Art Magic

As we have already premised that we are not prepared in this place to render any justice to the abundant and mobile shapes in which spiritism was represented in classic lands, we shall limit the present notice to a brief account of certain specialties not found in former sections, illustrated by the famous mysteries of Eleusis, and the Sybilline women of Greece.

The Samothracian mysteries date back to the earliest periods of Grecian history, and attempts have been made to show, that in these veiled rites the use of the loadstone, the secret powers of electricity, and the twin fires of magnetism were brought into play, and hence arose the worship of the constellated Deities Castor and Pollux.

There is little contemporaneous evidence, however, to show that the Samothracians possessed any practical knowledge of mineral magnetism, or understood the use of the loadstone, although they cherished a deep and superstitious reverence for its mysterious properties of attraction and repulsion.

The highest and most elaborite rites, and knowledge of which has descended to us from the days of antiquity, were those of Eleusis and Bacchus in Greece, and the Saturnalia of Rome. These, no less than the Samothracian rites, were unquestionably derived from Egypt, and as the Eleusinian mysteries probably afford the best representation of their famous Egyptian model, the Isic and Osiric mysteries it is to a brief account of this famous pageant that we shall call our readers' attention. So much has been written in fragments concerning these great mysteries, and the general tone of every description so invariably pre-supposes that the reader is already acquainted with the basic ideas upon which it discourses, that we deem it not out of place to present a consecutive statement of the myth, as well as the underlying principles upon which these mysteries were founded. For this purpose we avail ourselves of an admirable edition of Taylor's Eleusian and Bacchic rites, published by Dr. Alexander Wilder, of New York, in 1875. We quote an abridged account of the legend rendered by Minutius Felix. in Thomas Taylor's translation. This author says:

"Proserpina, the daughter of Ceres by Jupiter, as she was gathering tender flowers in the new spring, was ravished from her delightful abodes by Pluto, and being carried from thence through thick woods, and over a length of sea, was brought by Pluto into a cavern, the residence of departed spirits, over whom she afterwards ruled with absolute sway. But Ceres, upon discovering the loss of her daughter, with lighted torches, and begirt with a serpent, wandered over the whole earth for the purpose of finding her, til she came to Eleusis; there she found her daughter, and also taught to the Eleusinians the cultivation of corn.' Now in this fable, Ceres represents the evolution of that intuitional past of our nature which we properly denominate intellect, and Proserpina that living, self-moving, and animating part which we call soul. But in order to understand the secret meaning of this fable, it will be necessary to give a more explicit detail of the particulars attending the abduction, from the beautiful poem of Claudian on the subject. From this elegant production we learn that Ceres, who was afraid lest some violence should be offered to Proserpina, on account of her inimitable beauty, conveyed her privately to Sicily, and concealed her in a house built on purpose by the Cyclopes, while she herself directed her course to the temple of Cybele, the mother of the Gods. Here then we see the first cause of the soul's descent, namely the abandoning of a life wholly according to the higher intellect, which is occultly signified by the separation of Proserpina from Ceres. Afterward, we are told that Jupiter instructs Venus to go to this abode, and betray Proserpina from her retirement, that Pluto may be enabled to carry her away; and to prevent any suspicion in the virgin's mind, he commands Diana and Pallas to go in company. The three goddesses arriving, find Proserpina at work on a scarf for her mother; in which she had embroidered the primitive chaos, and the formation of the world. Now by Venus in this part of the narration we must understand desire, which, even in the celestial regions (for such is the residence of Proserpina till she is ravaged by Pluto), begins silently and stealthily to creep into the recesses of the soul. By Minerva we must conceive the rational power of the soul, and by Diana, nature, or the merely natural and vegetable part of our composition; both which are now ensnared through the allurement of desire. And lastly, the web in which Proserpina had displayed all the fair variety of the material world, beautifully represents the commencement of the illusive operations through which the soul becomes ensnared with the beauty of imaginative forms.

