BLACK AND WHITE MAGIC.

"Peace!--the charm's wound up."

--MACBETH.

The most startling of all scenes described in Holy Writ--as far as they
represent incidents in human life--is, no doubt, the mysterious
interview between unfortunate King Saul and the spirit of his former
patron, the prophet Samuel. The poor monarch, abandoned by his friends
and forsaken by his own heart, turns in his utter wretchedness to those
whom he had but shortly before "put out of the land," those godless
people who "had familiar spirits and the wizards." Hard pressed by the
ancient enemy of his people, the Philistine, and unable to obtain an
answer from the great God of his fathers, he stoops to consult a witch,
a woman. It seems that Sedecla, the daughter of the Decemdiabite--for so
Philo calls her according to Des Mousseaux--had escaped by her cunning
from the fate of her weird sisters, and, having a familiar spirit,
foretold the future to curious enquirers at her dwelling in Endor. At
first she is unwilling to incur the penalty threatened in the king's
decree, but when the disguised monarch, with a voice of authority
promises her impunity, she consents to "bring up Samuel." As soon as
the fearful phantom of the dread prophet appears, she becomes
instinctively aware of the true character of her visitor, and, far more
afraid of the power of the living than of the appearance of the
departed, she cries out trembling: "Why hast thou deceived me? Thou art
Saul!" Then follows the appalling scene in which Samuel reproves the
miserable, self-despairing king, and foretells his death and that of his
sons.

There can be no doubt that we have here before us an instance of genuine
magic. The woman was evidently capable of casting herself into a state
of ecstasy, in which she could at once look back into the past and
forward into the future. Thus she beholds the great prophet, not sent by
God from on high, as the Holy Fathers generally taught, but according to
the then prevailing belief, rising from Sheol, the place of departed
spirits, and then she utters, unconsciously, his own words. For it must
not be overlooked that Samuel makes no revelations, but only repeats his
former warnings. Saul learns absolutely nothing new from him; he only
hears the same threatenings which the prophet had pronounced twice
before, when the reckless king had dared to sacrifice unto God with his
own hand (I. Sam. xiii.), and when he had failed to smite the Amalekite,
as he was bidden. Possessed, as it were, by the spirit of the living
Samuel, the woman speaks as he had spoken in his lifetime, and it is
only when her state of exaltation renders her capable of looking into
the future also, that she assumes the part of a prophetess herself, and
foretells the approaching doom of her royal visitor.

That the whole dread scene was fore-ordained and could take place only
by the will of the Almighty, alters nothing in the character of the
woman with the familiar spirit. It is a clear case of necromancy, or
conjuring up of the spirits of departed persons, such as has been
practised among men from time immemorial. Among the chosen people of God
persons were found from the beginning of their history who had familiar
spirits, and Moses already fulminates his severest anathemas against
these wizards (Lev. xx. 27). They appear under various aspects, as
charmers, as consulters of familiar spirits, as wizards, or as
necromancers (Deut. xviii. 11); they are charged with passing their
children through the fire, with observing times (astrologers); with
using enchantments; or they are said in a general way to "use
witchcraft" (II. Chron. xxxiii. 6). That other nations were not less
familiar with the art of evoking spirits, we see, for instance, in the
"Odyssey," which mentions numerous cases of such intercourse with
another world, and speaks of necromancers as forming a kind of close
guild. In the "Persius" of AEschylus the spirit of Darius, father of
Xerxes, is called up and foretells all the misfortunes that are to
befall poor Queen Atossa. The greatest among the stern Romans could not
entirely shake off the belief in such magic, in spite of the
matter-of-fact tendencies of the Roman mind, and the vast superiority of
their intelligence. A Cato and a Sylla, a Caesar and a Vespasian, all
admitted, with clear unfailing perception, the small grains of truth
that lay concealed among the mass of rubbish then called magic. Even
Christian theology has never absolutely denied the existence of such
extraordinary powers over the spirits of the departed, although it has
consistently attributed them to diabolic influences.

In this point lies the main difference between ancient and modern magic.

For the oldest Magi whom we know were the wise men of Persia, called,
from _mah_ (great), Mugh, the great men of the land. They were the
philosophers of their day, and, if we believe the impartial evidence of
Greek writers--not generally apt to overestimate the merits of other
nations--they were possessed of vast and varied information. Their aim
was the loftiest ever conceived by human ambition; it was, in fact,
nothing less than the erection of an intellectual Tower of Babel. They
devoted the labors of a lifetime, and the full, well-trained vigor of
their intelligence to the study of the forces of nature, and the true
character of all created beings. Among the latter they included
disembodied spirits as well as those still bound up with bodies made of
earth, considering with a wisdom and boldness of conception never yet
surpassed, both classes as one and the same eternal creation. The
knowledge thus acquired they were, moreover, not disposed merely to
store away in their memory, or to record in unattractive manuscripts;
they were men of the world as well as philosophers, and looked for
practical results. Here the pagan spirit shone forth unrestrained; the
end and aim of all their restless labors was Power. Their ambition was
to control, by the superior prestige of their knowledge, not only the
mechanical forces of Nature, but also the lesser capacities of other
created beings, and finally Fate itself! Truly a lofty and noble aim if
we view it, as in equity we are bound to do, from their stand-point, as
men possessing, with all the wisdom of the earth, as yet not a particle
of revealed religion.

It was only at a much later period that a distinction was made between
White Magic and Black Magic. This arose from the error which gradually
overspread the minds of men, that such extraordinary powers--based,
originally, only upon extraordinary knowledge--were not naturally given
to men; but, could only be obtained by the special favor of higher
beings, with whom the owner must needs enter into a perilous league. If
these were benevolent deities, the results obtained by their assistance
were called White Magic; if they were gods of ill-repute, they granted
the power to perform feats of Black Magic, acts of wickedness, and
crimes. Christianity, though it abolished the gods of paganism,
maintained, nevertheless, the belief in extraordinary powers accorded by
supernatural beings, and the same distinction continued to be made.

Pious men and women performed miracles by the aid of angels and saints;
wicked sinners did as much by an unholy league with the Evil One. The
Egyptian charmer, of Apulejus, who declared that no miracle was too
difficult for his art, since he exercised the blind power of deities who
were subject to his will, only expressed what the lazzarone of Naples
feels in our day, when he whips his saint with a bundle of reeds, in
order to compel him to do his bidding. Magicians did not change their
doctrine; they hardly even modified their ceremonies; their allegiance
only was transferred from Jupiter to Jehovah, even as the same column
that once bore the great Thunderer on Olympus, is now crowned by a
statue of Peter Boanerges. Nor has the race of magicians ever entirely
died out; we find enough notices in classic authors, whose evidence is
unimpeachable, to know that the Greeks were apt scholars of the ancient
Magi and transferred the knowledge they had thus obtained and long
jealously guarded, to the priests of Egypt, who in their turn became the
masters of the two mightiest nations on earth. First Moses sat at their
feet till, at the age of forty, he "was learned in all the wisdom of the
Egyptians," and could successfully cope with their "magicians and
sorcerers." Then the land of the Nile fell into the hands of the Romans,
and poverty and neglect drove the wise men of Egypt to seek refuge in
the capital of the world, where they either lived upon the minor arts
and cunning tricks of their false fate, or, being converted to
Christianity, infected the pure faith with their ill-applied knowledge.

Certain portions of true magic survived through all persecutions and
revolutions; some precious secrets were preserved by the philosophers of
later ages and have--if we believe the statements made by trustworthy
writers of every century--ever since continued in the possession of
Freemasons and Rosicrucians; others became mixed up with vile
superstitions and impious practices, and only exist now as the Black Art
of so-called magicians and witches.

