M. Aksakof's commission was reported upon unfavourably

by M. Mendeleyef, but the former protested against the report.'
At the other extreme of the Social scale among the peasantry and uneducated classes generally, the grossest superstition exists, an ineradicable belief in supernatural agencies and cases are often reported in the columns of Russian Papers of wonder-working, obsession and various miraculous happenings, all ascribed, according to their character, to demoniac or angelic influence, or in the districts where the inhabitants are still pagan to local deities and witchcraft. Ruysbroeck or Ruysbrock : Flemish Mystic (1293-1381). It is probable that this mystic derived his name from the village of Ruysbreck, near Brussels, for it was there that he was borri in the year 1293. Even as a child he showed distinct religious leanings, and before he was- out of his teens he had steeped himself in a wealth of mystical literature. Naturally, then, he decided to espouse the clerical pro- fession, and in 13 17 he was duly ordained, while a little later he became vicar of St.GuduIe, one of the parishes of Brussels. During his long term of acting in this capacity he
became widely esteemed for his erudition, and for his- personal piety ; while his sermons and even his letters were passed from hand to hand, and perused with great admira- tion by many of his fellow clerics. But he was never found guilty of courting fame or publicity of any kind, and at the age of sixty he retired to Groenendale, not far from the- battlefield of Waterloo, where he founded a monastery. There he lived until his death in 1381, devoting himself chiefly to the study of mysticism, yet showing himself any- thing but averse to those charitable actions befitting a. monk.
Ruysbroeck was known to his disciples as " the ecstatic teacher." As a thinker he was speculative and broad- minded, and indeed he was one of those who prefigured the Reformation, the result being that, though he won the- encomiums of many famous theologians in the age immedi- ately succeeding his, an attempt to beatify him was sternly suppressed. He was a tolerably voluminous writer, and at Cologne, in 1552, one of his manuscripts found its way into- book form with the title, De Naptu svel de Ornatu Nuptiarum Spiritualium ; while since then a number of his further works have been published, notably De Vera Contemplation? and De Septem Gradivus Amoris (Hanover, 1848). The- central tenet of his teaching is that " the soul finds God in its own depths," but, in contradistinction to many other mystics, he did not teach the fusion of the self in God, but held that at the summit of the ascent towards righteousness- the soul still preserves its identity.
Ruysbroeck and his teaching begot many voluminous- commentaries throughout the middle ages, and he has attracted a number of great writers, the Abbe Bossuet, for example, and at a later date Maurice Maeterlinck. In 1891 the latter published L'Ornemant des Noces Spirituelles, de Ruysbroeck V admirable, and an English translation of this- by J. T. Stoddart was issued in 1904. The reader desirous 01 further information should consult Studies in Mystical Religion, by Rufus M. Jones, 1909.
s
Saba : In Ossianic legend, wife of Finn and mother of Oisin. In the form of a fawn, she was captured by Finn in the chase, but noticing that his man-hounds would do her no hurt, he gave her shelter in his Dun of Allen. The next morning he found her transformed into a beautiful woman. She told him that an enchanter had compelled her to assume the shape of a fawn, but that her original form would be restored if she reached Dun Allen. Finn made her his wife, and ceased for a while from battle and the chase. Hearing one day, however, that the Northmen's warships were in the Bay of Dublin, he mustered his men and went to fight them. He returned victorious, but to find Saba gone. The enchanter, taking advantage of his absence, had appeared to her in the likeness of Finn with his hounds and so lured her from the dun, when she became a fawn again.
Sabbathi : To this angel, in the Jewish rabbinical legend of the celestial hierarchies, is assigned the sphere of Saturn. He receives the divine light of the Holy Spirit, and com- municates it to the dwellers in his kingdom.
Sabellicus, Georgius : A magician who lived about the same time as Faust us of Wittenberg, about the end of the 15th century. His chief claims to fame as a sorcerer rest on his own wide and arrogant advertisement of his skill in necro- mancy. He styles himself, " The most accomplished Georgius Sabellicus, a second Faustus, the spring and centre of necromantic art, an astrologer, a magician, consummate in chiromancy, and in agromancy, pyromancy and hydro- mancy inferior to none that ever lived." Unfortunately, no proof is forthcoming that he ever substantiated these
bombastic claims, or was ever regarded by anyone else as anything but a charlatan.
Sadhus : (See India.)
Sahu : The Egyptian name for the spiritual or incorruptible- body. It is figured in the Book of the Dead as a lily spring- ing from the Khat or corruptible body.
Saint Germain, Comte de : Born probably about 1710, one of the most celebrated mystic adventurers of modern times. Like Cagliostro and others of his kind almost nothing is known concerning his origin, but there is reason to believe that he was a Portuguese Jew. There are, however, hints that he was of royal birth, but these have never been substantiated. One thing is fairly certain, and that is that he was an accomplished spy, for he resided at many European Courts, spoke several languages fluently, and was even sent upon diplomatic missions by Louis XV. He had always abundance of funds at his command, and is alluded to by Grimm as the most capable and able man he had ever known. He pretended to have lived for centuries, to have known Solomon, the Queen of Sheba and many other persons of antiquity ; but although obviously a charlatan, the accomplishments upon which he based his reputation were in many ways real and con- siderable. Especially was this the case as regards chem- istry, a science in which he was certainly an adept, and he pretended to have a secret for removing the flaws from diamonds, and to be able to transmute metals, and of course he possessed the secret of the elixir of life. He is. mentioned by Horace Walpole as being in London about.
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1743, and as being arrested as a Jacobite spy, who was later released. Walpole writes of him : " He is called an Italian, a Spaniard, a Pole, a somebody who married a great fortune iji Mexico and ran away with her jewels to Constantinople, a priest, a fiddler, a vast nobleman." Five years after his London experience, he attached himself to the court of Louis XV. where he exercised considerable influence, over that monarch, and was employed by him upon several secret missions. He was distinctly the fashion about this time, for Europe was greatly inclined to the pursuit of the occult at this epoch ; and as he combined mystical conversation with a pleasing character.and not a little flippancy, he was the rage. But he ruined his chances at the French court by interfering in a dispute between Austria and France, and was forced to remove himself to England. He resided in London for one or two years, but we trace him to St. Petersburg, 1762, where he is said to have assisted in the conspiracy which placed Catherine II. on the Russian throne. After this he travelled in Germany where he is said in the Memoirs of Cagliostro to have become the founder of freemasonry, and to have initiated Cagliostro into that rite. (See Cagliostro.) If Cagliostro's account can be credited, he set about the business with remarkable splendour, and not a little bombast, posing as a " deity," and behaving in a manner calculated to gladden pseudo- mystics of the age. He was nothing if not theatrical, and it is probably for this reason that he attracted the Land- grave Charles of Hesse, who set aside a residence for the study of the occult sciences. He died at Schleswig some- where between the years 1780 and 1785, but the exact date of his death and its circumstances are unknown. It would be a matter of real difficulty to say whether he possessed any genuine occult power whatsoever, and in all likelihood he was merely one of those charlatans in whom his age abounded. Against this view might be set the circum- stance that a great many really clever and able people of his own time thoroughly believed in him ; but we must remember the credulous nature of the age in which he flourished. It has been said that XVIII. century Europe was sceptical regarding everything save occultism and its professors, and it would appear to unbiassed minds that this circumstance could have no better illustration than the career of the Comte de Saint Germain.
A notable circumstance regarding him was that he possessed a magnificent collection of precious stones, which some consider to be artificial, but which others better able to judge believe to have been genuine. Thus he presented Louis XV. with a diamond worth 10,000 livres. All sorts of stories were in circulation concerning him. One old lady professed to have encountered him at Venice fifty years before, where he posed as a man of 60, and even his valet was supposed to have discovered the secret of immortality. On one occasion a visitor rallied this man upon his master being present at the marriage of Cana in Galilee, asking him if it were the case. " You forget, sir," was the reply, " I have only been in the Comte's service a century." St. Irvyne, the Rosicrucian, by Wm. Godwin : (See Fiction,
Occult.) Saint Jacques, Albert de : A monk of the seventeenth cen- tury, who published a book entitled Light to the Living by the Experiences of the Dead, or divers apparitions of souls from purgatory in our century. The work was published at Lyons in 1675. St. John's Crystal Gold : " In regard of the Ashes of Veget- ables," says Vaughan, " although their weaker exterior Elements expire by violence of the fire, yet their Earth cannot be destroyed, but is Vitrified. The Fusion and Transparency of this substance is occasioned by the Radicall moysture or Seminal water of the Compound.
This water resists the fury of the fire, and cannot possibly be vanquished. ' In hac Aqua ' (saith the learned Sever - ine), ' Rosa latet in Hieme.' These two principles are never separated ; for Nature proceeds not so far in her Dissolutions. When death hath done her worst, there is a Union between these two, and out of them shall God raise us to the last day, and restore us to a spiritual constitution. I do not conceive there shall be a Resurrection of every Species, but rather their Terrestrial parts, together with the element of water (for 'there shall be no more sea' : Revela- tions), shall be united in one mixture with the Earth, and fixed to a pure Diaphanous substance. This is St. John's Crystal Gold, a fundamental of the New Jerusalem — so called, not in respect of Colour, but constitution. Their Spirits, I suppose, shall be reduced to their first Limbus, a- sphere of pure, ethereal fire, like rich Eternal Tapestry spread under the throne of God." St. John's Wort : St. John's Wort. In classical mythology the summer solstice was a day dedicated to the sun, and was believed to be a day on which witches held their festivities. St. John's Wort was their symbolical plant, and people were wont to judge from it whether their future would be lucky or unlucky ; as it grew they read in its progressive character their future lot. The Christians dedicated this festive period to St. John's Wort or root, and it became a talisman against evil. In one of the old romantic ballads a young lady falls in love with a demon, who tells her —
" Gin )'ou wish to be leman mine
Lay aside the St. John's Wort and the vervain." When hung up on St. John's day together with a cross over the doors of houses it kept out the devil and other evil spirits. To gather the root on St. John's day morning at sunrise, and retain it in the house, gave luck to the- family in their undertakings, especially in those begun on that day. St. Martin, Louis Claude de : French Mystic and Author,, commonly known as " le philosophe inconnu." (1743- 1803). The name of Louis de St. Martin is a familiar one, more familiar, perhaps, than that of almost any other French mystic ; and this is partly due to his having been a voluminous author, and partly to his being virtually the- founder of a sect, " the Martinistes " ; while again, St. Beuve wrote about him in his Causeries du Lundi, and this has naturally brought him under wide notice.
Born in 1734 at Amboise, St. Martin came of a family of some wealth and of gentle birth. His mother died while he was a child, but this proved anything but unfortunate for him ; for his step-mother besides lavishing a wealth of affection on him, early discerned his rare intellectual gifts, and made every effort to nurture them. " C'est a elle," he wrote afterwards in manhood, " que je dois peut-etre tout mon bonheur, puisque c'est elle que m'a donne les premiers elements de cette education douce, attentive et pieuse, qui m'a fait aimer de Dieu et des hommes.". The boy was educated at the College de Pontlevoy, where he read with interest numerous books of a mystical order, one which impressed him particularly being Abbadie's Art de se connaitre soi-mhne ; and at first he intended to make- law his profession, but he soon decided on a military career instead, and accordingly entered the army. A little before- taking this step he had affiliated himself with the freemasons and, on his regiment being sent to garrison Bordeaux, he became intimate with certain new rites which the Portu- guese Jew, Martinez Pasqually (q.v.), had lately introduced into the masonic lodge there. For a while St. Martin was- deeply interested, not just in the aforesaid but in the philosophy of Pasqually ; yet anon he declared that the- latter's disciples were inclined to be too materialistic, and-
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soon he was deep in the writings of Swedenborg, in whom he found a counsellor more to his taste. The inevitable result of studies of this nature was that he began to feel a great distaste for regimental life, and so, in 1771, he resigned his commission, determining to devote the rest of his life to philosophical speculations. He now began writing a book, Des Erreurs et de la Verite, ou les Hornmes rappeles au Principe de la Science, which was published in 1775, at Edinburgh, at this time on the eve of becoming a centre of literary activity of all sorts ; and it is worth recalling that this pristine effort by St. Martin was brought under the notice of Voltaire, the old cynic observing shrewdly that half a dozen folio volumes might well be devoted to the topic of erreurs, but that a page would suffice for the treat- ment of verite !
The young author's next important step was to pay a visit to England, and thence in 1787 he went to Italy along -with Prince Galitzin, with whom he had lately become friendly. They stayed together for some time at Rome, and then St. Martin left for Strassburg, his intention being to study German there, for he had recently grown interested in the teaching of Jacob Bcehme, and he was anxious to study the subject thoroughly. Very soon he had achieved this end, and at a later date, indeed, he translated a number of the German mystic's writings into French; but meanwhile returning to France, he found his outlook suddenly changed, the revolution breaking out in 1789, and a reign of terror setting in. No one was safe, and St. Martin was arrested at Paris, simply on account of his being a gentleman by birth ; but his affiliation with the freemasons stood him in good stead in this hour of need, and he was liberated by a ■decree of the ninth Thermidor. Accordingly he resumed activity with his pen, and in 1792 he issued a new book, Nouvel Homme ; while two years later he was commissioned to go to his native Amboise, inspect the archives and libraries of the monasteries in that region, and draw up occasional reports on the subject. Shortly afterwards he was appointed an ileve professeur at the Ecole Normale in Paris, in consequence of which he now made his home in that town ; and among others with whom he became acquainted there was Chateaubriand, of whose writing, he was an enthusiastic devotee, but who, on his parts appears to have received the mystic with his usual haughty •coldness. St. Martin did not lack a large circle of admirers, however, and he continued to work hard, publishing in 1795 one of his most important books, Leltres a un Ami, ou Considerations poliliques, philosophiques et religieuses sur la Revolution, which was succeeded in 1800 by two speculative treatises, Ecce Homo and L'Esprit des Chases. Then, in 1802, he issued yet another volume, Ministere de 1' Homme Esprit ; but in the following year his labours were brought to an abrupt close, for while staying at Annay, not far from Paris, with a friend called Lenoir-Laroche, he succumbed to an apopleptic seizure. After his death it was found that he had left a considerable mass of manu- scripts behind him, and some of these were issued by his executors in 1807, while in 1862 a collection of his letters appeared.
St. Martin was never married, but he appears to have exercised a most extraordinary fascination over women ; and in fact divers scandalous stories are told in this relation, some of them implicating various courtly dames of the French nobility of the Empire. As a philosopher St. Martin found a host of disciples among his contemporaries, these gradually forming themselves almost into a distinct ■sect, and, as observed before, acquiring the name of '• Mar- tinistes." What, then, was the teaching of their leader ? .and what the nature of the tenets promulgated in his -voluminous writings ? It is difficult to give an epitome in
so limited a space as that at disposal here, but turning to the author's I'Homme du Desir (1790), and again to his Tableau natural des Rapports qui existent entre Die, et I'Homme et I'Univers (1782), we find this pair tolerably representative of all his writing, and their key-note may certainly be defined as consisting in aspiration. Man is divine despite the fall recounted in the Scriptures, dormant within him lies a lofty quality of which he is too often scarcely conscious, and it is incumbent on him to develop this quality, striving thereafter without ceasing, and waiving the while everything pertaining to the category of materialism — such is the salient principle in St. Martin's teaching, a principle which seems literally trite nowadays, for it has been propounded by a host of modern mystics, notably A.E. in The Hero in Man. In writing in this wise, the French mystic undoubtedly owed a good deal to Swendenborg, while obligations to Bcehme are of course manifest throughout his later works ; and, while his debt to Martinez Pasqually has probably been exaggerated some- what, there is no doubt that the Portuguese Jew influenced him greatly for a while, the latter' s teaching coming to him at a time when he was still very young and susceptible, and fresh from readings of Abbadie.
Saintes Maries de la Mer : He de la Camarque, Church of. (See Gypsies.)
Sakta Cult : (See India.)
Salagrama, The : An Indian stone, credited with possessing magical properties, and worn as an amulet. This stone is black in colour, about the size of a billiard ball, and pierced with holes. It is said that it can only be found in the Gandaki, a river in Nepaul, which some believe rises at the foot of Vishnu, and others in the head of Siva. It is kept in a clean cloth, and often washed and perfumed by its fortunate owner. The water in which it has been dipped is supposed thereby to gain sin-expelling potency, and is therefore drunk and greatly valued. It possesses other occult powers, and is a necessary ingredient of the pre- parations of those about to die. The departing Hindu holds it in his hand, and believing in its powers has hope for the future, and dies peacefully.
