{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_75900/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_75900","id":"gutenberg_75900","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/75900","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Biographies","Category: Psychiatry/Psychology","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Occultism","Spiritualism"],"text":"Transcriber\u2019s Note.\n\nItalic text is indicated with _underscores_, bold text with =equals=.\nSmall/mixed capitals have been replaced with ALL CAPITALS.\n\n\n\n\n                 THE ADVENTURES OF A MODERN OCCULTIST\n\n                            BY OLIVER BLAND\n\n                      [Illustration: decoration]\n\n                               NEW YORK\n\n                        DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY\n\n                                 1920\n\n\n\n\n                            COPYRIGHT, 1920\n                    BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, INC.\n\n                      =The Quinn & Boden Company=\n\n                          BOOK MANUFACTURERS\n                        RAHWAY      NEW JERSEY\n\n\n\n\n                             INTRODUCTION\n\n\nThe individual who deals with the by-paths and mysteries of that great\nScience which we term loosely Occultism, courts neither personal\nnotoriety nor publicity for the strange proceedings in which he plays a\npart.\n\nI have always been an energetic student of psychic matters, drawn\nthereto by the possession of certain unusual gifts with which Nature\nhas endowed me. (Throughout the history of mankind there have always\nbeen a certain number of individuals who have kept alive the sacred\nfire and held the secret keys of many mysteries, and from time to time\nan advance in general human knowledge or in an applied art or science\nhas revealed to the vulgar some small part of the outer mysteries that\nhave always been known to the initiates. These disclosures are hailed\nas discoveries and set in their ordered place in the catalogue of human\nknowledge.)\n\nThere are in this book certain disclosures of hidden facts which are\ngiven to the world simply because the time is ripe when they should be\nmore fully known and their revelation is counselled by wisdom.\n\nHuman nature has always suffered from its lack of discrimination\nbetween Prophets and False Prophets, and one of the greatest\ndifficulties that besets the Occultist is to know what is safe to\nreveal. It is for this reason that secrets are hidden from the vulgar\nand the charlatan, for these things must be hidden lest they are turned\nto base ends.\n\nThe revival of deep public interest in psychic matters is only a matter\nof time, and then those things which have been of absorbing interest to\nthe few will become of vital interest to the many.\n\nThe following chapters are simply transcripts of some of the\nastoundingly interesting matters which have been reposing for years in\nmy diaries and note-books.\n\nThey have been set out in conventional narrative form with no great\nchanges except of names and places and the elimination of the rather\ninvolved scientific terminology of the psychologist and the laboratory.\nIn these days when men are turning from the crude materialism of the\nnineteenth century and the true scientist is the last person to deny\nthe realities which were deemed mythical a few short years ago, they\nmay serve to fill a certain need.\n\nAn interest in Occultism is common to most people, but a deep study\nof its principles and its phenomena is attainable only by the few. It\nis not advisable to seek transcendental experiences without a sound\nworking knowledge of the root-springs of these phenomena, and one of\nthe purposes of this volume is to render invaluable assistance to those\nwho possess psychic gifts in greater or lesser degree.\n\nThe Spiritualist, the Theosophist, and the student of Psychic Research\nwill all find in these pages much to interest them and much to ponder.\nIt throws light in some of the dark places which have seemed obscure\nto those of the modern schools of thought who have not studied ancient\nknowledge.\n\nAs it is impossible to expound an infinite mass of fact within the\nlimits of a slender volume, I have added footnotes here and there which\nwill direct any interested reader to further sources of information\nthan my condensed text affords, but the purpose of the book is directed\nto the general reader rather than to the student or specialist who will\ndoubtless know more than these pages can tell him.\n\n                                                          OLIVER BLAND.\n\n\n\n\n                               CONTENTS\n\n\n     I. THE DEAD RAPPER                                       1\n\n    II. THE AUTOMATIST                                       17\n\n   III. ASTRAL LIGHT AND PSYCHO-LASTROMETER                  36\n\n    IV. AN EXPERIMENT ON THE THEORY OF PROTECTIVE VIBRATION  56\n\n     V. SEX IN THE NEXT WORLD                                76\n\n    VI. THE REALITY OF SORCERY                               93\n\n   VII. INCENSE AND OCCULTISM                               117\n\n  VIII. BEASTS AND ELEMENTALS                               141\n\n    IX. POSSESSION                                          157\n\n     X. SOME NEW FACTS AND THEORIES                         171\n\n    XI. ORIENTAL OCCULTISM                                  194\n\n\n\n\n                \u201c_Read not to contradict and confute,\n                  not to believe and take for granted\n                  ... but to weigh and consider._\u201d\n\n                                     _Bacon\u2019s Essays._\n\n\n\n\n                               CHAPTER I\n\n                            THE DEAD RAPPER\n\n\nI had known Harry Carthew as a second-year man at Oxford. He never\ncompleted his course or took a degree because family reasons, some\ncatastrophe of some kind or another--made it imperative for him\nto earn a living at once. As an undergraduate he was an ardent\nanti-Spiritualist.\n\nHe dropped out of sight of our little world and I had only heard of him\ncasually as having something to do with oil wells in Mexico and had not\ncome into contact with him for years. I was therefore rather surprised\nto receive a letter from him which showed that he was in London and\nknew that I was working on research subjects. His letter was couched in\nrather non-committal terms, and though he was a man whom I had never\nknown well, he expressed an anxiety to meet me again and lay before me\ncertain psychical problems that were puzzling him.\n\nI make it an invariable rule never to discuss psychic matters with\npeople who are ignorant or sceptical of them, unless the sceptics are\nof a class sufficiently educated to be able to appreciate the absolute\nfacts of the phenomena associated with Spiritualism.\n\nIt is impossible to convince a non-scientific person by facts, as\nhe can never assure himself that the possibility of fraud has been\nabsolutely eliminated. A scientist or an engineer can assure himself\nfairly easily of the genuineness or otherwise of phenomena provided\nthat he is given every latitude for research. But it is difficult to\nconvince either a clergyman or an ordinary medical man of the reality\nof any psychic phenomena because he is not mentally trained in the\nsame inexorably logical processes of thought as are the engineers and\nscientists.\n\nExperience has taught me to mistrust the man who approaches with\nindirect advances to the subject of Spiritualism. I prefer the\ndefinite challenge of a critical journalist who demands facts and\njudges on facts, for it is undoubtedly an axiom that the Seeker after\nTruth, however sceptical he may be, has no hostile influence in a\nproperly constituted circle.\n\nIt has ever been a matter of regret to me that the mass of\nSpiritualists hold the fallacious idea that a sceptical influence can\nhinder a s\u00e9ance. For it is not the lack of belief or disbelief of the\none or few sceptics that weakens the influence. It is the mass belief\nof the whole circle in the hostile influence of the sceptic that does\nthe harm.\n\nAfter thinking matters over I decided that it might be wrong to\nprejudice Carthew by his undergraduate views. After all, some years\nhad passed, and if every Oxford man held to the eccentric habits and\nbeliefs of his puppy days the world would be a sorry place. I wrote to\nhim asking him to dine with me at my club during the following week.\n\nHe had changed so much that when he entered the smoking room I did not\nrecognize him. Tropical sunlight had bronzed and wrinkled his skin, his\neyes had the clear hard steel-grey fadedness of the blue iris that\ncomes to men who have gazed long across deserts. Malaria had thinned\ndown his form and his hands were big-veined and tremulous with quinine.\n\nOver the meal he told me a good deal about his life abroad, and I\nrealized something of the deadly loneliness of a white man\u2019s life in\nthe dull oil fields of Mexico. Four other whites to speak to and for\nthe rest native peons, Indians and a sprinkling of Chinese coolies.\n\nA bottle of good wine is a splendid lubricant for the human tongue, and\nthe Burgundy--a \u201cClos du Poi,\u201d \u201984--soon eased him of all awkwardness.\nOver the coffee and cigars he came to his point.\n\n\u201cYou still go on with Spiritualism, don\u2019t you, Grey?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes,\u201d I answered him, \u201cbut I thought that you did not believe in it.\u201d\nHis answer almost shocked me with its violence.\n\n\u201cGod! but I wish that I did not!\u201d He was silent with emotion for a\nmoment, then resumed: \u201cYou know I never believed in it at the House. I\nalways thought you fellows were simply running it as a craze, but up\nat Los Chicharras--that was the third big oil gusher that the Company\nowned--there was a Cornish mining engineer, Bill Tregarthen.\n\n\u201cHe was a queer fish, a silent man; squat-shaped, broad as he was long\nand full of queer fancies. He had a little planchette board that he\nused to consult about everything, and I have seen him sit there in the\npatio of the office building with the little jigger dancing about over\nreams of paper.\n\n\u201cI thought he was crazy, but he persuaded me to try the thing, _and I\ngot messages, too_. One day it spelt out a message from Ellen, and\nEllen has been dead for four years--she was my old nurse--Ellen----\n\n\u201cEven then I was only half convinced. One\u2019s brain plays one strange\ntricks down there in the Tierra Caliente, and I have seen an upturned\nmountain standing on its head in the desert--mirage of course, and I\nused to think the planchette mental mirage, subconscious stuff of some\nkind--and I didn\u2019t believe.\n\n\u201cThen Tregarthen used to laugh at me for a fool, and one night he\nblazed up into a strange bit of rage and stood there in the moonlight\nshaking his fist at me. \u2018We Cornish folk have known the unwrit lore for\nall time,\u2019 said he. \u2018Old odd people we are and we know old odd things.\nI tell you. I will tell you that I am right when I am dead. You will\nnot listen to me now, but you shall listen then, indeed.\u2019\n\n\u201cLots of the stuff he raved at us that night, but I and another man at\nlast calmed him down and got him off to bed. I thought little enough of\nit at the time, and a week later I went back from Los Chicharras to the\nOffices at Tampico.\n\n\u201cI suppose it was a month later that I heard the first knock. It was\npast midday, right in the heart of the siesta hour. Not a soul moving,\nthe very dogs silent in the streets, and the whole place a blinding\nblaze of sunlight.\n\n\u201cI knew at once--that\u2019s the odd thing about it. _I knew instantly in\nmy heart that Tregarthen was dead._\n\n\u201cThat was six months ago, and since then I keep on hearing the raps.\nI know that Tregarthen is keeping his pledge, but I cannot answer him\nback; I cannot get into touch with him.\n\n\u201cNow tell me this--with all your knowledge of these things, can you\nhelp me?\u201d\n\nI asked him what he had done, and he told me a long chronicle of visits\nto mediums in New York, of an attempt to talk through a voodoo woman\nin New Orleans, and of honest, patient sittings in a little suburban\ncircle in London.\n\nCarthew was clearly desperate and absolutely in earnest. I knew without\nhis telling me what was at the back of his mind.\n\nThe problem was a peculiar one, for here was a live man to all intents\nhaunted by a malicious spirit now on another plane. Carthew\u2019s character\nwas a strong one, though of a low and violent type. This mental\npersecution had produced a prodigious feeling of hatred for the dead\nman--a feeling of hatred that had not existed when he was alive, for\nthen the hatred was all on Tregarthen\u2019s side.\n\nThere was also the possibility that the knock was pure hallucination\nand not a genuine clairaudient phenomenon at all.\n\nI asked Carthew if he could give me particulars of how Tregarthen died,\nand I was not surprised to learn that his end had been a violent one.\n\nA small oil gusher had broken out as an offshoot from the larger one.\nIn order to cut off the flow and waste of oil it is the practice to\nforce a dynamite cartridge into these small leads. This when exploded\nbreaks the natural channel of the oil and blocks the outlet.\n\nTregarthen, through an accident or carelessness--he was a deep\ndrinker--had destroyed himself when preparing the charge.\n\nI asked Carthew if he was prepared to attend a s\u00e9ance or two and if\nhe would put himself completely in my hands. He assented readily,\nreasserting his dominant desire to be able to talk back to Tregarthen.\n\nI was holding private s\u00e9ances twice a week then, but my little circle\nwas, though powerful enough for research work, quite unsuitable for\ndealing with an abnormal case of undesired communication. During\nthe week I got into touch with a private medium whose faculty of\nclairaudience was coupled with an excellent nervous system, and I\nreinforced the circle by the addition of Dr. Miller,[1] who, though\nnot a professed Spiritualist, is no sceptic concerning occult phenomena\nand is admittedly one of the most successful practitioners of curative\npsychology that we have to-day.\n\nA few days later Carthew came to my chambers in the Temple and was\nintroduced to the members of the circle. I placed him on the left-hand\ncontact side of the medium and lowered the lights.\n\nThe medium engaged in this case was under double controls, one a spirit\ncalled \u201cLouis,\u201d the other a rather elusive and intermittent control\nthat answered to the name of \u201cMontecatini.\u201d\n\nThe trance state was entered almost immediately and \u201cLouis\u201d took\ncontrol. I asked him to find Tregarthen and he showed considerable\nreluctance, insisting that he was \u201cnot there.\u201d The control \u201cLouis\u201d\nwas then dispossessed by \u201cMontecatini,\u201d who answered in an entirely\ndifferent voice and showed a distinct and separate personality.\n\n\u201cI can find him,\u201d said Montecatini, and almost on the echo of the words\na distinct audible rap came from the ceiling of the room.\n\nCarthew recognized it instantly and flinched as if it were a personal\nblow at him.\n\n\u201cHave you got Tregarthen there?\u201d I asked.\n\n\u201cNo, they won\u2019t let him come here,\u201d was the answer.\n\n\u201cWhy won\u2019t they let him come?\u201d\n\n\u201cAfraid of him.\u201d\n\n\u201cWho is it rapping, then?\u201d\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s a sent rap for somebody. I didn\u2019t do it.\u201d\n\n\u201cWho is the rap for?\u201d\n\n\u201cFor the brown man.\u201d (Carthew was sunburnt.)\n\n\u201cHe wants to speak to the spirit who sends it.\u201d\n\n\u201cHe can\u2019t, it\u2019s from a bad spirit.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut you said you could find Tregarthen.\u201d\n\n\u201cI have found him, but I can\u2019t bring him.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy not?\u201d\n\n\u201cHe is too heavy.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d\n\n\u201cToo heavy--too low down--too much hatred.\u201d\n\n\u201cCan\u2019t Louis help you bring him?\u201d\n\nThis was answered after a pause by the voice of Louis.\n\n\u201cWe will try if you all help--but the brown man is hindering us.\u201d\n\nI then determined to break the circle and set Carthew on a chair\noutside. \u201cIf you want to get through to Tregarthen,\u201d I told him, \u201cyou\nmust subdue that hatred of yours. I am going to try for Tregarthen by\nthe direct voice method.\u201d\n\nI placed an ordinary gramophone trumpet on a light table within the\ncircle, then we rejoined hands and concentrated.\n\n\u201cCan you get Tregarthen now?\u201d I asked.\n\n\u201cYes, he is coming--but he doesn\u2019t want to come.\u201d\n\n\u201cI want him to speak to us through the trumpet,\u201d I told them.\n\nAlmost immediately there were three knocks on the table close by the\ntrumpet. Then the voice came out of the trumpet, not out of the medium,\nbut it was the voice of Montecatini.\n\n\u201cHe\u2019s a bad spirit and he won\u2019t talk,\u201d said the control.\n\n\u201cAsk him if he knows who\u2019s here?\u201d\n\n\u201cCarthew!\u201d blared the trumpet _in the voice of Tregarthen_.\n\nI heard the crash of Carthew\u2019s chair falling back as he rose, and then\nhis words:\n\n\u201cTregarthen--at last!\u201d\n\nThe trumpet chuckled at him, a hard sardonic chuckle, and it was a\ndreadful thing to hear.\n\n\u201cStop that, Tregarthen,\u201d I said sharply. \u201cNow listen to me. You must\nstop sending these knocks. You have proved to Carthew that you were\nright, and for the future there is no sense in it.\u201d\n\nAgain the trumpet began to chuckle.\n\n\u201cI want Carthew--here,\u201d said the voice of Tregarthen. \u201cI want him to\nkeep me company where I am now.\u201d\n\nThe medium began to writhe uneasily, and I suddenly realized that\nsomething dangerous had happened. The two normal controls, \u201cLouis\u201d\nand \u201cMontecatini,\u201d whom we had sent to fetch Tregarthen\u2019s spirit, had\ndisappeared _and Tregarthen himself had taken over control_.\nSomething of a spirit of uneasiness and a general sense of danger began\nto spread through the circle.\n\nI called to Carthew to come into the circle again and to cross his\nhands, grasping my wrist and Miller\u2019s, so as not to break the chain\nwhen entering.\n\n\u201cNow man!\u201d I told him, \u201chere is your chance. We have Tregarthen here,\nand we will help you all we can. You must fight him with the whole of\nyour will-power. Defy him, raise him to anger, and at the crucial point\nI will do something which will destroy his power over you for ever!\nNow!\u201d\n\nCarthew\u2019s grip burnt into my wrists as he took hold of himself, and\nthen all the bitter, dominant hatred that was in the man flamed out.\n\nHe stood in the circle towering above us on our chairs and he poured\ninto that trumpet a breadth of bilingual Spanish and English invective\nthat would have led to murder anywhere.\n\nHe paused for breath and from the trumpet came no chuckle, but a\nspluttering, stammering, furious attempt to reply. I had no need to\nprompt him to go on. He laced into his ghostly antagonist as if he had\nthe earthly body there in front of him. All the pent-up hatred of the\npast months winged his words. The consciousness of his torment made his\nquarrel just, and at the height of his peroration I concentrated the\nwhole of my psychic energies and made the four exorcism signs of the\nmartinist ritual, bidding Tregarthen begone, never to return and never\nto be able to send a rap, and instantly broke the circle. I then roused\nthe medium from the trance with a couple of simple passes.\n\nThe reaction from the violence of the s\u00e9ance left us all spent and\nshaken. The medium recovered, remembering nothing, but feeling\nunusually exhausted. Later experiments with her showed that the\ndomination by the Tregarthen control was purely temporary and that\n\u201cLouis\u201d and \u201cMontecatini\u201d had reasserted command.\n\nMy own opinion is that nothing but the intense \u201chate concentration\u201d of\nCarthew toward his ghostly antagonist could have enabled Tregarthen to\nassume control at all.\n\nIt was a duel of wills between the living and the dead, fought over the\nnarrow no-man\u2019s land of the earth and spirit planes, and I am not sure\nthat it was not a duel which ended fatally for the soul of Tregarthen.\nCarthew at any rate was free of all trouble afterwards, but wild horses\ncould not drag him to a s\u00e9ance.\n\nMiller was more convinced by this astonishing s\u00e9ance than by far more\nmaterial phenomena that he had seen. The following day, though, he sent\nme an explanation of the whole affair argued out on his own lines. He\nheld that Carthew was the subject of an obsession and that the whole\nof the phenomena were due to subconscious hypnotism of the medium\nalternatively by me as a believer in Spiritualism and by Carthew.\n\nThe direct voice he ascribed to unconscious or subconscious\nventriloquism by the medium, and he pointed out that the words uttered\nby Tregarthen were precisely what one would expect Carthew to say if\nCarthew were in Tregarthen\u2019s place. In other words, we were present at\nan amazing duel between Carthew\u2019s conscious mind and an obsession of\nhis subconscious mind that had built itself into a malignant identity.\n\nIt is interesting as a psychological theory, but in point of fact I\nhold it to be entirely wrong. We argued it out a good deal together,\nbut experiments in psychic science can seldom be repeated, and, as\nI say, Carthew refused to submit to any further attempt to evoke\nTregarthen.\n\nAs a man I sympathize with him, and he was really very grateful to\nus--but as a scientist I would have liked to try again in order to\nattempt to convince Miller.\n\n\n                               FOOTNOTE:\n\n[1] All names of people and places have been changed, but Dr. Miller\u2019s\ncures of \u201cshell shock\u201d during the war have shown that one\u2019s estimate of\nhis powers was perfectly correct.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER II\n\n                            THE AUTOMATIST\n\n\nA well-known psychic investigator once jokingly complained to me that\nthe telephone service of the spirit world seemed to be as unreliable\nand badly damaged as that of Great Britain. Certainly, communication is\noften freakish and intermittent, and the ethical value of the teachings\nreceived at great length and painstakingly transcribed is often\ncompletely valueless.\n\nIt must be remembered that we who are conducting research in psychic\nmatters have a poor range of instruments or tools to work with. There\nmust inevitably be the human medium, and long experience has taught me\nthat in the case of automatic writing one must be prepared to recognize\nthe intrusion of the medium\u2019s own thought-processes into the record\nreceived from the spirit world.\n\nThat these interpolated writings are conscious frauds by the mediums\nwe can unhesitatingly deny, but they appear to be either unconscious\nrecords of the medium\u2019s own thoughts or else the re-transmitted\nsubconscious thought-processes of the medium echoed back by the control.\n\nI have hopes that in the future we shall be able to devise an appliance\nfor the recording of automatic writing in which the function of the\nmedium will be purely that of a bridge between the two planes and in\nwhich the physical act of writing will be mechanically performed.[2]\n\nThe difficulty in automatic writing lies in the association of ideas,\nand one word written by a planchette or spelt out by an ouija traverser\nleads to the stimulation of a train of thought in the subconscious mind\neven though the conscious brain may be in the trance state.\n\nThe difficulty is to piece together what can be termed the true spirit\nmessages out of the mass of pseudo-communications that surround them.\nThe analysis of the familiar examples of \u201ccross-correspondence\u201d are a\nvaluable guide in the complexities that are involved in the question.\n\nA popular idea of the difficulty of communication can be gained by\nimagining a man in a telephone exchange in London trying to talk to\nNewcastle. He can go from instrument to instrument and speak through,\nbut all the instruments keep on going out of order, so that only\ndisconnected fragments of communication pass over one wire.\n\nThis would not matter if the person with whom he wishes to talk\nwere also in an exchange at Newcastle. He, too, could pass to other\ninstruments, but we must imagine the mortal recipient of spirit\nmessages as a subscriber with only one defective instrument.[3]\n\nDifficult as the subject of automatic writing is, it is from these\nwritings that the Spiritualist conception of life in the next world is\ngleaned.\n\nMany a student has found eloquent, fluent, and convincing description\nof the life beyond the veil flow from his pen when the spirit controls\nwere working well. Other writers have had accounts of terrors beyond\nthe veil: shocking and astonishing revelations of new concepts of\nevil, exotic violences of the soul, and even direct incitements to the\ncommission of criminal acts in this plane.\n\nSpiritualists are accustomed to divide these spirits into classes of\ngood and bad, and it has been assumed on all too slender grounds that\nonly the \u201cgood\u201d spirits tell the truth about the other planes.\n\nThere are bad and lying spirits, just as there are wicked and\nuntruthful men, but latterly there has been a distinct tendency\nto suppress all mention of the bad communicators and to attempt\nthe organization of Spiritualist and psychic investigation as an\nunorthodox ascending sect organized as a distinct church or religious\nbody. This tendency would be fatal to the progress of occult\ninvestigation.\n\nThe professional mediums, on the other hand, realize that to attain\nfinancial success, organization, and the establishment of a mediumistic\nhierarchy is essential. Bad spirits are bad business and it is bad form\nto mention them outside certain circles.\n\nAny investigator of experience will recognize at once that the spirits\nof suicides are frequent communicators to private research circles,\nprivate automatists and others, but it is an undeniable fact that in\npublic circles our leading exponents now never admit that any of the\nspirits who communicate have been anything but mortals whose end was\nnormal, or more recently, those who were killed in battle.\n\nThere is more in Spiritualism than the mere assurance to inquiries\nthat life on the other side is very beautiful, that vocations similar\nto those on earth are followed there and that there is a steady upward\nprogression.\n\nThese things dominate the minds of a certain section of the English\nSpiritualists, and their tacit negation of the other darker side of\nthe revelations is entirely contrary to French, Russian, and certain\nLatin-American schools of thought.\n\nThe history of all religions and analysis of their tenets reveal one\ngreat outstanding fact. There has always been an element of fear and\nterror connected with all conceptions of the after-life. There is\nnothing in revealed Spiritualism to suggest that abstract justice is\nmore prevalent on the next plane than on this imperfect earth. The\nvery fact of the admitted existence of bad and evil spirits capable of\nmalice, is in itself fatal to the bed of rose-leaves theories.\n\nIn science it is the abnormal properties of a new gas, compound, or\nelement that lead scientists to study it, so in the realm of psychic\nscience it is only through close study of the abnormal that we can\nattain to any clear idea of the normal.\n\nIt has been cast at me as a reproach that I have pursued vain and\nextraordinary paths of research, not disdaining to delve into dark\nsecrets of occultist ritual whose proceedings would be unorthodox\nand blasphemous if laid bare to the orthodox and an\u00e6mic Spiritualist\ncircles of Balham.\n\nYet Shamonnism is Spiritualism, and the old schools of sorcery and\nart magic held psychic secrets that are still reproducible but yet\ninexplicable in these twentieth-century days.\n\nOne of the most wonderful automatists I ever met was the late Jules\nCarrier. A tall, spare figure, black-bearded, aquiline-nosed, vividly\npale in complexion, he had dark hazel eyes with brown mottled rings\nabout the pupil that suggested in a vague way something feline or\nleopard-like.\n\nI met him quite by chance in a bookshop in the Rue de Valenciennes\nwhose proprietor had written to me about some curious early\nnineteenth-century manuscripts that had come into his possession.\n\nThese books consisted of some rather commonplace manuscripts of certain\nphilosophical transactions dealing with occult phenomena. Paris in the\nearly thirties of the last century was seamed with secret organizations\ndevoted to scientific and political studies. The great impulse of\nthe Revolution had produced in turn Napoleon and then the Bourbon\nreaction. The strong arm of the clerical party drove the philosophers\nunderground, and only from time to time can one find these peculiar\narchives of occultist activity in odd booksellers\u2019 shops and the\nlibraries of students.\n\nThe proprietor of the shop knew my interest in these matters and had\nbefore been at pains to secure me certain personal souvenirs from his\nlibrary of Eliphas Levi,[4] so whenever an odd \u201cGrimoire,\u201d or early\nmatter on occultism fell to his lot he would put it by against my next\nvisit.\n\nHe it was who introduced Carrier to me as a fellow-student, but he made\nit abundantly clear that Carrier was too poor to be a book buyer and\nthat he himself looked on him as a peculiar acquaintance rather than as\na customer.\n\nWe fell into conversation, and I was delighted to find that Carrier had\na wide and erudite knowledge of early books on magical practice.\nThis he told me he had gained principally by spare-time study at the\nLibrairie de Paris, but also from the loan of books from friends. He\nhad, it appeared, catalogued several private collections of works on\npsychic and supernormal subjects.\n\nI took him off to lunch with me at the Caf\u00e9 Bastien, and he explained\nthat he was completing a catalogue or bibliography of books on magic\npublished previously to 1850. \u201cThere are,\u201d said he, \u201ca number of\nmissing works referred to by contemporary authors. Of these there is\nlittle knowledge, but little by little I am rewriting them.