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Quoting from page 317, we find him asserting what maybe called the foundation of Darwinism:

Quoting from page 317, we find him asserting what maybe called the foundation of Darwinism:

“ The link of connection between spirit and matter is force, and the exhibition of force is motion in all its infinite varieties. To sum up briefly the order of existence as it has been shown to me, I commence with realms of pure spiritual life, endless in number, infinite in extent, where spiritual essences dwell—beings without passions, vices, or virtues, the Adams and Eves of inconceivable paradises, whose genius is INNOCENCE. Incapable of growth or progress until they have become incarnated in matter and individualized by experience, these spiritual essences are attracted to material earths, where they become the germ-seed of human souls by running an embryotic race through the elements and all the different grades of matter.

{{Style P-Quote|“ The link of connection between spirit and matter is force, and the exhibition of force is motion in all its infinite varieties. To sum up briefly the order of existence as it has been shown to me, I commence with realms of pure spiritual life, endless in number, infinite in extent, where spiritual essences dwell—beings without passions, vices, or virtues, the Adams and Eves of inconceivable paradises, whose genius is INNOCENCE. Incapable of growth or progress until they have become incarnated in matter and individualized by experience, these spiritual essences are attracted to material earths, where they become the germ-seed of human souls by running an embryotic race through the elements and all the different grades of matter.

Thus the seed of soul-existence is planted in that diffused state of matter known as gas or air; in that condition of combustion known as fire; in the fluidic state recognized as water; in the solids called generically the earth. It also assimilates to the separate parts of earth, such as rocks, stones, crystals, gems, plants, herbs, flowers, trees, and all the grades of the animal kingdom: in short, through all tonal varieties of Nature. In these successive states spirits are born through the mold of a rudimental form of matter; they grow, die, become spirits, are again attracted to earths, where they are incarnated, by virtue of a previous progress, into a higher state of being than they formerly occupied. Their bodies are composed of matter, it is true, but matter in conditions so embryotic and unparticled as to be invisible to mortal eyes, except through occasional clairvoyance; and yet they occupy space, and live in grades of being appropriate to their stage of progress.

Thus the seed of soul-existence is planted in that diffused state of matter known as gas or air; in that condition of combustion known as fire; in the fluidic state recognized as water; in the solids called generically the earth. It also assimilates to the separate parts of earth, such as rocks, stones, crystals, gems, plants, herbs, flowers, trees, and all the grades of the animal kingdom: in short, through all tonal varieties of Nature. In these successive states spirits are born through the mold of a rudimental form of matter; they grow, die, become spirits, are again attracted to earths, where they are incarnated, by virtue of a previous progress, into a higher state of being than they formerly occupied. Their bodies are composed of matter, it is true, but matter in conditions so embryotic and unparticled as to be invisible to mortal eyes, except through occasional clairvoyance; and yet they occupy space, and live in grades of being appropriate to their stage of progress.

These {{Style S-Lost|grades}} of being are realms which inhere in matter, {{Style S-Lost|permeating}} its every space and particle; in fact, the life of the ELEMENTARIES, as these embryotic spirits are called, is the life-principle of matter, the cause of motion, and that FORCE which scientists affirm to be an attribute of matter. In hundreds of clairvoyant visits made by my spirit to the country of the elementaries, it was given me to perceive that their collective life-principle, that which clothes their spirits, and forms their rudimental bodies, is in the aggregate the life-principle of the earth and all that composes it, or that mysterious realm of FORCE, which, as above stated, is erroneously supposed to be a mere attribute of matter. Again and again it has been shown me how the germ of soul, through an infinite succession of births, lives, deaths, and incarnations in elementary existence, at last attains to that final spiritual state from whence it becomes for the last time attracted to matter, and is born into the climax of material existence, MANHOOD. The progress of spirit through the conditions of elementary being has been explained to me as correspondential to the subsequent embryotic periods of human gestation. As an elementary it progresses through the matrix of nature. As a human being it is subject to a much shorter but perfectly analogous progress through the matrix of human maternity. The one is necessary to the growth and individualization of an immortal spirit; the other to the growth and individualization of a mortal body, in which the spirit's final career through matter is effected. The two states are so perfectly analogous that when, after some years of clairvoyant practices amongst the Berlin Brotherhood, Prof. Von Marx subjected me to a course of study in anatomy and medicine, I was enabled to point out to him, in the different stages of growth attained by the human fœtus, the most perfect analogies with similar stages of being amongst the elementaries.”

