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 number of priests — Oaths, and falsehoods respecting the nature of the processes, and the extent of Magical opera- tions — Consequences of this mystery : — 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 SAFEGUARDS 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 possession 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 expounded 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 University of Gôttingen. 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. 171
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 Egypt. The Roman pon- tiffs, 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,f the Arcadian, in Italy. At that time there existed a form of writing different 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. in.
f The son of the prophetess Carmente, and a King of Arcadia. He was driven from Arcadia on account of an accidental murder. 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, born from a furrow of the earth), precisely as Arjuna questions the God Krishna, in the Bhayhuat Ghita.j- 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,| Lydas insists on the necessity of not 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
* Photius says, that Tarchon instructed the Etruscans in the Mystical Sciences. — Biblioth. Cod.
f It is a curious fact, that the name Krishna in Irish, as well as in Sanscrit, is applied to the sun. — Ed.
X Lucius Apuleius, a Platonic philosopher of the second century. He was born 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. — Ed.
SAFEGUARDS OF ANCIENT MYSTERIES. 173
miracles. 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. Chaerémonf 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 libros litteris ignorabilibus, prœnotatos, partim figuris cujusce modi animalium concepti sermonis compendiosa verba sugger entes j partim nodosis, et in modum rotse tortuosis capreolatimque condensis apicibus, a — curiosâ profano- rum lectione munitos." — Apuleius, Metamorph. lib. xi.
f Porphyre, quoted by Eusebius. — Prœp. evang, lib. v. cap. vin. et ix.
174 MAGIC A RELICT OF OCCULT SCIENCE.
Emanating from an astronomical religion, the sacred formularies transferred the language of Astronomy to magical operations.
We shall prove that the sorcery and magic of the moderns, were in a great measure composed of the relicts of the Occult Science, formerly preserved in the temples. We can trace in it that confusion of language, so much the more striking, that nothing could give rise to it at an epoch distant from the reign of astronomical religion ; so that we are autho- rized to affirm that it is referable to a period, when its expressions were comprehended, its origin known and revered. A sorcerer of Cordova* invoking a star, conjured it in the name of the angel-wolf : now, we know well that the wolf in Egypt was emblematical of the sun and of the year, yet this example, were it a soli- tary one, would prove little. But on examining the fragment published by J. Wierius under the title of Pseudo-Monarchia Dœmonum,-f we cannot fail to see in it the disfigured vestiges of a celestial calendar. In the pretended list of the genii obedient to the invoca-
* Llorente, Histoire de l'Inquisition, cap. xxxvui. tome in, page 465.
f J. Wierius, De Prœstigiis dœmonum et incantationibus ac veneficiis. — Basilese 1583. The magicians give pompous titles to this fragment. They call it sometimes Liber empto-Solomonis ; but in all probability it is but an extract of a more extensive work that bore this name, and the authority of which is even cited in Wierius' work. Joannis Wierius was a native of Graves in Brabant. He flourished in the middle of the sixteenth century. He studied both Theology and Medicine, and was a man of very extensive erudition. — En.
MAGIC A RELICT OF OCCULT SCIENCE. 175
tion of the Theurgist, we find one whose double face recals that of Janus the emblem of the close and the opening of the year.
Four kings are stated to preside over the four cardi- nal points ; the Man, the Bull, the Lion, all three- winged; and the Crocodile which, in the Egyptian planisphere stands instead of the Scorpion ; and these are the ancient solstitial and equinoctial signs. Some genii, we are told, inhabit the celestial signs ; one in particular resides in Sagittarius. Among them may be found the dragon fdracoj, the marine monster, the hare flepusj, the crow fcorvusj, the dog fcanis major J the virgin fvirgoj, the little horse, whose name figures among the constellations. Some other genii, described with more detail, have distinguishing characters, similar to those ascribed to the genii of the stars, months, decades, and days, in the Indian and Persian spheres, and the Egyptian calendar.* It is not, therefore, rash to presume that these terms and astronomical allegories were introduced by religion into the ceremonial of the Occult Science ; and it must be acknowledged they not only tended to make this study complex, but also to render it obscure ; because the mind involuntarily established an erroneous connection between the objects allegorically presented and the results, totally foreign to the religions whence they were derived.
Borrowed, as it may sometimes have been, from a
* Sphœrarum Persicœ, indicœ et barbaricœ ortus, ex libro Aben Ezrae Judseorumdoctissimi. — Monomœriarum ascendentes cum signi- ficationibus et decanis suis JEgyptiacis. — J. Scaligeri, Notœ in Manilium, pages 371 — 384 et 487-504.
176 MAGIC A RELICT OF OCCULT SCIENCE.
language, distinct from that of astrology, the mystery would have been not less difficult to penetrate, nor less fitted to mislead the uninitiated, who might endeavour to pierce its obscurity. A modern example, and one apparently futile, will explain this remark.
Populeam virgam mater regina tenebat.
If I assert that it is necessary to remember this latin verse, in order to ensure success in a complicated trick at cards, persons familiar with this kind of amusement, will readily conjecture that, by their conven- tional numerical value, the vowels mark the number of cards, or points, which it is necessary consecu- tively to add, or to cut off. They will easily conceive, that the same means may serve to design the proportions of substances necessary to combine in a chemical expe- riment ; and they will recognise the fact that five or six verses, composed of barbarous words, and constituting no sense, were in a similar manner employed, during several ages, to indicate the different forms that may be taken by syllogism in argument.
