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THE MAGIC PARCHMENT by Franz Hartmann




Owing, perhaps, to the publicity, which the Occult Review has given to some of my experiences in occultism, it appears that I have acquired a certain notoriety as a supposed expert in matters belonging to the invisible world or the "night side of nature," because I am frequently favored with letters from various parts of the world, in which the writers send me accounts of dreams, visions or other experiences of astral or spiritual things, which they believe to be of some importance, and of which they desire explanations.

This notoriety I have neither desired nor do I think I deserve it;  because I am still too deeply immersed in matter to have my clairvoyant faculties fully developed, and although I occasionally get glimpses of usually invisible things, I have to rely for my judgment more upon reason and common sense than upon interior revelation.

Moreover, the tales told to me and for which my advice is asked are frequently of little significance and do not go beyond events such as occur every day. Sometimes, however, some extraordinary happenings come to my knowledge, which deserve to be noticed, and to this class belongs the following case, told to me by one of my personal acquaintances, a highly respectable man of more than sixty years of age, who is occupying the prominent position of chief justice in a town in this country.

He says:

« While I was still young and a student at the University of O..., I had occasion to do some great service to an old Jew who used to be a friend of our family and a frequent visitor at our house. It does not signify what that service was; it will be sufficient to say that as a result of my intervention I saved the Jew from losing the whole of his property, and prevented him from committing the suicide which he intended.

Not long after this event I got ready to enjoy my holidays by making a trip to Switzerland, and on the morning before I started, the Jew came to me and said:

-      "You have done me an immense service, and I wish to show you my gratitude. Now I know you are a great admirer of the ladies and a lover of adventures, and I am in possession of an amulet which gives the wearer power over any woman, no matter of what social position she may be. I will make you a gift of that amulet, and if you wear it about your person, you may be sure that no female in this world can resist you if you direct your desire towards her. You need not even say anything, she will come to you voluntarily, and without being asked.”

So saying the Jew produced a strip of parchment, written over with a lot of Hebrew characters, which I could not read.

-      "Nonsense!” I cried. "You must be drunk or crazy! Do you actually think that you could make me believe such stuff?”

-      "It may seem incredible to you,” answered Solomon; "nevertheless it is perfectly true. I have myself tried the amulet, and it has never failed.”

I looked at the Jew. It would surely require a powerful amulet to make any woman fall in love with such a creature; for not only was his nose of accentuated type and of enormous length, but one of his cheeks was adorned by a wart, and his neck with a goitre. This, in addition to his bow legs, gave him an appearance such as is usually considered far from attractive.

-      "Yes!” continued the Jew, "when I was younger I loved adventures, and I know what I am talking about.  Now I am getting old, and I may just as well let you have the amulet; although I would never before have thought of selling it at any price, much less of giving it away.”

I protested, but the Jew insisted, and the end of it was that I stuck the parchment away into my satchel, intending to find out at some leisure time what these Hebrew characters meant.

A few days afterwards I was standing one evening on the porch of a certain hotel on the Rigi. It was evening, and there were a number of people present, enjoying the beautiful sight of the sunset, and among these I noticed an exquisitely charming young lady standing apart from the crowd, and looking dreamily over the landscape.

She appeared to be a widow, for she was dressed in black; she was small and slender, of fair complexion, with an abundance of dark brown hair. But I will make no attempt to describe her beauty; I had never before seen anything so attractive, and the desire to possess her took possession of me.

Then the devil tempted me, and I went almost instinctively to my room and took the amulet out of my bag.  It seemed to me that there could be no harm in gratifying my curiosity in regard to an experiment of which I knew beforehand that it would never succeed.

I put the parchment into my breast pocket and returned to the porch, directing my thought upon the lady, who suddenly turned around and looked at me in an astonished and, as it seemed to me, reproachful way. I felt myself blush and slunk ashamed back into my room.

