EMS OP THOUGHT 
 
 A BOOK OF TtHUfS8N WtSi^SWWN AUTfSORS 
 
 PROFBS8C& C. W. LBADSBATER 
 WILUAM KENRY MiRR 
 NORA BATCHELOR 
 MARY E. FRANCE 
 DP. J. M. PEEBLES 
 DR. H. V. SWERINCCN 
 WALTER HUDSON RINEHART 
 J. R. PERRY 
 
 AM BORRMAN 
 JUDGE PARISH B. LAB© 
 HENRY MORRISON TSFPT 
 B. B. HILL 
 W. J. COLYILLE 
 
0lass3£±O^ 
 
 Book -,T? 
 
 Gopyiight N° 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2011 with funding from 
 The Library of Congress 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/gemsofthoughtOOcadw 
 
GEMS OF THOUGHT 
 
 SCINTILLATIONS 
 FROM THE PENS OF LEADING AUTHORS 
 
 ILLUMINATING, INSTRUCTIVE 
 AND INSPIRING 
 
 NEW LIGHT FROM MANY SOURCES UPON SUB- 
 • JECTS OF GREAT INTEREST TO MANKIND 
 
 Compiled by 
 J. R. FRANCIS AND M. E. CADWALLADER 
 
 CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 
 
 THE PROGRESSIVE THINKER PUBLISHING HOUSE 
 
 1911 
 
o 
 
 ^T 
 
 Copyright, 1911, 
 
 BY 
 
 M. E. CADWALLADER. 
 
 TRANSFffiREl 
 
 Cufrrf.Glir vhn c 
 
 |UH2«llf^ 
 
GEMS OF THOUGHT, 
 
 A Book of Thirteen Well-Known Authors, 
 
 Professor C. W. Leadbeater 
 William Henry Burr 
 Nora Batehelor 
 Mary E. France 
 Dr. J. M. Peebles 
 Dr. H. V. Siveringen 
 Walter Hudson Binehart 
 J. B. Perry 
 William Borrman 
 Jud£e Parish B. Ladd 
 Henry Morrison Tefft 
 B. B. Hill 
 W. J. Colville 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 In presenting to the patrons of THE 
 PROGRESSIVE THINKER this array of 
 brilliant articles from the pens of well-known 
 authors, it is with a feeling of satisfaction that 
 it will be the means of adding to the general 
 store of knowledge for which the public is 
 eagerly searching. 
 
 This compilation was begun by J. R. 
 Francis, the founder of THE PROGRESS- 
 IVE THINKER, and was left unfinished 
 by his passing from this sphere of existence, 
 after which the work was completed by the 
 undersigned. Its object is to interest the 
 thinking people, and lead them into ad- 
 vanced lines of thought upon the issues of 
 the day. 
 
 THE PROGRESSIVE THINKER 
 library is composed of books which will rank 
 with the leading books upon Spiritual, Edu- 
 cational, Scientific and Occult subjects, and 
 in adding to it this volume "GEMS OF 
 THOUGHT" we are but enhancingits value. 
 
 We trust the reader will enjoy it and 
 accept it with the best wishes of the publisher. 
 
 M. E. Cadwallader. 
 
Clairvoyance in Space. 
 
 A Lecture Delivered Before a Chicago Audience, by 
 
 C. W. Leadbeater, the Great Psychic, 
 
 of London, England, 
 
 VARIETIES OF CLAIRVOYANCE— MAGICAL AND GENU- 
 INE CLAIRVOYANCE— ILLUSTRATION BY WIRELESS 
 TELEGRAPHY — THOUGHT-FORM CLAfRVOYANCE— 
 TRANCE AND ASTRAL VISIT— USING THE MENTAL 
 BODY— CRYSTAL GAZING— INTERESTING PSYCHIC 
 INCIDENTS— MEANINGLESS VISIONS. 
 
 We spoke last week of what a man would see with opened 
 sight if he simply looked round him just where he stood, 
 without making any effort to penetrate into the distance, 
 either of space or time. To-day we have to consider the ca- 
 pacity to see events or scenes removed from the seer in 
 space and too far distant for ordinary observation. When a 
 man in one continent observes and reports what is taking 
 place in another, thousands of miles away, how is it done? 
 
 VARIETIES OF CLAIRVOYANCE. 
 
 Some people may think that the first question ought to be, 
 is it ever done? Yes, there is no doubt whatever that it has 
 been done very often. Anyone who is as yet uncertain as to 
 this should read the large numbers of authenticated in- 
 stances given in the literature of the subject. Cases will be 
 found in the reports of the Psyciical Research Society, and 
 in almost any account of Spiritualistic phenomena. There 
 can be no question in the minds of those who have studied 
 the subject that clairvoyance in space is a possibility — in- 
 
 1 
 
2 CLAIRVOYANCE IN SPACE. 
 
 deed, for us in Theosophy this is so definitely so that we 
 know no less than five ways in which it can be done, as I 
 shall proceed to explain. Of these five ways, four are 
 really varieties of clairvoyance, while the fifth does not 
 properly come under that head at all, but belongs to the do- 
 main of magic. I mention it here only because a person 
 who was endeavoring to classify cases of clairvoyance would 
 sooner or later come across cases of its use, and would very 
 likely be puzzled by them. People often write to Theoso- 
 phists and describe some experience connected with non- 
 physical life, and ask how the result was produced, and 
 sometimes such questions are very difficult to answer — not 
 because the phenomena are ^are, but because they are so 
 common; not that there is any difficulty in accounting for 
 them, but that there are so many ways in which they might 
 have occurred, that without full and careful cross-examina- 
 tion it is impossible to say which method was actually em- 
 ployed. 
 
 MAGICAL AND GENUINE CLAIRVOYANCE. 
 
 But one may usually distinguish this magical procedure 
 from genuine clairvoyance, because its leading feature is 
 that it is not by any faculty of the seer that information is 
 obtained; in fact, he does not see what happens at all, but 
 he is told by another. He simply sends somebody to see 
 from him, though when he has learnt what he wishes to 
 know, he very likely gives it out as though he had seen it 
 himself. In the East this method is largely employed, and 
 the messenger there is usually a nature-spirit, whose assist- 
 ance may be obtained either by invocation or by evocation; 
 that is to say, the operator may either persuade his astral 
 coadjutor by prayers and offerings to give him such help as 
 he desires, or he may compel his aid by the determined ex- 
 ercise of a highly developed will and certain magical cere- 
 monies. The same thing is often done at a Spiritualistic 
 seance, but there the messenger employed is more likely to 
 be a dead man, though sometimes there, too, it is only an 
 obliging nature-spirit, who is amusing himself by posing as 
 somebody's departed relation. Of course there are also cases 
 in which the medium is a clairvoyant, but much more often 
 some dead man goes and sees what is needed, and then 
 comes back and describes it through the organism of the 
 medium. Whichever be the method or the messenger, we 
 may dismiss as not genuine clairvayonce any case in which 
 
CLAIRVOYANCE IN SPACE. 3 
 
 the faculty employed is not that of the seer himself. 
 
 One who possesses the type of clairvoyance of which we 
 spoke last week, and is able to see the astral entities as they 
 move about him, is not therefore necessarily also dowered 
 with this faculty of seeing at a distance. He would still 
 have to learn this,- though it ought not to be difficult for him 
 to acquire it, and it would be done by one of the four meth- 
 ods which I shall try to describe. 
 
 The first has certain analogies on the physical plane, but 
 none of them are perfect. If you can imagine a telephone 
 along the wire of which we could see instead of hearing, that 
 would give a partial analogy. Think of the new system of 
 wireless telegraphy; the vibrations spread out in all direc- 
 tions, but suppose they spread in one direction only, and 
 made a kind of temporary wire as they moved by arranging 
 or magnetizing or polarizing the particles of the ether so 
 that for the time a special current could pass along them, 
 then we should have another analogy; and by combining the 
 two ideas we shall have a fair image of this kind of clair- 
 voyance, which has sometimes been called seeing by means 
 of an astral current. By an effort of will such action may be 
 set up among astral particles as to form a line of them along 
 which the clairvoyant may see, something as though he were 
 looking through a telescope. This method has the disad- 
 vantage that this telegraph line or telescope is liable to dis- 
 arrangement or even destruction by any sufficiently strong 
 astral current which happens to cross its path; but if the 
 original effort of will were fairly definite, this would not 
 often happen. The view of distant events obtained in this 
 way is usually not unlike that gained by means of a tele- 
 scope. Figures appear very small, like those upon a distant 
 stage, and they are often seen in the midst of a disc of light, 
 as though they were scenes thrown upon a sheet from a 
 magic lantern. The observer has no power to shift his point 
 of view so as to understand better what he sees, nor can he, 
 as a rule, exercise any further faculty; he would not, for ex- 
 ample, be able to hear what was being said among those dis» 
 tant actors. 
 
 In this case the consciousness of the clairvoyant remains 
 at this end of the line, so that he is able to use his physical 
 organs while he sees, and can describe everything as it oc- 
 curs. This is one of the commonest orders of sight at a dis- 
 tance, and for many people it is very much facilitated if they 
 have some physical object which can be used as a starting- 
 
4 CLAIRVOYANCE IN SPACE. 
 
 point for their astral telegraph line or tube — a convenient fo- 
 cus for their will-power. A ball of crystal is the commonest 
 and most effectual of such aids, since it has the advantage of 
 possessing within itself qualities which stimulate psychic 
 faculty. There are plenty of cases on record in which by 
 means of a crystal men have seen what took place at a dis- 
 tance; but this belongs more properly to a later stage of our 
 subject! 
 
 THOUGHT-FORM CLAIRVOYANCE. 
 
 Let us compare this with another type of clairvoyance— 
 that by means of a thought-form. All students of Theosophy 
 are aware that thought takes form on its own plane, and 
 very much of it upon the astral plane as well; and in some 
 cases this thought takes the form of the thinker. If a man 
 thinks of himself very strongly as present at a certain 
 place or wishes very strongly to be there, he will often pro- 
 ject an image of himself which will be visible to clairvoyant 
 sight. Normally the man has no control over such a form 
 when it has once left him, but there are methods by which a 
 man may retain such connection with it as may enable him 
 to receive impressions through it — to use it as a kind of out- 
 post of his consciousness. In such cases, the impressions 
 made upon the form would be conveyed to the seer not along 
 a line of astral particles, as in the last case, but by sympa- 
 thetic vibration. In exercising this type of sight, the opera- 
 tor will still be perfectly conscious at his own end of the line, 
 and so can describe as he sees, so long as he does not allow 
 the intentness of his thought to be disturbed. If he loses 
 that for an instant, the whole vision vanishes. But he had 
 advantages over the man using the astral current, in that he 
 sees his figures life-size, as though he were close to them, 
 and may also to some extent shift his point of view if he 
 wishes. Instances of this kind of sight among untrained 
 people are naturally rarer than the other, since it requires 
 greater mental control. 
 
 TRANCE, AND ASTRAL VISIT. 
 
 There is, however, another and still more efficient variety 
 of this sight, whicn would present somewhat different symp- 
 toms to the observer. If your seer fell into a trance, so that 
 his physical consciousness was for the time unavailable, and 
 it was only after his return that he could describe what he 
 had seen — then you have probably an example of this other 
 
CLAIRVOYANCE IN SPACE. 5 
 
 type of clairvoyance in which the information is gained by 
 an astral visit. Instead of seeing from a distance or sending 
 a messenger, the man simply goes and sees for himself, 
 which is in many ways much the most satisfactory way. In 
 this case he will describe himself as standing among the 
 actors in his scene, hearing what they say as well as seeing 
 what they do, able to move about freely as he wishes. Man- 
 ifestly this is a greater achievement and altogether a more 
 efficient faculty, for the man who possesses it fully can see 
 and study at leisure all the other inhabitants of the astral 
 plane, so that the great world of nature-spirits lies open be- 
 fore him, and he may converse at will with them, and even 
 with some of the lower devas or angels. Wherever he goes, 
 he goes in full consciousness, with full power of investiga- 
 tion. True, it has its own special dangers for the un- 
 trained seer, and they are greater than those of either of the 
 other methods; yet it is the most satisfactory form of clair- 
 voyance open to him, for the immensely superior variety 
 which we shall next consider is not available except for spe- 
 cially trained students. 
 
 This last method, which is so much the best and highest, 
 consists simply of using the mental body instead of the 
 astral vehicle, which naturally requires much greater devel- 
 opment. In this body the man travels just as in the other 
 case, but without any of the dangers which beset the path 
 of the astral visitor, and with the enormous advantages 
 which the possession of the higher faculties of the mental 
 plane gives in the way of additional sight and wider knowl- 
 edge. In his travels he sees so much more and has so much 
 greater opportunities chiefly because he has the capacity of 
 entering upon all the glory and beauty of the higher land of 
 bliss, so that for him heaven is always open, not as a far- 
 away vision, but as an ever-present reality in which he is 
 living and moving at will. 
 
 We see, therefore, that, besides the magical method first 
 mentioned, we have four types of clairvoyance — that by an 
 astral telescope, that dependent upon the projection of a 
 thought-form, that involving an astral visit, and that which 
 needs the use of the mental body. The man who possesses 
 either of these latter has obviously many and great advan- 
 tages at his disposal, even besides those already enumer- 
 ated. Not only can he visit without trouble or expense all 
 the beautiful and famous places of the earth, but if he hap- 
 pens to be a scholar, think what it must mean to him that he 
 
6 CLAIRVOYANCE IN SPACE. 
 
 has access to all the libraries of the world! What must it 
 be for the scientifically-minded man to see taking place be- 
 fore his eyes so many of the processes of the secret chem- 
 istry of nature, or for the philosopher to have revealed to 
 him so much more than ever before of the working of the 
 great mysteries of life and death. To him those who are 
 gone from this plane are dead no longer, but living and with- 
 in reach for a long time to come; for him many of the con- 
 ceptions of religion are no longer matters of faith, but of 
 knowledge. Above all, he can join the army of invisible 
 helpers, and really be of use on a large scale. Certainly it 
 has its dangers also, especially for the untrained; dangers 
 from evil entities of various kinds, which may terrify or in- 
 jure those who allow themselves to lose the courage to face 
 them boldly; danger of deception of all sorts, of misconceiv- 
 ing and misinterpreting what is seen; greatest of all, the 
 danger of becoming conceited about the thing and of think- 
 ing it impossible to make a mistake. But a little common- 
 sense and a little experience should protect a man against 
 these. 
 
 It must not be forgotten that the man who acquires these 
 powers under the guidance of a qualified teacher will be 
 bound by certain restrictions. Briefly, these will be that 
 there shall be no prying, no selfish use of the power, and no 
 displaying of phenomena. That is to say, the same consider- 
 ations of honor and good feeling which would govern the ac- 
 tions of a gentleman upon this plane are expected to apply 
 upon the astral and mental planes also; that the pupil is 
 never under any circumstances to use the power which his 
 additional knowledge gives him in order to promote his own 
 worldly advantage, or indeed in connection with gain in any 
 way, and never to give what is called in Spiritualistic circles 
 "a test" — that is, to do anything which will incontestably 
 prove to skeptics on the physical plane that he possesses 
 what to them would appear to be an abnormal power. With 
 regard to this latter proviso people often say "Why should 
 he not? It would be so easy to convince and confute the 
 skeptic, and it would do him good!" Such critics lose sight 
 of the fact that, in the first place, none of those who know 
 anything want to confute or convince skeptics, or indeed 
 ever trouble themselves about the skeptic's attitude in the 
 slightest degree one way or the other; and in the second, 
 they fail to understand how much better it is for that skeptic 
 
CLAIRVOYANCE IN SPACE. 7 
 
 that he should gradually grow into an intellectual apprecia- 
 tion of the facts of nature, instead of being suddenly intro. 
 duced to them by a knock-down blow, as it were. 
 
 CRYSTAL GAZING, ETC. 
 
 So far we have been considering what these powers would 
 be to him who possessed them fully, and had been trained to 
 use them. But the majority of cases with which an investi- 
 gator of the subject would come into contact would naturally 
 fall very far short of these. He may meet with a few in- 
 stances of intentional clairvoyance, when the seer definitely 
 sets himself to discover a certain fact, and succeeds to a 
 greater or less extent. But he will find far more who see 
 unintentionally and spasmodically without any idea before- 
 hand when the faculty will manifest itself. Another class, 
 standing between these two, is that of those who intention- 
 ally put themselves in the way of seeing something, but do 
 not in the least know what it will be, nor have any control 
 over the sight when the visions have begun. They may be 
 said to be psychic Micawbers, who put themselves into a re- 
 ceptive condition, and simply wait for something to turn up, 
 The commonest variety of these is the crystal-gazer. Some- 
 times, but comparatively rarely, he is able to direct his vis- 
 ion in his crystal as he wishes; but the majority of such 
 gazers just form a fortuitous astral tube and see whatever 
 happens to present itself at the end of it. The crystal is for 
 them simply a focus from which their clairvoyant line starts, 
 and is not really a necessity at all, though they usually think 
 that they could not do anything without it. 
 
 Any sort of polished surface may be employed. I have 
 heard of a mirror being used, or a glass ball, or a bottle of 
 water, and it may be recollected that Lane describes the use 
 of ink for this purpose in his introduction to the "Arabian 
 Nights." A drop of blood is used among the Maoris in New 
 Zealand, and I have even heard of a saucer of charcoal being 
 employed. Mr. Andrew Lang in his "Dreams and Ghosts" 
 gives us a very good example of the purposeless kind of vis- 
 ion most frequently seen in this way. He says: "I had given 
 a glass ball to a young lady, Miss Baillie, who had scarcely 
 any success with it. She loaned it to Miss Leslie, who saw 
 a large square old-fashioned red sofa covered with muslin, 
 which she found in the next country-house she visited. Miss 
 Baillie's brother, a young athlete, laughed at these experi- 
 
8 CLAIRVOYANCE IN SPACE. 
 
 ments, took the ball into the study, and came back looking 
 'gey gash.' He admitted that he had seen a vision — some- 
 body he knew, under a lamp. He would discover during the 
 week whether he saw right or not. This was at 5:30 on a 
 Sunday afternoon. 
 
 "On Tuesday Mr. Baillie was at a dance in a town some 
 forty miles from his home, and met a Miss Preston. 'On 
 Sunday,' he said, 'about half-past five you were sitting under 
 a standard lamp in a dress I never saw you wear, a blue 
 blouse with lace over the shoulders, pouring out tea for a 
 man in blue serge, whose back was towards me, so that I 
 only saw the tip of his moustache.' 'Why, the blinds must 
 have been up!' said Miss Preston. 'I was at Dulby,' said Mr. 
 Baillie, and he undeniably was." 
 
 This is quite a typical case of crystal-gazing — the picture 
 correct in every detail, you see, and yet absolutely unimport- 
 ant and bearing no apparent signification of any sort to 
 either party, except that it served to prove to Mr. Baillie that 
 there was something in crystal-gazing. But it is sometimes 
 exactly in this apparently aimless, accidental sort of way 
 that the first gleam of a higher vision comes to a person. 
 Sometimes it is because the physical body is temporarily 
 weakened by illness, so that for the moment its insistent fac- 
 ulties are not so much in evidence, and so the others which 
 are, usually hidden are able to show through. Sometimes 
 it is an effort from the outside which for a moment makes a 
 person sensitive to what normally would not be able to im- 
 press him. We have a very good example of this in Dr. 
 Bushnell's work, "Nature and the Supernatural." 
 
 The story runs that a certain Captain Yonnt had a twice- 
 repeated dream, in which he very clearly saw a party of emi- 
 grants perishing from cold and hunger at a spot in the moun- 
 tains, the scenery of which was strongly impressed upon his 
 mind. On describing it in the morning to an old hunter, the 
 latter recognized the scenery at once; and this fact so pro- 
 foundly impressed Captain Yonnt that he forthwith set off 
 to find the place, being persuaded that the emigrants were 
 really there, according to his dream. All proved to be ex- 
 actly as he had seen it, and he was enabled to save the lives 
 of the people. It would seem probable that some helper, ob- 
 serving the forlorn condition of the emigrant party, took the 
 nearest impressible and otherwise suitable person (who hap- 
 pened to be the Captain) to the spot in the astral body, and 
 
CLAIRVOYANCE IN SPACE. 9 
 
 aroused him sufficiently to fix the scene firmly in his mem- 
 ory. 
 
 Sometimes when two people are in very close sympathy, 
 we find that a bond exists between them which enables one 
 of them to impress the other in this way at some great cri- 
 sis or in some serious need. I remember a case told in the 
 proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research about an 
 English general who was seriously wounded in one of the 
 battles in the Indian mutiny, and supposed himself to be dy- 
 ing. As he was being borne off the field, he said to one of 
 the officers near him, "Take this ring off my finger, and send 
 it to my wife," and the officers promised him to do so. His 
 wife at this particular moment had just lain down in bed, but 
 was still wide awake when she saw the whole scene as in a 
 vision, and heard her husband make the request above de- 
 scribed. It was only some days later that she learnt that 
 her husband had really been seriously wounded at the as- 
 sault upon Mooltan, and that he had actually made the re- 
 quest about the ring as she seemed to hear it in the vision. 
 In this instance obviously it was the intimate sympathy be- 
 tween husband and wife which made the rapport possible, 
 and then the general's earnest thought of his wife acting 
 upon a mind already so closely attuned to his conveyed the 
 picture to her, so that she saw and heard practically as though 
 she had been present in the flesh. Probably he may have 
 definitely wished that she were with him, or at any rate that 
 he could see her before his death. So strong a thought as 
 this does not, however, seem to be indispensable, for there 
 are cases in which clairvoyance has been produced, and the 
 necessary link supplied, by a thought which was not at all of 
 that nature, and not even apparently connected with any 
 definite wish. A case illustrating this is to be found in the 
 proceedings of the Psychical Research Society, Vol. II, p. 160: 
 
 "Mrs. Broughton awoke one night in 1844 and roused her 
 husband, telling him that something dreadful had happened 
 in France. He begged her to go to sleep again, and not 
 trouble him. She assured him that she was not asleep when 
 she saw what she insisted on telling him. First, a carriage 
 accident — which she did not actually see, but what she saw 
 was the result — a broken carriage, a crowd collected, a figure 
 gently raised and carried into the nearest house, then a fig- 
 ure lying on a bed, which she then recognized as the Duke of 
 Orleans. Gradually friends collecting round the bed, among 
 them several members of the French royal family; the queen, 
 
10 CLAIRVOYANCE IN SPACE. 
 
 then the king, all silently and tearfully watching the evi- 
 dently dying duke. One man (she could see his back, but 
 did not know who he was) was a doctor. He stood bending 
 over the duke, feeling his pulse, with his watch in the other 
 hand. And then all passed away, and she saw no more. As 
 soon as it was daylight she wrote down in her journal all 
 that she had seen. It was before the days of the electric tel- 
 egraph, and two or more days passed before the papers an- 
 nounced the death of the Duke of Orleans. Visiting Paris a 
 short time afterwards, she saw and recognized the place of 
 the accident and received the explanation of her impression. 
 The doctor who attended the dying duke was an old friend of 
 hers, and as he watched by the bed his mind had been con- 
 stantly occupied with her and her family." 
 
 Evidently in this case the link was formed by the doctor's 
 frequent thought about Mrs. Broughton, yet he clearly had 
 no especial wish that she should see what he was doing at 
 the time. Evidently also, the clairvoyance was of the "astral 
 telescope" type, as is shown by the fixity of her point of view 
 — which, be it observed, was not the doctor's point of view 
 sympathetically transferred (as it might easily have been) 
 since she sees his back without recognizing him. 
 
 MEANINGLESS VISIONS. 
 
 There is a large class of clairvoyant visions which have no 
 traceable cause, which are apparently quite meaningless, 
 and have no recognizable relation to any events known to 
 the seer. To this class belong many of the landscapes seen 
 by some people just before they fall asleep. The scenes ap- 
 pear to be selected entirely at haphazard, just as though one 
 seized a physical telescope and turned it vaguely upon the 
 landscape without looking first to see at what it was pointed. 
 Sometimes what are seen are not landscapes but faces, or 
 clouds of color. One of the best descriptions of this sort of 
 scene that I know is given by Mr. W. T. Stead in his "Real 
 Ghost Stories," p. 65: 
 
 "I got into bed, but was not able to sleep. I shut my eyes 
 and waited for sleep to come; instead of sleep, however, 
 there came to me a succession of curiously vivid clairvoyant 
 pictures. There was no light in the room and it was per- 
 fectly dark; I had my eyes shut also. But notwithstanding 
 the darkness I suddenly was conscious of looking at a scene 
 of singular beauty. It was as if I saw a living miniature 
 
CLAIRVOYANCE IN SPACE. 11 
 
 about the size of a magic-lantern slide. At this moment I 
 can recall the scene as if I saw it again. It was a seaside 
 piece. The moon was shining upon the water, which rippled 
 slowly on to the beach. Right before me a long mole ran out 
 into the water. On either side of the mole irregular rocks 
 stood up above the sea-level. On the shore stood several 
 houses, square and rude, which resembled nothing that I had 
 ever seen in house architecture. No one was stirring, but the 
 moon was there and the sea and the gleam of the moonlight 
 on the rippling waters, just as if I had been looking on the 
 actual scene. . . .1 was wide awake, and at the same time that 
 I saw the scene I distinctly heard the dropping of the rain 
 outside the window. Then suddenly, without any apparent 
 object or reason, the scene changed. The moonlit sea van- 
 ished, and in its place I was looking right into the interior of 
 a reading-room. It seemed as if it had been used as a school- 
 room in the daytime, and was employed as a reading-room in 
 the evening. I remember seeing one reader hold up a maga- 
 zine or book in his hand and laugh. It was not a picture — 
 it was there. The scene was just as if you were looking 
 through an opera-glass; you saw the play of the muscles, the 
 gleaming of the eye, every movement of the unknown per- 
 sons in the unnamed place into which- you were gazing. I 
 saw all that without opening my eyes, nor did my eyes have 
 anything to do with it. You see such things as these as it 
 were with another sense which is more inside your head 
 than in your eyes. This was a very poor and paltry experi- 
 ence, but it enabled me to understand better how it is that 
 clairvoyants see than any amount of disquisition. The pic- 
 tures were apropos of nothing; they had been suggested by 
 nothing I had been reading or talking- of; they simply came 
 as if I had been able to look through a glass at what was oc- 
 curring somewhere else in the world. I had my peep, and 
 then it passed, nor have I had a recurrence of a similar expe- 
 rience." 
 
