Witch, Warlock, and Magician

Defoe then proceeds to tell an Oriental story, which, doubtlessly, is his own invention:

Ali Albrahazen, a Persian wizard, had, it is said, this kind of intercourse with the devil. He was a Sabean by birth, and had obtained a wonderful reputation for his witchcraft, so that he was sent for by the King of Persia upon extraordinary occasions, such as the interpretation of a dream, or of an apparition, like that of Belshazzar’s handwriting, or of some meteor or eclipse, and he never failed to give the King satisfaction. For whether his utterances were true or false, he couched them always in such ambiguous terms that something of what he predicted might certainly be deduced from his words, and so seem to import that he had effectually revealed it, whether he had really done so or not.

This Ali, wandering alone in the desert, and musing much upon the appearance of a fiery meteor, which, to the great terror of the country, had flamed in the heavens every night for nearly a month, sought to apprehend its significance, and what it should portend to the world; but, failing to do so, he sat down, weary and disheartened, in the shade of a spreading palm. Breathing to himself a strong desire that some spirit from the other world would generously assist him to arrive at the true meaning of a phenomenon so remarkable, he fell asleep. And, lo! in his sleep he dreamed a dream, and the dream was this: that a tall man came to him, a tall man of sage and venerable aspect, with a pleasing smile upon his countenance; and, addressing him by his name, told him that he was prepared to answer his questions, and to explain to him the signification of the great and terrible fire in the air which was terrifying all Arabia and Persia.

His explanation proved to be of an astronomical character. These fiery appearances, he said, were collections of vapour exhaled by the influence of the sun from earth or sea. As to their importance to human affairs, it was simply this: that sometimes by their propinquity to the earth, and their power of attraction, or by their dissipation of aqueous vapours, they occasioned great droughts and insupportable heats; while, at other times, they distilled heavy and unusual rains, by condensing, in an extraordinary manner, the vapours they had absorbed. And he added: ‘Go thou and warn thy nation that this fiery meteor portends an excessive drought and famine; for know that by the strong exhalation of the vapours of the earth, occasioned by the meteor’s unusual nearness to it, the necessary rains will be withheld, and to a long drought, as a matter of course, famine and scarcity of corn succeed. Thus, by judging according to the rules of natural causes, thou shalt predict what shall certainly come to pass, and shalt obtain the reputation thou so ardently desirest of being a wise man and a great magician.’

‘This prediction,’ said Ali, ‘was all very well as regarded Arabia; but would it apply also to Persia?’ ‘No,’ replied the devil; for Ali’s interlocutor was no less distinguished a personage – fiery meteors from the same causes sometimes produced contrary events; and he might repair to the Persian Court, and predict the advent of excessive rains and floods, which would greatly injure the fruits of the earth, and occasion want and scarcity. ‘Thus, if either of these succeed, as it is most probable, thou shalt assuredly be received as a sage magician in one country, if not in the other; also, to both of them thou mayest suggest, as a probability only, that the consequence may be a plague or infection among the people, which is ordinarily the effect as well of excessive wet as of excessive heat. If this happens, thou shalt gain the reputation thou desirest; and if not, seeing thou didst not positively foretell it, thou shalt not incur the ignominy of a false prediction.’

Ali was very grateful for the devil’s assistance, and failed not to ask how, at need, he might again secure it. He was told to come again to the palm-tree, and to go around it fifteen times, calling him thrice by his name each time: at the end of the fifteenth circumambulation he would find himself overtaken by drowsiness; whereupon he should lie down with his face to the south, and he would receive a visit from him in vision. The devil further told him the magic name by which he was to summon him.

The magician’s predictions were duly made and duly fulfilled. Thenceforward he maintained a constant communication with the devil, who, strange to say, seems not to have exacted anything from him in return for his valuable, but hazardous, assistance.

Defoe’s fifth chapter contains a further account of the devil’s conduct in imitating divine inspirations; describes the difference between the genuine and the false; and dwells upon signs and wonders, fictitious as well as real. In chapter the sixth our author treats of the first practices of magic and witchcraft as a diabolical art, and explains how it was handed on to the Egyptians and Phœnicians, by whom it was openly encouraged. He offers some amusing remarks on the methods adopted by magicians for summoning the devil, who seems to be at once their servant and master. In parts of India they go up, he says, to the summit of some particular mountain, where they call him with a little kettledrum, just as the good old wives in England hive their bees, except that they beat it on the wrong side. Then they pronounce certain words which they call ‘charms,’ and the devil appears without fail.

