Astrology in Antiquity--Modern Astrology and
Alchymy--Torralvo--Adventures of Dr. Dee and Edward
Kelly--Prospero and Comus Types respectively of the Theurgic
and Goetic Arts--Magicians on the Stage in the 16th
century--Occult Science in Southern Europe--Causes of the
inevitable mistakes of the pre-Scientific Ages.
The nobler arts of magic, astrology, alchymy, necromancy, &c.,
were equally in vogue in this age with that of the infernal art
proper. But they were more respected. Professors of those arts
were habitually sought for with great eagerness by the highest
personages, and often munificently rewarded. In antiquity
astrology had been peculiarly Oriental in its origin and
practice. The Egyptians, and especially the Chaldaeans, introduced
the foreign art to the West among the Greeks and Italians; the
Arabs revived it in Western Europe in the Middle Age. Under the
early Roman Empire the Chaldaic art exercised and enjoyed
considerable influence and reputation, if it was often subject to
sudden persecutions. Augustus was assisted to the throne, and
Severus selected his wife, by its means. After it had once
firmly established itself in the West,[105] the Oriental
astrology was soon developed and reduced to a more regular
system; and in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Dee and
Lilly enjoyed a greater reputation than even Figulus or
Thrasyllus had obtained in the first century. Queen Elizabeth and
Catherine di Medici (two of the astutest persons of their age)
patronised them. Dr. Dee in England, and Nostradamus in France,
were of this class. Dr. Caius, third founder of a college still
bearing his name in the university of Cambridge, Kelly, Ashmole,
and Lilly, are well-known names in the astrological history of
this period. Torralvo, whose fame as an aerial voyager is
immortalised by Cervantes in 'Don Quixote,' was as great a
magician in Spain and Italy as Dee in England, although not so
familiar to English readers as their countryman, the protege of
Elizabeth. Neither was his magical faculty so well rewarded. Dr.
Torralvo, a physician, had studied medicine and philosophy with
extraordinary success, and was high in the confidence of many
of the eminent personages of Spain and Italy, for whom he
fortunately predicted future success. A confirmed infidel or
freethinker, he was denounced to the Inquisition by the treachery
of an associate as denying or disputing the immortality of the
soul, as well as the divinity of Christ. This was in 1529.
Torralvo, put to the torture, admitted that his informing spirit,
Zequiel, was a demon by whose assistance he performed his aerial
journeys and all his extraordinary feats, both of prophecy and of
actual power. Some part of the severity of the tortures was
remitted by the demon's opportune reply to the curiosity of the
presiding inquisitors, that Luther and the Reformers were bad and
cunning men. Torralvo seems to have avoided the extreme penalty
of fire by recanting his heresies, submitting to the superior
judgment of his gaolers, and still more by the interest of his
powerful employers; and he was liberated not long afterwards.
[105] The diffusion and progress of astrology in the last
two centuries before the Empire, in Greece and Italy, was
favoured chiefly by the four following causes: its
resemblance to the meteorological astrology of the Greeks;
the belief in the conversion of the souls of men into stars;
the cessation of the oracles; the belief in a tutelary
genius.--Sir G. C. Lewis's _Historical Survey of the
Astronomy of the Ancients_, chap. v.
The life of Dr. Dee, an eminent Cambridge mathematician, and of
his associate Edward Kelly, forms a curious biography. Dee was
born in 1527. He studied at the English and foreign universities
with great success and applause; and while the Princess Elizabeth
was quite young he acquired her friendship, maintained by
frequent correspondence, and on her succession to the throne the
queen showed her good will in a conspicuous manner. John Dee left
to posterity a diary in which he has inserted a regular account
of his conjurations, prophetic intimations, and magical
resources. Notwithstanding his mathematical acumen, he was the
dupe of his cunning subordinate--more of a knave, probably, than
his master. In 1583 a Polish prince, Albert Laski, visiting the
English court, frequented the society of the renowned astrologer,
by whom he was initiated in the secrets of the art; and predicted
to be the future means of an important revolution in Europe. The
astrologers wandered over all Germany, at one time favourably
received by the credulity, at another time ignominiously ejected
by the indignant disappointment, of a patron.[106] Dee returned
to England in 1589, and was finally appointed to the wardenship
of the college at Manchester. In James's reign he was well
received at Court, his reputation as a magician increasing; and
in 1604 he is found presenting a petition to the king, imploring
his good offices in dispelling the injurious imputation of being
'a conjuror, or caller, or invocator of devils.' Lilly, the most
celebrated magician of the seventeenth century in England, was in
the highest repute during the civil wars: his prophetic services
were sought with equal anxiety by royalists and patriots, by king
and parliament.[107] Sometimes the professor of the occult
science may have been his own dupe: oftener he imposed and
speculated upon the credulity of others.
[106] While traversing Bohemia, on a particular occasion, it
was revealed to be God's pleasure that the two friends
should have a community of wives; a little episode noted in
Dee's journal. 'On Sunday, May 3, 1587, I, John Dee, Edward
Kelly, and our two wives, covenanted with God, and
subscribed the same for indissoluble unities, charity, and
friendship keeping between us four, and all things between
us to be common, as God by sundry means willed us to do.' A
sort of inspiration of frequent occurrence in religious
revelations, from the times of the Arabian to those of the
American prophet.
[107] William Lilly wrote a History of his own life and
times. His adroitness in accommodating his prophecies to the
alternating chances of the war does him considerable credit
as a prophet.
Prospero is the type of the Theurgic, as Comus is of the Goetic,
magician. His spiritual minister belongs to the order of good, or
at least middle spirits--
'Too black for heav'n, and yet too white for hell.'[108]
[108] Released by his new lord from the sorceric spell of
that 'damn'd witch Sycorax,' he comes gratefully, if
somewhat weariedly, to answer his 'blest pleasure; be't to
fly, to swim, to dive into the fire, to ride on the curl'd
clouds,' &c.
Prospero, by an irresistible magic, subdued to his service the
reluctant Caliban, a monster 'got by the devil himself upon his
wicked dam:' but that semi-demon is degraded into a mere beast of
burden, brutal and savage, with little of the spiritual essence
of his male parent. Comus, as represented in that most beautiful
drama by the genius of Milton, is of the classic rather than
Christian sort: he is the true son of Circe, using his mother's
method of enchantment, transforming his unwary victims into the
various forms or faces of the bestial herd. Like the island
magician without his magical garment, the wicked enchanter
without his wand loses his sorceric power; and--
'Without his rod reversed,
And backward mutters of dissevering power,'
it is not possible to disenchant his spell-bound prisoners.
In the sixteenth century many wonderful stories obtained of the
tremendous feats of the magic art. Those that related the lives
of Bacon, and of Faust (of German origin), were best known in
England; and, in the dramatic form, were represented on the
stage. The comedy of 'Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay,' and the
tragedy of 'The Life and Death of Dr. Faustus,' are perhaps the
most esteemed of the dramatic writings of the age which preceded
the appearance of Shakspeare. In the latter Faustus makes a
compact with the devil, by which a familiar spirit and a
preternatural art are granted him for twenty-four years. At
the end of this period his soul is to be the reward of the
demons.[109] From the 'Faustus' of Christopher Marlow, Goethe has
derived the name and idea of the most celebrated tragedy of our
day.
[109] Conscious of his approaching fate, the trembling
magician replies to the anxious inquiries of his surrounding
pupils--'"For the vain pleasure of four-and-twenty years
hath Faustus lost eternal joy and felicity. I writ them a
bill with my own blood; the date is expired; this is the
time, and he will fetch me." First Scholar--"Why did not
Faustus tell us of this before, that divines might have
prayed for thee?" Faust--"Oft have I thought to have done
so; but the devil threatened to tear me in pieces if I named
God; to fetch me body and soul if I once gave ear to
divinity. And now it is too late."' As the fearful moment
fast approaches, Dr. Faustus, orthodox on the subject of the
duration of future punishment, exclaims in agony--
'Oh! if my soul must suffer for my sin,
Impose some end to my incessant pain.
