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as marvellous, perhaps even more so, than the power of a curse attached to a stone.

The key to the mystery is of course to be found in the statement of the scientist who invests the stone with the attributes of life. Energy, intelligence, motion, etc. Who shall limit the power

of the indestructible atom?

The innumerable stories of stones of power can no longer be discredited.

The late Lady Dorothy Nevill records that she was once the recipient of a Burmese figure of Buddha, which she placed in her drawing-room.

It seemed to find its surroundings uncongenial, and it took its revenge. From the day of its installation, disasters, financial and physical, fell thick and fast upon her family, and even upon a favourite horse and pet dog, both of which met a violent death.

Though scoffing at first at the suggestion of the Buddha having anything to do with those misfortunes, the fall of a heavy chimney, which wrecked a whole wing of her house, caused her to change her mind and present the figure to the India Museum; where apparently it found peace. With its departure her troubles ended.

Another well authenticated story was told to me by the family to which it belonged.

An Indian Rajah presented the statue of a god to a friend who sent it home to his wife in England. There was one stipulation made with the gift— nothing must be done to desecrate the image.

The wife set it in a niche in the wall of her room, and for a time all went well. But later on it was fetched down to be exhibited to some

friends who were dining with her. Then the evil began.

She fell ill, and fought always in delirium with the god, whose name was perpetually upon her lips. Disasters literally poured down upon the house, till finally the god was returned to its original owner, and peace was at once restored.

Here was an inanimate object receptive to and imbued with an inpouring of force from without. It was probably the same force employed by the priests of Ancient Egypt at the burial of The Pharoahs, and until we are certain that our scepticism rests on a surer foundation than the statements of our great Egyptologists, we will do well to treat with reverence that which to our lesser minds is still the incomprehensible.

CHAPTER VII

THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS

IN studying the history of a nation, the student must rely almost entirely upon experts who have made the story of that nation their special life

work.

The man who desires to concentrate upon Egypt gathers round him the books written by the great Egyptologists, and he accepts their conclusions as expert, as the very best information to be had.

This is excellent as far as it goes, but it does not go far enough. We have been given a wealth of hard, scientific facts, but the work of blending those facts with their occult significance has yet to be done.

The most advanced of our Egyptologists now believe that beneath the literal meaning of the inscriptions another and an impenetrable meaning is concealed.

Beneath the official religion taught to the vulgar there was another reserved for the priests, the initiates, and here the theory which the experts are compelled to entertain confirms the assertions of the occultists.

Since the discovery of Tutankhamen's tomb, interest in Egypt has been enormously stimulated, and the "curse" controversy over the unfortunate death of Lord Carnarvon has drawn the attention

of the masses by the touch of mystery with which that sudden event was invested.

Lord Carnarvon was a member of the London

Spiritualist Alliance, and presumably he was abreast in the progress of occult knowledge, therefore if malignant influences were at work to compass his undoing, ignorance of such possibilities can hardly be ascribed to him.

Those who have the charge of mummies in our museums can vouch for the fact that they are sometimes invested with some enormous power which defies time.

I am told by an absolutely unimpeachable authority that one mummy in the British Museum has shattered to atoms two thick plate glass

cases.

There is nothing to be gleaned from the authorities, and one can hardly wonder. To admit of such a phenomenon would bring a "Wembley crowd" upon them, which would liberate every mummy in the building. Were I to give the name of my informant, a writer and scientist of European renown, he would be snowed under with letters, a vast number of which he could not ignore.

This is always the trouble when dealing with subjects deeply interesting to the uninstructed public.

Why should one man be taken and another left is one of the many unanswerable questions constantly put forward. An enormous number of tombs have been rifled of their contents. Numerous mummies lie in museums all over the world, yet we have not heard that their despoilers suffered

loss of life in consequence. The public do not always hear how many meet death. So much a few of us do know now.

As a believer in the potency of curses and blessings, I attribute the immunity of some and the ill-fate of others who disturb the dead to the power or weakness of the individuals who pronounced the curse. Some mummies have no curse attached to them, though the corpse was always held sacred in Egypt.

By a determined concentration of the will, an otherwise inert object may become imbued with protective or destructive power according to the purpose directing. If a good thing can hold the powers of goodness, why may not an evil thing hold the powers of evil? One does not require to be scientific to understand the importance attached by the ancients to blessings and curses. Any one who reads our Bible will come across numerous instances of their supposed potency.

It will be well to bear in mind certain statements made by Sir Wallis Budge, Keeper of the Egyptian antiquities in the British Museum, and one of our greatest Egyptologists.

In his translation of the Egyptian "Book of the Dead," he writes of mummies,

"There is little doubt that when the body was laid to rest in the tomb the priest pronounced certain words, or formulas, or prayers over it, and it is probable that the recital of those words was accompanied by the performance of certain ceremonies. It is idle to attempt to consider what such words were, but we are within our right if we assume that they were addressed

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