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Fire-ordeal

The fire-ordeal is of great antiquity, and probably arose from the conception of the purifying influence of fire. Among the Hindoos, from the earliest times until comparatively recently, those who were suspected of wrongdoing were required to prove their guilt or innocence by walking over red-hot iron. If they escaped unharmed their innocence was placed beyond a doubt. The priestesses of a Cappodocian goddess, Diana Parasya, walked barefooted on red-hot coals, attributing their invulnerability to the powers of the divinity. In Europe trial by fire was of two kinds-traversing the flames, or undergoing the ordeal of hot iron. The latter form comprised the carrying in the hand of red-hot irons, the walking over iron bars or glowing ploughshares, and the thrusting of the hand into a red-hot gauntlet. An early instance of the former mode in European history is that of Pierre Barthelémy, who in 1097 declared to the Crusaders that heaven had revealed to him the place where was concealed the spear that had pierced the Saviour's body. To prove his assertion he offered to undergo the ordeal by fire, and was duly required to walk a path about a foot in width and some fourteen feet in length, on either side of which were piled blazing olive-branches. The judgment of the fire was unfavourable, and twelve days later the rash adventurer expired in agony. Books also were sometimes submitted to the trial by fire. This method was adopted to decide the claims of the Roman and Mozaratian liturgies, the former emerging victorious from the flames. Among savage people the fire-ordeal is also to be met with, and especially in New Zealand, India, Fiji, and Japan. It may be suspected that the issue of these ordeals was not always left on the knees of the gods. There is no doubt that the ancient Egyptians were acquainted with substances which rendered the body partly immune. Albertus Magnus gives a recipe for this purpose. It is made up of powdered lime, made into a paste with the white of an egg, the juice of the radish, the juice of the marsh mallow, and the seeds of the fleabane. A first coat of this mixture is applied to the body and allowed to dry, when a second coat is applied. If the feet be constantly oiled, or moistened with sulphuric acid, they may be rendered impervious. Possibly the ancients were not unaware of the fire-resisting properties of asbestos. The fire-ordeal has remained to this day as one of the phenomena of spiritualism. D. D. Home frequently handled live coals, and laid them on a handkerchief without damaging the material in the least. On one occasion he enclosed a glowing coal in his hands and blew upon it until it became white hot. A well known instance is that related by Mrs. S. C. Hall, when Home placed a burning coal on the head of Mr. Hall, whose white hair was then drawn over the still glowing coal. In an account given by Mrs. Homewood and Lord Lindsay of a séance with the same medium we are told that Home took a chimney from a lighted lamp and thrust it into the fire, making it so hot that a match applied to it ignited instantly, and then thrust it into his mouth, touching it with his tongue, without any apparent ill effects. Another account states that Home placed his face right in the fire among the burning coals " moving it about as though bathing it in water." Other mediums, both in England and America, emulated this feat with some measure of success. It has been suggested that the state of trance generally accompanying such exploits, and corresponding to the ecstasy of the shaman performing a similar feat, may produce anæsthesia, or insensibility to the pain of burning. But how it comes that the skin is not scorched, nor the material of the handherchief marked by the burning coal, it is not easy to say. Flamel, Nicholas, was born at Pontoise, of a poor but respectable family, about the beginning of the fourteenth century. He received a good education, of which his natural abilities enabled him to make the best use. Repairing to Paris, he obtained employment as a public scrivener, -sitting at the corner of the Rue de Marivaux, copying or inditing letters and other documents. The occupation brought with it little profit, and Flamel tried in succession poetry and painting with an equally unsatisfactory result. His quick wits suggested that as he could make no money by teaching mankind, it might be more profitable to cheat them, and he took up the pursuit of Astrology, casting horoscopes and telling fortunes. He was right in his conjectures, and soon throve so vigorously that he was enabled to take unto himself a wife named Petronella. But those who begin to study the magic art for profit or amusement generally finish by addicting themselves to it with a blindly passionate love. Nicholas devoted himself both day and night to his fascinating but deceptive pursuits; and soon acquired a thorough knowledge of all that previous adepts had written upon the elixir vitæ, the universal Alkahest, and the Philosopher's Stone. In 1297 he lighted upon a manual of the art which would have been invaluable if it had been intelligible. He bought it for two florins. It contained three times seven leaves written with a steel instrument upon the bark of trees. The caligraphy was as admirable as the Latin was cryptical. Each seventh leaf was free from writing, but emblazoned with a picture; the first, representing a serpent swallowing rods; the second, a serpent crucified on a cross; and the third, the arid expanse of a treeless desert, in whose depths a fountain bubbled, with serpents trailing their slimy folds from side to side. The author of this mysterious book purported to be " Abraham, the patriarch, Jew, prince, philosopher, Levite, priest, and astrologer," (q.v.) who added to his other claims upon the wonder of mankind a knowledge of Latin. He had included within these precious pages a complete exposition of the art of transmuting metals; describing every process, explaining the different vessels, and pointing out the proper seasons for making experiments. In fact, the book would have been perfect, but for one deficiency; it was addressed not so much to the tyro as to an adept, and took it for granted that its student was already in possession of the Philosopher's Stone. This was a terrible obstacle to the inquiring Flamel. The more he studied the book the less he understood it. He studied the letterpress, and he studied the illustrations; he invited the wise men of France to come and study them, but no light was thrown upon the darkness. For thrice seven years he pored over these perplexing pages, until at length his wife suggested that a Jewish Rabbi might be able to interpret them. As the chiefs of the Jews were principally located in Spain, to Spain went Flamel, and there he remained for two years. From one of the Hebrew sages he obtained some hints which afforded a key to the patriarchal mysteries, and returning to Paris he recommenced his studies with a new vigour. They were rewarded with success. On the 13th of February, 1382, o.s., Flamel made a projection on Mercury, and produced some virgin silver. On the 25th of the following April he converted some Mer- Fludd cury into gold, and found himself the fortunate possessor of an inexhaustible treasure. But his good fortune did not end here. Flamel, continuing his researches discovered the elixir of life, which enabled him to prolong his lifeand accumulate gold-to the venerable age of 116. He further administered the life-giving potion to his wife, who reached nearly as great a longevity as himself, dying in the year preceding his own death, A.D. 1414. As they had no children, they spent their wealth upon churches and hospitals, and several of the religious and charitable institutions of France still attest their well-directed benevolence. There is no doubt that Flamel practised alchemy, and one of his works on the fascinating science-a poem entitled The Philosophic Summary-was printed as late as 1735. In Salmon's valuable and very curious Bibliotheque des Philosophes Chimiques are preserved same specimens of the drawings in Abraham's treatise on metallurgy and of his own handwriting. But Flamel was neither an enthusiast nor a dupe. His alchemical studies were but the disguises of his usurious practices. To account for the immense wealth he acquired by money-lending to the young French nobles, and by transacting business between the Jews of France and those of Spain, he invented the fiction of his discovery of the Philosopher's Stone. He nevertheless obtained great repute as a magician, and his followers believed that he was still alive though retired from the world, and would live for six centuries.

