Chapter XIII: {461} (1)

“ALCHYMIST. Thou always speakest riddles. Tell me if thou art
that fountain of which Bernard Lord Trevigan writ?

“MERCURY. I am not that fountain, but I am the water. The
fountain compasseth me about.”
—SANDIVOGIUS, _New Light of Alchymy_.

“All that we profess to do is this: to find out the secrets of
the human frame, to know why the parts ossify and the blood
stagnates, and to apply continual preventatives to the effects
of time. _This is not magic_; it is the art of medicine rightly
understood.”—BULWER-LYTTON.

“Lo, warrior! now the cross of Red
Points to the grave of the mighty dead;
Within it burns a wondrous light,
To chase the spirits that love the night.
That lamp shall burn unquenchably
Until the eternal doom shall be.”

* * * * *

“No earthly flame blazed e’er so bright.”—SIR WALTER SCOTT.

There are persons whose minds would be incapable of appreciating the intellectual grandeur of the ancients, even in physical science, were they to receive the most complete demonstration of their profound learning and achievements. Notwithstanding the lesson of caution which more than one unexpected discovery has taught them, they still pursue their old plan of denying, and, what is still worse, of ridiculing that which they have no means of either proving or disproving. So, for instance, they will pooh-pooh the idea of talismans having any efficacy one way or the other. That the seven spirits of the _Apocalypse_ have direct relation to the seven occult powers in nature, appears incomprehensible and absurd to their feeble intellects; and the bare thought of a magician claiming to work wonders through certain kabalistic rites convulses them with laughter. Perceiving only a geometrical figure traced upon a paper, a bit of metal, or other substance, they cannot imagine how any reasonable being should ascribe to either any occult potency. But those who have taken the pains to inform themselves know that the ancients achieved as great discoveries in psychology as in physics, and that their explorations left few secrets to be discovered.

For our part, when we realize that a pentacle is a synthetic figure which expresses in concrete form a profound truth of nature, we can see nothing more ridiculous in it than in the figures of Euclid, and nothing half so comical as the symbols in a modern work on chemistry. What to the uninitiated reader can appear more absurd than that the {462} symbol NA₂CO₃—means soda! and that C₂H₆O is but another way of writing alcohol! How very amusing that the alchemists should express their Azoth, or creative principle of nature (astral light), by the symbol

T
│
│
O──── ──——A
│
│
R[Transcriber’s note: R upside-down, A sideways]

which embraces three things: 1st, The divine hypothesis; 2d, The philosophical synthesis; 3d, The physical synthesis—that is to say, a belief, an idea, and a force. But how perfectly natural that a modern chemist who wishes to indicate to the students in his laboratory the reaction of a sodic-carbonate with cream-of-tartar in solution, should employ the following symbol:

(Na₂CO₃ + 2HKC₄H₄O₆ + Aq)=
(2NaKC₄H₄O₆ + H₂O + Aq) + CO₂

If the uninspired reader may be pardoned for looking aghast at this abracadabra of chemical science, why should not its teachers restrain their mirth until they have learned the philosophical value of the symbolism of the ancients? At least they might spare themselves from being as ridiculous as Monsieur de Mirville, who, confounding the Azoth of the Hermetic philosophers with the azote of the chemists, asserted that the former worshipped nitrogen gas![701]

Apply a piece of iron to a magnet, and it becomes imbued with its subtile principle and capable of imparting it to other iron in its turn. It neither weighs more nor appears different from what it was before. And yet, one of the most subtile potencies of nature has entered into its substance. A talisman, in itself perhaps a worthless bit of metal, a scrap of paper, or a shred of any fabric, has nevertheless been imbued by the influence of that greatest of all magnets, the human will, with a potency for good or ill just as recognizable and as real in its effects as the subtile property which the iron acquired by contact with the physical magnet. Let the bloodhound snuff an article of clothing that has been worn by the fugitive, and he will track him through swamp and forest to his hiding-place. Give one of Professor Buchanan’s “psychometers” a manuscript, no matter how old, and he will describe to you the {463} character of the writer, and perhaps even his personal appearance. Hand a clairvoyant a lock of hair or some article that has been in contact with the person of whom it is desired to know something, and she will come into sympathy with him so intimate that she may trace him through his whole life.

Breeders tell us that young animals should not be herded with old ones; and intelligent physicians forbid parents to have young children occupy their own beds. When David was old and feeble his vital forces were recruited by having a young person brought in close contact with him so that he could absorb her strength. The late Empress of Russia, the sister of the present German Emperor, was so feeble the last years of her life that she was seriously advised by her physicians to keep in her bed at night a robust and healthy young peasant-girl. Whoever has read the description given by Dr. Kerner of the Seeress of Prevost, Mme. Hauffe, must well remember her words. She repeatedly stated that she supported life merely on the atmosphere of the people surrounding her and their _magnetic emanations_, which were quickened in an extraordinary way by her presence. The seeress was very plainly a magnetic _vampire_, who absorbed by drawing to herself the life of those who were strong enough to spare her their vitality in the shape of _volatilized_ blood. Dr. Kerner remarks that these persons were all more or less affected by this forcible loss.

With these familiar illustrations of the possibility of a subtile fluid communicated from one individual to another, or to substances which he touches, it becomes less difficult to understand that by a determined concentration of the will an otherwise inert object may become imbued with protective or destructive power according to the purpose directing.

