The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1928-12-10
BLACK MAGIC VII.
REALLY KILLS, |.
SAYS EXPERT
Pennsylvania Murder Case
Explained by Student
of VoodooiSm.
BY SAM LOVE
United Press STAFF Correspondent

NEW YORK, Dec. 10.-Witch-
craft is as much a reality as an
electric light, black magic as factual
as a radio program, an expert APP
preached by the. United Press for
a possible explanation of the strange
murder of Nelson D. Rehmeyer, near
York, Pa, calmly asserted today.
w. B. Seabrook, who has seen
magic work on it's victims in the
jungles of Haiti, in Arabia among
the Yezidee. or "devilworshippers,"
in KurdiSta1l and in the south OF
France, finds nothing strange in the
eerie revelations now coming from
modern city in Pennsylvania. Near
York, Reymeyer was killed defend
ing a lock of his. own hair from the
three charged with his murder.
Seabrook once saw young wom-
an bewitched in a manner hard to
explain as she strolled unsuspect-
ingly down Fifth avenue in front
of the New York public library.
Other and even stranger occult
matters are embodied in Magic Is
land" a book he just has written
after living for more than a year
among the Voodoo practitioners In
Haiti, and which will become an
automatic best-seller in January
when it is published under the dis
tribution system of the Literary
guild.
Magic Really Kills
"Black magic works-it even can
kill without the use of polsonS or
material things" said Seabrook. ---
Therefore, If this old farmer,
Rehmeyer, really was witch doctor
and really put a spell on his neigh
Dor, John Blymyre, and on the
Hesses-and it could be proved-lf l
were on the jury should be in
clined to regard their retaliation al
most as much matter of SELF
defense as if Rehmeyer had gone
after them with a gun.
Assuming that these people do
believe in their own powers
Blymyre, John Curry, IA, and Will
bert Hess, Is, went to the old man
in fear of death, harm and deStruc-
ton.
"Blymyre and the boys have been
quoted as saying that what they
wanted was a lock of Rehmeyer's
hair to break a spell he had cast on
them.
"That is not so-a lock of hair in
black magic is used only to put
death spell on the person from
whom it came. If they went to GET
a lock of Rehmeyer's hair, they were
after an ingredient for death
charm against him. Had they buried
it eight feet underground where 1t
would rot, as they apparently in
tended, it is conceivable that Reh-
meyer would have sickened and
died. . :ss.ss.,s
Two Forms
"There are two and only two
forms of destructive black magic,
both of which have been practiced
since the beginning Of time by
savage tribes and which have their
parallels in civilization.
Number one is initiative magic.
In medieval Germany and Italy
among savages, too-this formula
usually has been to make a., wax
figure of the victim and either to
melt it slowly or to stick pins. into
it. In Haiti lastsyear I saw man
dying, because he knew that up in
the mountains an old woman. slowly
was unwinding the threads COM
posing a little doll which rep
resented him.
Number two is sympathetic
magic, or contagious magic. In this
case. you take some part, or some
emanation, from the actual body Of
tt person you plan to destroy. A
lock of hair or fingernail pairing is
quite usual, although a shirt that
has been perspired on is also used.
Having acquired this, you make
your charm and repeat your in
carnations, placing the object in a
plac where it will slowly rot away.
The theory is that the victim will
decay with it.
IT am a nationalist about these