XXIII. note 9.

SEVERE LAWS AGAINST MAGIC. 22?
The secret societies of Europe took an active part in these communications ; and it is in a great measure from the adepts, of which these societies were composed, that we have acquired the knowledge of most of the physical and the chemical inventions of the Arabs.
It was in the lowest class of society that the secrets of polytheism were at this period partially deposited. The degradation of the fallen religion caused the most ignorant men to become successors to the Thaumatur- gists, who had so long governed both Kings and people.
The vulgar can be undeceived by exposing the tricks of jugglers and other impostors who take advantage of their credulity ; but, if their reason has not been aided by sound instruction, their superstitious prgudices never die; they only abandon one object to uphold another. The subalt^n ministers of polytheism were men whose science was almost limited to words, and tbidir know- ledge to the art of persuading others that they possessed secrets which were great and extraordinary. Forgetting their despised Gods, they spoke of demons, genii, and fates who, at their command, directed either terrible or benevolent actions.
Towards the middle of the sixth century, the Pranks and the Visigoths issued severe laws against magic, that is to say, against the lowest class of magicians. The great Theurgic secrets were guarded with sufficient care to prevent them from spreading in an alarming degree among barbarians. Such laws prove how numerous this class was, and how great its power had become over the minds of the people.
In fact, from the commencement of the fifth century
q2
228 SORCERY A REMNANT OF PAGANISM.
St. Augustin speaks of the Sabbat* and of the assem- hlies of sorcerers. Before this period only isolated magi- cians were known, such for instance as those whose jug- gleries have been recorded by Apuleius and Lucian. This is remarkable, as the idea of a iSafrfra^, of reunions, implies that of an organized society which recognises mthin it chiefs and different orders ; in short, the idea of an initiation. But although it bears an ignoble appearance, yet it is, in fact, an initiation. The subaltern magicians, not con- tented with trafficking m miracles, next communi- cated the gift of working ihem ; they imitated the trials, vows, revelations, and the pageantry of the ancient initia- tions.
It has been thought possible to trace the origin of the assemblies of the Sabbat, or rather the traditions which relate to them, to the nocturnal meetings of the Druids; their rehgious dances by torch-light; the processions of Druidesses clothed in white robes; and the solemnities which were celebrated only in remote places, or in deserts, from the period that Christianity had induced sovereigns to put down the ancient religion of their countries.f This is not at all improbable, and it can
* The Sabbat was a fabulous assembly of sorcerers and witches presided over by the devil, which is supposed to have originated in the mystery that shadowed the religious meetings of the Wal- denses, the earliest seceders from the Romish creed ; and which brought upon them the charge of indulgmg in unhallowed rites, similar to those of heathenism. — Ed.
t M. Brodel thinks that the immense grottos that are found in the Alps, were formerly inhabited by the Faidhs, or adepts in the Occult ScicDce ; and he is also of opinion, that from this cir- cumstance the belief has arisen, that these grottos have been, and still are, the dwellings of &iries.
SORCERY A REMNANT OF PAGANISM. 229
easQy be bdieved, that in the same manner as in the formation of the modem Secret Sodeties, the remains of diverse institutions, borrowed from different ages and from different countries, have been brought together, and so intermingled that it would be difficult to perceive what had originally belonged to each of them.
Whatever may be the general opinion, are we right in regarding as successors to the sorcerers of the fifth and sixth centuries^ those sorcerers whose meetings have been impeached by all the tribunals of Europe, even until the eighteenth century ?
We have already attempted to point out an analogous relation between the Secret Societies, formed by learned men of the middle ages, and the schools of the philosophic Theurgists. In the former, the changes pro- duced by time have affected the forms and the secrets of the initiation: the knowledge which they wished to preserve, existed as long as they could understand the formularies of it: in the latter, on the contrary, the design of the initiation and its his- tory have alike fallen into oblivion. If we endeavour to trace it back to its origin, we have only for our guidance some imperfect remains of its practices, and its fictions ; and that which deceit and cupidity, eager to find dupes, have been able to preserve.
