NECROMANCY. 
tinted, (fee Mythology,) and by them defcribed to the 
million of the people. As it was in thofe dark abodes 
that necromancy was praftifed, it would be no difficult 
matter for fuch magicians as withftood Mofes to itnpofe 
fo far upon the credulous vulgar, as to make them believe, 
that in confequence of their invocations they actually 
faw the ghofts of their friends attend out of the earth. 
It appears from the book of Exodus, that the Ifraelitith 
women were, even in the wildernefs, well acquainted 
with the ufe of the mirror, which was therefore undoubt¬ 
edly known to the Egyptians. Now a mirror of a par¬ 
ticular form, and properly illuminated at the inftant 
required, might eafily be made to reflect, in a cavern 
from which all other light was carefully excluded, the 
image of the deceafed, who was called upon by the ne¬ 
cromancer; and we can readily conceive, that, with re- 
fpeft to the queftion to be propofed, a perfon might be 
concealed prepared to give fuch ambiguous anfw'ers as 
■would latisfy the inquirer, and at the fame time fave the 
credit of the oracle. The terrified imaginations of the 
fpeCtators would aid the delufion, and make a very (light 
refemblance pafs for the gholt or etS'uhov of their departed 
friend ; or the necromancer might affign plaufible reafons 
why a fpeitre, after having dw'elt for fome time in the 
infernal regions, fhoulcl lole fomething of its refemblance 
to the body which it animated. Such juggling tricks, 
though performed by artifts lefs accomplifhed than Jannes 
and Jambres, have gained credit among people much 
more enlightened than the Egyptians can poffibly have 
been when the fcience of necromancy was invented by 
their priefts. 
That the Ifraelites, notwithftanding the prohibition of 
their legiftator, continued to pra&ife the rites of necro¬ 
mancy, is apparent from Saul’s tranfa&ion w'ith the witch 
of Endor (fee Magic). From the fitme tranfa&ion it is 
likewife apparent, that the witches of Ifrael, and therefore 
in all probability the necromancers of Egypt, pretended 
to evocate the ghofts of the dead by a demon, or familiar 
Jpirit, which they had at their command to employ upon 
every emergency. This demon was called ob ; and there¬ 
fore Saul defires his fervants to find him a woman who 
was miftrefs of an ob (i Sam. xxviii. 7.) It is probable 
that thofe wretched impoftors had in their pay fome per- 
fons who occafionally afted the part of the demon, and, 
when the execution of the plot required their agency, 
emitted, by means of a cavity dug for that purpofe, alow 
hollow voice from below the ground. Hence we find 
Ifaiah, in his "denunciations againft Ariel, faying, Thou 
Jhalt be brought dmvn, and Jhalt fpeah out of the ground; 
and thy J'peech Jhall be low out of the dvjl, and thy voice 
Jhull be as of one that hath a familiar Jpirit [an ob] out of 
the ground, and thy J'peech Jhall whifper out of the dujl. 
Ifa. xxix. 4. 
The original, or radical, fignification of the word ob 
occurs in Job xxxii. 19. where Elihu compares his belly 
to new bottles, which he calls oboth, the plural of ob. Now, 
as bottles were then made of leather, new bottles filled 
with wine and ready to burft, as Elihu defcribes them, 
would of courfe be of a form nearly globular. Hence it 
may be inferred that the original import of ob was round 
or globular: but b and p, being labials, are often changed 
into each other; and therefore, from the Hebrew ob is 
derived the Greek o\J/> eye, ofloyai, I fee, and the Latin 
Ops, a name under which the Earth was worfhipped. 
Upis was a name of Diana, or the Moon: the father of 
one of the Dianas was likewife Upis; but this Upis was 
undoubtedly the Sun. Now the difference between upis 
and opis is nothing; hence we are led to believe, that as 
they are all derived from ob, this word was employed by 
the early idolaters of Egypt to denote the firft and greatelt 
of Pagan gods, the Sun. If fo, thofe who pretended to 
be miftrefles of obs , were exactly the fame kind of impoftors 
with the Pythoneffes of the Greeks. 
