Art Magic

Agrippa, like Dee, Lilly, and other professors of the astrological art, teaches that it is an exact science, which can be learned and practiced independently of other magical formulae. In this as in his ceremonial directions, the great philosopher's language is too involved to be available to the general reader.

Next to Cornelius Agrippa, one of the most famous of all the middle age Mystics, was Paracelsus, a Physician, Philosopher and writer, whose usefulness and practical sense justly entitle him to the high rank assigned him as the founder of a new and revolutionary system of practice in the curative art. Whilst his voluminous works form a perfect storehouse of suggestive thought and ideality in the realm of metaphysics, our space will only allow us to notice the remarkable uses which he claimed to have discovered by the application of the magnet and the potency of the human will in the cure of disease. Paracelsus himself affirms, that he relied chiefly on those two elements of power for effecting the many extraordinary cures attributed to him.

The famous "weapon salve," by which he was said to heal the most dangerous wounds, simply through anointing the weapons which had inflicted them, - was no doubt only a means of psychological effect analogous to those now so familiarly in use amongst Electro-biologists. Being as the narrative of his life proves a powerful magnetizer and still more potential psychologist, the efects he produced through these supreme agencies, naturally enough seemed miraculous in the eyes of an ignorant and superstitious community, hence it would be difficult to credit all the extraordinary achievements and magical performances attributed to him without an understanding of the true secret of his power. Paracelsus wrote many elaborate treatises on the occult virtues of herbs, precious stones, gems, and crystals. he himself was a fine clairvoyant and accomplished in the faculty of crystal seeing. hence arose the belief that he kept a familiar spirit imprisoned in a splendid crystal which he wore in the hilt of his sword, and that from this demon he derived his theurgic powers and remarkable gifts of healing.

Paracelsus was a bitter opponent of the then popular system of drug medication, and as his denunciations of Apothecaries nostrums, and medical charlatanism, were fulminated with all the unsparing violence of an impulsive and fearless opponent, it is no wonder that he was loaded with opprobium by the rival practitioners of his time, fiercely denounced by one party, and as extravagantly eulogized by another, hence his real claims to consideration as a bold and scientific innovator and an original discoverer, have scarcely received justice at the hands of posterity. The following brief excerpts from his treatise on the Magnet, and his views of the potency of the human will, afford some insight into the basic ideas of his philosophy.

He says:

"The magnet has lain before all eyes, yet no one has ever thought whether it was of any further use than that of attracting iron. The sordid doctors throw it in my face that I will not follow the ancients. But in what should I follow them? All that they have said of the magnet is nothing save what every peasant sees; namely, that it attracts iron. But a wise man must enquire and experiment for himself, and thus it is that I have discovered that the magnet possesses quite another, though concealed, power, from that visible to every one.

"In sickness you must lay the magnet in the centre from whence the sickness proceeds. The magnet has two poles - an attracting and a repelling one. It is not a matter of indifference how these poles are applied; for instance: where the attack affects the head, it is proper to lay four magnets on the lower part of the body, with the attracting pole turned upwards, and on the head place only one with the reflecting pole downwards, and then you bring other means to your aid." "I cure by this means: epilepsy, defluxions of the eyes, ears, nose, and all manner of diseases." ........"I find such secrets hidden in the magnet that without it I could in many cases have effected nothing."

The religious and magical philosophy of Paracelsus, is essentially that of the Cabala, from which he derived, not only his views of Creation, Deity, angelic essences, the doctrine of emanations, etc., but hints concerning the occult secrets of nature, which he, as a practical and scientific Physician, utilized in his system of cure, by herbs, magnetic crystals, and psychological impressions.

Although often quoted in fragmentary sketches of Paracelsite philosophy, we deem the following opinions concerning the power of the human will eminently worthy to be noted in a book of magic, and more illustrative of the real mind of the philosopher than the vague and shadowy speculations of so many of his followers. In the Strasbourg edition of Paracelsus' voluminous writings, he says:

"It is possible that my spirit, without the help of my body may through a fiery will alone, and without a sword, stab and wound others.