Flammarion, Camille : (See Spiritualism.) Fletcher, Anna: (See Germany.) Flight of Birds in Augury: (See Divination.) Flournoy Prof.: (See Automatic Writing and Speaking.) Fludd, or Flud, Robert: This Rosicrucian and alchemist was born in 1574 at Milgate House, in the parish of Bearsted, Kent, his father being one Sir Thomas Fludd, a knight who enjoyed the patronage of Queen Elizabeth, and served her for several years as "Treasurer of War in the Low Countries." At the age of seventeen Robert entered St. John's College, Oxford, and five years later he took his degree as Bachelor of Arts; while shortly afterwards, on his deciding to take up medical science, he left England and went to prosecute his studies on the Continent. Going first to Spain, he travelled thence to Italy, and subsequently stayed for some time in Germany, where he is said to have supported himself by acting as pedagogue in various noble households; but soon he was home again, and in 1605 his alma mater of Oxford conferred on him the degrees of Bachelor of Medicine and Doctor of Medicine, while five years later he became a Fellow of the College of Physicians. Having thus equipped himself thoroughly for the medical profession, Fludd went to London and took a house in Fenchurch Street, a quiet place in those days, though now a noisy centre of commerce; and here he soon gained an extensive practice, his success being due not merely to his genuine skill, but to his having an attractive and even magnetic personality. But busy though he was in this way, he found leisure to write at length on medicine; while anon he became an important and influential member of the Fraternity of the Rosy Cross, and at the same time he commenced alchemistic experiments. He preached the great efficacy of the magnet, of sympathetic cures, of the weapon-salve; he declared his belief in the Philosopher's Stone, the universal alkahest or solvent, the elixir vita; he maintained that all things were animated by two principles-condensation, the Boreal, or northern virtue; and rarefaction, the Austral, or southern virtue. He asserted that the human body was controlled by a number of demons, that each disease had its peculiar demon, each demon his particular place in the frame of humanity, and that to conquer a disease-say in the right leg-you must call in the aid of the demon who ruled the left, always proceeding by this rule of contraries. As soon as the doctrines of the Rosy Cross Brotherhood were promulgated Fludd embraced them with all the eagerness of which his dreamy intellect was capable; and several German writers having made an attack upon them, he published a defence in 1616, under the title of Apologia Compendiaria Fratern- Rosea-Cruce Suspicionis et Infamiæ Maculis Aspersam Abluens, which procured him a wide-spread reputation as one of the apostles of the new fraternity. He met with the usual fate of prophets, and was lustily belaboured by a host of enemies-by Mersenne, Gassendi, and Kepler. Fludd was by no means discomfited, and retorted upon his opponents in an elaborate treatise, Summum Bonum, quod est Magica, Cabala, Alchimia, Fratrum Rosea-Crucis Verorum, et adversus Mersenium Calumniatorem. He made at a later period and aventurous attempt to identify the doctrines of the Rosicrucians with what he was pleased to call the Philosophy of Moses (Philosophia Mosaica, in quâ sapientia et scientia Creationis explicantur), published at Ghent, 1638, and wrote numerous treatises on alchemy and medical science. He founded an English school of Rosicrucians. Fludd is one of the high priests of the Magnetic Philosophy, and learnedly expounds the laws of ostral medicine, the doctrines of sympathies, and the fine powers and marvellous effects of the magnet. When two men approach each other-such was his theory-their magnetism is either active or passive; that is, positive or negative. If the emanations which they send out are broken or thrown back, there arises antipathy, or Magnetismus negativus: but when the emanations pass through each other, the positive magnetism is produced, for the magnetic rays proceed from the centre to the circumference. Man, like the earth, has his poles, or two main streams of magnetic influence. Like a little world, he is endowed with a magnetic virtue which, however, is subjected to the same laws as, on a larger scale, the magnetic power of the universe. How these principles may be developed in the cure or prevention of disease, the reader must learn from the mystic pages of Robertus à Fluctibus himself.

