Paschal Beverly Randolph

“ Tepada now leaped from the stage and alighted upon the elephant's shoulders. With a short sword he goaded the beast on the head until, shrieking, the unwieldy animal reared upon its hind feet, twined its trunk about one of the great columns, and seemed trying to lift itself from the ground and wrap its body around the great pillar. The music clashed out barbarously, Nerodom flashed forth a dazzling firework of some sort, and the elephant had disappeared, and Tepada lay upon the stage writhing in the folds of a great boa-constrictor and holding up Minhman upon his feet. ”

“ But when that was written no first-class Bhatts were on this continent; now there are a few, and they may be used in a company, lodge, or circle of from five to one hundred persons. When used by a single one the front may be gazed at; but a glorious surface is presented edgewise, or obliquely. In lodge, the company, whether it be few or many persons, should sit in a semicircle; the mirror leaning against the wall, and the glare of a bull's-eye lantern be thrown full and round upon its glowing face. ”

“ Spinning constantly, with a bewildering rapid motion, the girl now sprang off the stage and down the hall, along by the foot of the columns, Tsin-ki, Minhman, and Tepada in active pursuit. In and out among the crowd they spun, the three chasing. Tepada seized hold of the chaplet that crowned her; it broke, and as she was whirled along, a spray of rosebuds was scattered from her brow in every direction. Anything more graceful never was seen. ”

“ Just so is this lymph the union of magnetism, electricity, and nerve-aura,—each rushing from the vital ganglia and fusing in the localities named. When it is present in wedlock's sacred rite then Power reigns and Love strikes deep root in the soul of the child that then may be begotten. ”

“ The far east must ever lead the world in the practice of necromancy. All the skill and mechanical ingenuity of the most expert prestidigitateurs of Europe or America cannot produce a single exhibition which will compare with the feats of the commonest Indian juggler. The Japanese have taught us the greater part of the slight-of-hand illusion which is now paraded before staring audiences in this country and in Europe; but the necromancy of Japan is as boys' play compared with the mysterious jugglery of the nether and farther Indies, and especially of Siam. ”

“ Suddenly there was a wild and startling crash of barbaric music from under the stage—gongs, drums, cymbals, and horns—and with wonderful alertness, and a really indescribable effect, a band of naked men came out from behind the curtains, bearing each a scented torch in his hand, climbed the columns with the agility of monkeys, and lighted each a hundred lamps, strung from the base almost of the columns sheer up to the apex of the vault, which, I could now see, rose in a lofty dome, that doubtless pierced far up into the interior of the pagoda proper. ”

“ In one feat Tepada seized Norodom by his long white beard, held him off at arm's length, and spun round with him until the old man's legs were horizontal to the athlete's shoulders. Then, while they still spun with the fury of dervishes, Minhman sprang up, seized upon Norodom's feet, and spun out a horizontal continuation of the ancient; and when Minhman was firmly established, the boy Tsin-ki caught to his feet in like manner, and the tall athlete, every muscle in him straining, continued to whirl the human jointless lever around. ”

“ Heaven help all whom a Muntra-Wallah hates!—or loves either, for that matter—unless that love be returned;for the magician in one case will bring up the hated one's shadow,—and then strange horrors will seize him or her ”

“ If flight do not take place, and the leakage goes on, Soul itself is wasted, and Madness, with Horror at his gorgon side, waves his cruel baton, and another victim takes his or her place among the awful ranks of the Impotent, Barren, or Insane. ”

“ The reply came instantly—"A Boy! and a great one! a vast soul!—the king-seer of five thousand years!" The result, so far as sex was concerned, was absolutely true; and there is but little doubt that the rest will prove equally so. This same lady was the only true mystic of her sex I ever saw in America. She was the best mirror-manipulator on the earth, and owned—still owns all the genuine ones on the continent. ”

