Chapter XV: {574} (2)

The ruins which cover both Americas, and are found on many West Indian {595} islands, are all attributed to the submerged Atlantians. As well as the hierophants of the old world, which in the days of Atlantis was almost connected with the new one by land, the magicians of the now submerged country had a net-work of subterranean passages running in all directions. In connection with those mysterious catacombs we will now give a curious story told to us by a Peruvian, long since dead, as we were travelling together in the interior of his country. There must be truth in it; as it was afterward confirmed to us by an Italian gentleman who had seen the place and who, but for lack of means and time, would have verified the tale himself, at least partially. The informant of the Italian was an old priest, who had had the secret divulged to him, at confession, by a Peruvian Indian. We may add, {596} moreover, that the priest was compelled to make the revelation, being at the time completely under the mesmeric influence of the traveller.

The story concerns the famous treasures of the last of the Incas. The Peruvian asserted that since the well-known and miserable murder of the latter by Pizarro, the secret had been known to all the Indians, except the _Mestitzos_ who could not be trusted. It runs thus: The Inca was made prisoner, and his wife offered for his liberation a room full of gold, “from the floor up to the ceiling, as high up as his conqueror could reach” before the sun would set on the third day. She kept her promise, but Pizarro broke his word, according to Spanish practice. Marvelling at the exhibition of such treasures, the conqueror declared that he would not release the prisoner, but would murder him, unless the queen revealed the place whence the treasure came. He had heard that the Incas had somewhere an inexhaustible mine; a subterranean road or tunnel running many miles under ground, where were kept the accumulated riches of the country. The unfortunate queen begged for delay, and went to consult the oracles. During the sacrifice, the chief-priest showed her in the consecrated “black mirror”[887] the unavoidable murder of her husband, whether she delivered the treasures of the crown to Pizarro or not. Then the queen gave the order to close the entrance, which was a door cut in the rocky wall of a chasm. Under the direction of the priest and magicians, the chasm was accordingly filled to the top with huge masses of rock, and the surface covered over so as to conceal the work. The Inca was murdered by the Spaniards and his unhappy queen committed suicide. Spanish greed overreached itself and the secret of the buried treasures was locked in the breasts of a few faithful Peruvians.

Our Peruvian informant added that in consequence of certain indiscretions at various times, persons had been sent by different governments to search for the treasure under the pretext of scientific exploration. They had rummaged the country through, but without realizing their object. So far this tradition is corroborated by the reports of Dr. Tschuddi and other historians of Peru. But there are certain additional details which we are not aware have been made public before now.

Several years after hearing the story, and its corroboration by the {597} Italian gentleman, we again visited Peru. Going southward from Lima, by water, we reached a point near Arica at sunset, and were struck by the appearance of an enormous rock, nearly perpendicular, which stood in mournful solitude on the shore, apart from the range of the Andes. It was the tomb of the Incas. As the last rays of the setting sun strike the face of the rock, one can make out, with an ordinary opera-glass, some curious hieroglyphics inscribed on the volcanic surface.

When Cusco was the capital of Peru, it contained a temple of the sun, famed far and near for its magnificence. It was roofed with thick plates of gold, and the walls were covered with the same precious metal; the eave-troughs were also of solid gold. In the west wall the architects had contrived an aperture in such a way that when the sunbeams reached it, it focused them inside the building. Stretching like a golden chain from one sparkling point to another, they encircled the walls, illuminating the grim idols, and disclosing certain mystic signs at other times invisible. It was only by understanding these hieroglyphics—identical with those which may be seen to this day on the tomb of the Incas—that one could learn the secret of the tunnel and its approaches. Among the latter was one in the neighborhood of Cusco, now masked beyond discovery. This leads directly into an immense tunnel which runs from Cusco to Lima, and then, turning southward, extends into Bolivia. At a certain point it is intersected by a royal tomb. Inside this sepulchral chamber are cunningly arranged two doors; or, rather, two enormous slabs which turn upon pivots, and close so tightly as to be only distinguishable from the other portions of the sculptured walls by the secret signs, whose key is in the possession of the faithful custodians. One of these turning slabs covers the southern mouth of the Liman tunnel—the other, the northern one of the Bolivian corridor. The latter, running southward, passes through Trapaca and Cobijo, for Arica is not far away from the little river called Pay’quina,[888] which is the boundary between Peru and Bolivia.

Not far from this spot stand three separate peaks which form a curious triangle; they are included in the chain of the Andes. According to tradition the only practicable entrance to the corridor leading northward is in one of these peaks; but without the secret of its landmarks, a regiment of Titans might rend the rocks in vain in the attempt to find it. But even were some one to gain an entrance and find his way as far as the turning slab in the wall of the sepulchre, {598} and attempt to blast it out, the superincumbent rocks are so disposed as to bury the tomb, its treasures, and—as the mysterious Peruvian expressed it to us—“a thousand warriors” in one common ruin. There is no other access to the Arica chamber but through the door in the mountain near Pay’quina. Along the entire length of the corridor, from Bolivia to Lima and Cusco, are smaller hiding places filled with treasures of gold and precious stone, the accumulations of many generations of Incas, the aggregate value of which is incalculable.

