b1629371X_1358_008
NATURAL MAGIC.
BY SeHN NEYIL MA5KBLYNB.
VARr t.—TI{B DARK AND MBDISvAL AGfls.
QF all magicians undoubtedly Nature is the greatest. It is from the boundless resources of “natural magic” that the conjuror and illusionist obtains the best secrets of his art. Seeming miracles, indeed, produced by purely natural means, can be traced throughout the history of the ancient world, where science was the mighty lever by which clever, unscrupulous, and profligate rulers raised their secret rites above the comprehension ef the masses, and bound them in the irresistible thraldom of superstition.
Modern science has probed to the quick the marvels by which, in times of popular ignorance, priests held in awe the pagan world. The same wonders, reproduced in all the beauty of nature’s magical arts, are now presented for tho instruction and amusement of our favoured generation. Thus the most prolific sources of illusion at our command still depend upon those same laws which, though only then available to a limited degree, gave despotic sway to the wonder-working priesthood.
The precise methods of these early wonder-workers is not always known, but in the records of their deceptions we have abundant and unmistakable signs of subtle and ingenious effects produced by optical illusion. Specula or mirrors were used,— plane, polygonal, and concave mirrors of highly- polished silver or steel, or a composition of copper and tin, such as is still in use for reflectors. Indeed, it is doubtful whether the ancients may not have
understood the manufacture of glass, for a passage in Pliny indicates that mirrors of tbat material were made at Sidon.
The celebrated Roman grammarian, Aulus Gellius, makes mention of specula possessing the curious property of reflecting no image of objects when placed in certain places, but recovering their power upon the position being changed; a phenomenon to be accounted for, as Sir David Brewster has pointed out, by the loss of reflecting power a silver mirror may instantly experience in a damp atmosphere, and as quickly recover when transferred to drier air.
The ancients must also have possessed considerable knowledge of acoustics, mechanics, and other sciences. When nature’s storehouse was ransacked for engines to mislead, no marvel if ignorant minds were impressed with a belief in the visitation of the powers of the air and of darkness. The mysterious effect was heightened by pretended incantations, with accompaniment of arti&cial thunder. The poor dupes believed that the oracles spoke in a voice direct from the gods. No marvel, truly, if the people in these early days bowed down in abject terror, and submitted to the yoke of their imperious masters.
Egypt, notwithstanding its early civiisation, had a population sufficiently benighted to believe in the reality of the magician’s power. The priesthood, mighty in words and deeds, were drawn from the ranks of princes or their connections, who, acquainted with certain not generallyknown properties and affinities of bodies, held their subjects in the bondage of a superstitious awe—chains forged for them; as it seemed, by the gods themselves.
A stern noviciate had to be passed through crc the neophyte was ready to take his place in the temples of the gods. By solemn fasts, by marvellous draughts—such as the waters of Lethe and the fountain Mne’mosyne iu after times afforded: one to render the past a blank, the other to induce ecstatic visions, andboth, doubtless, drugged—was the novice prepared. After going through so much to obtain, and being tied down by the most fearful vows to keep, and the most awful penalties in case they divulged, the secrets, no wonder that silence was maintained, or if some of the scientific knowledge they possessed should have been lost to the world.
The quick-witted Greeks improved upon the teachings derived from Chaldea and Egypt, and in the Eleusinian and other mysteries brought the arts of the priesthood to a well organised systpm.
Notwithstanding this, modern investigation and learning have stripped the pagan rites of the supernatural cloak, and these priests stand before mankind
as trickstcrs, clever and unscrupulous jugglers.
Ju the l-vz of their vaulted chaser—nrkness
being almost as cssontial to these ancient media as to most modern ones—when from the consecrated stone, as Pliny says, “the gods arose” in the blue wreaths of the burning incense, or when a phantasmagorial procession of the heathen deities passed athwart clouds of dust or smoke, and when lovely forms and beauteous landscapes suddenly gave place to outer darkness, and visions of horror from the nether world seemed to flit madly round, as dazzling light flashed momentarily and flickered before the eyes of the bewildered devotee, the “phenomena” were due to the priestly students of nature, who- must have used some arrangement of concave mirrors and lenses by which images of solid bodies and pictures could be thrown upon such cloud-curtains. When the vivid lights and the enchanting scenery faded to black night—in which, by the lightning’s flash, were presented forms to make the stoutest tremble—and the music of flutes, of trumpets, and of cymbals was drowned in thunder artificially produced and rumbling in solemn tones a-down the labyrinthine passages of the sacred caverns, and the earth would seem to tremble and yawn, the effect was merely an artifice of the priests furtber to impress the minds of their victims. A slight knowledge of mechanics would enable them to raise and depress the flooring of the caves, and that the priests adopted devices to tlus end has been proved by an examination of the Temple of Ceres, at Eleusis, where the floor was found to be much below the level of the portico. Afterwards grooves were discovered in the walls in which a false wooden floor might move up and down, and there were marble blocks at certain intervals, each containing holes at various heights for the wedges that fixed the flooring in its place. When Apollonius of Tyana, “the true friend of the gods,” if not always the truthful one, visited India, and the sages there struck the ground in the temples of the gods with their magic wands, he who had been initiated at Athens into the Eleusiniau mysteries well knew that signal to the stalwart arms below would set the floor upon which he stood heaving like the deck of a ship. When the Temple of Serapis, at Alexandria, was destroyed by order of Theodosius, it was found full of secret passages, and of machinery to aid in the impostures of the priests; and when those wily Egyptian retailers of the supernatural vaunted that their lamps would burn “for ever”— “and a day after,” as the Hibernians have it—they omitted one important fact, that from these were laid secret pipes leading to bituminous wells, and• the lamps having asbestos wicks, which are incombustible, but would raise the oil, they might almost be said to be in a fair way to burn eternally.
