History of the Art of Magic in a Brief an D Inter Esting Manner F Or the Information and Amusement of The

Home , Alexander Herrmann, Magician (fantasy)

H I S T O R Y

OF THE A R T O F M A G I C

CON TAIN ING

ANE C TE E P L ANATION OF TRIéK s D O S , X

AND A SK E TCH OF THE L IFE OF

ALE XANDE R B E RE MA N

T E A T . IM E . f Y N IS

ME MB E R OF THE ORD E R 0 } T HE ROYAL CROS S OF G RE E C E

NE W YORK F L TTL J. O J. CO PRESS I E .

10 TO 20 AS TOR PLACE 1 88 7

R TO THE RE ADE .

FROM the ﬁel d s of fertile ancient and modern literature ,

I have culled the facts relating to the history of the art of ma ic of b ook de g , to which the earlier pages this little are

To f or t m voted . give credit every hing recorded would see ou t of l i n of ts p ace a work this kind, encumbering i pages

s d with usele s ata and difﬁcult names . Such a course

v h to would be at ariance wit my object , which is present the wonderful history of the art of magic in a brief an d inter esting manner f or the information and amusement of the

n ge eral reader.

HE ART F M I T O AG C .

IT d ab woul require vast learning, Herculean l or, and a longer period of time than is allotted to the life of man to c of Art of f sa omplete a history the Magic . Su ﬁce it to y that as many di fferent forms of magic exist as there are n NO ations upon the earth . subject, indeed, is more attract ive and instructive than that of magic . It has had its in ﬂuence on almost every phase of human thought ; it is foun d in the fountain -heads from which spring history and c ivilization . The of t limits the present book, under aken at the request of the n restidi i Mr . Alexander Herrmann , best know p g

’ tate ur of the of ma ic modern school g , permit only a brief synopsis of this wonderful art from the earliest to the pres e nt time . Magic has Often been erroneously considered as excl u sivel A hil oso y Of Persian origin, which error the thenian p not pher Plato appears to have originated . It is possible one Of to name any country as the birthplace magic . We k of A A must loo to the continent sia, to sia at large, as its 0 f A i n native place . N section o the world is richer than sia wildernesses, deep sequestered valleys , mournful solitudes c a and gloomy verns ; in fact, its deserts are as numerous an d extensive as its mighty rivers and inland seas . T one hat a secluded life, and especially passed in the silence and s t e is v du of oli ud of the desert, conduci e to the pro ction 1 THE A OF RT MAGIC.

inward vis1 ons 1 s shown by the history of the East in all as ages, where these deserts have always b een regarded ” the f O t . v favorite residence spirits and appari ions E en Isaiah,

‘ the greatest and most inﬂuential Of the Ol d Te stame nt proph “ e ts on And , speaks very plainly this subject Babylon , ’ of m the of the glory kingdo s, beauty the Chaldees excel l enc as y, shall be when God overthrew Sodom and Gomor It n d h rah . shall ever be inhabite , neit er shall it be dwelt shall Ara in, from generation to generation neither the bian pitch tent there ; neither shall the shepherds make of their fold there . But the wild beasts the desert shall lie there ; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures ; ’k ” and sa t r d . owls shall dwell there, and y s shall ance there In the book of Enoch passages are met with recording instances in which spirits were banished to desert places by - 1 o. b mag In the middle ages all secluded spots, y paths , deserts and solitudes were especially the trysting places of v The of Far e of spirits of e ery kind . inhabitants the c and the Scottish islands have always been celebrated as particu

l arl y subject to the inﬂuence of spirits and the - devil ; and C aesar and Plutarch both mention the British Isles as de a serte d and melancholy solitudes . We are told that in Sh ke ’ speare s time (1 5 64—1 61 6) men were apt d u rmg the hours e e r of darkness to s a supernatu al being in every bush, and they could n ot enter a cemetery without expecting to e m counter some departed spi rit Wandering among the graves or commissioned to reveal somet hing momentous and deeply

aﬁe cting to the survivors . Fairies danced in the moonlight glades or somethin g preternatural perpetually Occurred to

In ancient Gree m t ol o the sat rs ere s irits alf - u man k y h gy y w p , h h ,

al -bestial ha aunted the oods and mountai ns t t w . h f , h THE ART MAGI G OF . 3

the l n . k e ﬁll ivi g with admiration and awe Sha esp are, in Ma cbeth l l his great tragedy Of , de ineated the be iefs and s of n d h on uperstitions his age by i tro ucing witc es the stage . The original and the best description of magic art was “ on Man grounded this aphorism may become , by the cc - t and ca assistance and opera ion Of spiritual powers, the acities his of of p of divine origin , capable a higher sphere t v ac ivity, as well without as within himself, which gi es him d ms ominion not only over hi elf, but also over surrounding ” nature . t d In the above aphorism we have, as it has been sta e , the ma l h original and the best description of g c art . T e com mon w belief, ho ever, in later years was that which included the of all occult science under name magic . Und e r the titl e occult science was understood enchantment and any t d e xorcl sm ex raordinary operations, such as making gol , g v - Spirits, reading the hand, the e il eye , power over the n of bel n s elements, and the transformatio human g into The of n animals . theories spiritual apparitio s, and the of t transitions demons into the human body, take heir rise of l n d in the philosophy Herac itus, accordi g to whom emons t are attracted by mat er . h as Everything t at could be considered as wonderful, such u n the workings of nat ral powers in the mag et, or the divin d n ing wan , or any surprising actio , was regarded at a later m period as magic and particularly as black agic, or the

black art .

Heraclitus was born abou t B c in E esu s and is one of the 535 . . ph , most s ubtl e and rof u nd of the meta sicians of ancient Gree ce p o phy , and it has trul y been said that onl y of l ate years has he had hi s true o ition a to him in h i r f il oso p s ssigned t e h sto y o ph phy . 4 THE ART OF MA01 0.

Th s t m e above uperstitious beliefs respec ing agic were,

s om arativel a n . a c p y spe king, of rece t origin Even the dogm

of 535 O. is moder n Heraclitus ( B . ) when applied to magic for magic art may well be said to have made its appe arance of almost simultaneously with the creation man . Th t e at magic descended by tradi ion from the early ag s, is shown everywhere by the primitive records of the human is t ma race . It , in truth, in i tely connected with the very Of nature man . Magic was in fact nothing more nor less in the early times than the wonderful power of the human mind to look into

or u m i . the future, to inﬂ ence others without ater al means T n of is n ot me t his atural power man , however, frequently is t d with, and not of tha kind which every min is able to r i The of appreciate acco d ng to its value . knowledge such

rare phenomena and their causes could, therefore, .in remote

’

the u . T times, only be known to wisest sages and r lers hese preserved it a s their secret learning and transmitted it to Of their children under the cloak religion, with which all t their secre s were covered . Ma l c n Ma i k é o z g derives its ame from g (Gree p y ) , and M 29 . c the word ay was used by Jeremiah ( 6 B . ) to indicate T of a Babylonian priest . he magi were men austere habits A and were the most learned men of their times . higher of t knowledge na ure was implied in the term magic, with

t . which religion, and particularly as ronomy, were associated The initiated and their disciples were called magicians— that i — s . , the wise which was also the case later among the Greeks l of ma Pl ato especial ly praises the deep re igious. awe the icians L C e of m g , while both ucian and ic ro speak the as

learned . THE ART OF MAGIO. 5

Originally the magi were either themselves princes or

n . t u belo ged to the higher class of society Justice, r th , and

f f - the power o sel sacriﬁce were the qualities of a magician . The neglect of any one of these virtues was punished i n the t 1 529 . C mos cruel manner ambyses, a Persian monarch, C of B . . , having commanded the execution a priest (magician) had m be had who allowed hi self to bribed, his skin stretched over the chair i n which his son and successor sat i n his judicial capacity. That magic proceeded originally from Asia as a peculiar and inborn gift of the human soul is shown not only by M k th oses, but the oldest nown records of humanity, as e

Zendavestas . , the Vedas, etc In early ages me n were ﬁrmly convinced that the most e man of p rfect half, the real , had originated in the world n spirits . From this world he derived his vital e ergies, being as little able to sever himself from its inﬂuence as the m boughs fro the tree on which they grow . n had the In the very earliest ages , whe man just left hand sat of C Of nature, and still at the feet the reator when the senses were still imperfect, and the limbs were not freely of under the command the will, man then communicated

d . In of t irectly with spirits the Genesis Moses, the pa riarchs ate bread and milk with Elohim and se t before them a fatted ’ calf . Homer s gods, too, communicated directly with men . At or the d that time there were no ghosts demons, and i eas of an d tt n t As h spirit ma er were not yet disti c . soon , owever,

’ as the prirﬁi tive community was broken up by a more freely expanding use of the senses ; as soon as men had eaten of d the tree Of knowledge, and wishe to free themselves from h natural laws, t at they might go their own way without fur THE A OF A RT M GIC.

i n e t C n ther obed e c , hen was the reator no lo ger in Eden, and mu d Of the peaceful com nity was destroye , for the tree life — was not the tree Of knowledge He who sees God cannot live . w Of In the la s Manu, who lived thirteen hundred years n t before Christ, we ﬁnd deﬁnite enactments agai st a perfec ed

‘ u of ma l c l aws are but mis sed form g , just as similar con tai “ ne d in the Books of Moses . In the oldest Chinese writings m A we also ﬁnd sorcery entioned as an art . mong the

' Chaldeans and Babylonians sorcery and mag1 cal astrol ogy Ol d Th i l of Were as as their history. e pure or gma idea ma 1 c of n t g , as a close study a ure, was , however, soon lost, or The at least speedily degenerated . belief in magic peculiar t o the human mind took the form among the good of white n of so of magic, amo g the bad black magic, that the study m of agic degenerated , rather leaning to the darkness super stit ion than raised to the light of wisdom . What was still d worse, without believing in a evil it led people to cultivate of of Z the arts the devil . Even at the time oroaster , who s of the is considered the ﬁr t and earliest magician world, m1su sed ff magic was , and connected with unholy e orts and the black art . A n n ma 1 r mo g the Persia s the g represented the p iesthood, m t i and magic was synony ous wi h their relig ous rites . Sooth n n the sayi g was regarded as a higher revelatio by gods, and to make themselves susceptible to the prophetic spirit and f u to propitiate the Spirits, they used the most power l TO com prayers and chants . bring themselves into closer munion with the gods the magi led a life peculiar to them t selves, their chief commands being to abs ain from wine and to eat but little animal food . Everything which could

excite the senses was absolutely forbidden . H T MA I T E AR OF G C. 7

T m of e was t t and t u heir ode lif s ric their firs law p rity. Twice each d ay they were obliged to wash their garments w of n or h m ere cotto linen , and t eir shoes were ade from the T n f armm papyrus . heir reve ues were derived from g their own d . The lan , and from Offerings voluntarily given money d - c m t h thus derive was pla ed in a co mon reasury, from w ich n of m T the guardia s the te ple received their salaries . heir n of b u t food consisted pri cipally vegetables, also occasionally of flesh, which was first inspected by properly authorized and persons, , being found healthy and sound , was marked by s a peculiar eal, for the y knew that eruptions , various diseases of t the eyes, and o her ailments arose from bad food . Pork was fish articu only eaten once a month, at full moon ; , p

- l arl ﬁsh t . y sea , was also forbidden hem One great characte ristic of magic is the ﬁxity with which magical formulas framed thousands of years ago hold on h To almost unc anged to this day . understand this, it must u se u h be borne in mind that, if there were any practical in s c h n rules as those followed by the magi, they would ave bee

. n improved by experience into new shapes But, they bei g of m of worthless and incapable improve ent, the motive l d change is absent, and the old precepts have he d their groun , handed down by faithful but stupid tradition from age to

- . sa age We, therefore, venture to y that magic to day in A Au or A n frica, stralia, any part of sia, is esse tially the same h as it was thousands of years ago . We do not mean t at m f or agic throughout the world is the same, each nation m has a disti n ct form of agic peculiar to itself, but the

- i - various forms current to day, espec ally in semi civilized or t of d the s m barbarous por ions the worl , are exactly a e as they have been from time immemorial . T E A T OF A IC 8 H R M G .

’ Let us now tak e a bird s - eye view of magic as practised of I as in diff erent parts the world . n early times there w a universally accepted belief that living together and breath a f t and ing upon any person produced bad s well as good ef ec s, if practised by a healthy person restored an undermined tu T consti tion . his belief is to this day extant throughout f A m f o the coast o sia Minor. People dee it injurious r a an c1 ent child to sleep with a grown person . In times it was believed that to eradicate deeply rooted diseases a young and as fresh life w necessary. Especially pure virgins and young c hildren were s u pposed able to free persons from diseases by The their breath and even by their blood . patient was to be u T breathed pon by them and sprinkled with their blood . o have bathed in the blood would have been better, could it h ave been possible . History supplies us with many remark of v able instances restoration to health, either by li ing with or One of healthy persons being breathed upon by them , t is of the mos noteworthy recorded in the Bible, King David “ was ol d NOw King David l and stricken in years, and they covered him with clothes, but he got no heat . Wherefore ‘ Let f or his servants said unto him, there be sought my the n and lord king a you g virgin, let her stand before the l n king, and let her cherish him, and let her lie thy bosom, that my lord the king may get b e at ; so they sought for of a damsel throughout all the coasts Israel, and found A h er t . bishag, a Shunammi e, and brought to the king Bacon makes the remark that the girl probably rubbed x the king with myrrh and other balsamic substances, accord of i ing to the custom Persian ma dens . n on d Pliny recommends breathi g the forehead as a reme y . Galen reckons among the most certain outward remedies f or THE ART OF MAG IC.

k e n on the b ed bodily wea n ss you g persons who were laid , s o as of f f n to cover the body the su erer. Reinhart calls livi g with of Ol d B arth the young the restoration the . ol ini says the i i same, and that it is a prevent ve to the ch lliness of Old age . of u t Rudolph Hapsb rg is said, when very Old and decrepi ,

‘ - Of to have been accustomed to kiss, in the presence their n of relatio s, the daughters and wives princely, ducal, and n t e noble personages, and to have derived stre g h and r nova The tion from their breath . Emperor Frederic Barbarossa, of near the end his life, was advised by a Jewish physician in to have young and healthy boys laid across his stomach,

u . D amascen u s or stead of sing fermentations Johannes , t f or h Rabbi Moses, states tha lameness and gout not ing bet ter could be applied than a young girl laid across the aﬂ ected of part . Reinhart says young dogs are also great service, t which physicians lay, in cer ain cases, upon the abdomen of the patient . The of Lu c Cl odiu s He rmi u s story . pp , who reached a very great age by being continually breathed upon by young

w . K ohau sen girls, is well kno n records an inscription which n m was discovered at Rome by an antiquary, by ame Go ar. on It was cut marble, and run as follows

TO [E scul apiu s and Health This is erected by L Cl odi u s Hermi u s . pp , Wh o E y 'the breath of young girls L 1 1 5 5 ived years and days , At which physicians were not a little

Surprised .

Successive generations , lead such a life E 0 TH ART OF MAarc.

G BY HEALIN WORD S .

“ “ Is not my word as a ﬁre saith the Lord ; and like a

1 n . hammer that breaketh the rock p1 eces (Jer xxiii . n arti cu Heali g by words was common in the early ages, p l arl was t y in the Church, and used not only agains the devil 1 o al l Not did and mag arts , but also against diseases . only

i the early Christ ans heal by words, but the Old magicians t a The E performed heir wonders by magical formul s . gyp th m of The tians were great believers in e agic power words . G a w reeks were also well acqu inted with the po er of words, and give frequent testimony of this knowledge i n their O s poems . rpheus lulled the storm by his song, and Ulysse

’ stopped the bleeding Of wounds by the use of certain words . d n s Cato is said to have possesse formulas for curi g sprain ,

‘ while Marcus Varro is reported to have cured t umors in a similar fashion . T n ot his is the place to enter more fully into this subject, but it may n ot be superfluous to remember that in every w n h ord there is a magical influe ce, and t at each word is in f t itself the b reath o the internal and moving Spiri . A word ‘ of of m t of roml se 1 s to t love, co for , p , able s rengthen the ‘ l 111 o of timid, the weak, and the physical y . But w rds or w ou r n hatred, censure, enmity, menace lo er co fidence - HO and . s self reliance W easily the worldling, who rejoice ! over good fortune, is cast down under adversity Despair

‘ — only enters where rel igion 1 s not where the mind has no

i t . h un versal and Divine Comfor er But t ere is, probably, no t one entirely proof agains curses or blessings .

HAND s

By the touch of the hands visions and the power of THE ART OF MAGIC.

‘ prophecy are produced . When God desires to 1nsp1re a a ex ress1 on prophet, wh t p do we ﬁnd employed of L a Then the hand the ord came upon him, and he s w ” kin s of and prophesied . When Elisha was asked by the g p n t Israel and Judah concer ing the war with the Moabi es, he And called a minstrel, it came to pass, when the minstrel ” L . played, that the hand of the ord came upon him, etc

has d . The God no human han s Bible , therefore, evi d e ntl t the y indica es divine art, by the means common among men when any one was to be thrown into e cstasy and should prophesy . TA ISMA S L N . T l m alismans or amu ets are substances, particularly etals, t on minerals , roo s , and herbs, which were worn the body, t f r o s either as preventives agains or cures o disease . T thi ” A k of day in frica the natives ma e extensive use fetiches, h which are claws , fangs, roots , stones, and any ot er Objects fancied to he inhabited by spirits or invested wi th super n T u huma power . hese fetiches the negroes tr st against u n h evil fort e, wit a conﬁdence which no failure can shake f urther than to cause the unlucky bearer to discard a par ticu l ar it fetich which has failed, and to replace by a more s one succe sful . n In ancie t times, the talismans were supposed to possess of of f n of the power warding misfortu e or the effect poison, l and were inscribed with astro ogical signs and numbers . In d o later years, these talismans and amulets degenerate int Of k of the wearing __ bloodstones, loadstones, nec laces amber, images Of saints, consecrated Objects, etc . T O alismans were most frequently used by the rientals, who even at the present time employ them . People went THE ART ‘ OF C 1 2 MAGI . so far as to believe it possible to be placed in commum ca tion with the world of spirits by the aid of talismans ; that by their u se the love and esteem of men were to be gained ; and that by the mere wearing of such talismans others could

of . O be brought into any wished for condition mind rpheus, t t as o for instance, says ha it w p ssible to ﬁx the attention of

‘ e th u Of an audience, and to increas their pleasure, by e se the loadstone . A particular power was ascribed to precious stones . An ol d writer states as follows The diamond has the power of depriving the loadstone of i - s . its virtue, and beneﬁcial to sleep walkers and the insane The Arabian diamond 1 s sa1 d to guide iron towards the pole, and is therefore called magnetic by some . m The The agate disposes the ind to solitude . Indian is said to quench thirst if held in the mouth . Th i s k e amethyst ban she drun enness and sharpens the wit.

The red bezoar is preventive against poison . t s r The garne p reserves health, produce a joyous hea t, b u t discord between lovers .

The sapphire makes the melancholy cheerful, if suspended Of the round the neck, and maintains the power body. _ s n s Th e red coral stops bleeding and trengthe s dige tion, if worn about the person .

The crystal banishes bad dreams from the sleepers .

The chrysolite, held in the hand, repels fever. The onyx reveals terrible shapes to the sleeper ; worn

ﬁts. about the neck, it prevents epileptic

The opal is a remedy f or weak eyes . k the The emerald prevents epilepsy, unmas s delusions

f . O the devil, and sharpens the memory

THE 1 4 ART OF MAarc.

b - - e t irth ill omened, their fate is settled at onc by put ing T them to death . his reminds us that not later than 1 440 L Gilles de aval, Baron de Retz and Marshal Of France (an omcer t was u f or of the highes military rank) , b rned the ‘ O f It Monstrel et t crime magic . is alleged by hat the mar s are to his own s n hal put to death, if we g believe confes io , more than one hundred and sixty children and women in

ou r des ra ti a es dc ma i c 75. a f or delicate condition , p p q g , , the practices Of magic . Magic among the ancient Egyptians was generally of a h r or religious character . They ave written fo mulas docu of h ments, some w ich were couched in the following lan guage : I conﬁde in the ef ﬁcacy of that excellently written n -d a book give to y into my hand, which repels lions through f i z ascinat on disables men , which muz les the of the of a ll mouths lions, hyenas, wolves , mouth me n to who have bad faces, so as paralyze their limbs . An i a m other point deserv ng attention is the ppearance, d i bad early Egypt , of the istinct on between good and magic . Magical curative arts were practised by learn ed scribes or i n h priests, and were doubtless hig esteem ; but when it or or came to attracting love by charms philters, paralyzing

‘ r t arts A se c e . s n men by , this was held to be a crime lo g ago as the time of Rameses III . it is recorded that one Hai ’ of was accused making images and paralyzing a man s hand, d T f or which he was condemned to eath . his reminds us

in 1 4 E delin in o that 53 Doctor Guillaume , professor the S r b d f or u ndeni onne, was condemned to eath having, upon ” able accusation and information, visited the nocturnal meetings of witches and f or having worshipped the devil in

' the form of an image personating a goat . THE ART OF’ AG M IC. 15

In divinatory magic the Babylonians had elaborate codes “ of of . Th rules, which many have been preserved us, when a woman bears a child a nd at the time of birth its teeth are ” “ of n A cut, the days the prince will be lo g. gain , If a d o on g goes to the palace and lies down a throne, that palace

will be burned . D iod oru s Sicu l us me n , a Greek historian , born in Sicily, tions the skil l of the Chaldean priests in vario us branches of uriﬁcations magic ; their use of p , sacriﬁces, and chants t and r to aver evil obtain good ; thei foretelling by omens ,

dreams, prodigies , etc . Ancient Greek literature shows the Greeks to ha ve been a people whose religion ran much into consulting oracle d of th e of A at go s at many temples, which shrine pollo

. i . e . of Delphi was the chief Necromancy, , the art reveal ing future events by communication with the dead , was ex T te nsive ly practised . here was a famous oracle of the dead A T as h n near the river cheron in hesproti , w ere the departi g l d on t d The of sou s crosse heir way to Ha es . myth Circe turning the companions of Odysseus into s wine shows the barbaric belief in magical transformation of men in to beasts

T en min l in f or t e m Pra mnian wine w it c e e se h g g h h h , Me al and f re s one and inf u s in dru s , h h y, g g

Into the mix tu re dru s w ic mad e t e m l os e , g h h h

The me mor of t e ir home she a nde d t em y h , h h

The bevera e and t dra n T en in s tan l e . t g , h y k h y

She tou c e d t e m wit a w a nd a nd s ut t em u h h h , h h p

In s ties trans o rme d to s wi ne i n e a d and v oice , f h ,

B ristl e s a ﬂ s ha e t ou stil l the u man mind p , h gh h Re maine d to t e m T u s sorro win t e We re drive n h . h g h y

Into e ir ce ll s w e re Circe ﬂ u n to t e m th , h g h Acorns of oa k and il ex and the f ru i , t O f corn el such as nouris al l o in swine . , h w w g THE ART OF AG 6 M IC.