“ The music shrieked still wilder, the snakes coiled and plaited themselves together in a rhythmic dance, lifting the dead eagle upon their heads, and, presto! right in our midst there stood the tripod again, with its flickering flame, and its incense-savored breath. A more perfect illusion never was seen.
"'That is Norodom,'whispered Woun-Tajac in my ear. Another actor now came upon the scene, whom I recognized to be the tall athletic, Tepada. Behind him came a smaller man, whose name, Woun-Tajac informed me, was Minhman, and a boy, probably twelve years old, called Tsin-ki. ”

“ While the two youths, bearing similar vessels, performed corresponding movements about the vessel which symbolized Nature in her productive aspect—until we five Europeans were lost in a maze of astonishment at the capacity of the human frame to express mutely, but with more meaning and eloquence than a thousand tongues could convey, the amazing heights, depths, and shades of passion, but a passion totally free from vulgarity or indecency ”

“ MEN FALL AND DIE THROUGH FEEBLENESS OF WILL! Women perish from too much passion, none at all. and absolute, cruel love-starvation. This we intend to correct. We shall succeed; for True Men NEVER FAIL!
Conclusion: The Lymphication of Love.—I have already herein called attention to the various secretions—normal—of the human pelvic viscera, and named them lochia, exuviæ, semen, Duverneyan lymph, prostatic and Cowperian fluids. I now call attention to another, different from all and far more important than either, and which is the only one common to both sexes alike. ”

“ For I hold that those who cannot see in them at all, or produce clouds, or other magnetic effects after fair trial, may rest assured that they lack the great essential to immortality, and unless they cultivate soul and strive for it. when death lands their bodies in the grave their inner selves will dwindle back to the monadal state or blank Nihility.
Others can see in them, if not at once, then in periods varying from six weeks to one year; and the slower the development, the grander will be the power when culture shall have brought it into play. ”

“ No one can succeed in either branch of high magic whose spur and motive is such as I deprecate above; but success is sure to eventually crown the efforts of the persevering student, whose aims are goodness and the acquisition of power for noble ends. ”

“ Callender, for the world will need him and such for centuries to come, until the race shall learn that "Love, indeed, lieth at the foundation," and whosoever infracts its laws must pay the dreadful penalty. ”

“ If it is absent, the world is sure to receive a selfish, mean, small, contemptible thing in human shape,—a terror, or stalking crime and pestilence,—a partial man or woman, of little use to him or herself, and none at all to others, the world, or God. Wherefore the imperative law the violation of which entails horror, crime, and suffering, through at least a dozen lives—is:Absolute self-mastery in certain respects unless the presence of this divine fluid is God's permit for the holiest of all human enjoyments and duties. ”

“ This stage was raised between three and four feet above the floor of the vault, and was about thirty-five or forty feet deep and one hundred and fifty broad. Behind it a curtain of red cloth hung down from the capitals of the towering columns. In front of the stage, just about the spot where the pulpit of the orchestra in a Greek theatre would be, was a tripod-shaped altar, with a broad censer upon it, in which was burning a scented oil, mixed with gums and aromatic woods, that diffused through the whole vault a pungent, sacramental odor. ”

“ Not all persons can reach the interior sight by such methods, because all are not possessed of the essential organic attributes, or constitutional bias and tendency. To all such there is a surer, better, safer, and grander road, and that is self-development, by means entirely within the reach of every one, and which are within their will and control ”

“ Unquestionably this ancient mode of dealing with the dead, and rapporting the mystical worlds above, beneath, within, and around us, is as superior to modern "Circleism" as gold in beauty outvies rough iron; hence students and explorers of the mystical side of the human soul; those desirous of opening the sealed doors of strange new worlds, and realizing somewhat of the tremendous problem of Being, must develop, not merely "Progress;" ”

“ The Phenomenal magic recounted in the extract given above, together with the equally startling things of Egypt, Negro-land, Japan, China, Tartary, and India—only distantly approached by the Fire-tests, materialization and the like, as seen in the case of Hume, the Baltimore negro and others, together will the air-floating of various persons, myself included, are, so far as real use is concerned, but secondary trifles compared to that loftier system of the far Orient, whereby persons are enabled to glimpse behind the scenes of life, and note what transpires on the further side. ”

