CHAPTER VIII.

Safeguards of the mystery that surrounded the Occult Sciences — Hieroglyphics, idioms and sacred writing — Not understood by the uninitiated — Enigmatical language of the invocations — Gradual and partial revelations known in their plenitude only to a small niunber of priests — Oaths, and fiedsehoods respecting the nature of the processes, and the extent of Ma^cal opera- tions — Consequences of this mysteiy : — I. The Science of Magic was reduced, in the hands of the Thaumaturgists, to a practice, the nature of which, devoid of theory, became in time unintelligible — II. Great errors universally prevailed, owing to ignorance of the limits that circumscribed this power; the desire to penetrate into secrets of Magic, and the habit of attri- buting its efficacy to the visible and ostensible processes of Science.
Ought we to be astonished, that the writings of the ancients discover only scattered traces and imperfect notions of the Occult Science ; or even that some portion of the science is entirely lost ? The student of history well knows, that in former times, not only the more refined pursuits, but also all the treasures of real knowledge, were under the careful guardianship of the genius of mystery, and therefore more or less inaccessible.
170 SilFBGUARDS OF ANCIENT MYSTERIES.
How many causes concurred to maintain that power ! The subsistent influence of the settled form of civiliza- tion ; the rites of initiation, subsequently adopted by the schools of philosophy ; the value of exclusive possession ; the well-grounded fear of drawing on itself the hatred of men, who cherished this property with a jealous pride ; and lastly, above all, the necessity of keeping mankind in darkness, in order to retain the control over him, with the desire to preserve what formed, as it were, the patrimony of the enlightened classes, the guarantee of their honours and their powers.
This last consideration did not escape the observation of a man, who knew how to enhance by sound and deep philosophy the value of his extensive erudition. Michaelis* remarks, that a universal language, invented by the learned, and exclusively for their use, would secure to them the sole poSiSession of science. " The multitude would resign themselves to the governance of those learned impostures, as was the case in Egypt, when all discoveries were concealed under the veil of hieroglyphics." For instance, were the discoveries relative to electricity only expoimded in such a language, what could be more easy than to metamorphose the phenomena of that science into apparent miracles, and establish a sacred tyranny by
* Michaelis, On the influence of opinions on language, and of language on opinions, 1759.— John David Michaelis, a native of Halle, Professor of Theology, and Oriental Literature in the jUniversity of Gottingen. He is celebrated for his biblical and oriental researches. It is said that his religious opinions were never very firmly fixed ; but his writings are strikingly demon- strative of his reverence for the Sacred Scriptures. — En.
SAFEGUARDS OF ANCIENT MYSTERIES. l7l
means of false wonders ? '* Thus the opportunity would tempt, and the facility of deception augment the number of impostors."
One step farther, and Michaelis might have observed that his hypothesis was the actual history of antiquity ; that almost all nations have possessed some species of sacred writings, not more intelligible to the vulgar than the hieroglyphics of IJgypt. The Roman pon- tiflFs, in their rites, made use of names and words known to themselves alone ; the few we are acquainted with, relate only to ceremonials ; those having reference to real science have been too carefully concealed to reach us.
This is precisely what we learn from Lydas,* relative to the people from whom the Romans borrowed their religious system. The Etruscans, he informs us, were in- structed in divination by the Lydians, before the arrival of Evander,t the Arcadian, in Italy. At that time there existed a form of writing diflferent to that afterwards made use of, and which was not generally known ; and without its aid no secret would have long
* Lydas, de Ostentis. cap. iix.
t The son of the prophetess Carmente, and a King of Arcadia. He was driven from Arcadia on account of an accidental miurder. He retired to Italy, drove out the aborigines, and acquired the sovereignty of that country. He raised altars to Hercules in his new possessions: introduced the Greek alphabet, and many of the customs of Arcadia, He was a contemporary of iEneas, and assisted him in his wars with the Rutuli. He was deified after his death, and an altar erected to him on Mount Aven- tine. — Ed.
172 SAFEGUARDS OF ANCIENT MYSTERIES.
remained hid from the profane. Tarchon, the ancient* (anterior to the contemporary of iEneas of that name), had written a book upon the mysteries and the religious rites of divination; in which he represented himself as interro- gating Tages (the miraculous child, bom from a furrow of the earth), precisely as Arjuna questions the God Krishna, in the Bhaghuat Ohita.f The questions of Tarchon were expressed in ordinary language ; but in his book the answers of Tages were conveyed in ancient and sacred characters; so that Lydas, or the writer whom he copies; was not able to do more than conjecture the sense by reflecting on the questions themselves, and from some passages relating to them in Pliny and Apuleius,J Lydas insists on the necesisity of riot clearly exposing the secret science, and of concealing it from the profane by fables and parables : it is only in this spirit that he writes on
* Photiufl says, that Tarchon instructed the Etruscans in the Mystical Sciences. — Biblioth. Cod.
fit is a curious fact, that the name Krishna in Irish, as well as in Sanscrit, is applied to the sun. — Ed.
t Lucius Apuleius, a Platonic philosopher of the second century. He was bom at Madauras, in Africa ; and, after studying at Carthage, Athens, and Rome, he travelled with the intention of obtaining initiation in the mysteries which then enveloped many religions, and almost all science. He became a priest of Osiris, and having married a rich widow, he was accused by her relations before Claudius Maximus, Proconsul of Africa, of having em- ployed sorcery to obtain her hand. He wrote numerous works in prose, and in verse ; the best known of which is the Golden Ass, a satire on the absurdities of Magic, and the crimes of the Priesthood. It is a romance, but written with so much resem- blance of truth, that many persons have believed all related in it as true history. — En.
SAFEGUARDS OF ANCIENT MYSTERIES. 173
mirades. The same opinions are contained in the works of a writer of the sixth century, and they must indeed have been anciently very widely spread.
We must not, however, imagine that the Egyptian priests trusted entirely to the impenetrability of their hieroglyphics. When Apuleius obtained the first degree of initiation, the books destined for his instruction were brought by the priest from the most secret part of the sanctuary. It was not enough that the images of diverse species of animals were used in place of stenogra- phic writing ; one part of these books was written in unknown characters ; and the language in all of them was further preserved from the curiosity of the profane,* by the addition of numerous accents, absurd and varied in their forms, and undoubtedly changing the value of the letters above which they were placed.
In Egypt, and probably also in the temples of other countries, these mysteries were concealed under a second envelop, namely the language in which the invocations were couched. Chaer^monf gave instructions how to command the genii, in the name of him who sitteth on the Lotus — borne in a vessel^ or who appears differ- ent in each of the signs of the Zodiac. These marks unequivocally distinguish Osiris, the Sun-God.
* " De opertis adyti profert quosdam lihros litteris ignorabilibus, pranotatos, partim figuris cujusce modi animalium concepti sermanis compendbsa verba suggerentesj partim nodosis, et in modimi rotse tortuosis capreolatimque condensis apicibus, a — curiosi profano- rum lectione mimitos." — ^Apuleius, Metamorph, lib. xi.
t Porphyre, quoted by Eusebius, — Praep. evang, lib. v. cap.