Chapter XII (2)

Both in Western and Eastern Thibet, as in every other place where Buddhism predominates, there are two distinct religions, the same as it is in Brahmanism--the secret philosophy and the popular religion. The former is that of the followers of the doctrine of the sect of the Sutrântika.[1148] They closely adhere to the spirit of Buddha’s original teachings which show the necessity of _intuitional_ perception, and all deductions therefrom. These do not proclaim their views, nor allow them to be made public.

“All _compounds_ are perishable,” were the last words uttered by the lips of the dying Gautama, when preparing under the Sâl-tree to enter into Nirvana. “Spirit is the sole, elementary, and primordial unity, and each of its rays is immortal, infinite, and indestructible. Beware of the illusions of matter.” Buddhism was spread far and wide over Asia, and even farther, by Dharm-Asôka. He was the grandson of the miracle-worker Chandragupta, the illustrious king who rescued the Punjâb from the Macedonians--if they ever were at Punjâb at all--and received Megasthenes at his court in Pataliputra. Dharm-Asôka was the greatest King of the Maûrya dynasty. From a reckless profligate and atheist, he had become Pryâdasi, the “beloved of the gods,” and never was the purity of his philanthropic views surpassed by any earthly ruler. His memory has lived for ages in the hearts of the Buddhists, and has been perpetuated in the humane edicts engraved in several popular dialects on the columns and rocks of Allahabad, Delhi, Guzerat, Peshawur, Orissa, and other places.[1149] His famous grandfather had united all India under his powerful sceptre. When the Nâgas, or serpent-worshippers of Kashmere had been converted through the efforts of the apostles sent out by the Sthaviras of the third councils, the religion of Gautama spread like wild-fire. Gândhara, Cabul, and even many of the Satrapies of Alexander the Great, accepted the new philosophy. The Buddhism of Nepâl being the one which may be said to have diverged less than any other from the primeval ancient faith, the Lamaism of Tartary, Mongolia, and Thibet, which is a direct offshoot of this country, may be thus shown to be the purest Buddhism; for we say it again, Lamaism properly is but an external form of rites.

The Upâsakas and Upâsakis, or male and female semi-monastics and semi-laymen, have equally with the lama-monks themselves, to strictly abstain from violating any of Buddha’s rules, and must study _Meipo_ and every psychological phenomenon as much. Those who become guilty of any of the “five sins” lose all right to congregate with the pious community. The most important of these is _not to curse upon any consideration, for the curse returns upon the one that utters it, and often upon his innocent relatives who breathe the same atmosphere with him_. To love each other, and even our bitterest enemies; to offer our lives even for animals, to the extent of abstaining from defensive arms; to gain the greatest of victories by conquering one’s self; to avoid all vices; to practice all virtues, especially humility and mildness; to be obedient to superiors, to cherish and respect parents, old age, learning, virtuous and holy men; to provide food, shelter, and comfort for men and animals; to plant trees on the roads and dig wells for the comfort of travellers; such are the moral duties of Buddhists. Every Ani or Bikshuni (nun) is subjected to these laws.

Numerous are the Buddhist and Lamaic saints who have been renowned for the unsurpassed sanctity of their lives and their “miracles.” So Tissu, the Emperor’s spiritual teacher, who consecrated Kublaï-Khan, the Nadir Shah, was known far and wide as much for the extreme holiness of his life as for the many wonders he wrought. But he did not stop at fruitless miracles, but did better than that. Tissu purified completely his religion; and from one single province of Southern Mongolia is said to have forced Kublai to expel from convents 500,000 monkish impostors, who made a pretext of their profession, to live in vice and idleness. Then the Lamaists had their great reformer, the Shaberon Son-Ka-po, who is claimed to have been immaculately conceived by his mother, a virgin from Koko-nor (fourteenth century), who is another wonder-worker. The sacred tree of Kounboum, the tree of the 10,000 images, which, in consequence of the degeneration of the true faith had ceased budding for several centuries, now shot forth new sprouts and bloomed more vigorously than ever from the hair of this avatar of Buddha, says the legend. The same tradition makes him (Son-Ka-po) ascend to heaven in 1419. Contrary to the prevailing idea, few of these saints are _Khubilhans_, or Shaberons--reïncarnations.