“ You cannot! because you know not how to mingle the materials—even if you knew them, which you do not—that enter as elements into the mysteriously sensitive substance wherewith the shields are covered, and which alone constitutes the magnetic or magic film, of which and to which the lava-glass and frame are merely protective covers.
People of the West (Europe,—America) are not subject to the same extremes of passion (sexive) as are Orientals ”

“ It is often present when it ought not to be, and when so, many a man has forgotten his manhood and triumphed over a similarly tempted girl; and many an honest girl and woman has fallen to rise no more. When this fluid is abundantly secreted the only safety is in instant flight, for, unappeased, it begets an insanity and furore too dreadfully intense and imperative to be successfully resisted even by an archangel, much less poor, weak, erring sons and daughters of men. ”

“ For centuries we have known what the world is just finding out that all the multiple hells on earth originate in trouble, unease, of the love, affections, and passions, or amatory sections of. human nature ”

“ The second man, on arrival in England, proved the truth of the mirror, for Jane, not 'Jem' as the glass stated, and Davison, not 'David'—cousins of his—had fallen on a lottery-fortune of over a lac of rupees in India money! ”

“ In the latter country there is a royal troupe of jugglers, who perform only at the funerals and coronations of the kings, and then only in the presence of the nobles of Siam, or those initiated into the mysteries of the religion of the country. These necromancers do not perform for money, are of noble blood, and it is seldom that a European sees even their faces. ”

“ Those who wish further and private instructions, and to obtain information, conditions, secrets, writings etc., and who purpose to cultivate the esoteric and mystic powers of the Soul, may correspond with that object with the publisher hereof— (or his official successor when dead) —who possesses certain keys which open doors hitherto sealed from man, but which are ready to swing wide when the proper "Open Sesame" is spoken by those worthy of admission. ”

“ One trick which Minhman performed was a very superior version of the mango-tree feat of the Indian jugglers. He took an orange, cut it open, and produced a serpent. This he took down into the audience, and, borrowing a robe from one, cut the snake's head off and covered it with the robe. When the robe was lifted again, a fox was in the place of the snake. The fox's head was cut off, two robes borrowed, and when they were raised there was a wolf, which was killed with a sword. ”

“ But till then we shut out the world; now we open our hearts and hands to welcome all true searchers of the Infinite,—all seekers after the attainable. We have determined to teach the Esoteric doctrines of the Æth; to accept all worthy aspirants, initiate them, and empower them to instruct, upbuild, and initiate others,—forming lodges if so they please. ”

“ Last year, however, an English surgeon, who was in the country, performed a somewhat remarkable cure upon a princess, who had been treated in vain by all the physicians of the country. Great was the gratitude of the Siamese court at the doctor's performance; and, as a reward commensurate with his great service, he was permitted to witness the performance of Tepada's royal troupe of jugglers. This exhibition was given in the sacred temple of Juthia, on the 16th of November, the occasion being the coronation of the young king. ”

“ The Book Survives and Thought Prevails.
↑ They are, every one of them— (from the plain surface mirror, to the magnificent, golden-edged, Beauties; or the enormous 40-inch ones—fit for a Lodge!—worth a king's ransom!) —capable of mirroring correctly—and beforehand too! the Markets of the world. Here is a strange test, whose truth I solemnly avouch:
A pregnant lady—and such are ever the most favored in all lines of celestial magic,—on the morning alluded to above—Feb. 8, 1874—gazed into one of the mirrors, and demanded to know the sex of her unborn child. ”

“ For many ages people have sought to penetrate through, or lift, the veil which hangs between the world we inhabit and that vast realm where causes reside and principles exist. To that end, recourse has been had to drugs, such as opium, cannabin, and camphora ”

“ But a higher, broader, deeper clairvoyance is now needed and demanded by mankind, far superior to that displayed by the riff-raff pulings of half-crazed fanatics; the money-grabbing hordes of "Fortune-tellers" infesting all large cities ”