Page:Dan McKenzie - Aromatics and the Soul.pdf/108

96 changes without attracting attention to itself, the suggestion is not, after all, so very far-fetched that an emanation proceeding from the worshippers at the moment of the elevation of the Host in a Roman Catholic church may be transmitted to the bystanders through the olfactory door to induce in them an emotion similar to that felt by the initiated.

It may be objected that Goethe’s experience and that of my friend are not alike, since Goethe plainly, though tardily, became aware of a real odour. It must be remembered, however, that Goethe was a scientist and naturally gifted, besides, with an unusual power of introspective analysis. He found the cause of his disturbance because he sought for it.

Moreover, we learn from Havelock Ellis that during religious excitement a real (and pleasant) odour is sometimes perceptible in the atmosphere around the faithful.

May it not also be the same kind of influence, transmitted in the same way, that dominates the mind, in company with impressions received by sight and hearing, when we are in the vicinity of other people ?

Our study of smells has brought us, to be sure, into a strange region of psychology, for it is possible that we have here one explanation of the