Lives of the Necromancers
Produced by Wendy Crockett, Carlo Traverso, Charles Franks
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team, from images generously made available by the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF/Gallica) at http://gallica.bnf.fr.
Frederick J Mason, 444, West Strand
1834
The main purpose of this book is to exhibit a fair delineation of the credulity of the human mind. Such an exhibition cannot fail to be productive of the most salutary lessons.
One view of the subject will teach us a useful pride in the abundance of our faculties. Without pride man is in reality of little value. It is pride that stimulates us to all our great undertakings. Without pride, and the secret persuasion of extraordinary talents, what man would take up the pen with a view to produce an important work, whether of imagination and poetry, or of profound science, or of acute and subtle reasoning and intellectual anatomy? It is pride in this sense that makes the great general and the consummate legislator, that animates us to tasks the most laborious, and causes us to shrink from no difficulty, and to be confounded and overwhelmed with no obstacle that can be interposed in our path.
Nothing can be more striking than the contrast between man and the inferior animals. The latter live only for the day, and see for the most part only what is immediately before them. But man lives in the past and the future. He reasons upon and improves by the past; he records the acts of a long series of generations: and he looks into future time, lays down plans which he shall be months and years in bringing to maturity, and contrives machines and delineates systems of education and government, which may gradually add to the accommodations of all, and raise the species generally into a nobler and more honourable character than our ancestors were capable of sustaining.
Man looks through nature, and is able to reduce its parts into a great whole. He classes the beings which are found in it, both animate and inanimate, delineates and describes them, investigates their properties, and records their capacities, their good and evil qualities, their dangers and their uses.
William Godwin
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LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS:
PREFACE.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS
AMBITIOUS NATURE OF MAN
HIS DESIRE TO PENETRATE INTO FUTURITY.
DIVINATION.
AUGURY.
CHIROMANCY.
PHYSIOGNOMY.
INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS.
CASTING OF LOTS.
ASTROLOGY.
ORACLES.
DELPHI.
THE DESIRE TO COMMAND AND CONTROL FUTURE EVENTS.
COMMERCE WITH THE INVISIBLE WORLD.
SORCERY AND ENCHANTMENT.
WITCHCRAFT.
COMPACTS WITH THE DEVIL.
IMPS.
TALISMANS AND AMULETS.
NECROMANCY.
ALCHEMY.
FAIRIES.
ROSICRUCIANS.
SYLPHS AND GNOMES, SALAMANDERS AND UNDINES.
EXAMPLES OF NECROMANCY AND WITCHCRAFT FROM THE BIBLE.
THE MAGI, OR WISE MEN OF THE EAST.
EGYPT.
STATUE OF MEMNON.
TEMPLE OF JUPITER AMMON: ITS ORACLES.
CHALDEA AND BABYLON.
ZOROASTER.
GREECE.
DEITIES OF GREECE.
DEMIGODS.
DAEDALUS.
THE ARGONAUTS.
MEDEA.
CIRCE.
ORPHEUS.
AMPHION.
TIRESIAS.
ABARIS.
PYTHAGORAS.
EPIMENIDES.
EMPEDOCLES.
ARISTEAS.
HERMOTIMUS.
THE MOTHER OF DEMARATUS, KING OF SPARTA.
ORACLES.
INVASION OF XERXES INTO GREECE.
DEMOCRITUS.
SOCRATES.
ROME.
VIRGIL.
POLYDORUS.
DIDO.
ROMULUS.
NUMA.
TULLUS HOSTILIUS.
ACCIUS NAVIUS.
SERVIUS TULLIUS.
THE SORCERESS OF VIRGIL.
CANIDIA.
ERICHTHO.
SERTORIUS.
CASTING OUT DEVILS.
SIMON MAGUS.
ELYMAS, THE SORCERER.
NERO.
VESPASIAN.
APOLLONIUS OF TYANA.
APULEIUS.
ALEXANDER THE PAPHLAGONIAN.
REVOLUTION PRODUCED IN THE HISTORY OF NECROMANCY AND WITCHCRAFT UPON THE ESTABLISHMENT OF CHRISTIANITY.
MAGICAL CONSULTATIONS RESPECTING THE LIFE OF THE EMPEROR.
HISTORY OF NECROMANCY IN THE EAST.
GENERAL SILENCE OF THE EAST RESPECTING INDIVIDUAL NECROMANCERS.
ROCAIL.
HAKEM, OTHERWISE MOCANNA.
ARABIAN NIGHTS' ENTERTAINMENTS.
PERSIAN TALES.
STORY OF A GOULE.
ARABIAN NIGHTS.
RESEMBLANCE OF THE TALES OF THE EAST AND OF EUROPE.
CAUSES OF HUMAN CREDULITY.
DARK AGES OF EUROPE
COMMUNICATION OF EUROPE AND THE SARACENS
GERBERT, POPE SILVESTER II.
BENEDICT THE NINTH.
GREGORY THE SEVENTH.
DUFF, KING OF SCOTLAND.
MACBETH.
VIRGIL.
ROBERT OF LINCOLN.
MICHAEL SCOT.
THE DEAN OF BADAJOZ.
MIRACLE OF THE TUB OF WATER.
INSTITUTION OF FRIARS.
ALBERTUS MAGNUS.
ROGER BACON.
THOMAS AQUINAS.
PETER OF APONO.
ENGLISH LAW OF HIGH TREASON.
ZIITO.
TRANSMUTATION OF METALS.
ARTEPHIUS.
RAYMOND LULLI.
ARNOLD OF VILLENEUVE.
ENGLISH LAWS RESPECTING TRANSMUTATION.
REVIVAL OF LETTERS.
JOAN OF ARC.
ELEANOR COBHAM, DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER.
RICHARD III.
SANGUINARY PROCEEDINGS AGAINST WITCHCRAFT.
SAVONAROLA.
TRITHEMIUS.
LUTHER.
CORNELIUS AGRIPPA.
FAUSTUS.
SABELLICUS.
PARACELSUS
CARDAN.
QUACKS, WHO IN COOL BLOOD UNDERTOOK TO OVERREACH MANKIND.
BENVENUTO CELLINI.
NOSTRADAMUS.
DOCTOR DEE.
EARL OF DERBY.
KING JAMES'S VOYAGE TO NORWAY.
JOHN FIAN.
KING JAMES'S DEMONOLOGY.
STATUTE, 1 JAMES I.
FORMAN AND OTHERS.
LATEST IDEAS OF JAMES ON THE SUBJECT.
LANCASHIRE WITCHES.
LADY DAVIES.
EDWARD FAIRFAX.
DOCTOR LAMB.
URBAIN GRANDIER.
ASTROLOGY.
WILLIAM LILLY.
MATTHEW HOPKINS.
CROMWEL.
DOROTHY MATELEY.
WITCHES HANGED BY SIR MATTHEW HALE.
WITCHCRAFT IN SWEDEN.
WITCHCRAFT IN NEW ENGLAND.
CONCLUSION.