HPB-SB-3-176

T i

vol. 3, p. 176

H. P. Blavatsky Scrapbooks

from Adyar archives of the International Theosophical Society

vol. 3 (1875-1878)

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< An Oriental Trance Medium (continued from page 3-174) >

again, they had benefited any by good deeds, and had been just and holy, they were rewarded according to their deserts. Of those who died very young, and lived but a little time, he related other things not worth mentioning; but of impiety and piety towards the gods and parents, and of suicide, he told the more remarkable retributions. . . . . . . .

After they arrive here it is necessary for them to go direct to Lachesis. Then a certain prophet first of all ranges them in order, and afterwards taking the lots, and the models of lives, from the knees of Lachesis, and ascending a lofty tribunal, he says :— “ The speech of the Virgin Lachesis, the daughter of Necessity : Souls of a day ! The beginning of another period of men of mortal race. The demon shall not receive you as his lot, but you shall choose the demon ; he who draws the first, let him first make choice of a life, to which he must of necessity adhere. Virtue is independent, of which everyone shall partake, more or less, according as he honors or dishonors her : the cause is in him who makes the choice, and the Deity is blameless.” When he had said these things, he threw the lots on all of them, and each took up the one which fell beside him, except himself, for he was not permitted ; and when each had taken it, he knew what number he had drawn. After this he placed on the ground before them the models of lives, many more than those we see at present: and they were all various, for there was lives of all sorts of animals, and human lives of every kind : and among these there were tyrannies also, some of them perpetual, and others destroyed in the midst of their greatness, and ending in poverty, banishment, and want. There were also lives of renowned men, some for their appearance as to beauty, strength and agility ; and others for their descent, and the virtues of their ancestors. There were the lives of renowned women in the same manner. But there was no disposition of soul among these models, because of necessity, on choosing a different life, it becomes different itself. As to other things, riches and poverty, sickness and health, they are mixed with one another, and some were in a middle station between these.

• • • • • •

At that time, therefore, the messenger from the other world further told how that the prophet spoke thus :— “ Even to him who comes last, if he chooses with judgment, and lives consistently, there is prepared a desirable life, and by no means bad. Let neither him who is first be negligent in his choice, nor let him that is last, despair.”

• • • • • •

Of the water of Lethe all of them must necessarily drink a certain quantity, and such as are not kept by prudence drink more than they ought, and he who from time to time drinks forgets everything. And, after they were laid asleep, and midnight was approaching, there was thunder and an earthquake, and they were thence on a sudden carried upwards, some one way and some another, approaching to generation like stars. And he himself was forbidden to drink of the water. Where, however, and in what manner he came into his body, he was entirely ignorant, but suddenly looking up in the morning, he saw himself already laid on the funeral pile.

Revivals: Their Cause and Cure

The Results Pyschological and Magnetic—The Magnetic Power of Revivalists—When Revivals Become Impossible.

Protestantism is the only religion manifestating the peculiar phenomena called revivals. They are possible with all, but the proper machinery is not set in motion. Judaism, Mahommedanism, and Catholicism have no need of revivals, for to be born under their rule is to inherit their faiths. At a specific age, the child is subjected to certain ceremonies, and matures into an unquestioning belief of the religion of his fathers. It is a matter of education. There is no choice, and if religion is a necessity there should be none. Position, preferment, honor, caste, respectability, and all that the human heart holds dear, depend on a strict adhesion to the popular faith, and should there be any disposition to think outside or beyond, it is suppressed by the opposition it meets on every hand.

The Jewish child is educated according to the law of Moses. His father strictly adheres to its provisions, and he can only take position with his people by doing what they believe essential. There is never a moment, from the cradle to the grave, when the Mohammedan, the Jew, the Catholic, is not a Mohammedan, a Jew, a Catholic. It is not with them a question of reason, but of belief and education. There is no place for a revival, because belief never droops or decays.

The same is true, in a measure, of Episcopalian ism, which is but another name for Catholicism. It does nor recruit its ranks in seasons of religious flood, but from the aristocracy, who desire to belong to some church, and accept that which makes the fewest demands, and affords the largest return in social caste.

Revivals are confined to the strictly Protestant sects that amuse themselves with the pleasing fiction of “free-will” The assumption is, that man has freedom to receive or reject the doctrines of Christianity, and on his choice depends his eternal welfare. This is the fiction; but the ability to choose, of children and imbeciles who are brought to the anxious seat, is certainly questionable.

