Dennis Wheatley: The Devil Rides Out

‘That’s true.’

‘Well, I am not sufficient of an adept to perform the feat, but will you accept my assurances that I’ve seen it done, not once, but a number of times?’

‘If you say so, but from all I’ve heard about such things, the fellows you saw didn’t leave the ground at all. It is just mass hypnotism exercised upon the whole audience—like the rope trick.’

‘As you wish, but that explanation does not rob me of my point. If you admit that I can tap an unknown power to make Simon obey my will, and that an Eastern mystic can tap that power to the far greater extent of making a hundred people’s eyes deceive them into believing that he is standing on thin air, you admit that there is power and that it can be tapped in greater degrees according to the knowledge and proficiency of the man who uses it.’

‘Yes, within limits.’

‘Why within limits? You apparently consider levitation impossible, but wouldn’t you have considered wireless impossible if you had been living fifty years ago and somebody had endeavoured to convince you of it?’

‘Maybe.’ Rex sat forward suddenly. ‘But I don’t get what you’re driving at. Hypnotism is only a demonstration of the power of the human will.’

‘Ah! There you have it. The will to good and the will to evil. That is the whole matter in a nutshell. The human will is like a wireless set and properly adjusted—trained that is—it can tune in with the invisible which is all about us.’

‘The Invisible Influence. I’ve certainly heard that phrase somewhere before.’

‘No doubt. A very eminent mental specialist who holds a high position in our asylums wrote a book with that title and I have not yet asked you to believe one tenth of what he vouches for.’

‘Then I wonder they haven’t locked him up.’

‘Rex! Rex!’ De Richleau smiled a little sadly. ‘Try and open your mind, my friend. Do you believe in the miracles performed by Jesus Christ?’

‘Yes.’

‘And of His Disciples and certain of the Saints?’

‘Sure, but they had some special power granted to them from on high.’

‘Exactly! Some Special Power. But I suppose you would deny that Gautama Buddha and his disciples performed miracles of a similar nature?’

‘Not at all. Most people agree now that Buddha was a sort of Indian Christ, a Holy Man, and no doubt he had some sort of power granted to him too.’

The Duke sat back with a heavy sigh. ‘At last my friend we seem to be getting somewhere. If you admit that miracles, as you call them although you object to the word magic, have been performed by two men living in different countries hundreds of years apart, and that even their disciples were able to tap a similar power through their holiness, you cannot reasonably deny that other mystics have also performed similar acts in many portions of the globe—and therefore, that there is a power existing outside us which is not peculiar to any religion, but can be utilised if one can get into communication with it.’

Rex laughed. ‘That’s so, I can’t deny it.’

‘Thank God! Let’s mix ourselves another drink shall we, I need it.’

‘Don’t move, I’ll fix it.’ Rex good-naturedly scrambled to his feet. ‘All the same,’ he added slowly, ‘it doesn’t follow that because a number of good men have been granted supernatural powers that there is anything in Black Magic’

‘Then you do not believe in Witchcraft?’

‘Of course not, nobody does in these days.’

‘Really! How long do you think it is since the last trial for Witchcraft took place?’

‘I’ll say it was all of a hundred and fifty years ago.’

‘No, it was in January, 1926, at Melun near Paris.’

‘Oh! You’re fooling!’ Rex exclaimed angrily.

‘I’m not,’ De Richleau assured him solemnly. ‘The records of the court will prove my statement, so you see you are hardly accurate when you say that nobody believes in Witchcraft in these days, and many many thousands still believe in a personal devil.’

‘Yes, simple folk maybe, but not educated people.’

‘Possibly not, yet every thinking man must admit that there is still such a thing as the power of Evil.’

‘Why?’

‘My dear fellow, all qualities have their opposites, like love and hate, pleasure and pain, generosity and avarice. How could we recognise the goodness of Jesus Christ, Lao Tze, Ashoka, Marcus Aurelius, Francis of Assisi, Florence Nightingale and a thousand others if it were not for the evil lives of Herod, Caesar Borgia, Rasputin, Landru, Ivan Kreuger and the rest?’

‘That’s true,’ Rex admitted slowly.

‘Then if an intensive cultivation of good can beget strange powers is there any reason why an intensive cultivation of evil should not beget them also?’

‘I think I begin to get what you’re driving at.’

‘Good! Now listen, Rex.’ The Duke leaned forward earnestly. ‘And I will try and expound what little I know of the Esoteric Doctrine which has come down to us through the ages. You will have heard of the Persian myth of Ozamund and Ahriman, the eternal powers of Light and Darkness, said to be co-equal and warring without cessation for the good or ill of mankind. All ancient sun and nature worship—festivals of spring and so on, were only an outward expression of that myth, for Light typifies Health and Wisdom, Growth and Life; while Darkness means Disease and Ignorance, Decay and Death.

‘In its highest sense Light symbolises the growth of the Spirit towards that perfection in which it can throw off the body and become light itself; but the road to perfection is long and arduous, too much to hope for in one short human life, hence the widespread belief in reincarnation; that we are born again and again until we begin to despise the pleasures of the flesh. This doctrine is so old that no man can trace its origin, yet it is the inner core of truth common to all religions at their inception. Consider the teaching of Jesus Christ with that in mind and you will be amazed that you have not realised before the true purport of His message. Did He not say that the “Kingdom of God was within us”, and when He walked upon the waters declared: “These things that I do ye shall do also; and greater things than these shall ye do, for I go unto my Father which is in Heaven”, meaning most certainly that He had achieved perfection but that others had the same power within each one of them to do likewise.’

De Richleau paused for a moment and then went on more slowly. ‘Unfortunately the hours of the night are still equal to the hours of the day, and so the power of Darkness is no less active than when the world was young, and no sooner does a fresh Master appear to reveal the light than ignorance, greed, and lust for power cloud the minds of his followers. The message becomes distorted and the simplicity of the truth submerged and forgotten in the pomp of ceremonies and the meticulous performance of rituals which have lost their meaning. Yet the real truth is never entirely lost, and through the centuries new Masters are continually arising either to proclaim it or, if the time is not propitious, to pass it on in secret to the chosen few.

‘Apollonius of Tyana learned it in the East. The so-called Heretics whom we know as the Albigenses preached it in the twelfth century throughout Southern France until they were exterminated. Christian Rosenkreutz had it in the Middle Ages. It was the innermost secret of the Order of the Templars who were suppressed because of it by the Church of Rome. The Alchemists, too, searched for and practised it. Only the ignorant take literally their struggle to find the Elixir of Life. Behind such phrases, designed to protect them from the persecution of their enemies, they sought Eternal Life, and their efforts to transmute base metals into gold were only symbolical of their transfusion of matter into light. And still today while the night life of London goes on about us there are mystics and adepts who are seeking the Eightfold Way to perfection in many corners of the Earth.’