It is not easy to discover in history what words were used for charms in Egypt and Arabia for so many ages. It is certain they differed in different countries; and it is certain they differed as the magicians acted together or individually. Nor are we less at a loss to understand what the devil could mean by suffering such words, or any words at all, to charm, summon, alarm, or arouse him. The Greeks have left us, he says, a word which was used by the magicians of antiquity pretty frequently – that famous trine or triangular word, Abracadabra:

A B R A C A D A B R AA B R A C A D A B RA B R A C A D A BA B R A C A D AA B R A C A DA B R A C AA B R A CA B R AA B RA BA

‘There is abundance of learned puzzle among the ancients to find out the signification of this word: the subtle position of the letters gave a kind of reverence to them, because they read it as it were every way, upwards and downwards, backwards and forwards, and many will have it still that the devil put them together: nay, they begin at last to think it was old Legion’s surname, and whenever he was called by that name, he used to come very readily; for which reason the old women in their chimney-corners would be horribly afraid of saying it often over together, for if they should say it a certain number of times, they had a notion it would certainly raise the devil.

‘They say, on the contrary, that it was invented by one Basilides, a learned Greek; that it contained the great and awful name of the Divinity; and that it was used for many years for the opposing the spells and charms of the Pagans; that is, the diabolical spells and charms of the pagan magicians.’

In the seventh chapter we read of the practice and progress of magic, as it is now explained to be a diabolical art; how it spread itself in the world, and by what degrees it grew up to the height which it has since attained.

The introduction to the second part of Defoe’s work is devoted to an exposition of the Black Art ‘as it really is,’ and sets forth ‘why there are several differing practices of it in the several parts of the world, and what those practices are; as, also, what is contained in it in general.’ He defines it as ‘a new general term for all the branches of that correspondence which mankind has maintained, or does, or can carry on, between himself and the devil, between this and the infernal world.’ And he enumerates these branches as: Divining, or Soothsaying; Observing of Times; Using Enchantment; Witchcraft; Charming, or Setting of Spells; Dealing with Familiar Spirits; Wizardising, or Sorcery; and Necromancy.

The first chapter treats of Modern Magic, or the Black Art in its present practice and perfection.

In the second chapter the scene is changed: as the devil acted at first with his Black Art without the magicians, so the magicians seem now to carry it on without the devil. This is written in Defoe’s best style of sober irony. ‘The magicians,’ he says, ‘were formerly the devil’s servants, but now they are his masters, and that to such a degree, that it is but drawing a circle, casting a few figures, muttering a little Arabic, and up comes the devil, as readily as the drawer at a tavern, with a D’ye call, sir? or like a Scotch caude [caddie?], with What’s your honour’s wull, sir? Nay, as the learned in the art say, he must come, he can’t help it: then as to tempting, he is quite out of doors. And I think, as the Old Parliament did by the bishops, we may e’en vote him useless. In a word, there is no manner of occasion for him: mankind are as froward as he can wish and desire of them; nay, some cunning men tell us we sin faster than the devil can keep pace with us: as witness the late witty and moderately wicked Lady … who blest her stars that the devil never tempted her to anything; he understood himself better, for she knew well enough how to sin without him, and that it would be losing his time to talk to her.’

Defoe furnishes an entertaining account of his conversation with a countryman, who had been to a magician at Oundle. Whether true or fictitious, the narrative shows that many of the favourite tricks performed at spiritualistic séances in our own time were well known in Defoe’s:

Countryman. I saw my old gentleman in a great chair, and two more in chairs at some distance, and three great candles, and a great sheet of white paper upon the floor between them; every one of them had a long white wand in their hands, the lower end of which touched the sheet of paper.

Defoe. And were the candles upon the ground too?

C. Yes, all of them.

D. There was a great deal of ceremony about you, I assure you.

C. I think so, too, but it is not done yet: immediately I heard the little door stir, as if it was opening, and away I skipped as softly as I could tread, and got into my chair again, and sat there as gravely as if I had never stirred out of it. I was no sooner set, but the door opened indeed, and the old gentleman came out as before, and turning to me, said, ‘Sit still, don’t ye stir;’ and at that word the other two that were with him in the room walked out after him, one after another, across the room, as if to go out at the other door where I came in; but at the further end of the room they stopped, and turned their faces to one another, and talked; but it was some devil’s language of their own, for I could understand nothing of it.