\u201d\n\n\u201cAutomatic writing or original deductive work?\u201d I asked him.\n\n\u201cAutomatic--_pur et simple_,\u201d he replied. \u201cMy control is called\nFernand de F\u00e9ques and was a monk of the Abbey of Saint-Barnabe near\nBlagues. Thanks to his help, I have recovered amazing things that were\nlost.\u201d\n\nHe sank his voice as he told me and his leopard eyes seemed to glow\ngolden as the wine in his glass. \u201cI know the secrets of the lost inner\nritual of the Illuminati,\u201d he told me. \u201cI have recovered Pietro\nZarantino\u2019s invocation, and could I only master ancient Greek I could\nlay the secrets of the Bacch\u00e6 bare. But their confused script paralyses\nmy hand and I must keep to French and Latin.\u201d\n\nI knew too much of the vast breadth and heritage of knowledge that the\nHermetic philosophers inherited from the Gnostics to doubt his words.\nRevealed knowledge may sometimes appear to be withdrawn for a while,\nbut it will inevitably be re-disclosed.\n\nHaving an appointment to keep, I made a note of his address and\npromised to resume our acquaintanceship on another day.\n\nA week later I had had leisure to go through my manuscripts. They were\nvery interesting, but verbose, and were full of curiously involved\nobliquities of meaning and contained some peculiar Hebrew charms of\nKabbalistic significance. By either bad luck or the design of some\nearlier owner, two pages of the invocatory ritual for the raising of\nthe spirits of the dead were missing.\n\nIt occurred to me that Carrier might be able to fill the gap by means\nof automatic writing, so I wrote to him suggesting the attempt\nand asking him to my rooms. He replied by return, expressing his\nwillingness to help, and adding that his control had assented, but\ndesired me to visit him in his own rooms in order that he might not be\ndisturbed by novel surroundings.\n\nThe next night I went to Carrier\u2019s. He lived in one of those dull\nmeandering streets that rise from the mass of the city toward\nMontparnasse. The house was an old tumble down warren, dirty and\nill-kept, the various floors let out in rooms or suites of apartments\nto tenants who were none too particular in their choice of lodging. By\nthe light of a match I examined the grimy cards pinned in the hallway,\nand at last located Carrier\u2019s name as owner of the back room on the\nthird floor.\n\nHe opened to my knock and I found myself in a room which made no\npretension to disguise the poverty of its tenant. Most of his furniture\nwas books. A globeless gas jet burnt feebly over a side table on which\nwere some dishes and there was an old and uncleanly box bed in the\ncorner. In the centre of the room was a heavy old fashioned circular\npedestal table and on this he had laid out glasses, a bottle of wine,\nand paper.\n\nHe showed me his books, and for a while we discussed Guldenstubb\u00e9.[5]\nI looked at some of his automatic writings that gave interpretations\nof some aspects of Etteilla and was in particular interested in a new\nrendering of his Book of Thoth.[6]\n\nIn the meantime Carrier was glancing through the imperfect MS. that I\nhad brought with me.\n\n\u201cThis is rather different from most of the books of the period,\u201d said\nhe. \u201cIt is more like a note-book of lectures or a pr\u00e9cis of an existing\nmagical ritual as performed by a small child. What do you make of it?\u201d\n\n\u201cThat is just how it struck me,\u201d I told him. \u201cIt is about the period\nof the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth century.\nThe writer might have been one of the adepts trained by Francis Barret,\nby Cagliostro, or by Dom Gerle, but it might even be as late as Madame\nLenormand.\u201d\n\n\u201cHardly 1815, I think,\u201d said Carrier, \u201cbut no matter. The interesting\nthing is that this writer seems to have shorn his ritual of lots of the\ninessential matters. For instance, in this matter of the invocation\nof simple elements he has resolutely reduced his formula to mere\nessentials. Two kinds of the wearisome Hebrew prayers are gone and the\nactual mechanical adjuncts to the invocation are simplified.\n\n\u201cHis consecrations too are limited simply to the repetition of words of\npower. This man had in his way reduced his art magic to what one may\nterm working formul\u00e6.\u201d\n\n\u201cSometime I will experiment with them,\u201d I told him, \u201cbut for the\npresent let us see if we can recover the ritual on the missing pages.\u201d\n\nCarrier soon passed under control. His mouth seemed to fall slack and\nopen in rather ghastly fashion and the eyeballs turned up under the\nlids so that though he wrote with half-opened eyes; only the blue-tinted\nwhite of the eyeballs could be seen under his heavy lids. His hand and\nforearm began to twitch spasmodically, but the pencil stayed almost\nimmobile on the paper forming a little knot of scratches, but no\nletters. Finally I saw that he had completely entered the trance state\nand was directly under control.\n\n\u201cWho is the author of these manuscripts?\u201d I asked.\n\nWithout a pause the pencil wrote rapidly in a sharp angular script:\n\u201cMarcel Theot, Adept and Minor Master of the Arcana.\u201d\n\n\u201cUnder whom did you study?\u201d\n\n\u201cUnder the divine Giuseppe Balsamo Count Cagliostro, the Grand Copt of\nthe Universe, and later under Doctor Jules Lemercier pupil of Lavater\nand Cagliostro.\u201d\n\n\u201cWill you reveal to us the missing pages of your manuscript?\u201d The\nanswer was unexpected.\n\n\u201cTo you two,\u201d the pencil wrote, \u201cI can reveal these secrets, for you\ntoo are initiate and know what progress is permitted to the children\nof men. This I say unto you. In the third decade of this century shall\nthere be a revival of art magic, but much that has been sealed to the\nphilosophers shall be known to the healers of men.\u201d[7]\n\nThe control revealed a complete and up-to-date knowledge of movements\nin the world of psychic research and the refrain of the communications\nwas ever the same. \u201cThese things were known before, but mankind had not\nthe sense to apply the doctrines and practice.\u201d\n\nAt length the control took up the actual communication of the missing\nportion of the ritual and Carrier\u2019s automatic script changed entirely\nfrom his own angular, large-lettered, trim, and straggly lettering to\nthe staid precise well-formed handwriting of the original manuscript.\n\nAll went well until it came to the names of God, which had to be\nwritten in Hebrew characters in the corners of the triangle within the\npentagon of the president of the air. Carrier\u2019s hand struggled with\nthe attempt to produce the letters, but the characters would not form.\nThere was a moment of indecision, and then I saw hovering over the\ntable a small lambent sphere of bluish light.\n\nThe room, remember, was lighted by a gas jet and we were not in\ndarkness, but clear and distinct the flickering globe of blue light\nformed over the table, then descended to wrap round Carrier\u2019s hand and\npencil.\n\nWith it there seemed to come an impression of intense cold, then there\nformed within the light a plainly visible hand bearing a curiously\nwrought talismanic ring. This hand took the pencil and wrote the names\nin Hebrew characters VEVAHLIAH, ANIEL, and MUMIAH, then withdrew again.\n\nWhile the rest of the ritual was being written the globe of light\ninto which the hand had redissolved hovered over the table, but at\nthe end of the script when Carrier\u2019s hand fell idle it returned and\nmaterializing again wrote in bold script in ordinary Latin characters:\n\n\u201cThe dead ye will summon, but Nahemah will answer, for I too am a\ncreature of the fire and it is only on the underplanes that I command.\u201d\n\nOnce again the globe of fire redissolved the hand, then the whole\nascending toward the ceiling appeared to expand, dissipate and vanish\naway. Carrier came round and I boiled him up a glass of hot water,\nwhich, with a liberal dash of wine, soon restored him to himself.\n\nTogether we went over the script while I told him of the curious\nphenomenon that I had witnessed.\n\n\u201cThat may account for the way my hand is aching,\u201d he said. \u201cI thought\nit was more than usual,\u201d and spreading his hand out in front of him we\nboth noticed for the first time that both the first joint of the thumb\nand the nail and first joint of the forefinger were actually swollen\nand bruised.\n\n\u201cThis Marcel Theot seems to be a terrible fellow,\u201d said he ruefully.\n\n\u201cIt is the last part of the message that he has attached to the ritual\nthat puzzles me,\u201d I said. \u201cAssuming that he is actually a bad spirit,\nhe yet seems to be able to repeat the construction of a protective\ncircle of exorcism in which the names of God are frequently repeated\nand which is in itself supposed to be demon-proof and then warns us\nthat Nahemah will answer. Nahemah is the spirit queen who presides over\nthe female devils of obsession--the Succubi. Thus Carrier, my friend, I\ndo not quite see what to expect.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe Succubi,\u201d said Carrier, \u201care known to be able to assume the forms\nof the most desirable of women. This Marcel Theot studied thaumaturgy\nand magic under Cagliostro and his followers, and you know to what\namazing practices the Grand Copt set his female devotees. It is\nprobable that the invocation in its peculiarly condensed style opens\nthe doors to dangers that are not present when the full ritual is\napplied. You notice that he styles himself minor master.\u201d\n\nI agreed, and later analysis of the ritual as compared to others showed\nthat in the process of condensation many of the safeguarding ceremonies\nand propitiatory invocations had been discarded.\n\nMy own opinion is that Marcel Theot was one of that numerous class of\npeople who undertook the study of magic only in order to obtain the\nsupernatural qualification of carnal desires. In any case I have deemed\nhis ritual unsafe for experiment and have taken steps so that it can\nnever fall into unsuitable hands.\n\nThe actual materialism of a spirit hand to aid automatic writing is\nsuch an unusual occurrence that to my mind it completely disposes\nof any theory of other than spirit knowledge being applied in this\nparticular case.\n\n\n                              FOOTNOTES:\n\n[2] I carried out a long series of experiments with the idea of\ndeveloping an automatic recorder operating on the lines of the familiar\ntape machine, and experimented at length both in London and in Paris,\nwhere my work was done in connection with the student Du Plessis,\nwho was one of the heroes who gave his life at Verdun. Latterly we\nabandoned the idea of an actual print-registering machine for a device\ndesigned to register impulses on a wax cylinder, something on the lines\nof a phonograph. Some results were obtained, but the machine was not\nsuccessful or reliable.\n\n[3] It is a saddening and depressing thought to think of a recently\npassed over spirit racing from medium to medium in an attempt to get\nthrough bits of messages to an individual on this plane. The spirit of\nF. W. H. Myers had to communicate through mediums as distant as Mrs.\nHolland in India and Mrs. Verrall at Cambridge. Later communications\nwere received in complex fashion from other sources and the whole had\nto be collected by the Research Officer of the S.P.R. before they made\nany sense at all. _Proceedings S.P.R._, Vols. XX to XXV inclusive.\n\n[4] The library and papers of Alphonse Louis Constant are, I believe,\nstill in existence but inaccessible.\n\n[5] Baron de Guldenstubb\u00e9. _La R\u00e9alit\u00e9 des Esprits et le Ph\u00e9nom\u00e8ne\nMerveilleux de leur Ecriture Directe._ 1857.\n\n[6] _Les Sept Nuances de l\u2019\u0152uvre Philosophique Herm\u00e9tique._ Le\u00e7ons\nTh\u00e9oriques et Pratique du Livre de Thot. 1786.\n\n[7] This would seem to point to the present research in psychology and\npsychotherapeutics and its applications to cases of \u201cshell shock\u201d and\nkindred mental disturbances.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER III\n\n                ASTRAL LIGHT AND THE PSYCHO-LASTROMETER\n\n\nOne of the commonest phenomena associated with Spiritualism is the\nproduction of light. Many mediums possess this power of attracting or\nemitting light and even small circles where there is in truth little\nenough Light in the true psychic sense, yet produce this, the most\nelementary of the phenomena.\n\nIt is possibly because it is so easy to induce light phenomena of\nvarious kinds that the production of any form of spirit luminosity\nhas been, so to speak, taken at face value as a criterion of\n_goodness_.\n\nIn actual point of fact at least two-thirds of the light manifestations\nseen at S\u00e9ances may be classed as dubious and a portion of them are\nmore than dubious, they are malevolent manifestations.\n\nTo this blind belief in the \u201cgoodness\u201d of spirit light in itself we\nmay trace certain disastrous mental calamities that have overtaken\ntoo trustful searchers. The myth springs possibly from an acceptance\nof early Bible teachings and a desire to identify these manifestations\nwith the Pentecostal tongues of fire and similar analogies. But among\nthe mass of humble practitioners of Spiritualism who follow the path of\nthe Light are many that are mistaking astral evils for psychic good.\n\nTo the average Spiritualist the success of a small circle in the\nproduction of spirit lights is a heartening message from the spirit\nworld. It is a testimony that life-after-death endures, and as such\nthe phenomena are welcomed as spirit visitors, sometimes identified\nas actual spirit forms, and no doubt is raised in the minds of\nthose present concerning the innate and essential \u201cgoodness\u201d of the\nvisitation.\n\nIn order to avoid confusion I shall use the term astral light to\ndescribe the usual spirit light.\n\nThe light phenomena are customarily associated with the dark or\nsemi-dark s\u00e9ance because in the full light of day or under normal\nconditions of artificial light it is almost impossible to see\nthe astral light at all, unless one is clairvoyant or unless the\nconcentration of spirit force is so marked that there is no possibility\nof mistaking it.\n\nThe normal appearance of astral light is that of indefinite globular or\npear-shaped masses of faint phosphorescence. These appear near sitters\nor on objects in the room and frequently move about, wax and wane, or\ngather into clouds before a materialism or in support of a particular\neffort.[8]\n\nIn other cases they take the form of direct rays and in certain\nindividuals have been known to occur as flashes like dull electric\ndischarges. Another not uncommon form is the projection from the body\nof a distinctly defined aura or radiation of light which is faintly\nluminous like the gases in a Geissler tube subjected to oscillant\ndischarges.\n\nWe must go far back into history and indeed beyond the bounds of\nhistory before we can come to a time when this manifestation of light\nwas not one part of the common stock in trade of the thaumaturge or\nwonder worker.\n\nThe manipulation and control of astral light phenomena were part of the\nreligious mysteries of the magicians of Chaldea who transmitted the\nsecret knowledge to the seers of Egypt. We find it in the myth of the\nluminous bull in the Greek mysteries and again as an attribute of the\ngreat healer Apollonius of Tyana. This mysterious radiance plays equal\nparts in the records of the lives of the saints and in the terrible\narchives of the trials for sorcery.\n\nConfusion exists because to the untrained eye of mankind all forms of\nastral light are identical.\n\nThe greater proportion of the astral light seen by circles is that\ngenerated and given off by the human mental energy of the circle\nitself. The spirit-forms are all too often thought-forms built up out\nof the liberated psychoplasm or thought-matter given off by sitters.\n\nThe physical nature of this psychoplasm has so far defied all attempts\nat scientific research, but it appears to be something more substantial\nthan the mere emission of vibrations that it is commonly held to\nbe. It appears to be an all-penetrating imponderable emanation which\ndissipates rapidly, but which under certain conditions is capable of\nbeing energized by the intelligence of the living or by discarnate\nintelligence. Under these conditions it becomes luminous and under\ncertain further conditions can be used as the vehicle for the\ntransmission of force.\n\nIt can best be realized as being to the mind what ectoplasm[9] is to\nthe body of the medium, but the precise limitations of both the astral\nbody-matter ectoplasm, and astral mind-matter psychoplasm are not yet\nascertained.\n\nIt is a conceivable hypothesis that both are functions of the vast\nunknown mechanism of the subconscious self, but where the capacity for\nthe projection of ectoplasm is rare, the emission of psychoplasm is the\nbasis of most Spiritualist phenomena.\n\nIt is to this radiation of psychoplasm that we must look for the\nexplanation of such a simple thing--and at the same time such a\ncomplex thing--as psychic atmosphere. Do we not all know the peculiar\natmosphere which surrounds individuals and places? The phenomena\nassociated with apparitions have been ascribed to the penetration of\nstructure by violently liberated psychoplasm set free in moments of\npassion and bloody violence. There too is the clue to its physical\nsource, for in some obscure way blood and the emanations from blood\nplay a vital and important part in psychic matters.\n\nUnder normal circumstances psychoplasm is dissipated and the liberated\nenergy that animated it goes with it to return in the normal way of the\ncycle of life. Under other circumstances the psychoplasm retreats back\ninto the mind whence it came, just as the materialized ectoplasm is\nreabsorbed into the body of the medium.\n\nThe dangers latent in assuming all astral light phenomena to be \u201cgood\u201d\ncan be realized when it is considered what may occur to the projected\npsychoplasm which is emotionally liberated beyond the confines of the\nbody and beyond its living human control.\n\nA party of some half-dozen form a circle in some provincial city.\nThey may know one another well or they may be, comparatively speaking,\nstrangers. However well they may know the public lives of the members\nof the circle, can they fathom the secret soul of each sitter? Can they\nsay whose mind is a garden of purity or who may have some tendency to\nsome unknown enormity?\n\nYet it is precisely this weakness that makes a soul-appalling danger of\nthe hideous mental promiscuity that is one of the essential things of\nwhich all the more ingenuous and simple believers and a few clever evil\nhypocrites among Spiritualists make a cult.\n\nThey may unknowingly include among themselves an individual, man or\nwoman, who has somewhere a secret kink--a mental leaning--it need not\nbe an actually accomplished physical fact--but simply an inclination to\nthe obscene, the evil, or the cruel.\n\nThe circle launches its prayer, concentrates on the attraction of the\ndiscarnate spirits of those who have passed over--and what comes, who\ncomes?\n\nThere is no gifted Spiritualist or student of matters psychic who has\nnot had either personal or absolutely credible second-hand experience\nof the existence of bad or lying spirits. It is true that insistence\nupon their existence has latterly become unfashionable in Spiritualist\ncircles--because it does harm to the professional medium, but not even\nthe most insistent of suppressive propaganda can live down the writings\nand testimonies of the past and the ever-recurrent undeniable phenomena\nof the present.\n\nIt is not too much to say that in nine cases out of ten where a crude\nand humble belief in Spiritualism is put in practice by a circle of\noperators whose standard of education and intellectual attainment\nis low, the etherealization of the psychoplasm of the believers is\nmistaken for the materialization of the spirit.[10]\n\nSo much for the visible luminous appearances of astral light. Now let\nus consider the range of probabilities that may affect these. It must\nbe borne in mind that it is the process of their reabsorption into the\nsitters after being charged with outside influences that introduces\nthe element of danger.\n\nPsychologists know that certain fixed laws govern mental processes.\nThere is the Law of Similarity, which evokes the association of\nideas; there is the Law of Integration, which splits memories and\npicture memories into integral fragments; and there is the Law of\nRedintegration, which enables the subconscious mind to reassemble the\npart memories into one completed picture of a past scene or event.\n\nThe astral light, once beyond the control of the sitter, is at the\ncommand of (1) stronger human wills in the circle, (2) the lower or\nbaser forms of discarnate intelligence, (3) spirits of ex-mortals, (4)\nhigher spirits.\n\nIt is the dominance of the human will that is the first positive\ndanger. Part of the accepted dogma of Spiritualism is that hostile\nor unbelieving influences are antagonistic to the spirits. This is\nby no means accurate, but can be classed for practical purposes as a\nhalf-truth. The state of mental concentration and muscular relaxation\nthat is necessary to the s\u00e9ance bears a close and analogous resemblance\nto the state of consent that the hypnotist demands of his subject.\n\nThe first requisite of the Spiritualist is the question put to him or\nher by others of the cult.\n\n\u201cDo you believe in Spiritualism?\u201d\n\nThe honest sceptic, the unreasoning man-in-the-street observer is\nsoon converted by evidence, then faith in the inexplicable wonders of\nSpiritualism is born.\n\nIn other words the mind of the neophyte accepts the whole loose\ndoctrine of Spiritualism and is prepared to believe that all phenomena\nare due to spirit influence, and does not attempt to further analyse\nthe accepted spirit influence.\n\nThe mental or emotional state produced by the participation of a devout\nbeliever in a s\u00e9ance, leaves the mind receptive of ideas, and the ideas\nreceived back into the mind are those impressed upon the psychoplasm\nthat is liberated and is visible as astral light and is reabsorbed into\nits sources after it has been beyond the control of its originator\u2019s\nconsciousness.\n\nIn a circle of ten or fewer people where the sexes are mixed, it is\nimpossible to say what suppressed desires may be latent in the minds\nof those who compose it. Even in the case of circles confined to one\nsex alone there is the possibility of sex perversion being a secretly\ndominant mental force in the mind of someone there.\n\nIt is an inexorable law that the conscious or subconscious will of the\nmost powerful and determined member of the circle dominates the minds\nof the others through its influence on the psychoplasm or astral light.\n\nEven without the knowledge of the dominant influence his or her will or\nthought-force emission will gain mastery over those of the others, and\nif there is any violent sex disturbance at the bottom of the dominant\nwill, this will be communicated to the others or to the selected other\nfurthering the desire.\n\nThe next stage occurs where passion or desire on the part of one member\nof the circle for another is absent. Despite repeated statements that\nthe desire of the members of the circle is to meet pure spirits, there\nmay be members whose secret wishes are not those of the pathway of\nlight. Love for those who have passed over may be still carnal love\nin the hearts of those who remain. Ab\u00e9lard may have passed beyond\npassion into the realm of death, but H\u00e9lo\u00efse may refuse his plea of\nimpossibility and still pursue in the spirit that which escaped her in\nthe flesh.\n\nCarnality is not confined to this plane nor does it cease upon the\nnext, but the endeavour of mortals to get in touch with the spirit\nworld while there is latent in them either known or suppressed, and\nunrecognized desire is fatal.\n\nEvery sexual desire the mind has experienced is indexed or pigeon-holed\nin the recesses of the subliminal mind. People whose conscious mind\nis free of any vestige of such desire may go to a s\u00e9ance and under\nthe influence of the emotional forces of a s\u00e9ance liberate all the\nrepressed energy of their past ungratified sexual desires--without\nknowing it.\n\nThese forces attract low-grade spirits some of whom have never been\nhuman and the lowest and most vicious of spirits whose human lives have\nbeen a cycle of debauchery. Like attracts like, is one of the laws of\nNature. The Law of Similarity is one of the rules of psychology.\n\nThe gateways of the soul are thrown open not to whoever may enter in,\nbut with an explicit mental invitation to those spirits that derive\ngratification from the lusts and desires of mortals.\n\nThe whole body of the psychoplasm of a circle is at the mercy of the\nmind of the individual to whose call the spirits come.\n\nThe practical results of these open-house invitations to the spirits\nare devastating. The ideas of gratification become rooted not in the\nconscious mind but in the subconscious mind, where they work slowly but\ninevitably to the subversion of conscious \u201cgood.\u201d\n\nThe first step toward possession and obsession are often the result of\ns\u00e9ances, where Truth has been sought with the tongue and Evil within\nthe heart of one present. It is not the guilty alone who suffer, but\nthe weak and innocent who sit beside them.\n\nThere are no bounds to the malignancy of the impure spirits. They are\nsly and notable liars--they can assume the form of mortals who have\npassed over and they can assume personality and knowledge that was\nknown to the dead. By degrees they inculcate evil, predisposing the\nvictim to accept and yield to evil in particular forms. Frequently they\nproceed by slow stages, advising and inspiring savage asceticism, but\nseizing each stage of natural reaction from this unnatural r\u00e9gime to\nfurther subvert their victim in wantonness.\n\nThe obvious need is for some method of distinguishing between good and\nbad projections of astral light.\n\nTo the human eye alone there is no means of distinguishing between the\netherealizations of the psychoplasm of the believer and the identical\nluminous phenomena which occur when there is a materialization of\nthe actual spirit. It is there that psychic science can come to our\nassistance.\n\nThe fluorescent bodies zinc sulphide, barium platino-cyanide, and\nthe preparation known as Sidot\u2019s hexagonal blonde, are all intensely\nsusceptible to radioactivity. The rays of radioactive bodies have the\npeculiar property of being able to penetrate the ether, and the mass\nof spirit teaching tells us that this property is also common to the\ndisembodied spirits of those who have passed to other planes.\n\nThe relative purity or potency of astral lights may be readily\nascertained by their effect upon a simple instrument that I have named\nthe Psycho-Lastrometer.\n\nThis instrument is both cheap and easy to make in the simple form\nin which I first used it. The later applications which make it a\nregistering instrument in addition to being a mere indicator are\nnecessarily costly, but these are only necessary to the expert\ninvestigator and are of no value to the mere seeker after proof or\nthose who seek communion with the spirits of the dead for the purposes\nof solace, quasi-religious conviction, or vulgar curiosity.\n\nTo make a crude psycho-lastrometer all that is necessary is a\nwide-mouthed glass jar whose walls should not be more than two\nmillimetres thick. The height of the jar should be some eight inches,\nthe width in proportion three and a quarter inches.\n\nI have found that an ordinary lipped beaker of Bohemian glass such\nas is readily obtainable from any maker of laboratory apparatus is\nadmirably suited to the purpose.\n\nThe neck of this jar must be fitted with a large cork or wooden bung\nthe whole of which is covered with tinfoil. The centre of this cork\nshould be pierced by a piece of brass wire five inches long, bent at\none end to form a hook. This end is inside the jar and from the hook\nhangs the plate of the lastrometer. To the projecting end of the brass\nwire outside the jar should be soldered a circular collecting disc of\nbrightly polished brass or tinplate three inches in diameter. This\nshould stand up vertically to the axis of the wire, being thus on edge\ninstead of forming a flat table.\n\nThe plate of the lastrometer consists of a rectangle of thin aluminum\ntwo and half inches wide by four inches deep. Half an inch from the\ntop edge three slits should be cut in the metal so that a portion of a\nmagnetized knitting needle three inches long may be threaded through\nthe breadth of the plate, projecting half an inch on each side.\n\nThis needle forms a cross bar at the top of the plate and should be\naccurately adjusted so that the broad surface of the plate is always in\nthe same plane as the axis of the needle.\n\nTo the projecting ends of the needle is secured a loop of copper wire\nfour inches long whose other end is made fast to the other end of the\nneedle and whose centre passes over the hooked end of the wire through\nthe cork. The plate thus swings like a miniature signboard suspended\nfrom the hook.\n\nThe surface of one side of the plate is now painted with several\nsuccessive layers of a saturated solution of gum arabic in one ounce of\nwater to which has been added one and a half drachms of luminous zinc\nsulphide or Sidot\u2019s preparation (preferably the latter) and one liquid\ndrachm of a ten per cent. solution of barium platino-cyanide. The other\nside of the plate should be painted with \u201coptical black\u201d or any other\nsuitable dead black varnish.\n\nBetween the edge of the bung and the central wire should be inserted\nat convenient intervals three or four sections of glass tubing whose\ninternal bore exceeds half an inch. These serve to admit external\ninfluences to the interior of the lastrometer.\n\nWhen complete it will be found that the plate of the lastrometer is\nhighly fluorescent and can be energized into greater activity by\nexposure to sun or artificial light. It is desirable that the plate\nshould be kept in a state of relatively low radiancy, as otherwise\nspirit agency cannot raise its luminous powers to a higher degree.\n\nAt a s\u00e9ance the instrument should be placed within the circle and the\njar rotated till the magnetized needle can oscillate freely in its\nnatural position pointing toward the North and South Poles.