Still, no traveller has shown himself fairer in the main or more

impartial to India than Jacolliot. If he is severe as to her present

degradation, he is still severer to those who were the cause of

it—the sacerdotal caste of the last few centuries—and his rebuke

is proportionate to the intensity of his appreciation of her past

grandeur. He shows the sources whence proceeded the revelations of

all the ancient creeds, including the inspired _Books of Moses_, and

points at India directly as the cradle of humanity, the parent of

all other nations, and the hot-bed of all the lost arts and sciences

of antiquity, for which old India, herself, was lost already in the

Cimmerian darkness of the archaic ages. “To study India,” he says, “is

to trace humanity to its sources.”

“In the same way as modern society jostles antiquity at each step,”

he adds, “as our poets have copied Homer and Virgil, Sophocles and

Euripides, Plautus and Terence; as our philosophers have drawn

inspiration from Socrates, Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle; as our

historians take Titus Livius, Sallust, or Tacitus, as models; our

orators, Demosthenes or Cicero; our physicians study Hippocrates,

and our codes transcribe Justinian—so had antiquity’s self also an

antiquity to study, to imitate, and to copy. What more simple and

more logical? Do not peoples precede and succeed each other? Does

the knowledge, painfully acquired by one nation, confine itself to

its own territory, and die with the generation that produced it? Can

there be any absurdity in the suggestion that the India of 6,000 years

ago, brilliant, civilized, overflowing with population, impressed

upon Egypt, Persia, Judea, Greece, and Rome, a stamp as ineffaceable,

impressions as profound, as these last have impressed upon us?

“It is time to disabuse ourselves of those prejudices which represent

the ancients as having almost spontaneously-elaborated ideas,

philosophic, religious, and moral, the most lofty—those prejudices that

in their naïve admiration explain all in the domain of science, arts,

and letters, by the intuition of some few great men, and in the realm

of religion by revelation.”[871]

We believe that the day is not far off when the opponents of this {585}

fine and erudite writer will be silenced by the force of irrefutable

evidence. And when _facts_ shall once have corroborated his theories

and assertions, what will the world find? That it is to India, the

country less explored, and less known than any other, that all the

other great nations of the world are indebted for their languages,

arts, legislature, and civilization. Its progress, impeded for a few

centuries before our era—for, as this writer shows, at the epoch of

the great Macedonian conqueror, “India had already passed the period

of her splendor” was completely stifled in the subsequent ages. But

the evidence of her past glories lies in her literature. What people

in all the world can boast of such a literature, which, were the

Sanscrit less difficult, would be more studied than now? Hitherto

the general public has had to rely for information on a few scholars

who, notwithstanding their great learning and trustworthiness, are

unequal to the task of translating and commenting upon more than a

few books out of the almost countless number that, notwithstanding

the vandalism of the missionaries, are still left to swell the mighty

volume of Sanscrit literature. And to do even so much is the labor of

a European’s lifetime. Hence, people judge hastily, and often make the

most ridiculous blunders.

Quite recently a certain Reverend Dunlop Moore, of New Brighton,

Pa., determined to show his cleverness and piety at a single stroke,

attacked the statement made by a Theosophist in a discourse delivered

at the cremation of Baron de Palm, that the _Code of Manu_ existed

a thousand years before Moses. “All Orientalists of any note,” he

says, “are now agreed that the _Institutes of Manu_ were written at

different times. _The oldest part of the collection probably dates

from the sixth century before the Christian era._”[872] Whatever other

Orientalists, encountered by this Pennsylvania pundit, may think, Sir

William Jones is of a different opinion. “It is clear,” he says, “that

the _Laws of Manu_, such as we possess them, and which comprise but 680

slokas, cannot be the work attributed to Soumati, which is probably

that described under the name of _Vriddha Manava_, or _Ancient Code of

Manu_, which has not yet been entirely reconstructed, although many

passages of the book have been preserved by tradition, and are often

cited by commentators.”

“We read in the preface to a treatise on legislation by Narada,” says

Jacolliot, “written by one of his adepts, a client of Brahmanical

power: ‘Manu having written the laws of Brahma, in 100,000 slokas,

or distichs, which formed twenty-four books and a thousand chapters,

gave the work to Narada, the sage of sages, who abridged it for the {586}

use of mankind to 12,000 verses, which he gave to a son of Brighou,

named Soumati, who, for the greater convenience of man, reduced them to

4,000.’”

Here we have the opinion of Sir William Jones, who, in 1794, affirmed

that the fragments in possession of the Europeans could not be _The

Ancient Code of Manu_, and that of Louis Jacolliot, who, in 1868, after

consulting all the authorities, and adding to them the result of his

own long and patient research, writes the following: “The Hindu laws

were codified by Manu _more than 3,000 years before the Christian era_,

copied by the whole of antiquity, and notably by Rome, which alone has

left us a written law—the _Code of Justinian_; which has been adopted

as the basis of all modern legislations.”[873]

In another volume, entitled _Christna et le Christ_, in a scientific

arraignment of a pious, albeit very learned Catholic antagonist, M.

Textor de Ravisi, who seeks to prove that the orthography of the name

Christna is not warranted by its Sanscrit spelling—and has the worst

of it—Jacolliot remarks: “We know that the legislator Manu is lost in

the night of the ante-historical period of India; and that no Indianist

has dared to refuse him the title of the most ancient law-giver in the

world” (p. 350).

But Jacolliot had not heard of the Rev. Dunlop Moore. This is why,

perhaps, he and several other Indiologists are preparing to prove that

many of the Vedic texts, as well as those of Manu, sent to Europe

by the Asiatic Society of Calcutta, _are not genuine texts at all_,

but mostly due to the cunning tentative efforts of certain Jesuit

missionaries to mislead science, by the help of apocryphal works

calculated at once to throw upon the history of ancient India a cloud

of uncertainty and darkness, and on the modern Brahmans and pundits a

suspicion of systematical interpolation. “These facts,” he adds, “which

are so well established in India that they are not even brought in

question, _must be revealed to Europe_” (_Christna et le Christ_, p.

347).

Moreover, the _Code of Manu_, known to European Orientalists as that

one which is commented upon by Brighou, does not even form a part

of the ancient Manu called the _Vriddha-Manava_. Although but small

fragments of it have been discovered by our scientists, it does exist

as a whole in certain temples; and Jacolliot proves that the texts

sent to Europe disagree entirely with the same texts as found in the

pagodas of Southern India. We can also cite for our purpose Sir William

Jones, who, complaining of Callouca, remarks that the latter seems

in his commentaries to have never considered that “the laws of Manu

are _restricted to the first three ages_” (_Translation of Manu and

Commentaries_).

According to computation we are now in the age of Kali-Yug, the {587}

_third_, reckoning from that of Satya or Kritayug, first age in which

Hindu tradition establishes the laws of Manu, and the authenticity of

which Sir William Jones implicitly accepted. Admitting all that may be

said as to the enormous exaggerations of Hindu chronology—which, by the

bye, dovetails far better with modern geology and anthropology than

the 6,000 years’ caricature chronology of the Jewish _Scripture_—still

as about 4,500 years have elapsed since the fourth age of the world,

or Kali-Yug, began, we have here a proof that one of the greatest

Orientalists that ever lived—and a Christian in the bargain, not a

Theosophist—believed that Manu is many thousand years older than Moses.

Clearly one of two things should happen: Either Indian history should

be remodelled for the _Presbyterian Banner_, or the writers for that

sheet should study Hindu literature before trying their hand again at

criticism of Theosophists.

But apart from the private opinions of these reverend gentlemen whose

views very little concern us, we find even in the _New American

Cyclopædia_ a decided tendency to dispute the antiquity and importance

of the Hindu literature. The _Laws of Manu_, says one of the writers,

“do not date earlier than the third century B.C.” This term is a very

elastic one. If by the _Laws of Manu_ the writer means the _abridgment_

of these laws, compiled and arranged by later Brahmans to serve as an

authority for their ambitious projects, and with an idea of creating

for themselves a rule of domination, then, in such a sense, they may

be right, though we are prepared to dispute even that. At all events

it is as little proper to pass off this abridgment for the genuine

old laws codified by Manu, as to assert that the Hebrew _Bible_ does

not date earlier than the tenth century of our era, because we have

no Hebrew manuscript older than that, or that the poems of Homer’s

_Iliad_ were neither known nor written before its first authenticated

manuscript was found. There is no Sanscrit manuscript in the possession

of European scholars much older than four or five centuries,[874] a

fact which did not in the least restrain them from assigning to the

_Vedas_ an antiquity of between four or five thousand years. There

are the strongest possible arguments in favor of the great antiquity

of the _Books of Manu_, and without going to the trouble of quoting

the opinions of various scholars, no two of whom agree, we will bring

forward our own, at least as regards this most unwarranted assertion of

the _Cyclopædia_.

If, as Jacolliot proves, text in hand, the _Code of Justinian_ was

copied from the _Laws of Manu_, we have first of all to ascertain the {588}

age of the former; not as a written and perfect code, but its origin.

To answer, is not difficult we believe.

According to Varro, Rome was built in 3961 of the Julian period (754

B.C.). The Roman Law, as embodied by order of Justinian, and known as

the _Corpus Juris Civilis_, was not a code, we are told, but a digest

of the customs of legislation of many centuries. Though nothing is

actually known of the original authorities, the chief source from

which the _jus scriptum_, or written law, was derived, was the _jus

non scriptum_, or the law of custom. Now it is just on this law _of

custom_ that we are prepared to base our arguments. The law of the

twelve tables, moreover, was compiled about A.U.C. 300, and even this

as respects private law was compiled _from still earlier sources_.

Therefore, if these earlier sources are found to agree so well with

the _Laws of Manu_, which the Brahmans claim to have been codified in

the _Kritayug_, an age anterior to the actual _Kali-yug_, then we must

suppose that this source of the “Twelve Tables,” as laws of _custom_

and tradition, are at least, by several hundred years, older than their

copyists. This, alone, carries us right back to more than 1,000 years

B.C.

The _Manava Dharma Sastra_, embodying the Hindu system of cosmogony,

is recognized as next to the _Vedas_ in antiquity; and even Colebrooke

assigns the latter to the fifteenth century B.C. And, now, what is

the etymology of the name of _Manava Dharma Sastra_? It is a word

compounded of _Manu_; _d’harma_, institute; and _sastra_, command or

law. How then can Manu’s laws date only since the third century before

our Christian era?

The Hindu _Code_ had never laid any claims to be divinely revealed.

The distinction made by the Brahmans themselves between the _Vedas_

and every other sacred book of however respectable an antiquity, is

a proof of it. While every sect holds the _Vedas_ as the direct word

of God—_sruti_ (revelation)—the _Code of Manu_ is designated by them

simply as the _smriti_, a collection of oral traditions. Still these

traditions, or “recollections,” are among the oldest as well as the

most revered in the land. But, perhaps, the strongest argument in favor

of its antiquity, and the general esteem in which it is held, lies

in the following fact. The Brahmans have undeniably remodelled these

traditions at some distant period, and made many of the actual laws,

as they now stand in the _Code of Manu_, to answer their ambitious

views. Therefore, they _must have done it at a time when the burning

of widows (suttee) was neither practiced nor intended to be_, which it

has been for nearly 2,500 years. No more than in the _Vedas_ is there

any such atrocious law mentioned in the _Code of Manu_! Who, unless he

is completely unacquainted with the history of India, but knows that {589}

this country was once on the verge of a religious rebellion occasioned

by the prohibition of _suttee_ by the English government? The Brahmans

appealed to a verse from the _Rig-Veda_ which commanded it. But this

verse has been recently proved to have been falsified.[875] Had the

Brahmans been the sole authors of the _Code of Manu_, or had they

codified it entirely instead of simply filling it with interpolations

to answer their object not earlier than the time of Alexander, how is

it possible that they would have neglected this most important point,

and so imperilled its authority? This fact alone proves that the _Code_

must be counted one of their most ancient books.

It is on the strength of such circumstantial evidence—that of reason

and logic—that we affirm that, if Egypt furnished Greece with her

civilization, and the latter bequeathed hers to Rome, Egypt herself

had, in those unknown ages when Menes reigned,[876] received her laws,

her social institutions, her arts and her sciences, from pre-Vedic

India;[877] and that therefore, it is in that old initiatrix of the

priests—adepts of all the other countries—we must seek for the key to

the great mysteries of humanity.

And when we say, indiscriminately, “India,” we do not mean the India of

our modern days, but that of the archaic period. In those ancient times

countries which are now known to us by other names were all called

India. There was an Upper, a Lower, and a Western India, the latter of

which is now Persia-Iran. The countries now named Thibet, Mongolia, and

Great Tartary, were also considered by the ancient writers as India. We

will now give a legend in relation to those places which science now

fully concedes to have been the cradle of humanity.

Tradition says, and the records of the _Great Book_ explain, that

long before the days of Ad-am, and his inquisitive wife, He-va, where

now are found but salt lakes and desolate barren deserts, there was a

vast inland sea, which extended over Middle Asia, north of the proud

Himalayan range, and its western prolongation. An island, which for

its unparalleled beauty had no rival in the world, was inhabited by

the last remnant of the race which preceded ours. This race could live

with equal ease in water, air, or fire, for it had an unlimited control

over the elements. These were the “Sons of God;” not those who saw

the daughters of men, but the real _Elohim_, though in the Oriental

_Kabala_ they have another name. It was they who imparted Nature’s

most weird secrets to men, and revealed to them the ineffable, and now {590}

_lost_ “word.” This word, which is no word, has travelled once around

the globe, and still lingers as a far-off dying echo in the hearts of

some privileged men. The hierophants of all the Sacerdotal Colleges

were aware of the existence of this island, but the “word” was known

only to the _Java Aleim_, or chief lord of every college, and was

passed to his successor only at the moment of death. There were many

such colleges, and the old classic authors speak of them.

