The position of the Europeans is easily
intelligible, for these things are so far removed from their
intellectual horizon, and their self-sufficiency is so great, that they
are almost impervious to these new ideas. But it is much more difficult
to conceive why the people of India, who are born and brought up in an
atmosphere redolent with the traditions of these things, should affect
such scepticism. It would have been more natural for them, on the other
hand, to hail such proofs as those I am now laying before the public
with the same satisfaction as an astronomer feels when a new star, whose
elements he has calculated, swims within his ken. I myself was a
thorough-going disbeliever only two years back. In the first place I
had never witnessed any occult phenomena myself, nor did I find any one
who had done so in that small ring of our countrymen for whom only I was
taught to have any respect--the "educated classes." It was only in the
month of October, 1882, that I really devoted any time and attention to
this matter, and the result is that I have as little doubt with respect
to the existence of the Mahatmas as of mine own.
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