X. 8.) On account of all these properties, Hermes is the

associate of those heroes who go on dangerous adventures under the protection of Zeus. Thus he conducted Priam into the Hellenic camp (II. xxiv. 461) ; Perseus, Avhen he went to fetch the head of Grorgon (Apollod. ii. 4, 2) ; Heracles in the kingdom of Ais (Odyss. ii. 625). As the messenger of Zeus, he conducted the shades of the dead to
44 HISTOET or MAGIC.
the nether world, but himself returned to Olympus. He conducted also Persephone back from the nether world, and on that account was termed significantly the conductor of souls, \^y)(07ro/x7roe, ■v//^i';(aya>yog, Tafiiag tCov yj/vxH^v.
In connection with theise Hermes was also the establisher of peace, the god of roads, of traffic, and of travellers. Figures of him were found on the doors of houses and temples, on tombs, and in the streets in great numbers, and thence arpofaiog, the door-keeper, the Latin index, the German touch-stone (Hermes had turned the treacherous Battus into a black stone.) The Hermes-stones on the roads were, for the most part, without hands or feet.
Trade and commerce bring gain, and, therefore, Hermes is the conferrer of gain and affluence, izXovroc.oTrjQ. An unex- pected piece of good fortune, or a find, was kpfxaiov, and hence he was also the god of play. As the god-herds- man and the protector of herds, the defender of rural cattle, of horses, and laborious mules, he comes into comparison with Pan and the nymphs.
Prom the shade-conducting Hermes, the later mythologists made an earthly and a subterranean one, and Cicero men- tions even five gods of that name. But these are obviously only the physical, electro-magnetical powers of nature, which are active in, under, and above the earth. Hermes is the conductor even through the kingdom of Ais, arising from his visionary nature, as the conductor of dreams, in which character he comes into connection with the penetrating and wisdom-giving goddess (oip^aXfiiTic), Minerva, — as when he is sent with her in order to absolve the Danaides from the guilt of the murder of their husbands (Soph. Phil. 133.) The winged shoes, the pocket, and the helmet, make his different qualities clear, yet are in part a later addition, for Homer represents him in a more agreeable and somewhat younger form, a blooming stripling, whose cheek was embrowned in the sweetest charm of youth (H. xxiv. 347.) The light, tumed-up hat, afterwards furnished with wings, or instead of it wings in the locks of the god, is the attribute of the messenger of the gods ; so also, the •ssinged sandals, " beautiful, ambrosial, and golden, which bore him away over the sea into the infinite lands, as borne on a breathing wind" (11. xxiv. 340.) Many of the
HEU■^^■FS-WAND ; the sceptbe ; the magtc-stafe. 45
mvths havinfj reference to physical powers, as those of Helios, Apollo, Hercules, Pan, etc., and are now become comprehen- sible ; for example, the planet next the sun is called Mercury.
As the god of eloquence, Hermes is represented with a chlamys and his right arm elevated ; as the god of trade, with a purse ; as the augmenter of flocks, with a ram ; and as the herald of sacrifice^ with the sacrificial cup; as the inventor of the lyre, with the tortoise. Here we have given the most ancient symbols of the Samothracian mysteries. But what of that golden stafl" which was finally given him ?
If the complete metamorphoses of somnambulic pheno- mena were not deducible from the preceding history of Hermes, there yet remains, from what it shows, no doubt whatever of the peculiarities attributed to the stafi*.
Magic-stafi", wonder-staff, winged-stafi", the serpent-staif, — all these various names display its signification ; but the ancients themselves deliver the most definite statement con- cerning it. In the fifth book of the Odyssey, Jupiter, in the council of the gods, commands his daughter Minerva to con- duct Telemachus with wisdom ; and to his son he says : —
" Hermes, -who art of my ordinances ever the bearer, etc. Him promptly obeyed the active destroyer of Argus, * * Forth sped he, and^ under his feet he bound his ambrosial sandals, Then taking his staff, with which he the eyelids of mortals Closes at will, and the sleeper, at will, re-awakens,"
'Pa)3^oc originally means a rod, stick, or stafi"; by the staff of Hermes was understood pre-eminently the magic-staff, by which men were thrown into sleep, or again awakened (11. xxiv. 343 ; Odyss. v. 47 ; Hymn. Merc. ccx. 526.) The magic-staff of Circe (Odyssey, x. 238; xiii. 429.) In the Odyssey, again, it is called the magic-staff (Odyss. xii. 251.) I do not know how the magnetic staff which Mesmer, Wolfart, and their disciples, used in magnetising, could be more clearly described ; but these generally had an iron or steel staff, as the so-called conductor, in order, in certain cases, to strengthen and modify the magnetic power, to throw people into sleep or to awaken them. In ancient times, it appears to have been originally a wooden staff", but certainly not exclusively, for it is also called the golden, or at least the gilt staff. Even so the experienced magnetiser
46 HISTOET or MAGIC.
uses, in different conditions of the sick, different staves ; and of the wooden ones, the best, according to the observations of clairvoyants, are of hazel, laurel, or olive. He also uses zinc or glass staves.
The staff in ancient times had various significations. At one time it is the herdsman's staff, then the herald's, such as the heralds of the present time carry ; then it became the symbol of power — the o-zo/Trrpov, sceptre of the ruler, and the magic staff of the necromancer ; and we yet find it amongst the Egyptian ofiicers of the temple. "Whence Hermes derived his staff is not stated ; nor is there any mention in Homer of his serpent staff, which seemed to be the peculiar attribute of ^sculapius. It is styled in the Homeric hymns, " the splendid, three-leaved, infallible staff, which Hermes received from Apollo" (v. 559). According to Apollodorus, it is the golden staff which Apollo himself received as the reward of his services as a herdsman. That the magic staff was also of metal is shown by a passage in Lucian (Dial. D. 7, 5). Hermes received this staff, which other gods also bore — as Hades, Isis, Athene, and Circe — a staff of wonderful power, with which he cited souls, and conducted shades into Hades, from Hephaestos. In Virgil it is said : —
" The staff which pale shadows from Orcus Calls up, or down into sorrowful Tartarus sends them, Sleep gives and awakens the sleeper, and seals up the eyes of the dying."
Virgil, ^n. iv. 242.
The herald's staff was of olive-wood, adorned with golden bosses or wholly gilt, and was called, in the hands of Hermes or Athene, on that account, the golden. This staff, KijpvKtiov, the Caduceus, when it was to express a peaceful intention, was wound round with leaves and white ribbons (ffrt/i/xara), and was then the wand of peace. Later times converted these, oTifxixaaiv, into snakes, which encircle the staff in friendly union, and hissed at each other above. The pair of wings on the staff is also a later addition, and symbolises the messenger. Hermes bearing such a staff was the herald of concord. There never have been wanting various meanings attached to these snakes. They are, namely, the symbols of wisdom, of healing, of
WISHING-EOD ; WISnil^'G-CAP. 47
life, and of regeneration. Schweigger combines the snake-encircled Hermes-stafF with the mythic circle of the Dioscuri, and shows, from ancient gems, an accurate representation of one of the most beautiful electro-mag- netic phenomena of modern times ; namely, the whirling of snakes of iron wire rapidly round the magnet, in a circle of revolving and illuminating sparks. The Hermes-staff is thus winged with small glittering flashes of lightning ; and the wings of lightning are, therefore, according to nature, connected with it. But that whilst we are thinking of the Hermes-staff we are reminded of the Herculean force, the magnetic, is justified by the fact that the Hermes-staff was anciently represented in connection with the club of Hercules.
