“‘Furthermore, _as a prelude to what may yet befall you_, permit me to say that, in the face of modern philosophy, and in direct contrariety to popular belief, it is my opinion that spirit cannot produce on spirit the singular movements and effects witnessed in mesmeric and analogous phenomena; but I do not at all doubt the ability of matter to effect it all. Yes, my friend, I believe that matter alone, without extrinsic aid, is competent to the production of the magnetic wonders, and a hundred others still more marvellous. For instance, I do not believe that any merely mesmeric power whatever, much less the dream-force of ordinary sleep, can, or, under any conceivable circumstances, could enable you to correctly read the inscriptions on the tablets in the Louvre, or probe the secrets of Karnak, Baalbec, Nineveh, or Ampyloe; but I can name purely material agencies that are more than adequate to the accomplishment of these, and infinitely greater things. I know a material means that will enable the soul to lay bare before its gaze the deepest mysteries of the highest antiquity, strip the Past of its mouldy shroud, and triumphantly lift the veil that conceals the Future from our view--or rather, your view.’ “The strange old man ceased, and, for a little time, my mind lingered on his concluding words. It was plain and clear, so I thought, that he alluded to certain medicaments which have long been used for the production of a species of ecstatic dream, and so I replied-- “‘You are doubtless correct, and can, by physical agents, produce strange psychical phenomena, and curious exhibitions of mental activity and fantasy; but, beyond all question, you over-rate their importance and power, for not one of them is adequate to the office of enabling a clear, strong mind to move within the sphere of the Hidden, but the Real.’ “‘To what do you allude particularly, _mon ami_?’ “‘I allude to various chemical and botanical compounds; for instance, those plants which furnish a large per centage of the chemical principles Narcotine, Morphia, and others of the same general characteristics, as Opium, Beng, and Hemp, the preparations of the delightful but dangerous ----, the equally fascinating decoctions of ----, not forgetting Hasheesh, that accursed drug, beneath whose sway millions in the Orient have sunk into untimely but rainbow-tinted graves, and which, in western lands, has made hundreds of howling maniacs, and transformed scores of strong men into the most loathly, drivelling idiots.’ “We lapsed into silence, which at length was broken by Ravalette, who said, as he clasped my hand with fervor--