But let us transport ourselves into times when the in- telligence of man was in this manner awakened. by any experiment ; and we should find in the verse borrowed from a foreign language, a magic formulary, similar to those repeated, but not understood, by the Greeks and the Romans. The curious will not suspect that its effi- cacy rests on the respective position of the vowels ; they will seek it in the sense of the words, if they can attain a knowledge of them ; but ignorance will establish a mysterious relation between the art of divining the
MAGIC A RELICT OF OCCULT SCIENCE. 1 77
thoughts, and the Latin line, which may thus be trans- lated, " a branch of poplar held by a queen and a mother."
Even these obstacles were not sufficient to free from alarm the jealous uneasiness of the possessors of the sacred sciences.
From the expressions of several writers, we may con- clude, with probability, that in the process of initiation, all the secrets of Nature were revealed to the adept. That these revelations were bestowed upon him by slow degrees, we may be satisfied by the example of Apu- leius. It was only after a length of time, and after several successive initiations, that he arrived at the highest degree; nevertheless he congratulated himself on having obtained in youth an honour and a perfection of knowledge usually reserved for old age.*
Whatever may have been the extent of the revelations made to the initiated, we may ask, did the efficient causes of the prodigies form a part of them ? We are inclined to think that soon after the institution of the initiations, the knowledge of these causes was reserved for a class of priests who, in several religions, were known as a separate body, under a distinct name. Mr. Drum - mondf is of opinion that the Chartomi, Egyptian priests, possessed alone, to the exclusion of the inferior priests, the knowledge of all the hieroglyphics. We may also inquire what was the reason that the books of Numa, discovered nearly five centuries after the death of that Prince, were
* Apul. Metamorph. lib. xi. — Ad finem.
t S. W. Drummond. Memoir on the Antiquity of the Zodiacs of Esneh and Dendera, pages 19 — 21 .
VOL. I. N
178 MAGIC A RELICT OF OCCULT SCIENCE.
burnt at Rome, as capable of doing injury to religion ?# What, but chance, which, instead of throwing them into the hands of the priests, had first given them to the inspection of the profane ; and the volumes exposed, in too intelligible a manner, some practices of the Occult Science cultivated by Numa with success. Two of these books, if we may credit tradition, treated of phi- losophy:! a name which, it is well known, was often applied in ancient times to the art of working miracles ; and it was in perusing the Memoirs left by Numa, that his successor, Tullus Hostilius, discovered one of the secrets of that art : an imprudent experiment j which proved fatal to its possessor. §
To these various precautions, was added the solemnity of a terrible oath, the breach of which was infallibly punished with death. The initiated were not permitted to forget the long and awful torments of Prometheus, guilty of having given to mortals the possession of the sacred fire. Tradition also relates, that as a punish- ment for having taught men mysteries, hitherto hidden, the Gods cast thunderbolts on Orpheus, a fable probably
* Valer. Max. lib. i. cap. i. § 12.
f Tit. Liv. lib. xl. cap. xxix. : Plin. Hist. Nat. lib. xiu. cap.
XIII.
% See Chapter xxiv.
§ Tullus Hostilius was the third King of Rome after Numa. The cause, of his death is not precisely known ; for although some suppose that he was killed by lightning, the result of a magical process, conducted in his palace ; yet, others assert that he was murdered by Ancus Martius, who at the same time set fire to the palace, in order to originate the belief that the impietv °f Hosti- lius had been thus punished by heaven. — Ed.
FALSEHOOD THE PROP OF MAGIC. 179
derived from the nature of the death of one of the priests of the Orphic mysteries that bore the name of the founder of the sect.*' Until the downfal of Paganism, the accu- sation of having revealed the secrets of initiation was the most frightful that could be laid to the charge of any indi- vidual, especially in the minds of the multitude, who, chained down to ignorance and submission by the spirit of Mysticism, firmly believed that, were the perjured revealers permitted to live, the whole nation would be sacrificed to the indignation of the Gods.
Falsehood was another resource and security of mystery ; but this is onefamiliar in all ages; and, unhappily, still prac- tised by the votaries of Commerce, always fearful of losing the benefits of exclusive possession. f The magic art had stronger reason to disseminate lies regarding the
* Pausanias Bœotic. cap. xxx. — Two epigrams of the Antho- logy suppose that Orpheus died by lightning. It is said there is some reason for doubting the existence of Orpheus : " Orpheum poetam docet Aristoteles nunquam fuisse," says Cicero, although that orator himself believed in the existence of the musician : but it is a matter of little moment. The mysteries termed Orphic were introduced into Greece from Egypt, prior to the worship of Dio- nysius, which was also of foreign origin. It is supposed that the fable of the destruction of Orpheus by the Thracian women in a Bacchic festival, was merely typical of the victory of the new over the old religion. — Ed.
f The Indians, who alone traded in cinnamon, affirmed, that it was not known whence this aromatic substance came ; and that it was procured by obtaining the nests, constructed of branches of cinnamon, by particular birds. — Aelian. De Nat. Anim. lib. n. cap. xxxiv. — Lib. xvn. cap. xxi. The censure of our author, however, cannot be justly applied to modern merchants, who, de- sirous as they may be to obtain all the advantages which monopoly can secure to them, do not condescend to employ falsehood to advance their plans and render their speculations successful. — Ed,
N 2
180 FALSEHOOD THE PROP OF MAGIC.
nature and extent of its power. Had it been openly exposed and rendered familiar, the admixture of valuable know- ledge, puerilities, and charlatanism of which it consisted could not have commanded either admiration or obe- dience.
