The Old and the New Magic. Henry Ridgely Evans
with the remarkable performances of the best and greatest among modern magicians. We all should know something of the general methods of magic, and some time in our lives witness the {xxxii} extraordinary feats, bordering on miracles, with which a prestidigitateur can dazzle our eyes and misguide our judgment.
Modern magic is not merely a diversion or a recreation, but may become possessed of a deeper worth when it broadens our insight into the rich possibilities of mystification, while a peep behind the scenes will keep us sober and prevent us from falling a prey to superstition.
HISTORY OF
NATURAL MAGIC AND PRESTIDIGITATION.
“Therefore made I a decree to bring in all the wise men of Babylon before me. … Then came in the magicians, the astrologers, the Chaldeans, and the soothsayers.”—Dan. iv., 6–7.
“What, Sir! you dare to make so free,
And play your hocus-pocus on us!”
—GOETHE: Faust, Scene V.
I.
The art of natural magic dates back to the remotest antiquity. There is an Egyptian papyrus4 in the British Museum which chronicles a magical seance given by a certain Tchatcha-em-ankh before King Khufu, BC 3766. The manuscript says of the wizard: “He knoweth how to bind on a head which hath been cut off; he knoweth how to make a lion follow him as if led by a rope; and he knoweth the number of the stars of the house (constellation) of Thoth.” It will be seen from this that the decapitation trick was in vogue ages ago, while the experiment with the lion, which is unquestionably a hypnotic feat, shows hypnotism to be very ancient indeed. Ennemoser, in his History of Magic, devotes considerable space to Egyptian thaumaturgy, especially to the wonders wrought by animal magnetism, which in the hands of the priestly hierarchy must have been miracles indeed to the uninitiated. All that was known of science was in {2} possession of the guardians of the temples, who frequently used their knowledge of natural phenomena to gain ascendancy over the ignorant multitude.
4 Westcar papyrus, XVIII dynasty; about BC 1550. In this ancient manuscript are stories which date from the early empire. “They are as old,” says Budge (Egyptian Magic, London, 1899), “as the Great Pyramid.”
An acquaintance with stage machinery and the science of optics and acoustics was necessary to the production of the many marvelous effects exhibited. Every temple in Egypt and Greece was a veritable storehouse of natural magic. Thanks to ancient writers like Heron of Alexandria, Philo of Byzantium, and the Fathers of the early Christian Church, we are able to fathom some of the secrets of the old thaumaturgists. The magi of the temples were adepts in the art of phantasmagoria. In the ancient temple of Hercules at Tyre, Pliny states that there was a seat of consecrated stone “from which the gods easily rose.”
In the temple at Tarsus, Esculapius showed himself to the devout. Damascius says: “In a manifestation, which ought not to be revealed, … there appeared on the wall of a temple a mass of light, which at first seemed to be very remote; it transformed itself, in coming nearer, into a face evidently divine and supernatural, of severe aspect, but mixed with gentleness and extremely beautiful. According to the institutions of a mysterious religion the Alexandrians honored it as Osiris and Adonis.”
By means of concave mirrors, made of highly polished metal, the priests were able to project images upon walls, in the air, or upon the smoke arising from burning incense. In speaking of the art of casting specula of persons upon smoke, the ingenious Salverte says: “The Theurgists caused the appearance of the gods in the air in the midst of gaseous vapors disengaged from fire. Porphyrus admires this secret; Iamblichus censures the employment of it, but he confesses its existence and grants it to be worthy the attention of the inquirer after truth. The Theurgist Maximus undoubtedly made use of a secret analogous to this, when, in the fumes of the incense which he burned before the statute of Hecate, the image was seen to laugh so naturally as to fill the spectators with terror.”
A. Rich, in his Dictionary of Roman and Greek Antiquities, relates, under the heading of the word “Adytum,” that many of the ancient temples possessed chambers the existence of which was known only to the priests, and which served for the {3} production of their illusions. He visited one at Alba, upon the lake of Fucius. It was located amid the ruins of a temple, and was in a perfect state of preservation. This chamber of mysteries was formed under the apsis—that is to say, under the large semi-circular niche which usually sheltered the image of the god, at the far extremity of the edifice. “One part of this chamber,” says he, “is sunk beneath the pavement of the principal part of the temple (cella) and the other rises above it. The latter, then, must have appeared to the worshipers gathered together in the temple merely like a base that occupied the lower portion of the apsis, and that was designed to hold in an elevated position the statue of the god or goddess whose name was borne by the edifice. This sanctuary, moreover, had no door or visible communication that opened into the body of the building. Entrance therein was effected through a secret door in an enclosure of walls at the rear of the temple. It was through this that the priests introduced themselves and their machinery without being observed by the hoi polloi. But there is one remarkable fact that proves beyond the shadow of a doubt the purpose of the adytum. One discovers here a number of tubes or pipes which pierce the walls between the hiding-place and the interior of the temple. These tubes debouch at different places in the partitions of the cella, and thus permit a voice to be heard in any part of the building, while the person and place from which the sound issues remain unknown to the auditors.”
Sometimes the adytum was simply a chamber situated behind the apsis, as in a small temple which was still in existence at Rome in the sixteenth century. An architect named Labbacco has left us a description of the edifice. Travelers who have visited the remains of the temple of Ceres, at Eleusis, have observed a curious fact. The pavement of the cella is rough and unpolished, and much lower than the level of the adjacent porch, thereby indicating that a wooden floor, on a level with the portico, covered the present floor, and hid from view a secret vault designed to operate the machinery that moved the flooring. This view is confirmed by vertical and horizontal grooves, and the holes constructed in the side walls. Similar contrivances existed in India. Philostratus, in his Life of Apollonius (1, III, {4} Ch. v), says: “The Indian sages conducted Apollonius toward the temple of their god, marching in solemn procession and singing sacred hymns. Occasionally they would strike the earth in cadence with their staves, whereupon the ground moved like a sea in turmoil, now rising with them to the height of almost two feet, then subsiding to its regular level.” The blows from the wands were evidently the cue for the concealed assistants to operate the machinery that moved the soil. Says Brown, in his Stellar Theology: “Among the buildings uncovered at Pompeii is a temple of Isis, which is a telltale of the mysteries of the Egyptian deity, for the secret stair which conducted the priests unseen to an opening back of the statue of the goddess, through whose marble lips pretended oracles were given and warnings uttered, now lies open to the day, and reveals the whole imposition.”
The Bible has preserved to us the story of the struggle of Daniel with the priests of Bel, in which the secret door played its part. The Hebrew prophet refused to worship the idol Bel, whereupon the King said to him: “Doth not Bel seem to thee to be a living god? Seest thou not how much he eateth and drinketh every day?” Then Daniel smiled and said: “O King, be not deceived; for this is but clay within and brass without, neither hath he eaten at any time.” The King sent for his priests and demanded the truth of them, declaring his intention of putting them to the sword should they fail to demonstrate the fact that the god really consumed the offerings of meat and wine.