These {{Style S-Lost|grades}} of being are realms which inhere in matter, {{Style S-Lost|permeating}} its every space and particle; in fact, the life of the ELEMENTARIES, as these embryotic spirits are called, is the life-principle of matter, the cause of motion, and that FORCE which scientists affirm to be an attribute of matter. In hundreds of clairvoyant visits made by my spirit to the country of the elementaries, it was given me to perceive that their collective life-principle, that which clothes their spirits, and forms their rudimental bodies, is in the aggregate the life-principle of the earth and all that composes it, or that mysterious realm of FORCE, which, as above stated, is erroneously supposed to be a mere attribute of matter. Again and again it has been shown me how the germ of soul, through an infinite succession of births, lives, deaths, and incarnations in elementary existence, at last attains to that final spiritual state from whence it becomes for the last time attracted to matter, and is born into the climax of material existence, MANHOOD. The progress of spirit through the conditions of elementary being has been explained to me as correspondential to the subsequent embryotic periods of human gestation. As an elementary it progresses through the matrix of nature. As a human being it is subject to a much shorter but perfectly analogous progress through the matrix of human maternity. The one is necessary to the growth and individualization of an immortal spirit; the other to the growth and individualization of a mortal body, in which the spirit's final career through matter is effected. The two states are so perfectly analogous that when, after some years of clairvoyant practices amongst the Berlin Brotherhood, Prof. Von Marx subjected me to a course of study in anatomy and medicine, I was enabled to point out to him, in the different stages of growth attained by the human fœtus, the most perfect analogies with similar stages of being amongst the elementaries.”}}

The following are from his adventures in India, and tell how a few so-called jugglers perform their wonders; also the powers of will exerted by certain {{Style S-Lost|person}}

The following are from his adventures in India, and tell how a few so-called jugglers perform their wonders; also the powers of will exerted by certain {{Style S-Lost|person}}

“My first step was to secure the services of two of the most accomplished as well as respectable members of the fakir fraternity, and having taken all the available means at command to attach them to my interest, not forgetting to separate them from each other, so as to avoid the possibility of collusion or a systematic attempt to deceive me, I had opportunity enough to observe many of the most astounding evidences of the power these men possessed, as well as to analyze at leisure their claims for its origin. In each case, as well as in numerous others, where incredible feats of preternatural wonder were exhibited, the fakirs assured me the ''pitris,'' or ancestral spirits, were the invisible wonder-workers. Again and again they protested they could do nothing without the aid of these spiritual allies. Their own agency in the work, they gave me to understand, consisted in preparing themselves for the service of the ''pitris''. They alleged that the material body was only a vehicle for the invisible soul, the spiritual or astral clothing of which was an element evidently analogous to the ‘ spiritual body ’ of the apostle Paul, the ‘ magnetic body ’ or ‘ life principle ’ of the spiritists, the ‘ astral spirit ’ of the Rosicrucians, and the ‘ atmospheric spirit ’ of the Berlin Brotherhood. This element the Hindoo and Arabian ecstatics termed AGASA, or the life-fluid. They said, that in proportion to the quantity and potency of agasa in the system, so was the power to work marvels by the aid of spirits. Spirits, they added, used agasa as their means of coming in contact with matter, and when it was abundant and very powerful, the invisibles could draw it from the bodies of the ecstatics and perform with it feats only possible to themselves and the gods. ‘ Mutilate the body, lop off the limbs, if you will,’ said a Brahmin, whom I had also enlisted in my service as a teacher of occultism, ‘ and with a sufficient amount of agasa, you can instantaneously heal the wound. Agasa is the element which keeps the atoms of matter together; the knife or sword severs it, the fire expels it from its lodgement in those atoms; put the agasa back to the severed or burned parts before they have bad time to fester or wither, and the parts must reunite and become whole as before. ‘ It is by virtue of agasa that the seed germinates in the ground and grows up to be a tree, with leaves, fruit and flowers. Pour streams of agasa on the seed, and you quicken in a minute what would else, with less of the life-fluld, occupy a month to grow. Charges tones or other inanimate objects with agasa drawn from a human body, and spirits can make such objects move, fly, swim, or travel hither and thither at will; in short, it is through the power of agasa—by which I mean FORCE, the LIFE of things—that all the most intelligent Hindoos with whom I studied, insisted that preternatural marvels could be wrought, always adding, however, that ''pitris'' must assist in the operation first, because their spiritual bodies were all agasa, and next, because they had a knowledge of this great living force and how to apply it, which they could not communicate to mortals.

