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LETTERS

ON

NATURAL MAGIC;

ADDRESSED TO

SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART.

LETTER I.

Table of Contents

Extent and interest of the subject—Science employed by ancient governments to deceive and enslave their subjects—Influence of the supernatural upon ignorant minds—Means employed by the ancient magicians to establish their authority—Derived from a knowledge of the phenomena of Nature—From the influence of narcotic drugs upon the victims of their delusion—From every branch of science—Acoustics—Hydrostatics—Mechanics—Optics—M. Salverte’s work on the occult sciences—Object of the following letters.

MY DEAR SIR WALTER,

As it was at your suggestion that I undertook to draw up a popular account of those prodigies of the material world which have received the appellation of Natural Magic, I have availed myself of the privilege of introducing it under the shelter of your name. Although I cannot hope to produce a volume at all approaching in interest to that which you have contributed to the Family Library, yet the popular character of some of the topics which belong to this branch of Demonology may atone for the defects of the following Letters; and I shall deem it no slight honour if they shall be considered as forming an appropriate supplement to your valuable work.

The subject of Natural Magic is one of great extent as well as of deep interest. In its widest range, it embraces the history of the governments and the superstitions of ancient times—of the means by which they maintained their influence over the human mind—of the assistance which they derived from the arts and the sciences, and from a knowledge of the powers and phenomena of nature. When the tyrants of antiquity were unable or unwilling to found their sovereignty on the affections and interests of their people, they sought to entrench themselves in the strongholds of supernatural influence, and to rule with the delegated authority of Heaven. The prince, the priest, and the sage, were leagued in a dark conspiracy to deceive and enslave their species; and man, who refused his submission to a being like himself, became the obedient slave of a spiritual despotism, and willingly bound himself in chains when they seemed to have been forged by the gods.

This system of imposture was greatly favoured by the ignorance of these early ages. The human mind is at all times fond of the marvellous, and the credulity of the individual may be often measured by his own attachment to the truth. When knowledge was the property of only one caste, it was by no means difficult to employ it in the subjugation of the great mass of society. An acquaintance with the motions of the heavenly bodies, and the variations in the state of the atmosphere, enabled its possessor to predict astronomical and meteorological phenomena with a frequency and an accuracy which could not fail to invest him with a divine character. The power of bringing down fire from the heavens, even at times when the electric influence was itself in a state of repose, could be regarded only as a gift from heaven. The power of rendering the human body insensible to fire was an irresistible instrument of imposture; and in the combinations of chemistry, and the influence of drugs and soporific embrocations on the human frame, the ancient magicians found their most available resources.

The secret use which was thus made of scientific discoveries and of remarkable inventions, has no doubt prevented many of them from reaching the present times; but though we are very ill informed respecting the progress of the ancients in various departments of the physical sciences, yet we have sufficient evidence that almost every branch of knowledge had contributed its wonders to the magician’s budget, and we may even obtain some insight into the scientific acquirements of former ages, by a diligent study of their fables and their miracles.

The science of Acoustics furnished the ancient sorcerers with some of their best deceptions. The imitation of thunder in their subterranean temples could not fail to indicate the presence of a supernatural agent. The golden virgins whose ravishing voices resounded through the temple of Delphos;—the stone from the river Pactolus, whose trumpet notes scared the robber from the treasure which it guarded;—the speaking head which uttered its oracular responses at Lesbos; and the vocal statue of Memnon, which began at the break of day to accost the rising sun—were all deceptions derived from science, and from a diligent observation of the phenomena of nature.

The principles of Hydrostatics were equally available in the work of deception. The marvellous fountain which Pliny describes in the island of Andros as discharging wine for seven days, and water during the rest of the year;—the spring of oil which broke out in Rome to welcome the return of Augustus from the Sicilian war—the three empty urns which filled themselves with wine at the annual feast of Bacchus in the city of Elis—the glass tomb of Belus which was full of oil, and which when once emptied by Xerxes could not again be filled—the weeping-statues, and the perpetual lamps of the ancients—were all the obvious effects of the equilibrium and pressure of fluids.

Although we have no direct evidence that the philosophers of antiquity were skilled in Mechanics, yet there are indications of their knowledge by no means equivocal in the erection of the Egyptian obelisks, and in the transportation of huge masses of stone, and their subsequent elevation to great heights in their temples. The powers which they employed, and the mechanism by which they operated, have been studiously concealed, but their existence may be inferred from results otherwise inexplicable; and the inference derives additional confirmation from the mechanical arrangements which seemed to have formed a part of their religious impostures. When, in some of the infamous mysteries of ancient Rome, the unfortunate victims were carried off by the gods, there is reason to believe that they were hurried away by the power of machinery; and when Apollonius, conducted by the Indian sages to the temple of their god, felt the earth rising and falling beneath his feet, like the agitated sea, he was no doubt placed upon a moving floor capable of imitating the heavings of the waves. The rapid descent of those who consulted the oracle in the cave of Trophonius—the moving tripods which Apollonius saw in the Indian temples—the walking statues at Antium, and in the temple of Hierapolis—and the wooden pigeon of Archytas, are specimens of the mechanical resources of the ancient magic.

But of all the sciences Optics is the most fertile in marvellous expedients. The power of bringing the remotest objects within the very grasp of the observer, and of swelling into gigantic magnitude the almost invisible bodies of the material world, never fails to inspire with astonishment even those who understand the means by which these prodigies are accomplished. The ancients, indeed, were not acquainted with those combinations of lenses and mirrors which constitute the telescope and the microscope, but they must have been familiar with the property of lenses and mirrors to form erect and inverted images of objects. There is reason to think that they employed them to effect the apparition of their gods; and in some of the descriptions of the optical displays which hallowed their ancient temples, we recognize all the transformations of the modern phantasmagoria.

It would be an interesting pursuit to embody the information which history supplies respecting the fables and incantations of the ancient superstitions, and to show how far they can be explained by the scientific knowledge which then prevailed. This task has, to a certain extent, been performed by M. Eusebe Salverte, in a work on the occult sciences which has recently appeared; but notwithstanding the ingenuity and learning which it displays, the individual facts are too scanty to support the speculations of the author, and the descriptions are too meagre to satisfy the curiosity of the reader.1

In the following letters I propose to take a wider range, and to enter into more minute and popular details. The principal phenomena of nature, and the leading combinations of arts, which bear the impress of a supernatural character, will pass under our review, and our attention will be particularly called to those singular illusions of sense, by which the most perfect organs either cease to perform their functions, or perform them faithlessly; and where the efforts and the creations of the mind predominate over the direct perceptions of external nature.

In executing this plan, the task of selection is rendered extremely difficult by the superabundance of materials, as well as from the variety of judgments for which these materials must be prepared. Modern science may be regarded as one vast miracle, whether we view it in relation to the Almighty Being by whom its objects and its laws were formed, or to the feeble intellect of man, by which its depths have been sounded, and its mysteries explored; and if the philosopher who is familiarized with its wonders, and who has studied them as necessary results of general laws, never ceases to admire and adore their Author, how great should be their effect upon less gifted minds, who must ever view them in the light of inexplicable prodigies!—Man has in all ages sought for a sign from heaven, and yet he has been habitually blind to the millions of wonders with which he is surrounded. If the following pages should contribute to abate this deplorable indifference to all that is grand and sublime in the universe, and if they should inspire the reader with a portion of that enthusiasm of love and gratitude which can alone prepare the mind for its final triumph, the labours of the author will not have been wholly fruitless.