II. had only invited him thither for the purpose of extract-

ing from him the nature of his grand secret, but Seton, as an adept in the mysteries of alchemy, remained true to his high calling, and flatly refused to gratify the Elector's greed. Promises of preferment and threats were alike indifferent to him, and in the end the Elector, in a passion, ordered him to be imprisoned in a tower, where he was guarded by forty soldiers. There he was subjected to every conceivable species of torture, but all to no purpose. The rack, the fire, and the scourge, failed to extort from him
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the methods by which he had achieved the grand arcanum. Quite as exhausted as his victim, the Elector at last for- bore, and left the unfortunate Scot in peace.
At this juncture a Moravian chemist, Michael Sendi- vogius, who happened to be in Dresden heard of Seton's terrible experiences and possessed sufficient influence to obtain permission to visit him. Himself a searcher after the philosopher's stone, he sympathised deeply with the adept, and proposed to him that he should attempt to effect his rescue. To this Seton agreed, and promised that if he were fortunate enough to escape, he would reward Sendivogius with his secret. The Moravian travelled back to Cracow, where he resided, sold up his property, and returned to Dresden, where he lodged near Seton's place of confinement, entertaining the soldiers who guarded the alchemist, and judiciously bribing those who were directly concerned in his imprisonment. At last he judged that the time was ripe to attempt Seton's salvation. He feasted the guards in a manner so liberal that all of them were soon in a condition of tipsy carelessness. He then hastened to the tower in which Seton was imprisoned, but found him unable to walk, through the severity of his tortures. He therefore supported him to a carriage which stood waiting, and which they gained without being observed. They halted at Seton's house to take up his wife, who had in her possession some of the all-important powder, and whipping up the horses, sped as swiftly as possible to Cracow, which they reached in safety. When quietly settled in that city, Sendivogius -reminded Seton of his promise to assist him in in his alchemical projects, but was met with a stern refusal, Seton explaining to him that it was impossible for him as an adept to reveal to his rescuer the terms of such an awful mystery. The health of the alchemist was, however, shattered by the dreadful torments through which he had ■ passed, and which he survived only for about two years, presenting the remains of his magical precipitate to his preserver. The possession of this powder only made Sendivogius more eager than ever to penetrate the myster- ■ ies of the grand arcanum. He married Seton's widow, perhaps with the idea that she was in possession of her late husband's occult knowledge, but if so he was doomed to disappointment for she was absolutely ignorant of the matter. Seton had left behind him, however, a treatise entitled The New Light of Alchymy, which Sendivogius laid hands on and published as his own. In its pages he thought he saw a method of increasing the powder, but to his intense disappointment and disgust, he only succeeded in lessening it. With what remained, however, he posed as a successful projector of the grand mystery, and pro- ceeded with much splendour from court to court in a sort of triumphal procession. In his own country of Moravia, he was imprisoned, but escaped. His powder, however, was rapidly diminishing, but he still continued his experi- ments. Borel in his work on French Antiquities mentions that he saw a crown piece which had been partially dipped into a mixture of the powder dissolved in spirits of wine, and that the part steeped in the elixir was of gold, was porous, and was not soldered or otherwise tampered with. The powder done, Sendivogius degenerated into a mere charlatan, pretending that he could manufacture gold, and receiving large sums on the strength of being able to do so. He survived until the year 1646 when he died at Parma at the age of 84. Seton's New Light of Alchymy would appear, from an examination of it, to deny that the philosopher's stone was to be achieved by the successful transmutation of metals. It says : —
" The extraction of the soul out of gold or silver, by. what vulgar way of alchymy soever, is but a mere fancy, On the contrary, he which, in a philosophical way, can without any fraud, and colourable deceit, make it that it
shall really tinge the basest metal, whether with gain or without gain, with the colour of gold or silver (abiding all requisite tryals whatever), hath the gates of Nature opened to him for the enquiring into further and higher secrets, and with the blessing of God to obtain them." Seven Stewards of Heaven, by whom God governs the world. They are known in works on Magic as the Olympian Spirits, and they govern the Olympian spheres, which are composed of onehundred andninety-sixregions. Their names in the Olympian language are : — Arathron, the celestial spirit of Saturn, whose day is Saturday ; Bethor, the angel of Jupiter, whose day is Monday'; Phaleg, the prince of Mars, whose day is Tuesday ; Och, the master of the Sun, whose day is Sunday ; Hagith, the sovereign of Venus, whose day is Friday ; Ophiel, the spirit of Mercury, who ■ must be invoked on Wednesday ; Phul, the administrator of affairs in the Moon, whose day is Monday. Each of these Seven Celestial Spirits may be invoked by magicians by the aid of ceremonies and preparations. Sextus V., Pope, was one of the line of St. Peter accused of- sorcery. De Thou says of him in his Histoire Universelle (tome XI.) ': The Spaniards continued their vengeance against this Pontiff even after his death, and they forgot nothing in their anxiety to blacken his memory by the libels which they flung against him. Sextus, said they, who, by means of the magical art, was for a long time in con- federacy with a demon, had made a compact with this enemy of humanity to give himself up to him, on con- dition he was made Pope, and allowed to reign six years. Sextus was raised to the chair of St. Peter, and during the five years he held sway in Rome he distinguished his pontificate by actions surpassing the feeble reach of the human intellect. Finally, at the end of this term, the Pope fell sick, and the devil arriving to keep him to his pact, Sextus inveighed strongly against his_ bad faith, reproaching him with the fact that the term they had agreed upon was not fulfilled, and that there still remained to him more than a twelve-month. But the devil reminded him that at the beginning of his pontificate he had con- demned a man who, according to the laws, was too young by a year to suffer death, and that he had nevertheless caused him to be executed, saying that he would give him a year out of his own life ; that this year, added to the other five, completed the six years which had been promised to him, and that in consequence he did very wrong to complain. Sextus, confused and unable to make any answer, remained mute, and turning himeslf towards the ruelle of his bed, prepared for death in the midst of the terrible mental agitation caused by the remorse of Ms conscience. For the rest," adds De Thou, with amiable frankness, " I only mention this trait as a rumour spread by the Spaniards, and I should be very sorry to guarantee its truth." Shaddai : One of the ten divine names given in the rabbinical legend of the angelic hierarchies. This essence influences the sphere of the moon : it causes increase and decrease, and rules the jinn and protecting spirits. She-Goat : One of the branches of augury in ancient Rome dealt especially with the signs which might be derived from animals ; and it was believed that if a she-goat crossed the path of a man who was stepping out of his house it was a good omen, and he might proceed on his way rejoicing and " think upon Caranus." Sheik Al Gebel : (See Assassins.) Shekinah : Spiritualistic Journal. (See Spiritualism.) Shelta Thari : An esoteric language spoken by the tinkers of Great Britain, and possibly a descendant of an " inner" language employed by the ancient Celtic Druids or bards. It was in 1876 that the first hint of the existence of Shelta Thari reached the ears of that prince of practical philolo- gists, Charles Godfrey Leland. It seems strange that
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George Borrow had never stumbled upon the language, and that fact may be taken as a strong proof of the jealousy with which the nomadic classes guarded it. Leland relates how he and Professor E. H. Palmer were wandering on the beach at Aberystwyth when they met a tramp, who heard them indulging in a conversation in Romany. Leland questioned the man as to how he gained a living, and he replied, " Shelkin gallopas." The words were foreign even to the master of dialect, and he inquired their import. " Why," said the man, " it means selling ferns. That -is tinker's language or minklers' thari. I thought as you knew Romany, you might understand it. The right name for the tinkers' language is Shelta." " It was," says Leland, " with the feelings of Columbus the night before he discovered America that I heard the word Shelta, and I asked the fern-dealer if he could talk it." The man replied " A little," and on the spot the philologist collected a number of words and phrases from the fern-seller which gave him sufficient insight into the language to prove to him that it was absolutely different from Romany. The Celtic origin of the dialect soon began to commend itself to Leland, and he attempted to obtain from the man some verse or jingle in it, possibly for the purpose of observing its syntactical arrangement. But all he was able to drag from his informant were some rhymes of no philological value, and he found he had soon pumped the tramp dry. It was in America that Leland nearly terrified a tinker out of his wits by speaking to him in the lost dialect. The man, questioned as to whether he could speak Shelta, admitted the soft impeachment. He proved to be an Irishman, Owen Macdonald by name, and he furnished Leland with an invaluable list of several hundred words. But Leland could not be sure upon which of the Celtic languages the dialect was based. Owen Macdonald declared to him that it was a fourth language, which had nothing in common with old Irish, Welsh, or Gaelic, and hazarded the information that it was the idiom of the " Ould Picts," but this appears to be rather too conjectural for the consumption of the philologist. Shelta is not a jargon, for it can be spoken grammatically without using English, as in the British form of Romany. Pictish in all probability was not a Celtic language, nor even an Aryan one, however intimately it may have been affected by Celtic speech in the later stages of its existence. Leland's dis- covery was greeted in some quarters with inextinguishable laughter. The Saturday Review jocosely suggested that he had been " sold," and that old Irish had been palmed off on him for a mysterious lingo. He put this view of the matter before his tinker friend, who replied with grave solemnity, " And what'd I be afther makin' two languages av thim for, if there was but wan av thim ? " Since Leland's day much has been done to reclaim this mysterious tongue, chiefly through the investigations of Mr. John Sampson and Professor Kuno Meyer. The basis of these investigations rested on the fact that the tinker caste of Great Britain and Ireland was a separate class — so separate indeed as almost to form a race by itself. For hundreds of years, possibly, this fraternity existed with nearly all its ancient characteristics, and on the general disuse of Celtic speech had conserved it as a secret dialect. The peculiar thing concerning Shelta is the extent of territory over which it is spoken. That it is known rather extensively in London itself was discovered by Leland, who heard it spoken by two small boys in the Euston Road. They were not Gypsies, and Leland found out that one of them spoke the language with great fluency. Since Leland's discoveries Shelta has been to some extent mapped out into dialects, one of the most important of which is that of Ulster. It would be difficult to explain in the course of such an article as this exactly how long the Ulster dialect of this strange and
ancient tongue differs from that in use in other parts of Great Britain and Ireland. But that it does so is certain. Nearly eighteen years ago Mr. John Sampson, of Liverpool, a worthy successor to Borrow and Leland, and a linguist of repute, collected a number of sayings and proverbs from two old Irish tinkers — John Barlow and Phil Murray — which he distinctly states are in the Ulster dialect of Shelta. Some of these may be quoted to provide the reader with specimens of the language : — Krish gyukera have muni Sheldru — Old beggars have good Shelta. Stimera dhi-ilsha, stimera aga dhi-ilsha — If you're a piper, have your own pipe. Mislo granhes thaber — The traveller knows the road. Thorn Blorne mjesh Nip gloch — Every Protest- ant isn't an Orangeman. Nus a dhabjon dhuilsha — The blessing of God on you. Misli, garni gra dhi-il — Be off, and bad luck to you.
There seems to be considerable reason to believe that the tinker (or more properly " tinkler ") class of Great Britain sprang from the remnants of its ancient Celtic inhabitants, and differed as completely from the Gypsy, or Romany, race as one people can well differ from another. This is almost conclusively proved by the criterion of speech, for Shelta is a Celtic tongue and that Romany is a dialect of Northern Hindustan is not open to doubt. Those who now speak Romany habitually almost invariably make use of Shelta as well, but that only proves that the two nomadic races, having occupied the same territory for hundreds of years, had gained a knowledge of each other's languages. Who, then, were the original progenitors of the tinkers ? Whoever they were, they were a Celtic- speaking race, and probably a nomadic one. Shelta has been referred to as the language of the ancient bards of Ireland, the esoteric tongue of an Irish priesthood. Leland puts forward the hypothesis that the Shelta-speaking tinker is a descendant of a prehistoric guild of bronze-workers. This, he thinks, accounts in part for his secretiveness as regards his language. In Italy, to this very day the tinker class is identified with the itinerant bronze workers. The tinker fraternity of Great Britain and Ireland existed with perhaps nearly all its ancient characteristics until the advent of railroads. But long before this it had probably amalgamated to a great extent with the Gypsy population, and the two languages had become common to the two peoples. This is the only explanation that can be given for the appearance of Shelta, a Celtic language, in the non- Celtic portions of Great Britain. That it originated in Ireland appears to be highly probable, for in no other part of these islands during the later Celtic period was there a state of civilisation sufficiently advanced to permit of the existence of a close corporation of metal-workers possessing a secret language. Moreover, the affinities of Shelta appear to be with old Irish more than with any other Celtic dialect. There is one other theory that presents itself in connection with the origin of Shelta, and that is, that it is the modern descendant of the language of the " Ould Picts " men- tioned by Owen Macdonald, Leland's' tinker friend. It has by no means been proved that Pictish was a non-Aryan language, and, despite the labours of Professor Rhys, we are as far off as ever from any definite knowledge concern- ing the idiom spoken by that mysterious people. But there are great difficulties in the way of accepting the hypothesis of the Pictish origin of Shelta, the chief among them being its obvious Irish origin. There were, it is known, Picts in the North of Ireland, but they were almost certainly a small and barbarous colony, and a very-unlikely community to form a metal-working confraternity, possessing the luxury of a private dialect. It still remains for the Celtic student to classify Shelta. It may prove to be " Pictish," strongly influenced by the Gaelic of Ireland and Scotland. A comparison with Basque and the dialect of the Iberian
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tribes of Morocco might bring affinities to light, and thus establish the theory of its non-Aryan origin ; but its/ strong kinship with Erse seems undoubted. (See Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society, New Series.) Shemhamphorash : In the Talmud, the external term repre- senting the hidden word of power, by whose virtues it were possible to create a new world. But it is lost to man, though even sounds approximating to it have a magic power, and can give to him who pronounces them dominion in the spirit-world. Some of the Rabbis say that the word of power contains twelve letters, others, forty-two, and yet others seventy-two ; but these are the letters of the divine alphabet, which God created from certain luminous points made by the concentration of the primal universal Light. Shemhamphorash is, in fact, the name of this word. Sheol : (See Hell.)