We have already seen that it is one of the universal traditions

accepted by all the ancient peoples that there were many races of men

anterior to our present races. Each of these was distinct from the one

which preceded it; and each disappeared as the following appeared. In

_Manu_, six such races are plainly mentioned as having succeeded each

other.

“From this Manu Swayambhouva (the minor, and answering to Adam Kadmon)

issued from Swayambhouva, or the Being existing through himself,

descended six other Manus (men typifying progenitors), each of whom

gave birth _to a race_ of men.... These Manus, all powerful, of whom

Swayambhouva is the first, have each, _in his period—autara_—produced

and directed this world composed of movable and unmovable beings”

(_Manu_, book i.).

In the _Siva-Purana_,[878] it runs thus:

“O Siva, thou god of fire, mayest thou destroy my sins, as the

bleaching-grass of the jungle is destroyed by fire. It is through thy

mighty Breath that Adhima (the first man) and Heva (completion of life,

in Sanscrit), _the ancestors of this race of men_ have received life

and covered the world with their descendants.”

There was no communication with the fair island by sea, but

subterranean passages known only to the chiefs, communicated with it

in all directions. Tradition points to many of the majestic ruins of

India, Ellora, Elephanta, and the caverns of Ajunta (Chandor range),

which belonged once to those colleges, and with which were connected

such subterranean ways.[879] Who can tell but the lost Atlantis—which {591}

is also mentioned in the _Secret Book_, but, again, under another

name, pronounced in the sacred language—did not exist yet in those

days? The great lost continent might have, perhaps, been situated south

of Asia, extending from India to Tasmania?[880] If the hypothesis

now so much doubted, and positively denied by some learned authors

who regard it as a joke of Plato’s, is ever verified, then, perhaps,

will the scientists believe that the description of the god-inhabited

continent was not altogether fable. And they may then perceive that

Plato’s guarded hints and the fact of his attributing the narrative to

Solon and the Egyptian priests, were but a prudent way of imparting

the fact to the world and by cleverly combining truth and fiction,

to disconnect himself from a story which the obligations imposed at

initiation forbade him to divulge.

And how could the name of Atlanta itself originate with Plato at all?

Atlante is _not_ a Greek name, and its construction has nothing of

the Grecian element in it. Brasseur de Bourbourg tried to demonstrate

it years ago, and Baldwin, in his _Prehistoric Nations and Ancient

America_, cites the former, who declares that “the word _Atlas_ and

_Atlantic_ have no satisfactory etymology in any language known in

Europe. They are not Greek, and cannot be referred to any known

language of the Old World. But in the Nahuatl (or Toltec) language we

find immediately the radical _a_, _atl_, which signifies water, war,

and the top of the head. From this comes a series of words, such as

_atlan_, or the border of or amid the water; from which we have the

adjective _Atlantic_. We have also _atlaca_, to combat.... A city named

_Atlan_ existed when the continent was discovered by Columbus, at the

entrance of the Gulf of Uraha, in Darien, with a good harbor. It is now

reduced to an unimportant _pueblo_ (village) named Aclo.”[881]

Is it not, to say the least, very extraordinary to find in America a

city called by a name which contains a purely local element, foreign

moreover to every other country, in the alleged _fiction_ of a

philosopher of 400 years B.C.? The same may be said of the name of

_America_, which may one day be found more closely related to Meru, the

sacred mount in the centre of the _seven_ continents, according to the

Hindu tradition, then to Americus Vespucius, whose name by the bye,

was never Americus at all, but _Albericus_, a trifling difference not

deemed worth mentioning till very lately by _exact_ history.[882] We

adduce the following reasons in favor of our argument:

1st. Americ, Amerrique, or Amerique is the name in Nicaragua for the {592}

high land or mountain range that lies between Juigalpa and Libertad, in

the province of Chontales, and which reaches on the one side into the

country of the Carcas Indians, and on the other side into the country

of the Ramas Indians.

_Ic_ or _ique_, as a terminal, means great, as _cazique_, etc.

Columbus mentions, in his fourth voyage, the village _Cariai_, probably

_Caîcai_. The people abounded with sorcerers, or medicine men; and this

was the region of the Americ range, 3,000 feet high.

Yet he omits to mention this word.

The name _America Provincia_, first appeared on a map published at

Bâsle, in 1522. Till that time, the region was believed to be part of

India. That year Nicaragua was conquered by Gil Gonzales de Avida.[883]

2d. “The Northmen who visited the continent in the tenth century,[884]

a low level coast thickly covered with wood,” called it _Markland_,

from _mark_, a wood. The _r_ had a rolling sound as in _marrick_. A

similar word is found in the country of the Himalayas, and the name of

the World-Mountain, Meru, is pronounced in some dialects as MeruAH, the

letter _h_ being strongly aspirated. The main idea is, however, to show

how two peoples could possibly accept a word of similar sound, each

having used it in their own sense, and finding it applied to the same

territory.

“It is most plausible,” says Professor Wilder, “that the State of

Central America, where we find the name _Americ_ signifying (like the

Hindu Meru we may add) great mountain, gave the continent its name.

Vespucius would have used his surname if he had designed to give a

title to a continent. If the Abbé de Bourbourg’s theory of _Atlan_

as the source of Atlas and Atlantic is verified, the two hypotheses

could agree most charmingly. As Plato was not the only writer that

treated of a world beyond the pillars of Hercules, and as the ocean is

still shallow and grows sea-weed all through the tropical part of the

Atlantic, it is not wild to imagine that this continent projected, or

that there was an island-world on that coast. The Pacific also shows

signs of having been a populous island-empire of Malays or Javanese—if

not a continent amid the North and South. We know that Lemuria in the

Indian Ocean is a dream of scientists; and that the Sahara and the

middle belt of Asia were perhaps once sea-beds.”

To continue the tradition, we have to add that the class of {593}

hierophants was divided into two distinct categories: those who were

instructed by the “Sons of God,” of the island, and who were initiated

in the divine doctrine of pure revelation, and others who inhabited

the lost Atlantis—if such must be its name—and who, being of another

race, were born with a sight which embraced all hidden things, and was

independent of both distance and material obstacle. In short, they were

the _fourth_ race of men mentioned in the _Popol-Vuh_, whose sight

was unlimited and who knew all things at once. They were, perhaps,

what we would now term “natural-born mediums,” who neither struggled

nor suffered to obtain their knowledge, nor did they acquire it at

the price of any sacrifice. Therefore, while the former walked in the

path of their divine instructors, and acquiring their knowledge by

degrees, learned at the same time to discern the evil from the good,

the born _adepts_ of the Atlantis blindly followed the insinuations

of the great and invisible “Dragon,” the King _Thevetat_ (the Serpent

of _Genesis_?). Thevetat had neither learned nor acquired knowledge,

but, to borrow an expression of Dr. Wilder in relation to the

tempting Serpent, he was “a sort of Socrates who _knew_ without being

initiated.” Thus, under the evil insinuations of their demon, Thevetat,

the Atlantis-race became a nation of wicked _magicians_. In consequence

of this, war was declared, the story of which would be too long to

narrate; its substance may be found in the disfigured allegories of the

race of Cain, the giants, and that of Noah and his righteous family.

The conflict came to an end by the submersion of the Atlantis; which

finds its imitation in the stories of the Babylonian and Mosaic flood:

The giants and magicians “ ... and all flesh died ... and every man.”

All except Xisuthrus and Noah, who are substantially identical with the

great Father of the Thlinkithians in the _Popol-Vuh_, or the sacred

book of the Guatemaleans, which also tells of his escaping in a large

boat, like the Hindu Noah—Vaiswasvata.

If we believe the tradition at all, we have to credit the further

story that from the intermarrying of the progeny of the hierophants

of the island and the descendants of the Atlantian Noah, sprang up a

mixed race of righteous and wicked. On the one side the world had its

Enochs, Moseses, Gautama-Buddhas, its numerous “Saviours,” and great

hierophants; on the other hand, its “_natural_ magicians” who, through

lack of the restraining power of proper spiritual enlightenment,

and because of weakness of physical and mental organizations,

unintentionally perverted their gifts to evil purposes. Moses had no

word of rebuke for those adepts in prophecy and other powers who had

been instructed in the colleges of esoteric wisdom[885] mentioned {594}

in the _Bible_. His denunciations were reserved for such as either

wittingly or otherwise debased the powers inherited from their

Atlantian ancestors to the service of evil spirits, to the injury of

humanity. His wrath was kindled against the spirit of _Ob_, not that of

OD.[886]

The ruins which cover both Americas, and are found on many West Indian {595}

islands, are all attributed to the submerged Atlantians. As well as

the hierophants of the old world, which in the days of Atlantis was

almost connected with the new one by land, the magicians of the now

submerged country had a net-work of subterranean passages running in

all directions. In connection with those mysterious catacombs we will

now give a curious story told to us by a Peruvian, long since dead,

as we were travelling together in the interior of his country. There

must be truth in it; as it was afterward confirmed to us by an Italian

gentleman who had seen the place and who, but for lack of means and

time, would have verified the tale himself, at least partially. The

informant of the Italian was an old priest, who had had the secret

divulged to him, at confession, by a Peruvian Indian. We may add, {596}

moreover, that the priest was compelled to make the revelation, being

at the time completely under the mesmeric influence of the traveller.

The story concerns the famous treasures of the last of the Incas. The

Peruvian asserted that since the well-known and miserable murder of the

latter by Pizarro, the secret had been known to all the Indians, except

the _Mestitzos_ who could not be trusted. It runs thus: The Inca was

made prisoner, and his wife offered for his liberation a room full of

gold, “from the floor up to the ceiling, as high up as his conqueror

could reach” before the sun would set on the third day. She kept her

promise, but Pizarro broke his word, according to Spanish practice.

Marvelling at the exhibition of such treasures, the conqueror declared

that he would not release the prisoner, but would murder him, unless

the queen revealed the place whence the treasure came. He had heard

that the Incas had somewhere an inexhaustible mine; a subterranean

road or tunnel running many miles under ground, where were kept the

accumulated riches of the country. The unfortunate queen begged for

delay, and went to consult the oracles. During the sacrifice, the

chief-priest showed her in the consecrated “black mirror”[887] the

unavoidable murder of her husband, whether she delivered the treasures

of the crown to Pizarro or not. Then the queen gave the order to close

the entrance, which was a door cut in the rocky wall of a chasm. Under

the direction of the priest and magicians, the chasm was accordingly

filled to the top with huge masses of rock, and the surface covered

over so as to conceal the work. The Inca was murdered by the Spaniards

and his unhappy queen committed suicide. Spanish greed overreached

itself and the secret of the buried treasures was locked in the breasts

of a few faithful Peruvians.

Our Peruvian informant added that in consequence of certain

indiscretions at various times, persons had been sent by different

governments to search for the treasure under the pretext of scientific

exploration. They had rummaged the country through, but without

realizing their object. So far this tradition is corroborated by the

reports of Dr. Tschuddi and other historians of Peru. But there are

certain additional details which we are not aware have been made public

before now.

Several years after hearing the story, and its corroboration by the {597}

Italian gentleman, we again visited Peru. Going southward from Lima, by

water, we reached a point near Arica at sunset, and were struck by the

appearance of an enormous rock, nearly perpendicular, which stood in

mournful solitude on the shore, apart from the range of the Andes. It

was the tomb of the Incas. As the last rays of the setting sun strike

the face of the rock, one can make out, with an ordinary opera-glass,

some curious hieroglyphics inscribed on the volcanic surface.

When Cusco was the capital of Peru, it contained a temple of the sun,

famed far and near for its magnificence. It was roofed with thick

plates of gold, and the walls were covered with the same precious

metal; the eave-troughs were also of solid gold. In the west wall

the architects had contrived an aperture in such a way that when the

sunbeams reached it, it focused them inside the building. Stretching

like a golden chain from one sparkling point to another, they encircled

the walls, illuminating the grim idols, and disclosing certain mystic

signs at other times invisible. It was only by understanding these

hieroglyphics—identical with those which may be seen to this day on

the tomb of the Incas—that one could learn the secret of the tunnel

and its approaches. Among the latter was one in the neighborhood of

Cusco, now masked beyond discovery. This leads directly into an immense

tunnel which runs from Cusco to Lima, and then, turning southward,

extends into Bolivia. At a certain point it is intersected by a royal

tomb. Inside this sepulchral chamber are cunningly arranged two doors;

or, rather, two enormous slabs which turn upon pivots, and close so

tightly as to be only distinguishable from the other portions of the

sculptured walls by the secret signs, whose key is in the possession of

the faithful custodians. One of these turning slabs covers the southern

mouth of the Liman tunnel—the other, the northern one of the Bolivian

corridor. The latter, running southward, passes through Trapaca

and Cobijo, for Arica is not far away from the little river called

Pay’quina,[888] which is the boundary between Peru and Bolivia.

Not far from this spot stand three separate peaks which form a curious

triangle; they are included in the chain of the Andes. According

to tradition the only practicable entrance to the corridor leading

northward is in one of these peaks; but without the secret of its

landmarks, a regiment of Titans might rend the rocks in vain in the

attempt to find it. But even were some one to gain an entrance and

find his way as far as the turning slab in the wall of the sepulchre, {598}

and attempt to blast it out, the superincumbent rocks are so disposed

as to bury the tomb, its treasures, and—as the mysterious Peruvian

expressed it to us—“a thousand warriors” in one common ruin. There

is no other access to the Arica chamber but through the door in the

mountain near Pay’quina. Along the entire length of the corridor,

from Bolivia to Lima and Cusco, are smaller hiding places filled

with treasures of gold and precious stone, the accumulations of many

generations of Incas, the aggregate value of which is incalculable.

