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PLATE J.
Frontispiece^
^m^m-
Fig.
Symbolic Alchemical Design from Mutus Liber (1677).
BYGONE BELIEl'o
BEING A SERIES OF
EXCURSIONS IN THE BYWAYS
OF THOUGHT
BY
H. STANLEY REDGROVE
B.Sc. (Lond.), F.C.S.
author of "alchemy: ancient and modern" •*a mathematical theory of spirit"
"the MAGIC OF EXPERIENCE," ETC.
WITH MANY ILLUSTRATIONS
\
LONDON WILLIAM RIDER ^ SON, LTD.
8 PATERNOSTER ROW, E.G. 4 1920
Alle Erfahrung ist Magie^ und nur magisch erkldrbar.
NOVALIS (Friedrich von Hardenberg).
Everything possible to be believ'd is an image of truth.
William Blake.
TO
MY WIFE
PREFACE
These Excursions in the Byways of Thought were undertaken at different times and on different occa- sions ; consequently, the reader may be able to detect in them inequalities of treatment. He may feel that I have lingered too long in some byways and hurried too rapidly through others, taking, as it were, but a general view of the road in the latter case, whilst examining everything that could be seen in the former with, perhaps, undue care. As a matter of fact, how- ever, all these excursions have been undertaken with one and the same object in view, that, namely, of understanding aright and appreciating at their true worth some of the more curious byways along which human thought has travelled. It is easy for the superficial thinker to dismiss much of the thought of the past (and, indeed, of the present) as mere superstition, not worth the trouble of investigation : but it is not scientific. There is a reason for every belief, even the most fantastic, and it should be our object to discover this reason. How far, if at all, the reason in any case justifies us in holding a similar belief is, of course, another question. Some of the beliefs I have dealt with I have treated at greater length than others, because it seems to me
X BYGONE BELIEFS
that the truths of which they are the images — vague and distorted in many cases though they be — ^are truths which we have either forgotten nowadays, or are in danger of forgetting. We moderns may, in- deed, learn something from the thought of the past, even in its most fantastic aspects. In one excursion at least, namely, the essay on " The Cambridge Platonists," I have ventured to deal with a higher phase — perhaps I should say the highest phase — of the thought of a bygone age, to which the modern world may be completely debtor.
*' Some Characteristics of Mediaeval Thought,'' and the two essays on Alchemy, have appeared in The Journal of the Alchemical Society, In others I have utilised material I have contributed to The Occult Review, to the editor of which journal my thanks are due for permission so to do. I have also to express my gratitude to the Rev. A. H. Collins, and others to be referred to in due course, for per- mission here to reproduce illustrations of which they are the copyright holders. I have further to offer my hearty thanks to Mr B. R. Rowbottom and my wife for valuable assistance in reading the proofs.
H. S. R.
Bletchley, Bucks, December 191 9.
CONTENTS
Preface
List of Illustrations
1. Some Characteristics of Mediaeval Thought
2. Pythagoras and his Philosophy .
3. Medicine and Magic ....
4. Superstitions concerning Birds
5. The Powder of Sympathy : a Curious Medical
Superstition
6. The Belief in Talismans
7. Ceremonial Magic in Theory and Practice
8. Architectural Symbolism
9. The Quest of the Philosopher's Stone
10. The Phallic Element in Alchemical Doctrine
11. Roger Bacon : an Appreciation
12. The Cambridge Platonists
PAGE
ix xiii
'8 25
47
57
87
III
121
149
183 193
4>
i8
• P-
19
5, to face p.
26
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FIG.
1. Symbolic Alchemical Design
from Mutus Liber (1677) . Plate i, frontispiece
2. Frontispiece to Glanvil's Sa-
ducismus Triumphatus (1700), illustrating Superstitions con- cerning Witchcraft, g^c. . „ 2, to face p. 4
3. Diagram to illustrate the Theo-
rem of Pythagoras . . „ 3, „ 10
4-8. Diagrams for constructing the Regular (or Platonic) Solids ....
9. The Pentagram ...
10. Reduced Fascimile of a Page
of the Papyrus Ebers . Plate
11. Paracelsus (aged 24), from a
Painting by Scorel (15 17),
now in the Louvre Gallery . ,, 6, ,, aS
12. Barnacle Geese, from Ger-
arde's Herball (1597) . „ 7, „ 40
13. The Fung Hwang, according to
the 'Rh Ya, from Gould's
Mythical Monsters . . ,, 8, „ 44
14. Harpy, from Vlyssis Aldro-
VANDi's Monstrorum Historia
(1642) .... „ 7» M 40
15. Sir Kenelm Digby, from an
engraved Portrait by Hou-
BRAKEN, after Vandyke . „ 9, „ 48
16. James Howell, from an en-
graved Portrait by Claude
Melan and Abraham Bosse „ 10, „ 50
xiii
XIV
BYGONE BELIEFS
FIG.
17. Nathanael Highmore, M.D.,
from an engraved Portrait by A. Blooteling .
18. Francis Bacon, from the Fron-
tispiece to his Sylva Syl- varum (6th edition, 1651)
19 and 20. " Abracadabra " Amu- lets ....
21. The First Pentacle of the Sun,
from Clavicula Salomonis
22. The Fifth Pentacle of Mars,
from Clavicula Salomonis
23. The Third Pentacle of the
Moon, from Clavicula Salo- monis ....
24. The Third Pentacle of Venus,
from Clavicula Salomonis
25. The Third Pentacle of Mer-
cury, from Clavicula Salo- monis ....
26-28. The Seals of Mars, his In- telligence, and his Spirit, from Barrett's Magus (1801) ....
29. The Talisman of Mars, from
Barrett's Magus
30. The Pentagram embellished ac-
cording to Eliphas Ltyi
31. The Hexagram, or Seal of
Solomon, embellished ac- cording to £liphas Livi
32. Magical Circle, from The Lesser
Key of Solomon the King
33. Magical Instruments — Lamp,
Rod, Sword, and Dagger — according to ^liphas lSvi .
34. Agnus Dei, Sixteenth-century
Font, Southfleet, Kent, from Collins' Symbolism of Animals ....
,at
EII,
to face p.
52
>>
12,
>>
54
•
•
. P-
61
•
•
66
•
•
67
.
.
68
•
•
69
70
Plate 13, ^0 face p. 72 74
M>
14,
15,
16,
17,
74 98
102 112
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xv
FIG.
35. Unicorn, Sixteenth - century
Font, Southfieet, Kent, from Collins' Symbolism of Animals .... Fl ate ly, to face p. 112
36. Pelican in her Piety, inset in
Pulpit, Aldington, Kent, from Collins' Symbolism of Animals .... „ 18, ,, 114
37. Twelfth-century South Door,
Barf est on Church, Kent, showing Griffin and other Sjnnbols, from Collins' Symbolism of Animals . „ 18, ,, 114
38. Western Doorway of Port-
chester Church, Hants, show- ing Sagittarius and Pisces, from a Photograph . . ,,19, ,, 116
39. Centaur, from Vlyssis Aldro-
vandi's Monstrorum Historia
(1642) . . . . „ 20, „ 118
40. Mantichora, from A Descrip-
tion of Three Hundred A nimals
(1730) .... „ 20, „ 118
41 and 42. Symbolic Representa- tions of the Alchemical Principle of Purification by Putrefaction, from " Basil WA-Lm^Tm-E/s*' Twelve Keys ,, 21, „ 140
43. Symbolic Alchemical Design
illustrating the Conjunction of Brother and Sister, from Michael Maier's Atalanta Fugiens (1617) . . . „ 22, ,, 170
44. Symbolic Alchemical Design
illustrating Lactation, from
Maier's Atalanta Fugiens . „ 23, ,, 172
45. Symbolic Alchemical Design
illustrating the Conjunction of Gold and Silver (or Sun and Moon), from Maier's Atalanta Fugiens . . „ 24, „ 174
xvi BYGONE BELIEFS
FIG.
46. Symbolic Alchemical Design
from Mutus Liber (1677) . Plate 25, to face p. 176
47. Symbolic Alchemical Design
illustrating the Work of Woman, from Maier's Ata- lanta Fugiens . . . ,,26, ,, 178
48. Symbolic Alchemica Design,
Hermaphrodite,f rom Maier's
Atalanta Fugiens . . ,,27, ,, 180
49. Roger Bacon presenting a
Book to a King, from a Fifteenth-century Miniature in the Bodleian Library, Oxford .... ,,28, „ 184
50. Roger Bacon, from a Portrait
in Knole Castle . . . „ 29, „ 188
51. Benjamin Whichcote, from
an engraved Portrait by
Robert White . . „ 30, „ 194
52. Henry More, from a Portrait
by David Loggan, engraved
ad vivum, 1679 . . . ,,31, >, 198
53. Ralph Cudworth, from an en-
graved Portrait by Vertue, after Loggan, forming the Frontispiece to Cudworth's Treatise Concerning Morality (1731) ,32, „ 200
BYGONE BELIEFS I
SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF MEDIEVAL THOUGHT
In the earliest days of his upward evolution man was satisfied with a very crude explanation of natural phenomena — that to which the name " animism " has been given. In this stage of mental develop- ment all the various forces of Nature are personified : the rushing torrent, the devastating fire, the wind rustling the forest leaves — in the mind of the animistic savage all these are personalities, spirits, like him- self, but animated by motives more or less antagon- istic to him.
I suppose that no possible exception could be taken to the statement that modern science renders animism impossible. But let us inquire in exactly what sense this is true. (It is not true that science robs natural phenomena of their spiritual significance. The mis- take is often made of supposing that science explains, or endeavours to explain, phenomena. But that is the business of philosophy. The task science attempts is the simpler one of the correlation of natural phenomena, and in this eflFort leaves the ultimate problems of metaphysics untouched. \ A
universe, however, whose phenomena are not only
I I
2 BYGONE BELIEFS
capable of some degree of correlation, but present the extraordinary degree of harmony and unity which science makes manifest in Nature, cannot be, as in animism, the product of a vast number of inco- ordinated and antagonistic wills, but must either be the product of one Will, or not the product of will at all.
The latter alternative means that the Cosmos is inexplicable, which not only man's growing experi- ence, but the fact that man and the universe form essentially a unity, forbid us to believe. The term " anthropomorphic *' is too easily applied to philo- sophical systems, as if it constituted a criticism of their validity. [For if it be true, as all must admit, that the unknown can only be explained in terms of the known, then the universe must either be ex- plained in terms of man — i.e, in terms of will or desire — or remain incomprehensible. J That is to say, a philosophy must either be anthropomorphic, or no philosophy at all^
Thus a metaphysical scrutiny of the results of modern science leads us to a belief in God. But man felt the need of unity, and crude animism, though a step in the right direction, failed to satisfy his thought, long before the days of modern science. The spirits of animism, however, were not discarded, but were modified, co-ordinated, and worked into a system as servants of the Most High. Polytheism may mark a stage in this process ; or, perhaps, it was a result of mental degeneracy.
What I may term systematised as distinguished from crude animism persisted throughout the Middle Ages. The work of systematisation had already been
MEDIi^VAL THOUGHT 3
accomplished, to a large extent, by the Neo-PIatonists and whoever were responsible for the Kabala. It is true that these main sources of magical or animistic philosophy remained hidden during the greater part of the Middle Ages ; but at about their close the youthful and enthusiastic Cornelius Agrippa (1486- 1535) ^ slaked his thirst thereat and produced his own attempt at the systematisation of magical belief in the famous Three Books of Occult Philosophy. But the waters of magical philosophy reached the medi- aeval mind through various devious channels, tradi- tional on the one hand and literary on the other. And of the latter, the works of pseudo-DiONYSius,^ whose immense influence upon mediaeval thought has sometimes been neglected, must certainly be noted.
The most obvious example of a mediaeval animistic belief is that in ** elementals " — the spirits which personify the primordial forces of Nature, and are symbolised by the four elements, immanent in which they were supposed to exist, and through which they were held to manifest their powers. And astrology, it must be remembered, is essentially a systematised
1 The story of his Hfe has been admirably told by Henry MoRLEY (2 vols., 1856).
2 These writings were first heard of in the early part of the sixth century, and were probably the work of a Syrian monk of that date, who fathered them on to Dionysius the Areo- pagite as a pious fraud. See Dean Inge's Christian Mysticism (1899), pp. 104-122, and Vaughan's Hours with the Mystics (7th ed., 1895), vol. i. pp. 111-124. The books have been translated into English by the Rev. John Parker (2 vols., 1897-1899), who beUeves in the genuineness of their alleged authorship.
4 BYGONE BELIEFS
animism. The stars, to the ancients, were not material bodies like the earth, but spiritual beings. Plato (427-347 b.c.) speaks of them as *' gods ". Mediaeval thought did not regard them in quite this way. But for those who believed in astrology, and few, I think, did not, the stars were still symbols of spiritual forces operative on man. Evidences of the wide extent of astrological belief in those days are abundant, many instances of which we shall doubt- less encounter in our excursions.
It has been said that the theological and philo- sophical atmosphere of the Middle Ages was '' schol- astic," not mystical. No doubt '' mysticism," as a mode of life aiming at the realisation of the presence of God, is as distinct from scholasticism as empiri- cism is from rationalism, or ** tough-minded " philo- sophy (to use James' happy phrase) is from *' tender- minded ". But no philosophy can be absolutely and purely deductive. It must start from certain empiri- cally determined facts. A man might be an extreme empiricist in religion {i.e. a mystic), and yet might attempt to deduce all other forms of knowledge from the results of his religious experiences, never caring to gather experience in any other realm. Hence the breach between mysticism and scholasticism is not really so wide as may appear at first sight. Indeed, scholasticism officially recognised three branches of theology, of which the mystical was one. I think that mysticism and scholasticism both had a pro- found influence on the mediaeval mind, sometimes acting as opposing forces, sometimes operating har- moniously with one another. As Professor Windel- BAND puts it : ** We no longer onesidedly characterise
To face p. 4.
PLATE 2.
Fig. 2.
Frontispiece to Glanvil's Saducismus Triumphalus (3rd edition, 1700), illustrating Superstitions concerning Witchcraft, etc.
MEDIi^VAL THOUGHT 5
the philosophy of the middle ages as scholasticism, but rather place mysticism beside it as of equal rank, and even as being the more fruitful and promising movement." ^
Alchemy, with its four Aristotelian or scholastic elements and its three mystical principles — sulphur, mercury, salt, — must be cited as the outstanding pro- duct of the combined influence of mysticism and scholasticism : of mysticism, which postulated the unity of the Cosmos, and hence taught that every- thing natural is the expressive image and type of some supernatural reality ; of scholasticism, which taught men to rely upon deduction and to restrict experi- mentation to the smallest possible limits.
The mind naturally proceeds from the known, or
from what is supposed to be known, to the unknown.
Indeed, as I have already indicated, it must so proceed
if truth is to be gained. Now what did the men of
the Middle Ages regard as falling into the category
of the known } Why, surely, the truths of revealed
religion, whether accepted upon authority or upon
the evidence of their own experience. The realm of
spiritual and moral reality: there, they felt, they were
on firm ground. Nature was a realm unknown ;
but they had analogy to guide, or, rather, misguide
them. Nevertheless if, as we know, it misguided,
this was not, I think, because the mystical doctrine
of the correspondence between the spiritual and the
natural is unsound, but because these ancient seekers
into Nature's secrets knew so little, and so frequently
misapplied what they did know. So alchemical
1 Professor Wilhelm Windelband, Ph.D.: "Present-Day Mysticism," The Quest, vol. iv. (1913), p. 205.
6 BYGONE BELIEFS
philosophy arose and became systematised, with its wonderful endeavour to perfect the base metals by the Philosopher's Stone — the concentrated Essence of Nature, — as man's soul is perfected through the life-giving power of Jesus Christ.
I want, in conclusion to these brief introductory remarks, to say a few words concerning phallicism in connection with my topic. For some " tender- minded " 1 and, to my thought, obscure, reason the subject is tabooed. Even the British Museum does not include works on phallicism in its catalogue, and special permission has to be ob- tained to consult them. Yet the subject is of vast importance as concerns the origin and development of religion and philosophy, and the extent of phallic worship may be gathered from the widespread occur- rence of obelisks and similar objects amongst ancient relics. Our own maypole dances may be instanced as one survival of the ancient worship of the male generative principle.
What could be more easy to understand than that, when man first questioned as to the creation of the earth, he should suppose it to have been generated by some process analogous to that which he saw held in the case of man } How else could he account for its origin, if knowledge must proceed from the known to the unknown ? No one questions at all that the worship of the human generative organs as symbols of the dual generative principle of Nature degenerated into orgies of the most frightful charac- ter, but the view of Nature which thus degenerated
^ I here use the term with the extended meaning Mr H. G. Wells has given to it. See The New Machiavelli.
MEDIAEVAL THOUGHT 7
is not, I think, an altogether unsound one, and very interesting remnants of it are to be found in mediaeval philosophy.
These remnants are very marked in alchemy. The metals, as I have suggested, are there regarded as types of man ; hence they are produced from seed, through the combination of male and female prin- ciples— mercury and sulphur, which on the spiritual plane are intelligence and love. The same is true of that Stone which is perfect Man. As Bernard of Tr^visan ( 1 406-1 490) wrote in the fifteenth century : ** This Stone then is compounded of a Body and Spirit, or of a volatile and fixed Substance, and that is therefore done, because nothing in the World can be generated and brought to light without these two Substances, to wit, a Male and Female : From whence it appeareth, that although these two Sub- stances are not of one and the same species, yet one Stone doth thence arise, and although they appear and are said to be two Substances, yet in truth it is but one, to wit, Argent-Vive^^ No doubt this sounds fantastic ; but with all their seeming in- tellectual follies these old thinkers were no fools. The fact of sex is the most fundamental fact of the universe, and is a spiritual and physical as well as a physiological fact. I shall deal with the subject as concerns the speculations of the alchemists in some detail in a later excursion.
^ Bernard, Earl of Tr^visan : A Treatise of the Philo- sopher's Stone, 1683. (See Collectanea Chymica : A Collection of Ten Several Treatises in Chemistry, 1684, p. 91.)
II
PYTHAGORAS AND HIS PHILOSOPHY
It is a matter for enduring regret that so little is known to us concerning Pythagoras. What little we do know serves but to enhance for us the interest of the man and his philosophy, to make him, in many ways, the most attractive of Greek thinkers ; and, basing our estimate on the extent of his influence on the thought of succeeding ages, we recognise in him one of the world's master-minds.
Pythagoras was born about 582 B.C. at Samos, one of the Grecian isles. In his youth he came in contact with Thales — the Father of Geometry, as he is well called, — and though he did not become a member of Thales' school, his contact with the latter no doubt helped to turn his mind towards the study of geometry. This interest found the right ground for its development in Egypt, which he visited when still young. Egypt is generally regarded as the birthplace of geometry, the subject having, it is supposed, been forced on the minds of the Egyptians by the necessity of fixing the bour^aries of lands against the annual overflowing of the\Nile. But the Egyptians were what is called an essentially practical
8
PYTHAGORAS AND HIS PHILOSOPHY 9
people, and their geometrical knowledge did not extend beyond a few empirical rules useful for fixing these boundaries and in constructing their temples. Striking evidence of this fact is supplied by the Ahmes papyrus, compiled some little time before 1700 B.C. from an older work dating from about 3400 B.c.,^ a papyrus which almost certainly represents the highest mathematical knowledge reached by the Egyptians of that day. Geometry is treated very super- ficially and as of subsidiary interest to arithmetic ; there is no ordered series of reasoned geometrical propositions given — nothing, indeed, beyond isolated rules, and of these some are wanting in accuracy.