Salamander's Feather : Otherwise known as Asbestos. A mineral of an incombustible nature, which resembles flax, being of fine fibrous texture. It was used by the Pagans to light their temples : when once it was lighted, they believed it could not be put out, even by rain and storms. Leonar- dus says : " Its fire is nourished by an inseparable unctuous Humid flowing from its substance ; therefore, being once kindled it preserves a constant light without feeding it with any moisture."
Sallow : A tree or shrub of the willow kind. Rods of this particular wood were much in use amongst the Scythians and the Alani for purposes of augurial divination. Fine straight wands were chosen, on which certain characters were written, and they were then thrown on a white cloth. From the way in which they fell the magician gained the desired information.
Salmael : (See Astrology.)
Salmesbury Hall : (See Haunted Houses.)
Salmonceus : (See Astrology.)
Samodivi : (See Slavs.)
Samothracian Mysteries : (See Greece.)
Samovile : (See Slavs.)
Samoyeds : (See Siberia.)
Samuel, Mother : (See England.)
San Domingo : (See West Indian Islands.)
Sannyasis : (See India.)
Sanyojanas are in the Theosphical scheme the obstacles which the traveller along the Path (q.v.) must surmount. The number of them is ten and they are : — 1 . — Belief in the Ego as unchangeable.
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2. — Lack of faith in higher effort. 3. — Reliance on ritual. 4. — Lust. 5.— Ill-will.
6. — Love of the world. 7. — Egotistic longing for a future life. 8. — Pride.
9. — Self- righteousness. 10. — Nescience.
Saphy : Perhaps from the Arabic safi " pure, select, excellent." Certain charms or amulets worn by the negroes as pro- tection against thunderbolts and diseases, to procure them wives, and avert disasters of all kinds. They are com- posed of strips of paper on which sentences from the Koran are inscribed, sometimes intermixed with kabalistic signs. These strips are enclosed in silver tubes or silk bags, which are worn near the skin, and often fastened in the dress. Africans of both sexes and all religions are great believers in the occult properties of such talismans ; and Mungo Park resorted to the making of Saphy, or Grigris (as they are some times called), as a means of earning his living.
Sapphire : It is understood to make the melancholy cheerful and maintain the power or manly vigour of the body. The high priest of Egypt wore a sapphire upon his shoulder, and Aelian says that it was called truth. The Buddhists still ascribe a sacred magical power to it, and hold that it reconciles man to God. It is a good amulet against fear, promotes the flow of the animal spirits, hindereth ague and gout, promotes chastity, and prevents the eyes from being affected by small-pox.
Sara, St., of Egypt : (See Gypsies.)
Sardius : This gem resembles the cornelian, and is an antidote to the onyx. It prevents unpleasant dreams, makes its possessor wealthy, and sharpens the wit.
Sardou, Victorian : The famous French dramatist was a keen student of occultism, and studied spiritualism with Allan Kardec (q.v.). He achieved great facility as a medium for spirit drawings, and many of the examples by his hand are of great merit artistically as well as from an occult point of view. Some of them are reproduced in M. Camille Flammarion's book Mysterious Psychic Forces. (See France.)
Sat B'Hai : A Hindu society, the object of which was the study and development of Indian philosophy. It was so called after the bird Malacocersis Grisis, which always flies by sevens. It was introduced into England about the year 1872 by Major J. H. Lawrence Archer. It had seven descending degrees, each of seven disciples, and seven ascending degrees of perfection, Ekata or Unity. It ceased to be necessary on the establishment of the Theosoph- ical Society.
Satan : {See Devil.)
Satanism : (See Devil-worship.)
,Saul, Barnabas : (See Dee.)
Scandinavia : For the early history of occultism in Scandin- avia (see article Teutons.)
Witchcraft. — In mediaeval times Scandinavian examples of witchcraft are rare, but in 1669 and 1670 a great out- break of fanaticism against it commenced in Sweden in the district of Elfdale.
The villages of Mohra and Elfdale are situated in the dales of the mountainous districts of the central parts of Sweden. In the first of the years above mentioned, a strange report went abroad that the children of the neighbourhood were carried away nightly to a place they called Blockula, where they were received by Satan in person ; and the children themselves, who were the authors of the report, pointed out to them numerous women, who, they said were witches and carried them thither. The alarm and terror in the district
became so great that a report Was at last made~;to the king, who nominated commissioners, partly clergy'^and partly laymen, to inquire into the extraordinary circumstances which had been brought under his notice, and these com- missioners arrived in Mohra and announced their intentions of opening their proceedings on the 13th of August, 1670.
On the 1 2th of August, the commissioners met at the parsonage-house, and heard the complaints of the minister and several people of the better class, who told them of the miserable condition they were in, and prayed that by some means or other they might be delivered from the calamity. They gravely told the commissioners that by the help of witches some hundreds of their children had been drawn to Satan, who had been seen to go in a visible shape through the country, and to appear daily to the people ; the poorer sort of them, they said, he had seduced by feasting them with meat and drink.
The commissioners entered upon their duties on the next day with the utmost diligence, and the result of their misguided zeal formed one of the most remarkable examples of cruel and remorseless persecution that stains the annals of sorcery. No less than threescore and ten inhabitants of the village and district of Mohra, three-and-twenty of whom made confessions, were condemned and executed. One woman pleaded that she was with child, and the rest denied their guilt, and these were sent to Fahluna, where most of them were afterwards put to death. Fifteen children were among those who suffered death, and thirty- six more, of different ages between nine and sixteen, were forced to run the gauntlet, and be scourged on the hands at the church-door every Sunday for one year ; while twenty more, who had been drawn into these practices more unwillingly, and were very young, were condemned to be scourged with rods upon their hands for three successive Sundays at the church-door. The number of the children accused was about three hundred.
It appears that the commissioners began by taking the confessions of the children, and then they confronted them with the witches whom the children accused as their seducers. The latter, to use the words of the authorised report, having " most of them children with them, which they had either seduced or attempted to seduce, ^ some seven years of age, nay, from four to sixteen years," now appeared before the commissioners. " Some of the children complained lamentably of the misery and mischief they were forced sometimes to suffer of the devil and the witches." Being asked, whether they were sure, that they were at any time carried away by the devil ? they all replied in the affirmative. " Hereupon the witches them- selves were asked, whether the confessions of those children were true, and admonished to confess the truth, that they might turn away from the devil unto the living God. At first, most of them did very stiffly, and without shedding the least tear, deny it, though much against their will and inclination. After this the children were examined every one by themselves, to see whether their confessions did agree or no, and the commissioners found that all of them, except some very little ones, which could not tell all the circumstances, did punctually agree in their confessions of particulars. In the meanwhile, the commissioners that were of the clergy examined the witches, but could not bring them to any confession, all continuing steadfast in their denials, till at last some of them burst into tears, and their confession agreed with what the children said ; and these expressed their abhorrence of the fact, and begged pardon. Adding that the devil, whom they called Locyta, had stopped the mouths of some of them, so loath was he to part with his prey, and had stopped the ears of others. And being now gone from them, they could no longer
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conceal it ; for they had now perceived his treachery." The witches asserted that, the journey to Blockula was not always made with the same kind of conveyance ; they commonly used men, beasts, even spits and posts, accord- ing as they had opportunity. They preferred, however, riding upon goats, and if they had more children with them than the animal could conveniently carry, they elongated its back by means of a spit anointed with their magical ointment. It was further stated, that if the children did at any time name the names of those, either man or woman, that had been with them, and had carried them away, they were again carried by force, either to Blockula or the cross- way, and there beaten, insomuch that some of them died of it ; " and this some of the witches confessed, and added, that now they were exceedingly troubled and tortured in their minds for it." One thing was wanting to confirm -this circumstance of their confession. The marks of the whip could not be found on the' persons of the victims, except on one boy, who had some wounds and holes in his back, that were given him with thorns ; but the witches said they would quickly vanish.
The account they gave of Blockula was, that it was situated in a large meadow, like a plain sea, " wherein you can see no end." The house they met at had a great gate painted with many divers colours. Through this gate they went into a little meadow distinct from the other, and here they turned their animals to graze. When they had made use of men for their beasts of burden, they set them up against the wall in a state of helpless slumber, and there they remained till wanted for the homeward flight. In a very large room of this house, stood a long table, at which the witches sat down ; and adjoining to this room was another chamber, where there were " lovely and delicate beds."
As soon as they arrived at Blockula, the visitors were required to deny their baptism, and devote themselves body and soul to Satan, whom they promised to serve faithfully. Hereupon he cut their fingers, and they wrote their name with blood in his book. He then caused them to be baptized anew, by priests appointed for that purpose. Upon this the devil gave them a purse, wherein there were filings of clocks, with a big stone tied to it, which they threw into the water, and said, " As these filings of the clock do never return to the clock, from which they were taken, so may my soul never return to heaven ! " Another difficulty arose in verifying this statement, that few of the children had any marks on their fingers to show where they had been cut. But here again the story was helped by a girl who had her finger much hurt, and who declared, that because she would not stretch out her finger, the devil in anger had thus wounded it.
When these ceremonies were completed, the witches sat down at the table, those whom the fiend esteemed most being placed nearest to him ; but the children were made to stand at the door, where he himself gave them meat and drink. Perhaps we may look for the origin of this part of the story in the pages of Pierre de Lancre. The food with which the visitors to Blockula were regaled, consisted of broth, with coleworts and bacon in it ; oatmeal bread spread with butter, milk and cheese. Sometimes they said, it tasted very well, and sometimes very ill. After meals they went to dancing, and it was one peculiarity of these northern witches' sabbaths, that the dance was usually followed by fighting. Those of Elfdale confessed that the devil used to play upon a harp before them. Another peculiarity of these northern witches was, that children resulted from their intercourse with Satan, and these children having married together became the parents of toads and serpents.
The witches of Sweden appear to have been less noxious
than those of most other countries, for, whatever they acknowledged themselves, there seems to have been no evidence of mischief done by them. They confessed that they were obliged to promise Satan that they would do alt kinds of mischief, and that the devil taught them to milk, which was after this manner. They used to stick a knife in the wall, and hang a kind of label on it, which they drew and stroaked ; and as long as this lasted, the persons they had power over were miserably plagued, and the beasts were milked that way, till sometimes they died of it. A woman confessed that the devil gave her a wooden knife, where- with, going into houses, she had power to kill anything she touched with it ; yet there were few that could confess that they had hurt any man or woman. Being asked whether they had murdered any children, they confessed that they had indeed tormented many, but did not know whether any of them died of these plagues, although they said that the devil had showed them several places where he had power to do mischief. The minister of Elfdale declared, that one night these witches were, to his thinking, on the crown of his head, and that from thence he had a long continued pain of the head. And upon this one of the witches confessed that the devil had sent her to torment that minister, and that she was ordered to use a nail, and strike it into his head, but his skull was so hard that the nail would not pentrate it, and merely produced that headache. The hard-headed minister said further, that one night he felt a pain as if he were torn with an instrument used for combing flax, and when he awoke he heard somebody scratching and scraping. at the window, but could see nobody ; and one of the witches confessed, that she was the person that had thus disturbed him. The minister of Mohra declared also, that one night one of these witches came into his house,- and did so violently take him by the throat, that he thought he should have been choked, and awaking, he saw the person that did it, but could not know her ; and that for some weeks he was not able to speak, or perform divine service. An old woman of Elfdale confessed that the devil had helped her to make a nail, which she stuck into a boy's knee, of which stroke the boy remained lame a long time. And she added, that, before she was burned or executed by the hand of justice, the boy would recover.
Another circumstance confessed by these witches was, that the devil gave them a beast, about the shape and bigness of a cat, which they called a carrier ; and a bird as big as a raven, but white ; and these they could send anywh,ere, and wherever^ they came they took away all sorts of victuals, such as butter, cheese, milk, bacon, and all sorts of seeds, and carried them to the witch. What the bird brought they kept for themselves, but what the carrier brought they took to Blockula, where the arch-fiend gave them as much of it as he thought good. The carriers, they said, filled themselves so full oftentimes, that they were forced to disgorge it by the way, and what they thus rendered fell to the ground, and is found in several gardens where coleworts grow, and far from the houses of the witches. It was of a yellow colour like gold, and was called witches' butter.
Such are the details, as far as they can now be obtained, of this extraordinary delusion, the only one of a similar kind that we know to have occurred in the northern part of Europe during the " age of witchcraft." In other countries we can generally trace some particular cause which gave rise to great persecutions of this kind, but here, as the story is told, we see none, for it is hardly likely that such a strange series of accusations should have been the mere invjluntary creation of a party of little children. Suspicion is excited by the peculiar p-.-.rt which the two clergymen of Elfdale and Mohra acted in it, that they were
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not altogether strangers to the fabrication. They seem to have been weak superstitious men, and perhaps they had been reading the witchcraft books of the south till they imagined the country round them to be over-run with these noxious beings. The proceedings at Mohra caused so much alarm throughout Sweden, that prayers were ordered in all the churches for delivery from the snares of Satan, who was believed to have been let loose in that kingdom. On a sudden a new edict of the king put a stop to the whole process, and the matter was brought to a close rather mysteriously. It is said that the witch prosecution was increasing so much in intensity, that accusations began to be made against people of a higher class in society, and then a complaint was made to the king, and they were stopped.
Perhaps the two clergymen themselves became alarmed, but one thing seems certain, that the moment the com- mission was revoked, and the persecution ceased, no more -witches were heard of.
Spiritualism. — In 1843 an epidemic of preaching occurred in Southern Sweden, which provides Ennemoser, with material for an interesting passage in his History of Magic. The manifestation of this was so similar in character to those described elsewhere, that it is unnecessary to allude to it in detail. A writer in the London Medium and Day- break of 1878 says : " It is about a year and a half since I changed my abode from Stockholm to this place, and during that period it is wonderful how Spiritualism has gained ground in Sweden. The leading papers, that used in my time to refuse to publish any article on Spiritualism excepting such as ridiculed the doctrine, have of late thrown their columns wide open to the serious discussion of the matter. Many a Spiritualist in secret, has thus been encouraged to give publicity to his opinions without stand- ing any longer in awe of that demon, public ridicule, which intimidates so many of our brethren. Several of Allan Kajdec's works have been translated into Swedish, among which I may mention his. Evangile selon le Spiritisme as particularly well-rendered in Swedish by Walter Jochnick. A spiritual Library was opened in Stockholm on the 1st of April last, which will no doubt greatly contribute to the spreading of the blessed doctrine. The visit of Mr. Eglin- ton to Stockholm was of the greatest benefit to the cause. Let us hope that the stay of Mrs. Esperance in the south of Sweden may have an equally beneficial effect. Notwith- standing all this progress of the cause in the neighbouring country, Spiritualism is looked upon here as something akin to madness, but even here there are thin, very thin rays, and very wide apart, struggling to pierce the darkness. In Norway, spiritualism as known to modern Europe, did not seem to have become existent until about 1880. A writer in a number of the Dawn of Light published in that year says : " Spiritualism is just commencing to give a sign of its existence here in Norway. The newspapers have begun to attack it as a delusion and the ' expose ' of Mrs. •C, which recently took place at 38, Great Russell Street, London, has made the round through all the papers in Scandinavia. After all, it must sooner or later take root as in all other parts of the world. Mr. Eglinton, the English medium, has done a good work in Stockholm, showing some x>f the great savants a new world ; and a couple of years ago Mr. Slade visited Copenhagen. The works of Mr. Zollner, the great astronomer of Leipzig, have been men- tioned in the papers and caused a good deal of sensation.
" Of mediums there are several here, but all, as yet, afraid to speak out. One writes with both hands ; a gentleman is developing as a drawing medium. A peasant, who died about five years ago, and lived not far from here, was an .excellent healing medium ; his name was Knud, and the -people had given him the nickname of Vise Knud (the wise
Knud).; directly when he touched a patient he knew if the same could be cured or not, and often, in severe cases, the pains of the sick person went through his own body. He was also an auditive medium, startling the people many times by telling them what was going to happen in the future ; but the poor fellow suffered much from the ignor- ance and fanaticism around him, and was several times put in prison.
" I am doing all I can to make people acquainted with our grand cause."
A second and more hopeful letter of 1881, addressed to the editor of the Revue Spirite, is as follows : —
" My dear Brothers, — Here our science advances without noise. An excellent writing medium has been developed among us, one who writes simultaneously with both hands ; while we have music in a room where there are no musical instruments ; and where there is a piano it plays itself. At Bergen, where I have recently been, I found mediums, who in the dark, made sketches — were dessinateurs — using also both hands. I have seen, also, with pleasure that several men of letters and of science have begun to investigate our science spirite. The pastor Eckhoff, of Bergen, has for the second time preached against Spiritual- ism, ' this instrument of the devil, this psychographie ' ; and to give more of eclat to his sermon he has had the goodness to have it printed ; so we see that the spirits are working. The suit against the medium, Mme. F., in London, is going the rounds of the papers of Christiania ; these journals opening their columns, when occasion offers, to ridicule Spiritualism. We are, however, friends of the truth, but there are scabby sheep among us of a different temperament. From Stockholm they write me that a library of spiritual works has been opened there, and that they are to have a medium from Newcastle, with whom seances are to be held."
