HPB-SB-10-132

T i

vol. 10, p. 132

H. P. Blavatsky Scrapbooks

from Adyar archives of the International Theosophical Society

vol. 10

 

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Random Readings

By Captain R. F. Burton.

Your notice of Paul Jopper, of Madras (The Spiritualist,'' November 7tli), dimly reminds me of having heard something about the man, but memory goes no farther. Your Indian correspondent will supply you with many cases more or less similar, the results of studying the phenomena of Spiritualism in the East. They will be the more interesting' at the present time when the process, which I have expected for years, is beginning to do palpable work. It was evident to Anglo-Indians, endowed with the rare attribute of common sense, that had India sent as many units of Hindu missionaries to England as England has sent dozens of English missionaries and missioners to India, Hinduism by this time would have taken deep root in Mlenchha. Island. The prospectus of the Theosophic Society will open some eyes to this modicum of truth.

Paul Jopper is another confirmation of my old thesis, viz: “Some such force or power (Spiritualism without the Spirits) the traveller is compelled to postulate, even in the absence of proof,”—an assertion so distasteful to the Daily Telegraph (Nov.'' 14, 1876). Without a trace, even “down in the deepest depths,” of belief regarding things spiritual, as good- natured friends suggest, I am still convinced that if we had no such entity as phenomenal Spiritualism, we travellers should be obliged to invent it. As a factor of the product called human knowledge it represents Austria in the politics of Europe.

During the last few months I have been obliged to turn over a number of books not generally read, and you are welcome to my extracts from them. The first shall be good old Ibn Batutah, of Fez, who travelled between Morocco and China in A.D. 1324—54. One passage (Lee’s translation, pp. 161, 162) runs as follows:—

I was once in the presence of the Emperor of Hindustan, when two of these Jogees, wrapped up in a cloak, with their heads covered (for they take out all their hair with powder), fame in. The Emperor caressed them and said, pointing to me—This is a stranger; show him what lie has never seen. They said, We will. One of them then assumed the form of a cube, and arose from the earth, and in this (cubic) shape he occupied a place in the air over our heads. I was so much astonished and terrified at this that I fainted and fell to the earth. The Emperor then ordered me some medicine which he had with him, and upon tasting this I recovered and sat up, the cubic figure still remaining in the air just as it had been. His companion then took a sandal belonging to one of those who Had come out with him, and struck it upon the ground as if lie had been angry. The sandal then ascended until it became opposite the cube; it then struck it upon the heel, and the cube descended gradually to the ground, and at last rested in the place which it had left. The Emperor then told me that the man who took the form of a cube was a disciple to the owner of the sandal; and, continued he, bad 1 not entertained fears for the safety of thy intellect, I should have ordered them to show thee greater things than these. From this, however, I took a palpitation of the heart, until the Emperor ordered me a medicine which restored me.

Note that Ibn Batutah, a learned and devout Moslem, must have been well acquainted with the magic of Marocco; that he had no object in inventing such an adventure; and that the power belonged to another and a hostile faith—Paganism. He uses to that effect the word “Jogiin your issue of Nov. 7, I read of “Indian fakirs”'' The difference is that the former is a Hindu, the latter a Hindi (Mahommedan).

The next is Ludovico di Varthema (or Bartema), gentleman of Rome, who travelled eastwards between A.D. 1503—7. He gives the following account of medical clairvoyance (p. 167, Hakluyt's edition) in the chapter concerning the physicians who visit the sick in Calicut:—

When a Pagan (i.e.'' Hindu) merchant is sick and in great danger, the above-mentioned instruments, and the aforesaid men, dressed like devils, go to visit the sick man, and they go at two or three a.m., and the said men, so dressed, carry lire in their mouths, and in each of their hands; and on their feet they wear two crutches of wood, which arc one pace (two feet- and a half?) high, and in this manner they go shouting and sounding their instruments, so that truly if the person were not ill, he would fall to the ground from terror at seeing these ugly boasts. And these are the physicians who visit the sick man. And though they should fill the stomach full up to the mouth, they pound three roots of ginger and make a cup of juice, and this they- drink, and in three days they no longer have any illness,'' so that they live exactly like beasts.

The last assertion appears to be somewhat of a non sequitur.'' Varthema’s learned editor, Rev. G. Percy Badger, noticing this “medical thaumaturgy,” quotes Buchanan concerning the Pakanet or Telinga Jogis. “Their virtuous men after death are supposed to become a kind of gods, and frequently to inspire the living, which makes them speak incoherently, and enables them to foretell the event of diseases.” We have also references to Forbes “Ras Mala” (chapter on Shoots, or Apparitions, ii., 379—400); and to the Bombay Quarterly Magazine, for Oct., 1850.

Even the Dark Continent shows a gleam of spiritualistic light. Old William Bosman, who wrote his “Description of the Guinea Coast” in 1700, says (Letter xxi.), treating of “Great Benin:” —

They talk much concerning the apparition of the ghosts of their ancestors and relations, which yet happens only to them in their sleep, when they come and warn them to make this or that offering; which, as soon as day approaches, they immediately do: if they are unable, they will, rather than fail in this duly, borrow of others, for they imagine that the neglect hereof would draw on them some heavy affliction). If any person in raillery tells them bi that they are only idle imaginations and dreams these will agree with him, but add it is a custom of our forefathers, which we are obliged to follow.

The old Dutchman ends, “To conclude their ridiculous religion I shall add a small account of their festivals, of which they have so many arid so different, that they ought not to yield to any Romanist.” In these days, many would not find the ghost-stories so “ridiculous.”

Camoens, a traveller and a poet, shall be the K connection between travellers and poets. It is distinctly spiritualistic when he writes (The Lusiads,'' x. 83):—

Os que sao bons, guiando favorecem, Os maos, em quanto podem, nos empecem. “Good Sprites with favour human footsteps lead, Bad Spirits, when they can, our course impede.”

Turning over the Lives of Petrarch, and other neo-Latin poets, I come upon many passages interesting to Spiritualists, for instance:—

Having received frequent invitations to Lourdes (Gascony) from the Bishop (the amiable Giacomo Colonna), Petrarch looked forward with pleasure to the time when he should revisit him. But he received accounts that the Bishop was taken dangerously ill. Whilst his mind was agitated by this news he had the following dream, which lie has himself related:—“Methought I saw the Bishop crossing the rivulet of my garden alone. He <... continues on page 10-133 >

Editor's notes

Sources

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  London Spiritualist, No. 381, December 12, 1879, pp. 280-81