\n\nConcentrations of genuine spirit force will raise the luminosity of\nthe plate to double and treble its normal output of light. When the\nforce is concentrated in the lastrometer, questions can be answered by\nthe spirits by signaling in Morse or simple code by rotating the plate\nthrough an angle of 90\u00b0 against the surface force of the magnet.[11]\n\nIt may be urged that this apparatus is not fraud-proof and that it\nwould respond to certain agencies such as the concealment of an\nelectromagnet in the room. To this it may be answered that an ordinary\npocket compass placed on the table by the lastrometer would also\nrespond to these forces and the fraud would be transparent to any\nobserver.\n\nSo far as I can tell, no human mental effort conscious or subconscious\ncan affect this simple instrument. It is necessary to guard against\nillusion by imagining that the lastrometer is gaining radiance, and\nto this end it is advisable to prepare a stand and test-piece made of\naluminum and coated with precisely the same solution as is applied to\nthe plate. These should always be kept together and allowed to become\nequally radiant. If this is placed on the table near the lastrometer,\nany variations in the latter can be rapidly verified by comparison with\nthe non-insulated and non-oriented test-piece.\n\nAntipathy on the part of the presiding medium to the use of the\npsycho-lastrometer is invariably a bad sign. Spirit messages objecting\nto it are the most valid reasons for its retention, and such\ncommunications should be viewed with the deepest suspicion. The cost of\nthe apparatus is a few shillings, it can be made by anybody in an hour\nor so of spare time, and in actual point of fact there is nothing about\nit that is offensive to the spirits of \u201cgood\u201d or to the pure.\n\nTo those who are learned in symbolism I may suggest that the receiving\ndisc at the top of the wire need not be in the form of a disc, but can\nbe cut or pierced with ornament such as sacred symbols or with any\ndecorative design.\n\nIt is desirable, however, that the light surface be retained and that\nthe available metallic surface of the disc should not be diminished\nmore than is necessary.\n\n\n                              FOOTNOTES:\n\n[8] _Notes of an Enquiry into the Phenomena Called Spiritual._ William\nCrookes, F.R.S., p. 91; Class VIII: Luminous Appearances.\n\n[9] For details concerning ectoplasm see _Ghosts in Solid Form_,\nGambier Bolton, etc.\n\n[10] Something of this view may be found in the chapter on \u201cPseudo\nSpirit Phenomena\u201d in _Borderland of Psychical Research_, H. J. Hyslop.\nA book deserving of attention by all interested in Spiritualism.\n\n[11] The psycho-lastrometer was further perfected. The element selenium\nis inordinately sensitive to all forms of light rays and according\nto the light thrown upon it permits more or less electric current to\npass. I arranged the apparatus so that the light thrown out by the\npsycho-lastrometer impinged upon a selenium cell whose resistance\nvaried from 50,000 ohms to 100,000 ohms, which was in its turn\nconnected to a cell and to a Deprex d\u2019Arsonval mirror galvanometer.\nThis enables accurate readings of the actual waxings and wanings of\nthe light value of the lastrometer plate to be taken, and entirely\neliminates any possibility of visual illusion seeming to make the plate\nmore luminous than before. A series of plotted curves based on time\nabsciss\u00e6 and light co-ordinates will give an accurate scientific record\nof any differences in the radiant value of the plate that occur during\nthe s\u00e9ance.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER IV\n\n          AN EXPERIMENT ON THE THEORY OF PROTECTIVE VIBRATION\n\n\nGhost phenomena do not come into the province of practising\nSpiritualism. The average Spiritualist is content to follow the\nCatholic doctrine of offering up a few devout prayers for the rest of\nthe uneasy spirit should circumstances throw him into contact with it.\nApparitions as a whole affect the Spiritualist with as much unreasoning\nterror as falls to the lot of the non-Spiritualist mortal.\n\nThe chance-met apparition of the dead is after all a fairly common\nphenomenon. The theory of the veridic apparition of the recently dead\nis explainable by various hypotheses, but there is little reason to\nsuppose that the human spirit still animates the astral body that\nappears.\n\nThe luminous quality or phosphorescence of astral light that enwraps\nthe astral body of the apparition is not necessarily a proof of the\nsurvival of the identity of the soul whose astral body appears. The\nphosphorescent radiance associated with certain kinds of fish survives\nthe death of the organism, and luminous bodies or glands extracted\nfrom these creatures may be preserved for months after death and still\nretain elements of luminosity.\n\nThe thinking Spiritualist does not disregard the lessons and analogies\nof science. The great names in the history of Spiritualism have been\nthose of scientists like Lodge and Crookes,[12] and it has ever been\ntheir desire to translate the apparent miracles of the supernatural\ninto no less miraculous but more deeply understood parallels with the\nnatural.\n\nThe great slogan of Spiritualism is that it is a perfectly natural\nunderstandable thing; thus is it the duty of every Spiritualist to\nreduce those things which non-Spiritualistic thought deems supernatural\nto the realms of the understood, the explained and the known,--in a\nword, to the state of the natural.\n\nIt is no good to tell a materialistic world that owing to the\nintervention of spirit force mechanical results contrary to all natural\nlaws were obtained. The sceptic, and above all the logical sceptic--who\nis the easiest of all to convert, can you but once bring him to see the\nfallacies that underlie his logic--demands proof, proof not in terms of\nsecond-hand evidence, but proof in terms of cold matter-of-fact science.\n\nThe missionary effort of Spiritualism must be made a crusade not into\nthe minds of the unintelligent but straight into the citadels of reason\nof the men of science. It is necessary first of all to demonstrate the\nspirit forces and then to _prove_ that they are forces of the\nspirit and not natural, so far as the meaning of the term \u201cnatural\u201d may\nbe held to imply limitation to the physical laws governing this mortal\nearth.\n\nThe spirit realm is the realm of the ether, the boundless range of\nunknown interstellar space. Blindly, gropingly, the men of science\nare putting out feelers--theories--pragmatical assumptions that serve\nthem as laws. Little by little it is being recognized that the physics\nof the ether is the underlying superscientific structure of modern\nSpiritualism. Little by little their discoveries fall into harmony with\nour claims, and we must look upon science as the handmaiden rather than\nthe antagonist of our truth.\n\nThe theories of apparition that are held vary according to the\nclassification of the apparition. There are numerous instances of\napparitions of the living[13] and there is an infinite mass of data\nconcerning veridical apparitions of the dead. A statistical analysis\nof 17,000 cases collected by the Society for Psychical Research resulted\nin the finding by the Committee that \u201cBetween deaths and apparitions\nof the dying person a connexion exists which is not due to chance\nalone.\u201d[14]\n\nA clear distinction must, however, be drawn between apparitions which\nmay appear to relatives, friends, and acquaintances, and then disappear\nfor ever, and those definite and persistently recurring apparitions\nthat go by the name of haunts.\n\nThe terminology of matters psychic is loose and inexact, but it is well\nto have a clear mental distinction between the occasional \u201capparition\u201d\nand the periodic or repeating \u201cghost.\u201d\n\nFor purposes of scientific investigation the casual apparition\nis almost valueless, but the established ghost is the nearest\napproximation that we can get to a serious test standard for\nexperimental purposes.\n\nThere are in England at least half a dozen ghosts whose periodical\nmanifestations are regular enough to serve as test instances. The\ngenuine ghost is so rare that from the point of view of psychical\nresearch it is vitally important that the haunt should not be harried\nby every party of sensation-avid amateurs who think they would \u201clike to\nsee a ghost.\u201d The amateur exorcists, the psychically gifted ladies, and\nall the ragtag and bobtail of well-meaning idiots that disturb a haunt\nonce it becomes known, can only be compared to a set of egg-stealing,\nbird-scaring boys who invade a woodland sanctuary and destroy the\nfruition of the work of a painstaking observer of nature who has been\nrecording the life of the rare birds.\n\nIn parenthesis it may be remarked that if the ghost is a full-blooded\nmanifestation it will take more than the well-meaning effort of some\nan\u00e6mic amateur psychic to lay it. The very last person who should go\nnear a violent ghost is anyone whose capacity for mediumship is in\nany way developed. Mediums should only be present when adequate and\nexperienced mortal controls are there also.\n\nIn the West of England there is an excellent example of a genuinely\nhaunted house that has so far resisted all attempts to solve the origin\nof the haunt, the precise nature of the supernatural intelligence that\ndirects the manifestation, or the motive of the phenomena.[15]\n\nIt is now extremely difficult to get permission to carry out\ninvestigations, as adequate precautions have been taken to safeguard\nboth the phenomena and the incautious dabbler in matters beyond the\nveil.\n\nI may take occasion here to warn my readers against the legal risks\nattached to stating that a house is haunted. In the eyes of the law\nsuch a statement is actionable, as it tends to depreciate the market\nvalue of the property. It is for this reason that stories concerning\nhaunted houses when printed in newspapers have to be obscured in their\nindication of the precise locality and silent with regard to the name,\nnumber, or address of the suspected dwelling. The verbal repetition of\nsuch statements is also actionable and such cases as the bogus haunting\nof a house by the tenants or by caretakers in order to avoid payment of\nrent or the letting of the house are manifest reasons why the matter of\nhaunted houses should always be treated with the utmost discretion.\n\nParticulars concerning a reputed haunt can, however, be communicated\nto a newspaper with safety. All communications to a journal are\nprivileged, and they can be trusted not to print anything which renders\nthem party to an action for damages.\n\nIn 1913 a well-known student of occult matters announced his theory\nof _Protective Vibrations_.[16] It was in effect an analysis of\nthe actual physical methods reported to be employed by spirit forces\nin building up their visible and material forms. His theory contained\nseveral assumptions which it is impossible to disregard and which\ncertainly do not admit of rejection.\n\nTaken in series he stated that \u201cThe presence of human beings was an\nessential to the appearance of the ghost.\u201d This admits of no disproof,\nas unless human witnesses are present there can be no testimony to\nthe presence of the manifestation. A general consensus of opinion\ndiscredits ghost photographs unless taken under the strictest test\nconditions which again implies the presence of the human element.\n\n\u201cThe energy or thought-matter\u201d (i.e. psychoplasm) \u201cextended by the\nmortals is the matter out of which the astral form is constructed.\nThey are, so to speak, the prime motors or the energy and material,\nproviding units out of which the discarnate intelligence builds its\ncarnate habit.\u201d\n\nThis conception embraces psychoplasm and ectoplasm as one, but the\nresearches of Schrenck-Notzing were not then known. These and other\nsimilar experiments all point to the essential probability that the\nbroad sense of his reasoning is correct.\n\nFrom this point onward he traces the development of the material astral\nbody as a process of the conversion of the original vibrations into low\nforms of actual energy which are able to manipulate the atoms of matter\nand under the directing will of the intelligence or entity build up the\nmaterialization.\n\nHe makes one notable reservation, asserting that \u201cthere is no evidence\nto prove that discarnate intelligence is the directing force. Pure\nautosuggestion, due to concentrated belief and anticipation that a\nspecified ghost will appear, may achieve the same result.\u201d\n\nBut the purpose of his paper was not to argue concerning the reality of\nspirits, but to put forward an ingenious scientific theory concerning\ntheir mechanism. The sum-total of his theory is that the physical\nstructure of the hallucination-spirit or ghost-form in its early stages\nof concentration is destructible by many forms of etheric vibration of\ngreater force or different wave-length.\n\nGhosts and spirits are integrally bound up with the conditions of\ndarkness and dusk. The rays of solar light are admittedly inimical\nto all these manifestations. In other words, materialization cannot\nbe performed under certain conditions of light which means certain\nconditions of vibration. The light rays which are visible to the human\neye represent about one-tenth of the complete range of light rays known\nto exist from ultra-violet to infra-red.[17] At other points in the\nscale of ether waves come the vibrations associated with sound, with\nelectricity and magnetic phenomena and with radioactivity.\n\nThe complexity of these wave-lengths of vibration is enormous, for\nwithin the range of light rays there are rays of another kind of light,\nso that the sum-total of two kinds of light is, paradoxically enough,\ndarkness.[18]\n\nPassing, logically enough, from stage to stage the \u201cTheory of\nProtective Vibrations\u201d points out that assuming the existence of ghosts\nor malevolent spirits, these cannot take material shape when opposed\nby hostile vibrations. Certain kinds of light, sound (such as the\nsonorous vibrations of church bells or gongs of special note), and\nhigh-frequency electric currents all destroy the initial stages of\nmanifestation by purely mechanical means. Lastly he postulates that\n\u201cin the presence of a radium salt (of specified intensity) ... a ghost\ncannot manifest.\u201d\n\nProtection or exorcism by radium salts is undeniably a\ntwentieth-century possibility, for the terrific and incessant discharge\nof ether waves consequent upon the disintegration of the radium atoms\nis so powerful that even such a known and powerful force as electric\nenergy is completely destroyed by it.\n\nIn the presence of a radium salt non-conductors of electricity become\nconductors. Differences of potential cease to exist and electroscopes\nand Leyden jars fail to retain their charges.\n\nUnder these conditions, then, it was hardly conceivable that a\nmanifestation which depends, in its initial stages, upon the most\ndelicate of vibrations--the unknown vibrations of the psychoplasm could\ntake place.\n\nTruth is dependent upon experiment, upon patient repetition and trial\nand error. In order to test the theory in actual practice, I determined\nto pay a visit to the well-known and malignant ghost at X----[19] and\nactually put to the test whether or not a ghost can manifest in the\npresence of a radium salt.\n\nThe rays of radioactive salts are unable to pass through lead, and pure\nradium bromide, which is the nearest that we have got to the isolation\nof the element radium, always has to be kept in a leaden box or cell,\nas otherwise its rays would pass through and destroy the skin and flesh\nof the man carrying it. Before the properties of radium were known,\nthis destructive faculty of radium vibrations caused several mishaps,\nfor unwary men of science carried these dangerous salts loose in glass\nvials in their pockets.\n\nFor the purposes of experiment I obtained the loan of a small supply of\na solution of a radium salt that gives out powerful emanations. This\nwas enclosed in a glass vial which was in turn encased in a leaden box.\n\nThe haunted house is a peculiar old building of no particular\narchitectural beauty. It stands remote and deserted in its own\novergrown extended grounds, and over it breathes a generally depressing\natmosphere of damp, neglect, oppression, and decay.\n\nViewed from the outside the house presents no outstanding features that\nattract the eye. The lower windows are heavily barred by rusted iron\nrails without and closed wooden shutters within. Even creepers seem to\nhave felt the blight that lies upon the mansion, for no patch of green\nor rambling ivy tendril covers the bare surface of the brick.\n\nThree storeys high, mansard-roofed and turreted with a dozen contorted\nTudor chimney-stacks, the roof-line stands out against the sky and the\ndull leaf masses of the surrounding trees. The higher windows are also\nshuttered, but not even the small boys of the neighbouring village\nhave dared to break the grimy window frames that lie over the shutters.\nDesolate and forbidding, the mansion and its grounds lie derelict,\nshunned by all men.\n\nMy key is that of the small back door, and it is used but once or twice\na year when the needs of the psychic call upon us to tread a path of\nperil and hazard.\n\nInside one steps into the cold stone-flagged passages that lead to the\nempty kitchens and offices. The air is heavy and dank with that queer\nsmell of earth that one associates with crypts and graves rather than\nwith the clean new-turned furrow. The whole house is bare of furniture,\nthe paint of the woodwork dull and dirty. Spots of amorphous fungus\ncling to the walls, and here and there wallpaper has peeled off in long\nleprous strips, exposing the corpse-grey plaster behind.\n\nThe door from the servants\u2019 offices opens into the wide Georgian\nhall, from which sweeps up a monstrous wooden staircase. Half-way\nup the stair is a landing which marks the limit of activity of the\nmanifestation. In the rooms beyond that and on the landing itself the\npresence is terribly powerful, but it seems that beyond that limit the\nterror cannot go.\n\nThe actual room where the presence is at its strongest is a chamber at\nthe end of the first floor. The room walls are outside walls on three\nsides, the remaining partition wall is the one in which is the door to\nthe main corridor that runs through the house. In the centre of the\nfloor is a deep cavity. This has been a priest\u2019s hiding hole or secret\ntreasure closet, and from signs in the woodwork it is manifest that the\ntrapdoor was once concealed beneath a big four-poster bed.\n\nThe windows are barred with high shutters that let in no light. The\nrays of my electric lantern disclose the mats of cobwebs that hang\nfrom the rusted cross bars, and it is evident that no human hand has\ndisturbed the shutters for years. A trial shows me that some of the\nbolts are indeed rusted home with age-old neglect.\n\nI unpacked my handbag, in which I carry the few simple necessities I\nneed on these occasions, and wrapping myself up in my travelling rug\ncomposed myself to read by the light of my travelling candles until\nthe hour of ten was reached.\n\nAt ten o\u2019clock I closed my book, put out my candle, and composed\nmyself to watch for the manifestation, which I _knew_ by inner\nconsciousness would be forthcoming.\n\nIt was a dark and moonless night and not a flicker or ray of external\nlight penetrated the dark stretches of the haunted room. No wind\nstirred the trees or moaned in the chimney-tops and the qualities of\nabsolute dark and absolute quiet were all that could be desired.\n\nSlowly out of the darkness seemed to come pinpoints of bluish\nlight--mere specks of phosphorescence scintillant in the still air.\nThe specks thickened and multiplied till they floated like a maze of\ndancing midgets; then too came the dark power of oppression, that sense\nof the dread and the uncanny that seems to grip the very heart and the\nbase of the skull in a numbing grip of fear.\n\nCold grew the room, colder and colder--that sense of freezing that\nexperienced psychics associate with the dread phenomena of malevolent\napparitions. It is a coldness of the soul as well as of the body, a\ndull biting cold that suggests the limitless freezing eternities of\ninterstellar space.\n\nThe blue specks spun their dance and slowly became more luminous. They\ncollected in little nebul\u00e6 of light like cigarette ends of intense blue\nradiance. Every particle of the air was filled with this luminosity, so\nthat the room seemed to be filled with a dull moonlight.\n\nSlowly the nebul\u00e6 changed from their spinning movement to a slow\nweaving motion. Strands and floating webs of phosphorescence drifted\nlike smoke wreaths about the room.\n\nThe points of light gave place to clouds of luminous mist like softly\nrolling, utterly silent globes of dull blue light. Little by little the\ndance of the globes speeded up. They spun and whirled and wove in and\nout among themselves till they had drawn into one mass all the luminous\nmatter in the room.\n\nLike a terror-charged cloud this mass hovered some eight feet high, a\nclear two feet off the floor; its brilliance waxed and waned and its\nconfines drew in. Slowly the cloud was taking shape as a pillar and\nwithin the pillar one could see the ghastly shaping of the rudimentary\nform.\n\nHere before my eyes was the actual form of the stranger--for this ghost\nis a malevolent strangling demon--on the very point of concentration.\n\nCarefully I stretched out my hand to the leaden box, unscrewed the\ncylindrical lid, and threw into my right hand the precious vial of\nradium salt.\n\nThe energy-charged tube glowed in the dark with all the beauty of\nintense phosphorescence, and as I held it at arm\u2019s length toward the\npillar of semi-materialization that represented all the evil forces of\ndiscarnate Hate--_the mists of vapour rolled away. As if by magic the\nwhole apparition was dissipated_, and in twenty seconds was as if it\nhad never been.\n\nThere is little more to be said. The theory had been brilliantly\nvindicated in practice, but it is impossible to generalize from one\nparticular instance. Physicists know the wide range of differences\nthat exist between the different radium salts,[20] and there the matter\nmust rest until opportunity for further experiments is available.\n\nThe analogous protective vibrations that the author of the monograph\nalleges would work are all probable, but require considerably more\napparatus. To my mind the use of radioactive salts as talismans with\nwhich to exorcise a case of malignant haunting is at once a great\nand practical step in the direction of relieving humanity of these\ntroublesome psychic intruders. The discovery and the theory are one of\nthe most remarkable contributions to psychic science in our time.\n\nPitchblende, from which radium is extracted, does not appear to have\nattracted the attention of the ancients and there is no trace of its\nuse in any process of alchemy or the allied sciences. Dr. Dee\u2019s magic\nmirror is reported to have been of a black substance and it is possible\nthat it may have been of radioactive material, although this quality\nis not necessary for the purposes for which he required it.[21]\n\nIt is after all only a few years since the theory of ether waves and\nvibrations was formulated. Research into psychic phenomena gives us\na chain of disconnected phenomena which nevertheless are obviously\nconnected. The distance from telepathy or thought-transference to\nexteriorized energy or power-transference is but a short one. Science\nwill soon enable us to understand the mechanism of phenomena, and when\nwe once know the true rules or laws governing these phenomena we shall\nbe able to establish spirit communication at will.\n\n\n                              FOOTNOTES:\n\n[12] Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is perhaps to-day an even greater name. But\nhe is not a scientist and is greater as a publicist than as a healer\ndespite his medical degree. But then too--all the Apostles were not of\none trade.\n\n[13] _Proceedings S.P.R._\n\n[14] _Ibid._, Vol. X, p. 394.\n\n[15] This particular ghost has been exorcised without effect. The\nhouse has been visited by psychic experts of considerable eminence,\nincluding H. Barson and others. The results of all these investigations\nwere uniformly disastrous and disagreeable, and there is reason to\nbelieve that in some cases the health and mentality of less experienced\ninvestigators were adversely affected.\n\n[16] Capt. Hugh Pollard was the author of this theory. His monograph\nwas never printed, but typescripts of his sensational lecture before\nthe members of the now defunct Odic Club were circulated to certain\ninterested parties. He tells me that he had previously spent an\ninteresting night at a haunted house. He was in the company of Mr.\nEliott O\u2019Donell and obtained a puzzling and unsatisfactory flashlight\nphotograph of the manifestation that occurred on that occasion.\n\n[17] A complete scale of all known ether waves, including the visible\nspectrum, has been drawn by Professor Lebedeff and is given on page 383\nof the English edition of Kolbe\u2019s _Electricity_.\n\n[18] This is a little-known fact, but nevertheless a commonplace of\nphysics demonstrable in any lecture room.\n\n[19] The actual locality of X---- will be clear to many investigators.\n\n[20] The solution used was a solution of radium emanations which gives\nout \u03b1, \u03c4, and \u03b3 rays together. It is not well known which ray affects\nthe dissolution of psychoplasm.\n\n[21] The mirror of Dr. Dee is still in existence, but the material the\nmirror is made of is a surface of polished coal.\n\n\n\n\n                               CHAPTER V\n\n                         SEX IN THE NEXT WORLD\n\n\nThere is in existence an enormous mass of recorded spirit communication\nconcerning life and death. The one outstanding feature concerning these\nrevelations is that they tell us extremely little. Sometimes the reason\ngiven for this withholding of information is that it is forbidden by\nhigher spirits, and it is certainly remarkable that despite the great\nenthusiasm shown for the principles of democracy in this world, there\nhave never been any revelations of a democratic principle on the higher\nplane.\n\nThe rule of the next world appears to be that of a benevolent\nautocracy, working through a hierarchy of directing spirits controlling\nother spirits on clearly defined planes. We know nothing of the\npolitical system of the other world except that there is no such thing\nas any form of elective system, no majority rule, and little social\nstructure.\n\nThe great dominant factor of the hereafter as described by the\nbulk of Spiritualistic literature appears to be the acceptance of\n_authority_. The recently arrived spirit is taken in hand by\n\u201cguides\u201d who instruct, and the spirit then passes from grade to grade\nor plane to plane, until it achieves an eminence entirely beyond the\nbounds of human thought.\n\nThere is perhaps no limit to the speculation that can be indulged in\nconcerning the after-life, but there are certain aspects of it that\nappear contradictory. There are good spirits and bad spirits, low\ngrades and high grades and all intermediate stages. There are also low\nspirits that are said never to have been human and high spirits of the\nsame non-mortal nature. But badness and goodness exist on the spiritual\nplanes as much as on this earth.\n\nThe spirits who visit s\u00e9ances retain many of their earthly\ncharacteristics. They state that they are still male and female despite\nthe assumption on the part of many writers that sex does not exist\nupon the spiritual plane. The least possible experience of spirit\ncommunication in any form is quite sufficient to expose this amazing\nfallacy.\n\nIf the differentiation of sex has any purpose at all, it can only have\nthe same purpose in the next world as it has in this. Otherwise sex\ndistinction would be cast off just as is the human body after death.\n\nThis brings us to the consideration of how and why the myth of the\nsexlessness of spirits has passed into acceptance as a fact.\n\nThe Spiritualist is open to human error and it is only human to\nbuild into our theories those things which tend to prove them and to\ndisregard matters which are not in harmony with our ideas. Both in\nBritain and in America there is a certain amount of false modesty that\namounts to pruriency concerning all matters of sex.\n\nAs a result, the very limited moral doctrines of sexual relationship\nas understood by certain Christian sects, have been tacitly held to by\nthose dominating the after-life. Sex, as understood in conventional\nterms, has been seen to be such a danger to the construction of a\nhypothetical but perfectly moral future state, that the whole sex\nquestion has been squashed by a statement by Spiritualists that sex\ndoes not exist in after-life.\n\nThis is entirely wrong, for, as I have pointed out above, according to\nspirit statement sex does exist and it is only fair to suppose that it\nis there for the usual reason.\n\nThere exists the further problem of the origin of spirits that have\nnever been mortal. These must come somehow from somewhere, and there\nis no reason to suppose that the continuation of sex upon the astral\nplanes is not for this purpose. Its existence is indeed an absolute\nanswer to the theories of parthenogenesis held by believers whose minds\nwere clouded with a residuum of theological beliefs.\n\nTo sum up, we have evidence of the continuation of sex--indeed it is\na cardinal point, for it is impossible to believe in continuation\nof personality after death unless sex continues with it. One cannot\nlogically believe in the one without the other.\n\nThe state of error has arisen through the confusion of sex with sin.\nThe would-be formulators of the new Spiritualistic dogmas, having been\nunable to effect a mental compromise between the moral and monogamous\nChristian and the moral and polygamous Mohammedan, attempted to solve\nthe whole business by a bland statement that there was no sex in the\nother world.\n\nSome writers do indeed recognize this permanence of sex, but gloss it\nover.[22] They ignore the fact that if a thing exists it exists for a\npurpose and the fatal conception that the gratification of a sex desire\nis a sin persists throughout their pages.