“Professor Sarak, while master of fourteen languages, does not
speak fluently the English language. Last evening he spoke {256}
in French, and a very charming young woman, also an adept, but of
English birth, acted as his interpreter. The Easterner, a man of
medium height, was attired in a gorgeous gown of white silk, across
the breast of which hung certain mystic emblems of gold and silver.
A loose, pale-yellow robe covered this garment during most of the
evening. He wore a white turban. The adept wears a pointed black
beard, which, with large, languid brown eyes, gave fully the effect
that one expects in a student of the mystic schools of Thibet.
“The interpreter stated that Professor de Sarak was born in Thibet
and was descended from a noble French family. He had devoted his
life, she said, to the study of the occult, first in the Thibetan
schools and later with the ascetics hidden in the mountains. He had
visited almost every country on the globe, spreading the occult
science, which, she declared, some time would bring a rich harvest to
all mankind.
“As the professor finished his rapidly spoken French sentences the
young woman translated them to the hearers. Dr. de Sarak described
the sixth sense in man, saying that it was second-sight, a latent and
undeveloped force. He said he merely wished to present the facts of
his religion. He explained the wonderful fluid force that existed.
He said it is the force that raised the huge stones in building the
pyramids and is the same force that brings the bird from the egg, the
force which gives man the power of rising as if filled with a buoyant
gas, a power which can be concentrated in a tube. He stated that
occultism was absolutely nothing but the powers of the will.
“ ‘It is nothing supernatural,’ the doctor said, ‘but is merely the
hastening of nature’s work.’
“A small table stood by a leather chair, and on this burned a tiny
candle from the mouth of a brazen asp. The professor stood over the
table and busied himself with a pungent incense in an odd burner. A
glass plate, with a number of fish eggs, was shown and examined. A
large glass bowl was filled with water, and one of the members of
the audience was told to carefully brush the eggs into the water.
In the meantime three men from the audience had with strong ropes
securely bound {257} the hands of the adept behind his back as he
sat in the chair. Broad, clean, white cloths were wrapped about the
seated figure, leaving the head free, and the three men selected held
the cloths in place. Music rolled from a deep organ, and the head of
the adept sank back and a strange light appeared to cross his face.
According to the directions of the interpreter the bowl of water
containing the fish eggs was placed by one of the three beneath the
cloths on the lap of the adept.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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