Not less clearly does the story of Medea and her caldron - d typify the witch doctress with her rugs , powerful both to

. d the d h of rE é t s kill and to bring to life Me ea was aug ter e , n of to t ki g the Colchians, who are said have founded a se tl eme nt on the east of the Black Sea and to the sou th of the of Caucasus . Medea was one the wise women (witches o r of she sorceresses) antiquity, and took terrible revenge on o f or his of n Jas n desertion her for a other bride . Medea m ay be considered one of the oldest witches i n the magic art n . Her witchcraft, as mentio ed by Greek authors who

600 . C . ol d The lived about B , was even in their time . of n- of worship Hecate, the moo goddess, sender midnight m ma l c1 ans phanto s, lent itself especially to the g . Hecate was the chief goddess who presided over magic arts and s f or of pells, all incantations were performed by the light in t the moon . Medea is his respect closely associated with w T u her worship . It is in an ancient Greek riter, heocrit s, ” where we really ﬁ n d the original recipe employed by the

of . T one of d witches Shakespeare heocritus, in his i yls,

represents a passionate witch crying to Hecate, the moon, sh e f i i to shine clear while compels, by sacri ce, her fa thless and of lover, goes through the magic ritual love and hate, s triving to bring her beloved one back to her by whirling t the brazen rhomb, scattering bones wi h the scattered bar

ley, melting him to love by the melting wax, casting into of o and l au rel s the fierce flames a torn shred his cl ak , to \ n b e crackle and blaze and be co sumed, that his flesh shall T i c onsumed likewise . his ancient witchcraft ascribed mag c power to such filth as pounded lizards and the blood of

creatures u ntimely dead , revolting messes made familiar to

d as a d . mo erns, it has been st te , by Shakespeare THE A F RT O MAGIC. 1 7

‘ The t G f -e e ancien reeks lived also in fear of the evil y , as m n a y still do, and they sought to avert its baneful inﬂuences the use by means still in , spitting, symbolic gestures, and the u se of charms and amulets . As n L to a cient Rome , much of the magic in the atin poets

L . t is only Greek sorcery in a atin dress We mus not, how t and ever , forget tha from the earliest antiquity, among all m t o people , agic was of en l oked upon as a capital crime and

“ A e was punished as such . mong the Jews magicians w re f or sometimes severely dealt with , but the most part they t Th were lef unmolested by the Greeks and Egyptians . e Romans enacted severe laws against thos e who practised “ d t mal e ﬁc magic, condemning to eath by ﬁre hose given to ” t arts, punishing wi h death their accomplices and associates, and sending into perpetual exile those having in their pos on The session books magic . Romans enacted the above

‘ d of severe laws because , uring those times superstition , the astrologers and magicians were so numerous in Rome that 720 t years after the foundation of that ci y, the Emperor, Augustus was obliged to issue a decree of banishment t The agains them . Emperor Claudius was still more severe, f or n , as Pliny i forms us, he caused a Roman knight to be he executed because carried in his bosom an egg, supposed

be . T to a serpent, in order to enchant his judges his superstition was also very common among the Druid s . It is evident that the Romans attributed magic properties n on to eggs . Pliny i forms us that the Romans were wont,

e s o of eating gg ﬁ break the shells into pieces, from fear some

As trol o the so-cal l e d scie nce b w ic v arious nations in variou s gy, y h h , wa s a ve atte m te d to a si n to the m i h ens a moral inﬂu y , h p s g ater al eav ence o er the e arth i h bi v and its n a tants . THE ART OF A 1 8 M GIC.

‘ char m being practised against them . In many parts of F e m ex1sts of bre ak l n t scru ranc the custo to this day g , wi h ul ous of misf or p care, the shells eggs , thus crushing the e at ou d t unes to which the er w l otherwise have been exposed . On not 1 o b u t the other hand , Nero only favored mag , A t caused magicians to come from rabia, the fer ile land of of superstitions and jugglery. He spent immense sums

‘ to the money learn the mysteries of the art . Constantine Great enacted a l aw by which he ' de cre e d death agains t those mag1 c1 ans whose superstitions injured health or led men to impu rity but he permitted the magic which cured sickness

v t . The Leo and a er ed storms Emperor , however, condemned

d . to eath all magicians, without exception Constantius also passed decrees of death against those I -i who resorted to magic for curing diseases . t s said that man to m he beheaded a young who, in order free himself fro a h d a pain in the stom c , repeate to himself the seven vowels of the a and h is on Greek alph bet, alternately placed hand a n i marble and on his stomach . Under the Roman p o t ﬁs the ﬂ r d in magicians su e e still more terribly . Commissions of quiry were appointed to deliver the country of sorcerers and of m T of all who had recourse to the infernal art agic . hese n searchers received orders to scour Germa y, France, and

w of . Italy, here reports magicians, sorcerers, etc , caused terror ’ to we ak minds and to those nurtured with superstition and of m1 ss 1on prejudice . Proud their , they inﬂicted the most excruciating torments that human ingenuity could invent, in order that those thus tortured might mak e such answers as In in their executioners desired . this way many who were n e t oc n confessed for, as a poet says,

Tortu e inter o a es and suff erin res onds r r g t g p . THE ART OF MAGIC 19

By these means they transf ormed into deserts populous countries where they exerc ised their fatal in quisitorial r T l powe . hose who escaped took to ﬂight . In the ear y centuries of the Roman Church mention is of ten made of .

the word sorcery, and capital punishment was pronounced against those s uspected of exercising the same l n order to to or e b cause their enemies perish , for having att mpted y false prophecies to introduce innovations into the state . It t te was, however, only toward the end of the hir enth century m e that active easures were op nly adopted against sorcery, was n n which de ounced as a league with the e emy of mankind, of a renunciation the Supreme Being, an alliance with the of d — in as of spirit arkness ﬁne, one the most abominable of crimes . A h l of u l Pope Innocent VIII . served to stimulate the d “ inquisitors . We have learne , the bull declared, that a large number of persons of both se xes d o not fear to

enter into relation with the infernal demons, and by their o s rcery strike equally men and animals, render sterile the b e d of e conjugal , cause the children women to p rish, as as the f f of the well o springs animals, and wither wheat in

the ﬁelds, the vines , the fruits of the trees, the grass and ” pastures . The 1 48 consequences of this bull were frightful . In 5 Cu man us in one year burn ed alive 41 women ; toward the 1 00 n t 1 5 1 5 500 same epoch men were bur ed in I aly . In , women were executed in Geneva under the denomina tion of P rot es ta nt s or cerers 48 more were burned in Ra vensb ur d g, and the inquisitor Remi b oasted of having cause ‘

to be executed i n ﬁfteen years more than persons . St ma t s s n t d range though it y seem, he e per ecutio s only en ed THE F 20 ART O MAGIC.

— t o extend the sphere and the inﬂuen ce of magic a fact n which proves that an opinion , however revolting or stra ge,

ﬁnds ready martyr s the moment it is persecuted . Death i t only propagates it, ridicule alone extinguishes . Follow of o 1 of V . 484 ing the bull Inn cent III , in , documents the

na u A V Le o X . m 1 521 same ture were iss ed by lexander L, , and on as so , but, it has already been stated, they only served of The to increase the number sorcerers . population was, so Rio to speak, divided into enchanters and enchanted. Del assures u s that in 1 51 5 more than 500were executed in Switz in erland, and more than are said to have perished of France . In Germany, against which country the bull -e c Pope Innocent was specially directed, sor ery spread itself ” W of t o . At ii r tz b u r t w prodigiously g, in the shor space 1 5 7 m months , more than p ersons were burned, among who n m 1 660 were children ra ging f rom the age Of 9 to 1 2 . Fro 1 664 L n o e - of e n to , in inden, more tha n twentieth the ’ tire population was turned over to the executioner s tender On e an n mercies . c safely assume that before the persecutio s s ceased person were sacriﬁced in Germany alone, by of h n of reason the bulls Of the Popes . In t e begi ning the of seventeenth century, the greater number those sacriﬁced e n en of ‘ wer i noc t any connection with magic, but being handed over to torture together with their nearest relatives n was t the and friends, a confessio secured which sen victim

to execution . There were many causes which tended to bring magic n its i i to discredit, such as heathenish doctrines, enmities, g

n orance - , superstition, scepticism, and the premature judg of ‘ ment shallow authors . Magic, therefore, was classed w a anism b ecau se of n ith p g , some its professors were heathe , \

THE A A I 2 RT OF M G C.

m t the d t u t nt unfe inine rait, was irec o come of i ense mental activity and an abnormally sensitive nervous temperament . This u nfortunate young woman fell into the power of the l v and W h Eng ish, after having, by the alor enthusiasm hic sh e on occasions reanimate d v n displayed various , \ the wa eri g

‘ of ho e of courage the French, and inspired them with the p i t The n restoring liberty to the r coun ry. people of Engla d of in looked upon her as a sorceress ; those France , as an of b Spired heroine, while the educated classes oth coun he r n one nor b u t tries considered either the the other, only as an instrument that the celebrated Dunois, Count ‘ O out r ole Of rleans, employed to carry the he had assigned

. The n J of to her Duke of Bedford, in whose ha ds oan Arc her fell, took life, in order to blacken her memory with of u h the crime sorcery, and ca se her to lose the renown s e n The had acquired in Fra ce . decree of condemnation

' of havm t o ak th accused her g frequen ed an old , under e of oa k o d s i n branches which was a fountain called the f e t y. The Ol d sword and the white standard (it was of her own design embroidered with lilies and having on the on e side

‘ the image of God se ate d on the clouds and holding the on of world in his hand, and the other a representation the A she w d as m nnunciation) carried, ere enounced instru ents

d she . prepared by the emons, with whom was in league n ot Magic, however much hated and proscribed, was the n w less believed in . Stringe t la s were enacted against it

u the . L even d ring earliest times In eviticus, sorcery is pro i t d h n h bi ed un er the penalty Of death, and w e ever mention of n ot magic is made, it is done, in a sceptical Spirit , but t was wi h reprobation . When a soothsayer looked upon as a false prophet, the inference was, not that magic itself was TH A F E RT O MAGIC.

r but th t th ti m i n was t i un eal, a is par cular ag cia pre end ng to h Th a supernatural power e did not possess . e literature of the m iddle ages shows us how unbroken the fai th of even the educated classes remained in the reality of magic; and t that its more respectable branches, such as as rology and e alchemy, w re largely followed, and indeed included in their The scope much of the real science of the period . ﬁnal fall of magic began with the revival of science in the sixteenth nt and seventeenth ce uries, when the question was raised

‘ whether the supposed effects of magic really took place or our d ou t not . In day the occult sciences are rapidly ying edu ca ted cla s s es o the ci vi li z ed wor ld h among the f , thoug the m in astrology still has its votaries, and com unications “ ” d r w Spirit circles, by possesse mediums and spi it riting, old n are what would in times have been classed as necroma cy. B u t the inﬂue n ce of magic may yet be seen i n the practice employed of foretelling changes in the weather by the ’ m moon s quarters, taking omens from seeing agpies and of t hearing a dog howl at night, the fear spilling sal , the

’ girls l istening to the cuckoo to tell how soon they will be off tl married , pulling the row of leaves to set e what the ’ lover s calling will be, and perhaps even compelling him to r u come by a pin st ck through the rushlight . L o ooked at as a series of delusions, magic is distasteful to of the modern mind, which , once satisﬁed its practical futil

i s as Of . ity, apt to discard it folly unworthy further notice T his , however, is hardly doing it justice, for, as we have s i n the of hown , early developments the human mind both religion and science were intimately connected with magic, ma whose various branches , unfruitful as they y be, are nevertheless growths from the tree of knowledge . THE ART F C 24 O MAGI .

Magic was very early divided into two general classes w The ff hite and black magic . di erent methods which ma gicians employed to attain their end gave rise to various of sO- branches the art, the called occult sciences . Some of of is account a few these given below .

AE ROMAN C Y.

This name was given to divination through certain ap p earance s in the air . Besides the Observation of me teors it of included the study the clouds, both those in process of formation and those that assume a variety of shapes ; f or it was belie ved that the cloud- forms foretold the happy and u t of the nhappy aspec planets . It was claimed that the

‘ four elements were peopled with spirits called sylphs , n e . The w ymphs, gnomes, salamanders, etc gnom s ere de mons which lodged in the earth and were al ways inten t upon

‘ m was the of n doing ischief . Water home the ymphs, while

was . The n ﬁre that of the salamanders sylphs, peopli g the v r air, were the most beautiful and lo able creatu es in the t o world . We are old that one could easily appr ach them, on one - im ossi yet condition , which rendered it well nigh p — it l . ble was, to be absolute y chaste

A ECTRYOMA CY L N . Alectryomancy was an ancient kind of divination which of attempted to foretell events by means a cock, and was employed among the Greek s in the following manner : A circle was made on the ground and divided into t wenty- four equal portions or spaces in each space was written one of

of of the letters the Greek alphabet, and ,upon each these

t of . T o let ers was laid a grain wheat his being done, a c ck A THE AR T OF M G IC. 25 was placed within a circle and careful observation was made

Th t r on . e c o re s di o of the grains he picked up le ters p ngi t d these grains were afterward formed into a wor , which word hu i was the answer decreed . It was t s that L baniu s a nd amblich u s J sought who should succeed the Emperor Valens . T hey pronounced certain mysterious words, and examined w hich would be the ﬁrst letters discovered by a young cock t T which they kept wi hout food for some time . he ﬁrst let ‘ Tk eta O E s i lon e ter was the Greek letter ) , the second the p ( ) , Omi cr on O the D elta the third the ( ) , the fourth and thereby they came to the conclusion that the name of the h th successor would begi n by T eod . Upon this e Emperor Valens put to death several of those supposed to aspire to and m Theod f or the throne whose name com enced by as, T Tii eod u l os The do o T t heodes tes o r s heodotes . ins ance, , , , , etc T heodos i u s He forgot, however, , who succeeded him, and of who received the epithet the Great . The magicians attributed to the crowing of the cock the n power to break up the meeti gs of apparitions and spectres .

T i n Ha ml et to hus, the play Of , Horatio , speaking his friend t Hamle about the ghost, says

M l ord I did y , .

Bu t ans we r made i none e t once me thou t t y , gh , It l if te d u its ea d and did addre s s p h ,

Itse l to motion l i e as it wou l d s ea f , k p k

B ut even t en the mornin coc cre w l ou d , h , g k And at the sou nd it shru nk in ha ste a wa y

An d van is e d rom ou r s i t h f gh .

ALE UROMAN CY .

F a lea on of rom the Greek word r , meaning ﬂour, is a sort HE ART AG 6 T OF M IC.

i s m s divination practised by the aid of ﬂour. It so etime also l hitomanc called a p y.

ALOMANCY.

a ls t. T n From the Greek , meaning sal his is divi ation by

. w salt, which the ancients regarded as sacred It is ell known that salt was one of the most important ingredients i n e ancient Gre k sacriﬁces in fact, to omit placing a salt cellar near the spot where the sacriﬁce was to take place

a of A w s deemed the forerunner great misfortunes . mong an wa s d of early Christi s salt regar ed as the symbol wisdom, and many people s till regard it as a misfortune to spill salt accidentally upon the table .

TH O OM CY AN R P AN .

This horrible divination was made by examining the eu Not f e trails Of the dead . a w instances are recorded where emperors and kings have cau sed to be strangled n umbers of unoffending persons in the pursui t of this nefarious prao tice . M APAN TO AN CY.

a a mf o From the Greek p , to meet . It is divination by means of objects that one meets . Many have lived in con

of w The stant fear cro s , black cats, and white hens . Indians turn a t on ce back into their houses if they meet a serpent on

of to their way . In some parts France the people fear meet

b t misf or a rab it, and peasants to this day believe tha some tune will happento them if on rising they come across a

- bare headed woman .

A ITHMOMA CY R N .

Arithmomancy is a kind of divination or method of fore THE ART OF MAGIC. 27

t n t of . The G elli g fu ure events by means numbers ematria, i which constitutes the ﬁrst part of the Jewish Cabala, s a n ki d of Arithmomancy .

AST O O GY J ICIA R L ( UD L) .

A i s to n strology generally divided in atural astrology, the science which predicts the motions of heavenly bodies and of s u n ecli pses the and moon, and judicial astrology, which studies the inﬂuence of constellations on the destiny of men The and empires . latter has taken root so deeply in the h human mind that neit er experience, nor the falsity of its d n or of pre ictions, the progress civilization have been able

. To f e w ma to totally extirpate it this day, a y be found r f or or who , f om a superstitious reverence the past, the of on spirit contradiction , pride themselves their adherence to the belief in stellar inﬂuences . Even if the said science

d fﬁ ul t se e a d were exact, it is i c to the advant ge which woul result to the world at large f or men to know their fu ture ; f or not the of they could ﬁght against laws destiny, while they would have a premature source of sorrow in case an ominous fate awaited them . What pleasure could such

to a Pom knowledge have brought Socrates, Phocion , C esar, X I n I . L V . pey, Charles . , Henry III . , IV , ouis , and ma y on others , whose names are inscribed the bloody pages of history A k u ccording to Herodotus, a Gree historian, born abo t

484 B . O the t be n the year . , Egyptians mus co sidered as the Of u t inventors astrology , while others claim that we m s At an f look to Chaldea as its birthplace . y rate, it is di ﬁcult to and d of trace its origin, a minute iscussion the subject

nd . would carry us beyo the limits Of the present work M . THE ART AG 8 OF M IC.

F in Hi tor o A nom m . s s tr o r Hofer, his y f y, e arks If we k of wish to see for the origin the science, let us place a of the e n s child or a savage in presence the earth and h ave , and ask what thoughts these suggest to him . We shall then ” O ou r btain a clew to guide us on path .

‘ fi sa e ve r art of Suf ce to y, that in y p the ancient world a as n or strology had its votaries, either a ative product, transplanted at some unknown time, from some unknown r and so egion, amalgamated closely with the various local beliefs as to lose all trace of its protoplastic condi t ion . The Chinese astrologists professed the power of produc or e t ing averting eclipses, the Etruscan pri sts asserted tha n d they could draw dow or ivert lightning. A Lacede monian mong the Greeks, Chilon, the , was the first who applied himself to the science of judicial astrol; o d and gy. He maintaine that heat, humidity, cold, dry ness are the four qualities the different mixture of which m of t akes the diversity the temperamen of man . Heat t and humidi y serve to generate, cold and dryness to destroy the body, and these four qualities are disposed in man a i The su n is ccord ng to celestial influences . the principle of t of y hea , and the moon that humidit and according to the disposition of these two great luminaries at the mo m t of ent of the bir h the child , the latter brings to the of d is world the ferment the mala y which to destroy it . a It can easily be seen that, from the very first, judici l

a was . strology, , so to Speak, a medical superstition It did " w one not, ho ever, long conﬁne itself to this phase, for of to general predictions all sorts soon became attached it, and were freely made upon the authority of ce lestial ih

THE ART OF A C 30 M GI .

‘ the . c da we child By ontinuing thus day by y, can obtain the relation of that which will designate the ﬁgure of each

day to each year which corresponds to it . The a n ages during which strologers were domi ant, either t n or t e u by the error they i spired, by the mar yrdom they dured when their predictions were either too true or too ’ t th e t false, were the saddes in world s his ory. In the times of A t n f or me n to ugus us , it was a commo practice fi conceal " of A the day and hour their birth, till, like ugustus, they n t n t a tr l fou d a complacen astrologer. O the subjec of s o o gers there remains only to mention a few of their predictions t the remarkable , either for their fulfilmen , or for ruin and t b e w th confusion hey rought upon their authors . W begin i ’ “ one taken from Bac on s E s s ay of P rop heci es : When I ’ one — was in France, I heard from Dr . Pena that the queen s to t s n mother, who was given curious ar s, cau ed the ki g her ’ nativitie to husband s be calculated under a false name, and the astrologer gave a judgment that he should be killed in ! n a duel , at which the queene laughed , thinki g her husband t o be above challenges and duels but he was sl ain e upon a s l t o cour e at ti t, the splin ers of the staffe of Montgomery g ing in at his bever . A favorite topic of the astrologers of all countries has been th d t of As 1 1 8 6 h e imme ia e end the world . early as the eart on f l had escaped e threatened cataclysm o the astro ogers . This did n ot preven t Stof fler from predicting a universal d u 1 524— a as t n out d n el ge for the year year, it ur ed , isti of t n gu ishe d for drought . His aspect he heave s told him that in that year three planets would meet in the aqueous n of The Sig Pisces . prediction was believed far and wide, ’ and d Aurial T Presi ent , at oulouse, built himself a Noah s R F A THE A T O M GIC. 31

’ — n a t C m l n ark a curious realizatio , in f c , of haucer s erry ’ er s Ta le C d ve ntion in the Mi ll . In hina any false pre ic

f . tion o the astrologers was punished with death But, as

L u n al t astrol o the atin poet J ve says in his Six h Satire, the ’ On of gers chief power depends on their persecution . e the most famous astrologers of the Middle Ages was Tycho t of n ot Brahe, the as ronomer royal Denmark, who only from his d ﬁfteenth year was evoted to astrology, but adjoining his obser vatory at Uranienb urg h ad a laboratory built in order ar t to study alchemy (the pretended of making gold) , and it was only a few years before his death that he ﬁnally aban u h on e b do ed astrology . We may ere notice very remarka le of one of u d of prediction of the master Kepler, the fo n ers e of modern astronomy . He car fully studied the comet 1 577 t on n i n , and it announced, he tells us, hat the orth, n n l Finla d , there should be bor a prince who shou d lay waste

1 632 . A Germany, and vanish in Gustavus dolphus, it is w ell known , was born in Finland , overran Germany, and

d 1 632 Th of o ro h ied in . e fulﬁlment the details f this p p e c was of u y , course , nothing but a l cky hit , but w e may con vince ourselves that Tycho Brahe had some basis of reason

f or n . of his predictio He was no dupe vulgar astrology, but of e gifted rather with the happy inspiration Parac lsus , who saw in himsel f the forerunner and prototype of the scie n tiﬁc f ascendency of Germany . Born in Denmark o a noble w S edish family, a politician, as were all his contemporaries of T distinction , ycho, though no conjurer, could foresee the of om n e advent s e great norther hero . Moreov r, he was l w r doubtless wel acquainted ith a very ancient t adition , that heroes generally came from the northern fron tiers of their n te m ered ' b ative land, where they are hardened and p y the THE ART MAG 32 OF IC.