 This seems as absolutely casual as the glimpse one gets 
 through a gap in the hedge when one is driving along a road; 
 yet it had its value for Mr. Stead, for it gave him that one 
 touch of personal experience which is worth so much to the 
 investigator. How this direct evidence may be systematic- 
 ally obtained will be the subject of our fourth lecture on 
 Clairvoyance; but short of undertaking the personal develop- 
 ment which will give us first-hand experience, very much 
 
12 CLAIRVOYANCE IN SPACE. 
 
 may be learnt from the literature of the subject. I have my- 
 self presented the Theosophical theory of clairvoyance in a 
 treatise on the matter, an epitome of which I am giving in 
 these lectures. To that book I would refer those who wish 
 for further detail, as they will find in it all that I have now 
 said, and much more. From it also they may get the names 
 of other books in which collections of illustrations can be 
 found; and in this way they may study the subject through 
 the eyes of those who have investigated it, and may acquire 
 some idea of the great mass of evidence that lies within their 
 reach. 
 
 In describing to you to-night these various kinds of clair- 
 voyance I have mentioned nothing of which I have not my- 
 self seen instances; and what I have seen you may see, if you 
 are willing to take the trouble which I took. There is no 
 mystery as to the methods either of investigation or of self- 
 development; they are fully and clearly described in the The- 
 osophical literature, and all that is necessary is the resolu* 
 tion to make the effort. Few things, surely, can be more in. 
 teresting than a study which opens up to us so wide a field, 
 which gives us so far grander and truer a conception of this 
 beautiful world in which the Divine Power has placed us in 
 order that through the lessons to be learnt here we may 
 qualify ourselves for the glorious future which He has des- 
 tined for us all. 
 
Clairvoyance in Time. 
 
 A Lecture Delivered Before a Chicago Audience, by 
 
 C. W. Leadbeater, the Great Psychic, 
 
 of London, England. 
 
 VISIONS OF THE REMOTE PAST— THE CONSCIOUS- 
 NESS OF THE LOGOS— DIFFICULTY OF EXPRESSING 
 RECORDS— PSYCHOMETRIC DELINEATIONS— FORE- 
 SEEING WHAT HAS NOT HAPPENED— TWO METH- 
 ODS OF PREVISION— ANOTHER KIND OF PREVISION. 
 
 We examined last week the question of clairvoyance in 
 space, and considered the various ways in which it is possi- 
 ble for a man to see what is taking place at a distance. To- 
 night we have another problem — that of trying to understand 
 how it is possible for a man to see what happened long ago 
 in the past, or what will happen in the future. In this case 
 I may again repeat what I said last week, that there is no 
 question at all that this can be done, and has been done 
 times without number. The authenticated cases of what is 
 called "second sight" among the Highlanders of Scotland 
 are in themselves quite sufficient to furnish evidence to con- 
 vince the most skeptical. Once more, as with mesmerism, 
 with apparitions, with Spiritualism, I am not speaking for 
 those who are still ignorant of the facts of the case and 
 therefore do not yet know that these things happen, but for 
 those who wish to know how they are done. Those who are 
 unfamiliar with the facts should study the literature of the 
 subject, which is a very considerable one. 
 
 VISIONS OF THE REMOTE PAST. 
 
 Let us divide our subject into two parts which naturally 
 
 13 
 
14 CLAIRVOYANCE IN TIME. 
 
 occur as one thinks of it, and take up separately the power 
 of looking back and the power of looking forward. We shall 
 find that both these powers are possessed by different people 
 in very varying degrees, ranging from the man who has both 
 faculties fully at his command, down to one who only occa- 
 sionally gets involuntary and very imperfect glimpses or 
 reflections of the scenes of other days. Take first the case 
 of a detailed vision of the remote past; how is it possible 
 that this can be obtained? Broadly speaking, it is possible 
 because there is such a thing as memory of Nature — a record 
 of every occurrence made automatically as it takes place. 
 Nothing can happen that does not indelibly impress itself, 
 and the record which it leaves can be read forever after by 
 the man who learns how this is done. Where and how is the 
 impression made, you will say? In order to understand 
 something of that, we shall have to try to carry our thoughts 
 very high indeed, for we must raise them towards the con- 
 sciousness of Him who made the system, and make an effort 
 to image to ourselves how its events will be likely to present 
 themselves to Him. His mind is far above our imperfect 
 comprehension, yet we can reason upwards towards it to a 
 certain limited extent. It is found, as I have said before, 
 that it is possible for man to develop within himself the con- 
 sciousness of higher levels, and though of course the highest 
 of these is infinitely below the Divine consciousness, yet it is 
 obvious that it must at least be nearer to it than the entirely 
 undeveloped consciousness. So that if we note the line 
 along which this exalted consciousness differs from that of 
 the physical plane, we shall at least be looking upward 
 toward the Divine; and by carrying on the same idea to the 
 utmost limit of our mental capacity we shall form a concep- 
 tion of His consciousness which will be not inaccurate as 
 far as it goes, though naturally hopelessly inadequate. What- 
 ever we can imagine along that line of development, all that, 
 and infinitely more, He must be. All religions tell us that 
 the Deity is omnipresent; in our Theosophical study we 
 reach the very same conclusion, though by quite a different 
 line. 
 
 Those who have examined the illustrations of the higher 
 bodies of man which I have given in my new book on the 
 subject will recollect that, as the man developes, his vehicles 
 not only improve in color and luminosity, but also grow in 
 size. The aura, the luminous colored mist surrounding the 
 physical body of man, may be seen by clairvoyant sight at 
 
CLAIRVOYANCE IN TIME. 15 
 
 various levels, because it contains matter of different de- 
 grees of density, so that whether a man be using the sight of 
 his astral body, his mental body, or even his causal body, 
 there will be something in it for him to see. But all the ex- 
 perience gained through these lower vehicles is all the while 
 being stored up. by the man himself, who is thereby steadily 
 developing qualities and increasing his consciousness ; he is, 
 as it were, a reservoir of force, and more and more energy is 
 being stored up within him. To retain this, and to give it 
 due expression, he_ eventually needs a larger causal body, 
 and so it comes that the highly-evolved man, as seen by the 
 clairvoyant, is readily recognizable by this feature as well as 
 by increasing splendor in light and color. This is by no 
 means a new idea to students of these matters, for it may be 
 found in the Oriental books. It is stated in Buddhist litera- 
 ture that the aura of the Buddha had a very unusual exten- 
 sion, and that its influence might be felt at a great distance 
 from his physical body. We know that if we come into the 
 presence of a strongly magnetic person we at once feel his 
 influence, and this is in reality nothing but the vibration sent 
 out from his higher vehicles. There are some people with 
 whom we dislike to come into close contact, and others to 
 whom we feel it a blessing to be near, and this again is be- 
 cause we sense their vibrations, though often without know- 
 ing it. In the case of the evolved man, we absolutely enter 
 his aura when we approach his bodily presence, and so we 
 are strongly influenced and brought for the time into har- 
 mony with his vibrations. We have only to extend this idea 
 to understand how a great Adept may shower blessing upon 
 a whole neighborhood merely by his presence, and how a still 
 greater one may include the entire world itself within his 
 aura; and from this we may gradually lead our minds up to 
 the conception that there is a Being so exalted as to compre- 
 hend within Himself the whole of our solar system. And 
 we should remember that, enormous as this seems to us, it 
 is but as the tiniest drop in the vast ocean of space. 
 
 So of the Logos (who has in Him all the capacities and 
 qualities with which we can possibly endow the highest God 
 we can imagine) it is literally true, as was said of old, that 
 "of Him and through Him and to Him are all things," and "in 
 Him we live and move and have our being." I was once told 
 in India by a Muhammadan scholar that this was the true 
 meaning of the daily cry of the muezzin from his minaret, as 
 he calls the faithful to prayer — "La illah il allah," which is 
 
16 CLAIRVOYANCE IN TIME. 
 
 commonly translated, "There is no God but God." The state- 
 ment made by this learned man was that the true translation 
 should be rather, "There is nothing but God"; and if that be 
 so, we have here a very beautiful expression from an unex- 
 pected quarter of the eternal truth that all His system is a 
 manifestation of Him, and that in all its worlds there can be 
 nothing that is not He. 
 
 THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE LOGOS. 
 
 Now if this be so, it is clear that whatever happens within 
 our system happens absolutely within the consciousness of 
 its Logcs, and so we at once see that the true record must 
 be its memory. Furthermore, it is obvious that, on whatever 
 plane that wondrous memory exists, it cannot but be far 
 above anything that we know; consequently, whatever records 
 we may find ourselves able to read must be only a reflection 
 of that great dominant fact, mirrored in the denser media of 
 the lower planes On the astral plane it is at once evident 
 that this is so — that what we are dealing with is only a re- 
 flection of a reflection,, and an exceedingly imperfect one, for 
 such records as can be reached there are fragmentary in the 
 extreme, and often seriously distorted. The medieval al- 
 chemists often employed water as a symbol of astral matter, 
 and it certainly is a remarkably apt one. Prom the surface 
 of still water we may get a clear reflection of the surround- 
 ing objects, just as from a mirror; but at the best it is only a 
 two-dimensional representation of three-dimensional things, 
 and therefore it differs in all its qualities, except color, from 
 that which it represents and is always reversed as well. 
 
 But suppose the surface of the water is ruffled by the wind, 
 what do we find then? A reflection still, certainly, but so 
 broken up and distorted as to be quite useless or even mis- 
 leading as a guide to the shape and real appearance of the 
 objects reflected. Here and there for a moment we might 
 happen to get a clear picture of some tiny part of the scene 
 — of a single leaf from a tree, for example; but it would need 
 long labor and considerable knowledge of natural laws to 
 build up anything like a true conception of the whole obect 
 by putting together even a large number of such isolated 
 fragments of an image of it. 
 
 Perhaps such reflections are more often seen than people 
 realize, for much that is taken for meaningless vision or 
 dream is actually a glimpse of a record of the past. But the 
 untrained clairvoyant can do but little with such a glimpse 
 
CLAIRVOYANCE IN TIME. 1 7 
 
 even when he gets it; he is usually quite unable to relate it 
 to what occurred before or after it, or to account for any- 
 thing extraordinary which may appear in it. The trained man 
 who sees a higher reflection on the mental plane is able to 
 deal very differently with his picture; he can follow the 
 drama connected with it backwards or forwards to any ex- 
 tent that may seem desirable, and can trace out with equal 
 ease the causes which led up to it or the results which it in 
 its turn will produce. The record there is full and accurate, 
 and cannot be mistaken. Even there there is still a differ- 
 ence between different observers — not that it would be possi- 
 ble at that level to see wrongly, but that a certain personal 
 equation enters into the transference of the memory to this 
 physical plane. Our observations in this world have pre- 
 cisely similar limitations. If a dozen people look at the 
 same scene together, no two of them will give exactly the 
 same description of it afterwards. Each will seize upon 
 what interests him the most; the botanist will describe the 
 trees and plants very fully, the geologist will scarcely notice 
 the trees, but will carefully note the type of the soil and the 
 age of the rocks; the farmer will note the quality of the soil 
 from another point of view, while the artist will ignore all 
 these points, but will have a keen eye for bits of color or for 
 beauties of form, and will probably bring away a better 
 grasp of the scene as a whole than any of the others. 
 
 DIFFICULTY IN EXPRESSING RECORDS. 
 
 In exactly the same way, though many observers may see 
 simultaneously the same record on the mental plane, their, 
 accounts of it on the physical plane may sometimes be dis- 
 proportionate, each attaching most importance to what ap- 
 peals most to him individually. It is in the nature of things 
 impossible that any account given down here of a vision or 
 experience on the mental plane can be complete, since nine- 
 tenths of what is seen and felt there cannot be expressed by 
 physical words at all; and since all expression must there- 
 fore be partial, there is obviously some possibility of selec* 
 tion as to the part expressed. Still, allowing for these slight 
 and unaccountable divergences, we find in practice that ac- 
 counts from the mental plane agree, and so by long-con- 
 tinued experiment and verification we learn that we can de« 
 pend upon the records at this level as correct. There still 
 remains, however, the impossibility of fully expressing them 
 in words. The difficulty is analogous to that which a painter 
 
18 CLAIRVOYANCE IN TIME. 
 
 finds in putting before us a landscape. The most perfect 
 picture is simply a very ingenious attempt to make upon 
 only one of our five senses, by means of lines and colors on a 
 flat surface, an impression similar to that which would have 
 been made if we had actually had before us the scene de- 
 picted. The picture itself really shows us but little, and it 
 is the brain which from its previous experience supplies 
 what is missing. Thus if we show a picture to a savage or 
 to an animal, in many cases he is quite unable to under- 
 stand what it means. If he has no previous experience, if he 
 has never seen anything resembling the subject of the pic- 
 ture, it suggests but little to him. 
 
 The clairvoyant labors under just such difficulties, but to 
 a far greater degree, in his efforts to describe in the terms 
 of a three-dimensional world the facts of one which is built 
 on a wider plan — which has an extension in a direction in- 
 comprehensible to the physical brain. If you try to study 
 along the lines of the fourth dimension you will understand 
 what I mean, and you will see how from that point of view 
 the limitations which we call time and space are so much 
 modified that they have practically ceased to exist. It is 
 evident from the study of the highest consciousness in man, 
 that in the Divine consciousness this record must be some- 
 thing very much more than memory; for clearly to Him the 
 past, present and future cannot hold at all the same relation 
 as they do to our sight; they must all exist side by side, they 
 must be simultaneously present. 
 
 Thirty years ago I met with a very curious little book 
 which tried to explain this scientifically from the orthodox 
 religious point of view. Its arguments were so ingenious 
 that I should like to reproduce the outline of them for you. 
 It began by the undeniable statement that we see everything 
 by light either emitted or reflected by it, and that that light 
 travels through space at a certain recognized rate — 186,000 
 miles per second. As far as anything in our own world is 
 concerned, this may be considered as practically instantane- 
 ous, but when we come to deal with interplanetary distances 
 we have to take the speed of light into account. For exam- 
 ple, it takes eight minutes and a quarter for it to travel to us 
 from the sun, so that when we look at the solar orb we see 
 it by means of a ray of light which left it more than eight 
 minutes ago. 
 
 From this follows a very curious result. The ray of light 
 by which we see the sun can obviously report to us only the 
 
CLAIRVOYANCE IN TIME. 19 
 
 state of affairs which existed in that luminary when it start- 
 ed on its journey, and would not be in the least affected by 
 anything that happened there after it left; so that we really 
 see the sun not as he is, but as he was eight minutes ago. 
 That is to say that if anything of importance took place in 
 the sun, such as the formation of a new sun-spot, an astron- 
 omer who is watching the orb through his telescope at the 
 time would be quite unaware of the incident while it was 
 happening, since the ray of light bearing the news would not 
 reach him until more than eight minutes later. The differ- 
 ence is more striking when we consider the fixed stars, be- 
 cause in their case the distance is so enormously greater. 
 The pole star, for example, is believed to be so far off that 
 light, traveling at the inconceivable speed above mentioned, 
 takes a little more than fifty years to reach our eyes; and 
 from that follows the strange but inevitable inference that we 
 see the pole star not as and where it is at the present mo- 
 ment, but as and where it was fifty years ago. If to-morrow 
 some cosmic catastrophe were to shatter the pole star into 
 fragments, we should still see it peacefully shining in the 
 sky all the rest of our lives; our children would grow up to 
 middle age and gather their children about them in turn be- 
 fore the news of that tremendous accident reached any ter- 
 restrial eye. In the same way there are other stars so far 
 distant that light takes thousands of years to move from 
 them to us, and with reference to their condition our infor- 
 mation is therefore thousands of years behind time. 
 
 Suppose we were able to place a man at the distance of 
 186,000 miles from the earth, and yet endow him with the 
 wonderful faculty of being able from that distance to see 
 what was happening here as clearly as though he were still 
 close beside us. It is evident that a man so placed would 
 see everything a second after the time when it really hap- 
 pened, and so at the present moment he would be seeing 
 what happened a second ago. Double the distance, and he 
 would be two seconds behind time. Remove him to the 
 distance of the sun, and he would look down and watch you 
 doing, not what you are doing now, but what you were doing 
 eight minutes ago. Carry him away to the pole star, and he 
 would see passing before his eyes the events of fifty years 
 ago; he would be watching the childish gambols of those 
 who at the very same moment were really middle-aged men. 
 Marvelous as this is, it is literally and scientifically true, and 
 cannot be denied. The same idea is taken up and worked 
 
2 CLAIRVOYANCE IN TIME. 
 
 out in Carnille Flammarion's book, "Stories in Infinity." Our 
 little treatise went on to argue that God, being omnipresent, 
 must be at all these points of view at once, and also at every 
 intermediate point, and that He must certainly possess such 
 a power of sight as we have postulated. Consequently, to 
 His sight everything that has ever happened must be hap- 
 pening new — not as a memory, but~as a living fact. Now all 
 this is materialistic enough, and on the plane of purely phys- 
 ical science, and we may therefore be assured that it is not 
 the way in which the memory of the Logos acts; yet it is 
 neatly worked out and absolutely incontrovertible, and it is. 
 not without its use, since it gives us a glimpse of some possi- 
 bilities which otherwise might not occur to us. It does sug- 
 gest to us that an infinite power must possess faculties which 
 are utterly beyond our grasp, which would produce results 
 far surpassing our wildest efforts of imagination. 
 
 PSYCHOMETRIC DELINEATIONS. 
 
 But, it may be asked, how is it possible, amid the bewilder- 
 ing confusion of these records of the past, to find any par- 
 ticular picture when it is wanted ? As a matter of fact, the 
 untrained clairvoyant usually cannot do so without some spe- 
 cial link to put him in touch with the subject required. Psy- 
 chometry is an instance in point, and it is quite probable 
 that our ordinary memory is really only another present- 
 ment of the same idea. It seems as though there were a 
 sort of magnetic attachment or affinity between any particle 
 of matter and the record which contains its history — an af- 
 finity which enables it to act as a kind of conductor between 
 that record and the faculties of any one who can read it, 
 For example, I once brought from Stonehenge a tiny fragment 
 of stone, not larger than a pin's head, and on putting this 
 into an envelope and handing it to a psychometer who had 
 no idea what it was, she at once began to describe that won- 
 derful ruin and the desolate country surrounding it, and then 
 went on to picture what were evidently scenes from its early 
 history, showing that that infinitesimal fragment had been 
 sufficient to put her into communication with the records 
 connected with the spot from which it came. It would seem 
 as though the very walls of our rooms were phonographs, 
 which can be made to reproduce to a person trained to under- 
 stand them, not only the sounds but also the pictures which 
 have been impressed upon them. There is a separate liters 
 ature of this subject of psychometry, and it is well worth our 
 
CLAIRVOYANCE IN TIME. 21 
 
 study. The best book that I know upon it is Professor Den- 
 ton's "Soul of Things"; and there is also a valuable work by 
 Dr. Rodes Buchanan. 
 
 It is quite possible that the human memory may be a phe- 
 nomenon of the same nature. The old idea was that all the 
 information possessed by a man was simply stored in the 
 cells of his physical brain, but it is very evident that that 
 is not so, because the man has been repeatedly shown to be 
 capable of consciousness and memory when away from his 
 physical brain altogether; though undoubtedly for work on 
 the physical plane the brain is necessary. Still the storage 
 theory seems unlikely; it may be that the scenes through 
 which we pass in the course of our life act in the same man- 
 ner upon the particles of our mental body as did the history 
 of Stonehenge upon that particle of stone — that they estab- 
 lish a connection by means of which our mind is put en rap- 
 port with that particular portion of the record, and so we re- 
 member what we have seen. 
 
 The student who develops this power of psychometry has 
 a very interesting field of research before him. Not only 
 can he review at his leisure all the history with which we are 
 acquainted, correcting as he examines it the many errors 
 and misconceptions which have crept into the accounts 
 handed down to us; he can also range at will over the whole 
 story of the world from the very beginning, watching the un- 
 folding of the intellect in man through prehistoric ages, and 
 contemplating the glory of mighty civilizations whose very 
 traces have long ago been lost in the mists of time. Some- 
 times an even closer sympathy with the past is possible for 
 the reader of the records, for he may learn to look back upon 
 his own part in the earlier history of the world; he may 
 awaken the memory of his previous lives, and thus identify 
 himself once more with long-dead personalities. Probably 
 this happens much oftener than we think; many a casual un- 
 identified clairvoyant vision, many a dream of strange, in- 
 comprehensible surroundings, may be nothing but a half-rec- 
 ollection of days so very long ago that the world has greatly 
 changed since then. Many among us now are approaching 
 the borderland which divides the physical senses from the 
 astral and we catch glimpses from the other side without 
 recognizing them for what they really are. There are many 
 who possess something of this power of psychometry with- 
 out being at all aware of it, and they are constantly receiv- 
 ing impressions from letters, from articles of furniture, and 
 
22 CLAIRVOYANCE IN TIME. 
 
 from surroundings generally, even though they do not real* 
 ize the source from which these impressions come. 
 
 FORESEEING WHAT HAS NOT HAPPENED. 
 
 Even though the average man cannot see exactly how it is 
 done, he may yet readily understand and be prepared to ac- 
 cept the possibility of this impression of past events upon 
 surrounding obects, guided thereto by such partial analogies 
 as the phonograph and the photographic camera. But when 
 we come to face the problem of the second part of our 
 subject, there is for him a much greater difficulty. That 
 which has passed may conceivably have left an impression; 
 but how can that which has not yet happened be foreseen? 
 There is no question at all that this does occur; the authenti- 
 cated accounts of second sight among the Highlanders of 
 Scotland alone would suffice to demonstrate the fact, even 
 if there were no other evidence. But there is very much 
 other evidence; and no one who has examined the question 
 can doubt that the soul or ego in man possesses a certain 
 power of prevision at his own level. Sometimes he is able 
 to impress what he knows clearly upon his physical brain; 
 sometimes he succeeds only very partially in that effort and 
 probably there are many occasions when he fails altogether 
 to produce his impression, and so in our waking conscious- 
 ness we know nothing about it, or at most feel only a vague 
 uneasiness or depression. 
 
 If the events foreseen were always of great importance, 
 one might suppose that an extraordinary stimulus had en- 
 abled him for that occasion only to make a clear impression 
 upon his lower personality. No doubt that is the explana- 
 tion of many of the cases in which death or grave disaster is 
 foreseen, but there are large numbers of instances on record 
 to which it does not seem to apply, since the events are fre- 
 quently trivial and unimportant. Let me give you an in- 
 stance. A man who had no belief in the occult was fore- 
 warned by a Highland seer of the approaching death of a 
 neighbor. The prophecy was given with considerable wealth 
 of detail, including a full description of the funeral, with the 
 names of the four pall-bearers and others who would be 
 present. The auditor seems to have laughed at the whole 
 story and promptly forgotten it, but the death of his neigh- 
 bor at the time foretold recalled the warning to his mind, 
 and he determined to falsify part of the prediction at any 
 
CLAIRVOYANCE IN TIME. 2 3 
 
 rate by being one of the pall-bearers himself. He succeeded 
 in getting matters arranged as he wished, but just as the 
 funeral was about to start he was called away from his post 
 by some small matter which detained him only a minute or 
 two. As he came hurrying back he saw with surprise that 
 the procession had started without him, and that the predic- 
 tion had been exactly fulfilled, for the four pall-bearers were 
 those who had been indicated in the vision. 
 
 Now this was a very trifling matter, which could have 
 been of no possible importance to anybody; yet it was fore- 
 told accurately weeks before it occurred, and though a man 
 makes a determined effort to alter the arrangement indi 
 cated, he fails to affect it in the least. We can hardly sup 
 pose that any soul made a violent endeavor to bring through 
 into his. lower consciousness such valueless details as these 
 What may however have happened is that the ego of the 
 neighbor was anxious to warn his physical manifestation of 
 its approaching death, but found himself unable to affect hie 
 brain directly. In such a dilemma he may have impressed 
 the nearest sensitive person (the seer), and in throwing the 
 picture into the mind of that person he may have supplied all 
 the details of the scene, as he naturally would do. But how 
 is this prevision obtained? 
 
