by Sax Rohmer
An old Moslem authority says: “Let a Christian beware of calling up a Moslem ginn. The ginn will avenge himself for this affront and immediately put his summoner to death.”
In the modern magic books of the East we read how to gain the affections of another; to awake at will; to unfasten chains; to recapture an escaped slave; to keep a wife from faithlessness; to cause the belly of a thief to swell up; to make a man or an ox pursue him; to discover buried treasure; to call up ginn; to find pieces of gold under one’s pillow. I will instance a charm for calling up ginn: the naïveté of the concluding sentence is quaint.
Fast for seven days, and let body and clothes be clean. Read first the chapter of the Koran, “The Angel,” to the word haztr, fourteen times after the sunset prayer; then pray with four genuflections, uttering the fatha seven times at each, and when on the seventh night you have read that chapter fourteen times, ask of God whatsoever you wish. The ginn, who are the servants of this chapter, will now appear “and will give you information respecting the treasure and how you may obtain possession of it.”
A certain individual, who asserted that he had undergone such a course of self-mortification and spirit-seeking, informed the author of Upper Egypt that he had seen all kinds of horrible forms in his magic circle, but that he saw them also when his eyes were shut. At last, becoming quite terrified, he fled from the place.
The following is said to be a love-charm:
“On a Wednesday after the Vesper prayer, and when your shadow measures twenty paces, write the following formula (châtim) with rose-water and sesame water on paper or parchment. Roll this up and throw it on the ground. Then write the formula on the palm of the left hand and fumigate with mastic, benzoin, and coriander. Say over the chapters Amran and Ichlâs while your hand is held above the smoke, and then pick up the talisman from the ground. Touch your body with it, and that of the person on whom you have designs. Hang it to... your right side, and you will see something wonderful. God’s protection is with thee. But use the talisman only for what is lawful!”
The formula consists of certain words written so as to form a hollow square, with words also written across the corners. Enclosed within the square on each side are the words BU hâk ansilnah “bil hâk nésil, that is, “In right (not unallowed) we have made him (the spirit) descend, and in right he descendeth.” The words Gabraîl, Mikatl, Israfîl, Israil, the names of the four archangels, are written so as to form the sides of the square; across the corners are Abu békr, Omr, Otman, Ali, the four chief companions of the Prophet. Outside the square on each side is Biduh, the name of a ginn.
The magic mirror enjoys great popularity. A boy (not more than twelve years of age), a virgin, or a black female slave is directed to look into a cup filled with water or into a pool of ink; the skryer is furthermore fumigated with incense, whilst certain sentences are murmured by the magician. After a time, when the boy (for a boy is usually employed) is asked what he sees, he reports that he sees persons moving in the mirror. The magician orders the boy to lay certain commands on the spirit. The commands are obeyed at once. The magician asks the spectators to name any person whom they would wish to appear in the mirror, no matter whether the person be living or dead. The boy commands the spirit to bring the individual desired. In a few seconds he is present, and the boy proceeds to describe him.
“Which description, however, according to our own observation,” says one writer, “is always quite wide of the mark.” But E. W. Lane’s experiments in this art (called darb-el-mendel) with the Sheikh Abd-ElKadir El-Maghrabee, as recounted in The Modern Egyptians, may be consulted as a check to this opinion.
An account of a curious case of magic in Cairo, during the last century, may be given here, to show how great a degree of faith the Egyptians in general place in the arts of enchantment.
Moustafa Ed-Digwee, chief secretary in the Cadi’s Court, in Cairo, was dismissed from his office, and succeeded by another person of the name of Moustafa, who had been a money-changer. The former sent a petition to the Pasha, begging to be reinstated; but before he received an answer he was attacked by a severe illness, which he believed to be the effect of enchantment: — he persuaded himself that Moustafa the money-changer had employed a magician to write a spell which should cause him to die; and therefore sent a second time to the Pasha charging the new secretary with this crime.
