A Further Explication of the Buddhist Faith and its Miracles.
The Marvelous Fakirs—Why a Russian Countess Firmly Believes in Magic.
Mme. Blavatsky, so well known to the public as Secretary of the Theosophical Society—of which Colonel H. S. Olcott, the lawyer, is President—through the medium of several recent communications in these columns, emphatically forbids her friends to address her as “Countess,” although her title to that rank is undisputed. “I am a democrat, and I hate titles,” she says. She has been a traveller from childhood, and has visited nearly all the countries of the world. She is an accomplished scholar, being both linguist and philosopher, a Buddhist by religion, and an occultist of most firmly fixed convictions.
Her life has been an eventful one. Fascinated in early life by the mystic doctrines of the East, she was baptized by fire after the ceremonial of the Parsee priesthood, but afterwards embraced Buddhism, after studying the mysteries taught in the secret societies of the Orient, within whose guarded circles few Europeans have been admitted, but whose existence is as well attested as that of the Pyramids. Travelling often where no other European has ever been, living with the Orientalists as one of them, she has become thoroughly imbued with many Eastern habits of thoughts and manner without losing the customs of the Western civilization. A photograph of her in a Russian head-dress which shows little but the face presents a girlish profile with straight nose—a little heavenward—a pouting lip and hair that is fluffed over a full forehead. In propria personæ she is a middle-aged woman more than embonpoint, with an eye as clear as a child’s, an intelligent brow and a complexion that has been darkened but by no means spoiled by tropic suns. She has lived in New York for several years, and her pleasant home in a French flat at the corner of Eighth avenue and Forty-seventh street is well known to a wide circle of friends, which include the whole of the Theosophical Society as well as many outside of that portentous organization. She quotes with equal readiness from Sanscrit or French, and cites authorities from Pythagoras to Huxley as fluently as a boarding-school miss from Owen Meredith. Careless of society, she sits under the shadow of her blue-glass windows between her desk and her piano, surrounded by her feathered pets and a thousand trophies of travel, and receives those of her friends who care to visit her, but seldom leaves her own apartments. Defraying her expenses (it is said) from the income of her patrimony in Russia, she devotes her time to philosophical study, which is likely soon to take form in the publication of a book.
“The man who writes the editorials in your paper,” she said abruptly, as the WORLD reporter again entered her parlor on Good Friday, “should know that fakirs do not wear baggy trousers or anything else excepting a dhoti. If the man of whom he speaks had a mechanism under his clothing he was not a fakir. And a swamee is not educated in a lamasery.”
The reporter assured her that if some of these words were interpreted the necessary corrections should be made in The World.
“A swamee is a fakir,” she resumed, with animation, “or holy man of the sect of Brahmins. A dhoti is the only garment he can wear, and consists of a cloth girt about his loins. A lamasery is a school for lamas or holy men among the Buddhists.”
“Yet you, a Buddhist, have acknowledged the magical power of the fakir,” said the reporter.
“Certainly, for I have seen it. I know what it is. The forms and dogmas of different religions differ, but the original essence of them all is the same. The fakirs are certainly holy men, as are the devotees of all the religions of the East. They are bound by their vows to the utmost purity of life, and they show publicly their terrible self-tortures.”
“And have all these devotees of the different religions magical powers?”
“Yes, those who really live up to their vows. And there are also black magicians as well as the holy men who practiced white magic. In India there are thousands of the sorcerers who are ignorant men, who can neither read nor write, but who have wonderful powers that they have acquired from their parents. They perform these tricks for money, which the fakirs will not do. I remember once seeing a trial between a fakir and a sorcerer on the banks of a small lake. They had been disputing, the sorcerer affirming that he could do anything that the fakir could do and the fakir denying it. The fakir waded out waist deep in the lake and touched his finger to a large leaf of a water plant that lay on the water, and the sorcerer waded out and touched another leaf and they both came to shore. In a little while the leaves began to tremble, and then we heard strains of music, entrancingly sweet but unearthly in their sound, different from anything else I ever heard. And presently the leaf the sorcerer had touched shrivelled up and turned black, and a loathsome face appeared on it. And on the leaf that the fakir had touched appeared a number of characters of exquisitely beautiful tracery. I broke off the leaf and kept it, and showed it afterwards to a very learned gentleman. I did not know the Sanscrit then, but he told me it was a moral precept in the Sanscrit characters.”