These combinations may have their reality ; but still more just in every sense is the comparison of the sleep-bringing magic wand of Hermes with our magnetic staff, with which we are in a condition fully to imitate the ancient descrip- tions of the magical appearances of the G-recian gods.
Not the less remarkable, and, therefore, perfectly relevant to our subject, is the original Grerman meaning of the magic wand ; concerning which Grimm, in his German Mythology, p. 545, says : — " An ancient glossary derives the name from the Wishing-rod, according to the notion of the magic power of the rod of Mercury. But the Caduceus was neither derived from wishes nor wishing. The winged rod — virga volatilis — was early represented as a magic rod ; it is the wand through the possession of which a man becomes the master of all healing. The gift of this healing proceeds from the all-powerful Woutan." He says, amongst other things in his introduction to prove the identity of the northern and German mythologies, — " The name of Wish stands in connection with Wishing-woman. Wishing- women were employed precisely as Swan-maidens; and "VYoutan appeared in the Wishing-cap."
In the Samothracian mysteries all the so-called greater gods stood in alliance with each other. JN'ot only those already mentioned, but Athene, Cybele, Demeter, Ceres, Proserpine, and Pan; and in the sense of the original duality were also Hepha^stos with the father of the Cabiri, and Poseidon with Hercules and Jupiter, united under the name of the greater gods. Thus we have seen tliat these
48 HISTOET OF MAGIC.
symbolical divinities were originally but representations of natural appearances. Diodorus of Sicily relates that the Samothracian mysteries were founded in the dark times prior to history, and were derived from an antecedent world destroyed by the great flood ; but that they were remodelled by Jupiter, and first made known to his son Jasion, whom he had by Electra, in order to confer divine dignity upon him.
Corybas, the son of Jasion by the mother of the gods, from whom the Corybantes received their name, taught the mysteries of the mother of the gods to Phrygia, on which occasion the lute given by Hermes was taken thither. Through the whole series of images there was a leading type, which artistic imagination adorned with new com- binations, or gave prominence to individual characteristics, or added historical events to them. I will here only refer to such of these matters as have reference to magic. In genera], two Dioscuri indicate the primeval principles of electro-magnetism ; but there frequently comes a triad, and sometimes a quadruple representation — the male, the female, the right, the left, the positive and the negative. The triad, Helios or Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto, represent the three points of the electrical fire, the trident of Xeptune. As for the upper world two male, so for the nether world two female Cabiric beings, Demeter and Persephone, were found, as may be frequently seen in the representation of the mysteries. Demeter was called the Cabiric Sa\dour, as we have seen Hercules in the same character. Herodotus also says that Isis means the same as the Greek Demeter (while Plutarch frequently uses the term Isis- Athena) ; and that not merely at Sais, but in all places in Egypt, thou- sands of lamps burnt to indicate that sole, divine, and universally active fire. Homer also frequently represents his Athena as Isis- Athena — as the ruler of the sea; and that, indeed, in two poems : now with terrific storms and swollen waves pursuing criminals ; now, again, stopping the course of the winds, and commanding all around her to lay itself to rest. Not seldom in Homer is Athena mentioned as of the nature of health-bringing fire, and as the fire-ball falling from heaven, as in the case of the victory-announcing star on the head of Diomed. He speaks of an unwearied,
MINERVA. 49
self-supporting, immortal and ethereal fire. Like Athene, Isis also was regarded as ruler of the sea, as is represented on very ancient coins. On one of the MaiFei gems, Athene holds a rudder in the right hand ; and near the rudder the rest-giving staff* of Hermes, which is held between poppies ; which poppies, like the cornucopia, have reference to the Kabiric Demeter. Here the electro-magnetic forces, as well as the magnetic sleep, are pointed out with sufficient distinctness. The miraculous helmet of Pluto is, moreover, sometimes worn significantly by Athene — the helmet which belongs to the nine divinities, armed with lightning, " with which she passes through the heavens large enough to cover the foot soldiers from a hundred towns ;" thus showing herself a superhuman, gigantic being, and as a heavenly apparition, speedily withdrawing herself again from sight. Minerva is by her nature essentially prophetic. Her motlier. Metis — "Wisdom — a daughter of Oceanos and Tethys, was the first wife of Zeus. After Metis had withdrawn herself from Zeus by passing through a variety of forms, she announced to him that she should give birth to a son and daughter who would assume the sovereignty. Upon this he swallowed her, as she was pregnant with Athene, and thus produced her himself (Apollod. i. 3, 6 ; Hesiod. Theog. 886). According to Hesiod, Zeus swallowed Metis, by the advice of Uranos and Gsea, who communicated to him the important announcement of the future ; and hidden in the interior of Zeus she prophesied to him good and bad.
Homer mentions no mother. According to him, Minerva sprang at once from the head of Zeus, and thence was called TpiToyi]veia, the chief-born ; which word is, however, variously explained, as for instance, that it means born on the third of the month. Accordiug to Democritus, because she conferred three cardinal virtues, — profound counsel, sound judgment, and justice in action. According to others, she is called a daughter of Hephaestos ; and accordingly the people's festi^^als, XaXKela, and 'A^rjvcua, and Ilai'^T^^toc, were held unitedly at Athens in honour of Minerva and HephjBstos, as the divinities who presided over the arts^ Erom the same cause, Athena comes much into connection with Prometheus, as she who counselled him to steal the fire from heaven.
VOL. n. E
50 HISTORY OF MAGIC.
According to Orphic hymns, Athene is the personified productive principle, and as such is synonymous with Phanes. Pre-eminently is Athene as the daughter of the omnipotent Zeus and Metis, or Wisdom, that being amongst the Olympic divinities in whom power and intelligence were united; on which account she was denominated the pro- tector of states, the goddess of wisdom and the arts, — especially the useful arts. At the same time she is the protecting goddess of war, under the name of Pallas ; but she does not delight in the slaughter of men, like Ares, but rather held back men from mutual carnage, where wisdom counselled it. We find her in Homer bearing no weapons but such as she borrowed from Zeus (II. v. 735). In Athens she was the general protecting power, the helper, Hwrepia, and goddess of healing, Yyiiia izanovia, to whom the serpent, as the regenerating strength, was sacred. It is remarkable that Athene was also amongst the Etruscans one of the divinities of lightning. Thus she stands on a coin of Severus waiting upon Vulcan, who is forging thunderbolts for her ; and the owl of Minerva on coins is represented as the bearer of lightnings. Thus she is made to say in ^sculus that she alone of all the gods knows where the lightnings lie concealed. Tzetzes of Lycophron gives the legend that Athene had been a queen, called Belanica, a daughter of Brontes, who had been married to Hephaestos, and was the mother of Erichthonius.
