The Black Art [antikvár]

PART ONE 1 The Earliest Records of Black Magic Traces sorcery back to antediluvian times, and mentions various early evidences and records of its practice. The history of man is the history of magic. It is a difficult task to turn to any particular era and say that at this time or that magic made its appearance in definite form, because, although there are very early records of its practice, there are still earlier traces and evidences left behind in the shape of rude carvings, symbols, and so forth, and the legends that have been handed down through generations by word of mouth alone. These traces are to be found among every race and every nation on the globe. Magic was man's first effort to establish contact with the unknown; the hidden spiritual forces, which he dimly felt to exist and by means of which he hoped to attain his desires and accomplish matters that proved difficult or too much for him by-ordinary means. Not all magic was black, but all magic did eventually develop an evil tendency, and magic as a whole grew to imply that which was dark and dubious if not actually evil. In the evolution of thought, magic, as representing a lower intellectual level, probably everywhere preceded religion but, later, ran parallel with it. Now, the occultist traces black magic much further back than the mere materialist. He goes back to the lost continent of Atlantis, which sank beneath the waves of the Western Ocean and thereby caused the greatest cataclysm the world has ever experienced, referred to in the Bible as the