In the London Spiritual Magazine of May, 1885, is a long and interesting paper on Swedish Spiritualism, by William Howitt, in which he gives quite a notable collection of narratives concerning Phenomenal Spiritual Manifestations in Sweden, most of which were furnished by an eminent and learned Swedish gentleman — Count Piper. The public have become so thoroughly sated with tales of hauntings, apparitions, prevision, etc., that Count Piper's narrations would present few, if any features of interest, save in justification of one assertion, that Spiritualism is rife in human experience everywhere, even though it may not take the same form as a public movement, that it has done in America and England.
As early as 1864, a number of excellent leading articles commending the belief in Spiritual ministry, and the study of such phenomena as would promote communion between the " two worlds," appeared in the columns of the Afton Blad, one of the most popular journals circulated in Sweden. Sehroepfer : (See Germany.) Scotland : (For early matter see the article Celts.)
Witchcraft. — Witchcraft and sorcery appear to have been practised in the earliest historical and traditional times. It is related that during the reign of Natholocus in the second century there dwelt in Iona a witch of great renown, and so celebrated for her marvellous power that the king sent one of his captains to consult her regarding the issue of a rebellion then troubling his kingdom. The witch declared that within a short period the king would be murdered, not by his open enemies but by one of his most favoured friends, in whom he had most especial trust. The messenger enquired the assassin's name. " Even by thine own hands as shall be well-known within these few dayes," replied the witch. So troubled was the captain on hearing these words that he railed bitterly against her.
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vowing that he would see her burnt before he would commit such a villainous crime. But after reviewing the matter carefully in his mind, he arrived at the conclusion that if he informed the king of the witch's prophecy, the king might for the sake of his personal safety have him put to death, so thereupon he decoyed Natholocus into his private chamber and falling upon him with a dagger slew him outright. About the year 388 the devil was so enraged at the piety of St. Patrick that he assailed the saint by the whole band of witches in Scotland. St. Patrick fled to the Clyde embarking in a small boat for Ireland. As witches cannot pursue their victims over running water, they flung a huge rock after the escaping saint, which however fell harmless to the ground, and which tradition says now forms Dumbarton Rock. The persecution of witches con- stitutes one of the blackest chapters of history. All classes, Catholic and Protestant alike, pursued the crusade with equal vigour, undoubtedly inspired by the passage in Exodus xxii., 18. While it is most probable that the majority of those who practised witchcraft and sorcery were of weak mind and enfeebled intellect, yet a large number adopted the supposed art for the purpose of intimi- dation and extortion from their neighbours. Witches were held to have sold themselves body and soul to the devil. The ceremony is said to consist of kneeling before the evil one, placing one hand on her head and the other under her feet, and dedicating all between to the service of the devil, and also renouncing baptism. The witch was thereafter deemed to be incapable of reformation. No minister of any denomination whatever would intercede or pray for her. On sealing the compact the devil proceeded to put his mark upon her. Writing on the " Witches' Mark" Mr. Bell, minister of Gladsmuir in 1705 says: " The witches' mark is sometimes like a blew spot, or a little tale, or reid spots, like fleabiting, sometimes the flesh is sunk in and hollow and this is put in secret places, as amongthehairof the head.or eyebrows, within the lips, under the armpits, and even in the most secret parts of the body." Mr. Robert Kirk of Aberfoill in his Secret Commonwealth states : "A spot that I have seen, as a small mole, horny, and brown coloured, throw which mark when a large brass pin was thrust (both in buttock, nose, and rooff of the mouth) till it bowed (bent) and became crooked, the witches, both men and women, nather felt a pain nor did bleed, nor knew the precise time when this was doing to them (their eyes only being covered)."
In many cases the mark was invisible, and as it was considered that no pain accompanied the pricking of it, there arose a body of persons who pretending great skill therein constituted themselves as " witch prickers " and whose office was to discover and find out witches. The method employed was barbarous in the extreme. Having stripped and bound his victim the witch pricker proceeded to thrust his needles into every part of the body. When at last the victim worn out with exhaustion and agony remained silent, the witch pricker declared that he had discovered the mark. Another test for detection was trial by water. The suspects were tied hands and great toes together, wrapped in a sheet and flung into a deep pool. In cases where the body floated, the water of baptism was supposed to give up the accused, while those who sank to the bottom were absolved, but no attempt was made at rescue. When confession was demanded the most horrible of tortures were resorted to, burning with irons being generally the last torture applied. In some cases a diabolic contrivance called the " witches' bridle " was used. The " bridle " encircled the victim's head while an iron bit was thrust into the mouth from which prongs protruded piercing the tongue, palate and cheeks. In cases of execution, the victim was usually strangled and thereafter burned at the stake.
Witches were accused of a great variety of crimes. A common offence was to bewitch milch cattle by turnin their milk sour, or curtailing the supply, raising storms, stealing children from their graves, and promoting various illnesses. A popular device was to make a waxen image-. of their victim, thrust pins into it and sear it with hot irons, all of which their victim felt and at length succumbed. Upon domestic animals they cast an evil eye, causing emaciation and refusal to take food till at length death ensued. To those who believed in them and acknowledged their power, witches were supposed to use their powers for good by curing disease and causing prosperity. Witches had a weekly meeting at which the devil presided, every Saturday commonly called "' the witches' Sabbath," their meetings generally being held in desolate places or in ruined churches, to which they rode through the air mounted on broomsticks. If the devil was not present on their arrival, they evoked him by beating the earth with a fir-stick, and saying " Rise up foul thief." The witches appeared to see him in different guises ; to some he appeared as a boy clothed in green, others saw him dressed in white, while to others he appeared mounted on a black horse. After delivering a mock sermon, he held a court at which, the witches had to make a full statement of their doings during the week. Those who had not accomplished sufficient evil were belaboured with their own broomsticks,- while those who had been more successful were rewarded with enchanted bones. The proceedings finished with a- dance, the music to which the fiend played on his bagpipes.
Robert Burns in his Tale of Tarn 0' Shanter gives a graphic description of this orgy. There were great annual gatherings at Candlemas, Beltane and Hallow-eve. These were of an international character at which the witch sisterhood of all nations assembled, those who had to cross the sea performing the journey in barges of egg-shell, while their aerial journeys were on goblin horses with enchanted bridles.
Witchcraft was first dealt with by law in Scotland when by a statute passed in 1563 in the Parliament of Queen Mary it was enacted : " That na maner of person nor persons of quhatsumever estaite, degree or condition they be of, take upon hand in onie times hereafter to use onie maner of witchcraft, sorcerie, or necromancie, under the paine of death, alsweil to be execute against the user, abuser, as the seeker of the response of consultation."
The great Reformer, John Knox, was accused by the Catholics of Scotland of being a renowned wizard and having by sorcery raised up saints in the churchyard of St. Andrews when Satan himself appeared and so terrified Knox's secretary that he became insane and died. Knox was also charged that by his magical arts in his old age he persuaded the beautiful young daughter of Lord Ochiltree to marry him. Nicol Burne bitterly denounces Knox for having secured the affections of " ane damosil of nobil blude, and he ane auld decrepit creatur of maist bais degree of onie that could be found in the country."
There were numerous trials for witchcraft in the Justici- ary Court in Edinburgh and at the Circuit Courts, also session records preserved from churches all over Scotland show that numerous cases were dealt with by the local authorities and church officials. A. J. B. G.
Rodgers, in his Social Life in Scotland, says : " From the year 1479 when the first capital sentence was carried out thirty thousand persons had on the charge of using enchantment been in Great Britain cruelly immolated ; of these one fourth belonged to Scotland. No inconsiderable number of those who suffered on the charge of sorcery laid claim to necromantic acts with intents felonious or un- worthy.
When James VI. of Scotland, in the year 1603, was
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called upon to ascend the throne of Great Britain and Ireland, his own native kingdom was in rather a curious condition. James himself was a man of considerable learning, intimate with Latin and Theology, yet his book on Demonology marks him as distinctly superstitious ; and, while education and even scholarship were compara- tively common at this date in Scotland, more common in fact than they were in contemporary England, the great mass of Scottish people shared abundantly their sovereign's dread of witches and the like. The efforts of Knox and his doughty confreres, it is true, had brought about momen- tous changes in Scottish life, but if the Reformation ejected certain superstitions it undoubtedly tended to introduce others. For that stern Calvinistfc faith, which now began to take root in Scotland, nourished the idea that sickness and accident are a mark of divine anger, nor did this theory cease to be common in the north till long after King James's day.
It is a pity that the royal author, in the curious treatise mentioned above, volunteers but few precise facts anent the practitioners of magic who throve in Scotland during his reign. But other sources of information indicate that these people were very numerous, and whereas, in Elizabe- than England, it was customary to put a witch to death by the merciful process of hanging, in Jacobean Scotland it was usual to take stronger measures. In short, the victim was burnt at the stake ; and it is interesting to note that on North Berwick Law, in the county of East Lothian, there is standing to this day a tall stone which, according to local tradition, was erstwhile used for the ghastly business in question. Yet it would be wrong to suppose that witches and sorcerers, though handled roughly now and then, were regarded with universal hatred ; for in seventeenth century Scotland medicine and magic went hand in hand, and the man suffering from a physical malady, particularly one whose cause he could not understand, very seldom entrusted himself to a professional leech, and much preferred to consult one who claimed healing capacities derived from intercourse with the unseen world. Physicians of the latter kind, however, were generally experts in the art of poisoning ; and, while a good many cures are credited to them, their triumphs in the opposite direction would seem to have been much more numerous. Thus we find that in July, 1702, a certain James Reid of Musselburgh was brought to trial, being charged not merely with achieving miraculous cures, but with contriving the murder of one David Libbertoun, a baker in Edinburgh. This David and his family, it trans- spires, were sworn enemies of a neighbouring household, Christie by name, and betimes their feud grew as fierce as that between the Montagues and Capulets ; so the Christies swore they would bring things to a conclusion, and going to Reid they petitioned his nefarious aid. His first act was to bewitch nine stones, these to be cast on the fields of the offending baker with a view to destroying his crops ; while Reid then proceeded to enchant a piece of raw flesh, and also to make a statuette of wax — the nature of the design is not recorded, but presumably Libbertoun himself was represented — and Mrs. Christie was enjoined to thrust the meat under her enemy's door, and then to go home and melt the waxwork before her own fire. These instructions she duly obeyed, and a little later the victim breathed his last ; but Reid did not go unscathed, and after his trial the usual fate of burning alive was meted out to him.
A like sentence was passed in July 1605 on Patrick Lowrie, a native of Halic in Ayrshire, and known there as " Pat the Witch," who was found guilty of foregathering with endless sorceresses of the neighbourhood, and of assisting them in disinterring bodies which they afterwards
dismembered. Doubtless " Alloway's auld haunted Kirk," sacred to the memory of Burns, was among those ransacked for corpses by the band ; yet if the crime was a gruesome one it was harmless withal, and assuredly Lowrie's ultimate fate was distinctly a hard one ! On the other hand Isobel Griersone, a Prestonpans woman, received no more than justice when burnt to death on the Castle Rock, Edinburgh, in March 1607 ; for the record of her poisonings was a formidable one, rivalling that of Wainewright or that of Cellini himself, while it is even recorded that she contrived to put an end to several people simply by cursing them. Equally wonderful were the exploits of another sorceress, Belgis Todd of Longniddry, who is reported to have com- passed the death of a man she hated just by enchanting his cat ; but this picturesque modus operandi was scorned by a notorious Perthshire witch Janet Irwing, who about the year 1610 poisoned sundry members of the family of. Erskine of Dun, in the county of Angus. The criminal was detected anon, and suffered the usual fate ; while a few years later a long series of tortures, culminating in burning, were inflicted on Margaret Dein (nee Barclay), whose accomplishments appear to have been of no commonplace nature. The wife of a burgess of Irvine, John Dein, this woman conceived a violent aversion for her brother-in-law, Archibald ; and on one occasion, when the latter was setting out for France, Margaret hurled imprecations at his ship, vowing none of its crew or passengers would ever return to their native Scotland. Months went by, and no word of Archibald's arrival reached Irvine ; while one day a pedlar named Stewart came to John Dein's house, and declared that the baneful prophecy had been duly fulfilled. The municipal authorities now heard of the affair, and arresting Stewart, whom they had long suspected of practising magic, they commenced to cross-examine him. At first he would tell nothing, but when torture had loosened his tongue he confessed how, along with Margaret Dein, he had made a clay model of the ill-starred barque, and thrown this into the sea on a particu'arly stormy night. His audience were horrified at the news, but they hastened to lay hands on the sorceress, whereupon they dealt with her as noted above.
No doubt this tale, and many others like it, have blossomed very considerably in the course of being handed down from generation to generation, and no doubt the witches of Jacobean Scotland are credited with triumphs far greater than they really achieved. At the same time, scanning the annals of sorcery, we find that a number of its practitioners avowed stoutly, when confronted by a terrible death, that they had been initiated in their craft by the foul fiend himself, or haply by a band of fairies ; and thus, whatever capacities these bygone magicians really had, it is manifest that they possessed in abundance that confidence which is among the secrets of power, and is perhaps the very key to success in any line of action. Small wonder, then, that they were dreaded by the simple, illiterate folk of their day ; and, musing on these facts, we feel less amazed at the credulity displayed by an erudite man like James VI., we are less surprised at his declaring that all sorcerers ' ' ought to be put to death according to the law of God, the civill and imperiale Law, and municipall Law of all Christian nations."
The last execution of a witch in Scotland took place in Sutherland in 1722. An old woman residing at Loth was charged amongst other crimes of having transformed her daughter into a pony and shod by the devil which caused the girl to turn lame both in hands and feet, a calamity which entailed upon her son. Sentence of death was pronounced by Captain David Ross, the Sheriff-substitute. Rodgers relates : " The poor creature when lead to the stake was unconscious of the stir made on her account, and
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warming her wrinkled hands at the fire kindled to consume her, said she was thankful for so good a blaze. For his rashness in pronouncing the sentence of death, the Sheriff was emphatically reproved."
The reign of ignorance and superstition was fast drawing to a close.
Witchcraft, if it can be so called nowadays, is dealt with under the laws pertaining to rogues, vagabonds, fortune- tellers, gamesters, and such like characters. {See Fortune- telling.)
Magic and Demonology. — Magic of the lower cultus, perhaps the detritus of Druidism, appears to have been common in Scotland until a late period. We find in the pages of Adamnan that the Druids were regarded by St. Columba and his priest as magicians, and that he met their sorcery with a superior celestial magic of his own. Thus does the religion of one race become magic in the eyes of another. Notices of sorcery in Scotland before the thirteenth century are scanty, if we except the tradition that Macbeth encoun- tered three witches who prophesied his fate to him. We have no reason to believe that Thomas the Rhymer (who has been endowed by later superstition with adventures similar to those of Tannhauser) was other than a minstrel and maker of epigrams, or that Sir Michael Scot was other than a scholar and man of letters. Workers of sorcery were numerous but obscure, and although often of noble birth as Lady Glamis and Lady Fowlis, were probably very ignorant persons. - We get a glimpse of Scottish demonology in the later middle ages in the rhymed fragment known as " The Cursing of Sir John Rowll," a priest of Corstorphine, near Edinburgh, which dates perhaps from the last quarter of the fifteenth century. It is an invective against certain persons who have rifled his poultry-yard, upon whom the priest calls down the divine vengeance. The demons who were to torment the evildoers are : Garog, Harog, Sym Skynar, Devetinus " the devill that maid the dyce," Firemouth, Cokadame, Tutivillus, Browny, and Syr Garnega, who may be the same as that Girnigo, to whom cross children are often likened by angry mothers of the Scottish working-classes, in such a phrase as " eh, ye're a wee girnigo," and the Scottish verb, to " girn," may find its origin in the name of a mediaeval fiend, the last shadow of some Teutonic or Celtic deity of unlovable attributes. In Sym Skynar, we may have Skyrnir, a Norse giant in whose glove Thor found shelter from an earthquake, and who sadly fooled him and his companions. Skyrnir was, of course, one of the Jotunn or Norse Titans, and probably one of the powers of winter ; and he may have received the popular surname of " Sym" in the same manner as we speak of " Jack " Frost. A great deal has still to be-done in unearthing the minor figures of Scottish mythology and demonology, and even the greater ones have not received the attention due to them. In Newhaven, a fishing district near Edinburgh, for example, we find the belief current in a fiend called Brounger, who is described as an old man who levies a toll of fish and oysters upon the local fisherman. If he is not-placated with these, he wreaks vengeance on the persons who fail to supply him. He is also described as " a Flint and the son of a Flint," which proves conclusively that, like Thor and many other gods of Asia and America, he was a thunder or weather deity. In fact his name is probably a mere corruption of an ancient Scandinavian word meaning "to strike," which still survives in the Scottish expression to " make a breenge " at one. To return to instances of practical magic, a terrifying and picturesque legend tells how Sir Lewis Bellenden, a lord of session, and superior of the Barony of Broughton, near Edinburgh, succeeded by the aid of a sorcerer in raising the Devil in the backyard of his own house in the Canongate, some- where about the end of the sixteenth century. Sir Lewis
was a notorious trafficker with witches, with whom his barony of Broughton was overrun. Being desirous of beholding his Satanic majesty in person, he secured the services of one Richard Graham. The results of the evoca- tion were disastrous to the inquisitive judge, whose nerves were so shattered at the apparition of the Lord of Hades that he fell ill and shortly afterwards expired.
