IV. of Zeitschrift fur Deutsche Mythologie.

Van Calcar, Elise : (See Holland.) Van Herwerden, T. D. : {See Holland.) Vana Vasin : (See India.) Vanderdeken : (See Flying Dutchman.) Vanga : The unenrolled members of the Ndembo Secret
Society of the Lower Congo. Varley, Cromwell : A distinguished electrician and fellow of the Royal Society, who on several occasions turned his
knowledge of electricity to account in devising tests for spiritualistic mediums. In March, 1874 he applied such a test to Miss Florence Cook, during a materialisation seance. The experiment, in common with many of these earlier tests, has since been proved inadequate. (See Spiritualism.)
Vassago : The spirit of the crystal, who is invoked by the crystal-gazer for the purposes of his art.
Vaudoux : (See West Indian Islands.)
Vaughan, Diana : Authoress of Memories of an ex-Palladist in which she states that she was a member of a Satanist association of Masonic origin in Charleston, U.S.A., pre- sided over at one period by Albert Pike (q.v.). Her pre- tentions, which will scarcely bear a strict investigation, are that she was the chosen bride of Asmodeus and was on terms of intimacy with Lucifer, the deity worshipped by the Palladist confraternity.
Vaulderie : A connection with the Satanic powers, so called from Robinet de Vaulse, a hermit, one of the first persons accused of the crime. In 1453 the Prior of St. Germain- en-Laye, Guillaume de 1'Allive, a doctor of theology, was accused of Vaulderie, and sentenced to perpetual imprison- ment. Six years later there was burned at Lille a hermit named Alphonse, who preached heterodox doctrines. Such were the preludes of a persecution which, in the following year, the Vicar of the Inquisition, administrator of the Diocese of Arras, seconded by the Count d'Etampes, Governor of Artois, directed at first against loose women, but afterwards against citizens, magistrates, knights, and especially the wealthy. The procedures against the accused had almost always for their basis some accusation of sorcery. Most of the unhappy creatures confessed to have attended the " Witch's Sabbath," and the strange revelations wrung from them by torture, will give some idea of the ceremonies which according to the popular tradition, were enacted in the lurid festivals presided over by Satan. Here are some extracts from the judgment pronounced at Arras in 1460 upon five women, a painter, and a poet, nick-named " an abbe of little sense," and aged about seventy, and several others, who all perished in the flames kindled by a barbarous ignorance and fed by a cruel superstition.
" And the said Inquisition did say and declare, that those hereinunder named had been guilty of Vaulderei in manner following, that is to say : — ' That when they wished to go to the said Vaulderie, they, with an ointment given to them by the devil, anointed a small wooden rod and their palms and their hands ; then they put the wand between their legs, and soon they flew wherever they wished to go, over fair cities, woods and streams ; and the devil carried them to the place where they should hold their assembly, and in this place they found others, and tables placed, loaded with wines and viands ; and there they found a demon in the form of a goat, a dog, an ape, or sometimes a man ; and they made their oblation and homage to the said demon, and adored him, and yielded up to him their souls, and all, or at least some portion, of their bodies ; then, with burning candles in their hands,
they kissed the rear of the goat-devil (Here the
Inquisitor becomes untranslatable) And this homage
done, they trod and trampled upon the Cross, and befouled it with their spittle, in contempt of Jesus Christ, and the Holy Trinity, then turned their backs towards heaven and the firmament in contempt of God. And after they had all eaten and drunk well, they had carnal intercourse all together, and even the devil assumed the guise of man and woman, and had intercourse with both sexes. And many other crimes, most filthy and detestable, they committed, as much against God as against nature, which the said Inquisitor did not dare to name, that innocent ears might not be told of such villainous enormites.' "
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The eagerness displayed by the Inquisitor and his acolytes so excited the public indignation, that at the close of the year 1460 the judges did not dare any longer to condemn to death the unfortunate wretches accused, it is said only for the purpose of depriving them of their property. As in the case of all great wrongs, a reaction set in — a re-action in favour of the right ; and thirty years later, when the county of Artois had been re-united to the Crown, the Parliament of Paris declared, on the 20th of May, 1491, these trials " abusive, void, and falsely made," and condemned the heirs of the duke of Burgundy and the principal judges to an amend of 500 Parisian livres, to be distributed as a reparation among the heirs of the victims.
Veechia Religione, La : (See Italy.)
Vedanta Yoga : The higher branch of Hindu yoga practice.
Vehm-Serichte : A secret tribunal which during the Middle Ages exercised a peculiar jurisdiction in Germany and especially in Westphalia. Its origin is quite uncertain. The sessions were often held in secret, and the uninitiated were forbidden to attend them on pain of death. The most absurd stories have been circulated concerning them, — ■ that they met in underground chambers and so forth. These have been discounted by modern research. Far from dabbling in the occult, these courts frequently punished persons convicted of witchcraft and sorcery.
Veleda : A prophetess among the ancient Germans, of whom Tacitus says : " She exercises a great authority, for women have been held here from the most ancient times to be prophetic, and, by excessive superstition, as divine. The fame of Veleda stood on the very highest elevation, for she foretold to the Germans a prosperous issue, but to the legions their destruction ! Veleda dwelt upon a high tower, whence messengers were dispatched bearing her oracular counsels to those who sought them ; but she herself was rarely seen, and none was allowed to approach her. Cerca- lis is said to have secretly begged her to let the Romans have better success in war. The Romans, as well as those of her own race, set great store on her prophecies, and sent her valuable gifts. In the reign of the Emperor Vespasian she was honoured as a goddess."
Veltis : An evil spirit who assaulted St. Margaret but was overcome by her. On being asked by St. Margaret who he was and whence he came, he replied : " My name is Veltis, and I am one of those whom Solomon by virtue of his spells, confined in a copper cauldron at Babylon ; but when the Babylonians, in the hope of finding treasure dug up the cauldron and opened it, we all made our escape. Since that time our efforts have been directed to the des- truction of righteous persons ; and I have long been striving to turn thee from the course thou hast em- braced."
Verdelet : A demon of the second order, master of ceremonies at the infernal court. He is charged with the transport of witches to the Sabbath. He takes the names of Master Persil, Sante-Buisson, and other names of a pleasant sound, so as to entice women into his snares.
Veritas Society : [See Holland.)
Verite La (Journal) : (See France.)
Vervain : A sacred herb with which the altars of Jupiter were sprinkled. Water containing vervain was also sprinkled in houses to cast out evil spirits. Among the druids particularly it was employed in connection with many forms of superstition. They gathered it at day-break, before the sun had risen. Later sorcerers followed the same usage, and the demonologists believe that in order to evoke demons it is necessary to be crowned with vervain.
Vestments, Magical : (See Magic.)
Vidya in Theosophy is the knowledge by which man on the Path can discern the true from the false and so direct his efforts aright by means of the mental faculties which he
has learnt to use. It is the antithesis of A vidya. (See Path, Avidya, and Theosophy.)
Viedma : Russian name for a witch. (See Slavs.)
Vila, The : Vili were nymphs who frequented the forests that clothe the bases of the Eastern Alps. They have been seen traversing glades, mounted on stags ; or driving from peak to peak on chariots of cloud. Serbian ballads tell how Marko the great hero of ancient Serbia, was joined in bond of " brotherhood " with a Vila, who showed to him the secrets of the future. At that period Serbia was a mighty nation, extending from the Alps to the Black Sea, from the Danube to the Adriatic — before her freedom was lost at the battle of Varna.
Vile : (See Slavs.)
Viliorjaci : (See Slavs.)
Villanova, Arnold de : Arnold de Villanova was a physician by profession, and is reported to have been something of a theologian besides a skilled alchemist. His natal place has never been determined, but Catalonia, Milan and Montpellier have all been suggested ; while as to the precise date of his advent, this too is uncertain yet appears to have been about the middle of the thirteenth century. Arnold studied medicine for many years at the Sorbonne in Paris, which in mediaeval times was the principal European nursery of physicians ; and thereafter he travelled for a long time in Italy, while subsequently he penetrated to Spain. Here, however, he heard that a friend of his was in the hands of the dreaded Inquisition ; and, fearing that he likewise might be trepanned by that body, he withdrew speedily to Italy. For a considerable period he lived at Naples, enjoying there the friendly patronage of the Neapolitan sovereign, and spending his time less in the actual practice of his profession than in the compilation of various scientific treatises ; while at a later date he was appointed physician in ordinary to Pope Clement V., so presumably the rest of his life was spent mainly at Rome, or possibly at Avignon. Meanwhile his interest in alchemy had become widely known, and indeed many people declared that his skill herein was derived from communications with the arch-fiend himself, and that the physician accordingly deserved nothing less than burning at the stake ; while he also elicited particular enmity from the clergy by sneering openly at the monastic regime, and by declaring boldly that works of charity are more acceptable to God than the repetition of paternosters. Thanks to Papal favour, nevertheless, Arnold went un- scathed by his enemies ; but soon after his death, which occurred about the year 1310, the Inquisition decided that they had dealt too leniently with the deceased, and in con- sequence they signified their hatred of him, by ordering certain of his writings to be burned publicly at Tarragona. Arnold was acquainted with the preparation of oil of turpentine and oil of rosemary, while the marcasite fre- quently mentioned by him is supposed to be identical with bismuth. His most important treatises are his Thesaurus Thesaurorum, Rosarium Philosophorum, Speculam Alchemias and Perfectum Magislerum ; while two others of some moment are his Testamentum and Scientia Scientice. A collected edition of his works was issued in 1520, while several writings from his pen are embodied in the Biblio- iheca Ckemica Curiosa of Mangetus, published in 1702.
Villars, l'Abbe de Montfaucon de : French Mystic (1635-1673.) This Churchman, author and mystic was what the French style " un meridional," being a native of southern Franch. He was born in 1635 at Toulouse, not very far from the seaport town of Bordeaux ; and at an early age he espoused holy orders, while in 1667 he left the south and came to Paris, eager to win fame as a preacher. Nor did this ambition of his go wholly ungratified, his eloquence in the pulpit winning him numerous admirers ; but he soon grew
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more interested in literature than in clerical affairs, and in 1670 he published his first and most important book, ■Comte da Gabalis. Ostensibly a novel, this volume is largely a veiled satire on the writings of La Calprenede, at this time very popular both in France and in England ; but the satirical element in Villars' paper is supplemented by a curious blend of history, philosophy and mysticism ; and, as much of the last-named is of a nature distinctly hostile -to the dogmas of Rome, the author soon found himself in ill odour with his brother clerics. Probably it was for this reason that he renounced the pulpit, yet his literary activities were not vitiated by persecution ; and in 1671 he issued De la Delicetesse, a speculative treatise, couched in the form of dialogues, in which the author takes the part of one, a priest who had lately been writing in opposition to Port Royal doctrines. Like its predecessor this new book made a considerable stir, and Villars began to write voluminously, at the same time plunging deeply into the study of various kinds of mysticism ; but his activities were suddenly terminated in an unexpected fashion, for in 1673 he was murdered on the public high- road not far from Lyons, whither he was journeying from Paris. Presumably he had incurred the hatred of some one "but the question is shrouded in mystery ; and, be the solution what it may, no attempt appears to have been made to frustrate the posthumous publication of divers -works from Villars' pen. Within the first decade succeed- ing his death three such works appeared, V Amour sans Faiblesse, Anne de Bretague et Ailmanzaris, and Critique de la Berenice de Racine el de Comeille, the last-named subsequently winning the enconiums of a shrewd judge, Mme. de Sevigne ; while so late as 1715 a further production by Villars was issued, a sequel to the Comte du Gabalis, bearing the significant title of Nouveaux Entretiens sur les Sciences secretes. This volume elicited ready and wide interest among thinkers in the eighteenth century, and it may be briefly defined as a treatise opposing the philosophi- cal theories of Descartes, or rather, opposing the popular misapprehension and abuse of these.
Vintras, Eugene : A Norman peasant of great devoutness, who in the year 1839 was fixed upon by the Saviours of Louis XVII. (q.v.), as a fitting successor to their prophet Martin who had just died. They addressed a letter to the pretended Louis XVII. and arranged that it should fall into the hands of Vintras. It abounded in good promises for the reign to come and in mystical expressions calculated to inflame the brain of a person of weak and excitable character such as Vintras was. In a letter
• Vintras himself describes as follows the manner in which this communication reached him : —
" Towards nine o'clock I was occupied in writing, when there was a knock at the door of the room in which I sat, And supposing that it was a workman who came on business, I said rather brusquely, ' Come in.' Much to my astonish- ment, in place of the expected workman, I saw an old man in rags. I asked merely what he wanted. He Answered with much tranquillity, ' Don't disturb yourself, Pierre Michel.' Now, these names are never used in addressing me, for I am known everywhere as Engine, and even in signing documents I do not make use of my first names. I was conscious of a certain emotion at the old man's answer, and this increased when he said : ' I am utterly tired, and wherever I appear they treat me with •disdain, or as a thief.' The words alarmed me considerably, though they were spoken in a saddened and even a woeful tone. I arose and placed a ten. sous piece in his hand, say- ing, ' I do not take you for that, my good man,' and while speaking I made him understand that I wished to see him out. He received it in silence but turned his back with .a pained air. No sooner had he set foot on the last step
than I shut the door and locked it. I did not hear him go down, so I called a workman and told him to come up to my room. Under some business pretext, I was wishing him to search with me all the possible places which might conceal my old man, whom I had not seen go out. The workman came accordingly. I left the room in his com- pany, again locking my door. I hunted through all the nooks and corners, but saw nothing.
" I was about to enter the factory when I heard on a sudden the bell ringing for mass, and felt glad that, not- withstanding the disturbance, I could assist at the sacred ceremony. I ran back to my room to obtain a prayer book and, on the table where I had been writing, I found a letter addressed to Mme. de Generes in London ; it was written and signed by M. Paul de Montfleury of Caen, and embodied a refutation of heresy, together with a profession of orthodox faith. The address notwithstanding, this letter was intended to place before the Duke of Normandy the most important truths of our holy Catholic, Apostolic and Roman religion. On the document was laid the ten sous piece which I had given to the old man."
Vintras immediately concluded that the bringer of the letter was a messenger from heaven, and became devoted to the cause of Louis XVII. He became a Visionary. He had bloody sweats, he saw hearts painted with his own blood appear on hosts, accompanied by inscriptions in his own spelling. Many believed him a prophet and followed him, among them several priests, who alleged that they par- took of his occult vision. Doctors analysed the fluid which flowed from the hosts and certified it to be human blood. His enemies referred these miracles to the Devil. Vintras' followers regarded him as a new Christ. But one of them, Gozzoli, published scandalous accounts of his doings, alleging that horrible obscenities and sacrilegious masses took place in their private chapel at Tilly-sur-seules. The unspeakable abominations alluded to are contained in a pamphlet entitled he Prophite Vintras (185 1). The sect was formally condemned by the Pope, and Vintras constituted himself sovereign Pontiff. He was arrested on a charge of exploiting his cult for money, was tried at Caen, and sentenced to five years' imprisonment. When freed in 1845 he went to England, and in London resumed the head-ship of his cult which seems to have flourished for some time afterwards.
Virgil, the Enchanter : (See Italy.)
Visions : (From Latin visus, p.p. of videre, to see.) The appearance to mortals of supernatural persons, or scenes. Of great frequency in early and mediasval times, and among savage or semi-civilised races, visions seem to have decreased proportionately with the advance of learning and enlighten- ment. Thus among the Greeks and Romans of the classic period they were comparatively rare, though visions of demons or gods were occasionally seen. On the other hand, among Oriental races the seeing of visions was a common occurrence, and these took more varied shapes. In mediaeval Europe, again, visions were almost common- places, and directions were given by the Church to enable men to distinguish visions of divine origin from those false delusions which were the work of the Evil One. Visions may be roughly divided into two classes — those which are spontaneous, and those which are induced. But, indeed, the great majority belong to the latter class. Ennemoser enumerates the causes of such appearances thus : (1) Sensitive organism and delicate constitution ; (2) Religious education and ascetic life (fasting, penance, etc.) ; (3) Narcotics — opium, wine, incense, narcotic salves (witch- salves) ; (4) Delirium, monomania ; (5) Fear and expecta- tion, preparatory words, songs, and prayers. Among the visions induced by prayer and fasting, and the severe self- discipline of the religious ascetic, must be included many
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historical or traditional instances — the visions of St. Francis of Assisi, St. Anthony, St. Bernard Ignatius, St. Catherine of Siena, St. Hildegarde, Joan of Arc. It may be noted that the convent has ever been the special haunt of religious visions, probably for the reasons above men- tioned. But the most potent means for the inductions of visionary appearances are those made use of by the Orientals. Narcotics of all kinds — opium, haschish, and so on — are indulged in, and physical means used for this express purpose. Thus the Brahmins will gaze for hours at a time at the sun or moon, will remain for months in practically the some position, or will practise all manner of mortification of the body, so that they may fall at length into the visionary sleep (a species of catalepsy.) The narcotic salves with which they anoint themselves are said to be similar to the witch-salves used in the Middle Ages, which induced in the witch the hallucination that she was flying through the air on a goat or a broomstick. Opium also is said to produce a sensation of flying, as well as visions of celestial delight. Alcoholic intoxication induces visions of insects and small animals, as does also nitrogen. The vapours rising from the ground in some places, or those to be found in certain caverns, are said to exercise an effect similar to that of narcotics. The Indians of North America practise similar external methods of inducing visions — solitude, fasting, and the use of salves or ointments. The savages of Africa have dances which, by producing severe dizziness, help them towards the desired visionary ecstasy. The northern savages attain the same end by the use of drums and noisy music. Spontaneous visions, though less common, are yet sufficiently numerous to merit atten- tion here. The difficulty is, of course, to know just how far " fear and expectation " may have operated to induce the vision. In many cases, as in that of Swedenborg, the visions may have commenced as " visions of the night," hardly to be distinguished from dreams, and so from vision of an " internal " nature to clearly externalised apparitions. Swedenborg himself declares that when seeing visions of the latter class he used his senses exactly as when awake, dwelling with the spirits as a spirit, but able to return to his body when he pleased. An interesting case of spon- taneous vision is that of Benvenuto Cellini (q.v.). Visions are by no means confined to the sense of sight. Taste, hearing, smelling, touch, may all be experienced in a vision. Joan of Arc, for instance, heard voices encouraging her to be the deliverer of her country. Examples may be drawn from the Bible, as the case of the child Samuel in the Temple, and instances could be multiplied from all ages and all times. The visions of Pordage and the " Phila- delphia Society," — or, as they called themselves later, the " Angelic Brethren " — in 1651 are noteworthy in this respect because they include the taste of " brimstone, salt, and soot." In the presence of the " Angelic Brethren " pictures were drawn on the window-panes by invisible hands, and were seen to move about.
Physiological exlpanations of visions have from time to time been offered. Plato says : " The eye is the organ of a fire which does not burn but gives a mild light. The rays proceeding from the eye meet those of the outward light. With the departure of the outward light the inner also becomes less active ; all inward movements become calmer and less disturbed ; and should any more prominent influences have remained they become in various points where they congregate, so many pictures of the fancy."
Democritus held that visions and dreams are passing shapes, ideal forms proceeding from other beings. Of death-bed visions Plutarch says : " It is not probable that in death the soul gains new powers which it was not before possessed of when the heart was confined within the chains of the body ; but it is much more probable that these powers were always in being, though dimmed and clogged by the body ; and the soul is only then able to practise them when the cor- poreal bonds are loosened, and the drooping limbs and stagnating juices no longer oppress it." The spiritualistic- theory of visions can hardly be called a physiological one, save in so far as spirit is regarded as refined matter. An old theory of visionary ecstasy on these lines was that the soul left the body and proceeded to celestial spheres, where it remained in contemplation of divine scenes and persons. Very similar to this is the doctrine of Swedenborg, whose spirit, he believed, could commune with discarnate spirits. — the souls of the dead— as one of themselves. To this may be directly traced the doctrines of modern spiritualism, which thus regards visions as actual spirits or spirit scenes, visible to the ecstatic or entranced subject whose spirit was projected to discarnate planes. The question whether or no visions are contagious has been much disputed. It has been said that such appearances may be transferred from one person to another by the laying on of hands. In the case of the Scottish seers such a transference may take place even by accidental contact with the seer. The vision of the second person is.however.less distinct than that of the original seer. The same idea prevailed with regard to the visions of magnetised patients. In so far as these may be identified with the collective hallucinations of the hypnotic state, there is no definite scientific evidence to prove their existence.
Visions have by no means been confined to the ignorant or the superstitious. Many men of genius have been subject to visionary appearance. While Raphael was trying to- paint the Madonna she appeared to him in a vision. The famous composition known as the " Devil's Sonata" was dictated to Tartini by the Evil One himself. Goethe also had visions. Blake's portraits of the Patriarchs were done from visionary beings which appeared to him in the night. And such instances might easily be multiplied.
