Chapter XV: {574} (4)

[104] The forty-two Sacred Books of the Egyptians mentioned by Clement of Alexandria as having existed in his time, were but a portion of the Books of Hermes. Iamblichus, on the authority of the Egyptian priest Abammon, attributes 1200 of such books to Hermes, and Manetho 36,000. But the testimony of Iamblichus as a neo-Platonist and theurgist is of course rejected by modern critics. Manetho, who is held by Bunsen in the highest consideration as a “purely historical personage” ... with whom “none of the later native historians can be compared ...” (see “Egypte,” i., p. 97), suddenly becomes a Pseudo-Manetho, as soon as the ideas propounded by him clash with the scientific prejudices against magic and the occult knowledge claimed by the ancient priests. However, none of the archæologists doubt for a moment the almost incredible antiquity of the Hermetic books. Champollion shows the greatest regard for their authenticity and great truthfulness, corroborated as it is by many of the oldest monuments. And Bunsen brings irrefutable proofs of their age. From his researches, for instance, we learn that there was a line of sixty-one kings before the days of Moses, who preceded the Mosaic period by a clearly-traceable civilization of several thousand years. Thus we are warranted in believing that the works of Hermes Trismegistus were extant many ages before the birth of the Jewish law-giver. “Styli and inkstands were found on monuments of the fourth Dynasty, the oldest in the world,” says Bunsen. If the eminent Egyptologist rejects the period of 48,863 years before Alexander, to which Diogenes Laertius carries back the records of the priests, he is evidently more embarrassed with the ten thousand of astronomical observations, and remarks that “if they were actual observations, they _must have_ extended over 10,000 years” (p. 14). “We learn, however,” he adds, “from one of their own old chronological works ... that the genuine Egyptian traditions concerning the mythological period, treated of _myriads_ of years.” (“Egypte,” i, p. 15).

[105] Higgins: “Anacalypsis.”

[106] “De Vite Pythag.”

[107] “The Rosicrucians,” etc., by Hargrave Jennings.

[108] W. Crookes, F.R.S.: “Researches in the Phenomena of Spiritualism.”

[109] W. Crookes: “Experiments on Psychic Force,” page 25.

[110] W. Crookes: “Spiritualism Viewed by the Light of Modern Science.” See “Quarterly Journal of Science.”

[111] A. Aksakof: “Phenomena of Mediumism.”

[112] A. N. Aksakof: “Phenomena of Mediumism.”

[113] “The Last of Katie King,” pamphlet iii., p. 119.

[114] Ibid., pamp. i., p. 7.

[115] “The Last of Katie King,” pamp. iii., p. 112.

[116] Ibid., p. 112.

[117] “Researches in the Phenomena of Spiritualism,” p. 45.

[118] Pfaff’s “Astrology.” Berl.

[119] “Medico-Surgical Essays.”

[120] “The Philosophy of Hist.”

[121] On Theoph. Paracelsus.—Magic.

[122] Kemshead says in his “Inorganic Chemistry” that “the element _hydrogen_ was first mentioned in the sixteenth century by Paracelsus, but very little was known of it in any way.” (P. 66.) And why not be fair and confess at once that Paracelsus was the _re_-discoverer of hydrogen as he was the _re_-discoverer of the hidden properties of the magnet and animal magnetism? It is easy to show that according to the strict vows of secrecy taken and faithfully observed by every Rosicrucian (and especially by the alchemist) he kept his knowledge secret. Perhaps it would not prove a very difficult task for any chemist well versed in the works of Paracelsus to demonstrate that _oxygen_, the discovery of which is credited to Priestley, was known to the Rosicrucian alchemists as well as hydrogen.

[123] “Letter to J. Glanvil, chaplain to the king and a fellow of the Royal Society.” Glanvil was the author of the celebrated work on Apparitions and Demonology entitled “Sadducismus Triumphatus, or a full and plain evidence concerning witches and apparitions,” in two parts, “proving partly by Scripture, and partly by a choice collection of modern relations, the real existence of apparitions, spirits and witches.“1700.

[124] Plato: “Timæus Soerius,” 97.

[125] See Movers’ “Explanations,” 268.

[126] Cory: “Chaldean Oracles,” 243.

[127] Philo Judæus: “On the Creation,” x.

[128] Movers: “Phoinizer,” 282.

[129] K. O. Müller, 236.

[130] Weber: “Akad. Vorles,” 213, 214, etc.

[131] Plutarch, “Isis and Osiris,” i., vi.

[132] “Spirit History of Man,” p. 88.

[133] Movers: “Phoinizer,” 268.

[134] Cory: “Fragments,” 240.

[135] “Parerga,” ii., pp. 111, 112.

[136] See Huxley: “Physical Basis of Life.”

[137] Schopenhauer: “Parerga.” Art. on “Will in Nature.”

[138] “Revue des Deux Mondes,” Jan. 15, 1855, p. 108.

[139] Comte de Mirville: “Question des Esprits.”

[140] Bulwer-Lytton: “Zanoni.”

[141] T. Wright: “Narratives of Sorcery and Magic.”

[142] See Des Mousseaux’s “Dodone,” and “Dieu et les dieux,” p. 326.

[143] “Apparitions,” translated by C. Crowe, pp. 388, 391, 399.

[144] “De Abstinentia,” etc.

[145] C. Crowe: “On Apparitions,” p. 398.

[146] Upham: “Salem Witchcraft.”

[147] Brierre de Boismont: “On Hallucinations,” p. 60.

[148] See de Mirville’s “Question des Esprits,” and the works on the “Phénomènes Spirites,” by de Gasparin.

[149] Honorary Secretary to the National Association of Spiritualists of London.

[150] Job.

[151] See Dr. F. R. Marvin’s “Lectures on Mediomania and Insanity.”

[152] Vapereau: “Biographie Contemporaine,” art. Littré; and Des Mousseaux: “Les Hauts Phénomènes de la Magie,” ch. 6.

[153] A. Comte: “Système de Politique Positive,” vol. i. p. 203, etc.

[154] Ibid.

[155] Ibid.

[156] See des Mousseaux: “Hauts Phénomènes de la Magie,” chap. 6.

[157] Littré: “Paroles de Philosophie Positive.”

[158] Littré: “Paroles de Philosophie Positive,” vii., 57.

[159] “Spiritualism and Charlatanism.”

[160] Prof. Hare: “On Positivism,” p. 29.

[161] “Journal des Débats,” 1864. See also des Mousseaux’s “Hauts Phén. de la Magie.”

[162] “Philosophic Positive,” vol. iv., p. 279.

[163] Dr. F. R. Marvin: “Lecture on Insanity.”

[164] See Howitt: “History of the Supernatural,” vol. ii.

[165] Prof. Huxley: “Physical Basis of Life.”

[166] Reference is made to a card which appeared some time since in a New York paper, signed by three persons styling themselves as above, and assuming to be a scientific committee appointed two years before to investigate spiritual phenomena. The criticism on the triad appeared in the “New Era” magazine.

[167] Dr. Marvin: “Lecture on Insanity,” N. Y., 1875.

[168] Tyndall: “Fragments of Science.”

