M. D'Eslon, a prominent physician, who laid the doctrines

of animal magnatism before the Faculty of Medicine in 1780. Consideration of Mesmer's theories was, however, indignantly refused, and D'Eslon warned to rid himself of such dangerous doctrine. Another disciple of Mesmer who attained to distinction in magnetic practise was the Marquis de Puysegur, Who was the first to observe and describe the state of induced somnambulism now as well known as the hypnotic trance. It has been suggested, and seems not improbable, that Mesmer himself knew some- thing of the induced trance, but believing it to be a state full of danger, steadfastly set his face against it. However that may be, Puysegur's ideas on the subject began to supersede those of Mesmer, and he gathered about him a distinguished body of adherents, among whom was num- bered the celebrated Lavater. Indeed, his recognition of the fact that the symptoms attending the " magnetic sleep" were resultant from it, was a step of no small importance in the history of mesmerism. In 1784 a commission was appointed by the French government to enquire into the magnetic phenomena. For some reason or another its members chose to investigate the experiments of D'Eslon, rather than those of Mesmer himself. The commissioners, including among their number Benjamin Franklin, Lavoisier, and Bailly, observed the peculiar crises attending the treatment, and the rapport between patient and physician, but decided that imagination could produce all the effects, and that there was no evidence whatever for a magnetic fluid. The report, edited by M. Bailly, gives the following description of the crisis.
" The sick persons, arranged in great numbers, and in several rows around the baquet (bath), received the mag- netism by means of the iron rods, which conveyed it to them from the baquet by the cordsgwound round their bodies, by the thumb which connected them with their neighbours, and by the sounds of a pianoforte, or an agreeable voice, diffusing magnetism in the air.
" The patients were also directly magnetised by means of the finger and wand of the magnetiser, moved slowly before their faces, above or behind their heads, or on the diseased parts.
" The magnetiser acts also by fixing his eyes on the subjects ; by the application of his hands on the region of
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the solar plexus ; an application which sometimes con- tinues for hours.
" Meanwhile the patients present a very varied picture.
" Some are calm, tranquil, and experience no effect. Others cough and spit, feel pains, heat, or perspiration. Others, again, are convulsed.
" As soon as one begins to be convulsed, it is remarkable that others are immediately affected.
" The commissioners have observed some of these con- vulsions last more than three hours. They are often accom- panied with expectorations of a violent character, often streaked with blood. The convulsions are marked with involuntary motions of the throat, limbs, and sometimes the whole body ; by dimness of the eyes, shrieks, sobs, laughter, and the wildest hysteria. These states are often followed by languor and depression. The smallest noise appears to aggravate the symptoms, and often to occasion shudderings and terrible cries. It was noticeable that a sudden change in the air or time of the music had a great influence on the patients, and soothed or accelerated the convulsions, stimulating them to ecstasy, or moving them to floods of tears.
" Nothing is more astonishing than the spectacle of these convulsions.
" One who has not seen them can form no idea of them. The spectator is as much astonished at the profound repose of one portion of the patients as at the agitation of the rest.
" Some of the patients may be seen rushing towards each other with open arms, and manifesting every symptom of attachment and affection.
" All are under the power of the magnetizer ; it matters not what state of drowsiness they may be in, the sound of his voice, a look, a motion of his hands, spasmodically affects them."
Though Mesmer, Puysegur, and their followers con- tinued to practise magnetic treatment, the report of the royal commission had the effect of quenching public interest in the subject, though from time to time a spas- modic interest in it was shown by scientists. M. de Jussieu, at about the time the commission presented its report, suggested that it would have done well to enquire into the reality of the alleged cures, and to endeavour to find a satisfactory explanation for the phenomena they had witnessed ; while to remedy the deficiency he himself formulated a theory of " animal heat," an organic emana- tion which might be directed by the human will. Like Mesmer and the others, he believed in action at a distance.
Mesmeric practitioners formed themselves into " Societies of Harmony," until the political situation in France rendered their existence impossible. Early in the nine- teenth century Petetin and Delenze published works on magnetism. But a new era was inaugurated with the publication in 1823 of Alexandre Bertrand's Traite du Somnambulisms, followed three years later by a treatise Du Magnitisme Animal en France. Bertrand was a young physician of Paris, and to him belongs the honour of having discovered the important part played by suggestion in the phenomena of the induced trance. He had observed the connection between the magnetic sleep, epidemic ecstasy, and spontaneous sleep-walking, and declared that all the cures and strange symptoms which had formerly been attributed to " animal magnetism," " animal elec- tricity," and the like, resulted from the suggestions of the operator acting on the imagination of a patient whose suggestibility was greatly increased. It is probable that had he lived longer — he died in 1831, at the age of thirty- six — Bertrand would have gained a definite scientific standing for the facts of the induced trance ; but as it was the practitioners of animal magnetism still held to the
theory of a fluid or force radiating from magnetizer to subject, while those who were unable to accept such a doctrine, ignored the matter altogether, or treated it as vulgar fraud and charlatanry. Nevertheless Bertrand's works and experiments revived the flagging interest of the public to such an extent that in 1831 a second French commission was appointed by the Royal Academy of Medicine. The report of this commission was not forth- coming till more than five years had elapsed, but when it was finally published it contained a definite testimony to the genuineness of the magnetic phenomena, and especially of the somnambulic state ; and declared that the com- mission was satisfied of the therapeutic value of " animal magnetism." The report was certainly not of great scientific worth. The name of Bertrand is not even mentioned therein, nor his theory considered ; on the other hand, a good deal of space is given to the more supernatural phenomena, clairvoyance, action at a distance, and the prediction by somnambulic patients of crises in their maladies. This is the more excusable, however, since these ideas were almost universally associated with somnambu- lism. Community of sensation (q.v.) was held to be a feature of the trance state, as was also the transference of the senses to the stomach — (See Stomach, seeing with), while thought-transference was suggested by some of these earlier investigators, notably by Deleuze, who suggested that thoughts were conveyed from the brain of the operator to that of the subject through the medium of the subtle magnetic fluid. Meanwhile the spiritualistic theory was becoming more and more frequently advanced to explain the " magnetic " phenomena, including both the legitimate trance phenomena and the multitude of supernormal phenomena which was supposed to follow the somnambulic state. This will doubtless account in part for the extra- ordinary animosity which the medical profession showed towards animal magnetism as a therapeutic agency. Its anaesthetic properties they ridiculed as fraud or imagination, , notwithstanding that serious operations, even of the amputation of limbs, could be performed while the patient was in the magnetic sleep. Thus Dr. John Elliotson was forced to resign his professorship at the University College Hospital ; Dr. James Esdaile, a surgeon who practised at a government hospital at Calcutta, had to contend with much ignorance and stupid conservatism in his professional brethren ; and similar contemptuous treatment was dealt out to other medical men, against whom nothing could be urged but their defence of mesmerism. In 1841 James Braid, a Manchester surgeon, arrived independently at the conclusions which Bertrand had reached some eighteen years. earlier. Once more the theory of abnormal sugges- tibility was offered to explain the various phenomena of the so-called " magnetic " sleep ; and once more it was utterly ignored, alike by the world of science and by the public. Braid's explanation was essentially that which is offered now. He placed the new science — hypnotism, he called it, on a level with other natural sciences, above the mass of mediaeval magic and superstition in which he had found it. Yet even Braid does not seem- to have entirely separated the chaff from the grain, for we find him countenancing the practice of phreno-magnetism (q.v.), a combination of mesmerism and phrenology wherein the entranced patient, whose head is touched by the operator's fingers, exhibits every sign of the emotion or quality associated with the phrenological organ touched. Braid asserts that a subject, entirely ignorant of the position of the phrenological organs, passed rapidly and accurately from one emotion to another, according to the portion of the scalp in contact with the hypnotist's fingers. His physiological explana- tion is a somewhat inadequate one, and we can only suppose that he was not fully appreciative of his own theory of
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suggestion. In 1843 two periodicals dealing with magnet- ism appeared — the Zoist, edited by Dr. Elliotson and a colleague, and the Phreno-Magnet, edited by Spencer T. Hall. The first, adopting a scientific tone, treated the subject mainly from a therapeutic point of view, while the latter was of a more popular character. Many of the adherents of both papers, and notably Elliotson himself, afterwards became spiritualists. In 1845 an additional impetus was given to animal magnetism by the publica- tion in that year of Baron, von Reichenbach's researches. Reichenbach claimed to have discovered a new force, which he called odyle, od, or odylic force, and which could be seen in the form of flames by " sensitives." In the human being these emanations might be seen to radiate from the finger-tips, while they were also visible in animals and inanimate things. Different colours issued from the different poles of the magnet. Reichenbach experimented by putting his sensitives in a dark room with various objects — crystals, precious stones, magnets, minerals, plants, animals — when they could unerringly distinguish each object by the colour and size of the flame visible to their clairvoyant eye. These emanations were so invariable and so permanent that an artist might paint them, and this, indeed, was frequently done. Feelings of tempera- ture, of heat or cold, were also experienced in connection with the odylic force. Baron von Reichenbach's experi- ments were spread over a number of years, and were made with every appearance of scientific care and precision, so that their effect on the mesmerists of the time was very considerable. But notwithstanding the mass of dubious phenomena which was associated with hypnotism at that time, there is no doubt but that the induced trance, with its therapeutic and anaesthetic value, would soon have come into its own had not two circumstances occurred to thrust it into the background. The first was the applica- tion of chloroform and ether to the purposes for which hypnotism had hitherto been used, a substitution which pleased the medical faculty greatly, and relieved its mem- bers from the necessity of studying hypnotism. The second circumstance was the introduction of the movement known as modern spiritualism, which so emphasised the occult side of the trance phenomena as to obscure for nearly half a century the true significance of induced somnambulism. Modern Views of Hypnotism.— ■'But if the great body of medical and public opinion ignored the facts of hypnotism during the period following Braid's discovery, the subject did not fail to receive some attention from the more scienti- fic portion of Europe, and from time to time investigators took upon themselves the task of enquiring into the phenom- ena. This was especially the case in France, where the science of mesmerism or hypnotism was most firmly en- trenched, and where it met with least opposition. In 1858 Dr. Azam, of Bordeaux, investigated hypnotism from Braid's point of view, aided by a number of members of the Faculty of Paris. An account of his researches was pub- lished in i860, but cast no new light on the matter. Later the same set of facts were examined by Mesnet, Duval, and others. In 1875 Professor Richet also studied the science of artificial somnambulism. It is, however, from Bernheim and the Nancy school that the generally accepted modern view of hypnotism is taken. Bernheim was himself a disciple of Eiebeault, who, working on independent lines, had reached the conclusions of Bertrand and Braid and once more formulated the doctrine of suggestion. Bern- heim's work De la Suggestion, published in 1884, embodied the theories of Liebeault and the result of Bernheim's own researches therein. According to this view, then, hypnotism is a purely psychological process, and is induced by mental influences. The " passes " of Mesmer and the magnetic philosophers, the elaborate preparations of the
baquet, the strokings of Valentine Greatrakes, and all the multitudinous ceremonies with which the animal magnetists were wont to produce the artificial sleep, were only of service in inducing a state of expectation in the patient, or in providing a soothing and monotonous, or violent, sensory stimulus. And so also with the modern methods of inducing hypnosis ; the fixation of the eyes, the contact of the operators hand, the sound of his voice, are only effective through the medium of the subject's mentality. Other investigators who played a large part in popularising hypnotism were Professor J. M. Charcot, of the Salpetriere, Paris, a distinguished pathologist, and R, Heidenhain, professor of physiology at Breslau. The former taught that the hypnotic condition was essentially a morbid one, and allied to hysteria ; a theory which, becoming widely circulated, exercised a somewhat detrimental effect on the practice of hypnotism for therapeutic purposes, till it was at length proved erroneous. Even now a prejudice lingers, particularly in this country, against the use of the induced hypnotic trance in medicine. Heidenhain, again, laid stress on the physical operations to induce somnambulism, believing that thereby a peculiar state of the nervous system was brought about, wherein the control of the higher nerve centres was temporarily removed, so that the suggestion of the operator was free to express itself auto- matically through the physical organism of the patient. The physiological theory also is somewhat misleading ; nevertheless its exponents have done good work in bringing the undoubted facts of hypnosis into prominence. Besides these theories there is another which is to be met with chiefly in its native France — the old doctrine of a magnetic fluid. But it is rapidly dying out. Among the symptoms which may safely, and without reference to the super- natural, be regarded as attendant on hypnotism are the rapport between patient and operator, implicit obedience on the part of the former to the smallest suggestion, whether given verbally or by look, gesture, or any uncon- scious action, anaesthesia, positive and negative hallucina- tions, the fulfilment of post-hypnotic promises, control of organic processes and of muscles not ordinarily under voluntary control. Other phenomena which have been allied from time to time with magnetism, mesmerism, or hypnotism, and for which there is not the same scientific basis, are clairvoyance, telekinesia, transference of the senses from the ordinary sense-organs to some other parts of the body, usually the finger tips or the pit of the stomach, community of sensation, and the ability to commune with the dead. The majority of these, like the remarkable phenomena of phreno-magnetism, can be directly traced to the effect of suggestion on the imagination of the patient. Ignorant as were the protagonists of mesmerism with regard to the great suggestibility of the magnetised subject, it is hardly surprising that they saw new and supernormal faculties and agencies at work during the trance state. To the same ignorance of the possibilities of suggestion and hyperesthesia may be referred the common belief that the hypnotizer can influence his subject by the power of his will alone, and secure obedience to commands which are only mentally expressed. At the same time it must be borne in mind that if the growing belief in telepathy be accepted, there is a possibility that the operation of thought transference may be more freely carried out during hypnosis, and it is notable, in this respect, that the most fruitful of the telepathic experiments conducted by psychical re- searchers and others have been made with hypnotized percipients. (See Telepathy.)