We have in our possession an accurate plan of the tunnel, the

sepulchre, and the doors, given to us at the time by the old Peruvian.

If we had ever thought of profiting by the secret, it would have

required the coöperation of the Peruvian and Bolivian governments

on an extensive scale. To say nothing of physical obstacles, no one

individual or small party could undertake such an exploration without

encountering the army of smugglers and brigands with which the coast

is infested; and which, in fact, includes nearly the whole population.

The mere task of purifying the mephitic air of the tunnel, which had

not been entered for centuries, would also be a serious one. There,

however, the treasure lies, and there the tradition says it will lie

till the last vestige of Spanish rule disappears from the whole of

North and South America.

The treasures exhumed by Dr. Schliemann at Mycenæ, have awakened

popular cupidity, and the eyes of adventurous speculators are being

turned toward the localities where the wealth of ancient peoples is

supposed to be buried, in crypt or cave, or beneath sand or alluvial

deposit. Around no other locality, not even Peru, hangs so many

traditions as around the Gobi Desert. In Independent Tartary this

howling waste of shifting sand was once, if report speaks correctly,

the seat of one of the richest empires the world ever saw. Beneath the

surface are said to lie such wealth in gold, jewels, statuary, arms,

utensils, and all that indicates civilization, luxury, and fine arts,

as no existing capital of Christendom can show to-day. The Gobi sand

moves regularly from east to west before terrific gales that blow

continually. Occasionally some of the hidden treasures are uncovered,

but not a native dare touch them, for the whole district is under the

ban of a mighty spell. Death would be the penalty. Bahti—hideous, but

faithful gnomes—guard the hidden treasures of this prehistoric people,

awaiting the day when the revolution of cyclic periods shall again

cause their story to be known for the instruction of mankind.

According to local tradition, the tomb of Ghengiz Khan still exists

near Lake Tabasun Nor. Within lies the Mongolian Alexander, as though

asleep. After three more centuries he will awake and lead his people

to new victories and another harvest of glory. Though this prophetic {599}

tradition be received with ever so many grains of salt, we can affirm

as a fact that the tomb itself is no fiction, nor has its amazing

richness been exaggerated.

The district of the Gobi wilderness and, in fact, the whole area of

Independent Tartary and Thibet is jealously guarded against foreign

intrusion. Those who are permitted to traverse it are under the

particular care and pilotage of certain agents of the chief authority,

and are in duty bound to convey no intelligence respecting places

and persons to the outside world. But for this restriction, even we

might contribute to these pages accounts of exploration, adventure,

and discovery that would be read with interest. The time will come,

sooner or later, when the dreadful sand of the desert will yield up

its long-buried secrets, and then there will indeed be unlooked-for

mortifications for our modern vanity.

“The people of Pashai,”[889] says Marco Polo, the daring traveller

of the thirteenth century, “are great adepts in sorceries and the

_diabolic_ arts.” And his learned editor adds: “This Pashai, or Udyana,

was the native country of Padma Sambhava, one of the chief apostles

of lamaism, _i. e._, of Thibetan Buddhism, and a great master of

enchantments. The doctrines of Sakya, as they prevailed in Udâyna _in

old times_, were probably strongly tinged with Sivaïtic magic, and the

Thibetans still regard the locality as the classic ground of sorcery

and witchcraft.”

The “old times” are just like the “modern times;” nothing is changed as

to magical practices except that they have become still more esoteric

and arcane, and that the caution of the adepts increases in proportion

to the traveller’s curiosity. Hiouen-Thsang says of the inhabitants:

“The men ... are fond of study, but pursue it with no ardor. _The

science of magical formulæ has become a regular professional business

with them._”[890] We will not contradict the venerable Chinese

pilgrim on this point, and are willing to admit that in the seventh

century _some_ people made “a professional business” of magic; so,

also, do _some_ people now, but certainly not the true adepts. It is

not Hiouen-Thsang, the pious, courageous man, who risked his life a

hundred times to have the bliss of perceiving Buddha’s shadow in the

cave of Peshawer, who would have accused the holy lamas and monkish

thaumaturgists of “making a professional business” of showing it to

travellers. The injunction of Gautama, contained in his answer to King

Prasenagit, his protector, who called on him to perform miracles, must {600}

have been ever present to the mind of Hiouen-Thsang. “Great king,”

said Gautama, “I do not teach the law to my pupils, telling them

‘go, ye saints, and before the eyes of the Brahmans and householders

perform, by means of your supernatural powers, miracles greater than

any man can perform.’ I tell them, when I teach them the law, ‘Live, ye

saints, _hiding your good works, and showing your sins_.’”

Struck with the accounts of magical exhibitions witnessed and recorded

by travellers of every age who had visited Tartary and Thibet,

Colonel Yule comes to the conclusion that the natives must have had

“at their command the whole encyclopædia of modern ‘Spiritualists.’

Duhalde mentions among their sorceries the art of producing by their

invocations the figures of Laotsen[891] and their divinities _in the

air_, and _of making a pencil write answers to questions without

anybody touching it_.”[892]

The former invocations pertain to religious mysteries of their

sanctuaries; if done otherwise, or for the sake _of gain_, they are

considered _sorcery_, necromancy, and strictly forbidden. The latter

art, that of making a pencil write _without contact_, was known and

practiced in China and other countries centuries before the Christian

era. It is the A B C of magic in those countries.

When Hiouen-Thsang desired to adore the shadow of Buddha, it was not

to “professional magicians” that he resorted, but to the power of his

own soul-invocation; the power of prayer, faith, and contemplation. All

was dark and dreary near the cavern in which the miracle was alleged to

take place sometimes. Hiouen-Thsang entered and began his devotions.

He made 100 salutations, but neither saw nor heard anything. Then,

thinking himself too sinful, he cried bitterly, and despaired. But as

he was going to give up all hope, he perceived on the eastern wall a

feeble light, but it disappeared. He renewed his prayers, full of hope

this time, and again he saw the light, which flashed and disappeared

again. After this he made a solemn vow: he would not leave the cave

till he had the rapture to see at last the shadow of the “Venerable of

the Age.” He had to wait longer after this, for only after 200 prayers

was the dark cave suddenly “bathed in light, and the shadow of Buddha,

of a brilliant white color, rose majestically on the wall, as when the

clouds suddenly open, and, all at once, display the marvellous image of

the ‘Mountain of Light.’ A dazzling splendor lighted up the features

of the divine countenance. Hiouen-Thsang was lost in contemplation

and wonder, and would not turn his eyes away from the sublime and {601}

incomparable object.” Hiouen-Thsang adds in his own diary, _See-yu

kee_, that it is only when man prays with sincere faith, and if he

has received from above a hidden impression, that he sees the shadow

clearly, but he cannot enjoy the sight for any length of time.[893]

Those who are so ready to accuse the Chinese of irreligion will do well

to read Schott’s _Essays on Buddhism in China and Upper Asia_.[894]

“In the years _Yuan-yeu_ of the Sung (A.D. 1086-1093) a pious matron

with her two servants lived entirely to the Land of Enlightenment. One

of the maids said one day to her companion: ‘To-night I shall pass

over to the Realm of Amita’ (Buddha). The same night a balsamic odor

filled the house, and the maid died without any preceding illness.

On the following day the surviving maid said to her lady: ‘Yesterday

my deceased companion appeared to me in a dream, and said: “Thanks

to the persevering supplications of our dear mistress, I am become

an inhabitant of Paradise, and my blessedness is past all expression

in words.”’ The matron replied: ‘If she will appear to me also, then

will I believe all you say.’ The next night the deceased really

appeared to her. The lady asked: ‘May I, for once, visit the Land

of Enlightenment?’ ‘Yea,’ answered the blessed soul; ‘thou hast but

to follow thine handmaiden.’ The lady followed her (in her dream),

and soon perceived a lake of immeasurable expanse, overspread with

innumerable red and white lotus flowers, of various sizes, some

blooming, some fading. She asked what those flowers might signify? The

maiden replied: ‘These are all human beings on the Earth whose thoughts

are turned to the Land of Enlightenment. The very first longing after

the Paradise of Amita produces a flower in the Celestial Lake, and this

becomes daily larger and more glorious as the self-improvement of the

person whom it represents advances; in the contrary case, it loses in

glory and fades away.’[895] The matron desired to know the name of an

enlightened one who reposed on one of the flowers, clad in a waving

and wondrously glistening raiment. Her whilom maiden answered: ‘That

is Yang-kie.’ Then asked she the name of another, and was answered: {602}

‘That is Mahu.’ The lady then said: ‘At what place shall I hereafter

come into existence?’ Then the Blessed Soul led her a space further,

and showed her a hill that gleamed with gold and azure. ‘Here,’ said

she, ‘is your future abode. You will belong to the first order of the

blessed.’ When the matron awoke, she sent to inquire for Yang-kie

and Mahu. The first was already departed; the other still alive and

well. And thus the lady learned that the soul of one who advances in

holiness and never turns back, may be already a dweller in the Land of

Enlightenment, even though the body still sojourn in this transitory

world.”

In the same essay, another Chinese story is translated, and to the

same effect: “I knew a man,” says the author, “who during his life had

killed many living beings, and was at last struck with an apoplexy.

The sorrows in store for his sin-laden soul pained me to the heart; I

visited him, and exhorted him to call on the Amita; but he obstinately

refused. His illness clouded his understanding; in consequence of his

misdeeds he had become hardened. What was before such a man when once

his eyes were closed? In this life the night followeth the day, and

the winter followeth the summer; that, all men are aware of. But that

life is followed by death, no man will consider. Oh, what blindness and

obduracy is this!” (p. 93).

These two instances of Chinese literature hardly strengthen the

usual charge of irreligion and total materialism brought against the

nation. The first little mystical story is full of spiritual charm,

and would grace any Christian religious book. The second is as worthy

of praise, and we have but to replace “Amita” with “Jesus” to have

a highly orthodox tale, as regards religious sentiments and code of

philosophical morality. The following instance is still more striking,

and we quote it for the benefit of Christian revivalists:

“Hoang-ta-tie, of T’anchen, who lived under the Sung, followed the

craft of a blacksmith. Whenever he was at his work he used to call,

without intermission, on the name of Amita Buddha. One day he handed to

his neighbors the following verses of his own composition to be spread

about:—

‘Ding dong! The hammer-strokes fall long and fast,

Until the iron turns to steel at last!

Now shall the long, long day of rest begin,

The _Land of Bliss Eternal_ calls me in!’

“Thereupon he died. But his verses spread all over Honan, and many

learned to call upon Buddha.”[896]

To deny to the Chinese or any people of Asia, whether Central, Upper, {603}

or Lower, the possession of any knowledge, or even perception of

spiritual things, is perfectly ridiculous. From one end to the other

the country is full of mystics, religious philosophers, Buddhist

saints, and _magicians_. Belief in a spiritual world, full of invisible

beings who, on certain occasions, appear to mortals objectively, is

universal. “According to the belief of the nations of Central Asia,”

remarks I. J. Schmidt, “the earth and its interior, as well as the

encompassing atmosphere, are filled with spiritual beings, which

exercise an influence, partly beneficent, partly malignant, on the

whole of organic and inorganic nature.... Especially are deserts and

other wild or uninhabited tracts, or regions in which the influences

of nature are displayed on a gigantic and terrible scale, regarded as

the chief abode or rendezvous of evil spirits. And hence the steppes

of Turan, and in particular the great sandy Desert of Gobi have been

looked on as the dwelling-place of malignant beings, from days of hoary

antiquity.”

Marco Polo—as a matter of course—mentions more than once in his curious

book of _Travels_, these tricky nature-spirits of the deserts. For

centuries, and especially in the last one, had his strange stories

been completely rejected. No one would believe him when he said he

had witnessed, time and again, with his own eyes, the most wonderful

feats of magic performed by the subjects of Kublai-Khan and adepts

of other countries. On his death-bed Marco was strongly urged to

retract his alleged “falsehoods;” but he solemnly swore to the truth

of what he said, adding that “he had not told _one-half_ of what he

had really seen!” There is now no doubt that he spoke the truth, since

Marsden’s edition, and that of Colonel Yule have appeared. The public

is especially beholden to the latter for bringing forward so many

authorities corroborative of Marco’s testimony, and explaining some of

the phenomena in the usual way, for he makes it plain beyond question

that the great traveller was not only a veracious but an exceedingly

observant writer. Warmly defending his author, the conscientious

editor, after enumerating more than one hitherto controverted and even

rejected point in the Venetian’s _Travels_, concludes by saying: “Nay,

the last two years have thrown a promise of light even on what seemed

_the wildest_ of Marco’s stories, and the bones of a veritable Ruc from

New Zealand lie on the table of Professor Owen’s cabinet!”[897]

The monstrous bird of the _Arabian Nights_, or “Arabian Mythology,”

as Webster calls the _Ruc_ (or Roc), having been identified, the next

thing in order is to _discover_ and recognize that _Aladdin’s_ magical

lamp has also certain claims to reality.

Describing his passage through the great desert of Lop, Marco Polo {604}

speaks of a marvellous thing, “which is that, when travellers are on

the move by night ... they will hear spirits talking. Sometimes the

spirits will call him by name ... even in the daytime one hears these

spirits talking. And sometimes you shall hear the sound of a variety of

musical instruments, and still more commonly the sound of drums.”[898]

In his notes, the translator quotes the Chinese historian, Matwanlin,

who corroborates the same. “During the passage of this wilderness you

hear sounds,” says Matwanlin, “sometimes of singing, sometimes of

wailing; and it has often happened that travellers going aside to see

what those sounds might be, have strayed from their course and been

entirely lost; for they were voices of spirits and goblins.”[899]

“These goblins are not peculiar to the Gobi,” adds the editor, “though

that appears to have been their most favored haunt. _The awe of the

vast and solitary desert raises them in all similar localities._”

Colonel Yule would have done well to consider the possibility of

serious consequences arising from the acceptance of his theory. If we

admit that the weird cries of the Gobi are due to the _awe_ inspired

“by the vast and solitary desert,” why should the goblins of the

Gadarenes (_Luke_ viii. 29) be entitled to any better consideration?

and why may not Jesus have been self-deceived as to his objective

tempter during the forty days’ trial in the “wilderness?” We are

quite ready to receive or reject the theory enunciated by Colonel

Yule, but shall insist upon its impartial application to all cases.

