talismans in the days when these
were believed in, and may be produced to-day, if one has sufficient
faith--that is to say, produced by man when in the peculiar condition of
mind brought about by the intense belief in the power of a talisman. And
here it should be noted that the term "talisman" may be applied to
any object (or doctrine) that is believed to possess peculiar power or
efficacy. In this fact, I think, is to be found the peculiar danger of
erroneous doctrines which promise extraordinary benefits, here and now
on the material plane, to such as believe in them. Remarkable results
may follow an intense belief in such doctrines, which, whilst having no
connection whatever with their accuracy, being proportional only to the
intensity with which they are held, cannot do otherwise than confirm the
believer in the validity of his beliefs, though these may be in every
way highly fantastic and erroneous. Both the Roman Catholic, therefore,
and the Buddhist may admit many of the marvels attributed to the relics
of each other's saints; though, in denying that these marvels prove the
accuracy of each other's religious doctrines, each should remember that
the same is true of his own.

(1) The subject is rather too technical to deal with here. I have
discussed it elsewhere; see "Thermo-Dynamical Objections to the
Mechanical Theory of Life," _The Chemical News_, vol. cxii. pp. 271 _et
seq_. (3rd December 1915).

(2) For instance, the well-known physicist, Sir W. F. BARRETT, F.R.S.
(late Professor of Experimental Physics in The Royal College of Science
for Ireland). See his _On the Threshold of a New World of Thought_
(1908), SE 10.

In illustration of the real power of the imagination, I may instance the
Maori superstition of the Taboo. According to the Maories, anyone who
touches a tabooed object will assuredly die, the tabooed object being
a sort of "anti-talisman". Professor FRAZER(1) says: "Cases have
been known of Maories dying of sheer fright on learning that they had
unwittingly eaten the remains of a chief's dinner or handled something
that belonged to him," since such objects were, _ipso facto_, tabooed.
He gives the following case on good authority: "A woman, having partaken
of some fine peaches from a basket, was told that they had come from
a tabooed place. Immediately the basket dropped from her hands and she
cried out in agony that the atua or godhead of the chief, whose divinity
had been thus profaned