Ectoplasm

“And during the thirteenth ceremony I beheld the phantasm: It was composed of glowing, pulsating gas. It's effect upon me was mesmeric. Spellbound, I stared into it's swirling vortex. It drew closer, desiring to envelop me in it's raging miasma.

My master had taught me that certain rhymes and genuflections could ward off malevolent entities, however my mind was blank and my hands were numb. I had dropped both the Chalice of Geb and the sprig of irkbane which might have protected me.

It's tendril gripped my throat and I became stricken with nausea and drooling. All I could do was curse that lamentable tome, and my own ineptitude at ghost wrangling. As my consciousness ebbed, I swooned and shuddered.”

From “Irksome Spirits” by Dobson (out of print).

No fewer than three of Dobson's pamphlets concern spiritualism; It is clear that Dobson lacked the stamina needed by all those who commune with shades or meddle with forces unseen. Nevertheless, Dobson's inquiry into the mystical realm was not yet satiated.

Dobson's first encounter came as a young man; One of his first pamphlets describes an incident in which he was kidnapped and granted illumination by a tribe of willo-the-wisps; Typically his pamphlet describes nothing of the knowledge allegedly imparted. It's an incomprehensible psychedelic haze containing trite depictions of dancing lights and a pedestrian account of being lost in Loopy Copse.

Most spiritualists choose to discount this anecdote, because at the time of his claimed abduction Dobson was known to be an inmate of the Bodger's Spinney shelter for the transiently bewilderment. Even I who place the utmost faith in Dobson's work must credit this incident to moon-madness.

I should say that I too am a pamphleteer. I regard Dobson as kin – we are both of that fraternity who grimly proffer pamphlets on the corners of dilapidated streets in dismal towns not unlike your own. Unlike Dobson, I am not subject to the whims of Caxton's press because I own a laser-printer. However I too am an “out of print”, for it has lost it's toner and the cost of replacement beggars belief.

My latest work concerns the chemistry of goo. I have cross-referenced every type of goo by pungency, viscosity, magnetism and hue. For any given goo this book will describe it's origin, purpose, method of manufacture and the relevant saints or martyrs days upon which it may best be applied.

I have traveled from Murmansk to French Gianna in search of goos to study. I have sought goos in tidal basin of the Great Frightening River and trudged across the treacherous glaciers of Mount Pokemon in search of legendary goos. Eventually all but one goo succumbed to my inquisition. It was in researching that most elusive of oozes, my research drew me yet again to Dobson:

Long after the Dobson's imaginary abduction and the harrowing incident in the yurta on that ice-clad escarpment, Years after the kindly old Tundist carried Dobson's frail frame into the sacred aviary where call of linnets would soothe his ghost-addled brow...

Years more since Dobson overcame his fear of the eerie lights that befuddled his youth, years still after he had sought solace on the high seas and returned with a resolve to confront that which he feared: Only then could Dobson seek council from the Ukrainian mystic, Helena Blavatsky.

She was a frail and embittered crone. It is said that she kept a stuffed baboon in her boudoir. Strangers were made to stare into it's baleful eyes. Those frail of mind would be bedizened by it's glance. But Dobson was in his prime and had already known madness . He was unaffected. Despite all odds, Blavatsky grew to trust him.

In her final days, Dobson witnessed many apparitions and befriended many ghosts. Blavatsky taught him to wield his irkbane in exactly the manner prescribed by Paracelsus. Later he claimed to have abjured the spirit of Gerard Manley Hopkins, though once again this is claim is doubtful as Jesuits eschew all forms of spiritualism.

Dobson states that as the ghosts dispersed they left behind a certain residue, a “goo” if you will: “ectoplasm” that final substance which I must now collect in this wolfram sampling-jar. Once complete I shall claim my rightful place as dean of goo-sciences of the university at or near the duck-pond of Ack.

This is why I too have come to you proffering a skin full of rancid yak's butter.

This is why I have sought your yurta on that same frigid and windswept escarpment.

This is why I hold a identical hide-bound tome, identical to the book that frazzled Dobson's cranium a century ago this very day.

Please, oh master, let the abjuration begin.