The children of church-members are educated into the faith of their parents. The schools are presided over by the same influence, and the Sunday schools are hot beds of superstition. The mind of the child is surrounded by a shell, hardening and thickening with age, which conceals or distorts the light, and dwarfs the reason. Whether the child early joins the church or not, this process cultures it for so doing when the proper time arrives. Never did husbandman prepare the soil with greater care, or more successfully, than this training prepares the mind for “conversion.” The child may appear to go wide of the prescribed path, and in his instinctive rebellion against arbitrary rule, reach manhood despicable and depraved, but the crust of early education indurates, and is not broken, and ever the thoughts early distilled come up and reiterate themselves, mistaken for the voice of a rebuking conscience. He never outgrows the belief that confession of religion and observance of its forms are necessary for salvation.

The Catholics understand the importance of this early training. “Give us the child until eight years of age, and you may have the man.” Truly and wisely do they say, and the Protestant sects express their conviction on this subject by the prominence they give the Sunday school, the ostensible purpose and aim of which is the manufacture of church- members. Whether the child at the time apparently comprehends oi believes the dogmas taught, is of little consequence. They sink into its mind, and like pernicious seeds, lie dormant until a favorable opportunity for their germination. Its mind is impressed with false ideas of itself, of God, of its relations; and its exceedingly susceptible organism is overshadowed by the high authority, the sacred character, and the fearful denunciations. The soil is prepared, the seed is sown, to await the proper time; when suddenly, as by miracle, it springs up, and with rank and blighting growth, overshadows reason and the intellect.

Religious revivals furnish the proper conditions for the germination of the seeds thus insidiously sown Then the dogmatic teachings of superstition, the prayers beard, and perhaps made jest of, the utterances of the teachers, the scraps of religion interpolated into the text-books of the secular schools, and which brim over in the Sunday school book, bear their legitimate fruits. The summer shower softens the soil, and mushrooms of enormous sire push forth their white bowls in an hour. Beneath the surface, however, the mould-like fibres have traversed, and fed on the decay their presence occasioned, gathering strength from the blight and death of the grasses and flowers to yield its fruit when the rain should furnish the needed conditions for its maturity.

Revivals depend on many conditions for their success, the principle of which is, that as the results are psychological and magnetic, the requirements of experiments in animal magnetism must be fulfilled. The churches may be, and probably are, ignorant of magnetism, or may scoff at the idea that one person can influence another; but when they set themselves to inaugurate a “revival,” they observe the conditions imposed in alt successful magnetic experiments. As in circles gathered for spirit-manifestations, they know harmony is vitally essential. The churches unite, and, for a time, lay aside those portions of their creed on which they cannot agree. The Baptist, though he considers plunging essential, mentions it sot, but is as tenaciously silent as he is tenacious of his belief The Presbyterian speaks not of predestination, nor the Methodist of salvation by faith. Creeds and dogmas, over which these sects ordinarily are ready to battle to the death, are quietly sunk out of sight They range themselves on the narrow strip of neutral ground, and. thus concentrated, determine on one object,— the conversion of souls. In other words, they form a circle, the magnetic force of which is in direct ratio to its unity, harmony, and fervor.

One element more is wanting—a directing mind, — and preachers there are who acquire the reputation of “revivalists,” —men of strong will, fixed purpose, energy, and the inseparable accompaniment to these—magnetic power. Their moral status is not an element of the process, for the temperament which makes them successful as "revivalists" is essentially animal, and, for that very reason, scarcely one of this class escapes the truthful tongue of criticism.

The deacons of the churches, the zealous members, led by the “revivalist,” come together. They first proceed to remove all differences which may exist among themselves. They kneel before the Throne of Grace, and their souls flow together in prayer and psalm. Differences melt and vanish. The pleasing psychological influence which is thus created is mistaken for the presence of the Holy Ghost, and thus belief warms their hearts anew. The circle is formed, and, as a central battery, exerts its influence on surrounding minds. The preacher strikes the key-note, and laymen attune themselves to its pitch, and the perfection of the harmony is a true measure of the results obtained. As in a choir one discordant voice spoils the melody, one antagonistic mind will destroy the harmony of this mental battery. The “revivalist” encourages, in his chosen band, those acts which experience has taught him contribute to unison, as self-abasement, confession of sins, and yielding in humility the individuality. Nothing should “be kept back,” but the most secret thoughts and actions confessed on the house-top. The spirit must go down in the dust, and by stultifying reason and obstinate individuality, by servility and abasement, secure the sweet peace of sins pardoned and freely forgiven. Then is the magnetic power organized, and those who are unconscious of its existence feel its influence, and, awed by its mysterious force, are ready to accept it as an overshadowing of the Holy Ghost.