Pliny speaks of the phantoms that appear and vanish in the deserts

of Africa;[900] Æthicus, the early Christian cosmographer, mentions,

though incredulous, the stories that were told of the voices of singers

and revellers in the desert; and “Mas’udi tells of the _ghûls_, which

in the deserts appear to travellers by night and in lonely hours;” and

also of “Apollonius of Tyana and his companions, who, in a desert near

the Indus by moonlight, saw an _empusa_ or ghûl taking many forms....

They revile it, and it goes off uttering shrill cries.”[901] And Ibn

Batuta relates a like legend of the Western Sahara: “If the messenger

be solitary, the demons sport with him and fascinate him, so that he

strays from his course and perishes.”[902] Now if all these matters are

capable of a “rational explanation;” and we do not doubt it as regards

most of these cases, then, the _Bible_-devils of the wilderness deserve

no more consideration, but should have the same rule applied to them.

They, too, are creatures of terror, imagination, and _superstition_; {605}

hence, the narratives of the _Bible_ must be false; and if one single

verse is false, then a cloud is thrown upon the title of all the

rest, to be considered _divine_ revelation. Once admit this, and this

collection of canonical documents is at least as amenable to criticism

as any other book of stories.[903]

There are many spots in the world where the strangest phenomena have

resulted from what was later ascertained to be natural physical causes.

In Southern California there are certain places on the sea-shore where

the sand when disturbed produces a loud musical ring. It is known

as the “musical sand,” and the phenomenon is supposed to be of an

electrical nature. “The sound of musical instruments, chiefly of drums,

is a phenomenon of another class, and is really produced in certain

situations among sandhills when the sand is disturbed,” says the editor

of _Marco Polo_. “A very striking account of a phenomenon of this kind,

_regarded as supernatural_, is given by Friar Odoric, whose experience

I have traced to the Reg Ruwán or flowing sand north of Kabul. Besides

this celebrated example ... I have noted that equally well-known one

of the _Jibal Nakics_, or ‘Hill of the Bell’ in the Sinai desert;

... Gibal-ul-Thabúl, or hill of the drums.... A Chinese narrative of

the tenth century mentions the phenomenon as known near Kwachau, on

the eastern border of the Lop desert, under the name of “the singing

sands.”[904]

That all these are natural phenomena, no one can doubt. But what of the

questions and answers, plainly and audibly given and received? What

of conversations held between certain travellers and the _invisible_

spirits, or unknown beings, that sometimes appear to whole caravans

in tangible form? If so many millions believe in the possibility

that spirits may clothe themselves with material bodies, behind the

curtain of a “medium,” and appear to the _circle_, why should they

reject the same possibility for the elemental spirits of the deserts? {606}

This is the “to be, or not to be” of Hamlet. If “spirits” can do all

that Spiritualists claim for them, why can they not appear equally to

the traveller in the wildernesses and solitudes? A recent scientific

article in a Russian journal attributes such “spirit-voices,” in the

great Gobi desert, _to the echo_. A very reasonable explanation, if it

can only be demonstrated that these voices simply repeat what has been

previously uttered by a living person. But when the “superstitious”

traveller gets intelligent _answers_ to his questions, this Gobi _echo_

at once shows a very near relationship with the famous echo of the

Théâtre Porte St. Martin at Paris. “How do you do, sir?” shouts one of

the actors in the play. “Very poorly, my son; thank you. I am getting

old, very ... very old!” politely answers the echo!

What incredulous merriment must the _superstitious_ and _absurd_

narratives of Marco Polo, concerning the “supernatural” gifts of

certain shark and wild-beast charmers of India, whom he terms

_Abraiaman_, have excited for long centuries. Describing the

pearl-fishery of Ceylon, as it was in his time, he says that the

merchants are “obliged also to pay those men who _charm_ the great

fishes—to prevent them from injuring the divers whilst engaged in

seeking pearls under water—one-twentieth part of all that they take.

These fish-charmers are termed Abraiaman (Brahman?), and their charm

holds good for that day only, for at night they dissolve the charm, so

that the fishes can work mischief at their will. These Abraiaman know

also how to charm beasts and birds, and every living thing.”

And this is what we find in the explanatory notes of Colonel Yule, in

relation to this _degrading_ Asiatic “superstition:” “Marco’s account

of the pearl-fishery is still substantially correct.... At the diamond

mines of the northern Circars, Brahmans are employed in the analogous

office of propitiating the tutelary genii. The shark-charmers are

called in Tamil, _Kadal-Katti_, “sea-binders,” and in Hindustani,

_Hai-banda_, or “shark-binders.” At Aripo they belong to one family,

supposed to have the monopoly of the charm.[905] The chief operator

is (or was, not many years ago) _paid by the government_, and he also

received ten oysters from each boat daily during the fishery. Tennent,

on his visit, found the incumbent of the office to be a _Roman Catholic

Christian_ (?), but that did not seem to affect the exercise of the

validity of his functions. _It is remarkable that not more than one

authenticated accident from sharks had taken place during the whole

period of the British occupation._”[906]

Two items of fact in the above paragraph are worthy of being placed {607}

in juxtaposition. 1. The British authorities pay professional

shark-charmers a stipend to exercise their art; and, 2, only _one

life_ has been lost since the execution of the contract. (We have yet

to learn whether the loss of this _one_ life did not occur under the

Roman Catholic _sorcerer_.) Is it pretended that the salary is paid

as a concession to a _degrading_ native superstition? Very well; but

how about the sharks? Are they receiving salaries, also, from the

British authorities out of the Secret Service Fund? Every person who

has visited Ceylon must know that the waters of the pearl coast swarm

with sharks of the most voracious kind, and that it is even dangerous

to bathe, let alone to dive for oysters. We might go further, if we

chose, and give the names of British officials of the highest rank

in the Indian service, who, after resorting to native “magicians”

and “sorcerers,” to assist them in recovering things lost, or in

unravelling vexatious mysteries of one kind or another, and being

successful, and at the time _secretly_ expressing their gratitude,

have gone away, and shown their innate cowardice before the world’s

Areopagus, by publicly denying the truth of magic, and leading the jest

against Hindu “superstition.”

Not many years ago, one of the worst of _superstitions_ scientists held

to be that of believing that the murderer’s portrait remained impressed

on the eye of the murdered person, and that the former could be easily

recognized by examining carefully the retina. The “superstition”

asserted that the likeness could be made still more striking by

subjecting the murdered man to certain old women’s fumigations, and the

like gossip. And now an American newspaper, of March 26, 1877, says: “A

number of years ago attention was attracted to a theory which insisted

that the last effort of vision materialized itself and remained as an

object imprinted on the retina of the eye after death. This has been

proved a fact by an experiment tried in the presence of Dr. Gamgee,

F.R.S., of Birmingham, England, and Prof. Bunsen, the subject being a

living rabbit. The means taken to prove the merits of the question were

most simple, the eyes being placed near an opening in a shutter, and

retaining the shape of the same after the animal had been deprived of

life.”

If, from the regions of idolatry, ignorance, and superstition, as India

is termed by some missionaries, we turn to the so-called centre of

civilization—Paris, we find the same principles of magic exemplified

there under the name of _occult_ Spiritualism. The Honorable John

L. O’Sullivan, Ex-Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States to

Portugal, has kindly furnished us with the strange particulars of a

semi-magical séance which he recently attended with several other

eminent men, at Paris. Having his permission to that effect, we print

his letter in full.

“NEW YORK, Feb. 7, 1877. {608}

“I cheerfully obey your request for a written statement of

what I related to you orally, as having been witnessed by me

in Paris, last summer, at the house of a highly respectable

physician, whose name I have no authority to use, but whom,

after the usual French fashion of anonymizing, I will call Dr.

X.

“I was introduced there by an English friend, well-known in the

Spiritualist circles in London—Mr. Gledstanes. Some eight or

ten other visitors were present, of both sexes. We were seated

in _fauteuils_, occupying half of a long drawing-room, flush

with a spacious garden. In the other half of the room was a

grand piano, a considerable open space between it and us, and a

couple of _fauteuils_ in that space, evidently placed there to

be occupied by other sitters. A door near them opened into the

private apartments.

“Dr. X. came in, and discoursed to us for about twenty minutes

with rapid and vehement French eloquence, which I could not

undertake to report. He had, for over twenty-five years,

investigated occult mysteries, of which he was about to exhibit

some phenomena. His object was to attract his brethren of the

scientific world, but few or none of them came to see for

themselves. He intended before long to publish a book. He

presently led in two ladies, the younger one his wife, the

other (whom I will call Madame Y.) a medium or sensitive, with

whom he had worked through all that period in the prosecution

of these studies, and who had devoted and sacrificed her whole

life to this work with him. Both these ladies had their eyes

closed, apparently in trance.

“He stood them at the opposite ends of the long grand piano

(which was shut), and directed them to put their hands upon

it. Sounds soon began to issue from its chords, marching,

galloping, drums, trumpets, rolling musketry, cannon, cries,

and groans—in one word, a _battle_. This lasted, I should say,

some five to ten minutes.

“I should have mentioned that before the two mediums were

brought in I had written in pencil, on a small bit of paper (by

direction of Mr. Gledstanes, who had been there before), the

names of three objects, to be known to myself alone, viz., some

_musical composer_, deceased, a _flower_, and a _cake_. I chose

_Beethoven_, a _marguerite_ (daisy), and a kind of French cake

called _plombières_, and rolled the paper into a pellet, which

I kept in my hand, without letting even my friend know its

contents.

“When the battle was over, he placed Mme. Y. in one of the

two _fauteuils_, Mme. X. being seated apart at one side of

the room, and I was asked to hand my folded, or rolled, paper

to Mme. Y. She held it (unopened) between her fingers, on

her lap. She was dressed in white merino, flowing from her

neck and gathered in at the waist, under a blaze of light

from chandeliers on the right and left. After a while she

dropped the little roll of paper to the floor, and I picked it

up. Dr. X. then raised her to her feet and told her to make

“the evocation of the dead.” He withdrew the _fauteuils_ and

placed in her hand a steel rod of about four and half or five

feet in length, the top of which was surmounted with a short

cross-piece—the Egyptian _Tau_. With this she traced a circle

round herself, as she stood, of about six feet in diameter. She

did not hold the cross-piece as a handle, but, on the contrary,

she held the rod at the opposite end. She presently handed it

back to Dr. X. There she stood for some time, her hands hanging

down and folded together in front of her, motionless, and with

her eyes directed slightly upward toward one of the opposite

corners of the long _salon_. Her lips presently began to move,

with muttered sounds, which after a while became distinct in

articulation, in short broken sentences or phrases, very much {609}

like the recitation of a litany. Certain words, seeming to be

names, would recur from time to time. It sounded to me somewhat

as I have heard Oriental languages sound. Her face was very

earnest and mobile with expression, with sometimes a slight

frown on the brow. I suppose it lasted about fifteen or twenty

minutes, amidst the motionless silence of all the company,

as we gazed on the weird scene. Her utterance finally seemed

to increase in vehemence and rapidity. At last she stretched

forth one arm toward the space on which her eyes had been

fixed, and, with a loud cry, almost a scream, she exclaimed:

‘BEETHOVEN!’—and fell backward, prostrate on the floor.

“Dr. X. hastened to her, made eager magnetic passes about

her face and neck, and propped up her head and shoulders on

cushions. And there she lay like a person sick and suffering,

occasionally moaning, turning restlessly, etc. I suppose a

full half-hour then elapsed, during which she seemed to pass

through all the phases of gradual _death_ (this I was told was

a re-enacting of the death of Beethoven). It would be long to

describe in detail, even if I could recall all. We watched as

though assisting at a scene of real death. I will only say that

her pulse ceased; no beating of the heart could be perceived;

her hands first, then her arms became cold, while warmth was

still to be felt under her arm-pits; even they at last became

entirely cold; her feet and legs became cold in the same

manner, and they swelled astonishingly. The doctor invited us

all to come and recognize these phenomena. The gasping breaths

came at longer and longer intervals, and feebler and feebler.

At last came the end; her head fell sidewise, her hands, which

had been picking with the fingers about her dress, collapsed

also. The doctor said, ‘she is now dead;’ and so it indeed

seemed. In vehement haste he produced (I did not see from

where) two small _snakes_, which he seemed to huddle about her

neck and down into her bosom, making also eager transverse

passes about her head and neck. After a while she appeared

to revive slowly, and finally the doctor and a couple of men

servants lifted her up and carried her off into the private

apartments, from which he soon returned. He told us that this

was all very critical, but perfectly safe, but that no time was

to be lost, for otherwise the death, which he said was real,

would be permanent.

“I need not say how ghastly the effect of this whole scene had

been on all the spectators. Nor need I remind you that this was

no trickery of a performer paid to astonish. The scene passed

in the elegant drawing-room of a respectable physician, to

which access without introduction is impossible, while (outside

of the phenomenal facts) a thousand indescribable details of

language, manner, expression, and action presented those minute

guarantees of sincerity and earnestness which carry conviction

to those who witness, though it may be transmitted to those who

only hear or read of them.

