As an illustration of how little even the generation which directly preceded our own was competent to judge the religions and beliefs of the several hundred million Buddhists, Brahmans, and Parsees, let the student consult the advertisement of a scientific work published in 1828 by a Professor Dunbar, the first scholar who has undertaken to demonstrate that the Sanscrit is derived from the Greek. It appeared under the following title:

“An Inquiry into the structure and affinity of the Greek and Latin languages; with occasional comparisons of the Sanscrit and Gothic; with an Appendix, in which the derivation of the Sanscrit from the Greek is endeavoured to be established. By George Dunbar, F.R. S.E., and Professor of Greek in the University of Edinburgh. Price, 18s.”[677]

Had Max Müller happened to fall from the sky at that time, among the scholars of the day, and with his present knowledge, we would like to have compiled the epithets which would have been bestowed by the learned academicians upon the daring innovator! One who, classifying languages genealogically, says that “Sanscrit, as compared to Greek and Latin, is an elder sister ... the earliest deposit of Aryan speech.”

And so, we may naturally expect that in 1976, the same criticisms will be justly applied to many a scientific discovery, now deemed conclusive and final by our scholars. That which is now termed the superstitious verbiage and gibberish of mere heathens and savages, composed many thousands of years ago, may be found to contain the master-key to all religious systems. The cautious sentence of St. Augustine, a favorite name in Max Müller’s lectures, which says that “there is no false religion which does not contain some elements of truth,” may yet be triumphantly proved correct; the more so as, far from being original with the Bishop of Hippo, it was borrowed by him from the works of Ammonius Saccas, the great Alexandrian teacher.

This “god-taught” philosopher, the theodidaktos, had repeated these same words to exhaustion, in his numerous works some 140 years before Augustine. Acknowledging Jesus as “an excellent man, and the friend of God,” he always maintained that his design was not to abolish the intercourse with gods and demons (spirits), but simply to purify the ancient religions; that “the religion of the multitude went hand in hand with philosophy, and with her had shared the fate of being by degrees corrupted and obscured with mere human conceits, superstition, and lies: that it ought therefore to be brought back to its original purity by purging it of this dross and expounding it upon philosophical principles; and that the whole which Christ had in view was to reinstate and restore to its primitive integrity the wisdom of the ancients.”[678]

It was Ammonius who first taught that every religion was based on one and the same truth; which is the wisdom found in the Books of Thoth (Hermes Trismegistus), from which books Pythagoras and Plato had learned all their philosophy. And the doctrines of the former he affirmed to have been identical with the earliest teachings of the Brahmans—now embodied in the oldest Vedas. “The name Thoth,” says Professor Wilder, “means a college or assembly,”[679] and “it is not improbable that the books were so named as being the collected oracles and doctrines of the sacerdotal fraternity of Memphis. Rabbi Wise had suggested a similar hypothesis in relation to the divine utterances recorded in the Hebrew Scripture. But the Indian writers assert, that during the reign of king Kansa, Yadus (Judeans?) or sacred tribe left India and migrated to the West, carrying the four Vedas with them. There was certainly a great resemblance between the philosophical doctrines and religious customs of the Egyptians and Eastern Buddhists; but whether the Hermetic books and the four Vedas were identical, is not now known.”

But one thing is certainly known, and that is, that before the word philosopher was first pronounced by Pythagoras at the court of the king of the Philiasians, the “secret doctrine” or wisdom was identical in every country. Therefore it is in the oldest texts—those least polluted by subsequent forgeries—that we have to look for the truth. And now that philology has possessed itself of Sanscrit texts which may be boldly affirmed to be documents by far antedating the Mosaic Bible, it is the duty of the scholars to present the world with truth, and nothing but the truth. Without regard to either skeptical or theological prejudice, they are bound to impartially examine both documents—the oldest Vedas and the Old Testament, and then decide which of the two is the original Sruti or Revelation, and which but the Smriti, which, as Max Müller shows, only means recollection or tradition.

Origen writes that the Brahmans were always famous for the wonderful cures which they performed by certain words;[680] and in our own age we find Orioli, a learned corresponding member of the French Institute,[681] corroborating the statement of Origen in the third century, and that of Leonard de Vair of the sixteenth, in which the latter wrote: “There are also persons, who upon pronouncing a certain sentence—a charm, walk bare-footed on red, burning coals, and on the points of sharp knives stuck in the ground; and, once poised on them, on one toe, they will lift up in the air a heavy man or any other burden of considerable weight. They will tame wild horses likewise, and the most furious bulls, with a single word.”[682]

This word is to be found in the Mantras of the Sanscrit Vedas, say some adepts. It is for the philologists to decide for themselves whether there is such a word in the Vedas. So far as human evidence goes, it would seem that such magic words do exist.

It appears that the reverend fathers of the Order of Jesuits have picked up many such tricks in their missionary travels. Baldinger gives them full credit for it. The tschamping—a Hindu word, from which the modern word shampooing is derived—is a well-known magical manipulation in the East Indies. The native sorcerers use it with success to the present day, and it is from them that the father Jesuits derived their wisdom.

