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Part VII. 
M Y .S T I C A L SCIENCES. 
&C. 
Necromancy. 
This is a superstitious and impious iniposturei which appears to 
have had its origin at a very early period in Egypt, and to have been 
thence propagated in every nation, with the manners of which history 
has made us acquairited. The conquests of Sesostris might have 
introduced it into [ndia; the Israelites w^ould naturally borrow it 
from the people among whom they sojourned four hundred years ; and 
it would easily find its way into Phoenicia, from the vicinity of tliat 
country to the land of its nativity. From the Egyptians and Phmni- 
cia.ns it .was adopted, wdth the other rites of pagahism, by the Greeks ; 
and it was imported into Home with Grecian literature and manners. 
It spread itself through all the modern nations of Europe, and took 
such deep root as to be long retained, even after those nations were 
converted to the Christian faith. 
Of its early antiquity we have complete evidence in the vv'ritings 
of Moses, w here it is severely condemned as an abomination to the 
Lord; and though it appears to have spread even into Phoenicia, 
we may conclude its birth-place to have been Egypt, because, at 
their exodus, the Israelites were corrupted only by Egyptian supersti*- 
tions, and because necromancy was one of those whoredoms which 
Ezekiel says they brought with them from Egypt, and continued to 
practise till they were carried captives into Babylon. Profane authors 
not only affirm Egypt to have been the birth-place of necromancy, 
but in some degree account for the origin of so impious a delusion. 
From Diodorus the Sicilian we learn that the Grecian fables of Cha- 
ron the ferryman of hell, of Styx, Cocytus, the Elysian fields, Tar- 
tarus, the judgment of Minos and Khadamanthus, &:c. with the whole 
scenery of the inferior regions, w'ere imported from Egypt into Greece. 
The ancient Egyptians, and indeed all the people of the East, made 
use of caves for biirying-places, which were well suited to the solemn 
sadness of the surviving friends, and proper receptacles for those who 
were never more to behold the light. In Egypt, many of those sub- 
terraneous cavities being dug out of the natural rock, still remain, 
and command the admiration of travellers ; and near to the pyramids, 
in particular, there are some apartments of a wonderful fabric, w hich 
though they extend in length four thousand four hundred feet, and 
are about thirty feet in depth, appear to have been, if not entirelv 
dug, at least reduced to form, by the chisel or pickaxe. 
From the practice of burying in such caverns, sprung the opinion 
of the infernal mansions ; whence it was easy for the priests of Egypt 
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