Wherever magic found a fertile soil among the people, it became a
science, handed down from father to son, and such we find it still in
the East Indies and the Orient generally; when it fell into the hands of
skeptics, or weak, feeble-minded men, it degenerated with amazing speed
into imposture and common jugglery. What is evident about magic is the
well-established fact that its ceremonies, forms, and all other
accessories are almost infinite in variety since they are merely
accidental vehicles for the will of man, and real magicians know very
well that the importance of such external aids is not only overrated but
altogether fallacious. The sole purpose of the burning of perfumes, of
imposing ceremonies and awe-inspiring procedures, is to aid in producing
the two conditions which are indispensable for all magic phenomena: the
magician must be excited till his condition is one resembling mental
intoxication or becomes a genuine trance, and the passive subject must
be made susceptible to the control of the superior mind. For it need not
be added, that the latter will all the more readily be affected, the
feebler his will and the more imperfect his mental vision may be by
nature or may have been rendered by training and careful preparation.

Hence it is that the magic table of the dervish; the enchanted drum of
the shaman; the medicine-bag of the Indian are all used for precisely
the same purpose as the ring of Hecate; the divining rod and the magic
wand of the enchanter. Legend and amulet, mummy and wax-figure, herb and
stone, drug and elixir, incense and ointment, are all but the means,
which the strong will of the gifted Master uses in order to influence
and finally to control the weaker mind. Thus powerful perfumes, narcotic
odors, and anaesthetic salves are employed to produce enervation and
often actual and complete loss of self-control; in other cases the
neophyte has to turn round and round within the magic circle, from east
to west, till he becomes giddy and utterly exhausted. It is very curious
to observe how, as far as these preparations go, in the most distant
countries and among the most different forms of society the same means
are employed for the same purpose: the whirling dance of the fanatic
dervish is perfectly analogous to the wild raving of our Indian
medicine-man, who ties himself with a rope to a post and then whirls
around it in fierce fury. Thus, also, the oldest magicians speak with
profound reverence of the powers of a little herb, known to botanists as
_Hypericum perforatum L._, and behold! in the year 1860 a German author
of eminence, Justinus Kerner, still taught seriously, that the leaves
of that plant were the best means to banish evil spirits! Mandrake and
elder have held their own in the false faith of nations from the oldest
times to our day, and even now Germans as well as slaves love to plant
the latter everywhere in their graveyards, as suggestive of the realm of
spirits!

White Magic, though strictly forbidden by the Church in all ages, seems
nevertheless to have had irresistible attractions for wise and learned
men of every country. This charm it owes to the many elements of truth
which are mixed up with the final error; for it aims at a thorough
understanding of the mysteries of Nature--and so far its purpose is
legitimate and very tempting to superior minds--but only in order to
obtain by such knowledge a power which Holy Writ expressly denies to
man. When it prescribes the study of Nature as being the outer temple of
God and represents all the parts of this vast edifice, from the central
sun of the universe to the minutest living creation, as bound up by a
common sympathy, no objection can be made to its doctrines, and even the
greatest minds may fairly enroll themselves here as its pupils. But when
it ascribes to this sympathy an active power and attributes to secret
names of the Deity, to certain natural products, or to mechanically
regulated combinations of the stars, a peculiar and supernatural effect,
it sinks into contemptible superstition. Hence the constant aim of all
White Magic, the successful summoning of superior spirits for the
purpose of learning from them what is purposely kept concealed from the
mind of man, has never yet been reached. For it is sin, the same sin
that craved to eat from the tree of knowledge. Hence, also, no
beneficial end has ever yet been obtained by the practices of magic,
although wise and learned men of every age have spent their lives and
risked the salvation of their souls in restless efforts to lift the veil
of Isis.

Black Magic, the Kishuph of the Hebrews, avows openly its purpose of
forming a league with evil spirits in order to attain selfish ends,
which are invariably fatal to others. And yet it is exactly here that we
meet with great numbers of well-authenticated cases of success, which
preclude all doubt and force us to admit the occasional efficiency of
such sinful alliances. The art flourishes naturally best among the
lowest races of mankind, where gross ignorance is allied with blind
faith, and the absence of inspiration leaves the mind in natural
darkness. We cannot help being struck here also with the fact that the
means employed for such purposes have been the same in almost all ages.

Readers of classic writers are familiar with the drum of Cybele--the
Laplanders have from time immemorial had the same drum, on which heaven,
hell, and earth are painted in bright colors, and reproduce in pictorial
writing the letters of the modern spiritualist. A ring is placed upon
the tightly stretched skin, which slight blows with a hammer cause to
vibrate, and according to the apparently erratic motions of the ring
over the varied figures of gods, men, and beasts, the future is
revealed. The consulting savage lies on his knees, and as the pendulum
between our fingers and the pencil of Planchette in our hand write
apparently at haphazard, but in reality under the pressure of our
muscles acting through the unconscious influence of our will, so here
also the beats of the hammer only seem to be fortuitous, but, in
reality, are guided by the ecstatic owner. For already Olaf Magnus
("Hist. Goth." L. 3, ch. 26) tells us that the incessant beating of the
drum, and the wild, exulting singing of the magician for hours before
the actual ceremony begins, cause him to fall into a state of
exaltation, without which he would be unable to see the future. That the
drum is a mere accident in the ceremony was strikingly proved by a
Laplander, who delivered up his instrument of witchcraft to the pious
missionary (Tornaeus) by whom he had been converted, and who soon came
to complain that even without his drum he could not help seeing hidden
things--an assertion which he proved by reciting to the amazed minister
all the minute details of his recent journey. Who can help, while
reading of these savage magicians, recalling the familiar ring and
drumstick in the left hand of the Roman Isis--statues with a drum above
the head, or the rarely missing ring and hammer in the hands of the
Egyptian Isis? It need hardly be added that the Indians of our continent
have practised the art with more or less success from the day of
discovery to our own times. Already Wafer in his "Descr. of the Isthmus
of Darien" (1699) describes how Indian sorcerers, after careful
preparation, were able to inform him of a number of future events, every
one of which came to pass in the succeeding days. The prince of Neu-Wied
again met a famous medicine-man among the Crea Indians, whose prophecies
were readily accepted by the whites even, and of whose power he
witnessed unmistakable evidence. Bonduel, a well-known and generally
perfectly trustworthy writer, affirms, from personal knowledge, that
among the Menomonees the medicine-men not only practise magic, but are
able to produce most astounding results. After beating their drum,
Bonduel used to hear a heavy fall and a faint, inarticulate voice,
whereupon the tent of the charmer though fifteen feet high, rose in the
air and inclined first on one and then on the other side. This was the
time of the interview between the medicine-man and the evil spirit.

Small doll-like figures of men also were used, barely two inches long,
and tied to medicine-bags. They served mainly to inflame women with
loving ardor, and when efficient could drive the poor creatures to
pursue their beloved for days and nights through the wild forests. Other
missionaries also affirm that these medicine-men must have been able to
read the signs and perhaps to feel in advance the effects of the weather
with amazing accuracy, since they frequently engaged to procure storms
for special purposes, and never failed. It is interesting to notice
that according to the unanimous testimony of all writers on Indian
affairs, these medicine-men almost invariably find a violent and
wretched death.

It is not without interest to recall that the prevailing forms of the
magic of our day, as far as they consist of table-moving,
spirit-rapping, and the like, have their origin among the natives of our
continent. The earliest notice of these strange performances appeared in
the great journal of Augsburg, in Germany (_Allgemeine Zeitung_), where
Andree mentioned their occurrence among Western Indians. Sargent gave us
next a more detailed description of the manner in which many a wigwam or
log-cabin in Iowa became the scene of startling revelations by means of
a clumsy table which hopped merrily about, or a half-drunk, red-skinned
medium, from whose lips fell uncouth words. (Spicer, "Lights and
Sounds," p. 190.) It was only in 1847 that the famous Fox family brought
these phenomena within the pale of civilization: having rented a house
in Hydeville, N. Y., already ill-reputed on account of mysterious
noises, they reduced these knockings to a kind of system, and, by means
of an alphabet, obtained the important information that they were the
work of a "spirit," and that his name was Charles Ray. Margaret Fox
transplanted the rappings to Rochester; Catherine, only twelve years
old, to Auburn, and from these two central places the new Magic spread
rapidly throughout the Union. Opposition and persecutions served, as
they are apt to do, only to increase the interest of the public. A Mrs.

