re suppose he read of the rites of St. Patrick's Purgatory.
The water of the lake there is usually called wine, and it may be that on
minds and bodies "which have attained to the needful congruity," it has
operated as wonderful effects as the Colophonian fount itself. The
proceedings of the priestess at Brancidae, who also, from amongst other
sources, derived the afflatus, or _Waren_, from a fountain, are to the
same purpose. "The prophetic priestess at Brancidae either sits on an axis
[exposing herself to the influence, as the Pythoness on her Tripod], or
holds a wand in her hand, given by some god, or dips the hem of her
garment, in water, or inhales a certain vapor of water, and by these
methods is filled with the divine illumination, receives the god, and
prophesies. But, that the prophetic faculty comes from no corporeal or
animal source, and from no local or material instrumentality, but solely
and extrinsically from the presence of the incoming deity, appears from
this, that the priestess, before she gives her oracle, performs many
ceremonious rites, observes strict purity, bathes, abstains for three days
from food, dwells apart, and so, by little and little, begins to be
illuminated and enraptured." What the exact meaning of sitting on an axis
may be, it is difficult to divine; but those who allege that a patient may
be thrown into the mesmeric trance by holding a magnetized branch--and
those also who have read of all the phenomena of exorcism being as fully
elicited by a satchel of feathers as by a bag of reliques--will readily
apply the wand "presented by some deity," and placed in the hand of the
priestess at the moment when she should receive the final cataleptic
impulse. If there be truth in the alleged modern cases of _clairvoyance_,
we need not be surprised at the singular coincidences which have sustained
the credit of Colophon and Delphi.

Not to dwell on other methods of inducing the afflatus, such as by
characters and amulets, by music, by dancing, and by movements of the
body, I shall now proceed with the effects alleged to have been produced
on the _afflati_. Jamlichus must still be our principal authority.
Lucidity and prevision have already been sufficiently indicated, and have
doubtless been readily recognized: the other symptoms will be found not
less remarkable and equally familiar:--"Man has a double life--one annexed
to the body, the other separate from every thing bodily.... In sleep we
have