Legend
< On the Food of the Theosophist* (continued from page 10-289) >
bathe the whole body in warm water with soap, before retiring for the night, for we must not forget that the spiritual day begins at midnight, and all the ceremonies of initiation took place at night; and thus our bedroom ought to be a quiet sanctuary, free from all the distracting influences of the day, and where we can derive the full benefit of the spiritual help giyen us during the hours of sleep. A cold or tepid sponge bath in the morning, quickly taken with plenty of friction after, is most healthful and refreshing, and if our clothes be loose, and not too heavy, this will allow the free passage of air to our skins.
In conclusion, it may perhaps be well to give you my own experience as to diet, for it is now nearly five years since I gave up eating meat, on purely hygienic grounds, through reading some works by Dr. Nichols on the subject, never having until then met a vegetarian, and knowing nothing of occultism. I believe that one is better morally, mentally, and physically, for a simple diet makes life easier in many ways, and everything that helps us forward on the road to purity and simplicity ought to be valued by us, for we are told, unless we become like little children, we cannot see the Kingdom of God.
We should eat our food with thankfulness, and practice continual self-denials.
Alcohols are antagonistic to true spiritual development, and salt and condiments not only pamper the appetite, but increase the thirst and irritability of the system.
Jesus, when he sent his disciples abroad, to preach his doctrines, and to heal the sick, said, “Into whatsoever house ye enter, eat such things as are set before you,” and in another place, he says, “not (so much) that which entereth into the body defiles the man.” If so, no hard and fast rule of diet, except temperance, can be laid down for the Theosophist, especially as climate and constitutional characteristics must always modify our practice.
At the same time, Jesus also on one occasion, when his disciples could not cast out a powerful demon, said “This kind goeth not out, except after (much) prayer and fasting,” thus asserting as a fact, that for the highest spiritual powers, fasting as well prayer are necessary, and we know that he fasted forty days before he entered on his miraculous works.
We know, also, that it was after many fastings that the Saints obtained their gifts of prophecy and healing.
The true Theosophist, therefore, must not only be temperate in all things, but he must experiment in fastings, and yet he must see that he does this with wisdom and knowledge.
A Theory of Sin
The Rev. Henry Ward Beecher gives the following views of Sin.
“I have a profound conviction, not merely of universal sinfulness, but that it is founded on the very divine method of human life, and that sin is fundamental with the structure of the globe. I reject, of course I reject, the theologian’s teachings as to the imputation of Adam’s transgression to his posterity. I believe that men manufacture their own sin and that it does not come down as a heirloom from their ancestors. That there is a connection between ancestral sin and ours that does run for two or three generations, I admit, and to a limited extent this heredity is a fact to be recognised. But that the whole vast population of this globe has had divided up among all men and women a dividend of Adam’s original sin, let those believe who can; not I. I believe that the whole race sinned, and do still, on their own account, and not on account of any push that is given them. I reject the theories of imputed sin, but I recognise the universal fact that the spirit of man is weak, and that the flesh of man is strong, and that this is universal and that it places each individual at an immense distance from ideal excellence of a perfect manhood by obedience to the law, and that the human race never gave but one instance, and that our Master, Jesus, who obeyed the laws of God as they are in his body, as they are in the physical globe around him, as they are embodied in society, as they are made known in the lives of heroic men and in the sacred records. Not a single individual of the whole human race ever came up sinlessly except Christ.”
<Untitled> (Mrs. Hardinge-Britten...)
Mrs. Hardinge-Britten. —Mrs. Emma Hardioge-Britten had a very boisterous passage from Australia to San Francisco. The ship was “hove to” for thirty-one hours during a terrific gale from east to south-east, with a tremendous sea from north-east. On December 23rd, the vessel arrived off the harbour of Honolulu, but on account of the gale could not make the Harbour; the pilot got on board with great difficulty, and owing to the loss of the pilot boat he was brought on to San Francisco. Mrs. Britten intends to revisit England before long.
Mrs. Woodforde has changed her residence to 4, Keppel Street, Russell Square, and Mr. D. Younger, the mesmerist, has changed his to Moscow House, corner of Hereford Road, Bayswater.
Editor's notes
Sources
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London Spiritualist, No. 291, February 20, 1880, p. 94