The accused was brought before the Pasha, and confessed that he had had resort to malign arts, naming the magician whom he had employed. The latter was arrested, and, being unable to deny the charge brought against him, was thrown into prison, where he was sentenced to remain until it should be seen whether or not Ed-Digwee would die.
He was confined in a small cell, at the door of which two soldiers were placed in turn to watch over the prisoner. Lane, in dealing with this incident, says:
“Now for the marvellous part of the story.
“At night, after one of the guards had fallen asleep, the other heard a strange, murmuring noise, and, looking through a crack of the door of the cell, saw the magician sitting in the middle of the floor, muttering some words which he (the guard) could not understand. Presently the candle which was before him became extinguished; and, at the same instant, four other candles appeared, one in each corner of the cell.
“The magician then rose, and, standing on one side of the cell, knocked his head three times against the wall; and each time that he did so, the wall opened and a man appeared to come forth from it. After the magician had conversed for some minutes with the three personages whom he had thus produced, they disappeared; as did, also, the four candles; and the candle that was in the midst of the cell became lighted again, as at first: — the magician then resumed his position on the floor, and all was quiet. Thus the spell that was to have killed Ed-Digwee was dissolved.
“Early next morning, the invalid felt himself so much better that he called for a basin and ewer, performed the ablution, and said his prayers; and from that time he rapidly recovered. He was restored to his former office; and the magician was banished from Egypt.”
The same author tells us also that not long after this incident another enchanter was expelled from the country, for writing a charm which caused a Moslem girl to be affected with an irresistible love for a Copt Christian.
IV. THE SIBYLS
The Revelations of Devout and Learn’d
Who rose before us, and as Prophets burn’d,
Are all but Stories, which, awoke from sleep,
They told their comrades, and to sleep return’d.
We shall see, presently, that not only Apollonius of Tyana but also Dee, Nostradamus, and Cagliostro were notable, chiefly, as prophets. If divination be but elementary magic, it is more highly esteemed by the layman than by the student, and the Sibylline lights flare dimly through the darkness of to-day, as flared such smoky torches in the blacker gloom of Babylon, Memphis, Delphi, Rome.
In an examination of such a subject, the mind of the inquirer too readily may be prejudiced by the fact that the science or art of divination has been cast into disrepute by the impostors who practise it at the present day: yet, apart from its modern revival, it is worthy of consideration alike by historian and archaeologist, if only because so many able men of bygone centuries have placed the greatest faith in the oracular responses.
Therefore, whoever would seek for pearls in the ocean of obscurity which overtides the history of oracular manifestation must arm against the influences of modern environment and modern thought; must recede from this age of sceptics, through the middle ages of fanatic Christianity, pass by the birth of the New Creed, by the death of the gods, and take pause before the Capitol of Rome at what time Cæsar makes his last visit to the Senate House.
It must be remembered that Rome, during the centuries of her ascendancy, gave to the world some of the keenest intellects, some of the most highly trained observers whose laurelled images adorn man’s gallery of genius. If we discredit the opinions of such as these because
of the pagan credulity of the age they ornamented, we err; for were they not more advantageously circumstanced to weigh in the balance the omen of the soothsayer, whose eyes attested to the justice of his warning; to accept or reject the pronouncements of the Sibyls, who themselves had converse with these mystic sisters; who, as Æneas at Cumæ, heard the words spoken by Herophile from the cavern; who, some among them, lived to see the Oracle fulfilled?
Since in the wheel of the centuries Rome is the hub, and, in any retrospective criticism, scarce may we see beyond its shadow, our inquiry concerning the ancient Oracles fairly may be said to centre upon the seven hills. The Sibyls claim priority, of course; and therefore at this point a brief survey of the Sibylline traditions prevalent in Ancient Rome may not be out of place.
According to Marcus Varro, if we are to credit Lactantius, the Sibyls were ten in number. “... First there was the Persian of whom Nicanor made mention, who wrote the history of Alexander of Macedon; and the second was the Libyan, whom Euripides mentions in the prologue of the Lamis; the third was the Delphian, of whom Chrysippus speaks in that book which he wrote on divination; the fourth was the Cimmerian in Italy, whom Nævius in his books of the Punic War and Piso in his annals name.”