Ship of the Dead : Akin to the superstitious idea of the death- coach is the belief that at times a phantom barque carries away the souls of men. In the form of a cloud-ship, or wrapped in a driving mist, it sails over mountains and moors, and at sea it sails in despite of wind and tide. A story is told of a certain pirate, at whose death a spectral ship approached in a cloud. As it sailed over the roof the house was filled with a sound as of a stormy sea, and when the ship had passed by the soul of the pirate accompanied it. Shorter, Thomas : (See Spiritualism.)
Siberia : The barbarian tribes of Siberia all more or less practise the art of Sorcery, and this has been from time immemorial in the hands of the shamanistic or medicine- man class. The Samoyeds who are idol-worshippers believe also in the existence of an order of invisible spirits which they call tadebtsois. These are ever circling through the atmosphere, and are a constant menace to the native, who is anxious to propitiate them. This can only be effec- ted through the intervention of a tadibe or Necromancer, who, when his services are requisitioned, attires himself in magical costume of reindeer leather trimmed with red cloth, a mask of red cloth, and a breast-plate of polished metal. He then takes a drum of reindeer skin (See Lap- land) ornamented with brass rings, and attended by an assistant, walks round in a circle invoking the presence of the spirits, shaking a large rattle the while. The noise grows louder, and as the spirits are supposed to draw near the sorcerer, he addresses them, beating his drum more gently, and pausing in his chant to listen to their answers. Gradually he works himself into a condition of frenzy, beats the drum with great violence, and appears to be possessed by the supernatural influence writhing and foaming at the mouth. AH at once he stops, and oracularly pronounces the will of the spirits. The Tadibe's office is a hereditary one, but if a member of the tribe should exhibit special qualifications he is adopted into the priesthood, and by fasts, vigils, the use of narcotics and stimulants in the same manner as is employed by the N.A. Indians (q.v.), he comes to believe that he has been visited by the spirits. He is then adopted as a Tadibe with midnight ceremoinal, and is invested with a magic drum. A great many of the tricks of the priesthood are merely those of ordinary con- juring, such as the rope trick, but some of the illusions which these men secure are exceedingly striking. With their hands and feet tied together, they sit on a carpet of reindeer skin, and putting out the light, summon the assistance of the spirits. Peculiar noises herald their approach, snakes hiss, and bears growl, the lights are rekindled and the tadibe is seen released from his bonds.
The Samoyeds sacrifice much to the dead, and perform various ceremonies in their honour, but they believe that only the souls of the tadibes enjoy immortality and hover through the air, demanding constant sacrifice.
Further to the east, inhabiting the more northerly part of Siberia dwell the Ostiaks, who have nominally adopted the rites of the Greek Church, but magic is rife amongst them. Many Ostiaks carry about with them a description of fetish, which they call Schaitan. Whether this name, like the Arabic Sheitan, is merely a corruption of that of Satan, it would be difficult to say. Larger images of this kind are part of the furniture of an Ostiak lodge, but they are attired in seven pearl embroidered garments, and sus- pended to the neck by a string of silver coins. In a strange sort of dualism they are placed in many of the huts cheek by jowl with the image of the Virgin Mary, and at meal- times their lips are smeared with the blood of raw game or fish.
It is this people, the Ostiaks, with whom the word " Shaman " originated. These Shamans are merely medicine-men.
The Mongols, who inhabit the more southern parts of the great waste of Siberia are also ancient practitioners in sorcery, and rely greatly on divination. In order to discover what description of weather will be prevalent for any length of time they employ a stone endowed with magic virtues called yadeh-tash. This is suspended over, or lies in a basin 'of- water with sundry ceremonies, and appears to be the same kind of stone in use among the Turcomans as related by Ibn Mohalhal, an early Arab traveller.
The celebrated conqueror, Timur, in his Memoirs, records that the Jets resorted to incantations to produce heavy rains which hindered his cavalry from acting against them. A Yadachi, or weather-conjuror, was taken prisoner, and after he had been beheaded the storm ceased. Babu refers to one of his early friends, Khwaja ka Mulai, as conspicuous for his skill in falconry and his knowledge of Yadageri, or the science of inducing rain and snow by means of enchantment. The Russians were much distressed by heavy rains in 1552, when besieging Kazan, and universally ascribed the unfavourable weather to the arts of the Tatar queen, who was an enchantress.
Early in the 18th century, the Chinese Emperor Shi- tsung issued a proclamation against rain-conjuring, address- ed to the Eight Banners of Mongolia. " If," indignantly observes the Emperor, " if I, offering prayers in sincerity, have yet cause to fear that it may please heaven to leave my prayer unanswered, it is truly- intolerable that mere common people wishing for rain should of their own fancy set up altars of earth ; and bring together a rabble of Hoshang (Buddhist Bonzes) and Taossi to conjure the spirits to gratify their wishes." Sibylline Books : The manuscripts which embodied the secrets of human destiny, the work of the sibyls (q.v.) or prophetesses of the ancient world. According to Tacitus, these books were first preserved in the Capitol. When it was burnt down, the precious leaves of Fate were pre- served, and removed to the temple of Apollo Palatinus. Their after-fate is enshrouded in mystery, but it would seem that the Cumean books existed until 339 A.D., when they were destroyed by Stilikon. Augustus sent three ambassadors — Paulus Gabinus, Marcus Otacillius, and Lucius Valerius — into Asia, Africa, and Italy, but especially to the Erythraean Sibyl, to collect whatever could be discovered of the Sibylline Oracles, to replace those which had been lost or burnt. The books are of two kinds ; namely, the books of the elder Sibyls, that is, of the earlier Greek and Roman times ; and the later, which were much falsified, and disfigured with numerous interpolations. Of the latter, eight books in Greek and Latin are still said to be extant. Those which are preserved in Rome had been collected from various places, at various times, and contained predictions of future events couched in the most mysterious of symbolic languages. At first they were
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permitted only tolbe read by descendants of Apollo, but later by ,the priests, until their care was entrusted to certain officials, who only replied to inquiries at the com- mand of the Senate, in cases of extraordinary emergency. They were two at first, and named duumviri : these were appointed by Tarquinius Superbus. Two hundred and thirteen years afterwards, ten more were appointed to their guardianship {decemviri), and Sulla increased the number to fifteen (quindecemviri.)
Siderit : Another name for the magnet.
Signs, Planetary : {See Astrology.)
Silvester II., Pope, (Gerbert, died 1003) : One of a number of popes who from the tenth century onwards were regarded as sorcerers. It was said — and the story probably emanated from the Gnostics who had been proscribed by the Church — that Gerbert had evoked a demon who obtained for him the papacy, and who further promised him that he should die only after he had celebrated High Mass in Jerusalem. One day, while he was saying mass in a Church in Rome, he felt suddenly ill, and remembering that he was in the Church of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem, he knew that the demon had played him a trick. Before he died, the chronicler continues, he confessed to his cardinals his compact with the devil. However, as Gerbert had been preceptor of two monarchs, and a friend of others, it is more likely that he owed his preference to one of these. He was one of the most learned men of his day, a proficient in mathematics, astronomy, and mechan- ics. He it was who introduced clocks, and some writers credit him with the invention of arithmetic as we now have it. It is not at all improbable that his scientific pursuits seemed to the ignorant to savour of magic. The technical language employed in his various studies might well have a sinister significance to the ignorant. The brazen head which William of Malmesbury speaks of as belonging to Silvester, and which answered questions in an oracular manner probably had its origin in a similar misinterpreta- tion of scientific apparatus. But however that may be, there is no lack of picturesque detail in some of the stories told of him. By the aid of sorcery he is said to have discovered buried treasure and to have visited a marvellous underground palace, whose riches and splendour vanished 1 at a touch. His very tomb was believed to possess the powers of sorcery, and to shed tears when one of the suc- ceeding popes was about to die.
Simon Ben Yohai r {See Kabala.)
Simon Magus : The sorcerer mentioned in the New Testar ment (Acts viii.) who bewitched the people of Samaria, and led them to believe that he was possessed of divine power. He was born in Samaria or Cyprus and was among the number of Samaritans who, moved by the preaching of Philip, came to him for baptism. Later, when Peter and John laid their hands on the new converts, so that they received the Holy Ghost, Simon offered the disciples money to procure a similar power. But Peter sternly rebuked him for seeking to buy the gift of God with money, and bade him pray that his evil thought might be forgiven, whereupon the already repentant Simon said, " Pray ye to the Lord for me, that none of these things which ye have spoken come upon me."
Though we are not told in detail what the sorceries were with which Simon bewitched the people of Samaria, certain early ecclesiastical writers have left a record of his doings. He could, they averred, make himself invisible when he pleased, assume the appearance of another person, or of the lower animals, pass unharmed through fire, cause statues to become alive, make furniture move without any visible means of imparting motion, and go through a long list of equally miraculous performances. In explanation of his desire to possess the apostles' power of working miracles
he is said to have affirmed that his sorceries took a great deal of time and trouble to perform, owing to the necessity for a multitude of magical rites and incantations, while the miracles of the apostles were accomplished easily, and successfully, by the mere utterance of a few words.
The adept from whom Simon learned the art of magic was one Dositheus, who pretended to be the Messiah fore- told by the prophets, and who was contemporary with Christ. From this person he appears to have acquired a great store of occult erudition, and owed his power chiefly to the hysterical conditions into which he was capable of throwing himself. Through these he was enabled to make himself look either old or young, returning at will to child- hood or old age. It is evident that he had not been initiated into Transcendental Magic, but was merely consumed by a thirst for power over humanity and the mysteries of nature. Repulsed by the Apostles, he is said to have under- taken pilgrimages, like them, in which he permitted himself to be worshipped by the mob. He declared that he himself was the manifestation of the Splendour of God, and that Helena, a Greek slave of his, was its reflection. Thus he imitated Christianity in the reverse sense, affirmed the eternal reign of evil and revolt, and was, in fact, an anti- christ.
After a while he went to Rome, where he appeared before the Emperor Nero. He is said to have been decapi- tated by him, but his head was restored to his shoulders, and he was instituted by the tyrant as court sorcerer. Legend states that St. Peter, alarmed at the spread of the doctrine of Simon in Rome, repaired thither to combat it, that Nero was made aware of his arrival, and imagining Peter to be a rival sorcerer resolved to bring them together for his amusement. An account ascribed to St. Clement states that on the arrival of Peter, Simon flew gracefully through a window into the outside air. The Apostle gave vent to a vehement prayer, whereupon the magician, with a loud cry, crashed to the earth, and broke both his legs. Nero, greatly annoyed, immediately imprisoned the saint, and it is related that Simon died of his fall. He had, how- ever, founded a distinct school headed by Merrander, which promised immortality of soul and .body to its followers. As late as 1858 there existed in France and America a sect whichcredited the principles of this magician.
Siradz, Count of : {See Dee.)
Sixth Sense : A term used to denote the faculty of spiritual perception, which is distinct from, and higher than, the five physical senses. It is the possession of the medium, the psychic or sensitive, and in some measure of all hypnotic subjects. It is not properly a separate sense at all, but is compounded from the spiritual correlates of the physical senses.
Slade, Henry : An American medium, principally known in connection with his slate-writing exploits. He came to Britain in July, 1876, and was cordially received by the leading spiritualists. Very many people were impressed and completely mystified by the phenomena they witnessed at his seances, and Lord Rayleigh, at a meeting of the British Association in September, 1876, stated that he had attended a seance of Slade' s in the company of a professional conjurer, and that the latter had failed entirely to find an explanation of the facts. A few days after this emphatic testimony was given, however, Professor Ray Lankester published in a 'letter to the Times the result of a seance at which he and Dr. Donkin were present. He had, tie said, snatched the slate prematurely from " Dr." Slade's hand, and had found a message written thereon, though the sound of writing had not then been heard. The spiritualists main- tained that the ': exposure " was no exposure at all, since Slade declared that he had heard the spirits writing, and
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had mentioned the fact, but that his voice had been lost in the confusion. However, the medium's career in Britain
! was at an end. At the instance of Professor Lankester he was tried in a court of law, and sentenced to three months imorisonment with hard labour. He appealed, and the conviction was quashed because of a slight omission m the charge A fresh summons was issued on the following day, but Siad? had left the country, and did not thereafter return In the years 1877-88 Professor Zollner of Leipsic in- vestigated the slate-writing and other phenomena occurring in the presence of Slade, mainly in the hope_of establishing his theory of four-dimensional space. Knots were tied in endless cords, coins extracted from sealed boxes ; but Professor Zollner did not succeed in his attempt to have knots tied in a piece of bladder, or to have two rings of solid wood interlaced. In short, no really . conclusive proof was obtained. In 1884 Slade' s phenomena was investigated by a committee appointed by the University of Pennsylvania. The results of the latter investigation were, at the best, of a negative description. {See also Slate-writing.)
Slate-writing: A form of the so-called "direct" spirit writing, or autography, which has always been one of the most popular phenomena of the seance. The modus operandi is the same in the majority of cases. The medium and the sitter take their seats at opposite ends of a small table, each grasping a corner of an ordinary school slate, which they thus hold firmly pressed against the underside of the table. A small fragment of slate-pencil is first enclosed between slate and table, for the use of the supposed spirit-writer. Should the seance be successful, a scratching sound, as of someone writing on a slate, is heard at the end of a few moments, three loud raps indicate the conclusion of the message, and on the withdrawal of the slate, it is found to be partly covered with writing — either a general message from the spirit- world, or an answer to some question nerviously written down by the sitter.