As the power of the voltaic battery is increased by each additional plate of zinc and copper, so is the force of this mental battery increased by each individual added thereto. It requires a week, or, perhaps, even a month, to unitize the conflicting individualities and create the harmony which is essential for exercise of the full force of the elements thus; organized. Daily and nightly they meet, pray, sing, relate “experiences,” confess their shortcomings, and beseech the gathering audience to come forward to the Throne of Grace. The first convert is a test that the forces have become harmonious, or that in other words, the Conversion Machine has become attuned. The most sensitive, of course, first feel the mysterious power. Backsliders and renegades, by their periodical “conversions,” acquire no enviable reputation, though they are really honest and sincere. The very temperament that renders them susceptible to the mental force, at the season of revival, renders them equally sensitive to the influence of the world when the season has passed. They are negative, and obey the strongest influences, and while under religious excitement they are borne on the crest of the wave, and in fervor and zeal excel all others. Having no character of their own, as soon as the wave subsides they go slows with it, either drifting into the world again, or lying on the coast, like flood-wood, awaiting another freshet—most pitiable of beings.

These sensitive subjects, with children of Orthodox training, first feel the subtle force. As soon as they “come forward” and join the central power, its strength is increased by the confidence bestowed by success, the seeming presence of the Holy Ghost, and by the addition of numbers, itself an important element, if the new individuals are in harmony, which they must be, or they would not be influenced.

The magnetic force increases, and now masters the less sensitive. Now the early dogmatic training becomes a valuable ally. The mind is prepared It baa received the lessons of piety and of faith; it has said, perhaps they may true. If it has scoffed, beneath the scoff has been felt the rebuke of educational bias, mistaken for conscience. A some future time they have intended to look after their spiritual welfare, —perhaps that time has come.

The magnetic power fills the church, seeking out the weak and beating in innumerable waves against them until they yield. They who have felt the magnetic influence understand the sensations of the convert Reason, intellect, the will, are swept away, and a blind, irresistible, incomprehensible force usurps their place. The emotions are intensified, as they are in the magnetic state; a flood of ineffable desires and aspirations bursts on the startled novitiate, who, bewildered, amazed and confounded by the strange sensations, eagerly asks their meaning. Instead of explaining the principles of psychology Involved, the “revivalist” and the “deacons,”—blind leaders of the blind, —shout, “Glory to God I another sinner saved!”

Not always is the magnetic state at once induced. Often it is only partial, and then is experienced the conflict between the individuality of the convert on the one side, and the magnetic power on the other, which, from repeated descriptions of those who have experienced it, is unspeakably terrible. The mind is filled with fearful emotions and dreadful presentiments. The dark dogmas of evil, hell, and Satan, are realities intensified by the heated fancy—more torturing than the monsters of delirium tremens. No hope, no relief! Existence given for inevitable death, which is not annihilation, but eternal fire! Frantic, the subject cries, “I am lost! What shall I do to be saved?” “Confess,” answers the revivalist. “Confess! pray God to forgive your sins, and gain peace at the foot of the cross! You are nothing, a worm, a reptile. The fires of hell shall not be quenched, the worm dieth not!” and then, with a wail, the revivalist shouts, “Lost, lost, lost! flee to Christ! His blood alone can wash away your unspeakable sins!”

Now two things may occur. If the subject goes away from the meeting, gradually its influence is lost, and he gains peace by its individuality regaining its sway; on the other hand, if he remain—and he will if it be possible for the members to retain him; for well they know their control will be lost if he remains away—then alter a time individuality yields to the waves of magnetism, and harmony thus produced, he feels the sweet happiness of the magnetic state, mistaking it for his peace with God. He contrasts its blissful quiet with the terrible state of disturbed magnetic equilibrium, wherein he Is told that he has wrestled with the devil, and met with the experience of the Saviour before him, when taken to the summit of the temple by the same arch-enemy of mankind Certainly he has met with a great change; it is one from misery to happiness, and must be indicative of having fought the good fight, overcome the flesh, and received pardon for all sins.