Proceeding, we learn that the fifth was the Erythraean, whom Apollodorus, of Erythræa, affirmed to have been his own countrywoman, and that she prophesied to the Greeks who were moving against Ilium, both that Troy would meet with destruction and that Homer would write falsehoods; that the sixth was the Samian, of whom Eratosthenes wrote that he had found records in the ancient annals of the Samians. The seventh was the far-famed Cumæan, variously named Herophile, Deiphobe, Demophile, Phenomine, Demo, and Amalthea. She it was who brought the celebrated “nine books” to King Tarquinius Priscus.
The eighth Sibyl was the Hellespontine, born in the Trojan country, in the village of Marpessus, near Gergitha. Heraclides of Pontus wrote that she lived in the time of Solon and Cyrus. The ninth was the Phrygian, who prophesied at Ancyra. And the tenth was the Tiburtine, named Albunea, who was worshipped at Tibur as a goddess, hard by the banks of the river Anio, in which stream her image was said to have been found, holding a book in hand. Her oracular responses the Senate transferred to the Capitol. To Lactantius we also are indebted for this item of information: “Of all these Sibyls, the songs are both made public and held in use except those of the Cumæan, whose books are kept secret by the Romans; neither do they hold it lawful for them to be inspected by any but the fifteen men.” These fifteen men were, of course, the Quindecemviri, or college of priests, to whom the care of the Sibylline books was entrusted at Rome.
From the fact of the concealment of the Cumæan Oracles it has been contended, contrary from the opinion of Pliny, who says that the Sibylline books were destroyed by fire in the year 83 B.c., that none were lost in the burning of the Capitol but the Cumæan, since none but the Cumæan were concealed there. But, in addition to these, there were kept in the Capitol some Oracles prescribed by the Pythia at Delphi; so that some doubt must always prevail respecting the fate of the Delphic as well as of the Cumæan Oracles.
In short, even at the time when the Oracles were most highly venerated, at the time when the Cumæan Sibylline books might be consulted only by a decree of the Senate, the history of their authorship was veiled in much mystery.
On more than one occasion the probity of the Quindecemviri openly was questioned by the populace; it being charged against them that they misused their privilege, pandering to the Senate and delivering to the people reports regarding the Sibylline pronouncements, falsified, and wholly fictitious.
As to the time when the several Sibyls lived, again we find contrary opinions, conflicting evidences, and irreconcilable accounts. If Osopæus be worthy of credence, then, according to him, the Sibyl at Delphi was a Phrygian, “more ancient than Orpheus.” One Sibyl lived in the time of the Jewish Judges; the Cumæan, in the time of Amasias; the Samian, in the time of Josiah. There was a Sibyl in Samos in the time of Darian Astyages, and the Sibylla Cumana prophesied in the Fiftieth Olympiad, or the Fifty-fourth. “The Delphica is the oldest Sibyl,” we read, “and lived before the Trojan War. Homer borrowed many of her verses.” But against this we have the opinion of Gallæus, who thought that the Sibyls plagiarized Homer!
Out from this mass of perplexing evidence who would proceed to a just and impartial judgment of the Oracles which played so important a part in the history of Greece and, consequently, in that of Rome (for all that was notable of Greece was absorbed into the life of Rome; and, let it not be forgotten, the lotos with the henbane) must brush aside the irrelevant, the prejudiced, the morbid and emotional, and leave upon his table the one essential fragment — the fragment that remains, concrete and convincing, when the dust of disputatious criticism has gone, the way of all dust. The one substantial datum which may be established is this: the Sibyls, whether justly or as a result of a species of auto-hypnosis, believed themselves to be inspired and were believed to be inspired by generations of Greek and Roman philosophers and thinkers. So much for their pretensions.
As to their later acceptance by contemporary authorities, a moment’s consideration of the facts available — and these are multitudinous — will reveal how they were accepted without question until that same state of affairs became regnant in Rome which rules among ourselves to-day.
