MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 BY 
 
 M. SOHELE DE VERE. 
 
 Non fumum ex fulgore, sed ex fumo dare lucem 
 Cogitut, ut speciosa dehinc miracula promat. 
 
 HORACE. 
 
 XK\V YORK: 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, 
 
 FOURTH AVENUE AND TWENTY-THIRD STREET. 
 
 1873.
 
 Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1873, by 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
 LAXOE, LITTLE & HII.LMAX, 
 PUINTKRS, ELKCTROTYFKR3 AND STEREOTYPE 
 108 TO 114 WOOSTKB STBKKT, N. Y.
 
 PEEFAOE. 
 
 THE main purpose of our existence on earth aside 
 from the sacred and paramount duty of securing our 
 salvation is undoubtedly to make ourselves masters 
 of the tangible world around us, as it stands revealed 
 to our senses, and as it was expressly made subject to 
 our will by the Creator. "We are, however, at the same 
 time, not left without information about the existence 
 of certain laws and the occurrence of certain phenom- 
 ena, which belong to a world not accessible to us by 
 means of our ordinary senses, and which yet affect seri- 
 ously our intercourse with Nature and our personal 
 welfare. This knowledge we obtain sometimes, by spe- 
 cial favor, as direct revelation, and at other times, for 
 reasons as yet unknown, at the expense of our health 
 and much suffering. By whatever means it may reach 
 us, it cannot be rejected; to treat it with ridicule or to
 
 4 PREFACE. 
 
 decline examining it, would be as unwise as unprofita- 
 ble. The least that we can do is to ascertain the pre- 
 cise nature of these laws, and, after stripping these 
 phenomena of all that can be proved to be merely inci- 
 dental or delusive; to compare them with each other, 
 and to arrange them carefully according to some stand- 
 ard of classification. The main interest in such a task 
 lies in the discovery of the grain of truth which is 
 often found concealed in a mass of rubbish, and which, 
 when thus brought to light, serves to enlarge our 
 knowledge and to increase our power. The difficulty 
 lies in the absence of all scientific investigation, and in 
 the innate tendency of man to give way, wantonly or 
 unconsciously, to mental as well as to sensual delu- 
 sion. 
 
 The aim of this little work is, therefore, limited to 
 the gathering of such facts and phenomena as may 
 serve to throw light upon the nature of the magic 
 powers with which man is undoubtedly endowed. Its 
 end will be attained if it succeeds in showing that he 
 actually does possess powers which are not subject to 
 the general laws of nature, but more or less independ- 
 ent of space and time, and which yet make themselves 
 known partly by appeals to the ordinary senses and 
 partly by peculiar phenomena, the result of their
 
 PREFACE. O 
 
 activity. These higher powers, operating exclusively 
 through the spirit of man, are part of his nature, which 
 has much in common with that of the Deity, since he 
 vus created by God "in His own image," and the Lord 
 " breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man 
 became a living soul." This soul is not, as materialists 
 maintain, merely the sum of all perceptions obtained 
 by the collective activity of bodily organs a conclusion 
 which would finally make it the product of mere 
 material atoms, subject to constant physical and 
 chemical changes. Even if it were possible which we 
 deny to reduce our whole inner life, including memo- 
 ry, imagination, and reason, to a system of purely 
 physical laws, and thus to admit its destruction at 
 the moment of death, there would still remain the 
 living soul, coming directly from the Most High, and 
 destined to continue throughout eternity. This soul is, 
 hence, independent of time. Nor is it bound by space, 
 except so far as it can commune with the outer world 
 only by means of the body, with which it is united in 
 this life. The nature of this union is a mystery as yet 
 uufathomecl, but precisely because it is such a mystery, 
 we have no right to assume that it is altogether indis- 
 soluble during life ; or, that it ceases entirely at the 
 moment of death. There is, on the contrary, over-
 
 G PREFACE. 
 
 whelming evidence that the soul may, at times, act 
 independently of the body, and the forces developed on 
 such occasions we have, for the sake of convenience 
 rather than on account of the special fitness of the 
 term, preferred to call magic powers. 
 
 There is no evidence whatever before us as to the 
 mutual relations of soul and body after death. Here, 
 necessarily, all must be mere speculation. Nothing 
 more, therefore, will be claimed for the following 
 suggestions. "When the body becomes unfit to serve 
 any longer as an abode and an instrument to the soul, 
 the tie which was formed before or <it the moment of 
 birth is gradually loosened. The soul no longer 
 receives impressions from the outer world such as the 
 body heretofore conveyed to it, and with this cessation 
 of mutual action ends, also, the community of sensa- 
 tion. The living soul in all probability becomes 
 conscious of its separation from the dead body and 
 from the world ; it continues to exist, but in loneliness 
 and self-dependence. Its life, however, becomes only 
 the more active and the more self-conscious as it is no 
 longer consumed by intercourse with the world, nor 
 disturbed by bodily disorders and infirmities. The soul 
 recalls with ease all long-forgotten or much-dimmed 
 sensations. What it feels most deeply at first is, we may
 
 PREFACE. 7 
 
 presume, the double grief at being separated from the 
 body, with which it has so long been closely connected, 
 and at the sins it has committed during life. This 
 repentance will be naturally all the heartier, as it is no 
 longer interrupted by sensual impressions. After a 
 while this grief, like all sorrows, begins to moderate, 
 and the soul returns to a state of peace : sooner, of 
 course, in the case of persons who in their earthly life 
 already had secured peace by the only means revealed to 
 man ; later, by those who had given themselves entirely 
 up to the world and their passions. At the same time 
 the living soul enters into communion with other souls, 
 retaining, however, its individuality in sex, character, 
 and temper, and, possibly, proceeds on a course of 
 gradual purification, till it reaches the desired haven in 
 perfect reconciliation with God. During this inter- 
 mediate time there is nothing known to us which 
 would absolutely forbid the idea that these living souls 
 continue to maintain some kind of intercourse with 
 the souls of men on earth, with whom they share all 
 that constitutes their essential nature, save only the 
 one fact of bondage to the body. Nor is there any 
 reason why the soul in man should not be able, by its 
 higher powers, to perceive and to consort with souls 
 detached from mortal bodies, although this intercourse
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 must needs be limited and imperfect because of the 
 vast difference between a free soul and one bound to an 
 earthly, sinful body. For man, when he dies, leaves 
 behind in this world the body, dead and powerless, a 
 corpse. He continues, however, to live, a soul, with all 
 the peculiar powers which make up our spiritual 
 organism ; that is to say, the true man, in the higher 
 sense of the word, exists still, though he dwell in 
 another world. This soul has now no longer earthly 
 organs of sense to do its bidding, but it still controls 
 nature which was made subject to its will ; it has, 
 moreover, a new set of powers which represent in the 
 higher world its higher body, and the character of its 
 new active life will be all the more elevated, as these 
 organs are more spiritual. Man cannot but continue to 
 develop, to grow, and to ripen, in the next world as he 
 did in this ; his nature and his destiny are alike incom- 
 patible with sudden transitions and with absolute rest. 
 The soul must become purer and more useful; its 
 organs more subtle and more powerful, and it is of this 
 life of gradual improvement and purification that we 
 may occasionally obtain glimpses by that communion 
 which no doubt still exists between earth-bound souls 
 and souls freed from such bondage. 
 
 There are, it is well known, many theologians who
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 sternly deny any such further development of man's 
 spiritual part, and insist upon looking at this life as the 
 only time of probation accorded to him, at the end of 
 which immediate and eternal judgment is rendered. 
 Their views are entitled to the utmost consideration 
 and respect. But different opinions are entertained by 
 some of their brethren, not less eminent in piety, pro- 
 found learning, and critical acumen, and hence at least 
 equally deserving of being attentively listened to and 
 carefully regarded. So it is also with the belief in the 
 possibility of holding intercourse with disembodied 
 spirits. Superficial observers are ready to doubt or to 
 deny, to sneer haughtily, or to scoff contemptuously. 
 But men of great eminence have, from time immemo- 
 rial, treated the question with great attention and deep 
 interest. Melanohthon wrote: "I have myself seen 
 ghosts, and know many trustworthy people who affirm 
 that they have not only seen them, but even carried on 
 conversations with them*' (De Anima Recogn.: Wittemb. 
 1595, p. 317), and Luther said nearly the same ; Calvin 
 and Knox also expressed similar convictions. A faith 
 which has lasted through all ages of man's history, and 
 has such supporters, cannot but have some foundation, 
 and deserves full investigation. Alchemy, with its vis- 
 ionary hopes, contained, nevertheless, the germ of 
 
 1*
 
 10 PREFACE. 
 
 modern chemistry, and astrology taught already much 
 that constitutes the astronomy of our day. The same 
 is, no doubt, the case with Modern Magic, and here, 
 also, we may safely expect to find that " out of darkness 
 cometh light."
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 WITCHCRAFT 18 
 
 II. 
 BLACK AND WHITE MAGIC 43 
 
 III. 
 DREAMS 94 
 
 IV. 
 VISIONS 116 
 
 V. 
 GHOSTS 155 
 
 VI. 
 DIVINATION 270 
 
 VII. 
 POSSESSION 340 
 
 VIII. 
 MAGNETISM 376 
 
 IX. 
 
 MIRACULOUS CURES 429 
 
 X. 
 
 MYSTICISM. . 448
 
 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 WITOHOEAFT. 
 
 " Witchcraft is an illegitimate miracle ; a miracle is legitimate 
 witchcraft." JACOB BOEHME. 
 
 PERHAPS in no direction has the human mind ever 
 shown greater weakness than in the opinions enter- 
 tained of witchcraft. If Hecate, the oldest patroness 
 of witches, wandered about at night with a gruesome 
 following, and frightened lovers at their stealthy meet- 
 ing, or lonely wanderers on open heaths and in dark 
 forests, her appearance was at least in keeping with the 
 whole system of Greek mythology. Tacitus does not 
 frighten us by telling us that witches used to meet at 
 salt springs (Ann. xiii. 57), nor the Edda when speak- 
 ing of the " bearers of witches' kettles," against whom 
 even the Salic Law warns all good Christians. But 
 when the Council of Ancyra, in the fifth century, ful- 
 minates its edicts against women riding at night upon 
 weird animals in company with Diana and Herodias, 
 the strange combination of names and the dread penal- 
 ties threatened, make us almost think of Avitches as of 
 real and most marvelous beings. And when wise
 
 14 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 councillors of French Parliaments and gray dignitaries 
 of the Holy German Empire sit in judgment over a 
 handful of poor old women, when great English bishops 
 and zealous New England divines condemn little 
 children to death, hecause they have made pacts with 
 the Devil, attended his sabbaths, and bewitched their 
 peaceful neighbors then we stand amazed at the delu- 
 sions, to which the wisest and best among us are 
 liable. 
 
 Christianity, it is true, shed for a time such a bright 
 light over the earth, that the works of darkness were 
 abhorred and the power of the Evil One seemed to be 
 broken, according to the sacred promises that the seed 
 of woman should bruise the serpent's head. Thus 
 Charlemagne, in his fierce edict issued after the defeat 
 of the Saxons, ordered that death should be inflicted 
 on all who after pagan manner gave way to devilish 
 delusions, and believed that men or women could be 
 witches, persecuted and killed them ; or, even went so 
 far as to consume their flesh and give it to others for 
 like purposes ! But almost at the same time the belief 
 in the Devil, distinctly maintained in Holy Writ, spread 
 far and wide, and as early as the fourth century dis- 
 eases were ascribed not to organic causes, but to demo- 
 niac influences, and the Devil was once more seen bodily 
 walking to and fro on the earth, accompanied by a host 
 of smaller demons. It was but rarely that a truly 
 enlightened man dared to combat the universal super- 
 stition. Thus Agobard, archbishop of Lyons, shines
 
 WITCHCRAFT. 1 5 
 
 like a bright star on the dark sky of the ninth century 
 by his open denunciation of all belief in possession, in 
 the control of the weather or the decision of difficulties 
 by ordeal. For like reasons we ought to revere the 
 memory of John of Salisbury, who in the twelfth 
 century declared the stories of nightly assemblies of 
 witches, with all their attending circumstances, to be 
 mere delusions of poor women and simple men, who 
 fancied they saw bodily what existed only in their 
 imagination. The Church hesitated, now requiring her 
 children to believe in a Devil and demons, and now 
 denouncing all faith in supernatural beings. The thir- 
 teenth century, by Leibnitz called the darkest of all, 
 developed the worship of the Evil One to its fullest per- 
 fection ; the writings of St. Augustine were quoted as 
 confirming the fact that demons and men could and 
 did intermarry, and the Djinns of the East were men- 
 tioned as spirits who "sought the daughters of men 
 for wives." The first trace of a witches' dance is found 
 in the records of a fearful Auto-da-fe held in Toulouse 
 in the year 1353, and about a century later the Domini- 
 can monk, Jaquier, published the first complete work 
 on witches and witchcraft. He represented them as 
 organised after the prevailing fashion of the day in a 
 regular guild, with apprentices, companions, and mas- 
 ters, who practised a special art for a definite purpose. 
 It is certainly most remarkable that the same opinion, 
 in all its details, has been entertained in this century 
 even, and by one of the most famous German philoso-
 
 16 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 pliers, Eschenmayer. While the zeal and madness of 
 devil-worshippers were growing on one side, persecu- 
 tion became more violent and cruel on the other side, 
 till the trials of witches assumed gigantic proportions 
 and the proceedings were carried on according to a reg- 
 ular method. These trials originated, invariably, with 
 theologians, and although the system was not begun by 
 the Papal government it obtained soon the Pope's legal 
 sanction by the famous bull of Innocent VIII., Sumnris 
 desiderantes, dated December 4, 1484, and decreeing 
 the relentless persecution of all heretical witches. The 
 far-famed Malleus maleficatum (Cologne, 1489), written 
 by the two celebrated judges of witches, Spreuger and 
 Gremper, and full of the most extraordinary views and 
 statements, reduced the whole to a regular method, and 
 obtained a vast influence over the minds of that age. 
 The rules and forms it prescribed were not only ob- 
 served in almost all parts of Christendom, but actually 
 retained their force and legality till the end of the 
 seventeenth century. Nor were these views and prac- 
 tices confined to Catholic countries; a hundred and 
 fifty years after the Reformation, a great German jurist 
 and a Protestant, Carpzon, published his Praxis Critn- 
 inalis, in which precisely the same opinions were 
 taught and the same measures were prescribed. The 
 Puritans, it is well-known, pursued a similar plan, and 
 the Xew World has not been more fortunate in avoid- 
 ing these errors than the Old World. A curious 
 feature in the above-mentioned \jforks is the fact that
 
 WITCHCRAFT. 1 7 
 
 both abound in expressions of hatred against the female 
 sex, and still more curious, though disgraceful in the 
 extreme, that the special animosity shown by judges of 
 witchcraft against women is solely based upon the 
 weight which they attached to the purport of the 
 Mosaic inhibition: "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to 
 live " (Exodus xii. 18). 
 
 These are dark pages in the history of Christendom, 
 blackened by the smoke of funeral piles and stained 
 with the blood of countless victims of cruel supersti- 
 tion. For here the peculiarity was that in the majority 
 of cases not the humble sufferers whose lives were sac- 
 rificed, but the haughty judges were the true criminals. 
 The madness seems to have been contagious, for Pro- 
 testant authorities were as bloodthirsty as Catholics ; 
 the Inquisition waged for generations unceasing war 
 against this new class of heretics among the nations of 
 the Eomanic race. Germany saw great numbers sacri- 
 ficed in a short space of time, and in sober England, 
 even, three thousand lost their lives during the Long 
 Parliament alone, while, according to Barrington, the 
 whole number who perished amounted to not less than 
 thirty thousand ! If only few were sacrificed in New 
 England, the exception was due more to the sparse 
 population than to moderation ; in South America, on 
 the contrary, the persecution was carried on with re- 
 lentless cruelty. And all this happened while fierce 
 war was raging almost everywhere, so that, while the 
 sword destroyed the men, the fire consumed the women !
 
 18 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 Occasionally most startling contrasts would be exhib- 
 ited by different governments. In the North, James I., 
 claiming to be as wise as Solomon, and more learned 
 than any man in Christendom, imagined that he was 
 persecuted by the Evil One on account of his great 
 religious zeal, and saw in every Catholic an instrument 
 of his adversary. His wild fancy was cunningly en- 
 couraged by those who profited by his tyranny, and 
 Catholics were represented as being, one and all, given 
 up to the Devil, the mass and witchcraft, the three un- 
 holy allies opposed to the Trinity ! In the South, the 
 Eepublic of Venice, with all its petty tyranny and pro- 
 verbial political cruelty, stood almost alone in all 
 Christendom as opposed to persecutions of wizards and 
 witches, and fought the battle manfully on the side of 
 enlightenment and Christian charity. The horrors of 
 witch-trials soon reached a height which makes us 
 blush for humanity. The accused ware tortured till 
 they confessed their guilt, so that they might lose not 
 only life upon earth, but also hope for eternity. If, 
 under torture, they declared themselves innocent, but 
 ready to confess their guilt and to die, they were told 
 that in such a case they would die with a falsehood on 
 their lips, and thus forfeit salvation. Some of the suf- 
 ferers were found to have a stigma on their bodies, a 
 place where the nerves had been paralysed, and no pain 
 was consequently felt this was a sure sign of their 
 being witches, and they were forthwith burnt ; if they 
 had no such stigma, the judge decided that the Devil
 
 WITCHCRAFT. 1 9 
 
 marked only his doubtful adherents, and left his trusty 
 followers unmarked ! The terror became so great that 
 in the seventeenth century repentant ''witches abound- 
 ed, because it had become customary " merely to hang or 
 to decapitate those who confessed, while all others were 
 burned alive. Hundreds suffering of painful diseases or 
 succumbing to unbearable privations, forthwith fancied 
 themselves bewitched, or actually sought relief from 
 the ills of this life by voluntarily appearing before the 
 numerous tribunals for the trial of witchcraft. The 
 minds of men were so thoroughly blinded, that even 
 when husbands testified the impossibility of their wives 
 having attended the witches' sabbath, because they had 
 been lying all night by their side in bed, they were told, 
 and quite ready to believe, that a phantom had taken 
 the place of their absent wives ! In one of the most fa- 
 mous trials five women confessed, after suffering un- 
 speakable torture, that they had disinterred an infant, 
 the child of one of their number, and supped upon it 
 with the Devil ; the father of the child persevered till 
 the grave was opened, and behold, the child's body was 
 there unharmed! But the judges declared it to be a 
 phantom sent by the Evil One, since the confession of 
 the criminals was worth more than mere ocular proof, 
 and the women were burnt accordingly. (Horst. De- 
 monomagie, i. p. 349.) The most signal proof of the 
 absurdity of all such charges was obtained in our own 
 country. Here the number-of those who complained 
 of being plagued and injured by demoniac agencies
 
 20 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 became larger in precise proportion as trials increased 
 and condemnations succeeded. But when nineteen of 
 the accused had been executed, and the judges becom- 
 ing appalled at the daily growing number of com- 
 plaints, set some of the prisoners free, and declined to 
 arrest others, there was suddenly an end of these griev- 
 ances, no more accounts of enchantment and witch- 
 craft were heard, and soon the evil disappeared en- 
 tirely. 
 
 It was a similar return to reason which at last led in 
 Europe also to a reaction. The Doge of Venice and the 
 Great Council appealed to the pope, Leo X., to put a 
 curb upon the intemperate zeal of his ministers, and he 
 saw himself forced to check the merciless persecution. 
 Occasionally voices had been raised, already before that 
 public appeal, condemning such wholesale slaughter ; 
 among these were men like Bacon of Verulam, Regi- 
 nald Scotus, and, marvel of marvels, two famous 
 Jesuits, Tanner and Spee. And yet even these merci- 
 ful and enlightened men never, for a moment, doubted 
 the genuineness of witchcraft and its fatal effects. 
 Father Spee, a most learned man, writing against the 
 ceaseless persecutions of pretended witches, neverthe- 
 less declared, in 1631, in his renowned Cautio crimin- 
 alis, by far the best work written on that side of the 
 question, that " there are in the world some few wizards 
 and enchanters, which could not be denied by any 
 body without frivolity and great ignorance," and even 
 Bayle, while condemning the cruelty of witches' trials,
 
 WITCHCRAFT. 21 
 
 seriously proposes to punish witches for their " ill-will." 
 Vaude, the well-known librarian of Cardinal Mazarin, 
 wrote, an able work as an apology of all the great men 
 who had been suspected of witchcraft, including even 
 Clemens V., Sylvester II., and other popes, and a re- 
 nowned Capuchin monk, d'Autun, pursued the same 
 subject with infinite subtlety of thought and great hap- 
 piness of diction in his L'incrtduUte savante et la cridu- 
 litc. ignorante. A witch was, however, still condemned 
 to be burned in 1698, in Germany; fortunately the 
 judge, a distinguished jurist of the University of Halle, 
 was remonstrated with by an esteemed colleague, and 
 thus induced to examine himself as well as the whole 
 grievous subject with unsparing candor. This led him 
 to see clearly the error involved in trials of witchcraft, 
 and he wrote, in 1701, a most valuable and influential 
 work against the Crime of Magic. He succeeded, espe- 
 cially, in destroying the enormous prestige heretofore 
 enjoyed by Del Eio's great work Disquisitiones magicce, 
 the favorite hand-book of judges of all lands, which 
 was even adopted, though from the pen of a Jesuit, by 
 the Protestants of Germany. In no case, however, 
 were the personal existence of the Devil, and his activity 
 upon earth, denied by these writers ; on the contrary, 
 it is well known that Luther, Melanchthou, and even 
 Calvin, continued always to speak of Satan as having a 
 corporeal existence and as being perceptible to human 
 senses. The negation contended for applied only to his 
 direct agency in the physical world; his moral in flu-
 
 22 'MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 ence was ever readily admitted. Sporadic cases of 
 witchcraft, and their trial by high courts of justice, 
 have continued to occur down to our day. Maria 
 Theresa was the first peremptorily to forbid any further 
 persecutions on account of Vencficium, as it had become 
 the fashion to call the acts of magic by which men or 
 beasts were said to be injured. There are, however, 
 writers who maintain, in this century, and in our gen- 
 eration, even, the direct agency of the Devil in daily 
 life, and see in demoniac sufferings the punishment of 
 the wicked in this life already. 
 
 The question of how much truth there may have 
 been in this belief In witchcraft, held by so many na- 
 tions, and persevered in during so many centuries, has 
 never yet been fully answered. It is hardly to be pre- 
 sumed that during this long period all men, even the 
 wisest and subtlest, should have been completely 
 blinded or utterly demented. . Many historians as well 
 as philosophers have looked upon witchcraft as a mere 
 creation of the Inquisition. Eome, they argue, was in 
 great danger, she had no new dogma to proclaim which 
 would give food to inquiring minds, and increase the 
 prestige of her power; she was growing unpopular in 
 many countries heretofore considered most faithful and 
 submissive, and she was engaged in various dangerous 
 conflicts with the secular powers. In this embarrass- 
 ment her Inquisitors looked around for some means of 
 escape, and thought a remedy might be found in this 
 new combination of the two traditional crimes of
 
 WITCHCRAFT. 23 
 
 heresy and enchantment. Witchcraft, as a crime, 
 because of the deeds of violence with which it was 
 almost invariably associated, belonged before the tri- 
 bunal of the secular judge ; as a sin it was to be pun- 
 ished by the bishop, but as heresy it fell, according to 
 the custom of the day, to the share of neither judge nor 
 bishop, but into the hands of the Inquisition. 
 
 The extreme uniformity of witchcraft from the 
 Tagus to the Vistula, and in New England as in Old 
 England, is adduced as an additional evidence of its 
 having been " manufactured " by the Inquisition. 
 Nothing is gained, however, by looking upon it as 
 a mere invention ; nor would such an explanation 
 apply to the wizards and witches who are repeatedly 
 mentioned and condemned in Holy Writ. Witchcraft 
 was neither purely artificial, a mere delusion, nor can 
 it .be accounted for upon a purely natural basis. 
 The essential part in it is the magic force, which 
 does not belong to the natural but to the spiritual 
 part of man. Hence it is not so very surprising, as 
 many authors have thought it, that thousands of 
 poor women should have done their best to obtain 
 visions which only led to imprisonment, torture, and 
 death by fire, while they procured for them appa- 
 rently neither comfort nor wealth, but only pain, 
 horror, and disgrace. For there was mixed up with 
 all this a sensation of pleasure, vague and wild, 
 though it was in conformity with the rude and 
 coarse habits of the age. It is the same with the
 
 24 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 opium eater and hasheesh smoker, only in a more 
 moderate manner ; the delight these pernicious drugs 
 afford is not seen, but the disease, the suffering, and 
 the wretched death they produce, are visible enough. 
 The stories of witches' sabbaths taking place on 
 certain days of the year, arose no doubt from the 
 fact that the prevailing superstition of the times 
 regarded some seasons as peculiarly favorable for the 
 ceremony of anointing one's self with narcotic salves, 
 and this led to a kind of spiritual community on 
 such nights, which to the poor deluded people ap- 
 peared as a real meeting at appointed places. In like 
 manner there was nothing absolutely absurd or im- 
 possible in the idea of a compact with the Devil. 
 Satan presented himself to the minds of men in those 
 ages as the bodily incarnation of all that is evil and 
 sinful, and hence when they fancied they made a 
 league with him, they only aroused the evil principle 
 within themselves to its fullest energy and activity. 
 It was in fact the selfish, covetous nature of man, 
 ever in arms against moral laws and the command- 
 ments of God, which in these cases became distinctly 
 visible and presented itself in the form of a vision. 
 This evil principle, now relieved from all constraint 
 and able to develop its power against a feebly resist- 
 ing soul, would naturally destroy the poor deluded 
 victim, in body and in spirit. Hence the trials of 
 witchcraft had at least some justification, however 
 unwise their form and however atrocious their abuses.
 
 WITCHCRAFT. 25 
 
 The majority of the crimes with which the so-called 
 witches were charged, were no doubt imaginary ; but 
 many of the accused also had taken real delight in 
 their evil practices and in the grievous injury they 
 had done to those they hated or envied. Nor must 
 it be forgotten that the age in which these trials 
 mainly occurred was emphatically an age of super- 
 stition; from the prince on his throne to the clown 
 in his hut, everybody learnt and practiced some kind 
 of magic ; the ablest statesmen and the subtlest phi- 
 losophers, the wisest divines and the most learned 
 physicians, all were more or less adepts of the Black 
 Art, and many among them became eminently dan- 
 gerous to their fellow-beings. Others, ceaselessly 
 meditating and brooding over charms and demoniac 
 influences' finally came to believe in their own pow- 
 ers of enchantment, and confessed their guilt, although 
 they had sinned only by volition, without ever being 
 able really to call forth and command magic powers. 
 Still others labored under a regular panic and saw 
 witchcraft in the simplest events as well as in all 
 more unusual phenomena in nature. A violent temp- 
 est, a sudden hailstorm, or an unusual rise in rivers, 
 all were at once attributed to magic influences, and 
 the authorities urged and importuned to prevent a 
 recurrence with all its disastrous consequences by 
 punishing the guilty authors. Has not the same 
 insane fury been frequently shown in contagious dis- 
 eases, when the common people believed their foun- 
 
 2
 
 26 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 tains poisoned and their daily bread infected by Jews 
 or other suspected classes, and promptly took justice 
 into their own hands ? It ought also to be borne 
 in mind, as an apology for the horrible crimes com- 
 mitted by judges and priests in condemning witches, 
 that in their eyes the crime was too enormous and 
 the danger too pressing and universal to admit of 
 delay in investigation, or mercy in judgment. The 
 severe laws of those semi-barbarous times were imme- 
 diately applied and all means considered fair in elic- 
 iting the truth. Torture was by no means limited 
 to trials of witches, for some of the greatest states- 
 men and the most exalted divines had alike to endure 
 its terrors. Moreover no age has been entirely free 
 from similar delusions, although the form under which 
 they appear and the power by which they may be 
 supported, differ naturally according to the spirit of 
 the times. Science alone cannot protect us against 
 fanaticism, if the heart is once led astray, and fearful 
 crimes have been committed not only in the name 
 .of Liberty but even under the sanction of the Cross. 
 Basil the Great already restored a slave ad integrum, 
 who said he had made a pact with the Devil, but 
 the first authentic account of such a transaction 
 occurs in connection with an Imperial officer, The- 
 ophilus of Adana, in the days of Justinian. His 
 bishop had undeservedly Immiliated him and thus 
 aroused in the heart of the naturally meek man in- 
 tense wrath and a boundless desire of revenge.
 
 WITCHCRAFT. 27 
 
 While he was in this state of uncontrollable excite- 
 ment, a Jew appeared and offered to procure for him 
 all he wanted, if he would pledge his soul to Satan. 
 The unhappy man consented, and was at once led 
 to the circus where he saw a great number of torch- 
 bearers in white robes, the costume of servants of 
 the church, and Satan seated in the midst of the as- 
 sembly. He obeyed the order to renounce Christ and 
 certified his apostacy in a written document. The 
 next day already the bishop repented of his injustice 
 and restored Theophilus in his office, whereupon the 
 Jew pointed out to him how promptly his master 
 had come to his assistance. Still, repentance comes 
 to Theophilus also, and in a new revelation the Virgin 
 appears to the despairing man after incessant prayer 
 of forty days and nights a fit preparation for such 
 a vision. She directs him to perform certain aton- 
 ing ceremonies and promises him restoration to his 
 Christian privileges, which he finally obtains by find- 
 ing the certificate of his apostasy lying on his breast, 
 and then dies in a state of happy relief. After that 
 similar cases of a league being made with Satan occur 
 quite frequently in the, history of saints and eminent 
 men, till the belief in its efficacy gradually died put 
 and recent efforts like those recorded by Goerres 
 (III. p. 620) have proved utterly fruitless. 
 
 Among the magic phenomena connected with witch- 
 craft, none is more curious than the so-called witches' 
 sabbath, the formal meeting of all who are in league
 
 28 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 with Satan, for the purpose of swearing allegiance to 
 him, to enjoy unholy delights, and to introduce neo- 
 phytes. That no such meeting ever really took place, 
 need hardly be stated. The so-called sabbaths were 
 somnambulistic visions, appearing to poor deluded 
 creatures while in a state of trance, which they had 
 produced by narcotic ointments, vile decoctions, or 
 even mere mental effort. For the most skillful among 
 the witches could cause themselves to fall into the 
 Witches' Sleep, as they called this trance, whenever 
 they chose ; others had to submit to tedious and often 
 abominable ceremonies. The knowledge of simples, 
 which was then very general, was of great service to 
 cunning impostors ; thus it was well known that cer- 
 tain herbs, like aconite, produces in sleep the sensation 
 of flying, and they were, of course, diligently employed. 
 Hyosciamus and taxus, hypericum and asafoetida were 
 great favorites, and physicians made experiments 
 with these salves to try their effect upon the system. 
 Laguna, for instance, physician to Pope Julius III., 
 once applied an ointment which he had obtained from 
 a wizard, to a woman, who thereupon fell into a sleep 
 of thirty-six hours' duration, and upon being aroused, 
 bitterly complained of his cruelty in tearing her from 
 the embraces of her husband. The Marquis d' Agent 
 tells us in his Lettres Juifs. (i. 1. 20), that the celebrated 
 Gassendi discovered a drug which a shepherd used to 
 take whenever he wished to go to a witches' assembly. 
 He won the man's confidence, and, pretending to join
 
 WITCHCRAFT. 29 
 
 him in his journey, persuaded him to swallow the 
 medicine in his presence. After a few minutes, the 
 shepherd began to stagger like an intoxicated person, 
 and then fell into profound sleep, during which he 
 talked wildly. When he roused himself again many 
 hours afterwards, he congratulated the physician on 
 the good reception he had met at Satan's court, and 
 recalled with delight the pleasant things they had 
 jointly seen and enjoyed! The symptoms of the 
 witches' sleep differ, however; while the latter is, in 
 some cases, deep and unbroken, in other cases the 
 sleepers become rigid and icy cold, or they are subject 
 to violent spasms and utter unnatural sounds in 
 abundance. The sleep differs, moreover, from that of 
 possessed people in the consciousness of bodily pain 
 which bewitched people retain, while the possessed 
 become insensible. Invariably the impression is pro- 
 duced that they meet kindred spirits at some great 
 assembly, but the manner of reaching it differs greatly. 
 Some go on foot; but as Abaris already rode on a spear 
 given to him by Apollo (lamblichus De Vita, Pyth. c. 
 18), others ride on goats. In Germany a broomstick, 
 a club, or a distaff, became suitable vehicles, provided 
 they had been properly anointed. In Scotland and 
 Sweden the chimney is the favorite road, in other 
 countries no such preference is shown over doors and 
 windows. The expedition, however joyous it may be, 
 is always very fatiguing, and when the revellers awake 
 they feel like people who have been dissipated. The
 
 30 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 meetings differ in locality according to size : whole 
 provinces assemble on high, isolated mountains, among 
 which the Brocken, in the Hartz Mountains, is by far 
 the most renowned; smaller companies meet near 
 gloomy churches Grander dark trees with wide-spread- 
 ing branches. 
 
 In the north of Europe the favorite resort is the Blue 
 Mountain, popularly known as Blokulla, in Sweden, 
 and as Blakalla in Norway, an isolated rock in the sea 
 between Smoland and Oland, which seems to have had 
 some association in the minds of the people with the 
 ancient sea-goddess Blakylle. In Italy the witches 
 loved to assemble under the famous walnut tree near 
 Benevent, which was already to the Longobards an ob- 
 ject of superstitious veneration, since here, in ancient 
 times, the old divinities were worshipped, and after- 
 wards the strighe were fond of meeting. In France 
 they had a favorite resort on the Puy de Dome, near 
 Clermont, and in Spain on the sands near Seville, 
 where the JiecJtizeras held their sabbaths. The Hekla, 
 of Iceland, also passes with the Scandinavians for a 
 great meeting-place of witches, although, strangely 
 enough, the inhabitants of the island have no such tra- 
 dition. It is, however, clear that in all countries where 
 witchcraft prospered, the favorite places of meeting 
 were always the same as those to which, in ancient 
 times, the heathens had made pilgrimages in large 
 numbers, in order to perform their sacrifices, and to 
 enjoy their merry-makings.
 
 WITCHCRAFT. 31 
 
 In precisely the same manner the favorite seasons for 
 these ghastly meetings correspond almost invariably 
 with the times of high festivals held in heathen days, 
 and hence, they were generally adopted by the early 
 Christians, with the feast and saints' days of Christen- 
 dom. Thus the old Germans observed, when they 
 were still pagans, the first of May for two reasons : as a 
 day of solemn judgment, and as a season for rejoicing, 
 during which prince and peasant joined in celebrating 
 the return of summer with merry songs and gay dances 
 around the May-pole. The witches were nothing loth 
 to adopt the day for their own festivities also, and 
 added it to the holidays of St. John the Baptist and St. 
 Bartholomew, on which, in like manner, anciently the 
 holding of public courts had brought together large 
 assemblies. The meetings, however, must always fall 
 upon a Thursday, from a determined, though yet unex- 
 plained association of witchcraft with the old German 
 god of thunder, Donar, who was worshipped on the 
 Blocksberg, and to whom a goat was sacrificed whence 
 also the peculiar fondness of witches for that animal. 
 The hours of meeting are invariably from eleven o'clock 
 at night to one or two in the morning. 
 
 The assembly consists, according to circumstances, 
 of a few hundred or of several thousands, but the 
 female sex always largely prevailes. For this fact 
 the famous text-book of judges of witchcraft, the 
 Malleus, assigned not less than four weighty reasons. 
 "Women, it said, are more apt to be addicted to the fear-
 
 32 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 ful crime than men because, in the first place, they are 
 more credulous; secondly, in their natural weakness 
 they are more susceptible ; thirdly, they are more im- 
 prudent and rash, and hence always ready to consult 
 the Devil, and fourthly and mainly, femina comes from 
 fe, faith and minus, less, hence they have less faith ! 
 
 The guests appear generally in their natural form, 
 but at times they are represented as assuming the shape 
 of various animals; the Devil's followers having a decid- 
 ed preference for goats and for monkeys, although the 
 latter is a passion of more recent date. The crowd is 
 naturally in a state of incessant flowing and ebbing; 
 the constant coming and going, crowding and pressing 
 admits of not a moment's quiet and even here it is 
 proven that the wicked have neither rest nor peace. 
 
 Among this crowd flocks are seen, consisting of toads 
 and watched over by boys and girls ; in the centre sits 
 Satan on a stone, draped in weird majesty, with terrible 
 but indistinct features, and uttering short commands 
 with an appalling voice of unnatural and unheard of 
 music. A queen in great splendor may sit by his side, 
 promoted to the throne from a place among the guests. 
 Countless demons, attending to all kinds of extraordin- 
 ary duties, surround their master; or, dash through 
 the crowd scattering indecent words and gestures in all 
 directions. English witches meet, also, innumerable 
 kittens on the Sabbath and show the scars of wounds 
 inflicted by the malicious animals. Every visitor must 
 pay his homage to the lord of the feast, which is done
 
 WITCHCRAFT. 33 
 
 in an unmentionable manner; and yet they receive 
 nothing in return according to their unanimous con- 
 fessions except unfulfilled promises and delusive 
 presents. Even the dishes on the table are but shams ; 
 there is neither salt nor bread to be found there. They 
 are bound, besides, to pledge themselves to the per- 
 formance of a certain number of wicked works, which 
 are distributed over the week, so that the first days are 
 devoted to ordinary sins and the last to crimes of 
 special horror. Music of surpassing weirdness is heard 
 on all sides, and countless couples whirl about in rest- 
 less, obscene dances ; the couples joining back to back 
 and trying in vain to see each other's faces. Very often 
 young children are brought up by their mothers to be 
 presented to the Master ; when this is done, they are 
 set to attend the flocks of toads till the ninth year, 
 when they are called up by the Queen to abjure their 
 Christian faith and are regularly enrolled among 
 witches. 
 
 The descriptions of minor details vary, of course 
 according to the individual dispositions of the accused, 
 whose confessions are invariably uniform as to the facts 
 stated heretofore. The coarser minds naturally see 
 nothing but the grossest indecency and the vilest indul- 
 gences, while to more refined minds the apparent occur- 
 rences appear in a light of greater delicacy ; they hear 
 sweet music and witness nothing but gentle aifection 
 and brotherly love. But in all cases these witches' 
 sabbaths become a passion with the poor deluded
 
 34 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 creatures; they enjoy there a paradise of delight, 
 whether they really indulge in sensual pleasure or 
 surrender mind and will so completely to the unhal- 
 lowed power that they cease to wish for anything else, 
 and are plunged in vague, unspeakable pleasure. And 
 yet not even the simple satisfaction of good looks is 
 granted them ; witches are as ugly as angels are fair ; 
 they emit an evil odor and inspire others with uncon- 
 querable repugnance. 
 
 How exclusively all these descriptions of witches' 
 sabbaths have their origin in the imagination of the 
 deluded women is seen from the fact that they vary 
 consistently with the prevailing notions of those by 
 whom they are entertained; with coarse peasants, the 
 meetings are rude feasts full of obscene enjoyments ; 
 with noble knights, they become the rovings of the 
 wild huntsman, or a hellish court under the guise of a 
 Venus' mountain ; with ascetic monks and nuns, a sub- 
 terranean convent filled with vile blasphemies of God 
 and the saints. This only is common to all such 
 visions, that they are always conceived in a spirit of 
 bitter antagonism to the Church : all the doctrines not 
 only but also the ceremonies of the latter are here 
 travestied. The sabbath has its masses, but the host is 
 desecrated, its holy water obtained from the lord of the 
 feast; its host and its candles are black, and the Ite 
 missa est of the dismissing priest is changed into : " Go 
 to the Devil ! " Here, also, confession is required ; but, 
 the penitent confesses having omitted to do evil and
 
 WITCHCRAFT. 35 
 
 being guilty of occasional acts of mercy and goodness ; 
 the penalty imposed is to neglect one or the other of 
 the twelve commandments. 
 
 When witches were brought to trial, one of the first 
 measures was to search for special marks which were 
 believed to betray their true character. These were 
 especially the so-called witches' moles, spots of the size 
 of a pea, on which for some reason or other the nerves 
 had lost their sensibility, and where, in consequence, no 
 pain was felt. These were supposed to have been 
 formed by being punctured, the Evil One performing 
 the operation with a pin of false gold, with his claws or 
 his horns. Other evidences were found in the peculiar 
 coloring of the eyes, which was said to represent the 
 feet of toads ; in the absence of tears when the little 
 gland had been injured, and, above all, in the specific 
 lightness of the body. In order to ascertain the latter 
 the accused were bound hand and foot crosswise, tied 
 loosely to a rope, and then, three times, dropped into 
 the water. If they remained floating their guilt was 
 established ; for either they had been endowed by their 
 Master with safety from drowning, or the water refused 
 to receive them because they had abjured their baptism ! 
 It need not be added that the executioners soon found 
 out ways to let their prisoners float or sink as they 
 chose for a consideration. 
 
 Witches' trials began in the earliest days of Chris- 
 tianity, for the Emperor Valens ordered, as we 
 learn from Ammianus Marcellinus, all the wiz-
 
 36 MODEKX MAGIC. 
 
 ards and enchanters to be held to account who had 
 endeavored by magic art to ascertain his successor. 
 Several thousands were accused of witchcraft, but the 
 charge was then, as in almost every later age, in most 
 cases nothing more than a pretext for proceedings 
 against obnoxious persons. The next monster pro- 
 cess, as it began to be called already in those early 
 days, was the persecution of witches in France under 
 the Merovingians. The child of Chilperic's wife had 
 died suddenly and under suspicious circumstances, 
 which led to the imprisonment of a prefect, Mummo- 
 lus, whom the queen had long pursued with her 
 hatred. He was accused of having caused her son's 
 death by his charms, and was subjected to fearful 
 tortures in company with a number of old women. 
 Still, he confessed nothing but that the latter had 
 furnished him with certain drugs and ointments 
 which were to secure to him the favor of the king 
 and the queen. A later trial of this kind, in which 
 for a time calm reason made a firm stand against 
 superstition, but finally succumbed ingloriously, is 
 known as the Vaudoisie, and took place in Arras 
 in 1459. It was begun by a Count d'Estauipes, but 
 was mainly conducted by a bishop and some eminent 
 divines of his acquaintance, whose inordinate zeal 
 and merciless cruelty have secured to the proceedings 
 a peculiarly painful memory in the annals of the 
 church. A large number of perfectly innocent men 
 and women were tortured and disgracefully executed,
 
 WITCHCRAFT. 37 
 
 but fortunately the death of the main persecutor, 
 DuBlois, made a sudden end to the existence of witch- 
 craft in that province. One of the most remarkable 
 trials of this kind was caused by a number of little 
 children, and led to most bloody proceedings. It 
 seems that in the year 1G69 several boys and girls in 
 the parish of Mora, one of the most beautiful parts 
 of the Swedish province of Dalarne, and famous 
 through the memory of Gustavus Vasa and Gustavus 
 III., were affected by a nervous fever which left them, 
 after their partial recovery, in a state of extreme 
 irritability and sensitiveness. They fell into fainting 
 fits and had convulsions symptoms which the sim- 
 ple but superstitious mountaineers gradually began 
 to think inexplicable, and hence to ascribe to magic 
 influences. The report spread that the poor chil- 
 dren were bewitched, and soon all the usual details 
 of satanic possession were current. The mountain 
 called Blakulla, in bad repute from of old, was 
 pointed out as the meeting-place of the witches, 
 where the annual sabbath was celebrated, and these 
 children were devoted to Satan. Church and State 
 combined to bring their great power to bear upon the 
 poor little ones, an enormous number of women, 
 mostly the mothers of the young people, were involved 
 in the charges, and finally fifty-two of the latter with 
 fifteen children were publicly executed as witches, 
 while fifty of the younger were condemned to severe 
 punishment! More than three hundred unfortunate
 
 38 MODEKX MAGIC. 
 
 children under fourteen had made detailed confes- 
 sions of the witches' sabbath and the ceremonies 
 attending their initiation into its mysteries. A sim- 
 ilar fearful delusion took hold of German children in 
 Wurtemberg, when towards the end of the seventeenth 
 century a large number of little boys and girls, none 
 of whom were older than ten years, began to state 
 that they were every night fetched away and carried 
 to the witches' sabbath. Many were all the time fast 
 asleep and could easily be roused, but a few among 
 them fell regularly into a trance, during which their 
 little bodies became cold and rigid. A commission 
 of great judges and experienced divines was sent to 
 the village to investigate the matter, and found at 
 last that there was no imposture attempted, but that 
 the poor children firmly believed what they stated. 
 It became, however, evident that a few among them 
 had listened to old women's tales about witches, Avith 
 eager ears, and, with inflamed imaginations, retailed 
 the account to others, till a deep and painful ner- 
 vous excitement took hold of their minds and 
 rapidly spread through the community. Many of 
 the children were, as was natural at their age, led 
 by vanity to say that they also had been at the sab- 
 bath, while others were afraid to deny what was so 
 positively stated by their companions. Fortunately 
 the commission consisted, for once, of sensible men 
 who took the right view of the matter, ordered a
 
 WITCHCRAFT. 39 
 
 good whipping here and there, and thus saved the 
 land from the crime of another witches' trial. 
 
 Our own experiences in New England, at the time 
 when Sir William Phipps was governor of the colonies, 
 have been forcibly reported by the great Cotton 
 Mather. Nearly every community had its young 
 men and women who were addicted to the practices 
 of magic ; they loved to perform enchantments, to 
 consult sieves and turning keys, and thus were grad- 
 ually led to attempt more serious and more danger- 
 ous practices. In Salem, men and women of high 
 standing and unimpeached integrity, even pious mem- 
 bers of the church, were suddenly plagued and tor- 
 tured by unknown agencies, and at last a little black 
 and yellow demon appeared to them, accompanied 
 by a number of companions with human faces. 
 These apparitions presented to them a book which 
 they were summoned to sign or at least to touch, 
 and if they refused they were fearfully twisted and 
 turned about, pricked with pins, burnt as if with 
 hot irons, bound hand and foot with invisible fetters, 
 and carried away to great distances. Some were left 
 unable to touch food or drink for many days ; others, 
 attempting to defend themselves against the demons, 
 snatched a distaff or tore a piece of cloth from them, 
 and immediately these proofs of the real existence 
 of the evil spirits became visible to the eyes of the 
 bystanders. The magic phenomena attending the 
 disease were of the most extraordinary character.
 
 40 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 Several meu stated that they had received poison be- 
 cause they declined to worship Satan, and imme- 
 diately all the usual sequences of such treatment 
 appeared, from simple vomiting to most fearful suf- 
 fering, till counteracting remedies were employed 
 and began to take eifect. In other cases the sufferers 
 complained of burning rags being stuffed into their 
 mouths, and although nothing was seen, burnt 
 places and blisters appeared, and the odor and smoke 
 of smouldering rags began to fill the room. When 
 they reported that they were branded with hot irons, 
 the. marks showed themselves, suppuration took 
 place, and scars were formed which never again dis- 
 appeared during life and all these phenomena were 
 watched by the eager eyes of hundreds. The author- 
 ities, of course, took hold of the matter, and many 
 persons of both sexes and all ages were brought to 
 trial. While they were tortured they continued to 
 have visions of demoniac beings and possessed men 
 and women ; when they were standing, blindfold- 
 ed, in court, felt the approach of those \)j whom 
 they pretended to be bewitched and plagued, and 
 urgently prayed to be delivered of their presence. 
 Finally many were executed, not a few undoubtedly 
 against all justice, but the better sense of the author- 
 ities soon saw the futility, if not the wickedness of 
 such proceedings, and an end was made promptly, 
 witchcraft disappearing as soon as persecution relaxed 
 and the sensation subsided.
 
 WITCHCRAFT. 41 
 
 Similar trials have nevertheless continued to be held 
 in various parts of Europe during the whole of the 
 last century, and many innocent lives have been for- 
 feited to this apparently ineradicable belief in witch- 
 craft. Even after torture was abandoned in compli- 
 ance with the wiser views of our age, long imprison- 
 ment with its attending sufferings and great anxiety as 
 to the issue, proved fully sufficient to extort voluntary 
 confessions, which were, of course, of no value in them- 
 selves, but served the purpose of keeping alive the 
 popular superstition. In 1728 a specially fearful trial 
 of this kind took place in Hungary, during which 
 nearly all the disgraceful scenes of mediaeval barbarity 
 were reenacted, and which ended in a number of cruel 
 executions. The last witches' trial in Germany took 
 place in 1749, when the mother-superior of a convent 
 near TViirzburg, in Bavaria, known as Emma Eenata, 
 was condemned to be burnt, but by the leniency of the 
 authorities, was allowed to die by decapitation. Switz- 
 erland was the scene of the last of these trials ever 
 held, for with this act of justice, as it was called by the 
 good people of Glarus, the persecution ended. 
 
 Even in England, however, the feeling itself seems to 
 have lingered long after actual trials had ceased. Thus 
 it is well known that the terrible trial of witches held 
 at Marlboro', under Queen Elizabeth, led to the estab- 
 lishment of a so-called witches' sermon to be delivered 
 annually at Huntingdon, and this custom was faith- 
 fully observed down to the latter part of the eighteenth
 
 42 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 century. Nearly about the same time in 1743 an 
 earnest effort was made in Scotland to kindle once 
 more the fire of fierce persecution. In the month of 
 February of that year, the Associate Presbytery, in a 
 public document addressed to the Presbytery of the 
 Seceded Churches, required for certain purposes a 
 solemn acknowledgment of former sins, and a vow to 
 renounce them forever. Among these sins that austere 
 body enumerated the " abolition of the death penalty 
 for witchcraft," since the latter was forbidden in Holy 
 Writ, and the leniency which had taken the place of 
 the former severity in punishing this crime, had given 
 an opening to Satan to tempt and actually to seduce 
 others by means of the same old accursed and dangerous 
 snares. (Edirib. Rev., Jan. 1847.)
 
 IL 
 BLACK A?TO WHITE MAGIO. 
 
 " Peace ! tlie 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 un- 
 fortunate 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, fore- 
 told 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 im- 
 punity, she consents to " bring up Samuel." As soon
 
 44 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 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 evi- 
 dently 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 de- 
 parted 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 reck- 
 less 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 Avas 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
 
 BLACK AND WHITK MAGIC. 45 
 
 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 ana- 
 themas against these wizards (Lev. xx. 27). They ap- 
 pear under various aspects, as charmers, as con suiters 
 of familiar spirits, as wizards, or as necromancers 
 (Deut. xviii. 11) ; they are charged with passing their 
 children through the fire, with observing times (astro- 
 logers) ; 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 
 ^Eschylus 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 Eomans 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 in-
 
 46 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 telligence. A Cato and a Sylla, a Caesar and a Ves- 
 pasian, 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 de- 
 parted, 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 mall 
 (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 intel- 
 lectual Tower of Babel. They devoted the labors of a 
 lifetime, and the full, well-trained vigor of their intel- 
 ligence 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 sur- 
 passed, both classes as one and the same eternal crea- 
 tion. The knowledge thus acquired they were, more- 
 over, not disposed merely to store away in their 
 memory, or to record in unattractive manuscripts;
 
 BLACK AND WHITE MAGIC. 47 
 
 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 con- 
 trol, 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 ex- 
 traordinary 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
 
 48 MODEKX MAGIC. 
 
 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 Jnpiter 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 un- 
 impeachable, 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 Xile 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 cun- 
 ning tricks of their false fate, or, being converted to 
 Christianity, infected the pure faith with their ill- 
 applied knowledge. Certain portions of true magic
 
 BLACK AXD WHITE MAGIC. 49 
 
 survived through all persecutions and revolutions; 
 some precious secrets were preserved by the philosophers 
 of later ages and have if Ave 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 super- 
 stitious and impious practices, and only exist now as 
 the Black Art of so-called magicians and witches. 
 
 AYherever magic found a fertile soil among the peo- 
 ple, 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 amaz- 
 ing 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 magi- 
 cians know very well that the importance of such 
 external aids is not only overrated but altogether falla- 
 cious. 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
 
 50 MODEKX MAGIC. 
 
 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 em- 
 ployed to produce enervation and often actual and com- 
 plete 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 Hypcrieum pcrforatum L., and 
 behold! in the year 1860 a German author of eminence, 
 Justinus Kerner, still taught seriously, that the leaves
 
 BLACK AND WHITE MAGIC. 51 
 
 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 Xature as being the outer temple of God and repre- 
 sents 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 con- 
 temptible superstition. Hence the constant aim of all 
 White Magic, the successful summoning of superior 
 spirits for the purpose of learning from them what is
 
 52 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 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 tp attain selfish ends, which are inva- 
 riably 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 inspira- 
 tion 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. Headers 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
 
 BLACK AXD \V1IITE MAGIC. 53 
 
 figiires of gods, men, and beasts, the future is re- 
 vealed. The consulting savage lies on his knees, and 
 as the pendulum between our fingers and the pencil 
 of Plauchette in our hand write apparently at hap- 
 hazard, but in reality under the pressure of our mus- 
 cles 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 
 (Toruaeus) 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 magi- 
 cians, recalling the familiar ring and drumstick in the 
 left hand of the Eoman Isis statues with a drum 
 above the head, or the rarely missing ring and ham- 
 mer 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
 
 54 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 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 prepara- 
 tion, were able to inform him of a number of future 
 events, every one of which came to pass in the suc- 
 ceeding days. The prince of Xeu-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. Bon duel, a well-known and generally per- 
 fectly trustworthy writer, affirms, from personal knowl- 
 edge, that among the Menomonees tbe 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 tben 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 Avomen 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
 
 BLACK AXD WHITE MAGIC. 55 
 
 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 (Allge- 
 meine Zeitung), where Audree mentioned their occur- 
 rence 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 phenom- 
 ena 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 Kay. Mar- 
 garet 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
 
 56 MODERX MAGIC. 
 
 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 evi- 
 dence 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 pro- 
 fessor 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 per- 
 formers ; 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,
 
 BLACK AND WHITE MAGIC. 57 
 
 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 nu- 
 merous 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 Mature.") 
 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 
 3*
 
 58 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 predecessors had once or twice before committed them- 
 selves grievously. Had not the same Academy pro- 
 nounced against the use of quinine and vaccination, 
 against lightning-rods and steam-engines ? Had not 
 Keaurnur 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 anesthetic with scorn and 
 unanimous condemnation ? Perhaps they recalled Dr. 
 Hare's assertion that our own Society for the Advance- 
 ment 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 indiiference did not, how- 
 ever, check the growth of Spiritualism in France, but 
 its followers divided into two parties: spiritualists, 
 under Rivail, who called himself Allan Cardep, 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, imme- 
 diately 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
 
 BLACK AND WHITE MAGIC. 59 
 
 the style is the man (le style c'est Thomme), no one 
 could doubt that it was his spirit who spoke. 
 
 Perhaps the most estimable high -priest of this 
 branch of modern rnagic is a well known professor 
 of Geneva, Eoessinger, a physician of great renown 
 and much beloved by all who know him. He is, how- 
 ever, a rock of offense to American spiritualists, be- 
 cause he has ever remained firmly attached to his 
 religious faith, and admits no spiritual revelations as 
 genuine which do not entirely harmonize with the doc- 
 trines of Christ and the statements of the Bible. Un- 
 fortunately 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 Cornliill 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 re- 
 sult was the conviction that if not spiritual, they were 
 at least not produced by any power now known to sci- 
 ence. Quart. Journ. of Science, July, 1871.
 
 60 MODEKX MAGIC. 
 
 In Germany the new magic has been far less pop- 
 ular 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 re- 
 markable for zeal and industry than for acute judg- 
 ment. Gerster in Eegensburg claimed to have invented 
 the Psychography, but Szapary in Paris and Cohnfeld 
 in Berlin discovered at the same time the curious in- 
 strument known to us as Planchette. The most prac- 
 tical 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 ten- 
 dency 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 per- 
 sonal eternity, which dwells in the hearts of all men. 
 
 The phenomena of modern magic were first imper- 
 fect 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-writ- 
 ings," drawings by the media, together with musical 
 and poetical inspirations, the whole reaching a climax 
 in spirit-photographs. The ringing of bells, the danc-
 
 BLACK AND WHITE MAGIC. 61 
 
 ing of detached hands in the air. the raising up of the 
 entire body of a man, and musical performances with- 
 out human aid were only accomplished in a few cases 
 by specially favored individuals. Two facts alone are 
 fully established in connection with all these phenom- 
 ena : one, that some of the latter at least are not pro- 
 duced 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 in- 
 variably the same as that in which ecstatic and som- 
 nambulistic persons are apt to speak. A famous Ger- 
 man 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 froni her mind and not from her 
 husband's. On the other hand, it cannot be denied 
 that media most frequently delicate women of high
 
 02 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 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, occa- 
 sionally, in a state of clairvoyance, to see what is hid- 
 den 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 ad- 
 herents of the new magic cannot deny, that no orig- 
 inal 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 inter- 
 preted by the predisposed mind. Hence, also, our own 
 continent is, for its superior dry ness of atmosphere, 
 much more favorable to the development of such phe- 
 nomena than that of Europe. 
 
 Spiritualists in the Old as in the New World are 
 hopeful that the new magic will produce a new uni- 
 versal religion, and a better social order. In this di-
 
 BLACK AND WHITE MAGIC. 63 
 
 rection, however, no substantial success has yet been 
 obtained. Outsiders had expected that at least an in- 
 tercourse 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 ac- 
 quainted, 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 cer- 
 tain 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 de- 
 serve 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 knowl- 
 edge of mankind, ages before it could be useful to them, 
 or to others, and to have lost it as soon as there was a
 
 64 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 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. (Xord. Biene. April 
 27, 1853.) Here also it is evident that the table is not 
 the controlling agent, but the will of the lama, whom
 
 BLACK AXD WHITE MAGIC. 65 
 
 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 elec- 
 tric condition of the medium is a feature of greatest im- 
 portance ; the more electricity he possesses, the better is 
 he able to produce magic phenomena, and when his sup- 
 ply 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 unfre- 
 quently 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-culled spirit 
 paintings, and, still Averse, 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 de- 
 veloped in spiritualistic circles, the so-called trance
 
 66 MODEKX MAGIC. 
 
 speaking, which may be heard occasionally in New York 
 circles, and which, requires no interposition of a me- 
 dium. For here, also, we are struck by the utter ab- 
 sence of usefulness in all these revelations; the inspired 
 believers speak, they recite poetry, but it remains liter- 
 ally vox et prceterea nihil, and we are forcibly reminded 
 of the words of ^Eschylus, 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 endow- 
 ments 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 con- 
 stantly in his childish way with spirits and heard heav- 
 enly 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
 
 BLACK AXD WHITE 51 AGIO. 67 
 
 the paroxysm lie 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- Flor- 
 ence 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 Xaples 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 Xono 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
 
 68 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 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 irreproach- 
 able morale. The highest circles of society have always 
 been open to him, and his marriage with a daughter of 
 the Kussian 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 knock- 
 ings 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 " Em- 
 pereur de 1'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 Avhich Eugenie provided for his sister's
 
 BLACK AXD WHITE MAGIC. 69 
 
 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 handker- 
 chiefs 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 be- 
 came 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. Per- 
 haps nothing can speak more clearly of the deep in- 
 terest 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 per- 
 son was allowed to be present, the Duke of Monte-
 
 70 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 bello. 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 hori- 
 zontal position, sometimes only to a short distance 
 from the floor, but not unfreqnently, 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 win- 
 dow, an exhibition which almost always ended in the 
 complete exhaustion and apparent illness of the ma- 
 gician. 
 
 Home himself maintains that he performs no mir- 
 acles, 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 pos- 
 sesses in common with all his brethren. In him they 
 are active ; in the vast majority of men they lie dor- 
 mant, because man is no longer conscious of the full 
 and absolute control over Nature, with which he has
 
 BLACK AXD WHITE MAGIC. 71 
 
 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 lie 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 re- 
 quest of others. Xor is he himself always quite sure 
 of his own condition; thus, in the winter of 18TO, when 
 he wished to exhibit some of the simplest phenomena 
 in the presence of a number of savants in St. Peters- 
 burg, 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 pro- 
 fessor of chemistry, in company with Messrs. Cox and
 
 72 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 Huggins ; they did not abandon their purpose, how- 
 ever, 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 thor- 
 oughly. 
 
 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 start- 
 ling 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 legerde- 
 main; 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
 
 BLACK AND WHITE MAGIC. 73 
 
 of invisible spirits, while they became even more popu- 
 lar and attractive when their true nature had been dis- 
 covered, 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-knoAvn, has been 
 repeatedly accomplished by other persons also. Like 
 muscular eiforts are made no doubt often quite un- 
 consciously 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 atten- 
 tion, 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
 
 74 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 branch of modern magic is the Od of Barou Keichen- 
 bach ; 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 din ing-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 furni- 
 ture cracks in extremely dry weather, and finally the 
 table began to move. Beichenbach did his best to pre- 
 vent 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
 
 BLACK AND WHITE MAGIC. 75 
 
 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; 
 Eeichenbach found that cataleptic patients who per- 
 ceived 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 unconscious- 
 ness 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 Xowotny, a sad sufferer 
 from cataleptic attacks. She was able to distinguish, 
 by the sensations which were excited in her whole sys-
 
 76 MODEEN MAGIC. 
 
 tern, 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 inhe- 
 rent 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 sentimen- 
 tal, 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 im-
 
 BLACK AXD WHITE MAGIC. 77 
 
 mortality 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 every- 
 where appeal to their own reason as the highest tribu- 
 nal 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 de- 
 parted 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 ma- 
 jority 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 na- 
 ture 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 al-
 
 78 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 ready 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 jeal- 
 ous of each other ! A somewhat satirical writer on 
 the subject explains even the fact that spirits so often 
 contradict each other and say yile 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 ter- 
 rify 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. Xor 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. Gen- 
 erally however, we repeat, nothing is in the spirit that
 
 BLACK AND WHITE MAGIC. 79 
 
 is not in the medium. The American spiritualist con- 
 jures up only his own countrymen, and occasionally 
 some world-renowned heroes like Napoleon or Caesar, 
 Shakespeare or Schiller, while the cosmopolitan Ger- 
 man 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., investi- 
 gated these phenomena of modern magic, many years 
 ago, he promptly noticed that the spirits never gave in- 
 formation 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.
 
 80 MODEEX MAGIC. 
 
 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 per- 
 formed 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 ad- 
 miration, 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 power- 
 ful 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 Avas happening at a great distance, 
 or even future events. We find similar practices, also,
 
 BLACK AXD WHITE MAGIC. 81 
 
 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 contem- 
 porary 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 influ- 
 ences. That such power has by no means entirely de- 
 parted from our continent, may be seen in the atrocities 
 
 4*
 
 82 MODEKX MAGIC. 
 
 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 en- 
 tirely 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 en- 
 trails 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.
 
 BLACK AND WHITE MAGIC. 83 
 
 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 over- 
 whelming 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 
 Gofe'the has admitted the power of certain men to 
 attract others by the strength of their will, and men- 
 tions an instance in which he himself, ardently wishing 
 to see his beloved one, forced her unconsciously to come 
 and meet him halfway. (Eckermaun, 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 indubi- 
 table 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 culling
 
 84 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 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 VirgiUana, 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 spiritual- 
 ists, like Home in our day. A native of Gitton, a small
 
 BLACK AXD WHITE MAGIC. 85 
 
 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 crum- 
 bled, 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 him- 
 self 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 oind and to loosen others as Avell as himself at will ; 
 to open prison doors and to cause trees to grow out of 
 the bare ground. Before utterly rejecting his preten- 
 sions 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 exalta- 
 tion, 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 pro- 
 claimed 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
 
 86 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 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 vil- 
 lage 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 characteris- 
 tic of his faith : Omne bonum et perfection a Deo, imper- 
 fection 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 Ger-
 
 BLACK AXD WHITE MAGIC. 87 
 
 mans, 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 hand- 
 ed 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 sacri- 
 fice 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
 
 88 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 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 imagina- 
 tion. 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 succes- 
 sion. The elder of the two passed for a kind of high- 
 priest and chief magician with the superstitious island- 
 ers ; the other was a young unmarried man of fine 
 appearance, and more than ordinary intelligence. Both 
 survived the fearful ceremony, but sank utterly ex- 
 hausted 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 summon- 
 ing 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, Avhorn the Prince 
 Ek-ctor 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
 
 BLACK AXI> WHITE MAGIC. 89 
 
 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 im- 
 agination 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 manoauvres were more than once em-
 
 90 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 ployed 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 sum- 
 mon the spirits he wished to see. The master in this 
 branch of black magic was undoubtedly Joseph Bal- 
 samo, 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 accom- 
 plished 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 famil- 
 iar instrument, and the greatest philosophers were as 
 easily victimized by him as the most clear-sighted wo- 
 men, 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 estab- 
 lished 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.
 
 BLACK AND WHITE MAGIC. 91 
 
 The poor child was, however, first made half-uncon- 
 scious, 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 sacer- 
 dotal 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 confess- 
 ing 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 impos- 
 tors or deluded victims, there remains enough in these
 
 92 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 well-established phenomena to ascribe them to a mys- 
 terious, magic power. (Compendia della vita, etc, di G. 
 Bahama, 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 em- 
 ploy 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 tak- 
 ing 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 tan- 
 gible world. Such occurrences, when they have a 
 higher moral or religious purpose in view, we call Mir- 
 acles, 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
 
 BLACK AND WHITE MAGIC. 93 
 
 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 ordina- 
 rily remain inactive, but which exist none the less per- 
 manently 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.)
 
 m. 
 DREAMS. 
 
 " To sleep percliance to dream." HAMLET. 
 
 OF the two parts of our being, one, spiritual and 
 heayen-born, is always active, the other, the bodily, 
 earth-born part, requires frequent and regular rest in 
 sleep. During this time of repose, however, the mind 
 also ceases apparently its operations, merely, however, 
 because it has no longer servants at its command, who 
 are willing and able to give expression to its activity. 
 When the senses are asleep the mind is deprived of the 
 usual means of communication with the outer world ; 
 but this does not necessarily condemn it to inaction. 
 On the contrary, it has often been maintained that the 
 mind is most active and capable of the highest 
 achievements when released from its usual bondage to 
 the senses. Already ^schylus in his "Eunienides" 
 
 The mind of sleepers acts more cunningly ; 
 The glare of day conceals the fate of men. 
 
 It seems, however, as if the intermediate state between 
 the full activity of wakeful life and the complete repose 
 of the senses in sound sleep, is most favorable to the 
 development of such magic phenomena as occur in
 
 DREAMS. 95 
 
 dreams. The fact that the susceptibility of the mind 
 is at that time peculiarly great is intimately connected 
 with the statement recorded in Holy Writ, that God 
 frequently revealed His will to men in dreams. If we 
 admit the antiquity of the book of Job, we see there 
 the earliest known announcement of this connection. 
 " In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep 
 falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the bed; then 
 He openeth the ears of men and sealeth their instruc- 
 tion " (xxxiii. 15). Next we are told that " God came to 
 Abimelech in a dream by night" (Gen. xx. 3), and from 
 that time we hear of similar revelations made by night 
 in dreams throughout the whole history of the chosen 
 people. Frequently, however, the dreams are called 
 visions. Thus Balaam prophesied: "He hath said, 
 which heard the words of God and knew the knowl- 
 edge of the Most High, which saw the vision of the 
 Almighty, falling into a trance, but having his eyes 
 open." Daniel had his secret "revealed in a night 
 vision," but such favor was denied to Saul, for " the 
 Lord answered him not, neither by dream nor by 
 Urim, nor by prophets." To Solomon, on the contrary, 
 "the Lord appeared in a dream by night" many times; 
 Joel was promised that " old men should dream dreams 
 and young men shall see visions," a pledge quoted by 
 St. Peter as having been amply fulfilled in his day (Acts 
 ii. 17). Tor dreams did not lose their importance at 
 the coming of Christ. To his reputed father "the 
 Angel of the Lord appeared in a dream," bidding him
 
 96 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 to take Mary to his wife ; again he was warned in a 
 dream "not to return to Herod," and the Lord spake 
 " to Paul in the night by a vision " more than once, 
 as he was by a dream also sent to Macedonia. 
 
 What in these and similar cases is accepted as divine 
 inspiration, is in secular history generally looked upon 
 as mysterious, magic revelation; but the phenomena 
 remain the same in all instances, and those appearing 
 in dreams are identical with the symptoms exhibited in 
 revelations occurring during the day, when the favored 
 recipient is wide awake. Clairvoyance by night differs 
 in no way from clairvoyance during the day ; a state of 
 ecstasy, a trance, is necessary in either case. That 
 prophetic dreams generally remain unknown outside 
 of Holy "Writ must be ascribed to the fact that they 
 leave no recollection behind, unless they are continued 
 into a state of half-sleep, from which a sudden awaken- 
 ing takes place ; and soon then they are invariably 
 clothed in some allegoric form, and become liable to be 
 erroneously or, at least, imperfectly interpreted. Thus 
 dreams, like trances, often prefigure death under the 
 form of a journey, and represent the dying man as au 
 uprooted tree, a withered flower, or a drowning swim- 
 mer. The early Christians, foreseeing martyrdom, very 
 frequently received in dreams an intimation of their 
 impending fate under such symbolic forms, and, what 
 was quite peculiar to their visions was that they often 
 extended to the pagan jailors and keepers, whose minds 
 had been excited by witnessing the sufferings and the
 
 DEEAMS. 97 
 
 constancy of their victims, and who, in many cases, 
 became, in consequence of these dreams, converts to the 
 new faith. The facility, however, Avith which such 
 symbols can be misunderstood, has been as fatal to 
 dreams in the estimation of most men, as the inaccurate 
 manner in which the real revelation is often presented 
 to the still half-sleeping mind. Hence the popular 
 belief that dreams " go by contraries," as vulgar slang 
 expresses it. This faith is based upon the well-estab- 
 lished fact that a genuine dream, in the act of impress- 
 ing itself upon memory, often suffers not only 
 mutilation but actual reversion. Thus Kogers saw, in 
 a dream, Hikey, a small, weak man, murder a powerful 
 giant, Caulfield in the actual encounter, which he had 
 really foreseen, the latter killed his puny antagonist. 
 It is, therefore, as dangerous to " believe in dreams," as 
 to deny their value altogether and to ascribe all realiza- 
 tions of dreams, with Macnish, to mere accident. 
 (" Sleep," p. 81.) Men of cool judgment and clear mind 
 have at all times been found on the side of believers, 
 and even our great Franklin, with his eminently practi- 
 cal mind and well-known aversion to every kind of 
 superstition, firmly trusted in views which he believed 
 to have come to him in dreams. 
 