[169] Tyndall: Preface to “Fragments of Science.”

[170] Deuteronomy, chap. xvii., 6.

[171] Montesquieu: Esprit des Lois I., xii., chap. 3.

[172] C. B. Warring.

[173] Ammianus Marcellinus, xxiii., 6.

[174] The Rishis were seven in number, and lived in days anteceding the Vedic period. They were known as sages, and held in reverence like demi-gods. Haug shows that they occupy in the Brahmanical religion a position answering to that of the twelve sons of Jacob in the Jewish Bible. The Brahmans claim to descend directly from these Rishis.

[175] The fourth Veda.

[176] Orthography of the “Archaic Dictionary.”

[177] We do not mean the current or accepted Bible, but the _real_ Jewish one explained kabalistically.

[178] “Dissertations Relating to Asia.”

[179] Dr. Gross, p. 195.

[180] Brahma does _not_ create the earth, _Mirtlok_, any more than the rest of the universe. Having evolved himself from the soul of the world, once separated from the First Cause, he emanates in his turn all nature out of himself. He does not stand above it, but is mixed up with it; and Brahma and the universe form one Being, each particle of which is in its essence Brahma himself, who proceeded out of himself. [Burnouf: “Introduction,” p. 118.]

[181] “Conflict between Religion and Science,” 180.

[182] “Des Tables,” vol. i., p. 213.

[183] Ibid., 216.

[184] “Des Tables,” vol. i., p. 48.

[185] Ibid., p. 24.

[186] Ibid., p. 35.

[187] De Mirville: “Des Esprits,” p. 26.

[188] “Avant propos,” pp. 12 and 16.

[189] Vol. i., p. 244.

[190] Vol. ii., p. 524.

[191] “Medico-Psychological Annals,” Jan. 1, 1854.

[192] De Mirville: “Des Esprits,” “Constitutionnel,” June 16, 1854.

[193] Chevalier des Mousseaux: “Mœurs et Pratiques des Démons,” p. x.

[194] De Mirville: “Des Esprits,” p. 4.

[195] Ibid. “Revue des Deux Mondes,” January 15, 1854, p. 108.

[196] This is a repetition and variation of Faraday’s theory.

[197] “Revue des Deux Mondes,” p. 410.

[198] “Revue des Deux Mondes,” January, 1854, p. 414.

[199] “Revue des Deux Mondes,” May 1, 1854, p. 531.

[200] We translate _verbatim_. We doubt whether Mr. Weekman was the first investigator.

[201] Babinet: “Revue des Deux Mondes,” May 1, 1854, p. 511.

[202] De Mirville: “Des Esprits,” p. 33.

[203] Notes, “Des Esprits,” p. 38.

[204] De Mirville: “Faits et Théories Physiques,” p. 46.

[205] See Monograph: “Of the Lightning considered from the point of view of the history of Legal Medicine and Public Hygiene,” by M. Boudin, Chief Surgeon of the Military Hospital of Boule.

[206] De Gasparin: vol. i, page 288.

[207] Crookes: “Physical Force,” page 26.

[208] De Gasparin: “Science _versus_ Spirit,” vol i, p. 313.

[209] Ibid, vol. 1, p. 313.

[210] De Mirville pleads here the devil-theory, of course.

[211] “Des Tables,” vol. i., p. 213.

[212] Vol. i, p. 217.

[213] Crookes: “Psychic Force,” part i., pp. 26-27.

[214] Plato: “Phædo,” § 44.

[215] Ibid., § 128.

[216] “Philosophy of Magic,” English translation, p. 47.

[217] De Mirville: “Des Esprits,” p. 159.

[218] See F. Gerry Fairfield’s “Ten Years with Spiritual Mediums,” New York, 1875.

[219] Marvin: “Lecture on Mediomania.”

[220] “Scientific American,” N. Y., 1875.

[221]

“De par le Roi, defense à Dieu, De faire miracle, en ces lieux.”

A satire that was found written upon the walls of the cemetery at the time of the Jansenist miracles and their prohibition by the police of France.

[222] Polier: “Mythologie des Indous.”

[223] Genesis vi. 4.

[224] Mallett: “Northern Antiquities,” Bohn’s edition, pp. 401-405.

[225] In the “Quarterly Review” of 1859, Graham gives a strange account of many now deserted Oriental cities, in which the stone doors are of enormous dimensions, often seemingly out of proportion with the buildings themselves, and remarks that dwellings and doors bear all of them the impress of an ancient race of giants.

[226] Dr. More: “Letter to Glanvil, author of ‘Saducismus Triumphatus.’”

[227] J. S. Y.: “Demonologia, or Natural Knowledge Revealed,” 1827, p. 219.

[228] Pausanias: “Eliæ,” lib. i., cap. xiv.

[229] We apprehend that the noble author coined his curious names by contracting words in classical languages. _Gy_ would come from _gune_; _vril_ from _virile_.

[230] P. B. Randolph: “Pre-Adamite Man,” p. 48.

[231] On this point at least we are on firm ground. Mr. Crookes’s testimony corroborates our assertions. On page 84 of his pamphlet on “Phenomenal Spiritualism” he says: “The many hundreds of facts I am prepared to attest—facts which to imitate by known mechanics or physical means would baffle the skill of a Houdin, a Bosco, or an Anderson, backed with all the resources of elaborate machinery and the practice of years—have all taken place in my own house; at times appointed by myself and under circumstances which absolutely precluded the employment of the very simplest instrumental aids.”

[232] In this appellation, we may discover the meaning of the puzzling sentence to be found in the Zend-Avesta that “fire gives knowledge of the future, science, and amiable speech,” as it develops an extraordinary eloquence in some sensitives.

[233] Dunlap: “Musah, His Mysteries,” p. iii.

[234] “Hercules was known as the king of the Musians,” says Schwab, ii., 44; and Musien was the feast of “Spirit and Matter,” Adonis and Venus, Bacchus and Ceres. (See Dunlap: “Mystery of Adonis,” p. 95.) Dunlap shows, on the authority of Julian and Anthon (67), Æsculapius, “the Savior of all,” identical with Phtha (the creative Intellect, the Divine Wisdom), and with Apollo, Baal, Adonis, and Hercules (ibid., p. 93), and Phtha is the “Anima mundi,” the Universal Soul, of Plato, the Holy Ghost of the Egyptians, and the Astral Light of the Kabalists. M. Michelet, however, regards the Grecian Herakles as a different character, the adversary of the Bacchic revellings and their attendant human sacrifices.

[235] Plato: “Ion” (Burgess), vol. iv., p. 294.

[236] “Attic.” i., xiv.

[237] Plato: “Theages.” Cicero renders this word δαιμονιον, quiddam divinum, a divine something, not anything personal.

[238] “Cratylus,” p. 79.

[239] “Arnobius,” vi., xii.

[240] As we will show in subsequent chapters, the sun was not considered by the ancients as the direct cause of the light and heat, but only as an agent of the former, through which the light passes on its way to our sphere. Thus it was always called by the Egyptians “the eye of Osiris,” who was himself the _Logos_, the First-begotten, or light made manifest to the world, “which is the mind and divine intellect of the Concealed.” It is only that light of which we are cognizant that is the Demiurge, the _creator_ of our planet and everything pertaining to it; with the invisible and unknown universes disseminated through space, none of the sun-gods had anything to do. The idea is expressed very clearly in the “Books of Hermes.”

