My Library

symbol of the purification of the soul; yet there seems o be sogie evidence that it was really accomplished by hem on several occasions, and there are petty magicians n the East who profess to do it under test conditions even low. Re that as it may, it if evident that since the ultimate itom is one and'the same in all substances, and it is only the nethods of its combination that differ, any pne who pos- ;esse(f the^jower of reducing a piece of metal to tlje atomic xmdition and of rearranging its atoms in some other form vould have no difficulty in effecting transmutation to any extent that he wished.
The principle of sympathetic Vibration mentioned above dso provides the explanation of that strange and little-known phenomenon called reper- Re P. er ' cushion, by means of which any injury done to, or any mark made upon, the materialized body in the course of its wanderings will be reproduced in the physical body. We find traces of this in some of the evidence given at trials for witchcraft in the middle ages, in which it is not infrequently stated that some wound given to the witch when in the form of a dog or a wolf was found to have appeared in the corresponding part of her human body. The same strange law has sometimes led to an entirely