One geometrical fact known to the Egyptians was that if a triangle be constructed having its sides 3, 4, and 5 units long respectively, then the angle opposite the longest side is exactly a right angle ; and the Egyptian builders used this rule for constructing walls perpendicular to each other, employing a cord graduated in the required manner. The Greek mind was not, however, satisfied with the bald state- ment of mere facts — it cared little for practical appli- cations, but sought above all for the underlying reason of everything. Nowadays we are beginning to realise that the results achieved by this type of mind, the general laws of Nature's behaviour formu- lated by its endeavours, are frequently of immense practical importance — of far more importance than the mere rules-of-thumb beyond which so-called
^ See August Eisenlohr: Ein mathematisches Handbuch der alien Aegypter (1877) ; J. Gow : A Short History of Greek Mathematics (1884) ; and V. E. Johnson : Egyptian Science from the Monuments and Ancient Books (1891).
lo BYGONE BELIEFS
practical minds never advance. The classic example of the utility of seemingly useless knowledge is afforded by Sir William Hamilton's discovery, or, rather, invention of Quarternions, but no better example of the utilitarian triumph of the theoretical over the so-called practical mind can be adduced than that afforded by Pythagoras. Given this rule for constructing a right angle, about whose reason the Egyptian who used it never bothered himself, and the mind of Pythagoras, searching for its full significance, made that gigantic geometrical discovery which is to this day known as the Theorem of Pythagoras — the law that in every right-angled triangle the square on the side opposite the right angle is equal in area to the sum of the squares on the other two sides. ^ The importance of this discovery can hardly be overestimated. It is of fundamental importance in most branches of geometry, and the basis of the whole of trigonometry — ^the special branch of geometry that deals with the practical mensuration of triangles. Euclid devoted the whole of the first book of his Elements of Geometry to establishing the truth of this theorem ; how Pythagoras demon- strated it we unfortunately do not know.
1 Fig. 3 affords an interesting practical demonstration of the truth of this theorem. If the reader will copy this figure, cut out the squares on the two shorter sides of the triangle and divide them along the lines AD, BE, EF, he will find that the five pieces so obtained can be made exactly to fit the square on the longest side as shown by the dotted lines. The size and shape of the triangle ABC, so long as it has a right angle at C, is immaterial. The lines AD, BE are obtained by continuing the sides of the square on the side AB, i.e. the side opposite the right angle, and EF is drawn at right angles to BE.
To face p. lo.
PLATE 3.
Fig. 3. Diagram to illustrate the Theorem of Pythagoras.
PYTHAGORAS AND HIS PHILOSOPHY ii
After absorbing what knowledge was to be gained in Egypt, Pythagoras journeyed to Babylon, where he probably came into contact with even greater traditions and more potent influences and sources of knowledge than in Egypt, for there is reason for j believing that the ancient Chaldeans were the builders 1 of the Pyramids and in many ways the intellectual superiors of the Egyptians.
At last, after having travelled still further East, probably as far as India, Pythagoras returned to his birthplace to teach the men of his native land the knowledge he had gained. But Crgesus was tyrant over Samos, and so oppressive was his rule that none had leisure in which to learn. Not a student came to Pythagoras, until, in despair, so the story runs, he offered to pay an artisan if he would but learn geometry. The man accepted, and later, when Pythagoras pretended inability any longer to con- tinue the payments, he offered, so fascinating did he find the subject, to pay his teacher instead if the lessons might only be continued. Pythagoras no doubt was much gratified at this ; and the motto he adopted for his great Brotherhood, of which we shall make the acquaintance in a moment, was in all likeli- hood based on this event. It ran, ** Honour a figure and a step^ before a figure and a tribolus " ; or, as a freer translation renders it : —
" A figure and a step onward : Not a figure and a florin."
*' At all events,'' as Mr Frankland remarks, " the j motto is a lasting witness to a very singular devotion to knowledge for its own sake." ^ 1 W. B. Frankland, M.A. : The Story of Euclid (1902), p. 33.
12 BYGONE BELIEFS
But Pythagoras needed a greater audience than one man, however enthusiastic a pupil he might be, and he left Samos for Southern Italy, the rich in- habitants of whose cities had both the leisure and inclination to study. Delphi, far-famed for its Oracles, was visited en route, and Pythagoras, after a sojourn at Tarentum, settled at Croton, where he gathered about him a great band of pupils, mainly young people of the aristocratic class. By consent of the Senate of Croton, he formed out of these a great philosophical brotherhood, whose members lived apart from the ordinary people, forming, as it were, a separate community. They were bound to Pythagoras by the closest ties of admiration and reverence, and, for years after his death, discoveries made by Pythagoreans were invariably attributed to the Master, a fact which makes it very difficult ex- actly to gauge the extent of Pythagoras' own know- ledge and achievements. The regime of the Brother- hood, or Pythagorean Order, was a strict one, entail- ing " high thinking and low living " at all times. A restricted diet, the exact nature of which is in dispute, was observed by all members, and long periods of silence, as conducive to deep thinking, were imposed on novices. Women were admitted to the Order, and Pythagoras' asceticism did not prohibit ro- mance, for we read that one of his fair pupils won her way to his heart, and, declaring her affection for him, found it reciprocated and became his wife.
ScHURE writes : *' By his marriage with Theano, Pythagoras affixed the seal of realization to his work. The union and fusion of the two lives was complete. One day when the master's wife was asked what
PYTHAGORAS AND HIS PHILOSOPHY 13
length of time elapsed before a woman could become pure after intercourse with a man, she replied : ' If it is with her husband, she is pure all the time ; if with another man, she is never pure.' " '' Many women," adds the writer, *' would smilingly remark that to give such a reply one must be the wife of Pytha- goras, and love him as Theano did. And they would be in the right, for it is not marriage that sanctifies love, it is love which justifies marriage." ^
Pythagoras was not merely a mathematician : he was first and foremost a philosopher, whose philo- sophy found in number the basis of all things, be- cause number, for him, alone possessed stability of relationship. As I have remarked on a former occa- sion, *' The theory that the Cosmos has its origin and explanation in Number ... is one for which it is not difficult to account if we take into considera- tion the nature of the times in which it was formu- lated. The Greek of the period, looking upon Nature, beheld no picture of harmony, uniformity and fundamental unity. The outer world appeared to him rather as a discordant chaos, the mere sport and plaything of the gods. The theory of the uni- formity of Nature — that Nature is ever like to herself — the very essence of the modern scientific spirit, had yet to be born of years of unwearied labour and un- ceasing delving into Nature's innermost secrets. Only in Mathematics — in the properties of geometri- cal figures, and of numbers — was the reign of law, the principle of harmony, perceivable. Even at this present day when the marvellous has become com-
^ Edouard Schure : Pythagoras and the Delphic Mysteries, trans, by F. Rothwell, B.A. (1906), pp. 164 and 165.
14 BYGONE BELIEFS
monplace, that property of right-angled triangles . . . already discussed . . . comes to the mind as a re- markable and notable fact : it must have seemed a stupendous marvel to its discoverer, to whom, it appears, the regular alternation of the odd and even numbers, a fact so obvious to us that we are inclined to attach no importance to it, seemed, itself, to be some- thing wonderful. Here in Geometry and Arithmetic, here was order and harmony unsurpassed and un- surpassable. What wonder then that Pythagoras concluded that the solution of the mighty riddle of the Universe was contained in the mysteries of Geometry ? What wonder that he read mystic mean- ings into the laws of Arithmetic, and believed Number to be the explanation and origin of all that is ? '* ^
No doubt the Pythagorean theory suffers from a defect similar to that of the Kabalistic doctrine, which, starting from the fact that all words are composed of letters, representing the primary sounds of language, maintained that all the things represented by these words were created by God by means of the twenty- two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. But at the same time the Pythagorean theory certainly embodies a considerable element of truth. Modern science demonstrates nothing more clearly than the impor- tance of numerical relationships. Indeed, '' the history of science shows us the gradual transforma- tion of crude facts of experience into increasingly exact generalisations by the application to them of mathematics. The enormous advances that have been made in recent years in physics and chemistry are very largely due to mathematical methods of
1 A Mathematical Theory of Spirit (1912), pp. 64-65.
PYTHAGORAS AND HIS PHILOSOPHY 15
interpreting and co-ordinating facts experimentally revealed, whereby further experiments have been suggested, the results of which have themselves been mathematically interpreted. Both physics and chemistry, especially the former, are now highly mathematical. In the biological sciences and especi- ally in psychology it is true that mathematical methods are, as yet, not so largely employed. But these sciences are far less highly developed, far less exact and systematic, that is to say, far less scientific, at present, than is either physics or chemistry. How- ever, the application of statistical methods promises good results, and there are not wanting generalisa- tions already arrived at which are expressible mathe- matically ; Weber's Law in psychology, and the law concerning the arrangement of the leaves about the stems of plants in biology, may be instanced as cases in point." ^
The Pythagorean doctrine of the Cosmos, in its most reasonable form, however, is confronted with one great difficulty which it seems incapable of overcoming, namely, that of cpjitinuity. Modern science, with its atomiclheories of matter and electri- city, does, indeed, show us that the apparent con- tinuity of material things is spurious, that all material things consist of discrete particles, and are hence measurable in numerical terms. But modern science is also obliged to postulate an ether behind
1 Quoted from a, lecture by the present writer on " The Law of Correspondences Mathematically Considered/' delivered before The Theological and Philosophical Society on 26th April 1912, and published in Morning Light, vol. xxxv. (1912), p. 434 et seq.
i6 BYGONE BELIEFS
these atoms, an ether which is wholly continuous, and hence transcends the domain of number .^ It is true that, in quite recent times, a certain school of thought has argued that the ether is also atomic in constitution — that all things, indeed, have a grained structure, even forces being made up of a large number of quantums or indivisible units of force. But this view has not gained general acceptance, and it seems to necessitate the postulation of an ether beyond the ether, filling the interspaces between its atoms, to obviate the difficulty of conceiving of action at a distance.
According to Bergson, life — the reality that can only be lived, not understood — is absolutely con- tinuous (i.e. not amenable to numerical treatment). It is because life is absolutely continuous that we cannot, he says, understand it ; for reason acts discontinuously, grasping only, so to speak, a cine- matographic view of life, made up of an immense number of instantaneous glimpses. All that passes between the glimpses is lost, and so the true whole, reason can never synthesise from that which it possesses. On the other hand, one might also argue — extending, in a way, the teaching of the physical sciences of the period between the postulation of Dalton's atomic theory and the discovery of the significance of the ether of space — that reality is essentially discontinuous, our idea that it is continuous being a mere illusion arising from the coarseness of our senses. That might provide a complete vindi-
^ Cf. chap, iii., " On Nature as tlie Embodiment of Number," of my A Mathematical Theory of Spirit, to which reference has already been made.
PYTHAGORAS AND HIS PHILOSOPHY 17
cation of the Pythagorean view ; but a better vindica- tion, if not of that theory, at any rate of Pythagoras' philosophical attitude, is forthcoming, I think, in the fact that modern mathematics has transcended the shackles of number, and has enlarged her kingdom, so as to include quantities other than numerical. Pythagoras, had he been born in these latter cen- turies, would surely have rejoiced in this enlarge- ment, whereby the continuous as well as the dis- continuous is brought, if not under the rule of number, under the rule of mathematics indeed.
Pythagoras' foremost achievement in mathe- matics I have already mentioned. Another notable piece of work in the same department was the dis- covery of a method of constructing a parallelogram having a side equal to a given line, an angle equal to a given angle, and its area equal to that of a given triangle. Pythagoras is said to have celebrated this discovery by the sacrifice of a whole ox. The problem appears in the first book of Euclid's Elements of Geometry as proposition 44. In fact, many of the propositions of Euclid's first, second, fourth, and sixth books were worked out by Pytha- goras and the Pythagoreans ; but, curiously enough, they seem greatly to have neglected the geometry of the circle.
The symmetrical solids were regarded by Pytha- goras, and by the Greek thinkers after him, as of the greatest importance. To be perfectly symmetrical or regular, a solid must have an equal number of faces meeting at each of its angles, and these faces must be equal regular polygons, i.e. figures whose sides and angles are all equal. Pythagoras, perhaps,
i8 BYGONE BELIEFS
may be credited with the great discovery that there are only five such soHds. These are as follows : —
The Tetrahedron, having four equilateral triangles as faces.
The Cube, having six squares as faces.
The Octahedron, having eight equilateral triangles as faces.
The Dodecahedron, having twelve regular penta- gons (or five-sided figures) as faces.
The Icosahedron, having twenty equilateral tri- angles as faces. 1
Now, the Greeks believed the world to be com- posed of four elements — earth, air, fire, water, — and to the Greek mind the conclusion was inevitable^ that the shapes of the particles of the elements were those of the regular solids. Earth-particles were cubical, the cube being the regular solid possessed of greatest stability ; fire-particles were tetrahedral, the tetrahedron being the simplest and, hence, lightest solid. Water-particles were icosahedral for exactly the reverse reason, whilst air-particles, as intermediate between the two latter, were octahedral. The dodecahedron was, to these ancient mathe- maticians, the most mysterious of the solids : it was by far the most difficult to construct, the accurate drawing of the regular pentagon necessitating a rather
1 If the reader will copy figs. 4 to 8 on cardboard or stiff paper, bend each along the dotted lines so as to form a solid, fastening together the free edges with gummed paper, he will be in possession of models of the five solids in question.
2 Cf. Plato : The Timceus, §§ xxviii-xxx.
To face p. i8.
PLATE 4.
Tetrahedron.
Dodecahedron.
Two FIGURES L/KE THE ABOVE MUST BE CUT OUT AND FITTED TOGETHER
Cube.
OCTAHEDRON.
ICOSAHEDRON.
Figs. 4-8. Diagrams for constructing'the Regular (or Platonic) Solids.
PYTHAGORAS AND HIS PHILOSOPHY 19
elaborate application of Pythagoras' great theorem.^ Hence the conclusion, as Plato put it, that ** this [the regular dodecahedron] the Deity employed in tracing the plan of the Universe.'' ^ Hence also the high esteem in which the pentagon was held by the Pythagoreans. By producing each side of this latter figure the five-pointed star (fig. 9), known as
Fig. 9. The Pentagram.
the pentagram, is obtained. This was adopted by the Pythagoreans as the badge of their Society, and for many ages was held as a symbol possessed of magic powers. The mediaeval magicians made use
^ In reference to this matter Frankland remarks : " In those early days the innermost secrets of nature lay in the lap of geometry, and the extraordinary inference follows that Euclid's Elements, which are devoted to the investigation of the regular soHds, are therefore in reality and at bottom an attempt to ' solve the universe/ Euclid, in fact, made this goal of the Pythagoreans the aim of his Elements." — Op. cit., p. 35. * Op, eit„ § xxix.
20 BYGONE BELIEFS
of it in their evocations, and as a talisman it was held in the highest esteem.
Music played an important part in the curriculum of the Pythagorean Brotherhood, and the important discovery that the relations between the notes of musical scales can be expressed by means of numbers is a Pythagorean one. It must have seemed to its discoverer — as, in a sense, it indeed is — a striking confirmation of the numerical theory of the Cosmos. The Pythagoreans held that the positions of the heavenly bodies were governed by similar numerical relations, and that in consequence their motion was productive of celestial music. This concept of " the harmony of the spheres " is among the most cele- brated of the Pythagorean doctrines, and has found ready acceptance in many mystically-speculative minds. " Look how the floor of heaven," says Lorenzo in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice —
"... Look how the floor of heaven Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold : There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st But in his motion like an angel sings. Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins ; Such harmony is in immortal souls ; But whilst this muddy vesture of decay Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it." ^
Or, as KiNGSLEY writes in one of his letters, " When I walk the fields I am oppressed every now and then with an innate feeling that everything I see has a meaning, if I could but understand it. And this feeling of being surrounded with truths which I cannot grasp, amoimts to an indescribable awe some- ^ Act v. scene i.
PYTHAGORAS AND HIS PHILOSOPHY 21
times ! Everything seems to be full of God's reflex, if we could but see it. Oh ! how I have prayed to have the mystery unfolded, at least hereafter. To see, if but for a moment, the whole harmony of the great system ! To hear once the music which the whole universe makes as it performs His bidding ! ''^ In this connection may be mentioned the very signi- ficant fact that the Pythagoreans did not consider the earth, in accordance with current opinion, to be a stationary body, but believed that it and the other planets revolved about a central point, or fire, as they called it.
As concerns Pythagoras' ethical teaching, judging from the so-called Golden Verses attributed to him, and no doubt written by one of his disciples,^ this would appear to be in some respects similar to that of the Stoics who came later, but free from the materialism of the Stoic doctrines. Due regard for oneself is blended with regard for the gods and for other men, the atmosphere of the whole being at once rational and austere. One verse — " Thou shalt like- wise know, according to Justice, that the nature of this Universe is in all things alike " ^ — is of particular interest, as showing Pythagoras' belief in that prin- ciple of analogy — that " What is below is as that which is above, what is above is as that which is below " — ^which held so dominant a sway over the
^ Charles Kingsley : His Letters and Memories of His Life, edited by his wife (1883), p. 28.
2 It seems probable, though not certain, that Pythagoras wrote nothing himself, but taught always by the oral method.
3 Cf the remarks of Hierocles on this verse in his Com- mentary.
22 BYGONE BELIEFS
minds of ancient and mediaeval philosophers, leading them — in spite, I suggest, of its fundamental truth — into so many fantastic errors, as we shall see in future excursions. Metempsychosis was another of the Pythagorean tenets, a fact which is inter- esting in view of the modern revival of this doctrine. Pythagoras, no doubt, derived it from the East, apparently introducing it for the first time to Western thought.
Such, in brief, were the outstanding doctrines of the Pythagorean Brotherhood. Their teachings in- cluded, as we have seen, what may justly be called scientific discoveries of the first importance, as well as doctrines which, though we may feel compelled — perhaps rightly — to regard them as fantastic now, had an immense influence on the thought of succeeding ages, especially on Greek philosophy as represented by Plato and the Neo-Platonists, and the more speculative minds — ^the occult philosophers, shall I say ? — of the latter mediaeval period and suc- ceeding centuries. The Brotherhood, however, was not destined to continue its days in peace. As I have indicated, it was a philosophical, not a political, asso- ciation ; but naturally Pythagoras' philosophy in- cluded political doctrines. At any rate, the Brother- hood acquired a considerable share in the govern- ment of Croton, a fact which was greatly resented by the members of the democratic party, who feared the loss of their rights ; and, urged thereto, it is said, by a rejected applicant for membership of the Order, the mob made an onslaught on the Brotherhood's place of assembly and burnt it to the ground. One account has it that Pythagoras himself died in
PYTHAGORAS AND HIS PHILOSOPHY 23
the conflagration, a sacrifice to the mad fury of the mob. According to another account — and we Uke to beUeve that this is the true one — he escaped to Tarentum, from which he was banished, to find an asylum in Metapontum, where he Uved his last years in peace.
The Pythagorean Order was broken up, but the bonds of brotherhood still existed between its mem- bers. ** One of them who had fallen upon sickness and poverty was kindly taken in by an innkeeper. Before dying he traced a few mysterious signs [the pentagram, no doubt] on the door of the inn and said to the host : * Do not be uneasy, one of my brothers will pay my debts.' A year afterwards, as a stranger was passing by this inn he saw the signs and said to the host : * I am a Pythagorean ; one of my brothers died here ; tell me what I owe you on his account.' " ^
In endeavouring to estimate the worth of Pytha- goras' discoveries and teaching, Mr Frankland writes, with reference to his achievements in geo- metry : ** Even after making a considerable allowance for his pupils' share, the Master's geometrical work calls for much admiration " ; and, "... it cannot be far wrong to suppose that it was Pythagoras' wont to insist upon proofs, and so to secure that rigour which gives to mathematics its honourable position amongst the sciences." And of his work in arithmetic, music, and astronomy, the same author writes : "... every- where he appears to have inaugurated genuinely scientific methods, and to have laid the foundations of a high and liberal education " ; adding, " For nearly 1 Edouard ScHURi : Op, cit., p. 174.