"It is also possible that I can bring my adversary's spirit into an image (wraith), then double him up, and lame him at pleasure. You are to know that the will is a most potent operator in medicine. Man can hang a disease on man or beast through curses, but it does not take effect through an image of virgin wax, but by means of the strength of fixed will." ........ "Determined imagination is the beginning of all magical operations. It is a spell from which there is no escape but by reversing the operator's intent." ........ "The imagination of another may be able to kill me or save me." ........ "No armor protects me against magic, for it injures the inward spirit of life." ........ "The human spirit is so great a thing that no man can express it. God himself is unchangeable and almighty, so also is the mind of man." "If we rightly esteemed the power of man's mind, nothing on earth would be impossible to him."

It would be needless to offer further quotations from the writings of the numerous mystics who flourished from the thirteenth up to the beginning of the nineteenth centuries. The doctrines of the famous Rosicrucians have already been sufficiently noted. Of their existence or even origin as an order, we do not feel called upon to dilate, neither would we have shown in former sections to be dependent upon natural endowments, or methods of culture sufficiently defined for all practical purposes. It only remains now for us to analyze somewhat more in detail than formerly, the characteristics of that wonderful and mysterious drama which occupies such a prominent place during the middle ages under the title of Witchcraft.

Although the narratives on this subject are so numerous, and accounts of the trials in various countries so fully set forth in the writings of many eminent authorities, that any reiteration of them in this place would be superfluous, still we feel that more attention has been given to the details of events than to the elimination of a philosophy, the attempts at explanation rendered by the Savants of the time being limited to the universal solvent of the Devil and his Imps, and those of the modern Spiritualists to the sole agency of the spirits of deceased persons.

WHen can we obtain a fair statement and a scientific classification of the phenomena exhibited in this weird movement, we shall assuredly find a broad field of action left untouched by either of these inefficacious attempts of explanation.

In the first place a large mass of the accusations were fictitious, especially in the case of those victims of the popular fury, whose age, helplessness, and ignorance, rendered them fit subjects for superstitious dread. Still another class were unconsciously and perhaps involuntarily, the victims - not of benefit or even undeveloped human spirits - whose intelligence and humanity would have led them to manifest their presence in human modes - but of Elementaries, whose sub-mundane propensities were exhibited in animal actions, and deeds of folly and malignity, which favored the popular idea of Satanic origin. It must be remembered that there is as much irrationality in wholesale and obstinate skepticism, as in credulity. The trials for Witchcraft and the numerous narratives put forth concerning it, prove that there existed a certain family resemblance amongst its details which suggests a basis of facts even for the most exaggerated accusations, For example: The "spectres" or "wraiths" of the accused were frequently seen apart from their bodies. The modern Psychologist must be aware that the phenomenon of the "doppel ganger," or the apparition of the "living spirit," is too well established a phenomenon to be denied.

Many of the accused confessed to the practice of anointing their bodies with the famous "witch salve," largely composed of Napellus, Aconite, Belladonna, Henbane, and other herbs which notoriously produce the sensation of flying through the air.

Many we not here find a clue to the universal idea, that these self-deluded beings - who, in come instances at least, flattered themselves that they could communicate with occult powers by occult practices - actually indulged the sensations and visions they related by the narcotics they indulged in? None can deny that the aspirations after the unknown, and the longing to communicate with the invisible world, to say nothing of the attempts to improve upon miserable human conditions by the aid of internal or any available arts that could be arrived at - have stimulated humanity at every age; hence let us be just, and whilst we may and must admit that a fearful amount of superstitious error prevailed on the subject of witchcraft, and an incalculable sum of cruelty and sacrifice of human life was the consequence, we must still allow that there was a substratum of truth in the universal belief, which the ignorance of the age could not separate from malevolent accusations against innocent persons, and which the superstition of time could not reduce into the application of true occult powers.

It was clearly proved that some of the accused persons did at times make use of charms, spells, amulets, ungents, talismans, invocations, and other magical arts.

