“Jacolliot must indeed have been stupefied by wonders, for he says: “We have seen things such as one does not describe for fear of making his readers doubt his intelligence… but still we have seen them. And truly one comprehends how, in presence of such facts, the ancient world believed… in possessions of the Devil and in exorcism.”
But yet this uncompromising enemy of priestcraft, monastic orders, and the clergy of every religion and every land – including Brahmans, lamas, and fakirs – is so struck with the contrast between the fact-supported cults of India, and the empty pretenses of Catholicism, that after describing the terrible self-tortures of the fakirs, in a burst of honest indignation, he thus gives vent to his feelings:
“Nevertheless, these fakirs, these mendicant Brahmans, have still something grand about them: when they flagellate themselves, when during the self-inflicted martyrdom the flesh is torn out by bits, the blood pours upon the ground. But you (Catholic mendicants), what do you do today? You, Gray Friars, Capuchins, Franciscans, who play at fakirs, with your knotted cords, your flints, your hair, shirts, and your rose-water flagellations, your bare feet, and your comical mortifications – fanatics without faith, martyrs without tortures? Has not one the right to ask you, if it is to obey the law of God that you shut yourselves in behind thick walls, and thus escape the law of labor which weighs so heavily upon all other men? …Away, you are only beggars!”
Let them pass on, we have devoted too much space to them and their conglomerate theology, already. We have weighed both in the balance of history, of logic, of truth, and found them wanting. Their system breeds atheism, nihilism, despair, and crime; its priests and preachers are unable to prove by works their reception of divine power. If both Church and priest could but pass out of the sight of the world as easily as their names do now from the eye of our reader, it would be a happy day for humanity.
New York and London might then soon become as moral as a heathen city unoccupied by Christians; Paris be cleaner than the ancient Sodom. When Catholic and Protestant would be as fully satisfied as a Buddhist or Brahman that their every crime would be punished, and every good deed rewarded, they might spend upon their own heathen what now goes to give missionaries long picnics, and to make the name of Christian hated and despised by every nation outside the boundaries of Christendom.
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As occasion required, we have reinforced our argument with descriptions of a few of the innumerable phenomena, witnessed by us in different parts of the world. The remaining space at our disposal will be devoted to like subjects. Having laid a foundation by elucidating the philosophy of occult phenomena, it seems opportune to illustrate the theme with facts that have occurred under our own eye, and that may be verified by any traveler. Primitive peoples have disappeared, but primitive wisdom survives, and is attainable by those who “will”, “dare”, and can “keep silent.””
H. P. Blavatsky
The Mark Of God: Understanding Your "I AM Presence" 