give him or her no definite idea of fascination.  For Fascination really is effectively what the old philosophers, who had given immense study and research to the subject in ages when susceptibility to suggestiveness went far beyond anything now known, all knew and declared; that is to say, it existed, but that it required a peculiar mind, and very certainly one which is not frivolous, to understand its nature, and much more to master it.

He who has by foresight, or previous consideration of a subject or desire, allied to a vigorous resolution (which is a kind of projection of the mind by will—­and then submitting it to sleep), learned how to bring about a wished-for state of mind, has, in a curious manner, made as it were of his hidden self a conquest yet a friend.  He has brought to life within himself a Spirit, gifted with greater powers than those possessed by Conscious Intellect.  By his astonishing and unsuspected latent power, Man can imagine and then create, even a spirit within the soul.  We make at first the sketch, then model it in clay, then cast it in gypsum, and finally sculpture it in marble.

I read lately, in a French novel, a description of a young lady, by herself, in which she assumed to have within her two souls, one good, of which she evidently thought very little, and another brilliantly diabolical, capricious, vividly dramatic and interesting esprit—­to which she gave a great deal of attention.  He who will begin by merely imagining that he has within him a spirit of beauty and light, which is to subdue and extinguish the other or all that is in him of what is low, commonplace, and mean, may bring this idea to exert a marvelous influence.  He can increase the conception, and give it reality, by treating it with forethought and will, by suggestion, until it gives marvellous result.  This better self may be regarded as a guardian angel, in any case it is a power by means of which we can learn mysteries.  It is also our Conscience, born of the perception of Ideals.

The Ideal or Spirit thus evolved should be morally pure, else the experimenter will find, as did the magicians of old, that all who dealt with any but good spirits, fell into the hands of devils, just as ALLAN KARDEC says is the case with Spiritualists.  But to speak as clearly as I can, he who succeeds in winning or creating a higher Self within himself, and fascinating it by sympathy, will find that he has, within moral limits, a strange power of fascinating those who are in sympathy with him.

Whereupon many will say “of course.”  Like and like together strike.  Birds of a feather flock together. Similis similibus.  But it often happens in this life, though they meet they do not pair off.  Very often indeed they meet, but to part.  There must be, even where the affinity exists, consideration and forethought to test the affinity.  It requires long practice even for keen eyes to recognize the amethyst or topaz,