F

Fabre, Pierre Charles : (French Alchemist - Fl. 1630.) Hardly any biographical details concerning this French alchemist are forthcoming. Mr. Waite, in his Lives of the Alchemystical Philosophers, declares that Fabre was a native of Montpellier; but we do not find any evidence to support this statement, and it is possible that he has confounded Fabre the alchemist with a painter of the same name, who was born at Montpellier, and after whom the Musee Fabre at that town is called. Pierre Jean Fabre appears to have been a doctor of medicine, and to have been renowned in his own day as a scholar of chemistry, a subject on which he compiled several treatises ; while, though it is not recorded that he ever won any marked successes in the field of alchemy, he certainly wrote numerous things dealing wholly or partly with that topic. Of these the most important are Alchimista Christianus and Hercules Pischymicus, both published at Toulouse, the first in 1632, the second two years afterwards; and in the latter he maintains that the mythological" labours of Hercules " are allegories, embodying the arcana of hermetic philosophy. The philosopher's stone, he declares complacently, may be found in all compounded circumstances, and is formed of salt, mercury and sulphur.

Fagail : The parting gift,, of the fairies, of Gaelic origin. This may be of a pleasant or unpleasant nature-it may be death, or the conversion of a man who worked badly, was ugly, and of rude speech, into the best workman, the best looking man, and the best speaker in the place.-Camp-bell's Superstitions of the Scottish Highlands.

Fairies : A species of supernatural beings, and one of the most beautiful and important of mythological conceptions. The belief in fairies is very ancient and widespread, and the same ideas concerning them are to be found among rude and uncultivated races as in the poesy of more civilised peoples. Of British fairies there are several distinct kinds, and these differ considerably in their characteristics. In Ireland, where the belief is strongest, the fairies are called good people," and are of a benevolent but capricious and mischievous disposition. The pixies of England are very similar. The industrious domestic spirit known as Puck, or Robin Goodfellow, is of the fairy kind ; so also are the brownies of Scotland. It is supposed that the hard work of the latter has given them the swarthiness from which they take their name, the other being called fairies from their fairness.

Scottish fairy mythology resembles that of Ireland, though of a more sombre cast. In Highland Scotland fairies are called daoine sithe or " men of peace," and it is believed that every year the devil carries off a tenth part of them. They steal human children, and leave in their places fairy changelings, fretful, wizened, unchildish things. Flint arrow-heads are believed, both in Ireland and Scot-land, to be fairy weapons, and the water in which they are dipped is a cure for many ills. Fairy music may often be heard in certain spots, and like the fairies themselves it is of exquisite beauty. As in the myth of Persephone, mortals who eat or drink in fairyland are doomed to remain there for ever. If a fairy marry with a human being, there is generally some condition imposed on the latter which, being broken, leads to his undoing. Many fairy legends are found all over Europe, varying a little with the locality but identical in their essential points. The conception of fairies is probably animistic. (See Animism.)

Fairfax, Edward : An English poet of the sixteenth century, author of a work on Demonology, wherein he treats somewhat credulously of sorcery.

Faleonet, Noel : A physician who died in 1734. Among his works was one entitled Letters and Remarks on the so-called Potable Gold.

Familiars : Spirits attendant upon a magician, sorcerer, or witch. The idea probably arose out of that of fetishism (q.v.) especially as many familiars were supposed to reside in rings, lockets, or other trinkets worn by the wizard or sorcerer. From Delrio we learn that these spirits were called by the Greeks ' Paredrii," as being ever assiduously at hand; and by the Latins, beside " Familiares," ' Martinelli," or "Magistelli," for which names he does not assign any reason. The black dog of Cornelius Agrippa is among the best known familiars of modern times. His story rests on the authority of Paulus Jovius, (" Elogia" ci.) and it has been copied by Thevet, among others, in his Hist. des Hommes plus Illustres et Scavans, XVIII. Jovius relates that Agrippa was always accompanied by the devil in the shape of a black dog, and that, perceiving the approach of death, he took a collar ornamented with nails, disposed in magical inscriptions from the neck of the animal, and dismissed him with these memorable words, " Abi perdita Bestia quae me totum perdidisti." (Away, accursed beast, through whose agency I must now sink into perdition.) The dog thus addressed, it is said, ran hastily to the banks of the Saone, into which he plunged headlong, and was never afterwards seen. Le Loyer says :-" With regard to the demons whom they imprisoned in rings and charms, the magicians of the school of Salamanca and Toledo, and their master Picatrix, together with those in Italy who made traffic of this kind of ware, knew better than to say whether or not they had appeared to those who had been in possession or bought them. And truly I cannot speak without horror of those who pretend to such vulgar familiarity with them, even to speaking of the nature of each particular demon shut up in a ring ; whether he be a Mercurial, Jovial, Saturnine, Martial, or Aphrodisiac spirit in what form he is wont to appear when required ; how many times in the night he awakes his possessor ; whether benign or cruel in disposition ; whether he can be transferred to another ; and if, once possessed, he can alter the natural temperament, so as to render men of Saturnine complexion Jovial, or the Jovials Saturnine, and so on. There is no end of the stories which might be collected under this head, to which if I gave faith, as some of the learned of our time have done, it would be filling my paper to little purpose. I will not speak therefore of the crystal ring mentioned by Joalium of Cambray, in which a young child could see all that they demanded of him, and which eventually was broken by the possessor, as the occasion by which the devil too much tormented him. Still less will I stay say pen to tell of the sorcerer of Courtray, whose ring had a demon enclosed in it, to whom it behoved him to speak every five days. In fine, the briefest allusion must suffice to what they relate of a gentleman of Poiton, who had playfully taken from the bosom of a young lady a certain charm in which a devil was shut up. Having thrown it into the fire," the story goes.," he was incessantly tormented with visions of the devil till the latter granted him another charm, similar to the one he had destroyed, for the purpose of returning to the lady and renewing her interest in him." Heywood writes, if not much more fully on the subject than Le Loyer does, and evidently attaches a far greater degree of credibility to the narratives which he brings forward. "Grillandus is of opinion, that everie Magition and Witch, after they have done their homage to the devell, have a familiar spirit given to attend them, whom they call ' Magistellus,' ' Magister,' ' Martinettus or Martinellus' " and these are sometimes visible to men in the shape of a dog, a rat, an aethiope, etc. So it is reported of one Magdalena Crucia, that she had one of these paredni to attend her like a blackemore. Glycas tells us, that Simon Magus had a great black dog tyed in a chaine, who, if any man came to speak with him whom he had no desire to see was ready to devoure him. His shadow likewise he caused still to go before him ; making the people beleeve that it was the soule of a dead man who still at-tended him.

These kindes of familiar spirits are such as they include or keepe in rings hallowed, in viols, boxes, and caskets not that spirits, having no bodies, can be imprisoned there against their wills, but that they seem to be confined of their own free-will and voluntarie action.

"Johannes Leo writeth, that such are frequent in Africke, shut in caves, and bear the figure of birds called Aves Hanolatrices, by which the Magitions raise great summes of money, by predicting by them of things future. For being demanded of anv difficulty, they bring an answer written in a small scroll of paper, and deliver it to the magition in their bills. Martinus Anthonius Deirius, of the Society of Jesus, a ma of profound learning and judgment, writeth, that in Burdegell there was an advocate who in a viol kept one of these Paradrii inclosed. Hee dying, his heires knowmg thereof, were neither willing to keepe it, nor durst they break it and demanding counsell, they were persuaded to go to thc Jesuit's Colledge, and to be directed by them. The fathers commanded it to be brought before them and broken; but the executors humbly besought them that it might not be done in their presence, being fearfull least some great disaster might succeed thereof. At which they smiling, flung it against the wall, at the breaking thereof there was nothing seen or heard, save a small noise, as if the two elements of water and fire had nearly met together, and as soone parted.

Philostratus tells us, that Apollonius Tyaneus was never without such rings ; and Alexander Neapolitanius affirmeth, that he received them of Jarcha, the great prince of the Gymnosophists, which he took of him as a rich present, for by them he could be acquainted with any deep secret whatsoever. Such a ring had Johannes Jodocus Rosa, a citizen of Cortacensia, who every fifth day had conference with the spirit enclosed using it as a counsellor and director in all his affairs and interprises whatsoever. By it he was not only acquainted with all newes as well forrein as domesticke, but learned the cure and remedy for all griefs and diseases ; insomuch that he had the reputation of a learned and excellent physition. At length, being accused of sortilege or enchantment, at Ambam, in Guelderland, he was proscribed, and in the year 1548 the chancellor caused his ring, in the public market, to be layd upon an anvil, and with an iron hammer beaten to pieces.

"Mengius reporteth from the relation of a deare friend of his (a man of approved fame and honestie) this historie. In a certain town under the jurisdiction of the Venetians, one of their praestigious artists (whom some call Pythonickes), having one of these rings, in which he had two familiar spirits exorcised and bound, came to a predicant or preaching friar, a man of sincere life and conversation; and confessed unto him that bee was possessed of such an enchanted ring, with such spirits charmed, with whom he had conference at his pleasure. But since he considered with himselfe, that it was a thing dangerous to his soule, and abhominable both to God and man, he desired to be cleanly acquit of it, and to that purpose he came to receive of him some godly counsell. But by no persuasion would the religious man be induced to have any speech at all with these evil spirits (to which motion the other had before earnestly solicited him), but admonished him to cause the magicke ring to be broken, and th4t to be done with all speed possible. At which words the familiars were heard (as it were) to mourne and lament in the ring, and to desire that no such violence might be offered unto them; but rather than so, that it would please him to accept the ring, and keepe it, promising to do him all service and vassallage of which, if he pleased to accept, they would in a short time make him to be the most famous and admired predicant in all Italy. But he perceiving the devils cunning, under this colour of courtesie, made absolute refusall of their offer and withall conjured them to know the reason why they would so willingly submit themselves to his patronage ? After many evasive lies and deceptious answers, they plainly confessed unto him, that they had of purpose persuaded the magition to heare him preach ; that by that sermon, his conscience being pricked and galled, he might be weary of the ring, and being refused of the one, be accepted of the other ; by which they hoped in short time so to have puft him up with pride and heresie, to have percipitated his soule into certaine and never ending destruction. At which the churchman being zealously inraged, with a great hammer broke the ring almost to dust, and in the name of God sent them thence to their own habitation of darkness, or whither it pleased the highest powers to dispose them.

Of this kinde doubtlesse was the ring of Ggyes (of whom Herodotus doth make mention), by vertue of which he had power to walke invisible; who, by the murder of his sovereign Candaules, married his queene, and so became King of Lydia. Such, likewise, had the Phocensian tyrant, who, as Clemens Stromaeus speaketh, by a sound which came of itselfe, was warned of all times, seasonable and unseasonable, in which to manage his affairs; who, notwithstanding, could not be forewarned of his pretended death, but his familiar left him in the end, suffering him to be slain, by the conspirators. Such a ring, likewise, had one Hieronimus, Chancellor of Mediolanum, which afterwards proved to be his untimely ruine." (Hierarchie of the Blessed Angels, vii.; The Principats, p. 475 etc.)

Sometimes the familiar annexed himself voluntarily to a master, without any exercise of magic skill or invocation on his part, nor could such a spirit be disposed of without exorcism, as we learn from the following story cited by Delrio (vi., c. ii., s. 3., q. 3.) :- " A certain man (pater familias-head of a family), lived at Trapani, in Sicily, in whose house it is said, in the year 1585, mysterious voices had been heard for a period of some months. This familiar was a daemon, who, in various ways, endeavoured to annoy man. He had cast huge stones, though as yet he had broken ho mortal head ; and he had even thrown the domestic vessels about, but without fracturing any of them. When a young man in the house played and sung, the demon, hearing all, accompanied the sound of the lute with lascivious songs, and this distinctly. He vaunted himself to be a daemon; and when the master of the house, together with his wife, went away on business to a certain town, the daemon volunteered his company. When he returned, however, soaked through with rain, the spirit went forward in advance, crying aloud as he came, and warning the servants to make up a good fire," etc. In spite of these essential services, the paterfamilias called in the aid of a priest and expelled the familiar, though not without some difficulty.

A learned German physician has given an instance in which the devil of his own accord enclosed himself in a ring as a familiar, thereby proving how dangerous it is to trifle with him.

Paracelsus was believed to carry about with him a familiar in the hilt of his sword. Naude assures us, that he never laid this weapon aside even when he went to bed, that he often got up in the night and struck it violently against the floor, and that frequently when overnight he was without a penny, he would show a purseful of gold in the morning. (Apologie pour les Grands Hommes soupcoonez de Magie, xiv., p. 281.) After this, we are not a little disconcerted with the ignoble explanation which he gives of this reputed demon, namely, that although the alchemists maintain that it was no other than the philosopher's stone, he (Naude) thinks it more rational to believe, if indeed there was anything at all in it, that it was two or three doses of laudanum, which Paracelsus never went without, and with which he effected many strange cures.

The feats of Kelly, " Speculator" to Dr. Dee, may be read in the life of the last-named writer. Of Dr. Dee himself and the spirits Ash, Il, Po, Va, and many others, who used to appear to him, by Kelly's ministry, in a beryl, much may be found in Merie Casaubon's Relation of what passed for many years between Dr. John Dee and some spirits. This narrative comprises the transactions of four-and-twenty years, from 1583 to 1607. Familiars partook of that jealousy which is always a characteristic of spiritual beings, from the time of Psyche's Cupid downwards, in their intercourse with mortals. This feeling is strongly exemplified in a narrative given by Froissart, and translated by Lord Berners, which relates : - " How a spyrite, called Orthone, served the lorde of Corasse a long time, and brought euer tidynges from all parts of the worlde."

Fanny : (See Poltergeists.)

Fantasmagoriana : The title of a collection of popular stories, dealing mainly with apparitions and spectres, which was published in Paris in 1812. The contents were for the most part translated from the German.

Faraday : (See Spiritualism.)

Fascination : From Latin fascinare, to enchant. The word in its general acceptation signifies charm, enchant, to bewitch, by the eyes, the looks ; generally, to charm or enchant; to hold or keep in thraldom by charms, by powers of pleasing.

A belief in Fascination (strictly so called) appears to have been very generally prevalent in most ages and countries. For its existence in Greece and Rome we may quote the wish of Theocritus that an old woman might be with him to avert this ill by spitting, or the complaint of Menalcas, in Virgil, that some evil eye has fascinated his lambs. The Romans, indeed, with their usual passion for increasing the host of heaven, deified this power of ill, and enrolled a god fascinus " among their objects of worship. Although he was a" numen," the celebration of his rites was intrusted by a singular incongruity, to the care of the vestal virgins and his phallic attribute was suspended round the necks of children and from the triumphal chariots. Lucretius, writing Of Natural Witchcraft for Love, etc., says : "But as there is fascination and witchcraft by malicious and angry eyes unto displeasure, so are there witching aspects tending contrariwise to love, or, at the least, to the procuring of good will and liking. For if the fascination or witch-craft be brought to pass or provoked by the desire, by the wishing or coveting any beautiful shape or favour, the venom is strained through the eyes, though it be from afar, and the imagination of a beautiful form resteth in the heart of the lover, and kindleth the fire where it is afflicted. And because the most delicate, sweet and tender blood of the beloved doth there wander, his countenance is there represented, shining in his own blood, and cannot there be quiet, and is so haled from thence, that the blood of him that is wounded, reboundeth, and slippeth into the wounder."

Vairus, Prior of the Benedictine Convent of Sta. Sophia in Benevento, published a Treatise, Dc Fascino, in 1589. He first points to whole nations which have been reported to possess the power of fascination. Thus the idolatrous "Biarbi" and " Hamaxobii," on the authority of Olaus Magnus, are represented to be " most deeply versed in the art of fascinating men, so that by witchcraft of the eyes, or words, or of aught else (a very useful latitude of expression) they so compel men that they are no longer free, nor of sane understanding, and often are reduced to extreme emaciation, and perish by a wasting disease." He then proceeds to similar marvels concerning animals. Wolves, if they see a man first, deprive him of all power of speech ; a fact yet earlier from Theocritus. The shadow of the hyaena produces the same effect upon a dog; and this sagacious wild beast is so well acquainted with its own virtue, that whenever it finds dog or man sleeping, its first care is to stretch its length by the side of the slumberer, and thus ascertain his comparative magnitude with its own. If itself be larger of the two, then it is able to afflict its prey with madness, and it fearlessly begins to nibble his hands or paws (whichever they may be) to prevent resistance ; if it be smaller, it quietly runs away. It may be as well to know, (though not immediately bearing on fascination), that an attack from an hyaena, if it approaches on the right hand, is peculiarly dangerous; if from the left, it may be beaten off without much trouble. Lastly, tortoises lay their eggs and afterwards hatch them, as is very credibly affirmed, by virtue of their eyes alone.

