This various knowledge is handed down from father {p228} to son, from uncle to sister’s son, in the same way as is the knowledge of the rites and methods of sacrifice and prayer; and very often the same man who knows the sacrifice knows also the making of the weather, and of charms for many purposes besides. But as there is no order of priests, there is also no order of magicians or medicine-men. Almost every man of consideration knows how to approach some ghost or spirit, and has some secret of occult practices.”​[821] [Sidenote: Confusion of magic and religion in ancient India.] The same confusion of magic and religion has survived among peoples that have risen to higher levels of culture. It was rife in ancient India and ancient Egypt; it is by no means extinct among European peasantry at the present day. With regard to ancient India we are told by an eminent Sanscrit scholar that “the sacrificial ritual at the earliest period of which we have detailed information is pervaded with practices that breathe the spirit of the most primitive magic.”​[822] Again, the same writer observes that “the ritual of the very sacrifices for which the metrical prayers were composed is described in the other Vedic texts as saturated from beginning to end with magical practices which were to be carried out by the sacrificial priests.” In particular he tells us that the rites celebrated on special occasions, such as marriage, initiation, and the anointment of a king, “are complete models of magic of every kind, and in every case the forms of magic employed bear the stamp of the highest antiquity.”​[823] Speaking of the sacrifices prescribed in the _Brâhmaṇas_, Professor Sylvain Lévi says: “The sacrifice has thus all the characteristics of a magical operation, independent of the divinities, effective by its own energy, and capable of producing evil as well as good. It is hardly distinguished from magic strictly so called, except by being regular and obligatory; it can easily be adapted {p229} to different objects, but it exists of necessity, independently of circumstances. That is the sole fairly clear line of distinction which can be drawn between the two domains; in point of fact they are so intimately interfused with each other that the same class of works treats of both matters. The _Sâmavidhâna Brâhmaṇa_ is a real handbook of incantations and sorcery; the _Adbhuta Brâhmaṇa_, which forms a section of the _Ṣaḍviṃça Brâhmaṇa_, has the same character.”​[824] Similarly Professor M. Bloomfield writes: “Even witchcraft is part of the religion; it has penetrated and has become intimately blended with the holiest Vedic rites; the broad current of popular religion and superstition has infiltrated itself through numberless channels into the higher religion that is presented by the Brahman priests, and it may be presumed that the priests were neither able to cleanse their own religious beliefs from the mass of folk-belief with which it was surrounded, nor is it