Volume 1

The history of magic / [J. Ennemoser] ; translated from the German by William Howitt. To which is added an appendix of the most remarkable and best authenticated stories of apparitions, dreams, second sight, somnambulism, predictions, divination, witchcraft, vampires, fairies, table-turning, and spirit-rapping selected by Mary Howitt.

  • Ennemoser, Joseph, 1787-1854.
Date:
1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The history of magic / [J. Ennemoser] ; translated from the German by William Howitt. To which is added an appendix of the most remarkable and best authenticated stories of apparitions, dreams, second sight, somnambulism, predictions, divination, witchcraft, vampires, fairies, table-turning, and spirit-rapping selected by Mary Howitt. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    smooth mirror of the soul, through time and space, and the unusually excited senses palpitate like'the lightning which casts its flashes and waves often on the most distant shores, sending a magic brightness, which one is more willing to consider supernatural than to ascribe to a fixed law of nature. Psychologists have had still less success hitherto in explaining the spiritual, than physiologists the natural lightning, which formerly was also ascribed to Jupiter and the symbolic gods. The intensity and vastness of the human mind are not fathomed by the most faithful observations of physiologists ; and these psychological wonders are stiU fre- quently enough ascribed to the gods. The mind of man is simple in its character, like the spirit of Grod and of nature, hut manifold are its powers and action. And thus the spirit of prophecy pervades all history, and springs from the lawful power of humanity itself, in which the impulse alone is occasional, proceeding either from nature or directly by God’s choice. One must not be enamoured of prophecy, either on account of its show or for its importance ; neither must one undervalue it, for it affords always a sort of intimation of truth, and some proof of Divine Providence, which strengthens faith and awakens the hope of a future. That such revelations and unusual action take place, even in sleeo and in abnormal conditions, is even less to be won- dered at; for the spirit itself has eyes before and behind, and sleep is only action checked by the heaviness of the exhausted natural body; for the spirit, freed from this weight, has no peace day or night. The unusually developed powers of the mind do not certainly admit of being so exactly defined in their source and tendency, as is the case with tlie elementary powers of nature, with Magnetism and Electricity ; yet the strength of the mind is on that account no less certain, as is proved by the power of the Word, when one can neither weigh nor measure it. “ Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same spirit. “ And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all. “ But the manifestation of the spirit is given to every man to profit withal.”—I. Corinthians, xii.