 Section 16 of the Golden Bow, Part 1, The Magic Art of the Evolution of Kings, Volume 1, by James Fraser. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information on the volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, recorded by Leon Harvey. Chapter 7, Incarnate Human Gods, Part 2, Human Gods in Southeast Africa An early Portuguese historian informs us that the Quateve, or King of Sofila in Southeast Africa, is a woolly-haired caver, a heathen who adores nothing but ever and has no knowledge of God. On the contrary, he estates himself the God of all his lands, and is so looked upon and reverenced by his subjects. When they suffer necessity or scarcity, they have recourse to the king, firmly believing that he can give them all that they desire or have need of, and can obtain anything from his dead predecessors, with whom they believe that he holds converse. For this reason, they ask the king to give them rain when it is required, and other favorable weather for their harvest. And in coming to us for any of these things, they bring him valuable presents, which the king accepts, beating them returned to their homes, and he will be careful to grant their petitions. There are such barbarians that, though they see how often the king does not give them what they ask for, they are not undeceived, but make him still great offerings. And many days are spent in these coming and goings until the weather turns to rain, and their caferas are satisfied, believing that the king did not grant their request, until he had been well bribed and importered, as he himself affirms in order to maintain them in their era. The Zimbers, or more Zimbers, are among people of Southeast Africa who not adore idols or recognize any god, but instead they venerate and honour their king, who in their regard as a divinity, and they say he is the greatest and best in the world. The said king says of himself that he alone is God of the earth, of which reason, if it rains, when he does not wish to do so, or is too hot, he shoots out of the sky for not obeying him. Amongst the Barots, a tribe on the Upper Zimbisi, there is an old but a waning belief that a chief is a demigod, and in heavy thunderstorms, the Barots flock to the chief's yard for protection from the lightning. They have been greatly distressed at seeing them fall on their knees before the chief, and treating him to open the water pots of heaven and send rain on their gardens. The king's servants declare themselves to be invincible because they are the servants of God, meaning the king. Human Gods in South Africa The Marees of South Africa have a spiritual head to whom they ascribe supernatural powers, revering him as a prophet and designating him by the name Chisholmpeh, besides a considerable territory which he owns and rules. He receives tribute from all, even from the king, Undi. They believe that this being is invisible and immortal, and they consult him as an oracle, in which case he makes himself heard. He is personified by a famo he Chisholmpeh, that is, by the intimate of the Chisholmpeh, whose dignity is hereditary and he was revered exactly like the supposed Chisholmpeh, with whom he is naturally identical. As he names his own successor, disputes as to his accession to not arise. His oracles are as unintelligible and ambiguous as can well be imagined. He derives great profit from the impostors of both sexes who purchase the gift of Susangh from him. In the settlement, Lusinda or the Chisholmpeh, where are women who the people regard as his wives, but who according to the universal belief cannot bear children. If these women are convicted of an offense with a man, they are burdened along with the partner of their guilt. The Meshono of South Africa informed their bishop that they had once had a god, but that their matibals had driven him away. This last was in reference to a curious custom in some villages of caping a man they called their god. He seemed to be consulted by the people at a presence given to him. There was one in a village belonging to a chief, Magondi, in the old days. We were asked not to fire off any guns near the village or we should frighten him away. This Meshono god was formally bound to render an annual tribute to the king of the matibals in the shape of four black oxen and one dents. A missionary has seen and described the deity discharging the latter part of his duty in front of the royal hut. The three mortal hours, without a break to the banging of a tambourine, the click of castes and netters, and the drone of a monitorous song, the swarthy god engaged in a frenzy dance. Crouching on his arms, like a trailer, sweating like a pig, and bounding about with an agility which testified to the strength and elasticity of his divine legs. Human Guides of the Macaluchus In the Macaluchus Hills to the west of Mantabella land, the natives all acknowledge there dwells a god whom they name Nagwali, much worshiped by the Bushmen of the Macaluchus, and feared even by the Matabelli. Even though Bangula pay tribute and sent presents to him often, this individual has been seen only a few of those who live close by and a doubtless prophet by the numberless offerings made to this strange being, but the god never dies and the position is supposed to be hereditary in one family who are their intermediaries for the connection between Nagwali and the outer world. This Macaluchus god resides in the depth of a cave in the midst of a labyrinth. Nobody's ever seen him, but he has sons and daughters, who are priests and priestesses, and dwell in the neighborhood of the Grotto. It is rather odd that not long ago three sons of this god were put to death by common mortals having stolen wheat from the king. Though Bangula probably thought that they should practice justice even more strictly than other folk. In the middle of the cabin, they say there is a shaft, very deep and very black. From this gulf, their issue from time to time, terrible noises like the crash of thunder. On the edge of the abyss, the worshipers tremblingly lay flesh and wheat, fowls, cakes and other presents to appease the hunger of the dreadful god and secure his favor. After making this offering, the poor supplicants declare aloud their wishes and the object of their application. They ask to know hidden things, future events, the names of those who have cast a spell on them, an issue of such and such an enterprise. After some moments of profound silence, there are heard amid the crash of subterranean thunder in articulate sounds, strange broken words, of which it is hard to make out the sense and which the menisemen and mazesis who are hand-to-glove with the makers of thunder explain to these credulous devotees. Human Gods in Central and East Africa The Baganda of Central Africa believed in a god of Lake Nyanza who sometimes took up his abode in a man or a woman. The incarnate god was much feared by all the people, including the king and the chiefs. When the mystery of incarnation had taken place, the man rather than god removed about a mile and a half from the margin of the lake and their way to the appearance of the new moon before he engaged his sacred duties. From the moment that the crescent moon appeared faintly in the sky, the king and all his subjects were at the command of the divine man or Lubara god, as he was called, who reigned supreme not only in matters of faith and ritual but also in questions of war and state policy. He was consolved as an oracle, by his words he could inflict or heal sickness with old reign and cause famine. Large presence were made to him when his advice was sought. The chief of Ura, a large region of the west of Lake Tanikanyaka, arrogates to himself divine honours and power and pretends to abstain from food for days without feeling its necessity. And indeed, the clearest