 TWO METHODS OF PREVISION. 
 
 There are two methods by which it may be gained. One 
 of them is clearly comprehensible to us on this physical 
 plane; the other is not so easily explicable, because of the 
 limitations of our consciousness. There is no doubt what- 
 ever that, just as what is happening now is the result of 
 causes set in motion in the past, so what will happen in the 
 future will be the result of causes already in operation. 
 Even down here we can calculate that if certain actions are 
 performed certain effects will follow, but our reckoning is 
 constantly liable to be disturbed by the interference of fac- 
 tors which we have not been able to take into account. But 
 if we raise our consciousness to the mental plane we can see 
 very much farther into the results of our actions. In fact, 
 it may be said that at that level the effects of all causes at 
 present in action are plainly visible — that the future, as it 
 would be if no entirely new causes should arise, lies open 
 before our gaze New causes of course do arise, because 
 man's will is free; but in the case of all ordinary people the 
 use which they will make of their freedom can be calculated 
 beforehand with considerable accuracy, 
 
2 4 CLAIRVOYANCE IN TIME. 
 
 Looking down upon man's life from this level of the men- 
 tal plane, it seems as though his free will could be exercised 
 only at certain crises in his career. He arrives at a point in 
 his life where there are obviously two or three alternative 
 courses open before him; he is absolutely free to choose 
 which of them he pleases. But when he has chosen, he has 
 to go through with it and take the consequences; having en- 
 tered upon a particular path he may, in many cases, be 
 forced to go on for a very long way before he has any oppor- 
 tunity to turn aside. His position is somewhat like that of 
 the driver of a train; when he comes to a junction he may 
 conceivably have the points set either this way or that, and 
 so can pass on to whichever line he pleases, but when he 
 has passed on to one of them he is compelled to continue 
 along the line which he has selected until he reaches an- 
 other set of points (or switches, as I think they are called 
 in this country) where again an opportunity of choice is of- 
 fered to him. 
 
 In looking down from the mental plane, these new points 
 of departure would be clearly visible, and all the results of 
 each choice would lie open before us, certain to be worked 
 out even to the smallest detail. The only point which 
 would remain uncertain would be which of them he woulc 
 choose. We should, in fact, have not one but several futures 
 mapped out before our eyes, without necessarily being able 
 to determine which of them would materialize itself into ac- 
 complished fact. If we knew the man thoroughly well, we 
 might feel almost certain what his choice would be, but of 
 course that knowledge would in no sense be a compelling 
 force. If we have a pet dog, we know fairly well what he 
 will do under certain circumstances, but that does not in the 
 least make him do it. It is quite possible to foresee without 
 compelling and so it may well be that the Deity can absolute- 
 ly foresee all human action, and yet that He in no way pre- 
 scribes what that action shall be. He looks down upon us 
 from a level so much higher, that all possible causes must 
 lie open and clear before His sight. At however infinitely 
 lower a level, the soul of man also is in its essence divine, 
 and it shares this god-like faculty of prevision to a very con- 
 siderable extent; it can see a vast number of causes which 
 are concealed from mortal eye, and so it is sometimes ca- 
 pable of impressing a definite forecast upon its physical 
 brain. This method of prophecy is at any rate quite intelli- 
 
CLAIRVOYANCE IN TIME. 2 5 
 
 gible, for it is merely an expansion of processes of induction 
 with which we are familiar on the physical plane. 
 
 ANOTHER KIND OF PREVISION. 
 
 There is, however, another and altogether more exalted 
 kind of prevision which is by no means so readily compre- 
 hensible. When a man raises his consciousness to the 
 plane above the mental — that which in Theosophical litera- 
 ture is called the buddhic — no such elaborate process of con- 
 scious calculation is necessary, for in some manner which 
 down here is totally inexplicable, the past, the present and 
 the future are there all existing simultaneously. One can 
 only accept this fact, for its cause lies in the "faculty of the 
 plane, and the way in which this higher faculty works is nat- 
 urally quite incomprehensible to the physical brain. Yet 
 now and then we may meet with a hint that seems to bring 
 us a trifle nearer to a dim possibility of comprehension. 
 One such hint was given by Sir Oliver Lodge in an address 
 to the British Association at Cardiff. He said. 
 
 "A luminous and helpful idea is that time is but a relative 
 mode of regarding things; we progress through phenomena 
 at a certain definite pace, and this subjective advance we in- 
 terpret in an objective manner, as if events moved necessa- 
 rily in this order and at this precise rate. But this may be 
 only one way of regarding them. The events may in some 
 sense be in existence always, and it may be we who are ar- 
 riving at them, not they which are happening. The analogy 
 of a traveler in a railway train is useful; if he could never 
 leave the train nor alter its pace he would probably con- 
 sider the landscapes as necessarily successive, and be un- 
 able to conceive their co-existence we perceive therefore, 
 
 a possible fourth-dimensional aspect about time, the inexor- 
 ableness of whose flow may be a natural part of our present 
 limitations. And if we once grasp the idea that past and 
 future may be actually existing, we can recognize that they 
 may have a controlling influence on all present action, and 
 the two together may constitute the 'higher plane' or totality 
 of things after which, as it seems to me, we are compelled to 
 seek, in connection with the directing of form or determin- 
 ism, and the action of living beings consciously directed to 
 a definite and preconceived end." 
 
 Time is not in reality the fourth dimension at all; yet to 
 look at it from that point of view is some slight help towards 
 grasping the ungraspable. Suppose that we hold a wooden 
 
2 6 CLAIRVOYANCE IN TIME. 
 
 cone at right angles to a sheet of paper, and slowly push it 
 through, point first. A microbe living on the surface of 
 that sheet of paper, and having no power of conceiving any- 
 thing outside of that surface, could not only never see the 
 cone as a whole, but he could form no sort of a conception 
 of such a body at all. All that he would see would be the 
 sudden appearance of a tiny circle, which would gradually 
 and mysteriously grow larger and larger until it vanished 
 from his world as suddenly and incomprehensibly as it had 
 come into it. 
 
 Thus what were in reality a series of sections of the cone 
 would appear to him to be successive stages in the life of a 
 circle, and it would be impossible for him to grasp the idea 
 that these successive stages could be seen simultaneously. 
 Yet it is easy enough for us, looking down upon the transac- 
 tion from another dimension, to see that the microbe is simply 
 under a delusion arising from its own limitations, and that the 
 cone exists as a whole all the while. Our own delusion as to 
 past, present and future is possibly not dissimilar, and the 
 view that is gained of any sequence of events from the bud- 
 dhic plane corresponds to the view of the cone as a whole; 
 and some glimpse or reflection of that higher consciousness, 
 coming through into our lower world would constitute for 
 us a perfect fragment of prevision. But without experienc- 
 ing it, it is impossible fully to understand it. How that ex« 
 perience may -be gained is the subject which we shall exam- 
 ine in our next lecture. 
 
How to Develop Clairvoyance. 
 
 A Lecture Delivered Before a Chicago Audience, by 
 
 C. W. Leadbeater, the Great Psychic, 
 
 of London, England, 
 
 INJURIOUS METHODS— THE USE OF DRUGS— DANCE 
 OF ECSTASY— SELF HYPNOTIZATION— TENNYSON'S 
 EXPERIENCE— REGULATING THE BREATHING— MES- 
 MERIC TRANCE— CURATIVE MESMERISM— DESIR- 
 ABLE METHODS— MENTAL AND MORAL DEVELOP- 
 MENT—CONCENTRATION — MEDITATION— CONTEM- 
 PLATION. 
 
 When a man has studied the subject of clairvoyance suffi- 
 ciently to realize that the claims made on its behalf are true, 
 his next enquiry usually is, "How can I gain this power for 
 myself? If this faculty be latent in every man, as you say, 
 how can I so develop myself as to bring it into action, and so 
 have direct access to all this knowledge of which you tell 
 me?" In reply we can assure him that this thing can be 
 done, and that it has been done. There are even many ways 
 in which the faculty may be gained, though most of them 
 are unsafe and eminently undesirable, and there is only one 
 that can be thoroughly and unreservedly recommended to 
 all men alike. But that we may understand the subject, and 
 see where lie the dangers that have to be avoided, let us 
 consider exactly what it is that has to be done. 
 
 In the case of all cultured people belonging to the higher 
 races of the world, the faculties of the astral body are al- 
 ready fully developed, as I have explained in earlier lectures. 
 But we are not in the least in the habit of using them; they 
 have slowly grown up within us during the ages of our evolu- 
 
 27 
 
2 8 HOW CLAIRVOYANCE IS DEVELOPED. 
 
 tion, but they have come to us so gradually that we have not 
 as yet realized our powers, and they are still to a great ex- 
 tent untried weapons in our hands. The physical faculties, 
 to which we are thoroughly accustomed, overshadow these 
 others and hide their very existence, just as the nearer light 
 of the sun hides from our eyes the light of the far-distant 
 stars. So that there are two things to be done if we wish to 
 enter into this part of our heritage as evolved human beings; 
 we must keep our too-insistent physical faculties out of the 
 way for the time, and we must habituate ourselves to the 
 employment of these others, which are as yet unfamiliar to 
 us. 
 
 INJURIOUS METHODS. 
 
 The first step, then, is to get the physical senses out of 
 the way for the time. There are many ways of doing this, 
 but broadly they all range themselves under two heads — one 
 comprising methods by which they are forced out of the 
 way by temporary violent suppression, and the other includ- 
 ing methods much slower but infinitely surer, by which we 
 ourselves gain permanent control over them. Most of the 
 methods of violent suppression are injurious to the physical 
 body, to a greater or less extent, and they all have certain 
 undesirable characteristics in common. One of those is 
 that they leave the man in a passive condition, able per- 
 haps to use his higher senses, but with very little choice as 
 to how he shall employ them, and to a large extent unde- 
 fended against any unpleasant or evil influence which he 
 may happen to encounter. Another characteristic is that 
 any power gained by these methods can at best be only tem- 
 porary. Many of them confer it only during the limited 
 period of their action, and even the best of them can only 
 dower the man with certain faculties during this one phys- 
 ical life. In the East, where they have studied these mat- 
 ters for so many centuries, they divide methods of develop- 
 ment into two classes, just as I have done, and they call 
 them by the names laukika and lokothra, the first being the 
 "worldly" or temporary method, any results gained by which 
 will inhere only in the personality, and therefore be avail- 
 able only for this present physical life, while whatever is 
 obtained by the second process is gained by the ego, the 
 soul, the true man, and so is a permanent possession for 
 evermore, carried over from one earthly life to another. For 
 most methods of the former class little training is required, 
 
HOW CLAIRVOYANCE IS DEVELOPED. 2 9 
 
 and when there is training it is of the vehicles only, and so at 
 the best it can affect only this present set of vehicles, and 
 when the man returns into incarnation with a fresh set all 
 his trouble will be lost; whereas by the second method it is 
 the soul itself which is trained in the control of its vehicles, 
 and naturally it can apply the power and the knowledge thus 
 gained to its new vehicles in the next life. Let me mention 
 to you first some of the undesirable ways in which clairvoy- 
 ance is developed in various countries. 
 
 THE USE OF DRUGS. 
 
 Among non-Aryan tribes in India it is often obtaintd by 
 the use of drugs — bhang, hasheesh and others of the same 
 kind. These stupefy the physical body something as an- 
 aesthetics do, and thus the man in his astral vehicle is set 
 free as he would be in sleep, but with far less possibility of 
 being awakened. Before taking the drug, the man has set 
 his mind strongly on the endeavor to train his astral senses 
 into activity, and so as soon as he is free he tries to use his 
 faculties, and with practice he succeeds to some extent. 
 When he awakens his physical body, he remembers more or 
 less of his visions, and tries to interpret them, and in that 
 way he often obtains a great reputation for clairvoyance 
 and prevision. Sometimes while in his trance he may be 
 spoken through by some dead man, just as any other me- 
 dium may be. There are others who obtain the same condi- 
 tion by inhaling stupefying fumes, usually produced by the 
 burning of a mixture of drugs. It is probable that the clair- 
 voyance of the pythonesses of old was often of this type. 
 It is stated in the case of one of the most celebrated of those 
 oracles of ancient days, the priestess sat always upon a 
 tripod exactly over a crack in the rock, out of which vapor 
 ascended. After breathing this vapor for a time, she be- 
 came entranced, and some one then spoke through her or- 
 gans in the ordinary way so familiar to the visitors to se- 
 ances. It is not difficult for us to see how undesirable both 
 these methods are from the point of view of real develop- 
 ment. 
 
 DANCE OF ECSTASY. 
 
 Probably most of us have heard of the dancing dervishes, 
 one part of whose religion consists in this curious dance of 
 ecstasy, in which they whirl round and round in a kind of 
 frenzy until vertigo seizes them, and they eventually fall in- 
 sensible to the ground. In that trance, worked up as they 
 
30 HOW CLAIRVOYANCE IS DEVELOPED. 
 
 are by religious fervor, they frequently have most extraor- 
 dinary visions, and are able to some extent to experience 
 and remember lower astral conditions. I have seen some- 
 thing of this, and also of the practices of the Obeah or Voo- 
 doo votaries among the negroes ; .but these latter are usually 
 connected with magical ceremonies, loathsome, indecent, 
 horrible, such as none of us would dream of touching for 
 any purpose, whatever results might be promised to us. Yet 
 they certainly do produce results under favorable conditions, 
 though not such results as any of us could possibly wish to 
 obtain. Indeed, none of the methods mentioned so far would 
 at all commend themselves to us, though I have heard of 
 Europeans who have experimented with the Oriental drugs. 
 
 SELF HYPNOTIZATION. 
 
 Nevertheless we also have undesirable methods in the 
 West — methods of self hypnotization which should be care- 
 fully avoided by all who wish to develop in purity and safety. 
 A person may be told to gaze for some time at a bright spot, 
 until paralysis of some of the brain centres supervenes, and 
 in that way he is cast into a condition of perfect passivity, 
 in which it is possible that the lower astral senses may come 
 into a measure of activity. Naturally he has no power of se^ 
 lection in receiving under such circumstances; he must sub- 
 mit himself to whatever comes in his way, good or bad — and 
 on the whole it is much more likely to be bad than good. 
 Sometimes the same general result is obtained by the recita- 
 tion of certain formulae, the repetition of which over and 
 over again deadens the mental faculty almost as the gazing 
 at a metal disc does. It may be remembered that the poet 
 Tennyson tells us that he was able by the recitation of his 
 own name many times in rapid succession to pass into an- 
 other condition of consciousness. The account is given in 
 a letter in the poet's handwriting, which is dated Faringford, 
 Freshwater, Isle of Wight, May 7, 1874. It was written to a 
 gentleman who communicated to him certain strange expe- 
 riences he had when passing from under the effect of anaes- 
 thetics. Tennyson says: 
 
 " r ENNYSON'S EXPERIENCE. 
 
 "I have never had any revelations through anaesthetics; 
 but a kind of waking trance (this for lack of a better name) 
 I have frequently had, quite up from boyhood, when I have 
 been all alone. This has often come upon me through re- 
 
HOW CLAIRVOYANCE IS DEVELOPED. 31 
 
 peating my own name to myself silently, till all at once out 
 of the intensity of the consciousness of individuality, the in- 
 dividuality itself seemed to dissolve and fade away into 
 boundless being; and this not a confused state, but the clear- 
 est of the clearest, the surest of the surest, utterly beyond 
 words, where death was an almost laughable impossibility, 
 the loss of personality (if so it were) seeming no extinction, 
 but the only true life. I am ashamed of my feeble descrip- 
 tion. Have I not said the state is utterly beyond words? 
 This is the most emphatic declaration that the spirit of the 
 writer is capable of transferring itself into another state of 
 existence, is not only real, clear, simple, but that it is also in- 
 finite in vision and eternal in duration." 
 
 Now here is undoubtedly a touch of the higher life; no one 
 who has practical experience of realities can fail to recognize 
 the description as far as it goes, even though the poet just 
 stops short on the brink of something so infinitely grander. 
 He seems to have held himself more positive than do many 
 people who dabble in these matters without the necessary in- 
 struction or knowledge, and so he gained a valuable cer- 
 tainty of the existence of the soul apart from the body; yet 
 even his method cannot be commended as good or really 
 safe. 
 
 REGULATING THE BREATHING. 
 
 We are sometimes told that such a faculty can be devel- 
 oped by means of exercises which regulate the breathing, 
 and that this plan is one largely adopted and recommended 
 in India. It is true that a type of clairvoyance may be devel- 
 oped along these lines, but too often at the cost of ruin both 
 physical and mental. Many attempts of this sort have been 
 made here in the United States; I know it personally, be- 
 cause on my previous visit many who had ruined their con- 
 stitutions and in some cases brought themselves to the verge 
 of insanity came to me to know how they could be cured. 
 Some have succeeded in opening astral vision sufficiently to 
 feel themselves perpetually haunted; some have not even 
 reached that point, yet have wrecked their physical health 
 or weakened their minds so that they are in utter despair; 
 some one or two declare that such practice has been benefi- 
 cial to them. It is true that such exercises are employed in 
 India by the Hatha Yogis — those who attempt to attain de- 
 velopment rather by physical means than by inner growth 
 of the mental and the spiritual. But even among them such 
 
32 HOW CLAIRVOYANCE IS DEVELOPED. 
 
 practices are used only under the direct orders of responsible 
 teachers, who watch the effect upon the pupil of what is pre- 
 scribed, and will at once stop him if the exercises prove un- 
 suitable for him. But for people who know nothing at all of 
 the subject to attempt such thing indiscriminately is most 
 unwise and dangerous, for practices which are useful for one 
 man may very well be disastrous for another. They may 
 suit one man in fifty, but they are extremely likely not to suit 
 the rest, and myself I should advise every one to abstain 
 from them unless directed to try them by a competent 
 teacher who really understands what they are intend'ed to 
 achieve. You may be the one whom they will suit, but the 
 probabilities are against it, for there are far more failures 
 than successes. It is so fatally easy to do a great deal of 
 harm in this way, that to experiment vaguely is rather like 
 going into a chemist's shop and taking down drugs at ran- 
 dom ; you might happen to hit upon exactly what you needed, 
 but also you might not, and the latter is many times more 
 probable. 
 
 MESMERIC TRANCE. 
 
 Another method by which clairvoyance may be developed 
 is by mesmerism — that is to say, if a person be thrown by 
 another into a mesmeric trance it is possible that in that 
 trance he may see astrally. The mesmerizer entirely domi- 
 nates his will, and the physical faculties are thrown utterly 
 into abeyance. That leaves the field open, and the mesmer- 
 ist can at the same time stimulate the astral senses by pour- 
 ing vitality into the astral body. Good results have been 
 produced in this way, but it requires. a very unusual combina- 
 tion of circumstances, an almost superhuman development of 
 purity in thought and intention both in the operator and the 
 subject to make the experiment a safe one. The mesmerist 
 gains great influence over his subject — a far greater power 
 than is generally known; and it may be unconsciously exer- 
 cised. Any quality of heart or mind possessed by the mes- 
 merist is very readily transferred to the subject, so if he be 
 not entirely pure, we see at once that avenues of danger 
 open up before us. To be thrown into a trance is to give up 
 your individuality, and that is never a good thing in psychic 
 experiments; but beyond and above that element of undesir- 
 ability there is real danger unless you have the highest purity 
 of thought, word and deed in your operator; and how rarely 
 that is to be found you know as well as I do. I should never 
 
HOW CLAIRVOYANCE IS DEVELOPED. 33 
 
 myself submit to this process ; I should never advise it to any 
 one else. 
 
 CURATIVE MESMERISM. 
 
 I say nothing against the practice of curative mesmerism 
 by those who understand it; that is a totally different mat- 
 ter, for in that it is unnecessary to produce the trance condi- 
 tion at all. It is perfectly possible to relieve pain, to remove 
 disease, or to pour vitality into a man by magnetic passes, 
 without "putting him to sleep" at all. To this there can be 
 no possible objection; yet the man who tries to do even this 
 much would do well to acquaint himself thoroughly with the 
 literature of the subject, for there must always remain a 
 certain element of danger in playing, even with the noblest 
 intentions, with forces which you do not understand, which 
 to you are still abnormal forces. None of these are plans of 
 clairvoyant development which can be unreservedly recom- 
 mended for trial by every one. 
 
 DESIRABLE METHODS. 
 
 What, then, it may be asked, are the desirable methods, 
 since so many are undesirable? Broadly, those which in- 
 stead of suppressing the physical body by force, train the 
 soul to control it. The surest and safest way of all is to put 
 oneself into the hands of a competent teacher, and practice 
 only what he advises. But where is the qualified teacher to 
 be found? Not, assuredly, among any who advertise them- 
 selves as teachers; not among those who take money for 
 their instruction, and offer to sell the mysteries of the uni- 
 verse for so many shillings or so many dollars. Knowledge 
 can be gained now where it has always been available — at 
 the hands of those who are adepts in this great science of 
 the soul, the fringe of which we are beginning to touch in our 
 deepest studies. There has always been a great Brotherhood 
 of the men who know, and they have always been ready to 
 teach their lore to the right man, for it is for that very pur- 
 pose that they have taken the trouble to acquire it, in order 
 that they may be able to guide and help. How can we reach 
 them? You cannot reach them in the physical body, and 
 you might not even know them if it should happen to you to 
 see them. But they can reach you, and assuredly they will 
 reach you when they see you to be fit for the work of helping 
 the world. Their one great interest is the furthering of evo- 
 lution, the helping of humanity; they need men devoted to 
 
34 HOW CLAIRVOYANCE IS DEVELOPED. 
 
 this work, and they are ever watching for them; so none 
 need fear that he can be overlooked if he is ready for that 
 work. They will never gratify mere curiosity; they will 
 give no aid to the man who wishes to gain powers for himself 
 alone; but when a man has shown by long and careful train- 
 ing of himself, and by using for helpfulness all the power 
 that he already possesses, that his will is strong enough and 
 his heart pure enough to bear his part in the Divine work — 
 then he may become conscious of their presence and their 
 aid when he least expects it. 
 
 It is true that they founded the Theosophical Society, yet 
 membership in the society will not of itself be sufficient to 
 bring a man into relationship with them — no, nor even mem- 
 bership in that Inner School through which the society offers 
 training to its more earnest members. It is true that from 
 the ranks of the society men have been chosen to come into 
 closer relation with them ; but none could guarantee that as 
 a result of becoming a member, for it rests with them alone, 
 for they see further into the hearts of men than we. But al- 
 ways be sure of this, you whose hearts are yearning for the 
 higher life, for something greater than this lower world can 
 give, that they never overlook one honest effort, but always 
 recognize it by giving through their pupils such teaching 
 and such help as the man at his stage is ready for. 
 
 In the meantime, while you are trying in every way to de- 
 velope yourselves along the path of progress, there is much 
 that you can do, if you wish, to bring this power of clairvoy- 
 ance nearer within your reach. Remember that it is not in 
 itself a sign of great development; it is only one of the signs, 
 for man has to advance along many lines simultaneously be- 
 fore he can reach his goal of perfection. See how highly de- 
 veloped is the intellect in the great scientific man; yet per- 
 haps he may have but little yet of the wonderful force which 
 devotion gives. See the splendid devotion of the great saint 
 of some church or religion; yet in spite of all that progress 
 along one line he may have but little yet of the divine power 
 of the intellect. Each needs what the other has; each will 
 have to acquire the faculty of the other before he will be 
 perfect. So it is evident that at present we are unequally 
 developed; some have more in one direction, and some in an- 
 other, according to the line along which each has worked 
 most in past lives. So if you particularly long for devotion 
 in your character, by striving in that direction now you may 
 attain much of it even in this life, and may assuredly make it 
 
HOW CLAIRVOYANCE IS DEVELOPED. 35 
 
 a leading quality in your next life. So with intellect, so with 
 every quality; so also with this faculty of clairvoyance. If 
 you think it well to throw your strength into work along 
 this line, you may do very much towards bringing these la- 
 tent faculties into action. I am not speaking here of a vague 
 possibility, but of a definite fact, for some of our own mem- 
 bers in this society set themselves years ago to try to train 
 the soul along the path of permanent progress, and of those 
 who persevered without faltering almost every one has even 
 already found some definite result. Some have won their 
 faculties fully, others only partially as yet, but in all cases 
 good has come from their efforts to take themselves in hand 
 and control their minds and emotions. 
 
 MENTAL AND MORAL DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 If you have this desire for higher sight, take yourself in 
 hand first in the same way; make sure first of the mental 
 and moral development, lest you should succeed in your ef- 
 forts, and gain your powers. For to possess them without 
 having first acquired those other qualifications would be in- 
 deed a curse and not a blessing, for you .would then misuse 
 them, and your last state would indeed be worse than the 
 first. If you consider that you have made sure of yourself, 
 and can trust yourself under all possible circumstances to do 
 the right for right's sake, even against your earthly seeming 
 interest, always to choose the utterly unselfish course of 
 action, and to forget yourself in your love for the world, 
 then there are at least two methods which will lead you 
 towards clairvoyance safely, and can in no way do you harm, 
 even though you should not succeed in your object. The 
 first of these, though perfectly harmless and even useful, is 
 not suited for every one; but the second is of universal appli- 
 cation, and I have myself known both of them to be suc- 
 cessful. 
 
