Occult Science in India

by Louis Jacoilliot

OCCULT SCIENCE IN INDIAAND AMONG THE ANCIENTS.WITH AN ACCOUNT OF THEIR MYSTIC INITIATIONS AND THEHISTORY OF SPIRITISM.BYLOUIS JACOLLIOTCHIEF JUSTICE OF CHANDENAGUR (FRENCH EAST INDIES) AND OFTAHITI (OCEANICA).TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BYWILLIAM L. FELT.LONDON

WILLIAM RIDER & SON, LIMITED8 PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.[1919]Scanned, proofed and formatted at sacred-texts.com, June 2008, byJohn Bruno Hare. This text is in the public domain in the US because itwas published prior to 1923.Occult Science in India, by Louis Jacoilliot, [1919], at sacred-texts.com[p. v]PREFACE.WE will lay aside, for the present, our inquiries into the general subjectof the primitive civilizations of the far East, and the people who havesprung from the Brahminic stock in the old world, in order to publishthe result of such researches as we have been able to make, duringour long residence in India, into the subject of occult science, and thepractices of those who have been initiated into the sect of the Pitris,which is Sanscrit for spirits or ancestral shades.This is neither a doctrinal book nor a work of criticism.We are not called upon to decide, either for or against, the belief inspirits, either mediating or inspiring, which was held by all who hadbeen initiated in the temples of antiquity, which is to-day the keystone