that as a god he is altogether above required food and only eats drinks and smokes for the pleasure it affords him. Among the gullas, when a woman grows tired of the cares of housekeeping she begins to talk incoherently and to demean herself extravagantly. This is a sign of the descent of the Holy Spirit Callow upon her. Immediately her husband prostrates himself and adores her. She ceases to bear the humble title of wife and is called Lord. Domestic duties have no further claim on her and her will is a divine law. Human Gods in West Africa the King of Lengou is honoured by his people as though he were a god and is called Sambi and Pangou which mean god. They believe that he can let them have rain when he likes and once a year in December which is the time they want rain the people come to beg of him to grant it to them. On this occasion the king standing on his throne shoots an arrow into the air which is supposed to bring down rain. Much the same is said of the King of Mombasa. Down to a few years ago when his spiritual reign on earth was brought to an abrupt end by the carnal weapons of English Marines and blue jackets. The King of Benin was the chief object of worship in his dominions. He occupies a higher post here than the Pope does in Catholic Europe for he's not only gods by scarring upon earth but he got himself whose subjects both obey and adore him as such although I believe their adoration to arise rather from fear than love. The King of Ida told the English officers of the Niger expedition God made me after his own image. I am all the same as God and he imported me a king. In the language of the Hose and Ui tribe of Tongoland the word for God is Maul and the great God is Maulgar. They personify the blessing of God and say that the great God dwells with a rich man. From the personification of the divine blessing to the deification of the man himself the step is not a long one and as a matter of fact it is taken. The Hose, no men in whose life are to be seen so many resemblances to the great God and they call them simply Maul. In the neighborhood of Hose there lived a good many years ago a man who enjoyed an extraordinary reputation to the whole of the neighborhood and who accordingly named himself Wu Wul that is more than the others. The people actually paid him divine honors not indeed in the sense that they sacrificed to him but in a sense that they followed his words absolutely. They worked on the fields and bought him rich presents. On the coast there lived a respectful old chief who called himself Maul. He was richer than all the other chiefs and the inhabitants of 27 towns rendered him unconditional obedience. In the circumstance that he was richer and more honored than all the other chiefs he's always resembled to the deity. Divinity of kings and chiefs in Madagascar Among the hovers and other tribes in Madagascar there is said to be a deep sense of the divinity of kings and down to the acceptance of Christianity by the lead queen the Hova Sovereigns were regularly termed the visible god andriamarenhitra hitomasul and other terms of similar import were also applied to them. The chiefs of the Betsulu in Madagascar are considered as far above the common people and are looked upon almost as if they were gods but the chiefs are supposed to have powers regardless of the words they utter not however merely the power which a king possesses but the power like that of god a power which works of itself on account of its inherited virtue and not power exerted through soldiers in strong servants. The Empadzakar Manzakar or sovereign whom the Sakalava of the north often call also Zenhari and Tani God on earth is surrounded by them with a veneration which resembles idolatry and the vulgar is simple enough to attribute the creation of the world to his ancestors. The different parts of his body and his least actions are described by nouns and verbs which are foreign to the ordinary language forming a separate vocabulary called Vola Fali sacred words or Vola in Empadzakar princely words person and the gods of the Empadzakar Manzakar are fairly sacred. Divine Kings in the Malay region The theory of the real divinity of a king is said to be held strongly in the Malay region. Not only is the king's person considered sacred but the sanctity of his body is supposed to communicate itself to his regalia and to slay those who break the royal taboos. Miraculous power is attributed to regalia. Thus it is firmly believed that anyone who seriously offends a royal person who imitates or tutters even for a moment the chief objects of the regalia or who wrongfully makes use of the insinual privileges of royalty will be Kenna Dolat that is struck dead by a sort of electric discharge of that divine power which the Malay is supposed to reside in the king's person and to which they give the name of Dolat or Sanzati. The regalia of every petty Malay state is believed to be endowed with supernatural powers and we are told the extraordinary strength of the Malay belief in the supernatural powers of the regalia or the sovereigns can be thoroughly realized after a study of their romances in which their kings are credited with all the attributes of inferior gods. His birth as indeed every subsequent act of their afterlife is attended by the most amazing prodigies Divine kings and men in the East Indies. Among the battles of Central Sumatra there was a prince who bears a hereditary title of Shinga Margarangja and is worshipped as a deity. He reigns over Bakara a village on the south western shore of Lake Toba but his worship is diffused among the tribes both near and far. All sorts of strange stories are told of him it is said that he was seven years in his mother's womb and thus came to the world a seven year old child. That he has a black hairy tongue the sight of which is fatal so that in speaking he keeps his mouth as nearly shut as possible and gives all his orders in writing. Sometimes he remains seven months out eating or sleeps for three months together. He can make the sun to shine with rain to fall at his pleasure hence the people pray to him for a good harvest and worship is hastened to Bakara from all sides with offerings in the hope of thereby securing his maracoseed. Wherever he goes the gongs are suddenly beaten and the public peace may not be broken. He is said to eat neither pork nor dog's flesh. The fatas used to cherish a superstitious veneration for the sultan of Minankabul and showed a blind submission to his relations and emissaries but he all pretended when these persons appeared among them for the purpose of living contributions. Even when sultan important fear of their lives they may no attempt at resistance for they believe that their affairs will never prosper that their rights will be blighted and the buffalos die and they would remain under a sort of spell if they offended these sacred messengers. In the kingdom of Luwu the great majority of the people have never seen the king and they believe that were they to see him their belly would swell up and they would die on the spot. The farther you go from the capital the more firmly rooted is his belief. In the time of public calamity as during war or pestilence some of the Maluko islanders used to celebrate a festival of heaven. If no good result followed they bought a slave took him in the next festival to the place of sacrifice and set him on a raised place under a certain bamboo tree. This tree represented heaven and had been honoured as its image as warmer festivals. The portion of the sacrifice which had previously been offered to heaven was now given to the slave who hadn't drank it in the name instead of heaven. Henceforth he was well treated kept for the festivals of heaven and employed to represent heaven and receive the offerings in his name. Every alphor village