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A Series of Lessons on the Inner Teachings of the Philosophies and Religions of India1338
Will. It is true that the great spiritual Masters of India—the Sages, Adepts, or
Masters, are possessed of high spiritual powers which are far above those
manifested by the fakirs, but these people never stoop to exhibit “feats”
for the amusement or entertainment of the populace—the very fact that a
man will give an entertainment of this kind stamping him as one of the class
of fakirs who work on a lower plane and who does not possess the higher
powers.
The secret of the fakir’s power generally consists in his ability to produce a
mental illusion, or Maya, whereby the senses of the by-standers are deluded
and the people made to appear to witness things that have no basis in fact,
as we shall see as we proceed. Another class of effects are produced by the
control of Prana (or Vital Force) by the concentrated Will of the performer,
so that heavy objects are moved around in defiance of the law of gravitation,
and even the human body at times being floated about in the air, which
feat is called Levitation, and is not unknown to the Western world. Then
the marvellous degree of development along the lines of Telepathy among
these people, and many of the Hindus for that matter, renders possible
feats that would be practically impossible in the West. Many of these feats
could be produced in no other land but India, owing to the psychological
conditions maintaining there, the material mental atmosphere of Western
lands tending to counteract the effects. Let us examine a few typical cases
of this phenomena of Wonder Working in India, that we may arrive at an
understanding of the methods employed.
In the first place the Hindu mind, by reason of the training of centuries and
the mental attitude of the majority of the people, is peculiarly receptive to
strongly concentrated thought-waves—telepathy among these people is so
common a thing as to merit but scant notice. English people in India always
have been aware of the fact that news and information have been and are
flashed from one end of India to another in a few hours. Let some peculiar
occurrence happen in one corner in India, perhaps quite remote, and away
from railroads and telegraphs—some uprising or revolt for instance, or the