John D. Swain

“ He can fake the thing cleverly, you understand; but he cannot fathom the unknown forces back of it all. It is dangerous ground. It is sometimes blasphemy! It is blundering in where angels fear to tread. ”

“ They argue that Lucifer, Star of the Morning, was cast out of Heaven after a great battle, in which he was defeated to be sure, but not destroyed, nor even crippled. Today, after centuries of missionary zeal, Christianity has gathered only a tithe of the people into its fold; the great majority is, and always has been, outside. The wicked flourish, often the righteous stumble ”

“ It is believed that they number hundreds of thousands, and flourish in every quarter of the world; and it is presumed that they employ grips and passwords. But amid so much that is conjecture, this fact stands clear; the cult of Lucifer does exist, and has from time immemorial.
"I never had the least idea who suggested them to Sir William. May have been some friend who was a secret devotee, and wished to make a proselyte. May have been an idle word overheard in a club—or a penny bus. ”

“ The subconscious mind explains it all; and we have only skirted the edge of our subject. When we have mastered it, we shall do things right in the laboratory that will put every astrologer and palmist and tea-ground prophet out of business. ”

“ I was born there, attended its University, practiced for a couple of years in Whitechapel, and migrated to the fashionable Westminster district; but I visit the city as a stranger.
"So, if anything mysterious were to happen anywhere, it might well be in London; although, as I have said, one. would hardly look for it in one of our solid, dull, intensely prosaic hospitals.
"Watts-Bedloe was the big man in my day. You will find his works in your medical libraries, Bliven; though I dare say he has been thrust aside by the on-march of science. Osteopathy owes a deal to him, I think ”

“ I knew an intelligent pharmacist who was dying of a malignant disease. Operated on three times. Specialists had given him up. Then he began to take the nostrums and cure-alls on his own shelves, although he knew perfectly well what they contained—or could easily enough have found out. Consulted a lot of herb doctors, and longhaired Indian healers, and advertising specialists. ”