NECROMANCY AND SPIRITISM 
181 
features were European. The Shaman then lit a fire and 
burnt some leaves, threw powder on them muttering 
incantations, and there was a heavy aromatic smoke . He 
said in Russian to the Bolshevik, "Ask what you want to 
know." The Bolshevik spoke in German; he was sure 
that the Shaman knew no German, but he was equally 
sure he saw the /ips move and heard it answer, clearly, in 
German. He asked what would happen to Russia, and 
what would happen to him. From the moving lips of the 
corpse came the reply that Russia would be defeated in 
war and that there would be a revolution; the Tzar 
would be captured by his enemies and killed on the eve 
of rescue; he, the Bolshevik, would fight in the 
Revolution but would suffer no harm; later, he would 
be wounded fighting a foreign enemy, but would 
recover and live long. 
The Bolshevik did not really believe what he had 
seen, although he was certain that he had seen it, I mean 
that he explained it by hypnotism or auto-suggestion or 
something of the kind; but it was true, he said, that he 
passed unscathed through the Revolution and the Civil 
War and was wounded in the Polish War when the Red 
Army recovered Kiev. 
So also we are most fortunate in possessing the account 
almost 
beyond Heart's desire of Spiritism, in Robert 
Browning's Mr. Sludge the Medium. You see that I write 
"Spiritism" not "Spiritualism." To use the latter word in this 
connection is vulgar ignorance ; it denotes a system of 
philosophy which flourished (more or less) in the Middle 
Ages-read your Erdmann if you want the gruesome details. 
But why should you? 
The model for Mr. Sludge was David Dunbar? (Douglas) 
Home, who was really quite a distinguished person in his 
way, and succeeded in pulling some remarkably instructed 
and blue-blooded legs. Personally, I believe him to have been 
genuine, getting real results through pacts with elementals,