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PROJECTED IN - SEVEN LESSONS, WITH TWO LECTURES, AND A PHILOSOPHICAL POEM ON THE CONJUGATION OP THE "VERB TO BE." By J. V. BENEFICIO (Bryan J: Butts), i\ Professor of Elocution and Mental Philosophy. "Happiness consists in the right view of things." — Socrates. JAN^8 1886/ BOSTON: HIGHLAND SCHOOL OF MENTAL PHILOSOPHY, No. 7 MOUNT PLEASANT PLACE. ^l Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1885, by Bryan J. BUTTS, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. J. S. Cushing & Co., Printers, 115 High Street, Boston. ©rirtcattotu To HER whose name is " Marvel," whose triumphant sur- vival OF MORTAL CRITICS, AND MORTAL DISEASE, RENDERS HER A TEACHER IN THE HIGHLAND SCHOOL, AND To HER whose name is "Bertha," WHOSE IMMORTAL SPIRIT WAS THE INSPIRATION OF HIS "PHILOSOPHICAL POEM," — AND To ALL MEN AND WOMEN who aspire to the communion AND THE COURAGE OF " LOVE DlVINE," THIS LITTLE BOOK IS inscribed by "BENEFICIO." DESCRIPTION OF CHART. (Scale of 36 Inches.) The claims for the Author's Metaphysical Chart are : — 1. That it represents, on a major scale, or plane-sphere, the logi- cal relation of the so-called " material " and " spiritual " universes. 2. That it represents on a minor scale, and on the reverse side of the chart, the two hemispheres of " physical " and " moral " disease, or deflection from Life and Truth. 3. That on the major scale it indicates the four divine principles, or compass, of "Infinite Reality," the " Finite " and "Infinite Ray," and the deflected " Shadow Ray of Light." 4. That on the minor scale is represented the reflecting and deflecting angles of " Truth and Life " and " Truth and Love " ; the false phenomena of " cold," " cough," " consumption," etc., and the moral deflections from the medial line, indicated by the words, "God is Spirit." AUTHOE'S PEEFAOE. An increasing public interest in metaphysical subjects, especially in reference to healing the sick and the prepa- ration of students for the beneficent work, is the author's apology for offering these " Hints." Of course, the first principles of mental science have been stated more or less clearly, in all ages, and by many philosophers, from Aristotle to Berkeley. But the appli- cation of i ; metaphysics " to the cure of disease has had a new revival in the present century. While hospitable to all schools of thought, or modes of practice, the author disclaims the entire acceptance of any one of them. A student at this august threshold of knowledge, he prefers still to ask for "Light! more light ! " especially in the contemplation of a well of life so deep that even the wisest step back and ask, " What have we to draw with ? " In answer to that grave question, however, we endeavor to prove that there is something to draw with, and more to draw from; that we are exploring a mine so exhaustless that the deeper and wider we drill the richer and rarer are the treasures of " Life and Immortality." B. J. B. 7 Mt. Pleasant Place, Highlands. CONTENTS. -♦<>♦- LESSON I. PAGE Statement of Being 1 LESSON II. Genesis of Being 7 LESSON III. Reflection and Deflection of Being .... 14 LESSON IV. Genesis of Knowledge 21 LESSON V. Transfiguration 29 LESSON VI. Major and Minor Scale of Being 36 LESSON VII. Retrospective Views 47 Questions in Review 57 LECTURES. 1. Conjugation of the Verb "To Be" . . . . 63 2. Conjugation of the Verb " To Love " . . . .73 Poem 81 Questions in Review 00 APPENDIX. 1. Extracts of Lectures 00 2. Extracts of Mental Treatments 00 PART I. HIGHLAND SCHOOL LESSONS. NOMENCLATURE. Spirit. — "Breath of Life" in Life (Eternal) ; Essential Reality; "God (or Good) Manifest." Soul. — Sense of Spirit ("Ego"). Mind. — Understanding of Spirit (or "Ego") ; Intelligence. Body (Spiritual). — Reflector of Mind; (Material) Deflector of Mind (Non-Intelligence). Matter (in general). — " Mind-Stuff " ; "No Matter." Substance. — Divine Intelligence ; Spirit. Reflection. — Likeness (of Spirit). Deflection. — No Likeness. Reflected Spirit. — Soul (and Body) in Health. Deflected Spirit. — No Soul (or Body) ; Nothing ("Disease"). Health. — Wholeness ; Harmony. Disease. — No ("Ease"); Misapprehension of Health (or Har- mony). Death. — Misapprehension of Life (Eternal). Evil. — Misunderstanding of Good; Ignorance. Sin. — Misconception of God (Einite Presumption). Mortal Mind. — No Mind. Immortal Mind. — Soul-Mirror ; Pure Mind. Real. — Eternal; a Principle (in Mind). Unreal. — Temporal; No Principle (in Mind) ; Nothing. Personal. — Limitation of the Impersonal ("God Manifest"). Man. — Divine Ego; " Son of Man"; Image of God (Good). Animal Man. —Not Man (Shadow of Man). Animal Body of Man. — No Body (No Mirror) of Man. Animal Soul. — No Soul (Sense) of Man. Species. — Eorms (Moulds) of Spirit (Eternal). Generation. — Involution of Spirit. Birth. — Evolution of Spirit. Growth. — Inspiration of Spirit ("Transfiguration"). "Space and Time." — " Succession and Duration of Thought," i.e., No Time nor Space in Thought (Divine). "Cause and Effect." — Suppositional Relations (in Space and Time). "Substance and Shadow" (Phenomenal). — Real (Eternal) Re- lations of "Mind and Matter" and "Soul and Body." Einite. — Limited ; " Phenomenal " (as " Matter") Infinite. — Limitless ; Eternal (as Truth). Metaphysics. — Science (Demonstrated Truth) of Being. HINTS ON METAPHYSICS. By "Teacher" and "Student." LESSON I. STATEMENT OP BEING. Teacher. The true statement of being lies at the basis of metaphysical science. Student. What is science ? T. Demonstrated truth. S. What is metaphysical science? T. The science or demonstration of being. S. What is being ? T. Being is real existence ; whatever is. S. Does metaphysical science teach that whatever is, is right ? T. Not under the accepted interpretation of whatever " is." Metaphysics discovers the being or entity of right, and hence, the non-being or non-entity of wrong. If wrong, like right, were an entit3 r , there could be no reliable basis for science (demonstrated truth) , physical or meta- physical ; neither terra flrma for man, nor resurrection for angel. S. Are not right and wrong inseparable concepts of the mind? T. Inseparable as entity and non-entity ; but right is the entity, and wrong the non-entity. 2 HINTS ON METAPHYSICS. S. Why not say they are co-eternal entities ? T. Because that would be a contradiction of the laws of mind and the first principles of reasoning. If wrong, like right, were an entity, I could argue that you ought to accept a proposition because it is wrong. JS. What, then, is your definition of the term " entity " ? T. Eeal being ; the opposite of which must be unreal. Wrong is unreal. S. And therefore really wrong? T. And therefore really excluded from the premises of being ; otherwise we could disprove the axiom that two entities cannot occupy the same place and time. S. How do we know that right is an entity ? T. By the moral sense. JS. Does not the moral sense affirm the same thing of wrong? T. Nay ; it affirms directly the opposite thing of wrong, that it is neither an entity nor a reflection of an entity. It must be a suppositional (impossible) deflection of the being of right. S. How does this philosophy relate to what are called our moral obligations ? T. It secures their fulfilment (in reason and religion) , as the loyalty of citizens is secured by their recognition of right as distinguished from wrong in the rule of the State. The sense of wrong is intensified in the presence of right because wrong has no sovereignty, that is, no being, save in our finite misunderstanding. S. What is finite being? T. A reflection of the infinite. S. How is being expressed, or by what formula? T. By the general term " Mind and Matter." S. What is the evidence of being ? STATEMENT OF BEING. 6 T. The being of both mind and matter can be manifest to mind only. Therefore all evidence of being is mental evidence ; that is, evidence of the being of mind. S. On what, then, does the being of matter depend for proof ? T. Upon the being of mind, that is, upon mental ob- servation, since there can be no other. S. What does mind observe ? T. Mind, whether finite or infinite, can observe noth- ing exterior to itself, or outside of its own being. Heuce, outside of the being of mind, finite or infinite, there can be nothing for mind to observe. The being of mind must, therefore, exclude the being of matter, except as a manifestation or reflection of the being of mind. S. Are not mind and matter inseparable ideas ? T. They must be, since matter is mental phenomenon. S. Why not say that mind is material phenomenon ? T. Because that would not alter the fact, but only prove the mentality of matter. S. Could these inseparable ideas ever have existed otherwise ? T. They must be eternal in genesis, that is, the dual idea of God or infinite mind. S. What are the forms of being ? T. They are subjective and objective, mind and mat- ter, or God and Spirit. S. Do you mean to imply that all being has form — subjective as well as objective? T. How can the objective effect (or relation) have form, if the subjective cause (or relation) be formless? The castle must be u in the air" before it can be objec- tively constructed ; that is, it must be in the mind. S. Is the form of man in the mind of man? 4 HINTS ON METAPHYSICS. T. The form of man, and every other conceivable form, is in the mind of God, and thence reflected (or deflected) in the mind of man. S. I see that you include "God and Spirit" in your statement of the " forms " of being. T. All we know of being is what we know of its organ- ized forms. Of an unformed tree, mineral, animal, angel, or deity, we can know nothing. S. What, then, can physical science know of " unor- ganized" matter? T. Nothing. Even the ' ' germ cell ' ' or primal ' i atom " must be already formed, as an antecedent condition of formation. S. Then you would say that the Spirit of God must be in the form of God ? T. I would reverse the statement, and say that the form of God is in the Spirit of God, whether it be atom or angel. S. What do you regard as the highest