[241] “Orphic Hymn,” xii.; Hermann; Dunlap: “Musah, His Mysteries,” p. 91.

[242] Movers, 525. Dunlap: “Mysteries of Adonis,” 94.

[243] Preller: ii., 153. This is evidently the origin of the Christian dogma of Christ descending into hell and overcoming Satan.

[244] This important fact accounts admirably for the gross polytheism of the masses, and the refined, highly-philosophical conception of _one_ God, which was taught only in sanctuaries of the “pagan” temples.

[245] Anthon: “Cabeiria.”

[246] Plato: “Phædrus,” Cary’s translation.

[247] John xx. 22.

[248] “Heathen Religion,” 104.

[249] Alkahest, a word first used by Paracelsus, to denote the menstruum or universal solvent, that is capable of reducing all things.

[250] Josephus: “Antiquities,” vol. viii., c. 2, 5.

[251] “The Land of Charity,” p. 210.

[252] The claims of certain “adepts,” which do not agree with those of the students of the purely Jewish _Kabala_, and show that the “secret doctrine” has originated in India, from whence it was brought to Chaldea, passing subsequently into the hands of the Hebrew “Tanaïm,” are singularly corroborated by the researches of the Christian missionaries. These pious and learned travellers have inadvertently come to our help. Dr. Caldwell, in his “Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian Languages,” p. 66, and Dr. Mateer, in the “Land of Charity,” p. 83, fully support our assertions that the “wise” King Solomon got all his kabalistic lore from India, as the above-given magical figure well shows. The former missionary is desirous to prove that very old and huge specimens of the baobab-tree, which is not, as it appears, indigenous to India, but belongs to the African soil, and “found only at several ancient sites of foreign commerce (at Travancore), may, for aught we know,” he adds, “have been introduced into India, and planted by the servants of King Solomon.” The other proof is still more conclusive. Says Dr. Mateer, in his chapter on the Natural History of Travancore: “There is a curious fact connected with the name of this bird (the peacock) which throws some light upon Scripture history. King Solomon sent his navy to Tarshish (1 Kings, x. 22), which returned once in three years, bringing ‘gold and silver, ivory and apes, and peacocks.’ Now the word used in the Hebrew Bible for peacock is ‘_tukki_,’ and as the Jews had, of course, no word for these fine birds till they were first imported into Judea by King Solomon, there is no doubt that ‘tukki’ is simply the old Tamil word ‘_toki_,’ the name of the peacock. The ape or monkey also is, in Hebrew, called ‘_koph_,’ the Indian word for which is ‘_kaphi_.’ Ivory, we have seen, is abundant in South India, and gold is widely distributed in the rivers of the western coast. Hence the ‘Tarshish’ referred to was doubtless the western coast of India, and Solomon’s ships were ancient ‘East Indiamen.’” And hence also we may add, besides “the gold and silver, and apes and peacocks,” King Solomon and his friend Hiram, of masonic renown, got their “magic” and “wisdom” from India.

[253] Cooke: “New Chemistry,” p. 22.

[254] Eliphas Levi: “Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie.”

[255] Plato hints at a ceremony used in the Mysteries, during the performance of which the neophyte was taught that men are _in this life_ in a kind of prison, and taught _how to escape from it temporarily_. As usual, the too-learned translators disfigured this passage, partially because they _could not_ understand it, and partially because they _would not_. See _Phædo_ § 16, and commentaries on it by Henry More, the well-known Mystic philosopher and Platonist.

[256] The _akasa_ is a Sanscrit word which means sky, but it also designates the imponderable and intangible life-principle—the astral and celestial lights combined together, and which two form the _anima mundi_, and constitute the soul and spirit of man; the celestial light forming his νοὺς, πνευμα, or divine spirit, and the other his ψυχη soul or _astral_ spirit. The grosser particles of the latter enter into the fabrication of his outward form—the body. _Akasa_ is the mysterious fluid termed by scholastic science, “the all-pervading ether;” it enters into all the magical operations of nature, and produces mesmeric, magnetic, and spiritual phenomena. _As_, in Syria, Palestine, and India, meant the sky, _life_, and the _sun_ at the same time; the sun being considered by the ancient sages as the great magnetic well of our universe. The softened pronunciation of this word was _Ah_—says Dunlap, for “the _s_ continually softens to _h_ from Greece to Calcutta.” _Ah_ is Iah, Ao, and Iao. God tells Moses that his name is “I am” (_Ahiah_), a reduplication of Ah or Iah. The word “As” Ah, or Iah means _life_, _existence_, and is evidently the root of the word _akasa_, which in Hindustan is pronounced a_h_asa, the life-principle, or Divine life-giving fluid or medium. It is the Hebrew _ruah_, and means the “wind,” the breath, _the air in motion_, or “moving spirit,” according to Parkhurst’s _Lexicon_; and is identical with the spirit of God _moving_ on the face of the waters.

[257] Bear in mind that Kavindasami made Jacolliot swear that he would neither approach nor _touch_ him during the time he was entranced. The least contact with _matter_ would have paralyzed the action of the freed spirit, which, if we are permitted to use such an unpoetical comparison, would re-enter its dwelling like a frightened snail, drawing in its horns at the approach of any foreign substance. In some cases such a _brusque_ interruption and oozing back of the spirit (sometimes it may suddenly and altogether break the delicate thread connecting it with the body) kills the entranced _subject_. See the several works of Baron du Potet and Puysegur on this question.

[258] “La Magie Devoilée,” p. 147.

[259] “Magie au XIXme Siècle,” p. 268.

[260] Ibid.

[261] Brierre de Boismont: “Des Hallucinations, ou Histoire raisonnée des apparitions, des songes, des visions, de l’extase du Magnetisme,” 1845, p. 301 (French edition). See also Fairfield: “Ten Years Among the Mediums.”

[262] Cabanis, seventh memoir: “De l’Influence des Maladies sur la Formation des Idées,” etc. A respected N. Y. legislator has this faculty.

[263] Irenæus: Book iii., chap. ii., sec. 8.

[264] The cow is the symbol of prolific generation and of intellectual nature. She was sacred to Isis in Egypt; to Christna, in India, and to an infinity of other gods and goddesses personifying the various productive powers of nature. The cow was held, in short, as the impersonation of the Great Mother of all beings, both of the mortals and of the gods, of physical and spiritual generation of things.

[265] In Genesis the river of Eden was parted, “and became into _four_ heads” (Gen. ii. 5).

[266] Genesis iii. 21.

[267] This is claimed to be one of the missing books of the sacred Canon of the Jews, and is referred to in Joshua and II. Samuel. It was discovered by Sidras, an officer of Titus, during the sack of Jerusalem, and published in Venice in the seventeenth century, as alleged in its preface by the Consistory of Rabbins, but the American edition, as well as the English, is reputed by the modern Rabbis, to be a forgery of the twelfth century.