“After a time Mme. Y. returned and was seated in one of the

two _fauteuils_ before mentioned, and I was invited to the

other by her side. I had still in my hand the unopened pellet

of paper containing the three words privately written by me,

of which (Beethoven) had been the first. She sat for a few

minutes with her open hands resting on her lap. They presently

began to move restlessly about. “Ah, it burns, it burns,” she

said, and her features contracted with an expression of pain.

In a few moments she raised one of them, and it contained a

_marguerite_, the flower I had written as my second word. I

received it from her, and after it had been examined by the

rest of the company, I preserved it. Dr. X. said it was of a

species not known in that part of the country; an opinion in

which he was certainly mistaken, as a few days afterwards I

saw the same in the flower-market of the Madeleine. Whether

this flower was _produced_ under her hands, or was simply an

_apport_, as in the phenomenon we are familiar with in the

experiences of Spiritualism, I do not know. It was the one

or the other, for she certainly did not have it as she sat {610}

there by my side, under a strong light, before it made its

appearance. The flower was perfectly fresh in every one of its

delicate petals.

“The third word I had written on my bit of paper was the name

of a cake—_plombières_. She presently began to go through the

motions of eating, though no cake was visible, and asked me if

I would not go with her to _Plombières_—the name of the cake I

had written. This might have been simply a case of mind-reading.

“After this followed a scene in which Madame X., the doctor’s

wife, was said, and seemed to be, possessed by the spirit of

Beethoven. The doctor addressed her as “Monsieur Beethoven.”

She took no notice until he called the name aloud in her ear.

She then responded with polite bows, etc. (You may remember

that Beethoven was extremely deaf.) After some conversation he

begged her to play, and she seated herself at the piano and

performed magnificently both some of his known music and some

improvisations which were generally recognized by the company

as in his style. I was told afterwards, by a lady friend of

Madame X., that in her normal state she was a very ordinary

amateur performer. After about half an hour spent in music and

in dialogue in the character of Beethoven, to whom her face in

expression, and her tumbled hair, seemed to acquire a strange

resemblance, the doctor placed in her hands a sheet of paper

and a crayon, and asked her to sketch the face of the person

she saw before her. She produced very rapidly a profile sketch

of a head and face resembling Beethoven’s busts, though as

a younger man; and she dashed off a rapid name under it, as

though a signature, ‘Beethoven.’ I have preserved the sketch,

though how the handwriting may correspond with Beethoven’s

signature I cannot say.

“The hour was now late, and the company broke up; nor had I any

time to interrogate Dr. X. upon what we had thus witnessed. But

I called on him with Mr. Gledstanes a few evenings afterwards.

I found that he admitted the action of spirits, and was a

Spiritualist, but also a great deal more, having studied long

and deeply into the occult mysteries of the Orient. So I

understood him to convey, while he seemed to prefer to refer

me to his book, which he would probably publish in the course

of the present year. I observed a number of loose sheets on a

table all covered with Oriental characters unknown to me—the

work of Madame Y. in trance, as he said, in answer to an

inquiry. He told us that in the scene I had witnessed, she

became (_i. e._, as I presumed, was possessed by) _a priestess

of one of the ancient Egyptian temples_, and that the origin of

it was this: A scientific friend of his had acquired in Egypt

possession of the mummy of a priestess, and had given him some

of the linen swathings with which the body was enveloped, and

from the contact with this cloth of 2,000 or 3,000 years old,

the devotion of her whole existence to this occult relation,

and twenty years seclusion from the world, his medium, as

sensitive Madame Y., had become what I had seen. The language

I had heard her speak was the sacred language of the temples

in which she had been instructed, not so much by inspiration

but very much as we now study languages, by dictation, written

exercises, etc., being even chided and punished when she was

dull or slow. He said that Jacolliot had heard her in a similar

scene, and recognized sounds and words of the very oldest

sacred language as preserved in the temples of India, anterior,

if I remember right, to the epoch of the Sanscrit.

“Respecting the _snakes_ he had employed in the hasty operation

of restoring her to life, or rather perhaps arresting the last

consummation of the process of death, he said there was a

strange mystery in their relation to the phenomena of life and

death. I understood that they were indispensable. Silence and

inaction on our part were also insisted upon throughout, and

any attempt at questioning him at the time was peremptorily,

almost angrily, suppressed. We might come and talk afterward,

or wait for the appearance of his book, but he alone seemed {611}

entitled to exercise the faculty of speech throughout

all these performances—which he certainly did with great

volubility, the while, with all the eloquence and precision

of diction of a Frenchman, combining scientific culture with

vividness of imagination.

“I intended to return on some subsequent evening, but learned

from Mr. Gledstanes that he had given them up for the present,

disgusted with his ill-success in getting his professional

colleagues and men of science to come and witness what it was

his object to show them.

“This is about as much as I can recall of this strange, weird

evening, excepting some uninteresting details. I have given

you the name and address of Dr. X. confidentially, because he

would seem to have gone more or less far on the same path as

you pursue in the studies of your Theosophical Society. Beyond

that I feel bound to keep it private, not having his authority

to use it in any way which might lead to publicity.

“Very respectfully,

“Your friend and obedient servant,

“J. L. O’SULLIVAN.”

In this interesting case simple Spiritualism has transcended its

routine and encroached upon the limits of magic. The features of

mediumship are there, in the double life led by the sensitive Madame

Y., in which she passes an existence totally distinct from the normal

one, and by reason of the subordination of her individuality to a

foreign will, becomes the permutation of a priestess of Egypt; and in

the personation of the spirit of Beethoven, and in the unconscious

and cataleptic state into which she falls. On the other hand, the

will-power exercised by Dr. X. upon his sensitive, the tracing of the

mystic circle, the evocations, the materialization of the desired

flower, the seclusion and education of Madame Y., the employment of

the wand and its form, the creation and use of the serpents, the

evident control of the astral forces—all these pertain to magic. Such

experiments are of interest and value to science, but liable to abuse

in the hands of a less conscientious practitioner than the eminent

gentleman designated as Dr. X. A true Oriental kabalist would not

recommend their duplication.

Spheres unknown below our feet; spheres still more unknown and still

more unexplored above us; between the two a handful of moles, blind to

God’s great light, and deaf to the whispers of the invisible world,

boasting that they lead mankind. Where? Onward, they claim; but we have

a right to doubt it. The greatest of our physiologists, when placed

side by side with a Hindu fakir, who knows neither how to read nor

write, will very soon find himself feeling as foolish as a school-boy

who has neglected to learn his lesson. It is not by vivisecting living

animals that a physiologist will assure himself of the existence of

man’s soul, nor on the blade of the knife can he extract it from a

human body. “What sane man,” inquires Sergeant Cox, the President of

the London Psychological Society, “what sane man who knows nothing of

magnetism or physiology, who had never witnessed an experiment nor {612}

learned its principles, would proclaim himself _a fool_ by denying

its facts and denouncing its theory?” The truthful answer to this

would be, “two-thirds of our modern-day scientists.” The impertinence,

if truth can ever be impertinent, must be laid at the door of him

who uttered it—a scientist of the number of those few who are brave

and honest enough to utter wholesome truths, however disagreeable.

And there is no mistaking the real meaning of the imputation, for

immediately after the irreverent inquiry, the learned lecturer remarks

as pointedly: “The chemist takes his electricity from the electrician,

the physiologist looks to the geologist for his geology—each would deem

it an impertinence in the other if he were to pronounce judgment in the

branch of knowledge not his own. Strange it is, but true as strange,

that this rational rule is wholly set at naught in the treatment of

psychology. _Physical scientists deem themselves competent to pronounce

a dogmatic judgment upon psychology and all that appertains to it,

without having witnessed any of its phenomena, and in entire ignorance

of its principles and practice._”[907]

We sincerely hope that the two eminent biologists, Mr. Mendeleyeff,

of St. Petersburg, and Mr. Ray Lankester, of London fame, will bear

themselves under the above as unflinchingly as their living victims do

when palpitating under their dissecting knives.

For a belief to have become universal, it must have been founded on

an immense accumulation of facts, tending to strengthen it, from one

generation to another. At the head of all such beliefs stands magic,

or, if one would prefer—occult psychology. Who, of those who appreciate

its tremendous powers even from its feeble, half-paralyzed effects

in our civilized countries, would dare disbelieve in our days the

assertions of Porphyry and Proclus, that even inanimate objects, such

as statues of gods, could be made to move and exhibit a factitious life

for a few moments? Who can deny the allegation? Is it those who testify

daily over their own signatures that they have seen tables and chairs

move and walk, and pencils write, without contact? Diogenes Laërtius

tells us of a certain philosopher, Stilpo, who was exiled from Athens

by the Areopagus, for having dared to deny publicly that the Minerva

of Pheidias was anything else than a block of marble. But our own age,

after having mimicked the ancients in everything possible, even to

their very names, such as “senates,” “prefects,” and “consuls,” etc.;

and after admitting that Napoleon the Great conquered three-fourths of

Europe by applying the principles of war taught by the Cæsars and the

Alexanders, knows so much better than its preceptors about psychology,

that it would vote every believer in “animated tables” into Bedlam.

Be this as it may, _the religion of the ancients is the religion of {613}

the future_. A few centuries more, and there will linger no sectarian

beliefs in either of the great religions of humanity. Brahmanism and

Buddhism, Christianity and Mahometanism will all disappear before the

mighty rush of _facts_. “I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh,”

writes the prophet Joel. “Verily I say unto you ... greater works

than these shall you do,” promises Jesus. But this can only come

to pass when the world returns to the grand religion of the past;

the _knowledge_ of those majestic systems which preceded, by far,

Brahmanism, and even the primitive monotheism of the ancient Chaldeans.

Meanwhile, we must remember the direct effects of the revealed mystery.

The only means by which the wise priests of old could impress upon the

grosser senses of the multitudes the idea of the Omnipotency of the

Creative _will_ or FIRST CAUSE; namely, the divine animation of inert

matter, the soul infused into it by the potential will of man, the

microcosmic image of the great Architect, and the transportation of

ponderous objects through space and material obstacles.

Why should the pious Roman Catholic turn away in disgust at the

“heathen” practices of the Hindu Tamil, for instance? We have witnessed

the miracle of San Gennaro in good old Naples, and we have seen the

same in Nârgercoil, in India. Where is the difference? The coagulated

blood of the Catholic saint is made to boil and fume in its crystal

bottle, to the gratification of the lazzaroni; and from its jewelled

shrine the martyr’s idol beams radiant smiles and blessings at the

Christian congregation. On the other hand, a ball of clay filled with

water, is stuffed into the open breast of the god Sûran; and while

the padre shakes _his_ bottle and produces his “miracle” of blood,

the Hindu priest plunges an arrow into the god’s breast, and produces

_his_ “miracle,” for the blood gushes forth in streams, and the water

is changed into blood. Both Christians and Hindus fall in raptures

at the sight of such a miracle. So far, we do not see the slightest

difference. But can it be that the Pagan learned the trick from San

Gennaro.

“Know, O, Asclepius,” says Hermes, “that as the HIGHEST ONE is the

father of the celestial gods, so is man _the artisan of the gods who

reside in the temples_, and who delight in the society of mortals.

Faithful to its origin and nature, humanity perseveres in this

imitation of the divine powers; and, if the Father Creator has made in

His image the _eternal gods_, mankind in its turn makes its gods in its

own image.” “And, dost thou speak of statues of gods; O, Trismegistus?”

“Verily, I do, Asclepius, and however great thy defiance, perceivest

thou not that these statues are endowed _with reason_, that they are

animated with a soul, and that they can operate the greatest prodigies. {614}

How can we reject the evidence, when we find these gods possessing

the gift of predicting the future, which they are compelled to tell,

when forced to it by magic spells, as through the lips of the divines

and their visions?... It is the marvel of marvels that man could

have invented and created gods.... True, the faith of our ancestors

has erred, and in their pride they fell into error as to the precise

essence of these gods ... but they have still found out that art

themselves. Powerless to create soul and spirit, they evoke the souls

of angels and demons in order to introduce them into the consecrated

statues; and so make them preside at their Mysteries, by communicating

to idols their own faculty to _do good as well as evil_.”

It is not antiquity alone which is full of evidence that the statues

and idols of the gods at times exhibited intelligence and locomotive

powers. Full in the nineteenth century, we see the papers recording the

capers played by the statue of the Madonna of Lourdes. This gracious

lady, the French Notre Dame, runs away several times to the woods

adjoining her usual residence, the parish church. The sexton is obliged

to hunt after the runaway, and bring her home more than once.[908]

After this begins a series of “miracles,” healing, prophesying,

letter-dropping from on high, and what not. These “miracles” are

implicitly accepted by millions and millions of Roman Catholics;

numbers of these belonging to the most intelligent and educated

classes. Why, then, should we disbelieve in testimony of precisely the

same character, given as to contemporary phenomena of the same kind,

by the most accredited and esteemed historians—by Titus Livy, for

instance? “Juno, would you please abandon the walls of Veii, and change

this abode for that of Rome?” inquires of the goddess a Roman soldier,

after the conquest of that city. Juno consents, and nodding her head in

token of acquiescence, her statue answers: “Yes, I will.” Furthermore,

upon their carrying off the figure, it seems to instantly “_lose its

immense weight_,” adds the historian, and the statue seems rather to

follow them than otherwise.[909]

With _naïveté_, and a faith bordering on the sublime, des Mousseaux,

bravely rushes into the dangerous parallels, and gives a number of

instances of Christian as well as “heathen” _miracles_ of that kind.