manifestation of the form of God? T. The form of man and woman. S. What do you mean by the form of God as distin- guished from God? T. The forms of vital force, the universal phenomena of being, mystically named the " Word of God" or "Breath of Life." S. What do you mean by the term "matter" as related to "spirit"? T. Matter is the vitalized form of spirit. It is the objectively organized germ, or protoplasm, and its physi- cal evolutions. S. Who, or what, evolves the forms of matter? T. The forms of spirit. STATEMENT OF BEING. O S. Who, or what, evolves universally the forms of spirit? T. God, or Infinite Spirit. S. Is God personal or impersonal spirit? T. Both. But it is not easy to conceive of the imper- sonal. Some metaphysicians make God a principle, as if principle transcended spirit. The illusion is analogous to that which makes matter transcend mind. " Twice two is four," they say, and "that is a principle of mathe- matics." But the principle is a non-entity outside of its mental conception. The laws of numbers exist in the mind (finite or infinite), and nowhere else. In other words, they are spiritual concepts, since there can be no other. Hence, the term Infinite Spirit or God is the logical opposite of Finite spirit or man. In the sense of real being, God is apprehended as Infinite Father and Mother through the exaltation, and not the obliteration of our finite humanity. God must be as relatively (or abso- lutely) personal to his spirit and its manifestations as is man to his own soul and body. Paradoxical as it may seem, God must be the one impersonal Personality, the infinite I AM. S. What is soul? T. Soul is likeness or image of infinite spirit, reflected (or deflected) by finite mind. S. What, then, is your definition of mind? T. Mind is spiritualized matter, or, vice versa, material- ized spirit. It is intelligence in the human, sensation in the animal, life in the tree, and cohesion and disintegra- tion in the mineral world. It is universal propulsion of matter versus universal impulsion of . spirit. Sn What do you mean by impulsion as distinguished from propulsion ? 6 HINTS ON METAPHYSICS. T. By impulsion we mean impulse from within, that is, spiritual causation. By propulsion we mean objective phenomena or motion. In other words, matter is mind in motion ; spirit is motion in mind, that is, emotion or inspiration. Spirit is real being or substance. S. Why do you employ the term ' c spirit " ? T. Because it is our highest conception of universal substance or real being, that is, the being of God. The objective phenomena of such being is the visible universe. The universe is "uni" that is, one or homogeneous in nature. S. Is this universal one mind or matter, or is it both? T. Mind and matter are one, as we have shown, but that one is mind. • S. Do they hold the relation of cause and effect? T. They hold the relation (by spiritual reflection) of substance and shadow. That is to say, matter, is the mirror of mind, and mind is a reflection (or deflection) of spirit, or real being. S. What is your complete statement of such being ? T. God is Spirit; Spirit is Life, Love, Truth, and Good. Man is the image or likeness of spirit, and hence is spiritual in genesis, — a child of God. Matter is the opposite of spirit and of man, existing only as a shadow of spirit, and with no independent life or being of its own. GENESIS OF BEING. LESSON II. GENESIS OF BEING. Student. Then man is not born of matter? Teacher. No; man is born of spirit. "Man is the spirit of man ; but the soul reveals the image or likeness of spirit in a healthy mind and body, and not in the deflected caricatures of men and women whom we see. S. You have spoken of the principles of Life, Truth, Love, and Good, as being of the divine substance. The opposites of these attributes are Death, Hate, Error, and Evil. Can these opposites be real? T. No ; this would be a contradiction of real being, the opposites of which cannot themselves be real. S. How do we know that Life, Love, etc., are attri- butes of real being ? T. For the reason that all we know, or can know, of such being is what we know of life. Of death we. can know nothing but the appearance. Hence, that is all death can be to us. S. Can death be real, even in appearance? T. It may be said that it cannot, in truth, be real, even in appearance, since it must be supposed to be alive in order to appear otherwise. S. Then death, and consequently disease, is a pure supposition ? T. Verily, they are mistakes, misapprehensions of life and health. S. And do you include moral diseases — Hate, Sin, and Evil — as equally unreal ? 8 HINTS ON METAPHYSICS. T. They are of the same genesis. In other terms, they were never generated. Only Life, Love, and Truth can generate ; for generation is spiritual and not material in causation. Hatred, Sin, and Error are impotent. " We can do nothing against the truth," said Paul, u but for the truth." 8. Then we are all alive and well; that is, well in truth? T. Just so. And the sooner we discover the truth, the wiser and better are we ; for we shall then find our true ego. We shall return to our Father's house, from whose life and love we never can stray. 8. But that is contrary to all our material understand- in g. We must shut our eves. T. No ; we must open them. 8. But we must shut them on evil? T. Verily ; else we cannot open them on good. 8. That is to say, open them on the outward and dying universe. T. Nay ; on the inward and living universe — the uni- verse of spirit. 8* But if disease and death are not realities to spirit, why do they seem to be so to man ? T. They are not realities to man in the likeness of spirit or real being. They seem real only to man astray from truth, and through the deflection of his material sense, which substitutes error for truth, or evil for good. 8. How could this substitution take place? Does God, or Good, originate evil? T. Evil has no origin. The material misunderstand- ing alone affirms its existence. 8. Is the material understanding itself an illusion, that it should ignorantly testify to the reality of evil? GENESIS OF BEING. U T. No ; but material misunderstanding is illusive. The material understanding is not an illusion in its own sphere, but relatively to the spiritual understanding. It is not the office of the material understanding to affirm what is, but only what appears to be. This is the limita- tion of physical science. It affirms the sun to rise in the east, until corrected by the observation that the earth revolves upon its axis ; both observations being phe- nomenal only. It sees an inverted picture of the external universe in the retina of the eye, and then attempts to correct the illusion by pretending to walk upright. Whereas, to the spiritual understanding, there is no other way to walk. S. What is the spiritual .understanding ? T. It is the intuitive or subjective faculty of knowl- edge, by which we perceive ourselves as distinct from our physical bodies and the material universe. S. Is this the only office of the spiritual intuition? T. No ; we not only distinguish ourselves from matter below us, but from spirit above us. As souls, we are capable of conceiving of Infinite Soul, or Spirit. In a metaphysical sense, we may declare that God thinks, and so do we, and our thoughts " do wander through eternity." S. What is eternity? T. It is well named the " dwelling-place of God," or " the ever-present moral world." S. Do we consciously enter eternity at death? T. No ; we enter eternity at birth. S. You mean the spiritual birth ? T. There is no other birth. S. Do you mean to imply that the u natural birth" is an illusion of material sense ? 10 HINTS ON METAPHYSICS. T. So far as man is concerned. Man is not the " natural man." 8. Is not the natural man, that is, the " first man," an animal ? T. Only in appearance. Man is the "second man," who is " the Lord from heaven." 8. Has the animal-man a soul ? T. No ; but, until better taught, the soul has an animal-man. The animal is in the man, and not man in the animal. 8. Your ideas are novel, if not true. T. Or else the} T are novel because true. S. Then man is an uninstructed animal? T. Not by any means. The "animal" is the unin- structed man. So far as he knows anything, he knows he is man, and not animal. S. Then the animal is not the " coming man"? T. No ; a man is a man ; and the animal is his reced- ing shadow. S. But does not the animal foreshadow the man ? T. No ; the man foreshadows himself. He comes not by the evolution of his shadow, but by the involution of his soul. That is, he comes by germinal inspiration. The rose, to prophetic insight, is in the seed of the rose, as much as in its blossom or calyx ; and the spirit is all there is in the rose or the man. This is all there is in species. Species are spiritual and eternal. There never was, nor ever will be, an era when man, plant, mineral, or angel, were not. 8. Whence, then, is the origin of species? T. They have no origin. The oak does not come of the acorn, nor man from protoplasm ; nor vice versa. To be a man is not to come to be from the ape, nor to ape to GENESIS OF BEING. 11 be from sea-jelly. Man is the mind of man in the mind of God. The human mind is not held in solution in the world-ether ; but the world-ether is impregnated, and all species made possible, by the world-spirit, which is the human mind inspired by the divine. S. Are you not speaking in figures, and from the realm of mystery? T. The realm of "mystery" is the realm of reality. It is the Milky- way, resolvable into suns and planets. S. So the genesis of being is as poetic as it is scien- tific ; and poetry is as real as prose ? T. It is more so. 8. How, then, would you explain the literal, that is, the real, origin of man, — the infancy of the race? T. I would not attempt it through the methods of physical scientists alone. Their u monadology," "mo- lecular motion," are no more conclusive than the idealism of poetry or song. I would no sooner quote Darwin, or Huxley, on the babyhood of man, than the metaphysical poet, when he asks and answers the following ques- tions : — " Where did you come from, baby dear 1 " " Out of Everywhere, into Here." " Where did you get those eyes so blue ? " "Out of the sky, as I came through." " Where did you get that little tear % " " I found it waiting when I got here." " What makes your cheek like a warm white rose ? " " I saw something better than any one knows/' " Whence that three-cornered smile of bliss % " " Three angels gave me, at once, a kiss." 12 HINTS ON METAPHYSICS. " Where did you get this pearly ear 1 " " God spoke, and it came out to hear." " Where did you get those arms and hands 1 " " Love made itself into bonds and bands." " Feet ! whence are you, you darling things ? " " From the same box of the cherub's wings." " How did these all just come to be you? " " God thought about me, and so I grew." 8.