraged by the Courts. But an old superstition dies hard, and in the early part of the eighteenth Century witchcraft was generally believed in, in England, even among the educated classes.
Probably the revolution of opinion was effected between the Restoration and the Revolution. According to Dr. Parr, the last execution of witches in England took place at Northampton where two were hung in 1705, and at the same place five others suffered a like fate in 1712. Hutch- ison commenting on this in his Historical Essay says, " This is the more shameful as I shall hereafter prove from the literature of that time, a disbelief in the existence of witches had become almost universal among educated men, though the old superstition was still defended in the Judgment Seat, and in the pulpit." Wesley who had more influence than all the Bishops put together says, " It is true likewise that the English in general, and, indeed, most of the men of learning in Europe, have given up all accounts of witches and apparitions as mere old wives' fables. I am sorry for it." The giving up of witchcraft, is in effect giving up the Bible. But I cannot give up to all the Deists in Great Britain the existence of witchcraft, till I give up the credit of all history sacred and profane."
Every year however, diminished the old belief, and in 1736, a generation before Wesley stated the above opinions, the laws against witchcraft were repeated, but as illus- trative of the long lived prevalence of the superstition in 1759 Susannah Hannaker of Wengrove, in Wiltshire, was put to the ordeal of weighing,, but she fortunately out- weighed the Bible. Cases of ducking supposed witches occurred in 1760 at Leicester, in 1785 at Northampton, and in 1829 at Monmouth, while as recently as 1863 a Frenchman died as the result of an illness caused by his having been ducked as a Wizard, at Castle Hedingham in Essex, and on September 17th, 1875, an old woman
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named Ann Turner, a reputed witch, was killed by a feeble- minded man at Long Compton in Warwickshire.
A. J. B. G.
See Wright. Narrative of Sorcery and Magic ; and Mackay. Extraordinary Popular Delusions.
Magic. Magic in England in early times is of course one with witchcraft, and it is only when we discern the stupendous figure of Roger Bacon (q.v.) that we find any thing like separation between the two. Of course, the popular traditions concerning Bacon are merely legendary, but they assist to crystallise for us the idea of an English magician of medieval times. The Elizabethan History of Friar Bacon was probably the first which placed these traditions on record. Here we have no concern with the Bacon of science, for the Bacon of magic is a magician who cheated the Devil, who made a brazen head that spoke, and who engaged in all manner of black magic.
In England the popular belief in magic was strengthened by the extraordinary effects of natural processes then known only to a small number of individuals who concealed their knowledge with the most profound secrecy. In England, as we approach the age of the Reformation, we find that the study of magic and alchemy have become extremely common among the Romish clergy. The rapid rise to power of men like Wolsey and Cromwell led people to think that they had gained their high positions through diabolical assistance. The number of Magicians in the reign of Henry VIII. was exceedingly great, as is witnessed by documents in the Record Office. At the height of .Wolsey's greatness, a magician who is described as " one Wood, gent." was dragged before the Privy-council, charged with some misdemeanour which was connected with the intrigues of the day. In a paper addressed to the lords of the council. Wood states that William Nevill had sent for him to his house at Oxford, it being the first commu- nication he had ever had with that " person."- After he had been at Weke a short time, Neville took him by the arm and led him privately into the garden, and, to use the quaint language of the original, " ther demawndyd of me many questyons, amowng all other askyd (if it) were not possible to have a rynge made that should brynge man in favor with hys prynce, saying my lord cardinale had suche a rynge that whatsomevere he askyd of the kynges grace that he hadd }'t, ' and master Cromwell, when he and I were servauntys in my lord cardynales housse, dyd hawnt to the company of one that was seyne in your faculte, and shortly after no man so grett with my lord cardynale as master Cromwell was.' " Neville added, that he had spoken " with all those who have any name in this realm, " who had assured him that in the same way he might become " great with his prince," and he ended by asking of the reputed magician what books he had studied on the subject. The latter continued, " and I, at the harte desire of hym showyd that I had rede many bokes, and specyally the boke of Salamon, and how his rynges be made and what mettell, and what vertues they had after the. canon of Salamon." He added, that he had also studied the magical work of Hermes. William Neville then requested him to undertake the making of a ring, which he says that he declined, and so went away for that time. But Neville sent for him again, and entered into further communication with him on the old subject, telling him that he had with him another conjurer, named Wade, who could show him more than he should ; and, among other things, had showed him that " he should be a great lord," This was an effective attempt to move Wood's jealousy; and it appears that Neville now pre- vailed upon him to make " moldes," probably images, " to the entent that he showld wed mastres Elezebeth Gare," on whom he ;eemed to have set his love. Perhaps
she was a rich heiress. Wood then enters into excuses for himself, declaring that, although at the desire of " some of his friends," he had " called to a stone for things stolen," he had not undertaken to find treasures, and he concluded with the naive boast, " but to make the phylosofer's stone, I will chebard (i.e. jeopard) my lyffe to do hyt, yf hyt plesse the kynges good grace to command me do hyt." This was the pride of science above the low practitioner's. He even offered to remain in prison until he had performed his boast, and only asked " twelve months upon silver, and twelve and a half upon gold."
The search for treasures, which the conjurer Wood so- earnestly disclaims, was, however, one of the most usual occupations of our magicians of this period. The frequent discoveries of Roman or Saxon, or medieval deposits, in the course of accidental digging — then probably more common than at present — was enough to whet the appetite of the needy or the miserly, and the belief that the sepul- chral barrow, or the long deserted ruin, or even the wild and haunted glen, concealed treasures of gold and silver of great amount has been carried down to our own days in a variety of local legends. Hidden treasures were under the particular charge of some of the spirits who obeyed the magician's call, and we still trace his operations in many a barrow that has been disturbed, and ruined floor that has been broken up. That these searches were not always successful will be evident from the following narrative : —
In the reign of Henry VIII. a priest named William Staplcton was placed under arrest as a conjurer, and as having been mixed up in some court intrigues, and at the request of Cardinal Wolsey he wrote an account of his adventures, still preserved in the Roll's House records (for it is certainly addressed to Wolsey, and not, as has been supposed, to Cromwell). Stapleton says that he had been a monk of the mitred abbey of St. Benet in the Holm, in Norfolk, where he was resident in the nineteenth year of Henry VIII. i.e. in 1527 or 1528, at which time he borrowed of one Dennys, of Hofton, who had procured them of the vicar of Watton, a book called Thesaurus - Spirituum, and after that another, called Secret a Secretorum, a little ring, a plate, a circle, and also a sword for the art of digging, in studying the use of which he spent six months. Now it appears that Stapleton had small taste for early rising, and after having been frequently punished for being absent from matins and negligent of his duty in church he obtained a licence of six months from the abbot to go into the world, and try and raise money to buy a dispensa- . tion from an order which seemed so little agreeable to his taste. The first person he consulted with was his friend Denn5'S, who recommended him to try his skill in finding treasure, and introduced him to two " knowing men," who had " placards " or licences from the king to search for treasure trove, which were not unfrequently bought from the crown at this period. These men lent him other books and instruments belonging to the " art of digging," and they went together to a place named Sidestrand in Norfolk, to search and mark out the ground where they thought treasure should lie. It happened, however, that the lady Tyrry, to whom the estate belonged, received intelligence of their movements, and after sending for them and subjecting them to a close examination, ordered them to leave her grounds.
After this rebuff, the treasure-seekers went to Norwich, where they became acquainted with another conjjfcrer named Godfrey, who had a " shower " of spirit, "which spirit," Stapleton says, " I had after myself," and they went together to Felmingham, and there Godfrey^ boy did " scry " unto the spirit, but after opening the ground they found nothing there. There are Roman barrows
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at Felmingham, which, when examined recently, appeared to have been opened at a former period in search of treasure. The disappointed conjurers returned to Norwich, and there met with a stranger, who brought them to a house in which it-was supposed that treasure lay concealed, and Stapleton again applied himself to his incantations, and called the spirit of the treasure to appear, but he turned a deaf ear to their charms, " for I suppose of a truth," is the pithy observation of the operator, " that there was none."
Disappointed and disgusted, Stapleton now gave up the pursuit. In Norfolk, however, he soon met with some of his old treasure-seeking acquaintances, who urged him to go to work again, which he refused to do unless his books were better. They told him of a man of the name of Leech, who had a book, to which the parson of Lesingham had bound a spirit called " Andrea Malchus ;" and to this man he went. Leech let him have all his instruments, and told him further that the parson of Lesingham and Sir John of Leiston (another ecclesiastic) with others, had called up of late by the means of the book in question three spirits, Andrea Malchus (before mentioned), Oberion and Inchubus. " When these spirits," he .said, " were all raised, Oberion would in nowise speak. And then the parson of Lesingham did demand of Andrea Malchus, and so did Sir John of Leiston also, why Oberion would not speak to them. And Andrea Malchus made answer, " For because he was bound unto the lord cardinal." And that also they did entreat the said parson of Lesingham, and the said Sir John of Leiston, that they might depart as at that time ; and whensoever it might please them to call them up again, they would gladly do them any service they could."
When Stapleton had made this important acquisition, he repaired again to Norwich, where he had not long been, when he was found by a messenger from the personage whom he xalls the lord Leonard Marquees, who lived at " Calkett Hall," and who wanted a person expert in the art of digging. He met lord Leonard at Walsingham, who promised him that if he would take pains in exercising the said art he would sue out a dispensation for him to be a secular priest, and to make him his chaplain. The lord Leonard proceeded rather shrewdly to make trial of the searcher's talents ; for he directed one of his servants to hide a sum of money in the garden, and Stapleton ' ' hewed " for it, and one, Jackson " scryed," but he was unable to find the money. Yet, without being daunted at this slip Stapleton went directly with two other priests, Sir John Shepe and Sir Robert Porter, to a place beside Creke Abbey, where treasure was supposed to be, and Sir John Shepe called the spirit of the treasure, and I shewed to him, but all came to no purpose."
Stapleton now went to hide his disappointment in Lon- don, and remained there some weeks, till the lord Leonard, who had sued out his dispensation as he promised, sent for him to pass the winter with him in Leicestershire, and towards spring he returned to Norfolk. " And there he was informed that there was " much money " hidden in the neighbourhood of Calkett Hall, and especially in the Bell Hill (probably an ancient tumulus or barrow), and after some delay, he obtained his instruments, and went to work with the parish priest of Gorleston, but " of truth we could bring nothing to effect." On this he again re- paired to London, carrying his instruments with him, and on his arrival he was thrown into prison at the suit of the lord Leonard, who accused him of leaving his service with- out permission, and all his instruments were seized. These he never recovered, but he was soon liberated from prison, and obtained temporary employment in the church.
But his conjuring propensities seem still to have lingered
about him, and we find this ex-monk and hermit, and now secular priest, soon afterwards engaged in an intrigue which led him eventually into a much more serious danger. It appears by Stapleton's statements, that one Wright, a servant of the Duke of Norfolk, came to him, and " at a certain season shewed me that the duke's grace, his master was soore vexed with a spyrytt by the enchantment of your grace" (he is addressing Wolsey). Stapleton says, that he refused to interfere, but that Wright went to the duke and told him that lie, Stapleton, knew of his being enchanted by Cardinal Wolsey, and that he could help him ; upon which the duke sent for Stapleton, and had an interview with him. It had previously been arranged by Wright and Stapleton (who says that he had been urged into the plot by the persuasion of Wright, and by the hope of gain and prospect of obtaining the duke's favour) that he should say he knew that the duke was persecuted by a spirit, and that he" had " forged "an image of wax in his similitude, which he had enchanted, in order to relieve him. The Duke of Norfolk appears at first to have placed . implicit belief in all that Stapleton told him ; he inquired of him if he had certain knowledge that the Lord Cardinal had a spirit at his command, to which he replied in the negative. He then questioned him as to his having heard anyone assert that the cardinal had a spirit ; on which Stapleton told him of the raising of Oberion by the parson of Lesingham and Sir John, of Leiston, and how Oberion refused to speak, because he was the lord cardinal's spirit. The duke, however, soon after this, became either sus- picious or fearful, and he eventually sent Stapleton to the cardinal himself, who appears to have committed him to prison, and at whose order he drew up the account here abridged.
The foregoing is the history of a man who, after having ■been a victim to his implicit belief in the efficiency of mag- ical operations was himself driven at last to have recourse to intentional deception. The number of such treasure- hunters appears to have been far greater among his con- temporaries, of almost all the classes of society, than we should at first glance be led to suppose. A few years before the date of these events, in the 12th year of Henry VIII., or A.D. 1521, the Icing had granted to Robert, Lord Curzon, the monopoly of treasure-seeking in the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, and Lord Curzon immediately delegated to a man, named William Smith, of Clopton, and a servant or retainer of his own, named Amylyon, not only the right of search thus given to him, but the power to arrest and proceed against any other person they found seeking treasures within the two counties. It appears that Smith and Amylyon had in some cases used this delegated au- thority for purposes of extortion ; and in the summer of the same year, Smith was brought up before the court of the city of Norwich, at the suit of William Goodred, of Great Melton, the minutes of the proceedings against him still remaining on the records. We here again find priests concerned in these singular operations.
It appears that the treasure-diggers, who had received their " placard " of Lord Curzon in March, went to Norwich about Easter, and paid a visit to the schoolmaster, named George Dowsing, dwelling in the parish of St. Faith, who, they had heard, was " seen in astronymye." They shewed him their license for treasure-seeking, which authorised him to press into their service any persons they might find who had skill in the science ; so that it would appear that they were not capable of raising spirits themselves, without the assistance of " scholars." The schoolmaster entered willingly into their project, and they went, about two or three o'clock in the morning, with one or two other persons who were admitted into their confidence, and dug in ground beside " Butter Hilles," within the walls of the
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city, but " found nothing there." These " hilles," also, ■were probably tumuli. They next proceeded to a place called " Seynt William in the Wood by Norwich," where they excavated two days (or rather two nights), but with no better success.
They now held a meeting at the house of one Saunders, in the market of Norwich, and called to their assistance two ecclesiastics, one named Sir William, the other Sir Robert Cromer, the former being the parish priest of St. Gregory's. At this meeting, George Dowsing raised "a spirit or two," in a glass ; but one of the priests, Sir Robert Cromer, "began and raised a spirit first." This spirit, according to the depositions, wis seen by two or three persons. Amylyon deposed that " he was at Saunders's where Sir Robert Cromer held up a stone, but he could not perceive anything in it ; but that George Dowsing caused to rise in a glass a little thing of the length of an inch or thereabout, but whether it was a spirit or a shadow he cannot tell, but the said George said it was a spirit." However, spirit or no spirit, they seem to have had as little success as ever in discovering the treasure.
Unable after so many attempts, to find the treasure themselves, they seem now to have resolved on laying a general contribution on everybody who followed the same equivocal calling. They went first and accused a person of the name of Wikman, of Morley Swanton, in the county of Norfolk, of " digging of hilles," and, by threatening to take him before Lord Curzon, they obtained from him ten shillings. Under the same pretext, they took from a lime-burner of Norwich, named White, a " christal- stone," and twelvepence in money in order that he " should not be put to further trouble." They took both books (prob- ably conjuring books) and money from John Wellys, of Hunworth, near Holt Market, whom, similarly, they ac- cused of " digging of hilles." And of another person, labouring under the same charge, they took " a christal stone and certain money."
With the era of Dr. Dee (q.v.) Edward Kelly, (q.v.) their school, a much more definite system of magico- astrology was evolved on English soil. Although Dee was credulous and Kelly was a rogue of the first water, there is little doubt that the .former possessed psychic gifts of no mean character. His most celebrated followers were William Lilly (q.v) and Elias Ashmole (q.v) not to speak of Simon Forman (q.v.) and Evans (q.v.). Lilly gathered about him quite a band of magicians, Ramse}', Scott, Hodges, and others, not to speak of his " skryers " Sarah Skelhorm and Ellen Evans. But these may be said to be the last of the practical magicians of England. Their methods were those of divination by crystal-gazing and evocation of spirits, combined with practical astrol- ogy. ■ .
Spiritualism. For the beginnings of spiritualism in England we must go back to the middle of the seventeenth century when Maxwell and Robert Fludd (q.v.) flourished and wrote concerning the secrets of mysticism and mag- netism. Fludd was a Paracelsian pure and simple and regarded man as the microcosm of the universe in minia- ture. He was an ardent defender of the Rosicrucians, concerning whom he wrote two spirited works, as well as his great Tractatus Apologeticus and many other alchemi- cal and philosophical treatises. The part of the Tractatus which deals with natural magic is one of the most authori- tative ever penned on the subject, and divides the subject most minutely into its several parts. Thomas Vaughan (q.v.) is likewise a figure of intense interest about this period. He. was a supreme adept of spiritual alchemy and his many works written under the Pseudonym of Eugenius Philalethes show him to have possessed an ex- alted mind. It is to men of this type, magi, perhaps, but
none the less spiritualists, that the whole superstructure of English spiritualism is indebted.
(See further Spiritualism in England under article Spiritualism.) Enguerraud de Marigny : (See Prance.)
Ennemoser, Joseph (1787-1854) : A doctor and philosopher of Germany, who devoted himself largely to the study of magnetism. He was made a professor at Bonn in 1819, and at Munich in 1841. Among his works may be men- tioned his Hisloire du magnelisme (1844) ; le Magnetisms dans ses rapports avec la nature et la religion (1842) ; and Introduction a la pratique du mesmerisme (1852); History of Magic (English trans, by Howitt), 1854.
Enoch : Seventh master of the world after Adam, and author of the Kabala and Book of the Tarot. He is identical with the Thoth of the Egyptians, the Cadmus of the Phoenicians, and the Palamedes of the Greeks. According to tradition he did not die, but was carried up to heaven, whence he will return at the end of time.
