MAGIC SURVIVES

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 109, 10 May 1934, Page 9

MAGIC SURVIVES

SOME MODERN CASES

MOSTLY SUGGESTION

' Bidicule is \ the most powerful anti* dote to sorcery,, and many, a disgruntled magician of old must haye experienced defeat , at its _ hands,- says the Sydney; * Yet a vague hankering after the mysteries, which sorcery promises is latent' in the soul of even the twentieth xentury^ sceptic,'*..'.' . . ' "■.:■ .The jaded modern seeks the thrill of these old beliefs—which explains, why Black.Magic,..as recently alleged to be exploited by Aleister Crow/ley,' finds "many willing.-participatois. A few. years-ago, ;when detectives in. New York raided a,Black. Magic culr, they found "elderly 'men and women capering' around in leopard skins'"arid theatrical "tights,"- sieging .a,, chant (in cracked falsettos), to raise'an ''elemental." (a spirit). - They; were dancing within a Magic* Circle, ;and if' incense '' was"1 burning—including mosquito sticks, blocks of camphor, and sulphur candles. To most of. us such, mumbo-jumbo invites ridicule; : but there is actually extant a ritual of bota Black ■ and White Magic, handed down by tradition.. It is still practised by; devotees, "desperately/anxious'to believe something.?' And belief is the es* sence of all such ancient lore.- : - - Obviously the- ritual—the- solemn invpeationsj the sacrifice of animals,, the burning, of mystic herbs, the drawing of circles, drinking blood, and reciting prayers backward^ —is. a device to get the participant' into such a' state of dread, hysteria, and expectancy, that he or she is/ready to.'.see or "experience anything even the hallucination of a "Spirit's" presence. It is pure auto-suggestion, similar to .the more primitive magic. of." pointing a bone'/ or casting a sgell to bring slow death." If the victim- believes in this latter magic he really auto-suggest» himself to death. ■ '■■ ' COtmTEfi-SPELL-. . .„ Elinor Mordauntj the" i 1 Australian traveller, tell a striking, .tale of how such magic was once neutralised by, counter-suggestion. .'"ln."Kenya (Equatorial Africa) a native'sorceress put a curse on the head-man /of "u'Vtribe Ho'l reporting a brawl. The head-man had already" lost two ehiidren-beeause of a curse, and, in fear of his life was about to leave the district. ; ./;■ ;;"i": v With. :her -brother (the. local physi« cian). the authoress faked a countermagic. A small image he had whittled at school was enclosed in a glass phial that had held liver pills. Amid solemn avowal of the power'of this;magic, in the presence of the whole tribe at dawn, the god in the liver-pill shrina was buried under the floor of the/headman's> hut. ~ All curses.uttered against the head-man' (the natives were.told), thus boomeranged back on.the invbker. Next day the sorceress 'and. her husband fied in deadly'terrjbrj and.the headman was still al^e :in"l93i^ when Misa Mordaunt revisited Kenya. >;;;; ;v' While auto-suggestion'rplay.s/a^great part in magic, it; is; occasionally;;shrewdly helped outtby more matefialVaias. It is"often'ayerred-that {when a white man, takes a Malay /woman for mistress, th& latter can put a magic spell pn.'.hiin, so that as soon as he desert's her he wastes away, and will die unless he returns. The truth in such legends is that the women secretly load their white lords' food with increasing doses of arsenic. Tolerance.-is. quickly -established, and the arsenic /does no harm while the adminis/tXation is kept up.-- -When the man:lesyes;' he1 dies swiftly ;6f arsenicdeprivation, just as a voluntary arsebio adjdi^t Jpibes^^Een. - he' tries, "to give upf thei iriig. - ■jl.-fr .'■'''.- ■"■ . ■ ■ ' - /^wMA^RIAIi MAGIC.' '.v ~ This may be labelled a material form of magic. Today in white civilisations such .tricks have passed—in harmless form—to the stage conjurer,; But the latter has dropped all the incantation and hocus-pocus, and, wonderful as his illusions are, the/believer in. oldfashion magic scb/nsVthemVhi ■ Yet if an expert illusionistilike Long Tack Sam cared to, perform a few tricks to a " circle of "mystics' half-crazed with preliminary terrifying ritual, and if those present believed the conjurer wielded occult powers, he could make them believe anything. ."-.•■;, To believers of this type, the burning of incense, the mutter of gibberish, the tracing of pentagingrams, and the "sacrifice":, of animals are1 potent magic; but in. a world, of "Such actual magic •„ as' wireless television,' flying,^ imprisoned lightning,- ■" and' ; " electric ; eyes, such mumbo-jumbo is intrinsically ridiculous. '.'•'. .' ■■■: -'...';.-; -,