The methods of occult attack employed in modern Europe are exclusively mental, so far as my experience of them has gone at any rate.
That is to say, they work by the mind on the mind, and only affect physical conditions incidentally.
In the East and among primitive people, however, other aspects have to be considered, as a much more etheric type of magic is in use under primitive conditions of life and upon virgin soils.
For these etheric operations, material sub stances are required in order that the magnetism attached to them may be made use of.
Hair-combings, nail-parings, cast-off clothes, objects in familiar use, all contain magnetism.
Consequently care should be taken to see that such things are effectually disposed of when discarded.
Combings and nail-parings should be promptly burnt.
Cast-off clothing should never be allowed to go out of the possession of the owner till it has had at least three days’ exposure to sun and air in the open.
The magnetism will be more effectually dispelled if the garments be laid on the earth, especially freshly turned earth, than if hung on a line.
The same applies to furniture.
The chair that has been the accustomed seat and, above all things, the bedding, should be thoroughly aired and sunned before they are parted with.
The same precautions are useful if any second-hand article has been purchased.
The disposal of night-soil should also be carefully arranged for and entrusted to reliable servants, abundant disinfectants and deodorants being constantly in use.
Precautions should be observed to prevent any native obtaining access to fresh excreta.
After the animal heat has gone out of it, its magical value has greatly decreased.
A dirty handkerchief, too, is an effectual magnetic link, and so are dressings from a wound.
Anything, in fact, that bears traces of any of the by-products of the body.
But apart from any question of psychic attack, there are two substances which are especially prized for purposes of magic, and these are seminal fluid and menstrual blood.
The former is used in fertility rites and the latter in certain forms of evocation.
These substances are exceedingly hard to come by in primitive lands, because the natives, knowing their significance, guard them most scrupulously; but the mem-sahib has no suspicions, and allows stained garments and bed linen to go into the hands of the washerman to be disposed of at his discretion, satisfied so long as the garments themselves return safely at the end of the week, and never thinking to enquire what becomes of the water in which they were washed.
There are many parts of the world in which the sale of these magical substances is a profitable side-line of the laundering business.
In Europe, menstrual blood and feces are part of the magical substances of the Black Mass, being made up into patens with wheat flour.
A time-honoured method of clearing a bad psychic atmosphere out of a house, and one which I have known in my own experience to be effectual, is to strew garlic about the place, leave it overnight and then take it up and burn it.
Among country people, an onion is sometimes placed in a vase on the mantelpiece as if it were a hyacinth bulb when unpleasant visitors are expected, and solemnly burnt in the kitchen fire as soon as they have departed, it being believed that the onion tribe have the property of absorbing noxious emanations.
It is curious to note in this respect that in one coal mine to my knowledge the miners are forbidden to take onions down into the workings as part of their dinners because the onions absorb the underground gases and become poisonous.
My informant told me that he and others had smuggled onions down and learnt from bitter experience the wisdom of this rule.
The universal fluid or medium of occult philosophy — Lévi's Great Magical Agent — that transmits will, thought, and magical influence between minds and matter, and preserves the impress of all forms and actions as a book of consciences; cognate with akasha and the anima mundi. Distinct from cosmic_sympathy (a doctrine of hidden affinity) in being a substantival medium that can be charged, directed, and abused.
The passage describes 'magnetism' attached to personal substances and objects as a medium for magical influence, which aligns with the concept of a universal fluid transmitting will and preserving impressions.
The Stoic and Plotinian doctrine that all parts of the cosmos are bound by hidden affinities, so that a movement in one part resonates through the whole; the metaphysical basis for astrology, magic, and divination.
The efficacy of onions absorbing 'noxious emanations' and garlic clearing psychic atmosphere relies on the principle of hidden affinities between substances and spiritual conditions.
A ritual intended to drive out an unwanted possessing or afflicting spirit from a person or place, restoring it to its unafflicted state. Distinct from spirit_conjuration (the operator summons and binds a spirit that was not already present, rather than expelling one) and from possession (the affliction this ritual answers, not the ritual itself).
The methods described for clearing a 'bad psychic atmosphere' (garlic, burning onions) function as protective rituals to drive out negative influences from a place.
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 entire passage is dedicated to describing methods of occult attack (mental and etheric) and the necessary defenses against them.