"Proserpina, forgetful of her parent's commands, is presented as venturing from her retreat, through the treacherous persuasions of Venus.

"After this we behold her issuing on the plain with Minerva and Diana, and attended by a beauteous train of nymphs, who are eviden symbols of the world of generations, and are, therefore, the proper companions of the soul about to fall into its fluctuating realms.

"But the design of Proserpina, in venturing from her retreat, is beautifully significant of her approaching descent; for she rambles from home for the purpose of gathering flowers; and this in a lawn replete with the most enchanting variety, and exhaling the most delicious odors. This is a manifest image of the soul operating principally according to the natural and external life, and so becoming effeminated and ensnared through the delusive attractions of sensible form. Minerva (the rational faculty in this case), likewise gives herself wholly to the dangerous employment, and abandons the proper characteristics of her nature for the destructive revels of desire.

"After this, Pluto, forcing his passage through the earth, seizes on Proserpina, and carries her away with him, notwithstanding the resistance of Minerva and Diana. They, indeed, are forbid by Jupiter, who in this place signifies Fate, to attempt her deliverance.

"Pluto hurries Proserpina into the infernal regions; in other words, the soul is sunk into the profound depth and darkness of a material nature. A description of her marriage next succeeds her union with the dark tenement of the body.

"Night is with great beauty and propriety introduced as standing by the nuptial couch, and confirming the oblivious league. For the soul through her union with a material body becomes an inhabitant of darkness, and subject to the empire of night; in consequence of which she dwells wholly with delusive phantoms, and till she breaks her fetters is deprived of the intuitive perception of that which is real and true.

"The reader may observe how Proserpina, being represented as confirmed in the dark recess of a prison, and bound with fetters, confirms the explanation of the fable here given as symbolical of the descent of the soul; for such, as we have already largely proved, is the condition of the soul from its union with the body, according to the uniform testimony of the most ancient philosophers and priests.

"After this, the wanderings of Ceres for the discovery of Proserpina commence. Begirt with a serpent, and bearing two lighted torches in her hands, she commences her search by night in a car drawn by dragons. The tears and lamentations of Ceres, in her course, are symbolical both of the providential operations of intellect about a mortal nature, and the miseries with which such operations are attended.

"These sacred rites occupied the space of nine days in their celebration; and, this, doubtless, because, according to Homer* this Goddess did not discover the residence of her daughter til the expiration of that period. Hence the first day of initiation into these mystic rites was called agurmos, i.e., according to Hesychius, an assembly, and all collecting together.

*Hymn to Ceres. "For nine days did holy Demeter perambulate the earth .. and when the ninth shining morn had come, Hecate met her, bringing news." Aphuleius also explains that at the initiation into the Mysteries of Isis, the candidate was enjoined to abstain from luxurious foods for ten days, from the flesh of animals, and from wine

"After this, the soul falls from the tropic of Cancer into the planet Saturn; and to this the second day of initiation was consecrated when they called ' to the sea, ye initiated ones!' because, says Meursius, on that day the crier was accustomed to admonish the mystae to betake themselves to the sea. Now the meaning of this will be easily understood, by considering that, according to the arcana of the ancient theology, as may be learned from Proclus, the whole planetary system is under the dominion of Neptune. hence when the soul falls into the planet Saturn, which Capella compares to a river voluminous, sluggish, and cold, she then first merges herself into fluctuating matter, of which water in an ancient and significant symbol. But the eighth day of initiation, which is symbolical of the falling of the soul into the lunar orb, was celebrated by the candidates by a repeated initiation and second sacred rites; because the soul in this situation is about to bid adieu to everything of a celestial nature; to sink into a perfect oblivion of her divine origin and pristine felicity; and to rush profoundly into the region of ignorance and error.* And lastly, on the ninth day, when the soul falls into the sublunary world and becomes united with a terrestrial body, a libation was performed, such as is usual in sacred rites. Here the Initiates, filling two earthen vessels sacred to Bacchus, they placed one toward the east and the other toward the west. And the first of these was doubtless, according to the interpretation of Proclus, sacred to the earth, and symbolical of the soul proceeding from an orbicular figure, or divine form, into a conical defluxion and terrene situation;** but the other was sacred to the soul, and symbolical of its celestial origin; since our intellect is the legitimate progeny of Bacchus. And this, too, was occultly signified by the position of the earthen vessels; for, according to a mundane distribution of the divinities, the eastern centre of the universe, which is analogous to fire, belongs to Jupiter, and the western to Pluto, who governs the earth, because the west is allied to earth on account of its dark and nocturnal nature.