We are told by lillian that upon Mount Erycus, in Sicily, in the open air, an inextinguishable flame buraed on the altar of Venus; and Apellonius saw a cavern near Paraca, in India, which emitted a sacred flame4 These were possibly like the fires of Pietramala, in Tuscany, which Sir Humphrey Davy attributed to an escape of carbureted hydrogen gas; and later, American gentlemen who were wont to say they had “ struck ile” could tell similar stories of the earth vomiting forth flacues.
The frantic delirium of the Delphic Phythia, in which the revelations of the gods came in raving and mysterious words, moulded to their own equivocal use by the bad priests, was no doubt induced by inhaling some sort of vapour issuing from beneath the tripod of th god Perhaps the most lucrative, and certainly not the least imposing (in a double sense), of the ancient mummery, was this voice of the gods by oracle. For some of tbese deceptions acoustics must have been studied by the priesthood, and the answer to an appeal from the suppliants came, conveyed through a tube, from the “rogue and vagabond” of old times to the lips of the figure. This is supposed to have been the ease with the speaking head of Orpheus, in the island of Lesbos; and when the impostor Alexander of Abonotica, in Paphlagonia, proclaimed the serpent which twined round his neck to be Alseulapius, the god of medicine, the words which issued from the mask of a human face covering the reptile’s head were, Lucian expressly states, transmitted through the gullet of a crane.
In ether oracles less scientific, if not simpler, methods obtained, and the voices that issued from the oaks of Dedono, in the sacred grove arennd the Temple ef Jupiter, mny have owed something to ventriloquism or to the priests who could have lain concealed within their wide-spreading branches.
Curious investigation has discovered that many of the fignres of the oracles were hollow, and in their interiors the soothsayers would hide, and thence deliver the mandates of the gods. When the sphinx, raised by the love-lern Icing in memory of Rhedepe of Corinth, gave, at the rising of the sun, prophetic answers, “the juggling fiends,” who kept the word of promise to the ear only, were the priests, snugly ensconced within the hoad of the figure! Dr. J. Johnson, when exploring the excavations at Pompeii, found the identical spots where the priests of the Temple of Isis, an infamous crew, concealed themselves; and, he adds, “There were found the bones of the victims sacrificed, and in the refectory of the abstemious priests were discovered the remains of ham, fowls, eggs, fish, and bottles of wine. These jelly friars were carousing most merrily, and, no doubt, laughing heartily at the credulity of mankind, when Vesuvius poured out a libation en their heads, which put an end to their mirth.”
Tho ravishing voices of the golden virgins in the Temple of Delphi were possibly simulated by an organ, which seems te have been known to the ancients, and could have been made to imitate such sounds. The music said to have proceeded from certain statues at sunrise and sunset was probably due in some oases to n natural cause. Baron Humbeldt mentions subterranean sounds, as of an organ, that were to be heard upon the granite rooks ef the Oronoke, in the wilds ef South America, and called by the missionaries lazes do musics. He attributed the phenomenon to the difference of temperature between the external atmosphere and that confined in the deep and narrow crevices of the rocks. The air within these fissures increased in heat during the day as the sun’s rays beat fiercely upon the face of the reeks, and as it reached its maximum the escaping current of air produced the musical sounds, whioh might gain in harmony from forcing n passage through the elastic films and spangles of mica partly eevering the crevices, in which case the rocks would become a gigantic IEelian harp. May net the pagan priests have discovered some such rooks, and carved their veoal statues out of them. M. Dussaulx declares
ing at some crevice, produced the sounds ef which the priests gave their own interpretation.” But the sweet and harmonious melody emitted by this majestio colossus as a salutation to the morn when the rays of the sun rose to the lips of the eraole, and the low and melancholy tones in which it sang at sunset, may have arisen from a totally different oause. Sir Gardiner Wilkinson, examining the inscriptions out upon the pedestal of the figure, found mae oemparing the voice of the oracle to the seund ef the striking of brass. He ascended to the lap of the statue, and struck the sonorous block with a hammer, when it responded with a sharp metallic ring, like the breaking of a harp string.
