[82] “Hist. of Magic,” vol. i., p. 9.
[83] Philo Jud.: “De Specialibus Legibus.”
[84] Zend-Avesta, vol. ii., p. 506.
[85] Cassian: “Conference,” i., 21.
[86] “De Vita et Morte Mosis,” p. 199.
[87] Acts of the Apostles, vii., 22.
[88] Justin, xxxvi., 2.
[89] Molitor: “Philosophy of History and Traditions,” Howitt’s
Translation, p. 285.
[90] “Conflict between Religion and Science,” p. 329.
[91] See “Gazette du Midi,” and “Le Monde,” of 3 May, 1864.
[92] Shakspere: “Richard III.”
[93] Literally, the _screaming_ or the howling ones.
[94] The half-demented, the _idiots_.
[95] But such is not always the case, for some among these beggars make
a regular and profitable trade of it.
[96] Webster declares very erroneously that the Chaldeans called
_saros_, the cycle of eclipses, a period of about 6,586 years, “the
time of revolution of the moon’s node.” Berosus, himself a Chaldean
astrologer, at the Temple of Belus, at Babylon, gives the duration of
the sar, or sarus, 3,600 years; a neros 600; and a sossus 60. (See,
Berosus from Abydenus, “Of the Chaldæan Kings and the Deluge.” See also
Eusebius, and Cary’s _MS._ Ex. Cod. reg. gall. gr. No. 2360, fol. 154.)
[97] Before scientists reject such a theory—traditional as it is—it
would be in order for them to demonstrate why, at the end of the
tertiary period, the Northern Hemisphere had undergone such a reduction
of temperature as to utterly change the torrid zone to a Siberian
climate? Let us bear in mind that the _helicocentric system came to us
from upper India_; and that the germs of all great astronomical truths
were brought thence by Pythagoras. So long as we lack a mathematically
correct demonstration, one hypothesis is as good as another.
[98] Censorinus: “De Natal Die.” Seneca: “Nat. Quæst.,” iii., 29.
[99] Euseb.: “Præp. Evan.” Of the Tower of Babel and Abraham.
[100] This is in flat contradiction of the Bible narrative, which
tells us that the deluge was sent for the special destruction of these
_giants_. The Babylon priests had _no_ object to invent lies.
[101] Coleman, who makes this calculation, allowed a serious error
to escape the proof-reader; the length of the manwantara is given at
368,448,000, which is just sixty million years too much.
[102] S. Davis: “Essay in the Asiatic Researches;” and Higgins’s
“Anacalypsis;” also see Coleman’s “Mythology of the Hindus.” Preface,
p. xiii.
[103] Bunsen: “Egypte,” vol. i.
[104] The forty-two Sacred Books of the Egyptians mentioned by Clement
of Alexandria as having existed in his time, were but a portion of the
Books of Hermes. Iamblichus, on the authority of the Egyptian priest
Abammon, attributes 1200 of such books to Hermes, and Manetho 36,000.
But the testimony of Iamblichus as a neo-Platonist and theurgist is of
course rejected by modern critics. Manetho, who is held by Bunsen in
the highest consideration as a “purely historical personage” ... with
whom “none of the later native historians can be compared ...” (see
“Egypte,” i., p. 97), suddenly becomes a Pseudo-Manetho, as soon as the
ideas propounded by him clash with the scientific prejudices against
magic and the occult knowledge claimed by the ancient priests. However,
none of the archæologists doubt for a moment the almost incredible
antiquity of the Hermetic books. Champollion shows the greatest regard
for their authenticity and great truthfulness, corroborated as it is
by many of the oldest monuments. And Bunsen brings irrefutable proofs
of their age. From his researches, for instance, we learn that there
was a line of sixty-one kings before the days of Moses, who preceded
the Mosaic period by a clearly-traceable civilization of several
thousand years. Thus we are warranted in believing that the works of
Hermes Trismegistus were extant many ages before the birth of the
Jewish law-giver. “Styli and inkstands were found on monuments of the
fourth Dynasty, the oldest in the world,” says Bunsen. If the eminent
Egyptologist rejects the period of 48,863 years before Alexander, to
which Diogenes Laertius carries back the records of the priests, he
is evidently more embarrassed with the ten thousand of astronomical
observations, and remarks that “if they were actual observations, they
_must have_ extended over 10,000 years” (p. 14). “We learn, however,”
he adds, “from one of their own old chronological works ... that the
genuine Egyptian traditions concerning the mythological period, treated
of _myriads_ of years.” (“Egypte,” i, p. 15).
[105] Higgins: “Anacalypsis.”
[106] “De Vite Pythag.”
[107] “The Rosicrucians,” etc., by Hargrave Jennings.
[108] W. Crookes, F.R.S.: “Researches in the Phenomena of Spiritualism.”
[109] W. Crookes: “Experiments on Psychic Force,” page 25.
[110] W. Crookes: “Spiritualism Viewed by the Light of Modern Science.”
See “Quarterly Journal of Science.”
[111] A. Aksakof: “Phenomena of Mediumism.”
[112] A. N. Aksakof: “Phenomena of Mediumism.”
[113] “The Last of Katie King,” pamphlet iii., p. 119.
[114] Ibid., pamp. i., p. 7.
[115] “The Last of Katie King,” pamp. iii., p. 112.
[116] Ibid., p. 112.
[117] “Researches in the Phenomena of Spiritualism,” p. 45.
[118] Pfaff’s “Astrology.” Berl.
[119] “Medico-Surgical Essays.”
[120] “The Philosophy of Hist.”
[121] On Theoph. Paracelsus.—Magic.
[122] Kemshead says in his “Inorganic Chemistry” that “the element
_hydrogen_ was first mentioned in the sixteenth century by Paracelsus,
but very little was known of it in any way.” (P. 66.) And why not be
fair and confess at once that Paracelsus was the _re_-discoverer of
hydrogen as he was the _re_-discoverer of the hidden properties of
the magnet and animal magnetism? It is easy to show that according
to the strict vows of secrecy taken and faithfully observed by every
Rosicrucian (and especially by the alchemist) he kept his knowledge
secret. Perhaps it would not prove a very difficult task for any
chemist well versed in the works of Paracelsus to demonstrate that
_oxygen_, the discovery of which is credited to Priestley, was known to
the Rosicrucian alchemists as well as hydrogen.
[123] “Letter to J. Glanvil, chaplain to the king and a fellow of
the Royal Society.” Glanvil was the author of the celebrated work on
Apparitions and Demonology entitled “Sadducismus Triumphatus, or a
full and plain evidence concerning witches and apparitions,” in two
parts, “proving partly by Scripture, and partly by a choice collection
of modern relations, the real existence of apparitions, spirits and
witches.“1700.
[124] Plato: “Timæus Soerius,” 97.
[125] See Movers’ “Explanations,” 268.
[126] Cory: “Chaldean Oracles,” 243.
[127] Philo Judæus: “On the Creation,” x.
[128] Movers: “Phoinizer,” 282.
[129] K. O. Müller, 236.
[130] Weber: “Akad. Vorles,” 213, 214, etc.
[131] Plutarch, “Isis and Osiris,” i., vi.
[132] “Spirit History of Man,” p. 88.
[133] Movers: “Phoinizer,” 268.
[134] Cory: “Fragments,” 240.
[135] “Parerga,” ii., pp. 111, 112.
[136] See Huxley: “Physical Basis of Life.”
[137] Schopenhauer: “Parerga.” Art. on “Will in Nature.”
[138] “Revue des Deux Mondes,” Jan. 15, 1855, p. 108.
[139] Comte de Mirville: “Question des Esprits.”
[140] Bulwer-Lytton: “Zanoni.”
[141] T. Wright: “Narratives of Sorcery and Magic.”
[142] See Des Mousseaux’s “Dodone,” and “Dieu et les dieux,” p. 326.
[143] “Apparitions,” translated by C. Crowe, pp. 388, 391, 399.
[144] “De Abstinentia,” etc.
[145] C. Crowe: “On Apparitions,” p. 398.
[146] Upham: “Salem Witchcraft.”
[147] Brierre de Boismont: “On Hallucinations,” p. 60.
[148] See de Mirville’s “Question des Esprits,” and the works on the
“Phénomènes Spirites,” by de Gasparin.
[149] Honorary Secretary to the National Association of Spiritualists
of London.
[150] Job.
[151] See Dr. F. R. Marvin’s “Lectures on Mediomania and Insanity.”
[152] Vapereau: “Biographie Contemporaine,” art. Littré; and Des
Mousseaux: “Les Hauts Phénomènes de la Magie,” ch. 6.
[153] A. Comte: “Système de Politique Positive,” vol. i. p. 203, etc.
[154] Ibid.
[155] Ibid.
[156] See des Mousseaux: “Hauts Phénomènes de la Magie,” chap. 6.
[157] Littré: “Paroles de Philosophie Positive.”
[158] Littré: “Paroles de Philosophie Positive,” vii., 57.
[159] “Spiritualism and Charlatanism.”
[160] Prof. Hare: “On Positivism,” p. 29.
[161] “Journal des Débats,” 1864. See also des Mousseaux’s “Hauts Phén.
de la Magie.”
[162] “Philosophic Positive,” vol. iv., p. 279.
[163] Dr. F. R. Marvin: “Lecture on Insanity.”
[164] See Howitt: “History of the Supernatural,” vol. ii.
[165] Prof. Huxley: “Physical Basis of Life.”
[166] Reference is made to a card which appeared some time since in a
New York paper, signed by three persons styling themselves as above,
and assuming to be a scientific committee appointed two years before to
investigate spiritual phenomena. The criticism on the triad appeared in
the “New Era” magazine.
[167] Dr. Marvin: “Lecture on Insanity,” N. Y., 1875.
[168] Tyndall: “Fragments of Science.”
[169] Tyndall: Preface to “Fragments of Science.”
[170] Deuteronomy, chap. xvii., 6.
[171] Montesquieu: Esprit des Lois I., xii., chap. 3.
[172] C. B. Warring.
[173] Ammianus Marcellinus, xxiii., 6.
[174] The Rishis were seven in number, and lived in days anteceding
the Vedic period. They were known as sages, and held in reverence like
demi-gods. Haug shows that they occupy in the Brahmanical religion a
position answering to that of the twelve sons of Jacob in the Jewish
Bible. The Brahmans claim to descend directly from these Rishis.
[175] The fourth Veda.
[176] Orthography of the “Archaic Dictionary.”
[177] We do not mean the current or accepted Bible, but the _real_
Jewish one explained kabalistically.
[178] “Dissertations Relating to Asia.”
[179] Dr. Gross, p. 195.
[180] Brahma does _not_ create the earth, _Mirtlok_, any more than
the rest of the universe. Having evolved himself from the soul of the
world, once separated from the First Cause, he emanates in his turn
all nature out of himself. He does not stand above it, but is mixed up
with it; and Brahma and the universe form one Being, each particle of
which is in its essence Brahma himself, who proceeded out of himself.
[Burnouf: “Introduction,” p. 118.]
[181] “Conflict between Religion and Science,” 180.
