threatened in the king's decree, but when the disguised monarch, with a voice of authority promises her impunity, she consents to "bring up Samuel." As soon as the fearful phantom of the dread prophet appears, she becomes instinctively aware of the true character of her visitor, and, far more afraid of the power of the living than of the appearance of the departed, she cries out trembling: "Why hast thou deceived me? Thou art Saul!" Then follows the appalling scene in which Samuel reproves the miserable, self-despairing king, and foretells his death and that of his sons.
There can be no doubt that we have here before us an instance of genuine magic. The woman was evidently capable of casting herself into a state of ecstasy, in which she could at once look back into the past and forward into the future. Thus she beholds the great prophet, not sent by God from on high, as the Holy Fathers generally taught, but according to the then prevailing belief, rising from Sheol, the place of departed spirits, and then she utters, unconsciously, his own words. For it must not be overlooked that Samuel makes no revelations, but only repeats his former warnings. Saul learns absolutely nothing new from him; he only hears the same threatenings which the prophet had pronounced twice before, when the reckless king had dared to sacrifice unto God with his own hand (I. Sam. xiii.), and when he had failed to smite the Amalekite, as he was bidden. Possessed, as it were, by the spirit of the living Samuel, the woman speaks as he had spoken in his lifetime, and it is only when her state of exaltation renders her capable of looking into the future also, that she assumes the part of a prophetess herself, and foretells the approaching doom of her royal visitor.
That the whole dread scene was fore-ordained and could take place only by the will of the Almighty, alters nothing in the character of the woman with the familiar spirit. It is a clear case of necromancy, or conjuring up of the spirits of departed persons, such as has been practised among men from time immemorial. Among the chosen people of God persons were found from the beginning of their history who had familiar spirits, and Moses already fulminates his severest anathemas against these wizards (Lev. xx. 27). They appear under various aspects, as charmers, as consulters of familiar spirits, as wizards, or as necromancers (Deut. xviii. 11); they are charged with passing their children through the fire, with observing times (astrologers); with using enchantments; or they are said in a general way to "use witchcraft" (II. Chron. xxxiii. 6). That other nations were not less familiar with the art of evoking spirits, we see, for instance, in the "Odyssey," which mentions numerous cases of such intercourse with another world, and speaks of necromancers as forming a kind of close guild. In the "Persius" of Æschylus the spirit of Darius, father of Xerxes, is called up and foretells all the misfortunes that are to befall poor Queen Atossa. The greatest among the stern Romans could not entirely shake off the belief in such magic, in spite of the matter-of-fact tendencies of the Roman mind, and the vast superiority of their intelligence. A Cato and a Sylla, a Cæsar and a Vespasian, all admitted, with clear unfailing perception, the small grains of truth that lay concealed among the mass of rubbish then called magic. Even Christian theology has never absolutely denied the existence of such extraordinary powers over the spirits of the departed, although it has consistently attributed them to diabolic influences.
In this point lies the main difference between ancient and modern magic. For the oldest Magi whom we know were the wise men of Persia, called, from mah (great), Mugh, the great men of the land. They were the philosophers of their day, and, if we believe the impartial evidence of Greek writers—not generally apt to overestimate the merits of other nations—they were possessed of vast and varied information. Their aim was the loftiest ever conceived by human ambition; it was, in fact, nothing less than the erection of an intellectual Tower of Babel. They devoted the labors of a lifetime, and the full, well-trained vigor of their intelligence to the study of the forces of nature, and the true character of all created beings. Among the latter they included disembodied spirits as well as those still bound up with bodies made of earth, considering with a wisdom and boldness of conception never yet surpassed, both classes as one and the same eternal creation. The knowledge thus acquired they were, moreover, not disposed merely to store away in their memory, or to record in unattractive manuscripts; they were men of the world as well as philosophers, and looked for practical results. Here the pagan spirit shone forth unrestrained; the end and aim of all their restless labors was Power. Their ambition was to control, by the superior prestige of their knowledge, not only the mechanical forces of Nature, but also the lesser capacities of other created beings, and finally Fate itself! Truly a lofty and noble aim if we view it, as in equity we are bound to do, from their stand-point, as men possessing, with all the wisdom of the earth, as yet not a particle of revealed religion.
It was only at a much later period that a distinction was made between White Magic and Black Magic. This arose from the error which gradually overspread the minds of men, that such extraordinary powers—based, originally, only upon extraordinary knowledge—were not naturally given to men; but, could only be obtained by the special favor of higher beings, with whom the owner must needs enter into a perilous league. If these were benevolent deities, the results obtained by their assistance were called White Magic; if they were gods of ill-repute, they granted the power to perform feats of Black Magic, acts of wickedness, and crimes. Christianity, though it abolished the gods of paganism, maintained, nevertheless, the belief in extraordinary powers accorded by supernatural beings, and the same distinction continued to be made. Pious men and women performed miracles by the aid of angels and saints; wicked sinners did as much by an unholy league with the Evil One. The Egyptian charmer, of Apulejus, who declared that no miracle was too difficult for his art, since he exercised the blind power of deities who were subject to his will, only expressed what the lazzarone of Naples feels in our day, when he whips his saint with a bundle of reeds, in order to compel him to do his bidding. Magicians did not change their doctrine; they hardly even modified their ceremonies; their allegiance only was transferred from Jupiter to Jehovah, even as the same column that once bore the great Thunderer on Olympus, is now crowned by a statue of Peter Boanerges. Nor has the race of magicians ever entirely died out; we find enough notices in classic authors, whose evidence is unimpeachable, to know that the Greeks were apt scholars of the ancient Magi and transferred the knowledge they had thus obtained and long jealously guarded, to the priests of Egypt, who in their turn became the masters of the two mightiest nations on earth. First Moses sat at their feet till, at the age of forty, he "was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians," and could successfully cope with their "magicians and sorcerers." Then the land of the Nile fell into the hands of the Romans, and poverty and neglect drove the wise men of Egypt to seek refuge in the capital of the world, where they either lived upon the minor arts and cunning tricks of their false fate, or, being converted to Christianity, infected the pure faith with their ill-applied knowledge. Certain portions of true magic survived through all persecutions and revolutions; some precious secrets were preserved by the philosophers of later ages and have—if we believe the statements made by trustworthy writers of every century—ever since continued in the possession of Freemasons and Rosicrucians; others became mixed up with vile superstitions and impious practices, and only exist now as the Black Art of so-called magicians and witches.
Wherever magic found a fertile soil among the people, it became a science, handed down from father to son, and such we find it still in the East Indies and the Orient generally; when it fell into the hands of skeptics, or weak, feeble-minded men, it degenerated with amazing speed into imposture and common jugglery. What is evident about magic is the well-established fact that its ceremonies, forms, and all other accessories are almost infinite in variety since they are merely accidental vehicles for the will of man, and real magicians know very well that the importance of such external aids is not only overrated but altogether fallacious. The sole purpose of the burning of perfumes, of imposing ceremonies and awe-inspiring procedures, is to aid in producing the two conditions which are indispensable for all magic phenomena: the magician must be excited till his condition is one resembling mental intoxication or becomes a genuine trance, and the passive subject must be made susceptible to the control of the superior mind. For it need not be added, that the latter will all the more readily be affected, the feebler his will and the more imperfect his mental vision may be by nature or may have been rendered by training and careful preparation. Hence it is that the magic table of the dervish; the enchanted drum of the shaman; the medicine-bag of the Indian are all used for precisely the same purpose as the ring of Hecate; the divining rod and the magic wand of the enchanter. Legend and amulet, mummy and wax-figure,