divine by means of his dirty cloth or cap instead,[1] so the modern clairvoyant professes to feel sympathetically the sensations of a distant person, if communication be made through a lock of his hair or any object that has been in contact with him.[2] The simple idea of joining two objects with a cord, taking for granted that this communication will establish connexion or carry influence, has been worked out in various ways in the world. In Australia, the native doctor fastens one end of a string to the ailing part of the patient's body, and by sucking at the other end pretends to draw out blood for his relief.[3] In Orissa, the Jeypore witch lets down a ball of thread through her enemy's roof to reach his body, that by putting the other end in her own mouth she may suck his blood.[4] When a reindeer is sacrificed at a sick Ostyak's tent door, the patient holds in his hand a cord attached to the victim offered for his benefit.[5] Greek history shows a similar idea, when the citizens of Ephesus carried a rope seven furlongs from their walls to the temple of Artemis, thus to place themselves under her safeguard against the attack of Croesus; and in the yet more striking story of the Kylonians, who tied a cord to the statue of the goddess when they quitted the asylum, and clung to it for protection as they crossed unhallowed ground; but by ill-fate the cord of safety broke and they were mercilessly put to death.[6] And in our own day, Buddhist priests in solemn ceremony put themselves in communication with a sacred relic, by each taking hold of a long thread fastened near it and around the temple.[7]
Magical arts in which the connexion is that of mere analogy or symbolism are endlessly numerous throughout
- ↑ Burton, 'W. and W. from West Africa,' p. 411.
- ↑ W. Gregory, 'Letters on Animal Magnetism,' p. 128.
- ↑ Eyre, 'Australia,' vol. ii. p. 361; Collins, 'New South Wales,' vol. i. pp. 561, 594.
- ↑ Shortt, in 'Tr. Eth. Soc.' vol. vi. p. 278.
- ↑ Bastian, 'Mensch,' vol. iii. p. 117.
- ↑ See Grote, vol. iii. pp. 113, 351.
- ↑ Hardy, 'Eastern Monachism,' p. 241.