The tenth chapter of the First Book of Vairus inquires : "An aliqui se fascinare possint ? " a question which is decided in the affirmative, by the example of the Basilisk of Narcissus, and of one less known, though equally unfortunate, Eutelis. In the twelfth chapter he affirms. that the more wicked any person is, the better is he adapted to exercise evil fascination. From this book we may extract two useful cautions : Let no servant ever hire himself to a squinting master, and let jewellers be cautious to whose hands, or rather eyes, they intrust their choicest wares. A friend of Vairus told him, that he had seen a person who was gifted with an eye of such fascinating power, that once while he was looking attentively on a precious stone of fine water, exquisite cutting, and admirable polish, in the hands of a lapidary, the jewel of its own accord split into two parts.

In his Second Book, after disputing against "natural" fascination, which he treats as visionary, Vairus determines that all fascination is an evil power, attained by tacit or open compact with the devil.

A second writer on this matter is John Lazarus Gutierrez, a Spanish physician, who may be believed to be equally well qualified for the consideration of mystery. His Opusculum de Fascino appeared in 1653. On his own experience he does not state much, but in his Dubium (III.) he cites Mendoza for an account of a servant of a Tyrolese nobleman, who could bring down a falcon from her very highest flight by steadily looking at her. From Antonius Carthaginensis, also, he produces two other wonders. The first, of a man in Guadalazara, who was in the habit of breaking mirrors into minute fragments solely by looking at them ; the second, of another in Ocana, who used. to kill his own children, as well as those of other folks, by the contagion of his eyes; nay, still more, occasionally, in like manner, to be the cause of death to many valuable horses.

From Cardan, Gutierrez extracts the following symptoms by which a physician may determine that his patient is fascinated :-Loss of colour, heavy and melancholy eyes, either overflowing with tears or unnaturally dry, frequent sighs. and lowness of spirits. watchfulness, bad dreams, falling away of flesh. Also, if a coral or jacinth worn by him loses its colour, or if a ring, made of the hoof of an ass, put on his finger, grows too big for him after a few days' wearing. According to the same writer, the Persians used to determine the sort of fascination under which the patient laboured, by binding a clean linen cloth round his head, letting it dry there, and remarking whether any and what spots arose on it.

But the most curious fact which we learn from Gutierrez is that the Spanish children in his time wore amulets against fascination, somewhat resembling those in use among the Romans. The son of Gutierrez himself wore one of these ; it was a cross of jet, (" agavache") and it was believed that it would split if regarded by evil eyes, thus transferring their venom from the child upon itself. In point. of fact, the amulet worn by young Gutierrez did so split one day, while a person was steadfastly looking at him; and, in justice to the learned physician, we must add, that he attributes the occurrence to some accidental cause, and expresses his conviction that the same thing would have happened under any other circumstances. Throughout his volume, indeed, all his reasoning is brought forward to explode the superstition.

A third similar work is that of John Christian Frommann, a physician of Saxe-Coburg, who published his Tractatus de Fascinatione in 1675.

We have already learned from Vairus, that all those who are immoderately praised, especially behind their backs, persons of fair complexion, and of handsome face or figure, particularly children, are most exposed to fascination, and this notion probably arose from such children attracting from strangers more attention than others less indebted to nature. It was an impression of his own personal beauty which induced Polyphemus to put in practice the spitting charm which Cotattaris had taught him. So we read in Theocritus, Frommann adds, that children in unwashed baby linen are easily subject to fascination, and so also is any fair one who employs two lady's maids to dress her hair; moreover, that all those who lie in bed very late in the morning, especially if they wear nightcaps, all who break their fast on cheese or peas, and all children who, having been once weaned, are brought back to the breast, will, even against their inclination, be gifted with the power of fascinating both men and beasts.

In order to ascertain whether a child be fascinated, three oak apples may be dropped into a basin of water under its cradle, the person who drops them observing the strictest silence ; if they swim the child is free, if they sink it is affected; or a slice of bread may be cut with a knife marked with three crosses, and both the bread and the knife left on the child's pillow for a night; if marks of rust appear in the morning the child is fascinated. If on licking the child's forehead with your tongue a salt taste is perceived, this also is an infallible. proof of fascination.

The following remedies against fascination rest upon the authorities either of Vairus or Frommann, or both of them ; several of them may be traced to Pliny :-An invocation of Nemesis ; the root of the " Satyrios Orchis the skin of a hyaena's forehead; the kernel of the fruit of a palm tree; " Alyssum" (madwort) hung up anywhere in the house ; the stone " Catochites ;" spitting on the right 'shoe before it be put on ; hyssop ; lilies ; fumigations; sprinklings; necklaces Qf jacinth, sapphire, or carbuncle ; washings in river water, provided silence be kept; licking a child's forehead, first upward, next across, and lastly up again, and then spitting behind its back; sweeping its face with the bough of a pine tree; laying it on the ground, covered up in a linen cloth, and then sprinkling it in the form of a cross, with three handfuls of earth, dug where the eaves drop, and brought thence at three separate times within an hour; laying turf from a boy's grave under a boy's pillow, from a girl's under a girl's silently placing near a child the clothes in which 'it was baptized ; if, as is sometimes the case. a child appears to derive no benefit from washing, taking three scrapings from the plaster of each of the four walls of its bedroom, and sprinkling them on its linen; three " lavemeats" of three spoonfuls of milk; giving in a drink the ashes of a rope in which a man has been hanged; drawing water silently, and throwing a lighted candle into it in the name of the Holy Trinity, then washing the patient's legs in this water, and throwing the remainder behind its back in the form of a cross; hanging up the key of the house over the child's cradle; laying on it crumbs of bread, a lock with the bolt shut, a looking-glass, or some coral washed in the font in which it was baptized; hanging round its neck fennel seeds, or bread and cheese.

Vairus states, that huntsmen, as a protection against fascination, were used to split an oak plant, and pass themselves and their dogs between it. As amulets against love fascination, he recommends sprinkling with the dust in which a mule has rolled itself; a bone which may be found in the right side of a toad ; or the liver of a chameleon. Vida has given a highly elaborate description of one who possessed this destructive power in his eye, after enjoining especial caution respecting those who are permitted to look at the silkworms. Some instances of yet more modern belief in fascination than those to which we have referred above, may be found collected in Brand's Popular Antiquities. It appears even in our own days to be prevalent among the inhabitants of the western islands of Scotland, who use nuts, called Molluca beans, as amulets against it. Dallaway, in his Account of Constantinople remarks, that Nothing can exceed the superstition of the Turks respecting the evil eye of an enemy or infidel. Passages from the Koran are painted on the outside of the houses, globes of glass are suspended from the ceiling, and a part of the superfluous caparison of their horses is designed to attract attention and divert a sinister influence."

Delrio has a very short notice of fascination; he divides it into Poetica seu Vulgaris," that resulting from obscure physical causes, which he treats as fabulous ; " Philosophica," which lie considers to be contagion; and" Magica," to which he heartily assents.

Fat of the Sorcerers : It was said at one time that the devil made use of human fat for his sorceries. The witches anointed themselves with this fat in order to go to the Sabbath by way of the chimney.

Fatimites : (See Arabs.)

Faust : A magician of the sixteenth century, famous in legend and literature. There is sound proof that such a person existed. Trithemius (q.v.) mentions him in a letter written in 1507, in which he speaks of him in terms of contempt, as a fool and a mountebank who pretended that he could restore the writings of the ancients were they wiped out of human memory, and blasphemed concerning the miracles of Christ. Mudt, a canon of the German Church also alludes to him in a letter as a charlatan. Johann Gast, a Protestant pastor of Basel, appears to have known Faust, and considers a horse and dog belonging to him to have been familiar spirits. Wier (q.v.), the great protector of witches, mentions Faust in a work of his, as a drunkard who had studied magic at Cracow. He also mentions that in the end Satan strangled him after his house had been shaken by a terrific din. From other evidence it is pretty clear that Faust was a wandering magician or necromancer, whose picturesque character won him wide publicity or notoriety. By the end of the century in which he flourished he had become the model of the medieval magician. and his name was for ever linked with those of Virgil, Bacon, Pope Silvester and others.

The origins of the Faust legend are of very great antiquity. The essentials underlying the story are the pact with Satan, and the supposed vicious character of purely human learning. The idea of the pact with Satan belongs to both Jewish and Christian magico-religious belief, but is probably more truly Kabalistic than anything else, and can scarcely be traced further back ; unless it resides in the savage idea that a sacrificed person takes the place of the deity, to which he is immolated during the period of life remaining to him before his execution, and afterwards becomes one with the god. The wickedness of believing in the all-sufficiency of human knowledge is a favourite theme with the early Lutherans, whose beliefs strongly coloured the Faust legend; but vivid hues and wondrously carven outlines were also afforded its edifice by the thought of the age in which it finally took shape; and in the ancient Faust- books we find tortuous passages of thought and quaintnesses of conception which recall to our minds the artistry of the Renaissance.

The Faust-book soon spread over Europe; but to England is due the honour of the first dramatic representation of the story by Christopher Marlowe, who in the Tragicall History of Dr. Faustus produced a wondrous, if unequal drama,-the outstanding passages of which contained most of his best work. Lessing wrote a Faust play daring the German revival of the eighteenth century, but it remained to Goethe to crown the legend with the creation of the greatest psychological drama the world has ever seen. The manner in which Goethe differed from his predecessors in his treatment of the story lies in the circumstance that he gives a different character to the pact between Faust and Mephistopheles, whose nature again is totally at variance with the devils of the old Faust-books. From Lessing Goethe received the idea of Faust's final salvation. It may be said that though in some respects Goethe adopted the letter of the-old legend he did not adopt its spirit. Probably the story of Faust has given to thousands their only idea of medieval magic, and this idea has lost nothing in the hands of Goethe, who has cast about the subject a much greater halo of mystery than it perhaps really contains. (See Goethe.)

Fay, Annie Eva : A medium. (See Spiritualism.)

Feliciani, Lorenza : (See Cagliostro.)

Fendeurs : A supposed French Rosicrucian Society, concerning which very little is known. It flourished in the middle of the seventeenth century ; and its members claimed that it was of Scottish origin.

Feortini : (See Visions.)

Ferarius : This alchemist is supposed to have been an Italian priest of the thirteenth century, but nothing is known concerning his career. Various chymical writings ascribed to him are embodied in that curious collection, the Theatrum Chimicum, prominent among them being De Lapide Philosophorum and Thesaurus Philosophia; and in the former the author observes, rather tritely, that in alchemy the first thing to be ascertained is what is really signified by the myrionimous argentum vivum sapientium. But he does not volunteer any information in this particular, and his works in general are obscure, and of but little interest.

Ferdinand D. Schertz : (See Magia Posthuma.)

Fern : The common Fern, it was believed, was in flower at midnight on St. John's Eve, and whoever got possession of the flower would be protected from all evil influences, and would obtain a revelation of hidden treasure. Fern seed was supposed to render one invisible.

Ferrier, Susan : (See Fiction, Occult English.)

Fetch : According to Irish belief, the apparition of a living, person ; the Irish form of the wraith (q.v.) It resembles in every particular the individual whose death it is sup posed to foretell, but it is generally of a shadowy or ghostly appearance. The fetch may be seen by more than one person at the same time and, like the wraith of England and Scotland, may appear to the person it represents. There is a belief, too, that if the fetch be seen in the morning, it indicates long life for the original : but if it be seen at night, his speedy demise may be expected. The Fetch enters largely into the folk-tales of Ireland ; and it is hardly surprising that so many tales have been woven around it, for there is something gruesome in the idea of being haunted by one's own "double" which has frequently been turned to account by more sophisticated writers than the inventors of folk-tales.

Patrick Kennedy, in his Legendary Fiction of the Irish Celt, speaking of the Irish fetch, gives the following tale of The Doctor's Fetch, based, it is stated, on the most authentic sources : " In one of our Irish cities, and in a room where the mild moonbeams were resting on the carpet and on a table near the window, Mrs. B., wife of a doctor in good practice and general esteem, looking towards the window from her pillow, was startled by the appearance of her husband standing near the table just mentioned, and seeming to look with attention on the book which was lying open on it. Now, the living and breathing man was by her side apparently asleep, and, greatly as she was surprised and affected, she had sufficient command of herself to remain without moving, lest she should expose him to the terror which she herself at the moment experienced. After gazing on the apparition for a few seconds, she bent her eyes upon her husband to ascertain if his looks were turned in the direction of the window, but his eyes were closed. She turned round again, although now dreading the sight of what she believed to be her husband's fetch, but it was no longer there. She remained sleepless throughout the remainder of the night, but still bravely refrained from disturbing her partner.

Next morning, Mr. B., seeing signs of disquiet on his wife's countenance while at breakfast, made some affectionate inquiries, but she concealed her trouble, and at his ordinary hour he sallied forth to make his calls. Meeting Dr. C, in the street, and falling into conversation with him, he asked his opinion on the subject of fetches. ' I think,' was the answer, ' and so I am sure do you, that they are mere illusions produced by a disturbed stomach acting upon the excited brain of a highly imaginative or superstitious person.' Then,' said Mr. B., I am highly imaginative or superstitious, for I distinctly saw my own outward man last night standing at the table in the bedroom, and clearly distinguishable in the moonlight. I am afraid my wife saw it too, but I have been afraid to speak to her on the subject.'

About the same hour on the ensuing night the poor lady was again roused, but by a more painful circumstance. She felt her husband moving convulsively, and immediately afterwards he cried to her in low, interrupted accents, Elleo, my dear, I am suffocating; send for Dr. C.' She sprang up, huddled on some clothes, and ran to his house. He came with all speed, but his efforts for his friend were useless. He had burst a large blood-vessel in the lungs, and was soon beyond human aid. In her lamentations the bereaved wife frequently cried out, ' Oh the fetch, the fetch !' and at a later period told the doctor of the appearance the night before her husband's death.

Fetishism : The term fetishism is employed in more than one sense. Thus it may mean in some cases pure idolatry or the worship of inanimate objects. Again in older works of travel, it is even used to signify African religion. But taken in its general and more modern sense, it signifies any inanimate object which appears to the savage as the residence of a spirit. Thus a carved doll, a necklace of teeth, a flint stone into which a shaman or medicine-man has succeeded in coaxing a spirit to reside, is regarded by the savage as a fetish. But larger objects are occasionally adopted as fetishes, and in the adoption of these in contradistinction to the smaller fetishes we can trace the evolution of the idol. As a general rule the fetish is an object peculiar in shape or material, for such is considered by the shaman as being more likely to attract a wandering spirit than any more ordinary substance. Thus we find as fetishes peculiarly shaped stones, tufts of human hair and bones, parts of animals and birds, and so forth. Fossils are not uncommonly employed as fetishes, possibly because of their freakish formation.

The origin of fetishism is undoubtedly animistic (See Animism). The savage intelligence regards everything that surrounds it as possessing the property of life-water, the earth, trees, stones and so forth. But this is modified by the idea that many of these objects are under the power of some spell or potent enchantment. Thus the rocks and trees are the living tombs of imprisoned spirits, resembling the dryads of folk-lore ; so that it is not at all strange to the savage mind to perceive an imprisoned intelligence more or less powerful, in any object, no matter how uncommon its form. In fact, according to the savage mind, spirit was dependent to a great extent upon material body. The wandering spirit, according to the barbarian; could not fare much better, materially speaking, than a wandering savage it would suffer the rigours of hunger and cold, and would be only too agreeable to be at rest for a while where it would be treated with every deference and properly attended to. For this purpose a shaman will either manufacture or search for a fitting residence for this spirit, and he will proceed by various rites to attempt to coax some wandering intelligence to take up its home therein.

There is of course a point at which the fetish commences to develop into a god. This happens when fetishes survive the test of experience and achieve a more than personal or tribal popularity. Thus amongst the Zuni Indians a fetish called " The Knife-feathered Monster " has practically become the tribal god of war, and a pony and sheep fetish are at present in course of evolving as deities in the pantheon of this people. Amongst the Zuni there appears to have been the conception that their fetishes were totemistic. Fetishism and totemism are not incompatible with one another, but often flourish side by side ; but the basic difference between a fetish and a totem is that the fetish spirit is the bond slave of the person who owns its abode, whereas the totem is his patron spirit, personal or tribal. Nevertheless the fetish partakes more of the nature of those spirits which are subservient to man, as for example the Arabian Jinn, than of those which subsequently develop into gods. They are more of the race of faery, of the little folk who dwelt in the crevices of rocks and trees, the smaller swarm of the supernatural, than of the strain of Olympus. A capital example of a fetish, which will be familiar to all, is that which occurs in the story of Aladdin and his lamp. Here we have the subservient nature-spirit-the original conception of which must have been that it dwelt in the lamp or the ring, and was only freed therefrom on the summons of its temporary master to perform some special piece of work. But a fetish is not necessarily a piece of personal property : it may belong collectively to an entire community or family, and it is usually an heirloom.

