Adventure Magazine Cover — page 70: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

ans : = 2 ar ae et sa Ca Se — a aes ra Sah "= = % 2 back into the Sarde Hence the faming = = = sword—the flashing, revolving mirror. 2 time and would not convince. __ by hundreds. To try to prove all this would take a long Those who will ever believe what I now write will be- lieve it now, intuitionally, without further proof. Consequently, I may appear to make unproved assertions, but I tell you, very solemnly and upon my word of honor, that I know I am telling the truth. Action and reaction are equal and oppo- site. Like the waves, peoples rise and fall. In addition, there are convulsions, ca- tastrophes. The men and women of that ancient civ- ilization — that Garden of Eden — were driven out into the fields to die. By fields I mean waste places. Some few survived; from these we have descended. After that the masters—the hypnotists—grew old and passed their knowledge to their children. They were a relatively small‘number. In- termarriage helped to weaken them and by and by they forgot the lessons their fa- thers had taught them. Through natural causes, their own civilization decayed and fell and was forgotten. Meanwhile, hardened by the struggle for existence and gradually learning—for it must be remembered that the children of the hypnotized people would not inherit this ac- quired characteristic, would not be born hypnotized and would wonder, perhaps, at the stupidity of their parents—the outcasts from Eden, the descendants of those out- casts, had grown to power and become civ- ilized. Action and reaction went on, civili- zations rose and fell, but no other such fall as is mentioned in Genesis took place. Still, men remembered dimly, and there arose—groping dimly for the power—the . priest class. This class was common to every civilization and it sought to control the minds of its fellowmen. Hypnotism was partly -rediscovered, but the priests knew instinctively that something was miss- ing. This missing something they called, among themselves, the “lost word.” They had never heard it, neither had their own ancestors—the descendants of those who had the word were all gone—but they knew they lacked something. In other werds, it was to the priests of Egypt, say, a long and difficult task to hypnotize even one sensitive subject, when what they really wished to do was to hypnotize men ee a - — a . -~ a = = ' a oe 2. , =F * —— S a —_ a a - A oT ~~“ ~ —-— Ss on a Saad Ts Saag IE aes oie Sees awe — > Ds 3 —— ~ =e 9 venti — o< = ~~ . < _* - — - = = ae Sey C a ——— at . ; en z —— 355 a Seaaee * - sa — = <r 4 ae = ss See a = 7 — Pm, ‘The “lost Se > cn of both priest and as is shown by its ritual—was the word- power to hypnotize and control the minds of thousands, which had been done at the first fall. It was the ability to make hyp- nosis infectious and contagious. I use these words because there are no others that con- vey my meaning. Again this power to hypnotize thousands as easily as one has been rediscovered. The world lies under the danger of it, under ~ the danger of another fall, of being again driven from the Garden of Eden which we call civilization! You will ask me how I know this and I will tell you. Years ago, when a young man, I went out to India as a member of the secret service. In those days British women who had been captured during the mutiny were still liv- ing, hidden away by their native captors. To find these women or their place of cap- tivity was something every secret service man wished to do, but upon which task he was never detailed. The government had spent thousands to no avail, so what was the use of an individual’s trying? But I persisted and eventually I found the place of their concealment. It was under- ground and there, also, I found the only woman I ever loved.. (My reference to such a sacred, personal matter is surely evidence of my good faith.) I rescued her—she had been captured when a baby—and took her before a meeting of some of the highest officials in India. The great problem was solved at last. Then, for many years, I forgot all about it and forgot I had even met the woman I loved. But I found in my pocket a rude sketch of people sitting around a long table, with their names written against them. I knew ‘I had made this sketch but I could not then remember making it. Persevering, how- ever, I did remember. This was what happened: I had taken the lady before the officials and, while she was telling her story, I had. made the rough sketch. Suddenly, an old native whom I had seen underground en-. tered the room. The impertinence of the thing can only be understood by those who know India. This old native first hypno- tized us all, by merely flashing a large dia- ‘mond at us when we were not see Te and e© 1Eeboo! nd secret society—an offshoot of the priests, a sea ae ae os