y opinion, sufficient
accumulative corroborative evidence to show that not only were there
such anomalies as werwolves formerly, but that, in certain restricted
areas, they are even yet to be encountered.

Taking, then, the actual existence of werwolves to be an established
fact, it is, of course, just as impossible to state their origin as it
is to state the origin of any other extraordinary form of creation.
Every religious creed, every Occult sect, advances its own respective
views--and has a perfect right to do so, as long as it advances them as
views and not dogmatisms.

I, for my part, bearing in mind that everything appertaining to the
creation of man and the universe is a profound mystery, cannot see the
object on the part of religionists and scientists in being arbitrary
with regard to a subject which any child of ten will apprehend to be one
whereon it is futile to do other than theorize. My own theory, or rather
one of my own theories, is that the property of transmutation, _i.e._,
the power of assuming any animal guise, was one of the many
properties--including second sight, the property of becoming invisible
at will, of divining the presence of water, metals, the advent of death,
and of projecting the etherical body--which were bestowed on man at the
time of his creation; and that although mankind in general is no longer
possessed of them, a few of these properties are still, in a lesser
degree, to be found among those of us who are termed psychic.

The history of the Jews is full of references to certain of these
properties. The greatest of all the Superphysical Forces--the creating
Force (the Hebrew Jah, Jehovah)--so says the Bible, constantly held
direct communication with His elect--with Adam, Noah, Abraham, and
Moses, while His emissaries, the angels, or what modern Occultists would
term Benevolent Elementals, conversed with Abraham, Sarah, Jacob, and
hosts of others. In this same history, too, there is no lack of
reference to sorcery; and whilst Black Magic is illustrated in the
tricks wrought by the magicians before Pharaoh, and the infliction of
all manner of plagues upon the Egyptians, one is rather inclined to
attribute to White Magic Daniel's safety among the lions; Shadrach,
Meshach, and Abed-nego's preservation from the flames; Elijah's
miraculous spinning out of the barrel of meal and cruse of oil, in the
days of famine, and his raising of the widow's son. Also, to the account
of White Magi