Norman Culver proved, it is true, that rappings could easily be produced
by certain muscular movements of the knee and the ankle, and a committee
of investigation, of which Fenimore Cooper was a member, obtained ample
evidence of such a method being used; but the faith of the believers was
not shaken. The moving of tables, especially, furnished to their minds
new evidence of the actual presence of spirits, and soon circles were
established in nearly all the Northern and Western States, formed by
persons of education without regard to confession, who called themselves
Spiritualists or Spiritists, and their most favored associates Media. A
number of men, whose intelligence and candor were alike unimpeachable,
became members of the new sect, among them a judge, a governor of a
State, and a professor of chemistry. They organized societies and
circles, they published journals and several works of interest and
value, and produced results which more and more strengthened their
convictions.

The new art met, naturally, with much opposition, especially among the
ministers and members of the different churches. Some of the opponents
laughed at the whole as a clever jugglery, which deserved its great
success on account of the "smartness" of the performers; others
denounced it as a heresy and a crime; the former, of course, saw in it
nothing but the hand of man, while the latter admitted the agency of
spirits, but of spirits from below and not from above. An amusing
feature connected with public opinion on this subject was, that when
trade was prosperous and money abundant, spiritualism also flourished
and found numerous adherents, but when business was slow, or a crisis
took place, all minds turned away from the favorite pastime, and
instinctively joined once more with the pious believers in the
denunciation of the new magic. Thus a kind of antagonism has gradually
arisen between orthodox Christians and enthusiastic spiritualists; the
controversy is carried on with great energy on both sides, and, alas! to
the eye of the general observer, magic is gaining ground every day, at
least its adherents increase steadily in numbers, and even in social
weight. (Tuttle, "Arena of Nature.") Not long ago the National
Convention of Spiritualists, at their great meeting at Rochester, N.Y.

(August, 1868), laid down nineteen fundamental principles of their new
creed; their doctrines are based upon the fact that we are constantly
surrounded by an invisible host of spirits, who desire to help us in
returning once more to the father of all things, the Great Spirit.

Modern magic met with the same opposition in Europe. The French Academy,
claiming, as usually, to be supreme authority in all matters of science,
declined, nevertheless, to decide the question. Arago, who read the
official report before the august body, closed with the words: "I do not
believe a word of it!" but his colleagues remembered, perhaps, that
their predecessors had once or twice before committed themselves
grievously. Had not the same Academy pronounced against the use of
quinine and vaccination, against lightning-rods and steam-engines? Had
not Reaumur suppressed Peyssonel's "Essay on Corals," because he thought
it was madness to maintain their animal nature; had not his learned
brethren decreed, in 1802, that there were no meteors, although a short
time later two thousand fell in one department alone; and had they not,
more recently still, received the news of ether being useful as an
anaesthetic with scorn and unanimous condemnation? Perhaps they recalled
Dr. Hare's assertion that our own Society for the Advancement of Useful
Knowledge had, in 1855, refused to hear a report on Spiritualism,
preferring to discuss the important question: "Why do roosters always
crow between midnight and one o'clock?" At all events they heard the
report and remained silent. In the same manner Alexander von Humboldt
refused to examine the question. This indifference did not, however,
check the growth of Spiritualism in France, but its followers divided
into two parties: spiritualists, under Rivail, who called himself Allan
Cardec, and spiritists, under Pierard. The former died in 1869, after
having seen his _Livre des Esprits_ reappear in fifteen editions; to
seal his mission, he sent, immediately after his death, his spirit to
inform his eager pupils, who crowded around the dead body of their
leader, of his first impressions in the spirit world. If the style is
the man (_le style c'est l'homme_), no one could doubt that it was his
spirit who spoke.

Perhaps the most estimable high-priest of this branch of modern magic is
a well known professor of Geneva, Roessinger, a physician of great
renown and much beloved by all who know him. He is, however, a rock of
offense to American spiritualists, because he has ever remained firmly
attached to his religious faith, and admits no spiritual revelations as
genuine which do not entirely harmonize with the doctrines of Christ and
the statements of the Bible. Unfortunately this leads him to believe
that his favorite medium, a young lady enjoying the mystic name of
Libna, speaks under the direct inspiration of God himself! In England
the new magic has not only numerous but also influential adherents, like
Lord Lytton and the Darwinian Wallace; papers like the _Star_ and
journals like the _Cornhill Magazine_, support it with ability, and
names like Home in former years and Newton in our day, who not only
reveal secrets but actually heal the sick, have given a new prestige to
the young science. The works of Howitt and Dr. Ashburner, of Mrs. Morgan
and Mrs. Crossland have treated the subject under various aspects, and
in the year 1871, Crookes, a well-known chemist, investigated the
phenomena of Home's revelations by means of an apparatus specially
devised for the purpose. The result was the conviction that if not
spiritual, they were at least not produced by any power now known to
science.--_Quart. Journ. of Science_, July, 1871.

In Germany the new magic has been far less popular than elsewhere, but,
in return, it has been there most thoroughly investigated. Men of great
eminence in science and in philosophy have published extensive works on
the subject, which are, however, more remarkable for zeal and industry
than for acute judgment. Gerster in Regensburg claimed to have invented
the Psychography, but Szapary in Paris and Cohnfeld in Berlin discovered
at the same time the curious instrument known to us as Planchette. The
most practical measure taken in Germany for the purpose of ascertaining
the truth was probably the formation of a society for spirit studies,
which met for the first time in Dresden in 1869, and purposes to obtain
an insight into those laws of nature which are reported to make it
possible to hold direct and constant intercourse with the world of
spirits. Here, as in the whole tendency of this branch of magic, we see
the workings not merely of idle curiosity but of that ardent longing
after a knowledge of the future and a certainty of personal eternity,
which dwells in the hearts of all men.

The phenomena of modern magic were first imperfect rappings against the
wall, the legs of a table or a chair, accompanied by the motion of
tables; then followed spirit-writing by the aid of a psychograph or a
simple pencil, and finally came direct "spirit-writings," drawings by
the media, together with musical and poetical inspirations, the whole
reaching a climax in spirit-photographs. The ringing of bells, the
dancing of detached hands in the air, the raising up of the entire body
of a man, and musical performances without human aid were only
accomplished in a few cases by specially favored individuals. Two facts
alone are fully established in connection with all these phenomena: one,
that some of the latter at least are not produced by the ordinary forces
of nature; and the other, that the performers are generally, and the
medium always, in a more or less complete state of trance. In this
condition they forget themselves, give their mind up entirely into the
hands of others--the media--and candidly believe they see and hear what
they are told by the latter is taking place in their presence. Hence
also the well-established fact that the spirits have never yet revealed
a single secret, nor ever made known to us anything really new. Their
style is invariably the same as that in which ecstatic and
somnambulistic persons are apt to speak. A famous German spiritualist,
Hornung, whose faith was well known, once laid his hands upon his
planchette together with his wife, and then asked if there really was a
world of spirits? To the utter astonishment of all present, the
psychograph replied No! and when questioned again and again, became
troublesome. The fact was simply that the would-be magician's wife did
not believe in spirits, and as hers was the stronger will, the answer
came from her mind and not from her husband's. On the other hand, it
cannot be denied that media--most frequently delicate women of high
nervous sensibility, and almost always leading lives of constant and
wearying excitement--become on such occasions wrought up to a degree
which resembles somnambulism and may really enable them, occasionally,
in a state of clairvoyance, to see what is hidden to others. It is they
who are "vitalized," as they call it, and not the knocking table, or the
writing planchette, and hence arises the necessity of a medium for all
such communications. That there are no spirits at work in these
phenomena requires hardly to be stated; even the most ardent and
enthusiastic adherents of the new magic cannot deny, that no original
revelation concerning the world of spirits has yet been made, but that
all that is told is but an echo of the more or less familiar views of
men. It is far more interesting to notice, with Coleman, the electric
and hygroscopic condition of the atmosphere, which has evidently much to
do with such exhibitions. The visions of hands, arms, and heads, which
move about in the air and may occasionally even be felt, are either mere
hallucinations or real objective appearances, due to a peculiar
condition of the air, and favorably interpreted by the predisposed mind.

