Hours with the Ghosts or, Nineteenth Century Witchcraft: Illustrated Investigations into the Phenomena of Spiritualism and Theosophy — John Shaqi
Hours with the Ghosts or, Nineteenth Century Witchcraft: Illustrated Investigations into the Phenomena of Spiritualism and TheosophyEvans, Henry Ridgely
Religion
Hours with the Ghosts or, Nineteenth Century Witchcraft: Illustrated Investigations into the Phenomena of Spiritualism and Theosophy
Evans, Henry Ridgely
Blavatsky, H. P. (Helena Petrovna), 1831-1891; Spiritualism; Theosophy
This is another striking evidence of telepathic communication, in which I
was one of the agents. L-- was a reporter on a Baltimore paper, and his
apartments were the rendezvous of a coterie of Bohemian actors,
journalists, and _litterati_, among whom was X--, a student at the
Johns-Hopkins University, and a poet of rare excellence. Poets have a
proverbial reputation for being eccentric in personal appearance; in X
this eccentricity took the form of an unclipped beard that stood out in
all directions, giving him a savage, anarchistic look. He vowed never
under any circumstances to shave or cut this hirsute appendage.
L-- came to me one day, and laughingly remarked: "I am being tortured by a
mental obsession. X's beard annoys me; haunts my waking and sleeping
hours. I must do something about it. Listen! He is coming down to my
rooms, Saturday evening, to do some literary work, and spend the night
with me. We shall have supper together, and I want you to be present. Now
I propose that we drug his coffee with some harmless soporific, and when
he is sound asleep, tie him, and shave off his beard. Will you help me? I
can provide you with a lounge to sleep on, but you must promise not to go
to sleep until after the tragedy."
I agreed to assist him in his practical joke, and we parted, solemnly
vowing that our project should be kept secret.
This was on Tuesday, and no communication was had with X, until Saturday
morning, when L-- and I met him on Charles street.
"Don't forget to-night," exclaimed L-- "I have invited E to join us in our
Epicurean feast."
"I will be there," said X. "By the way, let me relate a curious dream I
had last night. I dreamt I came down to your rooms, and had supper. E--was
present. You fellows gave me something to drink which contained a drug,
and I fell asleep on the bed. After that you tied my hands, and shaved off
my beard. When I awoke I was terribly mad. I burst the cords that fastened
my wrists together, and springing to my feet, cut L--severely with the
razor."
"That settles the matter", said L--, "his beard is safe from me". When we
told X of our conspiracy to relieve him of his poetic hirsute appendage,
he evinced the greatest astonishment. As will be seen, every particular of
the practical joke had been transferred to his mind, the drugging of the
coffee, the tying, and the shaving.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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