Western European stream·Isis Unveiled·XII. The "Impassable Chasm"

Source context

Theme

transmission of ancient occult wisdom through secret brotherhoods and persecution of esoteric knowledge by institutional religion

Soul-faculty

Intellectual Soul

Steiner

not engaged in the GA corpus

Cross-tradition

• NeoplatonismNeoplatonic accounts of theurgic transmission through initiatic lineages — as in Iamblichus's De Mysteriis — show structural congruence with Blavatsky's argument that ancient wisdom survived intact within secret brotherhoods shielded from ecclesiastical suppression.
• KabbalahThe Kabbalistic doctrine of hidden transmission (sod, the concealed level of Torah) offers cross-tradition congruence with the chapter's thesis that genuine esoteric doctrine was preserved in guarded form through successive generations of initiates.

Chapter XII

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CHAPTER XII.

"You never hear the really philosophical defenders of the doctrine of uniformity speaking of impossibilities in nature. They never say what they are constantly charged with saying, that it is impossible for the Builder of the universe to alter his work. . . . No theory upsets them (the English clergy). . . . Let the most destructive hypothesis be stated only in the language current among gentlemen, and they look it in the face."--TYNDALL: Lecture on the Scientific Use of the Imagination. * "The world will have a religion of some kind, even though it should fly for it to the intellectual whoredom of Spiritualism."--TYNDALL: Fragments of Science. * "But first on earth as vampires sent

Thy corpse shall from its tomb be rent. . . .

And suck the blood of all thy race."--LORD BYRON: *Giaour.

---

W**E are now approaching the hallowed precincts of that Janus-god--the molecular Tyndall. Let us enter them barefoot. As we pass the sacred adyta of the temple of learning, we are nearing the blazing sun of the Huxleyocentric system. Let us cast down our eyes, lest we be blinded.

We have discussed the various matters contained in this book, with such moderation as we could command in view of the attitude which the scientific and theological world have maintained for centuries toward those from whom they have inherited the broad foundations of all the actual knowledge which they possess. When we stand at one side, and, as a spectator, see how much the ancients knew, and how much the moderns think they know, we are amazed that the unfairness of our contemporary schoolmen should pass undetected.

Every day brings new admissions of scientists themselves, and the criticisms of well-informed lay observers. We find the following illustrative paragraph in a daily paper:

"It is curious to note the various opinions which prevail among scientific men in regard to some of the most ordinary natural phenomena. The aurora is a notable case in point. Descartes considered it a meteor falling from the upper regions of the atmosphere. Halley attributed it to the magnetism of the terrestrial globe, and Dalton agreed with this opinion. Coates supposed that the aurora was derived from the fermentation of a matter emanating from the earth. Marion held it to be a consequence of a contact between the bright atmosphere of the sun and the atmosphere of our planet. Euler thought the aurora proceeded from the vibrations of the ether among the particles of the terrestrial atmosphere. Canton and Franklin regarded it as a purely electrical phenomenon,

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and Parrot attributed it to the conflagration of hydrogen-carbonide escaping from the earth in consequence of the putrefaction of vegetable substances, and considered the shooting stars as the initial cause of such conflagration. De la Rive and Oersted concluded it to be an electro-magnetic phenomenon, but purely terrestrial. Olmsted suspected that a certain nebulous body revolved around the sun in a certain time, and that when this body came into the neighborhood of the earth, a part of its gaseous material mixed with our atmosphere, and that this was the origin of the phenomenon of the aurora." And so we might say of every branch of science.

Thus, it would seem that even as to the most ordinary natural phenomena, scientific opinion is far from being unanimous. There is not an experimentalist or theologian, who, in dealing with the subtile relations between mind and matter, their genesis and ultimate, does not draw a magical circle, the plane of which he calls forbidden ground. Where faith permits a clergyman to go, he goes; for, as Tyndall says, "they do not lack the positive element--namely, the love of truth; but the negative element, the fear of error, preponderates." But the trouble is, that their dogmatic creed weighs down the nimble feet of their intellect, as the ball and chain does the prisoner in the trenches.

As to the advance of scientists, their very learning, moreover, is impeded by these two causes--their constitutional incapacity to understand the spiritual side of nature, and their dread of public opinion. No one has said a sharper thing against them than Professor Tyndall, when he remarks, "in fact, the greatest cowards of the present day are not to be found among the clergy, but within the pale of science itself." * If there had been the slightest doubt of the applicability of this degrading epithet, it was removed by the conduct of Professor Tyndall himself; for, in his Belfast address, as President of the British Association, he not only discerned in matter "the promise and potency of every form and quality of life," but pictured science as "wresting from theology the entire domain of cosmological theory"; and then, when confronted with an angry public opinion, issued a revised edition of the address in which he had modified his expression, substituting for the words "every form and quality of life," all terrestrial life. This is more than cowardly--it is an ignominious surrender of his professed principles. At the time of the Belfast meeting, Mr. Tyndall had two pet aversions--Theology and Spiritualism. What he thought of the former has been shown; the latter he called "a degrading belief." When hard pressed by the Church for alleged atheism, he made haste to disclaim the imputation, and sue for

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peace; but, as his agitated "nervous centres" and "cerebral molecules" had to equilibrate by expanding their force in some direction, he turns upon the helpless, because pusillanimous, spiritualists, and in his Fragments of Science insults their belief after this fashion: "The world will have a religion of some kind, even though it should fly for it to the intellectual whoredom of Spiritualism." What a monstrous anomaly, that some millions of intelligent persons should permit themselves to be thus reviled by a leader in science, who, himself, has told us that "the thing to be repressed both in science and out of it is 'dogmatism!' "

We will not encroach upon space by discussing the etymological value of the epithet. While expressing the hope that it may not be adopted in future ages by science as a Tyndallism, we will simply remind the benevolent gentleman of a very characteristic feature in himself. One of our most intelligent, honorable, and erudite spiritualists, an author of no small renown, * has pointedly termed this feature as "his (Tyndall's) simultaneous coquetry with opposite opinions." If we are to accept the epithet of Mr. Tyndall in all its coarse signification, it applies less to spiritualists, who are faithful to their belief, than to the atheistical scientist who quits the loving embraces of materialism to fling himself in the arms of a despised theism; only because he finds his profit in it.

We have seen how Magendie frankly confesses the ignorance of physiologists as to some of the most important problems of life, and how Fournie agrees with him. Professor Tyndall admits that the evolution-hypothesis does not solve, does not profess to solve, the ultimate mystery.

We have also given as much thought as our natural powers will permit to Professor Huxley's celebrated lecture On the Physical Basis of Life, so that what we may say in this volume as to the tendency of modern scientific thought may be free from ignorant misstatement. Compressing his theory within the closest possible limits, it may be formulated thus: Out of cosmic matter all things are created; dissimilar forms result from different permutations and combinations of this matter; matter has "devoured spirit," hence spirit does not exist; thought is a property of matter; existing forms die that others may take their place; the dissimilarity in organism is due only to varying chemical action in the same life-matter--all protoplasm being identical.

As far as chemistry and microscopy goes, Professor Huxley's system may be faultless, and the profound sensation caused throughout the world by its enunciation can be readily understood. But its defect is that the thread of his logic begins nowhere, and ends in a void. He has made the best possible use of the available material. Given a universe crowded

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with molecules, endowed with active force, and containing in themselves the principle of life, and all the rest is easy; one set of inherent forces impel to aggregate into worlds, and another to evolve the various forms of plant and animal organism. But what gave the first impulse to those molecules and endowed them with that mysterious faculty of life? What is this occult property which causes the protoplasms of man, beast, reptile, fish, or plant, to differentiate, each ever evolving its own kind, and never any other? And after the physical body gives up its constituents to the soil and air, "whether fungus or oak, worm or man," what becomes of the life which once animated the frame?

Is the law of evolution, so imperative in its application to the method of nature, from the time when cosmic molecules are floating, to the time when they form a human brain, to be cut short at that point, and not allowed to develop more perfect entities out of this "preexistent law of form"? Is Mr. Huxley prepared to assert the impossibility of man's attainment to a state of existence after physical death, in which he will be surrounded with new forms of plant and animal life, the result of new arrangements of now sublimated matter? * He acknowledges that he knows nothing about the phenomena of gravitation; except that, in all human experience, as "stones, unsupported, have fallen to the ground, there is no reason for believing that any stone so circumstanced will not fall to the ground." But, he utterly repels any attempt to change this probability into a necessity, and in fact says: "I utterly repudiate and anathematize the intruder. Facts I know, and Law I know; but what is this necessity, save an empty shadow of my own mind's throwing?" It is this, only, that everything which happens in nature is the result of necessity, and a law once operative will continue to so operate indefinitely until it is neutralized by an opposing law of equal potency. Thus, it is natural that the stone should fall to the ground in obedience to one force, and it is equally natural that it should not fall, or that having fallen, it should rise again, in obedience to another force equally potent; which Mr. Huxley may, or may not, be familiar with. It is natural that a chair should rest upon the floor when once placed there, and it is equally natural (as the testimony of hundreds of competent witnesses

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shows) that it should rise in the air, untouched by any visible, mortal hand. Is it not Mr. Huxley's duty to first ascertain the reality of this phenomenon, and then invent a new scientific name for the force behind it?

"Facts I know," says Mr. Huxley, "and Law I know." Now, by what means did he become acquainted with Fact and Law? Through his own senses, no doubt; and these vigilant servants enabled him to discover enough of what he considers truth to construct a system which he himself confesses "appears almost shocking to common sense." If his testimony is to be accepted as the basis for a general reconstruction of religious belief, when they have produced only a theory after all, why is not the cumulative testimony of millions of people as to the occurrence of phenomena which undermine its very foundations, worthy of a like respectful consideration? Mr. Huxley is not interested in these phenomena, but these millions are; and while he has been digesting his "bread and mutton-protoplasms," to gain strength for still bolder metaphysical flights, they have been recognizing the familiar handwriting of those they loved the best, traced by spiritual hands, and discerning the shadowy simulacra of those who, having lived here, and passed through the change of death, give the lie to his pet theory.

So long as science will confess that her domain lies within the limits of these changes of matter; and that chemistry will certify that matter, by changing its form "from the solid or liquid, to the gaseous condition," only changes from the visible to the invisible; and that, amid all these changes, the same quantity of matter remains, she has no right to dogmatize. She is incompetent to say either yea or nay, and must abandon the ground to persons more intuitional than her representatives.

High above all other names in his Pantheon of Nihilism, Mr. Huxley writes that of David Hume. He esteems that philosopher's great service to humanity to be his irrefragable demonstration of "the limits of philosophical inquiry," outside which lie the fundamental doctrines "of spiritualism," and other "isms." It is true that the tenth chapter of Hume's Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding was so highly esteemed by its author, that he considered that "with the wise and learned" it would be an "everlasting check to all kinds of superstitious delusion," which with him was simply a convertible term to represent a belief in some phenomena previously unfamiliar and by him arbitrarily classified as miracle. But, as Mr. Wallace justly observes, Hume's apothegm, that "a miracle is a violation of the laws of nature," is imperfect; for in the first place it assumes that we know all the laws of nature; and, second, that an unusual phenomenon is a miracle. Mr. Wallace proposes that a miracle should be defined as: "any act or event necessarily implying

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the existence and agency of superhuman intelligences." Now Hume himself says that "a uniform experience amounts to a proof," and Huxley, in this famous essay of his, admits that all we can know of the existence of the law of gravitation is that since, in all human experience, stones unsupported have fallen to the ground, there is no reason for believing that the same thing will not occur again, under the same circumstances, but, on the contrary, every reason to believe that it will.

If it were certain that the limits of human experience could never be enlarged, then there might be some justice in Hume's assumption that he was familiar with all that could happen under natural law, and some decent excuse for the contemptuous tone which marks all of Huxley's allusions to spiritualism. But, as it is evident from the writings of both these philosophers, that they are ignorant of the possibilities of psychological phenomena, too much caution cannot be used in according weight to their dogmatic assertions. One would really suppose that a person who should permit himself such rudeness of criticism upon spiritualistic manifestations had qualified himself for the office of censor by an adequate course of study; but, in a letter addressed to the London Dialectical Society, Mr. Huxley, after saying that he had no time to devote to the subject, and that it does not interest him, makes the following confession, which shows us upon what slight foundation modern scientists sometimes form very positive opinions. "The only case of spiritualism," he writes, "I ever had the opportunity of examining into for myself, was as gross an imposture as ever came under my notice."

What would this protoplasmic philosopher think of a spiritualist who, having had but one opportunity to look through a telescope, and upon that sole occasion had had some deception played upon him by a tricky assistant at the observatory, should forthwith denounce astronomy as a "degrading belief"? This fact shows that scientists, as a rule, are useful only as collectors of physical facts; their generalizations from them are often feebler and far more illogical than those of their lay critics. And this also is why they misrepresent ancient doctrines.

Professor Balfour Stewart pays a very high tribute to the philosophical intuition of Herakleitus, the Ephesian, who lived five centuries before our era; the "crying" philosopher who declared that "fire was the great cause, and that all things were in a perpetual flux." "It seems clear," says the professor, "that Herakleitus must have had a vivid conception of the innate restlessness and energy of the universe, a conception allied in character to, and only less precise than that of modern philosophers who regard matter as essentially dynamical." He considers the expression fire as very vague; and quite naturally, for the evidence is wanting to show that either Prof. Balfour Stewart (who seems less inclined

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to materialism than some of his colleagues) or any of his contemporaries understand in what sense the word fire was used.

His opinions about the origin of things were the same as those of Hippocrates. Both entertained the same views of a supreme power, * and, therefore, if their notions of primordial fire, regarded as a material force, in short, as one akin to Leibnitz's dynamism, were "less precise" than those of modern philosophers, a question which remains to be settled yet, on the other hand their metaphysical views of it were far more philosophical and rational than the one-sided theories of our present-day scholars. Their ideas of fire were precisely those of the later "fire-philosophers," the Rosicrucians, and the earlier Zoroastrians. They affirmed that the world was created of fire, the divine spirit of which was an omnipotent and omniscient GOD. Science has condescended to corroborate their claims as to the physical question.

Fire, in the ancient philosophy of all times and countries, including our own, has been regarded as a triple principle. As water comprises a visible fluid with invisible gases lurking within, and, behind all the spiritual principle of nature, which gives them their dynamic energy, so, in fire, they recognized: 1st. Visible flame; 2d. Invisible, or astral fire--invisible when inert, but when active producing heat, light, chemical force, and electricity, the molecular powers; 3d. Spirit. They applied the same rule to each of the elements; and everything evolved from their combinations and correlations, man included, was held by them to be triune. Fire, in the opinion of the Rosicrucians, who were but the successors of the theurgists, was the source, not only of the material atoms, but also of the forces which energize them. When a visible flame is extinguished it has disappeared, not only from the sight but also from the conception of the materialist, forever. But the Hermetic philosopher follows it through the "partition-world of the knowable, across and out on the other side into the unknowable," as he traces the disembodied human spirit, "vital spark of heavenly flame," into the AEthereum, beyond the grave. **

This point is too important to be passed by without a few words of comment. The attitude of physical science toward the spiritual half of the cosmos is perfectly exemplified in her gross conception of fire. In this, as in every other branch of science, their philosophy does not contain one sound plank: every one is honeycombed and weak. The works of their own authorities teeming with humiliating confessions, give us the

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right to say that the floor upon which they stand is so unstable, that at any moment some new discovery, by one of their own number, may knock away the props and let them all fall in a heap together. They are so anxious to drive spirit out of their conceptions that, as Balfour Stewart says: "There is a tendency to rush into the opposite extreme, and to work physical conceptions to an excess." He utters a timely warning in adding: "Let us be cautious that, in avoiding Scylla, we do not rush into Charybdis. For the universe has more than one point of view, and there are possibly regions which will not yield their treasures to the most determined physicists, armed only with kilogrammes and meters and standard clocks." * In another place he confesses: "We know nothing, or next to nothing, of the ultimate structure and properties of matter, whether organic or inorganic."

As to the other great question--we find in Macaulay, a still more unreserved declaration: "The question what becomes of man after death--we do not see that a highly educated European, left to his unassisted reason, is more likely to be in the right than a Blackfoot Indian. Not a single one of the many sciences in which we surpass the Blackfoot Indians throws the smallest light on the state of the soul after the animal life is extinct. In truth, all the philosophers, ancient and modern, who have attempted, without the help of revelation, to prove the immortality of man, from Plato down to Franklin, appear to us to have failed deplorably."

There are revelations of the spiritual senses of man which may be trusted far more than all the sophistries of materialism. What was a demonstration and a success in the eyes of Plato and his disciples is now considered the overflow of a spurious philosophy and a failure. The scientific methods are reversed. The testimony of the men of old, who were nearer to truth, for they were nearer to the spirit of nature--the only aspect under which the Deity will allow itself to be viewed and understood--and their demonstrations, are rejected. Their speculations--if we must believe the modern thinkers--are but the expression of a redundance of the unsystematic opinions of men unacquainted with the scientific method of the present century. They foolishly based the little they knew of physiology on well-demonstrated psychology, while the scholar of our day bases psychology--of which he confesses himself utterly ignorant--on physiology, which to him is as yet a closed book, and has not even a method of its own, as Fournie tells us. As to the last objection in Macaulay's argument, it was answered by Hippocrates centuries ago: "All knowledge, all arts are to be found in nature," he

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The artist will display his waves of harmony better on a royal Erard than he could have done on a spinet of the sixteenth century. Therefore whether this instinctive impulse was directly impressed upon the nervous system of the first insect, or each species has gradually had it developed in itself by instinctively mimicking the acts of its like, as the more perfected doctrine of Herbert Spencer has it, is immaterial to the present subject. The question concerns spiritual evolution only. And if we reject this hypothesis as unscientific and undemonstrated, then will the physical aspect of evolution have to follow it to the ground in its turn, because the one is as undemonstrated as the other, and the spiritual intuition of man is not allowed to dovetail the two, under the pretext that it is "unphilosophical." Whether we wish it or not, we will have to fall back on the old query of Plutarch's Symposiacs, whether it was the bird or the egg which first made its appearance.

Now that the Aristotelean authority is shaken to its foundations with that of Plato; and our men of science reject every authority--nay hate it, except each his own; and the general estimate of human collective wisdom is at the lowest discount, mankind, headed by science itself, is still irrepressibly drawing back to the starting-point of the oldest philosophies. We find our idea perfectly expressed by a writer in the Popular Science Monthly. "The gods of sects and specialities," says Osgood Mason, "may perhaps be failing of their accustomed reverence, but, in the mean time, there is dawning on the world, with a softer and serener light, the conception, imperfect though it still may be, of a conscious, originating, all-pervading active soul--the 'Over-Soul,' the Cause, the Deity; unrevealed through human form or speech, but filling and inspiring every living soul in the wide universe according to its measure: whose temple is Nature, and whose worship is admiration." This is pure Platonism, Buddhism, and the exalted but just views of the earliest Aryans in their deification of nature. And such is the expression of the ground-thought of every theosophist, kabalist, and occultist in general; and if we compare it with the quotation from Hippocrates, which precedes the above, we will find in it exactly the same thought and spirit.

To return to our subject. The child lacks reason, it being as yet latent in him; and meanwhile he is inferior to the animal as to instinct proper. He will burn or drown himself before he learns that fire and water destroy and are dangerous for him; while the kitten will avoid both instinctively. The little instinct the child possesses fades away as reason, step by step, develops itself. It may be objected, perhaps, that instinct cannot be a spiritual gift, because animals possess it in a higher degree than man, and animals have no souls. Such a belief is erroneous and based upon very insecure foundations. It came from the fact that

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the inner nature of the animal could be fathomed still less than that of man, who is endowed with speech and can display to us his psychological powers.

But what proofs other than negative have we that the animal is without a surviving, if not immortal, soul? On strictly scientific grounds we can adduce as many arguments pro as contra. To express it clearer, neither man nor animal can offer either proof or disproof of the survival of their souls after death. And from the point of view of scientific experience, it is impossible to bring that which has no objective existence under the cognizance of any exact law of science. But Descartes and Bois-Raymond have exhausted their imaginations on the subject, and Agassiz could not realize such a thing as a future existence not shared by the animals we loved, and even the vegetable kingdom which surrounds us. And it is enough to make one's feelings revolt against the claimed justice of the First Cause to believe that while a heartless, cold-blooded villain has been endowed with an immortal spirit, the noble, honest dog, often self-denying unto death; that protects the child or master he loves at the peril of his life; that never forgets him, but starves himself on his grave; the animal in whom the sense of justice and generosity are sometimes developed to an amazing degree, will be annihilated! No, away with the civilized reason which suggests such heartless partiality. Better, far better to cling to one's instinct in such a case, and believe with the Indian of Pope, whose "untutored mind" can only picture to himself a heaven where

". . . admitted to that equal sky,

His faithful dog shall bear him company."

Space fails us to present the speculative views of certain ancient and mediaeval occultists upon this subject. Suffice it that they antedated Darwin, embraced more or less all his theories on natural selection and the evolution of species, and largely extended the chain at both ends. Moreover, these philosophers were explorers as daring in psychology as in physiology and anthropology. They never turned aside from the double parallel-path traced for them by their great master Hermes. "As above, so below," was ever their axiom; and their physical evolution was traced out simultaneously with the spiritual one.

On one point, at least, our modern biologists are quite consistent: unable, as yet, to demonstrate the existence of a distinct individual soul in animals, they deny it to man. Reason has brought them to the brink of Tyndall's "impassable chasm," between mind and matter; instinct alone can teach them to bridge it. When in their despair of ever being

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able to fathom the mystery of life, they will have come to a dead stop, their instinct may reassert itself, and take them across the hitherto fathomless abyss. This is the point which Professor John Fiske and the authors of the Unseen Universe seem to have reached; and Wallace, the anthropologist and ex-materialist, to have been the first to courageously step over. Let them push boldly on till they discover that it is not spirit that dwells in matter, but matter which clings temporarily to spirit; and that the latter alone is an eternal, imperishable abode for all things visible and invisible.

Esoteric philosophers held that everything in nature is but a materialization of spirit. The Eternal First Cause is latent spirit, they said, and matter from the beginning. "In the beginning was the word . . . and the word was God." While conceding the idea of such a God to be an unthinkable abstraction to human reason, they claimed that the unerring human instinct grasped it as a reminiscence of something concrete to it though intangible to our physical senses. With the first idea, which emanated from the double-sexed and hitherto-inactive Deity, the first motion was communicated to the whole universe, and the electric thrill was instantaneously felt throughout the boundless space. Spirit begat force, and force matter; and thus the latent deity manifested itself as a creative energy.

When; at what point of the eternity; or how? the question must always remain unanswered, for human reason is unable to grasp the great mystery. But, though spirit-matter was from all eternity, it was in the latent state; the evolution of our visible universe must have had a beginning. To our feeble intellect, this beginning may seem so remote as to appear to us eternity itself--a period inexpressible in figures or language. Aristotle argued that the world was eternal, and that it will always be the same; that one generation of men has always produced another, without ever having had a beginning that could be determined by our intellect. In this, his teaching, in its exoteric sense, clashed with that of Plato, who taught that "there was a time when mankind did not perpetuate itself"; but in spirit both the doctrines agreed, as Plato adds immediately: "This was followed by the earthly human race, in which the primitive history was gradually forgotten and man sank deeper and deeper"; and Aristotle says: "If there has been a first man he must have been born without father or mother--which is repugnant to nature. For there could not have been a first egg to give a beginning to birds, or there should have been a first bird which gave a beginning to eggs; for a bird comes from an egg." The same he held good for all species, believing, with Plato, that everything before it appeared on earth had first its being in spirit.

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This mystery of first creation, which was ever the despair of science, is unfathomable, unless we accept the doctrine of the Hermetists. Though matter is coeternal with spirit, that matter is certainly not our visible, tangible, and divisible matter, but its extreme sublimation. Pure spirit is but one remove higher. Unless we allow man to have been evolved out of this primordial spirit-matter, how can we ever come to any reasonable hypothesis as to the genesis of animate beings? Darwin begins his evolution of species at the lowest point and traces upward. His only mistake may be that he applies his system at the wrong end. Could he remove his quest from the visible universe into the invisible, he might find himself on the right path. But then, he would be following in the footsteps of the Hermetists.

That our philosophers--positivists--even the most learned among them, never understood the spirit of the mystic doctrines taught by the old philosophers--Platonists--is evident from that most eminent modern work, Conflict between Religion and Science. Professor Draper begins his fifth chapter by saying that "the Pagan Greeks and Romans believed that the spirit of man resembles his bodily form, varying its appearance with his variations, and growing with his growth." What the ignorant masses thought is a matter of little consequence, though even they could never have indulged in such speculations taken a la lettre. As to Greek and Roman philosophers of the Platonic school, they believed no such thing of the spirit of man, but applied the above doctrine to his soul, or psychical nature, which, as we have previously shown, is not the divine spirit.

Aristotle, in his philosophical deduction On Dreams, shows this doctrine of the twofold soul, or soul and spirit, very plainly. "It is necessary for us to ascertain in what portion of the soul dreams appear," he says. All the ancient Greeks believed not only a double, but even a triple soul to exist in man. And even Homer we find terming the animal soul, or the astral soul, called by Mr. Draper "spirit," θυμος, and the divine one νους--the name by which Plato also designated the higher spirit.

The Hindu Jainas conceive the soul, which they call Jiva, to have been united from all eternity to even two sublimated ethereal bodies, one of which is invariable and consists of the divine powers of the higher mind; the other variable and composed of the grosser passions of man, his sensual affections, and terrestrial attributes. When the soul becomes purified after death it joins its Vaycarica, or divine spirit, and becomes a god. The followers of the Vedas, the learned Brahmins, explain the same doctrine in the Vedanta. The soul, according to their teaching, as a portion of the divine universal spirit or immaterial mind, is capable of uniting itself with the essence of its highest Entity. The teaching is explicit;

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the Vedanta affirms that whoever attains the thorough knowledge of his god becomes a god while yet in his mortal body, and acquires supremacy over all things.

Quoting from the Vedaic theology the verse which says: "There is in truth but one Deity, the Supreme Spirit; he is of the same nature as the soul of man," Mr. Draper shows the Buddhistic doctrines as reaching Eastern Europe through Aristotle. We believe the assertion unwarranted, for Pythagoras, and after him Plato, taught them long before Aristotle. If subsequently the later Platonists accepted in their dialectics the Aristotelean arguments on emanation, it was merely because his views coincided in some respect with those of the Oriental philosophers. The Pythagorean number of harmony and Plato's esoteric doctrines on creation are inseparable from the Buddhistic doctrine of emanation; and the great aim of the Pythagorean philosophy, namely, to free the astral soul from the fetters of matter and sense, and make it thereby fit for an eternal contemplation of spiritual things, is a theory identical with the Buddhistic doctrine of final absorption. It is the Nirvana, interpreted in its right sense; a metaphysical tenet that just begins to be suspected now by our latest Sanscrit scholars.

