CHAPTER VII

INCENSE AND OCCULTISM


The ancients possessed amazing secrets concerning psychic knowledge
of all kinds. Apart from the philosophical tenets held by the various
degrees of priestcraft there was a special secret knowledge of what may
be called the mechanical side. They knew how to produce phenomena.

Then as now, the specially gifted were used in connection with the
service of mysteries, but in all the old cults which attained to
any degree of organization the arch-priests or hierophants were not
themselves mediums, but made use of mediums as instruments. The rôle
played by the medium was a more or less unimportant one just as to-day
the “psychics” used by the different sects of Tibetan Lamas are
relatively unimportant and insignificant members of the priestcraft.

The priests had, however, other secrets--secrets which on occasion
conferred the gift of vision on the ordinary non-psychic person.
Sacerdotalism and royalty were closely allied not only in ancient
Egypt, but throughout the bulk of the mid-Oriental and Byzantine cults.
Then as now, people demanded proof of miracles and the proof had to be
forthcoming.

Little by little, savants have recovered from hieroglyph and papyri,
from stone and manuscript, something of the great rituals and something
of both the outer and inner forms of these dead faiths.

We know enough to realize that the adepts possessed the art of
releasing the spirit from the body and of producing the trance state
not only in individuals but in comparatively large congregations.

The two hypotheses are the agency of hypnotism and the agency of some
mechanical or physiological factor such as a drug.

The possibilities of hypnotism in the form of crowd suggestion cannot
be overlooked, but it does not entirely account for some of the
phenomena that tradition has handed down and which is substituted by
contemporary record.

Analysis of some of these cults shows that the initiates partook of a
ceremonial drink or brew of some kind and that there is a more than
mystical use of the censer. Nine-tenths of the so-called propitiatory
ritual was symbolic, but there remains an unexplained tenth part whose
agency was primarily that of mechanical excitant of what one may term
“psychism”--those qualities of perception that we class as psychic
gifts.

It is precisely these extraordinarily valuable secrets that were
among the deepest arts of the priestcraft. There was no record of
these--nothing direct is to be found in the writings, and although
it is possible to recover the philosophic bases of the myths these
rule-of-thumb mysteries still elude us.

After all, many other similar secrets, and even fairly well-known
common facts of antiquity, have been lost to us. We do not know the
composition of the celebrated Roman fish sauce “garum.” We cannot tell
what are the ingredients of Stradivarius’ violin varnishes or some old
master’s colours. Nevertheless, it is unreasonable to suppose that the
necessary materials have vanished from the earth. We have the whole
known world to ransack for them where the ancients had only a limited
and circumscribed number of plants, beasts, and minerals from which to
gather their ingredients.

The function of some drugs is to produce mental effects, visions,
hallucinations, dreams, and phantoms. The logical assumption is that
the ancients knew certain rule-of-thumb methods of utilizing some forms
of these drugs in such a way as to loosen the hold of the body (and the
consciousness) upon the mind, and to produce an artificial state of
clairvoyance.

The wizard of the Middle Ages was also a doctor, and it is claimed that
the familiar that inhabited the sword of Paracelsus--which sword he
always had by him and could never be parted from--was none other than a
certain amount of opium concealed in the hollow pommel.[33]

The function of hypnotic drugs is known to a point. That is to say, we
know what effect is produced on a normal individual by a given dose of
an unknown drug, but in nine cases out of ten we do not know precisely
how this effect is brought about and have few clues to the series of
physiological reactions that bring about the mental state.

The connection between a physical draught and a mental state is
indicated throughout the history of magic. Ceremonial libations, ritual
consumption of potions or “devil’s brews” of one kind and another are
part and parcel of the traditions of necromancy and sorcery.

The connection between these hypnotic draughts and the practice of
poisoning was not clearly perceived by most writers of the past.
Sorcery and poisoning were indeed twin practices of the Middle Ages,
for where the spell might fail white arsenic would succeed, but it
is not fair to class all magical potions as preparations of secret
poisons, although in point of fact most of the hypnotic drugs are toxic.

The methods of administering the drugs are two--namely, by draught,
that is to say by direct consumption, and inhalation. The function
of the incense used in thaumaturgical ceremonies was primarily to
intoxicate the audience.

