18. Charms And Philtresb

I shall be asked possibly whether equally terrible dangers threaten at this day the intruders into the occult sanctuary and the betrayers of its secret. Why should I answer anything to the incredulity of the inquisitive? If I risk a violent death for their instruction, certainly they will not save me; if they are afraid on their own account, let them abstain from imprudent research - this is all I can say to them. Let us return to Venomous Magic. In his romance of Monte Christo, Alexandre Dumas has revealed some practices of this ominous science. There is no need to traverse the same ground by repeating its melancholy theories of crime; describing how plants are poisoned; how animals nourished on these plants have their flesh infected, and becoming in turn the food of men, cause death without leaving any trace of poison; how the walls of houses are inoculated; how the air is permeated by fumes which require the glass mask of St. Croix for the operator. Let us leave the ancient Canidia her abominable mysteries, and refrain from investigating the extent to which the infernal rites of Sagana have carried the art of Locusta. It is enough to state that this most infamous class of malefactors distilled together the virus of contagious diseases, the venom of reptiles and the sap of poisonous plants; that they extracted from the fungus its deadly and narcotic properties, its asphyxiating principles from Datura arts-monium, from the peach and bitter almond that poison one drop of which, placed on the tongue or in the ear, destroys, like a flash of lightning, the strongest and best constituted living being. The white juice of sea-lettuce was boiled with milk which vipers and asps had been drowned. The sap of the manchineel or deadly fruit of Java was either brought back with them from their long journeys, or imported at great expense; so also was the juice of the cassada, and so were similar poisons. They pulverized flint, mixed with impure ashes the dried slime of reptiles, composed hideous philtres with the virus of mares on heat and similar secretions of bitches; they mingled human blood with infamous drugs, composing an oil the mere odour of which was fatal, therein recalling the tarte bourbonnaise of Panurge; they even concealed recipes for poisoning in the technical language of alchemy, and the secret of the Powder of Projection, in more than one old book which claims to be Hermetic, is in reality that of the Powder of Succession. The Grand Grimoire gives one in particular which is very thinly disguised under the title of “Method of Making Gold”; it is an atrocious decoction of verdigris, arsenic and sawdust, which, if properly prepared, should consume immediately a branch that is plunged into it and eat swiftly through an iron nail. John Baptist Porta cites in his Natural Magic a specimen of Borgia poison, but, as may be imagined, he is deceiving the vulgar and does not divulge the truth, which would be too dangerous in such a connexion. We may therefore quote his recipe to satisfy the curiosity of our readers. The toad itself is not venomous, but it is a sponge for poisons, and is the mushroom of the animal kingdom. Take, then, a plump toad, says Porta, and place it with vipers and asps in a globular bottle. Let poisonous fungi, foxgloves and hemlock be their sole nourishment during a period of several days. Then enrage them by beating, burning and tormenting in every conceivable manner, till they die of rage and hunger; sprinkle their bodies with powdered spurge and ground glass; place them in a well-sealed retort; and extract all their moisture by fire.