ost virulent
poisons in the most frightful sacrileges. The fight will be bitter, but
I shall conquer,' and he immediately called in a woman who lives in his
house, a voyant.

"He hypnotized her and she, at his injunction, explained the nature of
the sorcery of which I was the victim. She reconstructed the scene. She
literally saw me being poisoned by food and drink mixed with menstrual
fluid that had been reinforced with macerated sacramental wafers and
drugs skilfully dosed. That sort of spell is so terrible that aside from
Dr. Johannes no thaumaturge in France dare try to cure it.

"So the doctor finally said to me, 'Your cure can be obtained only
through an invincible power. We must lose no time. We must at once
sacrifice to the glory of Melchisedek.'

"He raised an altar, composed of a table and a wooden tabernacle. It was
shaped like a little house surmounted by a cross and encircled, under
the pediment, by the dial-like figure of the tetragram. He brought the
silver chalice, the unleavened bread and the wine. He donned his
sacerdotal habits, put on his finger the ring which has received the
supreme benedictions, then he began to read from a special missal the
prayers of the sacrifice.

"Almost at once the voyant cried, 'Here are the spirits evoked for the
spell. These are they which have carried the venefice, obedient to the
command of the master of black magic, Canon Docre!'

"I was sitting beside the altar. Dr. Johannes placed his left hand on my
head and raising toward heaven his right he besought the Archangel
Michael to assist him, and adjured the glorious legions of the
invincible seraphim to dominate, to enchain, the spirits of Evil.

"I was already feeling greatly relieved. The sensation of internal
gnawing which tortured me in Paris was diminishing. Dr. Johannes
continued to recite his orisons, then when the moment came for the
deprecatory prayer, he took my hand, laid it on the altar, and three
times chanted:

"'May the projects and the designs of the worker of iniquity, who has
made enchantment against you, be brought to naught; may any influence
obtained by Satanic means, any attack directed against you, be null and
void of effect; may all the maledictions of your enemy be transformed
into benedictions from the highest summits of the eternal hills; may his
fluids of death be transmuted into ferments of life; finally, may the
Archangels of Judgment and Chastisement decide the fate of the miserab