Page:Love Philtre (Giles, 1938).pdf/4

28 soever, it is difficult to exorcise or cast out the spirit from the person within whom it has entered. The doctor who may so attempt to cast the spirit out, sometimes finds it to be so obstinate and obdurate that it refuses to leave its fleshly home. It is not an uncommon occurrence for a spirit doctor to have to flee for his life when he encounters a spirit of this nature.

There is still another method of producing this potion. It is to take the wax mask from the corpse of a person who has died an unnatural death and then to obtain three skulls of persons who have also died in this manner. The skulls are used as the tripods on which the pot is placed for boiling the ingredients. The ingredients are the wax, some oil mixed with medicine, the component parts of which have not been divulged. This concoction is placed in a pot which is put on the three skulls and boiled by using three different kinds of wood as fuel. The pieces of firewood have to be charmed by having talismanic signs written on each piece. The spot at which the boiling takes place should be at a point where three roads meet, and the actual boiling place must be marked off by consecrated thread and talismanic charms placed at the eight cardinal points of the compass, to prevent the ingress of any interfering spirit. The spirit doctor, sitting in a posture of meditation, holds the Candle of Victory in his hands, clears his mind of all earthly attachments and infatuations, so as to be in touch with the spirit world. He recites certain incantations before the boiling pot. Should the spirit doctor be well versed in magic or the occult sciences, spirit apparitions in various forms will hover about the three skulls. It is then known that this potion will be efficacious, but it is not so potent as the spirit fluid obtained in the manner described above. When the concoction has been sufficiently boiled, it is poured into a dish covered and sealed with cloth or metal on which talismanic signs have been inscribed. This potion must be kept in a place high up and the spirit fed every day. It is used in the same manner as the spirit oil or fluid.