[268] See Godfrey Higgins: “Anacalypsis,” quoting Faber.

[269] See Cory’s “Ancient Fragments.” BEROSUS.

[270] We refer the reader for further particulars to the “Prose Edda” in Mallett’s “Northern Antiquities.”

[271] It is worthy of attention that in the Mexican “Popol-Vuh” the human race is created out of a reed, and in Hesiod out of the ash-tree, as in the Scandinavian narrative.

[272] See Kanne’s “Pantheum der Æltesten Philosophie.”

[273] “Origin of Species,” p. 484.

[274] Ibid. Which latter word we cannot accept unless that “primordial form” is conceded to be the primal concrete form that spirit assumed as the _revealed_ Deity.

[275] Ibid., p. 488.

[276] Lecture by T. H. Huxley, F. R. S.: “Darwin and Haeckel.”

[277] “Migration of Abraham,” § 32.

[278] Cory: “Ancient Fragments.”

[279] “Origin of Species,” pp. 448, 489, first edition.

[280] Huxley: “Darwin and Haeckel.”

[281] Mithras was regarded among the Persians as the _Theos ek petros_—god of the rock.

[282] Bordj is called a fire-mountain—a volcano; therefore it contains fire, rock, earth, and water—the male and active, and the female or passive elements. The myth is suggestive.

[283] Virgil: “Georgica,” book ii.

[284] Porphyry and other philosophers explain the nature of the _dwellers_. They are mischievous and deceitful, though some of them are perfectly gentle and harmless, but so weak as to have the greatest difficulty in communicating with mortals whose company they seek incessantly. The former are not wicked through intelligent malice. The law of spiritual evolution not having yet developed their instinct into intelligence, whose highest light belongs but to immortal spirits, their powers of reasoning are in a latent state and, therefore, they themselves, irresponsible.

But the Latin Church contradicts the Kabalists. St. Augustine has even a discussion on that account with Porphyry, the Neo-platonist. “These spirits,” he says, “are deceitful, _not by their nature_, as Porphyry, the theurgist, will have it, but through malice. They pass themselves off for _gods_ and _for the souls of the defunct_” (“Civit. Dei,” book x., ch. 2). So far Porphyry agrees with him; “but they do not claim to be _demons_ [read devils], for they are such in reality!” adds the bishop of Hippo. But then, under what class should we place the men _without heads_, whom Augustine wishes us to believe he saw himself? or the satyrs of St. Jerome, which he asserts were exhibited for a considerable length of time at Alexandria? They were, he tells us, “men with the legs and tails of goats;” and, if we may believe him, one of these Satyrs was actually _pickled_ and sent in a cask to the Emperor Constantine!

[285] “Tria capita exsculpta sunt, una intra alterum, et alterum supra alterum” (Sohar; “Idra Suta,” sectio vii.)

[286] Gentle gale (lit.)

[287] Higgins: “Anacalypsis;” also “Dupruis.”

[288] Mallett: “Northern Antiquities,” pp. 401-406, and “The Songs of a Völuspa” Edda.

[289] From a London Spiritualist Journal.

[290] Hemmann: “Medico-Surgical Essays,” Berl., 1778.

[291] Robert Fludd: “Treatise III.”

[292] Prof. J. P. Cooke: “New Chemistry.”

[293] In the “Bulletin de l’Academie de Medecine,” Paris, 1837, vol. i., p. 343 et seq., may be found the report of Dr. Oudet, who, to ascertain the state of insensibility of a lady in a magnetic sleep, pricked her with pins, introducing a long pin in the flesh up to its head, and held one of her fingers for some seconds in the flame of a candle. A cancer was extracted from the right breast of a Madame Plaintain. The operation lasted twelve minutes; during the whole time the patient talked very quietly with her mesmerizer, and never felt the slightest sensation (“Bul. de l’Acad. de Med.,” Tom. ii., p. 370).

[294] Prophecy, Ancient and Modern, by A. Wilder: “Phrenological Journal.”

[295] The theory that the sun is an incandescent globe is—as one of the magazines recently expressed it—“going out of fashion.” It has been computed that if the sun—whose mass and diameter is known to us—“were a solid block of coal, and sufficient amount of oxygen could be supplied to burn at the rate necessary to produce the effects we see, it would be completely consumed in less than 5,000 years.” And yet, till comparatively a few weeks ago, it was maintained—nay, is still maintained, that the sun is a reservoir of vaporized metals!

[296] See Youmans: “Chemistry on the Basis of the New System—Spectrum Analysis.”

[297] Professor of Physics in the Stevens Institute of Technology. See his “The Earth a Great Magnet,“a lecture delivered before the Yale Scientific Club, 1872. See, also, Prof. Balfour Stewart’s lecture on “The Sun and the Earth.”

[298] “De Magnetica Vulner Curatione,” p. 722, l. c.

[299] See “On the Influence of the Blue Ray.”

[300] Ennemoser: “History of Magic.”

[301] “Du Magnetisme Animal, en France.” Paris, 1826.

[302] “The Conservation of Energy.” N. Y., 1875.

[303] “Fundamental Principles of Natural Philosophy.”

[304] “Simpl. in Phys.,” 143; “The Chaldean Oracles,” Cory.

[305] Draper: “Conflict between Religion and Science.”

[306] J. R. Buchanan, M.D.: “Outlines of Lectures on the Neurological System of Anthropology.”

[307] W. and Elizabeth M. F. Denton: “The Soul of Things; or Psychometric Researches and Discoveries.” Boston, 1873.

[308] “Religion of Geology.”

[309] “Principles of Science,” vol. ii., p. 455.

[310] J. W. Draper: “Conflict between Religion and Science,” pp. 132, 133.

[311] “Unseen Universe,” p. 159.

[312] F. R. Marvin: “Lecture on Mediomania.”

[313] “Unseen Universe,” p. 84, et seq.

[314] Ibid., p. 89.

[315] Behold! great scientists of the nineteenth century, corroborating the wisdom of the Scandinavian fable, cited in the preceding chapter. Several thousand years ago, the idea of a bridge between the visible and the invisible universes was allegorized by ignorant “heathen,” in the “Edda-Song of Völuspa,” “The Vision of Vala, the Seeress.” For what is this bridge of Bifrost, the radiant rainbow, which leads the gods to their rendezvous, near the Urdar-fountain, but the same idea as that which is offered to the thoughtful student by the authors of the “Unseen Universe?”

[316] “L’Ami des Sciences,” March 2, 1856, p. 67.

[317] Cooke: “New Chemistry,” p. 113.

[318] Ibid., pp. 110-111.

[319] Ibid., p. 106.

[320] “De Secretis Adeptorum.” Werdenfelt; Philalethes; Van Helmont; Paracelsus.

[321] Youmans: “Chemistry,” p. 169; and W. B. Kemshead, F. R. A. S.: “Inorganic Chemistry.”

[322] “Origin of Metalliferous Deposits.”

[323] John Bumpus: “Alchemy and the Alkahest,” 85, J. S. F., edition of 1820.

[324] See Boyle’s works.