Among the mediums who were most successful in obtain- ing spirit writing in this manner were Dr. Slade and Mr. Eglinton. The former, an American medium, came to England in 1876, and succeeded in mystifying not a few men of education and of scientific attainments. His critics have attributed his success, in part at least, to his frank and engaging manner, which did much to disarm suspicious sitters. However, ere long Professor Ray Lankester exposed his trickery, though the exposure was regarded by many as inconclusive, and " Dr." Henry Slade was prose- cuted. Though sentenced to three months' hard labour, the omission of certain words in the accusation made the conviction of no effect. But Dr. Slade found that England had become too hot for him, and speedily retired whence he had come. Many of the accounts of his seances in different countries are of interest, chiefly because of the dis- crepancy which exists between those of credulous spiritual- ists and those of trained investigators. Dr. Richard Hodgson, however, has pointed out that even in the latter class instances of mal-observation are the rule rather than the exception, particularly where sleight of hand plays a prominent part in the exhibition. A worthy successor to Slade was William Eglinton, who acted as medium for slate-writing manifestations, and attained to an extraordin- ary popularity, upwards of a hundred people testifying to his mediumistic powers in the spiritualist journal Light. Speaking of his performances, Mr. C C. Massey said, " Many, of whom I am one, are of the opinion that the case for these phenomena generally, and for autography, in particular; is already complete." Eglinton's manifesta- tions were produced in full light, and his seances were seldom blank, so it is hardly surprising that very many persons, ignorant of the lengths to which conjuring can be carried, and over-confident in their own ability to
observe correctly, should see in slate-writing a phenomenon explicable only by a spiritualistic theory. But there was definite proof of fraud in several cases. Muslin and a false beard, part of the make-up of a " spirit " had been found in Eglinton's portmanteau, various persons averred that they had seen his messages written on prepared slates previous to the seance, and he had been concerned in other matters of an equally doubtful character. And though these detections also were disputed they left in the unbiassed mind but little doubt of the fraudulent nature of Eglinton's mediumship.
Spiritualists themselves admitted- that fraud might occasionally be practised by genuine mediums, owing to the uncertainty of the " power." Particularly was this so in the case of professional mediums, who were obliged to pro- duce some results, and who had to resort to trickery when other means failed them. Mr. S. J. Davey, an associate of the Society for Psychical Research who, having discov- ered the tricks of slate-writing, practised them himself, was claimed by certain spiritualists as a medium as well as a conjurer, and that notwithstanding his protestations to the contrary. This is undoubtedly a powerful argument against the good faith of slate-writing. If his sitters could mistake these sleight-of-hand tricks — which Mr. Davey practised with the express purpose of discrediting their professional mediums — for genuine spirit manifestations, might they not also be misled by the legerdemain of Slade and Eglinton, and other well-known mediums ? It has been objected that even skilled conjurers such as " Pro- fessor " Hoffmann and Houdin professed themselves mystified by slate-writing performances, but the answer is fairly obvious, that quite a clever conjurer may be baffled by the performances of a brother-expert. The methods adopted by Mr. Davey were of a simple nature, requiring little or no apparatus. In the case of a long, general message, he would prepare a slate beforehand, and substi- tute it for the test slate. A shorter message' or a reply to a question, he would write on the reverse side of the slate, with a scrap of pencil fastened in a thimble, and so with- draw the slate that the side written on would be uppermost. There is reason to believe that like simple devices were used in other seances, for their very simplicity, and the absence of all apparatus, rendered them particularly difficult of detection. But where the sitters were more credulous, intricate furniture and appliances were used, and the most elaborate preparations made for the seance. (See Pope John XXII.) Slavs : The Slavonic races have an extensive demonology, and in some measure their religious pantheon appears to have been in a stage between animism (q.v.) and polythe- ism, that is between god, and spirit-worship. Among them all witchcraft, fairy and folk-lore rest mainly in a belief in certain spirits of nature, which in some measure recall the pneumatology of Paracelsus and the Comte de Gabaiis. " In the vile," says Dr. Krauss, " also known as Samovile, Samodivi, and Vilivrjaci, we have near relations to the forest and field spirits or the wood and moss-folk of Middle Germany, France and Bavaria the " wild people of Hesse, Eifel, Salzburg and the Tyrol, the wood-women and wood- men of Bohemia, the Tyrolese Fanggen, Fanken, Norkel and Happy Ladies, the Roumanish Orken, Euguane, and Dialen, the Danish Ellekoner, the Swedish Skogsnufvaz, and the Russian Ljesje, while in certain respects they have affinity with the Teutonic Valkyries." They are, however, more like divine beings, constantly watching over and con^ trolling the destinies of men. They are prayed to or exorcised on all occasions. In short their origin is cer- tainly Shamanistic. Says Leland : " We can still find the vila as set forth in old ballads, the incarnation of beauty and power, the benevolent friend of sufferers, the geniuses of heroes, the dwellers by rock and river and
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greenwood tree. But they are implacable in their wrath to all who deceive them, or who break a promise. Nay, they inflict terrible punishment even on those who disturb their rings, or the dances which they make by midsummer moonlight. Hence the proverb applied to any man who suddenly fell ill, ' he stepped on a fairy ring.' " (See Circles.)
There are three varieties of witches or spirits among the southern Slavs, the Zracne vile, or aerial spirits, evilly dis- posed to human beings, and inflicting serious injuries upon them, Will-'o-the-wisps, who lead people astray by nights ; the Pozemne vile, companionable spirits, who give sage counsel to mankind, and dwell in the earth ; and the Podovne vile, or water sprites, kindly to man on shore, but treacherous to a degree on their own element. Another water-spirit is the Likho, the Slavonic Polyphemus, a dread and terrible monster, the Leshy is a wood-demon, Norka is the frightful Lord of the Lower World, and Koschei is a description of ogre whose province is the abduction of princesses.
Witchcraft. — The witch is very frequently mentioned in Slavonic folk-tales, especially among the southern Slavs. She is called vjestica, (masculine viestae) meaning originally "the knowing" or "well-informed one," Viednta (Russian) . In Dalmatia and elsewhere among the Southern Slavs the witch is called Krstaca, " the crossed " in allusion to the idea that she is of the horned race of Hell. It enrages the witches so much to be called by this word that when they hear that any one has used it they come to his house by night and tear him in four pieces, which they cast to the four winds of heaven, and drive away all his cattle and stock. Therefore the shrewd farmers of the country call the witch hmana zena, or " Common woman." There are many forms of Slavonic witch, however, and the vjestica differs from the macionica and the latter from the Zlokobnica, or " evil-meeter," one whom it is unlucky to encounter in the morning, or possesses the evil eye. A Serbian authority says : "I have often heard from old Hodzas and Kadijas that every female Wallach as soon as she is forty years old, abandons the " God be with us," and becomes a witch (vjestica) or at least a zlokobnica or maci- onica. A real witch has the mark of a cross under her nose, a zlokobnica has some hairs of a beard, and a macionica may be known by a forehead full of dark folds wtih blood-spots' in her face."
In South Slavonian countries the peasants on St. George's Day adorn the horns of the cattle with garlands to protect them from witches. They attach great importance to a seventh or a twelfth child, who, they believe, are the great protectors of the world against witchcraft. But these are in great danger on St. John's Eve, for then the witches, having the most power, attack them with stakes or the stumps of saplings, for which reason the peasantry care- fully remove everything of the kind from the ground in the autumn season. The Krstnik, or wizards, notori- ously attract the vila ladies, who in most instances are desirous of becoming their mistresses, just as the women- kind of the salamanders desire to mate with men. (See the Curiosa of Heinrich Kornmann, 1666.) The man who gains the love of a vila is supposed to be extremely lucky. The Slavs believe that on St. George's Day the witches climb into the steeples of churches with the object of getting the grease from the axle of the bell, which, for some reason, they prize exceedingly. Transformation stories are fairly common, too, in Slavonic folklore, which proves that this was a form of magic employed by the witches of these countries. The belief in vampires is an outstanding superstition in Slavonic countries, and its connections are fully discussed in the article Vampire. Slawensik Poltergeist : In the winter of 1806—7 Councillor
Hahn and an officer named Charles Kern, living for the time in the Castle of Salwensik, Silesia, were disturbedfsby curious happenings which suggested that the Castle was haunted. Strange noises were heard, small objects were seen to rise from the table and fly through the room. The only account is by Councillor Hahn, and, as is generally the case in such circumstances, the most surprising occurrences were not witnessed by the recorder, but were told him by his friends. Thus Kern is said to have seen in the glass the apparition of a woman in white ; while Hahn was not present when a jug of beer was raised from the table by invisible hands, tilted, and its contents poured down an invisible throat.
Sleeping Preacher : Rachel Baker, known as the Sleeping Preacher, was born at Pelham, Massachusetts, in 1794. When she was nine years old her parents removed to Mar- cellus, N.Y. As a child she had a religious training, her parents being devout people, and she early manifested a strong conviction of her sinfulness. In 181 1 she showed symptoms of somnambulism, in which she seemed stricken with horror and despondency. But gradually her mind became calmer, and delivered discourses of singular clear- ness, marked by a devout and solemn tone. These fits of somnambulism, or trance - speaking, seized her regularly every day, and soon became habitual. She began and concluded her devotional exercises with prayer, between which came the discourse. Then a state of apparent physical distress supervened, and sobs and groans shook her frame. At length the paroxysm passed, and she subsided into a natural sleep. Change of scene did not affect these exercises, but the administration of opium would interrupt them. Her trance discourses were after- wards published.
Smagorad, a magic book : (See France.)
Smith Helene : The nom-de-guerre of a trance medium who came under the observation of Professor Flournoy. Born about 1863, at the age of twenty-nine she joined a spiritual- ist circle and soon developed powerful mediumistic faculties. In 1 894 M. Flournoy was admitted to the circle and thence- forward examined with much interest the clairvoyance and trance impersonations of Helene. In the winter of 1894 sne purported to have visited, during trance, the planet Mars, and many of her trance discourses after that date contain descriptions of Martian life— manners, dress, scenery. At length she claimed to have learned the language of the sister-planet, and this language she spoke with fluency and consistency. (See Martian Language.) Professor Flournoy however, found no evidence sufficient to j ustify any belief in a supernormal faculty, unless it be telepathy.
Smith, Joseph : (See America, U.S. of.)
Sneezing, Superstitions Relating to : It is said that the custom of blessing one who sneezes originated in Italy in the time of Gregory the Great, during a pestilence which proved mortal to those who sneezed. A still older date is given to this custom by some writers, who state that sneezing was fatal from the time of Adam to that of Jacob, when the latter begged that its fatal effects might be removed. On his request being granted, the people grate- fully instituted the custom of saluting the sneezer. In some diseases sneezing was a bad, in others a good omen. Sneezing to the right was lucky, to the left, unlucky ; from noon to midnight good, from night to noon, bad. St. Austin says that the ancients would return to bed if they sneezed while putting on a shoe.
Societas Rosicruciana of Boston : (See Rosicrucians.)
Societe Industrielle of Wiemar : (Sec Alchemy.)
Societe Industrielle of Wien : (See Alchemy.)
Societe Spiritual di Palermo : (See Italy.)
Societies of Harmony : Associations. formed for the practice of magnetism by the pupils of F. A. Mesmer. The first
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Societe de V Harmonie was formed at Paris, and its members seem to have acted in a manner that was anything but harmonious, for, after some quarrelling among themselves they at length broke their contract with Mesmer, whereby they promised before being admitted to his lectures, that they would not practice on their own account, or give away the secret of his methods, without his consent. Other Societies of Harmony soon sprang up, the most important being that of Strasbourg, founded in 1785 by de Puysegur.
Society for Psychical Research : {See Spiritualism, Psychic Research.)
Solanot, Viscount : {See Spain.)
Solar Deity : {See Theosophy.)