\n\nOn the other hand, gratification of other voluptuous sense desires\nsuch as aural pleasures from music or self-abandonment to any of\nthe pleasures of the intellect, appears to be regarded not only as\npermissible but as praise-worthy. In fact, any analysis of the reported\nhabits and customs of the next world, plunges us into a mass of\nparadoxical contradictions.\n\nIn point of fact it is impossible to draw a hard-and-fast line between\nthe actual spirit revelation and interpolated ideas by the medium. It\nis also notorious that as soon as any new concept of the next world is\npublished in book form, the \u201crevelations\u201d from any different sources\nseem to take on an unmistakable tinge according to the latest theories.\nIn fact, a literary psychoanalysis of reported next worlds shows the\nunmistakable traces of books read in the past.\n\nCertain accounts of the spirit life obtained through Mohammedan mediums\nby French investigators in Algiers show what may be called a peculiarly\nactive sexual life in the after-world. This may possibly be attributed\nto either early religious belief in a sensuous Mohammedan paradise or\nalternatively to the particular type of Arab spirits who furnished\nthe description. In any case, the accounts could not be published for\ngeneral or even private reading, but there is no conceivable reason why\nthey should be deemed more unreliable than other spirit communications.\n\nSome idea of the theme of these revelations can be gathered if I may\nsay that one of the communicators, called Sidi Aissa Ben S\u2019dub,\nprefaces his words by the cryptic statement: \u201cKnow then, O mortals,\nthat here are neither camels nor horses--nor virtuous women,--for\nus virtue, as ye know it, exists not. And, as I have related, there\nbeing neither camels nor horses nor virtuous women, what think ye then\noccupies the time of us who were strong men?\u201d\n\nOriental imagery is rich in terms concerning sex, and the revelation\nas taken down in Arabic is a document of some literary value. Its\ntranslation into precise French leaves us under no misapprehension\nas to the actual technique of sex gratification on the next plane.\nTheir methods appear to be our methods, but it is of course impossible\nto arrive at any conception of relative degrees of pleasure. It is\nalso curious to note that in the Arab revelations given there was no\nreference at all to any ensuing spirit birth, but one interpretation of\nand obscure text might lead one to suppose that the offspring of these\nunions were \u201cdjinni,\u201d i.e. non-mortal and soulless spirits.\n\nCases of intercourse between djinns and mortals are the basis of many\nMoslem tales and legends in which the sex interest is paramount. But\nit must be borne in mind that the Mohammedan idea of the invisible\nworld is so different from that prescribed either by Eastern or Western\nthought that it is almost impossible to co-ordinate it with any of our\naccepted theories.\n\nOn the other hand, no Spiritualist revelation or theory is of value\nunless it fits all lands and all creeds. Thus, when the number of\nspirit visitants of African, Red Indian, or other origin, is taken into\naccount, it is manifest that no _abstract theory of morality which is\nnot in accordance with the known physical facts concerning the spirit\nworld, is likely to be practised there_.\n\nAs time goes on, it will become increasingly impossible for the\npractising Spiritualist to ignore the enormous fact of sex. At present\nvarious beliefs are held. These range from the pure sexlessness theory,\nwhich is manifestly untenable to variations like a \u201cperfectly pure and\nspiritual sex relationship in no way physical,\u201d or some such platitude.\n\nThis kind of expression is pure mental flatulence, for it is clear that\nin the spirit world there is nothing _physical_ as we know it,\nand that everything there is _psychical_--again as we know it.\n\nThe conception of the spirit world that is most widely held does\naway with all idea of penal restrictions. Hell, purgatory, and\nthe theological varieties of damnation are contrary to the whole\nconception. Once again we are dependent on spirit teaching for our\nvisualization of life in the hereafter, and having established\nthe existence of sex, which would not exist unless it implied the\npermanence of sexual attraction and sex gratification, we not\nunreasonably desire to know what, if any, are the sex limits in the\nnext life.\n\nThe realm of speculation thus opened up is enormous. It is possibly the\nvision of a voluptuous sensualist heaven. It is possibly the vision\nof a new theory of hell in which spirits are unable to obtain the\ngratification of those desires which they are equipped to experience.\n\nThere is no particular reason to suppose that the married state\ncontinues--indeed, there is evidence to the reverse. Altogether the\nproblems raised are far too great for the little evidence we have yet\nobtained from the spirit world to lead us to a true solution.\n\nAs ever we come back to the point of: How much is real spirit\ncommunication? How much is simply well-meaning but inaccurate\nSpiritualist interpretation or interpolation?\n\nThe answer of the Spiritualist to such a question is usually the\naffirmation that \u201cdesire does not exist in the spirit world.\u201d\n\nThis may be good enough to hoodwink the amateur or the shallow thinker,\nbut it must be remembered that the whole of what we must admit is\nthe dark side of Spiritualism, the bad or lying spirits, the demons\nof possession and the demons of obsession, all these are active\naffirmations of the reality of desire persisting.\n\nIt is not enough for us to affirm that the dark elements are either\nnon-existent or simply the effects of our subconscious minds. If these\nrules apply to the dark side they must apply to the light side, too.\nIf this were the case the whole fabric of Spiritualism crumbles to the\nground. If we accept any spirit evidence we must accept _all_\nspirit evidence, and we have no right to reject as unsound statements\nthat do not fall in with the theories which we have accepted on the\nstrength of similar statements.\n\nThe continuation of sexual activity on the psychic planes may be\na staggering conception to some people, but a little thought will\nshow that it is not half such a shattering idea as the perfectly\nunjustifiable hypothesis that there is none.\n\nThe existence of sex in the spirit world leads us to the supposition\nthat there are there some organized forces of law and order, otherwise\nthis conception of the next world would seem to be a field where a\nhighly intellectual, intelligent, and powerful individual soul might\nenjoy a limitless orgy of psychic rape.\n\nThere is no reason to think that such a thing is impossible, for cases\nof demoniac or spirit possession are in effect cases of psychic rape\nof a mortal and often present instances of the most amazing sexual\naberration owing to the terrible desires of the uninvited tenant of the\nmind.\n\nThe believing Spiritualist has built on slender grounds a wonderful\nconception of the spirit world, but it is a one-sided structure, and\nit is important to note that the \u201cEverything in the garden is lovely!\u201d\nidea of the next world is not by any means borne out by the revelations\nof its inhabitants. One can indeed ask oneself what ground is there for\noptimism?\n\nWhat reasons other than self-deception, self-assurance, and\nself-flattery are there for sweeping away the idea of terror,\npunishment, and the inexorable law of Abstract Justice that has for\nages been held to be implicit in the life hereafter?\n\nThe sceptic is indeed justified when, after reading reams of well-meant\npseudo-religious twaddle, he asks the supporters of the new revelation:\n\u201cAnd _why_ should it all be _couleur de rose_?\u201d\n\nFaith may do many things, but Faith cannot make black white--even in\nthe realm of the spirit.\n\nThere is good reason to suppose that in the past many revelations\nconcerning sex-life in the spirit plane have been suppressed or\ndestroyed. The well-meaning Spiritualist with mediumistic gifts or the\ncapacity for automatic writing does not always get the precise kind of\nspirit teaching expected. On the other hand, there is a wide difference\nbetween the meaningless obscenities that are sometimes sent and various\ncoherent statements that can be classed as definite revelations. The\nprivate operator, knowing little of the matters with which he or she is\ndealing, is frequently ashamed to let these strange, frank manuscripts\nor records be seen by others. Often they are shown to a wrong person,\nclassed as evil spirit writings, and the great question that animates\nthe spirit world: \u201cShould mortals be told?\u201d again goes on.\n\nAt a s\u00e9ance held in Paris some interesting statements concerning the\npsychic world were vouchsafed by a spirit calling itself Zaza Guilbert.\nThere were five of us at the table and two of the party were practised\nautomatists.\n\nFirst came some personal particulars of the spirit. She was born near\nGrenoble, in Dauphine, in 1826, but was in Paris when Napoleon the\nThird was proclaimed Emperor (1852) and was employed with theatrical\ndressmaking. She married and left two girl children.\n\nIt was the question: \u201cIs life in the spirit world as gay and\ngallant[23] as it was in those days in this sphere?\u201d that set the ball\nrolling.\n\nA. That depends on how you look at things. We are men and women over\nhere in so far as that goes.\n\nQ. Is life on the spirit plane sexless?\n\nA. Certainly not! (Emphasis conveyed by violent knocking of the table.)\n\nQ. (By one of the ladies of the party.) Is there childbirth in the\nspirit world?\n\nA. Not in the same way as on earth. (No answer was returned to some\nfurther inquiries on this subject.)\n\nQ. Is there separation of the sexes?\n\nA. No; it would be intolerable.\n\nQ. Is morality of earth binding on the spirit plane?\n\nA. No; that would be still more intolerable.\n\nQ. Have you a husband there?\n\nA. No; several affinities.\n\nQ. Intellectual affinities only?\n\nA. By no means.\n\nQ. Can you compare the relationship to any earthly parallel?\n\nA. Yes. Living _une vie de demi-mondaine sans reproche_.\n\nQ. Do all spirits enjoy life in this manner?\n\nA. It is not obligatory.\n\nQ. (By one of the ladies.) Are there scandals in the spirit world?\n\nA. Sometimes.\n\nQ. Are they due to moral censure of higher spirits?\n\nA. No; jealousy, because higher spirits mix themselves up in it.\n\nQ. Can you describe one of these scandals?\n\nA. Not through the table. Write.\n\nQ. You will give it as automatic writing?\n\nA. Yes.\n\nOne of the automatists left the circle to fetch pencil and paper. Then\nwe resumed. The power appeared to be instantly forthcoming, and the\nwriting stated that:\n\n\u201cBenedetta Chiesole was the mistress of Th\u00e9odule Affra and several\nother spirits on our plane.\n\n\u201cThis intimacy became obnoxious to a spirit called du Paits Herbault,\nwho was a monk of Montpellier in the sixteenth century. He was not\non our plane but higher up, but was permitted to come down to us for\ncertain purposes. Being on a higher plane, there was no way of keeping\nhim out when he was not wanted, for he had the power of passing through\nall psycho-material substances that serve us as material substances\nserve you.\n\n\u201cHis persecution of Benedetta was remarkable, for he was astonishingly\nenamoured of her. At length matters got to such a pitch that the others\nprotested through the guides. But they got cold comfort. They were told\nnot to interfere with the higher spirits or it would be the worse for\nthem, and Benedetta was told that it was natural for her to have to\nexpiate her earthly shortcomings in this manner.\u201d\n\nThe results of other sittings at which other spirits have made\ncommunications are in some cases quite as detailed and a great deal\nmore startling than the above. In addition, a great mass of what may\nbe definitely termed abnormal sex literature has come from the pens of\npeople practising automatic writing--and it is an indubitable fact\nthat some of these writings have been written under control by people\nof irreproachable life and character.\n\nThe common-sense explanation is that these writings and communications\nhave nothing whatever to do with spirits and that these are, so to\nspeak, a seething up of illegal desires and ideas which have been\nrepressed by the conscious mind into the censorship of the subliminal\nself. This theory is only tenable if the whole basic doctrine that\nthese things are communicated by spirits is given up.\n\nIf, on the other hand, we hold that there is anything at all in\nSpiritualism we are faced with the inevitable conclusion that, however\nmuch we may desire to get rid of it, sex is as troublesome in the next\nworld as in this.[24]\n\n\n                              FOOTNOTES:\n\n[22] \u201cPeople live in communities as one would expect if like attracts\nlike, and the male spirit still finds his true mate though there is no\nsensuality in the grosser sense and no childbirth.\u201d Sir A. Conan Doyle,\nChapter III, _The New Revelation_.\n\n[23] The word \u201cgallant\u201d carries rather different implications in French\nthan are covered by the literal English rendering of \u201cgallant.\u201d\n\n[24] The notes and papers concerning the physiological side of sex in\nthe next world that have been collected are not suitable for general\nreading. Experienced Spiritualists will have no difficulty in surmising\nthe general character of these records.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER VI\n\n                        THE REALITY OF SORCERY\n\n\nI have often been asked by folk who were perfectly serious in their\ninquiry if there \u201cwas anything in\u201d latter-day sorcery, and whether\nthe practice actually existed outside the realm of fiction. It is a\ndifficult question to answer, for the average man mixes up witchcraft,\nsorcery and necromancy, and one cannot be certain whether he is\nalluding to the dark ceremony of the Black Sabbath, to the use of\noccult knowledge for malevolent purposes, or whether he is thinking of\nwax images and pine, incantations and night rides astride a broomstick.\n\nPut in a simpler form, the question comes to this: Can experienced\noccultists utilize spirit or unknown natural forces for malevolent\nuses? The answer is an unhesitating affirmative. Under certain\nconditions, it can be done.\n\nMagic has always been divided into white or good magic, and black or\nbad magic. Both have been liberally endowed with ritual observance, but\nshorn of non-essentials the determining factor that decides whether\nmagic is black or white is the secret intent of the operating magician.\n\nIn the past the great popular attribute of the magician was his\nknowledge of healing. He was not only a seer of the future and a finder\nof lost things, but also a healer. On the reverse side may be set\nagainst his capacity for healing his power for casting spells or doing\nharm; against his draughts of beneficent medicine, his vials of poison.\n\nThe doctor who uses hypnotic treatment, practises suggestion or acts as\na psychotherapeutist, is to-day the direct twentieth-century descendant\nof the magicians of the past. Apollonius of Tyana is his patron; Merlin\nworked his wonders by the same rules.\n\nIt is to the modern studies in psychic science that we must turn\nto find the underlying mechanisms of magic practices, for a full\nthree-quarters of art magic is due to the little-known effects of\nhypnotism or suggestion, and but a shadowy balance to the powers of\ndiscarnate intelligences of evil.\n\nThe discoveries of the existence of \u201canimal magnetism\u201d by Mesmer was\nthe first step which brought the psychic phenomena of will domination\nout of the realm of the occult into the domain of medical knowledge.\nFor a century Mesmer\u2019s theory has been discredited, but to-day modern\nstudents of psychic science are beginning to pay attention to it again.\n\nIt fell into discredit owing to the discoveries of Braid, the\nManchester physician, who discovered that Mesmer\u2019s phenomena could be\nproduced independently of the theory of \u201canimal magnetism\u201d by plain\nhypnosis.\n\nBraid\u2019s theories were followed out by Chercot and the Paris School of\nHypnotists, and their theories were in turn demolished by Li\u00e9bault\nand Bernheim of the Nancy School, who held that all the phenomena of\nhypnotism in their turn were produced by suggestion.\n\nIn point of actual fact, advanced thinkers of to-day hold that the same\neffect may be produced by all three methods of practice. In the same\nway we may produce a given electrical phenomenon such as the lighting\nof an incandescent lamp by the action of chemical solutions on metals\nin a battery, or by the rotation of a coil of wire between magnetic\npoles in a dynamo. The methods are different, but the forces evolved\nand the effect obtained are identical.\n\nThe lay mind will follow my argument better if I use the loose terms of\nhypnotism and hypnosis than if I attempt a more scientific terminology.\n\nThe first point that must be grasped is that the sorcerer or wizard\npossesses psychic gifts or qualities of an entirely different order to\nthose claimed by Spiritualists.\n\nThe sorcerer is a hypnotist--that is to say, he is an individual who\npossesses the power of emitting or radiating an unknown psychic force.\n\nMost people are neutral, they neither radiate this force nor do they\noppose or resist its passage, but the individuals who are susceptible\nto its action seem to possess the faculty of arresting this radiation\nand converting it to mental energy within themselves. These are the\npeople who are what is known as good hypnotic subjects.\n\nIn the histories of the great sorcerers of the past the _assistant_,\nthat is to say the subject, plays as important a r\u00f4le as does the mage\nhimself, for the subject is the instrument of the master.\n\nThe average person who possesses mediumistic or psychic qualities in\nthe Spiritualistic sense, is in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred in a\ngreater or lesser degree a sensitive hypnotic subject.\n\nThe odd few who do not come in the above category may be classed as\nhermaphroditic or doubly gifted individuals who possess both radiating\npower and subjectivity. One or two noted materializing mediums of the\npast have been thus endowed.\n\nIn the usual circle there is the medium and the sitters. Some of these\nmay be neutral, but in an average circle there are one or more who\npossess unknown to themselves a certain amount of radiant force. It is\nthis which passes along the chain of hands to the medium where it is\narrested and condensed to play its mysterious part in the liberation\nof psychic elements that can be utilized by the unseen spirit workers.\n\nIf there is present in the circle an individual who is greatly endowed\nwith this force--and whose mental desires approximate to black rather\nthan white magic, we have an instance of those dread dangers that beset\nthose who unwittingly pass beyond the threshold of the known.\n\nThe trance state of the medium is akin to light hypnosis and the\nsubject or medium of a well-meaning little circle of Spiritualists may,\nunknown to him or herself, become the slave of one or other of the\nmembers of the circle.\n\nIt is an asseveration with hypnotists that they have no power without\nthe _consent_ of the individual. But once they have won the entry\nof the mind that entry is theirs for ever, and even the bodily presence\nof the operator is not required to achieve this domination of the mind\nof the subject.[25]\n\nThe common instances where this kind of thing occurs cannot be classed\nas true sorcery, for in most cases the operator is unconscious of how\nor why the fulfilment of his desires comes about. The true sorcery only\ncomes in when an individual possessing the required psychic faculty,\nand in addition, occult knowledge, exerts these of set purpose in order\nto gratify his desires.\n\nVengeance of an enemy, the subjugation of another\u2019s will, the\nsatisfaction of a sex passion, all these are motives for sorcery. The\nwitch-doctor of West Africa, the voodoo priestesses of Cuba and Hayti\npractise these accomplishments no less than their white brethren in\nblack magic. Sorcery lives to-day no less than it lived centuries ago.\nThere are several roads to its portals--but not a track leading back to\nthe regions of light for those that pass its gates.\n\nThe first aim of the sorcerer is to get the victim in a state of\nsuggestibility. This can be accomplished in a dozen different ways well\nknown to the practised student.\n\nIn the first, fumes of a special sort of incense played no\ninconsiderable part in the r\u00f4le of sorcery. According to ritual\nthey are to propitiate the spirits--in actual practice they induce\nrelaxation on the part of the subject and assist in building up that\nnecessary atmosphere which is essential to suggestibility.\n\nThe effect of darkness, of points of light gleaming amid surrounding\ndark, the magic mirror or the crystal globe; all these were more than\nstage properties--they are the mechanical implements of suggestion.\n\nLet us suppose that some weak and curious woman visits a sorcerer to\nobtain his help in some affair of heart. The man of mystery seats her\nin a comfortable chair; the lights are lowered and he tells her to gaze\nat the crystal ball upon the table before her.\n\nFumes of incense hang in the heavy air. The man\u2019s voice is clear,\ndominant, and sonorous; slowly it becomes soothingly monotonous.\n\nGradually the client feels languor stealing over her. The crystal\nbecomes cloudy and in the globe appears something that she knows and\nrecognizes.\n\nProbably the crystal tells her nothing that means anything to her.\nCertainly she has seen in it nothing but what she has known at some\ntime before,[26] or something that the magician has seen before. But\nthe net result is that she is convinced of the occult powers possessed\nby him.\n\nThis is the prelude to other visits and little by little her will\nyields to that of the sorcerer and the suggestions that he has\nimplanted in her subconscious mind begin to take effect. If he is a\ndaring scoundrel, his domination may take any form. Unconscious that\nshe is not acting of her own free will, she may yet be brought to place\nat his disposal everything and anything that he may require of her.\n\nHe has invoked no spirit aids, but has caused the powers of hypnotism\nand suggestion, taking advantage of the light condition of hypnosis\ninduced by the crystal-gazing. Police and press persecutions of the\nSeers of Bond Street are not altogether unjustified in many cases. The\nreal facts may not be brought out at the court, owing to the shame that\npublicity would inflict upon the dupes, but the prosecution is, in nine\ncases out of ten, justifiable.\n\nThe class of petty criminals above mentioned are again not true\nsorcerers, in that they only use occult natural forces, summoning to\ntheir aid no spirit attributes. In the lowest grade of the sorcerers we\nfind the necromancers.\n\nThere are still a few of these in Paris and latterly there was one in\nthe West Country. It depends on the individual operator how much of his\nceremonial is for the purpose of inducing suggestibility or partial\nhypnosis and how much is for the direct evocation of evil spirits. Very\noften the necromancer himself is deluded enough to confuse natural with\nsupernatural power.\n\nThere is a certain class of spirits to whom the ancients gave the name\nof Lemures. These can be semi-materialized, made visible, and bound to\nservice by a comparatively simple ritual, for in place of needing the\nmaterial vehicle of ectoplasm, extended by a materializing medium, they\ncan take shape from the emanations of warm blood.\n\nThis vital fluid plays an important part in all magical ceremony. We\nfind mention of it from the days when Ulysses poured blood and wine\ninto a trench to call up the spirits before he went down into hell.\nIn the dark history of Gilles de Retz[27] the blood ritual is seen in\nall its ghostliest fluorescence. The calabash of blood of the \u201cwhite\ngoat\u201d is essential in obi and voodoo magic, and blood, fresh blood, not\nnecessarily but preferably human, is used by the necromancer of to-day.\n\nThose learned in occult matters will readily perceive the precious\nfunction that blood emanations exercise, but on the contrary, the man\nof science and the psychologist will not be able to understand the part\nthat blood plays in this peculiar alchemy.\n\nIt must be clearly understood that experiment of this nature is\nextraordinarily perilous and that any attempt at necromancy by\nstudents whose knowledge is insufficient can have none but disastrous\nresults.[28]\n\nThe elemental forces evoked by this ceremony may be compared to\ngunpowder. Any fool can blow himself up with powder by setting a match\nto it, but it takes a skilled artillerist to harness the forces and\nmake them propel a projectile to a given target. Experiment with\nelemental forces is analogous and the greater part of the ritual deals\nwith the protection of the operator or sorcerer himself from those\ndread spirits who obey his summons.\n\nIn 1912 I attended the course of lectures on psychic science given at a\nsub-school of the University of Jena. A fellow-student there gave me a\nletter of introduction to Gottlieb Bentlemeyer, a professor of law at\none of the Hanover Hochschulen and an ardent student of black magic.\n\nAt that time he had rooms in the Wiesenstrasse and had in his charge\none or two private pupils whom he was cramming for their necessary\nexaminations. One of these lads, a youngster from Stettin, in North\nPrussia, was his assistant in the necromantic art, and was a most\nhighly gifted sensitive or hypnotic subject.\n\nIt was not until we had had several ordinary s\u00e9ances and he had shown\nme some astounding experiments in the externalization of sensibility\nand clairvoyance under hypnosis that I deemed it fit to mention the\nsubject of necromancy.\n\nWe were at that time in the Hanover Museum and had been examining\nan exhibit of \u201cQualapparat\u201d--racks, winches, and torturing-irons of\nvarious descriptions. It was our discussion of the possible sending\nof the spirit of his assistant, Walther Kraus, under hypnosis to\npsychometrize these vile memorials of a brutal past that raised the\nsubject. We came to the conclusion that the experiment would be\nextremely hazardous, but Bentlemeyer kindly offered to attempt to call\nup the spirit of one or more of the men who had used these things.\n\n\u201cIt will not be an easy task to find them,\u201d he said, \u201cbut being men of\nblood it may be possible to find them by means of the blood elementals.\u201d\n\nIt took us three days to make our preparations, for although\nBentlemeyer had an excellent and systematically arranged cabinet of\nmagical requisites, one or two things had to be procured.\n\nHis association with the Hochschule enabled him to obtain fresh blood\nthrough the agency of one of his medical colleagues.\n\nWe rehearsed the ritual carefully, in order that there should be no\nfault, and I must confess that I prepared myself for the ordeal with\nconsiderable trepidation. His ceremonial of evocation was slightly at\nvariance with accepted French practice, but the discrepancies were\nnot material and appeared to have crept in during the time of King\nFrederick Wilhelm of Prussia. Bentlemeyer informed me that the original\nMS. in German and Hebrew had been in the possession of the celebrated\nSteinert.[29]\n\nIt was a clear autumn night with a perfect moon; the air had a touch of\nfrost in it and the great town of Hanover was quiet and still.\n\nBentlemeyer was already in his robes when one of the pupils admitted\nme. I changed into the necessary garments, took the rod and girdle\nwhich he had lent me, and placed the snake-hilted poniard in its belt\nsheath.\n\nThe circle of evocation had been marked out in chalk on the floor. The\nprepared candles burnt in the angles of the pentacle and the saucers of\nsalt and the elements were in their appropriate places. The sorcerer\nstood within his circle of protection facing the small tripod brazier\nin which was a brazen plate glowing over the frame of a small spirit\nlamp.\n\nI took my place within the _enceinte_ of a similar diagram, and\non a couch, lying between us, was Walther, the assistant. The candle\nlights burnt in the draughtless atmosphere, the dull yellowish flames\nstanding up without a flicker, sending their faint tail of black smoke\ntoward the ceiling. Beyond the confines of our protective circles was a\ngrotesque bronze bowl or shallow basin. Bentlemeyer removed the black\nvelvet hood that covered it and the filmy crimson surface of fresh\nblood gleamed in the light.\n\nAt a sign we began the chanting of the preliminary invocations to the\nguardians of the gates. The room was sonorous with the great Hebrew\nnames, and from time to time a fresh pinch of incense on the brazier\nwould send a wreath of pungent fume across the room.\n\nThe boy on the couch breathed heavily, loosened the restriction of his\ngarments, and soon subsided into a definite state of trance.\n\nFrom invocation we changed to the ritual of evocation. And before the\nechoes of the first summons had died down, a cold wind seemed to burst\nout in the very heart of the room itself, making the candles flicker\nand the shadows flit and dance in arabesques across the low ceiling.\n\nI felt for the poniard at my belt and drawing it from its sheath held\nthe naked blade ready.[30]\n\nThe second and third utterances of the words of power intensified the\neffect and the boy moaned pitifully.\n\nBentlemeyer signed to me with his rod to look toward the blood bowl.\n\nThe surface of the liquid was being slowly agitated, strong swirls\nand broken wave motions appeared on the surface, sluggish, iridescent\nbubbles floated for a while and burst, and at last the whole body of\nfluid within the bowl was in a state of violent agitation.\n\nThe sorcerer bent to a vessel on the ground and threw upon the brazier\nsome new essence--not an incense. The smoke wreathed itself above the\nbrazier, then seemed to take shape like a pillar and curve toward the\nblood bowl.\n\nSlowly yet distinctly the vapours clustered above the blood and slowly\ntook semi-human shape. Incessantly they changed and melted--now\nlimb-like, here betraying the outline of a demon face, there a\npillared, smoothly working trunk.