r
sign that a bhuta has taken possession of his throat. The unfortunate
man must run for his life and get purified before the altar.

The poor Hindus are very much troubled by these wicked bhutas, the
souls of the people who have died with ungratified desires and earthly
passions. Hindu spirits, if I am to believe the unanimous assertions
of one and all, are always swarming round the living, always ready to
satisfy their hunger with other people's mouths and gratify their impure
desires with the help of organs temporarily stolen from the living. They
are feared and cursed all over India. No means to get rid of them
are despised. The notions and conclusions of the Hindus on this
point categorically contradict the aspirations and hopes of Western
spiritualists.

"A good and pure spirit, they are confident, will not let his soul
revisit the earth, if this soul is equally pure. He is glad to die and
unite himself to Brahma, to live an eternal life in Svarga (heaven) and
enjoy the society of the beautiful Gandharvas or singing angels. He is
glad to slumber whole eternities, listening to their songs, whilst his
soul is purified by a new incarnation in a body, which is more perfect
than the one the soul abandoned previously."

The Hindus believe that the spirit or Atma, a particle of the GREAT
ALL, which is Parabrahm, cannot be punished for sins in which it never
participated. It is Manas, the animal intelligence, and the animal
soul or Jiva, both half material illusions, that sin and suffer and
transmigrate from one body into the other till they purify themselves.
The spirit merely overshadows their earthly transmigrations. When the
Ego has reached the final state of purity, it will be one with the Atma,
and gradually will merge and disappear in Parabrahm.

But this is not what awaits the wicked souls. The soul that does not
succeed in getting rid of earthly cares and desires before the death of
the body is weighed down by its sins, and, instead of reincarnating in
some new form, according to the laws of metempsychosis, it will remain
bodiless, doomed to wander on earth. It will become a bhuta, and by its
own sufferings will cause unutterable sufferings to its kinsmen. That is
why the Hindu fears above all things to remain bodiless after his death.

"It is better for one to enter the body of a tiger, of a dog, even of a
yellow-legged falcon, after death, than to become a bhuta!" an old Hindu
said to me on one occasion. "