[1] Op cit. pp. 446-450.

Magical rings were prepared on the same principle as were talismans.  Says CORNELIUS AGRIPPA:  “The manner of making these kinds of Magical Rings is this, viz.:  When any Star ascends fortunately, with the fortunate aspect or conjunction of the Moon, we must take a stone and herb that is under that Star, and make a ring of the metal that is suitable to this Star, and in it fasten the stone, putting the herb or root under it—­not omitting the inscriptions of images, names, and characters, as also the proper suffumigations...."[1] SOLOMON’S ring was supposed to have been possessed of remarkable occult virtue.  Says JOSEPHUS (c.  A.D. 37-100):  “God also enabled him [SOLOMON] to learn that skill which expels demons, which is a science useful and sanative to men.  He composed such incantations also by which distempers are alleviated.  And he left behind him the manner of using exorcisms, by which they drive away demons, so that they never return; and this method of cure is of great force unto this day; for I have seen a certain man of my own country, whose name was Eleazar, releasing people that were demoniacal in the presence of Vespasian, and his sons, and his captains, and the whole multitude of his soldiers.  The manner of the cure was this; he put a ring that had under the seal a root of one of those sorts mentioned by Solomon, to the nostrils of the demoniac, after which he drew out the demon through his nostrils:  and when the man fell down immediately, he abjured him to return unto him no more, making still mention of Solomon, and reciting the incantations which he composed."[2]

[1] H. C. AGRIPPA:  Occult Philosophy, bk. i. chap. xlvii.  (WHITEHEAD’S edition, pp. 141 and 142).

[2] FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS:  The Antiquities of the Jews (trans. by W. WHISTON), bk. viii. chap. ii., SE 5 (45) to (47).

Enough has been said already to indicate the general nature of talismanic magic.  No one could maintain otherwise than that much of it is pure nonsense; but the subject should not, therefore, be dismissed as valueless, or lacking significance.  It is past belief that amulets and talismans should have been believed in for so long unless they APPEARED to be productive of some of the desired results, though these may have been due to forces quite other than those which were supposed to be operative.  Indeed, it may be said that there has been no widely held superstition which does not embody some truth, like some small specks of gold hidden in an uninviting mass of quartz.  As the poet BLAKE put it:  “Everything possible to be believ’d is an image of truth";[1] and the attempt may here be made to extract the gold of truth from the quartz of superstition concerning talismanic magic.  For this purpose the various theories regarding the supposed efficacy of talismans must be examined.

[1] “Proverbs of Hell” (The Marriage of Heaven and Hell).