ORIENTAL OCCULTISM
The Orient hides many secrets of occultism, and it is almost a
platitude that the few secrets that the West has painfully deciphered
have been known for all time to the East--and are nothing remarkable.
This is one of those large gestures of speech that contain a half-truth
and pass for a whole truth. It is on a par with the statement that all
Chinese business men are honest--which they are not. Oriental occultism
is far too vast a subject to be accepted or dismissed as summarily as
this, but one thing is certain and that is that Oriental occult systems
are not suitable to the Western man.
There are one or two cardinal points that may be grasped at once.
Firstly, the exiled native in a Western country who claims occult
powers and the gift of being able to teach and transmit them is always
and invariably a fakir of the lowest kind. He is usually a low-caste
and disreputable native or half-breed, and it may be accounted to
his credit that after all he is not expected to know any better. His
dupes, on the other hand, the white men and women that listen to his
balderdash and sit at his séances, are even guiltier parties than he
is. They at least ought to know better than to listen to the first
black-and-tan “Swami” or “Guru” that establishes a bogus tabernacle in
the backwaters of Balham or Bayswater.
The second point is that the true Eastern occultist, whatever his grade
of adeptship in his mysteries, never practises any of his arts or
knowledge for money or equivalent reward. This is a lesson which might
well be learned by the fraternity of mediums and so-called occultists
that infest London and other great cities at home and abroad.
A medium in receipt of fees for séances or lectures will never and can
never develop his or her powers beyond the stage at which they have
arrived when it becomes possible to use them as a direct or indirect
means of making money.
In the East this is realized, and the vow of poverty is more than a
metaphor, but they claim that it is a poverty of the body fully repaid
by riches of the soul.
Practically the whole of Hindu occultism is best described as peculiar
methods of self-hypnosis with the object of provoking states of bliss
and ecstasy. It is upon the basis of the induction of these peculiar
phenomena that ninety per cent. of the Brahmin religious cults are
established. By one path or another the various beliefs attain earnest
of fulfilment, but the primary causes of these psychical phenomena are
physiological in origin.
This material path to spiritual success is admitted and glossed over
as being but part of the mystery. None the less, there is little to
show that anything beyond these self-produced states of hypnotism or
suggested phenomena are ever attained by even the greatest of the
adepts, and there is no justification of their dogmatic religious
teachings even in the results attained.
The Oriental mind is more easily freed from the shackles of the body
than is the Western organism. Just as the hold of the average native
upon life is inferior to a European’s, so is the native’s mastery of
conscious will far less. The faculties of clairvoyance can be created
by almost every dominant European in any young native, and they are
both physically and psychically an inferior race.
It is because of their greater racial familiarity and acquaintance
with the occult that the myth of their spiritual supremacy has been
born. The unheeding deem every Easterner a potential mage, unknowing
that he only develops his psychic gifts, which are in point of fact
mental weaknesses, when in contact with a far more powerfully organized
Western will.
The organized powers of occult India have loathed and hated British
rule since pre-Mutiny days. In a very few rare cases, black
magic--often allied with native poisons--has killed a white man, but on
the whole the result has been a pitiful demonstration compared to what
these magi should have been capable of.
Occultism in India is built to serve but one end, the domination of
lesser castes by those who master its secrets and have aptitude to
impose their powers on others. In the past it stood for an amazing
tyranny, and for this reason--its lost criminal powers--it is opposed
to British rule.
It is noteworthy that the English Society of Theosophists, whose
jig-saw religion is largely compounded of Oriental elements, is now
prominently identified with schemes for the political emancipation of
India, which will reinforce the tyrannous power of the Brahmin.
The whole scheme of Oriental occultism is quite incomprehensible
without a sound basic knowledge of the religious systems of which it is
part and parcel. These enjoy a difficult and complex nomenclature, and
their words have been borrowed indiscriminately without due respect to
their precise meaning.
Yoga conveys a certain popular meaning, but it must be remembered that
there are numberless Yogas, subdivided again into endless subvariants.
The initiate undergoes a prolonged course of mental and physical
training designed to stimulate concentration of the will and subdue the
body.
Little by little the faculties of surrender to ecstatic forms of
self-hypnosis are induced, Ananda or “bliss,” either material or
spiritual ecstasy, according to the Yoga practised, being the end of
the process.