Several considerations demonstrate that such an analogy is of little value. M. Tiedmann supposes that several barbarous words, used in the operations of witchcraft, are only Latin and Greek words, badly read and pronounced by the uneducated,* which originally * Tiedmann. De Quastione, &c. &c. page 102 — 103.
230 SORCERY A REMNANT OF PAGANISM.
were part of the formularies of operations or of invocations. Nothing is more prohable : and thus the three unintel- ligible Greek words, pronounced by the high priest at the Eleusian mysteries, Kongx^ Om^ PanXy have been recognised by Captain Wilford, in the Sanscrit words, cansha, om^ panscfia, which are repeated by the Brahmans every day at the conclusion of their religious ceremonies.*
Do we not also remark, in the invocations of modem sorcerers, a confusion of astrological ideas, for the inven- tion of which they assuredly cannot account, because they do not understand them, and which must have been received from more learned predecessors ?
To transport themselves to the Sabbat, or rather to dream that they were transported there, the sorcerers rubbed their bodies with a sort of pommade ; the secret of composing which, a secret which so often was fatal to them, is the last, perhaps the only one, which they have preserved. A sudden, deep, and continued sleep, sad and mournful visions, sometimes mixed with voluptuous movements, were generally produced by the magical unction, the eflfect of which was to combine the two most powerful feelings of the human soul — ^pleasure and terror. The choice of the efficacious substances of which the pommade was composed, the discovery of their virtues, and the manner of employing them, cannot be attributed to the modern sorcerers, who are always found in the lowest and most ignorant classes; this knowledge has doubtless descended from a much higher source. Ancient magic used mysterious unctions; * The Monthly Repertory; vol. xxiii. page 8.
SORCERY A REMNANT OF PAGANISM. 231
Lucian and Apuleius have described those with which Pamplida, and the wife of Hipparcus practised. These two writers, however, have only copied from the Mile- sian Fables, as much celebrated for their antiquity as for their amusing character.
The magical unction, as we have thus described it, has no effect in modern times, except in producing the dreams that followed its use. But, in the primitive initiations, when composed of ingredients less soporific, it probably served to prepare adepts for the mysteries that they were about to celebrate, by bringing upon them that moral intoxication, the frenzy of belief, so necessary for creating and maintaining superstition and fanaticism.
It may be a^ed, are we able to trace any vestiges of the primitive initiations ?
Amidst the avowals drawn by torture from pretended sorcerers, as to what had passed at the Sabbat ; amidst details varied by all the incoherence of profound delirium; we may perceive a certain number of uniform ideas. M. Tiedmann,* ascribes this to the continuance of the tor- tures of these unfortimate beings until they had confessed every thing of which they were accused ; and because the accusations were always identical and conformable to the ideas received among the judges. But it is not likely that the magistrates invented these absurd confessions : how then, we may ask, were they originally imprinted in the minds of these poor wretches, if they were not recitals founded either on real actions, or on recollections preserved by long tradition ? The common foundation, therefore,
* Tiedmann. De Quastione, &c. pages 137 — 138.
232 SCmCERY A REMNANT OF PAGANISM.
of all the confessions, which were composed of these ideas, was probably, allowing for the alterations, which time and igncM^noe could not fail to give to them, some ceremonies formerly practised in the subaltern initia- tions.
It is natural to believe that these initiations were attached to the last remains of the destroyed worship, and divers indications render this probable. Thus if a hundred and fifly years have passed, since magical vir- tues as in the time of our ancient Druids, were attributed to the misletoe of the oak ;* if, in the country, attentive observers daily discover legends, superstitions, and observances which have emanated from the ancient religions, how much more is it likely that in an epoch
* Fromann. Tract, de Fasc. p. 697. — ^The Misletoe, Viscum album, grows upon many trees; but it was that only which is found upon the oak that the Druids employed; and being a parasitic plant, the seeds of which are not sown by the hand of man, it was well adapted for the purposes of super- stition. Its virtues, however, depended altogether upon the manner in which it was obtained : and for this purpose, ardigious procession of Druids and Druidesses repaired to the forest, and having found the Misletoe, the chief priest ascended the oak in which it was growing ; and a hymn having been sung, the plant was cut down with a silver sickle, and received in a clean, white sheet spread out below, and held by the other priests ; for the Misletoe lost all its virtue if it touched the groimd. The custom, still extant of decorating houses at Christmas with evergreens, of which the Misletoe is one, is a remnant of Druidism ; and was originally intended as an inducement for the Sylvan spirits to " repair to them, and remain unnipped with frost and cold winds, until a milder season had renewed the foliage of their darling abodes." •-1-Ed.
