CHAPTER XI

ORIENTAL OCCULTISM

The Orient hides many secrets of occultism, and it is almost a platitude that the few secrets that the West has painfully deciphered have been known for all time to the East--and are nothing remarkable.

This is one of those large gestures of speech that contain a half-truth and pass for a whole truth. It is on a par with the statement that all Chinese business men are honest--which they are not. Oriental occultism is far too vast a subject to be accepted or dismissed as summarily as this, but one thing is certain and that is that Oriental occult systems are not suitable to the Western man.

There are one or two cardinal points that may be grasped at once. Firstly, the exiled native in a Western country who claims occult powers and the gift of being able to teach and transmit them is always and invariably a fakir of the lowest kind. He is usually a low-caste and disreputable native or half-breed, and it may be accounted to his credit that after all he is not expected to know any better. His dupes, on the other hand, the white men and women that listen to his balderdash and sit at his séances, are even guiltier parties than he is. They at least ought to know better than to listen to the first black-and-tan “Swami” or “Guru” that establishes a bogus tabernacle in the backwaters of Balham or Bayswater.

The second point is that the true Eastern occultist, whatever his grade of adeptship in his mysteries, never practises any of his arts or knowledge for money or equivalent reward. This is a lesson which might well be learned by the fraternity of mediums and so-called occultists that infest London and other great cities at home and abroad.

A medium in receipt of fees for séances or lectures will never and can never develop his or her powers beyond the stage at which they have arrived when it becomes possible to use them as a direct or indirect means of making money.

In the East this is realized, and the vow of poverty is more than a metaphor, but they claim that it is a poverty of the body fully repaid by riches of the soul.

Practically the whole of Hindu occultism is best described as peculiar methods of self-hypnosis with the object of provoking states of bliss and ecstasy. It is upon the basis of the induction of these peculiar phenomena that ninety per cent. of the Brahmin religious cults are established. By one path or another the various beliefs attain earnest of fulfilment, but the primary causes of these psychical phenomena are physiological in origin.

This material path to spiritual success is admitted and glossed over as being but part of the mystery. None the less, there is little to show that anything beyond these self-produced states of hypnotism or suggested phenomena are ever attained by even the greatest of the adepts, and there is no justification of their dogmatic religious teachings even in the results attained.

The Oriental mind is more easily freed from the shackles of the body than is the Western organism. Just as the hold of the average native upon life is inferior to a European’s, so is the native’s mastery of conscious will far less. The faculties of clairvoyance can be created by almost every dominant European in any young native, and they are both physically and psychically an inferior race.

It is because of their greater racial familiarity and acquaintance with the occult that the myth of their spiritual supremacy has been born. The unheeding deem every Easterner a potential mage, unknowing that he only develops his psychic gifts, which are in point of fact mental weaknesses, when in contact with a far more powerfully organized Western will.

The organized powers of occult India have loathed and hated British rule since pre-Mutiny days. In a very few rare cases, black magic--often allied with native poisons--has killed a white man, but on the whole the result has been a pitiful demonstration compared to what these magi should have been capable of.

Occultism in India is built to serve but one end, the domination of lesser castes by those who master its secrets and have aptitude to impose their powers on others. In the past it stood for an amazing tyranny, and for this reason--its lost criminal powers--it is opposed to British rule.

It is noteworthy that the English Society of Theosophists, whose jig-saw religion is largely compounded of Oriental elements, is now prominently identified with schemes for the political emancipation of India, which will reinforce the tyrannous power of the Brahmin.

The whole scheme of Oriental occultism is quite incomprehensible without a sound basic knowledge of the religious systems of which it is part and parcel. These enjoy a difficult and complex nomenclature, and their words have been borrowed indiscriminately without due respect to their precise meaning.

Yoga conveys a certain popular meaning, but it must be remembered that there are numberless Yogas, subdivided again into endless subvariants.

The initiate undergoes a prolonged course of mental and physical training designed to stimulate concentration of the will and subdue the body.

Little by little the faculties of surrender to ecstatic forms of self-hypnosis are induced, Ananda or “bliss,” either material or spiritual ecstasy, according to the Yoga practised, being the end of the process.

