M. Maxwell

Valentine Greatrakes Richter of Stoyen, etc. Athanasius Kircher Tenzel Wirdig Gassner
Gassner and his Patients Count Gagliostro Emanuel S«-edenborg.
On Divine Providence, etc.
On the Planets Jacob Bohme
On the New Man
On God and His Manifestation, etc.
On the Sun, etc.
On tlie Constellations
On the Four Elements
On the Nature of Man after the Fall
On God in the Soul .
On the Infection of the Soul Animal Magnetism
CONTE>'TS. VU
APPENDIX
SELECTED FROM VARIOUS SOURCES BY MARY HOWITT.
PAGE ArPAEITIONS.
The Konigsberg Professor (S/r/i/s bffore Deed//) . . 343
Dr. Scott and the Title-deed (Do.) . . 345
Lady Pennyman and Mrs. Atkins (Do.) . . 351
The Storj of Sir Charles Lee's Daughter (Deinonoioghi) 356
Dorothy Dingley (Sic/as before Death) . . . 358
Lord Tyrone (Do.) . . . . 363
Two Apparitions to Mr. William Lilly (Do.) . . 369
Mr. Booty and the Ship's Crew (Do.) . . 373
Apparition of Edward Ayon to Thomas Goddard (Do.) . 374
The Dutchman -who could see Ghosts (GlanvU) . 378
Sir John Sherbroke and General Wynyard (Si(/}is before Death) 380
Miss Pringle (Do.) . . " . . 884
Samuel Wallace (Noct"rnal Revels) . . , 385
Dr. and Mrs. Donne (Signs before Death) . . 387 Ghost Stories . . . . .518
HArxTED HorsES. *
House of the Wesleys (Si/j/ns before Death) . 388 The Drummer of Tedworth (Do.) . . .396
Haunted House at Bow {Glanvil) . . 407
Mr. Jermin's Story (Do.) .... 409
DeeIms.
Remarkable Dream of Dr. Doddridge . . 410
Dream of Xicholas Wootton (/r^w/^^'^ /fo/^^/^/-,y) . 412
Captain Rogers, R.N. (Signs before Death) . . 414 William Howitt's Dream . . . .416
Remarkable Dream by the Rey. J. Wilkins (Signs before Death) ^Yl
Dream of Lord Lyttleton (Do.) . " . . 419
Dream of a Gentleman at Prague (Wanleg's Wonders) 421
Second Sight.
J \/ Circumstances related by J. Griffiths (Carnbrian Superstitions) 424
^^ Zschokke (Truths in Popular Superstitions) . . 425
' Occurrence in the Family of Dr. Ferrier (Signs before Death) 428
Teance and Somnambulism.
Trance of the Rev. W. Tennant (Early Hist, of Massachusetts) 429
The Rochester Apparition (Signs before Death) . . 433
The Fakeer Buried Aliye at Lahore (Braid on Trance) 437
Kgo?,i\nQ^o?,Vivi (JVanleg's Wonders) . . . 440
Ecstasy.
Tlie Sleeping Preacher (Earlg History of Massachusetts) 442
1589
Till CONTENTS.
PAGE
Peedictioxs.
A Curious Prediction {Neics from the Invisihle JForlrT) . 445
Dryden and his Son's Nativity ( Watileys Wonders) . 450
DlTINATIOIT.
Artificial and Natural Divination {Demonologia) . . 452
Divining Eod {Truths in Popular Snperstitmis) . 461
WlTCHCEAFT.
Story of the Lady Alice Kyteler {Narratives of Sorcery and Magic) 464 African Witches {Thaumaturgia) . . 475
Vampiees.
Account of a Tarnpire, taken from the Jewish Letters
{Phantom World) .... 479
Amflets a>'d Chaems . . , , 4S3
Naecotics ...... 488
Faieies ..... 489
Spieituax MA^-IFESTATlu^::.
Preaching Epidemic and Sakm AVitchcraft . . 492
THE
HISTOEY OF MAGIC.
PAET II.
ON MAGIC IN MYTHOLOGY.
As we now have made ourselves acquainted with a num- ber of the historical facts regarding magic amongst the Greeks and Eomans, we may be allowed to cast a critical glance backwards on the mythical ground of the same, in order to justify certain assertions made above, — namely, that the Grrecian mythology is throughout of a magical character ; that in Anthropomorphism the power of nature is symbolised ; that magic reflects itself in the mythology, and in the highest antiquity was a kind of natural philosophy. If the mysteries themselves have remained unsolved riddles, so that we only in a fragmentary and indirect manner can determine the inner proceedings and real nature of them from facts, indications, and signs that have become known, it is clear that all attempts at explanation now must be merely hypothetical. The following hypotheses may, there- fore, be allowed, which really spring entirely from the regular basis of mythological facts. Sloreover, their pro- bability does not rest on wholly vacillating supports, for they do not lean on invention, but on natural phenomena, which the most ancient mythology has wrapped in symbols, and which in the present times are corroborated by magnetic experiences.
YOL. II. B
h
Z HISTOET OF MAGIC.
In the first place, the question will require answering, whether mythology be not perhaps a misunderstood natural science, so that at least a great portion of those poetic enigmas may have rested originally on views of natural philosophy. K this were the case, then magic and the heal- ing art under it would be things also to be understood. What evidences are discoverable of magical cures, or the magnetic healing art in mythology ? That would be the second question, the proper subject of the following observa- tions, which many may regard as strange, and for which a con\'incing evidence may not be producible. In the mean- time they touch on many truths which rest on natural phi- losophy, and are calculated to clear up many dark particulars of physical and spiritual life.
" If any one exerts himself to introduce, through natural science, useful things for common life, he may with prudence calculate confidently on general approbation. But when any one is disposed to regard the new light acquired by natural science as Promethean light, and endeavours to avail himself of it in this sense to light up the dark corners of our planet, truly the matter is not so easy as lighting up a dark mine, that is, with a Davy-lamp ; and the experiment is not so readily accomplishable. In the meantime, history shows us, by splendid examples, that the question is not an impossible thing ; and it shows, to say the least, little penetration and historical knowledge, when any one pronounces in a light gossiping tone on matters which ought to be calmly weighed, that they are empty and impracticable speculations." — J. S. C. Schweigger, In- troduction to Mythology through Natural History, Halle, 1836.
If mythology must be taken literally as it stands, and as it usually is taken, then it is an extraordinary fabulous pro- duction, both as to its contents and its origin. To philology it is the perpetual and unravelled knot in which all its fine roots lie hidden, and out of which all the branches and blossoms shoot downwards, in order to sensualise the divine and natural attributes of things. To poetry it is the in- exhaustible source whence the imagination draws her images and pictures of the physical and spiritual world. For re- ligion mythology is a chaos, through which still the dimmed
ITATUEAL SCIENCE THE OEIGIi!f OF MTTHOLOGT. 3
rays of the suu of the true knowledge of Grod, which went down in the deluge, faintly gleam, while she is sensible of a cosmic process at work in it, by which gradually in a mythologic purification the true god-man raises himself, and comes forth as in sublimation. If, now, we do not look upon mythology as that so easily assigned fact, but seek to penetrate behind that fact itself, and to fathom the origin of things there, we then, probably, shaR seize the right clue and arrive at the true issue.
Is mythology an accidentalworkof an indolent and playful invention, or is it a necessary development of an instinctive law of nature, a half-conscious infantine speech of actuality advancing through the dark labyrinth of spiritual life ? Is the fundamental principle of action the creative imagination, or is it the force of the feelings and of the religious mind which therein symbolises poetical or religious ideas ? Are the symbols and signs something springing up accidentally, or an arbitrary work of man ; or are they the orginal bearers and interpreters of necessary powers, whicli are only so far mysterious as we have lost the key to the symbolic explana- tion of the facts ? In short, take the matter as we may, we cannot by all the known paths arrive at a satisfactory con- clusion. Spiritual life is invariably only to be comprehended from two sides, the poetic and religious. Shall, then, the knowledge of nature and of spiritual power, which is derived from experience, find no place ? How if we should ascribe to mythology a scientific foundation and substance ? How, of what kind, and whence ought the theory and the princi- ple to be looked for ?
" The real contents of mythology are pre-eminently derived from natural history, and the origin of the myths is one of physical symbolic language founded on a natural necessity." This is perhaps the result of the inquiries of Schweigger in the work referred to, and in his history of the physics of the remotest antiquity, as well as in many treatises in his Tear-books of Chemistry and Physics, especially for the year 1826.
Schweigger has shown that a lost natural philosophy of antiquity was connected with the most important religious opinions, and that it had, through that means, the greatest influence on art and poetry. According to our fundamental
4 HISTORY or MAGTC.
ideas on the essential characteristics, on the natural laws and development of spiritual strength, given already in our introduction, there can be no existing revelations for one special language, for poetry and religion, as isolated. The human soul is an indivisible unity of spiritual powers. The sense, which in subjective feeling and representation unfolds itself within, comprehends the external objective world, which the understanding and the mind in self-consciousness again shape into a unity; from which, on the other hand, the subjective impulse and conception in the will come forth again objective in revelation. The operations of the under- standing and condition of the will are, according to the different reception by the senses of objective things, and according to the individual constitution, more or less palpable, and the will brings the substance of the operations to the revelation. Xow, what must man originally have had for objects of physical contemplation, except Nature herself, in which he so wholly, body and soul, was placed ? The im- mediate ideal contemplations of Grod, to which the outer senses are not adapted, we shall here leave quite unnoticed, for we are speaking not of man in Paradise, but of fallen human nature : and the circumstances of art must first be attended to. The original representations must, therefore, have certainly been images of natural objects, and the feelings connected with them must consist of pleasure or pain, which would necessarily determine the objective attraction and re- pulsion of the spectator of them. That in young humanity the representations should be brilliant, and the feeling lively, is a natural consequence ; and thence the combinations of such images would be influenced more by a fugitive fantasy tlian by tranquil reason : and this prevailing ascendancy of tie imagination over the understanding is strikingly obvious in the ancient mythologies. Theories were the business of reflection, and came afterwards.
Schweigger, in the works referred to, has in the amplest manner placed side by side the historical evidences in favour of the philosophical, Eesthetic, and artistic views, with the physical comprehension of the myths, to which I must refer the reader. I shall here, supported by these inquiries and other sources, endeavour to show that ma^ic in the primeval ages — that is, before the so-called historical period — was
GREEK AND GEEMAT?^ MYTHOLOGY. 5
contained in the mysteries, and that the greater portion of those poetical enigmas in the mythology rested, in fact, on views of natural science.
The most ancient monuments of the East and of the G-reeks point to deeper contemplations of nature. The ima- gination of the poets took out of these the material for their serious as well as their sportive images, and therefore the true poet is actually styled by Plato, the teacher of the present and the future ; whence the Pythian madness is of more value than the human rationality which is so highly lauded ; since in these the most eloquent echoes of the past, and anticipating notes of the future, make themselves heard.
