The Sun.
London, England, 1855-11-01 00:00:00

No. 19,6 3.]

styled " The Mother Goddess" or " Mother of Gods," " The
Deified personification of Air."—(Dioolorus.) She presided over
the Upper Hemisphere, and was particularlyworshipped at Sais.
Musical instruments stringed (the Buoni or harp of 17 strings,
especially) were dedicated to her. " Neith," or " Neth," is
the supposed origin of the Greek name, " Thena," or
" Athena." The belief of the Egyptians in " the Existence
of a Supreme Being " is proved by the inscription over the
Temple of Minerva (Neith), in hieroglyphic characters, viz. :
—" lam that which is, which was, and shall be. No Mortal
has lifted up my veil—the offspring of my power is the Sun."
And the " Immortality of the Soul," by the prayer recited
at the time of death, by an Egyptian, expressing his desire to
be received into tho presence of the deities. Symbols of Man
and Tefnu, and 2E.eis or Athor. No. 11. " Mersekar," the
Snake Goddess, called also " Melsigor," or " Mersokar"—
" Ruler of the Lower Regions." No. 12. The Great God
" Ammon," or " Hammen," " Amen," " Amen-ra,"
" Amoun," " The King of Gods," "The Concealed," "The Hid-
den," " The Intellectual Sun," wearing on his right head the
" Teshr," surmounted by the Disc and Plumes. In his right hand
the ."Tau," or emblem of life, and in his left the " Gom," or
sceptre of power. A large Altar of Burning Incense is car-
ried before him ; on either side are his symbols of " creative
power," the Sacred Ureus, or Serpent of Ammon, Priests
with crooks and fans, in their habits and insignia of the high-
est order, with the .tEgis of the God—" The Intellectual Sun"
- • containing the symbolic " All-seeing Eyes," " The Divine
Scarabmus," and the Ram-headed God, " Chrourais," the
vernal creative intelligence or divinity. The King and Queen
Coowned. The King boars in his hand the sceptre of " Truth,
Justice, and Mercy." The Queen that of the Sovereignty of
the Nile. They arc preceded by Dancers and Musicians, La-
dies and Officers of the Court and Household ; the God
" Eilethyia," or Sacred Vulture, " The Protectress of Kings"
—" The Pure," borne immediately in front of the Royal per-
sonages. The State Flabella, behind and over their heads,
together with the banners of Nitocris and Egypt, fl inked by
the Royal esks of " Re" (the San) ; sacred symbols, with
various Llsignia, royal and military standards, &c.

ROYAL LYCEUM THE THIS
EVENING, and every evening during the
week, the GRAND ELEUSINIAN SPECTACLE of MAGIC
and MYSTERY, by Professor ANDERSON, the Great
Wizard of the North, in 12 acts, with ever-changing variety
of incidents, continuous surprises, novel and extraordinary
effects.

Magic and Mystery is an entirely new entertainment, pos-
sessing distinctive characteristics and peculiar phases of
amusement. It is not a monologue, for the audience them-
selves perform their parts with the principal actor, some of
them on the stage and others in front ; it is not an exhibition,
or though everything becomes metamorphosed before the
eyes of the visitors no one can be positive that ho sees any
one thing ; but it is a comedy really performed by the com-
pany ; a melodrama replete with startling positions and unex-
pected denouements ; a magnificent spectacle, with 2,000 of
the public every night to appear as auxiliaries ; and an OK-
traTaganza, in which all that seems to be is entirely beyond
the bounds of probability.
Professor Anderson returns his thanks to thronged and
rashionable audiences which have nightly filled the Lyceum
Theatre to overflow, and by means of whose generous aid he
has been enabled to announce Magic and Mystery for con-
tinuous repetition. Ho believes that no professor of his art
has at any time or in any place been honoured with an
amount of SHCCCSS so extensive, so decided, and so unusual.
lie would attribute that success to three causes ; first, that
in his present entertainment he has placed before his visitors
the results of a life sedulously devoted to the attainment of
perfected skill in one peculiar art, and to perfect which he
has travelled the globe in every clime ; secondly, that he has
spared no trouble nor expense to put this entertainment on
the stage in the most elaborate manner, by the employment
or the first mechanicians and artists of the day ; and thirdly,
!hat, while endeavouring to provide amusement for those
who honour him with their presence, he has not forgotten that
it is possible to afford information also, and that the oppor-
tunity should not be neglected of exposing conjuring where-
ever it has been used for nefarious purposes, or whenever by
resorting to the conjuror's arts, in an illegitimate manner,
the designing have succeeded in making dupes of the
credulous. .