Camerarius, in his Horæ Subscecivæ, narrates that once upon a time there existed a great rivalry of “miracles” between the Austin Friars and the Jesuits. A disputation having taken place between the father-general of the Austin Friars, who was very learned, and the general of the Jesuits, who was very unlearned, but full of magical knowledge, the latter proposed to settle the question by trying their subordinates, and finding out which of them would be the readiest to obey his superiors. Thereupon, turning to one of his Jesuits, he said: “Brother Mark, our companions are cold; I command you, in virtue of the holy obedience you have sworn to me, to bring here instantly out of the kitchen fire, and in your hands, some burning coals, that they may warm themselves over your hands.” Father Mark instantly obeyed, and brought in both his hands a supply of red, burning coals, and held them till the company present had all warmed themselves, after which he took them back to the kitchen hearth. The general of the Austin Friars found himself crestfallen, for none of his subordinates would obey him so far as that. The triumph of the Jesuits was thus accomplished.

If the above is looked upon as an anecdote unworthy of credence, we will inquire of the reader what we must think of some modern “mediums,” who perform the same while entranced. The testimony of several highly respectable and trustworthy witnesses, such as Lord Adair and Mr. S. C. Hall, is unimpeachable. “Spirits,” the spiritualists will argue. Perhaps so, in the case of American and English fire-proof mediums; but not so in Thibet and India. In the West a “sensitive” has to be entranced before being rendered invulnerable by the presiding “guides,” and we defy any “medium,” in his or her normal physical state to bury the arms to the elbows in glowing coals. But in the East, whether the performer be a holy lama or a mercenary sorcerer (the latter class being generally termed “jugglers”) he needs no preparation or abnormal state to be able to handle fire, red-hot pieces of iron, or melted lead. We have seen in Southern India these “jugglers” keep their hands in a furnace of burning coals until the latter were reduced to cinders. During the religious ceremony of Siva-Râtri, or the vigil-night of Siva, when the people spend whole nights in watching and praying, some of the Sivaites called in a Tamil juggler, who produced the most wonderful phenomena by simply summoning to his help a spirit whom they call Kutti-Sâttan—the little demon. But, far from allowing people to think he was guided or “controlled” by this gnome—for it was a gnome, if it was anything—the man, while crouching over his fiery pit, proudly rebuked a Catholic missionary, who took his opportunity to inform the by-standers that the miserable sinner “had sold himself to Satan.” Without removing his hands and arms from the burning coals within which he was coolly refreshing them, the Tamil only turned his head and gave one arrogant look at the flushed missionary. “My father and my father’s father,” he said, “had this ‘little one’ at their command. For two centuries the Kutti is a faithful servant in our home, and now, sir, you would make people believe that he is my master! But they know better.” After this, he quietly withdrew his hands from the fire, and proceeded with other performances.

As for the wonderful powers of prediction and clairvoyance possessed by certain Brahmans, they are well known to every European resident of India. If these upon their return to “civilized” countries, laugh at such stories, and sometimes even deny them outright, they only impugn their good faith, not the fact. These Brahmans live principally in “sacred villages,” and secluded places, principally on the western coast of India. They avoid populated cities, and especially Europeans, and it is but rarely that the latter can succeed in making themselves intimate with the “seers.” It is generally thought that the circumstance is due to their religious observance of the caste; but we are firmly convinced that in many cases this is not so. Years, perhaps centuries, will roll away before the real reason is ascertained.

As to the lower castes, some of which are termed by the missionaries devil-worshippers, notwithstanding the pious efforts on the part of the Catholic missionaries to spread in Europe heart-rending reports of the misery of these people “sold to the Arch-Enemy;” and like efforts, perhaps only a trifle less ridiculous and absurd, of Protestant missionaries, the word devil, in the sense understood by Christians, is a nonentity for them. They believe in good and bad spirits; but they neither worship nor dread the Devil. Their “worship” is simply a ceremonial precaution against “terrestrial” and human spirits, whom they dread far more than the millions of elementals of various forms. They use all kinds of music, incense, and perfumes, in their efforts to drive away the “bad spirits” (the elementary). In this case, they are no more to be ridiculed than the well-known scientist, a firm spiritualist, who suggested the keeping of vitriol and powdered nitre in the room to keep away “unpleasant spirits;” and no more than he, are they wrong in so doing; for the experience of their ancestors, extending over many thousands of years has taught them how to proceed against this vile “spiritual horde.” That they are human spirits is shown by the fact that very often they try to humor and propitiate the “larvæ” of their own daughters and relatives, when they have reason to suspect that the latter did not die in the odor of sanctity and chastity. Such spirits they name “Kanni,” bad virgins. The case was noticed by several missionaries; Rev. E. Lewis,[683] among others. But these pious gentlemen usually insist upon it that they worship devils, whereas, they do nothing of the sort; for they merely try to remain on good terms with them in order to be left unmolested. They offer them cakes and fruit, and various kinds of food which they liked while alive, for many of them have experienced the wickedness of these returning “dead ones,” whose persecutions are sometimes dreadful. On this principle likewise they act toward the spirits of all wicked men. They leave on their tombs, if they were buried, or near the place where their remains were burnt, food and liquors, with the object of keeping them near these places, and with the idea that these vampires will be prevented thereby from returning to their homes. This is no worship; it is rather a spiritualism of a practical sort. Until 1861, there prevailed a custom among the Hindus of mutilating the feet of executed murderers, under the firm belief that thereby the disembodied soul would be prevented from wandering and doing more mischief. Subsequently, they were prohibited, by the police, from continuing the practice.

