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THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES Indianapolis, Indiana 10 December 1928 (page 2)
Student of Black Magic Sees Witchcraft Justifying Murder
Regarding Sorcery As Factual As Radio Program, Expert Hints At Retaliation If Blymer and Hesses Slew York Man
New York, Dec. 9.
Witchcraft is as much a reality as an electric light, black magic as factual as a radio program, an expert approached for a possible explanation of the strange murder of Nelson D. Rehmeyer, near York, Pa., asserted today.
W. B. Seabrook, who has seen magic work on its victims in the jungles of Haiti, in Arabia among the Yezidee or devil-worshippers,” in Kurdistan and in the south of France, finds nothing strange in the eerie revelations now coming from a modern city in Pennsylvania. Nea York Rehmeyer was killed defending a lock of his own hair from the three charged with his murder.
“Black magic works—it can kill without the use of poisons or material things,” said Seabrook.
“Therefore, if this old farmer, Rehmeyer, was really a witch-doctor and really put a spell on his neighbor, John Blymer, and on the Hesses—and it could be proved—If I were on the jury I should be inclined to regard the retaliation almost as much a matter of self-defense as if Rehmeyer had gone after them with a gun.
“Assuming that these people do believe in their own powers, Blymer, John Curry, 14, and Wilbert Hess, 18, went to the old man in fear of death, harm and destruction.
“Blymer and the boys have been quoted as saying that what they wanted was a lock of Rehmeyer’s hair to break a spell he had cast on them.
“That is not so—A lock of hair in black magic is used only to put a death spell on the person from whom it came. If they went to get a lock of Rehmeyer’s hair, they were after an ingredient for a death charm against him. Had they buried it eight feet underground where it would rot, as they apparently intended, it is conceivable that Rehmeyer would have sickened and died.
“There are two and only two forms of destructive magic, both of which have been practiced since the beginning of time by savage tribes and which have their parallels in civilization.
“Number 1 is imitative magic. In medieval Germany and Italy—among savages, too—this formula has been usually to make a wax figure of the victim and either to melt it slowly or to stick pins into it. In Haiti last year I saw a man dying because he knew that up in the mountains an old woman was slowly unwinding the threats composing a little doll which represented him.
“Number 2 is sympathetic magic, or contagious magic. In this case you take some part, or some emanation, from the actual body of the person you plan to destroy. A lock of hair or a finger nail pairing is quite usual, although a shirt that has been perspired on also is used. Having acquired these you make your charm and repeat your incantations, placing the object in a place where it will slowly rot away. The theory is that the victim will decay with it.
“I am a rationalist about these matters. I do not believe that they are miracles. I think these methods are nothing except a technique, which the black magic practitioner manages to focus such subconscious or supernatural power as he has.
“There is no question but that black magic can kill if the persons on which the magic is practiced believes in it. It is perhaps by auto-suggestion. But the thing I am in question about is whether this kind of black magic can kill or injure a person who absolutely disbelieves in it.
“I am not sure.
“I once saw magic work in the sunshine of a Spring day in Fifth avenue, opposite the New York Public Library on an unsuspecting victim. This thing is one of the things that makes me say I am not sure.
“Aliester Crowley did it. He is a Cambridge graduate, head of the Rosecrucian Society, known to scholars and others on both continents. Crowley, undoubtedly a fantastic combination of the real thing and the charlatan, has spent many years in Central China. He both believes and practices medieval magic.
“Crowley and I had always had this dispute. He contended that if you were adept enough you could do these things without recourse to mechanical objects. On this Spring day, after lunch we were walking down Fifth avenue.
“ ‘Pick out any person,’ he said, ‘who is going in the same direction we are.’
“I waited quite a little to ward off trickery. Finally I pointed out, about 20 feet ahead, a not conspicuous young woman, tall, well dressed, walking with an elderly man.
“ ‘Take my stick,’ said Crowley, handing it to me. He approached to within five or six feet of the young woman.
“Then he did a piece of mimicry I have never seen equally on the stage or anywhere else. What he was doing was to co-ordinate every movement, every rhythm of his own body, to the exact way in which the woman was walking. He began with the greatest skill to swing his arms, his hips, his shoulders, exactly as she did. He became, almost, her shadow.
“We had gone nearly a block and were in front of the library when, suddenly, Crowley let his right leg go limp under him. He clutched his knee with both hands, barely preventing himself from falling. At the same instant, five or six feet ahead, the young woman crumpled to the sidewalk. Crowley grinned, winked at me, and was at her side so quickly that he helped her escort pick her up. She said she was not hurt.
“ ‘It took me nearly a year to learn that from a Taoist priest in China,’ said Crowley. ‘He could kill. I can’t. I wish I could.’ ” |