D. And now I suppose you were frighted in earnest?

C. Ay, so I was; but it was worse yet, for they had not stood long together, but the great elbow-chair, which the old gentleman sat in at the little table just by me, began to stir of itself; at which the old gentleman, knowing I should be afraid, came to me, and said, ‘Sit still, don’t you stir, all will be well; you shall have no harm;’ at which he gave his chair a kick with his foot, and saith, ‘Go!’ with some other words, and other language; and away went the obedient chair, sliding, two of its legs on the ground, and the other two off, as if somebody had dragged it by that part.

D. And so, no doubt, they did, though you could not see it.

C. And as soon as the chair was dragged or moved to the end of the room, where the three, I know not what to call ’em, were, two other chairs did the like from the other side of the room, and so they all sat down, and talked together a good while; at last the door at that end of the room opened too, and they all were gone in a moment, without rising out of their chairs; for I am sure they did not rise to go out, as other folks do.

D. What did you think of yourself when you saw the chair stir so near you?

C. Think! nay, I did not think; I was dead, to be sure I was dead, with the fright, and expected I should be carried away, chair and all, the next moment. Then it was, I say, that my hair would have lifted off my hat, if it had been on, I am sure it would.

D. Well, but when they were all gone, you came to yourself again, I suppose?

C. To tell you the truth, master, I am not come to myself yet.

D. But go on, let me know how it ended.

C. Why, after a little while, my old man came in again, called his man to set the chairs to rights, and then sat him down at the table, spoke cheerfully to me, and asked me if I would drink, which I refused, though I was a-dry indeed. I believe the fright had made me dry; but as I never had been used to drink with the devil, I didn’t know what to think of it, so I let it alone.

In his third chapter (‘Of the present pretences of the Magicians; how they defend themselves; and some examples of their practice’) Defoe has a lively account of a contemporary magician, a Dr. Bowman, of Kent, who seems to have been a firm believer in what is now called Spiritualism. He was a green old man, who went about in a long black velvet gown and a cap, with a long beard, and his upper lip trimmed ‘with a kind of muschato.’ He strongly repudiated any kind of correspondence or intercourse with the devil; but hinted that he derived much assistance from the good spirits which people the invisible world. After dwelling on the follies of the learned, and the superstitions of the ignorant, this lordly conjurer said: ‘You see how that we, men of art, who have studied the sacred sciences, suffer by the errors of common fame; they take us all for devil-mongers, damned rogues, and conjurers.’

The fourth chapter discusses the doctrine of spirits as it is understood by the magicians; how far it may be supposed there may be an intercourse with superior beings, apart from any familiarity with the devil or the spirits of evil; with a transition to the present times.

And so much for the ‘Art of Magic’ as expounded by Daniel Defoe.

In 1718 appeared Bishop Hutchinson’s ‘Historical Essay concerning Witchcraft,’ a book written in a most liberal and tolerant spirit, and, at the same time, with so much comprehensiveness and exactitude, that later writers have availed themselves freely of its stores.

Reference may also be made to —

John Beaumont, ‘Treatise of Spirits, Apparitions, Witchcrafts, and other Magical Practices,’ 1705.

James Braid (of Manchester), ‘Magic, Witchcraft, Animal Magnetism, Hypnotism, and Electro-Biology’ (1852), in which there is very little about witchcraft, but a good deal about the influence of the imagination.

J. C. Colquhoun, ‘History of Magic, Witchcraft, and Animal Magnetism,’ 1851.

Rev. Joseph Glanvill, ‘Sadducismus Triumphatus; or, A full and plain Evidence concerning Witches and Apparitions,’ 1670.

Sir Walter Scott, ‘Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft,’ 1831.

Howard Williams, ‘The Superstitions of Witchcraft,’ 1865.