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

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

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

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

“And yet, they are dead,” she gravely answered. “To be born in this world, is this not death? See, how these herbs look when alive in the world of eternal light, in the gardens of our blessed Foh?”

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

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

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

In India, as well as in Russia and some other countries, there is an instinctive repugnance to stepping across a man’s shadow, especially if he have red hair; and in the former country, natives are extremely reluctant to shake hands with persons of another race. These are not idle fancies. Every person emits a magnetic exhalation or aura, and a man may be in perfect physical health, but at the same time his exhalation may have a morbific character for others, sensitive to such subtile influences. Dr. Esdaile and other mesmerists long since taught us that Oriental people, especially Hindus, are more susceptible than the white-skinned races. Baron Reichenbach’s experiments--and, in fact, the world’s entire experience--prove that these magnetic exhalations are most intense from the extremities. Therapeutic manipulations show this; hand-shaking is, therefore, most calculated to communicate antipathetic magnetic conditions, and the Hindus do wisely in keeping their ancient “superstition”--derived from Manu--constantly in mind.

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

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

This phenomenon is explained by the law of the powerful attraction existing between the human body and objects that have been long worn upon it. The oldest garment is most effective for the experiment; a new one is useless.

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

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

The British resident who has encountered in the _maidans_ and public places what he regards as frightful and loathsome human beings, sitting motionless in the self-inflicted torture of the _ûrddwa bahu_, with arms raised above the head for months, and even years, need not suppose they are the wonder-working fakirs. The phenomenon of the latter are visible only through the friendly protection of a Brahman, or under peculiarly fortuitous circumstances. Such men are as little accessible as the real Nautch girls, of whom every traveller talks, but very few have actually seen, since they belong exclusively to the pagodas.

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

Fifty years have passed since the discovery; but though since that time towns have been built on these hills and the country has been invaded by Europeans, no more has been learned of the Todas than at the first. Among the foolish rumors current about this people, the most erroneous are those in relation to their numbers and to their practicing polyandry. The general opinion about them is that on account of the latter custom their number has dwindled to a few hundred families, and the race is fast dying out. We had the best means of learning much about them, and therefore state most positively that the Todas neither practice polyandry nor are they as few in number as supposed. We are ready to show that no one has ever seen children belonging to them. Those that may have been seen in their company have belonged to the Badagas, a Hindu tribe totally distinct from the Todas, in race, color, and language, and which includes the most direct “worshippers” of this extraordinary people. We say _worshippers_, for the Badagas clothe, feed, serve, and positively look upon every Toda as a divinity. They are giants in stature, white as Europeans, with tremendously long and generally brown, wavy hair and beard, which no razor ever touched from birth. Handsome as a statue of Pheidias or Praxiteles, the Toda sits the whole day inactive, as some travellers who have had a glance at them affirm. From the many conflicting opinions and statements we have heard from the very residents of Ootakamund and other little new places of civilization scattered about the Neilgherry Hills, we cull the following:

“They never use water; they are wonderfully handsome and noble looking, but extremely unclean; unlike all other natives they despise jewelry, and never wear anything but a large black drapery or blanket of some woollen stuff, with a colored stripe at the bottom; they never drink anything but pure milk; they have herds of cattle but neither eat their flesh, nor do they make their beasts of labor plough or work; they neither sell nor buy; the Badagas feed and clothe them; they never use nor carry weapons, not even a simple stick; the Todas can’t read and won’t learn. They are the despair of the missionaries and apparently have no sort of religion, beyond the worship of themselves as the Lords of Creation.”[1150]

