This man was an educated, cultured man of high caste. Sent at an early age to England to attend school, he returned to his native country at the age of 28, wise in the things of two worlds, that of his own and that of the occidentals. For a while he buried himself in the native life of a loathsome colony of Fakers. There he learned much of their religious style by rote, and, putting this along with a smattering of Buddhism, psychology and sun worship, he managed to appear in America with a new religion, fairly reeking with the essentials required by those who want mysticism served along with their religious beliefs.
Mysticism Draws Many Converts.
He had a new god, a new heaven and forty different and distinct ways of torturing one's self while worshiping his deity. Mortifying the flesh through fasting and self-denial, torturing one's self by standing with the hands above the head, etc., all were included in the new creed, besides such things as astral bodies and the other things that go with a new religion. He first held forth in a sumptuously furnished city flat, where he managed to draw to him a small gathering of the select who love to dabble in mysterious oriental affairs.
The flat was a dream in itself, and when to it was added a tall, ascetic young Hindu, with the look of the fanatic burning brightly in his eyes, and mystic rites of a religious nature, the effect was irresistible; at least it proved to be to those foregathered under the tutelage of the young oriental. There were incense burnings and incantations galore. At first these things did not cost anything. No. The young mystic was simply working for the enlightenment of the world, working to spread light into the stygian darkness of the old and false dogmas and creeds.
After those who flocked to his standard had been so thoroughly imbued with the sincerity of his teachings that his word was law to them, the money question came to the fore. He, the missionary, wanted nothing for himself—oh, no. But there was need for funds for the establishment of the cult in India. A school and home must be founded for the young devotees of the new religion in that country, a place where they could go and live and be trained in the tenets of the creed and prepared to go out in the world and teach. And it was for this that the Hindu had come to this country, to permit the chosen ones here to acquirement with the new deity by subscribing to the school fund.
Since the beginning of things, when man first beheld the sun and bowed humbly before it, it has been the custom to heap offerings on the altar of worship. So the Hindu went back with funds enough to start half a dozen schools if he had been at all inclined that way, which he wasn't, and the people who were his followers are still living in the hope that he will return.
American Faker Gets the Coin.
Then there is another kind of charlatan, the American fake religionist, of which, perhaps, there are just as many as of the foreigners with the weird doctrines of the orient. This type of faker is coarse compared with the soft-shod, incense-burning Hindu, but he "gets the money" without much trouble. He is generally a ranter as far as preaching goes. His methods are those of the shouter, his religion includes visitation of spirits, shaking of bodies and other manifestations of divine power. He boldly asks for contributions, not for a school to be established for the training of missionaries for his faith, but for the furtherance of his own work right here in this country.
"It takes money to fight the devil," is a favorite cry with this type of sacrilegist. The stronghold of the religious faker is that the people who follow him believe in him implicitly. One faker recently proclaimed himself the son of God, come to revisit earth, and, when assailed by a paper for it, stood up in an audience of his believers and asked them who they thought him to be and how they regarded him. The answer was that he was the son of God, and his mission was to save all mankind from sin. It is obvious that, when a man with such a hold on a clique asks for money, it is sure to be forthcoming without question. At times he does not have to ask for it, one man of this kind having had money showered upon him at a meeting by the hysterical women of his flock.