If the doctrines of Aristotle have exercised on the later Neo-platonists such a "dominating influence," how is it that neither Plotinus, nor Porphyry, nor Proclus ever accepted his theories on dreams and prophetic soul-visions? While Aristotle held that most of those who prophesy have "diseases of madness" --thus furnishing some American plagiarists and specialists with a few reasonable ideas to disfigure--the views of Porphyry, hence those of Plotinus, were quite the reverse. In the most vital questions of metaphysical speculations Aristotle is constantly contradicted by the Neo-platonists. Furthermore, either the Buddhistic Nirvana is not the nihilistic doctrine, as it is now represented to be, or the Neo-platonists did not accept it in this sense. Surely Mr. Draper will not take upon himself to affirm that either Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblichus, or any other philosopher of their mystic school, did not believe in the soul's immortality? To say that either of them sought ecstasy as a "foretaste of absorption into the universal mundane soul," in the sense in which the Buddhist Nirvana is understood by every Sanscrit scholar, is to wrong these philosophers. Nirvana is not, as Mr. Draper has it, a "reabsorption in the Universal Force, eternal rest, and bliss"; but, when taken literally by the said scholars, means the blowing out, the extinction, complete annihilation, *and not absorption. ** No one, so far as we know, has ever taken

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upon himself to ascertain the true metaphysical meaning of this word, which is not to be found, even in the Lankavatara, * which gives the different interpretations of the Nirvana by the Brahmans-Tirthakas. Therefore, for one who reads this passage in Mr. Draper's work, and bears in mind but the usually-accepted meaning of the Nirvana, will naturally suppose that Plotinus and Porphyry were nihilists. Such a page in the Conflict gives us a certain right to suppose that either 1, the learned author desired to place Plotinus and Porphyry on the same plane with Giordano Bruno, of whom he makes, very erroneously, an atheist; or, 2, that he never took the trouble of studying the lives of these philosophers and their views.

Now, for one who knows Professor Draper, even by reputation, the latter supposition is simply absurd. Therefore, we must think, with deep regret, that his desire was to misrepresent their religious aspirations. It is decidedly an awkward thing for modern philosophers, whose sole aim seems to be the elimination of the ideas of God and the immortal spirit from the mind of humanity, to have to treat with historical impartiality the most celebrated of the Pagan Platonists. To have to admit, on the one hand, their profound learning, their genius, their achievements in the most abstruse philosophical questions, and therefore their sagacity; and, on the other, their unreserved adhesion to the doctrine of immortality, of the final triumph of spirit over matter, and their implicit faith in God and the gods, or spirits; in the return of the dead, apparitions, and other "spiritual" matters, is a dilemma from which academical human nature could not reasonably be expected to extricate itself so easily.

The plan resorted to by Lempriere, ** in such an emergency as the above, is coarser than Professor Draper's, but equally effective. He charges the ancient philosophers with deliberate falsehood, trickery, and credulity. After painting to his readers Pythagoras, Plotinus, and Porphyry as marvels of learning, morality, and accomplishments; as men eminent for personal dignity, purity of lives, and self-abnegation in the pursuit of divine truths, he does not hesitate to rank "this celebrated philosopher" (Pythagoras) among impostors; while to Porphyry he attributes "credulity, lack of judgment, and dishonesty." Forced by the facts of history to give them their just due in the course of his narrative, he displays his bigoted prejudice in the parenthetical comments which he allows himself. From this antiquated writer of the last century we learn that a man may be honest, and at the same time an impostor; pure, virtuous, and a great philosopher, and yet dishonest, a liar, and a fool!

We have shown elsewhere that the "secret doctrine" does not concede

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immortality to all men alike. "The eye would never see the sun, if it were not of the nature of the sun," said Plotinus. Only "through the highest purity and chastity we shall approach nearer to God, and receive in the contemplation of Him, the true knowledge and insight," writes Porphyry. If the human soul has neglected during its life-time to receive its illumination from its Divine Spirit, our personal God, then it becomes difficult for the gross and sensual man to survive for a great length of time his physical death. No more than the misshapen monster can live long after its physical birth, can the soul, once that it has become too material, exist after its birth into the spiritual world. The viability of the astral form is so feeble, that the particles cannot cohere firmly when once it is slipped out of the unyielding capsule of the external body. Its particles, gradually obeying the disorganizing attraction of universal space, finally fly asunder beyond the possibility of reaggregation. Upon the occurrence of such a catastrophe, the individual ceases to exist; his glorious Augoeides has left him. During the intermediary period between his bodily death and the disintegration of the astral form, the latter, bound by magnetic attraction to its ghastly corpse, prowls about, and sucks vitality from susceptible victims. The man having shut out of himself every ray of the divine light, is lost in darkness, and, therefore, clings to the earth and the earthy.

No astral soul, even that of a pure, good, and virtuous man, is immortal in the strictest sense; "from elements it was formed--to elements it must return." Only, while the soul of the wicked vanishes, and is absorbed without redemption, that of every other person, even moderately pure, simply changes its ethereal particles for still more ethereal ones; and, while there remains in it a spark of the Divine, the individual man, or rather, his personal ego, cannot die. "After death," says Proclus, "the soul (the spirit) continueth to linger in the aerial body (astral form), till it is entirely purified from all angry and voluptuous passions . . . then doth it put off by a second dying the aerial body as it did the earthly one. Whereupon, the ancients say that there is a celestial body always joined with the soul, and which is immortal, luminous, and star-like."

But, we will now turn from our digression to further consider the question of reason and instinct. The latter, according to the ancients, proceeded from the divine, the former from the purely human. One (the instinct) is the product of the senses, a sagaciousness shared by the lowest animals, even those who have no reason--it is the αισθετικον the other is the product of the reflective faculties--νοετικον, denoting judiciousness and human intellectuality. Therefore, an animal devoid of reasoning powers has in its inherent instinct an unerring faculty which is but that spark of the divine which lurks in every particle of inorganic

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matter--itself materialized spirit. In the Jewish Kabala, the second and third chapters of Genesis are explained thus: When the second Adam is created "out of the dust," matter has become so gross that it reigns supreme. Out of its lusts evolves woman, and Lilith has the best of spirit. The Lord God, "walking in the garden in the cool of the day" (the sunset of spirit, or divine light obscured by the shadows of matter) curses not only them who have committed the sin, but even the ground itself, and all living things--the tempting serpent-matter above all.

Who but the kabalists are able to explain this seeming act of injustice? How are we to understand this cursing of all created things, innocent of any crime? The allegory is evident. The curse inheres in matter itself. Henceforth, it is doomed to struggle against its own grossness for purification; the latent spark of divine spirit, though smothered, is still there; and its invincible attraction upward compels it to struggle in pain and labor to free itself. Logic shows us that as all matter had a common origin, it must have attributes in common, and as the vital and divine spark is in man's material body, so it must lurk in every subordinate species. The latent mentality which, in the lower kingdoms is recognized as semi-consciousness, consciousness, and instinct, is largely subdued in man. Reason, the outgrowth of the physical brain, develops at the expense of instinct--the flickering reminiscence of a once divine omniscience--spirit. Reason, the badge of the sovereignty of physical man over all other physical organisms, is often put to shame by the instinct of an animal. As his brain is more perfect than that of any other creature, its emanations must naturally produce the highest results of mental action; but reason avails only for the consideration of material things; it is incapable of helping its possessor to a knowledge of spirit. In losing instinct, man loses his intuitional powers, which are the crown and ultimatum of instinct. Reason is the clumsy weapon of the scientists--intuition the unerring guide of the seer. Instinct teaches plant and animal their seasons for the procreation of their species, and guides the dumb brute to find his appropriate remedy in the hour of sickness. Reason--the pride of man--fails to check the propensities of his matter, and brooks no restraint upon the unlimited gratification of his senses. Far from leading him to be his own physician, its subtile sophistries lead him too often to his own destruction.

Nothing is more demonstrable than the proposition that the perfection of matter is reached at the expense of instinct. The zoophyte attached to the submarine rock, opening its mouth to attract the food that floats by, shows, proportionately with its physical structure, more instinct than the whale. The ant, with its wonderful architectural, social, and political

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abilities, is inexpressibly higher in the scale than the subtile royal tiger watching its prey. "With awe and wonder," exclaims du Bois-Raymond, "must the student of nature regard that microscopic molecule of nervous substance which is the seat of the laborious, constructive, orderly, loyal, dauntless soul of the ant!"

Like everything else which has its origin in psychological mysteries, instinct has been too long neglected in the domain of science. "We see what indicated the way to man to find relief for all his physical ailings," says Hippocrates. "It is the instinct of the earlier races, when cold reason had not as yet obscured man's inner vision. . . . Its indication must never be disdained, for it is to instinct alone that we owe our first remedies." * Instantaneous and unerring cognition of an omniscient mind, instinct is in everything unlike the finite reason; and in the tentative progress of the latter, the god-like nature of man is often utterly engulfed, whenever he shuts out from himself the divine light of intuition. The one crawls, the other flies; reason is the power of the man, intuition the prescience of the woman!

Plotinus, the pupil of the great Ammonius Saccas, the chief founder of the Neo-platonic school, taught that human knowledge had three ascending steps: opinion, science, and illumination. He explained it by saying that "the means or instrument of opinion is sense, or perception; of science, dialectics; of illumination, intuition (or divine instinct). To the last, reason is subordinate; it is absolute knowledge founded on the identification of the mind with the object known."

Prayer opens the spiritual sight of man, for prayer is desire, and desire develops WILL; the magnetic emanations proceeding from the body at every effort--whether mental or physical--produce self-magnetization and ecstasy. Plotinus recommended solitude for prayer, as the most efficient means of obtaining what is asked; and Plato advised those who prayed to "remain silent in the presence of the divine ones, till they remove the cloud from thy eyes, and enable thee to see by the light which issues from themselves." Apollonius always isolated himself from men during the "conversation" he held with God, and whenever he felt the necessity for divine contemplation and prayer, he wrapped himself, head and all, in the drapery of his white woolen mantle. "When thou prayest enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father in secret," says the Nazarene, the pupil of the Essenes.

Every human being is born with the rudiment of the inner sense called intuition, which may be developed into what the Scotch know

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as "second sight." All the great philosophers, who, like Plotinus, Porphyry, and Iamblichus employed this faculty, taught the doctrine. "There is a faculty of the human mind," writes Iamblichus, "which is superior to all which is born or begotten. Through it we are enabled to attain union with the superior intelligences, to being transported beyond the scenes of this world, and to partaking the higher life and peculiar powers of the heavenly ones."

Were there no inner sight or intuition, the Jews would never have had their Bible, nor the Christians Jesus. What both Moses and Jesus gave to the world was the fruit of their intuition or illumination. What their subsequent elders and teachers allowed the world to understand was--dogmatic misrepresentations, too often blasphemy.

To accept the Bible as a "revelation" and nail belief to a literal translation, is worse than absurdity--it is a blasphemy against the Divine majesty of the "Unseen." If we had to judge of the Deity, and the world of spirits, by its human interpreters, now that philology proceeds with giant-strides on the fields of comparative religions, belief in God and the soul's immortality could not withstand the attacks of reason for one century more. That which supports the faith of man in God and a spiritual life to come is intuition; that divine outcome of our inner-self, which defies the mummeries of the Roman Catholic priest, and his ridiculous idols; the thousand and one ceremonies of the Brahman and his idols; and the jeremiads of the Protestant preacher, and his desolate and arid creed, with no idols, but a boundless hell and damnation hooked on at the end. Were it not for this intuition, undying though often wavering because so clogged with matter, human life would be a parody and humanity a fraud. This ineradicable feeling of the presence of some one outside and inside ourselves is one that no dogmatic contradictions, nor external form of worship can destroy in humanity, let scientists and clergy do what they may. Moved by such thoughts of the boundlessness and impersonality of the Deity, Gautama-Buddha, the Hindu Christ, exclaimed: "As the four rivers which fall in the Ganges lose their names as soon as they mingle their waters with the holy river, so all who believe in Buddha cease to be Brahmans, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas, and Sudras!"

The Old Testament was compiled and arranged from oral tradition; the masses never knew its real meaning, for Moses was ordered to impart the "hidden truths" but to his seventy elders on whom the "Lord" put of the spirit which was upon the legislator. Maimonides, whose authority and whose knowledge of the sacred history can hardly be rejected, says: "Whoever shall find out the true sense of the book of Genesis ought to take care not to divulge it. . . . If a person should discover the

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true meaning of it by himself, or by the aid of another, then he ought to be silent; or, if he speaks of it, he ought to speak of it but obscurely and in an enigmatical manner."

This confession, that what is written in the Holy Writ is but an allegory, was made by other Jewish authorities besides Maimonides; for we find Josephus stating that Moses "philosophized" (spoke riddles in figurative allegory), when writing the book of Genesis. Therefore modern science, by neglecting to unriddle the true sense of the Bible, and by allowing the whole of Christendom to go on believing in the dead letter of the Jewish theology, tacitly constitutes herself the confederate of the fanatical clergy. She has no right to ridicule the records of a people who never wrote them with the idea that they would receive such a strange interpretation at the hands of an inimical religion. That their holiest texts should be turned against them and that the dead men's bones could have smothered the spirit of truth, is the saddest feature of Christianity!

"The gods exist," says Epicurus, "but they are not what the rabble, , suppose them to be." And yet Epicurus, judged as usual by superficial critics, is set down and paraded as a materialist.

But neither the great First Cause nor its emanation--human, immortal spirit--have left themselves "without a witness." Mesmerism and modern spiritualism are there to attest the great truths. For over fifteen centuries, thanks to the blindly-brutal persecutions of those great vandals of early Christian history, Constantine and Justinian, ancient WISDOM slowly degenerated until it gradually sank into the deepest mire of monkish superstition and ignorance. The Pythagorean "knowledge of things that are"; the profound erudition of the Gnostics; the world and time-honored teachings of the great philosophers; all were rejected as doctrines of Antichrist and Paganism, and committed to the flames. With the last seven wise men of the Orient, the remnant group of the Neo-platonists, Hermias, Priscianus, Diogenes, Eulalius, Damaskius, Simplicius and Isidorus, who fled from the fanatical persecutions of Justinian, to Persia, the reign of wisdom closed. The books of Thoth, or (Hermes Trismegistus), which contain within their sacred pages the spiritual and physical history of the creation and progress of our world, were left to mould in oblivion and contempt for ages. They found no interpreters in Christian Europe; the Philaletheians, or wise "lovers of the truth," were no more; they were replaced by the light-fleers, the tonsured and hooded monks of Papal Rome, who dread truth, in whatever shape and from whatever quarter it appears, if it but clashes in the least with their dogmas.

As to skeptics--this is what Professor Alexander Wilder remarks of

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them and their followers, in his sketches on Neo-platonism and Alchemy: "A century has passed since the compilers of the French Encyclopaedia infused skepticism into the blood of the civilized world, and made it disreputable to believe in the actual existence of anything that cannot be tested in crucibles or demonstrated by critical reasoning. Even now, it requires candor as well as courage to venture to treat upon a subject which has been for many years discarded and contemned, because it has not been well or correctly understood. The person must be bold who accounts the Hermetic philosophy to be other than a pretense of science, and so believing, demands for its enunciation a patient hearing. Yet its professors were once the princes of learned investigation, and heroes among common men. Besides, nothing is to be despised which men have reverently believed; and disdain for the earnest convictions of others is itself the token of ignorance, and of an ungenerous mind."

And now, encouraged by these words from a scholar who is neither a fanatic nor a conservative, we will recall a few things reported by travellers as having been seen by them in Thibet and India, and which are treasured by the natives as practical proofs of the truth of the philosophy and science handed down by their forefathers.

First we may consider that most remarkable phenomenon as seen in the temples of Thibet and the accounts of which have reached Europe from eye-witnesses other than Catholic missionaries--whose testimony we will exclude for obvious reasons. Early in the present century a Florentine scientist, a skeptic and a correspondent of the French Institute, having been permitted to penetrate in disguise to the hallowed precincts of a Buddhist temple, where the most solemn of all ceremonies was taking place, relates the following as having been seen by himself. An altar is ready in the temple to receive the resuscitated Buddha, found by the initiated priesthood, and recognized by certain secret signs to have reincarnated himself in a new-born infant. The baby, but a few days old, is brought into the presence of the people and reverentially placed upon the altar. Suddenly rising into a sitting posture, the child begins to utter in a loud, manly voice, the following sentences: "I am Buddha, I am his spirit; and I, Buddha, your Dalai-Lama, have left my old, decrepit body, at the temple of . . . and selected the body of this young babe as my next earthly dwelling." Our scientist, being finally permitted by the priests to take, with due reverence, the baby in his arms, and carry it away to such a distance from them as to satisfy him that no ventriloquial deception is being practiced, the infant looks at the grave academician with eyes that "make his flesh creep," as he expresses it, and repeats the words he had previously uttered. A detailed account of this adventure, attested with the signature of this eye-witness, was forwarded to Paris,

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but the members of the Institute, instead of accepting the testimony of a scientific observer of acknowledged credibility, concluded that the Florentine was either suffering under an attack of sunstroke, or had been deceived by a clever trick of acoustics.

Although, according to Mr. Stanislas Julien, the French translator of the sacred Chinese texts, there is a verse in the Lotus * which says that "A Buddha is as difficult to be found as the flowers of Udumbara and Palaca," if we are to believe several eye-witnesses, such a phenomenon does happen. Of course its occurrence is rare, for it happens but on the death of every great Dalai-Lama; and these venerable old gentlemen live proverbially long lives.

The poor Abbe Huc, whose works of travel in Thibet and China are so well-known, relates the same fact of the resuscitation of Buddha. He adds, furthermore, the curious circumstance that the baby-oracle makes good his claim to being an old mind in a young body by giving to those who ask him, "and who knew him in his past life, the most exact details of his anterior earthly existence."

It is worthy of notice, that des Mousseaux, who expatiates at length on the phenomenon, attributing it as a matter of course to the Devil, gravely remarks of the Abbe himself, that the fact that he had been unfrocked (defroque) "is an accident which I (he) confess scarcely tends to strengthen our confidence." In our humble opinion this little circumstance strengthens it all the more.

The Abbe Huc had his work placed on the Index for the truth he told about the similarity of the Buddhistical rites with the Roman Catholic ones. He was moreover suspended in his missionary work for being too *sincere.

*

If this example of infant prodigy stood alone, we might reasonably indulge in some hesitation as to accepting it; but, to say nothing of the Camisard prophets of 1707, among whom was the boy of fifteen months described by Jacques Dubois, who spoke in good French "as though God were speaking through his mouth"; and of the Cevennes babies, whose speaking and prophesying were witnessed by the first savants of France--we have instances in modern times of quite as remarkable a character. Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper, for March, 1875, contained an account of the following phenomenon: "At Saar-Louis, France, a child was born. The mother had just been confined, the midwife was holding forth garrulously 'on the blessed little creature,' and the friends were congratulating the father on his luck, when somebody asked what time it was. Judge of the surprise of all, on hearing the new-born babe reply

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distinctly 'Two o'clock!' But this was nothing to what followed. The company were looking on the infant, with speechless wonder and dismay, when it opened its eyes, and said: 'I have been sent into the world to tell you that 1875 will be a good year, but that 1876 will be a year of blood.' Having uttered this prophecy it turned on its side and expired, aged half-an-hour."

We are not aware that this prodigy has received official authentication by the civil authority--of course we should look for none from the clergy, since no profit or honor was to be derived from it--but even if a respectable British commercial journal was not responsible for the story, the result has given it special interest. The year 1876, just passed (we write in February, 1877) was emphatically, and, from the standpoint of March, 1875, unexpectedly--a year of blood. In the Danubian principalities was written one of the bloodiest chapters of the history of war and rapine--a chapter of outrages of Moslem upon Christian that has scarcely been paralleled since Catholic soldiers butchered the simple natives of North and South America by tens of thousands, and Protestant Englishmen waded to the Imperial throne of Delhi, step by step, through rivers of blood. If the Saar-Louis prophecy was but a mere newspaper sensation, still the turn of events elevated it into the rank of a fulfilled prediction; 1875 was a year of great plenty, and 1876, to the surprise of everybody, a year of carnage.

But even if it should be found that the baby-prophet never opened its lips, the instance of the Jencken infant still remains to puzzle the investigator. This is one of the most surprising cases of mediumship. The child's mother is the famous Kate Fox, its father H. D. Jencken, M.R.I., Barrister-at-law, in London. He was born in London, in 1873, and before he was three months old showed evidences of spirit-mediumship. Rappings occurred on his pillow and cradle, and also on his father's person, when he held the child in his lap and Mrs. Jencken was absent from home. Two months later, a communication of twenty words, exclusive of signature, was written through his hand. A gentleman, a Liverpool solicitor, named J. Wason, was present at the time, and united with the mother and nurse in a certificate which was published in the London Medium and Daybreak of May 8th, 1874. The professional and scientific rank of Mr. Jencken make it in the highest degree improbable that he would lend himself to a deception. Moreover, the child was within such easy reach of the Royal Institution, of which his father is a member, that Professor Tyndall and his associates had no excuse for neglecting to examine and inform the world about this psychological phenomenon.

The sacred baby of Thibet being so far away, they find their most convenient plan to be a flat denial, with hints of sunstroke and acoustical

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machinery. As for the London baby, the affair is still easier; let them wait until the child has grown up and learned to write, and then deny the story point-blank!

In addition to other travellers, the Abbe Huc gives us an account of that wonderful tree of Thibet called the Kounboum; that is to say, the tree of the 10,000 images and characters. It will grow in no other latitude, although the experiment has sometimes been tried; and it cannot even be multiplied from cuttings. The tradition is that it sprang from the hair of one of the Avatars (the Lama Son-Ka-pa) one of the incarnations of Buddha. But we will let the Abbe Huc tell the rest of the story: "Each of its leaves, in opening, bears either a letter or a religious sentence, written in sacred characters, and these letters are, of their kind, of such a perfection that the type-foundries of Didot contain nothing to excel them. Open the leaves, which vegetation is about to unroll, and you will there discover, on the point of appearing, the letters or the distinct words which are the marvel of this unique tree! Turn your attention from the leaves of the plant to the bark of its branches, and new characters will meet your eyes! Do not allow your interest to flag; raise the layers of this bark, and still OTHER CHARACTERS will show themselves below those whose beauty had surprised you. For, do not fancy that these superposed layers repeat the same printing. No, quite the contrary; for each lamina you lift presents to view its distinct type. How, then, can we suspect jugglery? I have done my best in that direction to discover the slightest trace of human trick, and my baffled mind could not retain the slightest suspicion."

We will add to M. Huc's narrative the statement that the characters which appear upon the different portions of the Kounboum are in the Sansar (or language of the Sun), characters (ancient Sanscrit); and that the sacred tree, in its various parts, contains in extenso the whole history of the creation, and in substance the sacred books of Buddhism. In this respect, it bears the same relation to Buddhism as the pictures in the Temple of Dendera, in Egypt, do to the ancient faith of the Pharaohs. The latter are briefly described by Professor W. B. Carpenter, President of the British Association, in his Manchester Lecture on Egypt. He makes it clear that the Jewish book of Genesis is nothing more than an expression of the early Jewish ideas, based upon the pictorial records of the Egyptians among whom they lived. But he does not make it clear, except inferentially, whether he believes either the Dendera pictures or the Mosaic account to be an allegory or a pretended historical narrative. How a scientist who had devoted himself to the most superficial investigation of the subject can venture to assert that the ancient Egyptians had the same ridiculous notions about the world's instantaneous creation

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as the early Christian theologians, passes comprehension! How can he say that because the Dendera picture happens to represent their cosmogony in one allegory, they intended to show the scene as occurring in six minutes or six millions of years? It may as well indicate allegorically six successive epochs or aeons, or eternity, as six days. Besides, the Books of Hermes certainly give no color to the charge, and the Avesta specifically names six periods, each embracing thousands of years, instead of days. Many of the Egyptian hieroglyphics contradict Dr. Carpenter's theory, and Champollion has avenged the ancients in many particulars. From what is gone before, it will, we think, be made clear to the reader that the Egyptian philosophy had no room for any such crude speculations, if the Hebrews themselves ever believed them; their cosmogony viewed man as the result of evolution, and his progress to be marked by immensely lengthened cycles. But to return to the wonders of Thibet.

Speaking of pictures, the one described by Huc as hanging in a certain Lamasery may fairly be regarded as one of the most wonderful in existence. It is a simple canvas without the slightest mechanical apparatus attached, as the visitor may prove by examining it at his leisure. It represents a moon-lit landscape, but the moon is not at all motionless and dead; quite the reverse, for, according to the abbe, one would say that our moon herself, or at least her living double, lighted the picture. Each phase, each aspect, each movement of our satellite, is repeated in her fac-simile, in the movement and progress of the moon in the sacred picture. "You see this planet in the painting ride as a crescent, or full, shine brightly, pass behind the clouds, peep out or set, in a manner corresponding in the most extraordinary way with the real luminary. It is, in a word, a most servile and resplendent reproduction of the pale queen of the night, which received the adoration of so many people in the days of old."

When we think of the astonishment that would inevitably be felt by one of our self-complacent academicians at seeing such a picture--and it is by no means the only one, for they have them in other parts of Thibet and Japan also, which represent the sun's movements--when we think, we say, of his embarrassment at knowing that if he ventured to tell the unvarnished truth to his colleagues, his fate would probably be like that of poor Huc, and he flung out of the academical chair as a liar or a lunatic, we cannot help recalling the anecdote of Tycho-Brahe, given by Humboldt in his Cosmos. *

"One evening," says the great Danish astronomer, "as, according

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to my usual habit, I was considering the celestial vault, to my indescribable amazement, I saw, close to the zenith, in Cassiopea, a radiant star of extraordinary size. Struck with astonishment, I knew not whether I could believe my own eyes. Some time after that, I learned that in Germany, cartmen, and other persons of the lower classes had repeatedly warned the scientists that a great apparition could be seen in the sky; which fact afforded both the press and public one more opportunity to indulge in their usual raillery against the men of science, who, in the cases of several antecedent comets, had not predicted their appearance."

