BLACK MAGIC

Hokitika Guardian, 23 June 1932, Page 8

BLACK MAGIC

the study of 'demonology

STRANGE TALES TOLD BY WOMAN i ■

LONDON, June 17

“'Many English people still be’.ieve in witchcraft. I know one person who claims to have caused illness by burning an animal's heart after an incantation. There are alt leas" two centres in

England where black magic is practised, a compact with the devil being written in blood,” declares Helen Snnpton, the Australian novelist, who, in quest of stories of the supernatural, has lately spent a rf'trange holiday in remote parts of Austria and Hungary.

She visited th e Brocken, in Germany, uhere n psychical research society confuted an experiment in which it was claimed that a inaiclene midnight visit to the mountain bop would result in .a he-goat being transformed into a beautiful youth, but she sa'd that it anything .happened fiho would he the most surprised person in the;world. Hho had mi- (Je tin- study of demonology, a hobby for many years. 'She had collected numerous rare and valuable books on i':, and would introduce it in a new novel as long a.* ‘-Bourn“rang,” which she would publish in 1933. "It is impossible,” she said, “to dismiss all stories of witchcraft as lai-c. I toured ‘the vampire country,’ and d my best to persuade the peasants to ~,.|cte strange Lams current _ there, hit'.; their crude speech and their inability U) express their feeliii)! ('■aiised difficulties. Nevertheless, I heard quee' stories. For example, believers in .sorcery declare that ft b,,dy found uncorrupted has been the prey of a vampire.