- Then the growth of species, as well as their origin, lies in the divine substance ; that is, in the thought of God ? What is the distinction between the finite and the infinite thought? T. The finite reflects the infinite, though no part of it ; as the mirror reflects the object, though no part of the object. S. An object implies space. The object, in this case, is God. Can God occupy space? T. All the space there is. Space is finite. It exists only in deflected thought. So of time. Space is succes- sion, and time the duration, of conscious thoughts. They are not reflections of the soul's being in God, since, in God, neither space nor time can have being. 8. What bearing has this view of our being on disease ? T. It leaves neither time nor space for its existence. Disease was never conceived, gestated, or born, except in the finite thought. And in thought, as Dr. W. F. Evans says, " It is just as easy to locate disease in the foot as in the head ; or in a post as in any part of the human body," since it is but zero, and will count only where you put it. 8. Can it be made as real in a post as in the human body? GENESIS OF BEING. 13 T. It can be made as unreal. The psychic subject may believe himself a post, and have the backache. 5. Yes ; but the psychic subject has a back of his own. T. How so, since you can push a pin into his back, and he will behave like a post? 8. But there must be a back somewhere. The mag- netizer, if not the psychic subject, must have a back. T. He has a backer. 6. And who is his backer? T. God, in whose name all pain and disease must dis- appear. S. Then we can exorcise our aches as nonentities? T. Verily ; we can transfer them to a post ; in other words, to the nowhere, and the no-whence, they came ; for we are born in the image of God. 14 HINTS ON METAPHYSICS. LESSON III. REFLECTION VeVSUS DEFLECTION. Student. But an image in a mirror is supposed to be a perfect reflection, or u throwing back," of the whole form and features. Teacher. Not necessarily, except the mirror and its focus be perfect. A concave or a convex mirror will apparently distort the features. S. How, then, can the imperfect finite reflect, or " throw back," the infinite? T. The finite is no more imperfect as finite than is the infinite. The reflection, as distinguished from the deflec- tion of the features of truth, lies in the right focal rela- tion of mind and bod}', or soul and spirit, to infinite spirit. S. Of what is the human body the mirror ? T. Of the human mind (by reflection or deflection) . S. Of what is the human soul a reflection (or a deflection) ? T. Of infinite soul, or the spirit of truth, life, love, &c. S. What is reflected soul? T. It is immortal mind, the " Mind of Truth." 8. What is deflected soul? T. It is mortal mind, mind in error. (No mind.) S. If the mirror of the mind, that is, the body, be destroyed partially, as in disease, or entirely, as in the phenomenon of death, what is the consequence? T. The image in the mirror disappears to the mate- REFLECTION VS. DEFLECTION. 15 rial sense ; but the soul or immortal mind, being in the likeness of spirit-substance, remains to the spiritual consciousness. S. What is your definition of substance ? T. Substance si(&-stands, that is, understands or holds up. In a metaphysical sense (which is the true sense) it is understanding or intelligence. As such, it is poten- tially " under, over, and apart from all appearance of matter." God is the Infinite understanding ; and we are spiritually sons and daughters of God ; bearing the like- ness of eternal life and love, truth and good, wisdom and justice. S. How do the best thinkers define the term " meta- physics " ? T. As the science of spirit-substance, or of " God and the human soul/' S. What is physics ? T. The science of matter, u natural philosophy." S. Does metaphysics include physics ? T. Yes ; it includes physics as substance includes shadow. The substance is real ; the shadow unreal. In the highest metaphysical sense, God is substance ; and the universe is shadow. S. What are some of the general terms you employ to express the relation of substance and shadow, or the apposition of the real and unreal? T. Reflection and deflection, or immortal and " mortal mind"; soul and body, or me and not-me-below-me ; soul and spirit, or me and not-me-above-me ; or the infi- nite me and the mirrored soul-and-body me and not me ; soul-solvents and chemicals ; thoughts and things ; compass and conscience; God and Nature; or " mind and mat- ter " ; heavenly Father and Mother ; and earthly son and 16 HINTS ON METAPHYSICS. daughter ; spiritual versus material genesis of worlds and of world souls. And the moral opposites : right and wrong ; truth and error ; good and evil ; and love and hate. S. If metaphysics includes physics as substance in- cludes shadow, does it not also exclude physics (when the mirror is broken) as substance excludes shadow? T. Yes; metaphysics excludes physics as the real excludes the unreal. S. How, then, can the unreal shadow or diseased body become really well, or the opposite " mortal mind" really become immortal? T. The u diseased body" is not the body of man (which is spiritual) ; nor is the " mortal mind" the mind, or soul of man ; and hence the term is somewhat contra- dictory in definition. The mortal mind and body, being deflected shadow, and not reality, cannot become anything. But the immortal mind or very-soul, being a reflection of truth, that is, of the spirit or mind of God, has but to assert itself, and disease disappears from the body or mind-image, as soon as it disappears from the very-soul or spirit-image. S. What is your exact definition of mortal mind? T. It is soul in error, or out of true relation to finite and infinite. S. What are we to understand by the soul in such a relation? Is it substance, or is it shadow? T. Both ; substance relatively to the body, which, as a shadow, obeys the mind ; but shadow or reflection, relatively to God or Spirit, whom, in its finite freedom, it obeys, or thinks to disobey. S. Then the soul is not really free to disobey God, and hence cannot be lost or annihilated? REFLECTION VS. DEFLECTION. 17 T. No ; God is not liable to treason, or rebellion, uDder his divine government. u The wages of sin is death : " not to God or his image, but to sin; and when sin is effaced from the mirror, the sinner discovers his true like- ness, and the abortrveness of his attempt to realize any other likeness. Hence, soul or "mortal-mind" disease, no more than " physical" disease, can be reality to truth. God is truth, that is, real being. The soul of man, that is, the very-soul, the immortal man, exists in the likeness of real being ; and neither real being nor its likeness can ever become non-being. The little child in the brambles, away from the true path, may think it is lost, and lost because of its disobe- dience. So it may seem to be, also, to its earthly parents ; but not so to the heavenly, in whose garden no seeds of evil could ever germinate, or footsteps of sin or sorrow be taken. S. That seems like the true gospel. T. It is the true gospel; the gospel of " glad tidings and great joy" to all peoples. A gospel whose "leaves" of truth are for the " healing of the nations," as well as the cure of physical disease. S. How does the metaphysical law apply to political problems and the social state ? T. It lifts the depressed masses above their material limitations, by assuring them of the omnipotence of truth and right, under whose recognized reality no such limita- tions could continue to exist. It disabuses all classes of belief, in the power of evil or injustice, in the constitution of nature or of nations. S. Wherein does this new gospel differ from the "con- solations of religion," which have been offered to the poor in all ages ? 18 HINTS ON METAPHYSICS. T. It differs radically, not by ignoring, but by affirming, the true religion. Instead of despising the human bod} T , by dropping it into the grave, it renders it immortal by making it a fit temple for the Holy Spirit. As it saves the soul, not in the death, but in the life of the body, so it saves the social state, not by revolution,, but by evolution of the "body politic." It promotes evolution, not by engaging, but by disengaging belligerent parties. It does this in the name of a third party, in whose wisdom all parties are one in the right, when they have discovered the impotency of the wrong. S. Then nations, too, are "alive and well,' ' so soon as they discover the metaphysical truth of being. But where are we to look for the causes of evil and sorrow ? T. Nowhere ; they have no causes in spiritual science. S. Where, then, shall we look for life and health? T. Everywhere. God is omnipresent. S. Then your metaphysics is so all-inclusive as to accept the whole hydra-headed monster, Evil, Error, Sin, Sickness, and Death, as a part of your ultimate philoso- phy of health ? T. By no means. How can metaphysics include these nonentities as entities? Nay; metaphysics includes only the real. S. How can it include the real if it excludes anything ? T. This is the third time you have personified the impersonal by dignifying evil as a reality. Metaphysics excludes nothing, for the reason that it includes all there is. To cure disease it looks away from or beyond the mortal body altogether, as being a shadow and no part of the real man. The real man is a reflection of the mind of Truth, and hence cannot be diseased. Disease is a deflection from the truth. REFLECTION VS. DEFLECTION. 