[182] “Des Tables,” vol. i., p. 213.
[183] Ibid., 216.
[184] “Des Tables,” vol. i., p. 48.
[185] Ibid., p. 24.
[186] Ibid., p. 35.
[187] De Mirville: “Des Esprits,” p. 26.
[188] “Avant propos,” pp. 12 and 16.
[189] Vol. i., p. 244.
[190] Vol. ii., p. 524.
[191] “Medico-Psychological Annals,” Jan. 1, 1854.
[192] De Mirville: “Des Esprits,” “Constitutionnel,” June 16, 1854.
[193] Chevalier des Mousseaux: “Mœurs et Pratiques des Démons,” p. x.
[194] De Mirville: “Des Esprits,” p. 4.
[195] Ibid. “Revue des Deux Mondes,” January 15, 1854, p. 108.
[196] This is a repetition and variation of Faraday’s theory.
[197] “Revue des Deux Mondes,” p. 410.
[198] “Revue des Deux Mondes,” January, 1854, p. 414.
[199] “Revue des Deux Mondes,” May 1, 1854, p. 531.
[200] We translate _verbatim_. We doubt whether Mr. Weekman was the
first investigator.
[201] Babinet: “Revue des Deux Mondes,” May 1, 1854, p. 511.
[202] De Mirville: “Des Esprits,” p. 33.
[203] Notes, “Des Esprits,” p. 38.
[204] De Mirville: “Faits et Théories Physiques,” p. 46.
[205] See Monograph: “Of the Lightning considered from the point of
view of the history of Legal Medicine and Public Hygiene,” by M.
Boudin, Chief Surgeon of the Military Hospital of Boule.
[206] De Gasparin: vol. i, page 288.
[207] Crookes: “Physical Force,” page 26.
[208] De Gasparin: “Science _versus_ Spirit,” vol i, p. 313.
[209] Ibid, vol. 1, p. 313.
[210] De Mirville pleads here the devil-theory, of course.
[211] “Des Tables,” vol. i., p. 213.
[212] Vol. i, p. 217.
[213] Crookes: “Psychic Force,” part i., pp. 26-27.
[214] Plato: “Phædo,” § 44.
[215] Ibid., § 128.
[216] “Philosophy of Magic,” English translation, p. 47.
[217] De Mirville: “Des Esprits,” p. 159.
[218] See F. Gerry Fairfield’s “Ten Years with Spiritual Mediums,” New
York, 1875.
[219] Marvin: “Lecture on Mediomania.”
[220] “Scientific American,” N. Y., 1875.
[221]
“De par le Roi, defense à Dieu, De faire miracle, en ces lieux.”
A satire that was found written upon the walls of the cemetery at the
time of the Jansenist miracles and their prohibition by the police of
France.
[222] Polier: “Mythologie des Indous.”
[223] Genesis vi. 4.
[224] Mallett: “Northern Antiquities,” Bohn’s edition, pp. 401-405.
[225] In the “Quarterly Review” of 1859, Graham gives a strange account
of many now deserted Oriental cities, in which the stone doors are
of enormous dimensions, often seemingly out of proportion with the
buildings themselves, and remarks that dwellings and doors bear all of
them the impress of an ancient race of giants.
[226] Dr. More: “Letter to Glanvil, author of ‘Saducismus Triumphatus.’”
[227] J. S. Y.: “Demonologia, or Natural Knowledge Revealed,” 1827, p.
219.
[228] Pausanias: “Eliæ,” lib. i., cap. xiv.
[229] We apprehend that the noble author coined his curious names by
contracting words in classical languages. _Gy_ would come from _gune_;
_vril_ from _virile_.
[230] P. B. Randolph: “Pre-Adamite Man,” p. 48.
[231] On this point at least we are on firm ground. Mr. Crookes’s
testimony corroborates our assertions. On page 84 of his pamphlet
on “Phenomenal Spiritualism” he says: “The many hundreds of facts I
am prepared to attest—facts which to imitate by known mechanics or
physical means would baffle the skill of a Houdin, a Bosco, or an
Anderson, backed with all the resources of elaborate machinery and
the practice of years—have all taken place in my own house; at times
appointed by myself and under circumstances which absolutely precluded
the employment of the very simplest instrumental aids.”
[232] In this appellation, we may discover the meaning of the puzzling
sentence to be found in the Zend-Avesta that “fire gives knowledge
of the future, science, and amiable speech,” as it develops an
extraordinary eloquence in some sensitives.
[233] Dunlap: “Musah, His Mysteries,” p. iii.
[234] “Hercules was known as the king of the Musians,” says Schwab,
ii., 44; and Musien was the feast of “Spirit and Matter,” Adonis and
Venus, Bacchus and Ceres. (See Dunlap: “Mystery of Adonis,” p. 95.)
Dunlap shows, on the authority of Julian and Anthon (67), Æsculapius,
“the Savior of all,” identical with Phtha (the creative Intellect, the
Divine Wisdom), and with Apollo, Baal, Adonis, and Hercules (ibid., p.
93), and Phtha is the “Anima mundi,” the Universal Soul, of Plato, the
Holy Ghost of the Egyptians, and the Astral Light of the Kabalists.
M. Michelet, however, regards the Grecian Herakles as a different
character, the adversary of the Bacchic revellings and their attendant
human sacrifices.
[235] Plato: “Ion” (Burgess), vol. iv., p. 294.
[236] “Attic.” i., xiv.
[237] Plato: “Theages.” Cicero renders this word δαιμονιον, quiddam
divinum, a divine something, not anything personal.
[238] “Cratylus,” p. 79.
[239] “Arnobius,” vi., xii.
[240] As we will show in subsequent chapters, the sun was not
considered by the ancients as the direct cause of the light and heat,
but only as an agent of the former, through which the light passes
on its way to our sphere. Thus it was always called by the Egyptians
“the eye of Osiris,” who was himself the _Logos_, the First-begotten,
or light made manifest to the world, “which is the mind and divine
intellect of the Concealed.” It is only that light of which we are
cognizant that is the Demiurge, the _creator_ of our planet and
everything pertaining to it; with the invisible and unknown universes
disseminated through space, none of the sun-gods had anything to do.
The idea is expressed very clearly in the “Books of Hermes.”
[241] “Orphic Hymn,” xii.; Hermann; Dunlap: “Musah, His Mysteries,” p.
91.
[242] Movers, 525. Dunlap: “Mysteries of Adonis,” 94.
[243] Preller: ii., 153. This is evidently the origin of the Christian
dogma of Christ descending into hell and overcoming Satan.
[244] This important fact accounts admirably for the gross polytheism
of the masses, and the refined, highly-philosophical conception of
_one_ God, which was taught only in sanctuaries of the “pagan” temples.
[245] Anthon: “Cabeiria.”
[246] Plato: “Phædrus,” Cary’s translation.
[247] John xx. 22.
[248] “Heathen Religion,” 104.
[249] Alkahest, a word first used by Paracelsus, to denote the
menstruum or universal solvent, that is capable of reducing all things.
[250] Josephus: “Antiquities,” vol. viii., c. 2, 5.
[251] “The Land of Charity,” p. 210.
[252] The claims of certain “adepts,” which do not agree with those of
the students of the purely Jewish _Kabala_, and show that the “secret
doctrine” has originated in India, from whence it was brought to
Chaldea, passing subsequently into the hands of the Hebrew “Tanaïm,”
are singularly corroborated by the researches of the Christian
missionaries. These pious and learned travellers have inadvertently
come to our help. Dr. Caldwell, in his “Comparative Grammar of the
Dravidian Languages,” p. 66, and Dr. Mateer, in the “Land of Charity,”
p. 83, fully support our assertions that the “wise” King Solomon got
all his kabalistic lore from India, as the above-given magical figure
well shows. The former missionary is desirous to prove that very old
and huge specimens of the baobab-tree, which is not, as it appears,
indigenous to India, but belongs to the African soil, and “found only
at several ancient sites of foreign commerce (at Travancore), may,
for aught we know,” he adds, “have been introduced into India, and
planted by the servants of King Solomon.” The other proof is still more
conclusive. Says Dr. Mateer, in his chapter on the Natural History of
Travancore: “There is a curious fact connected with the name of this
bird (the peacock) which throws some light upon Scripture history. King
Solomon sent his navy to Tarshish (1 Kings, x. 22), which returned
once in three years, bringing ‘gold and silver, ivory and apes, and
peacocks.’ Now the word used in the Hebrew Bible for peacock is
‘_tukki_,’ and as the Jews had, of course, no word for these fine birds
till they were first imported into Judea by King Solomon, there is no
doubt that ‘tukki’ is simply the old Tamil word ‘_toki_,’ the name of
the peacock. The ape or monkey also is, in Hebrew, called ‘_koph_,’
the Indian word for which is ‘_kaphi_.’ Ivory, we have seen, is
abundant in South India, and gold is widely distributed in the rivers
of the western coast. Hence the ‘Tarshish’ referred to was doubtless
the western coast of India, and Solomon’s ships were ancient ‘East
Indiamen.’” And hence also we may add, besides “the gold and silver,
and apes and peacocks,” King Solomon and his friend Hiram, of masonic
renown, got their “magic” and “wisdom” from India.
[253] Cooke: “New Chemistry,” p. 22.
[254] Eliphas Levi: “Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie.”
[255] Plato hints at a ceremony used in the Mysteries, during the
performance of which the neophyte was taught that men are _in
this life_ in a kind of prison, and taught _how to escape from it
temporarily_. As usual, the too-learned translators disfigured this
passage, partially because they _could not_ understand it, and
partially because they _would not_. See _Phædo_ § 16, and commentaries
on it by Henry More, the well-known Mystic philosopher and Platonist.
[256] The _akasa_ is a Sanscrit word which means sky, but it also
designates the imponderable and intangible life-principle—the astral
and celestial lights combined together, and which two form the _anima
mundi_, and constitute the soul and spirit of man; the celestial light
forming his νοὺς, πνευμα, or divine spirit, and the other his ψυχη soul
or _astral_ spirit. The grosser particles of the latter enter into the
fabrication of his outward form—the body. _Akasa_ is the mysterious
fluid termed by scholastic science, “the all-pervading ether;” it
enters into all the magical operations of nature, and produces
mesmeric, magnetic, and spiritual phenomena. _As_, in Syria, Palestine,
and India, meant the sky, _life_, and the _sun_ at the same time;
the sun being considered by the ancient sages as the great magnetic
well of our universe. The softened pronunciation of this word was
_Ah_—says Dunlap, for “the _s_ continually softens to _h_ from Greece
to Calcutta.” _Ah_ is Iah, Ao, and Iao. God tells Moses that his name
is “I am” (_Ahiah_), a reduplication of Ah or Iah. The word “As” Ah, or
Iah means _life_, _existence_, and is evidently the root of the word
_akasa_, which in Hindustan is pronounced a_h_asa, the life-principle,
or Divine life-giving fluid or medium. It is the Hebrew _ruah_, and
means the “wind,” the breath, _the air in motion_, or “moving spirit,”
according to Parkhurst’s _Lexicon_; and is identical with the spirit of
God _moving_ on the face of the waters.