* The condition most unlike the former divine estate.
** An orbicular figure symbolized the material, and a cone the masculine divine Energy.

"Again, according to Clemens Alexandrinus, the following confession waas made by the Initiate in these sacred rites, in answer to the interrogations of the Hierophant: 'I have fasted; I have drank the Cyceon; I have taken out of the Cista, and placed what I have taken out into the Calathus; and alternately I have taken out of the Calathus and put into the Cista.'

"We may easily perceive the meaning of the mystic confession, I have fasted; I have drank a mingled potion, etc.; for by the former part of the assertion, no more is meant than that the highest intellect, previous to imbibing of oblivion through the deceptive arts of a corporeal life, abstains from all material concerns, and does not mingle itself with even the necessary delights of the body. And as to the latter, it alludes to the descent of Proserpina to Hades, and her re-ascent to the abodes of her mother Ceres; that is, to the outgoing and return of the Soul, alternately falling into generation, and ascending thence into the intelligible world, and becoming perfectly restored to her divine and intellectual nature. For the Cista contained the most arcane symbols of the Mysteries, into which it was unlawful for the profane to look. As to its contents,* we learn from the hymn of Callimachus to Ceres, that they were formed from gold, which, from its incorruptibility, is an evident symbol of an immaterial nature. And as to the Calathus, or basket, this, as we are told by Claudian, was filled with the spoils or fruit of the field, which are manifest symbols of a life corporeal and earthly. So that the candidate, by confessing that he had taken from the Cista, and placed what he had taken into the Calathus, and the contrary, occultly acknowledged the descent of his soul from a condition of being supra-material and immortal, into one material and mortal; and that, on the contrary, by living according to the purity which the Mysteries inculcated, he should re-ascend to that perfection of his nature, from which he had unhappily fallen."

*A golden serpent, an egg and the phallus. The epopt looking upon these, was rapt with awe as contemplating in the symbols the deeper mysteries of all life or being of a grosser temper, took a lascivious impression. Thus, as a seer, he beheld with the eyes of sense or sentiment; and the real apocalypse was therefore that made to himself of his own moral life and character.

Throughout this curious fable it must be borne in mind that the Egyptians, Greeks, and all ancient as well as classic nations, believed in the doctrines recited in the earlier sections of this work, namely: that the Soul had once existed in a purely spiritual state; that, tempted by the demands of sense, it had yearned for mortal birth - descended or fallen into an earthly condition, and by its probationary sufferings and trials on earth, regained the Paradisaical bliss from which it had fallen (vide sections 2 and 3). These ideas are represented in the myth of Proserpinie, and constituted the chief legend of all the ancient mysteries. At the point, however, where our quotations cease, it is proper to state that the drama proceeds after a fashion, the direct simplicity of which is a part of that arcanum wherein the ancients represented the Soul's alliance with and birth into material form through earthly generation.

The plainness of speech and characteristic nature of the symbols employed, would prove revolting to our modern sense of propriety; but most learned commentators admit that the ancients sought to strengthen the Soul against sensual indulgence by familiarizing the mind with ideas and forms connected with sensual rites.

