“I have another mysterious thing to relate to you. Doubtless you recollect that the curse was uttered by the young poet--and that the mysterious voice heard in the dungeon where he was slain, declared that thenceforth, until the doom was fully accomplished, this youth during all his ages should be known as the Stranger. Well, in the course of the centuries that rolled away, this Stranger became a member of an august Fraternity in the Heavens, known as the Power of the Light. You know, also, that I, who was the king, incurred the penalty of wandering till relieved; and you are also aware that him who was the Vizier was sentenced to a singular destiny under the name of Dhoula Bel. Well, he also became an active member of a vast Association in the Spaces, known as the Power of the Shadow. This is but one half of the mystery, for it became the object of both Dhoula Bel and the Stranger--who both knew that in my birth from the woman Flora--years before I underwent my present incarnation--that I would be in every respect a Neutral man; one having no tendencies whatever, naturally, to either good or evil, but only toward ATTAINMENT; and as such neutral man, it became possible to forego my doom, and to become supreme chief of either of the Orders named; hence both Dhoula Bel and the Stranger, beside their original, have the strong additional motive of making me subservient to their loftier views; and to achieve it, they frequently attend me in visible and invisible shapes--tempting, nearly ruining, and as often saving me from dangers worse than death itself--in what way has already been partly told, and will be hereafter seen. “In one of my frequent sojourns in Paris, I became acquainted with a few reputed Rosicrucians, and after sounding their depths, found the water very shallow, and very muddy--as had been the case with those I met in London--Bulwer, Jennings, Wilson, Belfedt, Archer, Socher, Corvaja, and other pretended adepts--like the Hitchcocks, Kings, Scotts, and others of that ilk, on American soil. At length, there came an invitation from Baron D----t, for me to attend, and take part in, a Mesmeric Séance. I attended; and from the reputation I gained on that occasion, but a few days elapsed ere I was summoned to the Tuilleriés, by command of his majesty, Napoleon III.,[3] who for thirty-four years had been a True Rosicrucian, and whom I had before met at the same place, but on a different errand than the present. What then and there transpired, so far as myself was an actor, it is not for me to say, further than that certain experiments in clairvoyance were regarded as very successful, even for Paris, which is the centre of the Mesmeric world, and where there are hundreds who will read you a book blindfold; and two--Alexis, and Adolph Didiér--who will do the same, though the page be inclosed in the centre of a dozen boxes of metal or wood, one within the other.