Enoch, Book of : An Apochryphal book of the Old Testa- ment,, written in Hebrew about a century before Christ. The original version was lost about the end of the fourth century, and only fragments remained, but Bruce the trav- eller brought back a copy from Abyssinia, in 1773 in Ethiopia, probably made from the version known to the early Greek fathers. In this work the spiritual world is minutely described, as is the region of Sheol (q.v.) the place of the wicked. The book also deals with the history of the fallen angels, their relations with the human species and the foundations of magic. The book says : " that there were angels who consented to fall from heaven that they might have intercourse with the daughters of earth. For in those days the sons of men having multiplied, there were born to them daughters of great beauty. And when the angels, or sons of heaven, beheld them, they were filled with desire ; wherefore they said to one another : Come let us choose wives from among the race of man, and let us beget children'. Their leader Samyasa, answered there- upon and said : ' Perchance you will be wanting in the courage needed to fulfil this resolution, and then I alone shall be answerable for your fall.' But they swore that they would in no wise repent and that they would achieve their whole design. Nov/ there were two hundred who de- scended on Mount Armon, and it was from this time that the mountain received its designation, which signifies Mount of the Oath. Hereinafter follow the names of those angelic leaders who descended with this object : Sam- yasa, chief among all, Urakabarameel, Azibeel, Tamiel, Ramuel, Danel, Azkeel, Sarakuyal, Asael, Armers, Batraal, Anane, Zavebe, Sameveel, Ertrael, Turel, Jomiael, Arizial. They took wives with whom they had intercourse, to whom also they taught Magic, the art of enchantment and the diverse properties of roots and trees. Amazarac gave instruction in all secrets of sorcerers ; Barkaial was the master of those who study the stars ; Akibeel mani- fested signs ; and Azaradel taught the motions of the moon." In this account we see a description of the pro- fanation of mysteries. The fallen angels exposed their occult and heaven-born wisdom to earthly women, whereby it was profaned, and brute force taking advantage of the profanation of divine law, reigned supreme. Only a deluge could wipe out the stain of the enormity, and pave the way for a restitution of the balance between the human and the divine, which had been disturbed by these unlawful revelations. A translation of the Book of Enoch was pub- lished by Archbishop Lawrence in 1821, the Etheopic text in 1838, and there is a good edition by Dillman (1851). Philippi and Ewald have also written special works on the subject.
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Epworth, Poltergeist, The : In December, 1716, a disturbance of a poltergestic character broke out in the Parsonage of Epworth, the home of John Wesley. The evidence con- sists in contemporary letters written to Samuel Wesley by his mother and two of his sisters ; letters written nine years after the events to John Wesley by his mother and four of his sisters, and a copy of an account by Samuel Wesley the elder. The disturbances, consisting of rappings, loud and varied noises, were heard by every member of the household. Mrs. Wesley says in a letter, " Just as we (Mr. and Mrs. Wesley) came to the bottom of the broad stairs, having hold of each other, on my side there seemed as if somebody had emptied a bag of money at my feet, and on his as if all the bottles under the stairs (which were many) had been dashed in a thousand pieces." The dis- turbances lasted for about two months, though occasional manifestations were heard after that period. Hetty, one of the five daughters of the Wesley household, is the only one who has not left a record of her experiences, although it would seem that the poltergeist was most active in her neighbourhood.
Equilibrium : Magical harmony depends upon equilibrium. In occult operations if the will of the operator be always at the same tension and directed along the same line, moral impotence will ensue. (See Levi — Ceremonial Magic.)
Erie of the Windy Hat : According Hector of Boece, the king of Sweden, Eric or Henry, surnamed the Windy Hat, could change the wind merely by turning his hat or cap on his head, to show the demon with whom he was in league which way he wished the wind to blow. The demon obeyed the signal so promptly that the king's hat might have served the people for a weather-cock.
Eromanty : One of six kinds of divination practised among the Persians by means of air. They enveloped their heads in a napkin and exposed to the air a vase filled with water, over which they mutter in a low voice the objects of their desires. If the surface of the air shows bubbles it is re- garded as a happy prognostication.
Esdaile : (See Hypnotism.)
Eskimos : The religion of the Eskimos is still to a great extent in the magical stage. Their shamans or medicine-men, whom they call Angekok partake more of the character of magicians than that of priests and they invariably con- sult them before starting on a hunting expedition, or when prostrated by illness. The nature of the ceremonies em- ployed on those occasions may be inferred from the account of Captain Lyon, who on one occasion employed an angekok named Toolemak, to summon a Tomga or familiar spirit in the cabin of a ship.
All light having been carefully excluded from the scene of operations, the sorcerer began by vehemently chanting to his wife, who, in her turn, responded with the Amna-aya, the favourite song of the Eskimo. This lasted throughout the ceremony. Afterwards, Toolemak began to turn him- self round very rapidly, vociferating for Tomga, in a loud powerful voice and with great impatience, at the same time blowing and snorting like a walrus. His noise, agitation, and impatience increased every moment, and at length he seated himself on the deck, varying his tones, and making a rustling with his clothes.
Suddenly the voice seemed smothered, and was so man- aged as to give the idea that it was retreating beneath the deck, each moment becoming more distant, and ultimately sounding as if it were many feet below the cabin, when it ceased entirely. In answer to Captain Lyon's queries, the sorcerer's wife seriously declared that he had dived and would send up Tomga.
And, in about half a minute, a distant blowing was heard
approaching very slowly, and a voice differing from that which had first been audible was mixed with the blowing, until eventually both sounds became distinct, and the old beldame said that Tomga had come to answer the stranger's questions. Captain Lyon thereupon put several queries to the sagacious spirit, receiving what was under- stood to be an affirmative- or a favourable answer by two loud slaps on the deck. '
A very hollow yet powerful voice, certainly differing greatly from that of Toolemak, then chanted for some time, dnd a singular medley of hisses, groans, and shouts, and gobblings like a turkey's followed in swift succession. The old woman sang with increased energy, and as Captain Lyon conjectured that the exhibition was intended to astonish " the Kabloona," he said repeatedly that he was greatly terrified. As he expected, this admission added fuel to the flame, until the form immortal, exhausted by its own might, asked leave to retire. The voice gradually died away out of hearing, as at first, and a very indistinct hissing succeeded. In its advance it sounded like the tone produced by the wind upon the bass cord of an .flsolian harp ; this was soon changed to a rapid hiss, like that of a rocket, and Toolemak with a yell, announced the spirit's return.
At the first distant sibilation Captain Lyon held his breath, and twice exhausted himself ; but the Eskimo conjurer did not once respire, and even his returning and powerful yell was uttered without previous pause or in- spiration of air.
When light was admitted, the wizard, as might be ex- pected, was in a state of profuse perspiration, and greatly exhausted by his exertions, which had continued for at least half an hour. Captain Lyon then observed a couple of bunches, each consisting of two strips of white deerskin and a long piece of sinew, attached to the back of his coat. These he had not seen before, and he was gravely told that they had been sewn on by Tomga while he was below.
The angekoks profess to visit the dwelling-place of the spirits they invoke and give circumstantial descriptions of these habitations. They have a firm belief in their own powers.
Dr. Kane considers it a fact of psychological interest, as it shows that civilised or savage wonder-workers form a single family, that the angekoks have a firm belief in their own powers. " I have known," he says, " several of them personally, and can speak with confidence on this point. I could not detect them in any resort to jugglery or natural magic ; their deceptions are simply vocal, a change of voice, and perhaps a limited profession of ven- triloquism, made more imposing by the darkness." They have, however, like the members of the learned professions everywhere else, a certain language or jargon of their own, in which they communicate with each other.
" While the angekoks are the dispensers of good, the iss- intok, or evil men, are the workers of injurious spells, en- chantments, and metamorphoses. Like the witches of both Englands, the Old and the New, these malignant creatures are rarely submitted to trial until they have suffered punishment — the old " Jeddart justice" — castigat auditque. Two of them, in 18 18, suffered the penalty of their crime on the same day, one at Kannonak, the other at Upernavik. The latter was laudably killed in accor- dance with the "old custom" .... custom being every- where the apology for any act revolting to moral sense. He was first harpooned, then disembowelled ; a flap let down from his forehead to cover his eyes and prevent his seeing again — he had, it appears, the repute of an evil eye ; — and then small portions of his heart were eaten, to ensure that he should not come back to earth un- changed."
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Esoteric Languages : Artificial languages invented by certain castes for the better preservation of secrets, or for the purpose of impressing the vulgar with the mysteries and superior nature of those who employed the tongues in question. ." They conversed with one another in eager undertones in a language I did not understand." This is one of the stock phrases of the mystery novel of the nineteenth century, and has probably given rise to a great deal of misconception as to the true character and multi- pliticy of esoteric tongues. As a matter of fact, these are particularly rare. It is stated by several ancient au- thors that the Egyptian priests possessed a secret language of their own ; but what its nature was we are unable to state, as no fragments of it are now extant, — probably because it was not reduced to writing. At the same time many Egyptian magical formulas are in existence (See Egypt) which teem with words and expressions of secret meaning ; but examination of these shows that they are merely foreign, usually Syrian, words slightly changed. We know, for example, that the secret dialects of the medicine-men among the North-American Indians are chiefly composed either of archaic expressions or the idioms of other tribes. But there are examples of the de- liberate manufacture of a secret tongue, such as the Sheila Thari (q.v) or language of the ancient caste of bronze- workers, still spoken by the tinkler classes of Great Britain, and the secret language of the Ndembo caste (q.v.) of the Lower Congo. It is probable that the Jewish priesthood cast a veil of secrecy over the sacred names of the Deity, and the higher ranks of their heavenly hierarchy, by sub- stituting other names for them, such as " Adonai " for " Jahveh." This of course arose from the Egyptian con- ception that the name of the god must be concealed from the vulgar, as to know it was to possess magical power over the deity. The spells and incantations of mediaeval magic are full of oriental names and idioms, but much jargon also found its way into these. It was considered in the middle ages that the primitive language of the world was lost to man, and it was thought that this might only be recovered through magical agency, or the reversion to a state of complete innocence. Others believed it to be Hebrew ; and it is on record that James IV. of Scotland isolated two infants on the island of Inchkeith, in the Firth of Forth along with a dumb woman who cared for them ; and that in course of time they " spak gude Ebrew." A similar tradition acquaints us with the circumstance that a certain Egyptian king isolated two children in a like manner, who on coming to the period of speech met the first persons they beheld after their time of solitude with the word beccos, the Greek for bread. But these instances, it is unnecessary to say, are purely legendary. In many savage tribes, secret jargons or dialects are in use among the priesthood or the initiated of secret societies ; and in several brotherhoods of modern origin, symbolic words are constantly in use for the purpose of veiling veritable meaning. The Rosicrucians (q.v.) are said to have con- stituted and employed an arcane tongue. Esplanadian : A mediaeval Spanish legend. It tells how Ama- dis of Gaul and his wife Oriana of the Firm Island had the wicked enchanter Archelous in their keeping, but set him free in answer to his wife's entreaties. Certain calamities happen which are attributed to Archelous, and Amadis' son Esplandian is carried off by the enchantress Urganda. The legend goes on to relate Esplandian' s adventures, how he is given a magic sword, and kills a dragon. With this sword he succeeds in killing Archelous himself, and his nephew, and he then sets free a kinsman. His next oppo- nent is Matroed, son of Arcobone, whom he also vanquishes ; and finally the stronghold of Archelous is utterly destroyed, and the land freed from the pagan influence of Matroed.
Esquiros, Alphonse : (See France.)
Essence, Elemental : (See Evolution of Life.)
Essence, Monadic : (See Evolution of Life.) -
Essenes, The : A mystical Jewish sect, the tenets of which are only partly known. They first- appeared in history about 150 years B.C. They were very exclusive and pos- sessed an organisation peculiar to themselves. They ex- ercised strict asceticism, and great benevolence. They had fixed rules for initiation, and a succession of strictly separate grades. Their system of thought deviated greatly from the normal development of Judaism, and was more in. sympathy with Greek philosophy and oriental ideas. The tendency of the society was practical, and they re- garded speculation on the universe as too lofty for the human intellect. So far as can be judged there was nothing occult in their beliefs.
Etain : The second wife of Midir the Proud, of Irish fame. Fuamnach, Midir's first wife, became jealous of her beauty and" turned her into a butterfly, and she was blown out of the palace by a magic storm. For seven years she was tossed hither and thither through Ireland, but then was blown into the fairy palace of Angus on the Boyne. He could not release her from the spell, but during the day she fed on honey-laden flowers, and by night in her natural form gave Angus her love. Fuamnach discovered her hiding-place, and sent a dreadful tempest which blew Etain into the drinking-cup of Etar, wife of an Ulster chief. Etar swallowed her, but she was born her daughter, and as such married Eochy, High King of Ireland.
Ether sometimes spoken of as koilon is in theosophic as in scientific teaching, all pervading, filling all space and inter- penetrating all matter. Despite this, it is of very great density, 10,000 times more dense than water and with a pressure of 750 tons per square inch. It is capable of being known only by clairvoyants of the most highly developed powers. This etker is filled with an infinitude of small bubbles pretty much like the air -bubbles in treacle or some such viscid substance, and these were formed at some vastly remote period by the infusion of the breath of the Logos into the elher, or, as Madame Blavatsky phrased it, they are the holes which Fohat, the Logos, dug in space. Of these bubbles — not of the elher — matter is built up in its degree of density varying with the number of bubbles com- bined together to form each degree. (See Solar System. Theosophy.)
Etheric Double is, in Theosophy, the invisible part of the ordinary, visible, physical body which it interpenetrates and beyond which it extends for a little, forming with other finer bodies the "aura" (q.v.) The term etheric is used because it is composed of that tenuous matter by the vi- brations of which the sensation of light is conveyed to the eye. This matter, it must however be noted is not the omnipresent ether of space, but is composed of physical matter known as etheric, super-etheric, sub-atomic, ar:d atomic. The term double is used because it is an exact replica of the denser physical body. The sense organs of the etheric double are the chaksams (q.v.) and it is through these chaksams (q.v.) that the physical body is supplied with the vitality necessary for its existence and its well- being during life. The etheric double thus plays the part of a conductor, and it also plays the part of a bridge between the physical and astral bodies, for without it man could have no communication with the astral world and hence neither thoughts nor feelings. Anaesthetics for instance drive out the greater part of the double, and the subject is then imperyious to pain. During sleep it does not leave the ph3'sical body, and, indeed, in dreams the etheric part of the brain is extremely active, especially when, as is often the case, the dreams are caused by attendant physical
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circumstances, such as noise. Shortly after death, the etheric double finally quits the physical body though it does not move far away from that body, but is composed of the four subdivisions of physical matter above alluded to. With the decay of the latter, the doable also decays and thus to a clairvoyant, a burying ground presents a most unpleasant sight. (See also Vitality, Etheric Vision, The- osophy. Shell.)
Etheric Vision is in Theosophy, the power of sight peculiar to the Etheric Double (q.v.). It is of considerably greater power than physical vision, and by its aid many of the phenomena of the physical world may be examined as may also many creatures of a non-human nature which are ordinarily just outside the range of physical vision. It responds readily to stimuli of various kinds and be- comes active under their influence.
Ethlinn : Daughter of BalOr, King of the Fomorians of Irish magical legend. She was Balor's only child, and as he had been informed by a druid that he would be killed by his grandson, he had Ethlinn imprisoned in a tower and guarded by twelve women, who were forbidden to tell her that such beings as men existed. Balor stole a magic cow from Kian, who in revenge obtained access to Ethlinn dis- guised as a woman. They had three children whom Balor ordered to be drowned, but one of them fell from the nap- kin in which they were being taken to their doom, and was carried off by the Druidess Birog to its father Kian. This child became Lugh, the grea_t sun-god, who eventually fulfilled the prophecy and killed his grandfather, Balor.
Etteilla : An eighteenth centurjr student of the Tarot. By profession he was a barber, his true name being Alliette ; but on entering upon his occult labours he read it backwards, after the Hebrew fashion — Eteilla. He had but little education, and was ill acquainted with the philosophy of the initiates. Nevertheless he possessed a profound in- tuition, and, if we believe Eliphas Levi, came very near to unveiling the secrets of the Tarot. Of his writings Levi says that they are " obscure, wearisome, and in style bar- barous." He claimed to have revised the Book of Thot, but in reality he spoilt it, regarding as blunders certain cards whose meaning he had failed to grasp. It is com- monly admitted that he failed in his attempt to elucidate the Tarot, and ended by transposing the keys, thus destroy- ing the correspondence between the numbers and the signs. It has also been said of him that he had degraded the science of the Tarot into the cartomancy, or fortune-telling by cards, of the vulgar.
Evergreens : The custom of decorating houses at Christmas- tide with evergreen plants — holly, ivy, box, laurel, mistletoe — is sometimes said to have originated when Christianity was introduced into this country, to typify the first British church, built of evergreen boughs. More probably it ex- tends back into antiquity. In Druiclic times people dec- orated their houses with evergreen plants so that the sylvan spirits might repair thither to shelter from the severity of winter, till their leafy bowers should be renewed. . TSveritt, Mrs. : An English medium who gave private seances so early as 1855. To these sessions .were admitted her private friends, and enquirers introduced by them. When a prayer had been said and the lights turned out the spirits manifested themselves by raps, table-tiltings, lights and spirit voices. Mr. Morell Theobald, a prominent spiritu- alist, was neighbour and friend to Mr. and Mrs. Everilt, and was first attracted to the subject through their in- strumentality.
Evocations : (Sec Necromancy).
Evolution of Life, acording to theosophists, began when the Logos, in his second aspect, sent forth the second life wave. This life wave descends from above through the various worlds causing an increasing heterogeneity and
thereafter ascends, causing a return to its original homo- geneity. Our present state of knowledge of life in these worlds extends no farther than the mental world. In the higher division of that world it has ensouled the relatively fine matter appropriate thereto — if that matter is atomic it is known as " monadic essence " if non-atomic, as " ele- mental essence," and this is known as the first elemental kingdom. What we may call the inhabitants of this king- dom are the higher order of angels. The life wave having functioned sufficiently long in the higher mental world, now presses down to the lower level of that world, where it appears as the second elemental kingdom, the inhab- itants of which are some of the lower orders of angels, the Form Devas. Again pressing down, the life wave manifests itself in the astral world, forming the third elemental king- dom, the inhabitants of which are the lowest orders of angels, the Passion Devas. It now enters the physical world and, in the fourth elemental kingdom, ensouls the etheric part of minerals with the elementary type of life which these possess. The middle of this kingdom repre- sents the farthest descent of the life wave, and thereafter its course is reversed and it commences to ascend. The next kingdom into which it passes is the fifth elemental kingdom, the vegetable world, whence it passes to the sixth elemental kingdom, the animal world, and lastly to the seventh elemental kingdom, man. During its stay in each kingdom, the life wave progresses gradually from elementary to highly specialised types and when it has attained these latter, it passes to the next kingdom. This, of course, of necessity means that successive currents of this great second life wave have come forth from the Logos, since, if it were otherwise, there would be only one kingdom in existence at a time. In each kingdom, also, the souls of the bodies which inhabit it differ from those of the other kingdoms. Thus, in the seventh kingdom, that of man, each individual has a soul. In the animal kingdom on the contrary, one soul is distributed among diff- erent bodies, the number of which varies with the state of evolution. To one soul may be allotted countless bodies of a low type of development, but, as the development increases, the soul comes to have fewer bodies allotted to it until in the kingdom of man there is but one. Exorcism : To exorcise, according to the received definitions, says Smedley, is to bind upon oath, to charge upon oath, and thus, by the use of certain words, and performance of certain ceremonies, to subject the devil and other evil spirits to command and exact obedience. Minshew calls an " exorcist " a " conjuror ;" and it is so used by Shakespeare ; and exorcism, " conjuration." It is in the general sense of casting out evil spirits, however, that the word is now understood.
