higher, and once of the lower, triad, and that so there were eight
Cabeiric divinities. The lower or Titanic powers being subdued, chaos
ceased, and creation began in the reign of the divinities of mind and
love; but the chaotic gods still existed in the abyss, and the notion of
evoking them was the origin, the idea, of the Greek necromancy.

These mysteries, like all the others, were certainly in connection with
either the Phoenician or Egyptian systems, perhaps with both. Hence the
old Cabeiric powers were soon made to answer to the corresponding
popular divinities; and the lower triad was called by the uninitiated,
Ceres, Vulcan or Pluto, and Proserpine, and the 'Cadmilos' became
Mercury. It is not without ground that I direct your attention, under
these circumstances, to the probable derivation of some portion of this
most remarkable system from patriarchal tradition, and to the connection
of the Cabeiri with the Kabbala.

The Samothracian mysteries continued in celebrity till some time after
the commencement of the Christian era. [2] But they gradually sank with
the rest of the ancient system of mythology, to which, in fact, they did
not properly belong. The peculiar doctrines, however, were preserved in
the memories of the initiated, and handed down by individuals. No doubt
they were propagated in Europe, and it is not improbable that Paracelsus
received many of his opinions from such persons, and I think a
connection may be traced between him and Jacob Behmen.

The Asiatic supernatural beings are all produced by imagining an
excessive magnitude, or an excessive smallness combined with great
power; and the broken associations, which must have given rise to such
conceptions, are the sources of the interest which they inspire, as
exhibiting, through the working of the imagination, the idea of power in