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Science of Seership

Geoffrey Hodson

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These people had a large settlement or city about forty or fifty miles away, in the direction of Stonehenge, which appears to have been a sort of central temple, from which came priests to officiate in the surrounding districts. It is evident that there was a time when the rulers and priests of this settlement were beneficent and wise, and their religion of sun and Nature worship was powerful and uplifting. At the period with which we are concerned, however, small communities of priests in these outlying districts resorted to objectionable practices in order to overawe and subjugate the more primitive peoples previously described. There is here to-day a large, flat slab of rock which ONCE FORMED PART OF A ROUGH OPEN TEMPLE, IN WHICH blood sacrifices were made; that rock still carries with it the unholy influence of those rites. The sacrifices seem to have been chiefly of females, young women of between twenty and thirty years of age being usually selected. One is seen who has been stunned by a blow from a club, dragged by the hair to the foot of the altar, where she lies senseless, while the priests, seven in number, utter invocations to their Deity. The chief priest stands before the altar, the six other priests stand three on either side behind it, all seven racing the people, who have gathered in a rough half-circle on the slope of the hill. There are probably about 300 of them of both sexes. They are obviously in great fear of the priest, who holds those nearest to him under a kind of magnetic or hypnotic control. Their eyes are glazed and fixed, and his power over the crowd increases as he addresses them. He sweeps his arms slowly from side to side, and is quite consciously using his own animal magnetism upon them the other six priests keep their concentrated gaze firmly fixed upon the people, until gradually the whole audience is spellbound, completely held within the grip of the priestly power. This control is obviously necessary, for there are murmurings in the hearts of the people, and particularly from the members of the family, living some half-mile away, from which the victim has been taken. These are combining with others who have suffered to form a conspiracy to overthrow the power of the priests. The priests, however, hold within their power a certain number of the men of
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