The case of Major Weir is one of the most inter- esting in the.annals of Scottish sorcery. " It is certain," says Scott, " that no story of witchcraft or necromancy, so many of which occurred near and in Edinburgh, made such a lasting impression on the public mind as that of Major Weir. The remains of the house in which he and his sister lived are still shown at the head of the West Bow, which has a gloomy aspect, well suited for a necro- mancer. It was at different times a brazier's shop and a magazine for lint, and in my younger days was employed for the latter use ; but no family would inhabit the haunted walls as a residence ; and bold was the urchin from the High School who dared approach the gloomy ruin at the risk of seeing the Major's enchanted staff parading through the old apartments, or hearing the hum of the necromantic wheel, which procured for his sister such a character as a spinner. ,
" The case of this notorious wizard was remarkable chiefly from his being a man of some condition (the son of a gentleman, and his mother a lady of family in Clydes- dale), which was seldom the case with those that fell under similar accusations. It was also remarkable in his case that he had been a Covenanter, and peculiarly attached to that cause. In the years of the Commonwealth this man was trusted and employed by those who were then at the head of affairs, and was in 1649 commander of the City-Guard of Edinburgh, which procured him his title of Major. In this capacity he was understood, as was indeed implied in the duties of that officer at the period, to be very strict in executing severity upon -such Royalists as fell under his military charge. It appears that the Major, with a maiden sister who had kept his house, was subject to fits of melancholic lunacy, an infirmity easily recon- cilable with the formal pretences which he made to a high show of religious zeal. He was peculiar in his gift of prayer, and, as was the custom of the period, was often called to exercise his talent by the bedside of sick persons, until it came to be observed that, by some association, which it is more easy to conceive than to explain, he could not pray with the same warmth and fluency of expression unless when he had in his hand a stick of pecu- liar shape and appearance, which he generally walked with. It was noticed, in short, that when this stick was taken from him,' his wit and talent appeared to forsake him. This Major Weir was seized by the magistrates on a strange whisper that became current respecting vile practices, which he seems to have admitted without either shame or contrition. The disgusting profligacies which he con- fessed were of such a character that it may be charitably hoped most of them were the fruits of a depraved imagina- tion, though he appears- to have been in many respects a wicked and criminal hypocrite. When he had completed his confession, he avowed solemnly that he had not con- fessed the hundredth part of the crimes which he had com- mitted. From this time he would answer no interrogatory, nor would he have recourse to prayer, arguing that, as he had no hope whatever of escaping Satan, there was no need of incensing him by vain efforts at repentance. His witchcraft seems to have been taken for granted on his own confession, as his indictment was chiefly founded on the same document, in which he alleged he had never seen the devil, but any feeling he had of him was in the dark. He received sentence of death, which he suffered 12th April,
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1670, at the Gallow-hill, between Leith and"JEdinburgh. He died so stupidly sullen and impenitent as to justify the opinion that he was oppressed with a kind of melancholy frenzy, the consequence perhaps of remorse, but such as urged him not to repent, but to despair. It seems probable that he was burnt alive. His sister, with whom he was supposed to have had an incestuous connection, was condemned also to death, leaving a stronger and more explicit testimony of their mutual sins than could be extracted from the Maj or. She gave, as usual, some account ■of her connection with the queen of the fairies, and acknow- ledged the assistance she received from that sovereign in spinning an unusual quantity of yarn. Of her brother she said that one day a friend called upon them at noonday ■with a fiery chariot, and invited them to visit a friend at Dalkeith, and that while there her brother received informa- tion of the event of the battle of Worcester. No one saw the style of their equipage except themselves. On the scaffold this woman, determining, as she said, to die " with the greatest shame possible " was with difficulty prevented from throwing off her clothing before the people, and with scarce less trouble was she flung from the ladder by the executioner. Her last words were in the tone of the sect to which her brother had so long affected to belong : " Many," she said, " weep and lament for a poor old wretch like me ; but alas, few are weeping for a broken covenant."
Alchemy. — James IV. was attached to the science of alchemy. " Dunbar speaks of the patronage which the king bestowed upon certain adventurers, who had studied the mysteries of alchemy, and were ingenious in making ' quintiscence ' which should convert other metals into pure gold ; and in the Treasurer's Accounts there are numerous payments for the ' quinta essentia,' including wages to the persons employed, utensils of various kinds, coals and wood for the furnaces, and for a variety of other materials, such as quicksilver, aqua vita?, litharge, auri, fine tin, burnt silver, alum, salt and eggs, saltpetre, etc. Considerable sums were also paid to several ' Potingairs ' for stuff of various kinds to the Quinta Essentia. Thus, on the 3rd of March, 1501, ' the king sent to Strivelin (Stirling) four Harry nobles in gold,' — a sum equal, as it is stated, to nine pounds Scots money — ' for the leech to multiply.' On the 27th of May, 1502, the Treasurer paid to Robert Bartoun, one of the king's mariners, ' for certain droggis (drugs) brocht home by him to the French leich, ^31 : 4 : o.' On the nth of February, 1503-4, we find twenty shillings given ' to the man suld mak aurum potabile, be the king's commands.' And on the 13th of October, 1507, the Treasurer paid six pounds for a puncheon of wine to the Abbot of Tungland, to ' mak Quinta Essentia." The credulity and indiscriminate generosity of the Scottish monarch appear to have collected around him a multitude of quacks of all sorts, for, besides the Abbot, mention is made of ' the leech with the curland hair ' ; of ' the lang Dutch doctor,' of one Fullertone, who was believed to possess the secret of making precious stones ; of a Dr. Ogilvy who laboured hard at the transmutation of metals, and many other empirics, whom James not only supported in their experiments, but himself assisted in their labora- tory. The most noted of these adventurers was the person who is variously styled in the Treasurer's Accounts ' the French Leich,' ' Maister John the French Leich,' ' Maister John the French Medicinar,' and ' French Maister John.' The real name of this empiric was John Damian ; and we learn from Dunbar that he was a native of Lombardy, and had practised surgery and other arts in France before his arrival in Scotland. His first appearance at the court of James was in the capacity of a French leech, and as he is mentioned among the persons who received ' leveray ' in
1501-2, there can be no doubt that he held an appointment as a physician in the royal household. He soon succeeded in ingratiating himself with the king, and it is probable that it was from him that James imbibed a strong passion for alchemy, as he about this time erected at Stirling a furnace for prosecuting such experiments, and continued during the rest of his reign to expend considerable sums of money in attempts to discover the philosopher's stone. ' Maister John,' says Bishop Lesley, J caused the king believe, that he by multiplying and utheris his inventions sold make fine gold of uther metal, quhilk science he callit the Quintassence, whereupon the king made great cost, but all in vain.' There are numerous entries in the Treasurer's Accounts of sums paid for saltpetre, bellows, two great stillatours, brass mortars, coals, and numerous vessels of various shapes, sizes, and denominations, for the use of this foreign adept in his mystical studies. ' These, however, were not his sole occupations ; for after the mysterious labours of the day were concluded, Master John was wont to play at cards with the sovereign — a mode by which he probably transferred the contents of the royal exchequer into his own purse, as efficaciously as by his distillations.' We find that on the 4th of March, 1501, nine pounds five shillings were paid ' to the king and the French leich to play at cartis.' A few months later, on the occasion of a temporary visit which the empiric found it necessary to pay to France, James made him a present of his own horse and two hundred pounds. Early in the year 1504, the Abbot of Tungland, in Galloway, died, and the king, with a reckless disregard of the dictates of duty, and even of common decency, appointed this unprincipled adven- turer to the vacant office. On the nth March, the Treasurer paid ' to Gareoch Parsuivant fourteen shillings to pass to Tungland for the Abbacy to French Maister John.' On the 12th of the same month, ' by the king's command,' he paid ' to Bardus Altovite Lumbard twenty-five pounds for Maister John, the French Mediciner, new maid Abbot of Tungland, whilk he aucht (owed) to the said Bardus ; ' and a few days later on the 17th, there was given ' to Maister John the new maid Abbot of Tungland, seven pounds.' Three years after, in 1507, July 27, occurs the following entry : ' Item, lent, by the king's command to the Abbot of Tungland, and can nocht be gettin fra him £33 : 6 : 8.' An adventure which befel this dexterous im- postor afforded great amusement to the Scottish court. On the occasion of an embassy setting out from Stirling to the court of France, he had the assurance to declare that by means of a pair of artificial wings which he had constructed, he would undertake to fly to Paris and arrive long before the am- bassadors. ' This time,' says Bishop Lesley, ' there was an Italiane with the king, who was made Abbot of Tung- land. This abbot tuke in hand to flie with wings, and to be in France before the said ambassadors ; and to that effect he caused make ane pair of wings of feathers, quhilk bein festinitt uponn him he flew off the castle-wall of Stirling ; but shortly he fell to the ground and broke his thie-bane ; but the wyte (blame) thereof he ascribed to their beand some hen feathers in the wings, quhilk yarnit, and coveted the myddin and not the skies.' This incident gave rise to Dunbar's satirical ballad entitled, ' Of the Fenyeit Friar of Tungland,' in which the poet exposes in the most sar- castic strain the pretensions of the luckless adventurer, and relates with great humour the result of his attempt to soar into the skies, when he was dragged to the earth by the low-minded propensities of the ' hen feathers,' which he had inadvertently admitted into the construction of his wings. The unsuccessful attempt of the abbot, though, according to Lesley, it subjected him to the ridicule of the whole kingdom, does not appear to have lost him the king's favour, for the Treasurer's books, from October, 1507, to
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August, 1508, repeatedly mention him as having played at dice and cards with his majesty ; and on the 8th of Septem- ber, 1508, ' Damiane, Abbot of Tungland,' obtained the royal permission to pursue his studies abroad during the space of five years. He must have returned to Scotland, however, before the death of James ; and the last notice given to this impostor is quite in character. On the 27th of March, 1513, the sum of twenty pounds was paid to him for his journey to the mine in Crawford Moor, where the king had at that time artisans at work searching for gold." From this reign to that of Mary no magician or alchemical practitioner of note appears to have existed in Scotland, and in the reign of James VI. too great severity was exhibited against such to permit of them avowing them- selves publicly. In James's reign, however, lived the celebrated Alexander Seton (q.v.), of Port Seton near Edin- burgh, known abroad as ' The Cosmopolite ' who is said to have succeeded in achieving the transmutation of metals. L S.
Highlands. — Pagan Scotland appears to have been entirely devoid of benevolent deities. Those representa- tives of the spirit world who were on friendly terms with mankind were either held captive by magic spells, or had some sinister object in view which caused them to act with the most plausible duplicity. The chief demon or deity — one hesitates which to call her — was a one-eyed Hag who had tusks like a wild bear. She is referred to in folk tales as " the old wife " (Cailleach), " Grey Eyebrows " " the Yellow Muitearteach," etc., and reputed to be a great worker of spells. Apparently she figured in a lost creation myth, for fragmentary accounts survive of how she fashioned the hills, brought lochs into existence and caused whirlpools by vengeful operations in the sea. She is a lover of darkness, desolations and winter. With her hammer she alternately splinters mountains, prevents the growth of grass or raises storms. Numerous wild animals follow her, including deer, goats, wild boars. When one of her sons is thwarted in his love affairs by her, he transforms her into a mountain boulder " looking over the sea," a form she retains during the summer. She is liberated again on the approach of winter. During the Spring months the Hag drowns fishermen and preys on the food supply : she also steals children and roasts them in her cave. Her progeny includes a brood of monstrous giants each with several heads and arms. These are continually operating against mankind, throwing down houses, abduct- ing women and destroying growing crops. Heroes who fight against them require the assistance of the witch who is called " Wise Woman," from whom they obtain magic wands. The witch of Scottish folk tales is the " friend of man," and her profession was evidently regarded in ancient times as a highly honourable one. Wizards also enjoyed high repute ; they were the witch-doctors, priests and magicians of the Scottish Pagans, and it was not until the sixteenth century that legal steps were taken, to suppress them in the Highland districts. There was no sun-worship or moon-worship in Scotland ; neither sun nor moon were individualised in the Gaelic language ; these bodies, however were reputed to exercise a magical influence. The moon especially was a " Magic Tank " from which supplies of power were drawn by those capable of performing requsite ceremonies. But although there were no lunar or solar spirits, there were numerous earth and water spirits. The " water wife," like the English " mere wife," was a greatly dreaded being who greedily devoured victims. She must not be confused with the Banshee, that Fate whose chief business it was to foretell disasters, either by washing blood-stained garments or knocking, knocking on a certain boulder beside a river, or in the locality where some great tragedy was impending. The water wife usually con-
fronted a late traveller at a ford. She claimed him as her own and if he disputed her claim, asked what weapons he had to use against her. The unwary one named each in turn, and when he did so the power to harm her passed away. One story of this character runs : " The wife rose up against the smith who rode his horse, and she said, " I have you : what have you against me ? " " My sword," the. man answered. " I have that," she said, " what else ? " " My shield," the man said. " I have that and you are mine." " But," protested the man, " I have something else." "What is that ? " the water wife- demanded. To this question the cautious smith answered, " I have the long, grey, sharp thing at my thigh." This was his dirk, and not having named it, he was able to make use of it. As he spoke he flung his plaid round the water wife and lifted her up on his horse behind him. Enclosed in the magic circle she was powerless to harm Kim, and he -rode home with her, deaf to her entreaties and promises. He took her to his smithy and tied her to the anvil. That night her brood came to release her. They raised a tem- pest and tore the roof off the smithy, but the smith defied them. When day dawned they had to retreat. Then he bargained with the water wife, and she consented if he would release her that neither he nor any of his descendants . should ever be drowned in any three rivers he might name. He named three and received her promise, but as she made her escape she reminded him of a fourth river. " It is mine still," she added. In that particular river the smith himself ultimately perished." To this day fishermen will not name either the fish they desire to procure or those that prey on their catches. Haddocks are " white bellies," salmon " red ones," and the dog-fish " the big black fellow." It is also regarded unlucky to name a minister, or refer to Sunday, in a fishing boat — a fact which suggests that in early Christian times fishermen might be pious churchmen on land but continued to practise paganism when they went to sea, like the Icelandic Norsemen who believed that Christ ruled their island, and Thor the ocean. Fairies must not be named on Fridays or at Hallowe'en, and Beltain (May Day) when charm fires were lit.
Earth worship, or rather the propitiation of earth spirits, was a prominent feature of Scottish paganism. There again magic played a leading role. Compacts were confirmed by swearing over a piece of turf, certain moors or mounds were set apart for ceremonial practices, and these were visited for the performance of child-procuring and other ceremonies which were performed at a standing stone. In cases of sickness a divination cake was baked and left at a sacred place ; if it disappeared during the night, the patient was supposed to recover ; if it remained untouched until the following morning it was believed that the patient would die. This practice is not'yet obsolete. Offerings were constantly made to the earth spirits. In a witch trial recorded in Humbie Kirk Session Register (23rd September, 1649) one Agnes Gourlay is accused of having made offerings of milk, saying, " God betuch ws to ; they are wnder the yird that have as much need of it as they that are above the yird " ; i.e., " God preserve us too ; they are under the earth that have as much need of it as they that are above the earth." The milk poured out upon the earth at magical ceremonies was supposed to go to the fairies. Gruagach stones have not yet entirely van- ished in the Highlands. These are flat stones with deep " cup "' marks. After a cow is milked, the milker pours into a hole the portion of milk required by the Gruagach, a long-haired spirit who is usually " dressed like a gentle- man." If no offering is given to him, the cream will not rise on the milk, and, if it does the churning will be a failure. There are interesting records in the Presbytery records of Dingwall, Ross-shire, regarding the prevalence of
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milk pouring and other ceremonies during the seventeenth century. Among the " abominations " referred to are those for which Gairloch parish continued to be notorious — " frequent approaches to some ruinous chappels and circu- lateing them ; and that future events in reference especiallie to lyfe and death, in takeing of Journeyes, was exspect to be manifested by a holl (hole) of a round stone quherein (wherein) they tryed the entering of their heade, which (if they) could doe, to witt, be able to put in their heade, they exspect thair returning to that place, and failing they considered it ominous." Objection was also taken by the horrified Presbytery to " their adoring of wells and super- stitious monuments and stones," and to the " sacrifice of bulls at a certaine tyme uppon the 25 of August " and to ■' pouring milk upon hills as oblationes."