The trade of exorcism has probably existed at all times In Greece, Epicurus and jEschines, were sons of women who lived by this art, and each was bitterly reproached, the one by the Stoics, theother by Demosthenes, for having assisted his parent in her dishonourable practices.
We read in the Acts of the Apostles (XIX. 1 3) of the failure and disgrace of " certain of the vagabond Jews, exorcists," who, like the Apostles, " took upon them to call over them that had evil spirits the Name of the Lord Jesus." " God," says Josephus, " enabled Solomon to learn that skill which expels demons, which is a science useful and sanative to men. He composed such incantations also, by which distempers are alleviated, and he left behind him the man- ner of using exorcisms, by which they drive away demons, so that they never return. And this method of cure is of great force unto this day ; for I have seen a certain man of my own country, whose name was Eleazar, releasing people that were demoniacal, in the presence of Vespasian and his sons, and his captains, and the whole multitude
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of his soldiers. The manner of the cure was this. He put a ring that had a root of one of those sorts mentioned by Solomon to the nostrils of the demoniac, after which he drew out the demon through his nostrils ; and when the man fell down immediately, he adjured him to return unto him no more, making still mention of Solomon, and reciting the incantation which he composed. And when Eleazar would persuade and demonstrate to the spectators that he had such a power, he set, a little way off, a cup or basin full of water, and commanded the demon as he went out of the man to overturn it, and thereby to let the spectators know that he had left the man." Some pre- tended fragments of these conjuring books of Solomon are noticed in the Codex Pseudepigraphus of Fabricus ; and Josephus himself has described one of the antidemo- niacal roots, in a measure reminiscent of the perils attendant on gathering the " mandrake." Another frag- ment of antiquity bearing on this subject is the exorcism practised by Tobit, upon which it is by no means easy to pronounce judgment. Grotius, in a note on that history, states that the Hebrews attributed all diseases arising from natural causes to the influence of demons ; and this opinion it is well known, has been pushed much farther than Grotius intended, by Hugh Farmer and others of his school. These facts are derived in great measure from Bekker's most ingenious, though forgotten volumes Le Monde Enchante, to which the reader may be referred for almost all that can be written on the necessity of exorcism.
Bekker relates an instance of exorcism practised by the modern Jews, to avert the evil influence of the demon Lilis, whom the Rabbis esteem to be the wife of Satan. During the hundred and thirty years, says Rabbi Elias, in his Thisbi which elapsed before Adam was married to Eve, he was visited by certain she devils, of whom the four principal were Lilis, Naome, Ogere, and Machalas ; these, from their commerce with him, produced a fruitful progeny of spirits. Lilis still continues to visit the chambers of women recently delivered, and endeavours to kill their babes, if boys on the eighth day, if girls, on the twenty-first, after their birth. In order to chase her away, the attendants describes circles on the walls of the chamber, with charcoal, and within each they write, " Adam, Eve, Lilis, avaunt ! " On the door also of the chamber they write the names of the three angels who preside over medicine, Senoi, San- senoi, and Sanmangelof, — a secret which it appears was .taught them, somewhat unwittingly, by Lilis herself.
A particular ecclesiastical order of exorcists does not appear to have existed in the Christian church till the close of the third century ; and Mosheim attributes its intro- duction to the prevalent fancies of the Gnostics. In the Xth. Canon of the Council of Antioch, held A.D. 341 ex- orcists are expressly mentioned in conjunction with subdeacons and readers, and their ordination is described by the IVth. Council of Carthage, 7. It consisted, without any imposition of hands, in the delivery, by the Bishop of a book containing forms of exorcism, and directions that they should exercise the office upon " Energumens," whether baptized or only catechumens. The fire of exor- cism, as St. Augustine terms it, always preceded baptism. Catechumens were exorcised for twenty days previous to the administration of this sacrament. It should be ex- pressly remarked, however, that in the case of such cate- chumens as were not at the same time energumens, these exorcisms were not directed against any supposed demoni- acal possession. They were, as Cyril describes them, no more than prayers collected and composed out of the words of Holy Writ, to beseech God to break the dominion and power of Satan in new converts, and to deliver them from his slavery by expelling the spirit of wickedness and error.
Thus in the Greek Church, as Rycaut' mentions, before baptism, the priest blows three times upon the child to dispossess the devil of his seat ; and this may be under- stood as symbolical of the power of sin over the unbap- tized, not as an assertion of their real or absolute possession.
The exorcists form one of the minor orders- of the Romish Church. At their ordination the bishop addresses them as to their duties, and concludes with these words : — Take now the power of laying hands upon the energumens, and by the imposition of your hands, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, and the words of exorcism, the unclean spirits are- driven from obsessed bodies. One of the completest man- uals for a Romish exorcist which ever was compiled, is a volume of nearly 1300 pages, entitled, Thesaurus Exor- cismorum et Conjurationum terribilium, potentissimorumr efficacissimorumque, cum Practica probatissima, quibus, Spiritus maligni, Dcemones, malecifiaque omnia de corpori- bus humanis tanquam Flagellis _ Fustigusque fugantur, ex- pelluntur. Doctrinis referlissimus atque uberrimus ; ad maximam Exorcistarum commodi-Tatem in lucem editus et recusus, Colonics, 1608. It contains the following Tracts : F. Valerii Polydori Patavini, Ordinis Minor, etc. " Practica Exorcistarum," two parts ; F. Hieronymi Mengi Vitel- lianensis, " Flagellum Dasmonum ;" Ejusdem " Fustis Dasmonium ;" F. Zacharias Vicecomitis, " Complementum Artis Exorcistiae ; " Petri Antonii Stampae, " Fuga Satanae."
From the first of these treatises, it appears that the en- ergumens were subjected to a very severe corporal as welt as spiritual discipline. They were first exercised in Pras- xorcizationes " which consist of confessions, postulations, protestations, concitations, and interrogations. The ex- orcisms themselves are nine in number : 1. " ex Sanctis nominibus Dei," which are thus enumerated, " Schem- hamphoras, Eloha, Ab, Bar, Ruachaccocies Jehovah, Tetragrammaton, Heheje, Haja hove vejhege, El Sabaoth, Agla, Adonai, Cados, Sciadai, Alpha and Omega, Agios and Yschiros, O Theos and Athanatos ; 2. ex omnium Sanctorum ordine ; 3. ex prascipuis animadversione dignis Sanctorum Angelorum ; 4. ex actibus vitse glor- iosae Virg. Marias 15. ex gestis, Domini Nostri Jesu Christi ; 6. ex institutis venerabilium Sacramentorum ; 7. ex prascipuis S. Ecclesias Dogmatibus ; 8. Apocacalypsis (Apocalypsews) Beati Joannis Apostoli." All these are accompanied with appropriate psalms, lessons, litanies, prayers, and adjurations. Then follow eight " Postexor- cizationes." The three first are to be used according as the demon is more or less obstinately bent on retaining possession. If he is very sturdy, a picture of him is to be drawn, " effigie horribili ac turpi," with his name inscribed under it, and to be thrown into the flames, after having been signed with the cross, sprinkled with holy water and fumigated. The fourth and fifth are forms of thanksgiving and benediction after liberation. The sixth refers to " In- cubi " and " Succubi." The seventh is for a haunted house, in which the service varies during every day of the week. The eighth is to drive away demoniacal storms and tempests— for which purpose are to be thrown into- a huge fire large quantities of Sabinas, Hupericonis, Palmae Christi, Arthemesize, Verbenas, Aristolochias rotundas, Rutas, Aster, Attici, Sulphuris et Assas fetidas. The second part of the treatise " Dispersio Dasmonum " contains many- recipes for charms and amulets against possession. Be- sides these, there are directions for the diet and medicine of the possessed, as bread provided " contra Diaboli ne- quitiam et maleficiorum turbinem." Mutton " pro obsessi nutrimento atque Mal'eficii et Dasmonis detrimento." Wine " pro maleficiatis nutriendis et maleficiis Diabolicisque- quibuscunque infestationibus destruendis." Holy water
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for the same purpose, whenever wine is forbidden. A draught " ad omne maleficium indifferenter solvendum et Diabolum conterendum." Four separate lavements and a night draught for the delirious ; two emetics " pro ma- terialibus instrumentis maleficialibus emittendis." And finally, there is a conserve " virtuosius corroborativa ven- triculi a maleficialium instrumentorum materialium vomitione fessi."
In the " Flagellum Daemonum " are contained numerous cautions to the exorcist himself, not to be deceived by the arts of the demon, particularly when he is employed with possessed women. If the devil refuses to tell his name, the demoniac is to be fumigated. If it be necessary to break off the exorcism before the evil spirits be wholly ex- pelled, they are to be adjured to quit the head, heart, and stomach of the energumen, and to abscond themselves in the lower parts of his body, " puta in ungues mortuos pedum."
In the " Fustis Daemonum " the exorcist is directed, whenever the evil spirit persists in staying, to load him with vituperative addresses. After this railing latinity, redoubled precaution is necessary, and if the demons still refuse to tell their names, the knowledge of which is always great gain, the worst names that can be thought of are to be attributed to them, and fumigations resorted to. The seventh exorcism in this treatise is " mirabilis efficaciae pro his qui in matrimonis a Daemonibus vel maleficis diabolica arte impediuntur seu maleficiantur." Among other things, they are to be largely anointed with holy oil ; and if all adjurations fail, they are to be strenuously exhorted to patience: In the last form, dumbness is attacked, and a very effectual remedy against this infirmity is a draught of holy water with three drops of holy wax, swallowed on an empty stomach.
Father Vicecomes, in his Complementum Artis Exor- cistias, explains the several signs of possession or bewitch- ment ; also, in how many separate ways the evil spirit notifies his departure, sometimes by putting out the light, now and then by issuing like a flame, or a very cold blast, through the mouth, nose, or ears. He then writes many prescriptions for emetics, perfumes, and fumigations, cal- culated to promote these results. The writer concludes with a catalogue of the names of some of the devils of com- monest occurrence, which is of very narrow dimensions : Astaroth, Baal, Cozbi, Dagon, Aseroth, Baalimm, Chamo, Beelphegor, Astarte, Bethage, Phogor, Moloch, Asmodaeus, Bele, Nergel, Melchon, Asima, Bel, Nexroth, Tartach, Acharon, Belial, Neabaz, Merodach, Adonides, Beaemot, Jerobaal, Socothbenoth, Beelzebub, Leviathan, Lucifer, Satan, Mahomet.
The Fuga Satance of Stampa is very brief, and does not contain any matter which deserves to be added to the much fuller instructions given by Mengs and Vicecomes. Several of the forms used by Mengs are translated and satirized, in the coarse ridicule which characterized those times, in a little tract entitled A Whip for the Devil, or the Roman Conjuror, 1683. A century and a half before this, Erasmus had directed his more polished and delicate wit to the same object ; and his pleasant dialogue Exorcismus seu Spectrum is an agreeable and assuredly an unexaggerated picture of these practices.
Those who desire to peruse a treatise on practical exor- cism should consult the Histoire admirable de la possession et conversion d'une Penitente, seduite par un Magicien, la faisant Sorciere et Princesse des Sorciers, au pais de Provence, conduite a la Scte. Baume, pour y estre exorcizee, Van MDCX. au mois de Novembre, soubs Vaulhoriti de R.P.F. Sebastien Miehcclis, Prieur de Convente Royale de la Scte. Magdalene' a S. Maximin et dudict lieu de la Scte. Baume, Paris, 1613. The possessed in this case, Magdelaine de Palha, was
exorcised during four months ; she was under the power of five princes of the devils, Beelzebub, Leviathan, Baalberith, Asmodeus and Astaroth, " avec plusieurs autres inferieurs." Beelzebub abode in her forehead, Leviathan in the middle of her head, Astaroth in the hinder part of it ; " la partie de la tete ou ils estoient faisoit, centre nature, un perpetual mouvement et battement ; estans sortis la partie ne bouge- oit point."
A second sister of the same convent, Loyse, was also possessed by three devils of the highest degree, Verin, Gresil, and Soneillon ; and of these, Verin, through the proceedings of the exorcists, appears to have turned king's evidence, as it were ; for, in spite of the remonstrances and rage of Beelzebub, " qui commenca a rugir et a jetter des cris comme feroit un taureau echauffe," he gave important information and instruction to his enemies, and appeared grievously to repent that he was a devil. The daily Acts and Examinations, from the 27th of November to the following 23rd of April, are specially recorded by the exorcist himself, and all the conversations of the devils are noted down verbatim. The whole business ended in a tragedy, and Louis Gaufridi, a priest of Marseilles, who was accused of witchcraft on the occasion was burned alive at Aix.
Michaelis is eminently distinguished in his line. We find him three years afterwards engaged in exorcising three nuns in the convent of St. Brigette, at Lisle. Whether the two unhappy women, Marie de Sains and her accom- plice, Simone Dourlet, who were supposed to have been the causes of this possession, were put to death or not, does not appear. The proceedings may be found in a Histoire veritable et memorable de ce qui e'esi passe sous I'Exorcisme de trois filles possedees au pais de Flandre, Paris 1623 ; and they are in some respects an appendix to those against Louis Gaufridi, whose imputed enormities are again related in a second volume of this work.
This transaction appears to have been the work of super- stition alone ; but one of far deeper dye, and of almost unparalleled atrocity, occurred at Loudun (q.v.) in 1634, when Grandier (q.v.), cure and canon of that town, was mercilessly brought to the stake partly by the jealousy of some monks, partly to gratify the personal vengeance of Richelieu, who had been persuaded that this ecclesiast had lampooned him, an offence which he never forgave^ Some Ursline nuns were tortured to feign themselves pos- sessed, and Grandier was the person accused of having tenanted them with devils. Tranquille, one of the exor- cists, published a Veritable relation des juste procedures observees au fait de la possession des Ursulines de Loudun, et au proces de Grandier, Paris 1634 ; and by a singular fatality, this reverend personage himself died within four years of the iniquitous execution of his victim, in a state of reputed possession, probably distracted by the self- accusations of remorse.
The last acknowledgment of exorcism in the Anglican Church, during the progress of the Reformation, occurs in the first Liturgy of Edward VI. in which is given the following form at baptism : " Then let the priest, looking upon the children, say, ' I command thee, unclean spirit, in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, that thou come out and depart from these infants, whom our Lord Jesus Christ has vouchsafed to call to His holy baptism, to be made members of His Body and of His Holy congregation. Therefore, thou cursed spirit, re- member thy sentence, remember thy judgment, remember the day to be at hand wherein thou shaft burn in fire ever- lasting prepared for thee and thy angels. And presume not hereafter to exercise any tyranny towards these infants whom Christ hath bought with His precious blood, and by this His holy baptism calleth to be of His flock.' " On.
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the remonstrance of Bucer, in his censure of the liturgy, that that exorcism was not originally used to any but de- moniacs, and that it was uncharitable to imagine that all were demoniacs who came to baptism, it was thought pru- dent by our reformers to omit it altogether, in their review of the liturgy in the 5th and 6th of Edward VI.
The LXXIId canon thus expresses itself on exorcism, " No minister shall, without the license of the bishop of the diocese, first obtained and had under his hand and seal, — attempt upon any pretence whatever, either of obsession or possession, by fasting or prayer, to cast out any devil or devils : under pain of the imputation of imposture or cosenage, and deposition from the ministry." Extispicy, or Extispieium so named from exta and spicere, to view, consider, was applied to the inspection of entrails chiefly. The officers were Extispices or Aruspices, and one of the instruments they used was cailed by the same name as the craft, an extispieium. The Erturians were the first and also the most learned, who practised extispicy, and Romulus is said to have chosen his first Aruspices from among them. The art was also practised throughout
Greece, where it had a consecrated priesthood confined to two families. The Roman Aruspices had four distinct duties, to examine the victims before they were opened, to examine the entrails, to observe the flame as the sacrifice was burnt, and also to examine the meat and drink-offering which accompanied it. It was a fatal sign when the heart was wanting, and this is said to have been the case with two oxen that were immolated on the day when Caesar was killed. If the priest let the entrails fall, or there was more bloodiness than usual, or if they were livid in colour, it was understood to be a portent of instant disaster. Itru- vius has attempted to account for the origin of extispicy by the custom of examining the viscera of animals, before settling an encampment, to ascertain if the neighbourhood was healthy, an explanation to which little value can be attached. Eye-biters : In the time of Queen Elizabeth there came among the cattle of Ireland a disease whereby they grew blind. The witches to whose malevolence this evil was attributed were called eye-biters, and many of them were executed.
I
F
Fabre, Pierre Charles: (French Alchemist — Fl. 1630.) Hardly any biographical details concerning this French alchemist are forthcoming. Mr. Waite, in his Lives of the Alchemyslical Philosophers, declares that Fabre was a native of Montpellier ; but we do not find any evidence to support this statement, and it is possible that he has confounded Fabre the alchemist with a painter of the same name, who was born at Montpellier, and after whom the Musee Fabre at that town is called. Pierre Jean Fabre appears to have been a doctor of medicine, and to have been renowned in his own day as a scholar of chemistry, a subject on which he compiled several treatises ; while, though it is not re- corded that he ever won any marked successes in the field of alchemy, he certainly wrote numerous things dealing wholly or partly with that topic. Of these the most im- portant are Alchimista Chrisiianus and Hercules Pischy- micus, both published at Toulouse, the first in 1632, the second two years afterwards ; and in the latter he maintains that the mythological " labours of Hercules " are allegories, embodying the arcana of hermetic philosophy. The phil- osopher's stone, he declares complacently, may be found in all compounded circumstances, and is formed of salt, mercury and sulphur.
Fagail : The ■' parting gift " of the fairies, of Gaelic origin. This may be of a pleasant or unpleasant nature — it may be death, or the conversion of a man who worked badly, was ugty, and of rude speech, into the best workman, the best looking man, and the best speaker in the place. — Camp- bell's Superstitions of the Scottish Highlands.