24 BYGONE BELIEFS
a score of centuries, to the very close of the Middle Ages, the four Pythagorean subjects of study — arith- i metic, geometry, astronomy, music — were the staple educational course, and were bound together into a fourfold way of knowledge — ^the Quadrivium." ^ With these words of due praise, our present excursion may fittingly close.
1 Op. cit, pp. 35, 37, and 38.
Ill
MEDICINE AND MAGIC
There are few tasks at once so instructive and so fascinating as the tracing of the development of the human mind as manifested in the evolution of scientific and philosophical theories. And this is, perhaps, especially true when, as in the case of medicine, this evolution has followed paths so tortuous, intersected by so many fantastic byways, that one is not infrequently doubtful as to the true road. The history of medicine is at once the history of human wisdom and the history of human credulity and folly, and the romantic element (to use the ex- pression in its popular acceptation) thus introduced, whilst making the subject more entertaining, by no means detracts from its importance considered psychologically.
To whom the honour of having first invented medi- cines is due is unknown, the origins of pharmacy being lost in the twilight of myth. Osiris and Isis, Bacchus, Apollo father of the famous physician iEscuLAPius, and Chiron the Centaur, tutor of the latter, are among the many mythological personages who have been accredited with the invention of
25
26 BYGONE BELIEFS
physic. It is certain that the art of compounding medicines is extraordinarily ancient. There is a papyrus in the British Museum containing medical prescriptions which was written about 1200 B.C. ; and the famous Ebers papyrus, which is devoted to medical matters, is reckoned to date from about the year 1550 B.C. It is interesting to note that in the prescriptions given in this latter papyrus, as seems to have been the case throughout the history of medicine, the principle that the efficacy of a medi- cine is in proportion to its nastiness appears to have been the main idea. Indeed, many old medicines contained ingredients of the most disgusting nature imaginable : a mediaeval remedy known as oil of puppies, made by cutting up two newly-born puppies and boiling them with one pound of live earthworms, may be cited as a comparatively pleasant example of the remedies (?) used in the days when all sorts of excreta were prescribed as medicines. ^
Presumably the oldest theory concerning the causa- tion of disease is that which attributes all the ills of mankind to the malignant operations of evil spirits, a theory which someone has rather fancifully sug- gested is not so erroneous after all, if we may be allowed to apply the term " evil spirits " to the microbes of modern bacteriology. Remnants of this theory (which does — shall I say ? — conceal a transcendental truth), that is, in its original form, still survive to the present day in various superstitious customs, whose absurdity does not need emphasising :
^ See the late Mr A. C. Wootton's excellent work. Chronicles of Pharmacy (2 vols, 1910), to which I gladly acknowledge my indebtedness.
To face p. 26. PLATE 5,
5-17! ^-H'^^^^iffi^ '^-'^'^'^^^ •*
i'U',. 10.
Reduced Facsimile of a Page of the Papyrus Ebers.
(By permission of Messrs Macmillan & Co.)
MEDICINE AND MAGIC 27
for example, the use of red flannel by old-fashioned folk with which to tie up sore throats — red having once been supposed to be a colour very angatonistic to evil spirits ; so much so that at one time red cloth hung in the patient's room was much employed as a cure for smallpox !
Medicine and magic have always been closely associated. Indeed, the greatest name in the his- tory of pharmacy is also what is probably the greatest name in the history of magic — ^the reference, of course, being to Paracelsus (1493-1541). Until Paracelsus, partly by his vigorous invective and partly by his remarkable cures of various diseases, demolished the old school of medicine, no one dared contest the authority of Galen {i^o-circa 205) and AviCENNA (980-1037). Galen's theory of disease was largely based upon that of the four humours in man — ^bile, blood, phlegm, and black bile, — which were regarded as related to (but not identical with) the four elements — fire, air, water, and earth, — being supposed to have characters similar to these. Thus, to bile, as to fire, were attributed the properties of hotness and dryness ; to blood and air those of hot- ness and moistness ; to phlegm and water those of coldness and moistness ; and, finally, black bile, like earth, was said to be cold and dry. Galen supposed that an alteration in the due proportion of these humours gives rise to disease, though he did not con- sider this to be its only cause ; thus, cancer, it was thought, might result from an excess of black bile, and rheumatism from an excess of phlegm. Drugs, Galen argued, are of efficiency in the curing of disease, according as they possess one or more of
28 BYGONE BELIEFS
these so-called fundamental properties, hotness, dry- ness, coldness, and moistness, whereby it was con- sidered that an excess of any humour might be counteracted ; moreover, it was further assumed that four degrees of each property exist, and that only those drugs are of use in curing a disease which con- tain the necessary property or properties in the degree proportionate to that in which the opposite humour or humours are in excess in the patient's system.
Paracelsus' views were based upon his theory (un- doubtedly true in a sense) that man is a microcosm, a world in miniature.^ Now, all things material, taught Paracelsus, contain the three principles termed in alchemistic phraseology salt, sulphur, and mercury. This is true, therefore, of man : the healthy body, he argued, is a sort of chemical com- pound in which these three principles are har- moniously blended (as in the Macrocosm) in due proportion, w^hilst disease is due to a preponderance of one principle, fevers, for example, being the result of an excess of sulphur (i.e. the fiery principle), etc. Paracelsus, although his theory was not so different from that of Galen, whose views he denounced, was thus led to seek for chemical remedies, containing these principles in varying proportions ; he was not content with medicinal herbs and minerals in their crude state, but attempted to extract their effective essences ; indeed, he maintained that the preparation of new and better drugs is the chief business of chemistry.
This theory of disease and of the efficacy of drugs
^ See the " Note on the Paracelsian Doctrine of the Microcosm '* below.
To face p. 28.
PLATE 6.
Fig. II.
Paracelsus (aged 24), from a Paintini,' by Scorel (13 17), now in the Louvre Gallery.
MEDICINE AND MAGIC 29
was complicated by many fantastic additions ; ^ thus there is the " Archaeus," a sort of benevolent demon, supposed by Paracelsus to look after all the unconscious functions of the bodily organism, who has to be taken into account. Paracelsus also held the Doctrine of Signatures, according to which the medicinal value of plants and minerals is indicated by their external form, or by some sign impressed upon them by the operation of the stars. A very old example of this belief is to be found in the use of mandrake (whose roots resemble the human form) by the Hebrews and Greeks as a cure for sterility ; or, to give an instance which is still accredited by some, the use of eye-bright {Euphrasia officinalis^ L., a plant with a black pupil-like spot in its corolla) for complaints of the eyes.^ Allied to this doctrine are such beliefs, once held, as that the lungs of foxes are good for bronchial troubles, or that the heart of a lion will endow one with courage ; as Cornelius Agrippa put it, '' It is well known amongst physicians that brain helps the brain, and lungs the lungs." ^ In modern times homoeopathy — according to which
^ The question of Paracelsus' pharmacy is further com- plicated by the fact that this eccentric genius coined many new words (without regard to the principles of etymology) as names for his medicines, and often used the same term to stand for quite different bodies. Some of his disciples main- tained that he must not always be understood in a literal sense, in which probably there is an element of truth. See, for instance, A Golden and Blessed Casket of Nature's Marvels, by Benedictus Figulus (trans, by A. E. Waite, 1893).
'^ See Dr Alfred C. Haddon's Magic and Fetishism (1906),
p. 15.
3 Henry Cornelius Agrippa: Occult Philosophy, bk. i. chap. .XV, (Whitehead's edition, Chicago, 1898, p. 72).
30 BYGONE BELIEFS
a drug is a cure, if administered in small doses, for that disease whose symptoms it produces, if given in large doses to a healthy person — seems to bear some resemblance to these old medical theories concern- ing the curing of like by like. That the system of Hahnemann (1755-1843), the founder of homoeo- pathy, is free from error could be scarcely main- tained, but certain recent discoveries in connection with serum-therapy appear to indicate that the last word has not yet been said on the subject, and the formula " like cures like " may still have another lease of life to run.
To return to Paracelsus, however. It may be thought that his views were not so great an advance on those of Galen ; but whether or not this be the case, his union of chemistry and medicine was of immense benefit to each science, and marked a new era in pharmacy. Even if his theories were highly fantastic, it was he who freed medicine from the shackles of traditionalism, and rendered progress in medical science possible.
I must not conclude these brief notes without some reference to the medical theory of the medicinal efficacy of words. The Ebers papyrus already men- tioned gives various formulas which must be pro- nounced when preparing and when administering a drug ; and there is a draught used by the Eastern Jews as a cure for bronchial complaints prepared by writing certain words on a plate, washing them off with wine, and adding three grains of a citron which has been used at the Tabernacle festival. But enough for our present excursion ; we must hie us back to the modern world, with its alkaloids, serums, and
MEDICINE AND MAGIC 31
anti-toxins — another day we will, perhaps, wander again down the by-paths of Medicinal Magic.
Note on the Paracelsian Doctrine of THE Microcosm
" Man's nature," writes Cornelius Agrippa, " is the most complete Image of the whole Universe ^ ^ This theory, especially connected with the name of Paracelsus, is worthy of more than passing reference; but as the consideration of it leads us from medicine to metaphysics, I have thought it preferable to deal with the subject in a note.
Man, taught the old mystical philosophers, is threefold in nature, consisting of spirit, soul, and body. The Paracelsian mercury, sulphur, and salt were the mineral analogues of these. ** As to the Spirit,'' writes Valentine Weigel (1533-1588), a disciple of Paracelsus, *' we are of God, move in God, and live in God, and are nourished of God. Hence God is in us and we are in God ; God hath put and placed Himself in us, and we are put and placed in God. As to the Soul, we are from the Firmament and Stars, we live and move therein, and are nourished thereof. Hence the Firmament with its astralic virtues and operations is in us, and we in it. The Firmament is put and placed in us, and we are put and placed in the Firmament. As to the Body, we are of the elements, we move and live therein, and are nourished of them : — hence the elements are in us, and we in them. The elements, by the slime, are put and placed in us, and we are
^ H. C. Agrippa: Occult Philosophy, bk. i. chap, xxxiii. (Whitehead's edition, p. iii).
32 BYGONE BELIEFS
put and placed in them." ^ Or, to quote from Para- celsus himself, in his Hermetic Astronomy he writes : " God took the body out of which He built up man from those things which He created from nothingness into something . . . Hence man is now a micro- cosm, or a little world, because he is an extract from all the stars and planets of the whole firmament, from the earth and the elements, and so he is their quint- essence. . . . But between the macrocosm and the microcosm this difference occurs, that the form, image, species, and substance of man are diverse therefrom. In man the earth is flesh, the water is blood, fire is the heat thereof, and air is the balsam. These properties have not been changed but only the substance of the body. So man is man, not a world, yet made from the world, made in the likeness, not of the world, but of God. Yet man comprises in himself all the qualities of the world. . . . His body is from the world, and therefore must be fed and nourished by that world from which he has sprung. ... He has been taken from the earth and from the elements, and therefore, must be nourished by these. . . . Now, man is not only flesh and blood, but there is within the intellect which does not, like the complexion, come from the elements, but from the stars. And the condition of the stars is this, that all the wisdom, intelligence, industry of the animal, and all the arts peculiar to man are contained in them. From the stars man has these same things, and that is called the light of Nature ; in fact, it is
^Valentine Weigel: "Astrology Theologised" : The Spiritual Hermeneutics of Astrology and Holy Writ, ed. by Anna Bonus Kingsford (1886), p. 59.
MEDICINE AND MAGIC 33
whatever man has found by the Hght of Nature. . . . Such, then, is the condition of man, that, out of the great universe he needs both elements and stars, seeing that he himself is constituted in that way." ^ It is not difficult to discern a certain truth in all this, making allowances for modes of thought which are not those of the present day. The Swedish philosopher Swedenborg (1688-1772) reaffirmed the theory in later years ; but, as he points out,^ the reason that man is a microcosm lies deeper than in the facts that his body is of the elements of this earth and is nourished thereby. According to this pro- found thinker, form, spiritually understood, is the expression of use, the uses of things being indicated by their forms. Now, the human form is the highest of all forms, because it subserves the highest of all uses. Hence, both the world of matter and the world of spirit are in the human form, because there is a correspondence in use between man and the Cosmos. We may, therefore, call man as to his body a microcosm, or little world ; as to his soul a micro-uranos, or little heaven. Or we may speak of the macrocosm, or great world, as the Grand Man, and we may say that the Soul of this Grand Man, the self- existent, substantial, and efficient cause of all things, at once immanent within yet transcending all things, is God.
1 The Hermetic and Alchemical Writings of Paracelsus, ed. by A. E. Waite (1894), vol. ii. pp. 289-291.
2 See especially his Divine Love and Wisdom, §§ 251 and 319.
IV
SUPERSTITIONS CONCERNING BIRDS
Amongst the most remarkable of natural occurrences must be included many of the phenomena connected with the behaviour of birds. Undoubtedly numerous species of birds are susceptible to atmospheric changes (of an electrical and barometric nature) too slight to be observed by man's unaided senses ; thus only is to be explained the phenomenon of migration and also the many other peculiarities in the behaviour of birds whereby approaching changes in the weather may be foretold. Probably, also, this fact has much to do with the extraordinary homing instinct of pigeons. But, of course, in the days when meteoro- logical science had yet to be born, no such explanation as this could be known. The ancients observed that birds by their migrations or by other peculiarities in their behaviour prognosticated coming changes in the seasons of the year and other changes con- nected with the weather (such as storms, etc.) ; they saw, too, in the homing instincts of pigeons an apparent exhibition of intelligence exceeding that of man. What more natural, then, for them to attribute
34
SUPERSTITIONS CONCERNING BIRDS 35
foresight to birds, and to suppose that all sorts of coming events (other than those of an atmospheric nature) might be foretold by careful observation of their flight and song ?
Augury — that is, the art of divination by observing the behaviour of birds — was extensively cultivated by the Etrurians and Romans. ^ It is still used, I believe, by the natives of Samoa. The Romans had an official college of augurs, the members of which were originally three patricians. About 300 B.C. the number of patrician augurs was increased by one, and five plebeian augurs were added. Later the number was again increased to fifteen. The object of augury was not so much to foretell the future as to indicate what line of action should be followed, in any given circumstances, by the nation. The augurs were consulted on all matters of importance, and the position of augur was thus one of great consequence. In what appears to be the oldest method, the augur, arrayed in a special costume, and carrying a staff with which to mark out the visible heavens into houses, proceeded to an elevated piece of ground, where a sacrifice was made and a prayer repeated. Then, gazing towards the sky, he waited until a bird appeared. The point in the heavens where it first made its appearance was carefully noted, also the manner and direction of its flight, and the point where it was lost sight of. From these particulars an augury was derived, but, in order to be of effect, it had to be confirmed by a further one.
^ This is not quite an accurate definition, as *' auguries " were also obtained from other animals and from celestial phenomena (e.g. lightning), etc.
36 BYGONE BELIEFS
Auguries were also drawn from the notes of birds, birds being divided by the augurs into two classes : (i) oscineSy ** those which give omens by their note," and (ii) alites, '' those which afford presages by their flight." ^ Another method of augury was performed by the feeding of chickens specially kept for this purpose. This was done just before sunrise by the pullarius or feeder, strict silence being observed. If the birds manifested no desire for their food, the omen was of a most direful nature. On the other hand, if from the greediness of the chickens the grain fell from their beaks and rebounded from the ground, the augury was most favourable. This latter augury was known as tripudium solistimum. " Any fraud practised by the ' pullarius '," writes the Rev. Edward Smedley, " reverted to his own head. Of this we have a memorable instance in the great battle be- tween Papirius Cursor and the Samnites in the year of Rome 459. So anxious were the troops for battle, that the ' pullarius ' dared to announce to the consul a * tripudium solistimum,' although the chickens refused to eat. Papirius unhesitatingly gave the signal for fight, when his son, having discovered the false augury, hastened to communicate it to his father.
* Do thy part well,' was his reply, ' and let the deceit of the augur fall on himself. The ** tripudium " has been announced to me, and no omen could be better for the Roman army and people ! ' As the troops advanced, a javelin thrown at random struck the
* pullarius ' dead. ' The hand of heaven is in the
battle,' cried Papirius ; ' the guilty is punished ! '
1 Pliny : Natural History, bk. x. chap. xxii. (Bostock and Riley's trans.,^vol. ii., 1855, p. 495).
SUPERSTITIONS CONCERNING BIRDS 37
and he advanced and conquered/' ^ A coincidence of this sort, if it really occurred, would very greatly strengthen the popular belief in auguries.
The cock has always been reckoned a bird possessed of magic power. At its crowing, we are told, all un- quiet spirits who roam the earth depart to their dismal abodes, and the orgies of the Witches' Sabbath termi- nate. A cock is the favourite sacrifice offered to evil spirits in Ceylon and elsewhere. Alectromancy ^ was an ancient and peculiarly senseless method of divination (so called) in which a cock was employed. The bird had to be young and quite white. Its feet were cut off and crammed down its throat with a piece of parchment on which were written certain Hebrew words. The cock, after the repetition of a prayer by the operator, was placed in a circle divided into parts corresponding to the letters of the alphabet, in each of which a grain of wheat was placed. A certain psalm was recited, and then the letters were noted from which the cock picked up the grains, a fresh grain being put down for each one picked up. These letters, properly arranged, were said to give the answer to the inquiry for which divination was made. I am not sure what one was supposed to do if, as seems likely, the cock refused to act in the required manner.
The owl was reckoned a bird of evil omen with the Romans, who derived this opinion from the
^ Rev. Edward Smedley, M.A. : The Occult Sciences (Encyclopedia Metropolitana), ed. by Elihu Rich (1855),
p. 144.
* Cf. Arthur Edward WArrE : The Occult Sciences (1891), pp. 124 and 125.
38 BYGONE BELIEFS
Etrurians, along with much else of their so-called science of augury. It was particularly dreaded if seen in a city, or, indeed, anywhere by day. Pliny (Caius PHnius Secundus, a.d. 6i-before 115) informs us that on one occasion " a horned owl entered the very sanctuary of the Capitol ; ... in consequence of which, Rome was purified on the nones of March in that year." ^
The folk-lore of the British Isles abounds with quaint beliefs and stories concerning birds. There is a charming Welsh legend concerning the robin y which the Rev. T. F. T. Dyer quotes from Notes and Queries : — '' Far, far away, is a land of woe, darkness, spirits of evil, and fire. Day by day does this little bird bear in his bill a drop of water to quench the flame. So near the burning stream does he fly, that his dear little feathers are scorched ; and hence he is named Brou-rhuddyn (Breast-burnt). To serve little children, the robin dares approach the infernal pit. No good child will hurt the devoted benefactor of man. The robin returns from the land of fire, and therefore he feels the cold of winter far more than his brother birds. He shivers in the brumal blast ; hungry, he chirps before your door." ^
Another legend accounts for the robin's red breast by supposing this bird to have tried to pluck a thorn from the crown encircling the brow of the crucified Christ, in order to alleviate His sufferings. No doubt it is on account of these legends that it is considered a
^ Pliny : Natural History, bk. x. chap. xvi. (Bostock and Riley's trans., vol. ii., 1855, p. 492).
