le to this Star, and in it fasten the stone, putting the herb
or root under it--not omitting the inscriptions of images, names, and
characters, as also the proper suffumigations...."(1) SOLOMON'S ring
was supposed to have been possessed of remarkable occult virtue. Says
JOSEPHUS (_c_. A.D. 37-100): "God also enabled him (SOLOMON) to learn
that skill which expels demons, which is a science useful and sanative
to men. He composed such incantations also by which distempers are
alleviated. And he left behind him the manner of using exorcisms, by
which they drive away demons, so that they never return; and this method
of cure is of great force unto this day; for I have seen a certain man
of my own country, whose name was Eleazar, releasing people that were
demoniacal in the presence of Vespasian, and his sons, and his captains,
and the whole multitude of his soldiers. The manner of the cure was
this; he put a ring that had under the seal a root of one of those sorts
mentioned by Solomon, to the nostrils of the demoniac, after which he
drew out the demon through his nostrils: and when the man fell down
immediately, he abjured him to return unto him no more, making still
mention of Solomon, and reciting the incantations which he composed."(2)

(1) H. C. AGRIPPA: _Occult Philosophy_, bk. i. chap. xlvii. (WHITEHEAD'S
edition, pp. 141 and 142).

(2) FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS: _The Antiquities of the Jews_ (trans. by W.
WHISTON), bk. viii. chap. ii., SE 5 (45) to (47).

Enough has been said already to indicate the general nature of
talismanic magic. No one could maintain otherwise than that much of it
is pure nonsense; but the subject should not, therefore, be dismissed as
valueless, or lacking significance. It is past belief that amulets and
talismans should have been believed in for so long unless they APPEARED
to be productive of some of the desired results, though these may have
been due to forces quite other than those which were supposed to be
operative. Indeed, it may be said that there has been no widely held
superstition which does not embody some truth, like some small specks of
gold hidden in an uninviting mass of quartz. As the poet BLAKE put it:
"Everything possible to be believ'd is an image of truth";(1) and the
attempt may here be made to extract the gold of truth from the quartz of
superstition concerning talismanic magic. For this purpose the various
theories regarding the supposed efficacy of talismans must be examined.