Vitality, according to theosophists, comes from the sun. When a physical atom is transfused with vitality, it draws to itself six other atoms and thus makes an etheric element. The sum of their vitality is then divided among each of the atoms and in this state the element enters the physical body by means of one of the sense organs or ckaksams of the etheric double — that situated opposite the spleen. Here the element is divided into its component parts and these are conveyed to the various parts of the physical body. It is on vitality that the latter depends, not only for life but for its well-being in life. A person sufficiently supplied with it enjoys good health and one insufficiently ■ supplied is afflicted with poor health. In the case of a healthy person, however, more vitality is drawn in than is necessary for the vital purposes and the superfluous- vitality acts beneficially on his neighbours, whether human or animal, while it can also be directed in certain definite channels to the healing of diseases and so forth. With unhealthy persons, the case is, of course, reversed, and they devitalise the more healthy, with whom they come in contact.
Vjestica, a Slav name for a witch : (See Slavs.)
Vukub-Came : (See Hell.)
w
Wafer : The sacred wafer is often used by devil-worshippers for purposes of profanation. (See Devil-worship.) There was found in the house of the notorious witch, Dame Alice
Kyteler (q.v.), a wafer of sacramental bread, bearing therepa the name of the Devil.
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Waldenses : The name of a Christian sect which arose in the south of France about 1 170. They were much the same in origin and ethics as the Albigenses (q.v.), that is, their religious system rested upon that of Manichaeism, which believed in dualism and severe asceticism. It undoubtedly arose from the desire of the bourgeois class to have changes made in the clerical discipline of the Roman Church. Its adherents called themselves calhari thus demonstrating the eastern origin of their system. There were two classes of these, credentes and perfecti, or neophytes and adepts, — the perfecti only being admitted to the esoteric doctrines of the Waldensian Church. Outwardly its aim and effort was rationalistic ; but the inner doctrine partook more of the occult. It was in 11 70 that Peter Waldo, a rich merchant of Lyons, sold his goods and gave them to the poor, and from him the sect was named. The earliest account of Waldensian beliefs is that of an enemy,. Sacconi, an inquisitor of the Holy Office, who wrote about the middle of the thirteenth century. He divides the Wal- densians into two classes, those of Lombardy, and those north of the Alps. The latter believed that any layman might consecrate the sacrament of the altar, and that the Roman Church was not the Church of Christ ; while the Lombardian sect held that the Roman Church was the Scarlet Woman of the Apocalypse. They also believed that all men were priests. As their opinions became more wide- spread, persecution became more severe, and the Walden- sians latterly withdrew themselves altogether from the Church of Rome, and chose ministers for themselves by election. Papal bulls were issued for their extermination, and a crusade was directed against them ; but they sur- vived these attacks, and so late as the time of Cromwell were protected by him against the Duke of Savoy and the French king. Their ministers were later subsidised by the government of Queen Anne, and this subsidy was carried on until the time of Napoleon, when he granted them an equivalent. Latterly they have received much assistance from various Protestant countries of Europe, especially from England ; and at the present time number some 1 2,000 to 13,000 communicants.
During the Middle Ages, it was strongly held by the priesthood of the Roman Church that, like the Albigenses, the Waldensians had a diabolic element in their religion and they have been from time to time classed with the various secret societies that sprang up in mediaeval Europe, such as the Knights Templar, the Rosicrucians, and so forth ; but although they possessed an esoteric doctrine _ of their own, there is no reason to believe that this was in any way magical, nor in any manner more " esoteric " than the inner doctrine of any other Christian sect.
Walder, Phileas : A Swiss, originally a Lutheran minister, a well-known occultist and spiritualist, and friend of Eliphas Levi (q.v.). He is represented by the pseudo- historians of " Satanism " as a right-hand man of Albert Pike (q.v.) in his alleged diabolic practices at Charleston, U.S.A. (See Devil Worship.) In reality Walder was an earnest mason and mystic.
Wallace, Alfred ftussel : A distinguished British naturalist, who discovered the- theory of evolution independent of Darwin. He was born at Usk, in Monmouthshire, on the 8th of January, 1823. His scientific studies included an enquiry into the phenomena of spiritualism, and he became a firm believer in the genuineness of these manifestations. Dr. Wallace had unique opportunities for studying these in connection with Mrs. Guppy, who, as Miss Nichols, lived for a time with his sister. Among his works was one entitled Miracles and Modern Spiritualism, pub- lished in 1881. Dr. Wallace's views on psychic phenomena remained unchanged until his death in 1903. His scientific position made him a tower of strength to the spiritualists.
Wallenstein, Albert Von, Duke of Friedland : (See Astrology.)
Wandering Jew, The : A mediaeval German legend which has several forms. Through various writers, and differing in detail, the essential features of the narratives which have been handed down to us, are the same. The legend is that as Christ was dragged on his way to Calvary, he passed the house of a Jew, and stopping there, sought to rest a little, being weary under the weight of his cross. The Jew, however, inspired with the adverse enthusiasm of the mob, drove Him- on, and would not allow Him to rest there. Jesus, looking at him, said, " I shall stand and rest, but thou shalt go till the last day." Ever afterwards- the Jew was compelled to wander over the earth, till this prophecy should be fulfilled.
The legend of the Wandering Jew is to be regarded as the- epic of the Semite people in the Middle Ages.
In some parts of Germany we find the Wandering Jew identified with the Wild Huntsman, whilst in several French districts that mythical character is regarded as the wind of the night. The blast in his horn, which, rushing through- the valleys creates a hollow booming sound not unlike a great bugle. In this legend we have in all probability the clue to the mythological side of the story of the wandering Jew. Or perhaps the idea of the Wandering Jew has been fused with that of the conception of the wind. The re- semblance between the two conceptions would be too strong to escape the popular mind. From a literary point of view this legend has been treated by Eugene Sue and Croly.
Wannein Nat : An evil spirit. (See Burma.)
War, Occult Phenomena during the : A surprising number of ideas regarding the supernatural have crystallized around the circumstances of the war. Perhaps the most striking of these was the alleged vision of angels at Mons. The first notice regarding this, or at least the most impor- tant and public record of the occurrence, was that con- tained in the Evening News for September 14th, 1915, in. Which Mr. Machen described the evidence as given to him. by an officer who was in the retreat from Mons. This officer was a member of a well-known army family and was a- person of great credibility, who stated that on August 26th, 1914, he was fighting in the battle of Le Cateau, from which his division retired in good order. " On the night of the 27th," he says, " I was riding along the column with two other officers. ... As we rode along I became conscious of the fact that in the fields on both sides of the road along which we were marching I could see a very large body of horsemen. . . . the other two officers had stopped talking. At last one of them asked me if I saw anything in the- fields. I told them what I had seen. The third officer confessed that he, too, had been watching these horsemen, for the past twenty minutes. So convinced were we. that they were really cavalry, that at the next halt one of the officers took a party of men out to reconnoitre and found no one there. The night then' grew "darker and we saw no more."
Mr. Harold Begbie in his book On the Side of the A ngels states that a vision of angels was seen in the retreat from. Mons and gives the narrative of a soldier, who states that an officer came up to him "in a state of great anxiety " and pointed out to him a " strange light which seemed to be quite distinctly outlined and was not a reflection of the- moon, nor were there any clouds in the neighbourhood. The light became brighter and I could see quite distinctly three shapes, one in the centre having what looked like- outspread wings. The other two were not so large, but were quite plainly distinct from the centre one. They" appeared to have a long, loose-hanging garment of a golden tint and they were above the German line facing us. We stood watching them for about three-quarters of an hour." All the men^in the battalion who saw this with*
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the exception of five were killed. Mr. Begbie goes on to say that he was told by a nurse that a dying soldier spoke to her of the reluctance of the Germans to attack our line, " because of the thousands of troops behind us." This man had heard German prisoners say so and fully believed in the phantasmal nature of those supporting hosts.
In his monograph on the Bowmen at Mons, Mr. Machen ;put forward the idea that those seen before the retreat from Mons were the spirits of the English bowmen who had fought at Agincourt and this idea gained wide prevalence, an interesting monograph being written upon it by Mr. Ralph Shirley. Men from the front, too, have stated to interviewers that phantasms of the dead frequently appeared in the space between the German and British trenches called " No Man's Land."
Mr. Shirley has also written an excellent pamphlet on " Prophecies and Omens of the Great War " dealing ■with the various oracular utterances on the gigantic struggle, which may be referred to with confidence.
Stories, too, were current in the earlier times of the war regarding the appearance of saintly and protective figures resembling the patrons of the several allied countries. Thus the English were convinced that in certain engage- ments they had beheld the figure of Saint George mounted on a white charger and the French were equally sure that the figure in question was either Saint Denis or Joan of Arc. Wounded men in base hospitals asked for medallions or coins on which the likenesses of these saints were impressed in order to verify the statements they made.
Wayland Smith : A famous character in German mythological romance and father of Weltich, whom he trained in the art of warfare and sent to the Court of Dietrich in Bern. To him he gave the sword Miming and told him of a mer- maid, his ancestress, to whom he was to apply when in difficulty. He is also referred to in the Sigfried story, being in company with a smith named Mimi, when Sig- fried joins the smithy. His workmanship is praised in the Beowulf Saga and he is mentioned there and elsewhere as a maker of impregnable armour. He is the supernatural smith of the Teutonic peoples, and is comparable to Vulcan in Roman, and to Hephaistos in Greek mythology.
"Weir, Major : (See Scotland.)
Weirtz : (See Hypnotism.)
Weishaupt : (See Illuminati.)
Werner, Dr. Heinrich : (See Spiritualism.)
Werwolf : A man temporarily or permanently transformed into a wolf, from the Anglo-Saxon wer, a man, and wulf, a wolf. It is a phase of Lycanthropy (q.v.), and in ancient and mediaeval times was of very frequent occurrence. It was, of course, in Europe where the wolf was one of the largest carnivorous animals, that the super- stition gained currency, similar tales in other countries usually introducing bears, tigers, and so forth.
The belief is probably a relic of early cannibalism. ■Communities of semi-civilised people would begin to shun those who devoured human flesh, and they would be ostracised and classed as wild beasts, the idea that they had something in common with these would grow, and the -conception that they were able to transform themselves into veritable animals would be likely to arise therefrom.
There were two kinds of werwolf, voluntary and involun- tary. The voluntary would be, as has been said, those ^persons who, because of their taste for human flesh, had withdrawn from intercourse with their fellows. These appeared to possess a certain amount of magical power, or at least sufficient of it to transform themselves into the animal shape at will. This they effected by merely disrobing, by the taking off a girdle made of human skin, or, putting on a similar belt of wolf-skin, obviously a substitute for an ■entire wolf-skin. But we also hear of their donning the
entire skin. In other instances the body is rubbed with a magic ointment, or water is drunk out of a wolf's foot- print. The brains of the animal are also eaten. Olaus Magnus says " that the werwolves of Livonia drained a cup of beer on initiation, and repeated certain magic words. In order to throw off the wolf shape the animal girdle was removed, or else the magician merely muttered a certain formula. In some instances the transformation was*supposed to be the work of Satan.
The superstition regarding werwolves seems to have been exceedingly prevalent in France during the 16th century as is evidenced by numerous trials, in Some of which it is clearly shown that murder and cannibalism took place. Self-hallucination, too, was accountable for some of these cases, the supposed werwolves fully admitting that they had transformed themselves and had slain numerous persons. But at the beginning of the 17th century, commonsense came to the rescue, and persons making such confessions were not credited. In Teutonic and Slavonic countries it was complained by men of learning that werwolves did more damage than the real criminals, and a regular " college " or institution for the practice of the art of animal transformation was attributed to them.
Involuntary werwolves were often persons transformed into an animal shape because of the commission of sin, and condemned to pass so many years in that form. Thus certain saints metamorphosed sinners into wolves. In Armenia it is thought that sinful women are condemned to pass seven years in the form of a wolf. To such a woman a demon appears, bringing a wolf-skin. He commands her to don it, from which moment she becomes a wolf with all the nature of a wild beast, devouring her own children and those of strangers, wandering forth at night, undeterred by locks, bolts, or bars, returning only with morning to resume her human form.
Romance, especially French romance, is full of wer- wolves, and one of the most remarkable instances of this is the Lay by Marie de France entitled Bisclaverel, the Lay of a werwolf.
Many werwolves were innocent persons suffering through the witchcraft of others. To regain their true form it was necessary for them to kneel in one spot for a hundred years, to lose three drops of blood, to be hailed as a werwolf, to have the sign of the cross made on their bodies, to be addressed thrice by their baptismal names, or to be struck thrice on the forehead with a knife.
According to Donat de Hautemer, quoted by Goulart, " there are some lycanthropes who are so dominated by their melancholy humour that they really believe them- selves to be transformed into wolves. This malady, accord- ing to the testimony of Aetius in his sixth book, chapter XL, and Paulus in his third book, chapter XVI., and other moderns, is a sort of melancholy, of a black and dismal nature. Those who are attacked by it leave their homes in the months of February, imitate wolves in almost every particular, and wander all night long among the cemeteries and sepulchres, so that one may observe a marvellous change in the mind and disposition, and, above all in the depraved imagination, of the lycanthrope. The memory, however, is still vigorous, as I have remarked in one of this lycanthropic melancholiacs whom we call werwolves. For one who was well acquainted with me was one day seized with his affliction, and on meeting him I withdrew a little, fearing that he might injure me. He, having glanced at me for a moment, passed on followed by a crowd of people. On his shoulder he carried the entire leg and thigh of a corpse. Having received careful medical treatment, he was cured of this malady. On meeting me on another occasion he asked me if I had not been afraid when he met me at such and such a place.
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which made me think that his memory was not hurt by the vehemence of his disease, though his imagination was so greatly damaged."
" Guillaume de Brabant, in the narrative of Wier, repeated by Goulart, has written in his History that a ■certain man of sense and settled understanding was still so tormented by the evil spirit that at a particular season ■of the year he would think himself a ravening wolf, and would run here and there in the woods, caves and deserts, ■chasing little children. It was said that this man was often found running about in the deserts like a man out of his senses, and that at last by the grace of God he came to himself and was healed. There was also, as is related by Job Fincel in the second book On Miracles a villager near Paule in the year 1541, who believed himself to be a wolf, and assaulted several men in the fields, even killing some. Taken at last, though not without great difficulty, he stoutly affirmed that he was a wolf, and that the only way in which he differed from other wolves was that they wore their hairy coats on the outside, while he wore his between his skin and his flesh. Certain persons, more inhuman and wolfish than he, wished to test the truth of this story, and gashed his arms and legs severely. Then, learning their mistake, and the innocence of the melan- choliac, they passed him over to the consideration of the surgeons, in whose hands he died some days after. Those afflicted with this disease are pale, with dark and haggard •eyes, seeing only with difficulty ; the tongue is dry, and the sufferer very thirsty. Pliny and others write that the brain of a bear excites such bestial imaginations. It is even said that one was given to a Spanish gentleman to eat in our times, which so disturbed his mind, that imagin- ing himself to be transformed into a bear, he fled to the mountains and deserts."
" As for the lycanthropes, whose imagination was so damaged," says Goulart, " that by some Satanic efficacy they appeared wolves and not men to those who saw them Tunning about and doing all manner of harm, Bodin main- tains that the devil can change the shape of one body into that of another, in the great power that God gives him in this elementary world. He says, then, that there may be lycanthropes who have really been transformed into wolves, quoting various examples and histories to prove his contention. In short, after many disputes, he believes in Colt's forms of lycanthropy. And as for the latter, there is represented at the end of this chapter the summary of his proposition, to wit, that men are some- times transformed into beasts, retaining in that form the human reason ; it may be that this comes about by the direct power of God, or it may be that he gives this power to Satan, who carries out his will, or rather his redoubtable judgments. And if we confess (he says) the truths of the sacred history in Daniel, concerning the transformation of Nebuchadnezzar, and the history of Lot's wife changed into motionless stone, the changing of men into an ox or 3. stone is certainly possible ; and consequently the trans- formation to other animals as well."
G. Peucer says in speaking of lycanthropy : "As for me I had formerly regarded as ridiculous and fabulous the stories I had often heard concerning the transformation of men into wolves ; but I have learnt from reliable sources, and from the testimony of trustworthy witnesses, that such things are not at all doubtful or incredible, since they tell of such transformations taking place twelve days after Christmas in Livonia and the adjacent coun- tries ; as they have been proved to be true by the con- fessions of those who have been imprisoned and tortured for such crimes. Here is the manner in which it is done. Immediately after Christmas day is past, a lame boy goes round the country calling these slaves of the devil,
of which there are a great number, and enjoining them to follow him. If they procrastinate or go too slowly, there immediately appears a tall man with a whip whose thongs are made of iron chains, with which he urges them onwards, and sometimes lashes the poor wretches so cruelly, that the marks of the whip remain on their bodies till long afterwards, and cause them the greatest pain. As soon as they have set out on their road, they are all
changed into wolves They travel in thousands, having
for their conductor the bearer of the whip, after whom they march. When they reach the fields, they rush upon the cattle they find there, tearing and carrying away all they can, and doing much other damage ; but they are not permitted to touch or wound persons. When they approach any rivers, their guide separates the waters with his whip, so that they seem to open up and leave a dry space by which to cross. At the end of twelve days the whole band scatters, and everyone returns to his home, having regained his own proper form. This transformation, they say, comes about in this wise. The victims fall suddenly on the ground as though they were taken with sudden illness, and remain motionless and extended Jike corpses, deprived of all feeling, for they neither stir, nor move from one place to another, nor are in any wise trans- formed into wolves, thus resembling carrion, for although they are rolled or shaken, they give no sign of life."
Bodin relates several cases of lycanthropy and of men changed into beasts.
" Pierre Mamot, in a little treatise he has written on sorcerers, says that he has observed this changing of men into wolves, he being in Savoy at the time. Henry of Cologne in his treatise de Lamiis regards the trans- formation as beyond doubt. And Ulrich in a little book dedicated to the emperor Sigismund, writes of the dispute before the emperor, and says that it was agreed, both on the ground of reason, and of the experience of innumerable examples, that such transformation was a fact ; and he adds that he himself had seen a lycanthrope at Constance, who was accused, convicted, condemned, and finally executed after his confession. And several books pub- lished in Germany say that one of the greatest kings of Christendom, who is not long dead, and who had the reputation of being one of the greatest sorcerers in the world, often changed into a wolf."
" I remember that the attorney-general of the King, Bourdin, has narrated to me another which was sent to him from the Low Countries, with the whole trial signed by the judge and the clerks, of a wolf, which was struck by an arrow on the thigh, and afterwards found himself in bed, with the arrow (which he had torn out), on regain- ing his human shape, and the arrow was recognised by him who had fired it — the time and place testified by the con- fession of the person."
" Gamier, tried and condemned by the parliament of Dole, being in the shape of a werwolf, caught a girl of ten or twelve years in a vineyard of Chastenoy, a quarter of a league from Dole, and having slain her with his teeth and claw-like hands, he ate part of her flesh and carried the rest to his wife. A month later, in the same form, he took another girl, and would have eaten her also, had he not, as he himself confessed, been prevented by three persons who happened to be passing by ; and a fortnight after he strangled a boy of ten in the vineyard of Gredisans, and ate his flesh ; and in the form of a man and not of a wolf, he killed another boy of twelve or thirteen years in a wood of the village of Porouse with the intention of eating him, but was again prevented. He was condemned to be burnt, and the sentence was executed."
" At fhe parliament of Bezancon, the accused were Pierre Burgot and Michel Verdun, who confessed to having
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renounced God, and sworn to serve the devil. And Michel Verdun led Burgot to the bord du Chastel Charlon where everyone carried a candle of green wax which shone with a blue flame. There they danced and offered sacrifices to the devil. Then after being anointed they were turned into wolves, running with incredible swiftness ; then they were changed again into men, and suddenly transformed back to wolves, when they enjoyed the society of female wolves as much as they had done that of their wives. They confessed also that Burgot had killed a boy of seven years with his wolf-claws and teeth, intending to eat him, but the peasants gave chase, and prevented him. Burgot and Verdun had eaten four girls between them ; and they had caused people to die by the touch of a certain powder."
" Job Fincel, in the eleventh book of his Marvels wrote that there was at Padua a lycanthrope who was caught and his wolf-claws cut, and at the same instant he found his arms and feet cut. That js given to strengthen the case against the sorcerers of Vernon (1556) who assembled themselves in an old and ruined chateau under the shape of an infinite number of cats. There happened to arrive there one evening four or five men, who decided to spend the night in the place. They were awakened by a multi- tude of cats, who assaulted them, killed one of their number, and wounded others. The men, however, succeeded in wounding several of the cats, who found on recovering their human shape that they were badly hurt. And in- credible as it may seem, the trial was not proceeded with."