A magnetic emanation, unconsciously produced, is sure to be overpowered by any stronger one with which it may come into opposition. But when an intelligent and powerful will directs the blind force, and concentrates it upon a given spot, the weaker emanation will often master the stronger. A human _will_ has the same effect on the _Akâsa_.

Upon one occasion, we witnessed in Bengal an exhibition of will-power that illustrates a highly interesting phase of the subject. An adept in magic made a few passes over a piece of common tin, the inside of a dish-cover, that lay conveniently by, and while regarding it attentively for a few moments, seemed to grasp the imponderable fluid by handfuls and throw it against the surface. When the tin had been exposed to the full glare of light for about six seconds, the bright surface was suddenly covered as with a film. Then patches of a darker hue began coming out on its surface; and when in about three minutes the tin was handed back to us, we found imprinted upon it a picture, {464} or rather a photograph, of the landscape that stretched out before us; faithful as nature itself, and every color perfect. It remained for about forty-eight hours and then slowly faded away.

This phenomenon is easily explained. The will of the adept condensed upon the tin a film of _akâsa_ which made it for the time being like a sensitized photographic plate. Light did the rest.

Such an exhibition as this of the potency of the will to effect even objective physical results, will prepare the student to comprehend its efficacy in the cure of disease by imparting the desired virtue to inanimate objects which are placed in contact with the patient. When we see such psychologists as Maudsley[702] quoting, without contradiction, the stories of some miraculous cures effected by Swedenborg’s father—stories which do not differ from hundreds of other cures by other “fanatics” as he calls them—magicians, and natural healers, and, without attempting to explain their facts, stooping to laugh at the intensity of their faith, without asking himself whether the secret of that healing potency were not in the control given by that faith over occult forces—we grieve that there should be so much learning and so little philosophy, in our time.

Upon our word, we cannot see that the modern chemist is any less a magician than the ancient theurgist or Hermetic philosopher, except in this: that the latter, recognizing the duality of nature, had twice as wide a field for experimental research as the chemist. The ancients animated statues, and the Hermetists called into being, out of the elements, the shapes of salamanders, gnomes, undines, and sylphs, which they did not pretend to create, but simply to make visible by holding open the door of nature, so that, under favoring conditions, they might step into view. The chemist brings into contact two elements contained in the atmosphere, and by developing a latent force of affinity, creates a new body—water. In the spheroidal and diaphanous pearls which are born of this union of gases, come the germs of organic life, and in their molecular interstices lurk heat, electricity, and light, just as they do in the human body. Whence comes this life into the drop of water just born of the union of two gases? And what is the water itself? Have the oxygen and hydrogen undergone some transformation which obliterates their qualities simultaneously with the obliteration of their form? Here is the answer of modern science: “Whether the oxygen and hydrogen exist as such, in the water, or whether they are produced by some unknown and unconceived transformation of its substance, is a question about which we may speculate, but in regard to which we have no knowledge.”[703] Knowing nothing about so simple a {465} matter as the molecular constitution of water, or the deeper problem of the appearance of life within it, would it not be well for Mr. Maudsley to exemplify his own principle, and “maintain a _calm acquiescence in ignorance until light comes_?”[704]

The claims of the friends of esoteric science, that Paracelsus produced, chemically, _homunculi_ from certain combinations as yet unknown to exact science, are, as a matter of course, relegated to the storehouse of exploded humbugs. But why should they? If the _homunculi_ were not made by Paracelsus they were developed by other adepts, and that not a thousand years ago. They were produced, in fact, upon exactly the same principle as that by which the chemist and physicist calls to life his _animalcula_. A few years ago, an English gentleman, Andrew Crosse, of Somersetshire, produced _acari_ in the following manner: “Black flint burned to redness and reduced to powder was mixed with carbonate of potash, and exposed to a strong heat for fifteen minutes; and the mixture was poured into a blacklead crucible in an air furnace. It was reduced to powder while warm, mixed with boiling water; kept boiling for some minutes, and then hydrochloric acid was added to supersaturation. After being exposed to voltaic action for twenty-six days, a perfect insect of the _acari_ tribe made its appearance, and in the course of a few weeks about a hundred more. The experiment was repeated with other chemical fluids with like results. A Mr. Weeks also produced the _acari_ in ferrocyanide of potassium.

This discovery produced a great excitement. Mr. Crosse was now accused of impiety and aiming at creation. He replied, denying the implication and saying he considered ”_to create was to form a something out of a nothing_.”[705]

Another gentleman, considered by several persons as a man of great science, has told us repeatedly that he was on the eve of proving that even unfructified eggs could be hatched by having a negative electric current caused to pass through them.

The mandrakes (_dudim_ or love-fruit) found in the field by Reuben, Jacob’s son, which excited the fancy of Rachel, was the kabalistic _mandragora_, notwithstanding denial; and the verses which refer to it belong to the _crudest_ passages, in their esoteric meaning, of the whole work. The mandrake is a plant having the rudimentary shape of a human creature; with a head, two arms, and two legs forming roots. The superstition that when pulled out of the ground it cries with a human voice, is not utterly baseless. It does produce a kind of squeaking {466} sound, on account of the resinous substance of its root, which it is rather difficult to extract; and it has more than one hidden property in it perfectly unknown to the botanist.