- an d three fold Struggles they wage with soil, climate, bar

barian neighbors .

‘ astrol o once e n re Seeing that gy p rmeated all scie ces , all l i ion ol itics it n r of g , and all p , , is not stra ge if t aces it crop To i u p where we should least expect them . astrolog cal poli t owe of - u ics we the theory heaven sent rulers, instr ments of v of t Na o in the hands Providence, and sa iours socie y. p i leon as well as Wallenstein bel eved in his Star . Many pass ages in ou r older poets are unintel ligible without some of t on knowledge astrology. Chaucer wrote a reatise the a t tl ref ers to s rolabe, Milton constan y planetary inﬂuences ﬁ ’ Ki n Lear re re in Shakespeare s g , Gloucester and Edmund p h sent respectively t e Old and the new faith . We still con tem la te cons ider of as ovi a l s a t p and ; we still speak men j , u r ni ne or mer cu r i a l of a scendenc of , ,f we still talk the y

or di sa s tr ou s . genius, a defeat

AKIN OMAN CY .

axe h . From the Greek , a atchet divination by the axe w This instrument as placed in equilibrium upon a stake . T e of e hereupon the nam s susp cted persons were pronounced. When the axe made some movement during the pronuncia of r t tion of any these names, it was deemed a ce ain proof n e that the name was that of the guilty o .

B E LOMAN CY .

m the belos . T s of Fro Greek , an arrow hi is a method u u of divination thro gh the instr mentality arrows , practised A “ in the East, but chieﬂy among the rabians . Ezekiel says that Nebuchadnezzar used this divination to ascertain the of th a event e war he was waging gainst the Jews . H AR F A T E T O M GIC. 33

the of two t m t In employment belomancy, distinc e hods in ne were vogue . O was to mark a number Of arrows, and or of t T t to put eleven more hem into a bag . hese were af er

d out d or ward rawn , and accordingly as they were marke , A to otherwise, were future events judged . nother way was u on e of was t God or have three arrows, pon which writ en, f bi ds i t me God or der s i t me upon another, and upon the a t al l T t ou t third, nothing . hese were put in o a quiver, of one of a a t ha which the three was dr wn random . If it p n inscr1 tion pened to be that with the seco d p , the thing they consulted about was to be done if it chanced to be that t n l e t i t with the ﬁrst inscrip ion , the thi g was alone and if i d w proved to be that without any inscr ption, they re over o again . Belomancy is an ancient practice , and is pr bably

. 21 t . that which Ezekiel mentions , chap xxi . at leas St

Jerome understands it so, and Observes that the practice was frequent among the Assyrians and Babylonians . Something like it is also spoken of in Hosea (the ﬁrst in order of the m n inor prophets) , o ly that staves are mentioned there instead of w arrows, hich is rather rhabdomancy (from the Greek

rha bd os s ti ck n . w , ) than beloma cy Grotius , as ell as Jerome , t w d confound the two toge her, and Sho that they prevaile

much among the Magi , Chaldeans, and Scythians, from whom ‘ the asse d y p to the Sclavonians and thence to the Germans , T of The who were said by acitus to make use belomancy . T urks to this day foretell the result of a battle in this way.

B OTAMAN CY.

F k bota non n . rom the Gree , plant , divination by pla ts

- We know very little how this sort of divination was prac g

’ tise d i r b o f t l , but ev dently a conside a le knowledge na ura 3 THE ART F A 34 O M GIC.

! history must have been necessary, if it were based upon the observation of phenomena t hat certain plants present .

C OMA CY APN N .

F K a nos . rom the Greek p , smoke Divination by the smoke o f the f sacriﬁces . If during a sacri ice smoke was thin and

t and a h w the ligh , curling itself scending straig t up to ards sk y, the omen was propitious ; if it scattered itself in all

was . of directions , it the contrary Favorable conditions the atmosphere were indispensable to attain the result

Wished for . CARTOMA CY N .

i r Div nation by d awmg cards .

CATOPTROMAN CY.

‘ This was ano ther s pecies of divination used by the an= i n t n of c e s . , and was performed by mea s a mirror Pausanias says that this method of divinationwas in vogue A n k dan among the chaians , whe those who were sic and in

of h or - e ger deat let down a mirror looking glass, fasten d d T of by a threa , into a f ountain before the emple Ceres ; n saw di sﬁ then , looki g into the glass, if they a ghastly, g u re d of on face, they took it as a sure Sign death but, the h it was contrary, if the face appeared fres and healthy, a n of toke re covery. Sometimes glasses were used without Of water, and the images future things, it is said, were rep ih resented them . The as W m of Egyptian hierophants, ell as the agicians ancient Greece and Rome , were accustomed to astonish their of dupes with optical illusions, visible representations the di vinities and subdivinities passing before the spectators in THE ART F MA C O GI . 35

a t n dark subterrane n chambers . From the descrip io s of an cient authors we may conjecture that the principal Optical

' illusion employed in these eff ects was the throwing of spec tral images of living persons and other Objects upon the smoke of burning incense by means of c onca ve metal mir f rors . t e e o s But, according to the de ail d xposure the trick of the a e f was m gicians , it app ars that the desired ef ect Often produced in a simple way by causing the dupe to look into a cellar through a basin of water with a glas s bottom stand d sk - or u d ing un er a y blue ceiling, by fig res on a ark wall, drawn in inflammable material and sudd enly ignited . The flashes of lightning and the rolling thunder which sometimes accompanied these manifestations were easy tricks now familiar to everybody as the ign ition of lycopo diu m t and the shaking of a shee of metal .

CE HA OMA CY P L N .

This operation consisted i n burning upon co als the head

of . T n a donkey his sacriﬁce was made to demons, and con el l ed e p them to r spond to the questions addressed to them .

C E ROMAN C Y .

it to Wax was melted, and was allowed fall, drop by drop, Th “ into the water. e form which these droppings as or t sumed indicated a propitious unpropi ious event . This divination is especially in vogue among the Turks .

H MA C IRO N CY .

. m i Co monly known as palmistry . It is divination by n t n of sp ec ing the lines and conﬁguratio the hand . Chiro man cy seeks in the palm of the hand certain relations THE ART F MA ‘ 36 O GIC.

u to be A s pposed closely allied with the seven planets . o

of o cording to the palmisters the upper part the thumb, r of d the elevation the han which is at the root of the thumb, of w is under the domination Venus ; others, ho ever, place it o The under that f Mars . triangle formed by the lines of the hand is attributed by some to Mars and by others to The A m fi u Mercury . capital letter , for ed and g red in the quarter of the han d which is dominated by Jupiter is a prog of of the sun of t f or nostic wealth in the quarter , a grea in of u of tune ; the quarter Merc ry, successes ; in the of of of quarter Venus, inconstancy ; in the quarter Mars, of of of n cruelty ; in the quarter the moon, weak ess . The of d seven first letters the alphabet, evoted to the c t Si nification seven planets, have ea h their par icular g , when h ‘ n they are formed by the seven lines of t e ha d . But as the formation of letters is different in several languages th e lines of the hand must necessarily have different meanings

A . among the rabs, Chinese , Greeks, French , English, etc The little white lines that are Often to be seen upon the n wh e n t he ails presage, y are numerous, that the appearances i t m upon wh ch one counts are vain . We are told hat the pal i ster should feel neither lor e n or ha te toward the person d n whose hand he is examining . Under this con ition o ly the The can result prove true . hand examined must be well washed and its possessor be in a state of complete

n of or . T is tranquillity, avoidi g excess heat cold here also a dispute as to which hand should be examined . Some m n one n aintain that the right ha d is the proper amo g men , or f or or those born in the day, while it is the left women, th O for those born in e night . thers claim the exact con trar y.

THE ART A 38 OF M GIC.

C OSCI OMA CY N N ,

As of . the word implies, is the art divination by a Sieve The n ew r of being suspended, afte the repetition a cer t two tain formula, is aken between ﬁngers only, and the names of the persons suspected repeated . He at whose na or me the Sieve turns, trembles, shakes, is reputed guilty d of the charge in question . This oubtl ess must be a very T e Thi rd Id ll i on ancient practice . h ocritus, in his y , men tions awoman who was very skilful in it . It was sometimes

or also practised by suspending the Sieve by a thread , ﬁxing th e t of of n n it to poin s a pair scissors, givi g it room to tur , i man and naming, as before, the parties suspected . In th s ner coscinomancy is still employed in some parts of Eng land . From Theocritus it appears that it was n ot only used out to ﬁnd culprits, but also to discover secrets .

D ACTYLOMAN CY .

T of s of his is a sort divination performed by mean a ring .

' ‘ - en a It was done by holding a ring, susp ded by ﬁne thread, of over a round table, whose edge contained a number 24 l The marks w ith the letters of the Greek a phabet . i or l r ng, in shaking vibrating over the tab e, stopped over the certain letters, which, being joined together, composed an n ac required swer . But this operation was preceded a d Th companied by several superstitious ceremonies . e ring m The was to be consecrated with a great deal of ystery . person holding it was to be clad in l inen garments to the his to very shoes , head was be shaven all round, and he was to hold ver vain in his hand . The whole process of this mysterious rite is given in the

2 9th book of Ammianus Marcellinus . E XTISPI CI UM.

F exta s i cere n The m of OW . ( rom and p , to W , co sider ) na e the oﬁi cer who examined the entrails of the victim was

Extispex . This method of drawing presages relative to futurity was

t t h t wo much practised hroughou Greece, w ere there were families consecrated and se t apart particularly for the exer f cise o it . A mong the Etruscans in Italy, likewise, the art was in L i of great repute . ucian g ves us a ﬁne description of one ﬁ these operations in his rst book.

GASTROMA CY N .

T n his species of divi ation , practised among the ancients, o was performed by means f ventriloquism . There is another kind of divination called by the same of or name, which is performed by means glasses, other

u t a ro nd ransparent vessels, within which certain ﬁgures p H of the pear by magic art . ence its name, in consequence

ﬁgures appearing as if in the interior of the vessel .

GEOMA CY N . Was performed by means of a number of little points or on d dots , made at random paper, and afterwar s considering

the various lines and ﬁgures which these points present, to m u of thereby pretending for a j dgment futurity, and

de cidin g¢a proposed question . Pol yd ore Virgil deﬁnes geomancy as a kind of divination or d performed by means of clefts chinks ma e in the ground, and he takes the Persian magi to have been the inventors

of it . HE ART F A 40 T O M GIC.

G G k ear th eomancy is derived from the ree y n, ; and

um / r e f er d n e y , ivination ; it being the a ci nt custom instead of making u se of the points above mentioned to cast little

e and t . pebbl s on the ground , hence to form the conjecture

HYD ROMAN CY .

‘ H n or of n or l ydroma cy, the art divini g foretel ing future n of one eve ts by means water, is Of the four general kinds of i : h div nation the ot er three , depending upon the other ele

- — ments, viz, ﬁre , air and earth are denominated pyro

o n . mancy, aer mancy, and geomancy, already mentio ed The Persians are said to have been the ﬁrst inventors of hydromancy . There are in existence various ancient hydromatic ma

i . chines and vessels, which are of a singularly cur ous nature

O NOMA CY N .

The art of divining the good or bad fortune which will m of T befall a man fro the letters his name . his mode Of in u divination was very popular rep te among the ancients . The u t m an d Pythagoreans ta ght hat the ind , actions, ‘ of the ir f a te success men were according to , genius, and name ; and Plato himself inclines somewhat to the same 1 Opin ou . T r hi os Ob hus Hippolytus (from the G eek pp , horse) was to his own served be torn to pieces by chariot horses , as his name imported ; and Agamemnon signiﬁed that he should linger long before Troy ; Priam that he Should be redeemed To be re from bondage in his childhood . this also may ferred the lines of Claudius Ru til iu s : A THE ART OF M GIC. 41

Nominibu s certis cred am de currere more s ! Moribu s et potiu s nomina certa dari

v It is a frequent and just obser ation in history, that the greatest empires and states have been founded and destroyed

of the n . T u by men same ame h s, for instance, Cyrus, the son of r Cambyses, founded the Pe sian monarchy, and Cyrus, son of of H stas es re the Darius, ruined it ; Darius, son y p , an d son Asamis stored it , again , Darius, of , utterly over son of Am ntas threw it . Philip , y , exceedingly enlarged of a son of A the kingdom M cedonia and Philip , ntigonus, A w . of holly lost it ugustus was the first emperor Rome, l u t Augu stu s the last . Constantine first set led the empire at his n Constantinople, to which city he gave ame, and another i t k Constantine lost wholly to the Tur s . There is a somewhat similar observation that some names are constantly unfortunate to princes Caius : d and among the Romans John in France , Englan Scot One of land and Henry in France . the principal rules of t onomancy, among the Pythagoreans, was, hat an even number of vowel s in a name signified an imperfection in the of left side a man , and an Odd number in the right . A nother rule, about as valuable as this, was that those per sons were the most happy in whose names the numeral let

u f r ters, added together, made the greatest s ms o this rea son A , said they, chilles vanquished Hector, the numeral the a n letters in ‘ former name surp ssing in umber those in

. And t it the latter , doub less , was from a like principle that the Roman fops to asted their mistresses at their meet as t ings often as their names con ained letters .

Na lc ia sex c a thi s se tem Ju s t na iba tu y , p i l r . THE ART A 42 OF M GIC.

Rhodin ius n man g describes a Si gular kind of ono cy. T Of i n heodotus, King the Goths, being cur ous to lear the u of l Je w iss e his wars against the Romans, an onomantica to h Of w ordered him s ut up a number s ine in small styes, to of a nd h t and give to some them Roman , to ot ers Go hic ff names, with di erent marks to distinguish t hem, and there to keep them till a certain day . When the appointed day u it ’ was t came, pon inspecting the styes, found tha those to h G whic the othic names had been given were dead, and those which had the Roman names wer e al ive upon which d o the Jew foretold the efeat f the Goths .

O EIROCRITICS N .

The of n or d Of f oretelli n art i terpreting dreams, a metho g futu re events by means of dreams; This Species of divination dates back to the earliest The of times . Scriptures furnish sundry examples celestial

- d a f or in communications given to men in their re ms, as w as stance the explication given to Pharaoh by Joseph . It believed that to dream loss of teeth presaged some calamity or the d of To of or eath a relative . dream black cats white d hens was also considered a b a omen . ’ To m of f drea loss Sight foretold the loss o one s children . ’ on e of of h or If dreamed the loss one s ead, arms, feet, it ’ of t or . was the loss one s fa her, brothers, domestics

‘ To dream tha t O ne had hair ﬁne and Well cu rled was a

. on th Sign of prosperity If, the o er hand, the hair seemed n or of f fl t to be eglected scant, it was a Sign a ic ion . To dream of garlands of flowers in their season was a happy omen b u t if the flowers were out of season the a dream was a pres ge of ill . THE ART F A O M GIC. 43

of To dream death foretold marriage . To dream that one ﬁnds a treasure was considered as

foreboding death and sorro w.

To or dream of looking into a mirror, if Single, to dream of v t u some sorrowful e ent, foretold some good for une abo t

to occur . A ONYC HOM N CY .

This kind of divination is performed by means of the

ﬁn er - The t n of g nails . ancien practice was to rub the ails and or a youth with oil soot wax, and to hold up the nails sun u n su thus prepared against the , po which there was p posed to appear ﬁgures or characters which Showed the d thing require . Hence, also, modern chiromancers called that branch of their art which relates to the inspection of nails onychomancy . ORNITHOMAN CY

n or of arri vm Is a kind of divinatio , method g at the of u u of knowledge f t rity, by means birds it was among the r k G ee s what augury was among the Romans .

YROMA CY P N .

A t s fir species of divina ion performed by mean of e . The ancients imagined they co uld foretell futurity by in s t fire pec ing and flames . For this purpose they considered or h n its directio"n , whic way it tur ed . Sometimes they k n threw pitch into it , and if it too fire i stantly they con sidere d it a favorable omen .

SYCHOMA CY OB SCIOMA CY. P N , N

An art among the ancients of raising or calling up the THE ART OF A 44 M GIC.

spirits or souls of deceased persons to give intelligence of T things to come . he witch who conju red up the soul o f to m t Samuel, foretell Saul the event of the i pending bat le, o did s by sciomancy . RHABDO MANCY

Was an ancient method o f divination performed by means or In t ‘ of Of rods staves . fac , this sort divination dates m from time i memorial . St . Jerome mentions it in his c on wh t In the ommentary Hosea, ere the prophe says n a me o God m eo le as h cou ns el a t thei r s tocks and f , y p p , ” thei r s tay! decla r eth u nto them ; which passage that saint u rha bdoma nc T e nderstands to allude to y . h same is met “ the For the with again in Ezekiel, where prophet says K i n o B a b lon s tood a t the ar ti n o the w a g f y p g f y, at the “ of he ma de hi s head the two ways, to use divination ” ’ i h or he mixed hi s a r row br t . g , , as St Jerome renders it , r a r rows ; he cons u lted wi th i mages ; he looked i n the i ver . If it be the same kind of divination that is alluded to i n

r ha bdoma nc these two passages, y must be a superstition T n s a . i imilar to belom ncy hese two, fact, are generally h t instru confounded . So muc , however, is cer ain, that the ments of divinatio n mentioned by Hos ea are different from of h u se those Ezekiel, thoug it is possible they might rods or f or me n m arrows, indif erently ; the military ight use The n out arrows, and the rest rods . wome the rods very of straight by means secret enchantments , and during cer of of tain periods time , designated very minutely by means these rods, predicted the future .

SI Y S B L . T he existence of sibyls dates back to the earliest antiquity .

THE AR T F AG 46 O M IC. below a desc ript ion of one of these fantastic beings drawn

1 11 m from the popular beliefs vogue in Spa .

THE A Y ITH THE FO OT OF A STAG L D W .

The Spanish chroniclers mention that D on D i ego Lop ez de Ha r e on the of on , being one day track a stag, heard a ou t H sudden in the mountains a delicious voice . e turned saw n and a most beautiful woman, richly clad, upo the top D o of a mountain . n Diego thereupon fell desperately in love t h ” o er . and promised marry Beautiful cavalier, said the u one n lady, I accept, but pon co dition swear to me

. The never to utter a sacred word cavalier readily assented . After his marri age he noticed that his wi fe had a foot like of that a stag, yet this in no wise diminished his love for

. Two . her children were born by her, a son and a daughter One day when they were seated at the table D on Diego on e of — he threw a bone to his dogs had two, a large bull d og a nd a terrier — whereupon the dogs began ﬁghting; and the bull dog seized the latter by the neck an d strangled “ ” him Hol Vi r i n ! y g cried out Don Diego, who ever ” saw such a thing ! Hardly were ‘ the words pronou nced when the lady with the foot of a stag grasped the hands of

. D on her children Diego kept the boy, but the mother ﬂed D on with the girl . Some time afterward Diego was made T son prisoner by the Moors and conducted to oledo . His was sorely grieved at the captivity of his father and betook d Th himself to the mountain where his mother live . e ” she Spirit was upon the rock , but recognized and called ” m ou her son by na e . I know, She said, what brings y T n F a ra ld o here . ake this extraordi ary charger, called ; in T a few hours you will be in oledo, where I promise you help H A T A T E R OF M GIC. 47

ti Ini u e the and protec on . g s (such was the name of young man) mounted the horse and, with the powerful aid of his mother, brought back his father in safety . She persisted,

v u u however, in li ing pon the rock, for the legend tells s ” sh e sh e that was a devil, and as such would never forgive t h r he words uttered by e husband .

GH OSTS .

The fabulous stories told to our day concerning spirits T and ghosts are well known . his belief was formerly SO general that one would have passed f or a visionary had he T or or in doubted it . here is not a village hamlet castle France which failed to give rise to some story of a ghost or of has apparition, which a succession traditions brought h t down to our day . Notwit s anding the fact that progr ess ’ and civilization have disabused men s minds of this belief, there are still countries where people are imbued with this superstition , especially so in the more remote rural districts . I Perhaps of all people the negroes are most heavily fettered o The with the shackles f superstition . two instances fol lowing are to the point O A O J I G - STO E m Ga Te e C N UR N N ( Fro the Macon ( . ) l “ ra h 1 9 — A u g p , July , queer case came p before

u t . Bl an ch has J s ice Freeman yesterday Jane _ a husband has n w who a fondness for stayi g a ay from home , and Jane u worried abo t it. Some time ago, while has been _g reatly her one t of Co narrating troubles to Mar ha Montague, late b a t lumbus, Martha said her hus and had a peculi r stone tha h ad the of for its charm power bringing back husbands, t m and in fac of performing a number of iraculous things .

- i n u r t etc. a nd Negroes bel eve in co j ring bags, abbi feet, , THE ART A 8 OF M GIC.