The part of true philosophy should be to consider whether any of these practices contain elements of potency - not to dismiss them all as idle and baseless superstitions. Is it possible to suppose that such arts should have been handed down from the days of Moses, and perhaps for thousands of years previous, and surviving all the changes of time, and humane opinions, continue to crop out in every age and country, unless they originated in some foundation of natural law? As we shall devote the next section to a review of possibilities that belong to this occult and ill-understood subject, we close this necessarily brief review of the Witchcraft mania, by presenting one illustration of that most common of all its phenomenal phases, which proves the unconscious, yet potential action of Magnetism and Psychology. Although the narrative we select is one which the zeal of Glanville, from whose writings we quote it, has made familiar, doubtless, to most of our readers, we deem it the best illustration we can offer of a majority of the cases for which so many unfortunates suffered the horrors of the rack and stake.

Glanville, Chaplain to Charles II., of England, writing in defense of the truth of Witchcraft, or rather its actuality, as it occurred in the seventeenth century, says:

"On Sunday, 15th of November, 1657, about three of the clock in the afternoon, Richard Jones, then a sprightly youth about twelve years old, son of Henry Jones, of Shepton Mallet, in the county of Somerset, being in his father's house alone, and perceiving some one looking in at the windows, went to the door, where one Jane Brooks of the same town (but then by name unknown to this boy) came to him. She desired him to give her a piece of close bread, and gave him an apple. After which she also stroked him down the right side, shook him by the hand, and so bid him good-night. The youth returned to the house, where he had been left well, when his father and one Gibson went from him; but at their return, which was within the hour, they found him ill and complaining of his right side, in which the pain continued the most part of that night. And on Monday following, in the evening, the boy roasted the apple he had of Jane Brooks, and having eaten about half of it, was extremely ill, and sometimes speechless, but being recovered, he told his father that a woman of the town on the Sunday before had given him that apple, and that she stroked him on the side. He said he knew not her name, but should her person if he saw her. Upon this Jones was advised to invite the women of Shepton to come to his house upon the occasion of his son's illness, and the child told him, that in case the woman should come in when he was in his Fit, if he were not able to speak, he would give him an intimation by a jogg, and desired that the father would lead him through the room, for he said he would put his hand upon her if she were there. After this, he continuing very ill, many women came daily to see him. and Jane Brooks, the Sunday after came in with two of her sisters, when several other women of the neighborhood were there.

"Upon her coming in, the boy was taken so ill that for some time he could not see nor speak; but having recovered his sight, he gave his father the Item, and he led him about the room. The boy drew towards Jane Brooks, who was behind her two sisters among the other women, and put his hand upon her, which his father perceiving, immediately scratched her face and drew blood from her. The youth then presently cried out that he was well, and so continued seven or eight days; but then meeting with Alice Coward, sister to Jane Brooks, who passing by, said to him: 'How do you, my Honey?' he presently fell ill again. And after that, the said Coward and Brooks often appeared to him. The boy would describe the clothes and habit they were in at the time exactly, as the constable and others have found upon repairing to them, though Brooks' house was at a good distance from Jones'. This they often tryed and always found the boy right in his descriptions.

"On a certain sunday about noon, the child being in a room with his father and one Gibson, and in his fit, he on the sudden called out that he saw Jane Brooks on the wall, and pointed to the place, where immediately Gibson struck with a knife; upon which the boy cried out: 'O father, Coz. Gibson hath cut Jane Brooks' hand and 'tis bloody.' The father and Gibson immediately repaired to the constable, a discreet person, and acquainting him with what had passed, desired him to go with them to Jane Brooks' house, which he did. They found her sitting in her room on a stool with one hand over the other. The constable asked her how she did? She answered, not well. He asked again why she sate with one hand over the other? She replied, she was wont to do so. He enquired if anything were amiss with her hand? Her answer was, it was well enough. The constable desired that he might see the hand that was under; which, she being unwilling to show him, he drew out and found it bloody, according to what the boy had said. Being asked how it came so, she said, I was scratched with a great pin."

"On the 8th of December, 1657, the Boy, Jane Brooks and Alice Coward, appeared at Castle Cary, before the Justices, M. Hunt and M. Cary. The Boy having begun to give his testimony, upon the coming in of the two women, and their looking on him, was instantly taken speechless, and so remained till the women were removed out of the room, and then in a short time, upon examination, he gave a full relation of the mentioned particulars.