The reader who would obtain a clear idea of the commutation of forces and the resemblance between the life-principles of plants, animals, and human beings, may profitably consult a paper on the correlation of nervous and mental forces by Professor Alexander Bain, of the University of Aberdeen. This mandragora seems to occupy upon earth the point where the vegetable and animal kingdoms touch, as the zoöphites and polypi do in the sea; the boundary being in each case so indistinct as to make it almost imperceptible where the one ceases and the other begins. It may seem improbable that there should be _homunculi_, but will any naturalist, in view of the recent expansion of science, dare say it is impossible? “Who,” says Bain, “is to limit the possibilities of existence?”

The unexplained mysteries of nature are many and of those presumably explained hardly one may be said to have become absolutely intelligible. There is not a plant or mineral which has disclosed the last of its properties to the scientists. What do the naturalists know of the intimate nature of the vegetable and mineral kingdoms? How can they feel confident that for every one of the discovered properties there may not be many powers concealed in the _inner_ nature of the plant or stone? And that they are only waiting to be brought in relation with some other plant, mineral, or force of nature to manifest themselves in what is termed a “supernatural manner.” Wherever Pliny, the naturalist, Ælian, and even Diodorus, who sought with such a laudable perseverance to extricate historical truth from its medley of exaggerations and fables, have attributed to some plant or mineral an occult property unknown to our modern botanists and physicists, their assertions have been laid aside without further ceremony as absurd, and no more referred to.

It has been the speculation of men of science from time immemorial what this vital force or life-principle is. To our mind the “secret doctrine” alone is able to furnish the clew. Exact science recognizes only five powers in nature—one _molar_, and four _molecular_; kabalists, seven; and in these two additional ones is enwrapped the whole mystery of life. One of these is immortal spirit, whose reflection is connected by invisible links even with inorganic matter; the other, we leave to every one to discover for himself. Says Professor Joseph Le Conte: “What is the nature of the difference between the living organism and the dead organism? We can detect _none_, physical or chemical. All the physical and chemical forces withdrawn from the common fund of nature, and embodied in the living {467} organism, seem to be still embodied in the dead, until little by little it is returned by decomposition. Yet the difference is immense, is inconceivably great. What is the nature of this difference expressed in the formula of material science? What is that that is gone, and whither is it gone? There is something here that science cannot yet understand. Yet it is just this loss which takes place in death, and before decomposition, which is in the highest sense vital force!”[706]

Difficult, nay impossible, as it seems to science to find out the invisible, universal motor of all—_Life_, to explain its nature, or even to suggest a reasonable hypothesis for the same, the mystery is but half a mystery, not merely for the great adepts and seers, but even for true and firm believers in a spiritual world. To the simple believer, unblessed with a personal organism, the delicate, nervous sensitiveness of which would enable him—as it enables a seer—to perceive the visible universe reflected as in a clear glass in the Invisible one, and, as it were, objectively, there remains divine _faith_. The latter is firmly rooted in his inner senses; in his unerring intuition, with which cold reason has naught to do, he _feels_ it cannot play him false. Let human-born, erroneous dogmas, and theological sophistry contradict each other; let one crowd off the other, and the subtile casuistry of one creed fell to the ground the crafty reasoning of another one; truth remains one, and there is not a religion, whether Christian or heathen, that is not firmly built upon the rock of ages—God and immortal spirit.

Every animal is more or less endowed with the faculty of perceiving, if not spirits, at least something which remains for the time being invisible to common men, and can only be discerned by a clairvoyant. We have made hundreds of experiments with cats, dogs, monkeys of various kinds, and, once, with a tame tiger. A round black mirror, known as the “magic crystal,” was strongly mesmerized by a native Hindu gentleman, formerly an inhabitant of Dindigul, and now residing in a more secluded spot, among the mountains known as the Western Ghauts. He had tamed a young cub, brought to him from the Malabar coast, in which part of India the tigers are proverbially ferocious; and it is with this interesting animal that we made our experiments.

Like the ancient Marsi and Psylli, the renowned serpent-charmers, this gentleman claimed to be possessed of the mysterious power of taming any kind of animal. The tiger was reduced to a chronic _mental numbness_, so to say; he had become as inoffensive and harmless as a dog. Children could tease and pull him by the ears, and he would only shake himself and howl like a dog. But whenever forced to look into the “magic {468} mirror,” the poor animal was instantly excited to a sort of frenzy. His eyes became full of a _human_ terror; howling in despair, unable to turn away from the mirror to which his gaze seemed riveted as by a magnetic spell, he would writhe and tremble till he convulsed with fear at some vision which to us remained unknown. He would then lie down, feebly groaning but still gazing in the glass. When it was taken away from him, the animal would lie panting and seemingly prostrated for about two hours. What did he see? What spirit-picture from his own invisible, _animal_-world, could produce such a terrific effect on the wild and naturally ferocious and daring beast? Who can tell? Perhaps _he_ who produced the scene.

The same effect on animals was observed during spiritual _seances_ with some holy mendicants; the same when a Syrian, half-heathen and half-Christian, from Kunankulam (Cochin State), a reputed sorcerer, who was invited to join us for the sake of experimenting.