It may be a convenience to the reader if I indicate some of the principal foreign authorities on this subject. Such as – Institor and Sprenger’s great work, ‘Malleus Maleficarum’ (Nuremberg, 1494); The monk Heisterbach’s (Cæsarius) ‘Dialogus Miraculorum’ (ed. by Strange), 1851; Cannaert’s ‘Procès des Sorcières en Belgique,’ 1848; Dr. W. G. Soldan’s ‘Geschichte der Hexenprocesse’ (1843); G. C. Horst’s ‘Zauber-Bibliothek, oder die Zauberei, Theurgie und Mantik, Zauberei, Hexen und Hexenprocessen, Dämonen, Gespenster und Geistererscheinungen,’ in 6 vols., 1821 – a most learned and exhaustive work, brimful of recondite lore; Collin de Plancy’s ‘Dictionnaire Infernal; ou Répertoire Universel des Etres, des Livres, et des Choses qui tiennent aux Apparitions, aux Divinations, à la Magie,’ etc., 1844; Michelet’s ‘La Sorcière’ is, of course, brilliantly written; R. Reuss’s ‘La Sorcellerie au xvie. et xviie. Siècle,’ 1872; Tartarotti’s ‘Del Congresso Notturno delle Lamie,’ 1749; F. Perreaud’s ‘Demonologie, ou Traité des Démons et Sorciers,’ 1655; H. Boguet’s ‘Discours des Sorciers,’ 1610 (very rare); and Cotton Mather’s ‘Wonders of the Invisible World,’ 1695 – a monument of credulity, prejudice, and bigotry.

BOOKS ON MAGIC

It may also be convenient to the reader if I enumerate a few of the principal authorities on the history of Magic, Sorcery, and Alchemy. A very exhaustive list will be found in the ‘Bibliotheca Magica et Pneumatica,’ by Graessel, 1843; and an ‘Alphabetical Catalogue of Works on Hermetic Philosophy and Alchemy’ is appended to the ‘Lives of Alchemystical Philosophers,’ by Arthur Edward Waite, 1888. For ordinary purposes the following will be found sufficient: Langlet du Fresnoy, ‘Histoire de la Philosophie Hermétique,’ 1742; Gabriel Naudé, ‘Apologie pour les Grands Hommes faussement soupçonnés de Magie,’ 1625; Martin Antoine Delrio, ‘Disquisitionum Magicarum, libri sex,’ 1599; L. F. Alfred Maury, ‘La Magie et l’Astrologie dans l’Antiquité et au Moyen Age,’ etc., 1860; Eus. Salverte, ‘Sciences Occultes,’ ed. by Littré, 1856 (see the English translation, ‘Philosophy of Magic,’ with Notes by Dr. A. Todd Thomson, 1846); Abbé de Villars, ‘Entretiens du Comte de Gabalis’ (‘Voyages Imaginaires,’ tome 34), Englished as ‘The Count de Gabalis: being a diverting History of the Rosicrucian Doctrine of Spirits,’ etc., 1714; Elias Ashmole, ‘Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum;’ Roger Bacon, ‘Mirror of Alchemy,’ 1597; Louis Figuier, ‘Histoire de l’Alchimie et les Alchimistes,’ 1865; Arthur Edward Waite, ‘The Real History of the Rosicrucians,’ 1887; Hargrave Jennings, ‘The Rosicrucians,’ new edit.; William Godwin, ‘Lives of the Necromancers,’ 1834; Dr. T. Thomson, ‘History of Chemistry,’ 1831; ‘Encyclopædia Britannica,’ in locis; Dr. Kopp, ‘Geschichte der Chemie;’ G. Rodwell, ‘Birth of Chemistry,’ 1874; Haerfor, ‘Histoire de la Chimie,’ etc., etc.

1

Cf. Stahl, ‘Fundamenta Chimiæ,’ cap. ‘De Lapide Philosophorum’; and Kircher, ‘Mundus Subterraneus.’

2

Epistola Fratris Rogerii Baconis de Secretis Operibus Artis et Naturæ et de Nullitate Magiæ.

3

Laches, oversight.

4

This patriotic sentiment would seem to show that the book was written or published about the time of the Spanish Armada.

5

Hermes Trismegistus (‘thrice great’), a fabulous Chaldean philosopher, to whom I have already made reference. The numerous writings which bear his name were really composed by the Egyptian Platonists; but the mediæval alchemists pretend to recognise in him the founder of their art. Gower, in his ‘Confessio Amantis,’ says:

Of whom if I the namès calle,Hermes was one the first of alle,To whom this Art is most applied.’

The name of Hermes was chosen because of the supposed magical powers of the god of the caduceus.

6

That is, costard, or apple, mongers.

7

See Appendix to the present chapter, p. 58.

8

The pentageron, or pentagramma, is a mystic figure produced by prolonging the sides of a regular pentagon till they intersect one another. It can be drawn without a break in the drawing, and, viewed from five sides, exhibits the form of the letter A (pent-alpha), or the figure of the fifth proposition in Euclid’s First Book.

