Bygone Beliefs Part 7

(1) Professor J. G. FRAZER, D.C.L.: _Psyche's Task_ (1909), p. 7.

Dr HADDON(2) quotes a similar but still more remarkable story of a young Congo negro which very strikingly shows the power of the imagination.

The young negro, "being on a journey, lodged at a friend's house; the latter got a wild hen for his breakfast, and the young man asked if it were a wild hen. His host answered 'No.' Then he fell on heartily, and afterwards proceeded on his journey. After four years these two met together again, and his old friend asked him 'if he would eat a wild hen,' to which he answered that it was tabooed to him. Hereat the host began immediately to laugh, inquiring of him, 'What made him refuse it now, when he had eaten one at his table about four years ago?' At the hearing of this the negro immediately fell a-trembling, and suffered himself to be so far possessed with the effects of imagination that he died in less than twenty-four hours after."

(2) ALFRED C. HADDON, SC.D., F.R.S.: _Magic and Fetis.h.i.+sm_ (1906), p.

56.

There are, of course, many stories about amulets, _etc_., which cannot be thus explained. For example, ELIHU RICH gives the following:--

"In 1568, we are told (Transl. of Salverte, p. 196) that the Prince of Orange condemned a Spanish prisoner to be shot at Juliers. The soldiers tied him to a tree and fired, but he was invulnerable. They then stripped him to see what armour he wore, but they found only an amulet bearing the figure of a lamb (the _Agnus Dei_, we presume). This was taken from him, and he was then killed by the first shot. De Baros relates that the Portuguese in like manner vainly attempted to destroy a Malay, so long as he wore a bracelet containing a bone set in gold, which rendered him proof against their swords. A similar marvel is related in the travels of the veracious Marco Polo. 'In an attempt of Kublai Khan to make a conquest of the island of Zipangu, a jealousy arose between the two commanders of the expedition, which led to an order for putting the whole garrison to the sword. In obedience to this order, the heads of all were cut off excepting of eight persons, who by the efficacy of a diabolical charm, consisting of a jewel or amulet introduced into the right arm, between the skin and the flesh, were rendered secure from the effects of iron, either to kill or wound. Upon this discovery being made, they were beaten with a heavy wooden club, and presently died.'"

(1) I think, however, that these, and many similar stories, must be taken _c.u.m grano salis_.

In conclusion, mention must be made of a very interesting and suggestive philosophical doctrine--the Law of Correspondences,--due in its explicit form to the Swedish philosopher, who was both scientist and mystic, EMANUEL SWEDENBORG. To deal in any way adequately with this important topic is totally impossible within the confines of the present discussion.(2) But, to put the matter as briefly as possible, it may be said that SWEDENBORG maintains (and the conclusion, I think, is valid) that all causation is from the spiritual world, physical causation being but secondary, or apparent--that is to say, a mere reflection, as it were, of the true process. He argues from this, thereby supplying a philosophical basis for the unanimous belief of the nature-mystics, that every natural object is the symbol (because the creation) of an idea or spiritual verity in its widest sense. Thus, there are symbols which are inherent in the nature of things, and symbols which are not. The former are genuine, the latter merely artificial. Writing from the transcendental point of view, ELIPHAS LEVI says: "Ceremonies, vestments, perfumes, characters and figures being...necessary to enlist the imagination in the education of the will, the success of magical works depends upon the faithful observance of all the rites, which are in no sense fantastic or arbitrary, having been transmitted to us by antiquity, and permanently subsisting by the essential laws of a.n.a.logical realisation and of the correspondence which inevitably connects ideas and forms."(1b) Some scepticism, perhaps, may be permitted as to the validity of the latter part of this statement, and the former may be qualified by the proviso that such things are only of value in the right education of the will, if they are, indeed, genuine, and not merely artificial, symbols. But the writer, as I think will be admitted, has grasped the essential point, and, to conclude our excursion, as we began it, with a definition, I will say that _the power of the talisman is the power of the mind (or imagination) brought into activity by means of a suitable symbol_.

(1) ELIHU RICH: _The Occult Sciences_, p. 346.

