Byways of Ghost-Land

by Elliott O'Donnell

People are of opinion that the eye is not a particularly safe indicator of true character, but I beg to differ. To me the eye tells everything, and I have never yet looked directly into a person's eyes without being able to satisfy myself as to their disposition. Cruelty, vanity, deceit, temper, sensuality, and all the other vices display themselves at once; and so with vulgarity—the glitter of the vulgar, of the ignorant, petty, mean, sordid mind, the mind that estimates all things and all people by money and clothes, cannot be hidden; "vulgarity" will out, and in no way more effectually than through the eyes. No matter how "smart" the parvenu dresses, no matter how perfect his "style," the glitter of the eye tells me what manner of man he is, and when I see that strange anomaly, "nature's gentleman," in the service of such a man, I do not say to myself "Jack is as good"—I say, "Jack is better than his master."

But to me "the evil eye," no less than the vulgar eye, manifests itself. I was at an "at home" one afternoon several seasons ago, when an old friend of mine suddenly whispered:

"You see that lady in black, over there? I must tell you about her. She has just lost her husband, and he committed suicide under rather extraordinary circumstances in Sicily. He was not only very unlucky himself, but he invariably brought misfortune on those to whom he took a liking—even his dogs. His mother died from the effects of a railway accident; his favourite brother was drowned; the girl to whom he was first engaged went into rapid consumption; and no sooner had he married the lady you see, than she indirectly experienced misfortune through the heavy monetary losses of her father. At last he became convinced that he must be labouring under the influence of a curse, and, filled with a curious desire to see if he had 'the evil eye,'—people of course said he was mad—he went to Sicily. Arriving there, he had no sooner shown himself among the superstitious peasants, than they made a sign with their fingers to ward off evil, and in every possible way shunned him. Convinced then that what he had suspected was true, namely, that he was genuinely accursed, he went into a wood and shot himself."

This, I daresay, is only one of many suicides in similar circumstances, and not a few of the suicides we attribute, with such obvious inconsistency (thinking thereby to cover our ignorance), to "temporary insanity," may be traceable to the influence of "the evil eye."

Witches

Though witches no longer wear conical hats and red cloaks and fly through the air on broomsticks, and though their modus operandi has changed with their change of attire, I believe there are just as many witches in the world to-day, perhaps even more, than in days gone by. All women are witches who exert baleful influence over others—who wreck the happiness of families by setting husbands against wives (or, what is even more common, wives against husbands), parents against children, and brothers against sisters; and, who steal whole fortunes by inveigling into love, silly, weak-minded old men, or by captivating equally silly and weak-willed women. Indeed, the latter is far from rare, and there are instances of women having filled other women with the blindest infatuation for them—an infatuation surpassing that of the most doting lovers, and, without doubt, generated by undue influence, or, in other words, by witchcraft. Indeed, I am inclined to believe that the orthodox witch of the past was harmless compared with her present-day representative. There is, however, one thing we may be thankful for, and that is—that in the majority of cases the modern witch, despite her disregard of the former properties of her calling, cannot hide her danger signals. Her manners are soft and insinuating, but her eyes are hard—hard with the steely hardness, which, granted certain conditions, would not hesitate at murder. Her hands, too, are coarse—an exaggeration of the business type

of hand—the fingers short and club-shaped, the thumbs broad and flat, the nails hideous; they are the antipodes of the psychic or dramatic type of hands: a type that, needless to say, witches have never been known to possess. Once the invocation of the dead was one of the practices of ancient witchcraft: one might, perhaps, not inappropriately apply the term witch to the modern spiritualist.

If we credit the Scriptures with any degree of truth, then witches most certainly had the power of calling up the dead in Biblical days, for at Endor the feat—rare even in those times—was accomplished of invoking in material form the phantasms of the good as well as the evil. Though I am of the opinion that no amount of invocation will bring back a phantasm from the higher spiritual planes to-day, unless that invocation be made in very exceptional circumstances, with a specific purpose, I am quite sure that bona fide spirits of the earth-bound do occasionally materialise in answer to the summons of the spiritualist. I do not base this statement on any experience I have ever had, for it is a rather singular fact that, although I have seen many spontaneous phenomena in haunted houses, I have never seen anything resembling, in the slightest degree, a genuine spirit form, at a séance. Therefore, I repeat, I do not base my statement, as to the occasional materialisation of bona fide earth-bound spirits, on any of my experiences, but on those of "sitters" with whom I am intimately acquainted. What benefit can be derived from getting into close touch with earth-bound spirits,

i.e. with vice and impersonating elementals and the phantasms of dead idiots, lunatics, murderers, suicides, rakes, drunkards, immoral women and silly people of all sorts, is, I think, difficult to say; for my own part, I am only too content to steer clear of them, and confine my attentions to trying to be of service to those apparitions that are, obviously, for some reason, made to appear by the higher occult powers. Thus, what is popularly known as spiritualism is, from my point of view, a mischievous and often very dangerous form of witchcraft.