Just as the Pythoness of the Delphic oracles inhaled the vapours of
the magic cave, so the Egyptians inhaled prepared incenses in their
temples. The casting of herbs upon the fire, the burning of prepared
sacrificial candles or flambeaux, all these play their part in the
mechanical induction of the psychic state.

Frankincense and myrrh, and in particular gum benzoin, possess soothing
properties that affect the throat and nasal passages. Besides being
pleasant, these gums formed an excellent vehicle for disguising the
scent of other matters and preventing their spasmodic or instant action
on the throat.

The kyphic or incense of ancient Egypt[34] was compounded of myrrh,
gum-mastic, aromatic rush roots, resin, and juniper berries. To these
aromatics were added small quantities of symbolic elements, such as
grapes, honey and wine, and a portion of bitumen or _asphateum_,
whose purpose might be either symbolic or to serve as a binding medium
for the mass.

In addition to these, various spices and perfumes were used. Cinnamon
bark, sandalwood, cardamom, and even ambergris and musk. The influence
of scent upon the emotions is well known and the Egyptians favoured the
use of ambra and musk as definitely aphrodisiacal perfumes. To-day pure
essence of patchouli is used in the Orient to serve the same end, and
anybody who has ever smelt a vial of the pure oil will recognize the
instant disturbance of certain nerve centres that it produces.

The clue to the secret of the ancient incense lies not in what we have
been able to recover from the papyri, but in the word itself. Kyphi
is recognizable to-day in “keef,” the popular name for the smokable
variety of the herb cannabis indica.

Cannabis indica is none other than our old friend hashish, the
haseesh of the writers of the time of the Crusades, who gave us those
descriptions of the Old Man of the Mountains and his Hasch-hassins.
From them we get our commonplace word--assassin.

It is not, after all, a far cry from the mysteries of Osiris in Egypt
to the Thammus or _Dumuri-absu_ of Syria and Babylon.

“Thammuz came next behind
Whose annual wound in Lebanon allured
The Syrian damsels to lament his fate
In amorous ditties all a summer’s day,”

says Milton.

Osiris and Thammus “died” annually, and mimicry of the symbolic event
was the basis of all ritual. In the mysteries the initiates “died,”
too, but the death was no mere formula, but an actually induced state
of stupor of deep trance brought about by the fumes of the “keef.”

These secrets lingered long in Lebanon, where to this day the
Crypto-christianity of the Druses may be identified with many of the
actual practices of magic.

The master of the Assassins was a master hypnotist, using the dark
knowledge of certain parts of the mechanical ritual of magic to gain
his mastery over the Moslem youths he sent as fanatics to do his
bidding.

There in the Lebanon he created his artificial paradise of sensuous
delight, drugged dreams and slumber. His commands laid upon his slaves
were no ordinary commands--but spells as black as any weaved by sorcery.

The master lodge of this cult of the Assassins was at Cairo and the
mysteries were only transferred to their new setting in the Lebanon by
Hassan ibn Sabbah at the end of the eleventh century. Outwardly Moslem,
the inner mysteries had no connection with either Mohammedan or any
other religion, and indeed the cult seems to be in many ways a kind of
bastard Masonic organization.

Nominally a Moslem sect of Ismailites, the organization was under a
commander, the _Sheik-al-Tebel_, or Chief of the Mountains, who
was served by minor chiefs or priors--the three _Dai-al-kirbal_.
Following these came the _Dais_ or adepts, and below them three
minor grades, _Refigos_, _Fedais_, and _Lasigos_.[35]

The Fedais or “entered apprentice” grade furnished the rank and file of
the fanatical executants of the paramount will, and these Fedais, who
were customarily mentally and physically pathic, never rose above this
step in the mysteries.

The Society of the Assassins was nominally suppressed by Halaga,
the Mogul invader of the middle of the thirteenth century, but the
knowledge, the secrets, and the traditions endured and still endure to
this day.

The organization was undoubtedly an evil one; it also had nothing to
do with Masonry, but it is an interesting example of an occult society
whose powers affected the course of history, and methods of working
were essentially based upon mechanical rather than spiritual methods of
producing a certain state of mind.