We were nine persons in all—seven men and two women, one of the latter a native. Besides us, there were in the room, the young tiger, intensely occupied on a bone; a _wânderoo_, or lion-monkey, which, with its black coat and snow-white goatee and whiskers, and cunning, sparkling eyes, looked the personification of mischief; and a beautiful golden oriole, quietly cleaning its radiant-colored tail on a perch, placed near a large window of the veranda. In India, “spiritual” seances are not held in the dark, as in America; and no conditions, but perfect silence and harmony, are required. It was in the full glare of daylight streaming through the opened doors and windows, with a far-away buzz of life from the neighboring forests, and jungles sending us the echo of myriads of insects, birds, and animals. We sat in the midst of a garden in which the house was built, and instead of breathing the stifling atmosphere of a seance-room, we were amid the fire-colored clusters of the erythrina—the coral tree—inhaling the fragrant aromas of trees and shrubs, and the flowers of the bignonia, whose white blossoms trembled in the soft breeze. In short, we were surrounded with light, harmony, and perfumes. Large nosegays of flowers and shrubs, sacred to the native gods, were gathered for the purpose, and brought into the rooms. We had the sweet basil, the Vishnu-flower, without which no religious ceremony in Bengal will ever take place; and the branches of the _Ficus religiosa_, the tree dedicated to the same bright deity, intermingling their leaves with the rosy blossoms of the sacred lotos and the Indian tuberose, profusely ornamented the walls.

While the “blessed one” represented by a very dirty, but, nevertheless, really holy fakir—remained plunged in self-contemplation, and some spiritual wonders were taking place under the direction of his will, {469} the monkey and the bird exhibited but few signs of restlessness. The tiger alone visibly trembled at intervals, and stared around the room, as if his phosphorically-shining green orbs were following some invisible presence as it floated up and down. That which was as yet unperceived by human eyes, must have therefore been _objective_ to him. As to the wânderoo, all its liveliness had fled; it seemed drowsy, and sat crouching and motionless. The bird gave few, if any, signs of uneasiness. There was a sound as of gently-flapping wings in the air; the flowers went travelling about the room, displaced by invisible hands; and, as a glorious azure-tinted flower fell on the folded paws of the monkey, it gave a nervous start, and sought refuge under its master’s white robe. These displays lasted for an hour, and it would be too long to relate all of them; the most curious of all, being the one which closed that season of wonders. Somebody complaining of the heat, we had a shower of delicately-perfumed dew. The drops fell fast and large, and conveyed a feeling of inexpressible refreshment, drying the instant after touching our persons.

When the fakir had brought his exhibition of _white_ magic to a close, the “sorcerer,” or conjurer, as they are called, prepared to display his power. We were treated to a succession of the wonders that the accounts of travellers have made familiar to the public; showing, among other things, the fact that animals naturally possess the clairvoyant faculty, and even, it would seem, the ability to discern between the good and the bad spirits. All of the sorcerer’s feats were preceded by fumigations. He burned branches of resinous trees and shrubs, which sent up volumes of smoke. Although there was nothing about this calculated to affright an animal using only his natural eyes, the tiger, monkey, and bird exhibited an indescribable terror. We suggested that the animals might be frightened at the blazing brands, the familiar custom of burning fires round the camp to keep off wild beasts, recurring to our mind. To leave no doubt upon this point, the Syrian approached the crouching tiger with a branch of the Bael-tree[707] (sacred to Siva), and waved it several times over his head, muttering, meanwhile, his incantations. The brute instantly displayed a panic of terror beyond description. His eyes started from their sockets like blazing fire-balls; he foamed at the mouth; he flung himself upon the floor, as if seeking some hole in which to hide himself; he uttered scream after scream, that awoke a hundred responsive echoes from the jungle and the woods. Finally, taking a last look at the spot from which his eyes had never wandered, he made a desperate plunge, which snapped his chain, and dashed through the {470} window of the veranda, carrying a piece of the frame-work with him. The monkey had fled long before, and the bird fell from the perch as though paralyzed.

We did not ask either the fakir or sorcerer for an explanation of the method by which their respective phenomena were effected. If we had, unquestionably they would have replied as did a fakir to a French traveller, who tells his story in a recent number of a New York newspaper, called the _Franco-Americain_, as follows:

“Many of these Hindu jugglers who live in the silence of the pagodas perform feats far surpassing the prestidigitations of Robert Houdin, and there are many others who produce the most curious phenomena in magnetism and catalepsy upon the first objects that come across their way, that I have often wondered whether the Brahmans, with their occult sciences, have not made great discoveries in the questions which have recently been agitated in Europe.

“On one occasion, while I and others were in a café with Sir Maswell, he ordered his dobochy to introduce the charmer. In a few moments a lean Hindu, almost naked, with an ascetic face and bronzed color entered. Around his neck, arms, thighs, and body were coiled serpents of different sizes. After saluting us, he said, ‘God be with you, I am Chibh-Chondor, son of Chibh-Gontnalh-Mava.’

“‘We desire to see what you can do,’ said our host.

“‘I obey the orders of Siva, who has sent me here,’ replied the fakir, squatting down on one of the marble slabs.