The full development of the powers of a Yogi is beset with all kinds of dangers and difficulties. The physical strain is a severe one and the psychic dangers encountered considerable. The evil spirits of the West find their Oriental counterparts in Pisachas, Shahinis, Bhirtas, Pretas, and Rakshashas, all malignant and terrible manifestations of the demon world.

In the end, certain types of Yogi appear to develop the full talents of a materializing medium and are capable of producing the phenomena that we associate with a medium of the power of Eusapia Palladino. But--and it is a very important “but”--these phenomena are capable of production in full tropic daylight.

From the days of Jacolliot[51] to those of recent Theosophical investigations, Oriental magic has never been brought to real test conditions, but in the records gathered by independent students there is ample ground for stating that the genuine occult phenomena (as distinct from mere fakir’s conjuring tricks) occur independently of darkness or special light conditions.

When we consider the fuss made by European mediums over even twilight conditions, it is remarkable that these offer no obstacle to the Oriental “spirits.”

These phenomena, too, are not confined to orthodox Hindu, Brahmin, Tantvik, or Guru followers of any particular creed, race, or religion. Certain Indian Moslem sects produce devotees capable of equivalent phenomena, but variants of obscure Tibetan sects, Burmese, Malay, Mohammedans, and followers of both theistic and pantheistic religions have equal powers.

The idolater, the Muslim, and the Christian medium all share the same belief in “spirit” control and in certain states produce the same results. Where we may learn something from the East is not in the line of morals, for their morals are different from ours--and many of their religious customs revoltingly beastly--but in the way of the physical induction of the psychic state.

The basis of a great many Yogas is the liberation of psychoplasm and ectoplasm by a combination of concentration on certain internal centres and the repetition of spells or sonorous magical evocations.

These affect the breathing so that in effect the body is subjected to a definite rhythmical vibration. It is physical exercise of mind and brain, applying mind-force to the stimulation and excitement of internal nerve centres.

These six centres are visualized mentally as lotuses. They cannot be precisely located in scientific anatomy, but correspond in most cases with central nervous plexuses and they are as well known in Mohammedan and Zoroastrian mystic cults, as they are in the Indian Upanishads and Tantras, and are familiar to the Indians of Yucatan and Guatemala, where ritual, combined with a species of physical massage, is employed to initiate the hierophant into the tribal mysteries.

The school of Western occultists who hold the theory of the all-pervading astral or magic light or fire, hold that these “centres” open, or act as concentrators of an exterior, all-prevailing force which is thus conducted to the consciousness, enabling the operator to make contact with another plane.

In the Oriental theory this force is deemed to be always latent in the body, and is aroused, evoked, or stimulated in particular ways. The discussion of the relative values of these two main schools of thought--static and dynamic light--or their variants is beyond the scope of these notes.

The lowest of the lotuses or centres is the nerve centre within the body in the region of the prostatic gland, the next is midway between this and the third which is the navel centre or solar plexus. The fourth is nominally the heart, the fifth, that at the base of the throat, the sixth, that between the eyebrows. In visualizing these lotuses with the “mental eye,” the depth back in the body of each centre is assumed to be close to the spine.

Mind force is concentrated by the Yogi under the name Vogabala, and in Oriental black magic this is concentrated on the lowest centre, according to the ritual of the infamous Prayoga, with the result of inducing sexual hallucinations.

In the so-called white or mediumistic magic, the centre of energy is apparently by the third centre (the navel), for materialization phenomena, and the fifth, or base of the throat centre for clairaudience.

Those who can reach the sixth claim the power of astral voyaging in the spirit world and perception of things on the mortal plane at a distance.

The physiology of the process is not yet understood, but following on the breathing processes or Pranayama, which relax the body and induce certain rhythms, a progressive excitation and rigor of the centres is induced by autohypnosis. The nerve centres control various limbs and functions, and as each is “put to sleep” so the Yogi becomes rigid and cataleptic.

Yogis are able to hold out their arms for hours at a stretch without apparent fatigue--so in the same way can a hypnotized subject be placed in an attitude of rigidity by an operator.

