BUDDHISMj AND ^^ THE LIGHT OF ASIA." 169 



Lastly, Buddha himself does not appear to hare taught 

 his followers any of those wonderful doctrines that are now 

 disseminated under the names of Theosophy and Occultism. 

 The mysteries of levitation ; of passing solid bodies through 

 stone walls; of spiriting written documents by unseen liands 

 from one place to another ; of apparitions and materializa- 

 tions of astral bodies ; and other wonder-workings, are not 

 found in the accounts of Buddha's early teaching. It is true 

 that there are some wonderful powers attributed to Buddlia 

 in the later accounts of his doings ; such as his rising up iu 

 the air and remainiug seated there; his going into the 

 Brahma-loka {i.e., heaven) to teach one of its inhabitants, 

 who thereupon became a Buddhist ; his omniscience ; his 

 eluding human measurement, on account of his being really 

 of immeasurable height, though in ordin.iry appearance he 

 Avas only like other men. But absurdities of this kind are 

 not found either in the original teachings of Buddha or 

 even in the earliest of other Hindu writings. Buddha did 

 not spirit his epistles through the air to distant parts of the 

 earth, or astonish his monks by causing plants to grow from 

 seed, and clothe themselves with leaves and flowers in ten 

 minutes; nor did he expound the mysteries of astral bodies; 

 nor did he need darkness, with an occasional flash of gas 

 or electricity, for the perfect teaching of his esoteric doc- 

 trines. And it is much to be desired that the Buddhists of 

 Ceylon and other places would consider that there is no real 

 relationship between modern Theosophy and ancient Budd- 

 hism. The Theosophists may have borrowed some ideas 

 from later Hindu and Buddhistic mythology; but they are 

 only such ideas as have grown up everywhere in ages of 

 ignorance, under a speculative and, what we may perhaps 

 call, mythic spirit ; as when someone magnified the scene on 

 Christ's resurrection morning by picturing Him as conducted 

 from the sepulchre by two angels, whose heads were in the 

 clouds, while the head of Christ Himself, who was between 

 them, was out of sight up in the heavens. 



If the present age is going to develop, as it seems to bo 

 rapidly developing, mythology, we shall probably soon have 

 Madame Blavatsky canonized, and regarded, or even perhaps 

 worshipped, as an omniscient ISaviour of the human race, a 

 kind of goddess-Buddha. 



It is astonishing, after the disclosures that were made in 

 Madras a few jears ago, to find educated men still believing 

 in the mysterious powers of " Koot Hoomi " and the Hima- 



