Among the ancient Aryan peoples, incantations were an important factor in therapeutics, and naturally the use of the same methods persisted among their descendants, after their dispersion and settlement in different parts of the world. Christianus Pazig, in his "Treatise on Magic Incantations," remarked that the ancient origin of written spells is attested alike by sacred and profane literature. According to tradition, Ham, the son of Noah, inscribed mystic sentences on flinty rocks and metals at the time of the Deluge, in order to preserve them, "being influenced perhaps by the fear that he would not be allowed to take into the Ark a book filled with these vanities." The secret art of preparing incantations is said to have been imparted to others by Mizraim, the son of Ham, and as a result Egypt and Persia were invaded by hordes of magicians, who aspired to dominate universal nature, and to subject to their own wills not only human beings and the lower animals, but even inanimate objects as well. The Roman poet Lucan (born about A. D. 39) wrote in his "Pharsalia,"[114:1] that by the spells of Thessalian witches, there flowed into the obdurate heart a love that entered not there in the course of nature. And to the same authority is accredited the saying that even the world might be made to stand still by means of a suitable incantation; a saying which voiced the popular belief in the miraculous power of words. There is abundant evidence to show that the phenomena of psycho-therapeutics were known to the ancients, and that Assyrian practitioners effected cures by the agency of suggestion, although they were ignorant of the mode of its operation. The method of treating and curing in a mysterious way has been a widely spread one. It was known in Egypt; in Greece there was the temple of Asklepios or Esculapius; it was prevalent in Rome; it was in vogue during the Middle Ages. There were oracles and shrines and sacred grottos and springs; and their existence and the matters and facts relating to the practices and cures performed at them are quite as well established as are those of Lourdes in France, or of Sainte Anne de Beaupré, in the Province of Quebec. Dr. Pierre Janet is of the opinion that always and everywhere these cures have been effected under the same laws. The maladies that can be cured have always been the same. There are illnesses that could not be vanquished at Asklepios; they are obdurate still at Lourdes. The same things are done to-day that were done in the temples, and under the same conditions and in the same way, and even in the same space of time. This historic similitude shows us that the miraculous cures are all of them subject to the same regular laws. In far-away Japan there exist precisely the same miracle cures as elsewhere. In fact, it seems to have been a matter of independent discovery by investigators all over the world. Dr. Janet is of the opinion that it is not Asklepios that has