The great magicians of the past amazed their contemporaries with incredible miracles, which even today scientists are unable to explain.
And, IN THE NAME OF ANOTHER, TURNED THE WIFE … INTO A CAT
So, around 1400, at the court of the Bohemian king Wenceslas, a sorcerer named Zito was known. In front of the whole yard, he sat in a nutshell, drawn by a pair of trained beetles, and rolled in it, like in a carriage.
He also made the rooster lift a huge log and, with such ease, as if it were a dry twig, turned the hay hay into pigs and then sold it.
The no less famous alchemist and magician Albert the Great once invited the German emperor and his retinue for dinner in deep winter. The table was laid in the garden, right in the snow, under the bare branches of trees.
The guests began to grumble, finding the joke inappropriate. But as soon as the emperor sat down at the table with his entourage, the summer sun suddenly shone in the sky, the snow and ice melted, young grass emerged from the ground, the trees were covered with leaves and bloomed, and some even had ripe fruits. Soon it became so hot that the feasts threw off their caftans and began to look for a shade.
But as soon as the meal was over, the sky darkened, the trees were bare, and it was so cold that the guests fled to their homes to bask by the fire.
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Our "native" Jacob Bruce, the "personal sorcerer" of Peter I, belonged to the world elite of warlocks. Legends attribute to Bruce the possession of the strongest symbols of mystical power - the "Solomon Ring" and "Black Book", which were allegedly kept in the Sukharev Tower. Here was located Bruce's alchemical laboratory, in which he, at the request of the king, worked on the creation of an elixir of eternal youth.
"Solomon's seal" on the ring helped Jacob Bruce "to produce all kinds of sorcery." Well, it's scary to think about the "Black Book". Here is what her contemporaries said about her: “The Serpent wrote it, from the Serpent she passed to Cain, from Cain to Ham, he cleverly hid her in a hiding place during the flood, and when the flood ended, he took it out. Then the book passed on to the son of Hamov, Canaon, she was in the Babylonian pandemonium, and in the accursed city of Sodom, and with King Nebuchadnezzar, and everywhere she sowed evil. It is written in gibberish with magic signs. The one who reads it receives the highest power over the world, all demons obey him, all desires are fulfilled, whom he wants to curse he can”.
A similar book, as well as the famous magic mirror, with the help of which it was possible to summon the dead into our world from the other world, was owned by the court magician of the Polish king Sigismund Augustus Peter Twardowski, whose glory in Poland was as great as two centuries later with Jacob Bruce …
There are still a lot of legends about the famous 16th century warlock, but one of the most famous is about his marriage.
Deciding to marry, Tvardovsky made an offer to the governor's daughter Angelika Porai, but she rejected him, saying that he was an old sorcerer.
Then Tvardovsky decided to rejuvenate! He drank a witch's potion, after which his servant Matyusz rubbed the master's body with a special ointment, put it in a coffin and secretly buried it.
A year later, Matt dug up the grave. A baby was lying in a coffin crying loudly! The servant had to carry him home and feed him with milk from the bottle. But the very next day the child got to his feet, began to run around the room, play and grow quickly. Soon he turned into a handsome young man, whom Angelica could no longer refuse.
However, the happiness of the newlyweds was short-lived. Angelica began to cheat on her husband right in her home, and once Tvardovsky found his wife in bed with a clerk. Unable to endure such betrayal, the great sorcerer, having summoned all the servants to the bedroom, right in front of their eyes - for the edification of others - turned the clerk into a dog, and his wife into a cat!
Peter Tvardovsky died, or rather, disappeared without a trace, in 1573. His body was never found.
THE ELIXIR OF SAINT-GERMAIN YOUTH
The Marquis of Montferu, who is also Comte de Bellamy, who is also General Saltykov, who is also Count Saint-Germain, knew how to masterly disappear in his time. He lived under different names and titles and, appearing from nowhere, went nowhere.
In 1750 in Paris and in 1760 in Moscow, Saint-Germain was the most popular person. Behind him was a trail of mysterious stories and legends - everyone knew him as a gloomy mystic, occultist and alchemist. It was rumored that he had the Philosopher's Stone and created the elixir of immortality. Count Cagliostro, by the way, - Saint-Germain's worst enemy - confirmed that he was in possession of a vessel with a magical liquid.