Jamblichus excuses this part of the mysteries, and especially the dramatic scenes which depict the descent of the Soul into earth through human generation by saying:

"Exhibitions of this kind in the Mysteries were designed to free us from licentious passions, by gratifying the sight, and at the same time vanquishing desire, through the awful sanctity with which these rites were accompanied; for the proper way of freeing ourselves from the passions is: first, to indulge them with moderation, by which means they become satisfied; listen, as it were, to persuasion, and passion may thus be entirely removed."

The mysteries were divided into two sections, of which the first or lesser mysteries were mere rudimentary states, during which the Neophyte was supposed to undergo those embryonic conditions necessary to prepare him for the higher revelations of the great mysteries. In the first, the candidate was called a Mysta, or "veiled one;" in the second, he became an Epopta, or Seer, and was henceforth deemed exalted to the highest attainable knowledge of human life and destiny, and the highest condition of purity which ceremonial rites could typify.

The chief aim in these celebrations was to impress the Neophyte throughout with the sacredness and divine significance of life, generation, the generative functions, and all the rites and symbols thereto belonging.

The ministering priests were all persons of the purest lives and most ascetic habits. Their garments and vessels were consecrated, their ornaments of the most splendid character, and "their performances dignified with a lofty bearing impossible to be described." All who took part in these rites were required to be of pure life and unspotted name. No notoriously evil-doer could be admitted even to the lesser mysteries, and every candidate was required to observe long fasts, strict asceticism, prepare for the ceremonies by ablutions, and many purifications, and present themselves unspotted in mind, body and garments, and crowned with freshly gathered wreaths of myrtle.

The Temple devoted to this purpose was vast and gorgeous. It was full of magnificent halls, solemn crypts, long galleries, winding passages ascending and descending fearful precipices, steep rocks and gloomy caverns.

The whole order of these wonderful buildings was designed to typify the procession of the Soul's spiritual origin, descent into matter, its struggles, trials, temptations, new birth, final regeneration, and re-ascent to the supernal glories of the Elysian realms, from which it was assumed to have fallen. During the rites, the Neophyte was conducted through scenes most terrible to endure, most trying in all senses. Sometimes he was enveloped in thick darkness, and assailed with shrieks, groans, wails and lamentations, symbolical of the despairing condition of the lost Souls peering through flames and torments in the realms of Pluto.

Peals of crashing thunder distracted him with terror; forked lightnings gleamed fitfully through darksome abodes, revealing the forms of hissing serpents, ferocious beasts, and sheeted spectres, doomed to perdition. One of the final scenes of this tremendous Drama, was the descent of the appalled Neophyte through a rifted rock designed to typify the Yoni, and thence through a rough and narrow cleft, the struggling victim emerged into a fearful and unknown realm, the perils of which he could only surmise by the awful stillness around him, broken by low groans and convulsive sobs, designed to signify the agonies of new birth, and a physical process of regeneration. Drawn through the sacred waters of a new baptism, and borne onward by invisible conductors, the half dead Initiate was left for awhile to repose after the tremendous struggle of final emergement through the stony matrix. It was unquestionably from this great central idea of the ancient mysteries that the Christians have derived their doctrines of new birth and regeneration; words which, to all but true Initiates, are merely words, and significant of nothing more than a senseless mystery.

After the great final trial, the Soul, by passing through the allegorical new birth, was deemed to have become spotless and innocent as a babe. Holy hymns were chanted, eloquent appeals to the Initiate's constancy and virtue were uttered; and he was ushered into a magnificent Temple, where a colossal image of the glorious Maternal Goddess burst upon his sight, surrounded with all the pageantry and pomp of Grecian luxury, art and splendor. Scenes of dazzling beauty and supernal glory opened upon his ravished vision. Exquisite representations of the Elysian fields allured him to ramble amidst their flowery glades. Forms of unearthly loveliness surrounded him; strains of delicious music and songs of penetrating sweetness filled his soul with rapture, and lifted him up to ecstasy.