Jane said she wanted a piece of the stone no matter what it

. saw Tom s cost Martha her husband , and after ome per n of f or 5 suasion they agreed to let Ja e have a __piece it $ . Jane paid the mon ey and wai ted for the wonderful stone which was so slow in getting into her hands that sh e sued ou t warrants Tom for both and Martha, and they appeared before Justice Freeman yesterday with the stone they i n The ou rt Tom tended giving Jane . c compelled to refund the The of n ore money. stone is a piece mag etic iron , and the trial developed the fact that it is generally kept in drug of Ne stores and sold at the rate seventy cents a pound . “ groes purchase it because they believe that it will con jure people . H HE — th Y Tim E O EYE T OO OO . e es B D V D (From New ork , 24 A July , policeman passing through West n t - Eightee th Stree yesterday morning saw a roughly clad, ou t of barefooted, and very black negro haul a dead cat the t off on e of the on gu ter, drag legs by putting his foot it, h ' . T e and proceed to eat it man said he was Charles Rider, of a farm hand, from Delaware, who arrived here in search n employment o Friday. His wife died twelve years ago and h ad her Spirit haunted him constantly. Voodoo experts told him that nothing b u t human ﬂesh or that of a live cat n he would l ay the restless spirit . Faili g to get either, thought he would try what a dead cat could do. ” Justice Ge rman committed him as insane .

SATA EMO S . N, D N

The Satan of the legends is distinct from the Lu cif er of Th an theology . e former is never clothed with y vestige of man of his celestial origin he is the Devil, the enemy , A THE ART OF M GIC. 49

of ~ wicked by the very essence, as it were, his perverted na w ture . His rage is often po erless, excepting when he has o a nd h rec urse to ruse, he inspires fear much Oftener t an ter The t o was it ror . part assigned Satan as poetic as was n ol d dramatic, as it is ma ifest in the religious works and h ts It T e Li ves of the S a i n . is he who is at the bottom n of every intrigue it is he who puts the action into motio . l n of His horns, his tai , his ails , his eyes ﬁre , his subtle wickedness vary but little in appearance from biblical tra h not . a dition It is thus t at S tan is painted to us, only by of d the biographers the mid le ages , but by Pope Gregory h n One d a l at imself in his life Of Sai t Benoit . y when the ter saint went to of f er his prayers in the Oratory of Saint on C d the John , Mount assin, he met the Devil un er form of one d a veterinary surgeon , with a bottle in han and a halter a t t in the other . Sat n spoke with civili ty to Sain Benoi and told him that he was about to administer a purgative to the - the of is two footed animals , fathers the monastery . It use less to add that Saint Benoit would not permit the infernal

doctor to purge too violently the poor monks and ﬁnally, ’ we are gravely informed that Saint Benoit s piety overcame ’ Satan s perversity . Among the numberle ss episodes in the history of the v t The Li ves o the S a i nts De il, as men ioned in f , some are t Ah truly comical, o hers exceedingly picturesque . St . tony once saw Satan raise his giant head above the clouds and stretch forth his mighty hands to intercept the souls of m the dead which were ﬂying towards heaven . Someti es the Devil is represented as a veritable monkey, and his

malice amounts only to grotesque drolleries . It was under the guise of a monkey that the Devil sought to deceive 4 THE A 50 RT OF MAGIC.

. All h avm o St . Gudule his ruses g failed, he had rec urse “ ‘ to a las t e or t. The was t he habit at th ﬁ virgin in , , e

of of a crowing the cock, going to the church to pray, c

. Now companied by her servant, who carried a lamp , what

‘ ' did the father of malice do ! He pu t ou t the lantern by b u t God aid blowing under it, the saint invoked to her , and

are we gravely informed it was at Once relighted, whereupon

of f d . On h d the evil one ran with downcast hea the ot er han , there are many instances in which the Devil is deceived by t artiﬁces the Simples possible . His innocence is depicted in is touching colors . He then represented as rather a good d sort of evil .

THE A DEVIL MON G THE JAPANESE .

Matz u ri e is the name of the principal feast celebrated at

Nagasaki, and the devils play in it the principal part . Sev eral among them are provided with the biblical horns, and wear a frightful mask, rush about the streets and create

d n on u . T a frightful noise, a cing and beating up a dr m hese

of diﬁerent . T devils are colors here are white, black, red and green devils . It is well known that the whites paint th e d evil in black, and the negroes in white ; but as to the

and th e . red the green , they belong exclusively to Japanese The Ja panese say that on e day the quarrel about the color of the devil was getting so bitter that i t threatened to run a d d into civil war . In or er to avoi this the question was the Son of submitted to the spiritual Emperor, Heaven, who declared that everybody was in the right, and that really h there existed devils of all colors . Hencefort , the Japanese black whi te red devils adopted the four colors , , and r e g e n. THE ART F A O M GIC.

PUCK .

Puck is a little imp who had his domicile among the Do minicans d of . Sche erin (a religious or er St Dominique) , at v . t r u n Notwiths anding the t icks which he played pon stra gers, m he was often very useful to them . Under the for of a di oﬁ th monkey, he turned the gri ron, drew the corks e wine bottles, swept the kitchen , etc . We ﬁnd him in England in of the form Robin Goodfellow. Puck in Sweden is called Wi sse on odren or Wis s e the ood ellow . g g , g f He lives good t Tomte obbe Old Ni ck - erms with g , or the of the farm houses, e of u k who is a d vil much the same sort . In Denmark, P c s posses es rare talent as a musician .

THE O O OO RE IGIO V D L N .

1 459 A t In there arose in the city of rras , a for iﬁed city of w France, chief to n of Pas de Calais and formerly capital of the of A to province rtois, a sect which professed follow a of T s religion to which the name Voodoo was given . hi of sect, composed persons of both sexes, assembled during

of - of -the the night, and by the authority Satan, in some out r T way solita y spot in the depth of a forest or desert. here th e m the devil made his appearance under human for , althou gh his face was never perfectl y vi sible to those as

. his sembled He then explained to them Wishes, the man d ner in which he desired to be obeye , and distributed to The each a little money and a large amount of supplies . meeting wound u p with a general scene of debauchery. “ Such acts caused the arrest through direct accusation of s to several respectable and innocent person , who were forced s t so so undergo evere tor ures, much that several, overcome THE ART OF AG 5 2 M IC.

snﬁered by the excruciating torments they , acknowledged “ that they were guilty of Voodoo They furthermore averred that duringthese n octurnal assemblies they there s aw a d n of h n recognized many perso s igh rank, such as

. i n t prelates , lords , governors, etc , names fact sugges ed by m those examining them, and even forced upon the victi s

of u throug h ,torture . Several those thus accused were b rned of th ir ol d All b e . others saved themselves y means ‘ g these a s of or w ccusation sprang from a sentiment vengeance, ere of t plots a few men without honor, inﬂuenced by cupidi y, t hrough groundless accusations, to put to death after ex t orte d t confessions some weal hy people . In order to attaint i of was more surely their V ctims, the crime heresy often t m mingled with tha of agic . History furnishes us many ex amples of unheard-of cruelty i n connection with the Voodoo religion .

SORCERERS CONVICTED OF MAGIC THROUGH THE TRIAL OF CO ATE LD W R .

During the times of ignorance and superstition, various methods Were invented to convict the s o-called sorcerers of A n the crime of magic . mo g these methods the trials of w a r m wa ter bi tter wa ter cold wa ter , and were prominent . T The he latter was the one most commonly used . sorcerer w as of t was divested his clo hes, the right wrist tied to his A left heel, and the left wrist to the right heel . rope was \ then wound round his body and the victim was thrown thus bound into deep water three times . If he sunk to the bot tom it was taken as a proof of his innocence if on the con of Of trary he did not sink it was proof his culpability. b e s course, nothing could more ab urd than this pretended

THE ART OF A 54 M GIC.

Ju dgment has been pronoun ced against Jenny Simoni and she is sentenced to be shaved and bathed to be con

t of u duc ed to the banks the river, followed by the j dge , her pa ri s h p r i es t and the inhabitants of Dinteville and the su r rounding districts . Right upon the banks of the river Jenny Simoni again de ‘ cl ared she inn ocent of or that was a respectable woman , s cery, and not knowing what magic meant . She was, d of of however, ivested her clothing, and by order the judge both her feet and hands were bound and she was thrown into the river at a spot where the water was from seve n to eight T feet deep. hree different times she was plunged into the she water, and as many times came upon the surface with u not o t stirring . She did seem to have swallowed a drop of

Water. t b n w Bo h hus and and wife were exami ed ane , and the r w w she d woman pe sisted al ays in hat alrea y had declared . n sh h an d Upon her k ees e prayed to God, to Jesus C rist the t Holy Virgin to make her innocence manifes , and declared i in a loud voice that those who had deposed aga nst her were . f perjured and un aithful to God . The judge now wished to know whether she was marked on of any part her body as a sorceress was supposed to be,

‘ and thereupon ordered that she be divested of all her cloth ing, and be examined, that it might be ascertained whether h m s e bore any magic marks . Four wo en were appointed to make the necessary examination . They u pon oath declared that they saw and visited the said Simoni despoiled of her garments that they discov a on d an d ered a small sc r the body, un er the left shoulder, m t in the for of a V 3 a li tle below it a small, white, round TH RT or A C E A M GI . 55

’ mark at the p eri née another scar was found as of a wound n she d sew , which eclared to have been inﬂicted upon her by w she the horns of an ox, hich struck her when was a child an d she i t as to the mark under the shoulder, said that was

- a birth mark . The d n n b ju ge fou d, in the above descriptio , the palpa le d e proof that poor Simoni was a sorceress, and by a formal t 7 1 5 94 d “ i t cree , bearing da e July , , she was declare gu l y of the crime of sorcery and accordingly condemned to be he r b d hanged and strangled, ody burned and re uced to

ashes, and her goods conﬁscated ; her husband to pay a

heavy ﬁne , to be banished for ten years , and his goods also

conﬁscated . Sorrow and the torments of the sufferi ng imposed upon the poor woman brought death to he r ere the judgme nt was d not d execute . But even eath freed her from the penalty of deliv the law, which was read to the body and the latter t e of ered to h executioner, who brought it to the Square t it Din eville, the rope around the neck , bound to the stake se t on The ou t i n and then it ﬁre . execution was carried the presence of all the notaries and dignitaries of Dinteville

including the parish priest .

TRIA B Y WA M ATE L R W R .

The trial by warm water was preceded by the same cere

’ d stone was monies as that with col , after which a thrown into a caldron of boiling water, which the accused was to ou t n The r take at once, his hand and arm bei g bare . t ial with the hot iron consisted in causing the accused to to u ch d A a burning iron with the naked han . fte r these trials h they bound the hand, over which t ey placed a bag which THE ART MA 56 OF 01 0.

’ a . the judge sealed with the court s se l If, three days after t of wards , here appeared no sign the burning, the accused was declared innocent .

T IA B Y I TE ATE R L B T R W R .

The u nder om accused, before g g this trial, was brought i before the pr ests , when, after the usual maledictions were n swal pronou ced in a loud voice, the victim was forced to in r was c hi tter low, their presence , the beve age which alled w a ter. i If nnocent, no pain whatever was experienced ; u t the b if guilty, death ensued, amid most excruciating

n -5 suff eri g. Who does not se e in this a terrible means of get “ rid of or l ting an enemy, a competitor a riva

T IA B Y FI E R L R . This method of trial seems so dangerous that on e is / tempted to think that those subjected to it must have pos sessed some chemical substance to protect them against the f The w of action o heat . follo ing story will give an idea the m i n h t was m of E d anner whic the rial made Emma, other ward was accused of improper relations with the Bishop of u Winchester, whereat the cred lous and superstitious t she of fire king wished tha should be justified by the trial . It was decided that she would walk nine steps barefooted o -hot of ver nine red pieces iron , and then take five more “ f or of steps the Bishop Winchester . She consented to At the trial and spent the night in prayer . daybreak the h of usual ceremonies took place, and t en, in the presence the king and all the dignitaries of the kingdom, the queen

- walked between two bishops over the red hot pieces of iron . The ﬁre caused her so little pain that she asked how long it THE ART MA OF GIC. 57

- would be before she came to where the red hot irons were . Thereupon the king knelt before his mother and asked that the bishops impose upon him the necessary penalty for the His doubts he had entertained against his mother . wish was granted .

THE C F C DIS OVERER O SOR ERERS .

Hopkins was the name of the man who discovered more a d n 1 n than hundred sorcerers, and even extracte co fess o s hi t f i th e m from s vic ims . His usual plan o di scover ng was the on e to strip clothing from the accused, in order to ﬁnd the mark which the devil was supposed to place upon the T sorcerer. o this end he tortured his victim by sticking of It pins into several parts the body . was allowed him by i n law to exercise this od ous profession in Engla d . His pay was w f or e in t enty shillings each town where he w nt, not w cluding his traveling and other expenses , for hich he asked T m additional pay. his onster asserts that he never went anywhere unless asked . Such rascals have really existed, of k n n to the shame human ind . Fi ally, popular i dignation u b rst forth with such force against Hopkins that, being an d of had seized submitted to the trial water, to which he c of t himself had re ourse in the case others, it happened tha of T u n he ﬂoated instead sinking. here po he was convicted of magic and the world was speedily freed from the monster.

MAGIC O E - CHARM L V .

The following prac tice was at on e time in vogue in Ger many : A hair taken from the head of the girl was placed ’ on retiring over one s c lothes then a general confession was m wa - ade, during which the hair s worn by the love sick THE ART A 58 OF M GIC.

Romeo around his neck ; a taper was lig hted which had i the l and been prev ously blessed during last gospe , the fol “ : Oh t lowing formula was said , aper, I conjure thee by

of God - w b o the virtue , the all po erful, y the nine choirs f

“ the n h a gels, by the guardian virtue, bring to me t at girl

n w t . in ﬂesh and bo es, that I may be happy i h her

HOW THE BRAHMINS IN INDIA PROTEC T THEMSE LVES AGAI ST E EMIE N N S .

The n the s inﬂuen Brahmi s were, and to this day are, mo t T tial and wisest men in India . hey were not merely the e the d positaries of sacred books, the philosophy, the science, and the laws of the ancient Hindu commo nwealth : they t hnd were also the crea ors custodians of its sacred literature . T r hey had a practical monopoly of Vedic lea ning, and the ir policy was t o trace back every branch of knowledge and ff - intellectual e ort to the Vedas . For twenty two centuries they have been the counsellors of Hindu princes and the f i teachers o the H ndu people . Yet these wise teachers were the of not free from inﬂuence magic art, for we are told that in a sort of cabalistic way they wrote the follo wing n s 28 35 2 7 -6 3 32 31 — 34 29 8 1 — 4 5 umber , , , , , , , , , , ,

30 33 of u . , in each the fo r divisions of a square Beneath

of . they wrote the name their enemy Now, it is claimed by these learned sons of India that if you wear this talisman u ou n w d o abo t y , your e emy will be utterly po erless to you harm .

TH MEETI G - ACE F E I S E N PL O D V L .

‘ in times of It can scarcely be conceived how readily, the

‘ e d ignorance, accusations of magic wer listene to, and with E A TH ART OF M GIC. 59 how great apathy and easy persuasion death was decreed

- A h against the so called magicians . simple Shep erd or f or or goatherd relates, instance, after supper to his wife children an adventure at the meeting- place of devils ; and being himself, in truth, persuaded that he has been there, and his imagination to some extent heated by the vapors of d a wine, he oes not f il to speak in strong and lively language concerning incidents which he never saw. His family liste n t ol with awe to his alk about a subject so frightful . It f lows that the impressible imaginations of his wife and chil the dren are thereby deeply affected . It is husband , the of he father, who speaks things has seen, in which he has taken part why then should they n ot believe him ! Finally t m hey become accustomed to his stories . Curiosity urges the T to attend the said meetings . hey continually think of o T what they heard s weirdly described . heir own imagina tion is in turn aroused and sleep presents to them all the to T scenes which the master depicted them . hey rise, they t th sa w ques ion each o er and repeat what they , and each and one h t it t every is persuaded t a was not a dream, but tha they It t were really present at the frightful meeting . resul s t f or tha they are taken sorcerers, they are seized, questioned, was v and rarely escape death . It belie ed that the sor cerers were called to the meeting-place of devils by a com et sounded by the arch -devil himself it was heard by all the sorcerers scattered all over universe, without however i ibl of r the be ng aud e to the ears any othe person . When prince of sorcerers traverses the air in order to attend the him meeting, every sorcerer who accosts him salutes with m n T i s beco ing respect, and he returns the salutatio . here also a princess of sorcerers who appears to the eyes of the sub A 60 THE ART or M GIC.

m i i e -hot s a k altern ag c ans, with a black visag , red eye , thic ,

h of u large nose, and a mout enormo s size always open, of the al ways exhaling smoke . In the estimation, however, of she of prince of sorcerers, and those high rank, is ravish The of of d ing beauty . main object the meetings the evils is to spin malignant arts ; the sorcerers share in this work b ut of with the devil . Festivals take p lace, the peculiarity the feast consists in the fact that one is never “ satiated ” oil with the food served . Knives , salt and are rigorously h t The excluded from t a table . knives might form the of the d t ﬁgure cross, for which the devils hol the greates m oil . of w possible antipathy Salt is the symbol isdo , and s of enters into the mysterie religion . However, all the ceremonies of religion are imitated and turned int o ridic ule d of during these meetings . The torches used are ma e l ow wax and sulphur, and constantly emit a , hissing u noise . Volumes co ld be written in detailing minutely the various mysteries related by the ancients respecting these n an of meeti gs, but the above may give the reader idea their A of general nature . writer the eighteenth century relates that when people began to believe that the souls of the dead l v the came and visited the i ing, and presented themselves to n latter under visible forms , they taught the livi g that a or peculiar phrase password , pronounced with certain for al i ties of a m , would cause the souls the dep rted to appear before those who wished to speak with them: If they failed the a t to come, it was owing to fact that the one invoking t ache d too much importance to the present life instead of to the Spiri tual As t e it has been already sta ed, every p ople upon the face of m Th the earth had its agicians . e most distinguished

HE T ART OF A C. 6 2 . M GI

i s s of i r ever, even dur ng tho e time gno ance and superstition, a few doubters who believed that those thus possessed were

o a beggars, duly paid to play the above r le and th t , the priest off ered the spectacle of these pretended miraculous cures in order to eradicate any public incredulity and re ani mate the belief of the faithful in the only true and ori ginal

. The n h c is cross followi g istori al fact to the point .

THE T Y F MA T A S OR O R H BROSSIER .

s a of of Jacque Brossier, a we ver Romorantin, a man small m of d a eans, formed the plan turning into proﬁt public cre l i t h to y by causing his daughter Mart a pass for a demoniac . i n o i Having exercised her making c ntort ons and grimaces, in ass uming extraordinary postures and uttering piercing on d eb u t as u es, he had her make her , it were, in the s rround A t was ing cities and then in njou, whither her imposi ion u C nmasked by Bishop harles Miron , in the following man n er : v It is said that the good bishop, ha ing invited her d u -l to his table, had her rink of blessed water Witho t fore she n not warning her, and that ma ifested the slightest con sequence therefrom

He poured common water into her glass, telling her that it t and had was blessed, whereupon she fell into great agita ion THE ART E MA O e ra. 63

t of Ins ead of submitting to the order the wise prelate, the an d two alleged demoniac, her father, Jacques Brossier, her t d Sis ers wende their way towards a theatre, a place more T favorable for their impostures . hey came to Paris, and a of 1 5 99 of tow rds the end March, , lodged near the nunnery n - Sai te Genevieve . of When the news of the arrival the party became known , the Capuchins were the ﬁrs t t o enter the arena for the pu r pose of ﬁgh ting the de vil with which Martha Brossier was l possessed . In the excess of their zea , they neglected the the ordinary formalities, and began to exorcise girl without the authorizat ion of their superiors . of c t ff Cardinal Gondi , Bishop Paris, pro eeded in his a air to with more regularity, and employed the proper means enlighten himself respecting his position as to the alleged demoniac . He called together several doctors in theology in A the and several doctors medicine . mong latter were the t mos famous physicians i n Paris . On 3oth h 1 5 9 9 the of Marc , , this anxiously awaited scene opened with solemnity and the girl played her part admir ably, assuming indescribable positions and uttering truly s atanical cries . There was then a principle generally admitted to the ff d n w t e ect that the evil k e all languages, both ancien and

. To nd d of modern this e , and in or er to assure themselves the presence of the malevolent spirit in the body of the

Hr . young girl , . Marius interrogated her in Greek , and Dr Mare scot L The t n in atin . devil remained mu e , and he ce it was decided that the girl was n ot in the least possessed . The above decision did n ot at all suit several of the t priests in erested in proving the presence of the devil, and 64 THE ART OE MAe ra: in demonstrating their own power over this invisible and malignant spirit .

