Books: Lives of the Necromancers

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ALCHEMY.

To make our catalogue of supernatural doings, and the lawless
imaginations of man, the more complete, it may be further necessary to
refer to the craft, so eagerly cultivated in successive ages of the
world of converting the inferior metals into gold, to which was
usually joined the _elixir vitae_, or universal medicine, having
the quality of renewing the youth of man, and causing him to live for
ever. The first authentic record on this subject is an edict of
Dioclesian about three hundred years after Christ, ordering a diligent
search to be made in Egypt for all the ancient books which treated of
the art of making gold and silver, that they might without distinction
be consigned to the flames. This edict however necessarily presumes a
certain antiquity to the pursuit; and fabulous history has recorded
Solomon, Pythagoras and Hermes among its distinguished votaries. From
this period the study seems to have slept, till it was revived among
the Arabians after a lapse of five or six hundred years.

It is well known however how eagerly it was cultivated in various
countries of the world for many centuries after it was divulged by
Geber. Men of the most wonderful talents devoted their lives to the
investigation; and in multiplied instances the discovery was said to
have been completed. Vast sums of money were consumed in the fruitless
endeavour; and in a later period it seems to have furnished an
excellent handle to vain and specious projectors, to extort money from
those more amply provided with the goods of fortune than themselves.

The art no doubt is in itself sufficiently mystical, having been
pursued by multitudes, who seemed to themselves ever on the eve of
consummation, but as constantly baffled when to their own apprehension
most on the verge of success. The discovery indeed appears upon the
face of it to be of the most delicate nature, as the benefit must
wholly depend upon its being reserved to one or a very few, the object
being unbounded wealth, which is nothing unless confined. If the power
of creating gold is diffused, wealth by such diffusion becomes
poverty, and every thing after a short time would but return to what
it had been. Add to which, that the nature of discovery has ordinarily
been, that, when once the clue has been found, it reveals itself to
several about the same period of time.

The art, as we have said, is in its own nature sufficiently mystical,
depending on nice combinations and proportions of ingredients, and
upon the addition of each ingredient being made exactly in the
critical moment, and in the precise degree of heat, indicated by the
colour of the vapour arising from the crucible or retort. This was
watched by the operator with inexhaustible patience; and it was often
found or supposed, that the minutest error in this respect caused the
most promising appearances to fail of the expected success. This
circumstance no doubt occasionally gave an opportunity to an artful
impostor to account for his miscarriage, and thus to prevail upon his
credulous dupe to enable him to begin his tedious experiment again.

But, beside this, it appears that those whose object was the
transmutation of metals, very frequently joined to this pursuit the
study of astrology, and even the practice of sorcery. So much delicacy
and nicety were supposed to be required in the process for the
transmutation of metals, that it could not hope to succeed but under a
favourable conjunction of the planets; and the most flourishing
pretenders to the art boasted that they had also a familiar
intercourse with certain spirits of supernatural power, which assisted
them in their undertakings, and enabled them to penetrate into things
undiscoverable to mere human sagacity, and to predict future events.

FAIRIES.

Another mode in which the wild and erratic imagination of our
ancestors manifested itself, was in the creation of a world of
visionary beings of a less terrific character, but which did not fail
to annoy their thoughts, and perplex their determinations, known by
the name of Fairies.

There are few things more worthy of contemplation, and that at the
same time tend to place the dispositions of our ancestors in a more
amiable point of view, than the creation of this airy and fantastic
race. They were so diminutive as almost to elude the organs of human
sight. They were at large, even though confined to the smallest
dimensions. They "could be bounded in a nutshell, and count themselves
kings of infinite space."

Their midnight revels, by a forest-side
Or fountain, the belated peasant saw,
Or dreamed he saw, while overhead the moon
Sat arbitress, and nearer to the earth
Wheeled her pale course--they, on their mirth and dance
Intent, with jocund music charmed his ear;
At once with joy and fear his heart rebounds.

Small circles marked the grass in solitary places, the trace of their
little feet, which, though narrow, were ample enough to afford every
accommodation to their pastime.

