Cagliostro, though a charlatan, was possessed of this secret, and it was his great success in it that chiefly sustained his reputation; the spectators, convinced he could make children see distant places and persons in glass, were persuaded he could do other things, which appeared to them no more mysterious. Dr. Dee was perfectly honest with regard to his mirror, in which he could see by concentrating his mind on it; but, as he could not remember what he saw, he employed Kelly to see for him, while he himself wrote down the revelations: and Kelly was a rogue, and deceived and ruined him.
A friend of Pfeffel’s knew a boy, apprenticed to an apothecary at Schoppenweyer, who, having been observed to amuse himself by looking into vials filled with water, was asked what he saw; when it was discovered that he possessed this faculty of seeing in glass, which was afterward very frequently exhibited for the satisfaction of the curious. Pfeffel also mentions another boy who had this faculty, and who went about the country with a small mirror, answering questions, recovering stolen goods, &c. He said that he one day fell in with some gipsies, one of whom was sitting apart and staring into this glass. The boy, from curiosity, looked over his shoulder and exclaimed that he saw “a fine man who was moving about;” whereupon the gipsy, having interrogated him, gave him the glass; “for,” said he, “I have been staring in it long enough, and can see nothing but my own face.”
It is almost unnecessary to observe that the sacred books of the Jews and of the Indians testify to their acquaintance with this mode of divination, as well as many others.
Many persons will have heard or read an account of Mr. Canning and Mr. Huskisson having seen, while in Paris, the visionary representation of their own deaths in water, as exhibited to them by a Russian or Polish lady there: as I do not, however, know what authority there is for this story, I will not insist on it here. But St. Simon relates a very curious circumstance of this nature, which occurred at Paris, and was related to him by the duke of Orleans, afterward regent. The latter said that he had sent on the preceding evening for a man, then in Paris, who pretended to exhibit whatever was desired in a glass of water. He came, and a child of seven years old, belonging to the house, being called up, they bade her tell what she saw doing in certain places. She did; and as they sent to these places and found her report correct, they bade her next describe under what circumstances the king would die, without, however, asking when the death would take place.
The child knew none of the court, and had never been at Versailles; yet she described everything exactly—the room, bed, furniture, and the king himself, Madame de Maintenon, Fagon, the physician, the princes and princesses—everybody, in short, including a child, wearing an order, in the arms of a lady whom she recognised as having seen; this was Madame de Ventadour.
It was remarkable that she omitted the dukes de Bourgogne and Berry, and Monseigneur, and also the duchess de Bourgogne. Orleans insisted they must be there, describing them; but she always said “No.” These persons were then all well, but they died before the king. She also saw the children of the prince and princess of Conti, but not themselves—which was correct, as they also died shortly after this occurrence.
Orleans then wished to see his own destiny; and the man said, if he would not be frightened he could show it to him, as if painted on the wall; and after fifteen minutes of conjuration, the duke appeared, of the natural size, dressed as usual, but with a couronne fermée or closed crown on his head, which they could not comprehend, as it was not that of any country they knew of. It covered his head, had only four circles, and nothing at the top. They had never seen such a one. When he became regent, they understood that that was the interpretation of the prediction.
In connection with this subject, the aversion to glass frequently manifested by dogs is well worthy of observation.
When facts of this kind are found to be recorded or believed in, in all parts of the world, from the beginning of it up to the present time, it is surely vain for the so-called savants to deny them; and, as Cicero justly says in describing the different kinds of magic, “What we have to do with is the facts, since of the cause we know little. Neither,” he adds, “are we to repudiate these phenomena, because we sometimes find them imperfect, or even false, any more than we are to distrust that the human eye sees, although some do this very imperfectly, or not at all.”
We are part spirit and part matter: by the former we are allied to the spiritual world and to the absolute spirit; and as nobody doubts that the latter can work magically, that is, by the mere act of will—for by the mere act of will all things were created, and by its constant exertion all things are sustained—why should we be astonished that we, who partake of the Divine nature and were created after God’s own image, should also, within certain limits, partake of this magical power? That this power has been frequently abused, is the fault of those who, being capable, refuse to investigate, and deny the existence of these and similar phenomena; and, by thus casting them out of the region of legitimate science, leave them to become the prey of the ignorant and designing.