The savage naturally attaches great importance to those fetishes which assist him in the chase. Thus the Zuni Indians, who possess perhaps the most complete fetishistic system of any barbarous people, have a special temple-house set apart for their tribal fetishes of the hunt, which they call the Prey-gods. On setting out for the hunt, the Zuni Indian will visit the fetish-house, and sprinkle a little maize meal on a platter placed before that fetish which he wishes to employ in his expedition. In this office he is usually assisted by a medicine-man set aside for the purpose, whose special duty it is to see that the fetishes are properly placated and returned when their services are no more required. Let us suppose that he selects the fetish of the mountain-lion. This is a stone object, shaped in the likeness of that animal. Once in the open country, the hunter places the mouth of the fetish to his own and suspires deeply, imagining that by so doing he is breathing in the hunting instinct of the mountain-lion. He then forcibly emits his breath. The Indian idea is that beasts of prey are able by the emission of breath to render the game helpless over a wide area, and this the bunter believes he has successfully and magically imitated. When he meets with his game, after slaying it, his first act is to excise the liver, which he smears upon the lips of the fetish, which is then duly returned to the fetish-house. Most of the objects belonging to a medicine-man or shaman are believed to be fetishes,-that is, they possess a certain quality of life that other, and more ordinary, objects do not have.

The word fetish is derived from the Portuguese feitico which implies " something made," and was applied by early voyagers in West Africa to the wooden figures, stones and so forth, regarded as the residence of spirits. Fetishism in Africa appears t6 be generally confined to the coasts, but in America it is prevalent more or less over the whole hemisphere. That it was once prevalent in Europe is practically certain from the nature of many objects found in prehistoric and early historic graves, and in certain parts of Asia, it is by no means extinct. The material conception of fetishism survives in the charm, amulet or mascot, which is regarded as a luck-bringer, although the spiritual significance connected with it has quite vanished. (See Charms and Amulets, Familiar).

Fey : To possess second sight. (See Teutons.)

Fiction, English Occult : English literature, as it is known today, really begins with the Elizabethan age for the writers prior to that time, excellent as many of them are, elicit comparatively little interest nowadays save among experts. And, by the time of Elizabeth's advent, the old miracle plays " had gone out of fashion yet tales about the miraculous doings of mythical heroes continued to find favour, and many new things of this kind were written.

A few of the Restoration dramatists dealt in magic and the like, but throughout the Georgian age people were mostly too prosaic, too matter-of-fact, to care for things of that sort, and they were eschewed by the majority of prominent writers of the day. However, after the great artistic movement commonly styled the Renaissance of Wonder, the old interest in the occult began to revive apace, and, ere the nineteenth century was very far advanced, a literature suitable to this budding taste was being purveyed on a voluminous scale. Among the first to enter the lists, soi disant, was William Godwin, with his novel of St. Truyne the Rosicrucian while Godwin's daughter, Mary, chiefly remembered nowadays as the second wife of Shelley, merits notice as a mystical writer by virtue of her story of Frankenstein. A little before the advent of this authoress, numerous occult tales had been written by Matthew Lewis, notably Tales of Terror and the drama of Castle Spectre, staged successfully at Drury Lane in 1798 while not long after Lewis a further novelist came to swell the muster-roll, Bulwer Lytton, whose taste for the mystic is seen especially in Zanoni, A Strange Story, and Haunters and the Haunted. His essays of this kind, nevertheless, were never very satisfactory in the real literary sense and as Leslie Stephen once discovered, they too often smacked of the theatrical. But Sir Walter Scott, on the other hand, writing just before Lytton's time, not only showed a keen fondness for occult matter, but frequently utilised it to genuine artistic purpose. In The Monastery a mysterious sylph rises from a fountain astrology is introduced into The Mannering, The Fortunes of Nigel, and Quentin Durward; while a splendid ghost story is told in Redgauntlet, and ghosts figure also in Wood-stock. In The Bride of Lammermoor, besides, the author deals incidentally with that firm belief in prophecy which was long a prominent part of Scottish life ; while in Waverley, again, he depicts a Highland chief as awestruck and unmanned by the sight of a peculiar omen. Highland superstitions, indeed, appealed with particular potency to Sir Walter's romantic temper ; while he was not the only writer of his time who dealt ably with this branch of the occult, another being Susan Ferrier in her novels of Destiny and The Chief's Daughter. Nor should we fail ere leaving this period, to mention Ann Radcliffe, for in almost all her novels the supernatural figures prominently.

While the last-named trio were at work thus in Britain, some good stories in which magic occurs were being written in America by Washington Irving ; and, not very long after his day, a second American arose to treat brilliantly of weirdness and wizardry, Edgar Allan Poe. Then, reverting to England, ghosts appear in a few of Dickens' novels, and Charles Reade manifests here and there a love of the occult ; while coming to slightly later times, a writer who manifested this predilection abundantly is Robert Louis Stevenson. His Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is among the best of all modern novels in which the supernatural plays a salient role, and many of his short stories pertain also to the category of occult, for example, the tale of the magic bottle in Island Nights Entertainments; while, about the date these were being composed, Oscar Wilde was writing what is one of the most beautiful things dealing with invisible powers, The Picture of Dorian Gray. Much inferior to this masterpiece, yet possessing considerable excellence, are George du Maurier's Peter Ibbetson, Trilby and The Martian, in each of which the supernatural is prominent while a further work which should certainly be cited is Lafcadio Hearn's Dead Love, a tiny tale of magic which the author thought lightly of, but which future generations are almost sure to prize on account of its lovely wording, at some places worthy of Theophile Gautier himself, who was Hearn's acknowledged master.

These recent authors do not by any means conclude the list, for a wealth of occult fiction has been written since their day. Among its most remarkable items is The Ghost Ship of Richard Middleton, a singularly promising storyteller and poet who died by his own hand lately at the early age of twenty-nine; while many contemporary novelists have introduced magic into their books, for instance; Mr. Rider Haggard in She, the late Mr. Bram Stoker in Dracula, and Mr. F. A. Anstey in Vice Versa and The Brass Bottle. In fact, were one to cite all the living wont to trade in the occult, an article of formidable size would be the result, and accordingly the attempt must be eschewed ; but at least it is essential to mention Mr. Theodore Watts-Dunton's Aylwin, this reflecting really fine treatment of mystic matter, and being couched throughout in a style of exceptional beauty. Mr. Arthur Symons is another great writer of to-day who loves the borderland between dreams and realities, as witness many pages in his Spiritual Adventures while the invisible world has always appealed powerfully to Mr. W. B. Yeats, and is employed to good purpose here and there in his stories of the Irish peasantry. It is less the ghost than the fairy which he delights in, true Celt that he is ; and his predilection herein sets one dreaming of fairy-tales in general, and summons a curious medley of names. William Morris wrote a host of beautiful fairy-stories, some of them concerned with the promulgation of socialistic ideas, but others innocent of anything of that sort; while the voluminous works of Ruskin include what can only be defined as a fairy tale, The King of the Golden River. Numerous contemporary writers have likewise done good work in this field-Lord Dunsany, Mr. J. M. Barrie, and more especially Mr. Laurence Housman-while a remarkable fairy play has been written lately by Mr. Graham Robertson, and has been staged with surprising triumph. Then, reverting for a moment to defunct authors, fairies occur in that charming volume by H. D. Lowry, Make Believe, and in Richard Middleton's book, The Day Before Yesterday ; while no account of this particular domain of literature would be complete without mention of the work of Lewis Carrol, and also of Jean Ingelow's lovely story, Mopsa the Fairy. This last is possibly the best of all fairy stories, and one which has been most widely and wisely cherished ; and it stands out very clearly in the memory of nearly every man of imaginative temperament, reminding him of his own childhood.

Figuier, Guillaume Louis : A French writer and chemist, born at Montpellier in 1819. His uncle, Pierre Figuier, was professor of chemistry at the School of Pharmacy, Montpellier, and Louis, having taken his degree of doctor of medicine, and studied chemistry at the laboratory of Balard in Paris, was made professor of chemistry at the School of Pharmacy, Montpellier. He later- 1853 - exchanged this post for a similar one in the School of Pharmacy of Paris. Thereafter many honorary degrees in science and medicine were conferred upon him by various faculties. In 1857 he finally left off teaching and devoted himself to the popularising of science, mainly physiology and medical chemistry. He published from time to time many notable works, and was not more distinguished for his prodigious output than for its literary quality. Of those works having a bearing on occult matters the principal are le Lendemein de la mort ou La Vie future selon Ia science (1872) dealing with the transmigration of souls ; 1' Atchimie et les Alchimistes (1854); histoire du merveilleux dens les temps modernes (1859-60 ); les Bonheurs d' outre tombe (1892.) He tried to popularize science by introducing on the stage plays whose heroes were savants and inventors. His attempt however, met with but a cold reception. In 1889 he published a volume of dramas and comedies, la Science au Theatre. He died at Paris in 1894.

Fingitas : The tradition concerning this stone is remarkable. It is described as quite transparent and hard like marble. It is related that a certain king built a temple of it which needed no windows, the light being admitted into it as if it had been all open to the day.

Finias : One of the four great cities whence the Irish mythical Danaans were said to have sprung.

Finn Mac Cummal : In Irish romance, Captain of the Fianna and the centre of the Ossianic tales. His father Cumhal, chief of the clan Basena, was slain at Castle Knock by the rival clan Morna, but his mother succeeded in saving him from the enemy. He was brought up in hiding and given the name of Finn from the clearness of his skin. He learned science and poetry from the druid Finegas who dwelt on the river Boyne. The druid had been unable to catch the salmon of knowledge until Finn became his pupil, and when he did succeed in catching it, he told Finn to watch it while it was cooking but not to partake of it. Finn, however, burned his fingers as he turned the spit and put one of them in his mouth. Seeing this, Finegas bade him eat the salmon and he became filled with the wisdom of all ages. Afterwards he took service with King Cormac to whom he revealed his name and lineage. Cormac promised him the leadership of the Fianna if he succeeded in killing the fire-blowing demon that came yearly to set Tara in flames. Finn slew the demon and bore his head back to Tara. The Fianna were therefore ordered to swear allegiance to Finn as their captain, which, led by Goll mac Morna, their former captain, they all did. Under Finn, the Fianna rose to great eminence, an eminence which at length became tyrannical and from which they were thrown at the battle of Bowra. Finn's end is shrouded in mystery. According to popular tradition he and his great companions he sleeping in an enchanted cave whence they shall arise in the hour of their country's need, like Arthur, Barbarossa and Charlemagne.

Fioravanti, Leonardi : An Italian alchemist doctor and surgeon of the sixteenth century. He was a voluminous writer whose best known work is a Summary of the Arcana of Medicine, Surgery and Alchemy, published in Venice in 1571. It embraces an application of the principles and methods of Hermes to the Science of Medicine. The author's account of the petra philosophorum shews its designation to be purely arbitrary. It is a mixture of mercury, nitre and other ingredients intended as a stomachic and has no connection with the transmuting lapis of the alchemists.

Fire : Many nations have adored this element. In Persia a chimneyless enclosure was made, and into it fire was introduced. Essences and perfumes were cast into the fire by the great persons of the nation. When a Persian king was at the point of death all the fires in the principal towns of the kingdom were extinguished, and were not rekindled until the crowning of his successor. Certain Tartars never accost foreigners who have not purified themselves by passing between two fires ; they are also careful to drink with their faces turned to the south, in honour of the element of fire. In some parts of Siberia it is believed that fire is inhabited by a being who dispenses good and evil; they offer him perpetual sacrifices. According to the kabalists, this was the element of the Salamanders. (See also Fire Ordeal.)

Fire, Magical : (See Magic.)

Fire-Mist, Children of the : (See Lords of the Flame.)

Fire-ordeal : The fire-ordeal is of great antiquity, and probably arose from the conception of the purifying influence of fire. Among the Hindoos, from the earliest times until comparatively recently, those who were suspected of wrongdoing were required to prove their guilt or innocence by walking over red-hot iron. If they escaped unharmed their innocence was placed beyond a doubt. The priestesses of a Cappodocian goddess, Diana Parasya, walked barefooted on red-hot coals, attributing their invulnerability to the powers of the divinity. In Europe trial by fire was of two kinds-traversing the flames, or undergoing the ordeal of hot iron. The latter form comprised the carrying in the hand of red-hot irons, the walking over iron bars or glowing ploughshares, and the thrusting of the hand into a red-hot gauntlet. An early instance of the former mode in European history is that of Pierre Barthelemy, who in 1097 declared to the Crusaders that heaven had revealed to him the place where was concealed the spear that had pierced the Saviour's body. To prove his assertion he offered-to undergo the ordeal by fire, and was duly required to walk a path about a foot in width and some fourteen feet in length, on either side of which were piled blazing olive-branches. The judgment of the fire was unfavourable, and twelve days later the rash adventurer expired in agony. Books also were sometimes submitted to the trial by fire. This method was adopted to decide the claims of the Roman and Mozaratian liturgies, the former emerging victorious from the flames. Among savage people the fire-ordeal is also to be met with, and especially in New Zealand, India, Fiji, and Japan. It may be suspected that the issue of these ordeals was not always left on the knees of the gods. There is no doubt that the ancient Egyptians were acquainted with substances which rendered the body partly immune. Albertus Magnus gives a recipe for this purpose. It is made up of powdered lime, made into a paste with the white of an egg, the juice of the radish, the juice of the marsh mallow, and the seeds of the fleabane. A first coat of this mixture is applied to the body and allowed to dry, when a second coat is applied. If the feet he constantly oiled, or moistened with sulphuric acid, they may be rendered impervious. Possibly the ancients were not unaware of the fire-resisting properties of asbestos. The fire-ordeal has remained to this day as one of the phenomena of spiritualism. D. D. Home frequently handled live coals, and laid them on a handkerchief without damaging the material in the least. On one occasion he enclosed a glowing coal in his hands and blew upon it until it became white hot. A well known instance is that related by Mrs. S. C. Hall, when Home placed a burning coal on the head of Mr. Hall, whose white hair was then drawn over the still glowing coal. In an account given by Mrs. Homewood and Lord Lindsay of a seance with the same medium we are told that Home took a chimney from a lighted lamp and thrust it into the fire, making it so hot that a match applied to it ignited instantly, and then thrust it into his mouth, touching it with his tongue, without any apparent ill effects. Another account states that Home placed his face right in the fire among the burning coals" moving it about as though bathing it in water." Other mediums, both in England and America, emulated this feat with some measure of success. It has been suggested that the state of trance generally accompanying such exploits, and corresponding to the ecstasy of the shaman performing a similar feat, may produce anaesthesia, or insensibility to the pain of burning. But how it comes that the skin is not scorched, nor the material of the handkerchief marked by the burning coal, it is not easy to say.