“Fakir,” continued Mme. Blavatsky, “is a very loose word, and means one who is devoted to the service of God. They have many other names, such as gossein or holy mendicant, and guru or teacher. It is as Pythaguru that we know your Pythagoras. There are over a million fakirs in India, many of whom are women. They are born of all castes, but on entering on a life of devotion they relinquish caste. They place themselves under the instruction of the gurus and bind themselves by a great number of vows. Among other duties they are obliged to practice non-resistance; if you beat them they will ask you to beat them more. They are forbidden to cherish resentment for any injury even secretly, and are compelled to relinquish entirely all worldly concerns. They are not even allowed to own a bit of metal, excepting a needle to mend their dhotis and a knife to mend their pens. These they carry, with their pipe, stuck in their hair, which is long and bushy. They may not eat but once a day, and if no one gives them food during the day they fast, for no matter how much they may have on one day they cannot keep any for the next, but are obliged to give away all that they do not eat at once. Another of their vows is that of chastity even in thought. If the thought of a woman crosses the mind of a fakir he is bound by his vows to fast for several days, and even if he touches a woman by accident in a crowd he must fast for a day to purify himself. So you see that the precepts of Jesus, which Christians consider exaggerated statements of moral obligation, which they are to follow, but are not expected to strictly conform to, are actual precepts to be literally obeyed in the estimation of the fakirs.”
“But do they live up to them?” asked the reporter.
“They do. An American or European has no idea of the asceticism they practise. They mortify the flesh in a manner that St. Simon Stylites did not begin to approach. They lie for hours among burning coals that nearly touch their flesh. They sit sometimes for years in one attitude, absorbed in thought and not moving a muscle, until they sometimes become paralyzed. If you put food into the mouth of such a man he will eat it; if you don’t he will starve. Sometimes a fakir will tie himself up in a tree, head downward, and hang so for days together. They will pass steel hooks through the flesh of their backs and suffer themselves to be swung around in the air until the flesh gives way and they fall to the ground. They do not care. If they die they are glad. They seek always to keep their physical nature in subjection.”
“And you say there are a million such men in India?”
“Yes. They are of several different classes, but are all followers of Krishna or Brahmins. One class is composed of the disciples of Nirnarain who was in the line of succession to Odhow. Odhow was left in charge of the human race by Krishna. Among the most famous of the successors of Odhow were Gopal and Atmanund Swamee and Nirnarain. The school of Nirnarain numbers over one hundred thousand devotees; the most of whom are in Northern India. Their first principle is that all souls of whatever nationality or caste or sect, are equal before God. There is no difference, and any one can gain admission to their ranks. They are bound to abstain from wine and strong liquor, from eating flesh—anything that has animal life—from stealing, and from women.
“Then there are the Jains. They derive their name from the word jinu, ‘to conquer.’ There are hundreds of them, and they are especially careful about the destruction of animal life. They carry little brooms with them to brush away the insects that may get in their path. They are among the most powerful of magicians. An anecdote was told about one of them by Major Seeley, which had a wide circulation at the time and excited a good deal of comment. He said that a mischievous European showed a drop of water under the microscope to a Jain, and that he was so impressed by the sight of the numerous living organisms in the water that he vowed never to drink water again. Major Seeley goes on to say that the Jain kept his vow and perished in consequence. It is a pretty story enough, but the fact is that the Jains never drink water that has not been boiled two or three times, and on a rainy day they keep their mouths covered lest they should admit into their bodies the animalculæ of the water. So you see, they are not as ignorant as the story would indicate.”
“The Fakirs,” continued Mme. Blavatsky, “have eighty-four ‘holy attitudes,’ as they are called—conditions which they assume for particular purposes or on particular occasions. The asan dolna, for instance, is the phrase used to express the state of a holy man, who, perceiving by his spiritual intelligence that someone is in distress is calling on him for aid, leaves his body and goes to the rescue. The asan mama is the name of the ‘attitude’ practiced solely by the yogis when at prayer. There are very few Buddhists in India. They are mostly in Thibet, Mongolia, Tartary and those countries, and the lamas are among them what the fakirs are among the Brahmins. I am more familiar with the lamas than with the fakirs, for I have been more with them, but they are alike in many respects. But while in India there are many black magicians or sorcerers who ply their trade openly, there are comparatively few among the Buddhists who persecute the jugglers and prevent them as far as possible from practicing their rites. Among the black magicians are the serpent charmers, who have the same powers as the paillis of Egypt. They have as keen a scent as a dog for a snake, and will go straight to his hole and dig it out with their fingers. Many of these jugglers will do the same things as the fakirs do, and by a similar process in incantation. I remember I was once in the bungalow of a rich Indian where a fakir and a juggler both performed the feats. In the room were a tame tiger, chained, a monkey and a parrot. While the fakir was performing they all showed symptoms of great delight, but when the sorcerer began the tiger leaped around in evident terror, roaring in a frightful manner, and at last became so violent that he broke his chain, leaped through the window, ran away and was never seen again. The monkey fled to his perch, grasped it with his tail and hung in a fainting fit, while the parrot fell to the floor nearly dead.”
