The Ketchum keystone. [volume] (Ketchum, Idaho) 1885-1899, 1895-08-03
THE BLACK Art.



Da&seeat 1GstAeds Il vog1e a Casttnl
oe1h ana DswtteAiag-NAed of .
1sf6Em In tie Old 9tyle
Modern ocoaltism. or, to put II in
diplomatic ecetume, 1'occaltisme mod
erne, = becoming decidedly aggres-
sive, to say the least Of It, II we are to
believe the Revue nIustree. Strange
as the news may appear, ssys the New
York Sun, It l. nevertheless reported
that the black art II dourishing fiend-
ishly both in Europe and America.
Casting spell upon an individual
or, - they say on the Bowery. "hoodoo-
ing fellow" has not, according to the
Revue, fallen into innocuous dcsuetudc.
We all remember the scene depicted
by Alexandra Dumas in the Reine Mar
got, in which the performer OF
Catherine Medicis plunges . golden
needle into the heart, or rather the
place where the heart ought to be, of q
little wax statuette modelled in the
image Of King Charles TX. But the
m agfcians of the present day have
brought modern impr ovements into the
art. They practice three kinds OF
hoodooism, 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
in third they operate l'esprit 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 toad, male
or female, according to the sex Of the
person whom you wish to reach. You
baptize it as You would q 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
Impressions Then you infict upon
the toad all the tortures that your inn
a9ination can suggest, 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 Amer
lea, according to the Revue, the Black
Crooks have recourse to more sum-
mary 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 Itrequires wax
figure called q .'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 in with the wax
of the doll and baptize it. Then, just
like the poisoner Of Catherine de
Medicis, You stick pin into the figure.
If at that moment your enemy is even
flirting with young woman, he imme-
diately begins to suffer from palpita-
tion OF the heart (naturally enough) if
he does not die from suffocation.
The proceeding resprit volant is
the latest Improvement in this science,
and it is the child of hypnotism. In
order to execute it you must have sub
ject whose astral body, which we are
told IS Of fluid nature, will abandon
the material body on your order and
Transport itself toward your victimn. It
slips into his veins the poisons which
you have learned how tovolatilize. The
operation Terminated, you return the
astral body to it's carnal dwelling, and
you arouse the subject. The crime is
without anybody In the /
world being able to accuse you, and
you are left alone with your conscience.
particularly elastic.
Now, that ID the way they work the
and the Revue refuses to re-
real the places where the ceremonies
IRE performed, for fear Of leading it's .
readers into temptation. It is better, ,
It says, to let them believe that the busi-
ness of casting spells belongs to the
domain of fables. But the surprising
hing about it is that men of learning t
md apparently endowed with common
,ense indulge in this kind Of rubbish. t
Witnesses wcn worthy Of belief have
old extraordinary stories OF certain
5ol. de RochAs, stories that outdo the
Tildest inventions Of tho ssDevil on
cwo Sticls. Col. do Roch4s, we are !;
old, has discovered : method Of 'sex-
erior1xing the sensations OF individ-s
nls." Asmodrus used to put the souls
4 Christians who died impenitent into
,uttles; but II. de- Rochas, more ingen-
cus than Asn0deua, concentrates and