Besides the well-known names which she received from the various places where she was worshipped, she was called the singer — 'At/cwv, the patriotic, the counseller, the help- ful, the stiller of the wind. According to a Spartan popular legend, her worship was brought out of Colchis by the Dioscuri (Pausau. iii. 24-5). She had in Sparta a fine temple adorned with brass, and a brazen statue. As Pallas, she was called the warrior maid — WaKa^ ; Havia, who gives health and plenty ; 2(.f'pag, Sciras, after the prophet of 'Dodona ; and thence the feasts, the Scirophoria, in which a white canopy was carried down from the palace to the temple of Athene Sciras by the priestess. She was called (TKipov, after the Telchines, who came out of Cyprus and Beotia, and built a sanctuary to the goddess on the mountain Teremcssos ; and she had also the cogno-
SYirBOLic :mtthological chaeacters. 51
men of the slayer of giants and the Gorgon. The olive- branch, the serpent, the owl, and the cock, were sacred to her.
It has always been observed that the magnetic meteoric stone, the Batylus, was worn as a divining stone by the priests of Cybele. Livy relates that a meteoric stone was brought with great solemnity from Pessinus to Eome, as a symbol of the mother of the gods, and that it was received by tlie Vestals, and was borne from hand to hand to the Temple of Victory. He states that the touching of it cleared the dubious character of a Vestal, and that she then was esteemed as more sacred than ever. Erom this we perceive the connection of the service of the Vestals with the Samothracian mysteries, as well as the secret use of the power of the magnet in the temples. Traditions on this head are, it is true, so rare, owing to the secresy used, and to the strictness of the prohibition of pubUcation, as well as to the withdrawal of the Palladii, as images of the the gods held sacred, from^ all physical inquiry. Thence it happens that Vesta is frequently confounded with Cybele. Vesta was also frequently depicted with lightnings in her hand. AVith this accords a remarkable picture in the work of Eaoul Rochette — Monumens d'Antiquite figuree, tab. 58 — which is unmistakeably a representation of an initiation into the mysteries of the mother of the gods, or of the Eleusinian Demeter. Like the erect-haired one, as Pan was called, all the figures here have their hair streaming out on all sides, with the exception of the mysterious or Cabiric Demeter, from whom the idea is that the power issues, and a person who kneels, and who, as it seems, is about to be initiated into the mysteries. There are twelve heads with such erect hair. Schweigger traces farther the connection of Vesta with Apollo and Hermes; and in Creuzer's Symbolic, in the fifth table and third figure, we see Vesta, with her staff" in her left hand, appear, and extending her right hand towards Hermes, as though she would seize the magic wand with which, according to Virgil, he chases the winds, while Hermes holds this in his left hand towards her. "We have already noticed that the priests of Cybele fre- quently used the Idaic Dactyls instead of the small magnetic stone ; whence these dactyls are so frequently found in the
52 HISTORY OF MAGIC.
mysteries. This niuch is, therefore, clear, that the myth of Cybele, with which that of Demeter and Ceres is so frequently confounded, is identical with the Cabiric worship, and -that the agricultural religion, which taught the all- nurturing power of mother nature in all the different seasons of the year, arose originally from an observance of electrical phenomena. " Their demons are the Cabiri," says Lucian (Dea Syria, xv. 97) — " and therefore are the Cabiri worshipped by the sacrifice of dogs in the Zerynthian cave, where, in the depths of the subterranean world, Persephone and the fire-god Yulcan, are believed, to prepare the warmth of life for the coming season of the year, necessary for the production of flowers and fruit. Hence the connection of the name of the great Idaic-mother, the beast-producer, the fruit-bringer, with Ceres. According to Schelling, Cybele is the counterpart of the outstretched heavens ; according to him the mother of the gods represents the beginning of organic nature, — as Kronos, Typhon, Moloch, do that of the inorganic. Amongst the Egyptians ruled gods of the stars ; the first principle, the gods, was predominant with them ; while amongst the G-reeks it was the sacred prin- ciple, that of creative ideality and of spiritual illumination, and thence the glorious powers which they produced. The Greek gods are not of flesh and blood, yet they are beings resembling men.
Cybele is so called from Kv^rj, a cave, in which her priests, Cureti, dwelt, nine in number, and there held their religious ceremonies and weapon dance, striking with their swords on their shields; a practice whicli some derive from Phrygia, because in Phrygia especially the cultivation of the Cureti- dance and orgiestic music are to be sought. Thus, accord- ing to vStrabo, the Curetes were originally priests, advanced later to demons and gods, to whom men erected temples, and by whose names they sw^ore. He lays do\Mi two opinions : either the Cureti, Corybantes, Idaic Dactyls, and Telchines, are identical, or they are kindred beings, and only differ in some minor particulars ; and he thence comes to the conclusion that they are of enthusiastic and Bacchic c])aracter, — that is, belong to an orgiestic nature-worship, ajid that the Curetes have much resemblance to the Satyrs.
It was on the sacred mountain of Ehea that the weapon-
SYMBOLIC MTTROLOGICAL CHAEACTEES. 53
dance was held, and ore was brought out to the day ; by which we perceive that connection with the Dactyls, that is, with the demons of strength and the arts ; for they forged weapons from the ore delivered in by the attendants ; " and it is thus natural," says Strabo, "that the Idaic Dactyls should be confounded with the Samothracian Cabiri, whom in Ehodes the Telchines represented. In this," he con- tinues, " all agree, that the Idaic Dactyls first forged iron on Mount Ida ; that they were the servants of the mother of the gods, who dwelt in Phrygia near Ida. By Phrygia is meant the district of Troy ; for the Phrygians appropriated the lands of Troy, after that city was destroyed by the G-recians. It is supposed also that the Curetes and Cory- bantes were descended from the Dactyls, for there were at first a hundred Cretans who bore the name of the Idaic Dactyls. From these hundred men arose nine others, who were the Curetes ; and every one of these produced two children, and these were then called Idaic Dactyls, like their grandfathers. Others suppose three original Cory- bantes, as there were three original Curetes, and three divine Bacchuses. The priests of the goddess ran about with wild cries, and with a terrific din of kettle-drums and cymbals, of horns and pipes, dancing their armed quire through woods and mountains, or practised the orgiestic dance, in which in a religious phrensy they wounded each other" (Lucian. de Sallust. 8).
The goddess herself cured madness (Pynd. Pyth. iii. ; Diod. iii. 57). "Her priests were physicians — Cybelae cultores pathici. Onione, the wdfe of Alexandres — Paris — learned from her the Mantic doctrines (Apollod. iii.) ^sculapius was also brought into connection with the Cybele-worship and the Cabiri. According to Damascius, ^sculapius is not a Greek but a Phoenician ; for Sadyc had seven sons, who were declared to be Cabiri or Dioscuri, but the eighth was ^sculapius — Esmun. He was very beau- tiful, and was beloved of Astarte, the mother of the god. In order to avoid her passion, he mutilated himself, and the sorrowing people placed him amongst the gods, and called him Poean."
