{"code":"spell","subroute":"spell","collection_type":"theme","title":"Under a Spell","header_1":"Under a Spell","header_2":"Mesmerism, magic and mind-control.","description":"A collection of stories on psychic influence. Read or download. Arthur Conan Doyle, H. P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe and more.","has_text":true,"quote":{"quote":"“She was the only one he could find with the right kind of brain and a weak enough will.” * The Thing on the Doorstep","code":"the-thing-on-the-doorstep"},"image":true,"image_alt":"A sketch of an eye with a hand placing a ball inside","image_filter":"contrast(8.5) invert(1)","image_title":"Eye Ball - Sketch","image_code":"the-thing-on-the-doorstep","stories":[{"story":"the-parasite","description":"The practice of hypnotism was all the rage in the 19th century, under the names of mesmerism and animal magnetism. Even more so than now, it blurred the line between medicine and occult practices, and drew equally passionate skepticism and belief.\nA skeptical man’s wife volunteers to be mesmerised by a woman and acts unexpectedly the next day. The man volunteers next to clear things up."},{"story":"the-thing-on-the-doorstep","description":"Our friends and our family can be captured so strongly by the influence of others that it can seem that we have lost them entirely. They may join an ideology or cult, or submit themselves entirely to an authoritative figure, so much so that they give up who they once were.\nDaniel Upton’s close friend Edward Derby is intelligent, but closeted and naive. After Derby gets married to the daughter of a family rumoured to be involved in the occult, Upton witnesses strange changes in his friend."},{"story":"morella","description":"God’s gifts are not assigned equally, and some are much smarter, more fluent and more knowledgable than others. A strong personality can bulldoze a weaker one, and someone can find themselves acting on anothers interest, leading to frustration, bitterness and a desire for revenge.\n                    A man finds himself under the power of an erudite and influential wife, and soon finds himself wishing to be free from her corrupting presence."},{"story":"the-seed-from-the-sepulchre","description":"Our minds are sanctuaries, and so are our brains. The effects of drugs and alcohol, of age and brain damage all threaten our sense of self control. But to become completely a slave to a foreign influence, for our brains to be captured entirely, is a fear that we hopefully never have to contend with.\nAn explorer's partner is oddly quiet and morose after returning from a three day expedition on which he has nothing to report, and as the journey goes on he becomes sicker and sicker until something mysterious appears growing out of the top of his head."},{"story":"asleep-in-armageddon","description":"We all have voices in our head, but not everyone can control theirs. Even a mostly sane man will sometimes tell himself, or perhaps hear, that he is less than he would like. Just like cruelty from someone else, these voices can torment and degrade us, with terrible consequences worse than broken bones.\nLeonard Sale crash-lands on a planet. Fortunately, he has six days to spare before rescue, as well as plenty of food and water and a conveniently breathable atmosphere. But on his first attempt to fall asleep he begins to hear voices."},{"story":"the-horla","description":"Even our eyes can convince us of a foreign influence. Ghosts, monsters and demons as well as angels have prevailed throughout all cultures. But are these merely accidents caused by a stressed and troubled mind, abstractions of real troubles or real themselves?\nA man writes in his diary of an affliction that keeps him in a permanent panic. He begins to worry it is an unseen, living entity trying to control him."}]}