The convert is completely magnetized by the church force, and believes whatever it wills him to believe. His faith is sufficient to attack mountains, though it may not remove them. He is as ready to believe one doctrine as another, for he has been converted, not through his intellect, but by its stultification; and only when its dead, and blind faith usurps its place, is the convert truly at peace. So long as it has a voice he has doubts, and is tempted of the devil to renounce his faith and return to the sinful enjoyments of the world.

Often the force called forth becomes unmanageable by the operators. They are children playing with fire. They know not the laws of this force, which they mistake for God, and the whirlwind escaping their control gives countenance to their belief in its miraculous origin. Then is presented the disgusting side of the revival, to which the pow wow of the red Indian is refinement itself. There is contagion in the sweep of the force ever drawing in new material and strengthening itself thereby. New religious sects have originated from the fanatical spirit thus awakened, their test of member ship being the spasmodic contortions, the insane freaks, or the gymnastic evolutions of their devotees. These gymnastic performances are accompaniments of all revivals of marked success, usually attaining their most intense expression among the uneducated and rude. A Methodist camp meeting is their field day, and among the Southern negroes they form the larger share of religion.

A revival will continue as long as its movers remain harmonious, and ignore personal opinions; but the time comes when the various sects engaged must divide among themselves the converts they have rescued from the bands of Satan Then doctrines are taught, personality appears; antagonism takes the place of union, and the magic spell is broken. Not another convert is gained, but many of the latest are lost.

Is it not potent to the student of psychology, and to every one who has witnessed its most common manifestation, that revivals are dependent on the same laws? Ask the young convert why be attends the meeting night after night; what possible interest he can have in the threadbare tale of experiences and formulated prayers. He will only answer that he is strongly attracted, and feels happy while there. It is the same influence the snake exercises over the bird it is charming, or the magnetizer employs on his passive subject, and often proceeds to unconscious trance.

Does the “revival preacher” storm the heights of Infidelity with reason or argument? Nay. these disappear. He deals in prayers and hymns and experiences which reveal black ignorance and superstition. He preaches of the love of God, the sacrifice of the blessed Jesus, the terror of hell and the wrath of God, and the wily voice of the devil. The machinery at his command is terrible. The convert trembling with the new sensations of his semi-trance, passive as a ball of clay, and sensitive to the thoughts of the mental focus, is the toy of the preacher, who elevates his imagination to heaven, or plunges him into hell. No element is wanting to give the priesthood surer hold. The awful depravity of human nature, the blessed love of Christ on the cross, the fearful wrath of God, and the tortures of hell with its dragon—-oh, we cannot blame the convert if he go wild with terror—nay, if he go raving mad—we can only pity!

Not the Holy Ghost that broods over the orgies of the camp-meeting, or the immodest, often indecent, scenes of the revival; the means are human and the results the same. Not alone in religion, but in very opposite affairs is the same law observed. The red Indians, before starting on the war-dance—the bravest first joining, and then as the feeling grows, Others fall in, until all become affected, and shout and sing their wild prayers and songs, until in rapport with each other, as one man, filled with one purpose, they sally forth on their projected enterprise. With the Dancing Dervishes of the East, the almost maniacal ecstacy of physical effort is a constant act of worship, in which the miserable devotees thrust knives or needles through their flesh, suspend themselves by hooks, or flagellate themselves in a most cruel manner.

And the mob, controlled by a few leaders, exhibits the same phenomena of psychological control. It moves to its object with unflinching courage and unreasoning thoughtlessness, and, as long as harmony pervades its ranks, no army is stronger. It will do the work in which it Is engaged with the unflinching cruelty of fate; but the moment antagonism exists among its leaders, it dissolves like a mist.

I have no disposition to scoff at revivals or their fruits. Whatever good may result from them should be carefully treasured. Under our government, at least for the present, all forms of religion are tolerated. Not with scoffing I would ask what are the fruits of these weeks and months of enthusiasm? Shall we measure it by the score of members added to this church, the score to that? If it is God’s plan to save the world by revivals, He is meeting with a sad failure. Ha presents salvation, and begs sinners to come, and they do not think it worth their while to go and receive it! Who are the converts? Have the men and women of thought and culture been converted? Have the leaders in the arts and sciences admitted the miraculous power of the Holy Ghost? Not one has been gained. The larger class are susceptible, children, not of sufficient age to reason on the metaphysical subtleties of religion; who have been captured as a serpent would capture a bird, and are utterly incapable of giving an intelligent answer for the belief they nave espoused—children, to influence whom in this manner should be made a high misdemeanor and a crime. These are the usual complaints of backsliders and the much boasted “hard cases” who have at length yielded. I hope and trust the latter have really’ met with the change of heart they so much expected. There is certainly need enough.

