She did not know this, nor was it likely to reach her ears indirectly, for he was very uncommunicative, I only knew that he was sealing his room because I chanced to see him doing it.
Nevertheless, one day I heard a knock at my door, and there was Miss L.
with her arms full of clean linen.
She asked me if I would be good enough to take it into the room of the head of the community, and put it away.
I asked her why she did not do so herself, for I knew he was out, and it was her work to put away the linen.
She replied that she had been to his room for that purpose, but there was a psychic barrier across the threshold that prevented her entering.
She also asked me, on several occasions, to put inside my frock out of sight a little silver cross that I habitually wore, as she said she could not bear the sight of it.
This cross I had purchased just before coming to this occult college, and had taken it to a priest of my acquaintance to be blessed, for I had not been altogether easy in my mind concerning the nature of the group I was joining, and during the early days of my association with it was poised on tiptoe, as it were, ready for instant flight.
Naturally I had kept my own council concerning the psychic precautions I had taken against my new friends, and no one was aware that the cross had been specially magnetised against psychic attack.
Nevertheless, the woman who would have attacked if she could, felt its influence and feared it.
Auto-suggestion and imagination play so large a part in so-called psychic impressions that one is chary of accepting confirmatory testimony from a psychic who knows what is expected of him, but a spontaneous reaction is in my opinion evidential.
When the treatment of Miss L.
had progressed some way towards her final recovery, much interesting information was elicited.
She told us that she had distinct memories of dealings with black magic in her previous lives.
This, she said, had been confirmed by several independent psychics, and I would certainly have been willing to add my testimony to theirs had I been asked.
As a child, she used to day dream that she was a witch, willing the death or misfortune of those who annoyed her, and she also averred, though whether this was true or not I cannot say, that her wishes were so effectual that she was frightened and tried to abandon the practice.
She also volunteered that she was in the habit of visualising herself standing before people she was angry with, scolding them, and projecting malignant force at them.
This, of course, would explain our nightmares.
She also said that she had been in the habit of attacking her mother and sister in this way, and had made her sister very ill, so that they now refused to have her in the house.
This statement was later confirmed by the mother.
She told us that she felt as if she were two distinct persons, her normal self being spiritually-minded, intensely compassionate and idealistic.
Her other, and lower self, which came to the surface when she was crossed, upset, or over tired, being intensely malicious and subject to paroxysms of hate and cruelty.
These characteristics had been particularly marked when she was little.
But as she grew older she recognised the wrongfulness of them, and her lofty idealism represented her endeavour to rise above them.
This endeavour was, I am convinced, an honest one; unfortunately it was not always successful.
She referred to the incident in which she told me to lock my door, and said she had done so in the hope of affording me some measure of protection against the astral projection in which she knew she was tempted to indulge.
At first sight her case had looked like one, of obsession, and had been so diagnosed by one or two members of the community, but wise handling revealed otherwise.
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.
Miss L. explicitly mentions being tempted to indulge in 'astral projection' and the narrator discusses protection against it, indicating the concept of a subtle body leaving the physical form.
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 passage describes Miss L. using her will to 'visualise herself standing before people... and projecting malignant force', demonstrating the doctrine that volition can effect change at a distance.
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 details a case of deliberate psychic assault, including 'projecting malignant force', 'willing the death or misfortune', and the use of a cross 'magnetised against psychic attack'.
Organized, persisting groups — fraternities, orders, lodges — that maintain esoteric knowledge or practices as an institution distinct from public religion or mainstream society, holding 'the keys' collectively rather than through any one master-disciple pair. Distinct from esoteric_lineage (a genealogical chain of individual transmission, not an institution) and hidden_sayings (the concealment of a teaching's meaning, independent of whether any organized body holds it).
The setting is an 'occult college' and a 'community' where members engage in esoteric practices and diagnoses, implying an organized group maintaining such knowledge.
The consecration of an inscribed physical object — seal, pentacle, amulet, character, or figure — so that it holds and channels magical power independent of any ongoing spoken formula, protecting, attracting, or acting on its bearer's behalf. Distinct from sacred_names (the power resides in the name itself, spoken or written, not in a dedicated physical vessel) and from spirit_conjuration (the object is not commanding or binding a spirit but is itself the locus of power).
The narrator wears a silver cross that was 'specially magnetised against psychic attack' and functions as a protective object independent of the wearer's active will at that moment.