Chapter IX: Cyclic Phenomena

Meaning of the expression “coats of skin” 293

Natural selection and its results 295

The Egyptian “circle of necessity” 296

Pre-Adamite races 299

Descent of spirit into matter 302

The triune nature of man 309

The lowest creatures in the scale of being 310

Elementals specifically described 311

Proclus on the beings of the air 312

Various names for elementals 313

Swedenborgian views on soul-death 317

Earth-bound human souls 319

Impure mediums and their “guides” 325

Psychometry an aid to scientific research 333

CHAPTER X.

THE INNER AND OUTER MAN.

Père Félix arraigns the scientists 338

The “Unknowable” 340

Danger of evocations by tyros 342

Lares and Lemures 345

Secrets of Hindu temples 350

Reïncarnation 351

Witchcraft and witches 353

The sacred soma trance 357

Vulnerability of certain “shadows” 363

Experiment of Clearchus on a sleeping boy 365

The author witnesses a trial of magic in India 369

Case of the Cevennois 371

CHAPTER XI.

PSYCHOLOGICAL AND PHYSICAL MARVELS.

Invulnerability attainable by man 379

Projecting the force of the will 380

Insensibility to snake-poison 381

Charming serpents by music 383

Teratological phenomena discussed 385

The psychological domain confessedly unexplored 407

Despairing regrets of Berzelius 411

Turning a river into blood a vegetable phenomenon 413

CHAPTER XII.

THE “IMPASSABLE CHASM.”

Confessions of ignorance by men of science 417

The Pantheon of nihilism 421

Triple composition of fire 423

Instinct and reason defined 425

Philosophy of the Hindu Jaïns 429

Deliberate misrepresentations of Lemprière 431

Man’s astral soul not immortal 432

The reïncarnation of Buddha 437

Magical sun and moon pictures of Thibet 441

Vampirism—its phenomena explained 449

Bengalese jugglery 457

CHAPTER XIII.

REALITIES AND ILLUSION.

The rationale of talismans 462

Unexplained mysteries 466

Magical experiment in Bengal 467

Chibh Chondor’s surprising feats 471

The Indian tape-climbing trick an illusion 473

Resuscitation of buried fakirs 477

Limits of suspended animation 481

Mediumship totally antagonistic to adeptship 487

What are “materialized spirits”? 493

The _Shudâla Mâdan_ 495

Philosophy of levitation 497

The elixir and alkahest 503

CHAPTER XIV.

EGYPTIAN WISDOM.

Origin of the Egyptians 515

Their mighty engineering works 517

The ancient land of the Pharaohs 521

Antiquity of the Nilotic monuments 529

Arts of war and peace 531

Mexican myths and ruins 545

Resemblances to the Egyptian 551

Moses a priest of Osiris 555

The lessons taught by the ruins of Siam 563

The Egyptian Tau at Palenque 573

CHAPTER XV.

INDIA THE CRADLE OF THE RACE.

Acquisition of the “secret doctrine” 575

Two relics owned by a Pali scholar 577

Jealous exclusiveness of the Hindus 581

Lydia Maria Child on Phallic symbolism 583

The age of the Vedas and Manu 587

Traditions of pre-diluvian races 589

Atlantis and its peoples 593

Peruvian relics 597

The Gobi desert and its secrets 599

Thibetan and Chinese legends 600

The magician aids, not impedes, nature 617

Philosophy, religion, arts and sciences bequeathed by Mother
India to posterity 618