Secret Sciences Of The Ancients.

SECRET SCIENCES OF THE ANCIENTS .

LONDON , SATURDAY , SEPTEMBER . 9 , 1 SG 5 .

The ancients attained great proficiency in chemical and medical science , which enabled them to produce miraculous effects in the various mysteries , as well as to occasionally display them to the astonishment of the multitude , which can now be

explained from well-known chemical agency , or the medicinal properties of such bodies as , it may be shown , were in use in former times . It would appear , indeed , that spirituous liquors , and the art of distillation necessary to obtain them , were

known in the temples , although not altogether confined to them . Damascms speaks of Asclepiadorus reproducing chemically the deleterious gas exhaled from a sacred cavern ; and we learn from Epiphanins that Marcus , the chief of one of

the sects which , hi the second century , were for amalgamating with Christianity the doctrines and rites of the secret initiations , filled with white wine three cups of transparent glass ; while he was praying , the liquid in one of the cups became like

blood—in another of a purple colour—in the third sky blue . By the side of this miracle which Marcus had doubtless borrowed from the mysteries of some temple , we may place a wonder of our

own time . Professor Bej ^ russ , at the Court of the Duke of Brunswick , had promised that his dress should become red during a repast , which , to tho astonishment of all , took place . Professor Vogel , who relates this fact in the "Journal de

Pharmacie , " does not mention the secret which Beyruss used , but observes that by pouring lime water upon the juice of beet-root a colourless liquid is obtained : that a piece of cloth dipped in this liquid , and quickly dried , becomes red in a few

hours by the contact of the air alone , and that this effect may be accelerated in a room where champagne wine , and other beverages charged with carbonic acid gas , are abundantly emploj-ed . Still more rapidly would it be effected in a sanctuary

of polytheism , in the midst of the emanations from tho incense and burning torches ; and the veil which covered the sacred things would have been seen to change its white colour into that of blooda presage of fearful disasters . .

The disciples of the men who , in the centre of America , naturalised religions ideas and practices , borrowed from Asia . The Mexican priests anointed their bodies with a fetid pomatum when they wished , they said , to converse with the Divinity .

The base of it was tobacco , and a pounded seed which they called Ololuchqui ; a seed , the effect of which was to deprive the man of his sound senses , as that of tobacco was to deaden his sensibility . They then found themselves very intrepid ,

and very cruel , and doubtless very much disposed to have visions , since the end of this practice was to place them in relation with the object of their fantastic worship . Let us quit the temples for a moment and pursue this secret divulged to the

multitude , and fallen into the hands of vulgar magicians . Is everything imposture which the poets and the romancers relate of the effect of magical unctions ? It is difficult to believe so . The ingredients of which they were composed

had certainly some efficacy . We have supposed that some lubric dreams supervened in the sleep which they occasioned ; a supposition the more probable , as it was particularly in cases of love baffled or betrayed , that their assistance was

employed . A prey to her passion , let a woman have adopted them ; pre-occupied with her desires , and the hope of their being - satisfied , she falls asleep , that this sole object should occupy her dreams , and that soon she should attribute to the caresses of

the adored being , the voluptuous emotions which the magic slumbers induced . On awaking could she doubt that a charm as powerful as delicious had transported her into the arms of a lover , or restored a false one to her vows ? What passion

or curiosity required from enchantments , the magic ointment thus imparted in a dream , but in so decided a manner that it was impossible not to take the illusion for reality . The history of the prosecutions for sorcery , the number of which surpasses

credibility , proves this . It is at night , in the midst of their sleep , that the sorcerers are carried off and transported to the Sabbat . To obtain this favour they ought in the evening" to rub themselves over with an ointment , of the composition

of which they are frequently ignorant , but the effects of which are precisely such as we have described . Acosfca says , " The Mexican priests employed as materials for this pomatum the ashes or the bodies of insects regarded as venomous ,

assuredly for the purpose of deception , as to the nature of the drugs which were physically efficacious . A woman accused of being a witch was brought before the magistrate of Florence—a man in advance of his age and his country . She declares she is a witch , and asserts that that - very night