Among numerous explanations of the physiological conditions accompanying the hypnotic state there is one, the theory of cerebral dissociation, which is now generally accepted of science, and which may be briefly outlined as
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follows. The brain is composed of innumerable groups of nerve cells, all more or less closely connected with each other by means of nervous links or paths of variable resistance. Excitement of any of these groups, whether by means of impressions received through the sense organs or by the communicated activity of other groups, will, if sufficiently intense, occasion the rise into consciousness of an idea. In the normal waking state the resistance of the nervous association-paths is fairly low, so that the activity is easily communicated from one neural group to another. Thus the main idea which reaches the upper stratum of consciousness is attended by a stream of other, subcon- scious ideas, which has the effect of checking the primary idea and preventing its complete dominance. Now the abnormal dominance of one particular system of ideas — that suggested by the operator — together with the com- plete suppression of all rival systems, is the principal fact to be explained in hypnosis. To some extent the physiolo- gical process conditioning hypnosis suggests an analogy with normal sleep. When one composes himself to sleep there is a lowering of cerebral excitement and a proportionate • increase in the resistance of the neural links ; and this is precisely what happens during hypnosis, the essential passivity of the subject raising the resistance of the associa- tion-paths. But in normal sleep, unless some exciting cause be present, all the neural dispositions are at rest, whereas in the latter case such a complete suspension of cerebral activities is not permitted, since the operator, by means of voice, gestures, and manipulations of the patient's limbs, keeps alive that set of impressions relating to him- self. One neural disposition is thus isolated, so that any idea suggested by the operator is free to work itself out in action, without being submitted to the checks of the sub-activity of other ideas. The alienation is less or more complete according as the degree of hypnotism is light or heavy, but a comparatively slight raising of resistance in the neural links suffices to secure the dominance of ideas suggested by the hypnotizer. Hyperesthesia, than which perhaps no phenomenon is more frequently mentioned in connection with the hypnotic state, really belongs to the doubtful class, since it has not yet been decided whether or no an actual sharpening or refining of the senses takes place. Alternatively it may be suggested that the accurate perception of very faint sense-impressions, which seems to furnish evidence for hyperesthesia, merely recalls the fact that the excitement conveyed through the sensory nerve -operates with extraordinary force, being freed from the restriction of sub-excitement in adjacent neural groups and systems. In accepting this view-point we concede that in normal life very feeble sensory stimuli must act on nerve and brain just as they do in hypnosis, save that in the former case they are so stifled amid a multitude of similar impressions that they fail to reach consciousness. In any case the occasional abnormal sensitiveness of the subject to very slight sensory stimuli is a fact of hypnotism as well authenticated as anaesthesia itself, and the term " hyperesthesia," if not entirely justified, may for want of a better be practically applied to the observed phenome- non. The hypnotic state is not necessarily induced by a second person. " Spontaneous " hypnotism and " auto- hypnotisation " are well known to science. Certain Indian fakirs and the shamans of uncivilised races can produce in themselves a state closely approximating to hypnosis, by a prolonged fixation of the eyes, and by other means. The mediumistic trance is also, as will be shown hereafter, a case in point.
Hypnotism and Spiritualism, — Spiritualism is a legacy directly bequeathed by the magnetic philosophers of mediaeval times, and through them, from the still older astrologers and magi. It has been shown that at a very
early date phenomena of a distinctly hypnotic character were ascribed to the workings of spiritual agencies, whether angelic or demoniac, by a certain percentage of the observers Thus Greatrakes and Gassner believed themselves to have been gifted with a divine power to heal diseases. Cases of ecstasy, catalepsy and other trance states were given a spiritual significance — i.e., demons, angels, elementals, and so on, were supposed to speak through the lips of the possessed. Witchcraft, in which the force of hypnotic suggestion seems to have operated in a very large degree, was thought to result from the witches' traffic with the Prince of Darkness and his legions. Even in some cases the souls of deceased men and women were identified with these intelligences, though not generally until the time of Swedenborg. Though the movement known as " modern spiritualism " is usually dated from 1848, the year of the " Rochester Rappings," the real growth of spiritualism was much more gradual, and its roots were hidden in animal magnetism. Emanuel Swendenborg, whose affinities with the magnetists have already been referred to, exercised a remarkable influence on the spiritualistic thought of America and Europe, and was in a sense the founder of that faith. Automatic phenomena were even then a feature of the magnetic trance, and clairvoyance, community of sensation, and telepathy were believed in generally, and regarded by many as evidences of spiritual communication. In Germany Professor Jung-Stilling, Dr. C. Romer, Dr. Werner, and the poet and physician Justinus Kerner, were among those who held opinions on these lines, the latter pursuing his investigations with a somnambule who became famous as the " Seerers of Prevorst " — Frau Frederica Hauffe. Frau Hauffe could see and converse with the spirits of the deceased, and gave evidence of prophetic vision and clairvoyance. Physical phenomena were witnessed in her presence, knockings, rattling of chains, movement of objects without contact, and, in short, such manifestations as were characteristic of the poltergeist family. She was, moreover, the originator of a " primeval " language, which she declared was that spoken by the patriarchs. Thus Frau Hauffe, though only a somnambule, or magnetic patient, possessed all the qualities of a successful spiritualistic medium. In England also there were many circumstances of a supernatural character associated with mesmerism. Dr. Elliotson, who, as has been indicated, was one of the best-known of English magnetists, became in time converted to a spiritualistic theory, as offering an explanation of the clairvoyance and similar phenomena which he thought to have observed in his patients. France, the headquarters of the rationalist school of magnetism, had, indeed, a good deal less to show of spiritualistic opinion. Nonetheless even in that country the latter doctrine made its appearance at intervals prior to 1848. J. P. F. Deleuze, a good scientist and an earnest protagonist of magnetism, who published his Histoire Critique du Magnetisme Animal in 1813, was said to have embraced the doctrines of spiritualism before he died. Dr. G. P. Billot was another believer in spirit communica- tion, and one who succeeded in obtaining physical pheno- ena in the presence of his somnambules. It is, however, in the person of Alphonse Cahagnet, a man of humble origin who began to study induced somnambulism about the year 1845, and who thereafter experimented with somnambules, that we encounter the first French spiritual- ist of distinction. So good was the evidence for spirit communication furnished by Cahagnet and his subjects that it remains among the best which the annals of the movement can produce. In America, Laroy Sunderland, Andrew Jackson Davis, and others who became pillars of spiritualism in that country were first attracted to it through the study of magnetism. Everywhere we find
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hypnotism and spiritualism identified with each other until in 1848 a definite split occurs, and the two go their separate ways. Even yet, however, the separation is not quite complete. In the first place, the mediumistic trance is obviously a variant of spontaneous or self-induced hypnotism, while in the second, many of the most striking phenomena of the seance-room have been matched time and again in the records of animal magnetism. For instance, the diagnosis of disease and prescription of remedies dictated by the control to the "' healing medium " have their prototype in the cures of Valentine Greatrakes, or of Mesmer and his disciples. Automatic phenomena — ■ speaking in " tongues " and so forth — early formed a characteristic feature of the induced trance and kindred states. While even the physical phenomena, movement without contact, apports, rappings, were witnessed in connection with magnetism long before the movement known as modern spiritualism was so much as thought of. In many instances, though not in all, we can trace the operation of hypnotic suggestion in the automatic phenom- ena, just as we can perceive the result of fraud in much of the physical manifestations. The question whether, after the factors of hypnotism and fraud have been removed, a section of the phenomena remains inexplicable say by the hypothesis of communication with the spirit-world is one which has been in the past, and is to-day, answered in the affirmative by many men of the highest distinction in their various walks of life, and one which we would do well to treat with due circumspection. This, however, is reserved for consideration elsewhere, the scope of the present article being to show how largely spiritualism has borrowed from the fact of hypnotism. (See Suggestion.)