Another good reason why the Hindus should not worship the “Devil” is that they have no word to convey such a meaning. They call these spirits “pûttâm,” which answers rather to our “spook,” or malicious imp; another expression they use is “pey” and the Sanscrit pesâsu, both meaning ghosts or “returning ones” perhaps goblins, in some cases. The pûttâm are the most terrible, for they are literally “haunting spooks,” who return on earth to torment the living. They are believed to visit generally the places where their bodies were burnt. The “fire” or “Siva-spirits” are identical with the Rosicrucian gnomes and salamanders; for they are pictured as dwarfs of a fiery appearance, living in earth and fire. The Ceylonese demon called Dewel is a stout smiling female figure with a white Elizabethan frill around the neck and a red jacket.

As Dr. Warton justly observes: “There is no character more strictly Oriental than the dragons of romance and fiction; they are intermixed with every tradition of early date and of themselves confer a species of illustrative evidence of origin.” In no writings are these characters more marked, than in the details of Buddhism; these record particulars of the Nagas, or kingly snakes, inhabiting the cavities under the earth, corresponding with the abodes of Tiresias and the Greek seers, a region of mystery and darkness, wherein revolves much of the system of divination and oracular response, connected with inflation, or a sort of possession, designating the spirit of Python himself, the dragon-serpent slain by Apollo. But the Buddhists no more believe in the devil of the Christian system—that is, an entity as distinct from humanity as the Deity itself—than the Hindus. Buddhists teach that there are inferior gods who have been men either on this or another planet, but still who were men. They believe in the Nagas, who had been sorcerers on earth, bad people, and who give the power to other bad and yet living men to blight all the fruit they look upon, and even human lives. When a Cinghalese has the reputation that if he looks on a tree or on a person both will wither and die, he is said to have the Naga-Raja, or king-serpent on him. The whole endless catalogue of bad spirits are not devils in the sense the Christian clergy wants us to understand, but merely spiritually incarnated sins, crimes, and human thoughts, if we may so express it. The blue, green, yellow, and purple god-demons, like the inferior gods of Jugandere, are more of the kind of presiding genii, and many are as good and beneficient as the Nat deities themselves, although the Nats reckon in their numbers, giants, evil genii, and the like which inhabit the desert of Mount Jugandere.

The true doctrine of Buddha says that the demons, when nature produced the sun, moon, and stars, were human beings, but, on account of their sins, they fell from the state of felicity. If they commit greater sins, they suffer greater punishments, and condemned men are reckoned by them among the devils; while, on the contrary, demons who die (elemental spirits) and are born or incarnated as men, and commit no more sin, can arrive at the state of celestial felicity. Which is a demonstration, remarks Edward Upham, in his History and Doctrine of Buddhism, that all beings, divine as well as human, are subject to the laws of transmigration, which are operative on all, according to a scale of moral deeds. This faith then, is a complete test of a code of moral enactments and motives, applied to the regulation and government of man an experiment, he adds, “which renders the study of Buddhism an important and curious subject for the philosopher.”

The Hindus believe, as firmly as the Servians or Hungarians, in vampires. Furthermore, their doctrine is that of Pierart, the famous French spiritist and mesmerizer, whose school flourished some dozen years ago. “The fact of a spectre returning to suck human blood,” says this Doctor,[684] “is not so inexplicable as it seems, and here we appeal to the spiritualists who admit the phenomenon of bicorporeity or soul-duplication. The hands which we have pressed ... these ‘materialized’ limbs, so palpable ... prove clearly how much is possible for astral spectres under favorable conditions.”