The effect of hashish is a very difficult thing to define. Essentially
a hypnotic--an annihilator of time and space and a stimulant of
hallucinations--it is also a drug largely dependent on the idiosyncracy
of the individual. The same does not necessarily produce equivalent
results in individuals of differing temperament, and for all practical
purposes the psychic value of the dose varies inversely with the
standard of intelligence of the recipient. Also, when dealing with
subjects of dual or multiple personality, it tends to liberate the more
violent and uncontrolled of the individualities.

Hashish is absorbed rapidly. Cases have been known where a little of
the extract used as an anodyne in corn plasters has been absorbed and
produced hallucinatory state. As a smoke, veiled by incense or mixed
with tobacco, rapid intoxication results from its inhalation. This was
one of the keys--perhaps the greatest of the keys--to the storehouse of
those treasures of the mind which are the time Elixir, the True Gold of
the Magi.

In actual practice there is a preliminary state of suggestibility under
the influence of hashish when the operator can exercise his will upon
that of the subject. This stage is soon passed over and in the later
dream states suggestion is inoperative.

The modern pharmacist has lost the secret of the herb whose therapeutic
function is to control the action of the cannabis indica, so that the
subject remained in the suggestible state and did not pass on to the
later stages of hallucinatory visions.

We may take it that so far as the old world is concerned, the half
of the secret has been recovered, but the balancing or deterrent
herb is still unrecognized by the pharmacopœia and known only to a
specialist few among experimental occultists. Just as hashish itself
is missing from the recipient, the Ebers papyri, so is the balancing
coefficient.[36]

On the other hand, the same secret of priestcraft is known on the
other side of the Atlantic. We may or may not believe in the myth
of lost Atlantis and the transmitted ritual, but both the Zaquis of
Sonora and the Tamachecks of Guatemala possess a ritual observance in
which cannabis Americana, a new cousin of the cannabis indica, is the
stimulant agent.

Other tribes use a brew of the mescal bean, but this is a purely
American species and the active principle anhalonium,[37] does not act
on precisely the same nerve centres as the cannabinote principle of the
hemps.

In both cases the induction of a species of intoxication by means of
the sacred herbs gathered in certain lunar or astrological aspects
is held by the natives to be the basis of the communion with the
spirits of the departed dead. The Spiritualist believes that there are
spirits of the dead, the physiologist claims that the “spirits” are
hallucinatory or that they are merely reflex as from the subconscious
mind of the individual or of other individuals. This twin explanation
runs through all psychic phenomena, but not until all phenomena known
to be produced by Spiritualist circles can be produced under hypnosis
will the Spiritualist theory be finally disproved.

The rank and file of Spiritualists are unaware that the scientific
world has a demonstrable answer to nine-tenths of the wonder that
the believing Spiritualist is convinced can only occur by means of
discarnate spirit intelligences. But the honest investigator should
bear in mind that only certain rare phenomena remain unchallenged and
are at present unattainable by practising psychologists.

When the phenomena of materialization--the externalization of
force--are producible by hypnotists, then the whole spirit hypothesis
is imperilled, for the scientists will be able to produce these effects
not by spirit intervention but at the behest of human will.

Still, for the moment, the uncritical white, like the barbarous Indian,
is justified in his belief in external spirit agency as the only
explanation for the apparently miraculous.

A friend of mine who had been a member of an exploring expedition whose
mission was to trace a tributary of the river Usmacinta in Chiapas on
the Mexico-Guatemala border to its source in the volcanic country round
the unknown Lago de Peten, made a careful study of the ritual of the
Tamachacks.

These people still carry out a pre-Columbian religion which antedates
that of the Aztec and Toltec civilizations both of Mexico and the
Yucatan peninsula.

Essentially symbolic in that it takes into account primitive nature and
ancestor worship, the basis of the cult is the evocation of the spirits
of the departed dead for tribal and personal counsel and consultation.
The means employed in the production of the psychic state is the smoke
of the _cannabis americana_. The native name of this herb is
_marihuana_.

The following is my friend’s description of one of the actual native
ceremonies at which he was present:

“We were up in the Intamal country about four days’ hard river
travelling beyond the San Cristobal frontier. Little by little,
the isolated plantations disappeared, and soon we were deep in the
untouched jungle country where there are only native villages.

“That day I was with the advance party, and as we were making a fairly
complete cadastral survey of our route, we deviated slightly toward a
largish jungle-covered hill that would furnish us with an excellent
commanding position for triangulation.