 This first method is a purely intellectual one, a study to 
 which I have already on several occasions had to refer, the 
 study of the Fourth Dimension of space. The physical brain 
 has never been accustomed to act at all along those lines, 
 and so it feels itself unable to attack such a problem. But 
 the brain, like any other part of the physical organism, can 
 be trained by persistent, gradual, careful effort to feats 
 which appeared originally quite beyond its reach, and so it 
 can be induced to understand and conceive clearly the forms 
 of a world unlike its own. The chief apostle of the fourth 
 
3 6 HOW CLAIRVOYANCE IS DEVELOPED. 
 
 dimension is Mr. C. H. Hinton, of Washington, D. C. He is 
 not a member of our society, but he has done many of its 
 members an excellent piece of service in writing so clearly 
 and luminously on his wonderful subject. In his books he 
 tells us that he has himself succeeded in developing this 
 power of higher conception in the physical brain, and several 
 of our own members have followed in his footsteps. One of 
 these has developed astral sight simply by steadily raising 
 the capacity of the physical brain until it contained the pos- 
 sibility of grasping astral form, and thus awakening the la- 
 tent astral faculty proper. It is simply a question of extend- 
 ing the power of receptivity until it includes the astral 
 matter. But I suppose that out of a score of men who took 
 up this study, not more than one would succeed as well and 
 as quickly as that; but at any rate the study is a most fasci- 
 nating one for those who have a mathematical turn of mind, 
 and where it does not bring increased faculty to see, it must 
 at least bring wider comprehension and a broader outlook 
 over the world, and this is no mean result, even if no other be 
 attained. Short of absolute astral sight, it is the only meth- 
 od of which I know by which a clear comprehension can be 
 gained of the appearance of astral objects, and thus a defi- 
 nite idea of what the astral life really is. 
 
 If that line of effort commends itself only to the few, our 
 second method is of universal application. It also is not 
 easy, but its practice cannot but be of the greatest use to 
 the man. That is its great and crowning advantage; it leads 
 a man towards these powers which he so ardently desires; 
 but the rate at which he can move along that road depends 
 upon the degree of his previous development in that partic- 
 ular way in other lines, and therefore no one can guarantee 
 him a certain result in a certain time; yet while he is work- 
 ing his way onward, every step which he takes is so far an 
 improvement, and even though he should work for the whole 
 of his life without winning astral sight, he would neverthe- 
 less be mentally and morally and even physically the better 
 for having tried. This is what in various religions is called 
 the method of meditation. For the purpose of our examina- 
 tion of it I shall divide it into three successive steps: concen- 
 tration, meditation and contemplation, and I will explain 
 what I mean by each of these three terms. 
 
 But remember always that to attain success, this effort 
 must be only one side of a general development, and that it 
 is absolutely prerequisite for the man who would learn its- 
 
HOW CLAIRVOYANCE IS DEVELOPED. 37 
 
 secrets to live a pure and altruistic life. There is no secret 
 about the rules of the greater progress; the Steps of the 
 Path of Holiness have been known to the world for ages, and 
 in my little book, "Invisible Helpers," I have given a list of 
 them according to the teaching of the Buddha, with the char- 
 acteristics which mark each of its stages. There is no diffi- 
 culty in knowing what to do ; the difficulty is in carrying out 
 the directions which all religions have given. 
 
 CONCENTRATION. 
 
 The first step necessary towards the attainment of the 
 higher clairvoyance is concentration — not to gaze at a bright 
 spot until you have no mind left, but to acquire such control 
 over your mind that you can do with it what you will, and 
 fix it exactly where you want to hold it for as long a period 
 as you choose. This is not an easy task, it is one of the 
 most difficult and arduous known to man; but it can be 
 done, because it has been done — not once, but hundreds of 
 times, by those whose will is strong and immovable. There 
 may be some among us who have never thought how much 
 beyond our control our minds usually are. Stop yourself 
 suddenly when you are walking along the street, or when 
 you are riding in the car, and see what you are thinking, and 
 why. Try to follow the thought back to its genesis, and you 
 will probably be surprised to find how many desultory 
 thoughts have wandered through your brain during the pre- 
 vious five minutes, just dropping in and dropping out again, 
 and leaving almost no impression. You will gradually begin 
 to realize that in truth all these are not your thoughts at all, 
 but simply cast-off fragments of other people's thoughts. 
 The fact is that thought is a force, and every exertion of it 
 leaves an impression behind. A strong thought about some 
 other person goes to him, a strong thought of self clings 
 about the thinker; but so many thoughts are not by any 
 means strong or especially pointed in any direction, and so 
 the forms which they create are vaguely-floating and evanes- 
 cent. While they last they are capable of entering into any 
 mind that happens to come their way, and so it comes that 
 as we walk along the road we leave a trail of feeble thought 
 behind us, and the next man who passes that way finds these 
 valueless fragments intruding themselves upon his con- 
 sciousness. They drift into his mind, unless it is already 
 occupied with something definite, and in the majority of 
 cases they just drift out again, having made only the most 
 
38 HOW CLAIRVOYANCE IS DEVELOPED. 
 
 trifling impression upon his brain; but here and there he en- 
 counters one which interests or pleases him, and then he 
 takes that up and turns it over in his mind, so that it departs 
 from him somewhat strengthened by the addition of a little 
 of his mind-force to it. He has made it his own thought for 
 a moment, and so has colored it with his personality. Every 
 time we enter a room we step into the midst of a crowd of 
 thoughts, good, bad or indifferent as the case may be, but 
 the great mass of them just a dull, purposeless fog which is 
 hardly worth calling thought at all. 
 
 If we wish to develop any higher faculty, we must begin 
 by gaining control over this mind of ours. We must give it 
 some work to do, instead of just letting it play about as it 
 will, drawing into itself all these thoughts which are not 
 ours, which we really do not want at all. It must be not our 
 master but our servant before we can take the first 
 step along the line of the true trained clairvoyance, for this 
 is the instrument which we shall have to use, and it must be 
 at our command and fully under our control. 
 
 This concentration is one of the hardest things for the or- 
 dinary man to do, because he has had no practice at it, and 
 indeed has scarcely realized that it needed to be done. 
 Think what it would be if your hand were as little under 
 your control as your mind is, if it did not obey your com- 
 mand, but started aside from what you wished it to do. You 
 would feel that you had paralysis, and that your hand was 
 useless. But if you cannot control your mind, that is dan- 
 gerously like a mental paralysis; you must practice with it 
 until you have it in hand and can use it as you wish. For- 
 tunately concentration can be practiced all day long, in the 
 common affairs of every-day life. Whatever you are doing, 
 do it thoroughly, and keep your mind on it. If you are writ- 
 ing a letter, think of your letter and of nothing else until it 
 is finished; it will be all the better written for such care. If 
 you are reading a book, fix your mind on it and try to grasp 
 the author's full meaning. Know always what you are 
 thinking about, and why; keep your mind at intelligent 
 work, and do not leave it time to be so idle, for it is in those 
 idle moments that all evil comes. 
 
 Even now you can concentrate very perfectly when your 
 interest is sufficiently keenly excited. Then your mind is so 
 entirely absorbed that you hardly hear what is said to you or 
 see what passes round you. There is a story told in the 
 East about some skeptical courtiers, who declined to be- 
 
HOW CLAIRVOYANCE IS DEVELOPED. 3 9 
 
 lieve that an ascetic could ever be so occupied with his med- 
 itation as to be unaware that an army passed close by him as 
 he sat under his tree wrapt in thought. . The king, who was 
 present, assured them that he would prove to them the pos- 
 sibility of this, and proceeded to do so in a truly Oriental and 
 autocratic way. He ordered that some large water-jars 
 should be brought and filled to the brim. Then he instructed 
 the courtiers each to take one and carry it; and his command 
 was that they should walk, carrying this water, through the 
 principal streets of the city. But they were to be surrounded 
 by his guards with drawn swords, and if one of them 
 spilled one single drop of his water, that unfortunate was to 
 be instantly beheaded then and there. The courtiers started 
 on their journey filled with terror; but they all got safely 
 back again, and the king smilingly greeted them with a re- 
 quest to tell him all the incidents of their walk, and describe 
 the persons whom they had met. Not one of them could 
 mention even one person that they had seen, for all agreed 
 that they had been so entirely occupied with the one idea of 
 watching the brimming jars that they had noticed nothing 
 else of any sort. "So, gentleman," rejoined the king, "you 
 see that when there is sufficient interest concentration is 
 possible." 
 
 MEDITATION. 
 
 When you have attained concentration such as that, not 
 under the stress of the fear of instant death, but by the exer- 
 tion of your will, then you may profitably try the next stage 
 of effort. I do not say that it will be easy; on the contrary, 
 it is very difficult; but it can be done, for many of us have 
 had to do it. When your mind is thus an instrument, try 
 what we call meditation. Choose a certain fixed time for 
 yourself, when you can be undisturbed; the early morning is 
 in many ways the best, if that can be managed. It is not al- 
 ways an easy time for us now, for we nave in modern civiliza- 
 tion hopelessly disarranged our day, so that noon is no longer 
 its middle point, as it should be. Now we lie in bed long 
 after the sun has risen, and then stay up, injuring our eyes 
 with artificial light long after he has set at night. But 
 choose your time, and let it be the same time each day, and 
 let no day pass without your regular effort. You know if you 
 are trying any sort of physical exercise for training pur- 
 poses how much more effective it is to do a little regularly 
 than to make a violent effort one day, and then do nothing 
 
40 HOW CLAIRVOYANCE IS DEVELOPED. 
 
 for a week. So in this matter it is the regularity that is im- 
 portant. 
 
 Sit down comfortably where you will not be disturbed, and 
 turn your mind, with all its newly-developed power of con- 
 centration, upon some selected subject demanding high and 
 useful thought. We in our Theosophical studies have no 
 lack of such subjects, combining deepest interest with great- 
 est profits. If you prefer it, you can take some moral qual- 
 ity, as is advised by the Catholic church when it prescribes 
 this exercise. In that case, you would turn the quality over 
 in your mind, see how it was an essential quality in the Di- 
 vine order, how it was manifested in Nature about you, how 
 it had been shown forth by great men of old, how you your- 
 self could manifest it in your daily life, how (perhaps) you 
 have failed to display it in the past, and so on. Such medi- 
 tation upon a high moral quality is a very good exercise in 
 many ways, for it not only trains the mind, but keeps the 
 good thought constantly before you. But it needs to be pre- 
 ceded generally by thought upon concrete subjects, and when 
 those are easy for you, you can usefully take up the more ab- 
 stract ideas. 
 
 CONTEMPLATION. 
 
 When this has become an established habit with you, with 
 which nothing is allowed to interfere; when you can manage 
 it fairly well without any feeling of strain or difficulty, and 
 without a single wandering thought ever venturing to in- 
 trude itself; then you may turn to the third stage of our ef- 
 fort — contemplation. But remember that you will not suc- 
 ceed with this until you have entirely conquered the mind- 
 wandering. For a long time you will find, when you try to 
 meditate, that your thoughts are continually going off at a 
 tangent, and you do not know it till suddenly you start to 
 find how far away they have gone. You must not let this 
 dishearten you, for it is the common experience; you must 
 simply bring the errant mind back again to its duty, a hun- 
 dred or a thousand times if necessary, for the only way to 
 succeed is to decline to admit the possibility of failure. But 
 when you have at length succeeded, and the mind is defi- 
 nitely mastered, then we reach that for which all the rest 
 has been but the necessary preparation, good though it has 
 also been in itself. 
 
 Instead of turning over a quality in your mind, take the 
 highest spiritual ideal that you know. It does not matter 
 
HOW CLAIRVOYANCE IS DEVELOPED. 41 
 
 what it is, or by what name you call it. A Theosophist would 
 most probably take one of those Great Ones to whom we 
 have already referred — a member of that great Brotherhood 
 of Adepts, whom we call the Masters — especially if he had 
 the privilege of having come directly into contact with one of 
 them. The Catholic might take the Blessed Virgin, or some 
 patron saint; the ordinary Christian would probably take the 
 Christ; the Hindu would perhaps choose Krishna, and the 
 Buddhist most likely the Lord Buddha himself. Names do 
 not matter, for we are dealing with realities now. But it 
 must be to you the highest, that which will evoke in you the 
 greatest feeling of reverence, love and devotion that you are 
 capable of experiencing. In place of your previous medita- 
 tion, call up the most vivid mental image that you can make 
 of this ideal, and, letting your most intense feeling go out 
 towards this highest One, try with all the strength of your 
 nature to raise yourself towards Him, to become one with 
 Him, to be in and of that glory and beauty. If you will do 
 that, if you will thus steadily continue to raise your con- 
 sciousness, there will come a time when you will suddenly 
 find that you are one with that ideal as you never were be- 
 fore, when you realize and understand Him as you never did 
 before, for a new and wonderful light has somehow dawned 
 for you, and all the world is changed, for now for the first 
 time you know what it is to live, all life before seems like 
 darkness and death to you as compared with this. 
 
 Then it will all slip away again, and you will return to the 
 light of common day — and darkness indeed will appear by 
 comparison. But go on working at your contemplation, and 
 presently that glorious moment will come again and yet 
 again; and each time it will stay with you longer, till there 
 comes a period 'vhen that higher life is yours always, no 
 longer a flash or a glimpse of paradise, but a steady glow, a 
 new and never-ceasing marvel every day of your existence. 
 Then for you day and night will be one continuous conscious- 
 ness, one beautiful life of happy work for the helping of oth- 
 ers; yet this, which seems so indescribable and so unsurpass- 
 able, is only the beginning of the entrance into the heritage 
 in store for you and for every child of man. Look about you 
 with that new and higher sight, and you will see and grasp 
 many things which until now you have never even suspected 
 — unless, indeed, you have previously familiarized yourself 
 with the investigations of your predecessors along this path. 
 
 Continue your efforts, and you will rise higher still, and in 
 
42 HOW CLAIRVOYANCE IS DEVELOPED. 
 
 due course there will open before your astonished eyes a life 
 as much grander than the astral as that is than the physical, 
 and once more you will feel that the true life has been un- 
 known to you until now; for all the while you are rising 
 nearer to the One Life which alone is perfect Truth and per- 
 fect Beauty. 
 
 This is a development that must take years, you will say. 
 Yes, that is probable, for you are trying to compress into one 
 life the evolution which would normally spread itself over 
 many; but it is far more than worth the time and the effort. 
 No man can say how long it will take in any individual case, 
 for that depends upon two things — the amount of crust that 
 there is to break through, and the energy and determination 
 that is put into the work. I could not promise you that in so 
 many years you would certainly succeed ; I can only tell you 
 that many have tried before you, and that many have suc- 
 ceeded. All the great Masters of Wisdom were once men at 
 our own level; as they have risen, so must we rise. Many 
 of us in our humbler way have tried also, and have suc- 
 ceeded, some more and some less; but none who has tried 
 regrets his attempt, for whatever he has gained, be it little 
 or much, is gained for all eternity, since it inheres in the 
 soul which survives death. Whatever we gain thus we pos- 
 sess in full power and consciousness, and have it always at 
 our command; for this is no mediumship, no feeble intermit* 
 tent trance-quality, but the power of the developed and glori- 
 fied life which is to be that of all humanity some day. 
 
 But the man who wishes to try to unfold these faculties 
 within himself will be 'very ill-advised if he does not take 
 care first of all to have utter purity of heart and soul, for 
 that is the first and greatest necessity. If he is to do this, 
 and to do it well, he must purify the mental, the astral and 
 the physical; he must cast aside his pet vices and his physi- 
 cal impurities; he must cease to defile his body with meat, 
 with alcohol or tobacco, and try to make himself pure and 
 clean all through, on this lower plane as well as on the 
 higher ones.. If he does not think it worth giving up petty 
 uncleannesses for the higher life, that is exclusively his own 
 affair; it was said of old that one could not serve God and 
 Mammon simultaneously. I do not say that bad habits on 
 the physical plane will prevent him altogether from any psy- 
 chic development, but I do very emphatically and distinctly 
 say that the man who remains unclean is never free from 
 danger, and that to touch holy things with impure hands is 
 
HOW CLAIRVOYANCE IS DEVELOPED. 43 
 
 to risk a terrible peril. The man who would try for the 
 higher must free his mind from worry and from lower cares; 
 while doing his duty to the uttermost, he must do it imper- 
 sonally and for the right's sake, and leave the result in the 
 hands of higher powers. So will he draw round him pure 
 and helpful entities as he moves onward, and will himself 
 radiate sunlight on those in suffering or in sorrow. So shall 
 he remain master of himself, pure and clean and unselfish, 
 using his new powers never for a personal end, but ever for 
 the advancement and the succor of men his brothers, that 
 they also, as they can, may learn to live the wider life, may 
 learn to rise from amid the mists of ignorance and selfish- 
 ness into the glorious sunlight of the peace of God. 
 
The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 Evidence Pointed Out Showing that It Was Planned 
 and Executed by Jesuit Priests. 
 
 "President Lincoln expressed at the last cabinet meeting 
 before his death his assurance that something serious was 
 about to happen." — Washington Post, July 6, 1902, on "Proph- 
 ecies and Omens." 
 
 Was the "assurance" expressed by President Lincoln a 
 mere presentiment or omen? 
 
 The first intimation that came to the ears of Abraham Lin- 
 coln that he was to become a victim to the vengeance of the 
 Romish priesthood was in October, 1856. Twice in that year 
 he defended a Catholic priest, the late Father Chiniquy, of 
 St. Anne, Illinois, before a jury, on a false accusation of 
 crime. The first trial was in May, 1856, at Urbana, seventy 
 miles distant from the home of the accused. Mr. Lincoln 
 demolished the testimony of two perjured priests, and his 
 client would have been acquitted but for the blunder of al- 
 lowing a single Roman Catholic on the jury. 
 
 The case was tried again in October following. The testi- 
 mony of a priest named LeBelle, against the character of 
 Chiniquy, was of such a nature as to horrify everybody. 
 The cross-examination by Mr. Lincoln did much to break the 
 force of the direct testimony, but he feared its effect on a 
 jury unacquainted with the character of the accused. When 
 the court adjourned in the evening Lincoln said to his client: 
 
 "My dear Mr. Chiniquy, though I hope to-morrow to destroy 
 the testimony 'of LeBelle, I must concede that I see great 
 danger ahead. I feel that the jurymen think you guilty, and 
 that you will be condemned to a heavy penalty or to the pen- 
 itentiary, though I am sure you are perfectly innocent. It is 
 
 44 
 
ASSASSINATION OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 45 
 
 very probable that we shall have to confront LeBelle's sister 
 to-morrow, who will confirm the false testimony of her 
 brother. Her alleged sickness is doubtless a feint, in order 
 that her evidence may come in after that of her brother. 
 Perhaps we shall have to meet her testimony as taken before 
 some local justice, which will be all the harder to rebut. 
 That woman is evidently in the hands of Bishop O'Regan and 
 her brother, ready to swear to anything they order her. Noth- 
 ing is so difficult to refute as female testimony, particularly 
 when the woman is absent from court. The only way to be 
 sure of a favorable verdict to-morrow is, that God Almighty 
 would take part and show your innocence. Go to Him, for 
 He alone can save you." 
 
 These words are recorded by Father Chiniquy in his book, 
 "Fifty years in the Church of Rome/' They are perhaps a 
 little colored, coming through the medium of a very pious 
 and conscientious priest, who was soon to renounce the error 
 of Papacy and become a devout Protestant. Sadly did he be- 
 take himself to his room, where, through the night, he 
 wrestled in prayer. But at 3 o'clock there was a loud 
 knocking at his door. Quickly the tearful priest opened it 
 and there stood Abraham Lincoln, who said: 
 
 "Cheer up, my dear Chiniquy; I have the perjured priests 
 in my hands. Their diabolical plot is known, and if they do 
 not fly away before the dawn of day they will surely be 
 lynched. Bless the Lord you are saved." 
 
 The next morning the court house could not contain the 
 crowd that came to see the result of the trial. The Catholic 
 priest, LeBelle, had fled, but there were numerous other rev-. 
 erend fathers present, hoping to witness the condemnation of 
 the French Canadian priest. Judge David Davis took his 
 seat on the bench, and the complainant, Spink, a tool of 
 Bishop O'Regan, rose, pale and trembling, to ask to be al- 
 lowed to withdraw the prosecution. The motion was of 
 course granted, but the miserable priests in attendance were 
 then regaled with a most eloquent and scathing speech by 
 Lincoln on the rascality of the prosecution and the infamous 
 character of the Romish priesthood in general. 
 
 Accepting a fee of only fifty dollars for his services in the 
 two trials, Lincoln turned to his client and said : 
 
 "Father Chiniquy, what makes you weep? You ought to 
 be the most happy man alive; you have beaten your enemies 
 and gained a most glorious victory." 
 
 "Dear Mr. Lincoln," answered the priest, "the joy I should 
 
46 ASSASSINATION OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 naturally feel for such a victory is turned to grief when I 
 think of its consequences to you. Not less than ten or 
 twelve Jesuit priests came from Chicago and St. Louis to hear 
 my sentence of condemnation. But instead of that you have 
 brought the thunders of Heaven on their heads; you have 
 made the walls of the court house tremble with your denunci- 
 ation of their infamy. They are enraged and I feel that I 
 have read your death sentence in their bloody eyes." 
 
 At first Lincoln treated the warning lightly, but afterward 
 he said: "I know the Jesuits never forget or forgive; but 
 what matters it how or where a man dies, provided it is at 
 the post of duty." 
 
 The election of Lincoln to the presidency, four years later 
 and again to a second term, was unanimously opposed by the 
 Catholic priests. The Church of Rome looked upon the di- 
 vision between North and South as her golden opportunity in 
 America. She ordered her elder son, the Emperor Louis Na- 
 poleon to send an army to Mexico, so as to be read'y to help 
 crush the Northern States. She bade the bishops, priests 
 and people to vote in opposition to Lincoln. Only one bishop 
 dared to flisobey! 
 
 Father Chiniquy had now renounced the Papal creed and 
 become a Protestant. At the end of August, 1861, a Roman 
 priest whom he had persuaded to renounce Popery, dis* 
 closed to him a plot to assassinate the President. Chiniquy 
 though it his dutj^ to go and tell him of it. He was received 
 with great cordiality by Mr. Lincoln, who said: 
 
 "You see that your friends, the Jesuits, have not killed me 
 yet. But they would have done it when I went through Balti- 
 more had I not defeated their plans by passing incognito a 
 few hours before they expected me. We have proof that the 
 company selected and organized to murder me was led by a 
 rabid Roman Catholic named Byrne, and that in the gang 
 were two disguised priests. I am sorry 1 have so Mttle time 
 to see you, but I will not let you go before telling you that a 
 few days ago, Prof. Morse told me that when he was in 
 Rome, not long ago, he found a formidable conspiracy against 
 this country and its institutions. It is evident that it is to 
 the intrigues and emissaries of the Pope that we owe, in 
 great part, this horrible civil war." 
 
 The next day Chiniquy was received again by the Presi- 
 dent. "I want your views," said Lincoln," about a thing that 
 is excedingly puzzling to me. A great number of Demo- 
 
ASSASSINATION OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 47 
 
 cratic papers have been sent to me lately, containing state- 
 ments that I am an apostate Roman Catholic. No priest of 
 Rome ever laid his hand on my head. Tell me what is the 
 meaning of these falsehoods." 
 
 "IT MEANS YOUR SENTENCE OF DEATH," said Chin- 
 iquy, "and I have it from the lips of a converted priest that, 
 in order to excite the fanaticism of Roman Catholic mur- 
 derers, the priests have invented the story of your being born 
 a Catholic and baptized by a priest. An apostate from the 
 Church of Rome is an outcast who has no right to live. 
 Here is a copy of a decree of Gregory VII, [Hildebrand, 
 1073-1085] proclaiming that the killing of an apostate or a 
 heretic is not murder. Such is the canon of the church." 
 
 Realizing the imminent danger, Mr. Lincoln said: 
 
 "I repeat to you what I said at Urbana in 1856, when you 
 first warned me against the Jesuits. But I will now add that 
 I HAVE A PRESENTIMENT that God will call me through 
 the hand of an assassin. Let his will be done. I feel more 
 and more, it is not against the South alone we are fighting, 
 but against the Pope of Rome and his perfidious Jesuits, 
 who are the principal rulers of the South. The great ma- 
 jority of the Catholic bishops, priests and laymen are rebels 
 at heart, and, with few exceptions, they are pro-slavery. I 
 understand now why the patriots of France were compelled 
 to kill so many priests and monks; THEY WERE ALWAYS 
 THE ENEMIES OF LIBERTY." 
 
 Again, in June, 1862, Chiniquy called on the President to 
 warn him against impending dangers, but could only shake 
 hands with him. It was just after the grand victory of the 
 Monitor over the Merrimac, and the conquest of New Orleans 
 by Admiral Farragu* and Mr. Lincoln was too busy to grant 
 an interview. 
 