Aglaonice* having been able to predict an eclipse at the moment of its occurrence, persuaded the Thessalians that, by her magical incantations, the moon was obscured and forced to descend upon earth.f Such marvellous virtues were ascribed to the plant named baaras, or cynospastos,^ that it was important for the Thaumaturgists to retain it entirely for their particular use. Thence sprung the asser-
* Aglaonice was the daughter of Hegeman, a Thracian poet, and versed in astronomy, and the doctrine of eclipses. — Ed.
f Plutarch. De Oracul. Defectu.
X It was also called Aglaophotis. It is the Atropa Mandra- gora of modern botanists, the Mandrakes of the Old Testament, for which Rachel bargained with Leah. The grossest superstitions are employed in taking up the root of the mandrake ; and its vir- tues were supposed to depend altogether on the mode in which this was accomplished. The earth was loosened, and a cord fastened around the root, with the opposite end tied to the tail of a dog : the poor animal was then whipped so as to make it run forwards, and thus to drag the root out of the ground. " In the mean- time," says Bulleine, speaking of those engaged in taking it up, they " stopp'd their own eares for feare of the terrible shriek and cry of the mandrack. In whych cry it doth not only dye itselfe, but the fear thereof killeth the dogge, or beast which pulleth it out of the earth." R Shakspeare refers to this when be makes Juliet exclaim :
" And shrieks like mandrakes torn of the earth, That living mortals, hearing them, run mad." This belief, and the supposed virtue of the root against barren- ness afforded ample opportunity for impudent impostors to impose, in an extraordinary manner, on the credulity of the vulgar. — Ed.
* Bulwarks of defence against sickness, 1573. fol. p. 41.
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tion that it could not be pulled out of the earth without the risk of life, unless by the employment of some sin- gular precautions, the details of which are given by Josephus with all the gravity of conviction.*
Such in general was the policy which the Thaumatur- gists employed to mislead men as to the manner of attaining their ends by the use of certain ostensible pro- ceedings which, in reality, were altogether indifferent and useless. To throw an appearance of enchantment and supernatural agency around operations often so simple that, apart from the deceptive covering of fraud and jug- glery and left open for inspection, they would have been quickly understood and easily imitated by any one. In short, to load the expression of real facts with false or futile accessories, or according to them, "to hide the discoveries of the wise, from a multitude unworthy to possess them "f These are the words of Roger Bacon : they demonstrate that the same policy existed in the middle ages ; but its origin may be traced to the earliest times, in which men of research were ambitious of securing for their acquire- ments a supernatural reputation,! an(^ an incommunicable nature, in order to exalt themselves above ordinary
* Fl. Joseph. De Bell. Judaic. lib. vu. cap xxiii. — Aelian. De Nat. Animal, lib. xiv. cap. xxvu.
t Quœ philosophi adinvenerunt , in operibus artis et naturae, ut secreta occultarent ab indignis. — Rog. Bacon, de secret, oper. art. cap. i.
I Thus it was asserted, that instructed by a revelation, Elizabeth, the wife of Charles I. King of Hungary, in the begin- ning of the fourteenth century, discovered the spirit produced by the distillation of alcohol on rosemary, and known by the name of Hungary water. — J$oqui\lon,DictionnairebiograpMque,tomei,Tp.208.
182 EVIL CONSEQUENCES OF MYSTERY.
humanity, and to wield an influence over the rest of mankind.
What were the effects, generally, on the human mind in the infancy of science, when it was cherished by men of jealous habits, so contrary to the liberal philosophy of the present day,* which finds its noblest gratification in the duty of imparting its treasures and its discoveries?
" The ancients," says Buffon, " reduced all the sciences to practise. All that did not immediately concern so- ciety, or the arts, was neglected ; and, as they regarded man only in the light of a moral being, they would not allow that things of no palpable utility were worthy of occupying his attention."! This universal precept was ap- plied with force to the study of the Occult Science ; but nothing was expected from the knowledge it imparted except the power of working miracles ; and all that did not lead to this result was regarded as unworthy of attention. From such a course, the consequence could only have been the acquirement of a partial knowledge, accompanied with great ignorance in other respects ; and, instead of a science, whose connected parts so depend upon, and suggest one another that the unity of the whole effectually preserves the details from oblivion, every fact held an isolated position, and ran the risk of
* About two hundred years ago a book was published, shewing that learned works should be written in Latin, and not in French; because, says the author, great evils have resulted from the com- munication of the secrets of science to the people. — Belot. Apologie de la langue latine, etc. 1637.
t Discours sur la manière de traiter l'Histoire naturelle. Œuvres de Buffon, tome i. pages 52, 53.
EVIL CONSEQUENCES OF MYSTERY. 183
being altogether lost, a danger rendered more probable every day by the increase of mystery.
