The Sorcery Club. O'Donnell Elliott

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СКАЧАТЬ art through the practice of which they had got in touch with the Powers that could endow them with riches. The actual history of Atlantis—once he was satisfied there had been such a place—did not interest him. He skimmed through it quickly, and I append a brief summary, only, for the benefit of more intelligent and disinterested readers.

      The Atlanteans were the oldest intelligent race in the world—they existed contemporaneously with Paleolithic man, with whom their mariners and explorers frequently came in contact, and about whom their novelists wrote the most delightful stories, just as Fenimore Cooper and Mayne Reid, in these days, have written the most delightful stories about the Red Indians. In religion they were polytheists; they believed that, in the work of Creation, many Powers participated; that some of these Powers were benevolent, some malevolent, whilst others—neither benevolent nor malevolent—were merely neutral. To the benevolent creative Powers they attributed all that is beautiful in the world (i.e. certain of the trees, plants, flowers, animals, insects, and pleasing colours and scents); all that is fair and agreeable in the human being, such as affection, love, kindness, the arts and sciences—in a word all that in any degree affected the welfare of mankind; and to the malevolent creative Powers they attributed all that was noxious in creation; all that was harmful to man, and detrimental to his moral and physical progress (i.e. diseases, and all savage and filthy passions); all races of low intelligence, viz. Paleolithic and Neolithic man—and all those born with black or red skins (those colours being particularly significant of the malignant Occult Elements); all destructive animals; (i.e. reptiles such as the teleosaurus, steneosaurus, etc.; birds, such as the ptereodactyl, vulture, eagle, etc.; mammals, such as the cave lion, cave tiger, etc.; fish, such as the shark, octopus, etc.); and all ugly and venomous insects.

These earliest records show that at one time the physical and superphysical world were in close touch; all kinds of spirits—trolls, pixies, nymphs, satyrs, imps, Vagrarians, Barrowvians, etc.—mixing freely with living human beings; but that as the population increased and civilization evolved, superphysical manifestations became more and more rare, until finally they became restricted to certain conditions dependent on time and locality.^[10]

      Up to this period there had been no state religion—no temples in Atlantis. If any one wished for a particular favour from the Occult Powers—for example, from the Rabsés, the Occult Powers of music; the Brakvos, the Occult Powers of medicine; or the Derinas, the Occult Powers of love, they retired to some secluded spot and held direct intercourse with these Powers. The idea of praying to an invisible being—who might or might not hear them—never entered their minds; they were far too matter of fact for that—and it was not until superphysical manifestations had become confined to a very select few, that the plan of erecting public buildings in spots frequented by the spirits, so that all who wished could assemble there and communicate with them, was proposed and put into operation. In these buildings, however, the spirits did not choose always, to appear to order—sometimes they quitted the spot where the edifice had been erected; sometimes they would only appear there periodically; and sometimes, out of perversity, they would appear when least expected. But whether occult manifestations really took place in these buildings or not, those assembled to see them were persuaded by those in charge of the building, who saw thereby an opportunity of making money, that the spirits were actually there; and in due time these buildings became known as temples, and their showmen as priests. Every temple was dedicated to an individual spirit—one to the Spirit Bara-boo; another to the Spirit Karaboro, and so on; whilst in the absence of genuine spirit manifestations, prayers, incantations and rituals, invented by the priests, always attracted a large concourse of people to these temples, and finally proved a greater source of attraction than the spirits themselves.

It was to gain favours from the Occult Powers that donations from the public were at first invited, then demanded; and the priests in this manner accumulated vast fortunes. Later on, too, there sprang up, in connection with these temples, colleges for the training of young men—invariably selected from the wealthy classes—to the priesthood; and from the parents of these youthful aspirants large fees, which in course of time became exorbitant, were extracted, thereby furnishing another source of revenue to the priests. The most famous colleges for the training of priests in Atlantis were those of Bara-boo-rek^[11] at Keisionwo, Karaboro-rek at Diniangek, and Ballygarap-rek at Tijimin.

It was in the reign of Barrahneil,^[12] fifty-first sovereign of the Dynasty of Shaotak, that the evocation of spirits (from which modern spiritualism takes its origin) commenced. Barrahneil was most eager to see a superphysical manifestation. Being of a somewhat poetical turn of mind he was particularly enamoured of fairies, and in the hope of seeing one, constantly frequented their favourite haunts, i.e. woods, caves, and lonely isolated habitations. But all to no purpose—they never would manifest themselves to him. At last, he lost patience. Against the advice of his oldest and most trusty counsellors, and accompanied by one or two of his favourite courtiers, he went to an excessively lonely spot in the heart of a desert, and besought spirits—spirits of any sort—he did not care what—to manifest themselves. To his surprise—for he had grown extremely sceptical—an Occult form, half man and half beast,^[13] materialized. It informed them that it was Daramara, i.e. in Atlantis, the Unknown—that it had no beginning and no end, and that it would remain an impenetrable mystery to them during their existence in the physical sphere, but would be fully revealed to them when they passed over into Malanok—one of the superphysical planes. On this, and on several subsequent occasions, when it manifested itself to them, it gave them instructions with regard to evocation, and described to them the tests they must undergo before they could acquire the great powers the Unknown was able to bestow on them, namely, (1) second sight; (2) divining other people's thoughts and detecting the presence of waters and metals; (3) thought transference, i.e. being able to transmit messages, irrespective of distance, from one brain to another without any physical medium; (4) hypnotism; (5) the power to hold converse with animals; (6) invisibility, i.e. dematerializing at will; (7) walking on, and breathing under, water; (8) inflicting all manner of diseases and torments; (9) curing all kinds of diseases; (10) converting people into beasts and minerals; (11) foretelling the future by palmistry, pyromancy, hydromancy, astrology, etc.; (12) conjuring up all manner of spirits antagonistic to men's moral progress, i.e. Vice Elementals—Vagrarians, Barrowvians, etc.

Taking every care to observe the greatest secrecy, Barrahneil caused a full account of these interviews with Daramara, together with all the instructions the latter had given him, to be transcribed in a book, which he called Brahnapotek^[14]—or the Book of Mysteries; and which he kept sealed and guarded in a room in his palace.

      During his lifetime no one held communication with Daramara saving himself and his friends, but after his death the secret of black magic leaked out; countless people sought to acquire it, and ultimately the practice of it became universal. But the Atlanteans little knew the danger they were incurring. The spirits they conjured up—though at first subservient, that is to say, mere instruments—at length obtained complete dominion over them—the whole race became steeped in crime and vice of every kind—and so horrible were the enormities perpetrated that, fearful lest Man should be entirely obliterated the benevolent Occult Powers, after a desperate struggle with the malevolent Occult Powers, succeeded, by means of a vast earthquake, in submerging the Continent and hurling it to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, where, what remains of it, now lies. This catastrophe took place in the reign of Aboonirin, twentieth sovereign of the Dynasty of Molonekin—three thousand years after the reign of Barrahneil.

      So ran the history of Atlantis, or at least all of it that need be quoted for the elucidation of this story. That Black Magic—the Black Art of the Atlanteans was by no means dead—Hamar felt convinced, and if Maitland could resuscitate it—why СКАЧАТЬ