[257] Bear in mind that Kavindasami made Jacolliot swear that he would
neither approach nor _touch_ him during the time he was entranced. The
least contact with _matter_ would have paralyzed the action of the
freed spirit, which, if we are permitted to use such an unpoetical
comparison, would re-enter its dwelling like a frightened snail,
drawing in its horns at the approach of any foreign substance. In some
cases such a _brusque_ interruption and oozing back of the spirit
(sometimes it may suddenly and altogether break the delicate thread
connecting it with the body) kills the entranced _subject_. See the
several works of Baron du Potet and Puysegur on this question.
[258] “La Magie Devoilée,” p. 147.
[259] “Magie au XIXme Siècle,” p. 268.
[260] Ibid.
[261] Brierre de Boismont: “Des Hallucinations, ou Histoire raisonnée
des apparitions, des songes, des visions, de l’extase du Magnetisme,”
1845, p. 301 (French edition). See also Fairfield: “Ten Years Among the
Mediums.”
[262] Cabanis, seventh memoir: “De l’Influence des Maladies sur la
Formation des Idées,” etc. A respected N. Y. legislator has this
faculty.
[263] Irenæus: Book iii., chap. ii., sec. 8.
[264] The cow is the symbol of prolific generation and of intellectual
nature. She was sacred to Isis in Egypt; to Christna, in India, and
to an infinity of other gods and goddesses personifying the various
productive powers of nature. The cow was held, in short, as the
impersonation of the Great Mother of all beings, both of the mortals
and of the gods, of physical and spiritual generation of things.
[265] In Genesis the river of Eden was parted, “and became into _four_
heads” (Gen. ii. 5).
[266] Genesis iii. 21.
[267] This is claimed to be one of the missing books of the sacred
Canon of the Jews, and is referred to in Joshua and II. Samuel. It
was discovered by Sidras, an officer of Titus, during the sack of
Jerusalem, and published in Venice in the seventeenth century, as
alleged in its preface by the Consistory of Rabbins, but the American
edition, as well as the English, is reputed by the modern Rabbis, to be
a forgery of the twelfth century.
[268] See Godfrey Higgins: “Anacalypsis,” quoting Faber.
[269] See Cory’s “Ancient Fragments.” BEROSUS.
[270] We refer the reader for further particulars to the “Prose Edda”
in Mallett’s “Northern Antiquities.”
[271] It is worthy of attention that in the Mexican “Popol-Vuh” the
human race is created out of a reed, and in Hesiod out of the ash-tree,
as in the Scandinavian narrative.
[272] See Kanne’s “Pantheum der Æltesten Philosophie.”
[273] “Origin of Species,” p. 484.
[274] Ibid. Which latter word we cannot accept unless that “primordial
form” is conceded to be the primal concrete form that spirit assumed as
the _revealed_ Deity.
[275] Ibid., p. 488.
[276] Lecture by T. H. Huxley, F. R. S.: “Darwin and Haeckel.”
[277] “Migration of Abraham,” § 32.
[278] Cory: “Ancient Fragments.”
[279] “Origin of Species,” pp. 448, 489, first edition.
[280] Huxley: “Darwin and Haeckel.”
[281] Mithras was regarded among the Persians as the _Theos ek
petros_—god of the rock.
[282] Bordj is called a fire-mountain—a volcano; therefore it contains
fire, rock, earth, and water—the male and active, and the female or
passive elements. The myth is suggestive.
[283] Virgil: “Georgica,” book ii.
[284] Porphyry and other philosophers explain the nature of the
_dwellers_. They are mischievous and deceitful, though some of them
are perfectly gentle and harmless, but so weak as to have the greatest
difficulty in communicating with mortals whose company they seek
incessantly. The former are not wicked through intelligent malice. The
law of spiritual evolution not having yet developed their instinct into
intelligence, whose highest light belongs but to immortal spirits,
their powers of reasoning are in a latent state and, therefore, they
themselves, irresponsible.
But the Latin Church contradicts the Kabalists. St. Augustine has even
a discussion on that account with Porphyry, the Neo-platonist. “These
spirits,” he says, “are deceitful, _not by their nature_, as Porphyry,
the theurgist, will have it, but through malice. They pass themselves
off for _gods_ and _for the souls of the defunct_” (“Civit. Dei,” book
x., ch. 2). So far Porphyry agrees with him; “but they do not claim
to be _demons_ [read devils], for they are such in reality!” adds the
bishop of Hippo. But then, under what class should we place the men
_without heads_, whom Augustine wishes us to believe he saw himself?
or the satyrs of St. Jerome, which he asserts were exhibited for a
considerable length of time at Alexandria? They were, he tells us, “men
with the legs and tails of goats;” and, if we may believe him, one of
these Satyrs was actually _pickled_ and sent in a cask to the Emperor
Constantine!
[285] “Tria capita exsculpta sunt, una intra alterum, et alterum supra
alterum” (Sohar; “Idra Suta,” sectio vii.)
[286] Gentle gale (lit.)
[287] Higgins: “Anacalypsis;” also “Dupruis.”
[288] Mallett: “Northern Antiquities,” pp. 401-406, and “The Songs of a
Völuspa” Edda.
[289] From a London Spiritualist Journal.
[290] Hemmann: “Medico-Surgical Essays,” Berl., 1778.
[291] Robert Fludd: “Treatise III.”
[292] Prof. J. P. Cooke: “New Chemistry.”
[293] In the “Bulletin de l’Academie de Medecine,” Paris, 1837, vol.
i., p. 343 et seq., may be found the report of Dr. Oudet, who, to
ascertain the state of insensibility of a lady in a magnetic sleep,
pricked her with pins, introducing a long pin in the flesh up to its
head, and held one of her fingers for some seconds in the flame of
a candle. A cancer was extracted from the right breast of a Madame
Plaintain. The operation lasted twelve minutes; during the whole time
the patient talked very quietly with her mesmerizer, and never felt the
slightest sensation (“Bul. de l’Acad. de Med.,” Tom. ii., p. 370).
[294] Prophecy, Ancient and Modern, by A. Wilder: “Phrenological
Journal.”
[295] The theory that the sun is an incandescent globe is—as one of the
magazines recently expressed it—“going out of fashion.” It has been
computed that if the sun—whose mass and diameter is known to us—“were
a solid block of coal, and sufficient amount of oxygen could be
supplied to burn at the rate necessary to produce the effects we see,
it would be completely consumed in less than 5,000 years.” And yet,
till comparatively a few weeks ago, it was maintained—nay, is still
maintained, that the sun is a reservoir of vaporized metals!
[296] See Youmans: “Chemistry on the Basis of the New System—Spectrum
Analysis.”
[297] Professor of Physics in the Stevens Institute of Technology. See
his “The Earth a Great Magnet,“a lecture delivered before the Yale
Scientific Club, 1872. See, also, Prof. Balfour Stewart’s lecture on
“The Sun and the Earth.”
[298] “De Magnetica Vulner Curatione,” p. 722, l. c.
[299] See “On the Influence of the Blue Ray.”
[300] Ennemoser: “History of Magic.”
[301] “Du Magnetisme Animal, en France.” Paris, 1826.
[302] “The Conservation of Energy.” N. Y., 1875.
[303] “Fundamental Principles of Natural Philosophy.”
[304] “Simpl. in Phys.,” 143; “The Chaldean Oracles,” Cory.
[305] Draper: “Conflict between Religion and Science.”
[306] J. R. Buchanan, M.D.: “Outlines of Lectures on the Neurological
System of Anthropology.”
[307] W. and Elizabeth M. F. Denton: “The Soul of Things; or
Psychometric Researches and Discoveries.” Boston, 1873.
[308] “Religion of Geology.”
[309] “Principles of Science,” vol. ii., p. 455.
[310] J. W. Draper: “Conflict between Religion and Science,” pp. 132,
133.
[311] “Unseen Universe,” p. 159.
[312] F. R. Marvin: “Lecture on Mediomania.”
[313] “Unseen Universe,” p. 84, et seq.
[314] Ibid., p. 89.
[315] Behold! great scientists of the nineteenth century, corroborating
the wisdom of the Scandinavian fable, cited in the preceding chapter.
Several thousand years ago, the idea of a bridge between the visible
and the invisible universes was allegorized by ignorant “heathen,” in
the “Edda-Song of Völuspa,” “The Vision of Vala, the Seeress.” For what
is this bridge of Bifrost, the radiant rainbow, which leads the gods
to their rendezvous, near the Urdar-fountain, but the same idea as
that which is offered to the thoughtful student by the authors of the
“Unseen Universe?”
[316] “L’Ami des Sciences,” March 2, 1856, p. 67.
[317] Cooke: “New Chemistry,” p. 113.
[318] Ibid., pp. 110-111.
[319] Ibid., p. 106.
[320] “De Secretis Adeptorum.” Werdenfelt; Philalethes; Van Helmont;
Paracelsus.
[321] Youmans: “Chemistry,” p. 169; and W. B. Kemshead, F. R. A. S.:
“Inorganic Chemistry.”
[322] “Origin of Metalliferous Deposits.”
[323] John Bumpus: “Alchemy and the Alkahest,” 85, J. S. F., edition of
1820.
[324] See Boyle’s works.
[325] Deleuze: “De l’Opinion de Van Helmont sur la Cause, la Nature et
les Effets du Magnetisme.” Anim. Vol. i., p. 45, and vol. ii., p. 198.
[326] A. R. Wallace: “An Answer to the Arguments of Hume, Lecky, etc.,
against Miracles.”
[327] CROOKES: “Researches, etc.,” p. 96.
[328] Lucian: “Pharsalia,” Book v.
[329] “De Divinatio,” Book i., chap. 3.
[330] “De Occulta Philosoph.,” p. 355.
[331] Plato: “Timæus,” vol. ii., p. 563.
[332] Crookes: “Researches, etc.,” p. 101.
[333] Ibid., p. 101.
[334] Crookes: “Researches, etc.,” p. 83.
[335] In 1854, M. Foucault, an eminent physician and a member of the
French Institute, one of the opponents of de Gasparin, rejecting the
mere possibility of any such manifestations, wrote the following
memorable words: “That day, when I should succeed in moving a straw
under the action of my will only, I would feel terrified!” The word
is ominous. About the same year, Babinet, the astronomer, repeated in
his article in the “Revue des Deux Mondes,” the following sentence
to exhaustion: “The levitation of a body _without contact_ is as
_impossible_ as the perpetual motion, because on the day it would be
done, _the world would crumble down_.” Luckily, we see no sign as yet
of such a cataclysm; yet bodies _are_ levitated.
[336] “Researches, etc.,” p. 91.
[337] Ibid., pp. 86-97.
[338] Ibid., p. 94.
[339] Ibid., p. 95.
[340] Ibid., p. 94.
[341] “Antidote,” lib. i., cap. 4.
[342] “Letter to Glanvil, the author of ‘Sadducismus Triumphatus,’ May
25, 1678.”
