is as little comprehended as the Maha-yana, its highest form; and, because Sakya Muni is shown to have once remarked to his Bhikkhus, while pointing out to them a broom, that “it had formerly been a novice who neglected to sweep out” the Council-room, hence was re-born as a broom (!), therefore, the wisest of all the world’s sages stands accused of idiotic superstition.  Why not try and find out, before condemning, the true meaning of the figurative statement?  Why should we scoff before we understand?  Is or is not that which is called magnetic effluvium a something, a stuff, or a substance, invisible, and imponderable though it be?  If the learned authors of “The Unseen Universe” object to light, heat and electricity being regarded merely as imponderables, and show that each of these phenomena has as much claim to be recognized as an objective reality as matter itself, our right to regard the mesmeric or magnetic fluid which emanates from man to man, or even from man to what is termed an inanimate object, is far greater.  It is not enough to say that this fluid is a species of molecular energy like heat, for instance, though of much greater potency.  Heat is produced when ever kinetic energy is transformed into molecular energy, we are told, and it may be thrown out by any material composed of sleeping atoms, or inorganic matter as it is called; whereas the magnetic fluid projected by a living human body is life itself.  Indeed it is “life-atoms” that a man in a blind passion throws off unconsciously, though he does it quite as effectively as a mesmeriser who transfers them from himself to any object consciously and under the guidance of his will.  Let any man give way to any intense feeling, such as anger, grief, &c., under or near a tree, or in direct contact with a stone, and after many thousands of years any tolerable psychometer will see the man, and perceive his feelings from one single fragment of that tree or stone that he had touched.  Hold any object in your hand, and it will become impregnated with your life-atoms, indrawn and outdrawn, changed and transferred in us at every instant of our lives.  Animal heat is but so many life atoms in molecular motion.  It requires no adept knowledge, but simply the natural gift of a good clairvoyant subject to see them passing to and fro, from man to objects and vice versa like a bluish lambent flame.  Why, then, should not a broom, made of a shrub, which grew most likely in the vicinity of the building where the lazy novice lived, a shrub, perhaps, repeatedly touched by him while in a state of anger provoked by his laziness and distaste for his duty—­why should not a quantity of his life-atoms have passed into the materials of the future besom, and therein have been recognized by Buddha, owing to his superhuman (not supernatural) powers?  The processes of Nature are acts of incessant borrowing and giving back.  The materialistic sceptic, however, will not take anything in any other way than in a literal, dead-letter sense.