The fairy tribes appear to have been every where distinguished for
their patronage of truth, simplicity and industry, and their
abhorrence of sensuality and prevarication. They left little rewards
in secret, as tokens of their approbation of the virtues they loved,
and by their supernatural power afforded a supplement to pure and
excellent intentions, when the corporeal powers of the virtuous sank
under the pressure of human infirmity. Where they conceived
displeasure, the punishments they inflicted were for the most part
such as served moderately to vex and harass the offending party,
rather than to inflict upon him permanent and irremediable evils.

Their airy tongues would syllable men's names
On sands, and shores, and desert wildernesses.

They were supposed to guide the wandering lights, that in the
obscurity of the night beguiled the weary traveller "through bog,
through bush, through brake, through briar." But their power of evil
only extended, or was only employed, to vex those who by a certain
obliquity of conduct gave occasion for their reproofs. They besides
pinched and otherwise tormented the objects of their displeasure; and,
though the mischiefs they executed were not of the most vital kind,
yet, coming from a supernatural enemy, and being inflicted by
invisible hands, they could not fail greatly to disturb and disorder
those who suffered from them.

There is at first sight a great inconsistency in the representations
of these imaginary people. For the most part they are described to us
as of a stature and appearance, almost too slight to be marked by our
grosser human organs. At other times however, and especially in the
extremely popular tales digested by M. Perrault, they shew themselves
in indiscriminate assemblies, brought together for some solemn
festivity or otherwise, and join the human frequenters of the scene,
without occasioning enquiry or surprise. They are particularly
concerned in the business of summarily and without appeal bestowing
miraculous gifts, sometimes as a mark of special friendship and
favour, and sometimes with a malicious and hostile intention.--But we
are to consider that spirits

Can every form assume; so soft
And uncompounded is their essence pure;
Not tied or manacled with joint or limb,
Like cumbrous flesh; but, in what shape they choose,
Dilated or condensed, bright or obscure,
Can execute their airy purposes,
And works of love or enmity fulfil.

And then again, as their bounties were shadowy, so were they specially
apt to disappear in a moment, the most splendid palaces and
magnificent exhibitions vanishing away, and leaving their disconcerted
dupe with his robes converted into the poorest rags, and, instead of
glittering state, finding himself suddenly in the midst of desolation,
and removed no man knew whither.

One of the mischiefs that were most frequently imputed to them, was
the changing the beautiful child of some doating parents, for a babe
marked with ugliness and deformity. But this idea seems fraught with
inconsistency. The natural stature of the fairy is of the smallest
dimensions; and, though they could occasionally dilate their figure so
as to imitate humanity, yet it is to be presumed that this was only
for a special purpose, and, that purpose obtained, that they shrank
again habitually into their characteristic littleness. The change
therefore can only be supposed to have been of one human child for
another.

ROSICRUCIANS.

Nothing very distinct has been ascertained respecting a sect, calling
itself Rosicrucians. It is said to have originated in the East from
one of the crusaders in the fourteenth century; but it attracted at
least no public notice till the beginning of the seventeenth century.
Its adherents appear to have imbibed their notions from the Arabians,
and claimed the possession of the philosopher's stone, the art of
transmuting metals, and the _elixir vitae_.

SYLPHS AND GNOMES, SALAMANDERS AND UNDINES.

But that for which they principally excited public attention, was
their creed respecting certain elementary beings, which to grosser
eyes are invisible, but were familiarly known to the initiated. To be
admitted to their acquaintance it was previously necessary that the
organs of human sight should be purged by the universal medicine, and
that certain glass globes should be chemically prepared with one or
other of the four elements, and for one month exposed to the beams of
the sun. These preliminary steps being taken, the initiated
immediately had a sight of innumerable beings of a luminous substance,
but of thin and evanescent structure, that people the elements on all
sides of us. Those who inhabited the air were called Sylphs; and those
who dwelt in the earth bore the name of Gnomes; such as peopled the
fire were Salamanders; and those who made their home in the waters
were Undines. Each class appears to have had an extensive power in the
elements to which they belonged. They could raise tempests in the air,
and storms at sea, shake the earth, and alarm the inhabitants of the
globe with the sight of devouring flames. These appear however to have
been more formidable in appearance than in reality. And the whole race
was subordinate to man, and particularly subject to the initiated. The
gnomes, inhabitants of the earth and the mines, liberally supplied to
the human beings with whom they conversed, the hidden treasures over
which they presided. The four classes were some of them male, and some
female; but the female sex seems to have preponderated in all.