[343] “History of Magic,” vol. ii., p. 272.
[344] “Apologie pour tous les grands personnages faussement accusés de
magie.”
[345] Berlin, 1817.
[346] “Nova Medicina Spirituum,” 1675.
[347] “History of Magic.”
[348] It would be a useless and too long labor to enter here upon the
defence of Kepler’s theory of relation between the five regular solids
of geometry and the magnitudes of the orbits of five principal planets,
rather derided by Prof. Draper in his “Conflict.” Many are the theories
of the ancients that have been avenged by modern discovery. For the
rest, we must bide our time.
[349] “Magia Naturalis,” Lugduni, 1569.
[350] Athanasis Kircher: “Magnes sive de arte magnetici, opus
tripartitum.” Coloniæ, 1654.
[351] Lib. iii., p. 643.
[352] “Notes from a New Historical Relation of the Kingdom of Siam,” by
de la Loubère, French Ambassador to Siam in the years 1687-8. Edition
of 1692.
[353] Baptist Van Helmont: “Opera Omnia,” 1682, p. 720, and others.
[354] De la Loubère: “Notes,” etc. (see _ante_), p. 115.
[355] Ibid., p. 120.
[356] Ibid., p. 63.
[357] See his “Conf.,” xiii., l. c. in præfatione.
[358] 1 Samuel, xvi. 14-23.
[359] “Aphorisms,” 22.
[360] Ibid., p. 69.
[361] Ibid., p. 70.
[362] “Philosophie des Sciences Occultes.”
[363] 1 Kings, i. 1-4, 15.
[364] Josephus: “Antiquities,” viii. 2.
[365] “The Diakka and their Victims; an Explanation of the False and
Repulsive in Spiritualism.”
[366] See Chapter on the human spirits becoming the denizens of the
_eighth_ sphere, whose end is generally the _annihilation_ of personal
individuality.
[367] Porphyry: “On the Good and Bad Demons.”
[368] “De Mysteriis Egyptorum,” lib. iii., c. 5.
[369] Epes Sargent: “Proof Palpable of Immortality,” p. 45.
[370] See Matthew xxiv. 26.
[371] See Wallace, “Miracles and Modern Spiritualism,” and W. Howitt,
“History of the Supernatural,” vol. ii.
[372] See Wallace’s paper read before the Dialectical Society, in 1871:
“Answer to Hume, etc.”
[373] “Φιλολογος” (Bailey’s), second edition.
[374] See Art. on “Æthrobacy.”
[375] Psalm cv. 23. “The Land of Ham,” or _chem_, Greek χημι, whence
the terms _alchemy_ and _chemistry_.
[376] “Œdipi Ægyptiaci Theatrum Hieroglyphicum,” p. 544.
[377] “Lib. de Defectu Oraculorum.“
[378] Lib. i., Class 3, _Cap. ult._
[379] The details of this story may be found in the work of Erasmus
Franciscus, who quotes from Pflaumerus, Pancirollus, and many others.
[380] ”_Sulphur. Alum_ ust. a ℥ iv.; sublime them into flowers to
℥ ij., of which add of crystalline Venetian borax (powdered) ℥ j.;
upon these affuse high rectified spirit of wine and digest it, then
abstract it and pour on fresh; repeat this so often till the sulphur
melts like wax without any smoke, upon a hot plate of brass: this is
for the _pabulum_, but the wick is to be prepared after this manner:
gather the threads or thrums of the _Lapis asbestos_, to the thickness
of your middle and the length of your little finger, then put them into
a Venetian glass, and covering them over with the aforesaid depurated
sulphur or aliment, set the glass in sand for the space of twenty-four
hours, so hot that the sulphur may bubble all the while. The wick
being thus besmeared and anointed, is to be put into a glass like a
scallop-shell, in such manner that some part of it may lie above the
mass of prepared sulphur; then setting this glass upon hot sand, you
must melt the sulphur, so that it may lay hold of the wick, and when it
is lighted, it will burn with a perpetual flame and you may set this
lamp in any place where you please.”
The other is as follows:
“℞ _Salis tosti_, lb. j.; affuse over it strong wine vinegar, and
abstract it to the consistency of oil; then put on fresh vinegar and
macerate and distill it as before. Repeat this four times successively,
then put into this vinegar _vitr. antimonii subtilis lœvigat_, lb.
j.; set it on ashes in a close vessel for the space of six hours, to
extract its tincture, decant the liquor, and put on fresh, and then
extract it again; this repeat so often till you have got out all the
redness. Coagulate your extractions to the consistency of oil, and then
rectify them in Balneo Mariæ (bain Marie). Then take the antimony,
from which the tincture was extracted, and reduce it to a very fine
meal, and so put it into a glass bolthead; pour upon it the rectified
oil, which abstract and cohobate seven times, till such time as the
powder has imbibed all the oil, and is quite dry. This extract again
with spirit of wine, so often, till all the essence be got out of it,
which put into a Venice matrass, well luted with paper five-fold, and
then distill it so that the spirit being drawn off, there may remain at
the bottom an inconsumable oil, to be used with a wick after the same
manner with the sulphur we have described before.”
“These are the eternal lights of Tritenheimus,” says Libavius, his
commentator, “which indeed, though they do not agree with the pertinacy
of naphtha, yet these things can illustrate one another. Naphtha is not
so durable as not to be burned, for it exhales and deflagrates, but if
it be fixed by adding the juice of the _Lapis asbestinos_ it can afford
perpetual fuel,” says this learned person.
We may add that we have ourselves seen a lamp so prepared, and we are
told that since it was first lighted on May 2, 1871, it has not gone
out. As we know the person who is making the experiment incapable to
deceive any one, being himself an ardent experimenter in hermetic
secrets, we have no reason to doubt his assertion.
[381] “Commentary upon St. Augustine’s ‘Treatise de Civitate Dei.’”
[382] The author of “De Rebus Cypriis,” 1566 A.D.
[383] “Book of Ancient Funerals.”
[384] “Comment. on the 77th Epigram of the IXth Book of Martial.”
[385] “De Defectu Oraculorum.”
[386] “Vulgar Errors,” p. 124.
[387] “London Dialectical Society’s Report on Spiritualism,” p. 229.
[388] Ibid., p. 230.
[389] Ibid., p. 265.
[390] Ibid., p. 266.
[391] Draper: “Conflict between Religion and Science,” p. 121.
[392] Milton: “Paradise Lost.”
[393] See Ennemoser: “History of Magic,” vol. ii., and Schweigger:
“Introduction to Mythology through Natural History.”
[394] “History of Magic,” vol. ii.
[395] B. Jowett, M. A.: “The Dialogues of Plato,” vol. ii., p. 508.
[396] “Conflict between Religion and Science,” p. 240.
[397] “Plutarch,” translated by Langhorne.
[398] Some kabalistic scholars assert that the Greek original
Pythagoric sentences of Sextus, which are now said to be lost, existed
still, in a convent at Florence, at that time, and that Galileo was
acquainted with these writings. They add, moreover, that a treatise on
astronomy, a manuscript by Archytas, a direct disciple of Pythagoras,
in which were noted all the most important doctrines of their school,
was in the possession of Galileo. Had some _Ruffinas_ got hold of
it, he would no doubt have perverted it, as Presbyter Ruffinas has
perverted the above-mentioned sentences of Sextus, replacing them with
a fraudulent version, the authorship of which he sought to ascribe to a
certain Bishop Sextus. See Taylor’s Introduction to Iamblichus’ “Life
of Pythagoras,” p. xvii.
[399] Jowett: Introduction to the “Timæus,” vol. ii., p. 508.
[400] Ibid.
[401] “Conflict between Religion and Science,” p. 14.
[402] “Conflict between Religion and Science,” p. 311.
[403] “Egypt’s Place in Universal History,” vol. v., p. 88.
[404] W. R. Grove: “Preface to the Correlation of Physical Forces.”
[405] “Timæus,” p. 22.
[406] Beginning with Godfrey Higgins and ending with Max Müller, every
archæologist and philologist who has fairly and seriously studied the
old religions, has perceived that taken literally they could only lead
them on a false track. Dr. Lardner disfigured and misrepresented the
old doctrines—whether unwittingly or otherwise—in the grossest manner.
The _pravritti_, or the existence of nature when alive, in activity,
and the _nirvritti_, or the rest, the state of non-living, is the
Buddhistic esoteric doctrine. The “pure nothing,” or non-existence,
if translated according to the esoteric sense, would mean the “pure
spirit,” the NAMELESS or something our intellect is unable to grasp,
hence nothing. But we will speak of it further.
[407] This is the exact opposite of the modern theory of evolution.
[408] Ficinus: See “Excerpta” and “Dissertation on Magic;” Taylor:
“Plato,” vol. i., p. 63.
[409] “Modern American Spiritualism,” p. 119.
[410] The full and correct name of this learned Society is—“The
American Association for the _Advancement_ of Science.” It is, however,
often called for brevity’s sake, “The American Scientific Association.”
[411] See Taylor’s translation of “Select Works of Plotinus,” p. 553,
etc.
[412] Iamblichus: “De Vita Pythag.,” additional notes (Taylor).
[413] “The National Quarterly Review,” Dec., 1875.
[414] Ibid., p. 94.
[415] “Force and Matter,” p. 151.
[416] Burnouf: “Introduction,” p. 118.
[417] “The National Quarterly Review,” Dec., 1875, p. 96.
[418] “De Anima,” lib. i., cap. 3.
[419] De Maistre: “Soirées de St. Petersburg.”
[420] We need not go so far back as that to assure ourselves that many
great men believed the same. Kepler, the eminent astronomer, fully
credited the idea that the stars and all heavenly bodies, even our
earth, are endowed with living and thinking souls.
[421] We are not aware that a copy of this ancient work is embraced in
the catalogue of any European library; but it is one of the “Books of
Hermes,” and it is referred to and quotations are made from it in the
works of a number of ancient and mediæval philosophical authors. Among
these authorities are Arnoldo di Villanova’s “Rosarium philosoph.;”
Francesco Arnolphim’s “Lucensis opus de lapide,” Hermes Trismegistus’
“Tractatus de transmutatione metallorum,” “Tabula smaragdina,” and
above all in the treatise of Raymond Lulli, “Ab angelis opus divinum de
quinta essentia.”
[422] Quicksilver.
[423] “Hermes,” iv. 6. Spirit here denotes the Deity—Pneuma, ὁ θέος.
[424] “Magia Adamica,” p. 11.
[425] _The ignorance of the ancients of the earth’s sphericity is
assumed without warrant._ What proof have we of the fact? It was only
the literati who exhibited such an ignorance. Even so early as the
time of Pythagoras, the Pagans taught it, Plutarch testifies to it,
and Socrates died for it. Besides, as we have stated repeatedly, all
knowledge was concentrated in the sanctuaries of the temples from
whence it very rarely spread itself among the uninitiated. If the
sages and priests of the remotest antiquity were not aware of this
astronomical truth, how is it that they represented Kneph, the spirit
of the _first hour_, with an egg placed on his lips, the egg signifying
our globe, to which he imparts life by his breath. Moreover, if, owing
to the difficulty of consulting the Chaldean “Book of Numbers,” our
critics should demand the citation of other authorities, we can refer
them to Diogenes Laertius, who credits Manetho with having taught that
the earth was in the shape of a ball. Besides, the same author, quoting
most probably from the “Compendium of Natural Philosophy,” gives the
following statements of the Egyptian doctrine: “The beginning is matter
Αρχῆν μὲν εῖναι ὕλην ἴλλεσθα, and from it the four elements separated....