Flamel, Nicholas : was born at Pontoise, of a poor but respectable family, about the beginning of the fourteenth century. He received a good education, of which his natural abilities enabled him to make the best use. Repairing to Paris, he obtained employment as a public scrivener,-sitting at the corner of the Rue de Marivaux, copying or inditing letters and other documents. The occupation brought with it little profit, and Flamel tried in succession poetry and painting with an equally unsatisfactory result. His quick wits suggested that as he could make no money by teaching mankind, it might be more profitable to cheat them, and he took up the pursuit of Astrology, casting horoscopes and telling fortunes. He was right in his conjectures, and soon throve so vigorously that he was enabled to take unto himself a wife named Petronella. But those who begin to study the magic art for profit or amusement generally finish by addicting themselves to it with a blindly passionate love. Nicholas devoted himself both day and night to his fascinating but deceptive pursuits; and soon acquired a thorough knowledge of all that previous adepts had written upon the elixir vita', the universal Alkahest, and the Philosopher's Stone. In 1297 he lighted upon a manual of the art which would have been invaluable if it had been intelligible. He bought it for two florins. It contained three times seven leaves written with a steel instrument upon the bark of trees. The caligraphy was as admirable as the Latin was cryptical. Each seventh leaf was free from writing, but emblazoned with a picture the first, representing a serpent swallowing rods ; the second, a serpent crucified on a cross ; and the third, the arid expanse of a treeless desert, in whose depths a fountain bubbled, with serpents trailing their slimy folds from side to side. The author of this mysterious book purported to be " Abraham, the patriarch, Jew, prince, philosopher, Levite, priest, and astrologer," (q.v.) who added to his other claims upon the wonder of mankind a knowledge of Latin. He had included within these precious pages a complete exposition of the art of transmuting metals; describing every process, explaining the different vessels, and pointing out the proper seasons for making experiments. In fact, the book would have been perfect, hut for one deficiency; it was addressed not so much to the tyro as to an adept, and took it for granted that its student was already in possession of the Philosopher's Stone. This was a terrible obstacle to the inquiring Flamel The more he studied the book the less he understood it He studied the letterpress, and he studied the illustrations he invited the wise men of France to come and study them but no light was thrown upon the darkness For thrice seven years he pored over these perplexing pages until at length his wife suggested that a Jewish Rabbi might be able to interpret them. As the chiefs of the Jews uere principally located in Spain, to Spain went Flamel and there he remained for two years. Prom one of the Hebrew sages he obtained some hints which afforded a key to the patriarchal mysteries, and returning to Paris he recommenced his studies with a new vigour. They were rewarded with success. On the 13th of February, 1382, o.s., Flanzel made a projection on Mercury, and produced some virgin silver. On the 25th of the following April he converted some Mercury into gold, and found himself the fortunate possessor of an inexhaustible treasure. But his good fortune did not end here. Flamel continuing his researches discovered the elixir of life, which enabled him to prolong his life and accumulate gold-to the venerable age of 116. He further administered the life-giving potion to his wife, who reached nearly as great a longevity as himself, dying in the year preceding his own death, A.D. 1414. As they had no children, they spent their wealth upon churches and hospitals, and several of the religious and charitable institutions of France still attest their well-directed benevolence. There is no doubt that Flamel practised alchemy, and one of his works on the fascinating science - poem entitled The Philosophic Summary-was printed as late as 1735. in Salmon's valuable and very curious Bibliotheque des Philosophes Chimiques are preserved same specimens of the drawings in Abraham's treatise on metallurgy and of his own handwriting. But Flamel was neither an enthusiast nor a dupe. His alchemical studies were but the disguises of his usurious practices. To account for the immense wealth he acquired by money-lending to the young French nobles, and by transacting business between the Jews of France and those of Spain, he invented the fiction of his discovery of the Philosopher's Stone. He nevertheless obtained great repute as a magician, and his followers believed that he was still alive though retired from the world, and would live for six centuries.

Flammarion, Camille : (See Spiritualism.)

Fletcher, Anna : (See Germany.)

Flight of Birds in Augury : (See Divination.)

Flournoy Prof. : (See Automatic Writing and Speaking.)

Fludd, or Flud, Robert : This Rosicrucian and alchemist was born in 1574 at Milgate House, in the parish of Bearsted, Kent, his father being one Sir Thomas Fludd, a knight who enjoyed the patronage of Queen Elizabeth, and served her for several years as Treasurer of War in the Low Countries." At the age of seventeen Robert entered St. John's College, Oxford, and five years later he took Isis degree as Bachelor of Arts ; while shortly afterwards, on his deciding to take up medical science, he left England and went to prosecute his studies on the Continent. Going first to Spain, he travelled thence to Italy, and subsequently stayed for some time in Germany, where he is said to have supported himself by acting as pedagogue in various noble households; but soon he was home again, and in 1605 his alma mater of Oxford conferred on him the degrees of Bachelor of Medicine and Doctor of Medians, while five years later he became a Fellow of the College of Physicians. Having thus equipped himself thoroughly for the medical profession, Fludd went to London and took a house in Fenchurch Street, a quiet place in those days, though now a noisy centre of commerce; and here he soon gained an extensive practice, his success being due not merely to his genuine skill, but to his having an attractive and even magnetic personality. But busy though he was in this way, he found leisure to write at length on medicine; while anon he became an important and influential member of the Fraternity of the Rosy Cross, and at the same time he commenced alchemistic experiments. He preached the great efficacy of the magnet, of sympathetic cures, of the weapon-salve ; he declared his belief in the Philosopher's Stone, the universal alkahest or solvent, the elixir vita'; he maintained that all things were animated by two principles-condensation, the Boreal, or northern virtue; and rarefaction, the Austral, or southern virtue. He asserted that the human body was controlled by a number of demons, that each disease had its peculiar demon, each demon his particular place in the frame of humanity, and that to conquer a disease-say in the right leg-you must call in the aid of the demon who ruled the left, always proceeding by this rule of contraries. As soon as the doctrines of the Rosy Cross Brotherhood were promulgated Fludd embraced them with all the eagerness of which his dreamy intellect was capable; and several German writers having made an attack upon them, he published a defence in 1616, under the title of Apologia Compendiaria Fraternitatem de Rosea-Cruce Suspicionis et Infamia Maculis Aspersam Abluens, which procured him a wide-spread reputation as one of the apostles of the new fraternity. He met with the usual fate of prophets, and was lustily belaboured by a host of enemies-by Mersenne, Gassendi, and Kepler. Fludd was by no means discomfited, and retorted upon his opponents in an elaborate treatise, Summum Bonum, quod est Magiae, Cabalae, Alchimiae, Fratrum Rosea-Crucis Verorum, et adversus Mersenium Columniatorem. He made at a later period and aventurous attempt to identify the doctrines of the Rosicrucians with what he was pleased to call the Philosophy of Moses (Philosophia Mosaica, in qua sapientia et scientia Creationis explicantur), published at Ghent, 1638, and wrote numerous treatises on alchemy and medical science. He founded an English school of Rosicrucians. Fludd is one of the high priests of the Magnetic Philosophy, and learnedly expounds the laws of astral medicine, the doctrines of sympathies, and the fine powers and marvellous effects of the magnet. When two men approach each other-such was his theory-their magnetism is either active or passive ; that is, positive or negative. If the emanations which they send out are broken or thrown back, there arises antipathy, or Magnetismus negativus but when the emanations pass through each other, the positive magnetism is produced, for the magnetic rays proceed from the centre to the circumference. Man, like the earth, has his poles, or two main streams of magnetic influence. Like a little world, he is endowed with a magnetic virtue which, however, is subjected to the same laws as, on a larger scale, the magnetic power of the universe. How these principles may be developed in the cure or prevention of disease, the reader must learn from the mystic pages of Robertus a Fluctibus himself.

Fludd died in 1637 at a house in Coleman Street, to which he had removed a few years before ; but ere his demise he had won a fairly wide reputation by his chymical ability, and had also issued a considerable number of books, prominent among them being Tractatus Apologeticus integritatem Societatis de Rusae Cruce defendans, Leyden 1617, Veritatis Proscenium, Frankfort 1621, Med,cina Catholica, Frankfort 1629, Monochordum Mundi Syhiphoniacum, Frankfort, 1622.

Flute, Charm of the : The flute is often mentioned in history as being used for the purpose of charming animals, and the serpent seems to have been peculiarly delighted with its music. It is Slid that adders will swell at the sound of the flute, raising themselves up, twisting about and keeping proper time. A Spanish writer says that in India he had often seen the Gentiles leading about enchanted serpents, making them dance to the sound of a flute, putting them round their necks, and touching them without harm ; and to this day a musical instrument of this nature is used by the snake-charmers of that country. In opposition to this, Hippocrates mentions a man, Nicanor, who fainted whenever he heard the sound of a flute.

Flying Dutchman, The : Sailors in Holland long believed that a certain Dutch skipper, van Straaten by name, was condemned as a penalty for his sins to sail for year after year through the seas beating around the Cape of Storms, this being the old name for the Cape of Good Hope; and crews returning to the Zudyer Zee after voyaging in the region aforesaid, use to declared that they had seen van Straaten's mysterious craft, and had fled from it in terror. This legend is probably a very old one, albeit the exact date at which it became current is indeterminate; and it should be added that the story is found in the folklore of various countries besides Holland, notably Germany. Several German versions call the ill-starred seaman von Falkenberg. and maintain that it was not near South Africa, but in the North Sea that his spectral barque commonly hovered; while some of them contend further that the devil was wont to pay periodic visits to the captain on board his ship, and that frequently the two were seen playing dice on deck, the stakes at issue being von Falkenberg's soul. The tale soon found its way from folk-lore into actual literature, among the greatest of those writers utilising it being Heinrich Heine, and in his rendering the sailor has a chance of salvation. That is to say, the fates allow him to put foot on terra firma once every seven years and if, during his brief period of respite, he contrives to win the affection of an unsullied maiden, liberation from perennial sea-wandering will be granted him as reward. Heine's form o the story appealed keenly to Wagner, who was always prone to regard woman devoutly as before all else a regenerating force ; and accordingly the great composer wrote a music-drama on the subject of The Flying Dutchman, or as he calls it in German, Der Fliegende Hollander, in which the scene is mostly laid in the North Sea, while the sailor himself is called van Derdecken. and the maiden to whom he makes advances is Senta. This opera was first staged at Dresden in 1843, and, though it can hardly be said that it won speedy appreciation, at least it did not elicit quite the scorn meted out originally to the majority of Wagner's works. Marryat has also a novel on the subject.

Fohat is in Theosophy, the power of the Logos : (See Theosophy, Logos.)

Fong-Chur : A mysterious operation practised in China, in the disposition of buildings, and particularly of tombs. If someone should chance to build in a position contrary to his neighbours, so that the corner of his house faced the side of a house belonging to someone else, the latter believes that the worst of misfortune will befall him. Longstanding feuds may result from the unfortunate action. The remedy consists in placing in a chamber a dragon or other monster in terra-cotta, facing the corner of the fatal edifice. The terrible gaze of the monster will repulse the evil influence. Incense is burned before the dragon. and he is treated with much respect.

Fong Onhang : Fabulous birds to which the Chinese attribute almost the same qualities as are attributed to the phoenix. The women adorn themselves with the image of this bird, in gold, silver, or brass, according to their means.

Fongities : A gem said to assuage anger.

Fontaine, John : This Flemish alchemist and poet appears to have lived at Valenciennes towards the close of the thirteenth century. Two books are ascribed to him, La Fontaine des Amoureux de Science and La Fontaine Perilleuse. both of which are written in French and were published at Paris, the first-named in 1561 and the second eleven years later. His claims to the authorship of the latter work have frequently been disputed, but the former is almost certainly his, and a curious production it is. At the outset the author professes himself an adept in hermetic philosophy, and thereafter he proceeds, in poetry of an allegorical style which recalls The Romaunt of the Rose, to describe the different processes to be gone through ere achieving a transmutation. There is little in this metrical treatise which indicates that the writer was an alchemist of any great ability. but he certainly possessed a distinct gift for making pleasant if hardly powerful verses.

Fontenettes, Charles : Author of a Dissertation sur une fille de Grenoble, qui depuis quatre ans ne boit ni ne mange, 1737. This prodigy was commonly attributed to the devil, but

Fontenettes explained that it was due to a less sinister cause.

Fork, Magical : (See Magic.)

Formicarium : (See Germany.)

Fortune-telling : Fortune-telling in Britain, was formerly included under the crime of Witchcraft, and was made punishable by death under the Statute of 1563 C. 73. This Act was repealed by 9 George II. C. 5, which ordained that no prosecution should thereafter be made on charge of Witchcraft, also by the said Act all persons professing to occult skill or undertaking ?o tell fortunes might be sentenced to imprisonment for one year, and to stand pillory and find surety for their future good behaviour.

Punishment by pillory is now abolished. By Act 5 George IV. c. 83 fortune-tellers were included along with other vagrants under the general category of rogues and vagabonds, and were liable to imprisonment for three months. This Act was made applicable to Scotland by 34 and 35 Vict. C. 24.

No prosecution occurred under it until the case of Smith (23 R (I.C.) 77). The old Act extended to Scotland as aforesaid enacted that "every person pretending or professing to tell fortunes or using any subtle craft, means, or device, by palmistry or otherwise to deceive, and impose on any of His Majesty's Subjects" shall be deemed a vagabond and rogue within the meaning of tile Act and shall be punishable as therein provided. In the case above referred to the complainer, a woman named Jone Lee or Smith, was charged in the Police Court at Glasgow, with a contravention of the above enactment in respect that at a time and place specified, did pretend to tell the fortunes of " a person named" who was thereby induced to pay the accused the sum of sixpence. The accused was convicted of the contravention "as libelled" and brought a suspension. The Court quashed the conviction, holding that the complaint was irrelevant in that it did not set forth that the accused had pretended to tell fortunes with intent to deceive and impose on any one. Lord Young, one of the judges, in the course of his opinion says It has never been imagined, so far as I have ever heard, or thought, that writing, publishing, or selling books on the lines of the hand, or even on astrology-the position of the stars at birth and the rules upon which astrologers proceed in telling fortunes therefrom. I say that I have never heard of publishing, or selling such books is an offence, or that reading such books, and telling fortunes therefrom is an offence. Roguery and knavery might be committed that way. but it would be a special case. I am not in any way suggesting that a spae wife or anyone else may not through that means commit knavery and deception, and so be liable to punishment."

It would thus appear that fortune-telling is of itself no offence, unless it is accompanied by fraud impositions, or intent to deceive. While it might be an offence for the palmist or fortune-teller knowingly to accept payment from a half witted or obviously apparent ignorant person, it can hardly be pretended that the ordinary person who consults a professional fortune teller or chrystal gazer and tenders payment in return for their skill at delineations of character or forecasting of the future, feels that he has been imposed upon should the delineations be at fault, or the forecast turn Out inaccurate. A.J.B.G

Fountain Spirits of Behmen : According to Jacob Behmen, there were in nature seven active principles, the " Fountain Spirits, or " Mothers of Existence." These were-the astringent quality; the sweet quality ; the bitter quality the quality of fire; the quality of love ; the quality of sound ; and the quality of essential substance. The reciprocal action of these antipathetic qualities resulted in Supreme Unity. Each is at once the parent and the child of all the rest, for they generate and are generated by each other. They are typified by the seven golden candlesticks of the Apocalypse.

Fourth Dimension of Space : There are three known dimensions in space typified in the three geometric figures-a line, having length, a surface, length and breadth, a cube, length, breadth and thickness. It has been conjectured that a fourth dimension may exist in addition to length, breadth, and thickness. Spiritualists have claimed to find proof of a fourth dimension in certain of the physical phenomena of the seance-room such as the tying of knots in endless cords, and the passage of matter through matter.

Fowler, Miss Lottie : (See Spiritualism.)

Fox Family : (See Spiritualism.)

Fox, Sisters : Two American girls who in 1847 practically commenced the practice of spirit-rapping in Arcadia, New York. An account of their doings is given in the article (Spiritualism). They latterly became professional mediums ; but were to a great extent discredited.

Fragarach (The Answerer) : In Irish legend a sword that could pierce any mail. It was one of the magical gifts brought by Lugh from the Land of the Living.

France : Magical practice in pre-Roman France was vested in the druidic cast, and was practically identical with that of the same body in Britain, from which, indeed, it drew its inspiration. It is not likely that Roman magic gained any footing in Gaul, but we have little evidence to show whether this was or was not the case. In the early Frankish period of the Merovingian dynasty, we find the baleful personality of Fredegonda, wife of Hilperic, king of Soissons, " a woman whose glance was witchcraft." She destroyed many people on the pretext of sorcery, but there is no doubt that she herself experimented in black magic, and protected many practitioners of the art. Thus she saved a sorceress who had been arrested by Ageric, bishop of Verdun, by hiding her in the palace. (See Fredegonda.) The practice of magic was not punished under the rule of the early French kings, except in those in high places, with whom it was regarded as a political offence, as in the case of the military leader Mummol, who was tortured by command of Hilperic for sorcery. One of the Salic laws attributed to Pharamond by Sigebert states that; If any one shall testify that another has acted as hireburge or strioporte-titles applied to those who carry the copper vessel to the spot where the vampires perform their enchantments-and if he fail to convict him, he shall be condemned hereby to a forfeit of 7,500 deniers, being 180 ½ sous. . . . If a vampire shall devour a man and be found guilty, she shall forfeit 8,000 deniers, being 200 sous."

The Church legislated also against sorcerers and vampires, and the Council of Agde, in Languedoc, held in A.D, 506, pronounced excommunication against them. The first Council of Orleans, convened in 541, condemned divination and augury, and that of Narbonne, in 589, besides excommunicating all sorcerers, ordained that they should be sold as slaves for the benefit of the poor. Those who had dealings with the Devil were also condemned to be whipped by the same Council. Some extraordinary phenomena are alleged to have occurred in France during the reign of Pepin le Bref. The air seemed to be alive with human shapes, mirages filled the heavens, and sorcerers were seen among the clouds, scattering unwholesome powders and poisons with open hands ; crops failed, cattle died, and many human beings perished. It is perhaps possible that such visions were stimulated by the teachings of the famous Kabalist, Zedekias, who presided over a school of occult science, where he refrained indeed from unveiling the hidden secrets of his art, and contented himself by spreading the theory of elemental spirits, who, he stated, bad before the fall of man been subservient to him.