But is the myth equally a poem ; and is it, therefore, equally empty and fictitious ? To such a conclusion one might easily be led if we received the mythology merely from Homer and the historic times. But the ground and substance of mythology lie far beyond Homer, w^hom an- tiquity represents expressively by the phrase of " the wise poet," and as an old man, who, not only exalted above the fleeting youth of frivolity, but over the understanding of the man engaged in the affairs of the world, speaks wisdom, drawing from the past knowledge at once for the present and the future. In the language of Homer all the pe- culiarities of the age of man and the innocence of the child are expressed, — as the fire of youth, the vigour of man, and the calm reflection of the grey-haired sage ; and there also are reflected in his poems the saga of the people and the doctrines of the ancient mysteries ; so that the mythology is to be regarded as a code of natural philosophy, and of re- ligious and poetical contemplations, in which natural science, or rather the objective and religious relations, furnish the material, and the poetical the form, — which form Homer first presented to the public in so beautiful and unrivalled a manner. Herodotus himself says that Homer and Hesiod have given the genealogy of the gods, have attributed to them names, honours, and arts, and have described their forms. Herodotus gives his view of them merely as an indi- vidual, steering clear of the teaching of the priests : for tlie priests of Dodona drew the names of the gods from Egypr, there being origiuall\' in Grreece only one nameless gud
6 HISTOET or MAGIC.
'^vorshipped. Such were the foundations of the myths, which Herodotus corroborates, only ascribing their fuller develop- ment and adornment to Homer and Hesiod.
But it is not merely the question of a Grrecian mythology : every original race has its mythology ; the Indians, the Egyptians, the Scandinavians, and the Germans. Every where it stands prior to history, and possesses a universal internal resemblance, although the remaining means of under- standing these mythologies are greater or less in different countries. The German mythology, for instance, is of all others the poorest and most circumscribed in the means of demonstrating its original completeness. Grimm laments this in his " German Mythology :" — " Here on a dead ground stand trees whose topmost boughs bear green leaves ; there the ground is still verdant below, but all the trees are dried up. Seldom are we able to call up to us shapes from the far distant twilight into sufficient distinctness to be able to recognise and describe them." But as the imagi- nation originally embodied objective things and expressive signs and symbols, which is its essential function, the myths have everywhere sprung out of the symbolising, poetical fantasy, and were not first invented by Homer and Hesiod and their age. Mythology originated in a necessity of nature, and in accordance with ideas which nations enter- tained of the world, and with the spirit of their language.
Very beautifully and instructively does Creuzer describe symbolic poetry : although it was by no means his object to represent natural philosophy as the fundamental basis of mythology, yet he really expresses this clearly in his " Intro- duction to his Symbolism and Mythology," and which we may quote as tending to elucidate what follows : —
" The imaginative compositions and the religions of the nations," he says (Moser's Abridgment, 1822, p, 22), "lie as a fact at the bottom of the general life of things, without any separation of the spiritual and the bodily. This mode of thinking everywhere acknowledges the living and the human from an inward impulse. Man is to "himself the centre of the world, and from all the regions of nature life and character reflect themselves back upon him. The perspicuity and figurativeness of writing and of speaking, of thinking and inventing, which prevailed in antiquity, is
SYMBOLISM. 7
not to be looked upon as an arbitrary one, but as an abso- lutely necessary mode of expression. Man, regarding him- self as the centre of creation, thus sees himself in all nature, and all nature in his nature. That which abstract reason terms the operative power, was to his view a person. What we call plastic is thus the impression of the form of thought to which antiquity was addicted, and which the more timid spirit of an educated age cannot altogether withdraw itself from. The old religions lie before us as the memorials of those plastic times whose fundamental cha- racter reposes on the creative strength of personification. The elements of nature spoke to man, and she became tangi- ble to him through joy and pain ; she expressed to him her sensations in speaking images. That mode of expression brings many characteristics into the focus of a single phrase, which she at once imprints upon the soul, and completes the intuition at a blow. The essential characteristics of symbolism are a hovering and undeterminateness between being and form ; the simple light of an idea is in a symbol laid in a coloured ray of signification. This signification, however, arises from the exuberance of the meaning in com- parison with the expression. The meaning must be clear ; that which is to be expressed must be expressed positively. The comprehensive power of symbols is closely connected with their conciseness, which is only expressive when it is poignant, — when it bursts on us like a flash of lightning, and opens a view into a boundless distance. But only the most important things can be significant — that which origi- nates in the mystery of our being, that which fills and agi- tates our life ; and therefore the ancients were observant of the divine intimations in momentous crises of life ; and the embodiment of these they called symbols.
" The strictly symbolical confines itself to the tender middle line between spirit and nature ; within these bonds it can avail to render visible to a certain degree even the divine, and is thus so highly expressive. It obeys Nature, merges itself into her form, and animates it ; the infinite becomes human, and thus the strife between the two is at an end. That is the divine symbolism ; that is the beauty of form united to the highest fullness ; and as the Grecian sculpture has most perfectly expressed this, we may call it the
S HISTOEY or MAGIC.
plastic symbolism. The character of necessity in symbols we may also style the symbolic language of nature ; for symbols are only a reminiscence of that which speaks to man as an unalterable law of nature: it consecrates the works of man to eternity by reminding us of the eternal course of nature.
" But the Greeks, besides art, knew an expression of higher knowledge of the secret doctrine, which contains the signification — the symbol in the external of an embodied enigma, — a^viyjxa. Therein especially consists the temple Sjnnbolism of Greece and Eome. When the clearness of the scene is wholly annihilated, and only the astonishment remains, so that a certain religious instruction is implied, the symbolism is still more enigmatical, and the key to the mystery is in many cases lost. The symbol is always an embodied idea, — allegory only a general conception ; whence the mythos comprehends this, but not the symbol, since in it is a momentary totality, — in the allegory an advance through a series of moments. The myth unfolds itself best in an epos, and endeavours only in Theomythos to compress itself into symbolism. In allegory is freedom ; in symbolism the necessity of nature, — both of which conceal a truth."
In the farther observation of the genesis of mythos (p. 31, f.) he speaks of the historical myth, which ordained festivals, &c. to distinguished benefactors, as sons of the gods, in gratitude for their services, and then proceeds : — " Physical occasions for the origination of a myth were probably frequent : — the character or the strength of a beast, the peculiar form or properties of a natural body, and the explanation of these things, propagated itself, according to Pausanias, as a myth. Still more occasion was furnished by the secret operation of the powers of nature, which to the untutored man were so striking. Thence arose a number of relations, in which a physical element or a remarkable phenomenon of nature appeared as the acting personage. Even language was a prolific mother of gods and myths : and still more sprung out of the clothing of symbols, and the locked-up facts of hieroglyphic signs, sagas, and legends. Thus the Mythos divides itself into two chief branches, into doctrine and tradition, which between them comprehend the convictions which, basing themselves on God, nature,
VAST ANTIQUITY OF THE MYTH. 9
and man, show that the wisdom of all their speculations is embodied in ethical myths, physical traditions, in the knowledge of antiquity and astronomy. The most ancient myths are nothing more than verbal symbols, and thus in the symbolical East the nations are represented as beasts."
Both the symbolising spirit of the ancient natural science and the myth are prior to history, and the mysteries belong to a previous world, from which there have descended to us no evidences to prove whether they were the product of a lost world of civilization, or of the primeval poetical spirit of young humanity. "With such speculations we have nothing further to do, but will look around and see how far the mysteries were the interpreters of nature ; and what signs they may have contained of the working of nature which yet remain for our contemplation. To this end passages from poetical and historical descriptions of the ancients will avail us, as well as the agreement of modern discoveries of natural philosophy regarding the fixed laws of nature, in the varia- tions and anomalies of phenomena. That great difficulties are to be found here in arriving at truth is obvious, since we are so prone to seize upon what is new as identical with the old, where there is frequently an apparent similarity ; and since the antiquities of the mythical ages were so darkly and enigmatically treated by their first transmitters, who, according to all probability, knew far more than they made known. Herodotus says frequently, — " I shrink from, speaking of divine things;" that is, of the mysteries, out of which the people's religion first proceeded. Herodotus, Pythagoras, Empedocles, Orpheus, Thales, Parmenides, &c. travelled into Egypt and the East, in order there more perfectly to instruct themselves in natural philosophy and theology ; and Herodotus says expressly that he visited the oldest temple in Tyre, in order to inform himself perfectly of the myth of Hercules. Homer himself, to whom Herodotus ascribes only the more extended organization of the Grecian mythology from Egyptian sources, touches lightly on the natural philosophy of the mysteries. Like Herodotus, Cicero also says that he avoids speaking of these things, or passes superficially over them : "I am silent on Eleusis,'* he makes Cotta say ; " those sacred and venerable rites, where the people of the farthest zones go for consecration i
10 HISTOET or MAGIC.
I pass over what is celebrated in Samothrace and Leinnos with nocturnal ceremonies, concealed by woody hedges."
Even far out in the earliest times the material was drawn from ages prior to history. "The ancient, and especially the Grecian art of poetry drew its images out of an ante-historical time," says Schweigger, " for which the sacred sagas interwoven with them, the mysteries, served as a foundation." Plato, in the Book of Laws, states that in Egypt neither the painters nor the artists were allowed within the sphere of religion to invent anything new ; but that which had been painted or hewn out ten thousand years before, they were compelled to imitate, and to make the same subjects neither handsomer nor uglier, but pre- cisely of the same fashion. And," adds he, " when we say ten thousand years before, we mean it not as an ordinary figure of speech, but actually." Thus Plato clearly indicates not a mere period of ten thousand years, but the ante- historical type of that world of imagery.
The ancient poets also drew from the same mysteries ; and, as Schweigger says, the tragic poets carried this so far, and especially ^schylus, that his representations of some of them occasioned complaints. In the course of time the mysteries became more accessible ; and Plato complains of it, wishing that the initiation into them was made more difficult by greater sacrifices. With common people it was forbidden to talk of these things, since they could not com- prehend them, and were not accustomed to believe what they did not see. They were also to be on their guard against conversing with ignorant priests and youths upon them. On future occasions the tragedians were the only persons who spoke to the people of the high and solemn truths, at a time when religious culture consisted merely of offerings and ceremonies. " In the mysteries, the truths of nature only w^ere discussed," says Schweigger ; and amongst the ancients poetical is to be distinguished from probability in its ordinary sense ; for which reason the ancient poets cannot be fully understood " without a know- ledge of the mysteries, which are only accessible through a knowledge of natural history."
