The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-09-13

ways that pitris (spirits) assist in the op-
GRAFTON; first because their spiritual
bodies were all agasa, and next, because
they had knowledge of this great living
force and how to apply it, which they
could not communicate to mortals."
One of the gentlemen named Bahadur
Dost Sauda assured me that initiation into
these wonder working powers was
through asceticism, chastity, frequent
additions, long fasts, seasons of profound
abstraction, spirit exalted to the contem-
plation of creation, Deity, heaven and
heavenly things; a mind wholly sublim-
ated from earth and earthly things"
This particular conversation occurred at
Bombay in the middle of the night in a
little-known temple opening out of the
celebrated caves of Elephanta. Sauda Sa-
hib had worked himself up into a state
of what /, poor ordinary mortal that 1
am, should describe as hysterical excite
ment, a condition that closely twines the
fervor of some of our religious bodies.
Suddenly his eyes began to distend. He
stopped an agitated walk he had been in
dulging in as he talked and facing me
cried out:
Behold mel I am all agasa. This thin
film Of matter wherewith 1 am covered,
these meshes of bone that form my frame
work of life, are they not fined away to
the tenuity of the elements? They him
der not my flight through space, neither
can they bind me to the EARTH am cast
ing them off. See the roof; main wahan
jane Sc darta nahin hum" Il am not afraid
to so there!D
He looked upwards the expression of his
face became esctatic; throwing up his
hands he seemed to be pulling at the at
mosphere above his head and to my sur
prise and, if it must be admitted some
haf 70 oil he uputlyy IN g.
cend towards the roof of the temple some
forty feet above u.s. AS his hands reached
through the space above him his feet
gently beat back the space below him. The
action was not like a man walking up into
space but rather that of one pulling him.
self with his hands and pushing himself
with his feet into it; a motion not unlike
that of a swimmer. He moved in this odd
way right to the roof and circled slowly
round and round then, fioated down. As
he neared me he commenced informing the
sentence:
Main bhi bahar ja," Il shall go out
also-literally) over and over again. AS
he reached within foot or so of the earth
he began to float slowly round me. chant
ing all the time. 1 kept turning on my
own axis to face him. Soon / fancied he
was less distinct and as the minutes sue
ceeded each other / began to feel dizzy
and he continued to fade till at last he was
quite invisible to my eyes though my
senses seemed cognizant that something,
a human essence was still circling round
me and the murmured main bhi bahar Ja''
though very faint, continued to reach my
ears. Last, the intoning ceased, the dizzi-
ness dissipated itself. l put my hand in
front of my closed eyes for second or
two as one does under such circumstances.
Removing my hands and opening my eyes,
there stood Sauda Sahib breathing hard
and wiping the profuse perspiration from
his face!
am perfectly aware that the Infinitely
clever reader who calls everything his
limited intelligence cannot understand and
whose conceptive powers are Mill, will guf-
faw hereabouts and consider me either
deeply damned fool or assert that / was
"hypnotized." Granting that my senses
may have played me tricks so far as Mr..
Sauda's temporary invisibility was con-
carned, 1 labored under so mach possible
disadvantage in connection with his areal
ascension. That L could swear to In
court Of law; is that not marvellous
enough2
Not less amazing to the layman as well
as the magician is another experiment
claimed by my yogi friends as "a simple
illustration Of the power Of agasa on nat
ural substances" The experiment was
twice performed for my edihcation, once
under circumstances where slight of hand
or trickery Of some kind was very re-