From the days of the earliest antiquity, the Brahmans were known to be possessed of wonderful knowledge in every kind of magic arts. From Pythagoras, the first philosopher who studied wisdom with the Gymnosophists, and Plotinus, who was initiated into the mystery of uniting one's self with the Deity through abstract contemplation, down to the modern adepts, it was well known that in the land of the Brahmans and Gautama-Buddha the sources of "hidden" wisdom are to be sought after. It is for future ages to discover this grand truth, and accept it as such, whereas now it is degraded as a low superstition. What did any one, even the greatest scientists, know of India, Thibet, and China, until the last quarter of this century? That most untiring scholar, Max Muller, tells us that before then not a single original document of the Buddhist religion had been accessible to European philologists; that fifty years ago "there was not a single scholar who could have translated a line of the Veda, a line of the Zend-Avesta, or a line of the Buddhist Tripitaka," let alone other dialects or languages. And even now, that science is in possession of various sacred texts, what they have are but very incomplete editions of these works, and nothing, positively nothing of the secret sacred literature of Buddhism. And the little that our Sanscrit scholars have got hold of, and which at first was termed by Max Muller a dreary "jungle of religious literature--the most excellent hiding-place for Lamas and Dalai-Lamas," is now beginning to shed a faint light on the primitive darkness. We find this scholar stating that that which appeared at the first glance into the labyrinth of the religions of the world, all darkness, self-deceit, and vanity begin to assume another form. "It sounds," he writes, "like a degradation of the very name of religion, to apply it to the wild ravings of Hindu Yogins, and the blank blasphemies of Chinese Buddhists. . . . But, as we slowly and patiently wend our way through the dreary prisons, our own eyes seem to expand, and we perceive a glimmer of light, where all was darkness at first." *

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As an illustration of how little even the generation which directly preceded our own was competent to judge the religions and beliefs of the several hundred million Buddhists, Brahmans, and Parsees, let the student consult the advertisement of a scientific work published in 1828 by a Professor Dunbar, the first scholar who has undertaken to demonstrate that the Sanscrit is derived from the Greek. It appeared under the following title:

"An Inquiry into the structure and affinity of the Greek and Latin languages; with occasional comparisons of the Sanscrit and Gothic; with an Appendix, in which THE DERIVATION OF THE SANSCRIT FROM THE GREEK is endeavoured to be established. By George Dunbar, F.R.S.E., and Professor of Greek in the University of Edinburgh. Price, 18s." *

Had Max Muller happened to fall from the sky at that time, among the scholars of the day, and with his present knowledge, we would like to have compiled the epithets which would have been bestowed by the learned academicians upon the daring innovator! One who, classifying languages genealogically, says that "Sanscrit, as compared to Greek and Latin, is an elder sister . . . the earliest deposit of Aryan speech."

And so, we may naturally expect that in 1976, the same criticisms will be justly applied to many a scientific discovery, now deemed conclusive and final by our scholars. That which is now termed the superstitious verbiage and gibberish of mere heathens and savages, composed many thousands of years ago, may be found to contain the master-key to all religious systems. The cautious sentence of St. Augustine, a favorite name in Max Muller's lectures, which says that "there is no false religion which does not contain some elements of truth," may yet be triumphantly proved correct; the more so as, far from being original with the Bishop of Hippo, it was borrowed by him from the works of Ammonius Saccas, the great Alexandrian teacher.

This "god-taught" philosopher, the theodidaktos, had repeated these same words to exhaustion, in his numerous works some 140 years before Augustine. Acknowledging Jesus as "an excellent man, and the friend of God," he always maintained that his design was not to abolish the intercourse with gods and demons (spirits), but simply to purify the ancient religions; that "the religion of the multitude went hand in hand with philosophy, and with her had shared the fate of being by degrees corrupted and obscured with mere human conceits, superstition, and lies: that it ought therefore to be brought back to its original purity by purging it of this dross and expounding it upon philosophical principles; and

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that the whole which Christ had in view was to reinstate and restore to its primitive integrity the wisdom of the ancients." *

It was Ammonius who first taught that every religion was based on one and the same truth; which is the wisdom found in the Books of Thoth (Hermes Trismegistus), from which books Pythagoras and Plato had learned all their philosophy. And the doctrines of the former he affirmed to have been identical with the earliest teachings of the Brahmans--now embodied in the oldest Vedas. "The name Thoth," says Professor Wilder, "means a college or assembly," ** and "it is not improbable that the books were so named as being the collected oracles and doctrines of the sacerdotal fraternity of Memphis. Rabbi Wise had suggested a similar hypothesis in relation to the divine utterances recorded in the Hebrew Scripture. But the Indian writers assert, that during the reign of king Kansa, Yadus (Judeans?) or sacred tribe left India and migrated to the West, carrying the four Vedas with them. There was certainly a great resemblance between the philosophical doctrines and religious customs of the Egyptians and Eastern Buddhists; but whether the Hermetic books and the four Vedas were identical, is not now known."

But one thing is certainly known, and that is, that before the word philosopher was first pronounced by Pythagoras at the court of the king of the Philasians, the "secret doctrine" or wisdom was identical in every country. Therefore it is in the oldest texts--those least polluted by subsequent forgeries--that we have to look for the truth. And now that philology has possessed itself of Sanscrit texts which may be boldly affirmed to be documents by far antedating the Mosaic Bible, it is the duty of the scholars to present the world with truth, and nothing but the truth. Without regard to either skeptical or theological prejudice, they are bound to impartially examine both documents--the oldest Vedas and the Old Testament, and then decide which of the two is the original Sruti or Revelation, and which but the Smriti, which, as Max Muller shows, only means recollection or *tradition.

*

Origen writes that the Brahmans were always famous for the wonderful cures which they performed by certain words; *** and in our own age we find Orioli, a learned corresponding member of the French Institute,  corroborating the statement of Origen in the third century, and that of Leonard de Vair of the sixteenth, in which the latter wrote: "There are also persons, who upon pronouncing a certain sentence--a charm, walk bare-footed on red, burning coals, and on the points of sharp knives stuck

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in the ground; and, once poised on them, on one toe, they will lift up in the air a heavy man or any other burden of considerable weight. They will tame wild horses likewise, and the most furious bulls, with a single word." *

This word is to be found in the Mantras of the Sanscrit Vedas, say some adepts. It is for the philologists to decide for themselves whether there is such a word in the Vedas. So far as human evidence goes, it would seem that such magic words do exist.

It appears that the reverend fathers of the Order of Jesuits have picked up many such tricks in their missionary travels. Baldinger gives them full credit for it. The tschamping--a Hindu word, from which the modern word shampooing is derived--is a well-known magical manipulation in the East Indies. The native sorcerers use it with success to the present day, and it is from them that the father Jesuits derived their wisdom.

Camerarius, in his Horae Subscecivae, narrates that once upon a time there existed a great rivalry of "miracles" between the Austin Friars and the Jesuits. A disputation having taken place between the father-general of the Austin Friars, who was very learned, and the general of the Jesuits, who was very unlearned, but full of magical knowledge, the latter proposed to settle the question by trying their subordinates, and finding out which of them would be the readiest to obey his superiors. Thereupon, turning to one of his Jesuits, he said: "Brother Mark, our companions are cold; I command you, in virtue of the holy obedience you have sworn to me, to bring here instantly out of the kitchen fire, and in your hands, some burning coals, that they may warm themselves over your hands." Father Mark instantly obeyed, and brought in both his hands a supply of red, burning coals, and held them till the company present had all warmed themselves, after which he took them back to the kitchen hearth. The general of the Austin Friars found himself crestfallen, for none of his subordinates would obey him so far as that. The triumph of the Jesuits was thus accomplished.

If the above is looked upon as an anecdote unworthy of credence, we will inquire of the reader what we must think of some modern "mediums," who perform the same while entranced. The testimony of several highly respectable and trustworthy witnesses, such as Lord Adair and Mr. S. C. Hall, is unimpeachable. "Spirits," the spiritualists will argue. Perhaps so, in the case of American and English fire-proof mediums; but not so in Thibet and India. In the West a "sensitive" has to be entranced before being rendered invulnerable by the presiding "guides," and we defy any "medium," in his or her normal physical state

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to bury the arms to the elbows in glowing coals. But in the East, whether the performer be a holy lama or a mercenary sorcerer (the latter class being generally termed "jugglers") he needs no preparation or abnormal state to be able to handle fire, red-hot pieces of iron, or melted lead. We have seen in Southern India these "jugglers" keep their hands in a furnace of burning coals until the latter were reduced to cinders. During the religious ceremony of Siva-Ratri, or the vigil-night of Siva, when the people spend whole nights in watching and praying, some of the Sivaites called in a Tamil juggler, who produced the most wonderful phenomena by simply summoning to his help a spirit whom they call Kutti-Sattan--the little demon. But, far from allowing people to think he was guided or "controlled" by this gnome--for it was a gnome, if it was anything--the man, while crouching over his fiery pit, proudly rebuked a Catholic missionary, who took his opportunity to inform the bystanders that the miserable sinner "had sold himself to Satan." Without removing his hands and arms from the burning coals within which he was coolly refreshing them, the Tamil only turned his head and gave one arrogant look at the flushed missionary. "My father and my father's father," he said, "had this 'little one' at their command. For two centuries the Kutti is a faithful servant in our home, and now, Sir, you would make people believe that he is my master! But they know better." After this, he quietly withdrew his hands from the fire, and proceeded with other performances.

As for the wonderful powers of prediction and clairvoyance possessed by certain Brahmans, they are well known to every European resident of India. If these upon their return to "civilized" countries, laugh at such stories, and sometimes even deny them outright, they only impugn their good faith, not the fact. These Brahmans live principally in "sacred villages," and secluded places, principally on the western coast of India. They avoid populated cities, and especially Europeans, and it is but rarely that the latter can succeed in making themselves intimate with the "seers." It is generally thought that the circumstance is due to their religious observance of the caste; but we are firmly convinced that in many cases this is not so. Years, perhaps centuries, will roll away before the real reason is ascertained.

As to the lower castes, some of which are termed by the missionaries devil-worshippers, notwithstanding the pious efforts on the part of the Catholic missionaries to spread in Europe heart-rending reports of the misery of these people "sold to the Arch-Enemy"; and like efforts, perhaps only a trifle less ridiculous and absurd, of Protestant missionaries, the word devil, in the sense understood by Christians, is a nonentity for them. They believe in good and bad spirits; but they neither worship nor dread the Devil. Their "worship" is simply a ceremonial precaution

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against "terrestrial" and human spirits, whom they dread far more than the millions of elementals of various forms. They use all kinds of music, incense, and perfumes, in their efforts to drive away the "bad spirits" (the elementary). In this case, they are no more to be ridiculed than the well-known scientist, a firm spiritualist, who suggested the keeping of vitriol and powdered nitre in the room to keep away "unpleasant spirits"; and no more than he, are they wrong in so doing; for the experience of their ancestors, extending over many thousands of years has taught them how to proceed against this vile "spiritual horde." That they are human spirits is shown by the fact that very often they try to humor and propitiate the "larvae" of their own daughters and relatives, when they have reason to suspect that the latter did not die in the odor of sanctity and chastity. Such spirits they name "Kanni," bad virgins. The case was noticed by several missionaries; Rev. E. Lewis, * among others. But these pious gentlemen usually insist upon it that they worship devils, whereas, they do nothing of the sort; for they merely try to remain on good terms with them in order to be left unmolested. They offer them cakes and fruit, and various kinds of food which they liked while alive, for many of them have experienced the wickedness of these returning "dead ones," whose persecutions are sometimes dreadful. On this principle likewise they act toward the spirits of all wicked men. They leave on their tombs, if they were buried, or near the place where their remains were burnt, food and liquors, with the object of keeping them near these places, and with the idea that these vampires will be prevented thereby from returning to their homes. This is no worship; it is rather a spiritualism of a practical sort. Until 1861, there prevailed a custom among the Hindus of mutilating the feet of executed murderers, under the firm belief that thereby the disembodied soul would be prevented from wandering and doing more mischief. Subsequently, they were prohibited, by the police, from continuing the practice.

Another good reason why the Hindus should not worship the "Devil" is that they have no word to convey such a meaning. They call these spirits "puttam," which answers rather to our "spook," or malicious imp; another expression they use is "pey" and the Sanscrit pesasu, both meaning ghosts or "returning ones"--perhaps goblins, in some cases. The puttam are the most terrible, for they are literally "haunting spooks," who return on earth to torment the living. They are believed to visit generally the places where their bodies were burnt. The "fire" or "Siva-spirits" are identical with the Rosicrucian gnomes and salamanders; for they are pictured as dwarfs of a fiery appearance, living in

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earth and fire. The Ceylonese demon called Dewel is a stout smiling female figure with a white Elizabethan frill around the neck and a red jacket.

As Dr. Warton justly observes: "There is no character more strictly Oriental than the dragons of romance and fiction; they are intermixed with every tradition of early date and of themselves confer a species of illustrative evidence of origin." In no writings are these characters more marked, than in the details of Buddhism; these record particulars of the Nagas, or kingly snakes, inhabiting the cavities under the earth, corresponding with the abodes of Tiresias and the Greek seers, a region of mystery and darkness, wherein revolves much of the system of divination and oracular response, connected with inflation, or a sort of possession, designating the spirit of Python himself, the dragon-serpent slain by Apollo. But the Buddhists no more believe in the devil of the Christian system--that is, an entity as distinct from humanity as the Deity itself--than the Hindus. Buddhists teach that there are inferior gods who have been men either on this or another planet, but still who were men. They believe in the Nagas, who had been sorcerers on earth, bad people, and who give the power to other bad and yet living men to blight all the fruit they look upon, and even human lives. When a Cinghalese has the reputation that if he looks on a tree or on a person both will wither and die, he is said to have the Naga-Raja, or king-serpent on him. The whole endless catalogue of bad spirits are not devils in the sense the Christian clergy wants us to understand, but merely spiritually incarnated sins, crimes, and human thoughts, if we may so express it. The blue, green, yellow, and purple god-demons, like the inferior gods of Jugandere, are more of the kind of presiding genii, and many are as good and beneficient as the Nat deities themselves, although the Nats reckon in their numbers, giants, evil genii, and the like which inhabit the desert of Mount Jugandere.

The true doctrine of Buddha says that the demons, when nature produced the sun, moon, and stars, were human beings, but, on account of their sins, they fell from the state of felicity. If they commit greater sins, they suffer greater punishments, and condemned men are reckoned by them among the devils; while, on the contrary, demons who die (elemental spirits) and are born or incarnated as men, and commit no more sin, can arrive at the state of celestial felicity. Which is a demonstration, remarks Edward Upham, in his History and Doctrine of Buddhism, that all beings, divine as well as human, are subject to the laws of transmigration, which are operative on all, according to a scale of moral deeds. This faith then, is a complete test of a code of moral enactments and motives, applied to the regulation and government of man,

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an experiment, he adds, "which renders the study of Buddhism an important and curious subject for the philosopher."

The Hindus believe, as firmly as the Servians or Hungarians, in vampires. Furthermore, their doctrine is that of Pierart, the famous French spiritist and mesmerizer, whose school flourished some dozen years ago. "The fact of a spectre returning to suck human blood," says this Doctor, * "is not so inexplicable as it seems, and here we appeal to the spiritualists who admit the phenomenon of bicorporeity or soul-duplication. The hands which we have pressed . . . these 'materialized' limbs, so palpable . . . prove clearly how much is possible for astral spectres under favorable conditions."

The honorable physician expresses the theory of the kabalists. The Shadim are the lowest of the spiritual orders. Maimonides, who tells us that his countrymen were obliged to maintain an intimate intercourse with their departed ones, describes the feast of blood they held on such occasions. They dug a hole, and fresh blood was poured in, over which was placed a table; after which the "spirits" came and answered all their questions. **

Pierart, whose doctrine was founded on that of the theurgists, exhibits a warm indignation against the superstition of the clergy which requires, whenever a corpse is suspected of vampirism, that a stake should be driven through the heart. So long as the astral form is not entirely liberated from the body there is a liability that it may be forced by magnetic attraction to reenter it. Sometimes it will be only half-way out, when the corpse, which presents the appearance of death, is buried. In such cases the terrified astral soul violently reenters its casket; and then, one of two things happens--either the unhappy victim will writhe in the agonizing torture of suffocation, or, if he had been grossly material, he becomes a vampire. The bicorporeal life begins; and these unfortunate buried cataleptics sustain their miserable lives by having their astral bodies rob the life-blood from living persons. The ethereal form can go wherever it pleases; and so long as it does not break the link which attaches it to the body, it is at liberty to wander about, either visible or invisible, and feed on human victims. "According to all appearance, this 'spirit' then transmits through a mysterious and invisible cord of connection, which perhaps, some day may be explained, the results of the suction to the material body which lies inert at the bottom of the tomb, aiding it, in a manner, to perpetuate the state of catalepsy." ***

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Brierre de Boismont gives a number of such cases, fully authenticated, which he is pleased to term "hallucinations." A recent inquest, says a French paper, "has established that in 1871 two corpses were submitted to the infamous treatment of popular superstition, at the instigation of the clergy . . . O blind prejudice!" But Dr. Pierart, quoted by des Mousseaux, who stoutly adheres to vampirism, exclaims: "Blind, you say? Yes, blind, as much as you like. But whence sprang these prejudices? Why are they perpetuated in all ages, and in so many countries? After a crowd of facts of vampirism so often proved, should we say that there are no more and that they never had a foundation? Nothing comes of nothing. Every belief, every custom springs from facts and causes which gave it birth. If one had never seen appear, in the bosom of families of certain countries, beings clothing themselves in the shape of the familiar dead, coming thus to suck the blood of one or of several persons, and if the death of the victims by emaciation had not followed, they would never have gone to disinter the corpses in cemeteries; we would never have had attested the incredible fact of persons buried for several years being found with the corpse soft, flexible, the eyes open, with rosy complexions, the mouth and nose full of blood, and of the blood running in torrents under blows, from wounds, and when decapitated." *

One of the most important examples of vampirism figures in the private letters of the philosopher, the Marquis d'Argens; and, in the Revue Britannique, for March, 1837, the English traveller Pashley describes some that came under his notice in the island of Candia. Dr. Jobard, the anti-Catholic and anti-spiritual Belgian savant, testifies to similar experiences. **

"I will not examine," wrote the Bishop d'Avranches Huet, "whether the facts of vampirism, which are constantly being reported, are true, or the fruit of a popular error; but it is certain that they are testified to by so many authors, able and trustworthy, and by so many eye-witnesses, that no one ought to decide upon the question without a good deal of caution." ***

The chevalier, who went to great pains to collect materials for his demonological theory, brings the most thrilling instances to prove that all such cases are produced by the Devil, who uses graveyard corpses with which to clothe himself, and roams at night sucking people's blood. Methinks we could do very well without bringing this dusky personage upon the scene. If we are to believe at all in the return of spirits, there are plenty of wicked sensualists, misers, and sinners of other de-

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scriptions--especially suicides, who could have rivalled the Devil himself in malice in his best days. It is quite enough to be actually forced to believe in what we do see, and know to be a fact, namely spirits, without adding to our Pantheon of ghosts the Devil--whom nobody ever saw.

Still, there are interesting particulars to be gathered in relation to vampirism, since belief in this phenomenon has existed in all countries, from the remotest ages. The Slavonian nations, the Greeks, the Wallachians, and the Servians would rather doubt the existence of their enemies, the Turks, than the fact that there are vampires. The broucolak, or vourdalak, as the latter are called, are but too familiar guests at the Slavonian fireside. Writers of the greatest ability, men as full of sagacity as of high integrity, have treated of the subject and believed in it. Whence, then, such a superstition? Whence that unanimous credence throughout the ages, and whence that identity in details and similarity of description as to that one particular phenomenon which we find in the testimony--generally sworn evidence--of peoples foreign to each other and differing widely in matters concerning other *superstitions.

*

"There are," says Dom Calmet, a skeptical Benedictine monk of the last century, "two different ways to destroy the belief in these pretended ghosts. . . . The first would be to explain the prodigies of vampirism by physical causes. The second way is to deny totally the truth of all such stories; and the latter plan would be undoubtedly the most certain, as the most wise." *

The first way--that of explaining it by physical, though occult causes, is the one adopted by the Pierart school of mesmerism. It is certainly not the spiritualists who have a right to doubt the plausibility of this explanation. The second plan is that adopted by scientists and skeptics. They deny point-blank. As des Mousseaux remarks, there is no better or surer way, and none exacts less of either philosophy or science.

The spectre of a village herdsman, near Kodom, in Bavaria, began appearing to several inhabitants of the place, and either in consequence of their fright or some other cause, every one of them died during the following week. Driven to despair, the peasants disinterred the corpse, and pinned it to the ground with a long stake. The same night he appeared again, plunging people into convulsions of fright, and suffocating several of them. Then the village authorities delivered the body into the hands of the executioner, who carried it to a neighboring field and burned it. "The corpse," says des Mousseaux, quoting Dom Calmet, "howled like a madman, kicking and tearing as if he had been alive. When he was

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run through again with sharp-pointed stakes, he uttered piercing cries, and vomited masses of crimson blood. The apparitions of this spectre ceased only after the corpse had been reduced to ashes." *

Officers of justice visited the places said to be so haunted; the bodies were exhumed, and in nearly every case it was observed that the corpse suspected of vampirism looked healthy and rosy, and the flesh was in no way decaying. The objects which had belonged to these ghosts were observed moving about the house without any one touching them. But the legal authorities generally refused to resort to cremation and beheading before they had observed the strictest rules of legal procedure. Witnesses were summoned to appear, and evidence was heard and carefully weighed. After that the exhumed corpses were examined; and if they exhibited the unequivocal and characteristic signs of vampirism, they were handed over to the executioner.

"But," argues Dom Calmet, ** "the principal difficulty consists in learning how these vampires can quit their tombs, and how they reenter them, without appearing to have disturbed the earth in the least; how is it that they are seen with their usual clothing; how can they go about, and walk, and eat? . . . If this is all imagination on the part of those who believe themselves molested by such vampires, how happens it that the accused ghosts are subsequently found in their graves . . . exhibiting no signs of decay, full of blood, supple and fresh? How explain the cause of their feet found muddy and covered with dirt on the day following the night they had appeared and frightened their neighbors, while nothing of the sort was ever found on other corpses buried in the same cemetery? *** How is it again that once burned they never reappear? and that these cases should happen so often in this country that it is found impossible to cure people from this prejudice; for, instead of being destroyed, daily experience only fortifies the superstition in the people, and increases belief in it." ****

There is a phenomenon in nature unknown, and therefore rejected by physiology and psychology in our age of unbelief. This phenomenon is a state of half-death. Virtually, the body is dead; and, in cases of persons in whom matter does not predominate over spirit and wickedness not so great as to destroy spirituality, if left alone, their astral soul will disengage itself by gradual efforts, and, when the last link is broken,

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it finds itself separated forever from its earthly body. Equal magnetic polarity will violently repulse the ethereal man from the decaying organic mass. The whole difficulty lies in that 1, the ultimate moment of separation between the two is believed to be that when the body is declared dead by science; and 2, a prevailing unbelief in the existence of either soul or spirit in man, by the same science.

Pierart tries to demonstrate that in every case it is dangerous to bury people too soon, even though the body may show undoubted signs of putrefaction. "Poor dead cataleptics," says the doctor, "buried as if quite dead, in cold and dry spots where morbid causes are incapable to effect the destruction of their bodies, their (astral) spirit enveloping itself with a fluidic body (ethereal) is prompted to quit the precincts of its tomb, and to exercise on living beings acts peculiar to physical life, especially that of nutrition, the result of which, by a mysterious link between soul and body, which spiritualistic science will explain some day, is forwarded to the material body lying still in its tomb, and the latter thus helped to perpetuate its vital existence." * These spirits, in their ephemeral bodies, have been often seen coming out from the graveyard; they are known to have clung to their living neighbors, and have sucked their blood. Judicial inquiry has established that from this resulted an emaciation of the victimized persons, which often terminated in death.

Thus, following the pious advice of Dom Calmet, we must either go on denying, or, if human and legal testimonies are worth anything, accept the only explanation possible. "That souls departed are embodied in aerial or aetherial vehicles is most fully and plainly proved by those excellent men, Dr. C. and Dr. More," says Glanvil, "and they have largely shown that this was the doctrine of the greatest philosophers and most ancient and aged fathers." **

Gorres, the German philosopher, says to the same effect, that "God never created man as a dead corpse, but as an animal full of life. Once He had thus produced him, finding him ready to receive the immortal breath, He breathed him in the face, and thus man became a double masterpiece in His hands. It is in the centre of life itself that this mysterious insufflation took place in the first man (race?); and thence were united the animal soul issued from earth, and the spirit emanating from heaven." ***

Des Mousseaux, in company with other Roman Catholic writers, exclaims: "This proposition is utterly anti-Catholic! "Well, and suppose

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it is? It may be archi-anti-Catholic, and still be logic, and offer a solution for many a psychological puzzle. The sun of science and philosophy shines for every one; and if Catholics, who hardly number one-seventh part of the population of the globe, do not feel satisfied, perhaps the many millions of people of other religions who outnumber them, will.

And now, before parting with this repulsive subject of vampirism, we will give one more illustration, without other voucher than the statement that it was given to us by apparently trustworthy witnesses.

About the beginning of the present century, there occurred in Russia, one of the most frightful cases of vampirism on record. The governor of the Province of Tch---- was a man of about sixty years, of a malicious, tyrannical, cruel, and jealous disposition. Clothed with despotic authority, he exercised it without stint, as his brutal instincts prompted. He fell in love with the pretty daughter of a subordinate official. Although the girl was betrothed to a young man whom she loved, the tyrant forced her father to consent to his having her marry him; and the poor victim, despite her despair, became his wife. His jealous disposition exhibited itself. He beat her, confined her to her room for weeks together, and prevented her seeing any one except in his presence. He finally fell sick and died. Finding his end approaching, he made her swear never to marry again; and with fearful oaths, threatened that, in case she did, he would return from his grave and kill her. He was buried in the cemetery across the river; and the young widow experienced no further annoyance, until, nature getting the better of her fears, she listened to the importunities of her former lover, and they were again betrothed.

On the night of the customary betrothal-feast, when all had retired, the old mansion was aroused by shrieks proceeding from her room. The doors were burst open, and the unhappy woman was found lying on her bed, in a swoon. At the same time a carriage was heard rumbling out of the courtyard. Her body was found to be black and blue in places, as from the effect of pinches, and from a slight puncture on her neck drops of blood were oozing. Upon recovering, she stated that her deceased husband had suddenly entered her room, appearing exactly as in life, with the exception of a dreadful pallor; that he had upbraided her for her inconstancy, and then beaten and pinched her most cruelly. Her story was disbelieved; but the next morning, the guard stationed at the other end of the bridge which spans the river, reported that, just before midnight, a black coach and six had driven furiously past them, toward the town, without answering their challenge.

The new governor, who disbelieved the story of the apparition, took nevertheless the precaution of doubling the guards across the bridge.

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The same thing happened, however, night after night; the soldiers declaring that the toll-bar at their station near the bridge would rise of itself, and the spectral equipage sweep by them despite their efforts to stop it. At the same time every night, the coach would rumble into the courtyard of the house; the watchers, including the widow's family, and the servants, would be thrown into a heavy sleep; and every morning the young victim would be found bruised, bleeding, and swooning as before. The town was thrown into consternation. The physicians had no explanations to offer; priests came to pass the night in prayer, but as midnight approached, all would be seized with the terrible lethargy. Finally, the archbishop of the province came, and performed the ceremony of exorcism in person, but the following morning the governor's widow was found worse than ever. She was now brought to death's door.

The governor was finally driven to take the severest measures to stop the ever-increasing panic in the town. He stationed fifty Cossacks along the bridge, with orders to stop the spectre-carriage at all hazards. Promptly at the usual hour, it was heard and seen approaching from the direction of the cemetery. The officer of the guard, and a priest bearing a crucifix, planted themselves in front of the toll-bar, and together shouted: "In the name of God, and the Czar, who goes there?" Out of the coach-window was thrust a well-remembered head, and a familiar voice responded: "The Privy Councillor of State and Governor, C----!" At the same moment, the officer, the priest, and the soldiers were flung aside as by an electric shock, and the ghostly equipage passed by them, before they could recover breath.

