The Chaldean magi were chiefly founded on astrology, and were much conversant with certain animals, metals and plants, which they employed in all their incantations; the virtue of which was derived from stellar influence. Great attention was always paid to the positions and the configurations presented by the celestial sphere; and it was only at favourable seasons that the solemn rites were celebrated. Those rites were accompanied with many peculiar and fantastic gestures, by leaping, clapping of hands, prostrations, loud cries, and not unfrequently with unintelligible exclamations. Sacrifices, and burnt offerings were used to propitiate superior powers; but our knowledge of the magical rites exercised by certain oriental nations, the Jews only excepted, is extremely limited. All the books professedly written on the subject, have been, swept away by the torrent of time. We learn, however, that the professors among the Chaldeans were generally divided into three classes; the _Ascaphim_, or charmers, whose office it was to remove present, and to avert future contingent evils; to construct talismans, etc. The _Mecaschephim_, or magicians, properly so called, who were conversant with the occult powers of nature, and the supernatural world; and the _chasdim_, or astrologers, who constituted by far the most numerous and respectable class. And from the assembly of the wise men on the occasion of the extraordinary dream of Nebuchadnezzar, it would appear that Babylon had also her oneirocritici, or interpreters of dreams--a species of diviners indeed, to which almost every nation of antiquity gave birth. Like the Chaldean astrologers, the Persian magi, from whom our word magic is derived, belong to the priesthood. But the worship of the gods was not their chief occupation; they were also great proficients in the arts. They joined to the worship of the gods, and to the profession of medicine and natural magic, a pretended familiarity with superior powers, from which they boasted of deriving all their knowledge. Like Plato, who probably imbibed many of their notions, they taught that demons hold a middle rank between gods and men; that they (the demons) presided not only over divinations, auguries, conjurations, oracles, and every species of magic, but also over sacrifices, and prayer, which in behalf of men is thus presented, and rendered acceptable to the gods. Indeed, the austerity of their lives[4] was well calculated to strengthen the impression which their cunning had already made on the multitude, and to prepare the way for whatever impostures they might afterwards practise.