“Be thy intents wicked or charitable, Thou com’st in such a questionable shape—” HAMLET.
ASTR. Now from the holy records, from the creed of the Magus Zoroaster, from the Greek, and Roman, and other legends, how clear is the influence of ethereal beings, of angels and demons, on man’s life; and of the imparted power of _exorcism_! In allusion to this divine gift to Solomon, Josephus has the following story:—“God also enabled him to learn that skill which expels demons, which is a science useful and sanative to men. And this method is of great force unto this day, for I have seen a certain man of my own country, whose name was Eleazer, releasing people that were demoniacal in the presence of Vespasian, and his sons, and his captains, and the whole multitude of his soldiers. The manner of the cure was this. He put a ring, that had a root of one of those sorts mentioned by Solomon, to the nostrils of the demoniac, after which he drew out the demon through his nostrils; and when the man fell down immediately, he adjured him to return into him no more, making still mention of Solomon, and reciting the incantations which he composed. And when Eleazer would persuade and demonstrate to the spectators that he had such a power, he set a little way off a cup or bason full of water, and commanded the demon, as he went out of the man, to overturn it, and thereby to let the spectators know that he had left the man.”
The gods of the Greeks and the Latins, the _lares_ and _lemures_, or hearth-spirits, the pagan and the Christian elves, were ever held as delegated agents of the Deity, who worked, not by a fiat, but by an instrument. Such were the _Cemies_ of the American islanders, and the _Kitchi_ and _Matchi Manitou_ of the Indians; and, if we consult Father Borri, we shall learn that in Cochin China _Lucifer_ himself promenaded the streets in _human_ shape.
Psellus records six kinds of devils; and the arrangements of Agrippa, and other theologians, enumerate nine sorts of evil spirits, as you may read in one of old Burton’s eccentric chapters.
The mythology of the _Baghvat Geeta_, the sacred record of the Hindoo theists, is based on the notion of good and evil spirits, the emblems of virtue and of vice under the will and power of Brahma. Indeed, the Hindoo mythology is but that of the classic in other words. _Agnee_, the god of fire, _Varoon_, the god of the ocean, _Vayoo_, the god of the wind, and _Cama_, the god of love, are but other names for Jupiter, and Neptune, and Œolus, and Cupid.