Adventure Magazine Cover, June 18, 1921 — page 75: what you’re looking at

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

Sorcery and Everhard to intimacy with the wonderful man. So the great game would be on. HURGRONJE was crafty and he yy was murderous. He did not like to have blood on his own handsome hands, and he did not want dead bodies around where the police might find them. He used at times, when it seemed safe, an ingenious and diabolical way of getting hold of people’s fortunes and at the same time of getting them out of the way. I haven’t a doubt that he ever failed to pull money out of almost everybody who had the least faith’in him; and perhaps he would not have hesitated to cut a throat to get a few gold-pieces if the throat—and the gold-pieces—belonged to some lowly per- sons about whom inquiries were not likely to be made. It was an instance of such avaricious impatience that had brought me, with guns ablaze, upon him. But not even one who had command over the dead, who could float at will through air and transport himself from continent to continent in the twinkling of an eye, who could dematerialize solid bodies into vapor and do many other impossible things, could easily dispose of a rich woman, get her for- tune and keep angry heirs from poking into his business. It would be wrong to imagine that his vic- tims of this kind were counted in large num- bers. Notatall. If he got one victim only rarely he was satisfied, and well might be. It is astonishing, almost appalling, how many sober people will grow foolish if they are encouraged to believe that they can dabble with the supernatural. Hurgronje, apparently, could. And he made other peo- ple believe that they could. What I say will likely make some people impatiently skeptical, but others out of their own experience and observation will know that it, or know that other things much like it, are true. Hurgronje would tell those to whom he seemed to take a particular fancy that, since the so-called civilization of mod- ern times had begun to overspread the earth, the keepers of the ancient mysteries had fled into*the Himalayan Mountains. There they had created a wonderful secret city, builded like the cities of ancient times, and they had handed down their secrets from generation to generation. And I must pause here to insist earnestly that similar stuff to this zs taught more or 5 aD s ae” 05 less secretly by numerous mystics: and so- called initiates; and Tibet is usually desig- nated as the location of these wise men who know all about the ancient mysteries. I do not knew how true or false the teach- ings of others are, or to what glory the pil- grims that try to get there arrive; I do know that Hurgronje was a diabolical faker and scoundrel], and I have never had reason to believe that any other teachers of the same sort of mysticism were anything else. Hurgronje, in that wonderfully hypnotic voice of his, holding an impressive pose with his magnificent body, would say .that those admitted to the mysteries could put aside the flesh as one puts aside a cloak; and the spirit, swift as thought, could circle the world, listen to all secrets, see behind drawn blinds and pass through stone, or any kind of walls. He claimed such power for himself. The chosen of that secret city never died in the ordinary sense of the dreaded word. At last they simply grew weary of the flesh and so less and less frequently returned to wear it; and finally, forgetting it altogether, soared upward to some star of unimaginable delectation. There was much that he told, but it sounds so like nonsense that I am tired of repeating it. Yet people believed him, as they do believe that and things equally in- credible. — But I must not neglect to put in what was probably the most seductive part of his story. Within this secret city, youth was restored. Women became young again, and infinitely more beautiful than at the most charming period of their lives; and men found their handsomeness and vigor restored. True, they could never leave the city once they had passed the tests and been initiated; but—ah! They could float as swift as thought to any part of the earth, though their fleshy vestments must remain in the city. : To become a member of this choice com- pany, one had first to belong to a certain spiritual caste. A person could not know whether or not she was a member of this caste, but Hurgronje could tell at a glance. The first thing was to belong to this caste —this mystical nobility. The next was to undergo certain tests and initiations. As nearly as I could perceive none but the wealthy belonged to the fortunate caste; and their severest test was to put all of their wealth into portable form and they were COmicloo CN Vp) ©