Excerpt from Lights and Shadows of SpiritualismAt the distance of three hundred furlongs from the Great City, Alexander was encountered by a deputation of the most famous Magi. These warned him that he should on no account presume to enter Babylon, as the gods had decreed that once within the walls he must assuredly die. So deeply was the conqueror of Asia moved by this prediction, that while sending his chief friends into Babylon, he himself encamped at a distance of two hundred furlongs from the walls. But the Gre cian philosophers who accompanied him, the doubting disciples of Anaxagoras, and others, went into the king's presence and, by their lively ridicule, temporarily effaced from his mind all respect for the wisdom of the Chalde ans. Alexander entered Babylon, and in a few months was with his fathers. Various other omens had foreboded the disappearance of this royal meteor from the earth which he astonished.