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"Ah, Carl, so you've arrived!" she exclaimed, coming forward and ignoring all her visitors except Marie and myself. "Yes, Emmeline, dear," said Marie, "we've come. And, please, I want to see something in the crystal. How do you do it?" Emmeline glanced around. "Sullivan said my crystal-gazing would be a failure," she smiled. "But it isn't, is it?
"Forever, with the right woman," I announced. "How long could the woman stand it?".... She humoured, smilingly, my crystal-gazing into our future, as though she had not the heart to deprive me of the pleasure. "I simply can't believe in it, Hugh," she said when I pressed her for an answer. "Why not?"
But the point is that she was not voluntarily gazing at a crystal for amusement or experiment perhaps trying to see how a microscope affected the pictures or to divert a friend. I appeal to the shades of Aristotle and Bacon against scientific logic in the hands of Herr Parish. Here is his syllogism: A. is occasionally dreamy when not crystal-gazing. A. is human.
Unconscious cerebration, dreams, hypnotism, hysteria, inspirations of genius, the willing-game, planchette, crystal-gazing, hallucinatory voices, apparitions of the dying, medium-trances, demoniacal possession, clairvoyance, thought-transference, even ghosts and other facts more doubtful; these things form a chaos at first sight most discouraging.
I had a suspicion indeed, I had a hope that adventures were in store for me. Perhaps peril also. For the sinister impression originally made upon me by that ridiculous crystal-gazing scene into which I had been entrapped by Emmeline had returned, and do what I would I could not dismiss it. My cousin's wife was sincere, with all her vulgarity and inborn snobbishness.
Among those who make a study of these subjects, some try to develop the astral sight by crystal-gazing or other methods, while those who have the inestimable advantage of the direct guidance of a qualified teacher will probably be placed upon that plane for the first time under his special protection, which will be continued until, by the application of various tests, he has satisfied himself that the pupil is proof against any danger or terror that he is likely to encounter.
I was still deep in this, when I heard a step outside, the door opened, and Godfrey came in. He smiled when he saw what I was doing. "How have you been getting along?" he asked. "Not very well," and I threw the book back on the table. "The crystal-gazing isn't so bad one can understand that; but the jumble of abstractions which the Hindus call religion is too much for me.
On certain occasions, I believe, he evoked the spirits of Frederick the Great, Napoleon, Bluecher, and others, in order to obtain from them an accurate forecast. At another time he endeavoured to peer into the future by means of crystal-gazing, in which he required the help of a little child.
"Forever, with the right woman," I announced. "How long could the woman stand it?".... She humoured, smilingly, my crystal-gazing into our future, as though she had not the heart to deprive me of the pleasure. "I simply can't believe in it, Hugh," she said when I pressed her for an answer. "Why not?"
From this ever-growing mass of evidence, it would appear that the universal belief among savages in a spirit-world is mainly strengthened and sustained, not by the phenomena of dreaming but by what Mr. Spencer would call "alleged" supernormal manifestations, such as those of clairvoyance, crystal-gazing, apparitions, miracles, prophecies, possession, and the like.
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