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

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

Furthermore the Todas do not marry at all. They seem few in number, for no one has or ever will have a chance of numbering them; as soon as their solitude was profaned by the avalanche of civilization--which was, perchance, due to their own carelessness--the Todas began moving away to other parts as unknown and more inaccessible than the Neilgherry hills had formerly been; they are not born of Toda mothers, nor of Toda parentage; they are the children of a certain very select sect, and are set apart from their infancy for special religious purposes. Recognized by a peculiarity of complexion, and certain other signs, such a child is known as what is vulgarly termed a Toda, from birth. Every third year, each of them must repair to a certain place for a certain period of time, where each of them must meet; their “dirt” is but a mask, such as a sannyâsi puts on in public in obedience to his vow; their cattle are, for the most part, devoted to sacred uses; and, though their places of worship have never been trodden by a profane foot, they nevertheless exist, and perhaps rival the most splendid pagodas--_goparams_--known to Europeans. The Badagas are their special vassals, and--as has been truly remarked--worship them as half-deities; for their birth and mysterious powers entitle them to such a distinction.

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

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

What is now generally known of Shamanism is very little; and that has been perverted, like the rest of the non-Christian religions. It is called the “heathenism” of Mongolia, and wholly without reason, for it is one of the oldest religions of India. It is spirit-worship, or belief in the immortality of the souls, and that the latter are still the same men they were on earth, though their bodies have lost their objective form, and man has exchanged his physical for a spiritual nature. In its present shape, it is an offshoot of primitive theurgy, and a practical blending of the visible with the invisible world. Whenever a denizen of earth desires to enter into communication with his invisible brethren, he has to assimilate himself to their nature, _i.e._, he meets these beings half-way, and, furnished by them with a supply of spiritual essence, endows them, in his turn, with a portion of his physical nature, thus enabling them sometimes to appear in a semi-objective form. It is a temporary exchange of natures, called theurgy. Shamans are called sorcerers, because they are said to evoke the “spirits” of the dead for purposes of necromancy. The true Shamanism--striking features of which prevailed in India in the days of Megasthenes (300 B.C.)--can no more be judged by its degenerated scions among the Shamans of Siberia, than the religion of Gautama-Buddha can be interpreted by the fetishism of some of his followers in Siam and Burmah. It is in the chief lamaseries of Mongolia and Thibet that it has taken refuge; and there Shamanism, if so we must call it, is practiced to the utmost limits of intercourse allowed between man and “spirit.” The religion of the lamas has faithfully preserved the primitive science of _magic_, and produces as great feats now as it did in the days of Kublaï-Khan and his barons. The ancient mystic formula of the King Srong-ch-Tsans-Gampo, the “Aum mani padmé houm,”[1151] effects its wonders now as well as in the seventh century. Avalokitesvara, highest of the three Boddhisattvas, and patron saint of Thibet, projects his shadow, full in the view of the faithful, at the lamasery of Dga-G’Dan, founded by him; and the luminous form of Son-Ka-pa, under the shape of a fiery cloudlet, that separates itself from the dancing beams of the sunlight, holds converse with a great congregation of lamas, numbering thousands; the voice descending from above, like the whisper of the breeze through foliage. Anon, say the Thibetans, the beautiful appearance vanishes in the shadows of the sacred trees in the park of the lamasery.

At Garma-Khian (the mother-cloister) it is rumored that bad and unprogressed spirits are made to appear on certain days, and _forced_ to give an account of their evil deeds; they are compelled by the lamaic adepts to redress the wrongs done by them to mortals. This is what Huc naïvely terms “personating evil spirits,” _i.e._, devils. Were the skeptics of various European countries permitted to consult the accounts printed daily[1152] at Moru, and in the “City of Spirits,” of the business-like intercourse which takes place between the lamas and the invisible world, they would certainly feel more interest in the phenomena described so triumphantly in the spiritualistic journals. At Buddha-lla, or rather Foht-lla (Buddha’s Mount), in the most important of the many thousand lamaseries of that country, the sceptre of the Boddhisgat is seen floating, unsupported, in the air, and its motions regulate the actions of the community. Whenever a lama is called to account in the presence of the Superior of the monastery, he knows beforehand it is useless for him to tell an untruth; the “regulator of justice” (the sceptre) is there, and its waving motion, either approbatory or otherwise, decides instantaneously and unerringly the question of his guilt. We do not pretend to have witnessed all this personally--we wish to make no pretensions of any kind. Suffice it, with respect to any of these phenomena, that what we have not seen with our own eyes has been so substantiated to us that we indorse its genuineness.