Hence, also, our own continent is, for its superior dryness of
atmosphere, much more favorable to the development of such phenomena
than that of Europe.

Spiritualists in the Old as in the New World are hopeful that the new
magic will produce a new universal religion, and a better social order.

In this direction, however, no substantial success has yet been
obtained. Outsiders had expected that at least an intercourse with
departed spirits might be secured, and thus the immortality of man might
be practically demonstrated. But this also has not yet been done. What
then can we learn from modern magic? Only this: that there are evidently
forces in nature with whose character and precise intent we are not yet
acquainted, and which yet deserve to be studied and carefully analyzed.

Modern magic exhibits certain phenomena in man which are not subject to
the known laws of nature, and thus proves that man possesses certain
powers which he fails or does not know how to exert in ordinary life.

Where these powers appear in consequence of special preparation or an
exceptional condition of mind, they are comparatively worthless, because
they are in such cases merely the result of physical or mental disease,
and we can hope to profit only by powers employed by sound men. But
where these powers become manifest by spontaneous action, apparently as
the result of special endowment, they deserve careful study, and all the
respect due to a new and unknown branch of knowledge.

Nor must it be overlooked, that, although modern magic as a science is
new, most of the phenomena upon which it is based, were well known to
the oldest nations. The Chinese, who seem to have possessed all the
knowledge of mankind, ages before it could be useful to them, or to
others, and to have lost it as soon as there was a call for it, had,
centuries ago, not only moving tables, but even writing spirits. Their
modern planchette is a small board, which they let float upon the water,
with the legs upward; they rest their hands upon the latter, and watch
the gyrations it makes in the water. Or they hold a small basket with a
camel's-hair brush attached to one end suspended over a table upon which
they have strewn a layer of flour; the brush begins to move through the
flour and to draw characters in it, which they interpret according to
their alphabet. The priests of Buddha in Mongolia, also, have long since
employed moving tables, and for a good purpose, usually to detect
thieves. The lama, who is appealed to for the purpose, sits down before
a small four-legged table, upon which he rests his hands, whilst reading
a book of devotion. After perhaps half an hour, he rises, and as he does
so, holding his hand steadily upon the table, the table also rises and
follows his hand, which he raises till hand and table are both level
with his eyes. Then the priest advances, the table precedes him, and
soon begins to move at such a rate that it seems to fly through the air,
and the lama can hardly follow. Sometimes it falls down upon the very
spot where the stolen goods are hidden; at other times it only indicates
the direction in which they are to be sought for; and not unfrequently
it refuses altogether to move, in which event the priest abandons the
case as hopeless. (_Nord. Biene_, April 27, 1853.) Here also it is
evident that the table is not the controlling agent, but the will of the
lama, whom it obeys by one of those mysterious powers which we call
magic. It is the same force which acts in the divining rod, the
pendulum, and similar phenomena.

The name of Medium is an American invention, and is based upon the
assumption that only a few favored persons are able to enter into direct
communication with spirits, who may then convey the revelations they
receive to others. They are generally children and young persons, but
among grown men also certain constitutions seem to be better adapted to
such purposes than others. In almost all cases it has been observed,
that the electric condition of the medium is a feature of greatest
importance; the more electricity he possesses, the better is he able to
produce magic phenomena, and when his supply is exhausted by a long
session, his power also ceases. Hence, perhaps, the peculiar
qualification of children; while, on the other hand, the fact that they
not unfrequently are able to answer questions, in languages, of which
they are ignorant, proves that they also do not themselves give the
reply, but only receive it from the questioner, and state it as it
exists in the mind of the latter. Hence, also, the utter absurdity of
so-called spirit paintings, and, still worse, of poetical effusions like
Mr. Harris' "Lyric of the Golden Age," in eleven thousand four hundred
and thirty wretched verses. For what the "circle" does not know
individually or collectively, the medium also is not able to produce.

This truth is made still more evident by the latest phenomena developed
in spiritualistic circles, the so-called trance speaking, which may be
heard occasionally in New York circles, and which requires no
interposition of a medium. For here, also, we are struck by the utter
absence of usefulness in all these revelations; the inspired believers
speak, they recite poetry, but it remains literally _vox et praeterea
nihil_, and we are forcibly reminded of the words of AEschylus, who
already said in his "Agamemnon" (v. 1127),

"Did ever seers afford delight?

The long practised art of all the seers whom
Ever the gods inspired, revealed
Naught but horrors and a wretched fate."

Among the media of our day, Home is naturally _facile princeps_. A
Scotchman by birth, he claims that his mother already possessed the gift
of Second Sight, and that in their home near Edinburgh similar
endowments were frequent among their neighbors. At the age of three
years he saw the death of a cousin, who lived in a distant town, and
named the persons who were standing around her couch; he conversed
constantly in his childish way with spirits and heard heavenly music;
his cradle was rocked by invisible hands, and his toys came unaided into
his hands. When ten years old he was taken to an aunt in America, in
whose house he had no sooner been installed than chairs and tables, beds
and utensils, began to move about in wild disorder, till the terrified
lady sent the unlucky boy away. Attending once an exhibition of
table-moving he fell into fits and suddenly became cataleptic; during
the paroxysm he heard a summoning, then the spirits announced the
wrecking of two sailors, the table began to rock as in a storm, the
whistling of the wind through the tackle, the creaking of the vessel,
and the dull, heavy thud of the waves against her bows, all were
distinctly heard, and finally the table was upset, while the spirits
announced the name and the age of the perishing seamen. From that day
Home carefully cultivated his strange gifts, and developed what he
considered a decided talent for reading the future. As a young man he
returned to Europe and soon became famous. Florence was, for a time, the
principal stage of his successes; here he not only summoned the spirits
of the departed, but was raised by invisible powers from the ground and
hovered for some time above the heads of his visitors. The superstitious
Italians finally became excited and threatened him with death, from
which a Count Branichi saved him at great personal peril. In Naples the
spirits suddenly declared their intention to leave him on February 10,
1856, and to remain absent for a whole year; they did so, and during the
interval Home enjoyed better health than ever in his life! In Rome he
became a Catholic, and good Pio Nono himself offered him his crucifix to
kiss, with the words: "That is the only true magic wand!"--unfortunately
this was not Home's view always; at least we find him in 1864 in the
same city in conflict with the papal police, who ordered him to cease
all intercourse "with higher as well as with lower spirits," and finally
compelled him to leave the Eternal City. He then claimed publicly,
what, it must not be forgotten, he had consistently maintained from the
beginning of his marvelous career, that he was the unwilling agent of
higher powers, which affected him at irregular times, independent of his
will, and often contrary to his dearest wishes. It must be added that he
gave the strongest proof of his sincerity by never accepting from the
public pecuniary compensation for the exhibition of peculiar powers.

