clearer vision or higher inspiration. All this certainly borders on the wonderful, but is not so. A true clairvoyance is but seldom found, and the seer soon falls back to the lower stages of his dreamy visions, in which he only dimly perceives his subjective pictures, and is not in the least aware of that which goes on around him in the world. More than this, the true mental ecstasist lives entirely in his own creations without movement, so that he is in a deeper state than the sleepwalker, who certainly is, to a small degree, somnambulic, but is free in limbs and action; so that in him the mind rather acts upon the limbs, which he uses in a methodical and almost incredible manner, such as no practice, no daring, could perform; and from this cause we may call it, with Fischer, the somnambulism of the limbs, in distinction to the clairvoyance of the brain.

That magic (in its true and original meaning) proceeded originally from Asia as a peculiar and inborn gift of the human soul, is shown not only by Moses, but the oldest known records of humanity-as Manu's Indian Code of Laws, the Zendavesta, the Vedums, and according to later scientific inquiries of Tiedemann (Disputatio de quæstione quæ fuerit artium magicarum origo, quomodo illæ ab Asiæ populis ad Græcos propagatæ sint, &c. Marb. 1787); Wachsmuth (Athenæum, vol. ii.); Klenker (Anhang zum Zendavesta); Meiners (De Zoroastris vita, institutis, &c., in the Commentar. soc. reg. Gotting. vii. viii. ix.); Buhle (Lehrbuch der Geschichte, part i.); and Brucker (Historia philos. crit. &c. p. 1.) Magic, of which theurgy, as the science of the hidden arts, was the child forming a communication between men and the world of spirits, consisted in the instinctive but still obscure consciousness of a direct looking into and working with and a communion and (magical) connection with, the world of spirits. In early ages men were as firmly convinced that the most perfect half, the real man, had originated in the world of spirits, and that he derived from it his vital energies, being as little able to sever himself from its influence as the boughs from the tree stem, or the stem from its roots. According to this innate magical belief, we find in all nations and in all ages the most deep-rooted belief, or at least a conception of such a spiritual relationship, and the desire of

communicating with celestial beings. The theories that have been built up, and the means which have been used, have been of the most varied kinds, and history has the task of recording them.

In the very earliest ages, when man had but just left the hand of nature, and still sat at the feet of the Creator; when the senses were still imperfect and the limbs were not freely under the command of the will, man then communicated directly with spirits. In the Genesis of Moses the patriarchs ate bread and milk with the Elohim, and set before them a fatted calf; and Homer's gods communicated directly with men. Brahma takes up the truly penitent to himself, or descends to them, and illuminates his whole being with peace. At that time there were no ghosts or demons, and the ideas of spirit and matter were not separate. As soon, however, as the primitive community was broken up by a more freely expanding use of the senses; as soon as men had eaten of the tree of knowledge, when they wished to make themselves free from nature and the laws, that they might go their own way without further obedience; then was the Creator no longer in Eden, and the peaceful community was destroyed; for the tree of life was not the tree of knowledge,

"he who sees God cannot live." With increasing knowledge, the vitality of life diminished; but the recollection of that which had been lost long remained, and the desire and striving to regain the former higher state. Man possessed his innate impulses, and cast occasional glimpses into nature and the world of spirits; but magic and the means of sustaining a regular communication were lost, and the gulf between heaven and earth, between God and weak mortals, was impassable. Those deeper insights of the subjective vision and the results of the effects of nature, which they often experienced, were regarded as but the effects of higher powers, which manifested themselves in the most varied shapes. We therefore find universally the same belief in spirits and demons, which in time either became purified by higher civilization, or obscured and debased by savage life. The demons were everywhere, more or less, the beings who communicated with man from the inscrutable beings above, and who brought down revelations and carried up the prayers and sacrifices of men. Plato thus describes, though with a

certain reluctance, the demons as the connecting link between God and men, God no longer having an immediate communication with men, who, according to all old traditions, had lost it by their sins; so that only the angels and the spiritual mediator could sustain the communication when penitent man endeavoured to restore himself. The spiritual mediators, however, were originally homogeneous with the creative spirit; they are invisible spirits to earthly eyes, and only reveal themselves to the original power of mental vision. So, according to Genesis, the angels and archangels are the faithful mediators round the throne of God, illuminated by His glory. The evil spirits are those spirits of Satan which fell away from God, and are always striving to injure and destroy man through envy of his possession of the world, according to the decree of God. The same belief is found in the East under many shapes, as, for instance, Ormuzd and Arihman, the good and bad principles, and their opposing powers of action, which were afterwards clearly increased to legions and the infinite. Plato also says that God is the highest demon, péyioros daipur, and there are demons in great numbers and of every kind." Thales teaches that the world is full of spirits-κοσμον δαίμων