Solar System : Theosophists have special doctrines as to the formation of solar systems. They start by postulating the existence of all pervading ether, or, as it is termed in occult chemistry (q.v.) koilon, an ether which is quite impercepti- ble to ordinary senses and indeed even to clairvoyants except the most highly-developed. It is, despite its diffusion, of extreme density. The Deity intending to create a universe invests this ether with his divine force, whereupon it becomes the constituent of matter in the shape of minute drops or bubbles, and of this the universe with its solar systems is formed. First a mass is aggregated by the appropriate agitation of these drops, and to this mass is imparted a rotatory motion. The mass thus formed, of course, contains the matter from which will be formed all the seven worlds, the existence of which Theosophy teaches, and it may be well here to observe that these worlds are not separate in the manner we usually conceive separate worlds to be, but inter-penetrate each other. The sub- stance in its original form is of the texture of the first world, and in order to create the texture of the second — and lower — world the Deity sets up a vast number of rotatory agitations into each of which is collected 49 atoms arranged in a certain way, sufficient of the first atom having been left to form the first world. This process continues six times, the atoms of the succeeding lower worlds being formed from those of the world immediately higher and each time of a multiple of 49 atoms. Gradually and with the passing of long ages, the aggregation, which contains the atoms of all seven worlds completely inter- mingled, contracts and becomes more closely knit until it forms a nebula which eventually attains the flat, circular form familiar to students of astromony. Towards the centre it is much more dense than at the fringes, and in the process of flattening and because of the initial revolving motion, rings are formed encircling the centre. From these rings the planets are formed, and after the further passing of ages, it is possible for human life to exist on them. The various worlds as has been said, penetrate each other substantially within the same bounds, the exceptions being the worlds of finer texture which extend beyond those relatively more dense. The names of the worlds are : the first which has not as yet been experienced by man — the Divine ; the second, the Monadic whence come the impulses that form man ; the third, the Spiritual, the highest world which man has as yet been able to experience ; the fourth, the Intuitional, the fifth, the Mental ; the sixth, the Emotional (Astral) world ; and the seventh is the world of matter as matter is familiar to us. Reference is made to the various articles dealing more fully with these worlds as follows : — Adi Plane, See" Divine World and Solar System"
Annpadaka ,, ,, Monadic ,, ,,
Atmic or
Movanic ,, ,, Spiritual ,, ,, ,,
Buddhic ,, ,, Inutitional
Astral ,, ,, Emotional
Solomon : The connection of Solomon, son of David, the King of Israel, with magical practice, although it does not possess any Biblical authority, has yet a very considerable body of oriental tradition behind it. It is supposed, however, that the Jewish Solomon has in many cases been confounded with a still older and mythical figure. Then the Arabs and Persians have legends of a prehistoric race who were ruled by seventy-two monarchs of the name of Suleiman, of whom the last reigned one thousand years. " It does not seem," says Yarker, " that these Suleimans who are par excellence the rulers of all Djinn, Afreets and other elemental spirits, bear any relationship to the Israelite King." The name, he says, is found in that of a. god of the Babylonians and the late Dr. Kenealy, the translater of Hafiz, says that the earliest Aryan teachers were named Mohn, Bodies or Solymi, and that Suleiman was an ancient title of royal power, synonymous with " Sultan " or " Pharaoh." A Persian legend states that in the mountains of Kaf, which can only be reached by the magic ring of Solomon, there is a gallery built by the giant Arzeak, where one kept the statues of a race who were ruled by the Suleiman or wise Kings of the East. There is a great chair or throne of Solomon hewn out of the solid rock, on the confines of the Afghanistan and India called the Takht-i-Suleiman or throne of Solomon, its ancient Aryan name being Shanker Acharga. It is to these older Suleiman's then, that we must probably look for a connection with the tradition of occultism, and it is not unlikely that the le- gend relating to Solomon and his temple have been confused with these, and that the protagonists of the antiquity of Free- masonry, who date their cult from the building of Solomon's Temple, have confounded some still older rite or mystery relating to the ancient dynasty of Suleiman with the circum- stances of the masonic activities of the Hebrew monarch.
" God," says Josephus, " enabled Solomon to learn that skill which expels daemons, which is a science useful and sanative to men. He composed such incantations, also, by which distempers are alleviated, and he left behind him the manner of using exorcisms, by which they drive away daemons, so that they never return. And this method of cure is of great force unto this day ; for I have seen a certain man of my own country, whose name was Eleazar, releasing people that were daemoniacal, in the presence of Vespasian and his sons, and his captains, and the whole multitude of his soldiers. The manner of the cure was this. He put a ring that had a root of one of these sorts mentioned by Solomon to the nostrils ; and when the man fell down immediately, he adjured him to return unto him no more, making still mention of Solomon, and reciting the incantations which he composed. And when Eleazar would persuade and demonstrate to the spectators that he had such a power, he set, a little way off, a cup, or basin full of water, and commanded the daemon as he went out of the man, to overturn it, and thereby to let the spectators know that he had left the man." Some pretended fragments of these conjuring books of Solomon are noticed in the " Codex Pseudepigraphus " of Fabricius, and Josephushimself has described one of the antidaemoniacal roots, which must remind the reader of the perils atten- dant on gathering the " mandrake."
The Koran alleges that Solomon had power over the winds, and that he rode on his throne throughout the world during the day, and the wind brought it back every night to Jerusalem. This throne was placed on a carpet of green silk, of a prodigious length and breadth, and sufficient to afford standing-room to all Solomon's army, the men on his right hand and the Jinn on his left. An army of the most beatiful birds hovered near the throne, forming a kind of canopy over it, and the attendants, to screen the king and his soldiers from the sun. A certain number of
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evil spirits were also made subject to him, whose business Solomon, Mirror of : The method of making the Mirror of
it was to dive for pearls, and perform- other work. We are also informed, on the same authority, that the devils, having received permission to tempt Solomon, in which they were not successful, conspired to ruin his character. They wrote several books of magic, and hid them under bis throne ; and when he died they told the chief men among the Jews that if they wished to ascertain the manner in which Solomon obtained his absolute power over men, Genii, and the winds, they should dig under his throne. They did so and found the books, abounding with the most impious superstitions. The more learned and enlightened refused to participate in the practices described in those books, but they were willingly adopted by the common people. The Mahomed?ns assert that the Jewish priests published this scandalous story concerning Solomon, which was believed till Mahomet, by God's command, declared him to have been no idolater.
Solomon, it is further maintained by the Mahomedans,
Solomon, which is used for purposes of divination, is as follows : Take a shining and well-polished plate of fine steel, slightly concave, and with the blood of a white pigeon inscribe at the four corners the names — Jehovah, Eloym, Metatron, Adonay. Place the mirror in a clean and white cloth, and when you behold a new moon during the first hour after sunset, repeat a prayer that the angel Anael may command and ordain his companions to act as they are instructed ; that is, to assist the operator in divining from the mirror. Then cast upon burning coals a suitable perfume, at the same time uttering a prayer. Repeat this thrice, then breathe upon the mirror and evoke the angel Anael. The sign of the cross is then made upon the operator and upon the mirror for forty-five days in succession-^at the end of which period Anael appears in the form of a beautiful child to accomplish the operator's wishes. Sometimes he appears on the fourteenth day, according to the devotion and fervour of the operator. The perfume used in evoking him is saffron.
brought a thousand horses from Damascus and other
*&3S£&. SLTthenr ££ STa^O&K Solb"mV„-.s"sraBle"s7 (Se'e 'subt^ean Crypte.)
and others pretend that they came out of the Red Sea, and were provided with wings. The King wished to inspect his horses, and ordered them to be paraded before him ; and their symmetry and beauty so much occupied his attention that he gazed on them after sunset, and thus neglected evening prayers till it was too late. When sensible of his omission, he was so greatly concerned at it that he ordered all the horses to be killed as an offering to God, except a hundred of the best of them. This, we are informed, procured for him an ample recompense, as he received for the loss of his horses dominion over the winds.
The following tradition is narrated by the Mahomedan commentators relative to the building of the temple of Jerusalem. According to them, David laid the foundations of it, and when he died he left it to be finished by Solomon. That prince employed Jinn, and not men, in the work ; and . this idea might probably originate from what is said in the First Book of Kings (vi., 7) that the Temple was " built of stone, made ready before it was brought thither, so that there was neither hammer, nor axe, nor any tool of iron, heard in the house while it was building " ; and the Rabbins notice a worm which, they pretend, assisted the workmen, the power of which was such as to cause the rocks and stones to separate in chiselled blocks. Solomon, while engaged in the erection of the Temple, found his end approaching, and he prayed that his death might be con- cealed from the Jinn till the building was finished. His request was granted. He died while in the act of praying, and leaning on his staff, which supported his body in that
Somnambulism : (Latin, somnus, sleep, and ambulare, to walk.) The condition in which walking, talking, and actions of a more complicated character are performed during sleep, without the agent's consciousness or after recollection. The somnambulist may have his eyes closed, and ears deaf to auditory impressions or sense impressions, without waking in him any gleam of consciousness. This may have some effect in rousing new trains of association and suggesting a new line of action. It is suggested that the sleep-walker may see only a mental picture of what he is doing — that is, a dream — and not the objective reality, and certain experimental tests have proved that this occurs in some cases at least. Somnambulism admits of many varying degrees. Its mildest form is typified in the inarticu- late murmurings or vague gestures of a dreaming child, while in the most extreme cases where all the senses are active, and the actions apparently as purposive as in the normal waking state, it borders on the condition of spon- taneous hypnotism. Indeed its affinity with hypnosis was early recognised, when the hypnotic subjects of the mag- netists were designated somnambules. It is remarkable that somnambulists may walk in dangerous paths with perfect safety, but if they are suddenly awakened they are liable to fall. Spontaneous somnambulism generally indicates some morbid tendency of the nervous system, since, as a rule, only in some abnormal state could the dream ideas exercise so exciting an influence on the brain as to rouse to activity centres normally controlling volun- tary movements.
posture for a whole year, and the "jinn, who supposed him Sorcery : (From Latin sortiarius, one who practices divina-
to be still alive, continued their work. At the expiration of tion by lots-) The use oi supposed supernatural power
the year the edifice was completed, when a worm which by tne agency of evil spirits called forth by spells by a
had entered the staff, ate it through, and to the amazement witch or black magician. {See Magie.)
even of the Jinn the body fell to the ground, and the King Sorrel-leaf : A sorrel-leaf was sometimes used to bewitch
was discovered to be dead. people, as in the case of the Irish Witch mentioned in
The inhabitants of the valley of Lebanon believe that George Sinclair's Satan's Invisible World Displayed, who
the celebrated city and temple of Baalbec were erected by the Jinn under Solomon's direction. The object of the erection of Baalbec is variously stated, one tradition affirm-
gave to a girl a leaf of sorrel, which the child put into her mouth. Great torture ensued for the child, such tortures being increased on the approach of the witch.
ing that it was intended to be a residence for the Egyptian Sortilege, or divination by lots, is one of the most ancient
princess whom Solomon married, and another that it was built for the Queen of Sheba. Solomon Ibn Gabirol (1021-1058) : Spanish-Hebrew poet and mystic philosopher. He was a Neoplatonist, but at the same time subscribed to the mystical doctrine which states that the Deity can only be regarded as a negation of all attributes. This he considered essential to the preser- vation of the Jewish monotheism.
and common superstitions. We find it used among the Oriental nations to detect a guilty person, as when Saul by this means discovered that Jonathan had disobeyed his command by taking food, and when the sailors by a similar process found Jonah to be the cause of the tempest by which they were overtaken. The methods of using the lot have been very numerous, such as Rhabdomancy, Clidomancy, the Sortes Sagittaria:, otherwise- Belomancy,
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and the common casting of dice. The following are the more classical : —
Sortes ThriaecEB, or Thriasan lots, were chiefly used in Greece ; they were pebbles or counters distinguished by certain characters which were cast into an urn, and the first that came out was supposed to contain the right direction. This form of divination received its name from the Thrive, three nymphs supposed to have nursed Apollo, and to have invented this mode of predicting futurity.
Sortes Viales, or street and road lots, were used both in Greece and Rome. The person that was desirous to learn his fortune carried with him a certain number of Iots,s distinguished by several characters or inscriptions, and walking to and fro in the public ways desired the first boy whom he met to draw, and the inscription on the lot thus drawn was received as an infallible prophecy. Plut- arch declares that this form of divination was derived from the Egyptians, by whom the actions and words of boys were carefully observed as containing in them some- thing prophetical. Another form of the Sortes Viales was exhibited by a boy, but sometimes by a man, who posted himself in a public place to give responses to all comers. He was provided with a tablet, on which certain fatidical verses were written ; when consulted, he cast dice on the tablet, and the verses on which they fell were supposed to contain the proper direction. Sometimes instead of tablets they had urns, in which the fatidical verses were thrown, written upon slips of parchment. The verse drawn out was received as a sure guide and direction. To this custom Tibullus alludes : —
Thrice in the streets the sacred lots she threw, And thrice the boy a happy omen drew.
This form of divining was often practised with the Sibylline oracles, and was hence named Sortes Sibyllina.
Sortes Prenestinse, or the Prenestine lots, were used in Italy.; the letters of the alphabet were placed in an urn and shaken ; they were then turned out upon the floor, and the words which they accidentally formed were received as omens. This superstitious use of letters is still common in Eastern nations. The Mussulmans have a divining table, which they say was invented by the prophet Edris or Enoch. It is divided into a hundred little squares, each of which contains a letter of the Arabic alphabet. The person who consults it repeats three times the opening chapter of the Koran, and the 57th verse of the 6th chapter : " With Him are the keys of the secret things ; none knoweth them but Him ; He knoweth whatever is on the dry ground, or in the sea : there falleth no leaf but He knoweth it ; neither is there a single grain in the dark parts of the earth, nor a green thing, nor a dry thing, but it is written in a perspicuous book." Having concluded this recitation, he averts -his head from the table and places his finger upon it ; he then looks to see upon what letter his finger is placed, writes that letter ; the fifth following it ; the fifth following that again ; and so on until he comes back to the first he had touched : the letters thus collected form the answer.
Sortes Homericae and Sortes Virgilianse, divination by opening some poem at hazard, and accepting the passage which first turns up as an answer. This practice probably arose from the esteem which poets had among the ancients, by whom they were reputed divine and inspired persons. Homer's works among the Greeks had the most credit, but the tragedies of Euripides and other celebrated poems were occasionally used for the same purpose. The Latins chiefly consulted Virgil, and many curious coincidences are related by grave historians, between the prediction and the event ; thus, the elevation of Severus to the empire is supposed to have been foretold by his opening at this verse —
Remember, Roman, with imperial sway to rule the nations. It is said that Charles I. and Lord Falkland made trial of the Virgilian lots a little before the commencement of the great civil war. The former opened at that passage in the fourth book of the .SLneid where Dido predicts the violent death of her faithless lover ; the latter at the lamentation of Evander over his son in the eleventh book ; if the story be true, the coincidences between the responses and events are among the most remarkable recorded.
