REVIVAL OF ASTROLOGY AND FORTUNE TELLING.

FEW things are so remarkable in the present age of alleged progress and enlightenment as the revival in Europe, and particularly in France, of what is called the "occult sciences." Twenty years since the belief in astrology and fortune-telling was confined to the most ignorant of the lowest class, but since then, and more especially, during the last two or three years, many persons of education and good social position in Paris and other continental cities have attempted to revive some of the most superstitious notions and absurd practices of the dark ages. The Emperor Louis Napoleon, by his real or pretended belief in destiny, and his patronage of Mr, Homeland other spirit-rappers, has done much to encourage the rage which now exists in Paris for everything connected with astrology, magic, fortune-telling, and spiritual "seances." A correspondent of a journal in one of the neighbouring colonies, writing from Paris on January 20th, says:—

The penchant for what are termed "the occult sciences," which has been apparently one of the characteristics of the human mind in all ages of the world's history, and has been accounted for in so many various ways by pschychologists is very far from having died out of the French mind, notwithstanding the positivism and materialism which are so rife in this country. On the contrary, the very prevalence of doubt in regard to the religious dogmas, which in former times satisfied man's minds in relation to the great problems of existence, past, present, and future, seems to have led to a renewal of interest in everything that professes to offer the means of extending the sphere of human vision beyond the mere actualities of the moment; and it is not a little curious to see how widely spread is the desire to obtain glimpses of the future, among a community which, at first sight, would seem to be more completely absorbed by the interests, vanities, and dissipations of the hour than any other on the surface of the earth.

The noisy excitement produced a few years ago by the "spirit-rappers," has died away ; but there exists in this city a much more numerous band of "spiritists" than is generally supposed. These people still hold "seances" and "circles" for interrogating the inhabitants of "the other world," and support a couple of periodicals, one of which, La Revue Spirite, seems to rejoice in a tolerably well filled list of subscribers.

The study of the Cabala has also been revived here of late, and boasts several adepts, who in their own opinion, and that of their disciples, are treading in the steps of Moses and the Chaldeans. The head and chief of these porers into ancient millstones is M. A. Constant, who, under his "hierophantic" name of "Eliphas Levi," has published a book entitled "Dogma and Ritual of High Magic," which book is accepted almost as a revelation from Heaven by his followers.

Another recent book, entitled "The Mysteries of the Hand," by M. Desbarolles, is selling largely. It professes to give "scientific" instruction in the double heart of interpreting character by the shape proportions, and consistence of the hand, as a whole, and in its various details, and also of reading the events of the life in the lines of the palm. The first of these divisions the author terms "Chirognomy," and represents it as being for the hand what phrenology is for the skull, and physiognomy for the face. A M. d'Árpentigny, it seems, was the first to discover this new method of judging of the character of men by the study of the form of the hand ; but the writings of that gentleman are considered by his disciples to be wanting clearness, and M. Desbarolles, one of his most fervent and devoted followers, professes to have imparted this necessary quality to the "doctrine" of his master. The second division of the curious work in question, that which treats of the art of reading the events of a lifetime in the lines of the inside of the hand and fingers, is a compilation of the "teachings" of tradition upon this subject, with the modifications, comments, corrections, and amplifications which modern chiromancians, himself included, have arrived at in regard to it. Of course, those who have been reading this book, and studying all the sage philosophising and queer little pictures of hands, which it contains, are possessed with the desire to get hold of the hands of everybody about them, and to go through with a thorough examination of the lines, trellises, branches, chains, stars, crosses, islands, points, loops, forks, ploughs, and Hebrew letters therein contained. The dissertations on your character and history which accompany these examinations, the judicial way in which your status in "Divine," "Mental," and "Material" things, is settled for you, the inferring of your tastes, capacities, and doings from the angles formed by your hepatic and Saturnian lines with the lines of life of the head, of the heart, and of Apollo, the bold deductions derived from the elevation of the Mounts of Jupiter, Saturn, the Sun, Mercury, Venus, Mars, and the Moon, the depression of the Plain of Mars, and the conjunctions of the various wrinkles by which these are traversed, are often enough to make the hearer's hair (when natural), stand on end. It is certain that, at all events, those who devote themselves to this sort of exploration soon become excessively addicted to it, and seem never weary of studying the peculiarities of manual shapes and lines, as utterly distinct, in all cases, as are the proverbial dissimilarities of leaves and faces.

