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[Transcriber's note: The spelling peculiarities of the original have been
retained in this etext.]



THAUMATURGIA,

OR

ELUCIDATIONS OF THE MARVELLOUS.

BY

AN OXONIAN.

1835







 "Bombastes kept the devil's bird,
  Shut in the pommel of his sword,
  And taught him all the cunning pranks,
  Of past and future mountebanks."
    _Hudibras_.




CONTENTS.


CHAPTER I.

Demonology--The Devil, a most unaccountable personage--Who is he?--His
predilection for old women--Traditions concerning evil spirits &c.


CHAPTER II.

Magic and Magical rites.

Jewish magi.


CHAPTER III.

On the several kinds of magic.

Augury, or divinations drawn from the flight and feeding of birds.

Aruspices, or divinations drawn from brute or human sacrifices.

Divisions of divination by the ancients--prodigies, etc.


CHAPTER IV.

History of Oracles--The principal oracles of antiquity.

The oracle of Jupiter Hammon. The oracle of Delphos, or Pythian Apollo.

Ceremonies practised on consulting oracles.

Oracles often equivocal and obscure.

Urim and Thummim.

Reputation of oracles, how lost.

Cessation of oracles.

Had demons any share in the oracles?

Of oracles, the artifices of priests of false divinities.


CHAPTER V.

The British Druids, or magi--Origin of fairies--Ancient
superstitions--Their skill in medicine, etc.

The British magi.


CHAPTER VI.

Aesculapian mysteries, etc.


CHAPTER VII.

Inferior deities attending mankind from their birth to their decease.


CHAPTER VIII.

Judicial astrology--Its chemical application to the prolongation of life
and health--Alchymical delusions.


CHAPTER IX

Alchymical and astrological chimera.

The Horoscope, a tale of the stars.

The Fated Parricide; an oriental tale of the stars.

Application of astrology to the prolongation of life, etc.

Advertisement.

Spring.                \
Summer.                |_ influences of,
Autumn.                |
the winter quarter.    /


CHAPTER X.

Oneirocritical presentiment, illustrating the cause, effects, principal
phenomena, and definition of dreams, etc.

Cause of Dreams.

Poetical illustrations of the effects of the imagination in dreams.

Principal phenomena in dreaming.

Definition of dreams.


CHAPTER XI.

On Incubation, or the art of healing by visionary divination.


CHAPTER XII.

On amulets, charms, talismans--Philters, their origin and imaginary
efficacy, etc.

Amulets used by the common people.

Eccentricities, caprices, and effects, of the imagination.

Doctrine of Effluvia--Miraculous cures by means of charms, amulets, etc.


CHAPTER XIII.

On talismans--some curious natural ones, etc.


CHAPTER XIV.

On the medicinal powers attributed to music by the ancients.


CHAPTER XV.

Presages, prodigies, presentiments, etc.


CHAPTER XVI.

Phenomena of meteors, optic delusions, spectra, etc.


CHAPTER XVII.

Elucidation of some ancient prodigies.

Magical pretensions of certain herbs, etc.


CHAPTER XVIII.

The practice of Obeah, or <DW64> witchcraft--charms--their knowledge of
vegetable poison--secret poisoning.


CHAPTER XIX.

On the origin and superstitious influence of rings.


CHAPTER XX.

Celestial influences--omens--climacterics--predominations.--Lucky and
unlucky days.--Empirics, etc.

Absurdities of Paracelsus, and Van Helmont.


CHAPTER XXI.

Modern empiricism.


CHAPTER XXII.

The Rosicrucians or Theosophists.

THAUMATURGIA,

OR

ELUCIDATIONS OF THE MARVELLOUS.




CHAPTER I.


DEMONOLOGY--THE DEVIL, A MOST UNACCOUNTABLE PERSONAGE--WHO IS HE?--HIS
PREDILECTION FOR OLD WOMEN--TRADITIONS CONCERNING EVIL SPIRITS, &C.

Children and old women have been accustomed to hear so many frightful
things of the cloven-footed potentate, and have formed such diabolical
ideas of his satanic majesty, exhibiting him in so many horrible and
monstrous shapes, that really it were enough to frighten Beelzebub
himself, were he by any accident to meet his prototype in the dark,
dressed up in the several figures in which imagination has embodied him.
And as regards men themselves, it might be presumed that the devil could
not by any means terrify them half so much, were they actually to meet
and converse with him face to face: so true it is that his satanic
majesty is not near so black as he is painted.

