Page:Ossendowski - The Shadow of the Gloomy East.djvu/96

80 powerful and beautiful woman, In whom all the people present saw &hellip; the Princess of Hesse, Empress of Russia.

After this bold, and even for Russia too obvious, intrigue, Papus was obliged to leave the country in great haste, never to return. After him came other Buddhist and masonic agents, and continued the policy of their master on a smaller scale, in a more cautious manner.

Equally mysterious, though less influential, was one Onore, for some time an obscure Siberian official, who had studied several years the shamanism of the Altay natives, and finally started his own practice, which consisted of nothing but personal and collective hypnotism.

Soon the fame of his miraculous cures of nervous diseases reached the larger Siberian towns, and numerous parties of patients came to consult Onore, The latter grasped quickly that Siberia was too small for him, and he went to Petersburg. Here at first he healed the poor from charity, as it seemed, and he made himself a great name. After a time he received wealthy people who paid him high fees. Then the Medical Council interfered, and prohibited his practice on the ground that the hypnotist had no medical education. However, this intervention had little effect, and he exercised his remunerative gifts among ever increasing circles without fear of the authorities, although several accidents dangerous to the health and