We cannot dwell longer on the worship of Ceres ; to wliich belongs the myth of Triopas and Ins son Erysiclitlion (Kornbraud), whom the goddess punished with terrible
54 HISTORY OF MAGIC.
hunger ; nor can we pursue further the mysteries of the subterranean Persephone ; but of the sorcery of Circe we must yet take some notice, after I have given the explana- tion of the Cybele myth by P. Franc. Pomey, in his " Pan- theum mythicum seu fabulosa deorum historia," Leipsic, 1759 ; Karl Bart has treated at length of the Cureti, the Corybantes, Telchines, and the Dactyls, as well as of the Samothracian Cabiri in Grermany.
Cybele, according to Pomey, p. 138, is the goddess of all that is earthly ; nay, she is the earth itself. She bears a tower OQ her head, a key in her hand ; because she bears and cherishes the towered cities, and because she locks up her treasures in winter, and then again unlocks them. She travels in a lofty car, because she is round, and floats in the air by the equipoise of her own weight. She is drawn by- lions, to show that there is nothing so wild and untamed which may not be subdued by diligence and humanity, and made serviceable. Her dress is adorned with flowers of all colours, and vrith the forms of the most varied animals, — a circumstance that requires no explanation.
Her name, with various bye-names, springs from various causes. Originally, a daughter of heaven and the wife of time — Saturn — she has her name, according to Strabo and Suidas, from a mountain in Phrygia, where a sanctuary was first erected to her (or airo rov Kv^iaav) because her priests with streaming hair, and with horrible action and dances, foretold future events. She was called Ops — help — because she brought help to all things ; Ehea, from piio, to flow, because she flows round all things with bless- ings ; Dydymene, from a Phrygian mountain ; the mother of the gods, and by the Greeks Pasithea, that is, iraai ^toig firjTfjp, — the mother of all the gods. She was called the good goddess ; also Pauna, the wood-goddess, etc. The place of her temple was Opertum; and thence Lucian sings : —
" Xosse domus stygias, arcanaque ditis operti."
Although in all temples a certain degree of silence prevailed, yet this was most strictly observed in the worship of Cybele ; for man honours Grod by silence, and especially that divinity from whom proceeds the beginning of all things. "Therefore," says Plutarch, "we honour man by
FOREIGN SOURCES OF THE GREEK MYTHS. 55
speaking — tlie gods by silence." Idaea she was called, from Mount Ida in Phrygia, where she was pre-eminently wor- shipped ; Pessinuntia — the fallen from heaven, from a field in Phrygia, where her image was found, and whence the Phrygians first raised a temple to her. It was the custom in this temple, as in that of Bacchus, to celebrate their worship with obstreporous noise of many instruments, and amid many wild cries, whereby, strangely enough, the temple was not opened by hands but by prayer. Amongst the trees, the box and the pine were dedicated to her, because out of the first the pipes were cut, and the pine, on account of the boy Atys, whom Cybele loved, and whom she made the superintendent of her sanctuary on condition of perpetual chastity, but which he violated, and being enraged by the angry goddess, he mutilated himself, and would have committed suicide, to prevent which she changed him into a pine-tree."
The priests of Cybele were also called Galli, from a river in Phrygia of that name, the water of which, when drunk, drove people mad ; and therefore the officiating priests cut themselves, and were called gallants. They had also other names, — as Cabiri, Corybantes, etc. etc., which we have frequently quoted. The Corybantes were so called, ac- cording to Strabo, from the shaking of their heads in the dance. The Telchines were said to be from Crete, and thence to have gone to Ehodes, and to have been celebrated sorcerers ; or, if you will believe others, men, who, on account of their discoveries and proficiency in art, deserved well of the community : being said to be the first who made images of the gods.
There was in G-reece originally no district of sorcery, in which a power opposed to nature and the gods could' ex- hibit itself. But it was different in fabulous foreign coun- tries, which richly furnished Grreece Avith marvels and the power of working them. As far as concerned his own land, the youthful imagination of the Greek shaped the gods forth only in dark outlines. But foreign lands had their own marvellous creations of a wonder-believing power of imagination, to which belongs what Homer relates of sor- cery and the might of sorcerers, and yet in which it is still obvious that the poet had an historical foundation for his fictions. Such are the Sirens, dwellers in unknown seas ;
5Q HISTORY OF MAGIC.
creatures of an extraordinary magic power, whict. does not arise from secret arts, but lies especially in the sweetness of their singing, with which the attractive and brain-bewildering power of the sea co-operated. Their action is, therefore, to be compared with that of Amphion and of Orpheus. Mi- raculous creatures, too, are the Cyclops and the Lsestrygones, with whose original meaning we are acquainted : the Giants and Titans are only miraculous because they are now no longer to be found, aad they are therefore placed in that unknown land, or in heaven.
Amongst these wonderful beings Circe holds a preeminent place, on account of her magic power and of her native country, — high Asia. " Prometheus did penance in the Caucasus, and to that neighbourhood belongs the notorious magic family, of which there is in Homer and afterwards so much mention, — especially of Pasiphae, ^tes, Circe, and Medea. In Homer nothing is more striking than the wholly un-G-recian nature of the representation of human sorcery. The whole family is derived from Helios by a svncretism apparent from the earliest times in Greece, in order to bring them nearer to the sphere of the gods, and to deduce their arts from them. Circe, herself a goddess, is the sister of ^tes ; both are children of Helios and Perse, or Perseis, the daughter of Oceanos. She is brought by Helios into the west. In Colchis there is yet a piece of land called from her Ktp/ca/ov" (Wachsmuth, in the Athe- naeum, B. ii. p. 218).
The magic power of Circe is thus compared with that of the other gods, but continues so far foreign, that in order to effect her metamorphoses she mixes beforehand magic materials, tpapfxaKa \vypc. irav4)apixaicoQ, and must touch her countrymen with a magic rod : —
" On thrones around with downy coverings graced. With semblance fair the unhappy men she placed. Milk newly pressed, the sacred flour of wheat, And honey fresh, and Pramnian wines the treat. But venomed was the bread, and mixed the bowl With drugs of force to darken all the soul : Soon in the luscious feast themselves they lost, \ And drank oblivion to their native coast. \ Instant her circling wand the goddess waves, V To hogs transforms them, and the sty receives."
Odyssey, Book x.
CIECE, MEDEA, PASIPHAE, HECATE. 57
The important magical expression ^EXyeiv, which occurs so frequently afterwards, does not occur so early as this ; and the later magic formulae to prevent sorcery and to detect it, so celebrated in subsequent ages, the Homeric Circe was not yet acquainted with.
But what, however, does present itself in Circe, is of the more accomplished form of sorcery. Thus, according to ApoUodorus, she is a strange and terrible, yet at the same time di\ane being ; and she, as such, absolved the Argonauts from the crime of murdering Absyrtus. Yirgil gives her, besides the potentibus herbis, also carmina ; that is, besides magic herbs also magic songs, and she now took rank as one of the prime sorceresses of antiquity.