Must one be a prophet to predict how many of these converts will abide tor a year? “Revivals” affiliate with cold weather. The mercury must indicate zero, to have them vigorous. Cold is promotive of the magnetic condition. The first warm days of Spring witness the last of the revival; the summer, the backsliders with their religion dried up; and the autumn the returning reason of the children; the “hard cases”—I hope they may hold fast. Perhaps this is the religion they require. A sniff of brimstone and a devil may be exceedingly serviceable to their morality.

Must we not pronounce the results entirely inadequate to the means employed? If the revival is God’s harvest season, how few bundles of souls He secures, and how singularly inferior their falls! The Orthodox plan is a failure It is worse,—from its conception it is a blunder. The Infinite is represented as vacillating tyrant, not fully understanding what He himself desires, pursuing His purposes by “ways that are dark and tricks that are vain.”

Call this an Infidel sneer? Perhaps it were well to inquire who are the infidels? —they who put beneath their feet these dark dogmas, or they who uphold them in such a manner as to drive far away all who pause to think? If you present me with this Asiatic despot, with garments clotted with the gore of his children, his eyes bleared with passion, his words demoniac curses, to whom I must go down in the dust and ask pardon for being at He has with infinite power and wisdom created me to be — this plan of salvation, by which one is saved and a million perish—I boldly declare the scorn that fills my soul for the entire gross fabrication, and prefer his condemnation, and to go down to endless punishment with all the great and noble minds of the present and the past. If this be your God, what can be your Devil? Can there exist a worse?

As long as the present religious beliefs are entertained of God and his requirements—the nature and destiny of man—so long will the spasmodic efforts at conversion, known as “revivals,” blot the lace of our civilization. The great mass already have advanced beyond the possibility of being reached by these religious freshets, yet a host remain on the marsh lands that at any time the flood may overflow. Here the church will recruit its failing ranks for a long time to come.

The cure of “revivals’’ is knowledge. Elevate the mind above the instinctive and emotional plane by a true and thorough knowledge of the laws of the world, and “revivals” become impossible. A dozen Methodist exhorters and a conclave of priests could not bring down the Holy Ghost on an assembly of-men like Humboldt, Huxley, Tyndall, Emerson, Fichte, or Strauss. In vain would prayers and hymns be offered for them to feel the magnetic force.

The profundity of thought of either one of these gives him strength exceeding a thousand enthusiasts, They stand like rocks, around which the waves of theology dash in vain. The attempt is not made. Its hopelessness is admitted. They have escaped the fear of God by and through the knowledge of His works.

From the tiny flower and spray of moss, to the planet rolling on its orbit; from the animalcule to the mind of mac, fashioned to grasp these sublime relations, there is no flaw, mistake, or blunder. Omniscience, infinite power, wisdom, and love, are expressed in the minutest and the grandest works. There is no suspension of purpose, no error in judgment—the best and most fitting is always employed, and a miracle is unknown.

How will these students of nature receive this plan for the redemption of man, which represents the system of the world as the exact opposite of what they have everywhere found it to be? They will say at once, this is a concoction of ignorant men, and has no likeness in the constitution of things; and pass it by, as the vagaries of children.

The mission of faith is to believe what is not proven Whatever is proven is removed from its sphere, and were knowledge sufficiently extended, there would be no place for its feet to press.

Hell and its master disappear in the light of understanding An angry God evanishes with fear and servility. The Order of Levites, to interpret His wishes, becomes a useless impertinence. We find we can never be lost or estranged from God. His arm of infinite law overshadows, surrounds, and sustains us. From it there is not a moment’s escape. We learn the uselessness and folly of prayers. The infinite purpose is executed, regardless of supplications. The sun stands not still, nor the moon stays her course, nor the stars fall from their places, if a host of archangels plead.

If the stultification of reason by the magnetic force of the revival brings peace and trust, a far nobler and purer joy is yielded by knowledge. And when it is experienced in its fullest measure, conversion to religious forms is impossible.