His exterior is winning; he is of medium height, light-haired and
light-complexioned, of slender figure; simple and well-bred in his
manners, and of irreproachable morale. The highest circles of society
have always been open to him, and his marriage with a daughter of the
Russian general Stroll has given him wealth and an agreeable position in
the world. As the spirits had predicted, they returned on the 10th of
February, 1857, and announced themselves by repeated gentle
knockings--in other words, Home's former nervous disease returned, and
with it his exceptionable powers. He was then in Paris, and soon excited
the attention of the fair but superstitious Empress, whose favor he
speedily obtained by a revelation concerning the "Empereur de l'avenir,"
as the spirits had the gallantry to call her infant son. Napoleon also
began to take an interest in the clever, talented man, whose special
gifts did not prevent him from being a pliant courtier and a cunning
observer. He showed himself grateful for the kindness with which Eugenie
provided for his sister's education by exerting his powers to the
utmost at the Tuileries, and by revealing to the Emperor the secrets he
had skillfully elicited during his spiritual sessions, from statesmen
and generals. At the house of Prince Murat he performed, perhaps, the
most surprising feats he has ever accomplished: seated quietly in his
arm-chair, he caused tables to whirl around, the clocks in two rooms to
stand still or to go at will, all the bells in the house to ring
together or separately, and handkerchiefs to escape irresistibly from
the hands and the pockets of several persons, the Emperor included. Then
the floor seemed to sink, all the doors of the house were slammed to and
opened again, the gaslights became extinct, and when they as suddenly
blazed up again, Home had disappeared without saying good-bye. The
guests left the house quietly and in a state of great and painful
excitement. At another exhibition in Prince Napoleon's house, a renowned
juggler was present by invitation to watch Home, but he declared, soon,
that there was no jugglery, such as he knew, in what he saw, and the
meeting, during which the most startling phenomena were exhibited, ended
by Home's falling into a state of fearful catalepsy. Perhaps nothing can
speak more clearly of the deep interest felt in the modern magician by
the highest in the land, than the fact that more than once private
sessions were held at the Tuileries, at which, besides himself, the
Emperor and the Empress, only one person was allowed to be present, the
Duke of Montebello. It is said, though not by Home himself, that at one
of these meetings the sad fate of the Empire was clearly predicted, and
even the time of the Emperor's death ascertained. One achievement of
modern magic in which Home is unique, is the raising of his body into
the air; no other person having as yet even attempted the same exploit.

He is lifted up in a horizontal position, sometimes only to a short
distance from the floor, but not unfrequently, also, nearly to the
ceiling; on one occasion, in Bordeaux, he remained thus suspended in the
sight of several persons for five minutes. Another speciality of his, is
the lengthening of his body. According to a statement deserving full
credit ("Human Nature," Dec. 1868), he can, when in a state of trance,
add four inches to his stature! Finally, he has been repeatedly seen
passing in the air out of one window of the room in which his visitors
were assembled, and returning through another window, an exhibition
which almost always ended in the complete exhaustion and apparent
illness of the magician.

Home himself maintains that he performs no miracles, and is not able to
cause the laws of nature to be suspended for a moment, but that he is
gifted with an exceptional power to employ faculties which he possesses
in common with all his brethren. In him they are active; in the vast
majority of men they lie dormant, because man is no longer conscious of
the full and absolute control over Nature, with which he has been
endowed by the Creator. He adds that it is faith alone, without the aid
of spirits, which enables him to cause mysterious lights to be seen, or
heavy pieces of furniture to move about in the air, and to produce
strange sounds and peculiar visions in the mind of his friends. On the
other hand, when he is lifted up into the air, or enabled to read the
future, and to reveal what absent persons are doing at the moment, he
professes to act as a willingless instrument of spirits, having neither
the power to provoke his ability to perform these feats, nor to lay it
aside at will. Occasionally he professes to be conscious of an electric
current, which he is able to produce at certain times and in a certain
state of mind; this emanation protects his body against influences fatal
to others, and enables him, for instance, to hold live coals in his
hand, and to thrust his whole head into the chimney fire. This "certain
state of mind," as he calls it, is simply a state of trance. Hence the
extremely variable nature of his performances, and his great reluctance
to appear as a magician at the request of others. Nor is he himself
always quite sure of his own condition; thus, in the winter of 1870,
when he wished to exhibit some of the simplest phenomena in the presence
of a number of savants in St. Petersburg, he failed so completely in
every effort, that the committee reported him virtually, though not in
terms, an impostor. The same happened to him at a first examination held
by Mr. Crookes, a well-known professor of chemistry, in company with
Messrs. Cox and Huggins; they did not abandon their purpose, however,
and at the next meeting, when certain antipathic spectators were no
longer present, Home displayed the most remarkable phenomena. The
committee came to the conclusion that he was enabled to perform these
feats by means of a new "psychic force," which it was all-important for
men of science to investigate thoroughly.

The number of men and women who possess similar endowments, though
generally in an inferior degree only, is very great, especially in the
United States. Only one feature is common to them all--the state of
trance in which they are enabled to produce such startling phenomena--in
all other respects they differ widely, both as to the nature of their
performances and as to their credibility. For, from the first appearance
of media in spiritualistic circles, in fact, probably already in the
exhibitions of the Fox family, delusion and willful deception have been
mixed up with actual magic. Tables have been moved by clever
legerdemain; spirit rappings have been produced by cunning efforts of
muscles and sinews; ventriloquists have used their art to cause
extraordinary noises in the air, and Pepper's famous ghosts have shown
the facility with which the eye may be deceived and the other senses be
taken captive. The most successful deception was practised by the
so-called Davenport Brothers, whose well-known exhibitions excited
universal interest, as long as the impression lasted that they were the
work of invisible spirits, while they became even more popular and
attractive when their true nature had been discovered, on account of the
exquisite skill with which these juggling tricks were performed.

The masters of physical science have amply proved that table-moving is a
simple mechanical art. Faraday and Babinet already called attention to
the fact that the smallest muscles of the human body can produce great
effects, when judiciously employed, and cited, among other instances,
the so-called Electric Girl, exhibited in Paris, who hurled a chair on
which she had been sitting, by muscular power alone, to a great
distance. The same feat, it is well-known, has been repeatedly
accomplished by other persons also. Like muscular efforts are made--no
doubt often quite unconsciously--by persons whose will acts
energetically, and when several men co-operate the force of vibrations
produced in a kind of rhythmical tact, becomes truly astounding. We need
only remember, that the rolling of a heavily laden cart in the streets
may shake a vast, well-built edifice from roof to cellar, and that the
regular tramp of a detachment of men has more than once caused
suspension bridges, of great and well-tried strength, to break and to
bury hundreds of men under their ruins. Thus a few children and delicate
women alone can, by an hour's steady work and undivided attention, move
tables of such weight that a number of strong men can lift them only
with difficulty. The only really new force which has ever appeared in
this branch of modern magic is the Od of Baron Reichenbach; its
presence and efficacy cannot be denied, although the manner in which it
operates is still a mystery. In the summer of 1861 the German baron
found himself in a company of table-movers at the house of Lord William
Cowper, the son-in-law of Lord Palmerston. To prove his faith he crept
under the heavy dining-table, resting with his full weight on one of the
three solid feet and grasping the other two firmly with his hands. The
wood began to emit low, electric sounds, then came louder noises as when
furniture cracks in extremely dry weather, and finally the table began
to move. Reichenbach did his best to prevent the movement, but the table
rushed down the room, dragging the unlucky baron with it, to the intense
amusement of all the persons present. The German savant maintains that
this power, possessed only by the privileged few who are peculiarly
sensitive, emanates from the tips of the fingers, becomes luminous in
the dark, and acts like a lever upon all obstacles that come in its way.

As the existence of Od is established beyond all doubt, and its effects
are admitted by all who have studied the subject, we are forced to look
upon it as at least one of the mysterious elements of modern magic.

