Life, 1917-04-05 · page 26 of 70
Life — April 5, 1917 — page 26: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This satirical story mocks New Thought and occult movements popular in early 20th-century America. A man visits a hermit claiming mystical wisdom who deliberately misleads him about directions, then later manipulates him into pursuing a suitable wife through elaborate spiritual justification. The satire targets how occult practitioners used vague pseudo-philosophy to control clients. The hermit's hypnosis, references to reincarnation and Sanskrit texts (Atharvaveda), and flowery language about "passages perilous" parody the era's fascination with Eastern mysticism. The punchline—that the hermit was simply matchmaking while disguising it in spiritual mumbo-jumbo—exposes how charlatans exploited people's credulity. The second cartoon briefly mocks an "Imported Speaker" at a mothers' club making absurd claims about children and water safety, likely another jab at dubious foreign "experts" peddling questionable advice.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
\ WARM AFTERNOON IN PARADISE “Drive? Up those mountains?” “No, by the road.” “What road?” “The road ty miles, you mean.” The way you came, yes. miles by the highroad. Didn't you know? The man struggled for breath. “Your line of travel, traced upon a map, would be about the shape of a bicycle tire after a bad accident, but if you had kept on it would have brought you back to the place you started from.” As soon as he recovered the power of speech, the man asked to be driven back at once. On the way he suddenly remembered that he had seen that girl in a ballroom and not in a previous incarnation. He wasted no time, but borrowed a horse-whip and went off to interview that hermit. In vain. The anchorite quoted a few sentences from the Atharvaveda and had him hyp- notized, hand and foot, before he had time to get to the reall: d words, y son,” said the old man, surveying him tranquilly, “if I had simply told you that the daughter of a military man, stationed a few miles away, would make you a suit- able wife, you would have wanted your moncy back, and no There is only one. It is about four miles.” But it is only about four professor of the Occult ever countenances that. A passage perilous maketh any port pleasant, and it is the treasure that is not gained without care that is treasured carefully. If every man had to go through the tribulation that you have endured, before he coyld get him a wife, there would be few unhappy marriages—for most men would have sense enough to drop the idea at once. Go hence and ponder these things.” W. J. Clarke. AT THE MOTHERS’ CLUB Imported Speaker: AND CHILDREN SHOULD NEVER BE ALLOWED TO PLAY IN THE WATER comichooks.cqom