Mrs. Wakeman vs. the Antichrist Read Online Free PDF

that
I Fought the Apemen
is a magical treasure-hunting story.
    There is a long history of magical treasure hunting in America. It was widely believed that the country was peppered with pirates’ gold, misers’ hoards, and lost mines, that Indian graves were filled with valuables, and gnomes collected enormous stockpiles of gold and gems in subterranean caves. The notebook of one eighteenth-century money-digger lists the locations of dozens of treasures (“Mrs. Downing of Wair Informs that there is a mine of silver at ye flat rock on Coy’s hill in Brookfield”), and places like Bristol Notch, Vermont, were “honeycombed with holes a few feet in depth, where generations of money-diggers have worked their superstitious energies” 44 searching for gold stolen from a Spanish galleon.
    On July 20, 1822, the
Lycoming Gazette
(Williamsport, Pennsylvania) reported, “We could name if we pleased five hundred respectable men who do, in the simplicity and sincerity of their hearts, verily believe that immense treasures lie concealed in the Green Mountains; many of whom have been, for a number of years, most industriously and perseveringly engaged in digging it up.” Moreover, the article encouraged readers to take up “the mineral [divining] rod and discover a fortune,” which leads to the
other
popular belief underpinning magical treasure hunting: that occult methods for finding it worked.
    They involved spell casting, nocturnal ceremonies, and communicating with spirits, but despite its resemblance to witchcraft (and even grave robbing), magical treasure hunting was not beyond the pale. It may not have been discussed in polite company, but treasure hunting experienced several waves of popularity during which unknown numbers of citizens were slipping out after dark carrying shovels, swords, and spell books.
    The actual money-digging process could be simple or elaborate, but the first step consisted of figuring out where to dig. It might be revealed in dreams, or by a ghost (“‘Raise this rock,’ said a voice . . . the young man worked most of the night [and] [u]nder it, in old coins, he found money enough to last him the rest of his life”). 45 Legends like the story about Spanish gold at Bristol Notch provide a general idea where to look, but some form of magic, such as dowsing, was needed to find to find the precise location.
    Dowsing was a popular form of divination that employed rods, pendulums, or other devices colloquially known as “doodlebugs” that signaled the presence of hidden treasure. An Indiana farmer named Wait, for example, used a pendulum weighted with a “mineral ball” that revolved when it was over precious metals, but there were more exotic methods, such as the “peep stones” or “seer stones” employed by the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith Jr. As a young man he used them to see underground treasures just as he later used the holy seer stones, Urim and Thummim, to translate theGolden Plates into the
Book of Mormon
. Some money-diggers hired diviners like Smith or practiced magic themselves.
    Necromancy, the conjuring and questioning of spirits, was the most effective way to discover and secure treasure. “Spells and incantations” with power over spirits is doubly necessary, “first to call up a spirit who shall disclose the right spot and second, to control the demon who keeps the hoard.” 46 The “demon” is the spirit that stands guard and must be restrained from attacking the men or moving the treasure out of reach.
    When the right location was found, some money-diggers drove an iron spear into the ground to “pin” it in place, while others practiced elaborate rituals. In “A method to Tak [
sic
] up hid Treasure,” Silas Hamilton, the enthusiastic hunter whose notebook listed the local buried treasures, described a way of laying out a magic circle that kept the gold in