9. Distinction Between Objective Psychic Attack And Subjective Psychic Disturbance-b

It is necessary to use very great caution in drawing conclusions from the psychic impressions of an inexperienced student, who is apt to be as full of alarms as a two-year-old thorough bred. On the other hand, the instinctive reactions of a pure and sensitive soul are not to be ignored. There are such things as Black Lodges and evil entities. We must not allow the cry of “Wolf! Wolf!” to make us either callous or careless. In any case, the victim is suffering remediable discomfort. It is an exceedingly difficult thing to determine psychic ally whether the complainant has reasonable grounds for his feelings, for his own imagination will have filled his atmosphere with menacing thought-forms. It is no simple matter to decide whether these thought-forms are subjective or objective. The wisest way is to rely ‘on such evidence as is capable of objective examination, and enquire into the record of the particular group or occultist against whom the charges are being brought. But it is equally necessary to enquire into the record of the person who is bringing the charges. That that person is filled with the loftiest ideals is no proof that he has a level head, a clear and unbiassed judgment, or appreciation of the nature of evidence. A person need not be a deliberate liar to make statements that are very far from the truth. Another factor which has to be reckoned with is the vagaries of the sex instinct in a person in whom that instinct is repressed. Consider the case of a woman, perhaps no longer young, whose circumstances for the first time permit her to follow her own inclinations; a very common case with home-keeping women, who have to wait for dead men’s shoes before they can set out on life’s journey. She takes up occultism, towards which she may always have had a leaning, and joins some circle for study and possibly ritual initiation. The leader of that circle will in all probability be a person of strong individuality. The inexperienced, love-starved new-comer is glamoured. Ritual is a very stimulating thing, as Anglo-Catholic clergy have found to their cost. The woman, possibly quite ignorant of the facts of life, finds herself strangely stirred. She is frightened, she senses that something of the Kingdom of Pan is approaching. Her instincts will usually guide her truly enough in divining the source from which the disturbing influence proceeds. She will point an unerring finger at the magnetic male. She will seldom take into account the reactions of the female in the presence of the male. If she is a woman ignorant of the facts of life, the charge she brings will usually take the form of an accusation of hypnotic influence. She does not realise that nature is the hypnotist. If she is a woman who knows something of the world, the charge may be of improper advances. One glance at the woman is usually enough to tell us whether there is likely to be any foundation in this charge or not. It is seldom the young and pretty girl, who might reasonably be apprehensive, who is the teller of these stories. It is a curious fact that it never seems to occur to the complainants either to take refuge in flight or put the matter in the hands of a solicitor. If at the end of a long tale, full of dark hints and unspeakable innuendos, the question is asked, “What exactly did he do? ”the answer usually is, “He looked at me in a meaning way.” When one of these stories is being told we should be wise to give more attention to the bearing of the person who is telling it than to the facts alleged. This will usually yield the more valuable information. It is the most difficult thing in the world to get a genuine victim to speak.