Fairies : A species of supernatural beings, and one of the most beautiful and important of mythological conceptions. The belief in fairies is very ancient and widespread, and the same ideas concerning them are to be found among rude and uncultivated races as in the poesy of more civilised peoples. Of British fairies there are several distinct kinds, and these differ considerably in their characteristics. In Ireland, where the belief is strongest, the fairies are called " good people," and are of a benevolent but capricious and mischievous disposition. The pixies of England are very similar. The industrious domestic spirit known as Puck, or Robin Goodfellow, is of the fairy kind ; so also are the brownies of Scotland. It is supposed that the hard work of the latter has given them the swarthiness from which they take their name, the other being called fairies from their fairness.
Scottish fairy mythology resembles that of Ireland, though of a mire sombre cast. In Highland Scotland fairies are called daoine sithe or " men of peace," and it is believed that every year the devil carries off a tenth part of them. They steal human children, and leave in their places fairy changelings, fretful, wizened, Unchildish things. Flint arrow-heads are believed, both in Ireland and Scot- land, to be fairy' weapons, and the water in which they are dipped is a cure for many ills. Fairy music may often be heard in certain spots, and like the fairies themselves it is of exquisite beauty. As in the myth of Persephone, mor- tals who eat or drink in fairyland are doomed to remain there for ever. If a fairy marry with a human being, there is generally some condition imposed on the latter which, being broken, leads to his undoing. Many fairy legends are found all over Europe, varying a little with the locality but identical in their essential points. The conception of fairies is probably animistic. {See Animism.)
Fairfax, Edward : An English poet of the sixteenth century, author of a work on Demonology, wherein he treats some- what credulously of sorcery.
Falconet, Noel : A physician who died in 1734. Among his works was one entitled Letters and Remarks on the so-called Potable Gold.
Familiars : Spirits attendant upon a magician, sorcerer, or witch. The idea probably arose out of that of fetishism (q.v.) especially as many familiars were supposed to reside in rings, lockets, or other trinkets worn by the wizard or sorcerer. From Delrio we learn that these spirits were called by the Greeks " Paredrii," as being ever assiduously at hand ; and by the Latins, beside " Familiar es," " Mar- tinelli," or ■' Magistelli," for which names he does not assign any reason. The black dog of Cornelius Agrippa is among the best known familiars of modern times. His story rests on the authority of Paulus Jovius, (-' Elogia " ci.) and it has been copied by Thevet, among others, in his Hist, des Hommes plus Illustres et Scavans, XVIII. Jovius relates that Agrippa was always accompanied by the devil in the shape of a black dog, and that, perceiving the approach of death, he took a collar ornamented with nails, disposed in magical inscriptions from the neck of the animal, and dismissed him with these memorable words, " Abi perdita Bestia quae me totum perdidisti." (Away, accursed beast, through whose agency I must now sink into perdition.) Tne dog thus addressed, it is said, ran hastily to the banks
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of the Saone, into which he plunged headlong, and was never afterwards seen. Le Loyer says : — " With regard to the demons whom they imprisoned in rings and charms, the magicians of the school of Salamanca and Toledo, and their master Picatrix, together with those in Italy who made traffic of this kind of ware, knew better than to say whether or not they had appeared to those who had been in possession or bought them. And truly I cannot speak without horror of those who pretend to such vulgar famili- arity with them, even to speaking of the nature of each particular demon shut up in a ring ; whether he be a Mer- curial, Jovial, Saturnine, Martial, or Aphrodisiac spirit ; in what form he is wont to appear when required ; how many times in the night he awakes his possessor ; whether benign or cruel in disposition ; whether he can be trans- ferred to another ; and if, once possessed, he can alter the natural temperament, so as to render men of Saturnine complexion Jovial, or the Jovials Saturnine, and so on. There is no end of the stories which might be collected under this head, to which if I gave faith, as some of the learned of our time have done, it would be filling my paper to little purpose. I will not speak therefore of the crystal ring mentioned by Joalium of Cambray, in which a young child could see all that they demanded of him, and which eventu- ally was broken by the possessor, as the occasion by which the devil too much tormented him. Still less will I stay my pen to tell of the sorcerer of Courtray, whose ring had a demon enclosed in it, to whom it behoved him to speak every five days. In fine, the briefest allusion must suffice to what they relate of a gentleman of Poitou, who had playfully taken from the bosom of a young lady a certain charm in which a devil 'was shut up. " Having thrown it into the fire," the story goes, "he was incessantly tor- mented with visions of the devil till the latter granted him another charm, similar to the one he had destroyed, for the purpose of returning to the lady and renewing her interest in him." Heywood writes, if not much more fully on the subject than Le Loyer does, and evidently attaches a far greater degree of credibility to the narratives which he brings forward. " Grillandus is of opinion, that everie Magition and Witch, after they have done their homage to the devell, have a familiar spirit given to attend them, whom they call ' Maglstellus,' ' Magister,' ' Martinettus ' or ' Martinellus' " and these are sometimes visible to men in the shape of a dog, a rat, an aethiope, etc. So it is re- ported of one Magdalena Crucia, that she had one of these paredrii to attend her like a blackemore. Glycas tells us, that Simon Magus had a great black dog tyed in a chaine, who, if any man came to speak with him whom he had no desire to see was ready to devoure him. His shadow like- wise he caused still to go before him ; making the people beleeve that it was the soule of a dead man who still at- tended him.
" These kindes of familiar spirits are such as they include or keepe in rings hallowed, in viols, boxes, and caskets ; not that spirits, having no bodies, can be imprisoned there against their wills, but that they seem to be confined of their own free-will and voluntarie action.
' ' Johannes Leo writeth, that such are frequent in Africke, shut in caves/and bear the figure of birds called Aves Hario- latrices, by which the Magitions raise great summes of money, by predicting by them of things future. For being demanded of any difficulty, they bring an answer written in a small scroll of paper, and deliver it to the magition in their bills. Martinus Anthonius Delrius, of the Society of Jesus, a man of profound learning and judgment, writeth, that in Burdegell there was an advocate who in a viol kept one of these Paradrii inclosed. Hee dying, his heires know- ing thereof, were neither willing to keepe it, nor durst they breake it ; and demanding counsell, they were persuaded
to go to the Jesuit's Colledge, and to be directed by them. The fathers commanded it to be brought before them and broken ; but the executors humbly besought them that it might not be done in their presence, being fearfull least some great disaster might succeed thereof. At which they smiling, flung it against the wall, at the breaking thereof there was nothing seen or heard, save a small noise, as if the two elements of water and fire had nearly met together, and as soone parted.
" Philostratus tells us, that Apollonius Tyaneus was never without such rings ; and Alexander Neapolitanius affirmeth, that he received them of Jarcha, the great prince of the Gymnosophists, which he took of him as a rich pres- ent, for by them he could be acquainted with any deep secret whatsoever. Such a ring had Johannes Jodocus Rosa, a citizen of Cortacensia, who every fifth day had conference with the spirit enclosed using it as a counsellor and director in all his affairs and interprises whatsoever. By it he was not onely acquainted with all newes as well forrein as domesticke, but learned the cure and remedy for all griefs and diseases ; insomuch that he had the repu- tation of a learned and excellent physition. At length, being accused of sortilege or enchantment, at Arnham, in Guelderland, he was proscribed, and in the year 1548 the chancellor caused his ring, in the public market, to be layd upon an anvil, and with an iron hammer beaten to pieces.
" Mengius reporteth from the relation of a deare friend of his (a man of approved fame and honestie) this historie. In a certain town under the jurisdiction of the Venetians, one of their prasstigious artists (whom some call Python- ickes), having one of these rings, in which he had two fa- miliar spirits exorcised and bound, came to a predicant or preaching friar, a man of sincere life and conversation ; and confessed unto him that hee was possessed of such an enchanted ring, with such spirits charmed, with whom he had conference at his pleasure. But since he considered with himselfe, that it was a thing dangerous to his soule, and abhominable both to God and man, he desired to be cleanly acquit of it, and to that purpose he came to receive of him some godly counsell. But by no persuasion would the religious man be induced to have any speech at all with these evil spirits (to which motion the other had before earnestly solicited him), but admonished him to cause the magicke ring to be broken, and that to be done with all speed possible. At which words the familiars were heard (as it were) to mourne and lament in the ring, and to desire that no such violence might be offered unto them ; but rather than so, that it would please him to accept the ring, and keepe it, promising to do him all service and vassallage ; of which, if he pleased to accept, they would in a short time make him to be the most famous and admired predicant in all Italy. But he perceiving the devils cunning, under this colour of courtesie, made absolute refusall of their offer ; and withall conjured them to know the reason why they would so willingly submit themselves to his patronage ? After many evasive lies and deceptious answers, they plainly confessed unto him, that they had of purpose persuaded the magition to heare him preach ; that by that sermon, his conscience being pricked and galled, he might be weary of the ring, and being refused of the one, be accepted of the other ; by which they hoped in short time so to have puft him up with pride and heresie, to have percipitated his soule into certaine and never ending destruction. At which the churchman being zealously inraged, with a great hammer broke the ring almost to dust, and in the name of God sent them thence to their own habitation of darkness, or whither it pleased the highest powers to dispose them.
" Of this kinde doubtlesse was the ring of Ggyes (of whom Herodotus doth make mention), by vertue of which
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he had power to walke invisible ; who, by the murder of his sovereign Candaules, married his queene, and so became King of Lydia. Such, likewise, had the Phocensian tyrant, who, as Clemens Stromaeus speaketh, by a sound which came of itselfe, was warned of all times, seasonable and unseasonable, in which to manage his affairs ; who, not- withstanding, could not be forewarned of his pretended death, but his familiar left him in the end, suffering him to be slain, by the conspirators. Such a ring, likewise, had one Hieronimus, Chancellor of Mediolanum, which after- wards proved to be his untimely ruine." (Hierarchic of the Blessed Angels, vii.; The Principals, p. 475, etc.)
Sometimes the familiar annexed himself voluntarily to a master, without any exercise of magic skill or invocation on his part, nor could such a spirit be disposed of without exorcism, as we learn from the following story cited by Delrio (vi. , c. ii., s. 3., q. 3.) : — " A certain man (pater familias — head of a family), lived at Trapani, in Sicily, in whose house it is said, in the year 1585, mysterious voices had been heard for a period of some months. This familiar was a daemon, who, in various ways, endeavoured to annoy man. He had cast huge stones, though as yet he had broken no mortal head ; and he had even thrown the domestic vessels about, but without fracturing any of them. When a young man in the house played and sung, the demon, hearing all, accompanied the sound of the lute with lascivious songs, and this distinctly. He vaunted himself to be a daemon ; and when the master of the house, together with his wife, went away on business to a certain town, the daemon volunteered his company. When he returned, however, soaked through with rain, the spirit went forward in advance, crying aloud as he came, and warning the servants to make up a good fire," etc. In spite of these essential services, the paterfamilias called in the aid of a priest and expelled the familiar, though not without some difficulty.
A learned German physician has given an instance in which the devil of his own accord enclosed himself in a ring as a familiar, thereby proving how dangerous it is to trifle with him.
Paracelsus was believed to carry about with him a familiar in the hilt of his sword. Naude assures us, that he never laid this weapon aside even when he went to bed, that he often got up in the night and struck it violently against the floor, and that frequently when overnight he was without a penny, he would show a purseful of gold in the morning. (Apologie pour les Grands Hommes soup- connez de Magie, xiv., p. 281.) After this, we are not a little disconcerted with the ignoble explanation which he gives of this reputed demon, namely, that although the alchemists maintain that it was no other than the philo- sopher's stone, he (Naude) thinks it more rational to believe, if indeed there was anything at all in it, that it was two or three doses of laudanum, which Paracelsus never went without, and with which he effected many strange cures.
The feats of Kelly, " Speculator " to Dr. Dee, may be read in the life of the last-named writer. Of Dr. Dee him- self and the spirits Ash, II, Po, Va, and many others, who used to appear to him, by Kelly's ministry, in a beryl, much may be found in Merie Casaubon's Relation of what passed for many years between Dr. John Dee and some spirits. This narrative comprises the transactions of four-and-twenty years, from 1583 to 1607. Familiars partook of that jealousy which is always a characteristic of spiritual beings, from the time of Psyche's Cupid down- wards, in their intercourse with mortals. This feeling is strongly exemplified in a narrative given by Froissart, and translated by Lord Berners, which relates : — " How a spyrite, called Orthone, serued the lorde of Corasse a long
time, and brought euer tidynges from all parts of the
worlde." Fanny : (See Poltergeists) Fantasmagoriana : The title of a collection of popular stories,
dealing mainly with apparitions and spectres, which was
published in Paris in 1812. The contents were for the most
part translated from the German.
Faraday : (See Spiritualism.)
Fascination : From Latin fascinare, to enchant. The word in its general acceptation signifies charm, enchant, to bewitch, by the eyes, the looks ; generally, to charm or enchant ; to hold or keep in thraldom by charms, by powers of pleasing.
A belief in Fascination (strictly so called) appears to have been very generally prevalent in most ages and countries. For its existence in Greece and Rome we may quote the wish of Theocritus that an old woman might be with him to avert this ill by spitting, or the complaint of Menalcas, in Virgil, that some evil eye has fascinated his lambs. The Romans, indeed, with their usual passion for increasing the host of heaven, deified this power of ill, and enrolled a god " fascinus " among their objects of worship. Although he was a " numen," the celebration of his rites was intrusted by a singular incongruity, to the care of the vestal virgins ; and his phallic attribute was suspended round the necks of children and from the triumphal chariots. Lucretius, writing Of Natural Witchcraft for Love, etc., says : " But as there is fascination and witchcraft by malicious and angry eyes unto displeasure, so are there witching aspects tending contrariwise to love, or, at the least, to the procur- ing of good will and liking. For if the fascination or witch- craft be brought to pass or provoked by the desire, by the wishing or coveting any beautiful shape or favour, the venom is strained through the eyes, though it be from afar, and the imagination of a beautiful form resteth in the heart of the lover, and kindleth the fire where it is afflicted. And because the most delicate, sweet and tender blood of the beloved doth there wander, his countenance is there represented, shining in his own blood, and cannot there be quiet, and is so haled from thence, that the blood of him that is wounded, reboundeth, and slippeth into the wounder."
Varius, Prior of the Benedictine Convent of Sta. Sophia in Benevento, published a Treatise, De Fascino, in 1589. He first points to whole nations which have been reported to possess the power of fascination. Thus the idolatrous " Biar- bi " and " Hamaxobii," on the authority of Olaus Magnus, are represented to be " most deeply versed in the art of fascinating men, so that by witchcraft of the eyes, or words, or of aught else (a very useful latitude of expression) they so compel men that they are no longer free, nor of sane understanding, and often are reduced to extreme emaci- ation, and perish by a wasting disease." He then proceeds to similar marvels concerning animals. Wolves, if they see a man first, deprive him of all power of speech ; a fact yet earlier from Theocritus. The shadow of the hyaena produces the same effect upon a dog ; and this sagacious wild beast is so well acquainted with its own virtue, that whenever it finds dog or man sleeping, its first care is to stretch its length by the side of the slumberer, and thus ascertain his comparative magnitude with its own. If itself be larger of the two, then it is able to afflict its prey with madness, and it fearlessly begins to nibble his hands or paws (whichever they may be) to prevent resistance ; if it be smaller, it quietly runs away. It may be as well to know, (though not immediately bearing on fascination), that an attack from an hyaena, if it approaches on the right hand, is peculiarly dangerous ; if from the left, it may be beaten off without much trouble. Lastly, tortoises lay
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their eggs and afterwards hatch them, as is very credibly affirmed, by virtue of their eyes alone.
The tenth chapter of the First Booh of Vairus inquires : " An aliqui se fascinare possint ? " a question which is decided in the affirmative, by the example of the Basilisk of Narcissus, and of one less known, though equally un- fortunate, Eutelis. In the twelfth chapter he affirms, that the more wicked any person is, the better is he adapted to exercise evil fascination. From this book we may extract two useful cautions : " Let no servant ever hire himself to a squinting master, and let jewellers be cautious to whose hands, or rather eyes, they intrust their choicest wares." A friend of Vairus told him, that he had seen a person who was gifted 'with an eye of such fascinating power, that once while he was looking attentively on a precious stone of fine water, exquisite cutting, and admirable polish, in the hands of a lapidary, the jewel of its own accord split into two parts.
In his Second Book, after disputing against " natural " fascination, which he treats as visionary, Vairus determines that all fascination is an evil power, attained by tacit or open compact with the devil.
'A second writer on this matter is John Lazarus Gutierrez, a Spanish physician, who may be believed to be equally well qualified for the consideration of mystery. His Opusculum de Fascino appeared in 1653. On his own experience he does not state much, but in his Dubium (III.) he cites Mendoza for an account of a servant of a Tyrolese nobleman, who could bring down a falcon from her very highest flight by steadily looking at her. From Antonius Carthaginensis, also, he produces two other wonders. The first, of a man in Guadalazara, who was in the habit of breaking mirrors into minute fragments solely by looking at them ; the second, of another in Ocana, who used to kill his own children, as well as those of other folks, by the contagion of his eyes ; nay, still more, occasionally, in like manner, to be the cause of death to many valuable horses.
From Cardan, Gutierrez extracts the following symptoms by which a physician may determine that his patient is fascinated : — Loss of colour, heavy and melancholy eyes, either overflowing with tears or unnaturally dry, frequent sighs, and lowness of spirits, watchfulness, bad dreams, falling away of flesh. Also, if a coral or jacinth worn by him loses its colour, or if a ring, made of the hoof of an ass, put on his finger, grows too big for him after a few days' wearing. According to the same writer, the Persians used to determine the sort of fascination under which the patient laboured, by binding a clean linen cloth round his head, letting it dry there, and remarking whether any and what spots arose on it.
But the most curious fact which we learn from Gut- ierrez is that the Spanish children in his time wore amulets against fascination, somewhat resembling those in use among the Romans. The son of Gutierrez himself wore one of these ; it was a cross of jet, (" agavache ") and it •was believed that it would split if regarded by evil eyes, thus transferring their venom from the child upon itself. In point of fact, the amulet worn by young Gutierrez did so split one day, while a person was steadfastly looking at lim ; and, in justice to the learned physician, we must add, that he attributes the occurrence to some accidental cause, and expresses his conviction that the same thing would have happened under any other circumstances. Through- out his volume, indeed, all his reasoning is brought forward to explode the superstition.
A third similar work is that of John Christian Fromman, a physician of Saxe-Coburg, who published his Tractatus de Fascinatione in 1675.