“The serpents raised their heads and hissed, but without showing any anger. Then taking a small pipe, attached to a wick in his hair, he produced scarcely audible sounds, imitating the _tailapaca_, a bird that feeds upon bruised cocoanuts. Here the serpents uncoiled themselves, and one after another glided to the floor. As soon as they touched the ground they raised about one-third of their bodies, and began to keep time to their master’s music. Suddenly the fakir dropped his instrument and made several passes with his hands over the serpents, of whom there were about ten, all of the most deadly species of Indian cobra. His eye assumed a strange expression. We all felt an undefinable uneasiness, and sought to turn away our gaze from him. At this moment a small shocra[708] (monkey) whose business was to hand fire in a small brasier for lighting cigars, yielded to his influence, lay down, and fell asleep. Five minutes passed thus, and we felt that if the manipulations were to continue a few seconds more we should all fall asleep. Chondor then rose, and making two more passes over the shocra, said to it: ‘Give the commander some fire.’ The young monkey rose, and without tottering, came and offered fire to its master. {471} It was pinched, pulled about, till there was no doubt of its being actually asleep. Nor would it move from Sir Maswell’s side till ordered to do so by the fakir.

“We then examined the cobras. Paralyzed by magnetic influence, they lay at full length on the ground. On taking them up we found them stiff as sticks. They were in a state of complete catalepsy. The fakir then awakened them, on which they returned and again coiled themselves round his body. We inquired whether he could make us feel his influence. He made a few passes over our legs, and instantly we lost the use of these limbs; we could not leave our seats. He released us as easily as he had paralyzed us.

“Chibh-Chondor closed his seance by experimenting upon inanimate objects. By mere passes with his hands in the direction of the object to be acted upon, and without leaving his seat, he paled and extinguished lights in the furthest parts of the room, moved the furniture, including the divans upon which we sat, opened and closed doors. Catching sight of a Hindu who was drawing water from a well in the garden, he made a pass in his direction, and the rope suddenly stopped in its descent, resisting all the efforts of the astonished gardener. With another pass the rope again descended.

“I asked Chibh-Chondor: ‘Do you employ the same means in acting upon inanimate objects that you do upon living creatures?’

“He replied, ‘I have only one means.’

“‘What is it?’

“‘The will. Man, who is the end of all intellectual and material forces, must dominate over all. The Brahmans know nothing besides this.’”

“Sanang Setzen,” says Colonel Yule,[709] “enumerates a variety of the wonderful acts which could be performed through the _Dharani_ (mystic Hindu charms). Such were sticking a peg into solid rock; restoring the dead to life; turning a dead body into gold; penetrating everywhere _as air does_ (in astral form); flying; catching wild beasts with the hand; reading thoughts; making water flow backward; eating tiles; sitting in the air with the legs doubled under, etc.” Old legends ascribe to Simon Magus precisely the same powers. “He made statues to walk; leaped into the fire without being burned; flew in the air; made bread of stones; changed his shape; assumed two faces at once; converted himself into a pillar; caused closed doors to fly open spontaneously; made the vessels in a house move of themselves, etc.” The Jesuit Delrio laments that {472} credulous princes, otherwise of pious repute, should have allowed _diabolical_ tricks to be played before them, “as for example, things of iron, and silver goblets, or other heavy articles, to be moved by bounds, from one end of the table to the other, _without the use of a magnet_, or of any attachment.”[710] We believe WILL-POWER the most powerful of magnets. The existence of such magical power in certain persons _is proved_, but the existence of the Devil is a fiction, which no theology is able to demonstrate.

“There are certain men whom the Tartars honor above all in the world,” says Friar Ricold, “viz., the _Baxitæ_, who are a kind of idol-priests. These are men from India, persons of deep wisdom, _well-conducted and of the gravest morals_. They are usually with magic arts ... they exhibit many illusions, and predict future events. For instance, one of eminence among them was said to fly; but the truth, however, was as it proved, that he did not fly, but did walk close to the surface of the ground without touching it; _and would seem to sit down without having any substance to support him_.[711] This last performance was witnessed by Ibn Batuta, at Delhi,” adds Colonel Yule, who quotes the friar in the _Book of Ser Marco Polo_, “in the presence of Sultan Mahomet Tughlak; and it was professedly exhibited by a Brahman at Madras in the present century, a descendant doubtless of those Brahmans whom Apollonius saw walking two cubits from the ground. It is also described by the worthy Francis Valentyn, as a performance known and practiced in his own day in India. It is related, he says, that “a man will first go and sit on three sticks put together so as to form a tripod; after which, first one stick, then a second, then a third shall be removed from under him, and the man shall not fall but shall still remain sitting in the air! Yet I have spoken with two friends who had seen this at one and the same time; and one of them, I may add, mistrusting his own eyes, had taken the trouble to feel about with a long stick if there were nothing on which the body rested; yet, as the gentleman told me, he could neither feel nor see any such thing. We have stated elsewhere that the same thing was accomplished last year, before the Prince of Wales and his suite.

