"Well! You did not believe, of course, and laughed at Narayan?"
asked the Takur, fathoming with his eyes the dark green deeps of
the lake.
"Not precisely... Though, I dare say, I did just a little bit,"
went on Mr. Y - -, absently, being fully engrossed by the view,
and trying to fix his eyes on the most effective part of it. "I
dare say I am too scep-tical on this kind of question."
"And knowing Mr. Y - - as I do," said the colonel, I can add, for
my part, that even were any of these phenomena to happen to himself
personally, he, like Dr. Carpenter, would doubt his own eyes rather
than believe."
"What you say is a little bit exaggerated, but there is some truth
in it. Maybe I would not trust myself in such an occurrence; and
I tell you why. If I saw something that does not exist, or rather
exists only for me, logic would interfere. However objective my
vision may be, before believing in the materiality of a hallucination,
I feel I am bound to doubt my own senses and sanity.... Besides,
what bosh all this is! As if I ever will allow myself to believe
in the reality of a thing that I alone saw; which belief implies
also the admission of somebody else governing and dominating, for
the time being, my optical nerves, as well as my brains."
"However, there are any number of people, who do not doubt, because
they have had proof that this phenomenon really occurs," remarked
the Takur, in a careless tone, which showed he had not the slightest
desire to insist upon this topic.
However, this remark only increased Mr. Y - -'s excitement.
"No doubt there are!" he exclaimed. "But what does that prove?
Besides them, there are equal numbers of people who believe in
the materialization of spirits. But do me the kindness of not
including me among them!"
"Don't you believe in animal magnetism?"
"To a certain extent, I do. If a person suffering from some
contagious illness can influence a person in good health, and
make him ill, in his turn, I suppose somebody else's overflow
of health can also affect the sick person, and, perhaps cure him.
But between physiological contagion and mesmeric influence there
is a great gulf, and I don't feel inclined to cross this gulf on
the grounds of blind faith. It is perfectly possible that there
are instances of thought-transference in cases of somnambulism,
epilepsy, trance. I do not positively deny it, though I am very
doubtful. Mediums and clairvoyants are a sickly lot, as a rule.
But I bet you anything, a healthy man in perfectly normal conditions
is not to be influenced by the tricks of mesmerists. I should
like to see a magnetizer, or even a Raj-Yogi, inducing me to obey
his will."
"Now, my dear fellow, you really ought not to speak so rashly,"
said the colonel, who, till then, had not taken any part in
the discussion.
"Ought I not? Don't take it into your head that it is mere
boastfulness on my part. I guarantee failure in my case, simply
because every renowned European mesmerist has tried his luck with
me, without any result; and that is why I defy the whole lot of
them to try again, and feel perfectly safe about it. And why a
Hindu Raj-Yogi should succeed where the strongest of European
mesmerists failed, I do not quite see.... "
Mr. Y - - was growing altogether too excited, and the Takur dropped
the subject, and talked of something else.
For my part, I also feel inclined to deviate once more from my
subject, and give some necessary explanations.
Miss X - - excepted, none of our party had ever been numbered amongst
the spiritualists, least of all Mr. Y - -. We Theosophists did not
believe in the playfulness of departed souls, though we admitted
the possibility of some mediumistic phenomena, while totally
disagreeing with the spiritualists as to the cause and point of
view. Refusing to believe in the interference, and even presence
of the spirits, in the so-called spiritualistic phenomena, we
nevertheless believe in the living spirit of man; we believe in
the omnipotence of this spirit, and in its natural, though benumbed
capacities. We also believe that, when incarnated, this spirit,
this divine spark, may be apparently quenched, if it is not guarded,
and if the life the man leads is unfavorable to its expansion,
as it generally is; but, on the other hand, our conviction is
that human beings can develop their potential spiritual powers;
that, if they do, no phenomenon will be impossible for their
liberated wills, and that they will perform what, in the eyes of
the uninitiated, will be much more wondrous than the materialized
forms of the spiritualists. If proper training can render the
muscular strength ten times greater, as in the cases of renowned
athletes, I do not see why proper training should fail in the
case of moral capacities. We have also good grounds to believe
that the secret of this proper training - though unknown to, and
denied by, European physiologists and even psychologists - is
known in some places in India, where its knowledge is hereditary,
and entrusted to few.
Mr. Y - - was a novice in our Society and looked with distrust
even on such phenomena as can be pro-duced by mesmerism. He had
been trained in the Royal Institute of British Architects, which
he left with a gold medal, and with a fund of scepticism that
caused him to distrust everything, en dehors des mathematiques
pures. So that no wonder he lost his temper when people tried to
convince him that there existed things which he was inclined to
treat as "mere bosh and fables."
Now I return to my narrative.
The Babu and Mulji left us to help the servants to transport our
luggage to the ferry boat.