He prints a list of such walking statues of saints and Madonnas, who

lose their weight, and move about as so many living men and women;

and presents unimpeachable evidence of the same, from classical

authors, who described their _miracles_.[910] He has but one thought,

one anxious and all-overpowering desire—to prove to his readers that {615}

magic does exist, and that Christianity beats it flat. Not that the

miracles of the latter are either more numerous, or more extraordinary,

or suggestive than those of the Pagans. Not at all; and he is a fair

historian as to facts and evidence. But, it is his arguments and

reflections that are priceless: one kind of miracle is produced by

God, the other by the Devil; he drags down the Deity and placing Him

face to face with Satan, allows the arch-enemy to beat the Creator by

long odds. Not a word of solid, evident proof to show the substantial

difference between the two kinds of wonders.

Would we inquire the reason why he traces in one the hand of God and

in the other the horn and hoof of the Devil? Listen to the answer:

“The Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolical Church declares the miracles

wrought by her faithful sons produced by the will of God; and all

others the work of the spirits of Hell.” Very well, but on what ground?

We are shown an endless list of holy writers; of saints who fought

during their whole lives with the fiends; and of fathers whose word

and authority are accepted as “word of God” by the same Church. “Your

idols, your consecrated statues are the abode of _demons_,” exclaims

St. Cyprian. “Yes, it is these _spirits_ who inspire your divines, who

animate the bowels of your victims, who govern the flight of birds, and

who, mixing incessantly falsehood with truth, render oracles, and ...

operate prodigies, their object being to bring you invincibly to their

worship.”[911]

Fanaticism in religion, fanaticism in science, or fanaticism in any

other question becomes a hobby, and cannot but blind our senses. It

will ever be useless to argue with a fanatic. And here we cannot

help admiring once more the profound knowledge of human nature which

dictated to Mr. Sergeant Cox the following words, delivered in the same

address as before alluded to: “There is no more fatal fallacy than that

the truth will prevail by its own force, that it has only to be seen

to be embraced. In fact the desire for the actual truth exists in very

few minds, and the capacity to discern it in fewer still. When men say

that they are seeking the truth, they mean that they are looking for

evidence to support some prejudice or prepossession. Their beliefs are

moulded to their wishes. They see all, and more than all, that seems

to tell for that which they desire; they are blind as bats to whatever

tells against them. The scientists are no more exempt from this common

failing than are others.”

We know that from the remotest ages there has existed a mysterious,

awful science, under the name of _theopœa_. This science taught the

art of endowing the various symbols of gods with temporary life and {616}

intelligence. Statues and blocks of inert matter became animated under

the potential will of the hierophant. The fire stolen by Prometheus had

fallen down in the struggle to earth; it embraced the lower regions

of the sky, and settled in the waves of the universal ether as the

potential _Akâsa_ of the Hindu rites. We breathe and imbibe it into

our organic system with every mouthful of fresh air. Our organism is

full of it from the instant of our birth. But it becomes potential only

under the influx of WILL and SPIRIT.

Left to itself, this life-principle will blindly follow the laws of

nature; and, according to conditions, will produce health and an

exuberance of _life_, or cause _death_ and dissolution. But, guided

by the will of the adept, it becomes obedient; its currents restore

the equilibrium in organic bodies, they fill the waste, and produce

physical and psychological miracles, well-known to mesmerizers. Infused

in inorganic and inert matter, they create an appearance of life, hence

motion. If to that life an individual intelligence, a personality,

is wanting, then the operator must either send his _scin-lecca_, his

own astral spirit, to animate it; or use his power over the region of

nature-spirits to force one of them to _infuse_ his entity into the

marble, wood, or metal; or, again, be helped by human spirits. But the

latter—except the vicious, earth-bound class[912]—will _not_ infuse

their essence into these inanimate objects. They leave the lower kinds

to produce the similitude of life and animation, and only send their

influence through the intervening spheres like a ray of divine light,

when the so-called “miracle” is required for a good purpose. The

condition—and this is a law in spiritual nature—is purity of motive,

purity of the surrounding magnetic atmosphere, personal purity of the

operator. Thus is it, that a Pagan “miracle” may be by far holier than

a Christian one.

Who that has seen the performance of the fakirs of Southern India,

can doubt the existence of _theopœa_ in ancient times? An inveterate

skeptic, though more than anxious to attribute every phenomenon to

jugglery, still finds himself compelled to testify to facts; and facts

that are to be witnessed daily if one chooses. “I dare not,” he says,

speaking of Chibh-Chondor, a fakir of Jaffna-patnam, “describe all

the exercises which he performed. There are things one _dares_ not {617}

say even after having witnessed them, for fear of being charged with

having been under an inexplicable hallucination! And yet, ten, nay,

twenty times, I saw and saw again the fakir obtain similar results

over inert matter.... It was but child’s play for our ‘charmer’ to

make the flame of candles which had, by his directions, been placed in

the remotest corners of the apartment, pale and become extinguished at

will; to cause the furniture to move, even the sofas on which we sat,

the doors to open and shut repeatedly: and all this without quitting

the mat upon which he sat on the floor.

“Perhaps I will be told that I saw imperfectly. Possibly; but I will

say that hundreds and thousands of persons have seen and do see what I

have, and things more wonderful; has one of all these discovered the

secret, or been able to duplicate these phenomena? And I can never

repeat too often that all this does not occur on a stage, supplied with

mechanical contrivances for the use of the operator. No, it is a beggar

crouched, naked, on the floor, who thus sports with your intelligence,

your senses, and all that which we have agreed among ourselves to style

the immutable laws of nature, but which he appears to alter at will!

“Does he change its course? ‘No, but he makes it act by using forces

which are yet unknown to us,’ say the believers. However that may be, I

have found myself twenty times at similar performances in company with

the most distinguished men of British India—professors, physicians,

officers. Not one of them but thus summarized his impressions upon

quitting the drawing-room. ‘This is something terrifying to human

intelligence!’ Every time that I saw repeated by a fakir the experiment

of reducing serpents to a cataleptic state, a condition in which these

animals have all the rigidity of the dry branch of a tree, my thoughts

have reverted to the biblical fable (?) which endows Moses and the

priests of Pharaoh with the like power.”[913]

Assuredly, the flesh of man, beast, and bird should be as easily

endowed with magnetic life-principle as the inert table of a modern

medium. Either both wonders are possible and true, or both must fall

to the ground, together with the miracles of Apostolic days, and those

of the more modern Popish Church. As for vital proofs furnished to us

in favor of such possibilities, we might name books enough to fill

a whole library. If Sixtus V. cited a formidable array of spirits

attached to various talismans, was not his threat of excommunication

for all those who practiced the art, uttered merely because he would

have the knowledge of this secret confined within the precincts of the

Church? How would it do for his “divine” miracles to be studied and {618}

successfully reproduced by every man endowed with perseverance, a

strong positive magnetic power, and an unflinching will? Recent events

at Lourdes (of course, supposing them to have been truthfully reported)

prove that the secret is not wholly lost; and if there is no strong

magician-mesmerizer concealed under frock and surplice, then the statue

of Notre-Dame is moved by the same forces which move every magnetized

table at a spiritual seance; and the nature of these “intelligences,”

whether they belong to the classes of human, human elementary, or

elemental spirits depends on a variety of conditions. With one who

knows anything of mesmerism, and at the same time of the charitable

spirit of the Roman Catholic Church, it ought not to be difficult to

comprehend that the incessant curses of the priests and monks; and the

bitter anathemas so freely pronounced by Pius IX.—himself a strong

mesmerizer, and believed to be a _jetattore_ (evil eye)—have drawn

together legions of elementaries and elementals under the leadership

of the disembodied Torquemadas. These are the “angels” who play pranks

with the statue of the Queen of Heaven. Any one who accepts the

“miracle” and thinks otherwise blasphemes.

Although it would seem as if we had already furnished sufficient proofs

that modern science has little or no reason to boast of originality,

yet before closing this volume we will adduce a few more to place

the matter beyond doubt. We have but to recapitulate, as briefly as

possible, the several claims to new philosophies and discoveries, the

announcement of which has made the world open its eyes so wide within

these last two centuries. We have pointed to the achievements in arts,

sciences, and philosophy of the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Chaldeans,

and Assyrians; we will now quote from an author who has passed long

years in India studying their philosophy. In the famous and recent work

of _Christna et le Christ_, we find the following tabulation:

“_Philosophy._—The ancient Hindus have created from the foundation the

two systems of spiritualism and materialism, of metaphysical philosophy

and of positive philosophy. The first taught in the Vedantic school,

whose founder was Vyasa; the second taught in the Sankya school, whose

founder was Kapila.

“_Astronomical Science._—They fixed the calendar, invented the zodiac,

calculated the precession of the equinoxes, discovered the general laws

of the movements, observed and predicted the eclipses.

“_Mathematics._—They invented the decimal system, algebra, the

differential, integral, and infinitesimal calculi. They also discovered

geometry and trigonometry, and in these two sciences they constructed

and proved theorems _which were only discovered in Europe as late as

the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries_. It was the Brahmans in

fact who first deduced the superficial measure of a triangle from {619}

the calculation of its three sides, and calculated the relations of

the circumference to the diameter. Furthermore, we must restore to

them the square of the hypotenuse and the table so improperly called

Pythagorean, which we find engraved on the _gôparama_ of the majority

of great pagodas.

“_Physics._—They established the principle which is still our own

to-day, that the universe is a harmonious whole, subject to laws which

may be determined by observation and experiment. They discovered

hydrostatics; and the famous proposition that every body plunged in

water loses of its own weight a weight equal to the volume which it

displaces, is only a loan made by the Brahmans to the famous Greek

architect, Archimedes. The physicists of the pagodas calculated the

velocity of light, fixed in a positive manner the laws which it

follows in its reflection. And finally, it is beyond doubt, from the

calculations of Surya-Sidhenta, that they knew and calculated the force

of steam.

“_Chemistry._—They knew the composition of water, and formulated

for gases the famous law, _which we know only from yesterday, that

the volumes of gas are in inverse ratio to the pressures that they

support_. They knew how to prepare sulphuric, nitric, and muriatic

acids; the oxides of copper, iron, lead, tin, and zinc; the sulphurets

of iron, copper, mercury, antimony, and arsenic; the sulphates of zinc

and iron; the carbonates of iron, lead, and soda; nitrate of silver;

and powder.

“_Medicine._—Their knowledge was truly astonishing. In Tcharaka and

Sousruta, the two princes of Hindu medicine, is laid down the system

which Hippocrates appropriated later. Sousruta notably enunciates the

principles of preventive medicine or hygiene, which he places much

above curative medicine—too often, according to him, empyrical. Are

we more advanced to-day? It is not without interest to remark that

the Arab physicians, who enjoyed a merited celebrity in the middle

ages—Averroès among others—constantly spoke of the Hindu physicians,

and regarded them as the initiators of the Greeks and themselves.

“_Pharmacology._—They knew all the simples, their properties, their

use, and upon this point have not yet ceased to give lessons to Europe.

Quite recently we have received from them the treatment of asthma, with

the datura.

“_Surgery._—In this they are not less remarkable. They made the

operation for the stone, succeeded admirably in the operation for

cataract, and the extraction of the fœtus, of which all the unusual

or dangerous cases are described by Tcharaka with an extraordinary

scientific accuracy.

“_Grammar._—They formed the most marvellous language in the world—the

Sanscrit—which gave birth to the greater part of the idioms of the

Orient, and of Indo-European countries.

“_Poetry._—They have treated all the styles, and shown themselves {620}

supreme masters in all. Sakuntala, Avrita, the Hindu Phædra, Saranga,

and a thousand other dramas have their superiors neither in Sophocles

nor Euripides, in Corneille nor Shakspere. Their descriptive poetry has

never been equalled. One must read, in the _Megadata_, “The Plaint of

an Exile,” who implores a passing cloud to carry his remembrances to

his cottage, his relatives and friends, whom he will never see more, to

form an idea of the splendor to which this style has been carried in

India. Their fables have been copied by all modern and ancient peoples,

who have not even given themselves the trouble to color differently the

subject of these little dramas.

“_Music._—They invented the gamut with its differences of tones and

half-tones much before Gui d’ Arezzo. Here is the Hindu scale:

Sa—Ri—Ga—Ma—Pa—Da—Ni—Sa.

“_Architecture._—They seem to have exhausted all that the genius of man

is capable of conceiving. Domes, inexpressibly bold; tapering cupolas;

minarets, with marble lace; Gothic towers; Greek hemicycles; polychrome

style—all kinds and all epochs are there, betokening the origin and

date of the different colonies, which, in emigrating, carried with them

their souvenirs of their native art.”

Such were the results attained by this ancient and imposing Brahmanical

civilization. What have we to offer for comparison? Beside such

majestic achievements of the past, what can we place that will seem so

grandiose and sublime as to warrant our boast of superiority over an

ignorant ancestry? Beside the discoverers of geometry and algebra, the

constructors of human speech, the parents of philosophy, the primal

expounders of religion, the adepts in psychological and physical

science, how even the greatest of our biologists and theologians seem

dwarfed! Name to us any modern discovery, and we venture to say, that

Indian history need not long be searched before the prototype will

be found of record. Here we are with the transit of science half

accomplished, and all our ideas in process of readjustment to the

theories of force-correlation, natural selection, atomic polarity, and

evolution. And here, to mock our conceit, our apprehensions, and our

despair, we may read what Manu said, perhaps 10,000 years before the

birth of Christ:

“The first germ of life was developed by water and heat” (_Manu_, book

i., sloka 8).

“Water ascends toward the sky in vapors; from the sun it descends in

rain, from the rain are born the plants, and from the plants, animals”

(book iii., sloka 76).

“Each being acquires the qualities of the one which immediately

precedes it, in such a manner that the farther a being gets away from {621}

the primal atom of its series, the more he is possessed of qualities

and perfections” (book i., sloka 20).

“Man will traverse the universe, gradually ascending, and passing

through the rocks, the plants, the worms, insects, fish, serpents,

tortoises, wild animals, cattle, and higher animals.... Such is the

_inferior degree_” (Ibid.).