Sometimes it seemed that Saint-Germain was full of nonsense: he suddenly began to talk about the smallest features of the appearance of Plato and Seneca, all the Christian apostles. How could he know such details?
Once in Dresden, the coachman Saint-Germain was asked about the age of his master. “I don’t know for sure, but in the 130 years that I have served him, he has not changed at all,” he replied.
Madame de Pompadour, confidant and favorite of Louis XV, in her memoirs described the case when Saint-Germain, at the request of the king, with one wave of his hand, eliminated a defect in a diamond from the royal treasury, which made him delighted with children.
In addition, the count, according to a high-ranking witness - the Russian general-in-chief and senator Pyotr Panin, - with the help of his philosopher's stone, turned tin and lead into gold, as well as … men into women and vice versa, as the French Marquis d'Urfait wrote about.
Time was ruthless to others, sparing only one mysterious count. The old men said they had met Saint-Germain in the aristocratic salons during their youth.
The grave of Saint Germain has not been found to this day. A year after his "death" in 1784 in Paris, at a meeting of Frank-Masons, he was identified by one of his former acquaintances. In 1788, the French envoy to Venice, Count Chalon, met Saint-Germain in Saint Mark's Square. In 1814, the still young-looking count appears on the sidelines of the Vienna Congress. When people who knew him rushed to greet him, he tried to bow quickly, and no one else saw him in Vienna.
Already at the time of Louis Philippe, a certain Major Fraser appeared in Paris. Despite his English name, he was not an Englishman and was an exact copy of Saint Germain. By this time, there were almost no people in Paris who personally knew the famous count. And yet one such person was found, he also managed to get to know the major, and with each meeting he was convinced of the similarity of the young officer with the mysterious Count. Major Fraser demonstrated a detailed knowledge of the social life of France almost a century ago!
When, in another conversation with him, his interlocutor mentioned the name of Saint-Germain, the major immediately disappeared from Paris.
In addition to Cagliostro, Saint-Germain's contemporary, so to speak, was Giuseppe Pinetti, the court physicist of the Prussian king Frederick II, who performed miracles that astounded the crowned heads of different countries. No one could find a reasonable explanation for what he was doing. And there were many who wanted to test his supernatural abilities. Among them was the Russian Emperor Paul.
By that time, Pinetti had already become famous in Berlin, Stockholm and Paris, he was admired and feared. Now he had to confirm his reputation as a wizard in Petersburg. Which he did from the moment he appeared at the Palace, where he was invited to 7 o'clock. He was an hour late, irritating the emperor and pushing the tension of the people waiting for him to the limit.
But what was the general confusion when all the palace clocks in total at least 20 pieces suddenly showed instead of eight hours seven - the hour for which the reception was scheduled. Pinetti was justified by this before Paul. However, immediately after the acquittal, all clocks struck eight times, that is, they showed the correct time.
The intrigued king invited a guest to his place the next day. At noon, he was supposed to appear in the imperial office. True, having decided to play a joke with Pinetti, Pavel ordered to lock every entrance to the palace ahead of time, and took the keys and put them on his table. In addition, he instructed the guards tripled on this occasion not to let anyone in to him.
And yet Pinetti came to the reception! Rather, he literally materialized out of thin air in the emperor's office!
This influenced Paul so much that he hurried to escort the guest out of Russia, calling him a "Dangerous Man." Pinetti's departure, by the way, stunned the Petersburgers no less than his arrival. As promised, he left the city on a certain day and hour, leaving at once from all 15 city outposts! Moreover, in each of them, the guest's departure was registered according to all the rules, and a crowd of onlookers accompanied his carriage.
THE CASE WITH FOMA AQUINSKI
Albert von Bolstedt, whom we have already mentioned, was born in Germany around 1193. His life is remarkable, first of all, in that it successfully combined theology with magic, philosophy with magic. The monk's scholarship surpassed all ideas about the ordinary human mind, and soon in Europe his name was no longer used without the prefix "Great".
