Abstract
THERE is a widespread belief among British people who have not visited the East that India is the ‘home of mystery’. I have come across not a few men and women in high and responsible positions who share this erroneous idea. In ‘the dim red dawn of man’ every strange natural phenomenon was ascribed to the supernatural. Slowly but surely knowledge grew, explanations displaced superstition, and reason, greatly daring, trespassed more and more on the once undisputed domains of the gods, with the result that one mystery after another was resolved by the onward march of common sense. The area of the ‘supernormal’ has steadily shrunk, and is daily still shrinking. The discovery of facts has always preceded the explanation of their causal origin. There are many things which still puzzle us; we have no valid explanation for them; we freely admit our ignorance and wait for the advance of the tide of knowledge which we believe will sweep on irresistible and ever progressive, washing out as it goes the ripples on the sands of ignorance.
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Elliot, R. Indian Conjuring. Nature 138, 425–427 (1936). https://doi.org/10.1038/138425a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/138425a0
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