19 S. What do you mean by the term ' i deflection " ? T. A false reflection. It is analogous to refraction in material perspective, which deceives the eye, so that the shadow is mistaken for the substance. S. How is the visual sense deceived ? T. By reference to our " Metaphysical Chart," you will see that the " material ray" of light, in passing from a rarer to a denser medium, is bent out of its course, causing the upright shaft, " truth," to appear crooked, although it is straight. Under the head of "Moral" deceptions, the first de- parture from "Truth" is named "Error"; the second, "Sin"; the third, " Satan," or personified " Evil." Under the head of physical deception, or departure from Life, "Cold," "Cough," "Consumption," are named as illustrations. On the other hand, the "infinite ray" of light from the "Spiritual Sun" passes through the denser medium in a direct line, and unrefracted; thus sharply indicating the law of distinction between the real and unreal, both in the sphere of relative, and that of absolute, knowl- edge. S. If the c 4 spiritual or infinite ray " be the only real ray, how can there be any refraction of a material ray, or any such ray to be refracted? T. There cannot be ; nor any such ray to be reflected. All light is spiritual, known only to the mind. S. If you cannot speak, in truth, of the refraction of the material ray (as in the shadow in the water, or the image in the mirror) , how can you speak of the deflection of the spiritual ra}', as in moral error or disease? T. I cannot. There can be no real deflection of truth. We employ the term as applying, not to spiritual reality, but to phenomenal illusion. 20 HINTS ON METAPHYSICS. S. Whence is the illusion? T. That is as if you were to ask : Whence is nothing, or no-thing? Of course, no thing can have no " whence," that is, no origin. Deflected health is no health. Health is real. No health, that is, disease, is unreal. S. Are not health and disease relative phenomena ? T. Relative as the real to the unreal ; as harmony to discord ; as truth to untruth. There is no truth in dis- ease : only untruth. S. Do you not employ the same material senses in the discovery of disease, that you employ in the recognition of health? T. I do not employ the material senses in either case. S. Well, then, the spiritual senses? T. The spiritual senses can discover spirit only, which is life and health. Disease has no spirit. It is a ghost, a phantom, nothing, mistaken for something by ignorance only. S. How does the mistake happen ? T. That is precisely what does not happen. You can- not violate a principle. We cannot even say that twice one is three, since we cannot say what we cannot think. In other words, such a statement is unthinkable. So life is a principle, and health its only phenomenon. The opposite of life, or death, is no more thinkable, in reality, than is the equation : 0=1. All we mean, or can mean, by the term " death" is phenomenon. Though our knowledge of "life" is also phenomenal, it is real, that is, experimental ; whereas, of its opposite we can know noth- ing by experience ; nor can any such experience be reported to us. GENESIS OF KNOWLEDGE. 21 LESSON IV. GENESIS OF KNOWLEDGE. Student. Then there is such a thing as relative knowl- edge ? Teacher. There is such a thing as knowledge of shadow and perspective, which is the proper domain of material science, whose assumptions of the reality of " solids " and "fluids," of " fixed laws," of "cohesion," "disintegra- tion," or "gravitation," as sucJi, are purely empirical. Even its latest concession to spiritual philosophy, that there is a "little feeling" in matter, is unscientific in statement. S. What would be the scientific statement ? T. It would be that there seems to be a "little matter" in feeling. S. What would be your metaptrysical statement? T. That there is a little "matter" in "feeling," and by virtue of its reflection of the divine sympathy, — the real being of God. S. Then the mistake of the material understanding is corrected by the spiritual, or by absolute knowledge. What can be the basis of such knowledge ? T. Its relation to the relative, which is but a shadow of spiritual reality. S. You are levelling physical science, and seem to leave us no terra firma to stand upon. T. Well, physical science pretends to stand us on the "solid earth"; but in case of an earthquake, where is 22 HINTS ON METAPHYSICS. the "terra firma" ? The spiritual forces (and there are no other forces) which underlie the earth, and cause it either to "cohere" or to "quake," must be more reli- able as well as more powerful, as a standing-place for the spirit, or the real man, than any- narrow footpath of mate- rial knowledge. S. Would you say that the spirit is all there is to stand, and that only " matter " can fall? T. Just so. Spirit stands on principle as distinguished from expedient. If we could bridge the opening chasm at our feet, and so escape the phenomenon of death, the act would be an expedient, and all that physical science could do for us. But if the expedient fails and the Ego is still intact, our survival of the earthquake, as spirits, establishes a spiritual principle, and illustrates the genesis of real knowledge, which is through the spiritual sense or intuition. S. Why is the spiritual sense, or intuition, more reli- able in the realm of real knowledge than the material senses ? T. Because all knowledge of being is necessarily spirit- ual, and spiritual things are spiritually discerned. Life and health are a reflex of the mind, which is a reflex of spirit and not of matter. S. How does the spiritual sense discover the unreality of disease and death? T. Through its perception of the reality of their oppo- sites, — life and health. S. What, then, is the pivotal law of cure ? T. The spiritual understanding ; such an attitude of the soul to the radiation of divine love and wisdom as will discover the truth. The law of attitudes lies at the basis of metaphysical knowledge. GENESIS OF KNOWLEDGE. 23 S. Can you give some illustration of such a law? T. The flame in the soul of the upright man burns up- rightly. To think uprightly is to walk uprightly. Or, vice versa, to walk erect with deliberate purpose is to become erect in spirit. All attitudes are psychological. The sight of a person kneeling in prayer with face to the orient, or standing in awe with eyes uplifted to the infinite dome, excites humility or adoration. As are our attitudes so are we. If we occupy in thought the centre of the zodiac, we are in rapport with real being, and can affirm because we know that we are a reflection of the Eternal Me and can- not die. The Ego then declares : — "The heavens, gathered as a scroll, My resurrection prove ; The ' still small voices ' of my soul The universes move. "And so the compass of my stars I'll trust on land or sea ; Glad voices hear, thro' earthquake jars, Addressed to you and me. "Above the storm and tempest's sway, Far out upon life's sea, Eternal sunbeams gild the day Of .my nativity." S. Has any man ever illustrated your gospel by heal- ing the sick through his perfect relation to the Infinite Me? T. The man Jesus has at least given the world a strong assurance of his possession of " the spirit without measure." S. Does this power require the experience of a new or spiritual birth ? 24 HINTS ON METAPHYSICS. T. It requires an understanding of what that birth is, that it can never occur while the soul is in its material beliefs ; or, so long as death, evil, or error are accepted as realities in the divine universe. 8. What is material belief ? T. Belief in the power of matter over mind, or of mind over spirit. In other words, of body over mind, or of body and mind over soul and spirit. It is belief of evil in matter. It is spiritual scepticism. 8. What is } T our view of the so-called " faith cure " as a mode of healing ? T. Faith in spirit is better than faith in matter ; but knowledge is better than either. Pure reason or demon- strated common sense, is the " magician's wand" of the true healer ; and pure reason leads to the discovery that the material universe is but the inverted or deflected shadow of the spiritual. S. Does pure reason or common sense discard the use of medicines or drugs in all cases ? T. Pure reason will reduce medicine to well-regulated diet. It recognizes water, air, light, electricity, and mag- netism as healing agencies. But it denies the potency of drug or regimen, to permanently cure the sick man in his sins. 8. What do you mean by the sick man's sins ? T. I mean his blasphemy against the truth. He sa}'s, "Yesterday I was sick, to-day I am well"; both state- ments being a part of the same falsehood. S. Well, what would you have him say? T. " Yesterday I was a hypocrite ; to-day I have dis- covered it." 8. »Then sickness is hypocrisy as well as blasphemy? T. What else can it be, since it makes a pretension to GENESIS OF KNOWLEDGE. 