We have in our possession an accurate plan of the tunnel, the sepulchre, and the doors, given to us at the time by the old Peruvian. If we had ever thought of profiting by the secret, it would have required the coöperation of the Peruvian and Bolivian governments on an extensive scale. To say nothing of physical obstacles, no one individual or small party could undertake such an exploration without encountering the army of smugglers and brigands with which the coast is infested; and which, in fact, includes nearly the whole population. The mere task of purifying the mephitic air of the tunnel, which had not been entered for centuries, would also be a serious one. There, however, the treasure lies, and there the tradition says it will lie till the last vestige of Spanish rule disappears from the whole of North and South America.

The treasures exhumed by Dr. Schliemann at Mycenæ, have awakened popular cupidity, and the eyes of adventurous speculators are being turned toward the localities where the wealth of ancient peoples is supposed to be buried, in crypt or cave, or beneath sand or alluvial deposit. Around no other locality, not even Peru, hangs so many traditions as around the Gobi Desert. In Independent Tartary this howling waste of shifting sand was once, if report speaks correctly, the seat of one of the richest empires the world ever saw. Beneath the surface are said to lie such wealth in gold, jewels, statuary, arms, utensils, and all that indicates civilization, luxury, and fine arts, as no existing capital of Christendom can show to-day. The Gobi sand moves regularly from east to west before terrific gales that blow continually. Occasionally some of the hidden treasures are uncovered, but not a native dare touch them, for the whole district is under the ban of a mighty spell. Death would be the penalty. Bahti—hideous, but faithful gnomes—guard the hidden treasures of this prehistoric people, awaiting the day when the revolution of cyclic periods shall again cause their story to be known for the instruction of mankind.

According to local tradition, the tomb of Ghengiz Khan still exists near Lake Tabasun Nor. Within lies the Mongolian Alexander, as though asleep. After three more centuries he will awake and lead his people to new victories and another harvest of glory. Though this prophetic {599} tradition be received with ever so many grains of salt, we can affirm as a fact that the tomb itself is no fiction, nor has its amazing richness been exaggerated.

The district of the Gobi wilderness and, in fact, the whole area of Independent Tartary and Thibet is jealously guarded against foreign intrusion. Those who are permitted to traverse it are under the particular care and pilotage of certain agents of the chief authority, and are in duty bound to convey no intelligence respecting places and persons to the outside world. But for this restriction, even we might contribute to these pages accounts of exploration, adventure, and discovery that would be read with interest. The time will come, sooner or later, when the dreadful sand of the desert will yield up its long-buried secrets, and then there will indeed be unlooked-for mortifications for our modern vanity.

“The people of Pashai,”[889] says Marco Polo, the daring traveller of the thirteenth century, “are great adepts in sorceries and the _diabolic_ arts.” And his learned editor adds: “This Pashai, or Udyana, was the native country of Padma Sambhava, one of the chief apostles of lamaism, _i. e._, of Thibetan Buddhism, and a great master of enchantments. The doctrines of Sakya, as they prevailed in Udâyna _in old times_, were probably strongly tinged with Sivaïtic magic, and the Thibetans still regard the locality as the classic ground of sorcery and witchcraft.”

The “old times” are just like the “modern times;” nothing is changed as to magical practices except that they have become still more esoteric and arcane, and that the caution of the adepts increases in proportion to the traveller’s curiosity. Hiouen-Thsang says of the inhabitants: “The men ... are fond of study, but pursue it with no ardor. _The science of magical formulæ has become a regular professional business with them._”[890] We will not contradict the venerable Chinese pilgrim on this point, and are willing to admit that in the seventh century _some_ people made “a professional business” of magic; so, also, do _some_ people now, but certainly not the true adepts. It is not Hiouen-Thsang, the pious, courageous man, who risked his life a hundred times to have the bliss of perceiving Buddha’s shadow in the cave of Peshawer, who would have accused the holy lamas and monkish thaumaturgists of “making a professional business” of showing it to travellers. The injunction of Gautama, contained in his answer to King Prasenagit, his protector, who called on him to perform miracles, must {600} have been ever present to the mind of Hiouen-Thsang. “Great king,” said Gautama, “I do not teach the law to my pupils, telling them ‘go, ye saints, and before the eyes of the Brahmans and householders perform, by means of your supernatural powers, miracles greater than any man can perform.’ I tell them, when I teach them the law, ‘Live, ye saints, _hiding your good works, and showing your sins_.’”

Struck with the accounts of magical exhibitions witnessed and recorded by travellers of every age who had visited Tartary and Thibet, Colonel Yule comes to the conclusion that the natives must have had “at their command the whole encyclopædia of modern ‘Spiritualists.’ Duhalde mentions among their sorceries the art of producing by their invocations the figures of Laotsen[891] and their divinities _in the air_, and _of making a pencil write answers to questions without anybody touching it_.”[892]

The former invocations pertain to religious mysteries of their sanctuaries; if done otherwise, or for the sake _of gain_, they are considered _sorcery_, necromancy, and strictly forbidden. The latter art, that of making a pencil write _without contact_, was known and practiced in China and other countries centuries before the Christian era. It is the A B C of magic in those countries.