 Antiquity believed in dreams, not only as means by 
 which the Gods revealed their will, but as special favors 
 accorded to fortunate men. Thus we are told that once 
 two men were traveling together from Arcadia to 
 Megara ; when they reached the city, one of the two
 
 98 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 remained at an inn, .while the other went to stay with a 
 a friend. Both, wearied by the journey, retired to 
 rest; but the traveler who was at a private house 
 dreamt in the night that his friend urged him to come 
 to his assistance, as the innkeeper was about to murder 
 him. Terrified by the vivid dream, he jumped up ; but, 
 upon reflection, he concluded that the whole was but an 
 idle fancy, and lay down again. Thereupon the dream 
 was repeated ; but this time his friend added, that it 
 was too late to come to his aid now, as he had been 
 murdered, and his body would in the morning be 
 carried out of the city, concealed under a load of 
 manure. This second dream made such an impression 
 upon the Arcadian that he went at an early hour to the 
 city gate, and to his amazement soon saw a wagon 
 loaded with manure approaching the place where he 
 stood. He stopped the driver and asked him what he 
 had hidden in his wagon ? The man fled, trembling ; 
 the body of the murdered friend was found, and the 
 treacherous innkeeper paid with his life for his crime. 
 (Cicero, De divin.} 
 
 One of the oldest of well-authenticated dreams in 
 Christian times, revealed to St. Basil the death of 
 Julian the Apostate. It seemed to him in his sleep 
 that he saw the martyr Mercurius receive from God 
 the order to kill the tyrant, and after a short time 
 return and say: "0 Lord, Julian is killed as Thou 
 hast commanded! " The saint was so firmly convinced 
 of having received a direct revelation from heaven,
 
 DBEAMS. 99 
 
 that he immediately made the news known to the 
 people, and thus gained new honor when the official 
 information at last arrived. ( Vita S. Basil, etc., p. 692.) 
 Here, also, the deep-seated hatred of the Christian 
 priest against the Emperor, who dared to renew the 
 worship of the ancient gods of the Pagans, no doubt 
 suggested the vivid dream, while, on the other hand, 
 the transmission of the actual revelation was so im- 
 perfect as to change the real occurrence Julian's 
 death by a Persian lance according to the familiar 
 way of thinking of St. Basil, into his execution at 
 divine command by a holy martyr. There is no lack 
 of renowned men of all ages who have had their re- 
 markable dreams, and who have, fortunately for future 
 investigation, recorded them carefully. Thus Me- 
 lanchthon tells us that he was at a convent with a 
 certain Dr. Jonas, when letters reached him requesting 
 him to convey to his friend the sad news of his 
 daughter's sudden death. The great reformer was at a 
 loss how to discharge the painful duty, and driven by 
 an instinctive impulse, asked Dr. Jonas whether he 
 had ever had any remarkable dreams. The latter re- 
 plied that he had dreamt, during the preceding night, 
 of his return home, and of the joyful welcome he had 
 met from all his family, except his oldest daughter, 
 who had not appeared. Thereupon Melanchthon told 
 him that his dream had been true, and that he would 
 never see his daughter again, as she had been sum- 
 moned to her eternal home. Petrarch had a dream
 
 100 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 which was evidently also the reflex of his thoughts in 
 the day-time, but accompanied by a direct revelation. 
 He had been, for some days, very anxious about the 
 health of his patron, a Colon na, who was Bishop of 
 Lombez, and one night saw himself in a dream walking 
 by his friend's side, but unable to keep pace with him ; 
 the bishop walked faster and faster, bidding him stay 
 behind, and when the poet insisted upon following 
 him, he suddenly assumed a death-like appearance, and 
 said, "No, I will not have you go with me now!" 
 During the same night in which Petrarch had this 
 dream in Parma, the bishop died at his palace in 
 Lombez. The well-known Thomas Wotton, also, 
 dreamt a short time before his death, while residing 
 in Kent, that he saw five persons commit a robbery at 
 Oxford. On the following day he added a postscript to 
 a letter which he had written to his son Henry, then a 
 student at that university, in which he mentioned his 
 dream, and asked if such a robbery had really taken 
 place. The letter reached the young man on the morn- 
 ing after the crime had been committed, when town 
 and university were alike in a state of intense excite- 
 ment. He made the letter immediately known to the 
 authorities, who found in the account of the dream so 
 accurate a description of the robbers, that they were 
 enabled at once to ascertain who were the guilty per- 
 sons, and to have them arrested before they could 
 escape. (Beaumont, p. 223.) The great German poet 
 Gustav Schwab received the first intimation of the
 
 DREAMS. 101 
 
 French Eevolution in 1848 through a remarkable 
 dream which his daughter had in the night preceding 
 the 24th of February. She had been attacked by a 
 malignant fever, and was very restless and nervously 
 excited; during that night she saw, in her feverish 
 dreams, the streets of Paris filled with excited crowds, 
 and was forced to witness the most fearful scenes. 
 When her father came to her bedside next morning, 
 she gave him a minute description of the building of 
 barricades, the bloody encounters between the troops 
 and the citizens, and of a number of sad tragedies 
 which she had seen enacted in the narrow and dark 
 streets of the great city. The father, though deeply 
 impressed by the vivid character of the dream, as- 
 cribed it to a reminiscence of the scenes enacted during 
 the Revolution of 1789, and dismissed the subject, 
 although his child insisted upon the thoroughly mod- 
 ern character of the buildings, and the costumes and 
 manners of all she had seen. Great was, therefore, the 
 amazement of the poet and of all Avho had heard of the 
 dream, when, several days afterwards, the first news 
 reached them of the expulsion of the Orleans family, 
 and much greater still when the papers brought, one 
 by one, descriptions of the scenes which the feverish 
 dream had enabled the girl to see in minute detail, and 
 yet with unerring accuracy. It is true that the poet, 
 in whose biography the dream with all the attending 
 circumstances is mentioned at full length, had for years 
 anticipated such a revolution, and often, with a poet's
 
 102 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 graphic power, conjured up the scenes that were likely 
 to happen whenever the day of the tempest should 
 arrive. Thus his daughter's mind had, no doubt, long 
 been filled with images of this kind, and was in a state 
 peculiarly susceptible for impressions connected with 
 the subject. There remains, however, the magic phe- 
 nomenon that she saw, not a poet's fiction, but actual 
 occurrences with all their details, and saw them in the 
 very night during which they happened. In the papers 
 of Sir Eobert Peel was found a note concerning his 
 journey from Antibes to Nice, in 1854. He was on 
 board the steamer Erculano, which, on the 25th of 
 April, so violently collided with another steamer, the 
 Sicilia, that it sauk immediately, and two-thirds of the 
 passengers perished. Among those who were rescued 
 were the great English statesman and the maid of two 
 ladies, the wife and the daughter of a counselor of a 
 French court of justice at Dijon. The young girl had 
 had a presentiment of impending evil, but her wish to 
 postpone the journey had been overruled. The father, 
 also, though knowing nothing of the precise where- 
 abouts of his beloved ones, had been much troubled in 
 mind about their safety, and in the very night in which 
 the accident happened, saw the whole occurrence in a 
 harassing dream. He distinctly beheld the vessel dis- 
 appear in the waves, and a number of victims, among 
 whom were his wife and his child, struggling for life, 
 till they finally perished. He awoke in a state of great 
 anguish, summoned his servants to keep him corn-
 
 DEEAMS. 103 
 
 pany, and told them what he had dreamt. A few 
 hours later the telegraph informed him of the accident, 
 and of his own grievous affliction. (Journ. de I'ame, 
 Fevr. 1857, p. 253.) 
 
 While in these dreams events were made known 
 which happened at the same time, in other dreams the 
 future itself is revealed. Cicero, in his work on Divi- 
 nation (I. 27, and II. 66), and Valerius Maximus have 
 preserved a number of such dream-visions, which were 
 famous already in the days of antiquity ; a dream con- 
 cerning the tyrant Dionysius was especially well known. 
 
 It seems that a woman, called Himera, found herself 
 in a dream among the gods on Olympus, and there saw 
 chained to the throne of Jupiter a large man with red 
 hair and spotted countenance. When she asked the 
 divine messenger who had carried her to those regions, 
 who that man was, he told her it was the scourge of 
 Italy and Sicily, a man who, when unchained, would 
 destroy many cities. She related her dream on the fol- 
 lowing morning to her friends, but found no explana- 
 tion, till several years afterwards, when Dionysius 
 ascended the throne. She happened to be in the crowd 
 which had assembled to witness the triumph of the 
 new monarch, and when she saw the tyrant, she 
 uttered a loud cry, for she had recognized in him the 
 man in chains under Jupiter's throne. The cry at- 
 tracted attention ; she was brought before Dionysius, 
 forced to relate her dream, and sent to be executed. 
 Equally well known was the remarkable dream whi?h
 
 104 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 Socrates had a short time before his death. His sen- 
 tence had already been passed, but the day for its exe- 
 cution was not yet made known, when Crito, one of his 
 friends, came to him, and informed him that it would 
 probably be ordered for the next morning. The great 
 philosopher replied with his usual calmness: "If such 
 is the will of the gods, be it so ; but I do not think it 
 will be to-morrow. I had, just before you entered, a 
 sweet dream. A woman of transcending beauty, and 
 dressed in a long white robe, appeared to me, called me 
 by name, and said, ' In three days you will return to 
 your beloved Phthia' (Socrates' native place)." He 
 did not die till the third day. 
 
 Alexander the Great came more than once, during his 
 remarkable career, in peculiar contact with prophetic 
 dreams. He was thus informed of the coming of Cas- 
 sander long before he ever saw him, and even of the 
 influence which the still unknown friend would have 
 on his fate. When the latter at last appeared at court, 
 Alexander looked at him long and anxiously, and 
 recognized in him the man he had so often seen in his 
 dreams. It so happened, however, that before his 
 suspicions assumed a positive form, a Greek distich 
 was mentioned to him, written to prove the utter 
 worthlessness of all dreams, and the effect of these 
 lines, combined with the discovery that Cassander was 
 the son of his beloved Antipater, induced him to lay 
 aside all apprehensions. Nevertheless, his friend sub- 
 sequently poisoned him in cold blood. Not less
 
 DREAMS. ] 05 
 
 famous was the dream which warned Cains Gracchus 
 of his own sad fate. He saw in his sleep the shadow 
 of his brother Tiberius, and heard him announce in a 
 clear voice, that Caius also would share his tragic end, 
 and be murdered like himself in the Capitol. The 
 great Roman frequently related this dream, and the 
 historian Coelius records that he heard it repeated 
 during Gracchus' life-time. It is well known that the 
 latter afterwards became a tribune, and was killed 
 while he held that office, in the same manner as his 
 brother. Cicero also had his warning dream. He was 
 escaping from his enemies, who had driven him out 
 of Rome, and seeking safety in his Antium villa. 
 Here he dreamt, one night, that, as he was wandering 
 through a waste, deserted country, the Consul Marius 
 met him, accompanied by the usual retinue, and 
 adorned with all the insignia, of his rank, and asked 
 him why he was so melancholy, and why he had fled 
 from Rome. When he had answered the question, 
 Marius took him by his right hand, and summoning 
 his chief officer to his side, ordered him to carry the 
 great orator to the temple of Jupiter, built by Marius 
 himself, while he assured Cicero he would there meet 
 with new hopes. It was afterwards ascertained that at 
 the very hour of the dream, the Senate had been dis- 
 cussing in the temple of Jupiter the speedy return of 
 Cicero. It would have been well for the great Caesar, 
 also, if he had deigned to listen to the warning voice 
 of dreams, for in the night before his murder, his wife, 
 
 5*
 
 106 MODERX MAGIC. 
 
 Calphurnia, saw him, in a dream, fall wounded and 
 copiously bleeding into her arms, and there end his 
 life. She told him of her dream, and on her knees 
 besought him not to go out on that day ; but Caesar, 
 fearing he might be suspected of giving undue weight 
 to a woman's dreams, made light of her fears, went to 
 the Senate, and met his tragic fate. Among later 
 Romans the Emperor Theodosius was most strikingly 
 favored by dreams, if we may rely upon the statement 
 of Ammianus Marcellinus (I. 29). Two courtiers, 
 anxious to ascertain who should succeed the Emperor 
 Valens on the throne, employed a kind of magic instru- 
 ment, resembling the modern psychograph, and suc- 
 ceeded in deciphering the letters Theod. Their dis- 
 covery became known to the jealous emperor, who 
 ordered not only Theodorus, his second secretary of 
 state, to be executed, but with him a large number of 
 eminent personages whose names began with the omi- 
 nous five letters. For some unknown reasons, Theodo- 
 sius, then in Spain, escaped his suspicions, and yet it was 
 he, who, when Valens fell in the war against the Goths, 
 was summoned home by the next emperor, Gratianus, 
 to save the empire and assume the supreme command 
 of the army. When the successful general returned to 
 Byzantium to make his report to the emperor, he had 
 himself a dream in which he saw the great Patriarch 
 of Antioch, Meletius, invest him with the purple, and 
 place the imperial crown upon his head. Gratianus, 
 struck by the brilliancy of the victory obtained at the
 
 DREAMS. 107 
 
 moment of supreme danger, made Theodosius Emperor 
 of the East, and returned to Home. During the follow- 
 ing year (380) a great council was held in Constan- 
 tinople, and here, amid a crowd of assembled dignitaries 
 of the church, Theodosius instantly recognized the 
 Bishop of Antioch, whom he had never seen except in 
 his dream. 
 
 It is not generally known that the prediction of 
 future greatness which Shakespeare causes the three 
 witches to convey to Macbeth, rests on an historic 
 basis. The announcement came to him, however, 
 probably not at an actual meeting, but by means of a 
 prophetic, dream, which presented to the ambitious 
 chieftain the appearance of an encounter with un- 
 earthly agents. This presumption is strengthened by 
 the first notice of the mysterious event, which occurs, it 
 is believed, in " Wyntownis Cronykil," where Macbeth 
 is reported to have had a vivid dream of three weird 
 women, who foretold him his fate. Boethius derived 
 his information from this source, and for unknown 
 reasons added not only Banquo as a witness of the 
 scene, but described it, also, first of all chroniclers, as 
 an actual meeting in a forest. 
 
 The report that the discovery of the famous Venus 
 of Milo was due to a dream, is not improbable, but is as 
 yet without sufficient authentication. The French 
 Consul, Brest, who was a resident of Milo, dreamed, it is 
 stated, two nights in succession, that he had caused 
 diggings to be made at a certain place in the island and
 
 108 AIODEEX MAGIC. 
 
 that his efforts had been rewarded by the discovery of a 
 beautiful statue. He paid no attention to the dream ; 
 but it was repeated a third time, and now so distinctly 
 that he not only saw clearly all the surroundings, but, 
 also, the traces of a recent fire on the spot that had 
 been pointed out to him before. When he went on the 
 following day to the place, he instantly recognized the 
 traces of fire, began his researches, and discovered not 
 only the Venus, now the glory of the Louvre, but, also, 
 several other most valuable statues. The well-known 
 dream concerning Major Andre is open to the same 
 objections, although it is quoted in good faith by Mrs. 
 Crowe (i., p. 59). We are told that the Eev. Mr. Cun- 
 ningham, the poet, saw in a dream a man who was 
 captured by armed soldiers and hanged on a tree. To 
 his utter consternation, he recognized on the following 
 day, in Major Andre, who was then for the first time 
 presented to him, the person he had seen in his dream. 
 The latter was then just on the point of embarking for 
 America, where he met with his sad fate. 
 
 A large number of dreams which are looked upon as 
 prophetic, are nothing more than the result of impres- 
 sions made on the mind during sleep by some bodily 
 sensation. A swelling or an inflammation, for instance, 
 is frequently announced beforehand by pain in the 
 affected part of the body ; the mind receives through 
 the nerves an impression of this pain and clothes it, 
 during sleep and in a dream, into some familiar garb, 
 the biting of a serpent, the sting of an insect, or, even,
 
 DREAMS. 109 
 
 the stab of a dagger. An occasional coincidence serves 
 to lend prestige to such simple and perfectly natural 
 dreams. Thus Shilling (" Jenseits," p. 284) records the 
 well-known story of a young man in Padua, who dreamed 
 one night that he was bitten by one of the marble lions 
 which stand before the church of St. Justina. Passing 
 by the place, on the following day, with some compan- 
 ions, he recalled the dream, and putting his hand into the 
 mouth of one of the lions, he said, defiantly: "Look at 
 the fierce lion that bit me last night." But at the same 
 moment he utterred a piercing cry and drew back his 
 hand in great terror: a scorpion, hid in the lion's 
 mouth, had stung him, and the poor youth died of the 
 yenom. The German poet Conrad Gessner dreamed, in 
 a similar manner, that a snake bit him in his left 
 breast ; the matter was completely forgotten, when five 
 days later a slight rising appeared on the spot, which 
 speedily developed itself into a fatal ulcer, and caused 
 his death in a short time. 
 
 Far more interesting, and occasionally productive of 
 good results, are dreams which might be called retro- 
 spective, inasmuch as they reveal events of the past, 
 which stand in some connection with present or im- 
 pending necessities. Many of these, no doubt, arise 
 simply from the recovery of forgotten facts in our mem- 
 ory ; others, however, cannot be thus explained. Jus- 
 tinus tells us of Dido's dream, in which she saw her 
 departed husband, Sichaeus, who pointed out to her his 
 concealed treasures and advised her to seek safety in
 
 110 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 flight. St. Augustine also has an account of a father who 
 after death appeared to his son and showed him a re- 
 ceipted account, the loss of which had caused his heir 
 much anxiety. (De euro, pro mortuis, ch. xi.) After 
 Dante's death the thirteenth canto of his Paradise could 
 nowhere be found, and the apparent loss filled all Italy 
 with grief and sorrow. His son, Pietro Alighieri, how- 
 ever, saw a long time afterwards, in a dream, his father, 
 who came to his bedside and told him that the missing 
 papers were concealed under a certain plank near the 
 window at which he had been in the habit of writing. 
 It was only when all other researches had proved 
 vain, that, attention was paid to the dream ; but when 
 the plank was examined the canto was found in the 
 precise place which the dream had indicated. 
 
 A similar dream of quite recent occurrence was acci- 
 dentally more thoroughly authenticated than is gen- 
 erally the case with such events. The beautiful wife 
 of Baron Alphonse de Rothschild of Paris had lost a 
 valuable ring while hunting in the woods near her cas- 
 tle of Ferrieres. It so happened that early associations 
 made the jewel specially dear to her, and she felt the 
 loss grievously ; a reward of fifteen hundred francs 
 was. therefore, offered at once for its recovery. The 
 night after the hunt, the daughter of one of the keep- 
 ers saw in a dream an unknown man of imposing ap- 
 pearance, who told her to go at daybreak to a certain 
 crossroad in the forest, where she would find the ring 
 at the foot of a beech-tree, close to the highway. She
 
 DREAMS. Ill 
 
 awakes, dresses herself at once, and goes to the place of 
 which she has dreamed ; after half an hour's walk she 
 reaches the crossroads and almost at the same moment 
 sees something glittering and shining like a firefly, 
 picks it up, and behold ! it is the ring. The girl had 
 not even seen the hunt, nor did she know anything of 
 the loss of the jewel ; the whole occurrence, and the 
 place where it was lost, all were pointed out to her in 
 her dream. (Le Monde lllustre, Dec. 15, 1860). 
 
 It has already been mentioned that the question has 
 often been mooted whether the mind was really quite 
 at rest during sleep, or still operative in dreams. Some 
 authors deny its activity altogether; others admit a 
 partial activity. The philosopher Kant went so far as 
 to maintain that perceptions had during sleep were 
 clearer and fuller than those of the day, because of the 
 perfect rest of the other senses. Recollection, alone, he 
 added, was missing, because the mind acted in sleep 
 without the cooperation of the body. 
 
 There are, however, certain facts which seem to 
 prove that the mind does, at least, not altogether cease 
 its activity while the body is asleep. How else could 
 we explain the power many persons undoubtedly pos- 
 sess to awake at a fixed hour, and the success with 
 which, more than once, great mental efforts have been 
 made during profound sleep ? Of the latter, Tartiui's 
 famous sonata is a striking instance. He had en- 
 deavored in vain to finish this great work ; inspiration 
 would not come, and he had abandoned the task in
 
 112 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 despair. During the night he had a dream in which 
 he once more tried his best, but in vain ; at the mo- 
 ment of despair, however, the Devil appeared to him 
 and promised to finish the work in return for his soul. 
 The composer, nothing loath, surrenders his soul and 
 hears his magnificent work gloriously completed on the 
 violin. He wakes up in perfect delight, goes to his 
 desk, and at once writes down his " Devil's Sonata." 
 Even children are known occasionally to be able to 
 give intelligent answers while fast asleep ; the ques- 
 tions, however, must be in accordance with the current 
 of their thoughts, otherwise they are apt to be aroused. 
 A case is quoted by Reil of two soldiers who used, at 
 times, to keep up an uninterrupted conversation during 
 a whole night, while they were to all appearances fast 
 asleep. A lady, also, was unable to refuse answers to 
 questions put to her at night, and had at last to lock 
 herself in carefully whenever she went to sleep. 
 
 Hence it is that some of the most profound thinkers 
 who have discussed the subject of dreams, like Des- 
 cartes and Leibnitz, Jouffroy and Dugald Stewart, 
 Eichard and Carus, with a number of others, assert the 
 uninterrupted wakefulness of the mind. Some authors 
 believe that the spiritual part of man needs no sleep, 
 but delights in the comfort of feeling that the body is 
 in perfect repose, and of forgetting, by these means, 
 for a time the troubles of daily life, and the responsi- 
 bilities of our earthly existence. They base this view 
 upon the fact, that, as far as we can judge, the mind is,
 
 DREAMS. 113 
 
 during sleep, independent of tlie body and the outer 
 world. Thinking is quite possible during sleep with- 
 out dreaming, and certain bodily sensations, even, are 
 correctly perceived, as when we turn over in our sleep, 
 because lying on one side produces pain or uneasiness. 
 We not only talk while we are asleep, but laugh or 
 weep, sigh or groan. A slight noise, a whispered word, 
 affect the course of our thoughts, and produce new 
 images in our dreams, as certain affections and even 
 the pressure upon certain organs are sure to produce 
 invariably the same dreams. Space and time dis- 
 appear, however, and naturally, because we can meas- 
 ure them only by the aid of our senses, and these are, 
 for the time, inactive. Hence Dugald Stewart ascribes 
 the manner in which a moment's dream often com- 
 prises a year, or a whole lifetime, to the fact that, when 
 we are asleep, the images created by our imagination 
 appear to be realities, while those which we form when 
 we are awake are known to us to be mere fictions, and 
 hence not subject to the laws of time. 
 
 It will not surprise us, therefore, to find that this 
 activity of the mind, deprived of the usual means of 
 making itself known to others by gesture, sound, or 
 action, seeks frequently a symbolical utterance, and 
 this is the grain of truth here also hid under the vast 
 amount of rubbish, known as the interpretation of 
 dreams. Troubles and difficulties may thus appear as 
 storms ; sorrow and grief as tears ; troubled waters 
 may represent pain, and smooth ice impending danger;
 
 114: MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 a dry river-bed an approaching famine, and pretty 
 flowers great joy to come, provided, always, we are dis- 
 posed to admit a higher class of prophetic dreams. 
 Such a view is supported by high authority, for since 
 the days of Aristotle, great writers, divines as well as 
 philosophers, have endeavored to classify dreams accord- 
 ing to their nature and importance. The great re- 
 former, Melauchthon, in his work on the soul, divided 
 them into common dreams, void of importance ; pro- 
 phetic dreams, arising from the individual gifts of the 
 sleeper ; divine dreams, inspired by God either directly 
 or through the agency of angels, and finally, demoniac 
 dreams, such as the witches' sabbath. One great dif- 
 ficulty attending all such classification arises, however, 
 from the well-known fa'ct, already alluded to, that ex- 
 ternal sensations are by far the most frequent causes of 
 dreams. Even these have been systematically arranged 
 by some writers, most successfully, perhaps, in the 
 work of Maine de Biran, but he overlooks again the 
 numerous cases in which external noises and similar 
 accidents produce a whole train of thoughts. Thus 
 Pope dreamed of a Spaniard who impudently entered 
 his library, ransacked the books on 'the shelves, and 
 turned a deaf ear to all his remonstrances. The im- 
 pression was so forcible that he questioned all his 
 servants, and investigated the matter thoroughly, till 
 he was finally forced to acknowledge that the whole 
 transaction was a dream caused by the fall of a book 
 in his library, which he heard in his sleep. A still
 
 DREAMS. 115 
 
 more remarkable case occurred once in a hotel in 
 Dantzic, where not one person only, but all the guests, 
 without exception, dreamed of the sudden arrival of a 
 number of travelers, who disturbed the whole house, 
 and took possession of their rooms with unusual clatter 
 and noise. Not one had arrived, but during the night 
 a violent storm had arisen, causing doors to slam and 
 window-shutters to flap against the house, noises 
 which had aroused in more than fifty people precisely 
 the same impressions.
 
 IV. 
 VISIONS. 
 
 Concipiendis visionibus quas pliantasias vocant. 
 
 QUTNTLLIAN. 
 
 VISIONS, that is, the perception of apparently tan- 
 gible objects in the outer world, which only exist in 
 our imagination, have been known from time im- 
 memorial among all nations on earth. They are, in 
 themselves, perfectly natural, and can frequently be 
 traced back without difficulty to bodily affections or 
 a disordered state of the mind, so that many emi- 
 nent physicians dispose of them curtly as mere inci- 
 dental symptoms of congestion or neuralgia. They 
 may present real men and things, known beforehand, 
 and now reproduced in such a manner as to appear 
 objectively ; or they may be ideal forms, the product 
 of the moment, and incompatible with the laws of 
 actual life. Persons who have visions and know 
 nothing of their true nature, are apt to become in- 
 tensely excited, as if they had been transferred into 
 another world. The images they behold seem to them 
 of supernatural origin, and may inspire them with lofty 
 thoughts and noble impulses, but only too frequently 
 they disturb their peace of mind and lead them to 
 crime or despair.
 
 VISIONS. 117 
 
 When visions extend to other senses besides sight, 
 and the peculiar state of mind by which they are 
 caused affects different parts of the body at once, they 
 are called hallucinations; most frequent among insane 
 people, of whom, according to Esquirol, eighty in a 
 hundred are thus affected, they are generally quite in- 
 significant ; while visions through the eye, are often 
 accompanied by very remarkable magic phenomena. 
 Thus the visions which great men like Cromwell and 
 Descartes, Byron or Goethe, record of their own ex- 
 perience, were evidently signs of the great energy of 
 their mental life, while in others they are as clearly 
 symptoms of disease. Ascribed by the ancients to 
 divine influence, Christianity has invariably denounced 
 them when not indubitably inspired by God, as in the 
 case of the martyr Stephen and the apostle St. John 
 as works of the Devil. At all times they have been 
 communicated to others, either by contagion or, in 
 rare cases, by the imposition of hands, as they have 
 been artificially produced. Thus extreme bodily fatigue 
 and utter prostration after long illness are apt to cause 
 hallucinations. Albert Smith, for instance, while as- 
 cending Mont Blanc, and feeling utterly exhausted, saw 
 all his surroundings clearly with his eyes, and yet, at 
 the same time, beheld marvelous things with the so- 
 called inner sense. A Swiss who, in 1848, during a 
 severe cold, crossed from Wallis to Kandersteg by the 
 famous Gemmi Pass, eight thousand feet high, saw on 
 his way a number of men shoveling the snow from his
 
 118 MODERX MAGIC. 
 
 path, fellow-travelers climbing up on all sides, and 
 rolling masses of snow which changed into dogs; he 
 heard the blows of axes and the laughing and singing 
 of distant shepherds, while his road was utterly de- 
 serted, and not a human soul within many miles. 
 His hands and feet were found frozen when he arrived 
 at last at his quarters for the night, and ten days later 
 he died from the effects of his exposure. During the 
 retreat of the French from Eussia the poor sufferers, 
 frozen and famished, were continually tormented by 
 similar hallucinations, which increased their sufferings 
 at times to such a degree as to lead them to commit 
 suicide. Another frequent cause of visions is long- 
 continued fasting combined with more or less ascetic 
 devotion. This is said to explain why the prophets of 
 the Old Testament were so vigorously forbidden to in- 
 dulge in wine or rich fare. Thus Aaron was told : 
 " Do not drink wine nor strong drink, thou nor thy 
 sons with thee, when ye go into the tabernacle" (Levit. 
 x. 9) ; Moses remained forty days, and " neither did eat 
 bread nor drink wine," when he was on Mount Sinai 
 (Deuter. ix. 9) ; the Nazarites were ordered not to 
 " drink any liquor of grapes, nor to eat moist grapes or 
 dried," and even to abstain from vinegar (Xumbers vi. 
 3), and Daniel and his companions had nothing but 
 "pulse to eat and water to drink" (Dan. i. 12), in 
 order to prepare them for receiving "wisdom and know- 
 ledge and the understanding of dreams and visions." 
 Narcotics also, and, in our day, most of the anaesthet-
 
 VISIONS. 119 
 
 ics can produce visions and hallucinations, but the 
 result is in all such cases much less interesting than 
 when they are produced spontaneously. Tobacco and 
 opium, betel, hasheesh, and cocoa are the principal 
 means employed ; but Siberia has besides its narcotic 
 mush rooms, Polynesia its ava, New Granada and the 
 Himalaya the thorn-apple, Florida its emetic apa- 
 lachine, and the northern regions of America and 
 Europe have their ledum. The most effective among 
 these narcotics seems to be the Indian hemp, since the 
 visions it produces surpass even the marvelous effects 
 of opium, as has been recently again most graphically 
 described by Bayard Taylor. Laughing-gas, also, has 
 frequently similar effects, and affords, besides, the pre- 
 cious privilege of freedom from the painful, often ex- 
 cruciating consequences of other narcotics. When 
 perfumes are employed for the express purpose of pro- 
 ducing visions, it is difficult to ascertain how much is 
 due to their influence, and how much to the over-ex- 
 cited mind of the seer. Benvenuto Cellini describes 
 though probably not in the most trustworthy manner 
 the amazing effect produced upon himself and a boy by 
 his side, by the perfumes which a priest burnt in the 
 Coliseum. The whole vast building seemed to him 
 filled with demons, and the boy saw thousands of 
 threatening men, four huge giants, and fire bursting 
 out in countless places. The great artist was told, at 
 the same time, that a great danger was threatening 
 him, and that he would surely lose his beloved Angelica
 
 120 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 within the month ; both events occurred as predicted, 
 and thus proved that in this case at least magic phe- 
 nomena had accompanied the visions. (Goethe, B. Cel- 
 lini, 1. iv. ch. 2.) 
 
 Among other external causes which are apt to pro- 
 duce visions, must be mentioned violent motions, espe- 
 cially when they are revolving, as is the case with the 
 Shamans of the Laplanders and the dancing Dervishes 
 of the East ; self-inflicted wounds, such as the priests 
 of Baal caused in order to excite their power of divina- 
 tion, and long-continued imprisonment, as illustrated in 
 the well-known cases of Benvenuto Cellini and Silvio 
 Pellico. The latter was constantly tormented by sighs 
 or suppressed laughter which he heard in his dungeon ; 
 then by invisible hands pulling at his dress, knocking 
 down his books or trying to put out his light, till he 
 began seriously to suspect that he might be the victim 
 of invisible malignant powers. Fortunately all these 
 phenomena disappeared at break of day, and thus his 
 vigorous mind, supported by true piety, was enabled to 
 keep his judgment uninjured. 
 
 Diseases of every kind are a fruitful source of visions 
 and some are rarely without them ; but the character 
 of visions differs according to the nature of the affec- 
 tions. Persons who suffer with the liver have melan- 
 choly, consumptive patients have cheerful visions. 
 Epileptics often see fearful spectres during their par- 
 oxysms, and persons bitten by mad dogs see the animal 
 that has caused their sufferings. The case of the book-
 
 VISIONS. 121 
 
 seller Nicolai in Berlin is well known ; the disease of 
 which he suffered, is not only very common in some 
 parts of Eussia, but productive of precisely the same 
 symptoms. The patients experience first a sensation 
 of great despondency, folloAved by a period of profound 
 melancholy, during which they see themselves sur- 
 rounded by a number of persons, with whom they con- 
 verse and quarrel, half conscious of their own delusion 
 and yet not able to master it wholly. They are gen- 
 erally bled, whereupon the images become transparent 
 and shrink into smaller and smaller space, till they 
 finally disappear entirely. Affections of the heart and 
 the subseqiient unequal distribution of the blood 
 through the system are apt to produce peculiar sounds, 
 which at times fashion themselves into loud and har- 
 monious pieces. The excitement usually attendant 
 upon specially fatal plagues and contagious diseases in- 
 creases the tendency which the latter naturally have to 
 cause hallucinations. During a plague in the reign of 
 Justinian, men were seen walking through the crowd 
 and touching here and there a person ; the latter were 
 at once attacked by the disease and invariably suc- 
 cumbed. Upon another such occasion marks and 
 spots appeared on the clothing of those who had caught 
 the contagion, as if made by invisible hands, the suf- 
 ferers began next to see a number of spectres and died 
 in a short time. The same symptoms have accompanied 
 the cholera in modern times, and more than once 
 strange, utterly unknown persons were not only seen 
 
 6
 
 122 MODEBX MAGIC. 
 
 but heard, as they were conversing with others; what 
 they said was, written down in many cases, and proved 
 to be predictions of approaching visits of the dread 
 disease to neighboring houses. A magic power of fore- 
 sight seems in these cases to be developed by the ex- 
 treme excitement or deep anxiety, but the unconscious 
 clairvoyance assumes the form of persons outside of 
 their own mental sphere, within which they alone 
 existed. 
 
 By far the most frequent causes of visions are, how- 
 ever, those of psychical nature, like fixed ideas, intense 
 passions, or deep-rooted prejudices, and concealed mis- 
 deeds. When they are produced by such causes they 
 have often the appearance of having led to the commis- 
 sion of great crimes. Thus Julian the Apostate, who 
 had caused the image of his guardian angel to be put 
 upon all his coins and banners, naturally had this form 
 deeply impressed upon his mind. In the night before 
 a decisive battle, he saw, according to Ammianus 
 Marcellinus, this protecting genius in the act of turn- 
 ing away from him, and this vision made so deep an 
 impression upon his mind that he interpreted it as an 
 omen of his impending death. On the following day 
 he fell in battle. The fearful penalty inflicted upon 
 Charles IX. by his own conscience is well known ; 
 after the massacre of St. Bartholomew he saw, by day 
 and by night, the forms of his victims around him, till 
 death made an end to his sufferings. On our own 
 continent, one of the early conquerors gave a striking
 
 VISIONS. 123 
 
 instance of the manner in which such visions are pro- 
 duced. He was one of the adventurers who had 
 reached Darieu, and was on the point of plundering a 
 temple ; but, a few days before, an Indian woman had 
 told him that the treasures it held were guarded by evil 
 spirits, and if he entered it the earth would open and 
 swallow up the temple and the conquerors alike. Xoth- 
 ing daunted, he led his men to the attack ; but, as they 
 came in sight, he suddenly saw, in the evening light, 
 how the colossal building rocked to and fro as in a 
 tempest, and thoroughly intimidated he rode away with 
 his followers, leaving the temple and its treasures 
 unharmed. That visions are apt to precede atrocious 
 crimes is quite natural, since they are in such cases 
 nothing but the product of the intense excitement 
 under which murders are often committed; but, it 
 would be absurd to look upon them as motive causes. 
 Ravaillac had constant visions of angels, saints, and 
 demons, while preparing his mind for the assassination 
 of Henry IV., and the young student who attempted 
 the murder of Napoleon at Schb'nbrunn repeatedly saw 
 the genius of Germany, which appeared to him and 
 encouraged him to free his country from the usurper. 
 Persons who attempt to summon ghosts are very apt to 
 see them, because their mind is highly wrought up by 
 their proceedings and they confidently expect to have 
 visions. But some men possess a similar power without 
 making any special effort or peculiar preparations, their 
 firm volition sufficing for the purpose. Thus Talma
 
 124 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 could at all times force himself to see, in the place of the 
 actual audience before whom he was acting, an assembly 
 of skeletons, and he is said never to have acted better 
 than when he gave himself up to this hallucination. 
 Painters, also, frequently have the power to summon 
 before their mind's eye the features of those whose 
 portrait they are painting; Blake, for instance, was 
 able actually to finish likenesses from images he saw 
 sitting in the chair where the real persons had been 
 seated. 
 
 While visions are quite common, delusions of the 
 other senses are less frequent. The insane alone hear 
 strange conversations. Hallucinations of the taste 
 cause patients to enjoy delightful dishes, or to partake 
 of spoiled meat and other unpalatable viands, which 
 have no existence. Sweet smells and incense are often 
 perceived, bad odors much less frequently. The touch 
 is of all senses the least likely to be deceived; still 
 deranged people occasionally feel a slight touch as a 
 severe blow, and persons suffering from certain diseases 
 are convinced that ants, spiders, or other insects are 
 running over their bodies. 
 
 The favorite season of visions is night mainly the 
 hour about midnight and in the whole year, the time of 
 Advent, but also the nights from Christmas to New 
 Year. This is, of course, not a feature of supernatural 
 life, but the simple effect of the greater quiet and the 
 more thoughtful, inward life, which these seasons are apt 
 to bring to busy men. The reality of our surroundings
 
 VISIONS. 125 
 
 disappears with the setting sun, and in deep night we 
 are rendered almost wholly independent of the influence 
 exercised in the day by friends, family, and even furni- 
 ture. All standards of measurement, moreover, disap- 
 pear, and we lose the correct estimate of both space 
 and time. Turning our thoughts at such times with 
 greater energy and perseverance inward, our imagina- 
 tion has free scope, and countless images appear before 
 our mind's eye which are not subject to the laws of real 
 life. Darkness, stillness, and solitude, the three great 
 features of midnight seasons, all favor the full activity 
 of our fancy, and set criticism at defiance by denying 
 us all means of comparison with real sounds or sights. 
 At the same time, it is asserted, that under such circum- 
 stances men are also better qualified to perceive mani- 
 festations which, during the turbo, of daily life, are 
 carelessly ignored or really imperceptible to the com- 
 mon senses. So long as the intercourse with the world 
 and its exigencies occupy all our thoughts, and self- 
 interest makes us look fixedly only at some one great 
 purpose of life, we are deaf and blind to all that does 
 not clearly belong to this world. But when these de- 
 mands are no longer made upon us, and especially when, 
 as in the time of Advent, our thoughts are somewhat 
 drawn from earthly natures, and our eyes are lifted 
 heavenward, then we are enabled to give free scope to 
 our instincts, or, if we prefer the real name, to the addi- 
 tional sense by which we perceive intangible things. A 
 comparison has often been drawn between the ability to
 
 126 MODE UN MAGIC. 
 
 see visions and our power to distinguish the stars. In 
 the day, the brilliancy of the sun so far outshines the 
 latter, that we see not a single one ; at night they step 
 forth, as it were, from the dark, and the deeper the black- 
 ness of the sky, the greater their own brightness. Are 
 they, on that account, nothing more than creatures of 
 our imagination, set free by night and darkness ? 
 
 As for the favorite places where visions most fre- 
 quently are seen, it seems that solitudes have already 
 in ancient times always been looked upon as special 
 resorts for evil spirits. The deserts of Asia, with their 
 deep gullies and numerous caves, suggested a popula- 
 tion of shy and weird beings, whom few saw and no one 
 knew fully. Hence the fearful description of Babylon 
 in her overthrow, when " Their houses shall be full of 
 doleful creatures, and owls shall dwell there and satyrs 
 shall dance there." (Isaiah xiii. 21). The New Testa- 
 ment speaks in like manner of the deserts of Palestine 
 as the abode of evil spirits, and in later days the Faroe 
 Islands were constantly referred to as peopled with 
 weird and unearthly beings. The deserts of Africa are 
 full of Djiuns, and the vast plains of the East are peopled 
 with weird apparitions. The solitudes of Norwegian 
 mountain districts abound with gnomes and sprites, and 
 waste places everywhere are no sooner abandoned by 
 men than they are occupied by evil spirits and become 
 the scenes of wild and gruesome visions. 
 
 Well-authenticated cases of visions are recorded in 
 unbroken succession from the times of antiquity to
 
 VISIONS. 127 
 
 our own day, and leave no doubt on the mind that 
 they are not only of common occurrence among men, 
 but generally, also, accompanied by magic phenomena 
 of great importance. The ancients saw, of course, 
 most frequently their gods; the pagans, who had been 
 converted to Christianity, their former idols threatening 
 them with dire punishment ; and Christians, their 
 saints and martyrs, their angels and demons. Thus all 
 parties are supported by authorities in no way peculiar 
 to one faith or another, but common to all humanity ; 
 and the battle is fought, for a time at least, between faith 
 and faith, and between vision and vision. A famous 
 rhetor, Aristides, who is mentioned in history as one of 
 the mightiest champions polytheism ever has been able 
 to raise against triumphant Christianity, saw, in his 
 hours of exaltation, the great .^Esculapius, who gave 
 him directions how to carry on his warfare. At such 
 times his public addresses became so attractive that 
 thousands of enthusiastic hearers assembled to hang 
 upon his lips. The story of the genius of Socrates is 
 well known ; Aulus Gellius tells us how the great sage 
 was seen standing motionless for twenty-four hours in 
 the same place, before joining the expedition to Potidea, 
 so absorbed in deep thought that it seemed as if his 
 soul had left the body. Dion, Plato's most intimate 
 friend, saw a huge Fury enter his house and sweep it with 
 a broom ; a conspiracy broke out, and he was murdered, 
 after having lost his only son a few days before. 
 (Plutarch's "Life of Dion," 55.) The same Simonides,
 
 128 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 who according to Valerius Maximus (De Somniis, 1. i. cli. 
 5), had escaped from shipwreck by the timely warning 
 of a spirit, was once dining at the magnificent house 
 of Skopas at Cranon, in TJiessaly, when a servant 
 entered to inform him that two gigantic youths were 
 standing at the door and wished to see him immediately. 
 He went out and found no one there ; but, at the same 
 moment, the roof and the walls of the dining-room fell 
 down, burying all the guests under the ruins (Phasdrus' 
 Fab., iv. 24). The ancients looked upon the vision, in 
 both cases, as merely effects of the prophetic power of 
 the poet, which saved him from immediate death ; once 
 in the form of a spirit and the second time in the form 
 of the Dioscuri. For, as Simonides had shortly before 
 written a beautiful poem in honor of Castor and Pollux, 
 his escape and the friendly warning were naturally 
 attributed to the heroic youths, who constantly appear 
 in history as protective genii. In Greece they were 
 known to have fought, dressed in their purple cloaks 
 and seated on snow-white horses, on the side of the 
 Locri, and to have announced their victory on the same 
 day in Olympia, and Sparta, in Corinth, and in Athens 
 (Justin, ix. 3). In Rome they were credited with the 
 victory on the banks of Lake Regillus, and reported to 
 have, as in Greece, dashed into the city, far ahead of all 
 messengers, to proclaim the joyful news. During the 
 Macedonian war they met Publius Vatinius on his way 
 to Rome and informed him that, on the preceding day. 
 ./Emilius Paulus had captured Perseus. Delighted
 
 VISIONS. 129 
 
 with the news, the prefect hastens to the Senate; but is 
 discredited and actually sent to jail on the charge of 
 indulging in idle gossip, unworthy of his high office. 
 It was only when at last messengers came from the 
 distant army and confirmed the report of Perseus' 
 captivity, that the unlucky prefect was set free again 
 and honored with high rewards. 
 
 In other cases the warning genius was seen in visions 
 of different nature. Thus Hannibal was reported to 
 have traced in his sleep the whole course and the 
 success of all his plans, by the aid of his genius, who 
 appeared to him in the shape of a child of marvelous 
 beauty, sent by the great Jupiter himself to direct his 
 movements, and to make him master of Italy. The 
 child asked him to follow without turning to look 
 back, but Hannibal, yielding to the innate tendency to 
 covet forbidden fruit, looked behind him and saw an 
 immense serpent overthrowing all impediments in his 
 way. Then came a violent thunderstorm with fierce 
 lightnings, which rent the strongest walls. Hannibal 
 asked the meaning of these portents, and was told that 
 the storm signified the total subjection of Italy, but 
 that he must be silent and leave the rest to fate. That 
 the vision was not fully realized, was naturally ascribed 
 to his indiscretion. The genius of the two Consuls, P. 
 Decius and Manlius Torquatus, assumed, on the con- 
 trary, the shape of a huge phantom which appeared at 
 night in their camp at the foot of Vesuvius, and an- 
 nounced the decision that one leader must fall in order 
 
 6*
 
 130 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 to make the army victorious. Upon the strength of 
 this vision the two generals decided that he whose 
 troops should first show signs of yielding, should seek 
 death by advancing alone against the Latin army. 
 The legions of Decius, therefore, no sooner began to 
 fall back, than he threw himself, sword in hand, upon 
 the enemy, and not only died a glorious death for his 
 country, but secured a brilliant victory to his brethren. 
 At a later period a genius saved the life of Octavian. 
 when he and Antony were encamped at Philippi, on 
 the eve of the great battle against Brutus and Cassius. 
 The vision appeared not to himself, however, but to 
 another person, his own physician, Artorus, who, in a 
 dream, was ordered to advise his master to appear on 
 the battle-field in spite of his serious indisposition. 
 Octavian followed the advice and went out, though he 
 had to be carried by his men in a litter ; during his 
 absence the soldiers of Brutus entered the camp and 
 actually searched his tent, in which he would have 
 perished inevitably without the timely warning. Of a 
 very different nature was the vision of Cassius, the 
 lieutenant of Antony, who, during his flight to 
 Athens, saw at night a huge black phantom, which 
 informed him that he was his evil spirit. In his terror 
 he called his servants and inquired what they had seen, 
 but they had noticed nothing. Thus tranquilized, he 
 fell asleep again, but the phantom returned once more, 
 and disturbed his mind so painfully that he remained 
 awake the rest of the night, surrounded by his guards
 
 VISIONS. 131 
 
 and slaves. The vision was afterwards interpreted as 
 an omen of his impending violent death. 
 
 The Emperor Trajan was saved from death during a 
 fearful earthquake by a man of colossal proportions, 
 who came to lead him out of his palace at Autioch; and 
 Attila, who, to the surprise of the world, spared Rome 
 and Italy at the request of Pope Leo the Great, men- 
 tioned as the true motive of his action the appearance 
 of a majestic old man in priestly garments, who had 
 threatened him, drawing his sword, with instant death 
 if he did not grant all that the Roman high-priest 
 should demand. 
 
 In other cases, which are as numerous as they are 
 striking, the genius assumes the shape of a woman. 
 Thus Dio Cassius (" Hist. Rome," 1. lv.). as well as Sue- 
 tonius (" Claudius," 1. i), relate that when Drusus had 
 ravaged Germany, and was on the point of crossing the 
 Elbe, the formidable shape of a gigantic woman ap- 
 peared to him, who waded up to the middle of the 
 stream and then called out : " Whither, Drusus ? 
 Canst thou put no limit to thy thirst of conquest ? 
 Back ! the end of thy deeds and of thy life is at hand ! " 
 History records that Drusus fell back without apparent 
 reason, and that he died before he reached the banks of 
 the Rhine. Tacitus tells us, in like manner, a vision 
 which encouraged Curtius Rufus at the time when he, 
 a gladiator's son, and holding a most humble position, 
 was accompanying a quaestor on his way to Africa. 
 As he walked up and down a passage in deep meditar
 
 132 MOBEUN MAGIC. 
 
 tion, a woman of unusual size appeared to him and 
 said : " Thou, Bufus, shalt be proconsul of this prov- 
 ince!" The young man, perhaps encoiiraged and 
 supported by a vision which was the result of his own 
 ambitious dreams, rose rapidly by his eminent ability, 
 and after he had reached the consulate, really obtained 
 the province of Africa (Ann., xi. 21). The younger 
 Pliny, who tells the same story in his admirable letter 
 to Suca on the subject of magic, adds that the genius 
 appeared a second time to the great proconsul, but 
 remained silent. The latter saw in this silence a warn- 
 ing of approaching death, and prepared for his end, 
 which did not fail soon to close his career. 
 
 It is very striking to see how in these visions also the 
 inner life of man was invariably clearly and distinctly 
 reflected. The ambitious youth saw his good fortune 
 personified in the shape of a beautiful woman, which 
 his excited imagination called Africa, and which he 
 hoped some time or other to call his own. Brutus, on 
 the contrary, full of anticipations of evil, and suffering, 
 and perhaps unconsciously, bitter remorse on account of 
 Cesar's murder, saw his sad fate as a hideous demon. 
 The army, also, sharing, no doubt, their leader's dark 
 apprehensions, looked upon the black Ethiopian who 
 entered the camp as an evil omen. The appointed 
 meeting at Philippi was merely an evidence of the su- 
 perior ability of Brutus, who foresaw the probable 
 course of the war and knew the great strategic impor- 
 tance of the famous town.
 
 VISIONS. 133 
 
 In the same manner a tradition Avas long cherished 
 in Augsburg of a fanatic heroine on horseback, who 
 appeared to Attila when he attempted to cross the river 
 Lech on his way from Italy to Paunouia. She called 
 out to him : " Back ! " and made a deep impression 
 upon his mind. The picture of the giant woman was 
 long preserved in a Minorite convent in the city, and 
 was evidently German in features and in costume. It 
 is by no means impossible that the lofty but supersti- 
 tious mind of the ruthless conqueror, after having long 
 busied itself with his approaching attack itpon a 
 mighty, unknown nation, personified to himself in a 
 momentary trance the genius of that race in the shape 
 of a majestic woman. 
 
 This was all the more probable as Holy Writ also 
 presents to us a whole series of mighty women who ex- 
 ercised at times a lasting influence on the fate of the 
 chosen people, and the world's history abounds with 
 similar instances. There was Deborah, " a prophetess 
 who judged Israel at that time," and went to aid in the 
 defeat of Sisera, and there was Huldah, the prophetess, 
 who warned Josiah, king of Judah. We have the same 
 grand images in Greek and in Eoman history, and Ger- 
 man annals mention more than one Jettha and Velleda. 
 The series of warnings given by the more tender- 
 hearted sex runs through the annals of modern races 
 from the oldest times to our own day. One of the 
 latest instances happened to a king well known for his 
 sneering skepticism and his utter disbelief of all
 
 134 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 higher powers. This was Bernadotte, who forsook his 
 benefactor in order to mount the throne of Sweden, 
 and turned his own sword against his former niu<trr. 
 Long years after the fall of Napoleon, he was on the 
 point of sending his son Oscar with an army against 
 Norway, and met with much opposition in the Council 
 of State. Full of impatience and indignation, he 
 mounted his horse and rode out to cool his heated 
 mind ; as he approached a dark forest near Stockholm, 
 he saw an old woman sitting by the wayside, whose 
 quaint costume and wild, disheveled hair attracted his 
 attention. He asked her roughly what she was doing 
 there? Her reply was: "If Oscar goes into the war 
 which you propose, he will not strike but receive the 
 first blow." The king was impressed by the warning 
 and returned, full of thoughts, to his palace ; after a 
 sleepless night he informed the Council of State that 
 he had changed his views, and would not send the 
 prince to Norway (La Presse, May 4, 1844). Even if 
 we accept the interview with the woman as a mere 
 vision, the effect of the king's long and anxious pre- 
 occupation with an important plan upon the success of 
 which the security of his throne and the continuation 
 of his dynasty might depend, the question still remains, 
 why a man of his tastes and haughty skepticism should 
 have clothed his doubts in words uttered by an old wo- 
 man, dressed in fancy costume ? 
 
 The number of practical, sensible men who have, 
 even in recent times, believed themselves under the
 
 VISIONS. lGf> 
 
 special care and protection of a genius or guardian 
 angel, is much larger than is commonly known. The 
 ancients looked upon a genius as a part of their mythol- 
 ogy; and modern Christians, who cherish this belief, 
 refer to the fact that the Saviour said of little children : 
 " In heaven their angels do always behold the face of 
 my Father " (Matt, xviii. 10). These visions for so 
 they must be called vary greatly in different persons. 
 To some men they appear only when great dangers are 
 threatening or sublime efforts have to be made ; while 
 in others, they assume, by their frequency, a more or 
 less permanent form, and may even be inherited, becom- 
 ing tutelary deities of certain houses, familiar spirits, or 
 specially appointed guardian angels of the members of 
 a family or single individuals. Hence, the well-known 
 accounts of the genius of Socrates and the familiar 
 spirits of the Bible, in ancient times. Hence, also, the 
 almost uninterrupted line of similar accounts through 
 the Middle Ages down to 'our own day. Thus, Campanella 
 stated that whenever he was threatened with misfor- 
 tune, he fell into a state half way between waking and 
 sleeping, in which he heard a voice say : " Campanella ! 
 Campanella !" and several other words, without ever 
 seeing a person. Calignan, Chancelor of Navarre, 
 heard in, Beam, his name called three times, and then 
 received a warning from the same voice to leave the 
 town promptly, as the plague was to rage there fear- 
 fully. He obeyed the order, and escaped the ravages of 
 the terrible disease (Beaumont," Tractat.," etc., p. 208).
 
 136 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 The Jesuit Giovanni Carrera had a protecting genius, 
 whom he frequently consulted in cases of special diffi- 
 culty. He became so familiar with him, that he had 
 himself waked every night for his prayers, but when at 
 times he hesitated to rise at once, the spirit abandoned 
 him for a time, and Carrera could only induce him to 
 come back by long-continued praying and fasting 
 ("Hist. S. J.,"iii. p. 177). 
 
 The Bernadottes had a tradition that one of their an- 
 cestors had married a fairy, who remained the good gen- 
 ius of the family, and long since had predicted that one 
 of that blood would mount a throne. The Bernadotte 
 who became a king never forgot the prophecy, and was 
 largely influenced by it, when the Swedish nobles offer- 
 ed him the throne. It is well known that Napoleon 
 himself either believed, or affected to believe, in a good 
 genius, who guided his steps and protected him from 
 danger. He appeared, according to his own statements, 
 sometimes in the shape of a ball of fire, which he called 
 his "star," or as a man dressed in red, who paid him 
 occasional visits. General Rapp relates that, in the year 
 1806, he once found the Emperor in his room, appar- 
 ently absorbed in such deep meditation that he did not 
 notice his entrance, but that, when fairly aroused, he 
 seized Rapp by the arm and asked him if saw that star ? 
 "When the latter replied that he saw nothing, Napoleon 
 continued: "It is my star; it is standing just above 
 you. It has never forsaken me ; I see it on all impor- 
 tant occasions; it orders me to go on, and has always
 
 VISIONS. 137 
 
 been a token of success. The story, coming from Gen- 
 eral Rapp himself, is quoted here as endorsed by the 
 great historian, Amedee Thierry. 
 
 Des Mousseaux reports the following facts upon the 
 evidence of trustworthy personal friends. (La 3fa(/ie,etc., 
 p. 366.) A Mme. N., the daughter of a general, was con- 
 stantly visited by her mother, who had died long ago, 
 and received from her frequent information of secret 
 things, which procured for herself the reputation of 
 being a prophetess. At one time her mother's spirit 
 warned her to try and prevent her husband, who would 
 die by suicide, from carrying out his purpose. Every 
 precaution was taken, and even the knives and forks 
 were removed after meals ; but it so happened that a 
 soldier of the National Guard came into the house and 
 left his loaded gun in an anteroom. The lady's hus- 
 band unfortunately chanced to see it, took it and blew 
 his brains out on the spot. 
 
 A peculiarly interesting class of visions are those to 
 which great artists have, at times, owed their greatest 
 triumphs. Here, also, the line between mere delusion 
 and real magic phenomena is often so faint as to escape 
 attention. For artists must needs cultivate their im- 
 agination at the expense of other faculties, and naturally 
 live more in an ideal world than in a real world. Pre- 
 occupied as they are, by the nature of their pursuits, 
 with images of more than earthly beauty, they come 
 easily to form ideals in their minds, which they en- 
 deavor to fix first upon their memory, and then upon
 
 138 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 canvas or in marble, on paper or in rapturous words. 
 Raphael Sanzio had long in vain tried to portray the 
 Holy Virgin according to a vague ideal in his mind ; at 
 last he awoke one night and saw in the place where his 
 sketch was hanging a bright light, and in the radiance 
 the Mother of Christ in matchless beauty, and with 
 supernatural holiness in her features. The vision re- 
 mained deeply impressed upon his mind, and was ever 
 after the original of which even his best Madonnas 
 could only be imperfect copies. Benvenuto Cellini, 
 when sick unto death, repeatedly saw an old man 
 trying to pull him down into his boat, but as soon as 
 his faithful servant came and touched him, the hideous 
 vision disappeared. The artist had evidently a picture 
 of Charon and his Acherontic boat in his mind, which 
 was thus reproduced in his feverish dreams. On 
 another occasion, when he had long been in prison, and 
 in despair contemplated suicide, an " unknown being " 
 suddenly seized him and hurled him back to a distance 
 of four yards, where he remained lying for hours half 
 dead. In the following night a " fair youth " appeared 
 to him and made him bitter reproaches on account of 
 his sinful purpose. The same youthful genius appeared 
 to him repeatedly when a great crisis approached in his 
 marvelously adventurous life, and more than once 
 revealed to him the mysteries of the future. (Goethe's 
 " Benv. Cell." i. p. 375.) Poor Tasso had fearful hallu- 
 cinations during the time when his mind was dis- 
 ordered, but above them all hovered, as it were, the
 
 VISIONS. 130 
 
 vision of a glorious Virgin surrounded by a bright light, 
 Avhich always comforted and probably alone saved him 
 from self-destruction. Like Baphael, Dannecker also 
 had long tried in vain to find perfect expression for his 
 ideal of a Christ on the Cross; one night, however, he 
 also saw the Saviour in a dream, and at once proceeded 
 to form his model, from which was afterwards copied 
 the well-known statue of transcendent beauty and 
 power. 
 
 Paganini used to tell with an amusing air of assumed 
 awe and reverence, that his mother had seen, a few 
 days before his birth, an angel with two wings and of 
 such dazzling splendor that she could not bear to look 
 at the apparition. The heavenly messenger invited her 
 to express a wish, and promised that it should be ful- 
 filled. Thereupon she begged him on her knees to 
 make her Kicolo a great violinist, and was told that it 
 should be so. The vision perhaps nothing more than 
 a vivid form of earnest desire and fervent prayer had, 
 no doubt, a serious influence on the great artist, who 
 was himself strangely susceptible to such impressions. 
 (Moniteur, Sept. 30, 1860.) 
 
 Nothing can here be said, according to the purpose 
 of these sketches, of the long series of visions vouch- 
 safed to martyrs and saints; their history belongs to 
 theology. But holy men have, independent of their 
 religious convictions, often been as famous for their 
 visions as for the piety of their hearts, and their 
 achievements in the world. Loyola, for instance, with
 
 140 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 his -faculties perpetually strained to the utmost, and 
 with his thoughts bent forever upon a grand and holy 
 aim, could not well fail to rise to a state of psychic 
 excitement which naturally produced impressive visions. 
 Hence he continually saw strange sights and heard 
 mysterious voices, the effect now of extreme despon- 
 dency and now of restored confidence in God and in 
 himself as the agent of the Most High. And yet these 
 visions never interfered with the clearness of his judg- 
 ment nor with his promptness and energy in acting. 
 Luther, also, one of the most practical men ever called 
 upon to act and to lead in a great crisis, hud visions ; 
 he saw the Devil and held loud discussions with him ; 
 he suffered by his persecutions, and made great efforts 
 to rid himself of his unwelcome guest, while engaged 
 in his great work, the translation of the Bible. For he 
 was, after all and for very great and good purposes 
 only a man of his age, imbued with the universal 
 belief in the personal existence and constant presence 
 of Satan, and felt, at the same time, that he Avas en- 
 gaged in a warfare upon the results of which depended 
 not only the earthly welfare, but the eternal salvation 
 of millions. 
 
 It is difficult to say whether Mohammed, who had 
 undoubtedly visions innumerable, received any aid from 
 his hallucinations in devising his new faith. Men of sci- 
 ence tell us that he suffered of Hysteria muscularis, a dis- 
 ease not uncommon in men as well as in women, which 
 produces periodical paroxysms and is characterized by
 
 VISIONS. 1-11 
 
 an alternate contraction and expansion of the muscles. 
 When the attack came the prophet's lips and tongue 
 would begin to vibrate, his eyes turned up, and the head 
 moved automatically. If the paroxysms were very vio- 
 lent he fell to the ground, his face" turned purple, and 
 he breathed with difficulty. As he frequently retained 
 his consciousness he pretended that these symptoms 
 were caused by angels' visits, and each attack was fol- 
 lowed by a new revelation. The disease was the result 
 of his early lawless life and of the freedom which he 
 claimed, even in later years pleading a special dispensa- 
 tion from on high as a divinely inspired prophet. It is 
 not to be wondered at that the new religion, springing 
 from such a source, and proclaimed amid the mountains 
 and steppes of Arabia, which, according to popular be- 
 lief, are all alive with djinus and demons, should be 
 largely based upon visions and hallucinations. 
 
 The important part which visions hold in the history 
 of the various religions of the earth lies beyond our 
 present purpose; we know, however, that the records 
 of ancient temples, of prophets, saints, and martyrs, and 
 of later convents and churches, abound with instances 
 of such so-called revelations from on high. They have 
 more than once served at critical times to excite indi- 
 viduals and whole nations to make sublime efforts. 
 One of the best known cases of the former class is that 
 of Constantino the Great, who told Eusebius of Caesa- 
 rea, affirming his statement with a solemn oath, that he 
 saw in 312, shortly before the decisive battle at Rome
 
 142 MODERX MAGIC. 
 
 against his formidable adversary Magentius, a bright 
 cross in the heavens, surrounded by the words: In hoc 
 signo vinces. But this vision stood by no means alone. 
 He himself beheld, besides, in a dream during the fol- 
 lowing night, the Saviour, who ordered him to use in 
 battle henceforth a banner like that which he had seen 
 in his vision. Xazarius, a pagan, also speaks of a num- 
 ber of marvelous signs in the heavens seen in Gaul im- 
 mediately before the emperor's great victory. Nor can 
 it be doubted that this vision not only inspired Con- 
 stantine with new hopes and new courage, enabling 
 him to secure his triumph, but also induced him, after 
 his success, to avow himself openly a convert to the 
 faith of Christ. 
 
 The visions of that eminent man Swedenborg are 
 too well known to require here more than a mere allu- 
 sion. Beginning his intercourse with the supernatural 
 world at the ripe age of forty-five, he soon gave himself 
 up to it systematically, and felt compelled to make his 
 daily conversations, as well as the revelations he re- 
 ceived from time to time, duly known to the public. 
 Thus he wrote with an evident air of firm conviction : 
 "I had recently a conference with the Apostle Paul ;" 
 and at another time he assured a "Wurtemberg prelate, 
 " I have conferred with St. Paul for a whole year, espe- 
 cially about the words in Romans iii. 28. Three times 
 I have conversed with St. John, once with Moses, and 
 a hundred times with Luther, when the latter con- 
 fessed that he had taught fidem solam contrary to the
 
 VISIONS. 143 
 
 warning of an angel, and that he had stood alone when 
 renouncing the pope. With angels, finally, I have 
 held constant intercourse for the last twenty years, and 
 still hold daily conversations." 
 
 Classic as well as Christian art, is indebted to visions 
 for more than one signal success. On the other hand, 
 they have as frequently been made to serve vile purposes, 
 mainly by feeding superstition and supporting religious 
 tyranny. We need only recall the terrible calamity 
 caused by a wretched shepherd boy in France, who, in 
 1213, saw, or pretended to see, heavenly visions, order- 
 ing him to enlist his comrades, and with their aid, to 
 rescue the Holy Land from the possession of infidels. 
 Thousands of little children were seized by the conta- 
 gious excitement, and leaving their home and their 
 kindred, followed their youthful leader, unchecked by 
 the authorities, because of the interpretation applied to 
 the words of Jesus : " Suffer little children to come unto 
 Me ! " Not one of them ever reached Palestine, as all 
 perished long before they had reached even Southern 
 France. 
 
 It is not exactly a magic phenomenon, but certainly 
 a most startling feature in visions, that the minds of 
 many men should be able, by their own volition, to cre- 
 ate images and forms so perfectly like those existing in 
 the world around us, that the same minds are incapable 
 of distinguishing where hallucination and reality touch 
 each other. This faculty varies, of course, as much as 
 other endowments: sometimes it produces nothing but
 
 144 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 vague, shapeless lights or sounds ; in other persons it is 
 capable of calling up well-defined forms, and of causing 
 even words to be heard and pain to be inflicted. Dur- 
 ing severe suffering in body or soul, it may become a 
 comforter, and in the moment of passing through the 
 valley of the shadow of death, it is apt to soothe the 
 anguish, by visions of heavenly bliss, but to an evil con- 
 science it may also appear as an avenger, by prefiguring 
 impending judgment and condemnation. It is this in- 
 fluence on the lives, of men, and their great moral im- 
 portance, which lends to visions and in a certain degree 
 even to hallucinations additional interest, and makes 
 it ourdu,ty not to set them aside as mere idle phantoms, 
 but to try to ascertain their true nature and final pur- 
 pose. This is all the more necessary, as in our day vis- 
 ions are considered purely the offspring of the seers own 
 mental activity, a truth abundantly proven by the sim- 
 ple fact that blind or deaf people are quite as capable of 
 having visions and hallucinations, as those who have 
 the use of all their senses. 
 
 Thus these magic phenomena have, in an unbroken 
 chain, accompanied almost all the great men who are 
 known to history, from the earliest time to our own 
 day. In modern times they have often been success- 
 fully traced to bodily and mental disorders; but this 
 fact diminishes in no way the interest which they have 
 for the student of magic. The great Pascal, who was 
 once threatened with instant death by the upsetting of 
 his carriage, henceforth saw perpetually an abyss by his
 
 VISIONS. 145 
 
 side, from which fiery flames issued forth ; he could 
 conceal it by simply placing a chair or a table between 
 it and his eyes. In the case of the English painter 
 Blake, who had visions of historic personages which 
 appeared to him in idealized outlines, his periodical 
 aberrations of mind were accepted as sufficient expla- 
 nation. The bookseller Nicolai, of Berlin, on the con- 
 trary, who, like Beaumont, saw hundreds of men, 
 women, and children accompanying him in his walks 
 or visiting him in his chamber, found his ghostly 
 company dependent on the state of his health. "When 
 he was bled or when leeches were applied, the images 
 grew pale, and disappeared in part or dissolved entirely. 
 A peculiarity of his case was, that he never saw visions 
 in the dark, but all his phantasms appeared in broad 
 daylight, or at night when candles had been brought 
 in or a large fire was burning in the fireplace. Captain 
 Henry Bell had been repeatedly urged by a German 
 friend of his, Caspar von Sparr, to translate the Table- 
 talk of Martin Luther, which, having been suppressed by 
 an edict of the Emperor Kudolphus, had become very 
 rare, and of which Sparr had sent him a copy, discovered 
 by himself in a cellar where it had lain buried for fifty- 
 two years. Captain Bell commenced the work ; but 
 abandoned it after a little while. A few weeks later a 
 white-haired old man appeared to him at night, pulling 
 his ear and saying: " What ! will you not take time to 
 translate the book ? I will give you soon a place for it 
 and the necessary leisure." Bell was much startled ; 
 
 7
 
 146 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 but nevertheless neglected the work. A fortnight after 
 the vision he was arrested and lodged in the gate-house 
 of Westminster, where he remained for ten years, of 
 which he spent five in the translation of the work. 
 (Beaumont, " Tractat.," p. 72.) Even religious visions 
 have by no means ceased in modern times, and more 
 than one remarkable conversion is ascribed to such 
 agency. We do not speak of so-called miracles like 
 that of the children of Salette in the department of 
 the Isere, in 1849, or the recent revelations at Lourdes, 
 and in Southern Alsace, which were publicly endorsed 
 by leading men of the church, and have furnished rich 
 material even for political demonstrations. The vision 
 of Major Gardiner, also, who, just before committing a 
 sinful action, beheld the Saviour and became a changed 
 man, has been so often published and so thoroughly 
 discussed that it need not be repeated here. The con- 
 version of young Eatisbone, in 1843, created at the 
 time an immense sensation. He was bom of Jewish 
 parents, but, like only too many of his race, grew up to 
 become a freethinker and a scoffer, rejecting all faiths 
 as idle superstitions. One day he strolled into the 
 church Delle Fratte in Rome, and while sunk in deep 
 meditation, suddenly beheld a vision of the Virgin 
 Mary, which made so deep an impression upon him 
 that it changed the whole tenor of his life. He gave 
 up the great wealth to which he had fallen heir, he 
 renounced a lovely betrothed, and resolutely turning 
 his back upon the world, he entered, as a novice, into a
 
 visioxs. 147 
 
 Jesuit convent ; thus literally forsaking all in order to 
 follow Christ. 
 
 The magic phenomena accompanying visions, have, 
 among nations of the Sclavic race, not unfrequently a 
 specially formidable and repellent character, corre- 
 sponding, no doubt, with the temperament and turn of 
 imagination peculiar to that race. The Sclaves are apt 
 to be ridden by invisible men, till they drop down in a 
 swoon; they are driven by wild beasts to the graves of 
 criminals, where they behold fearful sights, or they are 
 forced to mingle with troops of evil spirits roving over 
 the wide, waste steppes, and they invariably suffer from 
 the sad effects of such visions, till a premature death 
 relieves them after a few months. In "Wallachia a 
 special vision of the so-called Pickolitch is quite com- 
 mon, and has, in one case at least, been officially re- 
 corded by military authorities. A poor private soldier, 
 Avho had already more than once suffered from visions, 
 was ordered to stand guard in a lonely mountain pass, 
 and forced by the rules of the service to take his place 
 there, although he begged hard to be allowed to ex- 
 change with a brother soldier, as he knew he would 
 come to grief. The officer in command, struck by the 
 earnestness of his prayer, promised to lend him all 
 possible assistance, and placed a second sentinel for his 
 support close behind him. At half past ten o'clock 
 the officer and a high civil functionary saw a dark 
 figure rush by the house in which they were ; they 
 hastened at once to the post, where two shots had
 
 148 MODERX MAGIC. 
 
 fallen in rapid succession, and found the inner sentinel, 
 the still smoking rifle in hand, staring fixedly at the 
 place where his comrade had stood, and utterly uncon- 
 scious of the approach of his superior. AVhen they 
 reached the outer post they found the rifle on the 
 ground, shattered to pieces, and the heavy barrel bent 
 in the shape of a scythe, while the man himself lay at a 
 considerable distance, groaning with pain, for his whole 
 body was so severely burnt that he died on the follow- 
 ing day. The survivor stated that a black figure had 
 fallen, as if from heaven, upon his comrade and torn 
 him to pieces in spite of the two shots he had fired at 
 it from a short distance, then it had vanished again in 
 an instant. The matter was duly reported to head- 
 quarters, and when an investigation was ordered, the 
 fact was discovered that a number of precisely similar 
 occurrences had already been officially recorded. The 
 vision is, of course, nothing more than a product of the 
 excited imagination of the mountaineers, who lend the 
 favorite shape of a " Pickolitch " to the frequent, bizarre- 
 looking masses of fog and mist which rise in their dark 
 valleys, hover over gullies and abysses, and driven by a 
 sudden current of wind, fly upward with amazing 
 rapidity, and thus seem to disappear in an instant. 
 The apprehension of the poor sentinel, on the other 
 hand, was a kind of clairvoyance produced by the com- 
 bined influence of local tradition, the nightly hour and 
 the dark pass, upon a previously-excited mind, while 
 the vision of the two officers was a similar magic phe-
 
 VISIONS. 149 
 
 nomena, the result of the impressions made upon them 
 by the instant prayer of the victim, and a hot discus- 
 sion about the reality of the " Prikolitch." The sen- 
 tinel probably saw a weird shape and fired ; the gun 
 burst and killed him outright, setting fire to his clothes, 
 a supposition strengthened by the statement that the 
 poor fellow, anticipating a meeting with the spectre, 
 had put a double charge into his rifle. The accident 
 teaches once more that a mere denial of facts and a 
 haughty smile at the idea of visions profit us nothing, 
 while a calm and careful examination of all the cir- 
 cumstances may throw much light upon their nature, 
 and help, in the course of time, to extirpate fatal 
 superstitions, like those of the " Prikolitch." 
 
 It is interesting to see how harmless and even 
 pleasant are, in comparison, the visions of men with 
 well-trained minds and kindly dispositions. The book- 
 seller Nicolai entertained his phantom-guests, and was 
 much amused, at times, by their conversation. Mac- 
 nish ("Sleep," p. 194) tells us the same of Dr. Bostock, 
 who had frequent visions, and of an elderly lady whom 
 Dr. Alderson treated for gout, and who received friendly 
 visits from kinsmen and acquaintances with whom she 
 conversed, but who disappeared instantly when she 
 rang for her maid. Another patient of Dr. Alderson's, 
 who saw himself in the same manner surrounded by 
 numbers of persons, even felt the blows which a phan- 
 tom-carter gave him with his whip. Although in all 
 these cases the visions disappeared after energetic
 
 150 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 bleeding and purging, the phenomena were neverthe- 
 less real as far as they affected the patient, and have in 
 every instance been fully authenticated and scientific- 
 ally investigated. The well-known author, Macnish, 
 himself was frequently a victim of this kind of self- 
 delusion ; he saw during an attack of fever fearful 
 hellish shapes, forming and dissolving at pleasure, and 
 during one night he beheld a whole theatre filled with 
 people, among whom he recognized many friends and 
 acquaintances, while on the stage he saw the famous 
 Ducrow with his horses. As soon as he opened his 
 eyes the scene disappeared, but the music continued, 
 for the orchestra played a magnificent march from 
 Aladdin, and did not cease its magic performance for 
 five hours. The vision of the eye seems thus to have 
 been under the influence of his will, but his hearing 
 was beyond his control. 
 
 A very interesting class of visions accompanied by 
 undoubted magic phenomena, and as frequent in our 
 day as at any previous period, is formed by those which 
 are the result of climatic and topographic peculiari- 
 ties. We have already stated that the peculiar impres- 
 sion made upon predisposed minds by vast deserts and 
 boundless wastes- is frequently ascribed, by the super- 
 stitious dwellers near such localities, to the influence 
 of evil spirits. Such a vision is the Ragl of Northern 
 Africa, which occurs either after fatiguing journeys 
 through the dry, hot desert, in consequence of great 
 nervous excitement, or as one of the symptoms of
 
 VISIONS. ] 5 1 
 
 typhoid fever in native patients. Seeing and hearing 
 are alike affected, the other senses only in rare cases. 
 Ordinarily the eye sees everything immensely magni- 
 fied or oddly changed ; pebbles become huge blocks of 
 stone, faint tracks in the hot sand change into broad 
 causeways or ample meadows, and distant shadows ap- 
 pear as animals, wells, or mountain-dells. If the moon 
 rises the vision increases in size and distinctness ; the 
 scene becomes animated, men pass by, camels follow 
 each other in long lines, and troops are marching past 
 in battalions. Then the ear also begins to succumb to 
 the charm; the rustling of dry leaves becomes the 
 sweet song of numerous birds; the wind changes into 
 cries of despair, and the noise of falling sand into dis- 
 tant thunder. The brain remains apparently unaf- 
 fected, for travelers suffering of the Ragl are able to 
 make notes and record the symptoms, although the 
 note-book looks to them like a huge album with costly 
 engravings. There can be little doubt that the great 
 afflux of blood to the eyes and the ears is the first cause 
 of these phenomena, but the peculiar nature of the 
 visions remains still a mystery. One striking peculi- 
 arity is their unvarying identity in men of the same 
 race and culture ; Europeans have their own halluci- 
 nations which are not shared by Africans ; the former 
 see churches, houses, and carriages, the latter mosques, 
 tents, and camels, thus proving here also the fact that 
 these delusions of the senses are produced in the mind 
 and not in the outer world. Travelers who suffer from
 
 152 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 hunger or from the dread effects of the simoon are 
 naturally more subject to the Ragl than others; the 
 visions generally appear towards midnight and continue 
 till six or seven o'clock in the morning, while during 
 the day they are only seen in cases of aggravated suf- 
 fering. Another peculiarity is the fact that these 
 visions connect themselves only with small objects and 
 moderate sounds ; the gentle friction of a vibrating 
 tassel on his camel's neck appeared to the great ex- 
 plorer Eichardson like the clacking of a mill-wheel, but 
 the words shouted by his companion sounded quite nat- 
 ural. Thus he saw in every little lichen a green gar- 
 den spot, but the stars he discerned distinctly enough 
 to direct his way by them even when suffering most in- 
 tensely from the Eagl. 
 
