The Savannah morning news., 1902-01-05

of the ceremonies is somewhat marred
by the presence of an incongruous
nephew clad in Scots kits, who is
there to represent the. Counts Kettle
affinities and Scotch chieftainship. The
unfortunate youth was never in the
land O Cakes and does not wear the
kits with any very evident joy of
them.
Despite all the theatrical mise-en-
scene, the general opinion is that the
Count is perfectly sincere. interested
in "lrisism," and another man is in
pictures or sculpture and finding in
the Sacred Books" like the Book of
the Dead, and the ascetic treatises of
the ancient Egyptian cult some such
inspiration and moral and intellectual
profit as another may find in the study
of the great world poets, in Dante or
Milton or Goethe.
There remains of course the occult
side to be considered. But it is just
the interest of Mr.. MacCiregor's some
what melodramatic drawing room dis
play that is to be isolated.
ON the first Of the month there
opened at the Hotel of the Learned
Societies (Hotel des Societies Savantes)
in the heart of the Latin quarter, a
public and gratuitous course of lee
lures of the "Hermetic Sciences" No
where else i'm the world a this mo-
ment and at no other period of the
worlds history has there been such an
organized effort to teach "occultism'
to all that care to learn, as is being
made now i'm Paris at this remprkable
school The boardngs of the STUDENTS
quarters are covered with posters in
Vtng all sincere inquirers to declare
themselves to the board of directors
of the new school. When they have sat
isfed the board that they are willing to
enter upon a three years methodical
study OF THE Borderland," they are
admitted TO the classes free of all
charge, and may hope, if there be any
thing in oCcultism. to emerge as
| adopts" or images" at the end of their
term. The programme of the Hermetc
School recalls a saying of Oliver Wen
dell Holmes in the Autocrat of the
Breakfast Table, to the effect that no
art once known to men was ever lost.
Always, he says, you will find teachers
and experts of the strangest and ap-
parenty quite abandoned pursuits. At
the Hermetic School there are courses,
and masters. not merely for such mod
ern subjects as hypnotism, thought
transference and -mediumship,
but also for alchemy, astrology call
fors of pneumatology. The alembc has
come into vogue again the kabalah
of the AleXandrian Jews is being ex-
pounded the magic seals and emblems
of the gnostics of Early Christian days
find expert authorities to comment
and explain them. AS a Partisan jour
nalist put it to me- "Parecelsus has
come TO life in Paris" One section of
the "Hcrmetics" is studying Persian
magic under a learned Parsec; an eX-
Rabbi from Vienna is commenting the
Zohar. the curious collection of media
eval Hebrew treatises of cosmogony
and authropology.
This new school will of course have
good deal to do with the threatened
invasion of society by the occultists.
But even without it, occultsm is not
ostracised in Paris as in most other
cities. In America lore concerning the
mysterious side of life has seldom been
considered, except as a toy. Apart
from the theosophists with their squab-
bles and rivalries, the occultists have
as rule been either semi educated en-
thusiasts for whom soundly trained
minds could have little but good hui
mored pity or arrant fakirs who have
rightly become the prey of the police
courts.
Here i'm France the occult has never
before this year been a fashionable
/ fad" but it has never lacked serious