unseen spirit, whereupon all the hearers leap and dance with redoubled vigour. To-day, even as a hundred years ago, the "Shakers" affirm, not without reason, that Heaven and Hell are within ourselves, and that that is why we must live honestly and well in order to share in the heavenly kingdom from which sinners are excluded. Just so do Christian Scientists declare that we may be led by faith towards heaven, happiness and health. Even murder, that most extreme perversion of all moral feeling, has been adopted as a means of salvation by several Russian sects as well as by the Hindus, evolving in widely contrasted environments. The general desire to gain, somehow or other, the favour of the "Eternal Principle of Things," thus expresses itself in the most varied and the most unlikely forms, one of the most striking being that of the "religion of murder," which throws a lurid light upon the hidden regions of man's subconscious mind. CHAPTER II THE RELIGION OF MURDER There are certain periodical publications which as a rule are neither examined nor discussed. Yet their existence dates back for many years, and in this age of filing and docketing they must by now provide a regular gold-mine for the study of human psychology. What increases their value is that they avoid all attempt at "literary effect." No picked phrases, no situations invented or dramatised to suit the taste of the author; nothing but facts taken from real life and recorded by the functionaries of His Majesty the Emperor of India. We are referring to those very interesting _Reports of the Indian Government_ to which we owe practically all our knowledge of fakirism and its miracles, of the artificial conservation of human life in the tomb, and of the strangulation rites of the Thugs. They are indeed a valuable contribution to the study of the perversions of religious faith--that most alluring and yet least explored section of psychology.