The Od is, as far as we know, a magnetic force; for as soon as certain
persons are magnetized they become conscious of peculiar sensations,
heat or cold, headache or other pains, and, if predisposed, of a
startling increase of power in all their senses. They see lights of
every kind, can distinguish even minute objects in a dark room, and
behold beautiful white flames upon the poles of magnets. Reichenbach
obtained, as he believed, two remarkable results from these first
phenomena. He concluded that polar lights, aurora boreales, etc., were
identical with the magnetic light of the earth, and he discovered that
sensitive, sickly persons, who were peculiarly susceptible to magnetic
influences, ought to lie with the head to the north, and the feet to the
south in order to obtain refreshing sleep. The next step was an effort
to identify the Od with animal magnetism; Reichenbach found that
cataleptic patients who perceived the presence of magnets with exquisite
accuracy, and followed them like mesmerized persons, were affected alike
by his own hands or those of other perfectly sound, but strongly
magnetic men. He could attract such unfortunate persons by his
outstretched fingers, and force them to follow him in a state of
unconsciousness wherever he led them. According to his theory, the two
sides of man are of opposite electric nature and a magnetic current
passes continually from one side to the other; sensitive persons though
blind-folded, know perfectly well on which side they approach others.

Gradually Baron Reichenbach extended the range of his experiments,
employing for that purpose, besides his own daughter, especially a Miss
Nowotny, a sad sufferer from cataleptic attacks. She was able to
distinguish, by the sensations which were excited in her whole system,
more than six hundred chemicals, and arranged them, under his guidance,
according to their electro-chemical force. Another sick woman, Miss
Maiss, felt a cool wind whenever certain substances were brought near
her, and by these and similar efforts in which the baron was aided by
many friends, he ascertained the fact, that there is in nature a force
which passes through all substances, the human body included, and is
inherent in the whole material world. This force he calls the Od. Like
electricity and magnetism, this Od is a polar force, and here also
opposite poles attract, like poles repel each other. The whole subject,
although as yet only in its infancy, is well deserving of careful study
and thorough investigation.

The manifestations of so-called spirits have naturally excited much
attention, and given rise to the bitterest attacks. In England,
especially, the learned world is all on one side and the Spiritualists
all on the other; nor do they hesitate to say very bitter things of each
other. The _Saturday Review_, more forcibly than courteously, speaks of
American spiritualists thus: "If this is the spirit world, and if this
is spiritual intelligence, and if all the spirits can do, is to whisk
about in dark rooms, and pinch people's legs under the table, and play
'Home, Sweet Home,' on the accordeon, and kiss folks in the dark, and
paint baby pictures, and write such sentimental, namby-pamby as Mr.

Coleman copies out from their dictation--it is much better to be a
respectable pig and accept annihilation than to be cursed with such an
immortality as this." To which the _Spiritual Magazine_ (Jan., 1862),
does not hesitate to reply. "We shall not eat breakfast bacon for some
time, for fear of getting a slice of the editor of the _Saturday
Review_, in his self-sought appropriate metempsychosis." It must be
borne in mind, however, that spiritualists everywhere appeal to their
own reason as the highest tribunal before which such questions can be
decided, and to the laws of nature, because as they say, they are
identical with the laws of practical reason. They believe, as a body,
neither in angels nor in demons. Their spirits are simply the purified
souls of departed men. Protestant theologians, who admit of no
purgatory, see in these exhibitions nothing but the deeds of Satan.

Catholic divines, on the other hand, and Protestant mystics, who, like
the German, Schubert, believe that there exist what they curiously
enough call a "more peaceful infernal spirit," ascribe them to the
agency of evil spirits. In the great majority of cases, however, the
spirits have clearly shown themselves nothing else but the product of
the media. The latter, invariably either of diseased mind by nature or
over-excited for the occasion, believe they see and hear manifestations
in the outer world, which in reality exist only in their own
consciousness. A Catholic medium is thus visited by spirits from heaven
and hell, while the Protestant medium never meets souls from purgatory.

Nothing has ever been revealed concerning the future state of man, that
was not already well known upon earth. Most diverting are the
jealousies of great spirits, of Solomon and Socrates, Moses and
Plato--when the media happen to be jealous of each other! A somewhat
satirical writer on the subject explains even the fact that spirits so
often contradict each other and say vile things of sacred subjects, by
the inner wickedness of the media, which comes to light on such
occasions, while they carefully conceal it in ordinary life! If these
spirits are really the creations of the inner magic life, of which we
are just learning to know the first elementary signs, then the powers
which are hidden within us may well terrify us as they appear in such
exhibitions, while we will not be surprised at the manner in which many
an ordinary mortal appears here as a poet or a prophet--if not as a
wicked demon. Nor must it be overlooked that our memory holds vast
treasures of knowledge of which we are utterly unconscious until, under
certain circumstances, one or the other fact suddenly reappears before
our mind's eye. The very fact that we can, by a great effort and
continued appeals to our memory, recall at last what was apparently
utterly forgotten, proves the presence of such knowledge. A state of
intense excitement, of fever or of trance, is peculiarly favorable to
the recovery of such hidden treasures, and there can be no doubt that
many a medium honestly believes to receive a new revelation, when only
old, long forgotten facts return to his consciousness. Generally
however, we repeat, nothing is in the spirit that is not in the medium.

The American spiritualist conjures up only his own countrymen, and
occasionally some world-renowned heroes like Napoleon or Caesar,
Shakespeare or Schiller, while the cosmopolitan German receives visits
from men of all countries. Finally it must be borne in mind that,
according to an old proverb, we are ever ready to believe what we wish
to see or hear, and hence the amazing credulity of the majority of
spiritualists. Even skeptics are not free from the influence of this
tendency. When Dr. Bell, the eminent physician of Somerville, Mass.,
investigated these phenomena of modern magic, many years ago, he
promptly noticed that the spirits never gave information which was not
already in the possession of one or the other person present. Only in a
few cases he acknowledged with his usual candor, and at once, at the
meeting itself, that a true answer was returned. But when he examined,
after his return home, these few exceptional revelations, he discovered
that he had been mistaken, and that these answers had been after all as
illusory as the others.

There can be no doubt therefore, that modern magic, as far as it
consists in table-moving and spirit-rapping, with their usual
accompaniments, is neither the work of mechanical jugglery exclusively,
nor, on the other hand, the result of revelations made by spirits. In
the mass of accumulated evidence there remain however, after sifting it
carefully, many facts which cannot be explained according to the
ordinary course of nature. The power which produces these phenomena
must be classified with other well-known powers given to man under
exceptional circumstances, such as the safety of somnambulists in
dangerous places; the cures performed by faith, and the strange
exhibitions made by diseased persons, suffering of catalepsy and similar
affections. If men, under the influence of mesmerism, in a state of
ecstatic fervor, or under the pressure of strong and long-continued
excitement, show powers which are not possessed by man naturally, then
modern magic also may well be admitted as one of the means by which such
extraordinary, and as yet unexplored forces are brought to light. All
that can be reasonably asked of those who so peremptorily challenge our
admiration, and demand our respect for the new science, is that it shall
be proved to be useful to man, and this proof is, as yet, altogether
wanting.