{{Style P-Quote|“My first step was to secure the services of two of the most accomplished as well as respectable members of the fakir fraternity, and having taken all the available means at command to attach them to my interest, not forgetting to separate them from each other, so as to avoid the possibility of collusion or a systematic attempt to deceive me, I had opportunity enough to observe many of the most astounding evidences of the power these men possessed, as well as to analyze at leisure their claims for its origin. In each case, as well as in numerous others, where incredible feats of preternatural wonder were exhibited, the fakirs assured me the ''pitris,'' or ancestral spirits, were the invisible wonder-workers. Again and again they protested they could do nothing without the aid of these spiritual allies. Their own agency in the work, they gave me to understand, consisted in preparing themselves for the service of the ''pitris''. They alleged that the material body was only a vehicle for the invisible soul, the spiritual or astral clothing of which was an element evidently analogous to the ‘ spiritual body ’ of the apostle Paul, the ‘ magnetic body ’ or ‘ life principle ’ of the spiritists, the ‘ astral spirit ’ of the Rosicrucians, and the ‘ atmospheric spirit ’ of the Berlin Brotherhood. This element the Hindoo and Arabian ecstatics termed AGASA, or the life-fluid. They said, that in proportion to the quantity and potency of agasa in the system, so was the power to work marvels by the aid of spirits. Spirits, they added, used agasa as their means of coming in contact with matter, and when it was abundant and very powerful, the invisibles could draw it from the bodies of the ecstatics and perform with it feats only possible to themselves and the gods. ‘ Mutilate the body, lop off the limbs, if you will,’ said a Brahmin, whom I had also enlisted in my service as a teacher of occultism, ‘ and with a sufficient amount of agasa, you can instantaneously heal the wound. Agasa is the element which keeps the atoms of matter together; the knife or sword severs it, the fire expels it from its lodgement in those atoms; put the agasa back to the severed or burned parts before they have bad time to fester or wither, and the parts must reunite and become whole as before. ‘ It is by virtue of agasa that the seed germinates in the ground and grows up to be a tree, with leaves, fruit and flowers. Pour streams of agasa on the seed, and you quicken in a minute what would else, with less of the life-fluld, occupy a month to grow. Charges tones or other inanimate objects with agasa drawn from a human body, and spirits can make such objects move, fly, swim, or travel hither and thither at will; in short, it is through the power of agasa—by which I mean FORCE, the LIFE of things—that all the most intelligent Hindoos with whom I studied, insisted that preternatural marvels could be wrought, always adding, however, that ''pitris'' must assist in the operation first, because their spiritual bodies were all agasa, and next, because they had a knowledge of this great living force and how to apply it, which they could not communicate to mortals.

The methods of initiation into these wonder-working powers were, I was assured, asceticism, chastity, frequent ablutions, long fasts, seasons of profound abstraction, a spirit exalted to the contemplation of Deity, heaven and heavenly things, and a mind wholly sublimated from earth and earthly things. By these processes, it was claimed, the body would become subdued, and the quantity of agasa communicated through the elements and by favor of the gods, would be immensely increased. It would also be more readily liberated, and under the control of spiritual agencies. ‘ Behold me !’ cried one of my instructors on a certain occasion. ‘ I am all agasa. This thin film of matter wherewith I am covered, these meshes of bone that form my framework of life, are they not fined away to the tenuity of the elements? They hinder not my flight through space, neither can they bind me to the earth I am casting off. ’ He proved the truth of his boast by springing upwards from the ground which he spurned with his feat, when lo ! he ascended into mid-air, and whilst his, {{Style S-Lost|e..tanced}} eyes were rolled upwards; and his lean, rigid arms and thin hands were clapsed in ecstasy above his head, he continued to soar away nearly to the roof of the vast temple in which we were.  