When Hiouen-Thsang desired to adore the shadow of Buddha, it was not to “professional magicians” that he resorted, but to the power of his own soul-invocation; the power of prayer, faith, and contemplation. All was dark and dreary near the cavern in which the miracle was alleged to take place sometimes. Hiouen-Thsang entered and began his devotions. He made 100 salutations, but neither saw nor heard anything. Then, thinking himself too sinful, he cried bitterly, and despaired. But as he was going to give up all hope, he perceived on the eastern wall a feeble light, but it disappeared. He renewed his prayers, full of hope this time, and again he saw the light, which flashed and disappeared again. After this he made a solemn vow: he would not leave the cave till he had the rapture to see at last the shadow of the “Venerable of the Age.” He had to wait longer after this, for only after 200 prayers was the dark cave suddenly “bathed in light, and the shadow of Buddha, of a brilliant white color, rose majestically on the wall, as when the clouds suddenly open, and, all at once, display the marvellous image of the ‘Mountain of Light.’ A dazzling splendor lighted up the features of the divine countenance. Hiouen-Thsang was lost in contemplation and wonder, and would not turn his eyes away from the sublime and {601} incomparable object.” Hiouen-Thsang adds in his own diary, _See-yu kee_, that it is only when man prays with sincere faith, and if he has received from above a hidden impression, that he sees the shadow clearly, but he cannot enjoy the sight for any length of time.[893]

Those who are so ready to accuse the Chinese of irreligion will do well to read Schott’s _Essays on Buddhism in China and Upper Asia_.[894] “In the years _Yuan-yeu_ of the Sung (A.D. 1086-1093) a pious matron with her two servants lived entirely to the Land of Enlightenment. One of the maids said one day to her companion: ‘To-night I shall pass over to the Realm of Amita’ (Buddha). The same night a balsamic odor filled the house, and the maid died without any preceding illness. On the following day the surviving maid said to her lady: ‘Yesterday my deceased companion appeared to me in a dream, and said: “Thanks to the persevering supplications of our dear mistress, I am become an inhabitant of Paradise, and my blessedness is past all expression in words.”’ The matron replied: ‘If she will appear to me also, then will I believe all you say.’ The next night the deceased really appeared to her. The lady asked: ‘May I, for once, visit the Land of Enlightenment?’ ‘Yea,’ answered the blessed soul; ‘thou hast but to follow thine handmaiden.’ The lady followed her (in her dream), and soon perceived a lake of immeasurable expanse, overspread with innumerable red and white lotus flowers, of various sizes, some blooming, some fading. She asked what those flowers might signify? The maiden replied: ‘These are all human beings on the Earth whose thoughts are turned to the Land of Enlightenment. The very first longing after the Paradise of Amita produces a flower in the Celestial Lake, and this becomes daily larger and more glorious as the self-improvement of the person whom it represents advances; in the contrary case, it loses in glory and fades away.’[895] The matron desired to know the name of an enlightened one who reposed on one of the flowers, clad in a waving and wondrously glistening raiment. Her whilom maiden answered: ‘That is Yang-kie.’ Then asked she the name of another, and was answered: {602} ‘That is Mahu.’ The lady then said: ‘At what place shall I hereafter come into existence?’ Then the Blessed Soul led her a space further, and showed her a hill that gleamed with gold and azure. ‘Here,’ said she, ‘is your future abode. You will belong to the first order of the blessed.’ When the matron awoke, she sent to inquire for Yang-kie and Mahu. The first was already departed; the other still alive and well. And thus the lady learned that the soul of one who advances in holiness and never turns back, may be already a dweller in the Land of Enlightenment, even though the body still sojourn in this transitory world.”

In the same essay, another Chinese story is translated, and to the same effect: “I knew a man,” says the author, “who during his life had killed many living beings, and was at last struck with an apoplexy. The sorrows in store for his sin-laden soul pained me to the heart; I visited him, and exhorted him to call on the Amita; but he obstinately refused. His illness clouded his understanding; in consequence of his misdeeds he had become hardened. What was before such a man when once his eyes were closed? In this life the night followeth the day, and the winter followeth the summer; that, all men are aware of. But that life is followed by death, no man will consider. Oh, what blindness and obduracy is this!” (p. 93).

These two instances of Chinese literature hardly strengthen the usual charge of irreligion and total materialism brought against the nation. The first little mystical story is full of spiritual charm, and would grace any Christian religious book. The second is as worthy of praise, and we have but to replace “Amita” with “Jesus” to have a highly orthodox tale, as regards religious sentiments and code of philosophical morality. The following instance is still more striking, and we quote it for the benefit of Christian revivalists:

“Hoang-ta-tie, of T’anchen, who lived under the Sung, followed the craft of a blacksmith. Whenever he was at his work he used to call, without intermission, on the name of Amita Buddha. One day he handed to his neighbors the following verses of his own composition to be spread about:—

‘Ding dong! The hammer-strokes fall long and fast,
Until the iron turns to steel at last!
Now shall the long, long day of rest begin,
The _Land of Bliss Eternal_ calls me in!’

“Thereupon he died. But his verses spread all over Honan, and many learned to call upon Buddha.”[896]

To deny to the Chinese or any people of Asia, whether Central, Upper, {603} or Lower, the possession of any knowledge, or even perception of spiritual things, is perfectly ridiculous. From one end to the other the country is full of mystics, religious philosophers, Buddhist saints, and _magicians_. Belief in a spiritual world, full of invisible beings who, on certain occasions, appear to mortals objectively, is universal. “According to the belief of the nations of Central Asia,” remarks I. J. Schmidt, “the earth and its interior, as well as the encompassing atmosphere, are filled with spiritual beings, which exercise an influence, partly beneficent, partly malignant, on the whole of organic and inorganic nature.... Especially are deserts and other wild or uninhabited tracts, or regions in which the influences of nature are displayed on a gigantic and terrible scale, regarded as the chief abode or rendezvous of evil spirits. And hence the steppes of Turan, and in particular the great sandy Desert of Gobi have been looked on as the dwelling-place of malignant beings, from days of hoary antiquity.”

