The San Francisco call., 1896-04-12
DANGEROUS GROUND.

Psychical research has become very
much of fashionable cult since London
and Boston formed societies for the study
OF the philosophy OF psychology, which is
all well enough no doubt as to object and
purpose, but the way some amateurs play
with occult forces is enough to make one
shudder. investigators should know that
psychic phenomena are as dangerous as
they are fascinating, and that one should
not blindly try to fathom their secrets any
more than he would plunge alone and un-
armed into the depths of forest where
wild beasts and poisonous snakes make
their home.
1t is no secret that the psychic realm
begins in the borderland between spirit
and matter; where these two great mani
festations of cause overlap and mingle,
and that the line which actually separates
them is obscure and uncertain. Upon this
side lie things which we sense and analyze
by touch, taste, sight, smell and hearing
Upon the other side lies the boundless
world of spirit entities-a world in whose
astral light and darkness are occult forces
mighty for good and evil, and with which
we can have to do only upon plan of ex-
istenee wi ere our five physical senses are
entirely foreign and of no more avail than
if they were not at all.
1t is fact that the product of the en-
ployment of occult forces in conjunction
with the soul of man, when his soul is en-
vironed by physical body, is either white
or black magic, and that the influence
they exert upon the soul as we'll as upon
the body for veal or for woe is almost be-
70 -
gether in currents that are in harmony
with their own purpose. They are cur
rents of love, of hatred or of indifference,
and the agencies they employ are thought
transference, clairvoyance, mesmerism,
hypnotism and mental agitation.
The difference between white and black
magic is in consequence only and since con-
sequence may not follow until after long
time has elapsed, the Importance of know
ing which current Of this mighty force is
being stirred is apparent. There is vast
deal more danger to the soul in penetrat-
ing the astral world withort Chart of its
paths than there would be to the physical
body in wandering through the sums of
San Francisco at midnight with no pro-
lection. The hypnotic power of spirit
out of the body is infinitely greater than
that of one in the body; besides, there is
the added advantage of being unseen,
which the disembodied spirit possesses.
When an unseen intelligence gets con-
troll OF a person the subject is said TO be
in trance" When the same result is
secured by one in the body we say the SUBJ
iect is hypnotized, but the process is pre-.
cisely the same, as is also the mental con-
dition of the subject. Thought transfer
ence between two minds in physical bodies
is by exactly the same law OF mental ac-
ton that would enable two disembodied
spirits to converse one with the other. or
permit an embodied spirit and one freed
from physical environment to hold con-
versation. 1t follows, therefore. that the
individual who fully surrenders his mind
to occult forces and influences, whether
they emanate wholly from the astral world,
wholly from the physical world or from
an intermingling of the two, is the servant