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Amulets: Ancient, Medieval, and Oriental: Pascal

Among the believers in the virtue of amulets must be counted the French religious philosopher, Pascal. After his death in 1662 there was found, sewed up in his pourpoint, a piece of paper bearing a long and very strange inscription. At the top was a cross with rays, a similar cross being drawn at the bottom of the text. This began with the following words: Monday, November 23, the day of St. Clement, pope and martyr, and of others in the martyrology.

The Eve of St. Chrysogone, martyr, and of others. From about half-past ten in the evening until about a half-hour after midnight, FIRE Then follow a series of ejaculations and short religious sentences, and toward the end, after the name of Christ, thrice repeated, the words: I have separated myself from Him, I have fled from Him, denied Him. and finally the prayer that this separation might henceforth cease. The original text is said to be in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris with the MS. of the "Pensees."

Pascal is stated to have always kept this amulet on his person, removing it carefully from the lining of an old garment and putting in a new one, when this was assumed. The strange introduction referred to a vision of fire which he had had on the night in question, and this has been explained as resulting from a severe nervous shock he had experienced six months before, when driving along the banks of the Seine. As the vehicle neared Neuilly the horses took fright and ran away, dashing toward the edge of the bank; just on the brink the reins broke and the horses plunged down into the river, leaving the carriage in which Pascal was sitting on the edge of the precipice. This shock impressed him so vividly that he would often see the precipice before him as distinctly as though it were a reality. In any case the matter is of interest as showing that one of the most gifted men of the seventeenth century was a believer in amulets.

The giving of corals to new-born infants was expressly forbidden in 1708 in the bishopric of Bamberg, because of the superstition connected therewith, although Christian painters of the fourteenth century often represented the child Jesus as holding corals in his hand. The persistence of the superstition as to the Evil Eye and the belief that coral safeguarded the wearer therefrom, have impressed many cultured Italians of our day, and even so able and clear-headed a statesman as prime minister Crispi is said never to have gone to a parliamentary sitting without having with him a coral amulet. Some characteristic Hindu amulets figure the god Jagannath (Lord of the World), or associated divinities, and also symbols related to the worship of this form of Krishna. In the month Joyestha (May-June) his world-renowned temple at Puri in Orissa is thronged with pilgrims from all parts of India, and on the great festival day his image and those of his brother Balarana and of his sister Subhadra are taken out of the sanctuary and placed in an elaborately decorated car, which is drawn through the streets of the city. The readiness of fanatical believers to sacrifice their lives by casting themselves beneath the wheels of this ponderous car, has made the expression "Car of Jagannath" almost a household word, freely used by those who know little or nothing about Hindu religion. The English Government has long since put a stop to these reckless and useless martyrdoms. Many of these amulets are made of a black steatite. One represents Krishna (Jagannath) standing and playing on a flute, another figures this avatar of Vishnu with his wife Radha. A curious series presents Jagannath, Balarana and Subhadra; the unnaturally large heads of the figures and the truncated crowns and legs are explained by the fact that the group was carved from the trisala of a tope of a Buddhist temple erected at Puri in the third century B.C., the Hindus of a later time having utilized this relic of a former faith for gods of their ethnic religion. There are also a number of stamps, incised with emblematic figures such as a shell, a sankha wheel, a serpent, two footprints, etc., so that the corresponding seal may be impressed in colored clay upon the arms of the faithful in the sanctuary of Jagannath. Many of the amulets bearing the double footprint, emblematic of Vishnu (Krishna-Jagannath), are arranged in groups of five, all being perforated so that a group can be suspended on the person.