And here is another and even more startling revelation from
Chicago, given to a seer by the name of Dr. Otoman Prince of
Adusht Ha'nish, prophet of the Sun God, Prince of Peace, Manthra
Magi of Temple El Katman, Kalantar of Zoroastrian Breathing and
Envoy of Mazdaznan living, Viceroy-Elect and International Head
of Master-Thot. If you had happened to live near the town of
Mendota, Illinois, and had known the German grocer-boy named Otto
Hanisch, you might at first have trouble in recognizing him
through this transmogrification. I have traced his career in the
files of the Chicago newspapers, and find him herding sheep,
setting type, preaching prestidigitation, mesmerism, and fake
spiritualism, joining the Mormon Church, then the "Christian
Catholic Church in Zion", and then the cult of Brighouse, who
claimed to be Christ returned. Finally he sets himself up in
Chicago as a Persian Magi, teaching Yogi breathing exercises and
occult sex-lore to the elegant society ladies of the pork-packing
metropolis. The Sun God, worshipped for two score centuries in
India, Egypt, Greece and Rome, has a new shrine on Lake Park
Avenue, and the prophet gives tea-parties at which his disciples
are fed on lilac-blossoms--"the white and pinkish for males, the
blue-tinted for females". He wears a long flowing robe of pale
grey cashmere, faced with white, and flexible white kid shoes,
and he sells his lady adorers a book called "Inner Studies",
price five dollars per volume, with information on such subjects
as:
The Immaculate Conception and its Repetition; The Secrets of
Lovers Unveiled; Our Ideals and Soul Mates; Magnetic Attraction
and Electric Mating.
A Grand Jury intervenes, and the Prophet goes to jail for six
months; but that does not harm his cult, which now has a temple
in Chicago, presided over by a lady called Kalantress and
Evangelist; also a "Northern Stronghold" in Montreal, an
"Embassy" in London, an "International Aryana" in Switzerland,
and "Centers" all over America. At the moment of going to press,
the prophet himself is in flight, pursued by a warrant charging
him with improper conduct with a number of young boys in a Los
Angeles hotel.
I have dipped into Ha'nish's revelations, which are a farrago of
every kind of ancient mysticism--paper and binding from the
Bible, illustrations from the Egyptian, names from the
Zoroastrian, health rules from the Hindoos, laws from the
Confucians--price ten dollars per volume. Would you like to
discover your seventeen senses, to develop them according to the
GaLlama principle, and to share the "expansion of the magnetic
circles"? Here is the way to do it:
Inhale through nostrils for four seconds, and upon one
exhalation, speak slowly:
Open, O thou world-sustaining Sun, the entrance unto Truth hidden
by the vase of dazzling light.
Again inhale for four seconds, and breathe out the following
sentence upon one exhalation as before:
Soften the radiation of Thy Illuminating Splendor, that I may
behold Thy True Being.
I have a clipping from a Los Angeles newspaper telling of the
prophet's arriving there. He takes the front page with the
captivating headline: "Women Didn't Think Till They Put On
Corsets". The interview tells about his mysteriousness, his
aloofness, his bird-like-diet, and his personal beauty. "Despite
his seventy-three years, Ha'nish evidences no sign of age. His
keen blue eyes showed no sign of wavering. There were no wrinkles
on his face, and his walk was that of a man of forty." The humor
of this becomes apparent when we mention that at Ha'nish's trial,
three or four years ago, he was proven to be thirty-five years
old!
Being thus warned as to the accuracy of American journalism, we
shall not be taken in by the repeated statements that the
Mazdaznan prophet is a millionaire. But there is no doubt that he
is wealthy; and as all Americans wish to be wealthy, I will quote
his formula of prosperity, his method of accomplishing what might
be called the Individual Revolution:
When hungry and you do not know where to get your next piece of
bread, do not despair. Thy Father, all-loving, has provided you
with everything that will meet all cases of emergency. Place your
teeth tightly together, with tongue pressing against the lower
teeth and lips parted. Breathe in, close lips immediately,
exhaling through the nostrils. Breathe again; if saliva forms in
your mouth, hold your breath so you can swallow it first before
you exhale. You thus take out of the air the metal-substance
contained therein; you can even taste the iron which you convert
into substance required for making the blood. Should you feel
that, although you have sufficient iron in the blood, there is a
lack of copper and zinc and silver, place upper teeth over lower,
keep lower lip tightly to lower teeth, now breathe and you can
even taste the metals named. Then should you feel you need more
gold element for your brain functions, place your back teeth
together just as if you were to grind the back teeth, taking
short breaths only. You will then learn to know that there is
gold and silver all around us. That our bodies are filled with
quite a quantity of gold.