Sortes Biblicse, divination by the Bible, which the early Christians used instead of the profane poets. Nicephorus Gregoras recommends the Psalter as the fittest book for the purpose, but Cedrenus informs us that the New Testa- ment was more commonly used. St. Augustine denounces this practice in temporal affairs, but declares in one of his letters that he had recourse to it in all cases of spiritual difficulty. Another form of the Biblical lots is to go to a place of worship, and take as an omen the first passage of Scripture read by the minister, or the text from which he preaches. This is no uncommon practice ir. modern times, and it is frequently vindicated by persons who ought to know better.
The Mussulmans consult the Koran in a similar manner, but they deduce their answer from the seventh line of the right-hand page. Others count how often the letters kha and shin occur in the page ; if kha (the first letter of kheyr, " good ") predominate, the answer is deemed favourable ; but if shin (the first letter of shin " evil ") be more frequent, the inference is that the projects of the inquirer are forbidden or dangerous.
It would be easy to multiply examples of these efforts to obtain guidance from blind chance ; they were once so frequent, that it was deemed necessary to denounce them from the pulpit as being clearly forbidden by the divine precept, " Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God." South American Indians : {See American Indians.) Sovereign Council of Wisdom : {See Devil-worship.) Spain : Witchcraft. — From early times Spain was regarded as the special abode of superstition, and in the middle ages as the home of sorcery and magic, probably because of the immense notoriety given to the discoveries of the Moorish alchemists. {See Moors.) The Inquisition quickly took root in the country, and reaped a rich harvest among Jews, Mo#iscos, and superstitious Christians.
Alfonso de Spina, a Franciscan of Castille, where the Inquisition was not then established, wrote, about the year 1458 or 1460, a work especially directed against heretics and unbelievers, in which he gives a chapter on these articles of popular belief which were derived from the ancient heathendom of the people. Among these, witches, under the name of Xurguine (jurgina) or bruxe, held a prominent place.
He tells us that in his time these offenders abounded in Dauphiny and Gascony, where they assembled in great numbers by night on a wild table land, carrying candles with them, to worship Satan, who appeared in the form of a boar on a certain rock, popularly known by the name Elboch de Biternc, and that many of them had been taken by the inquisition of Toulouse and burnt. From that time we find, in Spanish history, the charge of witchcraft and sorcery not infrequently brought forward under different forms and circumstances, of which several remark- able examples are given by Llorente in his History oj the Inquisition in Spain.
The first auto-da-fe against sorcery appears to have been that of Calahorra, in 1507, when thirty women, charged before the inquisition as witches, were burnt. In 1527, a great number of women were accused in Navarre of the practice of sorcery, through the information of two girls.
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one of eleven, the other only of nine years old, who con- fessed before the royal council of Navarre that they had been received into the sect of the jurginas, and promised on condition of being pardoned, to discover all the women who were implicated in these practices.
The moment the attention of the inquisition was thus drawn to the crime of sorcery, the prevalence of this super- stition in the Basque provinces became notorious ; and Charles V., rightly judging that it was to be attributed more to the ignorance of the population of those districts -than to any other cause, directed that preachers should be sent to instruct them.
The first treatise in the Spanish language on the subject of sorcery, by a Franciscan monk named Martin de Cas- tanaga, was printed under approbation of the bishop of •Calahorra in 1529. About this time the zeal of the inquisi- tors of Saragossa was excited by the appearance of many witches who were said to have come from Navarre, and to have been sent by their sect as missionaries to make disciples of the women of Arragon. This sudden witch- persecution in Spain appears to have had an influence on the fate of the witches of Italy. Pope Adrian IV., who was raised to the papal chair in 1522, was a Spanish bishop, and had held the office of inquisitor-general in Spain. In the time of Julius II., who ruled the papal world from 1503 to 1513, a sect of witches and sorcerers had been discovered in Lombardy, who were extremely numerous, and had their Sabbaths and all the other abominations of the continental witches. The proceedings against them appear to have been hindered by a dispute between the inquisitors and the ecclesiastical judges who claimed the jurisdiction in such xases. On the 20th July, 1523, pope Adrian issued a bull against the crime of sorcery, placing it in the sole juris- diction of the inquisitors. This bull perhaps gave the new impulse to the prosecution of the witches in Spain.
Of the cases which followed during more than a century, the most remarkable -was that of the auto-da-fe at Logrono -on the 7th and 8th of November, 1610, which arose in some measure from the visitation of the French Basque province in the preceding year. The valley of Bastan is situated .at the foot of the Pyrenees, on the French Frontier, and at no great distance from Labourd. It was within the jurisdiction of the inquisition established at Logrono in -Castille. The mass of the population of this valley appear -to have been sorcerers, and they held their meetings or Sabbaths at a place called Zugarramurdi.
A woman who was condemned implicated a number of other -persons. All the persons arrested on this occasion agreed in their description of the Sabbath, and of the practices of the witches, which in their general features bore a close resemblance to those of the witches of Labourd. The usual place of meeting was known here, as in Labourd, by the popular name of Aquelarre, a Gascon word, signifying the meadow of the goat. Their ordinary meetings were held on the nights of Monday, Wednesday and Friday, -every week, but they had grand feasts on the principal holidays of the church, such as Easter, Pentecost, Christ- mas, etc., All these feasts appear to have been fixed by the Christian teachers at the period of older pagan festivals. The accounts of their Sabbaths are entirely similar to those given of such meetings elsewhere. They danced, sang took part in the most horrible orgies, and came into personal contact with Satan.
The auto-da-fe of Logrono, as far as it related to the sect of the sorcerers of Zugarramurdi, caused a great sen- sation, and brought the subject of witchcraft under the •consideration of the Spanish theologians. These were so far more enlightened than the body of their contemporaries in other countries, that they generally leant to the opinion -that witchcraft was a mere delusion, and that the details of
the confessions of the miserable creatures who were its victims were all creations of the imagination. They were punished because their belief was a heresy, contrary to the doctrines of the church. Llorente gives the abstract of a treatise on this subject by a Spanish ecclesiastic named Pedro de Valentia, addressed to the grand inquisitor in consequence of the trial at Logrono in 1610, and which remained in manuscript .among the archives of the inquisi- tion.
This writer adopts entirely the opinion that the acts confessed by the witches were imaginary ; he attributed, them partly to the methods in which the examinations were carried on, and to the desire of the ignorant people examined to escape by saying what seemed to please their persecutors, and partly to the effects of the ointments and draughts which they had been taught to use, and which were composed of ingredients that produced sleep, and acted upon the imagination and the mental faculties.
Spiritualism. — A writer in the Religious Philosophical Journal says : — " The language that furnishes the largest number of periodicals devoted to the dissemination of the doctrine and philosophy of modern Spiritualism, is the Spanish. This statement will be somewhat surprising to many of our readers, for we have been accustomed to look upon the Spaniards as non-progressive and conservative in the extreme. Spain, until a few years, has always been intolerant of any religions except the Roman Catholic, and was the latest of European nations to yield to the spirit of religious progress. Protestantism has with the greatest difficulty obtained a foothold in that country within the last few years, but it has been attended with annoying restrictions and persecutions, while its progress has been exceedingly slow and discouraging.
Spiritualism in Spain commenced, as in many other lands, with a series of disturbances, which took place in a family residing in the outskirts of Cadiz. Stone-throwing, bell- ringing, and other preternatural annoyances were the first means of awakening attention to the subject, and as they occurred at the house of a Spanish gentleman who had just returned from the United States, full of the marvels of " the Rochester knockings," circles were at once formed, intelligent responses by rappings obtained, and a foot-hold gained, upon which the edifice of Spiritual progress was upreared. So rapidly did the interest thus awakened spread, that the first promulgators were soon lost sight of, and as early as 1854, a society was formed at Cadiz, which was organised for the sole purpose of publishing the com- munications received from " the Spirits " during two preceding years. From 1854 to i860, Spiritualism spread through the principal towns and villages of Spain in the usual fashion. Circles were held in private families, and an endless number of " societies " were formed and dis- solved, according to the exigencies of the time. One of the first public events of note in connection with Spanish Spiritualism, was of so remarkable a character, that it deserves special mention. This was no other than an Auto-da-fe, the only difference between the occasion under consideration and the fiery executions of olden times being, that the victims were formerly human beings, whereas in the present instance, they were all the books, pamphlets, and works of a Spiritualistic character that could be procured at that period of the movement. Amongst the pile thus offered up on the altar of religious enlightenment, were the writings of Kardec Dufau, Grand, and Gulden- stubbe ; some copies of English and American Spiritual papers, and a large collection of tracts issued by the Spirit- ualists of Spain. This memorable scene occurred on the morning of the 9th of October, 1 861, at the Esplanade Bar- celona.
Among the well-know residents of Barcelona, was a
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Sefior Navarez, whose daughter, Rosa, had for many years been the subject of spasmodic attacks, called by the Catholic clergy " the obsession of demons " — by the medical faculty, an aggravated condition of epilepsy. Within two years after the Auto-da-fe, Rosa was pronounced entirely cured, by the magnetic passes of a gentleman who was the medium of the private circle held in the city. Shortly after this, Barcelona could boast of its well- approved Spiritual organs, numerous societies for investi- gation, and several mediums, who from their exclusive positions in private life, would object to their names being mentioned. The journal whs published by Sefior Alcan- tara, and was warmly supported by the Viscount de Torres Solanot, and numbers of other leaders of science and literature in Spain. By this publication the opponents of Spiritualism were amazed to learn of the immense pro- gress the cause was making, and the number of distin- guished persons who assembled nightly in circles to promote investigation. A circular calling the attention of the Spanish public to the phenomena of Spiritualism was published in 1875 by Viscount Solanot. The authors of this circular, met with no response worthy of their fraternal intentions. It might have been difficult to define exactly what the Spanish brethren proposed to do or wished others to unite with them in doing ; certain it is, that no tangible results could be expected to follow from a very transcen- dental address to the scattered ranks of a movement, whose motto might well be Liberty, Inequality, and Disintegra- tion : " Our Spanish friends mean well, but is it possible there can be unity enough amongst them to send a delega- tion to America ? " asked one of the shrewdest on perusing this grandiloquent circular. Nothing daunted by the impossibility of getting an international representation worthy of the cause at Philadelphia, the energetic Viscount Solanot again agitated the subject previous to the Paris Exposition of 1878. In the articles written for El Criterio on this proposition, the Viscount names amongst those societies of Spiritualists prepared to promote an Interna- tional representation, " La Federation Espirita," of Belgium; " The British National Association of Spiritualists," England ; "La Sociedad Central Espirita," of the Republic of Mexico ; and " El Central General del Espiritismo." Notice is also taken, and with a hope of its ultimate success, of the attempt to form a national association and unite all the discordant elements under the one broad banner of simple Spiritualism.
Magnetism and Mediumistic Science .—In. Spain as in Italy, a considerable amount of attention has been directed towards the unfoldment of Mediumistic power by means of Magnetism. Magnetic Societies abounded in Spain up to within the last few years, when many elements of internal discord prevailed in the ranks, and succeeded in dissolving the bonds which had united flourishing associations. Amongst the amateur mesmerists of Spain may be men- tioned Don Juan Escudero, of Madrid, a gentleman who having witnessed some experiments in " animal magnet- ism " in California, tried its effect in his own family with success.
Among the numerous circles or " groups " formed in the different parts of Spain for the study of Spiritualism and its phenomena, was one of long standing at Tarragona called '' The Christian Circle," Quite recently the Presi- dent of this circle sent the following communication to the Revue Spirite of Paris : — " The convict prison here in Tarragona has 800 inmates sentenced to forced labour By some means, Spiritualistic books have been introduced among the prisoners. The circulation of these books among them has been the means of bringing seventy or eighty of them to be believers in our doctrine. These converts have ceased to regard their miserable position
from their old point of view ; they no longer entertain schemes of revolt against the authorities. They endure their lot with resignation under the influence of the teach- ing that this world is but a preliminary stage to another, where, if repentant of the ill they have done, and seeking the good of others, they will be better off than here. " Not long since one of these men died ; at his death he declined the established offices of the prison priest, on the ground that he was a Spiritualist and did not need them. The priest then discovered that Spiritualism was a subject of discussion with many of the prisoners. He made a repre- sentation of the matter to his bishop, who made formal complaint of it to the commandant of the prison, and the commandant made an investigation. In the end a particu- lar prisoner was selected for punishment in the form of an additional weight of fetters. This coming to the know- ledge of the Spiritualists of Tarragona, Barcelona, and Lerida, they had a meeting upon the subject and delegated one of their number, a man of position, to interview the commandant. The representations which he made, led the commandant to cancel his order as to the additional fetters. The bishop's censure against spiritualist books placed them under prohibition, which was maintained. It is known, however, that although never found by gaolers, the books are still there."
