2 3 o THE OCCULT SCIENCES. 



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pointed arrow, which the demon directed towards a given goal, and rendered 

 invisible. This arrow pierced the heart of the victim at a distance of even 

 seven or eight hundred miles. In the fifteenth century one of these sagittarii, 

 named Pumbert, shot three of these arrows every day, never failing to hit 

 his mark ; and his sole object was to make himself agreeable to the devil, 

 who indicated to him the various victims. The inhabitants of Lauterburg, 

 in .Prussia, stirred to indignation by his proceedings, eventually fell upon 

 him and murdered him. The device of the sagittarii came from the North, 

 where the inhabitants of Finland and Lapland got rid of their enemies by 

 means of little leaden arrows, which they drew at a venture, to the 

 accompaniment of magic phrases. These arrows went straight to the mark, 

 and left an invisible wound, which invariably proved fatal at the end of 

 three days. 



The Middle Ages' also recognised the existence of certain magical agents, 

 corporeal and incorporeal, due to the influence of the demon or of familial- 

 spirits. Such was the evil eye, a device known from the earliest ages, but 

 inaccurately defined by the demonographers, who do not in all cases attribute 

 its origin to the action of the infernal powers. Nor were the hermetic 

 philosophers agreed as to the nature of the archeus, the architect spirit which 

 labours without ceasing in the cavities of the human body, and which 

 Paracelsus looked upon as one of the active forces of the mind. The most 

 learned men of science, such as David of Planis-Campi and Ambroise Pare, 

 were also believers in the constellated ascendant, which participated in all the 

 combinations of the occult sciences, and which manifested itself sometimes as 

 a demon, sometimes as a good angel. According to the learned Ambroise 

 Pare, the astral influence was that which presided at the birth of each 

 individual. These incorporeal agents were therefore supposed to take part 

 in all the acts of the occult sciences, and especially in alchemy, in the 

 practice of which its adepts were incessantly calling to their aid the 

 elementary spirits of the metals, and the evil genii which were invoked 

 in nearly all of the incantations (Fig. 167). These genii and spirits, whether 

 good or evil, are mentioned by name in many of the curious formula) used in 

 the making of seals (sigilla) or magic rings which had a power over demons, 

 preserving the wearers from sudden death, protecting them from illness, and 

 from danger by land or sea, and procuring for them as much money as they 

 required. The Sicur de Villamoiit relates, in his " Voyages en Orient," that 





