scîn-lâc, scin-læca
Dan Clore
regret the loss of italicisation here. Also, some of the
characters may get distorted by some software.]
scîn-lâc, scin-læca, n. [< OE scinnlác, magick, sorcery; a
phantom, spectre, ghost < scinn, phantom, spectre, ghost <
scinan, to shine, + lac, play (but perhaps associated by
some writers with lich, corpse); (cf.: OHG scînleih,
phantom, spectre, ghost; OE scinnlae'ca, magician, wizard;
scinnlae'ce, witch, sorceress).] A ghost, spectre, phantom;
the astral body.
[Not in OED.]
"I told thee then, that I could not unriddle the dream by
the light of the moment; and that the dead who slept below
never appeared to men, save for some portent of doom to the
house of Cerdic. The portent is fulfilled; the Heir of
Cerdic is no more. To whom appeared the great Scin-laeca,
but to him who shall lead a new race of kings to the Saxon
throne!"
Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Harold
"Farther than this the mystery of thy dream escapes from my
lore;--wouldst thou learn thyself, from the phantom that
sent the dream;--stand by my side at the grave of the Saxon
hero, and I will summon the Scin-laeca to counsel the
living. For what to the Vala the dead may deny, the soul of
the brave on the brave may bestow!"
Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Harold
And so waking, I saw, on the wall opposite my bed, the same
luminous phantom I had seen in the wizard's study at Derval
Court. I have read in Scandinavian legends of an apparition
called the Scin-Læca, or shining corpse. It is supposed in
the northern superstition, sometimes to haunt sepulchres,
sometimes to foretell doom. It is the spectre of a human
body seen in a phosphoric light; and so exactly did this
phantom correspond to the description of such an apparition
in Scandinavian fable that I knew not how to give it a
better name than that of Scin-Læca,--the shining corpse.
Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton, A Strange Story
I had followed the scene with an intense attention. The
mysterious operation, known in the East as the evocation of
the scin-lecca, was taking place before my own eyes.
H.P. Blavatsky, "Can the Double Murder?" in Nightmare Tales
Glanvill gives a wonderful narrative of the apparition of
the "Drummer of Tedworth," which happened in 1661; in which
the scîn-lâc, or double of the drummer-sorcerer was
evidently very much afraid of the sword. Psellus, in his
work, gives a long story of his sister-in-law being thrown
into a most fearful state by an elementary dæmon taking
possession of her. She was finally cured by a conjurer, a
foreigner named Anaphalangis, who began by threatening the
invisible occupant of her body with a naked sword, until he
finally dislodged him.
H.P. Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled: A Master-Key to the Mysteries
of Ancient and Modern Science and Theology
If to that life an individual intelligence, a personality,
is wanting, then the operator must either send his scîn-lâc,
his own astral spirit, to animate it; or use his power over
the region of nature-spirits to force one of them to infuse
his entity into the marble, wood or metal; or, again, be
helped by human spirits.
H.P. Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled: A Master-Key to the Mysteries
of Ancient and Modern Science and Theology
Who can tell but that the fluidic spectre of the ancient
Brahman seen by Jacolliot was the scîn-lâc, the spiritual
double, of one of these mysterious sannyâsins?
H.P. Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled: A Master-Key to the Mysteries
of Ancient and Modern Science and Theology
But--while it is our firm belief that most of the physical
manifestations, i.e., those which neither need nor show
intelligence or great discrimination, are produced
mechanically by the scîn-lâc (double) of the medium, as a
person in sound sleep will when apparently awake do things
of which he will retain no remembrance--the purely
subjective phenomena are but in a very small proportion of
cases due to the action of the personal astral body.
H.P. Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled: A Master-Key to the Mysteries
of Ancient and Modern Science and Theology
Scîn-lâc is an Anglo-Saxon term meaning magic, necromancy
and sorcery, as well as a magical appearance, a spectral
form, a deceptive appearance or a phantom (phantasma).
Scîn-lâeca is a magician or sorcerer, and scîn-lâece, a
sorceress. The art by means of which illusory appearances
are produced was known as scînn-cræft. From the Anglo-Saxon
scînan, to shine, was also derived the term scîn-fold used
for the idea of the Elysian Fields.
Boris de Zirkoff, note to H.P. Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled: A
Master-Key to the Mysteries of Ancient and Modern Science
and Theology
"Mervyn Clitheroe," by Harrison Ainsworth, and the
"Lancashire Witches," by the same writer, are books to make
boys quake of dark nights when they pass the black end of
the lane, but Bulwer Lytton's "Strange Story" strikes a
genuine and original note of terror, and few will forget the
appearance of the Scin Lœca, the Luminous Shadow of
Icelandic belief.
Arthur Machen, "The Literature Of Occultism"
This body, which is called by various authors the Astral
double, body of Light, body of fire, body of desire, fine
body, scin-læca and numberless other names is naturally
fitted to perceive objects of its own class . . . in
particular, the phantoms of the astral plane.
Aleister Crowley, Magick in Theory and Practice (ellipsis in
original)
Thus in this section the adept utters articulately so far as
words may, what his Angel is to Himself. He says this, with
his Scin-Læca wholly withdrawn into his physical body,
constraining His Angel to indwell his heart.
Aleister Crowley, Liber Samekh
Here thou mayst make Communication through others, as it
were by Relays; or thou mayst act directly upon his Aura by
magical Means, such as the Projection of thy Scin-Læca.
Aleister Crowley, Liber Aleph vel CXI: The Book of Wisdom or
Folly
--
Dan Clore
Now available: _The Unspeakable and Others_
http://www.wildsidepress.com/index2.htm
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1587154838/thedanclorenecro
Lord Weÿrdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/
News for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
"It's a political statement -- or, rather, an
*anti*-political statement. The symbol for *anarchy*!"
-- Batman, explaining the circle-A graffiti, in
_Detective Comics_ #608