lutely supernatural, super-material, or not; from whence they act, and whether directly through powers, or indirectly upon the fancy or vital powers, is not to be explained, and as little to be denied as proved. We may as well conjecture a multitude of spiritual beings unconnected with material nature, as that the physical world consists of a multitude of things and powers: we may conjecture that the spiritual beings act, according to their nature, directly upon the mental and vital powers, upon peculiarly disposed persons, so that the impulse touches the tuned chord like a breath of air. The vital power touched in this manner transforms for itself the spiritual into the material, according to innate forms, and places this before itself in passive or active conditions. But we may also believe that the vital soul-power is self-illumining, and that the spiritual eye of the inner sense under (unknown) circumstances perceives polar perceptions, even in distance of time and space, reflected upon itself,- -as if felt at a distance-as if it came upon spiritual, supernatural powers, which it feels in its nature, and then possibly illuminates by its contemplation. According to Pordage the soul alone perceives external things through its outwardly innate tending power, or by a radiation from outward things into itself. In such a manner the most varied spiritual communications of different nations and individuals may be explained, and all the contradictions in the objective revelations may be solved, which in nations and men of different faith and imagination take place in respect to spiritual apparitions, where each one communicates with spirits after his own nature; for some people will see a human form in a cloud, while others will imagine it to resemble Juno. The Oriental seer contemplates the world in Brahma's light; the Moslem sees the houris in Mahomet's heaven; the rude Schaman hears in his ecstasy terrible spirits under the roof of his hut, and the witch of the middle ages even her communications with the devil: in short, science here only supplies conjectures, not certainties. But these conjectures at least make this in science a certainty, that spirits and supernatural appearances have no objective existence in fixed shapes, for they must, if such were the case, always appear in the same manner; there are, therefore, spiritual appearances without spirits.

If the conclusions already arrived at rest upon a firm foundation, and, as it appears to me, are indisputable, we may conclude as follows:

:

1. That there is an universal connection in nature, and a mutual reciprocity in sympathetical and anti-pathetical contrasts, but which cannot be perceived by the waking senses; so that there is, at all events, a something of which the senses do not give direct evidence.

2. That the world is not a piece of mechanism, which runs down by an objectless necessity, and again winds itself up blindly; and that the world is also not of a soulless

nature.

3. That nothing is known concerning a spiritual world. 4. That the living soul not only stands in sympathetic connection with the body, but also with the principles of nature, between which exist the invisible threads of attraction, limits of which no mathematics

define.

can

5. That a spiritual communion exists between man and man, and therefore also between man and superior beings, is not to be denied; for in all history such a communion is not only suspected, but dimly felt, and even spoken of in subjective assertion.

6. That all the propaganda of common-sense explanations will certainly strive in vain and will never succeed in the attempt to entirely eradicate, root and branch, the presentiments, sensations, and convictions of firmly-founded faith or superstition, or to bolt and bar so securely all castles, ruins, and cloisters, that ghosts and apparitions shall not still, as before, take up their abode there.

7. That also dogmatic belief will as little be able to exorcise ghosts, or banish evil spirits, which trouble the brain as visions, and lurk in the dark corners of the mind.

8. Lastly, that in German science nothing yet is certain or fixed respecting nature and spirit, the soul or body, or the possibility or probability of reciprocal influences:

"Dies diei eructat verbum, et nox nocti indicat scientiam" (Ps. xviii. 13.)

True magic lies in the most secret and inmost powers of the mind. Our spiritual nature is still, as it were, barred

within us. All spiritual wonders in the end become but wonders of our own minds.

In magnetism lies the key to unlock the future science of magic, to fertilize the growing germs in cultivated fields of knowledge, and reveal the wonders of the creative mind

Magnes, Magia, Imago!

FIRST DIVISION.

MAGIC AMONG THE ORIENTALS.

IN the East we find civilization in much the same state as it was at the commencement of the world's history,-that is to say, the earliest veracious records of these ancient nations describe their condition much as we find it at the present day. For many ages they have therefore been stationary; the progressive stages of creation, in which nature usually rises from imperfection to perfection, are not found in the history of eastern nations. It seems as if the vacillating life of vigorous youth had suddenly crystallized in unyielding regularity, giving forth the light of life in a changeless and uniform manner. The organization of eastern nations has remained for ages, like a mummy, without progression, and yet without positive decay. We still find in the East that solidity and exclusiveness-that enduring constitution of manners and customs-that calm immobility and separation from the surrounding world—that indolence and indifference towards without, which was attributed to them ages ago. In the East there is no creative spirit to break the inward light into various rays: and the characteristic features of the various nations are the same in all, silent, stationary, and stereotyped. Western Asia, however, has been an exception, where, from the earliest ages, the inhabiting nations were in movement, from unceasing contests of migratory tribes, as well as from a certain spiritual mobility in their civilization. The coasts of the Mediterranean have, however, always been the boundaries of the outer world, in ancient as well as in modern times; but the influence which it exercised on the western nations, and

the manner in which the history of the world has expanded, has had but little interest for the East.

It is of little consequence whether we regard the East as in its infancy or old age: it is in a second childhood, in which no active conscious mind is dominant, but rather the instinct of a dreamy existence. There is no spiritual progress; no reflection and speculation in science or nature, in religion or legislation; the religion of the mind and the inner life are the leading features of its existence. Cut off from the light of day and the mutual intercourse with active nations, the oriental is sunk in a lethargic sleep, and, as in somnambulism, either a dreaming or a crazy seer, or, at the most, an ecstatic prophet.

From the earliest ages the magic states have been described as such, and they are still the same. As the visions and revelations of the ancient Brahmins were, so are at the present time those of the Indian hermits and fakirs. Clear, startling, poetic pictures; striking predictions and prophecies; elevated thoughts, with an almost supernatural power of drawing others into the magic circle, and of holding them in a state of passive acquiescence; with frequent but uncertain visions and illusions, and spirits and apparitions of every kind;-all these are the most striking characteristics, associated at the same time with great irregularity and uncertainty of composition in word and deed.

Let us take a hasty glance at the original causes of these conditions before we become more intimately acquainted with them.

The primary and most powerful cause is the unfolding and consolidating of the religious feelings, which we have already mentioned when speaking of the distribution of nations, which in their separations established for themselves peculiar religious systems. In no instance was this so striking as among the Shemites, who, originally the especial objects of grace, were also the first instructors of the human race, and then continued to maintain an uninterrupted communication with the gods, whilst other races changed their religions as they would their garments. Although the religious sentiment was universally found among the Shemites, yet it remained generally among the Asiatic nations a mere dormant principle-a central fire without a