If any one can remain sceptical regarding these facts, he may convince himself by reference to the analogy dis- played in the progress of Alchemy prior to the rise of true Chemistry. We have there a type of the empirical man- ner in which the sciences were studied, cultivated, and fostered in the ancient temples. The priests searched after, and sometimes produced, astonishing phenomena ; but, neglecting the theory of the processes, and preserving no record of the means employed, they rarely succeeded twice in obtaining the same results. Their great object was to conceal the processes, and to retain exclusive pos- session of their secrets. But what is now less valued than their labours, or less known than their discoveries ? It is difficult to cite an example more ancient than eighty years back. A Prince, San Severo, occupied himself with some success in chemical experiments, at Naples: for example, he had obtained the secret of penetrating marble with colours in such a manner, that in cutting plates from it, each newly exposed surface presented a repetition of the coloured figures designed on the exterior.* In 1761, he exposed human skulls to the influence of various re- actives, and subsequently to the heat of a glass-blower's furnace, but kept so careless an account of the processes, that, from his own acknowledgment, he could not hope to arrive at the same result a second time. The product of the last-mentioned experiment was a vapour, or gas, which became illuminated at the approach of flame, and burnt several months in succession, without any apparent * Grosley. Observations sur l'Italie, tome in. page 251.
184 EVIL CONSEQUENCES OF MYSTERY.
diminution of the materials, (the parts lost by evapora- tion were more than replaced by the combination of oxygen during the combustion.) San Severo imagined that he had found the secret of inextinguishable lamps ; but he would not divulge the process, lest the vault, in which the Princes of his family were inhumed, should be deprived of the distinguishing mark with which he hoped to honour it, namely, that of being lighted by an ever- lasting lamp.# Had he laboured like a philosopher of the present day, the name of San Severo would have been linked to the important discovery of the existence of phosphorus in bones ; for it was undoubtedly the slow escape of phosphorus, in a gaseous form, that caused the phenomena he obtained. But he operated like a Thau- maturgist, and his name is forgotten with his works ; while science gives honour to Gahn and Scheele, who eight years later, in 1769, established the fact, and pub- lished the process by which phosphorus might be elimi- nated from bones.f
The comparison drawn between the early labours of
* See the four letters written by him on the subject, translated into English, by Charles Hervey. — Letters from Italy, Germany, etc. vol. in. page 408 — 436.
t Bones are composed of phosphoric acid, lime, and some animal matter. In order to procure the phosphorus, the bones are cal- cined, then ground to powder, and acted upon by sulphuric acid, which takes away a large portion of the lime, and leaves the remainder combined with a large portion of phosphoric acid. This super-phosphate is then dissolved in water, and, after the eva- poration of the solution, the residue is distilled with charcoal, which abstracting oxygen, the acidifying principle, from the phosphoric acid, phosphorus is formed, and distils over into the receiver, which contains water kept cold ; and in which it congeals. — Ed.
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modern chemists and those of the Thaumaturgists, fails, perhaps, in one important point. While the former were free to choose the objects of their researches, it is doubtful whether, in the temples, the same liberty was allowed to the latter. We are led to this conclusion by an obscure and very curious passage in Damascius. # At Hierapolis in Phrygia, the temple of Apollo was placed near a cavern abounding with hot springs ; whence arose dangerous exhalations, which extended to a great dis- tance, and into which the initiated alone could enter with impunity. One of them, Asclepiodotus, by the combi- nation of various substances, succeeded in producing a gas resembling that of the sacred cavern.f " Thus de- spising, and rashly violating the laws of the priests, and the precepts of the philosophers." Such are the expres- sions of Damascius, and in quoting them, may we not exclaim, how powerful and how awful must have been the vow of secrecy required of the priests and the phi- losophers; since in the sixth century of the Christian era, we find Damascius still employing a term of reproach in recording the scientific imitation of a natural pheno- mena, exalted into a miracle by the spirit of Polytheism ! Thus knowledge, straitened in action, was concentrated in a small number of individuals ; deposited in books,
* Damascius, apud Phot, biblioth. cod. 242.
f It is probable, that this vapour was sulphuretted hydrogen gas: which can be artificially produced by acting on iron pyrites, with water, aided by sulphuric acid; and which although ex- tremely dangerous to persons introduced for the first time into a concentrated atmosphere of it, yet becomes innocuous to those who are gradually accustomed to breathe it. — Ed.
186 EVIL CONSEQUENCES OF MYSTERY*.
written in hieroglyphics, or in characters legible only to the adept; and the obscurity of which was further increased by the figurative style of the sacred language. Sometimes, even the facts were only committed to the memory of the priests, and transmitted by oral tradition from generation to generation. They were thus rendered inaccessible to the community, because philosophy and chemistry, being destined to serve a particular object, were scarcely heard of beyond the precincts of the temples ; whilst the de- velopment of their secrets involved the unveiling of the religious mysteries. The doctrines of theThaumaturgists were reduced, by degrees, to a collection of processes, which were liable to be lost as soon as they ceased to be habitually practised. There existed no scientific bond by the means of which one science preserves and advances another; and thus the ill-combined doctrines were destined to become obscure, and finally to be extin- guished, leaving behind them only the incoherent vestiges of ill-understood and ill-executed processes.
A condition of things, such as then existed, we do not scruple to say, is the gravest injury that can happen to the mind of man, from the veil of mystery cast by religion over physical knowledge. The labours of centuries and the scientific traditions derived from the re- motest antiquity, are lost in consequence of the inviolable secresy observed respecting them; the guardians of science are reduced to formularies, the principles of which they no longer understand ; so that, at length, in error and superstition, they rise little above the multitude, which they too long and too successfully have conspired to keep in ignorance.
