[1] Lightfoot assures us that this voice, which had been used in times past for a testimony from heaven, “was indeed performed by magic art” (vol. ii., p. 128). This latter term is used as a supercilious expression, just because it was and is still misunderstood. It is the object of this work to correct the erroneous opinions concerning “magic art.”
[2] Encyclical of 1864.
[3] “Fragments of Science.”
[4] See the last chapter of this volume, p. 622.
[5] “Recollections of a Busy Life,” p. 147.
[6] Henry Ward Beecher.
[7] Cocker: “Christianity and Greek Philosophy,” xi., p. 377.
[8] Gospel according to Matthew, xiii. 11, 13.
[9] “The accusations of atheism, the introducing of foreign deities, and corrupting of the Athenian youth, which were made against Socrates, afforded ample justification for Plato to conceal the arcane preaching of his doctrines. Doubtless the peculiar diction or ‘jargon’ of the alchemists was employed for a like purpose. The dungeon, the rack, and the fagot were employed without scruple by Christians of every shade, the Roman Catholics especially, against all who taught even natural science contrary to the theories entertained by the Church. Pope Gregory the Great even inhibited the grammatical use of Latin as heathenish. The offense of Socrates consisted in unfolding to his disciples the arcane doctrine concerning the gods, which was taught in the Mysteries and was a capital crime. He also was charged by Aristophanes with introducing the new god Dinos into the republic as the demiurgos or artificer, and the lord of the solar universe. The Heliocentric system was also a doctrine of the Mysteries; and hence, when Aristarchus the Pythagorean taught it openly, Cleanthes declared that the Greeks ought to have called him to account and condemned him for blasphemy against the gods,”—(“Plutarch”). But Socrates had never been initiated, and hence divulged nothing which had ever been imparted to him.
[10] See Thomas Taylor: “Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries,” p. 47. New York: J. W Bouton, 1875.
[11] Cousin, “History of Philosophy,” I., ix.
[12] “Theol. Arithme.,” p. 62: “On Pythag. Numbers.”
[13] Plato: “Parmenid.,” 141 E.
[14] See Stobœus’ “Ecl.,” i., 862.
[15] Sextus: “Math.,” vii. 145.
[16] “Metaph.,” 407, a. 3.
[17] Appendix to “Timæus.”
[18] Stob.: “Ecl.,” i., 62.
[19] Krische: “Forsch.,” p. 322, etc.
[20] Clem.: “Alex. Stro.,” v., 590.
[21] Plutarch: “De Isid,” chap. 25, p. 360.
[22] “Plato und die Alt. Akademie.”
[23] “Tusc.,” v., 18, 51.
[24] Ibid. Cf. p. 559.
[25] “Plato und die Alt. Akademie.”
[26] Ed. Zeller: “Philos. der Griech.”
[27] “Plato und die Alt. Akademie.”
[28] One of the five solid figures in Geometry.
[29] “The Sun and the Earth.”
[30] “De Ente Spirituali,” lib. iv.; “de Ente Astrorum,” book i.; and opera omnia, vol. i., pp. 634 and 699.
[31] Or more commonly chārkh pūjā.
[32] Persons who believe in the clairvoyant power, but are disposed to discredit the existence of any other spirits in nature than disembodied human spirits, will be interested in an account of certain clairvoyant observations which appeared in the London Spiritualist of June 29, 1877. A thunder-storm approaching, the seeress saw “a bright spirit emerge from a dark cloud and pass with lightning speed across the sky, and, a few minutes after, a diagonal line of dark spirits in the clouds.” These are the Maruts of the “Vedas” (See Max Müller’s “Rig-Veda Sanhita”).
The well-known and respected lecturer, author, and clairvoyant, Mrs. Emma Hardinge Britten, has published accounts of her frequent experiences with these elemental spirits.
[33] Translated by Max Müller, Professor of Comparative Philology at the Oxford University, England.
[34] “Dyaríh vah pitâ, prithivi mâtâ sômah bhrâtâ âditih svásâ.”
[35] As the perfect identity of the philosophical and religious doctrines of antiquity will be fully treated upon in subsequent chapters, we limit our explanations for the present.
[36] “Rig-Veda-Anhita,” p. 234.
[37] Philostratus assures us that the Brahmins were able, in his time, to perform the most wonderful cures by merely pronouncing certain magical words. “The Indian Brahmans carry a staff and a ring, by means of which they are able to do almost anything.” Origenes states the same (“Contra Celsum”). But if a strong mesmeric fluid—say projected from the eye, and without any other contact—is not added, no magical words would be efficacious.
[38] Akiba was a friend of Aher, said to have been the Apostle Paul of Christian story. Both are depicted as having visited Paradise. Aher took branches from the Tree of Knowledge, and so fell from the true (Jewish) religion. Akiba came away in peace. See 2d Epistle to the Corinthians, chapter xii.
[39] Taley means ocean or sea.
[40] See “Aytareya Brahmanan,” 3, 1.
