SECOND DIVISION.

MAGIC AMONG THE EGYPTIANS.

We now come to that remarkable land and people which are so important to our subject, that we must linger somewhat longer with them, in order not only to regard the ancient temples and Egyptian pyramids, but earnestly to investigate the peculiarities of the customs and belief of this ancient people, that we may see wherein lies the reason of calling Egypt, at one time, the land of darkness, at another the parent country of the sciences. It appears that magnetism has provided us with a clue by which we are tolerably able to decide with some certainty wherein consisted a portion of their secrets. We believe, namely, that the Egyptian priesthood was well acquainted with the phenomena of magnetism, and also the methods of its production, and its means of application to various diseases; and that, for this aim, they concealed the greater portion of their religious customs from the eyes of the uninitiated. We find in Egypt, more than in any other country, that Physic is connected with religion and the priesthood; and, moreover, in such a manner, that we have grounds for believing that the practical use of medicine was more attended to by the priests than the observances of religion; for we find that the first hospitals in Egypt were in the temples, and that they made the sick persons themselves the means of revealing the wishes of the gods. Among others, Diodorus writes (lib. i.) :

:

"The Egyptians declare that Isis has rendered them great services in the healing science, through curative methods.

which she revealed to them; that now, having become immortal, she takes especial pleasure in the religious services of men, and occupies herself particularly with their health; and that she assists them in dreams, revealing thereby her benevolence. This is proved, not by fable, as among the Greeks, but by authentic facts. In reality, all nations of the earth bear witness to the power of this goddess in regard to the cure of diseases by her influence. In dreams she reveals, to those who are suffering, the most proper remedies for their sickness, and by following exactly her orders, persons have recovered, contrary to the expectation of the world, who have been given up by all the physicians."

Strabo says the same of the Temple of Serapis (Lib. xvii.), and Galen of a Temple of Memphis, called Hephæstium (Lib. i. de med. sect. genes. c. i.)

Of no one nation of antiquity do we possess so much knowledge concerning the treatment of disease in the Temples, as of Egypt, where the priests knew how to awaken that inward voice in man, with which he usually is not himself acquainted, and which was regarded as a direct gift of the gods, where this voice was so universally used for the cure of diseases, and for other purposes of life, but where at the same time the process was veiled from the eyes of the ignorant with the wise intention of preserving it from profane and evil use. In this we find the idea of the Oracles, upon which we may say a little before proceeding to observe the usages and customs of the Egyptian priesthood. Lastly, we shall also learn something of their theory.

Let us here regard the facts from a biblical point of view; from the circumstance that it will also explain the rise of the oracles, and that this point of view is at least worthy of examination for its historical value.

Man,

According to this, man, created after the image of God, led originally a paradisiacal life; at peace with himself, he lived in harmony with the whole of nature, and in perfect clairvoyance; the inward sense, his deep mental life, being dominant over the outward world of the senses. however, lost this inward perception of God and nature, seduced by the treacherous serpent of this evil and deceitful enemy, who excited his senses, and by sinful passions obscured his inner eye, and withdrew from it the celestial

peace of the golden age. Adam was the first to sin, and the last inhabitant of that Garden of Eden, the key of which was taken from him for his transgressions, and which he afterwards sought for in vain, in misery of heart and the sweat of his brow.

As long as man lived harmoniously with nature, in unity, and without sin; as long as nature in all her shapes was revealed to his inner senses, so long were there no such things to him as time and space, the past and the future were to him as the present, and distance was unknown to him. When, however, he sinned by disregarding God's laws, and tasted of the tree of outward knowledge, he became material; the bond of harmony was broken, and man awoke as if from a long, deep sleep, of which he now only retained dim shadowings of a past happiness. The Mosaic history of creation only points obscurely to the traces of these dreams, and man has, in fact, no true records of his original communion with God: "For no one, saith the Lord, can see me and live."

