and we know that one of them is
called in the Scripture, Babylon, and we know which one that is. One of
the marks of this woman--mind you that means the class of
individuality--is the mark of sorcery, the mark of the inverted use of
spiritual and mental powers.

But what is the end of it? The end is that this Babylon becomes the
habitation of devils, the hold--or, as the original Greek has it, the
prison of evil, an unclean spirit, the cage of every unclean bird. That
is the development which takes place in each individual who sets out to
misuse this mental power. The misuse may have a very small beginning, it
may be such as is taught in a certain school, which I am told exists in
London, where shop assistants are trained in the use of magnetic power,
in order to decoy or compel unknowing purchasers into buying what they
do not want. I am told there is such a school; I cannot quote you my
authority. That is a trifling matter. I go into a shop and spend two or
three shillings in buying something which, when I get home, I find
absolutely useless, and I say, "How in the name of fortune did I come to
buy this rubbish?" Well, I must have been hypnotised into it. It does
not make much difference to me, but it makes a great deal of difference
to the young man or young woman who has hypnotised me, because it is the
first step on the downward path. It may be only a matter of sixpence,
but it leads on step by step, and unless that path is retraced, the
final end is that of Babylon. Therefore it is that St. John says, "I
heard a voice from Heaven saying, 'Come forth, my people, out of
her'"--and that is out of Babylon--"come forth, my people, out of
her"--that is out of this inverted mode of using spiritual power--"come
forth, my people, out of her, that ye have no fellowship with her sins
and that ye shall receive not of her plague." Therefore, against this
inverted use of the hidden power I warn every one from the first day
when he begins to realise that there is such a thing as mental or
spiritual power which can be exercised upon other persons.

Are we then on this account to go continually in terror of suffering
from malicious magnetism, fearing that some enemy here, or some enemy
there, is turning on this hidden power against us? If so, we should go
in trepidation continually. No, I do not think there is the least
reason for us to go in fear in this way. To begin with there are
comparatively few who know the law of suggesti