My curiosity was aroused to know who the lady was, and I hoped to see her at supper. She did not appear; but by making prudent inquiries, I found that she was the widowed daughter of a Russian general, and considered quite unapproachable.

It was not far from midnight when I retired to my room; but I could not sleep. The vision of those sorrowful eyes kept me awake. I thought of the amulet and was ready to curse it; while still some faint hope lurked within my heart, wondering whether the experiment would succeed.

I may have been lying awake for about half an hour, when I was startled by a gentle rap at my door. I did not open, but waited until it was rapped a second time. I then arose and rapidly slipped into my clothes. There was no need of striking a light, for the full moon was shining directly into my room, making everything as clearly visible as if it were full daylight.

I opened the door, and in walked the lady, dressed in a white silken gown, with her long hair falling over her shoulders, and reaching down below the knees.

-      "What do you wish?” I stuttered.

-      "Sir!” she said, in a voice calm and full of resignation. "You see in me a most unfortunate woman. By some power whose nature I do not know, but which I am unable to resist, I have been forced to take this disgraceful step. Take me; I surrender. There is no help?”

-      "Do you love me?” I asked, trying to take hold of her hand; for I felt myself almost irresistibly drawn towards her, and hardly knew what I was doing.

-      "No!” she exclaimed. ”I do not know who you are; but man or devil, relieve the fire that bums in my veins or kill me, if you know no pity.”

These words brought me back to my senses. I was terrified. It seemed to me as if I myself were in possession of some horrible demon, whose power I must escape or perish.

-      "Madame!” I said. "I am no devil, and I wish you no harm; but I believe I know the cause of the spell that attracted you to me, and I will destroy it.”

So saying, I lit a match, and holding the amulet at one end, I set it on fire, and watched it as it was consumed by the flame.

Now I am no visionary, and I had never cared to read about ghosts, apparitions, or what I have since been taught to call elementals; but I suppose that if I had studied all the books of the wizards, words would fail me to describe the horrible and disgusting thing which seemed to shape itself out of the smoke of the burning parchment, and which I saw for an instant before it disappeared from view.

The lady saw it also and fainted. I went in search of the chambermaid, and by her assistance managed to revive her and send her back to her apartment. A good bribe secured the silence of the girl, and I departed next morning. »

~ * ~

Thus far goes the account of the judge. My own opinion is that some elemental was bound by a magic spell to that amulet, and that he took possession of the lady, who evidently was of a very mediumistic organization, such as is nowadays often found in hysterical women, and, for matter of that, also in hysterical men.


(The Occult Review, March 1909, vol. 9 p.135-137, “Some Occult Happenings” - The Amulet.)






OBSERVATIONS

I could not tell you if this story was real or if it was invented, but it is interesting to note that it corresponds to the way wizards usually make their spells and amulets that serve to fall in love somebody or awaken the desire in other people.

And this procedure consists in that the sorcerer magically binds the object with an invisible entity that is known in esotericism as “elemental” and which can be a natural elemental (i. e., a creature belonging to one of the subtle kingdoms), or an artificial elemental which was created by the sorcerer.

And this elemental will do the work requested by trying to possess the person indicated or hypnotize she unconsciously so that she will act as we want, and if this person does not have a strong will power, usually the elemental manages to manipulate her or at least influence her.

But in the case mentioned above (and if that Hebrew parchment was true) it impresses how powerful it was.

However, although it is very tempting to use this type of methods to satisfy our desires, everything has its price and using spells or magic amulets for this purpose is very expensive because:

1)   You are enslaved vibratory with the sorcerer who made it,
2)   The elemental will vampirize you energetically and
3)   You throw yourself a very heavy karma for manipulating the free will of others.

So my advice if you get to have the possibility to use these methods is that:

DON’T DO IT!


And I am not the only one who recommends that, so for example Master Pasteur in a conference explained to a woman why the rituals she used ended up being harmful for her (see link).














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