However useful the undertaking might prove, to give a true history of
this "tyrant of the air," this "God of the world," this "terror and
overseer of mankind," it is not our intention to become the devil's
biographer, notwithstanding the facility with which the materials might
be collected. Of the devil's origin, and the first rise of his family,
we have sufficient authority on record; and, as regards his dealings, he
has certainly always acted in the dark; though many of his doings both
moral, political, ecclesiastical, and empirical, have left such strong
impressions behind them, as to mark their importance in some
transactions, even at the present period of the christian world. These
discussions, however, we shall leave in the hands of their respective
champions, in order to take, as we proceed, a cursory view of some of
the _diableries_ with which mankind, in imitation of this great master,
has been infected, from the first ages of the world.

The Greeks, and after them the Romans, conferred the appellation of
Demon upon certain _genii_, or spirits, who made themselves visible to
men with the intention of either serving them as friends, or doing them
an injury as enemies. The followers of Plato distinguished between their
gods--or _Dei Majorum Gentium_; their demons, or those beings which were
not dissimilar in their general character to the good and bad angels of
Christian belief,--and their heroes. The Jews and the early christians
restricted the name of Demon to beings of a malignant nature, or to
devils properly so called; and it is to the early notions entertained by
this people, that the outlines of later systems of demonology are to be
traced.

It is a question, we believe, not yet set at rest by the learned in
these sort of matters, whether the word _devil_ be singular or plural,
that is to say, whether it be the name of a personage so called,
standing by himself, or a noun of multitude. If it be singular, and used
only personal as a proper name, it consequently implies one imperial
devil, monarch or king of the whole clan of hell, justly distinguished
by the term DEVIL, or as our northern neighbours call him "the muckle
horned deil," and poetically, after Burns "auld Clootie, Nick, or
Hornie," or, according to others, in a broader set form of speech, "the
devil in hell," that is, the "devil of a devil," or in scriptural
phraseology, the "great red dragon," the "Devil or Satan." But we shall
not cavil on this mighty potentate's name; much less dispute his
identity, notwithstanding the doubt that has been broached, whether the
said devil be a real or an imaginary personage, in the shape, form, and
with the faculties that have been so miraculously ascribed to him; for

  If it should so fall out, as who can tell,
  But there may be a God, a heav'n and hell?
  Mankind had best consider well,--for fear
  It be too late when their mistakes appear.

The devil has always, it would seem, been particularly partial to old
women; the most ugly and hideous of whom he has invariably selected to
do his bidding. Mother Shipton, for instance, our famous old English
witch, of whom so many funny stories are still told, is evidently very
much wronged in her picture, if she was not of the most terrible aspect
imaginable; and, if it be true, Merlin, the famous Welch fortune-teller,
was a most frightful figure. If we credit another story, he was begotten
by "_old nick_" himself. To return, however, to the devil's agents being
so infernally ugly, it need merely be remarked, that from time
immemorial, he has invariably preferred such _rational_ creatures as
most belied the "human form divine."

The sybils, of whom so many strange prophetic things are recorded, are
all, if the Italian poets are to be credited, represented as very old
women; and as if ugliness were the _ne plus ultra_ of beauty in old age,
they have given them all the hideousness of the devil himself. It will
be seen, despite of all that has been said to the disadvantage of the
devil, that he has very much improved in his management of worldly
affairs; so much so, that, instead of an administration of witches,
wizzards, magicians, diviners, astrologers, quack doctors, pettifogging
lawyers, and boroughmongers, he has selected some of the wisest men as
well as greatest fools of the day to carry his plans into effect. His
satanic majesty seems also to have considerably improved in his taste;
owing, no doubt, to the present improving state of society, and the
universal diffusion of useful knowledge. Indeed, we no longer hear of
cloven-footed devils, only in a metaphorical sense--fire and brimstone
are extinct or nearly so; the embers of hell and eternal damnation are
chiefly kept alive and blown up by ultras among the sectaries who are
invariably the promoters of religious fanaticism. Beauty, wit, address,
with the less shackled in mind, have superseded all that was frightful,
and terrible, odious, ugly, and deformed. This subject is poetically and
more beautifully illustrated in the following demonological stanzas,
which are so appropriate to the occasion, that we cannot resist quoting
them as a further prelude to our subjects:

  When the devil for weighty despatches
    Wanted messengers cunning and bold,
  He pass'd by the beautiful faces
    And picked out the ugly and old.

  Of these he made warlocks and witches
    To run of his errands by night,
  Till the over-wrought hag-ridden wretches
    Were as fit as the devil to fright.

  But whoever has been his adviser,
    As his kingdom increases in growth,
  He now takes his measures much wiser,
    And trafics with beauty and youth.

  Disguis'd in the wanton and witty,
    He haunts both the church and the court;
  And sometimes he visits the city,
    Where all the best christians resort.

  Thus dress'd up in full masquerade,
    He the bolder can range up and