25 reality in the presence of God, and exalts material above spiritual knowledge? The truth says, "I am spirit and all the matter there is." Error says, "I am matter and all the truth there is." S. Can the materialist give no reliable evidence in the realm of true knowledge ? T. Not as a materialist; he is a false witness. He contradicts his own testimon}^. Himself a spirit by gene- sis, he yet declares, " I am not spirit, I am matter. I am evolved from protoplasm ; that is all I know." S. How can the materialist know this and not know more? T. He is modest. He will not affirm "beyond what he knows." He is not so modest, however, as not to see beyond his u knows." Otherwise he could not see at all. Nor is he yet so immodest as to undertake to walk on his " knows." Otherwise he could not walk at all. Practi- cally he cannot act on w r hat he assumes to know ; that is, material causation, but only on what he assumes not to know ; that is, spiritual causation. Were he so practical as to try to act on the little he knows, as a materialist, he would soon discover that he did not know even that little. For all he can know of himself or aught else, as matter, is, necessarily, what he (antecedently or coevally) knows of himself as spirit. S. Is all knowledge, then, of spiritual genesis? T. Certainly ; matter cannot generate — even igno- rance. S. Then there is no ignorance ? T. Not to spirit, which is omniscient and can reflect knowledge only. S. Is the law of mental reflection analogous to what is called " mirage"? In certain localities the atmosphere 26 HINTS ON METAPHYSICS. appears to mirror objects, as of a horse and rider, who are seen in the sky. T. One's conception may be aided by that illustration, save that the spirit-sky mirrors only the real horse and rider ; that is, the spirit of each, as distinguished from the shadow it casts. The spirit of the horse or rider is all there is of either. This is what we mean when we say there is no ignorance in the universe. Ignorance is but the supposed absence of knowledge ; whereas, knowledge is infinite and cannot be absent. 8. Then to "know at all is to know spiritually, as God knows ? T. Yes ; and to be at all, is to be immortal as God is. It is too late, after we know we are, to discover that we are not. 8. Then there is, in reality, no knowledge of life but that of the eternal life, and this is the knowledge that discovers the nonentity of death or disease ? T. Verily ; nor is there any other love but the eternal love ; nor any other good or truth but the eternal. S. In what does this focal attitude of the human mind to the divine consist? T. In the discovery of the right relation of the " Ego," the "I," or the '"me," to the " not-me." On this dis- cover} 7 depends the clear reflection of real being ; that is, of eternal life. The first step in this discovery is the recognition of the self-evident "me." The second step is the recognition of the two inferential " not-me's." First, theme below me or the physical me. Second, the me above me ; that is, the spiritual me or spirit. The me below me is the ' ; mortal " mind and body ; the me above me is the immortal soul of me ; the image of God. GENESIS OF KNOWLEDGE. 27 S. What is the logical use of physical science ? T. The discovery that matter is not me. S. What is the logical use of metaphysical science ? T. The discovery that spirit is me. 8. What do you regard as the misuse of physical science ? T. Calling the human mind away from the true source of knowledge, — the spiritual universe. 8. What is the misuse of metaphysical science ? T. The recognition of evil in the divine universe, in- volving a mixture of truth and error, right and wrong, and life and death, in the constitution of both matter and spirit. This is the basis of the " Fall of Man," and of the whole " Scheme of Salvation " from a fictitious and personified enemy of God, who is supposed to have power to disturb the harmony of Nature and Providence. 8. What is the effect of the discovery of the true image of God in man ? T. The obliteration of all other images. 8. How do you disprove the truth of the accepted belief in the image of Evil or Satan? T. By proving the truth of the accepted belief in the image of God. God is declared to be All-powerful Good- ness, Love, and Truth, in whose presence evil and error are compelled to flee away. If these latter, then, are not realities in the Divine Being, how can they be reflected, as such, in the being of man or nature? Logically and in- evitably, they are deflections from and not reflections of the truth to our finite reason. To the Infinite Reason or Logos, they cannot exist, even as deflections or shadows of reality. They are excluded from the premises of being. 8. True knowledge, then, consists in removing the 28 HINTS ON METAPHYSICS. deflected shadows — sin, sickness, or death — from the mirror of the human mind ? T. Verily ; and so from the human body, by discover- ing it to be (as a phenomenon of the soul) immortal through transfiguration. ' ' TRANSFIGURATION." 29 LESSON V. TRANSFIGURATION." Student, What is the significance and application of the term " Transfiguration"? Teacher. "Trans" means u across," or "over." Figure is form, or feature. Metaphysically, it is the, mind that figures, and the mind that transfigures. The idea of transfiguration is all-inclusive. It embraces transformation, transmutation, translation, transfiliation, or infilling, and transfusion, or the interblending of ele- ments. As applied to the human form, the term covers all these principles and more. S. Is not the human form, or figure, fixed, or stable? T. It is very unstable, every molecule, or element, being in rapid movement. As seen by clairvoyant vision, it is apparently as unstable as the dissolving and resolving views of a kaleidoscope. To transfigure the human form is not only to accelerate molecular action, or evolution, but also spiritual involution. This is. indicated by a change or exaltation of the countenance or features. S. Then transfiguration is involution? T. It is more than involution. It is evolution. S. You mean to sa} T that transfiguration is growth ? T. Verily. S. Do you mean material growth ? T. I mean spiritual growth, since there can be no other. Every plant, tree, animal, or man, is both figured and transfigured by spirit, or life. The rose is transmuted, or 30 HINTS ON' METAPHYSICS. changed, by inspiration and expiration of cellular sub- stance, by transformation, transfiliation, and transfusion, as well as migration and transmigration. S. Then growth is, itself, simply transfiguration? T. What else can it be ? S. Then the crab-apple has been transfigured into the modern greening, the grasses into grains, and the ape into man? T. No ; the mind, or life, of the crab and of man cast their shadows behind them. The horticulturist has the greening on the brain, and the anthropologist, or world- spirit, has engrafted man into his own ancestral trunk. Man is thus transfigured into a living soul, and feeds on the bread of life. S. Can humanity live on transfigured bread? T. Humanity can live on no other bread. Such is the bread for which all men and women are starving. S. You mean the Word of God or bread of life ? " How does this differ from the baker's bread ? T. It differs in longevity. It confers immortal health and happiness. It is the bread of the communion. S. Do you mean the communion of the saints ? or the sinners ? T. I mean neither ; for in heaven there are neither saints nor sinners. By bread of the communion I mean the communion of bread ; that is, its circulation. S. And by the circulation you mean the distribution of the " bread of life"? T. I mean the distribution, not only of the " bread of life," but the life of bread. I mean fraternity. I mean humanity transfigured. I mean the feeding of the multi- tude. S. Can this be done on five loaves and two fishes ? "transfiguration." 31 T. It can, if the}^ are blest. 8. How are they blest? T. By multiplication. 8. You mean an accumulation of riches ? T. I mean a rich accumulation. 8. Well, and how is this effected? T. By performing a miracle. S. And what is the miracle ? T. It is the transfiguration of the body and blood of Christ in the bread and wine of the communion. 8. Well, and what is that communion ? T. It is the breaking of baker's bread and the cir- culation of the minter's coin among the brethren. 8. But can the bread and coin be distributed sacrile- giously ? T. No ; but they can be distributed religiously. 8. You mean in the name of the Son of God? T. I mean in the name of the S &; t, d; tc, dj; k, g ; I, r ; m, n; nk, ng ; ks,gz; /, v; thj dh; s, < < z ; sh, zh ; iv, y ; h, wh ; hw 9 hy. zh (Ger. hard, as in Bucft) ; zh (Ger. soft, as in Leic/i£). Vowels. Diphthongs. e in eel i in it ei in dez'ty oe in earl u in wp ai in gaiety a in ale e in ell oi in owing se in air a in at 6i in luouis a in art a in ask ai (I) aisle a in all o in on iu (u) due o in old 6 in none ou in owr 6 in ooze o (ii) foot oi in oil The student may comprehend the table of elements, and represent them, approximately, as follows : — 1. Utter the first column of vowels in the rising and EXTRACTS OF LECTURES. ■ 97 falling inflections of the natural voice, respectively ; then alternately. Same in treble and bass voices. 2. Same [except in rising inflection] with second column of vowels, and the diphthongs. 3. Combine the sets of consonants, successively with the vowels, in the same manner, exploding where pos- sible ; beginning with p alone ; then p b ; then t alone ; then t d ; &c. In writing, as the term " phonetography " may suggest, the student uses the same signs, as above, or as are used in printing, save only those which Misrepresent the ele- mental sound, or which represent no sound at all. We correspond with our students, and they with each other, in phonetography, and there is a pleasant sense of a scientific, as well as artistic, perfection in doing so, since the exact articulation must be in the mind before a word can be written. EXAMPLE. Fol praziz giv to dhoz ho stand Az sentinelz ov liberti; Ho gard dhe homstedz ov our land, And mak her institushons fre; • Ho boldli fas dhe kannon'z am, And grappel widh dhe miti f o ; In mortal kombat o'er dhe slan, ExpFring aft [oft] in fredom'z thro. These lines, thus printed (or written), exactly represent the student's enunciation, whether his orthoephy be good or bad. The first word might have been written either ' ' Ful," or U F61"; the second might have been " prazez " ; the last word of the second line might have been "liberti/' the word " homstedz " might have been t; homstedz," or u homstedz"; or "institushons," " institoshons," etc. Phonetography (fonetografi) could thus be introduced 98 APPENDIX. among elocutionists, without insisting upon an entirely new alphabet. By the use of " accented letters/' as found in all dictionaries, and with which all good printing offices are provided, and by quoting proper names, and terms which would look too objectionable spelled phonetically at the outset, the chief objection to the use of sound- symbols would finally be removed. In the interest of civilization vs. barbarism, we await the advent of clearer thoughts and clearer symbols in literature. "OUR COSTUMES." 