A number of lamas in Sikkin produce _meipo_--“miracle”--by magical powers. The late Patriarch of Mongolia, Gegen Chutuktu, who resided at Urga, a veritable paradise, was the sixteenth incarnation of Gautama, therefore a Boddhisattva. He had the reputation of possessing powers that were phenomenal, even among the thaumaturgists of the land of miracles _par excellence_. Let no one suppose that these powers are developed without cost. The lives of most of these holy men, miscalled idle vagrants, cheating beggars, who are supposed to pass their existence in preying upon the easy credulity of their victims, are miracles in themselves. Miracles, because they show what a determined will and perfect purity of life and purpose are able to accomplish, and to what degree of preternatural ascetism a human body can be subjected and yet live and reach a ripe old age. No Christian hermit has ever dreamed of such refinement of monastic discipline; and the aërial habitation of a Simon Stylite would appear child’s play before the fakir’s and the Buddhist’s inventions of will-tests. But the theoretical study of magic is one thing; the possibility of practicing it quite another. At _Brâs-ss-Pungs_, the Mongolian college where over three hundred magicians (_sorciers_, as the French missionaries call them) teach about twice as many pupils from twelve to twenty, the latter have many years to wait for their final initiation. Not one in a hundred reaches the highest goal; and out of the many thousand lamas occupying nearly an entire city of detached buildings clustering around it, not more than two per cent. become wonder-workers. One may learn by heart every line of the 108 volumes of _Kadjur_,[1153] and still make but a poor practical magician. There is but one thing which leads surely to it, and this particular study is hinted at by more than one Hermetic writer. One, the Arabian alchemist Abipili, speaks thus: “I admonish thee, whosoever thou art that desirest to dive into the inmost parts of nature; if that thou seekest thou findest not _within thee_, thou wilt _never find it without thee_. If thou knowest not the excellency of thine own house, why dost thou seek after the excellency of other things?... O MAN, KNOW THYSELF! IN THEE IS HID THE TREASURE OF TREASURERS.”

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

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

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

The greatest of the _meipo_--said to be the object of the ambition of every Buddhist devotee--was, and yet is, the faculty of walking in the air. The famous King of Siam, Pia Metak, the Chinese, was noted for his devotion and learning. But he attained this “supernatural gift” only after having placed himself under the direct tuition of a priest of Gautama-Buddha. Crawfurd and Finlayson, during their residence at Siam, followed with great interest the endeavors of some Siamese nobles to acquire this faculty.[1154]

Numerous and varied are the sects in China, Siam, Tartary, Thibet, Kashmir, and British India, which devote their lives to the cultivation of “supernatural powers,” so called. Discussing one of such sects, the _Taossé_, Semedo says: “They pretend that by means of certain exercises and meditations one shall regain his youth, and others will attain to be _Shien-sien_, _i.e._, ‘Terrestrial Beati,’ in whose state every desire is gratified, whilst they have the power to transport themselves from one place to another, _however distant_, with speed and facility.”[1155] This faculty relates but to the _projection_ of the _astral entity_, in a more or less corporealized form, and certainly not to bodily transportation. This phenomenon is no more a miracle than one’s reflection in a looking-glass. No one can detect in such an image a particle of matter, and still there stands our double, faithfully representing, even to each single hair on our heads. If, by this simple law of reflection, our double can be seen in a mirror, how much more striking a proof of its existence is afforded in the art of photography! _It is no reason, because our physicists have not yet found the means of taking photographs, except at a short distance, that the acquirement should be impossible to those who have found these means in the power of the human will itself, freed from terrestrial concern._[1156] Our thoughts are _matter_, says science; every energy produces more or less of a disturbance in the atmospheric waves. Therefore, as every man--in common with every other living, and even inert object--has an _aura_ of his own emanations surrounding him; and, moreover, is enabled, by a trifling effort, to transport himself in _imagination_ wherever he likes, why is it scientifically impossible that his thought, regulated, intensified, and guided by that powerful magician, the educated will, may become corporealized for the time being, and appear to whom it likes, a faithful double of the original? Is the proposition, in the present state of science, any more unthinkable than the photograph or telegraph were less than forty years ago, or the telephone less than fourteen months ago?