Let Faustus live in hell a thousand years--
A hundred thousand, and at the last be saved:
No end is limited to damned souls.
Why wert thou not a creature wanting soul?
Oh, why is this immortal that thou hast?' &c.
Mephistopheles, it need hardly be added, was on this occasion
true to his reputation for punctuality. _Friar Bacon and
Friar Bungay_ is remarked for being one of the last dramatic
pieces in which the devil appears on the stage in his proper
person--1591. It is also noticeable that he is the only
Scripture character in the new form of the play retained from
the _miracles_ which delighted the spectators in the
fifteenth century, who were at once edified and gratified by
the corporal chastisement inflicted upon his vicarious back.
Magic and necromantic prowess was equally recognised in Southern
Europe. The Italian poets employed such imposing paraphernalia in
the construction of an epic; and Cervantes has ridiculed the
prevailing belief of his countrymen.[110]
[110] Benvenuto Cellini, the Florentine engraver, in his
amusing _Autobiography_, astonishes his readers with some
necromantic wonders of which he was an eyewitness. Cellini
had become acquainted and enamoured with a beautiful
Sicilian, from whom he was suddenly separated. He tells with
his accustomed candour and confidence, 'I was then indulging
myself in pleasures of all sorts, and engaged in another
amour to cancel the memory of my Sicilian mistress. It
happened, through a variety of odd accidents, that I made
acquaintance with a Sicilian priest, who was a man of
genius, and well versed in the Latin and Greek authors.
Happening one day to have some conversation with him upon
the art of necromancy, I, who had a great desire to know
something of the matter, told him I had all my life felt a
curiosity to be acquainted with the mysteries of this art.
The priest made answer that the man must be of a resolute
and steady temper who enters upon that study.' And so it
should seem from the event. One night, Cellini, with a
companion familiar with the Black Art, attended the priest
to the Colosseum, where the latter, 'according to the custom
of necromancy, began to draw marks upon the ground, with the
most impressive ceremonies imaginable; he likewise brought
thither _asaf[oe]tida, several precious perfumes and fire,
with some compositions which diffused noisome odours_.'
Although several legions of devils obeyed the summons of the
conjurations or compositions, the sorceric rites were not
attended with complete success. But on a succeeding night,
'the necromancer having begun to make his tremendous
invocations, called by their names a multitude of demons who
were the leaders of the several legions, and invoked them by
the virtue and power of the eternal uncreated God, who lives
for ever, insomuch that the amphitheatre was almost in an
instant filled with demons a hundred times more numerous
than at the former conjuration ... I, by the direction of
the necromancer, again desired to be in the company of my
Angelica. The former thereupon turning to me said, "Know
that they have declared that in the space of a month you
shall be in her company." He then requested me to stand
resolutely by him, because the legion were now above a
thousand more in number than he had designed; and besides,
these were the most dangerous, so that after they had
answered my question it behoved him to be civil to them and
dismiss them quietly.' The infernal legions were more easily
evoked than dismissed. He proceeds--'Though I was as much
terrified as any of them, I did my utmost to conceal the
terror I felt; so that I greatly contributed to inspire the
rest with resolution. But the truth is,' ingenuously
confesses the amorous artist, 'I gave myself over for a dead
man, seeing the horrid fright the necromancer was
in.'--_Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini_, chap. xiii.,
Roscoe's transl.--The information was verified, and
Benvenuto enjoyed the society of his mistress at the time
foretold.