99 "OUR COSTUMES." From a lecture of Prof. Bryan J. Butts, given at No. 7 Mt. Pleasant Place, Roxbury, we make the following extracts : — "Our subject may raise the query whether the latest French fashions, the masks of the theatre, or Carlyle's ' Philosophy of Clothes,' will form the web of my present lecture. But from the standpoint of our ' Highland School of Mental Philosophy,' the term ' Costume ' has a double significance. The ' rounded feet and dainty ' of the little child, as well as the 'tiny shoes of crimson,' with which mother clothes them, are a part of the baby's costume in the earth-form. Are they not even more a part of it in the world of spiritual reality ? " I know the preacher has declared that i all flesh is grass.' But what is grass but the costume of the fields, and the beauty of the spreading landscape? The Evan- gelist speaks, too, of God ; manifest in the flesh,' thus exalting the costume of humanity ; while St. Paul talks of the different kinds of flesh, as of the flesh of the birds, and the flesh of beasts, as well as of men. " If flesh, then, be the garment of all life, then life, as it advances, must re-clothe itself in better, or more im- proved costumes. Ascending to the realm of. the spirit- ual, it assumes the transfigured forms of the Christs, and dwells in the heavens as well as the earths. " The scientists start with the germ-cell, molecule, or monad. But what is molecule, or monad, unclothed upon? Leibnitz speaks of the 'naked monad,' or soul 100 APPENDIX. without a garment ; as if life and her costumes could be separated. " No scientist has yet been able to discern the starting- point or form of the 4 germ-cell ' from the life-principle. He finds a ' nerve ' at the lowest round in the ladder. But it is not a 'dead' nerve, which, as a material sub- stance, has no manifest life. As ' mind- stuff,' the so- called nerve or muscle is only such relatively to another form of life. For the costumes of life are not all of one pattern, and it requires life to doff an old garment, as well as to put on a new. Nor is life so stinted in her resources that both her 4 brightly-plaided stockings,' and her ' soft arms fondly twining ' around us in the earth- sphere, may not be reproduced or transfigured in the heavens. i( Refinement of organism is a basic law of being. The spirit of life determines the forms of it. The organization of the radiata, the fishes, the birds, and the mammals are their spiritual costumes. The wolf -robe is woven by the wolf-spirit. The texture of the robe is in perfect correla- tion to the animus of the wolf. But the auimus and its costumes are out of correspondence with the perpetually renewing Spirit. Hence the wolf-robe is continually being woven in the progressive web and woof of the wolf's life. "What, then, you ask, is the wolf's life? Evidently it is not in the robe, or physical body. On the contrary, the physical body must be, if it be at all, in the life of the wolf, since it appears only while life is present, and dis- appears only as a costume. li Now if the life of animal or of man were mechanical or mathematical, and not spiritual or resuscitative, the loss of a costume would be the loss of life. The severance of a finger-nail, or of the entire body, would then be equiva- " OUR COSTUMES." 101 lent to a severance of the mind, or soul-substance, inde- pendent of which it is manifest that neither finger-nail nor body could either be or be severed. It is equally manifest that a causation which is equal to both the growth and severance of its own costumes in one sphere of being, may be equal to their renewal in another. For what is the phenomenon of the germination and growth of seed-vessel in vegetable, or spermatozoa in animal life, but the fictitious death, that is, doffing of one form of being for another form of the same being ? " We call ourselves men and women, and not wolves, having doffed our costumes for many generations. But it is evident that we are still wearing not only the doffed costumes of our ante-human ancestry, in whose wools or furs we parade, but that we are also continuing the inter- nal manufacture of their fleshly robes. Fortunately for us, as metaphysicians (though unfortunately as physicians) , it is not the animal, but the spiritual costume that survives, whether in the fish, bird, reptile, or mammal, whose habiliments man has both taken on and thrown off, from the dawn of eternity. All species are but the ante-natal generations of man, as typified in the human ovum, which assumes successively all the gradations of the pre-existing genera. " Well, then, you ask, What is man? or who is he? To answer your question is to explain all knowledge. But though we may not say what man is, we are equal to saving what he is not. He is not matter, that is, costume only, whatever that may be. His ego and his doffed finger-nail or beard are not equally pro-creative. Man knows, so far as he knows anything, that he is man, and not animal ; that he is neither a wolf nor of the texture of a wolf -robe. He knows these as the i not me ' 102 APPENDIX. below 4 me/ while he aspires to the spiritual or divine Me above ' me/ whose costumes alone can perfectly^ ' me.' " Man is the Son of Man. He is the ; world-spirit/ in whose vital magnetism all species below him are possible. They are possible only as his inadequately adjusted gar- ments. He lives in them as an actor lives in his tem- porary characters. All through the ages man has been performing a masquerade among the awe-struck species. The kernel of corn, starting from its germ-cell, disappears in the jointed stalk and leaves, and only unmasks itself again in the re-appearance of the kernel in the ear. So man, being spiritual in genesis and evolution, disappears all through his earthly generations, to reappear onty in his native heaven ? u Now it is to our native heavens that we call your attention, when we would heal or nullify all your earthly maladies. The heaven of the human mind being that of thought, reason, and spirituality, it is obvious that neither the germination, nor the evolution or growth of physical disease or error, can originate in that soil." JUSTUS, Reporter. 7 Mt. Pleasant Place, Eoxbury. EXTRACTS OF INSTRUCTIONS. 103 EXTRACTS OF INSTRUCTIONS. I. "Lung Stricture" (False). The lungs are spiritual, and responsive to thought and emotion. The " stricture " is as unreal as is the miscon- ceived image of it in the mind (no mind) of error. The ancestral " belief " renders the phenomenon psychologically possible, but not actual or real. The disproof of its reality by logical demonstration, or spiritual intuition, will displace the false mental image by the true ; when it will be seen that no other image ever has, or ever could play upon the " stringed instrument" of the soul. Consequently, no stricture of the student's lungs can be rationally affirmed. A moiety of inward breathing (the only breathing possible) will prove the nonentity of the " stricture." II. "Nervous Prostration" (False). Such the symptom ; not the verity. Let the cloud that hides the truth be dissipated at once, as in the presence of a strong Angel — the Angel of the Almighty. This phenomenon of weakness is a libel on the Divine Purpose ; as if that were as shiftless or idiotic as these symptoms would imply. Let the guardians of this lady face about and away from all this infernal nonsense. Cease your insane and incessant assertion of the reality of a lie, as if "Error," and not Truth, held the chart and compass of being. The student's strength lies in God, and her weakness — nowhere. 104 APPENDIX. Let the Angels of the Orient appear, while you orient yourself in the beams of divine truth and harmony. Your false guardians have leave of absence. III. "Sick Abed" (False). Waits for a " cup of tea " to recuperate. This is an illusion. The only virtue in the tea is the mind in it, and that is imputed to it by the mind not in it. Why not employ the " mind-stuff" at once, without dis- sipation ? As if the mind could be any more mind by seeing itself in a tea-cup. This is a cowardty, vicarious transaction — like the " Scheme of Salvation," which would give backbone to human souls by " imputed righteousness." As if an empty bag could stand up on its assumed fulness ! Arise, thou idiot ! A spur in the mind is worth two in a tea-cup. IV. " Ovarian Weakness" (False). The paleness of the face (so obvious to the eye) is not the criterion of truth. Your being is in God. All other being is non esse. To prove this, look beyond the pallid cheek, the spasmodic fever and dullness, to the primal source of health, — • the Countenance of God. Looking thereon, all physical pain and weariness departs. As shadows, they flee from the Orient. As the displaced cells in a withering leaf resume their normal functions when turned to the sunbeam, so the deranged ovaries, the depleted blood-vessels, and the lustreless eye assume their natural action in the presence of divine light. EXTRACTS OF INSTRUCTIONS. 