6. Hauntings-f

I noticed on leaving the White Temple that the latch of its Yale lock had not caught. Accordingly I pulled the door to, and tested it. As we went out, we noticed semi-solid shadows on the stairs; the whole atmosphere was vibrating with the forces we had been using. (We were trying to condense them into sensible images.) When we came back, nothing had been disturbed in the flat; but the Temple door was wide open, the furniture disarranged, and some of the symbols flung about the room. We restored order, and then observed that semi-materialised beings were marching round the main room in almost unending procession. “When I finally left the flat for Scotland, it was found that the mirrors were too big to take out save by the way of the Black Temple. This had, of course, been completely dismantled before the workmen arrived. But the atmosphere remained, and two of them were put out of action for several hours. It was almost a weekly experience, by the way, to hear of casual callers fainting, or being seized with dizziness, cramp or apoplexy on the staircase. It was a long time before these rooms were re-let. People felt instinctively the presence of something uncanny.” It is well known to all psychics that the sites of ancient temples where mystery-rituals have been worked, are always potently charged with psychic force. This force need not necessarily be evil, but it has a powerfully stimulating effect upon the psychic centres and stirs up the subconscious forces; and as the majority of civilized people suffer in a greater or lesser degree from what Freud calls “ repression,” such a stirring of the subliminal mind produces a feeling of profound disturbance. We should not unquestioningly attribute evil influences to a place or a person that causes us discomfort; it may merely be that psychic force at a greater tension than we are accustomed to is disturbing our equilibrium. The sites of monasteries that were disbanded with persecution at the time of the Reformation are also frequently badly “haunted” by psychic forces. The group-mind of a religious community is a very potent thing, and when it is disturbed by the corporate emotion of its members, the forces thus let loose are not readily dispersed. Moreover, the monks, initiates of the Mysteries of Jesus, would not be likely to hand over their sacred places to the despoilers with any good will. It has been reported again and again that a curse rests on those who profited by the spoliation of Church lands. This is too well known to require discussion in these pages. There is another fact in connection with Church property, however, which may not be so well known, and that is the frequency with which psychic happenings are reported in connection with vicarages. In enquiring among friends and fellow-workers for data in connection with the research that has gone to the making of this book, I have been astonished how frequently a vicarage has been mentioned in connection with the phenomena of which I have been told. The rituals of the Church are, of course, ceremonial magic, as is admitted by even such an orthodox authority as Evelyn Underhill. The average clergyman is not conversant with the technique of occultism, and has therefore little or no understanding of what he is doing. What influences he brings to the altar, and what forces he takes away therefrom, must therefore be an open question in each individual case. A man whose consciousness has been exalted by ritual, and who does not know how to seal his aura and return to normal, is liable to psychic invasion. Objects associated with any form of ceremonial operations are invariably highly charged with magnetism and intimately linked with the force whose uses they have served.