On th wi as a e day follo ng a new scene w en cted . It took

- h of e . h ss place in a c apel Sainte Genevi ve Mart a Bro ier, t h n an d af er a t orough rehearsal, renewed her co vulsions her Two is mysterious tricks . physicians, it alleged, stuck into d She did her a nee le between the thumb and index . not m n i The h of a ifest the sl ghtest pain . trut , however, the

needle is doubted by contemporary writers . On the 1 st of April Martha was submitted to new experi m A re eatin the ents . Capuchin opened the seance by p g and he et homo a ctns exorcism, when reached these words f ” es t e m hor , this wonderful girl drew forth her tongu , ade

rible contortions and dragged herself from the altar to the , door of the chapel with a celerity which astonished those present;

‘ T u u n th tone of here pon the exorcising Cap chi said, wi a “ assurance If a nybody dou bts the p r es e nce of the demon i n the bod o thi s i r l a nd does n ot ea r to ex ose hi s l e let y f g , f p if , ” hi m tr to -r es tra in a nd s ta ) thi s d emo . y . y n

“ Mare scot Hardly were the words uttered, when Doctor an d re rose, approached Martha, seized her by the head, s trained all her movements . The n ow exorciser, confounded, said that the devil had Th It i s I then wh w . e o ithdrawn phy sician replied , , ” ha ve cha s ed the devi l a way . A Mare scot in fter the above scene, left the chapel for an

“ t n n f s a t and Martha, believi g him far away, ell again into he r n Mare scot usual convulsio s . entered at once, seized t eff Ort e d n h er her, and withou much succ e ed in renderi g The motionless . exorciser, thereupon, ordered the girl to get E TH ART OF MAGIC. 65

u but she not the t r h her p, could do it, and doc o who eld Thi s devi l ha s n o eet a nd ca nnot s tand u replied f p . The result of this experiment much chagrined the parti

of d T re sans the evil , but did not discourage them . hey e ate d n of p o ce more the spectacle possession , but refused to t T n e w allow the former physicians to be presen . hey called b t h ones, who eing far more trac able and docile t an the the of former, declared before Bishop Paris that Martha d u d h er un o btedly had the evil in body . F h w olly, o ever, did not triumph, and this ridiculous farce, which drew together many people and became a general s ub e c t of the j conversation, ﬁnally attracted the attention of

n t - government . O the 2d of April the a torney general said “ A f e w d a o before the court . ays g there arrived in this city a girl who they say is possessed of the wicked spirit at the church of Sainte - Genevi eve she has been seen an d visited by physicians an d other persons who are well assured ” of the imposition practised, wherefrom much evil ensues . The t cour , therefore, decided that the girl be turned over of to the custody the police until her trial should take place . The Bishop of Paris at once went a n d d eclared to the attorney-general that not later than the day before he had believed that the possession of Martha Brossier was a ﬂa of d grant act imposition but he had since changed his min , and begged for a delay of two or three days ere the decree of Th arrest was issued . e said magistrate did apply f or a ' of rbceedin s r stay p g , but the court refused to g ant any delay .

s of h e r c o Martha Bro sier , in spite devil , was ast int prison, and a commission was appointed to examine the girl and m k a e a formal report . 5 THE ART OF AG M IC.

‘ The majority of the priests were now up in arms and greatly resented this interf ere nce in a matter which they claimed belonged virtually t o the Church . Henry IV . em ployed all the means which pru dence suggested to maintain of t t the peace his kingdom, and aver the hreatened proceed of t diﬁi c l t hi ings the pries s . He had much u y in reducing s s ubjects to submission to such extent is ecclesiastical c power dangerous when sustained by public redulity . Soon the pulpits resounded with b itter and loud com “ v . was n ot plaints against the go ernment It , said they, the prerogative of the court to interfere in matters of p os ' s th The al One h ses ion and e devil . clergy had the aut ority r To r e xorci s to t eat such matters . prevent the clergy f om ing the demoniacs was to deprive the Church of a glory which was ordi narily attained by the ministry of Catholic I f priests alone . t was to take away the means of con ounding inﬁd e l s and heretics The d government lost no time in in icting these preachers . The decree of the cour t was read in their convent in the of presence all the Capuchins assembled . The m c of n t co mission , omposed physicia s , charged wi h of h r making a report concerning the condition Mart a Brossie , a an fter examination lasting forty days, declared that they were unable to discover i n the said girl any sign of posses t o sion , and that wha ever seemed extra rdinary about her was a T n atural and e sily explained . hereupon the court ordered be that the said Martha, her father, and her two sisters t e of conduc ed to their plac habitation, and there live under

of f ﬁ of the surveillance a special o cer the court, who every two weeks was to make report as to the condition of the girl . A THE ART OE M GIC. 67

In every cou ntry where the laws are respected by all clas ses of exe society , the matter would have terminated upon the

u ti n of c o this decree . But in France there existed two of s o t classes impatient the yoke of laws . It happened tha members of the Catholic clergy were found who Slighted the king and his decrees . h of e Francois de la Roc efoucauld, Bishop Cl rmont, and t d h Al la er car inal, in concert wit his brother exandre, an m abbot, formed the project of taking Martha Brossier fro n The the place where she had been ordered to remai . abbot was intrusted with the execution of this darin g pro m t the ect. j He ca e to Romorantin, and, notwi hstanding t of her pro estations the ofﬁcer who guarded , took away the i m A girl, her s sters and father, conducted the to uvergne , the t lodged them at Clermont in episcopal sea , and made as a them play in that province, as well in all the pl ces through which they passed, their disgusting farces . The of of t o government, informed the conduct the w La brothers Rochefoucauld, had them formally summoned on 1 5 9 T 3 9 . to appear at court December , hey did not w h obey, upon hich the bishop and his brot er were ordered to surrender Martha Brossier and her family to the city of l Romorantin, and it was decreed that all the tempora goods of and income the bishop should be seized, and a commis si oner to se e was sent to the execution of this decree . M n Instead of taking artha Brossier to her ative city, the — IN TIl e d abbot the resolution to conduct her to Rome .

Henry IV. was powerless to prevent the intrigues of the u d in rebellio s priests, who were sprea ing trouble the king dom and were arraying against him the still powerful party

of ﬂe d to . ho the Jesuits who had Rome He was forced, w THE ART OF AG . . 68 M IC

to ns an ever, have recourse to diplomatic negotiatio , d to d o espatch special env ys to his ambassador in Rome . The n t b abbot, ﬁndi g himself anticipated, and in fac a an d one d his by the Pope, renounced at length ridiculous and

dangerous projects . In Rome also there appeared from time to time person s b ut alleging themselves to be possessed by the devil, the v s Pope had them savagely whipped, and the e il pirit de n parted with astonishi g celerity.

O EX O CISMS N R .

The following curiou s incident took place at Lyons towards the beginning of the Sixteenth century The sisters of the nunnery dedicated to Saint Peter lived in a not strictly re l i iou s e so g mann r, that, indeed, the higher clergy were i to ﬁnally obl ged send the sisters away from the nunnery. b of When they ecame aware their impending expulsion, they of seized upon everything value . Crosses enriched with of t precious stones, reliquaries gold, and a grea number and A variety of other ornaments were taken . mong those who

' out of of came the nunnery, and lived a life unusual de was A Tisieu x of pravity, Sister lix de , secretary the nun of t she of nery. Possessed great beau y, sank into all kinds w f or he ickedness, which in the end s paid the penalty with ff m she her life . Stricken down with su erings and isery, L died some time afterwards near a village close beside yons. In the mean time n e w laws were passed with respect to of re the nunnery, and a few the Sisters who expressed their pentance and willingness to respect their vows were taken A An n e back. mong the latter was toi ette de Grosl e, a scion of r of one of the noblest families the kingdom . She was e

THE ART 70 OE MAarc.

” e ctabl it Sp e spir . T hey to this end asked Antoine tte de e she m i Grosl e what thought the spirit ight be . She repl ed of A Tisieu x She that having often dreamed Sister lix de , could n ot think otherwise but that it was the scul of the said sister w ’ T hich manifested itself to her . hey then conjured the Spirit to dissipate the doubt they entertained upon that sub e ct S j , and the spirit spoke . It said that it really was ister

\ A Ti i ux lix de s e , Immediately the sister superior summoned f or m her council, which deliberated a long ti e, and ﬁnally decided that the body of the said Sister Should be exhumed from the spot where it reposed and be transported into one f T o the chapels of the nunnery. his translation was made t k with great pomp , and the spirit manifested its joy by s ri ing more loudly than ever under the feet of the young and

e on e . The e o ne w beautiful possess d cer m ny being ended, it was decided that the soul of poor Sister Alix should be d of delivere , if possible, from the pains purgatory, and to “ make assurance doubly sure that the devil had n ot em ployed this subterfuge to torment these good sisters . It on 22d of 1 52 6 was Friday, the February, , that the of L c - the Bishop yons, ac ompanied by several priests, visited n unnery in order to discover whether i t was really the soul of the defunct nu n or an evil Spirit that caused all the f or trouble . When everything had been prepared the exor ci sms e xcommu ni ca , and those present swore under pain of

’ ‘ to n othin of se e or tion reveal g what they might hear, the bishop and the sister superior proceeded into the meeting m t u roo , where the bishop took his sea pon a throne that him w had been prepared for . Follo ing came the abbess and

a e . the sisters, each according to her rank and g When n everythi g was ready, the bishop rose and sprinkled the A T E MA THE R O arc. 71

m h h k m . T roo wit oly water, invo ing the Supre e aid hen the one of s b ht h abbess, followed by the oldest sister , roug fort the one possessed, who knelt upon a marble step in a man ner so that the noise which the spirit might make should be ho h easily heard The bishop asked her ﬁrst w s e was . “ ” w t k ! she . T to Very ell, han God replied hen he spoke her about the spirit which manifested its presence by tap t The n ping under her fee . bishop thereupon made the Sig of t t his n the cross upon her forehead , s re ching ha ds over h a nd n to her ead, spoke in the following man er those pres ent t My dear lords and brethren, it is a no orious fact that the angel of darkness transforms himself often into an angel of t d i ligh , and by some means eceives and astounds the g

” n oran t of . From fear, therefore, lest by reason some wicked v d i n b occu moti e, he, the devil, may have lo ged the uilding m of all w pied by these good religious wo en , we ﬁrst ish to out t a smite him and drive him if he is in his place, rmed as h i u w we are wit the Spir t al s ord, that he in no way disturb ou r holy meditation s and intentio ns d Having thus spoken, the reverend bishop ad ressed him self directly to the spirit in the following terms ou n Come forward , if y dare , Spirit of dark ess, if it be true that thou hast taken thy habitation in the midst of - of these Simple minded sisters hear my voice, prince false ol d t of in hood, grown in reproba ion , destroyer virtue,

’ ve n tor of i niq u itie s ; hear what a sentence we pronounce T ar t ou against thy frauds . hou ashamed of us, and th b reathe st f or forth madness and rage against us, thou wilt be obliged to go he nce and abandon to us this paradise ; u s b u t we on h an t thou triest to deceive , are the watc ag i s THE A T 72 R OE MAarc.

thy treasons . It is on this account that we fortify this spot of " m with the Sign the cross, against which thy alignity is

s . W e t which powerless herefore, by the authority God n transmitted unto us, whether thou art incli ed to some ma lignant art or mockest in this place the servants of Jesus t e t d a Chris , or ven if hou hast eceived ny one of these inno - n t ad cent mi ded ones, we order thee to depar at once . I jure thee by Him who will come to j u dge the living and thew de ad a t , and the world large by fire W had ad i hen the bishop finished juring the evil sp rit, t h the n u those presen awaited wit impatience a swer it wo ld \ make . But in vain all necks were stretched it did not reply. The f a n bishop therefore anew armed himsel gai st it, and proceeded in the following terms “ Cursed spirit ! Recognize that thou, art one of those angels who were formerly hurled from the mountain of T God into the infernal abyss . hat, after havi ng lost thy r wa to wisdom, thou hast found no othe y replace it except ing through hypocrisy and lies . If it is thou , whatever ma ta r ta r os of the y be thy tartareous (from , the hell ancient Greeks) hierarchy and the pleasu re thou takest in d e ce i v n a u l ing these excellent uns , we invoke the F ther, we s pp i Son of the i t cate the , we claim the assistance Holy Sp ri , that its resistless might prevent thee from following the te of ou r A t oh s ps sister, ntoinette . We anathema ize thee, , ancient serpent We interdict thee these places, and also the possession of any on e of those dwelling here I We curse of t t t thee in the name Jesus Chris , that hou mayes return promptly to the habitation of the damned and there gnaw u m e n thy hellish pride , and that henceforth tho ayest live ‘ i e cha ned, abjured , conj ured, xcommunicated, condemned, THE ART E MA O arc. 73 a t m ti d God our na he a zed, interdicte , and exterminated by , L b ! ord , who will come to judge y fire the living and the dead T of all out hen , as a sign malediction, lights were put , the bells were rung, and the bishop several times struck the ground wi th his heel whil e summoning the devil to with draw. He then took blessed water and sprinkled it through the air, over the ground and upon those present, crying sev “ D is ced ite omnes a i o er a mi n i i ni u i ta tem eral times, g p q Flee all ye who engender iniquity He then sent three priests to perform the same ceremony i n every part of the

n ot . abbey, recommending them especially to be afraid T was a his recommendation not useless, for sc rcely had they of the k n entered the dormitory sisters, sprin li g their blessed out D is cedite omnes ni O era mi ni i ni water, and crying , g p gnita tem ! when a multi tude of devils broke forth from the dormi tory in all haste and rushed u pon a young sis had l ter, a novice, Whose parents , against her wil , incarner n ated her in the unnery . T n his incide t threw the assembly into panic, and all were t The ready to follow the ﬁrs who should ﬂee . sisters , pale b u t and trem ling, pressed close pon each o her like sheep in The n whose midst a wolf had suddenly sprung . co sterna tion was general, and none knew what saint to appeal to, when the sister superior bravely seized the young novice and h of eld her until the arrival help . During that time the young girl implored the aid of the Virgin an d defended her

‘ b e sft s he t had not self as could agains the evil spirits, which

et u of y f lly taken possession her . Finally, after having not ul of h bound her, without difﬁc ty, with strips cloth w ich re the priests wear around the neck , the three priests were quested to keep her until af ter the exorcism of Sisterr AnJ THE ART OE AG 4 M IC.

n . toi ette, which the above unexpected circumstance had in t te rrup ed . History does not inform u s what became of that vic tim of parental cruel ty After having puriﬁed by means of holy water every part of

o Ah the convent, the bish p celebrated mass, during which

” of toinette made an offering of white bread and a jar wine . The reverend priest then addressed the f ollowing ha rangue to those presen t d com My lor s and good friends, we, in your presence, men ce d and have already succeeded in accomplishing the of objects for which we are here assembled . First all, we h e xcommu ave conjured the evil spirit, have cast it out and nicate d t of it, if by chance it hought continuing its domicile h within this young sister. We may well be assured that t is has been accomplished through the omnipotent - aid of God yet will I ask and ascertain what I wish by interrogating the t we of b said Spirit, hat may be perfectly sure facts, and y ou r good advice the end may be more securely brought ’ ab ou tf

The n t A bishop havi g thus spoken, Sis er ntoinette was sit on h of r made to a c air, placed near that the p elate, and as the examination proceeded follows, by question and answer T art Question . ell me, Spirit, whether thou truly the u of A h ! so l Sister lix, formerly secretary ere

Reply . Yes . T Ou . ell me, whether these bones which have been brought here were of thy body

R . Yes . T t t Ou . ell me, whe her the unchaste soul so soon as it lef it s m body, came to ﬁnd this aiden THE ART OF A M GIC.

R . Yes . u T h Q . ell me, whether any angel is near t ee

R . Yes . T me Ou . ell , whether that angel is really very happy

R . Yes . h Ou . Does that good angel follow thee everyw ere thou wishe st to go

R . Yes .

Ou . Has he at any time ever left thee

R . No . u T me Q . ell , if this good angel comforts and consoles thee in thy af ﬂictions and troubles

R . Yes.

Ou . Canst thou see other angels besides thy own Ye s R . . u see Q . Dost thou ever the devil

R . Yes . T b m od . G Ou ell me, I adjure thee, y the ighty name of , t if there is truly any par icular spot, called purgatory, where all souls can remain which are through divine justice con demne d there

R . Yes . (This question was a shaft aimed against the damned a s ” sortions to the contra ry of the Lu ther a n hereti cs ) Qu c Hast thou seen any one in purgatory whom thou hast known before i n the world

R . Yes .

Ou . Knowest thou the time when thou wilt be free from thy pai n

R . No .

. t t i ti Ou Coulds hou be del vered through fas ng, prayer, and alms i vi n THE ART MAar 76 OE c.

R . Yes . u T s m Q . ell me, whether a visit to some holy pot ight free thee

R . Yes .

Ou . Can the Pope deliver thee

R . Yes . Having asked these questions and many others which it is ' dd unnecessary to reproduce here, the bishop a ressed him self to the soul of Alix in the following terms My dea r s i s ter : Thou perceivest here h ow this honorable and devoted company has been assembled in order to pray God the Creator that it may please Him to put an end to the uf f end urest m pains and s erings thou , and that thou ayst be received into the company of Hi s good angels and saints of Paradise u n al l m n u D ri g this ti e, the Spirit moa ed and groaned alo d under the feet of Antoinet te The d d he ceremony being en ed, the bishop eclared that not of A she could completely absolve the soul Sister lix , if h ad not obtained beforehan d from the abbess and sisters h T pardon f or the sins she committed while in t e abbey. hen the A re re sente d / the n young ntoinette, who p defunct , k elt

of : r before the feet the abbess and said My revered mothe , ” on a d take pity me and kindly consent to my absolution, n : the abbess replied My daughter, my friend, I pardon you ” to t e and consent your absolu ion, and th reupon the bishop a bs olve pronounced the . A a month later, it was bout midnight when a sweet voice awoke for the last time Sister Antoinette de Groslee and d A sai to her My dear ntoinette, I come to bid farewell h to you and your companions . E ver since the day the bis op

THE ART F A O M GIC.

REJ ICES A D S ERSTITIO S E IEFS P UD N UP U B L .

of s the In the south Scotland, when the bride enter she house of her husband, is lifted over the threshold of the

. To u or is door step pon it, jump voluntarily over it, of T was deemed a Sign bad augury . his custom universal of th re in Rome in memory e Sabine women . It was a minder that an act of violence had been committed toward the w omen . The Scotch, above all people, avoid marriages in the month of T was c so May . his prejudice on e deeplyrooted among 1 684 t i them, that in some en hus astic young men proposed a societ o l to form , y to advocate the c mp ete cessation of mar r ia e s u The g d ring that month . ancients have transmitte d to u s a certain precept that i t i s only bad women who marry h of m n during May, the mont ﬂowers and zephyrs a lce nben t

If anybody sneezes, it is the custom to this day to say “ to God n him, bless you . It is interesti g to know that S neezing was regarded as something divine among the G of l X t on on o d . e reeks enophon informs us hat, occasion , a t o one soldier happening sneeze, all those p resent, with a od The the Gre e , g . k ccord bowed to the verb used by / a - w ma uthor, and which is commonly translated as bo ed, y a th of n o of lso imply e idea some religious act, t Simply o v the of b wing . In fact, we belie e that real act the ancient w sa to Greeks may be easily conjectured, hen we y that ’ day if any on e happens to sneez e after nine o clock in the

‘ the e asants of A ar evening, p sia Minor e wont to pour wine on the ground . nor h Neither enlightened Christianity, nor time, t is boasted age of progress and civilization has e radicated the THE ART E A O M GIC. 79

t u t The supersti io s no ions of magic from our day . world at hat olloi large, the p , are still thoroughly permeated with the

u . inﬂ ence of this mysterious art You, my reader, living in one this progressive land, may feel that there is only magic inﬂu ence with which you feel yourself thoroughly per ’ m wit U . of eated, to ncle Sam s dollars But I know n di ma y other countries with vast buil ngs, railroads and

h - su orse cars, national banks and exchanges, where the p erstiti ous notions of the magic of three thousand years ago s till survive, not only among the ignorant, but also among ol d the educated . For instance, according to an Greek y h the writer who lived a great many ears before C rist, Per s O ians considered the riental planes (platani) as sacred trees, and used to hang on their branches many trinkets of gold T and silver, which nobody dared to take away. his custom of hanging trinkets upon Oriental plane-trees is still prevalent A Th in sia Minor . e people hang t rinkets to such trees as h appen to strike their fancy. I remember that once, in Sm t o an d u yrna, my mother went a picnic, we put up nder a beautiful plane - tree ; immediately all the people in the ol d party, both young and , commenced to hang shawls,

. r ribbons, handkerchiefs, etc , upon its outst etched branches . ol d saw m I was not more than ten years , but I my own other, m out of t of new a ong the rest, take her pocke a pair small s hoes on and hang them the tree . It i s well known that it was in the ﬁrm belief that his in tere sts re n of t we u der the special care a deity, tha the husbandman of ancient times sowed his seed and watched the vicissitudes of its growth that the sailor and trades man i To ntrusted life and property to the capricious sea . the man A i M s day, husband of s a inor ows his seed under THE ART OE MA r 80 a c.

ti the settled convic on that St . George or St . James will i watch over his interests and br ng to him , an abundant Th harvest . e sailor and the trader intrust life and prop

ert . t of i y to St Nicholas, the pa ron all seafar ng people .

“ A n rE ol u s od of mo g the ancient Greeks, was not the g of of traf ﬁck the sailors, the wind , and Hermes the god “ ! I n of ers the city Smyrna, in the upper parish, “ of the there is a sort cavern called holy secret Virgin . ” This secret Virgin is considered the patron of mechan

n - of ics, and her abode is daily thro ged by all classes work in men ofl e rin g , who , in g a part of their scanty earnings to she not c her, earnestly pray that may ease to exercise her r influence over thei respective callings . Now, it is a fact that in ancient times the mechanic traced the skill and handicraft which grew unconsciously upon him by practice o of a od A the m t the direct influence g . rtists ascribed ys teri ou s of of evolution their ideas, and poets the inspiration

to . their song, a supreme and mysterious cause Everywhere in nature was felt the presence of august invisible — in t e sk w and d on the beings h y, ith its luminaries clou s se a i s on , with t ﬁckle, changeful movements ; the earth,

- w n . To d ith its lofty peaks , its plai s and rivers day, ol women in the East pretend to cure all sorts of diseases of during full moon , and by the inﬂuence invisible beings to m . T e who inhabit . certain stars h y undertake cure pi ples — on the face by rubbing mud on them during full moon a practice in vogue among the Spartans four hundred years Again the deities of the ancients were represented as immortal , and, being immortal, they were, as a consequence, T supposed to be omnipotent and omniscient . heir physical i s i strength was extraordinary, the earth shak ng omet mes HE A T E MA r T R O a e . 81

- under their tread . St . George to day is represented as riding on in w a ﬁery steed, with a spear his hand ith which he killed a ﬁery dragon— not unlike the sea- serpent so wonder fully described in the fertile and imaginative reports of those ' who di d not s ee i t. of Mythology, the daughter magic, teaches us tha t there were tales of personal visits and ad of t ventures the gods among men, taking part in bat les and n Now of . s appeari g in dreams , the greater part tho e peculiar-looking barracks— the s o- called churches— that are seen nestled on the top of hills and scattered hither and i A a thither in the inter or of si Minor, were erected because some devout Christian declared that such a saint appeared of his to him, ordering the erection a church to memory . was of t In praying, it a custom the ancients to lif their hands and turn their faces towards the East— a practice still A extant among the people of sia Minor. Numerous other examples could be adduced to show how widely the super stiti ou s notions of the ancients are still prevalent in many of parts the civilized world . The belief in the existence of demons , magicians, sorcerers, ’ n of and vampires, the instantaneous cha ging one s self into as an animal, especially a wolf, is to a certain extent quite common to -day in many parts of southeastern Europe as it of of was in the earliest ages the history mankind . Nor “ T need we wonder at this . his belief was inculcated by b of tradition , y the holy Scripture , the decisions councils, orit of of the the auth y several fathers Church , the decrees

of n a t . tribu als, and, bove all , by prejudice and supersti ion We do not wish to cast the slightest doubt upon what the Scriptures teach us concerning demons, and those pos s r a h ow m essed of them but, on the othe h nd, any imposi 6 E A 82 THE ART O M GIC.

v m t e tions, frauds, and even crimes ha e been co mit ed und r the shelter of that book The demoniacs were formerly so common— to this day there are peopl e in Europe who

- v In the . belie e their existence, and prophet St Elias is the acknowledged patron of the demoniacs— that the Catholic

Church had, and still has, Special ceremonies and prayers to Th cast out the evil spirits . e young abbots on receiving their minor orders obtained the authority to pronounce The d exorcisms . Catholic clergy assiduously foster and sprea the belief in the devil . T are here countries, however, like the United States, E ngland, France, Germany, and free Greece, where magi cians u , sorcerers , vampires, etc . , have ceased to clo d the l of th e . vision people But I repeat, the Catho ic clergy, e c of specially in Catholi . countries like those Italy, South A merica, Spain, Cuba, and elsewhere, still foster the belief in Th in the supernatural, in magic, and demoniacs . e holy Romish Inqu isition; which accused Galileo of magic

and impiety; still ﬂourishes . h in It is well known t at force compelled Galileo, order to not tu preserve his life, to swear that the earth did rn T e on re - his n ot round . hat gr at man , entering prison, and n t c n ot withsta ding the danger he was threatened wi h , ould e w his help xclaiming, while striking the ground ith foot, F p nr s i mnove

THE JUGGLERS OF INDIA.