Many of the noblest sages of antiquity passing through these stupendous rites, have affirmed that their eyes beheld the forms of the Gods, looked upon heavenly scenes, dazzling suns, blazing stars, and figures of resplendent glory that were not of this earth. Visions of the blest in their abodes of Paradise glanced before them, and triumphant lyrics were heard chanted by no mortal lips. Why should we doubt these repeated assertions of the great, the wise, and the inspired ones of old? On the contrary, it is possible to imagine that any truly sensitive nature could partake of such scenes without unfolding to a higher life and more exalted powers than they had ever enjoyed before?

The physical nature was under complete subjection. The magnetic life of powerful Adepts permeated the air and filled the Temple with astral light and life.

The invocations, prayers and fervent aspirations poured forth by the Neophytes must have charged the Temple spaces with Soul aura, and transformed it into a spirit sphere. If there was a spark of luminosity in the souls of those who toiled through these tremendous initiatory processes, they must have been enkindled into celestial flame then or never, and it is equally impossible to conceive of the existence of spiritual realms, and suppose their inhabitants were not attracted to their earthly loves, and the subjects of their tenderest care and ministry in these hours of exhaltation and trial. The Soul's powers must have been quickened, the spiritual senses must have been awakened, and it could not be otherwise than a true season of new birth or regeneration.

And thus it was that so many Initiates came forth from these mysteries changed both in body and mind; hence that so many regarded them with a reverence unspeakable, and memories so hallowed, that it left an impress on the entire of their after lives. Neither can we wonder that it was the policy of governments to uphold these sacred mysteries; of legislators to constitute them one of the most essential portions of ancient theocratic institutions.

Amidst all the temptations to linger in description which the graceful imagery, sparkling fancy and abundant Mythology of Greek Spiritism abounds with, we are only privileged to pause for one more notice, and that is of the famous Sibylline women by whom the Oracles of Greece were delivered for so many centuries, and for this purpose we select a few excerpts from a comprehensive and authentic sketch, taken from the Western Star, before quoted, and written by the fluent pen of Emma Hardinge Britten:

THE CUMAEAN SIBYL AND THE PYTHIA OF DELPHI.

Some classical authors have limited the number of Sibyls to four, but the generality of ancient writers give a list of ten, to whom they assign names according to the countries of their birth. Varro thus enumerates them:

"The Delphian - elder and younger; the Cimerian, and two Sibyls, both named Erythraen; the Samian, the Cumaen, the Hellespontian, the Phrygian, and the Tiburtine. Of all these, the Cumaean and the Delphian have been the most renowned. It is to the Cumaean Sibyl that is attributed the authorship of the famous Sibylline books, the sale of which to King Tarquinius, by an unknown old woman (supposed to have been the Sibyl herself) all classical historians have frequently mentioned. These books were nine in number when first tendered for sale to the king. When he refused to purchase them, the old woman threw three of them into the fire, and returning to the king, demanded the same price as before for the remaining six. The offer being still refused, the unknown destroyed three more of her singular wares, and again returning, demanded the same price for the three, which she had asked in the first instance for the whole nine. Struck with the oddity of this proceeding, Tarquinius paid the price demanded, but no sooner became possessed of the books, than the old woman who had sold them disappeared.

On examination, the contents of the volumes proved to be the vaticinations of the renowned Sibyls, and so great was the value set upon these writings, that Tarquinius appointed two officials, especially charged with the duty of guarding them, and only permitting them to be inspected and consulted by duly constituted authorities, in seasons of great national emergency. Notwithstanding this, several succeeding collections shared the fate of their predecessor; so it is fair to conclude that the voluminous mass of books attributed to the Sibyls, and quoted by the early Christian, as well as heathen authors, in support of their favorite dogmas, contained as many interpolations as genuine writings; indeed, it is questionable whether any of the original Sibylline vaticinations survived the wreck of fire and revolution, which consumed the most valuable records of those stormy times. On the question of the number of those whom history had designated the Sibyls, there can be no doubt but that many prophetic women, who succeeded each other in the temple services of different districts, were called by the same name, so that, in fact, the classification of Varro, given above, applies rather to the places with which they were associated, than to the actual limitation of their numbers. There seems to have been some points of difference between the Priestesses, the Pythia of Delphi, wandering Prophetesses, and the personages mentioned as Sibyls. The fact that so many women of antiquity manifested prophetic powers, and were so frequently endowed with the faculty of rendering oracular responses under the afflatus of what was deemed 'Divine inspiration,' renders it a task of some difficulty to discriminate amongst the variety of powers from which they derived celebrity.