[325] Deleuze: “De l’Opinion de Van Helmont sur la Cause, la Nature et les Effets du Magnetisme.” Anim. Vol. i., p. 45, and vol. ii., p. 198.

[326] A. R. Wallace: “An Answer to the Arguments of Hume, Lecky, etc., against Miracles.”

[327] CROOKES: “Researches, etc.,” p. 96.

[328] Lucian: “Pharsalia,” Book v.

[329] “De Divinatio,” Book i., chap. 3.

[330] “De Occulta Philosoph.,” p. 355.

[331] Plato: “Timæus,” vol. ii., p. 563.

[332] Crookes: “Researches, etc.,” p. 101.

[333] Ibid., p. 101.

[334] Crookes: “Researches, etc.,” p. 83.

[335] In 1854, M. Foucault, an eminent physician and a member of the French Institute, one of the opponents of de Gasparin, rejecting the mere possibility of any such manifestations, wrote the following memorable words: “That day, when I should succeed in moving a straw under the action of my will only, I would feel terrified!” The word is ominous. About the same year, Babinet, the astronomer, repeated in his article in the “Revue des Deux Mondes,” the following sentence to exhaustion: “The levitation of a body _without contact_ is as _impossible_ as the perpetual motion, because on the day it would be done, _the world would crumble down_.” Luckily, we see no sign as yet of such a cataclysm; yet bodies _are_ levitated.

[336] “Researches, etc.,” p. 91.

[337] Ibid., pp. 86-97.

[338] Ibid., p. 94.

[339] Ibid., p. 95.

[340] Ibid., p. 94.

[341] “Antidote,” lib. i., cap. 4.

[342] “Letter to Glanvil, the author of ‘Sadducismus Triumphatus,’ May 25, 1678.”

[343] “History of Magic,” vol. ii., p. 272.

[344] “Apologie pour tous les grands personnages faussement accusés de magie.”

[345] Berlin, 1817.

[346] “Nova Medicina Spirituum,” 1675.

[347] “History of Magic.”

[348] It would be a useless and too long labor to enter here upon the defence of Kepler’s theory of relation between the five regular solids of geometry and the magnitudes of the orbits of five principal planets, rather derided by Prof. Draper in his “Conflict.” Many are the theories of the ancients that have been avenged by modern discovery. For the rest, we must bide our time.

[349] “Magia Naturalis,” Lugduni, 1569.

[350] Athanasis Kircher: “Magnes sive de arte magnetici, opus tripartitum.” Coloniæ, 1654.

[351] Lib. iii., p. 643.

[352] “Notes from a New Historical Relation of the Kingdom of Siam,” by de la Loubère, French Ambassador to Siam in the years 1687-8. Edition of 1692.

[353] Baptist Van Helmont: “Opera Omnia,” 1682, p. 720, and others.

[354] De la Loubère: “Notes,” etc. (see _ante_), p. 115.

[355] Ibid., p. 120.

[356] Ibid., p. 63.

[357] See his “Conf.,” xiii., l. c. in præfatione.

[358] 1 Samuel, xvi. 14-23.

[359] “Aphorisms,” 22.

[360] Ibid., p. 69.

[361] Ibid., p. 70.

[362] “Philosophie des Sciences Occultes.”

[363] 1 Kings, i. 1-4, 15.

[364] Josephus: “Antiquities,” viii. 2.

[365] “The Diakka and their Victims; an Explanation of the False and Repulsive in Spiritualism.”

[366] See Chapter on the human spirits becoming the denizens of the _eighth_ sphere, whose end is generally the _annihilation_ of personal individuality.

[367] Porphyry: “On the Good and Bad Demons.”

[368] “De Mysteriis Egyptorum,” lib. iii., c. 5.

[369] Epes Sargent: “Proof Palpable of Immortality,” p. 45.

[370] See Matthew xxiv. 26.

[371] See Wallace, “Miracles and Modern Spiritualism,” and W. Howitt, “History of the Supernatural,” vol. ii.

[372] See Wallace’s paper read before the Dialectical Society, in 1871: “Answer to Hume, etc.”

[373] “Φιλολογος” (Bailey’s), second edition.

[374] See Art. on “Æthrobacy.”

[375] Psalm cv. 23. “The Land of Ham,” or _chem_, Greek χημι, whence the terms _alchemy_ and _chemistry_.

[376] “Œdipi Ægyptiaci Theatrum Hieroglyphicum,” p. 544.

[377] “Lib. de Defectu Oraculorum.“

[378] Lib. i., Class 3, _Cap. ult._

[379] The details of this story may be found in the work of Erasmus Franciscus, who quotes from Pflaumerus, Pancirollus, and many others.

[380] ”_Sulphur. Alum_ ust. a ℥ iv.; sublime them into flowers to ℥ ij., of which add of crystalline Venetian borax (powdered) ℥ j.; upon these affuse high rectified spirit of wine and digest it, then abstract it and pour on fresh; repeat this so often till the sulphur melts like wax without any smoke, upon a hot plate of brass: this is for the _pabulum_, but the wick is to be prepared after this manner: gather the threads or thrums of the _Lapis asbestos_, to the thickness of your middle and the length of your little finger, then put them into a Venetian glass, and covering them over with the aforesaid depurated sulphur or aliment, set the glass in sand for the space of twenty-four hours, so hot that the sulphur may bubble all the while. The wick being thus besmeared and anointed, is to be put into a glass like a scallop-shell, in such manner that some part of it may lie above the mass of prepared sulphur; then setting this glass upon hot sand, you must melt the sulphur, so that it may lay hold of the wick, and when it is lighted, it will burn with a perpetual flame and you may set this lamp in any place where you please.”

The other is as follows:

“℞ _Salis tosti_, lb. j.; affuse over it strong wine vinegar, and abstract it to the consistency of oil; then put on fresh vinegar and macerate and distill it as before. Repeat this four times successively, then put into this vinegar _vitr. antimonii subtilis lœvigat_, lb. j.; set it on ashes in a close vessel for the space of six hours, to extract its tincture, decant the liquor, and put on fresh, and then extract it again; this repeat so often till you have got out all the redness. Coagulate your extractions to the consistency of oil, and then rectify them in Balneo Mariæ (bain Marie). Then take the antimony, from which the tincture was extracted, and reduce it to a very fine meal, and so put it into a glass bolthead; pour upon it the rectified oil, which abstract and cohobate seven times, till such time as the powder has imbibed all the oil, and is quite dry. This extract again with spirit of wine, so often, till all the essence be got out of it, which put into a Venice matrass, well luted with paper five-fold, and then distill it so that the spirit being drawn off, there may remain at the bottom an inconsumable oil, to be used with a wick after the same manner with the sulphur we have described before.”

“These are the eternal lights of Tritenheimus,” says Libavius, his commentator, “which indeed, though they do not agree with the pertinacy of naphtha, yet these things can illustrate one another. Naphtha is not so durable as not to be burned, for it exhales and deflagrates, but if it be fixed by adding the juice of the _Lapis asbestinos_ it can afford perpetual fuel,” says this learned person.

