t unfrequently with
unintelligible exclamations. Sacrifices, and burnt offerings were used
to propitiate superior powers; but our knowledge of the magical rites
exercised by certain oriental nations, the Jews only excepted, is
extremely limited. All the books professedly written on the subject,
have been, swept away by the torrent of time. We learn, however, that
the professors among the Chaldeans were generally divided into three
classes; the _Ascaphim_, or charmers, whose office it was to remove
present, and to avert future contingent evils; to construct talismans,
etc. The _Mecaschephim_, or magicians, properly so called, who were
conversant with the occult powers of nature, and the supernatural world;
and the _chasdim_, or astrologers, who constituted by far the most
numerous and respectable class. And from the assembly of the wise men on
the occasion of the extraordinary dream of Nebuchadnezzar, it would
appear that Babylon had also her oneirocritici, or interpreters of
dreams--a species of diviners indeed, to which almost every nation of
antiquity gave birth.

Like the Chaldean astrologers, the Persian magi, from whom our word
magic is derived, belong to the priesthood. But the worship of the gods
was not their chief occupation; they were also great proficients in the
arts. They joined to the worship of the gods, and to the profession of
medicine and natural magic, a pretended familiarity with superior
powers, from which they boasted of deriving all their knowledge. Like
Plato, who probably imbibed many of their notions, they taught that
demons hold a middle rank between gods and men; that they (the demons)
presided not only over divinations, auguries, conjurations, oracles, and
every species of magic, but also over sacrifices, and prayer, which in
behalf of men is thus presented, and rendered acceptable to the gods.
Indeed, the austerity of their lives[4] was well calculated to
strengthen the impression which their cunning had already made on the
multitude, and to prepare the way for whatever impostures they might
afterwards practise.

We are less acquainted with Indian magic than with that practised by
any other Eastern nations. It may, however, be reasonably enough
inferred that it was very similar to that for which the magi in general
were held in such high estimation: although they were excluded, as
beings of too sacred a nature, from the ordinary occurrences of life.
Their Brahmins, or Gymnosophists, were