 The Fata Morgana of the so-called Great Desert in 
 Oregon, in which the waters of the Paducah, Kansas, 
 and Arkansas lose themselves to a great extent, is a 
 kindred affection. Here also phantoms of every kind 
 are seen, gigantic horsemen, colossal buildings, and 
 flitting fires ; but the absence of heat makes the visions 
 less frequent and less distinct. The Indians, however, 
 like the Moors of Africa, dread these apparitions and 
 ascribe them to evil spirits. These phenomena have be- 
 sides a special interest, by proving how constantly in all 
 these questions of modern magic facts are combined with 
 mere delusions. The flitting fires, to which we alluded, 
 for instance, are not mere visions, but real and tangible 
 substances, the effect of gaseous effusions which are
 
 VISIONS. 153 
 
 quite frequent on these steppes. So it is also with the 
 local visions peculiar to mountain regions, like the Lit- 
 tle Gray Man of the Grisons in Switzerland and the 
 gnomes of miners in almost all lauds. The dwellers in 
 Alpine regions acquire or even inherit, it may be a 
 peculiar power of divination with regard to the weath- 
 er; they feel instinctively, and without ever giving 
 themselves the trouble of trying to ascertain the rea- 
 son, the approach of fogs and mists, so dangerous to 
 the welfare of their herds and their own safety. This 
 presentiment is clothed by local traditions and their 
 own vivid imaginations in the familiar shape of super- 
 natural beings, and what was at first perhaps merely a 
 form of speech, has gradually become a deep-rooted be- 
 lief handed down from father to son. They end by 
 really seeing with their mind's eye the rising mists 
 and drifting fogs in the shape which they have so often 
 heard mentioned, or give to rising gases, far down in 
 the bowels of the earth, the form of familiar gnomes. 
 These visions are hence not altogether produced by the 
 imagination, but have, so to say, a grain of truth around 
 which the weird form is woven. 
 
 A numerous class of visions, presenting some of the 
 most interesting phenomena of this branch of magic, 
 must be looked upon as the result of the innate desire 
 to fathom the mystery of future life. The human 
 heart, conscious of immortality by nature and assured 
 of it by revelation, desires ardently to lift the veil which 
 conceals the secrets of the life to come. Among other
 
 154 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 means to accomplish this, the promise has often been 
 exacted of dear friends, that they would., after death, 
 return and make known their condition in the other 
 world. Snch compacts have been made from time 
 immemorial but so far their only result has been that 
 the survivors have believed occasionally that they have 
 received visits from deceased friends in other words, 
 that their state of great excitement and eager expectation 
 has caused them to have visions. It remains true, after 
 all, that from that bourne no traveler ever returns. 
 Nevertheless, these visions have a deep interest for the 
 psychologist, as they are the result of unconscious 
 action, and thus display what thoughts dwell in our 
 innermost heart concerning the future.
 
 V. 
 GHOSTS. 
 
 " Sunt aliquid manes ; letum non omnia finit." 
 
 THERE are few subjects, outside of the vexed ques- 
 tions of Theology, on which eminent men of all nations 
 and ages have held more varied views than so-called 
 ghosts. The very term has been understood differently 
 by almost every great writer who has approached the 
 boundary line of this department of magic. The word 
 which is now commonly used in order to designate any 
 immaterial being, not made of the earth, earthy, or 
 perhaps, in a higher sense, the " body spiritual " of St. 
 Paul, was in the early days of Christianity applied to 
 the visible spirits of deceased persons only. In the 
 Middle Ages again, when everything weird and un- 
 natural was unhesitatingly ascribed to diabolic agency, 
 these phenomena, also, were regarded as nothing else 
 but the Devil's work. Theologians have added in 
 recent days a new subject of controversy to. this vexed 
 matter. The divines of the seventeenth and eighteenth 
 century denied, of course, the possibility of a reappear- 
 ance of the spirits of the departed, as they were in 
 consistency bound to deny the existence of a purgatory, 
 and yet, from purgatory alone were these spirits, accord-
 
 150 MODEUX MAGIC. 
 
 ing to popular belief, allowed to revisit the earth heaven 
 and hell being comparatively closed places. As the 
 people insisted upon seeing ghosts, however, there 
 remained nothing but to declare them to be delusions 
 produced for malign purposes by the Evil One himself; 
 and so decided, not many generations ago, the Con- 
 sistory of Basle in an appeal made by a German mystic 
 author, Jung Stilling. And yet it is evident that a 
 number of eminent thinkers, and not a few of the most 
 skeptic philosophers even, have believed in the occur- 
 rence of such visits by inmates of Sheol. Hugo Grotius 
 and Pufieudorf. whose far-famed worldly wisdom entitles 
 their views to great respect, Machiavelli and Boccaccio, 
 Thomasius and even Kant, all have repeatedly admitted 
 the existence of what we familiarly call ghosts. The 
 great philosopher of Konigsberg enters fully into the 
 subject. " Immaterial beings," he says, " including 
 the souls of men and animals, may exist, though they 
 must be considered as not filling space but only acting 
 within the limits of space." He admits the probability 
 that ere long the process will be discovered, by which 
 the human soul, even in this life, is closely connected 
 with the immaterial inmates of the world of spirits, a 
 connection which he states to be operative in both 
 directions, men affecting spirits and spirits acting upon 
 men, though the latter are unconscious of such impres- 
 sions " as long as all is well." In the same manner in 
 which the physical world is under the control of a law 
 of gravity, he believes the spiritual world to be ruled by
 
 GHOSTS. 157 
 
 a moral law, which causes a distinction between good 
 and evil spirits. The same belief is entertained and 
 fully discussed by French" authors of eminence, such as 
 Des Mousseaux, De Mirville, and others. The Catholic 
 church has never absolutely denied the doctrine of 
 ghosts, perhaps considering itself bound by the biblical 
 statement that " the graves were opened and many 
 bodies of the saints which slept, arose and came out of 
 the graves and went into the holy city and appeared unto 
 many." (St. Matt, xxvii. 52.) Tertullian, St. Augustine, 
 and Thomas de Aquinas, all state distinctly, as a dogma, 
 that the souls of the departed can leave their home, 
 though not at will, but only by special permission of 
 the Almighty. St. Augustine mentions saints by whom 
 he was visited, and Thomas de Aquinas speaks even of 
 the return of accursed inmates of hell, for the purpose of 
 terrifying and converting criminals in this world. The 
 "Encyclopedia of Catholic Theology" (iv. p. 489) states 
 that " although the theory of ghosts has never become 
 a dogma of the Holy Church, it has ever maintained 
 itself, and existed in the days of Christ, who did not 
 condemn it, when it was mentioned in his presence." 
 (St. Matt. xiv. 26 ; St. Luke xxiv. 37.) 
 
 Calmet, the well-known Benedictine Abbot of Senou, 
 in Lorraine, who was one of the most renowned theo- 
 logical writers of the eighteenth century, says (i. 17) : 
 " Apparitions of ghosts would be more readily under- 
 stood if spirits had a body ; but the Holy Church has de- 
 cided that angels, devils and the spirits of the departed
 
 158 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 are pure immaterial spirits. Since this question tran- 
 scends our mental faculties, we must submit to the 
 judgment of the Church, which cannot err." Another 
 great theologian, the German Bengel, on the contrary, 
 assumed that "probably the apparitions of the departed 
 have a prescribed limit and then cease ; they continue 
 probably as long as all the ties between body and soul 
 are not fully dissolved." This question of the nature 
 of our existence during the time immediately following 
 death, is, it is well known, one of the most vexed of our 
 day, for while most divines of the Protestant Church 
 assume an immediate decision of our eternal fate, others 
 admit the probability of an intermediate state, and the 
 Catholic Church has its well-known probationary state 
 in purgatory. It may as well be stated here at once 
 that the whole theory of ghosts is admissible only if we 
 assume that there follows after death a period during 
 which the soul undergoes, not an immediate rupture, 
 but a slow, gradual separation from its body, accom- 
 panied by a similar gradual adaptation to its new mode 
 of existence. Whether the spirit, during this time, 
 is still sufficiently akin to earthy substances to be able 
 to clothe itself into some material perceptible to the 
 senses of living men, is of comparatively little impor- 
 tance. The idea of such an " ethereal body " is very 
 old, and has never ceased to be entertained. Thus, in 
 1306, already Guido de la Tones, who died in Verona, 
 appeared during eight days to his wife, his neighbors, 
 and a number of devout priests, and declared in
 
 GHOSTS. 159 
 
 answer to their questions that the spirits of the de- 
 parted possessed the power to clothe themselves with 
 air, and thus to become perceptible to living beings. 
 Bayle also, in his article on Spinoza (note 2), advo- 
 cates the possibility, at least, of physical effects being 
 produced by agents whose presence we are not able to 
 perceive by the use of our ordinary senses. Even so 
 eminently practical a mind as Lessing's was bewildered 
 by the difficulties surrounding this question, and he 
 declared that " here his wits were at an end." 
 
 Another great German writer, Goerres, in his " Chris- 
 tian Mystic " (iii. p. 307), not only admits the existence 
 of ghosts, but explains them as "the higher prototypal 
 form of man freed from the earthy form, the spectrum 
 relieved of its envelope, which can be present wherever 
 it chooses within the prescribed limits of its domain." 
 This view is, however, not supported by the experience 
 of those who believe they have seen ghosts; for the 
 latter appear only occasionally in a higher, purified 
 form, resembling ethereal beings, as a mere whitish 
 vapor or a shape formed of faint light ; by far more 
 generally they are seen in the form and even the cos- 
 tume of their earthy existence. The only evidence of 
 really supernatural or magic powers accompanying 
 such phenomena consists in the ineffable dread which is 
 apt to oppress the heart and to cause intense bodily suf- 
 fering ; in the cold chill which invariably precedes the 
 apparition, and in the profound and exquisitely painful 
 emotion which is never again forgotten throughout life.
 
 160 MODERX MAGIC. 
 
 As yet, the subject has been so little studied by can- 
 did inquiries, that there are but a few facts which can 
 be mentioned as fully established. The form and shape 
 under which ghosts appear, are the result of the imagi- 
 nation of the ghost seer only, whether he beholds angels 
 or devils, men or animals. If his receptive power is 
 highly developed, he will see them in their completeness, 
 and discern even the minutest details ; weak persons, 
 on the other hand, perceive nothing more than a faiut, 
 luminous or whitish appearance, mere fragmentary and 
 embryonic visions. These powers of perception may, 
 however, be improved by practice, and those who see 
 ghosts frequently, are sure to discover one feature after 
 another, until the whole form stands clearly and dis- 
 tinctly before their mind's eye. The ear is generally 
 more susceptible than the eye to the approach of ghosts, 
 and often warns the mind long before the apparition be- 
 comes visible. The noises heard are apt to be vague and 
 ill defined, consisting mainly of a low whispering or 
 restless rustling, a strange moving to and fro, or the 
 blowing of cold air in various directions. Many sounds, 
 however, are so peculiar, that they are never heard ex- 
 cept in connection with ghosts, and hence, baffle all 
 description. It need not be added, that the great major- 
 ity of such sounds also exist only in the mind of the 
 hearer, but as the latter is, in his state of excitement, 
 fully persuaded that he hears them, they are to him as 
 real as if they existed outside of his being. Nor are 
 they always confined to the ghost seer. On the contrary,
 
 GHOSTS. 101 
 
 the hearing of such sounds is as contagions as the see- 
 ing of such sights; and not only men are thus affected, 
 and see and hear what others experience, bnt even the 
 higher animals, horses and dogs, share in this suscepti- 
 bility. When ghosts appear to speak, the voice is almost 
 always engastrimantic, that is, the ghost seer produces 
 the words himself, in a state of ecstatic unconsciousness, 
 and probably by a kind of instinctive ventriloquism. 
 To these phenomena of sight and hearing must be added, 
 thirdly, the occasional violent moving about of heavy 
 substances. Furniture seems to change its place, pon- 
 derous objects disappear entirely, or the whole surround- 
 ing scene assumes a new order and arrangement. These 
 phenomena, as far as they really exist, must be ascribed 
 to higher, as yet unexplained powers, and suggest the 
 view entertained by many writers on the subject, that 
 disembodied spirits, as they are freed from the mechani- 
 cal laws of nature, possess also the power to suspend 
 them in everything with which they come in contact. 
 The last feature in ghost-seeing, which is essential, is 
 the cold shudder, the ineffable dread, which falls upon 
 poor mortal man, at the moment when he is brought 
 into contact with an unknown world. Already Job 
 said: "Fear came upon me and trembling, which made 
 all my bones to shake. Then a spirit passed before my 
 face ; the hair of my flesh stood up " (iv. 14, 15). This 
 sense of vague, and yet almost intolerable dread, resem- 
 bles the agony of the dying man ; it is perfectly natural, 
 since the seeing of ghosts, that is, of disembodied spirits,
 
 162 MODEEX MAGIC. 
 
 can only become possible by the more or less complete 
 suspension of the ordinary life in the flesh. For a mo- 
 ment, all bodily functions are suspended, the activity of 
 the brain ceases, and consciousness itself is lost as in a 
 fit of fainting. This rarely happens without a brief 
 instinctive struggle, and the final victory of an unseen 
 and unknown power, which deprives the mind of its 
 habitual mastery over the body, is necessarily accom- 
 panied by intense pain and overwhelming anguish. 
 
 Well-authenticated cases of the appearance of spirits 
 of departed persons are mentioned in the earliest writ- 
 ings. Valerius Maximus relates in graphic words the 
 experience of the poet Simonides, who was about to 
 enter a vessel for the purpose of undertaking a long 
 journey with some of his friends, when he discovered a 
 dead body lying unburied on the sea-shore. Shocked 
 by the impiety of the unknown man's friends, he delay- 
 ed his departure to give to the corpse a decent funeral. 
 During the following night, the spirit of this man ap- 
 peared to him and advised him not to sail on the next 
 day. He obeys the warning; his friends leave without 
 him, and perish miserably in a great tempest. Deeply 
 moved by his sad loss, but equally grateful for his own 
 miraculous escape, he erected to the memory of his un- 
 known friend a noble monument in verses, unmatched 
 in beauty and pathos. Phlegon, also, the freedman of 
 the Emperor Hadrian, has left us in his work, De Mi- 
 rabilibus, one of the most touching instances of such 
 ghost-seeing; it is the well-known story of Machates
 
 GHOSTS. 163 
 
 and Pbilimion, which Goethe reproduced in his "Bride 
 of Corinth." Xor must we forget the numerous exam- 
 ples of visions in dreams, by which the Almighty chose 
 to reveal His will to his beloved among the chosen pep- 
 pie a series of apparitions, which the Church has taken 
 care to continue during the earlier ages, in almost un- 
 broken succession from saint to saint. Pagans were 
 converted by such revelations, martyrs were comforted, 
 the wounded healed, and even an Emperor, Constantine, 
 cured of leprosy, by the appearance of the two apostles, 
 Peter and Paul. 
 
 The truth, which lies at the bottom of all such ap- 
 pearances, is probably, that ghostly disturbances are 
 uniformly the acts of men, but of men who have ceased 
 for a time to be free agents, and who have, for reasons 
 to be explained presently, acquired exceptional powers. 
 Thus, a famous jurist, Counselor Hellfeld, in Jena, was 
 one evening on the point of signing the death warrant 
 of a cavalry soldier. The subject had deeply agitated 
 his mind for days, and before seizing his pen, he invoked, 
 as was his custom in such cases, the " aid of the Al- 
 mighty through His holy spirit." At that moment it 
 was an hour before midnight he hears heavy blows fall 
 upon his window, which sound as if the panes were 
 struck with a riding-whip. His clerk also hears the 
 blows distinctly, and begins to tremble violently. This 
 apparent accident induces the judge to delay his action ; 
 he devotes the next day to a careful re-perusal of the 
 evidence, and is now led to the conviction that the crime
 
 164 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 deserves only a minor punishment. Ere the year bus 
 closed, another criminal is caught, and volunteers the 
 confession that he was the perpetrator of the crime for 
 which the soldier was punished. In that solemn mo- 
 ment, it was, of course, only the judge's own mind, 
 deeply moved and worn out by painful work, which 
 warned him in a symbolic manner not to be precipitate, 
 and the very fact that the blows sounded as if they had 
 been produced by a whip proved his unconscious asso- 
 ciation of the noise with the cavalry soldier. And yet 
 he and his clerk believed and solemnly affirmed, that 
 they had heard the mysterious blows! This dualism, 
 which, as it were, divides man into two beings, one of 
 whom follows and watches the other, while both are 
 unconscious of their identity, is the magic element in 
 these phenomena. This unconsciousness, proving as 
 in dreams the inactivity of our reason, produces the 
 natural effect, that we fancy all ghostly appearances are 
 foolish, wanton and wicked. The fact is, moreover that 
 they almost always proceed from a more or less diseased 
 or disturbed mind, and acquire importance only in so 
 far as it is our duty here also to eliminate truth from 
 error. Thus only can we hope to counteract their mis- 
 chievous tendency, and to prevent still stronger delu- 
 sions from obtaining a mastery over weak minds. This 
 is the purpose of a club formed in London in 1869, the 
 members of which find amusement and useful employ- 
 ment in investigating all cases of haunted houses and 
 other ghostly appearances.
 
 GHOSTS. 165 
 
 That the belief in ghostly disturbances is not a mod- 
 ern error, we see from St. Augustine, who already men- 
 tions the farm of a certain Hasparius as disquieted by 
 loud noises till the prayer of a pious priest restored 
 peace. The Catholic Church has a St. Caesarius, who 
 purified in like manner the house of the physician 
 Elpidius in Eavenna, which was filled with evil spirits 
 and only admitted the owner after he had passed 
 through a shower of stones. Another saint, Hubertus, 
 was himself annoyed by ghosts in his residence at 
 Camens, and never succeeded in obtaining peace till he 
 died, in 958. Wicked or interested men take, of course, 
 but too readily advantage of the credulity of men and 
 employ similar disturbances for personal purposes; snch 
 was the case with the ghosts that haunted the Council 
 house in Constance and the palace at Woodstock in 
 Cromwell's time. The case of a scrupulously consci- 
 entious Protestant minister in Germany, which created 
 in 1719 a great excitement throughout the empire, is 
 well calculated to show the real nature of a number of 
 such ghostly disturbances. He had been called to the 
 death-bed of a notorious sinner, a woman, who desired 
 at the last moment to receive the comforts of religion. 
 Unfortunately he reached her house too late; she was 
 already unconscious, and died in his presence, as he 
 thought, unreconciled with her God and with himself, 
 whom she had often insulted and cursed in life. Deeply 
 disturbed he returned home, and after having dwelt 
 upon the painful subject with intense anxiety for sev-
 
 166 MODEKX MAGIC. 
 
 eral days he began to hear footsteps in his house. Grad- 
 ually they became more frequent; then he distinguished 
 them clearly as a woman's step, and at last they were 
 accompanied by the dragging of a gown. Watches 
 were set, sand was strewn, dogs were kept in the house 
 but all in vain ; no trace of man was found, and still 
 the sounds continued. The unhappy man prayed clay 
 and night, and the noise disappeared for a fortnight. 
 When he ceased praying they returned, louder than 
 ever. He sternly bids the ghost desist, and behold ! the 
 ghost obeys. When he asks if it is a good angel or a 
 demon, no answer is given ; but the question : Art thou 
 the Devil ? finds an immediate reply in rapid steps up 
 and down the house for the poor man's mind was 
 filled with the idea that such things can be done only 
 by the Evil One. At last he summons all his remain- 
 ing energy and in a tone of command he orders the 
 ghost to depart and never to reappear. From that mo- 
 ment all disturbances cease and very naturally, for the 
 haunted, disturbed man, had fully recovered the com- 
 mand over himself; the dualism that produced all the 
 spectral phenomena had ceased, and the restored mind 
 accomplished its own cure. As these phenomena are 
 thus produced from within, it appears perfectly natural 
 also that they should be reported as occurring most fre- 
 quently in the month of November. Religious minds 
 and superstitious dispositions have brought this fact 
 into a quaint connection with the approach of Advent- 
 time, but the cause is probably purely physical ; the
 
 GHOSTS. 107 
 
 dark and dismal month with its dense fogs emblematic 
 of coming winter predisposes the mind to gloomy 
 thoughts and renders it less capable of resisting atmo- 
 spheric influences. 
 
 A very general belief ascribes such disturbances, un- 
 der the name of "haunted houses," to the souls of 
 deceased persons who can find no rest beyond the 
 grave. The series of ghost stories based upon this sup- 
 position begins with the account of Suetonius and con- 
 tinues unbroken to our day. Then it was the spirit of 
 Caligula, which could not be quiet so long as his body, 
 which had only been half burned, remained in that dis- 
 graceful condition. Night after night his house and 
 his garden were visited by strange apparitions, till the 
 palace was destroyed by fire and the emperor's sisters 
 rendered the last honors to his remains. 
 
 Thus the disposition of modern inquiries to trace 
 back all popular accounts of great events, all familiar 
 anecdotes and fairy tales, and even proverbs and max- 
 ims, to the ancients, has been fully gratified in this case 
 also. They were not only known to antiquity, but 
 formed a staple of popular tales. Thus the younger 
 Pliny tells us one which he had frequently heard related. 
 At Athens there stood a large, comfortable mansion, 
 which, however, was ill-reputed. Night after night, it 
 was said, chains were heard rattling, first at a distance, 
 and then coming nearer, till a pale, haggard shape was 
 seen approaching, wearing beard and hair in long dis- 
 hevelled locks and clanking the chains it bore on hands
 
 168 MODEKX MAGIC. 
 
 and feet. The occupants of the house could not sleep, 
 were terrified, sickened and died. Thus it came about 
 that the fine building stood empty, year after year, and 
 was at last offered for sale at a low price. About that 
 time the philosopher Athenodorus came to Athens and 
 saw the notice; he had his suspicions aroused by the 
 small sum demanded for the house, inquired about the 
 causes and rented the house. For he was a man of 
 courage and meant to fathom the mystery. 
 
 On the evening of the first day he dismissed his serv- 
 ants and remained alone in the front room, writing and 
 occupying himself, purposely, with grave and abstract 
 questions, so as to allow no opening for his imagination. 
 As soon as all was quiet around him the clanking and 
 rattling of chains begins ; but he pays no heed and con- 
 tinues to write. The noise approaches and enters the 
 room ; as he looks up he sees the well-known weird 
 shape before him. It beckons him, but he demands 
 patience and writes on as before; then the ghost shakes 
 his chains over his head and beckons once more imper- 
 atively. Now he rises, takes his lamp, and follows his 
 visitor through the passages into a court-yard, where 
 the ghost disappears. The philosopher pulls up some 
 grass on the spot and marks the place. On the follow- 
 ing day he appeals to the authorities to cause the place 
 to be dug up ; and when this is done, the bones of an old 
 man, loaded with heavy chains, are found. From that 
 time the house was left undisturbed, as if the departed 
 had only desired to induce some intelligent person to
 
 GHOSTS. ] 69 
 
 bestow upon him the honors of a decent burial, which 
 among the ancients were held all-important. (" Letter 
 to Sera," 1. vii. 27.) The story told by Lucian ("Philo- 
 pseudes," xxx.) is almost identical with that of Pliny. 
 Here, also, a house in Corinth, once belonging to 
 Eubatides, was left unoccupied, for the same reasons, 
 and began to decay, when the Pythagorean, Arignotus, 
 determined to ascertain the reality of these nightly 
 appearances. He goes there after midnight, places his 
 lamp on the floor, lies down and begins to read. Soon 
 a horrible monster appears, black as night, and changes 
 from one disgusting beast into another, till at last it 
 yields to the stern command of the intrepid philoso- 
 pher and disappears in a corner of the large room. 
 When day breaks, workmen are brought in to take up 
 the floor ; a skeleton is found and decently interred, and 
 from that day the house is left to its usual peace and 
 quiet. ("Epist." 1. vii. 27.) Plutarch, also, in his "Life 
 of Cimon," states that the baths at Chseronea were 
 haunted by the ghost of Damon, who had there found 
 his death; the doors were walled up and the \ lace for- 
 saken, but up to his day no relief had been devised, 
 and fearful sights and terrible sounds continued to ren- 
 der the place uninhabitable. 
 
 Nor are Eastern lands unacquainted with this popu- 
 lar belief. Egypt has its haunted houses in nearly 
 every village, and in Cairo there are a great number, 
 while in Tunis whole streets were abandoned to ghostly 
 occupants. In Nankin a great mandarin owned a 
 
 8
 
 170 MODEKX MAGIC. 
 
 spacious building which he could neither occupy him- 
 self nor rent to others, because of its evil reputation. 
 At last the Jesuit Riccius, a missionary, offered to take 
 it for his order; the fathers moved into it, conquered 
 the ghosts by some means best known to themselves, 
 and not only obtained a good house but great prestige 
 with the natives for their triumph over the spirits (C. 
 Hasart. Hist. Eccles. Sinica, p. 4, ch. iii.). 
 
 The same singular belief is not only met with in 
 every age and among the most enlightened nations, but 
 even in our own century a similar case occurred and is 
 well authenticated. The Duke Charles Alexander of 
 Wurtemberg of unholy memory, died at the town of 
 Ludwigsburg, perhaps by murder. For years afterwards 
 the palace was the scene of most violent disturbances ; 
 even the sentinels, powerful and well-armed men, were 
 bodily lifted up and thrown across the parapet of the 
 terrace. At other times the whole building appeared to 
 be filled with people ; doors were opened and closed, 
 lights were seen in the apartments and dim figures flit- 
 ted to and fro. Large detachments of troops under 
 the command of officers, specially selected for the pur- 
 pose, were ordered to march through the palace more 
 than once, on such occasions, but never discovered a 
 trace of human agency (Kerner. Bilder.p. 143). Even 
 the great Frederick of Prussia, a man whose- thoroughly 
 skeptical mind might surely be supposed to have been, 
 free from all superstition, was once forced to admit his 
 inability to explain by natural causes an occurrence of
 
 GHOSTS. I T 1 
 
 the kind. A Catholic priest in Silesia lost his cook, 
 who had been specially dear to him ; her ghost as it 
 was called continued to haunt the house, and, most 
 strange of all, not in order to disturb its peace, but to 
 perform the usual domestic service. The floors were 
 swept, the fires made, and linen washed, all by invisible 
 hands. Frederick, who accidentally heard of the mat- 
 ter, ordered a captain and a lieutenant of his guard to 
 investigate it; they were received by the beating of 
 drums and then allowed to witness the same household 
 performances. When the grim old captain broke out 
 in a fearful curse, he received a severe box on the ears 
 and retreated utterly discomfited. Upon his report to 
 the king the house was pulled down and a new parson- 
 age erected at some distance from the place. The oc- 
 currence is mentioned in many historical works and 
 quoted without comment even by the great historian 
 Menzel. Another striking case of a somewhat different 
 character, was fully reported to the Colonial Office in 
 London. The scene was a large vault in the island of 
 Barbadoes, hewn out of the live rock and accessible 
 only through a huge iron door, fastened in the usual 
 way by strong bolts and a lock, the key to which was 
 kept at the Government House. During the year 1819 
 it was opened four times for purposes of interment, and 
 each time it was observed that all the coffins in the 
 vault had been violently thrown about. The Governor, 
 Lord Combermere, went himself, accompanied by his 
 staff and a number of officers, to examine the place, and
 
 172 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 found the vault itself in perfect order and without a 
 trace of violence. He ordered the door to be closed 
 with cement and placed his seal upon the latter, an ex- 
 ample followed by nearly all the bystanders. Eight 
 months later, the 28th of April, 1820, he had the vault 
 opened in the presence of a large company of friends 
 and within sight of a crowd of several thousands. The 
 cement and the seals were found to be perfect and un- 
 injured; the sand which had been carefully strewn over 
 the floor of the vault showed no footmark or sign 
 whatever, but the coffins were again thrown about in 
 great confusion. One, of such weight that it required 
 eight men to move it, was found standing upright, and 
 a child's coffin had been violently dashed against the 
 wall. A carefully drawn up report with accompanying 
 drawings was sent home, but no explanation has ever 
 been discovered. Scientific men were disposed to as- 
 cribe the disturbance to earthquakes, but the annals of 
 the island report none during those years; there re- 
 mains, however, the possibility that the examination of 
 the vault was after all imperfect, and that the sea might 
 have had access to it through some hidden cleft. In 
 that case an unusually high tide might very well have 
 been the invisible agent. 
 
 Even the Indian of our far West cherishes the same 
 superstitious belief, and in his lodge on the slopes of the 
 Eocky Mountains, he hears mysterious knockings. To 
 him they are the kindly warning of a spirit, whom he 
 calls the Great Bear, which announces some great 
 calamity.
 
 GHOSTS. 17:) 
 
 That certain localities seem to be frequented by ghosts, 
 that is, to be haunted, with special preference, must be 
 ascribed to the contagious nature of such mental affec- 
 tions as generally produce these phenomena. This is, 
 moreover, by no means limited, as is commonly believ- 
 ed, to Northern regions, where frequent fogs and dense 
 mists, short days and long nights, together with sombre 
 surroundings and awe-inspiring sounds in nature, com- 
 bine to predispose the mind to expect supernatural ap- 
 pearances. Thus, for instance, fair Suabia, one of the 
 most favored portions of Germany, sweet and smiling in 
 its fertile plains, and by no means specially gruesome, 
 even in the most secluded parts of the Black Forest, 
 teems with haunted localities. Dr. Kerner's home, 
 Weinsberg, enjoyed ghostly visits almost in every house ; 
 the neighborhood was similarly favored, and even in the 
 open country there are countless peasants' cottages and 
 noblemen's seats, which are frequented by ghosts. One 
 of the most attractive estates in "Wurtemberg was pur- 
 chased in 1815 by a distinguished soldier, whose daunt- 
 less courage had caused him to rise rapidly from grade 
 to grade under the eye of the great Napoleon. Soon 
 after his arrival his wife was aroused every night by a 
 variety of mysterious noises, rising from weird, low 
 winnings to terrific explosions. The colonel also heard 
 them, and tried his best to ascertain the cause. Night 
 after night, moreover, the great castle clock, which went 
 perfectly well all day long, struck at wrong hours, and 
 was found all wrong in the morning. The disturbing
 
 174 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 powers soon became personal ; for one night, when the 
 colonel, sitting at the supper table, and hearing the 
 usual sounds, said angrily, " I wish the ghost would make 
 himself known ! " a fearful explosion took place, knock- 
 ing down the speaker and bringing all the inmates of 
 the house to the room. Search was immediately insti- 
 tuted, and the main weight of the great clock was dis- 
 covered to be missing. A new weight had to be ordered, 
 and only long afterwards the old one was found wedged 
 in between two floors above the clock. Xor were the 
 disturbances confined to the castle : at midnight the 
 horses in the stable became restless and almost wild, 
 tearing themselves loose and sweating till they were 
 covered with white foam. One night the colonel went 
 to the stable, mounted his favorite charger, who had 
 borne him in the din and roar of many a battle, and 
 awaited the striking of midnight. Instantly the poor 
 animal began to tremble, then to rear and kick furiously, 
 until his master, famous as a good horseman, could hold 
 him in no longer, and was carried around the stable by the 
 maddened horse so as to imperil his life. After an hour, 
 the poor creatures began to calm down, but stood trem- 
 bling in all their limbs ; the colonel's own horse suc- 
 cumbed to the trial and died in the morning. A new 
 stable had to be built, which remained free from disturb- 
 ances. 
 
 By far the most remarkable and, strange enough, at 
 the same time the best authenticated of all accounts 
 of disturbances caused by recently departed friends is
 
 GHOSTS. 1 75 
 
 found in a memoir written by the sufferer herself, and 
 addressed to the famous Baron Grimm under the pseu- 
 donym of Mr. Meis. Through the latter the story 
 reached Goethe, who at once appropriated it in all its 
 details, and merely changing the name of the principal 
 to Antonelli, inserted it in his "Conversations of 
 German Emigrants." The same event is fully related 
 in the " Memoirs of the Margravine of Anspach " as " a 
 story which at that time created a great sensation in 
 Paris, and excited universal curiosity." But even 
 greater authority yet is given to this account by the 
 fact that it was officially recorded in the police reports 
 of Paris, from which it has been frequently extracted 
 for publication. Mdlle. Hippolyte Clairon makes sub- 
 stantially the following statements: "In the year 1743 
 my youth and my success on the stage procured for me 
 mucli attention from young fops and elderly profligates, 
 among whom, however, I found frequently a few better 
 men. One of these, who made a deep impression upon 
 me, was a Mr. S., the son of a merchant from Brittany, 
 about thirty years old, fair of features, well made, and 
 gifted with some talent for poetry. His conversation 
 and his manners showed that he had received a superior 
 education, and that he was accustomed to good society, 
 while his reserve and bashfulness, which prevented him 
 from allowing his attachment to be seen, made him all 
 the dearer to me. When I had ascertained his discre- 
 tion, I permitted him to visit me, and gave him to 
 understand that he might call himself my friend. He
 
 176 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 took this patiently, seeing that I was still free and not 
 without tender feelings, and hoping that time might 
 inspire me with a warmer affection. Who knows what. 
 might have happened! But I used to question him 
 closely, both from curiosity and from prudence, and 
 his candid answers destroyed his prospects ; for he con- 
 fessed that, dissatisfied with his modest station in life, 
 he had sold his property in order to live in Paris in 
 better society, and I did not like this. Men who are 
 ashamed of themselves are not, it seems to me, cal- 
 culated to inspire others with respect. Besides, he was 
 of a melancholy and dissatisfied temper, knowing men 
 too well, as he said, not to despise and avoid them. He 
 intended to visit no one but myself, and to induce me 
 also to see no one but him. You may imagine how I 
 disliked such ideas. I might have been held by gar- 
 lands, but did not wish to be bound with chains. 
 From that moment I saw that I must disappoint his 
 hopes, and gradually withdrew from his society. This 
 caused him a severe illness, during which I showed 
 him all possible attention. But my steady refusal to 
 do more for him only deepened the wound, and at the 
 same time the poor young man had the misfortune of 
 being stripped of nearly all his property by his faithless 
 brother, to whom he had intrusted the sale of all he 
 owned, so that he saw himself compelled to accept 
 small sums from me for the payment of his daily food 
 and the necessary medicines.' 
 
 " At last he recovered part of his property, but his
 
 GHOSTS. 177 
 
 health was ruined ; and as I thought I was rendering 
 him a real service by widening the distance between us, 
 1 refused henceforth to receive his letters and his visits. 
 " Thus matters went on for two years and a half, when 
 he died. He had sent for me, wishing to enjoy the 
 happiness of seeing me once more in his last moments, 
 but my friends would not allow me to go. He had no 
 one near him except his servants and an old lady, who 
 had of late been his only companion. Our lodgings 
 were far apart: his near the Chaussee-d'Antin, where 
 only a few houses had as yet been built, and mine near 
 the Abbey of St. Martin. My daily guests were an 
 agent, who attended to all my professional duties, Mr. 
 Pipelet, well known and beloved by all who knew him, 
 and Rosely, one of my fellow-comedians, a kind young 
 man full of wit and talent. We had modest little 
 suppers, but we were merry and enjoyed ourselves 
 heartily. One evening I had just been singing several 
 pretty airs which seemed to delight my friends, when 
 the clock struck eleven, and at the same moment an 
 extremely sharp cry was heard. Its plaintive sound 
 and long duration amazed everybody; I fainted away 
 and remained for nearly a quarter of an hour uncon- 
 scious. 
 
 " My agent was in love with me and so mad with 
 jealousy that when I recovered, he overwhelmed me 
 with reproaches, and said the signals for my interview 
 were rather loud. I told him that as I had the right 
 to receive when and whom I chose, no signals were 
 
 9*
 
 178 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 needed, and this cry had surely been heart-rending 
 enough to convince him that it announced no sweet 
 moments. My paleness, my tremor, which lasted for 
 some time, my tears flowing silently and almost un- 
 consciously, and my urgent request that somebody ' 
 would stay up with me during the night, all these 
 signs convinced him of my innocence. My friends re- 
 mained with me, discussing the fearful cry, and de- 
 termining finally to station guards around the house. 
 
 "Nevertheless the dread sound was repeated night 
 after night ; my friends, all the neighbors, and even the 
 policemen who were stationed near us, heard it dis- 
 tinctly ; it seemed to be uttered immediately under my 
 window, where nothing could ever be seen. There was 
 no doubt entertained as to the person for whom it was 
 intended, for whenever I supped out, no cry was heard ; 
 but frequently after my return, when I entered my 
 room and inquired about it of my mother and my 
 servants, it suddenly pierced the air anew. Once the 
 president of the court, at whose house I had been 
 entertained, proposed to see me home in safety ; at the 
 moment when he wished me good-night at the door, 
 the cry was heard right between us, and the poor man 
 had to be lifted into his carriage more dead than 
 alive. 
 
 "Another time my young companion, Eosely, a clever, 
 witty man, who believed in nothing in heaven or on 
 earth, was riding with me in my carriage on our way 
 to a friend who lived in a distant part of the city. We
 
 GHOSTS. 179 
 
 were discussing the fearful torment to which I was 
 exposed, and he, laughing at me, at last declared he 
 would never believe it unless he heard it with his own 
 ears, and defied me to summon my lover. I do not 
 know how I came to yield, but instantly the cry was 
 repeated three times, and with overwhelming fierceness. 
 When our carriage reached the house, the servants 
 found us both lying unconscious on the cushions, and 
 had to summon assistance before we recovered. After 
 this I heard nothing for several months, and began to 
 hope that all was over. But I was sadly mistaken. 
 
 " The members of the king's troop of comedians had 
 all been ordered to appear at Versailles, in honor of the 
 dauphin's marriage, and as we were to spend three days 
 there, lodgings had been provided. It so happened, 
 however, that a friend of mine, Mme. Grand val, had been 
 forgotten, and seeing her trouble, I at last offered her, 
 towards three o'clpck in the morning, to share my room, 
 in which there were two beds. This forced me to take 
 my maid into my own bed, and as she was in the act of 
 coming, I said to her: 'Here we are at the end of the 
 world, the weather is abominable, and the cry would find 
 it hard to follow us here ! ' At that moment it resound- 
 ed close to us ; Mme. Graudval jumped up terribly 
 frightened, and ran through the whole house, waking 
 everybody, and keeping us all in such a state of excite- 
 ment that not an eye was closed the whole night. Seven 
 or eight days later, as I was chatting merrily with a 
 number of friends, at the striking of the hour, a shot
 
 ISO MODEKX MAGIC. 
 
 was heard, coming apparently through my window. 
 We all heard it and saw the fire, but the pane was not 
 broken. Everybody thought at once of an attempt to 
 murder me, and some friends hastened instantly to the 
 Chief of Police. Men were immediately sent to search 
 the houses opposite, and for several days and nights the 
 street was strictly guarded by a number of soldiers ; 
 my own house was searched from roof to cellar, and 
 friends came in large companies to assist in watchings : 
 nevertheless, the shot fell night after night at the same 
 hour, for three months, with unfailing accuracy. No 
 clue was found and no sign was seen save the sound of 
 the shot and the sight of the fire. Daily reports of the 
 occurrence were sent to the headquarters of the police, 
 new measures were continually devised and applied, 
 but the authorities were baffled as well as all who tried 
 to fathom the mystery. I became at last quite accus- 
 tomed to the disturbance, and was in the habit of speak- 
 ing of it-as the doing of a bon (liable, because he content- 
 ed himself so long a time with jugglers' tricks ; but one 
 night as I had stepped through the open window out upon 
 a balcony, and was standing there with my agent by my 
 side, the shot suddenly fell again and knocked us both 
 back into the room, where we fell down as if dead. "When 
 we recovered our consciousness, we got up, and after 
 some hesitation, confessed to each other that our ears 
 had been severely boxed, his on the right side and mine 
 on the left, whereupon we gave way to hearty laughter. 
 The next night was quiet, but on the following day I
 
 GHOSTS. 181 
 
 was riding with my maid to a friend's house, where I 
 had been invited to meet some acquaintances. As we 
 passed through a certain part of the city, I recognized 
 the houses in the bright moonlight, and said jestingly : 
 ' This looks very much like the part of town where 
 poor S. used to live.' At the same moment a near 
 church clock struck eleven, and instantly a shot was 
 fired at us from one of the buildings, which seemed to 
 pass through our carriage. The coachman thought we 
 had been attacked by robbers, and whipped his horses 
 to escape ; I knew what it meant, but still felt thor- 
 oughly frightened, and reached the house in a state lit- 
 tle suited for social enjoyment. This was, however, the 
 last time my unfortunate friend used a gun. 
 
 " In place of the firing there came now a loud clapping 
 of hands, with certain modulations and repetitions. 
 This sound, to which I had become accustomed on the 
 stage by the kindness of my friends, did not disturb me 
 as much as my companions. They would station them- 
 selves around my door and under my window ; they 
 heard it distinctly, but could not see a trace of any per- 
 son. I do not remember how long this continued ; but 
 it was followed by the singing of a sweet, almost heav- 
 enly melody, which began at the upper end of the street 
 and gradually swelled till it reached my house, where 
 it slowly expired. Then the disturbance ceased alto- 
 gether. 
 
 " The only light that was ever thrown upon the mys- 
 tery came from an old lady who called on me on the
 
 182 MODEUX MAGIC. 
 
 pretext of wishing to see my house which I had offered 
 for reut. I was very much struck by her venerable ap- 
 pearance and her evident emotion. I offered her a chair 
 and sat down opposite to her, but was for some time 
 unable to say a word. At last she seemed to gather 
 courage and told me that she had long wished to make 
 my acquaintance, but had not dared to come so long as 
 I was constantly surrounded by hosts of friends and ad- 
 mirers. At last she had happened to see my advertise- 
 ment and availed herself of the opportunity in order to 
 see me and to visit my house, which had a deep 
 though melancholy interest in her eyes. I guessed at 
 once that she was the faithful friend who alone re- 
 mained by the bedside of poor S., when he was pros- 
 trated by a fatal disease and refused to see anybody 
 else. For months, she now told me, he had spoken of 
 nothing save of myself, looking upon me now as an 
 angel and now as a demon, but utterly unable to keep 
 his thoughts from dwelling uninterruptedly upon the 
 one subject which filled his mind and his heart alike. 
 I tried to explain to the old lady how I had fully appre- 
 ciated his good qualities and noble impulses, finding it, 
 however, impossible to fall in with his peculiar views 
 of society and to promise, as he insisted I should do, to 
 forsake all I loved for the purpose of living w r ith him in 
 loneliness and complete retirement. I told her, also, 
 that when he sent for me to see him in his last mo- 
 ments, my friends prevented my going, and that I felt 
 myself that the sight of his death under such circum-
 
 GHOSTS. 183 
 
 stances would have been dangerous in the extreme to 
 my peace of mind, besides being utterly useless to the 
 dying man. She admitted the force of my reasoning, 
 but repeated that my refusal had hastened his end and 
 deprived him at the last moment of all self-control. In 
 this state of mind, when a few minutes before eleven, 
 the servant had entered and assured him in answer to 
 his passionate inquiry, that no one had come, he had 
 exclaimed : ' The heartless woman ! She shall gain 
 nothing by her cruelty, for I will pursue her after death 
 as I have pursued her during life!' and with these 
 words on his lips he had expired." 
 
 The impression produced by this thoroughly authen- 
 ticated recital is a strong argument in favor of a con- 
 tinued connection after death of the human soul with 
 the world in which we live. There was a man whose 
 whole existence was absorbed by one great and all-per- 
 vading passion ; it brought ruin to his body and dis- 
 abled his mind from correcting the vagaries of his fan- 
 cy. He died in this state, with a sense of grievous 
 wrong and intense thirst of revenge uppermost in his 
 mind. Then follow a number of magic phenomena, 
 witnessed, for several years, by thousands of attached 
 friends and curious observers, defying the vigilance of 
 soldiers and the acnteness of police agents. These dis- 
 turbances, at first bearing the stamp of willful annoy- 
 ance, gradually assume a milder form, as if expressive 
 of softening indignation ; they become weaker and less 
 frequent, and finally cease altogether, suggestive of the
 
 184 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 peace which the poor erring soul had at last found, by 
 infinite mercy and goodness, when safely entering the 
 desired haven. 
 
 On the other hand for contrasts meet here as well 
 as elsewhere these phenomena have been frequently 
 ascribed to purely physical causes, and in a number of 
 cases the final explanation has confirmed this sugges- 
 tion. A hypochondriac artist, for instance, was nightly 
 disturbed by a low but furious knocking in his bed, 
 which was heard by others as well as by himself. He 
 prayed, he caused priests to come to his bedside, he had 
 masses read in his behalf, but all remained in vain. 
 Then came a plain, sensible friend, who, half in jest 
 and half in earnest, covered his big toe with a brass wire 
 which he dipped into an alkaline solution, and behold, 
 the knockings ceased and never returned! (Dupotel, 
 "Animal Magn.") In another case a somnambulistic 
 woman frightened herself as well as others by most 
 violent knockings whenever she was disappointed or 
 thwarted ; her physician, suspecting the cause, finally 
 gave her antispasmodic remedies, and it soon appeared 
 that in her nervous spasms the muscles had been 
 vibrating forcibly enough to produce these disturbances. 
 Since these discoveries it has been found that almost 
 anybody may produce such knockings which stand in 
 a suspicious relationship to spirit-rappings by exerting 
 certain muscles of the leg; some men, who have prac- 
 tised this trick for scientific purposes, like Professor 
 Schiff, of Florence, are able to imitate almost all the
 
 GHOSTS. 185 
 
 various knockings generally ascribed to ghosts and 
 spirits. The public performances of Mr. Chauucey 
 Burr, in New York, gave very striking illustrations of 
 this power, and a Mr. Shadrach Barnes rapped with his 
 toes to perfection. 
 
 In a large number of cases such phenomena appear 
 in connection with persons who suffer of some nervous 
 disease, and then the knockings are, of course, produced 
 unconsciously, and may be accompanied by evidences 
 of exceptional powers. It need not be added, however, 
 that the two symptoms are not necessarily of the same 
 nature; generally the mechanical knockings precede 
 the development of ecstatic visions. A girl of eleven 
 years, the child of humble Alsatian parents, presented, 
 in 1852, this succession of symptoms very strikingly. 
 The child had a habit of falling asleep at all hours ; at 
 once mysterious knockings began to perform a dance 
 or a march, and continued daily for more than an hour. 
 After some time the poor girl began, also, to talk in her 
 sleep, and to converse with the knocking agent. She 
 would order him to beat a tattoo, or to play a quickstep, 
 and immediately it was done. The directions of by- 
 standers, even when not uttered but merely formed 
 earnestly in their mind, were obeyed in like manner. 
 Finally the child, getting no doubt worse and unmerci- 
 fully excited by the crowds of curious people who 
 thronged the house, began to admonish her audience, 
 and to preach and pray; during these exhortations no 
 knockings were heard, but she became clairvoyant and
 
 186 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 recognized all the persons present, even with her eyes 
 closed. She fancied that a black man with a red shawl 
 produced the knockings and delivered the speeches. 
 Her clairvoyance became at last so striking that her 
 case excited the deepest interest of persons in high 
 social position, and several physicians examined it with 
 great care. Her disease was declared to be neurosis 
 coeliaca ("Magicon," v. 27-1). 
 
 A very peculiar and utterly inexplicable phenomenon 
 belonging to this class of ghostly appearances is the 
 complete removal of persons by an unseen power. The 
 idea of such occurrences must have been current among 
 the Jews, for when " there appeared a chariot of fire 
 and horses of fire . . . and Elijah went up by a whirl- 
 wind into heaven" (II. Kings ii. 11), the sons of the 
 prophets did not at once resign themselves, but sent 
 fifty strong men to seek him, " lest peradventure the 
 Spirit of the Lord hath taken him up and cast him 
 upon some mountain or into some valley" (v. 16). In 
 the New Testament the same mysterious removal is 
 mentioned in the case of Philip, after his interview 
 with the Ethiopian, whom he baptized. "The Spirit of 
 the Lord caught away Philip, that the eunuch saw him 
 no more," and "Philip was found at Azotus" (Acts 
 viii. 39, 40). "What in these cases was done by divine 
 power, is said to be occasionally the work of an un- 
 known and unseen force. Generally, no doubt, men or 
 children lose themselves by accident, either when they 
 are alreadv from illness or other cause in a state of
 
 GHOSTS. 187 
 
 semi-consciousness, or when they become so bewildered 
 and frightened by the accident itself, that they fancy 
 they must have been carried away by a mysterious 
 power. The best authenticated case is reported in 
 Beaumont (p. Co). An Irish steward, crossing a field, 
 saw in it a large company feasting, and was invited to 
 join their meal. One of them, however, warned him in 
 a whisper not to accept anything that should be offered. 
 Upon his refusal to eat, the table vanished and the 
 men were seen dancing to a merry music. He was 
 again invited to join, and when he refused, all dis- 
 appeared, and lie found himself alone. He hurried 
 home thoroughly terrified, and fainted away in his 
 room. During the night he dreamt or really saw 
 that one of the mysterious company appeared at his 
 bedside and announced to him that if he dare leave the 
 house on the following day, he would be carried away. 
 He remained at home till the evening, when, thinking 
 himself safe, he stepped across the threshold. Instantly 
 his companions saw him, with a rope aronnd his body, 
 hurried away so fast that they could not follow. At 
 last they meet a horseman whom they request by signs 
 to arrest the unhappy victim ; he seizes the rope and 
 receives a smart blow, but rescues the steward. Lord 
 Orrery desired to see the man, and when the latter 
 presented himself before the earl, lie reported that 
 another nightly visitor had threatened him as before. 
 He was, thereupon, placed in a large room under the 
 guard of several stout men ; a number of distinguished
 
 188 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 persons, two bishops among them, went constant]}* in 
 and out. In the afternoon he was suddenly lifted into 
 the air ; a famous boxer, Greatrix, who had been 
 specially engaged to guard him, and another powerful 
 man, seized him by the shoulders, but he was dragged 
 from their grasp and for some time carried about high 
 above their heads, till at last he fell into the arms of 
 some of his keepers. During the night the same appari- 
 tion stood once more by his bed-side, inviting him to 
 drink of a gray porridge, which would cure him of all ills 
 and protect him against further violence. He suffered 
 himself to be persuaded, when the visitor made himself 
 known as a former friend who had to attend those mys- 
 terious meetings in punishment of the dissolute life 
 he had led upon earth, and who now wished to save 
 another unhappy fellow-being from a like sad fate. At 
 the same time he reminded him of his neglect to pray, 
 and then disappeared. The steward speedily recovered 
 from his fright, and was no further molested. There 
 can be little doubt that the man Avas ill at ease in body 
 and in conscience, and that this double burden was too 
 heavy to bear for his mind ; his thoughts became dis- 
 ordered, till he felt an apparently external power 
 stronger than his own will, and thus not only imagined 
 strange visions, but actually obeyed erratic impulses of 
 his diseased mind, as if they Avere acts of A'iolence from 
 without. 
 
 A favorite pastime of these pseudo-ghosts is the 
 throwing of stones at the buildings or even into the
 
 GHOSTS. ISO 
 
 rooms of those whom they wish to aimoy. Good Cot- 
 ton Mather loved to tell stories of such perverse pro- 
 ceedings, and states at length the sufferings of George 
 Walton, at Portsmouth, in 1682. Invisible bands 
 threw such a hailstorm of stones against his -house, 
 that the door was burst open, although the inhabitants, 
 when hit by the stones, only felt a slight touch. Then 
 the stones began to fly about inside, and to destroy the 
 window-panes from within; when picked up by some 
 of the witnesses, they proved to be burning hot ; they 
 were marked and placed upon a table, whereupon they 
 commenced to fly about once more. It is characteristic 
 of the whole proceeding that the only person really in- 
 jured by the operation was the owner of the house, a 
 quaker ! The learned author delights also in recitals 
 of children who were plagued by evil spirits, having 
 forks and knives, pins and sharp scissors stuck into 
 their backs, and whose food, at the moment when it 
 was to be carried from the plate to the mouth, flew 
 away, leaving yarn, ashes, and vile things to reach the 
 palate ! At other times the disturbance assumes a 
 somewhat more dignified form, and appears as the 
 ringing of bells. Thus Baxter tells us of a house at 
 Colne Priory, in Essex, where, for a time, every morning 
 at two o'clock a large bell was heard, while in the parish 
 of Wilcot, a smaller bell waked the vicar night after 
 night with its tinkling, and yet could not be heard out- 
 side of the dwelling. Physicians know very \vell how 
 readily the pressure of blood to certain vessels in the
 
 190 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 head produces the impression of the ringing of bells, 
 and experience tells us how easily men are made to 
 believe that they see or hear what others assure them 
 is seen or heard by everybody. Even the great John 
 Wesley seems not to have been fully convinced of the 
 purely natural character of such disturbances, when 
 they annoyed his venerable father at Epworth Rectory ; 
 and Dr. Priestley, a calm and cautious writer, says of 
 these phenomena : " It is perhaps the best-authenticated 
 and the best-told story of the kind that is anywhere 
 extant, on which account, and to exercise the ingenuity 
 of some speculative person, I thought it not undeserved 
 of being published." It seems that in 1716 the rectory 
 became the scene of strange disturbances, which were 
 at first ascribed to one of the minister's enemies, Jeffrey. 
 The inmates heard an incessant walking about, sighing 
 and groaning, cackling and crowing ; a hand-mill was 
 set whirling- around by invisible hands, and the Amen ! 
 with which Wesley's father ended the family prayer 
 was accompanied by a noise like thunder. Even the 
 faithful watchdog was disturbed and his instinct over- 
 awed, for he sought refuge with men, and barked 
 furiously, till his excitement rose to a state resembling 
 madness, he even anticipated the coming of the dis- 
 turbance, and announced it by his intense agitation. 
 
 The subject is one of extreme difficulty because of 
 the large number of cases in which all such distur- 
 bances have been clearly traced to the agency of dissat- 
 isfied servants, hidden enemies, or envious neighbors,
 
 GHOSTS. 191 
 
 whose sole purpose was a desire to drive the occupant 
 from his house, or to diminish its value. It is charac- 
 teristic of human nature that the cunning and the skill 
 displayed on such occasions even by ignorant servants 
 and awkward rustics are perfectly amazing, a fact 
 which proves anew the assertion of old divines, that 
 the Devil is vastly better served than the Lord of Hea- 
 ven. Even the best authenticated case of such myste- 
 rious disturbances, Kerner's so-called Seeress of Pre- 
 vorst, is not entirely free from all suspicion. Mrs. 
 Hauffe, a lady of delicate health, great nervous irrita- 
 bility, and a mind which was, to say the least, not too 
 well balanced, became the patient of Dr. Justinus 
 Kerner, in southern Germany. Besides her mysterious 
 power to reveal unknown things, to read the future, 
 and to prescribe for herself and others, of which men- 
 tion has been made before ; she was also pursued by 
 every variety of strange noises. Plates and glasses, 
 tables and chairs were violently thrown about in the 
 house in which she lived ; a medicine phial rose slowly 
 into the air and had to be brought back by one of the 
 bystanders, and an easy-chair was lifted up to the ceil- 
 ing, but came down again quite gently. The suffering 
 woman was the only one who knew the cause of these 
 phenomena; she ascribed them all to a dark spirit, 
 Belon's companion, who appeared to her as a black col- 
 umn of smoke, with a hideous head, and whose ap- 
 proach oppressed even some of the bystanders espe- 
 cially the patient's sister. He was not content with
 
 192 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 disturbing Mrs. Hauffe only, but carried his wantonness 
 even into the homes of distant friends and kinsmen. A 
 pious minister, who frequently visited the poor sufferer, 
 was contagiously affected by the ill-fated atmosphere of 
 her house; night after night he \vas waked up, by a 
 " bright spirit," who coughed and sighed and sobbed in 
 his presence, till a fervent prayer drove him away; if 
 the poor divine, however, prayed only faintly or enter- 
 tained doubts in his heart, the spirit mocked him with 
 increased energy. Later even the ministers wife suc- 
 cumbed, saw the same luminous appearances and heard 
 the same mysterious noises, till the whole matter was 
 suddenly brought to an end by an amulet! To this 
 class of occurrences belongs also the experience of the 
 Rev. Dr. Phelps of Stratford, Connecticut. One fiue 
 day he found, upon returning from church, that all the 
 doors of his house, which he had carefully locked, were 
 open and everything in the lower rooms in a state of 
 boundless confusion. Xothing, however, had been 
 stolen. In the upper story a room was found to be oc- 
 cupied by eight or ten persons diligently reading in an 
 open Bible, which each one held close to his face. Upon 
 examination these readers were discovered to be bundles 
 of clothes carefully and most cunningly arranged so as 
 to represent living beings. Everything was cleared 
 away and the room was locked ; but in three minutes 
 the clothing, which had been put aside, disappeared, 
 and when the door was opened the same scene was pre- 
 sented. For seven long months the house was haunted
 
 GHOSTS. 193 
 
 by most extraordinary phenomena ; noises of every kind 
 were heard by day as well as by night ; utensils and win- 
 dow-panes were broken before the eyes of numerous 
 witnesses by invisible hands, and the son of the house, 
 eleven years old, was bodily lifted up and carried away 
 to some distance. The most searching inquiry led to 
 no result, until at last Dr. Phelps, almost in despair, 
 applied to some spiritualists, and in consequence of the 
 hints he received was enabled to bring the disturbances 
 to a speedy end (Reclienberg, p. 58). 
 
 Stone-throwing seems to be a favorite amusement with 
 Eastern ghosts also ; at least we are told that it is quite 
 frequent in the western part of the Island of Java, where 
 the Sun da people live amid gigantic mountains and still 
 active volcanoes. They believe in good and evil spirits, 
 and are firmly convinced that constant intercourse is 
 kept up between earth-born men and heavenly beings. 
 The whole Indian Archipelago is filled with the latter, 
 and hence, the throwing of stones, sand and gravel, by 
 invisible hands, has a name of its own, it is called Gund- 
 arua. Some thirty years ago, a German happened to be 
 Assistant-Resident at Sumadang, in the service of the 
 Dutch government. His wife had taken a fancy to a 
 native child ten years old, who was allowed to go in and 
 out the house at will. One morning during the Ger- 
 man's absence, the child's white dress was found to be 
 soiled all over with red betel-juice, and at the moment 
 when her patroness made this discovery, a stone fell ap- 
 parently from the ceiling, at her feet. The same phe- 
 
 9
 
 194 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 nomenon was repeated over and over again, till the lady, 
 in her distress, appealed to a neighboring native sover- 
 eign, who promised his assistance. He sent immediately 
 a large force of armed men, who surrounded the house 
 and watched the room ; nevertheless, the red spots re- 
 appeared and stones fell as before. Towards evening, a 
 Mohammedan mufti, of high rank, was sent for ; but he 
 had scarcely opened his Koran, to read certain sentences 
 for the purpose of exorcising the demons, when the sacred 
 book was hurled to one side and the lamp to another. 
 The lady took the child to the prince's residence to spend 
 the night there, and no disturbance occurred. But when 
 her husband, for whom swift messengers had been sent 
 out, returned on the following day, the same trouble 
 occurred; the child was spit at with betel-juice and 
 stones kept falling from on high. Soon the report 
 reached the Governor-General atBreitenzorg, who there- 
 upon sent a man of great military renown, a Major 
 Michiels, to investigate the matter. Once more the 
 house was surrounded by an armed force, even the 
 neighboring trees were carefully guarded, and the ma- 
 jor took the little girl upon his knees. In spite of all these 
 precautions, her dress was soon covered with red spots, 
 and stones flew about as before. No one, however, was 
 injured. They were gathered up, proved to be wet or 
 hot, as if just picked up in the road, and at night filled 
 a huge box. The same process continued, when a huge 
 sheet of linen had been stretched from wall to wall, so 
 as to form an inner ceiling under the real ceiling ; and
 
 GHOSTS. 1 95 
 
 now uot only stones, but also fruit from the surrounding 
 trees, freshly gathered, and mortar from the kitchen fell 
 into the newly formed tent. At the same time the fur- 
 niture was repeatedly disturbed, tumblers and wine- 
 glasses tossed about, and marks left on the large mirror 
 as if a moist hand had been passed over the surface. 
 The marvelous occurrences were duly reported to the 
 home government, and the king, William II., ordered 
 that no pains should be spared to clear up the matter. 
 But no explanation was ever obtained; only the fact was 
 ascertained that similar phenomena had been repeatedly 
 observed in other parts of the island also, and were 
 considered quite ordinary occurrences by the natives. 
 Certain families, it may be added, claim to have inher- 
 ited from their ancestors the power to make themselves 
 invisible, a gift which is almost invariably accompanied 
 by the Gundarua ; as these native families gradually die 
 out, the symptoms of the latter also disappear more 
 and more. There is no doubt that here, as in the Rus- 
 si&npoganne (cursed places which are haunted by ghosts), 
 the belief in such appearances, bequeathed through long 
 ages from father to son, has finally obtained a force 
 which renders it equal to reality itself. Reason, is not 
 only biased, but actually held bound ; the mind is 
 wrought up to a state of excitement in which it ceases 
 to see clearly, and finally visions assume an overwhelm- 
 ing force, which ends in symptoms of what is called 
 magic. The Same law applies, for instance, to the an- 
 cient home of charmers and magicians, the land of the
 
 106 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 Nile, where also the studies of the ancient Magi have 
 been assumed by a succession of learned men, till they 
 were taken up by fanatic Mohammedans, whose creed 
 arranges invisible beings, angels, demons, and others, 
 in regular order, and assigns them a home in distinct 
 parts of the universe. It is not without interest to ob- 
 serve that even Europeans, after a long residence in the 
 Orient, become deeply imbued with such notions, and 
 men like Bayle St. John, in his account of magic per- 
 formances which he witnessed, do not seem able to re- 
 main altogether impartial. 
 
 One of the most remarkable phenomena belonging to 
 this branch of magic is the appearance of living or 
 recently deceased persons to friends or supplicants. 
 The peculiarity in this case consists in the constantly 
 changing character of the appearance: the double as 
 it is called is the vision of the dying man, which 
 appears to others or to his own senses. The former 
 class of cases was well known in antiquity, for Pytha- 
 goras already had, according to popular report, appeared 
 to numerous friends before he died. Herodotus and 
 Maximus Tyrius state both, that Aristaeus sent his 
 spirit into different lands to acquire knowledge, and 
 Epimenides and Hernestinus, from Claromenae, were 
 Dopularly believed to be able to visit, when in a state of 
 ecstasy, all distant countries, and to return at pleasure. 
 St. Augustine, also, states ( Sermon," 123) that he, 
 himself, had appeared to two persons who had known 
 him only by reputation, and advised them to go to
 
 GHOSTS. 197 
 
 Hippons in order to obtain their health there by the in- 
 tercession of St. Stephen. They really went to the 
 place and recovered from their disease. At another 
 time his form appeared to a famous teacher of eloquence 
 in Carthage and explained to him several most difficult 
 passages in Cicero's writings (De cura pro mortuis, ch. 
 ii). The saints of the Catholic church having possessed 
 the gift of being in several places at once, apparently so 
 very generally, that the miracle has lost its interest, 
 except where peculiar circumstances seem to suggest 
 the true explanation. Such was, for instance, the last- 
 mentioned case, recited by St. Augustine (De Civ. Dei. 
 1. 8. ch. 18). Praestantius requested a philosopher to 
 solve to him some doubts, but received no answer. The 
 following night, however, when Prrestantius lay awake, 
 troubled by his difficulties, he suddenly saw his learned 
 friend standing by his bedside and heard from his lips 
 all he desired to know. Upon meeting him next day, 
 he inquired why he had been unwilling to explain the 
 matter in the daytime, and thus caused himself the 
 trouble of .coming at midnight to his house. " I never 
 came to your house," was the reply, " but I dreamt that 
 I did." Here was very evidently a case of magic activ- 
 ity on the part of the philosopher, whose mind was, in 
 his sleep, busily engaged in solving the propounded 
 mystery and thus affected not himself only, but his 
 absent friend likewise. 
 
 The story of Dr. Donne's vision is well known, and 
 deserves all the more serious attention as his candor
 
 198 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 was above suspicion, and bis judgment held in the 
 highest esteem. He formed part of an embassy sent to 
 Henry IV. of France, and hud been two days in Paris, 
 thinking constantly and anxiously of his wife, whom he 
 had left ill in London. Towards noon he suddenly fell 
 into a kind of trance, and when he recovered his senses 
 related to his friends that he had seen his beloved wife 
 pass him twice, as she walked across the room, her hair 
 dishevelled and her child dead in her arms. When she 
 passed him the second time, she looked sadly into his 
 face and then disappeared. His fears were aroused to 
 such a degree by this vision that he immediately dis- 
 patched a special messenger to England, and twelve 
 days later he received the afflicting news that on that 
 day and at that hour his wife had, after great and pro- 
 tracted suffering, been delivered of a still-born infant 
 (Beaumont, p. 96). In Macnish's excellent work on 
 "Sleep," we find (p. 180) the following account: "A 
 Mr. H. went one day, apparently in the enjoyment of 
 full health, down the street, when he saw a friend of 
 his, Mr. C., Avho was walking before him. He called 
 his name aloud, but the latter pretended not to hear 
 him, and steadily walked on. II. hastened his steps to 
 overtake him, but his friend also hurried on, and thus 
 remained at the same distance from him : thus the two 
 walked for some time, till suddenly Mr. C. entered a 
 gateway, and when Mr. H. was about to follow, slammed 
 the door violently in his face. Perfectly amazed at 
 such unusual conduct, Mr. H. opened the door and
 
 GHOSTS. 199 
 
 looked down the loug passage, upon which it opened, 
 but saw no one. Determined to solve the mystery, he 
 hurried to his friend's house, and there, to his great 
 astonishment, learnt that Mr. C. had been confined to 
 his bed for some days. It was not until several weeks 
 later that the two friends met at the house of a com- 
 mon acquaintance ; Mr. H. told Mr. C. of his adven- 
 ture, and added laughingly, that having seen his 
 double, he was afraid Mr. C. would not live long. 
 These words were received by all with hearty laughter; 
 but only a few days after this meeting the unfortunate 
 friend was seized with a violent illness, to which he 
 speedily succumbed." What is most remarkable, how- 
 ever, is that Mr. H. also followed him, quite unex- 
 pectedly, soon to the grave. Whatever may have been 
 the nature of the event itself, it cannot be doubted that 
 the minds of both friends were far more deeply im- 
 pressed by its mysteriousuess than they would probably 
 have been willing to acknowledge to themselves, and 
 that the nervous excitement thus produced brought 
 out an illness lurking already in their system, and ren- 
 dered it fatal. A very remarkable case was that of a 
 distinguished diplomat, related by A. Moritz in his 
 '' Psychology." He was lying in bed, sleepless, when 
 he noticed his pet dog becoming restless, and apparently 
 disturbed to the utmost by a rustling and whisking 
 about in the room, which he heard but could not ex- 
 plain. Suddenly a kind of white vapor rose by his 
 bed-side, and gradually assumed the outline and even
 
 200 iTODERX MAGIC. 
 
 the features of his mother; he especially noticed a 
 purple ribbon in her cap. He jumped out of bed and 
 endeavored to embrace her, but she fled before him and 
 as suddenly vanished, leaving a bright glare at the 
 place where she had disappeared. It was found, after- 
 wards, that at that hour 10 o'clock A. M. the old 
 lady had been ill unto death, lying still and almost 
 breathless on her couch ; she had felt the anguish of 
 death in her heart, and had thought so anxiously of 
 her son and her sister, that her first question when she 
 recovered was, whether she had not perhaps been 
 visited by the two persons who had thus occupied her 
 whole mind. It was also ascertained that, contrary to a 
 life's habit, she had on that day worn a purple ribbon 
 in her night-cap. A German professor once succeeded 
 in establishing the connection which undoubtedly 
 exists between the will of certain persons and their 
 appearance to others. He had only been married a 
 year in 1823, when he was compelled to leave his wife 
 and to undertake a long and perilous journey. Once, 
 sitting in a peculiarly sad and dejected mood alone in 
 a room of his hotel, he longed so ardently for the 
 society of his wife, that he felt in his heart as if, by a 
 great effort of will, he should be able to see her. He 
 made the effort, and, behold ! he saw her sitting at her 
 work-table, busily engaged in sewing, and himself, as 
 was his habit, on a low foot-stool by her side. She 
 tried to conceal her work from his eyes. A few days 
 later a messenger reached him, sent by his Avife, who
 
 GHOSTS. 201 
 
 was in great consternation and anxiety. On that day 
 she also had suddenly seen her husband seated by her 
 side, attentively watching her at work, and continuing 
 there till her father entered the room, upon which the 
 professor had instantly disappeared. When he returned 
 to his house he made minute inquiries as to the work 
 he had seen in the hands of his wife, and this was of 
 such peculiar character as to exclude all ideas of a 
 mere dream on his part. Here also the supreme will 
 of the professor must have endowed him for the mo- 
 ment with exceptional powers, enabling him to make 
 himself visible to his wife, while the latter, with the 
 ardent love which bound her to her husband, was at, 
 the same moment sympathetically excited, and thus 
 enabled to second his will, and to behold him as she 
 was accustomed to see him most frequently. 
 
 Owen in his " Footfalls on the Boundary of Another 
 World," reports fully a remarkable case here repeated 
 only in o it time. Robert Bruce, thirty years old, served 
 as mate on board a merchant vessel on the line between 
 Liverpool and St. John in New Brunswick. When the 
 ship was near the banks he was one day about noon 
 busy calculating the longitude, and thinking that the 
 captain was in his cabin the next to his own he 
 called out to him : How have you found it ? Looking 
 back over his shoulder, he saw the captain writing bu- 
 sily at his desk, and as he heard no answer, he went in 
 and repeated his question. To his horror the man at 
 the desk raised his head and revealed to him the face
 
 202 MODERX MAGIC. 
 
 of an entire stranger, who regarded him fixedly. In a 
 state of great excitement he rushed to the upper deck, 
 where he found the captain and told him what had oc- 
 curred. Thereupon both went down ; there was no one 
 in the cabin, but on the captain's slate an unknown 
 hand had written these Avords : Steer NW. ! No effort 
 was spared to solve the mystery ; the whole vessel was 
 searched from end to end, but no stranger was discov- 
 ered ; even the handwriting of every member of the 
 crew was examined, but nothing found resembling in 
 the least degree the mysterious warning. After some 
 hesitation the captain decided, as nothing was likely to 
 be lost by so doing, to obey the behest and ordered the 
 helmsman to steer northwest. A few hours later they 
 encountered the wreck of a vessel fastened to an ice- 
 berg, with a large crew and a number of passengers, in 
 expectation of certain death. When the unfortunate 
 men were brought back by the ship's boats, Bruce sud- 
 denly started in utter amazement, for in one of the 
 saved men he recognized, by dress and features, the per- 
 son he had seen at the captain's desk in the cabin. The 
 stranger was requested to write down the words : Steer 
 XW. ! and when the words were compared with those 
 still standing on the slate, they were identical ! Upon 
 inquiry it turned out that the shipwrecked man had at 
 noon fallen into a deep sleep, during which he had seen 
 a ship approaching to their rescue. When he had been 
 waked half an hour later he had confidently assured 
 his fellow-sufferers that they would be rescued, de-
 
 GHOSTS. 203 
 
 scribing even the vessel that was to come to their assist- 
 ance. Words cannot convey the amazement of the un- 
 fortunate men when they saw, a few hours afterwards, 
 a ship bear down upon them, which bore all the marks 
 predicted by their companion, and the latter assured 
 Robert Bruce that everything on board the vessel ap- 
 peared to him perfectly familiar. 
 
 Cases in which men have been seen at the same time 
 at two different places are not less frequent, though 
 here the explanation is much less easy. A French girl, 
 Emilie Sagee, had even to pay a severe penalty for such 
 a peculiarity : she was continually met with at various 
 places at once, and as she could not give a satisfactory 
 excuse for being at one place when her duties required 
 her to be at another, she was suspected of sad miscon- 
 duct. She lived as governess in a boarding-school in 
 Livonia, and the girls of the institute saw her at the 
 same time sitting among them and walking below in 
 the garden by the side of a friend, and not unfrequent- 
 ly two Miss Sagees would be seen standing before the 
 blackboard, looking exactly alike and performing the 
 same motions, although one of them only wrote with 
 chalk on the board. Once, while she was helping a 
 friend to lace her dress behind, the latter looked into 
 the mirror and to her horror saw two persons standing 
 there, whereupon she fell down fainting. The poor 
 French girl lost her place not less than nineteen times 
 on account of her double existence (Owen, " Foot- 
 falls," etc., p. 348).
 
 204 MODKKX MAGIC. 
 
 Occasionally this " double " appears to others at the 
 same time that it is seen by the owner himself. Thus 
 the Empress Elizabeth, of Russia, was seen by a Count 
 0. and the Imperial Guards, seated in full regalia on 
 her throne, in the throne-room, while she was lying fast 
 asleep in her bed. The vision was so distinct, and the 
 terror of the beholders so great, that the Empress was 
 actually waked, and informed of what had happened, by 
 her lady-in-waiting, who had herself seen the whole 
 scene. The dauntless Empress did not hesitate for a 
 moment ; she dressed hastily and went to the throne- 
 room ; when the doors were thrown open, she saw her- 
 self, as the others had seen her; but so far from being 
 terrified like her servants, she ordered the guard to fire 
 at the apparition. When the smoke had passed away, 
 the hall was empty but the brave Empress died a few 
 months latter (Bl. aus Prevost, V. p. 92). Jung 
 Stilling mentions another striking illustration. A 
 young lieutenant, full of health and in high spirits, 
 returns home from a merry meeting with old friends. 
 As he approaches the house in which he lives, he sees 
 lights in his room and, to his great terror, himself in 
 the act of being undressed by his servant ; as he stands 
 and gazes in speechless wonder, he sees himself walk to 
 his bed and lie down. He remains for some time 
 dumbfounded and standing motionless in the street, 
 till at last a dull, heavy crash arouses him from his 
 revery. He makes an effort, goes to the door and rings 
 the bell; his servant, who opens the door, starts back
 
 GHOSTS. 205 
 
 frightened, and wonders how he could have dressed so 
 quickly and gone out. as he had but just helped him to 
 undress. When they enter the bedroom, however, they 
 are both still more amazed, for there they find a large 
 part of the ceiling on the bed of the officer, which is 
 broken to pieces by the heavy mortar that had fallen 
 down. The young lieutenant saw in the warning a 
 direct favor of Providence and lived henceforth so as 
 to show his gratitude for this almost miraculous escape 
 (" Jenseits," p. 105). 
 
