“To bring out such a truth and show it in its proper light, is to unmask the enemy; it is to unveil the immense danger of certain practices, _reputed innocent_; it is to deserve well in the eyes of humanity and of religion. “FATHER VENTURA DE RAULICA.” A-men! This is an unexpected honor indeed, for our American “controls” in general, and the innocent “Indian guides” in particular. To be thus introduced in Rome as princes of the Empire of Eblis, is more than they could ever hope for in other lands. Without in the least suspecting that she was working for the future welfare of her enemies--the spiritualists and spiritists--the Church, some twenty years since, in tolerating des Mousseaux and de Mirville as the biographers of the Devil, and giving her approbation thereto, tacitly confessed the literary copartnership. M. the Chevalier Gougenot des Mousseaux, and his friend and collaborateur, the Marquis Eudes de Mirville, to judge by their long titles, must be aristocrats _pur sang_, and they are, moreover, writers of no small erudition and talent. Were they to show themselves a little more parsimonious of double points of exclamation following every vituperation, and invective against Satan and his worshippers, their style would be faultless. As it is, the crusade against the enemy of mankind was fierce, and lasted for over twenty years. What with the Catholics piling up their psychological phenomena to prove the existence of a personal devil, and the Count de Gasparin, an ancient minister of Louis Philippe, collecting volumes of other facts to prove the contrary, the spiritists of France have contracted an everlasting debt of gratitude toward the disputants. The existence of an unseen spiritual universe peopled with invisible beings has now been demonstrated beyond question. Ransacking the oldest libraries, they have distilled from the historical records the quintessence of evidence. All epochs, from the Homeric ages down to the present day, have supplied their choicest materials to these indefatigable authors. In trying to prove the authenticity of the miracles wrought by Satan in the days preceding the Christian era, as well as throughout the middle ages, they have simply laid a firm foundation for a study of the phenomena in our modern times. Though an ardent, uncompromising enthusiast, des Mousseaux unwittingly transforms himself into the tempting demon, or--as he is fond of calling the Devil--the “serpent of _Genesis_.” In his desire to demonstrate in every manifestation the presence of the Evil One, he only succeeds in demonstrating that Spiritualism and magic are no new things in the world, but very ancient twin-brothers, whose origin must be sought for in the earliest infancy of ancient India, Chaldea, Babylonia, Egypt, Persia, and Greece.