Strange Conflict Read Free Page B

astral force or, to put it into common parlance “seen a ghost” with your own eyes?’
    â€˜Never,’ said Sir Pellinore emphatically.
    â€˜D’you know anything of hypnotism?’
    â€˜Yes. As a matter of fact, I’m gifted with slight hypnotic powers myself. When I was a young man I sometimes used to amuse my friends by giving mild demonstrations, and I’ve often found that I can make people do minor things, such as opening up on a particular subject, merely by willing them to do so.’
    â€˜Good. Then at least we’re at one on the fact that certain forces can be called into play which the average person does not understand.’
    â€˜I suppose so, within limits.’
    â€˜Why “within limits”? Surely, fifty years ago you would have considered wireless to be utterly outside such limits if somebody had endeavoured to convince you that messages and even pictures could be transferred from one end of the world to the other upon ether waves.’
    â€˜Of course,’ Sir Pellinore boomed. ‘But wireless is different; and as for hypnotism, that’s simply the power of the human will.’
    â€˜Ah, there you have it.’ The Duke sat forward suddenly. ‘
The will to good
and
the will to evil.
That is the whole matter in a nutshell. The human will is like a wireless setand when properly adjusted can tune in with the invisible influences which are all about us.’
    â€˜Invisible influences, eh? No, I’m sorry, Duke, I just don’t believe in such things.’
    â€˜Do you believe in the miracles performed by Jesus Christ?’
    â€˜Yes. I’m old-fashioned enough to have remained an unquestioning believer in the Christian faith, although God knows I’ve committed enough sins in my time.’
    â€˜You also believe, then, in the miracles performed by Christ’s disciples and certain of the Saints?’
    â€˜I do. But they had some special powers granted to them.’
    â€˜Exactly.
Special powers.
But I suppose you would deny that Gautama Buddha and his disciples performed miracles of a similar nature?’
    â€˜Not a bit of it. I’m sufficiently broad-minded to believe that Buddha was a sort of Indian Christ, or at least a very holy man, and no doubt he, too, had some special power granted to him.’
    â€˜Then if you admit that miracles, as you call them—although you object to the word
Magic
—have been performed by two men of different faiths, living in different countries and in periods hundreds of years apart, you can’t reasonably deny that other mystics have also performed similar acts in many portions of the globe and, therefore, that there is a power existing outside us which is
not peculiar to any religion
but can be utilised if one can get into communication with it.’
    Sir Pellinore laughed. ‘I’ve never looked at it that way before, but I suppose you’re right.’
    De Richleau poured another portion of the old brandy into his friend’s glass as Sir Pellinore went on more slowly.
    â€˜All the same, it doesn’t follow that because a number of good men have been granted supernatural powers there is anything in Black Magic.’
    â€˜Then you do not believe in witchcraft?’
    â€˜Nobody does these days.’
    â€˜Really? How long d’you think it is since the last trial for witchcraft took place?’
    â€˜Two hundred years.’
    â€˜No. It was in January 1926, at Melun, near Paris.’
    â€˜God bless my soul! D’you mean that?’
    â€˜I do,’ de Richleau assured him solemnly. ‘The records of the court are the proof of it; so, you see, you are hardly accurate when you say that
nobody
believes in witchcraft in these days; and many, many thousands still believe in a personal Devi.’
    â€˜Central European peasants, perhaps, but not educated people.’
    â€˜Yet every thinking man must admit that there is such a