The full development of the powers of a Yogi is beset with all kinds
of dangers and difficulties. The physical strain is a severe one and
the psychic dangers encountered considerable. The evil spirits of the
West find their Oriental counterparts in Pisachas, Shahinis, Bhirtas,
Pretas, and Rakshashas, all malignant and terrible manifestations of
the demon world.
In the end, certain types of Yogi appear to develop the full talents of
a materializing medium and are capable of producing the phenomena that
we associate with a medium of the power of Eusapia Palladino. But--and
it is a very important “but”--these phenomena are capable of production
in full tropic daylight.
From the days of Jacolliot[51] to those of recent Theosophical
investigations, Oriental magic has never been brought to real test
conditions, but in the records gathered by independent students there
is ample ground for stating that the genuine occult phenomena (as
distinct from mere fakir’s conjuring tricks) occur independently of
darkness or special light conditions.
When we consider the fuss made by European mediums over even twilight
conditions, it is remarkable that these offer no obstacle to the
Oriental “spirits.”
These phenomena, too, are not confined to orthodox Hindu, Brahmin,
Tantvik, or Guru followers of any particular creed, race, or religion.
Certain Indian Moslem sects produce devotees capable of equivalent
phenomena, but variants of obscure Tibetan sects, Burmese, Malay,
Mohammedans, and followers of both theistic and pantheistic religions
have equal powers.
The idolater, the Muslim, and the Christian medium all share the same
belief in “spirit” control and in certain states produce the same
results. Where we may learn something from the East is not in the line
of morals, for their morals are different from ours--and many of their
religious customs revoltingly beastly--but in the way of the physical
induction of the psychic state.
The basis of a great many Yogas is the liberation of psychoplasm and
ectoplasm by a combination of concentration on certain internal centres
and the repetition of spells or sonorous magical evocations.
These affect the breathing so that in effect the body is subjected
to a definite rhythmical vibration. It is physical exercise of mind
and brain, applying mind-force to the stimulation and excitement of
internal nerve centres.
These six centres are visualized mentally as lotuses. They cannot be
precisely located in scientific anatomy, but correspond in most cases
with central nervous plexuses and they are as well known in Mohammedan
and Zoroastrian mystic cults, as they are in the Indian Upanishads and
Tantras, and are familiar to the Indians of Yucatan and Guatemala,
where ritual, combined with a species of physical massage, is employed
to initiate the hierophant into the tribal mysteries.
The school of Western occultists who hold the theory of the
all-pervading astral or magic light or fire, hold that these “centres”
open, or act as concentrators of an exterior, all-prevailing force
which is thus conducted to the consciousness, enabling the operator to
make contact with another plane.
In the Oriental theory this force is deemed to be always latent in
the body, and is aroused, evoked, or stimulated in particular ways.
The discussion of the relative values of these two main schools of
thought--static and dynamic light--or their variants is beyond the
scope of these notes.
The lowest of the lotuses or centres is the nerve centre within the
body in the region of the prostatic gland, the next is midway between
this and the third which is the navel centre or solar plexus. The
fourth is nominally the heart, the fifth, that at the base of the
throat, the sixth, that between the eyebrows. In visualizing these
lotuses with the “mental eye,” the depth back in the body of each
centre is assumed to be close to the spine.
Mind force is concentrated by the Yogi under the name Vogabala, and
in Oriental black magic this is concentrated on the lowest centre,
according to the ritual of the infamous Prayoga, with the result of
inducing sexual hallucinations.
In the so-called white or mediumistic magic, the centre of energy
is apparently by the third centre (the navel), for materialization
phenomena, and the fifth, or base of the throat centre for
clairaudience.
Those who can reach the sixth claim the power of astral voyaging in the
spirit world and perception of things on the mortal plane at a distance.
The physiology of the process is not yet understood, but following on
the breathing processes or Pranayama, which relax the body and induce
certain rhythms, a progressive excitation and rigor of the centres is
induced by autohypnosis. The nerve centres control various limbs and
functions, and as each is “put to sleep” so the Yogi becomes rigid and
cataleptic.
Yogis are able to hold out their arms for hours at a stretch without
apparent fatigue--so in the same way can a hypnotized subject be placed
in an attitude of rigidity by an operator.