105 Prayer. Thou Infinite Mother ! permit this child of thy love to repose in Thy Divine bosom. May the pulses of her life respond to Thine, and all her being renew in the radiance of Thine Omnipotent Spirit. Let her be assured that as Thy child there can be nothing to fear but her own dis- trust of Thee, and Thine eternal goodness. May nothing contradict her ability to walk in thy light. Bid her arise, in Thy Holy Name, and be well. Amen. V. " Blood Poison" {False). The blood has no mind of its own. Its vibratory mole- cules are determined in their movements by the quality of the student's mind-substance. The belief affects the phenomenon. Keason will affect the belief ; religion will abolish it. In reason and religion there can be no such belief. Hence, no such phenomenon. As a daughter of God, imbued with the divine vitality, let the student regard these symptoms as unreliable wit- nesses of truth. " Chemicalization." Let it proceed until the light is fully manifest, and the pupil beholds her true likeness in God. Meanwhile, may the agitation be pacific and painless, like the gentle flow of angelic affections. With your hands in those of your Heavenly Father and Mother, arise, O sister ! in the majesty of Truth, and say: "Hallowed be Thy Name." VI. " Secretiveness " (False). Truth is worthy of confidence. The pupil labors under the illusion that he can be well in ' : error " ; that with 106 APPENDIX. one baud extended to his teacher, and the other to his " woiidy means," he may secrete the facts from the eye of God. The "Spirit of Truth" is searching. All they who would become well some other way are thieves and rob- bers (phenomenally). Health is Spiritual. Eternal Justice presides. The case before the jury is bona fide. No evasion. No circumlocution. No reservation. Hence, " Secretiveness," you are a liar. You are a mole blundering into the daylight, with the dirt on your head. Shake it off, and be a man ; or else go back to your burrow — and your " rheumatism." Amen. VII. " Distrust" (False). Truth and Trust are twin brothers — lawfully born. Error and Distrust are abortions — spiritually unborn. Distrust is atheism. But atheism, having no being in the Divine Presence, can give no being to distrust. These pupils cannot distrust in truth, and out of truth they cannot be. They can only mistrust by attempting to realize their distrust. In our " distrust" of God we banish ourselves from heaven (happiness) ; in our distrust of our brother (" Son of God ") we may lock him out of our hearts or homes ; but we also lock ourselves in ; for the same key that closes on him closes on us. " He that would save his life (or property) shall lose it." But in Truth (Trust) no man's life is lost. " Distrust," and not "Tumor," is the students' (un) real malady. Trust in Truth will abolish both. VIII. " Monthly Periods " (False). The vision of blood is a symptom of lunacy. The "moonstruck" mind is negative to lunar changes. It EXTRACTS OF INSTRUCTIONS. 107 varies from its orbit (apparently) when the moon varies, permitting the Divine Image to trail in the dust ; as if man or mind was ever born of " flesh and blood." Let the student also be instructed that her " turn of life " can only occur under the same lunar illusion. Life never " turns." It is continuous and immortal. The "turn" is the mind (no mind) halting in " material belief," and attempting to make error truth by saying, " I am born of matter." As if there were an} T barrier to divine motherhood, or u God manifest." IX. "Dropsy" (False). Only the spiritual body, the soul's costume, is real. All enlargement or diminution is deflection — shadow — possible only in " material" light. To the pure intelligence, which is of God, we appeal. In the light of such intelligence (the only true light), there is no malady : only eternal peace and repose in the bosom of God. All ill is in finite thought. The divine thought is all inclusive of good, and hence, all exclusive of ill. But "ill" is not excluded in human thought except spiritually. It is not abolished by any ledgerdemain, or circumlocution, as you would set a trap for a thief. Nor even by direct onslaught, as you would eject a burglar from your house. You may catch the "thief," or eject the "burglar"; but so long as their images remain as verities in the world's thought, neither thief nor burglar is dead. Let the student face away from her deflected " natural body," and behold only the face and form of her Angel Mother in Heaven — thus denying the phenomenon (dropsy) as representing truth. The truth in this lady's 108 APPENDIX. being is not manifest in any such guise. The reality is not that side out. Arise, then, O student of divine harmony, and be clothed upon with right reason ! Let health and sanity reign ! X. " Intemperance " {False). Appearance of fulness of blood. These are symptoms — not of what is, but of what is not (in truth) . There are no " red globules " in the blood, or any blood, other than of the mind's creation. To accept the redness of the face (phenomenon of the " red wine") as a reality, is to color the white soul with an error, and thus lose sight of the truth, whose reflection is perfect — more perfect than the hues of the rainbow. Let the student, therefore, see himself as he fe, that he may no longer appear as he is not. Let him discover the illusion of the supposed power of matter in alcohol over mind in God, and consequently the fictitiousness of his apparent need of " stimulation." The soul needs truth only ; and it is not true that there is any potency in a drug not imputed to it. To believe you require wine or brandy is to inflame your blood with it (phenominally) , though you touch it not. To discover their nonentity is to end their psychological reign over you, and make it easier for you to succeed in business. XI. — " Tobacco " (False) . Sajne as "intemperance"; an imputed righteousness (that is, power) in the weed, to minister to happiness. The " pallid face," the " coated stomach," the " nervous tremor," the "mental impotency," are false phenomena EXTRACTS OF INSTRUCTIONS. 109 of " mind in error" (no mind), none of which can have a being in the mind of truth, which will make short work with them all. XII. — " Insanity " {False) . Sanity only can reign. Non-sanity (insanity) is impo- tent, that is, unreal. Sanity only is real, and its opposite can only be accounted real by mind (absence of mind) , which is itself " insane" ; that is, upon whose soul-mirror the false image of "insanity" can be reflected as real. The true mirror can reflect health and sanity only. Whoso looks in any other mirror will see his own mis-conception reflected, that is, " thrown back," upon himself (where it belongs) . Let both student and guardian, therefore, look away from the false perspective, and into the divine mirror, that is, the countenance of God, which can only " throw back" the divine " reason," the eternal " Logos." We deny the charge of " insanity " which is made against our sister, who is God's child. Looking upward, we declare that her angel doth behold the face of her Mother in heaven, to whose holy guardianship we commit this daughter of Her infinite love. XIII. — " Obsession " (False) . Infinite thought is all there is or can be. The thought or belief of " obsession," therefore, is a nonentity. The infinite cannot obsess the finite. There is nothing to obsess or to be obsessed. The truth will not obsess itself. The phenomenon is illusive, based on the assumed reality of error, or deflection from the truth. The angu- lar gesticulations of the student are supposed by her aud others to be real, through their ignorance of the impossi- bility of distorting the form or features of truth. 110 APPENDIX. XIV. — " Gray Hair " (Premature) . A phenomenon only. Let the student recognize the truth : that there is no color in the mind other than its own reflection ; that his hair is gray only through the soul's apparent deflection from the perfect spiritual life. Let him acknowledge only the style of hair consistent with health and normal beauty, and his knowledge will be confirmed by the re-appearance of a darker thread of hair as an inevitable response to the life force. God is true beauty and true health. Think as God thinks ; paint as God paints, and no undue prominence of gray or black can exist as a phenomenon. Deny what seems; affirm what is; act in the " spirit of truth," and the gray-headed liar will disappear. XV. — " Love-Sickness " (False) . False, because unhappy. The student thinks it neces- sary to fast in order to gain the wisdom that will lead him out of his apparent trouble. "Apparent " because it can- not be real in presence of the eternal Father and Mother love, of which " love-sickness " is not a re-flection, but a de-flection. This sickly phenomenon is not love. Love was never sick. Love is well (in truth). The student is a hypocrite ; first pretending to love, and now pretending "love-sickness." His "disappoint- ment" is the "chemicalization" of his pretence. Through his mis-belief that he loved, followed his lady friend's "duplicity," and his present opinion of the " cruelty of truth." Let both parties recognize the reality of that soul-solvent (Truth), and not love again until they come to it. Then they will be happily in love. EXTRACTS OF INSTRUCTIONS. Ill XVI. — " Domestic Trouble" (False). Let the student, as well as her husband, be instructed that her ' ' domestic unhappiness " is wholly illusive ; that she has not, nor ever did have, anything to fear, as a lover, in the presence of "love divine." Let both be assured that there is not any inharmony between them that is not fictitious ; that they are simply dupes when they bemoan their sad fate ; no such fate being possible in reality. Be assured, sister, that the mind, as a reflex of God, is above accident ; that no domestic disagreement is possi- ble in your real being, and that it is well for you to grasp the eternal verity of this statement. You can then see clearly, either the wisdom of your marital relation, or else the steps that wisdom may indicate in your way out of it. The causes that render woman (or man) conju- gally unhappy can only exist through her misunderstand- ing of herself. In God she may learn the nonentity of these causes, and see her husband, metaphysically, as he is, and not as he appears to be. Retiring to her closet, and shutting the door on all inharmony, the "Spirit of Truth" will open for her the eyes of her husband, and her own eyes, and they will continue to walk hand in hand, or else — part in peace. Prayer. Wherefore, Holy Father and Mother in heaven, permit this child of your love to behold your countenance, and be well and happy. 