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I forbid you all the nail-holes in my house and home, till you have travelled over every hill, waded through every water, have counted all the leaves of every tree, and counted all the stars in the sky, until the day arrives when the mother of God shall bare her second son."
If this formula be repeated three times, with the baptismal name of the person, it will succeed!
"To make one's self invisible:
"Obtain the ear of a black cat, boil it in the milk of a black cow, wear it on the thumb, and no one will see you."
This is the Atharvan, or fire-and witch-craft of to-day-not differing much from the ancient. It is the unchanging foundation of the many lofty buildings of faith that are erected, removed, and rebuilt upon it—the belief in the supernatural at its lowest, a belief which, in its higher stages, is always level with the general intellect of those that abide in it.
The latest book of the Atharvan is especially for the warrior-caste, but the mass of it is for the folk at large. It was long before it was recognized as a legitimate Veda. It never stands, in the older period of Brahmanism, on a par with the S[Fa]man and Rik. In the epic period good and bad magic are carefully differentiated, and even to-day the Atharvan is repudiated by southern Br[=a]hmans. But there is no doubt that sub rosa, the silliest practices inculcated and formulated in the Atharvan were the stronghold of a certain class of priests, or that such priests were feared and employed by the laity, openly by the low classes, secretly by the intelligent.
In respect of the name the magical cult was referred, historically with justice, to the firepriests, Atharvan and Angiras, though little application to fire, other than in soma worship, is apparent. Yet was this undoubtedly the source of the cult (the fire-cult is still distinctly associated with the Atharva Veda in the epic), and the name is due neither to