We have already learned from Vairus, that all those who are immoderately praised, especially behind their backs.
persons of fair complexion, and of handsome face or figure, particularly children, are most exposed to fascination, and this notion probably arose from such children attracting from strangers more attention than others less indebted to nature. It was an impression of his own personal beauty which induced Polyphemus to put in practice the spitting charm which Cotattaris had taught him. So we read in The- ocritus, Frommann adds, that children in unwashed baby linen are easily subject to fascination, and so also is any fair one who employs two lady's maids to dress her hair ; moreover, that all those who lie in bed very late in the morning, especially if they wear nightcaps, all who break their fast on cheese or peas, and all children who, having been once weaned, are brought back to the breast, will, even against their inclination, be gifted with the power of fascinating both men and beasts.
In order to ascertain whether a child be fascinated, three oak apples may be dropped into a basin of water under its cradle, the person who drops them observing the strictest silence ; if they swim the child is free, if they sink it is affected ; or a slice of bread may be cut with a knife marked with three crosses, and both the bread and the knife left on the child's pillow for a night ; if marks of rust appear in the morning the child is fascinated. If on licking the child's forehead with your tongue a salt taste is perceived, this also is an infallible proof of fascination.
The following remedies against fascination rest upon the authorities either of Vairus or Frommann, or both of them ; several of them may be traced to Pliny : — An invo- cation of Nemesis ; the root of the " Satyrios Orchis ;" the skin of a hyaena's forehead ; the kernel of the fruit of a palm tree ; " Alyssum " (madwort) hung up anywhere in the house ; the stone " Catochites ;" spitting on the right shoe before it be put on ; hyssop ; lilies ; fumiga- tions ; sprinklings ; necklaces of jacinth, sapphire, or carbuncle ; washings in river water, provided silence be kept ; licking a child's forehead, first upward, next across, and lastly up again, and then spitting behind its back ; sweeping its face with the bough of a pine tree ; laying it on the ground, covered up in a linen cloth, and then sprink- ling it in the form of a cross, with three handfuls of earth, dug where the eaves drop, and brought thence at three separate times within an hour ; laying turf from a boy's grave under a boy's pillow, from a girl's under a girl's ; silently placing near a child the clothes in which it was baptized ; if, as is sometimes the case, a child appears to derive no benefit from washing, taking three scrapings from the plaster of each of the four walls of its bedroom, and sprinkling them on its linen; three " lavements " of three spoonfuls of milk ; giving in a drink the ashes of a rope in which a man has been hanged ; drawing water silently, and throwing a lighted candie into it in the name of the Holy Trinity, then washing the patient's legs in this water, and throwing the remainder behind its back in the form of a cross ; hanging up the key of the house over the child's cradle ; laying on it crumbs of bread, a lock with the bolt shut, a looking-glass, or some coral washed in the font in which it was baptized ; hanging round its neck . fennel seeds, or bread and cheese.
^Vairus states, that huntsmen, as a protection against fascination, were used to split an oak plant, and pass them- selves and their dogs between it. As amulets against love fascination, he recommends sprinkling with the dust in which a mule has rolled itself ; a bone which may be found in the right side of a toad ; or the liver of a chameleon. Vida has given a highly elaborate description of one who possessed this destructive power in his eye, after enjoining especial caution respecting those who are permitted to look at the silkworms. Some instances of yet more modern belief in fascination than those to which we have referred
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above, may be found collected in Brand's Popular An- tiquities. It appears even in our own days to be prevalent among the inhabitants of the western islands of Scotland, who use nuts, called Molluca beans, as amulets against it. Dallaway, in his Account of Constantinople remarks, that " Nothing can exceed the superstition of the Turks respecting the evil eye of an enemy or infidel. Passages from the Koran are painted on the outside of the houses, globes of glass are suspended from the ceiling, and a part of the superfluous caparison of their horses is designed to attract attention and divert a sinister influence."
Delrio has a very short notice of fascination ; he divides it into " Poetica seu Vulgaris," that resulting from obscure physical causes, which he treats as fabulous ; " Philoso- phica," which he considers to be contagion ; and " Magica," to which he heartily assents. .Fat of the Sorcerers : It was said at one time that the devil made use of human fat for his sorceries. The witches anointed themselves with this fat in order to go to the Sabbath by way of the chimney.
Fatimites : (See Arabs.)
Faust : A magician of the sixteenth century, famous in legend and literature. There is sound proof that such a person existed. Trithemius (q.v.) mentions him in a letter written in 1507, in which he speaks of him in terms of contempt, as a fool and a mountebank who pretended that he could restore the writings of the ancients were they wiped out of human memory, and blasphemed concerning the miracles of Christ. Mudt, a canon of the German Church also alludes to him in a letter as a charlatan. Johann Gast, a Protestant pastor of Basel, appears to have known Faust, and considers a horse and dog belonging to him to have been familiar spirits. Wier (q.v.), the great protector of witches, mentions Faust in a work of his, as a drunkard who had studied magic at Cracow. He also mentions that in the end Satan strangled him after his house had been shaken by a terrific din. From other evidence it is pretty clear that Faust was a wandering magician or necromancer, whose picturesque character won him wide publicity or notoriety. By the end of the century in which he flour- ished he had become the model of the mediaeval magician, and his name was for ever linked with those of Virgil, Bacon, Pope Silvester and others.
The origins of the Faust legend are of very great an- tiquity. The essentials underlying the story are the pact with Satan, and the supposed vicious character of purely human learning. The idea of the pact with Satan belongs to both Jewish and Christian magico-religious belief, but is probably more truly Kabalistic than anything else, and can scarcely be traced further back ; unless it resides in the savage idea that a sacrificed person takes the place of the deity, to which he is immolated during the period of life remaining to him before his execution, and afterwards becomes one with the god. The wickedness of believing in the all-sufficiency of human knowledge is a favourite theme with the early Lutherans, whose beliefs strongly coloured the Faust legend ; but vivid hues and wondrously carven outlines were also afforded its edifice by the thought of the age in which it finally took shape ; and in the ancient Faust- books we find tortuous passages of thought and quaintnesses of conception which recall to our minds the artistry of the Renaissance.
The Faust-book soon spread over Europe ; but to Eng- land is due the honour of the first dramatic representation of the story by Christopher Marlowe, who in the Tragicall History of Dr. Faustus produced a wondrous, if unequal drama, — the outstanding passages of which contained most of his best work. Lessing wrote a Faust play during the German revival of the eighteenth century, but it remained to Goethe to crown the legend with the creation of the
greatest psychological drama the world has ever seen. The manner in which Goethe differed from his predecessors in his treatment of the story lies in the circumstance that he gives a different character to the pact between Faust and Mephistopheles, whose nature again is totally at vari- ance with the devils of the old Faust-books. From Lessing Goethe received the idea of Faust's final salvation. It may be said that though in some respects Goethe adopted the letter of the old legend he did not adopt its spirit. Prob- ably the story of Faust has given to thousands their only idea of mediaeval magic, and this idea has lost nothing in the hands of Goethe, who has cast about the subject a much greater halo of mystery than it perhaps really contains. (See Goethe.)
Fay, Annie Eva : A medium. (See. Spiritualism.)
Feliciani, Lorenza : (See Cagliostro.)
Fendeurs : A supposed French Rosicrucian Society, con- cerning which very little is known. It flourished in the middle of the seventeenth century ; and its members claimed that it was of Scottish origin.
Feortini : (See Visions.)
Ferarius : This alchemist is supposed to have been an Italian priest of the thirteenth century, but nothing is known con- cerning his career. Various chymical writings ascribed to him are embodied in that curious collection, the Theatrum Chimicum, prominent among them being De Lapide Phil- osophorum and Thesaurus Philosophies ; and in the former the author observes, rather tritely, that in alchemy the first thing to be ascertained is what is really signified by the myrionimous argentum vivum sapientium. But he does not volunteer any information in this particular, and his works in general are obscure, and of but little interest.
Ferdinand D. Sehertz : (See Magia Posthuma.)
Fern : The common Fern, it was believed, was in flower at midnight on St. John's Eve, and whoever got possession of the flower would be protected from all evil influences, and would obtain a revelation of hidden treasure. Fern seed was supposed to render one invisible.
Ferrier, Susan : (See Fiction, Occult English.)
Fetch : According to Irish belief, the apparition of a living person ; the Irish form of the wraith (q.v.) It resembles in every particular the individual whose death it is sup- posed to foretell, but it is generally of a shadowy or ghostly appearance. The fetch may be seen by more than one person at the same time and, like the wraith of England and Scotland, may appear to the person it represents. There is a belief, too, that if the fetch be seen in the morning, it indicates long life for the original : but if it be seen at night, his speedy demise may be expected. The Fetch enters largely into the folk-tales of Ireland ; and it is hardly surprising that so many tales have been woven around it, for there is something gruesome in the idea of being haunted by one's own " double " which has frequently been turned to account by more sophisticated writers than the inventors of folk-tales.
Patrick Kennedy, in his Legendary Fiction of the Irish Celt, speaking of the Irish fetch, gives the following tale of The Doctor's Fetch, based, it is stated, on the most au- thentic sources : "In one of our Irish cities, and in a room where the mild moonbeams were resting on the carpet and on a table near the window, Mrs. B., wife of a doctor in good practice and general esteem, looking towards the window from her pillow, was startled by the appearance of her husband standing near the table just mentioned, and seeming to look with attention on the book which was lying open on it. Now, the living and breathing man was by her side apparently asleep, and, greatly as she was sur- prised and affected, she had sufficient command of herself to remain without moving, lest she should expose him to the terror which she herself at the moment experienced.
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After gazing on the apparition for a few seconds, she bent her eyes upon her husband to ascertain if his looks were turned in the direction of the window, but his eyes were closed. She turned round again, although now dreading the sight of what she believed to be her husband's fetch, but it was no longer there. She remained sleepless through- out the remainder of the night, but still bravely refrained from disturbing her partner.
" Next morning, Mr. B., seeing signs of disquiet on his wife's countenance while at breakfast, made some affec- tionate inquiries, but she concealed her trouble, and at his ordinary hour he sallied forth to make his calls. Meeting Dr. C, in the street, and falling into conversation with him, he asked his opinion on the subject oi fetches. ' I think,' was the answer, ' and so I am sure do you, that they are mere illusions produced by a disturbed stomach acting upon the excited brain of a highly imaginative or super- stitious person.' ' Then,' said Mr. B., ' I am highly im- aginative or superstitious, for I distinctly saw my own outward man last night standing at the table in the bed- room, and clearly distinguishable in the moonlight. I am afraid my wife saw it too, but I have been afraid to speak to her on the subject.'
" About the same hour on the ensuing night the poor lady was again roused, but by a more painful circumstance. She felt her husband moving convulsively, and immediately afterwards he cried to her in low, interrupted accents, ' Elleo, my dear, I am suffocating ; send for Dr. C She sprang up, huddled on some clothes, and -ran to his house. He came with all speed, but his efforts for his friend were useless. He had burst a large blood-vessel in the lungs, and was soon beyond human aid. In her lamentations the bereaved wife frequently cried out, ' Oh ! the fetch, the fetch ! ' and at a later period told the doctor of the appearance the night before her husband's death. Fetishism : The term fetishism is employed in more than one sense. Thus it may mean in some cases pure idolatry or the worship of inanimate objects. Again in older works of travel, it is even used to signify African religion. But taken in its general and more modern sense, it signifies any inanimate object which appears to the savage as the resi- dence of a spirit. Thus a carved doll, a necklace of teeth, a flint stone into which a shaman or medicine-man has succeeded in coaxing a spirit to reside, is regarded by the savage as a fetish. But larger objects are occasionally adopted as fetishes, and in the adoption of these in contra- distinction to the smaller fetishes we can trace the evolution of the idol. As a general rule the fetish is an object peculiar in shape or material, for such is considered by the shaman as being more likely to attract a wandering spirit than any more ordinary substance. Thus we find as fetishes pecu- liarly shaped stones, tufts of human hair and bones, parts of animals and birds, and so forth. Fossils are not uncommonly employed as fetishes, possibly because of their freakish formation.
The origin of fetishism is undoubtedly animistic (See Animism). The savage intelligence regards everything that surrounds it as possessing the property of life — water, the earth, trees, stones and so forth. But this is modified by the idea that many of these objects are under the power of some spell or potent enchantment. Thus the rocks and trees are the living tombs of imprisoned spirits, resembling the dryads of folk-lore ; so that it is not at all strange to the savage mind to perceive an imprisoned intelligence more or less powerful, in any object, no matter how un- common its form. In fact, according to the savage mind, spirit was dependent to a great extent upon material body. The wandering spirit, according to the barbarian, could not fare much better, materially speaking, than a wander- ing savage : it would suffer the rigours of hunger and cold.
and would be only too agreeable to be at rest for a while where it would be treated with every deference and properly attended to. For this purpose a shaman will either manu- facture or search for a fitting residence for this spirit, and he will proceed by various rites to attempt to coax some wandering intelligence to take up its home therein.
There is of course a point at which the fetish commences to develop into a god. This happens when fetishes survive the test of experience and achieve a more than personal or tribal popularity. Thus amongst the Zuni Indians a fetish called " The Knife-feathered Monster " has prac- tically become the tribal god of war, and a pony and sheep fetish are at present in course of evolving as deities in the pantheon of this people. Amongst the Zuni there appears to have been the conception that their fetishes were totemistic. Fetishism and totemism are not imcompatible with one another, but often flourish side by side ; but the basic difference between a fetish and a totem is that the fetish spirit is the bond slave of the person who owns its abode, whereas the totem is his patron spirit, personal or tribal. Nevertheless the fetish partakes more of the nature of those spirits which are subservient to man, as for example the Arabian Jinn, than of those which subsequently develop into gods. They are more of the race of faery, of the little folk who dwelt in the crevices of rocks and trees, the smaller swarm of the supernatural, than of the strain of Olympus. A capital example of a fetish, which will be familiar to all, is that which occurs in the story of Aladdin and his lamp. Here we have the subservient nature-spirit— the original conception of which must have been that it dwelt in the lamp or the ring, and was only freed therefrom on the sum- mons of its temporary master to perform some special piece of work. But a fetish is not necessarily a piece of personal property : it may belong collectively to an entire community or family, and it is usually an heirloom.
The savage naturally attaches great importance to those fetishes which assist him in the chase. Thus the Zuni Indians, who possess perhaps the most complete fetishistic system of any barbarous people, have a special temple- house set apart for their tribal fetishes of the hunt, which they call the Prey-gods. On setting out for the hunt, the Zuni Indian will visit the fetish-house, and sprinkle a little maize meal on a platter placed before that fetish which he wishes to employ in his expedition. In this office he is usually assisted by a medicine-man set aside for the purpose, whose special duty it is to see that the fetishes are properly placated and returned when their services are no more required. Let us suppose that he selects the fetish of the mountain-lion. This is a stone object, shaped in the likeness of that animal. Once in the open country, the hunter places the mouth of the fetish to his own and suspires deeply, imagining that by so doing he is breathing in the hunting instinct of the mountain-lion. He then forcibly emits his breath. The Indian idea is that beasts of prey are able by the emission of breath to render the game helpless over a wide area, and this the hunter believes he has successfully and magically imitated. When he meets with his game, after slaying it, his first act is to excise the liver, which he smears upon the lips of the fetish, which is then duly returned to the fetish-house. Most of the objects belonging to a medicine-man or shaman are believed to be fetishes, — that is, they possess a certain quality of life that other, and more ordinary, objects do not have.
The word fetish is derived from the Portuguese feitico which implies " something made," and was applied by early voyagers in West Africa to the wooden figures, stones and so forth, regarded as the residence of spirits. Fetishism . in Africa appears to be generally confined to the coasts, but in America it is prevalent more or less over the whole hemisphere. That it was once prevalent in Europe is
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practically certain from the nature of many objects found in prehistoric and early historic graves, and in certain parts of Asia, it is by no means extinct. The material conception of fetishism survives in the charm, amulet or mascot, which is regarded as a luck-bringer, although the spiritual sig- nificance connected with it has quite vanished. (See Charms and Amulets, Familiar). Fey : To possess second sight. (See Teutons.) Fiction, English Occult : English literature, as it is "known to-day, really begins with the Elizabethan age ; for the writers prior to that time, excellent as many of them are, elicit comparatively little interest nowadays save among experts. And, by the time of Elizabeth's advent, the old " miracle plays " had gone out of fashion ; yet tales about the miraculous doings of mythical heroes continued to find favour, and many new things of this kind were written.
A few of the Restoration dramatists dealt in magic and the like, but throughout the Georgian age people were mostly too prosaic, too matter-of-fact, to care for things of that sort, and they were eschewed by the majority of prominent writers of the day. However, after the great artistic movement commonly styled the Renaissance of Wonder, the old interest in the occult began to revive apace, and, ere the nineteenth century was very far advanced, a literature suitable to this budding taste was being purveyed on a voluminous scale. Among the first to enter the lists, soi disant, was William Godwin, with his novel of St. Truyne the Rosicrucian ; while Godwin's daughter, Mary, chiefly remembered nowadays as the second wife of Shelley, merits notice as a mystical writer by virtue of her story of Frankenstein. A little before the advent of this authoress, numerous occult tales had been written by Matthew Lewis, notably Tales of Terror and the drama of Castle Spectre, staged successfully at Drury Lane in 1 798 ; while not long after Lewis a further novelist came to swell the muster-roll, Bulwer Lytton, whose taste for the mystic is seen especially in Zanoni, A Strange Story, and Haunters and the Haunted. His essays of this kind, nevertheless, were never very satisfactory in the real literary sense ; and as Leslie Stephen once discovered, they too often smacked of the theatrical. But Sir Walter Scott, on the other hand, writing just before Lytton's time, not only showed a keen fondness for occult matter, but frequently utilised it to genuine artistic purpose. In The Monastery a mysterious sylph rises from a fountain ; as- trology is introduced into Guy Mannering, The Fortunes of Nigel, and Quentin Durward ; while a splendid ghost story is told in Redgauntlet, and ghosts figure also in Wood- stock. In The Bride of Lammermoor, besides, the author deals incidentally with that firm belief in prophecy which was long a prominent part of Scottish life ; while in Waver- ley, again, he depicts a Highland chief as awestruck and unmanned by the sight of a peculiar omen. Highland superstitions, indeed, appealed with particular potency to Sir Walter's romantic temper ; while he was not the only writer of his time who dealt ably with this branch of the occult, another being Susan Ferrier in her novels of Destiny and The Chief's Daughter. Nor should we fail ere leaving this period, to mention Ann Radcliffe, for in almost all her novels the supernatural figures promi- nently.