If the sensitized plate can so accurately seize upon the _shadow_ of our faces, then this shadow or reflection, although we are unable to perceive it, must be something substantial. And, if we can, with the help of optical instruments, project our _semblances_ upon a white wall, at several hundred feet distance, sometimes, then there is no reason why the adepts, the alchemists, the savants of the secret art, should not have already found out that which scientists deny to-day, but may discover true to-morrow, _i.e._, how to project electrically their astral bodies, in an instant, through thousands of miles of space, leaving their material shells with a certain amount of animal vital principle to keep the physical life going, and acting within their spiritual, ethereal bodies as safely and intelligently as when clothed with the covering of flesh? There is a higher form of electricity than the physical one known to experimenters; a thousand correlations of the latter are as yet veiled to the eye of the modern physicist, and none can tell where end its possibilities.

Schott explains that by _Sian_ or _Shin-Sian_ are understood in the old Chinese conception, and particularly in that of the Tao-Kiao (Taossé) sect, “persons who withdraw to the hills to lead the life of anchorites, and who have attained, either through their ascetic observances or by the power of charms and elixirs, to the possession of miraculous gifts and of terrestrial _immortality_”[1157](?) This is exaggerated if not altogether erroneous. What they claim, is merely their ability to prolong human life; and they can do so, if we have to believe human testimony. What Marco Polo testifies to in the thirteenth century is corroborated in our own days. “There are another class of people called _Chughi_” (Yogi), he says, “who are indeed properly called _Abraiamans_ (Brahmans?) who are extremely long-lived, every man of them living to 150 or 200 years. They eat very little, rice and milk chiefly. And these people make use of a very strange beverage, a potion of sulphur and quicksilver mixed together, and this they drink twice every month.... This, they say, gives them long life; and it is a potion they are used to take from their childhood.”[1158] Burnier shows, says Colonel Yule, the Yogis very skilful in preparing mercury “so admirably that one or two grains taken every morning restored the body to perfect health;” and adds that the _mercurius vitæ_ of Paracelsus was a compound in which entered antimony and quicksilver.[1159] This is a very careless statement, to say the least, and we will explain what we know of it.

The longevity of some lamas and Talapoins is proverbial; and it is generally known that they use some compound which “renews the old blood,” as they call it. And it was equally a recognized fact with alchemists that a judicious administration, “of _aura of silver_ does restore health and prolongs life itself to a wonderful extent.” But we are fully prepared to oppose the statements of both Bernier and Col. Yule who quotes him, that it is _mercury_ or quicksilver which the Yogis and the alchemists used. The Yogis, in the days of Marco Polo, as well as in our modern times, _do use that which may appear to be quicksilver, but is not_. Paracelsus, the alchemists, and other mystics, meant by _mercurius vitæ_, the living spirit of silver, the _aura_ of silver, not the _argent vive_; and this _aura_ is certainly not the mercury known to our physicians and druggists. There can be no doubt that the imputation that Paracelsus introduced mercury into medical practice is utterly incorrect. No mercury, whether prepared by a mediæval fire-philosopher or a modern self-styled physician, can or ever did restore the body to perfect health. Only an unmitigated charlatan ever will use such a drug. And it is the opinion of many that it is just with the wicked intention of presenting Paracelsus in the eyes of posterity as a _quack_, that his enemies have invented such a preposterous lie.