These progressive inhibitions of functions cannot be achieved by
the Western occultist without the most careful study and painstaking
preparations. The practices are both mentally and physically dangerous,
but when mastered either in part or in whole, they can be evoked by
systems entirely at variance with the accepted Indian methods. In fact,
certain nonsense rhymes of the same rhythm and breathing values as some
of the Tantric spells or mantras are equally efficacious.
There was infinite wisdom in the old law of magic which said “Change
not the _barbaric_ names of evocation,” but if they were changed,
provided rhythm and breathing are preserved, the sense does not appear
to matter. If one verse of Macaulay’s “Horatius”[52] was a powerful
spell--almost any other verse in the same poem would produce the same
effect--if delivered in the same way.
This argument is sometimes used by a sceptic, but after all it only
proves that the same result can be produced by analogous means. Salt
disappears when dissolved in water, but so it does in half a dozen
other liquids.
The tales of life on other planes brought back by native spirits evoked
by Oriental magicians in no way tally with Western accounts, but as
phallic worship is integral with many Eastern beliefs, it is no matter
for wonder that some Eastern spirit evidence concerning the next plane
would make the most hardened Western libertine blush. They also affirm
with considerable emphasis that on the next plane nationalities and
colour lines are unknown, a point which is reinforced by the number of
ex-coloured spirits which frequent Western séances.
It is indeed difficult to know what to believe.
The Yogis can produce phenomena of materialization, prolonged trance
states, and can sometimes act as powerful hypnotists and seize the
Durga, literally citadel, of another’s body. On the other hand, the
net yield of all purely Indian occultism is very disappointing. This
may be due to the selflessness inculcated in their religious teaching,
which subdues love and hatred as equal enemies of spiritual progress.
If their magic were efficient, much more would be done with it, and
the consensus of general opinion is that despite its extraordinary
interest to the mystic and the scholar it has little to offer of
interest to the Spiritualist.
Certain of lesser known Yogas which do produce astonishing phenomena
belong definitely to the domain of black magic and only parallel
certain well-known outbreaks of phallic sorcery that occurred in Europe
in the Middle Ages.
The cult of evocation is held by some students to have spread from
India to the Arab races, but more recent investigations suggest that
the astonishing performances achieved by certain nominally Moslem sects
in the fastnesses of Tripoli and Morocco are due to the survivals from
the aborigines of those lands rather than to Oriental ideas.
The Berbers are a distinct primitive race akin to the Basques, and
probably identical with the ancient Britons who built Stonehenge.
To-day they are fanatical Moslemin, but the old practices linger as
rituals of specific religious cults, such as the Sufi Senoussi and the
Aissouri of Morocco. They are racially strange folk and the Moslem
veneer is only a lay religion imposed on a mass of pagan folklore
closely connected with serpent worship and astronomical observances.
Their festivals of the solstices have an outward-seeming Muslim
connection, but the inner hidden occult religion is a far older thing.
The Berbers are not of Arab stock; they are Semitic and they are
probably pre-Aryan. Some writers[53] trace their connection to the
original Firbolgs of Iceland, and the ethnology of this mysterious race
is still a matter of speculation and doubt.
Pre-eminent among their distinctive differences from the ordinary Arab
is the esteem in which they hold women. Women are chieftainesses among
them, and above all the women are the repositories of the lost lore of
magic. It is to them that the tribesmen turn for the carrying out of
the mystic harvest ceremonies, the charming of unfruitful fields, and
the lighting of the magic Beltane fires.
Fire plays no inconsiderable part in their rituals, and is only called
by its Arabic name el-aafeats (the comforter) when used for domestic
purposes. The sacrificial and ceremonial fires are always spoken of
either in the Shilluh or Schluch tongue--the true Berber language or
referred to as B’lnisac, a term whose philology is unknown, but which
apparently contains the age-old Bel or Baal motive.
This fire cult, coupled with a still more mystical inner creed
symbolized by serpent worship, may be noted by the student explorer
among the Berber folk. Riffis, Mashed Hojja Tuareks of the Sahara,
certain Kabyles of Tripoli, and other tribes all belong to the same
strange race, and there are reasons for believing that the Berbers are
identical with the mystical Fairies--the Good People--so called from a
propitiatory irony because they were so amazingly bad.
