_1st Witch._ By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes.
_Macbeth._ How now, you secret, black and midnight hags,
What is't ye do?
_All._ A deed without a name.--MACBETH, Act IV. Sc. 1.
PAST AND PRESENT.--BIBLE ASTROLOGERS AND
FORTUNE-TELLERS.--ARABIAN.--EASTERN.--ENGLISH.--QUEEN'S
FAVORITE.--LILLY.--A LUCKY GUESS.--THE GREAT LONDON FIRE
FORETOLD.--HOW.--OUR "TIDAL WAVE" AND AGASSIZ.--A HAUL OF
FORTUNE-TELLERS.--PRESENT.--VISIT EN MASSE.--"FILLIKY
MILLIKY."--"CHARGE BAYONETS!"--A FOWL PROCEEDING.--FINDING LOST
PROPERTY.--THE MAGIC MIRROR EXPOSÉ.--"ONE MORE
UNFORTUNATE."--PROCURESSES.--BOSTON MUSEUM.--"A NICE OLD
GENTLEMAN."--MONEY DOES IT.--GREAT SUMS OF MONEY.--"LOVE POWDER"
EXPOSE.--HASHEESH.--"DOES HE LOVE ME?"
Under the guise of fortune-telling and clairvoyance the most nefarious
atrocities are daily enacted, not only in the larger cities, but in the
villages and towns even, throughout the country. In this chapter I propose
to ventilate them in a manner never before attempted, and the _exposé_ may
be relied upon as correct in every particular.
"Why," exclaimed a friend, "I thought fortune-telling one of the follies
of the past, and that there was little or none of it practised at the
present."
Far from it. Very few, comparatively, who practise the black art come out
under the ancient name of fortune-tellers; but there are thousands of
ignorant, characterless wretches, in our enlightened day and generation,
who pretend to tell fortunes, if not under the open title above, as
astrologers, seers, clairvoyants, or spiritualists, etc. There are some
clairvoyants of whom we shall treat under the head of "Mind and Matter."
The Bible fortune-tellers practised their lesser deceptions under the
various titles of "wise men," "soothsayers," the former being acknowledged
as the more legitimate by the Jews, and the latter mere heathenish
prognosticators, without divine authority, as thus: Is. ii. 6. "Therefore
thou hast forsaken thy people, the house of Jacob, because they be
replenished from the east, and are _soothsayers, like the Philistines_."
8. "Their land also is full of idols; they worship the work of their own
hands, that which their own fingers have made."
There were also wizards, astrologers, "star-gazers" (Is. xlvii. 13),
spiritualists (1 Sam. xxviii. 3), magicians, sorcerers, and "the
well-favored harlot, the mistress of witchcrafts, that _selleth nations
through her whoredoms, and families through her witchcrafts_." Nahum iii.
4.
All of these exist at the present day, carrying on the same sort of vile
deceptions and heinous crimes, to the "selling of families and nations,"
and souls, in spite of law or gospel. Even as those of nearly six thousand
years ago were patronized by the great, the kings, and queens, and nobles
of the earth, so are the fortune-tellers, under the more refined titles,
visited by governors, representatives, and ladies and gentlemen of rank,
of modern times.
In visiting these pretenders, in order "to worm out the secrets of their
trade," the writer has not only been assured by them in confidence that
the above is true, but he has met distinguished characters there, face to
face,--the minister of the gospel, the lawyer, the judge, the doctor, and
what _ought_ to have been the representative intelligence of the
land,--consulting and fellowshiping with ignorant fortune-tellers.
"Ignorant?" Yes, out of the scores whom I have seen, there has not been
one, male or female, possessing an intelligence above ordinary people in
the unprofessional walks of life, while the majority of them were in
comparison far below the mediocrity.
If ignorance alone patronized ignorance, like a family intermarrying, the
stock would eventually dwindle into nothingness, and entirely die out.
Before the "captivity" the Jews had their wise men, and on their exodus
they reported the existence of the magicians or magi of Egypt.
It seems that nearly everybody, and particularly the Egyptians, regarded
Moses and Aaron as but magicians in those days; and the magi of Pharaoh's
household--for all kings and rulers of ancient times and countries had
their fortune-tellers about them--had a little "tilt" with Moses and
Aaron, commencing with the changing of the rods into snakes. The Egyptian
magicians did very well at the snake "trick," as the modern magician calls
it, also at producing frogs, and such like reptiles; but they were puzzled
in the vermin business, and the boils troubled them, and they then gave
up, and acknowledged that there _was_ a power beyond theirs, and that
power was with God.
Well, that is not fortune-telling; but this was the class who professed
the power of foretelling; and we find them, with women of the familiar
spirits, made mention of all through the scriptural writing. Isaiah
testifies (chapter xix.) that the charmers, familiar spirits, and wizards
ruined Egypt as a nation. What advantage were they ever to King Saul, the
grass-eating king with the long name, or any other individuals, in their
perplexities?
They rather stood in the light of individuals, nations, and the cause of
Heaven. Then Jesus and the apostles had them to meet and overcome--for
their power had become very great, even to the publication of books to
promulgate their doctrines; for we read in Acts xix. 19, that there were
brought forth at Ephesus, at one time, these books, to the amount of
fifty thousand pieces of silver, or about twenty-six thousand five hundred
dollars' worth, and burned in the public square or synagogue.
There are some instances recorded in the Bible, and by Josephus, where the
Jews professed to foretell events. The curious case of Barjesus, at
Paphos, who, for a time, hindered Sergius, the deputy of the country, from
embracing Christianity, is cited in illustration of the injury that false
prophets are to all advancement. Paul testifies to that fact in the
following words: "O, full of all subtlety, and all mischief, child of the
devil, enemy to all righteousness," etc.