The false Oracles of the temple of Isis, unveiled, intact in all their trickery, by the spade of the excavator at Pompeii, afford but one instance among many. The Romans saw impostors practising false oracular mummery about them; and as to-day none but the superstitious are disposed to hearken to the Sibyls of Bond Street, so, in that distant yesterday, it came about that none but the gullible and the morbid remained susceptible to the pseudo-wisdom of such false prophets as those of Pompeii. The true was mutilated by the false until the true was lost. Once lost it was all but forgotten, and at last its very existence was denied. It is thus that many arts and sciences, possibly worthy of a better fate, have been attacked, have been shattered, by the charlatan or the impostor, who has seen in them a means of defrauding his fellow-men, and who has not scrupled to exercise his ingenuity at the expense of the afflicted. With gross injustice, or in ignorance, Lytton classed Apollonius of Tyana among these.
The wonders attributed to the Sibyl who lived in the cave at Cumae are an instance of how the possibly true may be so overlaid by the false and apocryphal that, to one looking back in quest of verity, the true has become but dimly perceptible, if perceptible at all.
Of this Cumæan Sibyl it was related that Apollo had become enamoured of her, and had offered to grant her whatever she might ask of him. She asked that she should be permitted to live for as many years as she held grains of sand in her hand. The god at once granted her request, but then she refused to reciprocate his love. Therefore he pronounced that her long life should be to her a curse rather than a blessing, for that she should be without freshness and beauty. She was reputed to be seven hundred years old when Æneas came to Italy, but doomed to live nearly as many more ere the number of her years would equal the sands she had held; and her ultimate destiny was to wither away and become only a voice.
It is upon stepping into such a quagmire of the preposterous as this that we stumble and all but lose sight of the faint light which must guide us to the solid shore beyond. For one wonders, whilst wading through this morass of pagan fable, if light and darkness, seemingly substantial and palpably impalpable alike, are not the mere creations of such a one as Virgil, at best; the monstrous figments of some pagan impostor’s mendacious mind, at worst.
However, the Delphic Oracle is preserved to us in Herodotus (vi. 86). Glaucus, son of Epicydes, is said to have received from the Milesians a large sum of money, and to have given a pledge to restore it when properly demanded. When, however, the demand was made, Glaucus professed to be ignorant of any such obligation. Whilst the matter was pending, he went to Delphi and consulted the Pythian Oracle, receiving the
following response:
Glaucus of Epicydes, greater gain
Immediate is it by oath to overcome,
And take the money as by force; swear then,
Since death awaits the man that keeps his oath.
But Orcus has a nameless son, nor hands
Nor feet are his, but swift he moves along,
Till, having seized a whole race, he destroys,
And all the house. But the race of man
Who keeps his oath is better afterward.
In common with the great majority of such Oracles, this response is characterized by a predominant element of uncertainty and enigmatical obscurity, leavened with a pinch of sound advice.
Not even the new thought that exercised a revolutionary intellectual influence in the dawn of Christianity could quench the light of the Oracles. Few among the early Christian writers would seem to have doubted the authenticity of the Sibyls; and no further reference is necessary here to the power which these mystic books exercised over the whole of pagan Greece and Rome.
V. ORIENTAL ORACLES
Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss’d Of the Two Worlds so wisely — they are thrust Like foolish Prophets forth; their Words to Scorn Are scattered, and their Mouths are stopt with Dust.
Although, in Roman times, the Egyptian Oracles became so debased, it should not be forgotten that during the height of Egypt’s grandeur the policy of the kingdom was largely, if not wholly, dictated by the pronouncements of the mouthpiece of the gods, or first prophet. Egyptian history contains the names of numberless such prophets. The prophets were the high priests, and though the Pharaoh ruled Egypt the high priest ruled Pharaoh. Whether or not the prophecies of the priests of Amen were inspired, they, sans doute, were dictated by a shrewd regard for the welfare of the community and informed with a forceful statesmanship that must command the student’s admiration.