It was thought that the visions alluded to above signified the descent of sylphs and salamanders in search of their former masters. Says Eliphas Levi:

"Voyages to the land of sylphs were talked of on all sides as we talk at the present day of animated tables and fluidic manifestations. The folly took possession even of strong minds, and it was time for an intervention on the part of the Church, which does not relish the supernatural being hawked in the public streets, seeing that such disclosures, by imperilling the respect due to authority and to the hierarchic chain of instruction, cannot be attributed to the spirit of order and light. The cloud-phantoms were therefore arraigned and accused of being hell-born illusions, while the people-anxious to get something into their hands-began a crusade against sorcerers. The public folly turned into a paroxysm of mania strangers in country places were accused of descending from heaven and were killed without mercy; imbeciles confessed that they had been abducted by sylphs or demons ; others who had boasted like this previously either would not or could not unsay it; they were burned or drowned, and, according to Gannet, the number who perished throughout the kingdom almost exceeds belief. It is the common catastrophe of dramas in which the first parts are played by ignorance or fear.

"Such visionary epidemics recurred in the reigns following, and all the power of Charlemagne was put in action to calm the public agitation. An edict, afterwards renewed by Louis the Pious, forbade sylphs to manifest under the heaviest penalties. It will be understood that in the absence of the aerial beings the judgments fell upon those who had made a boast of having seen them, and hence they ceased to be seen. The ships in air sailed back to the port of oblivion, and no one claimed any longer to have journeyed through the blue distance. Other popular frenzies replaced the previous mania, while the romantic splendours of the great reign of Charlemagne furnished the makers of legends with new prodigies to believe and new marvels to relate."

Around the figure of Charlemagne (q.v.) clusters such an immense amount of the matter of faery that it is reserved for treatment in a special article, and it will suffice to state here that it almost partakes of the nature of true myth. It is stated that the Enchiridion (q.v.) (which may well be stigmatised as an early text-book of occult absurdity having no claim to figure in the true genealogy of occult literature) was presented to Charlemagne by Pope Leo III.

Eliphas Levi presents a picturesque condition of affairs in the France of Charlemagne in the following passage:-

"We know that superstitions die hard and that degenerated Druidism had struck its roots deeply in the savage lands of the North. The recurring insurrections of Saxons testified to a fanaticism which was (a) always turbulent, and (b) incapable of repression by moral force alone. All defeated forms of worship-Roman paganism, Germanic idolatry, Jewish rancour conspired against victorious Christianity. Nocturnal assemblies took place thereat the conspirators cemented their alliance with the blood of human victims; and a pantheistic idol of monstrous form, with the horns of a goat, presided over festivals which might be called agapae of hatred. In a word, the Sabbath was still celebrated in every forest and wild if yet

unreclaimed provinces. The adepts who attended them were masked and otherwise unrecognisable; the assemblies extinguished their lights and broke up before daybreak, the guilty were to be found everywhere, and they could be brought to book nowhere. It came about therefore that Charlemagne determined to fight them with their own weapons.

"In those days, moreover, feudal tyrants were in league with sectarians against lawful authority ; female sorcerers were attached to castles as courtesans; bandits who frequented the Sabbaths divided with nobles the blood-stained loot of rapine ; feudal courts were at the command of the highest bidder; and the public burdens weighed with all their force only on the weak and poor. The evil was at its height in Westphalia, and faithful agents were despatched thither by Charlemagne entrusted with a secret mission. Whatsoever energy remained among the oppressed, whosoever still loved justice, whether among the people or among the nobility, were drawn by these emissaries together, bound by pledges and vigilance in common. To the initiates thus incorporated they made known the full powers which they carried from the emperor himself, and they proceeded to institute the Tribunal of Free Judges.

A great deal of this, of course, is only what might be expected from the French magus. It is not likely that the Sabbath was yet celebrated in such an extreme manner as in later times, nor was the Vehmgericht founded by Charlemagne. or indeed, founded at all, for four and a half centuries after his day.

From the reign of Robert the Pious to that of St. Louis, there is not much to relate that can strike the imagination of the student of occult history. In the time of the latter monarch flourished the famous Rabbi Jachiel, the celebrated Kabalist. There is some reason to believe that be had glimmerings of the uses of electricity, for on the approach of night a radiant star appeared in his lodging, the light being so brilliant that no eye could gaze thereon without being dazzled, while it darted rainbow colours. It appeared to be inexhaustible, and was never replenished with oil or other combustible substance. When the Rabbi was annoyed by intruders at his door he struck a nail fixed in his cabinet, producing simultaneously a blue spark on the head of the nail and the door-knocker, to which, if the intruder clung, he received a severe shock. Albertus Magnus (q.v.) lived at the same period.

The next circumstance of interest which falls to be noted is the prosecutions of the Templars (q.v.) who were brought to trial by Philip the Fair. Other prosecutions for sorcery were those of Joan of Arc, Gilles de Laval (q.v.), lord of Raiz, the prototype of Bluebeard, a renowned sorcerer, who with two assistants, Prelati and Sille, practised diabolical rites at his castle of Machecoul, celebrating the black mass in the most revolting manner. He had been in the habit of slaughtering children to assist him in his search for the philosopher's stone. We now near the period of those astounding prosecutions for sorcery which are fully noted under the article " Witchcraft" and elsewhere. As early as the thirteenth century the charge of sorcery had been made as one of the means of branding with infamy the heretical Waldenses (q.v.), who were accused of selling themselves to the Devil, and of holding sabbatical orgies where they did homage to the enemy of mankind. About the middle of the fifteenth century France became the theatre of wholesale oppression against suspected sorcerers, but one finds leading up to this a series of events which prove that the outburst in question was by no means a novelty in that country. In 13 1 5 Enguerraud de Marigny, who had conducted the execution of the Templars a minister of Philip the Fair, was hanged along with an adventurer named Paviot, for attempting to compass the deaths of the Counts of Valois and St. Paul. In 1134 the Countess of Artois and her son were thrown into prison on a suspicion of sorcery. In 1393, in the reign of Charles VI., it was considered that his sister-in-law, the Duchess of Orleans, who was a viscomte and the daughter of the Duke of Milan, had rendered the King mad by sorcery. The ministers of the court resolved to pit a magician against her, and one Arnaud Guillaume (q.v.) was brought from Guienne as a suitable adversary to the noble lady. He possessed a book to which he gave the strange title of Smagorad, the original of which, he said, was given by God to Adam, to console him for the loss of his son Abel, and he asserted that the possessor of this volume would hold the stars in subjection, and command the four elements. He assured the King's advisers that Charles was suffering from the malignity of a sorcerer, but in the meantime the young monarch recovered, and the possessor of the patriarchal volume fell back into his original obscurity. Five years later the King had another attack, and two Augustine friars were sent from Guienne for the purpose of effecting a cure. But their conduct was so outrageous that they were executed. A third attack in 1403 was combated by two sorcerers of Dijon, Poinson and Briquet. For this purpose they established themselves in a thick wood not far from the gates of Dijon, where they made a magic circle of iron of immense weight, which was supported by iron columns of the height of a middle-sized man, and to which twelve chains of iron were attached. So great was the popular anxiety for the King's recovery, that the two sorcerers succeeded in persuading twelve of the principal persons of the town to enter the circle, and allow themselves to be fastened by the chains. The sorcerers then proceeded with their incantations, but they were altogether without result. The bailiff of Dijon, who was one of the twelve, and had averred his incredulity from the first, caused the sorcerers to be arrested, and they were burnt for their pretences.

The Duke of Orleans appears to have fallen under the same suspicion of sorcery as his Italian consort. After his murder by order of the Duke of Burgundy-the commencement of those troubles which led to the desolation of France-the latter drew up various heads of accusation against his victim as justifications of the crime, and one of these was, that the Duke of Orleans had attempted to compass his death by means of sorcery. According to this statement, he had received a magician-another apostate friar- into his castle of Mountjoie, where he was employed in these sinister designs. He performed his magical ceremonies before sunrise on a neighbouring mountain, where two demons, named Herman and Astramon, appeared to him and these became his active instruments in the prosecution of his design.

About the year 1400 the belief in the nightly meetings of the witches' Sabbath had become almost universal. It would indeed be difficult to attempt to trace the origin of this practice, which does not seem altogether referable to the survival of pagan belief. (See Witchcraft.) The wholesale nature of the prosecutions against sorcerers and witches prove that there must have been an extraordinary number of them in the country. In Paris alone, in the time of Charles IX, there were no less than thirty thousand sorcerers, and it is computed that France contained more than three times that number in the reign of Henry III., not a town or village being exempt from their presence. They belonged to all classes, and generally met the same fate, regardless of rank, age or sex. Children of the tenderest years and nonagenarians were alike committed to the flames, and the terror of being publicly accused as a sorcerer hung like a black cloud over the life of every successful man, as the charge was one which envy readily seized upon for the destruction of its object. No elaborate or perfect creed regarding witchcraft had at this epoch been evolved in England, but in France and other continental countries it had been assuming a form systematic and complete. There were probably two reasons for this, the decrees of ecclesiastical councils and the numerous treatises of scholars who professed to illustrate their various theories regarding sorcery by alleged statements from the mouths of its innumerable victims. Indeed the writings of these men served to standardise the sorcery creed of all continental countries. During the earlier part of the sixteenth century, trials for witchcraft in France are of rare occurrence, and there are no cases of great importance recorded till after the year 1560. In 1561 a number of persons were brought to trial at Vernon, accused of having held their Sabbath as witches in an old ruined castle in the shape of cats; and witnesses deposed to having seen the assembly, and to having suffered from the attacks of the pseudo-feline conspirators. But the court threw out the charge. as worthy only of ridicule. In 1564, three men and a woman were executed at Poitiers, after having been made to confess to various acts of sorcery; among other things, they said that they had regularly attended the witches' Sabbath, which was held three times a year, and that the demon who presided at it ended by burning himself to make powder for the use of his agents in mischief. In 1571, a mere conjurer, who played tricks upon cards, was thrown into prison in Paris, forced to confess that he was an attendant on the Sabbath, and then executed. In 1573, a man was burnt at Drole, on the charge of having changed himself into a wolf, and in that form devoured several children. Several witches, who all confessed to having been at the Sabbaths, were in the same year condemned to be burnt in different parts of France. In 1578, another man was tried and condemned in Paris for changing himself into a wolf; and a man was condemned at Orleans for the same supposed crime in 1583. As France was often infested by these rapacious animals, it is not difficult to conceive how popular credulity was led to connect their ravages with the crime of witchcraft. The belief in what were in England called wer-wolves (men-wolves), and hi France loups-garous, was a very ancient superstition throughout Europe. It is asserted by a serious and intelligent writer of the time that, in 1588, a gentleman, looking out of the window of his chateau in a village two leagues from Apchon, in the mountains of Auvergne, saw one of his acquaintances going a-hunting, and begged he would bring him home some game. The hunter, while occupied in the chase, was attacked by a fierce she-wolf, and after having fired at it without effect, struck it with his hunting-knife, and cut off the paw of his right fore-leg, on which it immediately took to flight. The hunter took up the paw, threw it into his bag with the rest of his game, and soon afterwards returned to his friend's chateau, and told him of his adventure, at the same time putting his hand into the bag to bring forth the wolf's paw in confirmation of his story. What was his surprise at drawing out a lady's hand, with a gold ring on one finger His friend's astonishment was still greater when he recognised the ring as one which he had given to his own wife; and, descending hastily into the kitchen, he found the lady warming herself by the fire, with her right arm wrapped in her apron. This he at once seized, and found to his horror that the hand was cut off. The lady confessed that it was she who, in the form of a wolf, had attacked the hunter; she was, in due course of time, brought to her trial and condemned, and was immediately afterwards burnt at Rioms.

In 1578, a witch was burnt at Compiegne ; she confessed that she had given herself to the devil, who appeared to her as a great black man, on horseback, booted and spurred. Another avowed witch was burnt the same year, who also stated that the evil one came to her in the shape of a black man. In 1582 and 1583, several witches were burnt, all frequenters of the Sabbaths. Several local councils at this date passed severe laws against witchcraft, and from that time to the end of the century, the number of miserable persons put to death in France under the accusation was very great. In the course only of fifteen years, from 1580 to 1595, and only in one province, that of Lorraine, the president Remigius burnt nine hundred witches, and as many more fled out of the country to save their lives and about the close of the century, one of the French judges tells us that the crime of witchcraft had become so common that there were not jails enough to hold the prisoners, or judges to hear their causes. A trial which he had witnessed in 1568, induced Jean Bodin, a learned physician, to compose his book De la Demonomanie des Sorciers, which was ever afterwards the text-book on this subject.

Among the English witches, the evil one generally came in person to seduce his victims, but in France and other countries, this seems to have been unnecessary, as each person, when once initiated, became seized with an uncontrollable desire of making converts, whom he or she carried to the Sabbath to be duly enrolled. Bodin says, that one witch was enough to corrupt five hundred honest persons. The infection quickly ran through a family, and was generally carried down from generation to generation, which explained satisfactorily, according to the learned commentator on demonology just mentioned, the extent to which the evil had spread itself in his days. The novice, at his or her reception, after having performed the preliminaries, and in general received a new and burlesque rite of baptism, was marked with the sign of the demon in some part of the body least exposed to observation, and performed the first criminal act of compliance which was afterwards to be so frequently repeated, the evil one presenting himself on these occasions in the form of either sex, the reverse to that of the victim.

Towards the end of the sixteenth century, the witchcraft infatuation had risen to its greatest height in France, and not only the lower classes, but persons of the highest rank in society were liable to suspicions of dealing in sorcery. We need only mention that such charges were publicly made against King Henry III. and Queen Catherine de Medicis, and that, early in the following century, they became the ground of state trials which had a fatal conclusion.

In 1610, during the reign of Louis XIII., occurred the cause celebre of the marechale d'Ancre. Among the servants attached to the train of Marie de Medici was a certain Eleanora Don, who married one, Concini, a prodigal spendthrift. Marie de Medici, as guardian to her son, was virtually ruler of France, and considerable power was exercised by these favourites of hers. The result was that the peers of France leagued themselves together against the upstarts, but with little result at first, as Concini was created Marechal of France, with the title of Marquis d'Ancre. His wife, who was very superstitious, fell sick, and attributed her ill-health to the effects of sorcery. The upshot was that d'Ancre was assassinated by the nobles during a hunting expedition. The mob dragged the corpse of d'Ancre from its grave and hanged it on the Pont Neuf. His wretched widow was accused of sorcery, and of having bewitched the Queen Mother. The exorcists who had assisted her to free herself from illness had advised the sacrifice of a cock, and this was now represented as a sacrifice to the infernal powers. Added to this, the astrological nativities of the royal family were found in her possession, as were, it is said; a quantity of magical books, and a great number of magical characters. After being tortured with-Out result she was beheaded and burnt, and strangely enough the anger of the Parisian mob turned to general commiseration. Many other interesting cases occurred in France in the seventeenth century, among others that of the Ursulines at Aix (q.v.), for the enchantment of whom Louis Gaufridi was burnt, the Nuns of Louviais, and the auns of Assonne. The case of the Ursulines of Loudon (q.v.), is fully dealt with elsewhere. (See Urban Grandler).

