The magical rites of the Jews were, and indeed are still, chiefly performed on various important occasions, as on the birth of a child, marriages, etc. On such occasions the evil spirits are supposed to be more than usually active in their malignity, which can only be counteracted by certain enchantments.[6] They believe that Lilis will cause all their male children to die on the eighth day after their birth; girls on the twenty-first.[7] The following are the means adopted by the German Jews to avert this calamity. They draw arrows in circular lines with chalk or charcoal on the four walls of the room in which the accouchement takes place, and write upon each arrow: _Adam, Eve! make Lilis go away!_ They write also on certain parts of the room the name of the three angels who preside over medicine, _Senai, Sansenai and Sanmangelof_, after the manner taught them by Lilis herself when she entertained the hope of causing all the Jews to be drowned in the Red Sea. Josephus, the historian of the Jews, does not allow to magic so ancient an origin among them, as many Jewish writers do. He makes Solomon the first who practised an art which is so powerful against demons; and the knowledge of which, he asserts, was communicated to that prince by immediate inspiration. The latter, continues this historian, invented and transmitted to posterity in his writings, certain incantations for the cure of diseases, and for the expulsion and perpetual banishment of wicked spirits from the bodies of the possessed. It consisted, according to his description, in the use of a certain root, which was sealed up, and held under the nose of the person possessed; the name of Solomon, with the words prescribed by him, was then pronounced, and the demon forced immediately to retire. He does not even hesitate to assert, that he himself has been an eye witness of such an effect produced on a person named Eleazer, in the presence of the Emperor Vespasian and his sons. Nor will this relation surprise us, when we consider the rooted malignity entertained by the Jews to the christian religion, and this writer's attempt to appreciate the miracles of our Saviour, by ascribing them to magical influence, and by representing them as easy of accomplishment to all acquainted with the occult sciences.