“A number of lamas in Sikkin produce meipo – “miracle” – by magical powers. The late Patriarch of Mongolia, Gegen Chutuktu, who resided at Urga, a veritable paradise, was the sixteenth incarnation of Gautama, therefore a Boddhisattva. He had the reputation of possessing powers that were phenomenal, even among the thaumaturgists of the land of miracles par excellence. Let no one suppose that these powers are developed without cost.
The lives of most of these holy men, miscalled idle vagrants, cheating beggars, who are supposed to pass their existence in preying upon the easy credulity of their victims, are miracles in themselves. Miracles, because they show what a determined will and perfect purity of life and purpose are able to accomplish, and to what degree of preternatural asceticism a human body can be subjected and yet live and reach a ripe old age. No Christian hermit has ever dreamed of such refinement of monastic discipline; and the aerial habitation of a Simon Stylite would appear child’s play before the fakir’s and the Buddhist’s inventions of will-tests. But the theoretical study of magic is one thing, the possibility of practicing it, quite another.
At Brass-Puns, the Mongolian college where over three hundred magicians (sorciers, as the French missionaries call them) teach about twice as many pupils from twelve to twenty, the latter have many years to wait for their final initiation. Not one in a hundred reaches the highest goal; and out of the many thousand lamas occupying nearly an entire city of detached buildings clustering around it, not more than two percent become wonder-workers. One may learn by heart every line of the 108 volumes of Kadjur, and still make but a poor practical magician.
There is but one thing which leads surely to it, and this particular study is hinted at by more than one Hermetic writer. One, the Arabian alchemist Abipili, speaks thus: “I admonish thee, whosoever thou art that desirest to dive into the inmost parts of nature; if that thou seekest thou findest not within thee, thou wilt never find it without thee. If thou knowest not the excellency of thine own house, why dost thou seek after the excellency of other things? … O MAN, KNOW THYSELF! IN THEE IS HID THE TREASURE OF TREASURES.”
In another alchemic tract, De manna Benedicto, the author expresses his ideas of the philosopher’s stone, in the following terms: “My intent is for certain reasons not to prate too much of the matter, which yet is but only one thing, already too plainly described; for it shows and sets down such magical and natural uses of it [the stone] as many that have had it never knew nor heard of; and such as , when I beheld them, made my knees to tremble and my heart to shake, and I to stand amazed at the sight of them!” Every neophyte has experienced more or less such a feeling; but once that is overcome, the man is an ADEPT!
Within the cloisters of Dshashi-Lumbo and Si-Dzang, these powers, inherent in every man, called out by so few, are cultivated to their utmost perfection. Who, in India, has not heard of the Banda-Chan Ramboutchi, the Houtouktou of the capital of Higher Tibet? His brotherhood of Khe-lan was famous throughout the land; and one of the most famous “brothers” was a Peh-ling (an Englishman) who had arrived one day during the early part of this century, from the West, a thorough Buddhist, and after a month’s preparation, was admitted among the Khe-lans. He spoke every language, including the Tibetan, and knew every art and science, says the tradition. His sanctity and the phenomena produced by him caused him to be proclaimed a shaberon after a residence of but a few years. His memory lives to the present day among the Tibetans, but his real name is a secret with the shaberons alone.”
H. P. Blavatsky
The Mark Of God: Understanding Your "I AM Presence" 