 Not unfrequently the seeing of a " double " is the 
 result of physical or mental disease. Persons suffering 
 of catalepsy are especially prone to see their own forms 
 mixing with strange persons, who people the room in 
 which they are confined. Insanity, also, very often 
 begins with the idea, that the patient's own image is 
 constantly by his side, accompanying him like his 
 shadow wherever he goes, and finally irritating him 
 beyond endurance. In these cases there is, of course, 
 nothing at work but a diseased imagination, and with 
 the return of health the visions also disappear. 
 
 Perhaps the most important branch of this subject 
 is the theory, cherished by all nations and in all ages, 
 that the dying possess at the last moment and by a 
 supreme effort, the mysterious power of making them- 
 selves perceptible to friends at a distance. We leave 
 out. here also, the numerous instances told of saints, 
 because they are generally claimed by the Catholic 
 Church as miracles. One of the oldest well-authen-
 
 206 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 ticated cases of the kind, occurred at the court of Cosmo 
 de' Medici, in 1499. Iii the brilliant circle of eminent 
 men which the great merchant prince had gathered 
 around him, two philosophers, Michael Mercatus, papal 
 prothonotary, and Marsilius Ficinus were prominent by 
 their vast erudition, their common devotion to Platonic 
 philosophy, and the ardent friendship which bound 
 them to each other. They had solemnly agreed that he 
 who should die first, should convey to the other some 
 information about the future state. Ficinus died first, 
 and his friend, Avriting early .in the morning near a 
 window, suddenly heard a horseman dashing up to his 
 house, checking his horse and crying out : '' Michael ! 
 Michael ! nothing is more true than what is said 
 of the life to come!" Mercatus immediately opened 
 the window and saw his bosom friend riding at full 
 speed down the road, on his white horse, until he was 
 out of sight. He returned, full of thought, to his 
 studies; but wrote at once to inquire about his friend. 
 In due time the answer came, that Ficinus had died in 
 Florence at the very moment in which Mercatus had 
 seen him in Rome. Our authority for this re- 
 markable account is the Cardinal Barouius, who knew 
 Mercatus and heard it from his own lips ; but the dates 
 which he mentions do not correspond with the annals 
 of history. He places the event in the year 1491, but 
 Michele de' Mercati was papal prothonotary under Si'xtus 
 V. (1585-90) and could, therefore, not have been the 
 friend of Ficinus, the famous physician and theologian,
 
 GHOSTS. 207 
 
 who was one of Savonarola's most distinguished 
 adherents. 
 
 Xor can we attach much weight to the old ballads of 
 Roland, which recite in touching simplicity the anguish 
 of Charlemagne, when he heard from afar the sound of 
 his champion's horn imploring him to come to his 
 assistance, although the two armies were at so great a 
 distance from each other that when the Emperor at last 
 reached the ill-fated valley of Eonceval, his heroic friend 
 had been dead for some days. Calderon depicts in like 
 manner, but with the peculiar coloring of the Spanish 
 devotee, how the dying Eiisebio calls his absent friend 
 Alberto to his bedside, to hear his last confession, and 
 how the latter, obeying the mysterious summons, has- 
 tens there to fulfil his solemn promise. 
 
 A well-known occurrence of this kind is reported by 
 Cotton Mather as having taken place in New England. 
 On May 2d, 1 687, at 5 o'clock A. M., a young man, called 
 Beacon, then living in Boston, suddenly saw his brother, 
 whom he had left in London, standing before him in 
 his usual costume, but with a bleeding wound in his 
 forehead. He told him that he had been foully mur- 
 dered by a reprobate, who would soon reach New Eng- 
 land ; at the same time he described minutely the ap- 
 pearance of his murderer, and implored his brother to 
 avenge his death, promising him his assistance. Towards 
 the end of June official information reached the colony 
 that the young man had died on May 2d, at o o'clock 
 A. M., from the effects of his wounds. But here, also,
 
 208 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 several inconsistencies diminish the value of the account 
 In the first place, the narrator has evidently forgotten 
 the difference in time between London and Boston in 
 America, or he has purposely falsified the report, in 
 order to make it more impressive. Then the murderer 
 never left his country; although he was tried for his 
 crime, escaped the penalty of death by the aid of influ- 
 ential friends. It is, however, possible that he may have 
 had the intention of seeking safety abroad at the time 
 he committed the murder. 
 
 The apparition of the great Cardinal of Lorraine at 
 the moment of death, is better authenticated. D'Au- 
 bigne tells us (Hi.t. Unirer. 1574, p. 719) that the 
 queen Catherine of Medici, was retiring one day, at an 
 earlier hour than usual, in the presence of the King of 
 Navarre, the Archbishop of Lyons, and a number of 
 eminent persons, when she suddenly hid her eyes tinder 
 her hands and cried piteously for help. She made great 
 efforts to point out to the bystanders the form of the 
 Cardinal, whom she saw standing at the foot of her bed 
 and offering her his hand. She exclaimed repeatedly : 
 "Monsieur le Cardinal, I have nothing to do with you ! " 
 and was in a state of most fearful excitement. At last 
 one of the courtiers had the wit to go to the Cardinal's 
 house, and soon returned with the appalling news that 
 the great man had died in that very hour. To this class of 
 cases belongs also the well-known vision of Lord Lyt- 
 tleton, who had been warned that he would die on a 
 certain day, at midnight, and who did die at the
 
 GHOSTS. 209 
 
 appointed hour, although his friends had purposely ad- 
 vanced every clock and watch in the house by half tin 
 hour, and he himself had gone to bed with his mind 
 relieved of all anxiety. Jarvis, in his " Aureditated Ghosh 
 Stories," p. 13, relates the following remarkable case : 
 " When General Stuart was Governor of San Domingo, 
 in the early part of our war of independence, he was one 
 day anxiously awaiting a certain Major von Blomberg, 
 who had been expected for some time. At last he de- 
 termined to dictate to his secretary a dispatch to the 
 Home Government on this subject, when steps were 
 heard outside, and the major himself entered, desiring 
 to confer with the Governor in private. He said: 
 ' When you return to England, pray go into Dorset- 
 shire to such and such a farm, where you will find my 
 son, the fruit of a secret union with Lady Laing. 
 Take care of the poor orphan. The woman who has 
 reared him has the papers that establish his legitimacy ; 
 they are in a red morocco pocket-book. Open it and 
 make the best use you can of the papers you will find. 
 You will never see me again.' Thereupon the major walk- 
 ed away, but nobody else had seen him come or go, and 
 nobody had opened the house for him. A few days later, 
 news reached the island that the vessel on which Blom- 
 berg had taken passage, had foundered, and all hands 
 had .perished, at the very hour when the former had 
 appeared to his friend the Governor. It became also 
 known that the two friends had pledged each other, not 
 onlv that the survivor should take care of the children
 
 210 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 of him who died first, but also that he should make an 
 effort to appear to him if permitted to do so. The 
 Governor found everything as it had been told him ; 
 he took charge of his friend's son, who became a pro- 
 tege of Queen Charlotte, when she heard the remarka- 
 ble story, and waseducated as a companion of the future 
 George IV." 
 
 Lord Byron tells the following story of Captain 
 Kidd. He was lying one night in his cabin asleep, 
 when he suddenly felt oppressed by a heavy weight 
 apparently resting on him ; he opened his eyes, and by 
 the feeble light of a small lamp he fancied he saw his 
 brother, dressed in full uniform, and leaning across the 
 bed. Under the impression that the whole is a mere 
 idle delusion of his senses, he turns over and falls 
 asleep once more. But the sense of oppression returns, 
 and upon opening his eyes he sees the same image as 
 before. Now he tries to seize it, and to his amazement 
 touches something wet. This terrifies him, and he 
 calls a brother officer, but when the latter enters, 
 nothing is to be seen. After the lapse of several 
 months Captain Kidd received information that in that 
 same night his brother had been drowned in the In- 
 dian Sea. He himself told the story to Lord Byron, 
 and the latter endorsed its accuracy (Monthly Rev., 
 1830, p. 229). 
 
 One of the most remarkable interviews of this kind, 
 which continued for some time, and led to a prolonged 
 and interesting conversation during which the three
 
 GHOSTS. 211 
 
 senses of sight, hearing, and touch, were alike engaged, 
 is that which a Mrs. Bargrave had on the 8th of Sep- 
 tember, 1805. According to an account given by 
 Juryis ("Aured. Ghost Stories," Lond., 1823), she was 
 sitting in her house in Canterbury, in a state of great 
 despondency, when a friend of hers, Miss Veal, who 
 lived at Dover, and whom she had not seen for two 
 years and a half, entered the room. The two ladies 
 had formerly been very intimate, and found equal com- 
 fort, during a period of great sorrow, in reading 
 together works treating of future life and similar sub- 
 jects. Her friend wore a traveling suit, and the clocks 
 were striking noon as she entered; Mrs. Bargrave 
 wished to embrace her, but Miss Veal held a hand 
 before her eyes, stating that she was unwell and drew 
 back. She then added that she Avas on the point of 
 making a long journey, and feeling an irresistible de- 
 sire to see her friend once more, she had come to Can- 
 terbury. She sat down in an arm-chair and began a 
 lengthened conversation, during which she begged her 
 friend's pardon for having so long neglected her, and 
 gradually turned to the subject which had been upper- 
 most in Mrs. Bargrave's mind, the views entertained by 
 various authors of the life after death. She attempted 
 to console the latter, assuring her that "a moment of 
 future bliss was ample compensation for all earthly 
 sufferings," and that " if the eyes of our mind were as 
 open as those of the body, we should see a number of 
 higher beings ready for our protection." She declined,
 
 212 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 however, reading certain verses aloud at her friend's re- 
 quest, " because holding her head low gave her the 
 headache." She frequently passed her hand over her 
 face, but at last begged Mrs. Bargrave to write a letter 
 to her brother, which surprised her friend very much, for 
 in the letter she wished her brother to distribute certain 
 rings and sums of money belonging to her among 
 friends and kinsmen. At this time she appeared to be 
 growing ill again, and Mrs. Bargrave moved close up 
 to her in order to support her, in doing so she touched 
 her dress and praised the materials, whereupon Miss 
 Veal told her that it was recently made, but of a silk 
 which had been cleaned. Then she inquired after Mr-?. 
 Bargrave's daughter, and the latter went to a neighbor- 
 ing house to fetch her ; on her way back she saw Miss 
 Yeal at a distance in the street, which was full of 
 people, as it happened to be market-day, but before she 
 could overtake her, her friend had turned round a 
 corner and disappeared. 
 
 Upon inquiry it appeared that Miss Veal, whom she 
 had thus seen, whose dress she had touched, and with 
 whom she had conversed for nearly two hours, had died 
 the day before ! "When the question was discussed with 
 the relatives of the deceased, it was found that she had 
 communicated several secrets to her Canterbury friend. 
 The fact that her dress was made of an old silk-stuff 
 was known to but one person, who had done the clean- 
 ing and made the dress, Avhich she recognized instantly 
 from the description. She had also acknowledged to
 
 GHOSTS. 213 
 
 Mrs. Bargrave her indebtedness to a Mr. Breton for an 
 annual pension of ten pounds, a fact w^iich had been 
 utterly unknown during her lifetime. 
 
 In Germany a number of such cases are reported, 
 and often by men whose names alone would give 
 authority to their statements. Thus the philosopher 
 Schopenhauer (Parerga, etc., I. p. 277) mentions a sick 
 servant girl in Frankfort on the Main, who died one 
 night at the Jewish hospital of the former Free City. 
 Early the next morning her sister and her neice, who 
 lived several miles from town, appeared at the gate of 
 the institution to make inquiries about their kinswoman. 
 Both, though living far apart, had seen her distinctly 
 during the preceding night, and hence their anxiety. 
 The famous writer E. M. Arndt, also, quotes a number 
 of striking revelations which were in this manner 
 made to a lady of his acquaintance. Thus he was once, 
 in 1811, visiting the Island of Rugen, in the Baltic, 
 and having been actively engaged all day, was sitting 
 in an easy-chair, quietly nodding. Suddenly he sees 
 his dear old aunt Sophie standing before him ; on her 
 face her well-known sweet smile, and in her arms her 
 two little boys, whom he loved like his own. She was 
 holding them out to him as if she wished to say by this 
 gesture : " Take care of the little ones ! " The next 
 day his brother joined him and brought him the new T s 
 that their aunt had died on the preceding evening at 
 the hour when she had appeared to Arndt. Wieland, 
 even, by no means given to credit easily accounts of
 
 214 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 supernatural occurrences, mentions in his "Euthan- 
 asia " a Protestant lady of his acquaintance, whose mind 
 was frequently filled with extraordinary visions. She 
 was a somnambulist, and subject to cataleptic attacks. 
 A Benedictine monk, an old Mend of the family, had 
 been ordered to Bellinzona, in Switzerland, but his 
 correspondence with his friends had never been inter- 
 rupted for years. Years after his removal the above- 
 mentioned lady was taken ill, and at once predicted 
 the day and hour of her death. On the appointed day 
 she was cheerful and perfectly composed ; at a certain 
 hour, however, she raised herself slightly on her couch, 
 and said with a sweet smile, " Xow it is time for me to 
 go and say good-bye to Father C. She immediately 
 fell asleep, then awoke again, spoke a few words, and 
 died. At the same hour the monk was sitting in Bel- 
 linzona at his writing-table, a so-called pandora, a mu- 
 sical instrument, by his side. Suddenly he hears a noise 
 like an explosion, and looking up startled, sees a white 
 figure, in whom he at once recognizes his distant friend 
 by her sweet smile. When he examined his instrument 
 he found the sounding-board cracked, which, no doubt, 
 had given rise to his hearing what he considered a 
 " warning voice." The Rev. Mr. Oberlin, well-known 
 and much revered in Germany, and by no means forgot- 
 ten in our own country, where a prosperous college still 
 bears his name, declares in his memoirs that he had for 
 nine years constant intercourse with his deceased wife. 
 He saw her for the first time after her death in broad
 
 GHOSTS. 215 
 
 daylight and when he was wide awake; afterwards the 
 conversations were carried on partly in the day and 
 partly at night. Other people in. the village in which 
 he lived saw her as well as himself. Nor was it by the 
 eye only that the pious, excellent man judged of her 
 presence ; frequently, when he extended his hand, he 
 would feel his fingers gently pressed, as his wife had 
 been in the habit of doing when she passed by him and 
 would not stop. But there was much bitterness and 
 sorrow also mixed up with the sweetness of these mys- 
 terious relations. The passionate attachment of hus- 
 band and wife could ill brook the terrible barrier that 
 separated them from each other, and often the latter 
 would look so wretched and express her grief in such 
 heartrending words that the poor minister was deeply 
 afflicted. The impression produced on his mind was 
 that her soul, forced for unknown reasons to remain for 
 some time in an intermediate state, remained warmly 
 attached to earthly friends and lamented the inability 
 to confer with them after the manner of men. After 
 nine years the husband's visions suddenly ended and 
 he was informed in a dream that his wife had been ad- 
 mitted into a higher heaven, where she enjoyed the 
 promised peace with her Saviour, but could no longer 
 commune with mortal beings. 
 
 It is well known that even the great reformer, Mar- 
 tin Luther, knew of several similar cases, and in his 
 " Table Talk " mentions more than one remarkable in- 
 stance.
 
 216 MODEKN MAGIC. 
 
 Another well-known and much discussed occurrence 
 of this kind happened in the days of Mazarin, and cre- 
 ated a great sensation in the highest circles at Paris. A 
 marquis of Eambouillet and a marquis of Preci, inti- 
 mate friends, had agreed to inform each other of their 
 iiite after death. The former was ordered to the army 
 in Flanders, while the other remained in the capital. 
 Here he was taken ill with a fever, several weeks after 
 parting with his friend, and as he was one morning to- 
 wards 6 o'clock lying in bed awake, the curtains were 
 suddenly drawn aside, and his. friend dressed as usual, 
 booted and spurred, was standing before him. Over- 
 joyed, he was about to embrace him, but his friend 
 drew back and said that he had come only to keep his 
 promise after having been killed in a skirmish the day 
 before, and that Preci also would share his fate in the 
 first combat in which he should be engaged. The latter 
 thinks his friend is joking, jumps up and tries to 
 seize him but he feels nothing. The vision, however, 
 is still there ; Rambouillet even shows him the fatal 
 wound in his thigh from which the blood seems still to 
 be flowing. Then only he disappears and Preci re- 
 mains utterly overcome ; at last he summons his valet, 
 rouses the whole house, and causes every room and 
 every passage to be searched. No trace, however, is 
 found, and the whole vision is attributed to his fever. 
 But a few days later the mail arrives from Flanders, 
 bringing the news that Eambouillet had really fallen in 
 such a skirmish and died from a wound in the thigh ;
 
 GHOSTS. 217 
 
 the prediction also was fulfilled, for Preci fell afterwards 
 in his first fight near St. Antoiiie (Petaval, Causes 
 Catbres, xii. 269). 
 
 The parents of the well-known writer Schubert were 
 exceptionally endowed with magic powers of this kind. 
 The father once heard, as he thought in a dream, 
 the voice of his aged mother, who called upon him to 
 come and visit her in the distant town in which she 
 lived, if he desired to see her once more before she died. 
 He rejected the idea that this was more than a common 
 dream ; but soon he heard the voice repeating the warn- 
 ing. Now he jumped up and saw his mother standing 
 before him, extending her hand and saying: " Christian 
 Gottlob, farewell, and may God bless you; you will not 
 see me again upon earth," and with these words she 
 disappeared. Although no one had apprehended such a 
 calamity, she had actually died at that hour, after 
 expressing in her last moments a most anxious desire 
 to see her son once more. 
 
 Tangible perceptions of persons dying at a distance 
 are, of course, very rare. Still, more than one such 
 case is authoritatively stated; among these, the follow- 
 ing : A lawyer in Paris had returned home and walked, 
 in order to reach his own bedroom, through that of his 
 brother. To his great astonishment he saw the latter 
 lying in his bed; received, however, no answer to his 
 questions. Thereupon he walked up to the bed, 
 touched his brother and found the body icy cold. Of a 
 sudden the form vanished and the bed was empty. At 
 
 10
 
 218 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 that instant it flashed through his mind that he and 
 his brother had promised each other that the one dying 
 first should, if possible, give a sign to the survivor. 
 When he recovered from the deep emotion caused by 
 these thoughts, he left the room and as he opened the 
 door he came across a number of men who bore the 
 body of his brother, who had been killed by a fall from 
 his horse (La Patrie, Sept. 22, 1857). The Count of 
 Neuilly, also, was warned in a somewhat similar man- 
 ner. He was at college and on the point of paying a 
 visit to his paternal home, when a letter came telling 
 him that his father was not quite well and that he had 
 better postpone his visit a few days. Later letters from 
 his mother mentioned nothing to cause him any un- 
 easiness. But several days afterward, at one o'clock in 
 the morning, he thought, apparently in a dream, that 
 he saw a pale ghastly figure rise slowly at the lower end 
 of his bed, extend both arms, embrace him and then 
 sink slowly down again out of sight. He uttered heart- 
 rending cries, and fell out of his bed, upsetting a chair 
 and a table. When his tutor and a man-servant rushed 
 into the room, they found him lying unconscious on 
 the floor, covered with cold, clammy perspiration and 
 strangely disfigured. As soon as he was restored to 
 consciousness, he burst out into tears and assured them 
 that his father had died and come to take leave of him. 
 In vain did his friends try to calm his mind, he re- 
 mained in a state of utter dejection. Three days later 
 a letter came from his mother, bringing him the sad
 
 GHOSTS. 219 
 
 news, that his father had died on that night and at the 
 hour in which he had appeared by his bedside. The 
 unfortunate Count could never entirely get rid of the 
 overwhelming impression which this occurrence had 
 made on his mind, and was, to the day of his death, 
 firmly convinced of the reality of this meeting (Dix 
 Annees d' emigration, Paris, 1865). 
 
 We learn from such accounts that there prevails 
 among all men, at all ages, a carefully repressed, but 
 almost irresistible belief in supernatural occurrences, 
 and in the close proximity of the spirit world. This 
 belief is neither to be treated with ridicule nor to be 
 objected to as unchristian, since it is an abiding wit- 
 ness that men entertain an ineradicable conviction of 
 the immortality of the soul. Xo arguments can ever 
 destroy in the minds of the vast majority of men this 
 innate and intuitive faith. We may decline to believe 
 with them the existence of supernatural agencies, as 
 long as no experimental basis is offered ; but we ought, 
 at the same time, to be willing to modify our incre- 
 dulity as soon as an accumulation of facts appear to 
 justify us in so doing. Our age is so completely given 
 up to materialism with its ceaseless hurry and worry, 
 that we ought to hail with a sense of relief new powers 
 which require examination, and which offer to our in- 
 tellectual faculties an untrodden field of investigation, 
 full of incidents refreshing to our weary mind, and 
 promising rich additions to our store of knowledge. 
 
 It can hardly be denied that there is at least a pos-
 
 220 JIODEKX MAGIC. 
 
 sibility of the existence of a higher spiritual power 
 within us, which, often slumbering and altogether un- 
 known, or certainly unobserved during life, becomes 
 suddenly free to act in the hour of death. This may 
 be brought about by the fact that at that time the 
 strength of the body is exhausted, and earthly wants 
 no longer press upon us, while the spiritual part of our 
 being, largely relieved of its bondage, becomes active in 
 its own peculiar way, and thus acquires a power which 
 we are disposed to call a magic power. This po\ver is, 
 of course, not used consciously, for consciousness pre- 
 supposes the control over our senses, but it acts by in- 
 tuitive impulse. Hence the wide difference existing 
 between the so-called magic of charmers, enchanters, 
 and conjurors, justly abhorred and strictly prohibited 
 by divine laws, and the effects of such supreme efforts 
 made by the soul, which depend upon involuntary 
 action, and are never made subservient to wicked pur- 
 poses. 
 
 The results of such exertions are generally impres- 
 sions made apparently upon the eye or the ear ; but it 
 need not be said that what is seen or heard in such 
 cases, is merely the effect of a deeply felt sensation in 
 our soul which seeks an outward expression. If our 
 innermost being is thus suddenly appealed to, as it 
 were, by the spirit of a dying friend or companion, his 
 image arises instantaneously before our mind's eye. and 
 we fancy we see him in bodily form, or our memory 
 recalls the familiar sounds by which his appearance
 
 GHOSTS. '221 
 
 was wont to be accompanied. Dying musicians remind 
 distant friends of their former relations by sweet 
 sounds, and a sailor, wounded to death, appears in his 
 uniform to relatives at home. The series of sights and 
 sounds by which such intercourse is established, varies 
 from the simplest and faintest vision to an apparently- 
 clear and distinct perception of well-known forms, and 
 constitute feeble, hardly perceptible, sighs or sobs to 
 words uttered aloud, or whole melodies clearly recited. 
 If a living person, by such an unconscious but all-power- 
 ful effort of will, makes himself seen by others, we call 
 the vision a " double," in German, a " Doppelga'nger ; " 
 if he produces a state of dualism, such as has been men- 
 tioned before, and sees his own self in space before him, 
 we speak of second sight. 
 
 Such efforts are, however, by no means strictly lim- 
 ited to the moment of dissolution, when soul and body are 
 already in the act of parting. They occur also in living 
 persons, but almost invariably only in diseased persons. 
 The exceptions belong to the small number of men in 
 whom great excitement from without, or a mysterious 
 power of will, cause a state of ecstasy ; they are, in com- 
 mon parlance, " beside themselves." In this condition, 
 their soul is for the moment freed from the bondage in 
 which it is held by its earthy companion, and such men 
 become clairvoyants and prophets, or they are enabled 
 actually to affect other men at a distance, in various 
 ways. Thus it may very well be, that strange visions, 
 the hearing of mysterious voices, and especially the
 
 222 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 most familiar phenomenon, second sight, are in reality 
 nothing more than symptoms of a thoroughly diseased 
 system, and this explains very simply the frequency 
 with which death follows such mysterious occurrences. 
 
 Men have claimed and proved to the satisfaction of 
 more or less considerable numbers of friends that they 
 could at will cause a partial and momentary parting be- 
 tween their souls and their bodies. Here also antiquity is 
 our first teacher, if we believe Pliny (Hist. Xnl. vii. c. 
 52), Hermotimus could at his pleasure fall into a trance 
 and then let his soul proceed from his body to distant 
 places. Upon being aroused, he reported what he had 
 seen and heard abroad, and his statements were, in every 
 case, fully confirmed. Cardanus, also, could volun- 
 tarily throw himself into a state of apparent syncope, as 
 he tells us in most graphic words (De Res. Var. v. iii. 1. 
 viii. c. 43). The first sensation of which he was always 
 fully conscious, was a peculiar pain in the head, which 
 gradually extended downward along the spine, and at 
 last spread over the extremities evidently a purely 
 nervous process. Then he felt as if a " door was opened, 
 and he himself was leaving his body," whereupon he 
 not only saw persons at a distance, but noticed all that 
 befell them, and recalled it after he had recovered from 
 the trance. An old German Abbe, Freitheim, of whose 
 remai'kable work on Stcganograpliie (1651), unfortun- 
 ately only a few sheets have been preserved, claims the 
 power to commune with absent friends by the mere en- 
 ergy of his will. " I can," says he, <' make known my
 
 GHOSTS. 223 
 
 thoughts to the initiated, at a distance of many hundred 
 miles, without word, writing or cypher, by any messenger. 
 The latter cannot betray me, for he knows nothing. 
 If needs be, I can even dispense with the messenger. 
 If my correspondent should be buried in the deepest 
 dungeon I could still convey to him my thoughts as 
 clearly, as fully, and as frequently as might be desir- 
 able, and all this, quite simply, without superstition, 
 without the aid of spirits." 
 
 The famous Agrippa (De occulta philos., Lugdimi, 
 III. ^>. 13) quotes the former writer, and asserts 
 that he also could, by mere effort of will, in a 
 perfectly simple and natural manner convey his 
 thoughts not to the initiated only, but to any one, 
 even when his correspondent's present place of resi- 
 dence should be unknown. The most remarkable, 
 and, at the same time, the best authenticated case 
 of this kind, is that of a high German official men- 
 tioned in a scientific paper (Xasse. Zeitsclirift fur 
 psychische Aerzfe, 1820), and frequently copied into 
 others. A Counsellor Wesermann claimed to be able 
 to cause distant friends to dream of any subject he 
 might choose. Whenever he awoke at night and made 
 a determined eifort to produce such an effect, he never 
 failed, provided the nature of the desired dream was 
 calculated to startle or deeply excite his friends. His 
 power was tested in this manner. He engaged to cause 
 a young officer, who was stationed at Aix-la-Chapelle, 
 nearly fifty miles from his own home, to dream of a
 
 224 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 young lady who had died not long ago. It was eleven 
 o'clock at night, but by some accident the lieutenant 
 was not at home in bed, but at a friend's country-seat, 
 discussing the French campaign. Suddenly the col- 
 onel, his host, and he himself see at the same time the 
 door open, a lady enter, salute them sadly, and beckon 
 them to follow her. The two officers rise and leave the 
 room after her, but once out of doors, the figure disap- 
 pears, and when they inquire of the sentinels standing 
 guard outside, they are told that no one has entered. 
 What made the matter more striking yet, was the fact 
 that although both men had seen the door open, this 
 could not really have been so, for the wood had sprung 
 and the door creaked badly whenever it was opened. 
 The same Wesermann could, in like manner, cause his 
 friends to see his own person and to hear secrets which 
 he seemed to whisper into their ears whenever he 
 chose ; but he admitted upon it that his will was not 
 at all times equally strong, and that, hence, his efforts 
 were not always equally successful. Cases of similar 
 powers are yery numerous. A very curious example 
 was published in 1852, in a work on "Psychologic 
 Studies " (Schlemmer, p. 59). The author, who was a 
 police agent in the Prussian service, asserted that per- 
 sons who apprehended being conducted to gaol with 
 special anxiety, often made themselves known there in 
 advance, announcing their arrival by knocks at the 
 gates, opening of doors, or footsteps heard in the room 
 set aside for examining new comers. One dav, not the
 
 GHOSTS. . 225 
 
 writer only, but all the prisoners in the same building, 
 and even the sentinel at the gate heard distinctly a 
 great disturbance and the rattling of chains in a cell 
 exclusively appropriated to murderers. The next day 
 a criminal was brought who had expressed such horror 
 of this gaol, and made such resistance to the officials 
 who were to carry him there, that it had become neces- 
 sary, after a great uproar, to chain him hands and feet. 
 It is well known that the mother of the great statesman 
 Canning at one time of her life suffered under most 
 mysterious though harmless nightly visitations. Her 
 circumstances were such that she readily accepted the 
 offer of a dwelling which stood unoccupied, with the 
 exception of the basement, in which a carpenter had 
 his workshop. At nightfall he and his workmen left 
 the house, carefully locking the door, but night after 
 night, at twelve o'clock precisely, work began once 
 more in the abandoned part of the house, as far as the 
 ear could judge, and the noise made by planing and 
 sawing, cutting and carving increased, till the fearless 
 old lady slipt down in her stocking feet and opened the 
 door. Instantly the noise was hushed, and she looked 
 into the dark deserted room. But as soon as she re- 
 turned to her chamber the work began anew, and con- 
 tinued for some time ; nor was she the only one who 
 heard it, but others, the owner of the house included, 
 heard everything distinctly. 
 
 The following well-autheuticated account of a pos- 
 thumous appearance, is not without its ludicrous ele-
 
 220 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 ment. A court-preacher in one of the little Saxon 
 Duchies, appeared once in bands and gowns before his 
 sovereign, bowing most humbly and reverently. The 
 duke asked what he desired, but received no answer ex- 
 cept another deep reverence. A second question meets 
 with the same reply, whereupon the divine leaves the 
 room, descends the stairs and crosses the court-yard, 
 while the prince, much surprised at his strange conduct, 
 stands at a window and watches him till he reaches the 
 gates. Then he sends a page after him to try and as- 
 certain what was the matter with the old gentleman, 
 but the page comes running back almost beside himself, 
 and reports that the minister had died a short while 
 before. The prince refuses to believe his report, and 
 sends a high official, but the latter returns with the 
 same report and this additional information : The dy- 
 ing man had asked for writing materials, in order to 
 recommend his widow to his sovereign, but had hardly 
 commenced writing the letter when death surprised 
 him. The fragment was brought to the duke and con- 
 vinced him that his faithful servant, unable to reach him 
 by letter, and yet nervously anxious to approach him, 
 had spiritually appeared to him in his most familiar cos- 
 tume (Daumer, Mystagog. I. p. 224). 
 
 Before we regret such statements or treat them with 
 ridicule, it will be well to remember, that men endowed 
 with an extraordinary power of controlling certain fac- 
 ulties of body and soul, are by no means rare, and that 
 the difference between them and those last mentioned,
 
 GHOSTS. 227 
 
 consists only in the degree. We speak of the power of 
 sight and limit it ordinarily to a certain distance and 
 yet a Hottentot, we are told, can perceive the head of a 
 gazelle in the dry, uniform grass of an African plain, at 
 the distance of a thousand yards! Many men cannot 
 hear sounds in nature which are perfectly audible to 
 others, while some persons hear even certain notes 
 littered by tiny insects^, which escape altogether the 
 average hearing of man. Patients under treatment by 
 Baron Reichenbach, saw luminous objects and the ap- 
 pearance of lights hovering above ground, where neither 
 he nor any of his friends could perceive anything but 
 utter darkness, and the special gift with which some 
 persons are endowed to feel, as it were, the presence of 
 water and of metals below the surface, is well authenti- 
 cated. Poor Caspar Hauser, bred in darkness and soli- 
 tude, felt various and deep impressions upon his W'hole 
 being during the first months of his free life, whenever 
 he came in contact with plants, stones or metals. The 
 latter sent a current through all his limbs ; tobacco fields 
 made him deadly sick, and the vicinity of a graveyard 
 gave him violent pains in his chest. Persons who were 
 introduced to him for the first time, sent a cold current 
 through him ; and when they possessed a specially power- 
 ful physique, they caused him abundant perspiration, and 
 often even convulsions. The waves of sound he felt so 
 much more acutely than others, that he always contin- 
 ued to hear them with delight, long after the last sound 
 had passed away from the ears of others. Tt maybe fairly
 
 228 MODEKX MA (.1C. 
 
 presumed that this extreme sensitiveness to outward im- 
 pressions is originally possessed by all men, but becomes 
 gradually dulled and dimmed by constant repetition ; at 
 the same time it may certainly be preserved in rare privi- 
 leged cases, or it may come back again to the body in 
 a diseased or disordered condition, and at the moment 
 of dissolution. 
 
 Nor is the power occasionally granted to men to con- 
 trol their senses limited to these ; even the spontaneous 
 functions of the body are at times subject to the will of 
 man. An Englishman, for instance, could at will mod- 
 ify the beating of his heart (Cheyne, "Xew Dis.," p. 307), 
 and a German produced, like a veritable ruminant, the 
 antiperistaltic motions of the stomach, whenever he 
 chose (Blumenbach, Phys. 294). Other men have 
 been known who could at any moment cause the famil- 
 iar "goose-skin," or perspiration, to appear in any part 
 of the body, and many persons can move not only the 
 ears a lost faculty according to Darwin but even en- 
 large or contract the pupil of the eye, after the manner 
 of cats and parrots. Even the circulation of the blood has 
 been known, in a few rare cases, to have been subject to 
 the will of men, and the great philosopher Kant did not 
 hesitate to affirm, supported as he was by his own ex- 
 perience, that men could, if they were but resolute 
 enough, master, by a mere effort of the will, not a few of 
 their diseases. 
 
 A striking evidence of the comparative facility with 
 which men' thus 'exceptionally gifted, may be able to
 
 GHOSTS. 229 
 
 imitate certain magic phenomena, was once given by an 
 excellent mimic, whom Richard describes in his T/teorie 
 des Songes. He could change his features so complete- 
 ly that they assumed a deathlike appearance; his 
 senses lost gradually their power of perception, aud the 
 vital spirit was seen to withdraw from the outer world. 
 A slow, quivering motion passed through his whole sys- 
 tem from the feet upward, as if he wished to rise from 
 the ground. After a while all efforts of the body to 
 remain upright proved fruitless ; it looked as if life had 
 actually begun to leave it already. At this moment he 
 abandoned his deception and was so utterly exhausted 
 that he heard and saw but with extreme difficulty. 
 
 In the face of these facts the possibility at least can- 
 not be denied that certain specially endowed individu- 
 als may possess, in health or in disease, the power to 
 perceive phenomena which appear all the more marvel- 
 ous because they are beyond the reach of ordinary pow- 
 ers of perception. 
 
 In our own day superstition and wanton, or cunning- 
 ly devised, imposture have been so largely mixed up 
 with the subject, that a strong and very natural preju- 
 dice has gradually grown up against the belief in ghosts. 
 Every strange appearance, every mysterious coinci- 
 dence, that escaped the most superficial investigation, 
 was forthwith called a ghost. History records, besides, 
 numerous cases in which the credulity of great men 
 has been played upon for purposes of policy and state- 
 craft. "When the German Emperor Joseph showed his
 
 200 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 great fondness of Augustus of Saxon}' afterwards 
 king of Poland his Austrian counsellors became 
 alarmed at the possible influence of such intimacy of 
 their sovereign with a Protestant prince, and determin- 
 ed to break it off. Night after night, therefore, a fear- 
 ful vision arose before the German emperor, rattling its 
 chains and accusing the young prince of grievous her- 
 esy. Augustus, however, known already at that time 
 for his gigantic strength, asked Joseph's permission to 
 sleep in his room ; when the ghost appeared as usual, 
 the young prince sprang upon him. and feeling his 
 flesh and blood, threw him bodily out of a window of 
 the second story into a deep fosse. The unfortunate 
 king of Prussia, Fredei'ick William II., fell soon after 
 his ascension of the throne into the hands of designing 
 men, who determined to profit by his great kindness of 
 heart and his tendency to mysticism, and began to 
 work upon him by supernatural apparitions. One of 
 the most cunningly devised impostures of the kind 
 was practised upon King Gustavus III. of Sweden by 
 ambitious noblemen of his court. 
 
 The scene was the ancient Lofoe church in Dro- 
 tingholm, a favorite residence of former Swedish mon- 
 archs. The king's physician, Iven Hediu, learnt acci- 
 dentally from the sexton that his master had been 
 spending several nights in the building, in company 
 with a few of his courtiers. Alarmed by this informa- 
 tion he persuaded the sexton to let him watch the pro- 
 ceedings from a secret place in the old steeple of the
 
 GHOSTS. 231 
 
 cliurch. An opportunity came in the month of Au- 
 gust, 1785. and he had scarcely taken possession of 
 his post when two of the royal secretaries came in, 
 closed the door, and arranged a curious contrivance in 
 the body of the building. To his great surprise and 
 amusement the doctor saw them fasten some horse-hairs 
 to the heavy chandeliers suspended from the lofty ceil- 
 ing. ;md then pin to them masks sewed on to white 
 lluating garments. Finally large quantities of incense 
 were scattered on the floor and set on fire, while all 
 lights, save a few thin candles, were extinguished. 
 Then the king was ushered in with five of his courtiers, 
 made to assume a peculiar, very irksome position, and 
 all were asked to hold naked swords upon each other's 
 breasts. Thereupon the first comer murmured certain 
 formulas of conjuration, and performed some cere- 
 monies, when his companion slowly drew up one of the 
 masks. It was fashioned to resemble the great Gus- 
 tavus Adolphus, and in the dimly-lighted church, filled 
 with dense smoke, it looked to all intents and purposes 
 like a ghost arising from the vaults underneath. It 
 disappeared as slowly into the darkness above, and was 
 immediately followed by another mask representing 
 Adolphus Frederick, and even the physician, who knew 
 the secret, could not repress a shudder, so admirably 
 was the whole contrived. Then followed a few flashes 
 of lightning, during which the horse-hairs were re- 
 moved, lights were brought in, and the king, deeply 
 moved and shedding silent tears, escorted from the
 
 232 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 building. The faithful physician watched his oppor- 
 tunity, and when a favorable hour appeared, revealed 
 the secret to his master, and thus, fortunately for 
 Sweden, defeated a very dangerous and most skillfully- 
 conducted conspiracy. 
 
 Even ventriloquism has lent its aid to many an his- 
 torical imposture, as in the case of Francis I. of France, 
 whose, valet, Louis of Brabant, possessed great skill in 
 that art, and used it unsparingly for his own benefit 
 and to the advantage of courtiers who employed him 
 for political purposes. He even persuaded the mother 
 of a beautiful and wealthy young lady to give him her 
 daughters hand by imitating the voice of her former 
 husband, and commanding her to do so in order to 
 release him from purgatory ! 
 
 We fear that to this class of ghostly appearances 
 must also be counted the almost historical White Lady 
 of the Margraves of Brandenburg. 
 
 Report says that she represents a Countess Kunigunde 
 of Orlamunde, who lived in the fourteenth century 
 and killed her two children, for which crime she was 
 executed by order of a Burggrave of Xuremberg. His- 
 tory, however, knows nothing of such an event, and 
 the White Lady does not appear till 148G, when she is 
 first seen in the old palace at Baireuth. This was noth- 
 ing but a trick of the courtiers; whenever they desired 
 to leave the dismal town and the uncomfortable build- 
 ing, one of the court ladies personated the ghost, and 
 occasionally, even two white ladies were seen at the
 
 GHOMX '23:> 
 
 same time. In 1540 the ghost met with a tragic fate ; 
 it had appeared several times in the castle of Margrave 
 Albert the warrior, and irritated the prince to such a 
 degree that he at last seized it one night and hurled it 
 headlong down the long staircase. The morning dawn 
 revealed his chancellor, Christopher Strass, who had be- 
 trayed his master and now paid with a broken neck for 
 his bold imposture. After this catastrophe the White 
 Lady was not seen for nearly a hundred years, when she 
 suddenly reappeared in Baireuth. In the year 1677 the 
 then reigning Margrave of Brandenburg found her one 
 day sitting in his own chair and was terrified; the next 
 day he rode out, fell from his horse, and was instantly 
 killed. From this time the White Lady became a part 
 of the history of the house of Brandenburg, accompany- 
 ing the princes to Berlin and making it her duty to 
 forewarn the illustrious family of any impending ca- 
 lamity. King Frederick I. saw her distinctly, but other 
 sovereigns discerned only a vague outline and now and 
 then the nose and eyes, while all the rest was closely 
 veiled. In the old palace at Baireuth there exist to this 
 day two portraits of the White Lady, one in white, as 
 she appeared of old, and very beautiful, the other in 
 black satin, with her hair powdered and dressed after 
 more modern fashion there is no likeness between the 
 two faces. The ghost was evidently a good patriot, for 
 she disturbed French officers who were quartered there, 
 in the new palace as well as in the old, and as late as 
 1806 thoroughly frightened a number of generals who
 
 334 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 hud laughed at the credulity of the Germans. lu 1809 
 General d'Espague roused his aids in the depth of night 
 by fearful cries, and when they rushed in he was found 
 lying in the centre of the room, under the bedstead. 
 He told them that the White Lady, in a costume of 
 black and white, resembling one of the portraits, had 
 appeared and threatened to strangle him ; in the strug- 
 gle she had dragged the bedstead to the middle of the 
 room and there upset it. The room was thoroughly 
 searched at his command, the hangings removed from 
 the walls, and the whole floor taken up, but no trace 
 was found of any opening through which a person 
 might have entered ; the doors had been guarded by 
 sentinels. The general left the place immediately, 
 looking upon the vision as a warning of impending 
 evil, and, sure enough, a few days later he found his 
 death upon the battle-field of Aspern. Even the great 
 Kapoleon, whose superstition was generally thought to 
 be confined to his faith in his " star," would not lodge 
 in the rooms haunted by the "White Lady, and when he 
 reached Baireuth in 1812, a suite of rooms was prepared 
 for him in another wing of the palace. It was, how- 
 ever, noticed that even there his night's rest must have 
 been interrupted, for on the next morning he was re- 
 markably nervous and out of humor, murmuring 
 repeatedly " Ce maudit chateau" and declaring that lie 
 would never again stay at the place. When he returned 
 to that neighborhood in 1813, he refused to occupy the 
 rooms that had been prepared for him, and continued
 
 GHOSTS. 235 
 
 his journey far into the night, rather than remain at 
 Bairenth. The town was, however, forever relieved of 
 its ill-fame after 1822. It is not without interest that 
 in the same year the steward of the royal palace died, 
 and report says in his rooms were found a number of 
 curiosities apparently connected with the White Lady's 
 costume ; if this be so, his ardent patriotism and fierce 
 hatred of the French might well furnish a cue to some 
 of the more recent apparitions. The White Lady con- 
 tinued to appear in Berlin, and the terror she created 
 was not even allayed by repeated discoveries of most 
 absurd efforts at imposture. Once she turned out to be 
 a white towel agitated by a strong draught between two 
 windows; at another time it was a kitchen-maid on an 
 errand of love, and a third time an old cook taking an 
 airing in the deserted rooms. She appeared once more 
 in the month of February, 1820, announcing, as many 
 believed, the death of the reigning monarch, whicli 
 took place in June; and quite recently (1872) similar 
 warning was given shortly before the emperor's brother, 
 Prince Albrecht, died in his palace. 
 
 White ladies are, however, by no means an exclusive 
 privilege of the house of Brandenburg; Scotland has 
 its ancient legends, skillfully used in novel, poem and 
 opera, and Italy boasts of a Donna Bianca, at Colalta, 
 in the Marca Erivigiana, of whom Byron spoke as if he 
 had never doubted her existence. Ireland has in like 
 manner the Banshee, who warns with her plaintive 
 voice the descendants of certain old families, whenever
 
 236 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 a great calamity threatens one of the members. Curi- 
 ously enough she clings to these once powerful but 
 now often wretchedly poor families, as if pride of 
 descent and attachment to old splendor prevailed even 
 in the realms of magic. 
 
 Historical ghosts play, nevertheless, a prominent part 
 in all countries. Lilly, Baxter and Clarendon, all 
 relate the remarkable warnings which preceded the 
 murder of Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. In this case 
 the warning was given not to the threatened man, but 
 to an old and faithful friend, who had already been 
 intimate with the duke's father. He saw the latter 
 appear to him several nights in succession, urging him 
 to go to the duke, and after revealing to him certain 
 peculiar circumstances, to warn him against the plots 
 of his enemies, who threatened his life. Parker was 
 afraid to appear ridiculous and delayed giving the 
 warning. But the ghost left him no peace, and at last, 
 in order to decide him, revealed to him a secret only 
 known to himself and his ill-fated son. The latter, 
 when his old friend at last summoned courage to 
 deliver the mysterious message, was at first inclined to 
 laugh at the warning; but when Parker mentioned the 
 father's secret, he turned pale and declared only the 
 Evil One could have entrusted it to mortal man. 
 Nevertheless, he took no steps to rid himself of his 
 traitorous friend and continued his sad life as before. 
 The father's ghost thereupon appeared once more to 
 Parker, with deep sadness in his features and hold-
 
 GHOSTS. 237 
 
 ing a knife in his hand, with which, he said, his 
 unfortunate son would be murdered. Parker, whose 
 own impending death had been predicted at the same 
 time, once more waited upon the great duke, but again 
 in vain ; he was rudely sent back and requested not to 
 trouble the favorite's peace any more by his foolish 
 dreams. A few days afterwards Lieutenant Felton 
 assassinated the duke with precisely such a knife as 
 Parker had seen in his visions. 
 
 A similar occurrence is related of the famous Duchess 
 of Mazariu, the favorite of Charles II., and Madame de 
 Beauclair, who stood in the same relation to James II. 
 The two ladies, who were bosom friends, had pledged 
 their word to each other, that she who died first should 
 appear to the survivor and inform her of the nature of the 
 future state. The duchess died ; but as no message came 
 from her, her friend denied stoutly and persistently the 
 immortality of the soul. But many years later, when 
 the promise was long forgotten, the duchess suddenly 
 was seen one night, gliding softly through the room 
 and looking sweetly at her friend, whispering to her : 
 " Beauclair, between twelve and one o'clock to-night 
 you will be near me." The poor lady died at the 
 appointed hour (Nork. " Existence of Spirits," p. 260). 
 Less well-authenticated is the account of a warning 
 given to King George I. shortly before his death, 
 although it was generally believed throughout England 
 at the time it occurred. The report was that 
 the Queen, Sophia, repeatedly showed herself to her
 
 238 3IODERX MAGIC. 
 
 husband, beseeching him to break off his intercourse 
 with his beautiful friend, Lady Horatia. As these 
 requests availed nothing, and the monarch refused even 
 to believe in the reality of her appearance, she at last 
 tied a knot in a lace collar, declaring that " if mortal 
 fingers could untie the knot, the king and Lady 
 Horatia might laugh at her words." The fair lady 
 tried her best to undo it, but giving it up in despair, 
 she threw the collar into the fire; the king, highly 
 excited, snatched the lace from the burning coals, but 
 in so doing, touched with it the light gauze dress of 
 his companion. In her terror she ran with great swift- 
 ness through room after room, thus fanning the flames 
 into a blaze, and perished amid excruciating pains. 
 The king, it is well known, died only two months 
 later. 
 
 A case which created a very great sensation at the 
 time when it happened, and became generally known 
 through the admirable manner in which it was nar- 
 rated by the eloquent Bernardin de St. Pierre (Jour- 
 nal de Trevoux, vol. viii.), was that of the priest Bezuel. 
 When a young man of 15, and at college, he contracted 
 an intimate friendship with the son of a royal official, 
 called Desfontaines. The two friends often spoke of future 
 life, and when parted in 1696, they signed with their 
 blood a solemn compact, in which they agreed that the 
 first who died should appear after death to the survivor. 
 They wrote to each other constantly, and frequently 
 alluded in their letters to the agreement. A year after
 
 GHOSTS. 239 
 
 their parting, Beziiel happened to be, one day, in the 
 fields, delivering a message to some workmen, when he 
 suddenly fell down fainting. As he was in perfect health, 
 he knew not what to think of this accident, hut when 
 it occurred a second and a third time, at the same hour, 
 on the two following days, he became seriously uneasy. 
 On the last occasion, however, he fell into a trance, in 
 which he saw nothing around him, but beheld his friend 
 Desfontaines, who seized him by the arm and led him 
 some thirty yards aside. The Avorkmen saw him go 
 there, as if obeying a guardian hand, and converse with 
 an unseen person for three quarters of an hour. The 
 young man heard here from his friend's lips, that he 
 had been drowned while bathing in the river Orne on 
 the day and at the hour when Bezuel had had his first 
 fainting fit, that a companion had endeavored to save 
 him, but when seized by the foot by the drowning man, 
 had kicked him on the chest, and thus caused him to 
 sink to the bottom. Bezuel inquired after all the de- 
 tails and received full answers, but none to questions 
 about the future life; nevertheless, the apparition con- 
 tinued to speak fluently but calmly, and requested Bez- 
 uel to make certain communications to his kinsmen, 
 and to repeat the " seven penitential psalms," which he 
 ought to have said himself as a penance. It also men- 
 tioned the work in which Desfontaines had been en- 
 gaged up to the day of his death, and some names which 
 he had cut in the bark of a tree near the town in which 
 he lived. Then it disappeared. Bezuel was not able to
 
 240 MODEEX MAGIC. 
 
 carry out his friend's wishes, although the arm by which 
 he had been seized, reminded him daily of his duty by 
 a severe pain ; after a mouth, the drowned man appeared 
 twice more, urging his requests, and saying each time 
 at the end of the interview, " bis, bis" just as he had 
 been accustomed to do when in life. At last the young 
 priest found the means to do his friend's bidding ; the 
 pain in the arm ceased instantly and his health remain- 
 ed perfect to the end of his life. When he reached Caen 
 where Desfontaines had perished, he found everything 
 precisely as he had been told in his visions, and two 
 years afterwards he discovered by chance even the tree 
 with the names cut in the bark. The amiable Abbe 
 de Sk Pierre does his best to explain the whole occur- 
 rence as a natural series of very simple accidents; there 
 can be, however, no doubt of the exceptionable char- 
 acter of the leading- features of the event, and the priest, 
 from whose own account the facts are derived, must 
 evidently in his trance have been endowed with powers 
 of clairvoyance. 
 
 In the first part of this century a book appeared in 
 Germany which led to a very general and rather violent 
 discussion of the whole subject. It was written by a 
 Dr. Woetzel, whose mind had, no doubt, been long 
 engaged in trying to solve mysteries like that of the 
 future life, since he had early come in contact with 
 strange phenomena. The father of a dear friend of his 
 having fainted in consequence of receiving a serious 
 wound, was very indignant at being roused from the
 
 GHOSTS. 241 
 
 state of perfect bliss which he had enjoyed during the 
 time. He affirmed that in the short interval he had 
 visited his brother in Berlin, whom he found sitting in 
 a bower under a large linden-tree, surrounded by his 
 family and a few friends, and engaged in drinking 
 coffee. Upon entering the garden, his brother had 
 risen, advanced towards him and asked him what had 
 brought him so unexpectedly to Berlin. A few days 
 after the fainting-fit a letter arrived from that city, 
 inquiring what could have happened on that day and 
 at that hour, and reciting all that the old gentleman 
 had reported as having been done during his uncon- 
 sciousness ! Xor had the latter been seen by his 
 brother only, but quite as distinctly by the whole com- 
 pany present ; his image had, however, vanished again 
 as soon as his brother had attempted to touch him 
 (Woetzel, p. 215). From his work we learn that he 
 had begged his wife on her death-bed to appear to him 
 after death, and she had promised to do so ; but soon 
 after her mind became so uneasy about the probable 
 effects of her pledge, that her husband released her, and 
 abandoned all thoughts on the subject. Several weeks 
 later he was sitting in a locked room, when suddenly a 
 heavy draught of air rushed through it, the light was 
 nearly blown out, a small window in an alcove sounded 
 as if it were opened, and in an instant the faint lumin- 
 ous form of his wife was standing before the amazed 
 widower. She said in a soft, scarcely audible voice : 
 
 " Charles, I am immortal ; we shall see each other 
 
 11
 
 242 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 again." "Woetzel jumped up and tried to seize the 
 form, but it vanished like thin mist, and he felt a 
 strong electric shock. He saw the same vision and 
 heard the same words repeatedly ; his wife appeared as 
 he had last seen her lying in her coffin ; the second 
 time a dog, who had been often petted by her, wagged 
 his tail and walked caressingly around the apparition. 
 The book, which appeared in 1804, and gave a full 
 account of all the phenomena, met with much opposi- 
 tion and contempt; a number of works were written 
 against it, Wieland ridiculed it in his "Euthanasia/' 
 and others denounced it as a mere repetition of former 
 statements. The author was, however, not abashed by 
 the storm he had raised; he offered to swear to the 
 truth of all he had stated before the Great Council of 
 the University of Leipzig, and published a second work 
 in which he developed his theory of ghosts with great 
 ability. According to his view, the spirits of the de- 
 parted are for some time after death surrounded by a 
 luminous essence, which may, under peculiarly favor- 
 able circumstances, become visible to human eyes, but 
 which, according to the weakness of our mind, is gen- 
 erally transformed by the imagination only into the 
 more familiar form of deceased friends. He insists, 
 besides, upon it that all he saw and heard was an im- 
 pression made upon the outer senses only, and that 
 nothing in the whole occurrence originated in his 
 inner consciousness. As there was nothing to be 
 gained for him by his persistent assertions, it seems
 
 GHOSTS. 243 
 
 but fair to give them all the weight they may deserve, 
 till the whole subject is more fully understood. 
 
 Another remarkable case is that of a Mr. and Mrs. 
 James, at whose house the Kev. Mr. Mills, a Methodist 
 preacher, was usually entertained when his duties 
 brought him to their place of residence. One year he 
 found they had both died since his last visit, but he 
 staid with the orphaned children, and retired to the 
 same room which he had always occupied. The ad- 
 joining room was the former chamber of the aged 
 couple, and here he began soon to hear a whispering 
 and moving about, just as he used to hear it when they 
 were still alive. This recalled to him the reports he 
 had heard in the town, that the departed had been fre- 
 quently seen by their numerous friends and kinsmen. 
 The next day he called upon a plain but very pious 
 woman, who urged him to share her simple meal with 
 her ; he consented, but what was his amazement when 
 she said to him at the close of the meal: "Now, Mr. 
 Mills, I have a favor to ask of you. I want you to 
 preach my funeral sermon next Sunday. I am going 
 to die next Friday at three o'clock." When the aston- 
 ished minister asked her to explain the strange request, 
 she replied that Mr. and Mrs. James had come to her 
 to tell her that they were ineffably happy, but still 
 bound by certain ties to the world below. They had 
 added that they had not died, as people believed, with- 
 out disposing of their property, but that, in order to 
 avoid dissensions among their children, they had been
 
 244 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 allowed to return and to make the place known where 
 the will was concealed. They had tried to confer with 
 Mr. Mills, but his timidity had prevented it ; now they 
 had come to her, as the minister was going to dine that 
 day at her house. Finally they had informed her of 
 her approaching death on the day she had mentioned. 
 The Methodist minister looked, aided by the heirs and 
 a legal man, for the will and found it at the place indi- 
 cated. Nanny, the poor woman, died on Friday, and 
 her funeral sermon was preached by him on the follow- 
 ing Sunday (Rechenberg, p. 182). 
 
 A certain Dr. T. Van Velseu published in 1870, in 
 Dutch, a work, called Christus Redivivus, in which he 
 relates a number of very remarkable appearances of 
 deceased persons, and among these the following: "A 
 friend of the author's, a man of sound, practical mind, 
 and a declared enemy of all superstition, lost his mother 
 whom he had most assiduously nursed 'for six weeks 
 and who died in full faith in her Eedeemer. A few 
 days later his nephew was to be married in a distant 
 province, but although no near kinsman of his, except 
 his mother, could be present, he, the uncle, could not 
 make up his mind so soon after his grievous loss, to 
 attend a wedding. This decision irritated and wounded 
 his sister deeply and led to warm discussions, in which 
 other relatives also took her side, and which threatened 
 to cause a serious breach in the family. The mourner 
 was deeply afflicted by the scene and at night, having 
 laid the matter before God, he fell asleep with the
 
 GHOSTS. 245 
 
 thought on his mind : ' What would your mother think 
 of it ? ' Suddenly, while yet wide awake, he heard a 
 voice saying : ' Go ! ' Although he recognized the voice 
 instantly, he thought it might be his sister's and drew 
 the bed-curtain aside, to see who was there. To his 
 amazement he saw his mothers form standing by his 
 bedside; terrified and bewildered he dropped the cur- 
 tain, turned his face to the wall and tried to collect his 
 thoughts, but at the same time he heard the same 
 voice say once more : ' Go ! ' He drew the curtain again 
 and saw his mother as before, looking at him with deep 
 love and gentle urgency. This excites him so that he 
 can control himself no longer; he jumps up and tries 
 to seize the form it draws back and gradually dissolves 
 before his eye. Now only he recalls how often he has 
 conversed with his mother about the future life and the 
 possibility of communication after death ; he becomes 
 calm, decides to attend the wedding and sleeps soundly 
 till the morning. The next day he finds his heart 
 relieved of a sore burden ; he joins his friends at the 
 wedding and finds, to his infinite delight, that by his 
 presence only a serious difficulty is avoided and peace 
 is preserved in a numerous and influential family. In 
 this case the effect of the mind on the imagination is 
 strikingly illustrated, and although the vision of the 
 mother may have existed purely in the son's mind, 
 the practical result was precisely the same as if a spirit 
 had really appeared in tangible shape so as to be seen 
 by the outward eye."
 
 246 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 In some instances phenomena, like those described, 
 are apparently the result of a disturbed conscience, and 
 occur, therefore, in frequent repetition. Already Plu- 
 tarch, in his " Life of Cinion," tells us that the Spartan 
 general, Pausanias, had murdered a fair maiden, 
 Cleonice, because she overthrew a torch in his tent and 
 he imagined himself to be attacked by assassins. The 
 ghost of the poor girl, whom he had dishonored in life 
 and so foully killed, appeared to him and threatened 
 him with such fearful disgrace, that he was terrified 
 and hastened to Heraclea, where necromancers sum- 
 moned the spirits of the departed by their vile arts. 
 They called up Cleonice, at the great commander's 
 request, and she replied reluctantly, that the curse 
 would not leave him till he went to Sparta. Pausauias 
 did so and found his death there, the only way, says 
 the historian of the same name, in which he could ever 
 be relieved of such fearful guilt. Baxter, also, tells us 
 (p. 30) of a Rev. Mr. Franklin, whose young son repeat- 
 edly saw a lady and received at her hands quite painful 
 correction. Thus, when he was bound apprentice to 
 a surgeon, in 1661, and refused to return home upon 
 being ordered to do so, she appeared to him, and when 
 he resisted her admonitions, energetically boxed his 
 ears. The poor boy was in bud health and seemed to 
 suffer so much that at Idst the surgeon determined to 
 consult his father, who lived on the island of Ely. On 
 the morning of the day which he spent travelling, the 
 boy cried out : " Oh, mistress, here's the lady again ! "
 
 GHOSTS. 24*7 
 
 and at the same time a noise as of a violent blow was 
 heard. The child hung his head and fell back dead. 
 In the same hour the surgeon and the boy's father, sit- 
 ting together in consultation, saw a lady enter the 
 room, glance at them angrily, walk up and down a few 
 times and disappear again. 
 
 The fancy that murdered persons reappear in some 
 shape after death for the purpose of wreaking their 
 vengeance upon their enemies, is very common among 
 all nations, and has often been vividly embodied in le- 
 gends and ballads. The stories of Hamlet and of Don 
 Giovanni are based upon this belief, and the older 
 chronicles abound with similar cases belonging to an 
 age when violence was more frequent and justice less 
 prompt than in our day. Thus we are told in the an- 
 nals of the famous castle of Weinsberg in Suabia 
 justly renowned all over the world for the rare instance 
 of marital attachment exhibited by its women that a 
 steward had wantonly murdered a peasant there. 
 Thereupon disturbances of various kinds began to 
 make the castle uninhabitable; a black shape was seen 
 walking about and breathing hot and hateful odors 
 upon all it met, while the steward became an object of 
 special persecution. The townspeople at first were 
 skeptic and laughed at his reports, but soon the black 
 visitor was seen on the ramparts of the town also and 
 created within the walls the same sensation as up at the 
 castle. The good citizens at last observed a solemn fast- 
 day and performed a pilgrimage to a holy shrine at
 
 248 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 Heilbrum. But all was iii vain, and the disturbances 
 and annoyances increased in frequency and violence, 
 till at last the unfortunate steward died from vexation 
 and sorrow, when the whole ceased and peace was re- 
 stored to town aud castle alike (Crusius, "Suabian 
 Chron." ii. p. 417). 
 
 Another case of this kind is connected with a curi- 
 ous token of gratitude exhibited by the gratified vic- 
 tim. A president of the Parliament of Toulouse, 
 returning from Paris towards the end of the seven- 
 teenth century, was compelled by an accident to stop 
 at a poor country tavern. During the night there ap- 
 peared to him an old man, pale aud bleeding, who 
 declared that he was the father of the present owner of 
 the house, that he had been murdered by his own son, 
 cut to pieces, and buried in the garden. He appealed to 
 the president to investigate the matter and to avenge 
 his murder. The judge was so forcibly impressed by 
 his vision that he ordered search to be made, and lo ! 
 the body of the murdered man was found, and the son, 
 thunderstruck by the mysterious revelation, acknowl- 
 edged his guilt, was tried, and in course of time died 
 on the scaffold. But the murdered man was not satis- 
 fied yet ; he showed himself once more to the president 
 and asked how he could prove his gratitude ? The 
 latter asked to be informed of the hour of his death, 
 that he might fitly prepare himself, and was promised 
 that he should know it a week in advance. Many 
 years afterwards a fierce knocking was heard at the
 
 GHOSTS. 249 
 
 gate of the president's house in Toulouse ; the porter 
 opened but saw no one; the knocking was repeated, 
 but this time also the servants who had rushed to the 
 spot found nobody there ; when it was heard a third 
 time they were thoroughly frightened and hastened to 
 inform their master. The latter went to the door and 
 there saw the well-remembered form of his nightly 
 visitor, who told him that he would die in eight days. 
 He told his friends and his family what had happened, 
 but only met with laughter, as he was in perfect health 
 and nothing seemed more improbable than his sudden 
 death. But as he sat, on the eighth day, at table with 
 his family, a book was mentioned which he wished to 
 see, and he got up to look for it in his library. In- 
 stantly a shot is heard ; the guests rush out and find 
 him lying on the floor and weltering in his blood. 
 Upon inquiry it appeared that a man, desperately in 
 love with the chamber-maid and jealous of a rival, had 
 mistaken the president for the latter and murdered him 
 with a pistol (De Segur, GaUrie morale et politique, 
 p. 221). 
 
 Among the numerous accounts of visions which seem 
 to have been caused by an instinctive and perfectly un- 
 conscious perception of human remains, the story of the 
 Rev. Mr. Lindner, in Konigsberg, is perhaps the best 
 authenticated, and from the character of the man to 
 whom the revelation was made, the most trustworthy. 
 It is fully reported by Professor Ehrmann of Strasburg, 
 in Kics. ArcMv. x. iii., p. 143. The minister, a mod-
 
 250 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 est, pious man, awoke in the middle of the night, and 
 saw, by the bright moonlight which was shining into 
 the room, another minister in gown and bands, stand- 
 ing before his open bible, apparently searching for some 
 quotation. He had a small child in his arms, and a larger 
 child stood by his side. After some time spent in speech- 
 less astonishment, Mr. Lindner exclaimed: '-'All good 
 spirits praise God!" whereupon the stranger turned 
 round, went up to him and offered three times to shake 
 hands with him. Mr. Lindner, however, refused to do 
 so, gazing at the same time intently at his features, and 
 after a while he found himself looking at the air, for nil 
 had disappeared. It was a long time afterwards, when 
 sauntering through the cloisters of his church, he was 
 suddenly arrested by a portrait which bore all the features 
 of the minister he had seen on that night. It was one 
 of his predecessors in office, who had died nearly fifty 
 years ago in rather bad odor, reports having been cur- 
 rent at the time, as very old men still living testified, 
 that he had had several illegitimate children, of whose 
 fate nothing was known. But there was a still further 
 sequel to the minister's strange adventure. In the course 
 of the next year his study was enlarged, and for that 
 purpose the huge German stove had to be removed ; to 
 the horror of the workmen and of Mr. Lindner, who was 
 promptly called to the spot, the remains of several child- 
 ren were found carefully concealed beneath the solid 
 structure. As there is no reason to suspect self-delusion 
 in the reverend man, and the vision cannot well be
 
 GHOSTS. 251 
 
 ascribed to any outward cause, it must be presumed that 
 his sensitive nature was painfully affected by the skele- 
 tons in his immediate neighborhood, and that this un- 
 conscious feeling, acting through his imagination, gave 
 form and shape to the impressions made upon his 
 nerves. 
 
 In another case the principal person was a candidate 
 of divinity, Billing, well known as being of a highly 
 sensitive disposition and given to hallucinations; the 
 extreme suffering which the presence of human re- 
 mains caused to his whole system had been previously 
 already observed. The great German fabulist, Pfeffel, 
 a blind man, once took Billing's arm and went with 
 him into the garden to take an airing. The poet no- 
 ticed that when they came to a certain place, the young 
 man hesitated and his arm trembled as if it had re- 
 ceived an electric shock. When he was asked what 
 was the matter, he replied, " Oh, nothing !" But upon 
 passing over the spot a second time, the same tremor 
 made itself felt. Pressed by Pfeffel, the young man at 
 last acknowledged that he experienced at that spot the 
 sensation which the presence of a corpse always pro- 
 duced in him, and offered to go there with the poet at 
 night in order to prove to him the correctness of his 
 feelings. When the two friends went to the garden 
 after dark, Billing perceived at once a faint glimmer 
 of light above the spot He stopped at a distance of 
 about ten yards, and after a while declared that he saw 
 a female figure hovering above the place, about five feet
 
 252 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 high, with the right arm across her bosom and the left 
 hand hanging down by her side. When the poet ad- 
 vanced and stood on the fatal spot, the young man 
 affirmed that the image was on his right or his left, 
 before or behind him, and when Pfeffel struck around 
 him with his cane, it produced the effect as if he were 
 cutting through a flame which instantly reunited. 
 The same phenomena were witnessed a second time by 
 a number of Pfeffel's relations. Several days afterwards, 
 while the young man was absent, the poet caused the 
 place in the garden to be dug up, and at a depth of 
 several feet, beneath a layer of lime, a human skeleton 
 was discovered. It was removed, the hole filled up, 
 and all smoothed over again. .After Billing's return 
 the poet took him once more into the garden, and this 
 time the young man walked over the fatal spot without 
 experiencing the slightest sensation (Kieser, Arcltiv., 
 etc., p. 326). 
 
 It was this remarkable experience which led Baron 
 Reichenbach to verify it by leading one of his sensitive 
 patients, a Miss Reichel, at night to the great cemetery 
 of Vienna. As soon as she reached the place she per- 
 ceived everywhere a sea of flames, brightest over the 
 new graves, weaker over others, and quite faint here 
 and there. In a few cases these lights reached a height 
 of nearly four feet, but generally they had more the ap- 
 pearance of luminous mists, so that her hand, held 
 over the place where she saw one, seemed to be envel- 
 oped in a cloud of fire. She was in no way troubled
 
 GHOSTS. 253 
 
 by the phenomena, which she had often previously 
 observed, and Baron Reichenbach thought he saw in 
 them a confirmation of his theory about the Od-light. 
 There can be, however, little doubt that the luminous 
 appearance, perceptible though it be only to unusually 
 sensitive persons, is the result of chemical decomposi- 
 tion, which has a peculiar influence over these per- 
 sons. 
 
 Hence, no doubt, the numerous accounts of will-o'- 
 the-wisps and ghostly lights seen in graveyards; the 
 frightened beholder is nearly always laughed at or 
 heartily abused, and more than one poor child has 
 fallen a victim to the absurd theory of " curing it of 
 foolish fears." There can be no doubt that light does 
 appear flickering above churchyards, and that there is 
 something more than mere idle superstition in the 
 " corpse-candles " of the Welsh and in the " elf-candles " 
 of the Scotch, which are seen, with foreboding weight, 
 in the house of sickness, betokening near dissolution. 
 At the same time, it is well known that living .persons 
 also have, under certain circumstances, given out light, 
 and especially from their head. The cases of Moses, 
 whose face shone with unbearable brightness, and of 
 the martyr Stephen, are familiar to all, and the halo 
 with which artists surround the heads of saints bears 
 eloquent evidence of the universal and deeply-rooted 
 belief. But science also has fully established the fact 
 that light appears as a real and unmistakable luminous 
 efflux from the human body, alike in health and in
 
 254 MODERX MAGIC. 
 
 mortal sickness. By far the most common case of such 
 emission of light is the emission of sparks from the 
 hair when combed. Before and during the electrical 
 " dust-storms " in India, this phenomenon is of frequent 
 occurrence in the hair of both sexes. In dry weather, 
 and when the hair also is dry, and especially immediately 
 before thunderstorms, the same sparks are seen in all 
 countries. Dr. Phipson mentions the case of a relative 
 of his, " whose hair (exactly one yard and a quarter long), 
 when combed somewhat rapidly with a black gutta- 
 percha comb, emits sheets of light upward of a foot in 
 length," the light being " composed of hundreds of small 
 electric sparks, the snapping noise of which is dis- 
 tinctly heard." 
 
 But electric light is sometimes given off by the human 
 body itself, not merely from the hair. A memorable in- 
 stance of this phenomenon is recorded by Dr. Kane in the 
 journal of his last voyage to the Polar regions. He and 
 a companion, Petersen, had gone to sleep in a hut during 
 intense cold, and on aAvaking in the night, found, to their 
 horror, that their lamp their only hope had gone out. 
 Petersen tried in vain to get light from a pocket-pistol, 
 and then Kane resolved to take the pistol himself. "It 
 was so intensely dark," he says, " that I had to grope for 
 it, and in so doing, I touched his hand. At that instant 
 the pistol in Petersen's hand became distinctly visi- 
 ble. A pale bluish light, slightly tremulous, but not 
 broken, covered the metallic parts of it. The stock, too, 
 was distinctly visible as if by reflected light, and to the
 
 GHOSTS. 255 
 
 amazement of both of us, also the thumb and two fin- 
 gers with which Petersen was holding it the creases, 
 wrinkles and circuit of nails being clearly defined upon 
 the skin. As I took the pistol my hand became illu- 
 minated also." This luminous and doubtless electric 
 phenomenon took place in highly exceptional circum- 
 stances., and is the only case recorded in recent times. 
 But a far more remarkable phenomenon of a similar 
 kind is mentioned by Bartholin, who gives an account 
 of a lady in Italy, whom he rightly styles mulier splen- 
 dens, whose body became phosphorescent or rather 
 shone with electric radiations when slightly rubbed 
 with a piece of dry linen. In this case the luminosity 
 appears to have been normal, certainly very frequent 
 under ordinary circumstances, and the fact is well attest- 
 ed. Mr. B. H. Patterson mentions in the journal Belgra- 
 via (Oct., 1872), that he saw the flannel with which he 
 had rubbed his body, emit blue sparks, while at the same 
 time he heard a " crackling " sound. These facts prove 
 that the human body even in ordinary life, is capable of 
 giving out luminous undulations, while science teaches 
 iis that they appear quite frequently in disease. Here 
 again, Dr. Phipson mentions several cases as the result 
 of his reading. One of these is that of a woman in Mi- 
 lan, during whose illness a so-called phosphoric light 
 glimmered about her bed. Another remarkable case is 
 recorded by Dr. Marsh, in a volume on the " Evolution 
 of Light from the Human Subject," and reads thus: 
 " About an hour and a half before my sister's death,
 
 256 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 we were struck by luminous appearances proceeding 
 from her head in a diagonal direction. She was at the 
 time in a half-recumbent position, and perfectly tran- 
 quil. The light was pale as the moon, but quite evident 
 to mamma, myself, and sisters, who were watching over 
 her at the time. One of us at first thought it was light- 
 ning, till shortly afterwards we pei-ceived a sort of 
 tremulous glimmer playing around the head of the bed, 
 and then, recollecting that we had read something of 
 a similar nature having been observed previous to dis- 
 solution, we had candles brought into the room, fearing 
 that our dear sister would perceive the luminosity, and 
 that it might disturb the tranquillity of her last mo- 
 ments." 
 
