THE VOODOO SPELL
Innumerable facts evidence the power
of the voodoo spell, when the
victim has a knowledge that it is being excited against him. There is
not as much proof that it has
any influence without that knowledge. It is most powerful with the
ignorant and superstitious, but founded as it is on a law
of mental activity the intelligent and cultivated do not escape. The
mind of the victim is
concentrated on the menace of the "spell," absorbed by that one idea,
and is hypnotized by it, and if the influence is not broken by
attraction of other ideas, that is the channel of thought turned, will
yield. The sickness suggested will follow, or even death, from the
breaking down of the vital forces.
The following instance from the Fargo
(N. D.) Argus replies forcibly to
the influence of "curses," and
volumes of parallel cases might be gathered:
Two weeks ago Joseph Williams,
fireman on the Northern Pacific coast passenger train, in a moment of
insanity threw himself into the firebox of
his locomotive and was instantly burned to death.
The frightful manner in which
Williams ended his life brings to light the
fact that he was the victim of a
woman's curse. It is stated by railroad men
that the fireman was running the
switch engine in the Mandan yards at the
time a young girl was run down and
crippled for life. She subsequently came into prominence through the
appeals of her friends for postage stamps, with which to secure
artificial limbs. The mother of the girl, who
appeared in the yard very shortly
after the accident,
assailed the young fireman with all the
language at her command, and finally wound up with:
