FIRST DIVISION. MAGIC AMONG THE ORIENTALS. IN the East we find civilization in much the same state as it was at the commencement of the world's history,—that is to say, the earliest veracious records of these ancient nations describe their condition much as we find it at the present day. For many ages they have therefore been stationary; the progressive stages of creation, in which nature usually rises from imperfection to perfection, are not found in the history of eastern nations. It seems as if the vacillating life of vigorous youth had suddenly crystallized in unyielding regularity, giving forth the light of life in a changeless and uniform manner. The organization of eastern nations has remained for ages, like a mummy, without progression, and yet without positive decay. We still find in the East that solidity and exclusiveness-that enduring constitution of manners and customs-that calm immobility and separation from the surrounding world—that indolence and indifference towards without, which was attributed to them ages ago. In the East there is no creative spirit to break the inward light into various rays: and the characteristic features of the various nations are the same in all, silent, stationary, and stereotyped. Western Asia, however, has been an exception, where, from the earliest ages, the inhabiting nations were in movement, from unceasing contests of migratory tribes, as well as from a certain spiritual mobility in their civilization. The coasts of the Mediterranean have, however, always been the boundaries of the outer world, in ancient as well as in modern times; but the influence which it exercised on the western nations, and the manner in which the history of the world has expanded, has had but little interest for the East. It is of little consequence whether we regard the East as in its infancy or old age: it is in a second childhood, in which no active conscious mind is dominant, but rather the instinct of a dreamy existence. There is no spiritual progress; no reflection and speculation in science or nature, in religion or legislation; the religion of the mind and the inner life are the leading features of its existence. Cut off from the light of day and the mutual intercourse with active nations, the oriental is sunk in a lethargic sleep, and, as in somnambulism, either a dreaming or a crazy seer, or, at the most, an ecstatic prophet. From the earliest ages the magic states have been described as such, and they are still the same. As the visions and revelations of the ancient Brahmins were, so are at the present time those of the Indian hermits and fakirs. Clear, startling, poetic pictures; striking predictions and prophecies; elevated thoughts, with an almost supernatural power of drawing others into the magic circle, and of holding them in a state of passive acquiescence; with frequent but uncertain visions and illusions, and spirits and apparitions of every kind;-all these are the most striking characteristics, associated at the same time with great irregularity and uncertainty of composition in word and deed. Let us take a hasty glance at the original causes of these conditions before we become more intimately acquainted with them. The primary and most powerful cause is the unfolding and consolidating of the religious feelings, which we have already mentioned when speaking of the distribution of nations, which in their separations established for themselves peculiar religious systems. In no instance was this so striking as among the Shemites, who, originally the especial objects of grace, were also the first instructors of the human race, and then continued to maintain an uninterrupted communication with the gods, whilst other races changed their religions as they would their garments. Although the religious sentiment was universally found among the Shemites, yet it remained generally among the Asiatic nations a mere dormant principle-a central fire without a peripheric radiance-"a light shining in the darkness," excepting the descendants of Eber, and still more especially the children of Abraham, which God had chosen from the race of Shem to be His ". people from all nations of the earth." For the Israelites, in whom was a deep and inquiring sentiment of religion, were able to conceive the true idea of God and to receive His revelations, while all other surrounding and Shemitic nations remained beyond the sanctuary of the true divine knowledge, sunk in a passive quietism. Therefore it was only in the chosen people of Israel that the yearning and love were found in obedience, strengthening the true faith in the struggle of life, the exercise of patience and resignation, and the constant hope of future redemption; while the other nations looked back with regret towards the glorious world of the past,-towards the loss of salvation, without the hope of a better future. The whole Israelitish nation, like its prophets and seers, was schooled in trials and terrible struggles, in the hope of ultimately gaining, first, the promised land, and afterwards the heavenly Jerusalem; while the surrounding nations vegetated in monotonous seclusion, and the visions and dreams of their seers were as the words of a sealed book; for many heathen nations were not capable of a true communication with God, and the Buddhists and ancient Persians had not even a clear and determined mythology, as had other nations, and especially the Greeks. We therefore see that these oriental races are stationary in their