The true form of God is unknown; but the world had a beginning and
is therefore perishable.... The moon is eclipsed when it crosses
the shadow of the earth” (Diogenes Laertius: “Proœin,” §§ 10, 11).
Besides, Pythagoras is credited with having taught that the earth was
round, that it rotated, and was but a planet like any other of these
celestial bodies. (See Fenelon’s “Lives of the Philosophers.”) In the
latest of Plato’s translations (“The Dialogues of Plato,” by Professor
Jowett), the author, in his introduction to “Timæus,” notwithstanding
“an unfortunate doubt” which arises in consequence of the word ἵλλεσθαι
capable of being translated either “circling” or “compacted,” feels
inclined to credit Plato with having been familiar with the rotation
of the earth. Plato’s doctrine is expressed in the following words:
“The earth which is our nurse (compacted or) _circling_ around the
pole which is extended through the universe.” But if we are to believe
Proclus and Simplicius, Aristotle understood this word in “Timæus”
“to mean circling or revolving” (De Cœlo), and Mr. Jowett himself
further admits that “Aristotle attributed to Plato the doctrine of the
rotation of the earth.” (See vol. ii. of “Dial. of Plato.” Introduction
to “Timæus,” pp. 501-2.) It would have been extraordinary, to say
the least, that Plato, who was such an admirer of Pythagoras and who
certainly must have had, as an initiate, access to the most secret
doctrines of the great Samian, should be ignorant of such an elementary
astronomical truth.
[426] “Wisdom of Solomon,” xi. 17.
[427] Eugenius Philalethes: “Magia Adamica.”
[428] Hargrave Jennings: “The Rosicrucians.”
[429] “Timæus.”
[430] “Our Place among Infinities,” p. 313.
[431] Ibid.
[432] Ibid., p. 314.
[433] The library of a relative of the writer contains a copy of a
French edition of this unique work. The prophecies are given in the
old French language, and are very difficult for the student of modern
French to decipher. We give, therefore, an English version, which
is said to be taken from a book in the possession of a gentleman in
Somersetshire, England.
[434] See Rawlinson, vol. xvii., pp. 30-32, Revised edition.
[435] Jowett: Introduction to “Timæus,” “Dial. of Plato,” vol. i., p.
509.
[436] N. B.—He lived in the first century B. C.
[437] Stobæus: “Eclogues.”
[438] Kieser: “Archiv.,” vol. iv., p. 62. In fact, many of the old
symbols were mere puns on names.
[439] See “Rig-Vedas,” the Aitareya-Brahmanan.
[440] Brahma is also called by the Hindu Brahmans Hiranyagarbha or the
_unit_ soul, while _Amrita_ is the supreme soul, the first cause which
emanated from itself the creative Brahma.
[441] Marbod: “Liber lapid. ed Beekmann.”
[442] “The Sun and the Earth,” Lecture by Prof. Balfour Stewart.
[443] “La Loi Naturelle,” par Volney.
[444] “Diction. Philosophique,” Art. “Philosophie.”
[445] “Boston Lecture,” December, 1875.
[446] Weber: “Ind. Stud.,” i. 290.
[447] Wilson: “Rig-Veda Sanhita,” ii. 143.
[448] “Duncker,” vol. ii., p. 162.
[449] “Wultke,” ii. 262.
[450] Daniel vii. 9, 10.
[451] Book of Enoch, xiv. 7, ff.
[452] This proposition, which will be branded as _preposterous_, but
which we are ready to show, on the authority of Plato (see Jowett’s
Introd. to “the Timæus;” last page), as a Pythagorean doctrine,
together with that other of the sun being but the lens through which
the light passes, is strangely corroborated at the present day,
by the observations of General Pleasonton of Philadelphia. This
experimentalist boldly comes out as a revolutionist of modern science,
and calls Newton’s centripetal and centrifugal forces, and the law of
gravitation, “fallacies.” He fearlessly maintains his ground against
the Tyndalls and Huxleys of the day. We are glad to find such a learned
defender of one of the oldest (and hitherto treated as the _most
absurd_) of hermetic _hallucinations_ (?) (See General Pleasonton’s
book, “The Influence of the Blue Ray of the Sunlight, and of the Blue
Color of the Sky, in developing Animal and Vegetable Life,” addressed
to the Philadelphia Society for Promoting Agriculture.)
[453] In no country were the true esoteric doctrines trusted to
writing. The Hindu Brahma Maia, was passed from one generation to
another by _oral_ tradition. The Kabala was never written; and Moses
intrusted it orally but to his elect. The primitive pure Oriental
gnosticism was completely corrupted and degraded by the different
subsequent sects. Philo, in the “de Sacrificiis Abeli et Caini,” states
that there is a mystery _not to be revealed_ to the uninitiated.
Plato is silent on many things, and his disciples refer to this
fact constantly. Any one who has studied, even superficially, these
philosophers, on reading the institutes of Manu, will clearly perceive
that they all drew from the same source. “This universe,” says Manu,
“existed only _in the first divine idea, yet unexpanded, as if involved
in darkness_, imperceptible, indefinable, undiscoverable by reason, and
undiscovered _by revelation_, as if it were wholly immersed in sleep;
then the sole self-existing Power himself undiscerned, appeared with
undiminished glory, _expanding his idea_, or dispelling _the gloom_.”
Thus speaks the first code of Buddhism. Plato’s idea is the _Will_, or
Logos, the deity which manifests itself. It is the Eternal Light from
which proceeds, as an _emanation_, the visible and _material_ light.
[454] It appears that in descending from Mont Blanc, Tyndall suffered
severely from the heat, though he was knee-deep in the snow at the
time. The Professor attributed this to the burning rays of the sun, but
Pleasonton maintains that if the rays of the sun had been so intense
as described, they would have melted the snow, which they did not; he
concludes that the heat from which the Professor suffered came from his
own body, and was due to the electrical action of sunlight upon his
dark woolen clothes, which had become electrified positively by the
heat of his body. The cold, dry ether of planetary space and the upper
atmosphere of the earth became negatively electrified, and falling upon
his warm body and clothes, positively electrified, evolved an increased
heat (see “The Influence of the Blue Ray,” etc., pp. 39, 40, 41, etc.).
[455] The most curious of all “curious coincidences,” to our mind is,
that our men of science should put aside facts, striking enough to
cause them to use such an expression when speaking of them, instead of
setting to work to give us a philosophical explanation of the same.
[456] See Charles Elam, M.D.: “A Physician’s Problems,” London, 1869,
p. 159.
[457] Jowett: “Timæus.”
[458] Ibid.
[459] According to General Pleasonton’s theory of positive and negative
electricity underlying every psychological, physiological, and cosmic
phenomena, the abuse of alcoholic stimulants transforms a man into
a woman and _vice versa_, by changing their _electricities_. “When
this change in the condition of his electricity has occurred,” says
the author, “his attributes (those of a drunkard) become _feminine_;
he is irritable, irrational, excitable ... becomes violent, and if
he meets his wife, whose normal condition of electricity is like his
present condition, positive, they repel each other, become mutually
abusive, engage in conflict and deadly strife, and the newspapers of
the next day announce the verdict of the coroner’s jury on the case....
Who would expect to find the discovery of the moving cause of all
these terrible crimes in the perspiration of the criminal? and yet
science has shown that the metamorphoses of _a man into a woman_, by
changing the negative condition of his electricity into the _positive_
electricity of the woman, with all its attributes, is disclosed by the
character of his perspiration, superinduced by the use of alcoholic
stimulants” (“The Influence of the Blue Ray,” p 119).
[460] Plato: “Timæus.”
[461] Littré: “Revue des Deux Mondes.”
[462] See des Mousseaux’s “Œuvres des Demons.”
[463] Du Potet: “Magie Devoilée,” pp. 51-147.
[464] Ibid., p. 201.
[465] Baron Du Potet: “Cours de Magnetisme,” pp. 17-108.
[466] “De Occulto Philosophiâ,” pp. 332-358.
[467] Cicero: “De Natura Deorum,” lib. i., cap. xviii.
[468] Eliphas Levi.
[469] “Timæus.” Such like expressions made Professor Jowett state in
his Introduction that Plato taught the attraction of similar bodies
to similar. But such an assertion would amount to denying the great
philosopher even a rudimentary knowledge of the laws of magnetic poles.
[470] Alfred Marshall Mayer, Ph.D.: “The Earth a Great Magnet,” a
lecture delivered before the Yale Scientific Club, Feb. 14, 1872.
[471] “Strange Story.”
[472] See Taylor’s “Pausanias;” MS. “Treatise on Dæmons,” by Psellus,
and the “Treatise on the Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries.”
[473] Iamblichus: “De Vita Pythag.”
[474] “Anacalypsis,” vol. i., p. 807.
[475] Iamblichus: “Life of Pythagoras,” p. 297.
[476] Bulwer-Lytton: “Zanoni.”
[477] Cory: “Phædrus,” i. 328.
[478] This assertion is clearly corroborated by Plato himself, who
says: “You say that, in my former discourse, I have not sufficiently
explained to you the nature of the _First, I purposely spoke
enigmatically_, that in case the tablet should have happened with any
accident, either by land or sea, a person, _without some previous
knowledge of the subject, might not be able to understand its
contents_” (“Plato,” Ep. ii., p. 312; Cory: “Ancient Fragments”).
[479] “Josephus against Apion,” ii., p. 1079.
[480] See chapter ix., p.
[481] “Illusion; matter in its triple manifestation in the earthly, and
the astral or fontal soul, or the body, and the Platonian dual soul,
the rational and the irrational one,” see next chapter.
[482] “Perfection of Wisdom.”
[483] Porphyry gives the credit to Plotinus his master, of having been
united with “God” six times during his life, and complains of having
attained to it but twice, himself.
[484] Orpheus is said to have ascribed to the grand cycle 120,000 years
of duration, and Cassandrus 136,000. See Censorinus: “de Natal. Die;”
“Chronological and Astronomical Fragments.”
[485] W. and E. Denton; “The Soul of Things,” vol. i.
[486] See the “Cosmogony of Pherecydes.”
[487] See a few pages further on the quotation from the “Codex of the
Nazarenes.”
[488] See Plato’s “Timæus.”
[489] On the authority of Irenæus, Justin Martyr, and the “Codex”
itself, Dunlap shows that the Nazarenes treated their “spirit,” or
rather soul, as a female and _Evil Power_. Irenæus, accusing the
Gnostics of heresy, calls Christ and the Holy Ghost “the _gnostic pair_
that produce the Æons” (Dunlap: “Sod, the Son of the Man,” p. 52,
foot-note).
