As manifested in St. Paul and St. John, mysticism is the recognition of the Holy Spirit as the Witness of Christ, and therefore the supreme lord over all man’s emotions and reasonings and purposes. Consequently the asceticism with which mysticism has always been associated has been in Christianity more kept under control. Occasionally it has lapsed into frightful excesses; indeed, the extravagances practised in the East to attain to insight have been equalled by the devices resorted to by many in the West to gain the vision of the Divine. In ingenious methods of self-torture the West certainly vied with the East, but at self-torture perverted Christianity stopped, while degenerate Buddhism went on to invent and put in practice most revolting methods of self-destruction as well. The law of Buddha prohibited this, and forbade even the mention of the advantages of death. It was an offence of the gravest kind, punished by the severest penalty which the Order could inflict,[393] for a monk to procure a weapon for the purpose of taking away his life, or to teach how death may be procured. Still, in India before Fa-Hian’s time, self-murder was practised, and in China Imperial edicts against self-mutilation and self-immolation were required to prevent fanatics evading the primitive law by the quibble, that while prohibiting suicide, Buddha enjoined the destruction of anger and lust, and that it was against these alone that they raised their hand, in order to complete their deliverance.[394]