13. Necromancye

There are evocations of intelligence, evocations of love and evocations of hate; but, once more, there is no proof whatsoever that spirits leave the higher spheres to communicate with us: the opposite, as a fact is more probable. We evoke the memories which they have left in the Astral Light, or common reservoir of universal magnetism. It was in this light that the Emperor Julian once saw the gods manifest, looking old, ill and decrepit - a fresh proof of the influence exercised by current and accredited opinions on the reflections of this same Magical Agent, which makes our tables talk and answers by taps on the walls. After the evocation I have described, I re-read carefully the life of Apollonius, who is represented by historians as an ideal of antique beauty and elegance, and I remarked that towards the end of his life he was starved and tortured in prison. This circumstance, which remained perhaps in my memory without my being aware of it, may have determined the unattractive form of my vision, the latter regarded solely as the voluntary dream of a waking man. I have seen two other persons, whom there is no occasion to name, both differing, as regards costume and appearance, from what I had expected. For the rest, I commend the greatest caution to all who propose undertaking similar experiences: their result is intense exhaustion and frequently a shock sufficient to occasion illness. I must not conclude this chapter without mentioning the curious opinions of certain Kabalists, who distinguish between apparent and real death, holding that the two are seldom simultaneous. In their view, the majority of persons who are buried are still alive, while a number of others who are regarded as living are in reality dead. Incurable madness, for example, would be with them an incomplete but real death, leaving the earthly form under the purely instinctive control of the sidereal body. When the human soul suffers a greater strain than it can bear, it would thus become separated from the body, leaving the animal soul, or sidereal body, in its place, and these human remains would be less alive in a sense than a mere animal. Dead persons of this kind are said to be identified by the complete extinction of the moral and affectionate sense: they are neither bad nor good; they are dead. Such beings, who are poisonous fungi of the human race, absorb the life of living beings to their fullest possible extent, and this is why their proximity depletes the soul and chills the heart. If such corpse-like creatures really existed, they would stand for all that was recounted in former times about brucalaques and vampires. Now, are there not certain persons in whose presence one feels less intelligent, less good, sometimes even less honest? Are there not some whose vicinity extinguishes all faith and all enthusiasm, who draw you by your weaknesses, who govern you by your evil propensities, and make you die slowly to morality in a torment like that of Mezentius? These are dead people whom we mistake for living beings; these are vampires whom we regard as friends!