SPIRITUALISM.
CHAPTER II.
Before considering the merits of the third hypothesis for accounting for the phenomena of spiritualism, I propose to draw out at some length the church theory of magic and formal diabolic interference.
Magic, in the sense of a systematized use of and intercourse with the spiritual world by other means than authorized prayer and ritual, has been an idea familiar to all races and to all times. Its hostile or consciously diabolical character has depended upon the vividness with which it has appreciated the nature of God and his sanction of the religion which it is confronting, and upon its consequent inability to regard itself as an appendix to, rather than a contradiction of, religion. Hence, it has been peculiarly virulent when it has had to manœuvre in the face of the precise enunciations of Catholicism, as was the case in mediæval Christendom; whilst, on the other hand, in a system of tolerant eclecticism like that of pagan Rome or modern America, it has naturally adopted a milder form.
The accounts given of the origin of magic in pagan and rabbinical tradition are almost identical, and read much like a rude allegory of Christian theology. In the first, the fair and proud Lamia, beloved of Zeus, in revenge for being herself ousted and her children slain by Hera, takes general vengeance upon the subjects of Zeus. In. the second, Lilith, Adam's first wife, is ever seeking to destroy the children of her successful rival, Eve. According to the more common Catholic teaching, sundry of the angels, God's first creation, destined to be the first partners of his bliss, fell for resisting God's designs in behalf of his second creation, man, whose nature he was to espouse in the Incarnation; whence the devil's hatred of the children of men.
The fathers[94] considered that the rebel angels first taught men magic in the evil days before the Flood, and that the seeds of the black art were carried on into the new world by Cham. His grandson, Mesraim, or Zoroaster, was said to have used it extensively to give life and reality to the false worship which was his legacy to his children, the Egyptians, Babylonians, and Persians.
The worship of the hosts of heaven—the sun, moon, and stars—would seem to have been the earliest form of false worship, and all mythological research tends to show that this is, in fact, the core even of those cults which at first sight would seem most unlike it. The Persians were fire-worshippers, but fire was stolen from heaven; and one of the miracles recorded of Zoroaster was his drawing magic sparks from the stars. The name given him by his disciples was "the Living Star." The host of deities with which the Greek and Roman world was peopled, many of whom would at first sight suggest a purely terrestrial origin, for the most part group themselves round central figures, which, on examination, prove to be earthly reflections of astral influences—of the sun or moon gods and their supposed satellites.
According to the fathers, magic was the very life and soul of idolatry, and pagan worship was regarded as a union of conventional deception and diabolic energy, the one or other element predominating according to circumstances. Thus diablerie lay beneath such orderly institutions as, for instance, the national cultus of ancient Rome, like the volcanic fires of Vesuvius under the rich vineyards which they have in part created and for a while sustain.