Astrology, fortune telling from cards, and the study of numbers, as a key to the art of divination, are also greatly in vogue just now. As one of the indications of this curious revival, in the nineteenth century, of the soi disant "sciences" so scornfully scouted as superstitious by the eighteenth, take the following titles from a long list of similar works just published by Dentu, of the Palais Royal, so well known here as publishing nothing but the most popular literature of the day—novels, romances, gossips, all the lightest and most saleable of the ephemeral productions of the lively Parisian brain. The sight of this list is positively enough to make one rub one's eyes, and ask ourselves in wonder in what year, are we living, and what are we coming to. Among others are The Great Book of Destiny or General Repertory of the Occult Sciences, compiled from Albert le Grand, Nicholas Flamel, Paracelsus, Cornelius Agrippa, Eteiller, Gall, Lavater,&c., containing the Explanatory Dictionary of Dreams, the Art of knowing the future, the Art of telling fortunes by cards, the Language of flowers, the Art of Black Magic, and the Art of White Magic, by Frederic de la Grange. Darkness, by A. Morin, ornamented with a great number of plates. Magic in the nineteenth century : its agents, its truths, its lies : by the Chevalier G. des Mousseaux, preceded by a letter addressed to the author by the Reverend Father Ventura. The Occult World, by Delaage, with a preface by Father Lacordaire.

These two recently deceased priests, as, your readers probably remember, were the most noted members of the Dominican order, and were among the most able, eloquent, and popular preachers of the day, attracting immense crowds whenever it was known that they were to mount the pulpit of Notre Dame.

"The Key of Life ; man, nature, the worlds. God, anatomy of human life, revelations, concerning the sciences of god, inspired to Louis Morel, collected and presented by C. Bardon and I. Poudel. "Universal Life ; an explanation, according to the living and acting science of God, of the life of being, of the forces of nature, and the existence of everything," by the same author. "The Resuscitated in Heaven and in Hell," by Delaage. "The Spiritual World, or the Christian science of holding intimate communication with the celestial powers and the souls of the blest," by the same. "The Prophetic World, or means of knowing the future, employed by sybils, pythonesses, augurs, sorcerers, card-tellers, chiromancians and magnetic clairvoyants."
Besides these, and a lot of other works with similar titles, Dentu's list of new books includes various others on the Kabbala, Alchemy, Solomon's Seal, Aaron's Breast-plate, and every branch of the shadowy science."
The works on the Kabbala and Magic seem to be less popular than those on the hands and the art of telling the fortune by the aid of cards. The Kabbala dealing much in the complicated relations of numbers, and in "philosophic", abstractions in regard to the Divine, to Cosmogomy, and the existence of created beings, goes over too much ground, and involves too much laborious speculation to attract many Students. As for Magic, notwithstanding its well known division into "Black" and "White," the former bringing you into communication with bad spirits, and the latter with good ones, the word still carries with it an odour of graves and brimstone, which repels the popular imagination. A magician is still popularly conceived of as a dubious soft of man, something between a man and a ghost, with a high cap, a long beard, a wide mantle, and an incomprehensible wand, who kills children and black cats at midnight, in some dark grove or cavern, and boils their bones and blood, with newts, frogs, snakes, poisonous herbs, foul perfumes, in a dreadful big cauldron over a fire, not kindled by any earthly allumette. So the sale of the books on magic is not much more lively than that of the works of Cabalistic lore. The favourite branches of occult learning are palmistry and cards.
The new book on palmistry, alluded to above — and which is but one of the many in vogue on this subject—has already reached its fourth edition, and so great is the interest created by it, that the author is besieged by incessant applications from people wanting farther instructions, or an interpretation from headquarters of the signs of their hands, has opened a course of lectures for students of palmistry, and has his days of reception for people willing to pay a fee of twenty francs for a consultation on the lines of their hands.
As for the cards, their students and professors are legion. You can scarcely go to a soiree without meeting some amateur cartomancian ; or hearing of the wonderful skill of some professional adept, of the latter, one, in particular, enjoys a vogue such as no one has arrived at since the days of the famous Mlle. Lenormand. But what I have to say about this singular personage, and the extraordinary things attributed to him, must be reserved for my next letter.

Empire 8 June 1864,
[We can now add Harry Potter to the list of condemned.]