of northern Seram has usually six priests of whom the most intelligent discharges the duties of high priest. This man is the most powerful person in the village. All the inhabitants even the regent are subject to him and must do his bidding. The common herd regard him as a Haya-bing a sort of demigod. He aims at surrounding himself with an atmosphere of mystery and for this purpose lives in great seclusion. Generally in the council house of the village where he conceals himself from vulgar eyes behind a screen or petition. However, in this case the god seems to be in process of incubation rather than full fledged. Divine kings in Burma and Siam a peculiarly bloodthirsty monarch of Burma by name Bodan Sisha is very confidence reflected the inbred ferocity of his nature and under whose reign more victims perished by the executioner than by the common enemy You can see the notion that he was something more than mortal and that this high distinction had been granted to him as a reward for his numerous good works. Accordingly he laid aside the title of king and ended up making himself a god. With his view and an imitation of Buddha who before being advanced to the rank of a divinity had acquitted his royal palace and said directly and retired from the world. Bodan Sashan withdrew from his palace to an immense pagoda the largest in the empire which he had been engaged in constructing for many years. Here he held conferences with the most learned monks in which he sought to persuade them that the 5,000 years assigned for the observance of the law of Buddha were now elapsed and that himself was a god who was destined to appear after that period and to abolish the old law by substituting his own. But to his great mortification many of the monks undertook to demonstrate the contrary and this disappointment combined with his love of power and his impatience under the restraints of an ascetic life quickly disabused him of his imaginary godhead and drove him back to his palace and his harem. Divinity of the King of Siam The King of Siam is venerated equally with the divinity his subjects ought not to look him in the face they prostrate themselves before him when he passes and appear before him on his knees their elbows resting on the ground. There is a special language to vote to his sacred person and attributes and it must be used by all who speak to or of him. Even the natives have difficulty in mastering this peculiar vocabulary. The hairs of the monarch's head the soles of his feet the breath of his body indeed every single detail of his person both outward and inward have particular names. When he eats or drinks sleeps or walks a special word indicates that these acts have been performed by the sovereign and such words cannot possibly be applied to the acts of any other person whatever. There is no word in the Siamese language by which any creature of higher rank or greater dignity then a monarch can be described and the missionaries when they speak of God are forced to use the native word for King Divine men in Tonkrin In Tonkrin every village chooses its guardian spirit often the form of an animal as a dog, tiger, cat or serpent sometimes living person is selected as patron divinity. Thus a beggar persuaded the people of a village that he was their guardian spirit they loaded him with honors and attained him with their best. Divine Head of the Baybites At the present day the head of the great Persian sect of the Baybites Abbas Effendi by name resides at Akra in Syria and is held by Frenchmen, Russians and Americans especially by rich American ladies to be an inter-coronation of God himself. The late professor S.I. Curtis of Chicago at the honour of dining with the master as he is invaderably called by his followers when the inter-coronation expressed a kindly hope that he might have the pleasure of drinking tea with the professor in the Kingdom of Heaven. Human Gods in India but perhaps no country in the world has been so prolific of human gods as India. Nowhere has the Divine Grace been poured out in a more liberal measure on all classes of society from kings down to milkmen. Defined Dairy Man among the Todas Thus among the Todas are pastoral people of the Naikari Hills of Southern India. The dairy is a sanctuary and the milkman who attend to it has been described as a god. On being asked whether the Todas salute the son one of these divine milkmen replied these poor fellows do so but I, tapping his chest I, a god. Why should I salute the son? Everyone, even his own father prostrates himself before the milkman and no one would dare to refuse him anything. No human being except another milkman may touch him and it gives oracles to all who consult him speaking with the voice of a god. Kings and Brahmins considered as gods in India Further in India every king is regarded as little short of a present god. The Hindu law book of Manu goes farther and says that even an infant king must not be despised from an idea that he is a mere mortal for he is a great deity in human form. As to the Brahmins it's laid down in the same treatise that a Brahmin, be he ignorant or learned is a great divinity just as the fire whether carried forth for the performance of a burnt oblation or not carried forth is a great divinity. Further it is said that though Brahmins employ themselves in all sorts of mean occupations they must be honoured in every way for each of them is a very great deity. In another ancient Hindu book we read that thoroughly there are two kinds of gods for indeed the gods are the gods and the Brahmins who have studied and teached sacred law are the human gods. The sacrifice of these is divided into kinds. Oblations constitute the sacrifice to the gods and it gives to the priests that to the human gods. The Brahmins who have studied and teached sacred law. The spiritual power of a Brahmin priest is described as unbounded. His anger is as terrible as that of the gods. His blessing makes rich his curse withers. Namely more he is himself actually worshipped as a god. No marvel, no prodigy and nature is believed to be beyond the limits of his power to accomplish. Either priests were too threatened to bring down the sun from the sky or are rested in its daily course in the heavens. No villager would for a moment doubt his ability to do so. As to the mantras or sacred texts by means of which the Brahmins exercise their miraculous powers there is a saying everywhere at current in India. The whole universe is subject to the gods. The gods are subject to the mantras. The mantras to the Brahmins therefore the Brahmins are our gods. Other human gods in India. There is said to have been a sect in or reserve some years ago who worshipped the late Queen Victoria in her lifetime as their chief divinity and to this day in India all living persons are remarkable for great strength or valor or for supposed miraculous power run the risk of being worshipped as gods. Thus a sect in the Punjab worshipped a deity whom they called Nikhil Sen. This Nikhil Sen was no other than a redoubted general Nikhil Sen and nothing that this general could do or say damped the idol of his adorers. The more he punished them the greater grew the religious all with which they worshipped him. At Bonaire as a few years ago a celebrated deity was incarnate in the person of a Hindu gentleman who rejoiced in their euphonious name Swami Baskaranandaj Saraswati and looked on commonly like the late Cardinal Manning only more ingenious. His eyes banded with kindly human interest and he took what is described as an innocent pleasure in the divine honors made him by his confiding worshippers. Lin Gayat priests worshipped as gods. The Lin Gayats are the Unitarians of Hinduism for they believe in only one god Siva rejecting the other two persons of the Hindu trinity yet they have seen