The archbishop then resolved, as a last expedient, to resort to the time-honored plan of exhuming the body, and pinning it to the earth with an oaken stake driven through its heart. This was done with great religious ceremony in the presence of the whole populace. The story is that the body was found gorged with blood, and with red cheeks and lips. At the instant that the first blow was struck upon the stake, a groan issued from the corpse, and a jet of blood spurted high into the air. The archbishop pronounced the usual exorcism, the body was reinterred, and from that time no more was heard of the vampire.

How far the facts of this case may have been exaggerated by tradition, we cannot say. But we had it years ago from an eye-witness; and at the present day there are families in Russia whose elder members will recall the dreadful tale.

As to the statement found in medical books that there are frequent cases of inhumation while the subjects are but in a cataleptic state, and the persistent denials of specialists that such things happen, except very rarely, we have but to turn to the daily press of every country to find

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the horrid fact substantiated. The Rev. H. R. Haweis, M.A., author of Ashes to Ashes, * enumerates in his work, written in advocacy of cremation, some very distressing cases of premature burial. On page forty-six occurs the following dialogue:

"But do you know of many cases of premature burial?"

"Undoubtedly I do. I will not say that in our temperate climate they are frequent, but they do occur. Hardly a graveyard is opened but coffins are found containing bodies not only turned, but skeletons contorted in the last hopeless struggle for life underground. The turning may be due to some clumsy shaking of the coffin, but not the contortion."

After this he proceeds to give the following recent cases:

"At Bergerac (Dordogne), in 1842, the patient took a sleeping draught . . . but he woke not. . . . They bled him, and he woke not. . . . At last they declared him to be dead, and buried him. After a few days, remembering the sleeping draught, they opened the grave. The body had turned and struggled."

"The Sunday Times, December 30, 1838, relates that at Tonneins, Lower Garonne, a man was buried, when an indistinct noise proceeded from the coffin; the reckless grave-digger fled. . . . The coffin was hauled up and burst open. A face stiffened in terror and despair, a torn winding-sheet, contorted limbs, told the sad truth--too late."

"The Times, May, 1874, states that in August of 1873, a young lady died soon after her marriage. . . . Within a year the husband married again, and the mother of his first bride resolved to remove her daughter's body to Marseilles. They opened the vault and found the poor girl's body prostrate, her hair dishevelled, her shroud torn to pieces." **

As we will have to refer to the subject once more in connection with Bible miracles, we will leave it for the present, and return to magical phenomena.

If we were to give a full description of the various manifestations which take place among adepts in India and other countries, we might fill volumes, but this would be profitless, as there would remain no space for explanation. Therefore we select in preference such as either find their parallels in modern phenomena or are authenticated by legal inquiry. Horst tried to present an idea of certain Persian spirits to his readers, and failed; for the bare mention of some of them is calculated to set the brains of a believer in a whirl. There are the Devs and their specialities; the Darwands and their gloomy tricks; the Shadim and Djinnas; the whole vast legion of spirits, demons, goblins, and elves of the Persian

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calendar; and, on the other hand, the Jewish Seraphim, Cherubim, Izeds, Amshaspands, Sephiroth, Malachim, Elohim; and, adds Horst, "the millions of astral and elementary spirits, of intermediary spirits, ghosts, and imaginary beings of all races and colors." *

But the majority of these spirits have naught to do with the phenomena consciously and deliberately produced by the Eastern magicians. The latter repudiate such an accusation and leave to sorcerers the help even of elemental spirits and the elementary spooks. The adept has an unlimited power over both, but he rarely uses it. For the production of physical phenomena he summons the nature-spirits as obedient powers, not as intelligences.

As we always like to strengthen our arguments by testimonies other than our own, it may be well to present the opinion of a daily paper, the Boston Herald, as to phenomena in general and mediums in particular. Having encountered sad failures with some dishonest persons, who may or may not be mediumistic, the writer went to the trouble of ascertaining as to some wonders said to be produced in India, and compares them with those of modern thaumaturgy.

"The medium of the present day," he says, "bears a closer resemblance, in methods and manipulations, to the well-known conjurer of history, than any other representative of the magic art. How far short he still remains of the performances of his prototypes is illustrated below. In 1615 a delegation of highly-educated and distinguished men from the English East India Company visited the Emperor Jehangire. While on their mission they witnessed many most wonderful performances, almost causing them to discredit their senses, and far beyond any hint even of solution. A party of Bengalese conjurers and jugglers, showing their art before the emperor, were desired to produce upon the spot, and from seed, ten mulberry trees. They immediately planted ten seeds, which, in a few minutes produced as many trees. The ground divided over the spot where a seed was planted, tiny leaves appeared, at once followed by slender shoots, which rapidly gained elevation, putting out leaves and twigs and branches, finally spreading wide in the air, budding, blossoming and yielding fruit, which matured upon the spot, and was found to be excellent. And this before the beholder had turned away his eyes. Fig, almond, mango, and walnut trees were at the same time under like conditions produced, yielding the fruit which belonged to each. Wonder succeeded wonder. The branches were filled with birds of beautiful plumage flitting about among the leaves and singing sweet notes. The leaves turned to russet, fell from their places, branches and twigs withered, and

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finally the trees sank back into the earth, out of which they had all sprung within the hour.

"Another had a bow and about fifty steel-pointed arrows. He shot an arrow into the air, when, lo! the arrow became fixed in space at a considerable height. Another and another arrow was sent off, each fixing itself in the shaft of the preceding, until all formed a chain of arrows in the air, excepting the last shot, which, striking the chain, brought the whole to the ground in detachments.

"They set up two common tents facing each other, and about a bow-shot apart. These tents were critically examined by the spectators, as are the cabinets of the mediums, and pronounced empty. The tents were fastened to the ground all around. The lookers-on were then invited to choose what animals or birds they would have issue from these tents to engage in a battle. Khaun-e-Jahaun incredulously asked to see a fight between ostriches. In a few minutes an ostrich came out from each tent rushed to combat with deadly earnestness, and from them the blood soon began to stream; but they were so nearly matched that neither could win the victory, and they were at last separated by the conjurers and conveyed within the tents. After this the varied demands of the spectators for birds and animals were exactly complied with, always with the same results.

"A large cauldron was set, and into it a quantity of rice thrown. Without the sign of fire this rice soon began to boil, and out from the cauldron was taken more than one hundred platters of cooked rice, with a stewed fowl at the top of each. This trick is performed on a smaller scale by the most ordinary fakirs of the present day.

"But space fails to give opportunity for illustrating, from the records of the past, how the miserably tame performances--by comparison--of the mediums of the present day were pale and overshadowed by those of other days and more adroit peoples. There is not a wonderful feature in any of the so-called phenomena or manifestations which was not, nay, which is not now more than duplicated by other skilful performers, whose connection with earth, and earth alone, is too evident to be doubted, even if the fact was not supported by their own testimony."

It is an error to say that fakirs or jugglers will always claim that they are helped by spirits. In quasi-religious evocations, such as Jacolliot's Kovindasami is described to have produced before this French gentleman, when the parties desire to see real "spiritual" manifestations, they will resort to Pitris, their disembodied ancestors, and other pure spirits. These they can evoke but through prayer. As to all other phenomena, they are produced by the magician and fakir at will. Notwithstanding the state of apparent abjectness in which the latter lives, he is often an initiate of

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the temples, and is as well acquainted with occultism as his richer brethren.

The Chaldeans, whom Cicero counts among the oldest magicians, placed the basis of all magic in the inner powers of man's soul, and by the discernment of magic properties in plants, minerals, and animals. By the aid of these they performed the most wonderful "miracles." Magic, with them, was synonymous with religion and science. It is but later that the religious myths of the Magdean dualism, disfigured by Christian theology and euhemerized by certain fathers of the Church, assumed the disgusting shape in which we find them expounded by such Catholic writers as des Mousseaux. The objective reality of the mediaeval incubus and succubus, that abominable superstition of the middle ages which cost so many human lives, advocated by this author in a whole volume, is the monstrous production of religious fanaticism and epilepsy. It can have no objective form; and to attribute its effects to the Devil is blasphemy: implying that God, after creating Satan, would allow him to adopt such a course. If we are forced to believe in vampirism, it is on the strength of two irrefragable propositions of occult psychological science: 1. The astral soul is a separable distinct entity of our ego, and can roam far away from the body without breaking the thread of life. 2. The corpse is not utterly dead, and while it can yet be reentered by its tenant, the latter can gather sufficient material emanations from it to enable itself to appear in a quasi-terrestrial shape. But to uphold, with des Mousseaux and de Mirville, that the Devil, whom the Catholics endow with a power which, in antagonism, equals that of the Supreme Deity, transforms himself into wolves, snakes, and dogs, to satisfy his lust and procreate monsters, is an idea within which lie hidden the germs of devil-worship, lunacy, and sacrilege. The Catholic Church, which not only teaches us to believe in this monstrous fallacy, but forces her missionaries to preach such a dogma, need not revolt against the devil-worship of some Parsee and South India sects. Quite the reverse; for when we hear the Yezides repeat the well-known proverb: "Keep friends with the demons; give them your property, your blood, your service, and you need not care about God--He will not harm you," we find him but consistent with his belief and reverential to the Supreme; his logic is sound and rational; he reveres God too deeply to imagine that He who created the universe and its laws is able to hurt him, poor atom; but the demons are there; they are imperfect, and therefore he has good reasons to dread them.

Therefore, the Devil, in his various transformations, can be but a fallacy. When we imagine that we see, and hear, and feel him, it is but too often the reflection of our own wicked, depraved, and polluted soul that we see, hear, and feel. Like attracts like, they say; thus, according to the

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mood in which our astral form oozes out during the hours of sleep, according to our thoughts, pursuits, and daily occupations, all of which are fairly impressed upon the plastic capsule called the human soul, the latter attracts around itself spiritual beings congenial to itself. Hence some dreams and visions that are pure and beautiful, others fiendish and beastly. The person awakes, and either hastens to the confessional, or laughs in callous indifference at the thought. In the first case, he is promised final salvation, at the cost of some indulgences (which he has to purchase from the church), and perhaps a little taste of purgatory, or even of hell. What matter? is he not safe to be eternal and immortal, do what he may? It is the Devil. Away with him, with bell, book, and holy sprinkler! But the "Devil" comes back, and often the true believer is forced to disbelieve in God, when he clearly perceives that the Devil has the best of his Creator and Master. Then he is left to the second emergency. He remains indifferent, and gives himself up entirely to the Devil. He dies, and the reader has learned the sequel in the preceding chapters.

The thought is beautifully expressed by Dr. Ennemoser: "Religion did not here [Europe and China] strike root so deeply as among the Hindus," says he, arguing upon this superstition. "The spirit of the Greeks and Persians was more volatile. . . . The philosophical idea in the good and bad principle, and of the spiritual world . . . must have assisted tradition in forming visions of heavenly and hellish shapes, and the most frightful distortions, which in India were much more simply produced by a more enthusiastic fanaticism; there the seer received by divine light; here he lost himself in a multitude of outward objects, with which he confounded his own identity. Convulsions, accompanied by the mind's absence from the body, in distant countries, were here common, for the imagination was less firm, and also less spiritual.

"The outward causes are also different; the modes of life, geographical position, and artificial means producing various modifications. The mode of life in Western countries has always been very variable, and therefore disturbs and distorts the occupation of the senses, and the outward life is therefore reflected upon the inner dream-world. The spirits, therefore, are of endless varieties of shape, and incline men to gratify their passions, showing them the means of so doing, and descending even to the minutest particulars, which was so far below the elevated natures of Indian seers."

Let the student of occult sciences make his own nature as pure and his thoughts as elevated as those of these Indian seers, and he may sleep unmolested by vampire, incubus, or succubus. Around the insensible form of such a sleeper the immortal spirit sheds a power divine that protects it from evil approaches, as though it were a crystal wall.

"Haec murus aeneus esto: nil conscire sibi, nulla pallascere culpa."

Footnotes

418:* "On the Scientific Use of the Imagination."

419:* Epes Sargent. See his pamphlet, "Does Matter do it All?"

420: In his "Essay on Classification" (sect. xvii., pp. 97-99), Louis Agassiz, the great zoologist, remarks: "Most of the arguments in favor of the immortality of man apply equally to the permanency of this principle in other living beings. May I not add that a future life in which man would be deprived of that great source of enjoyment and intellectual and moral improvement, which results from the contemplation of the harmonies of an organic world would involve a lamentable loss? And may we not look to a spiritual concert of the combined worlds and all* their inhabitants in the presence of their creator as the highest conception of paradise?"

423:* "Diog. in Vita."

423:** See the works of Robertus de Fluctibus; and the "Rosicrucians," by Hargrave Jennings.

424:* Professor B. Stewart: "Conservation of Energy."

430:* "De Vatibus in Problemate," sect. 21.

430:** See Max Muller: "The Meaning of Nirvana."

431:* "The Lankavatara," transl. by Burnouf, p. 514.

431:** "Classical Dictionary."

434:* See Cabanis: "Histoire de la Medecine."

438:* "Le Lotus de la bonne Loi," by E. Burnouf, translated from the Sanscrit.

441:* "Cosmos," vol. iii., part i., p. 168.

442:* "Lecture on the Vedas."

443:* "The Classical Journal," vol. iv., pp. 107, 348.

444:* See "Mosheim."

444:** "New Platonism and Alchemy."

444:*** Origen: "Contra Celsum."

444:**** "Fatti relativi al Mesmerismo," pp. 88, 93, 1842.

445:* "Leonard de Vair," 1. ii., ch. ii.; "La Magie au 19me Siecle," p. 332.

447:* "The Tinnevelly Shanars," p. 43.

449:* Pierart: "Revue Spiritualiste," chapter on "Vampirism."

449:** Maimonides: "Abodah Sarah," 12 Absh, 11 Abth.

449:*** Pierart: "Revue Spiritualiste."

450:* Dr. Pierart: "Revue Spiritualiste," vol. iv., p. 104.

450:** See "Hauts Phen.," p. 199.

450:*** "Huetiana," p. 81.

451:* Dom Calmet: "Apparitions," etc. Paris, 1751, vol. ii., p. 47; "Hauts Phen. de la Magie," 195.

452:* "Hauts Phen.," p. 196.

452:** Ibid.

452:*** See the same sworn testimony in official documents: "De l'Inspir. des Camis," H. Blanc, 1859. Plon, Paris.

452:**** Dom Calmet: "Apparit.," vol. ii., chap. xliv., p. 212.

453:* Pierart: "Revue Spiritualiste," vol. iv., p. 104.

453:** "Sadducismus Triumphatus," vol. ii., p. 70.

453:*** Gorres: "Complete Works," vol. iii., ch. vii., p. 132.

456:* "Ashes to Ashes," London: Daldy, Isbister & Co., 1875.

456:** The author refers all those who may doubt such statements to G. A. Walker's "Gatherings from Graveyards," pp. 84-193, 194, etc.

457:* Horst: "Zauber Bibliothek," vol. v., p. 52.

Chapter XII

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CHAPTER XII.

"My vast and noble capital, my Daitu, my splendidly-adorned;

And thou, my cool and delicious summer-seat, my Shangtu-Keibung.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Alas, for my illustrious name as the Sovereign of the World!

Alas, for my Daitu, seat of sanctity, glorious work of the immortal Kublai!

All, all is rent from me!"--COL. YULE, in Marco Polo. * "As for what thou hearest others say, who persuade the many that the soul, when once freed from the body, neither suffers . . . evil nor is conscious, I know that thou art better grounded in the doctrines received by us from our ancestors, and in the sacred orgies of Dionysus, than to believe them; for the mystic symbols are well known to us who belong to the 'Brotherhood.' "--PLUTARCH. "The problem of life is man*. MAGIC, or rather Wisdom, is the evolved knowledge of the potencies of man's interior being; which forces are Divine emanations, as intuition is the perception of their origin, and initiation our induction into that knowledge. . . . We begin with instinct; the end is OMNISCIENCE."--A. W*ILDER. "Power belongs to him WHO KNOWS."--Brahmanical Book of Evocation.

---

I**T would argue small discernment on our part were we to suppose that we had been followed thus far through this work by any but metaphysicians, or mystics of some sort. Were it otherwise, we should certainly advise such to spare themselves the trouble of reading this chapter; for, although nothing is said that is not strictly true, they would not fail to regard the least wonderful of the narratives as absolutely false, however substantiated.

To comprehend the principles of natural law involved in the several phenomena hereinafter described, the reader must keep in mind the fundamental propositions of the Oriental philosophy which we have successively elucidated. Let us recapitulate very briefly:

1st. There is no miracle. Everything that happens is the result of law--eternal, immutable, ever active. Apparent miracle is but the operation of forces antagonistic to what Dr. W. B. Carpenter, F. R. S.--a man of great learning but little knowledge--calls "the well-ascertained laws of nature." Like many of his class, Dr. Carpenter ignores the fact that there may be laws once "known," now unknown to science.

2d. Nature is triune: there is a visible, objective nature; an invisible, indwelling, energizing nature, the exact model of the other, and its vital principle; and, above these two, spirit, source of all forces, alone eternal,

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and indestructible. The lower two constantly change; the higher third does not.

3d. Man is also triune: he has his objective, physical body; his vitalizing astral body (or soul), the real man; and these two are brooded over and illuminated by the third--the sovereign, the immortal spirit. When the real man succeeds in merging himself with the latter, he becomes an immortal entity.

4th. Magic, as a science, is the knowledge of these principles, and of the way by which the omniscience and omnipotence of the spirit and its control over nature's forces may be acquired by the individual while still in the body. Magic, as an art, is the application of this knowledge in practice.

5th. Arcane knowledge misapplied, is sorcery; beneficently used, true magic or WISDOM.

6th. Mediumship is the opposite of adeptship; the medium is the passive instrument of foreign influences, the adept actively controls himself and all inferior potencies.

7th. All things that ever were, that are, or that will be, having their record upon the astral light, or tablet of the unseen universe, the initiated adept, by using the vision of his own spirit, can know all that has been known or can be known.

8th. Races of men differ in spiritual gifts as in color, stature, or any other external quality; among some peoples seership naturally prevails, among others mediumship. Some are addicted to sorcery, and transmit its secret rules of practice from generation to generation, with a range of psychical phenomena, more or less wide, as the result.

9th. One phase of magical skill is the voluntary and conscious withdrawal of the inner man (astral form) from the outer man (physical body). In the cases of some mediums withdrawal occurs, but it is unconscious and involuntary. With the latter the body is more or less cataleptic at such times; but with the adept the absence of the astral form would not be noticed, for the physical senses are alert, and the individual appears only as though in a fit of abstraction--"a brown study," as some call it.

To the movements of the wandering astral form neither time nor space offer obstacles. The thaumaturgist, thoroughly skilled in occult science, can cause himself (that is, his physical body) to seem to disappear, or to apparently take on any shape that he may choose. He may make his astral form visible, or he may give it protean appearances. In both cases these results will be achieved by a mesmeric hallucination of the senses of all witnesses, simultaneously brought on. This hallucination is so perfect that the subject of it would stake his life that he saw a

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reality, when it is but a picture in his own mind, impressed upon his consciousness by the irresistible will of the mesmerizer.

But, while the astral form can go anywhere, penetrate any obstacle, and be seen at any distance from the physical body, the latter is dependent upon ordinary methods of transportation. It may be levitated under prescribed magnetic conditions, but not pass from one locality to another except in the usual way. Hence we discredit all stories of the aerial flight of mediums in body, for such would be miracle, and miracle we repudiate. Inert matter may be, in certain cases and under certain conditions, disintegrated, passed through walls, and recombined, but living animal organisms cannot.

Swedenborgians believe and arcane science teaches that the abandonment of the living body by the soul frequently occurs, and that we encounter every day, in every condition of life, such living corpses. Various causes, among them overpowering fright, grief, despair, a violent attack of sickness, or excessive sensuality may bring this about. The vacant carcass may be entered and inhabited by the astral form of an adept sorcerer, or an elementary (an earth-bound disembodied human soul), or, very rarely, an elemental. Of course, an adept of white magic has the same power, but unless some very exceptional and great object is to be accomplished, he will never consent to pollute himself by occupying the body of an impure person. In insanity, the patient's astral being is either semi-paralyzed, bewildered, and subject to the influence of every passing spirit of any sort, or it has departed forever, and the body is taken possession of by some vampirish entity near its own disintegration, and clinging desperately to earth, whose sensual pleasures it may enjoy for a brief season longer by this expedient.

10th. The corner-stone of MAGIC is an intimate practical knowledge of magnetism and electricity, their qualities, correlations, and potencies. Especially necessary is a familiarity with their effects in and upon the animal kingdom and man. There are occult properties in many other minerals, equally strange with that in the lodestone, which all practitioners of magic must know, and of which so-called exact science is wholly ignorant. Plants also have like mystical properties in a most wonderful degree, and the secrets of the herbs of dreams and enchantments are only lost to European science, and useless to say, too, are unknown to it, except in a few marked instances, such as opium and hashish. Yet, the psychical effects of even these few upon the human system are regarded as evidences of a temporary mental disorder. The women of Thessaly and Epirus, the female hierophants of the rites of Sabazius, did not carry their secrets away with the downfall of their sanctuaries.

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They are still preserved, and those who are aware of the nature of Soma, know the properties of other plants as well.

To sum up all in a few words, MAGIC is spiritual WISDOM; nature, the material ally, pupil and servant of the magician. One common vital principle pervades all things, and this is controllable by the perfected human will. The adept can stimulate the movements of the natural forces in plants and animals in a preternatural degree. Such experiments are not obstructions of nature, but quickenings; the conditions of intenser vital action are given.

The adept can control the sensations and alter the conditions of the physical and astral bodies of other persons not adepts; he can also govern and employ, as he chooses, the spirits of the elements. He cannot control the immortal spirit of any human being, living or dead, for all such spirits are alike sparks of the Divine Essence, and not subject to any foreign domination.

There are two kinds of seership--that of the soul and that of the spirit. The seership of the ancient Pythoness, or of the modern mesmerized subject, vary but in the artificial modes adopted to induce the state of clairvoyance. But, as the visions of both depend upon the greater or less acuteness of the senses of the astral body, they differ very widely from the perfect, omniscient spiritual state; for, at best, the subject can get but glimpses of truth, through the veil which physical nature interposes. The astral principle, or mind, called by the Hindu Yogin fav-atma, is the sentient soul, inseparable from our physical brain, which it holds in subjection, and is in its turn equally trammelled by it. This is the ego, the intellectual life-principle of man, his conscious entity. While it is yet within the material body, the clearness and correctness of its spiritual visions depend on its more or less intimate relation with its higher Principle. When this relation is such as to allow the most ethereal portions of the soul-essence to act independently of its grosser particles and of the brain, it can unerringly comprehend what it sees; then only is it the pure, rational, supersentient soul. That state is known in India as the Samaddi; it is the highest condition of spirituality possible to man on earth. Fakirs try to obtain such a condition by holding their breath for hours together during their religious exercises, and call this practice dam-sadhna. The Hindu terms Pranayama, Pratyahara, and Dharana, all relate to different psychological states, and show how much more the Sanscrit, and even the modern Hindu language are adapted to the clear elucidation of the phenomena that are encountered by those who study this branch of psychological science, than the tongues of modern peoples, whose experiences have not yet necessitated the invention of such descriptive terms.

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When the body is in the state of dharana--a total catalepsy of the physical frame--the soul of the clairvoyant may liberate itself, and perceive things subjectively. And yet, as the sentient principle of the brain is alive and active, these pictures of the past, present, and future will be tinctured with the terrestrial perceptions of the objective world; the physical memory and fancy will be in the way of clear vision. But the seer-adept knows how to suspend the mechanical action of the brain. His visions will be as clear as truth itself, uncolored and undistorted, whereas, the clairvoyant, unable to control the vibrations of the astral waves, will perceive but more or less broken images through the medium of the brain. The seer can never take flickering shadows for realities, for his memory being as completely subjected to his will as the rest of the body, he receives impressions directly from his spirit. Between his subjective and objective selves there are no obstructive mediums. This is the real spiritual seership, in which, according to an expression of Plato, soul is raised above all inferior good. When we reach "that which is supreme, which is simple, pure, and unchangeable, without form, color, or human qualities: the God--our Nous."

This is the state which such seers as Plotinus and Apollonius termed the "Union to the Deity"; which the ancient Yogins called Isvara, * and the modern call "Samaddi"; but this state is as far above modern clairvoyance as the stars above glow-worms. Plotinus, as is well known, was a clairvoyant-seer during his whole and daily life; and yet, he had been united to his God but six times during the sixty-six years of his existence, as he himself confessed to Porphyry.

Ammonius Sakkas, the "God-taught," asserts that the only power which is directly opposed to soothsaying and looking into futurity is memory; and Olympiodorus calls it phantasy. "The phantasy," he says (in Platonis Phaed.), "is an impediment to our intellectual conceptions; and hence, when we are agitated by the inspiring influence of the Divinity, if the phantasy intervenes, the enthusiastic energy ceases; for enthusiasm and the ecstasy are contrary to each other. Should it be asked whether the soul is able to energize without the phantasy, we reply, that its perception of universals proves that it is able. It has perceptions,

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therefore, independent of the phantasy; at the same time, however, the phantasy attends it in its energies, just as a storm pursues him who sails on the sea."

A medium, moreover, needs either a foreign intelligence--whether it be spirit or living mesmerizer--to overpower his physical and mental parts, or some factitious means to induce trance. An adept, and even a simple fakir requires but a few minutes of "self-contemplation." The brazen columns of Solomon's temple; the golden bells and pomegranates of Aaron; the Jupiter Capitolinus of Augustus, hung around with harmonious bells; * and the brazen bowls of the Mysteries when the Kora was called, ** were all intended for such artificial helps. *** So were the brazen bowls of Solomon hung round with a double row of 200 pomegranates, which served as clappers within the hollow columns. The priestesses of Northern Germany, under the guidance of hierophants, could never prophesy but amidst the roar of the tumultuous waters. Regarding fixedly the eddies formed on the rapid course of the river they hypnotized themselves. So we read of Joseph, Jacob's son, who sought for divine inspiration with his silver divining-cup, which must have had a very bright bottom to it. The priestesses of Dodona placed themselves under the ancient oak of Zeus (the Pelasgian, not the Olympian god), and listened intently to the rustling of the sacred leaves, while others concentrated their attention on the soft murmur of the cold spring gushing from underneath its roots. ** But the adept has no need of any such extraneous aids--the simple exertion of his will-power is all-sufficient.

The Atharva-Veda teaches that the exercise of such will-power is the highest form of prayer and its instantaneous response. To desire is to realize in proportion to the intensity of the aspiration; and that, in its turn, is measured by inward purity.