The seer was usually wrapped in the skin of a sacrificed bull and left lying all night beside a river. He was visited by supernatural beings in the darkness and obtained answers regarding future events. Another way to perform this divination ceremony was to roast a live cat. The cat was turned on a spit until the " Big Cat " (the devil) appeared and either granted the wish of the performer of the ceremony, or foretold what was to take place in answer to a query. At the present day there are many surviving beliefs regarding witchcraft, fairies, the evil eye, second sight and magical charms to cure or injure.
Individuals, domesticated animals and dwellings are charmed against witchcraft by iron and certain herbs or berries. The evil eye influence is dispelled by drinking " water of silver " from a wooden bowl or ladle. The water is taken from a river or well of high repute ; silver is placed in it ; then a charm is repeated, and when it has been passed over a fire, the victim is given to drink and what remains is sprinkled round the hearth-stone with ceremony which varies in districts. Curative charms are handed down in families from a male to a female and a female to a male. Blood-stopping charms are still re- garded with great sanctity and the most persistent col- lectors have been unable to obtain them from those who are reported to be able to use these with effect. Accounts are still given of " blood-stopping " from a distance. Although the possessor of the power has usually a traditional charm, he or she rarely uses it without praying also. Some Highland doctors bear testimony in private to the wonder- ful effects of " blood-stopping " operations. A few years ago a medical officer of Inverness-shire stated in his official report to the County Council that he was watching with interest the operations of " King's Evil Curers " who still enjoy great repute in the Western Isles. These are usually " seventh sons." " Second-sight," like the power to cure and stop blood, runs in families. There is not a parish in the Scottish Highlands without its family in which one or more individuals are reputed to have occult powers. Some have visions either while awake or asleep. Others hear ominous sounds on occasions and are able to under- stand what they signify. Certain individuals confess, but with no appreciation of the faculty, that they are sometimes, not always, able to foretell that a person is likely to die ere long. Two instances of this kind may be given. A younger brother caught a chill. When an elder brother visited him he knew at once the young man would die soon, and communicated a statement to that effect to a mutual friend. According to medical opinion the patient who was not confined to bed, was in no danger, but three months afterwards he developed serious symptoms and died suddenly. When intelligence of the death was communicated to the elder brother he had a temporary illness. The same individual met a gentleman in a friend's house and had a similar experience : he " felt " he could not explain how, that this man was near death. On two
occasions within the following week he questioned the gentleman's daughter regarding her father's health and was informed that he was " as usual." The daughter was surprised at the inquiries. Two days after this meeting the gentleman in question expired suddenly while sitting in his chair. Again the individual, on hearing of the death, had a brief but distressing illness, with symptoms usually associated with shock. The mother of this man has a similar faculty. On several occasions she has seen lights. One day during the Boer War an officer passing her door bade her good-bye as he had been ordered to South Africa. She said, " He will either be slain or come back deformed," and turned ill immediately. A few months afterwards the officer was wounded in the lower jaw with a bullet and returned home with his face much deformed.
The " Second-sight " faculty manifests itself in various ways, as these instances show, and evidence that it is possessed by individuals may occur only once or twice in a lifetime. There are cases, however, in which it is con- stantly active. Those who are reputed to have the faculty are most reticent regarding it, and appear to dread it. At the close of the nineteenth century tow-charms to cure sprains and bruises were sold in a well-known Highland town by a woman who muttered a metrical spell over each magic knot she tied as the afflicted part was treated by her. She had numerous patients among all classes. Bone- setters still enjoy high repute in localities : not many years ago a public presentation was made to a Ross-shire bone-setter in recognition of his life-long services to the community. His faculty was inherited from his for- bears.
Numerous instances may be gleaned in the Highlands of the appearance of the spirits of the living and the dead. The appearance of the spirit of a living person is said to be a sure indication of the approaching death of that individual. It is never seen by a member of the family, but appears to intimate friends. Sometimes it speaks and gives indication of the fate of some other mutual acquain- tance. Donald Mackenzie. Scott, David and William Eell : These brothers, of whom David is by far the more important, certainly deserve a place in this volume, Born at Edinburgh in 1777, David lived a comparatively uneventful life, his lofty gifts being quite unrecognised by his contemporaries, and his death in 1849 being hastened in some degree by this persistent neglect. Nowadays, however, connoisseurs in Scotland are beginning to appreciate him, perceiving in his output technical merits far transcending those of Raeburn himself ; while people who care for art dealing with the supernatural are coming to see, slowly but surely, that Scott's Paracelsus and Vasco de Gama are in the forefront of work of this kind ; and that his beautiful drawings for The Ancient Mariner render the very spirit of Coleridge, the arch-mystic, render it with a skill unsurpassed in any previous or subsequent illustrations to the poem.
William Bell Scott was also a native of Edinburgh, being born there in 181 1, and his career was very different from David's, for he won worldly success from the first, and ere his death in 1890 he had received many laurels. Etching some of his brother's works, and painting a host of pictures, he was also a voluminous writer ; and his Autobiography contains some really valuable comments on the mystic symbolism permeating the painting of the middle-ages, and embodies also a shrewd and interesting account of Rossetti's essays in table-turning and kindred practices. Moreover, William Bell's poems are almost all of a meta- physical order ; and though it is extravagant to call him " the Scottish Blake," as many people have done, his mystical verse undoubtedly reflects a certain " meditative beauty," as Fiona Macleod once wrote on the subject.
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Scott or Scot, Miehael: Scottish Astrologer and Magician (1175-1234). Though Michael Scott's life is wrapped in obscurity his name is rather a familiar one, various causes having brought this about. In the first place, Dante refer to him in his Inferno, speaking of him as one singularly skilled in magical arts ; while he is also mentioned by Boccaccio, who hails him as among the greatest masters of necromancy. Moreover, Coleridge projected a drama dealing with Michael, whom he asserted was a much more interesting personality than Faustus ; and then there is a novel about him by Allan Cunningham, while, above all, he figures i,n The Lay of the Last Minstrel. And Sir Walter Scott, no very careful antiquarian, identifies the astrologer with one Sir Michael Scott of Balwearie, who, along with Sir David Wemyss of Wemyss, went to bring the Maid of Norway to Scotland in 1290 ; but this identification is manifestly wrong, for in a poem by Vincent de Beauvais published so early as 1235, Michael is mentioned as lately deceased. Of course this does not vitiate the idea that he emanated from the family of Balwearie, whose estates were situate near Kirkcaldy, in Fife ; and it is almost certain indeed, that he was a man of gentle birth, it being recorded that he studied at Oxford university, where it is improbable he would have gone had his parents not been in compara- tively affluent circumstances. When his Oxonian days were over Michael proceeded to the Sorbonne at Paris, where he acquired the title of mathematicus ; and from the French capital he wandered on to Bologna, in those days famous as a seat of learning. He did not tarry here for long, however, but went to Palermo ; while subsequently he settled for a while at Toledo, for he was anxious to study Arabic, and that town afforded good facilities therefor. He appears to have been successful with these studies, master- ing the intricacies of the Arabic tongue thoroughly ; yet there was nothing to induce him to continue in Spain, and accordingly he went to Sicily, where he became attached to the court of Ferdinand II., probably in the capacity of state-astrologer. At least, he is so designated in an early manuscript copy, now in the Bodleian Library, of his book on astronomy ; yet it is clear that, at some time or other, Michael had espoused holy orders. For in 1223 the Pope, Honorius III., wrote to the Archbishop of Canterbury, urging him to procure an English benefice for Scott, while it appears that in the following year the Archbishopric of Cashel in Ireland was offered to him, and that he declined this on account of his total ignorance of the Erse language. This refusal to take a post for which he was unsuited reflects great credit on him, and it is patent that he was highly esteemed at the Vatican, for in 1227 Gregory IX., successor of Honorius, made further overtures to the English primate on behalf of Michael ; and, whether these proved fruitful or not, according to Roger Bacon the necromancer came to England in 1230, bringing with him the works of Aristotle — at that date virtually unknown in this country — and contriving to give them a certain popu- larity amongst scholars.
It is reasonable to suppose that Michael, having come to England, also paid a visit to his native Scotland. And, though no documentary evidence is forthcoming to support this theory, local tradition at Melrose contends that the astrologer came to that town in his old age, and that he died there and was buried somewhere in the neighbourhood. Various other places in the Borders likewise claim this distinction, and Sir Walter Scott tells that, throughout the south of Scotland, " any great work of great labour or antiquity is ascribed either to Auld Michael, Sir William Wallace, or the Devil." One popular story about the necromancer maintains that he used to ride through the air on a demon horse, and another that he was wont to sail the seas on the back of some fabulous animal ; while yet a
further legend recounts that he went as Scottish envoy to the king of France, and that the first stamp of his black steed's horse rang the bells of Notre Dame, whereupon his most Christian majesty granted the messenger all he desired. As regards the writings of Michael, he is credited with a translation of Aristotle's De Animalibus, but the ascription is not very well founded. However, it is almost certain that he wrote Qumsto Curiosa de Natura Solis et Lunae, which is included in the Theatrum Chemicum ; while he was undoubtedly author of Mensa Philosophica, published at Frankfort in 1602 ; and also of Liber Physiognomies Magistri Michaelis Scot, a book which was reprinted nearly twenty times, and was translated into various languages. Reference has already been made to a manuscript in the Bodleian Library attributed to Michael, and it behoves to add here that at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, at the Vatican and at the Sorbonne, there are further documents purporting to have been penned by the astrologer himself, to have been written at his dictation, or to have been copied out by scribes soon after the actual author's decease.
Screech Owl : The cry of the screech owl at midnight is said to portend evil.
Sea Phantoms and Superstitions : Sailors as a class are invariably superstitious, while their predilection herein is shared in general by fishermen, and others who dwell by the marge of the great deep. The old songs of the outer Hebrides are full of wizardry, and this figures too in many a chanty composed by bygone seamen ; while Captain Marryat, a writer who understood sailors as few others have done, testified repeatedly to their firm belief in the supernatural. Nor is he the only author who has dealt with this, for, not to mention less notable names, Coleridge touched on the matter in his poem of the Ancient Mariner ; while turning from literature to painting, that exquisite Scottish master David Scott, in a memorable canvas now domiciled in the seaport town of Leith, shows Vasco de Gama and his henchmen gazing thunderstruck at an apparition rising from the waves. And it is scarcely sur- prising, after all, that credulity, in this relation should be a salient characteristic of sailors, the mere fact that they live in constant danger of sudden death constituting a good explanation and apology. In the duchy of Cornwall, so rich in romantic associations of all sorts, quite a number of stories concerning marine spectres have been handed down from generation to generation, and are current and even popular to this day. One of these stories relates how, on a winter's evening when a fierce gale was raging round the Cornish headlands, a fisherman chanced to see a ship in distress ; and away the man hastened at once, calling on some of his fellows to come and aid him in the work of rescuing the perishing. In a few minutes a rowing boat had been manned, for Cornish fisherfolk are accustomed to go afloat in all weathers and to face the peril of drowinng while very soon the gallant rescuers were almost within earshot of the distressed vessel, and could see her name clearly on the stern. They thought to jump on board, their idea being that, were the ship blest with a skilful pilot acquainted with the dangers of the coast, she might be steered safely into Falmouth harbour ; but, just as one of the fishermen stood up in the prow of the boat with intent to throw a rope, the great vessel looming before him dis- appeared from sight altogether. She could not have sunk, for had that been her fate, some relics thereof must certainly have survived upon the seething foam and billows ; and, vowing that the devil had conjured up a phantom to induce them to put out to sea, the rowers put their boat about speedily, and pulled for home with might and main. One and all, they were more afraid of the evil one's machinations than of the more genuine perils they were encountering ; and an analogous, but more reasonable form of credulity on the part of the Cornish fisherfolk is instanced by another
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of their traditions, one associated with the village of Sennen Cove. This place is situate at the head of a bay flanked by two mighty capes. Sometimes a band of misty vapour stretches right across the bay, obscuring the villagers' outlook towards the sea beyond ; and whenever this occurs the fisherfolk regard it with awe, believing that it warns them not to put out in their boats. At one time, so it is recorded in the neighbourhood, Sennen Cove numbered among its inhabitants a group of doughty spirits who, wont to laugh at this superstition, were minded to demonstrate its absurdity ; and accordingly, when the warning band of vapour next made its appearance, they sailed oft singing gaily. But their boat never returned, their fate remained a mystery ; and in fine they contrived to strengthen rather than weaken the belief they had ridiculed.
Scotland also has her stories of phantom barques. Near Ballachulish, on the west coast of Argyllshire, there is a rocky island on which the Macdonalds of Glencoe were wont to bury their honoured and laurelled dead ; and the lore of the district tells that once, some hundreds of years ago, a skiff bearing a beloved chieftain's corpse to this place of interment foundered ere reaching its destination. A -horrible thing was this thought the Macdonalds, a horrible thing that the father of the clan should be swept from sea to sea, and be denied a resting-place beside his ancestors ; while anon it appeared as though the affair had verily been contrived by supernatural agency, for invariably, just before any misfortune overtook the tribe of Macdonald, the wrecked skiff was seen drifting about the sea, its dead oarsman clinging to it, and a coffin floating in its wake. Only too often this weird vision appeared, and it is said that, on the eve of the massacre of Glencoe, the spectre boat bore a crew of ghostly female mourners who sang a loud coronach, their wails reverberating far among the neighbouring mountains.
Another Highland story contends that a large ship, wrecked off the coast of Ross at the time of the first trans- portation of Celts to Canada, still rises occasionally from the waves which erstwhile claimed it as their prey, and, after sailing gallantly for a few minutes, suddenly lurches and sinks beneath the ocean ; while dwellers by the shores of the Solway tell how a certain craft, which went down there while conveying a gay bridal party towards Stran- raer, is frequently seen driving at full speed before the gale, the bride and bridegroom clinging to the rigging as though in terror of immediate death by drowning. Nor is this the only phantom wherein the Solway rejoices, for that proverbially treacherous firth, round which Sir Walter Scott has cast so potent a halo of romance in Redgauntlet, witnessed once upon a time the foundering of two Scan- dinavian pirate-vessels, and these are said to rise periodi- cally from the water, the fierce and murderous crew of each calling the while for the mercy wnich they themselves never accorded their victims.
Bidding adieu to British legends, and looking further afield, we find that religion plays a prominent part in stories of spectre ships. At Boulogne, for example, there is a tradition to the effect that on one occasion, at a remote date in the middle ages, the townspeople were desirous of building a church, for at this time they were without any public place of worship ; but, anxious as they were to choose a site which the Almighty would approve, they found it difficult to come to a decision on this fiead, every- one suggesting a different place. Finally, in despair, a body of them assembled on the beach, intending to offer up prayer for a solution to the problem ; and while they were engaged thus they happened to look out to sea, when lo ! a vessel was seen sailing towards them, the sacred Virgin herself on board. Standing erect in the bows, she pointed with her hand in a certain direction ; and the devout
people realised at once that their petition had been answered whereupon the mysterious phantom vanished as quickly as it had come. Another French spectre-ship, however, was wont to remain in sight for longer periods, while its appearance invariably struck terror into the hearts of all who beheld it. Small wonder too, the vessel being manned by a crew of demons and great dogs — the perjured souls of men who had been guilty of fearful crimes ; yet the pious knew that in reality they had little to fear, the priests having told them that the repetition of a paternoster was adamantine proof against molestations from the hideous visi6n. Somewhat akin to this story is one associated with Venice, where, one stormy evening about the middle of the fourteenth century, a fisherman was requested to row three saints to a neighbouring village on the Adriatic ; and, after bending to his oars for a while, he suddenly stopped and gazed as though petrified, a galley filled with swarthy Saracens having risen beside his boat. The oars- man vowed he would put back with all speed, but his godly passengers bade him be of good cheer, and while they sang an ave maria the ominous galley was submerged by the hungry waves. So the fisherman rowed forward and reached his haven, the three saints rewarded him with a present of a gold ring, and that is why that article figures in the old coat-of-arms of the Venetian Republic.