\n\nFrom the bowl came a noise like cats\u2019 tongues lapping and now and then\nthe bowl itself would tilt and move a fraction of an inch or so about\nthe floor. For a moment we watched this monstrous manifestation in\nsilence. Then the sorcerer resumed his ritual and bound the spirits\npresent to do his bidding to the spell of the Three Known and One\nUnknown elements.\n\n\u201cWhat are your names?\u201d he asked, and the elemental demons or spirits\nspeaking through the trance-bound boy gave them.\n\n\u201cWho is your leader?\u201d There was a momentary hesitation, and then a\nspirit answering to the name of Amalik assumed the leadership.\n\n\u201cHave you been a mortal?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, I was never mortal. I was an earth-spirit, serving the priests of\nOdin till the Cross came.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat brought you here to-night?\u201d\n\n\u201cThe Blood Libation and the summons. What do you want of us? We wish to\ndepart.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou are bound to do my bidding by the words of Might. You may not go.\nI want you to find for me the spirit of one of the men of blood who\nused the torture instruments in the Museum.\u201d\n\n\u201cI do not know the men.\u201d\n\n\u201cI command you to seek them. I command all of you by the powers that\nare mine to seek and bring them.\u201d\n\nFor a moment there was silence, broken only by the laboured breathing\nof the boy. Then he spoke again.\n\n\u201cI have found one, O Masters.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat is his name?\u201d\n\n\u201cKurt Ettethurm.\u201d\n\n\u201cHe is to answer my questions himself. Where did you live?\u201d\n\nA new and harsher voice issued from the boy\u2019s lips.\n\n\u201cBy Sachsenhausen, near Augsburg.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhen?\u201d\n\n\u201cIn the time of Charles the Fifth of Spain.\u201d\n\n\u201cWere you one of his torturers?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, I served Count Anton of Tornen.\u201d\n\n\u201cWho were your victims?\u201d\n\n\u201cCriminals, bandits, and Lutherans.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhen did you die?\u201d\n\n\u201cAt Muhlberg.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhen--not where?\u201d\n\n\u201cAt Muhlberg--killed in the battle of Muhlberg.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhere are you now?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy ask? I am in a lower state.\u201d\n\n\u201cDo you revisit this sphere unless summoned?\u201d\n\n\u201cI am always here, but you cannot see me.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhere are you usually?\u201d\n\n\u201cBy the slaughter houses.\u201d\n\n\u201cDo you move from place to place?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, I follow the Scharfrichter (headsman).\u201d[31]\n\n\u201cWhy?\u201d\n\n\u201cTo watch.\u201d\n\n\u201cAre you bound to?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, I like it.\u201d\n\n\u201cCan you show yourself to us?\u201d\n\n\u201cI do not think so. Help me and I will try.\u201d\n\n\u201cHow can we help you?\u201d\n\n\u201cPlace that bowl of blood at the northern corner of the pentacle.\u201d\n\nI must have started to move forward, for Bentlemeyer shouted at me to\nkeep still, and I realized in a flash that I had nearly been trapped\ninto going beyond the protection of my circle.\n\nThe boy began to chuckle horribly and then suddenly choked. Before our\neyes his face became empurpled, his eyes seemed to start from his head,\nand the tongue protruded. His legs kicked and his hands beat feebly at\nsomething solid--impenetrable--but invisible, that poised in the empty\nair above him.\n\n\u201cStop it, for God\u2019s sake!\u201d I cried to Bentlemeyer.\n\nMy voice awoke him from the creeping paralysis of terror that was\nmastering him, and raising the scroll of the ritual he recovered\nhimself by an effort of will, and uttered the words of the spell of\nrelease.\n\nA swirl of icy cold wind seemed to sweep about us, and I stabbed at the\ninvisible grasp that seemed to be plucking at my garments. Two of the\ncandles went out and the windows rattled violently in their frames.\nThen with frightening suddenness the manifestations ceased.\n\nThe boy was gasping for breath once more and the terror had passed.\n\nNot until the last of the valedictory phrases of the ritual had been\nsaid did either of us dare leave our stations. Then both of us, shocked\nand terrified by what we had seen, went over to the boy Walther.\n\nHe was deeply entranced yet, breathing heavily; the colour had not\nyet ebbed from his face and on his brow were beads and runnels of\nperspiration.\n\nBentlemeyer made a few passes, breathed on his eyelids, and brought him\nround. But there on his uncollared neck was the dark, bruised imprint\nof strangling fingers.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThis experience was phenomenal. We examined the room carefully\nafterwards and came to the conclusion that the couch on which Walther\nwas lying projected at one corner over the circuit of the diagram\nthat should have protected it. The identity of the spirit we could\nnot determine. Whether it was really the spirit of the executioner or\ntorturer, whether it was merely an impersonation by a demon elemental,\nor what particular denizen of the realm of evil it was that came to the\nsummons and the blood bowl I cannot say.\n\nI learnt later that Bentlemeyer was, despite his learning and his\nprofessional standing, a man of notoriously evil and depraved life.\nThere is no doubt that our experiences that evening thoroughly startled\nhim. A brother student of proven reliability told me later that\nBentlemeyer had assured him that he could and did evoke evil spirits,\nand evoke them to execute malicious tricks upon his confr\u00e8res in the\nprofessional world.\n\nIn this connection it is interesting to note that when looking\nthrough his cabinet of magical instruments I saw two small nude waxen\nmodels, male and female. I asked at the time the purpose of these and\nhe explained that they were used by him in a hypnotic experiment\nwith Walther. This was the phenomenon known as externalization of\nsensibility.\n\nUnder hypnosis Walther\u2019s feeling of sensation could be transferred by\nthe operator to any object, such as a glass of water or a waxen doll. A\npin-prick on the surface of the water would be felt by him as an acute\npricking sensation all over the body. When the doll was used, pain was\nfelt by Walther in the precise place where the doll was pricked.[32]\n\nThe hypothesis is that the sorcerer and wizard of the Middle Ages made\nuse of this phenomenon and that their victims were the unconscious\nvictims of hypnosis. Before this hypothesis can be dismissed by the\nsceptic it should be remembered that sorcery flourished best in ages of\nfaith and superstition. An active belief in the powers of sorcery or\nwitchcraft facilitates not only direct suggestion, but also suggestion\non self-hypnosis.\n\nA point of interest is that the effects of sorcery or evil suggestion\nare capable of being remedied by people who understand the subject.\nExorcism is valuable and is as real as sorcery, and it is by no means\na lost art among those occultists who have studied the dark side of\nspirit phenomena in order to know all that we are allowed to know of\nthis dangerous subject.\n\nAbove all things, the Spiritualist who has certain healing qualities in\nconnection with mediumistic gifts should avoid any attempt at exorcism.\nCases have been known when the attempt was successful, but only in\nso far that the evil was transferred from the original victim to the\nwould-be healer. As a rule, the results are bad for both parties. The\nmental and consequently physical dangers of this kind of thing are far\ntoo serious to be lightly meddled with. One cannot insist on this too\nstrongly.\n\n\n                              FOOTNOTES:\n\n[25] Chapter X of Professor Boirac\u2019s _Psychic Science_ \u201cExperimental\nResearches in Sleep Provoked at a Distance.\u201d\n\n[26] See Proceedings of La Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 Universelle d\u2019Etudes Psychiques and\n_Proceedings S.P.R._, V and VIII.\n\n[27] See \u201cGilles de Rais, dit Barbe Bleu.\u201d Bonsard et Maulde, _History\nof Magic_, Chapter VI: \u201cEliphas Levi.\u201d In fiction, Huysman\u2019s _La-Bas_.\n\n[28] For obvious reasons I have suppressed the detail of ritual.\n\n[29] Steinert was the chief adept in the Society of the Illuminati. See\n_Essai sur la Secte des Illumin\u00e9s_, Marquis de Lachet.\n\n[30] Elementals cannot face pointed steel. Probably because the latter\nconcentrates radiations of psychic force from the human body which are\ndestructive to them.\n\n[31] In Germany capital punishment is still carried out by the\nheadsman, who beheads with a sword.\n\n[32] Chapter II, _Psychical and Supernormal Phenomena_, by Dr. Paul\nJoire; Chapter XV, _Psychic Science_, by Emile Boirac, and numerous\nother works give details of this phenomenon.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER VII\n\n                         INCENSE AND OCCULTISM\n\n\nThe ancients possessed amazing secrets concerning psychic knowledge\nof all kinds. Apart from the philosophical tenets held by the various\ndegrees of priestcraft there was a special secret knowledge of what may\nbe called the mechanical side. They knew how to produce phenomena.\n\nThen as now, the specially gifted were used in connection with the\nservice of mysteries, but in all the old cults which attained to\nany degree of organization the arch-priests or hierophants were not\nthemselves mediums, but made use of mediums as instruments. The r\u00f4le\nplayed by the medium was a more or less unimportant one just as to-day\nthe \u201cpsychics\u201d used by the different sects of Tibetan Lamas are\nrelatively unimportant and insignificant members of the priestcraft.\n\nThe priests had, however, other secrets--secrets which on occasion\nconferred the gift of vision on the ordinary non-psychic person.\nSacerdotalism and royalty were closely allied not only in ancient\nEgypt, but throughout the bulk of the mid-Oriental and Byzantine cults.\nThen as now, people demanded proof of miracles and the proof had to be\nforthcoming.\n\nLittle by little, savants have recovered from hieroglyph and papyri,\nfrom stone and manuscript, something of the great rituals and something\nof both the outer and inner forms of these dead faiths.\n\nWe know enough to realize that the adepts possessed the art of\nreleasing the spirit from the body and of producing the trance state\nnot only in individuals but in comparatively large congregations.\n\nThe two hypotheses are the agency of hypnotism and the agency of some\nmechanical or physiological factor such as a drug.\n\nThe possibilities of hypnotism in the form of crowd suggestion cannot\nbe overlooked, but it does not entirely account for some of the\nphenomena that tradition has handed down and which is substituted by\ncontemporary record.\n\nAnalysis of some of these cults shows that the initiates partook of a\nceremonial drink or brew of some kind and that there is a more than\nmystical use of the censer. Nine-tenths of the so-called propitiatory\nritual was symbolic, but there remains an unexplained tenth part whose\nagency was primarily that of mechanical excitant of what one may term\n\u201cpsychism\u201d--those qualities of perception that we class as psychic\ngifts.\n\nIt is precisely these extraordinarily valuable secrets that were\namong the deepest arts of the priestcraft. There was no record of\nthese--nothing direct is to be found in the writings, and although\nit is possible to recover the philosophic bases of the myths these\nrule-of-thumb mysteries still elude us.\n\nAfter all, many other similar secrets, and even fairly well-known\ncommon facts of antiquity, have been lost to us. We do not know the\ncomposition of the celebrated Roman fish sauce \u201cgarum.\u201d We cannot tell\nwhat are the ingredients of Stradivarius\u2019 violin varnishes or some old\nmaster\u2019s colours. Nevertheless, it is unreasonable to suppose that the\nnecessary materials have vanished from the earth. We have the whole\nknown world to ransack for them where the ancients had only a limited\nand circumscribed number of plants, beasts, and minerals from which to\ngather their ingredients.\n\nThe function of some drugs is to produce mental effects, visions,\nhallucinations, dreams, and phantoms. The logical assumption is that\nthe ancients knew certain rule-of-thumb methods of utilizing some forms\nof these drugs in such a way as to loosen the hold of the body (and the\nconsciousness) upon the mind, and to produce an artificial state of\nclairvoyance.\n\nThe wizard of the Middle Ages was also a doctor, and it is claimed that\nthe familiar that inhabited the sword of Paracelsus--which sword he\nalways had by him and could never be parted from--was none other than a\ncertain amount of opium concealed in the hollow pommel.[33]\n\nThe function of hypnotic drugs is known to a point. That is to say, we\nknow what effect is produced on a normal individual by a given dose of\nan unknown drug, but in nine cases out of ten we do not know precisely\nhow this effect is brought about and have few clues to the series of\nphysiological reactions that bring about the mental state.\n\nThe connection between a physical draught and a mental state is\nindicated throughout the history of magic. Ceremonial libations, ritual\nconsumption of potions or \u201cdevil\u2019s brews\u201d of one kind and another are\npart and parcel of the traditions of necromancy and sorcery.\n\nThe connection between these hypnotic draughts and the practice of\npoisoning was not clearly perceived by most writers of the past.\nSorcery and poisoning were indeed twin practices of the Middle Ages,\nfor where the spell might fail white arsenic would succeed, but it\nis not fair to class all magical potions as preparations of secret\npoisons, although in point of fact most of the hypnotic drugs are toxic.\n\nThe methods of administering the drugs are two--namely, by draught,\nthat is to say by direct consumption, and inhalation. The function\nof the incense used in thaumaturgical ceremonies was primarily to\nintoxicate the audience.\n\nJust as the Pythoness of the Delphic oracles inhaled the vapours of\nthe magic cave, so the Egyptians inhaled prepared incenses in their\ntemples. The casting of herbs upon the fire, the burning of prepared\nsacrificial candles or flambeaux, all these play their part in the\nmechanical induction of the psychic state.\n\nFrankincense and myrrh, and in particular gum benzoin, possess soothing\nproperties that affect the throat and nasal passages. Besides being\npleasant, these gums formed an excellent vehicle for disguising the\nscent of other matters and preventing their spasmodic or instant action\non the throat.\n\nThe kyphic or incense of ancient Egypt[34] was compounded of myrrh,\ngum-mastic, aromatic rush roots, resin, and juniper berries. To these\naromatics were added small quantities of symbolic elements, such as\ngrapes, honey and wine, and a portion of bitumen or _asphateum_,\nwhose purpose might be either symbolic or to serve as a binding medium\nfor the mass.\n\nIn addition to these, various spices and perfumes were used. Cinnamon\nbark, sandalwood, cardamom, and even ambergris and musk. The influence\nof scent upon the emotions is well known and the Egyptians favoured the\nuse of ambra and musk as definitely aphrodisiacal perfumes. To-day pure\nessence of patchouli is used in the Orient to serve the same end, and\nanybody who has ever smelt a vial of the pure oil will recognize the\ninstant disturbance of certain nerve centres that it produces.\n\nThe clue to the secret of the ancient incense lies not in what we have\nbeen able to recover from the papyri, but in the word itself. Kyphi\nis recognizable to-day in \u201ckeef,\u201d the popular name for the smokable\nvariety of the herb cannabis indica.\n\nCannabis indica is none other than our old friend hashish, the\nhaseesh of the writers of the time of the Crusades, who gave us those\ndescriptions of the Old Man of the Mountains and his Hasch-hassins.\nFrom them we get our commonplace word--assassin.\n\nIt is not, after all, a far cry from the mysteries of Osiris in Egypt\nto the Thammus or _Dumuri-absu_ of Syria and Babylon.\n\n    \u201cThammuz came next behind\n    Whose annual wound in Lebanon allured\n    The Syrian damsels to lament his fate\n    In amorous ditties all a summer\u2019s day,\u201d\n\nsays Milton.\n\nOsiris and Thammus \u201cdied\u201d annually, and mimicry of the symbolic event\nwas the basis of all ritual. In the mysteries the initiates \u201cdied,\u201d\ntoo, but the death was no mere formula, but an actually induced state\nof stupor of deep trance brought about by the fumes of the \u201ckeef.\u201d\n\nThese secrets lingered long in Lebanon, where to this day the\nCrypto-christianity of the Druses may be identified with many of the\nactual practices of magic.\n\nThe master of the Assassins was a master hypnotist, using the dark\nknowledge of certain parts of the mechanical ritual of magic to gain\nhis mastery over the Moslem youths he sent as fanatics to do his\nbidding.\n\nThere in the Lebanon he created his artificial paradise of sensuous\ndelight, drugged dreams and slumber. His commands laid upon his slaves\nwere no ordinary commands--but spells as black as any weaved by sorcery.\n\nThe master lodge of this cult of the Assassins was at Cairo and the\nmysteries were only transferred to their new setting in the Lebanon by\nHassan ibn Sabbah at the end of the eleventh century. Outwardly Moslem,\nthe inner mysteries had no connection with either Mohammedan or any\nother religion, and indeed the cult seems to be in many ways a kind of\nbastard Masonic organization.\n\nNominally a Moslem sect of Ismailites, the organization was under a\ncommander, the _Sheik-al-Tebel_, or Chief of the Mountains, who\nwas served by minor chiefs or priors--the three _Dai-al-kirbal_.\nFollowing these came the _Dais_ or adepts, and below them three\nminor grades, _Refigos_, _Fedais_, and _Lasigos_.[35]\n\nThe Fedais or \u201centered apprentice\u201d grade furnished the rank and file of\nthe fanatical executants of the paramount will, and these Fedais, who\nwere customarily mentally and physically pathic, never rose above this\nstep in the mysteries.\n\nThe Society of the Assassins was nominally suppressed by Halaga,\nthe Mogul invader of the middle of the thirteenth century, but the\nknowledge, the secrets, and the traditions endured and still endure to\nthis day.\n\nThe organization was undoubtedly an evil one; it also had nothing to\ndo with Masonry, but it is an interesting example of an occult society\nwhose powers affected the course of history, and methods of working\nwere essentially based upon mechanical rather than spiritual methods of\nproducing a certain state of mind.\n\nThe effect of hashish is a very difficult thing to define. Essentially\na hypnotic--an annihilator of time and space and a stimulant of\nhallucinations--it is also a drug largely dependent on the idiosyncracy\nof the individual. The same does not necessarily produce equivalent\nresults in individuals of differing temperament, and for all practical\npurposes the psychic value of the dose varies inversely with the\nstandard of intelligence of the recipient. Also, when dealing with\nsubjects of dual or multiple personality, it tends to liberate the more\nviolent and uncontrolled of the individualities.\n\nHashish is absorbed rapidly. Cases have been known where a little of\nthe extract used as an anodyne in corn plasters has been absorbed and\nproduced hallucinatory state. As a smoke, veiled by incense or mixed\nwith tobacco, rapid intoxication results from its inhalation. This was\none of the keys--perhaps the greatest of the keys--to the storehouse of\nthose treasures of the mind which are the time Elixir, the True Gold of\nthe Magi.\n\nIn actual practice there is a preliminary state of suggestibility under\nthe influence of hashish when the operator can exercise his will upon\nthat of the subject. This stage is soon passed over and in the later\ndream states suggestion is inoperative.\n\nThe modern pharmacist has lost the secret of the herb whose therapeutic\nfunction is to control the action of the cannabis indica, so that the\nsubject remained in the suggestible state and did not pass on to the\nlater stages of hallucinatory visions.\n\nWe may take it that so far as the old world is concerned, the half\nof the secret has been recovered, but the balancing or deterrent\nherb is still unrecognized by the pharmacop\u0153ia and known only to a\nspecialist few among experimental occultists. Just as hashish itself\nis missing from the recipient, the Ebers papyri, so is the balancing\ncoefficient.[36]\n\nOn the other hand, the same secret of priestcraft is known on the\nother side of the Atlantic. We may or may not believe in the myth\nof lost Atlantis and the transmitted ritual, but both the Zaquis of\nSonora and the Tamachecks of Guatemala possess a ritual observance in\nwhich cannabis Americana, a new cousin of the cannabis indica, is the\nstimulant agent.\n\nOther tribes use a brew of the mescal bean, but this is a purely\nAmerican species and the active principle anhalonium,[37] does not act\non precisely the same nerve centres as the cannabinote principle of the\nhemps.\n\nIn both cases the induction of a species of intoxication by means of\nthe sacred herbs gathered in certain lunar or astrological aspects\nis held by the natives to be the basis of the communion with the\nspirits of the departed dead. The Spiritualist believes that there are\nspirits of the dead, the physiologist claims that the \u201cspirits\u201d are\nhallucinatory or that they are merely reflex as from the subconscious\nmind of the individual or of other individuals. This twin explanation\nruns through all psychic phenomena, but not until all phenomena known\nto be produced by Spiritualist circles can be produced under hypnosis\nwill the Spiritualist theory be finally disproved.\n\nThe rank and file of Spiritualists are unaware that the scientific\nworld has a demonstrable answer to nine-tenths of the wonder that\nthe believing Spiritualist is convinced can only occur by means of\ndiscarnate spirit intelligences. But the honest investigator should\nbear in mind that only certain rare phenomena remain unchallenged and\nare at present unattainable by practising psychologists.\n\nWhen the phenomena of materialization--the externalization of\nforce--are producible by hypnotists, then the whole spirit hypothesis\nis imperilled, for the scientists will be able to produce these effects\nnot by spirit intervention but at the behest of human will.\n\nStill, for the moment, the uncritical white, like the barbarous Indian,\nis justified in his belief in external spirit agency as the only\nexplanation for the apparently miraculous.\n\nA friend of mine who had been a member of an exploring expedition whose\nmission was to trace a tributary of the river Usmacinta in Chiapas on\nthe Mexico-Guatemala border to its source in the volcanic country round\nthe unknown Lago de Peten, made a careful study of the ritual of the\nTamachacks.\n\nThese people still carry out a pre-Columbian religion which antedates\nthat of the Aztec and Toltec civilizations both of Mexico and the\nYucatan peninsula.\n\nEssentially symbolic in that it takes into account primitive nature and\nancestor worship, the basis of the cult is the evocation of the spirits\nof the departed dead for tribal and personal counsel and consultation.\nThe means employed in the production of the psychic state is the smoke\nof the _cannabis americana_. The native name of this herb is\n_marihuana_.\n\nThe following is my friend\u2019s description of one of the actual native\nceremonies at which he was present:\n\n\u201cWe were up in the Intamal country about four days\u2019 hard river\ntravelling beyond the San Cristobal frontier. Little by little,\nthe isolated plantations disappeared, and soon we were deep in the\nuntouched jungle country where there are only native villages.\n\n\u201cThat day I was with the advance party, and as we were making a fairly\ncomplete cadastral survey of our route, we deviated slightly toward a\nlargish jungle-covered hill that would furnish us with an excellent\ncommanding position for triangulation.\n\n\u201cMy native peons were carrying our little transit theodolite and we\nwere following a native track that led toward the hill when our party\nwas suddenly surrounded.\n\n\u201cA whistle blew in the jungle and out from the bush came semi-nude\nIndians variously armed. A few had trade guns, but the bulk carried the\ninevitable machete, while a minority had short bows and long quivers of\nobsidian-headed arrows.\n\n\u201cThey offered us no overt violence, but made it abundantly clear that\nthey resented any party attempting to scale their hill. Most of the\ndialogue was in the native tongue, a debased agglutinative inflective\nspeech similar to Nanhatl. The leader, who wore a peculiar breastplate\nof featherwork, could, however, talk Spanish comparatively fluently.\n\n\u201cMy greatest trouble was to induce him to understand that we were not\na prospecting party and were not after gold. Talk with our men who had\nbeen with us some months finally reassured him. A chance compliment\nof mine about his feather breastplate, which was of quetzal feathers,\nopened the magic door to me.\n\n\u201cIt was astonishing to that Indian, who had probably not seen a hundred\nwhite men, as distinct from Mexicans, in all his life, to find in me a\nman who knew more about the mythological importance of the quetzal bird\nthan he knew himself.\n\n\u201cMy work on the ruined cities of Yucatan and my studies of the Mittall\ncodices and similar work had given me a sound knowledge of the worship\nof Quetzalcoatl the god of the Morning Star, to whom the wonderful\nemerald-plumaged quetzal bird is sacred.\n\n\u201cTo cut a long story short, I arranged things with the head-man so\nthat we could camp in his village that night. The people were kindly,\nonce they understood that we were not gold hunters and meant no harm,\nand my friend the head-man, having introduced me to certain elders and\ndiscussed with them my knowledge of their almost extinct faith, invited\nme to be present as a participant in a religious feast to be held that\nnight.\n\n\u201cThe feast was that of the Cozca cuaptli--the feast of vultures, birds\nas important in the Mayan underworld as in the Egyptian ceremonies.\n\n\u201cShortly after dusk I left the village with them, going alone and to\nall external seeming unarmed. We made a long journey through the bush,\nclimbing higher all the time, and I realized that we were actually on\nthe sacred hill that they had forbidden us to ascend.\n\n\u201cHere and there along the route we were stopped by sentries or guards,\nbut at last gained the top of the hill. Here, encircled by trees, was a\nflat table top or plateau a few acres in extent.\n\n\u201cRising on the plateau was a series of three square terraces\nculminating in a small ruined building, roofless yet sound as to its\nwalls. The lowest plateau was packed with Indians; on the second were\ncongregated the elect--the tribal seniors and the priests. Above them a\nfigure or two moved in the building.\n\n\u201cMy friends took some time explaining my presence, and it was obvious\nthat I was regarded with dark disfavour by the mass of the natives.\nSoon it dawned on me that I was under guard, an unobtrusive guard, but\nnevertheless under guard. At last I was taken to the high priest of the\nceremonial.\n\n\u201cHe was a wonderful old Indian who spoke the accented Latin Spanish of\nforgotten generations. He examined me, and though I could not reply to\ncertain mysterious ritualistic questions that he put to me, he was at\nlength satisfied that I had an efficient working knowledge not only\nof his ritual but of its underlying astronomical and philosophical\nsignificance. Eventually he was satisfied, and on a word from him I\nwas taken in hand by two native youths who bound a fillet of red-dyed\nwool worked with feather devices round my brow and gave me a peeled\nrod surmounted by a vulture\u2019s skull to hold as a wand of office. Over\nmy clothes was put a loose dark brown cotton robe sewn with charms and\ntrimmed at each shoulder with tufts of sombre plumage.\n\n\u201cThus dressed I took my place among the elders. For a while nothing\nhappened, then slowly the noise of the crowd died down and expectancy\ngave place to clamour. From somewhere in the forest came the sudden\nrhythm of native drums seemingly casual, inopportune, and meaninglessly\ncadenced.\n\n\u201cLittle by little the monotony of the drum throbbing became more\ninsistent, more definitely rhythmical. A brazier in the temple building\nbegan to glow red, and far below in the valley mists we could see a\ngroup of flaring torches dancing like fireflies as their bearers scaled\nthe difficult trail.\n\n\u201cSuddenly the voice of the chief priest rose in a high-pitched wailing\ncall, and as he hailed, a new and brilliant star seemed to spring into\nbeing over the dark crest of a nearby hill.\n\n\u201cThe assemblage bowed to the star and broke into a wailing Indian chant\nthat kept time to the beating of the hidden throbbing drums.\n\n\u201cAfter the prayer came the dance. To the centre of the second terrace\nbearers carried what looked like a bundle of blankets; then nude\nbut for feather adornments, the young initiates came forward in\nprocessional dance. Every tenth man held a torch, and the dancers\ncarried out a long ballet symbolical of the burial or consumption of\nthe mortal body of the vultures.\n\n\u201cThey hopped grotesquely like the ill-omened zopilotes or scavenger\nvultures they initiated. A querulous clucking accompaniment was uttered\nby the chorus of spectators and the files of bronze bodies advanced and\nretreated, swayed and circled in slow-hopping processions around the\nblanketed heap upon the ground that represented the body.\n\n\u201cSuddenly the drum rhythm changed and a curious whistling pipe music\nwas heard. The heap of blankets stirred and rattled, from the heap\nan arm flung out white bones, a skull rolled to the feet of the\nspectators, then the blankets were flung aside and an Indian youth,\ncompletely nude, but painted white and marked with ritual signs, leapt\nfrom the pile.