" But the five inquisitors who had experimented in these causes have left it in writing that there were three sorcerers in Strasbourg who, in the guise of three large cats, assaulted a labourer, and in defending himself he wounded and dispersed the cats, who found themselves, at the same moment, laid on sick-beds, in the form of women severely wounded. At the trial they accused him who had struck them, and he told the judges the hour and the place where he had been assaulted by the cats, and how he had wounded them." (See Lyeanthropy.) West Indian Islands : Magic and sorcery in the West Indian Islands are wholly the preserve of the negro population, who possess special magical cults called Obeah and Vaudoux, variants of West African fetishism. The root idea of Obeahism and Vaudoux is the worship and propitiation of, the snake-god Obi — a West African word typifying the Spirit of Evil. Vaudoux or Voodoo is a form of Obeah practised in Hayti, San Domingo, and the French West Indies. Its rites are always accompanied by the sacrifice of fowls and goats, and in only too many cases by the offering up of the " goat without horns " — the human sacrifice, usually a young girl or boy. The lonely groves and mountain caves where the devotees of Vaudoux enjoy the orgies of a Walpurgis night seldom give up their secrets. There are two sects of Vaudoux — the white and the red. The former, which only believes in the sacrifice of white fowls and goats, is tolerated by the laws of Hayti, and its rites are as commonly practised as those of the Catholic Church. But even the red sect, which openly stands for human sacrifice, is seldom interfered with. The authorities dare not suppress it, for their own policemen and soldiers stand in awe of the " Papaloi," and " Mamaloi " — the priests and priestess of the snake-god. More than that, there have been Presidents of Hayti in recent years who believed in Vaudoux. Hippolyte was even a " Papalni " himself. He beat the black goatskin drum in the streets of the capital to call the faithful together to see him kill the sen-sel fowl. Another president, Geffard, tried to do his duty and stamp out the cult. A terrible revenge was taken upon him. His young daughter, Cora, was shot
dead as she knelt in prayer before the altar of a church in Port-au-Prince. To-day there is a temple of the red sect in the Haytian capital near a triumphal arch, which is inscribed with the unctuous words, ' ' Liberty — education — progress." Under British government Obeahism perforce takes forms less dangerous to the social order than it does in Hayti ; but it is none the less a constant public peril in Jamaica and the other British West Indian Islands-. It is a bitter foe of religion, education and social advancement In olden days it worked by means of wholesale poisoning, and in quite recent days there have been not a few cases of Obeahmen seeking to do murder in the old way. A favourite method of the Obeahmen, both in Jamaica and Hayti, is to mix the infinitesimal hairs of the bamboo in the food of persons who .refuse to bow the knee to them. This finally sets up malignant dysentery. If the afflicted one remains contumacious, he dies ; if he makes his peace with the Obeahman, and gives him a handsome present, the slow process of poisoning ceases, and he lives. In all the crises and troubles of life the negro flies to the Obeahman. If he has to appear at the Police Court he pays the Obeah- man to go there also and " fix de eye " of the magistrate, so that he will be discharged. Perhaps he has been turned out of his office of deacon in the Baptist Chapel by a white minister for immorality. In that case the Obeahman will arrange for a choice collection of the most powerful spells — such as dried lizards, fowls' bones, and graveyard earth — to be placed in the minister's Bible for him to stare upon when he looks up the text of his sermon. Then, if the Obeah works properly, the erring deacon will be received back to office. Even coloured men of education and official position are often tainted with Obeahism. They often make use of it for profit and to increase their power over the ignorant negroes. The mulatto chairman of a Parochial Board — the Jamaican equivalent of our County Council — was sent to goal for practising Obeah only a few years ago. A prominent member of the Kingston City Council was the leading Obeahman in the island — the pontiff of the cult. He was so clever that the police could never catch him, although he was supposed to make over ^3,000 a year by his nefarious practices. Once some detectives raided his place, but he received timely warning and fled.
A writer to the press thus describes a " red " Vaudoux ceremony : "I had seen the ' white ' ritual several times in Port-au-Prince and elsewhere when at last I was per- mitted through the kindness of a mulatto general, to witness the ' red ' rite. I was informed that only cocks and goats would be sacrificed, and that turned out to be the fact. The General conducted me to a small wood about three miles from the town of Jacmel. By the light of kerosene oil flares I saw about forty men and women gathered round a rude stone altar, on which, twined around a cocomacacque stick, was the sacred green snake. The ' Mamaloi,' a tall, evil-looking negress, was dressed in a scarlet robe, with a red turban on her head. She was dancing a sinuous dance before the altar, and droning an ancient West African chant, which the onlookers repeated. Rapidly she worked herself up to a frantic pitch of excite- ment, pausing now and then to take a drink from one of the rum bottles which passed freely from hand to hand. At last she picked up a glittering machete from the altar, and with her other hand seized a black cock held by a bystander. She whirled the bird round her head violently until the feathers were flying in all directions, and then severed the head from the body with one swift stroke. The tense and horrible excitement had kept the worshippers silent, but they burst into a savage yell when the priestess pressed the bleeding neck of the slaughtered fowl to her lips. After- wards she dipped her finger in the blood and made the
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sign of the cross on her forehead and pressed it to the forehead of some of her disciples."
The obeah man can always be easily recognised by one who has had much to do with negroes. He has an indes- cribably sinister appearance. He is unwashed, ragged, often half mad, usually diseased, and almost always has an ulcerated leg. This last, indeed, is a badge of the tribe. Often he is a very old negro who knew " slavery days " and more than half believes in his magical pretensions. But not all are of this disreputable type. Even some of the white planters themselves do not scorn to make use of obeah, although, of course, they have no belief in it. The theft of growing crops by the negroes is one of the greatest trials of their lives. Sometimes they adorn the trees round the edge of a " banana piece " or orange grove with miniature coffins, old bones, bottles of dirty water, and other obeah objects ; and then the negroes will not dare to enter and steal. An interesting report published in a Jamaican journal during 1908 gives particulars of an obeah case of possession or haunting as follows :
" The cause cilebre at Half-way Tree Court, Jamaica, recently, was the case of Rex v. Charles Donaldson for unlawfully practising obeah. Robert Robinson, who stated that he was a labourer living at Trench Pen, in the parish of St. Andrew, stat'ed that on Tuesday, the 8th ult., he was sitting down outside the May Pen cemetery on the Spanish Town Road. He was on his way from work, and had a white handkerchief tied around his head. He was feeling sick, and that led him to sit down. While there sitting the prisoner came to him. He did not know the man before, but he began by asking him what was the matter. Witness replied, " I am well sick." The prisoner said, " No, you are not sick ; you have two ghosts on you — one Creole and one coolie." Witness told the prisoner to go away and was left. He next saw prisoner on Wednesday 9th. He came to him at Bumper Hall, where he was working, and he said to him, " Man, how you find me here ? " " Oh," replied the prisoner, " if a man is in hell self I can find him ; I come for you to give me the job ? " Witness then inquired, " What job ?" and accused told him he wanted to " take off the two ghosts." He would do it for £25, and he " killed " for any sum from ^25 to £50. He had worked for all classes— white, black, coolie, Chinese, etc. Witness said he did not give him any " good consent " at the time, but reported the matter after the accused left to Clark and Wright, two witnesses in •the case. Clark told him he must not scare the man but go home. On Thursday, the 10th, the defendant came to him at his yard at French Pen. The accused told him he would come back to him to take off the ghost. He also -told him to get a bottle of rum and 5s. He (witness) con- sented to the arrangement. The defendant began by taking off his jacket. He then opened his " brief bag " and took out a piece of chalk. The accused then made three marks on the table and took out a phial and a white stone. The phial contained some stuff which appeared like quicksilver. He arrayed his paraphernalia on the table. They consisted of a large whisky bottle with some yellow stuff, a candle, a pack of cards, a looking-glass, three ■ cigarette pictures, a pocket knife, etc. The accused also took out a whistle which he sounded, and then placed the cards on the table. He then asked for the 5s. which was given to him. He placed the coins on the cards around a lighted candle. The pint of rum which he (witness) had brought was on the table and prisoner poured some of it into a pan. He went outside and sprinkled the rum at the four corners of the house. Accused came back in and said, " Papa ! papa ! your case is very bad ! There are two ghosts outside. The Creole is bad, but the coolie is rather worse. But if he is made out of hell I will catch him."
The prisoner then began to blow his whistle in a very funny way — -a way in which he had never heard a whistle blown before. He also began to speak in an unknown tongue and to call up the ghosts.
Mr. Lake — " Aren't there a lot of you people who believe that ghosts can harm and molest you ? "
Witness — " No, I am not one."
Mr. Lake — " Did you not tell him that a duppy struck you on your back and you heard voices calling you ?"
Witness — ■" He told me so." Continuing, witness said he had seen all sorts of ghosts at all different times and of different kinds also.
Mr. Lake — " Of all different sexes, man and woman ? "
Witness — " Yes ; any man who can see ghosts will know a man ghost from a woman ghost. Dem never walk straight." Westcar Papyrus : An Egyptian papyrus dating from the eighteenth century B.C., devoted chiefly to tales of magic and enchantment. The commencement and ending are wanting, yet enough of the subject matter has survived to enable us to form a fairly correct idea of the whole. Wiede- mann says concerning it (Popular Literature in Ancient Egypt) : '' The papyrus tells how Kheops — the king whom notices of Greek writers have made universally famous as the builder of the Great Pyramid of Gizeh — commands stories of magic to be told to him. The first of these, of which the conclusion only remains, is supposed to have occurred in the reign of King T'eser of the Third Dynasty. The next, which is complete, belongs to the reign of Nebka, a somewhat earlier king. In those days it came to the ears of a great nobleman that his faithless wife was in the habit of meeting her lover by the side of a lake. Being skilled in magic he modelled a crocodile in wax and ordered one of his servants to cast it into the water. It was immediately transformed into a real crocodile and devoured the lover. Seven days later the king was walking by the lake with his friend the nobleman, when at the command of the latter the crocodile came to the shore and laid its victim at their feet. The king shuddered at the sight of the monster but at the touch of its maker it became once more a mere figure of wax. Then the whole astonishing story was told to the king, who thereupon granted the crocodile per- mission to take away that which was its own. The creature plunged into the depths of the lake and disappeared with the adulterer, while the guilty wife was burnt to death and her ashes were scattered in the stream.
A tale of enchantment follows, the scene of which is laid during the reign of King Sneferu, the predecessor of Kheops. The king was one day taking his pleasure on a lake in a boat rowed by twenty beautiful maidens, when one of the girls dropped a malachite ornament into the water. The king promised to give her another in its stead, but this did not content her, for she wanted her own jewel and no other. A magician was summoned who repeated a spell by the might of which he piled one half of the lake on the top of the other, so that the water, which at first was twelve ells deep in the middle of the lake, now stood twenty-four ells high. The jewel, found lying in the mud in the dry portion of the lake, was restored to its owner ; and the magician having once more mumbled his spell the water returned to its former place.
When Kheops had listened for some time with much interest to the accounts of "the strange events that had transpired in the days of his predecessors, then stepped forward Prince Horduduf, who is really known to us from the song in the tomb-temple of King Antef as renowned for his wisdom. He told the king that all marvels were not things of the past but that even then there was living a magician named Deda, who was one hundred and ten years
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old, and consumed every day five hundred loaves, a side of beef, and a hundred jars of beer.
Kheops was so much interested that he sent the prince to escort the magician to his presence. Deda obeyed the royal summons and performed his chief feat before the king. This consisted in decapitating a goose, a duck, and an ox, and charming the heads back again on to the bodies so that the creatures lived and breathed as before. Kheops fell into talk with the magician, who told him that the wife of a priest in Sakhebu was awaiting the birth of three sons, children of the god Ra, who should one day sit on the throne of Egypt. Deda sought to allay the king's natural distress at this information by prophesying that only after the reigns of his son and grandson should the power fall into the hands of the descendants of the Sun-god. But Kheops was not to be consoled ; he inquired into the details of the story and announced that he would himself travel to Sakhebu, no doubt with the ultimate intention of finding an opportunity to put out of the way the pretenders to his throne.
The scene of the sequel is laid in Sakhebu. The birth and infancy of the three children are described in detail, and all sorts of marvellous incidents are represented as influencing their fate. The gods cared for the safety of the little ones. A maid to whom the secret was known being enraged by a severe punishment inflicted upon her, threatened to betray all to Kheops. Her own brother beat her, and when she went down to the water she was carried off by a crocodile. Here the papyrus ceases, but it is possible to a certain extent to restore the conclusion. The names of the three children of Ra show that they stand for the first three kings of the Fifth Dynasty, the family that followed the house of Kheops. The papyrus must therefore have told how the boys escaped all the snares laid for their lives and in due time ascended the throne for which they were destined." Weza : Burmese sorcerers. (See Burma.) Whistling : It is considered unlucky for sailors to whistle aboard ship. This is of the nature of sympathetic magic, as it might possibly raise a whistling wind. White Daughter of the Philosophers : (See Philosopher's
Stone.) White Magic : (See Magic.) Widdershins : (See Magic.) Wier : (See Demonology.)
Wild-Women : A species of nature spirits believed in by the German peasantry. Says Keightley concerning them : " The Wilde Frauen or Wild-women of Germany bear a very strong resemblance to the Elle-maids of Scandinavia. Like them they are beautiful, have fine flowing hair, live within hills, and only appear singly or in the society of each other. They partake of the piety of character we find among the German Dwarfs.
" The celebrated Wunderberg, or Underberg, on the great moor near Salzburg, is the chief haunt of the Wild- women. The Wunderberg is said to be quite hollow, and supplied with stately palaces, churches, monasteries, gardens, and springs of gold and silver. Its inhabitants, besides the Wild-women, are little men, who have charge of the treasures it contains, and who at midnight repair to Salzburg to perform their devotions in the cathedral ; giants, who used to come to the church of Grodich and exhort the people to lead a godly and pious life ; and the great emperor Charles V., with golden crown and sceptre, attended by knights and lords. His grey beard has twice encompassed the table at which he sits, and when it has the third time grown round it, the end of the world and the appearance of the Antichrist will take place.
" The following is the only account we have of the Wild-women.
" The inhabitants of the village of Grodich and the peasantry of the neighbourhood assert that frequently, about the year 1753, the Wild-women used to come out of the Wunderburg to the boys and girls that were keeping- the cattle near the hole within Glanegg, and give them bread to eat.
" The Wild-women used frequently to come to where the people were reaping. They came down eagerly in the morning, and in the evening, when the people left off work, they went back into the Wunderburg without partaking of the supper.
" It once fell out near this hill, that a little boy was sitting on a horse which his father had tethered on the headland of the field. Then came the Wild-women out of the hill and wanted to take away the boy by force. But the father, who was well acquainted with the secrets of this hill, and what used to occur there, without any dread hasted up to the women and took the boy from them,, with these words : ' What makes you presume to come so- often out of the hill, and now to take away my child with you ? What do you want to do with him ? ' The Wild- women answered : ' He will be better with us, and have better care taken of him than at home. We shall be very fond of the boy, and he will meet with no injury ' But the father would not let the boy out of his hands, and the- Wild-women went away weeping bitterly.
" One time the Wild-women came out of the Wunderberg, near the place called the Kugel-mill, which is prettily situated on the side of this hill, and took away a boy who was keeping cattle. This boy, whom every one knew, was seen about a year after by some wood-cutters, in a. green dress, and sitting on a rock of this hill. Next day they took his parents with them, intending to search the hill for him, but they all went about it to no purpose, for the boy never appeared any more." Will is in theology, one of the aspects of the triplicity, of the- Logos, and hence since the Monad is essentially a part ot the Logos, it is also an aspect of the Monad, taken on when the latter commences his descent into matter by entering the Spiritual World and appearing as Spirit. William Rufus : Son of William the Conqueror, and tyrant of England in the eleventh century ; a wicked and cruel prince. He was much disliked, particularly by the priests- and monks, whom he reduced to the extremest poverty. One day when he was out hunting (in the year 1100, the forty-fourth year of his life, the thirtieth of his reign) he was killed by an arrow launched by an invisible hand. While he was drawing his last breath the comte de Comon- ailles, who had been separated from the hunt, saw a shaggy black goat carrying off a mangled human form, pierced by an arrow. The comte cried aloud to the goat to halt, and asked who he was, and where he was going. The goat responded that he was the devil, and was carrying off William Rufus, to present him before the great tribunal, where he would be condemned for his tyranny and forced to accompany him (the devil) to his abode. Williams, Charles : An English medium who began to- practice about 1870. In 1871 he went into partnership with the medium Heme. During the earlier years of their mediumship Mrs. Guppy, herself a well-known medium, was their patroness. The phenomena then produced were not of a very ambitous character, but consisted of lights, apports, movements of the furniture without contact, spirit voices, and the appearance of fiery letters in the air. One of the most curious feats of these early seances was the transit .of Mrs. Guppy. (See Levitation.) Soon afterwards materialisation was attempted by Messrs. Heme and Williams, in emulation of the feats of Miss Florence- Cook, who had been a ~ sitter at their early seances. In 1878 Williams's was the mediumship chosen for investigation.
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by the Research Committee of the British National Associa- tion of Spiritualists (q.v.). Notwithstanding the favourable report of the Committee, Williams's mediumship was not destined to last much longer. In company with a new partner, Rita, he had gone to Amsterdam, and there were found in their possession false beards, spirit draperies, and phosphorised oil. The exposure was entirely carried out and given to the public by indignant spiritualists.
Willow-tree : The Willow, as might be expected, had many superstitious notions connected with it, since, according to the authorized version of the English Bible, the Israelites are said to have hung their harps on willow trees. The weeping willow is said to have, ever since the time of the Jews' captivity in Babylon, drooped its branches, in sympathy with this circumstance. The common willow was held to be under the protection of the devil, and it was said that, if any were to cast a knot upon a young willow, and sit under it, and thereupon renounce his or her baptism, the devil would confer upon them supernatural power.
Windsor Castle : Windsor Castle is said to be the haunt of numerous spectres. Queen Elizabeth, Henry VIII., Charles I., and some of the Georges have all been reputed to haunt the Castle, while Heme the Hunter (q.v.) is also said to roam the Great Park. An officer of the Foot Guards, while on duty, was once sitting in the library reading in the gloaming when he declares he heard a rustle of silken dress, and, looking up, saw the ghost of Queen Elizabeth glide across the room. He buckled on his sword, and reported the matter. The story attracted the attention of the country for some weeks. Sir Richard Holmes and his assistants kept watch for many nights, but the ghost did not re-appear. Not long ago a housemaid in St. John's Tower thought she saw a ghost, and was so frightened that she became ill, and had to be sent home. In 1908 a sentry discharged five rounds of ball cartridge at a figure which he declared was a spectre which appeared on the terrace.
Winged Disk : (See Horbehutet.)
Wirdig's Magnetic Sympathy : The doctrine of magnetic attraction and repugnance formulated by Tenzel Wirdig, professor at Rostock, who published his Tenzelius Wirdig, Nova medicina spirituum in 1673. Wirdig believed that everything in the universe possessed a soul, and that the earth itself was merely a larger animal. Between the souls of things in accordance with each other there was a magnetic sympathy a.nd a perpetual antipathy between those of an uncongenial nature. To this sympathy and antipathy Wirdig gave the name of magnetism. He says : " Out of this relationship of sympathy and antipathy arises a constant movement in the whole world, and in all its parts, and an uninterrupted communion between heaven and earth, which produces universal harmony. The stars whose emanations consist merely of fire and- spirits, have an undeniable influence on earthly bodies ; and their influence on man demonstrates itself by life, movement, and warmth, those things without which he cannot live. The influence of the stars is the strongest at birth. The new-born child inhales this influence, and on whose first breath frequently his whole constitution depends, nay, even his whole life."
Wisconsin Phalanx : A spiritualistic community founded by Warren Chase in 1844. Chase had settled in Southport, Wisconsin, in 1838, and there, with his wife and child, he lived for a time in the deepest poverty. At length, however, their circumstances brightened, and Chase attained to a position of civic honour in Southport. Meanwhile he had studied mesmerism and socialism with the aid of a few periodicals — Laroy Sunderland's Magnet and the New York Tribune — and was filled with the idea of founding a community where his ideals of social order and harmony
might be carried out. With the aid of his friends such a community was formed, each member with a share of twenty-five dollars. The chosen settlement — near the town of Ripon — was christened Ceresco, in honour of Ceres. For six years the Wisconsin Phalanx flourished, having' as its leader and ruling spirit Warren Chase himself. But at last dissensions arose, and in 1850 it was dissolved. When its affairs were wound up it was found that a con- siderable profit fell to the share of its members. In all, it was one of the most successful spiritualistic or socialistic communities of the time.
Wisdom Religion : (See Theosophy.)
