Secret Sciences Of The Ancients.

she will be present at the Sabbat , provided she is allowed to return home and perform the magical unction . The judge allows it . After being rubbed over with fetid drugs , the pretended witch lies down , and immediately goes to sleep .

She is bound to her bed ; punctures , blows , and even cauterisation could not interrupt her deep slumbers . Awakened with difficulty the following day , she relates that she had been to the Sabbat . In the accounts of her dream are interspersed the

sensations of pain that she had really undergone when asleep , and to which the judge limited her punishment . From three accounts , in every respect similar to this , that we might quote from Porta and from Froinnan , we shall only deduce our physical observation . Two of the pretended witches thus sent to sleep by the magical unction

had announced that they would go to the Sabbat , and return flying with ivings . Both thought that this took place , and were astonished when the contrary was averred to them . One even in her sleep had moved , and made a spring as if she

wished to take flight . It is universally known that when in sleep there is an afflux of blood to the head ; it is not unusual to dream that one mounts flying into the air . These insane people , while they avowed the use of a magical ungent to

transport themselves to the Sabbat , could not give the receip t for it . Medicine would find no difficulty in assigning it . Porta and Cardan have indicated two . Nig htshade is the basis of one , henbane and ojnum predominate in the other .

The philosophic Gassendi , to enlighten some poor wretches who thought they were wizards , endeavoured to divine and imitate their secret .

With a pomatum m which opium was combined , he anointed some peasants , whom he persuaded this ceremony would make them assist at the Sabbat . After a long sleep they awoke , well convinced that this magical process had produced its

effects . They gave a detailed account of what they had witnessed at the Sabbat , and the pleasures they had partaken there , an account in which the action of the opium was evinced by voluptuous sensations .

The power of producing a sudden and dazzling effusion of light , which was one of the arts employed by the contrivers of the ancient mysteries , is thus described in a few words by Apuleius , who was himself admitted to witness the Isiac ceremonies at Corinth : — "Nocte media vidi solem condido correscantem lnmine . "

To these scenic representations in the Egyptian mysteries , there is evidently an allusion in the vision of Ezekiel , where the spirit shows him the abominations which the Israelites learned in Egypt . " Then said he unto me , son of man , hast thou seen the ancients of the house of Israel do in the

dark , every man m the chamoers of his imagery ? The mysteries were rendered much more effective by admirably executed pyrotechnic displays , in the composition of which the ancients were wonderfully skilful , the knowledge of which , like the

Greek fire , is lost . In tracing the early connection of spectacles with the ceremonies of religion , in these early ages , Voltaire says , " The sacred mysteries celebrated in their vast temples , in the prese 2 ice of the initiates only , were imposing and

terrible representations of veritable grand tragedies . There were decorations and machines proper to give effect , and the subject was the present and the future . " Many writers have fancied that the art of making

gold was the great secret that lay hid under the forms of Egyptian theology . " " The hermetic science , " says the Benedictine Pernetz , " the sacerdotal arts were the source of all the riches of

the Egyptian kings , and the object of their mysteries , so hidden under the veil of their pretended religion . " The hieroglyphics that formerly covered the Pyramids , are supposed by some writers to relate to the same art .

For admission to the mysteries , we learn from Dupius , that the candidates are exposed several days to travel round a circumscribed space , and being thrown into a large tank of water sufficiently deep to compel swimming and to escape from which

was difficult . Red hot iron was applied to their limbs , and they had to pass through flames of fire . The following verses of Claudian are supposed to have been meant as a description of those imitations of the noise of earthquake and thunder

which , by means of the ceranoscope and other such contrivances , were practised in the show of the mysteries : —

" Jam mihi oeruntus trepidis delubra moveri Sedibus , efc clarum dispergere culmiua lucem , Adventum testata Dei . Jam magnus ab imis Audi bur fremitus tcrris , tol plormiquo renugit cooro piuiu . "

This happy moment of autopsy was prepared by frightful scenes , by alterations of awe and joy , by light and darkness , by glimmering of light , by the terrible noise of thunder , which they imitated admirably , by apparitions , and by magnificent daz-