As a young girl of twenty I entered the employment of a woman who I now know must have had a considerable knowledge of occultism obtained during a long residence in India, and concerning which she used to drop hints that I could make nothing of at the time, but which, in the light of later knowledge, I have come to understand.
It was her custom to control her staff by means of her knowledge of mind-power, and she had a steady succession of most peculiar breakdowns among the people working under her.
I had not been with her very long when she wanted me to give evidence in a lawsuit.
She was a woman of violent temper, and had dismissed an employee without notice and without wages, and he was sueing her for the money due to him.
She wanted me to say that his behaviour had been such that she was justified in thus dismissing him.
Her method of collecting my evidence was to look into my eyes with a concentrated gaze and say, “Such and such things happened.” Fortunately for all concerned I had kept a diary and had a day-to-day record of the whole transaction.
If it had not been for this I should not have known where I was.
At the end of the interview I was dazed and exhausted, and lay down on my bed in my clothes and slept the sleep of utter exhaustion till next morning.
I suppose I slept for about fifteen hours.
Soon after this she wanted my testimony again.
She wished to get rid of my immediate superior, and wanted to find sufficient grounds to justify her in doing so.
She repeated her previous maneuvers, but this time I had not got a diary record to fall back upon, and to my intense surprise I found myself agreeing with her in a series of entirely baseless charges against the character of a man I had no reason to believe to be otherwise than perfectly straight.
The same exhaustion and the same dead sleep descended upon me immediately after this interview as aft& the preceding one, but an additional symptom now manifested itself.
As I walked out of the room at the end of the interview I had a curious sensation as if my feet were not in the place I expected them to be.
Anyone who has walked across a carpet that is bellying up with the under-floor draught will know what I mean.
Occultists will recognise it as having to do with the extrusion of the etheric double.
The next incident to occur in this curious menage did not concern myself, but another girl, an orphan with considerable means.
My employer kept this girl constantly with her, and finally persuaded her to put the whole of her capital into her schemes.
However, trustees descended in wrath, forced my employer to disgorge, and took the girl away with them then and there, leaving all her belongings behind, to be packed up and sent on to her afterwards.
Another incident followed quick on the heels of this one.
There was an elderly woman in the establishment who was slightly “minus” mentally.
A dear old thing, but childlike and eccentric.
My employer now turned her attention to her, and we watched the same process of domination beginning.
In this case there were no trustees to interfere, and the poor old lady was being persuaded to take her affairs out of the hands of her brother, who had hitherto managed them, and commit them to the tender mercies of my employer.
My suspicions had by now been thoroughly aroused.
It was more than I could bear to see old” Auntie” rooked, so I took a hand in the game, woke “Auntie” up to the situation, pushed her belongings into a box, and got her off to her relatives while my employer was away for a brief absence.
I hoped my complicity in the affair would not become known, but I was soon disillusioned.
The doctrine and practice by which the etheric or astral double separates from the physical body, at will or involuntarily, to act, travel, or encounter other entities on a plane subtler than the physical — remaining tethered to the body by a silver cord, and capable of returning physical injury (bruises, exhaustion) sustained while thus projected. Distinct from linga_sharira (the static doctrine that a subtle form persists as a template) in describing its active operative use, and from shamanic_journey (a trance-journey framed within a shamanic ritual complex, undertaken to return with knowledge, songs, or a recovered soul) in being a Western-esoteric technical practice with its own physiology of cord-attachment and reciprocal wounding.
The narrator explicitly describes a sensation of feet not being where expected and identifies it via occult knowledge as the 'extrusion of the etheric double,' indicating involuntary projection.
The doctrine that human volition, cultivated by discipline and emancipated from passion and servitude, is the primary instrument of magical operation — will confirmed by persistent acts acquires causal power over self, others, and nature; distinct from faith and from mere desire.
The employer's ability to influence others through concentrated gaze and suggestion demonstrates the doctrine that cultivated volition has causal power over others.
The doctrine and practice of one person deliberately inflicting harm on another through trained will, mind-power, or occult technique alone, without physical contact — producing exhaustion, illness, breakdown, or death in the victim; recognised cross-culturally as witchcraft, hexing, or the evil eye, and treated in Western esotericism as a genuine occult hazard requiring diagnosis and defence rather than dismissed as superstition. Distinct from magical_will (the general doctrine that trained volition has causal power, of which this is one malevolent application) and from spirit_conjuration (which subordinates an already-existing summoned spirit, rather than directing the operator's own power at a person).
The passage centrally describes an employer using mind-power to control staff, force false testimony, and cause breakdowns, which aligns directly with the definition of deliberate harm through trained will or occult technique.
The condition, often unconscious on the vampire's part, in which one person chronically drains the vital force of another in close relationship, leaving the victim persistently exhausted or ill while the vampire is sustained. Distinct from psychic_attack in mechanism (a parasitic, often unintentional energy-transfer within an ongoing relationship, rather than a deliberate willed assault) and in being a chronic condition rather than a discrete event.
The employer's staff suffered 'peculiar breakdowns' and the narrator experienced exhaustion after interactions, suggesting a draining of vital force within the relationship.