• Brand on Bourne's Antiquities, p. 193.
SORCBRY A REMNANT OF PAGANISM. 233
far less remote j&om that of their splendour, these re- ligions still preserved an influence over the habits and the faith of the multitude ! The priestesses and druides- ses of polytheism, retired to a distance from cities, and long preserved the confidence and the respect of the people. Gregory of Tours speaks of the existence of Pythonesses among the Gauls; and in 798, we see by the capitulars of Charlemagne that there were Divine- resses prescribed under the name of Stria. At a much later period, a crowd of men and women assembled by night to celebrate the worship of Diana, or the Lady AbundCf who was also called H&ra, from the Greek name of Juno, with feasts, races, and dances.^ It appears that the priest who presided at the assembly was clothed in a goat's skin, carrying a homed and bearded mask, and thus represented the god Pan, the divinity of Mendesf whom the Greeks had borrowed firom Egypt. As in some secret ceremonies of Polytheism, there were other priests who probably bore the disguise of ani- mals. The names of Diana or Hira, and the recollection of Pan carries us back to the religion which Chris- tianity had overturned ; but, do we not also find details,
* See Dulaure. Histoire de Paris, Ist edition, vol. v. p. 259 ; and also Carpentier, Ghasar. verbis Diana et Holda.
t Mendes, which, in the Egyptian dialect, was the name for a goat, was a city near Lycopolis, in Egypt, situated on one of the mouths of the Nile, where Pan, under the form of a goat, was worshipped ; and a sacred goat was kept with the most ceremonious sanctity. Notwithstanding the disgusting form which he assumed, this God had gained the affection of Diana, on which account, in her festivals, one of the priests always assumed the disguise des cribed in the text. — ^Ed.
234 SOBCBRY A BEMNAl^ OF PAOilNISM.
which were repeated in the confessions of the sorcerers : for example, the dances, the races, and the feasts; the goat that they adored; the different animals which a heated imagination transformed into demons, and which, it was supposed, served for mounting the prin- ciple personages, who attended at the ceremony. Maximus of Turin, in the fifth century, describes similar meetings as the remains of Paganism. Seven hundred years later, John of Salisbury speaks of them. He mentions them in the fourteenth century ; but it is doubtful wheth^ they really took place then: the romance of the Rose says that those who believed in them, and united themselves with the third part of the population were deceived by an illusion. From that time, the meetmgs and ceremonies of the Sabbat feQ into disuse, and no longer existed, save in the re- veries of the sorcerers.
After having endeavoured to restore the historic cham, which united those wretches, whom a stupid ignorance condemned to death as sorcerers, with the last depositories of the ancient occult knowledge, it is necessary that we should, among the latter distin- guish the subaltern Magi from wizards. Those men who came from different temples, and who were possessed of different secrets, without doubt assisted to extend the knowledge of such secrets; but we suspect that sorcery was founded by those Egyptian priests of the last order, who, from the commencement of the Roman empire, had wandered in every direction ; and who, although they were publicly despised, yet, were consulted in secret ; and continued to make proselytes
SORCERY A REMNANT OF PAGANISM. 235
amongst the lowest classes of society. The apparition and the adoration of a Croaty formed an essential part of the ceremonies of the Sabbat. The Cat, also, unhappily for itself, played in these a considerable part, for it often shared the dread which the sorcerers inspired, and the pimishments inflicted upon them. It is weU known how ancient the worship of the cat and the goat was in Egypt. It is also well known of what importance anoth^ agent, the Key was in the tricks of witchcraft ; how many cures the Key of 8t John^^ and the Key of St. Hubert performed.! The handled cross Ort^ ansata, so frequently observed on the Egyptian monuments, was a key ;} and from the religious ideas which placed it in the hand of the principal Gods of Egypt, we discover in the key the hieroglyphic of sovereign power.