The honorable physician expresses the theory of the kabalists. The Shadim are the lowest of the spiritual orders. Maimonides, who tells us that his countrymen were obliged to maintain an intimate intercourse with their departed ones, describes the feast of blood they held on such occasions. They dug a hole, and fresh blood was poured in, over which was placed a table; after which the “spirits” came and answered all their questions.[685]

Pierart, whose doctrine was founded on that of the theurgists, exhibits a warm indignation against the superstition of the clergy which requires, whenever a corpse is suspected of vampirism, that a stake should be driven through the heart. So long as the astral form is not entirely liberated from the body there is a liability that it may be forced by magnetic attraction to reënter it. Sometimes it will be only half-way out, when the corpse, which presents the appearance of death, is buried. In such cases the terrified astral soul violently reënters its casket; and then, one of two things happens—either the unhappy victim will writhe in the agonizing torture of suffocation, or, if he had been grossly material, he becomes a vampire. The bicorporeal life begins; and these unfortunate buried cataleptics sustain their miserable lives by having their astral bodies rob the life-blood from living persons. The æthereal form can go wherever it pleases; and so long as it does not break the link which attaches it to the body, it is at liberty to wander about, either visible or invisible, and feed on human victims. “According to all appearance, this ‘spirit’ then transmits through a mysterious and invisible cord of connection, which perhaps, some day may be explained, the results of the suction to the material body which lies inert at the bottom of the tomb, aiding it, in a manner, to perpetuate the state of catalepsy.”[686]

Brierre de Boismont gives a number of such cases, fully authenticated, which he is pleased to term “hallucinations.” A recent inquest, says a French paper, “has established that in 1871 two corpses were submitted to the infamous treatment of popular superstition, at the instigation of the clergy ... O blind prejudice!” But Dr. Pierart, quoted by des Mousseaux, who stoutly adheres to vampirism, exclaims: “Blind, you say? Yes, blind, as much as you like. But whence sprang these prejudices? Why are they perpetuated in all ages, and in so many countries? After a crowd of facts of vampirism so often proved, should we say that there are no more and that they never had a foundation? Nothing comes of nothing. Every belief, every custom springs from facts and causes which gave it birth. If one had never seen appear, in the bosom of families of certain countries, beings clothing themselves in the shape of the familiar dead, coming thus to suck the blood of one or of several persons, and if the death of the victims by emaciation had not followed, they would never have gone to disinter the corpses in cemeteries; we would never have had attested the incredible fact of persons buried for several years being found with the corpse soft, flexible, the eyes open, with rosy complexions, the mouth and nose full of blood, and of the blood running in torrents under blows, from wounds, and when decapitated.”[687]

One of the most important examples of vampirism figures in the private letters of the philosopher, the Marquis d’Argens; and, in the Revue Britannique, for March, 1837, the English traveller Pashley describes some that came under his notice in the island of Candia. Dr. Jobard, the anti-Catholic and anti-spiritual Belgian savant, testifies to similar experiences.[688]

“I will not examine,” wrote the Bishop d’Avranches Huet, “whether the facts of vampirism, which are constantly being reported, are true, or the fruit of a popular error; but it is certain that they are testified to by so many authors, able and trustworthy, and by so many eye-witnesses, that no one ought to decide upon the question without a good deal of caution.”[689]

The chevalier, who went to great pains to collect materials for his demonological theory, brings the most thrilling instances to prove that all such cases are produced by the Devil, who uses graveyard corpses with which to clothe himself, and roams at night sucking people’s blood. Methinks we could do very well without bringing this dusky personage upon the scene. If we are to believe at all in the return of spirits, there are plenty of wicked sensualists, misers, and sinners of other descriptions—especially suicides, who could have rivalled the Devil himself in malice in his best days. It is quite enough to be actually forced to believe in what we do see, and know to be a fact, namely spirits, without adding to our Pantheon of ghosts the Devil—whom nobody ever saw.

Still, there are interesting particulars to be gathered in relation to vampirism, since belief in this phenomenon has existed in all countries, from the remotest ages. The Slavonian nations, the Greeks, the Wallachians, and the Servians would rather doubt the existence of their enemies, the Turks, than the fact that there are vampires. The broucolâk, or vourdalak, as the latter are called, are but too familiar guests at the Slavonian fireside. Writers of the greatest ability, men as full of sagacity as of high integrity, have treated of the subject and believed in it. Whence, then, such a superstition? Whence that unanimous credence throughout the ages, and whence that identity in details and similarity of description as to that one particular phenomenon which we find in the testimony—generally sworn evidence—of peoples foreign to each other and differing widely in matters concerning other superstitions.

“There are,” says Dom Calmet, a skeptical Benedictine monk of the last century, “two different ways to destroy the belief in these pretended ghosts.... The first would be to explain the prodigies of vampirism by physical causes. The second way is to deny totally the truth of all such stories; and the latter plan would be undoubtedly the most certain, as the most wise.”[690]

The first way—that of explaining it by physical, though occult causes, is the one adopted by the Pierart school of mesmerism. It is certainly not the spiritualists who have a right to doubt the plausibility of this explanation. The second plan is that adopted by scientists and skeptics. They deny point-blank. As des Mousseaux remarks, there is no better or surer way, and none exacts less of either philosophy or science.