Witchcraft : (From Saxen Wicca, a contraction of witega, a prophet or sorcerer.) The cult of persons who, by means"1' of Satanic assistance or the aid of evil spirits or familiars, ' are enabled to practise minor black magic. But the— difference between the sorcerer and the witch is that the former has. sold his soul to Satan for complete dominion over him for a stated period, whereas the witch usually appears as the devoted and often badly treated servant of ___ the diabolic power. But she is often mistress of a familiar, her bounden slave, and among certain savage peoples her occult powers are self-evolved. The concept of witchcraft was perhaps brought into being by the mythic influence of conquered races. It closely resembles in ritual and practice the demonism of savage races, from which it probably sprang. (See Devil Worship.) That is, the non-Aryan peoples of Europe who preceded the Aryan population, carrying on the practice and traditions of their religions more or less in secret, awoke in the Aryan mind the idea that such practices were of a " magical " character. This idea they would not fail to assist, and would probably exaggerate such details as most strongly impressed the Aryan mind, to which their gods would appear as " devils," and their religious ritual as sorcery. This view has been combatted on the ground that the gap betwixt, say, the extinction of the pre-Aryan religion known as Druidism and the first notices of witchcraft, is too great to bridge. But Druidism continued to exist long after it was officially extinct, and British witchcraft is its lineal successor. The theory is further advanced that on the failure of the non- Aryan priesthood novices would be adopted from the invading race for the purpose of carrying on the old religion. It seems to the present writer that the circumstance that the greater number of the upholders of this ancient tradition were women points to the likelihood of an early custom of the adoption or marriage of Aryan women by a non-Aryan people who would prefer to recruit their novices and devotees from the more plastic sex, naturally distrusting the masculine portion of an alien people to fall in with their religious ideas, and that the almost exclusive employ- ment of women in the cult (in Britain, at least) originated in this practice. Then individually all claimed to have been initiated. Says Gomme, " I am inclined to lay great stress upon the act of initiation. It emphasises the idea of a caste distinct from the general populace, and it postu- lates the existence of this caste anterior to the time when those who practice their supposed powers first come into notice. Carrying back this act of initiation age after age, as the dismal records of witchcraft enable us to do for some centuries, it is clear that the people from time to time thus introduced into the witch caste carried on the practices and assumed the functions of the caste even though they came to it as novices and strangers. We thus arrive at an artificial means of descent of a peculiar group of superstition, and it might be termed initiatory descent." This concept, thinks Gomme (Folklore as an Historical Science, p. 201 at seq.) was influenced in the Middle Ages by another. " Traditional practices, traditional formulae, and traditional
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beliefs are no doubt the elements of witchcraft, but it was not the force of tradition which produced the miserable doings of the Middle Ages, and of the seventeenth century against witches. These were due to a psychological force, partly generated by the newly acquired power of the people to read the Bible for themselves, and so to apply the witch stories of the Jews to neighbours of their own who possessed powers or peculiarities which they could not understand, and partly generated by the carrying on of traditional practices by certain families or groups of persons who could only acquire knowledge of such practices by initiation or family teaching. Lawyers, magistrates, judges, nobles and monarchs are concerned with witchcraft. These are not minds that have been crushed by civilisation, but minds which have misunderstood it or misused it."
Sabbath. — The mediaeval criminal records abound in descriptions of a ceremony at which the rites of the witch cult were periodically celebrated. This was the witches' Sabbath. The Sabbath was generally held in some wild and solitary spot, often in the midst of forests or on the heights of mountains, at a great distance from the residence of most of the visitors. The circumstance connected with it most difficult of proof was the method of transport from one place to another. The witches nearly all agreed in the statement that they divested themselves of their clothes and anointed their bodies with an ointment made for that especial purpose. They then strode across a stick, or any similar article, and, muttering a charm, were carried through the air to the place of meeting in an incred- ibly short space of time. Sometimes the stick was to be anointed as well as their persons. They generally left the house by the window or by the chimney, which perhaps suggests survival of the custom of an earth-dwelling people. Sometimes the witch went out by the door, and there found a demon in the shape of a goat, or at times of some other animal, who carried her away on his back, and brought her home again after the meeting was dissolved. In the confessions extorted from them at their trials, the witches and sorcerers bore testimony to the truth of all these particulars ; but those who judged them, and who wrote upon the subject, asserted that they had many other independent proofs in corroboration.
We are told by Bodin that a man who lived at the little town of Loches having observed that his wife frequently absented herself from the house in the night, became suspicious of her conduct, and at last by his threats obliged her to confess that she was a witch, and that she attended the Sabbaths. To appease the anger of her husband, she agreed to gratify his curiosity by taking him with her to the next meeting, but she warned him on no account whatever to allow the name of God or of the Saviour to cross his lips. At the appointed time they stripped and anointed themselves, and, after uttering the necessary formula, they were suddenly transported to the landes of Bordeaux, at an immense distance from their own dwelling. The husband there found himself in the midst of a great assembly of both sexes in the same state of deshabille as himself and his wife, and in one part he saw the devil in a hideous form ; but in the first moment of his surprise he inadvertently uttered the exclamation, " Mon Dieu ! ou sommes-nous ? " and all disappeared as suddenly from his view, leaving him cold and naked in the middle of the fields, where he wandered till morning, when the country- men coming to their daily occupations told him where he was, and he made his way home in the best manner he could. But he lost no time in denouncing his wife, who was brought to her trial, confessed, and was burnt.
As the witches generally went from their beds at night to the meetings, leaving their husbands and family behind them, it may seem extraordinary that their absence was not
more frequently perceived. They had, however, a method of providing against this danger, by casting a drowsiness over those who might be witnesses, and by placing in their bed an image which, to all outward appearance, bore an exact resemblance to themselves, although in reality was nothing more than a besom or some other similar article. But the belief was so inculcated that the witches did not always go in body to the Sabbath — that they were present only in spirit, whilst their body remained in bed. Some of the more rational writers on witchcraft taught that this was the only manner in which they were ever carried to the Sabbaths, and various instances are deposed to where that was manifestly the case. The president, Touretta told Bodin that he had examined a witch, who was subsequently burnt in the Dauphine, and who was carried to the Sabbath in this manner. Her master one night found her stretched on the floor before the fire in a state of insensibility and imagined her to be dead. In his attempt to arouse her, he first beat her body with great severity, and then applied fire to the more sensitive parts, which being without effect, he left her in the belief that she had died suddenly. His astonishment was great when in the morning he found her in her own bed, in an evident state of great suffering. When he asked what ailed her, her only answer was, " Ha ! mon maistre, tant m'avez batue ! " When further pressed, however, she confessed that during the time her body lay in a state of insensibility, she had been herself to the. witches' Sabbath, and upon this avowal she was committed to prison. Bodin further informs us that at Bordeaux, in 1571, an old woman, who was con- demned to the fire for witchcraft, and confessed that she was transported to the Sabbath in this manner. One of her judges, who was personally known to Bodin, while she was under examination, pressed her to show him how she was effected, and released her from the fetters for that purpose. She rubbed herself -in different parts of the body with " a certain grease," and immediately became stiff and insensible and, to all appearance, dead. She remained in this state about five hours, and then as quickly revived, and told her inquisitors a great number of extraordinary things, which showed that she must have been spiritually transported to far distant places.
The description of the Sabbath given by the witches differed only in slight particulars of detail ; for their examinations were all carried on upon one model and measure— a veritable bed of Procrustes, and equally fatal to those who were placed upon it. The Sabbath was, in general, an immense assemblage of witches and demons, sometimes from distant parts of the earth, at others only from the province or district in which it was held. On arriving, the visitors performed their homage to the evil one with unseemly ceremonies, and presented their new converts. They then gave an account of all the mischief they had done since the last meeting. Those who had neglected to do evil, or who had so far overlooked them- selves as to do good, were treated with disdain, or severely punished. Several of the victims of the French courts in the latter part of this century confessed that, having been unwilling or unable to fulfil the commands of the evil one, when they appeared at the Sabbath he had beaten them in the most cruel manner. He took one woman, who had refused to bewitch her neighbour's daughter, and threatened to drown her in the Moselle. Others were plagued in their bodies, or by destruction of their property. Some were punished for their irregular attendance at the Sabbath ; and one or two, for slighter offences, were condemned to walk home from the Sabbath instead of being carried through the air. Those, on the other hand, who had exerted most their mischievous propensities were highly honoured at the Sabbath, and often rewarded
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OLD-MAID WITCH. Facsimile of a wood-engraving attributed to Holbein, taken from the German translation of Boethius' De Consolatione Philosophiae, Augsburg edition, 1537.
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with gifts of money. After this examination was passed, the demon distributed among his worshippers unguents, powders, and other articles for the perpetration of evil. A French witch, executed in 1580, confessed that some of her companions offered a sheep or a heifer ; and another, executed the following year, stated that animals of a black colour were most acceptable. A third, executed at Gerbe- ville in 1585, declared that no one was exempt from this offering, and that the poorer sort offered a hen or a chicken, and some even a lock of their hair, a little bird, or any trifle, they could put their hands upon. Severe punish- ments followed the neglect of this ceremony. In many instances, according to the confessions of the witches, besides their direct worship of the devil, they were obliged to show their abhorrence of the faith they had deserted by trampling on the cross, and blaspheming the saints, and by other profanations.
Before the termination of the meeting, the new witches received their familiars, or imps, who they generally addressed as their " little masters," although they were bound to attend at the bidding of the witches, and execute their desires. These received names, generally of a popular character, such as were given to cats, and dogs, and other pet animals and the similarity these names bear to each other in different countries is very remarkable.
After all these preliminary ceremonies had been trans- acted, and a great banquet was laid out, and the whole company fell to eating and drinking and making merry. At times, every article of lux%ry was placed before them, and they feasted in the most sumptuous manner. Often, however, the meats served on the table were nothing but toads and rats, and other articles of a revolting nature. In general they had no salt, and seldom bread. But, even when best served, the money and the victuals fur- nished by the demons were of the most unsatisfactory character ; a circumstance of which no rational explanation is given. The coin when brought forth by open daylight, was generally found to be nothing better than dried leaves or bits of dirt ; and, however, greedily they may have eaten at the table, they commonly left the meeting in a state of exhaustion from hunger.
The tables were next removed, and feasting gave way to wild and uproarious dancing and revelry. The common dance, or carole, of the middle ages appears to have been performed by the persons taking each other's hand in a circle, alternately a man and a woman. This, probably the ordinary dance among the peasantry, was the one generally practised at the Sabbaths of the witches, with this peculiar- ity, that their backs instead of their faces were turned inwards. The old writers endeavour to account for this, by supposing that it was designed to prevent them from seeing and recognising each other. But this, it is clear, was not the only dance of the Sabbath ; perhaps more fashionable ones were introduced for witches in better conditions in society ; and moralists of the succeeding age maliciously insinuate that many dances of a not very decorous character invented by the devil himself to heat the imaginations of his victims, had subsequently been adopted in classes in society who did not frequent the Sabbath. It may be observed, as a curious circumstance that the modern waltz is first traced among the meetings of the witches and their imps ! It was also confessed, in almost every case, that the dances at the Sabbaths produced much greater fatigue than commonly arose from such exercises. Many of the witches declared that, on their return home, they were usually unable to rise from their bed for two or three days. Their music, also, was by no means of an ordinary character. The songs were generally obscene, or vulgar, or ridiculous. Of instruments there was considerable variety, but all partaking of the burlesque character of the proceed-
ings. " Some played the flute upon a stick or bone ; another was seen striking a horse's skull for a lyre ; there you saw them beating the drum on the trunk of an oak, with a stick ; here, others were blowing trumpets with the branches. The louder the instrument, the greater satis- faction it gave ; and the dancing became wilder and wilder, until it merged into a vast scene of confusion, and ended in scenes over which, though minutely described in the old treatises on demonology, it will be better to throw a veil." The witches separated in time to reach their homes before cock-crow.
We then see that Satan had taken the place of the deities of the older and abandoned cults of the non-Aryans, whose obscene rites were attended by " initiated " or " adopted " neophytes of a race to the generality of which they were abominable, that witches often worked by means of familiars, whose shapes they were able to take, or by means of direct Satanic agency. But there were probably mythological elements in witchcraft as well.
Powers of Witches. — In the eyes of the populace the powers of witches were numerous. The most peculiar of these were : The ability to blight by means of the evil eye (q.v.) the sale of winds to sailors, power over animals, and capacity to transform themselves into animal shapes. Thus, says Gomme — " The most usual transformations are into cats and hares, and less frequently into red deer, and these have taken the place of wolves. Thus, cat- transformations are found in Yorkshire, hare-transforma- tions in Devonshire, Yorkshire and Wales, and Scotland, deer-transformations in Cumberland, raven-transformations in Scotland, cattle-transformations in Ireland. Indeed the connection between witches and the lower animals is a very close one, and hardly anywhere in Europe does it occur that this connection is relegated to a subordinate place. Story after story, custom after custom is recorded as appertaining to witchcraft, and animal transformation appears always.
Witches also possessed the power of making themselves invisible, by means of a magic ointment supplied to them by the devil, and of harming others by thrusting nails into a waxen image representing them.
Witchcraft among Savage People. — Witchcraft among savage people is, of course, allied to the various cults of demonism in vogue among barbarian folk all over the world. These are indicated in the various articles dealing with uncultured races. The name witchcraft is merely a convenient English label for such savage demon-cults, as is " witch-doctors " applied to those who " smell out '* these practitioners of evil.
Evidence for Witchcraft. — The evidence for witchcraft, says Podmore (Modern Spiritualism) falls under four main heads : (a) the confessions of witches themselves ; (b) the corroborative evidence of lycanthropy, apparitions, etc. ; (c) the witch-marks ; (d) the evidence of the evil effects produced upon the supposed victims.
" (a) — The confessions, as is notorious, were for the most part extracted by torture, or by lying promises of release. In England, where torture was not countenanced by the I law, the ingenuity of Matthew Hopkins and other pro- fessional witch-finders could generally devise some equally efficient substitute, such as gradual starvation, enforced sleeplessness, or the maintenance for hours of a constrained and painful posture. But apart from these extorted con- fessions, there is evidence that in some cases the accused persons were actually driven by the accumulation of testimony against them, by the pressure of public opinion, and the singular circumstances in which they were placed, to believe and confess that they were witches indeed. Some of the women in Salem who had pleaded guilty to witchcraft explained afterwards, when the persecution had died down and they were released, that they had been
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" consternated and affrighted even out of their reason " to confess that of which they were innocent. And there were not a few persons who voluntarily confessed to the practice of witchcraft, nocturnal rides, compacts with the devil, and all the rest of it." The most striking instances of this voluntary confession are afforded by children. For even among the earlier writers on witchcraft the opinion was not uncommonly held that the nocturnal rides and banquets with the devil were merely delusions, thought the guilt of the witch was not lessened thereby. And in the sixteenth centuries, at least in English-speaking countries this belief seems to have been generally alike by believers in witchcraft and their opponents. Thus Gaule: " But the more prodigious or stupendous (of the things narrated by witches in their confessions) are effected merely by the devil ; the witches all the while either in a rapt ecstasie, a charmed sleepe, or a melancholy dreame ; and the witches imagination, phantasie, common sense, only deluded with what is now done, or pretended. Even Antoinette Bourig- non, observing her scholars eat " great pieces of bread and butter " at breakfast, pointed out to them that they could not have such good appetites if they had really fed on dainty meats at the devil's Sabbath the night before.
" (b) — But if the witch's own account of her marvellous feats may be explained as, at best, the vague remembrance of a nightmare, it is hardly necessary to go beyond this explanation to account for the prodigies reported by others. In most cases there is no need to suppose even so much foundation for the marvels, since the evidence {e.g., for lycanthropy) is purely traditional. And when we get accounts at first hand, they are commonly concerned, not with such matters as levitation, or transformation of hares into old women, but merely with vague shapes seen in the dusk, or the unexplained appearance of a black dog. Even so the evidence comes almost exclusively from ignorant peasants, and is given years after the events."
" (c) — The evidence for " witch-marks " does not greatly concern us. The insensible patches on which Matthew Hopkins and other witch-finders relied may well have been genuine in some cases. Such insensible areas are known to occur in hysterical subjects, and the production of insen- sibility by means of suggestion is a commonplace in modern times. The supposed witches' teats, which the imps sucked, appear to have been found almost exclusively, like the imps themselves, in the English-speaking countries. Any wart, boil, or swelling would probably form a sufficient warrant for the accusation ; we read in Cotton Mather of a jury of women finding a preter-natural teat upon a witch's body, which could not be discovered when a second search was made three or four hours later, and of a witch's mark upon the finger of a small child, which took the form of " a deep red spot, about the bigness of a flea-bite." And the witch-mark which brought conviction to the mind of Increase Mather in the case of George Burroughs was his ability to hold a heavy gun at arm's length, and to carry a barrel of cider from the canoe to the shore."
" (d) — Of most of the evidence based upon the injuries suffered by the witches' supposed victims, it is difficult to speak seriously. If a man's cow ran dry, if his horse stumbled, his cart stuck in a gate, his pigs or fowls sickened, if his child had a fit, his wife or himself an unaccustomed pain, it was evidence acceptable in a court of law against any old woman who might be supposed within the last twelve months — or twelve years — to have conceived some cause of offence against him and his. Follies of this kind are too well known to need repetition.
But there is another feature of witchcraft, at any rate of the cases occurring in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in England and America, which is not so well recognised, and which has a more direct bearing upon our
present inquiry — the predominant part played in the- initial stages of witch persecution by malevolent or merely hysterical children and young women."
Symptoms of Bewitchment. — Mr. Podmore remarks: " The symptoms of the alleged bewitchment were, in all these cases monotonously alike. The victims would fall into fits or convulsions, of a kind which the physicians called in were unable to diagnose or to cure. In these fits the children would commonly call out on the old woman who was the imaginary cause of their ailment ; would profess, at times, to see her shape present in the room, and would even stab at it with a knife or other weapon. (In the most conclusive cases the record continues that the old woman, being straightway sought for, would be found attempting to conceal a corresponding wound on her person.) These fits, which sometimes lasted, with slight intermission, for weeks together would be increased in violence by the approach of the supposed witch ; or, as Hutchinson notes, by the presence of sympathetic specta- tors. The fits, as was also commonly noted by contem- porary chroniclers, would diminish or altogether cease when 'the witch was imprisoned or condemned ; on the other hand, if the supposed witch were released the victim would continue to suffer horrible tortures, insomuch that at the Salem trials one old woman who had been acquitted by the jury was, because of the hideous outcry from the afflicted persons in court, straightway re-tried and con- demned. The witch's touch would always provoke severe attacks, indeed, contact with the witch or the establishment of rapport between her and the victim by means of some garment worn by the latter, as in Mistress Faith Corbet's case, was generally regarded as an essential pre-requisite of the enchantment. Once this rapport established the mere look of the witch, or the direction of her evil will would suffice. The afflicted in Salem were, as the Mathers testify, much tortured in court by the malevolent glances of the poor wretches on trial ; and two ' visionary ' girls added greatly to the weight of the evidence by foretelling with singular accuracy, when such or such of the afflicted persons then present would feel the baneful influence, and howl for anguish. It should be added — though the evidence as we now understand the word, for the fact alleged is of course practically negligible — that it was commonly reported that the witch's victim could, although blind- folded, distinguish her tormentor by the touch alone from all other persons, and could even foresee her approach and discern her actions at a considerable distance.
" The effect of the convulsions and cataleptic attacks, which modern science would unhesitatingly dismiss as being simply the result of hysteria, was heightened in many cases by manifestations of a more material kind. It was a common feature for the victim to vomit pins, needles, wood, stubble, and other substances ; or for thorns or needles to be found embedded in her flesh. In a case recorded by Glanvil an hysterical servant girl, Mary Longdon, in addition to the usual fits, vomiting of pins, etc., was tormented by stones being continually flung at her, which stones when they fell to the ground straightway vanished. Her master bore witness in court to the falling of the stones and their miraculous disappearance. More- over, the same Mary Longdon would frequently be trans- ported by an invisible power to the top of the house, and there " laid on a board betwixt two Sollar beams," or would be put into a chest, or half suffocated between two feather-beds.
" Gross as these frauds appear to us, it is singular that for the most part they remained undetected, and even, it would seem, unsuspected, not merely by the ignorant peasants, for whose benefit the play was acted in the first instance, but in the larger theatre of a law court. But there
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are some notorious instances of confession or detection. Edmund Robinson, the boy on whose accusation the Lancashire witches were tried, subsequently confessed to imposture. Other youths were detected with blacklead in their mouths when foaming in sham epileptic fits, colouring their urine with ink, concealing crooked pins about their persons in order to vomit them later, scratch- ing the bed posts with their toes, and surreptitiously eating to repletion during a pretended fast. But commonly the spectators were so convinced beforehand of the genuineness of such portents that they held it superfluous to examine the claims of any particular performance of this kind on their credence.
