226 



THE OCCULT SCIENCES. 



believed to have an irresistible effect, were generally composed of hetero- 

 geneous substances, which the magicians pretended to be able to reduce to 

 powder by means of various unholy incantations. The sorcerers sometimes 

 went so far as to use the host, consecrated or not, upon which they traced 

 letters written in blood. But they more generally employed substances 

 derived from the three domains of nature, the entrails of animals, the feathers 

 of birds, scales of fishes, and vegetable and mineral substances. Pulverized 

 loadstone, the parings of nails, and the human blood served to compose their 



Fig. 166. Marriage of a Young Han and an Old "Woman. Fac-simile of an Engraving in the 

 German Edition of the " Officia Ciceronis," 1542. In the Arsenal Library, Paris. 



powders, which were mixed with the food or the drink of persons upon whom 

 these philters were desired to take effect. Some magicians still had recourse 

 to hippomanes, which was much in favour with the Greek and Roman 

 enchanters, and which was nothing more than the lump of flesh found on 

 the head of colts when first foaled. The mandragora, which ancient naturalists 

 have described as a very wonderful plant, was in still greater renown in 

 the Middle Ages, and it was made to appear in all the most sinister opera- 

 tions of the magicians. This plant, which grows in the shape of a human 