The spectre of a village herdsman, near Kodom, in Bavaria, began appearing to several inhabitants of the place, and either in consequence of their fright or some other cause, every one of them died during the following week. Driven to despair, the peasants disinterred the corpse, and pinned it to the ground with a long stake. The same night he appeared again, plunging people into convulsions of fright, and suffocating several of them. Then the village authorities delivered the body into the hands of the executioner, who carried it to a neighboring field and burned it. “The corpse,” says des Mousseaux, quoting Dom Calmet, “howled like a madman, kicking and tearing as if he had been alive. When he was run through again with sharp-pointed stakes, he uttered piercing cries, and vomited masses of crimson blood. The apparitions of this spectre ceased only after the corpse had been reduced to ashes.”[691]

Officers of justice visited the places said to be so haunted; the bodies were exhumed, and in nearly every case it was observed that the corpse suspected of vampirism looked healthy and rosy, and the flesh was in no way decaying. The objects which had belonged to these ghosts were observed moving about the house without any one touching them. But the legal authorities generally refused to resort to cremation and beheading before they had observed the strictest rules of legal procedure. Witnesses were summoned to appear, and evidence was heard and carefully weighed. After that the exhumed corpses were examined; and if they exhibited the unequivocal and characteristic signs of vampirism, they were handed over to the executioner.

“But,” argues Dom Calmet,[692] “the principal difficulty consists in learning how these vampires can quit their tombs, and how they reënter them, without appearing to have disturbed the earth in the least; how is it that they are seen with their usual clothing; how can they go about, and walk, and eat?... If this is all imagination on the part of those who believe themselves molested by such vampires, how happens it that the accused ghosts are subsequently found in their graves ... exhibiting no signs of decay, full of blood, supple and fresh? How explain the cause of their feet found muddy and covered with dirt on the day following the night they had appeared and frightened their neighbors, while nothing of the sort was ever found on other corpses buried in the same cemetery?[693] How is it again that once burned they never reappear? and that these cases should happen so often in this country that it is found impossible to cure people from this prejudice; for, instead of being destroyed, daily experience only fortifies the superstition in the people, and increases belief in it.”[694]

There is a phenomenon in nature unknown, and therefore rejected by physiology and psychology in our age of unbelief. This phenomenon is a state of half-death. Virtually, the body is dead; and, in cases of persons in whom matter does not predominate over spirit and wickedness not so great as to destroy spirituality, if left alone, their astral soul will disengage itself by gradual efforts, and, when the last link is broken, it finds itself separated forever from its earthly body. Equal magnetic polarity will violently repulse the ethereal man from the decaying organic mass. The whole difficulty lies in that 1, the ultimate moment of separation between the two is believed to be that when the body is declared dead by science; and 2, a prevailing unbelief in the existence of either soul or spirit in man, by the same science.

Pierart tries to demonstrate that in every case it is dangerous to bury people too soon, even though the body may show undoubted signs of putrefaction. “Poor dead cataleptics,” says the doctor, “buried as if quite dead, in cold and dry spots where morbid causes are incapable to effect the destruction of their bodies, their (astral) spirit enveloping itself with a fluidic body (ethereal) is prompted to quit the precincts of its tomb, and to exercise on living beings acts peculiar to physical life, especially that of nutrition, the result of which, by a mysterious link between soul and body, which spiritualistic science will explain some day, is forwarded to the material body lying still in its tomb, and the latter thus helped to perpetuate its vital existence.”[695] These spirits, in their ephemeral bodies, have been often seen coming out from the graveyard; they are known to have clung to their living neighbors, and have sucked their blood. Judicial inquiry has established that from this resulted an emaciation of the victimized persons, which often terminated in death.

Thus, following the pious advice of Dom Calmet, we must either go on denying, or, if human and legal testimonies are worth anything, accept the only explanation possible. “That souls departed are embodied in aërial or ætherial vehicles is most fully and plainly proved by those excellent men, Dr. C. and Dr. More,” says Glanvil, “and they have largely shown that this was the doctrine of the greatest philosophers and most ancient and aged fathers.”[696]

Görres, the German philosopher, says to the same effect, that “God never created man as a dead corpse, but as an animal full of life. Once He had thus produced him, finding him ready to receive the immortal breath, He breathed him in the face, and thus man became a double masterpiece in His hands. It is in the centre of life itself that this mysterious insufflation took place in the first man (race?); and thence were united the animal soul issued from earth, and the spirit emanating from heaven.”[697]

Des Mousseaux, in company with other Roman Catholic writers, exclaims: “This proposition is utterly anti-Catholic!” Well, and suppose it is? It may be archi-anti-Catholic, and still be logic, and offer a solution for many a psychological puzzle. The sun of science and philosophy shines for every one; and if Catholics, who hardly number one-seventh part of the population of the globe, do not feel satisfied, perhaps the many millions of people of other religions who outnumber them, will.

And now, before parting with this repulsive subject of vampirism, we will give one more illustration, without other voucher than the statement that it was given to us by apparently trustworthy witnesses.