(2) I may refer the reader to my _A Mathematical Theory of Spirit_ (1912), chap. i., for a more adequate statement.

(1b) ELIPHAS LEVI: _Transcendental Magic: its Doctrine and Ritual_ (trans. by A. E. WAITE, 1896), p. 234.

VII. CEREMONIAL MAGIC IN THEORY AND PRACTICE

THE word "magic," if one may be permitted to say so, is itself almost magical--magical in its power to conjure up visions in the human mind.

For some these are of b.l.o.o.d.y rites, pacts with the powers of darkness, and the lascivious orgies of the Saturnalia or Witches' Sabbath; in other minds it has pleasanter a.s.sociations, serving to transport them from the world of fact to the fairyland of fancy, where the purse of FORTUNATUS, the lamp and ring of ALADDIN, fairies, gnomes, jinn, and innumerable other strange beings flit across the scene in a marvellous kaleidoscope of ever-changing wonders. To the study of the magical beliefs of the past cannot be denied the interest and fascination which the marvellous and wonderful ever has for so many minds, many of whom, perhaps, cannot resist the temptation of thinking that there may be some element of truth in these wonderful stories. But the study has a greater claim to our attention; for, as I have intimated already, magic represents a phase in the development of human thought, and the magic of the past was the womb from which sprang the science of the present, unlike its parent though it be.

What then is magic? According to the dictionary definition--and this will serve us for the present--it is the (pretended) art of producing marvellous results by the aid of spiritual beings or arcane spiritual forces. Magic, therefore, is the practical complement of animism.

Wherever man has really believed in the existence of a spiritual world, there do we find attempts to enter into communication with that world's inhabitants and to utilise its forces.Professor LEUBA(1) and others distinguish between propitiative behaviour towards the beings of the spiritual world, as marking the religious att.i.tude, and coercive behaviour towards these beings as characteristic of the magical att.i.tude; but one form of behaviour merges by insensible degrees into the other, and the distinction (though a useful one) may, for our present purpose, be neglected.

(1) JAMES H. LEUBA: _The Psychological Origin and the Nature of Religion_ (1909), chap. ii.

Animism, "the Conception of Spirit everywhere" as Mr EDWARD CLODD(2) neatly calls it, and perhaps man's earliest view of natural phenomena, persisted in a modified form, as I have pointed out in "Some Characteristics of Mediaeval Thought," throughout the Middle Ages.

A belief in magic persisted likewise. In the writings of the Greek philosophers of the Neo-Platonic school, in that curious body of esoteric Jewish lore known as the Kabala, and in the works of later occult philosophers such as AGRIPPA and PARACELSUS, we find magic, or rather the theory upon which magic as an art was based, presented in its most philosophical form. If there is anything of value for modern thought in the theory of magic, here is it to be found; and it is, I think, indeed to be found, absurd and fantastic though the practices based upon this philosophy, or which this philosophy was thought to substantiate, most certainly are. I shall here endeavour to give a sketch of certain of the outstanding doctrines of magical philosophy, some details concerning the art of magic, more especially as practiced in the Middle Ages in Europe, and, finally, an attempt to extract from the former what I consider to be of real worth. We have already wandered down many of the byways of magical belief, and, indeed, the word "magic"

may be made to cover almost every superst.i.tion of the past: To what we have already gained on previous excursions the present, I hope, will add what we need in order to take a synthetic view of the whole subject.

(2) EDWARD CLODD: _Animism the Seed of Religion_ (1905), p. 26.

