“In brief, he believes that every stone corresponds to a species of malady, and also to a class of sins; and he affirms that when we have chemically got possession of the active principle of gems we shall have not only antidotes but preventatives. While waiting for this chimerical dream to be realized and for our medicine to become the mock of lapidary chemists, he uses precious stones to formulate diagnoses of illnesses produced by sorcery.”
“How?”
“He claims that when such or such a stone is placed in the hand or on the affected part of the bewitched a fluid escapes from the stone into his hands, and that by examining this fluid he can tell what is the matter. In this connection he told me that a woman whom he did not know came to him one day to consult him about a malady, pronounced incurable, from which she had suffered since childhood. He could not get any precise answers to his questions. He saw no signs of venefice. After trying out his whole array of stones he placed in her hand lapis lazuli, which, he says, corresponds to the sin of incest. He examined the stone.
“ ‘Your malady,’ he said, ‘is the consequence of an act of incest.’
“ ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I did not come here to confessional,’ but she finally admitted that her father had violated her before she attained the age of puberty.
“That, of course, is against reason and contrary to all accepted ideas, but there is no getting around the fact that this priest cures patients whom we physicians have given up for lost.”
“Such as the only astrologer Paris now can boast, the astounding Gévingey, who would have been dead without his aid. I wonder how Gévingey came to cast the Empress Eugenie’s horoscope.”
“Oh, I told you. Under the Empire the Tuileries was a hotbed of magic. Home, the American, was revered as the equal of a god. In addition to spiritualistic séances he evoked demons at court. One evocation had fatal consequences. A certain marquis, whose wife had died, implored Home to let him see her again. Home took him to a room, put him in bed, and left him. What ensued? What dreadful phantom rose from the tomb? Was the story of Ligeia reenacted? At any rate, the marquis was found dead at the foot of the bed. This story has recently been reported by Le Figaro from unimpeachable documents.
“You see it won’t do to play with the world spirits of Evil. I used to know a rich bachelor who had a mania for the occult sciences. He was president of a theosophic society and he even wrote a little book on the esoteric doctrine, in the Isis series. Well, he could not, like the Péladan and Papus tribe, be content with knowing nothing, so he went to Scotland, where Diabolism is rampant. There he got in touch with the man who, if you stake him, will initiate you into the Satanic arcana. My friend made the experiment. Did he see him whom Bulwer Lytton in Zanoni calls ‘the dweller of the threshold’? I don’t know, but certain it is that he fainted from horror and returned to France exhausted, half dead.”
“Evidently all is not rosy in that line of work,” said Durtal. “But it is only spirits of Evil that can be evoked?”
“Do you suppose that the Angels, who, of earth, obey only the saints, would ever consent to take orders from the first comer?”
“But there must be an intermediate order of angels, who are neither celestial nor infernal, who, for instance, commit the well-known asininities in the spiritist séances.”
“A priest told me one day that the neuter larvae inhabit an invisible, neutral territory, something like a little island, which is beseiged on all sides by the good and evil spirits. The larvae cannot long hold out and are soon forced into one or the other camp. Now, because it is these larvae they evoke, the occultists, who cannot, of course, draw down the angels, always get the ones who have joined the party of Evil, so unconsciously and probably involuntarily the spiritist is always diabolizing.”
“Yes, and if one admits the disgusting idea that an imbecile medium can bring back the dead, one must, in reason, recognize the stamp of Satan on these practises.”
“However viewed, Spiritism is an abomination.”
“So you don’t believe in theurgy, white magic?”
“It’s a joke. Only a Rosicrucian who wants to hide his more repulsive essays at black magic ever hints at such a thing. No one dare confess that he satanizes. The Church, not duped by these hairsplitting distinctions, condemns black and white magic indifferently.”
“Well,” said Durtal, lighting a cigarette, after a silence, “this is a better topic of conversation than politics or the races, but where does it get us? Half of these doctrines are absurd, the other half so mysterious as to produce only bewilderment. Shall we grant Satanism? Well, gross as it is, it seems a sure thing. And if it is, and one is consistent, one must also grant Catholicism—for Buddhism and the like are not big enough to be substituted for the religion of Christ.”
“All right. Believe.”
“I can’t. There are so many discouraging and revolting dogmas in Christianity—”
“I am uncertain about a good many things, myself,” said Des Hermies, “and yet there are moments when I feel that the obstacles are giving way, that I almost believe. Of one thing I am sure. The supernatural does exist, Christian or not. To deny it is to deny evidence—and who wants to be a materialist, one of these silly freethinkers?”
“It is mighty tiresome to be vacillating forever. How I envy Carhaix his robust faith!”
“You don’t want much!” said Des Hermies. “Faith is the breakwater
