Art Magic in India
India The Most Ancient Land - Brahminical Order - Whence Derived - Forest Anchorites - Foundation of the Priestly Order and Caste - Rites of Initiation and Method of Preparing for the Magical Powers.
The very name of Hindostan, with its long descended lines of Guroos, Brahmins, Yogees and Fakeers; initiates all into the highest and most potential of nature's occult powers, is itself suggestive of Magic, and few there are who have glanced superficially at the subject, or read the extracts from popular literature in the periodicals of the day relating to it, who do not regard India as the birthplace of all that is wild, weird and wonderful in the occult side of man's nature.
The immense antiquity of the Hindostanee dynasty, the invincible tendency of the Hindoo mind to regard the scheme of being as fixed and unchangeable, and the belief in "Yugs" or cycles of time, through which mankind must inevitably pass, in the fulfillment of a destiny as immutable as the Will of Deity, have paralyzed all effort at advancement, hence the basic principles of the Hindoo's belief, nay, most of their practices of a Theosophical character, are as much the stereotyped copies of what their ancestors believed and did five thousand years ago, as are their wonderful temples and colossal images the expression of the same far distant period of time. It is almost impossible to separate the magical practices of the Hindoos from the elements of their religion, and the changes which time has wrought in the aspect of nature and the political institutions which have been shattered by every description of national calamity, have failed to affect the deep metaphysical characteristics which soil, scenery, climate, and the doctrines of fatalism have engrafted on the Hindoo mind.