the Jangam or priests as superior even to the deity. They pay homage to the Jangam first and to Siva afterwards. The Jangam is regarded as an incarnation of the deity. In practice the Jangam is placed first and as stated above is worshipped as God upon earth. In 1900 a hill man in Vizagapattam gave out that he was an incarnate god and his claims to divinity were accepted by a following of 5000 people who, when a skeptical government sent an armed force to suppress the movement which threatened political trouble testified to the faith that was in them by resisting even to the shedding of the blood. Two policemen who refused to bow with the knee to the new god were knocked on the head. However in the scuffle the deity himself was arrested and laid by the heels in jail where he died just like a common mortal. Human incarnations of the Elven-headed god Ganputi. At Chinchfad a small town about 10 miles from Pune in West Nindia there lives a family of whom one in each generation is believed by a large portion of the Menraktas to be an incarnation of the Elven-headed god Ganputi. That celebrated deity was first made flesh about the year 1640 in the person of a Brahman of Pune by name Lorapa Gossin who sought to work out his salvation by abstinence, mortification and prayer. His petty has its reward. He got himself appeared to him in a vision of the night and promised that a portion of his that is of Ganputi's holy spirit should abide with him and with his seed after him even to the seventh generation. The divine promise was fulfilled. Seven successive incarnations transmitted from father to son manifested the light of Ganputi to a dark world. The last of the direct line a heavy-looking god with very weak eyes died in the year 1810 but the cause of truth was too sacred and the value of the church property too considerable to allow the Brahmans to contemplate with equanimity the unspeakable loss that would be sustained by a world which knew not Ganputi. Accordingly they sought out a holy vessel in whom the divine spirit of the master had revealed its self anew and the revelation had been happily continued in an unbroken succession of vessels from that time to this. But a mysterious law of spiritual economy whose operation in the history of religion we may deplore though we cannot alter as decreed that the miracles brought by the God-man and his degenerate days cannot compare with those which were brought by his predecessors in days gone by and it is even reported that the only sign vouchsafed by him to the present generation of vipers is a miracle of feeding the multitude whom he annually entertains to dinner at Chinchvaid. Worship of the Maharajas as incarnations of Krishna a Hindu set which has many representatives in Bombay and Central India holds the spiritual chiefs of Maharajas as they are called are representatives of even actual incarnations on earth of the God-Krishna. Hence in the temples where the Maharajas do homage to the idols and the women do homage to the Maharajas prostrating themselves at their feet offering them incense, fruits and flowers and waving lights before them as the Maharajas themselves do before the images of the gods. One word of worship in Krishna is by swinging his images and swings. Hence in every district presided over by a Maharaja women are want to worship not Krishna but the Maharaja by swinging him in pendulous seats. The leavings of his food the dust on which he treads the water on which his dirty lid and his washed are all equally swallowed by his devotees who worship his wooden shoes and prostrate themselves before his seat and his painted portraits and as Krishna looks down from heaven with most favour on such as minister to the wants of his excesses and vikkus on earth are peculiar to the right court of self-devotion as being instituted whereby his faithful worshipers make over their bodies their souls and waters perhaps still more important their worldly substance to his adorable incarnations and women are taught to believe that the highest bliss for themselves and their families is to be attained by yielding themselves to the embrace of those beings in whom the divine nature mysteriously coexists with the form and even their appetites of true humanity. Pretenders to divinity among Christians. Christianity itself is not a uniformly escapotant of these unhappy delusions. Indeed, it is often being sullied by the extravagances of vain pretenders to a divinity equal to or even surpassing that of its great founder. In the second century in Montana, the Phrygian claimed to be the incarnate trinity uniting in his single person God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Nor is this an isolated case the exorbitant pretension of a single ill-balanced mind. From the earliest times down to the present day many sects have believed that Christ may God Himself is incarnate in every fully initiated Christian and they have carried this belief to a sluggable conclusion by adorning each other. Tertullian records that this was done by his fellow Christians at Carthage in the second century. The disciple Saint Columba worshiped him as an embodiment of Christ. In the 8th century the Lependus of Toledo spoke of Christ as a God among gods meaning that all believers were gods just as true the ex-Jesus himself. The adoration of each other was customary among the albergenses and is noted hundreds of times in the records of the Inquisition at Toluus in the early part of the 4th-10th century. It is still practiced by the Policians of Armenia and the Bogomiles about Moscow. The Policians indeed presumed to justify their faith. They learnt their practice by the authority of Saint Paul who said it is not I that speak by Christ that dwelleth in me. It is the members of this Russian sector known as the Christs. Among them men and women alike take upon themselves the calling of teachers and prophets. And in this character they lead a strict aesthetic life refrain from the most ordinary innocent pleasures exhaust themselves by long-lasting and wild-a-static religious exercises and a poor marriage. Out of the excitement caused by their supposed holiness and inspiration they call themselves not only teachers and prophets but also saviours, redeemers, Christs, mothers of God generally speaking they call themselves simply gods and pray to each other as to real gods and live in Christ's warm adonance. Brethren and sisters of the Free Spirit In the 13th century there arose a set called the Brethren and Sisters of the Free Spirit who held that by long in a city's contemplation any man might be united to the deity in an infallible manner and become one with the source and parent of all living things and then he who had thus ascended to God and been absorbed in this beatific essence actually formed part of the Godhead was a son of God in the same sense and manner with Christ myself and enjoyed there by a glorious immunity from the trammels of all laws human and divine Inwardly transported by this blitz all's persuasion though outwardly presenting in their aspects and manners a shocking air of lunacy and distraction. The secretaries roamed from place to place are tied to the most fantastic apparel and begging their bread with wild shouts and clamor spurning indignantly every kind of honest labor and industry as an obstacle to divine contemplation and to the ascent of the soul towards the father of spirits. In all that excursions they were followed by women with whom they lived on terms of their closest familiarity. Those of them who conceived they had made the greatest proficiency in the highest spiritual life dispensed with the use of clothes altogether in their assemblies looking upon decency and modesty as marks of inward corruption characteristics of a soul that still growled under the dominion of the flesh and had