The profession and practice of exorcism and magic in general is greatly more prominent in Lamaism or Tibetan Buddhism than in any other known form of that religion.  Indeed, the old form of Lamaism as it existed in our traveller’s day, and till the reforms of Tsongkhapa (1357-1419), and as it is still professed by the Red sect in Tibet, seems to be a kind of compromise between Indian Buddhism and the old indigenous Shamanism.  Even the reformed doctrine of the Yellow sect recognises an orthodox kind of magic, which is due in great measure to the combination of Sivaism with the Buddhist doctrines, and of which the institutes are contained in the vast collection of the Jud or Tantras, recognised among the holy books.  The magic arts of this code open even a short road to the Buddhahood itself.  To attain that perfection of power and wisdom, culminating in the cessation of sensible existence, requires, according to the ordinary paths, a period of three asankhyas (or say Uncountable Time x 3), whereas by means of the magic arts of the Tantras it may be reached in the course of three rebirths only, nay, of one!  But from the Tantras also can be learned how to acquire miraculous powers for objects entirely selfish and secular, and how to exercise these by means of Dharani or mystic Indian charms.

Still the orthodox Yellow Lamas professedly repudiate and despise the grosser exhibitions of common magic and charlatanism which the Reds still practise, such as knife-swallowing, blowing fire, cutting off their own heads, etc.  But as the vulgar will not dispense with these marvels, every great orthodox monastery in Tibet keeps a conjuror, who is a member of the unreformed, and does not belong to the brotherhood of the convent, but lives in a particular part of it, bearing the name of Choichong, or protector of religion, and is allowed to marry.  The magic of these Choichong is in theory and practice different from the orthodox Tantrist magic.  The practitioners possess no literature, and hand down their mysteries only by tradition.  Their fantastic equipments, their frantic bearing, and their cries and howls, seem to identify them with the grossest Shamanist devil dancers.

Sanang Setzen enumerates a variety of the wonderful acts which could be performed through the Dharani.  Such were, sticking a peg into solid rock; restoring the dead to life; turning a dead body into gold; penetrating everywhere as air does; flying; catching wild beasts with the hand; reading thoughts; making water flow backwards; eating tiles; sitting in the air with the legs doubled under, etc.  Some of these are precisely the powers ascribed to Medea, Empedocles, and Simon Magus, in passages already cited.  Friar Ricold says on this subject:  “There are certain men whom the Tartars honour above all in the world, viz. the Baxitae (i.e. Bakhshis), who are a kind of idol-priests.  These are men