From the caves and jungles of Hindostan

FROM THE CAVES AND JUNGLES OF HINDOSTAN.

people fear and hate the very name of the spirits that Spiritualists deeply revere, yet many an uneducated ascetic fakir can perform "miracles" designed to overturn all a scientist's notions and drive the most celebrated European magicians original: "prestidigitateurs" to despair. Many members of the Society had visited India; many were born there and had witnessed the "sorceries" of the Brahmans themselves. The founders of the club, well aware of the depth of modern ignorance regarding the spiritual man, were very anxious that Cuvier's method of comparative anatomy referring to Georges Cuvier's method of reconstructing organisms from fragments should be accepted among philosophers. They hoped to progress from physical regions to psychological ones using inductive and deductive reasoning. "Otherwise," they thought, "psychology will be unable to move forward a single step, and may even obstruct every other branch of Natural History." There have been many instances of physiology trespassing on the territory of purely metaphysical and abstract knowledge, all while pretending to ignore the latter completely. Science seeks to classify psychology as a physical science only after binding it to a rigid, narrow framework original: "Bed of Procrustes" where it refuses to reveal its secrets to its clumsy tormentors.

In a short time, the Theosophical Society counted its members not by hundreds, but by thousands. All the "dissatisfied" people of American Spiritualism—and there were twelve million Spiritualists in America at that time—joined the Society. Affiliated branches were formed in London, Corfu, Australia, Spain, Cuba, California, and elsewhere. Experiments were being performed everywhere, and the conviction was growing that spirits are not the only cause of these phenomena.

In time, branches of the Society were formed in India and Ceylon. The Buddhist and Brahmanical

members became more numerous than the Europeans. A league was formed, and the subtitle "The Brotherhood of Humanity" was added to the Society's name. After an active correspondence between the Arya-Samaj, founded by Swami Dayanand, and the Theosophical Society, a merger was arranged between the two bodies. Then, the Chief Council of the New York branch decided to send a special delegation to India to study the ancient language of the Vedas, the original manuscripts, and the wonders of Yogism on the spot. On December 17, 1878, the delegation—composed of two secretaries and two members of the Theosophical Society's council—left New York. They stayed briefly in London and then proceeded to Bombay, where they landed in February 1879.

It is easy to see that, under these circumstances, the members of the delegation were better able to study the country and conduct productive research than they might have been otherwise. Today, they are looked upon as brothers and are aided by the most influential people in India. Their society includes scholars pandits from Benares and Calcutta, and Buddhist priests from the monasteries Viharas of Ceylon—including the learned Sumangala, mentioned by Minayeff in the description of his visit to Adam’s Peak—as well as Lamas from Tibet, Burma, Travancore, and elsewhere. The members of the delegation are admitted to sanctuaries where no European has yet set foot. Consequently, they hope to be of great service to humanity and science, despite the ill-will that representatives of mainstream original: "positive" science bear toward them.

As soon as the delegation landed, a telegram was sent to Dayanand, as everyone was anxious to meet him.