Hours with the Ghosts or, Nineteenth Century Witchcraft

off, Russia. One night when the drawing-room was full of visitors, she began to d

ly asked her brother, Leonide de Hahn, who

was the f

ed it as though it were a feather, and sa

lace the table on the floor, and step aside

ly upon the chess table and said wit

uld not budge an inch. Another guest tried with the same

HATMA LETT

up with the greatest ease. Loud applause greeted this extraordinary feat

cise of her own will directing the magnetic currents so that the pressure on the table became such that no physical force could move it; second, throug

by hypnotizers with good subjects without th

yri in hot haste. It is related of her that during this Egyptian sojourn she spent one night in the King's sepulchre in the bowels of the Great Pyramid of Cheops, sleeping in the very sarcophagus where once reposed the mummy of a Pharoah. Weird sights were seen by the e

scriptions, and begged Madame Blavatsky to unravel their meaning, but the Priestess of Isis, notwithstanding her great archaeological knowledge, was unable to do so. However, she said: "Wait until night, and we shall see!" When the ruins were wrapped in sombre shadow, Mme. Blavatsky drew a great circle upon the ground about the monument, and invited the Countess to stand within the mystic confines. A fire was built and upon it were thrown various aromatic herbs and incense. Cabalistic spells were recited by the sorceress, as the smoke from the incense ascended, and then she thri

ters in New York. The question is, had the charming Russian Countess dreamed this, or was she trying

ates, where she associated chiefly with spirit-medium

s on call. Any medium who personates this ghost puts on a heavy black horse-hair beard and a white bed sheet and talks in sepulchral chest tones. John is as standard and sure-enough a ghost as ever appeared before the public. Most of the leading mediums, both in Europe and America, keep him in stock. I have often seen the old fellow in New York, Philadelphia, and Washington through more mediums that I can remember the names of. Our la

with sentences and signatures of 'John King,' just as, later on, 'Koot Hoomi' used to miraculously precipitate himself upon her stationery in all sorts of colored crayons. And, by the way, I may call the reader's attention to the fac

Free-Masonry for the re-generation of mankind, and Blavatsky in the nineteenth century laid the corner stone of modern Theosophy for a similar purpose. Cagliostro had his High Priestess in th

evenue Service of the United States. In 18- he was a newspaper man in New York, and was sent by the Graphic to investigate the all

COL. H. S

of his first sight of Mme.

rs, and it stood out from her head, silken, soft, and crinkled to the roots, like the fleece of a Cotswold ewe. This and the red shirt were what struck my attention before I took in the picture of her features. It was a massive Kalmuck face, contrasting in its suggestion of power, culture, and imperiousness, as strangely with the commonplace visages about the room, as her red garment did with the gray and white tones of the wall and woodwork,

ged with Theosophical karma, for the burning match or end of a lighted cigar-the Colonel does not specify-lit a train of causes and their effects which now are making history and are world-wide in their importance. So confirmed a pessimist on Theosophical questions

er I

AKEN BY CHARTER MEMBERS OF

f the New Y

ed across it, served as a cabinet. Red Indians and pirates were the favorite materializations, but when Madame Blavatsky appeared on the scene, ghosts of Turks, Kurdish cavaliers, and Kalmucks visited this earthly scene, much to the surprise of every o