Medea, the niece of Circe, is not mentioned by Homer, who speaks only of her father ^Etes. Strange and terrible as is her aid in the combat between Jason and the Hydra, she was not in the older times by any means the terrible and necromantic child murderess, (Wachsmuth, a. a. 0.) Accordhig to later legends, Medea took her abode in Grreece, and knew the means of inflicting curses. She rose into a monster first under the hands of the tragic poets ; the legends were continually collecting fresh incidents, and thus Medea became worse from age to age — fama crescit eiindo ; and she is, for example, in the Argonautic expedition, the arch- sorceress, with all her mixing of poisons, her power of chang- ing men into beasts, and her magic ointments.
Pasiphae, also, the sister of ^tes and of Circe, was ac- quainted with the agency of magic, and by her the legends of the Idaic Dactyls are to be reconciled. In the same man- ner as the Grreek came out of the distant Colchis, came the magic art from mysterious Egypt ; yet without acquiring much influence. Hecate did not yet belong to the magic class in the days of Hesiod, and is a difiierent person at this time to Selene. She derived her power only from Zeus, Avho honoured her so highly that he shared with her the power over the earth, the sun, and the heaven. She gives riches to mortals, and appears as the dispenser of order in war and in the assemblies of the people. That fabulous noc- turnal darkness of hers, in which were the infernal dogs, the serpents, etc., is found only in connection with her in later times.
58 HISTOET OF MAGIC.
The connection, therefore, of Circe and the Phrygian mysteries is clear, and the explanation is after this too far- fetched when we derive the name, according to Hermann, from '^ naviffafio in orh em faciei '' (De myth, Grrsec. antiq.)
According to the researches and sagacious combinations of Bart, the Curetes were originally people who dwelt in thick mountain woods and caves, and were very skilful in rearing of cattle, in gathering honey, and shooting with arrows ; and who being very warlike, sought their fortunes in war, and therefore introduced the sword, the shield, and the weapon-dance. They lived, according to Homer's Hiad, in ^toha, and, being expelled thence, afterwards in Aca- mania. In a religious point of view, the Curetes were, as we have seen, the ministers of the mother of the gods in the orgiestic festivals. They then constituted a sacerdotal caste, became demons, who educated the new-born Zeus, and were also in the service of other gods, from which cause Uranus, Demeter, etc., were called Curetes. Samothrace, as we have said, is the country of the Curetes, where they are called Anaken, and exercised proper electric powers. Bart enters fully into these views, and adds, that the Curetes were the guardians of the young Dionysius and Zeus. As Bacchus also belongs to this circle of the gods, it is necessary that we should notice his myth in reference to its primeval signification.
The ancient mythographers name three Dionysii. 1st. The Indian; the eldest, who gave wine and fruit. 2nd. The son of Dios and Persephone, or, according to others, of Uemeter, who taught men to plough with oxen, and thence is represented with horses. 3rd. The son of Dios and Semele. The Lybians, moreover, had three Dionysii. In Egypt Osiris was synonj^mous with Dionysos. According to the character of the doctrine or the conception, Bart ac- cepts two Dionysi. In the first appears the eldest one as Zagreus, the son of Jupiter and Persephone, and was torn asunder by the Titans. Apollo again put together his limbs, and preserved his heart, out of which arose the second Dionysos, born of Semele. Himalso Herapersecuted, on which account Hermes brought him to Cybele, who suckled him and educated him with maternal care. He was either brought up ou the sacred Mount Ida, or in Dodona, by the Hyades,
BACCHUS. 59
who were Nyssseic and Dodonaeic nymphs. Silenus the Curete was his teacher and nourisher, and Hermes bore him as a child into heaven. According to others, Jupiter caused him to be brought to Nissa in the form of a he-goat, and educated by the nymphs, who were then placed in hea- vens, and as the Hyades brought rain.
Hera perseveringly pursuing him, he became mad, and went to Dodona to be cured ; he rode on an ass that could speak, and finally came to the hill of Cybela in Phrygia, whence Rhea carried him ofi", and consecrated him.
In reality the three Dionysii were one being. A symbolic feast was celebrated in honour of him who was torn to pieces by the Titans, and the history of the old one was transferred to the new. In Zagreus, his tortures and death appear to be his peculiar characteristic, — the mystery of faith. On the other hand, he is the hunter of life, to whom all living are a prey ; and according to Snidos, Zagreus was the sub- terranean Dionysos. He improved the ancient orgies, and founded new; and thus arose the type of the Dionysos- figures. In the bearded god was recognised the Indian ; and on the other hand, the son of Semele was eifeminate, and inclined to pleasure. The panther-skin denoted the warrior, and the god of peace was distinguished by a flowing, luxurious robe, and the mitre, afterwards a diadem.
The worship of Bacchus spread itself through the whole world ; he and Demeter were the benefactors of all, and by all were honoured. His worship in India, Egypt, and farther Asia, is well known ; in Arabia, Dionysos and Urania were alone worshipped by all the gods. In Persia, a festival was celebrated in honour of Bacchus, as the producer of verdure, the founder, the re-awakener and genius of spring. In Scythia and Bactria, women celebrated the Bacchanalia with Indian and Thracian customs. Prom Thracia the worship spread itself towards the north as far as the Ister and to the ocean. The difi'usion of his worship was repre- sented under the form of a warlike expedition, and the legends of distant people corroborate this account. It arrived in Greece long before the Theban Cadmus. But commonly Dionysos does not appear as a warrior ; he did not compel the people by force, but through enthusiastic practices. He led women in his train, loved music and
60 HISTOET OF MAGIC.
jollity, and, therefore, the muses and the satyrs accompanied him. Everj'where he diffused his benefits ; taught the cul- tivation of the vine, the brewing of barley, the culture of grain ; and instead of the old, simple worship, a public one, with solemn processions, with bands of musicians and dances. Everywhere he promoted sociality amongst men, and appeared as the establisher of peace, but only amongst the pious and the upright, through which the character of the reformer is apparent.
According to the Indian doctrine, Bacchus was born on Mount Meros, in a cave. Meros, in the Indian, means a thigh ; and thence the legend that Bacchus was hidden in the thigh of Zeus. On Meros, Bacchus arrayed his forces for the Indian expedition, and there was the rock on which Zeus destroyed the Typhon.
Passing over the many different names given him by dif- ferent nations, as Lysius, Lyaeos, the conductor of souls from and to heaven ; Kolonotas, the lord of graves ; Deme- trius, of the dead ; Licritus, the arisen ; Amphietes, the returner ; Hyes, the lord of moist nature, etc., which are full of meaning, we shall here only cursorily notice the life and original signification of Dionj^sos or Bacchus.