We may add that we have ourselves seen a lamp so prepared, and we are told that since it was first lighted on May 2, 1871, it has not gone out. As we know the person who is making the experiment incapable to deceive any one, being himself an ardent experimenter in hermetic secrets, we have no reason to doubt his assertion.

[381] “Commentary upon St. Augustine’s ‘Treatise de Civitate Dei.’”

[382] The author of “De Rebus Cypriis,” 1566 A.D.

[383] “Book of Ancient Funerals.”

[384] “Comment. on the 77th Epigram of the IXth Book of Martial.”

[385] “De Defectu Oraculorum.”

[386] “Vulgar Errors,” p. 124.

[387] “London Dialectical Society’s Report on Spiritualism,” p. 229.

[388] Ibid., p. 230.

[389] Ibid., p. 265.

[390] Ibid., p. 266.

[391] Draper: “Conflict between Religion and Science,” p. 121.

[392] Milton: “Paradise Lost.”

[393] See Ennemoser: “History of Magic,” vol. ii., and Schweigger: “Introduction to Mythology through Natural History.”

[394] “History of Magic,” vol. ii.

[395] B. Jowett, M. A.: “The Dialogues of Plato,” vol. ii., p. 508.

[396] “Conflict between Religion and Science,” p. 240.

[397] “Plutarch,” translated by Langhorne.

[398] Some kabalistic scholars assert that the Greek original Pythagoric sentences of Sextus, which are now said to be lost, existed still, in a convent at Florence, at that time, and that Galileo was acquainted with these writings. They add, moreover, that a treatise on astronomy, a manuscript by Archytas, a direct disciple of Pythagoras, in which were noted all the most important doctrines of their school, was in the possession of Galileo. Had some _Ruffinas_ got hold of it, he would no doubt have perverted it, as Presbyter Ruffinas has perverted the above-mentioned sentences of Sextus, replacing them with a fraudulent version, the authorship of which he sought to ascribe to a certain Bishop Sextus. See Taylor’s Introduction to Iamblichus’ “Life of Pythagoras,” p. xvii.

[399] Jowett: Introduction to the “Timæus,” vol. ii., p. 508.

[400] Ibid.

[401] “Conflict between Religion and Science,” p. 14.

[402] “Conflict between Religion and Science,” p. 311.

[403] “Egypt’s Place in Universal History,” vol. v., p. 88.

[404] W. R. Grove: “Preface to the Correlation of Physical Forces.”

[405] “Timæus,” p. 22.

[406] Beginning with Godfrey Higgins and ending with Max Müller, every archæologist and philologist who has fairly and seriously studied the old religions, has perceived that taken literally they could only lead them on a false track. Dr. Lardner disfigured and misrepresented the old doctrines—whether unwittingly or otherwise—in the grossest manner. The _pravritti_, or the existence of nature when alive, in activity, and the _nirvritti_, or the rest, the state of non-living, is the Buddhistic esoteric doctrine. The “pure nothing,” or non-existence, if translated according to the esoteric sense, would mean the “pure spirit,” the NAMELESS or something our intellect is unable to grasp, hence nothing. But we will speak of it further.

[407] This is the exact opposite of the modern theory of evolution.

[408] Ficinus: See “Excerpta” and “Dissertation on Magic;” Taylor: “Plato,” vol. i., p. 63.

[409] “Modern American Spiritualism,” p. 119.

[410] The full and correct name of this learned Society is—“The American Association for the _Advancement_ of Science.” It is, however, often called for brevity’s sake, “The American Scientific Association.”

[411] See Taylor’s translation of “Select Works of Plotinus,” p. 553, etc.

[412] Iamblichus: “De Vita Pythag.,” additional notes (Taylor).

[413] “The National Quarterly Review,” Dec., 1875.

[414] Ibid., p. 94.

[415] “Force and Matter,” p. 151.

[416] Burnouf: “Introduction,” p. 118.

[417] “The National Quarterly Review,” Dec., 1875, p. 96.

[418] “De Anima,” lib. i., cap. 3.

[419] De Maistre: “Soirées de St. Petersburg.”

[420] We need not go so far back as that to assure ourselves that many great men believed the same. Kepler, the eminent astronomer, fully credited the idea that the stars and all heavenly bodies, even our earth, are endowed with living and thinking souls.

[421] We are not aware that a copy of this ancient work is embraced in the catalogue of any European library; but it is one of the “Books of Hermes,” and it is referred to and quotations are made from it in the works of a number of ancient and mediæval philosophical authors. Among these authorities are Arnoldo di Villanova’s “Rosarium philosoph.;” Francesco Arnolphim’s “Lucensis opus de lapide,” Hermes Trismegistus’ “Tractatus de transmutatione metallorum,” “Tabula smaragdina,” and above all in the treatise of Raymond Lulli, “Ab angelis opus divinum de quinta essentia.”

[422] Quicksilver.

[423] “Hermes,” iv. 6. Spirit here denotes the Deity—Pneuma, ὁ θέος.

[424] “Magia Adamica,” p. 11.

[425] _The ignorance of the ancients of the earth’s sphericity is assumed without warrant._ What proof have we of the fact? It was only the literati who exhibited such an ignorance. Even so early as the time of Pythagoras, the Pagans taught it, Plutarch testifies to it, and Socrates died for it. Besides, as we have stated repeatedly, all knowledge was concentrated in the sanctuaries of the temples from whence it very rarely spread itself among the uninitiated. If the sages and priests of the remotest antiquity were not aware of this astronomical truth, how is it that they represented Kneph, the spirit of the _first hour_, with an egg placed on his lips, the egg signifying our globe, to which he imparts life by his breath. Moreover, if, owing to the difficulty of consulting the Chaldean “Book of Numbers,” our critics should demand the citation of other authorities, we can refer them to Diogenes Laertius, who credits Manetho with having taught that the earth was in the shape of a ball. Besides, the same author, quoting most probably from the “Compendium of Natural Philosophy,” gives the following statements of the Egyptian doctrine: “The beginning is matter Αρχῆν μὲν εῖναι ὕλην ἴλλεσθα, and from it the four elements separated.... The true form of God is unknown; but the world had a beginning and is therefore perishable.... The moon is eclipsed when it crosses the shadow of the earth” (Diogenes Laertius: “Proœin,” §§ 10, 11). Besides, Pythagoras is credited with having taught that the earth was round, that it rotated, and was but a planet like any other of these celestial bodies. (See Fenelon’s “Lives of the Philosophers.”) In the latest of Plato’s translations (“The Dialogues of Plato,” by Professor Jowett), the author, in his introduction to “Timæus,” notwithstanding “an unfortunate doubt” which arises in consequence of the word ἵλλεσθαι capable of being translated either “circling” or “compacted,” feels inclined to credit Plato with having been familiar with the rotation of the earth. Plato’s doctrine is expressed in the following words: “The earth which is our nurse (compacted or) _circling_ around the pole which is extended through the universe.” But if we are to believe Proclus and Simplicius, Aristotle understood this word in “Timæus” “to mean circling or revolving” (De Cœlo), and Mr. Jowett himself further admits that “Aristotle attributed to Plato the doctrine of the rotation of the earth.” (See vol. ii. of “Dial. of Plato.” Introduction to “Timæus,” pp. 501-2.) It would have been extraordinary, to say the least, that Plato, who was such an admirer of Pythagoras and who certainly must have had, as an initiate, access to the most secret doctrines of the great Samian, should be ignorant of such an elementary astronomical truth.

