r idea sometimes by Youpiter,*
essence of motion and animation, principle of existence, or rather
existence itself; sometimes by Vulcan or Phtha, elementary principle of
fire; or by the altar of Vesta, placed in the center of her temple like
the sun in the heavens; sometimes by Kneph, a human figure, dressed in
dark blue, having in one hand a sceptre and a girdle (the zodiac), with
a cap of feathers to express the fugacity of thought, and producing from
his mouth the great egg.

* This is the true pronunciation of the Jupiter of the
Latins. . . . Existence itself. This is the signification
of the word You.

"Now, as a consequence of this system, every being containing in itself
a portion of the igneous and etherial fluid, common and universal mover,
and this fluid soul of the world being God, it followed that the
souls of all beings were portions of God himself partaking of all
his attributes, that is, being a substance indivisible, simple, and
immortal; and hence the whole system of the immortality of the soul,
which at first was eternity.*

* In the system of the first spiritualists, the soul was not
created with, or at the same time as the body, in order to
be inserted in it: its existence was supposed to be anterior
and from all eternity. Such, in a few words, is the
doctrine of Macrobius on this head. Som. Seip. passim.

"There exists a luminous, igneous, subtile fluid, which
under the name of ether and spiritus, fills the universe.
It is the essential principle and agent of motion and life,
it is the Deity. When an earthly body is to be animated, a
small round particle of this fluid gravitates through the
milky way towards the lunar sphere; where, when it arrives,
it unites with a grosser air, and becomes fit to associate
with matter: it then enters and entirely fills the body,
animates it, suffers, grows, increases, and diminishes with
it; lastly, when the body dies, and its gross elements
dissolve, this incorruptible particle takes its leave of it,
and returns to the grand ocean of ether, if not retained by
its union with the lunar air: it is this air or gas, which,
retaining the shape of the body, becomes a phantom or ghost,
the perfect representation of the deceased. The Greeks
called this phantom the image or idol of the soul; the
Pythagoreans, its chariot, its frame; and the