an article by Vance Thompson, under the heading, "The Invisible World." Perhaps we may be pardoned for quoting some of the earlier sentences from this article, and closing with his statements regarding demon worship in Paris. He says:

"A skeptical age; we do not believe in much of any

thing-unless, indeed, it bears the trade mark of science. The intellectual fashion is all for materialism. For the rest there is only an easy incredulity. "And yet-the paradox is curi

the world so ghost-ridden. Never has it turned so wistfully to the occult. Never has it listened with an expectation so painful at that closed door behind which mysterious silences stretch away -the door of the tomb.

"I dare say it is natural enough. Always in epochs of unbelief, when the conservative forms of faith are weakened, there is an immense growth of vague supernaturalism. It was in the cynical eighteenth century, when Voltaire had sneered religion out of fashion, that sorcerers, fortune-tellers, magicians-all the Mesmers and Cagliostros-ruled the world.

"Our new century, quite as skeptical, is equally in

love with the marvelous. Only the fashion in wizards has changed. The modern magician comes from the laboratory. He speaks in the name of science, for there is a science of the immaterial—a science of witchcraft -a science which has its professors and learned societies, its journals and magazines.

"The very ghosts that haunt the societies for psychical research have taken on a scientific air; they walk no more in windy corridors, clanking spectral chains; in a practical, modern way they exhibit themselves to scientific congresses.

"World over, psychic phenomena are being studied by trained scientists. Dismissing theories, they give themselves to the observation of scientifically established facts. Their labors range from the study of hysteria, of hypnosis and the transmission of psychic forces, to the time-old mysteries of enchantment and apparition.

"Science recognizes the existence of an invisible world, wherein unknown forces flit to and fro; what ghostly things they are it knows not, but they are very real, very strong and terrible. They are not material; they are the masters of matter. Occult forces, but no longer unknown; science has given them passports and

"In Paris I had an opportunity of studying some of these dark exploits of modern magic. Among those who dabbled in it were men so eminent as Paul Adam -the greatest living novelist, were not Meredith alive -Laurent Tailhade, the poet Edouard Dubus, Jules Bois, Suzanne Gay, the actress, and Stanislas de Guaita.

"De Guaita risked his life and his reason in his conflicts with the unknown. His astral body was detach

able, as the occultists say; that is, his soul possessed the power of leaving his body, without breaking entirely the fluidic cord that attached it to the body. This, by the way, was an accomplishment of the medieval sorcerers. This dangerous practice led De Guaita to madness and death; it led the poet Dubus to madness and death; and, at one time, Laurent Tailhade was cared for in a madhouse."

The Great Charcot.

He

Thompson speaks further of a known and named "sudden death" which overtakes those who dabble too deeply in occult lore. speaks of the sudden death of Irving Bishop, Charcot, and "the blithe actress, Suzanne Gay, whom he [Charcot] married and led with him into the vertigo of sorcery and death."

Thompson continues, "Would you look farther? I have come close to stormy and mystic adventures in this occult world of Paris; I have seen men die and men go mad in their attempts to explore the land beyond the frontier [the spirit land], that cloudy land of superstitions, of hopes and terrors, where the unknown forces flit to and fro. It is not well to adventure there. The practice of magic [the arts of spirits] is dangerous. It is the most perfidious of psychic intoxicants.

"The dark forces which science recognizes, but does not define, exercise marvelous attraction on minds of a certain order. In scores of temples they [“ dark forces"-devils] are worshiped under different names.

I know a little temple in Bruges where the followers of Lucifer gather, and not far from the Pantheon in Paris there is an altar to Pandaemon. This may seem grotesque; perhaps it is, but it is formidable.

"It need hardly be said that the rites wherewith Lucifer is worshiped

are hid in much mystery. A couple of years ago I visited one of the 'chapels;' it was in the rue Rochechouart. The black mass, which I have no desire to describe, was celebrated. It was Friday at three o'clock. Over the altar was a winged figure of Lucifer, amid flames; he trampled under foot a crocodile-symbol of the church.

"A few days ago

Altar in Lucifer Worshipers' Chapel.

I found the chapel closed. Only after patient research did I find the new abode of the Satanists. Their chapel now is in a great new apartment-house at No. 22, rue du Risseau, within the shadow of the cathedral of the Sacred Heart on Montmartre. As of old, Satan is worshiped; every Friday the Luciferians gather. I could name many of them-men not unknown in the learned professions.

"Some of them have influence enough to secure,

now and then, a right of midnight entry to the catacombs; there amid skulls and bones, with orgies I do not care to describe, they have worshiped the spirit of

evil-calling

upon Bapho

met,

upon

Lucifer and Be

elzebub and

Ashtaroth and

Moloch, with

cries and wailing hysteria. This attempt to re-establish the worship of the Fallen Archangel is, I think, the most remarkable mani

festation of

modern occult

ism."

Connecting,

in a measure,

the manifesta

tions of these

occult forces

"Paris, the city of light and laughter, is dotted over with Spiritualistic temples-there is a notable one in the rue Saint Jacques; another is in the rue des Martyrs. One and all they derive from the Fox sisters, who amazed New York a half-century ago.