Modern Magic

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The question of how much truth there may have been in this belief in witchcraft, held by so many nations, and persevered in during so many centuries, has never yet been fully an...

Witches' trials began in the earliest days of Christianity, for the Emperor Valens ordered, as we learn from Ammianus Marcellinus, all the wizards and enchanters to be held to a...

Black Magic, the Kishuph of the Hebrews, avows openly its purpose of forming a league with evil spirits in order to attain selfish ends, which are invariably fatal to others. An...

Among the media of our day, Home is naturally _facile princeps_. A Scotchman by birth, he claims that his mother already possessed the gift of Second Sight, and that in their ho...

In Mexico the preparation for acts of magic seems to have been downright intoxication; at least we learn from Acosta, in his _Hist. nat. y moral de los Indias_ (lv.), that the p...

What in these and similar cases is accepted as divine inspiration, is in secular history generally looked upon as mysterious, magic revelation; but the phenomena remain the same...

There are, however, certain facts which seem to prove that the mind does, at least, not altogether cease its activity while the body is asleep. How else could we explain the pow...

Well-authenticated cases of visions are recorded in unbroken succession from the times of antiquity to our own day, and leave no doubt on the mind that they are not only of comm...

The visions of that eminent man Swedenborg are too well known to require here more than a mere allusion. Beginning his intercourse with the supernatural world at the ripe age of...

Calmet, the well-known Benedictine Abbot of Senon, in Lorraine, who was one of the most renowned theological writers of the eighteenth century, says (i. 17): "Apparitions of gho...

That certain localities seem to be frequented by ghosts, that is, to be haunted, with special preference, must be ascribed to the contagious nature of such mental affections as...

A very peculiar and utterly inexplicable phenomenon belonging to this class of ghostly appearances is the complete removal of persons by an unseen power. The idea of such occurr...

Owen in his "Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World," reports fully a remarkable case here repeated only in outline. Robert Bruce, thirty years old, served as mate on board...

The parents of the well-known writer Schubert were exceptionally endowed with magic powers of this kind. The father once heard, as he thought in a dream, the voice of his aged m...

Report says that she represents a Countess Kunigunde of Orlamünde, who lived in the fourteenth century and killed her two children, for which crime she was executed by order of...

Another case of this kind is connected with a curious token of gratitude exhibited by the gratified victim. A president of the Parliament of Toulouse, returning from Paris towar...

Another class of phenomena of this kind relates to the great battles that have at times decided the fate of the world. Thus Pausanias already tells us ("Attica," 32), and so do...

Poor Lady Primrose, a daughter of the second Earl of Loudoun, had for years endured the saddest lot that can befall a noble woman: she had been bound by marriage to a husband wh...

Clairvoyance, as far as it implies the seeing of persons or the witnessing of events at a great distance, is counted among the most frequent gifts of early saints, and St. Augus...

The entirely unselfish character of second sight must not be overlooked, as far as it increases in a high degree the value of such phenomena and adds to their authenticity. In t...

Not unfrequently prophecies are apparently delivered by intermediate agents, angels, demons or peculiarly marked persons. It was no doubt an effect of the deep and continued exc...

Why water and metals should almost always go hand in hand in connection with this peculiar gift, is not quite clear; but the staff of Hermes, having probably the form of the div...

One of the most remarkable historical cases of apparent possession accompanied by magic phenomena, was that of Mirabeau's grandmother. Married when quite young to the old marqui...

Another period of excitement due to accounts of vampirism comprised the middle of last century, when all Europe was deeply agitated on the subject. The Emperor of Germany and ot...

Whatever may be thought of this connection between the meaning of the "hand" in biblical language, and the magnetism of our day, there can be no doubt as to the fact that the an...

From all these experiments we gather, once more, that men can, by a variety of means, which are called magnetism or mesmerism, influence others who are susceptible, till the lat...

Among somnambulists of this class Alexis is one of the best known, and has left us an account of many experiments in his _Explication du Sommeil Magnétique_. Alexis was once put...

While nightmares oppress us and make apparently all motion impossible, somnambulism, on the contrary, produces a peculiar facility of locomotion and an irresistible impulse to m...

Valentine Greatrakes, of Waterford, in Ireland, had dreamt, in 1662, that he possessed the gift to cure goîtres by simple imposition of hands, after the manner of the kings of E...

A curious feature in these phenomena is the intimate relation in which sacred and so-called demoniac influences seem to stand with one another. The saints are represented as tem...

In other cases, the author's original spelling and use of punctuation has been left intact. Internal inconsistencies which have been retained in this transcription as in the ori...