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A detailed black and white illustration of a bearded yogin with long hair, sitting in a meditative cross-legged posture (padmasana). He appears to be levitating in mid-air, supported only by a thin wooden staff held in his right hand. He is positioned beneath the sprawling, tangled branches and aerial roots of a large banyan tree. A small bowl sits on the ground below him. The artwork is signed "J.A. KNAPP" in the lower right corner.

The page features a large, stylized title "SORCERY OF ASIA" in a decorative font. Behind and around the title is a detailed line drawing of an Indian cityscape featuring various temples, stupas, and pagodas. On the right side, a rope trick is depicted: a man stands on the ground holding a rope that extends vertically into the sky, while a small figure climbs it. Other figures and pottery are visible at the base of the scene.

SORCERY OF ASIA

STRANGE stories issue from the inscrutable East, stories telling of magic and sorcery and the extraordinary powers which a man may develop by rigid mental and physical discipline. Of course, such tales are ridiculed by the worldly wise or branded as infernal by the theologically minded. The rumors persist, however, and, with the evidence piling up, cause the unpleasant realization that there are stranger things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy.

There is scarcely a community in Asia which does not boast of at least one fakir or wonder worker, who occasionally exhibits his magic and who is suspected by the townsfolk of possessing powers little inferior to those of a god. This magician of indeterminable age and unkempt appearance dwells on the outskirts of the village, his person an oracle and his presence a benediction. The children of Asia grow up in the presence of these holy men. They understand the psychology of these recluses and the motives which turn them from the world of ordinary men to become adepts in unseen forces. Thus, the growing child not only comes to believe in magic but, through the evidence of his senses and the whole background of an ancestral lore, he knows magic to be true. Notwithstanding the vehemence of Occidental unbelief, the Oriental has learned to know and is content in the realization that, as Paracelsus so wisely put it, the beginning of wisdom is the beginning of supernatural power.

Let us take staff in hand and, starting forth, walk up and down the dusty roads of Hindustan, climbing the high mountains to the North and dipping into the torrid plains of the South, while we study the roadside wonders of this ancient people. Some will ask for proof of these stories and how we know these strange tales to be true. Our answer is simple: Take your staff in hand and join us on the Indian road. Then you, too, will learn. If you will not do this and come with open mind to examine all the factors in the case, then pass no harsh opinion but rather give a truly Islamic shrug and say: "Anything might happen and anything might be true."

The great monastery of Kounboum, in Sifau, lies near the western frontier of China. It is a rambling group of buildings in the midst of which rises the somewhat impressive double roof of the temple. Here preserved for the veneration of the faithful, is the remarkable Tibetan alphabet tree, sometimes referred to as the "Tree of the one hundred thousand images." The tree itself is short and thick through, with low branches in a somewhat shapeless mass. The Abbé Huc, a Roman Catholic missionary, who was struck

off the list of missionaries at Rome and had his work on travels in Tibet and China placed on the Roman "Index," thus describes the tree of sacred letters:

"At the foot of the mountain on which the lamasery stands, and not far from the principal