num_pages: 272
description: At the time this book was written, reliable information about Hinduism was just starting to filter back to the west. Jacolliot was searching for the roots of western esoteric traditions in the far East. The high point of this book is the travelogue of his encounters in India with a fakir, who demonstrates his siddis (yogic powers) exuberantly. There is also an extensive discourse on Kabbalah, and its relationship to Eastern mystical beliefs.Contents: The Doctrine of the Pitris and the Occult Sciences in India; The Initiated at the Ancient Temples; The Brahmins; The Ceremony of the Djita Carma; The First Degree of Initiation; The Grand Council; The Yoguys; The Philosophical Tenets of the Indian Initiates Regrading the First Cause, and the Part Performed by the Spirits in Wholly Matters; The Degree of Sanctity which the Initiates must have attained before receiving the Sacred Formula and the Fatal Secret; The Superior Guru; The Supreme Being; The Formulas of Evocations; The Doctrine of the Pitris as Compared with that of the Jewish Cabala, of Plato, of the Alexandrian Schools; of Philo, of The Persians; and of Christianity; Initiation Among the Cabalists; Resemblance between the Doctrine of the Pitris and that of the Zend-Avesta of Persia; Exoteric Manifestations and Demonstrations among the Initiates of the sacred Temple of India as Shown by the Performing Fakirs; and much more.Excerpt:"Though deeply sceptical with regard to spirits, I often wondered, whenever I saw an experiment of this kind, whether or not some natural force had not been brought into play, with which we were totally unacquainted. I merely state the facts without further comment. -on the "trick" of "the magic stick" Spirit forces that make leaves dance in still air and buoyant wooden sticks sink in water and fakirs who levitate themselves and induce plants to grow overnight. A European observer in mid-19th century India reports-in the straightforward and unsensational fashion of a religious skeptic-the seemingly wondrous feats of Indian mystics, offering a unique first-person perspective on extraordinary phenomenon that continues to be referenced today by modern spiritualists and those interested in the paranormal."Excerpt:"Though deeply sceptical with regard to spirits, I often wondered, whenever I saw an experiment of this kind, whether or not some natural force had not been brought into play, with which we were totally unacquainted. I merely state the facts without further comment. -on the "trick" of "the magic stick" Spirit forces that make leaves dance in still air and buoyant wooden sticks sink in water and fakirs who levitate themselves and induce plants to grow overnight. A European observer in mid-19th century India reports-in the straightforward and unsensational fashion of a religious skeptic-the seemingly wondrous feats of Indian mystics, offering a unique first-person perspective on extraordinary phenomenon that continues to be referenced today by modern spiritualists and those interested in the paranormal."
language: English
title: Occult Science in India and Among the Ancients: With an Account of their Mystic Initiatiations and the History of Spiritism
publisher: Kessinger Publishing, LLC