not yet been elevated into communion with the divine spirit Sometimes their progress towards the mystic communion was accelerated by the Inquisition and they expired in the flames on Millie with an uncladly serenity but with the most triumphed feelings of cheerfulness and joy. Incarnation of the Holy Ghost. In the same century about him in a woman named Will Helmina whose head had been turned by brooding over some crazy predictions about a coming age of the Holy Ghost persuaded herself for many people besides that the Holy Ghost had actually become a person for the salvation of a great part of mankind. She died on the land in the year 1281 in the most frequent odor of sanctity and a memory was held in the highest veneration by a numerous following and even honored with religious worship both public and private. Modern incarnations of Jesus Christ. About the year 1830 there appeared in one of the states of the American Union bordering on Kentucky an imposter who declared that he was the son of God the savior of mankind that he had reappeared on earth to recall the impious the unbelieving and sinners to their duty. He protested that if they did not mend their ways within a certain time he would give the signal and in a moment the world will crumble to ruins. These extravagant pretensions were received with favor even by persons of wealth and positions in society. At last a German humbly beselt the new Messiah to announce the dreadful catastrophic to his fellow countrymen in the German language as they did not understand English and a sin of of Hitty that they should be damned merely on that account. The would-be savior in reply confessed with great condor they did not know German what retorted the German you the son of God and don't speak all languages and don't even know German. Come come you are an ape a hypocrite and a madman bedlam is a place for you. The spectators laughed and went away ashamed of their credibility about 30 years ago a new sect was founded at Patiala in the Punjab by a wretched creature named who lived in extreme poverty and filth gave himself out to be a reincarnation of Jesus Christ and offered to baptize the missionaries who attempted to argue with him. He proposed shortly to destroy the British government and to convert and conquer the world. His gospel was accepted by 4000 believers in his immediate neighborhood. Cases like these Verge on neither nor cross the wavering and uncertain line which divides the raptures of religion from insanity. Transmigrations of human deities sometimes at the death of the human incarnation the divine spirit transmigrates into another man. In the kingdom of Kaffa in eastern Africa the Ethan part of the people worshiped by spirit called Diwatsu of whom they offer prayer and sacrifice and whom they invoke on all important occasions. This spirit is incarnate in the Grand Magician or Pope a person of great wealth and influence ranking almost with the King and wielding the spiritual as the King wields a temporal power. It happened that shortly before the arrival of a Christian missionary in the kingdom this African Pope died and the priests fearing lest the missionary might assume the position vacated by the disease prelate declared that the Diwatsu had passed into the King. Who ends forth he noted the spiritual with the temporal power reign as God and King. Before beginning to work at the salt pans and allows in the village the work went off and sacrificed to a divinity of the salt pans. This divinity is incarnate in a woman and transmigrates out of death into another woman. In Boutan the spiritual head of the government is a dignitary called the Dormar Raja who is supposed to be a perpetual incarnation of the deity. At his death the new incarnate God shows himself in an infant by the refusal of his mother's milk and a preference for that of a cow. Transmigrations of the Divine Lamas The Buddhist Tatars believe in a great number of living Buddhas who officiate as Grand Lamas at the head of the most important monasteries. And one of these Grand Lamas dies his disciples do not sorrow for they know that he will soon reappear being born in the form of an infant. They ruin the anxiety to discover the place of his birth. Here at this time they see a rainbow of their tatars of signs sent them by the departed Lamas to guide them to his cradle. Sometimes the Divine infant himself reveals his identity. I am the Grand Lamas he says the living Buddha of such and such a temple take me to my old monastery. I am its immortal head. And whatever way the birthplace of the Buddha is revealed wherever by the Buddha's own the sky tents are struck and the joyful pilgrims often headed by the King or one of the most illustrious the royal family set forth to find and bring home the infant God. Generally he is born in Tibet the Holy Land and to reach him the caravan is often trans the most vital deserts. When it lasts they find the child they fall down and worship him. Before however he is acknowledged as the Grand Lamas whom they seek he must satisfy them of his identity. He is asked the name of the monastery of which he claims to be the head. How far off it is and how many monks live in it. He must also describe the habits of the deceased Grand Lama and the manner of his death. In various articles as prayer books teapots and cups are placed above him and he has to point out those used by himself in his previous life. If he does so without a mistake his claims are admitted. He is conducted in triumph to the monastery. At the head of all the Lamas is the Dalai Lama of Lhasa the Rome of Tibet. Divinity of the Grand Lama of Lhasa. He is regarded as a living God. And at death his divine and immortal spirit is born again in a child. According to some accounts the motive of discovering the Dalai Lama is similar to the method we described of discovering the ordinary Grand Lama. Other accounts speak of an election by drawing lots from a golden gyre. Wherever he is born the trees and plants put forth green leaves. At his bidding flowers bloom and springs of water rise. And his presence diffuses heavenly blessings His palace stands on a commanding height. His gilded capolas are seen sparkling in the sunlight for miles. In 1661 or 1662 Fathers Gruber and Orville on their return from Peking to Europe spent two months at Lhasa waiting for a caravan. And their report that the Grand Lama was worshipped as a true and living God that he received the title the Eternal and Heavenly Father and that he was believed to have risen from the dead no less than seven times. He lived with dawn from the business of this passing world in the recesses of his palace. Where seated a loft on a cushion and purchased carpets he received the home of his adorers in a chamber screen from the garish eye of day by the glittering of gold and silver and lit up by the blaze of an altitude of torches. His worshippers with heads bowed to the earth attested their veneration by kissing his feet and even bribed the attended Lamas with great sums to give them a little of the natural secretions of his divine person which they have swallowed with their food or wall with their necks as an amulet that fortified them against the assaults of every element. Incarnate human gods in the Chinese empire. But he is by no means only man who poses as a god in these regions. A register of all the Incarnate gods in the Chinese empire is kept in the Li Fan Yan or colonial offset picking. The number of gods who have thus taken out of license is 160. Tibet is blessed with 30 of them Northern Mongolia rejoices in 19 and Southern Mongolia asks in the sunshine of no less than 57. The Chinese government with a paternal solicitude for the welfare of its subjects forbids the gods on the registered to be reborn anywhere but in Tibet. They fear lest the birth of a god in