TALE OF WITCHCRAFT

Evening Star, Issue 21079, 16 April 1932, Page 18

TALE OF WITCHCRAFT

A NOVELIST'S EXPERIENCE A young Englishwoman, it was an* nounced recently, was to be present atj a black magic tryst in Germany, wheal an attempt was to be made a goat into a human being. She was. then to journey to Hungary to look; for vampires. The young woman. is Miss Helen! Simpson, the well-known novelist, whq makes a hobby of investigating abnor* mal happenings. She told to a ‘ Sum day Chronicle ’ representative an amaz* iug story of her experiences witty black magic. Miss Simpson said she believes that ‘‘ vampires ” are still active in various; parts of Europe. She states that re* cent cases of body-snatching have de-; finitely been traced to the activities ofi thesq creatures. “But what is more startling than) this are the manifestations of witch* craft in our own country,” Miss Simp* son said. “ I know for a fact that! there are places in London where peo* pie still practise in the evil eye, loval philtres, spells, and other forms o| witchcraft. “ Quite recently I came across thei effects of black magic in a house inj London. With a friend I went to ex* amine an old house where, it was re* puted, black magic had been by a former tenant now dead. ‘“ We found the house still partly furnished. It was desolate in the ex* treme. Dust lay thickly everywhere a In one room there was a crude draw* ing on the wall—an evil picture simi* lar to a well-known picture which hast raised so much discussion recently. Ini one corner was an old spinet. Instinctively I sat down and played on it! for a few moments. “ I was compelled to stop. Hands seemed to be laid over mine.' I felt icy cold. My friend was trembling.; He pointed to the corner of the evil room. There we both saw a horrible* shapeless, semi-human, dwarflike figure with a malignant expression that ia quite indescribable. It was an ele* mental. “ An elemental is a spirit or ‘ thing * quite distinct from a ghost, because if! has never lived in human or animal form on earth. It tried to reach us,, for elemental liberated through witch* craft are hostile to human beings. Bufj we had brought with us a piece of iron* which—and no one has been able to, explain why—has a curious power over* these ‘ things.’ It suddenly vanished. “ Later it was possible by a special ritual to free the house completely from the 1 thing’s ’ evil influences.”