Marco Polo—as a matter of course—mentions more than once in his curious book of _Travels_, these tricky nature-spirits of the deserts. For centuries, and especially in the last one, had his strange stories been completely rejected. No one would believe him when he said he had witnessed, time and again, with his own eyes, the most wonderful feats of magic performed by the subjects of Kublai-Khan and adepts of other countries. On his death-bed Marco was strongly urged to retract his alleged “falsehoods;” but he solemnly swore to the truth of what he said, adding that “he had not told _one-half_ of what he had really seen!” There is now no doubt that he spoke the truth, since Marsden’s edition, and that of Colonel Yule have appeared. The public is especially beholden to the latter for bringing forward so many authorities corroborative of Marco’s testimony, and explaining some of the phenomena in the usual way, for he makes it plain beyond question that the great traveller was not only a veracious but an exceedingly observant writer. Warmly defending his author, the conscientious editor, after enumerating more than one hitherto controverted and even rejected point in the Venetian’s _Travels_, concludes by saying: “Nay, the last two years have thrown a promise of light even on what seemed _the wildest_ of Marco’s stories, and the bones of a veritable Ruc from New Zealand lie on the table of Professor Owen’s cabinet!”[897]

The monstrous bird of the _Arabian Nights_, or “Arabian Mythology,” as Webster calls the _Ruc_ (or Roc), having been identified, the next thing in order is to _discover_ and recognize that _Aladdin’s_ magical lamp has also certain claims to reality.

Describing his passage through the great desert of Lop, Marco Polo {604} speaks of a marvellous thing, “which is that, when travellers are on the move by night ... they will hear spirits talking. Sometimes the spirits will call him by name ... even in the daytime one hears these spirits talking. And sometimes you shall hear the sound of a variety of musical instruments, and still more commonly the sound of drums.”[898]

In his notes, the translator quotes the Chinese historian, Matwanlin, who corroborates the same. “During the passage of this wilderness you hear sounds,” says Matwanlin, “sometimes of singing, sometimes of wailing; and it has often happened that travellers going aside to see what those sounds might be, have strayed from their course and been entirely lost; for they were voices of spirits and goblins.”[899] “These goblins are not peculiar to the Gobi,” adds the editor, “though that appears to have been their most favored haunt. _The awe of the vast and solitary desert raises them in all similar localities._”

Colonel Yule would have done well to consider the possibility of serious consequences arising from the acceptance of his theory. If we admit that the weird cries of the Gobi are due to the _awe_ inspired “by the vast and solitary desert,” why should the goblins of the Gadarenes (_Luke_ viii. 29) be entitled to any better consideration? and why may not Jesus have been self-deceived as to his objective tempter during the forty days’ trial in the “wilderness?” We are quite ready to receive or reject the theory enunciated by Colonel Yule, but shall insist upon its impartial application to all cases. Pliny speaks of the phantoms that appear and vanish in the deserts of Africa;[900] Æthicus, the early Christian cosmographer, mentions, though incredulous, the stories that were told of the voices of singers and revellers in the desert; and “Mas’udi tells of the _ghûls_, which in the deserts appear to travellers by night and in lonely hours;” and also of “Apollonius of Tyana and his companions, who, in a desert near the Indus by moonlight, saw an _empusa_ or ghûl taking many forms.... They revile it, and it goes off uttering shrill cries.”[901] And Ibn Batuta relates a like legend of the Western Sahara: “If the messenger be solitary, the demons sport with him and fascinate him, so that he strays from his course and perishes.”[902] Now if all these matters are capable of a “rational explanation;” and we do not doubt it as regards most of these cases, then, the _Bible_-devils of the wilderness deserve no more consideration, but should have the same rule applied to them. They, too, are creatures of terror, imagination, and _superstition_; {605} hence, the narratives of the _Bible_ must be false; and if one single verse is false, then a cloud is thrown upon the title of all the rest, to be considered _divine_ revelation. Once admit this, and this collection of canonical documents is at least as amenable to criticism as any other book of stories.[903]

There are many spots in the world where the strangest phenomena have resulted from what was later ascertained to be natural physical causes. In Southern California there are certain places on the sea-shore where the sand when disturbed produces a loud musical ring. It is known as the “musical sand,” and the phenomenon is supposed to be of an electrical nature. “The sound of musical instruments, chiefly of drums, is a phenomenon of another class, and is really produced in certain situations among sandhills when the sand is disturbed,” says the editor of _Marco Polo_. “A very striking account of a phenomenon of this kind, _regarded as supernatural_, is given by Friar Odoric, whose experience I have traced to the Reg Ruwán or flowing sand north of Kabul. Besides this celebrated example ... I have noted that equally well-known one of the _Jibal Nakics_, or ‘Hill of the Bell’ in the Sinai desert; ... Gibal-ul-Thabúl, or hill of the drums.... A Chinese narrative of the tenth century mentions the phenomenon as known near Kwachau, on the eastern border of the Lop desert, under the name of “the singing sands.”[904]