Mongolia should have serious political consequences by stirring their dormant patriotism and war like spirit of the Mongols who might rally round an ambitious native deity of real lineage and seek to win for him at the point of the sword a temporal as well as a spiritual kingdom besides these public or licensed gods there are great many little private gods or unlicensed practitioners of divinity who work miracles and bless their people in holes and corners and of late years the Chinese government has winked at the rebirth of these petty fucking deities outside Tibet. However once they are born the government keeps its eye on them as well as on the regular practitioners and if any of them misbehaves is properly degraded banished to a distant monastery divine head of the Taoist religion in China at the head of Taoism the most numerous religious sect of China is a Pope who goes by the name of the heavenly master as believed to be an incarnation and representative on Earth of the God of Heaven his official title is Chen Yan or the true man when one of these Pontiffs or Incarnate deities departs this life his soul passes into a male member of his family the engine house of chain in order to determine the chosen vessel or the male members of the clan assemble at the palace their names are engraved on tablets of lead the tablets are thrown into a vase full of water and the one which bears a name of the new incarnation floats on the surface reputation and power of the Pope are very great he lives in princely style at his palace of the dragon and tiger mountains in the province of Qiang sea about 25 miles to the Southwest of Kui Qi the road partly flat and provided regular intervals with stone halls the repose or weary pilgrims leads gradually upward to a bleak and barren district tree listen thinly peopled to the summit of a pass from which a beautiful prospect suddenly opens up of a wide and fertile valley watered by a little stream the scene charms the traveler all the more by contrast with the desert country which is just transversed this is the beginning of the Pope's Patrimary which he holds from the of taxes the palace stands the middle of a little town it is new and of no special interest having been rebuilt after the Tape and Rebellion through their march northwards the rebels devastated the papal domains with great fury about a mile to the beast of the palace lie the ruins of state the temples which also perished in a great rising and have only in pipe been rebuilt however the principal temple is well preserved is dedicated to the God of Heaven it contains a colossal image of that deity the papal residents naturally swarmed with monks and priests of all ranks by the courts and gardens of the monasteries littered with heaps of broken bricks and stones and mouldering wood present a melancholy spectacle of decay and the ruinous state of the religious capital reflects the decline of the papacy the number of pilgrims has fallen off and we've them the revenues of the holy sea evolved the Pope ranked with the Viceroy's and the highest dignitaries of the Empire now he's reduced to the level of a Mandarin of the third class formally he repaired every year to the Imperial Court of Peking or elsewhere in order to secure peace and prosperity for the whole kingdom by means of his ceremonies and on his journey the gods and spirits were bound to come from every quarter to pay him homage unless he considerably hung out on his palanquin aboard with the nose you need not trouble to salute the people to gathered up the dust or mud from under his feet to preserve it as a priceless talisman nowadays if he goes to court at all it seems to be not often then once in three years and his services are sort of more to accept to ban the demons of plague they still exercises the right of elevating deceased mandarins to the rank of little deities and as he receives a fee for every deification the ranks of the celestial hierarchy naturally receive many recruits he also draws considerable revenue from the manufacturing sale of red and green papers inscribed with capitalistic characters which are infallable safeguards against demons disease and clamies of every sort divine peru from our survey of the religious position occupied by the king and rude societies he may inferred that the claim to divine and supernatural powers put forward by the monarchs of great historical empires like those of Egypt China Mexico and Peru was not this level outcome of inflated vanity or the empty expression of a groveling adulation it was merely a survival and extension of the old savage apotheosis of living kings thus for example as children of the son the Incas of Peru were revered like gods they could do no wrong and no one dreamed of offending against a person on a or property of the mark or of any of the world race hence too the Incas did not like most people look on sickness as an evil they considered it a messenger sent from their father the son to call them to come and rest with him in heaven therefore the usual words in which Shaninka announced his approaching and were these my father calls me to come and rest with him they would not oppose their father's will by offering sacrifice for recovery but openly declared that he had called them to his rest divine rulers among the chip chunns issuing from the sultry values upon a lofty table land of the Colombian Andes the Spanish conquerors were astonished to find in contrast to the savage hoards they had left in the sweltering jungles below a people enjoying a fair degree of civilization practicing agriculture and living under a government which Humbold has compared to the the theocracies at Tibet Japan these were the chipchas Maizka's or Mosca's divided into two kingdoms with capitals at Okota and Tunja by united apparently in spiritual allegiance to the high pontiff of Segamozo or Inka by a long and aesthetic motive this ghostly ruler was repeated to have acquired such sanctity that the waters and the rain obeyed him and the weather depended on his will divine kings in Mexico the Mexican kings at their ascension as we have seen took an oath that they would make the sun to shine the clouds to give rain rivers to flow in the earth to bring forth fruits and abundance we are told that Montezuma the last king in Mexico was worshiped by his people as a god divinity of the Chinese emperors in China the emperor is not himself worshiped as a daddy he's supposed by his subjects to be the lord and master of all the gods on the subject a leading authority on Chinese religion observes to know some China would have ever occurred to question the supreme authority wielded by the emperor his proxies the mandarins not only over mankind but also of the gods by the gods we'll share our souls of intrinsically the same nature as those existing human beings why then simply because they have no human bodies should they be placed above the emperor who is no less than a son of heaven that is to say I have a attitude second to none but heaven or the power above whom there is none who governs the universe and all that moves and exists therein such absurdity could not possibly be entertained by Chinese reason so it is a first article of China's political creed that the emperor as well as heaven is lord and master of all the gods and delegates this dignity to his mandarins each in his jurisdiction with them then rest the decision which of the gods are entitled to assay the people's worship and which are not is the imperial government which defies disembodied souls of men also to best them at the divine rank their worship they've established against its will or without its consent can be exterminated at its pleasure without revenge having to be feared from the side of the God for any such radical measure for the power of even the mightiest and strongest