Verily the whole superstructure of the “religion” of these servants of the occult was built upon natural magic and lower triokery. They even carried their juggling arts into the oentests of their gods, and rival priests played at “diamond out diamond” with each ether. Eusebius inferms us that the Chaldeans, asserting that their gods wore more powerful than all ethers, caused such ef the latter as fell into their hands to be destroyed by fire. A priest ef Canopus, however, ultimately established the superiority of the Egyptian deities by oonstruoting an idol ef porous earth. The artful magician filled up the cracks and crannies, and rendered them imperceptible with wax; then, running water into the capacious interior of the figure, his god was ready for the fire test. He thereupon challenged the Chaldeans, who prepared their altar and set the statue upon it, when, the wax melting, the water rushed forth and extinguished the fire. Thus were the gods of the Chaldeans vanquished!
As a knowledge of the erewhile mysterious laws and forces of nature dawned upon mankind and let in the light of truth uen the dark doings of the heathen magicians, a new and happier era for humanity oemmenoed; but as light itself takes time to travel, so the first glimmerings of science struggled fitfully with a painful ignorance beget ef past beliefs, and long ages had to pass ere the book of nature was thrown open so that every man might read therefrom its wonders. Therefore natural magic, applied to the mystification and deception of mankind, was net confined to early ages of the world. The mediseval magicians were also adepts iu the production of illusions, though their power was limited, in comparison to their earlier prototypes, in consequence ef the increased knowledge of the people. Notwithstanding the severe laws enacted in the middle ages against sorcery and magic, they still flourished; and even men of honest research encouraged mystery, as when Roger Bacon said it was well to hide the discoveries of the wise from a multitude unworthy to possess them.
In mediwval times, for the awe-inspiring purposes of the magician, optical deceptions were still, as ever, well to the front. The Greek emperor Basil saw, through the agency of Theodore Santabaren, the vision of his deceased son approach full of life, and in the bright glory of his youth, and then fade before his eager and fascinated gaze. He merely viewed a clever illusion, a piece of trickery in which a picture of the boy had been employed. This, brought nearer to a oonoave mirror, and so increasing in size, had appeared to advance, as if to embrace the monarch, while its sudden withdrawal made the
this to have been the origin of the musical fame image grew smaller until it vanished altogether. achieved by the statue ef Memnen at Thebes. He Cornelius Agrippa’s magic mirror, wherein Surrey says, “The statue being hollow, the heat ef the sun beheld the weeping and beloved Geraldine, and the heated the air which it contained, and this air, issu- vision of the beauteous Helen of Trey, said to have been conjured up by Faust before the eyes of the ‘4Vittenberg collegians, are both of the same order of deception.
The celebrated description by the Florentine artist, Benvenuto Cellini, of the demons evoked by the power of a Sicilian priest at Rome—whither Cellini had repaired to woo the necromantic arts when his earthly mistress had proved faithless to him—tells how, accompanied by a friend, one Vincenzio Romoli, he went to the Coliseum, where the priestly professor of the black art proceeded “to draw circles upon the ground with the most impressive ceremonies imaginable; he likewise brought hither assafcetida, several precious perfumes, and fire, with some composition also which diffused noisome odours. As soon as he was in readiness he made an opening to the circle, and, having taken us by the hand, ordered the other necromancer, his partner, to throw the perfumes into the fire at the proper time, entrusting the care of the fire and perfumes to the rest; and thus he began his incantations. This ceremony lasted above an hour and a half, when there. appeared several legions of devils, insomuch that the amphitheatre was quite filled with them.” However, though the priest could summon such visions, he was quite unable to present the one for which the artist panted, the be- ‘witching face of the fair tormentor who had “jilted” him; and after two or three attempts, extending over a month (and during which time, we may be sure, the magician made efforts to secure a portrait of Cellini’s inamorata), the se’ances were abandoned, the defeated priest declaring that “love affairs were mere follies, from which no good could be expected.”
This, which gives us a fair insight into the illuston of the sixteenth century, is only a reproduction of the magic of the Egyptian wonder-workers, and accomplished by similar means, viz., the employment of mirrors and lenses, and does not require the use of a magic-lantern (invented by Kircher at a much later date), as suggested by Roscoe.
We can also trace the use of concave mirrors in Chaucer’s description of the conjurors of his day, who would “bring in the similitude of a grim lion, or make flowers spring up in a meadow; sometimes theycause a vine to flourish, bearing white and red grapes; or show a castle built with stone; and when they please they cause the whole to disappear.” All this leading up to Kircher’s invention.
Superstition, unfortunately, is not for an ago, but for all time, and though the ghost-raisers and the readers of man’s horoscope are no longer rulers of their kind, but the “ fools of fortune “— sunk to the level of a Vagrancy Act, and only acceptable to the illiterate and the vulgar—the glamour of the supernatural is still felt, and it remains—an ever-decreasing quantity, let us hope !—to be taken into any review of the human mind. Therefore, we shall not go far wrong in following in the wake of Sir David Brewster, who, sworn foe to humbug and deceit, strove to show how many wonders there are in nature still beyond the ken of ordinary mortals, and how careful we should be before concluding that “spiritual manifestations “ are due to agencies other than of this world.
In the next paper I propose to treat of the modus operandi in some modern optical illusions.