In M. Larelig's biography of the celebrated painter, Wiertz, and also in the introductory and biographical note affixed to the Catalogue Raisonne du Musee Wiertz, by Dr. S. Watteau, 1865, is to be found a detailed description of an extremely curious hypnotic experiment in which Wiertz was the hypnotic subj ect and a friend, a doctor, the hypno- tiser. Wiertz had long been haunted by a desire to know whether thought persisted in a head severed from the trunk. His wish was the reason of the following experi- ment being undertaken, this being facilitated through his friendship with the prison doctor in Brussels, and another outside practitioner. The latter had been for many years a hypnotic operator, and had more than once put Wiertz into the hypnotic state, regarding him as an excellent sub- ject. About this time a trial for murder in the Place Saint-Gery had been causing a great sensation in Belgium and the painter had been following the proceedings closely. The trial ended in the condemnation of the accused. A plan was arranged and Wiertz, with the consent of the prison doctor, obtained permission to hide with his friend. Dr. D., under the guillotine, close to where the head of the condemned would roll into the basket. In order to carry out the scheme he had determined upon more efficiently, the painter desired his hypnotiser to put him through a regular course of hypnotic suggestion, and when in the sleep state to command him to identify himself with various people and tell him to read their thoughts and penetrate into their psychical and mental states. The following is a resume given in Le Progres Spirite : — " On the day of execution, ten minutes before the arrival of the condemned man, Wiertz, accompanied by his friend the physician with two witnesses, ensconced themselves underneath the guillotine, where they were entirely hidden from sight. The painter was then put to sleep,' and told to identify himself with the criminal. He was to follow his thoughts
and feel any sensations, which he was to express aloud. He was also ' suggested ' to take special note of mental con- ditions djring decapitation, so that when the head fell in the basket he could penetrate the brain and give an account of its last thoughts. Wiertz became entranced almost immediately, and the four friends soon understood by the sounds overhead that the executioner was conducting the condemned to the scaffold, and in another minute the guillotine would have done its work. The hypnotized Wiertz manifested extreme distress and begged to be de- magnetised, as his sense of oppression was insupportable. It was too late, however — the knife fell. ' What do you feel ? What do you see ? ' asks the doctor. Wiertz. writhes convulsively and replies, ' Lightning ! A thunder- bolt falls ! It thinks ; it sees ! ' ' Who thinks and sees ? ' ' The head. It suffers horribly. It thinks and feels but does not understand what has happened. It seeks its body -and feels that the body must join it. It still waits for the supreme blow for death, but death does not come.' As Wiertz spoke the witnesses saw the head which had fallen into the basket and lay looking at them horribly ; its arteries still palpitating. It was only after some moments of suffering that apparently the guillotined head at last became aware that is was separated from its body. Wiertz became calmer and seemed exhausted, while the doctor resumed his questions. The painter answered : — ' I fly through space like a top spinning through fire. But am I dead ? Is all over ? If only they would let me join my body again ! Have pity ! give it back to me and I can live again. I remember all. There are the judges in red robes. I hear the sentence. Oh ! my wretched wife and children. I am abandoned. If only you would put my body to me, I should be with you once more. You refuse ? All the same I love you, my poor babies. Miserable wretch that I am I have covered you with blood. When will this finish ! — or is not a murderer condemned to eternal punish- ment ? ' As Wiertz spoke these words the witnesses thought they detected the eyes of the decapitated head open wide with a look of unmistakable suffering and of beseeching. The painter continued his lamentations. ' No, such suffering cannot endure for ever ; God is merciful. All that belongs to earth is fading away. I see in the distance a little light glittering like a diamond. I feel a calm steal- ing over me. What a good sleep I shall have ! What joy ! ' These were the last words the painter spoke. He was still entranced, but no longer replied to the questions put by the doctor. They then approached the head and Dr. D. touched the forehead, the temples, and teeth and found they were cold. The head was dead."
In the Wiertz Gallery in Brussels are to be found three pictures of a guillotined head, presumably the outcome of this gruesome experiment. Hypocephalus : A disk of bronze or painted linen found under the heads of Graxo-Roman mummies in Egypt. It is inscribed with magical formulae and divine figures, and its object was probably to secure warmth for the corpse. There is frequently depicted upon such amulets a scene showing cynocephalus apes adoring the solar disk seated in his boat.
. The Order of f/ic /////u /■«{(.
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THE ORDER OF THE ILLUMINATI
[face p. 222
Iacchus
Incubus
Iacchus : (See Mysteries.)?^
Iao, or I-ha-ho : A mystic name said by Clement of Alexan- dria to have been worn on their persons by the initiates of the Mysteries of Serapis. It is said to embody the symbols of the two generative principles.
lehtbyomancy : Divination by the inspection of the entrails of fish.
Ideas of Good and Evil : (See Yeats.)
Ifrits : Hideous spectres probably of Arabian origin, now genii of Persian and Indian mythology. They assume diverse forms, and frequent ruins, woods and wild desolate places, for the purpose of preying upon men and other living things. They are sometimes confounded with the Jinns or Divs of Persia.
Ignis Fatuus : A wavering luminous appearance frequently observed in meadows and marshy places, round which many popular superstions cluster. Its folk-names, Will o' the Wisp and Jack o' Lantern, suggest a country fellow bearing a lantern or straw torch (wisp). Formerly these lights were supposed to haunt desolate bogs and moor- lands for the purpose of misleading travellers and drawing them to their death. Another superstition says that they are the spirits of those who have been drowned in the bogs, and yet another, that they are the souls of unbaptized in- fants. Science refers these ignes fatui to gaseous exhalations from the moist ground, or, more rarely, to night-flying insects
lllnminati : The term used first of all in the 15th century by
enthusiasts in the occult arts signifying those who claimed Imperator : Control of Rev
to possess " light " directly communicated from a higher William Stainton.)
source, or due to a larger measure of human wisdom. Impersonation : Mediums who are controlled by the spirit
supernatural had strong attractions for him. These two, rapidly spread the gospel of the Revolution throughout Germany. But they grew fearful that, if the authorities discovered the existence of such a society as theirs they would take steps to suppress it. With this in view they conceived the idea of grafting it on to Freemasonry, which they considered would protect it, and offer it means of spreading more widely and rapidly.
The Freemasons were not long in discovering the true nature of those who had just joined their organisation. A chief council was held with the view of thoroughly examin- ing into the nature of the beliefs held by them and a con- ference of masons was held in 1782 at which Knigge and Weishaupt at.ter.ded ar.d endeavoured to capture the whole organisation of Freemasonry, but a misunderstanding grew up between the leaders of illuminism. Knigge withdrew from the society, and two years later those who had reached its highest grade and had discovered that mysticism was not its true object, denounced it to the Bavarian Government as a political society of a dangerous character. Weishaupt fled, but the damage had been done, for the fire kindled by Illuminism was soon to burst forth in the French Revolution. The title llluminati was later given to the French Mar- tinists (q.v.) Imhetep : An Egyptian deity, son of Ptah and Nut, to whom great powers of exorcism were attributed. He was often appealed to in cases of demoniac possession.
W. S. Moses. (See Moses,
We first find the name in Spain about the end of the 15th
century. Its origin is probably a late Gnostic one hailing
from Italy, and we find all sorts of people, many of them
charlatans, claiming to belong to the brotherhood. In
Spain, such persons as laid claim to the title had to face the Incense, Magical : (See Magic.)
rigour of the Inquisition, and this is perhaps the reason that Incommunicable Axiom, 1 he :
we find numbers of them in France in the early seventeenth century, as refugees.
Here and there small bodies of those called llluminati, sometimes known as Rosicrucians rose into publicity for a short period. But it is with Weishaupt, Professor of Law at Ingolstadt, that the movement first became identified with republicanism. It soon secured a strong hold all through Germany, but its founder's object was merely to Incubus : A spirit which has intercourse with mortal women.
of a deceased person frequently impersonate that person, imitate his voice and gestures, his physical peculiarities and manners, and exhibit the symptoms of any disease from which he may have suffered. (See Trance Personalities.)
It was believed that all magical science was embodied in knowledge of this secret. The Axiom is to be found enclosed in the four letters of the Tetragram arranged in a certain way ; in the words " Azoth " and " Inri " written kabalistically ; and in the monogram of Christ embroidered in the labarum. He who succeeded in elucidating it became humanly omni- potent from the magical standpoint.
convert his followers into blind instruments of his supreme will. He modelled his organisation on that of the Jesuits, adopted their system of espionage, and their maxim that the end justified the means. He induced mysticism into the workings of the brotherhood, so that an air of mystery might prevade all its doings, adopted many of the classes and grades of Freemasonry, and held out hopes of the communication of deep occult secrets in the higher ranks. Only a few of the members knew him personally, and thus although the society had many branches in all parts of Germany, to these people alone was he visible, and he began to be regarded by those who had not seen him almost as a god. He took care to enlist in his ranks as many young men of wealth and position as possible, and within four or five years the power of Illuminism became extra- ordinary in its proportions, its members even had a hand in the affairs of the state, and not a few of the German princes found it to their interest to having dealings with the fraternity. Weishaupt's idea was to blend philan- thropy and mysticism. He was only 28 when he founded the sect in 1776, but he did not make much progress until a certain baron Von Knigge joined him in 1780. A gifted person of strong imagination he had been admitted master of most of the secret societies of his day, among them Freemasonry. He was also an expert occultist and the
The concept may have arisen from the idea of the com- merce of gods with women, rife in pagan times. For, modern and mediaeval instances, we can do little more than refer to the pages in which they may be found, and the very names of the writers will sufficiently avouch their credibility. The history of Hector Boethius has three or four rotable examples, which obtain confirmation from the pen of Cardan. One of these we may venture to transcribe in the quaint dress which Holinshed had given it. " In the year 1480 it chanced as a Scottish ship departed out of the Forth towards Flanders, there arose a wonderful great tempest of wind and weather, so outragious, that the maister of the ship, with other the mariners, woondered not a little what the matter ment, to see such weather at that time of the yeare, for it was about the middest of summer. At length, when the furious pirrie and rage of winds still increased, in such wise that all those within the ship looked for present death, there was a woman underneath the hatches called unto them above, and willed them to throw her into the sea, that all the residue, by God's grace, might yet be saved ; and thereupon told them how she had been haunted a long time with a spirit dailie comming unto hir in man's likenesse. In the ship there chanced also to be priest, who by the maister's appointment going down to this woman, and finding her like a most wretched and desperate person.
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lamenting hir great misfortune and miserable estate, used such wholesome admonition and comfortable advertise- ments, willing her to repent and hope for mercy at the hands of God, that, at length, she seeming right penitent for her grievous offences committed, and fetching sundrie sighs even from the bottome of her heart, being witnesse, as should appeare, of the same, there issued forth of the pumpe of the ship, a foule and evil-favoured blacke cloud with a mighty terrible noise, flame, smoke, and stinke, which presently fell into the sea. And suddenlie thereupon the tempest ceassed, and the ship passing in great quiet the residue of her journey, arrived in saftieat the placewhither she was bound." (' Chronicles,' vol. v., 146, Ed. 1808). In another case related by the same author, the Incubus did not depart so quietly. In the chamber of a young gentle- woman, of excellent beauty, and daughter of a nobleman in the country of Mar, was found at an unseasonable hour, " a foule monstrous thing, verie horrible to behold," for the love of which " Deformed " nevertheless, the lady had refused sundry wealthy marriages. A priest who was in the company began to repeat St. John's Gospel, and ere he had proceeded far " suddenlie the wicked spirit, making a verie sore and terrible roaring noise, flue his waies, taking the roofe of the chamber awaie with him, the hangings and coverings of the bed being also burnt therewith."