Bacchus was most intimately united with Demeter, " the demon and co-ruler in the bosom of the Eleusinian god" (Bart, p. 123.) That was Isis, the daughter of Prometheus, of the ancient Cabiri ; thus the same as the Egyptian Cabiri. His being, says Diodorus, is manifold. The Orpheists style him the material soul of the world, which, having proceeded from one source, communicates soul to every part of the world, as the human soul does to the human body. He is the father of Asterion, of the giant, of the Asar, of the Curetes, and who commanded the Corybantish Hyle. Hyle is the wild tumult which stupifies the souls descending from the godhead. She forms, through her impregnation, all bodies ; she is that divine drink, the jN"ectar, awaking the physical life. The spirit in that life is Dionysos ; the only, the unchangeable Grod, who, according to his will, subjects himself to mutability, and appears in air and water, in earth and the stars, in plants and animals, Zagreus in the form of dismemberment. In the myth of the many forms, the doctrine of death and the resurrection are concealed. Thus he
THE SIGNTFICA:ffCE OF THE MYTHIC BACCnTJS. 61
is the creator of the individual as he proceeds from the general, the re-awakener, and form-giver in an eternal circle.
According to the Orphean doctrine (Macrob. Saturnalia, i. 18), he was represented as the Demiurgus, with attributes which the four elements represent, for he ruled in all. Earth and heaven were his body, which is subjected to muta- bility, but the spirit is eternal. The body is only changed, not destroyed ; and at a future day will arise from the grave and appear glorified. For the buried Dionysos himself arose in splendour, descended into the regions of the dead amongst the demons of Demeter, and therefore his intimate connection with Persephone. The Phallus is the pledge of return ; the symbol of everlasting production, and of the resurrection of the flesh.
The theory of Dionysos unites itself, after a severe con- flict, with that of Apollo. According to Creuzer, in his " Symbolism," p. 156, the worship of Apollo is older than that of Dionysos ; and the myth of Lycurgos was a conflict for the ancient faith of light, as unity, against the encroaching pressure of the dominance of the physical world, — against the more easily comprehensible, but as easily misunderstood worship of the deity, till finally one being was recognised in botli. Dionysos had his tomb and his resurrection in Delphi ; Apollo had buried him in Parnassus, which was con- secrated to both. In the cave of Bacchus there was a Delphic oracle ; there were two Bacchanalia celebrated every two years, and some regarded the deities as mixed beings, others aflirmed that there M'as but one being. (See Macrobius, Arnobius, Lucan, and Suidas.) Dionysos is, like Apollo, a prophet; and in Thrace he had an important oracle, on the summit of Pangaeus, where, as at Delphi, a priestess announced to the father of Augustus the brilliant fortunes of his son. Dionysos, like Apollo, was the head of the Muses, the teacher and patron of song and of poets. Apollo inspired the seers, Bacchus the enthusiasts. Dionysos conducted the souls back again to the primeval fountain, and Apollo rewards his pious worshippers by taking them away from the earth. Dionysos is nourished by Night, Nyssa ; he is called JSTyssaBus, Nyctelius, the hidden of Night. Apollo is the son of Latoua, whom Buto cherishes on the Island of
62 HISTORY OF MAGIC.
Isight. In Egypt, Horus was a son of Osiris, as Attica acknowledged an Apollo given by Dionysos. But the brother of Osiris was also Horus, he who was Zagreus dismem- bered, and again re-arisen. Apollo betokens unity ; Delphos is called the One, who only reveals himself in manifold forms when he advances into the visible world. Light is the symbol of spiritual unity ; when it advances into time and space, then it is Horus, the son of the father Osiris. An obscure Delphic doctrine says — Apollo is fulness ; Dionysos, privation, want ; therefore the former was worshipped for nine months of the year, and the latter during the three winter months. Then he appears as Aides, Nyctelius, com- pared to the natural, descending sun, who conducts the souls into the nether world, until they have undergone the purification by fire, and arise out of the house of disease and trouble into the fulness of heavenly light.
AVhen Plutarch represents Bacchus and Apollo as pro- phetic divinities, we find the account very strikingly descrip- tive of the phenomena of magnetic somnambulism, in which the first ecstasy shows itself in two prominent forms : one clear, gentle, and like light in its perspicacity ; a fine moral tone of mind in a tranquil body ; the inner vision of a new, unfolded sense revealing itself through a free will in positive action ; while the other form has something excited and demoniac, that alternates frivolity and sport, M'ith way- wardness and jest, nay, even with raving. These two forms appear well embodied in the myths of Apollo and Bacchus, and wrapped in enigma, which are intelligible to the initiated. There physical is linked to metaphysical, historical to reli- gious, the divine reflected in nature. For all further parti- culars of the worship of Bacchus, I must refer to Bart's work, and to Schelling's Enquiry into the Samothracian Divinities.
Allied to the Curetes and Corybantes, says Bart, are the Telchines and the Dactyls, which are frequently held to be identical. They appear in these characters — 1st. As tillers of land and servants of the gods of the primeval times. A race which emigrated from Crete to Cyprus, and thence to Rhodes. According to others, they were a primeval people in Pelo- ponnesus 1070 years before the building of Eome. They were driven thence, and fled to an island full of serpents,
O'S MAGIC IS MYTHOLOGY. 63
called from that cause Ophiusa, but after them Telchines, and afterwards Ehodes. They again quitted Ehodes, because they foresaw an inundation of the island, and thence dispersed themselves into different countries. Bart believes that their emigration from Crete stands in connection with that of Apis, who once ruled over the peninsula. He was a son of Telchin, or of Phoroneus, whom some state to be a son of Machus, and others a cotemporary of JVinus, and the father of Jo, or Isis. Apis was thus her brother; Osiris, the Bacchus of the G-reeks, came to Egypt as Corj'bas came to the country of the Tyrrhenes. Even St. Augustine (de civit. Dei, xviii. 5) states that he went to Egypt. According to the legend of Ehodes, the Telchini were natives of that island. According to Diodorus, they were called the demons of the East, because, on account of an offence against Aphrodite, they were hidden in the earth. The giants inhabited the western part of the island.
2ndly. The Telchini M'ere regarded as sorcerers and malicious demons. According to Strabo, Trorrjpol kuI yoZ/rec ; according to Suidas, -Koviipoi kuI fmffKuvoi cai/uoveg. They were believed to be the sous of Thalassa, of the Sea or of Poseidon, and, therefore, Eustathios represents them in the shape of sea-nymphs, without feet, but m ith fins. They can send hail, rain, and snow, or prevent their falling ; they can assume all forms (Diod. v, 55.) They mix Stygian water with sulphur, in order to destroy beasts and plants (Strabo, xiv.) Their glance, the evil eye, is fatal (Ovid. Metamorph.) Here we have already the whole nature of witches portrayed.
" The Telchini," says Bart, p. 10, " were to Poseidon what the Curetes were to Zeus. They were, like them, punished by their foster-child, and may be classified with the giants, as these with the Titans. They foretold a great flood, quitted the island, and scattered themselves through many countries, or they were driven out of the island by the sons of Helios, as the Heliadesnow increased, and wandered, as if seized by madness, to and fro on the sea, ^eXytiv. They were called deluders, because they changed their forms, and understood arts ; while, in fact, these evil reports were invented by their enemies out of envy of their
64 HISTOET OF MAGIC.
artistic skill, and they were denounced as sorcerers and demons, whicli is exactly the spirit in which every new doctrine is cried down into a heresy."