\n\n\u201cRising to his full height he donned a towering feather headdress of\nhumming bird and quetzal feathers which gleamed like a myriad jewels in\nthe torchlight.\n\n\u201cThree times the spectators claimed him as the risen God, then the\ndrums broke out into a violent triumphant dance in an infectious\nmeasure in which both dancers and spectators joined.\n\n\u201cIn the meantime a cloth or canvas housing had been drawn over the\nroofless temple by minor priests. The brazier was carried inside, and\nsuddenly the Boy God, leaving the dancers, ascended the steps and\nentered the prepared pavilion.\n\n\u201cAs suddenly the drums fell silent and the shrill pipes alone kept up\nthe eerie tune.\n\n\u201cMy friend touched me on the shoulder, the seated elders rose, and,\nfollowing the high priest, we made our way into the sanctuary.\n\n\u201cRanging ourselves along the walls we sat down in an open square. In\nthe centre was the youth stretched on a skin-covered native bedstead,\nat its head the brazier.\n\n\u201cSwiftly the door was sealed with skin mats; then to the accompaniment\nof a muttered ritual and much raising and lowering of skull-tipped\nwands, the priest cast herbs into the brazier. The heavy smoke wreathed\nabout in the close room and a sense of languor fell upon me.\n\n\u201cRight and left I could hear the elders inhaling the vapour, then one\nafter another they succumbed to its influence. Then came an invocation\nto the spirits, and the old men began to talk to spirits that they\nalone could see among the hazy, drug-laden smoke of the lodge.\n\n\u201cAs if inspired, the boy uttered oracular wisdom, now answering\nquestions put to him, now declaiming what he had heard the spirits\nsay. Slowly the drug gained in its effect over me. The painted leather\nscreens on the rude walls became instinct with life, the crude stone\ncarving seemed alive and writhing, and all the air seemed charged with\nflashing processions of colours and sonorous music.\n\n\u201cI must have been overcome by the fumes, for I remember nothing more\ntill I came to in the dawn-light in one of the terraces outside the\nbuilding. They gave me a calabash of herb-scented goat\u2019s milk to drink,\nand in a moment or two my brain cleared.... I made it my interest to\nget some of the marihuana herb, which I send you.\u201d\n\nAnalysis of the marihuana revealed that it contained about twenty-five\nper cent. admixture of other herbs in addition to the main base of\n_cannabis americana_. A gum or sap exudation of an aromatic nature\nserved to bind the mass together.\n\nA personal experiment carried out with a small portion of the mixture\nproved that identical hallucinatory results could be induced by its\nuse in a London room as well as on the top of a Guatemalan Tescalli.\nOf a party of four, three saw colour visions, two heard music, and one\ndescribed figures of Mazan mythology with some exactness. As, however,\nwe all know the origin of the incense and its connection, these latter\nvisions may be more properly ascribed to suggestion than held to have\nobjective existence as spirit phenomena.\n\nThere is reason to believe that other plants, and possibly some\nsynthetic products, have the same peculiar properties of the liberation\nof the \u201cpsyche.\u201d In the same way, although consumption as a draught or\nas an inhaled smoke veiled by incense are the ritual ways of achieving\na physiological result, the same might be achieved by spraying a\nsolution into the air, by absorption through the skin (this may have\nbeen the _raison d\u2019\u00eatre_ of some \u201cwitch ointments\u201d), or by\nhypodermic injection.\n\nNeedless to say, any attempt to experiment in these matters is\nextremely unwise and dangerous.\n\n\n                              FOOTNOTES:\n\n[33] _Paracelsus_, Fr. A. Rufini.\n\n[34] See Ebers papyri.\n\n[35] See _Geschichte der Asassinen_. By T. von Hammer. Burgstall, _Un\nGrand Ma\u00eetre des Assassins au Temps du Saladin_. Also _Ars Quatuo\nCoronati_, Vol. ----\n\n[36] The public interest would not be served by the revelation of the\nsecond missing ingredient, but it is now known.\n\n[37] See monograph on _Mescal_ by Havelock Ellis.\n\n\n\n\n                             CHAPTER VIII\n\n                         BEASTS AND ELEMENTALS\n\n\nThe apparitions customarily seen by those who are clairvoyant or\npsychic are those that take human form.\n\nIn many cases they represent known humans who have passed over, but\nsometimes we are brought into contact with non-human apparitions.\n\nThese may be semi-human or demoniac forms, they may be animal forms, or\nthey may be simply manifestations of elemental forces. Discarding the\ntrumpery attempts at classification that have been advanced by one or\ntwo writers of so-called \u201cghost stories,\u201d it must be recognized that\nthe occultist is faced with problems that cannot be readily reduced or\nexplained by any logical hypothesis.\n\nThe Spiritualist approaches the question according to set theories.\n\u201cSpirits,\u201d says he, \u201ccan do anything. They take what shape they will.\nWhy they do so is a mystery.\u201d\n\nThe woman Spiritualist is usually as open to believe that the spirit\nof her beloved Pekingese or Pomeranian can return in astral form, and\nascribes it to the influences of love. \u201cLove me, love my dog,\u201d appears\nto furnish as good an explanation of animal manifestation as any.\n\nOn the other hand, when you get some absolutely extraordinary\nmanifestations such as the seal that appeared to Sir Garnet\nWolseley,[38] or the materialization of vampire bats, partially\ndeveloped monkeys or a full-sized goat,--and I have known all these to\noccur,--then the love theory falls down badly, and we must seek a more\nreasonable explanation.\n\nIf we accept the idea of discarnate spirit intelligences we certainly\nshould not accept them all at face value as good. The bulk of humanity\nthat has passed over has not been good, or for the matter of that,\nChristian.\n\nAssuming that these spirits were human, but took bestial form for\npurposes of their own, we may find some glimmerings of support for a\nnew theory when we realize that in the past and in the present idolatry\nprevails. The idols of savages are usually totemistic. And they held\nthat the identity of soul persisted after death, not in a new human\nexistence but as a rebirth in animal form.\n\nTo a large extent, totemistic paganism was mixed up with licentious\nand bestial festivals, useful in assuring the continuance and\nmultiplication of a savage tribe, but evolving practices repugnant to\nWestern ethics.\n\nThe beasts that come back--are beastly. The ghost dog that scratches\nand paws and leaps into its mistress\u2019s lap is a very different thing to\nthat which it pretends to be. When we reach the foulness of the goat or\nbat manifestations we feel with no shadow of doubt that we are in touch\nwith the unmasked spirits of evil. Not only visible form, but touch\nand smell are present. We are brought into distinct contact with the\nsardonic mocking terror that lies on the other side of life.\n\nThe border between the brutal and blood-lusting savage and the demon,\nis a slender one. The conception of a singularly evil earth-bound\nnegro spirit who has believed in an after-life in which his soul will\ninhabit the body of an ape or a leopard, comes very close to the\naccepted idea of a devil or demon.\n\nWe get something of the same basic conception in the idea of the\nwer-wolf or vampire, and there is a singular reinforcement of\nthis theory in that in the Dark Ages when paganism was yielding\nreluctantly to the inroads of the Christian faith, the early fathers\nexplicitly identified such animal manifestations with the sorcery of\npaganism. The fantastic gargoyles that ornament cathedrals are simply\ntraditionalizations of that period when these beast incarnations in all\ntheir devilishness contended against the spread of a purer faith.\n\nSometimes it chances that we, in this twentieth century, by accident\nopen a door through which a tenth-century devil can creep in.\n\nOther occultists, notably those of the Viennese school, hold that the\nbeast manifestations are not forms or shapes assumed by evil spirits\nthat have been mortal, but are, as it were, living evil thought-forms,\nand are the incarnation of dead and evil cults on which a great deal\nof human thought-energy had been expended during some time in the\nworld\u2019s history.\n\nProof is not possible, and it is not yet the time to marshal the facts\nwhich would seem to indicate that a dead cultus can yet live on,\nsupported, as it were, by the emotional sin of the present-day world,\nalthough the sin is divorced from its old ritual significance. This\ntheory of the continuation of the sacrificial value of sin is of course\none of the most serious aspects of the art of sorcery. Propitiation\nand symbolism are often linked up in a way that perplexes the most\nagile-witted student of the occult, and it may well be that certain\nseemingly innocent ritual acts have contributed their quota to the\nmaintenance of life in certain forgotten cults--whose entities come\nsuddenly into being again in a most alarming manner.\n\nTo the occultist who thinks this matter out, the identity of beast\nmaterializations with incarnate prototypes of sin will probably be\nmanifest.\n\nAs it is, the essential quality of the evil that these entities typify\nand attempt to induce does not become apparent from a chance unsought\nmaterialization, but the medium who sees \u201canimals\u201d is suspect.\n\nRepeated evocations of these entities lead to disaster. The beast\nbecomes an obsession and is to all intents and purposes the old\n\u201cfamiliar\u201d of the days of witchcraft.\n\nFor reasons which are hinted at above, but which cannot be more fully\nexpounded in a book of this nature, the beast materialization is a\nphenomenon which should be avoided at all costs. If such occurs at a\ns\u00e9ance, break off the sitting at once. If these phenomena appear to be\nconnected with any particular medium, there are the gravest reasons for\nseeking another sensitive. Above all things, avoid people who claim\nthat the spirits of pet animals have come back to them.\n\nThe cynic may contend that it is folly to be afraid of the spirits of\npoor dumb animals and yet invite communication with the mortal dead.\nThe occultist and the mystic who know something of the mysteries will,\nhowever, see the reasons. To-day, when thousands are interested in\npsychical matters, knowledge has been forgotten or trampled underfoot.\nThe well-meaning, loud-voiced blind lead myriads to a new heaven,\nacclaiming hell vanquished because in their rapturous exultation over\nnew discoveries of old things they have forgotten the absolute rule of\nbalance. Positive and Negative, Good and Bad, Strong and Weak, Plus or\nMinus.\n\nThere is balance in all things, and this sudden acclamation of the\nUnseen World as all good, all easy, and quite safe, is perfectly\nridiculous.\n\nOccultism is not either good, safe, nor amusing for the vast majority\nof people. Spiritualism as generally practised is a kind of beneficent\nbobbing into the Tom Tiddler\u2019s ground of the Unseen. There is a\npleasing conceit that if the Powers of Evil turn up it will be enough\nto utter a Protestant prayer and say that because you are \u201cgood\u201d a bogy\ncan\u2019t touch you.\n\nThis is a rather childish way of treating the Powers--in point of fact,\nit does not work, it is very much like saying that lightning cannot\nstrike you because you have rubber heels to your boots.\n\nIt is a melancholy reflection that the very people who go about reading\nlittle handbooks on \u201cKnowledge is Power,\u201d never realize that it is the\nright use of knowledge that means Power and that sometimes the coming\nof Power without knowledge spells catastrophe for all concerned.\n\nBesides the dangerous and perplexing beast manifestations, there is a\nthird class of phenomenon which is manifestly neither human nor animal,\nbut bears a close relationship to Elemental Forces such as Fire, Air,\nor Water. These phenomena are the only ones properly described as due\nto elementals, but a certain confusion has arisen through the use of\nthis word as applied to all spirit phenomena which were not broadly\nclassifiable as human.\n\nGhosts, giant appearances, and ferocious and evil spirits of all kinds\nhave been described as elementals, so that the word has lost its real\nprecision. Originally all these outside spirits not known as the souls\nof mortals were classed as being spirits of Earth or Fire, Air, or\nWater, and by this arbitrary relation to the elements became known as\nElementals.\n\nIn effect only phenomena where no apparent organic or physical\nmaterialization or incarnation of any kind occurs should be classified\nas purely elemental.\n\nOf these the heat elemental is a phenomenon that is occasionally\nobserved. Air or wind phenomena are also known, but I know of no case\nwhere earth or water phenomena apart from \u201capports\u201d by a materialized\npresence claiming to be an earth or water elemental, have been noted.\nTo my mind the organic presence destroys the evidential value of the\nlatter accounts due to the effect of elementals as distinct from\nspirits.\n\nThe elementals are properly those intelligences (the word spirits\nconveys a wrong implication) that are termed in the old rituals the\nPowers of Fire, Air, Earth, and Water. In magic it was held that these\nPowers were served by spirits, but there is reason to suppose that this\nview rose from the too literal interpretation of the old rituals and\nmaltranslation of the occult \u201cGrimoires\u201d of the fifteenth and sixteenth\ncenturies.\n\nThe appearance of these elementals is rare and sporadic, usually\nassociated with a place or an individual rather than with the sitting\nof a s\u00e9ance.\n\nSometimes the individual afflicted by the elemental is affected in\na negative manner--that is to say, he is immune to the effect of\nfire or heat or has the power of inducing enormous draughts and air\ndisturbances in confined space without knowing why.\n\nThese cases are difficult, and though a \u201cfireproof\u201d medium who can\ncarry live coals in his hand may claim it to be due to the effect of\na fire-elemental control, it must be remembered that in many cases\nautosuggestion will induce an extension of the protective ecto- or\npsychoplasm which is equally effective.[39] The South Sea and Indian\nfanatics who walk across red-hot stones indubitably possess this\nself-contained power.\n\nI have only a second-hand instance of a pure heat elemental to relate.\nThis was communicated to me by a very well-known mountain painter whom\nwe will call Calvin Muir.\n\nHe had been down in the Welsh Marches where the low foothills of the\nmountains just change into stretches of rocky moors above the low-lying\nwooded valleys.\n\nMuir was by habit and training a keen observer. He was also a Frater\nof the Rosicrucian Society and had a wide general knowledge of many\nstrange aspects of occultism.\n\n\u201cI was staying down at Pwhyll-gor, a little hill village with a few\ncottages and two inns of small attractiveness,\u201d said he. \u201cI had been\nthere some six weeks or so, sketching and wandering and doing a little\ntrout fishing when the mood took me. One evening I found the taproom\nlearnedly discussing the blight that was affecting an orchard in a\nnearby farm.\n\n\u201cAccording to them, half the affected trees appeared burnt or seared\nand there was great discussion whether lightning could strike without a\nconcurrent storm or thunderclap.\n\n\u201cOthers held that it was probably a mischievous trick by small boys,\nbut one old man declared it had happened before in the same district\nin his father\u2019s time and that it was due to \u2018owl blasting.\u2019\n\n\u201cThis, it seemed, was a form of witchcraft or magic, but more closely\nrelated to the malevolent forces of nature than to mortal ill will. He\nwas not communicative, but disclosed enough to make me determine to\nvisit the farm next day.\n\n\u201cI found it up on the hillside in a little natural valley or gap where\na few fertile acres had been reclaimed. It was a poor enough small\nhomestead, bleak and barren, and the wretched little orchard was poor\nenough in all conscience without suffering supernatural violences.\n\n\u201cThe farmer\u2019s wife received me and made no secret of her troubles.\nTogether we went out to view the damage, and I found two cider-apple\ntrees whose foliage and fruit had been literally burnt in an area as\nlarge as a good-sized cart wheel.\n\n\u201cThat was the queer thing about it, the close circular or rather\nspherical limits of the damage. It was just as if a red-hot round bite\nhad been taken out of the thick of the tree, and left the neighbour\ntwigs and leaves unsinged--unseared.\n\n\u201cThey had no explanation to offer except lightning, and it was manifest\nthey had no real belief in that. I suggested boys, but was told there\nwas but one about the farm--even as I made the suggestion I knew it was\nfutile; but what would you?\n\n\u201cI asked when the calamity occurred, and they told me in full daytime\nbetween dawn and lunch. In the morning all had been well in the\norchard--by noon two trees half ruined, and no one had seen sight of\nsmoke or flame, nor sound.\n\n\u201cThe suggestion of \u2018owl blasting\u2019 brought no response. They were\nstrangers to the country, having come some ten years ago from Swansea\nway.\n\n\u201c\u2018It\u2019s the hills,\u2019 said the woman.\n\n\u201c\u2018Well,\u2019 said I, \u2018another watcher will do no harm. Can you give me a\nshakedown, and to-morrow I will go out with my easel and stay sketching\nthe orchard.\u2019\n\n\u201cShe assented without enthusiasm, and I spent that night at the farm.\n\n\u201cThe farmer was no wiser and rather surlier than his wife, but both\nwere manifestly oppressed with fear. Their boy alone was cheerful and\nunmoved.\n\n\u201cThe next day I rose at cock-crow, passed through the orchard and out\non to the hills to a patch of rock and heather some two hundred yards\naway.\n\n\u201cBy seven o\u2019clock I had watched in a good stretch of the farm and the\norchard in which not a soul had moved. All at once, I stood with my\nbrush poised in amazement, as there high above the trees was poised a\nsmall, blue-yellow lambent flame that seemed to drift sideways in the\nwindless air.\n\n\u201cFor a moment I thought it was a fire balloon, then saw my error.\nWithout a thought I ran toward it just in time to see it settle down on\nto a tree whose leaves in a moment turned from green to darkening brown\nand burst almost immediately into crackling flame. My cries brought out\nthe boy and the woman from the house and on their coming it vanished\nand we were left gazing at the damage it had done.\n\n\u201cI told them what I had seen, and the woman suddenly put her apron\nover her face and burst into tears. We sent the boy to fetch her\nhusband, who came in a marked state of worry and agitation.\n\n\u201cI could not follow the quick interchange of Welsh words that ensued.\nThe man then asked me who had told me of \u2018owl blasting,\u2019 and together\nwe went to the village to find the old man.\n\n\u201cIt appeared that a month or so back the farmer had used some old\nrocks which were part of the ring of a Cromlech to rebuild one of his\nstone walls. This, according to the old man, had brought down the \u2018owl\nblasting\u2019 upon him.\n\n\u201cPainstakingly they dragged the stones back to their original place,\nand I believe certain ceremonial was gone through at the next quarter\nof the moon.\n\n\u201cThe precise things done were kept secret from me, for I was a stranger\nand suspect, but I gathered enough to understand that a mercenary\ndestruction or disturbance of Druidic remains brought its own reward.\n\n\u201cAll that I can say is that a ball of fire came out of clear sky\nquite slowly and destroyed part of the foliage of an apple tree under\nconditions precluding any human agency.\u201d\n\nThe above is Calvin Muir\u2019s account. To an occultist the connection\nbetween the Power of Fire and the violation of a Cromlech is\nconvincing, but it is difficult to conceive in what manner the Powers\nwere propitiated.\n\nScientific people have suggested slow-drying phosphorus solution as\nan explanation of an apparently supernatural occurrence. Muir, on the\nother hand, was positive that it was a true manifestation of a fire\nelemental, and that the old man who knew about \u201cowl blasting\u201d was not\nan interested or malevolent party in a peasant\u2019s plot.\n\nSo far, no hypothesis that will serve as a rational explanation of all\nthe facts has ever been advanced.\n\n\n                              FOOTNOTES:\n\n[38] Mr. Gambier Bolton, who was present, assures me of the reality of\nthis inexplicable incident.\n\n[39] The really genuine fire medium can hold a red-hot coal or glowing\nasbestos from the gas fire on the palm of the hand for two minutes. No\nshorter duration of time should be accepted.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER IX\n\n                              POSSESSION\n\n\nFrom time to time we come across cases of demoniacal possession. In\nthese there is apparently the permanent or temporary domination of\nthe soul or mind of the victim by an evil spirit or demon of alien\npersonality.\n\nCases of possession are invariably claimed as \u201cproofs\u201d of the existence\nof spirit intelligence, and in cases where the possession is nominally\nat least a mild one the possessed are sometimes quite proud of it. It\nis, in fact, exhibited as quaint and dreadful deformity would be--the\nphrase is exact. It is a mental deformity.\n\nNow, it must be understood that the psychologists have of late years\nmade enormous strides in their knowledge of the vagaries of the\nsubconscious mind. Possession, like \u201cshell shock,\u201d is in ninety-nine\ncases out of a hundred a perfectly curable disease. It springs\nfrom a perversion of the subconscious state, can be diagnosed by\npsychoanalysis and eradicated by transference or by suggestion.\n\nThe processes of Christian exorcism often attained the same result.\nThe wise priest was able to \u201ccast out demons,\u201d and medical science of\nto-day, working by analytical methods rather than by rule-of-thumb,\nachieves the same results.\n\nWhether one accepts the scientific theory that these \u201cpossessions\u201d\nare but multiple personalities and that there may be several mental\npersonalities in the one mind, or whether one believes the idea of\nspirit influence, does not much matter. In any case the doors of\nthe mind can be firmly locked on either spirit or mental disease.\nPossession is curable--if the patient really desires to be cured.\n\nPossession can be readily evoked in nearly all hypnotic subjects. Not\nonly one but several distinct personalities can be developed by the\npsychologist. Janet\u2019s experiments developed in Madame B. three separate\nindividuals: L\u00e9onie, known in the waking state as a \u201cpossessor\u201d;\nL\u00e9ontine under the light stage of hypnosis, and L\u00e9onore in a deeper\ncondition.[40]\n\nEven a popular knowledge and comprehension of this peculiar disease\nof the subconscious is difficult to attain without a sound elementary\ngrasp of the principles of psychology. The bulk of books on the subject\nare written for the medical or scientific mind, but Coriat\u2019s book is a\nsound and easily grasped introductory manual.[41]\n\nThe normal form of mental trouble is an obsession, the fear or \u201cphobia\u201d\nof some perfectly normal thing, a desire to touch objects. There\nare dozens of variations of these obsessions which spring to mind.\nThe state of possession can only be said to exist when the mind is\nunder the dominance of another individuality distinct from the normal\npersonality.\n\nIt is curious to note that cases of possession by good spirits are\nabsolutely unknown. A medium may be \u201ccontrolled\u201d by spirits said to\nbe good, but this does not amount to a possession. In every case\nwhere normal personality has been overthrown and another or other\npersonalities take possession we find--evil.\n\nThis is to certain extent explicable if we realize that every thought\nor wish that occurs to us, and which we _repress_ because it is\nbad or evil, is not destroyed or wiped out of existence, but stays as a\nsuppressed desire or wish buried in the recesses of subconscious mind.\n\nWhen normal conscious control is overthrown, these subconsciously\nstored desires or wishes come bubbling up--a fact that seems to explain\nwhy the language used by nicely brought up girls recovering after the\nadministration of an an\u00e6sthetic would put a coal-heaver to flight.\n\nIn the dream state, too, these repressed desires escape all mixed up\nfrom their bondage, a fact which accounts for the peculiar medley of\ndreams and their frequent lack of moral balance and accentuation of\nsexual characteristics.\n\nThe character of a \u201cpossessing\u201d demon is in most cases determined by\nexperiences that the victim has passed through. Shock, neurasthenia,\nillness, disappointment; all these may bring about the splitting of\nthe personality so that the secondary or possessing personality can\noverthrow consciousness and take charge.\n\nThe victim is often horrified to find his or her mind continually\nfilled with terrible desires, intolerable passions, and thoughts\nutterly repugnant to the sedate conscious self.\n\nSometimes the idea of possession is stimulated by messages received\nthrough mediums or by automatic writing--this is one of the many\nfrequent cases where undigested, uneducated Spiritualism is often\nabominably harmful. Anything that helps the idea of possession to grow\nin the afflicted mind should be avoided.\n\nGradually the nature of the possession becomes more acutely defined and\nis recognized as a different personality--an evil personality resident\nin the same body using the same mind. It is in all human probability\nonly the repressed wishes--all the pent-up unfulfilled evil of a\nlifetime taking shape and urging gratification rather than repression\nin a new and secondary personality.\n\nPossession by evil spirits is invariably connected with violence and\nvice. Sometimes the attacks are periodic; always they are signs of\nmental instability and psychic disease. A possessed person is a fit\nsubject for psychotherapeutic treatment by qualified medical men, but\na source of very real psychic danger in a s\u00e9ance or as a subject for\nwell-meaning experiments in faith healing by amateurs.\n\nIn psychic healing the doctrine of sacrifice and the scapegoat had a\nvery literal interpretation. The healer often takes upon his own soul\nthe burden that he lifts from another. This psychic transference can\nonly be done in safety by certain and specific ways beyond the scope of\nthis work. It is sufficient to indicate the danger.\n\nPossession in its varying aspects has given rise to many myths and\nlegends. Larv\u00e6, Incubi, and Succubi were all demons of temporary\npossession that tempted man. In the Middle Ages and far later the Faith\nstrove lustily with them, and where exorcism failed the stake was found\neffective.\n\nAccording to the older writers, Incubi were male demons who possessed\nthe bodies of mortal women; Succubi, she-devils who seduced the souls\nand possessed the bodies of men.\n\nSorcerers had the power of despatching these erotic demons to gratify\ntheir associates or plague their enemies, and it is notable that this\ndoctrine of vicarious enjoyment or satisfaction reappears in the\nSpiritualist belief in gross and earth-bound souls of sinners who haunt\ndrinking booths and houses of ill-fame, deriving vicarious satisfaction\nfrom the sins of the living.\n\nThe old demonographers give lurid and disgustful accounts of these\n\u201cpossessions\u201d[42] and insist on their contagious nature. Prosecutions\nfor sorcery, \u201cpossession,\u201d and similar crimes raged throughout the\nsixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and in the pages of the records we\ncan trace the Incubi and Succubi now hidden as familiar spirits, now\ndescribed as the devil himself, but curiously true in their nature to\nthe occasional demoniac possessions that trouble the twentieth century.\n\nEven if one admits that the average \u201cpossession\u201d is one\u2019s own evil\nsubconscious personality attempting to overthrow the conscious mind,\ncertain questions and possibilities arise.\n\nThat the astral body or mind can make discarnate journeys is a\nwell-known fact to all Spiritualists. There is, then, no reason to\nsuppose that this faculty would be less material in a possessive\npersonality whose origin was specifically in the dream realm of the\nsubconscious.\n\nIndeed, it is far more plausible to suppose that the possessor or\ndemon mind would find it far easier to make the journey than the other\npersonality, for it is recognized that the release of the actual body\noccurs in trance or dream state.\n\nWe have here, then, some possible psychic explanation of many of the\ncases of sorcery where the complaint of the sufferers was that they\nwere victimized during sleep by demons. In other words, they were the\nrecipients of undesired attentions by the astral body of either the\nsorcerer or his followers or associates.\n\nThis has been suggested to me in various forms by people who have\nbelieved themselves the victims of discarnate spirits--and who were\nat times possessed by them against their wills. It must, however,\nbe admitted that in all such cases which came under my notice there\nhad been connection with Spiritualist circles or with minor forms of\noccultism, and it was impossible to exclude the possibility of previous\nhypnosis, autosuggestion, or the little-known but common phenomena of\npsychic invasion--by other members of the circle.\n\nViewed from the psychical point of view, possession is an extremely\ndifficult problem. Real spirit possession might occur, suggestion or\npsychic invasion is often indicated; and, as I have explained, multiple\npersonality and the concentration of evil repressed desires in the\nsecondary individuality furnishes a complete scientific explanation of\nthe phenomenon.\n\nThese cases must be taken individually, and there are not yet grounds\nfor laying down a general explanation of all the phenomena. One of the\ngreat difficulties is the natural reluctance of the victims to disclose\nexact details, but no case of possession which was not either openly or\nsecretly erotic is known to be recorded.