Modern Magic.
BY
M. SCHELE DE VERE.
Non fumum ex fulgore, sed ex fumo dare lucemCogitat, ut speciosa dehinc miracula promat.
Horace.
NEW YORK:
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS,
Fourth Avenue and Twenty-Third Street.
1873.
Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1878, by
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
Lange, Little & Hillman,
printers, electrotypers and stereotypers,
108 To 114 Wooster Street, N. Y.
PREFACE.
The main purpose of our existence on earth—asidefrom the sacred and paramount duty of securing oursalvation—is undoubtedly to make ourselves mastersof the tangible world around us, as it stands revealedto our senses, and as it was expressly made subject toour will by the Creator. We are, however, at the sametime, not left without information about the existenceof certain laws and the occurrence of certain phenomena,which belong to a world not accessible to us bymeans of our ordinary senses, and which yet affect seriouslyour intercourse with Nature and our personalwelfare. This knowledge we obtain sometimes, by specialfavor, as direct revelation, and at other times, forreasons as yet unknown, at the expense of our healthand much suffering. By whatever means it may reachus, it cannot be rejected; to treat it with ridicule or to[Pg 4]decline examining it, would be as unwise as unprofitable.The least that we can do is to ascertain the precisenature of these laws, and, after stripping thesephenomena of all that can be proved to be merely incidentalor delusive, to compare them with each other,and to arrange them carefully according to some standardof classification. The main interest in such a tasklies in the discovery of the grain of truth which isoften found concealed in a mass of rubbish, and which,when thus brought to light, serves to enlarge ourknowledge and to increase our power. The difficultylies in the absence of all scientific investigation, and inthe innate tendency of man to give way, wantonly orunconsciously, to mental as well as to sensual delusion.
The aim of this little work is, therefore, limited tothe gathering of such facts and phenomena as mayserve to throw light upon the nature of the magicpowers with which man is undoubtedly endowed. Itsend will be attained if it succeeds in showing that heactually does possess powers which are not subject tothe general laws of nature, but more or less independentof space and time, and which yet make themselvesknown partly by appeals to the ordinary senses andpartly by peculiar phenomena, the result of their[Pg 5]activity. These higher powers, operating exclusivelythrough the spirit of man, are part of his nature, whichhas much in common with that of the Deity, since hewas created by God "in His own image," and the Lord"breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and manbecame a living soul."