Srdly. The Telchini were described as most inventive artists, who established healthful customs, and executed images of the gods. They smelted, in the Idseic caves, brass and iron ; forged the sickle of Cronos, with which he muti- lated TJranos — (the universal power of Heaven predominates with a decided power over Time) — the trident of jSTeptune — (the threefold electrical lordship of the sea, as the equipoise between air and water, or as the three points of the electrical fire). They also constructed that pernicious necklace which Haphsestos gave to Hermione (Diod. iv. 65.) In the last character they may have given occasion to allocate them with the Idaic Dactyls, and their descent with that of the Curetes ; for Strabo says, they who accompanied E,hea to Crete, and brought up Zeus, were called Curetes " from the nine Telchini of Ehodes." They are called the Telchini of the deep, the sons of Posiedon. They arise out of the deep, and fight in the host of Dionysos. The fleet Telchini follow him on sea-horses (Pausanias, ix. 19.) These were images of Apollo, of Hera, and of Athene, which were called Telchini, in which there probably lay a principle of magic ; and thus there was a Telchinic Hera, as there was a Cabiric Demeter.
The Dactyls originated in Phrygia; we have already become acquainted with their number and kind as sor- cerers, discoverers of arts, and scientific physicians. The name Mount Ida is by others derived from mother Ida and the father Dactylos ; the number is as difierently calculated. According to some they are equal to the fingers of the hands, — five male, and five female. Pherecydes gives twenty right, and two-and-thirty left ; others a hundred, because a hundred men came from Crete ; Orpheus the Argonaut gives a whole throng ; Pausanias five, namely, Hercules, Epimedes, Paeon, Jason, and Idas. Celmus, or the Telchinic Scelmus, is called by Hesychias a child, a kind of Cadmil, probably one who produced magical effects by words and songs. Telchin was also called Damanamenes, the powerful, the binder, especially he who binds the oxen to the yoke ; Epimedes is called the reflector, the director of
THE WONDEE-WOEKING DACTYLS. 65
counsel. The names Jason, Paeon, Idas-Akesidas, betoken professors of the healing art. Acmon is called the moun- tain-runner ; he is in the host of Bacchuses, and whirls the Corybant lance, on which Zeus slept as an infant, while his birth was concealed by the din of shields struck together. An Idasic finger means an iron-finger. Thej were conjurors, magicians, exorcists of sickness, soothsayers. They occupied themselves with magic songs, consecrations, mysteries, and, while they remained in Samothrace, threw the inhabitants into great astonishment. As sorcerers they appeared in Italy, according to Plutarch. It was said the left bind spells, the right unloose them ; and to catch a dactyl was a usual adage for a fruitless attempt. Their names already were magical, having power to repel terrible phenomena. To them belongs the use of the Ephesian runes, the discovery of which is attributed to them, as to Hercules that of the Phrygian letters. The discovery of the minerals was also ascribed to them, as well as the notes of music and the nnisical scale. They first brought musical instruments into Greece. In Crete they discovered fire ; they were rapid runners and dancers, and the Dactylus was a peculiar kind of dance ; the Dactylon a famous healing herb, etc. Prom them proceed the first wise men ; Orpheus was their scholar, who brought the mysteries to Greece. They were already called the ministers of Cybele, and Schweigger has demon- strated them to be the magnetic powers and spirits, at the liead of whom was Hercules.
" While," says Bart, " we treat of the close union of the Dactyls and magnetic force, we are not necessarily con- fined to the magnetic stone, and our views of nature, but take a glance at magnetism in its whole meaning. Then it is clear how the initiated, who called themselves Dactyls, created astonishment in the people through their mafic arts, working, as they did, marvels of a healing nature. To this united themselves many other things which the priesthood of antiquity was wont to practise ; the cultivation of the land and of morals, the advancement of art and science, mysteries and secret consecrations. All this was done by the priestly Cabiri, and wherefore not guided and supported by the secret spirits of nature ? Thus was their knowledge linked
TOL. II. .r
bb HISTOET or MAGIC.
to the religious sense, and Hercules affords an example of the intermingling of these ideas."
Bart then goes into a closer observation of the myth of Hercules ; shows how difficult it was for the oldest in- quirers to personify him in every shape ; rightly to explain his genealogy, of which eight different accounts are received, namely, the Indian, the Egyptian, the Idaic, the Phoenician, the Greek, the Tyrian, etc. He then shows the origin and meaning of the name, — originally Alcseos, Alcides, allied to Alcis. He relates his history and his expeditions, in which many see a conflict between the sun and the power of nature, — others, a veiled historical event. These expe- ditions are to Spain, to Celtiberia, and Grermany, to the Alps and Italy, to the north-east and Scythia, and to the Hyper- boreans to fetch the golden apples. Hercules spread culti- vation and a mild religion, destroyed the doctrine of eternal punishment by dragging Cerberus from the nether world, ascended to heaven through the purification by fire, and endeavoured everywhere to put an end to human sacri- fices. As a raw youth, before he liberated Prometheus, and had spoken with Atlas and Chiron, he was the opponent of oracles ; but after he became older and more considerate, he was a great philosopher, and showed himself proficient in the Mantic and Dialectic. In the myth of the attempted theft of the Delphic tripod, we see the enemy of oracles, or rather the Hercules, become wise, and comprehending the feeling of the people. Schweigger sees in him the opposite magnetic pole of Apollo, whence he was called the Hyper- borean Hercules. Through the release of Prometheus, and the erection of altars, we behold in him the mediator between the old and new faiths. He represents the intro- duction of the electric power to general usefulness, yet with that mysterious veiling of it in temples, of which there were many, in all countries, dedicated to Hercules. His voluntary immolation betokens the ethereal new-birth of men. Like Heracles, he exhibited himself as a religious hero, displaying his might and affinity to the primeval gods, — the primeval powers. He descended into the realm of Pluto as a familiar acquaintance ; yet as a shade, —the slumbering magnetic force ; he ascended as a spirit to his father Zeus in
THE MTTH OP HERCULES EXPLAINED. 67
Olympus, whither he is conducted by Athene and Hebe. The accomplishing, regulating, and eternally youthful power, receives him in the form of a child, and reconciles him to Hera.
Hercules, says Lucian, did not subject the nations to im by force, but by wisdom and persuasion. He was Alexis, Alexicacos, the turner back of the wicked ; Soter, the saviour ; Melos Eumelos, the good shepherd ; the prophet Manticlos ; Daphnephoros, the bearer of laurel, because the chewing of laurel leaves awoke the gift of prophesying. Being obliged to serve, he was the strong- hold of servants, and his temple an asylum of slaves. On account of his indomitable strength, he is Adamarnos, the conqueror ; he is the terrific and overpowering Titan ; he is Astrochiton, the star-clothed, the Lord of Fire ; Hippo- detos, the tamer of horses, all of which has reference to elec- tricity and magnetism, and by which the images of the Dioscuri are represented. The Sabines named him dins Jidius, synonymous with Dioscure. Therefore, he and Mars were held to be the same being ; he was, like Apollo, Musa- getes ; the brother of Persephone : the Chaldseans named the star Mars, Hercules. He was the refuge of mankind, who launched the lightning, more powerful than his father. He was the symbol of the powers of nature ; the god of nature, by name Liber, Hercules, Mercmy, — as the producer, the all-wise, the omnipotent.
