Excerpt from The Whims of the Ages: The Moon the Mother of All Things; The Day of Doom and the Flight of the Gods The moon to the ancient world never ceased to be the land of mystery from which our religious whims and witch craft have been drawn. Everything which occurred, every sight and sound was an omen for evil or good from the crow ing of the cock to the muttering of fire upon the hearth, and all the antics of sun and moon were imitated and called divine mysteries, and all the trees, plants and fruits which had any likeness or affinity were dedicated to the moon for their virtues and healing properties. Astrology arose from the belief of a connection between the heavenly bodies and the life of man and the influence of the stars on human destiny, and in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the astrologers were still in high repute. And all magic names, words, formulas, talismans and amulets but represent the talisman of the new moon, the great magician, cheat and trickster. Lunacy in ancient belief was due to the influence of the moon. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.