“Do you think that all this indicates a spiritual nature to these magical powers?”
“It does to me,” was the reply. “They work with the aid of pitris, or the souls of their ancestors. All the Orientalists venerate these pitris, and the magicians sometimes become powerful enough to create an atmosphere about them in which these spirits become visible. And on the other hand they often become invisible themselves. I remember the first time this was done in my presence. A fakir was in the room with me, crouched down in prayer, and suddenly the fakir disappeared. I was a great sceptic then, and I pinched myself to be sure I was not in a dream. The door was locked, and I searched the room carefully. At length I stumbled over something which I could not see and suddenly my fakir appeared. I thought even then that I had been deluded in some way, but I saw the same thing many times afterwards.”
“How do they acquire this power?” was the next question.
“By the subjection of the body. You will find that the most of the good spiritual mediums are unhealthy in some way, and the Eastern magicians reduce their physical nature until their astral body becomes the more powerful. Then they can work like disembodied spirits which they really are. But many spirits during this life and after it are evil. Not devils—I don’t believe in devils—but evil disposed. But the seemingly unnatural growth of seeds and voluntary levitation and all such feats are undoubtedly produced by these men. The black sorcerers for some reason always choose a mango seed for their marvels, but a fakir will make any seed grow into a plant bear blossoms and fruit in an hour or two. And they will sit in the air a yard from the ground for twenty minutes or longer without being in contact with anything. I have seen all such things done hundreds of times, and so have hundreds of other Europeans.”
“How were you converted to the Buddhist faith?” asked the reporter curiously.
“By what was to me absolute proof. I was at a vihara in the northern part of India, and the chief of the gurus of the little village showed me things which I demonstrated to be truth. For instance he made me look at a bright tin plate and fix my thoughts on something I wished to see. I thought of my home and instantly saw a room in my father’s house in Russia. Two of my aunts were sitting there, one of them reading a book, the title of which I could read. And a strange looking hump-backed woman entered the room as I looked. I wrote home about it and learned months afterward, that at that time my aunts were sitting in that room and one of them was reading the book I mentioned. And the hump-backed woman was a Polish governess they had engaged after I left home and without my knowledge.
“Then the guru threw me into a trance, first asking me to think of some place to which I wished to go. Now, some of the most powerful mesmerizers of Europe have tried to throw me into mesmeric sleep, and have been utterly unsuccessful. Prince Dolgourouski tried it, but even he failed. But after this guru had made a few passes over my face and had given me something to smell, and had made me swallow a certain potion the ingredients of which I know but will not tell, I instantly fell into the trance. I had desired to go to the house of my dearest friend in Berlin, from whom I had not heard for a long time. I was there at once, and rang the door-bell. An old woman came to the door and I asked for my friend. ‘Alas,’ said the old woman ‘she was buried three months ago.’ I asked her where she was buried, and she named the cemetery. Then I had a desire to see the grave and I was instantly beside it, looking through the earth at the corruption below. Suddenly I felt two arms about my neck, and a kiss pressed on my cheek. I looked up and my friend stood before me, a glorified image of what she had been in this life, but transparent. Some months later I heard by letter of her death, and years afterwards I visited her grave and recognized it as the place I had seen in my trance.
“After this guru, who was from Punjaub, had thus proved his powers to me, I was unable to doubt him when he showed me in similar ways the secrets of nature, the mysteries of the future life, and the truths that appertain to metaphysics. I studied them for years, and at last I did not believe, but I knew the truth of these things, for I saw them, felt them, tried them, lived them.”
“But you cannot expect others, who have not had your experience, to follow you in your belief,” said the reporter.
“I do not. What is proof to me is no proof to the public, and if they will not believe eleven millions of Spiritualists, because many of the mediums are humbugs and tricksters, they will not take my word, of course, and I don’t expect them to. But what I know I know. And these marvels that seem incredible to those who have not seen them—these miracles, as they are called by the Christian church, and tricks as they are called by self-styled scientists—are not wonders to me, for I understand them.”