Isis unveiled, Volume 1 (of 2), Science

[354] De la Loubère: “Notes,” etc. (see ante), p. 115.

[355] Ibid., p. 120.

[356] Ibid., p. 63.

[357] See his “Conf.,” xiii., l. c. in præfatione.

[358] 1 Samuel, xvi. 14-23.

[359] “Aphorisms,” 22.

[360] Ibid., p. 69.

[361] Ibid., p. 70.

[362] “Philosophie des Sciences Occultes.”

[363] 1 Kings, i. 1-4, 15.

[364] Josephus: “Antiquities,” viii. 2.

[365] “The Diakka and their Victims; an Explanation of the False and Repulsive in Spiritualism.”

[366] See Chapter on the human spirits becoming the denizens of the eighth sphere, whose end is generally the annihilation of personal individuality.

[367] Porphyry: “On the Good and Bad Demons.”

[368] “De Mysteriis Egyptorum,” lib. iii., c. 5.

[369] Epes Sargent: “Proof Palpable of Immortality,” p. 45.

[370] See Matthew xxiv. 26.

[371] See Wallace, “Miracles and Modern Spiritualism,” and W. Howitt, “History of the Supernatural,” vol. ii.

[372] See Wallace’s paper read before the Dialectical Society, in 1871: “Answer to Hume, etc.”

[373] “Φιλολογος” (Bailey’s), second edition.

[374] See Art. on “Æthrobacy.”

[375] Psalm cv. 23. “The Land of Ham,” or chem, Greek χημι, whence the terms alchemy and chemistry.

[376] “Œdipi Ægyptiaci Theatrum Hieroglyphicum,” p. 544.

[377] “Lib. de Defectu Oraculorum.“

[378] Lib. i., Class 3, Cap. ult.

[379] The details of this story may be found in the work of Erasmus Franciscus, who quotes from Pflaumerus, Pancirollus, and many others.

[380] ”Sulphur. Alum ust. a ℥ iv.; sublime them into flowers to ℥ ij., of which add of crystalline Venetian borax (powdered) ℥ j.; upon these affuse high rectified spirit of wine and digest it, then abstract it and pour on fresh; repeat this so often till the sulphur melts like wax without any smoke, upon a hot plate of brass: this is for the pabulum, but the wick is to be prepared after this manner: gather the threads or thrums of the Lapis asbestos, to the thickness of your middle and the length of your little finger, then put them into a Venetian glass, and covering them over with the aforesaid depurated sulphur or aliment, set the glass in sand for the space of twenty-four hours, so hot that the sulphur may bubble all the while. The wick being thus besmeared and anointed, is to be put into a glass like a scallop-shell, in such manner that some part of it may lie above the mass of prepared sulphur; then setting this glass upon hot sand, you must melt the sulphur, so that it may lay hold of the wick, and when it is lighted, it will burn with a perpetual flame and you may set this lamp in any place where you please.”

The other is as follows:

“℞ Salis tosti, lb. j.; affuse over it strong wine vinegar, and abstract it to the consistency of oil; then put on fresh vinegar and macerate and distill it as before. Repeat this four times successively, then put into this vinegar vitr. antimonii subtilis lœvigat, lb. j.; set it on ashes in a close vessel for the space of six hours, to extract its tincture, decant the liquor, and put on fresh, and then extract it again; this repeat so often till you have got out all the redness. Coagulate your extractions to the consistency of oil, and then rectify them in Balneo Mariæ (bain Marie). Then take the antimony, from which the tincture was extracted, and reduce it to a very fine meal, and so put it into a glass bolthead; pour upon it the rectified oil, which abstract and cohobate seven times, till such time as the powder has imbibed all the oil, and is quite dry. This extract again with spirit of wine, so often, till all the essence be got out of it, which put into a Venice matrass, well luted with paper five-fold, and then distill it so that the spirit being drawn off, there may remain at the bottom an inconsumable oil, to be used with a wick after the same manner with the sulphur we have described before.”

“These are the eternal lights of Tritenheimus,” says Libavius, his commentator, “which indeed, though they do not agree with the pertinacy of naphtha, yet these things can illustrate one another. Naphtha is not so durable as not to be burned, for it exhales and deflagrates, but if it be fixed by adding the juice of the Lapis asbestinos it can afford perpetual fuel,” says this learned person.

We may add that we have ourselves seen a lamp so prepared, and we are told that since it was first lighted on May 2, 1871, it has not gone out. As we know the person who is making the experiment incapable to deceive any one, being himself an ardent experimenter in hermetic secrets, we have no reason to doubt his assertion.

[381] “Commentary upon St. Augustine’s ‘Treatise de Civitate Dei.’”

[382] The author of “De Rebus Cypriis,” 1566 A.D.

[383] “Book of Ancient Funerals.”

[384] “Comment. on the 77th Epigram of the IXth Book of Martial.”

[385] “De Defectu Oraculorum.”

[386] “Vulgar Errors,” p. 124.

[387] “London Dialectical Society’s Report on Spiritualism,” p. 229.

[388] Ibid., p. 230.

[389] Ibid., p. 265.