In n o part of the world have the subtleties of magic been un d and so as profo dly stu ied o successfully practised as in

A the eninsul a of . southeastern sia, particularly in u p India T as the C e l er has here, among hinese and Japanes , jugg y long THE ART OF AG M IC. 83

i The i e been a dist nct profession . Ch nes and Japanese jug l ers g , however, scarcely pretend to anything more than mar vel l ou s -of - s agility and sleight hand, while among the Hindu the secrets of the craft are carefully guarded and cl othed in m The of a veil of i penetrable mystery . swallowing ﬁre,

w -S - s ord wallowing, plate play, and practice with fans and knives are performed equally well by all the Oriental jug

l ers . g Not satisﬁed, however, with such exhibitions of skill, the Hindus aspire , in appearance at least, to overcome the of d laws nature, and to achieve what the or inary mind

. of as nar would regard as the impossible Some their feats, u rated by travellers in India , appear absol tely incredible yet so well substantiated are the accounts that, if the perform was n ance a trick, the illusion must have bee perfect . N0 one of these feats has excited more interest among the or u English residents of the country, has been more caref lly b men investigated y scientiﬁc and medical , than that of sus or n t of pended animation, rete ion of life for a given period m A d b ti e after burial . fakir presents himself and esires to e f or buried alive thirty days, asserting his power to suspend the functions of life for that len gth of time and to resume

t . them at its expira ion His request being complied with, the and the necessary preparations made, fakir, apparently b of y an act will, throws himself into a trance, his eyes close, t n d f an d a his brea hi g stops, his bo y sti fens assumes the p earance of T e h p a corpse . h body is t en lowered into the h grave, whic is ﬁlled up and carefully guarded day and night, in order that no confederate may tamper with it . th e When time allotted has expired, the body is exhumed, the d of lips forced open, and a few rops a liquid left for the pur t l pose poured in o the mouth . Resuscitation takes p ace at THE ART OE AG 84 M IC.

ks once, and in a few moments the fakir rises and wal away, somewhat emaciated , indeed, but otherwise as well and vig orou s as ever . Another performance equally celebrated and even more in n Th explicable i s that of spontaneous vegetatio . e juggler of or t takes the seed a pomegranate , papaw, some o her fruit, it T rm and plants in the ground . hen extracting from his a d of n a rop blood, he lets it fall upo the spot, and stretching ou t d d both hands over the place where the see was plante , he sinks apparently into a deep cataleptic sleep . Presently a rou nd shoots u a stalk emerges from the g , , p, develops into or small bush tree, which blossoms and bears ripe fruit, all Th u l r in the space of a couple of hou rs . e j gg e with a su d “ a of u den st rt recovers possession his senses, pl cks the fruit and distributes it among the astonished spectators . The three incidents which follow are taken from the nar rative of acol liot C of a in Jules J , hief J ustice Chandern gore “ acol li ot e the French East Indies . J made car ful and ex of the r tended observation fakirs, concerning whose perfo m ances he remarks We assert nothing positively with regard to most of the The d facts which we are about to relate . Skill erived from e long experienc , charlatanism, and even hallucination itself i

m. sa may assist to explain the We are bound to y, however, and u as impartial faithf l observers, that, though we applied s i ih the severest test , to which the fak rs and other initiates ter ose d p no objection whatever, we never succeeded in de te ctin of or g a single case fraud trickery. the mi ssmnar who of Huc, y, gives an account similar h n hi m i n T as at s p e omena witnessed by hibet, w equally a los to account for them .

THE ART OE AG 6 M IC.

’ fakir s legs, crossed beneath him, were distant from the o ground the wh le height of the stool .

Taking an ironwood cane which I had bro ught from a Ceylon , and resting his right hand upon the h ndle, the two d Hi fakir rose gradually about feet from the groun . s legs were crossed beneath him, and he made no change in s h of his po ition, w ich was very like that those bronze

of f ar statues Buddha that tourists bring from the East . For more than twenty minutes I tried to se e how he could thus ﬂy in the face and eyes of all the known laws of gravity it was e ntirel y beyond my comprehension the stick gave no t n o him visible support, and here was apparent contact his between that and body, except through his right hand . “ As the Hindoo was about to leave me, he stopped in the embrasure of the door leading from the terrace to the outside stairs, and crossing his arms upon his chest, lifted himself t t or up gradually, wi hout any apparent suppor assistance, or “At to the height of about ten twelve inches . the com mence men t of his ascension I had seized my chronometer the entire time from the moment when the fakir commenced to rise until he touched the grou nd again was more than eight minutes . As he was making his parting salaam, I asked if he t could repea the last phenomenon whenever he pleased . ‘ ’ ‘ The can t fakir, answered he, emphatically, lif him l ’ se f up as high as the clouds . A ludi crously grotesque variation of this performance is recorded by another trave l l ei as occurrin g in a diff erent

t . The was a of locali y trick performed with coil rope, and was one which it will be admitted required skill of no ordi A THE ART OF M GIC. 87

k The u nary ind . j ggler took the coil in his hand and threw The n u n it upward by a quick movement . rope was see to wind itself as it ascended until it assumed a perpendicular it t position , as straight as a rod . Grasping ﬁrmly wi h both d han s, the juggler began to climb , until at length he reached

to . the p, pulled the rope up after him and disappeared A Ho . or w absurd ! exclaims the reader bsurd not, this performance, as well as that with the pomegranate seed, and others quite as incredible, are vouched for by responsible per t h sons, who claim to have witnessed hem . Did t ey really so d do , or were they deceived by a cleverly evised illusion

The question is well worth a brief consideratio n . Since there is no reason for suspecting the honesty and f u n of - t o truthf l ess the witnesses, it is evide_nt hat one two alternatives m u st be accepted ; either through the exercise of some unknown and mysterious power the feats recorded w or vi ere actuallyperformed, the beholders were the ctims of : h A a most vivid and marvellous allucination . rguments n ot of are wanting in support either theory . The Hindoo fakirs themselves ascribe their peculiar power ” i or to a certain Sp rit force , vital ﬂuid that pervades all nature . Whoever possesses an excess of this spirit force acquires power both over inanimate things and over crea w el e c tri tures less highly endo ed, more subtle by far than " or city, heat, magnetism, which are, indeed, but its grosser T forms . his vital ﬂuid permeat es all existing things and a means of serves as ; communication between them . and William Crookes, a distinguished scientist, member of so v f of the Royal Society, has far con inced himsel the x u t m e istence of some such occ l principle, that he is aking extended investigations with a view to the discovery of its THE ART E MAarc 88 O .

workings and laws . Other investigators also have b eenat to u h tracted the s bject, and their labors ave brought to light

- man y singular facts . The well authenticated phenomen a of mesmerism are n ow attributed to the inﬂuence of this or psychic spirit force . ‘ ” “ n n acol li ot I am co vi ced, says J , that there are in of nature and in man, who is a part nature, immense

o f to u s . forces, the laws which are yet unknown I think t that man will some day discover hese laws, that things that to an d we now regard as dreams will appear us as realities, that we shall one day witness phenomena of which we have

n ow . w no conception Who kno s whether this psychic force, n al l it— r of E o to c , as the E glish _ this fo ce the g according the

Hindus, which the humble fakir exhibited in my presence, will not be shown to be one of the grandest forces in nature of If, however, we reject this scheme a psychic force as a n ot t the theory yet proved, may we not accoun for marvels of the jugglers on the supposition that their dexterity is l ess occ upied with the feats themselves than with deluding the ima gination of the spectators ! There i s certainly some ground f or such a belief

- of its t u In that wonder land India, with mountain pla ea , a nd m wild jungles, deep sunny valleys, grows any a plant whose weird eff ects on the human brain and n erve are still ou r The u n known to materia medica . subtle powers and properties of these pl ants are well unders tood by the

‘ b ut Brahmins and fakirs , the knowledge is carefully

n . guarded, and never revealed except to the i itiated Eu The Wa nder i n Jew gene Sue, in his novel g , makes skilful u s of the Ben hawar e of one these drugs, g Djambi, which, it THE ART OE A M GIC. 9

i i h so f f a s said, f in aled when burning a ects the im gination of those present that whatever is descri bed in words seems t to occur before their eyes with all the Vividness of reali y . May not the fakirs make secret use of some similar prepara tion A A nother curious drug, extensively employed in rabia, PerSi a and has hi sh b India, is , a resinous su stance extracted i s from the Indian hemp plant . It smoked, made into a

of T n decoction, and eaten in the form confectionery . ake d n in mo eratio , it awakens in the mind a succession of pleas ing thoughts and images but an overdose creates the most

- the startling and life like hallucinations, and plunges imagination into alternate scenes of ecstasy and horror. This was the drug employed to delude his followers by ” Ol d of Hassan Sabah , the Man the Mountains, founder of of n the famous sect the assassins . Whe a recruit was t and wanted, some promising youth was invi ed to a banquet the conversation turned upon the joys that awaited the

. T faithful in Paradise hen a cup of wine, drugged with to t hashish and some quick narcotic, was handed the you h, ' who forthwith sank i nto a deep sleep an d was conveyed into a valley whose natural beauty was enhanced by every n device that art could suggest . Birds of brillia t plumage n of n w sa g amid the foliage of exotic plants , rare fruits u kno n m flavor hung fro the loaded trees , here and there gushed of h the forth fountains c oicest wines , while through groves flitte d troope e f maidens whose natural loveliness the gl amour of A f e s hashish rendered truly angelic . fter a w hour spent d in this paradise, the neophyte was again rugged to sleep , he and carried back to the banquet hall . When he awoke Was informed that he had been absent j ust one minute THE ART E 0 O MAare . that he had had one glimpse of heaven ; but that implicit ’ obedience to the chief s command would wi n him that bliss f or al l eternity . What wonder that Hassan Sabah had de t at voted followers, tha empires trembled his name, and that the . mightiest rulers of the Ea st obsequiously cou rted his favor ! Chinese magic is remarkable for its various and elaborate m T m odes of divination . hese may be obtained from edicines “ p ossessed by spirits an d from oracles in writing with the ” “ d s escending pencil, as has lately been done by piritual ” i sts T t . here is also another magic in vogue in his country which regulates the building of houses and tombs by their l of ocal aspects . This has late come under the notice of Europeans from the unexpected impediments it has pla ced h on in t eir way when constructing railways Chinese soil . In the lower stages of civilization the distin ction b e r an d n of tween eligion magic hardly appears, the functio s A priest and sorcerer bein g still blended . s established w m m religions ere formed, the separation beca e ore dis tinct between the official rites of the priesthood and those n practised by the magicians, the rivalry between them ofte T t on becoming serious . hus in ancient Egyp there were the on e hand the miracles worked by divinities under the o fii cial of the on e the u n sanction priesthood, and the oth r i of s l censed proceedings sorcerers, who doubtles deserved ill L of society on account of their detestable practices . aws were n t bu t mu st e re made against magic in these a cient imes, it b membered that both then and a f e w thousands of years later this opposition to magic had seldom anything to do with the u nbelief in its reality which arose among the classi c phil oso r phe s. THE ART OF A M GIC.

t a Hither o, s ys an author, magic has been dealt with on d h its elusive and harmful side, this being that whic most practically manifests itself in history yet it must be borne in mind that in its early stages it has been a source of Its real knowledge . imperfect arguments have been steps

toward more p erfec t reasoning . From this poi nt of V l e W the in tellectual position of magic is well expressed A or i by dolphe Bastian Sorcery, in its h gher expression , m d agic, marks the first awning consciousness of mutual con ne ction throughout nature, in which man , feeling himself of part the whole , thinks himself able to interfere for his own wishes and needs . So long as religion fills the whole of of t horizon culture, the vague groping magic contains he of n first experiments which lead to the results exact scie ce . of u Magic is the physics mankind in the state of nat re . It the i on t rests in beginn ng induction, which remains withou result only because in its imperfect judgments by analogy it hoc os t ro ter hoc . L raises the p to the p p , etc astly, the his tory of medicine goes back to the times when primitive sci en ce accepted demoniacal possession as the rational means of n f or d r accou ting isease, and magical ope ations with herbs originated their more practical u se in materia medica . “ White magic is the art of performing tricks and exhibit ai of ing illusions by d of apparatus, excluding feats dexter vith ity in which there is no deception , together y the per f or man ce s of such automatic figu res as are act uated in a Er ste ri ou s secret and y manner . White magic is the good son— A of e — the bel sorcery, so to sp ak while black magic C of t l is is the ain sorcery, and las of all egerdemain the off spr i ng of Abel . ' a a m i h White magic m y be Iso ter ed natural mag c . T e THE ART OE A 92 M GIC.

Book of Exodu s makes the earliest historical reference to this natural magic when it re cord S ' how the magicians Of Egypt imitated certain miracles of Moses by their enchant ” Th n ments . e magi cians Of a cient Greece and Rome were a ccustomed to astonish their dupes with Optical illusions and v isible representations Of the divinities passmg before the s a The pect tors in dark subterranean chambers . principal Optical illusion employed in these eff ects was the throwing Of spectral images Of living persons and other Objects upon the smoke Of burning incense by means Of concave metal The ff t c in mirrors . desired e ec was Often produ ed a Simpler way by causing the dupe to look into a cellar through a basin t or on Of water wi h a glass bottom, by showing him a dark wall figures drawn in inflammable material and suddenly ig n it d Th a d th e . e flashes Of lightning n e rolling thunders w hich sometimes accompanied these manifestations were no w f amil iar to b l easy tricks, every ody as the ignition of y o diu m Of c po and the shaking sheet metal .

‘ T of u h owards the end the last cent ry Comus, a Frenc con e jurer, included in his entertainment a ﬁgure which sudd nly d t appeared and disappeare about hree feet above a table, a trick explained by the circumstance that a concave mirror A w as . e among his properties contemporary perform r, d Robert, exhibite the raising of the dead by the same agency. Early in the present century Philips tal cdu se d a sensation in his magic - lantern entertainment by lowering unperceived between the audience and the stage a sheet Of gauze upon

v which ividly fell the moving shadows Of phantasmagoria . A ne w 1 8 63 era in Optical tricks began in , when John v Mask el n Chestelham i Ne il y , a artist in jewelry, nvented a wood cabinet in w hich pe rsons vanished and w ere made to

THE ART E A 94 O M GIC.

u F a made a speaking ﬁgure, which he called his da ghter r n

’ i n Of i t h china, and the superstit ous captai a vessel had t rown b . e e overboard In the same century, an Englishman xhi it d at the court Of Charles II . a wooden figure with a speaking trum etfl its t p in mouth, and ques ions whispered in its ear were a nswered— through a pipe secretly communicating with an apartment wherein was a learned priest able to con verse in variou s langu ages 1 83 Pi ne tti Wil dal e r In 7 Giuseppe de , an Italian conjure of n great originality, amo g his many wonders exhibited u a to h t ou t pon bottle a y bird, whic flut ered, blew a candle, and warbled ahy me lody proposed or improvised by the c audien e, doing this also when removed from the bottle ’ to t r a able, or when held in the pe former s hand upon any a of The u p rt the stage . sounds were prod ced by a con ’ federate who imitated song birds after Rossignol s method, with the aid of the inner skin of an onion in the mouth ; and speaking -trumpets directed the sounds to whatever spot was occu pied by the bird . L i of the uc an tells the magician Alexander, in second w i s c entury, that he received ritten questions nclo ed in sealed e “ re envelopes, and a few days afterward delivered writt n the sponses in same envelopes, with the seals apparently d e of unbroken . In this eception w have the germ spirit ” “ ” “ t- The so - n s reading and spiri writing . called seco d ” sight trick depend s upon a system Of signalling between the exhibitor who moves among the audience, collecting d c an questions to be answered and articles to be es ribed, d b on t the performer, who is lindfolded the s age . on b urnin , , Fire tricks such as walking ’ g coals breathing

- flame and smoke from a gall nut filled with an inflame A T E MA THE R O e ra. 95

or n t o mable composition , dippi g the hands in o b iling pitch, w o Hi ol ere kn wn in early times, and are explained by pp y T h tus . hese performers anointed their mouths, ands, and

feet with a protective composition . It is remarkable how many of the illusions regarded as the original inventions of eminent conjurers have been really improvements upon d 1 834 Ol er tricks . In was ﬁrst exhibited in England a trick which a Brahmin had been seen to perform at Madras

an at - several years before . Ching L Lauro s cross legged one of m upon nothing , his hands only just touching so e l m beads hung upon a genuine ho low ba boo, which was e t u on Th s pright in a hole the top Of a wooden stool . e placing of the performer in position was done behind a n screen , and the expla ation of the mysterious suspension is b , that he passed through the amboo a strong iron bar , to h e which connected a support which, concealed by the d and d t he . 1 849 bea s, his hand , his ress, upheld body In Robert Houdin reproduced the idea under the title Of ethe — ’ real suspension , professedly rendering his son s body de of of void weight by administering to him vapor ether,

and then, in sight Of the audience, laying him in a hori z ontal position in the air with one elbow resting upon a

- Th staﬁ resembling a long walking stick . e support was a ’ e t joint d iron frame under the boy s dress, wi h cushions and

a belts p ssing round and under the body .

Ther s f or u n the e_ i no reason s pposi g that ancient magi cians were more proﬁcient in the a rt than their modern su c As d ce ssors . t Rober Houdin has pithily Observe , If anti

u it l m i i t is as e t in e q y was the crad e of ag c, because the art w y ” its infancy . Towards the close Of the reign Of Elizabe th; s l the profession had fallen into great di repute in Eng and, THE ART E A 6 O M GIC.

m ruﬂi ans h and the perfor ers were classed with , blasp emers, s v T and thieve , agabonds, Jews, urks, heretics, pagans, sorcer

‘ / e rs . 1 840 o de i d n In a German physicist, named D bler, v se e entertainment which gave an entirely ne w development to the science and was in efl e ct the same as the conjuring enter tainm n ts e which have since become SO familiar and popular . The secrets Of legerdemain were for a long time jealously 1 85 9 guarded by its professors, but in R . Houdin issued Les S ecrets de la P r es ti di ita tion de la Ma i e g g , a masterly ” t of exposition Of the en ire art and mystery conjuring. Modern magic calls to its aid all the appliances Of modern — t and science electrici y, magnetism , optics, mechanics but the most successful adepts in the art look down upon all such adventitious aids and rely upon address an d sleight Of ’ “ - . The The hand alone prestidigitateur s motto is, quick ” ness Of the hand deceives the eye . “ ” A t is pres idigitateur, says Robert Houdin , not a an an juggler he is actor playing the part of a magician, fi artist whose ngers should be more cle ver than nimble . add the I would even that, in practice Of legerdemain, the the it to calmer the movements are, more easy is produce To an illusion to the spectators . Elsewhere he says : n succeed as a conjurer three thi gs are essential first, dex An terit d h . d y secon , dexterity ; and t ird, dexterity this n ot of f or re is a mere trick language, triple dexterity is d n ot n quire , o ly to train the hand to the needful adroitness, n but to acquire the requisite comma d Of eye and tongue . The most eminent conjurers of the modern school have i b Wil al b a Fr k el e . The been Ro ert Houdin , j , , and Robin of of is prince, however, the prestidigitateurs this age the

A n m stiﬁer A . merica y , lexander Herrmann

THE ART F AG 98 O M IC.