Go where we will, to countries fringed or intersected by the sea, we find stories like this, or something like it. In Japan there are tales of phantom junks, and the Chinaman still paints a pair of great eyes on the prow of his craft, thinking that these will detect any monsters which chance to be prowling afloat ; while even on the coasts of America, usually considered so very prosaic a land, traditions anent spectral vessels prevail to this day. Kindred stories are known in the Ionian Islands, and the folk-lore of Shetland embodies a wealth of matter of this sort ; while round about the serried coast of Denmark, and the windswept fiords of Norway, many a phantom barque is supposed to hover ; and indeed it was on the North Sea that the most famous of all supernatural ships was wont to sail, the ship known to us as '■ The Flying Dutchman," and to the Germans as " Der Fliegende Hollander." A sailor, so goes the romance, had loved a maiden not wisely but too well, and having wronged her he grew weary of the liaison, left his sweetheart to languish, and put forth on the high seas where he committed many flagrant acts of piracy. But he was not to go unrequited, and the fates condemned him to sail wearily and everlastingly from shore to shore, this punishment to be endured till he should contrive to win the staunch affection of a virtuous woman and prove faithful to her. So the wayfarer's barque was driven hither and thither, the guilty man longed to tread solid ground once more ; but whenever he dared to put in to port, and commenced paying addresses to one whom he thought might be able to save him, the devil soon placed him on board ship again, and his interminable voyage com- menced afresh. Century after century went past in this fashion, the ill-starred barque gradually becoming familiar to all who sailed upon the grey North Sea, or dwelt by its shores ; and the legend was not destined to dwindle away before the onslaughts of incoming cilivisation, for betimes a great artist arose to give a new and more genuine immor- tality to the story. Yes ! Richard Wagner evolved from it a mighty drama ; and sometimes, as we listen to his music — charged so abundantly with the weirdness, mystery and glamour of the surging ocean — we can verily picture the Dutchman's craft driving before a fearsome gale, and see the criminal sitting terror-struck and hopeless at his useless helm.
Seal of Solomon : (See Magic.)
Seance : A sitting held for the purpose of communicating with the dead, an essential requirement being that at least
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one member of the company be possessed of mediumistic powers. (See Medium.) Antiquity furnishes many exam- ples of what may be called " seances " — e.g., Saul's con- sultation with the Witch of Endor — but the term is generally used only in connection with modern spiritualism. When, in 1848, the Fox family at Hydesville called in their neigh- bours to listen to the mysterious sounds which have since become famous as the " Rochester Rappings," the gather- ing was too informal to be called a seance, though all the necessary elements were present ; but within the next two or three years the contagion spread throughout a large part of the eastern states, many " circles " (q.v.) were formed, and the phenomena which was in the first instance appar- ently spontaneous was now deliberately induced. In the early stages of the movement these seances were conducted by private mediums, who took no fee for their performances, but later professional mediums arose whose seances were open to the public on the payment of a fee. Both public and private seances continued, and still continue, to be an indispensable feature of spiritualism.
Besides the presence of a medium there are other con- ditions which must be observed if the seance is to be pro- ductive of phenomena. The chief of these is, perhaps, the darkness or semi-darkness of the seance-room, though this is by no means an invariable condition. The reason given by spiritualists is that light interferes with the manifesta- tions of the spirits, though a less charitable construction is sometimes put upon the insistent demand for darkness. Sometimes the actual seance is preceded by playing or singing, a proceeding which one of Home's sitters states " always gave us a good seance." That this playing and singing was not without its purpose we may readily infer, for a state of expectancy and increased receptivity might easily be induced thereby, and it may be recalled, en passant, that D'Eslon and other disciples • of Mesraer enjoined their patients to sing, or had some instrument played while the patients were seated around the baquet, or magnetic tub. To return to the seance ; the sitters take their places around a table and join hands, thus forming a " chain." The Baron de Guldenstubbe, in giving directions for the forming of -a circle and the conducting of a seance, says : "In order to form a chain, the twelve persons each place their right hand on the table and their left hand on that of their neighbour, thus making a circle round the table. Observe that the medium or mediums, if there be more than one, are entirely isolated from those who form the chain." Dr. Lapponi, in his Hypnotism and Spiritism, says : " He (the medium) then invites some of his assistants to place their hands on the table in the following manner. The two thumbs of each person are to be touching each other, and each little finger is to be in communication with the little fingers of the persons on either side. He himself completes the chain with his two hands. The hands of all together rest on the edge of the table." Some- times, again, as in the seances for table-turning and talking, the chain is formed simply by all the operators placing their finger-tips on the table. When the spirits have announced their presence by raps, tilting of the table, and so on, the chain may or may not be broken, but so long as it remains unbroken the sitters are entirely at the mercy of the spirits. The phenomena which are thereafter witnessed are so diverse and varied that scarcely any account of a seance precisely matches another in detail, yet undoubtedlytheyall belong to certain well-defined classes. In the sphere of " physical " phenomena we have the movements of furni- ture, beginning with the table round which the members of the circle are seated, and affecting, perhaps, all the furniture in the room. These antics of inanimate objects in the seance-room are often practically identical with the spontaneous outbreaks of the poltergeist. Then there are
the levitations (q.v.) both of the human body and of furniture and inanimate things. We are told of heavy wardrobes being raised to the ceiling without visible agency, and of several mediums floating upwards in like manner. Elongation (q.v.) is another phenomenon of the seance- room, an increase or apparent increase, of from a few inches to a foot taking place in the medium's height.' Locked doors and cupboards are opened without keys, and with- out any trace of violence. Apports (q.v.) of small objects — flowers, fruit, jewels, anything, in fact — are brought from a distance through closed doors and barred windows, or abstracted in mysterious fashion from sealed boxes. Inanimate things show in their actions an almost human intelligence. Heavy objects become light enough to be raised by the touch of a finger, light articles become so weighty that the combined force of all present will not suffice to lift them. The medium can hold live coals in his hand, or in his handkerchief, without either being burned. Instruments are played upon when no visible hand is near them, or music is produced from the empty air without any instruments at all. Luminous hands and faces float in the air, sometimes recognised by the sitters as belonging to deceased friends and relatives, and touchings and caresses are felt. A breeze suddenly springs up in the seance-room — though the doors and windows are still closed — and curtains and the clothes of the sitters are inflated. If the seance is an especially successful one, complete spirit forms may be materialised. If the latter manifestation is to be asked for, a small cabinet is usually provided, into which the medium retires. Soon afterwards the filmy spirit form or forms are seen to issue from the cabinet, and in them the sitters frequently behold lost friends or relatives. The spirit forms will move about the room, allow themselves to be touched, and will, on occasion, even converse with their friends in the flesh, and give away locks of their hair and fragments of their clothing. Again, the materialisation may take place in the open, a small luminous cloud being . first perceived, which gradually developes into a complete human figure ; or, as has been known to happen, the spirit may seem to issue from the medium's side, and remain united to him by a gossamer filament. In most cases the head and chin are shrouded in white draperies, only a portion of the face being visible. (See Materialisation.)
The automatic or " psychical " phenomena are of a different nature. Certain manifestations, such as table- tiltings (q.v.), rapping (q.v.), and slate-writing (q.v.), where the communication does not apparently come through the medium's organism, partake of the character of both "physical" and '' psychical " phenomena. Purely " psy- chical " manifestations are the automatic writing and speaking of the medium. Sometimes the latter fails spontaneously into a trance, and delivers spirit messages while in that state, or the medium may remain to all appear- ances in a normal condition. Not only writings and utter- ances, but drawings and musical compositions may be pro- duced automatically, and though automatism of this sort is by no means confined to the seance-room it still plays a large part therein, and is espeically in favour with the more serious-minded spiritualists, to whom communications from the spirit- world are of greater importance than the tricks of household furniture.
A representative account of one of the seances of D. D. Home (q.v.), is given by H. D. Jencken in Human Nature, February, 1867, as follows :
" Mr. Home had passed into the trance still so oftea witnessed, rising from his seat, he laid hold of an armchair, which he held at arms' length, and was then lifted about three feet clear of the ground ; travelling thus suspended in space, he placed the chair next Lord Adare, and made a circuit round those in the room, being lowered and raised as
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he passed each of us. One of those present measured the elevation, and passed his leg and arm under Mr. Home's feet. The elevation lasted from four to five minutes. On resuming his seat, Mr. Home addressed Captain Wynne, communicating news to him of which the departed alone ■could have been cognisant.
" The spirit form that had been seen reclining on the sofa, now stepped up to Mr. Home and mesmerised him ; a hand was then seen luminously visible over his head, about 18 inches in a vertical line from his head. The trance •state of Mr. Home now assumed a different character ; gently rising he spoke , a few words to those present, and then opening the door proceeded into the corridor ; a voice then said :— ' He will go out of this window and come in at that window.' The only one who heard the voice was the Master of Lindsay, and a cold shudder seized upon him as he contemplated the possibility of this occur- ring, a feat which the great height of the third floor windows in Ashley Place rendered more than ordinarily perilous. The others present, however, having closely questioned him as to what he had heard, he at first replied, ' I dare not tell you,' when, to the amazement of all, a voice said, ' You must tell ; tell directly.' The Master then said, ' Yes ; yes, terrible to say, he will go out at that window and come in at this ; do not be frightened, be quiet.' Mr. Home now re-entered the room, and opening the drawing-room window, was pushed out demi-horizontally into space, and carried, from one window of the drawing-room to the -farthermost window of the adjoining room. This feat being performed at a height of about sixty feet from the ground, naturally caused a shudder in all present. The body of Mr. Home, when it appeared at the window of the adjoining room, was shunted into the room feet foremost— the window being only 18 inches open. As soon as he had recovered his footing he laughed and said, ' I wonder what a policeman would have said had he seen me go round and round like a teetotum ! ' The scene was, however, too terrible — too strange, to elicit a smile ; cold beads of per- spiration stood on every brow, while a feeling pervaded all as if some great danger had passed ; the nerves of those present had been kept in a state of tension that refused to respond to a joke. A change now passed over Mr. Home, one often observable during the trance states, indicative, no doubt, of some other power operating on his system. Lord Adare had in i.he meantime stepped up to the open window in the adjoining room to close it — the cold air, as it came pouring in, chilling the room ; when, to his surprise, he -only found the window 18 to 24 inches open ! This puzzled him, for how could Mr. Home have passed outside through a window only 18 to 24 inches open. Mr. Home, however soon set his doubts at rest ; stepping up to Lord Adare he said, ' No, no ; I did not close the window ; I passed thus into the air outside.' An invisible power then supported Mr. Home all but horizontally in space, and thrust his body into space through the open window, head-foremost, bring- ing him back again feet foremost into the room, shunted not unlike a shutter into a basement below. The circle round the table having re-formed, a cold current of air passed over those present, like the rushing of winds. This repeated itself -several times. The cold blast of air, or electric fluid, or -call it what you may, was accompanied by a loud whistle like a gust of wind on the mountain top, or through the leaves of the forest in late autumn ; the sound was deep, sonorous, and powerful in the extreme, and a shudder kept passing over those present, who all heard and felt it. This -rushing sound lasted quite ten minutes, in broken intervals •of one or two minutes. AH present were much surprised ; and the interest became intensified by the unknown tongues in which Mr. Home now conversed. Passing irom one language to another in rapid succes-
sion, he spoke for ten minutes in unknown languages. " A spirit form now became distinctly visible ; it stood next to the Master of Lindsay, clad, as seen on former occasions, in a long robe with a girdle, the feet scarcely touching the ground, the outline of the face only clear, and the tones of the voice, though sufficiently distinct to be understood, whispered rather than spoken. Other voices were now heard, and large globes of phosphorescent lights passed slowly through the room."
The following extract is taken from an account of a seance held by Professor Lombroso with the famous Italian medium, Eusapia Paladino.
" After a rather long wait the table began to move, slowly at first, — a matter explained by the scepticism, not to say the positively hostile spirit, of those who were this night in a seance circle for the first time. Then little by little, the movements increased in intensity. M. Lombroso proved the levitation of the table, and estimated at twelve or fifteen pounds the resistance to the pressure which he had to make with his hands in order to overcome that levitation. " This phenomenon of a heavy body sustained in the air, off its centre of gravity and resisting a pressure of twelve or fifteen pounds, very much surprised and aston- ished the learned gentleman, who attributed it to the action of an unknown magnetic force.
" At my request, taps and scratchings were heard in the table. This was a new cause for astonishment, and led the gentlemen to themselves call for the putting out of the candles in order to ascertain whether the intensity of the noises would be increased, as had been stated. All re- mained seated and in contact.
" In a dim light which did not hinder the most careful surveillance, violent blows were first heard at the middle point of the table. Then a bell placed upon a round table, at a distance of a yard to the left of .the medium (in such a way that she was placed behind and to the right of M. Lombroso), rose into the air, and went tinkling over the heads of the company, describing a circle around our table where it finally came to rest."
At this seance members of the company also felt themselve pinched and their clothes plucked, and experienced the touchings of invisible hands on their faces and fingers. The accuracy of the account — written by M. Ciolfi — was testified to by Professor Lombroso himself. M. J.
Second Sight : The faculty of foreseeing future events which is supposed to belong to certain individuals in the Scottish Highlands. The belief in second sight dates back to a very early period in the history of these regions, and is still very far from being extinct, even in the more accessible parts. Saving the name, there is but little in second sight that is peculiar to the Celts of Scotland, for it is allied to the clairvoyance, prophetic vision, soothsaying, and so on, which have existed from time immemorial in practically every part of the world. Yet the second sight has certain distinctive features of its own. It may, for instance, be either congenital or acquired. In the former case it generally falls to the seventh son of a seventh son, by reason, probably, of the potency of the mystic number seven. Sometimes a Highlander may find himself suddenly endowed with the mysterious faculty. A person gifted with second sight is said to be " fey." Generally there is no apparent departure from the normal consciousness during the vision, though sometimes a seer may complain of a feeling of disquiet or uneasiness. A vision may be communicated from one person to another, usually by contact, but the secondary vision is dimmer than that of the original seer. A frequent vision is that of a funeral, indicating that a death will shortly take place in the community. This is an instance of the second sight taking a symbolical turn, and perhaps this is its usual form.
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Occasionally the apparition of the doomed man will be seen — his wraith, or double — while he himself is far distant. Another form frequently taken by the second sight is that of " seeing lights." The lights, too, may indicate death, but they may likewise predict lesser happenings, or have no significance at all. Thus a light is seen by two persons to hover above the " Big House," then to travel swiftly in the direction of the gamekeeper's cottage, where it remains stationary for a while. On the morrow the gamekeeper is dead. Again a farmer returning from the market is pre- ceded the whole of the way by a ball of fire, rolling along the road ahead of him. This time, however, the light portends no alarming occurrence, and the excitement of the glen quickly subsides. The lower animals also are said to possess second sight, which is especially frequent among dogs and horses. Two men were travelling from Easdale to Oban on a stormy night. In traversing a short cut through a wood one of them died from fatigue and exposure. That night more than one horse had to be carefully led past the spot by his driver, who as yet knew nothing of the tragedy. Indeed most Highlanders believe that the faculty is common to all the lower animals, else why should they whine and bristle when there is nothing visible to human eyes, nothing audible to human ears ? Notwithstanding that the march of civilisation has caused the Highlander partly to conceal his occult beliefs, at least from the unbe- lieving Sassenach, the writer can vouch for the fact that in certain districts second sight is almost a commonplace, believed in even by those who avow that they are not in the least " superstitious." M. J.
Secret Commonwealth of Elves : {See Scotland.)
Secret Fire : Described by Philostratus as issuing from a basin in a well on the hill Athanor. A blue vapour rises from the well, changing into all the colours of the rainbow. The bottom is strewn with red arsenic ; on it is the basin full of fire, and from it rises flame without smell or smoke. Two stone reservoirs are beside it, one containing rain, the other wind.
Secret of Secrets : (See Kabala.)
