CHAPTER XV.

MAGIC IN EUROPE IN THE MIDDLE AGES—ITS CONNECTION WITH MYSTERIOUS HEALING AND MARVELLOUS DELIVERANCES.

Though Judaism is, on the whole, a distinctively Theistic and Ethical Religion, comparatively little given to either Mysticism or Magic, there have been many notable instances of thoroughly respectable and noble-minded Jews, among whom are to be found some distinguished Rabbis, who have practised magical arts and taught them to a few carefully selected disciples. There are numberless passages in the Old Testament which contain ferocious denunciations of Babylonian sorcery and witchcraft, as we have endeavored to show in other sections of this volume; but the aim of these denunciations was to entirely discountenance all dabbling in vicious psychic practises which had for their object the working of some sort of injury. Laws against witchcraft, which are not yet entirely erased from modern statute books, were originally intended to inflict severe penalties upon all who sought by magical means to endanger the safety of individuals, or to work harm upon a community by attempting to blight the harvest, poison the wells, or in some other manner work grievous injury upon a community. Obviously such laws were not directed against any who sought to practise a White Art, which had for its sole objects healing the sick and in other ways conferring blessings upon humanity; but as neither priests nor legislators always knew just where to draw the line between White and Black Magic, and moreover as charges of witchcraft, brought often against unpopular but entirely innocent persons, served to divert attention from the real culprits when offences had actually been committed, legislation against witchcraft very often defeated, rather than served, the ends of justice. It also encouraged many degrading superstitions which retarded the progress of sanitary science, while it engendered and fostered that very state of dread of some malign influence at work against us, which is one of the most deterrent influences which can possibly be set in motion when a patient is nervously unstrung and needs confidence in Divine, not diabolical, agency, to help him to recovery.

The great beauty of Judaism, as a religious system, is that it requires no belief in devils on the part of its adherents, but rather discountenances than encourages such belief; at the same time Jews, as a community, have seldom been entirely free from some dread of evil spirits, though the fundamental teachings of Judaism are quite at variance with any doctrine of evil spirits such as orthodox Christianity still foists upon the world and which, in a modified form, many Spiritualists and Occultists still engender.

One of the most curious and interesting literary examples of Jewish belief in Magic is to be found in a treatise entitled “The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abra-Melin the Mage, as delivered by Abraham the Jew unto His Son Lamech.” A translation from the original Hebrew into French, contained in the Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, Paris, has been rendered into English by S. L. MacGregor-Mathers, whose works on Rosicrucianism and other mysterious and unusual themes are of great interest to those who desire to step aside from the beaten paths of literature and stray into weird and fascinating byways. The English translator of this curious MS., which goes back, in the original, to 1458, declares that Bulwer Lytton and Eliphas Lèvi were acquainted with this MS., which contains much material from which such a story as Lytton’s “Zanoni” might easily have been embellished. The treatise is divided into three books, the first of which deals principally with the travels of the author, which were quite extensive and brought him into close association with many highly placed and well-distinguished personages. The second book is filled with matter pertaining to Ceremonial Magic, which, like all treatises of this sort, arouses much more curiosity than it satisfies. It is excellent reading for any who want to know exactly what the best type of Mediæval Magicians really believed, and how they set to work to accomplish their mysterious performances, and it has the great advantage of containing a large amount of excellent moral counsel, to the effect that all who engage in such occult undertakings must do so with a full sense of the grave responsibilities they are assuming, and always with righteous ends in view. The third book describes enchantments of various kinds, some of which enter upon the field of necromancy, and prove that it was actually believed that within the space of seven years after death it was possible to induce the departed spirit to temporarily reanimate the discarded physical frame, if that had been preserved through the interim. It is quite clear that the noblest among magicians declared that such a feat should never be attempted except in cases of extreme gravity, and only where it was highly important to gain information directly from the departed spirit; but happily for the world of to-day, those most absorbed in Spiritualism are seeking only to get in touch with their departed friends by employing methods which have no connection with the arts of necromancy.

Evil spirits are said to be rightly obedient to the will of the trained magician, who puts them to work as servitors, but if he loses self-control or permits himself to misuse magic for base ends, he then becomes subject to the dark forces, who cause him much suffering as well as inconvenience. There can hardly be any doubt that much good has often been accomplished in connection with the better kinds of magic, particularly in the wide domain of therapeutic practise, where we know the influence of ideas and suggestions over physical conditions is inestimably great.