In Mexico the preparation for acts of magic seems to have been downright
intoxication; at least we learn from Acosta, in his _Hist. nat. y moral
de los Indias_ (lv.), that the priests, before sacrificing, inhaled
powerful perfumes, rubbed themselves with ointments made of venomous
animals, tobacco and hempseed, and finally drank chica mixed with
various drugs. Thus they reached a state of exaltation in which they not
only butchered numbers of human beings in cold blood, and lost all fear
of wild beasts, but were also able to reveal what was happening at a
great distance, or even future events. We find similar practices, also,
nearer home. The Indians of Martha's Vineyard had, before they were
converted, their skillful magicians, who stood in league with evil
spirits, and as pawaws discovered stolen things, injured men at a
distance, and clearly foretold the coming of the whites. The pious
Brainert gives us full accounts of some of the converted Delawares, who,
after baptism, felt the evil spirit depart from them, and lost the power
of magic. One, a great and wicked magician, deplored bitterly his former
condition, when he was a slave of the evil one, and became, in the good
missionary's words: "an humble, devout, hearty, and loving Christian."
It is more difficult to explain the magic of the so-called Archbishop
Beissel, the head of the brotherhood at Ephrata, in Pennsylvania, who,
according to contemporary authorities "oppressed by his magic the father
and steward of the convent, Eckerling, to such a degree, that he left
his brethren and sought refuge in a hermit's hut in the forest!" The
spirits of departed brethren and sisters returned to the refectory at
this bishop's bidding; they partook of bread and meat, and even
conversed with their successors. There can be no doubt that Beissel,
abundantly and exceptionally gifted, possessed the power to put his
unhappy subordinates, already exhausted by asceticism of every kind,
into a state of ecstasy, in which they sincerely believed they saw these
spirits, and were subjected to magic influences. That such power has by
no means entirely departed from our continent, may be seen in the
atrocities perpetrated at the command of the negroes' Obee, of which
well-authenticated records abound in Florida and Louisiana, as well as
in Cuba.

The Indo-Germanic race has known and practised black magic from time
immemorial, and the Vendidad already explains it as an act which
Ahriman, the Evil Spirit, brought forth when overshadowed by death. In
Egypt it flourished for ages, and has never become entirely extinct.

Jannes and Jambres, who led the priests in their opposition to Moses (2.

Tim. iii. 8), have their successors in our day, and the very miracles
performed by these ancient charmers have been witnessed again and again
by modern travelers. Holy Writ abounds with instances of every kind of
magic; it speaks of astrology, and prophesying from arrows, from the
entrails of animals, and from dreams; but, strangely enough, the
charming of serpents and the evil eye are not mentioned, if we except
Balaam. The Kabbalah, on the contrary, speaks more than once of the evil
eye (ain hara), and all the southern nations of Europe, as well as the
Slavic races, fear its weird power.

The eye is, however, by no means employed only to work evil; by the side
of their _mal occhio_ the Italians have another gift, called
_attrativa_, which enables man, apparently by the force of his eye only,
to draw to himself all whom he wishes to attract. The well-known Saint
Filippo Neri thus not only won all whom he wished to gain over, by
looking at them, but even dogs left their beloved masters and followed
him everywhere. Cotton Mather tells us in his "Magnolia" that quakers
frequently by the eye only--though often, also, by anointing or
breathing upon them--compelled others to accompany them, to join their
communion, and to be in all things obedient to their bidding. Tom Case,
himself a quaker, certainly possessed the power of overwhelming those at
whom he looked fixedly for a while, to such a degree that they fell down
as if struck with epilepsy; once, at least, he turned even a mad bull,
by the force of his eye, till it approached him humbly and licked his
hand like a pet dog. Even in our own age Goethe has admitted the power
of certain men to attract others by the strength of their will, and
mentions an instance in which he himself, ardently wishing to see his
beloved one, forced her unconsciously to come and meet him halfway.

(Eckermann, iii. 201.)

It avails nothing to stigmatize a faith so deeply rooted and so
universal as mere superstition. Among the mass of errors which in the
course of ages have accumulated around the creed, the little grain of
truth, the indubitable power of man's mind to act through the eye, ought
not to be overlooked.

It is the same with the magic known as such to the two great nations of
antiquity. If the Greeks saw in Plato the son of Apollo, who came to his
mother Perictione in the shape of a serpent, and in Alexander the Great
the son of Jupiter Ammon, they probably intended merely to pay the same
compliment to their countrymen which modern nations convey by calling
their rulers Kings and Kaisers "by the Grace of God." But the
consistency with which higher beings came to visit earth-born man in the
shape of favored animals, is more than an accident. The sons of God came
to see the daughters of men, though it is not said in what form they
appeared, and the suggestion that they were the "giants upon the earth,"
mentioned in Holy Writ, is not supported; but exactly as the gods came
from Olympus in the shape of bulls and rams, so the evil spirits of the
Middle Ages appeared in the shape of rams and cats. A curious instance
of the mixture of truth and falsehood appears in this connection. It is
well-known that the Italians of the South look upon Virgil as one of the
greatest magicians that ever lived, and ascribe to his tomb even now
supernatural power. The poet himself had, of course, nothing whatever to
do with magic; but his reputation as a magician arose from the fact
that, next to the Bible, his verses became, at an early period, a
favorite means of consulting the future. _Sortes Virgilianae_, the lines
which upon accidentally opening the volume first met the eye, were a
leading feature of the art known as stichomania.

The story of the greatest magician mentioned in the New Testament has
been thoroughly examined, and the main features, at least, are well
established. Simon Magus was a magician in the sense in which the
ancients used that term; but he possessed evidently, in addition, all
the powers claimed by better spiritualists, like Home in our day. A
native of Gitton, a small village of Samaria, he had early manifested
superior intellectual gifts, accompanied by an almost marvelous control
over the minds of others. By the aid of the former he produced a lofty
gnostic system, which crumbled, however, to pieces as soon as it came
into contact with the inspired system of Christianity. His influence
over others led him, in the arrogance which is inherent to natural man,
to consider himself as the Great Divine Power, which appeared in
different forms as Father, Son, and Spirit. He professed to be able to
make himself invisible and to pass, unimpeded, through solid
substances--precisely as was done in later ages by Saint Dominic and
other saints (Goerres. Mystic, ii. 576)--to bind and to loosen others as
well as himself at will; to open prison doors and to cause trees to grow
out of the bare ground. Before utterly rejecting his pretensions as mere
lies and tricks, we must bear in mind two facts: first, that modern
jugglers in India perform these very tricks in a manner as yet
unexplained, and secondly, that he, in all probability, possessed merely
the power of exciting others to a high state of exaltation, in which
they candidly believed they saw all these things. At all events, his
magic deeds were identical with the miracles of later saints, and as
these are enthroned in shrine and statue in Rome, so the Eternal City
erected to Simon Magus, also, a statue, and proclaimed him a god in the
days of Claudius! Another celebrated magician of the same race, was
Sedechias (Goerres. Mystic, iv. ii. 71), who lived in the days of Saint
Louis, and who, once, in order to convince the skeptics of his day of
the real existence of spirits, such as the Kabbalah admits, ordered them
to appear in human form before the eyes of the monarch. Instantly the
whole plain around the king's tent was alive with a vast army; long rows
of bright-colored tents dotted the lowlands, and on the slopes around
were encamped countless troops; whilst mounted squadrons appeared in the
air, performing marvelous evolutions. This was probably the first
instance of those airy hosts, which have ever since been seen in various
countries.

The Christian era gave to magic phenomena a new and specific character;
what was a miracle in apostolic times remained in the eyes of the
multitude a miracle to our day, when performed by saints of the
church--it became a crime and an abomination when the authors were
laymen, and yet both differed in no single feature. The most remarkable
representative of this dual nature of supernatural performances is, no
doubt, Dr. Faust, whom the great and pious Melanchthon states to have
well known as a native of the little village of Knittlingen, near his
own birth-place, and as a man of dissolute habits, whom the Devil
carried off in person. His motto, which has been discovered under a
portrait of his (Hauber's "Bibl. Mag."), was characteristic of his
faith: _Omne bonum et perfectum a Deo, imperfectum a diabolo_. His vast
learning, his great power over the elements, and the popular story of
his pact with the Evil One, made him a hero among the Germans, of whose
national tendencies he was then the typical representative.

Unfortunately, however, nearly every Christian land has had its own
Faust; such was, for instance, in Spain the famous Dr. Toralba, who
lived in the sixteenth century, and by the aid of a servile demon read
the future, healed the sick, traveled through the air, and even when he
fell into the hands of the Inquisition, obtained his release through the
Great Admiral of Castile. Gilles de Laval, who was publicly burnt in
1440, and Lady Fowlis, of Scotland, are parallel cases.

