I have
been holding a séance here, with some of my friends, and most
extraordinary things have happened, and are still happening. There are
violent knockings on the wall and ceiling, and the table has become
positively dangerous. It has repeatedly sprung into the air, and
savagely assaulted several of the sitters. It has thrown one lady on
to the floor, and despite our efforts to prevent it, has rampled on
her so viciously that she is badly hurt, and the doctor who has just
arrived thinks very seriously of it. We wanted to stop, but some
strange power seems to be forcing us to go on. The table has rapped
out your name and address, and says it has something important to
communicate with you, and that unless you come here at once, it won't
answer for the consequences." "All right!" Hamar said. "I'll come. I'll be with you in less than
half an hour." When Hamar arrived at Queen's Mansions, he found a terrified party of
ladies awaiting him in the entrance to the flat. "Thank goodness, you've come!" they exclaimed, all together. "We've
been having an awful time. The table has driven us out of the
drawing-room--it is obsessed by a devil." "Let me have a look at it," Hamar said, "and I'll soon tell you." The leader of the party, Mrs. Anderson-Waite, very cautiously opened
the drawing-room door, and Hamar peered in. In the centre of the room
was a large, round, ebony table, that commenced to rock, in the most
sinister fashion, the moment Hamar looked at it. "It evidently wants to speak with me," Hamar said; "you had better
leave me here with it for a few minutes." "Do take care," Mrs. Anderson-Waite said, as she shut the door. "It
may want to murder you. If it does, ring this bell, and we will all
come to your assistance." Hamar gave her an assuring smile, but he was by no means as much at
ease as he pretended to be. He stood staring at the table, too
fascinated to take his eyes off it, and too afraid to move. At length, however, pulling himself together, and convinced the table
was the medium, through which the Unknown wished to give him fresh
instructions, he stealthily approached it. He addressed it, and it
rapped out to him that he must at once obtain pen and ink and take
down what it wished to say. Obtaining the requisite materials from Mrs. Anderson-Waite, he sat
down and was preparing to write on his knee, when the table told him
to rub its surface briskly with his left hand, to trace on it the
three Atlantean symbols, _i.e._ a club foot, a hand with the fingers
clenched and the long pointed thumb standing upright, and a bat--and
then--to place his paper on it, and transcribe what it had to say. Hamar obeyed, and after sitting for exactly three minutes with his
pencil between his fingers, he felt a cold, pulpy hand laid over his,
impelling him to write with lightning-like rapidity. The script read
as follows:--

"To Hamar, Curtis and Kelson--to the three of you in common--is given
the knowledge of inflicting all manner of torments and diseases, of
imparting all kinds of injurious properties, and of causing plagues. "In the first place, you must understand that the essence of life,
comprising the psychical, psychological and physical, permeates every
part of the living corporeal body--and that any limb, or fragment of
skin or flesh, cut off from the living corporeal body, retains the
essence of life, comprising the psychical and physical in its full
vigour and entirety. Consequently, if a person have grafted on to them
a piece of skin or flesh, or be inoculated with the blood or veins of
a tiger--then that person not merely becomes liable to all the
physical infirmities of the tiger, but may--if the counteracting
influences are not sufficiently strong--partake of all the tiger's
psychological characteristics. "Thus, if you give a person, in whom there is a latent tendency to
drink, a drop of a drunkard's blood--in a glass of wine, or sweet, or
pill, no matter what--that person will at once take to drink. Thus--mark you--people can be metamorphosed into libertines, suicides,
idiots and murderers. This metamorphosis can also be produced by means
of a magnet called the 'magnes microcosmi,' which is prepared from
substances that have had a long association with the human body, and
are penetrated by its vitality. Such substances are the hair and
blood. Take either one of them, and dry it in a shady and moderately
warm place, until it has lost its humidity and odour. By this process
it will have lost, too, all its mumia--that is to say, its essence of
life--and is hungry to regain it. It is now a magnes microcosmi, or a
magnet for attracting diseases and properties, and if it be placed in
close contact with a criminal or lunatic, it will be filled with his
essence of life, and may then be used as a means of infecting other
people with his pernicious qualities. Bury it under the doorstep of
the person you wish infected, or hide it in his house, or mix it well
with earth, and plant a shrub in the earth, and the vitality the
magnet took from the criminal or lunatic will pass into the plant; and
if the plant, or even flower of the plant, be given to any one, that
person--unless she or he be a person absolutely free from the germs of
vice--will be attracted to it, and greatly affected by it. "Or again, the earth over the grave of a lunatic or criminal will
contain his essence of life, _i.e._ his vitality, which impregnates
everything around it, and if that earth be placed somewhere in the
immediate presence of a person, in whom there are latent tendencies to
vice--then that person will be affected by it. "And through these methods of using the essence of life, that is
impregnated with the disease you wish to inflict--you may infect
people with all kinds of incurable ailments. "But a quicker, and equally sure method of smiting people with
disease, such as cancer, fever, epilepsy, apoplexy, etc. ; of smiting
them blind, deaf, dumb, lame, etc. ; or bringing upon them all kinds of
accidents, is to make an image of the person you wish to torment, and,
setting it in front of you, preferably, at times when the moon is new,
or in conjunction with Venus, Mars or Saturn, concentrate with all
your will on whatever injury you wish to inflict. If, for example, you
desire the person to become blind, stick a pin, or thorn, or nail in
the eyes of the image; if deaf, in its ears; if maimed, cut a limb off
the image; if to have a certain disease, will very earnestly that he
or she shall have that disease. You may thus, too, torment the object
of your aversion with plagues of insects and vermin. "If you desire to bewitch your neighbour's milk, wine, or any food he
or she has, you may do it by placing the mumia, _i.e._ the vehicle
containing the essence of life of some criminal or lunatic, in the
immediate vicinity of the food, etc. ; or in the case of milk, by
giving it to the cow to eat; or you may accomplish your design simply
by means of concentration and an image.