[426] “Wisdom of Solomon,” xi. 17.

[427] Eugenius Philalethes: “Magia Adamica.”

[428] Hargrave Jennings: “The Rosicrucians.”

[429] “Timæus.”

[430] “Our Place among Infinities,” p. 313.

[431] Ibid.

[432] Ibid., p. 314.

[433] The library of a relative of the writer contains a copy of a French edition of this unique work. The prophecies are given in the old French language, and are very difficult for the student of modern French to decipher. We give, therefore, an English version, which is said to be taken from a book in the possession of a gentleman in Somersetshire, England.

[434] See Rawlinson, vol. xvii., pp. 30-32, Revised edition.

[435] Jowett: Introduction to “Timæus,” “Dial. of Plato,” vol. i., p. 509.

[436] N. B.—He lived in the first century B. C.

[437] Stobæus: “Eclogues.”

[438] Kieser: “Archiv.,” vol. iv., p. 62. In fact, many of the old symbols were mere puns on names.

[439] See “Rig-Vedas,” the Aitareya-Brahmanan.

[440] Brahma is also called by the Hindu Brahmans Hiranyagarbha or the _unit_ soul, while _Amrita_ is the supreme soul, the first cause which emanated from itself the creative Brahma.

[441] Marbod: “Liber lapid. ed Beekmann.”

[442] “The Sun and the Earth,” Lecture by Prof. Balfour Stewart.

[443] “La Loi Naturelle,” par Volney.

[444] “Diction. Philosophique,” Art. “Philosophie.”

[445] “Boston Lecture,” December, 1875.

[446] Weber: “Ind. Stud.,” i. 290.

[447] Wilson: “Rig-Veda Sanhita,” ii. 143.

[448] “Duncker,” vol. ii., p. 162.

[449] “Wultke,” ii. 262.

[450] Daniel vii. 9, 10.

[451] Book of Enoch, xiv. 7, ff.

[452] This proposition, which will be branded as _preposterous_, but which we are ready to show, on the authority of Plato (see Jowett’s Introd. to “the Timæus;” last page), as a Pythagorean doctrine, together with that other of the sun being but the lens through which the light passes, is strangely corroborated at the present day, by the observations of General Pleasonton of Philadelphia. This experimentalist boldly comes out as a revolutionist of modern science, and calls Newton’s centripetal and centrifugal forces, and the law of gravitation, “fallacies.” He fearlessly maintains his ground against the Tyndalls and Huxleys of the day. We are glad to find such a learned defender of one of the oldest (and hitherto treated as the _most absurd_) of hermetic _hallucinations_ (?) (See General Pleasonton’s book, “The Influence of the Blue Ray of the Sunlight, and of the Blue Color of the Sky, in developing Animal and Vegetable Life,” addressed to the Philadelphia Society for Promoting Agriculture.)

[453] In no country were the true esoteric doctrines trusted to writing. The Hindu Brahma Maia, was passed from one generation to another by _oral_ tradition. The Kabala was never written; and Moses intrusted it orally but to his elect. The primitive pure Oriental gnosticism was completely corrupted and degraded by the different subsequent sects. Philo, in the “de Sacrificiis Abeli et Caini,” states that there is a mystery _not to be revealed_ to the uninitiated. Plato is silent on many things, and his disciples refer to this fact constantly. Any one who has studied, even superficially, these philosophers, on reading the institutes of Manu, will clearly perceive that they all drew from the same source. “This universe,” says Manu, “existed only _in the first divine idea, yet unexpanded, as if involved in darkness_, imperceptible, indefinable, undiscoverable by reason, and undiscovered _by revelation_, as if it were wholly immersed in sleep; then the sole self-existing Power himself undiscerned, appeared with undiminished glory, _expanding his idea_, or dispelling _the gloom_.” Thus speaks the first code of Buddhism. Plato’s idea is the _Will_, or Logos, the deity which manifests itself. It is the Eternal Light from which proceeds, as an _emanation_, the visible and _material_ light.

[454] It appears that in descending from Mont Blanc, Tyndall suffered severely from the heat, though he was knee-deep in the snow at the time. The Professor attributed this to the burning rays of the sun, but Pleasonton maintains that if the rays of the sun had been so intense as described, they would have melted the snow, which they did not; he concludes that the heat from which the Professor suffered came from his own body, and was due to the electrical action of sunlight upon his dark woolen clothes, which had become electrified positively by the heat of his body. The cold, dry ether of planetary space and the upper atmosphere of the earth became negatively electrified, and falling upon his warm body and clothes, positively electrified, evolved an increased heat (see “The Influence of the Blue Ray,” etc., pp. 39, 40, 41, etc.).

[455] The most curious of all “curious coincidences,” to our mind is, that our men of science should put aside facts, striking enough to cause them to use such an expression when speaking of them, instead of setting to work to give us a philosophical explanation of the same.

[456] See Charles Elam, M.D.: “A Physician’s Problems,” London, 1869, p. 159.

[457] Jowett: “Timæus.”

[458] Ibid.

[459] According to General Pleasonton’s theory of positive and negative electricity underlying every psychological, physiological, and cosmic phenomena, the abuse of alcoholic stimulants transforms a man into a woman and _vice versa_, by changing their _electricities_. “When this change in the condition of his electricity has occurred,” says the author, “his attributes (those of a drunkard) become _feminine_; he is irritable, irrational, excitable ... becomes violent, and if he meets his wife, whose normal condition of electricity is like his present condition, positive, they repel each other, become mutually abusive, engage in conflict and deadly strife, and the newspapers of the next day announce the verdict of the coroner’s jury on the case.... Who would expect to find the discovery of the moving cause of all these terrible crimes in the perspiration of the criminal? and yet science has shown that the metamorphoses of _a man into a woman_, by changing the negative condition of his electricity into the _positive_ electricity of the woman, with all its attributes, is disclosed by the character of his perspiration, superinduced by the use of alcoholic stimulants” (“The Influence of the Blue Ray,” p 119).

[460] Plato: “Timæus.”

[461] Littré: “Revue des Deux Mondes.”

[462] See des Mousseaux’s “Œuvres des Demons.”

[463] Du Potet: “Magie Devoilée,” pp. 51-147.

[464] Ibid., p. 201.

[465] Baron Du Potet: “Cours de Magnetisme,” pp. 17-108.

[466] “De Occulto Philosophiâ,” pp. 332-358.

[467] Cicero: “De Natura Deorum,” lib. i., cap. xviii.

[468] Eliphas Levi.

[469] “Timæus.” Such like expressions made Professor Jowett state in his Introduction that Plato taught the attraction of similar bodies to similar. But such an assertion would amount to denying the great philosopher even a rudimentary knowledge of the laws of magnetic poles.

[470] Alfred Marshall Mayer, Ph.D.: “The Earth a Great Magnet,” a lecture delivered before the Yale Scientific Club, Feb. 14, 1872.