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Let us now quit the enlightened caste, which, from its own act, gradually ceased to merit so high a title, and place ourselves for a while among the credulous multi- tude, whose information was confined to the fact, that the sublime art of working miracles was preserved, and incessantly practised in the depths of the sanctuaries. Ignorance, superstition, and the love of the marvellous, were found to exert an unlimited influence over the greater number ; there was nothing that might not be hoped for, or feared from these sources. But in some more energetic minds, curiosity, cupidity, and pride, awakened the wish and the hope of being able to pene- trate the mysteries. This desire rather favoured than injured the interests of those in authority ; they, there- fore, neglected no means of encouraging it by amusing credulity, and by holding out exaggerated promises. To the existence of the hope they were no strangers ; and they so managed, that deceitful information, erroneous indications, and false explanations, should reach the ear of the uninitiated, and mislead the profane, who might, perhaps, bypersevering researches, or by some favourable chance, possibly stumble on the discovery of some of the sacred mysteries.
Let us again analyse the correctness of these ideas by experience. To say that chemistry, and astronomy owe their birth to alchemy and astrology, and are thus, the wise daughters of foolish mothers, is to judge falsely of the progression of the human mind. One child, Astro- nomy, gazes on the stars as they shine in the heavens, without imagining that they possess any influence over the course of events passing on earth : the other, Che-
188 EVIL CONSEQUENCES OF MYSTERY.
mistry, admires the colour and the brilliancy of a piece of gold or silver ; and, if he is not misled, will no more imagine that it is within the range of art to fabricate a metal than to create a piece of wood or a flint. But when a people, acquainted only with the native gold de- posited in their rivers, saw this metal extracted from a body displaying no outward indication of its presence, the belief was natural that various substances were capable of being transmuted into gold by means of a peculiar pro- cess, of which a few superior beings alone possessed the secret. The knowledge of such a wonderful art being passionately desired by the avaricious, caused attempts and inquiries to be multiplied and brought to bear on all the metals, on all the minerals, and on all the various bodies in nature ; and thus Alchemy arose out of the ignorance of true science. From the observations of the stars, the return of the seasons, and several meteorological phenomena were predicted by the priest.* He regulated agricultural labours in a rational manner, and foretold its probable success with tolerable exactness. The ignorant men, therefore, under his direction, set no bounds in their own minds to the power of science ;'and doubted not that the futurity of the moral world, as well as that of the physical, was to be read on the face of the starry heavens. In this mistaken idea, they were not undeceived by the priest; and, from the remotest times, astrology has held
* The two calendars of Ptolemy were regulated, one according to the Egyptian, the other according to the Roman months ; and the Roman calendar, taken from Ovid, Columella, and Pliny, indi- cated diurnally the state of the heavens, and predicted that of the atmosphere.
EVIL CONSEQUENCES OF MYSTERY. 189
a place among the sacred sciences ; and over a portion of Asia it still preserves the empire which it long exercised over the whole earth.
One cause, already referred to, concurred in the pro- gress, or in the birth of error ; this was the falla- cious interpretation of emblems and of allegories. From the earliest times, both have been taken into the service of astronomy. Do not the Egyptian dynasties, cited by Manethon, apparently belong to the domain of history ? Do not the epithets, also, which follow their names refer to men ? For instance, "Friend of his friends." "A man remarkable for the strength of his limbs" "He who increases the power of his father" Yet, in these pre- tended Kings, Dupuis distinguishes the thirty-six decades which divide the Zodiac into periods of ten degrees each ; and, in the titles given to them, he sees the indication of astronomical phenomena, corresponding to each de- cade.* Under the titles of Barbaric, Persian, or Indian spheres, Aben Ezraf has collected and published three ancient calendars.! The first, believed to be that of Egypt, simply indicates the rising and the setting of the constellations in each decade. The second combines with this indication various allegorical figures. The third presents similar figures, and occasionally attributes
* Dupuis, Origine de tous les cultes, torn. xn. (in 8vo.) pp. 116—126.
f Aben Ezra, or Abraham ben Moir ben Ezra, was a learned Jew of the 12th century, who spent a considerable portion of his life in travelling, and was in England in 1159. He wrote a Commentary on the Old Testament, besides Treatises on Mathe- matics, Physics, Astronomy, and Medicine. — Ed.
I J. Scaligeri, Notœ in M.Manilium, pp. 371 — 384.
190 ANCIENT ASTRONOMY.
to them sentiments which cannot be rendered by the pencil, such as the intention to assassinate a father, or of returning home. The basis of the three calendars is the same ; but the last, viewed alone, awakens ideas utterly irrelevant to Astronomy. That similar allegories, distri- buted over certain portions of time, may have appeared to contain predictions referring to each of these divisions, is highly probable. If we examine an Egyptian calen- dar, this probability will be changed into certainty ;# for, in one column we find, corresponding to each degree of the Zodiac, an emblem intended, as the title announces, to indicate the corresponding rising of the stars ; and, in the second column, we observe the indication of the future character or destiny of any child born under the influences of such or such a degree ; an indication always conforming to the nature of the emblem. Thus, if it represent a man bruising in a mortar, the child would prove laborious ; but if an eagle was the sign, he would rise high, and be of an ambitious character.
