The “Thugs” of India are no more an idle dream nor a bugaboo to frighten children and old women than are the Mafia and the Roman Jesuit to-day.
In Egypt the time came when these “Black Magicians” dominated the people and drove out those of the right-hand path who built the great pyramid and gave to Egypt the wisdom and glory of its prime.
The consciousness and power of these evil men, however, was limited to the lower planes. Whenever they wished to transcend these lower planes they were powerless. Hence arose the Sibyl; young boys or virgins were hypnotized, and being pure, they could thus be inducted into a somewhat higher plane. (See Mabel Collins’ “Idyll of the White Lotus.”)
Margrave, in Bulwer’s “Strange Story,” is a fine picture of an “adept of the left-hand path.” He would sacrifice the whole human race in order to gain his personal and selfish ends, just as would “Mother Church” to-day.
The Master of the White Lodge would readily lay down his life for the benefit of his fellowmen. Herein is the vital difference.
Here lies the meaning and the complete antithesis represented by Christos and Satan. Both names are generic and Avataric, and yet, may be personified.
This elevating and refining process to which I have referred is not a matter of sentiment or emotion, but a matter of fact, with a definite, scientific formula.
In a previous chapter belief in the existence AND SEPARABILITY OF THE HUMAN SOUL HAS BEEN SHOWN to be virtually universal, and in some cases, even with people of very low development, the belief is held that the soul may be separated from the body and reunited again during life.
This is, however, a belief, and proves nothing as to fact, science, and law, beyond the existence of the belief, with all the appurtenances, concomitants, and subjective experiences of individuals thereunto belonging.
We thus arrive at the real theorem as a cold psychological problem.