The Samothracian mysteries are also connected with those of the East and of Egypt, and then again with the later
ON MAaiC IN MYTHOLOGY. 11
G-recian and Eoman. There is then a continuous, accordant, mysterious, secret doctrine of natural philosophy and theology, so that by the discovery of the knowledge of one we might come eventually upon that of all, as Schweigger has fully shown. But how comes it, it may be asked, that so little has become known of these mysteries, and of their particular contents, through so many ages and amongst so many diiferent times and people ? The answer is, that it is owing to the universally strict silence of the initiated. Another cause may be found in the destruction and total loss of all the written memorials of the secret knowledge of the remotest antiquity, so that, besides the votive tables and certain scattered relics of signs and hieroglyphics, nothing remains. Wliat the Persian invasions, and the repeated devastations of the barbarians in Egypt and Greece— what the laying waste with fire and sword and plunder had not annihilated, was completed by the rudeness of the Eoman s, who, as Pliny relates, on the conquest of Carthage found no book worthy of being translated into Latin but one on agriculture. All the other writings and libraries were given to the small African kings. The Eoman people, wandering through the world in desolating wars, learned nothing of the science of the ancient subjected nations : what relics of the secret learning were in existence amongst themselves were for the most part annihilated by the burning of the books of Numa ; and the few scattered fragments which yet remained, after several abortive attempts, were finally destroyed by fire. Numa's books, described by Livy, consisting of natural philosophy, were found in his tomb ; but they were not allowed to be made known, lest they should reveal the most secret mysteries of the state religion. The Praetor of that time must take an oath that those books should not be published, as destructive to the national religion. The senate and the tribunes of the people determined that the discoverers of these books should be indemnified, but that the books themselves should be burnt, which was done before the people, by the per- formers of the sacrifices, in a fire kindled for the piirpose.
When, however, here and there, any portions of the old natural philosophy were made known, on the spread of Christianity, or a defence of the philosophical nature of the an-
12 HISTOET OF MAGIC.
cieut myths of Paganism, then arose the Christians withafiery zeal against the whole of the heathen doctrines, and espe- cially those which reposed on natural science. All miracles which, according to their opinion, God did not perform, were heathen works of the devil ; natural philosophers and even mathematicians were obliged to fly, in order to save their lives. From these causes it is not to be wondered that all the remains of ancient natural science were destroyed with the temples and their libraries.
Natural philosophy, poetry, and religion, from their very nature were closely united in the primeval ages, and the most ancient historical accounts show them still main- taining the same alliance ; and especially was the science of medicine united with poetry and theology, in the strictest connection, in Egypt, in the East, and in Grreece. The Grecian songs upon medical science are ascribed to Orpheus, the poet of hymns. Fragments of poems on natural philosophy, by Parmenides and Empedocles, still remain. Prognostications through natural philosophy were peculiar to the earliest Grecian philosophers ; and the doctrine of the gods was established as a part of physiology by Pythagoras, by Plato, and the Stoics. Plutarch, on Isis and Osiris, brings together many ancient attempts at inter- pretation of important physical myths. That some very widely-extended mystic circles are connected with the most ancient systems of natural philosophy, as in Samothrace, and that heathenism has its origin in a misunderstood science of nature, Schweigger has sufficiently demonstrated in his treatise on the most ancient theory of physics.
But through these medical and philosophical secrets, books and symbols of the ancient world being held secret in their totality, as well as in their fragments, as is still the case in India with astronomical science, this evil arose, — that not only did there cease to be any progress through ex- perimental research, but more and more mistakes were con- tinually arising. For, as Diodorus of Sicily states, the laws of healing diseases were strictly prescribed in the ancient sacred books, and any physician who dared in any degree to depart from them in practice was liable to be arraigned on a capital charge. The science of the early world would, therefore, necessarily remain stationary, or
THE WISDOM or THE REMOTEST ANTIQUITY. 13
rather would retrograde from the elevation and the splendour at which it had arrived, — as the perfect memorials of astronomy, of architecture, of painting, of the preparation of mummies, testify ; all of which display a profound phy- sical and chemical knowledge. And hereby is explained the singular fact, that, according to Herodotus, in Egypt the art of healing was so distributed amongst the people, that each physician, besides those of the temples, was ap- pointed to the cure of one class of diseases, and not to many ; a?id therefore the country was full of physicians. Some were for the eye, some for the head, others for the teeth, others for the lower part of the body, and others for hidden complaints. All these circumstances worked in direct opposition to progress, and led deeper and deeper down to perfect ignorance ; so that the untoward fantasy could at length mould the original meanings at will into poems and legends.
If we wish now to discover the fundamental meaning from the number of mythic envelopments, we must neces- sarily go back to the primeval wells of mythology them- selves, but which lie so far distant, that we need not seek them amongst the Greeks and Eomans ; for Herodotus has already said that the origin of the significant myth of Hercules seemed to him to lie as remote from his times as it appears to do from our own — that is, in the night cf long past ages. Now we know the world in greater circles, and in the knowledge of the natural sciences we stand on an elevation hitherto unknown in history, in which we, by a comparison of the remaining fragments, and by a laborious unravelling of the historical records, entangled as it were in a net, again can discover the original meaning of the symbols. This solution, however, we are in a con- dition to obtain only by the help of magnetism and the natural sciences, and not in the sense of the literati, by the aid of written records. For the restoration of the ancient text, we can now make use of the discovered remains of signs on the ancient pyramids, and of fallen temples ; as the scattered petrefactious enable the professors of natural his- tory to reconstruct and to present before us the primeval creations which existed only before the Flood. Surely there requires for this the learning and the acumen of a Cuvier
14 HISTOET OF MAGIC.
and Groldfuss, if we will bring the mythological symbols of antiquity into agreement with the new magnetic pheno- mena which are added to the long line of magic. Yet the result of our present inquiries will show that the scattered remains of historical records, taken in connection with the facts of magic, will conduct us to this essential agreement, and to a certain firmly-grounded and more intelligent type.
Through the discovered agreement of the old with the new, we are immediately reminded of expressive and con- vincing axioms of the highest antiquity, which are especially corroborated by the magnetic experiences, — namely, that nature by her simple elements produces the greatest and the most profound eifects. Water, air, and light, and the universal earth-magnetism, are the general powers by which nature performs her secret operations ; to which, however, we are not conducted by tbe ordinary aspect of nature, and still less by imagination, which busies itself with all earthly and heavenly things, except with the deeper and silently- working laws of creation. A speculative philosophy will just as little lead us to a right understanding of it ; for con- viction, says Bacon, comes not through argument, but through experiment. The laborious, inquiring, severe natural philosophy of our time, demonstrates, however, those unchangeable laws of the universal operations of nature, upon which that ancient secret knowledge and the new magnetism support themselves ; namely, that the original power of water, as taught by the Egyptian and Indian myths, and as asserted by Thales, actually perfects the wonderful organizations of vegetable and animal life. That those mytliic images of heaven and of earth ; of Jupiter reigning in the thunder-cloud; of Poseidon, the earth- shaker, in the vaulted rocks of the subterranean, and of the social alternations of the Dioscuri, have the same foundation as the opposing principle of the Pythagorean theory, and the dogmas of Heraclitus ; and that, finally, strife is the principle of production, and burning is the solution of the strife. The doctrine of polarity in electro-chemistry and magnetism shows the universal dominion of those laws in inorganic, and of animal magnetism in organic nature.
The all-governing might of the sun-god, the diffuser of life and of blessings, and, at the same time, of the far-off
01s MAGIC nf :mtthologt. 15
striking, the punishing and destroying Apollo, is shown in the all-quickening force of light, whose penetrating and miraculous power of kindling and warming is contained even in the polarity of colours. If the influence of sunshine produces magnetic clairvoyance, as well as the intensity of muscular power, does not this agree with the god of the old vaticination, who taught men the right and the true, according to the all- wise and mighty Zeus ?
As the universal activity of the elements of nature is shown in the opposition, so is it also in the universal amity and sympathy of spiritual upper, and the physical lower world. At the same time, the idea is also given that the whole visible world is only an image of a spiritual one ; an idea which was expressed by the remotest antiquity, though it was poetically, and which the newest philosophy confirms as founded in the double nature of man. The magnetic phe- nomena now again afford the most complete evidence of a imiversal polarity and sympathy, or of a physical and a spiritual world acting on each other in that wonderful doubleness of nature and of spirit. Through the poetic con- ception of these truths of nature the world of images in every respect took the chief place in the primeval times, when the conceptions, as it were, newly clothed, were em- bodied in the symbols expressive of the appearances result- ing from natural laws ; while in the after times, a poetry, fallen away from nature, threw everything arbitrarily into confusion. A philological process, therefore, founded on the spirit of those later ages, leads only to a barren ground, or performs only a labour of the Danaids, if the talent for natural inquiry is totally wanting. The true feeling of nature, and the true meaning of the symbols, may already have been absent in the later mysteries, since, according to Herodotus, these mysteries united themselves to a more ancient period, at the bottom of which lay those principles of natural inquiry, — namely, the Samothracian ; and from these mysteries proceeded the religion of the people, in which the true understanding of nature, and the true inspiration of the divine, were continually declining. For nature herself is poetic, higher and deeper than all which the imagination of men can reach: she is in her wonderful plienomena the
16 HISTORY or MAGIG.
plastic expression of the divine creation — a voice of God, vrhich it becomes man to observe carefully, in order to be conscious of the marvels which are continually taking place in the world. The genuine observers and honourers of nature only, they who trace out her signs and listen to her voice, learn the secret of her laws which proclaim their lord ; they only are affected by the joyful astonishment at the order and beauty of all her parts, and at the harmony of her momentary and successive operations : so that in time devotion sinks do"svn in love and adoration of the all-wise and all-good Creator, while the rest of the world, as if drunk with sleep, becomes more and more estranged from the Divine, and falls into blindness and superstition. Therefore, all great natural philosophers have been genuinely pious men ; there- fore, the magnetic clairvoyant, passing out of the dream of day into the wakefulness of sleep, breaks into ecstatic admi- ration, into poetic effusions and songs of praise, in conse- quence of this deeper insight into the secret workings of nature and of her symbols, like poetical antiquity itself, in which the knowledge of nature, poetry, and religion, were united.
True natural philosophy, therefore, conducts to God, and contempt of nature from him. "A spirit striving against new discoveries in nature, from its slavish attach- ment to the letter of the past, such as we find it in certain periods of history, and especially in the middle ages, — a spirit which is continually reappearing, as at present in the East, and particularly in India, and which regards every attempt at improvement as something futile to government : such a spirit leads directly, through the darkening of the uniutellectual eye, from God to the idols of superstition ; that is, to heathenism." — Schweigger, a. a. 0. S. 105.