\n\nPossessions fall under two heads: those in which the possessing spirit\nurges the victim to the commission of injurious acts in person, and\nthereby derives direct satisfaction through the body; and those in\nwhich a vicarious satisfaction is achieved through the astral body. The\npossibility of intercourse between spirit and mortal has been held to\nbe a possibility since Biblical times, and the expulsion of the fallen\nangels was due to this sin.[43]\n\nStainton Moses held that much of the lower phenomena was caused by\nspirits who had not yet reached man\u2019s plane of intelligence, just as\nsome was produced by others who had proceeded further and returned\nto enlighten man.[44] This belief occurs in folklore, in Oriental\nreligions, and in a myriad variations.\n\nThe djinn of the _Arabian Nights_ is a very real thing to the\nmodern native, and a considerable literature exists in which the\nintercourse between djinn and mortal is the main theme. In the same way\nthe belief in fairy wives or husbands is not so long dead in Europe and\nalive to-day among the hill tribes of the Pamirs.\n\nThe whole theory of spirit possession or demon possession is linked\nwith this idea. In the \u201cpossessed\u201d state the victim is unconscious of\ndeeds done and words said. The blame is the blame of the demon.\n\nIn nine cases out of ten frenzy or hysteria accompanies nominal\npossession. There are gifts of strange tongues usually said to be\nEastern or Indian, and the possessed pour out streams of gibberish in\nwhich a few dominant words or phrases bearing a slight resemblance to\nsome known tongue may be distinguished.\n\nClairvoyance, the gift of prophecy, and other psychic qualities appear\nat the time of the seizure. Often there is marked an\u00e6sthesia and\ninsensitiveness to pain. Hot objects may be handled with impunity,\nelectric shocks are not felt.\n\nThese cases are not genuine cases of possession in its worst sense when\nthey begin, but very frequently the victim is urged by fools to develop\nthese wonderful powers and the Darker Powers accept the invitation and\nstep in.\n\nThe occultist and the scientist agree about very few things, but both\nagree that possession and surrender to possession are the first steps\nto moral and physical disaster. The transferable or infectious quality\nof possession is not so widely known as it should be, but with the\nincrease of Spiritualism its effects will in a year or so become\ncapable of perception by even the most unenlightened.\n\nA girl of my acquaintance, the daughter of wealthy and respectable\nMidland parents, became interested in psychic matters. Her faith was\ngreater than her powers of discernment and she was, like all too many\nSpiritualists, of neurotic and hysterical temperament.\n\nHer first actual essays were with automatic writing; then as she was\nan art student she tried painting under spirit control. Some slight\nsuccess attended her efforts and she became interested in Egyptian\nmythology because her spirit paintings were Egyptian in character.\n\nI did not see her frequently, but met her about a year after she had\ntaken up her Egyptian studies. She stated that in her was reincarnated\nthe soul of an Egyptian priest. This invading entity dominated her\nentire mind and mode of life.\n\nBefore, she had been a healthy, normal girl although inclined to be\nneurotic, but once given over to this obsession she found that owing\nto the psychic change of sex all men were repugnant to her. She was\npossessed by a male mind in a female body, and with this extraordinary\ninversion of normal feelings was obliged to break off her engagement.\n\nThe remainder of her life was short but tragic. Her automatic writings\n(which were destroyed after her unhappy death at her own hands)\nshowed the ascendancy of the possessing demon as it grew over her.\nInterspersed with these records were the tragic outpourings of her\nsoul, her self-analysis of her psychic disaster. There were things\nthere terrible to read.\n\nIt is not perhaps fair to blame psychic science for disastrous\ntragedies such as these, but it must be openly admitted that occultism\nis not for the multitude.\n\nThere is nothing known to-day that was not known in the past, but\nSpiritualists and other investigators have discovered a few of the\nminor marvels that were known to, but wisely hidden by, the ancients.\nSometimes they are like children playing with a box of drugs, some of\nwhich are active poisons.\n\nOne message of consolation, one instance of subconscious telepathy with\na medium, and they are convinced of the truth of Spiritualism and will\nnot be warned that whatever truth it may hold it also holds Untruth and\nDanger as well as Hope.\n\nThe threshold between the innocent \u201ccontrol\u201d and the malevolent \u201cdemons\nof possession\u201d is a very, very narrow one. Sometimes, indeed often,\nthere is no dividing line at all. The charges that Spiritualism is the\nhigh road to lunacy have these unfortunate occurrences as their basis.\n\n\n                              FOOTNOTES:\n\n[40] Pierre Janet: _L\u2019automatisme Psychologique_.\n\n[41] _Abnormal Psychology._ Isador H. Coriat. Rider, 1911.\n\n[42] See _Tableau de L\u2019Inconstance des D\u00e9mons_. Pierre de Lancre.\n\n[43] Jude VI, 7.\n\n[44] Stainton Moses, _Spirit Identity_, Appendix II.\n\n\n\n\n                               CHAPTER X\n\n                      SOME NEW FACTS AND THEORIES\n\n\nThere are a number of peculiar phenomena that come under no specific\nhead or grouping at present; that is to say, they are infrequent or\nisolated instances which cannot yet be relegated to a specific class\nand labelled.\n\nI have frequently come across hearsay evidence and been unable to find\nthe original observer. In other cases the character or mentality of the\nobserver has been such as to render the account entirely valueless from\nany point of view except that of sensationalism.\n\nThe result is that we are faced with an unusual case which remains\nmysterious, usually because opportunity for a thorough examination of\nthe phenomena is lacking.\n\nThis is perhaps best illustrated by those cases of material phenomena\nwhich we class as Poltergeists.\n\nThe most recently recorded case was the Cheriton dugout,[45] but there\nare many others recorded and a good many more details of which have\nbeen suppressed for personal or economic reasons.\n\nRonald Grey has some interesting notes under this heading to which I\nwill now turn.\n\nThe distinguishing characteristics of a poltergeist haunting are\naimless violence and mischief accompanied by the displacement and\nturning about of material objects and unaccompanied by any visible\nmaterialization of the manifesting entity.\n\nIn many cases these mischievous phenomena are associated directly or\nindirectly with children or young persons. Sceptics usually attribute\nthe phenomena to pure mischief and a desire to mystify or be revenged\non somebody by the child, but I do not hold that this is the true\ninterpretation.\n\nThe actual power of physical mediumship is a gift which is in some\nstrange way connected with physiological conditions. It is often more\nmarked in ill-health than when well and sometimes vanishes completely\nor may return again after a year or two.\n\nIt has now been ascertained that the site of the haunting is the\nfunctioning factor and that one or other of the humans present is the\noften unconscious medium. If a known physical medium is substituted for\nthe original one the phenomena will often be as effectively reproduced.\nThe doctrine held by Spiritualists that a poltergeist is a low type of\nspirit essentially non-human and akin to the tree dryads or earth or\nair elementals does not seem to be borne out in practice.\n\nJust as many people hold that the bulk of harmless as distinct from\nmalignant apparitions are \u201cthought-impressions\u201d on the surrounding\nwalls which become visible to people with the gift of clairvoyance,\nso are there some grounds for believing that the poltergeist\nmanifestations are due not to any directing intelligence at all but to\nthe permanence of some old act or thought which still has in some cases\nthe power of influencing matter.\n\nMind cannot affect matter without the influence of a human\nintermediary. But the physical medium is a human intermediary and\nserves as a dynamo or battery for the generation of a necessary force.\n\nJust as table levitations and similar phenomena are produced by\nthe extrusion of psychical rods or levers which are invisible,[46]\nbut which are directed to a definite task by intelligence, so the\npoltergeist phenomena seem to be similar phenomena but without any\ndirecting intelligence.\n\nThis statement needs qualification in the cases where the child medium\nhas become partly aware that in some strange way he or she is the\nprime motor for the phenomena. Then the child\u2019s mind consciously or\nsubconsciously directing the impulse may focus the manifestation in the\nway of impish, malicious tricks afflicting an individual.\n\nThe \u201cpsychic force\u201d or psychoplasm extended by the medium is very\nclosely akin to what is termed \u201canimal magnetism\u201d--it seems to be of\nnervous origin and physiologically connected with internal secretory\norgans.\n\nA slight nervous derangement of one of the many complexes associated\nwith the age of puberty may quite conceivably endow occasional children\nwith a transient power of physical mediumship.\n\nThe next point is the accumulatory effect of surroundings. Here we\nare very much in the dark, but the manifestations do not occur unless\nphysical limits, such as walls, are present. In a poltergeisted house\ntwo unconscious agents of the activities may, particularly while\nasleep, but also while awake, saturate the surroundings with this\npeculiar form of energy.\n\nThere is nothing to show that this vitality ceases with death; it\ncertainly continues during the state of sleep, and if it is borne in\nmind that even when the soul has passed from the body after death,\nlife--that is to say, intense bacterial activity--continues, it is\nconceivable that the continued extension of this force may continue\nfrom unascertained physiological conditions, and so explain some of the\nbaffling and distressing phenomena that have occurred in vaults and\ngiven rise to the theory of bodies being buried alive in a cataleptic\ncondition.\n\nMore advanced students will see in the foregoing hypothesis the\nexplanation of certain obscure texts relative to the Egyptian\nprocesses of embalming, and other religious rituals in connection with\nthe disposal of corpses. The ancients were keenly aware of certain\nmonstrous after-death possibilities which the moderns ignore.\n\nThis, then, is where the theory of poltergeist manifestations splits.\nThey are often traceable to\n\n  (_a_) Unconscious physical mediums, usually adolescents.\n\n  (_b_) In certain difficult cases the human element has been\n        eliminated, and the only hypothesis is the sudden\n        manifestation of a latent force derived from the dead.\n\nIt should be remembered that the graves of saints become shrines and\nthat miracles are attributed to them, and that certain most terrible\nvampire phenomena are associated with some unsanctified graves.\n\nJust as the hair and nails of some corpses continue to grow to\nextravagant lengths long after death, so in certain cases it seems as\nif the corruption of the flesh were accompanied by a translation of\nthe residual vital force or nervous energy--as distinct from soul or\nconsciousness--into free psychic power.\n\nThis energy can apparently be stored in matter such as walls, wood,\netc., and seems to have the quality of remaining latent until some\nunknown cause begins to change it from a static to a \u201cdynamic\u201d\ncondition.\n\nThe sorcerer who produces earth from a particular grave and who\ntreasures unholy mortal relics of evil man, is practising more than a\nmere symbolism. He is using matter whose very body may be impregnated\nwith that peculiar essence or force which is the vehicle of all psychic\nphenomena.\n\nPeople who are interested in serving the Powers of Evil have sedulously\npropagated the idea that, however malignant astral powers may be,\nthere is a law that they cannot harm or injure mortals. This is one\nof those dangerous statements that Spiritualists make use of without\nknowing what they are talking about. These powers can be and often\nhave been applied to the most sinister purposes. Utilized by anyone\nwith occult knowledge and experience they are pregnant with soul- and\nbody-destroying capacities, and it is fair to say that certain other\noccult powers are the least defence against them.\n\nI am inclined to favour the theory that in all cases of poltergeists,\nwhere non-human sources of power are indicated, careful psychic\nanalysis will reveal some inanimate matter which has been in contact\nwith either evil-living mortality or the dead, and is serving as the\nfocus and reservoir of the force. The power appears to be sporadic and\ncumulative, but it can be destroyed or dissipated both by material and\nby occult means if it can be traced to its source.\n\nThe latent cumulative effect of such an evil relic may possibly\nstimulate the extension of psychoplasm by unconscious mediums brought\nwithin its sphere of influence. This seems indicated where an exchange\nof physical mediums in the one centre of inflection has produced\nparallel results. There is also some ground for supposing that the\nphases of the moon affect the manifestation.\n\nIt is, of course, fashionable to deride the moon, but any seaside\ndoctor will admit that his patients die with the ebb of the tide; and,\nfurther, it is highly illogical to suppose that an influence which can\naffect the vast masses of the tides is without its influence on the\ntenuous fluids of vitality.\n\nThe lunar effect is probably due to a screening or projection of\nspecific solar or ethereal vibrations below the range which we see\nas light and colour and above that which we recognize as electrical\nphenomena.\n\n\u201cThe simple undirected energy display of a poltergeist phenomenon may\nbe converted into a specifically malignant phenomenon. The energy may\nbe used to form a vehicle for an evoked elemental succubus or incubus,\nor might under certain different conditions be similarly utilized\nto accommodate or materialize a \u2018familiar\u2019 of a higher order,\u201d says\nDuchesne, writing of some researches carried out in the Var, \u201cbut I am\nstill at a loss to know what induces the phenomena to appear with such\nfulminant energy and purposeless commencement.\u201d\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nA peculiar case of poltergeist occurred in Hertfordshire last\nspring.[47] The farm bailiff of a home farm complained that his\ncottage, which looked out on the yard of the farmstead, had become\nintolerable. Crockery was smashed on the dresser, pots and pans flew\nabout while nobody touched them, and when the whole family were at\nmidday lunch in their living-room a kettle of boiling water which was\nsimmering on the kitchener hob was brought through an adjoining open\ndoor and slammed down among the diners at the table without spilling a\ndrop.\n\nStones were thrown, windows broken, and even bedclothes snatched off. I\nwent down in response to an invitation by the owner of the estate and\nsoon convinced myself that the phenomena were authentic.\n\nThe family consisted of the bailiff, his wife, a girl of fourteen, and\na son of twenty. The latter was not much in the house, being about on\nthe hills with the sheep, as it was lambing time.\n\nPrevious experience led one to suspect the girl, who seemed quite\nhonest and very frightened at the occurrences. My host and I were\npersonal witnesses of flying stones and still more remarkable the\nscattering of a big sheaf of straw.\n\nThe sheaf was being carried from the barn to the cow-house by the\ngirl herself at about three in the afternoon. We were talking to the\nbailiff\u2019s wife. Suddenly the girl stopped and the big bundle of straw\nseemed to be lifted out of her arms at least two feet above her head.\nIt balanced for a moment or two like a captive gas balloon, then\nwhirled into thousands of separate straws which flew all about the yard.\n\nNo conceivable trick of wind--and it was a wettish, windless day--nor\nany human effort could have accomplished it. The truss burst like\na shell, some of the straws flying right over the roofs of the\noutbuildings.\n\nThe terrified girl burst into tears and ran to her mother for comfort\nand protection.\n\nThat night we sent the girl away, and though manifestations continued\nfor another two days, these were of decreasing violence.\n\nThe cottage was only a few years old and no deaths had occurred there,\nbut the farmstead was a very old one, the estate having a connected\nhistory to pre-Tudor times. I was puzzled to find any clue to the\nexciting cause of the trouble.\n\nI went over the whole place most carefully, but found nothing to guide\nme, and at last turned my attention to the structure of the cottage. A\ncertain intuition or psychic susceptibility led me to suspect one of\nthe big kitchen rafters which supported the ceiling of the kitchen and\nthe floor of the girl\u2019s room.\n\nOn inquiry I found that the architect who had designed the new\nbuildings had employed a local contractor and used old red bricks and\nold timber wherever possible in order to preserve the old fashioned\neffect given by weathered colours.\n\nIt was not difficult to trace the material; the local contractor\u2019s\nforeman told us at once where it had come from.\n\n\u201cIt stood in our yard here for ten years or more before we put it into\nthe new buildings,\u201d said the foreman, \u201cand it come to us when we pulled\ndown Blackley Old Grange.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat kind of a place was that?\u201d said I.\n\n\u201cPrivate madhouse at the last,\u201d he answered. \u201cThe owner was a doctor\nand he went mad and hanged himself, he did, after killing one of the\npatients a month before. He hanged himself just before the visitors was\nexpected to see the patient he had killed.\u201d\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nResearch carried us no further, except that I learnt that the murdered\npatient lay for a month in the room in which she was killed before the\ncrime was found out, after the man\u2019s suicide. It was impossible to\ntrace the beam to its position, but I gathered that the doctor hanged\nhimself from a window bar or curtain hook, not from the beam.\n\nI am inclined to believe that the absorption of force takes place from\nprolonged contact with the emanation of the dead rather than from the\ntransient impression of conscious thoughts, but there was no further\nrecrudescence of the trouble when an iron girder was substituted for\nthe beam, and the girl, when brought back, was perfectly normal.\n\nI experimented with the girl later, but did not find that she possessed\nany marked gifts, although she was indubitably a good hypnotic\nsubject. The beam, or rather a section of it, I secured for the\npurposes of research, the remainder was burnt.[48]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnother puzzling if popular subject is that of spirit photographs. I\nhave handled scores of them, but have never yet come across one in\nwhich all possibility of ingenious fraud has been entirely eliminated.\n\nCertain people have claimed peculiar gifts, but in no case has a\nsatisfactory result been obtained at a genuine test-s\u00e9ance, where\nscientific precautions have been observed.\n\nIf anyone has this gift it can be demonstrated easily. The studio must\nbe neutral ground--that is to say, the room must not be the claimant\u2019s\nhabitual studio. The camera must be provided by the testers, as also\nthe dark slide and plates. The medium must be stripped perfectly naked\nand the same rule should apply to the testing committee if it includes\nanyone known to the medium. He should not be allowed to touch plates,\ndark slide, or camera except when naked and under close scrutiny.\n\nDevelopment should be carried out under test conditions at the nearest\nchemist\u2019s dark room.\n\nThere is no known spiritual law which should lead us to think that\na psychograph or spirit photograph is a possibility, and until the\nmatter has been tested by a properly qualified body of men all such\nphotographs are open to the gravest suspicion.\n\nMoney-making is not the only motive for fraud, and many of the fakers\nare often more anxious to build up a bogus reputation for \u201cmystery\nworking\u201d than to make a direct profit on the transaction.\n\nThe avenues of fraud are so numerous that it is only possible to\nindicate a few of the methods adopted to deceive the credulous.\n\nThe spirit photograph is deemed to be genuine if it is taken\nunder conditions which an average expert photographer holds to be\nfraud-proof. The weakness of the whole case lies in the fact that they\ncannot be obtained under genuine scientific, as opposed to amateur,\ntest conditions.\n\nIn a word, the spirit image is imprinted on the negative under\nconditions not normally suspected by the photographers.\n\nThere are several methods of attaining the result, even when the\nphotographer brings his own plates and dark slides and his own camera.\n\n_First_ is the background trick. An acid solution of sulphate\nof quinine is invisible to the eye, but shows in the photograph.\n\u201cPhenomena\u201d painted on the wall or near by the objects appear in the\nphotograph though invisible to the eye.\n\n_Second_ is the contact process by which a small negative of\nthe \u201cspirit\u201d face is mounted on a background of card prepared with\nradioactive salt solution. Many of these salts are rich in infra-red\nrays which will project an image through a metal dark slide. The\n\u201cmedium\u201d has only to handle the dark slide during the sitting or the\nplate in the dark room previous to development, in order to make a\ncontact image.\n\nA cruder variation of this, the electric pencil flashlight with a\nrubber cup over the end containing the \u201cspirit face\u201d negative contact\nwith the exposed plate, is achieved in the dark room. The instrument\nlies hidden in the medium\u2019s sleeves.\n\n_The third method_ is that most commonly used. The \u201cspirit image\u201d\nis projected through a minute lens in a hole in the wall of the studio.\nThe beam of light is sometimes passed through a prism series in order\nto allow a room parallel to the studio to be used for the purpose of\nprojecting, and it is possible for the apparatus to be arranged inside\na piece of furniture in the studio.\n\nThe sitter usually has his back to the source of the projection and the\n\u201cmedium\u201d takes the photograph and makes the exposure, so the fraud is\nchildishly easy.\n\nEven expert photographers are fooled by this trick, as they are\nsatisfied that if plates, slide, and camera are not tampered with,\nfraud is impossible.\n\nWhen stereoscopic cameras with twin lenses are used the fraud is\nmanifest. Sometimes the fakers try hard to get an image into each half\nof the plate, but never are the \u201cspirit images\u201d in the same relative\nposition or plane.\n\nIf the sitters are well-known it is not difficult for photographs of\ndeceased relatives to be obtained and the spirit negative made from the\nphotograph. In many cases reproduction of newspaper halftone blocks\nhave been found on so-called spirit pictures. These show the diamond\npatterns of the screen and are obvious fakes, but are accepted by many\nuncritical believers.\n\nIn the case of an unknown sitter, strange blurred faces or perfect\nstrangers are thrown on to the plate and excused as \u201cguardian angels.\u201d\n\nWhen the medium\u2019s own apparatus or dark room is used there are endless\nways of faking, but it is these methods of faking an image without\nraising the ordinary photographer\u2019s suspicions that are interesting.\n\nThe whole business is a cruel and heartless fraud, but the dupes are\nnot really deserving of pity. If there was a word of truth in the\nclaim of \u201cspirit photographers\u201d the testimony of an official test by a\nreputable committee of the Royal Photographic Society would settle the\nquestion once and for all.\n\nMyths and legend have grown up round spirit photographs till\nSpiritualists have at last come to believe in their genuineness.\nYet the whole of their belief rests on nothing stronger than the\n\u201cmiraculousness\u201d of a conjuring trick. A good sleight-of-hand expert\ncan accomplish card or other tricks which seem perfectly inexplicable\nto the layman, but we do not acclaim them as evidences of spirit power\nbecause we are deceived by them.\n\nThe spirit photographers deplore and avoid investigation by really\nefficient scientific men. They welcome the amateur with half-knowledge,\nas his very cocksureness renders him an easier dupe. He concentrates\non the obvious roads to fraud, ignoring those which lie without the\nslender realm of his knowledge.\n\nThe phenomena of what may be called lightless photography were long\nago described by Dr. Gustave le Bon,[49] who describes instantaneous\nphotography by \u201cBlack-light.\u201d Incidentally a common incandescent gas\nmantle possesses quite enough radioactive properties for ordinary\nexperiments.\n\nIt is only by the destruction of fraudulent phenomena that the\nphenomena will be rightly understood and generally accepted. The\nSpiritualist who accepts and bolsters up dubious phenomena does far\nmore harm to his own cause than the most pronounced sceptic.\n\nThe main point about spurious spirit photography is this. It claims\nthat mechanical chemical relations are produced by spirit agency--yet\nthough this chemical reaction is said to be produced with ease by\ncertain individuals and circles, it flinches from facing a simple test\nwhich would, if proved to be true, convert the bulk of the sceptical\nworld to an acceptance of the truth of spirit photography.\n\nI have met many credulous folk who cherish blurred plates, obvious\ndouble exposures, \u201caccidents,\u201d such as imperfectly cleaned plates\nand even the most blatant swindles. Nothing can shake their\nconvictions--but credulity does nothing to _prove_ fact.\n\nMr. Gambier Bolton has experimented for years with spirit photography,\nbut has so far obtained nothing except plates bearing indications\nof a radiant energy similar to the N-rays of Becquerel. Many expert\nphotographers interested in psychic matters agree that the true spirit\nphotography does not exist and a canvass of both press and studio\nphotographers who are experts in their profession reveals the same\nunhesitating expression of opinion. The same opinion is held not only\nby the professional and technical lay element, but by occultists and\nstudents of research whose standard of psychic knowledge is infinitely\nhigher than that of the Spiritualists.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe aura which surrounds the human form is visible to certain people,\nbut the faculty for seeing the aura does not necessarily involve the\npossession of any psychic gifts at all and is often an indication of a\nslight degree of colour-blindness.\n\nThe ordinary photographic plate represents colours differently to their\nrelative values as seen by the human eye, and in order to get the true\neffect certain dyes are mixed with the emulsion of the plates, or dyed\nscreens which eliminate certain rays are interposed between the lens\nand the object.\n\nThe normal individual cannot see the aura, but a simple chemical device\nwill put him on a par with the best natural aura discerner.\n\nIf a narrow glass trough or an oblong clear crystal glass bottle is\nfilled with a dilute solution of the dye di-cyanin[50] which dissolves\nreadily in absolute alcohol; that is all the apparatus necessary.\n\nThe subject whose aura is to be inspected should be placed against\na black or neutral background opposite a source of illumination,\npreferably a north-facing window.\n\nThe observer then takes the bottle of blue solution and gazes through\nit at the clear sky for a period of some minutes. This serves to\neliminate the retinal impression of certain of the normal light rays\nand renders the observer\u2019s eyes sensitive to vibrations or rays not\nnormally perceptible and stimulates an abnormal acuteness of vision.\n\nThe room should now be entirely darkened, and as soon as the eyes have\nrecovered their \u201cowl sight\u201d the body of the subject will be seen to be\nsurrounded by an envelope of vibratory exhalations whose colour varies\nwith different individuals and changes under stress of emotion.\n\nSuggestion or hypnosis exercises very peculiar effects on this aura,\nwhich would seem to be, if not an ectoplasm a psychoplasm in itself,\nyet the invisible vehicle which is capable of being separated from the\nmaterial body and forming the astral body.\n\nThe aura vibration and the Becquerel or N-rays are closely connected,\nand the scientific hypothesis suggests that these rays are in the scale\njust above the infra-violet.\n\nThe simple instrument indicated above has certain therapeutic values\nin the diagnosis of illness, but is also invaluable for the psychic\nanalysis of hauntings, cases of unconscious mediumship, and other\nmatters.\n\n\n                              FOOTNOTES:\n\n[45] See _The New Revelation_. Sir A. C. Doyle.\n\n[46] For details of leverage, etc., see: _The Reality of Psychic\nPhenomena and Experiments in Psychical Science_. By W. T. Crawford.\n\n[47] Author\u2019s note, 1912.\n\n[48] Valuable data were gained by experiment with this disastrous\nrelic. They are not suitable for publication at this stage, and I\nlearnt recently of similar objectionable attributes associated with a\nbattlefield souvenir from near Ypres.\n\n[49] _The Evolution of Forces._ Gustave le Bon.\n\n[50] Used in colour screen making for photography, and poisonous. Some\nglasses used in bottle making are not suitable, but a trial of one or\ntwo suitably shaped ones will always reveal one that works all right.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER XI\n\n                          ORIENTAL OCCULTISM\n\n\nThe Orient hides many secrets of occultism, and it is almost a\nplatitude that the few secrets that the West has painfully deciphered\nhave been known for all time to the East--and are nothing remarkable.