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Updated: June 9, 2025
But he is absolutely contemporary, "modern," "new," in his fearlessness. He has this in common with the practicers of free verse, with the imagists, with the futurists; he is not in the least afraid of seeming ridiculous. There can be no progress in art until artists overcome wholly this blighting fear.
In the years which preceded the French Revolution, Cagliostro was the companion of princes at the dissolution of paganism the practicers of curious arts, the watches and the necromancers, were the sole objects of reverence in the Roman world; and so, before the Reformation, archbishops and cardinals saw an inspired prophetess in a Kentish servant girl; Oxford heads of colleges sought out heretics with the help of astrology; Anne Boleyn blessed a basin of rings, her royal fingers pouring such virtue into the metal that no disorder could resist it; Wolsey had a magic crystal; and Cromwell, while in Wolsey's household, "did haunt to the company of a wizard."
+887+. The facts observed by practicers of magic probably contributed to the collections of material that furnished the starting-point for the scientific study of physical phenomena. The interest in the facts arose at first simply from their relation to magical procedure it was from them that certain laws of supernatural action were learned, and men thus got control of this action.
It is true that Buckingham and Suffolk were the practicers and contrivers of the Duke's death: Buckingham and Suffolk, because the Duke gave instructions to their authority, which otherwise under the Queen had been absolute; the Queen in respect of her personal wound, "spretaeque injuria formae," because Gloucester dissuaded her marriage.
In the more advanced systems it is often the case that it is especially women who are considered adepts; so it was in Babylonia; in the Old Testament Saul seeks the woman of Endor; Thessalian witches were famous; women who tie magical knots are provided against in the Koran by a special form of prayer; in Europe, medieval and later, the practicers of magic have generally been women.
Why turn to the front its incidental negations? This is topsy-turvy nomenclature. Better blot the word self-sacrifice from our dictionaries. Devotion, service, love, dedication to a cause, these words mark its real nature and are the only descriptions of it which its practicers will recognize.
The great speculative systems of thought, Confucianism and Taoism, gradually gave rise to definite sacerdotal cults; but the priests of the Confucian temples serve mainly to keep before the people the teaching of the Master, and the Taoist priests have become largely practicers of magic and charlatans. Chinese religious practice remains essentially nonsacerdotal.
The tendency also is for laymen to prove their piety by becoming teachers. It is so in every direction. Reforms dissipate into theses; it is always easier to make speeches on the city beautiful than it is to refrain from throwing the refuse in the street. We are all talking about what ought to be done. Perhaps some leader will arise and institute the order of the practicers.
Even soothsayers and astrologers were not lacking, who in the last hours before marching wished to draw his horoscope for the viceroy; there were even practicers of the black art who wished to sell unfailing amulets against missiles.
It is said that certain counsel eminent in the learned profession of the law, and that certain even of the judges of the bench, have been known to consult the female practicers of the Black Art, but the author has never been personally cognizant of a case of this kind, and has no means of knowing whether the consultation was intended to benefit the lawyer or the witch; whether the former desired enlightenment as to the management of some knotty professional point, or whether the latter wanted legal advice as to some of the side branches of her business.
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