In the first place, something must be said concerning what is called the Doctrine of Emanations, a theory of prime importance in Neo-Platonic and Kabalistic ontology. According to this theory, everything in the universe owes its existence and virtue to an emanation from G.o.d, which divine emanation is supposed to descend, step by step (so to speak), through the hierarchies of angels and the stars, down to the things of earth, that which is nearer to the Source containing more of the divine nature than that which is relatively distant. As CORNELIUS AGRIPPA expresses it: "For G.o.d, in the first place is the end and beginning of all Virtues; he gives the seal of #the _Ideas_ to his servants, the Intelligences; who as faithful officers, sign all things intrusted to them with an Ideal Virtue; the Heavens and Stars, as instruments, disposing the matter in the mean while for the receiving of those forms which reside in Divine Majesty (as saith Plato in Timeus) and to be conveyed by Stars; and the Giver of Forms distributes them by the ministry of his Intelligences, which he hath set as Rulers and Controllers over his Works, to whom such a power is intrusted to things committed to them that so all Virtues of Stones, Herbs, Metals, and all other things may come from the Intelligences, the Governors. The Form, therefore, and Virtue of things comes first from the _Ideas_, then from the ruling and governing Intelligences, then from the aspects of the Heavens disposing, and lastly from the tempers of the Elements disposed, answering the influences of the Heavens, by which the Elements themselves are ordered, or disposed. These kinds of operations, therefore, are performed in these inferior things by express forms, and in the Heavens by disposing virtues, in Intelligences by mediating rules, in the Original Cause by _Ideas_ and exemplary forms, all which must of necessity agree in the execution of the effect and virtue of every thing.

"There is, therefore, a wonderful virtue and operation in every Herb and Stone, but greater in a Star, beyond which, even from the governing Intelligences everything receiveth and obtains many things for itself, especially from the Supreme Cause, with whom all things do mutually and exactly correspond, agreeing in an harmonious consent, as it were in hymns always praising the highest Maker of all things.... There is, therefore, no other cause of the necessity of effects than the connection of all things with the First Cause, and their correspondency with those Divine patterns and eternal _Ideas_ whence every thing hath its determinate and particular place in the exemplary world, from whence it lives and receives its original being: And every virtue of herbs, stones, metals, animals, words and speeches, and all things that are of G.o.d, is placed there."(1) As compared with the _ex nihilo_ creationism of orthodox theology, this theory is as light is to darkness. Of course, there is much in CORNELIUS AGRIPPA'S statement of it which is inacceptable to modern thought; but these are matters of form merely, and do not affect the doctrine fundamentally. For instance, as a nexus between spirit and matter AGRIPPA places the stars: modern thought prefers the ether. The theory of emanations may be, and was, as a matter of fact, made the justification of superst.i.tious practices of the grossest absurdity, but on the other hand it may be made the basis of a lofty system of transcendental philosophy, as, for instance, that of EMANUEL SWEDENBORG, whose ontology resembles in some respects that of the Neo-Platonists. AGRIPPA uses the theory to explain all the marvels which his age accredited, marvels which we know had for the most part no existence outside of man's imagination. I suggest, on the contrary, that the theory is really needed to explain the commonplace, since, in the last a.n.a.lysis, every bit of experience, every phenomenon, be it ever so ordinary--indeed the very fact of experience itself,--is most truly marvellous and magical, explicable only in terms of spirit. As ELIPHAS LEVI well says in one of his flashes of insight: "The supernatural is only the natural in an extraordinary grade, or it is the exalted natural; a miracle is a phenomenon which strikes the mult.i.tude because it is unexpected; the astonis.h.i.+ng is that which astonishes; miracles are effects which surprise those who are ignorant of their causes, or a.s.sign them causes w hich are not in proportion to such effects."(1b) But I am antic.i.p.ating the sequel.

(1) H. C. AGRIPPA: _Occult Philosophy_, bk. i., chap. xiii. (WHITEHEAD'S edition, pp. 67-68).

(1b) ELIPHAS LEVI: _Transcendental Magic, its Doctrine and Ritual_ (trans. by A. E. WAITE, 1896), p. 192.

