“After this strange treatment the malady did not return. The probability is that the Lamas, having ascertained the precise moment at which the fever-fit would recur, met it at the exact point of time by this tremendous counter-excitement and overcame it.
“Though the majority of the Lamas seek to foster the ignorant credulity of the Tartars, in order to turn it to their own profit, we have met some of them who frankly avowed that duplicity and imposture played considerable part in all their ceremonies. The superior of a Lamasery said to us one day, ‘When a person is ill the recitation of prayers is proper, for Buddha is the master of life and death; it is he who rules the transmigration of beings. To take remedies is also fitting, for the great virtue of medicinal herbs also comes to us from Buddha. That the Evil One may possess a rich person is credible; but that in order to repel the Evil One, the way is to give him dress, and a horse, and what not, this is a fiction invented by ignorant and deceiving Lamas, who desire to accumulate wealth at the expense of their brothers.’”
M. Huc describes a grand solemnity he witnessed in Tartary, when a Lama Boktè cut himself open, took out his entrails, placed them before him, and then after returning them, closed the wound while the blood flowed in every direction; yet he was apparently as well as before the operation, with the exception of extreme prostration. Good Lamas, says M. Huc, abhor such diabolical miracles; it is only those of bad character who perform them. The good priest describes several other “supernaturalisms,” as he calls them, of a similar kind, which are frequently performed by the Lamas. He sets them all down to diabolical agency.[315]
The Turanian nations have their priests of magic, says M. Maury,[316] who exercise great power over the people. He thinks this is partly due to the pains they take to look savage and imposing, but still more to the over-excited condition in which they are kept by the rites to which they have recourse; they take stimulants and probably drugs to cause hallucinations, convulsions, and dreams, for they are the dupes of their own delirium.
“Amongst all nations,” says Castrèn, “of whatever race, disease is always regarded as a possession, and as the work of a demon.”[317]