These elementary beings, we are told, were by their constitution more
long-lived than man, but with this essential disadvantage, that at
death they wholly ceased to exist. In the mean time they were inspired
with an earnest desire for immortality; and there was one way left for
them, by which this desire might be gratified. If they were so happy
as to awaken in any of the initiated a passion the end of which was
marriage, then the sylph who became the bride of a virtuous man,
followed his nature, and became immortal; while on the other hand, if
she united herself to an immoral being and a profligate, the husband
followed the law of the wife, and was rendered entirely mortal. The
initiated however were required, as a condition to their being
admitted into the secrets of the order, to engage themselves in a vow
of perpetual chastity as to women. And they were abundantly rewarded
by the probability of being united to a sylph, a gnome, a salamander,
or an undine, any one of whom was inexpressibly more enchanting than
the most beautiful woman, in addition to which her charms were in a
manner perpetual, while a wife of our own nature is in a short time
destined to wrinkles, and all the other disadvantages of old age. The
initiated of course enjoyed a beatitude infinitely greater than that
which falls to the lot of ordinary mortals, being conscious of a
perpetual commerce with these wonderful beings from whose society the
vulgar are debarred, and having such associates unintermittedly
anxious to perform their behests, and anticipate their desires. [4]

We should have taken but an imperfect survey of the lawless
extravagancies of human imagination, if we had not included a survey
of this sect. There is something particularly soothing to the fancy of
an erratic mind, in the conception of being conversant with a race of
beings the very existence of which is unperceived by ordinary mortals,
and thus entering into an infinitely numerous and variegated society,
even when we are apparently swallowed up in entire solitude.

The Rosicrucians are further entitled to our special notice, as their
tenets have had the good fortune to furnish Pope with the beautiful
machinery with which he has adorned the Rape of the Lock. There is
also, of much later date, a wild and poetical fiction for which we are
indebted to the same source, called Undine, from the pen of Lamotte
Fouquet.

EXAMPLES OF NECROMANCY AND WITCHCRAFT FROM THE BIBLE.

The oldest and most authentic record from which we can derive our
ideas on the subject of necromancy and witchcraft, unquestionably is
the Bible. The Egyptians and Chaldeans were early distinguished for
their supposed proficiency in magic, in the production of supernatural
phenomena, and in penetrating into the secrets of future time. The
first appearance of men thus extraordinarily gifted, or advancing
pretensions of this sort, recorded in Scripture, is on occasion of
Pharoah's dream of the seven years of plenty, and seven years of
famine. At that period the king "sent and called for all the magicians
of Egypt and all the wise men; but they could not interpret the
dream," [5] which Joseph afterwards expounded.

Their second appearance was upon a most memorable occasion, when Moses
and Aaron, armed with miraculous powers, came to a subsequent king of
Egypt, to demand from him that their countrymen might be permitted to
depart to another tract of the world. They produced a miracle as the
evidence of their divine mission: and the king, who was also named
Pharoah, "called before him the wise men and the sorcerers of Egypt,
who with their enchantments did in like manner" as Moses had done;
till, after some experiments in which they were apparently successful,
they at length were compelled to allow themselves overcome, and fairly
to confess to their master, "This is the finger of God!" [6]

The spirit of the Jewish history loudly affirms, that the Creator of
heaven and earth had adopted this nation for his chosen people, and
therefore demanded their exclusive homage, and that they should
acknowledge no other God. It is on this principle that it is made one
of his early commands to them, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to
live." [7] And elsewhere the meaning of this prohibition is more fully
explained: "There shall not be found among you any one that useth
divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a
charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a
necromancer: [8] these shall surely be put to death; they shall stone
them with stones." [9]