That all these are natural phenomena, no one can doubt. But what of the questions and answers, plainly and audibly given and received? What of conversations held between certain travellers and the _invisible_ spirits, or unknown beings, that sometimes appear to whole caravans in tangible form? If so many millions believe in the possibility that spirits may clothe themselves with material bodies, behind the curtain of a “medium,” and appear to the _circle_, why should they reject the same possibility for the elemental spirits of the deserts? {606} This is the “to be, or not to be” of Hamlet. If “spirits” can do all that Spiritualists claim for them, why can they not appear equally to the traveller in the wildernesses and solitudes? A recent scientific article in a Russian journal attributes such “spirit-voices,” in the great Gobi desert, _to the echo_. A very reasonable explanation, if it can only be demonstrated that these voices simply repeat what has been previously uttered by a living person. But when the “superstitious” traveller gets intelligent _answers_ to his questions, this Gobi _echo_ at once shows a very near relationship with the famous echo of the Théâtre Porte St. Martin at Paris. “How do you do, sir?” shouts one of the actors in the play. “Very poorly, my son; thank you. I am getting old, very ... very old!” politely answers the echo!

What incredulous merriment must the _superstitious_ and _absurd_ narratives of Marco Polo, concerning the “supernatural” gifts of certain shark and wild-beast charmers of India, whom he terms _Abraiaman_, have excited for long centuries. Describing the pearl-fishery of Ceylon, as it was in his time, he says that the merchants are “obliged also to pay those men who _charm_ the great fishes—to prevent them from injuring the divers whilst engaged in seeking pearls under water—one-twentieth part of all that they take. These fish-charmers are termed Abraiaman (Brahman?), and their charm holds good for that day only, for at night they dissolve the charm, so that the fishes can work mischief at their will. These Abraiaman know also how to charm beasts and birds, and every living thing.”

And this is what we find in the explanatory notes of Colonel Yule, in relation to this _degrading_ Asiatic “superstition:” “Marco’s account of the pearl-fishery is still substantially correct.... At the diamond mines of the northern Circars, Brahmans are employed in the analogous office of propitiating the tutelary genii. The shark-charmers are called in Tamil, _Kadal-Katti_, “sea-binders,” and in Hindustani, _Hai-banda_, or “shark-binders.” At Aripo they belong to one family, supposed to have the monopoly of the charm.[905] The chief operator is (or was, not many years ago) _paid by the government_, and he also received ten oysters from each boat daily during the fishery. Tennent, on his visit, found the incumbent of the office to be a _Roman Catholic Christian_ (?), but that did not seem to affect the exercise of the validity of his functions. _It is remarkable that not more than one authenticated accident from sharks had taken place during the whole period of the British occupation._”[906]

Two items of fact in the above paragraph are worthy of being placed {607} in juxtaposition. 1. The British authorities pay professional shark-charmers a stipend to exercise their art; and, 2, only _one life_ has been lost since the execution of the contract. (We have yet to learn whether the loss of this _one_ life did not occur under the Roman Catholic _sorcerer_.) Is it pretended that the salary is paid as a concession to a _degrading_ native superstition? Very well; but how about the sharks? Are they receiving salaries, also, from the British authorities out of the Secret Service Fund? Every person who has visited Ceylon must know that the waters of the pearl coast swarm with sharks of the most voracious kind, and that it is even dangerous to bathe, let alone to dive for oysters. We might go further, if we chose, and give the names of British officials of the highest rank in the Indian service, who, after resorting to native “magicians” and “sorcerers,” to assist them in recovering things lost, or in unravelling vexatious mysteries of one kind or another, and being successful, and at the time _secretly_ expressing their gratitude, have gone away, and shown their innate cowardice before the world’s Areopagus, by publicly denying the truth of magic, and leading the jest against Hindu “superstition.”

Not many years ago, one of the worst of _superstitions_ scientists held to be that of believing that the murderer’s portrait remained impressed on the eye of the murdered person, and that the former could be easily recognized by examining carefully the retina. The “superstition” asserted that the likeness could be made still more striking by subjecting the murdered man to certain old women’s fumigations, and the like gossip. And now an American newspaper, of March 26, 1877, says: “A number of years ago attention was attracted to a theory which insisted that the last effort of vision materialized itself and remained as an object imprinted on the retina of the eye after death. This has been proved a fact by an experiment tried in the presence of Dr. Gamgee, F.R.S., of Birmingham, England, and Prof. Bunsen, the subject being a living rabbit. The means taken to prove the merits of the question were most simple, the eyes being placed near an opening in a shutter, and retaining the shape of the same after the animal had been deprived of life.”

If, from the regions of idolatry, ignorance, and superstition, as India is termed by some missionaries, we turn to the so-called centre of civilization—Paris, we find the same principles of magic exemplified there under the name of _occult_ Spiritualism. The Honorable John L. O’Sullivan, Ex-Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States to Portugal, has kindly furnished us with the strange particulars of a semi-magical séance which he recently attended with several other eminent men, at Paris. Having his permission to that effect, we print his letter in full.

“NEW YORK, Feb. 7, 1877. {608}

“I cheerfully obey your request for a written statement of
what I related to you orally, as having been witnessed by me
in Paris, last summer, at the house of a highly respectable
physician, whose name I have no authority to use, but whom,
after the usual French fashion of anonymizing, I will call Dr.
X.

“I was introduced there by an English friend, well-known in the
Spiritualist circles in London—Mr. Gledstanes. Some eight or
ten other visitors were present, of both sexes. We were seated
in _fauteuils_, occupying half of a long drawing-room, flush
with a spacious garden. In the other half of the room was a
grand piano, a considerable open space between it and us, and a
couple of _fauteuils_ in that space, evidently placed there to
be occupied by other sitters. A door near them opened into the
private apartments.