Fludd died in 1637 at a house in Coleman Street, to which he had removed a few years before; but ere his demise he had won a fairly wide reputation by his chymical ability, and had also issued a considerable number of books, prominent among them being Tractatus Apologeticus integritatem Societatis de Rusae Cruce defendans, Leyden 1617, Veritatis Proscenium, Frankfort 1621, Medicina Catholica,

Frankfort 1629, Monochordum Mundi Syhiphoniacum, Frankfort, 1622.

Flute, Charm of the : The flute is often mentioned in history as being used for the purpose of charming animals, and the serpent seems to have been peculiarly delighted with its music.

It is said that adders will swell at the sound of the flute, raising themselves up, twisting about and keeping proper time. A Spanish writer says that in India he had often seen the Gentiles leading about enchanted serpents, making them dance to the sound of a flute, putting them round their necks, and touching them without harm; and to this day a musical instrument of this nature is used by the snake-charmers of that country. In opposition to this, Hippocrates mentions a man, Nicanor, who fainted whenever he heard the sound of a flute.

Flying Dutchman, The: Sailors in Holland long believed that a certain Dutch skipper, van Straaten by name, was condemned as a penalty for his sins to sail for year after year through the seas beating around the Cape of Storms, this being the old name for the Cape of Good Hope; and crews returning to the Zudyer Zee after voyaging in the region aforesaid, use to declared that they had seen van Straaten's mysterious craft, and had fled from it in terror. This legend is probably a very old one, albeit the exact Fontenettes date at which it became current is indeterminate; and it should be added that the story is found in the folklore of various countries besides Holland, notably Germany. Several German versions call the ill-starred seaman von Falkenberg, and maintain that it was not near South Africa, but in the North Sea that his spectral barque commonly hovered; while some of them contend further that the devil was wont to pay periodic visits to the captain on board his ship, and that frequently the two were seen playing dice on deck, the stakes at issue being von Falkenberg's soul. The tale soon found its way from folk-lore into actual literature, among the greatest of those writers utilising it being Heinrich Heine, and in his rendering the sailor has a chance of salvation. That is to say, the fates allow him to put foot on terra firma once every seven years; and if, during his brief period of respite, he contrives to win the affection of an unsullied maiden, liberation from perennial sea-wandering will be granted him as reward. Heine's form o the story appealed keenly to Wagner, who was always prone to regard woman devoutly as before all else a regenerating force; and accordingly the great composer wrote a music-drama on the subject of The Flying Dutchman, or as he calls it in German, Der Fliegende Holländer, in which the scene is mostly laid in the North Sea, while the sailor himself is called van Derdecken, and the maiden to whom he makes advances is Senta. This opera was first staged at Dresden in 1843, and, though it can hardly be said that it won speedy appreciation, at least majority of Wagner's works. Marryat has also a novel it did not elicit quite the scorn meted out originally to the Fohat is in Theosophy, the power of the Logos. (See Theon the subject.