'' It is difficult to know in such cases where self-deception ends and where malevolent trickery begins. Nor would the examination of these bygone outbreaks of hysteria trivial in themselves as terrible in their consequences — be of interest in the present connection, except for the fact that we find here the primitive form of those Poltergeist manifestations which gave the popular impetus in 1848 to the belief in Modern Spiritualism, and which are still appealed by those who maintain the. genuineness of the physical manifestations of the seance room as instances of similar phenomena occurring spontaneously."
Difference between British and Continental Wilcheraft.— The salient difference between British and Continental witchcraft systems seems to have been that whereas the former was an almost exclusively female system, the Continental one favoured the inclusion in the ranks of sorcerers (as foreign witches were called) of the male element ; this at least was the case in France and Germany, but there is evidence that in Hungary and the Slavonic countries, the female element was the more numerous. In Ireland we find women also pre-eminent ; this is prob- ably to be accounted for by the circumstance before noted that the non-alien priesthoods in their decline became almost entirely dependent upon the offices of women. But the various forms of witchcraft are duly entered in the several articles dealing with European countries.
Growth of Belief in Witchcraft.- — It is significant that in early times the supernatural side of witchcraft won little public credence. People believed in such things as magical poisoning and the raising of tempests by witches, but they refused to give credence to such superstitions as that the witch rode through the air. or had communion in any way with diabolic agency. As early as 800 A.D. an Irish synod pronounced the belief of flight through the air and vam- pirism, to be incompatible with Christian doctrine, and many early writers like Stephen of Hungary and Regino state that flight by night and kindred practices are merely a delusion. Indeed those who held these beliefs were actively punished by penance. In face of the later develop- ment of belief in witchcraft, this frank scepticism is almost amazing, and it is most strange that the tenth and eleventh centuries should have rejected superstitions embraced widely by the sixteenth and seventeenth.
From the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries we find the conception of witchcraft and demonology greatly furthered and assisted by the writings of scholars and the institu- tion of the Inquisition to deal with the rise of unbelief. A vast amount of literature was circulated dealing with questions relating to magic and sorcery, and regarding the habits and customs of witches, magicians and practitioners in " black magic," and many hairs were split. The Church gladly joined in this campaign against what it regarded as the forces of darkness, and indeed both accused and accusers seem to have lingered under the most dreadful delusions — delusions which were to cost society dear as a whole. The scholastic conception of demonology was that the witch ■was not a woman but a demon. Rationalism was at a
discount and the ingenuity of mediaeval scholars disposed " of all objections to the phenomena of witchcraft. The deities of pagan times were cited as practitioners of sorcery, and erudition, especially in ecclesiastical circles, ran riot on the subject. There also arose a class of judges or inquisitors like Bodin in France and Sprenger in Germany, who composed lengthy treatises upon the manner of discovering witches, of putting them to the test, and generally of presiding in witchcraft trials. The cold-blooded cruelty of these textbooks on current demonology can only be accounted for by the likelihood that their authors felt themselves justified in their composition through motives of fidelity to their church and religion. The awful terror disseminated especially among the intelligent by the possibility of a charge of witchcraft being brought against them at any moment brought about an intolerable con- dition of things. The intellectual might be arraigned at any time on a charge of witchcraft by any rascal who cared to make it. Position or learning were no safeguard against such a charge, and it is peculiar that the more thoughtful and serious part of the population should not have made some attempt to put a period to the dreadful condition of affairs brought about by ignorance and superstition. Of course the principal reason against their being able to do so was the fact that the whole system was countenanced by the Church, in whose hands the entire procedure of trials for witchcraft lay.
Strangely enough convents and monasteries were often the centres of demoniac possession. The conception of the incubi and succubi undoubtedly arose from the ascetic tortures of the monk and the nun. Wholesale trials, too, of wretched people who were alleged to attend Sabbatic orgies of the enemy of mankind on dreary heaths were gone through with an elaborateness which spread terror in the public mind. The tortures inflicted on those un- fortunates were generally of the most fiendish des- cription, but they were supposed to be for the good of the souls ot those who bore them. In France the majority of these trials took place in the fifteenth century ; whereas in England we find that most of them were current in the seventeenth century. Full details regarding these will be found in the articles France and England. The famous outburst of fanaticism in New England under Cotton Mather (See America) in 1691 to 1692 was by no means the last in an English-speaking country, for in 1712 a woman was convicted of witchcraft in England, and in Scotland the last trial and execution for sorcery took place in 1722. In Spain we find burnings by the Inquisition in 1 781 ; in Germany as late as 1793, and as regards Latin South America a woman was burned in Peru so recently as 1888. The death of the belief in witchcraft was brought about by a more sane spirit of criticism than had before obtained. Even the dull wits of the inquisitorial and other courts began to see that the wretched creatures upon whom they passed sentence either confessed because of the extremity of torture they had to suffer, or else were under hallucination regarding the nature of their connection with- the satanic power. Reginald Scot in his Discovery of Witchcraft (1584) proved that the belief on the part of the witch that she was a servant of the Devil was purely imaginary, and in consequence drew upon his work the wrath of the British Solomon, James I., who warmly replied to him in his Demonologie. But Friedrich von Spee's Cautio Criminalis, 1631, advanced considerations of still greater weight from the rationalistic point of view — considerations of such weight indeed that Bodin, the arch- demonologist, denounced him and demanded that he should be added to the long list of his victims.
Psychology of Witchcraft. — No doubt exists nowadays when the conditions of savage witchcraft have been closely
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examined and commented upon, that the witch and the sorcerer of the Middle Ages, like their prototypes among the native races of Africa, America, Asia and elsewhere, have a firmly-rooted belief in their own magical powers, and in their connection with unseen and generally diabolic agencies. It is a strange circumstance that in many instances the confessions wrung from two or more witches, when a number of them have been concerned in the same case, have tallied with one another in almost every detail. This would imply that these women suffered from collective hallucination, and actually believed that they had seen the supernatural beings with whom they confessed fellow- ship, and had gone through the rites and acts for which they suffered. A period arrived in the mediaeval campaign against witchcraft when it was admitted that the whole sys- tem was one of hallucination; yet, said the demonologists, this was no palliation of the offence, for it was equally as evil to imagine such diabolic acts as actually to take part in them.
There is also evidence which would lead to the belief that the witch possessed certain minor powers of hypnotism and telepathy, which would give her real confidence in her belief that she wielded magical terrors. Again the phen- omena of spiritualism and the large possibilities it offers > for fraud suggest that some kindred system might have been in use amongst the more shrewd or the leaders in these Sabbatic meetings, which would thoroughly con- vince the ignorant among the sisterhood of the existence in their midst of diabolic powers. Trance and hysteria, drugs and salves, there is good reason to believe, were also used unsparingly, but the great source of witch- belief undoubtedly exists in auto-suggestion, fostered and fomented from ecclesiastical and scholastic sources, and by no means lessened by popular belief.
Since the above article was written an exhaustive examination of the phenomena of witchcraft has been made by Miss M. A. Murray, lecturer on Egyptology at University College, London. Basing her conclusions upon the sug- gestions of C. G. Leland, in his " Aradia, or the Witches of Italy," and those of other modern writers, she inclines to the hypothesis that witchcraft was in reality the modern and degraded descendant of an ancient nature-religion, the rites of which were actually carried out in deserted places and included child-sacrifice and other barbarous customs. In the Satanic presence at such gatherings she sees the attendance of a priest of the cult. In brief, her hypothesis tends to prove the actual reality of the witch-religion as against that of hallucination which, until recently, was the explanation accepted by students of the subject. Her remarks, too, upon the familiar, go to show that a large body of proof exists for the belief that this conception also rested upon actual occurrences. (See her papers in Man and elsewhere.)
Recent researches on the part of the writer have con- vinced him of the soundness of these views, but have added : the conviction.that witchcraft religion was, in some manner, possessed of an equestrian connection, the precise nature of which is still dark to him. The broomstick appears to be the magical equivalent of a horse, the witches occasionally rode to the Sabbath on horseback, and one of the tests for a witch was to see if her eye held the reflection or like- ness of a horse. May it not be that the witch-religion was the remnant of a prehistoric horse-totem cult ? But this is, after all, merely of the nature of surmise. The writer has also found good evidence for the existence of a witch- cult precisely similar to that of Europe in pre-Columbian Mexico, and has even encountered a picture of a naked witch with peaked cap riding on a broomstick in the native Mexican painting known as the Codex Fejervary- Mayer, which seems to show that the witch-religion was
in no sense limited to Europe, and was of most ancient origin. Wolf, The : Amongst the ancient Romans, the wolf was a fruitful source of augury, and many are the tales in which he has figured as a good or evil omen. A wolf running to the right with his mouth full was a sign of great joy. If a wolf, after he had entered a Roman camp, escaped unhurt it was regarded as a sign of defeat ; and the terrible result of the second Punic war was said to have been augured from the carrying off of the sword of a sentinel in the camp by a wolf. Plutarch tells of a wolf Who ate the landmarks of a proposed new settlement at Libya and thus stopped its colonisation ; but later another wolf which had stolen a burnt sacrifice led his pursuers to a place where they after- wards settled in. It is said that a wolfra.ii off with Hiero's slate when he was a schoolboy, and this was regarded as a sign of his future greatness. The peasants of Sweden do not dare to speak of a wolf by name but call him the " grey one " or " old grey " : they seem to regard the pronounc- ing of his name as unlucky. Wonders of the Invisible World : (See America, U.S. of.) World Period : (See Planetary Chains.)
Worlds, Planes, or Spheres : According to theosophists, these are seven in number and are as follows : The older Sanskrit names, which are now superseded, being given for reference : — Divine, or Adi ; Monadic or Anutadaka, Spiritual or Nirvana, Intuitional or Buddhi, Mental or Manas, Astral or Kama, and Physical or Sthula. These worlds are not physically separate in the manner which planets appear to be, but interpenetrate each other, and they depend for their differences, on the relative density of the matter which composes them, and the consequent difference in the rates at which the matter of each world vibrates.
Except for the physical world (the densest) our know- ledge of them, so far as it extends, is dependent on clair- voyance, and the more exalted the vision of the clairvoyant the higher the world to which his vision can pierce. Each world has its appropriate inhabitants, clothed in appro- priate bodies, and possessing appropriate states of con- sciousness. The two highest worlds, the Divine and the Monadic are at present incapable of attainment by human powers, the remaining five are in greater or less degree. The monad for the purpose of gathering experience and for development, finds it necessary to pass downwards into the material sphere, and, when it has taken possession of the spiritual, intuitional, and higher Mental Worlds, it may be looked on as an ego or soul embodying will, intuition and intellect, continuing eternally the same entity, never altering except by reason of increasing development, and hence being immortal. These Worlds, however, do not afford sufficient scope to the Monad and it presses s ill farther down into matter, through the lower Mental, iuto the Astral and Physical Worlds. The bodies with which it is there clothed form its personality and this personality suffers death and is renewed at each fresh incarnation. At the death of the physical body, the ego has merely cast aside a garment and thereafter continues to live in the next higher world, the Astral.
At the death of the Astral body in turn, another garment is cast aside, the ego is clear of all appendages and as it was before its descent into denser matter, having returned to the Mental World, the Heaven World. The ego finds itself somewhat strange to this owing to insufficient development, and it again descends into matter as before. This round is completed again and again, and each time the ego returns with a fresh store of experience and knowledge, which strengthens and perfects the mental body. When at last this process is complete, this body in turn is cast aside and the ego is clothed with its casual body. Again it finds
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itself strange and the round of descents into matters again begins and continues till the casual body has been fully developed. The two remaining worlds are but imperfectly known but the intuitional, as it's name indicates is that where the ego's vision is quickened to see things as they really are, and in the Spiritual World the divine and the human become unified and the divine purpose is fulfilled. (See the articles on the various Worlds and bodies Theosophy, Monad, Evolution, Reincarnation.) Wraith : The apparition or " double " of a living person, generally supposed to be an omen of death. The wraith closely resembles its prototype in the flesh, even to details of dress. It is believed possible for people to see their own wraiths, and among those who have been warned of approaching dissolution in this wise are numbered Queen Elizabeth, Shelley, and Catherine of Russia, the latter of whom, seeing her " double " seated upon the throne, ordered her guards to fire upon it ! But wraiths of others may appear to one or more persons. Lord Balcarres saw the wraith of his friend " Bonnie Dundee " at the moment when the latter fell at Killiecrankie, while Ben Jonson saw
his eldest son's double when the original was dying of the plague. The belief flourishes also on the continent, and in different parts of Britain it goes under different names, such as " waff," " swarth," " task," " fye," etc. Variants of the wraiths are the Irish " fetch " (q.v.), and the Welsh " lledrith." In Scotland it was formerly believed that the wraith of one about to die might be seen wrapped in a winding-sheet. The higher the shroud reached the nearer was the approach of death. Something analogous to wraith-seeing comes within the scope of modern psychical science, and the apparition is explained in various ways, as a projection of the " astral body," an emanation from the person of its living prototype, or, more scientifically perhaps, on a telepathic basis. A well-known case in point is that of the Birkbeck Ghost, where three children witnessed the apparition of their mother shortly before her death. This instance, which is recorded in the " Proceedings " of the Psychical Research Society, is noteworthy because of the fact that Mrs. Birkbeck was conscious before she died of having spent the time with her children. Wronski : (See France.)
X
Xibalba : the Kiche Hades. (See Hell.)
Xylomancy : Divination by means of wood, practised particularly in Slavonia. It is the art of reading omens from the position of small pieces of dry wood found in one's path. No less certain presages of future events may be
drawn from the arrangement of logs in the fire-place, from the manner in which they burn, etc. It is perhaps the survival of this mode of divination which makes the good people say, when a brand is disturbed, that " they are going to have a visitor."
Y-Kim, Book of : A Chinese mystical book attributed to the Emperor Fo-Hi, and ascribed to the year, 3468 B.C. It consists of ten chapters, and is stated by Eliphas Levi in his History of Magic to be a complement and an appendix to the Kabalistic Zohar, or record of the utterances of Rabbi Simeon Ben Jochai. The Zohar, says Levi, explains universal equilibrium, and the Y-Kim is the hieroglyphic and ciphered demonstration thereof. The key to the Y-Kim is a pantacle known as the Trigrams of Fo-Hi. In the Vay-Ky of Leon-Tao-Yuen, composed in the Som dynasty (about eleventh century) it is recounted that the Emperor Fo-Hi was one day seated on the banks of a river, deep in meditation, when to him there appeared an animal having the parts of both a horse and a dragon. Its back was covered with scales, on each of which shone the mystic Trigrammic symbol. This animal initiated the just and righteous Fo-Hi into universal science. Number- ing its scales, he combined the Trigrams in such a manner that there arose in his mind a synthesis of sciences com- pared and united with one another through the harmonies of nature. From this synthesis sprang the tables of the Y-Kim. The numbers of Fo-Hi are identical with those of the Kabala, and his pantacle is similar to that of Solomon. His tables are in correspondence with the subject-matter of the Sephir Yetzirah and the Zohar. The whole is a commentary upon the Absolute which is con- cealed from the profane, concludes Levi, but as he had little real acquaintance with the subject, these analogies must be taken as of small value.
Yadachi, or weather conjurer : (See Siberia.)
Yadageri : the science of inducing rain and snow by means of enchantment. (See Siberia.)
Yaksha or Jak : A species of Indian fiend or imp. Says Mr. Crookes : " The Jak is the modern representative of the Yaksha, who in better times was the attendant of Kuvera, the god of wealth, in which duty he was assisted by the Guhyaka. The character of the Yaksha is not very certain
He was called Punya-janas, " the good people," but he sometimes appears as an imp of evil. In the folk-tales, it must be admitted, the Yakshas have an equivocal reputa- tion. In one story the female, or Yakshini, bewilders travellers at night, makes horns grow on their foreheads, and finally devours them ; in another the Yakshas have, like the Churel, feet turned the wrong way and squinting eyes ; in a third they separate the hero from the heroine because he failed to make due offerings to them on his wedding day. On the other hand, in a fourth tale the Yakshini is des- cribed as possessed of heavenly beauty ; she appears again when a sacrifice is made in a cemetery to get her into the hero's power, as a heavenly maiden beautifully adorned, seated in a chariot of gold surrounded by lovely girls ; and lastly, a Brahman meets some Buddhist ascetics, performs the Uposhana vow, and would have become a god, had it not been that a wicked man compelled him by force to take food in the evening, and so he was re-born as a Guhyaka.
" In the modern folk-lore of Kashmir, the Yaksha has turned into the Yech or Yach, a humorous, though power- ful, sprite in the shape of a civet cat of a dark colour, with a white cap on his head. This small high cap is one of the marks of the Irish fairies, and the Incubones of Italy wear caps, ' the symbols of their hidden, secret natures.' The feet of the Yech are so small as to be almost invisible, and it squeaks in a feline way. It can assume any shape, and if its white cap can be secured, it becomes the servant of the possessor, and the white cap makes him invisible.
" In the Vishnu Purana we read that Vishnu created the Yakshas as beings emaciate with hunger, of hideous aspect, and with big beards, and that from their habit of crying for food they were so named. By the Buddhists they were regarded as benignant spirits. One of them acts as sort of chorus in the Meghaduta or ' Cloud Messen- ger ' of Kalidasa. Yet we read of the Yaka Alawaka, who, according to the Buddhist legend, used to live in a
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Banyan tree, and slay any one who approached it ; while in Ceylon they are represented as demons whom Buddha destroyed. In later Hinduism they are generally of fair repute, and one of them was appointed by Indra to be the attendant of the Jaina Saint Mahavira."
Yauhahu : A spirit. (See American Indians.)
Yeats, William Butler : Irish Author and Mystic. William Butler Yeals was born at Dublin in 1866, his father being John Yeats, a talented portrait-painter whose works include a fine likeness of Synge ; and during his boyhood the future author lived chiefly at his native town, and occasionally with his grandparents in County Sligo. At first he intended to make painting his life's work, and accordingly he entered the Dublin Art School ; but he soon left it, having realised that his true bent was for Literature ; and in 1887 he went to London, where he became intimate with Mr. Arthur Symons, and subse- quently with Mr. George Moore. Prior to this Mr. Yeats had issued a little play, Mosada ; and now his gifts began to develop apace, the result being sundry volumes of beautiful poetry, notably The Wanderings of Oisin and The Wind among the Reeds. At this time, also, the author began to show himself an eminently thoughtful critic of literature ; while in 1870 he published a collection of Irish folk tales, and in the preface thereto he observed in relation to his compatriots that " a true literary conscious- ness— national to the centre — seems gradually to be forming out of all this disguising and prettying this penumbra of half-culture. We are preparing likely
enough for a new Irish literary movement " Nor
was the prophecy unfulfilled, for, during the closing decade of the 19th century, the intellectuals of Ireland began to manifest a tense interest in their country's legendary lore, while simultaneously it transpired that the rising genera- tion of writers in Ireland included many men of fine promise. Most of these last regarded Mr. Yeats as their leader, they rallied round him, he returned from London to Ireland, and anon he achieved the founding of the Irish Literary Theatre in Dublin, its raison d'etre being the staging of plays by the new school of Hibernian authors.
This is not the place to detail the Irish artistic revival of the nineties of last century, and the reader may be referred to the monograph thereon by Mr. H. S. Krans, and more especially to Mr. George Moores' Hail and Farewell. Pass- ing to speak of Mr. Yeats' contributions to the literature of Mysticism, these are mostly contained in a volume of collected essays, Ideas of Good and Evil ; and prominent among them are studies of the mystic element in Blake and Shelley, while another notable paper is one concerned with " The Body of the Father Christian Rosencrux." But still more important than these, perhaps, is a long study of " Magic," contained in the same volume, and here the author begins by bravely stating his creed : " I believe in
the practice and philosophy of what we have agreed to call magic, and what I must call the evocation of spirits, though I do not know what they are, in the power of creating magical illusions, in the visions of truth in the depths of the mind when the eyes are closed "
After this declaration he tells how once an acquaintance of his, gathering together a small party in a darkened room, held a mace over " a tablet of many coloured squares, at the same time repeating " a form of words " ; and straightway Mr. Yeats found that his " imagination began to
move of itself, and to bring before me vivid images "
He goes on to descant on these visions, while in the re- mainder of his essay he offers some details about super- stitions in remote parts of Ireland ; and also furnishes sundry examples of thought-transmission and the like, most of them fresh and interesting.
But the author's interest in the supernatural does not transpire only in his prose, and, turning to his poems, one finds them permeated by a curious kind of mysticism which is perhaps essentially Celtic. For- Mr. Yeats, it would seem, is only incidentally interested in holding communi- cations with the dead, or with the spirit-world ; yet, like old bards of his native- Ireland, he seems to find inanimate nature a living reality, he seems to have a strange intimacy therewith. A dreamer of dreams and a beholder of visions, he frequently crystalises these in his verse ; but the mystic element in his output consists pre-eminently in this, that he appears to hold actual converse with all those things which to ordinary men are no more than lifeless — with flowers and trees, with rivers, lakes and mountains.
