Circle, MAGIC

Circle, MAGIC, a space in which sorcerers were wont to protect themselves from the fury of the evil spirits they had raised. This circle was usually formed on a piece of ground about nine feet square (in the East seven feet appears to have been considered sufficient), in the midst of some dark forest, churchyard, vault, or other lonely and dismal spot. It was described at midnight in certain conditions of the moon and weather. Inside the outer circle was another somewhat less, in the centre of which the sorcerer had his seat. The spaces between the circles, as well as between the parallel lines which inclosed the larger one, were filled 'with all the holy names of God,' and a variety of other characters supposed to be potent against the powers of evil. Without the protection of this circle, the magician, it was believed, would have been carried off by the spirits, as he would have been had he by chance got out of the charmed space. Another figure which, described upon the ground, could bar the passage of a demon, was the pentagram. Readers of Faust will remember its effect upon Mephistopheles.