Occult Science in India and Among the Ancients
With an Account of Their Mystic Initiations, and the History of Spiritism (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Occult Science in India and Among the Ancients: With an Account of Their Mystic Initiations, and the History of Spiritism<br><br>We will lay aside, for the present, our inquiries into the general subject of the primitive civilizations of the far East, and the people who have sprung from the Brahminic stock in the old world, in order to publish the result of such researches as we have been able to make, during our long residence in India, into the subject of occult science, and the practices of those who have been initiated into the sect of the Pitris, which is Sanscrit for spirits or ancestral shades.<br><br>This is neither a doctrinal book nor a work of criticism.<br><br>We are not called upon to decide, either for or against, the belief in spirits, either mediating or inspiring, which was held by all who had been initiated in the temples of antiquity, which is to-day the keystone of the philosophical and religious instruction of the Brahmins, and to which many of our Western thinkers and scientists seem inclined to assent.<br><br>Being neither an advocate of this belief, nor the opposite, we are, on that account, better able to write its history.<br><br>An ardent partisan would have been too credulous, and would have taken everything upon trust. A rabid opponent would have made it his business to disparage and discredit it.<br><br>About the Publisher<br><br>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com<br><br>This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.