The doctrine of emanations makes the universe one vast harmonious whole, between whose various parts there is an exact a.n.a.logy, correspondence, or sympathetic relation. "Nature" (the productive principle), says IAMBLICHOS (3rd-4th century), the Neo-Platonist, "in her peculiar way, makes a likeness of invisible principles through symbols in visible forms."(2) The belief that seemingly similar things sympathetically affect one another, and that a similar relation holds good between different things which have been intimately connected with one another as parts within a whole, is a very ancient one. Most primitive peoples are very careful to destroy all their nail-cuttings and hair-clippings, since they believe that a witch gaining possession of these might work them harm. For a similar reason they refuse to reveal their REAL names, which they regard as part of themselves, and adopt nicknames for common use. The belief that a witch can torment an enemy by making an image of his person in clay or wax, correctly naming it, and mutilating it with pins, or, in the case of a waxen image, melting it by fire, is a very ancient one, and was held throughout and beyond the Middle Ages. The Sympathetic Powder of Sir KENELM DIGBY we have already noticed, as well as other instances of the belief in "sympathy," and examples of similar superst.i.tions might be multiplied almost indefinitely. Such are generally grouped under the term "sympathetic magic"; but inasmuch as all magical practices a.s.sume that by acting on part of a thing, or a symbolic representation of it, one acts magically on the whole, or on the thing symbolised, the expression may in its broadest sense be said to involve the whole of magic.

(2) IAMBLICHOS: _Theurgia, or the Egyptian Mysteries_ (trans. by Dr ALEX. WILDER, New York, 1911), p. 239.

The names of the Divine Being, angels and devils, the planets of the solar system (including sun and moon) and the days of the week, birds and beasts, colours, herbs, and precious stones--all, according to old-time occult philosophy, are connected by the sympathetic relation believed to run through all creation, the knowledge of which was essential to the magician; as well, also, the chief portions of the human body, for man, as we have seen, was believed to be a microcosm--a universe in miniature. I have dealt with this matter and exhibited some of the supposed correspondences in "The Belief in Talismans".

Some further particulars are shown in the annexed table, for which I am mainly indebted to AGRIPPA. But, as in the case of the zodiacal gems already dealt with, the old authorities by no means agree as to the majority of the planetary correspondences.

TABLE OF OCCULT CORRESPONDENCES

Arch- Part of Precious angel. Angel. Planet. Human Animal. Bird. stone.

Body.

Raphael Michael Sun Heart Lion Swan Carbuncle Gabriel Gabriel Moon Left foot Cat Owl Crystal Camael Zamael Mars Right hand Wolf Vulture Diamond Michael Raphael Mercury Left hand Ape Stork Agate Zadikel Sachiel Jupiter Head Hart Eagle Sapphire (=Lapis lazuli) Haniel Anael Venus Generative Goat Dove Emerald organs Zaphhiel Ca.s.siel Saturn Right foot Mole Hoopoe Onyx

The names of the angels are from Mr Mather's translation of _Clavicula Salomonis_; the other correspondences are from the second book of Agrippa's _Occult Philosophy_, chap. x.

In many cases these supposed correspondences are based, as will be obvious to the reader, upon purely trivial resemblances, and, in any case, whatever may be said--and I think a great deal may be said--in favour of the theory of symbology, there is little that may be adduced to support the old occultists' application of it.

So essential a part does the use of symbols play in all magical operations that we may, I think, modify the definition of "magic"

adopted at the outset, and define "magic" as "an attempt to employ the powers of the spiritual world for the production of marvellous results, BY THE AID OF SYMBOLS." It has, on the other hand, been questioned whether the appeal to the spirit-world is an essential element in magic.

But a close examination of magical practices always reveals at the root a belief in spiritual powers as the operating causes. The belief in talismans at first sight seems to have little to do with that in a supernatural realm; but, as we have seen, the talisman was always a silent invocation of the powers of some spiritual being with which it was symbolically connected, and whose sign was engraved thereon. And, as Dr T. WITTON DAVIES well remarks with regard to "sympathetic magic": "Even this could not, at the start, be anything other than a symbolic prayer to the spirit or spirits having authority in these matters. In so far as no spirit is thought of, it is a mere survival, and not magic at all...."(1)

(1) Dr T. WITTON DAVIES: _Magic, Divination, and Demonology among the Hebrews and their Neighbours_ (1898), p. 17.