The methods of initiation into these wonder-working powers were, I was assured, asceticism, chastity, frequent ablutions, long fasts, seasons of profound abstraction, a spirit exalted to the contemplation of Deity, heaven and heavenly things, and a mind wholly sublimated from earth and earthly things. By these processes, it was claimed, the body would become subdued, and the quantity of agasa communicated through the elements and by favor of the gods, would be immensely increased. It would also be more readily liberated, and under the control of spiritual agencies. ‘ Behold me !’ cried one of my instructors on a certain occasion. ‘ I am all agasa. This thin film of matter wherewith I am covered, these meshes of bone that form my framework of life, are they not fined away to the tenuity of the elements? They hinder not my flight through space, neither can they bind me to the earth I am casting off. ’ He proved the truth of his boast by springing upwards from the ground which he spurned with his feat, when lo ! he ascended into mid-air, and whilst his, {{Style S-Lost|e..tanced}} eyes were rolled upwards; and his lean, rigid arms and thin hands were clapsed in ecstasy above his head, he continued to soar away nearly to the roof of the vast temple in which we were.  

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The ''rationale'' of magic is WILL or psychology; the success of psychology or the operation of WILL depends upon the entire absence of intervening obstacles. Thus, if you ''will'' a thought to reach another at any distance, long or short, your thought will surely reach its object, provided it encounters no psychological obstacle more potent than itself. Man possesses inherently the power to effect any phenomenon in or upon matter that spirits can do, provided {{Style S-Lost|h..itual}} forces encounter no cross currents of magnetism, no opposing lines of force. The potencies of will have been exalted, known, felt, and practiced by the mystics, magians, seers, and prophets of all ages. Why WILL ever fails to accomplish its ends, arises from the tact that thousands, perhaps millions, of other wills are traversing space in opposing lines and contrary currents, and so the force of one will, which might else prove irresistible if directed under carefully arranged conditions and suffered to operate unhindered upon its object, becomes thwarted, and a single failure of this kind will be immediately quoted as an illustration of the hollow pretensions which psychologists make for the sovereign potency of WILL.’ ’

The ''rationale'' of magic is WILL or psychology; the success of psychology or the operation of WILL depends upon the entire absence of intervening obstacles. Thus, if you ''will'' a thought to reach another at any distance, long or short, your thought will surely reach its object, provided it encounters no psychological obstacle more potent than itself. Man possesses inherently the power to effect any phenomenon in or upon matter that spirits can do, provided {{Style S-Lost|h..itual}} forces encounter no cross currents of magnetism, no opposing lines of force. The potencies of will have been exalted, known, felt, and practiced by the mystics, magians, seers, and prophets of all ages. Why WILL ever fails to accomplish its ends, arises from the tact that thousands, perhaps millions, of other wills are traversing space in opposing lines and contrary currents, and so the force of one will, which might else prove irresistible if directed under carefully arranged conditions and suffered to operate unhindered upon its object, becomes thwarted, and a single failure of this kind will be immediately quoted as an illustration of the hollow pretensions which psychologists make for the sovereign potency of WILL.”}}

In consequence of his marriage, which took place on a sudden, to protect and save a young daughter of one of his mystic brothers from the machinations of a wicked woman, he was compelled to give up his most powerful societies and studies requiring the most perfect chastity and asceticism, and content himself with his knowledge previously gained.—''Saratoga, N. Y., Sentinel;''

In consequence of his marriage, which took place on a sudden, to protect and save a young daughter of one of his mystic brothers from the machinations of a wicked woman, he was compelled to give up his most powerful societies and studies requiring the most perfect chastity and asceticism, and content himself with his knowledge previously gained.—''Saratoga, N. Y., Sentinel;''