Secret Tradition : It has long been an article of faith with students of occultism that the secret tenets of the various sciences embraced within it have been preserved to modern times by a series of adepts, who have handed them down from generation to generation in their entirety. There is no reason to doubt this belief, but that the adepts in question existed in one unbroken line, and that they all professed similar principles is somewhat improbable. But one thing is fairly certain, and that is, that proficiency in any one of the occult sciences requires tuition from a master of that branch. All serious writers on the subject are at one as regards this. It is likely that in neolithic times societies existed among our barbarian ancestors, similar in character to the Midiwiwin of the North-American Indians, the snake-dancers of the Hopi of New Mexico, or the numerous secret societies of aboriginal Australians. This is inferred from the certainty that totemism existed amongst neolithic peoples. Hierophantic castes would naturally hand down the tradition of the secret things of the Society from one generation to another. The early mysteries of Egypt, Eleusis, Samothrace, Cabiri, and so forth were merely the elaboration of such savage mysteries. There would appear to have been throughout the ages, what might be called, a fusion of occult beliefs : that when the*hierophants of one system found themselves in juxtaposition, or even in conflict, with the professors of another, the systems in question appear to have received much from one another. It has been said that when the ancient mysteries are spoken about, it should be understood thatone and the same series of sacred ceremonies is intended, one and the same initiatory processes and revelations, and
that what is true of one applies with equal certainty to all the others. Thus Strabo records that the strange orgies in honour of the mystic birth of Jupiter resembled those of Bacchus, Ceres and Cybele ; and the Orphic poems identi- fied the orgies of Bacchus with those of Ceres, Rhea, Venus and Isis. Euripides also mentions that the rites of Cybele are celebrated in Asia Minor in an identical manner with the Grecians mysteries of Dionysius and the Cretan rites of the Cabiri. The Rev. Geo. Oliver in his History of Initiation affirms that the rites of the science which is now received under the appellation of Freemasonry were exercised in the antediluvian world, received by Noah after the Flood, practised by man at the building of Babel, conveniences for which were undoubtedly contained in- that edifice, and at the dispersion spread with every settlement already deteriorated by the gradual innova- tions of the Cabiric priests, and moulded into a form, the great outlines of which are distinctly to be traced in the mysteries of every heathen nation, and exhibit shattered remains of the one true system, whence they were derived. This theory is of course totally mischievous, and although there may have been likenesses between the rites of certain societies, the idea that all sprang from one common source is absurd. One thing, however, is fairly certain : anthrop- ology permits us to believe that the concepts of man, religious and mystical, are practically identical in whatever part of the world he may exist, and there is every possibility that the similarity between early mysteries results in this man- ner, and that it brought about a strong resemblance between, the mystical systems of the older world. We have satis- factory evidence that the ancient mysteries were recepta- cles of a great deal of occult wisdom, symbolism, magical or semi-magical rite, and mystical practice in general ; and we are pretty well assured that when these fell into desue- tude among the more intellectual classes of the various countries in which they obtained, they were taken up and practised in secret by the lesser ranks of society, even the lowest ranks, who are in all ages the most conservative, and who clung faithfully to the ancient systems, refusing to- partake in the rites of the religions which had ousted them. The same can be posited of magical practice. The princi- ples of magic are universal, and there can be no reason to doubt that these were handed on throughout the long cen- turies by hereditary castes of priests, shamans, medicine- men, magicians, sorcerers, and witches. But the same evidence does not exist with regard to the higher magic, concerning which much more difficult questions arise. Was this handed on by means of secret societies, occult schools or universities, or from adept to adept ? We speak not of the sorceries of empirics and savages, but of that spiritual magic which, taken in its best sense, shades into mysticism. The schools of Salamanca, the mystic colleges of Alexandria, could not impart the great truths of this science to their disciples : its nature is such that com- munication by lecture would be worse than useless- It is necessary to suppose then that it was imparted by one adept to another. But it is not likely that it arose at a very early period in the history of man. In his early psychological state he would not require it ; and we see no reason for belief that its professors came into existence at an earlier period than some three or four thousand years B.C. " The undisturbed nature of Egyptian and Babylonian civilisation leads to the belief that these countries brought forth a long series of adepts in the higher magic. We know- that Alexandria fell heir to the works of these men, but it is unlikely that their teachings were publicly disseminated in her public schools. Individuals of high magical stand- ing would however be in possession of the occult knowledge of ancient Egypt, and that they imparted this to the Greeks of Alexandria is certain. Later Hellenic and Byzantine
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magical theory is distinctly Egyptian in character, and we know that its esoteric forms were disseminated in Europe at a comparatively early date, and that they placed all other native systems in the background, where they were pursued in the shadow by the aboriginal witch and sorcerer. We have thus outlined the genealogy of the higher magic from early Egyptian times to the European mediaeval period. Regarding alchemy, the evidence from analogy is much more sure, and the same may be said as regards astrology. These are sciences in which it is peculiarly necessary to obtain the assistance of an adept if any excellence is to be gained in their practice ; and we know that the first originated in Egypt, and the second in ancient Babylon. We are not aware of the names of those early adepts who carried the sciences forward until the days of Alexandria, but subsequent to that period the identity of practically every alchemical and astrological practitioner of any note is fully known. In the history of no science is the sequence of its professors so clear as is the case in alchemy, and the same might almost be said as regards astrology, whose protagonists, if they have not been so famous, have at least been equally conscientious. We must pass over in our consideration of the manner in which occult science survived, the absurd legends which presume to state how such societies as the Freemasons existed from antediluvian times ; and will content ourselves with stating that the probabilities are that in the case of mystical brotherhoods a long line of these existed from early times, the traditions of which were practically similar. Many persons would be members of several of these, and would import the con- ceptions of one society into the heart of another, as we know Rosicrucian ideas were imported into Masonry. - {See Freemasonry.) We seem to see in the mystic societies of the middle ages reflections of the older Egyptian and classical mysteries, and there is nothing absurd in the theory that the spirit and in some instances even the letter of these descended to mediaeval and perhaps to present times. Such organisations die much harder than any credit is given them for doing. We know, for example, that Freemasonry was revolutionised at one part of its career, about the middle of the seventeenth century, by an influx of alchemists and astrologers, who crowded out the operative members, and who strengthened the mystical position of the brotherhood, and it is surely reasonable to suppose that on the fall or desuetude of the ancient myster- ies, their disciples, looking eagerly for some method of saving their cults from entire extinction, would join the ranks of some similar society, or would keep alive the flame in secret ; but the fact remains that the occult idea was undoubtedly preserved through the ages, that it was the same in essence amongst the believers in all religions and all mysteries, and that to a great extent its trend was in the one direction, so that the fusion of the older mystical societies and their re-birth as a new brotherhood is by no means an unlikely hypothesis. In the article on the " Templars " for example, we have tried to show the possibility of that brotherhood having received its tenets from the East, where it sojourned for such a protracted period. It seems very likely from what we learn of its rites that they were oriental in origin, and we know that the occult systems of Europe owed much to the Templars, who, probably, after the fall of their own Order secretly formed others or joined existing societies. Masons have a hypothesis that through older origins they inherited from the Dionysian artificers, the artizans of Byzantium, and the building brotherhoods of Western Europe. To state this dogmatically as a fact would not be to gain so much cre- dence foV their theory as is due to that concerning the dissemination of occult lore by the Templars ; but it is much more feasible in every way than the absurd legend
concerning the rise of Freemasonry at the time of the building of the Temple. Secret societies of any description possess a strong attraction for a certain class of mind, or else a merely operative handicraft society, such as was mediaeval Masonry, would riot have been utilised so largely by the mystics of that time. One of the chief reasons that we know so little concerning these brotherhoods in mediae- val times is that the charge of dabbling in the occult arts was a serious one in the eyes of the law and the church, therefore they found it necessary to carry on their prac- tices in secret. But after the Reformation, a modern spirit took possession of Europe, and the protagonists of the occult sciences came forth from their caverns and practised in the open light of day. In England, for example, numer- ous persons avowed themselves alchemists ; in Germany the " Rosicrucians " sent out a manifesto ; in Scotland, Seton, a great master of the hermetic art, arose : never had occultism possessed such a heyday. But it was nearly a century later until further secret societies were formed, such as the Academy of the Ancients and of the Mysteries in 1767 ; the Knights of the True Light founded in Austria about 1780 ; the Knights and Brethren of Asia, which appeared in Germany in the same year ; the Order of Jerusalem which originated in America in 1791 ; the Society of the Universal Aurora established at Paris in 1783. Besides being masonic, these societies practised animal magnetism, astrology, Kabalism and even cere- monial magic. Others were political, such as the Illuminati, which came to such an inglorious end. But the individual tradition was kept up by an illustrious line of adepts, who were much more instrumental in keeping alive the flame of mysticism than even such societies as those we have mentioned. Mesmer, Swedenborg, St. Martin, Pas- qually, Willermoz, all laboured to that end. We may regard all these as belonging to the school of Christian magicians, as apart from those who practised the rites of the grimoires or Jewish Kabalism. The line may be carried back through Lavater, Eckartshausen, and so on to the seventeenth century. These men were mystics besides being practitioners of theurgic magic, and they combined in themselves the knowledge of practically all the occult sciences.
With Mesmer began the revival of a science which cannot be altogether regarded as occult, when consideration is- given to its modern developments, but which powerfully influenced the mystic life of his and many later days. The mesmerists of the first era are in direct line with the Martinists and the mystical magicians of the France of the late eighteenth century. Indeed in the persons of some English mystics, such as Greatrakes, mysticism and magnetism are one and the same thing. But upon " Hyp- notism," to give it its modern name, becoming numbered with the more practical sciences, persons of a mystical cast of mind appear to have, to a great extent, deserted it. Hypnotism does not bear the same relation to mesmerism and magnetism as modern chemistry does to alchemy ; but the persons who practise it nowadays are as dissimilar to the older professors of the science as is the modern practitioner of chemistry to the mediaeval alchemist. This is symptomatic of the occult sciences, that they despise that knowledge which is " exact " in the common sense of the term. Their practitioners do not delight in labour- ing upon a science, the laws of which are already known, cut and dried. The student of occultism, as a rule, possesses all the attributes of an explorer. The occult sciences have from time to time deeply enriched the exact sciences, but these enrichments have been acts of intellectual generosity. It is in effect as if the occultist made a present of them to the scientist, but did not desire to be troubled with their future development in any way. Occultism of the higher
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sort therefore does not to-day possess any great interest in hypnotism, and modern mysti.cs of standing scarcely recognise it as a part of the hidden mysteries. But there is no question that the early mesmerists formed a link between the adepts of eighteenth-century France and those of the present day. The occultists of to-day, however, are harking farther back : they recognise that their fore- runners of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries drew their inspiration from older origins, and they feel that these may have had cognisance of records and traditions that we wot not of. The recovery of these is perhaps for the moment the great question of modern magic. But apart from this, modern magic of the highest type strains towards mysticism, and partakes more than ever of its character. It disdains and ignores ceremonial, and exalts psychic ■experience. That is not to say that numerous bodies do not exist throughout the world for the celebration of magical rite ; but such fraternities have existed from time immemorial, and their protagonists cannot be placed on a higher footing than the hallucinated sorcerers of mediaeval times.
Secret Words : Certain words relating to the Eucharist were communicated by Christ to Joseph of Arimathea and were committed orally from keeper to keeper of the Graal. In Robert de Borron's metrical romance, material power is added to their spiritual efficacy and whoever could acquire and retain them, had a mysterious power over all around him, could not suffer by evil judgments, could not suffer ■deprivation of his own rights, need not fear the result of battle, provided his cause were good. The words were the secret of the Graal and were either incommunicable in writing or were written only in the Book of the Graal which, ■de Borron implies, was itself written by Joseph of Arima- thea. These words are the chief mystery of the Lesser Holy Graal, as the prose version of de Borron's poem is called. They were most probably a form of eucharistic consecra- tion, and there is evidence that the Celtic church, following the example of the Eastern Church used them in addition to the usual consecration as practised in the Latin Church, which is merely a repetition of the New Testament account of the Lord's Supper. The separate clause they are sup- posed to have formed is called Epiclesis and consisted of an invocation of the Holy Ghost.
Seik Kasso : Evil spirits inhabiting trees. (See Burma.)
Seiktha : An evil spirit. (See Burma.)
.Semites, The : This article on the Semites applies to the more ancient divisions of the race, such as the Babylonians and Assyrians, and the Hebrews in Biblical times. For later Semitic occultism see Kabala, Arabs, etc. In ancient Babylon, and Chaldea, magic was of course a department of priestly activity, and in Mesopotamia we find a sect of priests, the Asipu, set apart for the practice of magic, which in their case probably consisted of hypnotism, the casting out of demons, the banning of troublesome spirits and so forth. The Baru again were augurs who consulted the oracles on the future by the inspection of the entrails of animals and the flight of birds, " the observation of oil in water, the secret of Anu, Bel, and Ea, the tablet of the gods, the sachet of leather of the oracles of the heavens and •earth, the wand of cedar dear to the great gods." These priests of Baru and Asipu were clothed in vestments pecu- liar to their rank, which they changed frequently during the ceremonies in which they took part. In the tablets we find kings making frequent enquiry through these priestly castes ; and in a tablet of Sippar, we find treated the installation of a Baru to the Sun-temple, and also Sennach- rib seeking through the Baru the causes of his father's violent de.-ith. Tne Asipu again were exorcists, who removed tabus and laid ghosts. We find an Asipu's func- tions set forth in the following poem : —
" Incantation : —
(The man) of Ea am I,
(The man) of Damkina am I,
The messenger of Marduk am I,
My spell is the spell of Ea,
My incantation is the incantation of Marduk,
The circle of Ea is in my hand.
The tamarisk, the powerful weapon of Anu,
In my hand I hold,
The date-spathe, mighty in decision,
In my hand I hold."
" Incantation :
He that stilleth all to rest, that pacifieth all. By whose incantation everything is at peace, He is the great Lord Ea, Stilling all to rest, and pacifying all, By whose incantation everything is at peace. When I draw nigh unto the sick man All shall be assuaged. I am the magician born of Eridu, Begotten in Eridu and Subari. When I draw nigh, unto the sick man May Ea, King of the Deep, safeguard me ! " " Incantation : — ■
O Ea, King of the Deep, to see
I, the magician, am thy slave. March thou on my right hand, Assist (me) on my left ; Add thy pure spell to mine, Add thy pure voice to mine, Vouchsafe (to me) pure words, Make fortunate the utterances of my mouth, Ordain that my decisions be happy, Let me be blessed where'er I tread, Let the man whom I (now) touch be blessed. Before me may lucky thoughts be spoken. After me may a lucky finger be pointed. Oh that thou wert my guardian genius, And my guardian spirit ! O God that blesseth, Marduk, Let me be blessed, where'er my path may be ! Thy power shall god and man proclaim ; This man shall do thy service, And I too, the fhagician thy slave." " Unto the house on entering .... Samas is before me, Sin (is) behind (me), Nergal (is) at (my) right hand, Ninib (is) at my left hand ; When I draw near unto the sick man. When I lay my hand on the head of the sick man, May a kindly Spirit, a kindly Guardian, stand at my side."
The third caste was the Zammaru, who sang or chanted certain ceremonials.
The lower ranks of sorcery were represented by the Kassapu and Kassaptu, the wizard and witch, who, as else- where, practised black magic, and who are stoutly com- bated by the priest-magician caste. We find in the code of Hammurabi a stringent law against the professors of black magic : — '* If a man has charged a man with sorcery and has not justified himself, he who is charged with sorcery shall go to the river, he shall plunge into the river, and if the river overcome him, he Who accused him shall take to himself his house. If the river makes that man to be inno- cent, and he be saved, he who accused him shall be put to death. He who plunged into the river shall take to him- self the house of him who accused him." This will recall
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the test for a witch, that if thrown into a pond, if she sinks she is innocent, but if she floats she is a witch indeed. Another series of tablets deals with the black magician and the witch who are represented as roaming the streets, entering houses, and prowling through towns, stealing the love of men, and withering the beauty of women. The exorcist goes on to say that he has made an image of the witch, and he calls upon the fire-god to burn it. He seizes the mouth, tongue, eyes, feet, and other members of the witch, and piously prays that Sin may cast her into an abyss of water and fire, and that her face may grow yellow and green. He fears that the witch is directing a like sorcery against himself, that she sits making spells against him in the shade of the wall, fashioning images of him. But he sends against her the haltappan plant and sesame to undo her spells and force back the words into her mouth. He devoutly trusts that the images she has fashioned will assume her own character, and that her spells may recoil upon herself. Another tablet expresses the desire that the god of night may smite the witch in her magic, that the three watches of the night may loose her evil sorcery, that her mouth may be fat and her tongue salt, that the words of evil that she hath spoken may be poured out like tallow, and that the magic she is working be crumbled like salt. The tablets abound in magical matter and in them we have the actual wizardry in vogue at the time they were written, which runs at least from the seventh century B.C. onwards until the time when the cuneiform ceased to be used. Chaldean magic was re- nowned throughout the world, particularly, however, its astrological side. Isaiah says " Let now the astrologers, star-gazers, monthly prognosticators, stand up and save thee from the things that shall come upon thee." In the book of Daniel, we find the magicians called Chaldeans, and up to the present time occultists have never tired of sing- ing the praises of the Chaldean magi. Strabo and ^Elian allude to their knowledge of astrology, as did Diodorus Siculus, and it is supposed to have been a Chaldean magician (Ethanes who introduced his science into Greece, which he entered with Xerxes.