2 T. F. Thiselton Dyer, M.A. : English Folk-Lore {1878), pp. 65 and 66.
SUPERSTITIONS CONCERNING BIRDS 39
crime, which will be punished with great misfortune, to kill a robin. In some places the same prohibition extends to the wren, which is popularly believed to be the wife of the robin. In other parts, however, the wren is (or at least was) cruelly hunted on certain days. In the Isle of Man the wren-hunt took place on Christmas Eve and St Stephen's Day, and is accounted for by a legend concerning an evil fairy who lured many men to destruction, but had to assume the form of a wren to escape punishment at the hands of an ingenious knight-errant.
For several centuries there was prevalent over the whole of civilised Europe a most extraordinary superstition concerning the small Arctic bird resem- bling, but not so large as, the common wild goose, known as the barnacle or bernicle goose. Max Mueller ^ has suggested that this word was really derived from Hibernicula, the name thus referring to Ireland, where the birds were caught ; but common opinion associated the barnacle goose with the shell- fish known as the barnacle (which is found on timber exposed to the sea), supposing that the former was generated out of the latter. Thus in one old medical writer we find : " There are founde in the north parts of Scotland, and the Hands adiacent, called Orchades [Orkney Islands], certain trees, whereon doe growe certaine shell fishes, of a white colour tending to russet ; wherein are conteined little lining creatures : which shells in time of maturitie doe open, and out of them grow those little living things ; which falling
^ See F. Max Mueller's Lectures on the Science of Language (1885), where a very full account of the tradition concerning the origin of the barnacle goose will be found.
40 BYGONE BELIEFS
into the water, doe become foules, whom we call Barnakles . . . but the other that do fall vpon the land, perish and come to nothing : this much by the writings of others, and also from the mouths of the people of those parts. . . ." ^
The writer, however, who was a well-known surgeon and botanist of his day, adds that he had personally examined certain shell-fish from Lan- cashire, and on opening the shells had observed within birds in various stages of development. No doubt he was deceived by some purely superficial resemblances — for example, the feet of the barnacle fish resemble somewhat the feathers of a bird. He gives an imaginative illustration of the barnacle fowl escaping from its shell, which is reproduced in fig. 12.
Turning now from superstitions concerning actual birds to legends of those that are purely mythical, passing reference must be made to the roc, a bird existing in Arabian legend, which we meet in the Arabian Nights, and which is chiefly remarkable for its size and strength.
The phoenix, perhaps, is of more interest. Of ** that famous bird of Arabia," Pliny writes as follows, prefixing his description of it with the cautious remark, ** I am not quite sure that its exist- ence is not all a fable." ** It is said that there is only one in existence in the whole world, and that that one has not been seen very often. We are told that this bird is of the size of an eagle, and has a brilliant golden plumage around the neck, while the rest of the body is of a purple colour ; except the tail,
1 John Gerarde : The Herhall ; or, Generall Historie of Plantes (1597) > ^391.
To face />. 40.
PLATE 7.
o
s

> M
O 1-
0 J:i

en -9 S3
a
SUPERSTITIONS CONCERNING BIRDS 41
which is azure, with long feathers intermingled of a roseate hue ; the throat is adorned with a crest, and the head with a tuft of feathers. The first Roman who described this bird . . . was the senator ManiHus. ... He tells us that no person has ever seen this bird eat, that in Arabia it is looked upon as sacred to the sun, that it lives five hundred and forty years, that when it becomes old it builds a nest of cassia and sprigs of incense, which it fills with perfumes, and then lays its body down upon them to die ; that from its bones and marrow there springs at first a sort of small worm, which in time changes into a little bird ; that the first thing that it does is to perform the obsequies of its predecessor, and to carry the nest entire to the city of the Sun near Panchaia, and there deposit it upon the altar of that divinity.
** The same Manilius states also, that the revolu- tion of the great year is completed with the life of this bird, and that then a new cycle comes round again with the same characteristics as the former one, in the seasons and the appearance of the stars. . . . This bird was brought to Rome in the censor- ship of the Emperor Claudius . . . and was ex- posed to public view. . . . This fact is attested by the public Annals, but there is no one that doubts that it was a fictitious phoenix only."^
The description of the plumage, etc.y of this bird applies fairly well, as Cuvier has pointed out ,2 to
^ Pliny: Natural History, bk. x. chap. ii. (Bostock and Riley's trans., vol. ii., 1855, pp. 479-481).
* See Cuvier's The Animal Kingdom, Griffith's trans., vol. viii. (1829), p. 23.
42 BYGONE BELIEFS
the golden pheasant, and a specimen of the latter may have been the *' fictitious phoenix '' referred to above. That this bird should have been credited with the extraordinary and wholly fabulous pro- perties related by Pliny and others is not, however, easy to understand. The phoenix was frequently used to illustrate the doctrine of the immortality of the soul {e.g. in Clement's First Epistle to the Corinthians), and it is not impossible that originally it was nothing more than a symbol of immortality which in time became to be believed in as a really existing bird. The fact, however, that there was supposed to be only one phoenix, and also that the length of each of its lives coincided with what the ancients termed a ** great year," may indicate that the phoenix was a symbol of cosmological periodicity. On the other hand, some ancient writers {e.g. Tacitus, A.D. 55-120) explicitly refer to the phoenix as a symbol of the sun, and in the minds of the ancients the sun was closely connected with the idea of immortality. Certainly the accounts of the gorgeous colours of the plumage of the phoenix might well be descriptions of the rising sun. It appears, moreover, that the
Egyptian hieroglyphic benu, IL j which is a figure
of a heron or crane (and thus akin to the phoenix), was employed to designate the rising sun.
There are some curious Jewish legends to account for the supposed immortality of the phoenix. Accord- ing to one, it was the sole animal that refused to eat of the forbidden tree when tempted by Eve. Accord- ing to another, its immortality was conferred on it by Noah because of its considerate behaviour in the
SUPERSTITIONS CONCERNING BIRDS 43
Ark, the phoenix not clamouring for food like the other animals. 1
There is a celebrated bird in Chinese tradition, the Fung Hwang , which some sinologues identify with the phoenix of the West.^ According to a com- mentator on the 'Rh Ya, this " felicitous and perfect bird has a cock's head, a snake's neck, a swallow's beak, a tortoise's back, is of five different colours and more than six feet high."
Another account (that in the Lun Yu Tseh Shwai Shing) tells us that " its head resembles heaven, its eye the sun, its back the moon, its wings the wind, its foot the ground, and its tail the woof." Further- more, " its mouth contains commands, its heart is conformable to regulations, its ear is thoroughly acute in hearing, its tongue utters sincerity, its colour is luminous, its comb resembles uprightness, its spur is sharp and curved, its voice is sonorous, and its belly is the treasure of literature." Like the dragon, tortoise, and unicorn, it was considered to be a spiritual creature ; but, unlike the Western phoenix, more than one Fung Hwang was, as I have pointed out, believed to exist. The birds were not always to be seen, but, according to Chinese records, they made their appearance during the reigns of certain
* The existence of such fables as these shows how grossly the real meanings of the Sacred Writings have been misunder- stood.
2 Mr Chas. Gould, B.A., to whose book Mythical Monsters (1886) I am very largely indebted for my account of this bird, and from which I have culled extracts from the Chinese, is not of this opinion. Certainly the fact that we read of Fung Hwangs in the plural, wliilst tradition asserts that there is only one phoenix, seems to point to a difference in origin.
44 BYGONE BELIEFS
sovereigns. The Fung Hwang is regarded by the Chinese as an omen of great happiness and pro- sperity, and its Hkeness is embroidered on the robes of empresses to ensure success. Probably, if the bird is not to be regarded as purely mythological and symbolic in origin, we have in the stories of it no more than exaggerated accounts of some species of pheasant. Japanese literature contains similar stories. Of other fabulous bird-forms mention may be made of the griffin and the harpy. The former was a creature half eagle, half lion, popularly supposed to be the progeny of the union of these two latter. It is described in the so-called Voiage and Travaile of Sir John Maundeville in the following terms ^ : — ** Sum men seyn, that thei han the Body upward, as an Egle, and benethe as a Lyoun : and treuly thei seyn sothe, that thei ben of that schapp. But o Griffoun hathe the body more gret and is more strong
1 The Voiage and Travaile of Sir John Maundeville, Kt. Which treateth of the Way to Hierusalem ; and of Marvayles of Inde, with other Hands and Countryes. Now Published entire from an Original MS. in The Cotton Library (London, 1727), cap. xxvi. pp. 325 and 326.
" This work is mainly a compilation from the writings of William of Boldensele, Friar Odoric of Pordenone, Hetoum of Armenia, Vincent de Beauvais, and other geographers. It is probable that the name John de Mandeville should be regarded as a pseudonym concealing the identity of Jean de Bourgogne, a physician at Liege, mentioned under the name of Joannes ad Barbam in the vulgate Latin version of the Travels." (Note in British Museum Catalogue). The work, which was first published in French during the latter part of the fourteenth century, achieved an immense popularity, the marvels that it relates being readily received by the credulous folk of that and many a succeeding day.
To face p. 44.
PLATE 8.
Fig. 13.
The Fung Hwang, according to the 'Rh Ya, from Gould's Mythical Monsters.
SUPERSTITIONS CONCERNING BIRDS 45
thanne 8 Lyouns, of suche Lyouns as ben o this half ; and more gret and strongere, than an 100 Egles, suche as we han amonges us. For o Griff oun there will here, fleynge to his Nest, a gret Hors, or 2 Oxen zoked to gidere, as thei gon at the Plowghe. For he hathe his Talouns so longe and so large and grete, upon his Feet, as thoughe thei weren Homes of grete Oxen or of Bugles or of Kyzn ; so that men maken Cuppes of hem, to drynken of : and of hire Ribbes and of the Pennes of hire Wenges, men maken Bowes fulle strong, to schote with Arwes and Quarelle." The special characteristic of the griffin was its watch- fulness, its chief function being thought to be that of guarding secret treasure. This characteristic, no doubt, accounts for its frequent use in heraldry as a supporter to the arms. It was sacred to Apollo, the sun-god, whose chariot was, according to early sculptures, drawn by griffins. Pliny, who speaks of it as a bird having long ears and a hooked beak, regarded it as fabulous.
The harpies {i.e, snatchers) in Greek mythology are creatures like vultures as to their bodies, but with the faces of women, and armed with sharp claws.
*' Of Monsters all, most Monstrous this ; no greater Wrath God sends 'mongst Men ; it comes from depth of pitchy Hell: And Virgin's Face, but Womb like Gulf unsatiate hath, Her Hands are griping Claws, her Colour pale and fell." *
We meet with the harpies in the story of Phineus, a son of Agenor, King of Thrace. At the bidding of his jealous wife, Id^^a, daughter of Dardanus,
^ Quoted from Vergil by John Guillim in his A Display of Heraldry (sixth edition, 1724), p. 271.
46 BYGONE BELIEFS
Phineus put out the sight of his children by his former wife, Cleopatra, daughter of Boreas. To punish this cruelty, the gods caused him to become bHnd, and the harpies were sent continually to harass and affright him, and to snatch away his food or defile it by their presence. They were afterwards driven away by his brothers-in-law, Zetes and Calais. It has been suggested that originally the harpies were nothing more than personifications of the swift storm-winds ; and few of the old natural- ists, credulous as they were, regarded them as real creatures, though this cannot be said of all. Some other fabulous bird-forms are to be met with in Greek and Arabian mythologies, etc., but they are not of any particular interest. And it is time for us to conclude our present excursion, and to seek for other byways.
THE POWDER OF SYMPATHY:
A CURIOUS MEDICAL SUPERSTITION
Out of the superstitions of the past the science of the present has gradually evolved. In the Middle Ages, what by courtesy we may term medical science was, as we have seen, little better than a heterogeneous collection of superstitions, and although various reforms were instituted with the passing of time, superstition still continued for long to play a promi- nent part in medical practice.
One of the most curious of these old medical (or perhaps I should say surgical) superstitions was that relating to the Powder of Sympathy, a remedy (?) chiefly remembered in connection with the name of Sir Kenelm Digby (1603-1665), though he was prob- ably not the first to employ it. The Powder itself, which was used as a cure for wounds, was, in fact, nothing else than common vitriol,^ though an im-
1 Green vitriol, ferrous sulphate heptahydrate, a compound of iron, sulphur, and oxygen, crystallised with seven molecules of water, represented by the formula FeSO^ . 7H2O. On ex- posure to the air it loses water, and is gradually converted into basic ferric sulphate. For long, green vitriol was confused with blue vitriol, which generally occurs as an impurity in crude green vitriol. Blue vitriol is copper sulphate penta- hydrate, CUSO4 . 5H2O.
47
48 BYGONE BELIEFS
proved and more elegant form (if one may so describe it) was composed of vitriol desiccated by the sun's rays, mixed with gum tragacanth. It was in the application of the Powder that the remedy w^as peculiar. It was not, as one might expect, applied to the wound itself, but any article that might have blood from the wound upon it was either sprinkled with the Powder or else placed in a basin of water in which the Powder had been dissolved, and main- tained at a temperate heat. Meanwhile, the wound was kept clean and cool.
Sir Kenelm Digby appears to have delivered a discourse dealing with the famous Powder before a learned assembly at Montpellier in France ; at least a work purporting to be a translation of such a dis- course was published in 1658,^ and further editions appeared in 1660 and 1664. Kenelm was a son of the Sir Everard Digby (i 578-1 606) who was executed for his share in the Gunpowder Plot. In spite of this fact, however, James I. appears to have regarded him with favour. He was a man of roman- tic temperament, possessed of charming manners, considerable learning, and even greater credulity. His contemporaries seem to have differed in their opinions concerning him. Evelyn (1620- 1706), the diarist, after inspecting his chemical laboratory, rather harshly speaks of him as " an errant mounte- bank ". Elsewhere he well refers to him as *' a teller
^ A late Discourse . . . by Sir Kenelm Digpy, Kt. &c. Touching the Cure of Wounds by the Powder of Sympathy . . . rendered . . . out of French into English by R. White, Gent. (1658). This is entitled the second edition, but appears to have been the first.
To face ^,48.
PLATE 0.
Sir Kenei.m Dighv
Fig. 15.
from an engraved Portrait after Vandyke.
bv HOUBRAKEN.
THE POWDER OF SYMPATHY 49
of strange things '' — this was on the occasion of Digby's relating a story of a lady who had such an aversion to roses that one laid on her cheek produced a blister !
To return to the Late Discourse : after some pre- liminary remarks, Sir Kenelm records a cure which he claims to have effected by means of the Powder. It appears that James Howell (i 594-1 666, after- wards historiographer royal to Charles H.), had, in the attempt to separate two friends engaged in a duel, received two serious wounds in the hand. To proceed in the writer's own words : — '* It was my chance to be lodged hard by him ; and four or five days after, as I was making myself ready, he [Mr Howell] came to my House, and prayed me to view his wounds ; for I understand, said he, that you have extraordinary remedies upon such occasions, and my Surgeons apprehend some fear, that it may grow to a Gangrene, and so the hand must be cut off. . . .
" I asked him then for any thing that had the blood upon it, so he presently sent for his Garter, where- with his hand was first bound : and having called for a Bason of water, as if I would wash my hands ; I took an handfull of Powder of Vitrol, which I had in my study, and presently dissolved it. As soon as the bloody garter was brought me, I put it within the Bason, observing in the interim what Mr Howel did, who stood talking with a Gentleman in the corner of my Chamber, not regarding at all what I was doing : but he started suddenly, as if he had found some strange alteration in himself; I asked him what he ailed ? I know not what ailes me, but I
4
50 I BYGONE BELIEFS
find that I feel no more pain, methinks that a pleasing kind of freshnesse, as it were a wet cold Napkin did spread over my hand, which hath taken away the inflammation that tormented me before ; I replied, since that you feel already so good an effect of my medicament, I advise you to cast away all your Plaisters, onely keep the wound clean, and in a moderate temper 'twixt heat and cold. This was presently reported to the Duke of Buckingham ^ and a little after to the King [James I.], who were both very curious to know the issue of the businesse, which was, that after dinner I took the garter out of the water, and put it to dry before a great fire ; it was scarce dry, but Mr Howels servant came run- ning [and told me] , that his Master felt as much burn- ing as ever he had done, if not more, for the heat was such, as if his hand were betwixt coales of fire : I answered, that although that had happened at present, yet he should find ease in a short time ; for I knew the reason of this new accident, and I would provide accordingly, for his Master should be free from that inflammation, it may be, before he could possibly return unto him : but in case he found no ease, I wished him to come presently back again, if not he might forbear coming. Thereupon he went, and at the instant I did put again the garter into the water ; thereupon he found his Master without any pain at all. To be brief, there was no sense of pain afterward : but within five or six dayes the wounds were cicatrized, and entirely healed." i
Sir Kenelm proceeds, in this discourse, to relate 1 Ihid., pp. 7-1 1.
To face p. 50.
PLATE 10.
Fig. 16.
James Howell, from an engraved Portrait b}- Claude Melan and Abraham Bosse.
(By permission of the British Mtisetim. Photo by Donald Macbeth, London.)
THE POWDER OF SYMPATHY 51
that he obtained the secret of the Powder from a CarmeHte who had learnt it in the East. Sir Kenelm says that he told it only to King James and his celebrated physician, Sir Theodore Mayerne (1573-1655). The latter disclosed it to the Duke of Mayerne, whose surgeon sold the secret to various persons, until ultimately, as Sir Kenelm remarks, it became known to every country barber. However, Digby's real connection with the Powder has been questioned. In an Appendix to Dr Nathanael Highmore's (1613-1685) The History of Generation, published in 1651, entitled A Discourse of the Cure of Wounds by Sympathy, the Powder is referred to as Sir Gilbert Talbot's Powder; nor does it appear to have been Digby who brought the claims of the Sympathetic Powder before the notice of the then recently-formed Royal Society, although he was a by no means inactive member of the Society. Highmore, however, in the Appendix to the work referred to above, does refer to Digby's reputed cure of Howell's wounds already men- tioned ; and after the publication of Digby's Dis- course the Powder became generally known as Sir Kenelm Digby's Sympathetic Powder. As such it is referred to in an advertisement appended to Wit and Drollery {1661) by the bookseller, Nathanael Brook. ^
^ This advertisement is as follows : " These are to give notice, that Sir Kenelme Digbies Sympathetica! Powder pre- par'd by Promethean fire, curing all green wounds that come within the compass of a Remedy ; and likewise the Tooth-ache infaUibly in a very short time : Is to be had at Mr Nathanael Brook's at the Angel in Cornhil."
52 BYGONE BELIEFS
The belief in cure by sympathy, however, is much older than Digby's or Talbot's Sympathetic Powder. Paracelsus described an ointment consisting essenti- ally of the moss on the skull of a man who had died a violent death, combined with boar's and bear's fat, burnt worms, dried boar's brain, red sandal-wood and mummy, which was used to cure (?) wounds in a similar manner, being applied to the weapon with which the hurt had been inflicted. With reference to this ointment, readers will probably recall the passage in Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel (canto 3, stanza 23), respecting the magical cure of William of Deloraine's wound by '' the Ladye of Branksome " : —
" She drew the splinter from the wound
And with a charm she stanch'd the blood ; She bade the gash be cleans'd and bound :
No longer by his couch she stood ; But she had ta'en the broken lance,
And washed it from the clotted gore
And salved the splinter o'er and o'er. William of Deloraine, in trance,
Whene'er she turned it round and round.
Twisted as if she gall'd his wound. Then to her maidens she did say
That he should be whole man and sound Within the course of a night and day. Full long she toil'd ; for she did rue Mishap to friend so stout and true."
