Hydromancy
Divination by water, is said by Natalis Comes to have been the invention of Nereus, and according to Delrio, a most respectable authority in these matters, it is a method of divination than which nulla fæcundior imposturis. Iamblichus, he says, mentions one kind of hydromancy to which the Emperor Andronicus Comnenus had recourse; not in person, for regard for his character (a character richly demanding such caution !) forbade this humiliation. This worthy applied to Sethos, a diviner, who from his youth upward had been addicted to magic, and on that account had been deprived of sight by the Emperor Manuel. The question proposed by hydromancy was, who was to be the successor of Andronicus, a doubt which grievously perplexed the superstitious tyrant, and left him in hesitation as to the fittest victim whom his suspicious vengeance might first sacrifice. The evil spirit when summoned, showed upon the water the letters S.I., and upon being asked at what time the person so designated should succeed, he replied, before the Feast of the exalta- Hydromancy tion of the Cross. His prediction was verified, for, within the time named, Isaac Angelus had thrown Andronicus to be torn in pieces by the infuriated populace of Constantinople. It should be remembered here that the devil spells, as he repeats the Lord's Prayer, not in the natural order, but backwards. S.I., when inverted, would fairly enough represent Isaac, according to all laws of magic.
The same story is related with great spirit by Nicetas. The arts with which the tempter cheats the ear of his votary are vividly displayed, and there is one very picturesque touch, when the fiend is asked respecting time, which we are surprised should have escaped Delrio, who evidently borrows from this source, though he refers to Iamblichus. The annalist has already remarked that he neither knows, nor indeed wishes to know, the method of practising hydromancy, but Delrio, on the contrary, describes several kinds. In one a ring was suspended by a thread in a vessel of water, and this being shaken, a judgment was formed according to the strokes of the ring against the sides of the vessel. In a second, three pebbles were thrown into standing water, and observations were drawn from the circles which they formed. A third depended upon the agitations of the sea, whence the learned Jesuit deduces a custom prevalent among the Oriental Christians of annually baptizing that element; at the same time taking especial care to show that the betrothment of the Adriatic by the Doge of Venice has a widely different origin. A fourth divination was taken from the colour of water, and certain figures appearing in it, which Varro says afforded numerous prognostics of the event of the Mithridatic War. But this branch was of sufficient importance to deserve a separate name, and we read accordingly of divination by fountains, these being the waters most frequently consulted. Among the most celebrated fountains for this purpose were those of Palicorus in Sicily, which invariably destroyed the criminal who ventured to adjure them falsely in testimony of his innocence. A full account of their usage and virtue is given by Macrobius. Pausanias has described a fountain near Epidaurus, dedicated to Ino, into which on her festival, certain loaves were wont to be thrown. It was a favourable omen to the applicant if these offerings were retained; on the other hand, most unlucky if they were washed up again. So, also, Tiberius cast golden dice into the fountain of Apomus, near Padua, where they long remained as a proof of the imperial monster's good fortune in making the highest throw. Several other instances of divining springs may be found collected by the diligence of Boissard; and to a belief in them Delrio thinks a custom of the ancient Germans is referable, who threw their new-born children into the Rhine, with a conviction that if they were spurious they would sink, if legitimate they would swim. In a fifth method, certain mysterious words were pronounced over a cup full of water, and observations were made upon its spontaneous ebullition. In a sixth, a drop of oil was let fall on water in a glass vessel, and this furnished as it were a mirror upon which many wonderful objects became visible. This, says Delrio, is the Modus Fessanus. Clemens Alexandrinus is cited for a seventh kind, in which the women of Germany watched the sources, whirls, and courses of rivers, with a view to prophetic interpretation; the same fact is mentioned by Vives in his Commentary upon St. Augustine. In modern Italy, continues the learned Jesuit, diviners are still to be found who write the names of any three persons suspected of theft upon a like number of little balls, which they throw into the water and some go to so profane an extent as to abuse even holy water for this most unsanctified purpose. Boissard, as cited above, has explained more fully than Delrio two of these methods of hydromancy, that by the ring suspended 2 in a vessel of water, and the method by its spontaneous ebullition. A very similar account is given by Wierus. In a fragment of Varro's book, de Cultu Deorum, the practice of hydromancy is attributed to Numa. Upon this statement St. Augustine has commented in the passage to which we have already referred, and he mentions that the practice of hydromancy was attributed by Varro to the Persians, and afterwards to the philosopher Pythagoras. Strabo in like manner has ascribed the practice to the Persians.