The eighteenth century in France was fairly prolific in occult history. At a time when Europe was credulous about nothing but magic, France did not escape the prevailing craze. Perhaps the most striking personality of this age in the occult connection was the Comte de Saint Germain (q.v.), who was credited with possessing the secrets of alchemy and magic. His family connections were unknown, and his conversation suggested that he had lived for many centuries. Another mysterious adept was an alchemist calling himself Lascaris (q.v.) who literally sowed his path through Europe with gold. Then followed Cagliostro (q.v.), who attained a fame unrivalled in the history of French occultism. He founded many masonic lodges throughout the country, and assisted in many ways to bring about the French Revolution. A school of initiates was founded by Martines de Pasqually, which appears in some measure to have incorporated the teachings of the later European adepts. One of the most important figures at this time is Louis Claude de Saint-Martin, known as "Le Philosophe Inconnu" who came under the influence of Pasqually (q.v.), and later, under that of the writings of Boehme, whose works he translated. Cazotte (q.v.) was the first of these names who were associated with both magic and the Revolution, which, indeed, owed much in its inception to those mysterious brotherhoods of France and Germany, who during the eighteenth century sowed the seeds of equality and Illuminism throughout Europe. Another was Loiseaut (q.v.), who formed a mystical society, which met in great secrecy, awaiting a vision of John the Baptist, who came to them to foretell the Revolution. The spiritual director of this circle was a monk named Dom Gerle (q.v.) one of the first mesmerists in Paris, who is said to have foretold the dreadful fame of Robespierre by means of Catherine Theot, his medium. He was expelled by the members of the circle, acting on the advice of one of their number, Sister Francoise Andre, who cherished a notion to preserve the crown for the future reign of Louis XVII., and thus gave rise to that multitude of stories connected with the so-called "Saviours" of the youthful" Capet." This sect, or a portion of it, became notorious under the leadership of Vintras (q.v.), when its meetings degenerated into the most dreadful debauchery. The appearance of Mlle. Lenormand as a prophetess at the end of the eighteenth century may be said to close the occult history of that age. With the beginning of the nineteenth century we find the craze for magnetism rampant. In his works The Reform of Philosophy and Yes or No, Wronski pretended to have discovered the first theorems of the Kabala, and later beguiled rich persons of weak intellect into paying him large sums in return for knowledge of the Absolute. The Saviours of Louis XVII. were formally condemned in 1853 by the Pope as practitioners of black magic, but they in turn condemned the Pope, and their leader, Vintras, constituted himself Sovereign Pontiff, but he was arrested on the charge of roguery and after five years' imprisonment, found an asylum in England.

The Baron du Potet did much to advance the science of Mesmer and by this time was being seriously followed by Cahagnet and others (See Mesmerism). In the middle of the nineteenth century all sorts of absurdities swayed occult Paris. The tale of Alphonse Esquiros (q.v.) entitled The Magician founded a school of magic phantasy, which was assiduously nursed by Henri Delaage (q.v.), who was said to have the gift of ubiquity, and who made a collection of processes from the old magicians for acquiring physical beauty.

Spiritualism. The Comte d'Ourches was the first to introduce into France automatic writing and table-writing. Baron Guldenstubbe, in his Practical Experimental Pneumatology or, the Reality of Spirits and the Marvellous Phenomena of their Direct Writing, gives an account of his discovery as follows:

"It was in the course of the year 1850, or about three years prior to the epidemic of table-rapping, that the author sought to introduce into France the circles of American spiritualism, the mysterious Rochester knockings and the purely automatic writings of mediums. Unfortunately he met with many obstacles raised by other mesmerists. Those who were committed to the hypothesis of a magnetic fluid, and even those who styled themselves Spiritual Mesmerists, but who were really inferior inducers of somnambulism, treated the mysterious knockings of American spiritualism as visionary follies. It was therefore only after more than six months that the author was able to form his first circle on the American plan, and then thanks to the zealous concurrence of M. Rousaan, a former member of the Societe des Magnetiseurs Spiritualistes, a simple man who was full of enthusiasm for the holy cause of spiritualism. We were joined by a number of other persons, amongst whom was the Abbe Chatel, founder of the Eglise Francaise, who, despite his rationalistic tendencies, ended by admitting the reality of objective and supernatural revelation, as an indispensable condition of spiritualism and all practical religions. Setting aside the moral conditions which are equally requisite, it is known that American circles are based on the distinction of positive and electric or negative magnetic currents.

"The circles consist of twelve persons, representing in equal proportions the positive and negative or sensitive elements. This distinction does not follow the sex of the members, though generally women are negative and sensitive, while men are positive and magnetic. The mental and physical constitution of each individual must be studied before forming the circles, for some delicate women have masculine qualities, while some strong men are, morally speaking, women. A table is placed in a clear and ventilated spot the medium is seated at one end and entirely isolated; by his calm and contemplative quietude he serves as a conductor for the electricity, and it may be noted that a good somnambulist is usually an excellent medium. The six electrical or negative dispositions, which are generally recognised by their emotional qualities and their sensibilty, are placed at the right of the medium, the most sensitive of all being next him. The same role is followed with the positive personalities, who are at the left of the medium, with the most positive next to him. In order to form a chain, the twelve persons each place their right hand on the table. Observe that the medium or mediums, if there be more than one, are entirely isolated from those who form the chain.

"After a number of seances, certain remarkable phenomena have been obtained, such as simultaneous shocks, felt by all present at the moment of mental evocation on the part of the most intelligent persons. It is the same with mysterious knockings and other strange sounds many people, including those least sensitive, have had simultaneous visions, though remaining in the ordinary waking state. Sensitive persons have acquired that most wonderful gift of mediumship, namely, automatic writing, as the result of an invisible attraction which uses the non-intelligent instrument of a human arm to express its ideas. For the rest, non-sensitive persons experience the mysterious influence of an external wind, but the effect is not strong enough to put their limbs in motion. All these phenomena, obtained according to the mode of American spiritualism, have the defect of being more or less indirect, because it is impossible in these experiments to dispense with the mediation of a human being or medium. It is the same with the table-turning which invaded Europe in the middle of the year 1853.

"The author has had many table experiences with his honourable friend, the Comte d'Ourches, one of the most instructed persons in Magic and the Occult Sciences. We attained by degrees the point when tables moved, apart from any contact whatever, while the Comte d'Ourches has caused them to rise, also without contact. The author has made tables rush across a room with great rapidity, and not only without contact but without the magnetic aid of a circle of sitters. The vibrations of piano-chords under similar circumstances took place on January 20, 1856, in the presence of the Comte de Szapary and Comte d'Ourches. Now all such phenomena are proof positive of certain occult forces, but they do not demonstrate adequately the real and substantial existence of unseen intelligences, independent of our will and imagination, though the limits of these have been vastly extended in respect of their possibilities. Hence the reproach made against American spiritualists, because their communications with the world of spirits are so insignificant in character, being confined to mysterious knockings and other sound vibrations. As a fact, there is no direct phenomenon at once intelligent and material, independent of our will and imagination, to compare with the direct writing of spirits, who have neither been invoked or evoked, and it is this only which offers irrefutable proof as to the reality of the supernatural world.

"The author, being always in search of such proof at once intelligent and palpable, concerning the substantial reality of the supernatural world, in order to demonstrate by certain facts the immortality of the soul, has never wearied of addressing fervent prayers to the Eternal, that He might vouchsafe to indicate an infallible means for strengthening that faith in immortality which is the eternal basis of religion. The Eternal, Whose mercy is infinite, has abundantly answered this feeble prayer. On August 1st, 1856, the idea came to the author of trying whether spirits could write directly, that is, apart from the presence of a medium. Remembering the marvellous direct writing of the Decalogue, communicated to Moses, and that other writing, equally direct and mysterious, at the feast of Belshazzar, recorded by Daniel ; having further heard about those modern mysteries of Stratford in America, where certain strange and illegible characters were found upon strips of paper, apparently apart from mediumship, the author sought to establish the actuality of such important phenomena, if indeed within the limits of possibility.

"He therefore placed a sheet of blank letter paper and a sharply pointed pencil in a box, which he then locked, and carried the key about him, imparting his design to no one. Twelve days he waited in vain, but what was his astonishment on August 13th, 1856. when he found certain mysterious characters traced on the paper. He repeated the experiment ten times on that day, placing a new sheet of paper each time in the box, with the same result invariably. On the following day he made twenty experiments but left the box open, without losing sight of it. He witnessed the formation of characters and words in the Esthonian language with no motion of the pencil. The latter being obviously useless he decided to dispense with it and placed blank paper sometimes on a table of his own, sometimes on the pedestals of old statues, on sarcophagi, on urns, etc., in the Louvre, at St. Denis, at the Church of St. Etienne du Mont, etc., Similar experiments were made in different cemetries of Paris, but the author has no liking for cemetries, while most saints prefer the localities where they have lived on earth to those in which their mortal remains are laid to rest."

We are now launched upon the sea of modern spiritualism in France, which occupied the entire activities of occultists in that country for several decades, and which it will be better to trace from the period of its importation into the country.

Very soon after public attention had been drawn to the subject of magnetism in France by Mesmer and d'Eslon, several men distinguished for learning and scientific attainments, followed up their experiments with great success. Amongst these was the Baron Dupotet, whose deep interest in the subject of magnetism induced him to publish a periodical which, under the title of Journal de Magnitisme-still forms a complete treasury of well collated facts, and curious experiments in occult force. From this work we learn that the Baron's investigations commenced in the year 1836, since which period up to 1848, he chronicled the production of the following remarkable phases of phenomena, the occurrence of which is testified to by numerous scientific and eminent witnesses. Through the Baron's magnetized subjects was evolved, clairvoyance, trance-speaking, and healing ; stigmata or raised letters and figures on the subject's body; elevation of somnambulists into the air ; insensibility to fire, injury or touch. In the presence of the magnetized objects also, heavy bodies were moved without human contact, and objects were brought from distant places through walls and closed doors. Sometimes the Lucides " described scenes in the spirit world, found lost property, prophesied and spoke in foreign languages.

In 1840, Baron Dupotet writes that he had 'rediscovered in magnetism the magic of antiquity." " Let the savants," he says, " reject the doctrine of spiritual appearances the enquirer of to-day is compelled to believe it ; from an examination of undeniable facts." If the knowledge of ancient magic is lost, all the facts remain on which to reconstruct it."

But of all the revealers to whom French Spiritualism is indebted for indubitable proof of super-mundane intercourse, none stands more prominent in truthfulness and worth, than M. Cahagnet, the well-known author of 'The Celestial Telegraph," a work translated into English in 1848.

M. Cahagnet was an unlearned mechanic, a man of the people and though a sensible and interesting writer, was neither well read, nor highly educated. He affirms that he was a materialist " when first his attention was attracted to the subject of animal magnetism, but being of a thoughtful nature, he determined to devote all the leisure he could spare to a thorough examination of its possibilities. When he found that he possessed the power to induce the magnetic sleep in others, he proceeded on the plan then generally adopted by mesmerists, namely, to try how far he could succeed in biologizing his subjects, that is to say, to substitute his own senses, mind, and will, for those of the sleeper.

In the course of these experiments M. Cahagnet discovered that he could effect remarkable cures of disease, and being naturally of a benevolent disposition, he determined to bend all his energies in this desirable direction. He soon found, however, that he was destined to realize the aphorism, "he builded wiser than he knew." A new and most perplexing obstacle arose to confound his philosophy and scatter his theories to the winds; this was the fact, that some of his subjects, instead of representing what simply he willed, or manifesting-in accordance with his views of biology-merely the influence of his mind, began to transcend both will and mind, and wander off in space, to regions they persisted in calling the land of spirits," and to describe people, whom they emphatically affirmed to be the souls of those whom the world called dead.

For a long time M. Cahagnet strove vehemently to combat what he termed these "wild hallucinations," but when he found them constantly recurring, and vast numbers of those who had come to witness the experiments in magnetism recognising in the descriptions given by the somnambulists the spirits of those whom they had known on earth, and mourned as dead, conviction became inevitable, and the magnetizer, like his visitors, was compelled to admit a new and wonderful phase of lucidity, and one which carried the vision of the clairvoyant from earth to heaven, and pierced the veil which separated the mortal from the realms of immortality. It was after a long series of carefully conducted experiments of the above description, that M. Cahagnet was finally persuaded to give the results of his wonderful seances to the world, under the name and style of The Celestial Telegraph, or, Secrets of the Life to Come.

The author of Art Magic says: " The narrow conservatism of the age, and the pitiful jealousy of the Medical Faculty, rendered it difficult and harassing to conduct magnetic experiments openly in Europe within several years of Mesmer's decease. Still such experiments were not wanting, and to show their results, we give a few excerpts from the correspondence between the famous French Magnetists, MM. Deleuze and Billot, from the years 1829 to 1840. By these letters, published in 1836, it appears that M. Billot commenced his experiments in magnetizing as early as 1789, and that during forty years, he had an opportunity of witnessing facts in clairvoyance, ecstasy, and somnambulism, which at the time of their publication transcended the belief of the general mass of readers. On many occasions in the presence of entranced subjects, spirits recognised as having once lived on earth in mortal form-would come in bodily presence before the eyes of an assembled multitude and at request bring flowers, fruits, and objects, removed by distance from the scene of the experiments.

"M. Deleuze frankly admits that his experience was more limited to those phases of somnambulism in which his subjects submitted to amputations and severe surgical operations without experiencing the slightest pain. In a letter dated 1831 M. Billot writing to Deleuze says: -

"’I repeat, I have seen and known all that is permitted to man. I have seen the stigmata arise on magnetized subjects ; I have dispelled obsessions of evil spirits with a single word. I have seen spirits bring those material objects I told you of, and when requested. make them so light that they would float, and, again, a small boiteau de bonbons was rendered so heavy that I failed to move it an inch until the power was removed.

"’To those who enjoyed the unspeakable privilege of listening to the somnambules" of Billot, Deleuze, and Cahagnet, another and yet more striking feature of unanimous revelation was poured forth. Spirits of those who had passed away from earth strong in the faith of Roman Catholicism-often priests and dignitaries of that conservative Church, addressing prejudiced believers in their former doctrine, asserted that there was no creed in Heaven-no sectarian worship, or ecclesiastical dogmatism there prevailing.

"’They taught that God was a grand Spiritual Sun-life on earth a probation-the spheres, different degrees of comprehensive happiness or states of retributive suffering-each appropriate to the good or evil deeds done on earth. They described the ascending changes open to every soul in proportion to his own efforts to improve.

"’They all insisted that man was his own judge, incurred a penalty or reward for which there was no substitution. They taught nothing of Christ, absolutely denied the idea of vicarious atonement-and represented man as his own Saviour or destroyer.

"’They spoke of arts, sciences, and continued activities, as if the life beyond was but an extension of the present on a greatly improved scale. Descriptions of the radiant beauty, supernal happiness, and ecstatic sublimity manifested by the blest spirits who had risen to the spheres of Paradise, Heaven, and the glory of angelic companionships melts the heart, and fills the soul with irresistible yearning, to lay down life's weary burdens and be at rest with them.'

Having shown that Spiritualism arose in France as in Germany from the awakening of psychic powers evolved by magnetism, and traced the footprints of the great temple builders who have laid the foundation stones of the spiritual edifice in the human system and steadily worked upwards from matter to force, and from thence to spirit in every gradation of sphere, life and progress, we recall the pithy words of the Baron de Potet, who, in addressing the would-be leaders of public opinion in his essay on the Philosophical Teaching of Magnetism," says:

"You savants of our country; you have not shown yourselves better informed than the Siamese.

"For these sixty years it has been shouted in your ears:

The Magnetisers march to the discovery of a moral wand; all the phenomena they produce indisputably proves its existence.

"You have declared that they were impostors, imbeciles, and the most illustrious amongst you have only pronounced a verdict which will attest to future ages your ignorance or, your insincerity.

"Before the soul is disengaged from matter, it can, and does, converse with pure spirits. Already it can gaze prophetically on its own future destiny, by regarding the condition of those who have gone before - but a step - yet one which the eye of spirit alone can measure, and if men are spirits already, who can stay the eagle glance of the soul into the land of its own inheritance ?

In following up the history of Spiritualism in France, although we find it has gained an immense foothold, and exerted a wide-spread influence upon the popular mind, it is nevertheless evident, that one of the chief obstacles to its general acceptance has been its lack of internal unity, and the antagonistic sentiments which have prevailed amongst its acknowledged leaders.

Two of those who have figured most prominently in the grand drama of French Spiritualism, and in all probability exerted more influence upon public opinion than any other members of its dramatis personae, were MM. Allan Kardec and Pierart, the respective editors of the two leading Spiritual journals, entitled La Revue Spirite and La Revue Spiritualiste. These may also be regarded as the representatives of the two opposing factions known as Spiritualists and Spiritists, the former teaching that the soul of man undergoes but one mortal birth, and continues its progress through eternity in spiritual states, the latter affirming the doctrine of lie-incarnation, and alleging that the one spirit in man can and does undergo many incarnations in different mortal forms.

M. Kardec and his followers represented the "Spiritists" or Reincarnationists-M. Pierart leading the ranks of the opposing faction most commonly called Spiritualists.

In respect to the question of testimony, it must be remembered that M. Kardec derived his communications chiefly from those writing and trance mediums who might have proved the most susceptible to his influence, and is said to have persistently banished from his circles, not only Mr. Home, M. Bredif and other physical mediums, but all those who did not endorse his favourite dogma through their communications.