Francis Bacon (1561-1626) writes of sympathetic cures as follows : — " It is constantly Received, and Avouched, that the Anointing of the Weapon^ that maketh the Wound ^ wil heale the Wound it selfe. In this Experiment^ upon the Relation of Men of Credit,
To face p. 52.
PLATE 11.
Fig. 17. Nathanael Highmore, M.D., from an engraved Tortrait by A. Blooteling.
(By permission of the British Museum. Photo by Lonxld Macbeth, London.)
THE POWDER OF SYMPATHY 53
(though my selfe, as yet, am not fully inclined to beleeve it,) you shal note the Points following ; First, the Ointment ... is made of Divers ingredients \ whereof the Strangest and Hardest to come by, are the Mosse upon the Skull of a dead Man, Vnburied ; And the Fats of a Boare, and a Beare, killed in the Act of Generation. These Two last I could easily suspect to be prescribed as a Starting Hole ; That if the Experiment proved not, it mought be pretended, that the Beasts were not killed in due Time ; For as for the Mosse, it is certain there is great Quantity of it in Ireland, upon Slain Bodies, laid on HeapSy Vnburied. The other Ingredients are, the B loud- Stone in Powder, and some other Things, which seeme to have a Vertue to Stanch Bloud; As also the Mosse hath. . . . Secondly, the same kind of Ointment, applied to the Hurt it selfe, worketh not
the Effect ; but onely applied to the Weapon
Fourthly, it may be applied to the Weapon, though the Party Hurt be at a great Distance. Fifthly, it seemeth the Imagination of the Party, to be Cured, is not needfull to Concurre ; For it may be done with- out the knowledge of the Party Wounded ; And thus much hath been tried, that the Ointment (for Experi- ments sake,) hath been wiped off the Weapon, without the knowledge of the Party Hurt, and presently the Party Hurt, hath been in great Rage of Paine, till the Weapon was Reannointed. Sixthly, it is affirmed, that if you cannot get the Weapon, yet if you put an Instrument of Iron, or Wood, resembling the Weapon, into the Wound, whereby it bleedeth, the Annointing of that Instrument will serve, and work the Effect, This I doubt should be a Device, to keep this strange
54 BYGONE BELIEFS
Forme of Curey in Request, and Use ; Because many times you cannot come by the Weapon it selve. Seventhly, the Wound be at first Washed clean with White Wine or the Parties own Water ; And then bound up close in Fine Linen and no more Dressing renewed, till it be wholes ^
Owing to the demand for making this ointment, quite a considerable trade was done in skulls from Ireland upon which moss had grown owing to their exposure to the atmosphere, high prices being obtained for fine specimens.
The idea underlying the belief in the efficacy of sympathetic remedies, namely, that by acting on part of a thing or on a symbol of i!, one thereby acts magically on the whole or the thing symbolised, is the root-idea of all magic, and is of extreme antiquity. DiGBY and others, however, tried to give a natural explanation to the supposed efficacy of the Powder. They argued that particles of the blood would ascend from the bloody cloth or weapon, only coming to rest when they had reached their natural home in the wound from which they had originally issued. These particles would carry with them the more volatile part of the vitriol, which would effect a cure more readily than when combined with the grosser part of the vitriol. In the days when there was hardly any knowledge of chemistry and physics, this theory no doubt bore every semblance of truth. In passing, however, it is interesting to note that Digby's Discourse called forth a reply from J. F.
^ Francis Bacon : Sylva Sylvarmn : or, A Natural History , . . Published after the Authors death . . . The sixt Edition . . . (1651), p. 217.
To face ^.54.
PLATE 12.
Fig. 18.
Francis Bacon, from the Frontispiece to his Sylva Sylvarum (6th edition, 165 1).
THE POWDER OF SYMPATHY 55
Helvetius (or Schweitzer, 1625-1709), physician to the Prince of Orange, who afterwards became celebrated as an alchemist who had achieved the magnum optis.^
Writing of the Sympathetic Powder, Professor De Morgan wittily argues that it must have been quite efficacious. He says : " The directions were to keep the wound clean and cool, and to take care of diet, rubbing the salve on the knife or sword. If we remember the dreadful notions upon drugs which prevailed, both as to quantity and quality, we shall readily see that any way of not dress- ing the wound would have been useful. If the physicians had taken the hint, had been careful of diet, etc., and had poured the little barrels of medicine down the throat of a practicable doll, they would have had their magical cures as well as the surgeons." ^ As Dr Pettigrew has pointed out,^ Nature exhibits very remarkable powers in effecting the healing of wounds by adhesion, when her processes are not impeded. In fact, many cases have been recorded in which noses, ears, and fingers severed from the body have been re-joined thereto, merely by washing the parts, placing them in close continuity, and allowing the natural powers of the body to effect the healing. Moreover, in spite of Bacon's remarks on this point, the effect of the imagination of the patient, who was
1 See my Alchemy : Ancient and Modern (191 1), §§ 63-67.
2 Professor Augustus De Morgan : A Budget of Paradoxes (1872), p. 66.
3 Thomas Joseph Pettigrew, F.R.S. : On Superstitions connected with the History and Practice of Medicine and Surgery (1844), pp. 164-167.
S6 BYGONE BELIEFS
usually not ignorant that a sympathetic cure was to be attempted, must be taken into account ; for, without going to the excesses of *' Christian Science '' in this respect, the fact must be recognised that the state of the mind exercises a powerful effect on the natural forces of the body, and a firm faith is un- doubtedly helpful in effecting the cure of any sort of ill.
VI
THE BELIEF IN TALISMANS
The word " talisman " is derived from the Arabic ** tilsam," '* a magical image," through the plural form " tilsamen/' This Arabic word is itself prob- ably derived from the Greek TeXeor/ma in its late meaning of " a religious mystery " or " consecrated object '\ The term is often employed to designate amulets in general, but, correctly speaking, it has a more restricted and special significance. A talisman may be defined briefly as an astrological or other symbol expressive of the influence and power of one of the planets, engraved on a sympathetic stone or metal (or inscribed on specially prepared parchment) under the auspices of this planet.
Before proceeding to an account of the preparation of talismans proper, it will not be out of place to notice some of the more interesting and curious of other amulets. All sorts of substances have been employed as charms, sometimes of a very unpleasant nature, such as dried toads. Generally, however, amulets consist of stones, herbs, or passages from Sacred Writings written on paper. This latter class are sometimes called '* characts," as an example of which may be mentioned the Jewish phylacteries.
57
58
BYGONE BELIEFS
Every precious stone was supposed to exercise its own peculiar virtue ; for instance, amber was regarded as a good remedy for throat troubles, and agate was thought to preserve from snake-bites. Elihu Rich ^ gives a very full list of stones and their supposed virtues. Each sign of the zodiac was sup- posed to have its own particular stone ^ (as shown in the annexed table), and hence the superstitious though not inartistic custom of wearing one's birth-
Month (com-
Astro-
mencing
Sign of the Zodiac.
logical Symbol.
about the
2ist of preceding month) .
Stone.
Aries, the Ram
T
April
Sardonyx.
Taurus, the Bull
^
May
CorneHan.
Gemini, the Twins
n
June
Topaz.
Cancer, the Crab
OS
July
Chalcedony.
Leo, the Lion .
ft
August
Jasper.
Virgo, the Virgin
^
September
Emerald.
Libra, the Balance
-''^
October
Beryl.
Scorpio, the Scorpior
I 111
November
Amethyst.
Sagittarius, the Arche
r t
December
Hyacinth (= Sapphire).
Capricorn, the Goat
n
January
Chrysoprase.
Aquarius, the Water-
xc
February
Crystal.
bearer
Pisces, the Fishes
K
March
Sapphire (= Lapis lazuli).
1 Elihu Rich: The Occult Sciences {Encyclopoidia Metro- politana, 1855), pp. 348 et seq.
^ With regard to these stones, however, there is much con- fusion and dilierence of opinion. The arrangement adopted in the table here given is that of Cornelius Agrippa {Occult Philosophy, bk. ii.). A comparatively recent work, esteemed
THE BELIEF IN TALISMANS 59
stone for '' luck '\ The belief in the occult powers of certain stones is by no means non-existent at the present day ; for even in these enlightened times there are not wanting those who fear the beautiful opal, and put their faith in the virtues of New Zealand green-stone.
Certain herbs, culled at favourable conjunctions of the planets and worn as amulets, were held to be very efficacious against various diseases. Precious stones and metals were also taken internally for the same
by modem occultists, namely, The Light of Egypt, or the Science of the Soul and the Stars (1889), gives the following scheme : —
T = Amethyst. s[Z5= Emerald. =:i:= Diamond. ]^=Onyx (Chalce- dony).
tt = Agate. £=Ruby. n]^=Topaz. 05= Sapphire (sky- blue).
n= Beryl. nj= Jasper. I' = Carbuncle. K= Chrysolite.
Common superstitious opinion regarding birth-stones, as reflected, for example, in the "lucky birth charms" exhibited in the windows of the jewellers' shops, considerably diverges in this matter from the views of both these authorities. The usual scheme is as follows : —
Jan. =Garnet. May =Emerald. Sept. = Sapphire.
Feb. = Amethyst. June= Agate. Oct. =Opal.
Mar. = Bloodstone. July =Ruby. Nov. =Topaz.
Apr. = Diamond. Aug. = Sardonyx. Dec. = Turquoise.
The bloodstone is frequently assigned either to Aries or Scorpio, owing to its symbolical connection with Mars ; and the opal to Cancer, which in astrology is the constellation of the moon.
Confusion is rendered still worse by the fact that the ancients, whilst in some cases using the same names as ourselves, applied them to different stones ; thus their " hyacinth " is our " sapphire," whilst their "sapphire" is our " lapis lazuli".
6o BYGONE BELIEFS
purpose — " remedies '' which in certain cases must have proved exceedingly harmful. One theory put forward for the supposed medical value of amulets was the Doctrine of Effluvia. This theory supposes the amulets to give off vapours or effluvia which penetrate into the body and effect a cure. It is, of course, true that certain herbs, etc.^ might, under the heat of the body, give off such effluvia, but the theory on the whole is manifestly absurd. The Doctrine of Signatures, which we have already encountered in our excursions,^ may also be mentioned in this con- nection as a complementary and equally untenable hypothesis.
According to Elihu Rich,^ the following were the commonest Egyptian amulets : —
1. Those inscribed with the figure of Serapisy used to preserve against evils inflicted by earth.
2. Figure of CanopuSy against evil by water.
3. Figure of a hawky against evil from the air.
4. Figure of an asp, against evil by fire.
Paracelsus believed there to be much occult virtue in an alloy of the seven chief metals, which he called Electrum. Certain definite proportions of these metals had to be taken, and each was to be added during a favourable conjunction of the planets. From this electrum he supposed that valuable amulets and magic mirrors could be prepared.
A curious and ancient amulet for the cure of
various diseases, particularly the ague, was a triangle
formed of the letters of the word " Abracadabra."
The usual form was that shown in fig. 19, and that
1 See " Medicine and Magic.*' * Op. cit., p. 343.
THE BELIEF IN TALISMANS
6i
shown in fig. 20 was also known. The origin of this magical word is lost in obscurity.
The belief in the horn as a powerful amulet, especially prevalent in Italy, where is it the custom of the common people to make the sign of the mano cornuto to avoid the consequence of the dreaded
ABRACADABRA
ABRACADABR
ABRACADAB
ABRACADA
ABRACAD
ABRACA
ABRAC
ABRA
ABR
AB
A
ABRACADABRA BRACADABRA RACADABRA ACADABRA CADABRA ADABRA DABRA ABRA BRA RA A
Fig. 19.
Fig, 20.
" Abracadabra " Amulets.
jettatore or evil eye, can be traced to the fact that the horn was the symbol of the Goddess of the Moon. Probably the belief in the powers of the horse-shoe ^ had a similar origin. Indeed, it seems likely that not only this, but most other amulets, like talismans proper — as will appear below, — were originally de- signed as appeals to gods and other powerful spiritual beings.
^ See Frederick T. Elworthy's Horns of Honour (1900), especially pp. 56 et seq.
62
BYGONE BELIEFS
To turn our attention, however, to the art of pre- paring taHsmans proper : I may remark at the outset that it was necessary for the taHsman to be prepared by one's own self — a task by no means easy as a rule. Indeed, the right mental attitude of the occultist was insisted upon as essential to the operation.
As to the various signs to be engraven on the talismans, various authorities differ, though there are certain points connected with the art of talismanic magic on which they all agree. It so happened that the ancients were acquainted with seven metals and seven planets (including the sun and moon as planets), and the days of the week are also seven. It was concluded, therefore, that there was some occult con- nection between the planets, metals, and days of the week. Each of the seven days of the week was supposed to be under the auspices of the spirits of one of the planets ; so also was the generation in the womb of Nature of each of the seven chief metals.
In the following table are shown these particulars in detail : —
I.
2.
Planet.
Symbol.
Sun
Moon . Mars . Mercury
0 D
Jupiter
Venus Saturn .
h
Day of Week.
4- Metal.
Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday
Gold Silver Iron ^Mercury
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Tin
Copper
Lead
5- Colour.
Gold or yellow.
Silver or white.
Red.
Mixed colours or
purple. Violet or blue. Turquoise or green. Black.
Used in the form of a solid amalgam for talismans.
THE BELIEF IN TALISMANS 63
Consequently, the metal of which a talisman was to be made, and also the time of its preparation, had to be chosen with due regard to the planet under which it was to be prepared.^ The power of such a talisman was thought to be due to the genie of this planet — a talisman, was, in fact, a silent evocation of an astral spirit. Examples of the belief that a genie can be bound up in an amulet in some way are afforded
1 In this connection a rather surprising discovery made by Mr W. GORN Old (see his A Manual of Occultism, 1911, pp. 7 and 8) must be mentioned. The ancient Chaldeans appear invariably to have enumerated the planets in the following order: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Veniis, Mercury, Moon — which order was adopted by the mediaeval astrologers. Let us commence with the Sun in the above sequence, and write down every third planet ; we then have —
Sun
. Sunday.
Moon
. Monday.
Mars
. Tuesday.
Mercury .
. Wednesday
Jupiter .
. Thursday.
Venus .
. Friday.
Saturn .
. Saturday.
That is to say, we have the planets in the order in which they were supposed to rule over the days of the week. This is, perhaps, not so surprising, because it seems probable that, each day being first divided into twenty-four hours, it was assumed that the planets ruled for one hour in turn, in the order first mentioned above. Each day was then named after the planet which ruled during its first hour. It will be found that if we start with the Sun and write down every twenty-fourth planet, the result is exactly the same as if we write down every third. But Mr Old points out further, doing so by means of a diagram which seems to be rather cumbersome, that if we start with Saturn in the first place, and write down every fifth planet, and then for each planet substitute the
64
BYGONE BELIEFS
by the story of Aladdin's lamp and ring and other stories in the Thousand and One Nights. Sometimes the talismanic signs were engraved on precious stones, sometimes they were inscribed on parchment ; in both cases the same principle held good, the nature of the stone chosen, or the colour of the ink employed, being that in correspondence with the planet under whose auspices the talisman was prepared.
All the instruments employed in the art had to be specially prepared and consecrated. Special rob^s had to be worn, perfumes and incense burnt, and invocations, conjurations, etc.^ recited, all of which depended on the planet ruling the operation. A
metal over which it was supposed to rule, we then have these metals arranged in descending order of atomic weights, thus : —
Saturn .... Lead (=207).
Mercury .... Mercury (=200).
Sun Gold (=197).
Jupiter .... Tin (=119).
Moon .... Silver (=108).
Venus .... Copper (=64). -
Mars Iron (=56).
Similarly we can, starting from any one of these orders, pass to the other two. The fact is a very surprising one, because the ancients could not possibly have been acquainted with the atomic weights of the metals, and, it is important to note, the order of the densities of these metals, which might possibly have been known to them, is by no means the same as the order of their atomic weights. Whether the fact indi- cates a real relationship between the planets and the metals, or whether there is some other explanation, I am not prepared to say. Certainly some explanation is needed : to say that the fact is mere coincidence is unsatisfactory, seeing tha*^ the odds against, not merely this, but any such regularity occurring by chance — as calculated by the mathematical theory of probability — are 119 to i.
THE BELIEF IN TALISMANS 65
description of a few typical talismans in detail will not here be out of place.
In The Key of Solomon the King (translated by S. L. M. Mathers, 1889)^ ^^^ described five, six, or
^ The Clavicula Salomonis, or Key of Solomon the King, con- sists mainly of an elaborate ritual for the evocation of the various planetary spirits, in which process the use of talismans or pentacles plays a prominent part. It is claimed to be a work of white magic, but, inasmuch as it, like other old books making the same claim, gives descriptions of a pentacle for causing ruin, destruction, and death, and another for causing earthquakes — to give only two examples, — the distinction between black and white magic, which we shall no doubt encounter again in later excursions, appears to be somewhat arbitrary.
Regarding the authorship of the work, Mr Mathers, trans- lator and editor of the first printed copy of the book, says, " I see no reason to doubt the tradition which assigns the autl^orship of the * Key ' to King Solomon." If this view be accepted, however, it is abundantly evident that the Key as it stands at present {in which we find S. John quoted, and mention made of SS. Peter and Paul) must have received some considerable alterations and additions at the hands of later editors. But even if we are compelled to assign the Clavicula Salomonis in its present form to the fourteenth or fifteenth century, we must, I think, allow that it was based upon traditions of the past, and, of course, the possibility remains that it might have been based upon some earlier work. With regard to the antiquity of the planetary sigils, Mr Mathers notes '* that, among the Gnostic talismans in the British Museum, there is a ring of copper with the sigils of ^ Venus, which are exactly the same as those given by mediaeval writers on magic."
In spite of the absurdity of its claims, viewed in the light of modern knowledge, the Clavicula Salomonis exercised a con- siderable influence in the past, and is to be regarded as one of the chief sources of mediaeval ceremonial magic. Historically speaking, therefore, it is a book of no little importance.
5
66 BYGONE BELIEFS
seven talismans for each planet. Each of these was supposed to have its own peculiar virtues, and many of them are stated to be of use in the evocation of spirits. The majority of them consist of a central design encircled by a verse of Hebrew Scripture.
Fig. 21. The First Pentacle of the Sun, from Clavicula Salomonis.
The central designs are of a varied character, generally geometrical figures and Hebrew letters or words, or magical characters. Five of these talismans are here portrayed, the first three described differing from the above. The translations of the Hebrew verses, etc., given below are due to Mr Mathers.
The First Pentacle of the Sun, — " The Countenance of Shaddai the Almighty, at Whose aspect all creatures
THE BELIEF IN TALISMANS 67
obey, and the Angelic Spirits do reverence on bended knees." About the face is the name " El Shaddai ". Around is written in Latin : " Behold His face and form by Whom all things were made, and Whom all creatures obey '' (see fig. 21).
Fig. 22. The Fifth Pentacle of Mars, from Clavicula Salomonis.
The Fifth Pentacle of Mars. — " Write thou this Pentacle upon virgin parchment or paper because it is terrible unto the Demons, and at its sight and aspect they will obey thee, for they cannot resist its presence.'' The design is a Scorpion,^ around which the word Hvl is repeated. The Hebrew versicle
^ In astrology the zodiacal sign of the Scorpion is the " night house " of the planet Mars.
68 BYGONE BELIEFS
is from Psalm xci. 13 : " Thou shalt go upon the lion and adder, the young lion and the dragon shalt thou tread under thy feet " (see fig. 22).