A poetry of nature based on a symbolical personifica- tion of the power of creation, included in it the double character of man, according to his natural and divine constitution ; not only the physiological, but also the pneu- matical or psychological marvels. The world is a miracle, and all its operations, the highest and the lowest, have their play therein. Poetry here is truth. All its marvels lead by the tendency of nature to myths : the primeval myths are
MYTHICAL SIGNS AND THEIK MAGICAL RELATIONS. 17
the expression of truth itself; the comprehension of these is the only key to them, and this is preserved by watchful- ness and love, but lost by stupidity and savagery.
The poetical understanding of nature is therefore the voice of God, — the highest ideal, which the elements of nature and their powers symbolise. It makes the operations of the mineral and the vegetable kingdom perceptible through free and instinctive feeling, as the cosmic influence of nature. It endeavours to hold forth the relations of nature to time and space, and, also, to find an expression for the divine qualities of the spirit, to which the visible bodies of heaven are the most adapted, as the physical things and elements of the earth are to the natural man. This the most ancient historians knew and have declared. Strabo says, that the ancients concealed their views of nature in enigmas, and wrapped their scientific observations in con- certed myths. Herodotus ascribes the further extension of the Grrecian myth to Homer, on the basis of an ancient foundation laid in Egypt. In Homer numerous physical tendencies are indicated ; and in the Grecian times there were admirers of Homer who pointed out those tendencies, lamblichus names expressly a schoolof prophets, originating in Moschus, whom he calls " the physiologist," and which Pythagoras availed himself of. The ancient historian Sanchoniathon points out the oldest character of the myths to be that of natural philosophy, where he says of the Phoe- nician Cabiri doctrines, that " the first hierophant, in times incalculably remote, Thabion's son taught them with a mix- ture of physical tendencies, and delivered them over to the prophets who celebrated the orgies and mysteries."
All the more profound modern inquirers into mythology say the same, either directly or, as it Avere, involuntarily, — that the ancient myths had a physical foundation. Thus Heyne takes it for granted that the fables originating in the ancient cosmogony and theogony were constructed to embody physical doctrines ; and Herder says, that a pro- gram of Heyne, on the physical origin of the ancient myths, had especially satisfied him. Creuzer's " Symbolism and Mythology" proceeds chiefly on the supposition of the physical foundation of symbolism, and gives to the myths a priestly physical antecedent. Schweigger has handled this
VOL. II. C
18 HISTOET OF MAGIC.
subject to exhaustion, and has maintained historieelly, and at the same time experimentally, the source of the myths in natural philosophy, the personification of ideas, and the en- soulment of nature : to whose Introduction into Mythology I again refer the reader.
If, now, the symbolic language of signs in the mysteries has its foundation in natural philosophy, what are the mythi- cal signs which betray magical relations and secret workings of nature ? In answering these questions in the region of mythology, I confess to a certain reluctance which has long held me back. But shall not an attempt be permitted to pluck some flowers in that wide, airy field, where so many undertakings find material, often for the pursuit of the most extraordinary adventures ? Shall it not be permitted to pursue the once-discovered clue of Ariadne, and carefully to draw things into that region of the circle of magic opera- tions, to which they appear to belong, according to analogy and agreement with the phenomena of magnetism ? No longer groping in the dark, but with a certain confidence, we follow that clue into the labyrinth. Yet I again repeatedly assert that I here follow exclusively the traces of the poeti- cal and philosophical, without, at the same time, totally ab- juring the theological point of view, or being disposed to assert that the heathen had not a deeper religious sense, that they only sported with their myths, or that they directly worshipped the symbols of nature as gods, of which we have already spoken.
Let us first, however, look round us at the symbols which Lave in general a physical signification, and then at those in particular which denote a purely magical relation.
We have already seen that the ancient philosophers treated theology as a part of physical science, and that it is openly declared that the primeval doctrine of the gods was founded on natural philosophy, and this with constant reference to an acknowledged anterior period. We have the propagation and the connection of the secret know- ledge from Egypt and the East, descending from the tra- ditional period through the Grreek and Roman mysteries ; and JSchweigger has shown (a. a. 0. S. 124) " that the ancient forms of the gods could not have arisen from certain ideas, as that of JVIinerva for wisdom, of Hercules for strength,
THE KEY TO MYTHICAL WISDOM. 19
etc. ; but that they are grounded in nature, and that to understand them we must pass from the poet to the natural philosopher." He has also shown that the most ancient and most influential mythic circle, namely, that descending from Phoenicia and Samothrace, certainly reposes on a basis of natural philosophy, and that it was regarded by the Cabiri and Dioscuri as a hieroglyphic record of electricity and mag- netism.
The next circumstances of symbolical embodiment are the general elements of nature, — chaos and night ; the regular and the suddenly outbursting forces of nature ; the elements of fire, of air, and water ; the mutual attraction of the earth and the heavenly bodies, etc. ; — whose images are recognised by all authors in mythologic personification.
The eternal foundation-matter of all things was Chaos, which Night produced from herself, and through herself fructified ^ther — the all-embracing world-air. According to Hesiod, however, Night is a daughter of Chaos, and by Erebus gave birth to ^ther and the Day. The Heaven, Uranus; and the Earth, Titaea, Gsea, produced Time, — Saturn, and the subordinate powers of natui'e, terrible and uncon- strained in the primeval ages. The Titans, — whose heaven- invading violence had, however, no long-continuance, for they already had been thrust down by Uranus into Tartarus, and there, by the continually-clearing upper air of heaven by Jupiter, and by the increasing thickne^s of the crust of the earth, were for ever shut down into the under-world. Jupiter, who launched his electrical lightnings through wide space, purified the air in the conflict of the elements, and by the falling rain — Jupiter pluvius — peace and harmony arose between heaven and earth. Yet the repressed powers exerted themselves in their negative character. They were hidden by Ehea the wife of Saturn, and they occasion ally broke forth again, and made war on Saturn, till Jupiter, a child of Khea, finally arrived at the appointed sovereignty, and now only periodically, to promote or to proclaim, kindled his gathered lightnings and sent them through the air. All-devouring time must give place to a regular course of life. E-hea, who was delivered of Jupiter, wrapped a stone in a goat's-skin for her husband to swallow ; and her priests, the Curetes, the Corybantes, held, meantime, a
20 HISTOET OF MAGIC.
weapon-dance, and made such a din with their shields and spears, that Saturn could not bear the cries of the new-born child ; — by which, most probably, the production of meteors is intended ; for the Idaic Dactyls were, according to the united testimony of mythologists, regarded as having a certain relation to iron, which the Curetes are said first to have discovered.
The air has its positive and negative, its male and female states. It takes up into itself all earthly elements ; developes in eternal changes all powers in itself, and begets innumerable children in undiminished youth and beauty. Juno is the sister and spouse of Jupiter. Amongst the natural philosophers, Juno means the lower atmosphere, in which the clouds float and the rainbow appears. " She had countless rivals, who changed themselves into all sorts of shapes," etc. (K. M. Eamler's Succinct Mythology.) " She is the eldest daughter of Kronos, and sister of Zeus" (n. xvi. 4B2.) Oceanos and Tethys brought her up, when the all-powerful Zeus thrust Kronos under the earth ; that is, the vapour ascending from the sea and the waters mix themselves in the lower atmosphere. According to Ovid (Fast. vi. 285), Hera was swallowed up by her father with the rest of his children, and again vomited forth. The eagle soaring to the sun is the bird of Jupiter; while the earthly, colour-reflecting peacock is the attendant of Juno. In the interior of the earth, the hidden power of fire works incessantly as the opposing and expanding force of the subterranean air.
Vulcan, a son of Jupiter, received the lordship of the subterrane. Like fire, which at first appears as a feeble spark, was Vulcan at his birth. He was weak, ugly, ailing, slow and limping ; but when grown up, and requiring his strength, possessed of a sinewy neck and strong chest. He bui^t a house for himself, which was imperishable, and therein he had his workshop, with his anvil and his bellows, which without hands worked at his command (II. xviii. 370, Ixxii. 470, etc.) The Cyclops, the remnant of the original powers of nature, children of Uranus and Gsea, forged for Zeus lightnings and thunderbolts, dwelling in the volcanic caves. Vulcan appears amongst the Pelasgic gods, the Samothracian Cabiri, as the symbol of electric power, as we shall see, and out of the
THE KEY TO MYTHICAL WISDOM. 21
common workshop of Hephaestos and Athene is Prometheus said to have taken the life-giving power. For the rest, Hephsestos appears amongst those dark Samothracian divinities, amongst the Cabiri and Axieros. The first Samothracian Cabir is Yulcan. Amongst also the Etrus- cans he is the lightning-darting god ; he stood in connection with Yesta, and had many temples. He was called the renowned in art, the knowing one, the fire-lord, and theuce the Lemnian, on account of the volcanic island, and the oracle there.
Like the earth, the air, and fire, water is an original element : according to Hesiod, Oceanos, the eldest of the Titans, the husband of Thetis, by whom he was the father of 3000 streams and as many small seas. According to Homer, Oceanos is the Great, the earth-encompassing world-stream. He is the original fountain of all that is, the origin even of the gods — ^eu)y yipeaig (II. xiv. 201), of those who confer all birth and production. Out of his waters ascend the rising stars, Eos and Helios, and he has his sunshine in the east ; and in the west, his departure.
Neptune, the god of the sea, especially of the Mediterranean, and of the islands, bears the tridental sceptre, and in the war with the Titans stood firm by Jupiter ; he plunged the hundred-armed Briareus into the sea. The relationship of the water with the air ; the mutual working through each other in the tempest of war, as in the production of living plants and beasts out of the earth, is symbohsed in it. He has his dwelling in the depths of the sea ; that is, his slumbering and characteristic strength. There stand his horses ; but, as the monarch of the sea, he travels with the swift-footed. He sends storms that make the earth tremble ; he gives also favourable winds and auspicious voyages, or holds all fast as the power of the earth (Homer, II. and Odyss.) The symbols of the electrical powers of the air, the twisted thunderbolt and the sheaf of lightnings, are given to Jupiter, and to Xeptune the trident, which is also the symbol of the sovereignty of the electrical powers of the water. Individual rivers, as the Nile (Isis), the seas, the lakes, brooks and fountains, are especially designated by Nereids, Nymphs, Naiads, Dryads, Hamadryads, etc.
rinally, light, the sun, Helios, the sun-god " who lights
22 HISTOET OP MAGIC.
the immortal gods and mortal men on the food-produciug earth" (Odyss. xii. 285.) Amongst the Egyptians we have already become acquainted with Serapis as the physical image of the sun ; with the Grreeks, later, it was ApoUo. Helios is the all-seeing god (TravhpurjQ), the beaming, the discoverer, who beholds all things (II. iii. 277). Especially did he take cognizance of wickedness and crime : " he beholds gods and mortals." The quickening power of changes through the sun, in nature, in bodies and spirit, is symbolised in the many children which Hehos had by different mothers. Asclepias, Circe, Phantusa and Lampetia, Phaeton, the Heliades, etc., are the children of the sun. According to Servius (see Yirgil), Helios is the only Titan who remained in heaven, and has not become hostile to the gods. White wethers, white horses, and the cock, were sacrificed to him. He is always represented as young, with a diadem of rays on his head ; and the arrows of Apollo originally signified the sunbeams.
