My Library

also became an active member of a vast Association in the Spaces, known as the Power of the Shadow. This is but one half of the mystery, for it became the object of both Dhoula Bel and the Stranger—who both knew that in my birth from the woman Flora—years before I underwent my present incarnation—that I would be in every respect a Neutral man; one having no tendencies whatever, naturally, to either good or evil, but only toward ATTAINMENT; and as such neutral man, it became possible to forego my doom, and to become supreme chief of either of the Orders named; hence both Dhoula Bel and the Stranger, beside their original, have the strong additional motive of making me subservient to their loftier views; and to achieve it, they frequently attend me in visible and invisible shapes—tempting, nearly ruining, and as often saving me from dangers worse than death itself—in what way has already been partly told, and will be hereafter seen. “In one of my frequent sojourns in Paris, I became acquainted with a few reputed Rosicrucians, and after sounding their depths, found the water very shallow, and very muddy —as had been the case with those I met in London—Bulwer, Jennings, Wilson, Belfedt, Archer, Socher, Corvaja, and other pretended adepts—like the Hitchcocks, Kings, Scotts, and others of that ilk, on American soil. At length,