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DECEMBER, 1895.)
SPIRIT BASIS OF BELIEF AND CUSTOM.
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St. Elmo's or St. Erasmus' fire, the electric fire balls that settle on ships' rigging in a storm, wore the genial guardians Castor and Pollax. Lightning, on the other hand, was a fiend defiling what it struck, to be driven away in classic fashion by a hiss or in early Christian fashion by the sign of the cross, by prayer, and by the sprinkling of holy water.60 Under this Application of the principle of Dualism lies the great law of religious development, the guardian is the squared-fiend, a phase of early belief which is alive and orthodox in the Defenders of the Faith, Tutelary Demons, or Guardian-Fiends who play so leading a part in Tibet Buddhism,61 Again, the above examples illustrate the law, the Guardian needs guarding. The position and surroundings of the Guardian, weli housed, tended with care, treated with honour, make the Guardian a apecially tompting lodging for the hosts of unhoused wandering spirits. So, when the Chinaman, and also the Tibetan Lima, has prepared all parts of the image with elaborate care and ritual, when the scalpture is completed, he has an anxious formula to prevent the entrance of a wicked spirit into the sacred image.5% By the use of the spirit-scares, spirit-traps, spirit-scapes, and spirit-prisons, known as ritual and decoration, priests and worshippers do much to guard the Guardian from the trespass of unclean lodgers. However complete the theory, however sleepless the practice, these precautions cannot fail to fall short of perfection. In annoyance at intrusion, it may be stained by the spirit of the intruders, like the sun shorn. of his beams at the close of day and at the opening of winter, like the Leader whose guardian .force ebbs till it is lost in death, the Guardian ceases to guard. So, when the sins of the Hebrews were forgiven, that is, when the haunting evil spirits were scared, the High-priest's breast jewels shone bright. When the sins were not forgiven, that is, when the air remained heavy with evil influences, the gems became black.53 From the recurring dangers of seasonal fiend-swarms, from the sudden blow of the plague demon, a young fresh untarnished Guardian can alone save man. The necessity of a new or a renewed Guardian explains the practice, perhaps even the name, of the Celtic and German Need Fire: it explains the fire kindled through a crystal ball at the Eleusinian mysteries ;54 it explains the Catholic flint-lighting at Easter, and the Catholic blessing of candles : it explains the Mexican and Peruvian re-birth of the sun. The early experience that, through failure of his guarders to guard him, the Guardian spirit dwindles and dulls through the housing of evil influences is recorded in the magical phase of early religion. According to Reginald Scott, the success of the ceremonial use of fire by the Middle-Age European exorcist was made doubtful by the chance that evil influences had taken their abode in the guardian fire. Before using fire, says Scott, let the exorcist repeat these words: "By Him that created heaven and earth and is God and Lord of all I exorcise and sanctify thee, thou creature of Fire that immediately thou banish every phantom from thee.”55 The belief, that the aged out-of-date guardian not only ceases to guard but becomes a fiend-home, is shewn in Herrick's Ceremony on Candlemas Eve :
"Down with the rosemary and so
Down with the bays and mistletoe, Down with the holly ivy all Wherewith ye dressed the Christmas hall, That so the superstitious find No one least branch there left behind : For look how many leaves there be Neglected there, maids, trust to me,
So many goblins you shall see."56 50 Potter's Antiquities, Vol. I. pp. 382-384 : Vol. II. p. 172; Smith's Christian Antiquities, p. 992.
61 Waddell's Buddhism in Tibet,' pp. 363-365. Besides, in Tibet, the idea, that the guardian is the squared fiend, is familiar in the Indian DurgA and Biva and in the Greek guardian.fory of the Medusa. Even the Mother, the
est of guardians, is pestilence among Hindus and madness among Romans and English: "How this Mother swells up towards my heart." King Lear, Act II. Scene IV.
69 Emerson's Masks, Heads and Faces, p. 184; Schlagintweit's Buddhism in Tibet, p. 205. - Emanuel's Diamonds and Precious Stones, p. 28.
* Op. cit. p. 23. 66 Reginald Scott's Discovery of Witchcraft, p. 480. Compare the Christian exorcism of water, salt, and oil before their use in sacred offices. Smith's Christian Anitquities, p. 653. Details of the kindling of Need Fire in Scotland, as late as 1810, to stay murrain are give in Napier's Folk-Loro, p. 84. Horno's Hosperidas, p. 203.