Says the author of Nineteenth Century Miracles: It must not be supposed that the schism which divided the two leaders of French Spiritualism was confined to the immediate sphere of action in which they moved. Scattered sympathisers with the writings of Allan Kardec, may be found all over the Continent of Europe, and in small numbers in America also. Few people who read works put forward with authoritative pretentions have the faculty of thoroughly digesting what they read, hence, when M. Kardec's books were translated into the English language, and it became the publisher's interest to aid in their circulation, they found more readers than thinkers, and their plausible style attracted more admiration than sincere conviction. In France, no doubt M. Kardec's personal influence, and strong psychological power, admirably fitted him for a propagandist, and when we remember how readily any doctrines eloquently advocated will command adherents, especially among restless and excitable natures, we need be at no 1055 to discover why M. Kardec's writings have become so popular and his opinions so generally accepted by his readers. Little or no spiritual literature was disseminated in the French language when Allan Kardec's works were first published. He possessed that indomitable energy and psychological influence in which his much harassed rival Pierart was wanting. Thus in a measure, the field of Continental spiritual propagandism was his own, nor did he fail to make use of his opportunities.

"The successes achieved by Kardec's journal, La Revue Spirite, communicated a wave of influence also, which propagated journals of a similar character all over the country. Thus in 1864, there were no less than ten spiritualistic periodicals published in France, under the following titles : La Revue Spirite, La Revue Spiritualiste, and L'Avenir, Paris; four Spiritist journals published in Bordeaux, which, in 1865, became merged into L' Union Spirite Bordelalse; La Medium Evangelique, Toulouse ; L'Echo d'autre Tombe, Marseilles; and La Verite, Lyons. The editors of these journals are said to have been all followers of Allan Kardec, with the exception of M. Pierart, editor of La Revue Spiritualiste."

It must be remarked that the doctrines of the Re-incarnationists, although defended with great ability by their propagandists, who included many of the most capable minds of France, were not suffered to pass without severe castigation on the part of their English neighbours; and it becomes necessary to note how the French spiritual schism was received on the other side of the Channel. In the London Spiritual Magazine of 1865, the editor, in commenting on the ominous silence of the Spirite journals concerning Dr. Maldigny's opera of Swedenborg says :-

"It is worthy of note that the journals of the Kardec school, so far as we have seen them, do not take the least notice of this opera. The Avenir of Paris, which appears weekly, but greatly wants facts, has not a word to say about it. It is greatly to be regretted that the main object of the Kardecian journals seems to be, not the demonstration of the constantly recurring facts of Spiritualism, but the deification of Kardec's doctrine of Re-incarnation.

"To this doctrine - which has nothing to do with Spiritualism, even if it had a leg of reason or fact to stand on-all the strength, and almost all the space of these journals is devoted.

These are the things which give the enemies of Spiritualism a real handle against it, and bring it into contempt with sober minds. Re-incarnation is a doctrine which Cuts up by the roots all individual identity in the future existence. It desolates utterly that dearest yearning of the human heart for reunion with its loved ones in a permanent world. If some are to go back into fresh physical bodies, and bear new names, and new natures, if they are to become respectively Tom Styles, Ned Snooks, and a score of other people, who shall ever hope to meet again with his friends, wife, children, brothers and sisters ? When he enters the spirit-world and enquires for them, lie will have to learn that they are already gone back to earth, and are somebody else, the sons and daughters of other people, and will have to become over and over the kindred of a dozen other families in succession Surely, no such most cheerless crochet could bewitch the intellects of any people, except under the most especial bedevilment of the most sarcastic and mischievous of devils."

In the January number for 1866, a still stronger article on this subject appears from the pen of Wm. Howitt, who writes the following fearless words of protest against the doctrine of Re-incarnation

"In the Avenir of November 2nd, M. Pezzani thinks he has silenced M. Pierart, by asserting that without Reincarnation all is chaos and injustice in God's creation. ‘In this world there are rich and poor, oppressed and oppressors, and without Re-incarnation, God's justice could not be vindicated.' That is to say, in M. Pezzani's conception, God has not room in the infinite future to punish and redress every wrong, without sending back souls again and again into the flesh. M. Pezzani's idea, and that of his brother Re-incarnationists is, that the best way to get from Paris to London is to travel any number of times from Paris to Calais and back again. We English, that the only way is to go on to London at once. . As to M. Pezzani's notions of God's injustice without Reincarnation, if souls were re-incarnated a score of times, injustice between man and man, riches and poverty, oppression and wrong, all the enigmas of social inequality would remain just then as now.

"In noticing these movements in the Spiritist camp in France, we should be doing a great injustice if we did not refer to the zealous, eloquent, and unremitting exertions of M. Pierart in the Revue Spiritualists, to expose and resist the errors of the Spirits to which we have alluded. The doctrine of Re-incarnation, M. Pierart has persistently resisted and denounced as at once false, unfounded on any evidence, and most pernicious to the character of Spiritualism."

Allan Kardec died on March 31st, 1869.

Notwithstanding the fact that the experimental method of receiving communications through physical mediumship was not in favour with M. Allan Kardec and his followers, there as an abundant amount of phenomena of all kinds recorded in M. Pierart's excellent journal, La Revue Spiritualiste, also in many other European journals devoted to the subject. From this we are about to select such facts of a representative character as will give a general view of French Spiritualism in the nineteenth century.

The celebrated "Cure D'Ars," the founder of the D'Ars Providence," and many other noble works of charity, Jean Baptiste Vianney, was born in the vicinity of Lyons, in 1786, in a humble sphere of life. His natural capacity was by no means remarkable, and at school he was only remembered as a somewhat dull scholar. Circumstances having opened up the way for his becoming a priest, although he had only Latin enough to say mass, and no learning beyond the routine of his profession, yet his amiable nature and unaffected piety won him friends wherever lie went. After some changes of fortune and the rejection of two good offers of rich positions, which in his extreme humility he did not deem himself fit for, he accepted the pastoral charge of tile little agricultural village of D'Ars, now in the arrondisement of Trevoux.

Very soon his reputation for beneficence drew round him a much larger circle of poor dependents than he could provide for, and then it was that he commenced his extraordinary life of faith, supplicating in fervent prayer for whatever means were necessary to carry out his divine mission of blessing to his unfortunate fellow creatures. In this way the sphere of his benevolence, and the wonderful results of the means he employed to maintain it, reached proportions that could scarcely he credited

But now a still more wonderful thing was to happen in the enchanted region of D'Ars. Persons afflicted with disease began to experience sudden cures whilst praying before the altar, or making confessions to the Cure. The fame of this new miracle soon spread abroad, until the Abbe Monnin declares that upwards of 20,000 persons annually came from Germany, Italy, Belgium, and all parts of France, and even from England, and thar in less than six years this number increased to an average of 80,000. Diseases of every kind that had been pronounced incurable, were dissipated at once. The indefatibagle Cure gave himself up to the work, heart and soul. His church stood open day and night, and the immense crowds that surrounded it, were obliged to wait for hours and sometimes days, to reach the good healer. No one was allowed to take precedence of the rest, except in cases of extreme poverty or extreme suffering. Princes, nobles, and great ladies, often drove up as near as they could to the church ill grand carriages, and manifested the utmost astonishment when informed that notwithstanding their rank, they could not be admitted except in turn. The Cure only permitted himself to take four hours sleep, namely from eleven to three, and when he came to the confessional again, the church and all the approaches to it were crowded with those who had waited all night to secure their places. Omnibuses were established to convey patients from Lyons to D'Ars, and the Saone was covered with boats full of anxious pilgrims.

There can be no doubt that the first well marked impulse which experimental spiritualism received through the invocatory processes of the circle, in France, as in many other countries of Europe, was due to the visits of Mr. D.D. Home, the celebrated non-professional physical medium, and subsequently to the large influx of professional mediums, who found in France an excellent field for the demonstration of their peculiar gifts.

Of Mr. Home's seances it would be superfluous to write, he himself having related them in two volumes published at different periods of his career, and his many admiring friends having sufficiently described the marvels of which they were witnesses in numerous magazines and newspaper articles.

Mr. Home's manifestations were given in France almost exclusively to personages of rank, or those distinguished by literary fame. He was a guest of royalty, the nobility, and persons of the highest position. During his residence in Paris, under the Imperial regime, he was a frequent and ever-welcome visitor at the court of the late Emperor Louis Napoleon. A record of the manifestations produced through his mediumship was kept by command of the Empress, and frequently read to her favoured friends. Amongst these memoranda is one which went the round of the papers at the time of its occurrence, hence there can be no impropriety in alluding to it now. It stated that on one occasion a seance was held at the Tuileries, when none were present save the Emperor, the Empress, the Duchess de Montebello, and Mr. D. D. Home.

On the table were placed pen, ink, and paper, and presently a spirit band was seen, which dipped the pen in the ink and deliberately wrote the name of the first Napoleon, in a perfect facsimile of that monarch's handwriting. The Emperor asked if he might be permitted to kiss this wonderful hand, when it instantly rose to his lips, subsequently passing to those of the Empress, and Mr. Home. The Emperor carefully preserved this precious autograph, and inscribed with it a memorandum to the effect that the hand was warm, soft, and resembled exactly that of his great predecessor and uncle.

As an evidence of the wide popularity to which the subject of Spiritualism had attained in 1869, M. Pierart quotes in one of his numbers of that year, an article from the Siecle, a leading paper, but one which has hitherto contained many notices inimical to Spiritualism. The writer, M. Eugene Bonnemere, says:-

"Although somnambulism has been a hundred times annihilated by the Academy of Medicine, it is more alive than ever in Paris; in the midst of all the lights of the age, it continues, right or wrong, to excite the multitude. Protean in its forms, infinite in its manifestations, if you put it out of the door, it knocks at the window; if that be not opened, it knocks on the ceiling, on the walls; it raps on the table at which you innocently seat yourselves to dine or for a game of whist. If you close your ears to its sounds, it grows excited, strikes the table, whirls it about in a giddy maze, lifts up its feet, and proceeds to talk through mediumship, as the dumb talk with their fingers.

"You have all known the rage for table-turning. At one time we ceased to ask after each other's health, but asked how your table was. Thank you, mine turns beautifully; and how goes yours on? Everything turned; hats and the heads in them. One was led almost to believe that a circle of passengers being formed round the mainmast of a ship of great tonnage, and a magnetic chain thus established, they might make the vessel spin round till it disappeared in the depth of the ocean, as a gimlet disappears in a deal board. The Church interfered; it caused its thunders to roar, declaring that it was Satan himself who thus raised the devil in the tables, and having formally forbade the world to turn, it now forbade the faithful to turn tables, hats, brains, or ships of huge size. But Satan held his own. The sovereign of the nether world passed into a new 0110, and that is the reason that America sends us mediums, beginning so gloriously with the famous Home, and ending with the Brothers Davenport. One remembers with what a frenzy everyone precipitated him-sell in pursuit of mediums. Everyone wished to have one of his own; and when you introduced a young man into society, you did not say, He is a good waltzer,' but, He is a medium.' Official science has killed and buried this Somnambulism a score of times; but it must have done it very badly. for there it is as alive as afresh with a new name." ever, only christened afresh with a new name.

Amongst the many distinguished adherents of Spiritualism in the department of French literature, none have more bravely asserted and defended their belief than Camille Flammarion, the celebrated astronomer; Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, and Victorien Sardou, the renowned writer of French comedy. M. Sardou was himself a medium of singularly happy endowments. He executed a number of curious drawings, purporting to represent scenes in the spirit world, amongst which was an exquisite and complex work of art entitled, "The House of Mozart."

Francis I., Duke of Brittany : (See Summons by the Dying.)

Flank, Christian : A visionary, who died in 1590; he frequently changed his religion, which fact gained for him the surname of Weathercock. He believed the religion of Japan to be the best, because he had read that its ministers were ecstatics.

Frank, Sebastian : A visionary of the sixteenth century, of whose life little is known. In 1531, he published a treatise on l'Arbu de la science du bien et du mal, dont Adam a mange la mort, et dont encore aujourd'hui tous les hommes la mangent. According to him, the sin of Adam is but an allegory, and the tree only the person, will, knowledge, and life of Adam. Frank died in 1545.

"Frankenstein," by Mrs. Shelley : (See Fiction, Occult English.)

Fraud : A very large part is played by fraud in spiritualistic practices, both in the physical and psychical, or automatic, phenomena, but especially in the former. The frequency with which mediums have been convicted of fraud has, indeed, induced many people to abandon the study of psychical research, judging the whole bulk of the phenomena to be fraudulently produced. Yet the question of fraud is itself an interesting and complicated one, not unworthy of the attention of the student, for we find in connection with spiritualism not only simple deception practised with a view to gaining pecuniary advantages, but also many instances of systematic and apparently deliberate trickery where there is no evident reward to be obtained. and even cases where the medium is, so far as can be judged, entirely innocent and ignorant of the fraud he obviously practises. And it may be added that after all precautions have been taken which science and commonsense can suggest, there remains a portion of the phenomena which still continues to be inexplicable, and which justifies the interest now so widely shown in psychic science..

In considering the important factor of fraud, we must distinguish between conscious and unconscious fraud, though, as will be shown hereafter, it is at times possible for the one to shade imperceptibly into the other. Conscious fraud most often appears in connection with the physical phenomena. Almost at the outset of the spiritualistic movement, i.e., in 1851, three doctors, professors of the University of Buffalo, N.Y., demonstrated that the rappings which attended the Sisters Fox were produced by the manipulation of the knee and toe joints, a fact which was shortly afterwards corroborated by Mrs. Cluver, a relative of the Fox family. Since that time many mediums have at one time or another been convicted of fraud, and every phase of physical mediumship been discredited. Slate-writing, spirit photography, materialisation, have all in turn been exposed, though the latter, at least, seems able to survive any number of exposures. Time and again, sitters have beheld the form and features of the medium in the materialised spirit; shadowy figures in filmy draperies, have been shown to be mannikins wrapped in muslin, and false beards and white draperies have been found about the person of the medium. Apports have been smuggled into the seance-room-jewels, flowers, perfumes, objets d'art-in order to be showered upon the sitters by generously-disposed "spirits." Threads and human hairs have been used to move furniture and other objects. Sometimes more elaborate and complicated machinery is provided, but more often the medium depends upon sleight of hand and skilful suggestion to accomplish his ends. Conjurers have frequently been admitted to seances, and have failed to discover the modus operandi of the various feats, but this fact, though a great deal has been made of it by spiritualists, cannot be taken to have any significance, since conjurers are often quite mystified by each other's performances.

Another phase of fraud is that illustrated by many instances of soi-disant clairvoyance, where the medium acquires her information by muscle-reading, or by judicious enquiry previous to the seance. Fraud of this kind may be either conscious or unconscious.

Under the heading of unconscious fraud must be classed a large group of automatic phenomena. In many of the more pronounced cases of automatism, the normal consciousness of the agent is not responsible for his acts, while, on the other hand, there is a slighter degree of automatism, where the agent may be partly conscious of, and responsible for, his productions. This latter state, if it be frequently induced, and if the wilt power of the automatist be somewhat relaxed, may pass into the more profound stage; so that fraud which is at first conscious and voluntary may in time become unconscious and spontaneous. And thus it is extremely difficult to know just when aft accusation of fraud may with justice be brought against a medium. There is evidence that many trance mediums reproduce in their discourses information subconsciously acquired at some more or less remote period ; the trance utterances of Mrs. Piper, Mrs. Thomson, and others, reveal this peculiarity. It is true that extensive and apparently fraudulent arrangements are sometimes made before a seance, but may it not be possible that, previous to a "physical" or psychical" dance, such preparations may be made automatically in a state approximating to the mediumistic trance ? If the hypnotic subject is not responsible or is only partly so-for the fulfillment of a post-hypnotic promise, would it not be within reason to suppose that the medium, in gaining information concerning possible sitters, in secreting apports about the person, is the victim of a similar dissociation of consciousness? There are facts not a few which would support such a conclusion.

Spiritualists themselves are, from time to time, called upon to face exposures of undoubted fraud, and on these occasions various apologies of a morn or less ingenious nature, are offered for the erring medium. Sometimes it is said that the medium is controlled by mischievous spirits (diakka), who make use of his physical organism to perform tricks and deceptions. Again, it is stated that the medium feels an irresistible impulse to perform the action which he knows is in the mind of the control. Thus Eusapia Palladino would extend her hand involuntarily in the direction in which movement of furniture was to take place, though without actual contact-that is, perceiving that the spirits desired to move the object, she herself was impelled to attempt a physical (and fraudulent) forestalling of the action. Certain of the investigators who examined the phenomena in connection with the latter medium have also declared that their production costs Eusapia a great deal of pain and fatigue, and that she therefore seizes readily upon an opportunity of producing them easily and without trouble. Such an opportunity, they held, only presented itself when their rigorous precautions were relaxed. The same has also been stated in connection with other mediums. In the case of a materialisation seance, when the spirit form is grasped and found to be the medium herself, these apologists offer an explanation, as follows: A certain amount of the medium's physical energy is imparted to the spirit. If the latter be roughly handled, spirit and medium will unite for their joint benefit, either within or without the cabinet-if the medium possesses most energy, she will draw the spirit to her, if the most of the energy is with the materialised spirit, it is the medium who will instantly be attracted to the spirit. That it is the latter alternative which invariably takes place is a fact which has no significance for good spiritualists. Or they may insist, as did Sergeant Cox, on one occasion, that the medium is controlled to impersonate a spirit. But whatever be the reason for fraud, it is clear that not the most ingenuous medium is to be trusted for a moment, though his character in normal life be blameless, and no object in committing fraud be apparent; and that investigators must rely only on the strictest vigilance and the most up-to-date scientific methods and apparatus.

