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The present and the following chapter are devoted to a study of the talismanic virtues attributed to precious stones and gems, as distinguished from the curative powers with which they were credited. It is sometimes difficult to establish a hard and fast dividing line between the two classes, as everything that conduces to the happiness and well-being of man also affects his bodily health, but a distinction, correct in the main, may be made by regarding the talismanic use as covering all cases except those in which the stone was used where to-day some really medicinal substance would be administered.
A modern German writer on amulets has proposed to apply the term "emanism" (Emanismus) to the virtue existing or supposed to exist in amulets and talismans, and gives as his opinion that their virtue is neither a spiritual nor a personal one, but the operation of forces, the latter not being special, mysterious vital forces, but impersonal physical components and qualities, and that these exercise their influence by means of emanation. Wundt has held that the very earliest amulets were parts of the human body, and almost always such parts as were believed to be the bearers of the soul.
Radiation or emanation of energy, without observable loss of substance, is a fact familiar enough to us to-day, but this phenomenon was not so generally accepted centuries ago. Still the lodestone always offered a striking example with which all writers on such subjects were acquainted. A stranger argument in support of the truth of this property was adduced by the seventeenth century physician, Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682), who writes:
If amulets do work by emanation from their bodies upon those parts whereunto they are appended and are not yet observed to abate their weight; if they produce visible and reall effects by imponderous and invisible emissions, it may be unjust to deny all efficacy to gold, in the non-emission of weight or deperdition of any ponderous articles.
While the learned doctor does not expressly state his belief in these "imponderous and invisible emissions" from amulets, he certainly does not attempt to deny their existence.
The Bolivian natives believe that the so-called mountain-sickness, the affection from which some travellers suffer at high altitudes, probably originates in subtle emanations from certain mineral veins. A confirmation of the fact that such a belief exists, though not of the truth of the theory, is found in the native name for this illness, veta, which signifies at once "mountain-sickness" and a vein or lode. The fact that at the pass of Livichuco, on the trail from Challapata to Sucre, there are considerable deposits of antimony, is regarded as substantiating this strange fancy. |
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Precious Stones Guide Vol 8
>> A Distinction Between the Medicinal and Talismanic Powers of Stones
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