Sixteen children were born to Herrmann by his wife A n of h h The n a, w om eig t were boys , and the rest girls .

eldest Of the children , C . Herrmann, who recently died in l Bohemia , leaving an estate valued close upon two mi lion

not f or francs, had a great many years his equal in the world r A as a prestidigitateu , until his younger brother, lexander “ n d his . I Herrmann, came to the fro t to ispute laurels _ ” “ was A e w eight years Old, said lexander H rrmann , hen I on St appeared with my brother the stage at . Petersburg .

v d My father was unwilling to let me gi e up my stu ies, but, he a ﬁnally, consented when my brother agreed to engage of f or The professor languages purposely me . professor e an d f or e e travell d with us , sev ral years he r mained exclu ” si el r v y my tuto . Alexander Herrmann remained with his brother f or six At f Ou rte en i vm years . , his parents, desirous of g g him the him advantages Of a liberal education , placed in a college n e t at Vien a, wh re his remarkable in ellect and bright wit m a n astonished the professors, and caused the to predict r j a ta r extra or di na i re f or the young scholar. It was du ing his year of college life that he became possessed of books oth containing accounts Of Robert Houdin, Balsamo , and of d f u z ers, the perusal which inﬂuenced and pre estined his h o tu re career . T e years Spent in travelling with his br ther also tended greatly to foster and d evelop his talent and in in ti on f or art ib cl a the Of magic . From infancy he exh ited r of n a powe discer ment and ingenuity truly marvellous , and or of Often during his college life, after witnessing reading

- of - some sleight hand performance, he would closet himself f or t o t e stu in his room hours, ﬁnally appear and amaze h dents by performing the same or equally startling feats . THE ART OE MAera. 9

At the age of ﬁfteen college duties became irksome to

him m i . , and he determined to seek his fortune as a agic an n n 1 85 9 Begin i g his professional career in Spain, in , he t d has ravelled through America, France, Englan , Ireland , Am u Scotland, Wales, Siberia, Central erica, Cuba, So th A i u T mer ca, H ngary, Germany, Italy, urkish Empire , A Canada, Buenos yres , New Granada, Holland, Belgium, A t Russia, Prussia, and us ria, meeting with the greatest s uccess and receiving the highest encomiums of the press and public .

” As a linguist he has established a claim beyond perad ven ture, as he converses correctly and ﬂuently in seven dis

viz . : n tinct languages, French , Spa ish, German , English , n u Russian, Italia , and Portug ese . Besides speaking these h e has languages , the studies been compelled to pursue, to such as physics and chemistry, gain for himself perfection Of h in the art legerdemain , ave given him more than a pass h n ing insig t i to Latin and Greek .

Between Alexander He rrmann and his brother C . Herr m th ann there has always existed e deepest brotherly devotion . t - on Ol d n His bro her was seventy e years whe he died . Dur h ing his time e lost and won four princely fortunes . In f Orm d h r he was tall , slen er, wit dark pie cing eyes, a high w t l m The forehead, and i hal a most polished gent e an . ' Fi a r o u nde r d ate 2 7 1 88 6 of g , of January , , thus speaks him The whole of Vienna assembled yesterday at the house — of one Of the most popular men Of the capital at the resi - c Of — den e Professor C . Herrmann the famous prestidigita teu r n the h , that elega t Parisian whom c ances of life have d r of D nubia lo ged in one of the st eets the a h city. Herr THE ART F MAG 1 00 O IC. m as ntieth nn s of his i th ann w celebrating the seve a iver ary b r , a e of day by f te, at which were present the aristocracy the

of and i . city, together with all the celebrities art l terature A mong those present we noticed Prince Metternich , Count Z ’ i h Wittz ek S h . L e c ten ichy, Count , Count ameza , Prince F C Gl a m all as stein , ount g , the two Barons de Rothschild, and, t a thing mos rare in Vienna, all these princes and barons w of were cro ded in among the artists, the painters, the men and n and ao letters other less disti guished citizens, friends

u aintan ces of . m n The q C Herr a n . fact is, that Herrmann th e of t is not only Napoleon prestidigi ateurs, he is at the same time a perfect gentleman of t he highest possible re s ectabil it f of and conn ois p y, ull wit, above all a thorough se u r Of art for he has gathered in the course Of his travels a of n tre sures faience, bro zes , and antique marbles to such n t his t t u a e x ent that apar ments are a veri able m seum . F is s omethi n s omebod n inally, he a g and y in Vien a . He is l a dmitted into every grade of society ; in a word, all c asses Of society seek him . ( 6 . He is also the international man Of the capital . Where “ wa s in b u t he born I think Hanover, it was by a mere A chance . His family is of lsatian origin . An A t r in lsa ian by origin , bo n in Germany, raised A i s n France, living in ustria, Herrmann above all a Parisia , who took up his reside nce in Vienna that he might Speak well of Paris .

f o r A n Such a man was the brother o u lexa der Herrmann . w If we may be allowed, however, to dra a comparison regard o s ing the professional and artistic skill Of the br ther , we unhesitatingly prono unce in favor Of the younger ; for the

THE ART F A 102 O M GIC.

As Al t in it has been Stated, exander Herrmann has ravelled The Of India almost every part Of the globe . j ugglers , the of T t dervishes urkey, the Bedouins of Egyp , the Marabouts of A am A rabia, all have procl i ed him the llah Of Magic . Crowned heads have attended his perf ormances or invited

to h . D on A XII t e . him delight them in palace lphonso , ’ ' Re Cons ti tu ci ona l de l E s a na n u y p , co ferred pon him the decoration of Comendador or di nari o de la Rea l orden de ” Is a bel la Ca toli ca The . King Of Portugal also bestowed upon him the distinguished decoration of Ca va llei ro da Rea l Or dern Mi l itar P or tugu er a de N oss o S enhor Jes us ” Chri s ta.

The severest critics in Europe ha ve declared Alexander n Herrma n to be unparalleled in the history Of magic art . The e Germans are least Of all given to prais , yet a German f Th n A n paper thus spoke o him e ame of . Herrma n ar l It is famili throughout the entire wor d . was he who one day while by the sea- shore at Ostend caused the brace Of t the let a lady to disappear from her wrist, hrew it into sea t o he r rib , and a moment later returned it tied with a bon in a beautiful bouquet which he took from the hat of ’ the lady s husband . One t day while seated in an omnibus, he fel the

- a light ﬁngered hand Of a thief in his pocket . Herrm nn ’ - m seized him , recovered his pocket book, took fro the thief s of t pocket a number other purses the latter had s olen, and h to turned property and t ief over the police .

It is he who goes to the markets, buys chickens or living

“ t the rabbi s, cuts their throats, and then reattaching neck, returns to the frighte ned dealers their property without the s lightest sign Of the operation performed upon them . HE A T OF A I T R M G C.

“ — hi a an We saw m put into tin p three rings, borrowed from three persons in the auditorium , break some eggs over

of t of t them, and out his omelet precious stones here came forth three white doves wearing around their necks the

three rings attached by silk ribbons . f f n of cofie e He put into three di ere t pots some beans , of e the white common beans , and some grains wh at, and three pots were closed Simultaneously at the striking of his A wand . minute later the pots were found to contain real an d of s even t coffee, milk, and sugar, out them he filled y ve fi cups, which he passed to the audience . He put four watches into a large revolver of the bull - d og m pattern , filled it with powder and balls, jammed the all rod down with an iron , fired, and the watches were found han ging from the back of a gentleman in the auditorium A He caused his wife, Mrs . ddie Herrmann , to enter into he r a magical chest, locked in , and a minute later the lady d was found occupying a seat in the mi dle of the parquet . n ot He accomplished many other prodigies, the least curious of which seems to us to be the following : He borrowed a

m t ou t he hat fro a gen leman in the theatre, and of this hat -ﬁve brought forth two hundred and twenty gold pieces , a t of s ix a vas amount paper, two rabbits, bouquets, dozen s d cup , and many other ifferent things . He then asked his n hat to serva t to return the its owner, but the awkward serv

ant slipped, fell upon the hat and made it ﬂat as a cracker .

. a did Mr Herrm nn was very sorry, very sorry indeed , and w n wha t d o not k ow to to restore it to its former condition . Th Finally an idea struck Mme . Hermann e cannon An i d energetic remedy n eed Mr . Herrmann tore the

“ s he T hat into hreds, which put into the cannon . hen the THE ART or A C 04 M GI .

n t k of e r a can on was a en into the middle the stag , whe e it re lly m of anl c i n caused a oment p the upper galleries, followed Th by a precipitous flight . e cannon was fired an d the hat d on of the o Mr . appeare the roof theatre, fr m which _ Herr ' mann cau sed it to drop in its original shape by firing his ” pistol .

HO MR HE MA e ar s RI D or E I A E W . RR NN UND S R BL COM A IO S P N N .

n n A few years ago Mr . Herrma n had an e gagement to ap pear in Alexandria during the great Turkish feast of Rha

. On l mazan arriving at his hote , he was told by the

of proprietor that , on account the holidays the house, as was the case with nearly all the other leading hotels in the city, ff w was crowded . Mr . Herrmann was unable, o er hat he u t e The wo ld, to ob ain a room to hims lf . proprietor had one t f one of only large room wi h two beds in it to of er,

T . which was taken by a urk from Constantinople . Mr n not m Herrma n, as he could help atters, agreed to take the

’ “ u n of room, b t on going i to it noticed that the ﬁre the ’ Turk s eye ﬂashed in a very uncomfortable manner as it fell ” o - t n my watch chain . He made up his mind tha he would T a h so . W ave the room to himself, and he did his is the y the Professor accomplished it “ ’ was n and I n ot It three o clock in the afternoo , had

I was at ~ the many hours before me, as to be theatre at

- The T t n n half past seven . urk was wa chi g me unpacki g ‘ ’ I my trunks . When I had a good catch at his eye, f erocmu s- n k snatched a looki g dagger, lifted it quic ly and At of stuck it into my wrist . the sight the blood; the T not urk rushed from the room, and would stay in the

THE A 1 06 RT OF MAGIC.

- ! The 1 s Bosco Oonte to day reason why , that after , _ , Phi rt e n lippe, Robe Houdin, Brunet, V rly, Robi , Cazenave, tu tti u a nti n h q , Herrman has appeared to prove to us t at we ’ were wrong l n believing oursel ves blas es as regards omelets transformed into living doves and handkerchief s restored more immaculate than before af ter having been burne d ou r under eyes . We knew this unparalleled Herrmann twenty years ago

has to s su b tan in Bruxelles, and he seemed us ever ince to s tiate t of w me d the ruth the axiom hich we have Just ntione , t o on wit, that every prestidigitateur is superior to the e seen a i before . Herrm nn has done n f act better he has r1 sen

h The n of to- da 1 s above imself . Herrma n y superior to the of or is to-da Herrman twelve fifteen years ago, Just as he y u o s peri r to all who have preceded him . of n . To see First all, he is a true gentlema him in silk eu l otte collcmte i l to the stockings, , a black coat fitt ng wel z - se e body, da zling linen, well trimmed mustachios, to his a u e e sy gest r , distinguished appearance, flowing and natural on e w was ! elocution, ould believe that a lecture to be ’ delivered by a scholar rather than that a s eew ee on magic “ w was about to take place . Ho ever, magic in the true At sense of the word is being performed before you . the d t of same time, the a dress and the dex erity the hands cause i you to pass from surprise to s urpr se . Perhaps all the feats of n ot ne w of own in Herrmann are , although many are his n ti e r ace v e on but the best known are perform d with a g , a n to easiness, a facility which impart them complete new ness . Who does not remember the famous chest of the Daven '

n ot chest o . Indi a two port brothers and the less famous f , T E A T A H R OF M GIC. 7 masterly tricks which have drawn e verywhere immense crowds to se e them ! Herrmann does better still he com the ches t bines the two tricks into one he forces, as it were, o Indi a f v u f into that o the Da enports, and by do bling the s n ot s a stu ef ac difﬁculty he doubles the urprise, to y the p tion of the spectators . “ ’ ea nce of i i t in However, s prest d gitation cannot be old ”

. n see words O e must go and for himself.

A E T THE M RQUIS AN D TH PAR RID GES .

M u A Don Mariano del Prado, arq is de capulco, invited Herrmann to dinner while the latter was astonishing the chivalrous Spaniards with his amazing feats a f e w years ago m was in Madrid . Herrmann knew that the arquis especially ’ of fond partridges, and he accordingly went to his friend s ” n n th house be t upon mischief . Duri g dinner e conversa t ol d i ! ion turned upon game , and the marquis was espec ally eloquent upon the subject of partridges and wished that he n had provided some . Herrman thereupon assured the mar quis that nothing c ould be easier than to have his wish sat i ﬁ s e d .

d o ou What y mean said Don Mariano del Prado . ” I of m mean, said Herrman, that no friend ine shall express a wish before me without having it instantly grati ”

ﬁe d .

T n his hereupon he asked the waiter to bri g him hat, turned it upside down , and by a dexterous movement of the hand brought ou t two of the ﬁnest partridges the marquis

. is sa s m trick as had ever seen It useless to y that this i ple , sa l n h the y g is, brought down the ouse . THE ART OF MA 08 GIC.

m is o In order to perfor this trick, it necessary t be pro vide d with a high hat, made with a false spring bottom with space enough f or three or four birds or anything else ou t you may choose to take of it . The spring must be so

d of placed that, when it is pressed from the outsi e the hat,

ou t an the compartment will open and the birds will fly , d when you relax the pressure it will fly back to its place a . Al of the or gain ways hold the inside hat toward you, elevate it a trifle higher than the audience . , The f oll owmg 1n teresting story comes from the pen of Alexander Watson

CHRISTM AS IN SIBE RIA— A COLD RIDE W ITH HERRMANN To KAYALA IN A RUSSIAN TARANTASS f — THE GREAT C ONJURER ENTERTAINS Two PARTIES IN THE DREARY E A C O O Y— O E S HE E FO ME P N L L N W ND R P R R D .

Dammit

T A - t of his good nglo Saxon exclamation , u tered in tones

e - man exceeding vexation by a nervous, k en eyed little in a frontier town In Russia one bitterly cold morning in the — w t of 1 879 t t . in er , a tracted my a tention His face and n — was of i n such a weird, u canny face it was the picture n d an d one of te se isappointment, his attitude was utter de

l e ction he ard f or j . It was the ﬁrst English I had weeks, an d d e c1 d e d , although spoken with a accent, there was a spontaneity and vigor to the e xpre ss1 on which at once con vin ce d me that the speaker was familiar with my native A of tongue . pproaching, I asked the nature his trouble, addressing him in English and offering my services . His face brightened up an d he quickly replied

THE ART \ MA01 0 1 10 OF .

In e on him a place my tarantass, a long, low, black vehicl t h six t runners, to which were at ac ed horses . I pic ured to

of f or con him the hardships the journey, which, I must

had his fess, I little taste myself but he was ﬁrm in reso l u tion c a on , and qui kly completing rrangements, we started

f or -f ailin ood - a ride which , but the never g g nature and e n te r tamm of com an l on superior g qualities my versatile p , l wou d have been dreary indeed . — The al on s d days pass wearily g some in wil , ﬁerce storms

’ of snow and slee t that howl around us as though all the demons of the steppe were up in arms some in bright su n w a e and shine, hose intoler ble glar blinds us blisters our i nd faces . From time to time we drive nto darksome u er hot n i ground holes, and reeking, hover arou d the steam ng

m of b ou t on sa ovar, pouring down oceans oiling tea ; then

the Silent steppe again to continue ou r weary struggle . There are nights when we awaken from a half-frozen sleep a nd se e w nothing but the wide, sno y plain , silent and The W r ghastly in the spectral moonlight . icy inds f om the north come r u shl ng down In furious blasts with an unin terru te d S of a d v p weep thousand miles, and ri e the snow

about in whirlwinds that go scudding over the pl ain ~ l ik e to tho t giant spe ctres . Herrmann submits all discomforts wi u m b u . our i e r tu r a m rmur His jollity is infectious . Even p

able Kirghiz postilions Smile at his little conceits , and w T him marvel at the onders he performs . hey look upon

- of d . as an emissary the devil . Kayala is ﬁnally reache n d a nd w m of Herrma n is surrounded by his frien s, the ar th their greeting makes ample amends f or the hardships he has

undergone . ’ You won Kou rro atkin and have , says p , you are none to f or In In of o soon, Christmas this country comes advance ’ yours . ’ " won b u t not Yes, replied Herrmann, I have , I will ’ tr it . No no . One . y again , such journey is enough The t an d dinner occurs the nex day , , reluctantly, I con

sent to remain over . Never have I spent a more delightful T is n o t l of Christmas . here limi to the hospita ity these A ou t n dashing Russians . way on this barren plain, thousa ds f our own t ﬁre sid e s o miles from civilization and comfor able ,

i ﬁt -f or At we s t down to a repast a king. the table are of of ﬁce rhood gathered all the types Russian . Here is the ‘ - - ol d who rotee gray headed, hard faced major, , without p t ’ t h ion, had fought his sturdy way up hrough the grades, wit

l ong delays , much hard service, and many wounds . He the a nd f or had been an ensign in Crimea , afterward was

n f or ho w odd gotte , nobody knows many years, in some

of . ol d corner the Caucasus He is only a major, poor fellow, - om but he has half a dozen decorations . There is li ttle in c

mon en a b betwe him and the t ll , stately, grizzled general y

d - - of his si e, who is an aide de camp the Emperor ; a grand of e t who h as seigneur the court , y never forsworn the camp a man who will discuss with you the relative merits of Patti L t and ucca ; who has yach ed in the Mediterranean, shot

in - t bu on grouse the Sco tish highlands , and hunted ffalo the

A who d t of merican prairies wears ecora ions, too, some m of . On them earned in battle, others as arks imperial favor d of s and the other si e the table is a young hus ar in blue red . he He can gallop, can cut the sword exercise , he can Sing F h v renc songs, and he would gi e his last cigarette to a or a e d comrade strang r, and in his secret heart he has vowe of u to win the cross St . George . Everybody contrib ted to THE ART OF C 1 12 MAGI .

t t S Irited s one a o the en er ainment, a p ong from , a recit tion r a story from another ; but chief among them all was Herr his 1ne xhau stibl e S of n mann, with tore tricks a d his marvel T ’ lous dexterity . he general s watch was found in the pocket of of a subordinate, to the dismay the latter and the delight of the assembled guests ; a solid gold decoration which the a h m major had e rned in the K ivan campaign , and fro which h e d in a of wm never parte , was found bottle e ; loaves of bread were transf ormed into oranges ; cards disappeared mysteriously in the air ; chairs were sent dancing around the room in the most provoking way diff erent kinds of wme e w one b wer taken at ill from ottle, and live fowls were discove red in the most singular places . It was the most n t was to d ovel Chris mas dinner it ever my fortune atten . An of one h ente rtainment full surprises, and t at kept the of u guests in an hilarious state merriment for several ho rs . erml ssmn t When it was over, Herrmann obtained p o th ’ ‘ visit e prisoners quarters . What a contrast to the place we had just left ! The poor wretches were huddled to

” T b ad gether like sheep . heir food was , their scant clothing a m f fforded but poor protection fro the rosty air, and their misery was made more unbearable by the harsh words and cruel blows of the brutal keepers . Such a lot of haggard saw faces I never . Men whose eyes looked the despair that m was slowly eating their lives away, and fro whose hearts all hope had ﬂed . Piteous looks of entreaty were cast u pon u s as we entered ; glances so full of woe and misery that they would melt a heart of stone “ The sympathetic m agi ci an took in the scene at a glance, and then began a per f or T man ce that I have never seen equalled . rick followed m d one A trick, each ore wonderful than the prece ing . mid

THE ART F MAG 1 14 O IC.

f th s m r s w e s v . hich, while greatly dif ering, were not le a ellou IS it not a prodigy to see one of these servants of the sorcerer

— th — - lay throu gh e mouth T as many eggs as the master applied to him taps upon the head Is it a Simple matter to have ’ of n a California at the end one s ﬁngers, to such an exte t abounded the ﬁve -franc pieces coming nobody knew from h the of where, and whic were falling in heaps from noses ’ 7 An d — u s e the spectators that hat ours, let acknowl dge it

“ — ou t transf ormed into a notion store, from which were taken of b and t e ra s myriads of cards, miles ri bons, , s ill b tter, bbit d A n l 1 and ucks, probably merica , ike the r proprietor, not the of au then which , however, does alter fact their being T ti c and alive too. he want of space prevents us from length cu h d s n ot t o m t ing t is e cription , but we must omit en ion the charm which his fascinating comp anion adds to the miracles H of r . The of Monsieu Herrmann diverse poses Mme . err ‘ mann l n the Arabian dream are the most grace ful we r n have eve see in the metropolis .

’ The m uscular force of Alexander Herrmann is one of his m e saw him ost r markable traits . We in several leading clubs of Ne w York take a full pack of cards and tear them d in two with his han s . In 1 8 9 v 7 Herrmann went to Ha ana . He gave in that n on city nineteen representatio s, and a Sunday afternoon n of n appeared in the noted bull ri g Hava a, where he per formed the extraordinary and dangerou s feat of allo wing t o as m himself to be sho at by twelve s ldiers, carrying any

The m e . Remington riﬂes . balls were marked by a com itt e Th stoe d a i t d e audience breathless, and many women f n e ,

- while strong men left the place, believing that a cold blooded Tw murder was about to be committed . elve thousand per THE ART A OF M GIC. 1 1 5

th to sons were ere, and the receipts amounted eight thou sand dol lars . k In When the riﬂes were loaded, Herrmann too them his f e w the s and hands, whispered a words in barrel , then ordered

. The as the soldiers to ﬁre balls ﬂew whizzing, and fast as recel ve d t they came he hem in his hands , and passed them,

the of . still warm , into hands the committee

On leavin g Havana he went to the Ci ty of Mexico . His

t n d . ﬁrs acquaintance there was with the the Presi ent, Diaz It did not take long for Herrmann to win the friendship of d the istinguished Mexican, and during the ﬁve months of his stay i n that city his triumph was the greatest ever k n now . Soldiers were stationed nightly in the National Theatre to control the crowds that sought admittance notwith standing the fact that “n ot an inch of standing room could O n be btai ed . President Diaz, in order to express the strong

f or - of friendship he felt Herrmann, ordered a body guard

- ﬁve him twenty soldiers to follow wherever he went . Orders were issued to all the dependencies of Mexico that the va ' ri ou s sub - re s onsibl e f or hi s m governors were held p life . Fro of A w Mexico he visited every part Central merica, here his was f success simply a repetition o his triumphs in Mexico . n f e w of Reachi g Brazil, Herrmann and a his friends, t wal kl n one among whom were several journalis s, were g in of i t Of t A f e of the pr ncipal stree s hat city . w steps ahead m e n the som laborers were paving the street . Herrman whispered to his friends that he was going to astonish the Th he one of t workingmen . ereupon accosted hem with

- his of serious air, and lifting the foot the man took from

" 1 ec al ued T under it a gold p e v at t wenty dollars . he fellow THE ART F MA 1 6 O CIC.

