Waterbury evening Democrat., 1895-07-26
MODERN BLACK ART.
IT IS SAID TO oUTDo 1.-THE DEVIL ON
 TWO STICKS"

The Three Ways of Casting spell-How
 Toads and waS Images Are Employed.
 One Method is Quite Fin de Siecle-Nen
 of Learning Believe In the Rubbish.
 Modern occultism, or, to put it ill dip lomatic costume, Poccultisme moderne, is becoming decidedly aggressive, to say the least of it, if we are to believe La Revue Illustree. Strange as the news may appear, it is nevertheless reported that the black art is fiourishing fiend- ishly both in Europe and America.
 Casting a spell upon an individual, or, as they say on the Bowery, thoodoo- ing a fellow" has not, according to La Revue, fallen into innocuous des- uetude. We all remember the scene depicted by Alexandre Dumas in "Reine Margot,'' in which the per- fumer of Catherine de- Medici plunges golden needle into the heart, or rather the place where the heart ought to be, of a little wax statuette modelled i'll the image of King Charles Tx. But the magicians of the present day have brought modern improvements into the art. They practice three kinds of hoo- dooism, according to the caprice of the client and the degree of hatred with which he is possessed. In one they use toad, in another doll and i'll third they operate lesprit volant, or, in other words, they remove the spirit and place it temporarily just where they want it,
 Here are the prescriptions for the three methods: You take a road, male or female, according to the sex of the person whom you wish to reach. You baptize it as you would child, giving it the full name of your enemy. While you are committing this sacrilege you must endeavor to work yourself up into a paroxysm of hatred toward your vic- tim, and you must sandwich the sacra- mental words with the most horrible imprecations. Then you inflict upon the toad all the tortures that your imag- ination can suggset, for your enemy is bound to suffer correspondingly.
 If you take an eye out of the toad, your enemy will lose an eye, etc. In America, according to La Revue, the Black Crooks have recourse to a more summary expedient. They bury the toad at the threshold of the residence of the person selected for victim, with the result that he dies as if suffocated.
 The doll method is the most ancient and the most classic. It requires a wax figure called a "manie, resembling the victim as much as possible. It is also necessary to have some little objects that belonged to the victim, or, better yet, one of his teeth, portions of his nails or one or two hairs of his head. You mix these things ill with the wax of the doll and baptize it. Then, just like the poi soner of Catherine de Medici, you stick a pin into the figure. If at that moment your enemy is even flirting with a young woman. he immediately begins to suffer from palpitation of the heart, naturally enough, if he does not die from suffocation.
 The proceeding lesprit volant is the latest improvement in this science, and it is the child of hypnotism. In order to execute it you must have a subject whose astral body, which we are told is of a fluid nature, will abandon the material body on your order and transport itself toward your victim. It slips into his veins the poisons which you have learn ed how to volatilize. The operation ter minated, you return the astral body to its carnal dwelling, and you rouse the subject. The crime is committed with out anybody in the world being able to accuse you, and you are left alone with your conscience But the conscience of a Black Crook is particularly elastic.
 Now, that is the way they work the machine, and La Revue refuses to re- veal the places where the ceremonies are performed for fear of leading its read CTS into temptation It is better, it says, to let them believe that the business of casting spells belongs to the domain of fables. But the surprising thing about it is that men of learning and apparent ly endowed with common sense indulge in this kind of rubbish.
 Witnesses well worthy of belief have told extraordinary stories of a certain Colonel de Rochas-stories that can outdo the widest inventions of the "Devil on Two Sticks. Colonel de Rochas, we are told, has discovered a method of "exteriorizing the sensations O1 IuulNluudlS. EAS1HOucuS uSeu tO put the souls of Christians who died inn penitent into bottles, but M. de Rochas, more ingenious than Asmodeus, concen- trates and dissolves in glass of water the senses of enjoyment and of suffering of subject previously magnetized. If this water is boiled, the subject writhes like St. Laurent on his gridiron, and if. on the contrary, the water freezes, the unfortunate victim becomes bliz- zardly cold.
 Like the story of Jack and the Bean Stalk" all this may not be as true as the Bible, but ill these days of advance ment why shouldn't the black art be reformed and rejuvenated?