While the last-named trio were at work thus in Britain, some good stories in which magic occurs were being written in America by Washington Irving ; and, not very long after his day, a second American arose to treat brilliantly of weirdness and wizardry, Edgar Allan Poe. Then, re- verting to England, ghosts appear in a few of Dickens' novels, and Charles Reade manifests here and there a love of the occult ; while coming to slightly later times, a writer
who manifested this predilection abundantly is Robert Louis Stevenson. His Dr. fekyll and Mr. Hyde is among the best of all modern novels in which the supernatural plays a salient role, and many of his short stories pertain also to the category of occult, for example, the tale of the magic bottle in Island Nights Entertainments ; while, about the date these were being composed, Oscar Wilde was writing what is one of the most beautiful things dealing with invisible powers, The Picture of Dorian Gray. Much inferior to this masterpiece, yet possessing considerable excellence, are George du Maurier's Peter Ibbetson, Trilby and The Martian, in each of which the supernatural is prominent ; while a further work which should certainly be cited is Lafcadio Hearn's Dead Love, a tiny tale of magic which the author thought lightly of, but which future generations are almost sure to prize on account of its lovely wording, at some places worthy of Theophile Gautier him- self, who was Hearn's acknowledged master.
These recent authors do not by any means conclude the list, for a wealth of occult fiction has been written since their day. Among its most remarkable items is The Ghost Ship of Richard Middleton, a singularly promising story- teller and poet who died by his own hand lately at the early age of twenty-nine ; while many contemporary novelists have introduced magic into their books, for instance, Mr. Rider Haggard in She, the late Mr. Bram Stoker in Dracula, and Mr. F. A. Anstey in Vice Versa and The Brass Bottle. In fact, were one to cite all the living wont to trade in the occult, an article of formidable size would be the result, and accordingly the attempt must be eschewed ; but at least it is essential to mention Mr. Theodore Watts-Dunton's Aylwin, this reflecting really fine treatment of mystic mat- ter, and being couched throughout in a style of exceptional beauty. Mr. Arthur Symons is another great writer of to-day who loves the borderland between dreams and realities, as witness many pages in his Spiritual Adventures ; while the invisible world has always appealed powerfully to Mr. W. B. Yeats, and is employed to good purpose here and there in his stories of the Irish peasantry. It is less the ghost than the fairy which he delights in, true Celt that he is ; and his predilection herein sets one dreaming of fairy-tales in general, and summons a curious medley of names. William Morris wrote a host of beautiful fairy- sffories, some of them concerned with the promulgation of socialistic ideas, but others innocent of anything of that sort ; while the voluminous works of Ruskin include what can only be defined as a fairy tale, The King of the Golden- River. Numerous contemporary writers have likewise done good work in this field — Lord Dunsany, Mr. J. M. Barrie, and more especially Mr. Laurence Housman — while a remarkable fairy play has been written lately by Mr. Graham Robertson, and has been staged with surprising triumph. Then, reverting for a moment to defunct authors, fairies occur in that charming volume by H. D. Lowry, Make Believe, and in Richard Middleton's book, The Day Before Yesterday : while no account of this particular domain of literature would be complete without mention of the work of Lewis Carrol, and also of Jean Ingelow's lovely story, Mopsa the Fairy. This last is possibly the best of all fairy stories, and one which has been most widely and wisely cherished ; and it stands out very clearly in the memory of nearly every man of imaginative temperament, reminding him of his own childhood. Figuier, Guillaume Louis : A French^ writer and chemist, born at Montpellier in 1819. His uncle, Pierre Figuier, was professor of chemistry at the School of Pharmacy, Montpellier, and Louis, having taken his degree of doctor of medicine, and studied chemistry at the laboratory of Balard in Paris, was made professor of chemistry at the School of Pharmacy, Montpellier. Hi later— 1853 —
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exchanged this post for a similar one in the School of Phar- macy of Paris. Thereafter many honorary degrees in science and medicine were conferred upon him by various faculties. In 1857 he finally left off teaching and devoted himself to the popularising of science, mainly physiology and medical chemistry. He published from time to time many notable works, and was not more distinguished for his prodigious output than for its literary quality. Of those works having a bearing on occult matters the principal are : le Lendemain de la mort ou La Vie future selon la science (1872) dealing with the transmigration of souls ; /' Alchimie et les Al- chimistes (1854) ; Histoire du merveilleux dans les temps modernes (1859-60 ); les Bonheurs a" outre tombe (1892.) He tried to popularize science by introducing on the stage plays whose heroes were savants and inventors. His at- tempt however, met with but a cold reception. In 1889 he published a volume of dramas and comedies, la Science au Theatre. He died at Paris in 1894.
Fingitas : The tradition concerning this stone is remarkable. It is described as quite transparent and hard like marble. It is related that a certain king built a temple of it which needed no Windows, the light being admitted into it as if it had been all open to the day.
Finias : One of the four great cities whence the Irish mythical Danaans Were said to have sprung.
Finn Mac Cummal : In Irish romance, Captain of the Fianna and the centre of the Ossianic tales. His father Cumhal, chief of the clan Basena, was slain at Castle Knock by the rival clan Morna, but his mother succeeded in saving him from the enemy. He was brought up in hiding and given the name of Finn from the clearness of his skin. He learned science and poetry from the druid Finegas who dwelt on the river Boyne. The druid had been unable to catch the salmon of knowledge until Finn became his pupil, and when he did succeed in catching it, he told Finn to watch it while it was cooking but not to partake of it. Finn, however, burned his fingers as he turned the spit and put one of them in his mouth. Seeing this, Finegas bade him eat, the salmon and he became filled with the wisdom of all ages. Afterwards he took service with King Cormac to whom he revealed his name and lineage. Cor- mac promised him the leadership of the Fianna if he suc- ceeded in killing the fire-blowing demon that came yearly to set Tara in flames. Finn slew the demon and bore his head back to Tara. The Fianna were therefore ordered to swear allegiance to Finn as their captain, which, led by Goll mac Morna^ their former captain, they all did. Under Finn, the Fianna rose to great eminence, an eminence which at length became tyrannical and from which they were thrown at the battle of Bowra. Finn's end is shrouded in mystery. According to popular tradition he and his great companions lie sleeping in an enchanted cave whence they shall arise in the hour of their country's need, like Arthur, Barbarossa and Charlemagne.
Fioravanti, Leonardi : An Italian alchemist doctor and surgeon of the sixteenth century. He was a voluminous writer whose best known work is a Summary of the Arcana of Medicine, Surgery and Alchemy, published in Venice in 1571. It embraces an application of the principles and methods of Hermes to the Science of Medicine. The au- thor's account of the petra philosophorum shews its desig- nation to be purely arbitrary. It is a mixture of mercury, nitre and other ingredients intended as a stomachic and has no connection with the transmuting lapis of the al- chemists.
Fire : Many nations have adored this element. In Persia a chimneyless enclosure was made, and into it fire was introduced. Essences and perfumes were cast into the fire by the great persons of the nation. When a Persian king was at the point of death all the fires in the principal
towns of the kingdom were extinguished, and were not rekindled until the crowning of his successor. Certain Tartars never accost foreigners who have not purified them- selves by passing between two fires ; they are also careful to drink with their faces turned to the south, in honour of the element of fire. In some parts of Siberia it is be- lieved that fire is inhabited by a being who dispenses good and evil ; they offer him- perpetual sacrifices. According to the kabalists, this was the element of the Salamanders. (See also Fire Ordeal.)
Fire, Magical : {See Magic.)
Fire-Mist, Children of the : {See Lords of the Flame.) Fire-ordeal : The fire-ordeal is of great antiquity, and prob- ably arose from the conception of the purifying influence of fire. Among the Hindoos, from the earliest times until comparatively recently, those who were suspected of wrong- doing were required to prove their guilt or innocence by walking over red-hot iron. If they ^escaped unharmed their innocence was placed beyond a doubt. The priestesses of a Cappodocian goddess, Diana Parasya, walked barefooted on red-hot coals, attributing their in- vulnerability to the powers of the divinity. In Europe trial by fire was of two kinds — traversing the flames, or undergoing the ordeal of hot iron. The latter form com- prised the carrying in the hand of red-hot irons, the walking over iron bars or glowing ploughshares, and the thrusting of the hand into a red-hot gauntlet. An early instance of the former mode in European history is that of Pierre Barthelemy, who in 1097 declared to the Crusaders that heaven had revealed to him the place where was concealed the spear that had pierced the Saviour's body. To prove his assertion he offered to undergo the ordeal by fire, and was duly required to walk a path about a foot in width and some fourteen feet in length, on either side of which were piled blazing olive-branches. The judgment of the fire was unfavourable, and twelve days later the rash ad- venturer expired in agony. Books also were sometimes submitted to the trial by fire. This method was adopted to decide the claims of the Roman and Mozaratian liturgies, the former emerging victorious from the flames. Among savage people the fire-ordeal is also to be met with, and especially in New Zealand, India, Fiji, and Japan. It may be suspected that the issue of these ordeals was not always left on the knees of the gods. There is no doubt that the an- cient Egyptians were acquainted with substances which rendered the body partly immune. Albertus Magnus gives a recipe for this purpose. It is made up of powdered lime, made into a paste with the white of an egg, the juice of the radish, the juice of the marsh mallow, and the seeds of the fleabane. A first coat of this mixture is applied to the body and allowed to dry, when a second coat is applied. If the feet be constantly oiled, or moistened with sulphuric acid, they may be rendered impervious. Possibly the ancients were not unaware of the fire-resisting properties of asbestos. The fire-ordeal has remained to this day as one of the phenomena of spiritualism. D. D. Home fre- "quently handled live coals, and laid them on a handkerchief without damaging the material in the least. On one occa- sion he enclosed a glowing coal in his hands and blew upon it until it became white hot. A well known instance is that related by Mrs. S. C. Hall, when Home placed a burn- ing coal on the head of Mr. Hall, whose white hair was then drawn over the still glowing coal. In an account given by" Mrs. Homewood and Lord Lindsay of a seance with the same medium We are told that Home took a chimney from a lighted lamp and thrust it into the fire, making it so hot that a match applied to it ignited instantly, and then thrust it into his mouth, touching it with his tongue, without any apparent ill effects. Another account states
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that Home placed his face right in the fire among the burn- ing coals " moving it about as though bathing it in water." Other mediums, both in England and America, emulated this feat with some measure of success. It has been suggested that the state of trance generally accompanying such exploits, and corresponding to the ecstasy of the shaman performing a similar feat, may produce anaesthesia, or insensibility to the pain of burning. But how it comes that the skin is not scorched, nor the material of the hand- herchief marked by the burning coal, it is not easy to say. Flamel, Nicholas, was born at Pontoise, of a poor but respect- able family, about the beginning of the fourteenth century. He received a good education, of which his natural abilities enabled him to make the best use. Repairing to Paris, he obtained employment as a public scrivener, — sitting at the corner of the Rue de Marivaux, copying or inditing letters and other documents. The occupation brought with it little profit, and Flamel tried in succession poetry and painting with an equally- unsatisfactory result. His quick wits suggested that as he could make no money by teaching mankind, it might be more profitable to cheat them, and he took up the pursuit of Astrology, casting horoscopes and telling fortunes. He was right in his con- jectures, and soon throve so vigorously that he was enabled to take unto himself a wife named Petronella. But those who begin to study the magic art for profit or amusement generally finish by addicting themselves to it with a blindly passionate love. Nicholas devoted himself both day and night to his fascinating but deceptive pursuits ; and soon acquired a thorough knowledge of all that previous adepts had written upon the elixir vitce, the universal Alkahest, and the Philosopher's Stone. In 1297 he lighted upon a manual of the art which would have been invaluable if it had been intelligible. He bought it for two florins. It contained three times seven leaves written with a steel instrument upon the bark of trees. The caligraphy was as admirable as the Latin was cryptical. Each seventh leaf was free from writing, but emblazoned with a picture ; the first, representing a serpent swallowing rods ; the second, a serpent crucified on a cross ; and the third, the arid expanse of a treeless desert, in whose depths a fountain bubbled, with serpents trailing their slimy folds from side to side. The author of this mysterious book purported to be " Abraham, the patriarch, Jew, prince, philosopher, Levite, priest, and astrologer," (q.v.) who added to his other claims upon the wonder of mankind a knowledge of Latin. He had included within these precious pages a complete exposition of the art of transmuting metals ; describing every process, explaining the different vessels, and pointing out the proper seasons for making experiments. In fact, the book would have been perfect, but for one deficiency ; it was addressed not so much to the tyro as to an adept, and took it for granted that its student was already in possession of the Philosopher's Stone. This was a terrible obstacle to the inquiring Flamel. The more he studied the book the less he understood it. He studied the letterpress, and he studied the illustrations ; he invited the wise men of France to come and study them, but no light was thrown upon the darkness. For thrice seven years he pored over these perplexing pages, until at length his wife suggested that a Jewish Rabbi might be able to interpret them. As the chiefs of the Jews were principally located in Spain, to Spain went Flamel, and there he re- mained for two years. From one of the Hebrew sages he obtained some hints which afforded a key to the patriarchal mysteries, and returning to Paris he recommenced his studies with a new vigour. They were rewarded with success. On the 13th of February, '1382, o.s., Flamel made a projection on Mercury, and produced some virgin silver. On the 25th of the following April he converted some Mer-
cury into gold, and found himself the fortunate possessor of an inexhaustible treasure. But his good fortune did not end here. Flamel, continuing his researches discovered the elixir of life, which enabled him to prolong his life — and accumulate gold — to the venerable age of 116. He further administered the life-giving potion to his wife, who reached nearly as great a longevity as himself, dying in the year preceding his own death, A.D. 1414. As they had no children, they spent their wealth upon churches and hospitals, and several of the religious and charitable institutions of France still attest their well-directed benevo- lence. There is no doubt that Flamel practised alchemy, and one of his works on the fascinating science — a poem entitled The Philosophic Summary — was printed as late as 1735. In Salmon's valuable and very curious Biblio- thqque des Philosophes Chimiques axe preserved same speci- mens of the drawings in Abraham's treatise on metallurgy and of his own handwriting. But Flamel was neither an enthusiast nor a dupe. His alchemical studies were but the disguises of his usurious practices. To account for the immense wealth he acquired by money-lending to the young French nobles, and by transacting business between the Jews of France and those of Spain, he invented the fiction of his discovery of the Philosopher's Stone. He nevertheless obtained great repute as a magician, and his followers believed that he was still alive though retired from the world, and would live for six centuries. Flammarion, Camille : {See Spiritualism.) Fletcher, Anna : {See Germany.) Flight of Birds in Augury : {See Divination.) Flournoy Prof. : {See Automatic Writing and Speaking.) Fludd, or Flud, Robert : This Rosicrucian and alchemist was born in 1574 at Milgate House, in the parish of Bear- sted, Kent, his father being one Sir Thomas Fludd, a knight who enjoyed the patronage of Queen Elizabeth, and served her for several years as " Treasurer of War in the Low Countries." At the age of seventeen Robert entered St. John's College, Oxford, and five years later he took his degree as Bachelor of Arts ; while shortly afterwards, on his deciding to take up medical science, he left England and went to prosecute his studies on the Continent. Going first to Spain, he travelled thence to Italy, and subsequently stayed for some time in Germany, where he is said to have supported himself by acting as pedagogue in various noble households ; but soon he was home again, and in 1605 his alma mater of Oxford conferred on him the degrees of Bach- elor of Medicine and Doctor of Medicine, while five years later he became a Fellow of the College of Plrysicians. Having thus equipped himself thoroughly for the medical profession, Fludd went to London and took a house in Fenchurch Street, a quiet place in those days, though now a noisy centre of commerce ; and here he soon gained an extensive practice, his success being due not merely to his genuine skill, but to his having an attractive and even magnetic personality. But busy though he was in this way, he found leisure to write at length on medicine ; while anon he became an important and influential member of the Fraternity of the Rosy Cross, and at the same time he commenced alchemistic experiments. He preached the great efficacy of the magnet, of sympathetic cures, of the weapon-salve ; he declared his belief in the Philoso- pher's Stone, the universal alkahest or solvent, the elixir vitce ; he maintained that all things were animated by two principles — condensation, the Boreal, or northern virtue ; and rarefaction, the Austral, or southern virtue. He asserted that the human body was controlled by a number of demons, that each disease had its peculiar demon, each demon his particular place in the frame of humanity, and that to conquer a disease — say in the right leg — you must call in the aid of the demon who ruled the left, always
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proceeding by this rule of contraries. As soon as the doc- trines of the Rosy Cross Brotherhood were promulgated Fludd embraced them with all the eagerness of which his dreamy intellect was capable ; and several German writers hav'ng made an attack upon them, he published a defence in 1616, under the title of Apologia Compendiaria Fratern- itatem de Rosea-Cruce Suspicionis et Infamies Maculis A sper- samAbluens, which procured him a wide-spread reputation as one of the apostles of the new fraternity. He met with the usual fate of prophets, and was lustily belaboured by a host of enemies — by Mersenne, Gassendi, and Kepler. Fludd was by no means discomfited, and retorted upon his opponents in an elaborate treatise, Summum Bonum, quod est Magics, Cabales, Alchimics, Frairum Rosecs-Crucis Verorum, et adversus Mersenium Calumniatorem. He made at a later period and aventurous attempt to identify the doctrines of the Rosicrucians with what he was pleased to call 'the Philosophy of Moses (Philosophia Mosaica, in qua sapientia et scientia Creationis explicanlur) , published at Ghent, 1638, and wrote numerous treatises on alchemy and medical science. He founded an English school of Rosi- crucians. Fludd is one of the high priests of the Magnetic Philosophy, and learnedly expounds the laws of ostral medicine, the doctrines of sympathies, and the fine powers and marvellous effects of the magnet. When two men approach each other — such was his theory — their mag- netism is either active or passive ; that is, positive or negative. If the emanations which they send out are broken or thrown back, there arises antipathy, or Mag- netismus negativus : but when the emanations pass through each other, the positive magnetism is produced, for the magnetic rays proceed from the centre to the circumference. Man, like the earth, has his poles, or two main streams of magnetic influence. Like a little world, he is endowed with a magnetic virtue which, however, is subjected to the same laws as, on a larger scale, the magnetic power of the universe. How these principles may be developed in the cure or prevention of disease, the reader must learn from the mystic pages of Robertus a Fluctibus himself.