About the beginning of the present century, there occurred in Russia, one of the most frightful cases of vampirism on record. The governor of the Province of Tch—— was a man of about sixty years, of a malicious, tyrannical, cruel, and jealous disposition. Clothed with despotic authority, he exercised it without stint, as his brutal instincts prompted. He fell in love with the pretty daughter of a subordinate official. Although the girl was betrothed to a young man whom she loved, the tyrant forced her father to consent to his having her marry him; and the poor victim, despite her despair, became his wife. His jealous disposition exhibited itself. He beat her, confined her to her room for weeks together, and prevented her seeing any one except in his presence. He finally fell sick and died. Finding his end approaching, he made her swear never to marry again; and with fearful oaths, threatened that, in case she did, he would return from his grave and kill her. He was buried in the cemetery across the river; and the young widow experienced no further annoyance, until, nature getting the better of her fears, she listened to the importunities of her former lover, and they were again betrothed.

On the night of the customary betrothal-feast, when all had retired, the old mansion was aroused by shrieks proceeding from her room. The doors were burst open, and the unhappy woman was found lying on her bed, in a swoon. At the same time a carriage was heard rumbling out of the courtyard. Her body was found to be black and blue in places, as from the effect of pinches, and from a slight puncture on her neck drops of blood were oozing. Upon recovering, she stated that her deceased husband had suddenly entered her room, appearing exactly as in life, with the exception of a dreadful pallor; that he had upbraided her for her inconstancy, and then beaten and pinched her most cruelly. Her story was disbelieved; but the next morning, the guard stationed at the other end of the bridge which spans the river, reported that, just before midnight, a black coach and six had driven furiously past them, toward the town, without answering their challenge.

The new governor, who disbelieved the story of the apparition, took nevertheless the precaution of doubling the guards across the bridge. The same thing happened, however, night after night; the soldiers declaring that the toll-bar at their station near the bridge would rise of itself, and the spectral equipage sweep by them despite their efforts to stop it. At the same time every night, the coach would rumble into the courtyard of the house; the watchers, including the widow’s family, and the servants, would be thrown into a heavy sleep; and every morning the young victim would be found bruised, bleeding, and swooning as before. The town was thrown into consternation. The physicians had no explanations to offer; priests came to pass the night in prayer, but as midnight approached, all would be seized with the terrible lethargy. Finally, the archbishop of the province came, and performed the ceremony of exorcism in person, but the following morning the governor’s widow was found worse than ever. She was now brought to death’s door.

The governor was finally driven to take the severest measures to stop the ever-increasing panic in the town. He stationed fifty Cossacks along the bridge, with orders to stop the spectre-carriage at all hazards. Promptly at the usual hour, it was heard and seen approaching from the direction of the cemetery. The officer of the guard, and a priest bearing a crucifix, planted themselves in front of the toll-bar, and together shouted: “In the name of God, and the Czar, who goes there?” Out of the coach-window was thrust a well-remembered head, and a familiar voice responded: “The Privy Councillor of State and Governor, C——!” At the same moment, the officer, the priest, and the soldiers were flung aside as by an electric shock, and the ghostly equipage passed by them, before they could recover breath.

The archbishop then resolved, as a last expedient, to resort to the time-honored plan of exhuming the body, and pinning it to the earth with an oaken stake driven through its heart. This was done with great religious ceremony in the presence of the whole populace. The story is that the body was found gorged with blood, and with red cheeks and lips. At the instant that the first blow was struck upon the stake, a groan issued from the corpse, and a jet of blood spurted high into the air. The archbishop pronounced the usual exorcism, the body was reïnterred, and from that time no more was heard of the vampire.

How far the facts of this case may have been exaggerated by tradition, we cannot say. But we had it years ago from an eye-witness; and at the present day there are families in Russia whose elder members will recall the dreadful tale.

As to the statement found in medical books that there are frequent cases of inhumation while the subjects are but in a cataleptic state, and the persistent denials of specialists that such things happen, except very rarely, we have but to turn to the daily press of every country to find the horrid fact substantiated. The Rev. H. R. Haweis, M. A., author of Ashes to Ashes,[698] enumerates in his work, written in advocacy of cremation, some very distressing cases of premature burial. On page forty-six occurs the following dialogue:

“But do you know of many cases of premature burial?”

“Undoubtedly I do. I will not say that in our temperate climate they are frequent, but they do occur. Hardly a graveyard is opened but coffins are found containing bodies not only turned, but skeletons contorted in the last hopeless struggle for life underground. The turning may be due to some clumsy shaking of the coffin, but not the contortion.”

After this he proceeds to give the following recent cases:

“At Bergerac (Dordogne), in 1842, the patient took a sleeping draught ... but he woke not.... They bled him, and he woke not.... At last they declared him to be dead, and buried him. After a few days, remembering the sleeping draught, they opened the grave. The body had turned and struggled.”

“The Sunday Times, December 30, 1838, relates that at Tonneins, Lower Garonne, a man was buried, when an indistinct noise proceeded from the coffin; the reckless grave-digger fled.... The coffin was hauled up and burst open. A face stiffened in terror and despair, a torn winding-sheet, contorted limbs, told the sad truth—too late.”