 The other case relates to an Irish peasant, and is re- 
 corded from personal observation by Dr. Donovan, in the 
 Dublin Medical Press, in 1870, as follows : " I was sent 
 to see Harrington in December. He had been under the 
 care of my predecessor, and had been entered as a phthisi- 
 cal patient. He was under my care for about five years, 
 and I had discontinued my visits, when the report be- 
 came general that mysterious lights were seen every 
 night in his cabin. The subject attracted a great deal of 
 attention. I determined to submit the matter to the 
 ordeal of my own senses, and for this purpose I visited 
 the cabin for fourteen nights. Oil three nights only I 
 witnessed anything unusual. Once I perceived a lu- 
 minous fog resembling the aurora borealis ; and twice I 
 saw scintillations like the sparkling phosphorescence ex-
 
 GHOSTS. 257 
 
 hibited by sea-infusoria. From the close scrutiny I 
 made, I can with certainty say, that no imposition was 
 either employed or attempted." 
 
 The only explanation ever offered by competent 
 authority of the luminous radiations from persons in 
 disease, ascribes them to an efflux or escape of the nerve- 
 force, which is known to be kindred in its nature to 
 electricity, transmuting itself into luminosity as it 
 leaves the body. The Seeress of Prevorst reported that 
 she saw the nerves as shining threads, and even from 
 the eyes of some persons rays of light seemed to her to 
 flash continually. Other somnambulists also, as well as 
 mesmerized persons, have seen the hair of persons shine 
 with a multitude of sparks, \vhile the breath of their 
 mouth appeared as a faint luminous mist. 
 
 The same luminosity is, finally, perceived at times in 
 graveyards, and would, no doubt, have led to careful 
 investigation more frequently, if observers had not so 
 often been suspected of superstitious apprehensions. 
 In the case of Baron Keichenbach's patients, however, 
 no such difficulty was to be feared ; they saw invariably 
 light, bluish flames hovering over many graves, and 
 what made the phenomena more striking still, was the 
 fact that these moving lights were only seen on recent 
 graves, as if naturally dependent upon the process of 
 decomposition. If we connect this with our experience 
 of luminosity seen in decaying vegetables, in spoiled 
 meat, and in diseased persons, we shall be prepared to 
 believe that even so-called ghost stories, in which mys-
 
 258 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 terious lights play a prominent part, are by no means 
 necessarily without foundation. 
 
 Cases in. which deceased persons have made them- 
 selves known to survivors, or have produced, by some as 
 yet unexplained agency, an impression upon them 
 through other senses than the sight, are very rare. 
 Occasionally, however, the hearing is thus affected, and 
 sweet music is heard, in token, as it were, of the con- 
 tinued intercourse between the dead and ihe living. 
 One instance may serve as an illustration. 
 
 The Countess A. had all her life been remarkable for 
 the strange delight she took in clocks ; not a room in 
 her castle but had its large or small clock, and all these 
 she insisted upon winding up herself at the proper time. 
 Her favorite, however, was a very curious and most 
 costly clock in her sitting-room, which had the form of 
 a Gothic church, and displayed in the steeple a small 
 dial, behind which the works were concealed ; at the 
 full hour a hymn was played by a kind of music-box 
 attached to the mechanism. She allowed no one to 
 touch this clock, and used to sit before it, as the hand 
 approached the hour, waiting for the hymn to be heard. 
 At last she was taken ill and confined for seven weeks, 
 during which the clock could not be wound up. and 
 then she died. For special reasons the interment had 
 to take place on the evening of the next day, and, as 
 the castle was far from any town, the preparations took 
 so much time that it was nearly midnight before the 
 body could be moved from the bedroom to the drawing-
 
 GHOSTS. 259 
 
 room, where the usual ceremonies were to be performed. 
 The transfer was accomplished under the superintend- 
 ence of her husband, who followed the coffin, and in 
 the presence of a large number of friends and depend- 
 ents, while the minister led the sad cortege. At the 
 moment when the coffin approached the favorite clock, 
 it suddenly began to strike ; but instead of twelve, it 
 gave out thirteen strokes, and then followed the melody 
 of a well-known hymn : 
 
 " Let us with boldness now proceed 
 On the dark path to a new life." 
 
 The minister, who happened to have been sitting a little 
 while before by the count's side, just beneath the clock, 
 and had mournfully noticed its silence after so many 
 years, was thunderstruck, and could not recover his 
 self-control for some time. The count, on the contrary, 
 saw in the accident a solemn warning from on high, 
 and henceforth laid aside the frivolity which he had so 
 far shown in his life as well as in his principles 
 ("Evening Post" [Germ.], 1840. No. 187). 
 
 There are finally certain phenomena belonging to 
 this part of magic, which have been very generally at- 
 tributed to an agency in which natural forces and 
 supernatural beings held a nearly equal share. They 
 suggest the interesting but difficult question, whether 
 visions and ecstasy can extend to large numbers of men 
 at once ? And yet without some such supposition the 
 armies in the clouds, the wild huntsman of the Ar- 
 dennes, and like appearances cannot well be explained.
 
 260 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 Here also no little weight must be attached to ancient 
 superstitions which have become, as it were, a part of 
 a nation's faith. Thus all Northern Germany has from 
 the earliest days been familiar with the idea of the 
 great Woden ranging through its dark forests, at the 
 head of the Waltyries and the heroes fallen in battle, 
 while his wolves and his raven followed him on his 
 nightly course. When Christianity changed the old 
 gods of the German race into devils and demons, 
 Woden became very naturally the wild huntsman, who 
 was now escorted by men of violence, bloody tyrants, 
 and criminals, often grievously mutilated or altogether 
 headless. There can be little doubt but that these vis- 
 ions also rested upon some natural substructure: excep- 
 tional atmospheric disturbances, hurricanes coming 
 from afar and crashing through mighty forests, or even 
 the modest tramp of a band of poachers heard afar off, 
 under favorable circumstances by timid ears. The very 
 fact that the favorite time for such phenomena is the 
 winter solstice favors this supposition. They are, how- 
 ever, by no means limited to seasons and days, for as 
 late as 1842 a number of wheat-cutters left in a panic 
 the field in which they were engaged, because they be- 
 lieved they heard Frau Holle with her hellish company, 
 and saw Faithful Eckhard, as he walked steadily before 
 the procession, warning all he met to stand aside and 
 escape from the fatal sight. An occurrence of the kind, 
 which took place in 1857, was fortunately fully ex- 
 plained by careful observers : the cause was an immense
 
 GHOSTS. 261 
 
 flock of wild geese, whose strange cries resembled in a 
 surprising manner the barking of a pack of hounds 
 during a hunt. Another occurrence during the night 
 of January 30, 1849, threw the whole neighborhood of 
 Basle in Switzerland into painful consternation. The air 
 was suddenly filled with a multitude of whining voices, 
 whose agony pierced the hearts of all who heard them ; 
 men and beasts seemed to be suffering unutterable an- 
 guish, and to be driven with furious speed from the 
 mountain-side into a valley near Magden; here all 
 ended in an instant amid rolling thunder and fearful 
 flashes of lightning. A fierce storm arising in distant 
 clefts and crevices, and carrying possibly fragments of 
 rock, ice, and morain along with it, seems here to have 
 been the determining cause. 
 
 Another class of phenomena of this kind relates to 
 the great battles that have at tunes decided the fate of 
 the world. Thus Pausanias already tells us (" Attica," 
 32), and so do other historians of Greece, how the Plain 
 of Marathon resounded for nearly four centuries every 
 year with the clash of arms and the cries of soldiers. 
 It was evidently the deep and lasting impression made 
 upon a highly sensitive nation, which here was be- 
 queathed from generation to generation, and on the 
 day of the battle, when all was excitement, resulted in 
 the perception of sounds which had no real existence. 
 Events of such colossal proportions, which determine 
 in a few hours the fate of great nations, leave naturally 
 a powerful impress upon contemporaries not only, but
 
 262 MODEBX MAGIC. 
 
 also upon the children of that race. Such was, among 
 others, the fearful battle on the Catalaunian Fields, in 
 which the Visi-Goths and Actius conquered Attila, and 
 one hundred and sixty-two thousand warriors were slain. 
 It was at the time reported that the intense bitterness 
 and exasperation of the armies continued even after the 
 battle, and that for three days the spirits of the fallen 
 were contending with each other with unabated fury. 
 The report grew into a legend, till a firm belief was 
 established that the battle was fought year after year 
 on the memorable day, and that any visitor might 
 behold the passionate spirits as they rose from their 
 graves, armed with their ancient weapons and filled 
 with undiminished fury. One by one the soldiers of 
 the two armies, it was said, leave their lowly graves, 
 rise high into the air, and engage in deadly but silent 
 strife, till they vanish in the clouds. It is well known 
 how successfully the great German painter, Kaulbach, 
 has reproduced the vision in his magnificent fresco of 
 the "Hunnenschlacht." In other countries these 
 ghostly visions assume different forms. Thus the 
 neighborhood of Kerope, in Livonia, is in like manner 
 renowned for a long series of fearful butcheries during 
 the wars between the German knights and the Musco- 
 vites. There also, night after night, the shadowy battle 
 is fought over again ; but the clashing of arms and the 
 hoarse war-cries are distinctly heard, and the pious 
 traveler hastens aAvay from the blood-soaked plains, 
 uttering his prayers for the souls of the slain. In the
 
 GHOSTS. 263 
 
 Highlands of Scotland also, and on the adjoining 
 islands, most weird and gruesome sights have been 
 watched by young and old in every generation. The 
 dark, dismal atmosphere of those regions, the dense 
 fogs and impenetrable mists, now rising from the sea, 
 and now descending from the mountains, and the fierce, 
 inclement climate, have all combined for ages to pre- 
 dispose the mind for the perception of such strange and 
 mysterious phenomena. Nearly every clan and every 
 family has its own particular ghost, and besides these 
 the whole nation claims a number of common vis- 
 ions and prophetic spirits, whose harps and wild 
 songs are heard faintly and fearfully sounding on 
 high. A friend of Mr. Martin, the author of a, work on 
 " Second Sight," used to recite several stanzas belong- 
 ing to such a prophetic song, which he had heard him- 
 self on a sad November day, as it came to him through 
 the drooping clouds and sweeping mists from the sum- 
 mit of a lonely mountain. At funerals also, wonderful 
 voices were heard high in the air, as they accompanied 
 the chanting of the people below, with a music not 
 born upon earth, and filling the heart with strange but 
 sweet sadness. Nearly the same visions are seen and 
 the same songs are heard in Sweden and Norway, 
 proving conclusively that like climatic influences pro- 
 duce also a similar magic life, in individuals not only, 
 but in whole nations. For even if we are disposed to 
 look upon these phenomena as merely strange appear- 
 ances of clouds and mists, accompanied by the howling
 
 264 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 and whistling of the wind and the tumbling down of 
 rocks and gravel, there remains the uniformity with 
 which thousands of every generation interpret these 
 sights and sounds into weird visions and solemn chant- 
 ings. 
 
 It is, however, not quite so evident why the peculiar 
 class of visions which is often erroneously called sec- 
 ond sight the beholding of a "double" should be 
 almost entirely confined to these same northern regions. 
 It is, of course, not unknown to other lands also, and 
 even Holy Writ seems to justify the presumption that 
 the idea of a " double " was familiar to the people of 
 Palestine. For the poor damsel Ehoda, who " for glad- 
 ness" did not open the door at which Peter knocked, 
 after he had been miraculously liberated, but ran to an- 
 nounce his presence to the friends who were assembled 
 at the house of Mark's brother, was first called mad, 
 and then told : " It is his angel " (Acts xii. 13). They 
 evidently meant, not that it was the spirit of their de- 
 ceased friend, since they would have been made aware 
 of his death, but a phantom representing his living 
 body. But the number of authentic cases of persons 
 who have seen their own form, is vastly greater at the 
 North than anywhere else. The Celtic superstition of 
 the " fetch," as the appearance of a person's " double " is 
 there called, is too well known to require explanation. 
 But the vision itself is one of the most interesting in 
 the study of magic, since it exhibits most strikingly the 
 great power which the human soul may, under peculiar
 
 GHOSTS. 265 
 
 circumstances, gain and exercise over its own self, lead- 
 ing to complete self-delusion. 
 
 A case in which this strange abdication of all self- 
 control led to most desirable consequences, is mentioned 
 by Dr. Mayo. A young man recently from Oxford once 
 saw a friend of his enter the room in which he was 
 dining with some companions. The new comer, just 
 returning from hunting, seemed to them to look unu- 
 sually pale and was evidently in a state of great excite- 
 ment After much urging he at last confessed that he 
 had been seriously disturbed in mind by a man who had 
 kept him close company all the way home. This 
 stranger, on horseback like himself, had been his exact 
 image, down to a new bridle, his own invention, which 
 he had tried that day for the first time. He fancied 
 that this " double " was his own ghost and an omen of 
 his impending death. His friends advised him to con- 
 fer with the head of his college ; this was done, and the 
 latter gave him much good advice, adding the hope that 
 the warning would not be allowed to pass unimproved. 
 It is certain that the apparition made so strong an im- 
 pression upon the young man as to lead to his entire 
 reformation, at least for a time. 
 
 It is claimed by many writers that there are persons 
 who continually have visions, because they live in con- 
 stant communication with spirits, although in all cases 
 they have to pay a fearful penalty for this sad privilege. 
 They are invariably diseased people, mostly women, 
 who fall into trances, have cataleptic attacks, or suffer of 
 
 12
 
 26G MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 even more painful maladies, and during the time of their 
 affliction behold and converse with the inmates of 
 another world. The most renowned of these seers was a 
 Mrs. Hauffe, who has become well known to the reading 
 world through Dr. J. Kerner's famous work, " The 
 Seeress of Prevorst." A peculiar feature in her case was 
 the fact that the visions she had were invariably an- 
 nounced to bystanders by peculiar sounds, heard by all 
 who were present. The forms assumed by her mys- 
 terious visitors varied almost infinitely ; now it was a 
 man in a brown gown, and now a Avoman in white. 
 Often, when the spirits appeared in the open air, and she 
 tried to escape from them by running, she was bodily 
 lifted up and hurried along so fast that her companions 
 could not keep pace with her. It was only later in life 
 that she fell as a patient into the hands of Dr. Kerner, 
 who was quite distinguished as a poet, and had a great 
 renown as a physician for insane people of a special 
 class. His house at "Weinsberg in "Wiirtemberg, was filled 
 to overflowing with persons of all classes of society, 
 from the highest to the lowest, and all had visions. Nor 
 was the doctor himself excluded ; he also was a seer, 
 and has given in the above-mentioned book a full and 
 most interesting account of the diseases in connection 
 with which magic phenomena are most frequently ob- 
 served. By the aid of careful observation of actual 
 facts, and using such revelations vouchsafed to him and 
 others as he believed fully trustworthy, he formed a 
 regular theory of visions. First of all he admits that
 
 GHOSTS. 267 
 
 the privilege of communing with spirits is a grievous 
 affliction, and that all of his more thoughtful patients 
 continually prayed to be delivered of the burden. It is 
 evident from all he states that not' only the body, but 
 the mind also suffers and in many cases suffers unto 
 destruction under the effects of such exceptional 
 powers ; that in fact the lines of separation between this 
 life and another life can never be crossed with impuni- 
 ty. His most interesting patient, Mrs. Hauffe, presents 
 the usual mixture of mere fanciful imagery with occa- 
 sional flashes of truth; her genuine revelations were 
 marvelous, and can only be explained upon the ground 
 of real magic ; but with them are mixed up the most 
 absurd theories and the most startling contradictions. 
 She insisted, however, upon the fact that only those 
 spirits could commune with mortal man who were 
 detained in the middle realm between heaven and hell 
 the spirits of men who were in this life unable, 
 though not unwilling, to believe that " God could for- 
 give their sins for the sake of Christ's death." She was 
 often tried by Dr. Kerner and others; she was told that 
 certain still living persons had died, and asked to sum- 
 mon their spirits, but she was never misled. There can- 
 be no doubt that the poor woman was sincere in her 
 statements ; but she was apparently unable to distin- 
 guish between real visions in a trance and the mere off- 
 spring of her imagination. That her peculiarities were 
 closely connected with her bodily condition is, more- 
 over, proved by the fact that her whole family suffered
 
 268 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 ill similar manner and enjoyed similar powers ; a 
 brother and a sister, as well as her young son, all had 
 visions and heard mysterious noises. The latter were, 
 in fact, perceptible to all the inmates of the strange 
 house; even the great skeptic, Dr. Strausz, who once 
 visited it, heard "long, fearful groanings" close to his 
 amiable hostess, who had fallen asleep on her sofa. Nor 
 were the ghosts content with disturbing the patients and 
 their excellent physician ; they made themselves known 
 to their friends and neighbors, also, and even the good 
 minister in the little town had much to suffer from 
 nightly knockings and strange utterances. 
 
 Dr. Kerner himself heard many spirits, but saw only 
 one, and that only as "a grayish pillar; " on the other 
 hand he witnessed countless mysterious phenomena 
 which occurred in his patients' bedrooms. Now he be- 
 held Mrs. Hauffe's boots pulled off by invisible hands, 
 while she herself was lying almost inanimate, in a 
 trance, on her bed, and now he heard her reveal secrets 
 which, upon writing to utterly unknown persons at a 
 great distance, proved to be correctly stated. What 
 makes a thorough investigation of all these phenomena 
 peculiarly difficult, is the fact that Dr. Kerner's house 
 became an asylum for somnambulists as well as for real 
 patients, and that by this mixture the scientific value 
 of his observations, as regards their psychological 
 interest, is seriously impaired. He himself was a sin- 
 cere believer in magic phenomena; almost all of his 
 friends and neighbors, from the humblest peasant to
 
 GHOSTS. 209 
 
 the most cultivated men of science, believed in him and 
 his statements, and there can be no doubt that aston- 
 ishing revelations were made and extraordinary powers 
 became manifest in his house. But here, also, the diffi- 
 culty of separating the few grains of truth from the 
 great mass of willful, as well as of unconscious delusion, 
 is almost overwhelming, and our final judgment must 
 be held in suspense, till more light has been thrown on 
 the subject. Dr. Kerner's son, who succeeded his 
 father at his death in 1862, still keeps up the remark- 
 able establishment at Weinsberg; but exclusively for 
 the cure of certain diseases by magnetism.
 
 VI. 
 DIYINATIOI*. 
 
 " There shall not be found among you any one that useth div- 
 ination." DEUT. xviii. 9. 
 
 THE usual activity of our mind is limited to the per- 
 ception of the world around us, and its life, as far as 
 the power of our senses reaches; it must, therefore, 
 necessarily be confined within the limits of space and 
 time. There are, however, specially favored men among 
 us who profess an additional power, or even ordinary 
 men may be thus endowed under peculiar circum- 
 stances, as when they are under the influence of nerv- 
 ous affections, trances, or even merely in an unusual 
 state of excitement. Then they are no longer sub- 
 ject to the usual laws of distance in space, or remote- 
 ness in time ; they perceive as immediately present 
 what lies beyond the reach of others, and the magic 
 power by which this is accomplished is called Divina- 
 tion. This vision is never quite clear, nor always com- 
 plete or correct, for even such exceptionable powers are 
 in all cases more or less subject to the imperfections of 
 our nature ; habitual notions, an ill-executed imagina- 
 tion, and often a disordered state of the system, all in- 
 terfere with its perfect success. These imperfections, 
 moreover, not only affect the value of such magic per- 
 ceptions, but obscure the genuine features by a num-
 
 DIVINATION. 271 
 
 ber of false statements and of erroneous impressions, 
 which quite legitimately excite a strong prejudice 
 against the whole subject. Hence, especially, the rigor 
 of the Church against divination in every form ; it has 
 ever ascribed the errors mixed up w r ith the true parts 
 of such revelations to the direct influence of the Evil 
 One. The difficulty, however, arises that such magic 
 powers have nothing at all to do with the question of 
 morality ; the saint and the criminal may possess them 
 alike, since they are elements of our common nature, 
 hidden in the vast majority of cases, and coming into 
 view and into life only in rare exceptional instances. 
 
 Divination, as freed from the ordinary limits of our 
 perceptions, appears either as clairvoyance, when things 
 are seen which are beyond the range of natural vision, 
 or as prophecy, when the boundary lines of time are 
 overstepped. The Jatter appears again in its weakest 
 form as a mere anticipation of things to come, or rises 
 to perfection in the actual foretelling of future events. 
 It is sad eneugh to learn from the experience of all 
 nations that the occurrences thus foreseen are almost 
 invariably great misfortunes, yet our surprise will cease 
 if we remember that the tragic in life exercises by far 
 the greatest influence on our mind, and excites it far 
 beyond all other events. Xor must we overlook the 
 marvelous unanimity with which such magic powers 
 are admitted to exist in Man by all nations on earth. 
 The explanation, also, is invariably the same, namely, 
 that Man possessed originally the command over space
 
 272 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 and time as well as God himself, but that when sin 
 came into the world and affected his earth-born body, 
 this power was lost, and preserved only to appear in 
 exceptional and in variably most painful cases. So 
 thought the ancients even long before revelation had 
 spoken. They believed that Man had had a previous 
 god-like existence before appearing upon earth, where 
 he was condemned to expiate the sins of his former 
 life, while his immortal and divine soul was chained to 
 a perishing earthy body. Plato, Plutarch, and Pythag- 
 oras, Cicero (in his book De Divinatione), and even 
 Porphyrius, all admit without hesitation the power of 
 divination, and speak of its special vigor in the mo- 
 ments preceding death. Melanchthon ascribed warn- 
 ing dreams to the prophetic power of the human soul. 
 Brierre de Boismont also is forced to admit that not all 
 cases of clairvoyance and prophesying are the results 
 of hallucination by diseased persons ; he speaks, on the 
 contrary, and in spite of his bitter skepticism, of 
 instances in which the increased powers of perception 
 are the effect of " supernatural intuition." 
 
 One of the most prolific sources of error in Divina- 
 tion has ever been the variety of means employed for 
 the purpose of causing the preparatory state of trance. 
 It is well known in our day that the mind may be 
 most strangely affected by innumerable agencies which 
 are apparently purely mechanical, and often utterly 
 absurd. Such are an intent gazing at highly-polished 
 surfaces of metal, or into the bright inside of a gold
 
 DIVINATION. 273 
 
 cup, at the shining sides of a crystal, or the varying 
 hues of a glass globe ; now vessels filled with pure 
 water, and now ink poured into the hand of a child, 
 answer the same purpose. Fortune-telling from the 
 lines of the hand or the chance combinations of play- 
 ing-cards are, in this aspect, on a par with the prophe- 
 cies of astrologers drawn from the constellations in the 
 heavens. It need hardly be added that this almost in- 
 finite variety of more or less absurd measures has 
 nothing at all to do with the awaking of magic power, 
 and continues in use only from the prestige which 
 some of the means, like the cup of Joseph and the 
 mirror of Varro, derive from their antiquity. Their 
 sole purpose is uniformly to withdraw the seer's atten- 
 tion from all outward objects, and to make him, by 
 steadily gazing at one and the same object, concentrate 
 his thoughts and feelings exclusively upon his own 
 self. Experience has taught that such efforts, long 
 continued, result finally in utter loss of feeling, in 
 unconsciousness, and frequently even in catalepsy. It 
 is generally only under such peculiarly painful circum- 
 stances that the unusual powers of our beiiig can be- 
 come visible and begin to operate. While these results 
 may be obtained, as recent experiments have proved, 
 even by mere continued squinting, barbarous nations 
 employ the most violent means for the same purpose 
 the whirling of dervishes, the drumming and dancing 
 of northern shamans, the deafening music of the 
 Moors, are all means of the same kind to excite the 
 
 12*
 
 274 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 rude and fierce nature of savages to a state of excessive 
 excitement. In all cases, however, we must notice the 
 comparative sterility of such divination, and the pen- 
 alty which has to be paid for most meagre results by 
 injuries inflicted upon the body, and by troubles caused 
 in the mind, which, if they do not become fatal to life, 
 are invariably so to happiness and peace. That the 
 sad privilege may have to be paid for with life itself, 
 we learn already from Plutarch's account of a priestess 
 who became so furious while prophesying, that not 
 only the strangers but the priests themselves fled in 
 dismay, while she herself expired a few hours later 
 (II. p. 438). 
 
 The state in which all forms of divination are most 
 apt to show themselves is by theologians called ecstasis, 
 when it is caused by means specially employed for the 
 purpose and appears as a literally "being beside one's 
 self; by its side they speak of raptits, when the abnor- 
 mal state suddenly begins during an act of ordinary 
 life, such as walking, working, or even praying. The 
 distinction is of no value as to the nature of the magic 
 powers themselves, which are in all cases the same ; it 
 refers exclusively to the outer form. 
 
 One of the simplest methods is the Deasil-walking 
 of the Scotch Highlanders: the seer walks rapidly three 
 times, with the sun, around the person whose future is 
 to be foretold, and thus produces a trance, in which his 
 ning-ic powers become available. Walter Scott's " Chron- 
 icles of the Canongate " gives a full account of this cere-
 
 DIVINATION. 275 
 
 mony. Robin Gig's auut performs the ceremony, and 
 then warns him in great terror, that she has seen a 
 bloody dagger in his hand, stained with English blood, 
 and beseeches him to stay at home. He disregards 
 the omen, kills the same night an Englishman, a cattle- 
 dealer, and pays for the crime with his life. 
 
 In the East, on the contrary, the usual form is to 
 employ a youug boy, taken at haphazard from the street, 
 and to force him to gaze intently at Indian ink poured 
 into the hollow of the hand, at molten lead, wax poured 
 into cold water, the paten of a priest or a shining 
 sword, with which several men have been killed. Gen- 
 eral readers will recall the famous boy of Cairo, who saw 
 thus, in the dark, glittering surface of ink, the great 
 Nelson curiously enough as in a mirror, for he report- 
 ed the image to be without the left arm and to wear the 
 left sleeve across the breast, while the great admiral had 
 lost his right arm and wore the right sleeve suspended' 
 Burke, in his amusing " Anecdotes of the Aristocracy," 
 etc. (I. p. 124), relates how the " magician " Magraubin 
 in Alexandria appeared with a ten-year-old Coptic boy 
 before the officers of H. M's. ship Vanguard. After 
 burning much incense and uttering many unintelligible 
 formulas he rolled a paper in the shape of a cornuco- 
 pia, filled it with ink, and bade the boy tell them what 
 he saw. As usual, he saw first a broom sweeping, and 
 was thoroughly frightened. When a young midship- 
 man asked him to inquire what would be his fate, he 
 described instantly a sailor with gold on the shoulders,
 
 276 MODEEX MAGIC. 
 
 fighting against Indians till he fell dead; then came 
 friends and buried him under a tree on a hill. The 
 midshipman, Croker, returned home, abandoned the 
 sea, and became a landowner in one of the midland 
 counties of England, where he often laughed at the ab- 
 surd prediction. Long years afterwards, however, when 
 there was a sudden want of seamen, he was recalled 
 into service and sent on a long cruise. He rose to be- 
 come a captain, and while in command of a frigate fell, 
 upon the island of Tongataboo, in a skirmish with the 
 natives, whereupon he was interred there under a lofty 
 palm-tree which stood on a commanding eminence. 
 The same author repeats (I. p. 357) the well-known 
 story of Lady Eleanor Campbell, which is in substance 
 as follows : 
 
 Poor Lady Primrose, a daughter of the second Earl 
 of Loudonn, had for years endured the saddest lot that 
 can befall a noble woman : she had been bound by mar- 
 riage to a husband whose dissolute habits and untama- 
 ble passions inspired her with fear, while his short love 
 for her had long since turned into bitter hatred. At 
 last he formed the resolution to rid himself forever of 
 his wife, whose very piety and gentleness were a stand- 
 ing reproof to his villainy. By a rare piece of good 
 luck she was awake when he came from his deep pota- 
 tions, a bare sword in his hand, and ready to kill her ; 
 she saw him in the mirror before which she happened 
 to be sitting, and escaped by jumping from a window 
 and hastening to her husband's own mother. After this
 
 DIVINATION. 277 
 
 attempt at her life he disappeared, no one knew whith- 
 er, but the poor lady, forsaken and yet not a widow, 
 could not prevent her thoughts from dwelling, by day 
 and by night, year after year, upon the image of her 
 unfortunate husband and his probable fate in foreign 
 lands. It was, therefore, not without a pardonable in- 
 terest that she heard, one winter, people talk of a for- 
 eigner who had suddenly appeared in Canongate and 
 created a great sensation throughout Edinburgh by his 
 success in showing to inquiring visitors what their ab- 
 sent friends were doing. Her intense anxiety about her 
 husband and her natural desire to ascertain whether 
 she was still a wife or already a widow, combined to 
 tempt her to call on the magician ; she went, therefore, 
 with a friend, both disguised in the tartans and plaids 
 of their maids. Before they reached the obscure alley 
 to which they had been directed, they lost their way, and 
 were standing helpless, exposed to the cold, stormy 
 weather, when suddenly a deep voice said to them: 
 " You are mistaken, ladies, this is not your way ! " 
 "How so?" asked Lady Primrose, addressing a tall, 
 gentlemanly looking man, with a stern face of deep 
 olive color, in which a pair of black eyes shone like 
 stars, and dressed in an elegant but foreign-looking 
 costume. The answer came promptly: "You are mis- 
 taken in your way, because it lies yonder, and in your 
 disguise, because it does not conceal you from him who 
 can lift the veil of the Future!" Then followed a 
 short conversation in which the stranger made himself
 
 278 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 known as the magician whom they were about to visit, 
 and, by some words whispered into the lady's ear, as a 
 man who not only recognized her as Lady Primrose, 
 but who also was perfectly well acquainted with all the 
 intimate details of her history. Amazed and not a lit- 
 tle frightened, the two ladies accepted his courteous 
 invitation to follow him, entered the house, and were 
 shown into a simply furnished room, where the stranger 
 begged them to wait for him, till all was ready for the 
 ceremony by which alone he could satisfy their curios- 
 ity. After a short pause he reappeared in the tradi- 
 tional costume of a magician, a long tunic of black 
 velvet which left his breast, arms, and hands free, and 
 requested Lady Primrose to follow him into the adjoin- 
 ing room. After some little hesitation she left her com- 
 panion and entered the room, which was perfectly plain, 
 offering nothing to attract the eye save the dark cur- 
 tains before the windows, an old-fashioned arm-chair, 
 and a kind of altar of black marble, over which a large 
 and beautiful mirror was suspended. Before the latter 
 stood a small oven, in which some unknown substance 
 burnt with a blue light, which alone feebly lighted up 
 the room. The visitor was requested to sit down, to in- 
 voke help from above, and to abstain from uttering a 
 sound, if she valued her life and that of the magician. 
 After some simple but apparently most important cere- 
 monies, the magician threw a pinch of red powder upon 
 the flame, which instantly changed into bright crimson, 
 while a few plaintive sounds were heard and red clouds
 
 DIVINATIOX. 279 
 
 seemed to rise before the mirror, broken at short inter- 
 vals by vivid flashes of lightning. As the mist dis- 
 persed the glass exhibited to the lady's astonished eye 
 the interior of a church, first in vague outlines undu 1 
 luting as passing clouds seemed to set them in motion, 
 but soon distinctly and clear in the minutest details. 
 Then a priest appeared with his acolytes at the altar, 
 and a wedding party was seen standing before him, 
 among whom Lady Primrose soon recognized her faith- 
 less husband. Before she could recover from her pain- 
 ful surprise she saw a stranger hastily entering the 
 church, wrapped in his cloak ; at the moment when 
 the priest, who had been performing the usual ceremony, 
 was about to join the hands of the couple before him, 
 the unknown dropped his cloak and rushed forward. 
 Lady Primrose saw it was her own brother, who drew 
 his sword and attacked her husband; suddenly a 
 thrust was made by the latter which threatened to 
 be fatal, and the poor lady cried out: "Great God, 
 they will kill my brother ! " She had no sooner uttered 
 these words than the whole scene in the mirror became 
 dim and blurred, the clouds rose again and formed 
 dense masses, and soon the glass resumed its ordinary 
 brightness and the flame its faint blue color. The 
 magician, apparently much excited, informed the lady 
 that all was over, and that they had escaped a most fear- 
 ful danger, incurred by her imprudence in speaking. 
 He would accept no reward, stating that he had merely 
 wished to oblige her, but would not have dared do so
 
 280 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 much, if he had foreseen the peril to which they h;ul 
 both been exposed. Lady Primrose, accompanied by 
 her friend, reached home in a state of extreme excite- 
 ment, but immediately wrote down the hour and the 
 day of her strange adventure, with a full account of all 
 she had seen in the magic mirror. The paper thus 
 drawn up she sealed in the presence of her companion 
 and hid it in a secret drawer. Not long afterwards her 
 brother returned from the Continent, but for some time 
 refused to speak at all of her husband ; it was only 
 after being long and urgently pressed by the poor lady, 
 that he consented to tell her, how he had heard of Lord 
 Primrose's intention to marry a very wealthy lady in 
 Amsterdam, how by mere chance he had entered the 
 church where the marriage ceremony was to be per- 
 formed, and how he had come out just in time to pre- 
 vent his brother-in-law from committing bigamy. They 
 had fought for a few minutes without doing each other 
 any injury, and after being separated, he had remained, 
 while Lord Primrose had disappeared, no one knew 
 whither. Upon comparing dates and circumstances, it 
 appeared that the mirror had presented the scene faith- 
 fully in all its details; but the ceremony had taken 
 place in the morning, the visit to the magician at night, 
 so that the latter had, after all, only revealed an event 
 already completed. There remains, however, the diffi- 
 culty of accounting for the means by which in those 
 days about 1700 an event in Amsterdam could
 
 DIVINATION. 281 
 
 possibly have been known in Edinburgh, the night of 
 the same day on which it occurred. 
 
 In France, under Louis XIV., a glass of water was 
 most frequently used as a mirror in which to read the 
 future. The Duke of St. Simon reports that the Duke 
 of Orleans was thus informed that he would one day 
 become Regent of France. The Abbe Choisy men- 
 tions a remarkable occurrence which took place at the 
 house of the Countess of Soissons, a niece of the great 
 Cardinal Mazarin. Her husband was lying sick in the 
 province of Champagne, and she was anxious to know 
 whether she ought to undertake the long and perilous 
 journey to him or not; in this dilemma a friend 
 offered to send for a diviner, who should tell her the 
 issue of her husband's illness. He brought her a little 
 girl, five years old, who, in the presence of a number of 
 distinguished persons of both sexes, began, under the 
 nobleman's direction, to tell what she saw in a glass of 
 water. When she began by saying that the water looked 
 as if it were troubled, the poor lady was so frightened 
 that her friend suggested he would ask the spirit to 
 show the child not her husband himself, but a white 
 horse, if the Count was dead, and a tiger if he was alive. 
 Then he asked the girl Avhat she saw now? "Ah!" 
 she cried out at once, " what a pretty white horse!" 
 The company, however, refused to be content with one 
 trial ; five times in succession the test was altered, and 
 in such a manner that the little child could not pos- 
 sibly be aware of the choice, but in each case the
 
 282 MODEKX MAGIC. 
 
 answer was unfavorable to the absent Count. It ap- 
 peared, afterwards, that he had really died a day or two 
 before the consultation. One of the most striking 
 cases of such exceptional endowment was a Frenchman, 
 Cahaguet, who in his work, Lumiere des Morts (Paris, 
 1851), claimed to see remote objects and persons. He 
 used to make a mental effort, upon which his eyes be- 
 came fixed and he saw objects at a great distance, read- 
 ing the title and discerning the precise shape of books 
 in public libraries, or watching absent friends engaged 
 in unusual occupations! This state of clairvoyance, 
 however, never lasted more than sixty seconds, nor 
 could he ever see the same object twice limitations of 
 his endowment which secured for him greater credit 
 than he would have otherwise possessed. Occasionally 
 he would assist the effort he had to make by fixedly 
 gazing at some shining object, such as a small ilaw in a 
 mirror or a glass. Another restraint under which he 
 labored, and which yet increased the faith of others, 
 consisted in this, that such sights as presented them- 
 selves spontaneously to him proved invariably to be 
 true, while the visions which he purposely evoked were 
 not unfrequently unfounded in fact. 
 
 Among recent magicians of this class, a Parisian, 
 Edmond, is perhaps the most generally known. He is 
 A man without education, who leads a life of asceticism, 
 and is said to equal the famous Lennormand in his 
 ability to guess the future by gazing intently at certain 
 cards. The latter, although not free from the charge
 
 DIVINATION. 283 
 
 of charlatanism, possessed undoubtedly the most ex- 
 traordinary talent of divining the thoughts of those 
 who came to consult her, and an almost marvelous 
 tact in connecting the knowledge thus obtained with 
 the events of the day. She began her career already 
 as a young girl at a convent-school, where her play- 
 mates asked her laughing who would be the next 
 abbess, and she mentioned an entirely unknown lady 
 from Picardy as the one that would be appointed by 
 the king. Contrary to all expectations the favorite 
 candidates were put aside, and the unknown lady ap- 
 pointed, although eighteen months elapsed before her 
 prophecy was fulfilled. As early as 1789 she predicted 
 the overthrow of the French government, and during 
 the Kevolution her reputation was such that the first 
 men of the land came to consult her. The unfortunate 
 princess Lamballe and Mirabeau, Mme. de Stae'l and 
 the king himself, all appeared in her stately apart- 
 ments. Her efforts to save the queen, to whose prison 
 she managed to obtain access, were unsuccessful ; but 
 when her aristocratic connections caused her to be im- 
 prisoned herself, even the noble and virtuous Mme. 
 Tallien sought her society. The new dynast} 7 , whose 
 members were almost without exception more or less 
 superstitious, as it is the nature of all Corsicans, con- 
 sulted her frequently ; the great Napoleon came to her 
 in 1793, when he was disgusted with France, and on 
 the point of leaving the country ; he sent for her a 
 second time in 1801 to confer with her at Malmaison,
 
 284 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 and the fair Josephine actually conceived for her a 
 deep and lasting attachment. Afterwards, however, 
 she became as obnoxious to the Emperor as his invet- 
 erate enemy, Mme. de Stae'l ; she was repeatedly sent 
 to prison because she predicted failures, as in the case 
 of the projected invasion of England, or because she 
 revealed the secret plans of Napoleon. The Emperor 
 Alexander of Eussia also consulted her in 1818, and of 
 the Prussian king, Frederick William III, it is at least 
 reported that he visited her incognito. After the year 
 1830 she appeared but rarely in her character as a 
 diviner; she had become old and rich, and did not per- 
 haps wish to risk her world-wide reputation by too 
 numerous revelations. She maintained, however, for 
 the rest of her life the most intimate relations with 
 many eminent men in France, and when she died, in 
 1843, seventy-one years old, leaving to her nephew a 
 very large fortune, her gorgeous funeral was attended 
 by a host of distinguished personages, including even 
 men of such character as Guizot. And yet she also 
 had not disdained to use the most absurd and appar- 
 ently childish means in order to produce the state of 
 ecstasy in which she alone could divine : playing-cards 
 fancifully arranged, the white of an egg, the sediment 
 of coffee, or the lines in the hand of her visitors. At 
 the same time, however, she used the information which 
 she casually picked up or purposely obtained from her 
 great friends with infinite cunning and matchless tact, 
 so that the better informed often asked her laughingly
 
 DIVINATION. 285 
 
 if her familiar spirit Ariel was not also known as 
 Talleyrand, David, or Geoffroy ? The charlatanism 
 Avhich often and most justly rendered her proceedings 
 suspicious to sober men, was in fact part of her system ; 
 she knew perfectly well the old doctrine, imindus vuU 
 decipi, and did not hesitate to flatter the fondness of 
 all Frenchmen for a theatrical mise en scene. 
 
 Dryden's famous horoscope of his younger son 
 Charles was probably nothing more than one of those 
 rare but striking coincidences of which the laws of prob- 
 ability give us the exact value. He loved the study of 
 astrology and never omitted to calculate the nativity of 
 his children as soon as they were born. In the case of 
 Charles he discovered that great dangers would threat- 
 en him in his eighth, twenty-third, and thirty-third or 
 forty-third year ; and sure enough those years produced 
 serious troubles. On his eighth birthday he was buried 
 under a falling wall ; on the twenty-third he fell in Rome 
 from an old tower, and on his thirty-third he was 
 drowned 'in the Thames. 
 
 Divination by means of bones generally the shoul- 
 der bones of rams is quite common among the Mon- 
 gols and Tongoose, and the custom seems to have 
 remained unchanged through centuries. For Purchas 
 already quotes from the "Journal" of the Minorite 
 monk Guillaume de Rubruguis, written in 1255, a de- 
 scription of the manner in which the Great Khan of 
 Mongolia tried to ascertain the result of any great en- 
 terprise which he might contemplate. Three shoulder
 
 286 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 bones of rams were brought to him, which he held for 
 some time in his hands, while deeply meditating on the 
 subject ; then he threw them into the fire. After they 
 were burnt black they were again laid before him and 
 examined ; if they had cracked lengthways the omen 
 was favorable, if crossways the enterprise was abandon- 
 ed. Almost identically the same process is described by 
 the great traveler Pallas, who witnessed it repeatedly 
 and obtained very startling communications from the 
 Mongol priests. But here also violent dancing, narcotic 
 perfumes, and wild cries had to aid in producing a 
 trance. The Laplanders have, perhaps, the most strik- 
 ing magic powers which seem to be above suspicion. 
 At least we are assured by every traveler who has spent 
 some time among them, from Caspar Peucer (" Com- 
 mentaries," etc., Wittebergae, 1580, p. 132) down to the 
 tourists of our days (" Six Months in Lapland," 1870), 
 that they not only see persons at the greatest distance, 
 but furnish minute details as to their occupation or 
 surroundings. After having invoked the aid of his 
 gods the magician falls down like a dead man and re- 
 mains in a state of trance for twenty-four hours, during 
 which foreigners are always warned to have him care- 
 fully guarded, "lest the demons should carry him off." 
 During this time the seer maintains that his '' soul opens 
 the gates of the body and moves about freely wherever 
 it chooses to go." When he returns to consciousness 
 he describes accurately and minutely the persons about 
 whom he has promised to give information. In the
 
 DIVINATION. 287 
 
 East Indies it is well known clairvoyance has existed 
 from time immemorial, and the kind of trance which 
 consists in utter oblivion of actual life and perfect ab- 
 straction of thought from this world is there carried 
 out to perfection. The faithful believer sits or lies 
 down in any position he may happen to prefer for the 
 moment, fixes his eyes intently upon the point of his 
 nose, mutters the word One, and finally beholds God 
 with an inner sense, in the form of a white brilliant 
 light of ineffable splendor. Some of these ascetics pass 
 from a simple trance to a state of catalepsy, in which 
 their bodies become insensible to pain but this kind 
 of ecstasis is not accompanied by divination. 
 
 Another branch of divination conquers the difficulty 
 which distance in space opposes to our ordinary percep- 
 tions. In all such cases it is of course not our hearing 
 or smelling which suddenly becomes miraculously 
 powerful, but another magic power, which causes 
 impressions on the mind like those produced by the eye 
 and the ear. The oldest well-authenticated instance of 
 magic hearing is probably that of Hyrcanus, the high- 
 priest of the Jews, who while burning incense in the 
 temple, heard a voice saying : " Now Antiochus has 
 been slain by thy sons." The news was immediately 
 proclaimed to the people, and some time afterward mes- 
 sengers came announcing that Antiochus had thus 
 perished as he approached Samaria, which he desired to 
 relieve from the besieging army under the sons of 
 Hyrcanus (Josephus, "Antiq." Ixiii. ch. 19). A still
 
 288 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 more striking instance is also reported by a trustAvorthy 
 author (Theophylactos Simocata, 1. viii. ch. 13). A 
 man in Alexandria, Egypt, saw, as he returned home 
 about midnight, the statues before the great temple 
 moved aside from their seats, and heard them call out 
 to him that the Emperor had been slain by Phocas 
 (602). Thoroughly frightened he hastened to the 
 authorities, reporting his adventure; he was carried be- 
 fore Peter, the Viceroy of Egypt, and ordered to keep 
 silence. Nine days later, however, the official news 
 came that the Emperor had been murdered. It is 
 evident that the knowledge of the event came to him in 
 some mysterious way, and for an unknown purpose; but 
 that what he saw and heard, was purely the work of his 
 imagination, which became the vehicle of the revelation. 
 There exists a long, almost unbroken series of similar 
 phenomena through the entire course of modern history, 
 of which but a few can here find space. Richelieu tells 
 us in his M'emoires ("Coll. Michaud Poryoulat," 2d 
 series, vii. p. 23), that the Prevost ties Marecliaux of the 
 city of Pithiviers was one night engaged in playing 
 cards in his house, Avhen he suddenly hesitated, fell into 
 a deep musing, and then, turning to his companions, 
 said solemnly : "The king has just been murdered!" 
 These words made a deep impression upon all the mem- 
 bers of the assembly, which afterward changed into 
 genuine terror, when it became known that on that 
 same evening, at the same hour of four o'clock, p. M., 
 Henry IV. had really been murdered. Nor was this a
 
 DIVINATION. 289 
 
 solitary case, for on the same day a girl of fourteen, 
 living near the city of Orleans, had asked her father, 
 Simonne, what a king was ? Upon his replying that it 
 was the man who commanded all Frenchmen, she had 
 exclaimed : " Great God, I have this moment heard 
 somebody tell me that he was murdered ! " It seems 
 that the minds of men were just then everywhere deeply 
 interested in the fate of the king, and hence their readi- 
 ness to anticipate an event which was no doubt very 
 generally apprehended; even from abroad numerous 
 letters had been received announcing his death before- 
 hand. In the two cases mentioned this excitement had 
 risen to divination. The author of the famous Zauber 
 Bibliothek, Horst, mentions (i. p. 285) that his father, a 
 well-known missionary, was once traveling in company 
 with the renowned Hebrew scholar Wiedemaun, while a 
 third companion, ordinarily engaged with them in con- 
 verting Jews, was out at sea. It was a fine, bright day ; 
 no rain or wind visible even at a distance. "Wiedemann 
 had walked for some time in deep silence, apparently 
 engaged in praying, when suddenly he stopped and 
 said : " Monsieur Horst, take your diary and write down, 
 that our companion is at this moment exposed to great 
 peril by water. The storm will last till night and the 
 danger will be fearful ; but the Lord will mercifully 
 preserve him and the vessel, and no lives will be lost. 
 Write it down carefully, so that when our friend returns, 
 we may jointly thank God for His great mercy." The 
 missionary did so, and when the three friends were 
 
 13
 
 290 JIODEKN MAGIC. 
 
 united once more their diaries were compared, and it 
 appeared that the statement had been exact in all iU 
 details. 
 
 Clairvoyance, as far as it implies the seeing of per- 
 sons or the witnessing of events at a great distance, is 
 counted among the most frequent gifts of early saints, 
 and St. Augustine mentions a number of remarkable 
 cases. Not only absent friends and their fate were thus 
 beheld by privileged Christians, but even the souls of 
 departing saints Avere seen as they were borne to heaven 
 by angelic hosts. The same exceptional gifts were ap- 
 parently granted to the early Jesuit fathers ; thus Xa- 
 vier once saw distinctly a whole naval expedition sailing 
 against the pirates of Malacca and defeating them in a 
 great naval battle. He had himself caused the fleet to 
 be sent from Sumatra, and remained during the whole 
 time in a trance. He had fallen down unconscious at 
 the foot of the altar, where he had been fervently pray- 
 ing for a long time, and during his unconsciousness he 
 saw not only a general image of what was occurring at 
 a distance of 200 Portuguese leagues, but every detail, 
 so that upon recovering from the trance he could 
 announce to his brethren the good news of a great vic- 
 tory, of the loss of only three lives, and of the very day 
 and hour on which the official report would be received 
 (Orlandini, 1. vii. ch. 84). Queen Margaret, not always 
 reliable, still seems to state well-known facts only, when 
 she tells us in her famous Mtmoircs (Paris, 1658) the 
 visions of her mother, the great Queen Catherine de
 
 DI VI NATION. 2'Jl 
 
 Medici. The latter was lying dangerously ill at Metz, 
 and King Charles, a sister, and another brother of Mar- 
 garet of Valois, the Duke of Lorraine, and a number of 
 eminent persons of both sexes, were assembled around 
 what was believed to be her death-bed. She was delir- 
 ious, and suddenly cried out: "Just see how they run ! 
 my son is victorious. Great God ! raise him up, he has 
 fallen ! Do you see the Prince of Conde there ? He is 
 dead." Everybody thought she was delirious, but on the 
 next evening a messenger came bringing the news of the 
 battle of Jarnac, and as he mentioned the main events, 
 she calmly turned to her children, saying: "Ah! I 
 knew ; I saw it all yesterday ! " It seems as if in times 
 of great and general expectation, when bloody battles 
 are fought, and the destiny of empires hangs in the 
 scales, the minds of the masses become so painfully ex- 
 cited that the most sensitive among them fall into a 
 kind of trance, and then perceive, by magic powers of 
 divination, what is taking place at great distances. This 
 over-excitement is, moreover, not unknown to men of 
 the highest character and the greatest erudition. Calvin, 
 whose stern, clear-sighted judgment abhorred all super- 
 stition, nevertheless once saw a battle between Catholics 
 and Protestants with all its details. Swedenborg, whose 
 religious enthusiasm never interfered with his scrupu- 
 lous candor, saw more than once with his mind's eye 
 events occurring at a distance of hundreds of miles. 
 His vision of the gi'eat lire at Stockholm is too well 
 authenticated to admit of doubt. Not less reliable are
 
 292 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 the accounts of another vision he had at Amsterdam in 
 the presence of a large company. While engaged in ani- 
 mated conversation, he suddenly changed countenance 
 and became silent; the persons near him saw that he 
 was under the influence of some strong impression. 
 After a few moments he seemed to recover, and over- 
 whelmed with questions, he at last reluctantly said: 
 "In this hour the Emperor Peter IV. of Eussia has 
 suffered death in his prison ! " It was ascertained after- 
 wards that the unfortunate sovereign had died on that 
 day and in the manner indicated. 
 
 Among modern seers the most remarkable was pro- 
 bably the well-known poet, Emile Deschamps, who 
 published in 1838 interesting accounts of his own ex- 
 periences. When he was only eight years old it was 
 decided that he should leave Paris and be sent to 
 Orleans; this troubled him sorely, and in his great 
 grief he found some little comfort in setting his lively 
 fancy to work and to imagine what the new city would 
 be like. When he reached Orleans he was extremely 
 surprised to recognize the streets, the shops, and even 
 the names on the sign-boards, everything was exactly 
 as he had seen it in his day-dreams. While he was yet 
 there he saw his mother, whom he had left in Paris, in 
 a dream rising gently heavenwards with a palm-branch 
 in her hand, and heard her voice, very faint but sil- 
 very, call to him, " Emile, Emile, my son ! " She had 
 died in the same night, uttering these words with her 
 departing breath. Later in life he often heard strange
 
 DIVINATION. 293 
 
 but enchanting music while in a state of partial ecstasis ; 
 lie saw distant events, and, among others, distinctly 
 described a barricade, the defenders of the adjoining 
 house, and certain events connected with the fight at 
 that spot, as they had happened in Paris on the same 
 day (Le Concile de la libre pensee, i. p. 183). 
 
 A still higher power of divination enables men to 
 read in the faces and forms of others, even of totally 
 unknown persons, not only the leading traits of their 
 character, but even the nature of their former lives. 
 There can be no doubt that every important event in 
 our life leaves a more or less perceptible trace behind, 
 which the acute and experienced observer may learn to 
 read with tolerable distinctness and accuracy. It is 
 well known how the study of the human face enables 
 us thus to discern one secret after another, and how 
 really great men have possessed the power to judge of 
 the capacity of generals or statesmen to serve them, by 
 natural instinct and without any effort. We say of 
 specially endowed men of this class, that they " can 
 read the souls of men," and what is most interesting is 
 the well-established fact that the purer the mind and 
 the freer from selfishness and conceit, the greater this 
 power to feel, as it were, the character of others. Hence 
 the superiority of women in this respect ; hence, espe- 
 cially, the unfailing instinct of children, which enables 
 them instantly to distinguish affected love from real 
 love, and makes them shrink often painfully from con- 
 tact with evil men.
 
 294 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 "When this power reaches in older men a high degree 
 of perfection, it enters within the limits of magic, and 
 in this form was well known to the ancients. The ^co- 
 Platonic Plotinus is reported by Porphyrius to have 
 been almost marvelously endowed with such divining 
 powers ; he revealed to his pnpils the past and the fu- 
 ture events of their lives alike, and once charged the 
 author himself with cherishing thoughts of suicide, 
 when no one else suspected such a purpose. In like 
 manner, we are told, Ancus Nsevius, the famous augur 
 of the first Tarquins, could read all he desired to know 
 in the faces of others. The saints of the church were 
 naturally as richly endowed, and from Filipo Neri to 
 Xavier nearly all possessed this peculiar gift of divina- 
 tion. But other men, also, and by no means always 
 those most abundantly endowed with mental superiority, 
 have frequently a peculiar talent of this kind. Thus 
 the well-known writer Zschokke, the author of the ad- 
 mirable work, " Hours of Devotion," gives in his auto- 
 biographical work, Selbsfschau, a full account of his 
 peculiar gifts as a seer, which contains the following 
 principal facts: At the moment when an utter stranger 
 was first introduced to him, he saw a picture of his 
 whole previous life rising gradually before his mind's 
 eye, resembling somewhat a long dream, but clear and 
 closely connected. During this, time he would, contrary 
 to his general custom, lose sight of the visitors face 
 and no longer hear his voice. He used to treat these 
 involuntary revelations at first as mere idle fancies, till
 
 DIVINATION. 295 
 
 one day lie was led by a kind of sportive impulse to 
 tell his family tlie secret history of a seamstress who 
 had just left the room, and whom he had never seen be- 
 fore. It was soon ascertained that all he had stated 
 was perfectly true, though known only to very few per- 
 sons. From that time he treated these visions more 
 seriously, taking pains to repeat them in a number of 
 cases to the persons whom they concerned, and to his 
 own great amazement they turned out in every case to 
 be perfectly accurate. The author adds one case of pe- 
 culiarly striking nature : '' One day," he says, " I reach- 
 ed the town of Waldshut, accompanied by two young 
 foresters, who are still alive. It was dusk, and tired by 
 our walk we entered an inn called The Grapevine. "We 
 took our supper at the public table in company with 
 numerous guests, who happened to be laughing at the 
 oddities and the simplicity of the Swiss, their faith in 
 Mesmer, in Lavater's * System of the Physiognomy,' etc. 
 One of my companions, hurt in his national pride, 
 asked me to make a reply, especially with regard to a 
 young man sitting opposite to us, whose pretentious 
 airs and merciless laughter had been peculiarly offen- 
 sive. It so happened that, a few moments before, the 
 main events in the life of this person had passed before 
 my mind's eye. I turned to him and asked him if he 
 would answer me candidly upon being told the most 
 secret parts of his life by a man who was so complete a 
 stranger to him as I was ? That, I added, would certainly 
 go even beyond Lavater's power to read faces. He prom-
 
 296 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 ised to confess it openly, if I stated facts. Thereupon 
 I related all I had seen in my mind, and informed thus 
 the whole company at table of the young man's history, 
 the events of his life at school, his petty sins, and at last 
 a robbery which he had committed by pilfering his em- 
 ployer's strong-box. I described the empty room with its 
 whitewashed walls and brown door, near which on the 
 right hand, a small black money-box had been standing 
 on a table, and other details. As long as I spoke there 
 reigned a deathlike silence in the room, which was only 
 interrupted by my asking the young man, from time to 
 time, if all I said was not true. He admitted everything, 
 although evidently in a state of utter consternation, and 
 at last, deeply touched by his candor, I offered him my 
 hand across the table and closed my recital." 
 
 This popular writer, a man of unblemished character, 
 who died in 1850, regretted by a whole nation, makes 
 this account of his own prophetic power still more in- 
 teresting by adding that he met at least once in his life 
 another man similarly endowed. " I once encountered," 
 he says, " while travelling with two of my sons, an old 
 Tyrolese, a peddler of oranges and lemons, in a small inn 
 half concealed in one of the narrow passes of the Jura 
 Mountains. He fixed his eyes for some time upon my 
 face, and then entered into conversation with me, stating 
 that he knew me, although I did not know him, and 
 then began, to the intense delight of the peasants who 
 sat around us and of my children, to chat about myself 
 and my past life. How the old man had acquired his
 
 DIVINATION. 297 
 
 strange knowledge he could not explain to himself or to 
 others, but he evidently valued it highly, while my sons 
 were not a little astonished to discover that other men 
 possessed the same gift which they had only known to 
 exist in their father." 
 
 It must not be forgotten that the human eye has, 
 beyond question, often a power which far transcends the 
 ordinary purposes of sight, and approaches the bound- 
 aries of magic. There is probably no one who cannot 
 recall scenes in which the soothing and cheering ex- 
 pression of gentle eyes has acted like healing balm on 
 wounded hearts ; or others, in which glances of fury and 
 hatred have caused genuine terror and frightened the 
 conscience. History records a number of instances, from 
 the glance of the Saviour, which made Peter go out and 
 weep bitterly, to the piercing eye of a well-known English 
 judge, which made criminals of every rank in society feel 
 as iftheir very hearts lay open to the divining eye of a mas- 
 ter. This peculiar and almost irresistible power of the eye 
 has not inaptly been traced back to the gorgon head of 
 antiquity a frightful image from Hades with a dread 
 glance of the eye, as it is called by Homer (II. viii. 349 ; 
 Odyss. xi. 633). The same fearful expression, chilling 
 the blood and almost arresting the beating of the heart, 
 is frequently mentioned in modern accounts of visions. 
 Thus the Demon of Tedworth recorded by Glanvil 
 ("Sadd. Triumph," 4th ed. p. 270), consisted of the 
 vague outlines of a human face, in which only two bright, 
 piercing eyes could be distinguished. In other cases, a
 
 298 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 faint vapor, barely recalling a human shape, arises before 
 the beholder, and above it are seen the same terrible eyes 
 
 " Sent from the palace of Ais by fearful Fcrsephoneia." 
 
 Magic divination in point of time includes the class 
 of generally very vague and indefinite perceptions, 
 which we call presentiments. These are, unfortunately, 
 so universally mixed up with impressions produced 
 after the occurrence raticinium post evcntum that 
 their value as interesting phenomena of magic is seri- 
 ously impaired. There remains, however, in a num- 
 ber of cases, enough that is free from all spurious 
 admixture,, to admit of being examined seriously. The 
 ancients not only believed in this kind of foresight, but 
 ascribed it with Pythagoras to revelations made by 
 friendly spirits; in Holy Writ it rises almost invariably, 
 under direct inspiration from on high, to genuine 
 prophecy. It reveals not only the fate of the seer, but 
 also that of others, and even of whole nations; the 
 details vary, of course, according to the prevailing 
 spirit of the times. 
 
 When Narses was ruling over Italy, a young shep- 
 herd in the service of Valerianus, a lawyer, was seized 
 by the plague and fell into syncope. He recovered for 
 a time, and then declared that he had been carried to 
 heaven, where he had heard the names of all who in his 
 master's house should die of the plague, adding that 
 Valerianus himself would escape. After his death 
 everything occurred as he had predicted. An English
 
 DIVINATION. 299 
 
 minister, Mr. Dodd, one night felt an irresistible im- 
 pulse to visit a friend of his who lived at some distance. 
 He walked to his house, found the family asleep, but 
 the father still awake and ready to open the door to his 
 late visitor. The latter, very much embarrassed, thought 
 it best to state the matter candidly, and confessed that 
 he came for no ostensible purpose, and really did not 
 know himself what made him do so. "But God knew 
 it," was the answer, " for here is the rope with which 
 I was just about to hang myself." It may well be 
 presumed that the Rev. Mr. Dodd had some apprehen- 
 sions of the state of mind of his friend; but that he 
 should have felt prompted to call upon him just at that 
 hour, was certainly not a mere accident. 
 
 The family of the great Goethe was singularly en- 
 dowed with this power of presentiment. The poet's 
 grandfather predicted both a great conflagration and 
 the unexpected arrival of the German Emperor, and a 
 dream informed him beforehand of his election as 
 alderman and then as mayor of his native city. His 
 mother's sister saw hidden things in her dreams. His 
 grandmother once entered her daughter's chamber 
 long after midnight in a state of great and painful ex- 
 citement; she had heard in her own room a noise like 
 the rustling of papers, and then deep sighs, and after a 
 while a cold breath had struck her. Some time after 
 this event a stranger was announced, and when he 
 appeared before her holding a crumbled paper in his 
 hand, she had barely strength enough to keep from
 
 300 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 fainting. AVhen she recovered, her visitor stated tluit 
 in the night of her vision a dear friend of hers, lying 
 on his deathbed, had asked for paper in order to impart 
 to her an important secret ; before he could write. 
 however, he had been seized by the death-struggle, and 
 after crumpling up the paper and uttering two deep 
 sighs he had expired. , An indistinct scrawl was all 
 that could be seen ; still the stranger had thought it 
 best to bring the paper. The secret concerned his now 
 orphaned child, a girl whom Goethe's grandparents 
 thereupon took home and cared for affectionately 
 (Goethe's BriefwecJisel, 3d ed., II. p. 268). 
 
 Bourrienne tells us in his Memoires several instances 
 of remarkable forebodings on the part of Napoleon's 
 first wife, Josephine. Her mind was probably, by her 
 education and the peculiar surroundings in which she 
 passed her childhood, predisposed to receive vivid im- 
 pressions of this kind, and to observe them with great 
 care and deep interest. Thus she almost invariably 
 predicted the failure of such of her husband's enter- 
 prises as proved unsuccessful. After Bonaparte had 
 moved into the Tuileries on the 18th Brumaire, she saw, 
 while sitting in the room of poor Marie Antoinette, 
 the shadow of the unfortunate queen rise from the 
 floor, pass gently through the apartment, and vanish 
 through the window. She fainted, and from that day 
 predicted her own sad fate. On another occasion the 
 spirit of her first husband, Beauharnais, appeared before 
 her with a gesture of solemn warning; she immediately
 
 DIVIXATIOX. 301 
 
 turned to Napoleon, exclaiming: "Awake, awake, yon 
 are threatened by a great danger!" There seemed to 
 be, for some days, no ground for apprehension, but so 
 strong were her fears that she secretly sent for the 
 minister of police and entreated him to take special 
 measures for the safety of the First Consul. At eight 
 o'clock of the evening of the same day the latter left 
 the Tuileries on his way to the opera ; a terrible explo- 
 sion was heard in the Eue St. Nicaise, where conspir- 
 ators attempted to blow up the dictator, and he nar- 
 rowly escaped with his life. Josephine at once has- 
 tened to his side, and after having most tenderly cared 
 for the wounded, embraced Napoleon in public with 
 tears streaming down her face, and implored him 
 hereafter to listen more attentively to her warnings. 
 Napoleon, however, though superstitious enough firmly 
 to believe in what he called his " star," and even to see 
 it shining in the heavens when no one else beheld it, 
 never would admit the value of his wife's forebodings. 
 
 Presentiments of this kind are most frequently felt 
 before death, and it is now almost universally believed 
 that the impending dissolution of the body relieves the 
 spirit in many cases fully enough from its bondage to 
 endow it with a clear and distinct anticipation of the 
 coming event. A large number of historical personages 
 have thus been enabled to predict the day, and many 
 even the hour of their own death. The Connetable de 
 Bourbon, who was besieging Eome, addressed, according 
 to Brantome ( Vies des gr. capit nines, ch. 28), on the
 
 302 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 day of the final assault, his troops, and told them ho 
 would certainly fall before the Eternal City, but without 
 regret if they but proved victorious. Henry IV. of 
 France, felt his death coming, according to the unani- 
 mous evidence of Sully, L'Etoile, and Bassompierre, 
 and said, before he entered his coach on the fatal day : 
 "My friend, I would rather not go out to-day ; I know 
 I shall meet with misfortune." On the 16th of May, 
 1813, four days before the battle of Bautzen, two of 
 Napoleon's great officers, the Duke of Vicenza and 
 Marshal Duroc, were in attendance at Dresden while the 
 emperor was holding a protracted conference with the 
 Austrian ambassador. The clock was striking mid- 
 night, when suddenly Duroc seized his companion by 
 the arm and with frightfully altered features, looking 
 intently at him, said in trembling tones : " My friend, 
 this lasts too long ; we shall all of us perish, and he last 
 of all. A secret voice tells me that I shall never see 
 France again." It is well known that on the day of the 
 battle a cannon-ball which had already killed General 
 Kirchner, wounded Duroc also mortally, and when he 
 lay on his deathbed he once more turned to the Duke 
 of Yicenza and reminded him of the words he had 
 spoken in Dresden. 
 
 The trustworthy author of " Eight Months in Japan," 
 X. Liihdorf, tells us (p. 158) a remarkable instance of 
 unconscious foreboding on the part of a common sailor. 
 The American barque Greta was in 1855 chartered to 
 carry a great number of Russians, who had been ship-
 
 DIVINATION. 303 
 
 wrecked on board the frigate Diana during an earth- 
 quake at Simoda to the Russian port of Ayan. A sailor 
 on board was very ill, and shortly before his death told 
 his comrades that he would soon die, but that he was 
 rather glad of it, as they would all be captured by the 
 English, with whom Russia was then at war. The re- 
 port of his prediction reached the captain's cabin, but 
 all the officers agreed that such an event was next to 
 impossible ; a dense fog was making the ship perfectly 
 invisible, and no English fleet had as yet appeared in 
 the Sea of Okhotsk, where the Russians had neither ves- 
 sels nor forts to tempt the British. The whole force of 
 England in those waters was at that moment engaged 
 in blockading the Russian fleet in the Bay of Castris in 
 the Gulf of Tartary. Nevertheless it so chanced that a 
 British steamer, the corvette Barracouta, hove in sight 
 on the 1st of August and captured the vessel, making 
 the Russians prisoners of war. 
 
 SECOND SIGHT. 
 
 A special kind of divination, which has at times been 
 evidenced in certain parts of Europe, and is not unknown 
 to our North-western Indians., consists in the percep- 
 tion of contemporaneous or future events, during a brief 
 trance. Generally the seer looks with painfully raised 
 eyelids, fixedly into space, evidently utterly unconscious 
 of all around him, and engaged in watching a distant 
 occurrence. A peculiar feature of this phenomenon,
 
 304 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 familiar to all readers as second sight, is the exclusion 
 of religious or supernatural matters; the visions are 
 always strictly limited to events of daily life : deaths 
 and births, battles and skirmishes, baptisms and wed- 
 dings. The actors in these scenes are often personally 
 unknown to the seer, and the transactions are as fre- 
 quently beheld in symbols as in reality. A man who 
 is to die a violent death, maybe seen with a rope around 
 his neck or headless, with a dagger plunged into his 
 breast, or sinking into the water up to his neck ; the 
 sick man who is to expire in his bed, will appear wrap- 
 ped up in his winding sheet, in which case his person 
 is m- re or less completely concealed as his death is 
 nearer or farther off. A friend or a messenger coming 
 from a great distance, is seen as a faint shadow, and a 
 murderer or a thief, as a wolf or a fox. Another pecu- 
 liar feature of second sight is the fact that the same 
 visions are very frequently beheld by several persons, 
 although the latter may live far apart and have nothing 
 in common with each other. The phenomena are spor- 
 adic in Germany and Switzerland, in the Dauphine and 
 the Cevennes; they occur in larger numbers and are 
 often hereditary in certain families, in Denmark, the 
 Scotch Highlands and the Faroe Islands. In Gaelic, the 
 persons thus gifted are called Taishatrim, seers of 
 shadows, or Phissichin, possessing knowledge before- 
 hand. Hence, they have been most thoroughly studied 
 in those countries, and Mr. Martin has gathered all that 
 could be learnt of second sight in the Shetlands. in a.
 
 DIVINATION. 305 
 
 work of great interest. Here the phenomena are not 
 unfrequently accompanied by magic hearing also, as 
 when funerals are seen in visions, and at the same time 
 the chants of the bystanders and even the words of the 
 preacher are distinctly heard. The most marked form 
 of this feature is the taisk or wraith, a cry uttered by a 
 person who is soon to die, and heard by the seer. The 
 dwellers on those remote islands are also in the habit of 
 smelling an odor of fish, often weeks and months before 
 the latter appear in their waters. A special kind of 
 divination exists in Wales and on the Isle of Man, where 
 the approaching death of friends is revealed by so-called 
 body lights, caulawillan cyrth. 
 
 The entirely unselfish character of second sight 
 must not be overlooked, as far as it increases in a high 
 degree the value of such phenomena and adds to their 
 authenticity. In the great majority of cases the per- 
 sons and events seen under such circumstances are of 
 no interest to the seer; they are frequently utterly 
 strange and unknown to him, and hence find no sym- 
 pathy in his heart. It appears as if, by some unknown 
 and hence magic process, a window was opened for the 
 soul to look out and behold whatever may happen to 
 be presented to the inner vision ; this image is then 
 transferred to the outer eye, and the seer's imagination 
 makes him believe that he sees in reality what is 
 revealed to him by this mysterious process. Hence 
 also the facts that the persons gifted with second 
 sight, so far from laboring under diseases of any kind,
 
 30G MODKUX MACIC. 
 
 are almost without exception simple, frugal men, free 
 from chronic affections, and perfect strangers to hys- 
 terics, spasms, or nervous sufferings. Insanity and 
 suicide are as unknown to them as drunkenness, and 
 no case of selfish interest or willful imposture has ever 
 been recorded in connection with second sight. This 
 does not imply, however, that efforts have not been 
 made by others to profit by the strange gifts of such 
 persons ; but even the career of the famous Duncan 
 Campbell, a deaf and dumb Scot, who, in the beginning 
 of the last century, created an immense sensation in 
 London, only proved anew the well-known disinterest- 
 edness of these seers. In many instances the gift of 
 second sight is treated with indifference, and hardly 
 noticed. Such was the case with Lord Nelson, who is 
 reported to have exhibited the gift of a kind of second 
 sight, at least in two well-authenticated cases, related 
 by Sir Thomas Hardy to Admiral Dundas, and quoted 
 by Dr. Mayo, as he had the account from the latter. 
 Captain Hardy heard Nelson order the commander of 
 a frigate to shake out all sails to sail towards a certain 
 place where he would in all probability meet the French 
 fleet, and as soon as he had made it out, to run into a 
 certain port and there to wait for Nelson's arrival. 
 When the officer had left the cabin, Nelson turned to 
 Hardy, saying : " He will go to the West Indies ; he 
 will see the French ; he will make the port I told him 
 to make, but he will not wait for me he will sail for 
 England." The commander actually did so. In this
 
 DIVIXATION. 307 
 
 case, however, Xelson may possibly have only given a 
 striking evidence of bis power to read the character of 
 men, and to draw bis conclusions as to their probable 
 action. In the following instance his knowledge ap- 
 peared, on the contrary, as a magic phenomenon. It 
 was shortly before the battie of Trafalgar, when an 
 English frigate was made out at such a distance that 
 her position could not be accurately ascertained. Sud- 
 denly Xelson turned to Hardy, who was standing by 
 his side, and said : " The frigate has sighted the French." 
 Hardy had nothing to say in reply. " She sights the 
 French ; she will fire presently.*' In an instant the 
 low sound of a signal-shot was heard afar off! 
 
 In other cases the curious gift is borne with great 
 impatience, and becomes a source of intense suffering. 
 This is certainly very pardonable in men who read im- 
 pending death in the features of others, and hence are 
 continually subject to near-trending impressions. Some- 
 times the moribund appears as if he had been lying in 
 his grave already for several days, at other times he is 
 seen wrapped up in his shroud or in the act of expir- 
 ing. In some parts of Germany the approaching death 
 of a neighbor is announced by the appearance of Death 
 itself, not in the familiar mythological form, but as a 
 white, luminous appearance, which either stops before 
 the house of the person who is to die soon, or actually 
 enters it and places itself by the side of the latter. 
 Occasionally the image is seen to fill the seat or to walk 
 in a procession in the place of a man as yet in perfect
 
 308 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 health, who nevertheless soon falls a victim to some 
 disease or sudden attack. 
 
 Second sight is, like all similar magic phenomena, 
 frequently mentioned in the writings of the ancients. 
 Homer mentions a case in his " Odyssey " (xx. v. 351). 
 Apollonius of Tyana was delivering an oration at 
 Ephesus, when he suddenly stopped in the middle of a 
 sentence and beheld in a vision the Emperor Domitian 
 at Eome, in the act of succumbing to his murderers. 
 He fell into a kind of trance, his eyes became fixed, and 
 he exclaimed in an unnatural voice : " Down with the 
 tyrant!" ( Vita Apoll. Zenobis A nolo interpret e. Parts, 
 1555, 1. viii. p. 562.) Henry IV., when still Prince of 
 Navarre, saw on the eve of St. Bartholomew several 
 drops of blood falling upon the green cloth of the card- 
 table at which he was seated in company with several 
 courtiers; the latter beheld the fearful and ominous 
 sight as well as he himself. German writings abound 
 with instances of men having seen their own funeral 
 several days before their death, and in many instances 
 the warning is reported to have had a most salutary 
 efifect in causing them to repent of their sins and to 
 prepare for the impending summons. One of the most 
 remarkable instances is that of a distinguished pro- 
 fessor of divinity, Dr. Lysius, in Konigsberg. He had 
 inherited" special magic powers through many genera- 
 tions from an early ancestor, who saw a funeral of very 
 peculiar nature, with all the attending circumstances, 
 long before it actually took place. He himself had his
 
 DIVINATION. 309 
 
 first revelation when, lying in bed awake, he saw sud- 
 denly his chamber quite light, and something like a 
 man's shadow pass him, while on his mind, not on his 
 ear, fell the words : Umbra matris tuce. Although his 
 mother had just written to him that she was in un- 
 usually good health and spirits, she had died that very 
 night. On another occasion he astonished his friends 
 by telling them what a superb new building he had 
 seen erected in Konigsberg, giving all the details of 
 church and school-room to a little gate in a narrow alley. 
 Many years afterwards such a building was really erected 
 there, and he himself called to occupy part of it, when 
 that little gate became his favorite entrance. Although 
 he had many such visions, and his wife, succumbing to 
 the contagious influence of magic powers, also foresaw 
 more than one important event, he sternly refused to 
 attach any Aveight to his own forebodings or those of 
 other persons. Thus a poor woman, possessing the gift 
 of second sight, once came to some members of his 
 family and told them she had seen seven funerals leave 
 his house; when this was reported to him, he de- 
 nounced the superstition as unchristian, and forbade 
 its being mentioned again in his presence. But, 
 although there was not a sick person in the house at 
 the time, and even the older members of the family 
 were unusually hale and hearty, in a few weeks every 
 one in the house was dangerously ill, the head of the 
 family alone excepted, and as three only escaped, the 
 seven deaths which had been foreseen actually took place.
 