Hydromancy is, in principle, the same thing as divination by the crystal or mirror, and in ancient times a natural basin of rock kept constantly full by a running stream, was a favourite medium. The double meaning of the word "reflection" ought here to be considered, and how gazing down into clear water, the mind is disposed to self-retirement and to contemplation, deeply tinctured with melancholy. Rocky pools and glomy lakes figure in all stories of witchcraft-witness the Craic-pol-nain in the Highland woods of Laynchork; the Devil's Glen in the county of Wicklow, Ireland; the Swedish Blokula; the witch mountains of Italy; and the Bibiagora, between Hungary and Poland. Similar resorts in the glens of Germany were marked, as Tacitus mentions, by salt springs; for this again there was an additional good reason, which would carry us far from the present subject to explain. It was really only another form of divination by the gloomy water pool that attracted so much public attention at that time, when Mr. Lane, in his work on Modern Egypt testified to its success as practised in Egypt and Hindostan. That gentleman having resolved to witness the performance of this species of sorcery, the magician commenced his operations by writing forms of invocation to his familiar spirits on six slips of paper, a chafing dish with some live charcoal in it was then procured, and a boy summoned who had not yet reached the age of puberty. Mr. Lane inquired who were the persons that could see in the fluid mirror, and was told that they were a boy not arrived at puberty, a virgin, a black female slave, and a pregnant woman. To prevent any collusion between the sorcerer and the boy, Mr. Lane sent his servant to take the first boy he met. When all was prepared, the sorcerer threw some incense and one of the strips of paper into the chafing-dish; he then took hold of the boy's right hand, and drew a square with some mystical marks on the palm; in the centre of the square he poured a little ink, which formed the magic mirror, and desired the boy to look steadily into it without raising his head. In this mirror the boy declared that he saw, successively, a man sweeping, seven men with flags, an army pitching its tents, and the various officers of state attending on the Sultan. The rest must be told by Mr. Lane himself. "
The sorcerer now addressed himself to me, and asked me if I wished the boy to see any person who was absent or dead. I named Lord Nelson, of whom the boy had evidently never heard, for it was with much difficulty that he pronounced the name after several trials. The magician desired the boy to say to the Sultan, 'My master salutes thee and desires thee to bring Lord Nelson; bring him before my eyes that I may see him speedily.' The boy then said so, and almost immediately added, 'A messenger has gone and brought back a man dressed in a black (or rather, dark blue) suit of European clothes; the man has lost his left arm.' He then paused for a moment or two, and looking more intently and more closely into the ink, said No, he has not lost his left arm, but it is placed on his breast.' This correction made his description more striking than it had been without it; since Lord Nelson generally had his empty sleeve attached to the breast of This coat; but it was the right arm that he had lost. With Hyperæsthesia out saying that I suspected the boy had made a mistake, I asked the magician whether the objects appeared in the ink as if actually before the eyes, or as if in a glass, which makes the right appear left. He answered that they appeared as in a mirror. This rendered the boy's description faultless. Though completely puzzled, I was somewhat disappointed with his performances, for they fell short of what he had accomplished in many instances in presence of certain of my friends and countrymen. On one of these occasions an Englishman present ridiculed the performance, and said that nothing would satisfy him but a correct description of the appearance of his own father, of whom he was sure no one of the company had any knowledge. The boy, accordingly, having called by name for the person alluded to, described a man in a Frank dress, with his hand placed on his head, wearing spectacles, and with one foot on the ground and the other raised behind him, as if he were stepping down from a seat. The description was exactly true in every respect; the peculiar position of the hand was occasioned by an almost constant headache, and that of the foot or leg by a stiff knee, caused by a fall from a horse in hunting. On another occasion Shakespeare was described with the most minute exactness, both as to person and dress, and I might add several other cases in which the same magician has excited astonishment in the sober minds of several Englishmen of my acquaintance." So far Mr. Lane, whose account may be compared with that given by Mr. Kinglake, the author of Eöthen. It may be worth adding, that in another case of hydromancy known to Elihu Rich, the boy could see better without the medium than with it-though he could also see reflected images in a vessel of water. This fact may be admitted to prove that such images are reflected to the eye of the seer from his own mind and brain how the brain becomes thus enchanted, or the eye disposed for vision, is another question; certainly it is no proof that the recollected image in the mind of the inquirer is transferred to the seer, the seer, as proofs can be shown to the contrary.