Such feats as the above are nothing in comparison to what is done by professed jugglers; “feats,” remarks the above-quoted author, “which might be regarded as simply inventions if told by one author only, but which seem to deserve _prominent notice_ from being recounted by a series of authors, certainly independent of one another, and writing at long intervals of time and place. Our first witness is Ibn Batuta, {473} and it will be necessary to quote him as well as the others in full, in order to show how closely their evidence tallies. The Arab traveller was present at a great entertainment at the court of the Viceroy of Khansa. “That same night a juggler, who was one of the Khan’s slaves, made his appearance, and the Amir said to him, ‘Come and show us some of your marvels.’ Upon this he took a wooden ball, with several holes in it, through which long thongs were passed, and laying hold of one of these, slung it into the air. It went so high that we lost sight of it altogether.... (We were in the middle of the palace-court.) There now remained only a little of the end of a thong in the conjurer’s hand, and he desired one of the boys who assisted him to lay hold of it and mount. He did so, climbing by the thong, and we lost sight of him also! The conjurer then called to him three times, but, getting no answer, he snatched up a knife as if in a great rage, laid hold of the thong, and disappeared also! By and bye, he threw down one of the boy’s hands, then a foot, then the other hand, and then the other foot, then the trunk, and last of all the head! Then he came down himself, puffing and panting, and with his clothes all bloody kissed the ground before the Amir, and said something to him in Chinese. The Amir gave some order in reply, and our friend then took the lad’s limbs, laid them together in their places, and gave a kick, when, presto! there was the boy, who got up and stood before us! All this astonished me beyond measure, and I had an attack of palpitation like that which overcame me once before in the presence of the Sultan of India, when he showed me something of the same kind. They gave me a cordial, however, which cured the attack. The Kaji Afkharuddin was next to me, and quoth he, ‘Wallah! ‘tis my opinion there has been neither going up nor coming down, neither marring, nor mending! ’Tis all _hocus-pocus_!’

And who doubts but that it is a “hocus-pocus,” an illusion, or _Maya_, as the Hindus express it? But when such an illusion can be forced on, say, ten thousand people at the same time, as we have seen it performed during a public festival, surely the means by which such an astounding hallucination can be produced merits the attention of science! When by such _magic_ a man who stands before you, in a room, the doors of which you have closed and of which the keys are in your hand, suddenly disappears, vanishes like a flash of light, and you see him _nowhere_ but hear his voice from different parts of the room addressing you and laughing at your perplexity, surely such an art is not unworthy either of Mr. Huxley or Dr. Carpenter. Is it not quite as well worth spending time over, as the lesser mystery—why barnyard cocks crow at midnight?

What Ibn Batuta, the Moor, saw in China about the year 1348, Colonel Yule shows Edward Melton, “an Anglo-Dutch traveller,” witnessing in {474} Batavia about the year 1670: “One of the same gang” (of conjurers), says Melton,[712] “took a small ball of cord, and grasping one end of the cord in his hand slung the other up into the air with such force that its extremity was beyond reach of our sight. He then climbed up the cord with indescribable swiftness.... I stood full of astonishment, not conceiving where he had disappeared; when lo! a leg came tumbling down out of the air. A moment later a hand came down, etc.... In short, all the members of the body came successively tumbling from the air and were cast together by the attendant into the basket. The last fragment of all was the head, and no sooner had that touched the ground than he who had snatched up all the limbs and put them in the basket, turned them all out again topsy turvy. Then straightway we saw _with these eyes all those limbs creep together_ again, and, in short, form a whole man, who at once could stand and go just as before without showing the least damage!... Never in my life was I so astonished ... and I doubted now no longer that these misguided men did it by the help of the Devil.”

In the memoirs of the Emperor Jahangire, the performances of seven jugglers from Bengal, who exhibited before him, are thus described: “_Ninth._ They produced a man whom they divided limb from limb, actually severing his head from the body. They scattered these mutilated members along the ground, and in this state they lay some time. They then extended a sheet over the spot, and one of the men putting himself under the sheet, in a few minutes came from below, followed by the individual supposed to have been cut into joints, in perfect health and condition.... _Twenty-third._ They produced a chain of fifty cubits in length, and in my presence threw one end of it toward the sky, _where it remained as if fastened to something in the air_. A dog was then brought forward and being placed at the lower end of the chain, immediately ran up, and reaching the other end, _immediately disappeared in the air_. In the same manner a hog, a panther, a lion, and a tiger were successively sent up the chain, and all equally disappeared at the upper end of the chain. At last they took down the chain, and put it into the bag, no one ever discovering in what way the different animals were made to vanish into the air in the mysterious manner above described.”[713]

We have in our possession a picture painted from such a Persian conjurer, with a man, or rather the various limbs of what was a minute before a man, scattered before him. We have seen such conjurers, and witnessed such performances more than once and in various places.

Bearing ever in mind that we repudiate the idea of a miracle and {475} returning once more to phenomena more serious, we would now ask what logical objection can be urged against the claim that the reänimation of the dead was accomplished by many thaumaturgists? The fakir described in the _Franco-Americain_, might have gone far enough to say that this will-power of man is so tremendously potential that it can reänimate a body apparently dead, by drawing back the flitting soul that has not yet quite ruptured the thread that through life had bound the two together. Dozens of such fakirs have allowed themselves to be buried alive before thousands of witnesses, and weeks afterward have been resuscitated. And if fakirs have the secret of this artificial process, identical with, or analogous to, hibernation, why not allow that their ancestors, the Gymnosophists, and Apollonius of Tyana, who had studied with the latter in India, and Jesus, and other prophets and seers, who all knew more about the mysteries of life and death than any of our modern men of science, might have resuscitated dead men and women? And being quite familiar with that power—that mysterious _something_ “that science cannot yet understand,” as Professor Le Conte confesses—knowing, moreover, “whence it came and whither it was going,” Elisha, Jesus, Paul, and Apollonius, enthusiastic ascetics and learned initiates, might have recalled to life with ease any man who “was not dead but sleeping,” and that without any miracle.

