[4] Cassandra, daughter of King Priam of Troy, was said to have been loved by the god Apollo, who gave her the gift of prophecy. But afterward, offended with her, he rendered the gift unavailing by ordaining that her predictions should never be believed!—Ed.
[5] Michel de Nostradamus, most amazing of all prophets, not only accurately forecast major world events for many hundreds of years but supplemented his prophecies with the exact dates as well as the names of persons and places involved. So highly is he regarded on the continent that at the outbreak of World War II, more than five new editions of his book, The Prophetic Centuries, were rushed into print to supply the demand of Frenchmen eager to learn the outcome of the new strife.
Unhappily the prophecies of Nostradamus suffered the fate of those of Cassandra. Few believed his statements that France would be betrayed from within, Paris fall, and the greater part of the nation be occupied by German forces.—Ed.
[6] Study of brain structure has convinced medical men that the degree of human intelligence is commensurable not to the size of the brain, but by the number and depth of its convolutions. These groovelike depressions in the gray-matter are apparently fashioned by thought-action.
Since it is also believed that thought itself is an electrical phenomenon, it is altogether conceivable that a machine might be devised whereby a transformation of patterns from one brain to another might be achieved. The vilyishna of Rudra is evidently based on a refinement of some such principle as this.—Ed.
[7] The mural here described is no invention of the author. It actually exists. Many and ludicrous have been the attempts of savants to give a logical explanation of its meaning. Readers of scientific fiction, less hindered by dogma and prejudice, may be willing to accept it as factual proof that at one time in history intercourse did exist between this earth and the planet Venus.—Ed.
[8] "The wrath of Azuria, because the other peoples of this earth would not turn blue to suit her.... In the vitrified forts of a few parts of Europe we find data that the Humes and Gibbons have disregarded. The vitrified forts surrounding England ... the vitrified forts of Scotland, Ireland, Brittany and Bohemia.
"Or that, once upon a time, with electric blasts, Azuria tried to swipe this earth clear of the peoples who resisted her. The whitish, or yellowish, or brownish peoples of Scotland, Ireland, Brittany ... built forts, or already had forts, on hilltops. Something poured electricity upon them. The stones of these forts exist to this day, vitrified or melted and turned to glass.
"The stones of these forts are vitrified in no reference to cementing them ... they are cemented here and there, in streaks, as if special blasts had struck, or played, upon them ..." from "The Book of the Damned" by Charles Fort.—Ed.
[9] vilyishna: A Gaanelian machine which transfers knowledge from one brain to another by rearranging the electrical thought-patterns.—Ed.