The Golden Bough - The Original Classic Edition. Frazer Sir

Toledo spoke of Christ as "a god among gods," meaning that all believers were gods just as truly as Jesus himself. The adoration of

       each other was customary among the Albigenses, and is noticed hundreds of times in the records of the Inquisition at Toulouse in

       the early part of the fourteenth century.

       In the thirteenth century there arose a sect called the Brethren and Sisters of the Free Spirit, who held that by long and assiduous contemplation any man might be united to the deity in an ineffable manner and become one with the source and parent of all things, and that he who had thus ascended to God and been absorbed in his beatific essence, actually formed part of the Godhead, was the Son of God in the same sense and manner with Christ himself, and enjoyed thereby a glorious immunity from the trammels of all laws human and divine. Inwardly transported by this blissful persuasion, though outwardly presenting in their aspect and manners

       a shocking air of lunacy and distraction, the sectaries roamed from place to place, attired in the most fantastic apparel and begging

       their bread with wild shouts and clamour, spurning indignantly every kind of honest labour and industry as an obstacle to divine

       contemplation and to the ascent of the soul towards the Father of spirits. In all their excursions they were followed by women with

       whom they lived on terms of the closest familiarity. Those of them who conceived they had made the greatest proficiency in the

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       higher spiritual life dispensed with the use of clothes altogether in their assemblies, looking upon decency and modesty as marks of inward corruption, characteristics of a soul that still grovelled under the dominion of the flesh and had not yet been elevated into communion with the divine spirit, its centre and source. Sometimes their progress towards this mystic communion was accelerated by the Inquisition, and they expired in the flames, not merely with unclouded serenity, but with the most triumphant feelings of

       cheerfulness and joy.

       About the year 1830 there appeared, in one of the States of the American Union bordering on Kentucky, an impostor who declared that he was the Son of God, the Saviour of mankind, and that he had reappeared on earth to recall the impious, the unbelieving,

       and sinners to their duty. He protested that if they did not mend their ways within a certain time, he would give the signal, and in a moment the world would crumble to ruins. These extravagant pretensions were received with favour even by persons of wealth and position in society. At last a German humbly besought the new Messiah to announce the dreadful catastrophe to his fellow-country-

       men in the German language, as they did not understand English, and it seemed a pity that they should be damned merely on that

       account. The would-be Saviour in reply confessed with great candour that he did not know German. "What!" retorted the German,

       "you the Son of God, and don't speak all languages, and don't even know German? Come, come, you are a knave, a hypocrite, and a

       madman. Bedlam is the place for you." The spectators laughed, and went away ashamed of their credulity.

       Sometimes, at the death of the human incarnation, the divine spirit transmigrates into another man. The Buddhist Tartars believe in

       a great number of living Buddhas, who officiate as Grand Lamas at the head of the most important monasteries. When one of these

       Grand Lamas dies his disciples do not sorrow, for they know that he will soon reappear, being born in the form of an infant. Their

       only anxiety is to discover the place of his birth. If at this time they see a rainbow they take it as a sign sent them by the departed

       Lama to guide them to his cradle. Sometimes the divine infant himself reveals his identity. "I am the Grand Lama," he says, "the

       living Buddha of such and such a temple. Take me to my old monastery. I am its immortal head." In whatever way the birthplace of

       the Buddha is revealed, whether by the Buddha's own avowal or by the sign in the sky, tents are struck, and the joyful pilgrims, often

       headed by the king or one of the most illustrious of the royal family, set forth to find and bring home the infant god. Generally he

       is born in Tibet, the holy land, and to reach him the caravan has often to traverse the most frightful deserts. When at last they find

       the child they fall down and worship him. Before, however, he is acknowledged as the Grand Lama whom they seek he must satisfy

       them of his identity. He is asked the name of the monastery of which he claims to be the head, how far off it is, and how many

       monks live in it; he must also describe the habits of the deceased Grand Lama and the manner of his death. Then various articles,

       as prayer-books, tea-pots, and cups, are placed before him, and he has to point out those used by himself in his previous life. If he

       does so without a mistake his claims are admitted, and he is conducted in triumph to the monastery. At the head of all the Lamas

       is the Dalai Lama of Lhasa, the Rome of Tibet. He is regarded as a living god, and at death his divine and immortal spirit is born again in a child. According to some accounts the mode of discovering the Dalai Lama is similar to the method, already described, of

       discovering an ordinary Grand Lama. Other accounts speak of an election by drawing lots from a golden jar. Wherever he is born,

       the trees and plants put forth green leaves; at his bidding flowers bloom and springs of water rise; and his presence diffuses heavenly

       blessings.

       But he is by no means the only man who poses as a god in these regions. A register of all the incarnate gods in the Chinese empire is kept in the Li fan yiian or Colonial Office at Peking. The number of gods who have thus taken out a license is one hundred and sixty. Tibet is blessed with thirty of them, Northern Mongolia rejoices in nineteen, and Southern Mongolia basks in the sunshine of no less than fifty-seven. The Chinese government, with a paternal solicitude for the welfare of its subjects, forbids the gods on the register to be reborn anywhere but in Tibet. They fear lest the birth of a god in Mongolia should have serious political consequences by stirring the dormant patriotism and warlike spirit of the Mongols, who might rally round an ambitious native deity of royal lineage and seek to win for him, at the point of the sword, a temporal as well as a spiritual kingdom. But besides these public or licensed gods there are a great many little private gods, or unlicensed practitioners of divinity, who work miracles and bless their people in holes and corners; and of late years the Chinese government has winked at the rebirth of these pettifogging deities outside of Tibet. However, once they are born, the government keeps its eye on them as well as on the regular practitioners, and if any of them misbehaves he is promptly degraded, banished to a distant monastery, and strictly forbidden ever to be born again in the flesh.

       From our survey of the religious position occupied by the king in rude societies we may infer that the claim to divine and supernatural powers put forward by the monarchs of great historical empires like those of Egypt, Mexico, and Peru, was not the simple outcome of inflated vanity or the empty expression of a grovelling adulation; it was merely a survival and extension of the old savage apotheosis of living kings. Thus, for example, as children of the Sun the Incas of Peru were revered like gods; they could do no wrong, and no one dreamed of offending against the person, honour, or property of the monarch or of any of the royal race.

       Hence, too, the Incas did not, like most people, look on sickness as an evil. They considered it a messenger sent from their father the

       Sun to call them to come and rest with him in heaven. Therefore the usual words in which an Inca announced his approaching end

       were these: "My father calls me to come and rest with him." They would not oppose their father's will by offering sacrifice for recov-

       ery, but openly declared that he had called them to his rest. Issuing from the sultry valleys upon the lofty tableland of the Colombian

       Andes, the Spanish conquerors were astonished to find, in contrast