Berbers alone of savage folk raid and kill at night. They are
essentially a people of the dark, and he who sifts the mass of terrible
folklore about the earliest fairies in Britain will find a parallel
between these terrible unholy barbarians given to sorcery, necromancy
and unholy rites, the stealing of children for sacrificial purposes,
and other glossed horrors attributed to the Good People--and the Berber
races of to-day.
The practices continue.
In 1909 I was travelling in the Gharb country of Morocco, where there
is a large Berber element. The French occupation of the Shawiah and the
meteoric rise of Sultan Mulai Hafid had left the country unsettled and
dangerous.
Beyond a war correspondent or two and a handful of German engineers--or
spies, employed by the firm of Marmesman--there were no Europeans in
the country outside of the coast towns. For the capital and Manahesh
the big cities of the South were closed, and a Christian’s life was
nowhere worth a moment’s purchase among the fanatics.
I am but an indifferent Arabic scholar, but a certain knowledge of
classical Hebrew served one well, for there are many debased Jews in
Morocco. For the rest, as the high-class Moors are a fair race and
often blue-eyed, travelling in native clothes and well bronzed by the
sun I suffered no molestation and could rely on the fidelity of my four
body-servants.
Some five days’ ride northwest of the argan forests of the coast belt,
I was well within Berber territory. This was mostly stony hill lands,
for Morocco is simply rock deserts and hills, interspersed with lightly
watered fertile valleys and occasional oases of poplar-sheltered walls.
The holy city of Tarudant lay to the north of me, and I had crossed the
Wadi Sifan river and was going south from the Iber Kaken Pass on the
caravan route east into the Ait Jellal country.
There, deep in the hills, lies the ruin of a Roman city of which
strange tales are told. It is even not certain that it is Roman, for a
volume of notes, painstakingly compiled for fifteen years by a resident
in a coast town, discloses unmistakable Phœnician characteristics, but
I at least cannot tell, for my expedition had to beat a swift retreat a
bare two days’ march from the nominal valley of the dead city.
It was on the way there that my little troop of horsemen and pack
mules halted at the Berber village of M’Aerbil Ida and were received
as guests of honour for the night. The village was a curious medley of
thorn and cactus fences, cane-thatched huts, and deep caves cut in the
friable freestone rock of the mountain side.
The men wore the close-knitted wool caps of the country and had the
curious snake-like head angles and the long, curving sidelock and thin
beards of coarse hair that just distinguish these strange, elf-like
folk. Something in their broad cheekbones and curious pale eyes
suggests the snake.
Mohammed-el-Suissi, my horse boy, told me as he pitched my tent that
he did not like the village or the people; “they were,” he said, “not
good Moslemin.” As religious orthodoxy was not one of Mohammed’s
strong points, I did not worry much, but when Hassan-el-Askri, my
soldier muleteer, warned me to keep my arms about me I realized that my
Moors considered that not even the law of desert hospitality was held
inviolate among these folk.
There is, however, a brotherhood of initiates of which I am a member,
whose signs are recognized in many parts of the globe. Gesticulation
is a feature of polite Arabic conversation, and I soon secured an
answering sign from one of the head-men of the tribe. Within half an
hour nobody in that village would have dared to steal the least of my
belongings.
I had considerable difficulty in carrying on my conversation as my
Arabic, apart from ordinary needs of travel, was weak and classical
rather than popular. The Berbers, too, always spoke of these things in
their own tongue, Shilluh, and none of my entourage being initiate I
had no interpreter.
My host was Sidi-el-Belarni, an old chieftain who was also a
_shereef_--that is, a lineal descendant of the Prophet and a
person of sanctity. He soon dropped the mask of orthodoxy and conversed
freely on the metaphysical side of his cult. I found it easier to
understand than to converse with him, but gained an easier appreciation
as I got used to it.
I stayed a second day in the village, as one of our animals was badly
lamed and needed rest, and took occasion to ask him concerning the art
of reviving the dead to temporary life which the Berbers are commonly
held to possess.
He made no objections to my questions, and, to my delight, offered
to give me a demonstration if the ritual of the women who held the
secrets would consent to exhibit them. At noon I was taken to a kind of
tribal palaver and the matter was put to a species of test or judgment
by lot. A young girl was blindfolded and given a basket containing
short and long sticks. Certain prayers and incantations were performed
and she passed into a semi-trance state.