“Dr. X. came in, and discoursed to us for about twenty minutes
with rapid and vehement French eloquence, which I could not
undertake to report. He had, for over twenty-five years,
investigated occult mysteries, of which he was about to exhibit
some phenomena. His object was to attract his brethren of the
scientific world, but few or none of them came to see for
themselves. He intended before long to publish a book. He
presently led in two ladies, the younger one his wife, the
other (whom I will call Madame Y.) a medium or sensitive, with
whom he had worked through all that period in the prosecution
of these studies, and who had devoted and sacrificed her whole
life to this work with him. Both these ladies had their eyes
closed, apparently in trance.

“He stood them at the opposite ends of the long grand piano
(which was shut), and directed them to put their hands upon
it. Sounds soon began to issue from its chords, marching,
galloping, drums, trumpets, rolling musketry, cannon, cries,
and groans—in one word, a _battle_. This lasted, I should say,
some five to ten minutes.

“I should have mentioned that before the two mediums were
brought in I had written in pencil, on a small bit of paper (by
direction of Mr. Gledstanes, who had been there before), the
names of three objects, to be known to myself alone, viz., some
_musical composer_, deceased, a _flower_, and a _cake_. I chose
_Beethoven_, a _marguerite_ (daisy), and a kind of French cake
called _plombières_, and rolled the paper into a pellet, which
I kept in my hand, without letting even my friend know its
contents.

“When the battle was over, he placed Mme. Y. in one of the
two _fauteuils_, Mme. X. being seated apart at one side of
the room, and I was asked to hand my folded, or rolled, paper
to Mme. Y. She held it (unopened) between her fingers, on
her lap. She was dressed in white merino, flowing from her
neck and gathered in at the waist, under a blaze of light
from chandeliers on the right and left. After a while she
dropped the little roll of paper to the floor, and I picked it
up. Dr. X. then raised her to her feet and told her to make
“the evocation of the dead.” He withdrew the _fauteuils_ and
placed in her hand a steel rod of about four and half or five
feet in length, the top of which was surmounted with a short
cross-piece—the Egyptian _Tau_. With this she traced a circle
round herself, as she stood, of about six feet in diameter. She
did not hold the cross-piece as a handle, but, on the contrary,
she held the rod at the opposite end. She presently handed it
back to Dr. X. There she stood for some time, her hands hanging
down and folded together in front of her, motionless, and with
her eyes directed slightly upward toward one of the opposite
corners of the long _salon_. Her lips presently began to move,
with muttered sounds, which after a while became distinct in
articulation, in short broken sentences or phrases, very much {609}
like the recitation of a litany. Certain words, seeming to be
names, would recur from time to time. It sounded to me somewhat
as I have heard Oriental languages sound. Her face was very
earnest and mobile with expression, with sometimes a slight
frown on the brow. I suppose it lasted about fifteen or twenty
minutes, amidst the motionless silence of all the company,
as we gazed on the weird scene. Her utterance finally seemed
to increase in vehemence and rapidity. At last she stretched
forth one arm toward the space on which her eyes had been
fixed, and, with a loud cry, almost a scream, she exclaimed:
‘BEETHOVEN!’—and fell backward, prostrate on the floor.

“Dr. X. hastened to her, made eager magnetic passes about
her face and neck, and propped up her head and shoulders on
cushions. And there she lay like a person sick and suffering,
occasionally moaning, turning restlessly, etc. I suppose a
full half-hour then elapsed, during which she seemed to pass
through all the phases of gradual _death_ (this I was told was
a re-enacting of the death of Beethoven). It would be long to
describe in detail, even if I could recall all. We watched as
though assisting at a scene of real death. I will only say that
her pulse ceased; no beating of the heart could be perceived;
her hands first, then her arms became cold, while warmth was
still to be felt under her arm-pits; even they at last became
entirely cold; her feet and legs became cold in the same
manner, and they swelled astonishingly. The doctor invited us
all to come and recognize these phenomena. The gasping breaths
came at longer and longer intervals, and feebler and feebler.
At last came the end; her head fell sidewise, her hands, which
had been picking with the fingers about her dress, collapsed
also. The doctor said, ‘she is now dead;’ and so it indeed
seemed. In vehement haste he produced (I did not see from
where) two small _snakes_, which he seemed to huddle about her
neck and down into her bosom, making also eager transverse
passes about her head and neck. After a while she appeared
to revive slowly, and finally the doctor and a couple of men
servants lifted her up and carried her off into the private
apartments, from which he soon returned. He told us that this
was all very critical, but perfectly safe, but that no time was
to be lost, for otherwise the death, which he said was real,
would be permanent.

“I need not say how ghastly the effect of this whole scene had
been on all the spectators. Nor need I remind you that this was
no trickery of a performer paid to astonish. The scene passed
in the elegant drawing-room of a respectable physician, to
which access without introduction is impossible, while (outside
of the phenomenal facts) a thousand indescribable details of
language, manner, expression, and action presented those minute
guarantees of sincerity and earnestness which carry conviction
to those who witness, though it may be transmitted to those who
only hear or read of them.

