By spells and rites and charms wizards undertake the general control of Nature. They cause rain or drought, determine the rising of the sun and, for this purpose, may go every morning to a hill-top to summon him. An Australian wizard claimed to have driven away a comet by means of his sacred stones.[405] The adept procures a favourable wind for his friends, or for his enemies an adverse; prospers the crops or blights them; controls the game of the hunter, and the cattle of the herdsman. The height of such claims may be read in Medea’s boast in the _Metamorphoses_.[406] In his own person the wizard may have the power of shape-changing into some animal, or into any animal. He can fly through the air to skyland to visit Daramulun; or to help dull imaginations, he throws up a rope and climbs up by it, or throws up a thread (like a spider’s) and climbs up by that.[407] Or he may fly to the moon to be the guest of the man whom we see there;[408] or to the region of death to visit Erlik Khan.[409] By daylight he only flies in the spirit, during a trance; but when it is quite dark he can go bodily. And probably this points to the origin of such beliefs: for to dream that one flies is not uncommon; and as in dreams we visit distant places, and on waking seem suddenly to have returned by no known means, the analogy of flight offers the easiest explanation of such experiences. To fly is one of the most ancient and persistent exploits of the profession: European witches flew upon broomsticks (degenerate from Siberian horse-staves); Dr. Faustus upon his magical cloak; and “levitation” has been exhibited by recent “mediums.” Wizards cause and cure love and other forms of sickness; slay, or recall the soul to its accustomed habitation; sometimes the same man kills and cures; sometimes he works only evil, or only against evil; the Black and the White Magicians may become well-recognised hostile sects. Wizards discover thieves and murderers, or sell a fetich by whose power an evil-doer walks invisible, if he takes care not to be seen. They administer the ordeal and have in their power the life of every one who undergoes it. They interpret dreams, and prophesy by the flight of birds, the fall of dice, the making of shoulder-blades and the aspect of the stars. The sorcerer communicates with the ghosts of the dead or with the spirits of nature and, by their aid, accomplishes whatever can be done by Magic. He is possessed by them, and operates or speaks by their power or inspiration; he drives them out of others whom they possess, or sends them on errands, controlling them either by the help of stronger spirits or by his profound knowledge of enchantments. Many of these things he is believed to do best during fits or ecstasy; which he produces in himself by rhythmic drumming and dancing, or by drugs, or by voluntary control of a disciplined temperament, to the astonishment and conviction of all beholders.