MODERN “BLACK MAGIC.”

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 2034, 27 September 1919, Page 4

MODERN “BLACK MAGIC.”

RIVAL CULTS IN FRANCE. ABBE BOUND AND BEATEN. Mediaeval black magic and modern assault and battery arc oddly mingled in an action for personal damages which is about to come up for Judgment at Bordeaux. In a /convent of that,city was a statue of the Virgin which acquired the reputation of shedding tears that wore attributed to grief at the deprayity of the present age. /

This statue became the centre of a new Spiritualist cult whose lead-, ers were a local medium and a Syrian from the Lebanon. JeaL ousy sprang up between these two, pach of whom accused the other of trying to exploit a miraculous statue for his personal advantage.

The ecclesiastical authorities thereupon transferred the priest to Nantes. From 1 there, according to the statements of his, opponents, he began, to practice magical arts to injure his rival. The medium fjuffered strange illness and afflictions. Once she was bitten by an invisible month with such violence., that afterwards a broken tooth was found in the wound.

Tlie adherents of the persecuted medium became convinced Unit the abbe was costing spells upon her by the method of making an image of wax, and by injuring which lie was able, thanks to his incantations, to transfer the hurt to the object of his haired.

Accordingly, four of the medium’s congregation, imduding a police ofiieor and exchange broker, wont to Nantes to break the evil spell. After hearing mass, they armed themselves with thick sticks and burst into the abbe’s house, where they found him ill in bed. They hound him and demanded the surrender of his books of black magic and of the wax image.

The abbe protested that he had no such possessions, and was soundly beaten. He at length gave up his keys, but the punitive party found nothing compromising except a small black wool doll which the priest maintained was one of the little “Nanette” figures sold in Paris during the bombardment as a lucky charm.

He is now suing for damages for the beating he received.