[471] “Strange Story.”

[472] See Taylor’s “Pausanias;” MS. “Treatise on Dæmons,” by Psellus, and the “Treatise on the Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries.”

[473] Iamblichus: “De Vita Pythag.”

[474] “Anacalypsis,” vol. i., p. 807.

[475] Iamblichus: “Life of Pythagoras,” p. 297.

[476] Bulwer-Lytton: “Zanoni.”

[477] Cory: “Phædrus,” i. 328.

[478] This assertion is clearly corroborated by Plato himself, who says: “You say that, in my former discourse, I have not sufficiently explained to you the nature of the _First, I purposely spoke enigmatically_, that in case the tablet should have happened with any accident, either by land or sea, a person, _without some previous knowledge of the subject, might not be able to understand its contents_” (“Plato,” Ep. ii., p. 312; Cory: “Ancient Fragments”).

[479] “Josephus against Apion,” ii., p. 1079.

[480] See chapter ix., p.

[481] “Illusion; matter in its triple manifestation in the earthly, and the astral or fontal soul, or the body, and the Platonian dual soul, the rational and the irrational one,” see next chapter.

[482] “Perfection of Wisdom.”

[483] Porphyry gives the credit to Plotinus his master, of having been united with “God” six times during his life, and complains of having attained to it but twice, himself.

[484] Orpheus is said to have ascribed to the grand cycle 120,000 years of duration, and Cassandrus 136,000. See Censorinus: “de Natal. Die;” “Chronological and Astronomical Fragments.”

[485] W. and E. Denton; “The Soul of Things,” vol. i.

[486] See the “Cosmogony of Pherecydes.”

[487] See a few pages further on the quotation from the “Codex of the Nazarenes.”

[488] See Plato’s “Timæus.”

[489] On the authority of Irenæus, Justin Martyr, and the “Codex” itself, Dunlap shows that the Nazarenes treated their “spirit,” or rather soul, as a female and _Evil Power_. Irenæus, accusing the Gnostics of heresy, calls Christ and the Holy Ghost “the _gnostic pair_ that produce the Æons” (Dunlap: “Sod, the Son of the Man,” p. 52, foot-note).

[490] Fetahil was with the Nazarenes the king of light, and the _Creator_; but in this instance he is the unlucky Prometheus, who fails to get hold of the _Living Fire_, necessary for the formation of the divine soul, as he is ignorant of the _secret_ name (the ineffable or incommunicable name of the kabalists).

[491] The spirit of matter and concupiscence.

[492] See Franck’s “Codex Nazaræus” and Dunlap’s “Sod, the Son of the Man.”

[493] “Codex Nazaræus,” ii. 233.

[494] This Mano of the Nazarenes strangely resembles the Hindu Manu, the heavenly man of the “Rig-Vedas.”

[495] “I am the _true vine_ and my Father is the husbandman” (John xv. 1).

[496] With the Gnostics, Christ, as well as Michael, who is identical in some respects with him, was the “Chief of the Æons.”

[497] “Codex Nazaræus,” i. 135.

[498] Ibid.

[499] “Codex Nazaræus,” iii. 61.

[500] The Astral Light, or _anima mundi_, is dual and bi-sexual. The male part of it is purely divine and spiritual; it is the _Wisdom_; while the female portion (the spiritus of the Nazarenes) is tainted, in one sense, with matter, and therefore is evil already. It is the life-principle of every living creature, and furnishes the astral soul, the fluidic _perisprit_ to men, animals, fowls of the air, and everything living. Animals have only the germ of the highest immortal soul as a third principle. It will develop but through a series of countless evolutions; the doctrine of which evolution is contained in the kabalistic axiom: “A stone becomes a plant; a plant a beast; a beast a _man_; a man a _spirit_; and the spirit a god.”

[501] See Commentary on “Idra Suta,” by Rabbi Eleashar.

[502] _Sod_ means a religious Mystery. Cicero mentions the _sod_, as constituting a portion of the _Idean_ Mysteries. “The members of the _Priest-Colleges_ were called _Sodales_,” says Dunlap, quoting Freund’s “Latin Lexicon,” iv. 448.

[503] The author of the “Sohar,” the great kabalistic work of the first century B.C.

[504] See Abbé Huc’s works.

[505] “The Sohar,” iii. 288; “Idra Suta.”

[506] Everard: “Mystères Physiologiques,” p. 132.

[507] See Plato’s “Timæus.”

[508] “Supernatural Religion; an Inquiry into the Reality of Divine Revelation,” vol. ii. London, 1875.

[509] See “Heavenly Arcana.”

[510] Burges: Preface.

[511] “Seventh Letter.”

[512] “The True Christian Religion.”

[513] E. A. Hitchcock: “Swedenborg, a Hermetic Philosopher.”

[514] “Ripley Revived,” 1678.

[515] “Mosaicall Philosophy,” p. 173. 1659.

[516] “Correlation of Vital with Chemical and Physical Forces,” by J. Le Conte.

[517] “Archives des Sciences,” vol. xlv., p. 345. December, 1872.

[518] Aristotle: “De Generat. et Corrupt.,” lib. ii.

[519] “De Part.,” an. lib. i., c. 1.

[520] A Pythagorean oath. The Pythagoreans swore by their master.

[521] See Lemprière: “Classical Dictionary.”

[522] Psel. in Alieb: “Chaldean Oracles.”

[523] Proc. in 1 “Alieb.”

[524] From the Latin word _mensa_—table. This curious letter is copied in full in “La Science des Esprits,” by Eliphas Levi.

[525] The Sulanuth is described in chap. lxxx., vers. 19, 20, of “Jasher.”

[526] “And when the Egyptians hid themselves on account of the swarm” (one of the plagues alleged to have been brought on by Moses) “ ... they locked their doors after them, and God ordered the _Sulanuth_ ...” (a _sea-monster_, naively explains the translator, in a foot-note) “which was then in the sea, to come up and go into Egypt ... and she had long arms, ten cubits in length ... and she went upon the roofs and uncovered the rafting and cut them ... and stretched forth her arm into the house and removed the lock and the bolt and opened the houses of Egypt ... and the swarm of animals destroyed the Egyptians, and it grieved them exceedingly.”

[527] “Strom,” vi., 17, § 159.

[528] Ibid., vi., 3, § 30.

[529] “Gorgias.”

[530] “Timæus.”

[531] Cory: “Phædro,” i. 69.

[532] Ibid., i. 123.

[533] Cory: “Phædras;” Cory’s “Plato,” 325.

[534] See “The Unseen Universe,” pp. 205, 206.

[535] See Bulwer-Lytton: “Strange Story,” p. 76. We do not know where in literature can be found a more vivid and beautiful description of this difference between the life-principle of man and that of animals, than in the passages herein briefly alluded to.

[536] A. R. Wallace: “The Action of Natural Selection on Man.”

[537] W. Denton: “The Soul of Things,” p. 273.

[538] “Herodotus,” b. i., c. 181.

[539] “Anthropology,” p. 125.

[540] “Of Sacrifices to Gods and Dæmons,” chap. ii.

[541] “Odyssey,” book vii.