 310 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 The annals of Swedish history (Arudfc, Scliwed. 
 Gesch. p. 317) record a remarkable case of this kind. 
 The scene was the old castle of Gripsholm, near Stock- 
 holm, a place full of terrible reminiscences, and more 
 than once made famous by strange mysteries. A great 
 state dinner given to a prince of Baden, had just ended, 
 when one of the guests, Count Frolich, suddenly gazed 
 fixedly at the great door of the dining-hall, and when he 
 regained his composure, declared he had just seen their 
 princely guest walk in, wearing a different uniform from 
 that in which he was actually dressed, as he sat in the 
 place of honor. It was, however, a custom of the prince's 
 to wear one costume one day and another the next day, 
 and thus to change regularly; Count Frolich bad seen 
 him in that which he would accordingly wear the next 
 day. The impression was beginning to wear away, and 
 the accident was nearly forgotten, when suddenly a 
 great disturbance was heard without, servants came 
 running in, women were heard crying, and even the offi- 
 cers on guard were seriously disturbed. The report was 
 that " King Eric's ghost " had been seen. On the fol- 
 lowing day the Prince of Baden was thrown from bis 
 carriage and instantly killed; his body was brought 
 back to Gripsholm. 
 
 Here also we meet again with the exceptional powers 
 granted to Goe'the. He had just parted with one of his 
 many loves, the fair daughter of the minister of Drusen- 
 heim, Friederike, and was riding in deep thought upon 
 the footpath, Avhen he suddenly saw, " not with the
 
 DIVINATIOX. 311 
 
 eyes of the body, but of the spirit," his own self in a 
 new light gray coat, laced with gold, riding towards 
 him. When he made an eifort to shake oif the impres- 
 sion, the vision disappeared. " It is strange, however," 
 he tells us himself, " that I found myself eight years 
 later riding on that same road, in order to see Frieder- 
 ike once more, and was then dressed, by accident and 
 not from choice, in the costume of which I had dreamt " 
 (Aus Meinem Leben, iii. p. 84). A kindred spirit, Sir 
 Humphry Davy, had once a vision, which strangely 
 enough was fulfilled more than once. In his attractive 
 work (" Consolations in Travel," p. 63), he relates how 
 he saw, when suffering of jail fever, the image of a beau- 
 tiful woman, with whom he soon entered into a most 
 interesting conversation. He was at the time 'warmly 
 attached to a lady, but the vision represented a girl 
 with brown hair, blue eyes and blooming complexion, 
 while his lady-love was pale and had dark eyes and dark 
 hair. His mysterious visitor came frequently, as long as 
 he was really sick, but as his strength returned, her 
 visits became rarer, and at last ceased altogether. He 
 forgot it entirely ; but ten years later he suddenly met 
 in Illyria, a girl of about fourteen or fifteen years, who 
 strikingly resembled the image he had seen, and now 
 recalled in all its details. Another ten years passed, 
 and the great chemist met once more in traveling, a 
 person who as strikingly resembled his first vision, and 
 became indebted to her tender care and kindness for the 
 preservation of his life.
 
 312 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 In some parts of the world this gift of second sight 
 assumes very peculiar forms. In Africa, for instance, 
 and especially in the countries adjoining the Sahara, 
 men and women are found who possess alike the power 
 of seeing coming events beforehand. More than once 
 European travelers have been hospitably received by 
 natives who had been warned of their coming. Rich- 
 ardson tells us in his graphic account of his "Mission 
 to Central Africa," that his arrival had thus been an- 
 nounced to the chief and the people of Tintalus in these 
 words : " A caravan of Englishmen is on the way from 
 Tripoli, to come to you." The seer was an old negro- 
 woman, a reputed witch, who had a great reputation for 
 anticipating events. In the Isle of France we learu 
 from James Prior in his " Voyage in the Indian Seas " 
 there are many men who can see vessels at a distance of 
 several hundred miles. One of them described accu- 
 rately and minutely the wreck of a ship on the coast 
 of Madagascar, from whence it was to bring provisions. 
 A woman expecting her lover on board another ship, 
 inquired of one of these seers if he could give her any 
 comfort : he replied promptly that the vessel was only 
 three days' sail from the island, and that her friend was 
 then engaged in washing his linen. The ship arrived 
 at the appointed time, and the man corroborated the 
 seer's statement. The great navigator relates even 
 more surprising feats accomplished by the director of 
 signals, Faillafe, who saw vessels distinctly at a distance 
 of from sixty to one hundred sea miles. Their image
 
 DIVINATION. 3 1 3 
 
 Appeared to him on the horizon in the shape of a light 
 brown cloud with faint outlines, but yet distinctly 
 enough to enable him to distinguish the size of the ves- 
 sel, the nature of its rigging, and the direction in 
 which it was sailing. 
 
 Second hearing seems to be limited to the eastern 
 part of Scotland, where it occurs occasionally in whole 
 families. Mrs. Crowe mentions, for instance, a man and 
 his wife in Berwickshire, who were both aroused at 
 night by a loud cry "which they at once recognized as 
 peculiar to their son. It appeared afterwards that he 
 had perished at sea in that night and at the same hour 
 when the cry was heard (I. p. 161). In another case 
 a man in Perthshire was waked by his wife, who told 
 him that no doubt their son had been drowned, for she 
 hud distinctly heard the splash as he fell into the water, 
 and had been aroused by the noise. Here also the fore- 
 boding proved true : the man had fallen from the yard- 
 arm, and disappeared before a boat could be lowered, 
 although his fall had been heard by all aboard. 
 
 It must finally be mentioned that second sight has 
 been noticed not in men only, but even in animals. 
 Horses especially seem to be extremely sensitive to all 
 magic influences, and accounts of their peculiar conduct 
 under trying circumstances are both numerous and 
 perfectly well authenticated. Thus a minister in Lind- 
 holm, the Rev. Mr. Hansen, owned a perfectly gentle 
 and good-natured horse, which all of a sudden refused 
 
 to stand still in his stable, began to tremble and give 
 
 14
 
 3] 4 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 all signs of great fear, and finally kicked and reared so 
 wildly that be had to be removed. As soon as he was 
 placed in another stable he calmed down and became 
 perfectly quiet. It was at last discovered that a person 
 endowed with second sight had ascribed the strange be- 
 havior of the horse to the fact that a coffin was being 
 made before his open stable, and that the horse could 
 not bear the sight. The man was laughed at, but not 
 long after the minister's wife died, and for some special 
 reasons the coffin was actually made in full view of the 
 former stable of the horse (Kies. Arch. viii. p. 111). 
 Dogs also have been reported in almost innumerable 
 cases to have set up a most painful howling before the 
 approaching death of inmates of a house where they 
 were kept. 
 
 In England and in Germany especially, they are con- 
 sidered capable of seeing supernatural beings. When 
 they are seen to cower down of a sudden, and to press 
 close to the feet of their masters, trembling often in all 
 their limbs, and looking up most piteously, as if for 
 help, popular belief says : " All is not right with the 
 dog," or " He sees more than men can see." The memory 
 of Balaam's ass rises instinctively in our mind, and we 
 feel that this part of creation, which groaneth with us 
 for salvation, and which was included among those for 
 whose sake the Lord spared Nineveh, may see what is 
 concealed from our eyes. Samuel Wesley tells us ex- 
 pressly how a dog, specially bought for the purpose of 
 frightening away the evil-disposed men who were at
 
 DIVINATION. 315 
 
 first suspected of causing the nightly disturbances at the 
 parsonage, barked but once the first night, and after 
 that exhibited, upon the recurrence of those noises, quite 
 as much terror as the children. 
 
 !N~or are dogs and horses the only animals considered 
 capable of perceiving by a special instinct of their own 
 the working of supernatural agencies. During a series 
 of mysterious disturbances in a German village, the 
 chickens fled in terror from the garden, and the cattle 
 refused to enter the enclosure, when the appearances 
 were seen. Swiss herdsmen have a number of stories 
 concerning " feyed" places in the Alps, to which neither 
 caress nor compulsion can induce their herds to go, even 
 when pasture is rare everywhere else, and rich grass 
 seems to tempt them to come to the abhorred meadows. 
 Storks have been known to have abandoned the roof- 
 tree on which for years they had built their nest, and 
 in every case the forsaken house was burnt during the 
 summer. This and other peculiarities of sagacious ani- 
 mals have been especially noticed in Denmark, where 
 all animals are called synsk, seers, when they are be- 
 lieved to possess the gift of second sight. 
 
 ORACLES AND PROPHECIES. 
 
 The highest degree of divination is the actual fore- 
 telling of events which are yet to happen. The imme- 
 diate causes which awaken the gift are of the most 
 varied character, and often very curious. Thus a young 
 Florentine, Gasparo, who had been wounded by an
 
 316 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 arrow, and could not be relieved, began in his fearful 
 suffering to pray incessantly, day and night; this ex- 
 cited him to such a degree that he finally foretold not 
 only the name of his visitors, but also the hour at 
 which they would come, and finally the day of his com- 
 plete recovery ; he also knew, by the same instinct, 
 that later in life he would go to Rome and die there. 
 When the iron point was at last removed from his 
 wound, his health began to improve, and at once his 
 prophetic gift left him and never returned. He went, 
 however, to Eome, and really died in the Eternal City 
 (Colquhoun, p. 333). The priests of Apollo, at Co- 
 lophon, intoxicated themselves with the water of his 
 fountain, which was as famous for bestowing the gift 
 of prophecy as /Esculapius' well at Pergamus and the 
 springs near his temple at Pellena. In other temples 
 vapors were inhaled by the prophetic priests. In the 
 prophet-schools of the Israelites music seems to have 
 played a prominent part, for Samuel told Saul he would 
 meet at the hill of Gad " a company of prophets coming 
 down from the high place with a psaltery and a tabret 
 and a pipe before them." The Jews possessed, how- 
 ever, also other means to aid in divining: Joseph had 
 his cup, a custom still prevalent in the East ; and the 
 High Priest, before entering into the Holiest, put on 
 the Thummim with its six dark jewels and the Urim 
 with its six light-colored jewels, whereupon the bril- 
 liant sparkling of the precious stones and the rich 
 fumes of incense combined with the awful sense of the
 
 DIVINATION. 317 
 
 presence of Jehovah in predisposing his mind to receive 
 revelations from on high. The false prophets of Baal, 
 on the contrary, tried to produce like effects by bloody 
 means: "They cut themselves with knives and lancets 
 till the blood gushed out upon them," and then they 
 prophesied. It has already been mentioned that in 
 India the glance was fixed upon the navel, until the 
 divine light began to shine before the mind's eye in 
 other words, until a trance is induced, and visions begin 
 to appear. The changes which immediately precede 
 dissolution seem, finally, to be most favorable to a 
 development of prophetic powers. Already Aretaeus, 
 the Cappadocian, said that the mind of many dying 
 persons was perfectly clear, penetrating and prophetic, 
 and mentions a number of cases in which the dying 
 had begun to converse with the dead, or foretold the 
 fate of those who stood by their bedside. Thus Homer 
 also makes dying Hector warn Achilles of his approach- 
 ing end, and Calanus, when in the act of ascending the 
 funeral pile, replies to Alexander's question if he had 
 any request to make : " No, I have nothing to ask, for 
 I shall see you the day after to-morrow!" And on 
 that day the young conqueror died. 
 
 Suetonius reports that the Emperor Augustus was 
 passing away almost imperceptibly, when he suddenly 
 shuddered and said that forty youths were carrying 
 him off. It so happened that when the end came, forty 
 men of his body-guard were ordered to raise and con- 
 vey the body to another room in the palace. There
 
 318 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 are a few cases known in which apparently dying per- 
 sons, after delivering such prophecies, have recovered 
 and retained the exceptional gift during the remainder 
 of their lives, but these instances are rare and require 
 confirmation. 
 
 As all magic phenomena are liable to be mixed up 
 with delusion and imposture, so divination of this kind 
 also has been frequently imitated for personal or po- 
 litical purposes. The ancient oracles already gave 
 frequently answers full of irony and sly humor. The 
 story of King Alexander of Epirus is well known, who 
 was warned by the oracle at Dodona to keep away from 
 the Acherusian waters, and then perished in the river 
 Acheros, in Italy. Thus Henry IV. of England had 
 been told that he would die at Jerusalem ; he thought 
 only of Palestine, but met his death unconsciously in a 
 room belonging to the Abbey of Westminster, which 
 bore the name of the holy city. In Spain, Ferdinand 
 the Catholic received warning that he would die at 
 Madrigal, and hence carefully avoided the city of that 
 name ; but when his last illness overtook him at an 
 obscure little town, he found that it was called Madri- 
 gaola, or Little Madrigal. The historian Mariana 
 (Hist, de rebus Hisp., 1. xxii. chap. 66) also mentions the 
 despair of the famous favorite Don Alvarez de Luna, 
 whom an astrologer had warned against Cudahalso, a 
 village near Toledo ; the unfortunate man died on the 
 scaffold which is also called cadahalso. In France it 
 was the fate of the superstitious queen, Catherine de
 
 DIVINATION. 319 
 
 Medici, to experience a similar mortification : the 
 famous Nostradamus had predicted that she would die 
 in St. Germain, and she carefully avoided that palace ; 
 but when her last end came, she found herself sinking 
 helpless into the arms of a courtier called St. Ger- 
 main. 
 
 Nor is there any want of false prophecies from the 
 time when Jeremiah complained that " a wonderful and 
 horrible thing is committed in the land ; the people 
 prophesy falsely " (Jer. v. 30), to the great money crisis 
 in 1857, which filled the land with predictions of the 
 approaching end. Periods of great political or reli- 
 gious excitement invariably produce a few genuine and 
 a host of spurious prophets, which represent the sad 
 forebodings filling the mind of a distressed nation and 
 avail themselves of the credulity of all great sufferers. 
 Some of the most absurd prophecies have nevertheless 
 caused a perfect panic, extending in some cases through- 
 out whole countries. Thus in 1578 a famous astrolo- 
 ger, the father of all weather prophecies in our alma- 
 nacs, predicted that in the month of February, 1524, 
 when three planets should enter at once the constellation 
 of the fishes, a second deluge would destroy the earth. 
 The report reached the Emperor Charles V., who sub- 
 mitted the matter to his Spanish theologians and as- 
 trologers. They investigated it with solemn gravity 
 and found it very formidable; from Spain the panic 
 spread through the whole of Europe. When February 
 came thousands left their houses and sought refuge on
 
 320 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 mountain and hill-top ; others hoped to escape on board 
 ships, and a rich president at Toulouse actually built 
 himself a second ark. When the deluge did not take 
 place, divines and diviners were by no means abashed ; 
 they declared that God had this time also taken pity 
 upon sinful men in consideration of the fervent prayer 
 of the faithful, as he had done before in the case of 
 Nineveh. The fear of the last judgment has at all 
 times so filled the minds of men as to make them readi- 
 ly believe a prediction of the approaching end of the 
 world, an event which, it is well known, the apostles, 
 Martin Luther, and certain modern divines, have per- 
 sistently thought immediately impending. Sects have 
 arisen at various epochs who have looked forward to the 
 second Advent with a sincerity of conviction of which 
 they gave striking and even most fearful evidence. The 
 Millerites of the Union have more than once predicted 
 the coming of Christ, and in anticipation of the near 
 Advent, disposed of their property, assumed the white 
 robes in which they were to ascend to heaven, and even 
 mounted into the topmost branches of trees to shorten 
 the journey. In Switzerland a young woman of Berne 
 became so excited by the coming of judgment, which 
 she fixed upon the next Easter day, that she prophesied 
 daily, gathered a number of followers around her, .and 
 actually had her own grandfather strangled in order to 
 save his soul before the approaching Advent. (Stilling, 
 "Janserits,"p. 117.) 
 
 Xot UH frequently proph?cies are apparently delivered
 
 DIVINATION. 321 
 
 by intermediate agents, angels, demons or peculiarly 
 marked persons. It was no doubt an effect of the deep 
 and continued excitement felt by Caius Cassius, that 
 his mind was filled with the image of murdered Caesar, 
 and hence he could very easily fancy he saw his victim 
 in his purple cloak, horse and rider of gigantic propor- 
 tions, suddenly appear in the din of the battle at Phi- 
 lippi, riding down upon him with wild passion. It is 
 well known that the impression was strong enough to 
 make him, who had never yet turned his back upon the 
 enemy, seek safety in flight, and cry out: " "What more 
 do you want if murder does not finish you?" (Va- 
 ler. Max. I. 8. ) 
 
 It must lastly be borne in mind, that prophecies hare 
 not remained as sterile as other magical phenomena. 
 Already Herder mentions the ad vantages of ancient ora- 
 cles. He says (Idc.cn zur Phil. d. Geschiclite, iii. p. 211) : 
 " Many a tyrant and criminal was publicly marked by 
 the divine voice (of oracles), when it foretold their fate; 
 in like manner it has saved many an innocent person, 
 given good advice to the helpless, lent divine authority 
 to noble institutions, made known works of art, and 
 sanctioned great moral truths as well as wholesome 
 maxims of state policy.'' It need hardly be added that 
 the prophets of Israel were the main upholders of the 
 religious life as well as of the morality of the chosen 
 people ; while the priests remained stationary in their 
 views, and contented themselves with performing the 
 ceremonial service of the temple, the prophets preserved
 
 322 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 the true faith, and furthered its gradually widening rev- 
 elation. In their case, however, divination was so 
 clearly the result of divine inspiration, that their proph- 
 ecies can hardly be classed among magic phenomena. 
 The ground which they have in common with merely 
 human forebodings and divinings, is the state of trance 
 in which alone prophets seem to have foretold the 
 future, whether we believe this ecstatic condition to 
 have been caused by music, long-protracted prayer or 
 the direct agency of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 This ecstasy was in the case of almost all the oracles 
 of antiquity brought on by inhaling certain gases which 
 rose from the soil and produced often most fearful symp- 
 toms in the unfortunate persons employed for the pur- 
 pose. At the same time they were rarely free from an 
 addition of artifice, as the priests not only filled the 
 mind of the pythoness beforehand with thoughts sug- 
 gested by their own wisdom and political experience, 
 but the latter also frequently employed her skill as a 
 ventriloquist, in order to increase the force of her rev- 
 elations. Hence the fact, that almost all the Greek ora- 
 cles proceeded from deep caves, in which, as at Dodona 
 and Delphi, carbonic gas was developed in abundance; 
 hence, also, the name of ventriloqua rates, which was 
 commonly given to the Delphi Pythia. The oldest of 
 these oracles, that at Dodona, foretold events for nearly 
 two thousand years, and even survived the almost uni- 
 versal destruction of such institutions at the time of 
 Christ; it did not actually cease till the third century,
 
 DIVINATIOX. 323 
 
 when an Illyriau robber cut down the sacred tree. The 
 oracle of Zeus Trophonins in Boaotia spoke through 
 the patients who were brought to the caves, where they 
 became somnambulists, had visions and answered the 
 questions of the priests while they were in this condi- 
 tion. The Romans also had their somnambulist proph- 
 ets from the earliest days, and whenever the state was 
 in danger, the Sibylline books were consulted. Chris- 
 tianity made an end to all such divination in Italy as in 
 Greece. It is strange that the vast scheme of Egyptian 
 superstition shows us no oracles whatever; but among 
 the Germans prophets were all the more numerous. 
 They foretold war or peace, success or failure, and ex- 
 ercised a powerful influence on all affairs. One of the 
 older prophetesses, Veleda, who lived in an isolated 
 tower, and allowed herself to be but rarely consulted, 
 was held in high esteem even by the Romans. The 
 Celts had in like manner prophet-Druids, some of whom 
 became well known to the Romans, and are reported to 
 have foretold the fate of the emperors Aurelian, Dio- 
 cletian and Severus. 
 
 We have the authority of Josephus for the continu- 
 ance of prophetic power in Israel even after the coming 
 of Christ. He tells us of Jesus, the son of Ananus, 
 who ran for seven years and five months through the 
 streets of Jerusalem, proclaiming the coming ruin, and, 
 while crying out " Woe is me ! " was struck and 
 instantly killed by a stone from one of the siege engines 
 of the Romans. (Jos., 1. vi. c. 31.) Josephus himself
 
 324 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 passes for a prophet, having predicted the fall of the 
 city of Jotapata forty-seven days in advance, his own 
 captivity, and the imperial dignity of Vespasian as well 
 as of Titus. Of northern prophets, Merlin is probably 
 the most widely known ; he was a Celtic bard, called 
 Myrdhin, and his poems, written in the seventh century, 
 were looked upon as accurate descriptions of many 
 subsequent events, such as the exploits of Joan of Arc. 
 In the sixteenth century Nostradamus took his place, 
 whose prophetic verses, Vraies Centuries et Prophcties, 
 are to this day current among the people, and now and 
 then reappear in leading journals. He had been a pro- 
 fessor of medicine in the University of Montpellier, and 
 died in 1566, enjoying a world-wide reputation as an 
 astrologer. His brief and often enigmatical verses have 
 never lost their hold on credulous minds, and a few 
 striking instances have, even in our century, largely 
 revived his credit. Such was, for instance, the stanza 
 (No. 10) : 
 
 TJn empereur naitre pres d'ltalie, 
 Qui d Vempire sera vendu tres cher; 
 Dirbnt avec quels gens il se rallie, 
 Qu'on trouvera moins prince que boucher, 
 
 which was naturally applied to the great Napoleon and 
 his marshals. 
 
 Another northern prophet, whose predictions are 
 still quoted, was the Archbishop of Armagh, Malachias, 
 who, in 1130, foretold the fate of all coming popes; as 
 in almost all similar cases, here also the accidental
 
 DIVIXATION. 325 
 
 coincidences have been carefully noted and pompously 
 proclaimed, while the many unfulfilled prophecies have 
 been as studiously concealed. It is curious, however, 
 that he distinctly predicted the fate of Pius VI., whom 
 he spoke of as " Vir apostolicus moriens in exilo " (he 
 died, 1799, an exile, in Valence), and that he character- 
 ized Pius IX. as "Crux de Cruce." St. Bridget of 
 Sweden had the satisfaction of seeing her prophecies 
 approved of by the Council of Basle ; they were trans- 
 lated subsequently into almost every living language, 
 and are still held in high esteem by thousands in every 
 part of Europe. The most prominent name among 
 English prophets is probably that of Archbishop Usher, 
 who predicted Cromwell's fate, and many events in 
 England and Ireland, the result, no doubt, of great 
 sagacity and a remarkable power of combination, but 
 exceeding in many instances the ordinary measure of 
 human wisdom. An entirely diiferent prophet was 
 Eice Evans ( Jortin, " Eem. on Eccles. Hist.," p. 377), 
 who, fixing his eye upon the hollow of his hand, saw 
 there images of Lord Fairfax, Cromwell, and four other 
 crowned heads appearing one after another ; thus, it is 
 said, he predicted the Protectorate and the reign of the 
 four sovereigns of the house of Stuart. Jane Leade, a 
 most extraordinary and mysterious person, founded in 
 1697, when she had reached the age of seventy-four, her 
 so-called Philadelphian Society, a prominent member 
 of which was the famous Pordage, formerly a minister 
 and then a physician. This very vain woman main-
 
 326 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 tained that she was inspired in the same manner as 
 St. John in Patmos, and that she was compelled by the 
 power of the Holy Spirit to foretell the future. In 
 spite of her erroneous announcement of the near Mil- 
 lennium, she foretold many minor events with great 
 accuracy, and was highly esteemed as a prophet. Dr. 
 Pordage had mainly visions of the future world, which 
 were all characterized by a great purity of heart and 
 wilclness of imagination, Swedenborg also had many 
 prophetic visions, but their fulfillment belongs ex- 
 clusively to future life, and their genuineness, firmly 
 believed by the numerous and enlightened members of 
 the New Church, cannot be proved to others in this 
 world. 
 
 One of the most remarkable cases of modern prophe- 
 sying which has been officially recorded, is connected 
 with the death of Pope Ganganelli. The latter heard 
 that a number of persons in various parts of Italy had 
 predicted that he would soon end his life by a violent 
 death. He attached sufficient importance to these 
 reports to hand the matter over to a special commission 
 previously appointed to examine grave charges which 
 had been brought against the Jesuits, perhaps suspect- 
 ing that the Order of Jesus was not unconnected with 
 those predictions. Among the persons who were there- 
 upon arrested was a simple, ignorant peasant-girl, 
 Beatrice Rensi, who told the gendarme very calmly : 
 " Ganganelli has me arrested, Braschi will set me free," 
 ini] dying that the latter would be the next pope. The
 
 DIVINATION. 327 
 
 priest at Yalentano, who was arrested on the same day 
 (12th of May, 1774), exclaimed quite joyously: "What 
 happens to me now has been predicted three times 
 already; take these papers and see what my daughter 
 (the Eensi) has foretold." Upon examination it ap- 
 pears that the girl had fixed the pope's day upon the 
 day of equinoxes, in the month of September ; she an- 
 nounced that he would proclaim a year of absolution, 
 but not live to see it ; that none of the faithful would 
 kiss his foot, nor would they take him, as usual, to the 
 Church of St. Peter. At the same time she spoke of a 
 fierce inward struggle through which the Holy Father 
 would have to pass before his death. Soon after these 
 predictions were made officially known to the pope, the 
 bull against the order of Jesuits was laid before him ; 
 the immense importance of such a decree, and the 
 evident dangers with which it was fraught, caused him 
 great concern, and when he one night rose from his 
 bed to affix his signature, and, frightened by some con- 
 siderati6ns, threw away the pen only to take it up at 
 lu.-t and sign the paper, he suddenly recalled the pro- 
 phecy of the peasant-girl. He drove at once to a great 
 prelate in Rome, who had formerly been the girl's con- 
 fessor, and inquired of him about her character ; the 
 priest testified to her purity, her unimpeached honesty, 
 and her simplicity, adding that in his opinion she was 
 evidently favored by heaven with special and very ex- 
 traordinary powers. Ganganelli was made furious by 
 this suggestion, and insisted upon it that his commis-
 
 328 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 sion should declare all these predictions wicked lies, the 
 inspirations of the Devil, and condemn the sixty-two 
 persons who had been arrested to pay the extreme pen- 
 alty in the Castle of St. Angelo on the 1st of October. 
 In the meantime, however, his health began to suffer, 
 and his mind was more and more deeply affected. 
 Beatrice Eensi had been imprisoned in a convent at 
 Montefiascane ; on the 22d of September she told the 
 prioress that prayers might be held for the soul of the 
 Holy Father; the latter informed the bishop of the 
 place, and soon the whole town was in an uproar. Late 
 in the afternoon couriers brought the news that Gan- 
 ganelli had suddenly died at eight o'clock in the morn- 
 ing; the body began to putrefy so promptly that the 
 usual ceremonies of kissing the pope's feet and the 
 transfer to St. Peter's became impossible ! The most 
 curious effects of the girl's predictions appeared,, how- 
 ever, when the Conclave was held to elect a successor. 
 Many Cardinals were extremely anxious that Braschi 
 should not be elected, lest this should be interpreted as 
 a confirmation of the prediction, and hence as the work 
 of the Evil One ; others again looked upon the girl's 
 words as an indication from on high ; they carried the 
 day. Braschi was really chosen, and ascended the 
 throne as Pius VI. The commission, however, con- 
 tinued the work of investigation, and finally acquitted 
 the Jesuits of the charge of collusion ; Beatrice Reusi's 
 predictions were declared to be supernatural, but sug- 
 gested by the Father of Lies, the accused were all set
 
 DIVINATION. 329 
 
 free. The Bishop of Montefiascoiie, Maury, reported 
 officially in 1804 that the girl had received a pension 
 from Rome until the French invasion, then she left the 
 convent in which she had peacefully and quietly lived 
 so long, and was not heard of again. 
 
 The famous predictions of Jacques Cazotte, a man of 
 high literary renown and the greatest respectability, 
 were witnessed by persons of unimpeachable character 
 and have been repeatedly mentioned as authentic by em- 
 inent writers. Laharpe not the tutor of the Eussian 
 Emperor Alexander reports them fully in his (Euvres 
 cTioisies, etc. (i. p. 62) ; so do Boulard, in his Encycl. des 
 gens du Monde, and William Burt, who was present 
 when they were made, in his " Observations on the Cu- 
 riosities of Nature." It is well known that Cazotte had 
 joined the sect of Martinists, and among these enthusi- 
 asts increased his natural sensitiveness and his religious 
 fervor. With a mind thus predisposed to receive strong 
 impressions from outside, and filled with fearful appre- 
 hensions of the future, it was no wonder that he should 
 fall suddenly into a trance and thus be enabled by ex- 
 traordinary magical influences to predict the horrors of 
 the Revolution, the sad fate of the king and the queen, 
 and his own tragic end. 
 
 The report -of his predictions as made by Jean de La- 
 harpe, who only died in 1823, and with his well-estab- 
 lished character and high social standing vouched for 
 the genuineness of his experience, is substantially as 
 follows: He had been invited, in 1788, to meet at the
 
 330 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 palace of the Duchess de Gramont some of the most 
 remarkable personages of the day, and found himself 
 seated by the side of Malesherbes. He noticed at a cor- 
 ner of the table Cazotte, apparently in a deep fit of 
 musing, from which he was only roused by the frequent 
 toasts, in which he was forced to join. "When at last the 
 guests seemed to be OTerflowing with fervent praises of 
 modern philosophy and its brilliant victory over old re- 
 ligious superstitions, Cazotte suddenly rose and in a 
 solemn tone of voice and with features agitated with 
 deep emotion said to them : " Gentlemen, you may rejoice, 
 for you will all see that great and imposing revolution, 
 which you so much desire. You, M. Condorcet, will 
 expire lying on the floor of a subterranean prison. 
 You, M. N., will die of poison ; you, M. N., will perish 
 by the executioner's hand on the scaffold." They cried 
 out: "Who on earth has made you think of prisons, 
 poison, and the executioner? What have these things 
 to do with philosophy and the reign of reason, which 
 we anticipate and on which you but just now congratu- 
 lated us ? " " That is exactly what I say," replied Ca- 
 zotte, " in the name of philosophy, of reason, of human- 
 ity, and of freedom, all these things will be done, which 
 . I have foretold, and they will happen precisely when 
 reason alone will reign and have its temples." " Cer- 
 tainly," replied Chamfort, "you will not be one of the 
 priests." "Not I," answered the latter, "but you, M. 
 de Chamfort, will be one of them and deserve to 
 be one ; you will cut your veins in twenty-two places
 
 DIVINATION. 331 
 
 with your razor, and yet die only several months after 
 that desperate operation. You, M. Vicque d'Azyr, 
 will not open your veins, because the gout in your hands 
 will prevent it, hut you will get another person to open 
 them six times for you the same day, and you will 
 die in the night succeeding. You, M. Nicolai, will 
 die on the scaffold, and you, M. Bailly, and you, 
 M. Malesherbes." " God be thanked," exclaimed M. 
 Eicher, "it seems M. Gazette only deals with members of 
 the Academy." But Gazette replied instantly : " You also, 
 M. Eicher, will die on the scaffold, and they who sen- 
 tence you, and others like you, will be nevertheless 
 philosophers." " And when is all this going to happen ? " 
 asked several guests. " "Within at most six years from 
 to-day," was the reply. Laharpe now asked : " And 
 about me you say nothing, Cazotte ? " The latter re- 
 plied : " In you, sir, a great miracle will be done ; you 
 will be converted and become a good Christian." These 
 words relieved the company, and all broke out into 
 merry laughter. Now the Duchess of Gramont also 
 took courage, and said: ""We women are fortunately 
 better off than men, revolutions do not mind us." 
 " Your sex, ladies," answered Cazotte, " will not protect 
 you this time, and however careful you may be not to be 
 mixed up with politics, you will be treated exactly like 
 the men. You also, Duchess, with many ladies before 
 and after you, will have to mount the scaffold, and more 
 than that, they will carry you there on the hangman's 
 cart, with your hands bound behind your back." The
 
 332 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 duchess, perhaps looking upon the whole as a jest, said, 
 smiling: "Well, I think I shall at least have a coach 
 lined with black." "No, no," replied Cazotte, "the 
 hangman's cart will be your last carriage, and even 
 greater ladies than you will have to ride in it." " Surely 
 not princesses of the royal blood ? " asked the duchess. 
 " Still greater ones," answered Cazotte. " But they will 
 not deny us a confessor ?" she continued. "Yes," re- 
 plied the other, "only the greatest of all who will be 
 executed will have one." "But what will become of 
 you, M. Cazotte ? " asked the guests, who began at last 
 to feel thoroughly uncomfortable. " My fate," was the 
 reply, "will be the fate of the man who called out, 
 Woe ! over Jerusalem, before the last siege, and Woe ! 
 over himself, while a stone, thrown by the enemy, ended 
 his life." With these words Cazotte bowed and with- 
 drew from the room. However much of the details may 
 have been subsequently added to the prediction, the fact 
 of such a prophecy has never yet been impugned, and 
 William Burt, who was a witness of the scene, emphati- 
 cally endorses the account. 
 
 Even the stern Calvinists have had their religious 
 prophets, among whom Du Serre is probably the most 
 interesting. He established himself in 1686 in the 
 Dauphine, but extended his operations soon into the 
 Cevennes, and thus prepared the great uprising of Prot- 
 estants there in 1688, which led to fearful war and 
 general devastation. Special gifts of prophecy were ac- 
 corded to a few generally uneducated persons ; but in
 
 DIVINATION. 333 
 
 these they appeared very strikingly, so that, for instance, 
 many young girls belonging to the lowest classes of 
 society, and entirely unlettered, were not only able to 
 foretell coming events, but also to preach with great 
 eloquence and to interpret Holy Writ. These phenomena 
 became numerous enough to induce the camisards, as 
 the rebellious Protestants of the Cevennes were called, 
 finally to form a regular system of inspiration. They 
 spoke of four degrees of ecstasis : the first indication, the 
 inspiring breath, the prediction, and the gifts ; the last 
 was the highest. The spirit of prophecy could be com- 
 municated by an inspired person to others ; this was 
 generally done by a kiss. Even children of three and 
 four years were enabled to foretell the future, and per- 
 severed, although they were often severely punished by 
 their parents, whom the authorities held responsible 
 for their misconduct, as it was called. (T7i6atre Sacri 
 des Cevennes, p. 66.) 
 
 Xor has this gift of prophesying been noticed only 
 in men of our own faith and our race. 
 
 An author whose trustworthiness cannot be doubted 
 for a moment, Jones Forbes, gives in his " Oriental Me- 
 moirs " (London, 1803), an instance of the prophesying 
 power of East Indian magicians, which is as well au- 
 thenticated as remarkable. A Mr. Hodges had acci- 
 dentally made the acquaintance of a young Brahmin, 
 who, although unknown to the English residents, was 
 famous among the natives for his great gifts. They 
 became fast friends, and the Indian never ceased to
 
 334 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 urge Hodges to remain strictly in the path of duty, as 
 by so doing he was sure to reach the highest honors. 
 In order to enforce his advice he predicted that he 
 would rise from the post he then occupied as Eesident 
 in Bombay to higher places, till he would finally be ap- 
 pointed governor. The prediction was often discussed 
 among Hodges' friends, and when fortune favored him 
 and he really obtained unusually rapid preferment, he 
 began to rely more than ever on the Indian T s predic- 
 tion. But suddenly a severe blow shattered all his 
 hopes. A rival of his, Spencer, was appointed governor, 
 and Hodges, very indignant at what he considered an 
 act of unbearable injustice, wrote a sharp and disre- 
 spectful letter to the Governor and Council of the Com- 
 pany. The result was his dismissal from the service 
 and the order to return to Europe. Before embarking 
 he sent once more for his friend, who was then living at 
 one of the sacred places, and when he came informed 
 him of the sad turn in his affairs and reproached him 
 with his false predictions. The Indian, however, was 
 in no way disconcerted, but assured Hodges that al- 
 though his adversary had put his foot on the threshold, 
 he would never enter the palace, but that he, Hodges, 
 would, in spite of appearances, most surely reach the 
 high post which he had promised him years ago. These 
 assurances produced no great effect, and Hodges was on 
 the point of going on board the ship that was to carry 
 him to Europe, when another vessel sailed into the har- 
 bor, having accomplished the voyage out in a most unu-
 
 DIVINATION. 335 
 
 sually short time, and brought new orders from England. 
 The Court of Directors had disapproved of Spencer's 
 conduct as Governor of Bengal, revoked his appoint- 
 ment, dismissed him from service, and ordered Hodges 
 to be installed as Governor of Bombay ! From that day 
 the Brahmin obtained daily more influence over the 
 mind of his English friend, and the latter undertook 
 nothing without having first consulted the strangely 
 gifted native. It became, however, soon a matter of 
 general remark, that the Brahmin could never be per- 
 suaded to refer in his predictions to the time beyond 
 the year 1771, as he had never promised Hodges another 
 post of honor than that which he now occupied. The 
 explanation of his silence came but too soon, for in the 
 night of the 22d of February, 1772, Hodges died sud- 
 denly, and thus ended his brilliant career, verifying his 
 friend's prophecy in every detail. 
 
 THE DIVIXIKG KOD. 
 
 The relations in which some men stand to Nature 
 are sometimes so close as to enable them to make dis- 
 coveries which are impossible to others. This is, for 
 instance, the case with persons who feel the presence of 
 waters or of metals. The former have, from time im- 
 memorial, generally used a wand, the so-called divin- 
 ing rod, which, according to Pliny, was already known 
 to the ancient Etruscans as a iiu-ans for the discovery 
 of hidden springs. An Italian author, Amoretti, who 
 has given special attention to this subject, states that
 
 336 MODEllN MAGIC. 
 
 at least every fifth man is susceptible to the influence 
 of water and metals, but this is evidently an over- 
 estimate. In recent times many persons have been 
 known to possess this gift of discovering hidden springs 
 or subterranean masses of water, and these have but 
 rarely employed an instrument. Catharine Beutler, 
 of Thurgovia, in Switzerland, and Anna Maria Brngger 
 of the same place, were both so seriously affected by the 
 presence of water that they fell into violent nervous 
 excitement when they happened to cross places beneath 
 which larger quantities were concealed, and became 
 perfectly exhausted. In France a class of men, called 
 soicrciers, have for ages possessed this instinctive power 
 of perceiving the presence of water, and others, like the 
 famous Abbe Paramelle, have cultivated the natural 
 gift till they were finally enabled, by a mere cursory 
 examination of a landscape, to ascertain whether large 
 masses of water were hidden anywhere, and to indicate 
 the precise spots where they might be found. 
 
 Why water and metals should almost always go hand 
 in hand in connection with this peculiar gift, is not 
 quite clear ; but the staff of Hermes, having probably 
 the form of the divining rod, was always represented 
 as giving the command over the treasures of the earth, 
 and the Orphic Hymn (v. 527) calls it, hence, the 
 golden rod, producing wealth and happiness. On the 
 other hand, the Aquce Virgo, the nymph of springs, had 
 also a divining rod in her hand, and Kuma, inspired by 
 a water nymph, established the worship of waters in
 
 DIVINATION. 337 
 
 connection with that of the dead. For here, also, 
 riches and death seem to have entered into a strange 
 alliance. Del Rio, in his Disquisitiones magicce, men- 
 tions thus the Zahuri of Spain, the lynx-eyed, as he 
 translates the name, who were able on Wednesdays and 
 Saturdays to discover all the veins of metals or of water 
 beneath the surface, all hidden treasures, and corpses 
 in their coffins. There is at least one instance re- 
 corded where a person possessed the power to see even 
 more than the Zalmris. This was a Portuguese lady, 
 Pedegache, who first attracted attention by being able 
 to discover subterranean springs and their connections, 
 a gift which brought her great honors after she had in- 
 formed the king of all the various supplies of water 
 which were hidden near a palace which he was about 
 to build. Shafts were sunk according to her directions, 
 and not only water was found, but also the various 
 soils and stones which she had foretold would have to 
 be pierced. She also seems to have cultivated her 
 talent, for we hear of her next being able to discover 
 treasures, even valuable antique statues, in the interior 
 of houses, and finally she reached such a degree of in- 
 tuition, that she saw the inner parts of the human 
 body, and pointed out their diseases and defects. 
 
 Savoy seems to be a specially favorable region for the 
 development of this peculiar gift, for if in Cornwall 
 one out of every forty men is believed to possess it, in 
 Savoy the divining rod is in the hands of nearly every 
 one. But what marks the talent in this case as pecu- 
 
 15
 
 338 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 liar is that it is by no means limited to the discovery 
 of water, but extends to other things likewise. A very 
 wealthy family, called Collomb, living in Cessens, 
 boasted of more than one member who was able, by the 
 aid of the rod and with bandaged eyes, to discover not 
 only pieces of money, but even needles, evidently cases 
 of personal susceptibility to the presence of metals, 
 aided by electric currents. Once, at least, the gift was 
 made useful. A number of bags filled with wheat had 
 been stolen from a neighboring house, and the police 
 were unable to discover the hiding-place. At the re- 
 quest of his friends one of the Collombs undertook the 
 search with the aid of the divining rod; he soon found 
 the window through which the bags had been handed 
 out ; he then followed the track along the banks of the 
 river Cheran, and asserted that the thief had crossed to 
 the other side. At that time nothing more was dis- 
 covered ; but soon afterwards a miller living across the 
 river was suspected, the bags were found, and the 
 culprit sent to the galleys. (Revue Savoisienne, April 15, 
 1852.) Dr. Mayo mentions, mainly upon the authority 
 of George Fairholm, a number of instances in which 
 persons belonging to all clases of society have exhibited 
 the same gift, but ascribes its efficacy to the presence of 
 currents of Od. 
 
 The divining rod, originally a twig of willow or hazel, 
 is often made of metal, and the impression prevails that 
 in such cases an electric current, arising from the sub- 
 terranean water or metals, enters the diviner's body by
 
 DIVINATION. 339 
 
 the feet, passes through him, and finally affects the two 
 branches of the rod, which represent opposite poles. It 
 is certain that when the electric current is interrupted, 
 the power of the divining rod is suspended. Dr. Mayo 
 tells us of a lady of his acquaintance in Southampton, 
 who at his request used a divining rod of copper and 
 iron wire, made after the fashion of the usual hazel 
 rod; it answered the purpose fully, but when the ends 
 touched by her hands were covered with sealing-wax, 
 it became useless ; as soon as she put her fingers in con- 
 tact with the unprotected wire, the power instantly re- 
 turned. This certainly seemed to be strong evidence of 
 the existence of an electric current. Nevertheless, many 
 believe that the divining rod acts in all cases sim- 
 ply as an extension of the arms, and thus serves to make 
 the vibrations of the muscles more distinct. It is by 
 this theory they explain the fact which has caused serious 
 trouble to careful inquirers like Count Tristan and Dr. 
 Mayo, that the gift of using the divining rod varies 
 with the state of health in the individuals in whom it 
 has been discovered.
 
 VII. 
 POSSESSION. 
 
 " Thereupon St. Theophilus made a pact with the Devil." 
 ACTA, S. S., 4 February. 
 
 MANY forms of insanity, it is well known, are accom- 
 panied by the fixed idea that the sufferer is continually 
 associated with another being, a friend or an enemy, a 
 man, an animal, or a mere shadow. Somnambulists, 
 also, not unfrequently fancy that they obtain their ex- 
 ceptional knowledge of hidden things, not by intuition 
 or instinct, but through the agency of a medium, whom 
 they look upon as an angel or a demon. There is, 
 however, a third class of cases, far more formidable than 
 either of those mentioned, in which the mind is dis- 
 turbed, and magic phenomena are produced by an 
 agency apparently entirely independent of the patient 
 himself. Such are possession, vampirism and zoanthro- 
 py three frightful forms of human suffering, which are 
 fortunately very rare, being limited to certain localities 
 in space, to a few short periods in time, and to men of 
 the lowest grade only. 
 
 Possession is that appalling state of mind which 
 makes the patient believe that he is in the power of a 
 foreign evil being, which has for the time full control 
 over his body. This power it abuses by plaguing the
 
 POSSESSION. 341 
 
 body in every imaginable way, by distorting the fea- 
 tures till they assume a scornful, diabolical expression, 
 and above all, by causing the sufferer to give utterance 
 to cynical remarks and horrible blasphemy. All these 
 phenomena are based upon the division of the patient's 
 individuality, which cannot be remedied by any effort of 
 his own, and which makes him look upon the evil prin- 
 ciple in his nature as something outside of himself, and 
 no longer under his control. The phenomena which 
 accompany possession are too fearful in their nature, 
 and yet at the same time too exceptional to keep us al- 
 together and easily from believing, as many thought- 
 ful and even pious men have thought, that in these 
 cases a real demon takes possession of the afflicted. The 
 bitter hatred against religion, which is always 
 a symptom of possession, would naturally tend to en- 
 force such a presumption. The possessed know not only 
 their own sins, but also those of the bystanders, and use 
 this knowledge with unsparing bitterness and cruel 
 scorn ; at the same time they feel the superiority of 
 others with whom they may come in contact, as the de- 
 moniacs of the Bible never failed to recognize in Christ 
 the Son of God. From the numerous cases of modem 
 possession which have been investigated, we derive the 
 following information as to its real nature. Possession 
 is invariably a kind of insanity, which is accompanied 
 by exceptional powers, producing magic phenomena ; 
 it is also invariably preceded by some grave disorder or 
 dangerous disease. The former may be of purely men-
 
 342 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 tal nature, for violent coercion of will, sudden and sub- 
 versive nervous shocks or long-continued enforcement 
 of a hateful mode of life, are apt to produce the sad 
 effect. Hence its frequent occurrence in monasteries, 
 orphan asylums and similar institutions, where this 
 kind of insanity is, moreover, liable to become epidemic. 
 At other times the cause is a trivial one, and then a 
 peculiar predisposition must be presumed which only 
 needed a decisive act to bring the disturbed mind to its 
 extremity. But possession is not merely an affection of 
 the mind, it is also always a disease of the body, which 
 in the bewildered and disordered imagination of the 
 patient becomes personified in the shape of a demon ; 
 hence the graver the disease, the fiercer the demon. 
 As sickness worries the patient, robs him of his appe- 
 tite and makes all he used to like distasteful to him, so 
 the demon also suffers no enjoyment; interferes with 
 every pleasure, and consistently rages especially against 
 religion, which alone could give consolation in such 
 cases. The outbursts of rage in demoniacs, when efforts 
 are made to exorcise or convert them, even although 
 nothing but prayers may be attempted, is ascribed to an 
 instinctive repugnance of the sufferers for means which 
 they feel to be utterly inappropriate to their case very 
 much as if men, mad with hunger, were to be fed with 
 moral axioms. Possession is finally sometimes limited 
 to parts of the body ; as when a demoniac is spoken of 
 who was dumb (Matt. ix. 32), and another who was 
 blind and dumb (Matt. xii. 22). In other cases the
 
 POSSESSION. 343 
 
 body is endowed with supernatural strength, and four 
 or five powerful men have been known to be scarcely 
 able to hold a frail girl of fifteen. 
 
 A peculiar, feature in possession is, that during the 
 most violent attacks of apparent fury, accompanied by 
 hideous cries and frightful contortions, the pulse is not 
 quickened and the physical strength of the patient does 
 not seem in the least diminished. The disease, how- 
 ever, naturally affects his whole system and exhausts it 
 in time. The possessed man, who unlike somnambu- 
 lists retains, during the paroxysms, full control over all 
 his senses, never speaks of the demon that possesses 
 him, but the demon speaks of him as of a third person, 
 and at the same time of himself, a feature which power- 
 fully contributes to the popular belief of actual demons 
 dAvelling in these unfortunate persons. And yet, after 
 the paroxysm is over, the poor sufferer knows nothing 
 of the horrible things he has done, and of the fearful 
 words he has uttered ; if he is told what has occurred, 
 he is terribly shocked, and bitterly repents his mis- 
 doings. 
 
 The paroxysms are twofold : in the body they appear 
 as violent convulsions accompanied by a contraction of 
 the throat and the globulus hystericus ; saliva forms in 
 abundance, black, coal-like lumps are thrown up and 
 the breath is hot and ill-smelling. In this mental form 
 they appear as a raging of the demon against the pos- 
 sessed and against religion in fact a struggle of the 
 patient with himself and his former convictions. Oc-
 
 344 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 casioually the good principle within him assumes, in 
 contradistinction to the demon who personifies the evil 
 principle, the form of a guardian angel, who comforts 
 the poor sufferer as he is tossed to and fro like a ship in 
 a tempest, and promises him assistance. Nor is the de- 
 mon always alone ; there may be, as Holy Writ teaches, 
 seven, thousands, or their name may be "Legions," for 
 these visionary beings are only so many representatives 
 of certain evil principles at work in the soul of the pos- 
 sessed. Some patients have been enabled to trace this 
 connection and to discover that each symptom of their 
 disease was thus personified by a separate demon to 
 whom in their paroxysms they ascribed the infliction : 
 Lucifer caused pricking and stinging pains, Aiizian 
 tearing and scratching, Junian convulsions of limbs, 
 etc. The fearful suffering which demoniacs have to un- 
 dergo and the still more harassing conflicts in their 
 soul drive them frequently to despair and engender 
 thoughts of suicide. During these paroxysms the 
 struggle between light and darkness, heaven and hell, 
 eternal bliss and damnation, angel and devil, is carried 
 on with such energy and dramatic truthfulness that 
 those who witness it are apt to become deeply excited 
 and often suffer not a little from the violent transitions 
 from sympathy to horror and from heartfelt pity to un- 
 speakable disgust. As soon as the dualism in the soul 
 relaxes, and with it the disease becomes milder, the de- 
 mon also grows more quiet; a happy moment of rest 
 ensues, which the exerciser calls the period of conver-
 
 POSSESSION. 345 
 
 sion ; and when this has once taken place the patient is 
 no longer able to distinguish the demon as apart from 
 himself, the contradistinction exists no more, and he is 
 reconciled to his true self. 
 
 There is no instance known in which an intelligent, 
 well-educated person has become possessed; the ter- 
 rible misfortune falls exclusively upon rude and coarse 
 natures, a fact which explains the coarseness and rude- 
 ness of so-called demons. Medicinal remedies are sel- 
 dom of much avail, as the disease has already reached 
 a stage in which the mind is at least as much affected 
 as the body. Exorcising has frequently been success- 
 ful, but only indirectly, through the firm faith which 
 the sufferer still holds in his innermost heart. The 
 great dogma that Christ has come into this world to 
 destroy the works of the Evil One, has probably been in- 
 culcated into his mind from childhood up, and can now 
 begin once more, after long obscuration, to exercise its 
 supreme power. The cure depends, however, not only on 
 the presence of such faith, but rather on the supremacy 
 which the idea of Christ's power gains over the idea of 
 the devil's power. Hence the symptoms of possession 
 not unfrequently cease under a fervent invocation of 
 the Saviour, if the exerciser is able by his superior 
 energy of will to create in the patient a firm faith in 
 the power of the holy name. This expulsion of the 
 demon is, of course, nothing more than the abandon- 
 ment of the struggle by the evil principle in the suf- 
 ferer's soul, by which the good impulses become once 
 15*
 
 346 MODEKN MAGIC. 
 
 more dominant, and a healthy, natural state of mind 
 and body is restored. 
 
 It must, however, not be overlooked that the views 
 of possession have changed essentially in different na- 
 tions and ages. At the time of Christ's coming the 
 belief in actual possession, the dwelling of real demons 
 in the body of human beings, was universal, and to this 
 belief the language of Holy Writ naturally adapts its 
 records of miracles. 
 
 The Kabbalah as well as the Talmud contain full 
 accounts of a kingdom of hell, opposed to the heavenly 
 kingdom, with Smaal as head of all satanim or evil 
 spirits, defying Jehovah. The latter are allowed to 
 dwell upon earth side by side with the sons of Adam, 
 and occasionally to possess them and to live in their 
 souls as in a home of their own. In other cases it was 
 the spirit of a deceased person which, condemned for 
 sins committed during life to wander about as a demon, 
 received permission to enter the soul of a living being. 
 The New Testament mentions at least seven cases of 
 possession, from the woman whose suffering was simply 
 ascribed to the Devil's agency, to Mary Magdalene who 
 was relieved of seven demons, and the Gadarene, who 
 had a " legion " of devils. The Catholic Church also 
 has always taught the existence of evil spirits; doctrinal 
 works, however, mention only one, Diabolus or Sa- 
 tauas. Although the Church adheres consistently to 
 the theory of actual possession, it teaches that demons 
 cannot wholly take possession of a human soul, but
 
 POSSESSION. 347 
 
 only force it to obedience or accept voluntary submis- 
 sion. Hence their power over the body also never 
 becomes absolute, but is always shared with the soul 
 of the sufferer. Among Protestants many orthodox 
 believers look upon possession as a mere delusion prac- 
 tised by the Evil One ; others admit its existence, but 
 attribute it to the souls of deceased persons and not 
 to demons. This was the doctrine of the ancient 
 Greeks, who, like the Eomans, seem to have known but 
 a few rare cases of possession, which they ascribed to 
 departed spirits. Thus Philostratus, in his life of Apol- 
 lonius (1. iii. ch. 38), mentions a young man who was 
 for two years possessed by a demon pretending to be 
 the spirit of a soldier killed in battle. Nearly all 
 nations on earth have records of possession. Thus 
 cases occurring in China and Japan and in the Indies 
 are attributed to the influence of certain deities, as the 
 Hindoos know neither a hell nor a devil. Early trav- 
 elers, like Blom and Eochefort, report, in like manner, 
 that in some of the islands of the Caribbean Sea evil 
 spirits are believed to obtain at times possession of 
 women and then to enable them to foretell the future. 
 According to Ellis the inhabitants of the Sandwich 
 Islands were much plagued by evil spirits dwelling in 
 some of their brethren. 
 
 It was only towards the latter part of the last century 
 that possession was found to be nothing more than a 
 peculiar disease arising from the combination of an 
 unsound mind with an unsound body. This discovery
 
 348 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 was first made by Farmer in England, and by Semler 
 in Germany; since that time the symptoms of the 
 character of the affection have been very generally 
 studied and thoroughly investigated. 
 
 Thus it has been discovered that similar phenomena 
 are occasionally observed in typhus and nervous fevers. 
 First the patients fancy they feel somebody breathing 
 by their side, or blowing cold air upon their head; after 
 long unconsciousness they are apt to imagine that they 
 are double, and have been known to hesitate where to 
 carry the spoon containing their medicine. In still 
 more marked cases, persons who have suffered from the 
 effects of some great calamity, and have thus been 
 brought to the verge of the grave, have even acted two 
 different individualities, of which one was pious and 
 the other impious, or one speaking the patient's native 
 tongue and the other a foreign language. As they re- 
 covered and as the return of health brought back bodily 
 and mental strength, this dualism also ceased to be ex- 
 hibited during the paroxysm, and finally disappeared 
 altogether. 
 
 Possession is generally announced some time before- 
 hand by premonitory symptoms, but the first cause is 
 not always easily ascertained. When we are told that 
 certain cases have originated in a hastily spoken word, 
 a fierce curse or an outburst of passion, we only learn 
 thus what was the first occasion on which the malady 
 has been noticed, but not what was the first cause. 
 This lies almost invariably in moral corruption ; the
 
 POSSESSION. 349 
 
 lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of 
 the heart are by far the most frequent sources of the 
 frightful disease. Occasionally a very great and sudden 
 grief, like the unexpected death of a beloved person, or 
 too great familiarity with evil thoughts in books or in 
 conversation, produce the same effect in fact all the 
 various causes which result in insanity may produce 
 also possession. Nor must serious bodily injuries be 
 forgotten. A student of the University of Halle con- 
 sidered himself possessed, and the case puzzled expe- 
 rienced physicians for some time, till it was ascertained 
 that he had received a violent blow upon the head, 
 which required trepanning. Before the operation could 
 be undertaken, however, matter began to ooze out from 
 the ear, and he suddenly was relieved from the parox- 
 ysms and all thoughts of possession. Convents are 
 naturally very frequently scenes of possession the in- 
 mates are either troubled by bitter remorse for sins 
 which have led them to seek refuge in a holy place, 
 where they cannot find peace, or they succumb to the 
 rigor of severe discipline and are unable to endure the 
 constant privation of food or sleep. The sin against 
 the Holy Ghost, which unfortunate persons have im- 
 puted to themselves, has produced many a case of pos- 
 session. When the mind is thus predisposed by great 
 anguish of soul or a long-continued inward struggle, 
 the most trifling incident suffices in determining the 
 outbreak of the disease. One patient became possessed 
 because his wife told him to go to the Devil, and another
 
 350 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 because lie had in jest exorcised a demon in a playmate ; 
 now a man curses himself in a moment of passion, and 
 then a boy drinks hastily a glass of cold water when 
 overheated, and both fall victims to the disease. 
 
 The magic phenomena accompanying possession are 
 by far the most remarkable within the whole range of 
 modern magic, but a number of the more striking are 
 frequently identical with those seen in religious ecsta- 
 sy. Demoniacs also exhibit the traces of injuries in- 
 flicted by demons, as saints show the stigmas, and their 
 wounds heal as little as those of stigmatized persons. 
 They share in like manner with religious enthusiasts 
 paroxysms during which they remain suspended in the 
 air, fly up to the ceiling or are carried to great distances 
 without touching the ground. The strength of the 
 possessed is amazing. A monk, known in ecclesiastical 
 history as Brother Eafael of Rimini, could not be 
 bound by any ropes or chains; as soon as he was left 
 alone he broke the strongest fetters, raced up the roof 
 of the church, ran along the topmost ridge, and was 
 often found sitting on the great bell, to which no one 
 else had ever been able to gain access. At last the de- 
 mons led him to the top of the steeple itself and were 
 about to hurl him down, as he said ; the abbot and his 
 monks and an immense crowd of people assembled be- 
 low, and besought him to invoke the aid of their pa- 
 tron saint so as to save body and soul. It does not ap- 
 pear by what miraculous influence a change was 
 wrought in the poor man ; but he did raise his voice,
 
 POSSESSION. 351 
 
 which had not been heard to address a saint for many 
 years, and instantly his mind returned, he found, his 
 way down to the church and was cured. 
 
 The most frequent symptom in possession is a strong 
 antipathy against everything connected with religion ; 
 the holy names of God and Christ, the presence of 
 priests, the singing of hymns and the reciting of 
 prayers, excite intense pain, and provoke outbursts of 
 fury. Even young children manifest this aversion, es- 
 pecially when they have previously been forced to attend 
 church, and to engage in devotional exercises against 
 their inclination. Hence it is, also, that paroxysms are 
 most frequent- at the regular hours of divine service, or 
 break forth suddenly at the sight of a procession or the 
 hearing of ringing bells. The symptom itself arises 
 naturally from the imaginary conflict between a good 
 and an evil principle, the latter being continually in 
 arms against anything that threatens to crush its own 
 power. All the other symptoms of this fearful disease 
 occur, also, in St. Vitus' dance, in catalepsy, and even in 
 ordinary trances ; only they appear more marked, and 
 make a greater impression upon bystanders, because 
 they are apparently caused by a foreign agent, the pos- 
 sessing demon, and not by the patient himself. As the 
 digestive organs are in all such cases sympathetically 
 excited, and seriously aifected, a desire for unnatural 
 food is very frequent ; the coarsest victuals are preferred ; 
 unwholesome, and even injurious substances are eagerly 
 devoured; and medicines as well as strengthening food
 
 352 MOjDERN MAGIC. 
 
 are vehemently rejected. The sufferer is apt to interpret 
 this as a new plague, his demon refusing him his legiti- 
 mate sustenance, and compelling him to feed like an 
 animal. 
 
 One of the most remarkable historical cases of appar- 
 ent possession accompanied by magic phenomena, was 
 that of Mirabeau's grandmother. Married when quite 
 young to the old marquis, she tried after his death to 
 protect herself against the temptations of the Avorld, 
 and of her own heart, by ascetic devotion. In her 
 eighty-third year, she was attacked by gout which 
 affected her brain, and she became insane, in a manner 
 which according to the views of her days was called 
 possession. It was found necessary to shut her up in a 
 bare room with a pallet of straw, where no one dared 
 enter but her valet, a man seventy years old, with whom 
 she had fallen in love ! For, strange as it may appear, 
 her fearful affliction restored to her the charms of 
 youth ; she, who had been reduced to a skeleton by old 
 age and unceasing devotion, suddenly regained the 
 plumpness of her early years, her complexion became 
 fair and rosy, her eyes bright and even, her hair began 
 to grow out once more. But, alas ! her tongue, also, 
 had changed ; once afraid to utter a word that could be 
 misinterpreted, the unruly member now sent forth 
 speeches of incredible licentiousness, and overwhelmed 
 the old servant with terms of endearment and coarse 
 allusions. At the same time the retired ascetic became 
 a violent blasphemer, and would allow no one to enter
 
 POSSESSION. 353 
 
 her chamber who had not first denied God, threatening 
 to kill him with her own hands if he refused. For four 
 long years the unfortunate lady endured her fearful 
 affliction, till death relieved her of her sufferings but 
 the student of history traces to her more than one of 
 the startling features in the character of her grandson, 
 the Mirabeau of the Revolution. (Biilau, Geh. Gesch., 
 xii.) 
 
 Relief is generally possible only when a powerful 
 hold has been obtained upon the mind of the patient ; 
 after that appropriate remedies may be applied, and the 
 body will be restored to its natural healthy condition. 
 In a few cases remarkable incidents have produced a 
 cure, such as the sudden clanking of chains, or a 
 peculiarly fervent and impressive prayer. Even a 
 night's sound sleep, induced by utter exhaustion, has 
 had the happiest effect. 
 
 It seems as if. the train of thoughts once forcibly in- 
 terrupted, a return to reason arid an abandonment of 
 fixed ideas become possible. Even a specially violent 
 paroxysm may be salutary ; probably by means of the 
 severe struggle and extreme excitement which it is apt 
 to produce. Many patients, under such circumstances, 
 fall prostrate on the ground, losing their consciousness, 
 and awake after a while as from a dream, without being 
 able to remember what has happened. In other cases 
 the hallucination continues to the last moment, and 
 leads the patient to imagine that the demon leaves 
 him in the shape of a black shadow, a bird, or an insect.
 
 354: MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 Such recoveries are almost invariably accompanied by 
 violent efforts to discard foreign matters, which have 
 been lodged in the system, and largely contributed to 
 produce the disease. Exorcism has, of course, no direct 
 effect : even when the power to " cast out devils " (Mark 
 xvi. 17) is given, it is not said by what means the 
 casting out is to be accomplished, except that it must 
 be done in the Saviour's name. The formalities, care- 
 fully regulated and prescribed by many decrees of the 
 Church since the third century, do no good except so 
 far as they re-awaken faith, impart hope, and free the 
 mind from distressing doubts. Ignatius Loyola never 
 cured possessed persons otherwise than by prayer. As 
 early as the sixteenth century a case is recorded clearly 
 illustrating the true nature of exorcism. A demon 
 was, after many fruitless attempts, at last driven out by 
 a particle of the cross of our Saviour, but in departing 
 he declared in a loud voice that he kue\v full well the 
 nature of the piece of wood; it was cut from a gallows 
 and not from the true cross, nevertheless he was forced 
 to go because the exorcist willed it so, and the patient 
 believed in his power. The same rule applies to cures 
 achieved by relics ; not that these had any effect, but in 
 the long-cherished faith of the possessed, that they 
 might and could wield such power over evil spirits. 
 
 The main point is here also the energy of will in the 
 exerciser, and that this special gift is by no means con- 
 fined to men was strikingly illustrated by a famous 
 lady, the wife of a Marquis de la Croix, who was a
 
 POSSESSION. 355 
 
 Spanish general and Viceroy of Galicia. In her youth 
 a matchless beauty with almost perfect classical fea- 
 tures, she retained au imposing carriage and bewitching 
 grace throughout a long life, and even in old age com- 
 manded the admiration of all who came in contact with 
 her, not only by the superiority of her mind but also 
 by the beauty of her eyes and the charming expression 
 of her features. After the death of her husband she 
 had much to endure from neglect in the great world, 
 from sickness and from poverty, doubly hard to bear 
 because standing in painful contrast to the splendor of 
 her former life. The effects of a violent attack of sick- 
 ness produced at last a partial disturbance of her mind, 
 which showed itself in visions and the power to drive 
 demons from the possessed. Her theory was that as 
 the sins of men caused their diseases, and as the Devil 
 was the cause of all sins, sickness was invariably pro- 
 duced by demoniac agency; she distinguished, how- 
 ever, between sufferers who had voluntarily given them- 
 selves up to sin, and thus to the service of the Devil, 
 and those who had unawares fallen into his hands. 
 Her practice was simple and safe : she employed nothing 
 but fervent prayer and the imposition of hands, which 
 she had moistened with holy water or oil. In the 
 course of time she found her way to Paris, and there 
 met, amid many skeptics, also with countless believers, 
 some of whom belonged not only to the highest classes 
 of society, but even to the sect of Free-thinkers, then 
 prominent in the French capital. Such were Marshal
 
 356 MODERN AfAGIC. 
 
 Kichelieu, Count Schomberg, au intimate of the famous 
 circle-meeting at Baron Holbach's house, and even the 
 illustrious Buffon. When she was engaged in exorcising, 
 her imposing stature, her imperious eye and command- 
 ing voice aided her at least as much as her perfect 
 faith and striking humility, so that her patients, after a 
 short demur, willingly looked upon her as a saint who 
 might, if she but chose, perform miracles. With such 
 a disposition obedience was no longer difficult, and the 
 remarkable lady healed all manners of diseases, from 
 modest toothache to rabid madness. Even when she 
 was unsuccessful, as frequently happened, she won all 
 hearts by her marvelous gentleness and humble piety. 
 Thus, when a possessed man was brought to her in the 
 presence of an illustrious company, and all her efforts 
 and prayers were fruitless, she placed herself bravely 
 between the enraged man and her friends whom he 
 threatened to attack. He began to foam at the mouth, 
 and amid fearful convulsions and dread imprecations, 
 broke out into a long series of terrible accusations 
 against the poor lady, charging her with all her real 
 and a host of imaginary sins, till she could hardly 
 stand up any longer. She listened, however, with her 
 arms folded over her bosom and her eyes raised to 
 heaven, and when the madman at last sank exhausted 
 to the ground, she fell upon her knees and said to the 
 bystanders: "Gentlemen, you see here a punishment 
 ordained by God for the sins of my youth. I deserve 
 this humiliation in your presence, and I would endure
 
 POSSESSION. 357 
 
 it before all Paris if I could thus make atonement for 
 my misdeeds." (Mem. du Baron de Gleiclien, p. 149.) 
 
 One of the most fearful features of possession is its 
 tendency to spread like contagion over whole commu- 
 nities. Many such cases are recorded in history. The 
 monks of the Convent of Quercy were thus attacked in 
 1491, and suffered, from the oldest to the youngest, 
 during four months, incredible afflictions. They ran 
 like dogs through the fields, climbed upon trees, imi- 
 tated the howling of wild beasts, spoke in unknown 
 tongues, and foretold, at the same time, future events. 
 (Goerres, iv. II.) In the year 1566 a similar malady 
 broke out in the Orphan House at Amsterdam, and 
 seventy poor children became possessed. They also 
 climbed up the walls and on the roofs, SAvallowed hairs, 
 needles, and pieces of glass and iron, and distorted 
 their features and their limbs in a fearful manner. 
 What, however, made the greatest impression upon the 
 good citizens of the town were the magic phenomena 
 connected with their disease. They spoke to the over- 
 seer and even to the chief magistrate of their secret 
 affairs, made known plots hatched against the Protest- 
 ants and foretold events which happened soon after. In 
 a convent of nuns at Yssel in the Netherlands, a single 
 nun, Maria de Sains, caused one of the most fearful ca- 
 lamities among her sisters that has ever been known. 
 Katurally a woman of superior mind, but carried away 
 by evil passions, she finally succumbed to the struggle 
 between the latter and the strict rules of her retreat :
 
 358 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 she began to accuse herself of horrible crimes and ex- 
 cesses. The whole country was amazed, for she had 
 passed for a great saint, and now, of a sudden, she con- 
 fessed that she had murdered numberless little children, 
 disinterred corpses, and carried poor girls to the meet- 
 ing of witches. All these misdeeds, which existed only 
 in her disordered imagination, she ascribed to the agen- 
 cy of a demon, by whom she was possessed, and before 
 many weeks had passed, every nun and lay sister in the 
 ill-fated convent was possessed in precisely the same 
 manner ! 
 
 One of the most recent cases of possession is reported 
 by Bishop Laurent of Luxemburg, in a pamphlet on 
 the subject. In the year 1843 a woman, thirty-four 
 years old, was brought to him who had been possessed 
 since her fifteenth year, and who exhibited the remark- 
 able phenomenon that in her sound moments she spoke 
 no other language but the patois of her native place, 
 while in her paroxysms she used Latin, French, and 
 German at will. When the good bishop threatened the 
 demon, the latter attacked him in return, troubling 
 him with nightly visits and suggesting to him sinful 
 doubts of the existence of God and the efficacy of 
 Christ's sacrifice. This fact shows how easily such 
 disturbances of mind can be transferred to others, 
 when disease or mental struggles have prepared a way. 
 Fortunately the bishop first mastered his own doubts, 
 and, thus strengthened, obtained the same mastery 
 over the possessed woman. He commanded the demon
 
 POSSESSION. 359 
 
 to come out of her, whereupon she fell into convul- 
 sions, speaking in a disguised tone of voice ; but after a 
 while drew herself up, and now her face was once more 
 free from anguish, and " angel-like. " Another bishop, 
 who had been requested to exorcise possessed persons in 
 Morzine, in the Chablais, was not so successful. At this 
 place, in 1837, a little girl, nine years old, in consequence 
 of a great fright, fell into a deathlike sleep, which 
 returned daily, and lasted about fifteen minutes. A 
 month later, another girl, eleven years old, was attacked 
 in the same way, and soon the number of afflicted per- 
 sons rose to twenty, all girls under twenty years. After a 
 while they declared that they were possessed by demons, 
 and ran wild through the fields, climbed to the top of 
 lofty trees, and fell into violent convulsions. In vain did 
 the local priest and his vicar attempt to arrest the evil ; 
 the girls laughed them to scorn. When the civil author- 
 ities interfered, they were met with insults and blows ; 
 the guilty were fined, but the number steadily increased, 
 and now grown women also were found in the crowd. 
 At last the official reports reached Paris, and the min- 
 ister sent the chief superintendent of insane asylums 
 to the village. He immediately distributed all the af- 
 fected among the adjoining towns and hamlets, to break 
 off the association, and sent the priest and his vicar to 
 their superior, the bishop of Annecy. A few only of 
 the women recovered, several died, and one man also 
 succumbed; others, when they returned to Morzine, 
 relapsed, and in 1864 the malady began to spread once
 
 360 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 more so fearfully that the bishop of Annecy himself came 
 to exorcise the possessed. Seventy of them were brought 
 to the church, where the most fearful scenes took place ; 
 howling and yelling filled the sacred building, seven or 
 eight powerful men scarcely succeeded in bringing one 
 possessed child to the altar, and when there, the demo- 
 niacs broke out in horrible blasphemies. The bishop, 
 exhausted by the intense excitement, and suffering from 
 serious contusions inflicted upon him by the unfortu- 
 nate women, had to leave the place, unable to obtain 
 any results. Even as late as 1869 two demons were 
 solemnly exorcised upon an order from the bishop of 
 Strasbourg, and with the consent of the prefect of the 
 department. The ceremony took place in the Chapel 
 of St. George, in the presence of the lady-abbesses, 
 under the direction of the Vicar-General of the 
 diocese, assisted by other dignitaries and the Superior 
 of the Jesuits. The two boys who were to be relieved 
 had long been plagued with fearful visions and publicly 
 given evidence of being possessed, for " twenty or thirty 
 times they had been led into a public square in the 
 presence of large crowds, and there they had pulled 
 feathers out of a horrible monster which they saw above 
 them in a. threatening attitude ; these feathers they hud 
 handed to the bystanders, who found that when they 
 were burnt they left no ashes." When the two chil- 
 dren were brought to the house of the Sisters of Charity, 
 they became clairvoyant, and revealed to the good 
 ladies, although they had never seen them before,
 
 POSSESSION. 361 
 
 their family relations, their antecedents and many 
 secrets. They also spoke in unknown tongues, and 
 exhibited all the ordinary phenomena of possession. 
 The official report containing these statements, and 
 closing with their restoration to health and reason, is 
 so far trustworthy as it is signed by several hundred 
 persons, among whom the government authorities, 
 officers, professors and teachers are not wanting. 
 