“The Times, May, 1874, states that in August of 1873, a young lady died soon after her marriage.... Within a year the husband married again, and the mother of his first bride resolved to remove her daughter’s body to Marseilles. They opened the vault and found the poor girl’s body prostrate, her hair dishevelled, her shroud torn to pieces.”[699]

As we will have to refer to the subject once more in connection with Bible miracles, we will leave it for the present, and return to magical phenomena.

If we were to give a full description of the various manifestations which take place among adepts in India and other countries, we might fill volumes, but this would be profitless, as there would remain no space for explanation. Therefore we select in preference such as either find their parallels in modern phenomena or are authenticated by legal inquiry. Horst tried to present an idea of certain Persian spirits to his readers, and failed; for the bare mention of some of them is calculated to set the brains of a believer in a whirl. There are the Devs and their specialities; the Darwands and their gloomy tricks; the Shadim and Djinnas; the whole vast legion of spirits, demons, goblins, and elves of the Persian calendar; and, on the other hand, the Jewish Seraphim, Cherubim, Izeds, Amshaspands, Sephiroth, Malachim, Elohim; and, adds Horst, “the millions of astral and elementary spirits, of intermediary spirits, ghosts, and imaginary beings of all races and colors.”[700]

But the majority of these spirits have naught to do with the phenomena consciously and deliberately produced by the Eastern magicians. The latter repudiate such an accusation and leave to sorcerers the help even of elemental spirits and the elementary spooks. The adept has an unlimited power over both, but he rarely uses it. For the production of physical phenomena he summons the nature-spirits as obedient powers, not as intelligences.

As we always like to strengthen our arguments by testimonies other than our own, it may be well to present the opinion of a daily paper, the Boston Herald, as to phenomena in general and mediums in particular. Having encountered sad failures with some dishonest persons, who may or may not be mediumistic, the writer went to the trouble of ascertaining as to some wonders said to be produced in India, and compares them with those of modern thaumaturgy.

“The medium of the present day,” he says, “bears a closer resemblance, in methods and manipulations, to the well-known conjurer of history, than any other representative of the magic art. How far short he still remains of the performances of his prototypes is illustrated below. In 1615 a delegation of highly-educated and distinguished men from the English East India Company visited the Emperor Jehangire. While on their mission they witnessed many most wonderful performances, almost causing them to discredit their senses, and far beyond any hint even of solution. A party of Bengalese conjurers and jugglers, showing their art before the emperor, were desired to produce upon the spot, and from seed, ten mulberry trees. They immediately planted ten seeds, which, in a few minutes produced as many trees. The ground divided over the spot where a seed was planted, tiny leaves appeared, at once followed by slender shoots, which rapidly gained elevation, putting out leaves and twigs and branches, finally spreading wide in the air, budding, blossoming and yielding fruit, which matured upon the spot, and was found to be excellent. And this before the beholder had turned away his eyes. Fig, almond, mango, and walnut trees were at the same time under like conditions produced, yielding the fruit which belonged to each. Wonder succeeded wonder. The branches were filled with birds of beautiful plumage flitting about among the leaves and singing sweet notes. The leaves turned to russet, fell from their places, branches and twigs withered, and finally the trees sank back into the earth, out of which they had all sprang within the hour.

“Another had a bow and about fifty steel-pointed arrows. He shot an arrow into the air, when, lo! the arrow became fixed in space at a considerable height. Another and another arrow was sent off, each fixing itself in the shaft of the preceding, until all formed a chain of arrows in the air, excepting the last shot, which, striking the chain, brought the whole to the ground in detachments.

“They set up two common tents facing each other, and about a bowshot apart. These tents were critically examined by the spectators, as are the cabinets of the mediums, and pronounced empty. The tents were fastened to the ground all around. The lookers-on were then invited to choose what animals or birds they would have issue from these tents to engage in a battle. Khaun-e-Jahaun incredulously asked to see a fight between ostriches. In a few minutes an ostrich came out from each tent, rushed to combat with deadly earnestness, and from them the blood soon began to stream; but they were so nearly matched that neither could win the victory, and they were at last separated by the conjurers and conveyed within the tents. After this the varied demands of the spectators for birds and animals were exactly complied with, always with the same results.

“A large cauldron was set, and into it a quantity of rice thrown. Without the sign of fire this rice soon began to boil, and out from the cauldron was taken more than one hundred platters of cooked rice, with a stewed fowl at the top of each. This trick is performed on a smaller scale by the most ordinary fakirs of the present day.

“But space fails to give opportunity for illustrating, from the records of the past, how the miserably tame performances—by comparison—of the mediums of the present day were pale and overshadowed by those of other days and more adroit peoples. There is not a wonderful feature in any of the so-called phenomena or manifestations which was not, nay, which is not now more than duplicated by other skilful performers, whose connection with earth, and earth alone, is too evident to be doubted, even if the fact was not supported by their own testimony.”

It is an error to say that fakirs or jugglers will always claim that they are helped by spirits. In quasi-religious evocations, such as Jacolliot’s Kovindasami is described to have produced before this French gentleman, when the parties desire to see real “spiritual” manifestations, they will resort to Pitris, their disembodied ancestors, and other pure spirits. These they can evoke but through prayer. As to all other phenomena, they are produced by the magician and fakir at will. Notwithstanding the state of apparent abjectness in which the latter lives, he is often an initiate of the temples, and is as well acquainted with occultism as his richer brethren.