 Once more in June, 1864, came Chiniquy to Washington, 
 and the President managed to have an interview with him 
 by taking him in his carriage to visit the wounded soldiers in 
 the hospital. Mr. Lincoln said: 
 
 "This war would never have been possible without the SIN- 
 ISTER INFLUENCE OF THE JESUITS. We owe it all to 
 Popery. I conceal this from the knowledge of the nation be- 
 cause, if the people knew what I do, this would become a re- 
 ligious war and assume a tenfold more savage and bloody 
 character. If the people could know what Prof. Morse has 
 told me of the plots at Rome to destroy this republic, if they 
 
48 ASSASSINATION OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 could realize that the priests, monks and nuns who land on 
 our shores under the pretext of propagating their religion, 
 teaching our children, and nursing the sick in our hospitals, 
 are only the EMISSARIES OF THE POPE and the other 
 despots of Europe, to undermine our institutions and pre- 
 pare a reign of anarchy here as they have done in Ireland, in 
 Mexico and in Spain, the Protestants both north and south 
 would surely unite to exterminate the priests of Rome." 
 
 The President then asked Chiniquy if he had read the let- 
 ter of the Pope to Jefferson Davis, and if so, what he thought 
 of it. The ex-priest replied: 
 
 "My dear President, that is just what brought me here 
 again. That letter is a POISONED ARROW aimed by the 
 Pope at you personally. You know how many liberty-loving 
 Irish, German and French Catholics have been fighting for 
 the Union. To detach these men from the ranks of the 
 Northern armies has been the aim of the Jesuits. Secret 
 and pressing letters have been addressed from Rome to the 
 bishops, ordering them to weaken your armies by detaching 
 these men. The bishops answered that they could not do it 
 without exposing themselves to death, but they advised the 
 Pope to recognize at once the legitimacy of the Southern 
 republic, and to take Jeff Davis under his protection by a 
 letter which would be read everywhere. By that letter his 
 blind slaves understand that you are outraging the God of 
 heaven and earth by continuing this bloody war to subdue a 
 nation whose legitimacy is recognized by God's vicegerent. 
 That letter means that you are not only an apostate whom 
 every Catholic HAS A RIGHT TO KILL, but you are a lawless 
 brigand whom every Catholic ought to kill. This, my dear 
 President, is not a fanciful interpretation of my own; it is 
 the unanimous explanation given by a great number of 
 priests of Rome with whom I have had occasion to speak on 
 this subject. I conjure you, therefore, to protect your own 
 precious life." 
 
 The President replied at great length saying: 
 
 "You confirm me in my views of the Pope's letters, and 
 Prof. Morse is of the same mind with you. Since the publi- 
 cation of that letter there have been many desertions. But 
 Gen. Sheridan remains true to his oath of fidelity and is 
 worth a whole army by his ability and courage. Gen. Meade 
 has gained the battle of Gettysburg, but he was surrounded 
 by such heroes as Reynolds, Wadsworth, Slocum, Sickles, 
 
ASSASSINATION OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 49 
 
 Hancock, Howard and others, and yet he let the REBEL 
 ARMY ESCAPE. When he was to order the pursuit, a 
 stranger came to him in haste; that stranger was a disguised 
 Jesuit. Aften ten minutes' conversation with him, Meade 
 made such arrangements for the pursuit that the enemy es- 
 caped almost untouched, with the loss of only two guns. 
 The New York draft riots were the work of Bishop Hughes 
 "and his emissaries. We have the proofs in hand of that. I 
 wrote to Bishop Hughes, telling him that the whole country 
 would hold him responsible if he did not stop the riots at 
 once. He then gathered the rioters around his palace, 
 called them his dear friends, invited them to go back home 
 peacefully, and they obeyed. The Pope and his Jesuits have 
 ABETTED AND SUPPORTED THE REBELLION from the 
 first gunshot at Fort Sumter by the rabid Romanist Beaure- 
 gard. They are helping the Roman Catholic Semmes on the 
 ocean. I have the proof in hand that Bishop Hughes, whom 
 I sent to Rome in the hope that he would induce the Pope to 
 urge American Catholics to be true to their oath of allegi- 
 ance, and whom I thanked publicly, under the belief that he 
 had acted honestly according to his promise to me, is the 
 very man who advised the Pope to recognize the Southern 
 Confederacy. My ambassadors in Italy, France and Eng- 
 land, as well as Prof. Morse, have warned me against the 
 plans of the Jesuits. But I see no other safeguard AGAINST 
 THOSE MURDERERS than to be always ready to die, as 
 Christ advises it. We must all die sooner or later, and it 
 makes very little difference to me whether I die by a dagger 
 thrust through my breast or from an inflammation of the 
 lungs." 
 
 Then, taking his Bible, the President opened and read from 
 Deuteronomy iii: 22-28, where God told Moses to go up to the 
 top of Pisgah and behold the promised land, for he would not 
 be allowed to pass over Jordan. "My dear Father Chiniquy," 
 said Lincoln, T have read these strange and beautiful words 
 several times in the last five or six weeks, and the more I 
 read them the more it seems to me that God has written 
 them for me as well as Moses." 
 
 On the 14th of April, 1865, ten months after this last inter- 
 view, at ten o'clock in the evening, President Lincoln was 
 assassinated by John Wilkes Booth, at Ford's Theatre, and 
 at the same hour Lewis Payne attempted to murder William 
 H. Seward. Two or three hours before these assassinations 
 
50 ASSASSINATION OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 occurred a Catholic landlord at St. Joseph, Minn., told Fram 
 cis A. Conwell and Horace P. Bennett that Lincoln and Sew- 
 ard were assassinated. The two men make affidavit of the 
 fact, sworn to September 6 and October 18, 1883. Landlord 
 J. H. Linneman, purveyor for the priests in charge of the col- 
 lege at that place, refused to swear, but made r, written dec* 
 laration October 20, 1883, duly signed, saying that he told 
 Mr. Conwell and Mr. Bennett that "he heard this rumor in 
 his store from people who came in and out; but he cannot 
 remember from whom." That lapse of memory probably 
 saved the landlord's life. The priests of St. Joseph were 
 cognizant of tie plot to assassinate Lincoln and Seward. 
 
 Mr. Conwell was chaplain of the First Minnesota regi- 
 ment. Mr. Bennett was a resident of St. Cloud, eight miles 
 distant from St. Joheph. The two men drove up to the vil- 
 lage hotel not later than 6:30 p. m. While Mr. Bennett was 
 attending to the horses in the barn, Landlord Linneman told 
 Mr. Conwell that Lincoln and Seward were assassinated. Al- 
 lowing for difference in time between St. Joseph and Wash- 
 ington the news of the assassination had apparently reached 
 St. Joseph at least two hours before it occurred! 
 
 Early next morning the two men journeyed to St. Cloud, 
 arriving there about 8 o'clock. There Mr. Conwell told the 
 hotel keeper, Haworth, what he had heard about the assassi- 
 nations. He told it also to several other men. None of them 
 had heard such news. The nearest railroad station from St. 
 Joseph was 40 miles, and the nearest telegraph 80 miles, 
 
 The next day, April 16, Chaplain Conwell started for 
 church, where he was to preach. On his way a copy of a 
 telegram was handed him announcing the assassination of 
 Lincoln and Seward. 
 
 On Monday, April 17, Mr. Conwell addressed the St. Paul 
 Press the following paragraph: 
 
 "A STRANGE COINCIDENCE. 
 
 "At 6:30 p. m., Friday last, I was told, as an item of news, 
 eight miles west of this place (St. Cloud), that Lincoln and 
 Seward had been assassinated." 
 
 This was published, but the fact being discredited by the 
 editor, another communication was sent by Mr. Conwell, 
 which was printed, as follows: 
 
 "The integrity of history requires that the above coinci- 
 dence be established. And if anyone calls it in question, 
 
ASSASSINATION OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 51 
 
 then proofs more ample than reared their sanguinary head to 
 comfort the traitor will be given." 
 
 Some Spiritualists at that time interpreted the matter as 
 a mediumistic foresight. But after seventeen years Father 
 Chiniquy procured the affidavits and adduced facts which 
 proved that the murder of Abraham Lincoln was planned and 
 executed by Jesuit priests. 
 
 Were all the convicted conspirators Roman Catholics? 
 General Baker, in his report of the military trial says : 
 
 "I mention, as an exceptional and remarkable fact, that ev- 
 ery conspirator in custody, is, by education, a Catholic." 
 
 Atzeroth, Payne and Harold, it is true, asked for Protest- 
 ant ministers, when they were to be hanged. But on the 
 subsequent trial of John H. Surratt, Louis Weichman testi- 
 fied that he was in the habit of going to St. Aloysius church 
 with Atzeroth and that there he introduced him to another 
 Catholic named Brothy. Booth and Weichman were per- 
 verts to Catholicism, and among their companions were 
 Payne, Atzeroth and Harold. When Payne, after his assault 
 upon Secretary Seward, knocked at Mrs. Surratt's door, it 
 was opened by Major Smith, a detective. Being asked his 
 business, Payne said he was a laborer, and had come to dig 
 Mrs. Surratt's gutter. She being called and asked if she 
 knew this man, answered: ''Before God, sir, I do not; I have 
 never seen him and did not hire him to dig a gutter for me." 
 But it was proved that he was her personal friend, and that 
 he had been to her house in company with his friend Booth, 
 
 Had father confessors appeared with Payne, Atzeroth and 
 Harold on the scaffold, that would have opened the eyes of 
 the American people to clearly see that the ASSASSINA- 
 TIONS WERE PLANNED by Jesuit priests. The murderers 
 were instructed to conceal their religion. Such is the doc- 
 trine of the church. St. Liguori says : 
 
 "It is often more to the glory of God and the good of our 
 neighbor to conceal our religious faith, as when we live 
 among heretics we can more easily do them good in that 
 way; or if, by declaring our religion, we cause disturbance, 
 or deaths, or even the wrath of the tyrant." — (Liguori Theo- 
 logia, ii:3). 
 
 Dr. Mudd, at whose place Booth stopped in his flight, was 
 a Catholic, and so was Garrett, in whose barn Booth was 
 killed. 
 
52 ASSASSINATION OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 After the murder, Chiniquy came to Washington in dis- 
 guise. He found the influence of Rome at the capital was 
 almost supreme. The only statesmanwho dared to face the 
 influence of Rome was General Baker. But several other 
 statesmen confessed that without doubt the Jesuits were at 
 the bottom of the plot, and sometimes this, would appear so 
 clearly in evidence before the military tribunal that it was 
 feared it could not be kept from the public. Mrs. Surratt 
 was a Catholic, and her house was the rendezvous of the 
 priests. With a little more pressure on the witnesses many 
 of the priests would have been compromised. But the civil 
 war was hardly over, and the Confederacy, though broken 
 down, was still living in millions of hearts; formidable ele- 
 ments of discord were still existing, to which the hanging or 
 exiling of the guilty priests would give new life. Riots upon 
 riots would follow. It was, therefore, concluded to be the 
 best policy to punish only those who were publicly and visi- 
 bly guilty, so that the verdict might receive the approbation 
 of all, without creating new bad feelings. And this, they 
 said, was the policy of the late President; for there was 
 nothing he so much feared as a war between Protestants and 
 Catholics. 
 
 It is evident that a very elaborate plan of escape for the 
 murderers had been arranged by the priests of Rome. The 
 priest Charles Boucher swears that a few days after the 
 murder John H. Surratt was sent to him by Father Lapierre, 
 of Montreal; that he kept him concealed in his parsonage 
 from the end of April to the end of July; that then he took 
 him back to Lapierre, who kept him in his own father's 
 house, under the very shadow of the palace of Bishop Bour- 
 bet, where he remained until September; that thence he was 
 taken in disguise by himself and Lapierre to Quebec. It fur- 
 ther appears that he was taken from Quebec to an ocean 
 steamer, September 15, by Lapierre, who introduced him as 
 McCarty. And who was Lapierre? The canon and confiden- 
 tial servant of Bishop Bourbet of Montreal. Lapierre and 
 Boucher, who accompanied Surratt in the carriage, were the 
 ambassadors and representatives of the Pope. Surratt was 
 sent to Rome, where he enlisted as a Zouave under the name 
 of Watson. Our government found him out, ,and the Pope 
 was forced to give him up. But in so doing the Jesuits man- 
 aged to have him escape to Egypt. There he was arrested 
 and extradited-. Being brought to Washington and tried, he 
 escaped conviction in consequence of the disagreement of 
 
ASSASSINATION OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 53 
 
 two or three jurymen who were Catholics. He has since 
 died. 
 
 As a further item of evidence of the plot to assassinate 
 President Lincoln, I have a letter from an aged correspond- 
 ent, dated May 24 1896, in which he says: 
 
 "A few days before the death of Lincoln I read in a Rich* 
 mond paper: 'We have a little surprise in store for the 
 Yankees.' " 
 
 THAT WAS A SURE WORD OF PROPHECY BASED ON 
 A JESUIT PLOT, TO BE EXECUTED ON FRIDAY, APRIL 
 14, 1865. WM. HENRY BURR. 
 
 Washington, D. C. 
 
 The Rationale of Apparitions. 
 
 A Lecture Delivered Before a Chicago Audience by 
 C. W. Lead beater, the Great Psychic, 
 of London, England, 
 
 ABSURD DELUSION— A BIBLE GHOST STORY— VARI- 
 OUS MODES OF APPARITIONS— NATURE SPIRITS, 
 PHANTOM BIRDS— CHURCHYARD GHOST— ASTRAL 
 IMPRESSIONS— THE POLTERGEIST — APPARITIONS 
 OF THE LIVING— RETURNING FOR HELP— RETURN- 
 ING TO GIVE HELP— FAMILY GHOST. 
 
 I suppose there are many people who, before discussing 
 the rationale of apparitions, would ask whetner It was after 
 all certain that there were really such things as apparitions 
 at all. Not very many years ago few would have thought of 
 asking even so much as that, for they would have dismissed 
 the whole question contemptuously without a second 
 thought. But man has grown a little wiser since then, and 
 public opinion has changed somewhat on these points. I be- 
 lieve that this diffusion of more accurate knowledge on such 
 subjects is largely due to the action of the Theosophical So- 
 ciety. We who are members of that society have been writ- 
 ing and lecturing upon these matters for the last twenty 
 
54 THE RATIONALE OF APPARITIONS. 
 
 years and more from a common-sense, scientific point of 
 view, and so a certain effect lias at length been produced, and 
 the dense ignorance and iron-bound prejudice of the general 
 public on such subjects have been somewhat modified. The 
 work of another society has also done very much to contrib- 
 ute to the enlightenment of the public mind, for the Society 
 for Psychical Research has devoted itself to careful investi- 
 gation of these and kindred subjects from the scientific side, 
 and has patiently collected a vast mass of authenticated 
 cases and of unimpeachable testimony, so that for any think- 
 ing person the question is settled. 
 
 Those who still contemptuously deny the existence Of appa- 
 ritions are simply those who are enirely ignorant of the sub- 
 ject, and are foolishly exposing their ignorance by talking 
 about things which they do not understand. There is a book 
 written by Mr. W. T. Stead, the well-known journalist, called 
 Real Ghost Stories, in which he gives to the world a very 
 fine collection of such narratives, all well-authenticated, with 
 the names and addresses of the various people concerned, so 
 that those who will may inquire directly from the men and 
 women who had the experiences related. No one could pos- 
 sibly read this book carefully without discovering that there 
 was very much more to be said for the reality of the appari- 
 tion than he had ever supposed before. Mr. Stead himself 
 seems to have commenced merely as an investigator, with- 
 out any preconceived opinions, but his studies have resulted 
 in very definite conviction, as may be seen from the follow- 
 ing quotation from his preface: 
 
 ABSURD DELUSION. 
 
 'Of all the vulgar superstitions of the half-educated, none 
 dies harder than the absurd delusion that there are no such 
 things as ghosts. All the experts, whether spiritual, poet- 
 ical, or scientific, and all the others, non-experts, who have 
 bestowed any serious attention upon the subject, know that 
 they do exist. There is endless variety of opinion as to 
 what a ghost may be. But as to the fact of its existence, 
 whatever it may be, there is no longer any serious dispute 
 among honest investigators. If any one questions that, let 
 him investigate for himself. In six months, possibly in six 
 weeks, or even in six days, he will find it impossible to deny 
 the reality of the existence of the phenomena popularly en- 
 titled ghostly. He may have a hundred ingenious explana- 
 tions of the origin and nature of the ghost, but as to the ex- 
 
THE RATIONALE OF APPARITIONS. 55 
 
 istence of the entity itself there will no longer be any doubt." 
 You see, here is a very decided attitude adopted by a man 
 who has investigated, and has taken a great deal of trouble 
 to understand these things ; and his opinion is precisely that 
 to which have come all the rest of us who have made a study 
 of such matters. Surely then it ill becomes a man who has 
 taken no trouble to find out the truth to ridicule the result of 
 the hard work of those who have been more deeply interest- 
 ed in these vital questions than he happens to be. We who 
 study Theosophy know very well that such things do occur, 
 and we know also that there is very great confusion in the 
 public mind respecting these phenomena. 
 
 Under the vague general heading of ghosts the ordi- 
 nary man classes many occurrences due in reality to 
 widely different causes. I propose to try to explain 
 to you a few of those different classes, so that if 
 you should ever come into contact with anything of that na- 
 ture, you may be able to distinguish one type of phenomena 
 from another, and so know how to deal with them. The 
 American race is a psychic one, and therefore it is well with- 
 in the bounds of possibility that some one or more of this 
 audience may at one time or other have the privilege of see- 
 ing what is commonly called a ghost. I use that expression 
 advisedly; first, because I regard such experiences as valu- 
 able from the certainty and clear comprehension which they 
 give with regard to the other life; and secondly, because an 
 opportunity to help is always a privilege, and an apparition 
 usually wants help of some kind. In such cases many peo- 
 ple are foolishly alarmed; but if you know something of the 
 subject you will rather observe intelligently, and try to un- 
 derstand what it is that you are seeing. 
 
 A BIBLE GHOST STORY. 
 
 It is strange that there should be so much skepticism as to 
 the possibility that a dead man should show himself. Every 
 Christian, at any rate, is bound by his dogmas to believe that 
 he has a soul, and he often speaks of it, and of the necessity 
 of "saving" it. I suppose he would indignantly repudiate 
 any suggestion that he did not really believe in its existence; 
 yet if we refer to it as so real a thing that it may sometimes 
 be seen apart from his body while he is living, and that it 
 may survive and be seen after his death, he at once accuses 
 us of superstition and of belief in old wives' fables! How 
 he can reconcile such a silly attitude with the plain teaching 
 
5 6 THE RATIONALE OF APPARITIONS. 
 
 of his own Bible, we must leave him to explain. The narra- 
 tive of the raising of the spirit of Samuel by the woman of 
 Endor, for King Saul, makes a very fine ghost story, and of 
 course settles the question of the possibility of apparitions 
 forthwith for all those who hold the inspiration of the scrip- 
 tures. Then you may remember how it is written that after 
 the death of the Christ "many bodies of the saints which 
 slept arose, and came into the holy city, and were seen of 
 many." They were seen of many, you notice; that seems 
 rather a well-authenticated ghost story! But most people 
 never think what such words in their scriptures really mean 
 or imply; they just drift along without troubling themselves 
 to understand. 
 
 Let us take up in order the various classes of phenomena 
 that people commonly call ghostly, and try to comprehend 
 their nature. We shall find that the genuine ghost is only 
 one class out of many, and we may as well consider the oth- 
 ers first. Remember that when a man still living in the 
 physical body sees one who has cast aside that vehicle, and 
 is functioning exclusively on the astral plane, one of three 
 things must occur. The physical body can receive only the 
 vibrations from its own plane, and not those of the astral; so 
 that though there are dead men about us all the time, we are 
 usually unconscious of their presence. In order to see them, 
 either we must raise our faculties to their level for the mo- 
 ment, or they must come down to ours. The dead man who 
 wishes to show himself to the living may sometimes take 
 upon himself for the time a garment of physical matter, so 
 that the physical sight of his living friend is capable of per- 
 ceiving him; or sometimes he is able to act upon his friend 
 as to raise his power of response to a higher level — to in- 
 crease his sensitiveness for the time. Thus the physical 
 man may for the time be enabled to use his astral faculty to 
 a certain extent, though it is normally dormant, and so he 
 sees what would usually be hidden from him. The third 
 possibility is that of mesmeric action on the part of the dead 
 man; his strong wish to manifest himself may sometimes act 
 upon the mind of his friend, so as to call up a powerful men- 
 tal image, which the living man will take for an objective 
 reality. 
 
 VARIOUS MODES OF APPARITIONS. 
 
 In many cases it is not easy to distinguish between these 
 various modes of operation. If an apparition is visible si- 
 
THE RATIONALE OF APPARITIONS. 57 
 
 multaneously to several people, it is most probable that it is 
 a materialization, because it would be very difficult to mes- 
 merize several people at once, and it is not likely that all of 
 them would be equally sensitive; when one man sees an ap- 
 parition, and others who are present are unable to see it, 
 then it is most probable that the astral senses of that one 
 man are temporarily stimulated, or that a mental impression 
 has been produced upon him by the earnest effort of the 
 dead mau. Many people are already very near the point of 
 the opening of astral senses, and it does not need much exer- 
 tion of force to open this higher sight for a moment; a very 
 little thing will sometimes do it. A strong emotion has been 
 known to heighten the vibrations sufficiently; there have 
 been cases in which such possibilities showed themselves in 
 sickness in persons who had not been aware of them while 
 in health, because then the ordinary physical impressions 
 which usually dominated them were to some extent weak- 
 ened. But, as I have said, there is not always a dead man in 
 the case at all, for of our seven classes only one is a direct 
 manifestation of him in full consciousness. 
 
 NATURE SPIRITS, PHANTOM BIRDS, ETC. 
 
 1. You will be aware from what I have said in previous 
 lectures that we have in the world around us other evolu- 
 tions besides the human and the animal — evolutions which 
 are normally invisible to us, which have no direct connection 
 with our own, though they share with us the earth on which 
 we live. To one of these we have given in Theosophical lit- 
 erature the name of Nature spirits. Many traditions of such 
 creatures remain in the folk-lore of various countries, and 
 they have been called by many names — brownies, pixies, 
 elves, gnomes, sylphs, undines, fairies, good people, and 
 other quaint and suggestive titles. Do not suppose that all 
 of such tradition is mere popular superstition; there is a vast 
 kingdom of nature of which we are commonly quite uncon- 
 scious, but occasionally some member of it, for reasons of 
 his own, shows himself to some human being; or perhaps a 
 man becomes temporarily capable of the astral or etheric 
 sight which enables him to perceive the nature spirit; and 
 then, not understanding the character of the phenomenon, 
 the man probably says that he has seen a ghost. Sometimes 
 what the Germans call poltergeist manifestations are due to 
 their action; but we will take those in a separate class. 
 
 2. Another class consists of phantom birds or animals. 
 
58 THE RATIONALE OP APPARITIONS. 
 
 These may really be ghosts, for the animal has an astral 
 body, which survives the death of his physical form, and he 
 inhabits it for a certain time — much shorter, of course, than 
 the human astral life, but still of appreciable length. Dur- 
 ing their time of astral life domestic pets have frequently 
 shown themselves to those whom they love, or manifested 
 their presence in haunts well-known to them. I have myself 
 clearly seen on several occasions a "dead" pet animal in his 
 astral body, just as I have often seen him in that astral body 
 during his hours of sleep in his earth life. But very fre- 
 quently animals which enter into stories of apparitions are 
 merely thought forms, or impressions in astral matter. 
 Sometimes also they are simple accessories to a genuine ap- 
 parition — parts of the scene that his thought calls up. In 
 what is perhaps one of the best ghost stories on record, that 
 told by General Barter to the Society of Psychical Research, 
 a pony was one of the principal features. As, however, the 
 pony was dead at the time, it is not possible to be certain 
 whether he was an accessory produced by the thought of the 
 dead man, or a real ghost on his own account. In the story 
 of the miller on the grey horse, told to Mr. Stead, the animal 
 is evidently nothing but a materialized thought, and not a 
 real ghost; but it is also quite likely that the miller himself 
 is of the same nature. It is impossible to tell all these illus- 
 trative stories at length in one lecture; but all of them, and 
 many more, will be found in full in my new book, "The Other 
 Side of Death," in which I have devoted over one hundred 
 and fifty pages to this subject of apparitions and their classi- 
 fication. 
 
 THE CHURCHYARD GHOSTS. 
 
 3. Another class is what is often called "the churchyard 
 ghost." This is not strictly speaking a ghost at all, for the 
 real man is not there, and what is seen is usually just as 
 truly a corpse as that which is buried below. Such forms 
 are generally not clearly defined, but vague floating columns, 
 more wreaths of mist in semi-human form than anything 
 else. They are composed of the etheric matter which has 
 been part of the physical body during earth-life, but is with- 
 drawn from it at death. That matter is still closely con- 
 nected with the physical remains, so it floats above the grava 
 in which they are laid. It reproduces in uncertain outline 
 the form of the deceased, and so is sometimes taken for 
 him by the ignorant; but in reality he is usually far away 
 
THE RATIONALE OF APPARITIONS. 59 
 
 with friends whom he loves, and this is nothing but a cast-off 
 garment, having no more consciousness than an old coat. 
 
 ASTRAL IMPRESSIONS. 
 