Erastus, in his Tract " de Lamiis," Sprangerus, who assures us that himself and his four colleagues punished many old women of Ratisbon with death for this commerce, Zanchius (" de Operibns Dei," xvi., 4.) ; Dandidas (" in Aristotelis de Anima," ii., 29, 30) ; Reussus (v., 6) ; Godel- man (ii., 5) ; Valesius (" de Sacra Phil.," 40) ; and Delrio, " passim," among others, will satiate the keenest curiosity on these points. From Bodinus, we learn that Joan Hervilleria, at twelve years of age, was solemnly betrothed to Beelzebub, by her mother, who was afterwards burnt alive for compassing this clandestine marriage. The bridegroom was very respectably attired, and the marriage formulary was simple. The mother pronounced the follow- ing words to the bridegroom : " Eccc filiam meam quam .spospondi tibi," and then turning to the bride, " Ecce amicum tuum qui beabit te." It appears, however, that Joan was not satisfied with her spiritual husband alone, but became a bigamist, by inter-marrying with real flesh and blood. Besides this lady, we read of Margaret Bre- mont, who, in company with her mother, Joan Robert, Joan Guillemin, Mary, wife of Simon Agnus, and Wilhelma, spouse of one Grassus, were in the habit of attending dia- bolic assignations. These unhappy wretches were burnt alive by Adrian Ferreus, General Vicar of the Inquisition. Magdalena Crucia of Cordova, an abbess, was more fortunate. In 1545 she became suspected by her nuns of magic, an accusation very convenient when a superior was at all troublesome. She encountered them with great wisdom by anticipating their charge ; and going before- hand to the Pope, Paul III., she confessed a thirty years' intimate acquaintance with the devil, and obtained his pardon. (See England.) India : Mystical Systems. — It would be beyond the scope of such a work as this to undertake to provide any account of the several religious systems of India, and we must confine ourselves to a description of the mysticism and demonology which cluster round these systems, and an outline of the magic and sorcery of the native peoples of the empire.
Hinduism. — It may be said that the mysticism of the Hindus was a reaction against the detailed and practical ceremonial of the Vedas. If its trend were summarised it might justly be said that it partakes strongly of disinter- estedness ; is a pantheistic identifying of subject and object, worshipper and worship ; aims at. ultimate absorp-
tion in the Infinite ; inculcates absolute passivity, the most minute self-examination, the cessation of the physical powers ; and believes in the spiritual guidance of the mystical adept. For the Indian theosophists there is only one Absolute Being, the One Reality. True, the pantheistic doctrine of Ekam advitiyam " the One without Second " posits a countless pantheon of gods, great and small, and a rich demonology ; but it has to be understood that these are merely illusions of the soul and not realities. Upon the soul's coming to fuller knowledge, its illusions are totally dispelled, but to the ordinary man the imper- sonality of absolute being is useless. He requires a sym- bolic deity to bridge the gulf betwixt the impersonal Absolute and his very material self, hence the numerous gods of Hinduism which are regarded by the initiated merely as manifestations of the Supreme Spirit. Even the rudest forms of idolatry in this way possess higher meaning. As Sir Alfred Lyall says : "It (Brahminism) treats all the worships as outward visible signs of the same spiritual truth, and is ready to show how each par- ticular image or rite is the symbol of some aspect of univer- sal divinity. The Hindus, like the pagans of antiquity adore natural objects and forces, — a mountain, a river, or an animal. The Brahmin holds all nature to be the vesture or cloak of indwelhng divine energy which inspires every- thing that produces all or passes man's understanding."
The life ascetic has from the remotest times been re- garded in India as the truest preparation for communion with the deity. Asceticism is extremely prevalent especially in connection with the cult of Siva, who is in great measure regarded as the prototype of this class. The Yogis or Jogis (disciples of the Yogi philosophy), practise mental abstraction, and are popularly supposed to attain to superhuman powers. The usual results of their ascetic practices are madness or mental vacancy, and their so- called supernatural powers are mostly prophetic, or in too many cases pure jugglery and conjuring. The Parama- Hamsas, that is " supreme swans " claim to be identical with the world-soul, and have no occupation except medita- tion on Brahma. They are said to be equally indifferent to pleasure or pain, insensible to heat or cold, and incapable of satiety or want. The Sannyasis are those who renounce terrestrial affairs : they are of the character of monks, and are as a general rule extremely dirty. The Dandis or staff-bearers are worshippers of Siva in his form of Bhai- rava the Terrible. Mr. J. C. Owen in his Mystics, Ascetics and Sects of India says of these Sadhus or holy men : — ■ " Sadhuism whether perpetuating the peculiar idea of the efficacy of asceticism for the acquisition of far-reaching powers over natural phenomena or bearing its testimony to the belief of the indispensableness of detachment from the world as a preparation for the ineffable joy of ecstatic communion with the Divine Being, has undoubtedly tended to keep before men's eyes as the highest ideal, a life of purity and restraint and contempt of the world of human affairs. It has also necessarily maintained amongst the laity a sense of the rights and claims of the poor upon the charity of the more opulent members of the community. Further, Sadhuism by the multiplicity of the independent sects which have arisen in India has engendered and favoured a spirit of tolerance which cannot escape the notice of the most superficial observer."
One of the most esoteric branches of Hinduism is the Sakta cult. The Saktas are worshippers of the Sakti or female principle as a creative and reproductive agency. Each of the principal gods possesses his own Sakti, through which his creative acts are performed, so that the Sakta worshippers are drawn from all sects. But it is principally in connection with the cult of Siva that Sakta worship is practised. Its principal seat is the north-eastern part of
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India — Bengal, Behar and Assam. It is divided into two distinct groups. The original self-existent gods were sup- posed to divide themselves into male and female energies, the male half occupying the right-hand and the female the left- hand side. From this conception we have the two groups of " right-hand " observers and " left-hand " observers. In the Tanlras or mystical writings, Siva unfolds in the nature of a colloquy in answer to questions asked by his spouse Parvati, the mysteries of Sakta occultism. The right-hand worshippers are by far the most numerous. Strict secrecy is enjoined in the performance of the rites, and only one minor caste, the Kanlas, carry on the mystic and degraded rites of the Tantras.
Brahmanism. — Brahmanism is a system originated by the Brahmans, the sacerdotal caste of the Hindus, at a comparatively early date. It is the mystical religion of India par excellence, and represents the more archaic beliefs of its peoples. It states that the numberless individual existences of animate nature are but so many manifestations of the one eternal spirit towards which they tend as their final goal of supreme bliss. The object of man is to prevent himself sinking lower in the scale, and by degrees to raise himself in it, or if possible to attain the ultimate goal immediately from such state of existence as he happens to be in. The code of Manu concludes " He who in his own soul perceives the supreme soul in all beings and acquires equanimity towards them all attains the highest state of bliss." Mortification of animal instincts, absolute purity and perfection of spirit, were the moral ideals of the Brahman class. But it was necessary to pass through a succession of four orders or states of existence ere any hope of union with the deity could be held out. These were : that of brahmacharin, or student of religious matters ; grihastha, or householder ; vanavasin, or hermit ; and sannyasin or bhikshu, fakir or religious mendicant. Practically every man of the higher castes practised at least the first two of these stages, while the priestly class took the entire course. Later, however, this was by no means the rule, as the scope of study was intensely exacting, often lasting as long as forty-eight years, and the neophyte had to support himself by begging from door to door. He was usually attached to the house of some religious teacher ; and after several years of his tuition was usually married, as it was considered absolutely essential that he should leave a son behind him to offer food to his spirit and to those of his ancestors. He was then said to have become a " Householder " and was required to keep up perpetually the fire brought into his house upon his marriage day. Upon his growing older, the time for him arrived to enter the third stage of life, and he " cut himself off from all family ties except that (if she wished) his wife might accompany him, and went into retirement in a lonely place, carrying with him his sacred fire, and the instruments necessary to his daily sacrifices." Scantily clothed, and with hair and nails uncut, it is set down that the anchorite must live entirely on food growing wild in the forest — roots, herbs, wild grain, and so forth. The acceptance of gifts was not permitted him unless absolutely necessary, and his time was spent in reading the metaphysi- cal portions of the Veda, in making offerings, and in practis- ing austerities with the obj ect of producing entire indifference to worldly desires. In this way he fits himself for the final and most exalted order, that of religious mendicant or bhikshu. This consists solely of meditation. He takes up -his abode at the foot of a tree in entire solitude, and only once a day at the end of their labours may he go near the dwellings of men to beg a little food. In this way he waits for death, neither desiring extinction nor existence, until at length it reaches him, and he is absorbed in the eternal Brahma.
The purest doctrines of Brahmanism are to be found in the Vedanta philosophic system, which recognises the Veda, or collection of ancient Sanskrit hymns, as the revealed source of religious belief through the visions of the ancient Rishis or seers. It has been already mentioned that the Hindu regarded the entire gamut of animated nature as being traversed by the one soul, which journeyed up and down the scale as its actions in its previous existence were good or evil. To the Hindu the vital element in all animate beings appears essentially similar, and this led directly to the Brahmanical theory of transmigration, which has taken such a powerful hold upon the Hindu mind.
Demonology. — A large and intricate demonology has clustered around Hindu mythology. The gods are at con- stant war with demons. Thus Durga slays Chanda and Asura, and also despatches Durga, a fiend of similar name to herself. Vishnu also slays more than one demon, but Durga appears to have been a great enemy of the demon race. The Asuras, probably a very ancient and aboriginal pantheon of deities, later became demons in the popular imagination, and the Rakshasas were cloud-demons. They are described as cannibals, could take any form, and were constantly menacing the gods. They haunt cemeteries, disturb sacrifices, animate the dead, harry and afflict mankind in all sorts of ways. In fact they are almost an absolute parallel with the vampires of Slavonic countries; and this greatly assists the conclusions of Asikoff that the Slavonic vampires were originally cloud-spirits. We find the gods constantly harassed by demons ; and on the whole we may be justified in concluding that just as the Tuatha-de-danaan harassed the later deities of Ireland, so did these aboriginal gods lead an existence of constant warfare with the divine beings of the pantheon of the immigrant Aryans.
