“As the Magi derived their name from it, so the Magnesian stone or Magnet was called in their honor, for they were the first to discover its wonderful properties.
Their temples dotted the country in all directions, and among these were some temples of Hercules, – hence the stone, when it once became known that the priests used it for their curative and magical purposes, received the name of the Magnesian or Heraclean stone.
Socrates, speaking of it, remarks: “Euripides calls it the Magnesian stone, but the common people, the Heraclean.” It was the country and stone which were called after the Magi, not the Magi after one or the other.
Pliny informs us that the wedding-ring among the Romans was magnetized by the priests before the ceremony. The old Pagan historians are careful to keep silent on certain Mysteries of the “wise” (Magi) and Pausanias was warned in a dream, he says, not to unveil the holy rites of the temple of Demeter and Persephoneia at Athens.”
H. P. Blavatsky