God is a naught compared with that of the August celestial being with his will and under his protection the sun reigns supreme over everything existing but the imperial as he forfeits his omnipotence and forth through neglect of his imperial duties divinity of the micado as the emperor of China is believed to be a son of heaven so the emperor of Japan the micado is supposed to be an incarnation of the sun goddess a daddy who rules the universe gods and men included once a year or the gods await upon him and spend a month at his court during the month the name of which means without gods no one frequents the temples for they are believed to be deserted divinity of early Babylonian kings the early Babylonian kings from the time of Saag in the first to the fourth dynasty of or later clan to be gods in their lifetime the Monarchs of the fourth dynasty of or in particular temples built in their honor instead of their statues in various centuries and commanded the people to sacrifice to them the eighth month was especially dedicated to the kings and sacrifices were offered to them at the new moon and on the 15th of each month again the Parthian Monarchs of the Arsakid House star themselves brothers of the sun and moon and worshiped as dadies it was esteemed sacriles to strike a private member of the Arsakid family in a brawl divinity of Egyptian kings the kings of Egypt were deified in their lifetime sacrifices were offered to them and their worship was celebrated in special temples and by special priests indeed the worship of the king sometimes casts that of the gods into the shade thus in the rain of Maranra the high official declared that he had built many holy places in order that the spirits of the king the ever-living Maranra might be in vote more than all the gods he has never been doubted that the king claimed actual divinity he was the great god the golden horse the son of Ra he claimed authority not only over Egypt but over all lands and nations the whole world in its length and its breath the east and the west the entire compass of the great serpent of the sun the sky and what he's in it the earth and all that is upon it every creature walks upon two or upon four legs all that fly or flutter the whole world offers her productions to him whatever in fact might be asserted of the sun god was dogmatically predictable of the king of Egypt his titles were directly derived from those of the sun god and the cause of his existence we're told the king of Egypt exhausted all the possible conceptions of divinity which the Egyptians had framed for themselves a superhuman god by his birth and by his royal office he became the died by man after his death that's all that was known of the divine was summed up in him the divinity of the king was recognized in all the circumstances of the public life of the sovereign he was not enough to worship Pharaoh in the temple beyond the limits of the sanctuary he remained the good god to whom all men owed a perpetual adoration the very name of the sovereign was so quick like his person people swore by his name as by that of the gods and he who took the earth in pain was punished in particular the king of Egypt was identified with the great sun god Ra the son of the son decked with the solar crowns armed with the solar weapons gods and men adored him as Ra defended him as Ra from the attacks which ministered in him the divine being who in his human existence knew the glory and the dangers of being an incarnate son and the living image on earth of his father Tom of Heliopolis even the life of the gods depended on the divine life of the king gods and men it is said lived by the words of his mouth O gods said the king before celebrating divine worship you are safe if I am safe your doubles are safe of my double is safe at the head of all living doubles all live if I live the king was addressed as Lord of heaven Lord of earth son life for the whole world Lord of time Measurer of the son's course Tom for men Lord of well-being creator of the harvest maker and fashion of mortals bestower of breath upon all men give of life to all the hosts of gods pillar of heaven threshold of the earth where of the equipos of both worlds Lord of rich gifts increaser of the corn and so forth yet as we should expect the exalted powers thus ascribed the king different degree rather than in kind from those which every Egyptian claimed for himself Professor Tayel observes that as every good man that his death became more serious as everyone in danger would need could by the use of magic sentences assumed form of deity is quite comprehensible how the king not only after death but already during his life was placed on a level with the deity evolution of sacred kings out of magicians we have now completed our sketch which is no more than a sketch of the evolution of that sacred kingship which attained its highest form its most absolute expression in the monarchies of Peru and Egypt or China and Japan historically the institution appears to have originated in the order of public magicians or medicine men logically it rests on a mistaken deduction from the association of ideas men took the order of their ideas for the order of nature and hence imagined that the control which they have or seemed to have over their thoughts permitted them to exercise a corresponding control over things the men who for one reason or another because of the strength of the weakness of their natural parts were supposed to possess these medical powers in the highest degree very gradually marked off from their fellows and became a separate class who were destined to exercise a most far-reaching influence on the political religious and intellectual evolution of mankind social progress as we know consists mainly in a successive differentiation of functions and a simpler language division of labor the work which improve the society is done by all alike and by all equally ill or nearly so is greatly distributed among different classes of work is executed more and more perfectly and so far as the products material or material of this special labor are shared by all the whole community benefits by the increasing specialization magicians or medicine men the orders professional class now magicians or medicine men appear to constitute the oldest artificial or professional class in the evolution of society for the sorcerers are found on every savage tribe known to us and among the lowest savages such as the Australian Aborigines they are the only professional class that exists as time goes on and the process of differentiation continues the order of medicine men hits itself subdivided to such classes as the healers of disease the makers of reign and so forth while the most powerful member of the order of wins for himself of position he's old magical functions failing more and more into the background of an exchange for priestly or even divine duties in proportion as magic is slowly hosted by religion still later our tradition is effected between the civil and the religious aspect of the kingship the temporal power being committed to one man and a spiritual to another meanwhile the magicians may be repressed by cannot be extirpated by their predominance religion still they take themselves to their older cult arts in preference to the new ritual sacrifice prayer and in time more suggests that their number precede the fallacy of magic and hit upon a more effective mode of manipulating the forces of nature for the good of man in short they abandon sorcery for science I am far from affirming that the cause of development has everywhere rigidly followed these lines as doubtless very greatly in different societies I merely mean to indicate in the broadest outline what I concede to have been its general trend regarded from the industrial point of view the evolution has been uniformity to diversity of function regarded from the political point of view has been from democracy to despotism with the latter history of monarchy especially with the decay of despotism and its displacement by forms of government better adapted to the higher needs of humanity we are not concerned in this enquiry our theme is a growth not the decay of a great and its time beneficial institution End of Chapter 7 Incarnate Human Gods Part 2 End of Section 16 Section 17 of Volume 1 of the Golden Bell Part 1 The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings Volume 1 by James Fraser This is a Libervox recording all Libervox recordings in the public domain For more information of the volunteer please visit Libervox.org recorded by Leon Harvey Appendix Hegel on Magic and Religion My friend Professor James Ward has pointed out to me that the view which I have taken of the nature and historical relations of Magic and Religion was anticipated by Hegel in his Letters on the Philosophy of Religion So far as I understand the Philosopher's Exposition the agreement between us amounts to this We both hold that in the Mental Evolution of Humanity an Age of Magic preceded an Age of Religion and that the characteristic difference between Magic and Religion is that whereas Magic aims at controlling Nature directly Religion aims at controlling it indirectly through the mediation of a powerful supernatural being or perhaps to whom a man appeals to help and protection That I take to be the substance of Hegel's meeting in the following passages which I extract from his Letters on the Philosophy of Religion Speaking of what he calls a Religion of Nature he observes Fear of the powers of Nature of the Sun of Thunderstorms etc is here not as yet fear which might be called religious fear for this has its Satan Freedom The fear of God is a different fear from the fear of natural forces It is said that fear is a beginning of wisdom This fear cannot present itself in immediate religion It first appears in man when he knows himself to be powerless in his particularity when his particularity trembles within him It is not however fear in this higher sense only that it is not present here But even the fear of the powers of Nature so far as it enters it all at this first stage of the Religion of Nature changes around in its opposite and becomes Magic The absolutely primary form of Religion to which we give the name of Magic consists in this that the spiritual is the ruling power of Nature This spiritual element does not yet exist however as spirit It is not yet found in its universality but is merely the particular contingent empirical self-consciousness of man which although it is only mere passion knows itself to be higher in its self-consciousness the Nature knows that it is a power ruling of Nature This power is a direct power of Nature in general and it is not to be likened to the indirect power which we exercise by means of implements over natural objects in their separate forms Here the power of Nature acts in a direct way It thus is Magic or Sorcery As regards the external mode in which this idea actually appears it is found in a form which implies that this Magic is what is highest in the self-consciousness of those peoples But in a subordinate way Magic steels up to higher standpoints too and insinuates itself into higher religions and thus into the popular conception of witches although in this form is recognised as something which is partly impotent and partly improper and godless There has been inclination on the part of some as for example in the Kantian philosophy to consider prayer to as Magic because man seeks to make it effectual not through mediation but by starting direct from spirit The distinction here however, is that man appeals to the absolute will for which even the individual or unit is an object of care and which can either grant the power or not and which in so acting is determined by general purposes of good Magic however in the general sense simply amounts to this The man has a mastery as he is in his natural state as possessed of passions and desires Such as the general character of this primal and holy immediate standpoint namely that the human consciousness any definite human being is recognised as a ruling power of a nature in virtue of his own will The natural has a weather by no means that wide range which it has in our idea of it for here the greater part of nature still remains in different demand or is just as he is accustomed to see it everything is stable earthquakes, thunderstorms floods, animals which threaten him with death enemies and the like are another matter to defend himself against these recourse his had to magic Such as the oldest mode of religion the oldest most barbarous form By recent travellers such as Captain Perry and before him Captain Ross this religion has been found among the Eskimos only without the element of mediation and as the crudest consciousness among other peoples mediation is already present Captain Perry says of them they have not the slightest idea of spirit or a higher existence of an essential substance as contrasted with their empirical murder of existence on the other hand they have amongst them individuals whom they call Anguicocs magicians conjurers those assert that they have it in their power to raise a storm to create a calm to bring whales near etc and say that they learned these arts from old Anguicocs the people regard them with fear in every family however there is at least one a young Anguicoc wishes to make the wind rise and he proceeds to do it by dint of phrases and gestures these phrases had no meaning and were directed towards no supreme being as a medium but were addressed in an immediate way to the natural object of which Anguicoc wished to exercise power it required no weight from anyone whatever this religion of magic is very prevalent in Africa as well as among the Mongols and Chinese here however it is no longer found in the absolute crudeness of its first form but mediation has already come in which owe their origin to the fact that the spirit has begun to assume an objective form for self-consciousness in its first form this religion is more magic than religion is in Africa among the Negroes that prevails most extensively in this sphere of magic the main principle is direct domination of nature by means of the will of self-consciousness in other words the spirit is something of a higher kind than nature however bad this magic may look regarded in one aspect still in another it is higher than a condition of dependence upon nature and fear of it such then is a very first form of religion which cannot indeed as yet be properly called religion to religion essentially pertains the moment of objectivity this means that spiritual power shows itself as a mode of the universal relatively to self-consciousness for the individual for the particular empirical consciousness this objectivity is an essential characteristic on which all depends not until it is present does religion begin does it God exist and even the lowest condition there is at least a beginning of it the mountain the river is not in its character as this particular mass of earth as this particular water the divine but as a mode of the existence of the divine of an essential universal being we do not yet find this in magic as such is the individual consciousness at this particular consciousness and consequently the very indication of the universal which is what has a power here not a God in the magician but the magician himself is a conjurer and conqueror of nature out of magic the religion of magic is developed end of appendix end of section 17 and the end of volume one of the golden bell part one the magic art in the evolution of kings volume one by James Fraser recorded by Leon Harvey