pn. And the later teachings of the magicians of Egypt, of Alexandria, and the middle ages, were founded on the views of the Oriental, Jewish, and Greek antiquity, and only changed and varied to suit the age. Spirits being regarded as the causes, or at least the instruments, of all events, imagination had an immeasurable field for its fancies; and whatever was not of everyday occurrence was regarded as an extraordinary wonder, in which it was not easy to distinguish how much was produced by spirits or by the fear of them, by superstition, or deceit. According to the good or bad effects, good or bad spirits were regarded as the cause-δαίμονες ἀγαθοὶ, κακοδαίμονες στυγεροί -were invoked or avoided, or exorcised; and of this we shall in the sequel see some instances among the Alexandrians and in the middle ages.

The most ancient records of magic and its progress all refer, if we do not except Egypt, to Asia, and especially to the south-east provinces, as well as higher Asia. In the Laws of Manu, who, according to Sir William Jones, lived

thirteen hundred years before Christ, we find definite enactments against a perfected but misused form of magic, just as similar laws are contained in the Books of Moses. In the oldest Chinese writings we also find sorcery mentioned as an art. Among the Chaldæans and Babylonians sorcery and magical astrology were as old as their history. The same may be said of the Persians, among whom fire-worshipping, as among the Phoenicians—and later even, among the Carthaginians, the Zoroastic dualism-were preserved in the purest shape. The fundamental idea was everywhere that man stood in connection with a supernatural world, governed by a good and a bad principle; but that this connection was not open and direct, but only to be reached by the aid of intermediate beings, or by long mental struggle. The first, according to the Persian belief, was brought about by magic; the second, according to the Indian, by contemplation. We have already spoken of the origin of magic, and have seen some of the original views of Plato, Cicero, and Apuleius, regarding it. The pure, original idea of magic, as a high study of nature, was, however, soon lost, or at least speedily degenerated. The belief in magic, peculiar to the human mind, was shaped in the good to white, in the bad to black, magic. Damascius says (repì apxwv: compare Hyde, De religione veter. Pers. p. 292), "The magicians call the source of all that which is spiritual, and at the same time composite, -that is, the spiritual as well as material substances-space, others time, from which the good and evil powers, or according to others light and darkness, have proceeded." With such views people soon endeavoured to approach the principle of good or evil, and the study of magic degenerated, leaning rather to the darkness of superstition than to the light of wisdom, or what was still worse, as Horst says, "that, without believing in a devil, they cultivated the arts of the devil." Even at the time of Zoroaster's birth magic was misused, and connected with unholy efforts and the black art. But Zoroaster and the Zendavesta are of later date than the older magic, as are also the laws of Manu in India. The distinction between black and white magic was, however, of much later date, so that it is only in the later Greek authors that the word yoŋrein is found to mean magic in its worst acceptation.

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From this we see that from the popular superstitions, as well as from the endeavours of the magicians themselves, the belief in magic became gradually universal, and spread on all sides; and that white and black magic rested on the fundamental ideas of two opposing principles, each having a host of spirits subject to it,-izeds, dews, fervers, amschaspands, demons, dejontas,-who perform their commands. They believed that they had found in magic, not only the means of obtaining a deeper insight into nature, but also, and which was of far greater importance, the means of placing in subjection these spirits, so that they might make themselves unfettered masters of nature and men.

We shall now review the various forms of magic among the Oriental nations, as far as the systems have been explained by ancient and modern investigators. Besides the Books of the Zend, the Vedas, the Laws of Manu, and the universally known teachings of Zoroaster and the Oriental theosophical system, the investigations of Kanne (Pantheon der ältesten Naturphilosophie, Tüb. 1811), Wagner, Schlegel, Görres, Majer (Mythologisches Lexicon, Weimar, 1803, 1 vol.), Colebrook, and Windischmann, are of especial importance. We shall endeavour to describe the magic of the Indians and Chinese, and of the Persians and Chaldæans, according to their principal features. I will only make the observation, that in India, thousands of years ago, the real world rested as now in the higher supernatural world of spirits, from which an unceasing influence was felt by this world, and which higher divine influence man may participate in, and thereby gain the highest initiation of his being. Magic therefore appears rather to be incorporated with a pure theosophy, than resting on a demonology, with which many natural sciences of physic and chemistry were connected among the Persians and Egyptians. Among the Chaldæans, Medes, and Babylonians, magic was intimately connected with the civilization and intellectual systems, especially the divinatory. Besides astrology, soothsaying, exorcism of the dead, and the mysteries of the incubation, were greatly in vogue.

The oldest religious works of India, and which some even believe to be the most ancient records of the human race, are the Vedas, or the Brahminic revelations, and Manu's