FAMILIAR SPIRITS, a term employed to denote certain supernatural beings, in attendance upon- magicians, wizards, witches, conjurors, and other skillful professors of the black art. The word " familiar" is in all likelihood derived from the Latin famu /us (a a " slave"). The belief in such spirits goes far back into the history of the race. We read of them in. the time of Moses, who admonishes his countrymen to "regard not them that have familiar spirits" (Lev. xix. 31), which would imply the prevalence of the superstition among the Egyptians. The word in the original rendered "familiar spirits" is oboth; it is of frequent occurrence in the Hebrew Scriptures, and literally signifies "leathern bottles;" thereby indicating the antiquity of the idea that magicians were wont to imprison in bottles the spirits whom their spells had subdued (whence our " bottle-imps and " bottle-conjurors"); the origin, again, of which gro tesque belief is perhaps to be sought for in the circumstance that mystical liquids kept in vials have been immensely in vogue among the conjurors of all ages and countries. It is not clear, as some think, that we can include Socrates among those who shared this vulgar superstition, for although he spoke of his attendant " dmmon" in very ambigu ous terms, the opinion of all enlightened critics is, that he meant by the word nothing more and nothing less than what Christians mean by the presence of a divine light and guide in the heart and conscience. But according to De.lrio—a great authority on this subject—the belief in familiar spirits in the grosser and more magical form did exist among the ancient Greeks, who, he affirms, designated such beings paredrii, " compan ions," as being ever assiduously at hand. The story of the ring king of Lydia, as narrated by Hcrodotus, is held by Heywood (see Hierarchic of the Blessed Angels, etc.) to prove the existence of the belief in that country also; and it is quite certain that during the middle ages the belief in "enchanted rings" containing familiar spirits was widely diffused throughout Europe, the magicians of Salamanca, Toledo, and those of Italy, being especially famous for their skill in thus subjugating and imprisoning demons.
Asia, in fact, would seem to have been the original home of the belief in familiar spirits, which has long been established as a cardinal superstition of the Persians and Hindus, and which appears in perfection in the Arabian Nights. The " slave of the lamp" who waits upon Aladdin is an example in point. Whether the belief in familiar spirits sprung up independently among the nations of western Europe, or was transplanted thither by intercourse with the east, does not clearly appear. A favorite form assumed by the familiar spirit was that of a black dog. Jovius and others relate that the famous Cor nelius Agrippa (q.v.), half philosopher, half quack, was always accompanied by "a devil in the shape of a black dog;" and add, that when he perceived the approach of death, lie took a collar ornamented with nails, disposed in magical inscriptions, from the neck of this animal, and dismissed him with these memorable words? Abi, perdita Hestia, qua me totum Away, accursed beast, who bast ruined me wholly for ever"). Butler, in his Iludibras, speaks highly of this animal: The readers of Goethe, too, will remember that Mephistopheles first appears to Faust and Wagner during their evening walk in this shape; but, in truth, the earliest instances of such transmigration are much older, at least if medieval tradition can be credited, for it assures us that Simon Magus and other ancient magicians had familiar spirits who attended them in the form. of dogs. Curiously enough, in spite of the servitude to which the attendant imps were reduced by the potent spells of the magicians, they were popularly supposed, during the middle ages, to have their revenge at last, by car rying with them into eternal torment the souls of their deceased masters. This idea of divine retribution overtaking the practicers of magic is, however, not found out of Christendom. The Jews think not the less but the more of Solomon because he was, as they say, one of the greatest of magicians; and a similar feeling in regard to "won der-workers" pervades eastern nations generally, though it is to be noticed that the latter are often represented as using their power malignantly. See MAGIC.