of any element of idiocy in the variation of the
old-fashioned name. In the revelation which followed, the intelligence,
who seemed amiably disposed despite his sinister connections, informed
the circle that, like Jesus, he was engendered eternally from God, that
he was exiled from the pleroma, and that he was the Sophia-Achamoth of
Valentine, the Helena-Ennoia of Simon Magus, the thought of God which
had become anathema, and that he was now in search of love and
consolation, both of which might take shape in a Gnostic church, and
would be highly acceptable. There is, so to speak, a commercial element
in the overtures which dries up the feeling of pity, or one might be
exceedingly sorry for this lost chord of eternal thought, hoping
charitably that we should still somehow hear it in heaven.

Since his conversion the unpretentious marvel of this seance has been a
dire trouble to Jean Kostka, partly on account of its eschatology, but
still more because the sitters were conscious at its close of a breath
passing over their faces, while he himself felt the presence of lips
against his own. Poor Jean Kostka! They were all abased on their knees,
which happens occasionally, even at seances, to pious people in Paris,
and he concludes that he was kissed by Helena-Ennoia, _alias_ Lucifer,
_alias_ Luciabel, who is also described on the charge-sheet of orthodox
theology by other and more objectionable titles. The shameful memory
causes him to exclaim fervently:--"May he who purged the lips of Isaiah
with a burning coal deign to purify mine by the sacred kiss of penitence
and pardon: _in osculo sancto_." There is a touch of sublimity in that,
and the _basia_ of Baal-Zeboub may well enough be more demoralising than
those of Secundus. At the time, however, he founded the Gnostic Church.

We become acquainted with ghosts after various manners, according to
our psychic condition. There is the spontaneous and accidental ghost who
is seldom caught in the act; there is the able-bodied materialised ghost
whom we catch in the act occasionally, and preserve our mental balance
by clinging to his watch-chain and seals; they may be distinguished as
the timeless ghost and the ghost who occasionally does time. Over and
above these two generic specimens there is the ghost that throws, who is
separable from the ghost that _hurls_, as our French friends put it. To
hurl is to utter objectionable and unreasonable yells, preferably in the
dead of night