182 
MAGICK WITHOUT TEARS 
demons, or what not; for when he was in Paris, arrangements 
were made for him to meet Eliphas Levi forthwith "he 
abandoned the unequal contest, and fled in terror from the 
accursed spot." 
What annoyed Browning was that he had added to his 
collection of "Femora I have pulled," those appendages of 
Elizabeth Barrett; and where R.B. was there was no room for 
anyone else-as in the case of Allah! 
R.B. was accordingly as spiteful as he could be, and that 
was not a little. It is not fair to tar all mediums with the 
Sludge brush; there are many who could advance quite 
sincerely some of the apologia of Sludge. Why should a 
medium be immune to self-deception spurred by the 
Wish-Fiend? While there are people walking about outside the 
Bug-house who can find Mrs. Simpson and Generals de 
Gaulle, Franco, Allenby, Montgomery and who else in the 
"Centuries" of Nostradamus, we should be stupid to assign 
everything to conscious fraud. 
No, by no means always fraud. Yet at any seance the 
"investigators" take no magical precautions soever-against, 
say, the impersonation of lophiel by Hismael, or the Doves of 
Venus by the A'arab Zareg. All they attempt, especially at 
"demonstrations" 
and "materializations," 
is to guard with 
great elaboration and (as a rule) complete futility against the 
deceptions of the common conjuror. They are not expecting 
any genuine manifestation of the "Spirit World" ; and this 
fact makes clear their true subconscious attitude. 
As for those mediums who possess magical ability, they 
almost always come from the most ignorant classes-Celts are 
an exception to this rule-and have no knowledge whatever 
of the technique of the business. Worse, they are usually of 
the type that delights in secret dirty affinities, and so 
naturally and gladly attract entities of the Qliphothic world 
to their magical circle. Hence tricksters, of the lowest 
elemental orders, at the best, come and vitalize odds and ends 
of the Ruach of people recently deceased, and perform 
astonishing impersonations. The hollow shells glow with