Fludd died in 1637 at a house in Coleman Street, to which he had removed a few years before ; but ere his demise he had won a fairly wide reputation by his chymical ability, and had also issued a considerable number of books, promi- nent among them being Tractatus Apologeticus inlegrila- tem Societatis de Rusae Cruce defendans, Leyden 1617, Veri- tatis Proscenium, Frankfort 1621, Medicina Catholica, Frankfort 1629, Monochordum Mundi Syhiphoniacum, Frankfort, 1622.
Flute, Charm of the : The flute is often mentioned in history as being used for the purpose of charming animals, and the serpent seems to have been peculiarly delighted with its music. It is said that adders will swell at the sound of the flute, raising themselves up, twisting about and keeping proper time. A Spanish writer says that in India he had often seen the Gentiles leading about enchanted serpents, making them dance to the sound of a flute, put- ting them round their necks, and touching them without harm ; and to this day a musical instrument of this nature is used by the snake-charmers of that country. In oppo- sition to this, Hippocrates mentions a man, Nicanor, who fainted whenever he heard the sound of a flute.
Flying Dutchman, The : Sailors in Holland long believed that a certain Dutch skipper, van Straaten by name, was condemned as a penalty for his sins to sail for year after year through the seas beating around the Cape of Storms, this being the old name for the Cape of Good Hope ; and crews returning to the Zudyer Zee after voyaging in the region aforesaid, use to declared that they had seen van Straaten's mysterious craft, and had fled from it in terror.
, This legend is probably a very old one, albeit the exact
date at which it became current is indeterminate ; and it should be added that the story is found in the folklore of various countries besides Holland, notably Germany. Several German versions call the ill-starred seaman von Falkenberg, and maintain that it was not near South Africa, but in the North Sea that his spectral barque commonly hovered ; while some of them contend further that the devil was wont to pay periodic visits to the captain on board his ship, and that frequently the two were seen playing dice on deck, the stakes at issue being von Falkenberg's soul. The tale soon found its way from folk-lore into actual literature, among the greatest of those writers util- ising it being Heinrich Heine, and in his rendering the sailor has a chance of salvation. That is to say, the fates allow him to put foot on terra firma once every seven years ; and if, during his brief period of respite, he contrives to win the affection of an unsullied maiden, liberation from perennial sea-wandering will be granted him as reward. Heine's form o the story appealed keenly to Wagner, who was always prone to regard woman devoutly as before all else a regenerating force ; and accordingly the great com- poser wrote a music-drama on the subject of The Flying Dutchman, or as he calls it in German, Der Fliegende Hol- lander, in which the scene is mostly laid in the North Sea, while the sailor himself is called van Derdecken, and the maiden to whom he makes advances is Senta. This opera was first staged at Dresden in 1843, and, though it can hardly be said that it won speedy appreciation, at least it did not elicit quite the scorn meted out originally to the majority of Wagner's works. Marryat has also a novel on the subject.
Fohat is in Theosophy, the power of the Logos. (See The- osophy, Logos.)
Fong-Chur : A mysterious operation practised in China, in the disposition of buildings, and particularly of tombs. If someone should chance to build in a position contrary to his neighbours, so that the corner of his house faced the side of a house belonging to someone else, the latter believes that the worst of misfortune will befall him. Long- standing feuds may result from the unfortunate action. The remedy consists in placing in a chamber a dragon or other monster in terra-cotta, facing the corner of the fatal edifice. The terrible gaze of the monster will repulse the evil influence. Incense is burned before the dragon, and he is treated with much respect.
Fong On hang : Fabulous birds to which the Chinese attribute almost the same qualities as are attributed to the phoenix. The women adorn themselves with the image of this bird, in gold, silver, or brass, according to their means.
Fongities : A gem said to assuage anger.
Fontaine, John : This Flemish alchemist and poet appears to have lived at Valenciennes towards the close of the thirteenth century. Two books are ascribed to him, La Fontaine des Amoureux de Science and La Fontaine Peril- leuse. both of which are written in French and were pub- lished at Paris, the first-named in 1561 and the second eleven years later. His claims to the authorship of the latter work have frequently been disputed, but the former is almost certainly his, and a curious production it is. At the outset the author professes himself an adept in hermetic philosophy, and thereafter he proceeds, in poetry of an allegorical style which recalls The Romaunt of the Rose, to describe the different processes to be gone through ere achieving a transmutation. There is little in this metrical treatise which indicates that the writer was an alchemist of any great ability, but he certainly possessed a distinct gift for making pleasant if hardly powerful verses.
Fontenettes, Charles. : Author of a Dissertation sur une fille de Grenoble, qui depuis quatre ans ne boit ni ne mange, 1737. This prodigy was commonly attributed to the devil, but
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Fontenettes explained that it was due to a less sinister cause.
Fork, Magical : (See Magic.)
Formicarium : (See Germany.)
Fortune-telling : Fortune-telling in Britain, was formerly included under the crime of Witchcraft, and was made punishable by death under the Statute of 1563 C. 73. This Act was repealed by 9 George II. C. 5, which ordained that no prosecution should thereafter be made on charge of Witchcraft, also by the said Act all persons professing to occult skill or undertaking to tell fortunes might be sen- tenced to imprisonment for one year, and to stand pillory and find surety for their future good behaviour.
Punishment by pillory is now abolishei. By Act 5 George IV. c. 83 fortune-tellers were included along with other vagrants under the general category of rogues and vagabonds, and were liable to imprisonment for three months. This Act was made applicable to Scotland by 34 and 35 Vict. C. 24.
No prosecution occurred under it until the case of Smith (23 R (I.C.) 77). The old Act extended to Scotland as afore- said enacted that " every person pretending or professing to tell fortunes or using any subtle craft, means, or device, by palmistry or otherwise to deceive, and impose on any of His Majesty's Subjects " shall be deemed a vagabond and rogue within the meaning of the Act and shall be pun- ishable as therein provided. In the case above referred to the complainer, a woman named J one Lee or Smith, was charged in the Police Court at Glasgow,' with a contra- vention of the above enactment in respect that at a time and place specified, did pretend to tell the fortunes of " a person named " who was thereby induced to pay the ac- cused the sum of sixpence. The accused was convicted of the contravention '" as libelled " and brought a suspen- sion. The Court quashed the conviction, holding that the complaint was irrelevant in that it did not set forth that the accused had pretended to tell fortunes with intent to deceive and impose on any one. Lord Young, one of the judges, in the course of his opinion says " It has never been imagined, so far as I have ever heard, or thought, that writing, publishing, or selling books on the lines of the hand, or even on astrology — the position of the stars at birth and the rules upon which astrologers proceed in telling fortunes therefrom. I say that I have never heard of publishing, or selling such books is an offence, or that reading such books, and telling fortunes therefrom is an offence. Roguery and knavery might be committed that way, but it would be a special case. I am not in any way suggesting that a s'pae wife or anyone else may not through that means commit knavery and deception, and so be liable to punishment."
It would thus appear that fortune-telling is of itself no offence, unless it is accompanied by fraud, impositions, or intent to deceive. While it might be an offence for the palmist or fortune-teller knowingly to accept payment from a half witted or obviously apparent ignorant person, it can hardly be pretended that the ordinary person who consults a professional fortune teller or chrystal gazer and tenders payment in return for their skill at delineations of character or forecasting of the future, feels that he has been imposed upon should the delineations be at fault, or the forecast turn out inaccurate. A.J.B.G.
Fountain Spirits of Behmen : According to Jacob Behmen, there were in nature seven active principles, the " Fountain Spirits, or " Mothers of Existence." These were — the astringent quality ; the sweet quality ; the bitter quality ; the quality of fire ; the quality of love ; the quality of sound ; and the quality of essential substance. The re- ciprocal action of these antipathetic qualities resulted in Supreme Unity. Each is at once the parent and the child of all the rest, for they generate and are generated by each
other. They are typified by the seven golden candlesticks of the Apocalypse.
Fourth Dimension of Space : There are three known dimen- sions in space typified in the three geometric figures — a line, having length, a surface, length and breadth, a cube, length, breadth and thickness. It has been conjectured that a fourth dimension may exist in addition to length, breadth, and thickness. Spiritualists have claimed to find proof of a fourth dimension in certain of the physical phenomena of the seance-room such as the tying of knots in endless cords, and the passage of matter through matter.
Fowler, Miss Lottie : (See Spiritualism.)
Fox Family : (See Spiritualism.)
Fox, Sisters : Two American girls who in 1847 practically commenced the practice of spirit-rapping in Arcadia, New York. An account of their doings is given in the article (Spiritualism). They latterly became professional me- diums ; but were to a great extent discredited.
Fragarach (The Answerer) : In Irish legend a sword that could pierce any mail. It was one of the magical gifts brought by Lugh from the Land of the Living.
France : Magical practice in pre-Roman France was vested in the druidic cast, and was practically identical with that of the same body in Britain, from which, indeed, it drew its inspiration. It is not likely that Roman magic gained any footing in Gaul, but we have little evidence to show whether this was or was not the case. In the early Frankish period of the Merovingian dynasty, we find the baleful personality of Fredegonda, wife of Hilperic, king of Soissons, " a woman whose glance was witchcraft." She destroyed many people on the pretext of sorcery, but there is no doubt that she herself experimented in black magic, and protected many practitioners of the art. Thus she saved a sorceress who had been arrested by Ageric, bishop of Verdun, by hiding her in the palace. (See Frede- gonda.) The practice of magic was not punished under the rule of the early French kings, except in those in high places, with whom it was regarded as a political offence, as in the case of the military leader Mummol, who was tortured by command of Hilperic for sorcery. One of the Salic laws attributed to Pharamond by Sigebert states that ; "If any one shall testify that another has acted as hereburge or strioporte — titles applied to those who carry the copper vessel to the spot where the vampires perform their enchantments — and if he fail to convict him, he shall be condemned hereby to a forfeit of 7,500 denierst being 180J sous. ... If a vampire shall devour a man and be found guilty, she shall forfeit 8,000 deniers, being 200 sous."
The Church legislated also against sorcerers and vam- pires, and the Council of Agde, in Languedoc, held in A.D. 506, pronounced excommunication against them. The first Council of Orleans, convened in 541, condemned divi- nation and augury, and that of Narbonne, in 589, besides excommunicating all sorcerers, ordained that they should be sold as slaves for the benefit of the poor. Those who had dealings with the Devil were also condemned to be whipped by the same Council. Some extraordinary phenomena are alleged to have occurred in France during the reign of Pepin le Bref . The air seemed to be alive with human shapes, mirages filled the heavens, and sorcerers were seen among the clouds, scattering unwholesome pow- ders and poisons with open hands ; crops failed, cattle died, and many human beings perished. It is perhaps possible that such visions were stimulated by the teachings of the famous Kabalist, Zedekias, who presided over a school of occult science, where he refrained indeed from unveiling the hidden secrets of his art, and contented him- self by spreading the theory of elemental spirits, who, he stated, had before the fall of man been subservient to him.
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It was thought that the visions alluded to above signified the descent of sylphs and salamanders in search of their former masters. Says Eliphas Levi :
" Voyages to the land of sylphs were talked of on all sides as we talk at the present day of animated tables and fluidic manifestations. The folly took possession even of strong minds, and it was time for an intervention on the part of the Church, which does not relish the super- natural being hawked in the public streets, seeing that such disclosures, by imperilling the respect due to au- thority and to the hierarchic chain of instruction, cannot be attributed to the spirit of order and light. The cloud- phantoms were therefore arraigned and accused of being hell-born illusions, while the people — anxious to get something into their hands — began a crusade against sorcerers. The public folly turned into a paroxysm of mania ; strangers in country places were accused of descending from heaven and were killed without mercy ; imbeciles confessed that they had been abducted by sylphs or demons ; others who had boasted like this previously either would not or could not unsay it ; they were burned or drowned, and, according to Garinet, the number who perished throughout the kingdom almost exceeds belief. It is the common catastrophe of dramas in which the first parts are played by ignorance or fear.
" Such visionary epidemics recurred in the reigns fol- lowing, and all the power of Charlemagne was put in action to calm the public agitation. An edict, afterwards re- newed by Louis the Pious, forbade sylphs to manifest under the heaviest penalties. It will be understood that in the absence of the aerial beings the judgments fell upon those who had made a boast of having seen them, and hence they ceased to be seen. The ships in air sailed back to the port of oblivion, and no one claimed any longer to have journeyed through the blue distance. Other popular frenzies replaced the previous mania, while the romantic splendours of the great reign of Charlemagne furnished the makers of legends with new prodigies to believe and new marvels to relate."
Around the figure of Charlemagne (q.v.) clusters such an immense amount of the matter of faery that it is re- served for treatment in a special article, arid it will suffice to state here that it almost partakes of the nature of true myth. It is stated that the Enchiridion (q.v.) (which may well be stigmatised as an early text-book of occult absurdity having no claim to figure in the true genealogy of occult literature) was presented to Charlemagne by Pope Leo III.
Eliphas Levi presents a picturesque condition of affairs in the France of Charlemagne in the following passage :
" We know that superstitions die hard and that degen- erated Druidism had struck its roots deeply in the savage lands of the North. The recurring insurrections of Saxons testified to a fanaticism which was (a) always turbulent, and_(b) incapable of repression by moral force alone. All defeated forms of worship — Roman paganism, Germanic idolatry, Jewish rancour conspired against victorious Chris- tianity. Nocturnal assemblies took place ; thereat the conspirators cemented their alliance with the blood of human victims ; and a pantheistic idol of monstrous form, with the horns of a goat, presided over festivals which might be called agapas of hatred. In a word, the Sabbath was still celebrated in every forest and wild if yet unre- claimed provinces. The adepts who attended them were masked and otherwise unrecognisable ; the assemblies extinguished their lights and broke up before daybreak, the guilty were to be found everywhere, and they could be brought to book nowhere. It came about therefore that Charlemagne determined to fight them with their own weapons.
" In those days, moreover, feudal tyrants were in league with sectarians against lawful authority ; female sorcerers were attached to castles as courtesans ; bandits who fre- quented the Sabbaths divided with nobles the blood-stained loot of rapine ; feudal courts were at the command of the highest bidder ; and the public burdens weighed with all their force only on the weak and poor. The evil was at its height in Westphalia, and faithful agents were despatched thither by Charlemagne entrusted with a secret mission. Whatsoever energy remained among the oppressed, who- soever still loved justice, whether among the people or among the nobility, were drawn by these emissaries to- gether, bound by pledges and vigilance in common. To the initiates thus incorporated they made known the full powers which they carried from the emperor himself, and they proceeded to institute the Tribunal of Free Judges.
A great deal of this, of course, is only what might be expected from the French magus. It is not likely that the Sabbath was yet celebrated in such an extreme manner .as in later times, nor was the Vehmgericht founded by Charlemagne, or indeed, founded at all, for four and a half centuries after his day.
From the reign of Robert the Pious to that of St. Louis, there is not much to relate that can strike the imagination of the student of occult history. In the time of the latter monarch flourished the famous Rabbi Jachiel, the cele- brated Kabalist. There is some reason to believe that he had glimmerings of the uses of electricity, for on the approach of night a radiant star appeared in his lodging, the fight being so brilliant that no eye could gaze thereon without being dazzled, while it darted rainbow colours. It appeared to be inexhaustible, and was never replenished with oil or other combustible substance. When the Rabbi was annoyed by intruders at his door he struck a nail fixed in his cabinet, producing simultaneously a blue spark on the head of the nail and the door-knocker, to which, if the intruder clung, he received a severe shock. Albertus Magnus (q.v.) lived at the same period.
The next circumstance of interest which falls to be noted is the prosecutions of the Templars (q.v.) who were brought to trial by Philip the Fair. Other prosecutions for sorcery were those of Joan of Arc, Gilles de Laval (q.v.), lord of Raiz, the prototype of Bluebeard, a renowned sorcerer, who with two assistants, Prelati and Sille, practised dia- bolical rites at his castle of Machecoul, celebrating the black mass in the most revolting manner. He had been in the habit of slaughtering children to assist him in his search for the philosopher's stone. We now near the period of those astounding prosecutions for sorcery which are fully noted under the article " Witchcraft " and elsewhere. As early as the thirteenth century the charge of sorcery had been made as one of the means of branding with in- famy the heretical Waldenses (q.v.), who were accused of selling themselves to the Devil, and of holding sabbatical orgies where they did homage to the enemy of mankind. About the middle of the fifteenth century France became the theatre of wholesale oppression against suspected sor- cerers, but one finds leading up to this a series of events which prove that the outburst in question was by no means a novelty in that country. In 1315 Enguerraud de Marigny, who had conducted the execution of the Templars a minister of Philip the Fair, was hanged along with an adventurer named Paviot, for attempting to compass the deaths of the Counts of Valois and St. Paul. In 1334 the Countess of Artois and her son were thrown into prison on a suspicion of sorcery. In 1393, in the reign of Charles VI., it was considered that his sister-in-law, the Duchess of Orleans, who was a viscomte and the daughter of the Duke of Milan, had rendered the King mad by sorcery. The ministers of the court resolved to pit a magician against
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her, and one Arnaud Guillaume (q.v.) was brought from Guienne as a suitable adversary to the noble lady. He possessed a book to which he gave the strange title of Smagorad, the original of which, he said, was given by God to Adam, to console him for the loss of his son Abel, and he asserted that the possessor of this volume could hold the stars in subjection, and command the four elements. He assured the King's advisers that Charles was suffering from the malignity of a sorcerer, but in the meantime the young monarch recovered, and the possessor of the patri- archal volume fell back into his original obscurity. Five years later the King had another attack, and two Augus- tine friars were sent from Guienne for the purpose of effect- ing a cure. But their conduct was so outrageous that they were executed. A third attack in 1403 was combated by two sorcerers of Dijon, Poinson and Briquet. For this purpose they established themselves in a thick wood not far from the gates of Dij on, where they made a magic circle of iron of immense weight, which was supported by iron columns of the height of a middle-sized man, and to which twelve chains of iron were attached. So great was the popular anxiety for the King's recovery, that the two sorcerers succeeded in persuading twelve of the principal persons of the town to enter the circle, and allow them- selves to be fastened by the chains. The sorcerers then proceeded with their incantations, but they were altogether without result. The bailiff of Dijon, who was one of the twelve, and had averred his incredulity from the first, caused the sorcerers to be arrested, and they were burnt for their pretences. •
The Duke of Orleans appears to have fallen under the same suspicion of sorcery as his Italian consort. After his murder by order of the Duke of Burgundy — the com- mencement of those troubles which led to the desolation of France — the latter drew up various heads of accusation against his victim as justifications of the crime, and one of these was, that the Duke of Orleans had attempted to compass his death by means of sorcery. According to this statement, he had received a magician — another apos- tate friar — into his castle of .Mountjoie, where he was employed in these sinister designs. He performed his magical ceremonies before sunrise on a neighbouring mountain, where two demons, named Herman and Astra- mon, appeared to him ; and these became his active in- struments in the prosecution of his design.