It has been already shown that the mysteries of Samo- thrace busied themselves pre-eminently with the inquiries into nature. People knew the polarity of the magnet, the attractive and repellent power. The magnet was in Egypt the bone of Horus, and iron that of Typhon. The magnet, Claudian says, is the all- working power, which carries in itself the seed of all things ; eclipses of the sun and moon, the phenomena of comets, the tempest of wind, earthquakes, thunder, the rainbow, — all come through its means. That is not the simple magnet, it is the law of nature, the living power, which, drawing and repelling, creates and keeps to- gether the parts of the world through which the stars are propelled and whirled round in their courses, while the opposite poles seek each other. The magnet is the symbol of this power, and as it creates and turns the world it pro-
^8 HISTOET OF MAGIC.
duces men. Hymen, the god of marriage, is its son. Pro- duction is the highest assertion of the power of magnetism, and this power is Hercules (Clemens Alex. Strom, viii, 704). In India he is Parabrahma Birma, and Yishnu, the centrifugal and centripetal force. Through the poetical elaboration of so many and diiferent elements, of nature and history, of trade and religion, the myth of Hercules receives a many- sidedness, and offers points of particular observation at every stage of their interpretation.
That the ancients also understood magnetising by the hands, that is to say, produced the effects which follow touching, rubbing, and laying on of hands, is made mani- fest sometimes by clearly expressed words, and some- times by pictures and signs. The Telchini, who were con- sidered as sorcerers and enchanters, seem to have received their names from the word ^iXyio, — to stroke, to touch softly, — and not from any place. Por under S-t'Xyw is also under- stood to stupefy, to put to sleep. This is confirmed by the account of Circe and other enchanters in Homer, and by images and hieroglyphics of antiquity to be seen in Mont- fau9on, Champollion, and Denon, as well as in the drawings of 750 ancient monuments, statues, engraved stones, coins, and pictures in Millin's Mythologic Grallery, all having refe- rence to magnetic manipulation. In the Cabinet of Curiosi- ties of Athan-Kircher there is, amongst others, a hand adorned with hieroglyphics, which, according to the state- ment of ancient writers, was carried about in sacris Isidis. In Miiller's Monumens de I'art antique, i. livraison, ii. planche, No. 14, the goddess Artemis Leucophryne. Two winged genii hold over the head of the goddess a kind of fan, while the goddess holds two magnetic staves in her hands. Before her are lying two men, one of whom has a magnet in the right hand, and the other appears to have a magnetic ring in the left, with the right stretched towards the magnetic staff. Beneath is the inscription, Hayvr)Tit)v.
There are also other similarities of the ancient myths to the actual phenomena of magnetism, as in the signification and the use of precious stones, the electrical power of which in the finest modifications of the most marvellous phenomena the latest scientific discoveries have only now disclosed. It is,
MAGICAL EFFECTS OF STONES. 69
indeed, something more than a mere fantastic poem when Orpheus describes so minutely the effects of precious stones ; when the many zealous inquirers into the hidden powers of nature, — no doubt often fanatical, — attribute so many heal- ing virtues to them ; and which Yoss has so fully described in his "De theologia gentili," tom.ii. The Jewish highpriests themselves wore on their hearts the breast-plate set with the twelve precious stones, by which divinations were to be obtained. Amongst other instances of the effect of jewels on different persons in producing clairvoyance and the like I have already quoted the case of the seeress, widow Peter- sen von Bende Bendsen, who asserted the decided effects of brilliants and other substances, the diamond being the most powerful of them. The widow Petersen used even small, but powerfully operating Baqiiete, which she herself con- structed ; and I myself treated a patient with a like affec- tion in the same way ; and on this occasion quicksilver and borax had a particularly striking effect. The same clair- voyant spoke of the powerful effect of juniper and of laurel in promoting clear spiritual vision, as we have noticed in the case of the Delphian oracle.
Haiiy was the first to discover and demonstrate the elec- tricity of crystals, and to show that these electric crystals not unfrequently presented exceptions to the otherwise invariable laws of symmetry in crystallization ; whence it follows that the electric power must be an active power, especially as regards the formation of crystals, since they as active laws appear to have the same influence. Haiiy speaks with enthusiasm of the small crystals of borax which represent an eight-fold electricity. One may ask, he says, in the conclusion of the first part of his Physics, whether the effects produced by the admirable construction of our scien- tific machines can present anything more astonishing to the eye, or more capable of exciting the interest of professors of physics, than these small electrical instruments produced through crystallization, these unions of the most opposed influences, compressed into a crystal of scarcely two millimetres in thickness, — not a single Parisian line. And here again the often repeated observation pre- sents itself, that those productions of nature which seem as
70 HISTOET OF MAGTC.
if they would witlidraw themselves from our notice, are not nnfrequently exactly those which are the most worthy of it.
That astrology always constituted a leading feature in the mysteries of the ancients is well known ; that the places and motions of the heavenly bodies w^ere considered to exercise a decided influence on all the chief events of life, even on our birth, is a well-known historical fact. Was it likely then that the influences of the stars on human ailments would be unknown to the Mystagogues who were so well acquainted with the silently operating forces of nature ? The history of the most ancient philosophy proves that they knew these things well; and if the magnetic clairvoyants perfectly agree with the ancients not only as to the influence of the sun and moon, but even of particular stars and constellations, as was the case with the widow Petersen, we have thus a clear agreement between antiquity and modern science, over which the very knowing and highly learned mav laugh, but which will excite astonishment in industrious natural philosophers and true observers at their perverse ignorance and admiration of the order-producing omnipotence of the gi'eat Creator.
In conclusion, I must not forget that illumination and those appearances of light which our somnambules assert that they often see, now surrounding their genii and guardian angels which appear to them, and now round their magne- tisers. Does not this recall to every one the luminous horns of Moses, and that ancient expression, " the horns of healing," with which the horns of Jupiter Ammon agree ? — whence it appears that the ancient expounders of that wonderful magic light in the mysteries, which, as Pliny says, surrounds the heads of men in prophetic announcement, regarded it as an unusual, exalted, and, to the uninitiated, a blinding fire ; while others have considered it to be electrical. They were accustomed to represent the light which surrounded the head of Athena, and mingled and interwove itself with her locks, as luminous horns, as in the moon. The healing double fires of the Dioscuri were represented as lunar horns, and paintings of them were represented with stars above their heads. With this accords the Hermes or Elmes fire, and the luminous staff* of Mercury and its wings ; and the lunar
THE SYMBOLIC HOENS AKD WINGS EXPLATIfED. 71
horns with wirgs also point to remarkable symbols. Those luminous appearances round the head, which we have already become acquainted with amongst the ecstatic Brahmins, are not merely found amongst the gods of Grreece, to whom we have here referred, but are applied to the hero of the Odyssey : —
" Scornful of age, to taunt the virtuous man, Thoughtless and gay, Eryniachus began : — Hear me, he cries, confederates and friends ! Some god, no doubt, this stranger kindly sends j The sliining baldness of his head survey, It aids our torch-hght, and reflects the day."