Lights and shadows of spiritualism

10 AXCIENT SPIRITUALISM.Avcre equal to theii- brethren of Chaldea, in wisdom they evensurpassed them. What their temples were, the awful ruins ofKarnac, the city of shrines, even now witness. The avenues ofsphynxes extend for miles ; the desert is crested with columnswhose massiveness no other nation can equal. In these stupendousrecesses was once hived that wisdom a few fragments ofwhich, despite the sleepless jealousy of its guardians, Gi'eek sagesbore back to theii' own land, and embodied in Greece's sublimestphilosophy. The splendour of the little that remains causes usthe more to regret that mass of knowledge which, by the erringsystem of the Egyptians, is irrecoverably lost.For here, as in eachof the great empires of the East, the few enlightened ones inwhose keeping was the wisdom and the science of the age, farfrom striving to disseminate the seeds of knowledge among thegi-eat body of the people, jealously restricted that knowledge tothemselves and their descendants, leaving the outer world inhopeless darkness. The mass of the nation were estimated ascattle, the puppets of the nobles and the magi, fit only for contemptuousabandonment to the worship of apes and beetles. Inthe temples, on the contrary, the utmost striving after discoverywas a^iparent—an intellectual activity that never ceased. Thepaintings which Denis and Montfaucon have copied from theii*walls make manifest that mesmerism and clairvoyance werefamiliar things with the magicians of Egypt ; that through theseor other means they obtained communication with the world ofspirits, and practised wuth spirit-aid the art of hcalmg. In thetemples were placed representations of the more miraculous cures.These seem to have been chiefly procured by aid of the trance ormesmeric sleep, in which, without doubt, spii'its no less than menusually operated. To induce this sleep incense was used. Itsinfluence Avas assisted b}' the soft music of lyres. Elevated thusabove its material prison, the soul for a space held free communionwith the spiritual Avorld.King Rhampsitimus, the magi of Egyptasserted to Herodotus, descended by such means to the mansionst>f the dead, held converse with the gods, and returned after awhileto the upper day.