[41] See Pantheon: “Myths,” p. 31; also Aristophanes in “Vœstas,” i., reg. 28.
[42] The oracle of Apollo was at Delphos, the city of the δελφυς, womb or abdomen; the place of the temple was denominated the omphalos or navel. The symbols are female and lunary; reminding us that the Arcadians were called Proseleni, pre-Hellenic or more ancient than the period when Ionian and Olympian lunar worship was introduced.
[43] From the accounts of Strabo and Megasthenes, who visited Palibothras, it would seem that the persons termed by him Samanean, or Brachmane priests, were simply Buddhists. “The singularly subtile replies of the Samanean or Brahman philosophers, in their interview with the conqueror, will be found to contain the spirit of the Buddhist doctrine,” remarks Upham. (See the “History and Doctrine of Buddhism;” and Hale’s “Chronology,” vol. iii., p. 238.)
[44] In their turn, the heathen may well ask the missionaries what sort of a spirit lurks at the bottom of the sacrificial beer-bottle. That evangelical New York journal, the “Independent,” says: “A late English traveller found a simple-minded Baptist mission church, in far-off Burmah, using for the communion service, and we doubt not with God’s blessing, Bass’s pale ale instead of wine.” Circumstances alter cases, it seems!
[45] “Book of Brahmanical Evocations,” part iii.
[46] Bulwer-Lytton: “Last Days of Pompeii,” p. 147.
[47] “Select Works,” p. 159.
[48] Ibid., p. 92.
[49] “Aitareya Brahmanan,” Introduction.
[50] The name is used in the sense of the Greek word ανθροπος.
[51] The traditions of the Oriental Kabalists claim their science to be older than that. Modern scientists may doubt and reject the assertion. They cannot prove it false.
[52] Clement of Alexandria asserted that in his day the Egyptian priests possessed forty-two Canonical Books.
[53] “Chips from a German Work-shop,” vol. ii., p. 7. “Comparative Mythology.”
[54] “Conflict between Religion and Science,” ch. i.
[55] In another place, we explain with some minuteness the Hermetic philosophy of the evolution of the spheres and their several races.
[56] J. Burges: “The Works of Plato,” p. 207, note.
[57] From the Sanskrit text of the Aitareya Brahmanam. Rig-Veda, v., ch. ii., verse 23.
[58] Aitareya Brahmanam, book iii., c. v., 44.
[59] Ait. Brahm., vol. ii., p. 242.
[60] Ait. Brahm., book iv.
[61] Septenary Institutions; “Stone him to Death,” p. 20.
[62] See Gibbon’s “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.”
[63] See Turner; also G. Higgins’s “Anacalypsis.”
[64] Genesis, i., 30.
[65] Sir William Drummond: “Œdipus Judicus,” p. 250.
[66] The absolute necessity for the perpetration of such pious frauds by the early fathers and later theologians becomes apparent, if we consider that if they had allowed the word Al to remain as in the original, it would have become but too evident—except for the initiated—that the Jehovah of Moses and the sun were identical. The multitudes, which ignore that the ancient hierophant considered our visible sun but as an emblem of the central, invisible, and spiritual Sun, would have accused Moses—as many of our modern commentators have already done—of worshipping the planetary bodies; in short, of actual Zabaism.
[67] Exodus, xxv., 40.
[68] “The Physical Basis of Life.” A Lecture by T. H. Huxley.
[69] Huxley: “Physical Basis of Life.”
[70] Prof. J. W. Draper: “Conflict between Religion and Science.”
[71] Bulwer’s “Zanoni.”
[72] See the Code published by Sir William Jones, chap. ix., p. 11.
[73] Pliny: “Hist. Nat.,” xxx. 1; Ib., xvi., 14; xxv., 9, etc.
[74] Pomponius ascribes to them the knowledge of the highest sciences.
[75] Cæsar, iii., 14.
[76] Pliny, xxx.
[77] Munter, on the most ancient religion of the North before the time of Odin. Mémoires de la Société des Antiquaires de France. Tome ii., p. 230.
[78] Ammianus Marcellinus, xxvi., 6.
[79] In some respects our modern philosophers, who think they make new discoveries, can be compared to “the very clever, learned, and civil gentleman” whom Hippocrates having met at Samos one day, describes very good-naturedly. “He informed me,” the Father of Medicine proceeds to say, “that he had lately discovered an herb never before known in Europe or Asia, and that no disease, however malignant or chronic, could resist its marvellous properties. Wishing to be civil in turn, I permitted myself to be persuaded to accompany him to the conservatory in which he had transplanted the wonderful specific. What I found was one of the commonest plants in Greece, namely, garlic—the plant which above all others has least pretensions to healing virtues.” Hippocrates: “De optima prædicandi ratione item judicii operum magni.” I.
[80] Schweigger: “Introduction to Mythology through Natural History.”
[81] Ennemoser: “History of Magic,” i., 3.
[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.