Some of these nobler Vedantic precepts on the soul and man's mystic powers, have recently been contributed to an English periodical by a Hindu scholar. "The Sankhya," he writes, "inculcates that the soul (i. e., astral body) has the following powers: shrinking into a minute bulk to which everything is pervious; enlarging to a gigantic body; assuming levity (rising along a sunbeam to the solar orb); possessing an unlimited reach of organs, as touching the moon with the tip of a finger; irresistible will (for instance, sinking into the earth as easily as in water); dominion over all things, animate or inanimate; faculty of changing the course of nature; ability to accomplish every desire." Further, he gives their various appellations:

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"The powers are called: 1, Anima; 2, Mahima; 3, Laghima; 4, Garima; 5, Prapti; 6, Prakamya; 7, Vasitwa; 8, Isitwa, or divine power. The fifth, predicting future events, understanding unknown languages, curing diseases, divining unexpressed thoughts, understanding the language of the heart. The sixth is the power of converting old age into youth. The seventh is the power of mesmerizing human beings and beasts, and making them obedient; it is the power of restraining passions and emotions. The eighth power is the spiritual state, and presupposes the absence of the above seven powers, as in this state the Yogi is full of God."

"No writings," he adds, "revealed or sacred, were allowed to be so authoritative and final as the teaching of the soul. Some of the Rishis appear to have laid the greatest stress on this supersensuous source of knowledge." *

From the remotest antiquity mankind as a whole have always been convinced of the existence of a personal spiritual entity within the personal physical man. This inner entity was more or less divine, according to its proximity to the crown--Chrestos. The closer the union the more serene man's destiny, the less dangerous the external conditions. This belief is neither bigotry nor superstition, only an ever-present, instinctive feeling of the proximity of another spiritual and invisible world, which, though it be subjective to the senses of the outward man, is perfectly objective to the inner ego. Furthermore, they believed that there are external and internal conditions which affect the determination of our will upon our actions. They rejected fatalism, for fatalism implies a blind course of some still blinder power. But they believed in destiny, which from birth to death every man is weaving thread by thread around himself, as a spider does his cobweb; and this destiny is guided either by that presence termed by some the guardian angel, or our more intimate astral inner man, who is but too often the evil genius of the man of flesh. Both these lead on the outward man, but one of them must prevail; and from the very beginning of the invisible affray the stern and implacable law of compensation steps in and takes its course, following faithfully the fluctuations. When the last strand is woven, and man is seemingly enwrapped in the net-work of his own doing, then he finds himself completely under the empire of this self-made destiny. It then either fixes him like the inert shell against the immovable rock, or like a feather carries him away in a whirlwind raised by his own actions.

The greatest philosophers of antiquity found it neither unreasonable

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nor strange that "souls should come to souls, and impart to them conceptions of future things, occasionally by letters, or by a mere touch, or by a glance reveal to them past events or announce future ones," as Ammonius tells us. Moreover, Lamprias and others held that if the unembodied spirits or souls could descend on earth and become guardians of mortal men, "we should not seek to deprive those souls which are still in the body of that power by which the former know future events and are able to announce them. It is not probable," adds Lamprias, "that the soul gains a new power of prophecy after separation from the body, and which before it did not possess. We may rather conclude that it possessed all these powers during its union with the body, although in a lesser perfection. . . . For as the sun does not shine only when it passes from among the clouds, but has always been radiant and has only appeared dim and obscured by vapors, the soul does not only receive the power of looking into futurity when it passes from the body as from a cloud, but has possessed it always, though dimmed by connection with the earthly."

A familiar example of one phase of the power of the soul or astral body to manifest itself, is the phenomenon of the so-called spirit-hand. In the presence of certain mediums these seemingly detached members will gradually develop from a luminous nebula, pick up a pencil, write messages, and then dissolve before the eyes of the witnesses. Many such cases are recorded by perfectly competent and trustworthy persons. These phenomena are real, and require serious consideration. But false "phantom-hands" have sometimes been taken for the genuine. At Dresden we once saw a hand and arm, made for the purpose of deception, with an ingenious arrangement of springs that would cause the machine to imitate to perfection the movements of the natural member; while exteriorly it would require close inspection to detect its artificial character. In using this, the dishonest medium slips his natural arm out of his sleeve, and replaces it with the mechanical substitute; both hands may then be made to seem resting upon the table, while in fact one is touching the sitters, showing itself, knocking the furniture, and making other phenomena.

The mediums for real manifestations are least able, as a rule, to comprehend or explain them. Among those who have written most intelligently upon the subject of these luminous hands, may be reckoned Dr. Francis Gerry Fairfield, author of Ten Years among the Mediums, an article from whose pen appears in the Library Table for July 19, 1877. A medium himself, he is yet a strong opponent of the spiritualistic theory. Discussing the subject of the "phantom-hand," he testifies that "this the writer has personally witnessed, under conditions of test provided by himself, in his own room, in full daylight, with the medium seated upon a

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sofa from six to eight feet from the table hovering upon which the apparition (the hand) appeared. The application of the poles of a horse-shoe magnet to the hand caused it to waver perceptibly, and threw the medium into violent convulsions--pretty positive evidence that the force concerned in the phenomenon was generated in his own nervous system."

Dr. Fairfield's deduction that the fluttering phantom-hand is an emanation from the medium is logical, and it is correct. The test of the horse-shoe magnet proves in a scientific way what every kabalist would affirm upon the authority of experience, no less than philosophy. The "force concerned in the phenomenon" is the will of the medium, exercised unconsciously to the outer man, which for the time is semi-paralyzed and cataleptic; the phantom-hand an extrusion of the man's inner or astral member. This is that real self whose limbs the surgeon cannot amputate, but remain behind after the outer casing is cut off, and (all theories of exposed or compressed nerve termini to the contrary, notwithstanding) have all the sensations the physical parts formerly experienced. This is that spiritual (astral) body which "is raised in incorruption." It is useless to argue that these are spirit-hands; for, admitting even that at every seance human spirits of many kinds are attracted to the medium, and that they do guide and produce some manifestations, yet to make hands or faces objective they are compelled to use either the astral limbs of the medium, or the materials furnished them by the elementals, or yet the combined aural emanations of all persons present. Pure spirits will not and cannot show themselves objectively; those that do are not pure spirits, but elementary and impure. Woe to the medium who falls a prey to such!

The same principle involved in the unconscious extrusion of a phantom limb by the cataleptic medium, applies to the projection of his entire "double" or astral body. This may be withdrawn by the will of the medium's own inner self, without his retaining in his physical brain any recollection of such an intent--that is one phase of man's dual capacity. It may also be effected by elementary and elemental spirits, to whom he may stand in the relation of mesmeric subject. Dr. Fairfield is right in one position taken in his book, viz.: mediums are usually diseased, and in many if not most cases the children or near connections of mediums. But he is wholly wrong in attributing all psychical phenomena to morbid physiological conditions. The adepts of Eastern magic are uniformly in perfect mental and bodily health, and in fact the voluntary and independent production of phenomena is impossible to any others. We have known many, and never a sick man among them. The adept retains perfect consciousness; shows no change of bodily temperature, or other sign of morbidity; requires no "conditions," but will do his feats anywhere

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and everywhere; and instead of being passive and in subjection to a foreign influence, rules the forces with iron will. But we have elsewhere shown that the medium and the adept are as opposed as the poles. We will only add here that the body, soul, and spirit of the adept are all conscious and working in harmony, and the body of the medium is an inert clod, and even his soul may be away in a dream while its habitation is occupied by another.

An adept can not only project and make visible a hand, a foot, or any other portion of his body, but the whole of it. We have seen one do this, in full day, while his hands and feet were being held by a skeptical friend whom he wished to surprise. * Little by little the whole astral body oozed out like a vapory cloud, until before us stood two forms, of which the second was an exact duplicate of the first, only slightly more shadowy.

The medium need not exercise any will-power. It suffices that she or he shall know what is expected by the investigators. The medium's "spiritual" entity, when not obsessed by other spirits, will act outside the will or consciousness of the physical being, as surely as it acts when within the body during a fit of somnambulism. Its perceptions, external and internal, will be acuter and far more developed, precisely as they are in the sleep-walker. And this is why "the materialized form sometimes knows more than the medium," ** for the intellectual perception of the astral entity is proportionately as much higher than the corporeal intelligence of the medium in its normal state, as the spirit entity is finer than itself. Generally the medium will be found cold, the pulse will have visibly changed, and a state of nervous prostration succeeds the phenomena, bunglingly and without discrimination attributed to disembodied spirits; whereas, but one-third of them may be produced by the latter, another third by elementals, and the rest by the astral double of the medium himself.

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But, while it is our firm belief that most of the physical manifestations, i.e., those which neither need nor show intelligence nor great discrimination, are produced mechanically by the scin-lecca (double) of the medium, as a person in sound sleep will when apparently awake do things of which he will retain no remembrance. The purely subjective phenomena are but in a very small proportion of cases due to the action of the personal astral body. They are mostly, and according to the moral, intellectual, and physical purity of the medium, the work of either the elementary, or sometimes very pure human spirits. Elementals have naught to do with subjective manifestations. In rare cases it is the divine spirit of the medium himself that guides and produces them.

As Baboo Peary Chand Mittra says, in a letter * to the President of the National Association of Spiritualists, Mr. Alexander Calder, ** "a spirit is an essence or power, and has no form. . . . The very idea of form implies 'materialism.' The spirits [astral souls, we should say] . . . can assume forms for a time, but form is not their permanent state. The more material is our soul, the more material is our conception of spirits."

Epimenides, the Orphikos, was renowned for his "sacred and marvellous nature," and for the faculty his soul possessed of quitting its body " as long and as often as it pleased." The ancient philosophers who have testified to this ability may be reckoned by dozens. Apollonius left his body at a moment's notice, but it must be remembered Apollonius was an adept--a "magician." Had he been simply a medium, he could not have performed such feats at will. Empedocles of Agrigentum, the Pythagorean thaumaturgist, required no conditions to arrest a waterspout which had broken over the city. Neither did he need any to recall a woman to life, as he did. Apollonius used no darkened room in which to perform his aethrobatic feats. Vanishing suddenly in the air before the eyes of Domitian and a whole crowd of witnesses (many thousands), he appeared an hour after in the grotto of Puteoli. But investigation would have shown that his physical body having become invisible by the concentration of akasa about it, he could walk off unperceived to some secure retreat in the neighborhood, and an hour after his astral form appear at Puteoli to his friends, and seem to be the man himself.

No more did Simon Magus wait to be entranced to fly off in the air before the apostles and crowds of witnesses. "It requires no conjuration and ceremonies; circle-making and incensing are mere nonsense and juggling," says Paracelsus. The human spirit "is so great a thing that no man can express it; as God Himself is eternal and unchangeable, so also

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is the mind of man. If we rightly understood its powers, nothing would be impossible to us on earth. The imagination is strengthened and developed through faith in our will. Faith must confirm the imagination, for faith establishes the will."

A singular account of the personal interview of an English ambassador in 1783, with a reincarnated Buddha--barely mentioned in volume i.--an infant of eighteen months old at that time, is given in the Asiatic Journal from the narrative of an eye-witness himself, Mr. Turner, the author of The Embassy to Thibet. The cautious phraseology of a skeptic dreading public ridicule ill conceals the amazement of the witness, who, at the same time, desires to give facts as truthfully as possible. The infant lama received the ambassador and his suite with a dignity and decorum so natural and unconstrained that they remained in a perfect maze of wonder. The behavior of this infant, says the author, was that of an old philosopher, grave and sedate and exceedingly courteous. He contrived to make the young pontiff understand the inconsolable grief into which the Governor-General of Galagata (Calcutta) the City of Palaces and the people of India were plunged when he died, and the general rapture when they found that he had resurrected in a young and fresh body again; at which compliment the young lama regarded him and his suite with looks of singular complacency, and courteously treated them to confectionery from a golden cup. "The ambassador continued to express the Governor-General's hope that the lama might long continue to illumine the world with his presence, and that the friendship which had heretofore subsisted between them might be yet more strongly cemented, for the benefit and advantage of the intelligent votaries of the lama . . . all which made the little creature look steadfastly at the speaker, and graciously bow and nod--and bow and nod--as if he understood and approved of every word that was uttered." *

As if he understood! If the infant behaved in the most natural and dignified way during the reception, and "when their cups were empty of tea became uneasy and throwing back his head and contracting the skin of his brow, continued making a noise till they were filled again," why could he not understand as well what was said to him?

Years ago, a small party of travellers were painfully journeying from Kashmir to Leh, a city of Ladahk (Central Thibet). Among our guides we had a Tartar Shaman, a very mysterious personage, who spoke Russian a little and English not at all, and yet who managed, nevertheless, to converse with us, and proved of great service. Having learned that some of our party were Russians, he had imagined that our protection

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was all-powerful, and might enable him to safely find his way back to his Siberian home, from which, for reasons unknown, some twenty years before, he had fled, as he told us, via Kiachta and the great Gobi Desert, to the land of the Tcha-gars. * With such an interested object in view, we believed ourselves safe under his guard. To explain the situation briefly: Our companions had formed the unwise plan of penetrating into Thibet under various disguises, none of them speaking the language, although one, a Mr. K----, had picked up some Kasan Tartar, and thought he did. As we mention this only incidentally, we may as well say at once that two of them, the brothers N----, were very politely brought back to the frontier before they had walked sixteen miles into the weird land of Eastern Bod; and Mr. K----, an ex-Lutheran minister, could not even attempt to leave his miserable village near Leh, as from the first days he found himself prostrated with fever, and had to return to Lahore via Kashmere. But one sight seen by him was as good as if he had witnessed the reincarnation of Buddha itself. Having heard of this "miracle" from some old Russian missionary in whom he thought he could have more faith than in Abbe Huc, it had been for years his desire to expose the "great heathen" jugglery, as he expressed it. K---- was a positivist, and rather prided himself on this anti-philosophical neologism. But his positivism was doomed to receive a death-blow.

About four days journey from Islamabad, at an insignificant mud village, whose only redeeming feature was its magnificent lake, we stopped for a few days' rest. Our companions had temporarily separated from us, and the village was to be our place of meeting. It was there that we were apprised by our Shaman that a large party of Lamaic "Saints," on pilgrimage to various shrines, had taken up their abode in an old cave-temple and established a temporary Vihara therein. He added that, as the "Three Honorable Ones" ** were said to travel along with them, the holy Bikshu (monks) were capable of producing the greatest miracles. Mr. K-----, fired with the prospect of exposing this humbug of the ages, proceeded at once to pay them a visit, and from that moment the most friendly relations were established between the two camps.

The Vihar was in a secluded and most romantic spot secured against all intrusion. Despite the effusive attentions, presents, and protestations of Mr. K----, the Chief, who was Pase-Budhu (an ascetic of great

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sanctity), declined to exhibit the phenomenon of the "incarnation" until a certain talisman in possession of the writer was exhibited. * Upon seeing this, however, preparations were at once made, and an infant of three or four months was procured from its mother, a poor woman of the neighborhood. An oath was first of all exacted of Mr. K----, that he would not divulge what he might see or hear, for the space of seven years. The talisman is a simple agate or carnelian known among the Thibetans and others as A-yu, and naturally possessed, or had been endowed with very mysterious properties. It has a triangle engraved upon it, within which are contained a few mystical words. **

Several days passed before everything was ready; nothing of a mysterious character occurring, meanwhile, except that, at the bidding of a Bikshu, ghastly faces were made to peep at us out of the glassy bosom of the lake, as we sat at the door of the Vihar, upon its bank. One of these was the countenance of Mr. K----'s sister, whom he had left well and happy at home, but who, as we subsequently learned, had died some

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time before he had set out on the present journey. The sight affected him at first, but he called his skepticism to his aid, and quieted himself with theories of cloud-shadows, reflections of tree-branches, etc., such as people of his kind fall back upon.

On the appointed afternoon, the baby being brought to the Vihara, was left in the vestibule or reception-room, as K---- could go no further into the temporary sanctuary. The child was then placed on a bit of carpet in the middle of the floor, and every one not belonging to the party being sent away, two "mendicants" were placed at the entrance to keep out intruders. Then all the lamas seated themselves on the floor, with their backs against the granite walls, so that each was separated from the child by a space, at least, of ten feet. The chief, having had a square piece of leather spread for him by the desservant, seated himself at the farthest corner. Alone, Mr. K---- placed himself close by the infant, and watched every movement with intense interest. The only condition exacted of us was that we should preserve a strict silence, and patiently await further developments. A bright sunlight streamed through the open door. Gradually the "Superior" fell into what seemed a state of profound meditation, while the others, after a sotto voce short invocation, became suddenly silent, and looked as if they had been completely petrified. It was oppressively still, and the crowing of the child was the only sound to be heard. After we had sat there a few moments, the movements of the infant's limbs suddenly ceased, and his body appeared to become rigid. K---- watched intently every motion, and both of us, by a rapid glance, became satisfied that all present were sitting motionless. The superior, with his gaze fixed upon the ground, did not even look at the infant; but, pale and motionless, he seemed rather like a bronze statue of a Talapoin in meditation than a living being. Suddenly, to our great consternation, we saw the child, not raise itself, but, as it were, violently jerked into a sitting posture! A few more jerks, and then, like an automaton set in motion by concealed wires, the four months' baby stood upon his feet! Fancy our consternation, and, in Mr. K----'s case, horror. Not a hand had been outstretched, not a motion made, nor a word spoken; and yet, here was a baby-in-arms standing erect and firm as a man!

The rest of the story we will quote from a copy of notes written on this subject by Mr. K----, the same evening, and given to us, in case it should not reach its place of destination, or the writer fail to see anything more.

"After a minute or two of hesitation," writes K----, "the baby turned his head and looked at me with an expression of intelligence that was simply awful! It sent a chill through me. I pinched my hands and

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bit my lips till the blood almost came, to make sure that I did not dream. But this was only the beginning. The miraculous creature, making, as I fancied, two steps toward me, resumed his sitting posture, and, without removing his eyes from mine, repeated, sentence by sentence, in what I supposed to be Thibetan language, the very words, which I had been told in advance, are commonly spoken at the incarnations of Buddha, beginning with 'I am Buddha; I am the old Lama; I am his spirit in a new body,' etc. I felt a real terror; my hair rose upon my head, and my blood ran cold. For my life I could not have spoken a word. There was no trickery here, no ventriloquism. The infant lips moved, and the eyes seemed to search my very soul with an expression that made me think it was the face of the Superior himself, his eyes, his very look that I was gazing upon. It was as if his spirit had entered the little body, and was looking at me through the transparent mask of the baby's face. I felt my brain growing dizzy. The infant reached toward me, and laid his little hand upon mine. I started as if I had been touched by a hot coal; and, unable to bear the scene any longer, covered my face with my hands. It was but for an instant; but when I removed them, the little actor had become a crowing baby again, and a moment after, lying upon his back, set up a fretful cry. The superior had resumed his normal condition, and conversation ensued.

"It was only after a series of similar experiments, extending over ten days, that I realized the fact that I had seen the incredible, astounding phenomenon described by certain travellers, but always by me denounced as an imposture. Among a multitude of questions unanswered, despite my cross-examination, the Superior let drop one piece of information, which must be regarded as highly significant. 'What would have happened,' I inquired, through the shaman, 'if, while the infant was speaking, in a moment of insane fright, at the thought of its being the "Devil," I had killed it?' He replied that, if the blow had not been instantly fatal, the child alone would have been killed.' 'But,' I continued, 'suppose that it had been as swift as a lightning-flash?' 'In such case,' was the answer, 'you would have killed me also.' "

In Japan and Siam there are two orders of priests, of which one are public, and deal with the people, the other strictly private. The latter are never seen; their existence is known but to very few natives, never to foreigners. Their powers are never displayed in public, nor ever at all except on rare occasions of the utmost importance, at which times the ceremonies are performed in subterranean or otherwise inaccessible temples, and in the presence of a chosen few whose heads answer for their secrecy. Among such occasions are deaths in the Royal family, or those of high dignitaries affiliated with the Order. One of the most

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weird and impressive exhibitions of the power of these magicians is that of the withdrawal of the astral soul from the cremated remains of human beings, a ceremony practiced likewise in some of the most important lamaseries of Thibet and Mongolia.

In Siam, Japan, and Great Tartary, it is the custom to make medallions, statuettes, and idols out of the ashes of cremated persons; * they are mixed with water into a paste, and after being moulded into the desired shape, are baked and then gilded. The Lamasery of Ou-Tay, in the province of Chan-Si, Mongolia, is the most famous for that work, and rich persons send the bones of their defunct relatives to be ground and fashioned there. When the adept in magic proposes to facilitate the withdrawal of the astral soul of the deceased, which otherwise they think might remain stupefied for an indefinite period within the ashes, the following process is resorted to: The sacred dust is placed in a heap, upon a metallic plate, strongly magnetized, of the size of a man's body. The adept then slowly and gently fans it with the Talapat Nang, ** a fan of a peculiar shape and inscribed with certain signs, muttering, at the same time, a form of invocation. The ashes soon become, as it were, imbued with life, and gently spread themselves out into a thin layer which assumes the outline of the body before cremation. Then there gradually arises a sort of whitish vapor which after a time forms into an erect column, and compacting itself, is finally transformed into the "double," or ethereal, astral counterpart of the dead, which in its turn dissolves away into thin air, and disappears from mortal sight. ***

The "Magicians" of Kashmir, Thibet, Mongolia, and Great Tartary are too well known to need comments. If jugglers they be, we invite the most expert jugglers of Europe and America to match them if they can.

If our scientists are unable to imitate the mummy-embalming of the Egyptians, how much greater would be their surprise to see, as we have, dead bodies preserved by alchemical art, so that after the lapse of centuries, they seem as though the individuals were but sleeping. The complexions were as fresh, the skin as elastic, the eyes as natural and sparkling as though they were in the full flush of health, and the wheels of life had been stopped but the instant before. The bodies of certain very eminent personages are laid upon catafalques, in rich mausoleums,

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sometimes overlaid with gilding or even with plates of real gold; their favorite arms, trinkets, and articles of daily use gathered about them, and a suite of attendants, blooming young boys and girls, but still corpses, preserved like their masters, stand as if ready to serve when called. In the convent of Great Kouren, and in one situated upon the Holy Mountain (Bohte Oula) there are said to be several such sepulchres, which have been respected by all the conquering hordes that have swept through those countries. Abbe Huc heard that such exist, but did not see one, strangers of all kinds being excluded, and missionaries and European travellers not furnished with the requisite protection, being the last of all persons who would be permitted to approach the sacred places. Huc's statement that the tombs of Tartar sovereigns are surrounded with children "who were compelled to swallow mercury until they were suffocated," by which means "the color and freshness of the victims is preserved so well that they appear alive," is one of these idle missionary fables which impose only upon the most ignorant who accept on hearsay. Buddhists have never immolated victims, whether human or animal. It is utterly against the principles of their religion, and no Lamaist was ever accused of it. When a rich man desired to be interred in company, messengers were sent throughout the country with the Lama-embalmers, and children just dead in the natural way were selected for the purpose. Poor parents were but too glad to preserve their departed children in this poetic way, instead of abandoning them to decay and wild beasts.

At the time when Abbe Huc was living in Paris, after his return from Thibet, he related, among other unpublished wonders, to a Mr. Arsenieff, a Russian gentleman, the following curious fact that he had witnessed during his long sojourn at the lamasery of Kounboum. One day while conversing with one of the lamas, the latter suddenly stopped speaking, and assumed the attentive attitude of one who is listening to a message being delivered to him, although he (Huc) heard never a word. "Then, I must go"; suddenly broke forth the lama, as if in response to the message.

"Go where?" inquired the astonished "lama of Jehovah" (Huc). "And with whom are you talking?"

"To the lamasery of **" was the quiet answer. "The Shaberon wants me; it was he who summoned me."

Now this lamasery was many days' journey from that of Kounboum, in which the conversation was taking place. But what seemed to astonish Huc the most was, that, instead of setting off on his journey, the lama simply walked to a sort of cupola-room on the roof of the house in which they lived, and another lama, after exchanging a few words, followed

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them to the terrace by means of the ladder, and passing between them, locked and barred his companion in. Then turning to Huc after a few seconds of meditation, he smiled and informed the guest that "he had gone."

"But how could he? Why you have locked him in, and the room has no issue?" insisted the missionary.

"And what good would a door be to him?" answered the custodian. "It is he himself who went away; his body is not needed, and so he left it in my charge."

Notwithstanding the wonders which Huc had witnessed during his perilous journey, his opinion was that both of the lamas had mystified him. But three days later, not having seen his habitual friend and entertainer, he inquired after him, and was informed that he would be back in the evening. At sunset, and just as the "other lamas" were preparing to retire, Huc heard his absent friend's voice calling as if from the clouds, to his companion to open the door for him. Looking upward, he perceived the "traveller's" outline behind the lattice of the room where he had been locked in. When he descended he went straight to the Grand Lama of Kounboum, and delivered to him certain messages and "orders," from the place which he "pretended" he had just left. Huc could get no more information from him as to his aerial voyage. But he always thought, he said, that this "farce" had something to do with the immediate and extraordinary preparations for the polite expulsion of both the missionaries, himself and Father Gabet, to Chogor-tan, a place belonging to the Kounboum. The suspicion of the daring missionary may have been correct, in view of his impudent inquisitiveness and indiscretion.

If the Abbe had been versed in Eastern philosophy, he would have found no great difficulty in comprehending both the flight of the lama's astral body to the distant lamasery while his physical frame remained behind, or the carrying on of a conversation with the Shaberon that was inaudible to himself. The recent experiments with the telephone in America, to which allusion was made in Chapter V. of our first volume, but which have been greatly perfected since those pages went to press, prove that the human voice and the sounds of instrumental music may be conveyed along a telegraphic wire to a great distance. The Hermetic philosophers taught, as we have seen, that the disappearance from sight of a flame does not imply its actual extinction. It has only passed from the visible to the invisible world, and may be perceived by the inner sense of vision, which is adapted to the things of that other and more real universe. The same rule applies to sound. As the physical ear discerns the vibrations of the atmosphere up to a certain point, not yet

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definitely fixed, but varying with the individual, so the adept whose interior hearing has been developed, can take the sound at this vanishing-point, and hear its vibrations in the astral light indefinitely. He needs no wires, helices, or sounding-boards; his will-power is all-sufficient. Hearing with the spirit, time and distance offer no impediments, and so he may converse with another adept at the antipodes with as great ease as though they were in the same room.

Fortunately, we can produce numerous witnesses to corroborate our statement, who, without being adepts at all, have, nevertheless, heard the sound of aerial music and of the human voice, when neither instrument nor speaker were within thousands of miles of the place where we sat. In their case they actually heard interiorly, though they supposed their physical organs of hearing alone were employed. The adept had, by a simple effort of will-power, given them for the brief moment the same perception of the spirit of sound as he himself constantly enjoys.