Popular Witchcraft and Sorcery. — The popular witch- craft and sorcery of India greatly resembles that of Europe. The Dravidian or aboriginal races of India have always been strong believers in witchcraft, and it is possible that here we have an example of the mythic influence of a conquered people. They are, however, extremely reticent regarding any knowledge they possess of it. It is practi- cally confined to them, and this might lead to the hasty supposition that the Aryan races of India possess no witchcraft of their own. But this is strongly unlikely, and the truth probably lies quite in the other direction ; how- ever, the extraordinarily high demands made upon the popular religious sense by Brahmanism probably crushed the superstitions of the lower cultus of a very early period, and confined the practice of minor sorcery to the lower castes, who were of course of Dravidian or aboriginal blood. We find witchcraft most prevalent among the more isolated and least advanced races, like the Kols, Bhils, and Santals. The nomadic peoples are also strong believers in sorcery, one of the most dreaded forms of which is the Jigar Khor, or liver-eater, of whom Abul Fazl says : — " One of this class can steal away the liver of another by looks and incantations. Other accounts say that by looking at a person he deprives him of his senses, and then steals from him something resembling the seed of a pome- granate, which he hides in the calf of his leg ; after being swelled by the fire, he distributes it among his fellows to be eaten, which ceremony concludes the life of the fascinated person. A Jigar Khor is able to communicate his art to another by teaching him incantations, and by making him eat a bit of the liver cake. These Jigar Khors are mostly women. It is said they can bring intelligence from a long distance in a short space of time, and if they are thrown into a river with a stone tied to them, they nevertheless will not sink. In order to deprive any one of this wicked
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power, they brand his temples and every joint of Ms body, cram his eyes with salt, suspend him for forty days in a subterranean chamber, and repeat over him certain incan- tations." The witch does not, however, devour the man's liver for two and a half days, and even if she has eaten it, and is put under the hands of an exorciser, she can be forced to substitute a liver of some animal in the body of the man whom she victimised. We also hear tales of witches taking out the entrails of people, sucking them, and then replacing them. All this undoubtedly illustrates, as in ancient France and Germany, and probably also in the Slavonic countries, the original combination of witch and vampire ; how, in fact, the two were one and the same. In India the arch-witch Ralaratri, or " black night " has the joined eyebrows of the Salvonic werewolf or vampire, large cheeks, widely-parted lips, projecting teeth, and is a veritable vampire. But she also possesses the powers of ordinary witchcraft, — second-sight, the making of philtres, the control of tempests, the evil eye, and so forth. Witches also take animal forms, especially those of tigers ; and stories of trials are related at which natives gave evidence that they had tracked certain tigers to their lairs, which upon entering they had found tenanted by a a notorious witch or wizard. For such witch-tigers the usual remedy is to knock out their teeth to prevent their doing any more mischief. Strangely enough the Indian witch, like her European prototype, is very often accom- panied by a cat. The cat, say the jungle people, is aunt to the tiger, and taught him everthing but how to climb a tree. Zalim Sinn, the famous regent of Kota, believed that cats were associated with witches, and imagin- ing himself enchanted ordered that every cat should be expelled from his province.
As in Europe, witches are known by certain marks. They are believed to learn the secrets of their craft by eating offal of all kinds. The popular belief concerning them is that they are often very handsome and neat, and invariably apply a clear line of red lead to the parting of their hair. They are popularly accused of exhuming dead children, and bringing them to life to serve occult purposes of their own. They cannot die so long as they are witches, and until, as in Italy, they can pass on their knowledge of witchcraft to someone else. They recite charms backwards, repeating two letters and a half from a verse in the Koran. If a certain charm is repeated " for- wards," the person employing it will become invisible to his neighbour, but if he repeats it backwards, he will assume whatever shape he chooses. A witch can acquire power over ,her victim by getting possession of a lock of hair, the paring of nails, or some other part of his body, such as a tooth. For this reason natives of India are extremely careful about the disposal of such, burying them in the earth in a place covered with grass, or in the neigh- bourhood of water, which witches universally dislike. Some people even fling the cuttings of their hair into running water. Like the witches of Europe too, they are in the practice of making images of persons out of wax, dough, or similar substances, and torturing them, with the idea that the pain will be felt by the person whom they desire to injure. In India the witches' familiar is known as Bir or the " hero," who aids her to inflict injury upon human beings. The power of the witch is greatest on the 14th, 15th and 29th of each month, and in particular on the Feast of Lamps, and the Festival of Durga.
Witches are often severely punished amongst the isolated hill-folk and a diabolical ingenuity is shown in torturing them. To nullify their evil influence, they are beaten with rods of the castor-oil plant and usually die in the process. They are often forced to drink filthy water used by curriers in the process of their work, or their noses are cut off, or
they are put to death. As has been said, their teeth are- often knocked out, their heads shaved and offal is thrown at them. In the case of women their heads are shaved and their hair is attached to a tree in some public place. They are also branded ; have a ploughshare tied to their legs ; and made to drink the water of a tannery. During the Mutiny, when British authority was relaxed, the most atrocious horrors were inflicted upon witches and sorcerers by the Dravidian people. Pounded chilli peppers were placed in their eyes to see if they would bring tears, and the wretched beings were suspended fr«m a tree head downwards, being swung violently from side to side. They were then forced to drink the blood of a goat, and to exorcise the evil spirits that they had caused to enter the bodies of certain sick persons. The mutilations and cruelties practised on them are such as will not bear repeti- tion, but one of the favourite ways of counteracting the spells of a witch is to draw blood from her, and the local priest will often prick the tongue of the witch with a needle, and place the resulting blood on some rice and compel her to eat it.
In Bombay, the aboriginal Tharus are supposed to possess special powers of witchcraft, so that the " Land of Tharus " is a synonym for witch-land. In Gorakhpur, witches are also very numerous, and the half-gypsy Ban- jaras, or grain-carriers, are notorious believers in witch- craft. In his interesting Popular Religion and Folk-lore of Northern India, Mr. W. Crooke, who has had exceptional opportunities for the study of the native character, and who has done much to clear up the dark places of Indian popular mythology, says regarding the various types of Indian witches : —
" At the present day the half-deified witch most dreaded in the Eastern Districts of the North-western Provinces is Lona, or Nona, a Chamarin or woman of the currier caste. Her legend is in this wise. The great physician Dhanwantara, who corresponds to Luqman Hakim of the Muhammadans, was once on his way to cure King Parikshit, and was deceived and bitten by the snake king Takshaka. He therefore desired his sons to roast him and eat his flesh, and thus succeed to his magical powers. The snake king dissuaded them from eating the unholy meal, and they let the cauldron containing it float down the Ganges. A currier woman, named Lona, found it and ate the contents, and thus succeeded to the mystic powers of Dhanwantara. She became skilful in cures, particularly of snake-bite. Finally she was discovered to be a witch by the extra- ordinary rapidity xvith which she could plant out rice seedlings. One day the people watched her, and saw that when she believed herself unobserved she stripped herself naked, and taking the bundle of the plants in her hands threw them into the air, reciting certain spells. When the seedlings forthwith arranged themselves in their proper places, the spectators called out in astonishment, and finding herself discovered, Nona rushed along over the country, and the channel which she made in her course is the Loni river to this day. So a saint in Broach formed a new course for a river by dragging his clothes behind him
" Another terrible witch, whose legend is told at Mathura, is Putana, the daughter of Bah, king of the lower world. She found the infant Krishna asleep, and began to suckle him with her devil's milk. The first drop would have poisoned a mortal child, but Krishna drew her breast with such strength that he drained her life-blood, and the fiend, terrifying the whole land of Braj with her cries of agony, fell lifeless on the ground. European witches suck the blood of children ; here the divine Krishna turns the tables on the witch.
" The Palwar Rajputs of Oudh have a witch ancestress.
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Soon after the birth of her son she was engaged in baking cakes. Her infant began to cry, and she was obliged to perform a double duty. At this juncture her husband arrived just in time to see his demon wife assume gigantic and supernatural proportions, so as to allow both the baking and nursing to go on at the same time. But finding her secret discovered, the witch disappeared, leaving her son as a legacy to her astonished husband. Here, though the story is incomplete, we have almost certainly, as in the case of Nona Chamarin, one of the Melusina type of legend, where the supernatural wife leaves her husband and children, because he violated some taboo, by which he is forbidden to see her in a state of nudity, or the like.
"The history of witchcraft in India, as in Europe, is one of the saddest pages in the annals of the people. Nowa- days, the power of British law has almost entirely sup- pressed the horrible outrages which, under the native administration were habitually practised. But particu- larly in the more remote and uncivilized parts of the country this superstition still exists in the minds of the people and occasional indications of it, which appear in our criminal records, are quite sufficient to show that any relaxation of the activity of our magistrates and police would undoubtedly lead to its revival in some of its more shocking forms."
The aborigines of India live in great fear of ghosts and invisible spirits, and a considerable portion of their time is given up to averting the evil influences of these. Pro- tectives of every description litter their houses, and the approaches to them, and they wear numerous amulets for the purpose of averting evil influences. Regarding these, Mr. Crooks says : —
" Some of the Indian ghosts, like the Ifrit of the Arabian Nights, can grow to the length of ten yojanas or eighty miles. In one of the Bengal tales a ghost is identified because she can stretch out her hands several yards for a vessel. Some ghosts possess the very dangerous power of entering human corpses, like the Vetala, and swelling to an enormous size. The Kharwars of Mirzapur have a wild legend, which tells how long ago an unmarried girl of the tribe died, and was being cremated. While the relations were collecting wood for the pyre, a ghost entered the corpse, but the friends managed to expel him. Since then great care is taken not to leave the bodies of women unwatched. So, in the Panjab, when a great person is cremated the bones and ashes are carefully watched till the fourth day, to prevent a magician interfering with them. If he has a chance, he ean restore the deceased to life, and ever after retain him under his influence. This is the origin of the custom in Great Britain of waking the dead, a practice which ' most probably originated from a silly superstition as to»the danger of a corpse being carried off by some of the agents of the invisible world, or exposed to the ominous liberties of brute animals.' But in India it is considered the best course, if the corpse cannot be immediately disposed of, to measure it carefully, and then no malignant Bhut can occupy it.
" Most of the ghosts whom we have been as yet con- sidering are malignant. There are, however, others which are friendly. Such are the German Elves, the Robin Good- fellow, Puck, Brownie and the Cauld Lad of Hilton of England, the Glashan of the Isle of Man, the Phouka or Leprehaun of Ireland. Such, in one of his many forms, is the Brahmadaitya, or ghost of a Brahman who has died unmarried. In Bengal he is believed to be more neat and less mischievous than other ghosts ; - the Bhuts carry him in a "palanquin, he wears wooden sandals, and lives in a Banyan tree.
Infernal Court. — Wierus and others, learned in the lore of the infernal regions, have discovered therein princes and high dignitaries, ministers, ambassadors, and officers of state, whose names would fill much space to little purpose Satan is no longer the soverign of Hades, but is, so to speak, leader of the opposition. The true leader is Beelze- bub.
Initiation : The process of entry into a secret society or similar organisation. The idea of initiation was certainly inherited by the Egyptians and Asssyrians from older neoblithic peoples, who possessed secret organisations or " mysteries " analogous to those of the Medwiwin of the North American Indians or those of the Australian Black- fellows. We read of initiation into the various grades of the Egyptian priesthood and the " mysteries " of Eleusis and Bacchus. (See Mysteries.) These processes prob- ably consisted of tests of courage and fidelity (as do the savage initiations) and included such acts as sustaining a severe buffeting, the drinking of blood, real and imagin- ary, and so forth. In the Popol Vuh, the saga of the ■ Kiche Indians of Guatemala we have a picture of the initia- tion tests of two hero-gods on entrance to the native Hades. Indeed, most of the mysteries typified the descent of man into Hell, and his return to earth, based on the corn-mother legend of the resurrection of the wheat plant. Initiation into the higher branches of mysticism, magic and theosophy has been largely written upon The process in regard to these is of course entirely sym- bolical, and is to be taken as implying a preparation for the higher life and the regeneration of the soul.
Institor, Henricus : (See Malleus Maleflcarum.)
Instruments, Magical : (See Magic.)