The character of an enchanter is elsewhere more fully illustrated in
the case of Balaam, the soothsayer, who was sent for by Balak, the
king of Moab, that he might "curse the people of Israel. The
messengers of the king came to Balaam with the rewards of divination
in their hand;" [10] but the soothsayer was restrained from his
purpose by the God of the Jews, and, where he came to curse, was
compelled to bless. He therefore "did not go, as at other times, to
seek for enchantments," [11] but took up his discourse, and began,
saying, "Surely there is no enchantment against Jacob, neither is
there any divination against Israel!" [12]

Another example of necromantic power or pretension is to be found in
the story of Saul and the witch of Endor. Saul, the first king of the
Jews, being rejected by God, and obtaining "no answer to his
enquiries, either by dreams, or by prophets, said to his servants,
seek me a woman that has a familiar spirit. And his servants, said,
Lo, there is a woman that has a familiar spirit at Endor." Saul
accordingly had recourse to her. But, previously to this time, in
conformity to the law of God, he "had cut off those that had familiar
spirits, and the wizards out of the land;" and the woman therefore was
terrified at his present application. Saul re-assured her; and in
consequence the woman consented to call up the person he should name.
Saul demanded of her to bring up the ghost of Samuel. The ghost,
whether by her enchantments or through divine interposition we are not
told, appeared, and prophesied to Saul, that he and his son should
fall in battle on the succeeding day, [13] which accordingly came to
pass.

Manasseh, a subsequent king in Jerusalem, "observed times, and used
enchantments, and dealt with familiar spirits and wizards, and so
provoked God to anger." [14]

It appears plainly from the same authority, that there were good
spirits and evil spirits, "The Lord said, Who shall persuade Ahab,
that he may go up, and fall before Ramoth Gilead? And there came a
spirit, and stood before the Lord, and said, I will persuade him: I
will go forth, and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.
And the Lord said, Thou shall persuade him." [15]

In like manner, we are told, "Satan stood up against Israel, and
provoked David to number the people; and God was displeased with the
thing, and smote Israel, so that there fell of the people seventy
thousand men." [16]

Satan also, in the Book of Job, presented himself before the Lord
among the Sons of God, and asked and obtained leave to try the
faithfulness of Job by "putting forth his hand," and despoiling the
patriarch of "all that he had."

Taking these things into consideration, there can be no reasonable
doubt, though the devil and Satan are not mentioned in the story, that
the serpent who in so crafty a way beguiled Eve, was in reality no
other than the malevolent enemy of mankind under that disguise.

We are in the same manner informed of the oracles of the false Gods;
and an example occurs of a king of Samaria, who fell sick, and who
"sent messengers, and said to them, Go, and enquire of Baalzebub, the
God of Ekron, whether I shall recover of this disease." At which
proceeding the God of the Jews was displeased, and sent Elijah to the
messengers to say, "Is it because there is not a God in Israel, that
you go to enquire of Baalzebub, the God of Ekron? Because the king has
done this, he shall not recover; he shall surely die." [17]

The appearance of the Wise Men of the East again occurs in considerable
detail in the Prophecy of Daniel, though they are only brought forward
there, as discoverers of hidden things, and interpreters of dreams.
Twice, on occasion of dreams that troubled him, Nebuchadnezzar, king
of Babylon, "commanded to be called to him the magicians, and the
astrologers, and the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans" of his kingdom, and
each time with similar success. They confessed their incapacity; and
Daniel, the prophet of the Jews, expounded to the king that in which
they had failed. Nebuchadnezzar in consequence promoted Daniel to be
master of the magicians. A similar scene occurred in the court of
Belshazzar, the son of Nebuchadnezzar, in the case of the hand-writing
on the wall.

It is probable that the Jews considered the Gods of the nations around
them as so many of the fallen angels, or spirits of hell, since, among
other arguments, the coincidence of the name of Beelzebub, the prince
of devils, [18] with Baalzebub, the God of Ekron, could scarcely have
fallen out by chance.