“After a time Mme. Y. returned and was seated in one of the
two _fauteuils_ before mentioned, and I was invited to the
other by her side. I had still in my hand the unopened pellet
of paper containing the three words privately written by me,
of which (Beethoven) had been the first. She sat for a few
minutes with her open hands resting on her lap. They presently
began to move restlessly about. “Ah, it burns, it burns,” she
said, and her features contracted with an expression of pain.
In a few moments she raised one of them, and it contained a
_marguerite_, the flower I had written as my second word. I
received it from her, and after it had been examined by the
rest of the company, I preserved it. Dr. X. said it was of a
species not known in that part of the country; an opinion in
which he was certainly mistaken, as a few days afterwards I
saw the same in the flower-market of the Madeleine. Whether
this flower was _produced_ under her hands, or was simply an
_apport_, as in the phenomenon we are familiar with in the
experiences of Spiritualism, I do not know. It was the one
or the other, for she certainly did not have it as she sat {610}
there by my side, under a strong light, before it made its
appearance. The flower was perfectly fresh in every one of its
delicate petals.

“The third word I had written on my bit of paper was the name
of a cake—_plombières_. She presently began to go through the
motions of eating, though no cake was visible, and asked me if
I would not go with her to _Plombières_—the name of the cake I
had written. This might have been simply a case of mind-reading.

“After this followed a scene in which Madame X., the doctor’s
wife, was said, and seemed to be, possessed by the spirit of
Beethoven. The doctor addressed her as “Monsieur Beethoven.”
She took no notice until he called the name aloud in her ear.
She then responded with polite bows, etc. (You may remember
that Beethoven was extremely deaf.) After some conversation he
begged her to play, and she seated herself at the piano and
performed magnificently both some of his known music and some
improvisations which were generally recognized by the company
as in his style. I was told afterwards, by a lady friend of
Madame X., that in her normal state she was a very ordinary
amateur performer. After about half an hour spent in music and
in dialogue in the character of Beethoven, to whom her face in
expression, and her tumbled hair, seemed to acquire a strange
resemblance, the doctor placed in her hands a sheet of paper
and a crayon, and asked her to sketch the face of the person
she saw before her. She produced very rapidly a profile sketch
of a head and face resembling Beethoven’s busts, though as
a younger man; and she dashed off a rapid name under it, as
though a signature, ‘Beethoven.’ I have preserved the sketch,
though how the handwriting may correspond with Beethoven’s
signature I cannot say.

“The hour was now late, and the company broke up; nor had I any
time to interrogate Dr. X. upon what we had thus witnessed. But
I called on him with Mr. Gledstanes a few evenings afterwards.
I found that he admitted the action of spirits, and was a
Spiritualist, but also a great deal more, having studied long
and deeply into the occult mysteries of the Orient. So I
understood him to convey, while he seemed to prefer to refer
me to his book, which he would probably publish in the course
of the present year. I observed a number of loose sheets on a
table all covered with Oriental characters unknown to me—the
work of Madame Y. in trance, as he said, in answer to an
inquiry. He told us that in the scene I had witnessed, she
became (_i. e._, as I presumed, was possessed by) _a priestess
of one of the ancient Egyptian temples_, and that the origin of
it was this: A scientific friend of his had acquired in Egypt
possession of the mummy of a priestess, and had given him some
of the linen swathings with which the body was enveloped, and
from the contact with this cloth of 2,000 or 3,000 years old,
the devotion of her whole existence to this occult relation,
and twenty years seclusion from the world, his medium, as
sensitive Madame Y., had become what I had seen. The language
I had heard her speak was the sacred language of the temples
in which she had been instructed, not so much by inspiration
but very much as we now study languages, by dictation, written
exercises, etc., being even chided and punished when she was
dull or slow. He said that Jacolliot had heard her in a similar
scene, and recognized sounds and words of the very oldest
sacred language as preserved in the temples of India, anterior,
if I remember right, to the epoch of the Sanscrit.

“Respecting the _snakes_ he had employed in the hasty operation
of restoring her to life, or rather perhaps arresting the last
consummation of the process of death, he said there was a
strange mystery in their relation to the phenomena of life and
death. I understood that they were indispensable. Silence and
inaction on our part were also insisted upon throughout, and
any attempt at questioning him at the time was peremptorily,
almost angrily, suppressed. We might come and talk afterward,
or wait for the appearance of his book, but he alone seemed {611}
entitled to exercise the faculty of speech throughout
all these performances—which he certainly did with great
volubility, the while, with all the eloquence and precision
of diction of a Frenchman, combining scientific culture with
vividness of imagination.

“I intended to return on some subsequent evening, but learned
from Mr. Gledstanes that he had given them up for the present,
disgusted with his ill-success in getting his professional
colleagues and men of science to come and witness what it was
his object to show them.

“This is about as much as I can recall of this strange, weird
evening, excepting some uninteresting details. I have given
you the name and address of Dr. X. confidentially, because he
would seem to have gone more or less far on the same path as
you pursue in the studies of your Theosophical Society. Beyond
that I feel bound to keep it private, not having his authority
to use it in any way which might lead to publicity.

“Very respectfully,

“Your friend and obedient servant,

“J. L. O’SULLIVAN.”