Insufflation, says Eliphas Levi, " is one of the most impor- tant practices of occult medicine, because it is a perfect sign of the transmission of life. To inspire, as a fact, means to breath upon some person or thing, and we know already, by the one doctrine of Hermes, that the virtue of things has created words, and that .there is an exact proportion between ideas and speech, which is the first form and verbal realisation of ideas. The breath attracts or repels, according, as it is warm or cold. The warm breathing corresponds to positive electricity, and the cold breathing to negative electricity. Electrical and nervous animals fear the cold breathing, and the experiment may be made upon a cat, whose familiarities are important. By fixedly regarding a lion or tiger and blowing in their face, they would be so stupefied as to be forced to retreat before us. Warm and prolonged insufflation restores the circulation of the blood, cures rheumatic and gouty pains, re-estab- lishes the balance of the humours, and dispels lassitude. When the operator is sympathetic and good, it acts as a universal sedative. Cold insufflation soothes pains occa- sioned by congestions and fluidic accumulations. The tvfo breathings must, therefore, be used alternately, observing the polarity of the human organism, and acting in a contrary manner upon the poles, which must be treated successfully to an opposite magnetism. Thus, to cure an inflamed eye, the one which is not affected must be subjected to a warm and gentle insufflation, cold insuffla- tion being practised upon the suffering member at the same distance and in the same proportion. Magnetic passes have a similar effect to insufflations, and are a real breath- ing by transpiration and radiation of the interior air, which is phosphorescent with vital light ; slow passes constitute a warm breathing which fortifies and raises the spirits ; swift passes are a cold breathing of dispersive nature, neutralising tendencies to congestion. The warm insuffla- tion should be performed transversely, or from below upward ; the cold insufflation is more effective when directed downward from above."
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Intuitional World : Formerly known as the Buddhic Plane, is in the theosophic scheme the fourth world, and from it come intuitions. (See Theosophy, Solar System, and Intuition).
Invocation : (See Necromancy.)
Ireland : For information regarding ancient Ireland See " Celts." Although nominally Christianised, there is little doubt that the early mediaeval Irish retained many relics of their former condition of paganism, especially those which possessed a magical tendency. This is made clear by the writings of Giraldus Cambrensis, the first account we have of Irish manners and customs after the invasion of the country by the Anglo-Normans. His description, for example, of the Purgatory of St. Patrick in Lough Derg, Co. Donegal, proves that the demonology- of the Catholic Church had already fused with the animism of Irish native heathnesse. He says : —
" There is a lake in Ulster containing an island divided into two parts. In one of these stands a church of especial sanctity, and it is most agreeable and delightful, as well as beyond measure glorious for the visitations of angels and the multitude of the saints who visibly frequent it. The other part, being covered with rugged crags, is reported to be the resort of devils only, and to be almost always the theatre on which crowds of evil spirits visibly perform their rites. This part of the island contains nine pits, and should any one perchance venture to spend the night in one of them (which has been done, we know, at times, by some rash men), he is immediately seized by the malignant spirits, who so severely torture him during the whole night, inflicting on him such unutterable sufferings by fire and water, and other torments of various kinds, that when morning comes scarcely any spark of life is found left in his wretched body. It is said that any one who has once submitted to these torments as a penance imposed upon him, will not afterwards undergo the pains of hell, unless he commit some sin of a deeper dye.
" This place is called by the natives the Purgatory of St. Patrick. For he, having to argue with a heathen race concerning the torments of hell, reserved for the reprobate, and the real nature and eternal duration of the future life, in order to impress on the rude minds of the unbelievers a mysterious faith in doctrines so new, so strange, so opposed to their prejudices, procured by the efficacy of his prayers an exemplification of both states even on earth, as a salutary lesson to the stubborn minds of the people." The ancient Irish believed in the possibility of the trans- formation of human beings into animals, and Giraldus in another narrative of facts purporting to have come under his personal notice proves that this belief had lost' none of its significance with the Irish of the latter half of the twelfth century. The case is also interesting as being one of the first recorded examples of lycanthropy (q.v.) in the British Isles, and that must be our excuse for quoting it at some length.
" About three years before the arrival of Earl John in Ireland, it chanced that a priest, who was journeying from Ulster towards Meath, was benighted in a certain wood on the borders of Meath. While, in company with only a young lad, he was watching by a fire which he had kindled under the branches of a spreading tree, lo ! a wolf came up to them, and immediately addressed them to this effect : ' Rest secure, and be not afraid, for there is no reason you should fear, where no fear is ! ' The travellers . being struck with astonishment and alarm, the wolf added some orthodox words referring to God. The priest then implored him, and adjured him by Almighty God and faith in the Trinity, not to hurt them, but to inform them what creature it was in the shape of a beast uttered human words. The wolf, after giving catholic replies to all
questions, added at last : ' There are two of us, a man and a woman, natives of Ossory, who, through the curse of Natalis, saint and abbot, are compelled every seven years to put off the human form, and depart from the dwellings of men. Quitting entirely the human form, we assume that of wolves. At the end of the seven years, if they chance to survive, two others being substituted in their places, they return to their country and their former shape. And now, she who is my partner in this visitation hes dangerously sick not far from hence, and, as she is at the point of death, I beseech you, inspired by divine charity, to give her the consolations of your priestly office.'
" At this wood the priest followed the wolf trembling, as he led' the way to a tree at no great distance, in the hollow of which he beheld a she-wolf, Who under that shape was pouring forth human sighs and groans. On seeing the priest, having saluted him with human courtesy, she gave thanks to God, who in this extremity had vouchsafed to visit her with such consolation. She then received from the priest all the rites of the church duly performed, as far as the last communion. This also she importunately demanded, earnestly supplicating him to complete his good offices by giving' her the viaticum. The priest stoutly asserting that he was not provided with it, the he-wolf, who had withdrawn to a short distance, came back and pointed out a small missal-book, containing some consecrated wafers, which the priest carried on his journey, suspended from his neck, under his garment, after the fashion of the country. He then intreated him not to deny them the gift of God, and the aid destined for them by Divine Providence ; and, to remove all doubt, using his claw for a hand, he tore off the skin of the she-wolf, from the head down to the navel, folding it back. Thus she immediately presented the form of an old woman. The priest, seeing this, and compelled by his fear more than his reason, gave the communion ; the recipient having earnestly implored it, and devoutly partaking of it. Immediately afterwards the he-wolf rolled back the skin and fitted it to its original form.
" These rites having been duly, rather than rightly performed, the he-wolf gave them his company during the whole night at their little fire, behaving more like a man than a beast. When morning came, he led them out of the wood, and, leaving the priest to pursue his journey pointed out to him the direct road for a long distance. At his departure, he also gave him many thanks for the benefit he had conferred, promising him still greater returns of gratitude, if the Lord should call him back from his present exile, two parts of which he had already completed."
" It chanced, about two years afterwards, that I was passing through Meath, at the time when the bishop of that land had convoked a synod, having also invited the assist- ance of the neighbouring bishops and abbots, in order to have their joint counsels on what was to be done in the affair which had come to his knowledge by the priest's confession. The bishop, hearing that I was passing through those parts, sent me a message by two of his clerks, request- ing me, if possible, to be personally present when a matter of so much importance was under consideration ; but if I could not attend he begged me at least to signify my opinion in writing. The clerks detailed to me all the cir- cumstances, which indeed I had heard before from other persons ; and, as I was prevented by urgent business from being present at the synod, I made up for my absence by giving them the benefit of my advice in a letter. The bishop and synod, yielding to it, ordered the priest to appear before the pope with letters from them, setting forth what had occurred, with the priest's concession, to which instrument the bishops and abbots who were present at the synod affixed their seals."
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" In our own time we have seen persons who, by magical arts, turned any substance about them into fat pigs, as they appeared (but they were always red), and sold them in the markets. However, they disappeared as soon as they crossed any water, returning to their real nature ; and with whatever care they were kept, their assumed form did not last beyond three days. It has also been a frequent complaint, from old times as well as in the present, that certain hags in Wales, as well as in Ireland and Scotland changed themselves into the shape of hares, that, sucking teats under this counterfeit form, they might stealthily rob other people's milk."
In Anglo-Norman times sorcery was widely practised but notices are scarce. It is only by fugitive passages in the works of English writers who constantly animadvert against the superstitious nature and practices of the Irish that we glean any information concerning the occult his- tory of the country. The great cause cHebra of the Lady Alice Kyteler (q.v.) shook the entire Anglo-Norman colony during several successive years in the first half of the fourteenth century. The party of the Bishop of Ossory the relentless opponent of the Lady Alice, boasted that by her prosecution they had rid Ireland of a nest of sorcerers, but there is reason to believe that Ireland could have furnished numerous similar instances of black magic had the actors in them been of similar rank to the ill-fated lady — that is of sufficient importance in the eyes of chroniclers.
In this connection a work on Irish Witchcraft and Demon- ology by Mr. St. John D. Seymour (1913), is of striking and pregnant interest. We do not gather from it that Mr. Seymour had any previous general knowledge of the sub- ject he handles before writing this book, and he appears to take it for granted that witchcraft in Ireland is purely an alien system, imported into the island by the Anglo- Normans and Scottish immigrants to the north. This undoubtedly is the case so far as the districts of the Pale and of Ulster are concerned, but surely it cannot be applied to the Celtic districts of Ireland. Regarding these Mr. Seymour is silent, but it will occur to most readers that the analogy of Celtic Scotland, which abounded in witches and witch-customs, is powerful evidence that a system similar to that in vogue in the Highlands obtained in the aboriginal districts of Ireland. Early Irish works contain numerous references to sorcery, a,nd practices are chronicled in them which bear a close resemblance to those of the shamans and medicine-men of savage tribes all over the world. Animal transformation, one of the most common feats of the witch, is alluded to again and again in the ancient Irish cycles, and there are few heroes in Hibernian legend who have not a fair stock of working magic at their finger-ends. Wonder-working druids, too, abound. Mr. Seymour will have it that " In Celtic Ireland dealings with the unseen were not regarded with such abhorrence, and indeed had the sanction of custom and antiquity." He also states that " the Celtic element had its own super- stitious beliefs, but these never developed in this direction " (the direction of Witchcraft). This is very difficult to believe. The lack of records of such a system is no criterion that it never existed, and we have not the least hesitation in saying that a thorough examination of the subject would prove that a veritable system of witchcraft obtained in Celtic Ireland as elsewhere, although it may not have been of " Celtic " origin.
Be that as it may, Mr. Seymour's book is most inter- esting as dealing with those Anglo-Norman and Scottish portions of Ireland where the belief in witchcraft followed the lines of those in vogue in the mother-countries of the immigrant populations. He sketches the cause ceUbre of the
Kyteler case (q.v.), touches on the circumstances con- nected with the Earl of Desmond and notes the case of the Irish prophetess who insisted upon warning the ill-fated James I. of Scotland on the night of his assassination at Perth. It is not stated by the ancient chronicler, quoted by Mr. Seymour, from what part of Ireland the witch in question emanated — for a witch she undoubtedly was as she possessed a familiar spirit, Huthart, whom she alleged had made her cognisant of the coming catastrophe. Mr. Seymour does not seem to be aware of the history of this spirit. He is the Teutonic Hudekin (q.v.) or Hildekin, the wearer of the hood, sometimes also alluded to as Heckdekin, well known throughout Germany and Flanders as a species of house-spirit or brownie. Trithemius alludes to him as a " spirit known to the Saxons who attached himself to the Bishop of Hildesheim " and we find him cropping up here and there in occult history. From this circumstance it might with justice be inferred that the witch in question came from some part of Ireland which had been settled by Teutonic immigrants, and more probably from Ulster, but the data is insufficient to permit us to conclude this definitely.