My permission depended on her selection of a majority of short sticks,
but as I could not see the sticks, and she was in a state of light
hypnosis, I made occasion to recite one or two resounding Hebrew charms
and laid my hands on her head; after that, all was easy. Her will
obeyed mine and she selected the sticks as I desired. It was almost an
unanimous election.
When dusk fell with all its African suddenness, the rising moon hung
like a blazing buckler in the sky. Dogs barked in answer to the distant
hill jackals and the acrid smoke of the camel-dung fires hung like a
sour fog about the camp.
We left the village and went about a quarter of a mile along the
hillside to the local buryingplace, following a stony track that was
little more than a dried watercourse. At the head of our little
procession were two men with flaming argan wood torches tied to long
canes, behind them came four men with long silver-decorated Remington
rifles, and then the little group of sorceresses followed by myself and
the elders.
The burial ground was a scanty clearing among the scrub and dwarf oaks,
and bushes encroached upon the outer graves. Each tomb was marked by
a stone monolith or pillar, rough-hewn, with a knob at the top in
pursuance of the Muslim custom. The graves radiated in circles from the
central stone, whereon fluttered little bundles of rags and similar
votive offerings.
We made our way to a recent grave, which was rapidly opened by the men,
disclosing, a bare two feet beneath the surface, the bent body of a man
buried in sitting posture. It was a ghoul-like business and the whole
air of the graveyard carried the tainted scent of the dreadful carrion
they were unearthing.
In the meanwhile, the women were busy, and from behind the tombs
brought forth skulls which they anointed with some strange grease and
set on sticks in a circle round the central altar.
At last the corpse, in its foul, earth-stained wrappings, was exhumed
and carried in a piece of sheeting to the altar. The men who had served
as guards and grave diggers then withdrew out of earshot, and the
ceremonies began.
Fire was applied to the circle of skulls and they began to burn. I
noticed that the eyes and ear sockets were stuffed with old rags which
served as wicks for the unclean oil. They flared smokily, sending off a
foul-scented sooty smoke.
The women began to chant their monotonous wailing rhymes, and their
leader rocked to and fro leading this strange chorus.
Suddenly a power seemed to come upon her and she became frenzied,
dancing round the skull circle in time to the refrain, but undulating
her body in a strange, snake-like manner. Then she knelt down on the
ground, and from somewhere about her person produced something which
she rubbed on her hands. At first it resembled phosphorus, a quick,
flickering faint blue light, but gradually it grew in strength until
streamers of blue flame, some six inches long, seemed to project from
her fingers while her whole person seemed outlined in a faint shape of
flame.
From the ground she picked up a short length of cane which in her grasp
seemed to project this blue emanation--then with a final chorus of
evocation, she leapt upon the altar and knelt astride of the dead man.
With quick passes, she ran her hands the length of his slack limbs and
then poised both hands above the navel of the corpse, about a foot
higher than the shroud.
The emanation curved down like a blue-green waterfall of flame
and seemed to enter the man. Incredible as it may seem, the dead
limbs slowly began to stretch out jerkily, uneasily, as if awaking,
yet--instinct with a new vitality.
The ghastly, lolling head, stained with corruption and bound with the
jaw bandage, began to oscillate on the dreadful neck and the whole
corpse began to phosphoresce with a dull green luminosity.
The chorus now ceased chanting and a small fire was lighted on a cairn
of stones. From this certain objects were taken and placed in the dead
man’s hands. The fingers slowly curled up and grasped them!
The singing began again and the sorceress, still across the body, took
the cane she carried and, breaking the bandage that bound the dead
man’s jaw, inserted the end in his mouth.
Then making certain passes and signs with her hands, she began to
exhale deep breaths into the body, seeming to make the mystic passes as
if to force the living breath down into the dead man’s lungs.
Little by little life seemed to creep back into that unholy shell.
The dreadful contours of death sunk back, the form became more human
and the motions not the strange jerky rigors of the first part of the
ceremony, but the very signs of life.
The eyelids flickered and retracted, the dreadful drawn lips relaxed
and in a minute or so the dead man sat up in his cerements--and spoke.