9

From the Greek φόβος, fear; φόβητρα, bugbears.

10

Bad puns were evidently common on the stage before the days of Victorian burlesque.

11

So Shakespeare, ‘1 Hen. IV.,’ iii. Falstaff says: ‘I make as good use of it as many a man doth of a death’s head, or a memento house.’

12

So in the ‘Passionate Pilgrim’:

‘Save the nightingale alone:She, poor bird, as all forlorn,Leaned her breast uptill a thorn.’

13

A peripatetic, or walking philosopher. Observe the facetiousness in ‘Aristotle’s stamp.’ Aristotle was the founder of the Peripatetics.

14

Fabius Cunctator, or the Delayer, so called from the policy of delay which he opposed to the vigorous movements of Hannibal. One would suppose that the humour here, such as it is, would hardly be perceptible to a theatrical audience.

15

In the old German ‘Faustbuch,’ the title of ‘Prince of the North’ is given to Beelzebub.

16

Demogorgon, or Demiourgos– the creative principle of evil – figures largely in literature. He is first mentioned by Lactantius, in the fourth century; then by Boccaccio, Boiardo, Tasso (‘Gierusalemme Liberata’), and Ariosto (‘Orlando Furioso’). Marlowe speaks, in ‘Tamburlaine,’ of ‘Gorgon, prince of Hell.’ Spenser, in ‘The Faery Queen,’ refers to —

‘Great Gorgon, prince of darkness and dead night,At which Cocytus quakes, and Styx is put to flight.’

Milton, in ‘Paradise Lost,’ alludes to ‘the dreaded name of Demogorgon.’ Dryden says: ‘When the moon arises, and Demogorgon walks his round.’ And he is one of the dramatis personæ of Shelley’s ‘Prometheus Unbound’: ‘Demogorgon, a tremendous gloom… A mighty Darkness, filling the seat of power.’

17

Boasts. So in Peele’s ‘Edward I’: ‘As thou to England brought’st thy Scottish braves.’

18

This reiteration of the same final word, for the sake of emphasis, is found in Shakespeare.

19

A corner or college cap.

20

An allusion to the old legend that Brut, or Brutus, great-grandson of Æneas, founded New Troy (Troynovant), or London.

21

Probably the reference is to the sunflower.

22

The classic writers usually identify the hyacinth with Apollo.

23

The rose, that is, of the Virgin Queen – an English Diana – Elizabeth. In Shakespeare’s ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’ (Act iv., scene 1) we read of ‘Diana’s bud.’

24

‘Adeo viro præ credulo errore jam factus sui impos et mente captus, et Dæmones, quo arctius horrendis hisce Sacris adhærescent illius ambitioni vanæ summæ potestatis in Patria adipiscendæ spe et expectatione lene euntis illum non solius Poloniæ sed alterius quoque regni, id est primo Poloniæ, deinde alterius, viz. Moldaviæ Regem fore, et sub quo magnæ universi mundi mutationes incepturas esse, Judæos convertendos, et ab illo Saræmos et Ethnicos vexillo crucis superandos, facili ludificarentur.’ – Dr. Thomas Smith, ‘Vitæ Eruditissimorum ac Illustrium Virorum,’ London, 1707. ‘Vita Joannis Dee,’ p. 25.

25

He was suspected of coining false money, but Dr. Dee declares he was innocent. (June, 1583.)

26

‘The Private Diary of Dr. John Dee,’ edited by J. O. Halliwell (Phillipps) for the Camden Society, 1842.

27

This was Sir Edward Dyer, the friend of Spenser and Sidney, remembered by his poem ‘My Mind to me a Kingdom is.’

28

The ‘Monas Hieroglyphica.’

29

The celebrated navigator, whose heroic death is one of our worthiest traditions.

30

A warm and steady friend to Dr. Dee.

31

This Diary, written in a very small and illegible hand on the margins of old almanacs, was discovered by Mr. W. H. Black in the Ashmolean Library at Oxford.

32

This woman has a place in the records of fashion as introducer of the novelty of yellow-starching the extensive ruffs which were then generally worn. When Lord Chief Justice Coke sentenced her to death (as we shall hereafter see) for her share in the murder of Overbury, he ordered that ‘as she was the person who had brought yellow-starched ruffs into vogue, she should be hanged in that dress, that the same might end in shame and detestation.’ As the hangman was also adorned with yellow ruffs, it is no wonder that Coke’s prediction was amply fulfilled.