 4. Another class consists of what we call astral impres- 
 sions, Mr. Stead writes thus with regard to it: "This is a 
 type of a numerous family of ghosts of whose existence the 
 phonograph may give us some hint by way of analogy. You 
 speak into the phonograph, and forever after as long as the 
 phonograph is set in action it will reproduce the tone of your 
 voice. You may be dead and gone, but still the phonograph 
 will reproduce your voice while with it every tone will be 
 audible to posterity. So it may be in relation to ghosts. A 
 strong emotion may be able to impress itself upon surround- 
 ing objects in such a fashion that at certain times, or under 
 certain favorable conditions, they reproduce tne actual im- 
 age and actions of the person whose ghost is said to haunt." 
 
 This is exactly what does happen. Psychometry proves to 
 us that even the tiniest physical object bears with it forever 
 the impress of everything that has occurred in its neighbor- 
 hood. Normally this impression remains dormant so far as 
 our senses are concerned, and it needs the peculiar power of 
 the psychometer to come into touch with it; but naturally 
 when it is excessively strong, it needs less sensitiveness to 
 become aware of it, and it may even be so much on the sur- 
 face as to obtrude itself upon the notice of the ordinary and 
 undeveloped man. Wherever tremendous mental disturb- 
 ance has taken place, wherever overwhelming terror, pain, 
 sorrow, hatred, or indeed any kind of intense passion has 
 been felt, an impression of so very marked a character has 
 been made by the violent astral vibrations that a person with 
 even the faintest glimmer of psychic faculty cannot but be 
 deeply influenced by it. It would need but a slight tempo- 
 rary increase of sensibility to enable almost anyone to visual- 
 ize the entire scene — to see the event in all its detail appar- 
 ently taking place before his eyes; and under favorable cir« 
 cumstances the record may even be materialized, so that ev- 
 ery one may perceive it by means of his physical senses. 
 
 Sometimes such a record will be only a partial reproduc- 
 tion of what really happened; only a sound will remain to 
 testify to the violence of the emotion which originally caused 
 it. You know how many so-called hauntings consist merely 
 of sounds which recur at regular intervals, or at certain 
 hours. Most of these are probably of this nature. Many 
 
60 THE RATIONALE OF APPARITIONS. 
 
 years ago I myself had a little experience along these lines — 
 a very trifling affair, yet one which illustrates exactly the law 
 which we are considering. Near where T was then living, a 
 new road was in process of formation across a stretch of 
 open ground. As yet no houses were erected, but the road 
 was laid out, and the line of curbstones was already in place 
 on each side from end to end. The road was separated from 
 the broad, flat meadows on each side only by a low post-and- 
 rail fence. Naturally everybody who used the road walked 
 along the curbstones, as the rest of the road was still rough. 
 It was entirely unlighted at night, but was often used as a 
 short cut, as the line of the curbstones was not difficult to 
 follow. Presently, however, it acquired a bad reputation, 
 and was supposed to be haunted in some way, but I never 
 heard any particulars. Still, I have seen men waiting at the 
 end before plunging into its gloom, hoping that someone else 
 would come up, so that they might walk down it together. 
 
 One still, moonlight night I turned into this road about 
 nine o'clock and walked briskly down it. A thin mist hung 
 over the fields, but I could see with perfect clearness up and 
 down the road, and across the meadows on either side. 
 When about half-way along (the road was about a mile in 
 length) and with nobody in sight either before or behind, I 
 suddenly heard somebody begin running desperately, as if 
 for his life. He was running along the curbstone, for the 
 clear ringing sound of the footsteps was quite different from 
 what it could have been on soft earth. I know no words 
 strong enough to express the sense of mad haste and over- 
 whelming terror which was somehow implied in these 
 sounds. I thought at once "Here is somebody horribly 
 frightened; I wonder what he has seen or imagined." But 
 where was the man? The madly-hastening footsteps came 
 rushing wildly towards me; I stood still on the curbstone 
 while they dashed up to me, under my very feet and away 
 down the road behind me; yet no visible form passed me as 
 I stood there startled and wondering! There was no possi- 
 bility of any mistake; but for those loud, insistent footsteps, 
 the stillness was absolute; there was no doubt whatever 
 that they had rushed past me, and there was also no doubt 
 that there was no human being there to cause them. There 
 lay the road, stretching away in the clear moonlight in both 
 directions; the open fence by my side could not have con- 
 cealed a dog from me, far less a man; and yet not a living 
 being was in sight! 
 
THE RATIONALE OF APPARITIONS. 61 
 
 This was before the days of the Theosophical Society, and 
 I had no comprehensible explanation to offer myself. Now, 
 by the light of Theosophical teaching, the whole matter is 
 quite simple. No doubt somebody had been frightened at 
 that spot — badly frightened — and had rushed wildly away in 
 frantic haste to escape towards the friendly gaslights and 
 human company from whatever he saw, or thought he saw; 
 and so great had been the poor man's terror that it had made 
 a deep impression upon surrounding objects. The astral vi- 
 brations of this shock of fear had been violent enough to 
 make the phonographic record of which Mr. Stead writes — 
 that which can reproduce itself upon the physical plane; and 
 it had registered the sound of those flying, echoing footsteps 
 on the stone in such a manner that they could be repeated 
 for my benefit. 
 
 We are not yet sufficiently versed in the laws governing 
 such phenomena to be able to distinguish why the sound only 
 should have been reproduced, and not the fleeing form, as 
 happened in other similar cases. But hauntings which con- 
 sist only of sounds seem much more numerous than those 
 which involve actual apparition; so it suggests itself that 
 the much slower vibrations of sound are more easily regis- 
 tered than the very rapid vibrations which would produce an 
 effect upon the eye. There are many stories of this type, ob- 
 viously due to astral impression. We know how often a 
 haunting is supposed to take place at the scene of a murder, 
 and often the entire occurrence seems to be rehearsed. 
 Such a case is almost always one of astral impression; for al- 
 though it is conceivable that the murderer, moved by re- 
 morse, might haunt the scene of his crime, it is clear that 
 the murdered man would not be in the least likely to do so. 
 Sometimes such manifestations may be traced to the unquiet 
 thought of the criminal, but more frequently to the impres- 
 sion left by the feelings of horror, fear, despair, intense an- 
 ger and hatred, which are usually connected with such a 
 spot. Many examples will be found in the new book which I 
 have just written, in which also are recorded many instances 
 of our next class — the curious phenomena produced by what 
 is called a poltergeist. 
 
 THE POLTERGEIST. 
 
 5. This is a kind of parody upon a real haunting, though it 
 is often even more tiresome and destructive than the genu- 
 ine article. It is generally merely a temporary display or 
 
62 THE RATIONALE OF APPARITIONS. 
 
 mischief, though occasionally it lasts for years. Its com- 
 monest form is that of stone-throwing, and of the removal 
 and breaking of all kinds of small objects. Such perform- 
 ances always involve partial materialization, at least as far 
 down as etheric matter; but for this part of the subject I 
 must refer you to what I said last week on the subject of 
 Spiritualism, and to the chapter of personal experiences of 
 Spiritualistic phenomena in my book before-mentioned. 
 There may be any one of several different causes at work 
 when such phenomena are produced. Undoubtedly in some 
 cases malice is involved, and the performance is of the na- 
 ture of a persecution; in others it appears to be intended as 
 a kind of practical joke. It may be the work of a foolish 
 dead man, or it may be due to an imitative and sportive 
 nature-spirit; sometimes its production seems to be uninten- 
 tional. There are very many cases of it on record, in differ- 
 ent countries and at widely separated dates, and examples 
 may be found in any of the books which contain collections 
 of stories of hauntings. John Wesley's account of the occur- 
 rences at Epworth" Parsonage is one of the best known, 
 though it was a very mild example of this class of haunting; 
 the well-known story of Willington Mill, and that of the 
 Drummer of Tedworth, will at once come to the mind of any 
 student of this hidden side of nature. 
 
 APPARITIONS OF THE LIVING. 
 
 6. Our sixth class consists of apparitions of the living, 
 and these naturally divide themselves into two sub-classes 
 — (a) cases in which the man himself is really present, and 
 (b) cases in which the apparition is only a thought-form, 
 and the man himself is fully awake elsewhere. 
 
 Of the first sub-class we have many well-authenticated in- 
 stances. One of the most picturesque is that related by Mr. 
 Robert Dale Owen in his "Footfalls on the Boundary of An- 
 other World," in which he describes how a man who was 
 shipwrecked fell asleep, and during his sleep appeared on 
 board a barque and wrote on the captain's slate directions 
 for him to steer towards a certain quarter in order that he 
 might rescue the castaways. The captain is naturally very 
 much mystified, but finally decides to adopt the suggestion, 
 and in due course finds and saves the shipwrecked crew, rec- 
 ognizing among them the man whom his mate had seen writ- 
 ing on his slate some hours before. It is usually only under 
 stress of such serious need as this that a man pays an astral 
 
THE RATIONALE OF APPARITIONS. 63 
 
 visit of the nature described, and makes himself visible to 
 physical sight; and it seems to happen most readily when 
 the man is on the point of death, as the principles are then 
 easily separable. The case of Mary Coffe of Rochester is a 
 well-known instance, and there are several others almost 
 identical. In each of this group of stories a mother is dying 
 away from home, and feels that she could pass away with 
 perfect content if only she could see her children once more; 
 in each she falls into a deep sleep or trance, and on awaking 
 declares that now she can die happily, since she has seen 
 them all; in each case the children and their nurse at some 
 distant point see the apparition of the mother at just the 
 same moment, she comes and smiles upon them, and then 
 disappears. Of the first-mentioned of these, Mr. Andrew 
 Lang remarks : "Not many stories have such good evidence 
 in their favor." 
 
 In all those cases the living person obviously paid the 
 visit, leaving his body in sleep or trance; but in our second 
 subdivision the man just as obviously does not pay the visit, 
 because he is fully awake and conscious elsewhere at the 
 moment of the apparition. A case in point is that of a man 
 whose duty it was to be at work at six o'clock each morning 
 — a duty which he had fulfilled punctually for many years; 
 but there came a day when he overslept himself, and did not 
 wake until twenty minutes past six. Exactly at that mo- 
 ment he was seen to rush into the shop where his employer 
 was awaiting him; it was noticed by all who saw him that 
 he appeared much excited, but he passed out through a side 
 door without speaking. Twenty minutes later he came in, 
 also very much excited, and explained that it was twenty 
 minutes past six when he wakened, and that he had run all 
 the way from his house (he lived a mile from the place of 
 business). He knew nothing whatever of the previous visit. 
 This is evidently an instance of the materialization of a 
 strong thought-form; the man thought very vividly of his 
 usual post, and earnestly wished that he was there as usual., 
 and in this way he called into existence the form which was 
 seen by all the workmen present as well as by the employer 
 and his daughter. Nor is this the only example; there are 
 hosts of such stories, and there can be no question that such 
 things frequently occur. Mrs. Crowe has collected a number 
 of instances in her book, "The Night Side of Nature." 
 
 Something very similar once happened to me — a small 
 
64 THE RATIONALE OF APPARITIONS. 
 
 matter, but exactly illustrating the point under considera- 
 tion. During my occupancy of a country curacy I was once 
 very much weakened by an accident, and so felt entirely un- 
 fit for a very heavy Sunday's work. I got through it some- 
 how, though with extreme fatigue, and towards the end of 
 the final service I have no doubt that I may have been think- 
 ing longingly of rest when it was over, though I have no dis- 
 tinct recollection of any such thought. At any rate, when 
 I last wended my way to the vestry, I was much startled to 
 find myself already installed there, and occupying the only 
 chair which the little room possessed! The image was hab- 
 ited exactly as I was, in cassock, surplice and stole, all in 
 perfect order; and there it sat looking calmly and steadily at 
 me. This was before my Theosophical days, so I was un- 
 prepared with any explanation for such a phenomenon, 
 though I had heard that to see a wraith of oneself foretold 
 death. But I was far too utterly wearied then to think or 
 care about that; I simply walked up to the apparition and sat 
 down upon it, or rather upon its chair, without even offering 
 it any apology. What became of it I know not, for when 1 
 rose from that chair ten minutes later it was not to be seen. 
 No results of any kind followed, and I have never seen a sim- 
 ilar appearance since. I can conscientiously say that I be- 
 lieve my attention had never swerved from the service which 
 I was conducting; yet I suppose that the strong desire for 
 rest was present all the while at the back of my mind, and in 
 this sub-conscious thought I must have pictured myself as 
 sitting down and resting when the service was over. It is 
 possible, too, that the weakened condition of my physical 
 body may have allowed my inner senses to act more readily, 
 and have given me for the moment just sufficient clairvoy- 
 ance to enable me to see a strong thought-form. 
 
 7. The first subdivision or variety of apparitions of the 
 living which we have just considered — that in which the 
 person concerned was really present — has many points in 
 common with the most frequent form of apparition after 
 death. Just as, among apparitions of the living, the com- 
 monest are those of men at the point of death, so among the 
 apparitions of the dead the commonest are those which come 
 directly after their death to announce it to some one whom 
 they love. Of these there are simply scores of examples; 
 and we may take them for our first subdivision of genuine 
 apparitions. A good case is that of the appearance of Cap- 
 tain German Wheatcroft to his wife in England to inform her 
 
THE RATIONALE OF APPARITIONS. 65 
 
 of his death in battle in India. It differs in no way from a 
 hundred others of its class; but it has attained a certain 
 celebrity because through it an inaccuracy in the War Office 
 records and in the dispatches of the Commander-in-Chief 
 was discovered and corrected. Another case which I recol- 
 lect at the moment was told to us by a Swedish clergyman — 
 a story of a man who died in the snow, and was seen at the 
 time of his death by no less than sixteen persons, who all 
 agreed as to his appearance, and as to certain peculiarities 
 which were found to exist exactly as described by them 
 when the body was afterwards discovered in the snow. 
 
 RETURNING TO GIVE HELP. 
 
 Another subdivision of our genuine apparitions consists of 
 those who return to help. Some of the dead are still watch- 
 ing closely over certain friends or relations in earth -life, 
 and any manifestations which they make are for the purpose 
 of helping or guarding those friends. One of the most beau- 
 tiful of such cases is related by the celebrated English cler- 
 gyman, Dr. John Mason Neale. He states that a man who had 
 recently lost his wife was on a visit with his little children 
 at the country house of a friend. It was a rambling man- 
 sion, and in the lower part of it there were long, dark pas- 
 sages in which the children played about with great delight. 
 But presently they came upstairs very gravely, and two of 
 them related that as they were running down one of the pas- 
 sages they were met by their mother, who told them to go 
 back again, and then disappeared. Investigation revealed 
 the fact that if the children had run but a few steps further 
 they would have fallen down a deep uncovered well which 
 yawned full in their path, so that the apparition of their 
 mother had saved them from certain death. I have no doubt 
 that that was simply a case of the manifestation of that won- 
 derful motner-love still keeping a loving watch over her chil- 
 dren even from beyond the portals of the grave. Her strong 
 feeling Qf the urgency of the case no doubt gave her the 
 power to materialize for the occasion — or perhaps merely to 
 impress the children's minds with the idea that, they saw 
 and heard her. 
 
 Other interesting instances are those in which the dead 
 have returned in order to procure, for those among the liv- 
 ing whom they loved, the religious sacraments or consola- 
 tions which they considered necessary. Two cases of that 
 nature are related by Dr. F. G. Lee in one of his books; in 
 
66 THE RATIONALE OF APPARITIONS. 
 
 one them two little children call a priest to the bedside of 
 their father, describing carefully exactly where he is to be 
 found. The priest, on visiting the dying man, discovers that 
 he is quite alone, and had been regretting that he had no 
 one to send to fetch his spiritual father. The children, whom 
 he at once recognized from the priest's description, had been 
 dead for some time. There are many instances of action by 
 the dead along lines similar to these. A very remarkable 
 case of the continuation after death of philanthropical physi- 
 cal work is recorded by Dr. Minot J. Savage in a recent num- 
 ber of Ainslee's Magazine. He tells us how a Boston 
 preacher made a speciality of work among the very poor, and 
 had many close friends in that class. After his death he still 
 watched over these friends, and constantly gave directions as 
 to their assistance through the widow of his colleague, who 
 seems to have been mediumistic. He tells also of another 
 recent case of an apparition of a dead father to his son, to 
 warn him of approaching death. These things happen quite 
 frequently close about us in the present day, though few but 
 those immediately concerned ever know of them or pay any 
 attention to them. 
 
 RETURNING FOR HELP. 
 
 Sometimes the dead return, not to give help but to seek it. 
 The need may be real, or it may be merely imaginary — 
 based upon conventional ideas. The dead man, for example, 
 may be greatly troubled because his body is unburied, or (if 
 he happens to be a Catholic) because the requisite number of 
 masses have not been said for the repose of his soul. He 
 may be troubled with regard to debts which he owes, or with 
 regard to debts that are owed to him ; he may be troubled be- 
 cause he has left treasure behind him, or because he has not; 
 he may have on his mind some neglect or some crime which 
 he desires to confess, or for which he wishes to make atone- 
 ment; he may be moved by remorse or revenge. Sometimes 
 the object for which he returns seems to us decidedly triv- 
 ial, and not worth the trouble which it must cost him; in 
 other cases his motive is clearly sufficient and praiseworthy. 
 All these cases show us how very little the dead man has 
 changed; the different characteristics and peculiarities of 
 disposition of the various people stand out just as vividly 
 after death as before 
 
 Specimens of all these different classes of revenants and 
 of many others I have given in the new book to which I pre- 
 
THE RATIONALE OF APPARITIONS. 67 
 
 viously referred, and I cannot do more than just mention one 
 or two of them here. There was an instance of a house- 
 keeper, a most respectable and trusted servant, who had 
 once yielded to a momentary accession of temptation, and 
 stolen some small silver articles belonging to her mistress. 
 After her death this troubled her conscience, and she ap- 
 peared years afterwards to express her sorrow, and entreat 
 her mistress' pardon. In another case an Irish woman was 
 much worried about a very small debt which she owed to a 
 grocer — the amount, I think, was 92 cents — and found herself 
 unable to rest in peace until she had arranged for its pay- 
 ment. Another very interesting instance, in which the mat- 
 ter was obviously of greater importance, was that of a Cath- 
 olic priest who had made notes of a confession which was en- 
 trusted to him under the seal of sacramental secresy, and 
 was then killed in an accident before he had the opportunity 
 of destroying those notes as he had intended to do. Such 
 taking of notes of a confession is very rightly strictly for- 
 bidden by the church, and so the priest was in great sorrow 
 and anxiety lest these should fall into the hands of some one 
 who would make a bad use of them. He haunted the place 
 in which he had concealed them for eighty years, until some 
 one came to whom he could entrust the delicate mission of 
 recovering and destroying them unread. That is a very 
 good example of the way in which people sometimes suffer 
 through many years for what seems like a small neglect or 
 failure of duty. There are many who are thus earth-bound 
 after death by some passion or longing. Misers frequently 
 suffer in this way, for some of them still have the sense of 
 property very strongly, while others watch with deep com- 
 punction the troubles of those dear to them, which might 
 have been alleviated by the money which is now so useless 
 to them in this new life. Then again the man who has com- 
 mitted a crime often haunts its scene; there are very many 
 stories which show that this is so. I remember a good ex- 
 ample which is given by Sir Nathaniel Wraxall — the story of 
 a clergyman who finds the vicarage of the new cure into 
 which he is inducted haunted by his predecessor, who (it ap- 
 pears) had murdered two illegitimate children there, and 
 was so filled with remorse that he was unable to rest in his 
 grave, or rather in the other world in which he found him- 
 self. 
 
 As I remarked before, the poltergeist phenomena are some 
 times unintentionally produced by the clumsy action of a 
 
68 THE RATIONALE OF APPARITIONS. 
 
 dead man; and occasionally this manifestation takes a form 
 differing slightly from the usual one. Such a case was that 
 of Major Moor, in whose house an epidemic of bell-ringing oc- 
 curred which lasted for fifty-three days, and was never satis- 
 factorily explained. He wrote a pamphlet on the subject, 
 which brought him many similar accounts of mysterious hap- 
 penings of the same nature. Incredible as it may seem, 
 such tricks are sometimes played intentionally by silly peo- 
 ple — people of the same type as those who think it amusing 
 to play an idiotic practical joke on another man in physical 
 life. A person whose development is at that level does not 
 suddenly become a sane or reasonable being because he hap- 
 pens to die, so senseless tricks are played from the astral 
 plane as well as on the physical 
 
 FAMILY GHOST. 
 
 Again, there is the whole question of the family ghost, who 
 haunts ancestral castles, and often takes upon himself the 
 function of warning his descendants of the approach of 
 death. Such an apparition may be really an earth-bound an- 
 cestor, detained usually by his intense pride of race and his 
 deep interest in the fortunes of his family; or he may be 
 merely an astral impression, though in this latter case he 
 could not warn the house of coming events. On the other 
 hand, such warning may be given by an artificial elemental, 
 or thought-form, as I described in my book on The Astral 
 Plane. There are other types of apparitions, of which I have 
 no time to speak to-night ; I must refer my hearers for fuller 
 details to my book on the subject, just as I had to do last 
 week with regard to a fuller account of the phenomena of 
 Spiritualism, and of my experiences in connection with 
 them; for each of these subjects is a vast one, far too great 
 to be exhaustively treated in a single evening's lecture. 
 
 Before concluding, however, I should like to say a few 
 words more as to the way in which we should meet a deni- 
 zen of this wider life, if we should ever be so fortunate as to 
 see one. That may easily happen, for many dead men do re- 
 turn. Often such a man needs help, and it is always a privi- 
 lege to have the opportunity of giving that. We should try 
 to look at such a meeting from the point of view of the dead 
 man, instead of from a selfish one. Realize that he has prob- 
 ably taken much trouble to show himself, and can do so only 
 for a very short time. Do not foolishly fear him on the one 
 hand, nor try to persuade yourself that he is a hallucination 
 
THE RATIONALE OF APPARITIONS. 69 
 
 on the other; receive him as a man and a brother, just as 
 you would if he came to you for help while yet in his physical 
 body; he is none the less your fellow-man because he has for 
 the time put off that garment of flesh. Speak to him kindly, 
 and ask what you can do for him; perhaps he can speak in 
 reply, or if he cannot do that he may at least communicate 
 his wishes by means of raps or signs; at any rate treat him 
 as a friend, and not as a foe or a bugbear. Teach your chil- 
 dren to regard such an occurrence as a visit from a dead man 
 as perfectly natural, though rare; thus you will save them 
 much unnecessary terror and give them an opportunity of 
 some day helping some poor soul who sorely needs it, for all 
 of us are brothers, the living and the dead alike, resting ever 
 in the sunshine of the same Divine Love. 
 
 The Spiritualist's View of Death. 
 
 An Essay Read Before an Audience in Ashland, Ore= 
 gon, by Nora Batchelor. 
 
 There is no subject on which the human mind has dwelt, 
 so clouded,, so befogged with erroneous conceptions, as this 
 subject of death. There is nothing in the life of man which, 
 because of the total lack of understanding which surrounds 
 it, has brought to him the deep grief, -the poignant anguish, 
 the life-long sorrow which death has brought — suffering 
 which is in a large measure unnecessary, and which would 
 be greatly lessened if perfect knowledge prevailed in the 
 place of utter ignorance. 
 
 It has been the mission of Spiritualism to dissipate much 
 of this error; to overcome doubt, to banish fear and terror, 
 and to illumine the black darkness of superstition with the 
 white light of truth. 
 
 To the enlightened mind, familiar with the truths which 
 Spiritualism has brought, death is no longer a calamity. It 
 is not the end of life; neither is it a change so great and all 
 comprehending that the eyes of love look in vain for the old 
 familiar personality of the loved and lost, in the crowned and 
 
70 THE SPIRITUALIST'S VIEW OF DEATH. 
 
 winged angels of heaven. To those who understand it truly 
 it is but a continuance of the earth life, under new and hap- 
 pier conditions. Not an inner change, but an outer one. 
 Not a change of personality, but a change, or rather an en- 
 largement of environment. The spirit remains the same. 
 Nothing is lost. The old world remains to it as before, but a 
 new and higher world is added. Nothing in the old life and 
 associations is lost, but possibilities of a new and broader life 
 open wide before it. It has dwelt hitherto in its house of 
 clay, knowing nothing, seeing, hearing, feeling nothing, save 
 that which transpired within the confines of those narrow 
 walls. Now, through the portal of death, it comes out into 
 the warmth, the light and beauty of the spirit world, there to 
 encounter new experiences, new delights, new joys; to meet 
 old friends and welcome new ones; to gain knowledge; to 
 unfold higher powers; to grow in wisdom, goodness and 
 purity, through all the years of immortal life. 
 
 Death is not a misfortune, not a catastrophe. It is merely 
 an incident in the evolution of life, as natural and beautiful 
 as many another. It is the opening of the flower, the burst- 
 ing of the chrysalis, the unfolding of the wings in a new and 
 more ethereal world. It is not a thing over which to grieve 
 and mourn, but rather something over which to rejoice and 
 be glad. For it means freedom. It means life. It means 
 added powers, added capacities. It means a breaking of 
 bonds, a snapping of cords, a sailing away of the hitherto 
 imprisoned spirit into a realm of love and light and beauty. 
 It means to leave the thraldom of the senses for the untram- 
 meled freedom of the spirit world. 
 