112 APPENDIX. MISCELLANEOUS QUOTATIONS. " The enemy is routed, so far as to seek new quarters. The truth te, there are no quarters for error. The symp- toms are to be interpreted in the divine language, in which all terms of disease are null and void. There is no place for them." " The sister and nurse of the student need severe in- structions. They reason from symptoms (physical), such as ' difficult breathing,' as if God were ' out of breath'; or from accelerated 'heart throbs,' as if His child were liable to ' drop dead.' Let them be assured that there is nothing to fear ; that, with their own minds in serene rapport with truth, health becomes possible to themselves, or their elder sister. Let the pulse beat gently, Holy Spirit, and all fear be cast out by ' perfect love.' " " Hold on to the only reliable staff, in this life, or any other, — the staff of pure reason and true religion. Then, health and sanity will be manifest. There is no other health — no other sanity — but the spiritual. Awaken, then, to the eternal reality, child of God ! and the morning will open in whose radiance no semblance of sorrow can remain." u What is the ' Spirit of Truth ' in this case ? Is this picture of ' cancer,' or ' tumor,' drawn by an artist? Is the Divine Purpose represented here ? Or, is this a cari- cature? Let not the perfect ideal, that is, the real, in God, be thus mocked, as if such a phenomenon could be MISCELLANEOUS QUOTATIONS. 113 reported as a ' fact ' to any other than an insane hospital. Facts are spiritual. There are no other facts. Facts are in the mind (of Truth). Whatever contradicts truth, love, life, good (harmony), is not a fact, but a fiction." " Do you love truth, O artist! and therefore, paint these features as real? But loving truth, do you yet wish that it were untruth, so you could paint otherwise? More likely you are deceived, and the truth is not in you. Else you could see no inharmony to paint. A true artist can draw no such likeness of this lady, who is a child of God, and without spot or wrinkle in her real image." "The tumor is a shadow, which obeys the substance. It is a symptom of health. There are no other symptoms. Nothing can impede the life-force ; and the force that ac- cumulates (dropsy) can dissipate. The 4 doctor ' (or 1 nurse') is an idiot, who thinks that the student is in dan- ger from any cause. The tumor is Nature's declaration of independence, her affirmation of its nothingness to her. The physician who interprets it otherwise is himself a tumor in the womb of truth, and will be ejected accord- ingly. " The sickly sophistry of i doctor ' and nurse is baseless, and impotent as the opinion of an owl sitting in judg- ment on the daylight ! Let the owl's eyes be blasted ! I, Truth, will show the door of exit for these nocturnal blas- phemers and hypocrites, these imps of the ' Infernus,' who dare to stand up on their ancestral extremities, and declare that man is ' born to die,' that they have dis- covered a tumor that nry Spirit cannot deal with, nor their own puny knife cut away from death ! Ought I not to give place to such (infernal) ignorance, and permit a vis- ion of a graveyard to come in between Me and my people ? Nay ; I declare their impotence ! A single whiff of my 114 APPENDIX. Spirit (breath) shall leave them where they belong, — no- where." "The student is 'lazy, cowardly, conceited, sceptical' — these, the false symptoms, as manifest in 'dropsy, costiveness, parasitic growth,' etc. All of which, and more, the student is accused of by that unconscious liar, — ' Material Sense.' A liar, because attempting to bear testimony in the Supreme Court of Spirit. Groping only in the darkness, it would disprove the divine likeness by the reflex phenomena of its own ignorance. Burrow- ing in c matter,' it ignores the potency of mind. Born of ' dust,' of ' dust' only can it bear witness. " Let the heavenly witnesses come to the stand, and the case of the student be tried before the Supreme Judge and a ' jury of her peers.' " "It is obvious that no wisdom can justify this man's opinion that ' death ' is necessary as a relief for his pretended ' suffering.' Nor is there any basis for his lady friend's fear? Let her 'hold her tongue.' Her imper- tinence is the companion of her fear, and is only equalled by her ignorance. In her ignorance she has no right to be within a thousand miles of this man for whom she professes friendship. Friendship will not confound a friend with the clothes he wears. Nor will friendship accompany a friend in mortal procession to a graveyard ; but only to life and immortality." 4 ' You are a brazen-faced or — what is worse — a blank idiot, when you attempt to contradict your health in God. Your cancer is 'real,' is it? — a vision of truth? Out with you into the outer darkness whence you came ! — you blasphemer of the very name of God. An 'event of Providence,' is it? — 'swollen leg' included, MISCELLANEOUS QUOTATIONS. 115 -* and which you project into the daylight, and say, ' Behold how real! The linked lightnings of the wrath of God are meet for such a rnad venture into the light of such hideous deformity of darkness ! Reason, religion, and ' common sense,' are all violated by the accepted reality of these symptoms." " Symptoms : moral ' chemicalization' of lies, circumlo- cution, and accumulated folly. Indolence, l shoddy aristocracy,' and desire to escape both the name and hardship of work, with swinish willingness to see herself wallowing in the gilded sty of her lingering opulence. The pupil has her ' fine furniture ' on the brain, and her 6 dear child, Mabel' in her heart, except she bite too hard at the nipple, when the parental tushes appear." "These, the symptoms to the material sense. But to the Spiritual sense, none of these. The pupil is not un- truthful to Truth (God), who cannot be contradicted. Her ' lies ' are nonentities. Nor have her i errors ' a name in the Supreme Court, or her apparent ingrati- tude to the writer a place in the mind of God. She can do nothing against the truth, but only for the truth, whose name alone can be hallowed ; and whose angel (in the pupil) still beholds the face of the Divine Mother. Let that Face be revealed to the daughter. Let the chemicalization that still must follow the finite illusion restore her to reason. The ' chemicalization ' is the Yoice of the AlmiglnVy, before whose Face all lies and duplicity must dwindle into inanity and nothingness, while the better soul rises, like the eagle, to her native skies." 116 APPENDIX. POINTS OF THE COMPASS. (Principles of Being.) Life and Love, and Truth and Good, as Divine Prin- ciples, constitute our key to health (wholeness). Life, as a principle (divine), disproves the being of " disease," or " death." Love, as a principle (divine), disproves the being of "fear," or "hate." Truth, as a principle (infinite), disproves the being of " error," or u untruth." Good (God), as a principle, disproves the being of u evil," and affirms universal wholeness (health). These four points of the compass sweep the horizon of thought, and constitute our logical affirmation. Good, however, is the one polar ocean of being, in whose c ' Breath " of Divine Life and Love the Needle of Truth becomes the Index Finger (of God) . By this Index we discover the wholeness of the "Spiritual Body" (and of the " Social State") in the outer, as well as the inner courts of the Temple. Let the student rise in thought to the spiritual altitude of these immortal principles. Any one of them, by divine personification (being infinite), demonstrates the impossible being of all opposites, or finite negations. The demonstration is made by the Logos, or Divine Reason, as well as by Spiritual Intuition, or Divine Love. Love and Life are dually grouped, because Love is Life, and Life (divine, the only Life) is Love. POINTS OF THE COMPASS. 117 Good and Truth are also dual, or inseparable. So is any divine attribute from any other, though not equally obvious in all dual relations. * Modes of Application. These must vary according to the idiosyncrasy or inspiration of the teacher, through whom the "Spirit" alone can give life and health. Begin, therefore, by orienting yourself — (in the silence which lulls the sense of the outer world and its illusive turbulence) . Thus prepare yourself to enter, reverently, the sphere of the student, and to teach (" heal") either in silence, or orally, as wisdom may direct. For it is not the attitude of the body, but of the soul, that is of divine consequence. The earnest, most fraternal, most cheerful, as well as most reverential manner, is best. Commence your sitting by holding firmly in the mind God (or one of the divine attributes) as the only reality, and the soul of the student as a perfect mirror thereof. Reverse the physical phenomena, — the outer body of your student, and your own, and of the entire realm of matter, — and see and sense only " God manifest." Over- shadow your student, as in the halo of Eternal Goodness, and realize his or her angel beholding the face of the Father and Mother in heaven, in whose reflection the " material" body disappears forever in the form and fea- tures of the spiritual. Deny the possibility of any other form or features of Truth, affirming the nonentity of the "mortal" body, and the entity only of the immortal. Destroy the fear of the student, in the name of Love, which is of the divine Substance, in whose image there can be no fear, and which excludes every other image. 118 APPENDIX. Destroy " error" in the name of Truth, and " moral " disease, or " social " inharmony, and sorrow, in the omni- potence of Good. Affirm that mind only and not "matter" can make conditions, and that mind in truth (all the mind there is) affirms the reality of health only. Regard yourself as a teacher rather than " healer," whose concern is more with mental than with " physical" symptoms, knowing that the physical must conform to the mental, and both to the spiritual and eternal verities of being. Avoid stereotyped phraseology, or the formal use of any but the most impressive language, such as "God is Spirit," or "Peace, be still," which nuiy be emplo} r ed at the commencement and close of the demonstration. SUMMUM BONUM (Spiritually Comprehended) . 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