These progressive inhibitions of functions cannot be achieved by the Western occultist without the most careful study and painstaking preparations. The practices are both mentally and physically dangerous, but when mastered either in part or in whole, they can be evoked by systems entirely at variance with the accepted Indian methods. In fact, certain nonsense rhymes of the same rhythm and breathing values as some of the Tantric spells or mantras are equally efficacious.

There was infinite wisdom in the old law of magic which said “Change not the _barbaric_ names of evocation,” but if they were changed, provided rhythm and breathing are preserved, the sense does not appear to matter. If one verse of Macaulay’s “Horatius”[52] was a powerful spell--almost any other verse in the same poem would produce the same effect--if delivered in the same way.

This argument is sometimes used by a sceptic, but after all it only proves that the same result can be produced by analogous means. Salt disappears when dissolved in water, but so it does in half a dozen other liquids.

The tales of life on other planes brought back by native spirits evoked by Oriental magicians in no way tally with Western accounts, but as phallic worship is integral with many Eastern beliefs, it is no matter for wonder that some Eastern spirit evidence concerning the next plane would make the most hardened Western libertine blush. They also affirm with considerable emphasis that on the next plane nationalities and colour lines are unknown, a point which is reinforced by the number of ex-coloured spirits which frequent Western séances.

It is indeed difficult to know what to believe.

The Yogis can produce phenomena of materialization, prolonged trance states, and can sometimes act as powerful hypnotists and seize the Durga, literally citadel, of another’s body. On the other hand, the net yield of all purely Indian occultism is very disappointing. This may be due to the selflessness inculcated in their religious teaching, which subdues love and hatred as equal enemies of spiritual progress. If their magic were efficient, much more would be done with it, and the consensus of general opinion is that despite its extraordinary interest to the mystic and the scholar it has little to offer of interest to the Spiritualist.

Certain of lesser known Yogas which do produce astonishing phenomena belong definitely to the domain of black magic and only parallel certain well-known outbreaks of phallic sorcery that occurred in Europe in the Middle Ages.

The cult of evocation is held by some students to have spread from India to the Arab races, but more recent investigations suggest that the astonishing performances achieved by certain nominally Moslem sects in the fastnesses of Tripoli and Morocco are due to the survivals from the aborigines of those lands rather than to Oriental ideas.

The Berbers are a distinct primitive race akin to the Basques, and probably identical with the ancient Britons who built Stonehenge. To-day they are fanatical Moslemin, but the old practices linger as rituals of specific religious cults, such as the Sufi Senoussi and the Aissouri of Morocco. They are racially strange folk and the Moslem veneer is only a lay religion imposed on a mass of pagan folklore closely connected with serpent worship and astronomical observances. Their festivals of the solstices have an outward-seeming Muslim connection, but the inner hidden occult religion is a far older thing.

The Berbers are not of Arab stock; they are Semitic and they are probably pre-Aryan. Some writers[53] trace their connection to the original Firbolgs of Iceland, and the ethnology of this mysterious race is still a matter of speculation and doubt.

Pre-eminent among their distinctive differences from the ordinary Arab is the esteem in which they hold women. Women are chieftainesses among them, and above all the women are the repositories of the lost lore of magic. It is to them that the tribesmen turn for the carrying out of the mystic harvest ceremonies, the charming of unfruitful fields, and the lighting of the magic Beltane fires.

Fire plays no inconsiderable part in their rituals, and is only called by its Arabic name el-aafeats (the comforter) when used for domestic purposes. The sacrificial and ceremonial fires are always spoken of either in the Shilluh or Schluch tongue--the true Berber language or referred to as B’lnisac, a term whose philology is unknown, but which apparently contains the age-old Bel or Baal motive.

This fire cult, coupled with a still more mystical inner creed symbolized by serpent worship, may be noted by the student explorer among the Berber folk. Riffis, Mashed Hojja Tuareks of the Sahara, certain Kabyles of Tripoli, and other tribes all belong to the same strange race, and there are reasons for believing that the Berbers are identical with the mystical Fairies--the Good People--so called from a propitiatory irony because they were so amazingly bad.