It would conduct me too wide from my object if I were to give fresh extracts in addition to those already given from the various authors in proof of the original symbolic lan- guage of this mythology of natural philosophy. I can only refer to Jacobi's " Hand-Dictionary of the G-reek and Eoman Mythology;" "Solger's Eemains," published by Tieck and E/aumer, second vol. ; and " Gr. J. Vossii de Theologia gentili at Physiologia Christiana, Amsterdam, 1668." Nor can we here further carry out the comparison with the mytho- logies of other peoples, which lead to the same results. The reader may, however, allow me to enumerate the alle- goric figures which, at least to some extent, continue to be used down to our own time, both in art and in ordinary life. To these belong the symbols of the years, months, and days, in the shapes of stars, planets, and animals. Of the seasons particularly — Elora, Ceres, Proserpina. The physical images of certain beasts ; as of agriculture, the ox ; of the soul, the butterfly ; of watchfulness, the cock ; of sagacity, the owl, etc.
Beyond these I only advert to the farther natural philo- sophy, figure-language, as it relates to the imponderable elementary forces of electricity and magnetism.
Schweigger shows (Introduction into Mythology, pp.
THE DIOSCUEI. 23
132, 228), that tne PhoDnician Cabiri, and the Greek Dioscuri, the Curetes, Corybantes, Telchini, were originally of the same nature, and are only different in trifling parti- culars. All these symbols represent electrical and magnetic phenomena, and that under the ancient name of twin-fires, hermaphrodite fire. The Dioscuri is a phrase equivalent to the Sons of Heaven, — if, as Herodotus asserts, " Zeus ori- ginally represented the whole circle of heaven." That the Sons of Heaven, or the Dioscuri, constantly die and return to life together, while yet it is as imperatively necessary that one shoiild die that the other may live, appears an impossi- bility. But according to Schulz, one can as little comprehend a vision as we can expect to behold an idea. A physical view of a thing is not to be confounded with a logical one ; and thus is indicated the polarity of electricity and magnetism in the most striking manner. We may comprehend elec- tricity under the image of two inseparable individuals : and as the north pole of a magnet only by its attraction to the south pole of another magnet, is discoverable — a fact which may be considered in reference to the whole globe we live on, and just so the one electricity only with reference to its opposite — so here, in the strictest sense, is the case of two such brothers, who live and die together, while yet it is absolutely necessary that one must die that the other may live ; and what people have regarded merely as a myth is the simplest, cleverest, and at the same time most profoimd ex- pression of a strictly scientifically defined truth of nature.
Schweigger continues farther the verbal explanation of the electricity by friction, and the light which produced it, as it was known in ancient times — (see Amber, Elektron, in Theophrastus and Pliny) — and of the pleasantly illuminat- ing but not burning fire connected with it ; which wonderful fire had already been noticed by Seneca as allied to the Hermes fire. Farther, in this category may be added the original meaning of the panic fear, and the electrical stand- ing up of the hair, of which the written evidence is only wanting, because it was a law of the Mysteries that nothing should be written. Yet perfectly clear and definite is the old hieroglyphic expression, "for the twin-fires from the electrical spark are sketched in a very natural manner in the representations of the Dioscui'i on ancient coins."
24 HISTOET OF MAGIC.
Quite as striking are the modem electro-cliemistry and electro-magnetism in the pictures of the Dioscuri, according to the ancient opinion of Heraclitus, that the contest of opposing forces is the origin of new bodies, and that the reconcilement of these contending principles is called com- bustion. This is, according to Montfaugon, sketched in the minutest detail in the engravings of the ancient Phoenician Cabiri, so that even in the antique gems the sheaf of beams represents the positive electricity above ; and, on the other hand, the light of negative electricity represented round the head, with the motion downwards, as is the course of lightning, is described with perfect correctness by the posi- tion of the figures ; one figure standing on the right foot turning itself to the right ; the other on the left foot turning to the left, by which the physical intention is clearly demon- strated, that the two inseparable poles. Castor and Pollux, turn to the south pole, — to the left, that is, from the west, southward to the east ; the other, the south pole, to the right, from east, southward to the west, etc. Schweigger shows that the known attempts to understand the pictures by the aid of electrical streams, that is, by the phenomena of electro-magnetism, not only fully satisfy the experienced, but that the lovers of physics may, without many words, by aid of that old hieroglyphic language, at once make them- selves perfectly acquainted with the principles of those very wonderful agitations (p. 280).
When we have once discovered the word of the physical enigma, all difficulties immediately disappear. And we can now see that these Dioscuri, these same sons of heaven, have their swiftness mythically represented by their golden- hued pinions, by their white horses, their power over the enraged sea ; yes, more than this, by their sudden and asto- nishing apparition, high above the topm.ost, and the hissing sound in the air by the rushing of their wings ; while at once the mountainous waves are stilled, and the already despairing mariners find themselves rescued in immediate proximity of the vision (p. 121).
Antiquity speaks also clearly of magnetic attraction and repulsion. In the sixth book of Lucretius on the nature of things, the marvellous phenomena of the loadstone are thus described : —
THE MYTH OF HEECULES. ZO
" Men see the stone with wonder as it forms A chain of separate rings by its own strength. Five, and oft more, are hanging in a row, A play to the hght winds, one waves beneath another, Borrowing their binding strength from the strange stone, Such power streams out from it, pervading all. But sometimes it doth happen that the ii'on Turns from the stone, flies it, and is pursued. I saw the Samothracian ii'on rings Leap, and steel-filings boil in a brass dish So soon as underneath it there was placed The magnet-stone : and with wild terror seemed The iron to flee from it in stern hate."
The poet speaks of the Samothracian ring, and of the magnetic experiments in the most ancient mysteries. I shall yet speak further of these magnetic rings of the old mysteries, and here only add Schweigger's remarks, that the editions of Lucretius, Lambertin, and Eaber, ascribe to these Samothracian rings a secret power of averting anything injurious, which power was communicated to them through conservation in the mysteries. It is worthy of observation, also, that the priests of Jupiter wore similar rings.
The armature of the magnet also, and its wonderful strength, are described by the ancient writers ; and through these the myth of Hercules is made very significant. The Herculean stone in Pliny is clearly a synonym. This writer seeks by rhetorical arts to prove why the magnetic stone in antiquity was called the Herculean stone. " As the rock echoing," he says, " as it were, acquires speech, so the sluggish hardness of the stone has received from nature feeling, and, as it were, a heart in the magnet. "What less compulsory than hard iron ? But here it gives way ; assumes manners ; allows itself to be drawn by the magnet ; and while it conquers everything else, it runs after I know not what non-entity, and as soon as it is come near, it stands still, and permits itself to be held and hung up, as it were, in bonds. Therefore some persons still designate the magnetic stone by the alias of the Herculean stone." Thus the name of the magnet is not derived from a city dedicated to Hercules, but because magnetic and Herculean mean the same thing. " Had Pliny known," says Schweigger, p. 236, " that magnetism is an absolutely unconfinable, invi^
26 niSTOET OF MAGIC.
sibly-penetrating power, by whicb tbe naming of Hercules as the invincible is justified ; had he known that the same power might become so universally useful to seamen through astrologic signs, since it shows especially the place of the pole-star, the guide of the ancient mariners ; and that there- fore Hercules was justly named the Astrologer, the Sooth- sayer, and the Index — nay, that he was with justice looked upon as the teacher of navigation, which magnetism really is. The Phoenicians, who made greater voyages than any other ancient nation, ascribed them to Hercules, who for their accomplishment used a cup or goblet received from Helios in the remotest western regions, in which must have laid a northerly-directed influence, for ' there Helios sunk in the western sea :' that this turned constantly to the north while, in fact, magnetism in a wonderful manner daily turns towards Helios his arrow, which is exactly the character of the western variation of the magnetic needle, and which is at the present day honoured by the Chinese with religious observances, which remind one of the Samothracian mysteries ; had Pliny known that this magnetic power is in daily conflict, even with itself, which is the chief feature of the myth of Hercules, who makes wounds and heals them ; punishes crimes and is continually falling into them himself, ever in need of expiation; who contended with monsters, and then again as a servant performed female offices, on which account in the mysteries of Hercules at Lydia, as he himself expresses it, that extraordinary spec- tacle was exhibited of a change of costume, the priests putting on women's clothes, because Hercules exchanged clothes with Omphale, thus expressing the magnetic polarity attached to the same individual; had Pliny known that this slavish Herculean strength bound to the stone can come forth as winged, and that then Hercules awakens from his sleep, like the Idaic Dactyl, or the Phoenician Cabir, as a dwarf, becomes a giant, with mad fury destroys the ships entrusted to his care, while during this natural phenomenon lightnings break forth from the columns that arise out of the sea ; had Pliny \nown that the question here is of a cosmic power, ha\ing its home in the depths of subterranean night, but at the same time also in the glitter- ing sun, which in the northern lights through self-corn-
MAGNETIC AND METEOEIC STONES. 27
bustion ascends from earth to heaven, there had been no rhetorical subtleties necessary to him, in order to establish the highest antiquity of the synonymity of the words Herculean and magnetic, or of magnetism and Hercules."
The reader may find still more proofs of the identity of magnetism and Hercules in the work of Bart, " The Cabiri in G-ermany." According to Pausanias, Hercules was represented under the image of a rough stone at Hyettos, where the sick came to be healed in a temple. The image of Hercules was not artistically formed, but was a rude stone, according to ancient custom, a ferruginous batilien Btone, a thunder-stone. And afterwards in the worship of Hercules, the rude stone, as a proper characteristic, was not wholly neglected. "There is yet," says Schweigger, "a Hermes statue of Hercules wrought out of a touch-stone ; while Pliny observes the Lydian stone, or touch-stone, was confounded with the Herculean stone."
Claudian, in his Idyls on the Magnet, speaks in the highest terms of the dark, invisible stone, which first acquires power from iron. He notices cosmic agitations as in connection with it, and believes the tails of comets to consist of its essential principle. In storm and lightning its power, according to him, seems to rule. Claudian closes this introduction with the representation of a temple-ser- vice, in which a magnetic image of A^enus held suspended in the air an iron one of Mars ; while Lucian speaks of a very ancient statue of ApoUo of the Daedalian age, that it was lifted aloft by the priests, and there before his eyes stood suspended in the air, unsupported by the hands of the priests, the atmosphere serving to sustain it in a living embrace."