About the year 1400 the belief in the nightly meetings of the witches' Sabbath had become almost universal. It would indeed be difficult to attempt to trace the origin of this practice, which does not seem altogether referable to the survival of pagan belief. (See Witchcraft.) The wholesale nature of the prosecutions against sorcerers and witches prove that there must have been an extraordinary number of them in the country. In Paris alone, in the time of Charles IX, there were no less than thirty thousand sorcerers, and it is computed that France contained more than three times that number in the reign of Henry III., not a town or village being exempt from their presence. They belonged to all classes, and generally met the same fate, regardless of rank, age or sex. Children of the ten- derest years and ifonagenarians were alike committed to the flames, and the terror of being publicly accused as a sorcerer hung like a black cloud over the life of every successful man, as the charge was one which envy readily seized upon for the destruction of its object. No elaborate or perfect creed regarding witchcraft had at this epoch been evolved in England, but in France and other conti- nental countries it had been assuming a form systematic and complete. There were probably two reasons for this, the decrees of ecclesiastical councils and the numerous treatises of scholars who professed to illustrate their various
theories regarding sorcery by alleged statements from the mouths of its innumerable victims. Indeed the writings of these men served to standardise the sorcery creed of all continental countries. During the earlier part of the six- teenth century, trials for witchcraft in France are of rare occurrence, and there are no cases of great importance recorded till after the year 1560. In 1561 a number of persons were brought to trial at Vernon, accused of having held their Sabbath as witches in an old ruined castle in the shape of cats ; and witnesses deposed to having seen the assembly, and to having suffered from the attacks of the pseudo-feline conspirators. But the court threw out the charge, as worthy only of ridicule. In 1564, three men and a woman were executed at Poitiers, after having been made to confess to various acts of sorcery ; among other things, they said that they had regularly attended the witches' Sabbath, which was held three times a year, and that the demon who presided at it ended by burning him- self to make powder for the use of his agents in mischief. In 1571, a mere conjurer, who played tricks upon cards, was thrown into prison in Paris, forced to confess that he was an attendant on the Sabbath, and then executed. In 1573, a man was burnt at Drole, on the charge of having changed himself into a wolf, and in that form devoured several children. Several witches, who all confessed to. having been at the Sabbaths, were in the same year con- demned to be burnt in different parts of France. In 1578, another man was tried and condemned in Paris for changing himself into a wolf ; and a man was condemned at Orlear.s for the same supposed crime.in 1583. As France was often infested by these rapacious animals, it is not difficult to conceive how popular credulity was led to connect their ravages with the crime of witchcraft. The belief in what were in England called wer-wolves (men-wolves), and in France loups-garous, was a very ancient superstition throughout Europe. It is asserted by a serious and in- telligent writer of the time that, in 1588, a gentleman, looking out of the window of his chateau in a village two leagues from Apchon, in the mountains of Auvergne, saw one of his acquaintances going a-hunting, and begged fce would bring him home some game. The hunter, while occupied in the chase, was attacked by a fierce she-wolf, and after having fired at it without effect, struck it with his hunting-knife, ard cut off the paw of his right fore-leg, on which it immediately took to flight. The hunter took up the paw, threw it into his bag with the rest of his game, and soon afterwards returned to his friend's chateau, and told him of his adventure, at the same time putting his hand into the bag to bring forth the wolf's paw in confirma- tion of his story. What was his surprise at drawing out a lady's hand, with a gold ring on one finger ! His friend's astonishment was still greater when he recognised the ring as one which he had given to his own wife ; and, descending hastily into the kitchen, he found the lady warming herself by the fire, with her right arm wrapped in her apron. This he at once seized, and found to his horror that the hard was cut off. The lady confessed that it was she who, in the form of a wolf, had attacked the hunter ; she was, in due course of time, brought to her trial and condemned, and was immediately afterwards burnt at Rioms.
In 1578, a witch was burnt at Compiegne ; she confessed that she had given herself to the devil, who appeared to her as a great black man, on horseback, booted and spurred. Another avowed witch was burnt the same year, who also stated that the evil one came to her in the shape of a black man. In 1582 and 1583, several witches were burnt, all frequenters of the Sabbaths. Several local councils at this date passed severe laws against witchcraft, and from that time to the end of the century, the number of miser- able persons put to death in France under the accusation
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was very great. In the course only of fifteen years, from 1580 to 1595, and only in one province, that of Lorraine, the president Remigius burnt nine hundred witches, and as many more fled out of the country to save their lives ; and about the close of the century, one of the French judges tells us that the crime of witchcraft had become so common that there were not jails enough to hold the prisoners, or judges to hear their causes. A trial which he had wit- nessed in 1568, induced Jean Bodin, a learned physician, to compose his book De la Demonomanie des Sorciers, which -was ever afterwards the text-book on this subject.
Among the English witches, the evil one generally came in person to seduce his victims, but in France and other countries, this seems to have been unnecessary, as each person, when once initiated, became seized with an uncon- trollable desire of making converts, whom he or she carried -to the Sabbath to be duly enrolled. Bodin says, that one -witch was enough to corrupt five hundred honest persons. The infection quickly ran through a family, and was gen- erally carried down from generation to generation, which explained satisfactorily, according to the learned commen- tator on demonology just mentioned, the extent to which the evil had spread itself in his days. The novice, at his or her reception, after having performed the preliminaries, and in general received a new and burlesque rite of baptism, was marked with the sign of the demon in some part of the body least exposed to observation, and performed the first criminal act of compliance which was afterwards to be so frequently repeated, the evil one presenting himself on these occasions in the form of either sex, the reverse to that of the victim.
Towards the end of the sixteenth century, the witchcraft infatuation had risen to its greatest height in France, and riot only the lower classes, but persons of the highest rank in society were liable to suspicions of dealing in sorcery. We need only mention that such charges were publicly made against King Henry III. and Queen Catherine de Medicis, and that, early in the following century, they became the ground of state trials which had a fatal con- clusion.
In 1610, during the reign of Louis XIII., occurred the Lause celebre of the marechale d'Ancre. Among the ser- vants attached to the train of Marie de Medici was a certain Eleanora Dori, who married one, Concini, a prodigal spend- thrift. Marie de Medici, as guardian to her son, was virtually ruler of France, and considerable power was exercised by these favourites of hers. The result was that the peers of France leagued themselves together against the upstarts, but with little result at first, as Concini was created Marechal of France, with the title of Marquis -d'Ancre. His wife, who was very superstitious, fell sick, and attributed her ill-health to the effects of sorcery. The upshot was that d'Ancre was assassinated by the nobles during a hunting expedition. The mob dragged the corpse ■of d'Ancre from its grave and hanged it on the Pont Neuf. His wretched widow was accused of sorcery, and of having bewitched the Queen Mother. The exorcists who had assisted her to free herself from illness had advised the sacrifice of a cock, and this was now represented as a sacri- fice to the infernal powers. Added to this, the astrological nativities of the royal family were found in her possession, 3.S were, it is said, a quantity of magical books, and a great number of magical characters. After being tortured with- out result she was beheaded and burnt, and strangely enough the anger of the Parisian mob turned to general commiseration. Many other interesting cases occurred in France in the seventeenth century, among others that of the Ursulines at Aix (q.v.), for the enchantment of whom Louis Gaufridi was burnt, the Nuns of Louviais, and the nuns of Assonne. The case of the Ursulines of Loudon
(q.v.), is fully dealt with elsewhere. (See Urban Grandier).
The eighteenth century in France was fairly prolific in occult history. At a time when Europe was credulous about nothing but magic, France did not escape the pre- vailing craze. Perhaps the most striking personality of this age in the occult connection was the Comte de Saint Germain (q.v.), who was credited with possessing the secrets of alchemy and magic. His family connections were un- known, and his conversation suggested that he had lived for many centuries. Another mysterious adept was an alchemist calling himself Lascaris (q.v.) who literally sowed his path through Europe with gold. Then followed Cag- liostro (q.v.), who attained a fame unrivalled in the history of French occultism. He founded many masonic lodges throughout the country, and assisted in many ways to bring about the French Revolution. A school of initiates was founded by Martines de Pasqually, which appears in some measure to have incorporated the teachings of the later European adepts. One of the most important figures at this time is Louis Claude de Saint-Martin, known as " Le Philosophe Inconnu " who came under the influence of Pasqually (q.v.), and later, under that of the writings of Boehme, whose works he translated. Cazotte (q.v.) was the first of these names who were associated with both magic and the Revolution, which, indeed, owed much in its inception to those mysterious brotherhoods of France and Germany, who during the eighteenth century sowed the seeds of equality and Illuminism throughout Europe. Another was Loiseaut (q.v.), who formed a mystical society, which met in great secrecy, awaiting a vision of John the Baptist, who came to them to foretell the Revolution. The spiritual director of this circle was a monk named Dom Gerle (q.v.) one of the first mesmerists in Paris, who is said to have foretold the dreadful fame of Robespierre by means of Catherine Theot, his medium. He was ex- pelled by the members of the circle, acting on the advice of one of their number, Sister Francoise Andre, who cher- ished a notion to preserve the crown for the future reign of Louis XVII. , and thus gave rise to that multitude of stories connected with the so-called ' ' Saviours ' ' of the youth- ful " Capet." This sect, or a portion of it, became notorious under the leadership of Vintras (q.v.), when its meetings degenerated into the most dreadful debauchery. The appearance of Mile. Lenormand as a prophetess at the end of the eighteenth century may be said to close the occult history of that age. With the beginning of the nineteenth century we find the craze for magnetism ram- pant. In his works The Reform of Philosophy and Yes or No, Wronslri pretended to have discovered the first theorems of the Kabala, and later beguiled rich persons of weak intellect into paying him large sums in return for knowledge of the Absolute. The Saviours of Louis XVII. were formally condemned in 1853 by the Pope as prac- titioners of black magic, but they in turn condemned the Pope, and their leader, Vintras, constituted himself Sovereign Pontiff, but he was arrested on the charge of roguery and after five years' imprisonment, found an asy- lum in England.
The Baron du Potet did much to advance the science of Mesmer and by this time was tfeing seriously followed by Cahagnet and others (See Mesmerism) . In the middle of the nineteenth century all sorts of absurdities swayed occult Paris. The tale of Alphonse Esquiros (q.v.) entitled The Magician founded a school of magic phantasy, which was assiduously nursed by Henri Delaage (q.v.), who was said to have the gift of ubiquity, and who made a collection of processes from the old magicians for acquiring physical beauty.
Spiritualism. The Comte d'Ourches was the first to introduce into France automatic writing and table-writing.
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Baron Guldenstubbe, in his Practical Experimental Pneit- matology ; or, the Reality of Spirits and the Marvellous Phenomena of their Direct Writing, gives an account of his discovery as follows :
" It was in the course of the year 1850, or about three years prior to the epidemic of table-rapping, that the author sought to introduce into France the circles of American spiritualism, the mysterious Rochester kuockings and the purely automatic writings of mediums. Unfortunately he met with many obstacles raised by other mesmerists. Those who were committed to the hypothesis of a magnetic fluid, and even those who styled themselves Spiritual Mes- merists, but who were really inferior inducers of somnam- bulism, treated the mysterious knockings of American spiritualism as visionary follies. It was therefore only after more than six months that the author was able to form his first circle on the American plan, and then thanks to the zealous concurrence of M. Rousaan, a former mem- ber of the Sociele des Magnetiseurs Spiritualistes, a simple man who was full of enthusiasm for the holy cause of spirit- ualism. We were joined by a number of other persons, amongst whom was the Abbe Chatel, foundei of the Eglise Francaise, who, despite his rationalistic tendencies, ended by admitting the reality of objective and supernatural revelation, as an indispensable condition of spiritualism and all practical religions. Setting aside the moral conditions which are equally requisite, it is known that American circles aie based on the distinction of positive and electric or negative magnetic currents.
" The circles consist of twelve persons, representing in equal proportions the positive and negative or sensitive elements. This distinction does not follow the sex of the members, though generally women are negative and sensi- tive, while men are positive and magnetic. The mental and phj'sical constitution of each individual must be studied before forming the circles, for some delicate women have masculine qualities, while some strong men are, morall}' speaking, women. A table is placed in a clear and ven- tilated spot ; the medium is seated at one end and entirely isolated ; b3' his calm and contemplative quietude he serves as a conductor for the electricity, and it may be noted that a good somnambulist is usually an excellent medium. The six electrical or negative dispositions, which are generally recognised by their emotional qualities and their sensibility, are placed at the right of the medium, the most sensitive of all being next him. The same rule is followed with the positive personalities, who are at the left of the medium, with the most positive next to him. In order to form a chain, the twelve persons each place their right hand on the table. Observe that the medium or mediums, if there be more than one, are entirely isolated from those who form the chain.
" After a number of seances, certain remarkable phen- omena have been obtained, such as simultaneous shocks, felt by all present at the moment of mental evocation on the part of the most intelligent persons. It is the same with mysterious knockings and other strange sounds ; many people, including those least sensitive, have had simultaneous visions, though remaining in the ordinary waking state. Sensitive persons have acquired that most wonderful gift of mediumship, namely, automatic writing, as the result of an invisible attraction which uses the non- intelligent instrument of a human arm to express its ideas. For the rest, non-sensitive persons experience the mys- terious influence of an external wind, but the effect is not strong enough to put their limbs in motion. All these phenomena, obtained according to the mode of American spiritualism, have the defect of being more or less indirect, because it is impossible in these experiments to dispense •with the mediation of a human being or medium. It is
the same with the table-turning which invaded Europe in the middle of the year 1853.
" The author has had many table experiences with his honourable friend, the Comte d'Ourches, one of the most instructed persons in Magic and the Occult Sciences. We attained by degrees the point when tables moved, apart from any contact whatever, while the Comte d'Ourches has caused them to rise, also without contact. The author has made tables rush across a room with great rapidity, .and not only without contact but without the magnetic aid of a circle of sitters. The vibrations of piano-chords under similar circumstances took place on January 20, 1856, in the presence of the Comte de Szapary and Comte d'Ourches. Now all such phenomena are proof positive of certain occult forces, but they do not demonstrate ade- quately the real and substantial existence of unseen intel- ligences, independent of our will and imagination, though the limits of these have been vastly extended in respect of their possibilities. Hence the reproach made against American spiritualists, because their communications with the world of spirits are so insignificant in character, being confined to mysterious knockings and other sound vibra- tions. As a fact, there is no direct phenomenon at once intelligent and material, independent of our will and im- agination, to compare with the direct writing of spirits, who have neither been invoked or evoked, and it is this only which offers irrefutable proof as to the reality of the supernatural world.
" The author, being always in search of such proof, at once intelligent and palpable, concerning the substantial reality of the supernatural world, in order to demonstrate by certain facts the immortality of the soul, has never wearied of addressing fervent prayers to the Eternal, that He might vouchsafe to indicate an infallible means for strengthening that faith in immortality which is the eternal basis of religion. The Eternal, Whose mercy is infinite, has abundantly answered this feeble prayer. On August 1st, 1856, the idea came to the author of trying whether spirits could write diiectly, that is, apart from the presence of a medium. Remembering the marvellous direct writing of the Decalogue, communicated to Moses, and that other writing, equally direct and mysterious, at the feast of Belshazzar, lecorded by Daniel ; having further heard about those modern mysteries of Stratford in America, where certain strange and illegible characters were found upon strips of paper, apparently apart from mediumship, the author sought to establish the actuality of such im- portant phenomena, if indeed within the limits of possi- bility.
" He therefore placed a sheet of blank letter paper and a sharply pointed pencil in a box, which he then locked, and carried the ke}' about him, imparting his design to no one. Twelve days he waited in vain, but what was his astonishment on August 13th, 1856, when he found certain mysterious characters traced on the paper. He repeated the experiment ten times on that day, placing a new sheet of paper each time in the box, with the same result invari- ably. On the following day he made twenty experiments but left the box open, without losing sight of it. He wit- nessed the formation of characters and words in the Es- thonian language with no motion of the pencil. The latter being obviously useless he decided to dispense with it and placed blank paper sometimes on a table of his own, some- times on the pedestals of old statues, on sarcophagi, on urns, etc., in the Louvre, at St. Denis, at the Church of St. Etienne du Mont, etc., Similar experiments were made in different cemetries of Paris, but the author has no liking for cemetries, while most saints prefer the localities where they have lived on earth to those in which their mortal remains are laid to rest."
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We are now launched upon the sea of modern spiritualism in France, which occupied the entire activities of occultists in that country for several decades, and which it will be better to trace from the period of its importation into the country.
Very soon after public attention had been drawn to the subject of magnetism in France by Mesmer and d'Eslon, several men distinguished for learning and scientific at- tainments, followed up their experiments with great success. Amongst these was the Baron Dupotet, whose deep interest in the subject of magnetism induced him to publish a peri- odical which, under the title of Journal de Magnetisme — still forms a complete treasury of well collated facts, and curious experiments in occult force. From this work we learn that the Baron's investigations commenced in the year 1836, since whiph period up to 1848, he chronicled the production of the following remarkable phases of phen- omena, the occurrence of which is testified to by numerous scientific and eminent witnesses. Through the Baron's magnetized subjects was evolved, clairvoyance, trance- speaking, and healing ; stigmata or raised letters and figures on the subject's body ; elevation of somnambulists into the air ; insensibility to fire, injury or touch. In the presence of the magnetized objects also, heavy bodies were moved without human contact, and objects were brought from distant places through walls and closed doors. Some- times the " Lucides " described scenes in the spirit world, found lost property, prophesied and spoke in foreign languages.
In 1840, Baron Dupotet writes that he had " rediscovered in magnetism the magic of antiquity." " Let the savants," he says, " reject the doctrine of spiritual appearances ; the enquirer of to-day is compelled to believe it ; from an examination of undeniable facts." ... "If the know- ledge of ancient magic is lost, all the facts remain on which to reconstruct it."
But of all the revealers to whom French Spiritualism is indebted for indubitable proof of super-mundane inter- course, none stands more prominent in truthfulness and worth, than M. Cahagnet, the well-known author of "The Celestial Telegraph," a work translated into English in 1848.