Berbers alone of savage folk raid and kill at night. They are essentially a people of the dark, and he who sifts the mass of terrible folklore about the earliest fairies in Britain will find a parallel between these terrible unholy barbarians given to sorcery, necromancy and unholy rites, the stealing of children for sacrificial purposes, and other glossed horrors attributed to the Good People--and the Berber races of to-day.

The practices continue.

In 1909 I was travelling in the Gharb country of Morocco, where there is a large Berber element. The French occupation of the Shawiah and the meteoric rise of Sultan Mulai Hafid had left the country unsettled and dangerous.

Beyond a war correspondent or two and a handful of German engineers--or spies, employed by the firm of Marmesman--there were no Europeans in the country outside of the coast towns. For the capital and Manahesh the big cities of the South were closed, and a Christian’s life was nowhere worth a moment’s purchase among the fanatics.

I am but an indifferent Arabic scholar, but a certain knowledge of classical Hebrew served one well, for there are many debased Jews in Morocco. For the rest, as the high-class Moors are a fair race and often blue-eyed, travelling in native clothes and well bronzed by the sun I suffered no molestation and could rely on the fidelity of my four body-servants.

Some five days’ ride northwest of the argan forests of the coast belt, I was well within Berber territory. This was mostly stony hill lands, for Morocco is simply rock deserts and hills, interspersed with lightly watered fertile valleys and occasional oases of poplar-sheltered walls.

The holy city of Tarudant lay to the north of me, and I had crossed the Wadi Sifan river and was going south from the Iber Kaken Pass on the caravan route east into the Ait Jellal country.

There, deep in the hills, lies the ruin of a Roman city of which strange tales are told. It is even not certain that it is Roman, for a volume of notes, painstakingly compiled for fifteen years by a resident in a coast town, discloses unmistakable Phœnician characteristics, but I at least cannot tell, for my expedition had to beat a swift retreat a bare two days’ march from the nominal valley of the dead city.

It was on the way there that my little troop of horsemen and pack mules halted at the Berber village of M’Aerbil Ida and were received as guests of honour for the night. The village was a curious medley of thorn and cactus fences, cane-thatched huts, and deep caves cut in the friable freestone rock of the mountain side.

The men wore the close-knitted wool caps of the country and had the curious snake-like head angles and the long, curving sidelock and thin beards of coarse hair that just distinguish these strange, elf-like folk. Something in their broad cheekbones and curious pale eyes suggests the snake.

Mohammed-el-Suissi, my horse boy, told me as he pitched my tent that he did not like the village or the people; “they were,” he said, “not good Moslemin.” As religious orthodoxy was not one of Mohammed’s strong points, I did not worry much, but when Hassan-el-Askri, my soldier muleteer, warned me to keep my arms about me I realized that my Moors considered that not even the law of desert hospitality was held inviolate among these folk.

There is, however, a brotherhood of initiates of which I am a member, whose signs are recognized in many parts of the globe. Gesticulation is a feature of polite Arabic conversation, and I soon secured an answering sign from one of the head-men of the tribe. Within half an hour nobody in that village would have dared to steal the least of my belongings.

I had considerable difficulty in carrying on my conversation as my Arabic, apart from ordinary needs of travel, was weak and classical rather than popular. The Berbers, too, always spoke of these things in their own tongue, Shilluh, and none of my entourage being initiate I had no interpreter.

My host was Sidi-el-Belarni, an old chieftain who was also a _shereef_--that is, a lineal descendant of the Prophet and a person of sanctity. He soon dropped the mask of orthodoxy and conversed freely on the metaphysical side of his cult. I found it easier to understand than to converse with him, but gained an easier appreciation as I got used to it.

I stayed a second day in the village, as one of our animals was badly lamed and needed rest, and took occasion to ask him concerning the art of reviving the dead to temporary life which the Berbers are commonly held to possess.

He made no objections to my questions, and, to my delight, offered to give me a demonstration if the ritual of the women who held the secrets would consent to exhibit them. At noon I was taken to a kind of tribal palaver and the matter was put to a species of test or judgment by lot. A young girl was blindfolded and given a basket containing short and long sticks. Certain prayers and incantations were performed and she passed into a semi-trance state.