The conquest of Mars by Hercules, sung by Hesiod, who represents him as a subterranean power with his helm on his feet, characteristic of the earth-magnetism, says the same thing. Pliny also relates of a statue of Hercules standing at Thebes, that it was made of iron. " Precisely in the same manner," says Schweigger (p. 239), "as in China, one form of religious worship is still based on magnetism, was there a religious service of a temple in Egypt connected with magic, as we learn expressly from the Idyls of Claudian." Schweigger shows yet more completely how Hercules wa3
28 HISTOEY OF MAGIC.
considered by ancient writers to be magnetism ; how he as a double divinity belonged at once to the upper and the lower world ; and how this also, according to Servius, was indi- cated by a garland of silver poplar ; how he, as an Idaic Dactyl, scarcely two feet high, was placed next to the fifteen feet high Demeter in the Samothracian Mysteries. He shows how Hercules was related to Mercury ; how he as a creature of light, the hyperborean Apollo (north-polarity) might as Musagetes be substituted for him (pp. 245, 246) ; how the two pillars of Hercules indicate the double character of magnetism, and originally were called the Pillars of Briareus, as the magnetical, gigantic, primeval power, etc.
The Idaic Dactyls and the Batyli belong to the mythic circle of Dioscuri. As these, according to Strabo, stood in relation to iron, while the Batyli were considered to be connected with the magnetic and meteoric stones, these myths had obvious reference to the polarity of magnetism, and speak of right male and left female Dactyls. Pliny calls them iron-coloured stones in the shape of a thumb. According to their number, they must have varied consi- derably in appearance. According to Helancius, the right dissolved magic spells which the left knit up, as this happens with the electric forces, where positive and negative, male and female, the right and left polarity, exist as opposite powers. " All this tells with great force for the electro- magnetic powers ; of which we may say with perfect truth, that the right dissolves charms, which the left knits up, and vice versa. And as the Cabiri were represented as pygmies, and as a name — Dactyls — derived from a finger instead of from the fist, denoted still more diminutive form, the name, therefore. Dactyl, in an electro-magnetic respect, appears de- scriptive. Por it is this which excites so much astonishment in electro-magnetism, that by it a group of a hundred active iron pygmies, infinitely small magnets, are made, in a manner inexplicable to us, to stand near to each other, without interfering with each other; some tarning round to the right, and others to the left. JN'ow, as the Curetes, accord- ing to the Orphic hymn which describes the power ruling in a storm, are represented symbolically and mythically as sons of the Dactyls, an original dependence of power on magnetism is indicated thereby. But these Curetes again beget fi-eah Idaic Dactyls, and thus m this myth the
MYSTIC SYMBOLS IN NATURE. 29
dependence of electrical power on the magnetic, and then again fresh magnetic phenomena from the electric, are expressed" (Schweigger, p. 199).
The Batyli were also employed in soothsaying, for, ac- cording to Thales, they were worshipped in the remotest antiquity in Egypt and Samothrace, as magnetic stones con- taining souls which had fallen from heaven. All the priests of Cybele wore a small Batylus on their bodies ; yet probably not exactly a meteoric stone, but a magnet, whose polar action on the meteoric stone might be so much more easily observed, as it is of a similar colour to the magnetic stone. On the meteor-worship of the ancients. Yon Dahl- berg has brought together much curious matter in a small volume. The worship of rough stones, and the acquaintance of the ancients with the magnet, especially in Egypt, ac- cording to Claudian, shows plainly that not a blind super- stition, an adoration of the stone, was meant, but a secret truth of nature, from which it is nearly certain that the ancients have been acquainted with her even to her minutest details, and which knowledge was lost sight of again for ages, till in the present time the physical discoveries have thrown light on electro-magnetism, and from that on the ancient mys- teries. JS^or is the stone- worship to be regarded merely as a figurative mode of speaking by the poets ; for this worship was very general, as Claudian the poet of Egyptian origin declares, not only of Egypt, but also says of Eros in his idyls, that he conquered all things, and even awoke a mutual passion in stones. According to Pausanias, Eros was wor- shipped at Thespia also under the form of a rough stone, whence it is clear that they were thinking of the stones en- souled by Eros ; and this so much the more, as the myth of the inexhaustible productive power of Hercules had refe- rence to Thespia, namely, to the fifty daughters of the king. If, then, we venture to take into connection with this, the myth related by Diodorus of Sicily, that Hephaestos gave the club and armour to Hercules, we have reason to think of a metal club, especially as Hesiod speaks of an iron weapon which Hercules laid on his shoulder, while his shield was crossed with blue stripes. The prevalence in meteoric stones of a pyramidal or wedge-formed shape ofiers a point of re- semblance to the knotty club of Hercules. It is also to be seen, from the weakly Harpocrates being always represented
30 HISTORY OF MAGIC.
as a child, witli the club of Hercules, that these are not merely rude masses but a mystic symbol, analogous to those Batyli which the priests of Cybele wore, and which, accord- ing to the supposition of Miinter, were probably not seldom magnets instead of meteoric stones, and sometimes might be iron-coloured stones, — i. e. Idaic Dactyls. But Herculea is not merely connected with the Idaic Dactyls, which name he bears in common with that stone, and through allocation with the Dioscuri, and other ancient Cabiric beings; but also, in the Cabiric mythic circle, is invoked as a saviour, and was expressly numbered among the greatest gods.
After these more detailed representations of the ancient natural-philosophical doctrine of the elementary powers, and of the original duplicature of the action of electricity and magnetism in particular, other kindred mythological circumstances are more easily intelligible. To these belong the different symbols of the magical fire, and the manifold attributes of the same amongst the other gods, — as the Vestal fire, which burned inextinguishably on the altar, and which jS'uma, the founder of the Vestal mysteries, intro- duced into B/Ome, according to the ancient art of fetching the fire from heaven, as it was taught by the Saraothracian and Cabiric mysteries. Schweigger shows incontrovertibly that this fire was an electrical one, and that Vesta belonged to the Samothracian circle (pp. 139 — 169) ; that the fire- worship was practised also amongst other gods ; as towards Hermes, — the Hermes-fire, the Elmes-fire of the ancient Germans; the lightning of Cybele; the torch of Apollo; the fire of Pan's altar, which originally belonged to him not as the wood-god but as the illuminating Pan with his hair on end; the fire-flame of Pluto's helm ; the inextinguishable fire in the temple of Athene on the Acropolis, which, ac- cording to Homer, kindled the miraculous fire in the head of Diomed. Wholly of this kind was the fire represented as burning on the hats of the Dioscuri, &c., as well as the fire on the helm of Pallas, on the Gorgon head, on the staff of Mercury, etc.
Now, if the electrical fire was preserved so sacred in the mysteries, it may next be inquired to what purpose it was thus kept.
If the immediate object were a religious one, the worship of the divinity, then so strict an exclusion of the uninitiated
VESTAL riEES. 31
would not have been necessary : but taking natural philo- sophy as its object, and the practical use of the same, vre have the ground of this strictly mysterious worship ; and Schweigger treats it, I think, with insufficient depth. If we observe the completely philosophical connection of the symbols of electricity and magnetism in those mysteries, can we doubt that the ancients had more than a physical object, or that a practically medicinal use was attached to them ? If the ancients were well acquainted with the phy- sical laws and operations of these forces, is it likely that their curative nature was unknown to them ? Everywhere, in all the temples, the priestly service was pre-eminently a therapeutic one ; a secret service of healing the sick, and of soothsaying, which we have already shown to exist among all people. May not electricity and magnetism, together with magnetic manipulation, have been employed as divine and miraculous means ? We can the less doubt of such a use of the electro-magnetic power, when we notice the universality of those symbols in the temples of all countries, — in the Vestal, the Eleusinian, the Samothracian, and Egyp- tian mysteries ; and when we cast a glance on many other circumstances in connection with them which have become known.
The mysteries may have been practised, and preserved from the knowledge of the people in their transmission downwards as great natural truths, especially in later and historical times, without, perhaps, their foundation being clearly understood. Eor if a refusal of free experiment be persisted in, from a dogged adhesion to antiquity, and a repetition of the same thing on all sides, no distinct insight into the causality of the laws of nature can exist. A me- chanical adherence to ancient practices may, therefore, have been wholly the fact, without any clear consciousness of the meaning of those practices ; as, for instance, is the case in the repetition of astronomical maxims at the present day amongst the Indian Brahmins, and in so many ceremonies of the church.
But the practice was established, and the formula trans- mitted to the initiated. Thus we see that the miraculous fire so carefully concealed from the uninitiated was most assiduously maintained in the Vestal and Cabiric myste- ries J and they who did not know how to manage it ac-
32 HISTOET OF MAGIC.
cording to its nature were destroyed by it, and were pun- ished by the gods. Pliny relates (Histor. nat. xxviii. 2) that Tullus Hostilius had sought from the books of Numa, " Jovem devoeare a eoelo ;" but, as he did not correctly follow the rules of ]S"uma, he was struck by the lightning. Plutarch writes in the life of Camillas that JN'uma, the founder of the Vestal mysteries, in intercourse with the Muse, had given over to the Vestal virgins the sacred fire, to be guarded as the quickening and ensouling principle in the Samothracian sanctuary, and adds, that " those who profess to be better informed on this subject than others, speak of two not very large casks, — one open and empty, the other full and sealed up." The electrical fire thus concealed might by a mechanical contrivance be quickly kindled in the ' electrical apparatus without a visible bear- ing of it to the altar ; and thus provided with a point, fire received upon a ball, or in a sieve of brass, is easily to be understood.
The iron Samothracian wings, which we have mentioned from Lucretius, and which "he saw leap," were undoubtedly preserved in the temple not without an object. The secret, evil-averting power which was ascribed to them, is an evi- dence that their healing quality was already known. Thepriest of Jupiter also wore, according to Creech's interpretation of that passage in Lucretius, similar iron wings on his body, apparently in order to strengthen his magical influence, as the magnetisers now by the bearing of a magnet assert that they strengthen their effect on the patient. At all events, incubation was practised in those temples where the mag- netical rings were found. But those wings constituted regular chains of magnets, strengthening and conducting the power to each other, and were a kind of magnetic battery, as Lucretius says in those remarkable verses (B. 1041—46) :—
" How much may not be said of things lite these ? But to what end ? Thou need'st no farther go, And me it fits not to engage in them. Yet will I here in Httle much compress. And thus what here is hollow, there fill out, That so the exchange endurance give and strength. Some things there may, as 'twere with rings and hooks, If worn together, be as chains regarded ; As here it seems the fact with stone and iron."
