(1) "Proverbs of Hell" (_The Marriage of Heaven and Hell_).

Two of these theories have already been noted, but the doctrine of
effluvia admittedly applied only to a certain class of amulets, and, I
think, need not be seriously considered. The "astral-spirit theory" (as
it may be called), in its ancient form at any rate, is equally untenable
to-day. The discoveries of new planets and new metals seem destructive
of the belief that there can be any occult connection between planets,
metals, and the days of the week, although the curious fact discovered
by Mr OLD, to which I have referred (footnote, p. 63@@@), assuredly
demands an explanation, and a certain validity may, perhaps, be allowed
to astrological symbolism. As concerns the belief in the existence
of what may be called (although the term is not a very happy one)
"discarnate spirits," however, the matter, in view of the modern
investigation of spiritistic and other abnormal psychical phenomena,
stands in a different position. There can, indeed, be little doubt that
very many of the phenomena observed at spiritistic seances come under
the category of deliberate fraud, and an even larger number, perhaps,
can be explained on the theory of the subconscious self. I think,
however, that the evidence goes to show that there is a residuum of
phenomena which can only be explained by the operation, in some way,
of discarnate intelligences.(1) Psychical research may be said to
have supplied the modern world with the evidence of the existence of
discarnate personalities, and of their operation on the material plane,
which the ancient world lacked. But so far as our present subject is
concerned, all the evidence obtainable goes to show that the phenomena
in question only take place in the presence of what is called "a
medium"--a person of peculiar nervous or psychical organisation.
That this is the case, moreover, appears to be the general belief of
spiritists on the subject. In the sense, then, in which "a talisman"
connotes a material object of such a nature that by its aid the powers
of discarnate intelligences may become operative on material things, we
might apply the term "talisman" to the nervous system of a medium:
but then that would be the only talisman. Consequently, even if one is
prepared to admit the whole of modern spiritistic theory, nothing is
thereby gained towards a belief in talismans, and no light is shed upon
the subject.

(1) The publications o