It seemed necessary to enter into these particulars, as they occur in
the oldest and most authentic records from which we can derive our
ideas on the subject of necromancy, witchcraft, and the claims that
were set up in ancient times to the exercise of magcial power. Among
these examples there is only one, that of the contention for
superiority between Moses and the Wise Men of Egypt in which we are
presented with their pretensions to a visible exhibition of
supernatural effects.

THE MAGI, OR WISE MEN OF THE EAST.

The Magi, or Wise Men of the East, extended their ramifications over
Egypt, Babylonia, Persia, India, and probably, though with a different
name, over China, and indeed the whole known world. Their profession
was of a mysterious nature. They laid claim to a familiar intercourse
with the Gods. They placed themselves as mediators between heaven and
earth, assumed the prerogative of revealing the will of beings of a
nature superior to man, and pretended to show wonders and prodigies
that surpassed any power which was merely human.

To understand this, we must bear in mind the state of knowledge in
ancient times, where for the most part the cultivation of the mind,
and an acquaintance with either science or art, were confined to a
very small part of the population. In each of the nations we have
mentioned, there was a particular caste or tribe of men, who, by the
prerogative of their birth, were entitled to the advantages of science
and a superior education, while the rest of their countrymen were
destined to subsist by manual labour. This of necessity gave birth in
the privileged few to an overweening sense of their own importance.
They scarcely regarded the rest of their countrymen as beings of the
same species with themselves; and, finding a strong line of distinction
cutting them off from the herd, they had recourse to every practicable
method for making that distinction still stronger. Wonder is one of
the most obvious means of generating deference; and, by keeping to
themselves the grounds and process of their skill, and presenting the
results only, they were sure to excite the admiration and reverence of
their contemporaries. This mode of proceeding further produced a
re-action upon themselves. That which supplied and promised to supply
to them so large a harvest of honour and fame, unavoidably became
precious in their eyes. They pursued their discoveries with avidity,
because few had access to their opportunities in that respect, and
because, the profounder were their researches, the more sure they were
of being looked up to by the public as having that in them which was
sacred and inviolable. They spent their days and nights in these
investigations. They shrank from no privation and labour. At the same
time that in these labours they had at all times an eye to their
darling object, an ascendancy over the minds of their countrymen at
large, and the extorting from them a blind and implicit deference to
their oracular decrees. They however loved their pursuits for the
pursuits themselves. They felt their abstraction and their unlimited
nature, and on that account contemplated them with admiration. They
valued them (for such is the indestructible character of the human
mind) for the pains they had bestowed on them. The sweat of their brow
grew into a part as it were of the intrinsic merit of the articles;
and that which had with so much pains been attained by them, they
could not but regard as of inestimable worth.

EGYPT.

The Egyptians took the lead in early antiquity, with respect to
civilisation and the stupendous productions of human labour and art,
of all other known nations of the world. The pyramids stand by
themselves as a monument of the industry of mankind. Thebes, with her
hundred gates, at each of which we are told she could send out at once
two hundred chariots and ten thousand warriors completely accoutred,
was one of the noblest cities on record. The whole country of Lower
Egypt was intersected with canals giving a beneficent direction to the
periodical inundations of the Nile; and the artificial lake Moeris was
dug of a vast extent, that it might draw off the occasional excesses
of the overflowings of the river. The Egyptians had an extraordinary
custom of preserving their dead, so that the country was peopled
almost as numerously with mummies prepared by extreme assiduity and
skill, as with the living.

And, in proportion to their edifices and labours of this durable sort,
was their unwearied application to all the learning that was then
known. Geometry is said to have owed its existence to the necessity
under which they were placed of every man recognising his own property
in land, as soon as the overflowings of the Nile had ceased. They were
not less assiduous in their application to astronomy. The hieroglyphics
of Egypt are of universal notoriety. Their mythology was of the most
complicated nature. Their Gods were infinitely varied in their kind;
and the modes of their worship not less endlessly diversified. All
these particulars still contributed to the abstraction of their
studies, and the loftiness of their pretensions to knowledge. They
perpetually conversed with the invisible world, and laid claim to the
faculty of revealing things hidden, of foretelling future events, and
displaying wonders that exceeded human power to produce.

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