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

We have heard of a certain water, also, called _âb-i-hayât_, which the popular superstition thinks hidden from every mortal eye, except that of the holy sannyâsi; the fountain itself being known as the âb-i-haiwân-î. It is more than probable though, that the Talapoins will decline to deliver up their secrets, even to academicians and missionaries; as these remedies must be used for the benefit of humanity, never for money.[1160]

At the great festivals of Hindu pagodas, at the marriage feasts of rich high-castes, everywhere where large crowds are gathered, Europeans find gunî--or serpent-charmers, fakirs-mesmerizers, thaum-working sannyâsi, and so-called “jugglers.” To deride is easy--to explain, rather more troublesome--to science impossible. The British residents of India and the travellers prefer the first expedient. But let any one ask one of these Thomases how the following results--which they cannot and do not deny--are produced? When crowds of gunî and fakirs appear with their bodies encircled with cobras-de-capello, their arms ornamented with bracelets of _corallilos_--diminutive snakes inflicting certain death in a few seconds--and their shoulders with necklaces of trigonocephali, the most terrible enemy of naked Hindu feet, whose bite kills like a flash of lightning, the sceptic witness smiles and gravely proceeds to explain how these reptiles, having been thrown in cataleptic torpor, were all deprived by the gunî of their fangs. “They are harmless and it is ridiculous to fear them.” “Will the Saëb caress one of my nâg?” asked once a gunî approaching our interlocutor, who had been thus humbling his listeners with his herpetological achievements for a full half hour. Rapidly jumping back--the brave warrior’s feet proving no less nimble than his tongue--Captain B----’s angry answer could hardly be immortalized by us in print. Only the gunî’s terrible body-guard saved him from an unceremonious thrashing. Besides, say a word, and for a half-roupee any professional serpent-charmer will begin creeping about and summon around in a few moments numbers of untamed serpents of the most poisonous species, and will handle them and encircle his body with them. On two occasions in the neighborhood of Trinkemal a serpent was ready to strike at the writer, who had once nearly sat on its tail, but both times, at a rapid whistle of the gunî whom we had hired to accompany us, it stopped--hardly a few inches from our body, as if arrested by lightning and slowly sinking its menacing head to the ground, remained stiff and motionless as a dead branch, under the charm of the _kīlnā_.[1161]

Will any European juggler, tamer, or even mesmerizer, risk repeating just once an experiment that may be daily witnessed in India, if you know where to go to see it? There is nothing in the world more ferocious than a royal Bengal tiger. Once the whole population of a small village, not far from Dakka, situated on the confines of a jungle, was thrown into a panic at the appearance of an enormous tigress, at the dawn of the day. These wild beasts never leave their dens but at night, when they go searching for prey and for water. But this unusual circumstance was due to the fact that the beast was a mother, and she had been deprived of her two cubs, which had been carried away by a daring hunter, and she was in search of them. Two men and a child had already become her victims, when an aged fakir, bent on his daily round, emerging from the gate of the pagoda, saw the situation and understood it at a glance. Chanting a mantrâm he went straight to the beast, which with flaming eye and foaming mouth crouched near a tree ready for a new victim. When at about ten feet from the tigress, without interrupting his modulated prayer, the words of which no layman comprehends, he began a regular process of mesmerization, as we understood it; he made _passes_. A terrific howl which struck a chill into the heart of every human being in the place, was then heard. This long, ferocious, drawling howl gradually subsided into a series of plaintive broken sobs, as if the bereaved mother was uttering her complaints, and then, to the terror of the crowd which had taken refuge on trees and in the houses, the beast made a tremendous leap--on the holy man as they thought. They were mistaken, she was at his feet, rolling in the dust, and writhing. A few moments more and she remained motionless, with her enormous head laid on her fore-paws, and her bloodshot but now mild eye riveted on the face of the fakir. Then the holy man of prayers sat beside the tigress and tenderly smoothed her striped skin, and patted her back, until her groans became fainter and fainter, and half an hour later all the village was standing around this group; the fakir’s head lying on the tigress’s back as on a pillow, his right hand on her head, and his left thrown on the sod under the terrible mouth, from which the long red protruding tongue was gently licking it.