It is recorded that this magical Abraham healed a multitude of disorders of many varieties, including leprosy. There is nothing incredible or irrational in this statement, for there is no reason why any disease should be looked upon as essentially incurable. On this whole subject of seemingly miraculous healing the popular mind needs a great deal of setting straight, and we see many signs of promise that popular fallacies are soon to be dispelled by the appearance on the scene of practical activity of a large number of well-equipped mental practitioners, who will give rational accounts of their ministry and thereby deliver the topic of Suggestive practise from the many phantasies which still surround it. Ceremonies carry great weight with many people, who seem as yet quite unable to grasp the simpler and directer teachings of Psycho-Therapy. From five to six centuries ago the masses were far less acquainted with the rudiments of rational psychology than they are to-day, and had it not been for the incantations of wonder-workers on their behalf, many a sufferer would have remained incurable, incurability being an entirely relative term. A case may be quite incurable in one set of circumstances and readily cured when the patient is transferred to different surroundings. Change of mental attitude is the prime essential in nearly every malady, and there are indeed no cases of any sort where faith and hope and courage are not extremely valuable helpers. It is said that as many as 8,413 persons were healed through the agency of the magician whose work we are now considering, and it is highly important to note exactly the position taken by the healer concerning the nature of his ministry. Abraham was born in 1362; his age was therefore forty-eight in 1410, when he calls himself ninety-six, in consequence of a curious reckoning which makes a magical year only six months in length. Abraham teaches that the best years of a man's life for the practise of ceremonial magic are from twenty-five to fifty, probably because he had discovered that, on an average, the mental and physical faculties are simultaneously most active during that period, though there are many undisputed instances of great mental and physical vigor appearing in combination much before the age of twenty-five and very long after fifty. The following quotation is very explicit in showing how magicians have claimed to be able to secure for their clients the efficient services of unseen servitors, and though we may incline to attach far more importance to the patient's own mental attitude than to magical rites per se, we cannot deny that there may be serving spirits ready to obey the will of a magical director, much as nurses stand ever ready to obey the instructions of doctors under whom they are working and in whose skill and wisdom they have confidence.

“Up till now I have healed of persons of all conditions, bewitched unto death, no less than 8,413, and belonging to all religions, without making an exception in any case. I gave unto mine Emperor Sigismond, a very clement prince, a Familiar Spirit of the Second Hierarchy, even as he commanded me, and he availed himself of its services with prudence. He wished also to possess the secret of the whole operation, but as I was warned by the Lord that it was not His will, he contented himself with what was permitted, not as Emperor, but as a private person; and I even by means of my art facilitated his marriage with his wife; and I caused him to overcome the great difficulties which opposed his marriage. I delivered also the Count Frederick by the means of 2,000 artificial cavalry (the which I by mine art caused to appear according unto the tenor of the twenty-ninth chapter of the Third Book here following), free out of the hands of the Duke Leopold of Saxonia, the which Count Frederick without me would have lost both his own life and his estate as well (which latter would not have descended unto his heirs).

“Unto the Bishop of our City also, I showed the betrayal of his government at Orembergh, one year before the same occurred; and I say no more concerning this because he is an Ecclesiastic, passing over in silence all that I have further done to render him service.

“The Count of Varvich was delivered by me from prison in England the night before he was to have been beheaded.

“I aided the flight of the Duke and of his Pope John, from the Council of Constance, who would otherwise have fallen into the hands of the enraged Emperor M; and the latter having asked me to predict unto him which one of the two Popes, John XXIII and Martin V, should gain in the end, my prophecy was verified; that fortune befalling which I had predicted unto him at Ratisbon. At the time when I was lodged at the house of the Duke of Bavaria, for matters of the greatest importance, the door of my room was forced, and I had the value of 83,000 Hungarian pieces stolen from me in jewels and money. As soon as I returned, the thief (although he was a Bishop) was forced to himself bring it back to me in person and to return with his own hands to me the money, jewels, and account books, and to give me the principal reasons which had forced him to commit the theft, rather than any other person.”

A great many more instances of various kinds, equally wonderful, are given, but the few we have quoted are typical and serve to show what were the stupendous claims made for his art by Abraham, who always used it conscientiously.

Works of this kind abound in literary and historic interest, and they are also freely interspersed with salutary moral counsels, but we doubt whether there are many among us who can put the magical formulas to any practical account; and is there any good reason why we should actually attempt to do so? Professedly Occult literature is largely given over to uncanny narratives, some of them calculated to induce a creepy dread, especially at Christmastide, when ghost stories are especially popular, but this feature, at least in our opinion, needs to be repressed rather than exaggerated, and of one thing we may be quite convinced—viz., that if there be such malign or uncanny psychic influences in our immediate vicinage as many people continue to believe, our surest protection against them is to cultivate such heroic faith in the omnipotence of goodness that we shall cherish no lurking dread of evil. The talismanic value of different psalms is insisted upon by many mediaeval writers, and there is doubtless considerable reason for attributing to them extraordinary efficacy, because they breathe a spirit of perfect trust in Deity and discountenance all fear of evil influences, both seen and unseen.

