The Theosophist Monthly Journal devoted to Oriental Philosophy Art Literature and Occultism December 1883

The seat of the manas is the root of the throat of buddhi the face of chitta the umbilicus and of ahankara the breast. [...] We were all prepared to witness skilful jugglery for which the residents of Muttra (in.Agra on the west bank of the Jumna a place famous for the manufacture of magical apparatus and one of the only two places on earth where the Paraphtaline gum is prepared wherewith the adepts smear the backs of those extraordinary mirrors so celebrated by the various authorities named in the text) are renow [...] * * * The two brides entered the circle followed by the two grooms all four bearing large earthen pots full of a black smeary tarlike substance which on enquiry of the Sheikh we learned was the product of the volcanic springs of the Mahadeo Hills in the faoff province of Gondwana in the Deccan ; that it only flows in the month of June is collected by girls and boys who are virginal that [...] That alone is the spring of all human action and the father and mother alike of all the good and evil on the Earth ! It is the_golden key of Mystery the fountain of Weakness and of Strength and through its halo alone can man sense the ineffable essence of the Godhead ! The materials in the vessels are charged with life—with the very essence of the human soul hence with celestial and divine mgic [...] Ackermann has pointed out that the posmortem rise may in part be due to the persistence of the heat-producing chemical changes in the deeper parts of the body whilst the radiation and loss of heat from the surface by evaporation is reduced by the cotraction of the cutaneous vessels and the cessation of the circulation ; and Wunderlich suggests that it may be also iu some measure owing to