“My native peons were carrying our little transit theodolite and we
were following a native track that led toward the hill when our party
was suddenly surrounded.

“A whistle blew in the jungle and out from the bush came semi-nude
Indians variously armed. A few had trade guns, but the bulk carried the
inevitable machete, while a minority had short bows and long quivers of
obsidian-headed arrows.

“They offered us no overt violence, but made it abundantly clear that
they resented any party attempting to scale their hill. Most of the
dialogue was in the native tongue, a debased agglutinative inflective
speech similar to Nanhatl. The leader, who wore a peculiar breastplate
of featherwork, could, however, talk Spanish comparatively fluently.

“My greatest trouble was to induce him to understand that we were not
a prospecting party and were not after gold. Talk with our men who had
been with us some months finally reassured him. A chance compliment
of mine about his feather breastplate, which was of quetzal feathers,
opened the magic door to me.

“It was astonishing to that Indian, who had probably not seen a hundred
white men, as distinct from Mexicans, in all his life, to find in me a
man who knew more about the mythological importance of the quetzal bird
than he knew himself.

“My work on the ruined cities of Yucatan and my studies of the Mittall
codices and similar work had given me a sound knowledge of the worship
of Quetzalcoatl the god of the Morning Star, to whom the wonderful
emerald-plumaged quetzal bird is sacred.

“To cut a long story short, I arranged things with the head-man so
that we could camp in his village that night. The people were kindly,
once they understood that we were not gold hunters and meant no harm,
and my friend the head-man, having introduced me to certain elders and
discussed with them my knowledge of their almost extinct faith, invited
me to be present as a participant in a religious feast to be held that
night.

“The feast was that of the Cozca cuaptli--the feast of vultures, birds
as important in the Mayan underworld as in the Egyptian ceremonies.

“Shortly after dusk I left the village with them, going alone and to
all external seeming unarmed. We made a long journey through the bush,
climbing higher all the time, and I realized that we were actually on
the sacred hill that they had forbidden us to ascend.

“Here and there along the route we were stopped by sentries or guards,
but at last gained the top of the hill. Here, encircled by trees, was a
flat table top or plateau a few acres in extent.

“Rising on the plateau was a series of three square terraces
culminating in a small ruined building, roofless yet sound as to its
walls. The lowest plateau was packed with Indians; on the second were
congregated the elect--the tribal seniors and the priests. Above them a
figure or two moved in the building.

“My friends took some time explaining my presence, and it was obvious
that I was regarded with dark disfavour by the mass of the natives.
Soon it dawned on me that I was under guard, an unobtrusive guard, but
nevertheless under guard. At last I was taken to the high priest of the
ceremonial.

“He was a wonderful old Indian who spoke the accented Latin Spanish of
forgotten generations. He examined me, and though I could not reply to
certain mysterious ritualistic questions that he put to me, he was at
length satisfied that I had an efficient working knowledge not only
of his ritual but of its underlying astronomical and philosophical
significance. Eventually he was satisfied, and on a word from him I
was taken in hand by two native youths who bound a fillet of red-dyed
wool worked with feather devices round my brow and gave me a peeled
rod surmounted by a vulture’s skull to hold as a wand of office. Over
my clothes was put a loose dark brown cotton robe sewn with charms and
trimmed at each shoulder with tufts of sombre plumage.

“Thus dressed I took my place among the elders. For a while nothing
happened, then slowly the noise of the crowd died down and expectancy
gave place to clamour. From somewhere in the forest came the sudden
rhythm of native drums seemingly casual, inopportune, and meaninglessly
cadenced.

“Little by little the monotony of the drum throbbing became more
insistent, more definitely rhythmical. A brazier in the temple building
began to glow red, and far below in the valley mists we could see a
group of flaring torches dancing like fireflies as their bearers scaled
the difficult trail.

“Suddenly the voice of the chief priest rose in a high-pitched wailing
call, and as he hailed, a new and brilliant star seemed to spring into
being over the dark crest of a nearby hill.

“The assemblage bowed to the star and broke into a wailing Indian chant
that kept time to the beating of the hidden throbbing drums.