The 937 letters on the subject of spirit-rapping, which Pro-
'essor Anderson has received, from the time of opening the
theatre up to the present date, bear witness to the great in-
erest taken on the subject of this singular delusion ; whilst
many of them bear melancholy evidence to the dangers which
Atend a belief in the superstitions nonsense of the " Spiri-
'ualists." Judging simply by the correspondence which has
resulted, Professor Anderson's expostS of spirit-rapping and
his illustration of the so-called table plienotnewt, have pro-
duced a sensation unequalled by any previous attempt to ex-
pose a mischievous and impudent juggle. It is impossible
-or Professor Anderson to reply at length to a tithe of the
communications which reach him on the subject. He regrets
'hat many of these should come from ladies and gentlemen
who, from their position in society and their well-known in-
tellectual attainments, he would least have expected to have
been converts to a belief so preposterous in itself, and so
easily susceptible of being controverted and disproved. Every
evening, from the Lyceum stage, Mr. Anderson's opinions on
spirit-rapping are expressed, and every evening, within the
Lyceum, how tables can be made to rap is exhibited
and elucidated. It is respectfully requested that this
public exposition will be accepted generally as Professor
Anderson's only mode of replying at full length to his
multitudinous correspondents. He regrets that the
names of the great and learned of the land should
have been made to figure in the documents emanating
from the spirit-rappers, as for instance he following, ex-
tracted from the Morairv:Actiertiser of y, .geptem-
ber 20, and taken by that journal from th New York. Spirc
t'ial Telegraph, It purportslci emanate from an American
spirit-rapper, Mr.. D. D. Hume -;—" Sir David Brewster
frankly confesses that be is sorely puzzled' at what lie has
witnessed, and Lord Brougham acknowledges himself to be
thoroughly nonplussed. Both of these noted men brought
the whole force of their keen discernm"nt to bear upon the
'olution of the phenomena; but the presence of substantial,
actual hands, and the demonstrative strength of the spirits
who thus clothed themselves for the time, and moved mate-
rial objects about the room, proved to be too much of a ques-
tion for them to master." Mr. D. D. Hume, the author of the
above, has recently loft England, and the following account of
who, and what ho is, occurs in the Family Herald, No. 648:
—" This young man, who is a Scotchman by birth, and now
in Italy, is a remarkable medium for all the manifestations
without apparatus. Barnum, who is we'l-known throughout
the Anglo-Saxon world as a splendid humbug, offered him 2,000
dollars per annum if he would perform at his museum in New
York. Barnum then took it for granted that mediums could
be bought. He was somewhat astonished when his offer was
refused. Hume, on telling the fact In London lately, simply
and honestly remarked, that the money would have been very
acceptable to him, for ho was poor, young (under 20), an or-
phan, and in very bad health : but he would have been afraid
of losing his power as a medium, and he would sooner lose
his life. The refusal, however, made Barnum thoughtful.
He inquired into the subject; and now Barnum, one of the
greatest humbugs in the world, and withal a conjuror, is
one of the firmest believers in spiritualism." It is cer-
tainly surprising to find such a paragraph as this in the
editorial article of an established journal, the editor of whom
might be supposed to be sane. Byen if Barnum does believe
in spirit-rapping--does spirit-rapping gain or lose by
this accession to its adherents ? and, with Barnum's endorse-
ment to it, is this bill, drawn on public credulity, more likely
to be negotiated ? Professor Anderson would believe not ;
but, when he finds that educated clergymen of the Church of
England have the temerity to subscribe their names to so gross
a swindle, when be finds that the incumbent of Wortley (the
Rev. N. J. Godfrey) positively asserts his belief in it, and
writes a book on the subject, he considers it t be time for
him to state that which he knows of the mechanism by which
it is effected, and the mischief to which it tends. In the
Morning Advertiser of October 3 appears a letter from Sir