This calendar is evidently the joint production of two labourers : the one has arranged a series of astronomical emblems from previous observations ; the other, deceived or the deceiver, has striven to divine the meaning of a book, which he did not understand, or to lead into the paths of error those who attempted to explain its meaning.
We are too ignorant of the interior philosophy of the school of Pythagoras, to decide whether this sage pro- fessed in its literal, or in its figurative sense, the strange
* Monomœriarum ascendentes, etc., J. Scalig. Not. in M. Manil. pp. 487—504.
ANCIENT ASTRONOMY. 191
doctrine regarding the properties of numbers ascribed to him.# But we conceive the doctrine itself to have been at first the allegorical veil, and at a later period the super- stitious envelop of a real science ; a science, the vestiges of which may still be traced, in Hindustan, where Pytha- goras had promulgated his dogmas ; and which, along with the bases of great astronomical calculations, in all probability, comprehended the principles and theories of a sublime arithmetic.
The somewhat recent discovery of a fragment of this science tends to support our conjecture.
Towards the end of the 17 th century, the French astronomers learned with surprize, that there existed in Siam a mode of calculating eclipses by successive addi- tions, worked upon numbers in arbitrary appearances. The key to this method has been long lost by those who make use of it, perhaps, indeed it was never possessed by them,f the inventor having applied his genius to the construction of an instrument infallible in its results,
* When we reflect upon the just and sublime notions of Pytha- goras, respecting the motion of the earth, and the nature of comets, we cannot avoid regretting that he should have entertained and taught the extravagant and fanciful speculations on numbers and harmony which are ascribed to him. — Ed.
f The great Tables of Logarithms published, at Paris, by the "Bureau du Cadastre," had been calculated by a method similar to this. It was also a succession of additions and of subtractions, worked on numbers, in arbitrary appearances, by men who were not under the necessity of knowing the elements and the march of the calculation necessary to determine these numbers ; and who, nevertheless, arrived at such precise results, that after the deter- mination of a hundred logarithms, the possible error affected only the eighth decimal fraction.
192 PREDICTIONS EFFECTED BY NUMBERS.
while he refused to reveal the principle of its action. However that may be, let us suppose a similar feeling to actuate the philosophers who operated, before the eyes of the people, in ancient Asia, in Egypt, and even in civi- lized Greece. With the aid of numbers, combined according to the principles of a hidden science, it may be seen that they arrived at prognostications, and uttered predictions, which nature could not fail to verify on the day and at the moment indicated. Forced to attribute to these numbers the property, which in fact they possess, of producing correct predictions, how could the ignorant man refrain from ascribing to them other properties, and apparently not more marvellous qualities ? He demanded from them, as from the courses of the stars which they served to measure, revelations of the future, and con- sulted the Babylonish numbers* with respect to his fate in life, as well as the nature and the moment of its ter- mination. It is not without interest to observe how the theory of the mysterious properties of number pervades, in the same manner as in astronomical allegories, the instructions of magic. We are told that, among the spirits of darkness, the magicians enumerated seventy- two princes (six multiplied by twelve), and 7,405,926 demons of an inferior rank.f This last, apparently absurd number, is the product of six multiplied by 1,234,321. Is it necessary to draw observation to the fact, that 1,234,321, taking it right and left, gives the
* neu Babylonios
Tentaris numéros "
Horat. Od. lib. i, od. xi. vers. 2, 3. f J. Wierius. De Prœstigiis, etc.
THE DIVINING ROD. 193
four numbers constituting the mysterious Tetractys of Pythagoras and of Plato ?
The divining rod naturally shares the miraculous fame of Numbers ; and the Rhabdomantic art, or divination with the divining rod, was held in honour, wherever variously marked pieces of wood served as arithmetical machines. Very complicated calculations were made with pieces of wood by the Khivans, who were much inclined to believe in the Rhabdomantic art.*
The Rhabdomantic art was practised among the Alani and the Scythians,f the ancestors of almost all the present inhabitants of Tartary ; and also by the Chaldeans, from whom the Hebrews appear to have borrowed it. | Such being the case, it is unreasonable to suppose that this method of divining with this rod, which cannot be ex- plained even by those who now employ it, may not be traced back in Asia to an antiquity as remote as the superstition to which it has given rise.§
* N. Mouraviev, Voyage en Turcomanie et à Khiva.
f Herodot. lib. iv. cap. lxvii. ; Amm. Marcell. lib. xxxi. cap. n. The ancient Germans also made use of it. Tacit. German, cap. x.
% Hosea, chap. iv. verse 12. " My people ask counsel of their stocks, and their staff declareth unto them."
