Lucifer/Vol3/Text: Difference between revisions

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== No. 13 – September 1888 ==

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{{Style P-Quote|1=“The Barisâl Guns are a curious phenomenon. I have not yet been able to ascertain anything about them. The sounds are very irregular. Sometimes you hear 20 or 25 reports continuously; sometimes only 10 or 12. I have often heard the reports in clear weather. I never remember to have heard them when it was raining. They are neither preceded nor followed, as a rule, by downpours of rain. I heard them often in April. We don’t hear them so often now [letter dated 12th July]. The sounds come from the south-west quarter.” <ref name="v3-p6-n1">I find in the ''Hindoo Patriot'' of 9th July the following paragraph: – " Regarding the Barisâl Guns Mr. Waller, Magistrate of Khulna, writes: – It may interest those whose attention is directed to the subject to know that since the rain began to fall here on Wednesday afternoon there have been loud and frequent explosions heard of the kind called ' Barisâl Guns.' The sounds come from the south, and are heard sometimes by day, but mostly at night. As many as six explosions have followed rapidly one after the other. The sounds had not been heard for some time previously. The sounds resembled most nearly that which would be caused by a large heavy plank falling on to the floor of a large resonant empty building at a considerable distance."</ref>}}

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Like an earthen vessel, easy to break, hard to re-unite, are the wicked – the good are like vessels of gold, hard to break and quickly united.

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A project, long in contemplation, has been realised in the appearance of the first number of our new English journal, the ''Buddhist,'' at Colombo. It is to be a supplement to our Sinhalese semi-weekly, the ''Sandaresa,'' and is intended for the benefit of all who may be interested in Buddhism, and feel an active sympathy in the efforts of Buddhists to purify their religion from the dross of superstition. The paper is to be an eight-page quarto, printed on good paper, in new type, specially imported. The subscription price is but Rs. 2-8-0 to local subscribers, Rs. 3 to Indian, or 6''s.'' or $1.50, including postage, to European and American. It will be published by the Colombo (Buddhist) T. S., and edited by members. We hope that every friend of the Society’s Buddhist work, who can afford the trifling cost, will send in his name and remittance to the Manager of the ''Theosophist,'' who will act as agent. The initial number is full of good matter, among the rest, a scathing criticism upon the Bishop of Colombo’s recent Oxford Lecture on Buddhism.

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NO intelligent student of nature at the present time, at all familiar with those large groups of facts in physics and biology, constituting the theatre in which evolution is thought to play so large a part, will be found entirely ignoring or denying evolution. No intelligent biologist, familiar with the ordinary facts of human physiology, will for a moment deny that the outer unfoldment of the body of man, from germ to prime, is, according to any fair interpretation of facts, and an intelligent comprehension of the principle under consideration, an evolution. Evolution as a fact, is everywhere admitted; the ground of disagreement is the application and interpretation of the law.

The question, then, presents itself in this wise: Does that law, or process, which everywhere unfolds and elaborates individual organisms, flowing outward, and expanding from centre to circumference, also push the whole complex series of earth’s organisms upward from lower to higher forms? To this query one party answers unhesitatingly no: the

other party answers yes, with certain qualifications and concomitants. Here again, it would be out of place to go over the ground involved in the discussion, as many volumes have already been written upon the subject by able advocates on either side, with the result of bringing them no nearer together than before, each party in turn claiming the victory over the other.

Duality and Manifestation are synonymous. All problems of life, as all problems in nature, present themselves, therefore, under this form of duality; ''i.e.'' they are equations: no principle is more widely recognized than this, as in one form or another it is the basis of the higher mathematics, which enter the realm of nature’s highest display, and calculate not only the application of principles to mechanics, but

determine the revolutions of suns and stars, and the change of time and season. The central idea in evolution is the natural sequence and co-ordinate relation of all processes in nature. Has evolution adequately apprehended this quality of all things?

This is just one half the process, one side of the equation. Coincident with all evolvement, is an involvement. Every play of forces, every display of processes from centre to circumference, is met and balanced, point by point, in atom or sun, in germ or organism, in plant, animal, or

man, by an opposite wave from circumference to centre. Evolution is balanced by Involution. This is the form of the Cosmic Equation.

Every created form, every sentient organism, every animal endowed with instinct, every man and woman endowed with reason, and every soul inspired with hope, arise by evolution on the outward physical plane. All these climb toward larger life, and move along the highway of being up the mount of transfiguration, drawn upward by Involution of the

divine. Divinity at the centre, Nature at the circumference, and these two are for ever One; the essence and the form; the ideal and the real; unity in diversity, diversity in unity; duality in biunity. Man and woman. “After his likeness created he him” – “Male and female created he them.” Man-Woman, the two poles of one Being.

Two principles focalise the two planes in man, and all apparent antagonism thus resulting, is the impulse already referred to, pushing man, in common with all natures, to higher and higher degrees. One of these principles man has brought with him from the lower animal plane, as the dregs of animal life. The other principle man but dimly discerns as reflected downward from the divine plane above him. These two principles are Egoism and Altruism. Man is thus one half human, and by the time he has become wholly human, or altogether humane, he will also have become half divine; for so does one nature always overlap another, and he advances into the higher, only as he shakes off the lower. For ever a Pilgrim, he must drop the load of sin before he can

pass the golden gates that lead to the delectable mountains; and he drops the load while he journeys on, not during hours of ease and refreshment, and when he is conscious that his load has vanished, lo! his enlightenment has already come. This is the true alchemy, the conversion of baser metals into gold; the transformation worked by the magic elixir. Life is the elixir, and its office is transfiguration.

Suppose we enter the orchard again, any of the fruit is good enough, a little will suffice; but all around us are little children who cannot reach the limbs where hang the choicest fruit. There are the weak, the sick, the crippled, who need food and who cannot help themselves. Shall we reach out our strong arms in every direction for the choicest

fruit, trampling down even the innocent children, and reach the highest branches from the broken bodies of the sick, weak and starving, and so gather all that we think choice into our little pile, and then fence it around, and guard it by law, and put watch dogs at every gate or avenue of approach; nay, starve ourselves at last through fear that our store may decrease? Have we never read the parable of the quails and the manna, by which a “stiff-necked and rebellious people” were taught?

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<center>BETWEEN THE BLOSSOM AND THE FRUIT.</center>

And yet the blossom-stage of existence is not to be under-valued in importance, or regarded as a mere idle play-time; for it is here, amid sunshine and shower, soft breezes and tempests, that the ego learns its most essential lessons; for who can doubt that in order to rightly measure the heights and depths of that miniature universe called “I,” we must personally experience all that the “I” is capable of experiencing. To understand the heart of childhood, we must sometime be children. To know all the possibilities of manhood and womanhood, we must sometime be men and women. To realize all the depth and meaning of human love, we must sometime be lovers, husbands, wives, fathers and mothers. And yet, valuable and necessary as we must admit this experiential knowledge to be, is there anything to be gained by aimless and indefinite repetition of our experiments? Because I have found it profitable at certain stages of my evolution to be a child, a man, a woman, a father, a mother, must I perforce admit the necessity

or wisdom of being any one of these to-morrow, or ever again? Of what value is an experience that is merely to be repeated over and over? Of what use was yesterday’s lesson if from it we have not gathered something which makes it possible for us to learn a larger one to-day?

It is a beautiful thing to be a mother; to give of one’s life to a child; to nurture it from the very fountain of one’s being; to cradle and soothe and reassure it in the first beginnings of life in a strange environment; to watch over and so direct its physical and intellectual unfoldment that it shall round out into symmetrical maturity. Verily, it is a sacred thing to be even a merely human mother. But what purpose does such an experience serve if from it we catch no hint of the divine possibilities of motherhood? Instead of exaggerating the importance of mere maternity; instead of narrowing the circle of our devotion down to

the little group of beings we call ''ours;'' with an intense if slightly extended selfishness, – serving our own because they ''are'' our own; – is it not a more beautiful thing – aye, a more divinely ''natural'' thing – to feel that tender, pitying mother-love for all created things? To reach out yearning arms, to cradle on our breasts, to brood over, to comfort and encourage every weak, piteous, crying soul that puts out helpless hands and appeals to our mother instinct. Ah, this is motherhood indeed! And having attained to its sublime expression, shall we go back and vainly repeat the little lessons through the understanding of which our hearts were unfolded to the first, faint conception of its meaning!

And what, say you, are the signs by which the individual may know he has reached this point in his development? They are many and plain. When some day he awakens to an uneasy self-consciousness, to discover himself out of harmony with his life and kind: when the objects that engross the attention of others, excite but slight interest in his mind: when he finds himself unable to enter with zest upon the ordinary ventures of human life, because he can so easily fore-cast the issue and feels that the gain is not worth the effort: then let him pause and try if he can solve the meaning of this strange unfitness to his environment. If he but pause long enough, and listen deep enough, he will catch the import of that small voice trying to impart to him the first faint glimmering of a knowledge beyond mere human ken. He is ready now – though he know it not – for the initial step in Occultism. And right here is the critical point in the evolution of the ego; a point where he must make a decisive and voluntary choice – a choice involving a crucial test of the courage and the faith acquired in his various life-ventures. For courage of no ordinary kind or degree is required to voluntarily relinquish our hold upon the beauty and sweetness we know and love to enter upon the weary time of waiting between the flower and the fruit. And only by the unwavering light of a fixed, luminous faith can we detect all and more than the charm of the blossom in the hard, colourless, scentless thing that follows close upon its shedding. It is

not strange that here the disciple should shrink and falter, perchance refusing to advance further until he is borne along by the resistless rush of some mighty wave of progress. In his hand are the blossoms whose sweetness he has tested; if he lets them flutter from his grasp, there remains to his perception nothing but the meaningless, unbeautiful things whose possibilities he has yet to prove by long heart-breaking suspense and waiting, with no ray from the light of previous experience to cheer the darkness of this era; for be it remembered, this is the beginning of a new cycle of existence; the entering upon a new condition of being as much as the first essay of the ego into human life. Now is the metal of the spirit fairly tried. Will the disciple, having come so far, muster all his faith and courage, and flinging the blossom from him, go forward into untried ways with no familiar grace and enchanting fragrance to soothe and cheer him, trusting the dim, far-off goal will be worth the daring and the sacrifice? Or will he linger with the springtime of existence, treading the well-worn pathways with their familiar milestones and pleasant, shady resting-places; although from the height to which he has climbed, the beginning and the end are at once discernible? If he dare to choose the new, who shall say what his reward shall be? If he linger with the old, what awaits him but final weariness of sweets grown insipid by too oft-repeated tasting, and at last despair at the inevitable discovery that human life is an aimless round of vain repetitions, leading nowhere and coming to no conclusion?

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{{Style P-Quote|1=As a piece of wood and a piece of wood may come together in the ocean; and, having met, may separate again; like this is the meeting of mortals.

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{{Style P-Quote|1=Youth is like a mountain-torrent; wealth is like the dust on one’s feet; manhood is fugitive as a waterdrop; life is like foam: who fulfils not duty with steadfast mind, duty which opens the portals of heaven, surprised by old age and remorse, he is burned by the fire of grief.|signature=C. J.}}

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IT was Christmas in a New England village. Old Mrs. Mason sat before her great fireplace, in which a splendid blaze of apple-boughs was glowing. Beside her were two young people; her grandson, Joe Bush, and his sister Mollie. Joe was home from the University for the holidays, and the two had run over from their home near by for the evening. Grandmother sighed gently as she looked at the flames and thought of the havoc that the last autumn gales had wrought in the orchard; some of the trees were getting pretty old, and she feared they would not see many more crops of golden pippins. The young folks, however, as they luxuriated in the deep glow, felt little regret for the mutilated orchard. Their grandmother’s mournfulness was not deep-seated; she became cheerfully reminiscent, after the fashion of grandmothers, and it needed no urging to make her eloquent about the olden times. It was snowing heavily that night, which brought to her mind some of the old-fashioned snowstorms. Most remarkable of all was the famous fiery snow that fell when she was a girl. It came down soft and still, the air seemed alive with myriads of falling stars, the ground was covered with a sheet of powdery moonshine, the trees stood like ghosts clothed in phosphorescent robes, and a handful of snow seemed like some unearthly cold flame. It lasted some hours, and then the fire faded away, leaving nothing but ordinary snow. People were terribly frightened, and many thought the day of judgment was at hand.

“I should think they might have caught on to that day-of-judgment racket after a while,” said Joe, in his student vernacular. “It seems as if in those old times they couldn’t have any kind of curious weather without laying it to the end of the world. I should like to have seen that snowstorm, though. Why can’t they have such things nowadays? But we did have the ‘Yellow day,’ though, in 1881, and that frightened lots of people. Say, grandmother, did you have any ghosts around in those days? They are getting pretty thick lately. I have heard more ghost stories this term than you could shake a stick at. Some of the fellows are full of them, and they believe in them too, and in witchcraft, and all that sort of thing. They don’t call it superstition any more, They have a regular scientific explanation for it all. Our metaphysics Prof. has tried lots of experiments in hypnotism, and knows all about it. I have taken it from an elective – that is, psychology.”

“Well, I am glad people are getting sensible at last,” said grandmother solemnly. “Ghosts? Of course there are ghosts. And as for witchcraft, some of those Salem folks, you may be sure, got no more than their just and proper deserts. If they hadn’t been brought to a stop, with a good sharp turn, there’s no telling where their wicked doings might have ended,” and grandmother’s kindly face assumed for a moment a severity worthy a Puritan judge. “It’s lucky my brother William didn’t live in those days; some of his carryings-on would surely have brought him to grief, though he never did anything bad. Magic tricks would not have been in favour.”

“As soon as he could get his breath he said: ‘I may as well tell you all about it. It was nothing to be frightened at, but rather something to be thankful for; it was the strangeness, the wonder of it, that startled me. You see I had been puzzling over a most mystifying passage in that old book for a long time, and at last I made out just what it meant. I determined to test it. Now don’t laugh; you know I have never yet seen the girl to fall in love with, and – I thought I would lift the veil of the future and find out who my wife was going to be. So, when the last bit of daylight had faded out of the sky, and everything was still, I went out into the woods to where stood the largest beech-tree I knew. There was a great smooth place under its branches, which were wide spreading, forming a sort of natural circle. The ground was covered with crisp, new-fallen leaves. The moonlight poured down between the branches and covered the ground with bright streaks and silvery lace-work.

“‘I tied my handkerchief to the trunk of the beech. Then I turned around, directly away from the tree, and took a certain number of paces, according to the directions laid down in the book. Turning to the right, I kept slowly on in regular steps, making the circuit of the tree, keeping time to the chanting of a certain verse, which had to be repeated constantly in a peculiar rhythm which, having had no one to instruct me, I had had great difficulty in acquiring, with nothing to guide me but the printed rules. I had tried various things that I had learnt from the book, as you know, and had always succeeded in attaining the result promised. I had no misgiving as to the consequence of this. I was as sure of the end as I was that one step would follow the other. I did not think of either success or failure, though; from the start I kept confidently on, knowing, as it seemed, that what I set out to do would be done. Just how, I did not know, but even the thought of wonder did not enter my mind as I kept on repeating the words of the charm in exact time with every step.

“‘When she came to the tree-trunk she stopped, and untied my handkerchief with a quick motion, although it was knotted hard after a peculiar

fashion. She then advanced towards me. The moonlight came pouring down in an unbroken flood through a wide space between the branches, and shone full in her face as she passed the spot. Then I saw that her eyes were open wide, not staring, but as of one walking in deep dreaming, seeing the unseen. A most lovely face, and a figure graceful in every line and motion. If ever man beheld a real form, that was one there before me: it was no dream fancy, no shadowy ghost; it cast a shadow of its own there in the moonlight, and the shadows of the twigs above seemed to make a mantle of moving network as they fell upon her while she walked, embroidering her gown of light grey stuff that, when she was in the distance, looked like shining silvery mist.

“William was unusually quiet that winter. His pranks ceased, and he devoted himself to his medical studies and to day-dreams of which I knew that one figure must form the motive. Early the next May he went to Burlingborough in Vermont, to continue his medical studies with Doctor Wilson, an old friend of our father’s. The first letter which I received from him was written two days after he reached there. I have it still, and will read it to you if you would like to hear it. If you

will look in that upper right-hand corner of the secretary, Joe, you will find a package of old letters.”

{{Style P-Quote|1=“When I write you that ''I have found her,'' you will at once know what I mean. I might better say, ''we have found each other.'' I promised to describe for you my journey hither, but I cannot fix my mind upon that now, agreeable as it was; neither would you care to read about it at this moment, in view of what I have just written. Suffice to say that when I reached here, I met with as warm a welcome from Doctor Wilson and his kind good wife as one could wish, and I felt speedily at home in their pleasant house, which is on the broad main street of the town; a thoroughfare lined with noble elms. I expected to find the country here almost winter-bound, but though spring is later than at home, it has come with a leap; yesterday was as mild as summer, and to-day is the same. It was very quiet in the house all day; the air of the place seemed to me unusually sympathetic, but Mrs. Wilson declared that it must be lonesome for a stranger; their daughter Jessie happened to be away spending the day with a friend; if they had known I was coming that day they would have kept her at home. As I did not have the honour of Miss Jessie’s acquaintance, and as no girls but ‘the unknown’ had any particular interest for me, I remarked that I had found the house delightful, and that it would have been a great pity to spoil their daughter’s visit for my sake. I spent the most of the day unpacking and settling down in my room, and after tea I took a little stroll through the town in the moonlight, the Doctor having been called away to a patient. Returning to the house, I paused at the gate a moment to look up and down under the arching trees, and then I stood a long time before the door, silently enjoying the beauty of the night. The moon was high in the heavens, and full, and as its light came pouring down through the branches of the great elm I was somehow reminded of that night under the beech-tree in the woods. The rhythm of the charm came involuntarily to my lips, but as I looked towards the street I became transfixed with wonder on seeing a graceful, girlish figure approaching, walking up the path in seeming unconsciousness of my presence, a handkerchief held lightly in her hand. The elm-shadows threw a lace-work over her and the moonlight shone full in|data=“Burlingborough, Vt., 9th May, 1832.<br>“My dear Sister Martha, –}}

{{Style P-Quote|1=her face as she passed a space where it poured down in clear, broad stream. I knew her well. ''She was the very same.'' Even that dreaming look was in her eyes, and it suddenly changed to the quick flash of recognition as I, who had stood as motionless as I did that time, received the handkerchief from her hand. Again a wave of overpowering emotion swept over me and went out from me, and again it turned into a sharp pang, for I felt that I must be only dreaming the old scene over. But the figure did not melt away from me this time, and my arms enfolded the living form of her whom destiny had so strangely brought to me seven months before.

“How strange it seemed that she should be at my side, and yet as natural as if we had been lovers for life, so well do the souls of two who were made for each other know when they meet. The thought of her}}

{{Style P-Quote|1=had been with me night and day ever since that time, and my heart beat quick with exultation at the realization of its desire. ‘In truth, a most remarkable happening,’ mused the Doctor, ‘but indeed I could wish no better future for my daughter than that she should be the wife of my old friend’s son; just as fate has ordered.’

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{{Style P-Quote|1=Even in a forest hermitage, sin prevails over the unholy; the restraint of the senses in one’s own home, this is asceticism.

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<center>CURIO HUNTING.</center>

When I examined my treasure trove, I found it was a curious, and evidently very old, piece of carved work, at first sight looking like a solid piece, but not heavy enough to warrant this idea. Black with dust and soot, evidently from ages of exposure to the flaring oil lamps always

burning on altars, it had doubtless been an altar stand for some highly valued object.

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IT has been thought advisable that members of a certain Occult Lodge of the T. S. should have the meaning of the Pledge they are about to take laid before them as plainly as possible. At any rate, that those who have previously signed the Pledge shall lay before those who are about to do so all that they understand this Pledge to mean and what its signature involves.

The man who takes this Pledge in the right spirit calls upon It, and

calls every help and blessing from It to his assistance. By an intense desire to be under Its protection he (though It ''per se'' is latent and passive) places himself under the protection of the active and beneficent powers that are the direct rays of the Absolute Higher Secondless Self.

We are to endeavour to “make Theosophy a living factor in our lives.” Before we can ''endeavour'' to do this, much less ''do'' it effectually, we must first understand what Theosophy is, and actually define to ourselves what we individually mean by Theosophy. Now it is exactly this definition, its want, and our ignorance generally which hitherto has prevented us from carrying out this endeavour. Nothing need here be said of the Theosophical Society and the benefit which would come to it by even a small section of its members actually making Theosophy ''the'' living factor in their lives. Very few do so, and it is only too true that a member of the Theosophical Society is not necessarily a Theosophist. But those who take this Pledge are not content to remain nominally members of the Society, but aspire to be Theosophists indeed. And therefore it is so necessary that all should learn what a Theosophist is, and what any man must do to make Theosophy a ''living'' factor in his life.

As a negative definition nothing could be better than the definition in Lucifer No. 3:

The second clause of the Pledge will prove a stumbling block to many lukewarm members of the Theosophical Society. Many may be in complete accord with the objects of the Theosophical Society, so far as they understand them, but also be in complete disagreement with the leaders of the Society and their method of work. Not only may they disagree but also be in either open or concealed hostility to those leaders and many of the members. It is of no use to disguise from ourselves

the fact that this has been the case, and unfortunately may be so again. We work for “Universal Brotherhood” and we are at enmity with our immediate neighbours. This then we pledge ourselves to put a stop to, and to excise the tendency from our natures. Thus Clause 2 has a special reference to certain persons arising out of the general circumstances.

Clause 3 opens out to many, as the Society is at present constituted, a good deal of casuistical reasoning. It has been said, and it would seem truly said, that it is perfectly open to those who are true Theosophists to condemn an act but not the actor. But this will be found to be a distinction which is very subtle and difficult to make in life. “Light on the Path,” too, warns the aspirant against self-righteousness of a like character, “for the soiled garment you shrink from touching may have been yours yesterday, may be yours to-morrow.” Thus those who take this Pledge are about to meet a very subtle difficulty (for in life the act and the actor are indissolubly connected), unless they have attained the power of observing and reading on a plane which is at present beyond the reach of the majority of mankind. However, even if this power is beyond reach at present, it is at all events right for those who aspire to be Theosophists to try. We can at least put a bridle on our physical lips and endeavour to do so on our mind, and thus abstain from “condemning others.” For the silent condemnation of the mind would seem more “vicious” than physical speech, for, at any rate in the “judge,” it is a form of moral cowardice. And herein lies the casuistry. For apart from the definition in LUCIFER, No. 3, it has been open to those who

take the Pledge to consider that their human brothers are not “Brother Theosophists,” and therefore that it is legal to judge and condemn. Thus if it could be clearly proven that any man or woman has erred against the said definition it might be possible to receive absolution from the pledge “never to listen without protest to any evil thing spoken” of them. But the definition stops this with its “whether a brother Theosophist or not,” and agrees with the legal maxim which is so seldom acted upon – always to consider a man innocent until proved guilty. Suspicion is a dangerous guest to harbour, and we are finally brought back to the fact that it is best to “judge not that ye be not judged.”

And now they know neither themselves – nor me.”|title=On Certain Friends|signature=<span style="font-variant:small-caps">William Blake.</span>}}

Sir, – The Rev. T. G. Headley, who puts the above question in the August number, in the course of his remarks admits that the Devil and Jesus are simply impersonations of Good and Evil, and although it would appear he considers Jesus as an historical character yet I do not gather that he so identifies historically the person of the Devil, so that by your kind permission I will endeavour to give a reply to his question; leaving the question of the identity of Jesus for the present, although it may be that there is a great affinity between the two, and that the much-abused Devil may be transformed into an angel of Light.

The names of these so-called evil ''genii'' are, it will be found, many and varied, and the same impersonation appears under different aliases in all ages and in all countries. In Egypt it is found as the Serpent Thermuthis which the Egyptians are said to have used as a royal Tiara on the statues of the Goddess Isis, and as the Areph or Serapis, whose bishops were known as Bishops of Christ, in Persia; as Agathodæmon encircling the mundane egg; as the person of Vishnu himself in Hindostan. Then as Vitzepuptzli, the great God in Mexico; and coming finally to the sacred books of the Christians, we find the Serpent in the Garden of Eden. This is the Brazen Serpent lifted up by Moses, with whom, significantly enough, Jesus identifies himself when he says, “So must I be lifted up.” So also in all varieties and modifications of the name. The serpent (the Hebrew ’''nocash''), the Greek “Dragon” or Οφις, the snake or the Basilisk, the Royal Serpent – the radical idea in all is one. It is the attribute of a peculiar acuteness of sight which hath, says St. John, in Hebrew his name Abaddon or Ab – ad – on the Father, the Lord, the Being; and in Greek Apollyon, that is Apollo, as Sathen or Satan, in 1 Chron. xxi. 1, where the same is used as in 2 Sam. xxiv. 1, showing that Satan and ''Yahou'' are one and the self-same being; and in Rev. xii. 9, where the writer speaks of that old serpent called the Devil and Satan. Briefly, Ophiolatry or Serpent worship was universal and symbolical of Wisdom and Eternity, its inarticulate or terrible hiss representing the voice of God, since Isaiah assures us “That the Lord will hiss for the fly (or scarabeus) of Egypt.”

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Then comes thy glory in the ''Summer'' months}}

{{Style P-Poem|poem=With light and heat refulgent.

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In your review last month of Mrs. Gestefeld’s recent work “Statements of Christian Science,” you seem to include Mental Science and Christian Science under one head. As a student of the former, I beg to make a few explanations in regard to our doctrine.

All our diseases can be traced to one fundamental error, the belief that we are separate entities, entirely unconnected with one another. If you will consider this point fully, I think you will agree with me that all sin (and from sin sickness) arises from this almost universal belief. Society is built on that foundation. Instead of man co-operating with man, at present he expends

more than half his energy in fighting his brother. Instead of helping those weaker than himself he looks upon them as his lawful prey.

''True'' prayer never went unanswered. How could a whole nation possibly offer up fervent prayer when probably there was not one in a thousand who even knew what fervent prayer meant? Mental Science ''is'' true prayer.

As for Bright’s disease of the kidneys being produced in persons who are untruthful and practise deception, I think the assertion far too sweeping; nor would I treat a patient for deception or any like error ''directly'', knowing that to be but secondary and that the primary cause was fear. Instead of cutting off one branch of the briar which happens to hang over your path, how much better to root it up and so have it out of your way for ever.

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In your review of my edition of “Hamlet,” the reviewer politely invites me to explain “a fault in sense of rhythm.” Two instances he gives; first:

Apply here the ordinary treatment of “i’ the” for “in the,” and the rhythm

is perfect. This I thought was obvious, but I did not print it so because I did not wish to depart from the text, which prints “in the.”

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The intelligent American public will shortly have another opportunity to hear that brilliant orator, poet, Egyptologist and philosopher, Mr. Gerald Massey, about to visit America for the third time on a lecturing tour. Our transatlantic brethren of the T. S. will give him, we feel sure, a hearty welcome, for his own sake, and for that of the help he has given Lucifer, notwithstanding the dissimilarity of his views to that of the Theosophists in some respects. All our theosophists and readers remember the charming poetry and excellent articles on symbology that have graced the pages of our magazine over Mr. Gerald Massey’s signature. His is a richly stocked mind, full of learning, where there is no room for narrow-minded prejudice. His noble endeavours to raise the British working-man to higher aspirations and ideals have made his title clear to ennoblement in the list of benefactors of humanity and won the respect of the greatest thinkers of our age.

The last time he was in the States, his health broke down in the midst of a course of lectures in Chickering Hall, New York, and he was laid up for some months. He is probably better known or appreciated in America than in England. At least we know of an occurrence in a London drawing-room which points that way. Two American ladies claimed that Mr. Massey was an American poet, and there was no one present who could disprove it. This is a story that Mr. Massey tells with great glee. There are, however, some reasons for this. Mr. Massey’s poems have been published in a collected edition in Boston, U. S., but never in England. He is perhaps the least published of any living author. At the present time the whole of his writings in prose and verse, with the exception of his “Natural Genesis” and “Book of the Beginnings,” are out of print. He is preparing to make a re-appearance with his work in the “Secret Drama of Shakspeare’s Sonnets,” which has lately been re-written by him in the light of later knowledge, with a reply to the anti-Shakspeareans. It is to be issued immediately from the press of Messrs. Clay and Sons in two editions, one for subscribers only, the other for the public. A foolish notice, full of errors, recently appeared in Mr. Redway’s circular attached to the June number of Lucifer. Amongst other mis-statements it was alleged that Mr.

Massey was “a ghost-seer” as well as a poet. This is simply untrue.<ref name="v3-p75-n1">The circular was appended by Mr. Redway to Lucifer without being submitted to the editors. Lucifer is now its own publisher. – [Ed.]</ref> Nor was Mr. Massey’s work on Shakspeare based on any abnormal experience of his own. A “psychic origin for anything professedly outside the consciousness of the author” in that relationship has to be referred to the mediumship of Mr. Massey’s first wife and not to his own, as explained by him in one of his lectures. Mr. Massey’s later studies and researches bring him nearer to the Theosophists. He has never lectured better than he did in delivering his recent course of lectures in London. What he has to say is the result of profound research and wide experience, and is sure to be uttered in that masculine English of which he is a master. His list of lectures contain subjects that are Evolutionary, Anthropological, Gnostic, Neo-Naturalistic and Literary. A few of these are: –

{{Style P-Quote|1=Men like Jesus, or Jehoshua ben Pandira, the Jewish political and social reformer, or Gautama, or Bruno, or Garibaldi, or Gordon, or Garfield, are in a sense Saviours of the world. They set before us an illuminated image of immortal love. They pull down on themselves, and bear for us, the heavy burden of martyrdom, because of the wolfish selfishness of the world! But there is no salva-}}

{{Style P-Quote|1=tion possible for us out of the mere act of their suffering. The only salvation is for those who range themselves on the side of these martyrs, and reformers, and forerunners, against the selfishness of the world, to work and change the crude conditions of things, which for ever demand the sacrifice of the best and dearest of women and men. When Arnold von Winkelreid took the double armful of the enemies’ spears into his own breast, it was to make a way for his fellow-countrymen to pass on and widen the gap he had made – ''not'' for them to stay behind and pat him on the back, or merely subscribe to erect a statue to his memory. That the innocent ''are'' continually offered up on account of the besotted selfishness of the many is a fact. That they must continue to be thus offered up, until the world awakes to see this shameful sacrifice of others to save its own selfishness, is likewise a fact. But to erect this into a religious dogma, and call it the divine means of saving men, who wilfully continue and necessitate the conditions of society which cause and demand the martyrdom, is about the most immoral and damnable doctrine ever offered to humanity. Why, this doctrine of atonement is so unmanly, so cowardly, and currish, that, if put in its naked truth, the lowest rough in Whitechapel, if unperverted by orthodoxy, would be too manly to accept such an immoral mode of salvation. Any one who would consent to be saved at the expense of another, and an innocent person, ought only to escape, if at all, because he would not be worth the damning. Far nobler was the teaching of Captain George W. Pendleton of the Cleopatra, of Gloucester, Mass. His vessel was doomed and sinking fast, when the boat put off from the “Lord Gough” with a crew that volunteered to try and rescue the shipwrecked men. But with salvation in sight the American captain, by agreement with his men, hauled down his own flag of distress. He thought no boat could live in such a sea. “I said to my men, shall we let those brave fellows risk their lives to save ours? and they said ‘No.’ Then I hauled down the flag.” And so they deliberately elected to die first! That was the gospel according to George Pendleton! But this sacrifice of the innocent to save the guilty – of others instead of self – is the religion of savages; it belongs to the most benighted conditions of the human race, and as such is doomed to die out of any state of true civilisation. The doom of Historic Christianity is sealed, because it was based upon Dogmas against which the highest instincts of the race will for ever rise in insurrection, and doctrines that are certain to be rejected by the growing moral sense of humanity.

The orthodox teachings are so false that they have made the utterance of truth a blasphemy, and all the proclaimers of truth blasphemers! Oppose their savage theology, and you are denounced as an Atheist. Expose the folly of their faith, and you are an Infidel all round. Deny their miracles, and they damn your morals. ''The Christian Rock,'' not knowing what to say against me that was ''good enough'', charged me with having published a volume of ''indecent'' poetry. It was a malicious lie! – a real instance of ''original sin.'' But that was what the ignoramus said – mistaking me, as I suppose, for Mr. Swinburne. There was something grand in the ancient martyrdom suffered by the heralds of free thought; whereas the modern reformer has to endure the prolonged torture and ignominy of being kicked to death by butterflies, or gnawed to death by gnats. The religion, founded on misunderstood and perverted mythology, has made everything wrong, and nothing short of an utter reversal, with all Nature for our guide and on our side, can set us right. Its apotheosis of sorrow, of suffering and sacrifice is entirely false, because these are on account of that which, like the “Fall of Man,” never really occurred – and weeping over that which is not real is nothing more than a waste of water. Nature offers no evidence that man was meant to moan as a miserable animal. It is true that sorrow and suffering may purge and purify the life, and add a precious seeing to our sight. That which gives the wound may deposit the pearl. The iron of a stedfast soul has frequently been forged in purgatorial fires of pain. The greater the pressure from without, the more has it evoked and evolved the rebounding spirit from within. But that is because there is a power which can turn all experience to account if our life be right in its root-relationship. And human life will always have its full share of sorrow and suffering. But nothing can be falser than o try and found a religion on}}

{{Style P-Quote|1=sorrow and suffering, by the representation of this world as ''destined'' to be a vale of tears, which we are bound to grow anxious to get out of as soon as we recognise that we are in it. No! ''it is not in sorrow, but in joy,'' that we can ''attain the greatest unconsciousness of self, and live the larger objective life for others.'' We learn as we come to a knowledge of joy, that all sorrow and suffering are but the passing shadows of things mortal, and not the enduring or eternal reality. When no longer darkened or eclipsed by the false creed which has benighted our minds and totally obscured so many natural truths, we can see to the end of these shadows – we can overlook them – in the larger intellectual light of a truer interpretation of the necessities of evolution and of the human environment. If nature has one revelation of truth to make more plainly apparent than another, it is that her creature, man, is intended for health and happiness here, in this life, and not merely hereafter – on condition of suffering here! Pleasure is the natural accompaniment of our creative or productive activities, and the human likeness of life itself is conceived and imaged in delight. Health, physical or mental, means happiness. And everywhere the pull of the natural forces and elements are on the side of health, and, therefore, of consequent or premeditated happiness; children of the blind who never saw, being born to see, and the children of the deaf mutes being born to talk. That delight in life was intended by means of health and happiness may likewise be read in the stern punishment administered by nature for every breach of natural law by which we injure our health and destroy our happiness; and, lest the personal memory of the fact for ''one'' generation should be too short-lived, the results and effects of the violated law are kept before us, in some cases from generation to generation, ''not as gibbets'' for mere vengeance, but as sign-posts pointing to the way of reformation. Health is intended, and happiness is the result. It is the happy who will be moral; not the miserable. Now, the Christian scheme would make us miserable, in order that we may be moral here and happy hereafter! Whereas Nature says, be happy here and now, by learning the laws of health – individual, social, political, universal; by getting rid of all opposing falsehood, and establishing the true conditions for evolving health and happiness everywhere for all.}}

{{Style P-Quote|1=“In the first thirty-seven pages there are all these passages and many more, perhaps, of equal beauty. Here is such poetry as the generous Laureate will read with approbation; such poetry as Jeffrey would have tossed aside with derision, and as Gifford would have torn to pieces in despair; can anything more or better be said for it?”}}

John Ruskin gives him unqualified praise and says that it is his profound conviction that “few national services can be greater than that which you (he) have rendered.”

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{{Style P-Quote|1=As transitoriness, like a nurse, takes first to its breast the new-born child, and afterwards the mother, what way is there then for grief?

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Edited by Edward Carpenter. Published by Swan, Sonnenschein &amp; Co., London.

May its power defy!}}

{{Style P-Poem|poem=For to-day we round us see

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<center>HER GLORY, HER SHAME, AND HER GOD.</center>

IN the above volume Saladin prosecutes the campaign against Christianity to which he has devoted the larger part of his literary work. Readers of Lucifer will recall the recent review of the previous volume of the book in these columns, and the favourable criticisms which this brilliant writer then evoked. We have now simply to endorse that verdict, and, although unable to agree with the extreme conclusions occasionally arrived at by Mr. Ross, we cannot but see in the terrible indictment before us an impeachment of Christian morality which admits of no answer. Christian ethics and Christian ''practice'' are exposed and satirized with merciless severity, and the reader is confronted with a vast array of facts bearing on “modern civilization” which show the ''total inadequacy'' of present creeds to grapple with the vices and brutality of man.

“Woman” is never dull; it is, on the contrary, so sparkling and versatile as to throw a charm even over the most plain-spoken passages where English impurity is brought to light. But let no reader of a pharisaical or fastidious turn of mind peruse his work. Saladin is a pure-minded and high-souled writer, but he stops at no revelation when he intends to prove his case. The annals of vice are deliberately sifted – from the ''support and legalization of prostitution'' by the English ''Christian'' Government in the East down to the revolting secrets of “modern Babylon” at home. The exposure is not pleasant reading, it reads far worse than anything penned by Tacitus regarding Roman vice under the emperors, but it is unfortunately true. “And yet,” writes the author, after unveiling one hideous sore, “the pulpit and the religious press are possessed of sufficient ignorance (?) and effrontery to declare that Christianity has exalted the status of woman and sweetened and purified the atmosphere of social and domestic life. To writers of this sort “Woman” will prove a very efficient eye-opener.

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[We copy this extract from a review of “Agnosticism and Christianity,” by “Julian” (''Secular Review,'' June 2nd, 1888), as embodying remarkably logical and philosophical arguments against some so-called axioms which can never be accepted as such – Ed.]

“Then, in regard to the other dictum of Professor Huxley, quoted by Mr. Laing – ‘We know nothing beyond phenomena’ – it is by no means clear what the Professor means. We know scores and scores of things ''besides'' phenomena; but of phenomena themselves we only know what our senses inform us of, or}}

{{Style P-Quote|1=what we believe the senses of others have taught them. Thus a blind man has no personal knowledge of the phenomena of sight; but all he knows of such matters is from faith. And very often the knowledge derived from our five senses is quite erroneous, and requires correction. Trusting to our eyes, the sun, moon, and stars are round planes like plates; but telescopes inform us they are balls or spheres. A ship at sea viewed from the beach seems quite near at hand, but may be many a long mile off the spectator.

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{{Style P-Quote|1=Let the wise think on wisdom as unfading and immortal; let him fulfil his duty as though Death grasped him by the hair.

== No. 14 – October 1888 ==

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CONSCIOUSNESS is the seat of the real life of the human individual. The mere carrying on of his bodily functions is not his life. Those functions are the channels and avenues through which his real being has communion with the phenomenal world, and with other units of consciousness similar to his own. Through them his life is greatly affected; by their means his thoughts are fed, his feelings modified, his actions suggested. But let us consider the modes in which consciousness may work, and the specific forms in which it may manifest itself. Observation of human modes and objects of life indicates three classes of consciousness. In other words, there are three modes of existence which the consciousness of an individual may fall into, or work itself into, and the adoption of the particular mode, knowingly and deliberately, or the contrary, determines the character and intrinsic value of the consciousness.

This form of consciousness we shall term the ''superficial;'' it has length and breadth, but no depth. It is the possession of those who, while devoted to one special employment which absorbs their chief energies, also occupy themselves, as adjuncts of life, in other spheres having for them a particular interest. This consciousness predominates largely

amongst men and women who, following a daily avocation to supply the main needs of life, have sufficient mental or emotional activity to lead them into secondary engagements that exercise thought or fulfil an aim. The persons possessing this form of consciousness are active and seem to follow a purpose, though the purpose may not be noble or of intrinsic value. Naturally, this consciousness enjoys much more of life than the form belonging to the class designated as lineal. Men of business, not wholly immersed in the getting of money, clergymen and ministers of wise sympathies, teachers not limited to one peculiar tendency of thought, and persons whose lives generally are useful and active, are those who belong to the second class of superficial consciousness.

Sensuous consciousness delights merely in the external forms of

objects and receives impressions only from those forms as they are found.

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{{Style P-Poem|poem=My life is like a flight of stairs

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AT a meeting of members of the Theosophical Society held at Cambridge, England, on the 6th day of October 1888, Mr. G. A. Passingham in the chair, it was resolved to form a Local Branch under the title “The Cambridge Theosophical Society.”

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The Lending Library of the T. P. S. will be opened to the Members and Public on the 1st October. The charge will be Twopence per week for each Volume. All inquiries should be addressed to “T. P. S. Library,” 7, Duke Street, Adelphi, W.C.

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<center>By Charles Hannan, F.R.G.S., Author of “A Swallow’s Wing,” &amp;c.</center>

There is a great demon within me – an evil spirit that cries endlessly, “Seek – seek – seek and know,” and I ''have'' sought, for who could disobey. Thus has it always been. Yes, I ''have'' sought for good or ill – I ''have'' sought ceaselessly for the knowledge which is now stored within.

Knowledge! Thine is the unquenchable flame that consumes my soul – thine the fuel added to the fire – thine the never-ending thirst.

What is time? How is it that we, you and I, ''are living'' (as we must be if I can communicate with you) and yet live different lives in cities

and in towns that are not the same with you and me. It is impossible, and yet ''I'' write to you – How can I penetrate the past if it is not living, breathing, existing now?

The centuries which have rolled since you were, have changed the world you used to know. I have read much of your day, and I have of late been buried in research, thus it is most interesting for me to write to

you. Could you read the History of the world during the ages which have intervened, I think you would marvel that such things could have been but I do not tell you of these, for mine is a selfish task. I would penetrate into and know something of your time rather than inform you of mine. Yet it is easier for me to write to you than to be with you until –

I too shall cross my gulf, a greater gulf it may be, a gulf which I have already half bridged across, the gulf between the present and the past.

For I stand now amongst my fellows as one different from them and callous to the present time.

That is a small matter to me. This is the greater: – With an alien nature mine would strive. I should never then be able to descend to

your age because, consciously or unconsciously, I should ''resist the negative power,'' and my mind would refuse to yield to another which it might despise or could not trust. The second problem was solved on the day I found that book, and its solution meant the solution of the first and of all else.

There is something in his face, be it in the eye, be it where it will, that speaks to my heart and tells me that he and I have something which others have not, and which is ours alone. I turn again to the book. It is a musty old volume – many pages have here and there been lost, and what remains is yellow and faded with the age of centuries.

Strange, is it not, that I have this before me, I who influence his life in part, stranger still it would be had I the volume I have sought, the second of the two telling of his life. What does it contain? what is the end of the man who interests me, who is inspired by my thought, and who writes now to my will. I have followed his life to the conclusion of the twenty-fifth year. He commenced to write in his early youth, and the volume before me is filled with extracts from his earlier works. It is useless to cry against a fate which has hidden from me the volume which is lost.

Holy sorrow steal?|title=ONORA MAYNE.}}

{{Style P-Poem|poem=Sadness sheds a beauty

I exist five hundred years in future time. What is the risk if I step back to be with you. Must I then always live in your age in a day I now look upon as past? No! You forget that there is an awakening from the trance, and my awakening will come in the good time, only I pray it may not be too soon.

I am yielding to the influence that comes back to me – slowly my brain is changing from that which gives an impression to that which receives, and it is by ''my'' will notwithstanding that this is done. The circle will complete itself!

First – there is the impossibility of such a thing. I am living now. I, Geoffrey Harborough, am living now, how then can any being as yet unborn communicate with me through the space of centuries? It cannot be! Why does my mind not cast aside the thought and cease to dwell upon the unknown? Why can I not say “It is untrue”? My

soul is groping in the dark. A species of madness and weird suspicion of the terrible and of hidden things falls upon and enwraps me as in a cloud of dark impenetrable mist.

I can hear the birds chirping in the trees, though the mist which is rising from the lawn restrains my sight. Though it is summer I feel chilled, for I have spent the night without seeking my couch, and I am glad that the day has come. I remember leaving them early last night, for it was my intention to write for an hour or two at that time, but my work

still stands as before, and I have some doubt now if I shall complete it in good time.

{{Style P-Quote|1=“He had now entered upon his twenty-sixth year, and it was during this year that he fell in love. This love, from the depth of his poetic nature, became a passion of the most intensified character, and was the cause of that change which cast a shadow upon * * * *”}}

I am Geoffrey Harborough, and I have met Onora Mayne.

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<center>(''Concluded from the July Number.'')</center>

When this new child of God (the all Father-Mother), shall be developed on earth, then the reign of sorrow shall cease, and that of joy take its place; then shall be fulfilled the taking down from the Cross and the transfiguration and ascension of humanity typified by those events in the life of Jesus – the divine typal Man.

The duality mentioned in the last verse is the separated male and female nature; and when these are reunited the true sympneuma or androgynous celestial being shall be formed, and the present duality shall disappear in the unity of the sympneuma – and in unity with God.

{{Style P-Quote|1=“And this in particular gave occasion to the story about the Goddess, namely, that Numa did not retire from human society out of any melancholy or disorder of mind, but because he had tasted the joys of more elevated intercourse, and, ''admitted to celestial wedlock in''}}

{{Style P-Quote|1=''the love and converse of the Goddess Egeria,'' had attained to blessedness and to a divine wisdom. The story evidently resembles those very ancient fables which the Phrygians have received and still recount of Atys, the Bithynians of Herodotus, the Arcadians of Eudymion, not to mention several others who were thought blessed and beloved of the Gods.”}}

There are hints contained in this beautiful legend that seem to point to Egeria being a prophetic type of the female Sympneuma, and that she and Numa symbolize the dual, androgynous being of the future. She was regarded, for instance, as having power over births, like Diana, and her aid was invoked by Roman women when in childbirth. Even her name seems to point to her as presiding over the birth – the new birth – that crisis and cataclysm of progress from a lower to a higher stage of being, as it is probably connected with “egero” = to bear – to send out. She is the spirit-mother of the new “Soul-Spirit Man,” the complete

being, the two segments united, perhaps reunited, what Swedenborg calls the “celestial angel,” which is to be the next birth for man out of the womb of Time.

This attribution of essential substantiality to our concepts of faith, hope and charity would seem to point to the view of Mr. Oliphant, that in a higher state of human development (of which perhaps Gichtel was an instance, in an imperfect way) what to us now is mere idea will then become a feeling or sensation. This Sophia (Sympneuma) is said also to have enjoyed an interior language without words, which Gichtel was able to understand. This existence of an interior or spiritual language independent of words (which are necessarily all borrowed from sensible objects) is common to many of those who exhibited occult qualities, as was notably the case with the Seeress of Prevorst. Sophia continued to reveal to Gichtel one wonder after another, and he declared that he lived

with her more in heaven than on earth; he always followed her directions, having no will of his own, and it is also said of her that like an earthly woman she was very jealous. It is also said that after Gichtel’s death she returned to his house on several occasions in order to put his papers in order and to complete and correct his manuscripts with her own hand. Sophia also made herself visible to some friends of Gichtel’s, and amongst them to a Mr. Uberfeld. See as to Gichtel, “Theosophic Correspondence” of St. Martin, translated by E. B. Penny, p. 117 (London, 1863), and “La philosophic mystiques en France,” par Ad. Franck (Paris, 1864).

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{{Style P-Poem|poem=    The day is dark, all is murky,

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IT has been wisely remarked that the old adage, “The truth lies between two extremes,” does not necessarily imply that it lies exactly in the ''middle.'' That can only be the case where the exaggerating and the underrating have been precisely equal, which can very seldom occur, if ever. The truth will generally be found to lie much nearer to one extreme than to the other, according to the preponderance of abuse over disuse or the reverse.

Are then the two forces equal? Natural Philosophy teaches that

when two opposed forces are equal the result is a deadlock. ''One'' of the two must be the stronger. And the Higher Wisdom asserts most positively that the power of aspiration excels the power of environment. For the former is of the spirit. Divine; the latter of the body, Human. The one has the ''vis inertiæ'' of dead matter (“dead,” that is, relatively to our normal perceptions); the other the creative energy of the One-Life.

But it is in its application to the individual life that this truth is of special interest and value. How common is dissatisfaction with one’s lot, not because it is particularly hard, but on account of the limitations which it imposes (or seems to impose) on one’s aspirations! How

frequent the cry, “O that I had more leisure, more wealth, a different station, more congenial occupations and surroundings! O that I had room to spread my wings! How I would ''then'' develope myself and grow liker to the unattainable Ideal!” Aye? That depends. It is one of the saddest but not least unfrequent sights of life to see aspirations wither away in the very atmosphere for which they craved, it being obtained; to note how the man who, poor, longed for wealth that he might have opportunities of unfolding his higher nature, rich, forget all dreams and become like Bunyan’s man with the muckrake. “Set a beggar on horseback and he will – !” Why? Because he is still a “beggar” at ''heart.'' Only the ''clothes'' are changed; the ''man'' remains the same. And as a rule it may be safely prophesied, that those who have so little knowledge of themselves and of the meaning of Life as to sigh idly for an Eldorado in which they might be what they have made up their minds they cannot be where they are, will not know how to use that for which they long, if Fortune is cruel enough to answer their prayers.

Aspire! aspire! only aspire! Believe that matter is but the shadow of spirit; it is the truth. If you are not in that condition of life where you want to be, it is strong presumptive evidence that you are not ''fit''

for it; and if not fit, its attainment would be a curse and not a blessing. Promotion is sure, when earned; but it must be earned first. The promotion, however, may not be – seldom is – rapid; for it is only by hairbreadths at a time that we can raise ourselves – our ''Selves,'' mark; perhaps not enough in one short lifetime to bring about any very appreciable change in environment. Nevertheless, making every allowance and deduction, the truth of the matter may be summed up in one sentence: if you are dissatisfied with your lot in life, and would change it, ''change yourself.''

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TO attempt anything like what is asked of me,<ref name="v3-p137-n1">This paper was written at the special request of a friend, whose connection with Theosophy is of itself quite enough to account for any interest I may feel in its fortunes.</ref> that is a criticism of the philosophical notions and strange events grouped together in the history of modern Theosophy, would be impossible, on account both of my imperfect knowledge and of the reasonable limitations of an ordinary magazine article. The utmost I can hope to do is to set before you clearly a few of the chief points wherein I fancy you will find that many earnest people sympathise with you, and others wherein they will differ from you; people who measure all possible theories and even the most miraculous of facts by one simple standard; namely the direct practical bearing which they have upon the one really valuable and wonderful thing that we know of, the Life which we, men and women, now live in the flesh. I am a little more confident of succeeding in the attempt than I should otherwise be, because of the strong sympathy that I feel with some of the purposes of Theosophy, and the direct and living contact with fervent and most excellent Theosophists which I count among my cherished privileges Sound criticism being, as I take it, more dependent upon feeling and vital connection with embodied facts, than upon acute research and profound scholarship.

From the time when “Theosophy” as a system of faith, or rather of science and morals, was first heard of, I, as an old student of so-called Spiritualism (though transcendental materialism might be a better title), found myself much interested in its fortunes, and have since followed them carefully through good and evil report up to the present moment. The most evil report of all came, of course, from India in 1885, and curiously enough I had the opportunity given me of hearing at the same time, privately, the opposite versions of the story told in letters from Adyar and from the Free Church College at Madras, before the matter was debated in the newspapers. Suffice it to say that the impression left upon me after it was all over has never varied from then till now. I see in Madame Blavatsky an extremely clever,<ref name="v3-p137-n2">We demur to the epithet “clever,” which is too elastic to be passed over without a few words of comment. “Clever” may mean talented, clever in speech and daily life, but it may also convey the sense of being dexterous, skilful, and a clever ''trickster.'' To the former we object, because if Mme. Blavatsky had been endowed with average common-sense, not to say ''cleverness,'' she would never have taken on board the Theosophical ship, almost without scrutiny, a lot of cabin and deck passengers, ready to bore holes in the bottom and scuttle the vessel, when not watched. As to the second definition, the only necessary reply is, that posterity will justly judge whether the public have been ''cheated'' by Mme. Blavatsky or her pretended exposers. – [<span style="font-variant:small-caps">Ed.</span>]</ref> enthusiastic

and impressionable woman, surrounded by a crowd of enthusiastic and rather stupid disciples craving for a “proof from miracles” before they could do anything energetic for the cause which she had at heart and for which she had risked life and fortune. In order to satisfy and quiet these weak brethren, to induce them to leave off gaping and to begin working, Madame Blavatsky apparently did what many a religious, and irreligious, missionary has done under similar circumstances, she made cherries drop from Heaven into their open mouths.<ref name="v3-p138-n1">In saying this I am very far from denying that abnormal powers, peculiar to certain organisations, are really possessed by Madame Blavatsky, and equally far from asserting that the phenomena above alluded to were not due to those powers. I have not the pleasure of her acquaintance, and do not desire in any way to criticise her actions.</ref> So long as the changing of pens into pen-wipers, the falling of mysterious missiles, the appearance of unexpected visitors and the sudden mending of broken china is generally held to prove either the virtues of a Teacher, or the value of his doctrine, the same sort of appeal will continue to be made by those who consider that in Philosophy and Religion, no less than in prize-fighting, it is important to have a good mob-backing.<ref name="v3-p138-n2">And the changing of water into wine: was this no more dignified a “miracle,” also for “mob-backing”? For simple, honest folk, elementary phenomena; for the Gamaliels, philosophy. – [<span style="font-variant:small-caps">Ed.</span>]</ref> But however reprehensible it may be to become either a miracle-worker or a mountebank for the sake of a philosophical Idea,<ref name="v3-p138-n3">No true theosophist – the accused party least of all – believes in ''miracles,'' though every true theosophist ought to believe in the existence of abnormal powers in man; “abnormal” because, so far, either misunderstood or denied. All such objective physical phenomena, however, are simply psychological “glamour,” ''i.e.,'' if not witchery, at least “a charm on the eyes and senses.” This, people may call brutally “trick,” but since they are ''psychic,'' they cannot be ''physical;'' hence, no conjuring or “sleight of hand.” As well call “tricksters” the grave medical celebrities, who hypnotize their subjects to see things which have no reality! “Theosophical phenomena” differ from these in this: that while hypnotic hallucinations are suggested by the operator’s idle fancy, occult manifestations are produced by the will of the Occultist, that one or a hundred men should see ''realities,'' generally hidden from the profane, ''e.g.,'' certain things and persons thousands of miles away, whose astral images are brought within the view of the audience. Thus a cup ''may never have been broken in reality,'' and yet people are made to see it shattered in atoms and then made whole. Is this a ''juggler’s'' trick? Occult phenomena are then simply a hundred-fold intensified hypnotism, and between the hypnotic hallucinations at the ''Salpêtrière'' and the ''magic'' of the East there is chiefly a question of degree. – [<span style="font-variant:small-caps">Ed.</span>]</ref> it is assuredly far

worse to declare that one has assisted in working miracles for the sake of a living, and afterwards to turn informer, leave the scavengers of society to pick out from the unsavoury heap of mud and magic whatever abominations they shall choose, and assign all blame to those who have befriended us. And since the direct evidence against Madame Blavatsky rests entirely upon the word and deed of those accomplished conjurors and unprincipled adventurers, M. and Mme. Coulomb, it ought to be received, I think, with extremest caution by people who desire to treat all things humanely.

I have often said to my friends that philosophies and religions, ''so far''

''as they are dogmatic,'' resolve themselves always into idealisations of the condition of life to which the authors and receivers of them have been accustomed, that they are in fact the far-projected shadows of the conditions under which men find themselves placed in the world, and this will, I think, be found true whatever the particular case may be to which we choose to apply it. Among races and nations and under circumstances where strong feeling is naturally called out, philosophers and philosophies seldom arise, but Religions always do so. For what is religion but the sum of the grander perceptions, grounded upon the mental and moral life of men, transfigured, as Arnold says, by emotion? Speculative philosophy is the sum of similar perceptions remaining untransfigured; and there is no test so crucial which can be applied to the higher imagination of any people as the one which they apply to it themselves, in calling those imaginations by the name of religion or philosophy, or by a new-fashioned double-barrelled title now popular in America – “Religio-Philosophy.” The Religio-Philosophy ''par excellence'' is what Theosophy claims to be, the ultimate of the loving hopes nourished in times when feeling is strong – the final religion. The ultimate of the feverish quest after knowledge of men brought up upon the Binomial Theorem and in the physiological laboratory – the final “Philosophy.” Now finality to some ears has always a fatal ring about it and causes distrust at the outset. We are beginning to feel that Infallibility is about the least desirable claim that religion can make for herself, because Infallibility must necessarily involve something manifestly tiresome and hopeless, and that is immobility. To believe that somebody, somewhere, even though he be called a Mahatma and dwell upon the highest peak of Kanchanjunga, can say the last word about the human soul, the word which all the ages have been trying to utter and which our own age has made just a little more articulate, is a concession to the Individual that few are prepared to make who confide in human solidarity. Nay, further, the kind of cherubic sense of vigour and peace aimed at and possessed by more than one Theosophist in large measure, is attainable, I think they would tell me, in shorter and more simple ways, than by making interminable walking tours round and round the Universe by oneself.

As regards metaphysical infallibility, it has been claimed so often, by so many people, and for so many systems, that the reiteration of the claim by Theosophists is less striking than they might wish it to be. With evolution, the Indian theories as to Reincarnation, the indisputable phenomena of English and American “Spiritualism,” to start with, a little subtle and diligent interweaving by an educated Hindu, or a speculative Scotchman, would bring something very similar to birth in a year.<ref name="v3-p140-n1">Then why has no one of them done so, before us? Moreover, no one, as far as we know, has ever claimed metaphysical infallibility – not even the Masters who do not demand from the Europeans even their due – a simple recognition of their wisdom. – [<span style="font-variant:small-caps">Ed.</span>]</ref>

Let the question of religious and metaphysical perfection be winnowed away then, along with the conjuring, and let us see if we have no strengthening wheat left in the little heap below our flails. Let us look upon Theosophy naturally, as a product of our own time, and not of the aeons or the Absolute, recognizing to the fullest extent how it has come to include within itself the unexhausted tendency of our Puritan breeding towards conflict between soul and body – toward what is called religious asceticism. Then the increasing tendency of unemployed but well-to-do persons towards marvel-hunting. And lastly the tendency of feverish and unhealthy brain-stimulation towards fruitless endeavour to plausibly solve the insoluble. Having done this honestly, we shall find afterwards on looking into each of these tendencies a little more closely, that they have, like every other product of human thought, valuable aspects as well as foolish ones, things to be taken to heart as well as things to be lightly passed over.<ref name="v3-p141-n1">Our esteemed correspondent speaks like a materialist, even if a “transcendental” one. We occupy two different standing points, and therefore see things in different lights. – [<span style="font-variant:small-caps">Ed.</span>]</ref>

Our highest nature is, it goes without saying, the part of us that is tuned to the finest issues, and the realisation of a “vast flowing vigour” of unselfish affection and of mental freedom undreamed of before, repels us most powerfully from the places in which we do not expect, and have always been taught not to expect, any similar exhilarations. Those places are our bodily structure and earthly surroundings. Faber, speaking from a high level of the merely Christian consciousness, expresses the feeling exactly: – “Earth looks so little,” he says, “and so low when faith shines full and bright.” Now the sense of larger living in Theosophy being undoubtedly a more complex, though I will not say a more delightful, thing than it is in Catholicism, involves the same

kind of rebound from the physical and sensual world. The result being that while making tentative discoveries, which I hope to speak of more particularly presently, in a region of subtle sensation previously almost unentered, Theosophy warns us away from absorption in common life, just as fervently as does Buddhism or monkish Christianity.<ref name="v3-p142-n1">So does it, also, warn us against ascetic retirement, save in those very rare and exceptional cases where the individual has brought over from his last preceding birth an irrepressible attraction for the life of the Spirit and repugnance for the life of the flesh. The normal man is in normal sympathetic relation with his fellew men at each successive stage of human development. But under the law of psychical differentiation, there are in each epoch beings ahead of the average of the race at that time. From their number develop the teachers, seers and saviours of mankind.

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A LETTER just received by the President Founder from one of the Australasian colonies, is worthy of reproduction, as it shows so forcibly that no amount of calumny is capable of obscuring unprejudiced and well-balanced minds. The malicious attempt by the S. P. R. of London, or rather Cambridge, in 1886, to upset a good and useful movement, and to cover with opprobrium two innocent people who have devoted their lives to the Cause of Truth, does not seem to bear much fruit. These are some ''verbatim'' extracts.

Forgive me if I dilate on this, for I feel sure such an expression of opinion from a stranger like myself, far removed from personal contact with Theosophists or their enemies, must be some slight consolation to you for the ''reward'' you and your colleagues have received for your unselfish efforts to promote the good of humanity, from your opponents in India and other parts of the world. The success which still attends|data=<span style="font-variant:small-caps">Dear Sir,</span>}}

{{Style P-Quote|1=the Society – especially the bright prospects among the 60,000,000 of America – is the substantial answer to your detractors, and I earnestly hope that this answer you will be able to give more fully and admirably every year.

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{{Style P-Poem|poem=Beloved and good mother, O bear me no ill-will!

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IN reviewing Mr. Mull’s edition of Hamlet in our August number, we called attention to his wonderful genius for discerning false readings, and his unfailing discrimination in emendation; and the edition of “Paradise Lost,” Books I.-VI., by the same hand, which we have before us, strongly confirms us in our admiration of these qualities of Mr. Mull’s work.

And yet this faulty condition of Milton’s text arises from causes universally recognised, though not traced to their legitimate conclusion – the fact of Milton’s blindness, his inability to procure proper amanuenses, his consequent dependence on casual and unskilful aid, added to the well-known ignorance and stupidity of the early printers – all these might have induced at

least suspicion, where we find nothing but awe-struck reverence for the original text.

Substituting ''vasty'' for “hasty.”

In Book II. we find the following important changes: –

Instead of – his ''lore soon'' learned.

In Book III. the following readings are the most notable: –

{{Style P-Poem|poem=Satan, now ''first'' inflamed with rage, ''came'' down.}}

And further on,

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<center>By “Rita,” author of “The Mystery of a Turkish Bath.” (London: F. V. White &amp; Co.)</center>

THIS shilling publication justifies fully the opinion passed on the author by the critic in the ''Whitehall Review'' with regard to her preceding novelette: “Every fresh piece of work which ‘Rita’ publishes shows an increase of power and a decided advance on the last.” This was said of “The Mystery of a Turkish Bath,” and “The Seventh Dream” excels the latter, or, indeed, any of the works we have hitherto read from the pen of this talented lady. This would seem almost ridiculous to say of a small booklet in large type, of only 116 pages; nevertheless, it is strictly true. For “Rita” has a

way, essentially her own, of compressing within the smallest space, ideas and thoughts sufficient to serve as subject matter, for the most thrilling mystical novels in three 8vo volumes each. Her little “One shillings” are like “Liebig’s Extracts,” true literary tin-pots of Occult essences. Her “Seventh Dream” may be only a good railway companion to the profane. To the Mystic and Occultist, however, it is full of esoteric truths, of deeply hidden roots, the gaudy and fictitious blossoms of which are only as so many landmarks and sign-posts throughout the realm of the Occult. The ideas and short sentences scattered throughout the little volume, show more than a simple “call from the occult world which seems to have left her a partial believer,” as remarked by one of her critics. They show such ideas inherent in the very nature of the author, more, a ''pre''-natal possession of such truths.

Who is Nyleta? She is the heroine of dreamland, a dream within a dream dreamt by a City man who lost his way in a London fog. The man, an habitual dreamer, knocks his head in the Egyptian darkness of that fog against a dead wall of a house, and a few minutes later another man shares the same fate. The latter proves to be the proprietor of the house, as

well as a magician, an old Alchemist and a sorcerer – “a shape of uncanny and evil mystery” indeed, since his gifts do not prevent him from coming to grief through the fog like any other profane blinded by the pest of London. The old man offers hospitality to the younger one, in a quaint room wherein all is ''sevened''; seven black stars on a red carpet, seven brass candlesticks on the mantel-shelf, seven books in the book-case, and seven curiously shaped tiles on the hearth. He finds also his thoughts read and answered by his uncanny host, and recognizes in him an associate of a recent dream. He knows it, he says: –

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<center>THE PROPHET OF NAZARETH.</center>

Jehoshua’s childhood and boyhood are slightly described, but the centre of interest is at once transferred to Jehoshua as a candidate for initiation into the

Wisdom of the Egyptians. Of course it may be open to question whether Dr. Hartmann has disclosed facts concerning initiation in their correct sequence and detail. Probably, judging by all that has ever been declared, the account is purposely jumbled and confused. But in any case, correct in sequence and detail or not, the account serves the purpose of conveying to the student much information of a most valuable character. There is a marked resemblance between much of Dr. Hartmann’s explanations concerning initiation and those treated by Mdme. Blavatsky in her forthcoming work on the “Secret Doctrine”; her explanations being based, as she says, on truths divulged only in the mysteries of initiation. Further, Dr. Hartmann makes very plain in this that the laws which govern the psychic and astral worlds are closely connected with and are the lower correlations of the laws which govern the moral and spiritual worlds. Again, although the candidate might gain the command of the psychic and astral forces, he was never allowed to go forth into the external physical world until he had gained the consciousness of the moral and spiritual laws which alone would enable him to direct these forces rightly and become a co-worker with nature. So far Dr. Hartmann seems to have gathered his materials from sources other than those to be found in the New Testament. He now brings Jehoshua back to his native land and shows him as exposed to the temptations, not of the individual personal man, but to those of the leader among men – to those of a man of larger life and scope. These Jehoshua met in his “Temptation” in the desert; Dr. Hartmann giving an explanation which differs from that ordinarily accepted.

Anyhow, whatever the inner conviction of the author, the biography of Jesus of Nazareth in the Gospels is ''not'' historical, and the whole is an allegory based upon a personage who lived, taught and suffered, probably more than a century before the year 1, <span style="font-variant:small-caps">a.d.</span> Opinions may be divided upon the question among the profane, but among the Occultists of any learning and standing, there can be

but one conviction. A Jesus or Jehoshua has lived at some time or other, though the alleged biographical sketches of the drama in the four Gospels, are, as appears plain to any Occultist or Kabalist not a narrative of real events, but an allegory which depicts the trials, sufferings and temporary death of a disciple on probation or a postulant to adeptship, and final victory of the candidate for Initiation into the sublime Mysteries.

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<center>AN INTRODUCTION INTO THE DOCTRINES OF BUDDHA GAUTAMA.</center>

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THE T. P. S. continues manfully its work of propaganda by issuing pamphlets from time to time on theosophical subjects. It is a pity that theosophists do not support it better, for more subscribers means more pamphlets. If there were a few thousand members of the T. P. S., there would be a continual stream of interesting monographs flowing from 7, Duke Street, Adelphi. Five shillings a year, after all, is very little more than a penny a week, a sum which does not seem extravagant as a yearly subscription, if it be remembered how freely it is spent in other ways.

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<center>By <span style="font-variant:small-caps">Robert Allan Campbell.</span></center>

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<center>(A Record of Communications through H. B. Champion, with Explanations and Observations by J. B. Ferguson.)</center>

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Thinking over the correspondence on the subject of Karma in the July <span style="font-variant:small-caps">Lucifer</span>, it does seem to one observer at least that some writers on the philosophy of human life from the Theosophical Society’s standpoint are more concerned about our deserts than our duties, more anxious to explain “undeserved” misery than ready to accept the idea of our all needing lessons, be they bitter or be they sweet. To the mind wont to regard the workings of Divine Providence as absolute perfection in their sphere of education, the notion of Karma lapsing here or there from justice and “making it up” on another occasion is as droll as the other suggestion (''vide'' footnote p. 415). That circumstances cropping up in a casual kind of way, like a stray bullet may hit the wrong man!

If the elements of our environment, our contact with men and things, be not included in the working of Karma, pray what is its field of action? And if they be, then it should adjust itself as minutely to the inner states of its subjects as a perfect machine to the fulfilment of its functions. Now, is Karma a teacher or is it a police magistrate? In the one case our past record of action is of the slightest consequence ''except'' as evidence of our spiritual level at any given time; and as the same deed may be an outcome of quite different mental states according to the characters of the doers, the Karma resulting for each should depend not on any external ''doing'' but on internal ''being;'' while the manifestation on the external plane is merely the raw material we each supply for Karmic purposes directed toward the whole race. In this light our deeds here in London are as pertinent to the Patagonian savage as to our next neighbour – they are but spinning the yarn while Karma throws the shuttle where she knows the web has need.

London, July 24, 1888.

And with this simple statement that two contradictory ideas have only one and the same supreme being or person for their origin, Mr. May seems to imagine that he has at once removed all the theological confusion, contradictions and contrarieties, which for centuries have accumulated and perplexed mankind respecting Jesus and the Devil, God and Satan, good and evil.

But when it is conceded to Mr. May that there is but one Supreme being or person: it yet remains to be determined, revealed, or understood what “the Supreme” is? and whether “the Supreme” is good, or evil.

Mr. May in his letter would seem to imply that “the Supreme” is both evil and good, in like manner as a period of 24 hours, which we call a day, is partly light and partly dark. (2.)

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You invite questions respecting all points of difficulty in subjects connected with Occult Science. I cannot reconcile some things relating to the Apostles of Modern Theosophy.

In the “''Preface'' to the Original Edition” (page xxii. of the 5th Edition) of “Esoteric Buddhism,” by Mr. A. P. Sinnett, there are these words – “Two years ago, neither I, nor any other European living, knew the alphabet of the science here for the first time put into a scientific statement.” This is an emphatic expression; it would seem to imply that the thinking world is exclusively indebted to this book and to its author for that knowledge of the truths of Esoteric Science, which is now making its way amongst European and American Theosophists. But this can hardly be Mr. Sinnett’s meaning.

For, can the statement and its implication be consistent with the fact that Madame Blavatsky, herself a European,<ref name="v3-p173-n1">In view of a number of such letters received, a full answer will be given in the “Secret Doctrine,” now nearly ready. – [<span style="font-variant:small-caps">Ed.</span>].</ref> had, some years previously, written “Isis Unveiled,” which though it does not give the same constructive teaching respecting the mysteries of the Universe as does “Esoteric Buddhism,” does yet imply a knowledge on the part of its author of much more than “the alphabet of the science”?

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The recent spread of theosophical literature renders it advisable to increase the information given out by this means, both through the ''Path,'' and the International Theosophical Publication Society (T.P.S.) in London. The expenses of both fall heavily upon some half-dozen individuals, such enterprises, in general, “paying” only through advertisements. Students of limited means are constantly heard from, to whom literature is a necessity denied. Such a need ought to be fraternally met, and is now very inadequately met for want of sufficient funds.

These publications are not confined to purely theosophical subjects. Topics of the day will receive due attention and explanation, both from specialists and also in the light of occult teachings. It is hoped that new developments will take place in all departments of Thought, and that people of all opinions will receive a fresh impetus, and enlargement, whether in Christian Science, in Spiritualism, in Dynamics, in Mesmerism, etc., and in Spiritual Truth, which underlies all the rest.

To this end the support of all thoughtful persons (whether theosophists or not) is needed. This being the age of Investigation and Co-operation, we hope they will be glad to aid in this liberal movement by contributing to a Fund to be wholly devoted to such purposes. Only the minimum of help is asked from each person. In this way, none need be debarred from giving for the enlightenment of Humanity. If all will aid in this scheme (not original with us), a fund will be raised with little trouble.

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== No. 15 – November 1888 ==

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<span style="font-variant:small-caps">With</span> the December Number of <span style="font-variant:small-caps">Lucifer</span> will commence the publication of a Serial Story entitled “<span style="font-variant:small-caps">The Speaking Image of Ooroor,</span>” by Dr. Franz Hartmann, Author of “Paracelsus,” “Magic White and Black,” “Jehoshua,” etc., etc. To those acquainted with this gifted and versatile writer, further recommendation of his new story is unnecessary.

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{{Style P-Poem|poem=I <span style="font-variant:small-caps">stand</span> and wait on this wind-smitten shore,

“Now were I full content, tho’ Love were dead!”|title=Waiting}}

{{Style P-Poem|poem=E’en as I spoke a strong, fierce wind sprang high,

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TRUE study of any branch of knowledge consists in giving the matter of that branch such repetitions of ''attentive'' consideration that it at length becomes an integral part of the domain of the consciousness, and can at any time, under any correlated stimulus, be made use of by automatic mental action.

Attention is that condition or attitude of consciousness in which its rays are ''steadily and unintermittently centred'' upon the thing being done or the subject of study. This may be presented to the consciousness

by one or more of the special senses, or it may already be a content of the mind; the special element in the attitude being ''the intentness with which the consciousness operates.'' This intentness of gaze must proceed to such a degree that all other sensible or mental objects, except ''the one,'' become excluded from its range.

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The Human Will is, however, a natural ''creator'' when it operates through ''Concentrated Attention,'' but education fails in its true mission as a stimulus

and guide to individual creative force, because of this unreasonable neglect of a fundamental principle.

In the evolution of personal life, when the object of its action is an area or detail of any one of these realms, Attention may be termed

''specific,'' and when the control of the adopted ''purpose of existence as a whole'' is maintained through its means, establishing an efficient and well-ordered unity amongst the many divisions and details of that purpose, then we may designate Attention as ''supreme.''

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{{Style P-Poem|poem=<span style="font-variant:small-caps">The</span> vision of Christ that thou dost see

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BROTHERS, allow me to converse with you about my own conviction relating to the Universe and the Nature of Man, or rather about what I understand from the truths taught by our beloved, merciful and omniscient <span style="font-variant:small-caps">Lord Buddha</span>, to whom we all owe our morality in present lives, and our destiny in future.

This important idea being understood, I will go on further to suppose that if this solar system of ours, which includes the sun, the moon, and planets, were to be destroyed, or die out by efflux of time, the matter which constitutes their bodies will naturally decay and be turned into elements, while their forces become dormant; just as in the case with ourselves, our bodies when we die will be turned into the elements out of

which we are made. When such an event occurs, according to my own conviction, all the other systems of heavenly bodies existing in space, will naturally, by virtue of their affinities to this system, form out of the molecules of matter and dormant forces a new system to supply the vacancy. And this process, of course, is done entirely by mutual attractions or forces.<ref name="v3-p206-n1">This is certainly not orthodox ''exoteric'' Buddhism. But it comes very near to our ''esoteric'' philosophy or “Budhism” (Wisdom religion) taught by our Lord secretly to his elect Arhats. – [<span style="font-variant:small-caps">Ed.</span>]</ref>

Let me now proceed further to a more complex and critical part of nature than that regarding which we have spoken – that is to say, the soul of man and his succession of re-births. The soul is conceived by many people as an immortal entity in man, which governs his body in life; but how at his death it leaves him, either to be re-born or to live with an imaginary god, is beyond my comprehension. What I call a soul is nothing but the active force or attraction in man which, when he dies, must die with him.<ref name="v3-p206-n3">This is too materialistic – we fear. The “Soul” is certainly not immortal, but the <span style="font-variant:small-caps">eternal karmic ego</span>, ''that'' which re-incarnates, ''is.'' This is esoteric philosophy, of course, not orthodox Buddhism.</ref>

Reader, because of my thinking thus: – I hope you will not take me for an unbeliever in the verified laws of re-birth and of Karma, but hear me patiently, and you will see that I am a true Buddhist. I believe that our souls in this life are but the results of attractions or volitions created through ignorance of nature, by dead men at the time they were dying, and not the souls of the dead that are within our bodies. In short, I believe that we are but the images or representatives of their good or evil characters during life, taken by a process of natural photography. If this belief can be granted as being reasonable, I infer further that the power of volition or attraction in man is as inconceivably great as that in nature itself, that is to say, man has power to exercise mentally, more or less, his attraction over the forces of beings; that he can form out of such forces any imaginary picture of his thoughts, or put them in motion in somewhat the same manner as he does physical objects. But so long as he lives, the pictures of his thought, or the forces that he has put into motion, will be imperfect, so that they cannot take a re-birth.

To speak briefly, I believe that the dying man asserts his volition or transmits the picture of his good or bad character to the spirit or dormant force of long dead beings, and when the latter becomes thus charged with motion, it is taken up by the attraction of a living person. As a comparison for illustration, when an artist paints his own likeness, the materials which he uses for colours are not made from material parts of his body, but from ordinary materials outside; so the process of re-birth is effected by a dying man through the assertion of his thinking habits; from the elements outside; just as the phonograph is effected by the motions of the voice. The process of re-birth, however,

takes place at death only, because then the exertion of physical thought, being exhaustive, is quite fixed for ever, and the connecting links of active attraction cease to generate from the body. Just as if the earth’s attraction ceased, the moon, its attending satellite, must inevitably be displaced from its course.

Thus goes on the great wheel of Sansara, without beginning and without end, until one is wise enough, and has acquired in his habits the non-inclination to put to motion, or to assert his psychical image on the element or dormant spirits of long dead beings, when he is completely free from that whirling wheel of nature, and attains the blessed state of <span style="font-variant:small-caps">Nirvana</span>, the only everlasting abode of happiness in subjective existence. This explanation will be found to agree with the teachings of our enlightened <span style="font-variant:small-caps">Lord Buddha</span>, particularly in his denial of the existence of a soul, such as is generally believed to exist. And from this belief we are able to infer that there is no such soul in man as will leave him when he dies, either for the purpose of taking a re-birth, or to live with God; or that it can move of its own accord or under any influence of the laws of nature. For if there is actually a soul like this, there can never exist <span style="font-variant:small-caps">Nirvana</span>. As I have already mentioned, our <span style="font-variant:small-caps">Lord</span> has taught us that the only things that can exist for ever are the Akasa and Nirvana. And this Akasa, according to what I understand, must include all matter, force and space. Now if there exists an objective <span style="font-variant:small-caps">Nirvana</span><ref name="v3-p208-n1">No “objective Nirvana” can exist in Nature. Nirvana is ''a state'', not a mode of visible objectiveness, nor a locality. Nirvana, as Nagasena said to the king, <span style="font-variant:small-caps">is</span> – but does not exist. – [<span style="font-variant:small-caps">Ed.</span>]</ref> it must also be included in the Akasa, because the latter is including even space, and if there is <span style="font-variant:small-caps">Nirvana</span> just as there is Akasa, the former must naturally be either matter or space, otherwise a moving soul cannot live in it. Now, you will see that there can be no such <span style="font-variant:small-caps">Nirvana</span> in which a soul can live to enjoy an everlasting happiness, because if there be such, it must be within the Akasa, and the soul in it therefore, according to the law of changes or Karma, must inevitably take a re-birth again. The true subjective <span style="font-variant:small-caps">Nirvana</span> is just the reverse of the objective Akasa, as heaven, or hell, is the reverse of our objective earth. It is true that to go to heaven or hell it requires a supposed soul or a psychical image to impress on the dormant spirits, in order that it may be taken up by the attraction of a deva or a hellish being according to circumstances; but then, heaven or hell is included in the Akasa, because the earth itself is but a speck of the Universe, and consequently the beings in it are still subject to natural changes. While in the case of <span style="font-variant:small-caps">Nirvana</span> there needs no supposed soul, or any picture of thought whatever, as <span style="font-variant:small-caps">Nirvana</span> itself is but nothingness, therefore it requires a free, pure, innocent soul of nothingness to live in it. If any one should ask, “If <span style="font-variant:small-caps">Nirvana</span> is nothingness, what good is there in craving for it?” I must then ask the inquirer whether he really enjoys constant

changes, or whether he likes the sorrows and sufferings attending life both physically and mentally.

All I have said will, I hope, be found in harmony with the teachings of our enlightened <span style="font-variant:small-caps">Lord</span> as well as with the belief in spiritualism,<ref name="v3-p209-n2">This is to be doubted, as belief in spiritualism presupposes belief in the survival of the soul and that H.H. denies such a soul in man. Not being sure of what is meant by soul here, however, the Editor leaves this an open question.</ref> mesmerism, and all other natural powers by which phenomena are produced

by man. And you will see at a glance that there cannot exist a personal or intelligent God who is supposed to be the Guardian of the Universe, for the system of all the natures I have enumerated is so perfectly complete in itself, that by virtue of the mutual dependence of matter, force and space, the system is able to keep up its self-existence for ever, without requiring any beginning from God at all. Brothers, we also see that all things which form the Universe, from the heavenly bodies down to ourselves, are nothing different in nature, and what we glorify as a reality of happiness or what we hate as an actual sorrow in life, is in truth no other than nothingness. The worlds, stars, vegetables, animals, and all things which we take to be different, are nothing but the results of changing operations of matter, forces and space, which form the Universe.

All these rules apply to physiology as well as psychology.

Now, Brothers, for want of time, I must close my article here, and if you take pleasure in my conjectures or the truths that I make out, I shall very pleased to converse with you further in another article, on subjects relating to the law of Karma, heaven, hell, causes of fate and chance, and other matters of interest.

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<center>I.</center>

“Stay a moment,” said I, “surely you are going a little too far. I follow you when you say it would not enter into our experience – at least, I think I follow you, though it is exceedingly difficult to clear one’s mind of this notion of the three dimensions of space, after being from the dawn of consciousness accustomed to it. It is, I say, very difficult to imagine oneself without it. You might as well try to rid your mind of the idea of time, and then conjecture what manner of ideas would then remain in the mind. It cannot be done without long and deep thought. But even granting that you are right and that all our ideas of perspective and of the trinal dimensions of matter are not due to the stereoscopic effect of our binocular vision, but that they accompany that stereoscopic effect as associations of the results of experiments in the sense of touch,

I am still at a loss to understand how that can preclude imagination from picturing to itself so extremely simple a condition of matter as a cube – nay I can hardly think imagination could avoid falling into the idea, for space itself must needs have three dimensions – no more and no less – to fill it.”

“Surely,” he said, “these very instances that you quote are as good witnesses as could be selected for the truth of what I was just saying.

Shakespeare and Dickens were above their fellows in these two things – that they observed better and could put their observations more aptly into language than others.”

“How can I put it to you in a clearer light?” he added presently, after pausing for a while and looking intently into the fire. “Look here,” he

exclaimed, as though he had suddenly found the key to my understanding “Do you believe that there is a Spiritual World?”

It was two weeks before the Professor and I again found an occasion for a quiet chat alone, though we met once a few days after at the house of a friend. It was a singular fact, which I had often noted with surprise, that the Professor would never enter into a philosophic vein of talk except when we were alone together. We frequently met socially, but no matter how small and select the circle, he would never rise above the most common-place conversation in the presence of a third person.

Indeed, he would always appear a man with very little to say for himself, for it was his maxim that people should argue on general matters only occasionally, on political matters very rarely, and on religious matters never. So that with these three channels of converse barred, and philosophy vanished, there was little opportunity left for him to show the real depth and fertility of his intellectual nature. If anyone introduced any abstruse subject, he would promptly and skilfully turn the drift of conversation, and edge off the deeper question as though it were something too sacred to be allowed in the social circle. To me, of course, who knew him more intimately, he was a very different being; in fact, I might say I knew, or seemed to know two Professors – one the learned metaphysician, and the other the easy-going, inoffensive ''sine quâ non'' of certain dinner-parties. I once asked him – the metaphysical one, I mean of course – why he kept up this dual nature, and allowed himself to be so needlessly under-estimated by all except myself.

“Good,” answered he, laughing. “That is to say, they would suppose that we had taken into our systems such a lot of his hellish virus that we had gone stark, staring mad.”

“That puts it more plainly still,” said I. “We should no doubt be reckoned mad – harmless madmen. In fact, it was but the other day I was speaking to a friend of mine – one of the shrewdest men I know, and he began talking about the very matter that we were speaking of – a a possible fourth dimension of space. How such a subject crept up in our conversation I forget, but I know his remark was that he always considered that a man who could believe in such damned nonsense as that must have a tile loose.”

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<center>INTRODUCTION.</center>

It is therefore exceedingly difficult to speak in a comprehensive manner about things in regard to which the majority of mankind have only very vague opinions, and even the terms which must be employed to express thoughts on occult subjects differ widely in their meaning according to the intellectual or spiritual standpoint of the reader. No sooner is a new term applied to signify some spiritual power, it is immediately travestied and misapplied to external things by those who have not the least conception that such powers exist. Thus the word

“Faith,” which originally meant “spiritual knowledge,” is now universally misapplied for “belief” or “creed”; “attraction” is called “love,” while, in fact, it is only the reaction of love; “begging,” ''i.e.'' the requests for the gratification of selfish desires, is called “prayer,” which in its true sense means the aspiration of the soul for the highest, implying entire forgetting of self; “magic,” or the exercise of spiritual powers for a ''wise'' purpose, is misnamed “witchcraft,” &amp;c., &amp;c.

''Imagination.'' – The creative power of Deity, acting in Nature as a whole, or in individual beings, which governs the construction of form according to a certain pre-conceived plan or pre-existing idea. The Imagination like the Will, may act with or without relative consciousness, and be exercised with or without any voluntary conscious effort. The growth of a tree is the result of the image of the future tree existing

unconsciously within the imagination of the seed, and being gradually rendered objective by the internally acting and relatively unconscious will having been stimulated into action by influences coming from external surroundings. There are many things existing in man’s imagination; but he is not conscious of all of them at one given moment of time.

It seems almost unnecessary to reiterate the statement that all the above explained terms are not intended to represent these things as being essentially different from each other; they only refer to different aspects or forms of manifestation of the eternal One for which there is no name and no definition. He who spiritually knows of the One will find the doctrines of Occultism easy enough to be understood; he who is incapable to spiritually recognize the Unity of the All, will get lost in the labyrinth of the multiplicity of external phenomena, and however experienced and learned he may be in the classification of such phenomena and in giving to them the names adopted by science, he will necessarily remain ignorant of the Cause of all things, without the knowledge of which nothing can truly be known. Therefore the ancient Rosicrucians said that he who knows many things knows very little, while he who knows only One – knows all.

The requirements of human language have made it necessary to give separate names to the various kinds of manifestations produced by the absolute One, and from this circumstance arises the illusion which makes it appear in the eyes of the ignorant as if these things were different from each other, not merely in their external appearance but in their essential nature. If we were permitted to speak correctly we would have to say in speaking of a ''Man,'' a ''Horse,'' a ''Stone:'' That of which we intellectually know nothing, and for which we have no appropriate name, having manifested itself to our external consciousness in the form of what we have chosen to call a “man,” a “horse,” a “stone,” &amp;c. Instead of speaking about Life, Light, Sound, &amp;c., we would perhaps have to say: “Those vibrations of the universal Ether of Space, which are invisible and intangible to our senses, but which, by acting upon certain ''media'' and under certain conditions, produce within our external consciousness the phenomena which we call “life,” “light,” “sound,” etc. Such a roundabout way of speaking would be more philosophical: but it is doubtful whether it would be more comprehensible and practicable for use. Language is, after all, only an aid and not a substitute for the exchange of thought. Minds who are in harmony with each other will have no great difficulty in understanding each others thoughts, even without the use of a great many words, while those who are in disharmony with each other will only increase their misunderstanding by using a great many words. External language like any other external thing, can only be relatively true; absolute truth is self-evident to those who can see it, and requires no human testimony or certificates. Every assertion requiring logical proof is therefore true or false according to the aspect under which the object is seen; a circle seen from the plane in which it exists, is only a straight line with two ends and a middle part; seen from above or below it is a circle without any end; looked at sideways, it is an ellipsoid and if one half of it is invisible it may appear to be a parabole. All external science, however true it may be in one way, is false in another, and all dogmatic assertions prove nothing but the vanity of him from whom they originate; for there is no one who knows absolute Truth except He who is Himself the Life, the Way and the Truth, the self-conscious divine Spirit in Man.

Under such circumstances it would perhaps be wisest to be silent and to say nothing at all, and if we nevertheless attempt to speak about things belonging to the interior realm of Nature, it is not for the purpose that our views should be regarded as being intended to give any new revelations; but merely as furnishing food for thought and as an aid by which the Truth which exists within the inner consciousness of the reader may come nearer to his intellectual understanding. To those who have already found the truth, we have nothing to say.

<center>I.</center>

{{Style P-Quote|1=“The One completely penetrates every other number; it is the common measure, the foundation and origin of all numbers. It is unchangeable and excludes multiplicity. Multiplied with itself it is its own product; it cannot be divided into parts but every division produces}}

{{Style P-Quote|1=a multiplication, ''i.e.,'' it produces units, of which none is larger or smaller than the original unit and of which every part is the whole. It is the beginning and end of all things, but it has itself neither a beginning nor an end. All things originate from the One, and all tends towards unity in the end; all that ''exists'' finds its true ''being'' in the One, and those who seek for salvation in the One must get rid of their multiplicity and return to the One.”}}

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WHAT a grand example Nature yields to the artist, the scientist, and the workman! She is never satisfied with her work, but continually varies the detail, and alters the type, lest by any chance there should exist better means to a given end than she has yet made manifest. She is continually trying experiments; here an extra petal, there a crimson spot; here a longer hair, there a shorter ear; here she broadens the curve of a bay, there she develops a strip of low-lying land; here she builds up a mountain, there she lowers a precipice; and, over all this practical work, she throws the artistic glamour – the sculptor’s grace of outline, the painter’s sweetness of color – and with her mighty hands draws music from everything; from the waves as they fret the shore, from the clouds as they fall in rippling showers, from the rhythmic swing of the wind-blown branches, from the waving of the grass and the corn, from the cadences of falling water, and the soft murmuring of the rivers and little streamlets; yea, even from the fresh young leaves as they smite cymbal-wise together in the laughing spring weather. Now and again she feels the necessity of expressing this universal music in concrete form, and then she develops the artist, as, in the flower-world she would develop from the old pink-flowered variety a crimson rose, with an added fragrance, a sweeter grace, a more subtle charm, to indicate the greatest perfection a flower-life could at that time attain to, and be to the flowers a representative-rose. And so all ages have had their representative men. In every age one man’s mind stands out broadly, as a type of what his time could do, and think, and dream, and suffer; in his work is enshrined its deepest philosophy, holiest religion, highest poetry, and truest science; and to this man it has fallen, his sight being clearer, his soul broader, his intellect swifter, and more subtle than his contemporaries’, to rebuke their sins, ridicule their follies, strengthen their combats, brighten their ideal aims, and lift them one step nearer that perfected humanity which he feels, rather than sees, lightening the dim distance of futurity.

It has been said, “Art interprets Nature to man”; but we may go further, and say, “Art interprets God to man.” Art renders visible the divine beneath its material veil, gathers into a focus all those scattered rays of light which fall athwart the darkened chamber of life, and shows that the many-hued prism of existence is but one white radiance of glory set in the dawn of eternity. It is to the artist then we must look for this representative mind; the priest anointed by God himself to make his ways known unto us; and though a Buddha may