My permission depended on her selection of a majority of short sticks, but as I could not see the sticks, and she was in a state of light hypnosis, I made occasion to recite one or two resounding Hebrew charms and laid my hands on her head; after that, all was easy. Her will obeyed mine and she selected the sticks as I desired. It was almost an unanimous election.

When dusk fell with all its African suddenness, the rising moon hung like a blazing buckler in the sky. Dogs barked in answer to the distant hill jackals and the acrid smoke of the camel-dung fires hung like a sour fog about the camp.

We left the village and went about a quarter of a mile along the hillside to the local buryingplace, following a stony track that was little more than a dried watercourse. At the head of our little procession were two men with flaming argan wood torches tied to long canes, behind them came four men with long silver-decorated Remington rifles, and then the little group of sorceresses followed by myself and the elders.

The burial ground was a scanty clearing among the scrub and dwarf oaks, and bushes encroached upon the outer graves. Each tomb was marked by a stone monolith or pillar, rough-hewn, with a knob at the top in pursuance of the Muslim custom. The graves radiated in circles from the central stone, whereon fluttered little bundles of rags and similar votive offerings.

We made our way to a recent grave, which was rapidly opened by the men, disclosing, a bare two feet beneath the surface, the bent body of a man buried in sitting posture. It was a ghoul-like business and the whole air of the graveyard carried the tainted scent of the dreadful carrion they were unearthing.

In the meanwhile, the women were busy, and from behind the tombs brought forth skulls which they anointed with some strange grease and set on sticks in a circle round the central altar.

At last the corpse, in its foul, earth-stained wrappings, was exhumed and carried in a piece of sheeting to the altar. The men who had served as guards and grave diggers then withdrew out of earshot, and the ceremonies began.

Fire was applied to the circle of skulls and they began to burn. I noticed that the eyes and ear sockets were stuffed with old rags which served as wicks for the unclean oil. They flared smokily, sending off a foul-scented sooty smoke.

The women began to chant their monotonous wailing rhymes, and their leader rocked to and fro leading this strange chorus.

Suddenly a power seemed to come upon her and she became frenzied, dancing round the skull circle in time to the refrain, but undulating her body in a strange, snake-like manner. Then she knelt down on the ground, and from somewhere about her person produced something which she rubbed on her hands. At first it resembled phosphorus, a quick, flickering faint blue light, but gradually it grew in strength until streamers of blue flame, some six inches long, seemed to project from her fingers while her whole person seemed outlined in a faint shape of flame.

From the ground she picked up a short length of cane which in her grasp seemed to project this blue emanation--then with a final chorus of evocation, she leapt upon the altar and knelt astride of the dead man.

With quick passes, she ran her hands the length of his slack limbs and then poised both hands above the navel of the corpse, about a foot higher than the shroud.

The emanation curved down like a blue-green waterfall of flame and seemed to enter the man. Incredible as it may seem, the dead limbs slowly began to stretch out jerkily, uneasily, as if awaking, yet--instinct with a new vitality.

The ghastly, lolling head, stained with corruption and bound with the jaw bandage, began to oscillate on the dreadful neck and the whole corpse began to phosphoresce with a dull green luminosity.

The chorus now ceased chanting and a small fire was lighted on a cairn of stones. From this certain objects were taken and placed in the dead man’s hands. The fingers slowly curled up and grasped them!

The singing began again and the sorceress, still across the body, took the cane she carried and, breaking the bandage that bound the dead man’s jaw, inserted the end in his mouth.

Then making certain passes and signs with her hands, she began to exhale deep breaths into the body, seeming to make the mystic passes as if to force the living breath down into the dead man’s lungs.

Little by little life seemed to creep back into that unholy shell. The dreadful contours of death sunk back, the form became more human and the motions not the strange jerky rigors of the first part of the ceremony, but the very signs of life.

The eyelids flickered and retracted, the dreadful drawn lips relaxed and in a minute or so the dead man sat up in his cerements--and spoke.

