Page:Weird Tales volume 33 number 04.djvu/88

 Edmond's Hollywood apartment he had the booklet with him.

Both Ludwig and Edmond were deeply interested in the occult. They had dabbled in witchcraft and demonology, as a result of their acquaintance with Scott, who possessed one of the best occult libraries in America.

Scott was a strange man. Slender, sharp-eyed, and taciturn, he spent most of his time in an old brownstone house in Baltimore. His knowledge of esoteric matters was little short of phenomenal; he had read the Chhaya Ritual, and in his letters to Ludwig and Edmond had hinted at the real meanings behind the veiled hints and warnings in that half-legendary manuscript.

In his great library were such names as Sinistral, Zancherius, and the ill-famed Gougenot des Mousseau; and in his library safe he had, it was rumored, an immense scrapbook filled with excerpts copied from such fantastic sources as the Book of Karnak, the monstrous Sixtystone, and the blasphemous Elder Key, of which only two copies are reputed to exist on earth.

It was little wonder, therefore, that the two students were anxious to tear aside the veil and view the astounding mysteries of which Scott hinted so cautiously. In his diary Edmond confessed that his own curiosity was the direct cause of the tragedy.

Yet it was Ludwig who bought the booklet and pored over it with Edmond in the latter's apartment. Certainly Edmond described the pamphlet plainly enough, and it is strange, therefore, that no bibliophile could identify it. According to the diary, it was quite small, about four by five inches, bound in coarse brown paper, and yellowed and crumbling with age. The printing—in Eighteenth Century type with the long s—was crudely done, and there was neither a date-line nor a publisher's imprint. There were eight pages; seven of them filled with what Edmond called the usual banal sophisms of mysticism, and on the last page were the specific directions for what would nowadays be known as "projecting one's astral."

The general process was familiar to both students. Their researches had informed them that the soul—or in modern occult language, "astral body"—is supposed to be an ethereal double or ghost, capable of projection to a distance. But the specific directions — finding these was unusual. Nor did they seem difficult to follow. Edmond has purposely been vague about these preparations, but one gathers that the two students visited several chemists before obtaining the ingredients needed. Where they secured the cannabis indica later discovered on the scene of the tragedy is a mystery, but not, of course, one impossible of solution.

On August 15th Ludwig, apparently without Edmond's knowledge, wrote to Scott by air-mail, describing the pamphlet and its contents, and asking for advice.

On the night of August 18th, approximately half an hour after Kenneth Scott received Ludwig's letter, the two young occultists undertook their disastrous experiment.

, Edmond blamed himself. In the diary he mentions Ludwig's uneasiness, as though the latter sensed some hidden danger. Ludwig suggested postponing the trial for a few days, but Edmond laughed at his fears. It ended with the two placing the required ingredients in a brazier and kindling the mixture.

There were other preparations, too,