Then followed the dread consultation of the dead. It was evident from
the awe and respect with which he was addressed that he was treated
not as a reanimated individual, but as an august visitant from another
world.
Thin, high and shrill, the usually coarse gutturals of the Shilluh
tongue seemed strange from _Its_ lips. I suspected ventriloquy for
a while, but could see the slow movements of its throat muscles and
glottis and the rise and fall of the shroud over the sunken abdomen.
Nevertheless it was sheer horror to listen to and dreadful, monstrous
to see.
I was only permitted to ask one question, and I asked would my quest be
successful. I received an unequivocal answer that it would fail, but
not through my fault, but because of the will of the spirits of the
departed and the curse of the dead that hung over the city.
Incidentally this discounted the advice given by other spirit
communicants before the expedition was undertaken,--but later proved
true.
The ritual of re-dissolution was shorter but far more terrible. Again
the sorceress made passes. The objects were taken from the hands of
the dead and slowly the life left the body, which swelled and twitched
as it returned to its original state of terrible decomposition. A thin
wailing chant seemed to symbolize the flight of the spirit back to its
own realms.
* * * * *
I pressed unsuccessful inquiry concerning the details of this
astounding piece of necromancy which was neither more nor less than
that terrible old mystery, the raising of the dead in the flesh.
I could obtain no details of the objects placed in the man’s hands
or the material used to produce the astonishing outpouring of blue,
luminous matter.
So far as I could ascertain, the life force of the sorceress herself
entered the body, but the ceremony of creating it was essential in
combination with the charms in the hands before the spirit could return.
Neither could I ascertain that it was the soul of the departed or some
other spirit that entered into the reanimated corpse.
Some powerful communities are able, it is said, to despatch these
dreadful reanimated dead on missions of evil. But their power only
lasts throughout the night and fails at sunrise.
Here there is an undoubted suggestion of the practical possibility of
vampirism, but I could not learn that these folk possess the lost art
of imprisoning a human or spirit soul within the body of an animal.[54]
I am nevertheless convinced that among the Berbers of North Africa will
be found the key to many legends that have come down to us from our
ancestors in Great Britain, and above all I counsel those good folk who
read the pleasant little fake stories of pretty little fairies in some
of the magazines of what passes for popular occultism to abandon the
delusion.
The term good folk is a paradox. They were the demons or spirits of
the unholy aborigines working in contact with the savages themselves,
and it is good, exceedingly good, that there are no fairies loose in
Britain to-day and that the art of summoning them is well-nigh lost.
* * * * *
This chapter completes all that I have to say for the time being.
There is in this book much food for careful thought. Those who read
it carefully will find in it keys to much that has puzzled them, and
simple explanations of phenomena which have been greatly debated of
late. The general reader will doubtless find the incidents the most
interesting part of the book, but to the critical and those seriously
interested in psychic matters, I commend a careful and reasonable study
of the more scientific sections, for in this matter of things psychic
both Spiritualist and Sceptic are upon the same quest. From different
angles they are both seeking for the Great Truth.
FOOTNOTES:
[51] _Occult Science in India and among the Ancients._ Louis Jacolliot.
[52] _Lays of Ancient Rome._ Macaulay.
[53] See _The Arabs of Tripoli_. Alan Ostler.
[54] This practice is claimed to be possible of achievement by both
Finn and certain Red Indian wizards. But no facts susceptible of proof
have ever been adduced.
* * * * *
Transcriber’s notes.
Two half-title pages (pages blank except for the book title) have been
omitted from the front matter.
Minor typographical and punctuation errors have been corrected
silently. Ambiguous hyphenation has been removed or retained according
to the prevailing style for the period. Inconsistent hyphenation has
been normalised.
Other than as indicated below, the authors spelling has been retained,
even where inconsistent.
The word Balnam on page 23 has been corrected to Balham, a London
suburb suggested by the context. See also Balham or Bayswater on page
195.
The two references to Thotn on page 28 (text and footnote) have been
amended to Thoth and Thot for the English and French respectively.
The author misquotes Milton on page 123, where Thammur has been
corrected to Thammuz.
A second instance of Thammur in the text has been changed to Thamus
to match the Authors alternate spelling in the following paragraph.