[490] Fetahil was with the Nazarenes the king of light, and the
_Creator_; but in this instance he is the unlucky Prometheus, who fails
to get hold of the _Living Fire_, necessary for the formation of the
divine soul, as he is ignorant of the _secret_ name (the ineffable or
incommunicable name of the kabalists).
[491] The spirit of matter and concupiscence.
[492] See Franck’s “Codex Nazaræus” and Dunlap’s “Sod, the Son of the
Man.”
[493] “Codex Nazaræus,” ii. 233.
[494] This Mano of the Nazarenes strangely resembles the Hindu Manu,
the heavenly man of the “Rig-Vedas.”
[495] “I am the _true vine_ and my Father is the husbandman” (John xv.
1).
[496] With the Gnostics, Christ, as well as Michael, who is identical
in some respects with him, was the “Chief of the Æons.”
[497] “Codex Nazaræus,” i. 135.
[498] Ibid.
[499] “Codex Nazaræus,” iii. 61.
[500] The Astral Light, or _anima mundi_, is dual and bi-sexual. The
male part of it is purely divine and spiritual; it is the _Wisdom_;
while the female portion (the spiritus of the Nazarenes) is tainted,
in one sense, with matter, and therefore is evil already. It is the
life-principle of every living creature, and furnishes the astral
soul, the fluidic _perisprit_ to men, animals, fowls of the air, and
everything living. Animals have only the germ of the highest immortal
soul as a third principle. It will develop but through a series of
countless evolutions; the doctrine of which evolution is contained in
the kabalistic axiom: “A stone becomes a plant; a plant a beast; a
beast a _man_; a man a _spirit_; and the spirit a god.”
[501] See Commentary on “Idra Suta,” by Rabbi Eleashar.
[502] _Sod_ means a religious Mystery. Cicero mentions the _sod_, as
constituting a portion of the _Idean_ Mysteries. “The members of the
_Priest-Colleges_ were called _Sodales_,” says Dunlap, quoting Freund’s
“Latin Lexicon,” iv. 448.
[503] The author of the “Sohar,” the great kabalistic work of the first
century B.C.
[504] See Abbé Huc’s works.
[505] “The Sohar,” iii. 288; “Idra Suta.”
[506] Everard: “Mystères Physiologiques,” p. 132.
[507] See Plato’s “Timæus.”
[508] “Supernatural Religion; an Inquiry into the Reality of Divine
Revelation,” vol. ii. London, 1875.
[509] See “Heavenly Arcana.”
[510] Burges: Preface.
[511] “Seventh Letter.”
[512] “The True Christian Religion.”
[513] E. A. Hitchcock: “Swedenborg, a Hermetic Philosopher.”
[514] “Ripley Revived,” 1678.
[515] “Mosaicall Philosophy,” p. 173. 1659.
[516] “Correlation of Vital with Chemical and Physical Forces,” by J.
Le Conte.
[517] “Archives des Sciences,” vol. xlv., p. 345. December, 1872.
[518] Aristotle: “De Generat. et Corrupt.,” lib. ii.
[519] “De Part.,” an. lib. i., c. 1.
[520] A Pythagorean oath. The Pythagoreans swore by their master.
[521] See Lemprière: “Classical Dictionary.”
[522] Psel. in Alieb: “Chaldean Oracles.”
[523] Proc. in 1 “Alieb.”
[524] From the Latin word _mensa_—table. This curious letter is copied
in full in “La Science des Esprits,” by Eliphas Levi.
[525] The Sulanuth is described in chap. lxxx., vers. 19, 20, of
“Jasher.”
[526] “And when the Egyptians hid themselves on account of the swarm”
(one of the plagues alleged to have been brought on by Moses) “ ...
they locked their doors after them, and God ordered the _Sulanuth_ ...”
(a _sea-monster_, naively explains the translator, in a foot-note)
“which was then in the sea, to come up and go into Egypt ... and she
had long arms, ten cubits in length ... and she went upon the roofs
and uncovered the rafting and cut them ... and stretched forth her arm
into the house and removed the lock and the bolt and opened the houses
of Egypt ... and the swarm of animals destroyed the Egyptians, and it
grieved them exceedingly.”
[527] “Strom,” vi., 17, § 159.
[528] Ibid., vi., 3, § 30.
[529] “Gorgias.”
[530] “Timæus.”
[531] Cory: “Phædro,” i. 69.
[532] Ibid., i. 123.
[533] Cory: “Phædras;” Cory’s “Plato,” 325.
[534] See “The Unseen Universe,” pp. 205, 206.
[535] See Bulwer-Lytton: “Strange Story,” p. 76. We do not know where
in literature can be found a more vivid and beautiful description of
this difference between the life-principle of man and that of animals,
than in the passages herein briefly alluded to.
[536] A. R. Wallace: “The Action of Natural Selection on Man.”
[537] W. Denton: “The Soul of Things,” p. 273.
[538] “Herodotus,” b. i., c. 181.
[539] “Anthropology,” p. 125.
[540] “Of Sacrifices to Gods and Dæmons,” chap. ii.
[541] “Odyssey,” book vii.
[542] Porphyry: “Of Sacrifices to Gods and Dæmons,” chap. ii.
[543] Ibid.
[544] Iamblichus: “De Mysteriis Egyptorum.”
[545] Ibid.: “On the Difference between the Dæmons, the Souls, etc.”
[546] Du Potet: “La Magie Devoilée.”
[547] We wonder if Father Felix is prepared to include St. Augustine,
Lactantius, and Bede in this category?
[548] For instance, Copernicus, Bruno, and Galileo? For further
particulars see the “Index Expurgatorius.” Verily, wise are such
popular sayings, as that, “Boldness carries off cities at one shout.”
[549] This statement, neither Herbert Spencer nor Huxley will be likely
to traverse. But Father Felix seems insensible of his own debt to
science; if he had said this in February, 1600, he might have shared
the fate of poor Bruno.
[550] “Le Mystère et la Science,” conferences, P. Felix de Notre Dame;
des Mousseaux: “Hauts Phen. Magie.”
[551] Damascius, in the “Theogony,” calls it _Dis_, “the disposer of
all things.” Cory: “Ancient Fragments,” p. 314.
[552] Plato: “Timæus.”
[553] “Suidas: v. Tyrrhenia.”
[554] The reader will understand that by “years” is meant “ages,” not
mere periods of twelve lunar months each.
[555] See the Greek translation by Philo Byblius.
[556] Cory: “Ancient Fragments.”
[557] We give the spelling and words of this Kabalist who lived and
published his works in the seventeenth century. Generally he is
considered as one of the most famous alchemists among the Hermetic
philosophers.
[558] The most positive of materialistic philosophers agree that all
that exists was evolved from ether; hence, air, water, earth, and fire,
the four primordial elements must also proceed from ether and chaos
the first _Duad_; all the imponderables, whether now known or unknown,
proceed from the same source. Now, if there is a spiritual essence in
matter, and that essence forces it to shape itself into millions of
individual forms, why is it illogical to assert that each of these
spiritual kingdoms in nature is peopled with beings evolved out of its
own material? Chemistry teaches us that in man’s body there are air,
water, earth, and heat, or fire—_air_ is present in its components;
_water_ in the secretions; _earth_ in the inorganic constituents;
and _fire_ in the animal heat. The Kabalist knows by experience that
an elemental spirit contains only one, and that each one of the four
kingdoms has its own peculiar elemental spirits; man being higher than
they, the law of evolution finds its illustration in the combination of
all four in him.
[559] Görres: “Mystique,” lib. iii., p. 63.
[560] The ancients called “the soul” the spirits of bad people; the
soul was the _larva_ and _lemure_. Good human spirits became gods.
[561] Porphyry: “De Sacrificiis.” Chapter on the true Cultus.
[562] “Mysteries of the Egyptians.”
[563] Second century, A.D. “Du Dieu de Socrate,” Apul. class., pp.
143-145.
[564] “Eastern Monachism,” p. 9.
[565] “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” iv. 385.
[566] Hardy: “Manual of Buddhism;” Dunlap: “The World’s Religions.”
[567] Lemprière (“Classical Dictionary,” art. “Pythagoras”) says that
“there is great reason to suspect the truth of the whole narrative of
Pythagoras’ journey into India,” and concludes by saying that this
philosopher had never seen either Gymnosophists or their country. If
this be so, how account for the doctrine of the metempsychosis of
Pythagoras, which is far more that of the Hindu in its details than
the Egyptian? But, above all, how account for the fact that the name
MONAS, applied by him to the First Cause, is the identical appellation
given to that Being in the Sanscrit tongue? In 1792-7, when Lemprière’s
“Dictionary” appeared, the Sanscrit was, we may say, utterly unknown;
Dr. Haug’s translation of the “Aitareya Brahmana” (“Rig-Vedas”), in
which this word occurs, was published only about _twenty_ years ago,
and until that valuable addition to the literature of archaic ages was
completed, and the precise age of the “Aitareya” now fixed by Haug at
2000-2400 B.C.—was a mystery, it might be suggested, as in the case
of Christian symbols, that the Hindus _borrowed_ it from Pythagoras.
But now, unless philology can show it to be a “coincidence,” and that
the word _Monas_ is not the same in its minutest definitions, we have
a right to assert that Pythagoras was in India, and that it was the
Gymnosophists who instructed him in his metaphysical theology. The
fact alone that “Sanscrit, as compared with Greek and Latin, is an
elder sister,” as Max Müller shows, is not sufficient to account for
the perfect identity of the Sanscrit and Greek words MONAS, in their
most metaphysical, abstruse sense. The Sanscrit word Deva (god) has
become the Latin _deus_, and points to a common source; but we see in
the Zoroastrian “Zend-Avesta” the same word, meaning diametrically the
opposite, and becoming _daêva_, or evil spirit, from which comes the
word _devil_.
[568] Haug: “Aitareya Brahmanam.”
[569] Ibid.
[570] Berosus: fragment preserved by Alex. Polyhostor; Cory: “Of the
Cosmogony and the Deluge.”
[571] Some writer has employed a most felicitous expression in
describing the majesty of the Hindu archaic monuments, and the
exquisite finish of their sculpture. “They built,” says he, “like
giants, and finished like jewelers.”
[572] “Anatomie Cerebrale,” Malacorne, Milan.
[573] Psellus, 6, Plet. 2; Cory: “Chaldean Oracles.”
[574] See “Lecture on the Vedas.”
[575] In order to avoid being contradicted by some spiritualists
we give verbatim the language in question, as a specimen of the
unreliability of the oracular utterances of certain “spirits.” Let them
be human or elemental, but spirits capable of such effrontery may well
be regarded by occultists as anything but safe guides in philosophy,
exact science, or ethics. “It will be remembered,” says Mrs. Cora V.
