TIH-: OCCULT SCIENCES. 227 



body, and belongs to the Solaneoo tribe, was said to have miraculous and 

 Satanic properties, its origin being ascribed to a gruesome device of the 

 demon. 



Philters must not be confounded with the talismans which were in such 

 great vogue during the Middle Ages, and which continued to be in repute 

 until the end of the Renaissance. These talismans consisted of stones or 

 metal plates, bearing astrological figures, and Arabic or Persian inscriptions ; 

 they came, in most cases, from the Gnostics of the East, and were intended 

 to place beneath the protection of the celestial powers the persons possessing 

 them. Most of these talismans had been brought into Europe at the time of 

 the Crusades. The sixteenth century witnessed the increase of astrological 

 forms, attention to which would insure the accomplishment of all human 

 desires. Thus, for instance, to those who wished to earn honours and to 

 become great, it was enjoined, " Engrave the image of Jupiter, who is a 

 man with a ram's head, upon tin or upon a white stone, at the day and hour 

 of Jupiter, when he is at home, as in Sagittarius, or in the Pisces, or in his 

 exaltation, as in Cancer, and let .him be free from all obstruction, principally 

 from the evil looks of Saturn or of Mars ; let him be rapid, and not burnt 

 by the sun ; in a word, wholly auspicious. Carry this image upon you, 

 made as above, and according to all the above-mentioned conditions, and you 

 will see things which will surpass your belief." These comparatively harm- 

 less superstitions were covered by judicial astrology with the mantle of 

 science. 



The magicians resorted to written incantations of a more mysterious 

 character as an accompaniment to the gemahrz, or quaint stones upon which 

 nature had put some distinctive mark ; to the magic phials containing the 

 blood of owls and of bats ; to the hand of glory, which was no other than 

 the withered hand of a man who had been hung, for discovering hidden 

 treasure ; to the magic mirrors, in which were reflected the images of the 

 dead and of the absent ; and to the well-known shirt of necessity, made of 

 flax spun by the hands of a virgin, sown during a night in Christmas week, 

 and representing upon the front the heads of two bearded men with the 

 crown of Beelzebub. This shirt was said to render the wearer invulnerable. 



One of the most dreaded processes of magic was that of bewitching, the 

 object of which was to compass the death by slow degrees of a person who 

 could not be murdered outright. The first step in this process was to model 