 There can be little doubt that the dancing mania 
 which broke out repeatedly in various parts of the 
 continent of Europe, was a kind of possession. The 
 facts are recorded in history; the explanation only is 
 left as a matter of discussion. In 1374, when a new 
 and magnificent church was to be consecrated, in Liege, 
 large numbers of people came from North Germany ; 
 '' men and women, possessed by demons, half naked, 
 wreaths on their heads, and holding each other's hands, 
 performed shameless dances in the streets, the churches, 
 and houses.'-' When they fell down exhausted they had 
 spasms, and convulsions; at their own request, friends 
 came and pressed violently upon their chests, till they 
 grew better. Their number soon reached thousands, 
 and other thousands joined them in Holland and Bra- 
 bant, although the priests frequently succeeded in 
 exorcising them whenever .their mind was still sound 
 enough to recall their early reverence for holy men and 
 their faith in holy things. Some time before, the good 
 people of Perugia had taken it into their heads that 
 their sins required expiation, and had begun to scourge 
 
 1G
 
 362 MODEKN MAGIC.. 
 
 themselves publicly in the most cruel manner. The 
 Romans were infected soon after, and copied their 
 example; from thence the contagion spread, and soon 
 all over Italy men, women, and children were seen 
 inflicting upon themselves fearful punishment in order 
 to drive out the evil spirits by whom they fancied 
 themselves possessed. Noble and humble, rich and 
 poor, old and young, all joined the crowds which in the 
 daytime filled squares and streets, and at night, under 
 the guidance of priests, marched with waving banners, 
 and blazing torches, in vast armies through the land. 
 Nor can we shut our eyes to the fact that the Jumpers 
 and Jerkers of the Methodist Church present to us 
 instances of the same mental disorder, caused by over- 
 excitement, which in earlier days was called possession, 
 and that, hence, these aberrations, also, infinitely varied 
 as they are, according to the temper of men and the 
 habits of the locality in which they occur, must be 
 numbered among the phenomena of modern magic. 
 
 VAMPIRISM. 
 
 Occasionally possession is not attributed to demons, 
 but to deceased men who come by night from their 
 graves, and suck the blood of their victims, whereupon 
 the latter begin to decline and finally die a miserable 
 death, while the buried man lives and thrives upon his 
 ill-gotten food. This is vampirism, the name being 
 derived from the once universal belief that there existed 
 vampires, huge bats, who, whilst fanning sleeping men
 
 POSSESSION. 363 
 
 with their soft wings, feasted upon their life's blood and 
 only left them when they had turned into corpses. Pop- 
 ular credulity added a number of horrid details to the 
 general outline, and believed that the wretched victims 
 of vampirism became themselves after death vam- 
 pires, and thus forever continued the fearful curse. It 
 was long thought that vampirism was known only to 
 the nations of the Slavic race, but recent researches 
 have discovered traces of it in the East Indies, and in 
 Europe among the Magyars. Even the Sanscrit al- 
 ready appears to have had a term of its own for the 
 vampires Pysachas, " hostile beings, eager for the flesh 
 and blood of living men, who gratify their cruel lust 
 mainly at the expense of women when they are asleep, 
 drunk, or insane." 
 
 Careful writers like Calmet and others have, it is 
 true, always maintained that, while the existence of 
 vampirism cannot be denied, the phenomena attending 
 it are in all cases the creations of diseased minds only. 
 On the other hand, it is a well-established fact that the 
 bodies of so-called vampires, when exhumed, have been 
 found free from corruption, while in all the corpses 
 around them decomposition had long since begun. In 
 the face of such facts vampirism cannot be dismissed 
 as simply the product of heated and over-excited imag- 
 inations, although it must be admitted that its true na- 
 ture is still to all intents and purposes a profound mys- 
 tery. According to popular belief the unusual preser- 
 vation of the corpses indicates that death has not yet
 
 364 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 obtained full dominion over the bodies, alid that hence 
 the soul has not yet departed to its eternal home. A 
 kind of lower organic life, it is said, continues, and as 
 long as this lasts, the soul wanders about, as in a dream, 
 among the familiar scenes of its earthly life and makes 
 itself known to the friends of its former existence. The 
 life thus extended requires blood in order to sustain it- 
 self, and hence the minds of those who come in magic 
 contact with the soul of a vampire, become filled with 
 sanguinary thoughts, which present themselves to their 
 imagination as the desire to suck blood and thus lead to 
 the actual performance. The fact that vampirism is 
 epidemic, like many similar mental diseases, has led to 
 the belief that the living are brought into close con- 
 nection with the dead and are infected by them, while 
 in reality there is no bond between 'them but a common 
 misfortune. Nor must it be forgotten that in this dis- 
 ease, as in the plague, the mere thought of being seized 
 often suffices to cause death without any warning symp- 
 toms, and heuce the great number of deaths in locali- 
 ties where vampirism has been thought to prevail. For 
 very few of those who are attacked succeed in escaping, 
 and if they survive they retain for life the marks left by 
 their wounds. The penalty, moreover, is not always 
 undeserved ; vampirism rarely if ever attacks men of 
 pure hearts and sober minds ; it is found, on the con- 
 trary, exclusively among semi-barbarous nations and 
 only in persons of rude, savage, and sinful disposition. 
 Traces of vampirism have been discovered in the
 
 POSSESSION. 3G5 
 
 most distant parts of the earth, and often without ap- 
 parent connection. The " Bruholaks " of Greece, gen- 
 uine vampires whose appearance was ascribed to the 
 direct influence of the Evil One, may possibly have been 
 imported by the numerous immigrants of Slavic origin 
 (Huet, Pensees Diverses, Paris, 1722), but in Finland 
 also the belief is, according to Castren, almost univer- 
 sal, that the spirits of the departed have the power to 
 vex and torment persons in their sleep, and to afflict 
 them with sorrow and disease. In the Sunda and Mo- 
 lucca islands genuine vampirism is well known, and the 
 Dyaks of Borneo also believe in an evil spirit who sucks 
 the blood of living persons till they expire. 
 
 Poland and Western Russia have, however, been for 
 two centuries the stage on which most of these dread 
 tragedies have occurred. Men and women were re- 
 ported to have been seen in broad daylight sucking the 
 blood of men and beasts, while in other cases dogs and 
 even wolves were suspected of being upires or vam- 
 pires, as blood-suckers are called in most Slavic dialects. 
 The terror grew as these reports found their way into 
 newspapers and journals, till fear drove men and 
 women to resort to the familiar remedy of mixing 
 blood with the meal used for their bread ; they escaped 
 not by any healing powers inherent in the horrid mix- 
 ture, but thanks to the faith they had in the efficacy of 
 the prescription and the moral courage exhibited in its 
 application. To prevent the spreading of the epidemic 
 the bodies of the vampires were disinterred, and when
 
 366 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 found bleeding, were decapitated or impaled or burned in 
 public. In some parts of Hungary the disease appeared 
 in the shape of a white spectre which pursued the 
 patients; they declined visibly and died in a week or a 
 fortnight. It was mainly in this country that physi- 
 cians attending the disinterment of suspected bodies 
 noticed the presence of more or less considerable quan- 
 tities of blood, which was still fluid and actually caused 
 the cheeks to look reddish. Some of the witnesses even 
 thought they noticed an eifort to breathe, faint pulsa- 
 tions, and a slight change of features ; these were, how- 
 ever, evidently nothing more than the effects of currents 
 of air which accompanied the opening of the coffin. It 
 was here also that animals were first believed to have 
 been attacked by vampires ; cows were . found early in 
 the morning bleeding profusely from a wound at the 
 neck, and horses standing in their stalls trembling, 
 covered with white foam, and so thoroughly terrified as 
 to become unfit for use. 
 
 Another period of excitement due to accounts of vam- 
 pirism comprised the middle of last century, when all 
 Europe was deeply agitated on the subject. The Em- 
 peror of Germany and other monarchs appointed com- 
 mittees of learned men to investigate the matter ; theo- 
 logians and skeptics, philosophers and physicians, took 
 up the discussion, and hundreds of volumes were pub- 
 lished on the mysterious question, but no satisfactory 
 result was ever obtained. Many declared the whole a 
 fable or merely the effect of diseased imaginations,
 
 POSSESSION. 3C"7 
 
 others looked upon it as a malignant and epidemic dis- 
 ease, and not a few as the unmistakable work of the 
 devil. Learned men searched the writings of antiquity, 
 and soon found more traces of the fearful disease than 
 they had expected. They discovered that in Thessaly, 
 Epirus, and some parts of the Pieria, men were reported 
 by ancient writers as wandering about at night and 
 tearing all whom they met to pieces. The Lamiae of 
 the Greeks and the Strigae of the Komans evidently be- 
 longed to the same category, while the later Tympanites 
 of the Greeks were persons who had died while under 
 the ban of the church and were therefore doomed to 
 become vampires. The Slavic population of Moravia 
 and Bohemia was in those days especially rich in instan- 
 ces of vampirism, and so many occurred in Hungary 
 that the Emperor Charles IV. intrusted -the investiga- 
 tion of the matter to a prince of Wurtemberg, before 
 whom a number of cases were fully authenticated. Men 
 who had died years before, were seen to return to their 
 former homes, some in the daytime, some at night, and 
 the following morning those whom they had visited 
 were found dead and weltering in their blood. In a 
 single village seventeen persons died thus within three 
 months, and in many instances, when bodies were dis- 
 interred, they were found looking quite alive. At this 
 time the Sorbonne at Paris also took up the subject, but 
 came to no conclusion, save that they disapproved of 
 the practice of disinterring bodies, " because vampires, 
 us cataleptics, might be restored to life by bleeding or
 
 368 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 magnetic treatment," according to the opinion of the 
 learned Dr. Pierard. (Revue Spirit., iv.) 
 
 Here we come at last to the grain of truth around 
 which this mass of popular superstition has gradually 
 accumulated, and the ignorance of which has caused 
 hundreds of innocent human beings to die a miserable 
 death. There can be no doubt that cases of "suspended 
 animation " or apparent death have alone given rise to 
 the whole series of fearful tales of vampirism. The 
 very words of a recital belonging to the times, and to 
 the districts where vampirism was prevalent, prove the 
 force of this supposition. Erasmus Francisci states 
 that, in the duchy of Krain, a man was buried and 
 then suspected of being a vampire. When disinterred 
 his face was found rosy, and his features moved as if 
 they attempted to smile; even his lips opened as if 
 gasping for air. A crucifix was held before his eyes and 
 a priest called out with a loud voice: "Peace! This is 
 Jesus Christ who has rescued thy soul from the tor- 
 ment of hell, and suffered death for thee ! " The sound 
 seemed to penetrate to his ear, and slowly a few tears 
 began to trickle down his cheeks. After a short prayer 
 for his poor soul, his head was ordered to be cut off; a 
 suppressed cry was heard, the body turned over as if 
 still alive, and when the head was severed a quantity of 
 blood ran into the grave. It was as clear a case of a 
 living man who had been buried before death as has 
 ever been authenticated. Ivor are such cases as rare as 
 is popularly believed. High authorities assure us that,
 
 POSSESSION. 369 
 
 for instance, after imperfect poisoning, in several kinds 
 of suffocation, and in cases of new-born children who be- 
 come suddenly chilled, a state of body is produced which 
 presents all the symptoms of complete suspension of the 
 functions of life. Such apparent death is, according to 
 the same high medical authority, a period of complete 
 rest, based upon a suspension of the activity of the 
 heart, the lungs, and all spontaneous functions, extend- 
 ing frequently to the sense of touch, and the intellect 
 even. At the same time the natural heat of the body 
 sinks until it seems to have disappeared altogether. 
 The duration of this exceptional state is uncertain, at 
 times the patient awakes suddenly, and in full posses- 
 sion of all his faculties ; in other cases external means 
 have to be employed to restore life. Among many well- 
 authenticated cases of this kind, two of special interest 
 are mentioned by Dr. Mayo. Cardinal Espinosa, the 
 minister of Philip II. of Spain, died after a short period 
 of suffering. His rank required that he should be em- 
 balmed, and his body was opened for the purpose. At 
 the moment when lung and heart were laid open to view, 
 the surgeon observed that the latter was still beating, 
 and the Cardinal, awaking, had actually strength 
 enough to seize with his hand the knife of the operator. 
 The other case is that of a well-known French writer, 
 the Abbe Prevost, who fell down dead in the forest of 
 Chantilly. His apparently lifeless body was found, 
 and carried to a priest's house in the neighborhood. 
 The surgeon ascribed his death to apoplexy; but the 
 
 16*
 
 370 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 authorities ordered a kind of coroner's inquest, and the 
 body was opened. During the operation the Abbe 
 suddenly uttered a cry of anguish but it was too 
 late ! 
 
 If a certain number of such cases of apparent death 
 has really given rise to the faith in yampirism, then it 
 is equally possible to suppose, that this kind of trance 
 for which there may exist a special predisposition in one 
 or the other race may become at times epidemic. Per- 
 sons of peculiar nervousness will be ready to be affected, 
 and a locality in which this has occurred may soon 
 obtain an unenviable reputation. Even where the 
 epidemic does not appear in full force, a disturbed state 
 of the nervous system will be apt to lead to dreams by 
 night, and to gossip in the daytime, on the fatally 
 attractive subject, and the patient will soon dream, or 
 really imagine, that a person who has died of the dis- 
 ease has appeared to him by night, and drawn his 
 strength from him, or, in his excited fancy, sucked his 
 life's blood. By such means even the popular way of 
 speaking of nocturnal visits made by the "vampire's 
 ghost " is not so entirely unfounded as would appear at 
 first sight, and the superstition is easily shown to be 
 not altogether absurd, but to be based upon a small 
 substructure of actual truth. 
 
 It is remarkable, however, that the Germanic race 
 has never furnished any instances of vampirism, 
 although their ancient faith in a Walhalla, where their 
 departed heroes feast sumptuously, and their custom to 
 place food in the graves of their friends would have
 
 POSSESSION. 371 
 
 seemed most likely to reconcile them to the idea that 
 men continue to live in their graves. 
 
 How sadly persistent, on the other hand, such super- 
 stitions are among the lower races, and in specially 
 ignorant communities, may be gathered from the fact 
 that, as late as 1861, two corpses were disinterred by the 
 peasants of a village of Galicia, and decapitated. The 
 people believed them to be vampires, and to have caused 
 a long-protracted spell of bad weather ! 
 
 ZOAXTHROPY. 
 
 Even more fearful yet than vampirism is the disease, 
 very common already in the days of antiquity, which 
 makes men think that they have changed into beasts, 
 and then act as such, according to the logic of insanity. 
 Petronius is probably the first to mention, in his " Feast 
 of Trimalchio," a case of lycanthropy, when Niceros re- 
 lates how some one who was journeying with him threw 
 off his garments, changed into a wolf and ran away into 
 the forest. When he returned home, his account con- 
 tinues, he found that a wolf had fallen upon his flock, 
 but had been wounded by a servant in the neck with a 
 lance. Thereupon he goes to inquire after his fellow- 
 traveler, and finds him sick in bed with a physician by 
 his side, who binds up an ugly wound in his neck. 
 The well-known writer took this episode from the Ar- 
 cadians, a rude nation of shepherds, whose flocks were 
 frequently attacked by wolves, and among whom stories 
 of men changed into wild beasts, were quite current.
 
 372 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 Nor must we forget, among historic personages, the 
 daughter of King Prcetus of Argos, who believed her- 
 self changed into a cow ; and of Nebuchadnezzar, who 
 according to his own touching account " was driven 
 from meat, did eat grass as oxen, and his body was wet 
 with the dew of heaven, till his hairs were grown like 
 eagle's feathers, and his nails like bird's claws." (Dan- 
 iel iv. 33.) The early days of Christianity are naturally 
 full of incidents of this kind, but what is remarkable, 
 zoanthropy was then already treated as a mere delusion. 
 The holy man Macarius once saw a large procession 
 approaching his hermitage in Egypt ; it was headed by 
 11 number of persons who led a large and imposing- 
 looking woman by a bridle, and followed by a crowd of 
 people of all ages. When they came near they told his 
 disciples that the woman had been changed into a mare, 
 and had thus remained for three days and nights with- 
 out food would the saint pray over her and restore 
 her to her natural condition ? The delusion was so 
 forcibly contagious that the disciples also forthwith 
 saw a mare, and not a woman, and refused to admit 
 the animal to the presence of the hermit ! Fortunately 
 the latter had retained his self-control ; he rebuked his 
 followers, saying : " You are the real beasts, that imag- 
 ine you see something which does not exist. This 
 woman has not been changed, but your eyes are deluded." 
 Then he poured holy water over her, and at once 
 everybody saw her once more in her natural shape. He 
 dismissed her and her escort with the words: "Cfo
 
 POSSESSION. 373 
 
 more frequently to church and take the holy sac- 
 rament; then you will escape such fearful punishment." 
 During the Middle Ages a similar disease existed in 
 many parts of Europe ; men were changed into dogs or 
 wolves, sometimes as a divine punishment for great 
 crimes, at other times in consequence of a delusion pro- 
 duced by Satan. Such unfortunate men walked on all 
 fours, attacked men and beasts, but especially children, 
 killed and devoured them. They actually terrified many 
 people into believing as confidently in this delusion as 
 they believed in it themselves ! For this is one of the 
 specially fearful magic phenomena of zoanthropy that 
 it is apt to produce in healthy persons the same delu- 
 sion as in the sufferer. Many cases also are recorded of 
 persons lying in deep sleep, produced by narcotic oint- 
 ments, who, seeing visions, fancied that they were 
 acting like wolves. In the year 1598 such a disease 
 raged as an epidemic in the Jura mountains, till the 
 French Parliament determined to make an end of it by 
 treating all the afflicted either as insane or as persons 
 possessed by the devil and therefore deserving instant 
 death. Among Slavic nations and the Magyars lycan- 
 thropy is so closely connected with vampirism that it is 
 not always easy to draw the line between the two dis- 
 eases. There can be no doubt, however, that it is mere- 
 ly a variety of possession, arising from the same tin- 
 happy state in which dualism is developed in the soul, 
 and two wills contend with each other for superiority to 
 the grievous injury of mind and body. The only dis-
 
 374 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 tinctive feature is this, that in lycanthropy not only the 
 functions of the brains but also those of the skin are 
 disordered, and hence an impression arises that the lat- 
 ter is hairy and shaggy after the manner of wild 
 beasts. 
 
 The German Wahrwolf (were-wolf or man-wolf) is 
 the same as the lycanthropos of the Scythians and 
 Greeks and the versipellis of the Eomans ; he was in 
 German mythology connected with Woden. Hence, 
 probably, the readiness with which the disease during 
 the Middle Ages took hold of the minds of Germans ; 
 but at that period nearly all the nations of Europe 
 firmly believed in the reality of such changes. 
 
 As late even as the beginning of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury cases of this kind occurred in France, where the 
 possessed were known as loups-garoux. A young man 
 of Besangon was thus brought before the Councilor of 
 State, De VAncre, at Bordeaux, and accused of roving 
 like a wild animal through the neighboring forests. He 
 confessed readily that he was a huntsman in the service 
 of his invisible master, the devil, who had changed him 
 into a wolf and forced him to range by the side of 
 another more powerful wolf through the country. The 
 poor fellow shared the usual fate of his fellow-sufferers, 
 who were either subjected to a sharp treatment of exor- 
 cism or simply executed as heretical criminals. 
 
 In our day lycauthropy is almost entirely limited to 
 Servia and Wallachia, Volhynia and White Russia. 
 There, however, the disease breaks out frequently anew,
 
 POSSESSION". 375 
 
 and popular belief knows a variety of means by which 
 a man may be changed into a wolf; the animal differs, 
 however, from a genuine wolf in his docked tail and his 
 marked preference for the blood of young children. 
 
 In Abyssinia there exists, according to Pearce, a be- 
 lief that men are occasionally changed into hyenas the 
 wolves of that country but this sad privilege is limit- 
 ed to workers in clay and iron, called Booda among the 
 Amharas, who wear a gold earring of special form as a 
 distinction from other inferior castes. 
 
 It will thus be seen that, like all other varieties of 
 possession, zoanthropy also is simply a kind of insanity, 
 and our amusement at the marvelous conduct of were- 
 wolves will vanish, if we recall the entire change pro- 
 duced in man by the loss of reason. In that sad condi- 
 tion he endures fatigue, cold or heat, and hunger as no 
 healthy man ever can learn to do ; he does not mind 
 the severest castigation, for his body is almost insensi- 
 ble, it ceases to be susceptible to contagious diseases and 
 requires, in sickness, double or treble doses of medi- 
 cine. If we once know the precise nature of an insane 
 person's hallucination, his actions will be apt to appear 
 quite consistent, and thus lycanthropy also not only 
 produces the fine connection of a change into a wolf, 
 but causes the sufferer to conduct himself in all his 
 ways like the animal which he represents.
 
 VIII. 
 MAGNETISM. 
 
 "Great is tlie power of the hand." 
 
 ST. AUGUSTINE, Op., iv. 487. 
 
 MESMER, who was the first to make the anaesthetic 
 effects of certain passages of the hand over the bodies 
 of patients known to the public, sought originally to 
 explain them by the agency of electricity; but as early 
 in 1773 he ascribed them to magnetism. From that day 
 he employed magnets, and by passing them over the 
 affected parts of his patients, he performed remarkable 
 cures for many years in the city of Vienna. He looked 
 upon the magnet as the physician, which cured the 
 patient in the same way in which it attracted iron. 
 Soon after, however, he became acquainted with the 
 famous Father Eassner, of Eatisbon, who had obtained 
 precisely the same results, without a magnet, by simple 
 manipulations, and, henceforth, he also treated his 
 patients with the hand only; but he retained the old 
 name, looking now upon himself, and others who were 
 endowed in the same manner, as possessing the powers 
 of a strong magnet. In the meantime one of his 
 pupils, the Marquis de Puysegur, had quite accidentally 
 discovered the peculiar nature of somnambulism, and
 
 MAGNETISM. 377 
 
 with rare foresight profited by the moments of clear 
 consciousness which at times interrupted the trance, in 
 order to learn from his patients themselves the means 
 of curing their diseases. He had from that moment 
 devoted all the leisure of his life to the study of these 
 singular but most beneficial phenomena, employing 
 only the simplest manipulations in place of the more 
 exciting means used by Mesmer, and doing an immense 
 amount of good by his judicious cures. 
 
 Mesmer, in the course of time, adopted the better 
 method of his former pupil, and now his system was 
 complete. He used magnetism for purely practical 
 purposes : he cured diseases by throwing well-qualified 
 persons into the peculiar sleep produced by magnetizing 
 them, and availed himself of the effects of this half- 
 sleep upon tlieir varied constitutions, for his curative 
 purposes. At the same time, however, he ascribed the 
 influence which he claimed to have over persons whom 
 he had thus magnetized, to a most delicate, all-pervad- 
 ing medium ; this, he maintained, was the sole cause of 
 motion, light, heat, and life itself in the universe, and 
 this he stated he was communicating by his process of 
 magnetizing in a sufficient degree to his patients to pro- 
 duce startling but invariably beneficial results. It is 
 well known how his removal from Vienna, where he 
 had begun his remarkable career, to Paris, increased in 
 almost equal proportions the number of enthusiastic 
 admirers, and of bitter adversaries. In spite of an un- 
 favorable judgment rendered by a committee of the
 
 378 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 Academy in 1784, his new doctrines spread rapidly 
 through all the provinces ; so-called Harmonic Societies 
 were formed in almost every town, and numerous insti- 
 tutions sprang up founded upon the new system of 
 magnetizing patients. It is curious that of the nine 
 members of that committee, among whom Franklin 
 was not the least renowned, only one, the great savant 
 Jussieu, refused to sign the report "because it was 
 founded upon a few isolated facts," and sent in a sepa- 
 rate memoir, in which he described animal heat as the 
 universal agent of life. Equally curious objections 
 were made by others; thus in another report of the 
 Academy, the king was requested to prohibit the prac- 
 tice of magnetism, because it was " dangerous to the 
 morals of the people," and in the great hospital of the 
 Charite, magnetic treatment was forbidden, because 
 " the new system had caused for a long time warm dis- 
 cussions between the best informed men of science ! " 
 Urged by repeated petitions, the Academy appointed, in 
 1825, a second committee to investigate the matter, 
 which finally reported a firm conviction of the genuine- 
 ness and efficacy of magnetism, and recommended a 
 further examination of this important branch of psy- 
 chology and natural science. A permanent committee 
 was thereupon directed to take charge of the matter, 
 before which a very large number of important facts 
 Avere authenticated ; but in 1840, and subsequently, 
 once more, unfavorable reports were laid before the 
 august body and adopted by small majorities.
 
 MAGNETISM. 379 
 
 In Euglaud magnetism met with fierce and violent 
 opposition, the faculty being no little incensed by this 
 new and unexpected competitor for fees and reputation. 
 Dr. Elliotson, a professor in the University of London, 
 and director of a large hospital, had actually to give up 
 his place, because of the hostility engendered by his ad- 
 vocacy of the new doctrine. Afterwards the controversy, 
 though by no means less bitter, was carried on with 
 more courtesy, and the subject received, on the whole, 
 all the attention it deserved. Germany alone has legally 
 sanctioned magnetism as a scientific method within the 
 range of the healing art, and the leading powers, like 
 Prussia, Austria, and Saxony, have admitted its practice 
 in public hospitals. Unfortunately, much deception 
 and imposture appeared from the beginning in company 
 with the numerous genuine cases, and led many eminent 
 men to become skeptics. The Eussian government has 
 limited the permission to practice by magnetic cure to 
 "'' well-informed " physicians ; but the Holy Curia, the 
 pope's authority, after admitting magnetism, first as a 
 well-established fact, has subsequently prohibited it by 
 a decree of the Inquisition (21st April, 1841) as con- 
 ducive to " infidelity and immorality." In spite of all 
 these obstacles, magnetism, in its various branches of 
 somnambulism and clairvoyance, of mesmerism and 
 hypnotism, is universally acknowledged as a valuable 
 doctrine, and has led to the publication of a copious 
 literature. 
 
 Maguetizers claim and not without some show of
 
 380 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 reason that their art was not unknown to antiquity, 
 and is especially referred to in Holy "Writ. They rest 
 their claim upon the importance which has from time 
 immemorial been ascribed to the action of the hand 
 as producing visions and imparting the gift of 
 prophecy. "When Elisha was called upon to predict the 
 issue of the war against Moab, he sent for a minstrel, 
 "and it came to pass, when the minstrel played, that 
 the hand of the Lord came upon him." (2 Kings iii. 
 15.) In like manner "the hand of the Lord was upon 
 Ezekiel" among the captives by the river of Cheber and 
 he prophesied (Ezekiel i. 3) ; years after he says again : 
 " The hand of the Lord was upon me in the evening " 
 (xxxiii. 22), and once more : "the hand of the Lord was 
 upon me" (xl. 1). It is evident that according to bib- 
 lical usage in these cases the manner of acting attributed 
 to God is described after the usage prevailing among 
 men, and that the "hand upon men" represented the 
 usual method of causing them to fall into a trance. 
 But this placing the hand upon a person was by no 
 means confined to cases of visions ; it was employed also 
 in blessings and in sacrifices, in consecrations and 
 miraculous cures. Daniel felt a hand touching him, 
 which "set me upon my knees and the palms of my 
 hands" (Dan. x. 10), while soon after the same hand 
 "strengthened him" (17) ; and even in the New Testa- 
 ment a high privilege is expressed by the words : "The 
 hand of the Lord was with him. (Luke i. 66.) In other 
 cases a finger is substituted for the hand, as when the
 
 MAGNETISM. 381 
 
 magicians of Pharaoh said : " This is the finger of God " 
 (Exodus viii. 19), and the two tables of testimony are 
 said to have been "written with the finger of God" 
 (Exodus xxxi. 18) ; in the same manner Christ said : 
 "If I with the finger of God cast out devils." (Luke xi. 
 20.) What makes this reference to finger and hand in 
 Eastern magic and in biblical language peculiarly in- 
 teresting is the fact that neither Greeks nor Romans 
 ever referred in like manner to such an agency. It is 
 evident that these nations, possessing the ancient wis- 
 dom of the East and the revealed knoAvledge of the 
 chosen people, were alone fully acquainted with the 
 power which the hand of man can exercise under pecu- 
 liar circumstances, and hence looked upon it in God 
 also, as the instrument by which visions were caused 
 and miracles performed. Hence, no doubt, also the 
 mysterious hand, which from time immemorial has been 
 used as one of the emblems of supreme power, often 
 called the hand of justice, but evidently emblematic of 
 the " hand of God," which rests upon the monarch who 
 rules "by the grace of God." Magnetizers connect all 
 these uses made of the hand with their own method, 
 which consists almost invariably in certain passes made 
 with the whole hand or with one or more fingers. 
 
 Whatever may be thought of this connection between 
 the meaning of the "hand" in biblical language, and 
 the magnetism of our day, there can be no doubt as to 
 the fact that the ancients were already quite familiar 
 with the phenomena which have startled our century as
 
 882 MODEKX MAGIC. 
 
 something entirely new. The so-called temple-sleep 
 of the Greeks was almost identical with modern 
 somnambulism ; the only essential difference being 
 that then the gods of Olympus were seen, and lent their 
 assistance, in the place of the saints of the Middle Ages, 
 and the mediums of our own day. Incense, mineral 
 waters, narcotic herbs, and decoctions of Strychnos or 
 Halicacabum, were, according to Pliny, employed to 
 produce the peculiar sleep. (" Hist. Nat." 1. xxi. ch. 31.) 
 The patients fell asleep while lying on the skins of 
 recently killed animals in the Temples of ^Esculapius, 
 and other beneficent deities, and in their sleep hud 
 dreams with revelations prescribing the proper remedies. 
 The priests also, sometimes, dreamt for their visitors 
 for a consideration or, at least, interpreted the dreams 
 of others. Even magnetism by touch was perfectly 
 familiar to the ancients, as appears from words of 
 Plautus : " Quid, si ego ilium tract im tang am, ut 
 dormiat ? (What if I were to touch him at intervals 
 so that he should fall asleep ?) Plutarch even speaks 
 of magnetizing by touching with the feet, as practised 
 by Pyrrhus. Other writers discovered that the Sibyls 
 of Eome, as well as the Druids of the Celts, had been 
 nothing more than well-trained somnambulists, and ere 
 long distinct traces of similar practices were found in 
 the annals of the Egyptians also. 
 
 One of the earliest cases, which was thoroughly 
 investigated, and carefully watched, is reported by Dr. 
 Petetin, of Lyon, in his famous " Memoir on Catalepsy
 
 MAGNETISM. 383 
 
 and Somnambulism." (Lyon, 1787.) His patient was a 
 lady who had nursed her child with such utter disregard 
 of her own health that her whole system was under- 
 mined. After an attack of most violent convulsions, 
 accompanied with apparent madness, she suddenly 
 began to laugh to utter a number of clever and witty 
 sayings, and finally broke out into beautiful songs ; but 
 a terrible cough with hemorrhages ended the crisis. 
 Similar attacks occurred with increasing frequency, 
 during which she could read, with closed eyes, what was 
 placed in her hand, state hour and minute on a watch 
 by merely touching the crystal, and mention the con- 
 tents of the pockets of bystanders. She stated that she 
 saw these things with varied distinctness; some clearly, 
 others as through a mist, and still others only by a 
 great effort. The reporter expresses his belief that the 
 stomach in this case performed all the functions of the 
 senses, and that the epidermis, with its network of fine 
 nerves, acted in place of the usual organs. Petetin was 
 also the first to enter into direct relations with his som- 
 nambulist; he could induce her at will to become 
 clairvoyant, and make himself understood by her when- 
 ever he directed his voice toward the only sensitive part. 
 Gradually, however, it was discovered that the degree 
 of close communication (rapport] between the two par- 
 ties depended as largely on the correspondence of 
 character between them as on the energy of will in the 
 magnetizer and the power of imagination possessed by 
 the patient. Deleuse, one of the professors of the
 
 384 MODE11N MAGIC. 
 
 Jar din des Plantes, in Paris, gave much attention to 
 the subject, and iu his numerous publications main- 
 tained the existence of a magnetic fluid by the side of 
 the superior power with which some men are endowed, 
 and that both were employed in influencing others. 
 He was frequently, and violently, attacked on the score 
 of his convictions, especially after several cases of cun- 
 ning deception had become known. For very soon the 
 innate desire for notoriety led many persons to pretend 
 somnambulism, and skillfully to imitate the phenomena 
 of clairvoyance, displaying, as is not unfrequently the 
 case, in these efforts a skill and a perseverance which 
 would have secured them great success in any legitimate 
 enterprise. A number of volumes appeared, mostly in 
 Germany, professing to contain accounts of marvelous 
 cures achieved by magnetism, which upon examination 
 proved to be altogether fictitious. France, however, 
 abounded more than any other country with impostors, 
 and every kind of deception and cheating was carried 
 on there, at the beginning of this century, under the 
 cloak of mesmerism. Young girls, stimulated by large 
 rewards, and well trained by hospital surgeons, would 
 submit to brutal treatment, and profess to reveal, dur- 
 ing well-simulated trances, infallible remedies for 
 grievous diseases. The followers of Mesmer degraded 
 his art by making it a merry pastime or a lucrative 
 exhibition, without regard to truthfulness, and without 
 reverence for science. Even political intriguers, and 
 financial speculators, availed themselves of the new
 
 MAGNETISM. 385 
 
 discovery ; precisely as in our day spirit-rapping and 
 kindred tricks are used. In England, and in the 
 Union, mesmerism fared little better; especially with 
 us, it soon fell into the hands of quacks and charlatans 
 who made it a source of profit ; at the same time it 
 assumed various new names, as, electro-biology, hypno- 
 tism, and others. 
 
 The idea that somnambulism was the effect of angelic 
 or demoniac influences was once largely entertained, 
 but has long since given way to more scientific views. 
 But it cannot be Said that the true nature of the active 
 principle has yet been fully ascertained, and so far the 
 results of mesmerism must be classed among magic 
 phenomena. What is alone clearly established is the 
 power which the strong will of the magnetizer evident- 
 ly exercises over the patient, and the fact that this en- 
 ergy acts through the hands as its organs. The patient, 
 on his side, undergoes by such an exercise of a foreign 
 will a complete change of his individuality ; the action 
 of his bruin is modified and he falls into magnetic 
 sleep. Many intelligent somnambulists have distinctly 
 stated that they obey the will of their master and not 
 his hands; that manipulation, in fact, merely serves to 
 communicate this will to their inner sense. Whether 
 the connection which evidently exists between the two 
 parties is established merely for moral agencies or by an 
 infinitely subtle fluid, which may possibly be the Od of 
 Baron Reichenbach this question remains as yet un- 
 decided. So much only is quite certain that neither the 
 
 17
 
 386 MODKRX MAGIC. 
 
 Avill alone suffices. to produce the magic phenomena of 
 magnetism, nor heat and electricity, as the physicist 
 Parrot maintained ; as little can electro-magnetism, un- 
 aided, be the cause of such results, though the great 
 Robiano stoutly asserted its power ; man is a dualism 
 of spirit and body, and both must be influenced alike 
 and together, in order to obtain perfect mastery. The 
 most plausible explanation yet offered by men of science 
 is, that by the will of the magnetizer his own nervous 
 and mental system assumes a certain condition which 
 changes that of the subject into one "of opposite polar- 
 ity, paralyzes some of his cerebral functions and causes 
 him to fall into a state resembling sleep. The stronger 
 and healthier man affects the nervous system of a fee- 
 ble and less healthy man according to his own more or 
 less strongly marked individuality, and the spiritual in- 
 fluence naturally develops itself in the same proportions 
 as the material influence. Hence the thoughts and 
 feelings, the convictions and the faith of the magnetizer 
 are reflected upon the mind of his subject. Even 
 Mcsmer himself had not. yet reached this point; he 
 was, up to his death, content to ascribe the .power of 
 the magnetizer to the waves of an universal fluid set in 
 motion by the superior energy of specially endowed 
 persons. According to his doctrine thoughts were con- 
 veyed by means of this mysterious fluid in precisely 
 the same manner in which light and sound are borne 
 onward on the waves of the air that surrounds us. 
 They proceed from the brain and the nerves of one
 
 MAGNETISM. 387 
 
 person and reach those of another person in this imper- 
 ceptible manner; to dispatch them on their errand, vo- 
 lition is required ; to receive them, willingness and a 
 certain natural predisposition, since there are men inca- 
 pable of being reached in this way, as there are others 
 who are deprived of sight or hearing. As the convey- 
 ing fluid is far more subtle than the thinnest air, per- 
 meates the whole universe and bears a close resemblance 
 to the fluid which sets our nerves in motion, there is 
 no other limit to the effects of volition on the part of 
 the so-called magnetizer than the strength of his will. 
 If he possesses this in a sufficiently high degree, he can 
 affect those who are subject to his superiority even at 
 the greatest distance. Moreover, if his influence is 
 sufficiently effective the somnambulist acquires new and 
 heretofore unknown powers; he sees the interior of his 
 own body, recognizes its defects and diseases, and by a 
 newly-awakened instinct, perceives what is necessary to 
 restore its perfect order. Such were the views of Mes- 
 mer. 
 
 Besides this theory a number of others have been pub- 
 lished from time to time, by men of science of almost all 
 countries even modern philosophers, like the German 
 Schopenhauer, having entered the lists in defense of 
 their favorite ideas. The most striking view published 
 in recent times, is found in the works of Count Eobiano, 
 a learned abbe and a brilliantly successful magnetizer. 
 He ascribes all the phenomena of somnambulism to the 
 purely physical activity of the nerves, and proposes to
 
 388 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 call his new physical science neurnrgy. He identifies 
 the nervous fluid with galvanism and voltaic electricity, 
 and asserts that by a galvanic battery all the results can 
 be obtained which mesmerism claims as its own. He 
 also states that galvanic rings, bracelets, belts and neck- 
 laces cause immediately somnambulism in well-quali- 
 fied persons, while carbon held before the nostrils of 
 somnambulists in deep sleep, awakes them instantly, and 
 at the same time releases limbs held in cataleptic rigidi- 
 ty. Alabaster, soda, and wax have similar effects, but 
 less promptly, and the wind from a pair of bellows has 
 equal power. According to his theory, currents of what 
 he calls the galvanic-neururgic fluid, are capable of 
 producing all the well-known symptoms and phenom- 
 ena of thought from idiocy to genius, and from uncon- 
 scious sleep to the highest excitement; the process by 
 which these results can be obtained is a suspension of the 
 vital equilibrium by disease, intoxication, abstinence, 
 long-continued fasting and prayer and the like. If the 
 marvelous fluid is unequally distribiited through the 
 system, catalepsy ensues. The novelty and force of 
 Eobiano's doctrines attracted much attention, but a 
 series of experiments conducted by eminent men soon 
 proved that galvanism alone produced in no instance 
 somnambulism, but invariably required the aid of voli- 
 tion, which the learned Italian in his modesty had 
 probably underrated, if not altogether overlooked. 
 
 It is a matter more of curiosity than of real intm-st, 
 that the Chinese have now for nearly eleven hundred
 
 MAGXETISM. 389 
 
 years believed in an inherent power possessed by every 
 human being, called yu-yang, which is identical with an 
 universal yu,-yang. According to this view, every person 
 endowed Avith the proper ability can dispose of his own 
 yu-yang and diffuse a portion of it over others, so as to 
 cure their infirmities. The French missionary Amyot 
 communicated this to Puysegur (J)u Magnetisme Ani- 
 mal, Paris, 1807, p. 387), and looked upon the yu-yang 
 as the universal vital power which produces everything. 
 Before w r e dismiss any such theory in China or 
 nearer home with a supercilious smile, it is well to 
 recall the reception which the first revelation of 
 electricity in the human body met among our savants. 
 The doctrine bad to pass through the usual three stages 
 of contempt, controversy and final adoption. John 
 Wesley, more than a hundred years ago, said of it: 
 ''With what vehemence has it been opposed! Some- 
 times, by treating it with contempt, as if it were of 
 little or no use ; sometimes by arguments such as they 
 were, and sometimes by such cautions against its ill 
 effects, as made thousands afraid to meddle with it." 
 Now, every elementary text-book teaches that all created 
 living bodies are electric, and that some persons, 
 animals, and plants are so in a very high degree. To 
 establish this truth poor puss has had to suffer much 
 in order to give out electric sparks, and the sensitive 
 plant has had to show how its leaves 
 
 " With quick horror fly the neighboring hand,"
 
 390 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 which draws from them the electricity of which it contain s 
 more than other plants. Physicians have learnt that a 
 person who has the small-pox cannot be electrified, the 
 body being fully charged and refusing to receive more 
 electricity, while sparks may be drawn from the body 
 of a patient dying with cholera. Now this once 
 despised power, in the shape of voltaic electricity, 
 adorns our tables with electro-plate works of art, carries 
 our thoughts around the globe, blasts rocks, fires can- 
 nons and torpedoes, and even rings the bells of our 
 houses. Now little chain batteries, that can be car- 
 ried in the waistcoat pockets, produce powerful shocks 
 and cure grievous diseases, while tiny bands, which yet 
 can decompose water in a test-tube, are worn by thou- 
 sands as a protection against intense suffering and utter 
 prostration. What in this case happened to electricity 
 may very well be the fate of the new power also, which 
 is the true agent in all that we carelessly call magnetism. 
 Somnambulism and clairvoyance, by whatever means 
 they may have been caused, differ in this from dreams 
 and feverish fancies, that the outer senses are rendered 
 inactive and in their place peculiar inner life begins to 
 act, while the subject is perfectly conscious. The magic 
 phenomena differ naturally infinitely according to the 
 varying natures of the patients. In the majority of 
 cases sleep is the only result of magnetizing ; a few per- 
 sons become genuine somnambulists and begin to speak, 
 first very indistinctly, because the organs of speech are 
 partially locked and the consciousness is not fully
 
 MAGNETISM. 391 
 
 aroused. As the spasms cease, speech becomes freer, and 
 as the mind clears up, the thoughts also reveal themselves 
 more distinctly. These symptoms are ordinarily accom- 
 panied by others of varying character, from simple heat 
 in the extremities and painful sobbing to actual syncope. 
 In almost all such cases, however, the nervous system is 
 suffering from a violent shock, and this produces spasms 
 of more or less appalling violence. The temper of the 
 sufferers for such they are all to some degree varies 
 from deep despondency to exulting bliss fulness, but is 
 as changeable as that of children, and resembles but 
 too frequently the capricious and unintelligible mental 
 condition of insaue persons. 
 
 Those who are for the first time thrown into magnetic 
 sleep generally feel after awaking as if a great change 
 had taken place in them ; they are apt to remain seri- 
 ous, and apparently plunged in deep thought for several 
 days. If their case is in unskillful hands, nervous dis- 
 orders 'are rarely avoided; phantastic visions may be 
 seen, and convulsions and more threatening symptoms 
 even may occur. Youth is naturally more susceptible 
 to the influence of magnetism than riper years; leally 
 old persons have never yet been put to sleep. In like 
 manner women are more easily controlled than men, and 
 hence more capable of being magnetized than of magne- 
 tizing others. If men appear more frequently in the 
 annals of this new branch of magic than women, this is 
 due merely to the fact that men appear naturally, and 
 so far at least voluntarily more frequently in public
 
 H92 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 statements than women. The latter, moreover, are very 
 rarely found able to magnetize men, simply because 
 they are less in the habit of exerting their will for the 
 purpose of influencing others ; the exceptions were 
 mostly so-called masculine women. Over their own sex, 
 however, they are easily able to obtain full control. 
 
 Among the curious symptoms accompanying the magic 
 phenomena of this class, the following deserve being 
 mentioned. A distinguished physician, Dr. Heller, ex- 
 amined the blood corpuscules of a person in magnetic 
 sleep and found that their shape was essentially modi- 
 fied; they were raised and pointed so as to bear some 
 resemblance to mulberries ; at the same time they ex- 
 hibited a vibrating motion. Another symptom fre- 
 quently observed in mesmerism are electric shocks, 
 which produce sometimes a violent trembling in the 
 whole person before the beginning of magnetic sleep 
 and after it has ceased. As many as four thousand 
 such shocks have been counted in an hour ; they are 
 especially frequent in hysterical women and then ac- 
 companied by severe pain, in men they are of rarer occur- 
 rence. Finally, it appears from a number of well-authen- 
 ticated cases that magnetic convulsions are contagious, 
 extending even to animals. Persons suffering with cata- 
 lepsy have more than once been compelled to kill pet 
 cats because the latter suffered in a similar manner 
 whenever the attacks came, and the same has been 
 noticed in favorite dogs which Avere left in the room 
 while magnetic cures were performed. This is all the
 
 MAGNETISM. 393 
 
 more frequently noticed as many magnetizers look upon 
 convulsions as efforts made by nature to restore the sys- 
 tem to a healthy condition, and hence excite in their 
 patients convulsions without magnetizing them fully. 
 
 A new doctrine concerning the magic phenomena of 
 magnetism establishes a special force inherent in all in- 
 organic substances, and calls it Siderian. This theory is 
 the result of the observation that certain substances, 
 like water and metal, possess a special power of produc- 
 ing somnambulism, and at one time a peculiar appara- 
 tus, called baqucf, was much in use, by means of 
 which several persons, connected with each other and 
 with a vessel filled with water and pieces of metal, 
 were rendered clairvoyant. The whole subject has 
 not yet been fully investigated, and hence the con- 
 clusions drawn from isolated cases must be looked 
 upon as premature. It has, however, been established 
 beyond doubt that metals have a peculiar power over 
 sensitive persons, in their natural sleep as well as in the 
 magnetic sleep. Many somnambulists are painfully 
 affected by gold, others by iron ; a very sensitive patient 
 could, after an instant's touch, distinguish even rare 
 metals like bismuth and cobalt by the sensations which 
 they produced when laid upon her heart. Dr. Brun- 
 ner, when professor of physics in Peru, had a patient 
 who could not touch iron without falling into convul- 
 sions, and was made clairvoyant by simply taking her 
 physician's pocket-knife in her hand. 
 
 This Siderian or Astral force, so called from a pre- 
 17*
 
 ;594 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 suuied influence exercised by the heavenly bod! 
 well as by all inorganic substances, admits of no isola- 
 tion, although it is possessed in varying degrees by 
 certain metals and minerals. It has no effect even upon 
 the electrometer or the magnetic needle ; its force is radi- 
 ating, quite independent of light, but considerably in- 
 creased by heat. Persons magnetized by the mysterious 
 force of the baquet have, however, an astonishing power 
 over the magnetic needle and can make it deflect by 
 motion, fixed glance, or even mere volition. In Galig- 
 nt/ni's Messenger (25th of October, 1851) the case of 
 Prudence Bernard in Paris is mentioned, who forced 
 the needle to follow the motions of her head. 
 
 Whatever we may think of the value of this theory, it 
 cannot be denied that the effect which certain physical 
 processes going on in the atmosphere have on our body 
 and mind alike is very striking and yet almost entirely 
 unknown. Science is leisurely gathering up facts which 
 will no doubt in the end furnish us a clue to many phe- 
 nomena which we now call magic, or even supernatural. 
 Thus almost every hour of the day has its peculiarity 
 in connection with Nature : at one hour the barometer, 
 at another the thermometer reaches its maximum ; at 
 other periods magnetism is at its highest or the air full- 
 est of vapor, and to these various influences the dis- 
 eases of men stand in close relation. When Auroras 
 are seen frequently the atmosphere is found to be sur- 
 charged with electricity; they are intimately connected 
 with gastric fevers, and according to some physicians,
 
 MAGNETISM. -195 
 
 even with typhus aud cholera. It has also been ascer- 
 tained that the progress of the cholera and the plague 
 perhaps also of common influenza coincides accu- 
 rately with the isogonic line; these diseases disappear 
 as soon as the eastward declination of the magnetic 
 needle ceases. In recent times a correspondence of the 
 spots in the sun with earth-magnetism has also been 
 observed. In like manner it has been established that 
 continued positive electricity of the air, producing 
 ozone in abundance, is apt to cause catarrhs, inflamma- 
 tions, and rheumatism, while negative electricity causes 
 nervous fevers and cholera. Even the moon has recov- 
 ered some of its former importance in its relations to 
 the human body, and although the superstitions of 
 past ages with their absurd exaggerations have long since 
 been abandoned, certain facts remain as evidences of a 
 connection between the moon and some diseases. Thus 
 the paroxysms of lunatics, epileptics, and somnambu- 
 lists are undoubtedly in correspondence with the phases 
 of the moon ; madmen rave most furiously when the 
 latter is full, and its phases determine with astonishing 
 regularity the peculiar affections of women, as was tri- 
 umphantly proven by the journal kept with admirable 
 fidelity during the long life of Dr. Constantine Heriug 
 of Philadelphia. 
 
 Another name given to these phenomena is the 
 Hypnotism of the English. (Braid, " Neurohypnology," 
 London, 1843.) This theory is based upon the fact that 
 sensitive persons can be rendered clairvoyant by looking
 
 396 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 fixedly at some small but bright object held close to 
 their face, and by continuing for some time to fix the 
 mind upon the same object after the eyelids have 
 closed from sheer weariness. The method of produc- 
 ing this magnetic sleep, and some of the symptoms 
 peculiar to mesmerized persons, has since been fre- 
 quently varied. Dodds makes the patient take a disk 
 of zinc, upon which a small disk of copper is laid, into 
 his hand, and regard them fixedly ; thus he produces 
 what he calls electro-biology. Catton, in Manchester, 
 England, prefers a gentle brushing of the forehead, and 
 by this simple means causes magnetic sleep. Braid's 
 experiments, in which invariably over-excitement of 
 nerves was followed by torpor, rigidity, and insensibility, 
 have since been repeated by eminent physicians with a 
 view to produce anajsthesis during painful operations. 
 They have met with perfect success; and the removal 
 of the shining object, fresh air, and slight frictions, 
 sufficed to restore consciousness. The same results 
 have been obtained in France, where, according to a 
 report made to the French Academy, in 1859, by the 
 renowned Dr. Velpeau, persons induced to look at a 
 shining object, held close between their eyes, began to 
 squint violently, and in a few moments to fall, utterly 
 unconscious and insensible, into magnetic sleep. 
 Maury explains the process as one of vertigo, which 
 itself again is caused by the pressure of blood upon the 
 brain, and adds, that any powerful impression produced 
 upon the retina may have the same effect. Hence, no
 
 MAGNETISM. 397 
 
 doubt, the mal occJtio of the Italians, inherited from the 
 evil eye of the ancients; hence the often almost mar- 
 vel ous power which some men have exercised by the 
 mere glance of the eye. The fixed look of the magne- 
 tizer, which attracts the eye of the patient, and holds 
 it, as it were, spell-bound, has very much the same 
 effect, and when this look is carefully cultivated it may 
 put others beside themselves as was the case with 
 Urbain Graudier, who could, at any time, cause his 
 arms to fall into a trance by merely fixing his eyes upon 
 them for a few minutes. 
 
 From all these experiments we gather, once more, 
 that men can, by a variety of means, which are called 
 magnetism or mesmerism, influence others who are 
 susceptible, till the latter fall into magnetic sleep, have 
 cataleptic attacks, or become clairvoyant. It is less 
 certain that, as- many assert, these results are obtained 
 by means of a most subtle, as yet unknown, fluid, which 
 the magnetizer causes to vibrate in his own mind, and 
 which passes from him, by means of his hands, into the 
 patient, where it produces effects corresponding to those 
 felt by the principal. To accomplish even this, it is 
 absolutely necessary that the magnetizer should not 
 only possess a higher energy than his patient, but also 
 stand to him in the relation of the positive pole to the 
 negative. The extent of success is measurable by the 
 strength of will on one hand, and the degree of sus- 
 ceptibility on the other ; both maybe infinitely varied, 
 from total absence to an overwhelming abundance.
 
 398 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 Practice, at least, however, aids the magnetizer effectu- 
 ally, and certain French and Italian masters have 
 obtained surprising results. The most striking of these 
 is still the cataleptic state, which they cause at Avill. 
 Breathing, pulsation, and digestion continue uninter- 
 rupted, but the muscles are no longer subject to our will; 
 they cease to be active, and hence the patient remains 
 immovable in any position he may be forced to assume. 
 
 The general symptoms produced by magnetizing arc- 
 uniformly the same : as soon as a sufficient number of 
 passes have been made from the head downward the pa- 
 tient draws a few deep inhalations, and then follow 
 increased animal heat and perspiration, the effect of 
 greater activity of the nerves, while pain ceases and 
 cheerfulness succeeds despondency. If the passes are 
 continued, these symptoms increase in force, produce 
 their natural consequences, and, the functions becoming 
 normal, recovery takes place. Magnetic sleep is fre- 
 quently preceded by slight feverish ness, convulsive 
 trembling and fainting. The eyelids, half or entirely 
 closed, begin to tremble, the eyeballs turn upward and 
 imvard, and the pupils become enlarged and insensible 
 to light. The features change in a striking manner, 
 peculiar to this kind of sleep, and easily recognized. 
 After several experiments of this kind have been made 
 upon susceptible persons, the outward sleep begins to be 
 accompanied by an inner awakening, at first in a half- 
 dreamy state and gradually more fully, till conversation 
 can be attempted.
 
 MAGNETISM. 399 
 
 Contrary to the general impression, faith does not 
 seem to be an essential element of success, at least on 
 the part of the patient, for infants and very young 
 children have been rendered clairvoyant as well as 
 grown persons. On the other hand, natural suscepti- 
 bility is indispensable, for Deleuse (D6f. du Maynetisinc, 
 p. 156) states that in his extended practice he found 
 only one. out of twenty persons fit to be magnetized. 
 Of those whom he could influence, only one in 
 twenty could converse in his sleep, and of five of this 
 class not more than one became fully clairvoyant. Cer- 
 tain persons, though well endowed, impress their pa- 
 tients unfavorably, cause a sensation of cold instead of 
 heat in their system, and produce a feeling of strong 
 aversion. The most remarkable feature in all these re- 
 lations, however, is the fact that the patient not unfre- 
 quently affects the magnetizer, and this in the most 
 extraordinary manner. One physician took into the 
 hand with which he had touched a dying person, t\vo 
 finches; they immediately sickened and died a few days 
 later. Another, a physically powerful and perfectly 
 healthy man, who was treating a patient suffering of 
 tic douloureux by means of magnetism, became unwell 
 after a few days, and on the seventh day fell himself a 
 victim to that painful disease, till he had to give up the 
 treatment. He handed his patient over to a brother 
 physician, who suffered in the same manner, and actually 
 died in a short time. 
 
 After continued practice has strengthened the mag-
 
 400 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 netizer, his "passes" often become unnecessary, and he 
 can at last, under favorable circumstances, produce 
 magnetic sleep by a simple glance or even the mere 
 unuttered volition. Some physicians had only to say 
 Sleep! and their patient fell asleep; others were able 
 to move the sleepers from their beds by a slight touch 
 with the tip of the thumb. One of this class, after 
 curing a poor boy of catalepsy, retained such perfect 
 control over him that he only needed to point at him 
 with his finger, or to let him touch some metal which he 
 had magnetized, in order to make him fall down as if 
 thunderstruck. The great German writer, known as 
 Jean Paul, relates of himself that he, " in a large com- 
 pany and by merely looking at her fixedly, caused a 
 Mrs. K. twice to fall almost asleep and to make her 
 heart beat and her color go, till S. had to help her." 
 The Abbe Faria, who seems to have been specially en- 
 dowed with such power, would magnetize perfect stran- 
 gers by suddenly stretching out his hands and saying 
 in an authoritative tone: Sleep, I will it! He had a 
 formidable competitor afterwards in Hebert. who played 
 almost at will with a large number of spectators in his 
 crowded hall, making them follow him wherever he 
 led, or causing them to fall asleep by simply making 
 passes over the inside of their hats. In the case of young 
 girls he produced rigidity of members with great facility, 
 and then caused them to assume any position he chose; 
 his patients were utterly helpless and powerless. Du- 
 potet, already mentioned, possessed similar influence
 
 MAGNETISM. 401 
 
 over others; he once magnetized an athletic man of 
 ripe years, by merely walking around the chair on which 
 he was seated, and forced him to turn with him by jerks. 
 On another occasion he made a white chalk-mark on 
 the floor, and then requested a gentleman to put both 
 his feet lipon the spot ; while he remained quietly stand- 
 ing by the side of his friends. After a few minutes the 
 stranger began to shut his eyes, and his body trembled 
 and swayed to and fro, till it sank so low that the head 
 hung down to the hips at last Dnpotet loosened the 
 spell by upward passes. An Italian, Eagazzoni, excited 
 in 1859, no small sensation by his remarkable success 
 as a magnetizer. Unlike other physicians, he used an 
 abundance of gestures to accompany the active play of 
 his expressive features, and yet by merely breathing 
 upon persons he could check their respiration and the 
 circulation of their blood ; in like manner he caused the 
 chest to swell and paralyzed single limbs or the whole 
 body. He pushed needles through the hand or the skin 
 of the forehead without causing a sign of pain ; he ena- 
 bled his patients to guess his thoughts, and set them 
 walking, running or dancing, although they were in one 
 room and he in another. "When he had paralyzed their 
 senses, burning sulphur did not affect their smell, nor 
 brilliant light the open pupil; the ringing of a large 
 bell close to the ear and the firing of a pistol remained 
 unheard. In fine, he repeated all the experiments al- 
 ready made by Puysegur with his patient, Victor, but 
 generally without the use of passes. (Schopenhauer,
 
 402 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 Ueber d. Willen in d. Xatur. 1867, p. 102.) Maury, 
 who has given a most interesting and trustworthy 
 account of similar cases (Revue des Deux Mondez, 1860, 
 t. 25), states in speaking of General Noize.t, that the 
 latter caused him to fall asleep by saying : " Dormes ! " 
 Immediately a thick veil fell upon his eyes, he felt weak, 
 began to perspire, and felt a strong pressure upon the 
 abdomen. A second experiment, however, was less suc- 
 cessful. 
 
 Besides passes, a variety of other means have been 
 employed to produce magnetic sleep and kindred phe- 
 nomena. Dr. Bendsea, one of the earlier practitioners, 
 frequently used metal mirrors or even ordinary looking- 
 glasses; another Dr. Barth, maintained that by touch- 
 ing or irritating any part of the outer skull, the under- 
 lying portions of the brains could be excited. By thus 
 pressing upon the organ of love of children, his patients 
 would at once begin to think of children, and often 
 caress a cushion. In this theory he is supported by Had- 
 dock, who first discovered that the magnetizer's will 
 could force his patient to substitute his fancies for the 
 reality, and, for instance, to believe a handkerchief to 
 be a pet dog or an infant, and an empty glass to be 
 filled with such liquids as he suggested. The influ- 
 ence in such cases must, however, be rather ascribed to 
 the fact that the magnetizers were also phrenologists, 
 than to the presumed organs themselves. 
 
 It must lastly be mentioned that some persons claim 
 to possess the power to magnetize themselves, and Du-
 
 MAGNETISM. 403 
 
 potet, a trustworthy authority in such matters, supports 
 the assertion. A case is mentioned in the Journal de 
 Tame (iv. p. 103), of a man who could hypnotize him- 
 self from childhood up, by merely fixing his eye for 
 some time upon a certain point ; in later years, proba- 
 bly by too frequent excitement of this kind, he was apt 
 to fall into trances and to see visions. 
 
 The sympathetic relations which by magnetism are 
 established between two or more persons who are in a 
 state of somnambiilism or clairvoyance, is commonly 
 called rapport, although there is no apparent necessity 
 for preferring a French word. The closest relations 
 exist naturally between the magnetizer and his subject, 
 and the intensity of the rapport varies, of course, with 
 the energy of will of the one, and the susceptibility of 
 the patient of the other. The same rapport exists, 
 however, often between the patients of the same mag- 
 netizer, and may be increased by merely joining hands, 
 or a strong effort of will on the part of the physician. 
 It has often been claimed that mesmerism produces 
 exceptionally by rapport what in twins is the effect of 
 a close natural resemblance and contemporaneousness 
 of organization. Clairvoyants endowed with the highest 
 powers which have yet been observed, thus see not only 
 their own body as if it were transparent, but can in 
 like manner watch what is going on within the bodies 
 of others, provided they are brought into rapport with 
 them, and hence their ability to prescribe for their ail- 
 ments. Puysegur was probably the first to discover
 
 404 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 this peculiarity : he was humming to himself a favorite 
 air while magnetizing a peasant boy, and suddenly the 
 latter began to sing the same air with a loud voice. 
 Haddock's patients gave all the natural signs of pain in 
 different parts of the body, when he was struck or 
 pinched, while at the very time they were themselves 
 insensible to pain. Dr. Emelin found that when he 
 held his watch to his right ear, a female patient of his 
 heard the ticking in her left ear ; if he held it to her 
 own ear she heard nothing. He was, also, not a little 
 astonished when another patient, in a distant town to 
 which he traveled, revealed to him a whole series of 
 professional meditations in which he had been plunged 
 during his journey. And yet such a knowledge of the 
 magnetizer's thoughts is nothing uncommon in well- 
 qnalified subjects who have been repeatedly magnetized. 
 Mrs. Crowe mentions the case of a gentleman who was 
 thus treated while he was at Malveru and his physician 
 at Cheltenham. He was lying in magnetic sleep, when 
 he suddenly sprang up, clapped his hands together, and 
 broke out into loud laughter. His physician was written 
 to and replied that on the same day he had been busy 
 thinking of his patient, when a sudden knock at the 
 door startled him and made him jump and clap his 
 hands together. He then laughed heartily at his folly ! 
 (I. p. 140.) Dupotet once saw a striking illustration of 
 the rapport which may exist between two patients of 
 the same magnetizer. even where the two are unknown 
 to each other.
 
 MAGNETISM. 405 
 
 He was treating some of bis patients in a hospital in 
 St. Petersburg, by means of magnetism, and found, to 
 his surprise, that whenever he put one of them to sleep 
 in the upper story, the other in the lower story would 
 also instantly drop asleep, although she could not possi- 
 bly be aware of what was going on upstairs. This hap- 
 pened, moreover, not once, but repeatedly, and for 
 weeks in succession. If both were asleep when he came 
 on his daily round, he needed only arouse one to hear 
 the other awake with a start and utter loud cries. 
 
 Magnetic sleep generally does not begin immediately, 
 but after s.ome intermediate danger; most frequently 
 ordinary sleep serves as a bridge leading to magnetic 
 sleep, and yet the two are entirely different conditions. 
 When at last sleep is induced, various degrees of excep- 
 tional powers are exhibited, which are evidences of an 
 inner sense that has been awakened, while the outer senses 
 have become inactive. The patient is, however, utterly 
 unconscious of the fact that his eyes are closed, and be- 
 lieves he sees through them as when he is awake. 
 When somnambulists are asked why they keep their 
 eyes shut, they answer : " I do not know what you 
 mean ; I see you perfectly well." The highest degree, 
 but rarely developed in specially favored persons, con- 
 sists of perfect clairvoyance accompanied by a sense of 
 indescribable bliss ; in this state the spiritual and moral 
 features #f the patient assume a form of highest devel- 
 opment, visions are beheld, remote and future things 
 are discerned, and other persons may be influenced, even
 
 406 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 if they are at a considerable distance. It is in this con- 
 dition that persons in magnetic sleep exhibit in the 
 highest degree the magic phenomena of magnetism. 
 The latter are generally accompanied by a sensation of 
 intense light, which at times becomes almost painful, 
 and has to be allayed by the physician, especially when 
 it threatens to interfere with the unconscious conversa- 
 tions of the patient. This enjoyment has, however, to 
 be paid for dearly, for it exhausts the sleeper, and in 
 many instances it so closely resembles the struggle of 
 the soul when parting from the body in death, that 
 dissolution seems to be impending. Somnambulists 
 themselves maintain that such magnetic, sleep shortens 
 their lives by several years, and has to be interrupted 
 in time to prevent it from becoming fatal. Eecollection 
 rarely survives magnetic sleep, but after awaking, vague 
 and indistinct impulses continue, which stand in some 
 connection with the incidents of such sleep. A well known 
 magnetizer, Mouillesaux, once ordered a patient, while 
 sunk in magnetic sleep, to go on the following day and 
 call on a person whom she did not like. The prom- 
 ise Avas given reluctantly, but not mentioned again after 
 she awoke. To test the matter, the physician went, 
 accompanied by a few friends, on the next day, to that 
 person's house, and, to their great surprise, the patient 
 was seen to walk up and down anxiously before the 
 door, and at last to enter, visibly embarrassed. Mouille- 
 saux at once followed her and explained the matter ; 
 she told him that from the moment of her rising in the
 
 MAGXETIS1T. . 407 
 
 morning she had been haunted by the idea that she 
 ought to go to this house, till her nervousness had be- 
 come so painful as to force her to go on her unwelcome 
 errand. (Expost, des Cures, etc., iii. p. 70.) 
 
 The power to perceive things present without the use 
 of the ordinary organs, and to become aware of events 
 happening at a distance, has been frequently ascribed 
 to an additional sense, possibly the Common Sense of 
 Aristotle. Its fainter operations are seen in the almost 
 marvelous power possessed by bats to fly through mi- 
 nute meshes of silk nets, stretched out for the purpose, 
 even when deprived of sight, and to find their Avay to 
 their nests without a moment's hesitation. Cuvier 
 ascribed this remarkable power to their exquisitely 
 developed sense of touch, which would make them 
 aware of an almost imperceptible pressure of the air ; 
 but while this might explain their avoiding walls and 
 trees, it could not well apply to slender silk threads. 
 Another familiar illustration is found in the perfectly 
 amazing ability often possessed by blind, or blind and 
 deaf persons, who distinguish visitors by means neither 
 granted nor known to their more fortunate brethren. 
 It is generally believed that in such cases the missing 
 senses are supplied by a superior development of the 
 remaining senses, but even this assertion has never yet 
 been fully proved, nor if proved, would it supply a key 
 to some of the almost marvelous achievements of blind 
 peopl e. 
 
 This new or general sense seems only to awaken in
 
 408 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 exceptional cases and under peculiar circumstances. 
 That it never shows itself in health}* life is due to the 
 simple fact that its power is then obscured by the un- 
 ceasing activity of the ordinary senses. A peculiar, and 
 as yet unexplained feature of this power is the tendency 
 to ascribe its results, not to the ordinary organs, but by 
 a curious transposition to some other part of the body, 
 so that persons in magnetic sleep believe, as the mag- 
 netizer may choose, that they see, or smell, or hear by 
 means of the finger-tips, the pit of the stomach, the 
 forehead, or even the back of the head. It is true that 
 savants like Alfred Maury (Revue deft Deux Mondes, 18GO, 
 t. 25) and Dr. Michea ascribe these new powers only to 
 an increased activity of the senses ; but nothing is 
 gained by this reasoning, as such an astounding incrca.se 
 of the irritability of the retina or the tympanum is as 
 much of a magic phenomenon as the presumed new 
 sense. The simple explanation is that it is not the eye 
 which sees nor the ear which hears, but that images 
 and- sound-waves are carried by these organs to the 
 great nervous centre, where we must look for the true 
 source of all our perceptions. If in magnetic sleep the 
 same images and waves can be conveyed by other 
 means, the result will be precisely the same as if the 
 patient was observing witli open eyes and ears. 
 
 A lady treated by Despine thus heard with the palm 
 of her hand and read by means of the finger-tips, which 
 she passed rapidly over the letters presented to her in 
 her sleep. At the same time she invariably ascribed
 
 MAGNETISM. 409 
 
 the sensations she experienced to the natural senses; 
 flowers, for instance, laid down unseen by her, so as 
 barely to touch her fingers, caused her to draw in air 
 through the nostrils and to exclaim : Ah, how sweet 
 that is! and if objects were placed against the sole 
 of her foot, she would often exclaim : " What is that ? 
 I cannot see it distinctly." Somnambulists can, hence, 
 carry 011 domestic work in the dark with the same suc- 
 cess as in broad daylight, and a patient whose case has 
 been most carefully investigated, could hem the finest 
 linen handkerchiefs by holding the needle to her brow, 
 high above her eyes. Thus persons have seen by means 
 of almost every part of the body, a fact which has led 
 more than ope distinguished physiologist to assume 
 that, under special circumstances, all the papillae of 
 nerves in the epidermis may become capable of convey- 
 ing the sensual perceptions ordinarily assigned only to 
 certain organs, as the eye or the ear. Even this suppo- 
 sition, however, would not suffice to explain the ability 
 possessed by some magnetized persons to see and hear 
 by means of their fingers, even without touching the 
 objects or when separated from the latter by an inter- 
 vening wall. 
 
 The highest magic phenomena connected with mag- 
 netic sleep consist in the perception of hidden things 
 and in the influence exercised over persons at a dis- 
 tance. Only a few of these can be explained by natu- 
 ral laws and by the increased power of the senses fre- 
 quently granted to peculiarly constituted or diseased 
 
 18
 
 410 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 persons. The senses, on the contrary, cease to operate, 
 and man, for a time, becomes endowed with a higher 
 power, which is probably part and portion of his spirit- 
 ual being, as made after the image of the Most High, 
 but obscured and rendered inoperative by the subjec- 
 tion of the soul to the earthborn body. Nor is this 
 power always under his control ; as if to mark its su- 
 pernatural character, the patient very often perceives 
 what is perfectly indifferent to himself, and is forced, 
 almost against his own will, to witness or foresee 
 events, the bearing of which he cannot discern. Gen- 
 erally, therefore, the importance of these revelations is 
 of less interest than the manner in which they are 
 made, which is invariably of the kind we call magic. 
 This is still further attested by the difficulty, which is 
 almost always felt, of translating them, as it were, into 
 ordinary language, and hence the many allegoric and 
 symbolic forms under which they are made known. 
 Future events are often not seen, but read in a newspa- 
 per or heard as recited by strangers ; in other cases 
 they are apparently imparted by the spirits of deceased 
 persons. A very frequent form is the impression that 
 the soul leaves the body and, pursuing the track of a 
 person to whom the magnetizer points, with all the 
 fidelity and marvelous accuracy of a well*-trained dog, 
 finally reaches him and sees him and his surroundings. 
 Nor is the distance a matter of indifference; like the 
 ordinary senses, this new sense also seems to have its 
 laws and its limits, and if the task is too heavy and the
 
 MAGNETISM. 411 
 
 distance too great, the perception remains vague and 
 indefinite. Most important of all is the fact that, 
 unlike spiritual visions, magnetism never enables 
 the sleeper to go beyond the limits of our earthly 
 home. On the other hand, time is no more an obsta- 
 cle than space, and genuine somnambulists have seen 
 past and future events as well as distant scenes. Mis- 
 takes, however, occur here as with all our other 
 senses ; as healthy persons see amiss or hear amiss, so 
 magnetic sleepers also are not unfrequently mistaken 
 errors to which they are all the more liable as the im- 
 pressions received by magic powers have to be translated 
 into the language adapted to ordinary senses. 
 
 Among somnambulists of this class Alexis is one of 
 the best known, and has left us an account of many 
 experiments in his Explication die Sommeil Magnet ique. 
 Alexis was once put into magnetic sleep by a friend of 
 Dr. Mayo, and then ordered to go to Boppard, on the 
 Rhine, and look for him ; Alexis, after some hesita- 
 tion, stated that he had found him, and described 
 although he had never seen him before his appear- 
 ance and dress, not only, but also the state of mind in 
 which he was at that moment, all of which proved 
 afterward to be perfectly correct. Alexis declared 
 that his perceptions varied very much in clearness, and 
 that his power to see friends at a distance depended 
 largely on the affection he felt for them. In all in- 
 stances his magic powers were far inferior to those of 
 his natural senses, although they never misled him, as
 
 412 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 the latter had done occasionally. In the Bibliotlibque 
 du Magnetisms Animal (vii. p. 146), a remarkable case 
 is reported as attested by undoubted authority. The 
 English consul, Baldwin, was, in 1795, visited by an 
 Italian improvisators, who happened to have a small 
 medicine-chest with him. In the consul's" kitchen was 
 a little Arab, a scullion, who suffered of a harassing 
 cough, and whom his master magnetized in order to 
 cure him. While in his sleep the boy saw the medicine- 
 chest, of which he had known nothing before, and 
 selected among the phials one with sugar of agri- 
 monium, which relieved him of his troubles. The 
 Italian, thereupon, asked also to be magnetized; fell 
 promptly asleep, and wrote in this condition, with 
 closed eyes, a poem praising the art of magnetism. 
 Haddock's famous subject, Emma, actually accomplish- 
 ed once the crucial test of all magic phenomena she 
 proved the value of magnetism in a question of money. 
 In the year 1849 three notes, amounting to 650, had 
 been deposited in a bank, and disappeared in the most 
 unaccountable manner. One of the clerks confessed, 
 that although he had received them, wrapped them up 
 in paper, and placed them with a parcel of other notes, 
 he had forgotten to enter them regularly in the books. 
 No trace could be discovered ; at last the magnetized 
 subject was consulted, and after some little time 
 declared that the notes were lying in a certain room, 
 inserted in a certain panel, which she described so 
 accurately that upon search being instituted the
 
 MAGNETISM. 413 
 
 missing notes were found, and the clerk's character 
 was cleared. Dr. Earth magnetized, in 1846, a lady 
 who was filled with anxiety about her husband in 
 America, from whom she had not heard for a long time. 
 After having been put into magnetic sleep several 
 times, she once exclaimed : " God be thanked, my poor 
 husband is better. I am looking over his shoulder and 
 see him write a letter addressed to me, which will be 
 here in six or seven weeks. He tells me that he has 
 been ill for three months." Two months afterwards 
 she actually received such a letter, in which her hus- 
 band informed her of his three months' illness, and re- 
 gretted the pain he had probably caused her by his 
 protracted silence. A young lady, magnetized by Rob- 
 ert Napier in his house in Edinburgh, not only described 
 her parents' house as it appeared at the moment, but 
 also the home of a Miss B., in New South Wales, where 
 she had never been. In the garden of the house she 
 saw a gentleman accompanied by a lady in black', and a 
 dog of light color with dark spo.ts ; upon inquiry it 
 appeared that Colonel B., the father of the young lady, 
 had at that time actually been in the garden with his 
 wife and his dog, although some of the minor details 
 proved to have been incorrect. She also gave a minute 
 and accurate account of the upper stories of Napier's 
 house, where she had never been ; but recognizing 
 everything only gradually, and correcting the mistakes 
 which she had at first committed. Thus she spoke of 
 Napier's old aunt as dressed in dark colors; after a
 
 414 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 while she exclaimed: " Oh, now I see she is dressed in 
 white ! " It appeared afterward that the old lady had 
 been sitting in a deep arm-chair, overshadowed by the 
 back of the chair, the gas-light being behind her; just 
 at that moment, however, Napier's wife had come up, 
 the aunt had leaned forward to speak to her, and thus 
 being brought into the light, had revealed her white 
 night-dress. This case is peculiarly interesting as 
 proving that the perceptions of somnambulists are 
 dependent upon conditions similar to those which gov- 
 ern the ordinary senses. (Colquhoun, p. 626.) 
 