W. G. B. M. Yetziratie World : [See Eabala.)
Yoga, meaning " union," is applied in theosophy to assistance rendered to evolutionary process. The theosophical idea of evolution postulates a universal consciousness from which particular consciousness has come and to which each is returning along the path of evolution. The journey along this path can be quickened by the Yoga, the union of each particular with the universal consciousness. By the concentration of thought on any particular idea, that idea, in course of time becomes worked into the constitu- tion of the thinker, so that, if the thought be good he will correspondingly help on the process of evolution. This general principle, applied in the fight of past experience to the multifarious activities of the human mind, is of vast importance and influence in the moulding of the characters both of individuals and communities. (See The Path, Karma, Theosophy.)
Yogis : (See India.)
Yorkshire Spiritual Telegraph : Spiritualistic Journal. (See Spiritualism.)
Young, Brigham : (See America U.S. of.)
z
Zabulon : A demon who possessed a lay sister of Loudon.
Zachaire, Denis : Alchemist. This French alchemist is chiefly remembered by his book, Opuscule dc la Philosophie de Metaux, traitant de V Augmentation et Perfection de ceux, and in the preface thereto he gives some account of his life, yet fails to state the precise date at which he was born. However, the event is commonly supposed to have taken place about 15 10 ; while it is known that Denis was a native of La Guyenne, and that his parents were com- fortably off, if not actually rich. As a young man he studied at Bordeaux, and subsequently at Toulouse, intending to become a lawyer ; yet he soon became more interested in alchemy than in legal affairs, and in 1535, on
his father's death putting him in possession of some money, he decided to try and multiply it by artificial means. Associating himself with an abbe who was reckoned a great adept in gold-making, Denis had soon disposed of the bulk of his patrimony ; but the charlatan's futile experi- ments, far from disillusioning him, served rather to nerve him to further endeavours, and in 1539 he went to Paris, where he made the acquaintance of many renowned alchemists. From one of them, so he declares, he imbibed the precious secret ; and thereupon he hastened to the court of the King of Navarre, Antoine d' Albert, grandfather of Henri IV., offering to make gold if the requisite materials were supplied. His majesty was deeply interested, and
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promised a reward of no less than four thousand crowns in the event of the researches proving fruitful ; but Zachaires' vaunted skill failed him in the hour of need, and he retired discomfited to Toulouse. Here he became friendly with a certain priest, who advised him strongly to ■renounce his quest, and study natural science instead ; so Denis went off to Paris once more, intending to act in accordance with his counsel. Ere a little while, neverthe- less, he was deep in alchemy again, making actual experi- ments, and studying closely the writings of Raymond Lully and Arnold di Villanova ; while, according to his ■own account of his career, on Easter day in the year 1550 he succeeded in converting a large quantity of quick- silver into gold. Then, some time after this alleged triumph, he left France to travel in Switzerland, and lived for a while at Lausanne ; while later on he wandered to Ger- many, and there he died. It is probable that his closing years were spent in dire poverty, but this is not recorded definitely, nor has the exact date of the alchemist's demise ever been ascertained.
As regards the book by Zachaire cited above, it was published originally at Antwerp in 1567, it was repeatedly reprinted thereafter, and even won the honour of being translated into Latin ; while to this day, indeed, it is sought keenly by French philosphers with a taste for the curious.
Zacornu ; A tree in the Mohamedan hell, which has for fruit the heads of devils.
Zadkiel : One of the angels in the Jewish rabbinical legend of the celestial hierarchies. He is the ruler of Jupiter, and through him pass grace, goodness, mercy, piety, and munificence, and he bestows clemency, benevolence and justice on all.
Zaebos : Grand count of the infernal regions. He appears in the shape of a handsome soldier mounted on a crocodile. His head is adorned with a ducal coronet. He is of a gentle disposition.
Zagam : Grand king and president of the infernal regions. He appears under the form of a bull with the wings of a griffin. He changes water into wine, blood into oil, the fool into a wise man, lead into silver, and copper into gold. Thirty legions obey him.
Zahuris or Zahories : French people who had travelled in Spain frequently had curious tales to tell concerning the Zahuris ; people who were so keen-sighted that they could see streams of water and veins of metal hidden in the earth, and could indicate the whereabouts of buried treasure and the bodies of murdered persons. Explana- tions have been offered on natural lines. It was said that these men knew where water was to be found by the vapours arising at such spots ; and that they were able to trace mines of gold and silver and copper by the particular herbs growing in their neighbourhood. But to the Spaniard such explanations are unsatisfactory ; they persist in believing that the Zahuris are gifted with supernatural faculties, that they are en rapport with the demons, and that, if they wished, they could, without any physical aid, read thoughts and discover secrets which were as a sealed book to the grreser senses of ordinary mortals. For the rest, the Zahuris have red eyes ; and in order that one should become a Zahuri it is necessary that he should have been born on Good Friday.
Zanoni, by Bulwer Lytton : (See Fiction, Occult.)
Zapan : According to Wierius, one of the Kings of Hell.
Zedekias : Notwithstanding the credulity of the French people in the reign of Pepin the Short, they refused to believe in the existence of elementary spirits. The Kabalist
• Zedekias, being minded to convince the world, thereupon commanded the sylphs to become visible to all men. According to the Abbe de Villars, the admirable creatures
responded magnificently. They were beheld in human form, sometimes ranged in battle, whether marching in good order, or under arms, or camping in superb pavilions ; and, again, in aerial navies of marvellous structure, whose flying flotillas sailed through the air, at the will of the Zephyrs. But the ignorant generation to which they appeared failed entirely to understand the significance of the strange spectatle. They believed at first that the creatures were sorcerers who had betaken themselves to aerial regions for the purpose of exciting storms and sending down hail on the harvests. The sages and juris- consuls were of the popular opinion. The emperors shared the same idea, which became so widespread that even the wise Charlemagne, and after him Louis the Debonnair, imposed heavy penalties on these supposed aerial tyrants. (See Elementary Spirits and France.)
Zeernebooch : A dark god, monarch of the empire of the dead among the ancient Germans.
Zepar : Grand duke of the infernal empire, who may be identical with Vepar, or Separ. Nevertheless, under the name of Zepar he has the form of a warrior. He casts men into the evil passions. Twenty-eight legions obey him.
Ziazaa : A black and white stone ; it renders its possessor litigious, and causes terrible visions.
Ziito : One of the most remarkable magicians of whom history has left any record. He was a sorcerer at the court of King Wenceslaus of Bohemia (afterwards Emperor of Germany) towards the end of the fourteenth century, and among his more famous exploits is one chronicled by Dulsavius, bishop of Olmutz, in his History of Bohemia. On the occasion of the marriage of Wenceslaus with Sophia, daughter of the elector Palatine of Bavaria, the elector, knowing his son-in-law's liking for juggling and magical exhibitions, brought in his train a number of morris-dancers, jugglers and such entertainers. When they came forward to give their exhibition Ziito remained unobtrusively among the spectators. He was not entirely unnoticed, however, for his remarkable appearance drew the attention of those about him. His oddest feature was his mouth, which actually stretched from ear to ear. After watching the magicians for some time in silence, Ziito appeared to become exasperated at the halting way in which the tricks were carried through, and going up to the principal magician he taunted him with incompetency. The rival professor hotly defended his performance, and a discussion ensued which was ended at last by Ziito swallowing his opponent, just as he stood, leaving only his shoes, which he said were dirty and unfit for consumption. After this extraordinary feat, he retired for a little while to a closet, from which he shortly emerged, leading the rival magician by the hand. He then gave a performance of his own which put the former exhibition entirely in the shade. He changed himself into many divers shapes, taking the form of first one person and then another, none of whom bore any resemblance either to himself or to each other. In a car drawn by barn-door fowls he kept pace with the King's carriage. When the guests were assembled at dinner, he played a multitude of elfish tricks on them, to their amuse- ment or annoyance, as the case might be. Indeed, he was at all times an exceedingly mischievous creature as is shown by another story told of him. Feigning to be in want of money, and apparently casting about anxiously for the means of obtaining some, he at length took a handful of corn, and made it look like thirty fat hogs. These he took to Michael, a rich but very mean dealer. The latter purchased them after some haggling, but was warned not to let them drink at the river. But the warning was disre- garded, and the hogs turned into grains of corn. The enraged dealer went in search of Ziito, whom he found at last in a vintner's shop. In vain Michael shouted and
Zizis
440
Zulu Witehfinders
stamped, the magician took no notice, but seemed to be in a fit of abstraction. The dealer, beside himself, seized Ziito's foot and pulled it as hard as he could. To his dismay, the foot and leg came right off, while Ziito screamed lustily, and hauled Michael before the judge, where the two presented their complaints. What the decision was, history does not relate, but it is unlikely that the ingenious Ziito came off worse.
Zizis : The name which the modern Jews give to their phylacteries.
ZIokobinca : (Evil-meter.) Slavonic name for a witch. (See Slavs.)
Zoaphite : According to the Journal des Voyages of Jean Struys, a species of Cucumber which feeds on neighbouring plants. Its fruit has the form of a lamb, with the head, feet, and tail of that animal distinctly apparent, whence it it is called, in the language of the country, Canaret, or Conarer, signifying a lamb. Its skin is covered with a white down as delicate as silk. The Tartars think a great
deal of it and most of them keep it carefully in their houses, where the author of the Journal des Voyages saw it several times. It grows on a stalk about three feet in height, to which it is attached by a sort of tendril. On this tendril it can move about, and turn and bend towards the herbs on which it feeds, and without which it soon drys up and withers. Wolves love it, and devour it with avidity, because it tastes like the flesh of amb. The author adds that he has been assured that it has bones, flesh, and blood, whence it is also known in its native country as Zoaphite, or animal plant.
Zodiac, Signs of the : [See Astrology.)
Zohar : (See Kabala.)
Zoist : Journal of Magnetism : (See Spiritualism.)
Zoroaster : (See Persia.)
Zracne Vile : (See Slavs.)
Zschocke : (See Germany.)
Zulu Witch-finders : (See Africa.)
INDEX
Ab
Abaddon . Abadie (Jeannette) Abaris .... Abdelazys . Aben-Ragel Abigor .... Abishai. Abou-Ryhan . Abra Melin . . Abracadabra . Abraham the Jew Abraxas
Abred .... Absolute .
2
2
2
Abyssum 2
Acherat 2
Achmet 2
Aconce (Jacques) 2
Adalbert 2
Adam (Book of the Penitence of) . 2
Adam (L'Abbe) 3
Adamantius 3
Adamnan 3
Addanc of the Lake .... 3
Adelung (Jean Christophe) ... 3
Adepts 3
Adhab-Algal 3
Adjuration 3
Adonai 3
Adoptive Masonry 4
Adramelech 4
Adventists ....... 4
Aeromancy 4
Aetites, or Aquilaeus .... 4
Africa 4
African Builders 6
Ag 6
Agaberte 6
Agapis 6
Agares 6
Agate 6
Agathion 6
Agathodemon 6
Agla 6
Aglaophotis 6
Agreda (Marie of) 6
Agrippa von Nettesheim (Henry
Cornelius) 6
Ahazu-demon 7
Ahi 7
Ahrimanes 7
Ainsarii 7
Air Assisting Ghosts to become vis- ible 7
Akasa 7
Akathaso 7
PAGE
Akhnim 7
Akiba 7
Aksakof (Alexandre) .... 7
Al 7
Alain of Lisle 7
Alamut 8
Alary (Frangois) 8
Alastor 8
Albertus, Magnus 8
Albigenses 8
Albigerius . 8
Albumazar 9
Alcahest 9
Alchemist (a Modern Egyptian) . . 9
Alchemy 9
Alchindi 12
Alchindus 12
Aldinach 13
Alectorius .13
Alectryomancy 13
Aleuromancy 13
Alexander ab Alexandra . . . 13
Alexander of Tralles . . . . 13
Alexander the Paphlagonian . . 13
Alfarabi 14
Alfragenuis 14
Alfragius 14
Alfridarya 14
Alis de Telieux 14
All Hallow's Eve 15
Allantara 16
Allat 16
Allen Kardec 16
Alii Allahis 16
AUmuseri 16
Alludels 16
Almadel 16
Almagest 16
Almanach du Diable . . . . 16
Almoganenses 16
Alocer 16
Alomancy 16
Alopecy . , 16
Alphabet (Magical) 16
Alphabet of the Magi .... 16
Alphitomancy 16
Alpiel . 16
Alraun 16
Alrunes 16
Alruy (David) 16
Althotas 17
Alu-demon 17
Amadeus 17
Amaimon 17
Amandinus 17
Amaranth 17
Ambassadors (Demon) . . . . 17
Amduscias ....... 17
HI
PAGE
America T7
American Indians '..... 19
Amethyst 22
Amiante 23
Amniomancy '23
Amon 23
Amoymon 23
Amphiaraus 23
Amulets 23
Amy 23
Anachitis 23
Anamelech 23
Anancithidus 24
Anania, or Agnany 24
Ananisapta 24
Anarazel 24
Anathema 24
Ancient War of the Knights . . .24
Andre (Francoise) ..... 24
Andrews, Mrs 24
Androdamas 24
Android 24
Angekok (Eskimo Shamans) . . 24
Angelic Brethren 24
Angels 24
Anglieri 26
Anglo-Saxons 26
Angurvadel 26
Anima Mundi 26
Animal Magnetism 2&
Animism 26
Ankh 5°
Annali dello Spiritismo . . . . 2&
Anneberg 26
Annie Eva Fay 26
Annius de jViterbo 26
Annwyl 26
Anonymous Adept 26
Anpiel 27
Anselm de Parma 27
Ansitif 27
Answerer 27
Anthony 27
Anthropomancy 27
Antichrist 27
Antipathy 28
Antiphates 28
Antracites . 28
Anupadaka Plane 28
Aonbarr 28
Apantomancy 28
Apepi (Book of overthrowing of ) . 28
Apollonius of Tyana .... 28
Apparel (Phantom) 29>
Apparitions 29
Apports 33
Apprentice 33
Apuleius 33
Index
442
Index
PAGE
Aquin 33
Aquinas (Thomas) 33
Arabs 34
Aradia 35
Arael 35
Arariel 35
Ararita 35
Arbatel. 35
Arcanum 35
Ardat-Lile 35
Argentum (Potabile) • • • • 35
Ariel . 35
Arignote 35
Arioch 35
Ariolists 35
Arista^us 35
Arithmancy 36
Armida 36
Armomancy 36
Arnaud 36
Arnoux 36
Arnuphis 36
Arphaxat 36
Ars Aurifera 36
Ars Chimica 36
Ars Notoria 36
Art Transmutatoire 36
Artephius 36
Arthur (King) 36
Artois (Countess of) 36
Asal ......... 36
Asbestos . 36
Asclepius 36
Ash Tree 36
Ashipu 37
Ashtabula Poltergeist .... 37
Asiah 37
Asipu 37
Aspects (Planetary) 37
Aspidomancy 37
Aspilette (Marie d') 37
Ass 37
Assassins 38
Asteroids 41
Astolpho 41
Astral Body 41
Astral World 41
Astrology 42
Athanor 49
Atlantis 49
Atmadhyana 50
Atman 50
Atmic 50
Attea Society 50
Attic Mysteries 50
Attwood (Mrs.) 50
Atziluth 50
August Order of Light .... 50
August Spirits (The Shelf of the) . . 50
Aura 50
Auspices 51
Austatikco-Pauligaur. . . . . 51
Austral Virtue 51
Australia 51
Austria • ■ 55
Autography 56
Auto-Hypnotization 56
Ar/superomin 56
Automatic Writing and Speaking . 56
PAGE
Avenar 56
Avenir 56
Avicenna 56
Avichi 57
Avidya 57
Awyntyrs of Arthure, etc. ... 57
Axinomancy 57
Ayperor 57
Azael 57
Azam (Dr.) 57
Azazel 57
Azer 57
Azoth 57
Aztecs 57
B
Ba . 57
Baalberith 57
Baalzephon 57
Baaras 57
Babau 57
Babiagora 58
Babylonia 58
Bacchic Mysteries 59
Bachelor 59
Bacis 59
Bacon (Roger) 59
Bacoti 62
Backstrom (Dr. Sigismond) ... 62
Bad 62
Badger 62
Bael 62
Bagoe 62
Bagommedes 62
Bahaman 62
Bahir 62
Baian 62
Balan 62
Balasius 62
Balcoin (Marie) 62
Balkan Peninsula 62
Ballou 62
Balor 62
Balsamo . 62
Baltazo 62
Baltus (Jean Francois) .... 62
Banshee 62
Bantu Tribes 63
Baphomet 63
Baptism 64
Baptism of the Line .... 64
Baquet 64
Bar-Lgura 64
Barqu 64
Barguest 64
Barnand 64
Baron Chacs 64
Bartholomew 64
Baru 64
Basil .64
Basilideans . . . . . . ' . 64
Bassantin 64
Bat 65
Bataille (Dr.) 65
Bathym 65
Baton (The Devil's) 65
PAGE
Battle of Loquifer (The) .... 65
Bauer (George) ...... 65
Bave . . .— 65
Bayemon 65
Bealings Bells 65
Beans 65
Bearded Demon 65
Beaumont (John) 65
Beausoleil (Jean du Chatelot, Baron
de) 66
Bechard 66
Bed (Graham's Magnetic) ... 66
Bees 66
Belin (Albert) ...... 66
Bell (Dr.) 66
Belle-Fleur (La) 66
Bellenden (Sir Lewis) .... 66
Belli Paaro 66
Belloc (Jeanne) . - 66
Beloeolus 67
Belomancy 67
Belphegor 67
Benedict IX 67
Benemmerinnen 67
Benjees 67
Bensozia 67
Beowulf 67
Berande 67
Bereschith 67
Berigard of Pisa 67
Berkeley (Old Woman of) . . . 67
Bermechobus 67
Bernheim 68
Berthome du Lignon .... 68
Bertrand (Alexandre) .... 68
Beryl 68
Bezoar 68
Bhikshu 68
Biarbi ' 68
Bible des Bohemiens .... 68
Bible of the Devil 68
Bibliomancy 68
Bifiant ........ 68
Bifrons 68
Bigois 68
Binah 68
Biragues (Flaminio de) .... 68
Birds 68
Birog 68
Birraark 68
Biscar (Jeannette) ..... 68
Bisclavaret 68
Bitru 68
Bitumen 68
Black Earth 68
Black Hen (Fast of the) ... 68
Black Magic 68
Black Mass 71
Black Pullet (The) 71
Black Veil of the Ship of Theseus . 7 1
Blackwell (Anna) 71
Blake (William) 71
Blanchfleur 73
Blavatsky (Helena Petrovna) . . 73
Blindfolding a Corpse .... 73
Blockula 73
Bluebeard 73
Bodhisattva 73
Bodin (Jean) 73
Index
US
Index
PAGE
Boehme (Jakob) 74
Bogey 75
Boguet (Henri) 75
Boh 75
Bohmius 75
Bolomancy 75
Bonati ........ 75
Boniface VIII 75
Bonnevault (Pierre) 76
' Bonnevault (Maturin de) . . .76
Book of Celestial Chivalry ... 76
Book of Sacred Magic .... 76
Book of 'Secrets 76
Book of the Dead 76
Book of the Sum Total. ... 77
Book of Thel 77
Boolya- 77
Borack 77
Boreal Virtue 77
Borri (Josephe Francois) ... 77
Borroughs (George) 78
Bors 78
Botanomancy 78
Bottle Imps 78
Bourru 78
Boville (Charles de) . ... . 78
Bowls (Magical) 78
Boxhorn (Mark Querius) ... 78
Braccesco (Jean) 78
Bradlaugh (Charles) 78
Bragadini (Mark Antony) . . .78
Brahan Seer (The) 78
Brahma Charin 79
Braid 79
Breathings (The) 79
Bredis 79
Briah 79
Briatic World 79
Briccriu 79
Bridge of Souls 79
Brig of Dread (The) .... 80
Brimstone 80
Brisin . 80
British National Association ' of
Spiritualists 80
British Spiritual Telegraph . . 80
Britten (Mrs. Emma Hardinge) . 80
Broceliande 80
Brohou (Jean) 80
Broichan (A Druid) 80
Broom 80
Broomstick 80
Brotherhood of the Trowel . . 80
Brothers of Purity 80
Brown (John Mason) .... 80
Browne (Sir Thomas) .... 80
Bruhesen (Peter Van) .... 80
Bruillant 80
Buckingham (Duke of) . . . .80
Buddhic Plane 80
Buer 80
Buguet 81
Bune 81
Burgot (Pierre) 81
Burial with Feet to the East . . . 81
Burma 81
Busardier ........ 82
Butter (Witches) 82
Byron (Lord) 82
PAGE
Byron (Sir John) 82
C
Caacrinolaas 83
Cabiri 83
Cacodaemons 84
Cacodemon 84
Cactomite 84
Caer 84
Caetulum 84
Cagliostro 85
Cagnet Bombec of Jonquieres . 92
Cahagnet (Alphonse) ; . . 92
Cailleach 92
Caiumarath, or Kaid-Mords . . 92
Cala (Charles) 92
Calatin Clan 93
Calen 93
Calif (Robert) 93
Calmecacs 93
Calmet (Dom Augustin) .... 93
Calundronius 93
Cambions 93
Cambodia 93
Camuz (Philippe) 94
Candelabrum 94
Candles Burning Blue .... 94
Candles (Magical) 94
Capnomancy 94
Caqueux, or Cacoux .... 94
Carbuncle 94
Cardan (Jerome) 94
Carpenter . 94
Carpocratians 94
Carrahdis 94
Carver (Jonathan) 94
Cassaptu 95
Castle of the Interior Man . . 95
Catabolignes 95
Catalepsy 95
Cathari 95
Catoptromancy 95
Cats (Elfin) . . . . . . .95
Cauldron (Devil's) 95
Causimomancy 95
Cazotte (Jacques) 95
Celestial Light 95
Cellini (Benevuto) 95
Celonitis or Celontes .... 96
Celts 96
Central America 97
Central Association of Spiritualists . 97
Cepionidus 97
Ceraunius 97
Ceraunoscopy 97
Ceremonial Magic 97
Ceroscopy 98
Chagrin, or Cagrino 98
Chain (Forming a) 98
Chain-Period 98
Chakras 98
Chalcedony 99
Chams 99
Changelings . . . > . . .99
Chaomandy 99
Chaos 99
Charcot (Prof. J. M.) . . . . 99
Charlemagne 99
PAGE
Charm 99
Charnock (Thomas) .... .99
Chase (Warren) 100
Chazel (Comte de) 100
Chela 100
Chelidonius 100
Chenevix (Richard) 100
Cherubim 100
Chesed 100
Chesme 100
Chevaliers de l'Enfer . . . .100 Chilan Balam (Books of) . . .100 Children in Poltergeist Cases . . 100
China 100
Chirothesy (Diepenbroek's Treatise
on) 104
Chips of Gallows 104
Chiton 104
Chochurah 104
Chov-hani 104
Chrisoletus 104
Christian Circle (The) . . . .104
Chrysolite . 104
Chrysoprase 104
Churchyard 104
Chymical Nuptials of Christian Ros-
enkreutz 104
Circe 104
Circles (Spiritualistic) . . . .104
Clairaudience 104
Clairvoyance 105
Clan Morna 105
Clavel 105
Cledonism 105
Cleromancy 105
Clidomancy 105
Clothes (Phantom) 105
Cloven Foot 105
Cock 105
Cock Lane Ghost 106
Coffin Nails 106
Coffin (Walter) 106
Coleman (Benjamin) .... 106 Coleridge (Samuel Taylor) . . . 106
Coley (Henry) 107
College of Teutonic Philosophers,
R.C 107
Collegia 107
Colloquy of the Ancients . . . 107 Commentary on the Ancient War of
the Knights 107
Community of Sensation . . . 107 Compacts with the Devil . . . 107
Compass Brothers 109
Conan Mac Morna 109
Conary Mor 109
Conferentes 109
Conjuretors 109
Conte del Graal 109
Control no
Convulsionaries of St. Medard . .110
Cook (Florence) no
Coral (Red) no
Corbenic no
Cordovero ........ no
Cornwall 110
Corpse Candles no
Coscinomancy no
Costume (Phantom) no
Index
444
Index
PAGE
Counter Charms no
Counts of Hell no
Courier de L'Europe no
Cox (Sergeant) no
Cramp-Rings (Hallowing) . . .no
Critomancy no
Crollius (Oswald) no
Crosland (Mrs. Newton) . . .n Cross-Correspondences . . . .11
Crow 11
Crow's Head 11
Crystal 11
Crystalomancy 11
Crucifixion (Gnostic Conception of) . 112
Ciupipiltin 112
Cursed Bread 112
Curses 112
Cyamal . .112
Dactylomancy
Dactyls
Daemonologie
Daimar
Daiver-Logum
Daivers and Daivergoel
Dalan
Dalton (Thomas)
Damian (John)
Danaans
D'Ancre (Marechale) ....
