DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11448#0132
102
THE CRESCENT AND THE CROSS.
[chap,
When he was gone, I asked my dragoman, Mahmoud (who
had been dragoman to Lord Prudhoe during both his visits to
Egypt), what he thought of the magician. He said, he consid-
ered him rather a humbug, than otherwise ; but added, that
there certainly was something in it. He said, not only did Lord
Prudhoe believe in the magic, but that Mrs. L-, a most en-
terprising traveller, whom he had once attended, had the ink
put into her hand, and that she clearly saw the man with the
brush, the soldiers, and the camp, though she could see no more.
He told me that the people of Cairo believed the Sheikh had
made a league with the "genti a basso," and that he himself be-
lieved him to be anything but a santon. A friend of mine at
Alexandria said, that he knew an Englishman who had learnt
the art, and practised it with success; and a lady mentioned to
me that a young female friend of hers had tried the experiment,
and had been so much terrified by the first apparition, that she
had fainted, and could not be induced to try it again.
This singular imposture, after a long success, has now been
fairly denounced by Mr. Lane, the sanction of whose name first
gave it its chief strength and interest.*
I was not surprised to find that magnetism has its professors
in Egypt, and that it had been practised from all time in this
dreamy and mystical land. The climate seems particularly
favorable to the development of its phenomena, and we may
easily conceive what effects it must have produced on the lively
imagination of this superstitious people, when it can puzzle and
astonish in the midst of London. In the old time, priest and
doctor were synonymous, and the work of the latter was attri-
buted to the influence of the former character. Their temples
were placed in smiling and lonely places, where the imagina-
tion of the patient or the proselyte was gradually prepared to
receive the desired impression on their bodies or their minds, or
the one was made to act upon the other. As I have mentioned
before, in one of the chambers of the tombs is found a magnetiz-
ing priest under the figure of Anubis ; one of his hands is raised
* See the " Englishwoman in Egypt"
THE CRESCENT AND THE CROSS.
[chap,
When he was gone, I asked my dragoman, Mahmoud (who
had been dragoman to Lord Prudhoe during both his visits to
Egypt), what he thought of the magician. He said, he consid-
ered him rather a humbug, than otherwise ; but added, that
there certainly was something in it. He said, not only did Lord
Prudhoe believe in the magic, but that Mrs. L-, a most en-
terprising traveller, whom he had once attended, had the ink
put into her hand, and that she clearly saw the man with the
brush, the soldiers, and the camp, though she could see no more.
He told me that the people of Cairo believed the Sheikh had
made a league with the "genti a basso," and that he himself be-
lieved him to be anything but a santon. A friend of mine at
Alexandria said, that he knew an Englishman who had learnt
the art, and practised it with success; and a lady mentioned to
me that a young female friend of hers had tried the experiment,
and had been so much terrified by the first apparition, that she
had fainted, and could not be induced to try it again.
This singular imposture, after a long success, has now been
fairly denounced by Mr. Lane, the sanction of whose name first
gave it its chief strength and interest.*
I was not surprised to find that magnetism has its professors
in Egypt, and that it had been practised from all time in this
dreamy and mystical land. The climate seems particularly
favorable to the development of its phenomena, and we may
easily conceive what effects it must have produced on the lively
imagination of this superstitious people, when it can puzzle and
astonish in the midst of London. In the old time, priest and
doctor were synonymous, and the work of the latter was attri-
buted to the influence of the former character. Their temples
were placed in smiling and lonely places, where the imagina-
tion of the patient or the proselyte was gradually prepared to
receive the desired impression on their bodies or their minds, or
the one was made to act upon the other. As I have mentioned
before, in one of the chambers of the tombs is found a magnetiz-
ing priest under the figure of Anubis ; one of his hands is raised
* See the " Englishwoman in Egypt"