Taken separately, any of the incidents in this strange eventful history can be explained away, but taken together they make a curious story, especially when it is remembered that without any previous information a psychic investigation had “spotted” the existence of a person with abnormal faculties who was interested in Mr.
C.
Cancer is a disease upon which certain occult hypotheses throw a good deal of light.
It is believed to be a disease of the etheric double, not of the physical body, and that a “Cancer Elemental” is the infective factor.
To prove or disprove anything concerning the foregoing story is impossible, but the following occult hypothesis may explain much.
If this hypothesis be not accepted, readers may find an interesting exercise for their ingenuity in constructing another that shall explain more satisfactorily the circumstances of the case.
Miss X.
retained subconsciously the knowledge and powers that had been hers during the previous life when she was implicated in the witch-cult.
She also retained her passion for Mr.
C., a passion which was obviously unrequited, She employed her power of projection of the astral body to visit Mr.
C.
at night, during sleep.
In the absence of details it is impossible to decide definitely whether the “fit” of Mr.
C.
was a struggle or an embrace.
It might be either, or it might be both, an initial struggle ending in an embrace.
The dreams of Mrs.
C.
obviously related to the same astral visitant who caused the seizures of Mr.
C.
There is, unfortunately, no record to show at what phase of the moon these attacks took place, but presumably at the Hecate phase, which is the period of evil witchcraft.
The condition of Miss Xs fiancé and aunt and the death of her first lover point markedly towards vampirism.
It is difficult to believe that a consumptive would continue for so many years without his disease either being checked or making definite progress.
It is difficult to say what the connection, if any, might be between Miss X.
and the death of her sister’s lover, but it is a curious thing that three men, associated with this ill-omened household as prospective husbands, should lose their lives in the same way.
This, together with the mysterious illness of the aunt, are very suspicious.
As noted before, any one of these incidents could be explained away, but taken together they call for thought.
It is also curious that Miss X.
should keep her fiancé in her house and yet not marry him, from every normal point of view an arrangement with many drawbacks and no advantages.
On the other hand, if her feelings were fixed upon Mr.
C.
and were obtaining satisfaction by astral visits, she would naturally not want to break her rapport with the man she loved by giving herself to the man she did not love.
If she were a vampire, her motive for keeping the aunt and lover in her house, and their condition, would be readily explained.
Also her breakdown, which followed immediately upon their deaths.
The fact that Mr.
CS first wife died of cancer of the womb does not in itself call for remark, but it is a curious thing that he should lose his second wife from the same disease.
Cancer is not as common as all that, and in any case, there are many available sites beside the womb.
On the other hand, Diana, one of the aspects of Luna, of whom Hecate, the goddess of witches, was another, presides over the female reproductive organs.
The illness of Mrs.
C.
began to show itself soon after Miss X.
was excluded from the house.
Finally, what shall we say concerning the deaths of the three people most intimately associated with Miss X.
within a short time of each other, and her immediate break down?
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 text explicitly describes Miss X. employing the 'power of projection of the astral body' to visit Mr. C. at night during sleep.
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 is from a book titled 'Psychic Self-Defence' and explicitly analyzes an event as a case of psychic attack involving astral projection and vampirism.
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 text explicitly hypothesizes vampirism to explain the deaths of associates and the illness of the aunt, linking it to Miss X.'s condition.
The passage states Miss X. 'retained subconsciously the knowledge and powers that had been hers during the previous life', indicating belief in reincarnation.