The great library of Assurbanipal, king of Assyria, who died in 626 B.C., affords us first-hand knowledge of Assyrian magic. He gathered together numerous volumes from the cities of Babylonia, and storing them in his great library at Nineveh, had them copied and translated. In fact letters have been discovered from Assurbanipal to some of his officials, giving instructions for the copying of certain incantations. Many grimoires too come from Babylonia, written during the later empire, — the best known of which are the series entitled Maklu, burning ; Utukki limnuii, evil spirits ; Labartu, hag-demon ; and Nis kati, raising of the hand. There are also available many ceremonial texts which throw considerable light on magical practice. The Maklu for example contains eight tablets of incantations and spells against wizards and witches — the general idea running through it being to instruct the bewitched person how to manufacture figures of his enemies, and thus destroy them. The series dealing with the exorcism of evil spirits enumerates demons, goblins and ghosts, and consists of at least sixteen tablets. They are for the use of the exorcist in driving out devils from possessed people, and this is to be accomplished by invoking the aid of the gods, so that the demons may be laid under a divine tabu. The demon who possesses the unfortunate victim must be described in the most minute manner. The series dealing with the Labartu or hag- demon, who is a kind of female devil who delights in attacking children, gives directions for making a figure of the Labartu and the incantations to be repeated over it. The magician and philosopher appear to have worked
together in Assyria, for we find medical men constantly using incantations to drive out demons, and incantations are often associated with prescriptions. Medical magic indeed apoears to have been of much the same sort as we find amongst the American Indians and peoples in a like barbarian condition of existence.
We find the doctrine of the "Incommunicable Name established among the early Semites, as among the Egypt- ians : the secret name of a god, which when discovered gave the speaker complete power over him by its mere utterance. The knowledge of the name, or description, of the person or demon the magician directs his charm against, is also essential to success. Drugs also, to which were originally ascribed the power vouchsafed by the gods for the welfare of mankind, were supposed to aid greatly in exorcism. In Assyrian sorcery, Ea and Marduk are the most - powerful gods, — the latter being appealed to as intermediary between man and his father, Ea : indeed the legend of Marduk going to his father for advice was com- monly repeated in incantations. ' When working against an individual too, it was necessary to have something belong- ing to him, — clippings of his hair, or nails if possible. The possessed person was usually washed, the principal of cleansing probably underlying this ceremony. An incan- tation called the Incantation of Eridu was often prescribed, and this must relate to some such cleansing, for Eridu is the Home of Ea, the Sea-god. A formula for exorcising or washing away a demon, Rabesu states that the patient is to be sprinkled with clean water twice seven times. Of all water none was so sacred as the Euphrates, and water from it was frequently used for charms and exorcisms. Fumigation with a censor was also employed by the As- syrians for exorcism, but the possessed person was often guarded from the attack of fiends by placing him in the middle of an enchanted circle of flour, through which it was thought no spirit could break. Wearing the glands from the mouth of a fish was also a charm against possession. In making a magic circle, the sorcerer usually formed seven little winged figures to set before the god Nergal, with a long spell, which states that he has completed the usuriu or magic circle with a sprinkling of lime. The wizard further prays that the incantation may be performed for his patient by the god. This would seem to be a prototype of the circle in use amongst magicians of mediaval times. Says Campbell Thompson in his Semitic Magic : —
" Armed with all these things — the word of power, the acquisition of some part of the enemy, the use of the magic circle and holy water, and the knowledge of the magical properties of substances — the ancient warlock was well fitted for his trade. He was then capable of defying hostile demons or summoning friendly spirits, of driving out disease or casting spells, of making amulets to guard the credulous who came to him. Furthermore, he had a certain stock-in-trade of tricks which were a steady source of revenus. Lovesick youths and maidens always hoped for some result from his philtres or love-charms ; at the demand of jealousy, he was ever ready to put hatred between husband and wife ; and for such as had not the pluck or skill even to use a dagger on a dark night, his little effigies, pierced with pins, would bring death to a rival. He was at once a physician and wonder-worker for such as would pay him fee."
"Among the more modern Semites magic is greatly in vogue in many forms, some of them quite familiar to Europeans : indeed we find in the Arabian Nights edited by Lane, a story of old women riding on a broom-stick. Among Mahommedans the wizard is thought to deserve death by reason of the fact that he is an unbeliever. Witches are fairly common in Arabic lore, and we usually find them figuring as sellers of potions and philtres. The European
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witch is usually supposed to be able to leave her dwelling at night by sprinkling some of the ashes of the hearth on the forehead of her husband, whereby he sleeps soundly till the morning. This is identical with French mediaeval practice. In Arab folk tales the moghrebi is the sorcerer who has con- verse with demons, and we find many such in the Old and New Testaments, as well as diviners and other practitioners of the occult arts. In the Sanhedrin, Rabbi Akiba defines an enchanter as one who calculates the times and hours, and other rabbis state that " an enchanter is he who grows ill when his bread drops from his mouth, or if he drops the stick that supports him from his hand, or if his son calls after him, or a crow caws in his hearing, or a deer crosses his path, or he sees a serpent at his right hand, or a fox on his left." The Arabs believe that magic will not work while he that employs it is asleep. Besides it is possible to over-reach Satan himself, and many Arabic tales exist in which men of wisdom and cunning have succeeded in accomplishing this. Tblis once sent his son to an assembly of honourable people with a flint stone, and told him to have the flint stone woven. He came in and said, " My father sends his peace, and wishes to have this flint stone woven." A man with a goat-beard said, " Tell your father to have it spun, and then we will weave it." The son went back, and the Devil was very angry, and told his son never to put forth any suggestion when a goat-bearded man was present, " for he is more devilish than we." Curiously enough, Rabbi Joshua ben Hananiah makes a similar request in a contest against the wise men of Athens, who have required him to sew together the fragments of a broken millstone. He asks in reply for a few threads made of the fibre of the stone. The good folk of Mosul, too, have ever prided themselves on a ready wit against the Devil. Time was, as my servant related to me, when Iblis came to Mosul and found a man planting onions. They fell to talking, and in their fellowship agreed to divide the produce of the garden. Then, on a day when the onions were ready, the partners went to their vegetable patch and the man said, " Master, wilt thou take as thy half that which is above ground or that which is below ? " Now the Devil saw the good green shoots of the onions sprouting high, and so carried these off as his share, leaving the gardener chuckling over his bargain. But when wheat time came round, and the man was sowing his glebe on a day, the Devil looked over the ditch and complained that he had made nothing out of the compact. " This time, quoth he, we will divide differently, and thou shalt take the tops " ; and so it fell out. They visited the tilth together and when the corn was ripe, and the fellah reaped the field and took away the ears, leaving the Devil stubbing up the roots. Presently, after he had been digging for a month, he began to find out his error, and went to the man, who was cheerily threshing his portion. " This is a paltry quibble," said Iblis, " thou hast cozened me this twice." " Nay," said the former, " I gave thee thy desire ; and furthermore, thou didst not thresh out thine onion-tops, as I am doing this." So it was a sanguine Devil that sent away to beat the dry onion-stalks, but in vain ; and he left Mosul sullenly, stalking away in dudgeon, and stopping once in a while to shake his hand against so crafty a town. " Cursed be he, ye tricksters ! who can outmatch devilry like yours ? ".
" In modern times in the East," says Mr. Thompson, " from Morocco to Mesopotamia, books of magic are by no means rare, and manuscripts in Arabic, Hebrew, Gershuni, and Syriac can frequently be bought, all dealing with some form of magic or popular medicine. In Suakin in the Soudan I was offered a printed book of astrology in Arabic illustrated by the most grotesque and bizarre woodcuts of the signs of the Zodiac, the blocks for which seem to have
done duty in other places. Such books existed in manu- script in ancient days, as is vouched for by the story of the Sibylline books or the passage in Acts xix., 19 ; ' Not a few of them that practised curious arts brought their books together, and burned them in the sight of all.' "
It is curious to find the charm for raising hatred practi- cally the same among the Semites as it is amongst the peoples of Hungary and the Balkan States : that is through the agency of the egg of a black hen. We find too, many minor sorceries the same among the Semites as among European races. To be invisible was another at- tainment much sought after, and it was thought that if one wore a ring of copper and iron engraved with certain magic signs this result would be secured, or the heart of a black cat, dried and steeped in honey. The article " Solo- mon " can be referred to for several instances of potent enchantments. Sympathetic magic is often resorted to by the Arabic witch and wizard, just as it was amongst the ancient Hebrews and Assyrians.
The great repertory of Semitic occultism is of course the Kabala, to which the reader is referred for later Hebrew mystical doctrine.
Sendivogius, Michael : (See Seton.)
Sensitive : One who is in any degree susceptible to the influence of spiritual beings. A medium is occasionally, and, according to some authorities, more correctly, termed a sensitive.
Sephiroth : (See Kabala.)
Serpent's Egg : (See Amulets.)
Sethos : A diviner, who was deprived of his sight by the Emperor Manuel because of his addiction to Magic. It is said that the Emperor Andronicus Comnenus obtained through him by hydromancy an answer to the question of who was to succeed him. The evil spirit gave the letters "SI" in reply ; and on being asked when, said before the Feast of the exaltation of the Cross. This prediction was fulfilled, for before the date mentioned Isaac Angelus had thrown Andronicus to be torn in pieces by the mob. When the devil spells, he spells backwards, so that " S I " may quite fairly be taken to represent Isaac according to the laws of magic !
Setna, Papyrus of : A papyrus of very ancient date, dealing with the personality of Prince Setna Kha-em-ust, son of Rameses II. of Egypt, and said to have been discovered by him under the head of a mummy in the Necropolis at Memphis. Says Wiedemann concerning it : The first text, which has been known to us since 1867, tells tnat this prince, being skilled and zealous in the practice of necro- mancy, was one day exhibiting his acquirements to the learned men of the court, when an old man told him of a magic book containing two spells written by the hand of Thoth himself, the god of wisdom. He who repeated the first spell bewitched thereby heaven and earth and the realm of night, the mountains and the depth of the sea ; he knew the fowls of the air and every creeping thing ; he saw the fishes, for a divine power brought them up out of the depth. He who read the second spell should have power to resume his earthly shape, even though he dwelt in the grave ; to see the sun rising in the sky with all the gods and the moon in the form wherein she displays herself. Setna inquired where this book was to be found, and learned that it was lying in the tomb of Nefer-ka-Ptah, a son of King Mer-neb-ptah (who is nowhere else named), and that any attempt to take away the book would certainly meet with obstinate resistance. These difficulties did not with- hold Setna from the adventure. He entered the tomb of Nefer-ka-Ptah, where he found not only the dead man, but the Ka of his wife Ahuri and their son, though these latter had been buried in Koptos. But as in many other tales among many other peoples, success brought no
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blessing to the man who had disturbed the repose of the dead. Setna fell in love with the daughter of a priest at Memphis, who turned out to be a witch, and took advan- tage of his intimate connection with her to bring him to ignominy and wretchedness. At length the prince recog- nised and repented of the sacrilege he had committed in carrying off the book, and brought it back to Nefer-ka-Ptah. In the hope of atoning to some extent for his sin he journeyed to Koptos, and finding the graves of the wife and child of Nefer-ka-Ptah, he solemnly, restored their mummies to the tomb of the father and husband, carefully closing the tomb he had so sacrilegiously disturbed. The second text, edited two years ago by Griffith from a London papyrus, is also genuinely Egyptian in its details. Three magic tales, interwoven one with another, are brought into connection with Saosiri, the supernaturally born son of Setna. In the first, Saosiri, who was greatly Setna's superior in the arts of magic, led his father down into the underworld. They penetrated into the judgment-hall of Osiris, where the sights they saw convinced Setna that a glorious future awaited the poor man who should cleave to righteousness, while he who led an evil life on earth, though rich and powerful, must expect a terrible doom. Saosiri next succeeded in saving his father, and with him all Egypt, from great difficulty by reading without breaking the seal of a closed letter brought by an Ethiopian magician, whom he thus forced to recognise the superior power of Egypt. The last part of the text tells of a powerful magician once dwelling in Ethiopia who modelled in wax a litter with four bearers to whom he gave his life. He sent them to Egypt, and at his command they sought out Pharaoh in his palace, carried him off to Ethiopia, and, after giving him five hundred blows with a cudgel, con- veyed him during the same night back to Memphis. Next morning the king displayed the weals on his back to his courtiers, one of whom, Horus by name, was sufficiently , skilled in the use of amulets to ward off by their means an immediate repetition of the outrage. Horus then set forth to bring from Hermopolis, the all-powerful magic book of the god Thoth, and by its aid he succeeded in treating the Ethiopian king as the Ethiopian sorcerer had treated Pharaoh. The foreign magician then hastened to Egypt to engage in a contest with Horus in magic tricks. His skill was shown to be inferior, and in the end he and his mother received permission to return to Ethiopia under a solemn promise not to set foot on Egyptian territory for a space of fifteen hundred years.
Seton (or Sethon) Alexander, was one of the very few alchem- ists who succeeded in the great experiment of the transmu- tation of metals. He took his name from the village of Seton, which is stated to have been in the vicinity of Edin- burgh and close to the sea-shore, so that one may reasonably conclude that the little fishing community of Port Seton is meant, although Camden in his Brittania states that that was the name of his house. In the year 1601, the crew of a Dutch vessel had the misfortune to be wrecked on the coast near his dwelling, and Seton personally rescued several of them, lodged them in his house, and treated them with great kindness, ultimately sending them back to Holland at his own expense. In the following year he visited Holland, and renewed his acquaintance with at least one of the ship-wrecked crew, James Haussen, the pilot, who lived at Arksun. Haussen, determined on repaying him for the hospitality he had received in Scotland, entertained him for some time in his house, and to him Seton disclosed the information that he was a master of the art of alchemy, and provedjjis words by performing several transmutations. Haussen, full of the matter, confided it to one Venderlinden, a physician of Enkhuysen, to whom he showed a piece of gold which he had himself seen transmuted from lead.
This Venderlinden's grandson in turn, showed to the celebrated author, D. G. Morhoff, who wrote a letter con- cerning it to Langlet du Fresnoy, author of the Histoire de la Philosophie Hermetique.
Seton visited Amsterdam and Rotterdam, travelled by sea to Italy, and thence through Switzerland to Germany, accompanied by a professed sceptic of alchemy, one Wolf- gang Dienheim, whom he convinced of the error of his views at Basle before several of its principal inhabitants. This person has described Seton, and from the pen picture he gives of him we can discern a typical Scot of the seven- teenth century. " Seton," he says, " was short but stout, and high-coloured, with a pointed beard, but despite his corpulence, his expression was spiritual and exalted." " He was," adds Dienheim, " a native of Molier, in an island of the ocean." One wonders if Molier is the German's corruption of Lothian.
Several experiments of importance were now demon- strated by Seton. In one of these the celebrated physician Zwinger himself brought the lead which was to be trans- muted from his own house. A common crucible was obtained at a goldsmith's, and ordinary sulphur was bought on the road to the house where the experiment was to take place. Seton handled none of these materials and took no part in the operation except to give to those who followed his directions a small packet of powder which transformed the lead into the purest gold of exactly the same weight. Zwinger appears to have been absolutely convinced of the genuine nature of the experiment, for he wrote an account of it to his friend Dr. Schobinger, which appears in Lonig's Ephemerides. Shortly after this Seton left Basle, and changing his name went to Strasbourg, whence he travelled to Cologne, lodging with one Anton Bordemann, who was by way of being an alchemist. In this city he was sufficiently imprudent to blazon his know- ledge far and wide, — on one occasion producing six ounces of gold through the application of one grain of his magical powder. The circumstance seems to have made an impression on at least one of the savants of the Cathedral City, for Theobald de Hoghelande in his Histories Aliquot Transmutalionis MettaliccB, which was published at Cologne in 1604, alludes to it.
Seton then went to Hamburg, whence he travelled south to Munich, where something more important than alchemy engaged his attention, for he eloped with the daughter of a citizen, whom he married. The young Elector of Saxony, Christian II. had heard of Seton's brilliant alchemical successes and invited him to his court, but Seton, loath to leave his young wife, sent his friend, William Hamilton, probably a brother-Scot, in his stead, with a supply of the transmuting agent. In the presence of the whole Court, Hamilton undertook and carried through an experiment with perfect success and the gold then manufactured resisted every known test. This naturally only whetted the Elector's desire to see and converse with the magus, and a pressing invitation, which amounted to a command, was dispatched to Seton, who, thus rendered unable to refuse, betook himself to the electoral court. He was received there with every mark of honour, but it soon became evident to him that Christian