From the most scanty materials, Mr. Seymour has com- piled a book of outstanding interest. He passes in review the witchcraft trials of the XVI. century, the burning of Adam Dubh, of the Leinster trial of O'Toole and College Green in 1327 for heresy, and the passing of the statute against witchcraft in Ireland in 1586. The prevalence of witchcraft in Ireland during the sixteenth century is proved by him to have been very great indeed, but a number of the authorities he cites, as to the existence of sorcerers in the Green Isle, almost certainly refer to the more Celtic portions of it ; for example Rich and Stani- hurst. He has an excellent note upon the enchantments of the Earl of Desmond who demonstrated to his young and beautiul wife the possibilities of animal transformation by changing himself into a bird, a hag, a vulture, and a gigantic serpent. Human relations with the Devil are dwelt upon at length by Mr. Seymour in a racy chapter, and we are told how he was cheated by a doctor of divinity and raised on occasion by certain sorcerers. Florence Newton, the witch of Youghal claims an entire chapter to herself, and worthily, for her case is one of the most absorbing in the history of witchcraft. At any rate, whatever her occult powers, she splendidly succeeded in setting a whole com- munity by the ears. Ghostly doings and apparitions, fairy possession, and dealings with the' wee folk 'are also included in the volume ; and Mr. Seymour has not confined himself to Ireland, but has followed one of his countrywomen to America, where he shows how she gave congenial employ- ment to the fanatic Cotton Mather (q.v.). Witchcraft notices of the seventeenth century in Antrim and Island Magee comprise the eighth chapter ; and the ninth and last bring down the affairs of sorcery in Ireland from the year 1807 to the present day. The last notice is that of a trial for murder in 1911, when a wretched woman was tried for killing another — an old-age pensioner — in a fit of insanity. A witness deposed that he met the accused on the road on the morning of the crime holding a statue or figure in her hand, and repeating three times " I have the old witch killed. I got power from the Blessed Virgin to kill her." It appears that the witch quoted in question threatened to plague the murderess with rats and mice ; a single rodent had evidently penetrated to her abode, and was followed by the bright vision of a lady who told the accused that she was in danger, and further informed her that if she received the old pensioner's pension-book without taking off her clothes and cleaning them and putting out her bed and cleaning up the house, she would " receive dirt for ever and rats and mice." This is not an isolated case, and shows
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how hard such superstitions die in the more remote portions of civilised countries.
We have reviewed Mr. Seymour's book at some length because it represents practically all that exists on the subject in question. But it would be interesting to see him further his researches by an examination into such of the native Irish records as exist. Such a course would most probably result in the rescue of a considerable amount of detail which would enable him to complete the occult history of his country.
Iron : Its occult virtues are thus described by Pliny, accord- ing to Holland : — " As touching the use of Yron and Steele in Physicke, it serveth otherwise than for to launce, cut, and dismember withal ; for take the knife or dagger, an make an ymaginerie circle two or three times round with the point thereof upon a young child or an elder bodie, and then goe round withall about the partie as often, it is a singular preservative against all poysons, sorceries, or enchantments. Also to take any yron naile out of the coffin or sepulchre wherein man or woman lieth buried, and to sticke the same fast to the Untie or side post of a dore, leading either to the house or bed-chamber where any dooth lie who is haunted with Spirits in the night, he or she shall be delivered and secured from such phanasticall illusions. Moreover, it is said, that if one be lightly pricked with the point of sword or dagger, which hath been the death of a man, it is an excellent remedy agamst the pains of sides or breast, which come with sudden prickes or stitches."
In certain parts of Scotland and the North of Ireland, there is a belief in the potency of iron tor warding off the attacks of fairies. An iron poker, laid across a cradle, will, it is beUeved. keep the fairies away until the child is baptised. The Rev. John G. Campbell in his Superstitions of the Scottish Highlands relates how when a child, he and another boy were believed to be protected from a fairy which had been seen at a certain spot by the possession, the one of a knife, and the other of a nail. This was at Appin in Argyllshire.
Irving's Church, Speaking with Tongues in : In 1831 an outbreak of speaking with tongues occurred in the con- gregation of Edward Irving, in London. For several years Irving had waited for such a visitation, and had instituted special early-morning services for the purpose of hastening it. At length, in July, 1831, the " visitation " came, first one and then another of the congregation speak- ing with " tongues " and with prophetic uutterance. Irving himself was not at first entirely disposed to accept the utterances as of divine origin. But the undoubted good faith and irreproachable doctrine of his flock re- assured him. Robert Baxter, who was absent at the com- mencement of the outbreak, but who was himself influenced to prophesy at a later date, has left an account of his experiences. The phenomena did not greatly differ from that of similar outbreaks. The inspired speakers were often attended by physical symptoms, such as convulsions, and they spoke in loud, somewhat unnatural tones. Baxter declares that he spoke sentences in Latin, French, and unknown languages. At length, however, evil spirits began to appear in the company, some of the congregation admitting that they had been possessed by false spirits. The outbreak seen afterwards died out.
Isaac of Holland : Very little is known about the life of this alchemist, but he is commonly supposed to have lived and worked early in the fifteenth century, the principal reason for assigning his career to that period being that in his writings he refers to Geber, Dastin, Morien and Arnold de Villanova, but not to more modern authorities ; while again, he appears to -have been acquainted with various chymical processes discovered towards the close of the
fourteenth century, and hence it may reasonably be deduced that he did not live anterior to that time. Accord- ing to tradition Isaac worked along with his son, whose name is not recorded, and the pair are usually regarded as having been the first men to exploit chymistry in the Netherlands. They are said to have been particularly skilful in the manufacture of enamels and artificial gems, and it is noteworthy that no less distinguished an alchemist than Paracelsus attached value to the Dutchmen's researches While these are also mentioned with honour by the seven- teenth century English scientist, Robert Boyle.
Isaac compiled two scientific treatises, the one entitled De TripUci Ordine Elixiris el Lapidis Theoria, and the other Opera Mineralia Joannis Isaaci Hollandi, sive de Lapide Philosophico, and both were published at the beginning of the seventeenth century The more important of. the two is the last-named, wherein the author sets forth his ideas on the exalting of base metals into Sol and Luna, and shows by the aid of illustrations exactly what kind of vessels should be used for this purpose.
Isagoge : {See Arbatel.)
Isham, Sir Charles : {Sec British National Association of Spiritualists.)
fsmaelites : {See Assassins.)
Isornery : {See Alchemy.)
Issintok, Eskimo Sorcerers : {See Eskimos.)
Italy : (For Ancient Italy see Rome.) Magic and sorcery in mediaeval Italy seem strangely enough to have centred round many great personalities of the church, and even several popes have been included by the historians of occult science in the ranks of Italian sorcerers and alchemists. There appears to have been some sort of tradition, the origin of which is by no means clear, that the popes had been given over to the practice of magic ever since the tenth century, and it was alleged that Silvester II. confessed to this charge on his death-bed. Levi states tnat Honorius III., who preached the Crusades, was an abominable necroman- cer, and author of a grimoire or book by which spirits were evoked, the use of which is reserved exclusively to the priesthood. Platina, quoting from Martmus Polonus, states that Silvester, who was a proficient mathematician and versed in the Kabala on one occasion evoked Satan himself and obtained his assistance to gain the pontifical crown. Furthermore he stipulated as the price of selling his soul to the Devil that he should not die except at Jerusa- lem, to which place he inwardly determined he would never betake himself. He duly became Pope, but on one occasion whilst celebrating mass in a certain church at Rome, he felt extremely ill, and suddenly remembered that he was officiating in a chapel dedicated to the Holy Cross of Jerusa- lem. He had a bed set up in the chapel, to which he summoned the cardinals, and confessed tnat he had held communication with the powers of evil. He further arranged that when dead his body should be placed upon a car of green wood, and should be drawn by two horses, one black and the other white ; that they should be started on their course, but neither led nor driven, and that where they halted there his remains should be entombed. The conveyance stopped in front of the Lateran, and at this juncture most terrible noises proceeded from it, which led the bystanders to suppose that the soul of Silvester had been seized upon by Satan in virtue of their agreement. There is no doubt whatsoever that most of these legends concerning papal necromancers are absolute inventions and can be traced through Platina and Polonus to Galfridus and Gervaise, the necromancer, whom Naude has rightly termed " the greatest forger of fables, and the most notori- ous liar that ever took pen in hand ! " On a par with such stories is that of Pope Joan, who tor several years sat on the papal throne although a woman, and who was supposed
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to be one of the blackest sorceresses of all time. To her many magic books are attributed. Levi has an interesting passage in his Hisory of Magic, in which he states that certain engravings in a Life of this female pope, purporting to represent her, are nothing else than ancient tarots representing fsis crowned with a tiara. " It is well-known," he says, " that the hieroglyphic figure on the second tarot card is still called ' The Female Pope,' being a woman wearing a tiara, on which are the points of the crescent moon, or the horns of Isis." It is much more possible that the author of the grimoire in question was Honorius II., the anti-pope, or perhaps another Honorius who is described as the son of Euclid and master of the Thebans. But all I taliannecromancersandmagicians were by no means church- men— indeed mediaeval Italy was hardly a place for the magically inclined, so stringent were the laws of the church against the Black Art. Astrology, however, flourished to some extent, and its practitioners do not appear to have been unduly persecuted. A Florentine astrologer, named Basil, who flourished at the beginning of the fifteenth cen- tury, obtained some repute for successful predictions ; and is said to have foretold to Cosmo de Medici that he would .attain exalted dignity, as the same planets had been in ascendency at the hour of his birth, as in that of the Emperor Charles V. Many remarkable predictions were made by Antiochus Tibertus of Romagna, who was for some time councillor to Pandolpho de Maletesta, Prince of Rimini. He foretold to his friend, Guido de Bogni, the celebrated soldier, that he was unjustly suspected by his best friend, and would forfeit his life through suspicion. Of himself he predicted that he would die on the scaffold, and of the Prince of Rimini, his patron, that he would die a beggar in the hospital for the poor at Bologna. It is stated that the prophecies came true in every detail.
Although the notices of sorcery in mediaeval times are few and far between in Italian history, there is reason to suspect that although magic was not outwardly practised, it lurked hidden in by-paths and out-of-the-way places. We have an excellent portrait of the mediaeval Italian jnagician in those popular myths regarding Virgil the Enchanter. The fame of Virgil the Poet had waxed so great in ancient Italy, that in due course of time his name was synonymous with fame itself. From that it is a short -step to the attribution of supernatural power, and Virgil the Roman poet became in the popular mind the mediaeval Enchanter. His myth is symptomatic of magic in mediae- val Italy as a whole, and it may therefore be given here at some length.