In April, 1881, the editor of the Madrid El Criterio says : — " that great progress has been made in the cause oi Spiritualism ; that the hall of meeting of the Spiritual Society ' is completely full every Thursday evening,' and is not now large enough ' to hold the public who come to the sessions,' that Dr. Merschejewski has called the atten- tion of the University of St. Petersburg to a psychometric phenomena of much importance ; to wit : A young man- deemed from childhood to be an idiot, who will in some seconds solve any mathematical problem, while if a poem be read to him, even of many hundred verses, he will repeat the whole of it without failing in a single word." Sefior Manuel Lopez in the same issue of El Criterio says, speaking of the progress of a society of Spiritualists in. Madrid : — " We have received a mediumistic work of extraordinary merit, executed by a medium of the ' Society of Spiritualists ' of Zaragoza. It consists of a portrait o£ Isabel the Catholic, made with a pencil, and is a work truly admirable. It is said by intelligent persons who have examined it to be an exact copy of one preserved in the Royal Museum of Painters of this court. Many thanks are tendered to the Zaragozan Society for this highly appre- ciated present. It was about the end of the year 1880, that the Spiritualists of Spain sustained another series of attacks- from the Church. The first of these was the refusal of the clergy to accord the customary rites of interment to the- remains of two ladies, both of irreproachable character, and good standing in society, but both "guilty" of having believed in Spiritual manifestations. The second raid which the Church in Spain perpetrated about this time to the prejudice of the Spiritualists, was the suppression, of a well-written Spiritual paper published at Lerida, entitled El Buen Sentido. The Bishop of Lerida had long threatened this step, and warned the editor to beware how he presumed to allow any writings reflecting upon clerical doings to appear in his columns. As some of the principal contributors were Madame Soler, Mdlle. Sans, Don Murillo, and others equally capable of arraigning the intolerant acts which Church policy seemed determined to push against the Spiritualists, it was scarcely likely that the Bishop's- threats would produce much effect. The last article which seemed to inflame the clergy to retaliate was an indignant protest which appeared in the columns of this paper on the condemnation of a working man to three years' imprison- ment, leaving a family of children destitute and all for
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speaking in public against the intolerance of the Church. In a number of El Criterio, dated 1881, is a letter from Don Migueles, in which he gives a somewhat discouraging account of " the cause " as it recently existed in Spain. The editor says : — " Don Migueles visited many cities to examine into the state of affairs of a spiritual nature, but found many who were only to be enticed by physical phenomena, caring nothing for the esoteric beauties of our faith ; many who were convinced that they knew all there was to be known concerning it, and others who were timid fearing the disapproval of neighbours. In some places, however, excellent mediums were discovered. In Santiago, in Oviedo, in Corunna and Valladolid, an exceptional interest was manifest. Near Santiago, there was a young girl possessed of wonderful faculties. Two bars of mag- netized iron held over her horizontally, half a metre distant, were sufficient to suspend her body in the air. " The proceedings of the Spanish Society, under the name of the Sesiones de Controversio, in the month of April last, are spoken of in the Critic as markedly impressive on account of the lofty sentiments maintained throughout the discussions, by the various speakers. ' In the past month were given also very interesting conferencias by our illustrious brothers, the Sres. Rebolledo and Huelbes.' The able engineer and inventor, belonging to the Society of Santiago de Chili and founder of that of Lima, D. R. Caruana y Berard, has just arrived in Madrid. The Revista Espiritista of Barcelona mentions the visit which its editor has made to the central societies of Spiritualists of Sabodell and Tarrasa, where a great number of brethren were assembled on the occasion, and which will result in great good to the doctrine." The Barcelona Lux, of date 1881, gives encouraging accounts of seances held at Cordova, Tarragona, Seville, and many other places. The editor, Madame Soler, also refers to the prohibition to Catholics, by an archbishop to have or to read the Spiritualistic work of Niram Aliv : of the " Society of Spiritualists " of Tarrasa ; of the circle of Santa Cruz of Tenerif ; of that of " Faith, Hope, and Charity," of Andujar, and of St. Vincent de Bogota. Speal Bone, Divination by : A form of divination used in Scotland. A speal bone, or blade bone of a shoulder of mutton is used, but details of the method are wanting. A common soldier, accompanying Lord Loudon on his retreat to Skye, told the issue of the battle of Culloden at the very moment it was decided, pretending to have seen the event by looking through the bone. Speers, Dr. : [See Moses, William Stainton.) Spells : Spells, incantations, a written or spoken formula of words supposed to be capable of magical effects.
Anglo-saxon spel, a saying or story, hence a form of words ; Icelandic, spjall, a saying ; Gothic, spill, a fable.
The conception of spells appears to have arisen in the idea that there is some natural and intimate connection between words and the things signified by them. Thus if one repeats the name of a supernatural being the effect will be analogous to that produced by the being itself. It is assumed that all things are in sympathy, and act and react upon one another, things that have once been in contact continue to act on each other even after the con- tact has been removed. That certain names unknown to man, of gods, demi-gods, arid demons, if discovered can be used against them by the discoverer, was believed in Ancient Egypt. Spells or enchantments can be divided into several classes as follows : (1) Protective spells ; (2) the curse or taboo ; (3) Spells by which a person, animal or object is to be injured or transformed ; (4) Spells to pro- cure some minor end, or love-spells, the curing of persons and cattle, etc.
The power of the spoken word is implicitly believed in by all primitive peoples, especially if it emanates from a
known professor of the art of magic, and if it be in a lan- guage or dialect unknown. Thus the magicians of Ancient Egypt employed foreign words for their incantations, such as Tharthar, thamara, thatha, mommon, thanabotha, opranu, brokhrex, abranazukhel," which occurs at the end of a spell the purpose of which is to bring dreams. The magicians and sorcerers of the middle ages likewise em- ployed gibberish of a similar land, as do the medicine men of the North American Indians at the present day. The reason for the spell being usually couched in a well-known formula, is probably because experience found that that and no other formula was efficacious. Thus in Ancient Egypt not only were the formula? of spells well fixed, but 1 he exact tone of voice in which they were to be pronounced was specially taught. The power of a spell remains until such time as it is broken by an antidote or exorcism. Therefore it is not a passing thing.
(1) The protective spell. — The commonest form of this is an incantation, usually rhymed, imploring the protection of certain gods, saints, or beneficent beings, who in waking or sleeping hours will guard the speaker from maleficent powers, such as : —
" Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, Bless the bed that I lie on." Of a deeper significance are these supposed to De spoken by the dead Egyptian on his journey through Amenti by which he wards off the evil beings who would hinder his way, and so the serpent who would bite the dead is ad- dressed thus : " O serpent come not ! Geb and Shu stand against thee. Thou hast eaten mice. That is loathsome to the Gods. Thou hast gnawed the bones of a putrid cat." The Book of the Dead says, " Whoever readeth the spells daily over himself, he is whole upon earth, he escapes from death, and never doth anything evil meet him," says Budge in Egyptian Magic, p. 128. " We learn how great was the confidence which the deceased placed in his words of power, and also that the sources from which they sprang were the gods of Thoth and Isis. It will be remembered the Thoth is called the " scribe of the gods," the " lord of writing," the " master of papyrus," the " maker of the palette and the ink-jar," the " lord of divine words," i.e., the holy writings or scriptures, and as he was the lord of books and master of the power of speech, he was con- sidered to be the possessor of all knowledge both human and divine. At the creation of the world it was he who reduced to words the will of the unseen and unknown creative Power, and who uttered them in such wise that the universe came into being and it was lie who proved himself by the exercise of his knowledge to be the protector and the friend of Osiris, and of Isis, and of their son Horus. From the evidence of the texts we know that it was not by physical might that Thoth helped these three gods, but by giving them words of power and instructing them how to use them. We know that Osiris vanquished his foes, and that he re-constituted his body and became the king of the under- world and god of the dead, but he was only able to do these things by means of the words of power which Thoth had given to him, and which he had taught him to pronounce properly and in a proper tone of voice. It is this belief which makes the deceased cry out, " Hail, Thoth, who madest Osiris victorious over his enemies, make thou Ani to be victorious over his enemies in the presence of the great and sovereign princes who are in Tattu, or in any other place." Without the words of power given to him by Thoth, Osiris would have been powerless under the attacks of his foes, and similarly the dead man, who was always- identified with Osiris, would have passed out of existence at his death but for the words of power provided by the writings that were buried with him. In the Judgment Scene it is Thoth who reports to the gods the result of the
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weighing of the heart in the balance, and who has supplied its owner with the words which he has uttered in his suppli- cations, and whatever can be said in favour of the deceased he says to the gods, and whatever can be done for him he does. But apart from being the protector and friend of Osiris, Thoth was the refuge to which Isis fled in her trouble. The words of a hymn declare that she knew " how to turn aside evil hap," and that she was " strong of tongue and uttered the words of power which she knew with correct pronunciation, and halted not in her speech, and was perfect both in giving the command, and in saying the word," but this description only proves that she had been instructed by Thoth in the art of uttering words of power with effect, and to him, indeed, she owed more than this. Spells to keep away disease are of this class.
The amulets found upon Egyptian mummies, and the inscriptions on Gnostic gems are for the most part of a protective nature. {See Egypt and Gnostics.) The pro- tective spell may be said to be an amulet in words, and is -often found in connection with the amulet, on which it is inscribed.
(2) The curse or taboo. — (a) The word of blighting, the -damaging word, (b) The word of prohibition or restriction.
(a) The curse is of the nature of a spell, even if it be not in the shape of a definite formula. Thus we have the Highland curses : " A bad meeting to you." " Bad under- standing to you." " A down mouth be yours " which are certainly popular as formulae.
Those who had seen old women, of the Madge Wildfire School, cursing and banning, say their manner is well- calculated to inspire terror. Some fifteen or twenty years ago, a party of tinkers quarrelled and fought, first among themselves, and then with some Tiree villagers. In the •excitement a tinker wife threw off her cap and allowed her hair to fall over her shoulders in wild disorder. She then bared her knees, and falling on them to the ground, in .a praying attitude, poured forth a torrent of wishes that struck awe into all who heard her. She imprecated " Drowning by sea and conflagration by land ; may you never see a son to follow your body to the graveyard, or a daughter to mourn your death. I have made my wish before this, and I will make it now, and there was not yet a -day I did not see my wish fulfilled." Curses employed by witches usually inferred a blight upon the person cursed, their flocks, their herds and crops. Barrenness, too, was frequently called down upon women. A person under a ■curse or spell is believed in the Scottish Highlands " to become powerless over his own volition, is alive and awake but moves and acts as if asleep." Curses or spells which inferred death were frequently mentioned in works which deal with Mediaeval Magic. (See Summons by accused.)
(b) The Taboo, the word of prohibition or restriction. This is found in the mystic expression " thou shalt not." Thus a number of the commandments are taboos, and the Book of Leviticus teems with them. The taboo is the " don't " applied to children — a curb on primitive desire. To break a taboo was to bring dire misfortune upon one- •self, and often upon one's family.
Of injuring or transformation of a person, animal or object there are copious examples. These were nearly affected by a spell of a given formula. Thus no less than twelve chapters of the Book of the Dead (chapters LXXVII. "to LXXXVIII) are devoted to providing the deceased with words of power, the recital of which was necessary to enable him to transform himself into various animal and human forms. The Rev. S. Baring Gould in his Book of Folklore, Pa8e 57. says, that in such cases the consequence of a spell being cast on an individual requiring him or her to become a beast or a monster with no escape except under ■conditions difficult of execution or of obtaining. To this
category belong a number of so-called fairy tales, that actually are folk-tales. And these do not all pertain to Aryan peoples for wherever magical arts are believed to be all-powerful, there one of its greatest achievements is the casting of a spell so as to alter completely the appear- ance of the person on whom it is cast, so that this individual becomes an animal. One need only recall the story in the Arabian Nights of the Calenders and the three noble ladies of Bagdad, in which the wicked sisters are trans- formed into bitches that have to be thrashed every day. Of this class are the stories of "Beauty and the Beast " and " The Frog Prince."
(4) Spells to procure some minor end, love-spells, etc., Love-spells were engraved on metal tables by the Gnostics, and the magicians of the middle ages. Instances of these are to be found in The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abraham the Jew (q.v.) Spells were often employed to imprisoa evil spirits.
The later Jews have many extravagant opinions and legends relating to this subject, which they appear to have derived in a great measure from the Babylonians. Jose- phus affirms that it was generally believed by his country- men that Solomon left behind him many spells, which had the power of terrifying and expelling evil spirits. The Rabbins also almost uniformly describe Solomon as an accomplished magician. It is probable that the belief in the power of spells and incantations became general among the Jews during the captivity, and that the invention of them is attributed to Solomon, as a more creditable per- sonage than the deities of the Assyrians. Those fictions acquired currency, not only among the Arabs, Persians, and other Mohammedan nations, but, in process of time, also in many Christian communities. They were first adopted by the Gnostics and similar sects, in whose creed heathenism preponderated over Christianity ; and, in the dark ages, they found their way among the Catholics ; principally by means of the Pseudo-gospels and fabulous legends of saints. An incident in the life of St. Margaret will suffice as a specimen. This holy virgin, having van- quished an evil spirit who assaulted her, demanded his name. " My name," replied the demon, " is Veltis, and I am one of those whom Solomon, by virtue of his spells, confined in a copper caldron at Babylon ; but when the Babylonians, in the hope of finding treasures, dug up the caldron and opened it, we all made our escape. Since that time, our efforts have been directed to the destruction of righteous persons ; and I have long been striving to turn thee from the course which thou hast embraced." The reader of the "Arabian Nights' Entertainments" will be immediately reminded of the story of the " Fisherman." The Oriental origin of many similar legends, e.g., of St. George of Cappadocia, is equally obvious.
Literature. — Grimm's Deutsche Mythologie ; Malleus Maleficarum ; Campbell's Witchcraft and superstition in the Scottish Highlands ; Budge's Egyptian Magic ; Hen- derson's, Survivals in Belief among the Celts. Spider : As an amulet. This insect, baked, was sometimes worn round the neck as a charm. Elias Ashmole in his Diary says : " I took early in the morning a good dose of elixir, and hung three spiders about my neck, and they drove my ague away. Deo Gratias ! " Spiders and their webs were often recommended as a cure for this malady. Burton gives us the following tale : " Being in the country in the vacation time, not many years since, at Lindly in Leicestershire, my father's house, I first observed this amulet of a spider in a nut-shell, wrapped in silk, so applied
for an ague by my mother This I thought most absurd
and ridiculous, and I could see no warrant in it till
at length, rambling amongst authors, I found this very medicine in Dioscorides, approved by Matthiolus, repeated by Aldrovandus I began to have a better opinion of
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it, and to give more credit to amulets, when I saw it in some parties answer to experience."