The Third Pentacle of the Moon. — '* This being duly borne with thee when upon a journey, if it be
Fig. 23. The Third Pentacle of the Moon, from Clavicula Salomonis.
properly made, serveth against all attacks by night, and against every kind of danger and peril by Water." The design consists of a hand and sleeved forearm (this occurs on three other moon talismans), together with the Hebrew names Aub and Vevaphel. The versicle is from Psalm xl. 13 : 'Be pleased O Ihvh to deliver me,'^0 Ihvh make haste to help me '' (see %• 23).
THE BELIEF IN TALISMANS 69
The Third Pentacle of Venus, — " This, if it be only shown unto any person, serveth to attract love. Its Angel Monachiel should be invoked in the day and hour of Venus, at one o'clock or at eight." The design consists of two triangles joined at their apices,
Fig. 24. The Third Pentacle of Venus, from Clavicula Salomonis.
with the following names — Ihvh, Adonai, Ruach, Achides, i^galmiel, Monachiel, and Degaliel. The versicle is from Genesis i. 28 : " And the Elohim blessed them, and the Elohim said unto them. Be ye fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it '' (see fig. 24).
The Third Pentacle of Mercury. — '* This serves to invoke the Spirits subject unto Mercury ; and
70 BYGONE BELIEFS
especially those who are written in this Pentacle." The design consists of crossed lines and magical characters of Mercury. Around are the names of the angels, Kokaviel, Ghedoriah, Savaniah, and Chokmahiel (see fig. 25).
Fig. 25. The Third Pentacle of Mercury, from Clavicula Salomonis.
Cornelius Agrippa, in his Three Books of Occult Philosophy^ describes another interesting system of talismans. Francis Barrett's Magus, or Celestial Intelligencer, sl well-known occult work published in the first year of the nineteenth century, I may mention, copies Agrippa 's system of talismans, with- out acknowledgment, almost word for word. To each of the planets is assigned a magic square or
THE BELIEF IN TALISMANS 71
table, i.e. a square composed of numbers so arranged that the sum of each row or column is always the same. For example, the table for Mars is as follows : —
II
24
7
20
3
4
12
25
8
16
17
5
13
21
9
10
18
I
14
22
23
6
19
2
15
It will be noticed that every number from i up to the highest possible occurs once, and that no number occurs twice. It will also be seen that the sum of each row and of each column is always 65. Similar squares can be constructed containing any square number of figures, and it is, indeed, by no means surprising that the remarkable properties of such " magic squares," before these were explained mathematically, gave rise to the belief that they had some occult significance and virtue. From the magic squares can be obtained certain numbers which are said to be the numbers of the planets ; their orderliness, we are told, reflects the order of the heavens, and from a consideration of them the magical properties of the planets which they represent can be arrived at. For example, in the above table the number of rows of numbers is 5. The total number of numbers in the table is the square of this number, namely, 25, which is also the greatest number in the table. The sum of any row or column is 65. And, finally, the sum of all the numbers is the product of the number of rows (namely, 5) and the sum of any row (namely, 65), i-e. 325. These numbers, namely, 5, 25, 65, and
72 BYGONE BELIEFS
325, are the numbers of Mars. Sets of numbers for the other planets are obtained in exactly the same manner.^
Now to each planet is assigned an Intelligence or good spirit, and an Evil Spirit or demon ; and the names of these spirits are related to certain of the numbers of the planets. The other numbers are also connected with holy and magical Hebrew names. Agrippa, and Barrett copying him, gives the follow- ing table of *' names answering to the numbers of Mars " :—
5. He, the letter of the holy name. n
25. -rr^
65. Adonai. ^d*tn
325. Graphiel, the Intelligence of Mars. ^N^DNnJi
325. Barzabel, the Spirit of Mars. Snini^ii
Similar tables are given for the other planets. The numbers can be derived from the names by regarding the Hebrew letters of which they are composed as numbers, in which case n (Aleph) to id (Teth) represent the units i to 9 in order, ^ (Jod) to i? (Tzade) the tens 10 to 90 in order, p (Koph) to n (Tau) the hundreds 100 to 400, whilst the hundreds 500 to 900 are represented by special terminal forms of certain of the Hebrew letters.^ It is evident that
^ Readers acquainted with mathematics will notice that if n is the number of rows in such a " magic square," the other numbers derived as above will be w^, ^n{n^-\-i), and ^n^{n^-\-i). This can readily be proved by the laws of arithmetical pro- gressions. Rather similar but more complicated and less uniform " magic squares" are attributed to Paracelsus.
^ It may be noticed that this makes SnIni^II equal to 326, one unit too much. Possibly an Aleph should be omitted.
To face p. 72.
Seal of /Cars
Fig. 26.
®t bis Intelligence
PLATE 13. Qt bid Spirit.
Fig.
Fig. 28.
The Seals^of Mars, his InteUigence, and his Spirit, from Barrett' Magus (1801).
Seal of /liars— tlron.
Fig. 29. The Tahsman of Mars, from Barrett's Magus.
THE BELIEF IN TALISMANS 73
no little wasted ingenuity must have been employed in working all this out.
Each planet has its own seal or signature, as well as the signature of its intelligence and the signature of its demon. These signatures were supposed to represent the characters of the planets' intelligences and demons respectively. The signature of Mars is shown in fig. 26, that of its intelligence in fig. 27, and that of its demon in fig. 28.
These various details were inscribed on the talis- mans— each of which was supposed to confer its own peculiar benefits — as follows : On one side must be engraved the proper magic table and the astrological sign of the planet, together with the highest planetary number, the sacred names corre- sponding to the planet, and the name of the intelli- gence of the planet, but not the name of its demon. On the other side must be engraved the seals of the planet and of its intelligence, and also the astrological sign. Barrett says, regarding the demons : ^ ** It is to be understood that the intelligences are the pre- siding good angels that are set over the planets ; but that the spirits or daemons, with their names, seals, or characters, are never inscribed upon any Talisman, except to execute any evil effect, and that they are subject to the intelligences, or good spirits ; and again, when the spirits and their characters are used, it will be more conducive to the effect to add some divine name appropriate to that effect which we desire." Evil talismans can also be prepared, we are informed, by using a metal antagonistic to the
^ Francis Barrett: The Magus, or Celestial Intelligencer (1801), bk. i. p. 146.
74 BYGONE BELIEFS
signs engraved thereon. The complete taUsman of Mars is shown in fig. 29.
Alphonse Louis Constant/ a famous French occultist of the nineteenth century, who wrote under the name of ** 6liphas Levi/' describes yet another system of talismans. He says : " The Pentagram must be always engraved on one side of the talisman, with a circle for the Sun, a crescent for the Moon, a winged caduceus for Mercury, a sword for Mars, a G for Venus, a crown for Jupiter, and a scythe for Saturn. The other side of the talisman should bear the sign of Solomon, that is, the six-pointed star formed by two interlaced triangles ; in the centre there should be placed a human figure for the sun talismans, a cup for those of the Moon, a dog's head for those of Jupiter, a lion for those of Mars, a dove's for those of Venus, a bull's or goat's for those of Saturn. The names of the seven angels should be added either in Hebrew, Arabic, or magic characters similar to those of the alphabets of Trimethius. The two triangles of Solomon may be replaced by the double cross of Ezekiel's wheels, this being found on a great number of ancient pentacles. All objects of this nature, whether in metals or in precious stones, should be carefully wrapped in silk satchels of a colour analogous to the spirit of the planet, perfumed with the perfumes of the corresponding day, and preserved from all impure looks and touches."^
^LiFHAs L6vi, following Pythagoras and many
* For a biographical and critical account of this extra- ordinary personage and his views, see Mr A. E. Waite's The Mysteries of Magic : a Digest of the Writings of £liphas Levi (1897). ^ Op. cit., p. 204.
To face /?. 74.
PLATE 14.
Fig. 30.
The Pentagram embellished according to ^LIPHAS Livi.
Fig. 31.
The Hexagram, or Seal of Solomon, embellished according to Eliphas L6vi.
THE BELIEF IN TALISMANS 75
of the medigeval magicians, regarded the pentagram, or five-pointed star, as an extremely powerful pentacle. According to him, if with one horn in the ascendant it is the sign of the microcosm — Man. With two horns in the ascendant, however, it is the sign of the Devil, " the accursed Goat of Mendes," and an instrument of black magic. We can, indeed, trace some faint likeness between the pentagram and the outline form of a man, or of a goat's head, accord- ing to whether it has one or two horns in the ascen- dant respectively, which resemblances may account for this idea. Fig. 30 shows the pentagram embel- lished with other symbols according to £liphas Li^vi, whilst fig. 31 shows his embellished form of the six- pointed star, or Seal of Solomon. This, he says, is " the sign of the Macrocosmos, but is less power- ful than the Pentagram, the microcosmic sign,'' thus contradicting Pythagoras, who, as we have seen, regarded the pentagram as the sign of the Macro- cosm. £liphas LiEVi asserts that he attempted the evocation of the spirit of Apollonius of Tyana in London on 24th July 1854, by the aid of a pentagram and other magical apparatus and ritual, apparently with success, if we may believe his word. But he sensibly suggests that probably the apparition which appeared was due to the effect of the ceremonies on his own imagination, and comes to the conclusion that such magical experiments are injurious to health. 1
Magical rings were prepared on the same principle as were talismans. Says Cornelius Agrippa: " The manner of making these kinds of Magical Rings is this, ^ Op. cit., pp. 446-450.
76 BYGONE BELIEFS
viz. : When any Star ascends fortunately, with the fortunate aspect or conjunction of the Moon, we must take a stone and herb that is under that Star, and make a ring of the metal that is suitable to this Star, and in it fasten the stone, putting the herb or root under it— not omitting the inscriptions of images, names, and characters, as also the proper suffumigations. . . ." ^ Solomon's ring was supposed to have been pos- sessed of remarkable occult virtue. Says Josephus {c. A.D. 37-100) : *' God also enabled him [Solomon] to learn that skill which expels demons, which is a science useful and sanative to men. He composed such incantations also by which distempers are alleviated. And he left behind him the manner of using exorcisms, by which they drive away demons, so that they never return ; and this method of cure is of great force unto this day ; for I have seen a certain man of my own country, whose name was Eleazar, releasing people that were demoniacal in the presence of Vespasian, and his sons, and his captains, and the whole multitude of his soldiers. The manner of the cure was this ; he put a ring that had under the seal a root of one of those sorts mentioned by Solomon, to the nostrils of the demoniac, after which he drew out the demon through his nostrils : and when the man fell down immediately, he abjured him to return unto him no more, making still mention of Solomon, and reciting the incantations which he composed." ^
^ H. C. Agrippa: Occult Philosophy, bk. i. chap, xlvii. (Whitehead's edition, pp. 141 and 142).
'^ Flavius Josephus : The Antiquities of the Jews (trans, by W. Whiston), bk. viii. chap, ii., § 5 (45) to (47).
THE BELIEF IN TALISMANS 77
Enough has been said already to indicate the general nature of talismanic magic. No one could maintain otherwise than that much of it is pure nonsense ; but the subject should not, therefore, be dismissed as valueless, or lacking significance. It is past belief that amulets and talismans should have been believed in for so long unless they appeared to be productive of some of the desired results, though these may have been due to forces quite other than those which were supposed to be operative. Indeed, it may be said that there has been no widely held superstition which does not embody some truth, like some small specks of gold hidden in an uninviting mass of quartz. As the poet Blake put it : *' Every- thing possible to be believ'd is an image of truth " ; ^ and the attempt may here be made to extract the gold of truth from the quartz of superstition concern- ing talismanic magic. For this purpose the various theories regarding the supposed efficacy of talismans must be examined.
Two of these theories have already been noted, but the doctrine of effluvia admittedly applied only to a certain class of amulets, and, I think, need not be seriously considered. The *' astral-spirit theory *' (as it may be called), in its ancient form at any rate, is equally untenable to-day. The discoveries of new planets and new metals seem destructive of the belief that there can be any occult connection between planets, metals, and the days of the week, although the curious fact discovered by Mr Old, to which I have referred (footnote, p. 63), assuredly demands an explanation, and a certain validity may, perhaps,
^ " Proverbs of Hell " (The Marriage of Heaven and Hell).
78 BYGONE BELIEFS
be allowed to astrological symbolism. As concerns the belief in the existence of what may be called (although the term is not a very happy one) '' dis- carnate spirits," however, the matter, in view of the modern investigation of spiritistic and other abnormal psychical phenomena, stands in a different position. There can, indeed, be little doubt that very many of the phenomena observed at spiritistic seances come under the category of deliberate fraud, and an even larger number, perhaps, can be explained on the theory of the subconscious self. I think, however, that the evidence goes to show that there is a residuum of phenomena which can only be explained by the operation, in some way, of discarnate intelligences.^ Psychical research may be said to have supplied the modern world with the evidence of the existence of discarnate personalities, and of their operation on the material plane, which the ancient w^orld lacked. But so far as our present subject is concerned, all the evidence obtainable goes to show that the pheno- mena in question only take place in the presence of what is called " a medium '' — a person of peculiar nervous or psychical organisation. That this is the case, moreover, appears to be the general belief of spiritists on the subject. In the sense, then, in which ** a talisman " connotes a material object of such a nature that by its aid the powers of discarnate intel-
^ The publications of The Society for Psychical Research, and Frederick Myers' monumental work on Human Person- ality and its Survival of Bodily Death, should be specially consulted. I have attempted a brief discussion of modern spiritualism and psychical research in my Matter, Spirit, and the Cosmos (1910), chap. ii.
THE BELIEF IN TALISMANS 79
ligences may become operative on material things, we might apply the term ** taHsman '' to the nervous system of a medium : but then that would be the only talisman. Consequently, even if one is prepared to admit the whole of modern spiritistic theory, nothing is thereby gained towards a belief in talismans, and no light is shed upon the subject.
Another theory concerning talismans which com- mended itself to many of the old occult philosophers, Paracelsus for instance, is what may be called the " occult force " theory. This theory assumes the existence of an occult mental force, a force capable of being exerted by the human will, apart from its usual mode of operation by means of the body. It was believed to be possible to concentrate this mental energy and infuse it into some suitable medium, with the production of a talisman, which was thus regarded as a sort of accumulator for mental energy. The theory seems a fantastic one to modern thought, though, in view of the many startling phenomena brought to light by psychical research, it is not advisable to be too positive regarding the limitations of the powers of the human mind. However, I think we shall find the element of truth in the other- wise absurd belief in talismans by means of what may be called, not altogether fancifully perhaps, a transcendental interpretation of this " occult force " theory. I suggest, that is, that when a believer makes a talisman, the transference of the occult energy is ideal, not actual ; that the power, believed to reside in the talisman itself, is the power due to the reflex action of the believer's mind. The power of what transcendentalists call '* the imagination '' cannot be
8o BYGONE BELIEFS
denied ; for example, no one can deny that a man with a firm conviction that such a success will be achieved by him, or such a danger avoided, will be far more likely to gain his desire, other conditions being equal, than one of a pessimistic turn of mind. The mere conviction itself is a factor in success, or a factor in failure, according to its nature ; and it seems likely that herein will be found a true explana- tion of the effects believed to be due to the power of the tahsman.
On the other hand, however, we must beware of the exaggerations into which certain schools of thought have fallen in their estimates of the powers of the imagination. These exaggerations are par- ticularly marked in the views which are held by many nowadays with regard to '' faith-healing," although the ** Christian Scientists '' get out of the difficulty — at least to their own satisfaction — by ascribing their alleged cures to the Power of the Divine Mind, and not to the power of the individual mind.
Of course the real question involved in this *' tran- scendental theory of talismans " as I may, perhaps, call it, is that of the operation of incarnate spirit on the plane of matter. This operation takes place only through the medium of the nervous system, and it has been suggested,^ to avoid any violation of the law of the conservation of energy, that it is effected, not by the transference, as is sometimes supposed, of energy from the spiritual to the material plane, but merely by means of directive control over the ex- penditure of energy derived by the body from purely
1 Cf. Sir Oliver Lodge: Life and Matter (1907), especially chap. ix. ; and W. Hibbert, F.I.C. : Life and Energy (1904).
THE BELIEF IN TALISMANS 8i
physical sources, e.g, the latent chemical energy bound up in the food eaten and the oxygen breathed. I am not sure that this theory really avoids the difficulty which it is intended to obviate ; ^ but it is at least an interesting one, and at any rate there may be modes in which the body, under the directive con- trol of the spirit, may expend energy derived from the material plane, of which we know little or nothing. We have the testimony of many eminent authorities ^ to the phenomenon of the movement of physical objects without contact at spiritistic seances. It seems to me that the introduction of discarnate in- telligences to explain this phenomenon is somewhat gratuitous — the psychic phenomena which yield evidence of the survival of human personality after bodily death are of a different character. For if we suppose this particular phenomenon to be due to discarnate spirits, we must, in view of what has been said concerning ** mediums," conclude that the movements in question are not produced by these spirits directly, but through and by means of the nervous system of the medium present. Evidently, therefore, the means for the production of the phe- nomenon reside in the human nervous system (or, at any rate, in the peculiar nervous system of '' mediums "), and all that is lacking is intelligence
1 The subject is rather too technical to deal with here. I have discussed it elsewhere; see " Thermo-Dynamical Objec- tions to the Mechanical Theory of Life," The Chemical News, vol. cxii. pp. 271 et seq. (3rd December 1915).
2 For instance, the well-known physicist, Sir W. F. Barrett, F.R.S. {late Professor of Experimental Physics in The Royal College of Science for Ireland). See his On the Threshold of a New World of Thought (1908), § 10.
6
82 BYGONE BELIEFS
or initiative to use these means. This intelHgence or initiative can surely be as well supplied by the sub -consciousness as by a discarnate intelligence. Consequently, it does not seem unreasonable to suppose that equally remarkable phenomena may have been produced by the aid of talismans in the days when these were believed in, and may be pro- duced to-day, if one has sufficient faith — that is to say, produced by man when in the peculiar condi- tion of mind brought about by the intense belief in the power of a talisman. And here it should be noted that the term '* talisman '' may be applied to any object (or doctrine) that is believed to possess peculiar power or efficacy. In this fact, I think, is to be found the peculiar danger of erroneous doctrines which promise extraordinary benefits, here and now on the material plane, to such as believe in them. Remarkable results may follow an intense belief in such doctrines, which, whilst having no connection whatever with their accuracy, being proportional only to the intensity with which they are held, cannot do otherwise than confirm the believer in the validity of his beliefs, though these may be in every way highly fantastic and erroneous. Both the Roman Catholic, therefore, and the Buddhist may admit many of the marvels attributed to the relics of each other's saints ; though, in denying that these marvels prove the accuracy of each other's religious doctrines, each should remember that the same is true of his own.
In illustration of the real power of the imagination, I may instance the Maori superstition of the Taboo. According to the Maories, anyone who touches a
THE BELIEF IN TALISMANS 83
tabooed object will assuredly die, the tabooed object being a sort of '* anti-talisman ". Professor Frazer ^ says : *' Cases have been known of Maories dying of sheer fright on learning that they had unwittingly eaten the remains of a chief's dinner or handled something that belonged to him/' since such objects were, ipso facto, tabooed . He gives the following case on good authority : "A woman, having partaken of some fine peaches from a basket, was told that they had come from a tabooed place. Immediately the basket dropped from her hands and she cried out in agony that the atua or godhead of the chief, whose divinity had been thus profaned, would kill her. That happened in the afternoon, and next day by twelve o'clock she was dead." For us the power of the taboo does not exist ; for the Maori, who im- plicitly believes in it, it is a very potent reality, but this power of the taboo resides not in external objects but in his own mind.