§ The divining rod was also employed as a curative agent ; and passing a child through a cleft ash tree is still, in Suffolk, believed to be a remedy for rickets, ruptures, and many other diseases. The stem of a young tree is split for the purpose, and the child thrice passed through the cleft, which is then bound up ; and " the impression is that, as the tree heals of its wound, so will the child's ailment be removed.* This ceremony was once performed in the garden of my excellent friend, Major Moor, the
a Moor's Oriental Fragments, p. 508. VOL. I. O
194 AMULETS.
It has been truly remarked, that ignorance almost universally places error at the side of that which appears miraculous. By local applications, medicine has often allayed, and even prevented, the return of pain in a limb. But the physicians belonging to the sacred caste led the multitude to believe that the efficacy of the remedy depended entirely on the hand that administered it, and which alone could imbue it with its healing virtue. In consequence of the belief in this doctrine, the charlatan was supposed by the credulous to impart to these beneficial substances, not only the power of curing existing diseases, but the influence of preserving them from those which were likely to occur in future. From this successful application of local remedies, sprung the belief of the supernatural properties assigned to amulets or talismans.* Here controversy again played a
author of the " Hindu Pantheon," at Woodbridge, in Suffolk. On the bank of the Lake of Killarney is a natural cleft tree, through which people are once or more passed. Croker, in his Legends of the Lake, does not overlook this superstition : — "It is called the eye of the needle." — "Sure your honour will thread the eye of the needle — every one that comes to Innisf alien threads the needle," said Plunket, the Cicerone of Killarney. — "Pshaw!" said I, " I shall never be able to squeeze through that hole — I am too fat — besides, what's the use of it ?" — " The use, Sir ? Why it will ensure your honour a long life, they say. And if your honour was a lady in a certain way, there would be no fear of you after threading the needle. "a — Ed.
* The term Amulet is Arabic, and implies anything suspended. Thus, a stone, a morsel of amber, a bezoar, a plant, an animal, a piece of written parchment or paper, hung upon any part of the body, in the belief that it is capable of preventing disease, or
" Legends, p. 70,
SUPERNATURAL POWERS ASCRIBED TO AMULETS. 195
part : — figures borrowed from it are traced on many of these amulets ; the most celebrated, the Abraxas which is said to derive its virtue from the chief of the good geni, simply expressed the number of the days of the year.
counteracting poisons, warding off witchcraft, or any evil which is likely to attack the wearer, is an amulet. The faith reposed on amulets was universal in the ancient world, and the belief in them has outlived most of the olden superstitions. In our time, the anodyne necklace, which consists of beads turned out of the root of the white Bryony, and which is hung round the necks of in- fants, in order to assist their teething, and to ward off the con- vulsions sometimes incident to that process, is an amulet. In Turkey various kinds of amulets are still generally worn ; and in Greece, at the present time, the priests sell to the sick, amulets which are pieces of triangular paper, containing in writing the name of the disease under which the sick man is labouring ; and which are attached to the door of the sick chamber.
In ancient times amulets were of two kinds, namely, natural and artificial. Among the former, Pliny says that any plant gathered on the bank of a river before sunrise, provided the person who gathers it is unperceived, and tied on the left arm without the patient knowing what it is, cures ague, and is an amulet.a Beads of selenite were worn as necklaces by women, and even tied to trees, to make them fruitful.15 In India, many stones and gems are used as amulets. The Turquoise is supposed to avert the evil eye ; but the most remarkable is the Salagrama, which is about the size of a billiard ball, of a black colour and usually perforated as if by worms. It is supposed to be found only in the Gandaki, a river in Nepaul, which according to the followers of Vishnu, flows from the foot of that Deity ; but, according to the Saivas, from the head of Siva. The fortunate possessor of this stone, preserves it in a clean cloth, from which it is frequently taken and bathed, and perfumed. The water with which the ablution is
a Pliny. Hist. Nat. xxiv. 19. ta Dioscorides , lib. v.
o 2
196 SUPERNATURAL POWERS ASCRIBED TO AMULETS.
Faith in talismans survived the ancient forms of wor- ship. Even under the dominion of Christianity, an unenlightened piety tended to foster it. It is related by M. Tiedmann,* that three Agnus Dei, with verses f expressing their magical virtues, were sent to the Emperor of Constantinople by Pope Urban V. After such an instance, can one blame the ignorant who put their faith in the talismans of the magician? Wherein lies the difference, except in the mode of consecration !
Why did the Scandinavians attach to verse the idea of a magical power ? j Why did the Greeks and Romans believe in the power of songs and verses to cause the
performed, acquires a sin- expelling potency, and it is, therefore, drank and greatly prized. The Salagrama possesses many other mysterious powers ; and in death it is an essential ingredient in the viaticum. The departing Hindoo holds it in his hand, and, through his confidence in its influence, hope brightens the future, and he dies in peace.
Many amulets are believed to possess the power of warding off the blow of the king of terrors : but Lucillius, in one of his epi- grams, describes a sick man who, having seen a certain physician in a dream,
. . . Awoke no more, Although an amulet he wore. The galvanic rings now worn as protections from rheumatism ; and the camphor bags, as guardians of female virtue, are amulets. Thus we are told that in 1568 the Prince of Orange condemned a Spanish prisoner to be shot at Juliers. The soldiers tied him to a tree, and fired, but he was invulnerable. The soldiers therefore stripped him, to see what armour he wore, but they found only an amulet bearing the figure of a lamb. This was taken from him, and death followed the first shot aimed at him. — Ed.
* Tiedmann. De Quœstione, etc., p. 103.
f These verses have been quoted by Fromann, p.p. 947, 948.
X C.V. de Bonstetten. La Scandinavie et les Alpes, pp. 42 — 53.