In this interesting case simple Spiritualism has transcended its routine and encroached upon the limits of magic. The features of mediumship are there, in the double life led by the sensitive Madame Y., in which she passes an existence totally distinct from the normal one, and by reason of the subordination of her individuality to a foreign will, becomes the permutation of a priestess of Egypt; and in the personation of the spirit of Beethoven, and in the unconscious and cataleptic state into which she falls. On the other hand, the will-power exercised by Dr. X. upon his sensitive, the tracing of the mystic circle, the evocations, the materialization of the desired flower, the seclusion and education of Madame Y., the employment of the wand and its form, the creation and use of the serpents, the evident control of the astral forces—all these pertain to magic. Such experiments are of interest and value to science, but liable to abuse in the hands of a less conscientious practitioner than the eminent gentleman designated as Dr. X. A true Oriental kabalist would not recommend their duplication.

Spheres unknown below our feet; spheres still more unknown and still more unexplored above us; between the two a handful of moles, blind to God’s great light, and deaf to the whispers of the invisible world, boasting that they lead mankind. Where? Onward, they claim; but we have a right to doubt it. The greatest of our physiologists, when placed side by side with a Hindu fakir, who knows neither how to read nor write, will very soon find himself feeling as foolish as a school-boy who has neglected to learn his lesson. It is not by vivisecting living animals that a physiologist will assure himself of the existence of man’s soul, nor on the blade of the knife can he extract it from a human body. “What sane man,” inquires Sergeant Cox, the President of the London Psychological Society, “what sane man who knows nothing of magnetism or physiology, who had never witnessed an experiment nor {612} learned its principles, would proclaim himself _a fool_ by denying its facts and denouncing its theory?” The truthful answer to this would be, “two-thirds of our modern-day scientists.” The impertinence, if truth can ever be impertinent, must be laid at the door of him who uttered it—a scientist of the number of those few who are brave and honest enough to utter wholesome truths, however disagreeable. And there is no mistaking the real meaning of the imputation, for immediately after the irreverent inquiry, the learned lecturer remarks as pointedly: “The chemist takes his electricity from the electrician, the physiologist looks to the geologist for his geology—each would deem it an impertinence in the other if he were to pronounce judgment in the branch of knowledge not his own. Strange it is, but true as strange, that this rational rule is wholly set at naught in the treatment of psychology. _Physical scientists deem themselves competent to pronounce a dogmatic judgment upon psychology and all that appertains to it, without having witnessed any of its phenomena, and in entire ignorance of its principles and practice._”[907]

We sincerely hope that the two eminent biologists, Mr. Mendeleyeff, of St. Petersburg, and Mr. Ray Lankester, of London fame, will bear themselves under the above as unflinchingly as their living victims do when palpitating under their dissecting knives.

For a belief to have become universal, it must have been founded on an immense accumulation of facts, tending to strengthen it, from one generation to another. At the head of all such beliefs stands magic, or, if one would prefer—occult psychology. Who, of those who appreciate its tremendous powers even from its feeble, half-paralyzed effects in our civilized countries, would dare disbelieve in our days the assertions of Porphyry and Proclus, that even inanimate objects, such as statues of gods, could be made to move and exhibit a factitious life for a few moments? Who can deny the allegation? Is it those who testify daily over their own signatures that they have seen tables and chairs move and walk, and pencils write, without contact? Diogenes Laërtius tells us of a certain philosopher, Stilpo, who was exiled from Athens by the Areopagus, for having dared to deny publicly that the Minerva of Pheidias was anything else than a block of marble. But our own age, after having mimicked the ancients in everything possible, even to their very names, such as “senates,” “prefects,” and “consuls,” etc.; and after admitting that Napoleon the Great conquered three-fourths of Europe by applying the principles of war taught by the Cæsars and the Alexanders, knows so much better than its preceptors about psychology, that it would vote every believer in “animated tables” into Bedlam.

Be this as it may, _the religion of the ancients is the religion of {613} the future_. A few centuries more, and there will linger no sectarian beliefs in either of the great religions of humanity. Brahmanism and Buddhism, Christianity and Mahometanism will all disappear before the mighty rush of _facts_. “I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh,” writes the prophet Joel. “Verily I say unto you ... greater works than these shall you do,” promises Jesus. But this can only come to pass when the world returns to the grand religion of the past; the _knowledge_ of those majestic systems which preceded, by far, Brahmanism, and even the primitive monotheism of the ancient Chaldeans. Meanwhile, we must remember the direct effects of the revealed mystery. The only means by which the wise priests of old could impress upon the grosser senses of the multitudes the idea of the Omnipotency of the Creative _will_ or FIRST CAUSE; namely, the divine animation of inert matter, the soul infused into it by the potential will of man, the microcosmic image of the great Architect, and the transportation of ponderous objects through space and material obstacles.

Why should the pious Roman Catholic turn away in disgust at the “heathen” practices of the Hindu Tamil, for instance? We have witnessed the miracle of San Gennaro in good old Naples, and we have seen the same in Nârgercoil, in India. Where is the difference? The coagulated blood of the Catholic saint is made to boil and fume in its crystal bottle, to the gratification of the lazzaroni; and from its jewelled shrine the martyr’s idol beams radiant smiles and blessings at the Christian congregation. On the other hand, a ball of clay filled with water, is stuffed into the open breast of the god Sûran; and while the padre shakes _his_ bottle and produces his “miracle” of blood, the Hindu priest plunges an arrow into the god’s breast, and produces _his_ “miracle,” for the blood gushes forth in streams, and the water is changed into blood. Both Christians and Hindus fall in raptures at the sight of such a miracle. So far, we do not see the slightest difference. But can it be that the Pagan learned the trick from San Gennaro.