If our men of science could only be induced to test instead of deriding the ancient philosophy of the trinity of all the natural forces, they would go by leaps toward the dazzling truth, instead of creeping, snail-like, as at present. Prof. Tyndall's experiments off the South Foreland, at Dover, in 1875, fairly upset all previous theories of the transmission of sound, and those he has made with sensitive flames * bring him to the very threshold of arcane science. One step further, and he would comprehend how adepts can converse at great distances. But that step will not be taken. Of his sensitive--in truth, magical--flame, he says: "The slightest tap on a distant anvil causes it to fall to seven inches. When a bunch of keys is shaken, the flame is violently agitated, and emits a loud roar. The dropping of a sixpence into a hand already containing coin, knocks the flame down. The creaking of boots sets it in violent commotion. The crumpling or tearing of a bit of paper, or the rustle of a silk dress does the same. Responsive to every tick of a watch held near it, it falls and explodes. The winding up of a watch produces tumult. From a distance of thirty yards we may chirrup to this flame, and cause it to fall and roar. Repeating a passage from the Faerie Queene, the flame sifts and selects the manifold sounds of my voice, noticing some by a slight nod, others by a deeper bow, while to others it responds by violent agitation."

Such are the wonders of modern physical science; but at what cost of apparatus, and carbonic acid and coal gas; of American and Canadian whistles, trumpets, gongs, and bells! The poor heathen have none such impedimenta, but--will European science believe it--nevertheless,

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produce the very same phenomena. Upon one occasion, when, in a case of exceptional importance, an "oracle" was required, we saw the possibility of what we had previously vehemently denied--namely, a simple mendicant cause a sensitive flame to give responsive flashes without a particle of apparatus. A fire was kindled of branches of the Beal-tree, and some sacrificial herbs were sprinkled upon it. The mendicant sat near by, motionless, absorbed in contemplation. During the intervals between the questions the fire burned low and seemed ready to go out, but when the interrogatories were propounded, the flames leaped, roaring, skyward, flickered, bowed, and sent fiery tongues flaring toward the east, west, north, or south; each motion having its distinct meaning in a code of signals well understood. Between whiles it would sink to the ground, and the tongues of flame would lick the sod in every direction, and suddenly disappear, leaving only a bed of glowing embers. When the interview with the flame-spirits was at an end, the Bikshu (mendicant) turned toward the jungle where he abode, keeping up a wailing, monotonous chant, to the rhythm of which the sensitive flame kept time, not merely like Prof. Tyndall's, when he read the Faerie Queene, by simple motions, but by a marvellous modulation of hissing and roaring until he was out of sight. Then, as if its very life were extinguished, it vanished, and left a bed of ashes before the astonished spectators.

Both in Western and Eastern Thibet, as in every other place where Buddhism predominates, there are two distinct religions, the same as it is in Brahmanism--the secret philosophy and the popular religion. The former is that of the followers of the doctrine of the sect of the Sutrantika. * They closely adhere to the spirit of Buddha's original teachings which show the necessity of intuitional perception, and all deductions therefrom. These do not proclaim their views, nor allow them to be made public.

"All compounds are perishable," were the last words uttered by the lips of the dying Gautama, when preparing under the Sal-tree to enter into Nirvana. "Spirit is the sole, elementary, and primordial unity, and each of its rays is immortal, infinite, and indestructible. Beware of the illusions of matter." Buddhism was spread far and wide over Asia, and even farther, by Dharm-Asoka. He was the grandson of the miracle-worker Chandragupta, the illustrious king who rescued the Punjab from the Macedonians--if they ever were at Punjab at all--and received Megasthenes at his court in Pataliputra. Dharm-Asoka was the greatest King of the Maurya dynasty. From a reckless profligate and atheist,

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he had become Pryadasi, the "beloved of the gods," and never was the purity of his philanthropic views surpassed by any earthly ruler. His memory has lived for ages in the hearts of the Buddhists, and has been perpetuated in the humane edicts engraved in several popular dialects on the columns and rocks of Allahabad, Delhi, Guzerat, Peshawur, Orissa, and other places. * His famous grandfather had united all India under his powerful sceptre. When the Nagas, or serpent-worshippers of Kashmere had been converted through the efforts of the apostles sent out by the Sthaviras of the third councils, the religion of Gautama spread like wild-fire. Gandhara, Cabul, and even many of the Satrapies of Alexander the Great, accepted the new philosophy. The Buddhism of Nepal being the one which may be said to have diverged less than any other from the primeval ancient faith, the Lamaism of Tartary, Mongolia, and Thibet, which is a direct offshoot of this country, may be thus shown to be the purest Buddhism; for we say it again, Lamaism properly is but an external form of rites.

The Upasakas and Upasakis, or male and female semi-monastics and semi-laymen, have equally with the lama-monks themselves, to strictly abstain from violating any of Buddha's rules, and must study Meipo and every psychological phenomenon as much. Those who become guilty of any of the "five sins" lose all right to congregate with the pious community. The most important of these is not to curse upon any consideration, for the curse returns upon the one that utters it, and often upon his innocent relatives who breathe the same atmosphere with him. To love each other, and even our bitterest enemies; to offer our lives even for animals, to the extent of abstaining from defensive arms; to gain the greatest of victories by conquering one's self; to avoid all vices; to practice all virtues, especially humility and mildness; to be obedient to superiors, to cherish and respect parents, old age, learning, virtuous and holy men; to provide food, shelter, and comfort for men and animals; to plant trees on the roads and dig wells for the comfort of travellers; such are the moral duties of Buddhists. Every Ani or Bikshuni (nun) is subjected to these laws.

Numerous are the Buddhist and Lamaic saints who have been renowned for the unsurpassed sanctity of their lives and their "miracles." So Tissu, the Emperor's spiritual teacher, who consecrated Kublai-Khan, the Nadir Shah, was known far and wide as much for the extreme holiness of his life as for the many wonders he wrought. But

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he did not stop at fruitless miracles, but did better than that. Tissu purified completely his religion; and from one single province of Southern Mongolia is said to have forced Kublai to expel from convents 500,000 monkish impostors, who made a pretext of their profession, to live in vice and idleness. Then the Lamaists had their great reformer, the Shaberon Son-Ka-po, who is claimed to have been immaculately conceived by his mother, a virgin from Koko-nor (fourteenth century), who is another wonder-worker. The sacred tree of Kounboum, the tree of the 10,000 images, which, in consequence of the degeneration of the true faith had ceased budding for several centuries, now shot forth new sprouts and bloomed more vigorously than ever from the hair of this avatar of Buddha, says the legend. The same tradition makes him (Son-Ka-po) ascend to heaven in 1419. Contrary to the prevailing idea, few of these saints are Khubilhans, or Shaberons--reincarnations.

Many of the lamaseries contain schools of magic, but the most celebrated is the collegiate monastery of the Shu-tukt, where there are over 30,000 monks attached to it, the lamasery forming quite a little city. Some of the female nuns possess marvellous psychological powers. We have met some of these women on their way from Lha-Ssa to Candi, the Rome of Buddhism, with its miraculous shrines and Gautama's relics. To avoid encounters with Mussulmans and other sects they travel by night alone, unarmed, and without the least fear of wild animals, for these will not touch them. At the first glimpses of dawn, they take refuge in caves and viharas prepared for them by their co-religionists at calculated distances; for notwithstanding the fact that Buddhism has taken refuge in Ceylon, and nominally there are but few of the denomination in British India, yet the secret Byauds (Brotherhoods) and Buddhist viharas are numerous, and every Jain feels himself obliged to help, indiscriminately, Buddhist or Lamaist.

Ever on the lookout for occult phenomena, hungering after sights, one of the most interesting that we have seen was produced by one of these poor travelling Bikshu. It was years ago, and at a time when all such manifestations were new to the writer. We were taken to visit the pilgrims by a Buddhist friend, a mystical gentleman born at Kashmir, of Katchi parents, but a Buddha-Lamaist by conversion, and who generally resides at Lha-Ssa.

"Why carry about this bunch of dead plants?" inquired one of the Bikshuni, an emaciated, tall and elderly woman, pointing to a large nosegay of beautiful, fresh, and fragrant flowers in the writer's hands.

"Dead?" we asked, inquiringly. "Why they just have been gathered in the garden?"

"And yet, they are dead," she gravely answered. "To be born in

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this world, is this not death? See, how these herbs look when alive in the world of eternal light, in the gardens of our blessed Foh?"

Without moving from the place where she was sitting on the ground, the Ani took a flower from the bunch, laid it in her lap, and began to draw together, by large handfuls as it were, invisible material from the surrounding atmosphere. Presently a very, very faint nodule of vapor was seen, and this slowly took shape and color, until, poised in mid-air, appeared a copy of the bloom we had given her. Faithful to the last tint and the last petal it was, and lying on its side like the original, but a thousand-fold more gorgeous in hue and exquisite in beauty, as the glorified human spirit is more beauteous than its physical capsule. Flower after flower to the minutest herb was thus reproduced and made to vanish, reappearing at our desire, nay, at our simple thought. Having selected a full-blown rose we held it at arm's length, and in a few minutes our arm, hand, and the flower, perfect in every detail, appeared reflected in the vacant space, about two yards from where we sat. But while the flower seemed immeasurably beautified and as ethereal as the other spirit flowers, the arm and hand appeared like a mere reflection in a looking-glass, even to a large spot on the fore arm, left on it by a piece of damp earth which had stuck to one of the roots. Later we learned the reason why.

A great truth was uttered some fifty years ago by Dr. Francis Victor Broussais, when he said: "If magnetism were true, medicine would be an absurdity." Magnetism is true, and so we shall not contradict the learned Frenchman as to the rest. Magnetism, as we have shown, is the alphabet of magic. It is idle for any one to attempt to understand either the theory or the practice of the latter until the fundamental principle of magnetic attractions and repulsions throughout nature is recognized.

Many so-called popular superstitions are but evidences of an instinctive perception of this law. An untutored people are taught by the experience of many generations that certain phenomena occur under fixed conditions; they give these conditions and obtain the expected results. Ignorant of the laws, they explain the fact by supernaturalism, for experience has been their sole teacher.

In India, as well as in Russia and some other countries, there is an instinctive repugnance to stepping across a man's shadow, especially if he have red hair; and in the former country, natives are extremely reluctant to shake hands with persons of another race. These are not idle fancies. Every person emits a magnetic exhalation or aura, and a man may be in perfect physical health, but at the same time his exhalation may have a morbific character for others, sensitive to such subtile influences. Dr. Esdaile and other mesmerists long since taught us that Oriental people,

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especially Hindus, are more susceptible than the white-skinned races. Baron Reichenbach's experiments--and, in fact, the world's entire experience--prove that these magnetic exhalations are most intense from the extremities. Therapeutic manipulations show this; hand-shaking is, therefore, most calculated to communicate antipathetic magnetic conditions, and the Hindus do wisely in keeping their ancient "superstition"--derived from Manu--constantly in mind.

The magnetism of a red-haired man, we have found, in almost every nation, is instinctively dreaded. We might quote proverbs from the Russian, Persian, Georgian, Hindustani, French, Turkish, and even German, to show that treachery and other vices are popularly supposed to accompany the rufous complexion. When a man stands exposed to the sun, the magnetism of that luminary causes his emanations to be projected toward the shadow, and the increased molecular action develops more electricity. Hence, an individual to whom he is antipathetic--though neither might be sensible of the fact--would act prudently in not passing through the shadow. Careful physicians wash their hands upon leaving each patient; why, then, should they not be charged with superstition, as well as the Hindus? The sporules of disease are invisible, but no less real, as European experience demonstrates. Well, *Oriental experience for a hundred centuries has shown that the germs of moral contagion linger about localities, and impure magnetism can be communicated by the touch.

*

Another prevalent belief in some parts of Russia, particularly Georgia (Caucasus), and in India, is that in case the body of a drowned person cannot be otherwise found, if a garment of his be thrown into the water it will float until directly over the spot, and then sink. We have even seen the experiment successfully tried with the sacred cord of a Brahman. It floated hither and thither, circling about as though in search of something, until suddenly darting in a straight line for about fifty yards, it sank, and at that exact spot the divers brought up the body. We find this "superstition" even in America. A Pittsburg paper, of very recent date, describes the finding of the body of a young boy, named Reed, in the Monongahela, by a like method. All other means having failed, it says, "a curious superstition was employed. One of the boy's shirts was thrown into the river where he had gone down, and, it is said, floated on the surface for a time, and finally settled to the bottom at a certain place, which proved to be the resting-place of the body, and which was then drawn out. The belief that the shirt of a drowned person when thrown into the water will follow the body is well-spread, absurd as it appears."

This phenomenon is explained by the law of the powerful attraction existing between the human body and objects that have been long worn

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upon it. The oldest garment is most effective for the experiment; a new one is useless.

From time immemorial, in Russia, in the month of May, on Trinity Day, maidens from city and village have been in the habit of casting upon the river wreaths of green leaves--which each girl has to form for herself--and consulting their oracles. If the wreath sinks, it is a sign that the girl will die unmarried within a short time; if it floats, she will be married, the time depending upon the number of verses she can repeat during the experiment. We positively affirm that we have personal knowledge of several cases, two of them our intimate friends, where the augury of death proved true, and the girls died within twelve months. Tried on any other day than Trinity, the result would doubtless be the same. The sinking of the wreath is attributable to its being impregnated with the unhealthy magnetism of a system which contains the germs of early death; such magnetisms having an attraction for the earth at the bottom of the stream. As for the rest, we are willing to abandon it to the friends of coincidence.

The same general remark as to superstition having a scientific basis applies to the phenomena produced by fakirs and jugglers, which skeptics heap into the common category of trickery. And yet, to a close observer, even to the uninitiated, an enormous difference is presented between the kimiya (phenomenon) of a fakir, and the batte-bazi (jugglery) of a trickster, and the necromancy of a jadugar, or sahir, so dreaded and despised by the natives. This difference, imperceptible--nay incomprehensible--to the skeptical European, is instinctively appreciated by every Hindu, whether of high or low caste, educated or ignorant. The kangalin, or witch, who uses her terrible abhi-char (mesmeric powers) with intent to injure, may expect death at any moment, for every Hindu finds it lawful to kill her; a bukka-baz, or juggler, serves to amuse. A serpent-charmer, with his ba-ini full of venomous snakes, is less dreaded, for his powers of fascination extend but to animals and reptiles; he is unable to charm human beings, to perform that which is called by the natives mantar phunkna, to throw spells on men by magic. But with the yogi, the sannyasi, the holy men who acquire enormous psychological powers by mental and physical training, the question is totally different. Some of these men are regarded by the Hindus as demi-gods. Europeans cannot judge of these powers but in rare and exceptional cases.

The British resident who has encountered in the maidans and public places what he regards as frightful and loathsome human beings, sitting motionless in the self-inflicted torture of the urddwa bahu, with arms raised above the head for months, and even years, need not suppose they are the wonder-working fakirs. The phenomenon of the latter are visible only through the friendly protection of a Brahman, or under peculiarly

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fortuitous circumstances. Such men are as little accessible as the real Nautch girls, of whom every traveller talks, but very few have actually seen, since they belong exclusively to the pagodas.

It is surpassingly strange, that with the thousands of travellers and the millions of European residents who have been in India, and have traversed it in every direction, so little is yet known of that country and the lands which surround it. It may be that some readers will feel inclined not merely to doubt the correctness but even openly contradict our statement? Doubtless, we will be answered that all that it is desirable to know about India is already known? In fact this very reply was once made to us personally. That resident Anglo-Indians should not busy themselves with inquiries is not strange; for, as a British officer remarked to us upon one occasion, "society does not consider it well-bred to care about Hindus or their affairs, or even show astonishment or desire information upon anything they may see extraordinary in that country." But it really surprises us that at least travellers should not have explored more than they have this interesting realm. Hardly fifty years ago, in penetrating the jungles of the Blue or Neilgherry Hills in Southern Hindustan, a strange race, perfectly distinct in appearance and language from any other Hindu people, was discovered by two courageous British officers who were tiger-hunting. Many surmises, more or less absurd, were set on foot, and the missionaries, always on the watch to connect every mortal thing with the Bible, even went so far as to suggest that this people was one of the lost tribes of Israel, supporting their ridiculous hypothesis upon their very fair complexions and "strongly-marked Jewish features." The latter is perfectly erroneous, the Todas, as they are called, not bearing the remotest likeness to the Jewish type; either in feature, form, action, or language. They closely resemble each other, and, as a friend of ours expresses himself, the handsomest of the Todas resemble the statue of the Grecian Zeus in majesty and beauty of form more than anything he had yet seen among men.

Fifty years have passed since the discovery; but though since that time towns have been built on these hills and the country has been invaded by Europeans, no more has been learned of the Todas than at the first. Among the foolish rumors current about this people, the most erroneous are those in relation to their numbers and to their practicing polyandry. The general opinion about them is that on account of the latter custom their number has dwindled to a few hundred families, and the race is fast dying out. We had the best means of learning much about them, and therefore state most positively that the Todas neither practice polyandry nor are they as few in number as supposed. We are

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ready to show that no one has ever seen children belonging to them. Those that may have been seen in their company have belonged to the Badagas, a Hindu tribe totally distinct from the Todas, in race, color, and language, and which includes the most direct "worshippers" of this extraordinary people. We say worshippers, for the Badagas clothe, feed, serve, and positively look upon every Toda as a divinity. They are giants in stature, white as Europeans, with tremendously long and generally brown, wavy hair and beard, which no razor ever touched from birth. Handsome as a statue of Pheidias or Praxiteles, the Toda sits the whole day inactive, as some travellers who have had a glance at them affirm. From the many conflicting opinions and statements we have heard from the very residents of Ootakamund and other little new places of civilization scattered about the Neilgherry Hills, we cull the following:

"They never use water; they are wonderfully handsome and noble looking, but extremely unclean; unlike all other natives they despise jewelry, and never wear anything but a large black drapery or blanket of some woollen stuff, with a colored stripe at the bottom; they never drink anything but pure milk; they have herds of cattle but neither eat their flesh, nor do they make their beasts of labor plough or work; they neither sell nor buy; the Badagas feed and clothe them; they never use nor carry weapons, not even a simple stick; the Todas can't read and won't learn. They are the despair of the missionaries and apparently have no sort of religion, beyond the worship of themselves as the Lords of Creation." *

We will try to correct a few of these opinions, as far as we have learned from a very holy personage, a Brahmanam-guru, who has our great respect.

Nobody has ever seen more than five or six of them at one time; they will not talk with foreigners, nor was any traveller ever inside their peculiar long and flat huts, which apparently are without either windows or chimney and have but one door; nobody ever saw the funeral of a Toda, nor very old men among them; nor are they taken sick with cholera, while thousands die around them during such periodical epidemics; finally, though the country all around swarms with tigers and other wild beasts, neither tiger, serpent, nor any other animal so ferocious in those parts, was ever known to touch either a Toda or one of their cattle, though, as said above, they never use even a stick.

Furthermore the Todas do not marry at all. They seem few in number, for no one has or ever will have a chance of numbering them; as soon as their solitude was profaned by the avalanche of civilization--

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which was, perchance, due to their own carelessness--the Todas began moving away to other parts as unknown and more inaccessible than the Neilgherry hills had formerly been; they are not born of Toda mothers, nor of Toda parentage; they are the children of a certain very select sect, and are set apart from their infancy for special religious purposes. Recognized by a peculiarity of complexion, and certain other signs, such a child is known as what is vulgarly termed a Toda, from birth. Every third year, each of them must repair to a certain place for a certain period of time, where each of them must meet; their "dirt" is but a mask, such as a sannyasi puts on in public in obedience to his vow; their cattle are, for the most part, devoted to sacred uses; and, though their places of worship have never been trodden by a profane foot, they nevertheless exist, and perhaps rival the most splendid pagodas--goparams--known to Europeans. The Badagas are their special vassals, and--as has been truly remarked--worship them as half-deities; for their birth and mysterious powers entitle them to such a distinction.

The reader may rest assured that any statements concerning them, that clash with the little that is above given, are false. No missionary will ever catch one with his bait, nor any Badaga betray them, though he were cut to pieces. They are a people who fulfill a certain high purpose, and whose secrets are inviolable.

Furthermore, the Todas are not the only such mysterious tribe in India. We have named several in a preceding chapter, but how many are there besides these, that will remain unnamed, unrecognized, and yet ever present!

What is now generally known of Shamanism is very little; and that has been perverted, like the rest of the non-Christian religions. It is called the "heathenism" of Mongolia, and wholly without reason, for it is one of the oldest religions of India. It is spirit-worship, or belief in the immortality of the souls, and that the latter are still the same men they were on earth, though their bodies have lost their objective form, and man has exchanged his physical for a spiritual nature. In its present shape, it is an offshoot of primitive theurgy, and a practical blending of the visible with the invisible world. Whenever a denizen of earth desires to enter into communication with his invisible brethren, he has to assimilate himself to their nature, i.e., he meets these beings half-way, and, furnished by them with a supply of spiritual essence, endows them, in his turn, with a portion of his physical nature, thus enabling them sometimes to appear in a semi-objective form. It is a temporary exchange of natures, called theurgy. Shamans are called sorcerers, because they are said to evoke the "spirits" of the dead for purposes of necromancy. The true Shamanism--striking features of which prevailed in India in the days

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of Megasthenes (300 B.C.)--can no more be judged by its degenerated scions among the Shamans of Siberia, than the religion of Gautama-Buddha can be interpreted by the fetishism of some of his followers in Siam and Burmah. It is in the chief lamaseries of Mongolia and Thibet that it has taken refuge; and there Shamanism, if so we must call it, is practiced to the utmost limits of intercourse allowed between man and "spirit." The religion of the lamas has faithfully preserved the primitive science of magic, and produces as great feats now as it did in the days of Kublai-Khan and his barons. The ancient mystic formula of the King Srong-ch-Tsans-Gampo, the "Aum mani padme houm," * effects its wonders now as well as in the seventh century. Avalokitesvara, highest of the three Boddhisattvas, and patron saint of Thibet, projects his shadow, full in the view of the faithful, at the lamasery of Dga-G'Dan, founded by him; and the luminous form of Son-Ka-pa, under the shape of a fiery cloudlet, that separates itself from the dancing beams of the sunlight, holds converse with a great congregation of lamas, numbering thousands; the voice descending from above, like the whisper of the breeze through foliage. Anon, say the Thibetans, the beautiful appearance vanishes in the shadows of the sacred trees in the park of the lamasery.

At Garma-Khian (the mother-cloister) it is rumored that bad and unprogressed spirits are made to appear on certain days, and forced to give an account of their evil deeds; they are compelled by the lamaic adepts to redress the wrongs done by them to mortals. This is what Huc naively terms "personating evil spirits," i.e., devils. Were the skeptics of various European countries permitted to consult the accounts printed daily ** at Moru, and in the "City of Spirits," of the business-like intercourse which takes place between the lamas and the invisible world, they would certainly feel more interest in the phenomena described so triumphantly in the spiritualistic journals. At Buddha-Ila, or rather Foht-lla (Buddha's Mount), in the most important of the many thousand lamaseries of that country, the sceptre of the Boddhisgat is seen floating, unsupported, in the air, and its motions regulate the actions of the community. Whenever a lama is called to account in the presence of the Superior of

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the monastery, he knows beforehand it is useless for him to tell an untruth; the "regulator of justice" (the sceptre) is there, and its waving motion, either approbatory or otherwise, decides instantaneously and unerringly the question of his guilt. We do not pretend to have witnessed all this personally--we wish to make no pretensions of any kind. Suffice it, with respect to any of these phenomena, that what we have not seen with our own eyes has been so substantiated to us that we indorse its genuineness.

A number of lamas in Sikkin produce meipo--"miracle"--by magical powers. The late Patriarch of Mongolia, Gegen Chutuktu, who resided at Urga, a veritable paradise, was the sixteenth incarnation of Gautama, therefore a Boddhisattva. He had the reputation of possessing powers that were phenomenal, even among the thaumaturgists of the land of miracles par excellence. Let no one suppose that these powers are developed without cost. The lives of most of these holy men, miscalled idle vagrants, cheating beggars, who are supposed to pass their existence in preying upon the easy credulity of their victims, are miracles in themselves. Miracles, because they show what a determined will and perfect purity of life and purpose are able to accomplish, and to what degree of preternatural ascetism a human body can be subjected and yet live and reach a ripe old age. No Christian hermit has ever dreamed of such refinement of monastic discipline; and the aerial habitation of a Simon Stylite would appear child's play before the fakir's and the Buddhist's inventions of will-tests. But the theoretical study of magic is one thing; the possibility of practicing it quite another. At Bras-ss-Pungs, the Mongolian college where over three hundred magicians (sorciers, as the French missionaries call them) teach about twice as many pupils from twelve to twenty, the latter have many years to wait for their final initiation. Not one in a hundred reaches the highest goal; and out of the many thousand lamas occupying nearly an entire city of detached buildings clustering around it, not more than two per cent. become wonder-workers. One may learn by heart every line of the 108 volumes of Kadjur, * and still make but a poor practical magician. There is but one thing which leads surely to it, and this particular study is hinted at by more than one Hermetic writer. One, the Arabian alchemist Abipili, speaks thus: "I admonish thee, whosoever thou art that desirest to dive into the inmost parts of nature; if that thou seekest thou findest not within thee, thou wilt never find it without thee. If thou knowest not the excellency of thine own house, why dost thou seek after the ex-

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cellency of other things? . . . O MAN, KNOW THYSELF! IN THEE IS HID THE TREASURE OF TREASURES."

In another alchemic tract, De manna Benedicto, the author expresses his ideas of the philosopher's stone, in the following terms: "My intent is for certain reasons not to prate too much of the matter, which yet is but one only thing, already too plainly described; for it shows and sets down such magical and natural uses of it [the stone] as many that have had it never knew nor heard of; and such as, when I beheld them, made my knees to tremble and my heart to shake, and I to stand amazed at the sight of them!"

Every neophyte has experienced more or less such a feeling; but once that it is overcome, the man is an ADEPT.

Within the cloisters of Dshashi-Lumbo and Si-Dzang, these powers, inherent in every man, called out by so few, are cultivated to their utmost perfection. Who, in India, has not heard of the Banda-Chan Ramboutchi, the Houtouktou of the capital of Higher Thibet? His brotherhood of Khe-lan was famous throughout the land; and one of the most famous "brothers" was a Peh-ling (an Englishman) who had arrived one day during the early part of this century, from the West, a thorough Buddhist, and after a month's preparation was admitted among the Khe-lans. He spoke every language, including the Thibetan, and knew every art and science, says the tradition. His sanctity and the phenomena produced by him caused him to be proclaimed a shaberon after a residence of but a few years. His memory lives to the present day among the Thibetans, but his real name is a secret with the shaberons alone.

