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{{Style P-HPB SB. Title continued |Evenings with Indwellers of the World of Spirits|8-332}} | {{Style P-HPB SB. Title continued |Evenings with Indwellers of the World of Spirits|8-332}} | ||
.. | {{Style P-No indent|made it the highest that might be made. It is a key to the language of all spirits, and their talismans that dwell there.*}} | ||
{{Style S-HPB SB. Continues on |8-334}} | “That is, there is only one class of spirits, although numerous individuals. Each has a power peculiarly his own, which is felt in or influences the material world. This power is obtained and kept up by a talisman, which each possesses separately from the other, and made up of different characters. These characters make a language that consists, I may say, of twenty-four letters of the different modes of expression. These letters are joined and shortened—in the separate talismans it is so. There are conjunctions of characters that look to the uninitiated of quite a different description from the—language of their originals. The one from which all their expressions are taken is the Talisman of the Sun, the one great talisman that belongs to their abode; their language you will see in my book. | ||
“I have long been desirous of penetrating the mysteries of the—order of R.C. Will you give me the formula, or does your book contain it?” | |||
“It does.” | |||
“As I have now one hour to spare, shall we commence with a page of chapter — of your MS.?” | |||
“I have not got it with me.” | |||
“If I devote next Friday evening to it will you bring the book with you?” | |||
“Yes I will.” | |||
“May I ask your ago when you thus suffered under the tender mercies of the Holy Apostolic Inquisition?” | |||
“Forty-three, The many years that I have passed since have made me no older. I would that the horrid religion which I professed, and which destroyed me, was swept away from the earth, that its priesthood were extinguished, and the poor deluded wretches that drag after them in their misery were made partakers of the mercy of Him they blasphemed.” | |||
“Do you know anything in your present state of the famous writer upon occult philosophy, Henry Cornelius Agrippa, who died in—, and published this work (E. Bussell's translation of the three books, quarto 16)?” | |||
“He is not in my state; he has gone on far above me. He was a Christian and a student, that was all; I a believer and follower.” | |||
“Do you suppose that he did not practise magic as well as study it?” | |||
“He inquired into it before he could give that work (pointing to the book then on the table). He had a strong tendency to Spiritualism, and used available means to elucidate apparent mysteries, but he always undertook the search with a deep reverence and a firm reliance on the Almighty, and a determination to let nothing that passed between him and spirits, be they what they might, should interpose between his own being and his Maker, and never to do aught at their instigation other than his own heart and conscience told him to be consistent with the laws of his Maker manifesting themselves in his being.” | |||
“Did you know in the spirit world Joseph Balsamo, commonly called Count Cagliostro, who, like yourself, died under the pious and tender care of the Holy Inquisition in the Castle of St. Angelo, at Rome, in 1798, just a century after your death?” | |||
“I know he did. He was in my state—indeed, worse than mine, more degraded than I am, for he had made sacrifices to his gods, and yet he’s gone on before me; | |||
I saw him leave this place and go on before me whilst I remain. I have seen murderers leave it.” | |||
“I have often conversed with Cagliostro in my 11 mirrors. Although a spirit, he held materialistic views. His appearances at first were very painful, but he has progressed onwards to happiness, and I hope it will be the same with you are long; but you must pray for mercy.” | |||
“I may be forgiven by mercy, if not by justice.” | |||
“Did you know Guiseppe Francisco Borri, the Milanese, the author of ''La chiavo del Cabinetto?”'' | |||
“Yes, I knew him in my life.” | |||
“I always understood that Romish priests who underwent the purifying by fire were first strangled at the stake?” | |||
“There were some instances of it, but it was not a rule. It is left to the option of the supreme judge the mode of execution. If he had a purpose to effect he might do so, but not from mercy, for that was never a part of his nature. But whenever the torture of ‘the nails’ was inflicted it was perfect evidence that the extreme would be gone into, and, instead of the fire being kindled after I was bound, it was made first, and I was then put in, and, if necessary, an iron framework would have been thrown over me.” | |||
“Surely the men who could inflict with fiendish plea; sure such torments upon their fellow-creatures, however erring, cannot now be at rest?” “No; I tell you the sins of their victims are visited on their own heads, and they are expiating their own offences and their victims’ in the worst of all states that can befall spirits—in burning themselves in the fires that they have kindled for their victims.” | |||
“Then there we will leave them.” | |||
The monk continued: | |||
“Besides other means of torture they drove splinters of iron, like fine nails, into the fleshy parts of the soles of my feet, a dozen in each at first, and then removed everything from my dungeon that I could either sit or lie upon. Standing or walking was insupportable. My hands were bound. The damp floor was moist and slimy, with vermin. I was in perfect darkness, except when the light came that was to go with me to punishment, and was only dragged into full light to answer the repeated questions of the Ruler, and then dazzled and blinded with light, and voices, and curses, and the agony of walking, I was turned back into the dungeon for three-and-twenty days. But it is enough; you would be revolted at the horrors in detail.” | |||
“Yours was indeed a shocking end. But let me ask if I, by again bringing into the material word your manuscript, and leaving it behind me when I die, might not thereby lead some future possessor into evils which he might otherwise have escaped?” | |||
“When I complete your manuscript I shall put this narrative at the commencement as well as an introductory warning against its abuse.” | |||
“It is not for the making of that book I am punished, but for the reliance I placed upon the spirits there treated of, and far more for the sins of my profession. They constitute my guilt.” | |||
“Do you know anything of this MS.—The Key of Rabbi Solomon on Magic Telesms?” | |||
“Will you place it closer? I do know the characters. They were copied originally from some of the Rosicrucian works. There are some private libraries and manuscripts in Rome now which are kept quite secret from strangers to the order; they are full of the most curious seals and descriptions of spirits and spirit-places in their own lan-{{Style S-HPB SB. Continues on |8-334}} | |||
{{Footnotes start}} | |||
<nowiki>*</nowiki> The sun, so far as its physical aspects are concerned, consists largely of gaseous and molten metals, in a state of incessant disturbance, but Mr. Hockley gives this narrative as he received it,—{{Style S-Small capitals|Ed.}} | |||
{{Footnotes end}} | |||