- of t m demanded one half the amoun , and Herr ann tried te was explain to him who he , and to reason with him, and d hi m wa Th tol that it s a trick. e man would accept no t of explana ion and kept on demanding half the trove . Herr mann persisted that it was all nonsense for any on e to claim A money that did not belong to him . crowd began to as s W n f or emble , and as the orki gman cried the police, Herr a - m nn was obliged to give him one half the amount, but made up his mind that it did not pay to play tricks on the n Brazilian worki gmen . It would take more space than ou r book aff ords to give one - half the incidents which have befallen Herrmann in the of e course his life, and the number of times he has be n the of victim of the greed man . For sittm WIth of instance, in Cincinnati he was g some his ” friends emptying a f e w bottles of the cheerful (Herr ’ mann s designation for champagne) he was playing some of his tricks when a stranger approached him and asked whether ﬁf t - nt he could change a y ce piece into gold . Herrmann by m m of a dexterous ove ent the hands performed the trick, w o n hen the stranger, the plea of examining the money, - b took the twenty dollar gold piece, which elonged to Herr n of f ma n, and walked with it . At n of a noted gatheri g bankers, among whom was the de one ‘ of Baron Rothschild, the leading brokers in the

” r French capital approached Mr . He rmann and told him he would give him ﬁve thousand francs if he would tell him what was passing at the time in the head of the Baron de

i . the ff Rothsch ld . Mr Herrmann accepted o er and told him ’ that the baron s intention was to lift the shares of the Suez C s al s anal which had been knocked down for ever week past .

THE ART A 1 8 OF M GIC. one of the spectators and out of the same produced the d s1 n of h ha b n n n e g the hospital, whic s ee take as a patter f or one d The r - d the now erecte . opp essed and down trod en

‘ people in Rou mania have cause to bless the d ay that he . t f or d u e the landed here, it is mainly to his work that of a ﬂ Le t us Polytechnic School th t city lives and ourishes .

‘ ‘ also mention the fact that on his return to this country a or a o of year two g , when he became aware the misfortune t ’ tha had befallen Charleston , Herrmann , whose heart s throbs to of woe s t were never deaf the cry , gave a repre en ation which netted the whole amount of which he turned to of over the Mayor Charleston .

the of on e In city Detroit ﬁne morning, a tall, Slender H . e man , with black, piercing eyes, entered a barber Shop to b e an d of the asked shaved , as the knight razor was

- preparing to commence work, the dark eyed man seized d a nd the razor from his han s, with lightning rapidity laid it across his throat, from which the blood immediately I Th ai b er Spurted n torrents . e frightened b and those pres ou t the on e f 01 r f or ent rushed , the police and the othe s the the doctor. When they returned they found would be suicide calmly arranging his necktie and not a trace of blood to be foun d anywhere in the shop . The hi m th e crowd followed to hotel, where it was dis covered that the m an who caused all this innocent commo

t ou r d A . ion was frien , lexander Herrmann . A San Franmse o paper thus describes a visit which Herr “ mann paid to the Stock Board Herrmann visited the Fran0 o one d e San 1 sc Stock Board yesterday, and had, as ‘ ’ ‘ ’ o . C u lighted bear declared, great j y with the gang n nt annou ced, he walked i o the centre ring and commenced A F A THE RT O M GIC.

d ’ t i operations by taking from a Mr . Bu d s breas and sk rt t of pocke s a most astonishing number cards, among which the needful ace was observed to be suspiciously plentiful . ’ The ﬁrst movemen t of Herrmann attracted everybody s at n n te tio , Baron Wilkie appearing particularly delighted at ’ At n M . r. Budd s discomfort this , Herrma n turned upon an d him t he s Mr . Wilkie , , taking by nose, cau ed a perfect

s t l . ream of cards, principa ly jacks, to ﬂow therefrom n Everybody inside the ring now gathered around Herrman , ‘ of and the Caller, seeing that his frantic yells Belcher A on . s were unobserved , joined the crowd the ﬂoor the h Caller approac ed , Herrmann extended his hand and pro ’ ce e d e d to pull from his (the Caller s) coat - sleeve a pair of t m one stockings , each about four fee long . So e at this mo ’ m f f The i t ment tipped Herr ann s hat o . magician caught

- r The and took from it a twenty dolla roll . fun became gen ’ r d eral and uproa ious now . Herrmann s hands were gli ing n t t like lightni g in all direc ions . He extracted cigare tes and ’ cigars from the brokers ears and noses ; mixed their sup plies of handkerchiefs u p beyond recovery took rag babies ’ of of and Stumps cigars out the younger members pockets, and from the older and more sedate members took chew

- u m - hmie d e l l d . Sc ing g , stick candy, and ime novels . Mr , on the most digniﬁed broker the ﬂoor, approached Herr

" - m , his d a . ann who extended han with _ four bit piece in it Th e t a broker"ried to snatch it, when the m gician ﬂip ped it e ai i - int the l and it land ed n his hand a twenty dollar piece . ‘ ’ . Schmi e d ell ! T 1 , Mr said, Gracious me hat s eas er than ’ i d commissions in a big market . Some Impat ent ealers in the an ou t lobby, who could not see all the fun , beg to call , ’ ‘ ’ Oh 1 n , hire a hall Why don t you pay a dollar a d see ” THE ART R AG 1 20 C M IC.

! ’ ‘ ’ m him Go on with the call, etc . Herr ann went up one of n on of to the disconte ted the outside the rail, and ’ of f of - taking the man s hat , dug up out it a double handful ‘ of remark l n : ou s to s f or coin, g Vat y vant to deal in g ! ’ ’ ‘ ’ . The Dat s de vay to money amazed chipper . a “ make t u n re ired in disg st . But there was no stoppi g the fun. ’ Herrmann ran his ﬁngers thro ugh Scott s curly hair and of extracted a bunch cigars, which he passed around to the crowd . He abashed Dan Yost by taking from his scarf

- - n t Th a half dozen scarf pi s belonging to o her brokers . e t sat Caller, ired with laughing, down in a chair and imme diatel ot u — it y g p was only a bent pin, but the Caller k thought it was a shoc of electricity} Several brokers took advantage of the opportunity to a1r their amateur abilities r ﬂe as magicians, and chai s began to tip and dance, hats w oﬁ - w , handkerchiefs and pocket books parted company ith n s n conf u sien their ow er , and a ge eral reigned until Herr ” ou t mann bowed himself .

The famous conjurer, Herrmann, says a French paper, has a r o of six arrived in Paris , fte a soj urn months in Am r1 ca of the South e . During a performance at the house of r Governor Montevideo, He rmann determined to mystify - t m three half savage Pa agonians who were present, and who d tu e ﬁe d n o one ared to approach . He s p the ﬁrst by tak Ing from his nose an orange ; he aston ished the second by producing a number of Silver coins from his hair but the third seemed overpowered with terror as a living rat was t t cr of extrac ed from his nose . Ut ering a y fright, the Pat a onians w t he g withdre , and company congratulated Herr a hi con ratu m nn upon s success . While receiving their g

0 MA THE ART F . 1 Q 2 O GIC

a w w h he appeared and several oranges gradu lly gre , hic picked and handed to the company to prove they were real . t r the one on to of r He lef , howeve , p the t ee (which we pari his ticu l arly noticed at the time) . He waved wand once fle w 1 more, and two butterflies out, fluttering the r wings “ r in the most natural manne , and each holding a corner of k r i d ou t f m the hand e chief, wh ch they gra ually drew ro the centre of the orange with the ring s uspended in the

of . T th e middle it hese he restored to e own r, and the box ‘ d em t hen n was foun p y w ope ed .

He blindfolded a child and pl ace d i t in a basket which every one present examined and found to be perfectly

. of b e empty Closing the lid the asket, the p rformer took r a Sharp sword and drove it epeatedly through the Sides, t the of l ill screams the chi d grew fainter, when the basket w as an d Th opened found to be empty . e child appeared of of hidden in the folds the dress Mme . Herrmann, who in was seated the rear of the parlor .

r Before his Majesty, the King of Portugal , Mr . He rmann performed the following marvel w of Herrmann Sho ed a cone, made metal, beautifully japanned . He put his arm through it to prove that there i was noth ng concealed inside , and that it was Simply a thin to m n ﬂower metal cone , without a p . He next took a com o n pot and asked to have it ﬁll ed with mould . Placi g the

on to of ﬂower- cone the p the pot, and taking great quan of of d tities various kinds seeds, he poured them insi e the u r was u m cone, ntil the inte ior f ll . Next, aking some passes d s d re with his wand, he comman ed the ee s to grow, and HE ART A G T OF M IC. 1 23

m t of oving the cone, revealed a beautiful bouque ﬂowers,

had much higher than the cone, while the seeds all van is e d Th and . h . e king expressed great admiration surprise

Ano ther feat performed by Herrmann Three cards were f re chosen from a pack , placed back, shu ﬂed , and the pack tain e d one of by those present . Herrmann left the room for re a few moments after giving the above instructions . He turned with a sword in his han d and asked the gentleman holding the cards to throw the pack up toward the ceiling h as the cards fell, he thrust his sword among t em and caught the three . marked cards on the blade of the sword . He of f and u s took them passed them to .

A few nights ago Mr . Herrmann borrowed at the house of

- l u t ri n to a gentleman a ten dol ar note, req esting ano her f e d THE ART OF AG 1 24 M IC.

th of h e xam1 n1 n h r tak e e number it . W ile g it to see whet e the t as one no e w a good , it unfortunatel y caught ﬁre

was c m t n to o ple ely consumed . Herrman appeared be very and sorry, the owner, taking the matter to be in earnest, as sured the professor that it was a mere triﬂe an d not worth T n m regretting . hereupo Mr . Herr ann said, I have an -i of i idea He is always full them . Send ng for a can dl e an and , he cut it into pieces about inch long asked his

- friend in which piece he would like to ﬁnd the bank note . The n was piece chose was broken in two, and there the iden

- tical bank note perfectl y u nl nju re d .

ou r l it Mr . Herrmann borrowed watch, p aced in a mortar t 1 w and mashed it wi h a poker, p eces of the orks being Shown The ta a to us . mor r was then covered for moment, and n when the cover was taken off the watch had va ished . His x of servant was ne t directed to bring a loaf bread, and the was it watch found in the centre of uninjured .

THE ART OF MAGIC

If your Majesty do me the favor of searching your ou t ke - k pockets, y will ﬁnd two oranges ins ead of the poc t boo and the handkerchief which were in your pocket when I entered here b u t if your chief attendant will search his

k - handk er pockets, he will find in them your poc et book and ” chief . All were astonished to find the “ two oranges in the king’s pocket and the pocket-book and handkerchief in that of the chief attendant “ T n to his nothi g, said Herrmann . I want Show / is u to you something else. In which orange would yo like find your pocket- book and handkerchief

one I In In . the which have my right hand, replied the king .

~ Mr A Very well, your Majesty. . Chief ttendant, will you please hold tight in your hands the objects found in Now your pockets , will your Majesty be kind enough to cu t the orange The n did so of th e ki g , and inside the orange were pocket out of book and handkerchief , while a bird came the hand of th e astonished chief attendant and escaped through the

O w. pen windo ” During all this time Herrmann did not even approach the n or t ki g the chief at endant. HE ART OF AG T M IC.

the of a k art Now, sire, continued master the bl c , with out paying attention to the surprise of all who were present, do me the favor t o choose one of your own pistols and load o it with si x bullets which you mark with your wn hand . Af the ter the king did it Herrmann said, Please direct ” n pistol agai st my hand and fire . T the k his was too much ing did not want to do it, and the princess protested energetically . u ou Much obliged to you, yo r Majesty, for the interest y the manifest in my behalf, but let King fire at me without u scr ple I am the very devil, and you cannot kill the devil ” - with a pistol shot . Upon this declaration of Herrmann that it was not at all n i of f da gerous to fire, the king po nted the pistol and went

A of of the shots . cry horror arose, and the eyes all were d ﬁxe upon Herrmann , who, enveloped in the smoke produced n by the explosion, presented to the ki g ﬁve of the bullets, the sixth having penetrated a mirror behi nd Herrmann a little above his shoulder. ” The d d pistol was well loa e , said Herrmann, pointing

. u i to the broken mirror It is a pity such a bea tiful p ecaﬁ; “ of furniture has been damaged . If you will allow it, I

shall try immediately to repair it . Will your Majesty please give orders to cover the mirror with a curtain i When th s was done, Herrmann said Now I shall load at m the same . _ pistol and ﬁre the irror ﬁ d an d He re , the curtain fell down, the mirror was intact .

“ Al l were full of wonder that such things could take place in the salon of a king and in the presence of the t cour , where no preparations had been made . Nobody h could explain or comprehend t is action of Herrmann . HE ART MAG 28 T OF IC.

HER MA AT THE ASHI GTO MAR ET R NN W N N K . Accompanied by two newspaper reporters and several of n n r his friends, Herrman e tered the Washington Ma ket, l u t St wa ked abo the alls, passing from one place to the other, in a listless manner, apparently killing time, asking the of on e h chatt1n 1 n price t ing and another, and g 3 a friendly ' t 1 n it manner wi h the vendors of prov1 s o s . When was whispered around that the famous wizard was in the m d arket, a crowd assembled and stood gazing at him . Gra u

’ ally it increased to such an extent that - the police had to in terf ere and keep the crowd back . Herrmann pretended not t o on him notice what was going about , and, in fact, seemed u n e wh t decid d at to do, when his a tention was called to an egg- stand behind which a nl oe - looking Irish woman was

. the posted He looked for a moment at eggs, and said How much f or eggs to - day

Fifteen cents a dozen fresh ones .

’ d oz n on on n a e e . Give me , please, but co dition I want or is to break them, and whether you I do it, it understood m ” whatever will be found inside of them wil l be m e . ’ of w t l n Well, course, I don t ant wha the eggs contain ” s f or ide, if once they are paid . 10 h Herrmann took an egg and broke it, when t ere were

u ﬁve - i n i fo r dollar gold pieces the shell . Seeing the sh ning m of h etal , the eyes the woman almost started from t eir

s ockets . She looked at the crowd which surrounded her

stand, and with astonishment exclaimed How is that ! ” T ” hey are valuable eggs, those you sell, said Herrmann, one m and giving to the wo an, Will you please break this on e f or me

ART F A 130 THE O M GIC.

~ had r w m book disappea ed, while an old Irish o an, dealing in t in n d apples, asser ed the stro gest words She could comman h as that all the apples in er basket were missing. She w

t ~ l greatly exci ed at being so shamefully treated . Tw0 o d d of i n on e of Spinsters joine in the shrieks the Ir sh woma , them declaring that she missed ‘ her handkerchief an d

the t- The af w other her pocke book . f air gre serious ; the c t t of onductor s opped the car, and wen in search a police man ; then a well - known merchant made the proposition t b hOIl l d hat every ody S be searched . His proposition was m i n accepted by accla ation, and the operation took place of presence the policeman, who arrived with the conductor . The - i de cri following scene ensued, which well n gh beggars s p tion In the coat - pockets of the above -mentioned merchant d a nd n of were foun , to his great surprise confusio , some the apples missed by the Irish woman a few more were found in the pockets of the gentleman who claimed to have lost his of t o watch , and about half a dozen in the pockets the w ol d n the - Spi sters, while lost pocket book and handkerchief

‘ w of l a te l arrive d ere found in the pockets the y policeman, and two live rabbits were drawn from the inside wide coat of The it d pockets the conductor . ag ation had reache its

Al l tal kin f o highest pomt. were standing and violently g t

t - each other. But the watch and the o her pocket book were s n n who till missi g, when the g entlema , as it has been said, had on of been compelled to stand the platform the car,

’ owin to s f or t and who, g the confu ion, secured himself a sea d s insi e the car, tooped and quietly picked up two apples, in

- which he discovered the missing watch and pocket book. Immediately this gentleman was recognized by on e of the e a a pass ngers s the magici n , Herrmann, who explained to HE ART A T OF M GIC. 131 those present that he had performed this whole trick for the n of t sole purpose of getting a seat i side the car, as he fel too on th to f or tired to stand e platform . He begged be excused the liberty he had taken . Everybody laughed heartily ex ce tin - w n n a u p g the apple oma , who was still grumbli g bo t the of b u t u t loss her apples, Herrmann, without being seen, p

- d n . u she t a gol piece i to her hand F lly satisﬁed, lef the car with her empty basket .

’ THE E I S MIRRO D V L R . Take a square box about Six inches long and twelve inches

or of n . high , any proportionate dimensio s Cover the interior n d the with four mirrors, locating them perpe icularly to bot

of . tom the box Put at the bottom any desired object, as a tin d sol ier, paper castles, etc . Put over the box a glass w of d frame, hich must have the form the base of a pyrami , and must be arranged in such a way that it falls upon the l The of box ike a cover . four sides of this frame must be or the glass, be covered f rom inside with gauze, in order that light may penetrate without being seen through the upper of On part, which must consist transparent glass . looking of u n through this glass , beautiful scenery can be seen, and t If f f limited ex ent . prepared with care, this mirror a ords a of good deal amusement .

THE CHA GI G COI N N N . For this trick take two false gold - pieces and two Silver i u b n pieces wh ch resemble qu arters . R the latter upon a sto e h n until they become only alf as thick as they were, and joi

t -f ing each yellow coin wi h a white one , you will have appar two of of see ml n ently pieces coin, each them g to be a gold on on e o coin side and a Silver coi n on the other . S me THE ART A G 32 OF M IC. cement may be employed to keep the cOIns together but if one 1 S or n of soldering metal, regulus, antimo y, and the other s 1 ron r t contain , they will stick togethe by contac and the of T on o pressure the hand . ake e f these do uble coins in

oh your hand, the yellow side upward now let the public in serve your manipulations, which consist closing both your d s or one the han s, haking them, putting upon table and the u other nder the table and ordering the coins to change . h n m In W ile manipulating, cha ge the co s your hands and ,

Show them to the public changed . This trick will always i n b create amusement, and especially if the magician the e gl nnmg takes from the audience a gold coin and a sil ver one of of not to u se i n of the Size a quarter ; course, his trick, but merely to impart more reality to the perform ance .

HO TO AI A CAR TO THE A B Y A ISTO - SHOT W N L D W LL P L .

Take a card and tell the person who has chose n it from a of f one pack to cut corner and keep the piece, in order to Th recognize again the card chosen . e card is burned to a an d is t shes, a pistol loaded with gunpowder mixed wi h the f of the ashes o the card . Instead a bullet put into pistol a T nail marked by some on e in the audience . he pack is then the thrown into the air, the pistol ﬁred, and card which has T it been reduced to ashes is seen nailed to the wall . ake w of the n do n, compare it with the piece in the hands perso who chose the card, and Show that the card nailed to the wall is h is exactly the same, and that also the nail the same whic The t s l had been previously marked . opera ion i as fol ows When the magician sees that a corner has been cut from one o f he n r the cards, goes away u der some p etext and makes a

THE ART F G O MA IC.

- a miniature card like the one burned . The follo wing is the method of exec uting this trick : As soo n as you tell yo ur as si n h e t sta t whic card has be n chosen, he akes from the table

one of w he w 1 s ne ce s the atches, in which deposits hat ” sary . The watches are covered with a napkin sustained ’ or m so n by bottles so ething else , that the confederate s ha d n or t e o T f . o cannot be seen, h movement the napkin make In 1 n v1 s1 bl e n the of the ashes the small box , place u der cover it a p i ece of paper out exactly to the Size of the cover and of the same 'col or as the interior of the box when the box the is closed, this paper will fall down and cover ashes at the t l bo tom, eaving the Spectators bewildered and believing that these ashes have produced the m1n1 atu re card found in one of w the atches . THE T C F THE RI K O RO SE .

T — d hot ake a common well develope rose, place on a coal a w of of little po der sulphur, let the rose absorb a little the ' wil m l b e co e . n smoke, and it almost white Whe the rose has e tIme be n cut from the bush for some , it will be completely

Put i - white . it for aw h le in water and after a few hours it r will again assume its e d color .

TH E I I A SMO KI G I E E D V L N N P P .

T of one u ake one ounce saltpetre, o nce cream of tartar, of half an ounce sulphur, and pulverize each ingredient sep ara t l A m l l an d e y . fterwards mix the a together keep them T n or in a paper inside of you r pocket. hen put a grai two

t - and in a obacco pipe, when lighted it will produce the same

- n ot . A detonation as a gun shot , but will destroy the pipe q uantity as large as can be carried under the ﬁnger-nail a h w w can be put into a piece of p per w ich ill produce, hen H A T E ART OF M GIC. 1 35

t to n b ut lighted, a repor equal that of several ca non, with ou t doing any damage .

G -HOT WALKIN UPON RED IRON .

Dissol ve one hal f ounce of camphor in two ounces aqua

a one of one of vit , add ounce quicksilver and ounce liquid w is of the styrax, hich the product myrrh, and which does n ot allow the camphor to ignite take besides two ounces of

- t red stone, and let it be pulverized ; mix all toge her, and

- when you want to walk upon a piece of red hot iron , rub your feet well with this composition an d you can execute

the trick without any inconvenience whatsoever .

T T T HOW O KEEP FOUR KIN G S O GE HER .

Take the four kings out of a complete deck of cards and have under them three other cards without this being

known by the audience . Show that the four kings are to on s: gether, and place them top of the whole pack . Divide n the the deck into four parts, placi g the four kings and h d t on to of of T t ree cards un er hem p one the parts . ake n ow the first three cards from the top of the first part and of on of of put one them top each the other three parts, and taking the top card from the first part Show it to the spec t r ow on ta o s to be a king . N put e part over the other until u the yo have the whole pack in one pile , and when you let fall c oa hs k ards t table the four ings will be together .

De aa dme d us nng the Bookkeepe r proc es s Ne utraliz mg age nt Magne s num Ox1de Tre atme nt Date Nov 2 004 Pre s e rvationTechnologies A W O RLD LE ADE R IN PAPE R PRE S E RVATl O N

1 1 1 Thoms on Park Drive

C ranb r Town A 1 6 0 8 e ry s hip . P 6 (724) 7 7 9 2 1 1 1