The greatest of the meipo--said to be the object of the ambition of every Buddhist devotee--was, and yet is, the faculty of walking in the air. The famous King of Siam, Pia Metak, the Chinese, was noted for his devotion and learning. But he attained this "supernatural gift" only after having placed himself under the direct tuition of a priest of Gautama-Buddha. Crawfurd and Finlayson, during their residence at Siam, followed with great interest the endeavors of some Siamese nobles to acquire this faculty. *

Numerous and varied are the sects in China, Siam, Tartary, Thibet, Kashmir, and British India, which devote their lives to the cultivation of "supernatural powers," so called. Discussing one of such sects, the Taosse, Semedo says: "They pretend that by means of certain exercises and meditations one shall regain his youth, and others will attain to be Shien-sien, i.e., 'Terrestrial Beati,' in whose state every desire is gratified, whilst they have the power to transport themselves from one place to

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another, however distant, with speed and facility." * This faculty relates but to the projection of the astral entity, in a more or less corporealized form, and certainly not to bodily transportation. This phenomenon is no more a miracle than one's reflection in a looking-glass. No one can detect in such an image a particle of matter, and still there stands our double, faithfully representing, even to each single hair on our heads. If, by this simple law of reflection, our double can be seen in a mirror, how much more striking a proof of its existence is afforded in the art of photography! It is no reason, because our physicists have not yet found the means of taking photographs, except at a short distance, that the acquirement should be impossible to those who have found these means in the power of the human will itself, freed from terrestrial concern. ** Our thoughts are matter, says science; every energy produces more or less of a disturbance in the atmospheric waves. Therefore, as every man--in common with every other living, and even inert object--has an aura of his own emanations surrounding him; and, moreover, is enabled, by a trifling effort, to transport himself in imagination wherever he likes, why is it scientifically impossible that his thought, regulated, intensified, and guided by that powerful magician, the educated WILL, may become corporealized for the time being, and appear to whom it likes, a faithful double of the original? Is the proposition, in the present state of science, any more unthinkable than the photograph or telegraph were less than forty years ago, or the telephone less than fourteen months ago?

If the sensitized plate can so accurately seize upon the shadow of our faces, then this shadow or reflection, although we are unable to perceive it, must be something substantial. And, if we can, with the help of

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optical instruments, project our semblances upon a white wall, at several hundred feet distance, sometimes, then there is no reason why the adepts, the alchemists, the savants of the secret art, should not have already found out that which scientists deny to-day, but may discover true tomorrow, i.e., how to project electrically their astral bodies, in an instant, through thousands of miles of space, leaving their material shells with a certain amount of animal vital principle to keep the physical life going, and acting within their spiritual, ethereal bodies as safely and intelligently as when clothed with the covering of flesh? There is a higher form of electricity than the physical one known to experimenters; a thousand correlations of the latter are as yet veiled to the eye of the modern physicist, and none can tell where end its possibilities.

Schott explains that by Sian or Shin-Sian are understood in the old Chinese conception, and particularly in that of the Tao-Kiao (Taosse) sect, "persons who withdraw to the hills to lead the life of anchorites, and who have attained, either through their ascetic observances or by the power of charms and elixirs, to the possession of miraculous gifts and of terrestrial immortality." * (?) This is exaggerated if not altogether erroneous. What they claim, is merely their ability to prolong human life; and they can do so, if we have to believe human testimony. What Marco Polo testifies to in the thirteenth century is corroborated in our own days. "There are another class of people called Chughi" (Yogi), he says, "who are indeed properly called Abraiamans (Brahmans?) who are extremely long-lived, every man of them living to 150 or 200 years. They eat very little, rice and milk chiefly. And these people make use of a very strange beverage, a potion of sulphur and quicksilver mixed together, and this they drink twice every month. . . . This, they say, gives them long life; and it is a potion they are used to take from their childhood." ** Bernier shows, says Colonel Yule, the Yogis very skilful in preparing mercury "so admirably that one or two grains taken every morning restored the body to perfect health"; and adds that the mercurius vitae of Paracelsus was a compound in which entered antimony and quicksilver. *** This is a very careless statement, to say the least, and we will explain what we know of it.

The longevity of some lamas and Talapoins is proverbial; and it is generally known that they use some compound which "renews the old blood," as they call it. And it was equally a recognized fact with alchemists that a judicious administration, "of aura of silver does restore

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health and prolongs life itself to a wonderful extent." But we are fully prepared to oppose the statements of both Bernier and Col. Yule who quotes him, that it is mercury or quicksilver which the Yogis and the alchemists used. The Yogis, in the days of Marco Polo, as well as in our modern times, do use that which may appear to be quicksilver, but is not. Paracelsus, the alchemists, and other mystics, meant by mercurius vitae, the living spirit of silver, the aura of silver, not the argent vive; and this aura is certainly not the mercury known to our physicians and druggists. There can be no doubt that the imputation that Paracelsus introduced mercury into medical practice is utterly incorrect. No mercury, whether prepared by a mediaeval fire-philosopher or a modern self-styled physician, can or ever did restore the body to perfect health. Only an unmitigated charlatan ever will use such a drug. And it is the opinion of many that it is just with the wicked intention of presenting Paracelsus in the eyes of posterity as a quack, that his enemies have invented such a preposterous lie.

The Yogis of the olden times, as well as modern lamas and Talapoins, use a certain ingredient with a minimum of sulphur, and a milky juice which they extract from a medicinal plant. They must certainly be possessed of some wonderful secrets, as we have seen them healing the most rebellious wounds in a few days; restoring broken bones to good use in as many hours as it would take days to do by means of common surgery. A fearful fever contracted by the writer near Rangoon, after a flood of the Irrawaddy River, was cured in a few hours by the juice of a plant called, if we mistake not, Kukushan, though there may be thousands of natives ignorant of its virtues who are left to die of fever. This was in return for a trifling kindness we had done to a simple mendicant; a service which can interest the reader but little.

We have heard of a certain water, also, called ab-i-hayat, which the popular superstition thinks hidden from every mortal eye, except that of the holy sannyasi; the fountain itself being known as the ab-i-haiwan-i. It is more than probable though, that the Talapoins will decline to deliver up their secrets, even to academicians and missionaries; as these remedies must be used for the benefit of humanity, never for money. *

**

**

At the great festivals of Hindu pagodas, at the marriage feasts of rich high-castes, everywhere where large crowds are gathered, Europeans find guni--or serpent-charmers, fakirs-mesmerizers, thaum-working sannyasi, and so-called "jugglers." To deride is easy--to explain, rather more troublesome--to science impossible. The British residents of India and the travellers prefer the first expedient. But let any one ask one of these Thomases how the following results--which they cannot and do not deny--are produced? When crowds of guni and fakirs appear with their bodies encircled with cobras-de-capello, their arms ornamented with bracelets of corallilos--diminutive snakes inflicting certain death in a few seconds--and their shoulders with necklaces of trigonocephali, the most terrible enemy of naked Hindu feet, whose bite kills like a flash of lightning, the sceptic witness smiles and gravely proceeds to explain how these reptiles, having been thrown in cataleptic torpor, were all deprived by the guni of their fangs. "They are harmless and it is ridiculous to fear them." "Will the Saeb caress one of my nag?" asked once a guni approaching our interlocutor, who had been thus humbling his listeners with his herpetological achievements for a full half hour. Rapidly jumping back--the brave warrior's feet proving no less nimble than his tongue--Captain B----'s angry answer could hardly be immortalized by us in print. Only the guni's terrible body-guard saved him from an unceremonious thrashing. Besides, say a word, and for a half-roupee any professional serpent-charmer will begin creeping about and summon around in a few moments numbers of untamed serpents of the most poisonous species, and will handle them and encircle his body with them. On two occasions in the neighborhood of Trinkemal a serpent was ready to strike at the writer, who had once nearly sat on its tail, but both times, at a rapid whistle of the guni whom we had hired to accompany us, it stopped--hardly a few inches from our body, as if arrested by lightning and slowly sinking its menacing head to the ground, remained stiff and motionless as a dead branch, under the charm of the kilna. *

Will any European juggler, tamer, or even mesmerizer, risk repeating just once an experiment that may be daily witnessed in India, if you know where to go to see it? There is nothing in the world more ferocious than a royal Bengal tiger. Once the whole population of a small village, not far from Dakka, situated on the confines of a jungle, was

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thrown into a panic at the appearance of an enormous tigress, at the dawn of the day. These wild beasts never leave their dens but at night, when they go searching for prey and for water. But this unusual circumstance was due to the fact that the beast was a mother, and she had been deprived of her two cubs, which had been carried away by a daring hunter, and she was in search of them. Two men and a child had already become her victims, when an aged fakir, bent on his daily round, emerging from the gate of the pagoda, saw the situation and understood it at a glance. Chanting a mantram he went straight to the beast, which with flaming eye and foaming mouth crouched near a tree ready for a new victim. When at about ten feet from the tigress, without interrupting his modulated prayer, the words of which no layman comprehends, he began a regular process of mesmerization, as we understood it; he made passes. A terrific howl which struck a chill into the heart of every human being in the place, was then heard. This long, ferocious, drawling howl gradually subsided into a series of plaintive broken sobs, as if the bereaved mother was uttering her complaints, and then, to the terror of the crowd which had taken refuge on trees and in the houses, the beast made a tremendous leap--on the holy man as they thought. They were mistaken, she was at his feet, rolling in the dust, and writhing. A few moments more and she remained motionless, with her enormous head laid on her fore-paws, and her bloodshot but now mild eye riveted on the face of the fakir. Then the holy man of prayers sat beside the tigress and tenderly smoothed her striped skin, and patted her back, until her groans became fainter and fainter, and half an hour later all the village was standing around this group; the fakir's head lying on the tigress's back as on a pillow, his right hand on her head, and his left thrown on the sod under the terrible mouth, from which the long red protruding tongue was gently licking it.

This is the way the fakirs tame the wildest beasts in India. Can European tamers, with their white-hot iron rods, do as much? Of course every fakir is not endowed with such a power; comparatively very few are. And yet the actual number is large. How they are trained to these requirements in the pagodas will remain an eternal secret, to all except the Brahmans and the adepts in occult mysteries. The stories, hitherto considered fables, of Christna and Orpheus charming the wild beasts, thus receives its corroboration in our day. There is one fact which remains undeniable. There is not a single European in India who could have, or has ever boasted of having, penetrated into the enclosed sanctuary within the pagodas. Neither authority nor money has ever induced a Brahman to allow an uninitiated foreigner to pass the threshold of the reserved precinct. To use authority in such a case would be equivalent

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to throwing a lighted taper into a powder magazine. The Hindus, mild, patient, long-suffering, whose very apathy saved the British from being driven out of the country in 1857, would raise their hundred millions of devotees as one man, at such a profanation; regardless of sects or castes, they would exterminate every Christian. The East India Company knew this well and built her stronghold on the friendship of the Brahmans, and by paying subsidy to the pagodas; and the British Government is as prudent as its predecessor. It is the castes, and non-interference with the prevailing religions, that secure its comparative authority in India. But we must once more recur to Shamanism, that strange and most despised of all surviving religions--"Spirit-worship."

Its followers have neither altars nor idols, and it is upon the authority of a Shaman priest that we state that their true rites, which they are bound to perform only once a year, on the shortest day of winter, cannot take place before any stranger to their faith. Therefore, we are confident that all descriptions hitherto given in the Asiatic Journal and other European works, are but guess-work. The Russians, who, from constant intercourse with the Shamans in Siberia and Tartary, would be the most competent of all persons to judge of their religion, have learned nothing except of the personal proficiency of these men in what they are half inclined to believe clever jugglery. Many Russian residents, though, in Siberia, are firmly convinced of the "supernatural" powers of the Shamans. Whenever they assemble to worship, it is always in an open space, or a high hill, or in the hidden depths of a forest--in this reminding us of the old Druidical rites. Their ceremonies upon the occasions of births, deaths, and marriages are but trifling parts of their worship. They comprise offerings, the sprinkling of the fire with spirits and milk, and weird hymns, or rather, magical incantations, intoned by the officiating Shaman, and concluding with a chorus of the persons present.

The numerous small bells of brass and iron worn by them on the priestly robe of deerskin, * or the pelt of some other animal reputed magnetic, are used to drive away the malevolent spirits of the air, a superstition 

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shared by all the nations of old, including Romans, and even the Jews, whose golden bells tell the story. They have iron staves also covered with bells, for the same reason. When, after certain ceremonies, the desired crisis is reached, and "the spirit has spoken," and the priest (who may be either male or female) feels its overpowering influence, the hand of the Shaman is drawn by some occult power toward the top of the staff, which is commonly covered with hieroglyphics. With his palm pressing upon it, he is then raised to a considerable height in the air, where he remains for some time. Sometimes he leaps to an extraordinary height, and, according to the control--for he is often but an irresponsible medium--pours out prophecies and describes future events. Thus, it was that, in 1847, a Shaman in a distant part of Siberia prophesied and accurately detailed the issue of the Crimean war. The particulars of the prognostication being carefully noted by those present at the time, were all verified six years after this occurrence. Although usually ignorant of even the name of astronomy, let alone having studied this science, they often prophesy eclipses and other astronomical phenomena. When consulted about thefts and murders, they invariably point out the guilty parties.

The Shamans of Siberia are all ignorant and illiterate. Those of Tartary and Thibet--few in number--are mostly learned men in their own way, and will not allow themselves to fall under the control of spirits of any kind. The former are mediums in the full sense of the word; the latter, "magicians." It is not surprising that pious and superstitious persons, after seeing one of such crises, should declare the Shaman to be under demoniacal possession. As in the instances of Corybantic and Bacchantic fury among the ancient Greeks, the "spiritual" crisis of the Shaman exhibits itself in violent dancing and wild gestures. Little by little the lookers-on feel the spirit of imitation aroused in them; seized with an irresistible impulse, they dance, and become, in their turn, ecstatics; and he who begins by joining the chorus, gradually and unconsciously takes part in the gesticulations, until he sinks to the ground exhausted, and often dying.

"O, young girl, a god possesses thee! it is either Pan, or Hekate, or, the venerable Corybantes, or Cybele that agitates thee!" the chorus says, addressing Phaedra, in Euripides. This form of psychological epidemic has been too well known from the time of the middle ages to cite instances from it. The Choroea sancti Viti is an historical fact, and spread throughout Germany. Paracelsus cured quite a number of persons possessed of such a spirit of imitation. But he was a kabalist, and therefore accused, by his enemies, of having cast out the devils by the power of a stronger demon, which he was believed to carry about with

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him in the hilt of his sword. The Christian judges of those days of horror found a better and a surer remedy. Voltaire states that, in the district of Jura, between 1598 and 1600, over 600 Lycanthropes were put to death by a pious judge.

But, while the illiterate Shaman is a victim, and during his crisis sometimes sees the persons present, under the shape of various animals, and often makes them share his hallucination, his brother Shaman, learned in the mysteries of the priestly colleges of Thibet, expels the elementary creature, which can produce the hallucination as well as a living mesmerizer, not through the help of a stronger demon, but simply through his knowledge of the nature of the invisible enemy. Where academicians have failed, as in the cases of the Cevennois, a Shaman or a lama would have soon put an end to the epidemic.

We have mentioned a kind of carnelian stone in our possession, which had such an unexpected and favorable effect upon the Shaman's decision. Every Shaman has such a talisman, which he wears attached to a string, and carries under his left arm.

"Of what use is it to you, and what are its virtues?" was the question we often offered to our guide. To this he never answered directly, but evaded all explanation, promising that as soon as an opportunity was offered, and we were alone, he would ask the stone to answer for himself. With this very indefinite hope, we were left to the resources of our own imagination.

But the day on which the stone "spoke" came very soon. It was during the most critical hours of our life; at a time when the vagabond nature of a traveller had carried the writer to far-off lands, where neither civilization is known, nor security can be guaranteed for one hour. One afternoon, as every man and woman had left the yourta (Tartar tent), that had been our home for over two months, to witness the ceremony of the Lamaic exorcism of a Tshoutgour, * accused of breaking and spiriting away every bit of the poor furniture and earthenware of a family living about two miles distant, the Shaman, who had become our only protector in those dreary deserts, was reminded of his promise. He sighed and hesitated; but, after a short silence, left his place on the sheepskin, and, going outside, placed a dried-up goat's head with its prominent horns over a wooden peg, and then dropping down the felt curtain of the tent, remarked that now no living person would venture in, for the goat's head was a sign that he was "at work."

After that, placing his hand in his bosom, he drew out the little stone, about the size of a walnut, and, carefully unwrapping it, proceeded, as it

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appeared, to swallow it. In a few moments his limbs stiffened, his body became rigid, and he fell, cold and motionless as a corpse. But for a slight twitching of his lips at every question asked, the scene would have been embarrassing, nay--dreadful. The sun was setting, and were it not that dying embers flickered at the centre of the tent, complete darkness would have been added to the oppressive silence which reigned. We have lived in the prairies of the West, and in the boundless steppes of Southern Russia; but nothing can be compared with the silence at sunset on the sandy deserts of Mongolia; not even the barren solitudes of the deserts of Africa, though the former are partially inhabited, and the latter utterly void of life. Yet, there was the writer alone with what looked no better than a corpse lying on the ground. Fortunately, this state did not last long.

"Mahandu!" uttered a voice, which seemed to come from the bowels of the earth, on which the Shaman was prostrated. "Peace be with you . . . what would you have me do for you?"

Startling as the fact seemed, we were quite prepared for it, for we had seen other Shamans pass through similar performances. "Whoever you are," we pronounced mentally, "go to K----, and try to bring that person's thought here. See what that other party does, and tell ** what we are doing and how situated."

"I am there"; answered the same voice. "The old lady (kokona) * is sitting in the garden . . . she is putting on her spectacles and reading a letter."

"The contents of it, and hasten," was the hurried order while preparing note-book and pencil. The contents were given slowly, as if, while dictating, the invisible presence desired to afford us time to put down the words phonetically, for we recognized the Valachian language of which we know nothing beyond the ability to recognize it. In such a way a whole page was filled.

"Look west . . . toward the third pole of the yourta," pronounced the Tartar in his natural voice, though it sounded hollow, and as if coming from afar. "Her thought is here."

Then with a convulsive jerk, the upper portion of the Shaman's body seemed raised, and his head fell heavily on the writer's feet, which he clutched with both his hands. The position was becoming less and less attractive, but curiosity proved a good ally to courage. In the west corner was standing, life-like but flickering, unsteady and mist-like, the form of a dear old friend, a Roumanian lady of Valachia, a mystic by disposition, but a thorough disbeliever in this kind of occult phenomena.

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"Her thought is here, but her body is lying unconscious. We could not bring her here otherwise," said the voice.

We addressed and supplicated the apparition to answer, but all in vain. The features moved, and the form gesticulated as if in fear and agony, but no sound broke forth from the shadowy lips; only we imagined--perchance it was a fancy--hearing as if from a long distance the Roumanian words, "Non se pote" (it cannot be done).

For over two hours, the most substantial, unequivocal proofs that the Shaman's astral soul was travelling at the bidding of our unspoken wish, were given us. Ten months later, we received a letter from our Valachian friend in response to ours, in which we had enclosed the page from the note-book, inquiring of her what she had been doing on that day, and describing the scene in full. She was sitting--she wrote--in the garden on that morning * prosaically occupied in boiling some conserves; the letter sent to her was word for word the copy of the one received by her from her brother; all at once--in consequence of the heat, she thought--she fainted, and remembered distinctly dreaming she saw the writer in a desert place which she accurately described, and sitting under a "gypsy's tent," as she expressed it. "Henceforth," she added, "I can doubt no longer!"

But our experiment was proved still better. We had directed the Shaman's inner ego to the same friend heretofore mentioned in this chapter, the Kutchi of Lha-Ssa, who travels constantly to British India and back. We know that he was apprised of our critical situation in the desert; for a few hours later came help, and we were rescued by a party of twenty-five horsemen who had been directed by their chief to find us at the place where we were, which no living man endowed with common powers could have known. The chief of this escort was a Shaberon, an "adept" whom we had never seen before, nor did we after that, for he never left his soumay (lamasery), and we could have no access to it. But *he was a personal friend of the Kutchi.

*

The above will of course provoke naught but incredulity in the general reader. But we write for those who will believe; who, like the writer, understand and know the illimitable powers and possibilities of the human astral soul. In this case we willingly believe, nay, we know, that the "spiritual double" of the Shaman did not act alone, for he was no adept, but simply a medium. According to a favorite expression of his, as soon as he placed the stone in his mouth, his "father appeared, dragged him out of his skin, and took him wherever he wanted," and at his bidding.

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one who has only witnessed the chemical, optical, mechanical, and sleight-of-hand performances of European prestidigitateurs, is not prepared to see, without amazement, the open-air and off-hand exhibitions of Hindu jugglers, to say nothing of fakirs. Of the mere displays of deceptive dexterity we make no account, for Houdin and others far excel them in that respect; or do we dwell upon feats that permit of confederacy, whether resorted to or not. It is unquestionably true that non-expert travellers, especially if of an imaginative turn of mind, exaggerate inordinately. But our remark is based upon a class of phenomena not to be accounted for upon any of the familiar hypotheses. "I have seen," says a gentleman who resided in India, "a man throw up into the air a number of balls numbered in succession from one upwards. As each went up--and there was no deception about their going up--the ball was seen clearly in the air, getting smaller and smaller, till it disappeared altogether out of sight. When they were all up, twenty or more, the operator would politely ask which ball you wanted to see, and then would shout out, 'No. 1,' 'No. 15,' and so on, as instructed by the spectators, when the ball demanded would bound to his feet violently from some remote distance. . . . These fellows have very scanty clothing, and apparently no apparatus whatever. Then, I have seen them swallow three different colored powders, and then, throwing back the head, wash them down with water, drunk, in the native fashion, in a continuous stream from a lotah, or brass-pot, held at arm's length from the lips, and keep on drinking till the swollen body could not hold another drop, and water overflowed from the lips. Then, these fellows, after squirting out the water in their mouths, have spat out the three powders on a clean piece of paper, dry and unmixed." *

In the eastern portion of Turkey and Persia, have dwelt, from time immemorial, the warlike tribes of the Koordistan. This people of purely Indo-European origin, and without a drop of Semitic blood in them (though some ethnologists seem to think otherwise), notwithstanding their brigand-like disposition, unite in themselves the mysticism of the Hindu and the practices of the Assyrio-Chaldean magians, vast portions of whose territory they have helped themselves to, and will not give up, to please either Turkey or even all Europe. ** Nominally, Mahometans of the sect of Omar, their rites and doctrines are purely magical and magian. Even those who are Christian Nestorians, are Christians but in name. The Kaldany, numbering nearly 100,000 men,

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and with their two Patriarchs, are undeniably rather Manicheans than Nestorians. Many of them are Yezids.

One of these tribes is noted for its fire-worshipping predilections. At sunrise and sunset, the horsemen alight and, turning towards the sun, mutter a prayer; while at every new moon they perform mysterious rites throughout the whole night. They have a tent set apart for the purpose, and its thick, black, woolen fabric is decorated with weird signs, worked in bright red and yellow. In the centre is placed a kind of altar, encircled by three brass bands, to which are suspended numerous rings by ropes of camel's hair, which every worshipper holds with his right hand during the ceremony. On the altar burns a curious, old-fashioned silver lamp, a relic found possibly among the ruins of Persepolis. * This lamp, with three wicks, is an oblong cup with a handle to it, and is evidently of the class of Egyptian sepulchral lamps, once found in such profusion in the subterranean caves of Memphis, if we may believe Kircher. ** It widened from its end toward the middle, and its upper part was of the shape of a heart; the apertures for the wicks forming a triangle, and its centre being covered by an inverted heliotrope attached to a gracefully-curved stalk proceeding from the handle of the lamp. This ornament clearly bespoke its origin. It was one of the sacred vessels used in sun-worship. The Greeks gave the heliotrope its name from its strange propensity to ever incline towards the sun. The ancient Magi used it in their worship; and who knows but Darius had performed the mysterious rites with its triple light illuminating the face of the king-hierophant!

If we mention the lamp at all, it is because there happened to be a strange story in connection with it. What the Koords do, during their nocturnal rites of lunar-worship, we know but from hearsay; for they conceal it carefully, and no stranger could be admitted to witness the ceremony. But every tribe has one old man, sometimes several, regarded as "holy beings," who know the past, and can divulge the secrets of the future. These are greatly honored, and generally resorted to for information in cases of theft, murders, or danger.

Travelling from one tribe to the other, we passed some time in company with these Koords. As our object is not autobiographical, we omit all details that have no immediate bearing upon some occult fact, and even of these, have room but for a few. We will then simply state

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that a very expensive saddle, a carpet, and two Circassian daggers, richly mounted and chiselled in gold, had been stolen from the tent, and that the Koords, with the chief of the tribe at the head, had come, taking Allah for their witness that the culprit could not belong to their tribe. We believed it, for it would have been unprecedented among these nomadic tribes of Asia, as famed for the sacredness in which they hold their guests, as for the ease with which they plunder and occasionally murder them, when once they have passed the boundaries of their *aoul.

*

A suggestion was then made by a Georgian belonging to our caravan to have resort to the light of the koodian (sorcerer) of their tribe. This was arranged in great secrecy and solemnity, and the interview appointed to take place at midnight, when the moon would be at its full. At the stated hour we were conducted to the above-described tent.

A large hole, or square aperture, was managed in the arched roof of the tent, and through it poured in vertically the radiant moonbeams, mingling with the vacillating triple flame of the little lamp. After several minutes of incantations, addressed, as it seemed to us, to the moon, the conjurer, an old man of tremendous stature, whose pyramidal turban touched the top of the tent, produced a round looking-glass, of the kind known as "Persian mirrors." Having unscrewed its cover, he then proceeded to breathe on it, for over ten minutes, and wipe off the moisture from the surface with a package of herbs, muttering incantations the while sotto voce. After every wiping the glass became more and more brilliant, till its crystal seemed to radiate refulgent phosphoric rays in every direction. At last the operation was ended; the old man, with the mirror in his hand, remained as motionless as if he had been a statue. "Look, Hanoum . . . look steadily," he whispered, hardly moving his lips. Shadows and dark spots began gathering, where one moment before nothing was reflected but the radiant face of the full moon. A few more seconds, and there appeared the well-known saddle, carpet, and daggers, which seemed to be rising as from a deep, clear water, and becoming with every instant more definitely outlined. Then a still darker shadow appeared hovering over these objects, which gradually condensed itself, and then came out, as visibly as at the small end of a telescope, the full figure of a man crouching over them.

"I know him!" exclaimed the writer. "It is the Tartar who came to us last night, offering to sell his mule!"

The image disappeared, as if by enchantment. The old man nodded assent, but remained motionless. Then he muttered again some strange words, and suddenly began a song. The tune was slow and monotonous, but after he had sung a few stanzas in the same unknown tongue, without

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changing either rhythm or tune, he pronounced, recitative-like, the following words, in his broken Russian:

"Now, Hanoum, look well, whether we will catch him--the fate of the robber--we will learn this night," etc.

The same shadows began gathering, and then, almost without transition, we saw the man lying on his back, in a pool of blood, across the saddle, and two other men galloping off at a distance. Horror-stricken, and sick at the sight of this picture, we desired to see no more. The old man, leaving the tent, called some of the Koords standing outside, and seemed to give them instructions. Two minutes later, a dozen of horsemen were galloping off at full speed down the side of the mountain on which we were encamped.