Dandis
Daphnomancy . . . . T .
Dark, The
Darkness of the Sages ....
D'Ars (Cure)
Davenport Brothers
Davey (S. T.)
Davies (Lady)
Davis (Andrew Jackson)
Death-Coach
Death-Watch
Decern Viri
Dectera
Dee (John)
Deitton
De la Motte (Madame) ....
Deleuze (Billot)
Deleuze (Jean Philippe Francois) .
Delirium
De Lisle .
Demonius
Demonocracy ;
Demonography
Demonology
Demonology and Witchcraft, by Sir
Walter Scott
Demonomancy
Demonomania
De Morgan (Mrs.) . . . . .
Deoca
Dermot of the Love-Spot .
Dervishes
D'Eslon
Desmond (Gerald) . . . . .
D'Espagnet (Jean)
"Deuce Take You"
Devas
12 12 13
13 13
13 13
13 13 13 14 14 14 14 14 14 14 14 14 14 14 14 14 14 14 18 18 18 18 18 18 18 18 18 18
20 20 20
20 20 21 21 21 21 21 21 21
PAGE
Devil X22
Devil Worship 123
Devil's Bridge 124
Devil's Chain 124
Devil's Girdle (The) 124
Devil's Pillar 124
Devil's Sonata 124
Devils (Afraid of Bells) . . .124 Devon (Witchcraft in) . . . .124
Diadochus 124
Diagrams (Magical) 125
Diakka i"25
Diamond 125
Diancecht ........ 125
Diaphane 125
Dickenson (Edmund) . . . .125
Didot, (Perceval) 125
Diepenbroeks (Treatise on) . .125
Dilston 125
Dionysiac Mysteries . . . .125
Direct Writing 125
Dithorba 125
Divination 125
Divine Name (The) 128
Divine World 128
Divining Rod (The) 128
Divs 129
Djemscheed (The Cup of) . . .129 Doctrine of Correspondence . .129
Donn 129
Double Triangle 129
D'Ourches (Comte) 129
Dovantes 130
Dowie 130
Dowsers 130
Dowsing (George) 130
Draconites 130
Dragon 130
Dragon's Head 130
Dragon's Tail 130
Dreams 130
Dreams of Animals 131
Dress (Phantom) 131
Druidic Language 132
Druids 132
Drum (Magic) 132
Drummer of Tedworth .... 132
Du Potet 132
Du-Sith .132
Duad 132
Dual Personality 132
Duguid (David) 132
Duk-Duk (The) 132
Dumbarin-Nardur 132
Dupuis (Charles Francois) . . .132
Durandal 133
Duum Vira 133
E
Ea 133
Earth Laid upon a Corpse . .133
Ebennozophim 133
Eber Don .133
Eblis . 133
Ech-Uisque 133
Echo d'Outre Tombe . . . .133 Eckartshausen (K. Von) . . .133 Ectenic Force 133
PAGE
Eddy (Mrs. Mary Baker) . . . 133
Eden (Garden of) 133
Eel 133
Egbo 133
Egg (Orphean) 134
Eglamour of Artoys (Sir) . . .134
Eglinton (William) 134
Egypt 134
Egyptian Masonry 137
El Buen Sentido 137
El Criterio 137
El Havarevna 137
Elbegast 137
Elder (As an Amulet) . . . .137
Elder-tree 137
Eleazar 137
Eleazar of Garniza 137
Electric Girls 137
Electrobiology 138
Electrum 138
Elementary Spirits 138
Eleusis (Mysteries of) 139
Elf -Arrows 139
Elf- Fire 139
Elixir of Life 139
Ellide 140
Elliot 141
Elliotson 141
Eloge de l'Enfer 141
Elongation . . 141
Elymas 141
Emanations 141
Emerald 143
Emerald Table (The) . . . .143
Emerick (Catharine) 143
Enchantments 143
Enchiridion of Pope Leo (The) . .143
Enchiridion Physicae Restitutae . 143
Endless Cord (Tying Knots in) . 143
England 143
Enguerraud de Marigny . . . 148
Ennemoser (Joseph) .... 148
Enoch 148
Enoch (Book of) 148
Epworth Poltergeist (The) . . .149
Equilibrium 149
Eric of the Windy Hat. . . .149
Eromanty 149
Esdaile . . 149
Eskimos 149
Esoteric Languages 150
Esplandian 150
Esquiros (Alphonse) . . . . . 150
Essence (Elemental) 150
Essence (Monadic) - 150 '
Essenes (The) 150
Etain 150
Ether . . . 150
Etheric Double 150
Etheric Vision 151
Ethlinn 151
Etteilla 151
Evergreens 151
Everitt (Mrs.) . . • . . . .151 Evocations . . . . ■ . . .151
Evolution of Life 151
Exorcism . 151
Extispicy 154
Eye-biters . . . . . . .154
Index
445
Index
Fabre (Pierre Charles) . . . .154
Fagail 154
Fairies 154
Fairfax (Edward) 154
Falconet (Noel) 154
Familiars 154
Fanny 156
Fantasmagoriana 156
Faraday 156
Fascination 156
Fat of the Sorcerers . . . . 158
Fatimites 158
Faust 158
Fay (Annie Eva) 158
Feliciani (Lorenza) . . . . .158
Fendeurs 158
Feortini 158
Ferarius • . 158
Ferdinand D. Schertz .... 158
Fern 158
Ferrier (Susan) 158
Fetch 158
Fetishism 159
Fey 160
Fiction (English Occult) . . .160 Figuier (Guillaume Louis) . . . t6o
Fingitas 161
Finias 161
Finn Mac Cumhal 161
Fiora vanti (Leonardi) . . . .161
Fire. 161
Fire (Magical) 161
Fire-Mist (Children of the) . . .161
Fire-ordeal 161
Flamel (Nicholas) 162
Flammarion (Camille) . . . .162
Fletcher (Anna) 162
Flight of Birds in Augury . . .162
Flournoy (Prof.) 162
Fludd, or Flud (Robert) . . . 162 Flute (Charm of the) . . . .163 Flying Dutchman (The). . . .163
Fohat 163
Fong-Chur 163
Fong-Onhang 163
Fongites 163
Fontaine (John) 163
Fontenettes (Charles) . . ". .163 Fork (Magical) . . . . . .164
Formicarium 164
Fortune-Telling 164
Fountain Spirits of Behmen . .164 Fourth Dimension of Space . .164 Fowler (Miss Lottie) . . . .164
Fox Family . 164
Fox Sisters 164
Fragarach 164
France 164
Francis I. (Duke of Brittany) . .172
Frank (Christian) 172
Frank (Sebastian) 172
Frankenstein (by Mrs. Shelley) . 172
Fraud 172
Fredegonda 173
Freemasonry 173
French Commission on Magnetism 175 Friar Rush 175
Friends of God . Fritzlar (Martin Von) . Fumigation in Exorcism Futhorc
PAGE • 175 ■ 175 . I76 . I76
Galactides 176
Galeotti (Martius) 176
Galigai (Leonora) 1 76
Galitzin (Prince) 176
Garatronicus 176
Garden of Pomegranates . . .176
Gardner (Dr.) 176
Gargates .176
Garinet (Jules) 176
Garlic 176
Garnet 176
Gamier (Gilles) 176
Gassner 176
Gastromancy 176
Gaudillon (Pierre) 177
Gaufridi (Louis) . . . . . .177
Gauher-Abad 177
Gauthier (Jean) 177
Gauthier of Bruges 177
Gbalo 177
Geber 177
Gehenna 177
Gematria .177
Genealum Dierum 177
Genius 177
Germany 178
Gerson (Jean Charlier de) . . .180 Gert (Berthomine de) . . . .180
Gervais, 180
Ghor-Boud-Des (The) . . . .180
Ghost Seers 180
Gilles de Laval 181
Girard (Jean Baptiste) . . . .184 Gladen (The Root of) . . . .184
Glamis Castle^ 184
Glamour . . '. 184
Glamourie 184
Glanyil, Joseph 184
Glas Ghairm 184
Glauber (Johann Rudolph) . .184
Gloriana 184
Glosopetra 184
Gloucester 184
Gnosticism 184
Goat 185
Goblin 185
God 185
Godfrey .186
Goethe (Johann Wolfgang) . .186
Goetia 187
Golden Key 187
Gormogons 187
Graal (Lost Book of the) . . .187
Grail (Holy) 187
Grail Sword 188
Gram 188
Grand Copt 188
Grand Grimoire (The) . . . .188 Grand Lodge (Foundation of) . .188
Grandier (Urbain) 188
Graterakes (Valentine) . . . .188
PAGE
Greatrakes 189
Great White Brotherhood . . .189
Greece 189
Greeley (Horace) 193
Green Lion 193
Gregory (Mrs. Makdougall) . .193
Gregory VII 193
Grihestha 194
Grimoire 194
Grimoire of Honorius (The) . .194 Grimorium Verum (The) . . . 194
Grossetete (Robert) 194
Gruagach 195
Gualdi 195
Guecubu 196
Guillaume de Carpentras . . .196
Guillaume de Paris 196
Guinefort 196
Guldenstubbe (Baron de) . . .196
Guppy (Mrs.) 196
Guppy (Samuel) . . . . . .196
Gurney (Edmund) 196
Gustenhover 197
Guyon (Madame) 197
Gwion Bach 197
Gypsies 197
Gyromancy 199
H
Habondia 199
Hackley (Frederick) 199
Hackworld House 199
Hafed (Prince of Persia) . . .199
Hag of the Dribble 199
Haggadah 199
Hajoth Hakados 199
Hallucination 199
Ham 200
Hamaxobii 200
Hambaruan 200
Hammurabi (Law of) ... . 200
Hamon 200
Hand of Glory 200
Hands of Spirits 200
Hanon-Tramp 200
Hansen (Mr. of Copenhagen) . . 200
Hantu Penyardin 200
Hantu Pusaka 200
Hare (Dr.). . . .' . . . . 200
Harodim . . - 200
Harris (Thomas Lake) .... 200
Haruspication 201
Hasidim 201
Hasona. . 201
Hassan Sabah 201
Hastraun 201
Hatha Yoga 201
Hauffe (Frederica) 201
Haunted Houses 201
Hayden (Mrs.) 203
Hayti 203
Hazel-Tree 203
Head of Baphomet 203
Healing by Touch 203
Hearn (Lafcadio) 205
Heart 205
Heat and Light 205
Heavenly Man (The) .... 205
Index
446
Inder
PAGE
Hecate 205
Heckman 205
Hekalot 205
Hela 205
Heliotrope 205
Hell 205
Hellawes 206
Hellenbach (Baron) 206
Helmont (John Baptiste van) . . 206 Helvetius (John Frederick) . . 207 Henry III. of France . . . 208
Hereburge 208
Hermes Trismegistus .... 208
Hermetic Magic 209
Hermetic Society 209
Hermitage Castle 209
Heme J 209
Heyd 209
Heydon (John) 209
Hharis . . . 210
Hidden Interpretation .... 210
Hieroglyphs 210
Hilarion ........ 210
Hippomancy .210
Hirschborgen 210
History of Human Follies . . .210
Hmana Zena 210
Hmin Nat 210
Hobgoblin . 210
Hocus Pocus 210
Hod .210
Hodgson, Dr 210
Holland 210
Holly 211
Holy Trinity Church, York . .211 Home .(Daniel Dunglas) . . .211 Homunculus ....... 211
Hopedale Community . . . .211
Hopkins (Matthew) 211
Horbehutet 212
Horoscope 212
Horse Shoes 212
Horse-Whispering ..... 213
House of Light 213
House of Washing 213
House of Wisdom 213
Houses (Twelve Planetary) . .213
Howitt (William) 213
Howling of Dogs 214
Huaca (Peruvian Oracle) . . .214 Hudson (Photographer) . . . 214 Huet (Pierre-Daniel) .... 214
Human Nature 214
Hun-Came 214
Hungerford (Lord) 214
Huns 214
Hydromancy 214
Hyena 215
Hyle 215
Hyperesthesia 215
Hypnosis - . 216
Hypnotism 216
Hypocephalus 222
Iacchus 223
Iao 223
PAGE
Ichthyomancy 223
Ideas of Good and Evil .... 223
Ifrits ; 223
Ignis Fatuus 223
Illuminati 223
Imhetep . . 223
Imperator 223
Impersonation 223
Incense (Magical) 223
Incommunicable Axiom . . . 223
Incubus 223
India . • 224
Infernal Court . . ... 227
Initiation 227
Institor (Henricus) 227
Instruments (Magical) .... 227
Insufflation 227
Intuitional World . . . . . 228
Invocation 228
Ireland 228
Iron 230
Irving's Church (Speaking with
Tongues in) 230
Isaac of- Holland 230
Isagoge 230
Ishani (Sir Charles) 230
Ismaelites 230
Isomery 230
Issintok 230
Italy 230
Iubdan ........ 234
Ivunches 234
lynx 234
J
Jacinth 234
Jacob's Ladder 234
Jadian 234
Jakin and Boas ...... 234
James IV. of Scotland .... 234
James VI 235
Japan 235
Jasper . . . . . . . .237
Jean 237
Jean, or I wan Basilowitz . . .237
Jean d'Arras 237
Jean de Meung 237
Jeanne, D'Arc 237
Jelaleddin Rumi 238
Jennings (Hargrave) .... 238
Jesodoth 238
Jet 238
Jets. . 238
Jettatura 238
Jinn 238
Jinnistan 239
Johannites 239
John King 239
John of Nottingham 239
John XXII. (Pope) 239
Judah Ha-Levi 240
Jung-Stilling 240
K
Ka 240
Kabala 240
Kabotermannekens 242
PAGE-
Kaf 242
Kai ."".-. 242
Kale Thaungto 242
Kalid ._ 242
Kapila 242
Kardec (Allan) 242
Karma 242.
Katean Secret Society .... 242
Kathari 242
Katie King 242.
Katika Lima 242.
Katika Tujo 242
Kauks . 242
Keingala 242
Kelly (Edward) 243.
Kelpie (The) 243
Kephalonomancy 243
Kephu . 243
Kepler (John) 243
Kerheb 243
Kerner 243.
Kether 243
Kevan . 243
Key of Solomon the King . . . 243
Khaib 243
Khu 243
Khwaja Ka Mulay 243
Kian 243
King Robert of Sicily .... 243
Kinocetus 243
Kirk (Robert) 243.
Kischuph 243
Kiss (Bewitched by Means of a) . 243
Klinnrath 244
Klinschor 244
Knigge 244
Knox (John) . . . . . . . 244.
Koilon 244
Kommasso 244
Koon's Spirit Room .... 244
Kosh 244
Koshei _. 244
Kostchtschie 244
Kostka (Jean) 244.
Kramat 244
Krata Repoa 244
Krstaca 244
Kund 244
Kyphi 244
L
Labadie (Jean) 244.