This is the way the fakirs tame the wildest beasts in India. Can European tamers, with their white-hot iron rods, do as much? Of course every fakir is not endowed with such a power; comparatively very few are. And yet the actual number is large. How they are _trained_ to these requirements in the pagodas will remain an eternal secret, to all except the Brahmans and the adepts in occult mysteries. The stories, hitherto considered fables, of Christna and Orpheus charming the wild beasts, thus receives its corroboration in our day. There is one fact which remains undeniable. _There is not a single European_ in India who could have, or has ever boasted of having, penetrated into the enclosed sanctuary _within_ the pagodas. Neither authority nor money has ever induced a Brahman to allow an uninitiated foreigner to pass the threshold of the reserved precinct. To use authority in such a case would be equivalent to throwing a lighted taper into a powder magazine. The Hindus, mild, patient, long-suffering, whose very apathy saved the British from being driven out of the country in 1857, would raise their hundred millions of devotees as one man, at such a profanation; regardless of sects or castes, they would exterminate every Christian. The East India Company knew this well and built her stronghold on the friendship of the Brahmans, and by paying subsidy to the pagodas; and the British Government is as prudent as its predecessor. It is the castes, and non-interference with the prevailing religions, that secure its comparative authority in India. But we must once more recur to Shamanism, that strange and most despised of all surviving religions--“Spirit-worship.”

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

The numerous small bells of brass and iron worn by them on the priestly robe of deerskin,[1162] or the pelt of some other animal reputed magnetic, are used to drive away the malevolent spirits of the air, a _superstition_ shared by all the nations of old, including Romans, and even the Jews, whose golden bells tell the story. They have iron staves also covered with bells, for the same reason. When, after certain ceremonies, the desired crisis is reached, and “the spirit has spoken,” and the priest (who may be either male or female) feels its overpowering influence, the hand of the Shaman is drawn by some occult power toward the top of the staff, which is commonly covered with hieroglyphics. With his palm pressing upon it, he is then raised to a considerable height in the air, where he remains for some time. Sometimes he leaps to an extraordinary height, and, according to the control--for he is often but an irresponsible medium--pours out prophecies and describes future events. Thus, it was that, in 1847, a Shaman in a distant part of Siberia prophesied and accurately detailed the issue of the Crimean war. The particulars of the prognostication being carefully noted by those present at the time, were all verified six years after this occurrence. Although usually ignorant of even the name of astronomy, let alone having studied this science, they often prophesy eclipses and other astronomical phenomena. When consulted about thefts and murders, they invariably point out the guilty parties.

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

“O, young girl, a god possesses thee! it is either Pan, or Hekaté, or the venerable Corybantes, or Cybelé that agitates thee!” the chorus says, addressing Phœdra, in Euripides. This form of psychological epidemic has been too well known from the time of the middle ages to cite instances from it. The _Chorœa sancti Viti_ is an historical fact, and spread throughout Germany. Paracelsus cured quite a number of persons possessed of such a spirit of imitation. But he was a kabalist, and therefore accused, by his enemies, of having cast out the devils by the power of a stronger demon, which he was believed to carry about with him in the hilt of his sword. The Christian judges of those days of horror found a better and a surer remedy. Voltaire states that, in the district of Jura, between 1598 and 1600, over 600 lycanthropes were put to death by a pious judge.

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

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

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

But the day on which the stone “spoke” came very soon. It was during the most critical hours of our life; at a time when the vagabond nature of a traveller had carried the writer to far-off lands, where neither civilization is known, nor security can be guaranteed for one hour. One afternoon, as every man and woman had left the _yourta_ (Tartar tent), that had been our home for over two months, to witness the ceremony of the Lamaïc exorcism of a Tshoutgour,[1163] accused of breaking and spiriting away every bit of the poor furniture and earthenware of a family living about two miles distant, the Shaman, who had become our only protector in those dreary deserts, was reminded of his promise. He sighed and hesitated; but, after a short silence, left his place on the sheepskin, and, going outside, placed a dried-up goat’s head with its prominent horns over a wooden peg, and then dropping down the felt curtain of the tent, remarked that now no living person would venture in, for the goat’s head was a sign that he was “at work.”

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

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

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

“I am there;” answered the same voice. “The old lady (kokona)[1164] is sitting in the garden ... she is putting on her spectacles and reading a letter.”

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