But, though the Egyptian priefts were undoubtedly 
the inventors of the whole myltery of necromancy, and 
though it was from them imported into Greece by the 
priefts of Dodona, it does not appear that the Grecian 
necromancers pretended to be mailers of obs, or familiar 
fpirits. Mopfus, Orpheus, Linus, Eumolpus, &c. who 
either travelled into Egypt in queft of knowledge, or 
were actually natives of that country, inftruCted the early 
Greeks in this occult fcience: but, whatever might be 
the praCtice of thefe apoPdes themfelves, their difciples 
profefled to do all the feats of magic by performing 
certain rites, by offering certain facrifices, by muttering 
a certain form of words, by charms, fpells, and exorcifms. 
By thefe they pretended to evocate the dead as certainly 
as the Egyptians and Jews did by their familiar fpirits. 
This might be eafily proved from the popular ftory of 
Orpheus and Eurydice, which certainly was founded on 
one of thefe necromantic deceptions exhibited in a cave 
near Dodona, where the priefts had a hades, or infernal 
manfion, in humble imitation of thofe with which the 
firft of them were well acquainted in Egypt. It is indeed. 
evident, without the aid of criticifm: no man of letters 
is ignorant, that whatever fuperftitions of this kind pre¬ 
vailed among the Romans were borrowed from the Greeks. 
But we all know that the Virgil makes one of his fhep- 
herds, by means of certain herbs, poifons, and fenfelefs 
charms, raife up ghofts from their graves; and Lucan has 
fabricated a ftory of this kind, which may be confidered 
as an exaCt parallel to the witch of Endor. Juft before 
the battle of Pharfalia, he makes young Pompey travel 
by night to a Theffalian forcerefs, and anxioufly inquire 
of her the iflue of the war. This female necromancer, 
by a tedious procefs of charms and incantations, conjures 
up the ghoft of a foldier who had been lately (lain. The 
phantom, after a long preamble, denounces a prediction 
much of the fame kind with that which the king of Ifrael 
received from Samuel at Endor; and, though we have- 
elfewhere fhown, that nothing but the fpirit of God 
could have forefeen the inevitable deftruction of Saul, 
his fons, and his army (fee Magic), it was very eafy for 
any man of tolerable fagacity to forefee the defeat of 
Pompey’s raw and undifeiplined troops by the hardy 
veterans of the victorious Csefar. See Lucan’s Pharfalia, 
book vi. 
It would be endlefs to enumerate all the fallacious 
evocations of ghofts, and the ambiguous refponfes re¬ 
turned by thofe pretended fpirits, of which we have ac¬ 
counts from the poets and hiftorians of the celebrated 
nations of antiquity. We (hall therefore proceed to 
mention a few which occur in the fabulous liiftory of 
more modern nations, and then leave the fubjeCt to the 
meditation of our readers. 
In Mallet’s Northern Antiquities, we have the follow¬ 
ing account of a necromantic exploit, between which, 
and the defeent of the ancient heroes into hell, it is im- 
poffible not to remark a ftriking fimilitude. “ Odin, the 
Sovereign of man, arifes. He laddies his horfe Sleipner; 
he mounts, and is conveyed to the fubterraneous abode 
of Hela. The dog which guards the gates of death meets 
him. His bread and his jaws are ftained with blood. 
He opens his voracious mouth to bite, and barks a long¬ 
time at the father of magic. Odin purfues his way ; and 
the infernal cavern refounds and tremblesunder his horfe’s 
hoofs. At length he reaches the deep abode of death, and 
flops near the eaftern gate, where Hands the tomb of the 
prophetefs. He fings with a voice adapted to call up the 
dead; he looks towards the world; he engraves Runic 
characters on her tomb; he utters myfterious words ; and 
he demands an anfwer, until the prophetefs is conitrained 
to arife and thus utter the words of the dead : “ Who is 
this unknown that dares to difturb my repole, and drag 
me from the grave, in which I have been dead fo long, all 
covered with fnow, and moiftened with the rains?” &c. 
The Gaelic druids pretended to be mailers of the fame 
fecret. This is evident from the name of a fpecies of 
divination, not uncommon among the Scotch Highlanders 
fo lately as in the beginning of the 18th century. By a 
4 gentleman 
