TALE OF WITCHCRAFT

Greymouth Evening Star, 9 April 1932, Page 2

TALE OF WITCHCRAFT

A NOVELIST’S EXPERIENCE. A young Englishwoman, it was announced recently, was to bo present at a black magic tryst in Germany, when an attempt-was to be made to change 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, who makes a hobby of investigating abnormal happenings. She told to a ‘‘Sunday Chronicle” representative an amazing story of her experiences with black magic.

Miss Simpson said she believes that “vampires” are still active in various parts of Europe. She states that recent cases of body-snatching have definitely been traced to the activities of these creatures. “But what is more startling than this are the manifestations of witchcraft in our own country,” Miss Simpson said. “I know for a fact that there a.ro places in London where people still practise in the evil eye, love philtres, spells, and other forms of witchcraft.

“Quite recently I came across the effects of black magic in a house in London. With a friend, I went to examine an old house where, it was reputed, black magic had been practised by a former tenant, now dead. “We found the house still partly furnished. It was desolate in the extreme. Dust lay thickly everywhere. In one room there was a crude drawing on the wall—an evil picture similar to a well-known picture which has raised so much discussion recently. In ono 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. 1 felt icy cold. My friend was trembling. He pointed to the coroner of the evil.room. There we both saw a horrible, shapeless, semi-human, dwarf-like figure, with a malignant expression that is quite indescribable. It was an elemental.

“An elemental is a spirit or ‘thing’ quite distinct from a ghost, because it has never lived in human or animal form on earth. It tried to reach us, for elementals liberated through witchcraft aro hostile to human beings. But v, e had brought with us a piece of iron, which—and no one has been able to oxpiain 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 ‘thing’s’ evil influences.”