“After the prayer came the dance. To the centre of the second terrace
bearers carried what looked like a bundle of blankets; then nude
but for feather adornments, the young initiates came forward in
processional dance. Every tenth man held a torch, and the dancers
carried out a long ballet symbolical of the burial or consumption of
the mortal body of the vultures.

“They hopped grotesquely like the ill-omened zopilotes or scavenger
vultures they initiated. A querulous clucking accompaniment was uttered
by the chorus of spectators and the files of bronze bodies advanced and
retreated, swayed and circled in slow-hopping processions around the
blanketed heap upon the ground that represented the body.

“Suddenly the drum rhythm changed and a curious whistling pipe music
was heard. The heap of blankets stirred and rattled, from the heap
an arm flung out white bones, a skull rolled to the feet of the
spectators, then the blankets were flung aside and an Indian youth,
completely nude, but painted white and marked with ritual signs, leapt
from the pile.

“Rising to his full height he donned a towering feather headdress of
humming bird and quetzal feathers which gleamed like a myriad jewels in
the torchlight.

“Three times the spectators claimed him as the risen God, then the
drums broke out into a violent triumphant dance in an infectious
measure in which both dancers and spectators joined.

“In the meantime a cloth or canvas housing had been drawn over the
roofless temple by minor priests. The brazier was carried inside, and
suddenly the Boy God, leaving the dancers, ascended the steps and
entered the prepared pavilion.

“As suddenly the drums fell silent and the shrill pipes alone kept up
the eerie tune.

“My friend touched me on the shoulder, the seated elders rose, and,
following the high priest, we made our way into the sanctuary.

“Ranging ourselves along the walls we sat down in an open square. In
the centre was the youth stretched on a skin-covered native bedstead,
at its head the brazier.

“Swiftly the door was sealed with skin mats; then to the accompaniment
of a muttered ritual and much raising and lowering of skull-tipped
wands, the priest cast herbs into the brazier. The heavy smoke wreathed
about in the close room and a sense of languor fell upon me.

“Right and left I could hear the elders inhaling the vapour, then one
after another they succumbed to its influence. Then came an invocation
to the spirits, and the old men began to talk to spirits that they
alone could see among the hazy, drug-laden smoke of the lodge.

“As if inspired, the boy uttered oracular wisdom, now answering
questions put to him, now declaiming what he had heard the spirits
say. Slowly the drug gained in its effect over me. The painted leather
screens on the rude walls became instinct with life, the crude stone
carving seemed alive and writhing, and all the air seemed charged with
flashing processions of colours and sonorous music.

“I must have been overcome by the fumes, for I remember nothing more
till I came to in the dawn-light in one of the terraces outside the
building. They gave me a calabash of herb-scented goat’s milk to drink,
and in a moment or two my brain cleared.... I made it my interest to
get some of the marihuana herb, which I send you.”

Analysis of the marihuana revealed that it contained about twenty-five
per cent. admixture of other herbs in addition to the main base of
_cannabis americana_. A gum or sap exudation of an aromatic nature
served to bind the mass together.

A personal experiment carried out with a small portion of the mixture
proved that identical hallucinatory results could be induced by its
use in a London room as well as on the top of a Guatemalan Tescalli.
Of a party of four, three saw colour visions, two heard music, and one
described figures of Mazan mythology with some exactness. As, however,
we all know the origin of the incense and its connection, these latter
visions may be more properly ascribed to suggestion than held to have
objective existence as spirit phenomena.

There is reason to believe that other plants, and possibly some
synthetic products, have the same peculiar properties of the liberation
of the “psyche.” In the same way, although consumption as a draught or
as an inhaled smoke veiled by incense are the ritual ways of achieving
a physiological result, the same might be achieved by spraying a
solution into the air, by absorption through the skin (this may have
been the _raison d’être_ of some “witch ointments”), or by
hypodermic injection.

Needless to say, any attempt to experiment in these matters is
extremely unwise and dangerous.


FOOTNOTES:

[33] _Paracelsus_, Fr. A. Rufini.

[34] See Ebers papyri.

[35] See _Geschichte der Asassinen_. By T. von Hammer. Burgstall, _Un
Grand Maître des Assassins au Temps du Saladin_. Also _Ars Quatuo
Coronati_, Vol. ----

[36] The public interest would not be served by the revelation of the
second missing ingredient, but it is now known.

[37] See monograph on _Mescal_ by Havelock Ellis.