If the molecules of the cadaver are imbued with the physical and chemical forces of the living organism,[714] what is to prevent them from being set again in motion, provided we know the nature of the vital force, and who to command it? The materialist can certainly offer no objection, for with him it is no question of reïnfusing a soul. For him the soul has no existence, and the human body may be regarded simply as a vital engine—a locomotive which will start upon the application of heat and force, and stop when they are withdrawn. To the theologian the case offers greater difficulties, for, in his view, death cuts asunder the tie which binds soul and body, and the one can no more be returned into the other without miracle than the born infant can be compelled to resume its fœtal life after parturition and the severing of the umbilicus. But the Hermetic philosopher stands between these two irreconcilable antagonists, _master of the situation_. He knows the nature of the soul—a form composed of nervous fluid and atmospheric ether—and knows how the vital force can be made active or passive at will, so long as there is no final destruction of some necessary organ. The claims of Gaffarilus—which, by the bye, appeared so preposterous in 1650[715]—were later corroborated by science. He {476} maintained that every object existing in nature, provided it was not artificial, when once burned still retained its form in the ashes, in which it remained till raised again. Du Chesne, an eminent chemist, assured himself of the fact. Kircher, Digby, and Vallemont have demonstrated that the forms of plants could be resuscitated from their ashes. At a meeting of naturalists in 1834, at Stuttgart, a receipt for producing such experiments was found in a work of Oetinger.[716] Ashes of burned plants contained in vials, when heated, exhibited again their various forms. “A small obscure cloud gradually rose in the vial, took a defined form, and presented to the eye the flower or plant the ashes consisted of.” “The earthly husk,” wrote Oetinger, “remains in the retort, while the volatile essence ascends, _like a spirit_, perfect in form, but void of substance.”[717]

And, if the astral form of even a plant when its body is dead still lingers in the ashes, will skeptics persist in saying that the soul of _man_, the _inner_ ego, is after the death of the grosser form at once dissolved, and is no more? “At death,” says the philosopher, “the one body exudes from the other, by osmose and through the brain; it is held near its old garment by a double attraction, physical and spiritual, until the latter decomposes; and if the proper conditions are given the soul can reïnhabit it and resume the suspended life. It does it in sleep; it does it more thoroughly in trance; most surprisingly at the command and with the assistance of the Hermetic adept. Iamblichus declared that a person endowed with such resuscitating powers is ‘full of God.’ All the subordinate spirits of the upper spheres are at his command, for he is no longer a mortal, but himself a god. In his _Epistle to the Corinthians_, Paul remarks that ‘the spirits of the prophets _are subject to the prophets_.’”

Some persons have the natural and some the acquired power of withdrawing the _inner_ from the _outer_ body, at will, and causing it to perform long journeys, and be seen by those whom it visits. Numerous are the instances recorded by unimpeachable witnesses of the “doubles” of persons having been seen and conversed with, hundreds of miles from the places where the persons themselves were known to be. Hermotimus, if we may credit Pliny and Plutarch,[718] could at will fall into a trance and then his _second_ soul proceeded to any distant place he chose.

The Abbé Fretheim, the famous author of _Steganographie_, who lived in the seventeenth century, could converse with his friends by the mere power of his will. “I can make my thoughts known to the initiated,” {477} he wrote, “at a distance of many hundred miles, without word, writing, or cipher, by any messenger. The latter cannot betray me, for he knows nothing. If needs be, I can dispense with the messenger. If any correspondent should be buried in the deepest dungeon, I could still convey to him my thoughts as clearly and as frequently as I chose, and this quite simply, without superstition, without the aid of spirits.” Cordanus could also send his spirit, or any messages he chose. When he did so, he felt “as if a door was opened, and I myself immediately passed through it, leaving the body behind me.”[719] The case of a high German official, a counsellor Wesermann, was mentioned in a scientific paper.[720] He claimed to be able to cause any friend or acquaintance, at any distance, to dream of every subject he chose, or see any person he liked. His claims were proved good, and testified to on several occasions by skeptics and learned professional persons. He could also cause his double to appear wherever he liked; and be seen by several persons at one time. By whispering in their ears a sentence prepared and agreed upon beforehand by unbelievers, and for the purpose, his power to project the double was demonstrated beyond any cavil.

According to Napier, Osborne, Major Lawes, Quenouillet, Nikiforovitch, and many other modern witnesses, fakirs are now proved to be able, by a long course of diet, preparation, and repose, to bring their bodies into a condition which enables them to be buried six feet under ground for an indefinite period. Sir Claude Wade was present at the court of Rundjit Singh, when the fakir, mentioned by the Honorable Captain Osborne, was buried alive for six weeks, in a box placed in a cell three feet below the floor of the room.[721] To prevent the chance of deception, a guard comprising two companies of soldiers had been detailed, and four sentries “were furnished and relieved every two hours, night and day, to guard the building from intrusion.... On opening it,” says Sir Claude, “we saw a figure enclosed in a bag of white linen fastened by a string over the head ... the servant then began pouring warm water over the figure ... the legs and arms of the body were shrivelled and stiff, the face, full, the head reclining on the shoulder like that of a corpse. I then called to the medical gentleman who was attending me, to come down and inspect the body, which he did, but could discover no pulsation in the heart, the temples, or the arm. There was, however, _a heat about the region of the brain_, which no other part of the body exhibited.”