One of the most absurd ceremonies belonging to black magic, was the
well-known Taigheirm, of the Scotch Highlands, a demoniac sacrifice
evidently handed down from pagan times. The so-called magician procured
a large number of black cats, and devoted them, with solemn
incantations, and while burning offensive incense of various kinds, to
the evil spirits. Then the poor victims were spitted and slowly roasted
over a fire of coals, one after the other, but so that not a second's
pause occurred between the death of one and the sufferings of the next.

This horridly absurd sacrifice had to be continued for three days and
nights, during which the magician was not allowed to take any food or
drink. The consequence was, that if he did not drop down exhausted and
perish miserably, he became fearfully excited, and finally saw demons in
the shape of black cats who granted him all he desired (Horst.

"Deuteroscopia," ii. 184). It need hardly be added that in the state of
clairvoyance which he had reached, he only asked for what he well knew
was going to happen, and that all the fearful visions of hellish spirits
existed only in his overwrought imagination. But it will surprise many
to learn that such "taigheirms" were held as late as the last century,
and that a place is still shown on the island of Mull, where Allan
Maclean with his assistant, Lachlain Maclean, sacrificed black cats for
four days and nights in succession. The elder of the two passed for a
kind of high-priest and chief magician with the superstitious islanders;
the other was a young unmarried man of fine appearance, and more than
ordinary intelligence. Both survived the fearful ceremony, but sank
utterly exhausted to the ground, unable to obtain the revelation which
they had expected; nevertheless they retained the gift of second sight
for their lives.

It must not be imagined, finally, that the summoning of spirits is a
lost art; even in our day men are found who are willing to call the
departed from their resting-place, and to exhibit them to the eyes of
living men. The best explanation of this branch of magic was once given
by a learned professor, whom the Prince Elector of Brandenburg,
Frederick II., sent for from Halle, in order to learn from him how
spirits could be summoned. The savant declared that nothing was easier,
and supported his assertion by a number of actual performances. First
the spectator was prepared by strong beverages, such as the Egyptian
sorcerers already used to employ on similar occasions, and by the
burning of incense. Soon he fell into a kind of half-sleep, in which he
could still understand what was said, but no longer reflect upon the
sense of the words; gradually his brain became so disturbed, and his
imagination so highly excited, that he pictured to himself images
corresponding to the words which he heard, and called them up before his
mind's eye as realities. The magician, protected against the effects of
the incense by a sponge filled with an alcoholic mixture, then began to
converse with his visitor, and tried to learn from him all he could
concerning the person the latter wished to see, his shape, his clothes,
etc. Finally the victim was conducted into a dark room, where he was
suddenly asked by a stern, imperious voice: "Do you not see that woman
in white?" (or whatever the person might be,) and at once his
over-excited imagination led him to think that he really beheld what he
expected or wished to see. This was allowed to go on till he sank down
exhausted, or actually fainted away. When he recovered his
consciousness, he naturally recollected but imperfectly what he had seen
while in a state of great excitement, and his memory, impaired by the
intermediate utter exhaustion and fainting, failed to recall the small
errors or minute inaccuracies of his vision. All that was left of the
whole proceeding was a terrifying impression on his mind that he had
really seen the spirits of departed friends.

Such skillful manoeuvres were more than once employed for sinister
purposes. Thus it is a well-known historical fact that the men who
obtained control over King Frederick William II., after his ascension to
the throne, and held it for a time by the visions which they showed him,
employed means like these to summon the spirits he wished to see. The
master in this branch of black magic was undoubtedly Joseph Balsamo, the
Count Cagliostro of French history. He was neither a magician in the
true sense of the word, nor even a religious enthusiast, but merely an
accomplished juggler and swindler, who had acquired, by natural
endowment, patient study, and consummate art, a great power over the
minds of others. He played upon the imagination of men as upon a
familiar instrument, and the greatest philosophers were as easily
victimized by him as the most clear-sighted women, in spite of the
natural instinct which generally protects the latter against such
imposition. His secret--as far as the summoning of the spirits of the
departed is concerned--has died with him, but that enlightened,
conscientious men candidly believed they had been shown disembodied
spirits, is too well established by memories of French and Dutch writers
to be doubted. In the meetings of his "lodges of Egyptian Freemasons"
he, as Grand Cophtha, or those whom he had qualified by breathing upon
them, employed a boy or a girl, frequently called up at haphazard from
the street, but at other times carefully prepared for the purpose, to
look into the hand or a basin of water. The poor child was, however,
first made half-unconscious, being anointed with the "oil of wisdom," no
doubt an intoxicating compound, and after numerous ceremonies, carried
into a recess called the Tabernacle, and ordered to look into the hand
or a basin of water. After the assembly had prayed for some time, the
"Dove," as they called the child, was asked what he saw. Ordinarily he
beheld first an angel or a priest--probably the image of Cagliostro
himself in his sacerdotal robes--but frequently also monkeys, the
offspring of a skeptical imagination. Then followed more or less
interesting revelations, some utterly absurd, others of real interest,
and at times actual predictions of future events. Cagliostro himself,
during his last trial before the Inquisition of Rome, while readily
confessing a large number of impostures, stoutly maintained the
genuineness of these communications and insisted that they were the
effects of a special power granted by God. His assertion has some value,
as the shrewd man knew very well how much more he was likely to gain by
a prompt avowal than by such a denial; his wife, also, although his
accomplice in former years, and now by no means disposed to spare her
quasi-husband, always stated that this was a true mystery which she had
never been able to fathom. If we add to these considerations the fact
that numerous masters of lodges, even in Holland and England, obtained
the same results, and that they cannot all have been impostors or
deluded victims, there remains enough in these well-established
phenomena to ascribe them to a mysterious, magic power. (_Compendio
della vita, etc. di G. Balsamo_, Roma, 1791.) It is in fact quite
evident that the unfortunate juggler possessed in a very rare degree a
power akin to that practised by a Mesmer, a Home, and other men of that
class, without having the sense to understand its true nature or the
ambition to employ it for other than the lowest selfish purposes. Trials
of magicians, who have conjured up the dead and compelled them to reveal
the future, are still taking place every now and then; in the year 1850
not less than four men, together with their associates, were accused of
this crime in enlightened Germany, and the proceedings in one case,
which occurred in Munich, created no small sensation.

Black magic, therefore, must also be looked upon as by no means a mere
illusion, much less as the work of evil spirits. The results it obtains
at times are the work of man himself, and exist only within his own
conscience. But if man can produce such marvelous effects, which lie
apparently beyond the range of the material world, how much more must
the Creator and Preserver of all things be able to call forth events
which transcend--to our mind--the limits of the tangible world. Such
occurrences, when they have a higher moral or religious purpose in view,
we call Miracles, and they remain incomprehensible for all whose
knowledge is confined to the physical world. Above the laws of nature
there rules the Divine Will, which can do what Nature cannot do, and
which we can only begin to understand when we bear in mind the fact that
by the side of the visible order of the world or above it, there exist
spiritual laws as well as spiritual beings. In a miracle, powers are
rendered active which ordinarily remain inactive, but which exist none
the less permanently in the world. Hence all great thinkers have readily
admitted the existence of miracles: a Locke and a Leibnitz as well as,
more recently, a Stahl and a Schopenhauer. Locke, in his "Discourse of
Miracles," goes so far as to call them the very credentials of a
messenger sent from God, and asserts that Moses and Christ have alike
authenticated the truth and the divine character of their revelations by
miracles. Even their possible continuance is believed in by those who
hope that men will ever continue among us who "have tasted the good word
of God and _the powers of the world to come_." (Hebrews vi. 5.)