Labartu 244
Laburum 244
Lacteus 244
Lady-Bird 244
Lady of Lawers 244
Lam 245
Lamb 245
Lamps (Magic) 245
Lancashire Witches 245
Lapis Exilis 246
Lapis Judaicus 246
Lapland 246
Larvae 248
Lascaris 248
Latent Impressions 248
Lannay 248
Index
447
Index
PAGE
Laurel 24s
Laurin, or Der Kleine Rosengarten . 249 Law (William) . . . . . .249
Laya Yoga 249
Lazare (Denys) 249
Le Normand 249
Leannan Sith 249
Lebrun (Charles) 250
Lebrun (Pierre) 250
Ledivi 250
Leg Cake 250
Legions of Demons 250
Lehman (Mr. of Copenhagen) . . 250
Leicester (Earl of) 250
Leippya 250
Lemegeton 250
Leo (Pope) 250
Lescoriere (Marie) 250
Leshy 250
Lesser Key of Solomon . . . 250
Levi (Eliphas) 250
Leviathan 250
Levitation 250
Leviticon 250
Lewis (Matthew Gregory) . . . 250
Libellus Merlini 251
Licking (A Charm) 251
Life Waves 251
Light 251
Lignite 251
Likho 251
Lilith 251
Limachie 251
Linton (Charles) 251
Lippares . 251
Liquor Alkahest 251
Litanies of the Sabbath . . -251
Lithomancy 251
Little (Rob. Wentworth) . . . 252
Little World 252
Loathly Damsel (The) .... 252
Lodestone . 252
Lodge (Sir Oliver) . . . . ■ . 252
Logos 252
Loiseant 252
Loki 252
Lombroso (Professor) .... 252
London Dialectical Society . . 252 Lopez (Senor Manoel) .... 253
Lopoukine . . . . ... . . 253
Lords of the Flame, or Children of
the Fire Mist 253
Lost Word of Kabbalism . . . 253
Loudun (Nuns of) 253
Loutherburg 253
Loyer (Pierre le) 253
Lubin 253
Lucifer 253
Lugh 254
Lully, Raymond 254
Luminous Bodies 254
Luther (Martin) 254
Lutin (The) 254
Lux 255
Lycanthropy 255
Lytton (Bulwer) 256
M
Maat Kheru 257
Macionica 257
Mackay (Gallatin) 257
Mackenzie (Kenneth) .... 257
Macrocosm (The) 257
Macroprosopus "257
Madre Natura 257
Magi 257
Magia Posthuma 257
Magic 258
Magic Darts 261
Magic Squares 261
Magical Diagrams 261
Magical Instruments and Accessories 262
Magical Numbers 262
Magical Papyri 263
Magical Union of Cologne . . . 263 Magical Vestments and Appurten- ances 263
Maginot (Adele) 263
Magnet 264
Magnetism 264
Magnetismus Negativus . . . .264
Magnus Microcosim 264
Magpie . . . . ' . . . . 264
Mahan (Rev. Asa) 264
Mahatma 264
Maier (Michael) 264
Maimonides (Moses) 264
Malachite 264
Malays 264
Malchidael 265
Mallebranche 265
Malleus Maleficarum .... 265
Malphas 266
Mamaloi 266
Mana 266
Mananan 266
Mandragoras 266
Manen 266
Manicheism 266
Manieri 266
Manu 266
Manuscript Troano 266
Maranos 266
Marcellus Empiricus 266
Marcians 266
Margaritomancy 266
Margiotta (Domenico) .... 267
Marie Antoinnette 267
Marigny (Enguerrand de) . 267
Marriage of Heaven and Hell . . 267
Marrow of Alchemy 267
Marshall (Mrs.) 267
Marsi (The) . r 267
Marthese (J. N. T.) 267
Martian Language 267
Martin (Saint) . . . . . . . 267
Martini 267
Martinists 267
Mascots . 267
Mashmashu 268
Masleh 268
Massey 268
Master 268
Mastiphal 268
Materialisation ...... 268
PAGE
Mather (Cotton and Increase) . . 268
Matikon 268
Maurier (George du) .... 269-
Maxwell (Dr.) 269
Mayas 269
Mayavi-rupa 269
Mbwiri 269
Medea 269-
Medici (Catherine de) . . . .269-
Medicine (Occult) 269
Medieval Magic 269-
Medina (Michael) . . . . .271
Medium 271
Medium and Daybreak .... 274 Medium Evangelique (La) . . . 274
Melusina 274
Mental World '. 274
Mephis, or Memphitis .... 274.
Mercury . . 274
Mercury of Life 274
Merlin 274
Mesmer (Franz Antoine) . . .274
Mesmerism . . 274
Mesna 274
Metals in Animal Magnetism . .274
Metempsychosis 274
Metratton 275
Mexico and Central America . .275
Mezazoth (The) 276
Michael 276
Michael Medina 276
Microcosm (The) 276
Microprosopus (The) . . . .276
Mictlan 276
Mid-Day Demons 276
Midiwiwin (The) . . . . . . 276-
Militia Crucifera Evangelica . . 277
Mimetic Magic 277'
Mines (Haunted) 277-
Mirabilis Liber 277
Miraculum Mundi • 277
Mirandola (Giacomo Picus da) . . 277
Mishna (The) 277
Misraim (Rite of) 278
Mithraic Mysteries 278
Mitla (Subterranean Chambers of) 278- Modern Times (The Socialist Com- munity of) • 278-
Moghrebi 278
Mohanes 278
Molucca Beans as Amulets . . 278
Monaciello (The) 278
Monad . . 278
Monen 279
Money 279
Mongols 279
Monk .......... 279
Moo (Queen of Yucatan) . . .279
Moors 279
Mopses (The) 279-
Morelle (Paolo) 279
Morgan (Professor de) .... 279
Morgan Le Fey 279
Morien 279
Morrell (Theobald) 280
Morse (J. J.) 280
Morzine (Devils of) . . . . .280 Moses (Rev. William Stainton) . 280 Moss-Woman (The) 280-
Index
448
Index
PAGE
Mountain Cove Community (The) . 280
Muscle-Reading 280
Myers (Frederic William Henry) . 281
Myomancy 281
Mysteries 281
Mysteries of the Pentateuch . . 283
Mystic City of God 283
Mysticism 283
N
■" N " Rays 285
Nagualism 285
Names (Magical) 285
Napellus 285
Napper (Dr.) 285
Nastrond 285
Nat 285
Nativities . 285
Natsaw 285
Nature Spirits or Elementals . .285
Navarez (Senor) 285
Naylor (James) , . 285
Ndembo 286
Necromancy 286
Neoplatonism . .' ' 290
Neptesh 293
Nervaura 293
Nervengeist 293
Neuhusens (Henrichus) .... 293
Nevill (William) 293
New Existence of Man upon the
Earth 293
New Motor (The) 293
Newstead Abbey 293
New Thought 293
New Zealand 294
Ngai 296
Nganga 296
Ngembi 296
Nichusch 296
Nick, or Old Nick 296
Nicolai (Christoph Friedrich) . . 296
Nif 297
Nifelheim 297
Night (Mystical of the Sufis) . . . 297
Nightmare 297
Nirvanic, or Atmic Plane . . . 298
Norfolk (Duke of) 298
Norton (Thomas) 298
Noualli 298
Nuan 298
Numbers (Magical) 298
0
Oak Apples 298
Oak-Tree . 298
Obambo (The) 299
Obeah 299
Obercit (Johann Hermann) . . 299
Oberion 299
Obsession and Possession . . . 299
Od Force 306
Odyle 306
Oil (Magical) 306
Ointment (Witches') . . ... 306
Okey Sisters . 306
Olcott (Colonel Henry Steel) . . 306 Old Hat Used for Raising the Devil . 307 Old Man of the Mountain . . .307
PAGE
"Old Scratch" 307
Olympian Spirits 307
Olympic Spirits 307
Om 307
Omar Khayyam 307
Onimancy 307
Onion 307
Onomancy 307
Onychomancy 307
Onyx 307
Ooscopy and Oomantia .... 307
Opal 308
Ophites 308
Oracles 308
Orbas 311
Orchis (The Root of the) . . .311 Ordinate of Alchemy (The) . .311
Orenda 311
Orleans (Duchess of) . . . .311
Orleans (Duke of) 311
Ornithomancy 311.
Oromase (Society) 311
Orphic Magic 311
Orton 311
Ostiaks 312
Oupnekhat (The) 312
Owen (Robert) 312
P
Paigoels (The) 312
Palingenesy 312
Palladino (Eusapia) 314
Palladium 314
Palladium (Order of) .... 314
Palmistry 3T4
Papaloi (An Obeah Priest) . . .315
Papyri (Magical) 315
Para Brahm 315
Paracelsus 315
Paradise . . 318
Parama-Hamsas 320
Paraskeva (Saint) 320
Pasqually (Martinez de) . . . . 320
Path (The) 321
Paulicians 321
Pauline Art 321
Pawang 321
Pazzani 321
Pearls 321
Pedro de Valentia 321
Peliades 321
Pentagram 32T
Perfect Sermon 321
Pernety (Antoine Joseph) . . . 321
Persia 321
Peter of Apono 321
Petetin 321
Petra Philosophorum . . . .321
Phantasmagoria 321
Philadelphian Society .... 321 Philalethes (Eirenaeus) .... 321
Philosopher's Stone 322
Philosophic Summary (The) . . 323
Phreno-Magnet 323
Phreno-Mesmerism 323
Phrygian Cap 323
Phyllorhodomancy 324
Physical World 324
Pierart (Z. T.) 324
Pierre (La) 324
Pinto (Grand Master of Malta) . . 324
Piper (Mrs.) 324
Planchette . 324
Planet 325
Planetary Logos 325
Planetary Spirits " 325
Planets 325
Podovne Vile . • 325
Poe (Edgar Allen) 325
Poinandres 325
Polong 325
Poltergeist 325
Polynesia 326
Polytrix 328
Pontica 328
Poppy Seeds 328
Pordage . 328
Porka 328
Port of Fortune 328
Postel (Guillaume) 328
Posthumous Letters .... 328 Powder of Projection .... 328 Powder of Sympathy .... 328
Pozenne Vile . 328
Pratyshara 328
Precipitation of Matter . . .328
Prelati 329
Premonition 329
Prenestine Lots (The) .... 329
Pretu 329
Prophecy 329
Prophecy of Count Bombast . . 330
Prophetic Books 330
Prout (Dr.) 330
Psychic 33a
Psychic Body 330
Psychical Research 330
Psychograph 332
Psychography 332
Psychological Society (The) . . 332
Psychomancy 333
Psychometry 333
Psylli 333
Purgatory of St. Patrick . . . 333
Purirah (The) 333
Puysegur 334
Pyromancy 334
Pythagoras 334
Pythia 334
Q
Quimby (Dr. Phineas) .... 334
Quindecem Viri 334
Quirardelli (Corneille) .... 334
Quirinus 334
R
Races (Branch) 334
Races (Root) 334
Races (Sub-) 334
Rahat 334
Rahii 334
Rakshasa 334
Randolph (P. B.) 335
Raphael (The Angel) . . . .335 Rapping 335
Index
449
Index
PAGE
Rapport 335
Raymond 335
Rector (Control of Rev. W. S.
Moses) 335
Red Cap 335
Red Lion 335
Red Man 335
Red Pigs . . 335
Redcliff (Mrs. Ann) 335
Regang 335
Regius MS 335
Reichenbach 335
Reincarnation 335
Remie (Major J.) 33°
Reschith Hajalalim 336
Revue Spirite (La) 336
Revue Spiritualiste (La) . . . 336
Rhabdomancy 336
Rhapsodomancy 336
Rhasis . . 33^
Richet (Professor) 33°
Richter (Sigmund) 336
Riko (A. J.) 336
Rinaldo des Trois Echelles . . 336
Ripley (George) 336
Ripley (Revived) 336
Rishi 336
Rita 337
Robert the Devil 337
Roberts (Mrs.) . . . . . . 337
Robes (Magical) 337
Robsart (Amy) 337
Rocail 337
Rochas d'Aiglun 337
Rochester Rappings .... 337
Rods (Magical) ...... 337
Rogers (Mr. Dawson) .... 337
Rohan (Prince de) 337
Rome 337
Romer (Dr. C.) 339
Rose 339
Rosen (Paul) 340
Rosenberg (Count) 340
Rosenkreuze (Christian) . . . 340 Rosicrucian Society of England . 340
Rosicrucians 340
Rossetti (Dante Gabriel) . . . 342
Round . . 343
Roustan 343
Rudolph II 343
Ruler of Seven Chains .... 343
Runes 343
Rupa 343
Rupecissa (Johannes de) . . . 343
Rusalki 343
Russia 343
Ruysbroeck 344
S
Saba 344
Sabbathi 344
Sabellicus 344
Sadhus 344
Sahu 344
Saint Germain (Comte de) . . . 344
St. Irvyne 345
Saint Jacques (Albert de) . . . 345
St. John's Crystal Gold . . . 345
PAGE
St. John's Wort -345
St. Martin - (Louis Claude de) . . 345 Saintes Maries de la Mer, etc.
(Church of) 346
Sakta Cult 34°
Salagrama 34^
Salamander's Feather .... 346
Sallow 346
Salmael 34°
Salmesbury Hall 345
Salmonoeus 34*>
Samodivi 346
Samothracian Mysteries . . . 346
Samovile 34°
Samoyeds 346
Samuel (Mother) 34°
San Domingo 346
Sannyasis 346
Sanyo] anas 34^
Saphy 347
Sapphire 347
Sara (St. of Egypt) 347
Sardius 347
Sardou ^ictorien) 347
Sat B'Hai 347
Satan 347
Satanism 347
Saul (Barnabas) 347
Scandinavia 347
Schroepfer 349
Scotland 349
Scott (David and William Bell) . 355 Scott, or Scot (Michael) . . . 35°
Screech Owl 356
Sea-phantoms and Superstitions . 356
Seal of Solomon 357
Seance 357
Second Sight 359
Secret Commonwealth of Elves . 360
Secret Fire 3°°
Secret of Secrets 360
Secret Tradition 360
Secret Words 362
Seik Kasso 362
Seiktha 362
Semites (The) 362
Sendivogius (Michael) . . . .364
Sensitive 364
Sephiroth 364
Serpent's Egg ....... 364
Sethos 364
Setna (Papyrus of) 364
Seton (Alexander) 365
Seven Stewards of Heaven . . 366
Sextus V. (Pope) 366
Shaddai ........ 366
She-Goat 366
Sheik Al Gebel 366
Shekinah 366
Shelta Thari 366
Shemhamphorash 368
Sheol 368
Ship of the Dead 368
Shorter (Thomas) 368
Siberia 368
Sibylline Books 368
Siderit . 369
Signs (Planetary) 369
Silvester II. (Pope) 369
PAGE
Simon Ben Yohai 369
Simon Magus 369
Siradz (Count of) 369
Sixth Sense 369
Slade (Henry) 369
Slate- Writing 370
Slavs 370
Slawensik Poltergeist . . . .371
Sleeping Preacher 371
Smagorad 371
Smith (Helene) 371
Smith (Joseph) 371
Sneezing (Superstitions Relating to) 371 Societas Rosicruciana of Boston . 371 Societe Industrielle of Wiemar . . 371 Societe Industrielle of Wien . . .371 Societe Spiritual di Palermo . . . 371 Societies of Harmony .... 371 Society for Psychical Research . 372
Solanot (Viscount) 372
Solar Deity 372
Solar System 372
Solomon 372
Solomon Ibn Gabirol .... 373
Solomon (Mirror of) 373
Solomon's Stables 373
Somnambulism 373
Sorcery 373
Sorrel Leaf 373
Sortilege .373
South American Indians . . . 374 Sovereign Council of Wisdom . .374
Spain 374
Speal Bone (Divination by) . .377
Speers (Dr.) 377
Spells 377
Spider 378
Spiegelschrift 379
Spirit 379
Spirit Messenger 379
Spirit Photography . . . ... 379
Spirit World -379
Spiritism 379
Spiritualism 380
Spiritual Magazine 387
Spiritual Notes 387
Spiritual Philosopher .... 387
Spiritual Portraits 387
Spiritual Telegraph 387
Spiritualist .387
Spodomancy 387
Spunkie (The) 387
Squinting 387
Squire (J. R. M.) 387
Stapleton (William) 387
Staus (Poltergeist) 387
Stead (William Thomas) . . .388
Stevenson (R. L.) 388
Sthulic Plane 388
Stilling (Jfing) 388
Stoicheomancy 388
Stoker (Bram) . . . . . . -388
Stolisomancy . . . . ' . . . 388
Stomach (Seeing with the) . . 388
Strange Story (A) 388
Strega 388
Strioporta 388
Stroking Stones and Images . . 388 Studion (Simon) 388
Index
450
Index
PAGE
Subliminal Self 388
Subterranean Crypts and Temples . 389
Succubus 39i
Sufiism 392
Suggestion 392
Sukias 392
Summa Perfectionis 392
Summons by the Dying. . . . 392 Sunderland (Rev. Laroy) . . . 392
Suth (Dr. Pietro) 392
Swan (The) 392
Swawm 392
Swedenborg 392
Swedish Exegetical and Philanthro-
pical Society 395
Switzerland . . ' 395
Sword (Magical) 397
Sycomancy 397
Symbolism 397
Sympathetic Magic ...... 398
T
Table-Turning 398
Taboo 399
Tadebtsois 399
Tadibe 399
Taigheirm 399
Tales of Terror 400
Talisman 400
Talmud (The) 4°2
Tarn O'Shanter 402
Tannhauser 402
Tappan-Richmond (Mrs. Cora L. V.) 402
Tarot 402
Tatwic Yoga 403
Taurabolmin 403
Taxil (Leo) 403
Tears on Shutters 403
Telekinesis 404
Telepathy 404
Tellurism 405
Temeraire (Charles A.) .... 405
Templars 405
Temple Church 408
Tempon-Teloris 408
Temurah 408
Tephillin 408
Tephramancy 408
Teraphim (The) 408
Tetractas 408
Tetrad 408
Tetragram -. . 408
Teutons 409
Thaumaturgy 410
Thaw Weza 410
Theobald (Morrel) 410
Theomancy 410
Theosophical Society 410
Theosophical Society of Agrippa . 410
Theosophy 410
Theot 412
Theurgia Goetia 412
Thian-ti-hwii 412
Thomas (The Rhymer) .... 412
Thoth 413
Thought-Reading 413
Thought Transference . . . .413 Thought Vibrations (Theory of) . . 413
PAGE
Thrasyllus 413
Tibet 413
Tii 413
Timsus of Locris 414
Tinker's TalkJ. . . . . . . 41*
Tiromancy 414
Toltecs 414
Tomga 414
Tongues (Speaking and Writing in) . 414
Toolemak 414
Totemism 414
Tower of London 414
Tractatulus Alchimae .... 414
Trance 414
Trance Personalities 415
Transformation 415
Transmutation of Metals . . . 415
Transmutation of the Body . . 415
Tree Ghosts 416
Tree of Life (The) 416
Tremblers of the Cevennes . .416
Trevisan (Bernard) 416
Triad 417
Triad Society 417
Triangle 417
Trident (Magical) .417
Trine (Ralph Waldo) . ... 417
Tripod 417
Trithemius 417
Triumphant Chariot of Antimony . 417
Trivah 417
True Black Magic 417
Tsithsith (The) 417
Tumah 417
Tunisa 418
Turcomans 418
Turner (Ann) . 418
Turquoise . . . . . . . .418
Typtology 418
U
Ulysses 418
Unguents . 418
Union Spirite Bordelaise . . .418
Univercoelum (The) 418
Universal Balm 418
Universities (Occult) . . . .418
Ura 418
Urgund 418
Urim and Thummim . . . .418
Valentine (Basil) 419
Vampire 419
Van Calcar 421
Van Herwerden 421
Vana Vasin 421
Vanderdeken 421
Vanga 421
Varley (Cromwell) 42 1
Vassago 421
Vaudoux 421
Vaughan (Diana) 421
Vaulderie 421
Vecchia Religione (La) .... 422
Vedanta Yoga 422
PAGE
Vehm-Gerichte 422
Veleda 422
Veltis 422
Verdelet 422
Veritas Society . . . . . . 422
Verite (La) 422
Vervain - . 422
Vestments (Magical) 422
Vidya 422
Viedma 422
Vila (The) 422
Vile . 422
Viliorjaci 422
Villanova (Arnold de) .... 422
Villars (L'Abbe de Montfaucon de) 422
Vintras (Eugene) 423
Virgil (The Enchanter) . . . .423
Visions 423
Vitality 424
Vjestica 424
Vukub-Came . 424
W
Wafer 424
Waldenses 425
Walder (Phileas) 425
Wallace (Alfred Russel) . . . 425
Wallenstein (Albert von) . . . 425
Wandering Jew (The) .... 425
Wannein Nat 425
War (Occult Phenomena during the) 425
Wayland Smith 426
Weir (Major) 426
Weirtz 42&
Weishaupt 426
Werner (Dr. Heinrich) . . . .426
Werwolf 426
West Indian Islands .... 428
Westcar Papyrus 429
Weza 430
Whistling 430
White Daughter of the Philosophers 430
White Magic 430
Widdershins 430
Wier 430
Wild- Women 430
Will 430
William Rufus 430
Williams (Charles) 430
Willow-Tree . . . . . . .431
Windsor Castle 431
Winged Disk 431
Wirdig's Magnetic Sympathy . .431
Wisconsin Phalanx 431
Wisdom Religion 431
Witchcraft 431
Wolf (The) 436
Wonders of the Invisible World . . 436
World Period 436
Worlds, Planes, or Spheres . . 436
Wraith 437
Wronski 437
Xibalba 437
Xylomancy 437
Index
451
Index
Y-Kim (Book of) 437
Yadachi 437
Yadageri 437
Yaksha or Jak 437
Yauhahu 438
Yeats (William Butler) . . . .438
Yetziratic World 438
Yoga 438
Yogis 438
Yorkshire Spiritual Telegraph . , 438
Young (Brigham) 438
Zabulon 438
Zachaire (Denis) 438
Zacornu 439
Zadkiel . 439
Zaebos 439
Zagam 439
Zahuris, or Zahories . . . . 439
Zanoni ■. 439
Zapan 439
Zedekias 439
Zeernebooch 439
PAGE
Zepar 439
Ziazaa 439
Ziito 439
Zizis 440
Zlokobinca 440
Zoaphite . . . . ' . . . . 440
Zodiac (Signs of the) . . . ■ . 440
Zohar 440
Zoist 440
Zoroaster 440
Zracne Vile 440
Zschocke 440
Zulu Witch-Finders 440
PRINTED AT THE DEVONSHIRE PRESS, TORQUAY, ENGLAND.
Accession no. " ^~
teste*
Call no. Lt.ktJl