Tappan, in a public discourse upon the “History of Occultism and its
Relations to Spiritualism” (see “Banner of Light,” Aug. 26, 1876),
“that the ancient word witchcraft, or the exercise of it, was forbidden
among the Hebrews. The translation is that no witch should be allowed
to live. That has been supposed to be the literal interpretation; and
acting upon that, your very pious and devout ancestors put to death,
without adequate testimony, numbers of very intelligent, wise, and
sincere persons, under the condemnation of witchcraft. It has now
turned out that the interpretation or translation should be, that no
witches should be allowed to obtain a living by the practice of their
art. That is, it should not be made a profession.” May we be so bold
as to inquire of the celebrated speaker, through _whom or according to
what_ authority such a thing has ever _turned out_?
[576] Mr. Cromwell F. Varley, the well-known electrician of the
Atlantic Cable Company, communicates the result of his observations, in
the course of a debate at the Psychological Society of Great Britain,
which is reported in the “Spiritualist” (London, April 14, 1876, pp.
174, 175). He thought that the effect of free nitric acid in the
atmosphere was able to drive away what he calls “unpleasant spirits.”
He thought that those who were troubled by unpleasant spirits at home,
would find relief by pouring one ounce of vitriol upon two ounces of
finely-powdered nitre in a saucer and putting the mixture under the
bed. Here is a scientist, whose reputation extends over two continents,
who gives a recipe to drive away bad spirits. And yet the general
public mocks as a “_superstition_” the herbs and incenses employed by
Hindus, Chinese, Africans, and other races to accomplish the self-same
purpose.
[577] “Art-Magic,” p. 97.
[578] This phantom is called _Scin Lecca_. See Bulwer-Lytton’s “Strange
Story.”
[579] In the Strasbourg edition of his works (1603), Paracelsus writes
of the wonderful _magical_ power of man’s spirit. “It is possible,”
he says, “that my spirit, without the help of the body, and through
a fiery will alone, and without a sword, can stab and wound others.
It is also possible that I can bring the spirit of my adversary into
an image, and then double him up and lame him ... the exertion of
will is a great point in medicine.... Every imagination of man comes
through the heart, for this is the sun of the microcosm, and out of
the microcosm proceeds the imagination into the great world (universal
ether) ... the imagination of man is a seed which is _material_.” (Our
atomical modern scientists have proved it; see Babbage and Professor
Jevons.) “Fixed thought is also a means to an end. The magical is a
great _concealed wisdom_, and reason is a great public foolishness. No
armor protects against magic, for it injures the _inward_ spirit of
life.”
[580] “Salem Witchcraft; With an Account of Salem Village,” by C. W.
Upham.
[581] “Odyssey,” A. 82.
[582] “Æneid,” book vi., 260.
[583] “De Dæmon,” cap. “Quomodo dæm occupent.”
[584] Numquid dæmonum corpora pulsari possunt? Possunt sane, atque
dolere solido quodam _percussa_ corpore.
[585] Ubi secatur, mox in se iterum recreatur et coalescit ... dictu
velocius dæmoni cus spiritus in se revertitor.
[586] A magistrate of the district.
[587] This appalling circumstance was authenticated by the Prefect of
the city, and the Proconsul of the Province laid the report before the
Emperor. The story is modestly related by Mrs. Catherine Crowe (see
“Night-Side of Nature,” p. 335).
[588] Pliny, xxx., 1.
[589] T. Wright, M.A., F.S.A., etc.: “Sorcery and Magic,” vol. iii.
[590] “Art-Magic,” pp. 159, 160.
[591] “Art-Magic,” p. 28.
[592] Fakir, beggar.
[593] A juggler so called.
[594] “Mœurs et Pratiques des Demons.”
[595] “Histoire du Merveilleux dans les Temps Modernes,” vol. ii., p.
262.
[596] Ibid.
[597] Ibid., p. 265.
[598] Ibid., pp. 267, 401, 402.
[599] Ibid., pp. 266, etc., 400.
[600] Ibid., p. 403.
[601] “Histoire du Merveilleux,” vol. i., p. 397.
[602] Ibid., pp. 26-27.
[603] Ibid., p. 238.
[604] Des Mousseaux: “Magie au XIXme Siècle,” p. 452.
[605] Hume: “Philosophical Essays,” p. 195.
[606] “Histoire du Merveilleux,” p. 401.
[607] Ibid.
[608] Ibid., vol. ii., pp. 410, 411.
[609] Ibid., p. 407.
[610] Villecroze: “Le Docteur H. d’Alger,” 19 Mars, 1861. Pierrart:
vol. iv., pp. 254-257.
[611] Bruce: “Travels to Discover the Sources of the Nile,” vol. x.,
pp. 402-447; Hasselquist: “Voyage in the Levant,” vol. i., pp. 92-100;
Lemprière: “Voyage dans l’Empire de Maroc, etc., en 1790,” pp. 42-43.
[612] Salverte: “La Philosophie de la Magie. De l’Influence sur les
Animaux,” vol. i.
[613] Thibaut de Chanvallon: “Voyage à la Martinique.”
[614] Salverte: “Philosophy of Magic.”
[615] Forbes: “Oriental Memoirs,” vol. i., p. 44; vol. ii., p. 387.
[616] Stedmann: “Voyage in Surinam,” vol. iii., pp. 64, 65.
[617] See “Edinburgh Review,” vol. lxxx., p. 428, etc.
[618] Elam: “A Physician’s Problems,” p. 25.
[619] The “Immortality of the Soul,” by Henry More. Fellow of Christ’s
College, Cambridge.
[620] D^r H. More: “Immortality of the Soul,” p. 393.
[621] “Transactions of the Medical Society of N. Y.,” 1865-6-7.
[622] “Dublin Quarterly Journal of Medical Science,” vol. xv., p. 263,
1853.
[623] “Recherches d’Anatomie transcendante et Pathologique, etc.,”
Paris, 1832.
[624] “Silliman’s Journal of Science and Art,” vol. x., p. 48.
[625] “Precis Elementaire de Physiologie,” p. 520.
[626] Ibid., p. 521.
[627] “Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie,” p. 175.
[628] “Transactions of Medical Society, etc.,” p. 246.
[629] Fournié: “Physiologie du Système Nerveux, Cerebro-spinal,” Paris,
1872.
[630] Ibid.
[631] “Night-Side of Nature,” by Catherine Crowe, p. 434, _et seq._
[632] Henry More: “Immortality of the Soul,” p. 399.
[633] By the word _soul_, neither Demokritus nor the other philosophers
understood the _nous_ or _pneuma_, the divine _immaterial_ soul, but
the _psychè_, or astral body; that which Plato always terms the second
_mortal_ soul.
[634] Balfour Stewart, LL.D., F.R.S.: “The Conservation of Energy,” p.
133.
[635] Fournié: “Physiologie du Système Nerveux,” p. 16.
[636] “A System of Logic.” Eighth ed., 1872, vol. ii., p. 165.
[637] Draper: “Conflict between Religion and Science,” p. 22.
[638] Edward L. Youmans, M.D.; “A Class-book of Chemistry,” p. 4.
[639] Sprengel, in his “History of Medicine,” makes Van Helmont
appear as if disgusted with the charlatanry and ignorant presumption
of Paracelsus. “The works of this latter,” says Sprengel, “which he
(Van Helmont) had attentively read, aroused in him the spirit of
reformation; but they alone did not suffice for him, because his
erudition and judgment were infinitely superior to those of that
author, and he _despised_ this _made egoist_, this ignorant and
ridiculous vagabond, who often seemed to have fallen into insanity.”
This assertion is perfectly false. We have the writings of Helmont
himself to refute it. In the well-known dispute between two writers,
Goclenius, a professor in Marburg, who supported the great efficacy of
the sympathetic salve discovered by Paracelsus, for the cure of every
wound, and Father Robert, a Jesuit, who condemned all these cures, as
he attributed them to the Devil. Van Helmont undertook to settle the
dispute. The reason he gave for interfering was that all such disputes
“affected Paracelsus as their discoverer and _himself as his disciple_”
(see “De Magnetica Vulner.,” and l. c., p. 705).
[640] Demokritus said that, as from nothing, nothing could be produced,
so there was not anything that could ever be reduced _to nothing_.
[641] J. Le Conte: “Correlation of Vital with Chemical and Physical
Forces,” appendix.
[642] The date is incorrect; it should be 1784.
[643] Ecclesiastes i. 10.
[644] Ibid., i. 6.
[645] Ibid., i. 7.
[646] Siljeström: “Minnesfest öfver Berzelius,” p. 79.
[647] “Séance de l’Academie de Paris,” 13 Août, 1807.
[648] Mollien: “Voyage dans l’interieur de l’Afrique,” tome ii., p. 210.
[649] “The Popular Science Monthly,” May, 1876, p. 110.
[650] Malte-Brun, pp. 372, 373; Herodotus.
[651] “The Popular Science Monthly,” Dec., 1874, p. 252, New York.
[652] The “Periplus of Hanno.”
[653] The original was suspended in the temple of Saturn, at Carthage.
Falconer gave two dissertations on it, and agrees with Bougainville in
referring it to the sixth century before the Christian era. See Cory’s
“Ancient Fragments.”
[654] Professor Jowett.
[655] “On the Atlantic Island (from Marcellus) Ethiopic History.”
[656] “Alchemy, or the Hermetic Philosophy.”
[657] See “Revue Encyclopédique,” vol. xxxiii., p. 676.
[658] “Bulletin de la Soc. Geograph,” vol. vi., pp. 209-220.
[659] See “Revue Encyclopédique,” vols. xxxiii. and xxxiv., pp. 676-395.
[660] Porphyry: “Epistola ad Anebo., ap. Euseb. Præp. Evangel,” v. 10;
Iamblichus: “De Mysteriis Ægypt.; “Porphyrii: “Epistola ad Anebonem
Ægyptium.”
[661] “Porphyry,” says the “Classical Dictionary” of Lemprière, “was a
man of universal information, and, according to the testimony of the
ancients, he excelled his contemporaries in the knowledge of history,
mathematics, music, and _philosophy_.”
[662] “On the Scientific Use of the Imagination.”
[663] Epes Sargent. See his pamphlet, “Does Matter do it All?”
[664] In his “Essay on Classification” (sect. xvii., pp. 97-99),
Louis Agassiz, the great zoölogist, remarks: “Most of the arguments
in favor of the immortality of man apply equally to the permanency
of this principle in other living beings. May I not add that a
future life in which man would be deprived of that great source of
enjoyment and intellectual and moral improvement, which results from
the contemplation of the harmonies of an organic world would involve
a lamentable loss? And may we not look to a spiritual concert of the
combined worlds and _all_ their inhabitants in the presence of their
creator as the highest conception of paradise?”
[665] “Diog. in Vita.”
[666] See the works of Robertus de Fluctibus; and the “Rosicrucians,”
by Hargrave Jennings.
[667] Professor B. Stewart: “Conservation of Energy.”
[668] Cabanis: “Histoire de la Medecine.”
[669] “De Vatibus in Problemate,” sect. 21.
[670] See Max Müller: “The Meaning of Nirvana.”
[671] “The Lankâvatâra,” transl. by Burnouf, p. 514.
[672] “Classical Dictionary.”
[673] See Cabanis, “Histoire de la Medecine.”