Virgil, in describing the Cumaean Sibyl, says she was born in the district of Troy, but went to Italy, where for a time she dwelt in a cavern in the vicinity of the Avernian lake.

"She sometimes wrote her oracles upon palm leaves, which she laid at the entrance of her cave, suffering the winds to scatter them and bear them whither the Gods directed. At other times, she gave responses orally to those who came to consult her, and many chapters could be written on the marvelous accuracy of her prophecies, and the remarkable lucidity with which she delivered her descriptions of distant persons and things. In writing of this 'Sacred Maid,' as he styles her, Virgil gives the following well-known delineation of her "Corybantic' modes of prophesying:

"Aloud she cries,
'This is the time! inquire your destinies!
He comes! Behold the god!' Thus while she said,
And shiv'ring at the sacred entry staid,
Her color changed, her face was not the same,
And hollow groans from her deep spirit came;
Her hair stood up, convulsive rage possessed
Her trembling limbs, and heaved her laboring breast.
Greater than human kind she seemed to look,
And with an accent more than mortal spoke.
her staring eyes with startling fury roll
And all the God came rushing on her soul.
Struggling in vain, impatient of her load,
And laboring underneath the ponderous God,
The more she strove to shake him from her breast,
With more and far superior force he pressed,
Commands his entrance, and without contest
Usurps her organs, and inspires her soul."
Dryden's Translation of Aeneis, Book VI.

"This Cumaean Sibyl declares of herself:

"I am entirely on the stretch, and my body is so stupefied that I do not know what I say, but the God commands me to speak: Why must I publish my song to every one? and when my spirit rests, after the divine hymn, the God commands me to vaticinate (prophesy) again. I know the number of the grains of sand, and the measure of the sun. I know the height of the earth, and the number of men, stars, trees and beasts."

The Cumaean Sibyl, amongst other very important prophecies, foretold that terrific eruption of Vesuvins, in which Pliny, the naturalist, is said to have perished and so many cities were destroyed. She wrote, besides, many books which were held in the highest veneration by the Romans, and is supposed to have been the original of the fine statue which was placed in the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, representing her holding one of her famous Sibylline books in her hand.

"Passing over the vivid descriptions rendered by Plutarch, Varro, Heraclides, and others, of the various Sibyls of other names, we must now draw a slight sketch of the famous Pythia of Delphi, who, whether one or many, has been more widely renowned for demonstrating the fact of prophetic power than any other name in history, the Cumaean Sibyl alone excepted.

"The small town of Delphi, in Phocis, would never have attained any celebrity from its situation or commercial importance had it not been the site of one of the most renowned of all the Grecian oracles - that of the Apollo of Delphi.

"The site of the once magnificent temple, so famed for its Pythian oracle, is at the northwestern extremity of the town, built on the slope of the beautiful mountain called Parnassus.

"Shutting in the crescent-like inclosure which comprises the ancient site of Delphi, is a vast mountain, split asunder, apparently by volcanic action, and presenting two high peaks or cliffs, which the Greeks called 'The Brothers,' It is from this circumstance that the town is supposed to have derived the name of Delphi or Adelphus. From the cleft which divides these two gigantic peaks, flows out the far-famed Castalian Spring; and here tradition asserts that Apollo and the nime Muses, to whom the spring was dedicated, endowed those who drank of, or bathed in its cool, translucent waters, with the gifts of prophecy, musical and poetical inspiration.