 According to such high authorities as Hufeland and 
 others, magnetic sleep enables persons to see the in- 
 terior of the bodies of others. He himself heard one of 
 his female patients, a woman without any knowledge of 
 anatomy, describe quite accurately the inner structure 
 of the ear, and of certain other parts of the body. ( Ueber 
 Sympatltie, p. 115.) It seems to have been well ascer- 
 tained that she had never had an opportunity of reading 
 such a description, even if her memory had been reten- 
 tive enough to enable her to recall and recite what she 
 had thus chanced to read. The clairvoyant Alexis 
 once saw through the clothing of a visitor a scar, and 
 after gazing at it in his sleep fora long time, he came 
 to the conclusion that it was the effect of a dog's bite, 
 and finally stated all the facts attending the accident 
 of which the scar was the sole remaining evidence. 
 Even historical predictions made in magnetic sleep are 
 not wanting. The death of a king of Wurtemberg was
 
 MAGNETISM. 415 
 
 thus foretold by two somnambulists, who were under 
 medical treatment, and who warned their physicians, 
 well-known and trustworthy practitioners of good 
 standing, of the approaching event. The king's death 
 took place without being preceded by any serious illness, 
 and in the manner minutely predicted by one of the 
 patients ; a confirmation which was all the more strik- 
 ing, as the prediction had been made in the presence of 
 a number of distinguished men, among whom were a 
 minister of the kingdom and several divines. Another 
 case is that of the Swedish king, Gustavus Vasa, who 
 was assassinated in 1792, by Ankarstrom. Accompa- 
 nied by his physician, he once called, as Count Haga, 
 upon a patient treated by Aubry, a pupil of Mesmer. 
 She recognized him immediately, although plunged in 
 magnetic sleep, told him that he suffered of oppressions 
 of the chest, the effect of a broken arm, and foretold 
 him that his life was in danger and that he would be 
 murdered. The king was deeply impressed, and as his 
 physician expressed doubt and contempt in his face, he 
 desired that the latter should be put en rapport with the 
 patient. No sooner was this done than the physician's 
 eyes fell, he sank into magnetic sleep, and when, after 
 some time, he was aroused he left the room in great 
 agitation. (A. Gauthier. Hist, du Somnamb., ii. 
 p. 246.) 
 
 An occasional phenomenon of magnetic sleep is the 
 improvement of the language of patients ; this appears 
 not only in the case of well-educated persons, whose
 
 416 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 diction assumes often a high poetical form, but far 
 more strikingly in unlettered and ignorant patients. 
 who suddenly manifest an unexpected familiarity with 
 the more refined form of their native tongue, and not 
 imfrequently even with idioms of which they have pre- 
 viously had no knowledge whatever. All these different 
 symptoms have been authenticated by numerous and 
 trustworthy witnesses. Humble peasant-women have 
 used the most elegant forms of their native language; 
 travelers have unexpectedly recovered the use of idioms 
 once known to them, but long since forgotten ; and, 
 finally, a real gift of languages has unmistakably enabled 
 patients to use idioms with which they had previously 
 never come in contact. This phenomenon develops 
 itself occasionally into poetical improvisations of con- 
 siderable merit, and the beautiful music which many 
 hear in magnetic sleep, or just before dying, as if com- 
 ing from another world, is, in like manner, nothing 
 but a product of their own mental exaltation. Thus 
 persons who spoke merely a local dialect, and were 
 acquainted with no other form of their mother-tongue, 
 when placed in magnetic sleep would speak the best 
 English or German, as if their mind, freed from all 
 fetters, resumed once more the original task of forming 
 the language in accordance with their heightened ca- 
 pacities. Little children, whose education had scarcely 
 begun, have been known to recite verses or to compose 
 speeches, of which they would have been utterly in- 
 capable in a healthy state, and of which they had
 
 MAGNETISM. 417 
 
 afterwards no recollection. Macnish mentions a young 
 girl who, when magnetized, always fell back into 
 Welsh, which she had spoken as a child, but long since 
 forgotten, and Lausanne mentions one of his patients, a 
 Creole, who came at the age of five to France, and late 
 in life, when magnetized, spoke no longer Frencli but 
 the miserable patois of her early years. A young tan- 
 ner in England, also, though utterly uneducated, like 
 the peasant-boy of Puysegur, was able in magnetic sleep 
 to speak German. Whenever another person, at such a 
 time, spoke to him in English, his lips began at once 
 to move, and he translated what he heard into fair 
 German verses. (Morin, Journ. du Magn. 1854, Xo. 
 199.) 
 
 It must not be overlooked that the gift of singing 
 and of using poetical language, often of great beauty, is 
 not unfrequently developed in fever-patients also, and 
 in insane persons. 
 
 Insensibility to impressions from without is another 
 phenomenon which magnetic sleep has in common with 
 many other conditions. It is produced by anaesthetics 
 like chloroform and ether, by utter exhaustion in con- 
 sequence of long suffering, as was the case with martyrs 
 and prisoners subjected to torture, and by excessive loss 
 of blood. But in magnetic sleep it reaches a higher 
 degree than under other circumstances ; cataleptic 
 patients, and even clairvoyants in moments of greatest 
 excitement, seem to be in a state in which the nerves 
 cease to act as conveyers of impressions to the brain.
 
 418 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 This has often led to unwarrantable abuse ; physicians, 
 under the pretext of scientific investigation, inflicting 
 severe injuries upon their patients, utterly unmindful 
 of the fact that, however great the momentary insensi- 
 bility may be, the sense of pain returns at the instant 
 of re-awaking. On the other hand, physicians have 
 taken advantage of this state of unconsciousness of 
 pain, in order to perform serious operations. 
 
 The first instance of a surgical operation being at- 
 tempted while the patient was in mesmeric sleep, was 
 that of Madame Plan tin, a lady of sixty-four years, who 
 suffered of cancer in the breast. A Mr. Chapelain pre- 
 pared her by throwing her for several days into a trance by 
 means of the usual mesmeric passes. She then manifest- 
 ed the ordinary symptoms of somnambulism, and con- 
 versed about the impending danger with perfect calm- 
 ness, while she contemplated it, when conscious, with 
 the utmost horror and apprehension. On the 12th of 
 April, 1824, she was again thrown into a trance, and 
 the painful and dangerous operation accomplished in 
 less than a quarter of an hour, while she conversed with 
 the surgeon, the famous Dr. Ploquet, and showed in 
 her voice, her breathing, and her pulse not the slightest 
 sign of excitement or pain. When the wound was 
 boui^d up, she awoke, but upon hearing what had taken 
 place, she became so violently excited that the mag- 
 netizer had to cause her once more to fall asleep under 
 his passes. And yet, in spite of this brilliant success, 
 when Dr. Warren of Boston asked the great surgeon
 
 MAGNETISM. 419 
 
 why he had never repeated the experiment, the latter 
 was forced to acknowledge that he had not dared do it, 
 "because the prejudice against mesmerism was so 
 strong in Paris that a repetition would have imperiled 
 his position and his reputation ! " 
 
 Since that time mesmerism has been repeatedly, and 
 almost always successfully employed as an ausesthetic; 
 Dr. James Esdall, chief surgeon of the presidency of 
 Calcutta, having reduced the application to a regular 
 method. Dr. Forbes reports two cases of amputation 
 of the thigh in magnetic sleep, which were successful, 
 and similar experiments have been made in England, 
 and in India, with the same happy result. 
 
 It is probably a feature connected with this insensi- 
 bility that persons in magnetic sleep can with impu- 
 nity take unusually large doses of medicine, which they 
 prescribe for themselves. For magnetic sleep seems to 
 develop, as we have stated, among other magic phenom- 
 ena, a peculiar insight also, into diseases and their 
 remedies. Although diseases may assume a variety of 
 deceptive forms, the predictions made by magnetic 
 patients, many months in advance, seldom fail to be 
 verified. This is a mere matter of instinct, for ignorant 
 persons and young children possess the gift in equal 
 degree with the best-informed and most experienced 
 patients. The remedies are almost exclusively so-called 
 simples a hint of some value to physicians but 
 always prescribed with much judgment, and in a man T 
 ner evincing rare medical tact. The dose, however, is
 
 420 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 generally twice or three times as much as is ordinarily 
 given. Magnetic patients prescribe as successfully for 
 others, with whom they are placed en rapport, as for 
 themselves, since a state of perfect clairvoyance enables 
 them to judge of other persons also with perfect accuracy. 
 One of the most remarkable cases is mentioned by Scho- 
 penhauer. (" Parerga," etc., I. p. 246.) A consumptive 
 patient in Russia directed, in her magnetic sleep, the 
 attending physician to put her for nine days into a state 
 of syncope. He did so reluctantly, but during this 
 time her system seemed to enjoy perfect rest, and by 
 this means she recovered. Haddock, also, cured several 
 persons at a distance, by following the directions given 
 to him by a patient of his in her magnetic sleep ; he 
 handed her a lock of hair, or a few written lines, which 
 sufficed to put her en rapport with the absent sufferers. 
 Among the magic phenomena observed in magnetic 
 sleep we must lastly mention ecstatic elevation in the 
 air, the giving out of peculiar sounds, and the power to 
 produce extraordinary effects at a distance. Even 
 common somnambulists, it is well known, seem not to 
 be in the same degree subject to the laws of gravity as 
 persons in a state of wakefulness : hence their amazing 
 exploits in walking on roofs, gliding along narrow 
 cornices, or even running up perpendicular walls. Per- 
 sons in magnetic sleep have been known to float on 
 fresh water as well as in the sea, although they were 
 unable to swim, and sank, if they went into the water 
 when awake. Dupotel saw one of his patients running
 
 MAGNETISM. 421 
 
 along the side of his room on a small strip of wood 
 which was merely tacked on to the wall, and could not 
 have supported a small weight. This peculiar power 
 is all the more fully authenticated as persons have fallen 
 from great heights, while in magnetic sleep, without 
 suifering any injury ; but if they are aroused, and then 
 fall, they invariably become subject again to the 
 natural laws, and are often killed. This temporary 
 suspension of the law of gravity has been compared 
 with similar phenomena in science. Thus it is well 
 known that a galvanic stream passing through coils of 
 copper wire will hold an iron needle suspended within 
 the coils ; and an iron ball dropped into a glass tube 
 between two powerful magnets will in the same manner 
 remain hanging free in the air. The advocates of this 
 theory reason that if magnetism can suspend the law 
 of gravity in metals, it is at least possible that it may 
 have a similar power in the human body. It has, 
 besides, been observed that certain affections, such as 
 violent nervous fevers, increase the weight of sufferers 
 considerably, while a state of trance diminishes it even 
 more strikingly. 
 
 With regard to the magic phenomena of increased 
 intelligence, Abercrombie mentions the case of a girl 
 who as a child had heard a relative play the violin with 
 a certain degree of mastery. Later in life she became 
 his patient, and in her magnetic sleep repeated uncon- 
 sciously some of the pieces in tones very pleasing and 
 closely resembling the notes of a violin. Each parox-
 
 422 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 ysm, however, was succeeded by certain symptoms of 
 her disease. Some years afterwards she imitated in like 
 manner the sounds of a piano and the tones of several 
 members of the family who were fond of singing, in 
 such a manner that each voice could be readily and dis- 
 tinctly recognized. Another year passed, and she con- 
 versed with a younger companion, whom she fancied she 
 was instructing on topics of political and religions in- 
 terest, with surprising ability and a frequent display of 
 wit. Henceforth she led two different kinds of life; 
 when awake she was stupid, awkward in her movements, 
 and unable to appreciate music; in her sleep she be- 
 came clever and showed amazing information and great 
 musical talents. At a critical point in her life, when 
 she was twenty-one years old, a complete change took 
 place in the poor girl ; her conversation in her magnetic 
 sleep lost all its attractions ; she mixed with it improper 
 remarks, and a few months later she had to be sent to 
 an insane asylum. 
 
 It is only within the present generation that the 
 power possessed by some men to magnetize animals has 
 been revived, although it was no doubt fully known to 
 the ancients, and may in part explain the taming of 
 venomous serpents in the East. The most remarkable 
 case is probably that of Mr. Jan, director of the Zoolog- 
 ical Gardens at Milan, who "charms" serpents and 
 lizards. In the year 1858 he was requested by a learned 
 visitor, Professor Eversmann, to allow him to witness 
 some experiments; he at once seized a lizard (L. viri-
 
 MAGNETISM. 423 
 
 dis) behind the head and looked at it fixedly for a few 
 moments ; the animal lay quiet, then became rigid, and 
 remained in any position which he chose to make it as- 
 sume. Upon making a few passes with his forefinger 
 it closed its eyes at his command. Mr. Jan discovered 
 his gift accidentally one day when a whole bagful of 
 lizards (L. ocellata) had escaped from him, and he 
 forced them by his will and his eye, to return to his 
 keeping. (Der Zoolog. Garten. Frankfort, 1SG1, p. 58.) 
 A Frenchman, Tresean, exercised the same power over 
 birds, which he exhibited in I860 in Paris. He mag- 
 netized them with his hand and his breath, but as 
 nme-tenths of the poor creatures died before they be- 
 came inured to such treatment, no advantage could be 
 derived from his talent. (Des Mousseaux, p. 310.) A 
 countryman of his, Jacques Pelissier, is reported by the 
 same authority to have been able to magnetize not 
 only birds, which allowed themselves to be taken from 
 the trees, but even hares, so that they remained sitting 
 in their forms and were seized with the hand (p. 302). 
 
 SOMNAMBULISM. 
 
 It is well known that somnambulism, in the ordinary 
 sense of the word, designates the state of persons who 
 suffer from an affection which disturbs their sleep and 
 causes them to perform strange or ordinary actions, as 
 it may happen, in a state in which they are apparently 
 half awake and half asleep. This disease is already 
 mentioned in the most ancient authors, and its symp-
 
 424 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 toms are correctly reported in Aristotle. (De Gcncr. 
 Anim.) He states that the sufferers rise in their sleep, 
 walk about and converse, that they distinguish objects 
 as if they were awake, ascend trees, pursue enemies, 
 perform tasks, and then quietly return to bed. The 
 state of somnambulism seems to be intermediate be- 
 tween ordinary dreaming and magnetic clairvoyance, 
 and is probably the effect of a serious disturbance in 
 our physical life, which causes the brain to act in an 
 unusual and abnormal manner. It has always been 
 observed at night only, and most frequently at full 
 moon, since the moon seems to affect somnambulists 
 not merely by her light, but in each of the different 
 phases in a peculiar manner. The immediate causes 
 of night- walking are often most trivial ; as Muratori, for 
 instance, tells us of a priest who became a somnambu- 
 list whenever he neglected for more than two months 
 to have his hair cut! Eichard (Theorie tics Songes,p. 
 288) mentions an analogous case of an old woman 
 whom he knew to be subject to the same penalty. 
 
 While nightmares oppress us and make apparently 
 all motion impossible, somnambulism, on the contrary, 
 produces a peculiar facility of locomotion and an irre- 
 sistible impulse to mount eminences, favored either by 
 an actual diminution of specific gravity, or by an in- 
 crease of power. This tendency lies again half-way 
 between the sensation of flying, which is quite common 
 in dreams, and the actual elevation from the ground 
 and suspension in the air, which occur in extreme
 
 .MAGNETISM. 425 
 
 cases of ecstasy. The senses remain during night- 
 walking in a state of semi-activity; the somnambulist 
 may appear as if fast asleep, seeing and hearing nothing, 
 so that the loudest noises and even violent shaking do 
 not rouse him; or he may, like a dreamer, be partly 
 under the influence of outward impressions. One will 
 rise at night, go to the stable, saddle his horse and ride 
 into the woods, while another mounts the window- 
 ledge and performs all the motions of a man on horse- 
 back. Many move with unfailing certainty on perilous 
 paths, and find their way in deepest darkness ; others 
 make blunders and fall, as Professor J. Feller did, who 
 mistook an open window for a door. By what means 
 they perceive the nature of their surroundings, is still 
 unexplained ; it may be the action of the ordinary 
 senses, although these seem to be closed, or they may 
 possess those exceptional faculties which constitute 
 the magic phenomena connected with somnambulism. 
 Thus Forbes (Brit, and For. Med. Rev., 1846) ascribes 
 their power to an increased sensitiveness of the retina, 
 and mentions the case of Dr. Curry, who suffered from 
 this symptom to such a degree that he distinguished 
 every object in a completely darkened room with per- 
 fect ease. In somnambulists, however, the eyes are 
 generally closed or violently turned up; and in the 
 rare cases in which they are open, they evidently see 
 nothing. It is, besides, well established that people 
 thus affected have continued to read, to play on instru- 
 ments, and even to write after they had fallen sound
 
 42(3 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 asleep, and without ever opening their eyes. The sen- 
 sitiveness of the retina could here not avail much. A 
 case is mentioned of a father who rose at night, took 
 his child from the cradle, and with wide open eyes 
 carried it up and down the room, seeing nothing, and 
 in such a state of utter unconsciousness that his wife, 
 walking by his side, could safely draw all his secrets 
 from him without his becoming aware of the process or 
 remembering it the next morning. At the age of forty- 
 five he ceased to walk in his sleep, but, instead, had 
 prophetic dreams which revealed to him the occurrences 
 of the following day and later future events. (Hecr., 
 Observ.) Gassendi (PJit/s., 1. viii. ch. 8) mentions a 
 young man, living in Provence, who rose in his 
 sleep, dressed, drew wine in the cellar, wrote up the 
 accounts, and in the darkest night never touched 
 objects that were in his way. If he returned quietly to 
 his bed, he slept well, and strangely enough, recalled 
 everything he had done in the night; but if he was 
 suddenly aroused in the cellar or in the street, he was 
 seized with violent trembling and palpitations of the 
 heart. At times he saw but imperfectly; then he 
 fancied he had risen before daybreak, and lit a lamp. 
 The Encydop'cdie Mctliodique reports the case of a 
 young priest who wrote his sermons at night, and with 
 closed eyes, and then read each page aloud, correcting 
 and improving what he had written. A sheet of paper 
 held between his eyes and his manuscript did not 
 disturb him ; nor did he become aware of it if the latter
 
 MAGNETISM. 427 
 
 was removed and blank paper was substituted ; in this 
 case he wrote the corrections precisely where they would 
 have been inserted in the text. Macnish mentions 
 (" On Sleep," p. 148) the curious case of an innkeeper 
 in Germany, a huge mass of flesh, who fell asleep at all 
 times and in all places, but who, when this happened 
 while he was playing cards, nevertheless continued to 
 follow suit, as if he could see what was led. In 1832, 
 when he was barely 50 years old, he literally fell 
 asleep, paralysis killing him instantly during one of 
 these attacks of sleep. The same author mentions 
 somnambulists who in their sleep walked to the sea- 
 shore and swam for some distance Avithout being Avaked, 
 and the .case of a Norwegian Avho during his parox- 
 ysms took a boat and rowed himself about for some 
 time. He Avas cured of his affection by a tub full of 
 Avater, Avhich was so placed that he had to step into it 
 when leaA'ing his bed. In Scotland a peasant discovered 
 from beloAv the nest of a sea-mew, Avhich hung at an 
 inaccessible height upon a steep rock ; some Aveeks 
 aftenvards he rose in his sleep, and to the horror of his 
 friends, Avho Avatched him from below, climbed to the 
 place, took the birds, and safely returned to his cabin. 
 In former ages somnambulists were reported to have 
 even committed murder in their sleep ; a Parisian thus 
 rose, dressed -himself, sAvam across the Seine, killed his 
 enemy, and returned the same Avay without ever aAvak- 
 iug ; and an Englishman also is reported to have mur- 
 dered a boy, in a state of unconsciousness, Avhile labor-
 
 428 MODEKN" MAGIC. 
 
 ing under this affection. Modern science, however, 
 knows nothing of such extreme cases, and the plea has 
 not yet been used by astute lawyers. 
 
 Simple somnambulism is not unfrequently connected 
 with magnetic somnambulism, and may occasionally be 
 seen even in trances during daytime. In such cases 
 persons who walk in their sleep may be questioned by 
 bystanders, and in their answers prove themselves not 
 unfrequently able to foretell future events, or to state 
 what is occurring at a distance ; or they perform tasks 
 in their sleep which they would not be able to accom- 
 plish when awake ; they compose music, write poetry, 
 and read works in foreign languages, without possessing 
 the requisite knowledge and training. A poor basket- 
 weaver in Germany once heard a sermon which moved 
 him deeply ; several weeks later he rose at night, and 
 repeated the whole sermon from beginning to end ; his 
 wife tried in vain to rouse him, and the next morning 
 he knew nothing of what had happened. Cases of 
 scholars who, sorely puzzled by difficult problems, gave 
 them up before retiring, and then, in the night, rose in 
 a state of somnambulism, and solved them easily, are 
 by no means uncommon.
 
 IX. 
 MIRACULOUS OUEES. 
 
 " Spiritus in nobis qui viget, ilia facit." 
 
 CORN. AGRIPPA, Ep. xiv. 
 
 THE uniform and indispensable condition of all mi- 
 raculous cures, whether produced by prayer, imposition 
 of hands, penitential castigation, or magic power, is 
 faith. Physician and patient alike must believe that 
 disease is the consequence of sin, and accept the literal 
 meaning of the Saviour's words, when he had cured the 
 impotent man near the pool called Bethesda, and said : 
 " Behold, thou art made whole : sin no more, lest a 
 worse thing come unto thee." (St. John v. 14.) Like 
 their great teacher, all the apostles and saints of the 
 church have ever insisted upon repentance in the heart 
 before health in body could be accorded. It is interest- 
 ing to notice, moreover, that all Oriental sages, the 
 Kabbalists and later Theosophists, have, without 
 exception, adopted the same view, however widely they 
 may have differed on other points. In one feature only 
 some disagreed : they ascribed to evil spirits what others 
 attributed to sin ; but the difference is only nominal, 
 for men, by sin, enter into communion with evil spirits, 
 and become subject to their power. Hence the woman 
 " which had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years '' was
 
 430 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 said to have been "bound by Satan," and when she 
 was healed she was "loosed from the bond." (Luke 
 xiii. 16.) 
 
 To this common faith must be added on the part of 
 the physician an energetic will, and in the patient an 
 excited imagination. The history of all ages teaches, 
 beyond the possibility of doubt, that where these 
 elements are present results have been obtained which 
 excite the marvel of men by their astonishing prompt- 
 ness, and their apparent impossibility. They seem 
 generally to be the result of certain symbolic but 
 extremely simple acts, snch as the imposition of hands 
 which may possibly produce a concentration of 
 power the utterance of a blessing, or merely a contin- 
 ued, fixed glance. The main point, however, is, of 
 course, the psychical energy which is here made available 
 by a process as yet unknown. Prayer is probably the 
 simplest agency, since it naturally encourages and 
 elevates the innermost heart of man, and fills him with 
 that perfect hope and confidence which are necessary 
 for his recovery. This hope is, in the case of miracu- 
 lous cures performed at the shrines of saints, materially 
 strengthened by the collective force of all preceding 
 cures, which tradition has brought to bear upon the 
 mind, while the senses are powerfully impressed, at the 
 same time, by the surroundings, and especially the 
 votive offerings testifying to the reality of former mir- 
 acles. In the case of relics, where the Church sees 
 simply miracles, many men believe in a continuing
 
 MIRACULOUS CUBES. 431 
 
 magic power perceptible only to very sensitive pa- 
 tients ; thus the great theologian, Tholuk, ascribes to the 
 ' handkerchiefs or aprons" which were brought from 
 the body of St. Paul, and drove away diseases and evil 
 spirits (Acts xix. 12), a special curative power with 
 which they were impregnated. (Verm., Schriftcn, I. 
 p. 80.) At certain times, when the mind of a whole 
 people is excited, and hence peculiarly predisposed to 
 meet powerful impressions from specially gifted and 
 highly privileged persons, such miraculous cures are, of 
 course, most numerous and most striking. This was 
 the case, for instance, in the first days of Christianity, 
 at the time of the Reformation, and during the years 
 which saw the Order of Jesuits established. There is 
 little to be gained, therefore, by confining the era of 
 such phenomena to a certain period to the days of the 
 apostles, when alone genuine miracles were performed, 
 as many divines believe, or to the first three centuries 
 after Christ, during which Tholuk and others still see 
 magic performances. Magnetic and miraculous cures 
 differ not in their nature, but only in their first cause, 
 precisely as the trance of somnambulists is identical 
 with the trance of religious enthusiasts. The difference 
 lies only in the faith which performs the cure ; if it is 
 purely human, the effect will be only partial, and in 
 most cases ephemeral; if divine faith and the highest 
 power co-operate, as in genuine miracles, the effect is 
 instantaneous and permanent. Hence the contrast be- 
 tween the man who at the Lord's bidding " took up his
 
 432 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 bed and walked" and the countless cripples who have 
 thrown aside their crutches at the graves of saints, only 
 to resume them a day or two afterward, when, with the 
 excitement, the newly acquired power also had disap- 
 peared. But hence, also, the resemblance between 
 many acts of the early Jesuit Fathers and those of the 
 apostles; the intense energy of the former, supported 
 by pure and unwavering faith, produced results which 
 were to all intents and purposes miraculous. With the 
 death of men like St, Xavier, and the rise of worldly 
 ambition in the hearts of the Fathers, this power dis- 
 appeared, and modern miracles have become a snare and 
 a delusion to simple-minded believers. 
 
 The faith in such psychical power possessed by a few 
 privileged persons is as old as the world. Pythagoras 
 performed cures by enchantment; ^Elius Aristides, who 
 had consulted learned physicians for ten years in vain, 
 and Marcus Antoninus, were both cured by incubation. 
 Tacitus tells us that the Emperor Vespasian restored a 
 blind man's sight by moistening his eye with saliva, and 
 to a lame man the use of his feet by treading hard 
 upon him. (Hist. 1. iv..c. 8.) Both cures were performed 
 before an immense crowd in Alexandria, and in both 
 cases the petitioners had themselves indicated the means 
 by which they were to be restored, the emperor yielding 
 only very reluctantly to their prayers and the urgent 
 requests of his courtiers. (Sueton., Vita Vespas.) Pyr- 
 rhus, king of Epirus, had cured colic and diseases of 
 the kidneys by placing the patient on his back and touch-
 
 MIRACULOUS CUKES. 433 
 
 ing him with his big toe (Plutarch, Vita PyrrJii) ; and 
 hence Vespasian and Hadrian both used the same 
 method! 
 
 The imposition of hands, for the purpose of perform- 
 ing miraculous cures, has been practised from time 
 immemorial ; Chaldees and Brahmins alike using it in 
 cases of malignant diseases. The kings of England and 
 of France, and even the counts of Hapsburg in Ger- 
 many, have ever been reputed to be able to cure goitres 
 by the touch of their hands, and hence the complaint 
 was called the " king's evil." The idea seems to -have 
 originated in the high north ; King Olave, the saint, 
 being reported by Snorre Sturleson . as having per- 
 formed the ceremony. From thence, no doubt, it was 
 carried to England, where Edward the Confessor seems 
 to have been the first to cure goitres. In France each 
 monarch upon ascending the throne received at the con- 
 secration the secret of the modus operandi and the 
 sacred formula for here also the spoken word went 
 hand in hand with the magic touch. Philip I. was the 
 first and Charles I. the last monarch who performed the 
 cure publicly, uttering the ancient phrase : " Le roi te 
 touclic, Dieu te guerisse ! " In a somewhat similar man- 
 ner the Saludadores and Ensalmadores of Spain cured, 
 not goitres and stammering only, as the monarchs we 
 have mentioned, but almost all the ills to winch human 
 flesh is heir, by imposition of hands, fervent prayer 
 and breathing upon the patient. 
 
 Similar gifts are ascribed to Eastern potentates, and 
 19
 
 434 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 the ruling dynasty in Persia claims to have inherited 
 the power of healing the sick from an early ancestor, 
 the holy Sheik Sephy. The great traveler Chardin 
 saw patients hardly able to crawl dragging themselves 
 to the feet of the Shah, and beseeching him only to dip 
 the end .of his finger into a bowl of water, and thus to 
 bestow upon it healing power. It will excite little won- 
 der to learn that those remarkable men who succeeded 
 by the fire of their eloquence and the power of conta- 
 gious enthusiasm to array one world in arms against 
 another, the authors of the Crusades, should have been 
 able to perform miraculous cures. Peter of Amiens 
 and Bernard of Clairvaux obtained such a hold on the 
 minds of faithful believers, that their curse produced 
 spasms and fearful sufferings in the guilty, while their 
 blessing restored speech to the dumb, and health to the 
 sick. Here also special power was attributed even to 
 their clothes, and many remarkable results were obtained 
 by the mere touch. Spain, the home of fervent ascetic 
 faith, abounds in saints who performed miracles, the 
 most successful of whom was probably Raimundus 
 Normatus (so called because not born of woman, but 
 cut from his dead mother's body by skillful physicians), 
 who cured, during the plague of 1200, great numbers 
 of men by the sign of the cross. To this class of men 
 belong also, as mentioned before, the early fathers of the 
 Society of Jesus, though their powers were as different 
 as their characters. Ignatius Loyola, who represented 
 the intelligence of the new order, performed few mirac-
 
 MIRACULOUS CURES. 435 
 
 ulous cures ; Xavier, oil the contrary, the man of bril- 
 liant fancy, was successful in a great variety of cases. 
 The first leaders, like Loinez, Salmerou and Bobadilla, 
 had no magic power at all, but later successors, like 
 Ochioa Carrera and Kepel, displayed it in a surprising 
 degree, although Ochioa's gifts were distinctly limited 
 .to the healing of the sick by the imposition of hands. 
 The whole period of this intense excitement extended 
 only over sixteen years, from 1540 to 1556, after which 
 the vivid faith, which had alone made the cures possible, 
 disappeared. It is worth mentioning that the Jesuits 
 themselves and most of their historians deny that they 
 ever had power to perform miracles, and ascribe the 
 cures to the faith of the patients alone. St. Xavier, it 
 is well known, brought the dead to life again, and even 
 if we assume that they lay only in syncope and had not 
 yet really died, the recovery is scarcely less striking. 
 The most remarkable of these cases is that of an only 
 daughter of a Japanese nobleman. Her death stunned 
 the father, a great lord possessed of immense wealth, 
 to such a degree that his friends feared for his 
 reason ; at last they urged him to apply to the great 
 missionary for help. He did so ; the Jesuit, filled with 
 compassion, asked a brother priest to join him in prayer, 
 and both fell upon their knees and prayed with great 
 fervor. Xavier returned to the pagan with joyous face 
 and bade him take comfort, as his daughter was alive 
 and well. The nobleman, very unlike the father in 
 Holy Writ, was indignant, thinking that the holy man
 
 436 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 either did not believe his child had died or refused to 
 assist him; but as he went home, a page came running 
 up to meet him, bringing the welcome message that 
 his daughter was really alive and well. She told him 
 after his return, that her soul upon leaving the body 
 had been seized by hideous shapes and dragged towards 
 an enormous fire, but that suddenly two excellent men 
 had interposed, rescuing her from their hands, and lead- 
 ing her back to life. The happy father immediately re- 
 turned with her to the holy man, and as soon as his child 
 beheld Xavier and his companion, she fell down at their 
 feet and declared that they were the friends who had 
 brought her back from the lower world. Shortly after- 
 wards the father and his whole family became Christians. 
 (Orlandini, Hist. Soc. Jesu., ix. c. 213.) The case 
 seems to be very simple, and is one of the most instruc- 
 tive of modern magic. The girl was not dead, but lay 
 in a cataleptic trance, in which she had visions of fear- 
 ful scenes, and transformed the fierce hold which the 
 disease had on her body into the grasp of hostile powers 
 trying to obtain possession of her soul. At the same 
 time she became clairvoyant, and thus saw Xavier and 
 his companion distinctly enough to recognize them 
 afterwards. The cure was accomplished by the Al- 
 mighty in answer to the fervent prayer of two pious 
 men filled with pure faith, according to the sacred 
 promise: " The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous 
 man availeth much." All the more is it to be regretted 
 that even in those days of genuine piety and rapturous
 
 MIRACULOUS CUKES. 437 
 
 faith, foreign elements should at once have been mixed 
 up with the true doctrine ; for already Caspar Bersaeus 
 ascribed some of his cures to the Holy Virgin ; and 
 Boon the power passed away, when the honor was no 
 longer given to Him to whom alone it was due. 
 
 From that day the power to perform miraculous 
 cures has been but rarely and exceptionally granted to 
 a few individuals. Thus Matthias "Will, a German di- 
 vine of the seventeenth century, was as famous for his 
 marvelous power over the sick and the possessed as for 
 his fervent piety, his incessant praying and fasting, and 
 his utter self-abnegation. Sufferers were brought to 
 him from every part of Christendom, and hundreds 
 who had been given up by their physicians were healed 
 by his earnest prayers and the blessing he invoked from 
 on high. His memory still survives in his home, and 
 an inscription on his tombstone records his extraordi- 
 nary powers. (Cath. Encycl., Suppl. I. 1320.) Even the 
 Jansenists, with all their hostility to certain usages of 
 the Church, had their famous Abbe Paris, whose grave 
 in the Cemetery of St. Medard became in 1727 the 
 scene of a number of miraculous cures, fully attested 
 by legal evidence and amply described by Montgeron, a 
 man whom the Abbe had in his lifetime changed, from 
 a reckless profligate into a truly pious Christian. (La 
 verite des miracles, etc., Paris, 1737.) The magic phe- 
 nomena exhibited on this occasion were widely discuss- 
 ed and great numbers of books and pamphlets written 
 for and against their genuineness, until the subject be-
 
 438 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 came so obscured by party spirit that it is extremely 
 difficult, in our day, to separate the truth from its 
 large admixture of unreliable statements. A peculiar 
 feature of these scenes admitted in its full extent by 
 adversaries even was the perfect insensibility of most 
 of the enthusiasts, the so-called Conviihionnaires. 
 Jansenists by conviction, these men, calm and cool in 
 their ordinary pursuits, had been so wrought up by re- 
 ligious excitement that they fell, twenty or more at u 
 time, into violent convulsions and demanded to be 
 beaten with huge iron-shod clubs in order to be relieved 
 of an unbearable pressure upon the abdomen. They 
 endured, in this manner, blows inflicted upon the pit 
 of the stomach which under ordinary circumstances 
 would have caused grievous if not fatal consequences. 
 
 The above-mentioned witness, who saw their almost 
 incredible sufferings, Carre de Montgeron, states that 
 he himself used an iron club ending in a ball and weigh- 
 ing from twenty to thirty pounds. One of the female 
 enthusiasts complained that the ordinary blows were 
 not sufficient to give her relief, whereupon he beat her 
 sixty times with all his strength. But this also was 
 unavailing, and a large and more powerful man who was 
 standing near had to take the fearful instrument and 
 with his strong arms gave her a hundred additional 
 blows! The tension of her muscles must have been 
 most extraordinary, for she not only bore the blows, 
 which would have killed a strong person in natural 
 health, but the wall against which she was leaning
 
 MIRACULOUS CURES. 439 
 
 actually began to tremble and totter from the violent 
 concussion. 'Nor were the blows simply resisted by the 
 turgescence of the body ; the skin itself seemed to have 
 been modified in a manner unknown in a state of health. 
 Thus one of the brothel's Marion felt nothing of 
 thrusts made by a sharp-pointed knife against his abdo- 
 men and the skin was in no instance injured. To do 
 this, the trance in which he lay must necessarily have 
 induced an entire change of the organic atoms, and this 
 is one of the most important magic phenomena con- 
 nected with this class of visions, which will be discussed 
 in another place. 
 
 It is well known that the cures performed at the grave 
 of the Abbe Paris and the terrible scenes enacted there 
 by these convulsionnaires excited so much attention 
 that at last the king saw himself compelled to put a stop 
 to the proceedings. After a careful investigation of the 
 Avhole matter by men specially appointed for the pur- 
 pose, the grounds were guarded, access was prohibited, 
 and the wags of Paris placed at the entrance the follow- 
 ing announcement : 
 
 " Defense de par le Roy. Defense a Dieu, 
 De faire miracle en ee lieu ! " 
 
 Ireland had in the seventeenth century her Great- 
 rakes, who, according to unimpeachable testimony, 
 cured nearly every disease known to man, by his simple 
 touch and fervent prayer. 
 
 Valentine Greatrakes, of Waterford, in Ireland, had 
 dreamt, in 1662, that he possessed the gift to cure goi-
 
 440 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 tres by simple imposition of hands, after the manner of 
 the kings of England and of France. It was, however, 
 only when the dream was several times repeated that he 
 heeded it and tried his power on his wife. The success 
 he met with in his first effort encouraged him to at- 
 tempt other cases also, and soon his fame spread so far 
 that he was sent for to come to London and perform 
 some cures at Whitehall. He was invariably successful, 
 but had much to endure from the sneers of the courtiers, 
 as he insisted upon curing animals as well as men. His 
 cures were attested by men of high authority, such as 
 John Glanville, chaplain to Charles II., Bishop Rust, of 
 Dromor, in Ireland, several physicians of great eminence, 
 and the famous Robert Boyle, the president of the Royal 
 Society. According to their uniform testimony Great- 
 rakes was a simple-hearted, pious man, as far from im- 
 posture as from pretension, who firmly believed that 
 God had entrusted to him a special power, and succeeded 
 in impressing others with the same conviction. His 
 method was extremely simple : he placed his hands upon 
 the affected part, or rubbed it gently for some time, 
 whereupon the pains, swellings, or ulcers which he 
 wished to cure, first subsided and then disappeared en- 
 tirely. It is very remarkable that here also all seemed 
 to depend on the nature of the faith of the patient, for 
 according to the measure of faith held by the latter the 
 cure would be either almost instantaneous or less 
 prompt, and in some cases requiring several days and 
 many interviews. He was frequently accused of prac-
 
 MIRACULOUS CURES. 441 
 
 tising sorcery aiicl witchcraft, but the doctors Faiselow 
 and Artetius, as well as Boyle, defended him with great 
 energy, while testifying to the reality of his cures. 
 
 One of the best authenticated, though isolated, cases 
 of this class is the recovery of a niece of Blaise Pascal, a 
 girl eleven years old. She was at boarding-school at 
 the famous Port Royal and suffered of a terrible fistula 
 in the eye, which had caused her great pain for three 
 years and threatened to destroy the bones of her face. 
 "When her physicians proposed to her to undergo a very 
 painful operation by means of a red-hot iron, some Jan- 
 senists suggested that she should first be specially 
 prayed for, while at the same time the affected place 
 was touched with a thorn reported to have formed part 
 of the crown of thorns of our Saviour. This was done, 
 and on the following day the swelling and inflammation 
 had disappeared, and the eye recovered. The young 
 girl was officially examined by a commission consisting 
 of the king's own physician, Dr. Felix, and three dis- 
 tinguished surgeons; but they reported that neither art 
 nor nature had accomplished the cure and that it was 
 exclusively to be ascribed to the direct interposition of 
 the Almighty. The young lady lived for twenty-five 
 years longer and never had a return of her affection. 
 Racine described the case at full length, and so did 
 Arnauld and Pascal, all affirming the genuineness of 
 the miraculous cure. 
 
 During the latter part of the last century a Father 
 Gassner created a very great sensation in Germany by 
 
 19*
 
 442 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 means of his marvelous cures and occasional exorcisms 
 of evil spirits. He did not employ for the latter pur- 
 pose the usual ritual of the Catholic Church, but simple 
 imposition of hands and invocation of the Saviour. 
 Nearly all the patients who were brought to him he 
 declared to be under the influence of evil spirits, and 
 divided them into three classes : circumsessi, who were 
 only at times attacked, obsessi, or bewitched, and pos- 
 sessi, who were really possessed. When a sick person 
 was brought to him, he first ordered the evil spirit to 
 show himself and to display all his powers ; then he 
 prayed fervently and commanded the demon, in the 
 name of the Saviour, to leave his victim. A plain, un- 
 pretending man of nearly fifty years, he appeared dressed 
 in a red stole after the fashion prevailing at that time in 
 his native land, and wore a cross containing a particle of 
 the holy cross suspended from a silver chain around his 
 neck. The patient was placed before him so that the 
 light from the nearest window fell fully upon his fea- 
 tures, and the bystanders, who always crowded the room, 
 could easily watch all the proceedings. Frequently, he 
 would put his stole upon the sufferers' head, seize their 
 brow and neck with outstretched hands, and holding 
 them firmly, utter in a low voice a fervent prayer. 
 Then, after having given them his cross to kiss, if they 
 were Catholics, he dismissed them with some plain 
 directions as to treatment and an earnest admonition to 
 remain steadfast in faith. Probably the most trust- 
 worthy account of this remarkable man and his truly
 
 MIRACULOUS CURES. 413 
 
 miraculous cures was published by a learned and emi- 
 nent physician, a Dr. Schisel, \vho called upon the priest 
 with the open avowal that he came as a skeptic, to 
 watch his proceedings and examine his method. He 
 became so well convinced of Father Gassner's powers 
 that he placed himself in his hands as a patient, was 
 cured of gout in an aggravated form, and excited the 
 utmost indignation of his professional brethren by can- 
 didly avowing his conviction of the sincerity of the 
 priest and the genuineness of his cures. 
 
 There was, however, one circumstance connected 
 with the exceptional power of this priest, which was 
 even more striking than his cures. His Avill was so 
 marvelously energetic and his control over weaker minds 
 so perfect that he could at pleasure cause the pulse of 
 his patients to slacken or to hasten, to make them 
 laugh or cry. sleep or wake, to see visions, and even to 
 have epileptic attacks. As may be expected, the ma- 
 jority of his visitors were women and children, but these 
 were literally helpless instruments in his hands. They 
 not only moved and acted, but even felt and thought 
 as he bade them do, and in many cases they were 
 enabled to speak languages while under his influence 
 of which they were ignorant before and after. At 
 Ratisbon a committee consisting of two physicians and 
 two priests was directed to examine the priest and his 
 cures ; a professor- of anatomy carefully watched the 
 pulse and the nerves of the patients which wore selected 
 at haphazard, and all confirmed the statements mado
 
 444 MODERX MAGIC. 
 
 before; while three other professors, who had volun- 
 teered to aid in the investigation, concurred with him 
 in the conviction that there wa neither collusion nor 
 imposition to be suspected. The priest, who employed 
 no other means but prayer and the invocation of God 
 by the patients, was declared to be acting in good faith, 
 from pure motives, and for the best purposes ; his cures 
 were considered genuine. There was, however, in 
 Father Gassner's case also an admixture of objection- 
 able elements which must not be overlooked. The 
 desire for notoriety, which enters largely into all such 
 displays of extraordinary powers, led many persons who 
 were perfectly sound to pretend illness, merely for the 
 purpose of becoming, when cured, objects of public 
 wonder. On the other hand, the good father himself 
 was, no doubt, by his own unexpected success, led to go 
 farther than he would otherwise have done in his sim- 
 plicity and candor. He formed a complete theory of 
 his own to explain the miracles. According to his view 
 the first cause of all such diseases as had their origin in 
 " possession," were the " principalities, powers, rulers 
 of the darkness of this world, and spiritual wickedness 
 in high places/' which the apostle mentions as enemies 
 more formidable than " flesh and blood." (Ephes. vi. 12.) 
 These, he believed, dwelt in the air, and by disturbing 
 the atmosphere with evil intent, produced illness in the 
 system and delusions in the mind. If a number eom- 
 bined, and with the permission of the Almighty poi- 
 soned the air to a large extent, contagious diseases
 
 MIRACULOUS CURES. 445 
 
 folio WQd as a natural consequence. Against these 
 demons or "wiles of the devil" (Ephes. vi. 11), he 
 employed the only means sanctioned by Holy Writ 
 fervent prayer, and this, of course, could have no effect 
 unless the patient fully shared his faith. This faith, 
 again, he was enabled to awaken and to strengthen by 
 the supreme energy of his will, but of course not in all 
 cases ; where his prayer failed to have the desired effect 
 he ascribed the disease to a direct dispensation from on 
 high, and not to the agency of evil spirits, or he de- 
 clared the patient to be wanting in faith. In like 
 manner he explained relapses as the effects of waning 
 faith. The startling phenomena, however, which he 
 thought it necessary to call forth in his patients, before 
 he attempted their restoration, belong to what must be 
 called the magic of our day. For these symptoms bore 
 no relation to the affection under which they suffered. 
 Persons afflicted with sore wounds, stiffened limbs, or 
 sightless eyes, would, at his bidding, fall into frightful 
 paroxysms, during which the breathing intermitted, 
 the nose became pointed, the eyes insensible to the 
 touch, and the whole body rigid and livid. And yet, 
 when the paroxysm ceased at his word, the patient felt 
 no evil effects, not even fatigue, and all that had hap- 
 pened was generally instantly forgotten. The case 
 created an immense sensation throughout Europe, and 
 the great men of his age took part for or against the 
 poor priest, who was sadly persecuted, and only now 
 and then found a really able advocate, such as Lavater.
 
 446 MODERN MACK. 
 
 The heaviest penalty lie had to bear was the condemna- 
 tion of his own Church, which accompanied an order 
 issued by the Emperor Joseph II.. peremptorily forbid- 
 ding all further attempts. The pope, Pius VII., who 
 had directed the whole subject to be examined by the 
 well-known Congregatio SS. Rituum, declared in 1777, 
 upon their report, that the priest's proceedings were 
 heretical and not any longer to be permitted, and or- 
 dered the bishop, under whose jurisdiction he lived, to 
 prevent any further exercise of his pretended power. 
 All these decrees of papal councils and these orders of 
 imperial officials could, however, not undo what the 
 poor priest had already accomplished, and history has 
 taught us the relative value of investigations held by 
 biased priests, and those carried out by men of science. 
 We may well doiibt the judgment of an authority which 
 once condemned a Galileo, and even now denounces the 
 press as a curse ; but we have no right to suspect the 
 opinion of men who, as physicians and scientists, are 
 naturally disposed to reject all claims of supernatural 
 or even exceptional powers. 
 
 In more recent times a Prince Hohenlohe in Ger- 
 many claimed to have performed a number of mirac- 
 ulous cures, beginning with a Princess Schwarzenberg, 
 whom he commanded "in the name of Christ to be well 
 again." Many of his patients, however, were only cured 
 for the moment; when their faith, excited to the 
 utmost, cooled down again, their infirmities returned; 
 still there remain facts enough in his life to establish
 
 MIRACULOUS CURES. 44T 
 
 the marvelous power of his strong will, when brought 
 to bear upon peculiarly receptive imaginations, and 
 aided by earnest prayer. (Kies, ArcJnv. IX. ii: 311.) 
 
 Sporadic cases of similar powers have of late shown 
 themselves in Paris, in the interior of Russia, and in 
 Ravenna, but the evidence upon which the statements 
 in public journals are made is so clearly unreli- 
 able that no important result can be hoped for from 
 their investigation. The present is hardly an age of 
 faith, and enough has surely been said to prove that 
 without very great and sincere faith miraculous cures 
 cannot be performed.
 
 X. 
 MYSTICISM. 
 
 " Credo quia absurdum est." TEKTULLIAN. 
 
 of the most remarkable classes of magic pheno- 
 mena, which combines almost all other known features 
 of trances with the peculiar kind called stigmati- 
 zation, is known as Mysticism in the more limited sense 
 of that word. It bears this name mainly because it 
 designates attempts made to unite in close communion 
 humanity with divinity, and however imperfect the 
 success of all these efforts may be, on the whole, it 
 cannot be denied that in individual cases very startling 
 results have been obtained. In order to attain their 
 lofty aim, the mystics require an utter deadening of all 
 human affections and all natural impulses, and a 
 thorough change of their usual thoughts and feelings. 
 Above all, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and 
 the pride of the heart are to be killed by pain ; hence 
 the mystics are quite content .to suffer, chastise the 
 body, deny themselves the simplest enjoyments, and 
 rejoice in the actual infliction of wounds and mutila- 
 tions. In return for this complete deadening of human 
 affections they are filled with an ineffable love of the 
 divine Saviour, the Bridegroom, and the Holy Virgin, 
 the Bride, or even of purely abstract, impalpable beings.
 
 MYSTICISM. 449 
 
 They enjoy great inner comforts, and a sense of happi- 
 ness and peace which transcends all description. What- 
 ever may, however, have been the direct cause of their 
 ecstatic condition, disease, asceticism, self-inflicted tor- 
 ments, or long-continued fervent prayer, this highest 
 bliss is accorded to them only during the time of trance. 
 Unfortunately this period of happiness is not only pain- 
 fully short, but also invariably followed by a powerful 
 reaction ; according to the laws of our nature, supreme 
 excitement must needs always subside into profound 
 exhaustion, ecstatic bliss into heartrending despond- 
 ency, and bright visions of heaven into despairing views 
 of unpardonable sins and a hopeless future. Hence the 
 fearful doctrines of the mystics of all ages, which pre- 
 scribe continuous self-denial as the only way to reach 
 God, who as yet is not to be found in the outward 
 world, but only in the inner consciousness of the be- 
 liever. If the sinner dare not hope to approach the 
 Holy One, the repentant believer also is in unceas- 
 ing danger of losing again what he has gained by 
 fearful sacrifices. The union between him and his 
 Godjnust not only be close, but uninterrupted, a doc- 
 trine which has led to the great favor bestowed by 
 mystics upon images derived from earthly love : to them 
 God is forever the bridegroom, the soul the bride, and 
 the union between them the true marriage of the faith- 
 ful. By such training, skillfully and perse vcringly pur- 
 sued, many persons, especially women, have succeeded 
 in so completely deadening all physical functions of
 
 450 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 their body as to reduce their life, literally, to the mere 
 operations of sensation and vision. The sufferings pro- 
 duced by these efforts to suppress all natural vitality, to 
 kill, as it were, the living body, rendering the senses 
 inactive, while still in the full vigor of their natural 
 condition, are often not only painful, but actually ap- 
 palling. A poor woman, famous for her asceticism and 
 her supernatural visions, Maria of Agreda, was never 
 able to attend to her devotions in the dark, without 
 enduring actual agony. Her spiritual light would sud- 
 denly become extinguished, fearful horrors fell upon her 
 soul and caused her unspeakable anguish, terrible im- 
 ages as of wild beasts and fierce demons surrounded her, 
 the air was filled with curses and unbearable blasphe- 
 mies, and even her body \vas seized with wild, convulsive 
 movements and violent spasms. No wonder, therefore, 
 that numbers of these mystics have lost their reason, 
 and others have fallen victims to terrible diseases. On 
 the other hand, it cannot be denied that many also have 
 been eminent examples of self-denial and matchless de- 
 votion, or genuine heroes in combating for their sacred 
 faith and the love of their brethren. Their very errors 
 were so attractive that the fundamental mistake was 
 forgotten, and all felt how little, men who act upon mere 
 ordinary motives, are able to rise to the same height of self- 
 sacrifice. Nor must it be forgotten, in judging especially 
 the mystics of our days, that their sincerity can never be 
 doubted: they have always acted, and still act upon gen- 
 uine conviction, and in the firm belief that their work is
 
 MYSTICISM. 451 
 
 meritorious, not in the eyes of men, but before the Al- 
 mighty. The ascetics of former ages are not 'so easily 
 understood ; they were men who proposed not only to 
 limit the amenities of life, but to make our whole earthly 
 existence subservient to purely divine purposes; and 
 thus, for instance, Francis of Assisi, prescribed absolute 
 poverty as the rule of his order. The principal magic 
 phenomena accompanying religious ecstasy are the in- 
 sensibility of the body to all, even the most violent in- 
 juries, and the perception of matters beyond the reach of 
 our senses in healthy life. Eigid and long-continued 
 fasting, reduced sleep on a hard couch, and an utter ab- 
 stinence from all other thoughts or sentiments but such 
 as connect themselves directly Avith a higher life, never 
 fail to produce the desired effect. By such means the 
 whole nature of man is finally changed ; not only in the 
 legitimate relations existing between body and mind, but 
 also in those which connect man with nature: the 
 changes are, therefore, as much physiological as psychi- 
 cal. They result at last in the acquisition of a power 
 which in the eyes of the mystics is identical with that 
 promised in Mark xvi. 18. '''They shall take up ser- 
 pents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not 
 hurt them." Extraordinary as the accounts of the suf- 
 ferings and the exceptional powers of mystics appear to 
 us, they are in many instances too well authenticated to 
 allow any serious doubt. Thus a famous ascetic, Eosa 
 of Lima, was actually injured by healthy food, but on 
 many occasions instantaneously strengthened by a mere
 
 452 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 mouthful of bread dipped into pure water; Bernard 
 of Clairvaux lived for a considerable time on beech-leaves 
 boiled in water, and Maria of Oignys once subsisted for 
 thirty-five days on the holy wafer of the sacrament, which 
 she took daily. Mystics who, like the latter, derived 
 bodily sustenance as well as spiritual comfort from the 
 Eucharist, are frequently mentioned in the annals of 
 the Church. Others, again, succeeded by constant and 
 extreme excitement to heat their blood to such an extent 
 that they became insensible to outward cold, even when 
 the frosts of winter became intolerable to others. The 
 heart itself seems to be affected by such extreme elation ; 
 in Catherine of Siena its violent palpitations and 
 convulsive jerkings could be both seen and felt, when she 
 was in a state of ecstasis, and the heart of Filippo Neri 
 was found, after death, to have been considerably en- 
 larged, and actually to have broken two ribs by its 
 convulsive spasms. 
 
 Among the rarer but equally well-established magic 
 phenomena of this class must be counted the tempora- 
 ry 'suspension of the law of gravity. Like the Brah- 
 mins of India, who have long possessed the power of rais- 
 ing themselves unaided from the ground and of remain- 
 ing suspended in the air, Christian mystics also have 
 been seen, more than once, to hang as it were unsup- 
 .ported high above the ground. They quote, in support 
 of their faith in such exceptional powers, the fact that 
 Habakkuk also was seized by an angel and carried 
 away through the air, while even the Saviour was taken
 
 MYSTICISM. 453 
 
 by the devil to an exceeding high mountain on the top 
 of the temple, cases in which the laws of gravity must 
 have been similarly suspended. 
 
 A large number of holy men, among whom were Fi- 
 lippo Neri, Ignatius Loyola, and the founder of the 
 order of Dominicans, remained thus suspended in the 
 air for hours and days ; one of them, the Carmelite 
 monk P. Dominions, in the presence of the king and 
 queen of Spain and their whole court. (Calmet, p. 153.) 
 There are even cases known in which this raising of 
 the body has happened to pious persons against their 
 own desire and to their great and sincere distress, as it 
 attracted public attention in a most painful degree. To 
 this class of phenomena belongs also the luminous ap- 
 pearance which seems at times to accompany a high 
 state of religious excitement. This was already the 
 case with Moses, who " wist not that the skin of his face 
 shone," and probably of Stephen also, when those 
 " that sat in council, looking steadfastly on him, saw 
 his face as it had been the face of an angel." 
 
 The most startling of these phenomena, however, are 
 those known as stigmatization, when the combined 
 power of fervent, exalted faith and an over-excited im- 
 agination produces actual marks of injuries on the 
 body, although no such injuries have ever been inflict- 
 ed. The annals of the Church abound with instances 
 of women especially who. after long meditation on the 
 nature and the merits of crucifixion have borne the 
 marks of nails in hands and feet, an effect which the
 
 454 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 science of medicine also admits as possible, inasmuch 
 as similar results are of not unfrequent occurrence, at 
 least in newborn infants, whose bodies are marked in 
 consequence of events which had recently made a pe- 
 culiarly deep impression upon the mothers. 
 
 Unfortunately mysticism also has not been able to 
 keep its votaries free from an admixture of imposture. 
 False miracles are known to have occurred within the 
 Church as well as without it, and credulity has accepted 
 many a statement that could not have stood the sim- 
 plest investigation. It becomes the careful student, 
 therefore, here also to distinguish with the utmost cau- 
 tion genuine and well-authenticated facts from reckless 
 or willfully false statements. Even then, however, he 
 ought not to forget the words of Pascal, who, in speak- 
 ing of the apostles said: "I am quite willing to believe 
 stories for whose truthfulness the witnesses have suffer- 
 ed death." It is even by no means improbable that the 
 spiritual world may have its changing productions as 
 well as the material world, and as the organisms of the 
 Silurian period are impossible in our day, so-culled 
 magic results may have been obtained by certain for- 
 mer generations which lie beyond the power of our 
 own. No one can with certainty determine, in this di- 
 rection, what is possible and what is impossible ; the 
 power of man is emphatically a relative one, and each 
 exploit must, in fairness, be judged with a view to all 
 the accompanying circumstances. It is as impossible 
 for the men of our day to erect pyramids sucli as the
 
 MYSTICISM. 455 
 
 old Egyptians built, as it is for an individual in good 
 health to perform feats of strength of which he may 
 be capable under the influence of high fever or violent 
 paroxysms. 
 
 A curious feature in these phenomena is the intimate 
 relation in which sacred and so-called demoniac influ- 
 ences seem to stand with one another. The saints are 
 represented as tempted by evil spirits which yet have 
 no existence except in their own heart, and the pos- 
 sessed, on the other hand, occasionally have pious im- 
 pulses and holy thoughts. In the former case it is the 
 innate sinfulness of the heart which creates images of 
 demons such as St. Anthony saw in the desert ; in the 
 latter case the guardian angels of men are said to come 
 to their rescue. There are even instances on record of 
 men who have wantonly given themselves up to the 
 temporary influence of evil spirits under the impres- 
 sion that they could thus please God! as travelers pur- 
 posely suffer the evil effects of opium or hasheesh in or- 
 der to test their powers. Thus mysticism finally de- 
 vised a complete system of angels, saints, and demons, 
 whose varied forms and peculiarities became familiar to 
 votaries at an early period of their lives, and filled their 
 minds with images which afterwards assumed an ap- 
 parent reality during the state of trance. That the 
 physical condition enters as a powerful element in all 
 these phenomena appears clearly from the fact that 
 whenever women are liable to trances or visions of this 
 kind the latter vary regularly with their state of health,
 
 456 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 and ill the majority of cases cease at a certain age. 
 This fact illustrates in a very characteristic manner the 
 mutual relations between body and soul; the condition 
 of the former is reflected in the soul by sentiment and 
 image, and the soul in precisely th,e same manner im- 
 presses itself upon the body. Generally this is limited 
 to the face, where the features in their expression re- 
 produce more or less faithfully what is going on with- 
 in; but in exceptional cases the psychical events 
 cause certain mechanical or physical changes in the 
 body which now and then result in actual illness or 
 become even fatal. Experience proves that if the im- 
 agination is stimulated to excessive activity, it can pro- 
 duce changes in the nature of the epidermis or even of 
 the mucous membrane, which resemble in everything 
 the symptoms of genuine diseases. There are men 
 who can, by an energetic effort of will, cause red spots, 
 resembling inflammation, to appear in almost every 
 part of the body. In extreme cases this power extends 
 to the production of syncope, in which they become ut- 
 terly insensible to injuries of any kind, lose all power 
 of motion, and even cease to breathe. St. Augustine 
 mentions a number of such cases. (De civit. Dei, 
 1. xiv. ch. 24.) The remarkable power of Colonel 
 Townshend of falling into a state of syncope is too well 
 established to admit of any doubt ; he became icy cold 
 and rigid, his heart ceased to beat and his lungs to 
 breathe ; the face turned deadly pale, the features grew 
 sharp and pointed, and his eyes remained fixed. By an
 
 MYSTICISM. 457 
 
 effort of his own will he could recall himself to life, but 
 one evening, when he tried to repeat the experiment, 
 after having made it in the morning successfully in the 
 presence of three physicians, he failed to awake again. 
 It appeared afterwards that his heart was diseased ; he 
 had, however, at the same time, by careful attention 
 and long practice, obtained almost perfect control over 
 that organ. (Cheyne, " Encyl. Malady," London., 1733, p. 
 307.) Indian fakirs have been known to possess a sim- 
 ilar power, and have allowed themselves to be buried 
 in air-tight graves, where they have been watched at 
 times for forty days, by military guards, and yet at the 
 expiration of that time have returned to life withoiit ap- 
 parent injury. A similar power over less vital organs of 
 the body is by no means rare ; men are constantly found 
 who can at will conceal their tongue so that even sur- 
 geons discover it but with difficulty ; others, like Jus- 
 tinus Kerner, can empty their stomachs of their con- 
 tents as if they were pockets, or contract and enlarge 
 the pupils of the eyes at pleasure. Nor are cases of In- 
 dians and negroes rare, who in their despair have died 
 merely because they willed it so. There can be no 
 doubt, therefore, that if mere volition can produce such 
 extraordinary results, still more exceptional effects may 
 be obtained by fervent faith and an excessive stimula- 
 tion of the whole nervous system, and much that ap- 
 pears either incredible or at least in the highest degree 
 marvelous may find an easy and yet satisfactory expla- 
 nation. 
 
 20
 
 458 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 Genuine stigmatization, that is, the appearance of the 
 five wounds of our Saviour, presents itself ordinarily 
 only after many years of constant meditation of his pas- 
 sion, combined with excessive fasting and other ascetic 
 self-torment. The first stage is apt to be a vision of 
 Christ's suffering, accompanied by the offer of a wreath 
 of flowers or a crown of thorns. If the mystic chooses the 
 former, the result remains within the limits of the gen- 
 eral effects of asceticism ; should he, however, choose 
 the crown of thorns, the stigmas themselves are apt to 
 appear. This occurs, naturally, only in the very rare 
 cases, where the mystic possesses that exceptional 
 energy and intense plastic power of the imagination 
 which are requisite in order to suspend the natural 
 relations of soul and body. Then the latter, already 
 thoroughly weakened and exhausted, becomes so sus- 
 ceptible to the influence of the soul, that it reproduces, 
 spontaneously and unconsciously, the impressions 
 deeply engraven on the mind, and during the next 
 ecstatic visions the wounds show themselves suddenly. 
 Their appearance is invariably accompanied by violent 
 pain, which seems to radiate, in fiery burning darts from 
 the wounds of the image of Christ. As the minds of 
 mystics differ infinitely in energy of will and clearness 
 of perception, the stigmas also are seen more or less 
 distinctly ; and their nature varies from mere reddish 
 points, which become visible on the head, as the effect 
 of a crown of thorns, to real bleeding wounds. The 
 former are apt to disappear as the excitement subsides
 
 MYSTICISM. 459 
 
 or the will is weakened ; the latter, however, are peculiar 
 in this, that they do not continue to bleed, and yet, also, 
 do not heal up. In women, only, they are apt to break 
 out again at regular intervals, for instance, on Fridays, 
 when the mystic excitement again reaches its highest 
 degree, or at other periods whe n pressure of blood seeks 
 an outlet through these new openings. As such a state 
 can continue only by means of lengthened inflamma- 
 tion, stigmatization is always accompanied by violent 
 pains and great suffering, especially during the bleed- 
 ing. 
 
 The earliest of all cases of stigmatization of which 
 nearly seventy are fully authenticated was that of 
 Francis of Assisi, who, after having spent years in fer- 
 vent prayer for permission to share the sufferings of the 
 Saviour, at last saw a seraph with six wings descend 
 toward him, and between the wings the form of a cruci- 
 fied person. At the same moment he felt piercing 
 pains, and when he recovered from his trance he found 
 his hands and feet, as well as his side, bleeding as from 
 severe wounds, and strange, dark excrescences, resem- 
 bling nails, protruding from the wounds in his extremi- 
 ties. As this was the first case of stigmatizatiou known, 
 Francis of Assisi was filled with grave doubts concern- 
 ing the strange phenomenon, and carefully concealed it 
 from all but his most intimate friends. Still the wounds 
 were seen and felt by Pope Alexander and a number of 
 cardinals during his lifetime, and became an object of 
 careful investigation after his death. (Philalethes'
 
 460 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 Divina Comm., Paradiso, p. 144.) There is but one 
 other case, as fully authenticated, in which a man was 
 thus stigmatized; all other trustworthy instances are 
 related of females. How close the connection is 
 between the will and the appearance of these phenom- 
 ena may be seen from one of the best-established 
 cases, that of Joanna of Burgos, in Spain, who had 
 shed much blood every week for twenty years in follow- 
 ing the recital of the passion of our Saviour. When 
 she was seventy years old, her superiors prevailed upon 
 her, by special arguments, to pray fervently for a 
 suspension of her sufferings. She threAV herself down 
 before a crucifix, and remained there a day and a night 
 in incessant prayer; on the next morning the wounds 
 had closed, and never again commenced bleeding. 
 Another evidence of this feature lies in the fact that 
 stigmatization occurs mainly in Italy, the land of 
 imagination, and in Spain, the land of devotion; in 
 Germany only a few cases are known, and not one in 
 the North of Europe and in America. 
 
 Among the famous mystics who do not belong as 
 saints or martyrs exclusively to the Church, stand first 
 and foremost Henry Suso, of the " Living Heart," and 
 John Euysbroek, the so-called Doctor Ecstaticus. The 
 former, who often had trances, and once lay for a long 
 time in syncope, has left behind him some of the most 
 attractive works ever written by religious enthusiasts. 
 He lived in the fourteenth century, and when, two 
 hundred years later, his grave was opened the body was
 
 MYSTICISM. 401 
 
 found unchanged, and fervent admirers believed they 
 perceived pleasing odors emanating from the remains. 
 The Dutch divine Ruysbroek was even more renowned 
 by his holy life and admirable writings than by the 
 many marvelous visions which he enjoyed. The same 
 century produced the most famous preacher Germany 
 has probably ever seen, John Capistran, who attracted 
 the masses by the magic power of his individuality and 
 held them spell-bound by his burning eloquence. A 
 native of Capistrano, in the Abruzzi, where he was born in 
 1385, he became first a lawyer, and gained great distinc- 
 tion as such in Sicily. Unfortunately he was engaged 
 in one of the many petty wars which at that time dis- 
 tracted Italy ; was made a prisoner and cast with 
 barbaric cruelty into a foul dungeon. Here he devoted 
 himself to ascetic devotion, and had a vision ordering 
 him to leave the world. When he regained his liberty, 
 at the age of thirty, he entered the order of Franciscan 
 monks, and soon became a preacher of world-wide 
 renown. Traveling through Italy, Hungary, and Ger- 
 many, lie aifected his audiences by his mere appearance, 
 and produced truly amazing changes in the hearts of 
 thousands. In Vienna he once preached, in the open 
 air, before an assembly of more than a hundred thou- 
 sand men ; the people listened to him for hours amid 
 loud weeping and sobbing, and great numbers were 
 converted, including several hundred Jews. In Bohemia 
 he induced in like manner eleven thousand Hussites to 
 return to the Catholic Church, among whom were
 
 462 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 numerous noblemen and ministers. Similar successes 
 were obtained in almost every large town of Germany, 
 till he was recalled to the South, when Germany be- 
 came indebted to him and to John Corvin for its deliv- 
 erance from the Turks and the famous victory of Bel- 
 grade in 1456. During his whole career he continued to 
 have ecstatic visions, to fall into trances of considerable 
 duration, and to behold stigmas on his body yet, 
 withal, he remained an eminently practical man, not 
 only converting many thousands from their religious 
 errors, but turning them also from vicious habits and 
 criminal pursuits to a life of virtue. At the same 
 time he rendered signal services to his brethren in mere 
 worldly matters, now pleading and now fighting for 
 them with an energy and a success which alone would 
 secure him a name in history. The ecstatic nature of 
 another mystic, Vincentio Ferrer, produced a singular 
 effect, which has never been noticed except in biblical 
 history. He was a native of Valencia, and, knowing no 
 language but the local dialect of his country, he con- 
 tinued throughout life to preach in his mother tongue 
 and yet he was understood by all who heard him ! 
 This result was at least partially explained by the 
 astounding flexibility of his voice, which at all times 
 adapted itself so completely to his feelings, that its 
 tones found a responsive echo in every heart. In vain 
 did the pope, Benedict XIII., offer him first a bishopric 
 and afterwards a cardinal's hat ; the pious monk refused 
 all honors save one, the title of Papal Missionary, and
 
 MYSTICISM. 4G3 
 
 in this capacity he passed through nearly every land in 
 Christendom, preaching and exhorting day and night, 
 exciting everywhere the utmost enthusiasm and con- 
 verting thousands from their evil ways. His eloquence 
 and fervor were so great that even learned men and 
 fierce warriors declared he spoke with the voice of 
 an angel, and criminals of deepest dye would fall down 
 in the midst of great crowds, confessing their misdeeds 
 and solemnly vowing repentance and amendment. 
 
 The greatest of all mystics, however, was the before- 
 mentioned Filippo Neri, a saint of the Catholic Church, 
 whose simple candor and truly Christian humility have 
 procured for him the esteem and the admiration of 
 men of all creeds and all ages. Even as a mere child 
 he was already renowned for his extraordinary gifts as 
 well as for his fervent piety j while still a layman he 
 had numerous visions and trances, and when in his 
 thirtieth year he had prayed for days and nights in the 
 Catacombs of St. Sebastian, his heart became suddenly 
 so enlarged that some of the intercostal muscles gave 
 way, and a great swelling appeared on the outside, which 
 remained there throughout life, although without caus- 
 ing him any pain. His inner fervor was so great as to 
 keep his blood and his whole system continually at 
 fever heat, and although he lived exclusively upon 
 bread, herbs, and olives, he never wore warm clothes, 
 even in the severest winters, always slept with open 
 doors and windows, and preferred walking about with 
 his breast uncovered. During the last ten years of his
 
 464 MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 life his body was no longer able to sustain his ecstatic 
 soul ; whenever he attempted to read mass or to preach, 
 his feelings became so excited that his voice failed him, 
 and he fell into a trance of several hours' duration. It 
 was in this condition that he was frequently lifted up, 
 together with the chair on which he sat, to a height of 
 several feet from the ground. What renders these 
 magic phenomena peculiarly interesting, is the fact that 
 Filippo Neri not only attached no special value to them, 
 but actually did his best to conceal them from the eyes 
 of the world. As soon as they began to show them- 
 selves, he ceased reading mass in the presence of others, 
 and only allowed his attendant to re-enter his cell when 
 the latter had convinced himself, by peeping through a 
 narrow opening in the door, that the trance was over. 
 When others praised his piety and marveled at these 
 wonders, he invariably smiled and said: "Don't you 
 know that I am nothing but a fool and a dreamer ? " 
 
 He added that he would infinitely rather do works 
 which should prove his faith than be the recipient of 
 miraculous favors. But his prestige was so great that 
 whenever he was prevailed upon or thought it his duty 
 to exert his influence, it was paramount, and secured 
 to him a powerful control in historical events. Thus it 
 was when Pope Gregory XIV. had excommunicated 
 King Henry IV., and his successor, Clement VIII., 
 continued the fearful punishment in spite of all the 
 entreaties of king and courtiers. Filippo Xeri, fore- 
 seeing the dangers which were likely to arise from such
 
 MYSTICISM. 465 
 
 measures for the Church, and deeply concerned for the 
 welfare of the French people, retired to prayer, inviting 
 the pope's confessor to join him in his devotions. These 
 had been continued for three days without intermis- 
 sion, when at last the saint fell into a trance, and upon 
 re-awaking from it, told his companion : " To-day the 
 pope will send for you to confess him. You will tell 
 him, when his confession is made : ' Father Filippo has 
 directed me to refuse Your Holiness absolution, and 
 ever to confess you again till you have relieved the 
 King of France from excommunication.'" Clement, 
 deeply moved by this message, summoned immediately 
 the council of cardinals, and Henry IV. was once more' 
 received into the bosom of the Church. In spite of 
 this great influence, Neri sternly refused all honors and 
 dignities, even the purple, which was offered to him 
 three times, and died in 1595, eighty years old, on the 
 day and at the hour which he had long since foretold. 
 That his visions were accompanied by actual stigmati- 
 zation has already been mentioned. 
 
 Our own continent has had but one great mystic, 
 Rosa of Lima, who is hence known as primus Americce 
 mcridionalis flos. She had inherited her peculiar or- 
 ganization from her mother, who had frequently seen 
 visions, and when the child was three years old, changed 
 her name from Isabel to Eosa, because she had seen a 
 rose suspended over the face of her daughter. Much ad- 
 mired on account of her great beauty and rare sweet- 
 ness, the young girl refused all offers, and preferred, in
 
 46G MODERN MAGIC. 
 
 spite- of the remonstrances of friends and of brutal ill- 
 treatment on the part of her brothers, to enter a con- 
 vent. On her way there, however, she felt her steps 
 suddenly arrested by superior force, and saw in this 
 supernatural interruption a hint that she should leave 
 the world even more completely than she could have 
 done as a nun of the Order of St. Dominick. She built 
 herself, therefore, a little cell in her father's garden, and 
 here led a life of ecstatic asceticism, during which she 
 often remained for days and weeks without food, and 
 became strangely intimate with birds and insects. 
 Whenever she took the eucharist, she felt marvelous 
 happiness and fell into trances ; in the intervals, how- 
 ever, she suffered intensely from that depression and 
 utter despair which in such cases are apt to result from 
 powerful reaction. She died quite young, exhausted by 
 her ascetic life and continued excitement, and has ever 
 since been revered as the patron saint of Peru. 
 
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