ore till at last the bhagat sits up and announces the
najo has come; as he says so, a man, apparently mad with drink, rushes
in and falls with his head towards the bhagat moaning and making a sort
of snorting as if half stifled. In this person the bewitched parties
often recognize a neighbour and sometimes even a relation, but whoever
he may be they have bound themselves to punish him. The bhagat then
speaks to him and tells him to confess, at the same time threatening
him, in case of refusal, with his staff. He then confesses in a
half-stupefied manner, and his confession tallies with what the bhagat
has told in his frenzy. The najo is then dismissed and runs out of the
house in the same hurry as he came in. The delegates then hold a
council at which the najo usually is sentenced to a fine--often heavy
enough to ruin him--and expelled from his village. Before the British
rule the convicted najo seldom escaped with his life, and during the
mutiny time, when no Englishmen were about, the Singbhoom Hos paid off a
large number of old scores of this sort. For record of which, see
"Statistical Account of Bengal," vol. xvii. p. 52.

In conclusion I have merely to add that I have derived this information
from people who have been actually concerned in these occurrences, and
among others a man belonging to a village of my own, who was convicted
and expelled from the village with the loss of all his movable property,
and one of his victims, a relation of his, sat by me when the above was
being written.

--E.D. Ewen

Mahatmas and Chelas

A Mahatma is an individual who, by special training and education, has
evolved those higher faculties, and has attained that spiritual
knowledge, which ordinary humanity will acquire after passing through
numberless series of re-incarnations during the process of cosmic
evolution, provided, of course, that they do not go, in the meanwhile,
against the purposes of Nature and thus bring on their own annihilation.
This process of the self-evolution of the MAHATMA extends over a number
of "incarnations," although, comparatively speaking, they are very few.
Now, what is it that incarnates? The occult doctrine, so far as it is
given out, shows that the first three principles die more or less with
what is called the physical death. The fourth principle, together with
the lower portions of the fifth, in which reside the animal
propensities, has Kama Loka for its abode, where it suff