What I regard as the two essentials of magical practices, namely, the use of symbols and the appeal to the supernatural realm, are most obvious in what is called "ceremonial magic". Mediaeval ceremonial magic was subdivided into three chief branches--White Magic, Black Magic, and Necromancy. White magic was concerned with the evocations of angels, spiritual beings supposed to be essentially superior to mankind, concerning which I shall give some further details later--and the spirits of the elements,--which were, as I have mentioned in "Some Characteristics of Mediaeval Thought," personifications of the primeval forces of Nature. As there were supposed to be four elements, fire, air, water, and earth, so there were supposed to be four cla.s.ses of elementals or spirits of the elements, namely, Salamanders, Sylphs, Undines, and Gnomes, inhabiting these elements respectively, and deriving their characters therefrom. Concerning these curious beings, the inquisitive reader may gain some information from a quaint little book, by the Abbe de MONTFAUCON DE VILLARS, ent.i.tled _The Count of Gabalis, or Conferences about Secret Sciences_ (1670), translated into English and published in 1680, which has recently been reprinted. The elementals, we learn therefrom, were, unlike other supernatural beings, thought to be mortal. They could, however, be rendered immortal by means of s.e.xual intercourse with men or women, as the case might be; and it was, we are told, to the n.o.ble end of endowing them with this great gift, that the sages devoted themselves.

Goety, or black magic, was concerned with the evocation of demons and devils--spirits supposed to be superior to man in certain powers, but utterly depraved. Sorcery may be distinguished from witchcraft, inasmuch as the sorcerer attempted to command evil spirits by the aid of charms, _etc_., whereas the witch or wizard was supposed to have made a pact with the Evil One; though both terms have been rather loosely used, "sorcery" being sometimes employed as a synonym for "necromancy".

Necromancy was concerned with the evocation of the spirits of the dead: etymologically, the term stands for the art of foretelling events by means of such evocations, though it is frequently employed in the wider sense.

It would be unnecessary and tedious to give any detailed account of the methods employed in these magical arts beyond some general remarks. Mr A. E. WAITE gives full particulars of the various rituals in his _Book of Ceremonial Magic_ (1911), to which the curious reader may be referred. The following will, in brief terms, convey a general idea of a magical evocation:--

Choosing a time when there is a favourable conjunction of the planets, the magician, armed with the implements of magical art, after much prayer and fasting, betakes himself to a suitable spot, alone, or perhaps accompanied by two trusty companions. All the articles he intends to employ, the vestments, the magic sword and lamp, the talismans, the book of spirits, _etc_., have been specially prepared and consecrated. If he is about to invoke a martial spirit, the magician's vestment will be of a red colour, the talismans in virtue of which he may have power over the spirit will be of iron, the day chosen a Tuesday, and the incense and perfumes employed of a nature a.n.a.logous to Mars. In a similar manner all the articles employed and the rites performed must in some way be symbolical of the spirit with which converse is desired. Having arrived at the spot, the magician first of all traces the magic circle within which, we are told, no evil spirit can enter; he then commences the magic rite, involving various prayers and conjurations, a medley of meaningless words, and, in the case of the black art, a sacrifice. The spirit summoned then appears (at least, so we are told), and, after granting the magician's request, is licensed to depart--a matter, we are admonished, of great importance.

The question naturally arises, What were the results obtained by these magical arts? How far, if at all, was the magician rewarded by the attainment of his desires? We have asked a similar question regarding the belief in talismans, and the reply which we there gained undoubtedly applies in the present case as well. Modern psychical research, as I have already pointed out, is supplying us with further evidence for the survival of human personality after bodily death than the innate conviction humanity in general seems to have in this belief, and the many reasons which idealistic philosophy advances in favour of it. The question of the reality of the phenomenon of "materialisation," that is, the bodily appearance of a discarnate spirit, such as is vouched for by spiritists, and which is what, it appears, was aimed at in necromancy (though why the discarnate should be better informed as to the future than the incarnate, I cannot suppose), must be regarded as _sub judice_.(1) Many cases of fraud in connection with the alleged production of this phenomenon have been detected in recent times; but, inasmuch as the last word has not yet been said on the subject, we must allow the possibility that necromancy in the past may have been sometimes successful. But as to the existence of the angels and devils of magical belief--as well, one might add, of those of orthodox faith,--nothing can be adduced in evidence of this either from the results of psychical research or on _a priori_ grounds.