Then followed the dread consultation of the dead. It was evident from the awe and respect with which he was addressed that he was treated not as a reanimated individual, but as an august visitant from another world.

Thin, high and shrill, the usually coarse gutturals of the Shilluh tongue seemed strange from _Its_ lips. I suspected ventriloquy for a while, but could see the slow movements of its throat muscles and glottis and the rise and fall of the shroud over the sunken abdomen. Nevertheless it was sheer horror to listen to and dreadful, monstrous to see.

I was only permitted to ask one question, and I asked would my quest be successful. I received an unequivocal answer that it would fail, but not through my fault, but because of the will of the spirits of the departed and the curse of the dead that hung over the city.

Incidentally this discounted the advice given by other spirit communicants before the expedition was undertaken,--but later proved true.

The ritual of re-dissolution was shorter but far more terrible. Again the sorceress made passes. The objects were taken from the hands of the dead and slowly the life left the body, which swelled and twitched as it returned to its original state of terrible decomposition. A thin wailing chant seemed to symbolize the flight of the spirit back to its own realms.

* * * * *

I pressed unsuccessful inquiry concerning the details of this astounding piece of necromancy which was neither more nor less than that terrible old mystery, the raising of the dead in the flesh.

I could obtain no details of the objects placed in the man’s hands or the material used to produce the astonishing outpouring of blue, luminous matter.

So far as I could ascertain, the life force of the sorceress herself entered the body, but the ceremony of creating it was essential in combination with the charms in the hands before the spirit could return.

Neither could I ascertain that it was the soul of the departed or some other spirit that entered into the reanimated corpse.

Some powerful communities are able, it is said, to despatch these dreadful reanimated dead on missions of evil. But their power only lasts throughout the night and fails at sunrise.

Here there is an undoubted suggestion of the practical possibility of vampirism, but I could not learn that these folk possess the lost art of imprisoning a human or spirit soul within the body of an animal.[54]

I am nevertheless convinced that among the Berbers of North Africa will be found the key to many legends that have come down to us from our ancestors in Great Britain, and above all I counsel those good folk who read the pleasant little fake stories of pretty little fairies in some of the magazines of what passes for popular occultism to abandon the delusion.

The term good folk is a paradox. They were the demons or spirits of the unholy aborigines working in contact with the savages themselves, and it is good, exceedingly good, that there are no fairies loose in Britain to-day and that the art of summoning them is well-nigh lost.

* * * * *

This chapter completes all that I have to say for the time being. There is in this book much food for careful thought. Those who read it carefully will find in it keys to much that has puzzled them, and simple explanations of phenomena which have been greatly debated of late. The general reader will doubtless find the incidents the most interesting part of the book, but to the critical and those seriously interested in psychic matters, I commend a careful and reasonable study of the more scientific sections, for in this matter of things psychic both Spiritualist and Sceptic are upon the same quest. From different angles they are both seeking for the Great Truth.

FOOTNOTES:

[51] _Occult Science in India and among the Ancients._ Louis Jacolliot.

[52] _Lays of Ancient Rome._ Macaulay.

[53] See _The Arabs of Tripoli_. Alan Ostler.

[54] This practice is claimed to be possible of achievement by both Finn and certain Red Indian wizards. But no facts susceptible of proof have ever been adduced.

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Transcriber’s notes.

Two half-title pages (pages blank except for the book title) have been omitted from the front matter.

Minor typographical and punctuation errors have been corrected silently. Ambiguous hyphenation has been removed or retained according to the prevailing style for the period. Inconsistent hyphenation has been normalised.

Other than as indicated below, the authors spelling has been retained, even where inconsistent.

The word Balnam on page 23 has been corrected to Balham, a London suburb suggested by the context. See also Balham or Bayswater on page 195.

The two references to Thotn on page 28 (text and footnote) have been amended to Thoth and Thot for the English and French respectively.

The author misquotes Milton on page 123, where Thammur has been corrected to Thammuz.

A second instance of Thammur in the text has been changed to Thamus to match the Authors alternate spelling in the following paragraph.