The life of a natural philosopher is filled with long hours spent toiling in the darkness, punctuated with brief moments of ecstasy and insight. Even the greatest physical intuition is meaningless unless backed up with perseverance. But what a reward to see one’s hypotheses validated! What joy to see one’s understanding of nature yield concrete results. (And, more sweetly, to savor the humiliation of one’s enemies and detractors).
To that end, I proudly unveil the culmination of my research on the bodily humours. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you — straight from the bleeding forefront of Victorian steam-powered arcana — the Aetheric Electro-Imager.
That’s right. Plumbing the spirit world for signs and portents is no longer the exclusive realm of scientists and clairvoyants. Welcome, laypeople, to the wonders of the Beyond!
I won’t claim to be the first person to consider the possibility of capturing coherent vibrations of the ectoplasmonic aether. This is, however, the first such work to succeed without bursting into flames and without causing madness in 100% of the test participants. (Closed trials of the Imager have seen, in isolated cases, aetheric-induced madness levels as low as 37%. Take that, Isaac Newton!)
Obviously, it wouldn’t be wise for me to divulge the secret of the Imager’s operation just yet. But it would be reckless of me if I didn’t warn others away from indulging in such work lightly. Only those with a solid understanding of the Earth’s telluric currents should even consider such an undertaking. Direct contact with the ectoplasmonic aether can be quite dangerous for the weak-spirited.
Several of my colleagues have raised questions about how I might have procured sufficient quantities of the four human bodily humours to energize the Imager. But I will not legitimize their attempts to undermine me by responding to such thinly-veiled insinuations. Fie on them!
Please try the Aetheric Electro-Imager for yourself. Who knows what wonderments it may reveal to you? Who can say what insights the spirit world may bestow upon you? Remember that the apparatus can function with one and two humours selected. And bear in mind that each humour embodies a range of qualities, as reflected by the variety of magickal keywords associated with each humour.
This is just the first stage of something larger, as part of the run-up to the official publication of my first novel, when Bitter Seeds hits shelves on April 13, 2010. (And remember, Bitter Seeds is available for preorder!)