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 .