David Brewster, relative to that which he saw at Cox's Hotel,
in company with Lord Brougham. He distinctly states that
which the Wizard of the North proclaims every night—that
spirit-rapping is nothing more than conjuring applied to bad
purposes. In the Morning Advertiser of the following day,
however, there is an answer to Sir David's letter from ono
who was present when be and Lord Brougham had their
Lance with the spirits in which the writer says, that " the
table (a large dinner-table, I believe) moved about in the most
extraordinary manner, and, among other things, a large ac-
cordion was conveyed by an invisible agency to my hand and
then to Lord Brougham's, in which, held by his lordship's
right hand, apart from any person, it played an air through-
out." With such a statement, printed for the edification of
the people of the 19th century, with the facts before us that
the most talented men of the day ate permitting themselves
to be deluded by these juggling spirit-mongers—that the
greatest novelist of the age is now engaged in making it the
subject of a new work, and that a " spiritual convention"
has actually been advertised to be held in St. Martin's-hall,
Professor Anderson trusts that his exposures of the spiritual-
:sts of America, as given by him nightly at the Lyceum, will
be received by the people of England as genuine honest at-
tempts to provide an antidote for the bane of the spiritual
jugglers.
In the course of the last five weeks 100,017 persons have
visited the Lyceum Theatre,—a larger number, it is believed,
than has ever before been assembled within its walls in so
short a period. Magic and Mystery is repeated every even-
ing, the programme being continually changed. Grand
fashionable Day Performance, or Saturday, November 3, at 2
o'clock ; the programme being thus arranged ;
Part I.—Act 1. The Mesmeric Conch : or, the Clinical
Capabilities of the Atmosphere : in which the Wizard will do
by magic that which some suppose to be effected by mesmer-
ism, and illustrate the possibility of sleeping unsupported in
the air.
Act 2. The Aqua-Avial Para,d6x ; exemplifying the power
of producing animated nature from fire and water only, and
the possibility of eliciting from the simplest elements the most
complex forms of ornithological existence.
Act 3. Le Livre des Reeueils Choisies : or, Puck's Own
Pocket Rook, with Puck himself within it. Typifying the
evening's entertainment in the production of the very volu-
minousofmfiruoumteauesszlilnvdoeluvienloop,
iinng bulkth whereoextract noion space of
aniceaagpnpiteuadrse
out
n bringing forth
for its existence, in discovering odd things in odd plaers an
Act 4. Magical Locomotionud
unexpected;
or, wondersfi•om
Transitionthe
withoutm os t u n
Trou-
ble.
ikelyd
place for to be found.
Wed-
ding Ring, the Peregrinations tile. In which will be prised—the Adventures of a
mation—black into white ions of a Bank Note, the Transfer-
and the Discovery of every Article
in the position which would' seem the most inappropriate.
Act 5. L'Ecrin de Verre; Or, the Casket of Crmsus. Into
which, though made entirely of glass Perfectly transparent,
and suspenCed so as to be visible
3is visitors to transport
itself, and rain into the casket, though its lid be closed,
locked, and the key in the possession of the audience.
Act 6. Clairvoyance Extraordinary ; or, the
Transparency
of Opacity.
Act. 7. A New Bottle of Bacchus ; or, the Novel Wino
and Spirit Store. An improvement upon the " inexhaustible
bottle," inasmuch as the Wizard's bottle will not only be in-
exhaustible, but will change its contents, ail infinitum, at the
word of command, producing soda-water, butter-milk,
Epsom salts, Port, Sherry, brandy, gin, rum, whisky.,
noyeau, or any other wine or spirit required ; and finally
proving • to be filled with pocket handkerchiefs perfectly dry,
and occupying the whole space when tightly packed.
Act 8. Half an Hour with the Spirits. ; or, an Expose of
Spirit-rapping. Introducing the spirit-rapping table and
tocsin of the invisibles.
Act. 9. Grand Mystic Amalgam, in which the property of
the Wizard's patrons will undergo some strange metamor-
phoses, and, amongst others, their handkerchiefs become
trausfount.l law L,aialas of Etg.
land, Frazee, Turkey, and Sardinia.
Act, 10. The Machantecl Chair of Comus, in which he who