"On the spot which subsequently became the centre of the gorgeous temple of Apollo, formerly yawned a deep cavern, from which issued those strange mephitic vapors which were supposed to exercise so powerful an influence in preparing the Pythia for the possession of the oracular god. All authors of the time declare that the cavern was charged with vapors of that peculiar quality which excited a species of frenzy in animals, and delirious ecstasy in the human beings who inhaled it.

"The discovery of these remarkable properties in the cavern was due, it is alleged, to a goat-herd, who noticing how wild and frantically his flock leaped about after straying into the entrance, made his way into its recesses, and was afterward found in the frenzied condition common to all who ventured within its charmed precincts. After the spot had attracted general attention and become in that superstitious age venerated for its mysterious power of evoking the spirit of 'vaticination' or prophecy, it was set apart as a hallowed place. The priests of Apollo declared it was the choice dwelling-place of the God, and that the utterance of those who resorted thither, and came under the influence of 'the divine fury,' were henceforth to be regarded as prophetic, and their ravings received as oracular.

"It must be remembered that it was the universal belief of the time, that the ravings of lunacy were prophetic, and denoted the possession of some God' hence it is not surprising that a place capable of producing upon all comers the afflatus so highly reverenced should be regarded as holy, and become the scene of those superstitious rites common to the time and country. As it was found that little else than wild confusion and unintelligible ravings resulted from permitting the cavern to become a place of universal resort, the Phocian authorities commanded that a maiden of pure life and unspotted character should be selected, who was brought to the sacred spot, immersed in the waters of the Castalian Spring, arrayed in white, crowned with laurels, and required to perform divers other ceremonies of purification and preparation. When this was done, the priests of Apollo held the 'Pythia,' as she was termed, over the entrance of the cavern, and, provided she could endure the inhalation of the exhalations without permanent loss of reason, or, as it more than once happened, without yielding up life itself in the frantic convulsions which sometimes ensued, the noviate was deemed the elect of the God and duly installed as his priestess, by taking her seat on a tripod or basis with three ears of gold, placed at the entrance to the cavern.

Plutarch alleges that the first and most celebrated Pythia who served the Delphic oracle was a beautiful young country girl named Sibylla, from the district of Libya. It is probable that from this ancient prophetess was derived the name of Sibyl, afterwards conferred on all her class. In later years it was found necessary to select women of mature, and sometimes of advanced age, to serve the oracle, the sacred character of their profession having been found insufficient to protect the Pythia from the licentiousness of the age. Plutarch, writing of this inspired woman, says:

'We derive immense advantages from the favor the Gods have conceded to her. She and the priestess of Dodona confer on mankind the greatest benefits, both public and private.

"It would be impossible to enumerate all the instances in which the Pythia proved her power of foretelling events, and the facts themselves are so well and generally known, that it would be useless to bring forth new evidences. She is second to no one in purity of morals and chastity of conduct. Brought up by her poor parents in the country, she brings with her neither art nor experience, nor any talent whatever, when she arrives at Delphi, to be the interpreter of the God. She is consulted on all accounts - marriage, travels, harvest, disease, etc., etc. Her answers, though submitted to the severest scrutiny, have never proved false or incorrect. On the contrary, the verification of them has filled the temples with gifts from all parts of Greece and foreign countries."