Spiegelschrift : Writing written backwards, from right to left, so as to be read in a mirror. Automatic writing is frequently done in this way, and it is said_that the ability to produce spiegelschrift is often found where there is a natural tendency to automatism.
Spirit in Theosophy, is the monad after he has manifested himself in the Spiritual, Intuitional and Mental Worlds in the aspects of Will, Intuition and Intellect respectively, but the term is often used to denote the monad in the aspect of Will only. (See Monad and also the various articles on these Worlds.)
Spirit Messenger : Journal of Spiritualism. (See Spiritual- ism.)
Spirit Photography : The production of photographs on which alleged spirit-forms are visible. When the plate is develop- ed there appears, in addition to the likeness of the sitter, a shape resembling more or less distinctly the human form, which at the moment of exposure was imperceptible to the normal vision. Spiritualists assert that there are photo- graphs of spirits — -the spirits of departed friends and relatives of the sitters — and that the presence of a medium is required to facilitate their production. Notwithstanding that on the recognition of the supposed spirit by the sitter and others rests the main evidence in favour of spirit photography, the " astral figure " is generally very vague and indistinct, with the head and shoulders enveloped in close-clinging draperies. The practice of spirit photography originated in America some fifty years ago, and has enjoyed a fitful existence to the present day. It was first intro- duced by Mumler, a Boston photographer, in 1862. Dr. Gardner, of the same city, was photographed by Mumler, and on the plate appeared an image which the sitter identified as his cousin, who had died twelve years before. Dr. Gardner published abroad his experience, and the new photography was at once adopted by spiritualists, who saw in it a means of proving their beliefs. In 1863, how- ever, Dr. Gardner discovered that in at least two instances a living model had sat for Mumler's " spirit " pictures. Though he continued to believe that some of the photo- graphs might be genuine, his exposure of Mumler's fraud ■effectively checked the movement for a time. After the lapse of six years Mumler appeared in New York, where the authorities endeavoured to prosecute him, but the evidence against him was insufficient to prove fraud, and he was acquitted. Spirit photography had flourished in America for some ten years before it became known in Britain. Mr. and Mrs. Guppy, the well-known spiritualistic mediums, endeavoured without success to produce spirit photographs in private, and at length called in the aid of a professional photographer, Mr. Hudson. A photograph of Mr. Guppy now revealed a dim, draped " spirit " form. Hudson speedily became popular, and his-studio was as largely patronized as Mumler's had been. Mr. Thomas Slater, a London optician, made careful •observations of his process without being able to detect any fraud. Mr. Beattie, a professional photographer, and something of a sceptic, made the following statement con- cerning Hudson's performances : " They were not made by double exposure, nor by figures projected in space in any way ; they were not the result of mirrors ; they were not produced by any machinery in the background, behind it, above it, or below it, nor by any contrivance connected with the bath, the camera, or the camera-slide." Mr. Traill Taylor, editor of the British Journal of Photography said that " at no time during the preparation, exposure, or development of the pictures was Mr. Hudsom within ten feet of the camera or dark room. Appearances of an abnor- mal kind did certainly appear on several plates." Such
testimonies as the above, from the lips of skilled and dis- interested witnesses, would naturally seem to raise spirit photography to the level of a genuine psychic phenomenon. But a careful analysis of the evidence, such as is given by Mrs. Sidgwick in her article on Spirit Photography in the Psychical Research Society's Proceedings, vol. VII., will serve to show how even a trained investigator may be deceived by sleight-of-hand. And it is notable that Mr. Beattie himself afterwards pointed out instances of double exposure in Hudson's productions. In spite of this, Hudson continued to practise, and the various spiritualist magazines continued to lend him their support, with the exception of the Spiritualist, whose editor, himself a practical photographer, had aided Mr. Beattie in the denunciation of spirit photography. Another enthusiastic spiritualist, Mr. Enmore Jones, who at first professed to recognise a dead daughter in one of the pictured " spirits," afterwards admitted that he had been mistaken. Those who had pinned their faith to the genuineness of the photographic manifestations were naturally unwilling to relinquish their belief in what they considered a sure proof of the reality of the spirit-world, and ingenious explanations were offered to cover the circumstance of the apparent double exposure. The spirit aura, they said, differed from the natural atmosphere in its refracting power, and it was not to be wondered at that objects were sometimes duplicated. And so Hudson retained a considerable measure of popularity. Mr. Beattie himself afterwards attempted to produce spirit photographs, and succeeded in obtaining vague blotches and flaws on his pictures, some of them bearing a dim resemblance to a human figure. But there is reason to believe that a hired assistant, who provided studio and apparatus, was not entirely above suspicion. In 1874 Buguet (q.v.), a Paris photographer crossed over to London where he commenced the practice of spirit photography. Many of his pictures were recognized by his clients, and even when he had been tried by the French Government, and had admitted deception, there were those who refused to regard his confession as spontane- ous, and inclined to the opinion that he had been bribed by the Jesuits to confess to fraud of which he was innocent ! Other spirit photographers were Parkes, a contemporary of Hudson, and Boursnell, who produced spirit pictures in London in more recent years. The principal evidence in favour of spirit photography is undoubtedly the recognition of the spirits by their friends and relatives, but the unre- liable nature of such a test can be seen when we remember that time and again a single " spirit " has been claimed by several persons as a near relative — the sister of one, the grandfather of another, and so on. One of the most prominent defenders of the mediumistic photographers was the Rev. Stainton Moses (q.v.) — " M. A. Oxon " — who saw in them the best proof of the reality of spiritualism. The same view was shared by Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace (q.v.), who said in the Arena, January, 1891 : " It is that which furnishes, perhaps, the most unassailable demon- stration it is possible to obtain of the objective reality of spiritual forms." Spirit World : Spiritualistic Journal. (See Spiritualism.) Spiritism : The name bestowed upon the French form of spiritualism, which was in the main founded on the doc- trines of "Allan Kardec " (M. Rivail), (q.v.) Spiritism differed from spiritualism as expounded in Britain, America and elsewhere, chiefly in that it included among its tenets the doctrine of reincarnation. Allan Kardec, who prior to his adoption of spiritualistic creeds, about 1862 had been an exponent of animal magnetism and phrenology, based his new teachings on spirit revelations received through clairvoyants, and so popular were these teachings that they rapidly spread over the Continent. In Britain,
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however, spiritism obtained but little hold, its only exponent being Miss Anna Blackwell, who endeavoured without success to establish the doctrine of reincarnation in this country. Spiritism and spiritualism must not be confused, since the adherents of each section were opposed to the tenets of the other, and even in France, where spiritism obtained the most footing, there was a distinct spiritualistic party who looked askance at the doctrine of reincarnation. The word spiritist is sometimes applied to one who seeks only the physical phenomena, and neglects the religious and philosophic aspect of spiritualism. Spiritualism : Spiritualism in its modern aspect has' for its basic principles the belief in the continuance of life after death, and the possibility of communication between the dead and the living, through the agency of a medium or psychic, a person qualified in some unknown manner to be the mouthpiece of supernatural beings. On this founda- tion has been raised the belief known as spiritualism, variously regarded as a religion or a philosophy. Besides the speaking (or writing, drawing, etc.) indirectly through the agency of the medium, there are also physical manifesta- tions, such as the materialisation of spirit forms, and " apports," (q.v.) the so-called " direct " writing, moving of inanimate objects without contact, and other phenomena of a like nature. The word " spiritism " used in France to denote spiritualism, is in this country only applied to the theories of Allen Kardec (q.v.) a well-known spiritualist who believed in re-incarnation, or to an inferior phase of spiritualism, in which only physical manifestations are sought, and the religious and ethical significance of the subject ignored.
Though the movement in its present form dates no further back than 1848, it is possible to trace its ancestry to witchcraft, demoniac possession, poltergeistic distur- bances, and animal magnetism. In these all the phenomena of spiritualism may be found, though the disturbing influences were not in the earlier instances identified with the spirits of the deceased. Many famous outbreaks of an epidemic nature, such as that among the Tremblers of the Cevennes (q.v.) and the Convulsionaries of St. Medard (q.v.), which to the beholders showed clear indications of demonic possession, had in their symptoms considerable analogy with modern spiritualism. They were accompanied by spontaneous trance or ecstasy, utterance of long-winded discourses, and speaking in unknown tongues, all of which are to be found in the seance-room. The fluency of speech, especially of these ignorant peasants, has been equalled, if not surpassed, by the outpourings of the unlearned medium under the influence of her " control." In such cases the symptoms were generally referred either to angelic or diabolic possession, and most frequently to the latter. Witches also were supposed to hold converse with the Devil, and many aspects of witchcraft — and notably the part played in the persecution of suspects by young women and chil- dren— show an obvious relationship to those poltergeistic disturbances which were the connecting link between early forms of possession and modern spiritualism. Cases in which children of morbid tendencies pretend to be the victims of a witch are to be found in every record of witch- craft. It was the poltergeist (q.v.), however, who showed most affinity to the " control " of the mediumistic circle. For at least the past few centuries poltergeist disturbances have occurred from time to time, and the mischievous spirit's favourite modes of manifesting itself have been singularly akin to those adopted by the spirit control of our days. Again, both spirits require the agency of a medium for the production of their phenomena, and it is in the immediate presence of the medium th?t the phenom- ena generally make their appearance.
Magnetism. — Partly evolving from these phases of spirit-
manifestation, and partly running parallel with them, was an extensive movement whose significance, from the spiritualist point of view, is very considerable. The doctrine of animal magnetism was, said to have originated with Paracelsus, and was much in favour with the old alchemists. The actual magnet was not greatly used, but was regarded as a symbol of the magnetic philosophy, which rested on the idea of a force or fluid radiating from the heavenly bodies, human beings, and indeed, from every substance, animate or in.inimate, by means of which all things interacted upon one another. While the mystics were engaged in formulating a magnetic philosophy, there were others, such as Valentine Greatrakes, who cured diseases, claiming their power as a divine gift, and not connecting it with the rationalist ideas of the alchemists. These two phases of magnetism united and came to a height in the work of Franz Antoine Mesmer, who in 1766 published his De planetarum influxu, a treatise on the influence of the planets on the human body. His ideas were essentially those of the magnetic philosophers, and his cures probably on a level with those of Valentine Greatrakes, but into both theory and practice he infused new life and won for himself the recognition, if not of the learned societies, at least of the general public. To him is due that application of the magnetic system which resulted in the discovery of the induced hypnotic trance, whose bearing on spiritualism is obvious and important. In 1784 a commission was appointed by the French Government to consider magnetism as practised by Mesmer and his followers but its report only served to cast discredit on the science, and exclude it from scientific discussion. Until the third decade of the nineteenth century the rationalist explana- tions of Mesmerism concerned themselves entirely with a fluid or force emanating from the person of the operator, and even visible to the clairvoyant eye, but in 1823 Alex- andre Bertrand, a Paris physician, published a Traite du Somnambulisme, and in 1826 a treatise Du Magnetisms Animal en France, in which he established the relationship between ordinary sleep-walking, somnambulism associated with disease, and epidemic ecstasy, and advanced the doctrine now generally accepted — that of suggestion. Magnetism was by this time leceiving a good deal of attention all over Europe. A second French Commission appointed in 1825 presented in 1831 a report which, though of no great value, contained a unanimous testimony to the actuality of the phenomena. In Germany also magnetism was practised to a considerable extent, and rationalist explanations found some acceptance. There was a class however, more numerous in Germany than elsewhere, who inclined towards a spiritualistic explanation of Mesmeric phenomena. Indeed, the belief -in spirit-intercourse had grown up beside magnetism from its earliest conception, in opposition to the theory of a magnetic fluid. In the earlier phases of " miraculous " healing the cures were, as has been said, ascribed to the divine gift of the operator, who expelled the evil spirits from the patient. In epidemic cases in religious communities, as well as in individual instances, the spirits were questioned both on personal matters and on abstract theological questions. A detailed account of the trance utterances of an hypnotic subject was given in 1787 in the journals of the Swedish Exegetical and Philanthropic Society. The society naturally inclined to the doctrines of their countryman, Emanuel Swedenborg, who was the first to identify the " spirits " with the souls of deceased men and women. In Germany Dr. Kerner experimented with Frederica Hauffe, the " Seeress of Prevorst " (q.v.), in whose presence physical manifesta- tions took place, and who described the conditions of the soul after death and the constitution of man — the physical body, the soul, spirit, and nervengeist, an ethereal body
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which clothes the soul after death — theories afterwards elaborated by spiritualists. Other German investigators, J. H. Jung (Jung-Stilling), Dr. C. Romer, and Dr. Heinreich Werner, recorded the phenomenon of clairvoyance in their somnambules. A French spiritualist, Alphonse Cahagnet, produced some of the best evidence which spiritualism can show, his accounts being as remarkable for their sincerity and good-faith as for the intelligence they display.
Magnetism received but little attention in England, till the third decade of the nineteenth century. Towards the- end of the eighteenth century Dr. Bell, Loutherbourg, and others, practised the science in this country, but for about thirty years — from 1798 to 1828 — it was quite neglected. In the latter year Richard Chenevix, an Irishman, gave mesmeric demonstrations. Dr. Elliotson, of University College Hospital, practised mesmerism with his somnam- bules, the sisters Okey, and though he first believed in the magnetic fluid, he afterwards became a spiritualist. In 1843 two journals dealing with the subject were founded — the Zoist and the Phreno-magnet. Most of the English magnetists of the time believed in a physical explanation of the phenomena. In 1845 Dr. Reichenbach published his researches, claiming to demonstrate the existence of an emanation (q.v.) which he called odylic or odic force, radiating from every substance. This effluence could be seen by clairvoyants, and had definite colours, and pro- duced a feeling of heat or cold. Working on individual lines, Braid arrived at the same conclusions as Bertrand had done, and demonstrated the power of suggestion in " magnetic " experiments, but his theories were neglected as Bertrand's had been. By the medical profession, especially, the whole matter was freely ridiculed, and •declared to be fraudulent. There is no doubt that their attitude would have changed — it had, indeed, already begun to do so — but for the wave of spiritualism that swept over America and Europe, and magnified the extravagant attendant phenomena of the trance state, and so obscured its true significance and scientific value.