SAMOTHEACTAN WINGS ; TEON KINGS, ETC. 33
It has already been observed, that the old natural his- torians, who appear to have been initiated into the temple mysteries, carefully passed over the philosophical secrets ; yes, were compelled to be silent on what, for instance, was unanimously testified by the Samothracian mysteries. In the temple of Demeter and Persephone at Athens, in the front of which was the statue of the sower of seed, Trip- tolemus, the mysteries were celebrated, which, in later times, Pausanias did not dare to unveil, and who was warned by a dream not to do it (Attic, i. 14). People would, therefore, have pressed too close upon the sanctuary of the priests had they allowed the real nature of the magnet and the wonderful action of the iron to become known. At the same time it was not forbidden to make known everything ; some things were explained to the uninitiated ; but it came to pass that in the course of time many facts made their way to the public. Por instance, the uninitiated were made ac- quainted with amber, and with its property when rubbed; and tliose iron wings were not withdrawn from the eyes of all. If some things thus lay open, and if the public arrived at the knowledge of the aims and eflects of the mysterious mythic circles in another manner ; if similar physical science was gained by their own experience, in such a combination things before unknown assumed a high importance, and the mysteries thus more and more were made clear to the gene- ral eye. Is'ow this was the fact with the Samothracian wings, which already in the time of Pliny were worn by the Lacedemonians, who adhered fast and perseveringly to the Samothracian traditions, and were in a high degree wor- shippers of the Dioscuri ; so that Callimachus even called the Dioscuri, Lacedemonian stones. It is very remarkable, too, that in Pliny's time the betrothal ring at Eome must_^^ be one of iron ; as earlier in Athens, the newly married, ' under the name of Anakes, brought offerings to the Dios- curi, in symbol of the reconcilement of opposing forces, and with reference to the hope of offspring.
Now, as Lucretius expressly, in the passages quoted, speaks of hooks and rings hanging together, — that is, of chains, but afterwards of Samothracian articles made of iron for magnetic purposes, to which, for instance, the experiment witli the iron-filings belongs, the acquaintance of the Komans with
VOL. II. D
34 HISTOET OF MAGIC.
physical science is very clear ; and Schweigger traces tlie electro-magnetism into everything, rendering only still more apparent their medical knowledge.
Plato compares, in lone, the penetrating power of poetry with the marvellous strength of the Samothracian rings ; thus showing their effect even on the mind as an auxiliary influence in the vaticinations in the temples. That the magnet played a great part in the temples is certain. I have already spoken of that magnetic stone in the form of Yenus, which, by a living embrace, held fast a statue of Mars, which was raised into the air. Pausanias also speaks of a splendid seat or throne of iron, which stood near the consecrated sacrificial hearth of Apollo at Delphi. Plutarch, on Isis and Osiris, has a remarkable passage wherein it is said, — according to the books which are ascribed to Hermes, — the power which affects the circulation of the sun is called Horns, and by the Grecians Apollo ; and soon afterwards, that the Egyptians often call Isis by the name of Athene ; and, indeed, with an expression which means, " I came through myself," — which clearly denotes an original power of acting. Typhon also is called Seth, and Smy, and Beban, — which expressions indicate binding and opposing power. The magnet they call the bone of Horus, iron that of Typhon, as Manetho says : " for like as iron drawn by a stone often follows it, but often also is turned and driven away in the opposite direction, so also is the wholesome, good, and regular motion of the world : it turns round and recedes, softens and appeases that rough Typhonic power, till it returns into itself, and sinks down in dissatisfaction."
In this place a mystic language is used, which contains more than a simple physical action. There is in it concealed the fundamental idea of a universal and magnificent acti^^ty of magnetism, even in a cosmic aspect. The newer phi- losophy speaks not merely of an earth magnetism ; it has discovered that a universal cosmic magnetism, a force active in the amber, pervades the universe.
" Such matters gladly we proclaim, How amber, first in childish wonder rubbed, Teaches us next to turn magnetic globes, Till joyfully we view the course of stars, And the wild shapes of comets double-tailed."
ANCIENT rSE OF THE MAGNET. 35
The experiences of animal magnetism afford evidence that the cosmic powers may be momentarily employed ; not merely those of the sun and moon, whether quicken- ing or destroying, but also the power of stars may be so mightily concentrated, that healing and destruction may become dependent upon it. As the god of physi- cal light, Apollo was also pre-eminently the seer with the spiritual eye, the soothsayer and source of oracles ; and in the Zendavesta it is said " that fire gives knowledge of the future, science, and amiable speech." Apollo is also the avenger, armed with bow and arrows (II. i. 42, etc.) He is called the sender of fatal missiles as well as the creative, life- exciting god, and the god who at once cripples the strength of men, as I have repeatedly found confirmed to the letter in the influence of the sun on magnetic experiments : in that antithesis, probably, more is contained than is meant in mythologic language by the beneficent influence of the spring sun, and the pestilence-bringing summer heat. It is that universe-pervading magnetic power which in little produces health and disease through alternating action, and in the great unites the stars into one general causation of life and death.
We find, too, traces of the use of the magnet amongst the ancient Egyptians. Pliny relates that the temple of Arsinoe was to have been vaulted with magnetic stone, in order to receive a hovering statue of Arsinoe made of iron, according to the arrangement of Ptolemaus Philadelphus, but who, as well as the architect, died bafore the completion of the temple. According to Cedrenus and Augustine there were anciently temples so constructed. Cedrenus, indeed, says that an ancient image in the Serapium at Alexandria was suspended by magnetic force. Augustine, who, however, names no particular temple, expresses himself as if the question was of a soaring in the air, — a legend, says Schweigger, which the Mahometans also relate of their prophet's coffin. It is not impossible, however, what Cassio- dorus says, that in a temple of Diana hung an iron Cupid without being held by any band. It might be directly borne up by a magnet fixed in the roof. Such were cases ah'eady referred to where great weights were suspended by magnets.
36 HISTOET OF MAGTC.
In connection witli these passages deserves to be men- tioned what is related by Plutarch of the festivals which were celebrated every nine years by the so-called Daphepho- rians in honour of Horus and Apollo at Thebes, where an iron ball was carried about, from which several sm.aller ones were suspended. Also in Thebes, in Boeotia, there was, according to Pausanias, an altar consisting of a stone, which was brought there by Hercules in his sleep. This was dedicated to Apollo, and was sought as favourable to the foretelling of future events. It has already been said that the first name of the magnet was the Herculean stone ; and the Batilene, the meteoric and soothsaying stone of the priests of Cybele, we have spoken of ; and in China the magnet yet belongs to the religious sanctities, and receives divine honours, "An astonishing number of offerings," says the missionary Gutz- laff, " are brought to the magnet : a piece of red cloth is thrown over it, incense is kindled before it, and gold paper in the form of a Chinese ship is burnt."
It is not irrelevant in this place to refer to what is said in one of Wolfart's Year-books on the magnetism of life (book ii. part 1), and of the vision of a clairvoyant, in which those iron Samothracian rings were described by an indi- vidual who certainly had before known nothing of them. "In respect to the seeress, says the relater, I observe, that this vision has by no means arisen through outward communication, — through hearing or reading. Though the patient has a good natural understanding, she could scarcely, from her former education and knowledge of life, have had opportunity to hear or see anything on these subjects."
Dr. Martins asked the seeress, whether magnetism was practised in the most ancient times before the birth of Christ, and that by the Egyptians ? After a short pause she gave me the following reply, which she repeated for several days, — " In a great sandy plain, where there is a very pure and healthy air, at some distance from a great city, I see a temple in which physicians or priests heal the sick. They are Egyptians." She then described the temple, the style of building, the eastern aspect, its internal rooms and halls. At first, she seemed to enter a splendid hall, on the ceiling of which were painted the half-moon and many stars. Then
WONDEEFUL CLAIRYOYANT VISION OF MTSTEETES. 37
a door conducted lier to a great saloon, which was of an oval shape, like the building. Round the hall, at about a foot from the walls, stood eighteen beds or couches for the sick, or rather for the sleeping ones whom she saw on them. The mattresses on which they lay, and the pillows, were stuffed with herbs. Between each two beds, which were placed about three feet from each other, and in such a manner that two and two stood together, at such a distance that a person could go round the beds, there were placed, where the heads of the sleepers came together, according to the shape of the room, nine shining, polished, hollow iron pillars of about three inches in diameter and three feet high. These pillars were fixed firmly on triangular pedestals, which were filled with herbs ; but the pillars were filled with quicksilver, and closed at the top with a round knob. (An- other magnetic seeress of Bendo Bendsen, in Kieser's Archives, states quicksilver to be the most powerful auxiliary support of magnetic power.) These pillars were united to each other by chains of polished iron, so formed as to pro- ject, and the links were of a triangular form, for isolating or uniting, according as might be required. The space in- cluded within these pillars was thus fenced out by them. A chain, the links of which were of the form just described, only stronger, was then drawn round the whole space formed by the pillars. At this chain now sate the sick on each side, with the pillars at their backs, holding the chain with one hand, and in the other, by a short handle, a ball, on the top of which was a cross. This was also three inches in diameter, was hollow and filled with herbs. Besides this the physicians had hollow tubes of polished iron, also filled wdth herbs, with which they touched the affected part of the sufferers. The Egyptian statues of the servants of the temple have almost always rich staves in their hands. "With balls only they touched the forehead of the sick, and especially of the sleepers. Thus they did not apply the positive electric points to the brain, exciting it, but the ball's negative electricity, — soothing or drawing from it. Tlie sick who suffered from cramps, and lay in the beds in the hall, had these attacks removed especially by touchino- and rubbing ; as we find, by our own experience, is mo^^t effectual.
88 HISTOET OF MAGIC.
The invalids thus sitting along the chain, the priests so proceeded from each end of it, that, holding the right or left hand of each person one after the other, they thus met in the middle. With the ball they touched the chain, and shook it to increase and to speed on the magnetic effect. Sbe saw ths sleepers wrapped only in white linen dresses, and holding in their hand such balls. She saw the priests in white dresses with a girdle. She saw this treatment as a religious transaction, conducted only in the evenings, and with sleepers, and principally in the moonlight. The priests were unmarried, and chose the eldest amongst them as their chief or king, who M^as adorned with a crown, and provided with a staff and ball, whence, said she, probably originated the sceptre of the present day.
Two other halls ad-joined the one described, in which the sick were more particularly treated. Two entrances con- ducted to these halls.
The number nine of the pillars had a particular significa- tion, and had particular reference to a constellation. The clairvoyant made the excellent remark concerning this vision, that such an establishment organised by government at the national cost, for magnetic treatment on a large scale, would be a great public advantage, in which we fully agree. Thousands thereby would be saved, and the most severe ailments would often be wholly cured with the greatest ease by magnetism. She also added the remark, that in the Vatican there are many documents upon the early practice of magnetism which might probably be found on search.