 Who mourns and weeps when the birdling breaks its shell 
 and frees itself at last from its tiny prison house? Who 
 sighs and mourns when, stronger grown, this feathered em- 
 bodiment of joy stands on the edge of the nest, all quivering 
 with delight and anticipation, spreads his untried wings and 
 takes his first flight into the great beautiful world which 
 henceforth shall be his home? No tears are shed for the 
 nestling who leaves the narrow confines of his birthplace for 
 the larger life of field and forest. None should be for the 
 soul which bursts the bonds of sense, and thrilling with joy 
 and expectation takes its flight into the great unknown spirit 
 world. Just as the little songster may return again and 
 again to the old tree which sheltered him in infancy, and in 
 whose arms his tiny cradle was rocked — just as he may poise 
 
THE SPIRITUALIST'S VIEW OF DEATH. 71 
 
 again and again above the downy little nest that saw his 
 birth, and pour out his joy in rapturous floods of melody, so 
 may the emancipated soul return to the home of its birth, 
 bringing with it the joy and gladness, the soul-inspiring 
 songs of the angel world, thrilling those who remain on the 
 earth plane with something of its own sense of freedom and 
 happiness. 
 
 To those who view it from the spiritual standpoint, death 
 is a beneficent thing. It is not the arch enemy of man, but 
 on the contrary, is often the best friend a storm-tossed, 
 struggling soul may have. There is nothing over which to 
 mourn when death comes to the relief of the suffering — those 
 whose lives have been one long series of misfortunes and dis- 
 appointments, of conflict with adverse circumstances and 
 unhappy environment — there is no cause for regret when at 
 last the chains are broken and the captive set free. Our 
 selfish sorrow gives place to gladness when, after the first 
 burst of grief is passed, we realize that the suffering of the 
 loved one is over; that nevermore can the cares and trials 
 of material life vex his spirit, nor its burdens weigh him 
 down; that he is safe and well on the "other shore," free at 
 last from the limitations that beset him here, and with ample 
 opportunity to develop to the highest degree the noble quali- 
 ties of mind and spirit which here were "cribbed, coffined 
 and confined"; that he has left forever the storm-beaten 
 track of material existence for the peaceful, sunny uplands of 
 the illimitable fields of spirit life. 
 
 "O still, white face of perfect peace, 
 
 Untouched by passion, freed from pain, — 
 
 He who ordained that work should cease 
 Took to himself the ripened grain. 
 
 "O noble face! your beauty bears 
 
 The glory that is wrung from pain, — 
 That high, celestial beauty wears 
 
 Of finished work, of ripened grain. 
 
 "Of human care you left no trace, 
 
 No lightest trace of grief or pain, — 
 On earth an empty form and face — 
 
 In heaven stands the ripened grain." 
 
 When the aged lay down their burdens, when they pass out 
 of the worn body that is no longer a fit habitation for the 
 
72 THE SPIRITUALIST'S VIEW OF DEATH. 
 
 indwelling spirit, when they shuffle off the mortal coil that 
 has become a prison-house, and are born into the freshness 
 and beauty, the strength and power, the eternal youth of the 
 spirit life, there is far more cause for rejoicing than for sor* 
 row. If our eyes could be opened, if our senses might be 
 made keen, that we might behold the scenes into which they 
 have entered, if we might witness the clad reunions on the 
 other side, as the new-born soul is welcomed by loved ones 
 who have long since passed to the higher life, if we could be 
 made conscious of all the unutterable joy, the keen delight, 
 the deep abiding happiness which the change has brought, 
 we would mourn and lament nevermore. 
 
 In the case of the little ones, and those who are taken away 
 in the bloom of youth, there seems less of consolation, and 
 more to regret and sorrow over. But even here we can find 
 much of comfort in the thought that, although the experi- 
 ences, the lessons and pleasures of earth life are missed, its 
 misfortunes, its errors and sorrows are also missed. The 
 child, the youth or maiden passes into the hands of those 
 who are wiser far than we. They pass under the guidance 
 and instruction of those who, from the beginning, will teach 
 them truth and not error. They will not be compelled to 
 pass a lifetime in the other world unlearning the false les- 
 sons of this. When we are reminded of all the monstrous 
 error, the hideous falsehoods with which the child mind is 
 filled in this present-day civilization (?) of ours, it becomes 
 a question whether the little ones are not better off in the 
 hands of their angel guides. If we could know of the brighter 
 and better life into which they have gone, of the truer eth- 
 ical and spiritual training which they will receive, of the 
 fuller opportunities, the grander possibilities open before 
 them, it is doubtful whether we would rejoice or be sad. 
 
 Nor is it true that the little ones leave their earthly homes, 
 and go to some far away abode beyond the skies, nevermore 
 to return. Again and again are they brought back by their 
 spirit guides to visit the old home, and their interest in and 
 love and sympathy for the friends of earth thus kept alive 
 through all the years of seeming separation — a separation 
 that exists on one side only, and need not exist at all if the 
 parents were not rendered blind and deaf to the presence of 
 their loved one by reason of a false belief. 
 
 It is this false belief, this erroneous conception concerning 
 death and the life beyond, which more than anything else. 
 
THE SPIRITUALIST'S VIEW OF DEATH. 73 
 
 prevents the invisible inhabitants of the other world from 
 making their presence known. Think of your spirit friends 
 always as dwelling at an immeasurable distance from you, 
 and without the possibility of return, and you erect an in- 
 superable barrier between yourselves and them. They can- 
 not reach you nor touch you. They may stand at your side, 
 but they cannot reach your consciousness. They cannot 
 make themselves known to you because in your thought you 
 have separated them from you and placed them at a distance. 
 
 On the other hand, think of them as near you, as coming 
 often to visit you, as cherishing the same love for you and 
 interest in your welfare that they manifested when here, 
 and slowly but surely you brush aside the veil between. 
 Little by little you lessen the obstacles between their con- 
 sciousness and yours. For remember these obstacles are 
 spiritual, not material. They exist in your own mind and 
 soul, not elsewhere. This matter of spirit communion is the 
 most subtle thing in the universe. It is governed by laws 
 that are purely spiritual, and of which we have as yet but a 
 slight comprehension. But this much we have learned, that 
 upon our own attitude toward the spirit world depends in 
 large measure the question of whether or not we may come 
 into direct communication with it. 
 
 Never think of your spirit friends as "lost" or as "gone." 
 They are neither the one thing nor the other. The body is 
 lost, it is true, but the spirit still is here, longing to make its 
 presence known to you. Cultivate your better part, drop 
 your sordid aims, leave your worldly ambition, place yourself 
 in harmony with higher spheres of thought and aspiration, 
 live upon a more spiritual plane, and your friend may come 
 to you. Don't live down there in the cellar of your being, 
 and then complain because the bright exalted beings of a 
 more ethereal realm cannot descend into your dank unwhole- 
 some atmosphere. Live in the upper chambers of your soul, 
 with windows ever open to the sky, and perchance these 
 heavenly visitors may some day come to you — all unexpect- 
 edly it may be — and come to remain. Not that they will- 
 come from a distance — you will soon learn that they have 
 been with you all the time, but unable to reach your con- 
 sciousness because of barriers in your own mental and spirit- 
 ual life. 
 
 It often happens that, after the death of a loved friend, 
 psychic powers before undreamed of, are most unexpectedly 
 
74 THE SPRITUALIST'S VIEW OF DEATH. 
 
 developed. Without doubt this is because the thought of the 
 one bereaved is turned with more than usual intensity to the 
 spirit world. In thought he dwells upon that plane, material 
 interests being for the time lost sight of. The soul powers 
 are quickened and strengthened, the whole life lifted up and 
 spiritualized, and because of this the way is made open be- 
 tween the soul of the disembodied and the friend of earth. 
 A whole new world is opened up to him, of whose existence 
 he had not dreamed. Possibilities of spiritual growth and 
 development lie open before him, before unrecognized. 
 
 So if death brings loss, it also brings gain. Many can date 
 their spiritual awakening — the dawning in them of higher 
 hopes, aims, aspirations, the desire for nobler and purer 
 things in life — from the death of a much loved friend, and 
 the desire for knowledge of and communion with the spirit 
 world, to which that event inevitably led. Out of darkness 
 came light; out of despair hope; out of ignorance, knowl- 
 edge. 
 
 In death there is no loss, no separation to those who truly 
 understand. Death, has not the power to sever a strong at- 
 tachment. Instead of lessening, it but serves to deepen and 
 strengthen. The physical presence is not essential to the 
 highest love. Its absence rather enhances, purines, spirit- 
 ualizes. 
 
 "Well blest is he who has a dear one dead: 
 A friend he has whose face will never change — 
 A dear communion that will not grow strange; 
 The anchor of a love is death. 
 
 "The blessed sweetness of a loving breath 
 Will reach our cheek all fresh through weary years. 
 For her who died long since, ah! waste not tears, 
 She's thine unto the end." 
 
 When friends are parted thus, not in spirit but in body, 
 their relationship gradually assumes a new and higher char- 
 acter. The one who has dropped his garment of clay little 
 by little assumes the part of instructor, guide or guardian 
 angel to the one still in the body. From the loftier plane of 
 the spirit life he brings counsel, knowledge, inspiration. 
 Selfish elements, if such existed, are little by little elimi- 
 nated in the purer companionship that follows. I know of no 
 companionship, no communion, more divinely beautiful than 
 this; no love more pure and exalted than that between spirit 
 
THE SPIRITUALIST'S VIEW OP DEATH. 75 
 
 and mortal, where one ministers to all high spiritual needs, 
 and one is ministered unto; where one gladly gives of his 
 best and highest, and one eagerly and thankfully receives. 
 Earth holds nothing that can in the least compare with it. 
 There is an understanding and a sympathy which never 
 could be realized when both were in the body. The veil is 
 torn away on one side at least, and there is a consciousness 
 of nearness, a possibility of spiritual communion which 
 never before existed. In quiet hours of the day, and in 
 dreams at night, our loved one comes as he never came be- 
 fore. We feel that we never knew him so well, that we 
 never realized his true worth, his real greatness so much as 
 now. And bye and bye we learn to smile when others speak 
 of him as "dead." 
 
 No, the philosophic Spiritualist cannot long remain in a 
 state of grief and despair. When the shock caused by death 
 is past, and his faculties resume their normal activity, he 
 soon realizes that there is no loss and no separation; that 
 these are only in the seeming, in the outer, material world 
 only; that all that is spiritual still abides and endures. The 
 apparent and the illusory soon yield to the consciousness of 
 the real and the true. The fact of continued life, the truth 
 of spirit return and spirit communion soon drives out the 
 thought of death and separation. Soon he learns that there 
 is still union, unbroken and indissoluble; that 
 
 "Life is ever lord of Death, 
 And Love shall never lose its own." 
 
 Regret is soon past. We know that all is well with our 
 spirit friends. We would not have them back now if we 
 could. They would not wish to come, for they are happier 
 where they are. They have become our angel guardians, un- 
 der whose instruction and inspiration we have "grown to 
 something greater than before." The spiritual nature has 
 been unfolded and developed. We have been weaned from 
 earth, from petty aims and ambitions, from sordid thoughts 
 and pursuits. For there is no event in life so spiritualizing 
 as the death of a loved one, and the thoughts and desires to 
 which it gives rise. And we learn to be content. We would 
 not have it otherwise now, if we could. We have found 
 peace, and are happy in the thought of ultimate reunion in 
 the higher life, and a long eternity of growth, unfoldment, 
 and joyous companionship, beyond the veil. 
 
Journeying in the Spirit Realms. 
 
 The Spirit Home and Its Surroundings — Sights and 
 
 Scenes Along the Way — By Mary E. France, 
 
 of Seattle, Wash. 
 
 In my last articles published in The Progressive Thinker 
 I did not mention the darkest places to which I was taken, 
 not caring to dwell on these dark scenes more than was nec- 
 essary. I laid them aside for another time, but that they 
 were lessons given to me, for a purpose, I well know, and 
 that purpose was to give them out for the benefit of human- 
 ity, and thereby aid my teachers from the spirit side of life 
 in spreading these truths. I only wish I had the power to 
 impress these scenes upon every soul who has not yet caught 
 the bright gleam from the angel world, to arrest them in 
 their dark deeds, and show them as it has been so beauti- 
 fully shown me, the true condition of the next life, after liv- 
 ing as we should here. And if these articles will be the 
 means of turning one soul to the light. I know there will be 
 rejoicing in the angel world, and I will feel that my efforts 
 have not been in vain. 
 
 As my teacher showed me the brightest first, so I will tell 
 you of my Spirit Home Number Two, for in my last article I 
 told you of one of my homes, which was in colors, one room 
 the furnishings were all in pink, another white, another blue, 
 and the last room I was taken into being yellow. So after 
 preparing myself for another journey and sending out a 
 prayer for strength, I soon heard the well known voice of 
 one who has accompanied me on a part of my trips, say, 
 "Come, child, we will go to another place to-day," so we 
 floated out and up. 
 
 We were not so high on the first part of our journey as we 
 76 
 
JOURNEYINGS IN THE SPIRIT REALMS. 77 
 
 had been before, so that as we floated along I could see the 
 beautiful scenery better than on some of the other trips. We 
 crossed a large body of water, and after leaving it the view 
 was beautiful. 
 
 My guide, taking my hand, said, "We will ascend now"; 
 so we slowly went higher and after traveling some distance 
 he said, "Child, in my father's house are many mansions, and 
 in thy progression thee will need another home other than 
 the one thou hast seen," and as he finished saying this, we 
 came in sight of the most beautiful home that mortal eyes 
 could imagine. It stood on a high slope of ground, facing 
 the west, and looked as I have always pictured some of the 
 grand old mansions do; it was immense and pure white, sur- 
 rounded by a low fence of festoons of white flowers. The 
 grounds were laid out beautifully, a white fountain stood on 
 one side of the white marble walk, the water shooting high 
 in the air, the grass was green, with here and there a pot of 
 Easter lilies; as my other home had, so did this one, a wide 
 curved porch, with broad steps leading up into the house. I 
 was standing spellbound looking at these beautiful things, 
 when my guide broke into my pleasant thoughts by saying, 
 "Come, child, thee will want to see the inside of this beauti- 
 ful home." 
 
 The surroundings were so interesting and beautiful that it 
 had not occurred to me to go inside. As he said this we 
 walked up the steps, opened the door and went inside, when 
 there was presented to my view the grandest, most delight- 
 ful scene of all, filling me with happiness and delight. Ev- 
 erything in this home was pure white, the floor was covered 
 with a white velvet carpet so soft that when we stepped 
 upon it we sank into it. * 
 
 "Oh," I cried, "what a beautiful home! How can I ever ex- 
 pect to live in a home like this? There must be some mis- 
 take." 
 
 "No, child, this will be thy home, thee is building it now 
 with thy good thoughts and deeds. Go on, oh, child, sending 
 out thy beautiful thoughts to heaven, and do all the good 
 thee can and this is thy reward." 
 
 As my guide finished speaking I cast my eyes around the 
 room, and as I did so they fell on a wide open piano, pure 
 white; in the centre of the room stood a center-table, and on 
 top of it a pot of Easter lilies. Over a wide mantle I was 
 amazed to see a life-size picture of myself, framed in white, 
 
78 JOURNEYINGS IN THE SPIRIT REALMS. 
 
 my hands clasped, my head drooped as if in prayer, dressed 
 in white. I came out of my reverie and turning to my guide, 
 we started and walked to the opposite side of the room 
 where a wide white marble stairway led to the rooms above ; 
 at one side of this stairway on one of the posts was a statue 
 of Christ. The wide steps were covered up the center with a 
 strip of white velvet carpet. We had gone about half way 
 up, when the vision had faded, my guide gone, and a sadness 
 stole over me, when I thought I had lost it all. 
 
 I soon afterward visited this home again, and the view 
 from an upp*er window overlooking the grounds and to a lake 
 close by, was indeed beautiful. 
 
 May 4th of this year I again visited it. I found myself 
 standing on the opposite side of this home from where I saw 
 it before, this being on the east side, while on my other visit 
 I only saw it from the west. 
 
 Oh, this beautiful home! I can hardly describe it as I 
 saw it to-day. It is white marble and looked like a palace. 
 As I stood looking up at it I thought, Oh, what a grand 
 home! Can it be possible that I will ever live in a home like 
 this? And the grounds, too, are beautiful, the walks being 
 white marble bordered with flowers, with trees scattered 
 here and there over the lawn. I speak of this home, for the 
 reason that I know if I have a home there so much more 
 beautiful than any earth home I have seen, I am sure that all 
 of earth's children will have the same. 
 
 But as all the spheres are not so bright as this one I must 
 give what I saw in the dark ones as well. 
 
 I had instructions from my teacher from the spirit side of 
 life to prepare myself for these journeys. I did so every 
 morning for fifteen days, and at nine o'clock each morning 
 found me ready, and each time I was told to center my 
 thoughts on the place visited the day before, and as I did so 
 I would start from this place. So this morning we started 
 from the beautiful home we visited yesterday, my guide say- 
 ing, "Come, child, we will leave this place; now take a look 
 at the surroundings before leaving, for thee may not see it 
 again until thee returns to stay; although thee may, some 
 time." 
 
 I did take a look and it was a great temptation to stay, for 
 everything looked so bright and beautiful, so after waiting a 
 moment for me to take a last look, he said: 
 
 "Come, child, we will go to a lower sphere to-day." So we 
 started and floated over a beautiful stretch of country, like 
 
JOURNEYINGS IN THE SPIRIT REALMS. 79 
 
 the most of it we passed over looked like a panorama of 
 moving pictures. After traveling some distance we seemed 
 to turn and go in an easterly direction, when on looking 
 ahead and below, I saw what I thought were Indian wig- 
 wams scattered over a lonely desert. 
 
 Upon coming closer I saw they were tents set here and 
 there on the most desolate-looking country I ever saw; 
 they were standing on rocks and sand; the hot sun pour- 
 ing down upon them, and scattered around on the ground 
 were human beings. I thought, Oh! if there is a hell this 
 must be one, for I was never in such a hot place in my 
 life. I thought, why don't they go inside the tents? There 
 they would be sheltered from the hot sun, but when I 
 went up to one of them, I found out why they did not, 
 for if possible, it was hotter inside than it was on the 
 outside. They seemed to be set up to lure the people to 
 them, only to turn them away with disappointment. 
 
 I was so intensely interested in watching them and try- 
 ing to devise some way whereby they could be made more 
 comfortable, that the voice of my guide startled me by 
 saying, "Come." In my intense curiosity I had for the 
 time forgotten him. So I turned around and went to 
 where he stood when to my horror, I saw a man lying at 
 his feet, begging for water. He said: Oh, only give 
 me a little water. Oh, God! if there is a God, oh why 
 am I in a hell like this? Oh, help! Oh — " and as he 
 uttered this last sound, he fell back on the hot sand. 
 
 I was greatly excited and turning to my guide, said, 
 *'Oh, father! what does this mean?" 
 
 "This, my child, is one who has been taught the right 
 way, but would not listen, and in his besotted condition, 
 passed to this life, caring for nothing better than whisky 
 and all the things which go to make a drunkard's life." 
 
 I was glad to hear my guide say, "Come, child, we will 
 go farther," for there was not a drop of water in sight to 
 relieve his thirst, nor was there a blade of grass, or a liv- 
 ing thing in the shape of a tree or vine, nothing but rock 
 and sand everywhere, and as I could not relieve his suffer- 
 ing I was glad to go. The next place I was taken to, an- 
 other sight met my eyes worse than the one just related. 
 
 While looking at this the words of the "Wanderer in the 
 Spirit Land" flashed across my mind. My guide seemed to 
 catch my thought, for turning to me he said, "My child, 
 
80 JOURNBYINGS IN THE SPIRIT REALMS. 
 
 while you have read this we wanted thee to see it with thine 
 own eyes, so that the lesson would be all the stronger." 
 
 Yes, so it is, but oh, this is horrible, for at our very feet, 
 and all around us were moving reptiles, and slime of the 
 worst kind. 
 
 And, oh, horror! lying in the midst of it were human be- 
 ings, men and women, from the worst slums of earth. 
 
 "Oh!" I cried, "father, can it be possible that people who 
 have inhabited the earth must pass through anything of this 
 kind?" 
 
 His answer was, "Yes, child, but it is their own fault, for 
 they knew better." 
 
 Here were lewd women, murderers, drunkards, and every 
 crime imaginable represented. My guide stopped beside a 
 being who seemed to be in the most horrible agony. I was 
 told that he was a murderer. He certainly had committed 
 some horrible crime, for I could hear his agonizing cries for 
 days. He kept repeating, "Take them away! Oh, take them 
 away! Why do they come here to haunt me!" and in his 
 horrible agony he was continually writhing in the slime and 
 among the hideous-looking reptiles, and with his awful moan- 
 ing and words put before my mental vision some of his vic- 
 tims of innocent women and children. 
 
 My guide knowing this lesson was well imbedded in my 
 soul, led me to another scene, where in a heap (it looked this 
 way to me) lay little tiny babies. "Oh!" I cried, "father, 
 what does this mean? and in sucb an awful place for little 
 innocent beings like these." 
 
 "My child, these are the offcasts from the lowest slums of 
 earth thrust out before their time, and so saturated with the 
 sins of their unnatural parents, must be cleansed by these 
 ministering angels whom you see hovering over them, before 
 they can be released, to take their flight upward." 
 
 Raising my eyes upward I cried, "Oh, heavenly father, 
 what a work there is to be done on the earth plane, and, oh, 
 so few to do it. Oh, help me to stand firm as an iron post in 
 my duty as I see it to-day; help me, oh, God, seeing these 
 truths as they have been shown me, to stand up for this truth 
 and clasp hands with these dear ones, who are trying so 
 hard to enlist my help in spreading this great truth." 
 
 And as this prayer left my soul, I found myself again in 
 my body, and was surprised to see formed around me, clasp- 
 ing hands in their delight, a band of angels, rejoicing to know 
 
JOURNEYINGS IN THE SPIRIT REALMS. 81 
 
 that they had found another who could grasp their meaning 
 and understand these lessons, as they take me to them each 
 day. 
 
 I sat there and watched them until their hallelujahs grew 
 fainter and fainter, and this beautiful, encouraging vision 
 had vanished as had all the rest. 
 
 But oh, what an impression these dear ones have left on 
 my soul, and may I never be found wanting in my duty as I 
 see it now, for these lessons are written in letters of fire on 
 my soul and I hope will never grow dim. 
 
 This morning my guide said, "Come, child, I will show thee 
 a brighter place than the one we visited yesterday." So, tak- 
 ing my hand, we floated up and away. We soon saw a beau- 
 tiful landscape which looked more beautiful than ever after 
 gazing on such a dark picture as I did yesterday. 
 
 After traveling over miles of these pleasing scenes, we 
 came to something which astonished me greatly : After set- 
 tling down on the ground, we entered what I found to be a 
 spirit orchard. I thought I had seen beautiful orchards on 
 the earth plane, but there was no comparison, for this one 
 was more beautiful than I thought could be made. Instead 
 of earth for a treading place it looked like white cement and 
 seemed to be an endless park. My guide pulled off a large 
 buuch of purple grapes, handed them to me and said, "Child, 
 dost thou see the beautiful fruit?" 
 
 "Oh, yes," I answered, "and what large, luscious fruit, too," 
 and as we walked on I saw such a great variety of pears, 
 peaches, plums, apples, grapes and every kind imaginable. 
 We walked a long way, and the trees were all loaded with 
 fruit. 
 
 We now came to a light gray building, went up two or 
 three steps, and when looking over the door I saw a little an- 
 gel, appearing more like an innocent little child, holding in 
 its hand a white banner. "Peace to all who enter here" 
 were the words which caught my eyes, written in letters of 
 gold. My guide opening the door, we entered a beautifully 
 furnished room. I was surprised when I learned later that 
 this was a spirit school, and if the parents of earth could only 
 know and see as I have, what beautiful surroundings and 
 homes their little ones have after entering the spirit world, 
 their tears would be dried up, and their heartaches would 
 give way to rejoicings and hallelujahs, for the first room was 
 indeed beautiful, its whole furnishings were in gold and 
 
82 JOURNBYINGS IN THE SPIRIT REALMS. 
 
 white, the draperies, easy chairs and couches were ail white 
 and gold, the carpet being the same color. We left this room 
 and entered a long dining-room. This room was also fur- 
 nished in gold and white. A table running almost the full 
 length of the room was loaded with the same luscious fruit 
 which I had seen in the orchard. 
 
 We left this room and entered what proved to be a large 
 school-room, filled with groups of happy children. It dawned 
 upon me now what it was, but for information I said, 
 "Father, what can this be? I see no books." 
 
 His answer was, "Child, look around thee." 
 
 I did so, and hanging around the walls were mottoes of 
 Truth, Love, Happiness, Progression, and so on, and' scat- 
 tered among the children were young women dressed in 
 white, whom I took to be their teachers. They were a hap- 
 py lot of little ones, quite noisy, but not like our school-chil- 
 dren on earth, for they were not boisterous. I was so inter- 
 ested in watching the little ones that I did not look at the 
 room, only as my guide called my attention to it. He said, 
 pointing up to the ceiling, which was quite high and concave, 
 "Child, dpst thou see those little beings? They are some of 
 the little ones thee looked at yesterday. As they progress 
 they come down and mingle with these older ones." 
 