As the inward voice now spoke but seldom, and in obscure words, man was thrown upon his own resources: before him he only saw the thorny path to endless labour; naked, he was obliged to defend his body from noxious influences, and inwardly to stay his hunger by the bread of the earth, instead of as before satisfying his soul by the living word. His unvarying health, his perfect clairvoyance, were lost, and instead, disease and misery in their innumerable forms appeared; and when no light illuminated his desecrated sanctuary, man could regain his former state in no other way than by a willing renunciation of his outward sensualism, and by a true repentance of his sins. A faint ray of that innate light, however, occasionally struggles through diseased or dying nature, like a phosphoric radiance issuing from decaying wood.

According to the belief of rationalists, nature alone becomes conscious in man: to that point she strives in her works towards the perfection of her own being; it is alone in man that nature knows herself; the true end of man alone consists in self-contemplation, and of nature in himself, in which he, as a drop of water in the ocean, loses his individuality. This species of philosophy explains

all things with ease; it regards everything that is related of magic and oracles as the efflorescence of natural instinct; as the production of a wonder-loving imagination, or, as is most often the case, as lies and deceit. Paradise, the fall, and its consequences, the insight into futurity, the wonderful effects through the will,—are all regarded as fabulous. How much more worthy of respect, how much more accordant with history and experience, is that other biblico-mystical view of the being and working of the spirit! How far does it not go back into the first ages! How little it requires these artificial bridges to traverse in the quickest manner many puzzling questions! and with how many farfetched theories does it fill up those chasms which vanish before an earnest attention into air!

The origin and destiny of man is, according to the mystical and true view, divine, placed above earthly nature; and therefore the spiritual being is far more profound than rationalism can fathom with its logical acuteness. Let us pause a moment at this attractive mysticism. We shall find much that is beautiful and instructive which as an introduction to this section.

may serve

With the fall of man the whole of nature was disunited, and became antagonistic with itself and the elements; its whole life and activity became strife and sickness, an eternal creation and decay. It is certainly said that the ancient Egyptians and Indians possessed a higher degree of knowledge; that the regular and secret practice of medicine in the temples was but the early development of the mind, which had not been lost; that its truths have been transmitted by tradition throughout the world, and by this means the Egyptian knowledge had been spread over Greece and other countries; that nothing is known of a perfect early state, and that according to all ascertained natural developments such could not have been the case. To this the mystic replies, that ancient wisdom of the Egyptians and Indians is not a creation of history, a gradual development, as in natural objects, for man is not a production of nature, he is an immediate creation and image of God, which resembles Him, and is perfect in soul and body. That ancient natural wisdom of early nations was but fragmentary, for the original perfection had been lost before recorded times. Those sealed temples were illuminated by

but a faint ray of that originally pure spirit,-a small and confused consolation to fallen man; here a few rare blossoms of prophecy appeared occasionally on the barren stem. Are we to believe that there was no health before disease, -that the Creator had placed in nature, such a helpless creature as, given over to all the elements, must certainly have perished? Could he have gained these supernatural powers of the mind, which no other being in nature possesses, by his own endeavours? Let us see what Schubert says upon this subject: his words are worthy of great attention.

"An old tradition (a prophecy of the Voluspa) appears to announce that nature first became conscious through the living word, through the soul of man. The word, however, appears as a higher revelation. We know that among the Persians a creative spirit and a power over the nature and being of things is ascribed to the living word. Language, like the prophecies of the poet and seer, was created by higher inspiration. To the speaker of the living word the future and past were revealed, because the eternal spirit, in which the future as well as the past is contained, spoke in him. In the early ages of the world, speech was an immediate result of inspiration; and certainly the theory that social wants had created it by degrees from various simple sounds could only be of modern date. This view of the early ages, which derives language from inspiration, can only be appreciated through the most ancient natural philosophy. According to this, all beings exist in and by the high influence which is common to them all. In those moments when the existence of things is most developed it is the spirit of this high influence which is revealed in them. This is the flame in light, the spirit in language, love in marriage. This belief in the one common spirit of all things is perceptible in the religious doctrines of the Persians and Indians; perhaps even the Egyptians. By these theories it was plain through what means man became acquainted with the secrets of nature, futurity and the past, by inspirations and prophecy. That higher, universally common spirit, in which the laws of the change of time, the cause of everything future as well as present, becomes the connecting medium, through which the souls of those who are separated by time and space approach each