\n\nThis is one of those large gestures of speech that contain a half-truth\nand pass for a whole truth. It is on a par with the statement that all\nChinese business men are honest--which they are not. Oriental occultism\nis far too vast a subject to be accepted or dismissed as summarily as\nthis, but one thing is certain and that is that Oriental occult systems\nare not suitable to the Western man.\n\nThere are one or two cardinal points that may be grasped at once.\nFirstly, the exiled native in a Western country who claims occult\npowers and the gift of being able to teach and transmit them is always\nand invariably a fakir of the lowest kind. He is usually a low-caste\nand disreputable native or half-breed, and it may be accounted to\nhis credit that after all he is not expected to know any better. His\ndupes, on the other hand, the white men and women that listen to his\nbalderdash and sit at his s\u00e9ances, are even guiltier parties than he\nis. They at least ought to know better than to listen to the first\nblack-and-tan \u201cSwami\u201d or \u201cGuru\u201d that establishes a bogus tabernacle in\nthe backwaters of Balham or Bayswater.\n\nThe second point is that the true Eastern occultist, whatever his grade\nof adeptship in his mysteries, never practises any of his arts or\nknowledge for money or equivalent reward. This is a lesson which might\nwell be learned by the fraternity of mediums and so-called occultists\nthat infest London and other great cities at home and abroad.\n\nA medium in receipt of fees for s\u00e9ances or lectures will never and can\nnever develop his or her powers beyond the stage at which they have\narrived when it becomes possible to use them as a direct or indirect\nmeans of making money.\n\nIn the East this is realized, and the vow of poverty is more than a\nmetaphor, but they claim that it is a poverty of the body fully repaid\nby riches of the soul.\n\nPractically the whole of Hindu occultism is best described as peculiar\nmethods of self-hypnosis with the object of provoking states of bliss\nand ecstasy. It is upon the basis of the induction of these peculiar\nphenomena that ninety per cent. of the Brahmin religious cults are\nestablished. By one path or another the various beliefs attain earnest\nof fulfilment, but the primary causes of these psychical phenomena are\nphysiological in origin.\n\nThis material path to spiritual success is admitted and glossed over\nas being but part of the mystery. None the less, there is little to\nshow that anything beyond these self-produced states of hypnotism or\nsuggested phenomena are ever attained by even the greatest of the\nadepts, and there is no justification of their dogmatic religious\nteachings even in the results attained.\n\nThe Oriental mind is more easily freed from the shackles of the body\nthan is the Western organism. Just as the hold of the average native\nupon life is inferior to a European\u2019s, so is the native\u2019s mastery of\nconscious will far less. The faculties of clairvoyance can be created\nby almost every dominant European in any young native, and they are\nboth physically and psychically an inferior race.\n\nIt is because of their greater racial familiarity and acquaintance\nwith the occult that the myth of their spiritual supremacy has been\nborn. The unheeding deem every Easterner a potential mage, unknowing\nthat he only develops his psychic gifts, which are in point of fact\nmental weaknesses, when in contact with a far more powerfully organized\nWestern will.\n\nThe organized powers of occult India have loathed and hated British\nrule since pre-Mutiny days. In a very few rare cases, black\nmagic--often allied with native poisons--has killed a white man, but on\nthe whole the result has been a pitiful demonstration compared to what\nthese magi should have been capable of.\n\nOccultism in India is built to serve but one end, the domination of\nlesser castes by those who master its secrets and have aptitude to\nimpose their powers on others. In the past it stood for an amazing\ntyranny, and for this reason--its lost criminal powers--it is opposed\nto British rule.\n\nIt is noteworthy that the English Society of Theosophists, whose\njig-saw religion is largely compounded of Oriental elements, is now\nprominently identified with schemes for the political emancipation of\nIndia, which will reinforce the tyrannous power of the Brahmin.\n\nThe whole scheme of Oriental occultism is quite incomprehensible\nwithout a sound basic knowledge of the religious systems of which it is\npart and parcel. These enjoy a difficult and complex nomenclature, and\ntheir words have been borrowed indiscriminately without due respect to\ntheir precise meaning.\n\nYoga conveys a certain popular meaning, but it must be remembered that\nthere are numberless Yogas, subdivided again into endless subvariants.\n\nThe initiate undergoes a prolonged course of mental and physical\ntraining designed to stimulate concentration of the will and subdue the\nbody.\n\nLittle by little the faculties of surrender to ecstatic forms of\nself-hypnosis are induced, Ananda or \u201cbliss,\u201d either material or\nspiritual ecstasy, according to the Yoga practised, being the end of\nthe process.\n\nThe full development of the powers of a Yogi is beset with all kinds\nof dangers and difficulties. The physical strain is a severe one and\nthe psychic dangers encountered considerable. The evil spirits of the\nWest find their Oriental counterparts in Pisachas, Shahinis, Bhirtas,\nPretas, and Rakshashas, all malignant and terrible manifestations of\nthe demon world.\n\nIn the end, certain types of Yogi appear to develop the full talents of\na materializing medium and are capable of producing the phenomena that\nwe associate with a medium of the power of Eusapia Palladino. But--and\nit is a very important \u201cbut\u201d--these phenomena are capable of production\nin full tropic daylight.\n\nFrom the days of Jacolliot[51] to those of recent Theosophical\ninvestigations, Oriental magic has never been brought to real test\nconditions, but in the records gathered by independent students there\nis ample ground for stating that the genuine occult phenomena (as\ndistinct from mere fakir\u2019s conjuring tricks) occur independently of\ndarkness or special light conditions.\n\nWhen we consider the fuss made by European mediums over even twilight\nconditions, it is remarkable that these offer no obstacle to the\nOriental \u201cspirits.\u201d\n\nThese phenomena, too, are not confined to orthodox Hindu, Brahmin,\nTantvik, or Guru followers of any particular creed, race, or religion.\nCertain Indian Moslem sects produce devotees capable of equivalent\nphenomena, but variants of obscure Tibetan sects, Burmese, Malay,\nMohammedans, and followers of both theistic and pantheistic religions\nhave equal powers.\n\nThe idolater, the Muslim, and the Christian medium all share the same\nbelief in \u201cspirit\u201d control and in certain states produce the same\nresults. Where we may learn something from the East is not in the line\nof morals, for their morals are different from ours--and many of their\nreligious customs revoltingly beastly--but in the way of the physical\ninduction of the psychic state.\n\nThe basis of a great many Yogas is the liberation of psychoplasm and\nectoplasm by a combination of concentration on certain internal centres\nand the repetition of spells or sonorous magical evocations.\n\nThese affect the breathing so that in effect the body is subjected\nto a definite rhythmical vibration. It is physical exercise of mind\nand brain, applying mind-force to the stimulation and excitement of\ninternal nerve centres.\n\nThese six centres are visualized mentally as lotuses. They cannot be\nprecisely located in scientific anatomy, but correspond in most cases\nwith central nervous plexuses and they are as well known in Mohammedan\nand Zoroastrian mystic cults, as they are in the Indian Upanishads and\nTantras, and are familiar to the Indians of Yucatan and Guatemala,\nwhere ritual, combined with a species of physical massage, is employed\nto initiate the hierophant into the tribal mysteries.\n\nThe school of Western occultists who hold the theory of the\nall-pervading astral or magic light or fire, hold that these \u201ccentres\u201d\nopen, or act as concentrators of an exterior, all-prevailing force\nwhich is thus conducted to the consciousness, enabling the operator to\nmake contact with another plane.\n\nIn the Oriental theory this force is deemed to be always latent in\nthe body, and is aroused, evoked, or stimulated in particular ways.\nThe discussion of the relative values of these two main schools of\nthought--static and dynamic light--or their variants is beyond the\nscope of these notes.\n\nThe lowest of the lotuses or centres is the nerve centre within the\nbody in the region of the prostatic gland, the next is midway between\nthis and the third which is the navel centre or solar plexus. The\nfourth is nominally the heart, the fifth, that at the base of the\nthroat, the sixth, that between the eyebrows. In visualizing these\nlotuses with the \u201cmental eye,\u201d the depth back in the body of each\ncentre is assumed to be close to the spine.\n\nMind force is concentrated by the Yogi under the name Vogabala, and\nin Oriental black magic this is concentrated on the lowest centre,\naccording to the ritual of the infamous Prayoga, with the result of\ninducing sexual hallucinations.\n\nIn the so-called white or mediumistic magic, the centre of energy\nis apparently by the third centre (the navel), for materialization\nphenomena, and the fifth, or base of the throat centre for\nclairaudience.\n\nThose who can reach the sixth claim the power of astral voyaging in the\nspirit world and perception of things on the mortal plane at a distance.\n\nThe physiology of the process is not yet understood, but following on\nthe breathing processes or Pranayama, which relax the body and induce\ncertain rhythms, a progressive excitation and rigor of the centres is\ninduced by autohypnosis. The nerve centres control various limbs and\nfunctions, and as each is \u201cput to sleep\u201d so the Yogi becomes rigid and\ncataleptic.\n\nYogis are able to hold out their arms for hours at a stretch without\napparent fatigue--so in the same way can a hypnotized subject be placed\nin an attitude of rigidity by an operator.\n\nThese progressive inhibitions of functions cannot be achieved by\nthe Western occultist without the most careful study and painstaking\npreparations. The practices are both mentally and physically dangerous,\nbut when mastered either in part or in whole, they can be evoked by\nsystems entirely at variance with the accepted Indian methods. In fact,\ncertain nonsense rhymes of the same rhythm and breathing values as some\nof the Tantric spells or mantras are equally efficacious.\n\nThere was infinite wisdom in the old law of magic which said \u201cChange\nnot the _barbaric_ names of evocation,\u201d but if they were changed,\nprovided rhythm and breathing are preserved, the sense does not appear\nto matter. If one verse of Macaulay\u2019s \u201cHoratius\u201d[52] was a powerful\nspell--almost any other verse in the same poem would produce the same\neffect--if delivered in the same way.\n\nThis argument is sometimes used by a sceptic, but after all it only\nproves that the same result can be produced by analogous means. Salt\ndisappears when dissolved in water, but so it does in half a dozen\nother liquids.\n\nThe tales of life on other planes brought back by native spirits evoked\nby Oriental magicians in no way tally with Western accounts, but as\nphallic worship is integral with many Eastern beliefs, it is no matter\nfor wonder that some Eastern spirit evidence concerning the next plane\nwould make the most hardened Western libertine blush. They also affirm\nwith considerable emphasis that on the next plane nationalities and\ncolour lines are unknown, a point which is reinforced by the number of\nex-coloured spirits which frequent Western s\u00e9ances.\n\nIt is indeed difficult to know what to believe.\n\nThe Yogis can produce phenomena of materialization, prolonged trance\nstates, and can sometimes act as powerful hypnotists and seize the\nDurga, literally citadel, of another\u2019s body. On the other hand, the\nnet yield of all purely Indian occultism is very disappointing. This\nmay be due to the selflessness inculcated in their religious teaching,\nwhich subdues love and hatred as equal enemies of spiritual progress.\nIf their magic were efficient, much more would be done with it, and\nthe consensus of general opinion is that despite its extraordinary\ninterest to the mystic and the scholar it has little to offer of\ninterest to the Spiritualist.\n\nCertain of lesser known Yogas which do produce astonishing phenomena\nbelong definitely to the domain of black magic and only parallel\ncertain well-known outbreaks of phallic sorcery that occurred in Europe\nin the Middle Ages.\n\nThe cult of evocation is held by some students to have spread from\nIndia to the Arab races, but more recent investigations suggest that\nthe astonishing performances achieved by certain nominally Moslem sects\nin the fastnesses of Tripoli and Morocco are due to the survivals from\nthe aborigines of those lands rather than to Oriental ideas.\n\nThe Berbers are a distinct primitive race akin to the Basques, and\nprobably identical with the ancient Britons who built Stonehenge.\nTo-day they are fanatical Moslemin, but the old practices linger as\nrituals of specific religious cults, such as the Sufi Senoussi and the\nAissouri of Morocco. They are racially strange folk and the Moslem\nveneer is only a lay religion imposed on a mass of pagan folklore\nclosely connected with serpent worship and astronomical observances.\nTheir festivals of the solstices have an outward-seeming Muslim\nconnection, but the inner hidden occult religion is a far older thing.\n\nThe Berbers are not of Arab stock; they are Semitic and they are\nprobably pre-Aryan. Some writers[53] trace their connection to the\noriginal Firbolgs of Iceland, and the ethnology of this mysterious race\nis still a matter of speculation and doubt.\n\nPre-eminent among their distinctive differences from the ordinary Arab\nis the esteem in which they hold women. Women are chieftainesses among\nthem, and above all the women are the repositories of the lost lore of\nmagic. It is to them that the tribesmen turn for the carrying out of\nthe mystic harvest ceremonies, the charming of unfruitful fields, and\nthe lighting of the magic Beltane fires.\n\nFire plays no inconsiderable part in their rituals, and is only called\nby its Arabic name el-aafeats (the comforter) when used for domestic\npurposes. The sacrificial and ceremonial fires are always spoken of\neither in the Shilluh or Schluch tongue--the true Berber language or\nreferred to as B\u2019lnisac, a term whose philology is unknown, but which\napparently contains the age-old Bel or Baal motive.\n\nThis fire cult, coupled with a still more mystical inner creed\nsymbolized by serpent worship, may be noted by the student explorer\namong the Berber folk. Riffis, Mashed Hojja Tuareks of the Sahara,\ncertain Kabyles of Tripoli, and other tribes all belong to the same\nstrange race, and there are reasons for believing that the Berbers are\nidentical with the mystical Fairies--the Good People--so called from a\npropitiatory irony because they were so amazingly bad.\n\nBerbers alone of savage folk raid and kill at night. They are\nessentially a people of the dark, and he who sifts the mass of terrible\nfolklore about the earliest fairies in Britain will find a parallel\nbetween these terrible unholy barbarians given to sorcery, necromancy\nand unholy rites, the stealing of children for sacrificial purposes,\nand other glossed horrors attributed to the Good People--and the Berber\nraces of to-day.\n\nThe practices continue.\n\nIn 1909 I was travelling in the Gharb country of Morocco, where there\nis a large Berber element. The French occupation of the Shawiah and the\nmeteoric rise of Sultan Mulai Hafid had left the country unsettled and\ndangerous.\n\nBeyond a war correspondent or two and a handful of German engineers--or\nspies, employed by the firm of Marmesman--there were no Europeans in\nthe country outside of the coast towns. For the capital and Manahesh\nthe big cities of the South were closed, and a Christian\u2019s life was\nnowhere worth a moment\u2019s purchase among the fanatics.\n\nI am but an indifferent Arabic scholar, but a certain knowledge of\nclassical Hebrew served one well, for there are many debased Jews in\nMorocco. For the rest, as the high-class Moors are a fair race and\noften blue-eyed, travelling in native clothes and well bronzed by the\nsun I suffered no molestation and could rely on the fidelity of my four\nbody-servants.\n\nSome five days\u2019 ride northwest of the argan forests of the coast belt,\nI was well within Berber territory. This was mostly stony hill lands,\nfor Morocco is simply rock deserts and hills, interspersed with lightly\nwatered fertile valleys and occasional oases of poplar-sheltered walls.\n\nThe holy city of Tarudant lay to the north of me, and I had crossed the\nWadi Sifan river and was going south from the Iber Kaken Pass on the\ncaravan route east into the Ait Jellal country.\n\nThere, deep in the hills, lies the ruin of a Roman city of which\nstrange tales are told. It is even not certain that it is Roman, for a\nvolume of notes, painstakingly compiled for fifteen years by a resident\nin a coast town, discloses unmistakable Ph\u0153nician characteristics, but\nI at least cannot tell, for my expedition had to beat a swift retreat a\nbare two days\u2019 march from the nominal valley of the dead city.\n\nIt was on the way there that my little troop of horsemen and pack\nmules halted at the Berber village of M\u2019Aerbil Ida and were received\nas guests of honour for the night. The village was a curious medley of\nthorn and cactus fences, cane-thatched huts, and deep caves cut in the\nfriable freestone rock of the mountain side.\n\nThe men wore the close-knitted wool caps of the country and had the\ncurious snake-like head angles and the long, curving sidelock and thin\nbeards of coarse hair that just distinguish these strange, elf-like\nfolk. Something in their broad cheekbones and curious pale eyes\nsuggests the snake.\n\nMohammed-el-Suissi, my horse boy, told me as he pitched my tent that\nhe did not like the village or the people; \u201cthey were,\u201d he said, \u201cnot\ngood Moslemin.\u201d As religious orthodoxy was not one of Mohammed\u2019s\nstrong points, I did not worry much, but when Hassan-el-Askri, my\nsoldier muleteer, warned me to keep my arms about me I realized that my\nMoors considered that not even the law of desert hospitality was held\ninviolate among these folk.\n\nThere is, however, a brotherhood of initiates of which I am a member,\nwhose signs are recognized in many parts of the globe. Gesticulation\nis a feature of polite Arabic conversation, and I soon secured an\nanswering sign from one of the head-men of the tribe. Within half an\nhour nobody in that village would have dared to steal the least of my\nbelongings.\n\nI had considerable difficulty in carrying on my conversation as my\nArabic, apart from ordinary needs of travel, was weak and classical\nrather than popular. The Berbers, too, always spoke of these things in\ntheir own tongue, Shilluh, and none of my entourage being initiate I\nhad no interpreter.\n\nMy host was Sidi-el-Belarni, an old chieftain who was also a\n_shereef_--that is, a lineal descendant of the Prophet and a\nperson of sanctity. He soon dropped the mask of orthodoxy and conversed\nfreely on the metaphysical side of his cult. I found it easier to\nunderstand than to converse with him, but gained an easier appreciation\nas I got used to it.\n\nI stayed a second day in the village, as one of our animals was badly\nlamed and needed rest, and took occasion to ask him concerning the art\nof reviving the dead to temporary life which the Berbers are commonly\nheld to possess.\n\nHe made no objections to my questions, and, to my delight, offered\nto give me a demonstration if the ritual of the women who held the\nsecrets would consent to exhibit them. At noon I was taken to a kind of\ntribal palaver and the matter was put to a species of test or judgment\nby lot. A young girl was blindfolded and given a basket containing\nshort and long sticks. Certain prayers and incantations were performed\nand she passed into a semi-trance state.\n\nMy permission depended on her selection of a majority of short sticks,\nbut as I could not see the sticks, and she was in a state of light\nhypnosis, I made occasion to recite one or two resounding Hebrew charms\nand laid my hands on her head; after that, all was easy. Her will\nobeyed mine and she selected the sticks as I desired. It was almost an\nunanimous election.\n\nWhen dusk fell with all its African suddenness, the rising moon hung\nlike a blazing buckler in the sky. Dogs barked in answer to the distant\nhill jackals and the acrid smoke of the camel-dung fires hung like a\nsour fog about the camp.\n\nWe left the village and went about a quarter of a mile along the\nhillside to the local buryingplace, following a stony track that was\nlittle more than a dried watercourse. At the head of our little\nprocession were two men with flaming argan wood torches tied to long\ncanes, behind them came four men with long silver-decorated Remington\nrifles, and then the little group of sorceresses followed by myself and\nthe elders.\n\nThe burial ground was a scanty clearing among the scrub and dwarf oaks,\nand bushes encroached upon the outer graves. Each tomb was marked by\na stone monolith or pillar, rough-hewn, with a knob at the top in\npursuance of the Muslim custom. The graves radiated in circles from the\ncentral stone, whereon fluttered little bundles of rags and similar\nvotive offerings.\n\nWe made our way to a recent grave, which was rapidly opened by the men,\ndisclosing, a bare two feet beneath the surface, the bent body of a man\nburied in sitting posture. It was a ghoul-like business and the whole\nair of the graveyard carried the tainted scent of the dreadful carrion\nthey were unearthing.\n\nIn the meanwhile, the women were busy, and from behind the tombs\nbrought forth skulls which they anointed with some strange grease and\nset on sticks in a circle round the central altar.\n\nAt last the corpse, in its foul, earth-stained wrappings, was exhumed\nand carried in a piece of sheeting to the altar. The men who had served\nas guards and grave diggers then withdrew out of earshot, and the\nceremonies began.\n\nFire was applied to the circle of skulls and they began to burn. I\nnoticed that the eyes and ear sockets were stuffed with old rags which\nserved as wicks for the unclean oil. They flared smokily, sending off a\nfoul-scented sooty smoke.\n\nThe women began to chant their monotonous wailing rhymes, and their\nleader rocked to and fro leading this strange chorus.\n\nSuddenly a power seemed to come upon her and she became frenzied,\ndancing round the skull circle in time to the refrain, but undulating\nher body in a strange, snake-like manner. Then she knelt down on the\nground, and from somewhere about her person produced something which\nshe rubbed on her hands. At first it resembled phosphorus, a quick,\nflickering faint blue light, but gradually it grew in strength until\nstreamers of blue flame, some six inches long, seemed to project from\nher fingers while her whole person seemed outlined in a faint shape of\nflame.\n\nFrom the ground she picked up a short length of cane which in her grasp\nseemed to project this blue emanation--then with a final chorus of\nevocation, she leapt upon the altar and knelt astride of the dead man.\n\nWith quick passes, she ran her hands the length of his slack limbs and\nthen poised both hands above the navel of the corpse, about a foot\nhigher than the shroud.\n\nThe emanation curved down like a blue-green waterfall of flame\nand seemed to enter the man. Incredible as it may seem, the dead\nlimbs slowly began to stretch out jerkily, uneasily, as if awaking,\nyet--instinct with a new vitality.\n\nThe ghastly, lolling head, stained with corruption and bound with the\njaw bandage, began to oscillate on the dreadful neck and the whole\ncorpse began to phosphoresce with a dull green luminosity.\n\nThe chorus now ceased chanting and a small fire was lighted on a cairn\nof stones. From this certain objects were taken and placed in the dead\nman\u2019s hands. The fingers slowly curled up and grasped them!\n\nThe singing began again and the sorceress, still across the body, took\nthe cane she carried and, breaking the bandage that bound the dead\nman\u2019s jaw, inserted the end in his mouth.\n\nThen making certain passes and signs with her hands, she began to\nexhale deep breaths into the body, seeming to make the mystic passes as\nif to force the living breath down into the dead man\u2019s lungs.\n\nLittle by little life seemed to creep back into that unholy shell.\nThe dreadful contours of death sunk back, the form became more human\nand the motions not the strange jerky rigors of the first part of the\nceremony, but the very signs of life.\n\nThe eyelids flickered and retracted, the dreadful drawn lips relaxed\nand in a minute or so the dead man sat up in his cerements--and spoke.\n\nThen followed the dread consultation of the dead. It was evident from\nthe awe and respect with which he was addressed that he was treated\nnot as a reanimated individual, but as an august visitant from another\nworld.\n\nThin, high and shrill, the usually coarse gutturals of the Shilluh\ntongue seemed strange from _Its_ lips. I suspected ventriloquy for\na while, but could see the slow movements of its throat muscles and\nglottis and the rise and fall of the shroud over the sunken abdomen.\nNevertheless it was sheer horror to listen to and dreadful, monstrous\nto see.\n\nI was only permitted to ask one question, and I asked would my quest be\nsuccessful. I received an unequivocal answer that it would fail, but\nnot through my fault, but because of the will of the spirits of the\ndeparted and the curse of the dead that hung over the city.\n\nIncidentally this discounted the advice given by other spirit\ncommunicants before the expedition was undertaken,--but later proved\ntrue.\n\nThe ritual of re-dissolution was shorter but far more terrible. Again\nthe sorceress made passes. The objects were taken from the hands of\nthe dead and slowly the life left the body, which swelled and twitched\nas it returned to its original state of terrible decomposition. A thin\nwailing chant seemed to symbolize the flight of the spirit back to its\nown realms.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI pressed unsuccessful inquiry concerning the details of this\nastounding piece of necromancy which was neither more nor less than\nthat terrible old mystery, the raising of the dead in the flesh.\n\nI could obtain no details of the objects placed in the man\u2019s hands\nor the material used to produce the astonishing outpouring of blue,\nluminous matter.\n\nSo far as I could ascertain, the life force of the sorceress herself\nentered the body, but the ceremony of creating it was essential in\ncombination with the charms in the hands before the spirit could return.\n\nNeither could I ascertain that it was the soul of the departed or some\nother spirit that entered into the reanimated corpse.\n\nSome powerful communities are able, it is said, to despatch these\ndreadful reanimated dead on missions of evil. But their power only\nlasts throughout the night and fails at sunrise.\n\nHere there is an undoubted suggestion of the practical possibility of\nvampirism, but I could not learn that these folk possess the lost art\nof imprisoning a human or spirit soul within the body of an animal.[54]\n\nI am nevertheless convinced that among the Berbers of North Africa will\nbe found the key to many legends that have come down to us from our\nancestors in Great Britain, and above all I counsel those good folk who\nread the pleasant little fake stories of pretty little fairies in some\nof the magazines of what passes for popular occultism to abandon the\ndelusion.\n\nThe term good folk is a paradox. They were the demons or spirits of\nthe unholy aborigines working in contact with the savages themselves,\nand it is good, exceedingly good, that there are no fairies loose in\nBritain to-day and that the art of summoning them is well-nigh lost.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThis chapter completes all that I have to say for the time being.\nThere is in this book much food for careful thought. Those who read\nit carefully will find in it keys to much that has puzzled them, and\nsimple explanations of phenomena which have been greatly debated of\nlate. The general reader will doubtless find the incidents the most\ninteresting part of the book, but to the critical and those seriously\ninterested in psychic matters, I commend a careful and reasonable study\nof the more scientific sections, for in this matter of things psychic\nboth Spiritualist and Sceptic are upon the same quest. From different\nangles they are both seeking for the Great Truth.\n\n\n                              FOOTNOTES:\n\n[51] _Occult Science in India and among the Ancients._ Louis Jacolliot.\n\n[52] _Lays of Ancient Rome._ Macaulay.\n\n[53] See _The Arabs of Tripoli_. Alan Ostler.\n\n[54] This practice is claimed to be possible of achievement by both\nFinn and certain Red Indian wizards. But no facts susceptible of proof\nhave ever been adduced.\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\nTranscriber\u2019s notes.\n\nTwo half-title pages (pages blank except for the book title) have been\nomitted from the front matter.\n\nMinor typographical and punctuation errors have been corrected\nsilently. Ambiguous hyphenation has been removed or retained according\nto the prevailing style for the period. Inconsistent hyphenation has\nbeen normalised.\n\nOther than as indicated below, the authors spelling has been retained,\neven where inconsistent.\n\nThe word Balnam on page 23 has been corrected to Balham, a London\nsuburb suggested by the context. See also Balham or Bayswater on page\n195.\n\nThe two references to Thotn on page 28 (text and footnote) have been\namended to Thoth and Thot for the English and French respectively.\n\nThe author misquotes Milton on page 123, where Thammur has been\ncorrected to Thammuz.\n\nA second instance of Thammur in the text has been changed to Thamus\nto match the Authors alternate spelling in the following paragraph.","title":"The adventures of a modern occultist","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":39893}