Schweigger has amply shown that the old poets have especially wrapped the knowledge of the magnet and the amber in fable, and that the knowledge of the magnet and of electricity was far more extended than is generally sup- posed. But we find other insulated historical facts of magic action indicated in mythology which obviously accord with animal magnetism. Exactly in proportion as we learn clearly to understand the mythic language of nature through newer discoveries, and, as it were, to imitate the phe- nomena there described, do we perceive the truth of the sentiment that natural appearances were the foundation of myths : " Opinionum commenta delet dies, naturae judicia confijmat" — Cicero.
SYMBOLIC MEAl^^ING OF MTTHOLOGIC FABLE. 39
A brief glance into mythology is sufficient to show that both the greater and the lesser gods constituted, as it were, a magic circle, and that either physical phenomena in gene- ral, or magical phenomena and effects in particular, are every- where developed. I refer all who wish fundamentally and fully to see more on this subject, to the " Etymologic-sym- bolic and Mythological Eeal-Dictionary, by F. ^ork," 1843 ; and " Mythological Enquiries and Collections, by Wolf- gang Menzel," Stuttgart, 1842, vol. i.
In these the rainbow and the bee are particularly selected to serve as proofs that the objects of nature are compre- hended in the reflex of the symbolic and mythologic. Bart, in his Cabiri in Grermany, has handled in a masterly man- ner the comparison of the northern and southern myths with a solution of the Samothracian mysteries of nature ; and still more so has Jacob Grrimm, in his " German Mythology," published at Gottingen, 1835, and in " The North- German People : their Mythology based originally on natural appearances."
As the universal powers of nature determine all the phe- nomena of life, they therefore determine the health and sick- ness, the life and death of men. The more general natural symbols applied to the greater gods ; and therefore every- where indicate conditions of the healing or the destruction of men. "We have already seen the general symbols of Jupiter and Hera, of Vulcan and Neptune, of Mars and Apollo, etc. The Greek legends have described in the com- bats of the Titans the subjection of the wild elementary powers of nature ; in the battle of the Lapithse and the Cen- taurs the Nep tunic and Plutonic powers of nature. Just so, too, is it only the combat of the elements which Homer sung. (See Nork's Eeal-Dictionary, articles Agamemnon, Achilles, etc.) The ideas of primeval being, of night, of chaos, and of time, are expressed in correspondent symbols, as the produc- tion of all things is represented through the beneficent forma- tion and mutation of light — Eros and mother Earth — Ehea. Only beneficent light creates life, therefore Eros is the creative love — protogenos. But life shapes the many- sided phenomena, therefore Eros is called protogenos in the hymn of Orpheus to Ehea, and 7roXu/iop0ov, and in so far he appears to have a synonymous meaning with the
40 HISTOEY OF MAGIC.
enigmatical Proteus, the assumer of many forms, the keeper of the keys of the sea, as he was styled, and of heaven and earth also. Thence is derived the representation of Eros winged like a bird, proceeding from the egg of the world, which Kronos, Time, produced from night, — empty space, reminding us of the comparison of the earth and the heavens to the two halves of an egg, which is to be found amongst nearly all people, and especially amongst the Indians. la India the creative god, Brahma, proceeds from an egg, as the sun, the principle of light. "The idea of the eternal, primeval, and universe-pervading love, was, by degrees, contracted by the sensual Greeks. The Grod of love, more and more divested of his high dignity as the first-born amongst the gods, sunk down to the genius of sexual passion ; but what the Grreeks deprived him of in dignitv, they richly restored to him in grace and amenity" (W. Menzei.)
Apollo, the god of light and day, had the double universal attributes of producing, and also, through too great heat, of destroying. As the spring sun, diffusing fertility, he is the guardian of herds ; "feeds even the herds of Admetus and of Laomedon ; rears excellent mares ;" heals wounds which the death of physical organizations occasions by new births, and is thence styled the healer, Tralav, the averter of evil, aXe^LKUKOQ. As the friend of harmony in nature, he built the w^alls of Troy, and produced, surrounded by the Muses, — the nine months, the original or moon-year con- sisting of nine or ten months, — the harmony of the spheres, playing on the seven-stringed planetary lyre. Thence he was also called the god of song, and of music on stringed instruments ; and whom Homer represents as playing to the gods during their banquets (II. vii, 602), for they no longer understood the peculiar signification of his musical character. As the god of light, he was also the seer, the discoverer with the spiritual eye, the soothsayer, and utterer of oracles" (Nork.)
Ottfried Miiller has already represented the Apollo-idea as a dualistic one, in so far that in his person two opposite sides meet, which present themselves wholly as the two sides of nature, the creative and the dissolving. Apollo afterwards received, through the constructive genius of the
HEEMES. 41
Greeks, such a metamorphosis, that the merely natural side withdrawing, he came forth the most beautiful of all the gods of Greece in form, the divine representative of order and law, art and science. Kork sketches further the ori- ginal double character of Apollo, according to his chief qualities as quickener and destroyer, which divides itself into as many portions as there are months ; for the months assume in each sign of the zodiac a new character, which is constantly represented by a particular feature of cultiva- tion. In Caria, a country of sheep, he was, for instance, an augmenter of flocks, and since the goat and the ram have a zodiacal sign in common, Apollo at this season of the year overcomes the goat-shaped Marsyas (the Dionysian Satyr), and appropriates to himself his skin, while Bacchus and he became one being, the new representative of the equinoctial year, and expeller of the old. As the god of divination, he is the healing physician, ETmcovpiog, — the laTpofxav-iQ, and therefore in times of pestilence they sent to Delphi (Pausan. viii. 41.) He proclaimed the will of Zeus, and is called the prophet of the father Zeus at Dodona. He also taught those arts to Hermes ; on that account he is the father of the divine physician, Asclepios. Divination was practised at various places, as we have seen, by the priestess Pythia sitting on the tripod, and inspired by the ascending vapour ; or by the rustling of trees, as at Delos ; or by inspiring fountains, as at Klaros, etc.
^sculapius also bears, in common with his father Apollo, the title of physician, healer. Others give Mercury as the father of ^sculapius (Cicero de nat. deor. c. 22.)
Of just as much importance to us is the god Mercury, — Hermes. He is a son of Jupiter and the nymph Maia ; of heaven and earth, originally, he belongs to the blessing- difiusing gods, as an ancient Pelasgic Arcadian divinity, but merged early in the Hellenic mythology into the nature of the herald, and in this character receded more and more from his former rank. Born early in the morning, he played at noon on the guitar, and in the evening stole the cattle of the far-shooting Apollo. He bound tamarisks and boughs of myrtle-like plants to the tails and the feet of the
42 HISTOET OF MAGIC.
cattle in order to obliterate all traces of their steps (Homer, hymn. Merc. Ixxv. v. 17, etc.) According to Homer, it was in the sacred herds of the gods that he pastured ; according to Ovid and ApoUodorus, the herds appertained to Apollo. Besides this, according to Lucian, Hermes stole the trident from Poseidon, the sword from Ares, the bow and arrow from Apollo, the girdle from Aphrodite, the sceptre from Zeus, and the tongs from Pluto. This cunning and address in the most endless varieties caused him to be styled the many- placed, TroXiVpoTroc ; the crafty, ^oXiog, the deceiver; the god and captain of thieves. AVhen Hermes, after many stratagems and much resistance, was compelled to return the cattle to Apollo, he then herded them for him, invented the syrinx, and presented it to Apollo. In return for this, Apollo gave him the golden staff, which he had himself re- ceived as a herdsman, and with which the art of public speaking and of vaticination is conferred.
Now what did this staff really indicate ? As the other attributes of Hermes are connected with this fact, we will endeavour to present the true answer.
On account of his address and eloquence, Hermes was made herald and proclaimer of the gods, "EpfxrjQ, Xoywc, \6yov Trpo(f)riTtig. The heralds were public orators in em- bassies, in commissions, and in assemblies of the people (H. i. 333 ff.) Hermes was, therefore, the messenger of gods and men. He is the one endowed with a penetrating spirit ; and the inventor of various things, as the lyre, letters, numbers, astronomy, the sacrifice, measures and weights, gymnastics, etc. He imparts a portion of endow- ments to men, as he taught Ulysses to resist the sorceries of Circe; and all such are under his protection. To Pandora lie gave, at the command of Zeus, the gifts of lies and of subtle thought. On account of these qualities he was called the looker into the night, k\vt6I3ov\oq. As herald he carried to men the commands and the counsels of the gods, and was to them the health-bringing genius. As the speaker in council, and the god of eloquence, the tongues of rein-deer were offered to him ; and with this circumstance probably is connected the Greek adage — "Ep/xZ/c eTreiarjX^rj, Hermes has interest, that is, when any one in company began to speak
THE GHEAT SIGNIFICA^^CE OF HEE:MES. 43
earnestly. He was called also the giver of good-humour xapi^wTrjg, which also may mean benefactor and diffuser of blessings (Horn. hymn. xxiv. 12.)
Already, in the qualities we have passed in review, we per- ceive in Hercules the all-transpiercing electrical power, in Hermes the intellectual, and as the former has more body, the latter has the winged spirit. In the history of Hermes, also, the whole of the peculiar phenomena of magnetic somnambulism are personified, which will become more striking in what follows.
As herald of the gods, and especic^Uy of Zeus, Hermes is sent out, in order to arrange all sorts of magnetical things, ayyiXog, rpoxtQ tov Ilojq. Thus he conducts Priam to Achilles, in order to solicit the body of Hector, so that no one perceived him (H. xxiv. 386.) He bound Ixion on the wheel ; welded the chains of Prometheus on Caucasus, a deed ascribed by others to Hephfestos ; carried oif Ohione ; sold Heracles ; was called upon by Zeus to steal lo, who had been changed into a cow which was guarded by Argos ; he lulled the hundred-eyed Argos into sleep with the newly-in- vented flute. In combat with the giants, armed with the hel- met of Ais, which rendered him invisible, he killed Hippolytus.
As herald, he was also the charioteer and seneschal of the gods, and the director of dreams as messengers to men, y]yr]Twp ove'ipiov ; he who gives to me sleep and takes it, and bears the staff", wherewith he closes the eyes of mortals, as he will, and again awakes the slumberer (Iliad, xxiv. 345, 445.) In this character he is called the sender of dreams, oveipoTTOfiTrog ; the giver of sleep, vttvov TrpoorarT/c ; a genius who scatters a horn-ful of dreams, and the shapes of things. " Men, therefore, before retiring to rest, poured out to him drink-offerings (Odyss. vii. 138 ; Plut. Symp. vii. 9), and the libation itself, by which we sought to procure good dreams from God, was called Hermes" (Philostrat. Her.