[674] “Le Lotus de la bonne Loi,” by E. Burnouf, translated from the
Sanscrit.
[675] “Cosmos,” vol. iii., part i., p. 168.
[676] “Lecture on the Vedas.”
[677] “The Classical Journal,” vol. iv., pp. 107, 348.
[678] See “Mosheim.”
[679] “New Platonism and Alchemy.”
[680] Origen: “Contra Celsum.”
[681] “Fatti relativi al Mesmerismo,” pp. 88, 93, 1842.
[682] “Leonard de Vair,” l. ii., ch. ii.; “La Magie au 19me Siècle,” p.
332.
[683] “The Tinnevelly Shanars,” p. 43.
[684] Pierart: “Revue Spiritualiste,” chapter on “Vampirism.”
[685] Maimonides: “Abodah Sarab,” 12 Absh, 11 Abth.
[686] Pierart: “Revue Spiritualiste.”
[687] Dr. Pierart: “Revue Spiritualiste,” vol. iv., p. 104.
[688] See “Hauts Phen.,” p. 199.
[689] “Huetiana,” p. 81.
[690] Dom Calmet: “Apparitions,” etc. Paris, 1751, vol. ii., p. 47;
“Hauts Phen. de la Magie,” 195.
[691] “Hauts Phen.,” p. 196.
[692] Ibid.
[693] See the same sworn testimony in official documents: “De l’Inspir.
des Camis,” H. Blanc, 1859. Plon, Paris.
[694] Dom Calmet: “Apparit.,” vol. ii., chap, xliv., p. 212.
[695] Pierart: “Revue Spiritualiste,” vol. iv., p. 104.
[696] “Sadducismus Triumphatus,” vol. ii., p. 70.
[697] Görres: “Complete Works,” vol. iii., ch. vii., p. 132.
[698] “Ashes to Ashes,” London: Daldy, Isbister & Co., 1875.
[699] The author refers all those who may doubt such statements to G.
A. Walker’s “Gatherings from Graveyards,” pp. 84-193, 194, etc.
[700] Horst: “Zauber Bibliothek,” vol. v., p. 52.
[701] See Eliphas Levi: “La Science des Esprits.”
[702] Henry Maudsley: “Body and Mind.”
[703] Josiah Cooke, Jr.: “The New Chemistry.”
[704] Henry Maudsley: “The Limits of Philosophical Inquiry,” p. 266.
[705] “Scientific American,” August 12, 1868.
[706] Le Conte: “Correlation of Vital with Chemical and Physical
Forces.”
[707] The wood-apple.
[708] Incorrect; the Hindustani word for monkey is _rūkh-charhä_.
Probably _chokra_, a little native servant is meant.
[709] “Book of Ser Marco Polo,” vol. i., pp. 306, 307.
[710] Delrio: “Disquis. Magic,” pp. 34, 100.
[711] Col. H. Yule: “The Book of Ser Marco Polo,” vol. i., p. 308.
[712] Edward Melton: “Engelsh Edelmans, Zeldzaame en Geden Kwaardige
Zee en Land Reizen, etc.,” p. 468. Amsterdam, 1702.
[713] “Memoirs of the Emperor Jahangire,” pp. 99, 102.
[714] J. Hughes Bennett: “Text Book of Physiology,” Lippincott’s
American Edition, pp. 37-50.
[715] “Curiosités Inouïes.”
[716] “Thoughts on the Birth and Generation of Things.”
[717] C. Crowe: “Night-Side of Nature,” p. 111.
[718] Pliny: “Hist. Nat.,” vii., c. 52; and Plutarch: “Discourse
concerning Socrates’ Dæmon,” 22.
[719] “De Res. Var.,” v. iii., i., viii., c. 43. Plutarch: “Discourse
concerning Socrates’ Dæmon,” 22.
[720] Nasse: “Zeitschrift fur Psychische Aerzte,” 1820.
[721] Osborne: “Camp and Court of Rundjit Singh;” Braid: “On France.”
[722] Mrs. Catherine Crowe, in her “Night-Side of Nature,” p. 118,
gives us the particulars of a similar burial of a fakir, in the
presence of General Ventura, together with the Maharajah, and many of
his Sirdars. The political agent at Loodhiana was “present when he was
disinterred, ten months after he had been buried.” The coffin, or box,
containing the fakir “being buried in a vault, the earth was thrown
over it and trod down, after which a crop of barley was sown on the
spot, and sentries placed to watch it. The Maharajah, however, was so
skeptical that in spite of all these precautions, he had him, twice in
the ten months, dug up and examined, and each time he was found to be
_exactly in the same state_ as when they had shut him up.”
[723] Todd: Appendix to “Occult Science,” vol. i.
[724] “A Cornel. Cels.,” lib. ii., cap. vi.
[725] “Hist. Nat.,” lib. vii., cap. lii.
[726] “Morning Herald,” July 21, 1836.
[727] “La Science des Esprits.”
[728] “Vit. Apollon. Tyan.,” lib. iv., ch. xvi.
[729] Salverte: “Sciences Occultes,” vol. ii.
[730] “La Science des Esprits.”
[731] It would be beneficial to humanity were our modern physicians
possessed of the same inestimable faculty; for then we would have on
record less horrid deaths _after_ inhumation. Mrs. Catherine Crowe,
in the “Night-Side of Nature,” records in the chapter on “Cases
of Trances” _five_ such cases, in England alone, and during the
present century. Among them is Dr. Walker of Dublin and a Mr. S——,
whose stepmother was accused of poisoning him, and who, upon being
disinterred, was found lying on his face.
[732] A. Wilder: “Neo-platonism and Alchemy.”
[733] Iamblichus was the founder of the Neo-platonic theurgy.
[734] See the “Sketch of the Eclectic Philosophy of the Alexandrian
School.”
[735] See “Medium and Daybreak,” July 7, 1876, p. 428.
[736] In Volume II., we will distinctly prove that the _Old Testament_
mentions the worship of more than one god by the Israelites. The
El-Shadi of Abraham and Jacob was not the Jehovah of Moses, or the
Lord God worshipped by them for forty years in the wilderness. And the
God of Hosts of Amos is not, if we are to believe his own words, the
Mosaic God, the Sinaïtic deity, for this is what we read: “I hate, I
despise your feast-days ... your meat-offerings, I will not accept
them.... Have ye offered unto _me_ sacrifices and offerings in the
wilderness forty years, O house of Israel?... No, but _ye have borne
the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun_ (Saturn), your images, the
star of your god, which ye made to yourselves.... Therefore, will I
cause you to go into captivity ... saith the _Lord, whose name is The
God of hosts_” (Amos v. 21-27).
[737] Chapter xviii.
[738] This word “_up_” from the spirit of a prophet whose abode ought
certainly to be in heaven and who therefore ought to have said “to
bring me down,” is very suggestive in itself to a Christian, who
locates paradise and hell at two opposite points.
[739] Ezekiel iii. 12-14.
[740] William Howitt: “History of the Supernatural,” vol. ii., ch. i.
[741] Lib. i., Sat. 8.
[742] Porphyry: “Of Sacrifices.”
[743] Genesis xviii. i.
[744] Daniel x. 8.
[745] 1 Samuel, x. 6.
[746] Gospel according to John vii. 20.
[747] Our informant, who was an eye-witness, is Mr. N—— ff of St.
Petersburg, who was attached to the flag-ship _Almaz_, if we are not
mistaken.
[748] “What forces were in operation to cause this oscillation of the
newspaper?” asks J. W. Phelps, who quotes the case—“These were the
rapid upward motion of heated air, the downward motion of cold air,
the translatory motion of the surface breeze, and the circular motion
of the whirlwind. But how could these combine so as to produce the
oscillation?” (Lecture on “Force Electrically Explained.”)
[749] “Revue des Deux Mondes,” p. 414, 1858.
[750] “Conservation of Energy,” p. 140.
[751] Eugenius Philalethes.
[752] “Book of Ser Marco Polo,” vol. i., p. 215.
[753] See “Sage’s Dictionnaire des Tissus,” vol. ii., pp. 1-12.
[754] “Book of Ser Marco Polo,” vol. i., p. 230.
[755] “Alchemy, or the Hermetic Philosophy,” p. 25.
[756] See Plutarch: “Symposiacs,” viii. 2. “Diogenianas began and said:
‘Let us admit Plato to the conference and inquire upon what account
he says—supposing it to be his sentence—that _God always plays the
geometer_.‘ I said: ‘This sentence was not plainly set down in any of
his books; yet there are good arguments that it is his, and it is very
much like his expression.’ Tyndares presently subjoined: ‘He praises
geometry as a science that takes off men from sensible objects, and
makes them apply themselves to the intelligible and Eternal Nature—the
contemplation of which is the end of philosophy, as a view of the
mysteries of initiation into holy rites.’”
[757] Prof. Ed. L. Youmans: “Descriptive Chemistry.”
[758] In ancient nations the Deity was a trine supplemented by a
goddess—the _arba-Ih_, or fourfold God.
[759] Josiah Cooke: “The New Chemistry.”
[760] Prof. Sterry Hunt’s theory of metalliferous deposits contradicts
this; but is it right?
[761] Peisse: “La Médecine et les Médecins,” vol. i., pp. 59, 283.
[762] “The Conservation of Energy.”
[763] Ibid., p. 136.
[764] Extracts from Robertus di Fluctibus in “The Rosicrucians.”
[765] “Philopseud.”
[766] Diog. Laert. in “Demokrit. Vitæ.”
[767] “Satyric. Vitrus D. Architect,” lib. ix., cap. iii.
[768] Pliny: “Hist. Nat.”
[769] “Conflict between Religion and Science.”
[770] “Book of Ser Marco Polo,” vol. i., pp. 133-135.
[771] “Dionysius of Halicarnassus.”
[772] See vol. ii., chap. 8.
[773] J. M. Peebles: “Around the World.“
[774] John Fiske: ” The North American Review,” art. The Laws of
History, July 1869.
[775] J. M. Peebles: “Around the World.”
[776] Savary: “Letters on Egypt,” vol. ii., p. 67. London, 1786.
[777] John Fiske: “North American Review,” art. The Laws of History,
July, 1869.
[778] Sir G. C. Lewis: “Astronomy of the Ancients.”
[779] J. Fiske: “North American Review,” art. The Laws of History.
[780] We shall attempt to demonstrate in Vol. II., chapter viii., that
the ancient Æthiopians were never a Hamitic race.
[781] Servius: “Virgil,” Eclog. vi., v. 42.
[782] Ovid: “Fast.,” lib. iii., v. 285-346.
[783] “Titus Livius,” lib. i., cap. xxxi.
[784] Pliny: “Hist. Nat.,” lib. ii., cap. liii.
[785] Lucius: “Piso;” Pliny: “Hist. Nat.,” lib. xxviii., c. ii.
[786] “Columella,” lib. x., vers. 346, etc.
[787] See “Notice sur les Travaux de l’Academie du Gard,” part i., pp.
304-314, by la Boissière.
[788] “Bell. Jud. adv. Roman,” lib. v., cap. xiv.