Alchymy, the science of the transformation of baser metals into
gold, a pursuit which engaged the anxious thought and wasted the
health, time, and fortunes of numbers of fanatical empirics, was
one of the most prized of the abstruse _occult_ arts. Monarchs,
princes, the great of all countries, eagerly vied among
themselves in encouraging with promises and sometimes with more
substantial incentives the zeal of their illusive search; and
Henry IV. of France could see no reason why, if the bread and
wine were transubstantiated so miraculously, a metal could not be
transformed as well.[111]
[111] The class of horoscopists (the old Chaldaic
_genethliacs_), or those who predicted the fortunes of
individuals by an examination of the planet which presided
at the natal hour, was as much in vogue as that of any other
of the masters of the occult arts; and La Fontaine, towards
the end of the seventeenth century, apostrophises the class:
'Charlatans, faiseurs d'horoscope!
Quittez les cours des princes de l'Europe;
Emmenez avec vous les souffleurs tout d'un temps;
Vous ne meritez pas plus de foi.'....
_Fables_, ii. 13.
But it is only necessary to recollect the name of Cagliostro
(Balsamo) and others who in the eighteenth century could
successfully speculate upon the credulity of people of rank
and education, to moderate our wonder at the success of
earlier empirics.
Among the eminent names of self-styled or reputed masters of the
nobler or white magic, some, like the celebrated Paracelsus, were
men of extraordinary attainments and largely acquainted with the
secrets of natural science. A necessarily imperfect knowledge, a
natural desire to impose upon the ignorant wonder of the vulgar,
and the vanity of a learning which was ambitious of exhibiting,
in the most imposing if less intelligible way, their superior
knowledge, were probably the mixed causes which led such
distinguished scholars as Paracelsus, Cornelius Agrippa, Cardan,
and Campanella to oppress themselves and their readers with a
mass of unintelligible rubbish and cabalistic mysticism.[112]
Slow and gradual as are the successive advances in the knowledge
and improvement of mankind, it would not be reasonable to be
surprised that preceding generations could not at once attain to
the knowledge of a maturer age; and the teachers of mankind
groped their dark and uncertain way in ages destitute of the
illumination of modern times.'[113]
[112]
'Cardan believed great states depend
Upon the tip o' th'
Bear's tail's end,'
correctly enough expresses both the persuasion of the public
and that of many of the soi-disant philosophers of the
intimate dependence of the fates of both states and
individuals of this globe upon other globes in the universe.
[113] It was not so much a want of sufficient observation of
known facts, as the want of a true method and of
verification, which rendered the investigations of the
earlier philosophers so vague and uncertain. And the same
causes which necessarily prevented Aristotle, the greatest
intellect perhaps that has ever illuminated the world, from
attaining to the greater perfection of the modern philosophy,
are applicable, in a greater degree, to the case of the
mediaeval and later discoverers. The causes of the failure of
the pre-scientific world are well stated by a living writer.
'Men cannot, or at least they will not, await the tardy
results of discovery; they will not sit down in avowed
ignorance. Imagination supplies the deficiencies of
observation. A theoretic arch is thrown across the chasm,
because men are unwilling to wait till a solid bridge be
constructed.... The early thinkers, by reason of the very
splendour of their capacities, were not less incompetent to
follow the slow processes of scientific investigation, than a
tribe of martial savages to adopt the strategy and discipline
of modern armies. No accumulated laws, no well-tried methods
existed for their aid. The elementary laws in each department
were mostly undetected.' The guide of knowledge is
verification. 'The complexity of phenomena is that of a
labyrinth, the paths of which cross and recross each other;
one wrong turn causes the wanderer infinite perplexity.
Verification is the Ariadne-thread by which the real issues
may be found. Unhappily, the process of verification is slow,
tedious, often difficult and deceptive; and we are by nature
lazy and impatient, hating labour, eager to obtain. Hence
credulity. We accept facts without scrutiny, inductions
without proof; and we yield to our disposition to believe
that the order of phenomena must correspond with our
conceptions.' A profound truth is contained in the assertion
of Comte (_Cours de Philosophie Positive_) that 'men have
still more need of method than of doctrine, of education than
of instruction.'--_Aristotle_, by G. H. Lewes.