“These are the transformations declared, from the plant up to Brahma,

which have to take place in his world” (Ibid.).

“The Greek,” says Jacolliot, “is but the Sanscrit. Pheidias and

Praxiteles have studied in Asia the chefs-d’œuvre of Daonthia, Ramana,

and Aryavosta. Plato disappears before Dgeminy and Veda-Vyasa, whom

he literally copies. Aristotle is thrown into the shade by the

_Pourva-Mimansa_ and the _Outtara-Mimansa_, in which one finds all the

systems of philosophy which we are now occupied in re-editing, from

the Spiritualism of Socrates and his school, the skepticism of Pyrrho,

Montaigne, and Kant, _down to the positivism of Littré_.”

Let those who doubt the exactness of the latter assertion read this

phrase, extracted textually from the _Outtara-Mimansa_, or _Vedanta_,

of Vyasa, who lived at an epoch which the Brahmanical chronology fixes

at 10,400 years before our era:

“We can only study phenomena, verify them, and hold them to be

relatively true, but nothing in the universe, neither by perception

nor by induction, nor by the senses, nor by reasoning, being able to

demonstrate the existence of a Supreme Cause, which could, at a fixed

point of time, have given birth to the universe, Science has to discuss

neither the possibility nor impossibility of this Supreme Cause.”

Thus, gradually but surely, will the whole of antiquity be vindicated.

Truth will be carefully sifted from exaggeration; much that is now

considered fiction may yet be proved fact, and the “facts and laws”

of modern science found to belong to the limbo of exploded myths.

When, centuries before our era, the Hindu Bramaheupto affirmed that

the starry sphere was immovable, and that the daily rising and

setting of stars confirms the motion of the earth upon its axis; and

when Aristarchus of Samos, born 267 years B.C., and the Pythagorean

philosopher Nicetè, the Syracusan, maintained the same, what was

the credit given to their theories until the days of Copernicus and

Galileo? And the system of these two princes of science—a system which

has revolutionized the whole world—how long will it be allowed to

remain as a complete and undisturbed whole? Have we not, at the present

moment, in Germany, a learned savant, a Professor Shoëpfer, who, in his

public lectures at Berlin, tries to demonstrate, 1, that the earth is

immovable; 2, the sun is but a little bigger than it seems; and 3, that {622}

Tycho-Brahe was perfectly right and Galileo perfectly wrong?[914] And

what was Tycho-Brahe’s theory? Why, that the earth stands immovable in

the centre of the universe, and that around it, as around its centre,

the whole of the celestial vault gravitates every twenty-four hours;

and finally, that the sun and moon, apart from this motion, proceed on

curved lines peculiar to themselves, while Mercury, with the rest of

the planets, describes an epicycloid.

We certainly have no intention to lose time nor devote space to either

combating or supporting this _new_ theory, which suspiciously resembles

the _old_ ones of Aristotle and even the Venerable Bede. We will leave

the learned army of modern Academicians to “wash their family linen

among themselves,” to use an expression of the great Napoleon. But we

will, nevertheless, avail ourselves of such a good opportunity as this

defection affords to demand once more of science her diploma or patents

of infallibility. Alas! are these, then, the results of her boasted

progress?

It was hardly more than yesterday when, upon the strength of facts

within our own observation, and corroborated by the testimony of

a multitude of witnesses, we timidly ventured the assertion that

tables, mediums, and Hindu fakirs were occasionally levitated. And

when we added that, if such a phenomenon should happen but once in

a century, “without a visible mechanical cause, then that rising is

a manifestation of a natural law of which our scientists are yet

ignorant,” we were called “iconoclastic,” and charged, in our turn, by

the newspapers, with ignorance of the law of gravitation. Iconoclastic

or not, we never thought of charging science with denying the rotation

of the earth on its axis, or its revolution around the sun. Those two

lamps, at least, in the beacon of the Academy, we thought would be

kept trimmed and burning to the end of time. But, lo! here comes a

Berlin professor and crushes our last hopes that Science should prove

herself exact in some one particular. The cycle is truly at its lowest

point, and a new era is begun. The earth stands still, and Joshua is

vindicated!

In days of old—in 1876—the world believed in centrifugal force, and

the Newtonian theory, which explained the flattening of the poles by

the rotatory motion of the earth around its axis, was orthodox. Upon

this hypothesis, the greater portion of the globular mass was believed

to gravitate toward the equator; and in its turn the centrifugal

force, acting on the mass with its mightiest power, forced this mass

to concentrate itself on the equator. Thus is it that the credulous {623}

scientists believed the earth to rotate around its axis; for, were it

otherwise, there would exist no centrifugal force, and without this

force there could be no gravitation toward the equatorial latitudes. It

has been one of the accepted proofs of the rotation of the earth, and

it is this deduction, with several others, that the Berlin professor

declares that, “in common with many other scientists,” he “rejects.”

“Is this not ridiculous, gentlemen,” he concludes, “that we, confiding

in what we were taught at school, have accepted the rotation of the

earth around its axis as a fact fully demonstrated, while there is

nothing at all to prove it, and it _cannot_ be demonstrated? Is it not

cause of astonishment that the scientists of the whole educated world,

commencing with Copernicus and Kepler, should have begun by accepting

such a movement of our planet, and then three and a half centuries

later be searching for such proofs? But, alas! though we search, we

find none, as was to be expected. All, all is vain!”

And thus it is that at one stroke the world loses its rotation, and the

universe is bereaved of its guardians and protectors, the centrifugal

and centripetal forces! Nay, ether itself, blown out of space, is but

a “fallacy,” a myth born of a bad habit of using empty words; the sun

is a pretender to dimensions to which it was never entitled; the stars

are twinkling dots, and “were so expressly disposed at considerable

distances from one another by the Creator of the universe, probably

with the intention that they should simultaneously illumine the vast

spaces on the face of our globe” says Dr. Shoëpfer.

And is it so that even three centuries and a half have not sufficed

the men of exact science to construct one theory that not a single

university professor would dare challenge? If astronomy, the one

science built on the adamantine foundation of mathematics, the one of

all others deemed as infallible and unassailable as truth itself, can

be thus irreverently indicted for false pretences, what have we gained

by cheapening Plato to the profit of the Babinets? How, then, do they

venture to flout at the humblest observer who, being both honest and

intelligent, may say he has seen a mediumistic, or magical phenomenon?

And how dare they prescribe the “limits of philosophical inquiry,” to

pass beyond which is not lawful? And these quarrelling hypothesists

still arraign as ignorant and superstitious those giant intellects of

the past, who handled natural forces like world-building Titans, and

raised mortality to an eminence where it allied itself with the gods!

Strange fate of a century boasting to have elevated exact science to

its _apex of fame_, and now invited to go back and begin its A B C of

learning again!

Recapitulating the evidence contained in this work, if we begin with

the archaic and unknown ages of the Hermetic Pimander, and come down {624}

to 1876, we find that one universal belief in magic has run through

all these centuries. We have presented the ideas of Trismegistus in

his dialogue with Asclepius; and without mentioning the thousand and

one proofs of the prevalence of this belief in the first centuries

of Christianity, to achieve our purpose we have but to quote from an

ancient and a modern author. The first will be the great philosopher

Porphyry, who several thousand years after the days of Hermes, remarks

in relation to the prevailing skepticism of his century, the following:

“We need not be amazed in seeing the vulgar masses (οἱ πολλοι) perceive

in statues merely stone and wood. Thus it is generally with those who,

ignorant in letters, find naught in _stylæ_ covered with inscriptions

but stone, and in written books naught but the tissue of the papyrus.”

And 1,500 years later, we see Mr. Sergeant Cox, in stating the case of

the shameful prosecution of a medium by just such a blind materialist,

thus expressing his ideas: “Whether the medium is guilty or guiltless

... certain it is that the trial has had the unlooked-for effect of

directing the attention of the whole public to the fact that the

phenomena _are asserted to_ exist, and by a great number of competent

investigators are _declared to be true_, and of the reality of which

every person may, if he pleases, satisfy himself by actual inspection,

thus sweeping away, thus and for ever, _the dark and debasing doctrines

of the materialists_.”

Still, in harmony with Porphyry and other theurgists, who affirmed the

different natures of the manifesting “spirits” and the personal spirit

or will of man, Mr. Sergeant Cox adds, without committing himself

any further to a personal decision: “True, there are differences of

opinions ... and perhaps ever will be, as to the sources of the power

that is exhibited in these phenomena; but whether they are the product

of the psychic force of the circle ... or, if spirits of the dead be

the agents, as others say, or elemental spirits (whatever it may be)

as asserted by a third party, this fact at least is established—that

man is not wholly material, that the mechanism of man is moved and

directed by some non-material—that is, some non-molecular structure,

which possesses not merely intelligence, but _can exercise also a force

upon matter_, that something to which, for lack of a better title, we

have given the name of soul. These glad tidings have by this trial been

borne to thousands and tens of thousands, whose happiness here, and

hopes of a hereafter, have been blighted by the materialists, who have

preached so persistently that soul was but a superstition, man but an

automaton, mind but a secretion, present existence purely animal, and

the future—a blank.”

“Truth alone,” says Pimander, “is eternal and immutable; _truth_ is

the first of blessings; but truth is not and cannot be on earth: it is

possible that God sometimes gifts a few men together with the faculty {625}

of comprehending divine things with that of rightly understanding

truth; but nothing is true on earth, for everything has matter on it,

clothed with a corporeal form subject to change, to alteration, to

corruption, and to new combinations. Man is not _the_ truth, for only

that which has drawn its essence from itself, and remains itself,

and unchangeable, is true. How can that which changes so as not to

finally be recognized, be ever true? Truth, then, is that only which

is immaterial and not enclosed within a corporeal envelope, that

which is colorless and formless, exempt from change and alteration;

that which is ETERNAL. All of that which perishes is a lie; earth

is but dissolution and generation; every generation proceeds from a

dissolution; the things of earth are but _appearances_ and imitations

of truth; they are what the picture is to reality. The things of

earth are not the TRUTH!... Death, for some persons, is an evil which

strikes them with profound terror. This is ignorance.... Death is the

destruction of the body; the being in it _dies not_.... The material

body loses its form, which is disintegrated in course of time; the

senses which animated it return to their source and resume their

functions; but they gradually lose their passions and their desires,

and _the spirit_ ascends to heaven to become a HARMONY. In the first

zone, it leaves behind itself the faculty of increasing and decreasing;

in the second, the power of doing evil and the frauds of idleness; in

the third, deceptions and concupiscence; in the fourth, insatiable

ambition; in the fifth, arrogance, audacity, and temerity; in the

sixth, all yearning after dishonest acquisitions; and in the seventh,

_untruthfulness_. The spirit thus purified by the effect on him of the

celestial harmonies, returns once more to its primitive state, strong

of a merit and power self-acquired, and which belongs to it properly;

and only then he begins to dwell with those that sing eternally their

praises of the FATHER. Hitherto, he is placed among the powers, and as

such has attained to the supreme blessing of knowledge. He is become a

GOD!... No, the things of earth are not the truth.”

After having devoted their whole lives to the study of the records

of the old Egyptian wisdom, both Champollion-Figeac and Champollion,

Junior, publicly declared, notwithstanding many biassed judgments

hazarded by certain hasty and unwise critics, that the _Books of

Hermes_ “truly contain a mass of Egyptian traditions which are

constantly corroborated by the most authentic records and monuments of

Egypt of the hoariest antiquity.”[915]

Closing up his voluminous summary of the psychological doctrines of the

Egyptians, the sublime teachings of the sacred Hermetic books, and {626}

the attainments of the initiated priests in metaphysical and practical

philosophy, Champollion-Figeac inquires—as he well may, in view of the

then attainable evidence—“whether there ever was in the world another

association or caste of men which could equal them in credit, power,

learning, and capability, in the same degree of good or evil? No,

_never_! And this caste was subsequently _cursed_ and stigmatized only

by those who, under I know not what kind of modern influences, have

considered it as the enemy of men and—science.”[916]

At the time when Champollion wrote these words, Sanscrit was, we may

say, almost an unknown tongue for science. But little in the way of

a parallel could have been drawn between the respective merits of

the Brahmans and the Egyptian philosophers. Since then, however, it

has been discovered that the very same ideas, expressed in almost

identical language, may be read in the Buddhistic and Brahmanical

literature. This very philosophy of the unreality of mundane things and

the illusion of the senses—whose whole substance has been plagiarized

in our own times by the German metaphysicians—forms the groundwork of

Kapila’s and Vyasa’s philosophies, and may be found in Gautama Buddha’s

enunciation of the “four truths,” the cardinal dogmas of his doctrine.

Pimander’s expression “he is become a god” is epitomized in the one

word, _Nirvana_, which our learned Orientalists most incorrectly

consider as the synonym of _annihilation_!

This opinion of the two eminent Egyptologists is of the greatest value

to us if it were only as an answer to our opponents. The Champollions

were the first in Europe to take the student of archæology by the

hand, and, leading him on into the silent crypts of the past, prove

that civilization did not begin with our generations; for “though the

origins of ancient Egypt are unknown, she is found to have been at the

most distant periods within the reach of historical research, with her

great laws, her established customs, her cities, her kings, and gods;”

and behind, far behind, these same epochs we find ruins belonging

to other still more distant and higher periods of civilization. “At

Thebes, portions of ruined buildings allow us to recognize remnants of

still anterior structures, the materials of which had served for the

erection of the very edifices which have now existed for thirty-six

centuries!”[917] “Everything told us by Herodotus and the Egyptian

priests is found to be exact, and has been corroborated by modern

scientists,” adds Champollion.[918]

Whence the civilization of the Egyptians came, will be shown in volume

II., and in this respect it will be made to appear that our deductions,

though based upon the traditions of the Secret Doctrine, run parallel {627}

with those of a number of most respected authorities. There is a

passage in a well-known Hindu work which may well be recalled in this

connection.