The Pseudo-monarchia Dasmonum, appears to us to
* The number of the saints of this name in Butler's alpha- betical list of the Fa&ers, Martyrs, and principal Saints, is 32 ; but I imagine the St. John referred to in the text, is he " of tiie cross/' who flourished in the sixteenth century. — ^Ed.
t St. Hubert must have been originally a man of wealth and con- sequence, as he was mayor of the Palace of Austrasia^ a.d. 681, in which year St. Lambert, by whose efforts he was united to the ser- vice of the Churoh, was murdered. St. Hubert was chosen his successor or Bishop of Maestricht ; and among other praiseworthy acts, drove the remnants of idolatry from their last stronghold, in the great forest df Ardennes, on the Meuse. But, like many of his predecessors, he pretended to woik miracles ; and his shrine has always been celebrated for wonderful cures, especially of per- sons labouring under hydrophobia ; but we possess no evidence of the value of the remedies, when the disease is not the result of imagination. — ^E d .
X Encychp, method. Antiqu%t4s. Article, Kty.
236 SORCERY A REMNANT OF PAGANISM.
have had an Egyptian origin ; an important fact, since most of the names which this work contains are re- produced, with a little alteration, in the pamphlets res- pecting witchcraft, which are found in country places.* Among the genii of the Pseudo-monarchia one is a mermaid, a figure peculiar to the Planispheres ;t another, a venerable old man, mounted on a crocodile and carry- ing a hawk upon his wrist. A third is represented under the form of a camel, which bespeaks its Egyp- tian origin, (in the astronomy of the Arabs the camel is known to take the place of the constellation of the kneeling Hercules), whilst another appears partly a wolf and partly man, displaying like Anubis, the jawbones of a dog ; and a fifth is Ammon or Hammon,| whose name reveals its origin. Ammon was the universal, the invisible God,
* On the second band of the soffit of the Portico of the Temple of Dendera, may be remarked (says M. Jollois, in the Description de VEgypte) a woman whose body terminates with the tail of a fish. On this emblem which is also found in the Hindoo, Japan, Chaldean, Phoenician, and even Greek mythologies, see § xii. of the note A. of dragons and monstrous serpents,
t J» Scaligeri nota in M. Manilium, page 484.
t The ruins of the temple of Jupiter-Ammon are situated in an Oasis, five degrees nearly west of Cairo, called the Oasis of Siwah. They were discovered by Browne, who travelled into Upper Egypt in 1 792 ; and were visited by Homemanin 1798, and Belzoni in 1816. Homeman discovered there, the fountain of the sun, described by Herodotus as warm at dawn, cool as the day advanced, extremely cold at noon, gradually again becoming warmer until simset, and boiling hot at midnight. Belzoni had no thermometer to measure its temperature ; but judging from his feelings, he states that he found it about 80° early in the morning. 40° at noon, and 100° at midnight. The well is sixty
SORCERY A REMNANT OF PAGANISM. 237
whom the Egyptian priests supplicated to manifest him- self to his worshippers.*
We have already given sufficient space to this discus- sion: if the inferences which we have drawn from it have any probability, they will authorize us sometimes to quote in our researches, from the modem sorceries, either as borrowed from ancient science, or as proper for explain- ing by analogy, some of the apparent mirades of the ancients : and they will at the same time show us, in ex- plaining the progress of the science, how the knowledge of it extended to our times ; — ^the errors to which it led in the uneducated classes : — the reason why it was enveloped in mystery ; — the prejudices that this mystery have given birth to in the human mind ; — and how it silently perished in the hands of the truly enlightened.
feet deep in a shaded spot, and it is probable that, were its tem- perature measured by a thermometer, it would be found nearly the same at all times : but when measured by the hand, a fallacy is produced by the different temperament of the body at the time. At midnight the body being cool, the water would feel hot; but at mid-day, the body being hot, the water of the same tem- perature as at midnight would feel cool. — ^£d.
* According to H^catee of Abdera, quoted by Plutarch (Plu- tarch, de Isid, et Osirid.) Joannis Wieri, Opera omnia Pseudo monarchia Demonum, p. 650, § 5.
238 WONDERS OP INITIATION.