Early in the morning they returned with the lost objects. The saddle was all covered with coagulated blood, and of course abandoned to them. The story they told was, that upon coming in sight of the fugitive, they saw disappearing over the crest of a distant hill two horsemen, and upon riding up, the Tartar thief was found dead upon the stolen property, exactly as we had seen him in the magical glass. He had been murdered by the two banditti, whose evident design to rob him was interrupted by the sudden appearance of the party sent by the old Koodian.

The most remarkable results are produced by the Eastern "wise men," by the simple act of breathing upon a person, whether with good or evil intent. This is pure mesmerism; and among the Persian dervishes who practice it the animal magnetism is often reinforced by that of the elements. If a person happens to stand facing a certain wind, there is always danger, they think; and many of the "learned ones" in occult matters can never be prevailed upon to go at sunset in a certain direction from whence blows the wind. We have known an old Persian from Baku, * on the Caspian Sea, who had the most unenviable reputation for throwing spells through the timely help of this wind, which blows but too often at that town, as its Persian name itself shows. ** If a victim, against whom the wrath of the old fiend was kindled, happened to be

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facing this wind, he would appear, as if by enchantment, cross the road rapidly, and breathe in his face. From that moment, the latter would find himself afflicted with every evil--he was under the spell of the "evil eye."

The employment of the human breath by the sorcerer as an adjunct for the accomplishment of his nefarious purpose, is strikingly illustrated in several terrible cases recorded in the French annals--notably those of several Catholic priests. In fact, this species of sorcery was known from the oldest times. The Emperor Constantine (in Statute iv., Code de Malef., etc.) prescribed the severest penalties against such as should employ sorcery to do violence to chastity and excite unlawful passion. Augustine (Cite de Dieu) warns against it; Jerome, Gregory, Nazianzen, and many other ecclesiastical authorities, lend their denunciation of a crime not uncommon among the clergy. Baffet (book v., tit. 19, chap. 6) relates the case of the cure of Peifane, who accomplished the ruin of a highly-respected and virtuous lady parishioner, the Dame du Lieu, by resort to sorcery, and was burned alive for it by the Parliament of Grenoble. In 1611, a priest named Gaufridy was burned by the Parliament of Provence for seducing a penitent at the confessional, named Magdelaine de la Palud, by breathing upon her, and thus throwing her into a delirium of sinful love for him.

The above cases are cited in the official report of the famous case of Father Girard, a Jesuit priest of very great influence, who, in 1731, was tried before the Parliament of Aix, France, for the seduction of his parishioner, Mlle. Catherine Cadiere, of Toulon, and certain revolting crimes in connection with the same. The indictment charged that the offence was brought about by resort to sorcery. Mlle. Cadiere was a young lady noted for her beauty, piety, and exemplary virtues. Her attention to her religious duties was exceptionally rigorous, and that was the cause of her perdition. Father Girard's eye fell upon her, and he began to manoeuvre for her ruin. Gaining the confidence of the girl and her family by his apparent great sanctity, he one day made a pretext to blow his breath upon her. The girl became instantly affected with a violent passion for him. She also had ecstatic visions of a religious character, stigmata, or blood-marks of the "Passion," and hysterical convulsions. The long-sought opportunity of seclusion with his penitent finally offering, the Jesuit breathed upon her again, and before the poor girl recovered her senses, his object had been accomplished. By sophistry and the excitation of her religious fervor, he kept up this illicit relation for months, without her suspecting that she had done anything wrong. Finally, however, her eyes were opened, her parents informed, and the priest was arraigned. Judgment was rendered October 12th, 1731. Of twenty-five judges,

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twelve voted to send him to the stake. The criminal priest was defended by all the power of the Society of Jesus, and it is said that a million francs were spent in trying to suppress the evidence produced at the trial. The facts, however, were printed in a work (in 5 vols., 16mo), now rare, entitled Recueil General des Pieces contenues au Procez du Pere Jean-Baptiste Girard, Jeuite, etc., etc. *

We have noted the circumstance that, while under the sorcerous influence of Father Girard, and in illicit relations with him, Mlle. Cadiere's body was marked with the stigmata of the Passion, viz.: the bleeding wounds of thorns on her brow, of nails in her hands and feet, and of a lance-cut in her side. It should be added that the same marks were seen upon the bodies of six other penitents of this priest, viz.: Mesdames Guyol, Laugier, Grodier, Allemande, Batarelle, and Reboul. In fact, it became commonly remarked that Father Girard's handsome parishioners were strangely given to ecstasies and stigmata! Add this to the fact that, in the case of Father Gaufridy, above noted, the same thing was proved, upon surgical testimony, to have happened to Mlle. de Palud, and we have something worth the attention of all (especially spiritualists) who imagine these stigmata are produced by pure spirits. Barring the agency of the Devil, whom we have quietly put to rest in another chapter, Catholics would be puzzled, we fancy, despite all their infallibility, to distinguish between the stigmata of the sorcerers and those produced through the intervention of the Holy Ghost or the angels. The Church records abound in instances of alleged diabolical imitations of these signs of saintship, but, as we have remarked, the Devil is out of court.

By those who have followed us thus far, it will naturally be asked, to what practical issue this book tends; much has been said about magic and its potentiality, much of the immense antiquity of its practice. Do we wish to affirm that the occult sciences ought to be studied and practiced throughout the world? Would we replace modern spiritualism with the ancient magic? Neither; the substitution could not be made, nor the study universally prosecuted, without incurring the risk of enormous public dangers. At this moment, a well-known spiritualist and lecturer on mesmerism is imprisoned on the charge of raping a subject whom he had hypnotized. A sorcerer is a public enemy, and mesmerism may most readily be turned into the worst of sorceries.

We would have neither scientists, theologians, nor spiritualists turn practical magicians, but all to realize that there was true science, profound

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religion, and genuine phenomena before this modern era. We would that all who have a voice in the education of the masses should first know and then teach that the safest guides to human happiness and enlightenment are those writings which have descended to us from the remotest antiquity; and that nobler spiritual aspirations and a higher average morality prevail in the countries where the people take their precepts as the rule of their lives. We would have all to realize that magical, i.e., spiritual powers exist in every man, and those few to practice them who feel called to teach, and are ready to pay the price of discipline and self-conquest which their development exacts.

Many men have arisen who had glimpses of the truth, and fancied they had it all. Such have failed to achieve the good they might have done and sought to do, because vanity has made them thrust their personality into such undue prominence as to interpose it between their believers and the whole truth that lay behind. The world needs no sectarian church, whether of Buddha, Jesus, Mahomet, Swedenborg, Calvin, or any other. There being but ONE Truth, man requires but one church--the Temple of God within us, walled in by matter but penetrable by any one who can find the way; *the pure in heart see God.

*

The trinity of nature is the lock of magic, the trinity of man the key that fits it. Within the solemn precincts of the sanctuary the SUPREME had and has no name. It is unthinkable and unpronounceable; and yet every man finds in himself his god. "Who art thou, O fair being?" inquires the disembodied soul, in the Khordah-Avesta, at the gates of Paradise. "I am, O Soul, thy good and pure thoughts, thy works and thy good law . . . thy angel . . . and thy god." Then man, or the soul, is reunited with ITSELF, for this "Son of God" is one with him; it is his own mediator, the god of his human soul and his "Justifier." "God not revealing himself immediately to man, the spirit is his interpreter," says Plato in the *Banquet.

*

Besides, there are many good reasons why the study of magic, except in its broad philosophy, is nearly impracticable in Europe and America. Magic being what it is, the most difficult of all sciences to learn experimentally--its acquisition is practically beyond the reach of the majority of white-skinned people; and that, whether their effort is made at home or in the East. Probably not more than one man in a million of European blood is fitted--either physically, morally, or psychologically--to become a practical magician, and not one in ten millions would be found endowed with all these three qualifications as required for the work. Civilized nations lack the phenomenal powers of endurance, both mental and physical, of the Easterns; the favoring temperamental idiosyncrasies of the Orientals are utterly wanting in them. In the Hindu, the

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Arabian, the Thibetan, an intuitive perception of the possibilities of occult natural forces in subjection to human will, comes by inheritance; and in them, the physical senses as well as the spiritual are far more finely developed than in the Western races. Notwithstanding the notable difference of thickness between the skulls of a European and a Southern Hindu, this difference, being a purely climatic result, due to the intensity of the sun's rays, involves no psychological principles. Furthermore, there would be tremendous difficulties in the way of training, if we can so express it. Contaminated by centuries of dogmatic superstition, by an ineradicable--though quite unwarranted--sense of superiority over those whom the English term so contemptuously "niggers," the white European would hardly submit himself to the practical tuition of either Kopt, Brahman, or Lama. To become a neophyte, one must be ready to devote himself heart and soul to the study of mystic sciences. Magic--most imperative of mistresses--brooks no rival. Unlike other sciences, a theoretical knowledge of formulai without mental capacities or soul powers, is utterly useless in magic. The spirit must hold in complete subjection the combativeness of what is loosely termed educated reason, until facts have vanquished cold human sophistry.

Those best prepared to appreciate occultism are the spiritualists, although, through prejudice, until now they have been the bitterest opponents to its introduction to public notice. Despite all foolish negations and denunciations, their phenomena are real. Despite, also, their own assertions they are wholly misunderstood by themselves. The totally insufficient theory of the constant agency of disembodied human spirits in their production has been the bane of the Cause. A thousand mortifying rebuffs have failed to open their reason or intuition to the truth. Ignoring the teachings of the past, they have discovered no substitute. We offer them philosophical deduction instead of unverifiable hypothesis, scientific analysis and demonstration instead of undiscriminating faith. Occult philosophy gives them the means of meeting the reasonable requirements of science, and frees them from the humiliating necessity to accept the oracular teachings of "intelligences," which as a rule have less intelligence than a child at school. So based and so strengthened, modern phenomena would be in a position to command the attention and enforce the respect of those who carry with them public opinion. Without invoking such help, spiritualism must continue to vegetate, equally repulsed--not without cause--both by scientists and theologians. In its modern aspect, it is neither a science, a religion, nor a philosophy.

Are we unjust; does any intelligent spiritualist complain that we have misstated the case? To what can he point us but to a confusion of theories, a tangle of hypotheses mutually contradictory? Can he affirm that

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spiritualism, even with its thirty years of phenomena, has any defensible philosophy; nay, that there is anything like an established method that is generally accepted and followed by its recognized representatives?

And yet, there are many thoughtful, scholarly, earnest writers among the spiritualists, scattered the world over. There are men who, in addition to a scientific mental training and a reasoned faith in the phenomena per se, possess all the requisites of leaders of the movement. How is it then, that, except throwing off an isolated volume or so, or occasional contributions to journalism, they all refrain from taking any active part in the formation of a system of philosophy? This is from no lack of moral courage, as their writings well show. Nor because of indifference, for enthusiasm abounds, and they are sure of their facts. Nor is it from lack of capacity, because many are men of mark, the peers of our best minds. It is simply for the reason that, almost without exception, they are bewildered by the contradictions they encounter, and wait for their tentative hypotheses to be verified by further experience. Doubtless this is the part of wisdom. It is that adopted by Newton, who, with the heroism of an honest, unselfish heart, withheld for seventeen years the promulgation of his theory of gravitation, only because he had not verified it to his own satisfaction.

Spiritualism, whose aspect is rather that of aggression than of defense, has tended toward iconoclasm, and so far has done well. But, in pulling down, it does not rebuild. Every really substantial truth it erects is soon buried under an avalanche of chimeras, until all are in one confused ruin. At every step of advance, at the acquisition of every new vantage-ground of FACT, some cataclysm, either in the shape of fraud and exposure, or of premeditated treachery, occurs, and throws the spiritualists back powerless because they cannot and their invisible friends will not (or perchance can, less than themselves) make good their claims. Their fatal weakness is that they have but one theory to offer in explanation of their challenged facts--the agency of human disembodied spirits, and the medium's complete subjection to them. They will attack those who differ in views with them with a vehemence only warranted by a better cause; they will regard every argument contradicting their theory as an imputation upon their common sense and powers of observation; and they will positively refuse even to argue the question.

How, then, can spiritualism be ever elevated to the distinction of a science? This, as Professor Tyndall shows, includes three absolutely necessary elements: observation of facts; induction of laws from these facts; and verification of those laws by constant practical experience. What experienced observer will maintain that spiritualism presents either one of these three elements? The medium is not uniformly surrounded

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by such test conditions that we may be sure of the facts; the inductions from the supposed facts are unwarranted in the absence of such verification; and, as a corollary, there has been no sufficient verification of those hypotheses by experience. In short, the prime element of accuracy has, as a rule, been lacking.

That we may not be charged with desire to misrepresent the position of spiritualism, at the date of this present writing, or accused of withholding credit for advances actually made, we will cite a few passages from the London Spiritualist of March 2, 1877. At the fortnightly meeting, held February 19, a debate occurred upon the subject of "Ancient Thought and Modern Spiritualism." Some of the most intelligent Spiritualists of England participated. Among these was Mr. W. Stainton Moses, M. A., who has recently given some attention to the relation between ancient and modern phenomena. He said: "Popular spiritualism is not scientific; it does very little in the way of scientific verification. Moreover, exoteric spiritualism is, to a large extent, devoted to presumed communion with personal friends, or to the gratification of curiosity, or the mere evolution of marvels. . . . The truly esoteric science of spiritualism is very rare, and not more rare than valuable. To it we must look to the origination of knowledge which may be developed exoterically. . . . We proceed too much on the lines of the physicists; our tests are crude, and often illusory; we know too little of the Protean power of spirit. Here the ancients were far ahead of us, and can teach us much. We have not introduced any certainty into the conditions--a necessary prerequisite for true scientific experiment. This is largely owing to the fact that our circles are constructed on no principle. . . . We have not even mastered the elementary truths which the ancients knew and acted on, e.g., the isolation of mediums. We have been so occupied with wonder-hunting that we have hardly tabulated the phenomena, or propounded one theory to account for the production of the simplest of them. . . . We have never faced the question: What is the intelligence? This is the great blot, the most frequent source of error, and here we might learn with advantage from the ancients. There is the strongest disinclination among spiritualists to admit the possibility of the truth of occultism. In this respect they are as hard to convince as is the outer world of spiritualism. Spiritualists start with a fallacy, viz.: that all phenomena are caused by the action of departed human spirits; they have not looked into the powers of the human spirit; they do not know the extent to which spirit acts, how far it reaches, what it underlies."

Our position could not be better defined. If Spiritualism has a future, it is in the keeping of such men as Mr. Stainton Moses.

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Our work is done--would that it were better done! But, despite our inexperience in the art of book-making, and the serious difficulty of writing in a foreign tongue, we hope we have succeeded in saying some things that will remain in the minds of the thoughtful. The enemies of truth have been all counted, and all passed in review. Modern science, powerless to satisfy the aspirations of the race, makes the future a void, and bereaves man of hope. In one sense, it is like the Baital Pachisi, the Hindu vampire of popular fancy, which lives in dead bodies, and feeds but on the rottenness of matter. The theology of Christendom has been rubbed threadbare by the most serious minds of the day. It is found to be, on the whole, subversive, rather than promotive of spirituality and good morals. Instead of expounding the rules of divine law and justice, it teaches but itself. In place of an ever-living Deity, it preaches the Evil One, and makes him indistinguishable from God Himself! "Lead us not into temptation" is the aspiration of Christians. Who, then, is the tempter? Satan? No; the prayer is not addressed to him. It is that tutelar genius who hardened the heart of Pharaoh, put an evil spirit into Saul, sent lying messengers to the prophets, and tempted David to sin; it is--the Bible-God of Israel!

Our examination of the multitudinous religious faiths that mankind, early and late, have professed, most assuredly indicates that they have all been derived from one primitive source. It would seem as if they were all but different modes of expressing the yearning of the imprisoned human soul for intercourse with supernal spheres. As the white ray of light is decomposed by the prism into the various colors of the solar spectrum, so the beam of divine truth, in passing through the three-sided prism of man's nature, has been broken up into vari-colored fragments called RELIGIONS. And, as the rays of the spectrum, by imperceptible shadings, merge into each other, so the great theologies that have appeared at different degrees of divergence from the original source, have been connected by minor schisms, schools, and off-shoots from the one side or the other. Combined, their aggregate represents one eternal truth; separate, they are but shades of human error and the signs of imperfection. The worship of the Vedic pitris is fast becoming the worship of the spiritual portion of mankind. It but needs the right perception of things objective to finally discover that the only world of reality is the subjective.

What has been contemptuously termed Paganism, was ancient wisdom replete with Deity; and Judaism and its offspring, Christianity and Islamism, derived whatever of inspiration they contained from this ethnic parent. Pre-Vedic Brahmanism and Buddhism are the double source from which all religions sprung; Nirvana is the ocean to which all tend.

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For the purposes of a philosophical analysis, we need not take account of the enormities which have blackened the record of many of the world's religions. True faith is the embodiment of divine charity; those who minister at its altars, are but human. As we turn the blood-stained pages of ecclesiastical history, we find that, whoever may have been the hero, and whatever costumes the actors may have worn, the plot of the tragedy has ever been the same. But the Eternal Night was in and behind all, and we pass from what we see to that which is invisible to the eye of sense. Our fervent wish has been to show true souls how they may lift aside the curtain, and, in the brightness of that Night made Day, look with undazzled gaze upon the UNVEILED TRUTH.

THE END.

Footnotes

591: In its general sense, Isvara means "Lord"; but the Isvara of the mystic philosophers of India was understood precisely as the union and communion of men with the Deity of the Greek mystics. Isvara-Parasada means, literally, in Sanscrit, grace. Both of the "Mimansas," treating of the most abstruse questions, explain Karma as merit, or the efficacy of works; Isvara-Parasada, as grace; and Sradha, *as faith. The "Mimansas" are the work of the two most celebrated theologians of India. The "Pourva-Mimansa" was written by the philosopher Djeminy, and the "Outtara-Mimansa" (or Vedanta), by Richna Dvipayna Vyasa, who collected the four "Vedas" together. (See Sir William Jones, Colebrooke, and others.)

592:* Suetonius: "August."

592:** Plutarch.

592:*** "Pliny," xxx., pp. 2, 14.

592:**** "Servius ad. Æon," p. 71.

593:* Peary Chand Mittra: "The Psychology of the Aryas"; "Human Nature," for March, 1877.

596:* The Boulogne (France) correspondent of an English journal says that he knows of a gentleman who has had an arm amputated at the shoulder, "who is certain that he has a spiritual arm, which he sees and actually feels with his other hand. He can touch anything, and even pull up things with the spiritual or phantom arm and hand." The party knows nothing of spiritualism. We give this as we get it, without verification, but it merely corroborates what we have seen in the case of an Eastern adept. This eminent scholar and practical kabalist can at will project his astral arm, and with the hand take up, move, and carry objects, even at a considerable distance from where he may be sitting or standing. We have often seen him thus minister to the wants of a favorite elephant.

596:** Answer to a question at "The National Association of Spiritualists," May 14th, 1877.

597:* "A Buddhist's Opinions of the Spiritual States."

597:** See the "London Spiritualist," May 25, 1877, p. 246.

598:* See Coleman's "Hindu Mythology."

599:* Russian subjects are not allowed to cross the Tartar territory, neither the subjects of the Emperor of China to go to the Russian factories.

599:** These are the representatives of the Buddhist Trinity, Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, or Fo, Fa, and Sengh, as they are called in Thibet.

600: A Bikshu is not allowed to accept anything directly even from laymen of his own people, least of all from a foreigner. The slightest contact with the body and even dress of a person not belonging to their special community is carefully avoided. Thus even the offerings brought by us and which comprised pieces of red and yellow pou-lou, a sort of woollen fabric the lamas generally wear, had to pass through strange ceremonies. They are forbidden, 1, to ask or beg for anything--even were they starving--having to wait until it is voluntarily offered; 2, to touch either gold or silver with their hands; 3, to eat a morsel of food, even when presented, unless the donor distinctly says to the disciple, "This is for your master to eat." Thereupon, the disciple turning to the pazen has to offer the food in his turn, and when he has said, "Master, this is allowed; take and eat," then only can the lama take it with the right hand, and partake of it. All our offerings had to pass through such purifications. When the silver pieces, and a few handfuls of annas (a coin equal to four cents) were at different occasions offered to the community, a disciple first wrapped his hand in a yellow handkerchief, and receiving it on his palm, conveyed the sum immediately into the Badir, called elsewhere Sabait*, a sacred basin, generally wooden, kept for offerings.

600: These stones are highly venerated among Lamaists and Buddhists; the throne and sceptre of Buddha are ornamented with them, and the Taley Lama wears one on the fourth finger of the right hand. They are found in the Altai Mountains, and near the river Yarkuh. Our talisman was a gift from the venerable high-priest, a Heiloung, of a Kalmuck tribe. Though treated as apostates from their primitive Lamaism, these nomads maintain friendly intercourse with their brother Kalmucks, the Chokhots of Eastern Thibet and Kokonor, but even with the Lamaists of Lha-Ssa. The ecclesiastical authorities however, will have no relations with them. We have had abundant opportunities to become acquainted with this interesting people of the Astrakhan Steppes, having lived in their Kibitkas in our early years, and partaken of the lavish hospitality of the Prince Tumene, their late chief, and his Princess. In their religious ceremonies, the Kalmucks employ trumpets made from the thigh and arm bones of deceased rulers and high priests.

603:* The Buddhist Kalmucks of the Astrakhan steppes are accustomed to make their idols out of the cremated ashes of their princes and priests. A relative of the author has in her collection several small pyramids composed of the ashes of eminent Kalmucks and presented to her by the Prince Tumene himself in 1836.

603:** The sacred fan used by the chief priests instead of an umbrella.

603:*** See vol. i., p. 476.

606:* See his "Lectures on Sound."

607:* From the compound word sutra, maxim or precept, and antika, close or near.

608:* It sounds like injustice to Asoka to compare him with Constantine, as is done by several Orientalists. If, in the religious and political sense, Asoka did for India what Constantine is alleged to have achieved for the Western World, all similarity stops there.

614:* See "Indian Sketches"; Appleton's "New Cyclopedia," etc.

616: Aum (mystic Sanscrit term of the Trinity), mani (holy jewel), padme (in the lotus, padma being the name for lotus), houm (be it so). The six syllables in the sentence correspond to the six chief powers of nature emanating from Buddha (the abstract deity, not Gautama), who is the seventh, and the Alpha and Omega of being.

616:** Moru (the pure) is one of the most famous lamaseries of Lha-Ssa, directly in the centre of the city. There the Shaberon, the Taley Lama, resides the greater portion of the winter months; during two or three months of the warm season his abode is at Foht-lla. At Moru is the largest typographical establishment of the country.

617:* The Buddhist great canon, containing 1,083 works in several hundred volumes, many of which treat of magic.

618:* "Crawfurd's Mission to Siam," p. 182.

619:* "Semedo," vol. iii., p. 114.

619: There was an anecdote current among Daguerre's friends between 1838 and 1840. At an evening party, Madame Daguerre, some two months previous to the introduction of the celebrated Daguerrean process to the Academie des Sciences, by Arago (January, 1839), had an earnest consultation with one of the medical celebrities of the day about her husband's mental condition. After explaining to the physician the numerous symptoms of what she believed to be her husband's mental aberration, she added, with tears in her eyes, that the greatest proof to her of Daguerre's insanity was his firm conviction that he would succeed in nailing his own shadow to the wall, or fixing it on magical metallic plates. The physician listened to the intelligence very attentively, and answered that he had himself observed in Daguerre lately the strongest symptoms of what, to his mind, was an undeniable proof of madness. He closed the conversation by firmly advising her to send her husband quietly and without delay to Bicetre, the well-known lunatic asylum. Two months later a profound interest was created in the world of art and science by the exhibition of a number of pictures taken by the new process. The shadows were fixed, after all, upon metallic plates, and the "lunatic" proclaimed the father of photography.

620:* Schott: "Uber den Buddhismus," p. 71.

620:** "The Book of Ser Marco Polo," vol. ii., p. 352.

620:*** Ibid., vol. ii., p. 130, quoted by Col. Yule in vol. ii., p. 353.

621:* No country in the world can boast of more medicinal plants than Southern India, Cochin, Burmah, Siam, and Ceylon. European physicians--according to time-honored practice--settle the case of professional rivalship, by treating the native doctors as quacks and empirics; but this does not prevent the latter from being often successful in cases in which eminent graduates of British and French schools of Medicine have signally failed. Native works on Materia Medica do not certainly contain the secret remedies known, and successfully applied by the native doctors (the Atibba), from time immemorial; and yet the best febrifuges have been learned by British physicians from the p. 622 Hindus, and where patients, deafened and swollen by abuse of quinine, were slowly dying of fever under the treatment of enlightened physicians, the bark of the Margosa, and the Chiretta herb have cured them completely, and these now occupy an honorable place among European drugs.

622:* The Hindu appellation for the peculiar mantram or charm which prevents the serpent from biting.

624: Between the bells of the "heathen" worshippers, and the bells and pomegranates of the Jewish worship, the difference is this: the former, besides purifying the soul of man with their harmonious tones, kept evil demons at a distance, "for the sound of pure bronze breaks the enchantment," says Tibullius (i., 8-22), and the latter explained it by saying that the sound of the bells "should be heard [by the Lord] when he [the priest] goeth in unto the holy place before the Lord, and when he goeth out, that he die not" (Exodus xxviii. 33; Eccles. xiv. 9). Thus, one sound served to keep away evil* spirits, and the other, the Spirit of Jehovah. The Scandinavian traditions affirm that the Trolls were always driven from their abodes by the bells of the churches. A similar tradition is in existence in relation to the fairies of Great Britain.

626:* An elemental daemon, in which every native of Asia believes.

627:* Lady, or Madam, in Moldavian.

628:* The hour in Bucharest corresponded perfectly with that of the country in which the scene had taken place.

629:* Capt. W. L. D. O'Grady: "Life in India."

629:** Neither Russia nor England succeeded in 1849 in forcing them to recognize and respect the Turkish from the Persian territory.

630:* Persepolis is the Persian Istakhaar, northeast of Shiraz; it stood on a plain now called Merdusht. At the confluence of the ancient Medus and the Araxes, now Pulwan and Bend-emir.

630:** "Ægyptiaci Theatrum Hierogliphicum," p. 544.

632:* We have twice assisted at the strange rites of the remnants of that sect of fire-worshippers known as the Guebres, who assemble from time to time at Baku, on the "field of fire." This ancient and mysterious town is situated near the Caspian Sea. It belongs to Russian Georgia. About twelve miles northeast from Baku stands the remnant of an ancient Guebre temple, consisting of four columns, from whose empty orifices issue constantly jets of flame, which gives it, therefore, the name of Temple of the Perpetual Fire. The whole region is covered with lakes and springs of naphtha. Pilgrims assemble there from distant parts of Asia, and a priesthood, worshipping the divine principle of fire, is kept by some tribes, scattered hither and thither about the country.

632:** Baadey-ku-Ba--literally "a gathering of winds."

634:* See also "Magic and Mesmerism," a novel reprinted by the Harpers, thirty years ago.

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