Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/221

MAGIC 203 symbolism of the active 1 and the passive 2, the sacred 4 of space proceeding from the 1$ the 7 of intelligence, the 8 of love, and the 10 of the universe. Whatever rational thought may at first have been veiled under all this, its literal nonsense suited the magical mind, and its effects may be traced in magical literature ever since. With such speculations was combined an animistic system of spirits pervading the world, ranging from gods and demons down to the souls of beasts and plants. Both in mystic symbolism and in the doctrine of demons the mind of Plato followed the Pythagorean track, and at a later period the tendency towards magical speculation came out strongly among the Neo-Platonists, when enthusiasts, not content with speculating about the daemonic powers of the universe, sought to establish personal relations with them, and use them for their own ends. The treatise on the Egyptian mysteries ascribed to lamblichus is an interesting record of this phase of thought. Alexandria became the especial home of systems of theurgic magic, in which invocations, sacrifices, diagrams, talismans, were employed with rule and method, as though they were really effective. Much of this delusive craft has perished or become unintelligible, but its once considerable hold On men s minds may be traced in such relics as the gem-talismans of the Gnostics, still objects of curiosity to archaeologists ; among their formulas is the celebrated Abraxas, the Greek letters of which (A/8pafa?. A/?pao-af) stand with astrono mical significance for the number 365. The theurgy which came down into mediaeval and modern Europe is strongly marked with Jewish magical speculation. After the captivity, the Jews worked out a classification and nomenclature of angels and demons. On the one side are ranged such celestial powers as Gabriel and Raphael, while against them stand such beings as BEELZEBUB (q.v.) and Ashmodai or Asmodaeus (Tobit, chap, iii., &c.), who is clearly the great evil demon Aeshma-daeva of the Persian religion. Many centuries afterwards, in European magic books of the Middle Ages we find the remains of these theurgic systems still handed on. Their elaborate folly may be best realized by looking into such books as Francis Barrett s Magus, or Horst s Zauber-Bibliothek, where the actual rites and formulas for raising demons are given. The evocations, with their uncouth jumbles of sacred names, have some historical interest from their strangely mixed traces of ancient religions, preserved by charlatans whose blunders show how little they understood the words they copied. We can fancy the magician in his black robe embroidered with mystic characters, waving his wand as he invokes at one breath the great demons "Acherorit," " Ashtaroth," " Asmodi," names which the modern student recognizes as borrowed from the ancient religions of three different countries Greece, Phoenicia, Persia. Of all the sources of this branch of magic, the Jewish tradition is the chief. The magician relies on the power of divine Hebrew names, such as the shem hammephorash or the name Jehovah in its true pronunciation, with which Solomon and other wonder-workers of old did marvellous things. He draws powerful spells from the KABBALAH (q.v.) of the later Jews, with its transposed letters and artificial words, using for instancfe the name Agla, formed from the initials of the Hebrew sentence " Thou art a mighty God for ever." But in compelling the spirits he can use Hebrew and Greek in admired confusion, as in the following formula (copied with its mistakes as an illustration of magical scholarship in its lowest stage) " Hel Heloym Sother Emmanuel Sabaoth Agla Tetragrammaton Agyros Otheos Ischyros Athanatos Jehova Va Adonai Saday Homousion Messias Eschereheye !" One of the most curious features of the demon-evocation is the use of the pentagram, an essential adjunct of the magic circle, whose effect in barring the passage of Mephistopheles is described in a welUknown scene in Goethe s Faust. This symbol is an interesting proof of tradition from the Pythagoreans. It is a geometrical figure for the construc tion of the regular pentagon (Euclid, iv. prop. 11), now familiar to school-boys,, but which to the school of Pythagoras was so wondrous a novelty that they used it as a sign of fellowship (see Bretschneider, Geometric vor EiMides, p. 85), and it after wards became a magical symbol, still to be seen in use in every country from Ireland to China. The magic of the Moslem world is in part adopted from Jewish angelology and demonology, and in part carries on Babylonian-Greek astrology, as systematized by such writers as Paul of Alexandria and Claudius Ptolemy. Thus the proceedings of the Moslem magician, as met with in the Thousand and One Nights, mostly run parallel with those familiar in Europe, in their fumigations and incanta tions, talismans (rereAecr/xeVa), horoscopes, and almanacs or calendars of lucky and unlucky days. In fact a modern Zadkiel in England would find himself on common ground with his brother practitioner in Baghdad or Delhi. 1 Jn other districts of Asia, more peculiar developments of magic have been preserved. To mention a few of the most noteworthy, the Sanskrit literature in India is rich in ancient magioal precepts and hymn-charms. 2 The ancient Hindu magic is religious, turning on the actions of demons (bhdta} in causing disease by possession, and their exorcism and compulsion, as well as power obtained over higher spirits by sacrifices, austerities, and formulas or charms (mantra). From their connexion with early Aryan customs, these rites sometimes throw light on European practices derived from the same stock. Thus the magical practice of going round " with the sun," well known as deisil in High land superstition, and kept up in England in the rule of passing the decanter "through the button-hole," appears to be a rite of Aryan, sun-worship belonging to remote antiquity, for (under the name of pradaxind) it forms part of the Hindu marriage ceremony handed down from Vedic times. 3 Buddhism as well as Brahmanism had its magical side, and its literature of magic formulas (tantra). The " red-cap " lamas of Tibet, with their pretended miracles of breathing fire, swallowing knives, and ripping themselves up, are curious as reminding us of the time when these tricks, now come down among us to jugglers feats, were regarded as supernatural. In the low Buddhism of the Mongols, mixed with native barbarism, the shamans or sorcerer- priests, with their rude sacrifices and demon-dances, are among the most remarkable types of their ancient class. In this part of Asia, and farther east, a somewhat remark able system of divinatory magic has grown out of the reckoning of days, months, and years by a zodiac-calendar, whose signs ape, horse, dog, &c., are combined in series with the elements, male and female, so that a year may be called that of the " female fire-dog." It was inevitable that such a system should lead the magicians to draw omens from its signs. They do so in a most elaborate way, interfering with their presages on every occasion of life, beginning when the child undergoes its ceremonial washing, and has its fate defined by the signs it is born under, as " in the element fire, under the red sign in the year of the tiger, in the month of the sheep and day of the hog, in the fortieth division of the day under the influence of the ninth star," &c. This quaint science seems, however, not altogether native, for the influence of 1 See, for instance, Herklot s translation of the Qanoon-e- Islam. 2 See Weber, Omina et Portenta, and volumes of Indische Studien. 3 Haas, in. Indische Studien, vol. v. p. 257 ; Pictet, Origines Indo-

Europeennes, part ii., p. 498.