Dr Haddon 2 quotes a similar but still more re- markable story of a young Congo negro which very strikingly shows the power of the imagination. The young negro, " being on a journey, lodged at a friend's house ; the latter got a wild hen for his breakfast, and the young man asked if it were a wild hen. His host answered ' No.' Then he fell on heartily, and afterwards proceeded on his journey. After four years these two met together again, and his old friend asked him * if he would eat a wild hen,' to which he answered that it was tabooed to
1 Professor J. G. Frazer, D.C.L. : Psyche's Task (1909), p. 7.
2 Alfred C. Haddon, Sc.D., F.R.S. : Magic and Fetishism (1906), p. 56.
84 BYGONE BELIEFS
him. Hereat the host began immediately to laugh, inquiring of him, * What made him refuse it now, when he had eaten one at his table about four years ago ? ' At the hearing of this the negro immediately fell a-trembling, and suffered himself to be so far possessed with the effects of imagination that he died in less than twenty-four hours after."
There are, of course, many stories about amulets, etc, which cannot be thus explained. For example, Elihu Rich gives the following : —
" In 1568, we are told (Transl. of Salverte, p. 196) that the Prince of Orange condemned a Spanish prisoner to be shot at Juliers. The soldiers tied him to a tree and fired, but he was invulnerable. They then stripped him to see what armour he wore, but they found only an amulet bearing the figure of a lamb (the Agnus Dei, we presume). This was taken from him, and he was then killed by the first shot. De Baros relates that the Portuguese in like manner vainly attempted to destroy a Malay, so long as he wore a bracelet containing a bone set in gold, which rendered him proof against their swords. A similar marvel is related in the travels of the veracious Marco Polo. ' In an attempt of Kublai Khan to make a conquest of the island of Zipangu, a jealousy arose between the two commanders of the expedition, which led to an order for putting the whole garrison to the sword. In obedience to this order, the heads of all were cut off excepting of eight persons, who by the efficacy of a diabolical charm, consisting of a jewel or amulet introduced into the right arm, between the skin and the flesh, were rendered secure from the effects of iron, either to kill or wound. Upon this
THE BELIEF IN TALISMANS 85
discovery being made, they were beaten with a heavy wooden club, and presently died.' " ^ I think, how- ever, that these, and many similar stories, must be taken cum grano salts.
In conclusion, mention must be made of a very in- teresting and suggestive philosophical doctrine — the Law of Correspondences, — due in its explicit form to the Swedish philosopher, who was both scientist and mystic, Emanuel Swedenborg. To deal in any way adequately with this important topic is totally impossible within the confines of the present discussion. 2 But, to put the matter as briefly as possible, it may be said that Swedenborg maintains (and the conclusion, I think, is valid) that all causa- tion is from the spiritual world, physical causation being but secondary, or apparent — that is to say, a mere reflection, as it were, of the true process. He argues from this, thereby supplying a philosophical basis for the unanimous belief of the nature-mystics, that every natural object is the symbol (because the creation) of an idea or spiritual verity in its widest sense. Thus, there are symbols which are inherent in the nature of things, and symbols which are not. The former are genuine, the latter merely artificial. Writing from the transcendental point of view, ^LiPHAS Levi says : ** Ceremonies, vestments, per- fumes, characters and figures being . . . necessary to enlist the imagination in the education of the will, the success of magical works depends upon the faith- ful observance of all the rites, which are in no sense
^ Elihu Rich : The Occult Sciences, p. 346. 2 I may refer the reader to my A Mathematical Theory of Spirit (1912), chap, i., for a more adequate statement.
86 BYGONE BELIEFS
fantastic or arbitrary, having been transmitted to us by antiquity, and permanently subsisting by the essential laws of analogical realisation and of the correspondence which inevitably connects ideas and forms/' ^ Some scepticism, perhaps, may be permitted as to the validity of the latter part of this statement, and the former may be qualified by the proviso that such things are only of value in the right education of the will, if they are, indeed, genuine, and not merely artificial, symbols. But the writer, as I think will be admitted, has grasped the essential point, and, to conclude our excursion, as we began it, with a definition, I will say that the power of the talisman is the power of the mind {or imagination) brought into activity by means of a suitable symbol.
^ fiLiPHAs Levi : Transcendental Magic : its Doctrine and Ritual {trans, by A. E. Waite, 1896), p. 234.
VII
CEREMONIAL MAGIC IN THEORY AND PRACTICE
The word " magic," if one may be permitted to say so, is itself almost magical — magical in its power to conjure up visions in the human mind. For some these are of bloody rites, pacts with the powers of darkness, and the lascivious orgies of the Saturnalia or Witches' Sabbath ; in other minds it has pleasant er associations, serving to transport them from the world of fact to the fairyland of fancy, where the purse of FoRTUNATUS, the lamp and ring of Aladdin, fairies, gnomes, jinn, and innumerable other strange beings flit across the scene in a marvellous kaleido- scope of ever-changing wonders. To the study of the magical beliefs of the past cannot be denied the interest and fascination which the marvellous and wonderful ever has for so many minds, many of whom, perhaps, cannot resist the temptation of thinking that there may be some element of truth in these wonderful stories. But the study has a greater claim to our attention ; for, as I have intimated already, magic represents a phase in the develop- ment of human thought, and the magic of the past
87
88 BYGONE BELIEFS
was the womb from which sprang the science of the present, unUke its parent though it be.
What then is magic ? According to the dictionary definition — and this will serve us for the present — it is the (pretended) art of producing marvellous results by the aid of spiritual beings or arcane spiritual forces. Magic, therefore, is the practical complement of animism. Wherever man has really believed in the existence of a spiritual world, there do we find attempts to enter into communication with that world's inhabitants and to utilise its forces. Pro- fessor Leuba^ and others distinguish between propi- tiative behaviour towards the beings of the spiritual world, as marking the religious attitude, and coercive behaviour towards these beings as characteristic of the magical attitude ; but one form of behaviour merges by insensible degrees into the other, and the distinction (though a useful one) may, for our present purpose, be neglected.
Animism, " the Conception of Spirit everywhere " as Mr Edward Clodd ^ neatly calls it, and perhaps man's earliest view of natural phenomena, persisted in a modified form, as I have pointed out in ** Some Characteristics of Mediaeval Thought," throughout the Middle Ages. A belief in magic persisted like- wise. In the writings of the Greek philosophers of the Neo-Platonic school, in that curious body of esoteric Jewish lore known as the Kabala, and in the works of later occult philosophers such as Agrippa
^ James H. Leuba : The Psychological Origin and the Nature of Religion (1909), chap. ii.
* Edward Clodd: Animism the Seed of Religion (1905), p. 26.
CEREMONIAL MAGIC 89
and Paracelsus, we find magic, or rather the theory upon which magic as an art was based, presented in its most philosophical form. If there is anything of value for modern thought in the theory of magic, here is it to be found ; and it is, I think, indeed to be found, absurd and fantastic though the practices based upon this philosophy, or which this philosophy was thought to substantiate, most certainly are. I shall here endeavour to give a sketch of certain of the outstanding doctrines of magical philosophy, some details concerning the art of magic, more especi- ally as practised in the Middle Ages in Europe, and, finally, an attempt to extract from the former what I consider to be of real worth. We have already wandered down many of the byways of magical belief, and, indeed, the word '' magic " may be made to cover almost every superstition of the past. To what we have already gained on previous excursions the present, I hope, will add what we need in order to take a synthetic view of the whole subject.
In the first place, something must be said concern- ing what is called the Doctrine of Emanations, a theory of prime importance in Neo-Platonic and Kabalistic ontology. According to this theory, everything in the universe owes its existence and virtue to an emana- tion from God, which divine emanation is supposed to descend, step by step (so to speak), through the hierarchies of angels and the stars, down to the things of earth, that which is nearer to the Source con- taining more of the divine nature than that which is relatively distant. As Cornelius Agrippa expresses it : " For God, in the first place is the end and beginning of all Virtues ; he gives the seal of the
90 BYGONE BELIEFS
Ideas to his servants, the Intelligences ; who as faithful officers, sign all things intrusted to them with an Ideal Virtue ; the Heavens and Stars, as instruments, disposing the matter in the mean while for the receiving of those forms which reside in Divine Majesty (as saith Plato in Timeus) and to be conveyed by Stars ; and the Giver of Forms distributes them by the ministry of his Intelligences, which he hath set as Rulers and Controllers over his Works, to w^hom such a power is intrusted to things committed to them that so all Virtues of Stones, Herbs, Metals, and all other things may come from the Intelligences, the Governors. The Form, there- fore, and Virtue of things comes first from the IdeaSy then from the ruling and governing Intelligences, then from the aspects of the Heavens disposing, and lastly from the tempers of the Elements disposed, answering the influences of the Heavens, by which the Elements themselves are ordered, or disposed. These kinds of operations, therefore, are performed in these inferior things by express forms, and in the Heavens by disposing virtues, in Intelligences by mediating rules, in the Original Cause by Ideas and exemplary forms, all which must of necessity agree in the execution of the effect and virtue of every thing.
" There is, therefore, a wonderful virtue and opera- tion in every Herb and Stone, but greater in a Star, beyond which, even from the governing Intelligences everything receiveth and obtains many things for itself, especially from the Supreme Cause, with whom all things do mutually and exactly correspond, agree- ing in an harmonious consent, as it were in hymns
CEREMONIAL MAGIC 91
always praising the highest Maker of all things. . . . There is, therefore, no other cause of the necessity of effects than the connection of all things with the First Cause, and their correspondency with those Divine patterns and eternal Ideas whence every thing hath its determinate and particular place in the exemplary world, from whence it lives and receives its original being : And every virtue of herbs, stones, metals, animals, words and speeches, and all things that are of God, is placed there." ^ As compared with the ex nihilo creationism of orthodox theology, this theory is as light is to darkness. Of course, there is much in Cornelius Agrippa's statement of it which is inacceptable to modern thought ; but these are matters of form merely, and do not affect the doctrine fundamentally. For instance, as a nexus between spirit and matter Agrippa places the stars : modern thought prefers the ether. The theory of emanations may be, and was, as a matter of fact, made the justification of superstitious prac- tices of the grossest absurdity, but on the other hand it may be made the basis of a lofty system of transcendental philosophy, as, for instance, that of Emanuel Swedenborg, whose ontology resembles in some respects that of the Neo-Platonists. Agrippa uses the theory to explain all the marvels which his age accredited, marvels which we know had for the most part no existence outside of man's imagination. I suggest, on the contrary, that the theory is really needed to explain the commonplace, since, in the last analysis, every bit of experience, every pheno-
1 H. C. Agrippa: Occult Philosophy, bk. i., chap. xiii. (Whitehead's edition, pp. 67-68).
92 BYGONE BELIEFS
menon, be it ever so ordinary — indeed the very fact of experience itself, — is most truly marvellous and magical, explicable only in terms of spirit. As Eliphas Levi well says in one of his flashes of in- sight : *' The supernatural is only the natural in an extraordinary grade, or it is the exalted natural ; a miracle is a phenomenon which strikes the multi- tude because it is unexpected ; the astonishing is that which astonishes ; miracles are effects which surprise those who are ignorant of their causes, or assign them causes which are not in proportion to such effects.'' ^ But I am anticipating the sequel.
The doctrine of emanations makes the universe one vast harmonious whole, between whose various parts there is an exact analogy, correspondence, or sympathetic relation. " Nature (the productive prin- ciple)," says Iamblichos (3rd-4th century), the Neo-Platonist, " in her peculiar way, makes a like- ness of invisible principles through symbols in visible forms." ^ The belief that seemingly similar things sympathetically affect one another, and that a similar relation holds good between different things which have been intimately connected with one another as parts within a whole, is a very ancient one. Most primitive peoples are very careful to destroy all their nail-cuttings and hair-clippings, since they believe that a witch gaining possession of these might work them harm. For a similar reason they refuse to reveal their real names, which
1 ^iLiPHAS L6vi : Transcendental Magic, its Doctrine and Ritual (trans, by A. E. Waite, 1896), p. 192.
2 Iamblichos : Theurgia, or the Egyptian Mysteries (trans. by Dr Alex. Wilder, New York, 1911), p. 239.
CEREMONIAL MAGIC 93
they regard as part of themselves, and adopt nick- names for common use. The beHef that a witch can torment an enemy by making an image of his person in clay or wax, correctly naming it, and mutilating it with pins, or, in the case of a waxen image, melting it by fire, is a very ancient one, and was held throughout and beyond the Middle Ages. The Sympathetic Powder of Sir Kenelm Digby we have already noticed, as well as other instances of the belief in ** sympathy,*' and examples of similar superstitions might be multiplied almost indefinitely. Such are generally grouped under the term '* sympa- thetic magic " ; but inasmuch as all magical practices assume that by acting on part of a thing, or a symbolic representation of it, one acts magically on the whole, or on the thing symbolised, the expression may in its broadest sense be said to involve the whole of magic.
The names of the Divine Being, angels and devils, the planets of the solar system (including sun and moon) and the days of the week, birds and beasts, colours, herbs, and precious stones — all, according to old-time occult philosophy, are connected by the sympathetic relation believed to run through all creation, the knowledge of which was essential to the magician ; as well, also, the chief portions of the human body, for man, as we have seen, was believed to be a microcosm — a universe in miniature. I have dealt with this matter and exhibited some of the sup- posed correspondences in " The Belief in Talismans ". Some further particulars are shown in the annexed table, for which I am mainly indebted to Agrippa. But, as in the case of the zodiacal gems already dealt
94
BYGONE BELIEFS
with, the old authorities by no means agree as to the majority of the planetary correspondences.
Table of Occult Correspondences
Arch- angel.
Raphael
Gabriel
Camael
Michael Zadikel
Haniel Zaphkiel
Angel.
Planet.
Part of
Human
Body.
Ani- mal.
Bird.
Swan
Owl
Vulture
Stork Eagle
Dove Hoopoe
Precious Stone.
Michael Gabriel Zamael
Raphael Sachiel
Anael Cassiel
Sun
Moon
Mars
Mercury Jupiter
Venus Saturn
Heart Left foot Right hand Left hand Head
Generative
organs Right foot
Lion
Cat
Wolf
H?rt
Goat Mole
Carbuncle
Crystal
Diamond
Agate
Sapphire (= Lapis lazuU)
Emerald
Onyx
The names of the angels are from Mr Mather's translation of Clavicula Salomonis ; the other correspondences are from the second book of Agrippa's Occult Philosophy, chap. x.
In many cases these supposed correspondences are based, as will be obvious to the reader, upon purely trivial resemblances, and, in any case, whatever may be said — and I think a great deal may be said — in favour of the theory of symbology, there is little that may be adduced to support the old occultists' appli- cation of it.
So essential a part does the use of symbols play in all magical operations that we may, I think, modify the definition of *' magic '' adopted at the outset, and define " magic " as *' an attempt to employ the powers of the spiritual world for the production of marvellous results, by the aid of symbols.'' It has, on the other hand, been questioned whether the appeal to the spirit-world is an essential element in
CEREMONIAL MAGIC 95
magic. But a close examination of magical practices always reveals at the root a belief in spiritual powers as the operating causes. The belief in talismans at first sight seems to have little to do with that in a supernatural realm ; but, as we have seen, the talis- man was always a silent invocation of the powers of some spiritual being with which it was symbolically connected, and whose sign was engraved thereon. And, as Dr T. Witton Davies well remarks with regard to *' sympathetic magic " : ** Even this could not, at the start, be anything other than a symbolic prayer to the spirit or spirits having authority in these matters. In so far as no spirit is thought of, it is a mere survival, and not magic at all. ..." 1
What I regard as the two essentials of magical practices, namely, the use of symbols and the appeal to the supernatural realm, are most obvious in what is called '' ceremonial magic ". Mediaeval cere- monial magic was subdivided into three chief branches — White Magic, Black Magic, and Necro- mancy. White magic was concerned with the evoca- tions of angels, spiritual beings supposed to be essen- tially superior to mankind, concerning which I shall give some further details later — and the spirits of the elements, — which were, as I have mentioned in ** Some Characteristics of Mediaeval Thought," per- sonifications of the primeval forces of Nature. As there were supposed to be four elements, fire, air, water, and earth, so there were supposed to be four classes of elementals or spirits of the elements, namely,
1 Dr T. Witton Davies : Magic, Divination, and Demon- ology among the Hebrews and their Neighbours (1898), p. 17.
96 ' BYGONE BELIEFS
Salamanders, Sylphs, Undines, and Gnomes, inhabit- ing these elements respectively, and deriving their characters therefrom. Concerning these curious beings, the inquisitive reader may gain some infor- mation from a quaint little book, by the Abbe de MoNTFAUCON DE ViLLARS, entitled The Count of Gahalis, or Conferences about Secret Sciences (1670), translated into English and published in 1680, which has recently been reprinted. The elementals, we learn therefrom, were, unlike other supernatural beings, thought to be mortal. They could, how- ever, be rendered immortal by means of sexual intercourse with men or women, as the case might be ; and it was, we are told, to the noble end of endowing them with this great gift, that the sages devoted themselves.
Goety, or black magic, was concerned with the evocation of demons and devils — spirits supposed to be superior to man in certain powers, but utterly depraved. Sorcery may be distinguished from witchcraft, inasmuch as the sorcerer attempted to command evil spirits by the aid of charms, etc., whereas the witch or wizard was supposed to have made a pact with the Evil One ; though both terms have been rather loosely used, " sorcery " being sometimes employed as a synonym for ** necro- mancy ". Necromancy was concerned with the evocation of the spirits of the dead : etymologically, the term stands for the art of foretelling events by means of such evocations, though it is frequently employed in the wider sense.
It would be unnecessary and tedious to give any detailed account of the methods employed in these
CEREMONIAL MAGIC 97
magical arts beyond some general remarks. Mr A. E. Waite gives full particulars of the various rituals in his Book of Ceremonial Magic (191 1), to which the curious reader may be referred. The following will, in brief terms, convey a general idea of a magical evocation : —
Choosing a time when there is a favourable con- junction of the planets, the magician, armed with the implements of magical art, after much prayer and fasting, betakes himself to a suitable spot, alone, or perhaps accompanied by two trusty companions. All the articles he intends to employ, the vestments, the magic sword and lamp, the talismans, the book of spirits, etc., have been specially prepared and consecrated. If he is about to invoke a martial spirit, the magician's vestment will be of a red colour, the talismans in virtue of which he may have power over the spirit will be of iron, the day chosen a Tues- day, and the incense and perfumes employed of a nature analogous to Mars. In a similar manner all the articles employed and the rites performed must in some way be symbolical of the spirit with which converse is desired. Having arrived at the spot, the magician first of all traces the magic circle within which, we are told, no evil spirit can enter ; he then commences the magic rite, involving various prayers and conjurations, a medley of meaningless words, and, in the case of the black art, a sacrifice. The spirit summoned then appears (at least, so we are told), and, after granting the magician's request, is licensed to depart — a matter, we are admonished, of great importance.
The question naturallv arises, What were the
7
98 BYGONE BELIEFS
results obtained by these magical arts ? How far, if at all, was the magician rewarded by the attainment of his desires ? We have asked a similar question regarding the belief in talismans, and the reply which we there gained undoubtedly applies in the present case as well. Modern psychical research, as I have already pointed out, is supplying us with further evidence for the survival of human personality after bodily death than the innate conviction humanity in general seems to have in this belief, and the many reasons which idealistic philosophy advances in favour of it. The question of the reality of the phenomenon of " materialisation,'' that is, the bodily appearance of a discarnate spirit, such as is vouched for by spiritists, and which is what, it appears, was aimed at in necromancy (though why the dis- carnate should be better informed as to the future than the incarnate, I cannot suppose), must be re- garded as sub judice} Many cases of fraud in con- nection with the alleged production of this pheno- menon have been detected in recent times ; but, inasmuch as the last word has not yet been said on the subject, we must allow the possibility that necro- mancy in the past may have been sometimes success- ful. But as to the existence of the angels and devils of magical belief — as well, one might add, of those of orthodox faith, — nothing can be adduced in evi- dence of this either from the results of psychical research or on a priori grounds.