When the popular myth of Virgil the Enchanter first grew into repute is uncertain, but probably the earliest faint conception arose about the beginning of the tenth century, and each succeeding generation embroidered upon it some fantastic impossibility. Soon, in the South of Italy — for the necromancer's fame was of southern origin — there floated dim, mysterious legends of the enchantments which he had wrought. Thus he fashioned a brazen fly, and planted it on the gate of fair Parthenope to free the city from the inroads of the insects of Beelzebub. On a Neapolitan hill he built a statue of brass, and placed in its mouth a trumpet ; and lo ! when the north wind blew there came from that trumpet so terrible a roar that it •drove back into the sea the noxious blasts of Vulcan's forges, which, even to this day, seethe and hiss near the ■city of Puossola. At one of the gates of Naples he raised two statues of stone, and gifted them respectively with the power of blighting or blessing the strangers who, on enter- ing the city, passed by one or the other of them. He con- structed three public baths for the removal of every disease "which afflicts the human frame, but the physicians, in a "wholesome dread of losing their patients and their fees.
caused them to be destroyed. Other wonders he wrought, which in time assumed a connected form, and were woven into a fife of the enchanter, first printed in French about 1490-1520. A still fuller history appeared in English, the well-known " Life of Virgilius," about 1508, printed by Hans Doesborcke at Antwerp. It sets forth with tolerable clearness the popular type of the mediaeval magician, and will be our guide in the following biographical sketch.
" Virgil was the son of a wealthy senator of Rome, wealthy and powerful enough to -carry on war with the Roman Emperor. As his birth was heralded by extra- ordinary portents, it is no marvel that even in childhood he showed himself endowed with extraordinary mental powers, and his father having the sagacity to discern in him an embryo necromancer, sent him, while still very young, to study at the University of Toledo, where the " art of magick " was taught with extraordinary success.
" There he studied diligently, for he was of great under- standing, and speedily acquired a profound insight into the great Shemaia of the Chaldean lore. But this insight was due, not so much to nocturnal vigils over abstruse books, as to the help he received from a very valuable familiar. And this was the curious fashion in which he was introduced to the said familiar : —
" ' Upon a tyme the scholers at Tolenten hadde lycence to goo to playe and sporte them in the fyldes after the usuance of the olde tyme ; and there was also Virgilius therby also walkynge among the hylles all about. It fortuned he spyed a great hole in the syde of a great hyll, wherein he went to depe that he culde not see no more lyght, and than he went a lytell ferther therein, and then he sawe soon lyght agayne, and than wente he fourth streyghte. And within a lyteU wyle after he harde a voice that called, ' Virgilius, Viigilius,' and he loked aboute, and he colde nat see nobodye. Than Virgilius spake, and asked, ' Who calleth me ? ' Than harde he the voyce agayne, but he sawe nobodye. Than sayd he> ' Virgilius, see ye not that lytell bourde lyinge byside you there, marked with that worde ? ' Than answered Virgilius, ' I see that borde well enough.' The voyce said, ' Doo away that bourde, and lette me out theratte.'
" ' Than answered Virgilius to the voyce that was under the lytell bourde, and sayd, ' Who art thou that talkest me so ? ' Than answered the devyll, ' I am a devyll con- jured out of the body of a certeyne man, and banysshed here tyll the daye of jugement, without that I be delyvered by the handes of men. Thus, Virgilius, I pray thee delyver me out of this payn, and I shall show unto thee many bokes of nygromancy, and how thou shalt cum by it lytly, and shalte knowe the practyse therein, that no man in the science of nygromancy shall (sur)pass thee ; and, more- over, I shall showe and informe thee so that thou shalt have all thy desyre, whereby methinke it is a great gyfte for so lytell a donyge, for ye may also thus all your poor frendys helpen, and make ryghte your ennemyes un- mighty.'
" Thorough that great promise was Virgilius tempted. He badde the fynd showe the bokes to hym, that he myght have and occupy them at his wyll. And so the fynd showed hym, and then Virgilius pulled open a bourde, and there was a lytell hole, and thereat wrange the devyll out lyke a yeel, and cam and stode before Virgilius lyke a bigge man.
" ' Thereof Virgilius was astonied, and merveyled greately thereof, that so great a man myght com out at so lytell a hole !
" ' Then sayd Virgilius, ' Shulde ye well passe into the hole that ye cam out of ? ! ' Yes, I shall well,' sayd the devyll. ' I holde the beste pledge that I have, ye shall not do it.' ' Well,' sayd the devyll, ' thereto I consente.'
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And then the devyll wrange hymself into the lytell hole agen, and as he was therein, Virgilius kyvered the hole agen with the bourde close, and so was the devyll begyled, and myght not there come out agen, but there abydeth shutte styll therein. Than called the devyll dredefully (drearily) to Virgilius, and sayd, ' What have ye done ? ' Virgilius answered, ' Abyde there styll to your day apoynted.' And fro thensforth abydeth he there.' "
Virgil's father died soon after this event, and his estates being seized by his former colleagues, his widow sunk into extreme poverty. Virgil accordingly gathered together the wealth he had amassed by the exercise of his magical skill, and set out for Rome, to replace his mother in a position proper to her rank. At Toledo, however, he was a famous student ; at Rome he was a despised scholar, and when he besought the Emperor to execute justice and restore to him his estate, that potentate — ignorant of the magician's power — simply replied, ' Me- thinketh that the land is well divided to them that have it, for they may help you in their need ; what needeth you for to care for the disheriting of one school-master Bid him take heed, and look to his schools, for he hath no right to any land here about the city of Rome.'
Four years passed, and only such replies as this were vouchsafed to Virgil's frequent appeals for justice. Grow- ing at length a-weary of the delay, he resolved to exercise his wondrous powers in his own behalf. When the harvest- time came, he accordingly shrouded the whole of his right- ful inheritance with a vapour so dense that the new pro- prietors were unable to approach it, and under its cover his men gathered in the entire crop with perfect security. This done, the mist disappeared. Then a great indignation possessed the souls of his enemies, and they assembled their swordsmen, and marched against him to take off his head. Such was their power that the Emperor for fear fled out of Rome, ' for they were twelve senators that had all the world under them ; and if Virgilius had had right, he had been one of the twelve, but they had disinherited him and his mother.' When they drew near, Virgil once more baffled their designs by encircling his patrimony with a rampart of cloud and shadow.
The Emperor, with surprising inconsistency, now coalesced with the senators against Virgil — whose magical powers he probably feared far more than the rude force of the senatorial magnates — and made war against him. But who can prevail against the arts of necromancy ? Emperor and senators were beaten, and from that moment Virgil, with marvellous generosity, became the faithful friend and powerful supporter of his sovereign "
It may not generally be known that Virgil, besides being the saviour of Rome, was the founder of Naples. This feat had its origin, like so many other great actions, in the power of love.
Virgil's imagination had been fired by the reports that reached him of the surpassing loveliness of the Sultan's daughter. Now the Sultan lived at Babylon (that is, at Cairo — the Babylon of the mediaeval romancers), and the distance might have daunted a less ardent lover and less potent magician. But Virgil's necromantic skill was equal to a bridge in the air — where other glowing spirits have often raised fair castles ! — and passing over it, he found his way into the Sultan's palace, — into the Princess's chamber, — and speedily overcoming her natural modesty, bore her back with him to his Italian bower of pleasaunce. There having enjoyed their fill of love and pleasure, he restored to her bed in her father's palace. Meanwhile, her absence had been noted, but she was soon discovered on her return, and the Sultan repairing to her chamber, interro- gated her respecting her disappearance. He found that
she knew not who it was that had carried her off, nor whither she had been carried.
When Virgil restored the lady on the following night, she took back with her, by her father's instructions, some of the fruit plucked from the enchanter's garden ; and from its quality the Sultan guessed that she had been carried to a southern land " on the side of France." These nocturnal journeys being several times repeated, and the Sultan's curiosity growing ungovernable, he persuaded his daughter to give her lover a sleeping-draught. The deceived magician was then captured in the Babylonian palace, and flung into prison, and it was decreed that both he and his mistress should be punished for their love by death at the stake.
Necromancers, however, are not so easily outwitted. As soon as Virgil was apprized of the fate intended for him, he made, by force of his spells, the Sultan and all his lords believe that the great river of Babylon — the might Nilus — was overflowing in the midst of them, and that they swam and lay and sprang like geese ; and so they took up Virgilius and the Princess, tore them from their prison, and placed them upon the aerial bridge. And when they were thus - out of danger, he delivered the Sultan from the river, and all the lords ; and lo, when they recovered their humanity ,- they beheld the enchanter bearing the beautiful Princess across the Mediterranean ; and they marvelled much, and felt that they could not hope to prevail against his super- natural power.
And in this manner did Virgilius convey the Sultan's- daughter over the sea to Rome. And he was highly enamoured of her beauty. " Then he thought in his mind how he might marry her "• — apparently forgetting that he was already married — " and thought in his mind to found in the midst of the sea a fair town with great lands belong- ing to it ; and so he did by his cunning, and called it Naples : and the foundation of it was of eggs. And in that town of Naples he made a tower with four corner s- and on the top he set an apple upon an iron yard, and no man could pull away that apple without he brake it ; and through that iron set he a bottle, and on that bottle set he an egg ; and he hanged the apple by the stalk upon a chain, and so hangeth it still. And when the egg stirreth, ?o should the town of Naples quake ; and when the egg brake, then should the town sink. When he had made an end, he let call it Naples."
After accomplishing So much for his Babylonian beauty, Virgil did not marry her, but endowing her with the town of Naples and its lands" gave her in marriage to a certain grandee of Spain. Having thus disposed of her and her children, the enchanter returned to Rome, collected all his treasures, and removed them to the city he had founded, where he resided for some years, and established a school which speedily became of illustrious renown. Here he- lost his wife, by whom he had had no issue ; built baths and bridges, and wrought the most extraordinary miracles. So passed an uncounted number of years, and Virgil at length abandoned Naples for ever, and retired to Rome.
" Outside the walls of the Imperial City he built a. goodly town, that had but one gate, and was so fenced round with water as to bar any one from approaching it. And the entry of its one gate was made " with twenty-four iron flails, and on each side was there twelve men smiting with the flails, never ceasing, the one after the other ; and no man might come in without the flails stood still, but he was slain. And these flails were made with such a gin (contrivance) that Virgilius stopped them when he' list to enter in thereat, but no man else could find the way. And in this castle put Virgilius part of his treasure privily ; and, when this was done, he imagined in his mind by what means he might make himself young again, because
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he thought to live longer many years, to do many wonders arid marvellous things. And upon a time went Virgilius to the Emperor, and asked him of licence (of absence) by the space of three weeks. But the Emperor in no wise would grant it unto him for he would have Virgilius at all times by him."
. Spiritualism. — We have perhaps our first indication of the rise and spread of spiritualism in Italy in the modern acceptance of the term in an article published in the Civitla Catholica the well-known Roman organ, entitled " Modern Necromancy." The conclusions of the article were : —
" ist. Some of the phenomena may be attributed to imposture, hallucinations, and exaggerations in the reports of those who describe it, but there is a foundation of reality in the general sum of the reports which cannot have originated in pure invention or be wholly discredited without ignoring the value of universal testimony.
" 2nd. The bulk of the theories offered in explanation of the proven facts, only cover a certain percentage of those facts, but utterly fail to account for the balance.
" 3rd. Allowing for all that can be filtered away on mere human hypotheses, there are still a large class of phenomena appealing to every sense which cannot be accounted for by any known natural laws, and which seem to manifest the action of intelligent beings."