The Occult Sciences; The Philosophy of Magic, Prodigies, and Apparent Miracles Volume 2 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1847 edition. Excerpt: ... "The seven vowels glorify me, the great and immortal God, the unwearied Father of all things." Is it necessary to call to mind that, in divination, Serapis stood as one of the emblems of the solar system, and that Pliny assigns to Serapis the temple with which the statue of Memnon was consecrated? The mystery attached to this mode of adoration explains the application to the invocations of the epithet ineffable, as well as the silence which Eucrates observes respecting the substance of the oracle in seven lines which he pretends to have heard. Thus, in the religion of the Hindoos, of the Parsees, and even of Islam, certain syllables are consecrated, the pronunciation of which is equivalent to a prayer, and whose sacred efficacy must not be revealed. Whatever weight we may attach or refuse to these conjectures with regard to particular occasions, it may be readily admitted that, Where the operations of the thaumaturgists were unrestrained by enlightened curiosity, the machinery employed for animating an automaton, or perhaps mere ventriloquism, would suffice to produce the words and the oracles attributed to Memnon. It is not so easy to explain the repetition of the apparent miracle every morning. The idea of an artifice that might lend its aid to the colossus appears to have struck Strabo. His language is that of a man who is on his guard respecting any deception that might be practiced on him, rather than to admit that the sound could really issue from the stone. Otherwise, he adduces no fact in support of his conjecture. The term of which Juvenal makes use appears to indicate that, in his opinion, the miracle was the result of magical art, that is to say, of an ingenious and concealed mechanism. Eustathiust positively affirms it, as...