Fredegonda : (See France.)

Freemasonry-History and Origin : Though it would not be exactly correct to say that the history of Freemasonry was lost in the mists of antiquity, it is competent to remark that although to a certain degree traceable, its records are of a scanty nature, and so crossed by the trails of other mystical brotherhoods, that disentanglement is an extremely difficult process. The ancient legend of its foundation at the time of the building of the Temple at Jerusalem is manifestly traditional. If one might hazard an opinion, it would seem that at a very early epoch in the history of civilization, a caste of builders in stone arose, who jealously guarded the secret of their craft. In all probability this caste was prehistoric. It is not unreasonable to assume this when we possess plenty of proof that an ancient caste of bronze-workers flourished in every country in Europe and Asia; and if this be admitted, and it cannot well be refuted in the light of recent researches,-(see Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society for 1913)-there is nothing absurd or impossible in the contention that a similar school of workers in stone should have arisen at a like early period. We know that it is probable that the old caste of bronze-workers had an esoteric language of their own, which has come down to us as the Shelta Than (q.v.) spoken generally by the tinkler people of Great Britain and Ireland. If such a caste can elaborate a secret language and cling jealously to the " mysteries" of metal-working, there is no reason to doubt the existence of a similar caste of masons. We tender this theory for what it is worth, as it is unsupported by any great authority on the subject. Where such, a caste of operative masons arose is altogether a separate question, and cannot be dealt with here; but it must obviously have been in a country where working in stone was one of the principal arts. It is also almost certain that this early brotherhood must have been hierophantic. Its principal work to begin with would undoubtedly consist in the raising of temples and similar structures, and as such it would come into very close contact with the priesthood, if indeed it was not wholly directed by it. In early civilization but two classes of dwelling receive the attention of the architect,-the temple and the palace. For example, among the ruins of Egypt and Babylon, remains of the private house are rare, but the temple and the royal residence are everywhere conspicuous, and we know that among the ruins of Central America temples and palaces alone remain-the huts of the surrounding dwellers having long ago disappeared. The temple is the nucleus of the early city. Around the worship of the gods crystallises commerce, agriculture, and all the affairs of life. All roads lead to the temple. Striding for a moment over the gap of years between early Babylon and Egypt and medieval Britain, we find the priesthood in close touch with the masons. A medieval cathedral took more than one generation to erect, and in that time many masons came and went around the fane. The lodge was invariably founded hard by the rising cathedral or abbey, and apprentices and others were entered as opportunity offered : indeed a man might serve his apprenticeship and labour all through his life upon the one building, without ever seeing any work elsewhere. The evidence as to whether the master-masons were also architects is very conflicting, and it has been held that the priests were the architects of the British cathedrals,-the master-masons and operatives merely carrying out their designs. There is good evidence however that this is not wholly true. Authorities are at one in declaring that of all arts architecture is by far the most intricate. It is undoubtedly the one which requires a long and specific training. Questions of stress and strain of the most difficult description arise, and it seems incredible that anyone with the most superficial knowledge of the subject should believe that ecclesiastics, who had not undergone any special training should be qualified to compose plans of the most perfect and intricate description for the most noble and remarkable edifices ever raised in this country.

We know that professional architects existed at a very early period; and why the priesthood should be credited with their work, it is difficult to understand; but instances are on record where the priests of a Certain locality have taken to themselves the credit of planning the cathedral of the diocese. Be this as it may, the "mystery " of building was sufficiently deep to require extensive knowledge and experience and to a great extent this justifies the jealousy with which the early masons regarded its secrets. Again, this jealousy with which it was kept from the vulgar gaze may have been racial in its origin, and may have arisen from such considerations as the following ' Let no stranger understand this craft of ours. Why should we make it free to the heathen and the foreigner ? " This also smacks of priest-craft, but if masonry originated hierophantically, it certainly did not continue a preserve of any religion, and is nowadays probably the chiefest abomination of the Roman Catholic hierarchy, which has not hesitated to publish and disseminate the grossest libels regarding it. It is to Britain that we must look for evidence as to the evolutionary line of masonry. Before the founding of the Grand Lodge, we find that York and the North of England in general was regarded as the most ancient seat of the fraternity in this island. Indeed without stretching probabilities too far, the line oi evolution so far as York is concerned is quite remarkable. We know for example that in the early days of that city a temple of Serapis existed there, which was afterwards a monastery of the Begging Friars, and the mysteries of this god existed beside the Roman Collegia or Craftsmen's Society,. it is also Considered that the crypt of York Minster affords evidence of the progress of masonry from Roman to Saxon times.. It is stated that it has a mosaic pavement of blue and white tables laid in the form employed in the first degree of masonry, and is said to show the sites of three seats used by the master and his wardens during the construction of the building. It is also an undoubted fact that the craft occasionally met in this crypt during last century. There is thus reason to believe even though the evidence be of a scanty nature (but the foregoing does not embrace ah of it) that the early masons of Britain were probably influenced by Romano-Egyptian mystical societies, and that their own craft societies drew some of their practices and constitutions from these alien schools. Masonic tradition goes to show that even in the beginning of the fourteenth Century masonry in Britain was then regarded as a thing of great antiquity. Lodge records for the most part only date back to the sixteenth century in the oldest instances, but ancient manuscripts are extant which undoubtedly relate to masonry. Thus the old charges embodied in the Regius MS. which was unearthed in 1839 by Mr. Halliwell Phillips are dated at 1390. and contain a curious legend of the craft, which tells how the necessity of finding work of some description drove men to consult Euclid, who recommended masonry as a craft to them. It goes on to tell how masonry was founded in Egypt, and how it entered England in the time of Athelstan. The necessity for keeping close counsel as regards the secrets of the craft is insisted upon in rude verse. The Cooke MS. dates from the first part of the fifteenth century, and likewise contains versions of the old charges. Egypt is also regarded here as the mother-land of masonry, and Athelstan is the medium for' the introduction of the craft into the island of Britain. But that this manuscript was used among masons at a later date was proved by the discovery of a more modern version dated about 1687, in 1890, and known as the William Watson MS. In all about seventy of these old charges and pseudo-histories have been discovered since 1860. They have all much in common and are of English origin.

A great deal has been written to attempt to prove that British freemasonry borrowed extensively from continental secret societies, such as the Steinmetzin of Germany, the Rosicrucians (q.v.) and similar fellowships. The truth probably lies however in the circumstance that the coming and going of students of occultism throughout Europe was so constant, and so frequent were their communications that practically all those societies were in touch with one another. Again many persons belonged to several of them at once, and imported the rules and constitution of one body into another. No student of occultism can fail to be struck with the close resemblance of the constitutions of nearly all the mystical fellowships of the middle ages, and the resemblance of the verbiage employed by their founders and protagonists. It must also ho insisted that the speculative or mystic part of masonry was in the middle ages merely a tradition with the brotherhood, whatever it may have been in earlier times, and whatever close connection the craft may have had with hierophantic or mystic philosophy. The speculative element, we repeat, was merely traditional and symbolical as at present, and not practical ; but this tradition was to serve to keep alight the flame of speculative mysticism which was to be aroused again at the end of the medieval period. When political freedom awoke in Europe, the necessity for the existence of secret Societies vanished, but the persons who delighted in their formation and management still remained. The raison d'etre of these fellowships had disappeared, but the love of mysticism, not to say the mysterious, was per-haps stronger than ever. that then occurred ? Simply this: that all those persons who found the occupation of floating and managing real secret societies gone, cast about for anything in the shape of a mystical fellowship that they could find. They soon discovered the craft of masonry which although operative possessed mystical traditions. The attraction was mutual, and astrologers, alchemists and others soon crowded the lodges, to such purpose that at the lodges held in 1646 in London, there was not an operative mason present, and at that held in 1682, the speculative branch was overwhelming in its numbers. Harking back a little it is noteworthy that the freemasons in medieval times formed a fellowship or guild closely resembling in its Constitution that of similar trade guilds both in Britain and the continent such as the Weavers, Tailors, Fishmongers, and so forth. But although these guilds preserved their mysteries," where they possessed them, with considerable jealousy, they do not appear to have embedded in their constitutions the same ancient practices and ritual which go to show so strongly that masonry is undoubtedly an institution of great antiquity.

It has also been suggested that freemasonry as introduced into Europe by the Knights Templar. It would be difficult to discover a similar institution which in the opinion of some authorities had not been founded by that order and it is difficult to believe that the haughty chivalry of Norman times would have claimed any connection whatsoever with an operative craft. There are, however, many connections between alchemy and masonry. For example in the Ordinall of Alchymy compiled by Thomas Norton, (q.v.), the freemasons are alluded to as workers in it. In 1630, we find Fludd (q.v.) using language which smacks strongly of freemasonry. His society was divided into degrees, and the Masons' Company of London had a copy of the masonic charges presented by him. Vaughan also appears to have been a freemason, and many masons of the middle of the seventeenth century, such as Robert Moray and Elias Ashmole, were diligent students of occult science. and Sir Christopher Wren was a student of hermetic art.

It has often been put forward that Scotland was the original home of freemasonry in these islands, but although the craft was undoubtedly ancient in that country, there does not appear to be any adequate proof that it was older than in England. Some of the Scottish lodges, such as No. I Edinburgh, Kilwinning, and Aberdeen, possess very ancient records, and it is probable that this has led to the assumption that the brotherhood was of greater antiquity in North Britain than in England. But the circumstance that the craft was probably introduced into England in Roman times, where it has in all likelihood flourished ever since, tends to dispose of such a theory. The history of modern freemasonry begins with the formation of the Grand Lodge of England, which was inaugurated on St. John the Baptist's Day 1717 by several old lodges. This represented the first central governing body of the fraternity, and before this time each lodge had been self-governing. Many lodges speedily came under its aegis, and Ireland formed a Grand lodge of her own in 1725 but Scotland did not follow till 1736, and even then many lodges held aloof from the central body, only 33 out of Ion falling into line. From one or other of these three governing bodies all the regular lodges throughout the world have arisen, so that modern masonry may truthfully be said to be of entirely British origin. This is not the place to enter into an elaborate discussion of the history and affairs of modern masonry, and we are chiefly exercised regarding its mystical position and tendencies. Regarding these we must be brief. As regards the lower ranks of the craft, it consists almost entirely in these islands at least of persons who have in great measure treated it as a mere friendly society, and it is only in the higher ranks that any real idea of the true significance of the mystical tenets preserved and taught is retained. The ordinary mason, who preserves a cryptic and mysterious silence when the affairs of his craft are alluded to, merely serves as a laughing-stock to the modern well-equipped mystic. Certain signs and handgrips are in use amongst masons, and the possession of these, and of a ritual the significance of which he rarely comprehends, the average brother fondly imagines renders him somewhat superior to the layman It is extremely doubtful if among even the higher ranks of masonry, the deepest significance of the tradition of the craft is thoroughly realised, and if the absurd works which every now and then emanate from eminent masons reading the history of their craft be accepted as criteria of their higher knowledge, it must indeed be of slight proportions Regarding the grand secret, or secrets, of masonry the layman may rest comfortably assured that if he has failed to join the brotherhood, he has missed no fact of supreme importance by so doing. There is no " secret" at all. The original secrets in connection with the craft were those of operative masons, who were jealous of their position as workmen, and who rightly enough did not believe in giving away business secrets to all and sundry but the so-called "secrets " of modern speculative masonry are merely such as have brought alchemy, astrology, and the kindred sciences into unthinking disrepute among those who do not recognise their significance in the history of human thought This is not to say that masonry as a whole consists of mere claptrap. The trend of its entire constitution is nowadays frankly mystical, but it is a mysticism which is only half understood by the lower ranks of the craft, and which is imperfectly recognised by its higher officers. Its tenets are unquestionably mystic and lofty, but masonic transcendentalism has scarcely kept in line with the more modern forms of mysticism. From time to time new degrees have been formed which have in some measure rectified this, but the number of masons qualified to understand the nature of the vast and mighty truths conveyed in these, is naturally extremely small, and it is as a friendly society that the brotherhood effects its greatest good.

As has been said, continental masonry is undoubtedly the offspring of British systems. This is not to say that in France and Germany there were no masonic lodges in existence before the formation of the English Grand Lodge; but all modern lodges in these countries undoubtedly date from the inception of the English central body. French masonry possessed and possesses many rites which differ entirely from those accepted by the British craft. We find the beginnings of modern French masonry in the labours of Martinez Pasqually (q.v.), St. Martin (q.v.), and perhaps to a great extent in those of Cagliostro (q.v.) who toiled greatly to found his Egyptian rite in France. It is noticeable, however, that he had become a member of a London lodge before attempting this. In France, masonry has always had more or less a political complexion, and nowadays the extreme enmity existing between it and the Roman Catholic church in that country favours the inclusion in its ranks of persons possessing ideals by no means in consonance with the very upright standard of British masonry. In Germany, it has been said that the Steinmetzin approximated very strongly in mediaeval times to the British masons, if they were not originally one and the same; but the later lodges in Germany all date from that founded in 1733.

The entrance of masons into the various degrees involves an elaborate system of symbolic ritual, of which the essence is uniform throughout all lodges. The members are classified in numerous degrees, of which the first three are entered apprentice, fellow-craft, and master-mason. Each lodge possesses its own bye-laws, subject to the Book of Constitution of the Grand Lodge.

Wild stories have been circulated, chiefly by the Roman Catholic enemies of masonry, regarding the practice of diabolic occultism in the higher ranks of the craft. To begin with, it is extremely unlikely that more than three or four persons connected with it possess the requisite knowledge to thus offend against the Christian proprieties, and the childish asseverations of French writers on the subject may be dismissed with a smile. The " occultism and transcendentalism" of the majority of zealous brethren are usually of the mildest character possible, and are in some measure related to the mysterious attitude of the average mason, when dark hints as to lodge doings are whispered of among his admiring relatives.

French Commission on Magnetism: (Sec Spiritualism, Hypnotism.)

Friar Rush (German Rausch) : A house-spirit supposed to have been sent from the infernal regions to keep the monks and friars of the seventeenth century in the same state of wickedness that they then existed in. He gained admittance to monastic houses as a scullion; is probably representative of the spirit of inebriety. A German myth.

Frends of God : A mystical society founded in Germany in the fourteenth century, for the purpose of ministering to the poor by preaching and sacrament. Its members included men and women of every rank and station; not only monks and nuns, but knights, farmers, artisans, merchants. Their law was : " That universal love, commanded by Christ, and not to be gainsaid by his vicar." Their prophecies and warnings roused the ire of certain of the clergy, and they were charged with sectarianism.

Frltzlar, Martin Von : German alchemist. (Circa, 1750.) The dates of the birth and death of this alchemist have never been ascertained, but he is known to have lived in the first half of the eighteenth century, while he appears to have been a Hessian, resident chiefly at the village of Firtzlat. While a young man, he studied pharmacy, intending to make it his profession; but he soon grew interested in the quest of gold-making, and, when the celebrated alchemist, Lascaris, came to Germany, Martin hastened to his presence with a view to gleaning his secrets. Along with several other young men, the Hessian was allowed to witness numerous experiments, and while he watched them, it seemed to him that the great secret lay open before him; but afterwards, when he made attempts on his own account, he found that Lascaris had duped him shamefully, and had even taken advantage of his ignorance. Thereupon, in contradistinction to the majority of thwarted alchemists, he renounced the futile search altogether, vowed fealty to his original calling, and devoted the rest of his life thereto.

Fumigation in Exorcism : One of the most important rites during the exorcism of an evil spirit, appears to have been the fumigation of the victim; and for this, various prescriptions are given throughout occult history. If it is found difficult to dislodge the demon, a picture of him is sometimes drawn, which is to be thrown into the fire after having been signed with the cross, sprinkled with holy water, and fumigated." At other times, if the evil spirit refuses to give his name, the exorcist will fumigate the possessed one.

Futhore : (See Teutons.)