history as well as in their spirit; nay, were even lower in civilization than they were, and do not now possess their former degree of civilization; but dimly look back to it as an inheritance of their fathers, which is ever receding from their sight. They certainly possessed the original idea of the Divinity in a spiritual, but only in an elementary manner. Hence is it, that owing to their utter want of a clear knowledge of the real God, the magical visions of the Indian seers are merely reflections of that radiance which divine inspiration diffuses, and hence it is also, that we so commonly deny the inspiration of nations who are enveloped in a confused mythology. It is clear that the intellectual Greeks approached near to the true conception of the divine nature in their varied but perfectly designed mythology. As throughout the whole of the East a true spirituality is wanting, we do find in its religion and magic the same quietism. How could we draw any comparison between an Indian seer, full of self-esteem, but luxuriant in imagination though wanting in a true knowledge of science and religion, and sunk in Brahma's light, and the true prophets of Israel, who announced the words of life and converted men from their evil ways ? The philosophy of the orientals was intimately connected with their religious ideas-or rather the theosophy of their sages. The Parseeism, the theories of the Zeruane Akerne, that is, of God before the division into the two principles, Ormuzd and Ahriman; the theories of the seven Amschaspands; of the Izeds and Fervers; and lastly, of the struggle between the two primary elements, the good and the evil, and of the victory of the good, contain so much that is true and noble, that the old Shemitic spirit reappears everywhere: yet all this is but an allegorical representation, and even far from the perfection to which it was carried among the Greeks, and therefore farther removed from a perfect spirituality. In the same manner, the doctrines of Fo, or the Buddhism in India, in Thibet, in Japan, and partly also in China, are not wanting in a species of elevation of sentiment. "All objects, animate and inanimate, differ only in their properties and forms, and are perfectly similar in their elements, which elements, free from all change, are simple in their nature, and therefore are the perfection of all other substances in their uninterrupted repose. He who will live happily must strive to overcome himself, and to resemble this primary element. But he who has once reached this end need not fear any change; but, freed from all passions, and incapable of any discord, dies only to return to that divine principle from which his soul proceeded." It is not to be disputed that a spiritual progression, though elevated in its sentiment, is incompatible with this teaching. Its believers, therefore, remained stationary in the undeveloped world of divine sentiment. Molitor makes the following remarks on the inhabitants of that part of Asia from which the colonization of the world is supposed to have radiated :-"As these nations were mostly of Shemitic origin, their minds were more given to spiritual reflections, which inclined more inwardly than outwardly, more to reflection than to action, more to feeling than to understanding; thus they were never able entirely to step over the boundaries of their spiritual natures. After they had gained the first stages of reflective civilization, the progressive development ceased. They were unable to return to the pristine purity of the infancy of the world by the progress which they had made; they were too much engrossed by nature, and their national spirit was too languid to carry them further into the free world of reflection. Existence between these two opposite principles lost by degrees its inspiration, and became more obscure and immoveable, until it at length fell into total torpidity." Influenced by these religious and theosophic ideas, civilization in the East took a singular shape. The service of the gods, the means to gain their favour and to avert their anger, consisted in humiliation, renunciation and denial of all gratifications of the senses, the avoidance of everything impure and unpleasing in sacrifice, as the pledge of peace and communion with God. All these duties strictly observed could not fail to maintain the religious feelings and inward spirit of the mind. When, therefore, an idea, a thought, or a representation, flashed like lightning from the depth of this mental obscurity, or an impression presented itself to the mind with the unmistakeable certainty of truth, and showed itself in impressive words or actions to others, it was not strange that men should regard it less as human than as the manifestation of the gods, which filled the inspired person and acted directly through him. From such sources arose the religious systems of the orientals in particular, the principal features of which bore a resemblance to each other: changes could alone take place through later prophets, or by admixture with other mythologies, which were more rare, owing to their seclusion from the surrounding world Their mental impressions, thoughts, languages, and actions, therefore remained the same; consequently no change took place in the prophetic spirit, which lay in the nature of the people and the country, and not, as was supposed, in human agency, or by the agency of the priesthood. The priests are the mediators between the gods and men, as servants |