SUPERNATURAL POWERS ASCRIBED TO AMULETS. 197
destruction of dangerous reptiles, and to draw the moon from the vault of heaven ? * We reply that magical for- mularies were originally couched in verse, in a similar man- ner as the principles of policy, and of morality, and religious and historical narratives; and these verses were always chanted. The Theurgists, deriving their ceremonial rites from the Egyptian priests or from the disciples of Zo- roaster, did not hold this opinion. They were ignorant whether some had or had not expressed themselves in verse ; they were certain that others had not done so ; and poetry was prohibited by the religion of Egypt, as being the language of fiction.f Modern sorcerers have not ascribed magical powers to verse ; but they find virtue in absurd figures, strange characters, and words of un- couth pronunciation.
In the hands of men who either had never been in possession of, or who had no knowledge of hieroglyphics, or of sacred language and characters, the greater propor- tion of the magical formularies became useless ; yet nevertheless, though they had ceased to be comprehended, the remembrance of their powers was not forgotten. Even when meaning was no longer attached to the terms mysteriously recited, or those graven on stones, or writ- ten on parchment, perhaps a greater reverence was con- ceded to them because their origin and the measure of their real virtue were not suspected.
It is thus that errors arise, and become extended.
The Hindoos affirm that " each letter is governed by an
angel, an emanation of the virtue of God's omnipotence ;
and these angels are represented by the letters which
* Virgil. Eclog. viii. v. 69 — 71.
t Dio. Chrysost. Orat. de Ilio non capta.
198 BOOKS BELIEVED TO BE SPIRITS.
compose the oration, or form of incantation, by which miracles are to be wrought.* With what facility, aided by such a doctrine, has the impostor been able to defraud the credulous in the sale of amulets ; some composed of the letters expressing a prayer, or a vow ; some inscribed with strange or absurdly grouped characters; their efficacy, indeed, becoming greater in proportion to the complicated and extraordinary aspect of the writing." f
A missionary,! having written a vocabulary of the native language in Louisiana, frequently referred to it, in order to answer the questions of those who addressed him. The natives believed this paper to be a spirit, which communicated to the missionary all his know-
* Les Mille et une Nuits, tome 1, pp. 128, 129 (14e Nuit.) Hist, du Brame. Pad. Manaba.
t The word Abracadabra, written as below, is still employed to cure agues, by what the ignorant call a charm, and in which they have the utmost confidence :
A
b
r
a
c
a
d
a
b
r
a
b
r
a
c
a
d
a
b
r
a
r
a
c
a
d
a
b
r
a
a
c
a
d
a
b
r
a
c
a
d
a
b
r
a
a
d d
a a a
b b b b
r r r r r
a a a a a
Indeed, such is the influence of the imagination over the body, that the sincere belief of the credulous in the efficacy of this charm, is adequate to effect a cure. — Ed.
t P. Hennepin. Description de la Louisiane, pp. 249, 250.
BOOKS BELIEVED TO BE SPIRITS. 199
ledge. The Nadoëssis are, though able to count, ignorant of ciphers. Carver,* opening a book before them, told them exactly how many pages there were between the beginning and the page which he showed them ; they immediately concluded that the book was a spirit, which dictated answers to the traveller. At Kano, in Africa, Clapperton met with a person who believed that the traveller had the power of transforming men into beasts, and the earth into gold, simply by the act of reading a book.f The Runic letters^ were numbered with other magical agents, so soon as this species of writing was lost to the vulgar. An algebraic formu- lary would be similarly regarded by the superstitious, if they beheld an undeniable solution, to questions appa- rently widely different, furnished by its aid ; and in which they could not discern the point, common to all, which the science had seized upon.§
The extravagance of credulity causes steps still
* Carver. Travels in South America.
f Travels in Africa, etc. vol. in. p. 37.
I Runic letters constituted the ancient alphabet of the Teutonic and Scandinavian tribes. It consisted of sixteen letters, which are supposed to have been of Phoenician origin. They were cut on stones ; and those specimens of them which remain, have much similarity to the portions of wood, or sticks, which were anciently employed in casting events by the Germans ; and in this simi- larity, most probably, originated the magical properties ascribed to the Runic letters. — -Ed.
§ The notation of music would undoubtedly appear supernatural to a people having no idea of it, were a man to repeat exactly one of their songs which he had never heard before, but which he possessed the power of noting down.
200 OBSCURE CAUSES REGARDED AS SUPERNATURAL.
more surprising than those already mentioned to take place. In the provinces situated to the east of the Baltic, which by force of arms and political stratagem have been united to the empire of Russia, it is firmly believed, that if a woman with child introduces a piece of wood into the stove, in a direction opposite to the growth of the branches, the infant will be presented in an unnatural direction at the moment of birth.* Sometimes the cre- dulous man, ignorant of hieroglyphics, has believed that, by imitating, as far as he could do so, the postures repre- sented in the hieroglyphics, he could work the apparent miracle which, at an unknown period, was obtained by the process described by them. Of this we find several examples in the collection of Gaffarel.f
We believe it is allowable to refer to error, or to reveries of this nature, the origin of universally held or popular opinions, sometimes so strange and so absurd, that we can neither divine their meaning, nor assign to them a plausible pretext or motive. Causes, with respect to the nature of which men have been always profoundly ignorant, have exerted, and continue to exert an influence over their existence.
* Debray. Sur les préjugés et les idées superstitieuses des Livo- niens, etc. Nouvelles Annales des Voyages, tome xvm. p. 127. f Gaffarel, Curiosités inouïes, etc. chap. vu. § 1 et 2.
MYSTERY IN THE SCHOOLS OF PHILOSOPHY. 201