Continuing his explanation, the beginning of which had escaped me, Doctor Follen said: “We must not imagine the ideas of those sects and mystical corporations of antiquity to be as naive as they appear from the standpoint of a rationalistic outlook. Antiquity knew absolutely nothing of science, in our sense of the word. On the other hand more attention was paid to truths of a philosophical, mystical nature, which often attained to a very high stage of development. Magic in part arose therefrom, and often led to fraud and crime. But none the less, magic had a noble origin and was inspired by deep thought. So it was with the teaching of Abraxas, which I have just cited as an example. This name is used in connection with Greek charm formulas. Many opinions coincide in thinking it is the name of some demon of magic, such as some savage people worship today. But it appears that Abraxas had a much wider significance. We can imagine the name to be that of a divinity on whom the symbolical task was imposed of uniting the divine and the diabolical.”