As a pragmatic scientist, naturalist, Albertus Magnus paid much attention to alchemical experiments, and left a detailed description of the method of making gold, as well as precious stones from cheap source material in his book "Oracles or Alchemical Riddles".
However, many magicians and alchemists of antiquity believed that not only gold could be obtained by laboratory methods, but also, with the help of magic spells, an artificial being of human nature - the so-called homunculus - could be raised. It was believed that their owners have secret power, power over the forces of the universe.
Albert the Great, according to his contemporaries, possessed such power and authority! In particular, the famous philosopher and theologian Thomas Aquinas, being a student of Albertus Magnus, once ran away from his teacher's house after one of these homunculi spoke to him in a human voice!
This incident happened in 1246, in Cologne. Then still student Thomas knocked on the door of his teacher's house. Footsteps were heard outside the door. Thomas became wary. No, these were not the steps of Martha - the old maid who kept him in all the time, he decided. Perhaps Albertus Magnus has hired a new servant? The student heard the sound of the bolt being pulled back. The door opened slowly.
“Good morning, Frau,” said Thomas, surprised, and walked into the hallway.
“Good morning,” the woman replied, closing the door. Her voice and gait were unnatural, and her face was bloodless, devoid of any expression, Thomas Aquinas later wrote in his autobiographical notes. A terrible guess crept into his heart. Having made the sign of the cross and repeating incantations against the devil to himself, the theologian approached the woman. She was already sitting in a chair and made measured movements with her hand, in which there was a fan. Suddenly her hand froze.
“The teacher is waiting for you in the library,” she said in the same lifeless voice. At the same instant, Thomas received his sight. Grabbing a poker standing by the fireplace, he entered into single combat with the "devil" …
When, hearing the noise of the "battle", Albertus Magnus ran into the room, everything was over: his creation, mutilated and dead, was lying on the floor …
MASTER FOR MAKING HOMUNCULUS
The philosophers of antiquity and at the same time the sorcerers Zosima from Greece and the magician Simon, as well as the 13th century alchemist Arnold de Villanova also had their own homunculi. But the well-known Paracelsus was the generally recognized master in the manufacture of artificial creatures. It was he who first described in detail how you can make an artificial man. However, this is not a recipe that can be used at any time.
First you had to take a flask, put a decent amount of human sperm in it, and then seal it. The flask with sperm was buried in horse manure for 40 days, and after being removed from there, it was subjected to "magnetization" (the essence of this process is not clear enough). During this "gestation period," the homunculus, a fragile and translucent protohuman, was believed to take shape.
Then the flask was supposed to be opened to start feeding the little man. This was done by daily adding a small amount of human blood, while maintaining the temperature around the flask, like in the womb of a mare. After 40 weeks, if done correctly, you will have a fully developed, proportionally built human baby, only very small. After a few months, it should grow to the size of a normal adult.
"He can be raised and taught," Paracelsus instructed, "like any other child until he grows up and can take care of himself."
In the secret documents of the legendary Rosicrucians about the creation of homunculi, the following is written: “In a vessel, the dew of May, collected on the full moon, mixes two parts of male and three parts of female blood from pure and chaste people. This vessel is put on a moderate fire, which is why the faceted earth will be deposited below, while the upper part is separated into a clean bottle and from time to time is poured into the vessel, where one more grain of tincture from the animal kingdom is also poured. After a while, a stamping and whistling sound will be heard in the flask, and you will see in it two living creatures - a man and a woman - absolutely beautiful, through certain manipulations you can maintain their life for a year, and you can learn anything from them, because they are you they will be afraid and read."
Medieval occultists also created homunculi from earth, wax and metals. The mysterious creature made its master invulnerable, helped to get rich and famous. In addition, according to legend, homunculi "saw" what is hidden from the eyes of ordinary people, and told about it to their masters, who used the knowledge gained to their advantage.
Zealots of the faith argued that the devil himself was considered the father of the homunculi. And the magician had to sell his soul to him for the fact that the latter endowed soulless objects with his devilish power. And this agreement could only be terminated with the help of complex magical rites.
Gennady Fedotov