In a very curious and scarcely reliable production, called fantastically “The Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses,” we find the entire Psalter endowed with magical potencies. Each one of the 150 psalms is said to be a talisman against some kind of sickness or danger. Whether the entire Book of Psalms can be usefully employed in such a manner is open to controversy, but we can readily see how a recitation of such psalms as the 23d and 91st in particular, may prove of great assistance in times of severe mental distress and difficulty. The peculiar tenacity with which people cling to the Psalter lends color to the claim that it possesses some magical qualities, but in its accepted English version, at any rate, it needs a large amount of revising and a vast deal of wise interpreting to make it suitable for such undiscriminating use as the Church of England, in its daily services, makes of it. Swedenborgians and Mystics get over all moral difficulties, when they encounter imprecatory clauses, by declaring that as to their interior meaning they refer, not to personal enemies but to impersonal lusts “which war against the soul.” When we wisely pray for the destruction of our enemies we are really seeking the annihilation of our own vicious tendencies, the encouragement of which may certainly render us susceptible to unholy influx, no matter from what source it may proceed. Were this view always taken and explained to choir boys before they sing in cathedrals and parish churches, there would be no valid reason for protesting against the unceasing use of the entire Psalter; but how often is this matter explained? and when it is not, the pernicious influence of supplicating the Almighty to destroy one’s personal foes, if one be supposed to have such, is terrible in its effects upon the ethics of the rising generation. The wide incompatibility between Mediæval magic and the best kinds of modern mental therapeutic systems, is that the former is loaded down with belief in enemies against whom we must work by the employment of magical spells, while the latter endorses the sublime saying of Emerson, “No one can do me an injury but myself.”

Christian Scientists, while verbally repudiating any endorsement of magical theories and practises, are strangely inconsistent in clinging to their pet bug-a-boo “malicious animal magnetism.” Were they as a denomination once for all to give up that old devil with a new title, they could soon make for themselves a noble place among the advanced philosophers of our day; but just so long as that recrudescence of a most objectionable part of the superstitious belief of old-time magicians clings to their movement, they will engender the very dread of evil which their famous text-book “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” by the founder of the cult, Mary Baker G. Eddy, renders utterly illogical in the celebrated phrase “All is good; there is no evil.” Whatever that sentence may exactly mean,—and many different interpretations have been placed upon it,—it cannot logically be accepted in connection with any dread of evil. All the good accomplished by old-school magicians, and all the good done by modern mental therapeutists is accomplished by strengthening the will and calming the mind of sufferers, to whom evil appears a great and terrible, usually an invincible, reality. Abraham's story of conjuring up artificial soldiers seems all of a piece with some scenes in Marie Corelli’s “Sorrows of Satan,” particularly the magical appearance and disappearance of phantom servitors at the “Willowsmere” festival which was organized by “Lucio Rimanez.” We are treading on very treacherous ground if we venture to speak dogmatically concerning the possible connection between our ordinary external life and mysterious unseen influences, and we have no right whatever to wilfully close our eyes in the face of any well-supported evidence. It is however very necessary to insist that great danger to health and reason attend upon dabbling in ceremonial magic to gratify morbid curiosity, and far greater are the penalties we shall have to pay if we allow ourselves to be actuated by any malicious motive. No matter in what department of Psychical Research we may be seeking for knowledge we must never fail to remember the wise words of Alfred Tennyson, who sometimes felt an intense desire to rend the veil and gaze upon what lies behind it. To all everywhere who are thinking of embarking upon the dimly-lighted ocean of magical evocation, or even attempting to get into conscious communion with their departed (or at least unseen) loved ones, we commend the following quatrain from “In Memoriam.”

“How pure in heart and sound at head,
With what divine affections bold
Should be the man whose thoughts would hold
An hour's communion with the dead.

They haunt the silence of the breast,
Imagination calm and fair,
The memory like a cloudless air,
The conscience as a sea at rest.

In vain shalt thou or any call
The spirits from their golden day,
Unless, like them, thou too canst say
My spirit is at peace with all.

But when the heart is full of din
And doubt beside the portal waits,
They can but listen at the gates
And hear the household jar within.”

We notice in these exquisite lines how the thoughtful poet has assigned doubt to the same low place to which all magicians persistently consign it. Doubt, they declare, renders all attempts invalid, chiefly on account of the weakening effect doubt has on the doubter. And here let us learn a much-needed lesson ere we attempt to succeed in any form of mental practise. Thoughts are transmissible; mental states are communicated from practitioner to patient and from teacher to pupil. How, then, can we reasonably expect to prove successful in a work we undertake half-heartedly?

The particular methods employed, in a majority of instances, are not nearly so important as the mental state of the one who employs them. Henry Wood and other able modern writers have reviewed the medical practice of the Middle Ages most instructively, and while we cannot approve of all the strange medicaments and weird practices advocated, to study a Mediæval pharmacopœia is to gain much insight into the enormous influence that mental states have always exerted over physical conditions. When we treat the subject of Healing in Bible Times impartially, we shall be able to trace exactly the same influences at work many centuries earlier in Asia Minor which reappeared and held the centre of the stage in Europe during periods nearer to the present day.

As the same law works universally, time and place may be accounted well nigh negligible factors whenever we are considering problems, the solution of which is only to be found by studying deeply our human constitution.