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Modern Magic

Modern Magic: With the death of Agrippa in 1535 the old school of magicians may be said to have ended. But that is not to say that the traditions of magic were not handed on to others who were equally capable of preserving them. We must carefully discriminate at this juncture between those practitioners of magic whose minds were illuminated by a high mystical ideal, and persons of doubtful occult position, like the Comte de Saint-Germain and others. At the beginning of the seventeenth century we find many great alchemists in practice, who were also devoted to the researches of transcendental magic, which they care­fully and successfully concealed under the veil of hermetic experiment. These were Michael Meyer, Campe, Robert Flood, Cosmopolite, D’Espagnet, Samuel Norton, Baron de Beausoleil, and Van Helmont; another illustrious name is also that of Philalethes. The eighteenth century was rich in occult personalities, as for example the alchemist Lascaris Martines de Pasqually, and Louis de Saint-Martin who founded the Martinist school, which still exists under the grand mastership of Papus. After this magic merges for the moment into mesmerism, and many of the secret magical societies which abounded in Europe about this period practiced animal magnetism as well as astrology, Kabalism and ceremonial magic. Indeed mesmerism powerfully influenced mystic life in the time of its chief protagonist, and the mesmerists of the first era are in direct line with the Martinist and the mystical magicians of the late eighteenth century. Indeed mysticism and magnetism are one and the same thing, in the persons of some of these occultists (See Secret Tradition) the most celebrated of which were Cazotte, Ganneau, Comte, Wronski, Du Potet, Hennequin, Comte dOurches, and Baron de Guldenstubbé, and last of the initiates known to us, Eliphas Levi (all of which see).

That Black Magic and sorcery are still practiced is a well-known fact, which requires no amplification in this place: but what of that higher magic which has, at least in modern times, attracted so many gifted minds? We cannot say that the true line of magical adepts ended with Levi, as at no time in the world’s history are these known to the vulgar; but we may be certain that the great art is practiced in secret as sedulously as ever in the past, and that men of temperament as exalted as in the’ case of the magicians of older days still privately pursue that art, which, like its sister religion, is none the less celestial because it has been evolved from lowly origins in the mind of man, whose spirit with the match of time reflects ever more strongly the light of heaven, as the sea at first dimly reddened by the dawn, at length mirrors the whole splendor of day.

History—The earliest traces of magical practice are found in the European caves of the middle Paleolithic Age. These belong to the last interglacial period of the Pleistocene period, which has been named the Aurignacian, after the cave-dwellers of Aurignac, whose skeletons, artifacts and drawings link them with the Bushmen of South Africa. In the cave of Gargas, near Bagnéres de Lanchon, occur, in addition to spirited and realistic drawings of animals, numer­ous imprints of human hands in various stages of mutilation. Some hands had been first smeared with a sticky substance and then pressed on the rock; others had been held in position to be dusted round with red ochre, or black pig­ment. Most of the imprinted hands have mutilated fingers; in some cases the first and second joints of one or more fingers are wanting; in others the stumps only of all fingers remain. A close study of the hand imprints makes it evident that they are not to be regarded as those of lepers. There can be little doubt that the joints were removed for a specific purpose, and on this point there is general agreement among anthropologists. A clue to the mystery is obtained by the magical custom among the Bushmen of similarly removing finger joints. Mr. G. W. Stow in his The Native Races of South Africa makes refer­ence to this strange form of sacrifice. He once came into contact with a number of Bushmen who “had all lost the first joint of the little finger” which had been removed with a “ stone knife” with purpose to ensure a safe journey to the spirit world. Another writer tells of an old Bushman woman, whose little fingers of both hands had been mutilated, three joints in all having been removed. She explained that each joint had been sacrificed as a daughter died to express her sorrow. No doubt, however, there was a deeper meaning in the custom than she cared to confess. F. Boas in his Report on the N. W. Tribes of Canada gives evidence of the custom among these peoples. When frequent deaths resulted from disease, the Canadian Indians were wont to sacrifice the joints of their little fingers so as, they explained, “to cut off the deaths.” Among the Indian Madigas (Telugu Pariahs) the evil eye is averted by sacrificers who dip their hands in the blood of goats or sheep and impress them on either side of a house door. This custom is not unknown even to Brahmans. Impressions of hands are also occasionally seen on the walls of Indian Mohammedan mosques. As among the N.W. Canadian tribes, the hand ceremony is most frequently practiced in India when epidemics make a heavy toll of lives. The Bushmen also remove finger joints when stricken with sickness. In Australia, where during initia­tion ceremonies the young men have teeth knocked out and bodies scarred, the women of some tribes mutilate the little fingers of daughters with purpose to influence their future careers. Apparently the finger chopping customs of Paleolithic times had a magical significance. On some of the paintings in the Aurignacian caves appear symbols, which suggest the slaying with spears and cutting up of animals. Enigmatical signs are another feature. Of special interest are the figures of animal-headed demons, some with hands upraised in the Egyptian attitude of adoration, and others apparently dancing like the animal-headed dancing gods of the Bushmen. In the Maioonlas Paleolithic cave there are semi-human faces of angry demons with staring eyes and monstrous noses. In the Spanish Cave at Cogul several figures of women wearing half-length skirts and shoulder shawls, are represented dancing round a nude male. So closely do these females resemble such as usually appear in Bushmen paintings that they might well, but for their location, be credited to this interesting people. Religious dances among the Bushman tribes are associated with marriage, birth and burial ceremonies they are also performed to exorcise demons in cases of sickness. “ Dances are to us what prayers are to you,” an elderly Bushman once informed a European. Whether the cave drawings and wood, bone and ivory carryings of the Magdalenian, or late Paleolithic period at the close of the last ice epoch, are of magical significance is a problem on which there is no general agreement. It is significant to find, however, that several carved ornaments bearing animal figures or enigmatical signs are perforated as if worn as charms. On a piece of horn found at Lorthet, Hautes Pyrhnhes, are beautiful incised drawings of reindeer and salmon, above which appear mystical symbols. An ape-like demon carved on bone was found at Mas d’Azil: on a reindeer horn from Laugerie Basse a prostrate man with a tail is creeping up on all fours towards a grazing bison. These are some of the instances which lend color to the view that late Paleolithic art had its origin in magical beliefs and practices that hunters carved on the handles of weapons and, implements, or scratched on cave walls, the images of the animals they desired to capture sometimes with the secured co-opera­tion of demons, and sometimes with the aid of magical spells.

Coming to historic times we know that the ancient Egyptians possessed a highly developed magical system, as did the Babylonians, and other pristine civilizations. Indeed from these the medieval European system of magic was finally evolved. Greece and Rome (both of which see) also possessed distinct national systems, which in some measure were branches of their religions; and thus like the Egyptian and Babylonian were preserves of the priesthood.

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