“Under the reign of Viswamitra, first king of the Dynasty of

Soma-Vanga. in consequence of a battle which lasted five days,

Manu-Vina, heir of the ancient kings, being abandoned by the Brahmans,

emigrated with all his companions, passing through Arya, and the

countries of Barria, till he came to the shores of Masra” (_History of

India_, by Collouca-Batta). Unquestionably this Manu-Vina and Menes,

the first Egyptian King, are identical.

Arya, is Eran (Persia); Barria, is Arabia, and Masra, was the name of

Cairo, which to this day is called, _Masr_, Musr, and Misro. Phœnician

history names Maser as one of the ancestors of Hermes.

And now we will bid farewell to thaumatophobia and its advocates, and

consider thaumatomania under its multifarious aspects. In vol. II.,

we intend to review the “miracles” of Paganism and weigh the evidence

in their favor in the same scales with Christian theology. There is a

conflict not merely impending but already begun between science and

theology, on the one hand, and spirit and its hoary science, magic, on

the other. Something of the possibilities of the latter have already

been displayed, but more is to come. The petty, mean world, for whose

approving nod scientists and magistrates, priests and Christians

compete, have begun their latter-day crusade by sentencing in the same

year two innocent men, one in France, the other in London, in defiance

of law and justice. Like the apostle of circumcision, they are ever

ready to thrice deny an unpopular connection for fear of ostracism

by their own fellows. The Psychomantics and the Psychophobists must

soon meet in fierce conflict. The anxiety to have their phenomena

investigated and supported by scientific authorities has given place

with the former to a frigid indifference. As a natural result of so

much prejudice and unfairness as have been exhibited, their respect

for scientists is waning fast, and the reciprocal epithets bandied

between the two parties are becoming far from complimentary to either.

Which of them is right and which wrong, time will soon show and future

generations understand. It is at least safe to prophesy that the

Ultima Thulè of God’s mysteries, and the key to them are to be sought

elsewhere than in the whirl of Avogadro’s molecules.

People who either judge superficially, or, by reason of their natural

impatience would gaze at the blazing sun before their eyes are well

fitted to bear lamp-light, are apt to complain of the exasperating

obscurity of language which characterizes the works of the ancient

Hermetists and their successors. They declare their philosophical

treatises on magic incomprehensible. Over the first class we can afford {628}

to waste no time; the second, we would beg to moderate their anxiety,

remembering those sayings of Espagnet—“Truth lies hid in obscurity,”

and “Philosophers never write more deceitfully than when plainly, nor

ever more truly than when obscurely.” Furthermore, there is a third

class, whom it would compliment too much to say that they judge the

subject at all. They simply denounce _ex-cathedra_. The ancients they

treat as dreamy fools, and though but physicists and thaumatophobic

positivists, they commonly claim a monopoly of spiritual wisdom!

We will select Irenæus Philaletha to answer this latter class. “In

the world our writings shall prove a curious-edged knife; to some

they shall carve out dainties, but to others they shall only serve to

cut their fingers; yet we are not to be blamed, for we do seriously

admonish all who shall attempt this work that they undertaketh the

highest piece of philosophy in nature; and though we write in English,

yet our matter will be as hard as Greek to some, who will think,

nevertheless, that they understand as well, when they misconstrue our

meaning most perversely; for is it imaginable that they who are fools

in nature should be wise in books, which are testimonies unto nature?”

The few elevated minds who interrogate nature instead of prescribing

laws for her guidance; who do not limit her possibilities by the

imperfections of their own powers; and who only disbelieve because they

do not know, we would remind of that apothegm of Narada, the ancient

Hindu philosopher:

“Never utter these words: ‘I do not know this—therefore it is false.’”

“One must study to know, know to understand, understand to judge.”

END OF VOLUME I.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Lightfoot assures us that this voice, which had been used in times

past for a testimony from heaven, “was indeed performed by magic

art” (vol. ii., p. 128). This latter term is used as a supercilious

expression, just because it was and is still misunderstood. It is the

object of this work to correct the erroneous opinions concerning “magic

art.”

[2] Encyclical of 1864.

[3] “Fragments of Science.”

[4] See the last chapter of this volume, p. 622.

[5] “Recollections of a Busy Life,” p. 147.

[6] Henry Ward Beecher.

[7] Cocker: “Christianity and Greek Philosophy,” xi., p. 377.

[8] Gospel according to Matthew, xiii. 11, 13.

[9] “The accusations of atheism, the introducing of foreign deities,

and corrupting of the Athenian youth, which were made against Socrates,

afforded ample justification for Plato to conceal the arcane preaching

of his doctrines. Doubtless the peculiar diction or ‘jargon’ of the

alchemists was employed for a like purpose. The dungeon, the rack,

and the fagot were employed without scruple by Christians of every

shade, the Roman Catholics especially, against all who taught even

natural science contrary to the theories entertained by the Church.

Pope Gregory the Great even inhibited the grammatical use of Latin

as heathenish. The offense of Socrates consisted in unfolding to his

disciples the arcane doctrine concerning the gods, which was taught

in the Mysteries and was a capital crime. He also was charged by

Aristophanes with introducing the new god Dinos into the republic as

the demiurgos or artificer, and the lord of the solar universe. The

Heliocentric system was also a doctrine of the Mysteries; and hence,

when Aristarchus the Pythagorean taught it openly, Cleanthes declared

that the Greeks ought to have called him to account and condemned him

for blasphemy against the gods,”—(“Plutarch”). But Socrates had never

been initiated, and hence divulged nothing which had ever been imparted

to him.

[10] See Thomas Taylor: “Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries,” p. 47. New

York: J. W Bouton, 1875.

[11] Cousin, “History of Philosophy,” I., ix.

[12] “Theol. Arithme.,” p. 62: “On Pythag. Numbers.”

[13] Plato: “Parmenid.,” 141 E.

[14] See Stobœus’ “Ecl.,” i., 862.

[15] Sextus: “Math.,” vii. 145.

[16] “Metaph.,” 407, a. 3.

[17] Appendix to “Timæus.”

[18] Stob.: “Ecl.,” i., 62.

[19] Krische: “Forsch.,” p. 322, etc.

[20] Clem.: “Alex. Stro.,” v., 590.

[21] Plutarch: “De Isid,” chap. 25, p. 360.

[22] “Plato und die Alt. Akademie.”

[23] “Tusc.,” v., 18, 51.

[24] Ibid. Cf. p. 559.

[25] “Plato und die Alt. Akademie.”

[26] Ed. Zeller: “Philos. der Griech.”

[27] “Plato und die Alt. Akademie.”

[28] One of the five solid figures in Geometry.

[29] “The Sun and the Earth.”

[30] “De Ente Spirituali,” lib. iv.; “de Ente Astrorum,” book i.; and

_opera omnia_, vol. i., pp. 634 and 699.

[31] Or more commonly chārkh pūjā.

[32] Persons who believe in the clairvoyant power, but are disposed to

discredit the existence of any other spirits in nature than disembodied

human spirits, will be interested in an account of certain clairvoyant

observations which appeared in the _London Spiritualist_ of June 29,

1877. A thunder-storm approaching, the seeress saw “a bright spirit

emerge from a dark cloud and pass with lightning speed across the

sky, and, a few minutes after, a diagonal line of dark spirits in

the clouds.” These are the _Maruts_ of the “Vedas” (See Max Müller’s

“Rig-Veda Sanhita”).

The well-known and respected lecturer, author, and clairvoyant,

Mrs. Emma Hardinge Britten, has published accounts of her frequent

experiences with these elemental spirits.

[33] Translated by Max Müller, Professor of Comparative Philology at

the Oxford University, England.

[34] “Dyaríh vah pitâ, prithivi mâtâ sômah bhrâtâ âditih svásâ.”

[35] As the perfect identity of the philosophical and religious

doctrines of antiquity will be fully treated upon in subsequent

chapters, we limit our explanations for the present.

[36] “Rig-Veda-Anhita,” p. 234.

[37] Philostratus assures us that the Brahmins were able, in his time,

to perform the most wonderful cures by merely pronouncing certain

magical words. “The Indian Brahmans carry a staff and a ring, by means

of which they are able to do almost anything.” Origenes states the same

(“Contra Celsum”). But if a strong mesmeric fluid—say projected from

the eye, and without any other contact—is not added, no magical words

would be efficacious.

[38] Akiba was a friend of Aher, said to have been the Apostle Paul of

Christian story. Both are depicted as having visited Paradise. Aher

took branches from the Tree of Knowledge, and so fell from the true

(Jewish) religion. Akiba came away in peace. See 2d Epistle to the

Corinthians, chapter xii.

[39] Taley means ocean or sea.

[40] See “Aytareya Brahmanan,” 3, 1.

[41] See Pantheon: “Myths,” p. 31; also Aristophanes in “Vœstas,” i.,

reg. 28.

[42] The oracle of Apollo was at Delphos, the city of the δελφυς, womb

or abdomen; the place of the temple was denominated the _omphalos_

or navel. The symbols are female and lunary; reminding us that the

Arcadians were called Proseleni, pre-Hellenic or more ancient than the

period when Ionian and Olympian lunar worship was introduced.

[43] From the accounts of Strabo and Megasthenes, who visited

Palibothras, it would seem that the persons termed by him Samanean,

or Brachmane priests, were simply Buddhists. “The singularly subtile

replies of the Samanean or Brahman philosophers, in their interview

with the conqueror, will be found to contain the spirit of the Buddhist

doctrine,” remarks Upham. (See the “History and Doctrine of Buddhism;”

and Hale’s “Chronology,” vol. iii., p. 238.)

[44] In their turn, the heathen may well ask the missionaries what sort

of a spirit lurks at the bottom of the sacrificial beer-bottle. That

evangelical New York journal, the “Independent,” says: “A late English

traveller found a simple-minded Baptist mission church, in far-off

Burmah, using for the communion service, and we doubt not with God’s

blessing, Bass’s pale ale instead of wine.” Circumstances alter cases,

it seems!

[45] “Book of Brahmanical Evocations,” part iii.

[46] Bulwer-Lytton: “Last Days of Pompeii,” p. 147.

[47] “Select Works,” p. 159.

[48] Ibid., p. 92.

[49] “Aitareya Brahmanan,” Introduction.

[50] The name is used in the sense of the Greek word ανθροπος.

[51] The traditions of the Oriental Kabalists claim their science to be

older than that. Modern scientists may doubt and reject the assertion.

They _cannot_ prove it false.

[52] Clement of Alexandria asserted that in his day the Egyptian

priests possessed forty-two Canonical Books.

[53] “Chips from a German Work-shop,” vol. ii., p. 7. “Comparative

Mythology.”

[54] “Conflict between Religion and Science,” ch. i.

[55] In another place, we explain with some minuteness the Hermetic

philosophy of the evolution of the spheres and their several races.

[56] J. Burges: “The Works of Plato,” p. 207, note.

[57] From the Sanskrit text of the Aitareya Brahmanam. Rig-Veda, v.,

ch. ii., verse 23.

[58] Aitareya Brahmanam, book iii., c. v., 44.

[59] Ait. Brahm., vol. ii., p. 242.

[60] Ait. Brahm., book iv.

[61] Septenary Institutions; “Stone him to Death,” p. 20.

[62] See Gibbon’s “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.”

[63] See Turner; also G. Higgins’s “Anacalypsis.”

[64] Genesis, i., 30.

[65] Sir William Drummond: “Œdipus Judicus,” p. 250.

[66] The absolute necessity for the perpetration of such pious frauds

by the early fathers and later theologians becomes apparent, if we

consider that if they had allowed the word _Al_ to remain as in

the original, it would have become but too evident—except for the

initiated—that the _Jehovah_ of Moses and the sun were identical. The

multitudes, which ignore that the ancient hierophant considered our

_visible_ sun but as an emblem of the central, invisible, and spiritual

Sun, would have accused Moses—as many of our modern commentators have

already done—of worshipping the planetary bodies; in short, of actual

Zabaism.

[67] Exodus, xxv., 40.

[68] “The Physical Basis of Life.” A Lecture by T. H. Huxley.

[69] Huxley: “Physical Basis of Life.”

[70] Prof. J. W. Draper: “Conflict between Religion and Science.”

[71] Bulwer’s “Zanoni.”

[72] See the Code published by Sir William Jones, chap. ix., p. 11.

[73] Pliny: “Hist. Nat.,” xxx. 1; Ib., xvi., 14; xxv., 9, etc.

[74] Pomponius ascribes to them the knowledge of the highest sciences.

[75] Cæsar, iii., 14.

[76] Pliny, xxx.

[77] Munter, on the most ancient religion of the North before the time

of Odin. Mémoires de la Société des Antiquaires de France. Tome ii., p.

230.

[78] Ammianus Marcellinus, xxvi., 6.

[79] In some respects our modern philosophers, who think they make new

discoveries, can be compared to “the very clever, learned, and civil

gentleman” whom Hippocrates having met at Samos one day, describes

very good-naturedly. “He informed me,” the Father of Medicine proceeds

to say, “that he had lately discovered an herb never before known in

Europe or Asia, and that no disease, however malignant or chronic,

could resist its marvellous properties. Wishing to be civil in turn, I

permitted myself to be persuaded to accompany him to the conservatory

in which he had transplanted the wonderful specific. What I found

was one of the commonest plants in Greece, namely, garlic—the plant

which above all others has least pretensions to healing virtues.”

Hippocrates: “De optima prædicandi ratione item judicii operum magni.”

I.

[80] Schweigger: “Introduction to Mythology through Natural History.”