“It is the last part of the message that he has attached to the ritual that puzzles me,” I said. “Assuming that he is actually a bad spirit, he yet seems to be able to repeat the construction of a protective circle of exorcism in which the names of God are frequently repeated and which is in itself supposed to be demon-proof and then warns us that Nahemah will answer. Nahemah is the spirit queen who presides over the female devils of obsession--the Succubi. Thus Carrier, my friend, I do not quite see what to expect.” “The Succubi,” said Carrier, “are known to be able to assume the forms of the most desirable of women. This Marcel Theot studied thaumaturgy and magic under Cagliostro and his followers, and you know to what amazing practices the Grand Copt set his female devotees. It is probable that the invocation in its peculiarly condensed style opens the doors to dangers that are not present when the full ritual is applied. You notice that he styles himself minor master.” I agreed, and later analysis of the ritual as compared to others showed that in the process of condensation many of the safeguarding ceremonies and propitiatory invocations had been discarded. My own opinion is that Marcel Theot was one of that numerous class of people who undertook the study of magic only in order to obtain the supernatural qualification of carnal desires. In any case I have deemed his ritual unsafe for experiment and have taken steps so that it can never fall into unsuitable hands. The actual materialism of a spirit hand to aid automatic writing is such an unusual occurrence that to my mind it completely disposes of any theory of other than spirit knowledge being applied in this particular case. FOOTNOTES: [2] I carried out a long series of experiments with the idea of developing an automatic recorder operating on the lines of the familiar tape machine, and experimented at length both in London and in Paris, where my work was done in connection with the student Du Plessis, who was one of the heroes who gave his life at Verdun. Latterly we abandoned the idea of an actual print-registering machine for a device designed to register impulses on a wax cylinder, something on the lines of a phonograph. Some results were obtained, but the machine was not successful or reliable. [3] It is a saddening and depressing thought to think of a recently passed over spirit racing from medium to medium in an attempt to get through bits of messages to an individual on this plane. The spirit of F. W. H. Myers had to communicate through mediums as distant as Mrs. Holland in India and Mrs. Verrall at Cambridge. Later communications were received in complex fashion from other sources and the whole had to be collected by the Research Officer of the S.P.R. before they made any sense at all. _Proceedings S.P.R._, Vols. XX to XXV inclusive.