"A gentleman, who once resided at the spot (the author of Art Magic) so venerated as the seat of divine inspiration, furnishes us with some descriptions of the wild region which was the scene of the Cumaean Sibyl's vaticinations. He says:

"The Lake of Avernus was once the extinct center of a mighty volcano, and the whole region, though now fertilized by its waters, bears the marks of being fire-scarred, and presents a most gloomy and repulsive appearance. The clefts in the savage rocks abound with caverns exhaling mephitic vapors and bituminous odors. it was in one of the wildest, grandest, yet most awe-inspiring gorges of these mountains, that the cavern existed which tradition affirms to have been the dwelling of the Cumaean Sibyl. The scattered inhabitants of the surrounding district believed that this gloomy grotto was the entrance to the nether world; that the hammers of the Titans, working in the mighty laboratories of the Platonic realms, might be heard, ever and anon, reverberating through the thick and sullen air. THe dark waters of the gloomy lake were supposed to communicate directly with the silent flow of the river of death, the Lethean stream, made dreadful by the apparitions of unblest spirits who floated from the Avernian shores to the realms of eternal night and torture. Here dwelt the famous Cumaean Sibyl, and from the exhalations of those poisonous regions, fatal to the birds that attempted to wing their way through its burdened airs, or the living creatures that strayed amidst its savage wilds, this weird woman derived that fierce ecstasy in which she wrote and raved of the destiny of nations, the fate of armies, the downfall of kingdoms, and the decay of dynasties.

"Monarchs and statesmen shaped their acts by her sublime counsels. The secrets of the unwritten future were mapped out to her far-seeing eyes, as on an open page.

"The purposes of the Gods were made known to her as if she had been their counsellor, and the inexorable fates revealed, through her lips, the decrees in which thrones and empires crumbled into dust, as though she had been the mouthpiece of the Eternal One.

"The mournful regions of the Avernian Lake were in strange contrast to the equally celebrated, but far more attractive scenes consecrated to the oracle of the Sun-God, in the delightful country of the Delphian Pythia.

"All travelers agree that the neighborhood of Mount Parnassus and the beautiful Castalian Spring is of much more genial character, sparkling, as it is, with the sunlight, and fragrant with blood, yet there is, to my mind, an evident connection between the influences of the exhalations derived from the Avernian and Delphic caverns. The chasm, so famed as the scene of the Pythia's utterances, is now no longer to be seen. The superb temple of Apollo was so built as to inclose, and secure it from the approach of the vulgar, and at this day no sign of such a chasm is visible; but there are many clefts in the rocks, and one in special, which forms a deep cavern, into which I have myself penetrated as far as I dared; but as I descended, clinging to its rugged sides, with the intention of exploring it, I noticed the exhalations which arose from it, and soon found that they were beginning to produce upon me the same effect as the inhalation of nitrous oxide (laughing) gas. The following day I visited that and two other caverns piercing the mountains in the same direction, and by applying chemical tests to the vapors exhaling from within, I found my suspicions confirmed, and am convinced there are chemicals in these regions which continually generate nitrous oxide gas."

"The stately forms of the Sibyls have vanished from the earth. The white-robed priest and the vestal virgin no longer float through multitudes of adoring votaries, as mediums between a race of Gods and men. The altar fires of the temples are quenched, the colossal forms of marble deities overthrown; the oracles are dumb, and the books of the Sibyls all consumed in the whelming flames of time and change.

"The bowers of Grecian myrtle and rose are choked up with trailing weeds, and the voluptuous shade of the laurel groves are deepened into an unbroken night of rank vegetation. Faded beauty, and living ugliness, death, ruin, and decay, occupy the stately seats of ancient devotion, and the sunlight of inspiration seems to have gilded the purple and gold peaks of Parnassus for the last time; but the cup of inspiration, run dry in classic Greece, is flowing full and abundantly in newer, happier lands.

"The links which bind the mortal and immortal, torn asunder by the catastrophies of war and desolation, in ancient lands, have stretched out into telegraphic lines between the worlds of spirit and humanity; and though the modern medium can never fill the place which Sibyl of antiquity occupied in sublimity of inspiration, in romantic lore and heathen splendor, she is sufficient for the age she lives in; sufficient to bring to a cold and materialistic world the undoubted proofs of the soul's immortality, and the fatherhood of one universal God who is a spirit."