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(November 1891)
Publications:
- The Path, vol. VI, no. 8, November 1891, pp. 237-240
Read:
CTD entry in Russian: Фелон, Уильям П. - Видение
DATA
Title for references: Phelon WP - A Vision
Short description: Signed "W. P. Phelon, M. D." A dream-vision of a council of "Twenty and four Elders," one seat newly...
237 In my sleep I seemed to read from an ancient MSS. When I awoke, I remembered that which I had read, and I wrote it down for the benefit of those whom it might interest. This is what I read:
"I, one of the wise ones, who, having striven from youth up to know the truth and understand wisdom by self-discipline and the practice of altruism, have attained to the plane on which the vibrations of the past and the future are linked by the present. I have perceived many things, some of which I can understand, but of the remainder the meaning is not at the present time unfolded to me.
That which has come to me ofttimes in dreams and visions must be238significant. This of which I write may be of the past—or of the future. All that is required of me is to write as truly as I may perceive. If they who shall receive may know and understand, then the task to which I have been set will be accomplished.
It is an axiom of those who perceive, that we must understand the Macrocosm by the Microcosm.
While man's body is all one in texture, nature, and condition, there is a point of concentration at the mouth, where thought becomes manifest, but this is not fixed, because manifestation changes. So while the Macrocosm is the One, there may be a center of manifested force at a given point, and this point may vary according to the active conditions. From this fact, transmitted along the lines of thought from the unseen to the seen, man has received his ideas of the throne of the Infinite, on which is centered a form of the formless. This must be an absurdity, since there can be no form to the formless, but there must be certain relations of form to the formless. Effects have causes, and all causes must have a cause, which of itself has not a cause. Meditating upon this one night, as the shadows descended and the stars came out in their glittering breastwork, I tried to understand this paradox, and as I mused the environment slipped away, I beheld a vision: it was a vision which has been described by those whom the members of the Aryan Race, in centuries yet to come, shall regard as inspired.
There was brightness unapproachable, light impenetrable, glory indescribable. In this, around and about it, under and over it, was the One, The Absolute, The Three highest principles, which are never perceived except in the glory and light thereof. They cannot be confined. They can neither be formulated nor described. They are the cause, essence, and origin of life.
Around about this center of force stood four beasts which represented the quaternary of manifestation. They were in close connection with the brightness and light. Outside of these were four and twenty seats. Three and twenty were filled, and, as I looked, out of the far-off another form appeared, like unto those who were seated. They who reclined were grave, wise by the experience of centuries, lords over many incarnations, strong in the fulness of their unfolding. They were royal in the potency which their souls had acquired, in the benignancy of their kindness for all the created, in their reverence for the wisdom and the truth flowing forth from the source of all truth.
The one who approached from the far-off looked like the others, but there was a fresh potency of accomplishment, a fulness of purpose, imprinted upon his countenance, grave, dignified, high-born. There was a radiant joy, as with the athlete who wins a race, as of a scholar who conquers a239difficult problem, or of the Neophyte who has passed in triumph his last trial.
The eyes shone with Divine light. As he reached the vacant seat, the Twenty and three rose up to greet the brother, and all that was before bright and glorious was intensified. Gravely, but most heartily, was greeting given to him who had returned.
As I questioned what all this might mean, a shining one stood at my side and answered my thought.
"Thou seest Twenty and four who seem to belong to the same Brotherhood and the same line of work, and have undergone the same training. Thou hast seen one who has been absent and has returned. In your records these Twenty and four are called Elders: rightly are they so called. The weight of thousands of years rests upon their shoulders. They go forth as they are sent to point out the way of light, truth, and life to the created, and devote themselves to the manifested upon the planets. While one is so manifested or incarnated, the Twenty and three assist in the work which was planned to be done.
He whom thou sawest coming and who has just been given greeting was a great soul just returned from the earth to his appointed place. He, Russian born and world trained, in the form of a woman,[1] had suffered much from false friends and bitter enemies; he had also attained much for the good of the earth-born; he had left behind him influences that shall reach through all the remainder of the cycles, until the fulness of time shall accomplish the work conceived in the invisible, begun in the visible, and continued under the direction of the Twenty and four Elders until accomplishment.
I saw in my vision that man would hear something of this which I have seen, and would make two mistakes in his understanding of it. One was the attempt to locate that which had neither place nor time of duration. The second error was, that there was but one worker, while in truth there would be many.
Working under the law, the Twenty and four are associated during the cycle of manifestation, and each must once and again make visible upon the earth the signs and wonders of the potency of the spirit—the only Real, together with a knowledge of the powers which govern and control all things manifested and unmanifested.
As I looked, trying to understand all that was presented to my vision, a voice came to me, saying:
'Son of man, if thou dost not understand the vision, meditate, but seal up the Roll until the time of the end, when it shall be given to those who can receive it with clean hands and loving hearts.' So this have I done, and may he who reads perceive and understand better than I."
240
W. P. Phelon, M. D.
Footnotes
- ↑ H. P. Blavatsky.