The History of Magic (Volume 1) Paperback -

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: SECOND SECTION. MAGNETISM AMONG THE ANCIENT NATIONS; ESPECIALLY THE OBIENTALS, EGYPTIANS, AND ISRAELITES. IMAGO, MAGIA, MAGNES. Accobding to the observations previously made, the poetic- magical element repeats itself under many forms in the souls of individuals and nations, according to their innate national character. The revolutions of time and of peculiar individual existence produce only in outward appearance a varied manifestation in the most obscure and lowest barbarism, and in the most perverted activity of the world; while with the enlightenment of reason and morals the inward being is always and everywhere the same. For the objective is reflected upon the imagination and religious feeling, on all hands according to a common type of nature and the mind. In it the material takes the form of the supernatural; and the supernatural impresses itself upon the material through the imagination. Herein lies the broad realm of poetry, of the eternal magical imagination of the human soul, which is at home in two worlds?one spiritual and one material, and developes the elements of its activity either in itself or through external impulses. Everything, however, whether it come from its own interior, or from the external world, is but a reflected image?a phenomenon?not a being, a reality; but this semblance the imagination endeavours to represent as a reality. It is, therefore, not strange that man finds such delight in the creations of poetry and of his own imagination; neither is it strange that he should always regard the mere semblance as a reality, and its own creations as beautiful, whether they contain truth or fallacy. To draw the distinction requires much experience in the outward world, and self-observation of individual spiritual activity. Where this is wanting, ...