It will thus be seen not only that magnetism contained the germs of spiritualistic phenomena, but that in many cases the phenomena were identical with those of spirit- ualism in its present stage of development. Trance- speaking was well-known, physical manifestations, though less frequently met with, were also witnessed, as in the ease of Frau Hauff-; ; and clairvoyance was regarded as a common adjunct of the trance. In later years, as has been seen, the so-called " magnetic " phenomena were largely attributed to the agency of the spirits of the deceased. For such an obviously supernormal faculty as clairvoyance — by means of which the subject professed himself able to see what was going on at a distance, or to distinguish objects carefully concealed from his normal sight — even such men as Bertrand and Braid do not seem to have offered an adequate explanation, nor have they refuted the evidence for it, though it was extensively practised both in France and England. Indeed, there sprang up in these countries a class who specialised in clairvoyance, and still further prepared the way for spiritualism.
Early American Spiritualism. — ■ What is generally regarded as the birth of modern spiritualism took place in America in 1848. In that year an outbreak of rapping occurred in the home of the Fox family, at Hydesville, in Arcadia, Wayne County, N.Y. The household comprised John Fox, his wife, and their two young daughters, Mar- garetta and Kate, aged fifteen and twelve years respectively, and the house itself was a small wooden erection. On the 31st March, 1848, Mrs. Fox summoned her neighbours to hear the knockings, which had disturbed the family for a few days past. On being questioned the raps manifested signs of intelligence, and it was finally elicited that the
disturbing influence was the spirit of a pedlar, done to death by a former resident of the house at Hydesville for the sake of his money. It was afterwards said that in April of the same year the Foxes, while digging in their cellar at the instigation of the spirits, had discovered therein frag- ments of hair, teeth, and bones, supposed to be those of a human being, but the statement was not properly verified, and the evidence for the murder was but small. The neighbours of the Fox family, however, were deeply im- pressed by the " revelations," and, by way of a test, questioned the spirits on such matters as the ages of their acquaintances, questions which were answered, apparently, with some correctness. Soon afterwards Margaretta Fox visited her married sister, Mrs. Fish, at Rochester, New York, where the knockings broke out as vigorously as they had done at Hydesville. Her sister Catherine visited some friends at Auburn, and here, too, the rappings were heard. Many persons found themselves possessed of mediumistic powers, and the manifestations spread like an epidemic, till in a few years they were witnessed in most of the eastern states. Numerous circles were formed by private individ- uals, and professional mediums became ever more abundant. Mrs. Fox and her three daughters continued to hold the place of honour in the spiritualistic world, and gave exhibitions in rriany large towns. In 1850, while they were at Buffalo, some professors of the Buffalo University showed that the raps could be produced by the medium's joints, and shortly afterwards Mrs. Norman Culver, a relative by marriage of the Fox family, declared that Margaretta Fox had shown her how the rappings were obtained by means of the joints. She also alleged that Catherine Fox had told her that in a seance at Rochester where the medium's ankles were held to prevent fraud, a Dutch servant maid had rapped in the cellar on a signal from the medium. This latter statement was hotly denied by the spiritualists, but no refutation was attempted with regard to the other allegations. Many mediums confessed that they had resorted to trickery, but the tide of popular favour in America held to the actuality of the manifestations. These, as time went on, became more varied and complex. Table-turning and tilting (q.v.) in part replaced the simpler phenomena of raps. Playing on musical instruments by invisible hands, " direct " spirit writing, bell-ringing, levitation, and materialisation of spirit hands, are some of the phenomena which were witnessed and vouched for by such distinguished sitters as Judge Edmonds, the Hon N. P. Tallmadge, Governor of Wisconsin, and William Lloyd Garrison. We find the levitation of the medium Daniel D. Home (q.v.) recorded at an early stage in his career. Slate-writing (q.v.) and playing on musical instruments were also feats practised by the spirits who frequented Koon's " spirit-room " (q.v.) in Dover, Athens County, Ohio. At Keokuk, in Iowa, in 1854, two mediums spoke in tongues identified on somewhat insufficient data, as " Swiss," Latin, and Indian languages, and henceforward trance-speaking in their native language and in foreign tongues was much practised by mediums. The recognised foreign tongues included Latin and Greek, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Chinese and Gaelic, but generally the trance utterances, when they were not in English, were not recognised definitely as any known language, and frequently the " spirits " themselves inter- preted the " tongue." The latter phenomena are evidently akin to the early outpourings of the " possessed " or the articulate but meaningless fluency of ecstatics during a religious epidemic. There have been cases, however, where persons in a state of exaltation have spoken fluently in a language of which they know but little in their normal state. Many of the " spirit " writings were signed with the names of great people — particularly Franklin, Sweden- borg, Plato, Aristotle, St. John and St. Paul. Trance-
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lecturing before audiences was also practised, books of inspirational utterances were published, and poetry and drawings produced in abundance. These automatic pro- ductions had a character of their own — they were vague, high-sounding, incoherent, and distinctly reminiscent. In cases where they displayed even a fair amount of merit, as in the poems of T. L. Harris, it was pointed out that they were not beyond the capacity of the medium in his normal state. As a rule they had a superficial appearance of intelligence, but on analysis were found to be devoid of meaning. During the early years of spiritualism in America the movement was largely noticed by the press, and many periodicals devoted exclusively to spiritualism made their appearance. The Spirit Messenger was first published in 1849, Heat and Light in 1851, the Shehinah in 1852, Spiritual Telegraph in 1853, Spirit World, under the title of the Spiritual Philosopher, in 1850, under the editorship of Laroy Sunderland. From the beginning of the movement those who accepted the actuality of the phenomena ranged themselves into two separate schools, each represented by a considerable body of opinion. The theory of the first was frankly spiritualistic, the explanation of the second was that of Mesmer, now appearing under various guises, with a more or less definite flavour of contemporary scientific thought. These two schools, as we have seen, had their foundation in the early days of animal magnetism, when the rationalist ideas of the magnetists were ranged against the theories of angelic or diabolic possession. In America the suppositious " force " of the rationalists went by the name of " odylic force," " electro-magnetism," and so forth, and to it was attributed not only the sub- jective phenomena, but the physical manifestations as well. And poltergeistic disturbances occurring from time to time were ascribed either to spirits or odylic force, as in the case of the Ashtabula Poltergeist (q.v.). The Rev. Asa Mahan, one of the " rationalists," suggested that the medium read the thoughts of the sitter by means of odylic force. The protagonists -of a magnetic theory attributed trance-speaking to the subject's, own intelligence, but after the birth of American spiritualism in 1848 a spiritualistic interpretation was more commonly accepted. Notwith- standing these conflicting theories, of which some were certainly physical, practically nothing was done in the way of scientific investigation, with the exception of the experi- ments conducted by Dr. Hare, Professor of Chemistry in the University of Pennsylvania, though they hardly deserved the name of " scientific investigation." In 1857, when the experiments were made, Hare was already advanced in years, and seems to have been easily imposed upon. Very few exposures of fraud were made, partly because the majority of the sitters accepted the phenomena with unquestioning faith, and partly because the machinery with which such detection might be made was not forth- coming. The collaboration of skilful, trained, and dis- interested investigators, such as have recently applied themselves to the elucidation of psychic problems, was entirely lacking in those days, and the public was left to form its own conclusions. Spiritualism in America was from the first intimately bound up with socialism. The cult of spiritualism was, in fact, the out-growth of the same state of things which produced socialistic communities, and occasioned the rise and fall of so many strange religions. Warren Chase, Horace Greeley, T. L. Harris, and other prominent spiritualists founded such communities, and the so-called " inspirational " writings frequently gave direc- tions for their construction. It was characteristic of the nation and the time that the general trend of religious and philosophic speculation should run on democratic lines. The fixed standards of thought which obtained in Europe were not recognised in America ; everyone thought for
himself, with but little educational training on which to base his ideas, and the result was that the vigour of his speculation frequently outran its discretion. As for the causes which made spiritualism more popular and more lasting than other strange doctrines of the time, they are probably to be found in the special conditions which prepared the way for spiritualism. Clairvoyants had made use of rapping prior to the mediumship of the Fox. girls, the induced trance had only recently been brought to the notice of the American people by lecturers, the clergy and others, accustomed to departures from ortho- doxy in every direction, found no difficulty in admitting the intervention of good or evil spirits in human affairs, while for those who refused to accept the spirit hypothesis a satisfactory explanation of the phenomena was found in. electricity, electro-magnetism, or "' odic force."
Spiritualism in England. — Though, as has been said,, clairvoyants and somnambules were sufficiently common in England prior to the importation of spiritualism in its American form, the phenomena were, nevertheless, inter- preted mainly on rationalist fines, and even when the spirit doctrine — which in those days had but a small following — - became wide-spread and important, the theory of any rational explanation was still represented. In 1852, four years after the " Rochester Rappings," a medium named Mrs. Hayden was brought from America by a lecturer on. " electro-biology." Soon afterwards another professional medium, Mrs. Roberts, crossed the Atlantic, and both ladies had a distinguished clientele, and received substantial remuneration in the way of fees. Many of the most influential Journals published scornful comments on these performances, but a belief in the genuineness of the phenom- ena was expressed by one at least, Chambers' s Journal, in an article by Robert Chambers himself. Professor de- Morgan was another distinguished witness who testified to the actuality of the phenomena, and its supernormal character, and yet others were disposed to investigate. In 1853 an epidemic of table-turning (q.v.) spread frorn the Continent to Britain, and attained to immense popularity among all classes. So wide-spread did it become that such men as Braid, Faraday and Carpenter turned their attention to it, and showed it to result from unconscious muscular action. The " rationalist " explanation, be it said, was still well to the fore, with talk of odylic force, electricity, or magnetism. Faraday's experiments were ridiculed, and a pamphlet entitled T able-turning by A nimal Magnetism demonstrated ran through more than a hundred editions in one year. Elliotson and the other protagonists of mesmerism found an illustration of their own views in table-turning. Those who inclined to a spiritualistic belief found a spirit agency at work in the same phenomena ; while a band of clergymen, confessedly awaiting similar manifestations in fulfilment of Scriptural prophecy, con- cluded that Satanic agency was at the root of the matter, and had their conclusions supported by the " spirits " themselves, who confessed that they were fallen angels, or the spirits of evil-doers. Among the earliest converts to spiritualism were Sir Charles Isharn, Dr. Ashburner, and the socialist Robert Owen, at that time already over eighty years of age, who published in 1854 the first number of The New Existence of Man upon the Earth, intended as the organ of a sort of millenium to be brought about by the spirits. Automatic writing is recorded at this period, one medium being a child of four, who wrote in Latin. In the autumn of 1853 Mrs. Hayden returned to America, and the practice of table-turning speedily declined. Until i860 little more is heard of spiritualism, though a few journals were published in the interval. Owen continued to issue his New Existence, in which, however, spiritualism was only a secondary consideration. The Yorkshire Spiritual
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Telegraph published at Keighley in 1855, ran till the end of 1859 (from 1857 under the name of the British Spiritual Telegraph). There were also a few other periodicals which did not enjoy so long a.lease of life. But though the British books and papers dealing with the subject were but few, the lack was supplied by American productions, which were largely read in this country. Mediums, as well as literature, were imported from America, notable among them being Daniel Dunglas Home (q.v.) who crossed over to Britain in 1855 at the age of twenty-three, and who had already acted as a medium in America for some four years. Many of those who afterwards became prominent mediums were first coverted to spiritualism at Home's seances. In the autumn of 1855 Home returned to America, and in 1856 his place was taken by P. B. Randolph, who attended the meetings of the Charing Cross Circle. In 1859 came the Rev. T. L. Harris, deputed by the spirits to visit Eng- land. An English medium, named Mrs. Marshall, gave seances professionally, but much less successfully than did Home and the American mediums, though the phenom- ena were of a similar kind. English spiritualists, however, did not court publicity, but practised for the most part anonymously. The phenomena at these seances resemble those in America — playing of instruments without visible agency, materialisation of hands, table-turning, and so on — but on a much smaller scale. It was not so much these physical manifestations, however, which inspired the con- fidence or excited the credulity of early spiritualists, but rather the automatic writing and speaking which, rare at first, afterwards became a feature of mediumistic seances. So early as 1854 the trance utterances of a medium named Annie were recorded by a circle of Swedenborgians presided over by Elihu Rich. The importance given at this stage of the movement to subjective phenomena must be attribu- ted to an imperfect understanding of unconscious cerebra- tion. Such men as Mr. Thomas Shorter, editor of the ). Spiritual Magazine, failed to comprehend how the medium was able to reason while in the trance state, and to perform intelligent acts of which the normal consciousness knew nothing. Therefore they adopted the spirit hypothesis. Mrs. de Morgan and Mrs. Newton Crosland gave a ready credence to the automatic utterances of their friends. Sym- bolic drawings were a feature of Mrs. Crosland's circle, as was also the speaking in unknown tongues, which were trans- lated by the spirit through another medium.
In i860 a new spiritual era opened, and the whole subject came into more prominence than it had done heretofore. This was due to the increase in the number of British mediums and the emigration to Britain of many American mediums, including the Davenport Brothers (q.v.) and