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Article THE HISTORY OF MAGIC. ← Page 5 of 15 →
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The History Of Magic.
sacrifices—merciless murderers of children and devourcrs of man ' s flesh in the feasts of blood , with their priests out of the midst of their idolatrous crew . " Cadmus , a Phoenician , brought the Eleusinian mysteries into Greece about 1400 B . O . Moses , taught the secret arts by the daughter of Pharoah , became " learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians" The
Amale-. kites , waning with the Hebrews during their flight from Egypt—Balaam beseiged in his city by the Ethiopian King , and afterwards by Moses—had alike recourse to magic as a means of defence . Four centuries later , Saul sought the Witch of Endor , a woman who professed to invoke the shades of the departed . In Hindostanscience received much regard
, from the earliest ages , though even here the Egyptian priests were considered the most subtle of magicians . The sages of Egypt , Hindostan , and other parts of Asia , became in course of time the instructors of the Greek and
Roman nations . The cause of this was the decline of the sacred sciences among their own people . Persecuted at home , the Hindoo and Chaldean professors carried into exile their mystic arts . Thus the pagan sorcerers of Canaan were scattered abroad by the Hebrews , their latest successors being those whom Saul persecuted , anxious as he w as in after
troubles to seek the aid of one of their craft , then with difficulty to be found . In 716 B . C , the Roman religion was founded by Numa Pompilius , who established colleges for the priests . From this time to that of Cicero auspices and auguries became of great public importance ; during a great portion of this period also , the offices of king and high-priest were combined in one ruler , and subsequently many pagan ceremonies were mixed with the Roman rites . In Greece , Demosthenes is the earliest writer who notices the existence of sorcerers .
But previous to the rise of magic among the Greeks and Romans , there are some other points worthy of attention . Zoroaster ( Zerdusht ) flourished in the sixth century before Christ , though by some accounts , two centuries earlier . He was the reformer of the ancient Persian religion , and , as already mentioned , the founder of that of the Magi , which was
retained in Western Asia from the time of Cyrus to the conquest of Persia by Alexander . Their peculiar worship is not extinct in that country even at the present day . The word magi is thought to be derived from the Sanscrit or original Hindoo language , in which the word Mahagi signifies " great or wise men—men devoted to study and meditation . " The priests of the Parsees are still called in tho Pchivi dialect .
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
The History Of Magic.
sacrifices—merciless murderers of children and devourcrs of man ' s flesh in the feasts of blood , with their priests out of the midst of their idolatrous crew . " Cadmus , a Phoenician , brought the Eleusinian mysteries into Greece about 1400 B . O . Moses , taught the secret arts by the daughter of Pharoah , became " learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians" The
Amale-. kites , waning with the Hebrews during their flight from Egypt—Balaam beseiged in his city by the Ethiopian King , and afterwards by Moses—had alike recourse to magic as a means of defence . Four centuries later , Saul sought the Witch of Endor , a woman who professed to invoke the shades of the departed . In Hindostanscience received much regard
, from the earliest ages , though even here the Egyptian priests were considered the most subtle of magicians . The sages of Egypt , Hindostan , and other parts of Asia , became in course of time the instructors of the Greek and
Roman nations . The cause of this was the decline of the sacred sciences among their own people . Persecuted at home , the Hindoo and Chaldean professors carried into exile their mystic arts . Thus the pagan sorcerers of Canaan were scattered abroad by the Hebrews , their latest successors being those whom Saul persecuted , anxious as he w as in after
troubles to seek the aid of one of their craft , then with difficulty to be found . In 716 B . C , the Roman religion was founded by Numa Pompilius , who established colleges for the priests . From this time to that of Cicero auspices and auguries became of great public importance ; during a great portion of this period also , the offices of king and high-priest were combined in one ruler , and subsequently many pagan ceremonies were mixed with the Roman rites . In Greece , Demosthenes is the earliest writer who notices the existence of sorcerers .
But previous to the rise of magic among the Greeks and Romans , there are some other points worthy of attention . Zoroaster ( Zerdusht ) flourished in the sixth century before Christ , though by some accounts , two centuries earlier . He was the reformer of the ancient Persian religion , and , as already mentioned , the founder of that of the Magi , which was
retained in Western Asia from the time of Cyrus to the conquest of Persia by Alexander . Their peculiar worship is not extinct in that country even at the present day . The word magi is thought to be derived from the Sanscrit or original Hindoo language , in which the word Mahagi signifies " great or wise men—men devoted to study and meditation . " The priests of the Parsees are still called in tho Pchivi dialect .