The Chaldeans, whom Cicero counts among the oldest magicians, placed the basis of all magic in the inner powers of man’s soul, and by the discernment of magic properties in plants, minerals, and animals. By the aid of these they performed the most wonderful “miracles.” Magic, with them, was synonymous with religion and science. It is but later that the religious myths of the Magdean dualism, disfigured by Christian theology and euhemerized by certain fathers of the Church, assumed the disgusting shape in which we find them expounded by such Catholic writers as des Mousseaux. The objective reality of the mediæval incubus and succubus, that abominable superstition of the middle ages which cost so many human lives, advocated by this author in a whole volume, is the monstrous production of religious fanaticism and epilepsy. It can have no objective form; and to attribute its effects to the Devil is blasphemy: implying that God, after creating Satan, would allow him to adopt such a course. If we are forced to believe in vampirism, it is on the strength of two irrefragable propositions of occult psychological science: 1. The astral soul is a separable distinct entity of our ego, and can roam far away from the body without breaking the thread of life. 2. The corpse is not utterly dead, and while it can yet be reëntered by its tenant, the latter can gather sufficient material emanations from it to enable itself to appear in a quasi-terrestrial shape. But to uphold, with des Mousseaux and de Mirville, that the Devil, whom the Catholics endow with a power which, in antagonism, equals that of the Supreme Deity, transforms himself into wolves, snakes, and dogs, to satisfy his lust and procreate monsters, is an idea within which lie hidden the germs of devil-worship, lunacy, and sacrilege. The Catholic Church, which not only teaches us to believe in this monstrous fallacy, but forces her missionaries to preach such a dogma, need not revolt against the devil-worship of some Parsee and South India sects. Quite the reverse; for when we hear the Yezides repeat the well-known proverb: “Keep friends with the demons; give them your property, your blood, your service, and you need not care about God—He will not harm you,” we find him but consistent with his belief and reverential to the Supreme; his logic is sound and rational; he reveres God too deeply to imagine that He who created the universe and its laws is able to hurt him, poor atom; but the demons are there; they are imperfect, and therefore he has good reasons to dread them.

Therefore, the Devil, in his various transformations, can be but a fallacy. When we imagine that we see, and hear, and feel him, it is but too often the reflection of our own wicked, depraved, and polluted soul that we see, hear, and feel. Like attracts like, they say; thus, according to the mood in which our astral form oozes out during the hours of sleep, according to our thoughts, pursuits, and daily occupations, all of which are fairly impressed upon the plastic capsule called the human soul, the latter attracts around itself spiritual beings congenial to itself. Hence some dreams and visions that are pure and beautiful, others fiendish and beastly. The person awakes, and either hastens to the confessional, or laughs in callous indifference at the thought. In the first case, he is promised final salvation, at the cost of some indulgences (which he has to purchase from the church), and perhaps a little taste of purgatory, or even of hell. What matter? is he not safe to be eternal and immortal, do what he may? It is the Devil. Away with him, with bell, book, and holy sprinkler! But the “Devil” comes back, and often the true believer is forced to disbelieve in God, when he clearly perceives that the Devil has the best of his Creator and Master. Then he is left to the second emergency. He remains indifferent, and gives himself up entirely to the Devil. He dies, and the reader has learned the sequel in the preceding chapters.

The thought is beautifully expressed by Dr. Ennemoser: “Religion did not here [Europe and China] strike root so deeply as among the Hindus,” says he, arguing upon this superstition. “The spirit of the Greeks and Persians was more volatile.... The philosophical idea in the good and bad principle, and of the spiritual world ... must have assisted tradition in forming visions of heavenly and hellish shapes, and the most frightful distortions, which in India were much more simply produced by a more enthusiastic fanaticism; there the seer received by divine light; here he lost himself in a multitude of outward objects, with which he confounded his own identity. Convulsions, accompanied by the mind’s absence from the body, in distant countries, were here common, for the imagination was less firm, and also less spiritual.

“The outward causes are also different; the modes of life, geographical position, and artificial means producing various modifications. The mode of life in Western countries has always been very variable, and therefore disturbs and distorts the occupation of the senses, and the outward life is therefore reflected upon the inner dream-world. The spirits, therefore, are of endless varieties of shape, and incline men to gratify their passions, showing them the means of so doing, and descending even to the minutest particulars, which was so far below the elevated natures of Indian seers.”

Let the student of occult sciences make his own nature as pure and his thoughts as elevated as those of these Indian seers, and he may sleep unmolested by vampire, incubus, or succubus. Around the insensible form of such a sleeper the immortal spirit sheds a power divine that protects it from evil approaches, as though it were a crystal wall.

“Hæc murus æneus esto: nil conscire sibi, nulla pallascere culpa.”