FAMILIAR SPIRITS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1905, 30 July 1888, Page 3

FAMILIAR SPIRITS

This was an expression employed to denote oerUln supernatural beings m attendance upon maglolana, w'flirds, wltohei, conjurors, and other okllfal professors of the blaok art, T.he balief In ouch goeß far back into the history of oar raoe. We ' read of them m the time of M^es, who adraonleb.es his countrymen to (( regard not them that have familiar spirits," wbloh would Imply the prevalence of the superstition among the Egyptians. The word In the original rendered " famlltar spirts" Is dboih. It Is of freqaentoccurrence m the Hebrew Scriptures, and liter illy signifies f 'leathern bottles"; thereby indicate Ing the antiquity of the fgaa that magicians were worjt to Imprison (n bottles the spirits whom their spells had Bnbdued (whence oqc *' bottle imps" oni " bottle conjurors ") ; the origin, again, of whloh grotesque belief Is perhaps to be. sought for m the qiroumstanoe that mju'loal liquids kept In vials have been immensely m vogue among the conjurors of all ages and countries Asia would seem to have been the original home of the belief m familiar spirits, whiob bts long been established bb a cardinal superstition of the Persians and Hindis, and wbloh appeari} In. perfection In the * Arabian Nights.' The slave of the lamp, who waits upon Aladdin, is an example In point, A favorite form assumed by the familiar spirit being a black dog, readers of Goethe will remember that Mephlstophelea first appears to Faust and Wagner during their evenIng walk In this shape j and medieval tradition oarries this Idea far back into history. Curiously enorjgh, In spite of the servitude to which the attendant Imps were reduood by the potent spoils of the maglolans, they were popularly supposed to Lave their revenge at last, by carrying with them into e'etnal torments the souls of their deoaased masters, *$his Idea of dlylne retribution overtaking the praotisers raaglo, however, is not found out qt Christendom. The Jews think net the less, but tha more, of Solomon because he wm, is they say, one of the greatest of magicians. ' *