Regretting that the limits of our space forbid the quotation of the {478} details of this interesting story, we will only add, that the process of resuscitation included bathing with hot water, friction, the removal of wax and cotton pledgets from the nostrils and ears, the rubbing of the eyelids with ghee or clarified butter, and, what will appear most curious to many, the application of a hot wheaten cake, about an inch thick “to the top of the head.” After the cake had been applied for the third time, the body was violently convulsed, the nostrils became inflated, the respiration ensued, and the limbs assumed a natural fulness; but the pulsation was still faintly perceptible.“ The tongue was then anointed with ghee; the eyeballs became dilated and recovered their natural color, and the fakir recognized those present and spoke.” It should be noticed that not only had the nostrils and ears been plugged, but the tongue had been thrust back so as to close the gullet, thus effectually stopping the orifices against the admission of atmospheric air. While in India, a fakir told us that this was done not only to prevent the action of the air upon the organic tissues, but also to guard against the deposit of the germs of decay, which in case of suspended animation would cause decomposition exactly as they do in any other meat exposed to air. There are also localities in which a fakir would refuse to be buried; such as the many spots in Southern India infested with the white ants, which annoying termites are considered among the most dangerous enemies of man and his property. They are so voracious as to devour everything they find except perhaps metals. As to wood, there is no kind through which they would not burrow; and even bricks and mortar offer but little impediment to their formidable armies. They will patiently work through mortar, destroying it particle by particle; and a fakir, however holy himself, and strong his temporary coffin, would not risk finding his body devoured when it was time for his resuscitation.

Then, here is a case, only one of many, substantiated by the testimony of two English noblemen—one of them an army officer—and a Hindu Prince, who was as great a skeptic as themselves. It places science in this embarrassing dilemma: it must either give the lie to many unimpeachable witnesses, or admit that if one fakir can resuscitate after six weeks, any other fakir can also; and if a fakir, why not a Lazarus, a Shunamite boy, or the daughter of Jairus?[722]

And now, perhaps, it may not be out of place to inquire what assurance {479} can any physician have, beyond _external_ evidence, that the body is really dead? The best authorities agree in saying that there are none. Dr. Todd Thomson, of London,[723] says most positively that “the immobility of the body, even its cadaverous aspect, the coldness of surface, the absence of respiration and pulsation, and the sunken state of the eye, are no unequivocal evidences that life is wholly extinct.” Nothing but total decomposition is an irrefutable proof that _life_ has fled for ever and that the tabernacle is tenantless. Demokritus asserted that there existed no _certain_ signs of real death.[724] Pliny maintained the same.[725] Asclepiades, a learned physician and one of the most distinguished men of his day, held that the assurance was still more difficult in the cases of women than in those of men.

Todd Thomson, above quoted, gives several remarkable cases of such a suspended animation. Among others he mentions a certain Francis Neville, a Norman gentleman, who twice apparently died, and was twice in the act of being buried. But, at the moment when the coffin was being lowered in the grave, he spontaneously revived. In the seventeenth century, Lady Russell, to all appearance died, and was about to be buried, but as the bell was tolling for her funeral, she sat up in her coffin and exclaimed, “It is time to go to church!” Diemerbroese, mentions a peasant who gave no signs of life for three days, but when placed in his coffin, near the grave, revived and lived many years afterward. In 1836, a respectable citizen of Brussels fell into a profound lethargy on a Sunday morning. On Monday, as his attendants were preparing to screw the lid of the coffin, the supposed corpse sat up, rubbed his eyes, and called for his coffee and a newspaper.[726]

Such cases of apparent death are not very infrequently reported in the newspaper press. As we write (April, 1877), we find in a London letter to the New York _Times_, the following paragraph: “Miss Annie Goodale, the actress, died three weeks ago. Up to yesterday she was not buried. The corpse is warm and limp, and the features as soft and mobile as when in life. Several physicians have examined her, and have ordered that the body shall be watched night and day. The poor lady is evidently in a trance, but whether she is destined to come to life it is impossible to say.”

Science regards man as an aggregation of atoms temporarily united by {480} a mysterious force called the life-principle. To the materialist, the only difference between a living and a dead body is, that in the one case, that force is active, in the other latent. When it is extinct or entirely latent the molecules obey a superior attraction, which draws them asunder and scatters them through space.

This dispersion must be death, if it is possible to conceive such a thing as death, where the very molecules of the dead body manifest an intense vital energy. If death is but the stoppage of a digesting, locomotive, and thought-grinding machine, how can death be actual and not relative, before that machine is thoroughly broken up and its particles dispersed? So long as any of them cling together, the centripetal vital force may overmatch the dispersive centrifugal action. Says Eliphas Levi: “Change attests movement, and movement only reveals life. The corpse would not decompose if it were dead; all the molecules which compose it are living and struggle to separate. And would you think that the spirit frees itself first of all to exist no more? That thought and love can die when the grossest forms of matter do not die? If the change should be called death, we die and are born again every day, for every day our forms undergo change.”[727]

The kabalists say that a man is not dead when his body is entombed. Death is never sudden; for, according to Hermes, nothing goes in nature by violent transitions. Everything is gradual, and as it required a long and gradual development to produce the living human being, so time is required to completely withdraw vitality from the carcass.“ Death can no more be an absolute end, than birth a real beginning. Birth proves the preëxistence of the being, as death proves immortality,” says the same French kabalist.