Note 15 — Chapter XLI

The harmonica, when first invented, created such a sensation in Germany, that poetical imaginations fancied they heard in it supernatural voices, evoked by the consecrators of certain mysteries. This instrument, which, before it became popular, was thought to be magical, was elevated by the adepts of German theosophy, to the same honor with the lyre among the ancients, and many other instruments among the primitive people of Himalaya. They made it one of the hieroglyphic figures of their mysterious iconography. They represented it under the form of a fantastic chimera. The neophytes of secret societies, hearing it for the first time after the rude shocks of their terrible ordeals, were so much impressed by it that many of them fell into ecstacies. They fancied they heard the song of invisibile powers, for both the instrument and the performer were concealed from them most carefully. There are extremely curious stories told of the employment of the harmonica in the reception of adepts of illuminatism.