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THE KEY OF KNOWLEDGE.
of suggestions, in particular to those about ghosts, goblins, and the like. But the most remarkable feature of the spirit, or control,' is its terror at the ‘sight' of the amulet provided for the patient, consisting generally of a piece of paper with some undecipherable heiroglyphics, or a religious text, or formula, in some obsolete language which the patient does not generally understand. As a matter of fact, he is not allowed to see the writing on the paper, owing to the belief that the charm would suffer in efficacy from such an act. The question is, what is the principle of treatment in such cases ? To say that the spirit or demon is frightened by the piece of paper or the writing upon it would be childish, inasmuch as no embodied spirit is susceptible to that sort of fear in life.
Nor is it possible to accept the theologian's explanation that the curative power lies in the word of God, for the word of power 'is known to fail oftener than otherwise. The true explanation is to be found in the law of suggestion. The patient is led to believe that the charın is possessed of a potency which no spirit can defy, and the subjective mind within him does the rest. It sets up strong, healthy vibrations in the body, remedying the broken-down condition of the system, with the result that the evil spirits which had come into being in consequence of the derangement of will and nerves, disappear with the disappearance of their cause.
The fact that'spirits,' which, by the way, seldom fail to put in an appearance at a seance, are invariably seen clad in the clothes they used to wear on earth is
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