Читать книгу Genuine Mediumship; or, The Invisible Powers - Atkinson William Walker - Страница 65

Under the category of Voluntary Mental Influence we find much of the phenomena formerly classed as "Magic"—and by this we mean both White Magic, or efforts to produce results beneficial to the person influenced, and Black Magic, or efforts to produce results beneficial to the person exerting the influence, and often to the positive detriment of the person influenced.

White Magic. Under the category of White Magic may be placed all those efforts of mental healing, and similar phases of metaphysical therapeutics; and the accompanying efforts directed toward the general happiness and welfare of the person "treated." The word "treatment" has sprung into use in this connection, in America and Europe, by reason of its employment by the numerous metaphysical cults and schools flourishing there. We hear on all hands of persons being "treated" for Health, Happiness, and Prosperity in this way. While in some cases, the "magic" is worked on higher planes than those of thought-vibrations, it is nevertheless true that in most instances the entire process is that of mental induction, along the lines described in the preceding pages of this book. In such cases the person influenced opens himself to the helpful thought of the person "treating" him, and thus a co-operation and mental "team work" is secured, often with the most beneficial results. This phase of the subject is too well known to require lengthy consideration in this book, and is more properly the subject of the many books devoted to this special phase of mental power.

Black Magic. It has well been said that there are always two poles to everything in Nature, and continued experience and investigation seems to substantiate this statement. Whenever we find a force or power producing beneficial results, we may usually feel assured that the same force or power, turned in another direction, or possibly reversed in its action, will produce results of an opposite character. And so it is with this subject of "Magic" which we are now considering. While we would be very glad to pass over this phase of the subject, truth and duty to our readers compel us to state that White Magic has its opposite pole—that opposite pole known as Black Magic, or the use of psychic force for selfish and unworthy ends. There is no use trying to pursue the ostrich policy regarding these things—it is always better to face them boldly, and then to take means to avoid the evil contained in them.

We prefer to quote from other writers on this subject, who have given this particular matter the most careful attention and investigation, and who have set forth simply and plainly the result of their investigations and discoveries. Here follow several quotations from authorities of this kind: