Lucifer/Vol2/Text: Difference between revisions

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== No. 7 – March 1888 ==

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{{Style P-Poem|title=Two Sonnets<br><small>Darwin.</small>|poem=

Thereby propitious, ’mong the wise below,

Thy living, wrinkled, rugged, face would show.|signature=<span style="font-variant:small-caps">Mary W. Gale.</span>}}

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<center><span style="font-variant:small-caps">(A vision.)</span></center>

Once more she folded her earthly garment and laid it aside for a new one. And now she was born on the earth a beggar’s child! the Spirits of the earth formed her robe of flesh into perfect beauty. The poet’s soul was there, and she looked through it into other souls. What was there but sorrow and loneliness again in store for herself and the crowds of weeping humanity around her? If thou wouldst see the real man

thou must look within. That which is within is the real, the outer is its shadow, still oftener its mask.

“I know you, O poet-musician,” said the old man. “Do not you recognise me? Ah, well, heaven and earth are closed books to most; the past is obliterated to you, the future unknown; and yet, poor fool, you do thirst for knowledge! Knowledge shall come, your fate is written on your brow, and your past is as yesterday to me. Your future? Youth, it is for you to make it. So is mine. Would you

know the beggar’s daughter? I will tell you of her. Ages ago, she was born as a child unto me – she was a poet. She touched all men’s hearts but mine, for it was hardened; and with a poet’s love, she gave her life for mine, and entered into her rest. You were then a noble boy, and she loved you. But she gave you up, while giving up, her life for me, and left you alone on earth. Her father, he who is now her parent, in a hot, unguarded moment, seeing your despair, killed me; yes, he took away the life she had saved by sacrificing her own.”

Zarina sat in her father’s room alone. It was the third day after the

alchemist’s interview with Calitzo, and she knew of the awful powers which were to be used that night, powers which she might not be able to withstand. Better than the alchemist, she knew also that her father, and even Calitzo, her beloved of old, might fall a victim to them. For two nights the mystic spells had been at work, and now on this last and fatal night she alone must counteract them. She sat thinking until half past eleven, and then, drawing a black shawl around her, silently left the house, taking her way to the abode of the alchemist. Her inspired face was rigid and sad. “This night the powers of Light and Darkness shall meet, and the alchemist must not be allowed to give himself up to powers of Evil” . . . . it is she alone, who shall pronounce the fatal words, and she alone, who shall be delivered unto the dark destiny, if anyone must be. The supernal love and power which inspire one at the thought of saving others at one’s own sacrifice, pervaded her whole being. . . .

Lost! Lost! the cry that escaped the old man’s lips was caught up and re-echoed like a deep sigh by Calitzo’s violin. It sang an old melody, a familiar dirge: –

{{Style P-Poem|poem=“Saved – ah, saved! Hell loses power

Where no dull shades bedim our weary eyes

But all is clear in Heavenly discerning.|signature=<span style="font-variant:small-caps">Dum Spiro Spero.</span>}}

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<center>''(Continued.)''</center>

Our theory seeks to exclude the idea that a ''human'' soul can be destined to become after death an earth-haunter ''for a period of centuries.'' It is true that the lower and the more wicked a soul has been in earth-life, the more does it cling after death to the earth; despairingly seeking to re-embody itself, if possible, to escape from the torments attending the gradual disintegration of its sidereal body, and to experience again the pleasures of the passions which were the source of animal gratification in the body. But even in the case of the most wicked, this condition would hardly endure longer than a hundred years, or the usual limit of a man’s life in these days. Such beings may, of course, become haunting ghosts for a certain length of time, and doubtless often do; but they are not of the genus of “''hereditary'' ghosts.” A “hereditary ghost” ''must,'' it appears to us, be of the nature of an elemental, or merely a reflection in the astral light. These ''reflections'' are

seen by persons momentarily gifted with the open sight, and ''as'' reflections, nearly always wear the same appearance. As ''elementals,'' who possess more or less consciousness, their appearance would vary. Only an enlightened seer can discriminate between mere reflections in the sidereal light, and real appearances, objects, or beings in the adjacent region of more ethereal matter.

The White Lady appears just before a death, not only in the Hohenzollern family, but is believed to haunt also the palaces of

Baireuth, Anspach, and Cleves, which are residences of families allied to the imperial family of Prussia. The house of Rosenburg in Bohemia, also allied to that of Hohenzollern, is honoured by the apparition of the White Lady. She appears also to the Hapsburgs.

{{Style P-Quote|1=“Heathen superstition did not fail to show itself in the construction of Christian churches. In}}

{{Style P-Quote|1=laying the foundations, the people retained something of their former religion, and sacrificed to their old deities, whom they could not forget, some animal, which they buried alive, either under the foundation or without the wall. The spectre of this animal is said to wander about the churchyard by night, and is called the ''Kirk-Grim.'' A tradition has also been preserved that under the altar in the first Christian churches a lamb was usually buried, which imparted security and duration to the edifice. This is an emblem of the true Church Lamb – the Saviour, who is the corner-stone of His church. When anyone enters a church when there is no service, he may see a little lamb spring across the quire and vanish.”}}

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<center>PART II. – MY STORY.</center>

And thus I became a brooding boy, timid also by habit, for the very fervour of mine imaginations, but full of high fancies that made a man of me despite myself. For that I spoke little and from the purpose, and kept my eyes to look upon the ground, I was held dull, until my thirteenth year. Then it was that my sire chanced to lay hand on some

poor verses I had lately left on paper, and, not content to judge of them by the light of his own plentiful reason, committed them to the reading of a certain Canon, who, approving them, brought me into great respect of the same parents as, the day before, had thought me dull. Not that the good Canon – I say it wittingly – knew the half that I did of the laws of Rhyme – but there, so be it! By his censure I was to stand or fall. I remember I laughed sadly as I became aware of the change in my parents’ judgment of their son. They were so glad when they found ''somewhat'' for which I might be praised. And yet, what skilled the manual labour? What if I had not hitherto laid my verses upon paper? The thoughts had long been there – the poetry had welled up from my heart like life-blood since my birth. I was the same boy who, years before, had his brain thronged with far prettier fancies than those they chanced to see. Howbeit, from henceforth I was “the Poet that shall be!” and the guests gazed upon me as on some poor changeling with whom they had scant sympathy, feeling dimly, even while they despised me, that I bore in my brain the power to punish them.

I meditated often by myself upon such thoughts as come to those who dwell under the shadow of a great cathedral, fenced about with the gloomy security of cloisters, far from the city, and near, as it should seem, to the worship of God. We were at variance with the creed established in the town and illustrated in the splendid services of the cathedral. The De Troyes were of Norman blood, good Catholics to this day, having their private chapel for the old worship, and knowing little or nothing of the new Protestant form, save that it was favoured by the reigning monarch, and that it had ousted us from the public confession of our belief within the walls of our own cherished cathedral, which we were now fain to look upon as a fair space desecrated, filled with apostates. I brooded often, as I sat searching with my eyes the intricacies of delicate workmanship on the lofty spires. I mused on the quaint shows and apparently necessary symbols by which men strive to harmonize their souls with a tone of thought which is to most of them incongruous, unreal. How they seem only fit to reach and grasp Ideas by the help of something tangible. Whether can men, in truth, lift the soul by the senses? In my own sober abstraction – boy that I was! as yet untempted – I despised them and their struggles

after what seemed to me to be the natural state of a rational being.

It came – the vacant dark space flashed – a whiteness, first dim, then vivid, then dim again; then more shapely, and then the revelation. To my unspeakable horror, I vow the clear semblance of our

long-dead enemy leant out at that ruined casement and looked down.

After a time of wavering between the body’s repulsion for any life not of its own nature, and the spirit’s need to find out the utmost meaning of any sign presented to it, I grew to familiarity with the recollection of the Monk’s appearance, and my whole soul being given to metaphysical studies and questionings at that time, I longed to behold the spectre

again. Next time, I vowed, I would learn somewhat of our ancient enemy. I feared not much the traditions of his hurtfulness to our hearth even after death; he had appeared to me, and behold! I lived, and desired the sight of him again.

I dally in the telling. The Monk came very slowly; his hands, I know, were clasped before him, palms downwards, inertly, as if in

despair or pain. His face was hidden – how I yearned for some sign of ''life'' in his unnatural stillness! Still, the concealing cowl; would it ever be lifted? And now it was very dark, and he came near, quite near, and there was no sound of breathing or of footsteps, but he was vague before my dazzled eyes, only very white, and of great stateliness. The whiteness blinded me – he was about to pass me – somewhat I must do to prevent the next moment, or lightning from that whiteness would strike me and I die.

But if she ever showed a will to weep, what consternation did it cause! My father, whose name was still a terror to the Spaniards, was a reed in Marguerite’s royal hands. Our house-chaplain, a surly man, whose intellects were fettered by his breviary – my governor, a timid man, a slave to Aristotle’s influence, like most scholars of the time – these two were just the same. Nay, it is fabled that these twain, at two separate seasons, were discovered in the act of treading a measure with Mistress Marguerite; but to this rumour I will never give the sanction of my

credence. As for the younger men – (but this was ever a sore point between me and Marguerite.)

Softly I seated myself against the dial under the yew-tree’s shade, and caused the fair head of my most beauteous sister to rest upon my arm. She just stirred and murmured my name as if to herself as I placed her so, on the grass by my side, leaning across me. I stroked her hair and she slept more peacefully than before, whilst I mused, and numberless

small heads of birds looked out in amaze from the ivied church wall, and twittered interrogatively, with a cool, far-away, sleepy rustle of tiny wings.

But this I remembered afterward; for the moment, I knew only that those deep, dark, motionless eyes, over which the lids never closed, were piercing Marguerite, and that she knew not of it. If she should wake – oh, God, let her not wake! – I swayed to and fro in my anguish. I looked only on the child. I gathered her to me; I whispered a soothing word to her, though my head felt like to break with the strain I was forced to put on my own terror. For her was this terror now; I

felt none for myself any more. I would have challenged the fearful Monk, and conjured him to leave the innocent child – but that I dared not speak aloud and wake her.

Yet still we wonder more and more.}}

{{Style P-Poem|poem=For every effort of the will,

We know they’ll live for evermore.|signature=P. H. D.}}

<span style="font-variant:small-caps">The</span> Editors of <span style="font-variant:small-caps">Lucifer</span> have been requested to call the attention of its readers to the following announcement; and they have the more pleasure in doing so, since the work in question seems to deserve the hearty and cordial support of all those who attach any importance to the spread of Theosophical ideas by means of literature: –

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<center>Reviews.</center>

<center>(Sampson Low.)</center>

Mohammed Benani is a very strange book, one of the strangest examples yet given to us of that essentially modern product, the novel of thought. This is, indeed, more than a modern book; it is in advance of nineteenth-centuryism. It is a novel of thought, and yet more, it is a novel of speculation. And yet it remains fiction. The new school has discovered the secret of the art, and thought and speculation are part of the lives of the characters, instead of being in any sense overlaid or added as the reflections of the author. The peculiar atmosphere of exaltation in which all the events take place, and, indeed, by which they are induced, is the result of the characters being all of the most complex order. What would a novelist of the old school have done with such a heroine as Eftomah, such a hero as Paulovitch? Fielding or Richardson would have been unable to create situations with them. All the rough and simple passions are smoothed away to give place to emotions finer and wider, and even more exhausting. In Paulovitch lies all the force, and power, and meaning of the book; and the peculiar flavour of his atmosphere clings to one long after the book has been read. He has not a trouble in the world; and yet he would have succumbed to the trouble of the world, but for the society of his bright and charming wife. He is a Don Quixote of the most pronounced type, yet with a great longing to evade the profession of tilting at windmills. He makes a desperate effort to escape from the sight of misery which he is powerless to relieve by leaving civilization and making a delightful home in Morocco. But the destiny which compels him to be conscious of the misery of others, and to sacrifice himself in the attempt to alleviate it, pitilessly pursues him. The history of how he gradually becomes the champion of the unhappy natives, struggle as he may against the promptings of his noble nature, is in reality, the story of the book. Mohammed Benani is a persecuted native hero, whom Paulovitch protects, and through whom the complicated situations are produced. Benani is a very clever and subtle study of a typical Oriental; he passes through the book as he passed through life – devoted, heroic, wrapped in gloom, silent, so reticent as to be almost characterless to a Western observer, who is yet always conscious that at the bottom of this heroic temperament lies treachery. The same profound reticence exists also in Eftomah; but her life-long contact with her European benefactors has eradicated the treachery from her nature. In her is depicted the seer, the clairvoyant, and indeed in one remarkable scene the sybil of the highest order. The occult and “supernatural” is largely dealt with in the book, and in the most thoroughly modern spirit. Nothing is received with disbelief or incredulity, but everything is questioned, tested and

doubted. Eftomah’s sister is also a seer and clairvoyant, and there are two powerful scenes in which these abnormal powers are exercised, first by one sister and then by the other. Paulovitch, who induces the trance condition by his will, and his companions on the two occasions are alike profoundly impressed at the time; but the next morning the impression has faded. It is found that the seer saw nothing which could be used for practical purposes, and moreover said nothing which was not already in the mesmerizer’s mind. This is wonderfully true to life. Horror was the first trial of the neophyte in the more credulous age when Lytton wrote, but now it is doubt. The whole book is essentially a life picture, and is fresh and brilliant as only a life picture can be.

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<center>By Constance C. W. Naden. (Kegan Paul, Trench and Co.)</center>

“A Modern Apostle,” sketches the picture of one of those enthusiasts in

whom spiritual intuition burns too brightly to be quenched by the fogs of materialism.

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<center>By Percy Ross. (London, George Redway.)</center>

This is a romance carved in the full and glowing life of the century of the Renaissance. A truism it is that human life and its passions are ever the same; but in this tale Percy Ross shows an exceptional power of entering into the forms of life and feeling in which the men of three centuries ago breathed and moved. In Denis Zachaire, the reader is made to feel the throb, the intense ardent aspiration of an age in which nature, art and civilisation were bursting in all their magnificence upon the delighted senses of a newly awakened race,

All things seemed possible to these men rejoicing in their youthful strength, for their’s was still the instinctive consciousness of a life, a life fuller, more glorious, more satisfying than the life of matter.

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<center>JOURNAL OF THE WAGNER SOCIETY.</center>

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== No. 8 – April 1888 ==

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<center>CHAPTER III.</center>

So I in my trivial thinking, growing morose as the young spirit will in a crowd, when things are not to its liking.

And then I went forth into the cool star-light, and stepped a little distance from the illumined windows and the sound of fluting, to where the pale heaven-gleams played on the dewy roses, and the stars of the night sang and danced in my fancy a mystic measure that intoxicated me. I threw myself down on the soft lawn under the windows, by the fountain, which sparkled dimly and bounded as if to kiss the stars, and fell again as we all do after striving up to Heaven. Its spray fell on me and seemed the purer and the colder for its leaping upward. I tasted of its coolness and of the dew and of the starry silence out here and I fell into one of the trances that dreamy youth alone can fully share in – a trance of ignorance of the world and its impulses, a nearness of the Ideal, a newness of sensation and an omen of things for which the human intelligence is not naturally born. In such times – for no man knows how long they are – a man grows old in knowledge, but when the world reclaims him, he has oft forgot the half of what he saw, and must spend weary hours, told upon a dial in his study, or the great clock in the market-place, in trying to recollect what was then cast down to him in handfuls.

I stood with folded arms in the midst of the terrace walk, with the yews cut into square thick walls on either side of us, and I awaited the quick-moving phantom. Before he came I would arrest him – else I knew the deadly cold terror would stun me whilst he passed. Whiter than the fountain, whiter than the white marble urns, whiter than the pure-flowering springy, whiter than the white cold light of stars. Most wonderful yearning! Why do I, a mortal, feel it towards this white

strange mystery? “Spirit – man!” I challenged him. “Thou hast the form of a brother to me. Disdain me not – tell me, for the secrets of life are pressing in upon me – tell me wherefore thou art here, unexplained, friendless?”

“Perchance thou never mayest,” returned the Monk. “A man may live, youth, even in this world of yours, and never understand it. Oh, be its foe, young dreamer! Seek not to fathom it, not be the cause why others learn it. It is unholy.”

“Why should a man not brave it?” I urged. “It is the half of human life.”

“In your earth-life; yes –” agreed the spirit. “But, after death, thou knowest not what it is! Infinite capacity to receive infinite pain! Love not Sorrow over-much. I charge thee. Seeing it so powerful in the

earth, men have made a god of it and worship it – do not thou so. There is nothing in it, beyond what its name expresses.”

“Art thou alone thus afflicted, oh spirit? Are not there others whose aid or sympathy can help?”

“Did I not tell thee I had no friend?” said the Monk. “There is room for all in the spirit-worlds. I am doomed to the sight only of those who dwell, ignorant and sensual, on your earth, or of those whose bare proximity strikes tenfold the confusion into my nature that the sight of me does into thine. There is no fellowship for me, because I abused my fellow-men. I did over-much harm on the earth; thus, when I grew trembling into consciousness, a rational soul in the new aether, my first knowledge was – that I was rejected. I had sinned over-boldly on the earth, so I was refused the boon of re-visiting it as a human being again, with the faint, fresh touch of spirituality that accompanies all new birth to give another chance in a more careful life. I might not again behold the dear light of the sun with eyes meet to joy in it. I was doomed to see the world I had loved and left in a new aspect – an aspect which struck horror, for I understood the evil in it, and the little joy of it (which I could feel no longer) seems o’er slight to compensate for the pains that mortals suffer. Worse than this, I was doomed to retain – for my humiliation and others’ warning – the accursed murderer’s frame in semblance – how I loathed it thou mayst guess. Any mortal’s semblance were pain and harassment to a soul – how much more that very habit and form under which I did my sins. My soul cries out to God by day and by night, but His face is utterly turned from me. I seek every token of His presence – every hint of His mercy – every ray of the ideal Light – and through how many wanderings I have to go before I find them! Your religion, which I once professed, is now foreign to me. I scarcely know the God you worship. And I cannot comprehend the Idea of the spirits’ God. I am broken and crushed by too much knowledge on the one hand, and by utter, sunless, conscious blindness on the other. I know your world now. Have I not seen it develope these two centuries, as you accompt of Time? I hate and utterly despise the things that fill men’s thoughts under the sun. But when I look into the world of souls, I fear annihilation; for I cannot comprehend the vastness of the changed systems of Time, of Space, of Thought, of Being.”

“From purely physical forces, which accompany a man to his tomb. In life I dealt out Sorrow to others – I was the genius of Sorrow; I belong, therefore to sorrow. The strongest part of my nature as man has infected my soul, and my ruling tendency remains in force, a weight that makes the earth still a magnet to me. I am compelled to stay by he place of sorrows, and to drink in all that can be learnt of it, in myself and through others. I am to see the saddest scenes of life according to the body, and, knowing by virtue of the few steps more of wisdom I possess what could avert these most horrible mischiefs, am

bound in chains that I cannot loose from stirring in help. How many awful tragedies have I seen, standing myself the while by the side of the man who, could I have breathed a word to him, would have changed all! Nay, worse; my presence is destructive, and I cannot enter a poor widow’s cottage without her feeling double woe. Oh, Sorrow hath entered my soul, and spreads a thick mist to keep out the light! I am athirst for Happiness. I could not reach it, even if God gave it, now, for what you men call years. Boy, you have the gift of speech from a burning poet’s heart. Bid men shun sorrow and the causes of it. Let me pass – here is my goal; there is discord in the dance-music; dost thou not hear it, happy one? Let me pass.”

   Burst bonds, oh soul! Slay flesh that fetters thee!

So God shall dower thee with omnipotence!|signature=<span style="font-variant:small-caps">Evelyn Pyne.</span>}}

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{{Style P-Poem|title=World Saviours|poem=<span style="font-variant:small-caps">Our</span> world hath had its saviours – Buddha, Christ,

   Who bears for love the burden and the sting –

   Buddha nor Christ nor meanest lives in vain!|signature=<span style="font-variant:small-caps">Evelyn Pyne.</span>}}

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{{Style P-Poem|title=Sowing and Reaping|poem=<span style="font-variant:small-caps">Shall</span> he who sows the thistle in his soul

God shall grow false, and even Christ untrue,

   Heaven a vain dream, and love mere phantasy!|signature=<span style="font-variant:small-caps">Evelyn Pyne.</span>}}

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Now I submit that such a life as is here spoken of, ''is'' led by men who attain to none of these results.

Most of us know Christians who seem never to have a selfish thought; who exist in an atmosphere of self-sacrifice for others, and whose leisure is all spent in meditation and in emotional prayer, which surely is seeking after truth. Yet they do not attain it. They fail to rise out of Christianity into Theosophy; they remain for ever limited to, and satisfied with the narrow space they move in. (1.) It may be replied that they do expand slowly. Granted, for some of them. But my point is that there do exist (and one is enough for my purpose) men, and particularly women, leading lives both of spiritual meditation and of unselfishness, to whom nevertheless is not vouchsafed a clearer view of the great universe, a larger apprehension of Theosophic truth, nor any increased physical command of nature. (2.) As regards the last point, take for an example John Stuart Mill. Surely he lived always in the white light of exalted contemplation and in instant readiness of high unselfishness; yet to him came no dawn of Theosophic light, nor any larger hold upon the forces of material nature. (3.) May I ask now for a word of explanation on this point? I apologise for the trouble I give, and for my want of ability in unfolding my difficulty.

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<span style="font-variant:small-caps">Standing</span> alone at the foot of the Cross, in all the solemn darkness of night; e’en though it was day; a darkness so great that it was like that in Egypt which, we are told, could be felt. Standing alone with Jesus, deserted by all, uplifted on the Cross and crowned, yes! crowned, but with thorns, in bitter contempt and scorn of his asserted divine mission to draw all men unto him; standing thus alone with Jesus, in that awful and solemn presence, the presence of the dead.

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<center>By <span style="font-variant:small-caps">William Bell McTaggart</span> (W. Stewart &amp; Co., London).</center>

This volume, by Captain McTaggart, is one of those rare works in which the author forgets his personality and natural predilections, in favour of a plain statement of facts. He asks the reader to approach together with him the task of examining the various creeds and philosophical systems “with minds divested of preference, prejudice, or bias,” and carries out the laudable policy to the end. One would vainly seek throughout the volume for any of those too oft-repeated sentences in other essays and disquisitions on philosophy, as “I claim to have discovered” – “I maintain,” and so on. “The judgment seat must

know no bias,” the thoughtful author tells us. He has rightly “deemed it necessary to represent . . . . the various creeds, not from afar off, or as one apart, but as entering into and being one with each, when under consideration,” and he has admirably fulfilled his task.

The Atomic theory he appears to regard as essentially materialistic, and some considerable portion of space is devoted to a criticism of its validity. We venture to think, however, that a recognition of that hypothesis – cleansed and purified from the contradictions which have grown up around it – is in no way incompatible with a lofty spiritual philosophy of things. Very forcible, on the other hand, is our author’s attack on Materialism, on the ground of its hopeless inadequacy to explain the phenomena of our subjective consciousness. In the course of his discussion of this aspect of the problem, he conclusively shows that the customary imputation of Materialism to many of the most eminent scientists, such as Professor Huxley, is totally without justification.

Chapter II. is devoted to a consideration of Idealism, which in its pure form the gallant Captain seeks to show, is absurdly untenable. While Materialism resolves all things into phenomena of Matter, Idealism only admits the reality of the Ego, and regards all apparent “objects” as its mental states. Both these positions are equally open to objection; a transfigured realism being the safe mean. The “Not Self,” if not “demonstrably” (?) existing, is at least a practical necessity of thought, without which the thinker is hopelessly at sea in his attempt to account for phenomena. About the nature of this Unknown Reality underlying the Universe, Captain McTaggart agrees with Mr. Spencer that we can know nothing save that it exists.

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<center>BY “M. A. (Oxon.)”</center>

The clinging to personality is so strong that it is felt even in another state of consciousness. How then can it fail to colour and distort the pure truth, which

is and must be absolutely impersonal? But this lesson is one hard to learn, so hard that many lives suffice not even for its comprehension.

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<center>PAR ELY-STAR.</center>

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<center>BY EVELYN PYNE.</center>

Golden, purple, snowy-chaliced}}

{{Style P-Poem|poem=    In the light

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The <span style="font-variant:small-caps">Theosophist</span> for the months of February and March 1888 is above its general average of interest and value. In the February number the continuation of the series of articles on “Nature’s Finer Forces” is full of valuable information for psychics and practical students of the occult, which would otherwise cost them much study and labour to obtain.

From the Bhagavat-Gita we pass to the ''Seeress of Prevorst,'' a portrait of whom is contained in the number. This

remarkable woman is an extremely curious example of a natural-born seeress, and her life and experiences are very curious and instructive reading.

From the concluding pages the following

extract is amusing enough to bear translation. The famous scientist Moleschott, in a lecture delivered on December 31st, sang the praises of modern civilisation, but above all the rest he glorified – the <span style="font-variant:small-caps">Postal Card!</span> Thus: –

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<center>INTERESTING TO ASTROLOGERS.</center>

{{Style P-Quote|data=''To the Editors of'' <span style="font-variant:small-caps">Lucifer.</span>|1=

Morrison was the first to clear up this confusion, and enunciate the true rule; which has been accepted by Simmonite and Raphael. It is as follows: –

<table class="wikitable">

<tr><td>Fixed</td><td>months</td><td>years</td><td>unknown</td></tr>

</table>

He also tells us to regard only the house and sign which contain the ''applying'' significator; to which I may add, that if they apply to each other by reason of one being retrograde, the swiftest significator must be taken.

And here let me say that no astrologer has, so far as I know, definitely stated whether by a “month” a lunar or calendar month is meant: indeed Lilly (p. 94) seems to imply that he reckoned a calendar month. But this surely must be an error; if days, weeks, and years are to be reckoned as fixed and practically unvarying epochs of time corresponding to definite astronomical cycles; is it rational to calculate months by a purely arbitrary and varying division of time, out of harmony with the lunar cycle? This alone should be sufficient to prove that ''lunar'' months are to be reckoned, and my experiments have hitherto shown that it is so.

But there is another and most important point which has not yet been elucidated. We find, as a matter of fact, that the event does not always occur at the ''exact'' time predicted; and the question at once arises, what is the limit of margin to be allowed? If we can allow a possible margin of a single day, why not of a week, month or year? That some margin should be allowed is only reasonable, if Astrology is a real science, that margin must be estimated by rule.

== No. 9 – May 1888 ==

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{{Style P-Poem|title=At Sunset|poem=<span style="font-variant:small-caps">Oh</span> hills empurpled ’neath the sunset’s gold

The dominant music of an answered prayer,

And my strest heart falls at the feet of God!|signature=<span style="font-variant:small-caps">Evelyn Pyne.</span>}}

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<center>I.</center>

I had long ceased to remember this vision of my girlhood, when it so happened that I had to take my children to the South of France. I was then 43 years old. After passing a year in France we thought of going to Switzerland, and I took my fair, tall son of 17 with me to look for a suitable house. I was told of the Abbey of St. Sulpice on the Lake, and went there. The moment I saw the fountain in the garden

the tall poplars, and the house, the dream of my youth flashed back upon my memory, and I said to my son:

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<span style="font-variant:small-caps">In</span> attempting to deal with problems which, only find their solution worked out to the full on planes and in terms incomprehensible to our ordinary senses, it would seem possible that illustrations drawn from the science of physiology should serve to explain these problems somewhat more fully than those illustrations which are drawn from physical science alone. Physiology is at least the science of life, and though, when pressed, we must admit that we know very little indeed of the main factors which lie behind the phenomena of life; and that, with all the means of research which we possess, we know nothing of even the physical forces ''in themselves,'' but only study their manifestations and correlations, yet we may, at all events, argue from the little we do know, and attempt to correct our conclusions by comparison with the analogies which we can draw from every science. The principle involved in the “as above, so below,” is shown to be true in all departments of science, and has formed a most valuable means of verifying the results obtained by pushing a theory to its legitimate conclusion. Thus by correcting the phenomena of vital force by those of physical, we may arrive at many more or less just conclusions. Therefore, it is probable that by proceeding a step further, and drawing analogies from physiology, we may form an idea of what, for want of a better term, may be called the life of morality, and the forces whereby it is governed. By the term moral, I do not mean to convey any idea of that which underlies what is ordinarily known as morality, but a very much wider idea than that, namely, the force which really lies at the base of and inspires all our ''motives'' of action. Of course these are indirectly also at the root of our physical and what may be called our animate life, in which we men are in contact with the life of animals; but at present we need not endeavour to make a distinction between man and the animals, which are endowed with the physical and animate life force, but in whom the moral life is entirely latent, save in the case of a very few of the higher species, such as dogs and elephants. Though, even in these cases, it may be argued with good show of reason that this “moral life” of the higher animals is the result of education.

Now in man and animal alike there are great nervous centres which govern the vital phenomena, and hence, as a consequence, the physical phenomena of life. These centres, as they are called, are formed by collections of nerve cells, which occupy a very fairly defined area. They are found in the brain and the spinal cord for the most part, and to a lesser degree in the great vital organs themselves. Further, there is

what is known as the sympathetic system of nerves, with its closely meshed network of nerves and ganglia, which lies outside, but in front of, the vertebral column, the whole length of the body; this system is closely connected in its whole extent with the brain and spinal cord, and the branches therefrom, which are known as the cerebro-spinal system of nerves. Again to some extent the control of the nerves lies with the Will of any man, and the actions which result are termed “voluntary,” but a very large majority of the processes and functions of the animal body are what are called “Reflex.” These “Reflex” processes for the most part take place thus: – An impression is made on what are called the nerves of sensation; these conduct a stimulus to one of the nerve centres above mentioned, and from this centre the stimulus is reflected along a motor nerve, and the action or function ensues. Thus the sensation is “reflected” into motion independently of the consciousness of the individual. Perhaps the best example of a limited reflection is in the case of the eye, when, in response to the stimulus of light, the iris alone, of all the muscles in the body, moves.

In fact “automatism” is a very important point in the argument. It is employed by physiologists to indicate the origination in nervous centres of impulses and their conduction from those centres independently of the reception of a stimulus from another part. And in this sense it is not possible in the present state of physiological knowledge to say what actions are “automatic.” But the nearest examples are certainly the functions of respiration and the rhythmic action of the heart, which will be considered later on. Suffice it at present that it is a very important point that actions, which are distinctly reflex at the beginning, may be

organised into unconscious actions which have a very strong character about them of automatism, and that the two above-mentioned functions are those which are at the foundation of all vital phenomena, and hence, by the passage of time and by education, would necessarily most nearly approach to being automatic.

In the consideration of automatism we find that there is a nervous region of very great importance situated at the top of the spinal cord and immediately below the brain, and which, roughly speaking, is just within the skull about an inch behind a line drawn horizontally through the lobe of the ear. This region is so important that it has been experimentally found that the entire brain and spinal cord with this sole exception may be removed and still the heart will continue to beat and the animal will go on breathing. But when this region is injured, death ensues at once. Now the most important of the functions of the Medulla Oblongata, as the region in question is called, is that of respiration, and this one function may serve as the type of automatic actions, although there is some dispute about it. Like all the functions which are necessary to life it is essentially involuntary, but its action is also, to some extent, under the control of the will, for otherwise

man would be unable to speak or to sing. It is argued that the act is a reflex one owing to the stimulation of nervous fibres which are distributed to the lungs; on the other hand it is stated that respiration takes place by direct stimulation of the Medulla Oblongata by the increasingly venous condition of the blood. Probably both functions exist, but the nerves leading from the lungs to the “respiratory centre” may be cut or may be paralysed by chloroform, and still the complicated muscular movements which constitute respiration take place in an orderly manner. As said above, respiration can to some extent be controlled by the will, and the breath can be “held” for a varying length of time which increases with practice. But the need of breath eventually overcomes the strongest opposition, and even the most determined attempts to commit suicide in this manner have failed. Still there is no doubt that by practice persons have increased the time during which they can hold their breath, as in certain well-authenticated cases of suspended animation, which have occurred in various parts of the world and especially in India, and thus there is shown to be a power which may be exercised in control of the natural automatism of the body and which, so far as the bodily frame is concerned, is independent of it. Were this not he case the instances of sudden death which occur through shock, and without injury to any part of the body, would be impossible, for there is no reason why the functions of respiration and of the heart should be interfered with, and the body would go on breathing and the heart beating under the stimulus of the Medulla Oblongata.

To those who have studied metaphysics the term “personality” is a very familiar one. In reference to the present subject it would seem to stand to the “higher self” in very much the same relation as the body does to the brain – or rather to the brain only as the organ of mind; that is to say that the personality is, on the moral plane referred to previously, the outer covering, more or less gross, of the real man within – the higher self. This latter is the gradually increasing product of ages and is added to by the “personality” only when it carries out the spiritual aspirations which arise beyond, but which are communicated to the

personality by the higher self. Consequently we may compare the actions dictated by the personality to those physical ones which are governed by the lower reflex centres and which have no concern whatever with the brain.

And this brings into prominence a curious fact in physiology and pathology that if either a nerve centre or nerve leading from that centre be stimulated without the impulse passing ''to and through'' that centre, the actions which result are tumultuous and disordered. This fact has a very important bearing by analogy on those actions which are dictated, reflexly or not, by the “personality” only, for, as regards the higher self or brain, they are found tumultuous and disorderly and are, as a rule, not “directed with a view to the welfare of the organism,” and more especially of other organisms. It would be impossible to enter on an elaborate analysis of what the personality really is – and as tedious as if one were in these pages to enter on a detailed description of the minute anatomy of the brain and spinal cord. Man is a compound, in his personality, of “desires, passions, interests, modes of thinking and feeling, opinions, prejudices, judgments of others, likings and dislikings, affections, and ambitions, public and private.” For the most part this personality constitutes the horizon of man, and identifies him with this narrowed circle of interests. In other words he becomes exceedingly “Selfish.” Of course the circle is very frequently enlarged, as in the case of family, of a society, of a church, or a state, and other individuals esteem men in proportion as their circle enlarges. Now the enlargement of the circle to and beyond these limits is a process of extreme difficulty, and especially when the circle is enlarged beyond these limits. But there is also another element which has to be eliminated – the thought of Self must not enter into the consideration at all. That is to say that the personality as a source of motive must be entirely eliminated and destroyed; and this is the process which occupies ages and is accompanied by such pain and suffering that it can only be faced by the aid of a consciousness of the higher self, and that this work is the only work worth doing. It is not very difficult to understand why this should be so difficult, and why it should take ages to accomplish, for we have to remember that it is the accentuation of personality against personality – the competition to live – which is at the base of all our modern education. In every age the strong man has kept his citadel against all comers until a stronger than he came, and the question is whether he can find a deeper and greater source of strength. To some extent that has been found, for “union is strength”; and the only problem has been amidst the clashing of personalities to make union possible. The parallel in physiology is seen in the difficulty, only obviated by long practice, experienced by divers in holding their breath. Murder will out, respiration will recommence and the educated personality reasserts itself, as

the body insists upon the breath it is accustomed to have. But again it is possible for man to lay aside the limitations of his personality and merge his living interests with those of the world in which other personalities have an equal right and share. He can force himself to no longer feel separate from them, and to live in companionship with that which in them is beyond their personalities – their individualities, their Higher Selves. But this is a process which needs an enormous strength of will and an application to which most men are unequal. The ordinary senses have to be stilled and quieted before – if one may misapply a term – the sense of the higher self comes into play, and the divine companionship of the higher self is felt and realised. Thus then the analogy of physiology is maintained: the bodily functions are reflexly fulfilled, and by long education, in some cases, automatically, but are subject, in proportion as another education has trained the mind and will, to the brain. Equally so on the moral plane, the desires and tendencies of the personality act more or less reflexly and automatically without other control. But in proportion as the limitations of Self have been transcended, so also is the extent of the power increased which controls the personality. The brain in one case, the higher self in the other, being trained and educated to send down impulses sufficient to control the physiological needs of the animal mechanism, or the desires of the personality.

But a further and yet more interesting problem now presents itself for discussion. We have seen that it is rational to conclude that conscious acts are by education organized into unconscious, and that the two functions most important to the physiological health of the body, viz.: respiration and the action of the heart, have been rendered automatic and independent almost of any voluntary conscious effort, although this control may be, in some instances, recovered. Consequently, by analogy, the control on the moral plane may be vested in the higher self as against the personality, by an effort to unite the consciousness with that higher self. That is, the higher self, or brain, will be able to control the physiological personality, or a higher centre dominate a lower. But a still further point would seem to consist in this. Why should it not be possible to make of the higher self a reflex centre, and finally an automatic one, which shall control the personality absolutely. On the physiological analogy it would certainly seem reasonable that this should be so. Let the personality send up a suggestion for action to the reflex centre, which may be in or below the level of the higher self, as is the case in the relative positions of the cerebral hemispheres and the Medulla Oblongata. Supposing that the motor point be in the higher self, it would only seem natural that the corresponding motion excited by the suggestion of the personality will either be in accord with the higher self, and be accomplished, or will be nullified. If, however, the motor point be below the higher self, then the communication must be handed on

in order that the higher self shall have the control, and the personality not allowed to exercise sway.

Emancipation from Karma

   In Nirvana’s endless day!|signature=<span style="font-variant:small-caps">Roger Hall.</span>}}

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<span style="font-variant:small-caps">Mary Merivale</span> having become convinced that in renunciance of personal joy by the happy few, lies alone the possibility of redemption for the miserable many, has left her husband and home to follow in the old way, lightened by the new science, the footsteps of Buddha and Christ.

Fill all the circuit of the world to-day!”}}

{{Style P-Poem|poem=Then spake one quickly, “tell me this I pray

   Even as poem from a mere thought seed.”}}

{{Style P-Poem|poem=And while we marvelled, on our heads she laid

We well might guess: a Socialist I wis}}

{{Style P-Poem|poem=Knows little of love’s lore save only this. . . . .

Perchance, you scarcely grasp the sanctity}}

{{Style P-Poem|poem=Of the dog-nature, proud man oft is fain

Beneath the scornful shining of thy sun,}}

{{Style P-Poem|poem=Nor fear to live where such foul deeds are done!

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