"On the 11th of January following, the Boy was again examined before the same Justices at Shepton Mallet, and upon sight of Jane Brooks was again taken speechless, but was not so afterwards when Alice Coward came into the room to him.

"On the next appearance at Shepton, which was on the 17th o February, there were present many gentlemen, ministers and other; the Boy fell into his fit upon the sight of Jane Brooks, and lay in a man's arms like a dead person; the woman was then willed to lay a hand on him, which she did, and he thereupon started and sprung out in a very strange and unusual manner. One of the Justices, to prevent all possibilities of Legerdemain, caused Gibson and the rest to stand off from the boy, and then the Justice himself held him. The youth being blindfolded, the Justice called as if Brooks should touch him, but winked to others to do it, which two or three successively did, but the boy appeared not concerned. The Justice then called on the father to take him, but had privately before desired Mr. Geoffry Strode to bring Jane Brooks to touch him, at the same time as he should call for his father; which was done, and the boy immediately sprang cut after a very odd and violent fashion. He was after touched by several persons and moved not; but Jane Brooks being caused to put her hand upon him, he started and sprang out twice or thrice, as before. All this while he remained in his fit, and sometime after; and being then laid on a bed in the same room, the people present could not for a long time bow either of his arms or legs."

"Between the mentioned 15th of November and the 11th of January, the two women appeared often to the Boy, their hands cold, their eyes staring, and their lips and cheeks looking pale. In this manner on a Thursday about noon, the Boy being newly laid into his bed, Jane Brooks and Alice Coward appeared to him, and told him that what they had begun, they could not perform, but if he would say no more of it, they would give him money, and so put a two-pence into his pocket. After which they took him out o his bed, laid him on the ground, and vanished; and the boy was found by those that came next into the room, lying on the floor, as if he had been dead. The two-pence was seen by many, and when it was put into the fire, and hot, the boy would fall ill; but as soon as it was taken out, and cold, he would be again as well as before. This was seen and observed by a minister, a discreet person, when the boy was in one room and the two-pence (without his knowledge) put into the fire in another; and this was divers times tried in the presence of several persons.

"On the 25th of February between two and three in the afternoon, the boy being at the house of Richard Isles at Shepton Mallet, went out of the room into the garden; Isles's wife followed him, and was within two yards when she saw him rise up from the ground before her, and so mounted higher and higher, till he passed in the air over the garden wall, and was carried so above ground more than 30 yards, falling at last at one Jordan's door at Shepton, where he was found as dead for a time. But coming to himself, told Jordan that Jane Brooks had taken him up by the arm out of the Isles's garden and carried him in the air, as he related.

"The Boy at several other times was gone on the suddain, and upon search after him found in another room as dead, and at sometimes strangely hanging above ground, his hands being flat against a great beam in the top of the room, and his body two or three feet from ground. There he hath hung a quarter of an hour together; and being afterwards come to himself, he told those that found him that Jane Brooks had carried him to that place and held him there. Nine people at a time saw the boy so strangely hanging by the beam.

"From the 15th of November to the 10th of March following, he was by reason of his fits much wasted in his body, and unspirited; but after that time, being the day the two women were sent to Gaol, he had no more of these fits.

"Jane Brooks was condemned and executed at Charde As sizes, March 16th, 1658.

"This is the sum of M. Hunt's narrative, which concludes with both the justices' attestation, thus: - 'The aforesaid passages were some of them seen by us, and the rest, and some other remarkable ones not here set down, were, upon examination of several credible witnesses, taken upon Oath before us.

(Signed)
"'ROBERT HUNT.
"'John Cary.'"

Thousands, and tens of thousands of narratives have been already published on the subject of Witchcraft, some colored by the wildest exaggeration, others circumstantial in detail, and as matter-of-fact as the one quoted above - all tend to prove the existence of unknown and occult forces pervading human history, equally influential upon individuals and communities, and perpetually challenging the attention of the wise and philosophic for a classification of the facts, and the evolvement of some basic principles of spiritual science by which to explain, govern and control them.