An Ancient Tablet

The National Library in Paris has a sandstone tablet said to have come from Thebes, from the temple of the god Khonsa, the second person of the Theban trinity. The illustrations art the king offering incense to the ark of the god Khonsa, borne on the shoulders of twelve priests, sandalled for a journey, and a priest receiving a similar ark on its return. The god is called the driver away of demons. The king is Rameses XII., who flourished about 1200 B. C.

“The inscription, which is long, states that the Princess of Bekhten (probably Ecbatana) being the younger sister of Rameses XII’s wife, Sun-of-the-Graces, and a malady having penetrated her limbs, her father sent to the King of Egypt for a doctor. Throth-in feast was sent, selected from the college, and the mystery doctors of the palace, He found her seized by a spirit, and he, himself, unable to fight with him, the father sent to the king again. The king went to Khonsa, and prevailed on him to have one of his forms sent, first giving this form his divine virtue four times (a figure four times repeated resembling as much as anything an old fashioned S, with a long loop above and one below). This sign comes as near magnetism as anything; it represents the spine; guardian gods exert it upon kings and other respectable people. After a year and five months traveling with one large and five little arks, a chariot and many horsemen, this god arrives; the father goes out with nobles and soldiers to meet him, and falls even on his face with appropriate speech. This good goes to the Princess, exercises the power according to this form for her, and in a moment she is well.

“Then this spirit,” (the characters indicate that he is glorified or illuminated and august, holding in his hand the whip of rule,) “who had been with her, saith before Khonsa, ‘Thou hast come in peace, great god, who drivest out the demon (or diakka). Thine is the land of Bekhten, thy slaves its men; I am thy slave, I will go to the place whence I came to set thy heart at rest as to thy coming to her. Will thy holiness order a feast day to me from the Prince of Bekhten?’ Then this god deigned to say to this prophet, ‘Let the Prince of Bekhten make a great offering before this spirit.’ While Khonsa was doing these things with the spirit, the Prince of Bekhten stood with his soldiers, terrified exceedingly. Then the Prince of Bekhten made a great offering before Khonsa and the spirit— made a feast day for them. And the spirit went in peace whithersoever he pleased, by the order of Khonsa.

“The Prince thought first he would keep so useful a god, but after three years and three months, seeing him in a dream coming out of his shrine as a hawk of gold, and flying away into Egypt, he thought better of it, and sent him back with many presents, troops and horsemen.

In the British Museum is a large stone tablet with thirty-six lines of hieroglyphics, one side broken off two-thirds of the way down. These are mainly invocations to divinities or genii, that the departed one may be preserved from all sorts of malevolent things in that under sphere which is so well described and depicted in the Book of the Dead and on the better sarcophagi, as to remind one of Dante with Dore’s illustrations. At the twenty-third of these lines begins an invocation to a sacred ‘Lamb, son of a ram, who art sucking thy mother sheep, let not the departed be stung by any serpent, any serpentess, any scorpion, any reptile; let not any one of them master his limbs; let not any death, any deathess enter into him; let not haunt him the shadow of any spirit.’

“The dead Egyptian either rose again, like the sun, or he was struck with the second death, (compare Rev. ii : II) according to the Book of the Dead, after which he was called a death, or a dead spirit The Book of the Dead has prayers to prevent this second death. Although these deaths suffer flame, tortures, and their bodies are pastures for demons, yet they may enter the bodies of others. There are prayers against this in the Book of the Dead, and elsewhere.

“On the twenty-sixth line of this tablet we read: ‘Oh thou who enterest, enter thou not into the limbs of the departed,’ and in the thirty-first, ‘Let not haunt him the influence of any death or deathness.’ These amiable companions are also mentioned in the incantation on the first page of the Papyras Ebers. In line thirty-second of this tablet is an exorcism, ‘I have repeated the words over the sacred herbs put in all the comers of the house. I have sprinkled the whole house with the juice of these herbs during the night; when comes the dawn the person buried is in his place.’ This is the way we now protect a house against spirits: Last Spring, in Florence, a priest came to the house and sprinkled it with holy water, ‘repeating words,’ and so laying the ghosts.”

Editor's notes

Sources

• 

  Spiritual Scientist, v. 4, No. 15, December 14, 1876, p. 164

• 

  Spiritual Scientist, v. 3, No. 11, November 18, 1875, pp. 121, 124-5