Pseudo-DiONYSius classified the angels into three
1 The late Sir William Crookes' Experimental Researches in the Phenomena of Spiritualism contains evidence in favour of the reaUty of this phenomenon very difficult to gainsay.
V
To face p. 98.
PLATE 15,
Fig. 32. Magical Circle, from The Lesser Key of Solomon the King.
CEREMONIAL MAGIC 99
hierarchies, each subdivided into three orders, as under : —
First Hierarchy. — Seraphim, Cherubim, and
Thrones ; Second Hierarchy, — Dominions, Powers, and
Authorities (or Virtues) ; Third Hierarchy. — PrincipaHties, Archangels, and
Angels, —
and this classification was adopted by Agrippa and others. Pseudo-DiONYSius explains the names of these orders as follows :**... the holy designation of the Seraphim denotes either that they are kindling or burning ; and that of the Cherubim, a fulness of knowledge or stream of wisdom. . . . The appella- tion of the most exalted and pre-eminent Thrones denotes their manifest exaltation above every grovel- ling inferiority, and their super-mundane tendency towards higher things ; . . . and their invariable and firmly-fixed settlement around the veritable Highest, with the whole force of their powers. . . . The explanatory name of the Holy Lordships [Dominions] denotes a certain unslavish elevation . . . superior to every kind of cringing slavery, indomitable to every subserviency, and elevated above every dis- simularity, ever aspiring to the true Lordship and source of Lordship. . . . The appellation of the Holy Powers denotes a certain courageous and un- flinching virility . . . vigorously conducted to the Divine imitation, not forsaking the Godlike move- ment through its own unmanliness, but unflinchingly looking to the super-essential and powerful-making power, and becoming a powerlike image of this, as
loo BYGONE BELIEFS
far as is attainable. . . . The appellation of the Holy Authorities . . . denotes the beautiful and un- confused good order, with regard to Divine receptions, and the discipline of the super-mundane and in- tellectual authority . . . conducted indomitably, with good order towards Divine things. . . . [And the appellation] of the Heavenly Principalities manifests their princely and leading function, after the Divine example. . . ." ^ There is a certain grandeur in these views, and if we may be permitted to under- stand by the orders of the hierarchy, '' discrete " degrees (to use Swedenborg's term) of spiritual reality — stages in spiritual involution, — we may see in them a certain truth as well. As I said, all virtue, power, and knowledge which man has from God was believed to descend to him by way of these angelical hierarchies, step by step ; and thus it was thought that those of the lowest hierarchy alone were sent from heaven to man. It was such beings that white magic pretended to evoke. But the practical occultists, when they did not make them altogether fatuous, attributed to these angels characters not distinguishable from those of the devils. The description of the angels in the Heptameroriy or Magical Elements,^ falsely attributed to Peter de
^ On the Heavenly Hierarchy. See the Rev. John Parker's translation of The Works of Dionysius the Areopagite, vol. ii. (1889), pp. 24, 25, 31, 32, and 36.
2 The book, which first saw the light three centuries after its alleged author's death, was translated into English by Robert Turner, and published in 1655 ^^ 3- volume containing the spurious Fourth Book of Occult Philosophy, attributed to Cornelius Agrippa, and other magical works. It is from this edition that I quote.
CEREMONIAL MAGIC loi
Abano (1250-13 1 6), may be taken as fairly charac- teristic. Of Michael and the other spirits of Sunday he writes : ** Their nature is to procure Gold, Gemmes, Carbuncles, Riches ; to cause one to obtain favour and benevolence ; to dissolve the enmities of men ; to raise men to honors ; to carry or take away infirmities." Of Gabriel and the other spirits of Monday, he says : '' Their nature is to give silver ; to convey things from place to place ; to make horses swift, and to disclose the secrets of persons both present and future." Of Samael and the other spirits of Tuesday he says : ** Their nature is to cause wars, mortality, death and combustions ; and to give two thousand Souldiers at a time ; to bring death, infirmities or health," and so on for Raphael, Sachiel, Anael, Cassiel, and their colleagues.^
Concerning the evil planetary spirits, the spurious Fourth Book of Occult Philosophy, attributed to Cornelius Agrippa, informs us that the spirits of Saturn ** appear for the most part with a tall, lean, and slender body, with an angry countenance, having four faces ; one in the hinder part of the head, one on the former part of the head, and on each side nosed or beaked : there likewise appeareth a face on each knee, of a black shining colour : their motion is the moving of the winde, with a kinde of earth- quake : their signe is white earth, whiter than any Snow." The writer adds that their " particular forms are, —
A King having a beard, riding on a Dragon.
An Old man with a beard.
^ Op. cU„ pp. 90, 92, and 94.
102 BYGONE BELIEFS
An Old woman leaning on a staffe.
A Hog.
A Dragon.
An Owl.
A black Garment.
A Hooke or Sickle.
A Juniper-tree." Concerning the spirits of Jupiter, he says that they " appear with a body sanguine and cholerick, of a middle stature, with a horrible fearful motion ; but with a milde countenance, a gentle speech, and of the colour of Iron. The motion of them is flashings of Lightning and Thunder ; their signe is, there will appear men about the circle, who shall seem to be ^ devoured of Lions,'* their particular forms being —
" A King with a Sword drawn, riding on a Stag.
A Man wearing a Mitre in long rayment.
A Maid with a Laurel-Crown adorned with Flowers.
A Bull.
A Stag.
A Peacock.
An azure Garment.
A Sword.
A Box-tree." As to the Martian spirits, we learn that " they appear in a tall body, cholerick, a filthy countenance, of colour brown, swarthy or red, having horns like Harts horns, and Griphins claws, bellowing like wilde Bulls. Their Motion is like fire burning ; their signe Thunder and Lightning about the Circle. Their particular shapes are, —
A King armed riding upon a Wolf.
To face p. 102.
PLATE 16.
Fig. 33-
Magical Instruments— Lamp. Rod, Sword, and Dagger— according to
Eliphas Levi.
CEREMONIAL MAGIC 103
A Man armed.
A Woman holding a buckler on her thigh.
A Hee-goat.
A Horse.
A Stag.
A red Garment.
Wool.
A Cheeslip." 1 The rest are described in equally fantastic terms.
I do not think I shall be accused of being unduly sceptical if I say that such beings as these could not have been evoked by any magical rites, because such beings do not and did not exist, save in the magician's own imagination. The proviso, however, is impor- tant, for, inasmuch as these fantastic beings did exist in the imagination of the credulous, therein they may, indeed, have been evoked. The whole of magic ritual was well devised to produce halluci- nation. A firm faith in the ritual employed, and a strong effort of will to bring about the desired result, were usually insisted upon as essential to the success of the operation. 2 A period of fasting prior to the experiment was also frequently prescribed as neces-
1 Op. cif., pp. 43-45.
2 " Magical Axiom. In the circle of its action, every word creates that which it affirms.
" Direct Consequence. He who affirms the devil, creates or makes the devil.
" Conditions of Success in Infernal Evocations, i. Invincible obstinacy ; 2, a conscience at once hardened to crime and most subject to remorse and fear; 3, affected or natural ignorance ; 4, blind faith in all that is incredible ; 5, a com- pletely false idea of God." (fiLiPHAS L^vi : Op. cit., pp. 297 and 298.)
104 BYGONE BELIEFS
sary, which, by weakening the body, must have been conducive to hallucination. Furthermore, absten- tion from the gratification of the sexual appetite was stipulated in certain cases, and this, no doubt, had a similar effect, especially as concerns magical evoca- tions directed to the satisfaction of the sexual impulse. Add to these factors the details of the ritual itself, the nocturnal conditions under which it was carried out, and particularly the suffumigations employed, which, most frequently, were of a narcotic nature, and it is not difficult to believe that almost any type of hallucination may have occurred. Such, as we have seen, was ^liphas Levi's view of ceremonial magic ; and whatever may be said as concerns his own experiment therein (for one would have thought that the essential element of faith was lacking in this case), it is undoubtedly the true view as concerns the ceremonial magic of the past. As this author well says : *' Witchcraft, properly so-called, that is ceremonial operation with intent to bewitch, acts only on the operator, and serves to fix and confirm his will, by formulating it with persistence and labour, the two conditions which make volition efficacious.'' ^ Emanuel Swedenborg in one place writes : " Magic is nothing but the perversion of order ; it is especially the abuse of correspondences." ^ A study of the ceremonial magic of the Middle Ages and the following century or two certainly justifies Sweden- borg in writing of magic as something evil. The distinction, rigid enough in theory, between white and black, legitimate and illegitimate, magic, was,
^ ^LiPHAS L6vi : Op. cit., pp. 130 and 131.
2 Emanuel Swedenborg : Arcana Ccelestia, § 6692.
CEREMONIAL MAGIC 105
as I have indicated, extremely indefinite in practice. As Mr A. E. Waite justly remarks : '' Much that passed current in the west as White {i.e. permissible) Magic was only a disguised goeticism, and many of the resplendent angels invoked with divine rites reveal their cloven hoofs. It is not too much to say that a large majority of past psychological experi- ments were conducted to establish communication with demons, and that for unlawful purposes. The popular conceptions concerning the diabolical spheres, which have been all accredited by magic, may have been gross exaggerations of fact concerning rudi- mentary and perverse intelligences, but the wilful viciousness of the communicants is substantially un- touched thereby." ^
These '' psychological experiments " were not, save, perhaps, in rare cases, carried out in the spirit of modern psychical research, with the high aim of the man of science. It was, indeed, far otherwise ; selfish motives were at the root of most of them ; and, apart from what may be termed ** medicinal magic," it was for the satisfaction of greed, lust, revenge, that men and women had recourse to magical arts. The history of goeticism and witchcraft is one of the most horrible of all histories. The " Grimoires," witnesses to the superstitious folly of the past, are full of disgusting, absurd, and even criminal rites for the satisfaction of unlawful desires and passions. The Church was certainly justified in attempting to put down the practice of magic, but the means adopted in this design and the results to
1 Arthur Edward Waite: The Occult Sciences (1891), p. 51.
io6 BYGONE BELIEFS
which they led were even more abominable than witchcraft itself. The methods of detecting witches and the tortures to which suspected persons were subjected to force them to confess to imaginary crimes, employed in so-called civilised England and Scotland and also in America, to say nothing of countries in which the *' Holy " Inquisition held un- disputed sway, are almost too horrible to describe. For details the reader may be referred to Sir Walter Scott's Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft (1830), and (as concerns America) Cotton Mather's The Wonders of the Invisible World (1692). The credu- lous Church and the credulous people were terribly afraid of the power of witchcraft, and, as always, fear destroyed their mental balance and made them totally disregard the demands of justice. The result may be well illustrated by what almost inevitably happens when a country goes to war ; for war, as the Hon. Bertrand Russell has well shown, is fear's offspring. Fear of the enemy causes the military party to perse- cute in an insensate manner, without the least regard to justice, all those of their fellow-men whom they consider are not heart and soul with them in their cause ; similarly the Church relentlessly persecuted its supposed enemies, of whom it was so afraid. No doubt some of the poor wretches that were tortured and killed on the charge of witchcraft really believed themselves to have made a pact with the devil, and were thus morally depraved, though, generally speak- ing, they were no more responsible for their actions than any other madmen. But the majority of the persons persecuted as witches and wizards were innocent even of this.
CEREMONIAL MAGIC 107
However, it would, I think, be unwise to disregard the existence of another side to the question of the vaHdity and ethical value of magic, and to use the word only to stand for something essentially evil. SwEDENBORG, we may note, in the course of a long passage from the work from which I have already quoted, says that by " magic '' is signified " the science of spiritual things ".^ His position appears to be that there is a genuine magic, or science of spiritual things, and a false magic, that science per- verted : a view of the matter which I propose here to adopt. The word ** magic " itself is derived from the Greek " /xayo?,'' the wise man of the East, and hence the strict etymological meaning of the term is " the wisdom or science of the magi " ; and it is, I think, significant that we are told (and I see no reason to doubt the truth of it) that the magi were among the first to worship the new-born Christ. ^
If there be an abuse of correspondences, or symbols, there surely must also be a use, to which the word " magic " is not inapplicable. As such, religious ritual, and especially the sacraments of the Christian Church, will, no doubt, occur to the minds of those who regard these symbols as efiicacious, though they would probably hesitate to apply the term " magical '' to them. But in using this term as applying thereto, I do not wish to suggest that any such rites or cere- monies possess, or can possess, any causal efficacy in the moral evolution of the soul. The will alone, in virtue of the power vouchsafed to it by the Source
1 op. cit., § 5223.
2 See The Gospel according to Matthew, chap, ii., verses I to 12.
io8 BYGONE BELIEFS
of all power, can achieve this ; but I do think that the soul may be assisted by ritual, harmoniously related to the states of mind which it is desired to induce. No doubt there is a danger of religious ritual, especially when its meaning is lost, being engaged in for its own sake. It is then mere super- stition ; ^ and, in view of the danger of this de- generacy, many robust minds, such as the members of the Society of Friends, prefer to dispense with its aid altogether. When ritual is associated with erroneous doctrines, the results are even more disastrous, as I have indicated in ** The Belief in Talismans ". But when ritual is allied with, and based upon, as adequately symbolising, the high teaching of genuine religion, it may be, and, in fact, is, found very helpful by many people. As such its efficacy seems to me to be altogether magical, in the best sense of that word.
But, indeed, I think a still wider application of the word " magic '' is possible. ** All experience is magic," says Novalis (i 772-1801), " and only magic- ally explicable " ; ^ and again : " It is only because of the feebleness of our perceptions and activity that we do not perceive ourselves to be in a fairy world." No doubt it will be objected that the common ex- periences of daily life are '' natural," whereas magic postulates the " supernatural ". If, as is frequently done, we use the term " natural," as relating exclus-
^ As " £;liphas L6vi" well says: " Superstition ... is the sign surviving the thought ; it is the dead body of a religious rite." {Op cit., p. 150.)
2 Novalis: Schriften (ed. by Ludwig Tieck and Fr.
SCHLEGEL, 1805), vol. ii. p. I95.
CEREMONIAL MAGIC 109
ively to the physical realm, then, indeed, we may well speak of magic as " supernatural," because its aims are psychical. On the other hand, the term " natural " is sometimes employed as referring to the whole realm of order, and in this sense one can use the word *' magic " as descriptive of Nature herself when viewed in the light of an idealistic philosophy, such as that of SwEDENBORG, in which all causation is seen to be essentially spiritual, the things of this world being envisaged as symbols of ideas or spiritual verities, and thus physical causation regarded as an appear- ance produced in virtue of the magical, non-causal efficacy of symbols. ^ Says Cornelius Agrippa : "... every day some natural thing is drawn by art and some divine thing is drawn by Nature which, the Egyptians, seeing, called Nature a Magicianess (i.e.) the very Magical power itself, in the attracting of like by like, and of suitable things by suitable." ^ I would suggest, in conclusion, that there is nothing really opposed to the spirit of modern science in the thesis that '* all experience is magic, and only magic- ally explicable." Science does not pretend to reveal the fundamental or underlying cause of phenomena, does not pretend to answer the final Why } This is rather the business of philosophy, though, in thus distinguishing between science and philosophy, I am far from insinuating that philosophy should be other- wise than scientific. We often hear religious but non-scientific men complain because scientific and perhaps equally as religious men do not in their
^ For a discussion of the essentially magical character of in- ductive reasoning, see my The Magic of Experience (1915). 2 Op. cit., bk. i. chap, xxxvii. p. 119.
no BYGONE BELIEFS
books ascribe the production of natural phenomena to the Divine Power. But if they were so to do they would be transcending their business as scientists. In every science certain simple facts of experience are taken for granted : it is the business of the scientist to reduce other and more complex facts of experience to terms of these data, not to explain these data themselves. Thus the physicist attempts to reduce other related phenomena of greater complexity to terms of simple force and motion ; but, What are force and motion } Why does force produce or result in motion ? are questions which lie beyond the scope of physics. In order to answer these questions, if, indeed, this be possible, we must first inquire, How and why do these ideas of force and motion arise in our minds ? These problems land us in the psychical or spiritual world, and the term " magic '' at once becomes significant. " If," says Thomas Carl YLE, " . . . we . . . have led thee into the true Land of Dreams ; and . . . thou lookest, even for moments, into the region of the Wonderful, and seest and feelest that thy daily life is girt with Wonder, and based on Wonder, and thy very blankets and breeches are Miracles, — then art thou profited beyond money's worth. . . ." ^
^ Thomas Carlyle : Sartor Resartus, bk. iii. chap. ix.
VIII ARCHITECTURAL SYMBOLISM
I WAS once rash enough to suggest in an essay " On SymboHsm in Art " ^ that " a true work of art is at once realistic, imaginative, and symbolical,'' and that its aim is to make manifest the spiritual significance of the natural objects dealt with. I trust that those artists (no doubt many) who disagree v^ith me will forgive me — a man of science — for having ventured to express any opinion v^hatever on the subject. But, at any rate, if the suggestions in question are accepted, then a criterion for distinguishing between art and craft is at once available ; for we may say that, whilst craft aims at producing works which are physi- cally useful, art aims at producing works which are spiritually useful. Architecture, from this point of view, is a combination of craft and art. It may, in- deed, be said that the modern architecture which creates our dwelling-houses, factories, and even to a large extent our places of worship, is pure craft unmixed with art. On the other hand, it might be argued that such works of architecture are not always
1 Published in The Occult Review for August 1912, vol. xvi. pp. 98 to 102.
112 BYGONE BELIEFS
devoid of decoration, and that " decorative art/' even though the '' decorative artist '' is unconscious of this fact, is based upon rules and employs symbols which have a deep significance. The truly artistic element in architecture, however, is more clearly manifest if we turn our gaze to the past. One thinks at once, of course, of the pyramids and sphinx of Egypt, and the rich and varied symbolism of design and decoration of antique structures to be found in Persia and elsewhere in the East. It is highly prob- able that the Egyptian pyramids were employed for astronomical purposes, and thus subserved physical utility, but it seems no less likely that their shape was suggested by a belief in some system of geometrical symbolism, and was intended to embody certain of their philosophical or religious doctrines.
The mediaeval cathedrals and churches of Europe admirably exhibit this combination of art with craft. Craft was needed to design and construct permanent buildings to protect worshippers from the inclemency of the weather ; art was employed not only to deco- rate such buildings, but it dictated to craft many points in connection with their design. The builders of the mediaeval churches endeavoured so to con- struct their works that these might, as a whole and in their various parts, embody the truths, as they believed them, of the Christian religion : thus the cruciform shape of churches, their orientation, etc. The practical value of symbolism in church archi- tecture is obvious. As Mr F. E. Hulme remarks, " The sculptured fonts or stained-glass windows in the churches of the Middle Ages were full of teaching to a congregation of whom the greater
To face p. 112.
PLATE 17.
Fig. 34.
Agnus Dei, Sixteenth-century Font, Southfleet, Kent, from
Collins' Symbolism of Animals.
{By kind permission of the Author.)
FIG- 35-
Unicom, Sixteenth-century Font, Southfleet, Kent, from
Collins' Symbolism of Animals.
(By kind permission of the Author.)
ARCHITECTURAL SYMBOLISM 113