, who has experimented on himself magically to a great extent
and has set down his experiences recently in the interesting book, "Die
Magie als experimentelle Naturwissenschaft," thinks he has observed that
through the exercise that he carries on, and which produces an intense
introversion, psychophysical energies are set free that make him capable
of greater efficiency. Specifically, an actual drawing upon the nerve
centers unused in the conscious function of the normal man of to-day would
be available for intellectual work, etc. So, as it were, a treasure can be
gained (by practices having a significant introversion character), a
treasure which permits an increased thinking and feeling activity. If
Staudenmaier, even in the critical examination of his anomalous functions,
can be influenced by them, it would be a great mistake to put them aside
simply as "pathological."

Ennemoser says of the danger of introversion (l. c., p. 175): "Now where
in men of impure heart, through the destructive natural powers and evil
spiritual relations, the deepest transcendental powers are aroused, dark
powers may very easily seize the roots of feeling and reveal moral
abysses, which the man fixed in the limits of time hardly suspects and
from which human nature recoils. Such an illicit ecstasy and evil
inspiration is at least recognized in the religious teachings of the Jews
and Christians, and the seers of God describe it as an agreement with hell
(Isaiah XXVIII, 15)."

Whence comes the danger? It comes from the powerful attraction for us of
that world which is opened to us through introversion. We descend there to
whet our arms for fresh battles, but we lay them down; for we feel
ourselves embraced by soft caressing arms that invite us to linger, to
dream enchanting dreams. This fact coincides in large part with the
previously mentioned tendency toward comfort, which is unwilling to forego
childhood and a mother's careful hands. Introversion is an excellent road
to lazy phantasying in the regressive direction.

Among psychopathologists Jung especially has of late strongly insisted
upon the dangerous role of indolence. According to him the libido
possesses a monstrous laziness which is unwilling to let go of any object
of the past, but would prefer to retain it forever. Laziness is actually a
passion, as La Rochefoucauld brilliantly remarks: "Of all the passions the
least understood by us is laziness; it is the most indefatigable and