 And as my eyes rested on them they widened with aston- 
 ishment to see these little things flying around the dome 
 looking more like butterflies in human shape. While look- 
 ing up at them, I was so overcome, I cried, "Oh, father, what 
 wonderful truths you have shown me. May I never forget 
 these lessons." 
 
 When I gathered my scattered thoughts the children were 
 all leaving the schoolroom for outdoor sports. We followed 
 them to the door and when on looking out and beyond a 
 beautiful green lawn and through the trees, I saw a lake cov- 
 ered with tiny boats, Some of the children were running to 
 get into them to take a ride, and there seemed to be plenty 
 for all; others were rolling on the grass, but each one was 
 full of happiness. 
 
 After coming back, this pleasant scene kept coming before 
 my vision, and I thought, Oh, if the parents of earth only 
 knew how happy their little ones are, they could not mourn 
 for them. And I prayed that the time would soon come 
 when these truths would be known and understood by all on 
 earth. 
 
JOURNEYINGS IN THE SPIRIT REALMS. 83 
 
 On this same day, after visiting the school, my guide said, 
 "Child, there is another place I would show thee at this 
 time." So he took me to a home where I was greatly sur- 
 prised to see my husband's father, mother, and five of his 
 brothers and sisters, and returned with a message to him 
 from them. I will say right here that I was with them twice 
 while on these journeys, and recognized the ones I have seen 
 on earth. They looked younger than when they passed out, 
 but as this is personal, I only mention it, as I have been 
 asked a number of times if I recognized anyone there. 
 
 There is one more dark scene that I feel it a duty to give 
 out, and I wish that there was no such place on earth, for 
 this journey was on the earth plane, but as it was shown to 
 me and I was told to give out these truths, I feel in duty 
 bound to do it, but I cannot give it as I saw it, for what I saw 
 while peering through this cell sent a shudder over me for 
 days when I thought of it. 
 
 We traveled some distance this morning, when looKing far 
 ahead I saw a large city. As we came nearer the first thing 
 which caught my eye was church spires in different parts of 
 the city, and the next which flashed before my vision was an 
 immense gray building, covering acres of ground built on a 
 high slope of ground just outside the city. We floated up to 
 it, my guide saying at the same time, "We will stop here," 
 and as I looked at the building and terraced grounds with 
 well-kept flower beds and trees scattered here and there over 
 the green lawn I thought: Oh, what an ideal place! not 
 dreaming of the sorrow and degradation to be found hidden, 
 deep down underneath this beautiful structure, and looked 
 at daily, with pride, by hundreds of this fair city, for its 
 black secrets are well guarded by the inmates of this seem- 
 ingly happy place, they little dreaming that their wickedness 
 is iaid bare before the eyes of the spirit world. 
 
 My guide led the way up some broad stone steps, saying, 
 "Child, this is a nunnery." Upon entering the hallway, the 
 first person we met was a nun, and I thought, what a sad face. 
 He led me out of this entrance into another long hall to a 
 dining-room, where seated around a table were five or six 
 nuns, but the face of each one had such a sad, careworn look 
 that as I stood looking at them this vibration of sadness 
 struck me with such force I think prepared me a little for 
 what was to come. After looking at them a few moments, 
 my guide said, "Come, child, I want thee to see still further." 
 
84 JOURNEYINGS IN THE SPIRIT REALMS. 
 
 So we turned and went down a narrow stairway — down, 
 down, until it grew quite dark. We stopped in front of a 
 steel cell, padded on the inside, but seeming to open for my 
 benefit, for I could look right into it, but what I saw and 
 heard while peering into this cell was enough to make any- 
 one's blood run cold in their veins, and if the pure mothers 
 could know of the impure lives some of their daughters 
 were forced to live after entering these blackest of earth's 
 low dives — I say blackest, because they are covered by the 
 cloak of religion — they could not rest while one stood on the 
 face of the earth, for the pleading tones of the frightened 
 one for her honor and the ang^y loud voice of the other, as 
 he flung her to the far side of the cell with "Go, you devil ! " 
 sent a shudder all over me and with a feeling of horror I 
 turned to my guide and asked him to take me away. His 
 only answer was "Come." He led the way and I followed 
 him down until we were in a dark, dismal, damp, mouldy 
 dungeon. We stopped in front of another cell, locked on 
 the outside with a big padlock. I soon knew this, too, held 
 a human being, by hearing her heartrending cries of "Oh! my 
 God! take my soul, and free me from this living hell! Oh, 
 
 God, why am I made to suffer in this way? Oh! " and 
 
 her agonizing cries almost froze the blood in my veins. 
 
 Looking through the grating the only piece of furniture in 
 sight was an old cot with a ragged comfort thrown over it, 
 and the pitiable object of humanity was, too, clothed in 
 mouldy rags. 
 
 I turned away with a sinking heart, and cried, "Oh, heav- 
 enly father, can it be possible that one of God's children is 
 made to suffer in this way? and all for trying to save her 
 good name? Oh!" I cried, "take me away," for I was so 
 evercome and weak it seemed to me I could stand no more, 
 and as I turned to my guide he said, "Child, thee has heard 
 of these wrongs, but to impress these lessons still deeper on 
 thy soul, I brought thee here that thee might see for thy- 
 self." 
 
 These scenes were so deeply .impressed on me that after 
 coming back I shed tears, and raising my hands toward 
 heaven, I cried, "Oh, heavenly father, why are these evils 
 permitted? Hasten the day when these poor wronged be- 
 ings may be set free and every nunnery on our fair land 
 thrown open to the gaze of the world." 
 
 My guide, who is punctual, and always ready to go, said 
 
JOURNEYINGS IN THE SPIRIT REALMS. 85 
 
 this morning, "Come, child, we will go from here to a higher 
 realm, to a place thou hast not seen." So taking my hand, 
 which seems to give me strength, we floated up above the 
 spirit orchard and school which we visited the day before, 
 and after rising up so that I could look down and over it, it 
 was indeed a pleasing picture to look at. I said, "What a 
 beautiful place!''' 
 
 "Yes, my child, it is indeed a beautiful place, but dost thou 
 see that beautiful scene also?" pointing to a wide stretch of 
 country ahead of us. I looked and another scene was spread 
 out ahead of and below us, but very different from the one 
 we had just left, for instead of the orchard I saw a narrow 
 winding stream, the sloping banks covered with green grass 
 and tall, stately trees. I could see no underbrush or rub- 
 bish of any kind as we see on earth, but everything looked 
 clean and trim, the trees being perfect, with no crooked or 
 misshaped ones among them. From here we gradually went 
 higher, the atmosphere becoming lighter and clearer. After 
 traveling some time, we came to another city. As far as I 
 could see there were buildings. It seemed to be a vastly 
 populated city. 
 
 We settled down in front of a large purple and gold temple. 
 The door was an oval archway. My guide said, "Look well, 
 child, before we enter." And when he said this, I saw writ- 
 ten in letters of gold over the door, "Angels of Purity." 
 
 After surveying the outside to my satisfaction, we entered 
 the door, and as we did so there immediately spread around 
 my body a thin gauzy purple robe. I was surprised at this 
 and looked at my guide <o say something, but he did not, so 
 we walked in and soon my ears caught a chant and instru- 
 mental music of "Glory, glory, glory!" It seemed very 
 strange to me, and I wondered what it could mean. 
 
 The interior of the temple was beautiful, being purple and 
 gold blending into each other, making the prettiest color one 
 one could imagine. 
 
 The guide led me to the back of the room and up two or 
 three wide steps, when on looking around I saw two purple 
 and gold fonts filled with water, one standing on either side 
 of the rostrum. While I was looking at these I began to 
 grow weak and was drawn back to my body. My guide see- 
 ing this, brought me back by saying in sharp tones, "Come 
 back, child, come back." 
 
 When I came back I saw that on the back part of the wide 
 
86 JOURNEYINGS IN THE SPIRIT REALMS. 
 
 rostrum stood a band of angels, each dressed in rich purple 
 and gold. They seemed to harmonize in beauty with every- 
 thing in the temple. My guide led me up between the two 
 fonts when they replaced my thin robe with one of heavy 
 purple velvet, putting around my waist a girdle of gold with 
 tassels of gold hanging down in front. Then a master 
 stepped up in front of me with a gold crown in one hand on 
 which were the words, "Angels of God," saying: "My child, 
 your struggles through life have been long and trying. At 
 times you have almost felt like giving up in despair, but al- 
 ways that bright star would break through the clouds, and 
 beckon you on, and in your true devotion to God, you would 
 gather up strength to go on up the path, which unknown to 
 you, had been planned. And, oh, my child, I am glad it is so, 
 for by so doing you have at last reached the highest position 
 which is possible to attain and are now ready for the crown, 
 which has been prepared for you." 
 
 Placing it on my head, he continued : "May you ever wear 
 it with wisdom when sitting in council with these your co- 
 workers" — pointing at the same time to the band of angels 
 who stood back of him — "who have gathered here this morn- 
 ing to bid you welcome into their glorious band." 
 
 Then dipping his hand into one of the fonts, sprinkled my 
 head with the water, said, "Now. my child, I baptize thee in 
 the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost," and as 
 he finished saying this the angel band which had gathered 
 around me began to chant, "Glory, glory, glory!" and accom- 
 panied with instrumental music, left an impression on me 
 that will last through all time. 
 
 "Oh!" I cried, "what does this mean? Can it be possible 
 that this is for me, when I am so unworthy? Oh, is it possi- 
 ble that I have been welcomed into this angel band! Am I 
 worthy? Oh, is it true?" 
 
 I found myself back in my body with the tears running 
 down my cheeks, when the voice which is always near, said : 
 "My child, this is true, as are all the others we have been 
 showing you; put it, too, down in your book, and know it is 
 true and will be carried out when you come to us just as it 
 was to-day." 
 
 "Oh!" I cried, "heavenly father, make me worthy of these 
 beautiful things, and help me to do my duty." 
 
 I sat there a long time, thinking of what I had just passed 
 through, and the beautiful things I had seen stood out before 
 
JOURNEYINGS IN THE SPIRIT REALMS. 8 7 
 
 my wondering eyes in all their grandeur, and the beautiful 
 influences which had been showered upon me by the angel 
 band still clung to me, and I longed to keep it with me, and I 
 thought, Oh, if we could live amid such heavenly influences, 
 how different indeed would be our lives — and I prayed that 
 this influence might never leave me, and that I might be able 
 thereby to send out a ray of it to others to help brighten 
 their lives. 
 
 Magic, White and Black. 
 
 A Lecture Delivered Before a Chicago Audience by 
 C. W. Leadbeater, the Great Psychic, 
 of London, England, 
 
 WHITE AND BLACK MAGIC— ELEMENTALS— NATURE 
 SPIRITS AND ANGELS— EVOCATION— TYPES OF MA- 
 GICIANS—TALISMANS—SELFISHNESS OF BLACK 
 MAGIC— ORIENTAL MAGICIANS— SOME SAFEGUARDS 
 AGAINST EVIL. 
 
 The dictionary definition of the word Magic is, "The use 
 of supernatural means to produce preternatural results." In 
 Theosophy we cannot agree with that definition, because we 
 hold that nothing is supernatural, and that however unusual 
 or curious any phenomenon may be, it happens in obedience 
 to the laws of nature. We perfectly recognize that as yet 
 man knows very few of these laws, and that consequently 
 many things may happen that he cannot explain; but, reason- 
 ing from analogy as well as from direct observation, we feel 
 quite certain that the laws themselves are immutable, and 
 that whenever anything to us inexplicable is produced, the 
 inexplicability is due to our ignorance of the laws and not to 
 any contravention of them. Our knowledge is as yet so very 
 limited in so many ways, that it is not in the least remark- 
 able that we should now and then come into contact with 
 occurrences that we do not understand. We know only one 
 small fraction of our world — just this lowest physical part of 
 it; and even with that our acquaintance is in reality only 
 
88 MAGIC, WHITE AND BLACK. 
 
 very partial and superficial. But the average man is pro- 
 foundly unconscious of the extent of his ignorance; and so 
 he is shocked and surprised at any manifestation which tran- 
 scends the boundaries of his infinitesimal experience. 
 
 With regard to this question of Magic many people will ex- 
 press exactly the same doubt as they do with regard to Tel- 
 epathy, Mind-Cure, Mesmerism, Apparitions, and Spiritual- 
 ism; they will say, "Is there any such thing as magic?" 
 There are always to be found those who deny the possibility 
 of anything which is outside their own experience. We have 
 never seen these things," they say, "and consequently we 
 know that all who have seen them are either fools or knaves, 
 either fraudulent or deluded.' It is useless to waste argu- 
 ment upon people whose minds are in so undeveloped a con- 
 dition as that; it is better to leave them undisturbed to wal- 
 low in the self-satisfaction of their own invincible ignor- 
 ance. They are in the position of the African king who was 
 indignant at the shameless falsehood of the traveler who as- 
 serted that in other lands water sometimes became solid. 
 Ice was outside of his experience, and so he denied the possi- 
 bility of its existence; and just at the same mental level are 
 the people who ignorantly ridicule what they do not under- 
 stand. 
 
 If we wish to try to improve the definition given in the dic- 
 tionary, we may describe magic as the employment of forces 
 as yet not recognized to produce visible results. In very 
 many cases it is the control of such forces by the human will. 
 Once more there are persons who would deny that any forces 
 can be directly controlled by the will, and once more it is 
 simply a question of how much the person happens to know. 
 The inexperienced but conceited man will deny anything and 
 everything; the wiser man who has studied has learnt to be 
 more cautious and so for idle assertion he substitutes in- 
 quiry and investigation. The adoption of this latter attitude 
 with regard to the production of physical results by as yet 
 unrecognized forces will very speedily show that there are 
 many undoubted instances of this, and that they may be con- 
 nected by very easy gradations with phenomena which are 
 quite common and readily accepted. 
 
 WHITE AND BLACK MAGIC. 
 
 If we accept some such definition of Magic as that sug- 
 gested above, there arises the further question, what is 
 meant by the adjectives white and black? In this associa- 
 
MAGIC, WHITE AND BLACK. 8 9 
 
 tion they are simply synonymous with good and evil. The 
 recognized forces of nature are no more good and evil in 
 themselves than are the recognized forces of electricity, 
 steam, or gunpowder. All of these things may be employed 
 for good or ill according to the mental attitude of the man 
 who employs them. Just as gunpowder may be usefully ap- 
 plied to clear away the rocks which obstruct the channel at 
 the entrance of the harbor, or maliciously used by the evil- 
 disposed person to destroy the house of his enemy, so may 
 the unrecognized magical forces be employed by wicked men 
 for selfish purposes, or by the good man for the helping and 
 shielding of his fellows. 
 
 Let us see what some of these unrecognized forces are. 
 Last Sunday when I was speaking to you about mesmerism I 
 mentioned the possession by every man of a certain amount 
 of nerve ether and also of a vital fluid which flowed along 
 with this nerve ether. Both of these, you will remember, 
 can be projected under the direction of the human will; so in 
 that way mesmerism itself may claim to be a modified kind 
 of magic, since in it these unseen forces are manipulated by 
 the human will, and visible results'are undoubtedly produced 
 thereby. The condition of the subject may be affected to a 
 very considerable extent; not only may all sorts of delusion 
 be produced, but the limbs may be made rigid and insensible 
 to pain and the man may be thrown into a deep trance. So 
 that we may really claim these two forces of vitality and 
 nerve ether as among those which can be employed and 
 have been employed by Magic. 
 
 Another great force which is used perhaps more fre- 
 quently than any other is that of the Elemental Essence. It 
 will be impossible for me to turn aside from my subject in or- 
 der to describe fully what Elemental Essence is, since that 
 would require a whole lecture. I can therefore give but the 
 slightest sketch of it now, and refer my hearers to the Theo- 
 sophical manuals and text books, for fuller information. You 
 will remember that when speaking to you on Reincarnation 
 and on the various bodies of men, I explained how the ego 
 when descending to a new birth drew round himself matter 
 of the various planes, in order that later on he might build 
 vehicles corresponding to each of these levels. It must be 
 remembered that all this matter — like that which the ego 
 draws to himself for his own use, and the great sea of matter 
 which lies outside — is not dead, but instinct with life. This 
 life is essentially divine, for there is no life which is not di- 
 
90 MAGIC, WHITE AND BLACK. 
 
 vine; but it is nevertheless at a very much earlier stage of 
 evolution than the life which manifests in humanity or in the 
 animal and vegetable kingdom. We must then recognize 
 that all this matter is charged with a kind of living essence; 
 and the study of occultism enables us to distinguish between 
 very many varieties of this strange living essence and to 
 learn that the different kinds may be employed for different 
 purposes in magic. The finer and more plastic matter of the 
 astral and mental planes is very readily sensitive to the ac- 
 tion of the human will; so that the living force contained in 
 this essence is to a very great extent at the disposal of any- 
 one who learns how to use it. 
 
 ELE MENTALS. 
 
 Sometimes we read in Theosophical literature of "Ele- 
 mentals." Properly speaking the word applies only to tem- 
 porary creations built up by the action of the human will out 
 of this living essence and the matter in which it inheres. 
 Such entities are of course only temporary and are in no 
 sense of the word evolving beings. That is to say, the es- 
 sence of which they are composed has an evolution of its own 
 as essence; but the entity temporarily built out of it has no 
 evolution as an entity, and no power to reincarnate. It may 
 be described indeed as consisting for the time of a body and 
 a soul, for the matter and its living essence makes a vehicle, 
 which is energized by the thought which is thrown out; and 
 the duration of this thought-form as a separate entity will 
 depend entirely upon the strength of the thought force 
 which is its ensouling principle and holds it together. As 
 soon as that force dies away its body of astral or mental 
 matter infused with elemental essence will disintegrate, and 
 the essence and matter will simply return to the surrounding 
 atmosphere from which they were drawn. These thought 
 forms, however, may be exceedingly capable and forceful 
 while they last; and their employment by the will of the 
 thiixk^r is one of the commonest and yet one of the most 
 effective of the acts of magic. An exceedingly useful and 
 illuminative article on the subject of thought forms written 
 by Mrs. Besant will be found in Lucifer for September, 1896. 
 I should strongly recommend it to the careful study of all 
 who are interested in this matter, as the colored illustra- 
 tions which are there given will help the inquirer to a ready 
 comprehension of the way in which such forces act. 
 
MAGIC, WHITE AND BLACK. 91 
 
 NATURE SPIRITS AND ANGELS. 
 
 We have also to consider another class of entities which 
 are very frequently employed in magic; and this time we are 
 dealing with real and evolving beings — not merely with tem- 
 porary creations. There is a whole kingdom of vivid life 
 which does not belong to our human line of evolution at all, 
 but seems to be running parallel with it, and yet to be utiliz- 
 ing this same world in which we live. This evolution con- 
 tains all grades of intelligences, from entities at the level in 
 that respect of our animal kingdom, to others who equal or 
 even greatly surpass the highest intellectual power of man. 
 This evolution does not appear normally to descend to the 
 physical plane; its members, at any rate, never take upon 
 themselves dense physical bodies such as ours. The great 
 majority of those with whom we have to deal possess only 
 astral bodies, although certainly some types come down to 
 to the etheric part of the physical plane and clothe them- 
 selves with its matter, thus bringing themselves nearer to 
 the limit of ordinary human sight. There are vast hosts of 
 these beings, and an almost infinite number of types and 
 classes and tribes among them. Broadly speaking, we may 
 divide them into two great classes, (A) Nature Spirits or 
 Fairies, and (B) Angels or, as they are called in the East, 
 Devas. This second class begins at a level corresponding 
 to the human but reaches up to heights far beyond any that 
 humanity has as yet touched, so that its connection with 
 magic is naturally of the slightest kind and belongs solely 
 to one of the classes of which we shall speak presently. The 
 Nature Spirits have been called by very many different 
 names at different periods and in various countries. We 
 read of them as Fairies, Elves, Pixies, Kobolds, Sylphs, 
 Gnomes, Salamanders, Undines, Brownies, or "Good People," 
 and traditions of their occasional appearances exist in every 
 country under heaven. They have usually been supposed to 
 be merely the creations of popular superstition, and it is no 
 doubt true that very much has been said of them which 
 would not bear scientific investigation. Nevertheless it is 
 quite true that such an evolution does exist, and that its 
 members occasionally, though rarely, manifest themselves to 
 human vision. Normally they have no connection whatever 
 with humanity or its evolution, and the majority of them 
 rather shun than court the presence of man, since his ill- 
 regulated emotions, passions, and desires are to them a 
 
92 MAGIC, WHITE AND BLACK. 
 
 source of much disturbance and acute discomfort. Never- 
 theless now and then exceptional circumstances have 
 brought some of them into direct contact and even friend- 
 ship with man. 
 
 Naturally they possess powers and methods of their own, 
 and in many cases they can be either induced or compelled 
 to put these powers at the service of the student of occult- 
 ism. Although they are not as yet individualized, and in 
 that respect correspond rather to the animal kingdom than 
 to humanity, yet their intelligence is in many cases quite 
 equal to that of man. They seem, however, to have usually 
 but little sense of responsibility, and the will is generally 
 somewhat less developed with them than it is with the aver- 
 age man. They can therefore readily be dominated by the 
 exercise of mesmeric powers, and can then be employed in 
 very many ways to carry out the will of the magician. There 
 are very many purposes for which they may be utilized, and 
 so long as the tasks prescribed to them are within their 
 power they will be faithfully and surely executed. All this 
 will no doubt seem strange to many of you, but any student 
 of the occult will confirm what I have said here as to the ex- 
 istence of these beings and the possibility that they can be 
 used in very many ways by one who understands them. 1 
 have myself made a considerable study of this subject, 
 and you must therefore pardon me if I appear to speak posi* 
 tively and as a matter of course with regard to many things 
 that for the majority of you would seem questionable or be- 
 yond human knowledge. To give a full account of all the 
 many classes of these Nature Spirits would be to write a 
 kind of natural history of the astral plane, and in order to 
 describe them all we should need many large volumes. Yet 
 the man who wishes to deal fully and efficiently with what 
 is called practical magic must not only be able to recognize 
 immediately upon sight all these thousands of varieties but 
 must also know which of them can most suitably be em- 
 ployed for any special piece of work that he may have in 
 hand. 
 
 The forces to which I have referred are those most com- 
 monly employed in any question of magic ; but in addition to 
 them the occult student has at his command enormous re- 
 serves of power of various sorts not yet known to the scien- 
 tific world. There is an etheric pressure, just as there is an 
 atmospheric pressure; but the scientific man will never be 
 able to use this force, or even to demonstrate its existence, 
 
MAGIC, WHITE AND BLACK. 93 
 
 until he can invent some substance which shall be impervi- 
 ous to ether, so that he can construct a chamber or vessel 
 out of which ether can be pumped, precisely as the air is 
 withdrawn irom the reservoir of an air pump. There are 
 methods known to occult science by which this can be done 
 and so a tremendous etheric pressure can be reined in and 
 utilized. Then there are also mighty electric and magnetic 
 currents, which can be tapped and brought down to the 
 physical plane by him who understands them; and an enor- 
 mous amount of energy may be liberated by the mere pro- 
 cess of transferring matter from one condition to another. 
 So that along different lines there is much energy available 
 in nature for the man who knows how to use it; and all of it 
 is available for and readily controllable by the developed 
 human will. One other point that must not be forgotten is 
 that all around us stand those whom we call the dead — those, 
 that is to say, who have only recently put off their physical 
 bodies and are still hovering close about us in their astral 
 vehicles. They may also be influenced, either mesmerically 
 or by persuasion, just as those still in the flesh could be; 
 and very many cases arise in which we have to take account 
 of their action, and of the extent to which their control of 
 the astral forces can be brought into play. 
 
 We may usefully divide the subject of Magic into two great 
 parts, according to the methods which it employs; and we 
 may characterize these respectively as methods of Evoca- 
 tion and Devocation — of command and of entreaty. 
 
 EVOCATION. 
 
 Let us consider the former first. Although it may act 
 through many different channels, the one great force at the 
 back of all magic of this type is the human will. By this the 
 vitality and the nerve ether can be directed; by this all the 
 varieties of elemental essence may be guided, selected and 
 built into forms either simple or complex according to the 
 work that they have to do. By this perfect magnetic control 
 may be gained over any of the classes of Nature Spirits; by 
 this also the wills of others, whether living or dead, may be 
 so dominated that they become practically but tools in the 
 hands of the magicians. Indeed it is scarcely possible to fix 
 the limits of the power of the human will when properly di- 
 rected; it is so much more far-reaching than the ordinary 
 man ever supposes, that the results gained by its means ap- 
 
94 MAGIC, WHITE AND BLACK. 
 
 pear to him astounding and supernatural. The study of this 
 subject brings one gradually to the realization of what was 
 meant by the remark that if faith were only sufficient it 
 could remove mountains and cast them into the sea; and 
 even this oriental description seems scarcely exaggerated 
 when one examines undoubted and authenticated instances 
 of what has been achieved by this marvelous power. 
 
 But in order that this mighty engine of the will may work 
 effectively, the magician must possess the most perfect con- 
 fidence. This is gained in various ways, according to the 
 type to which the mind of the magician belongs. Broadly 
 speaking, we may classify the magicians under four heads, 
 though of course in a detailed account we should have to take 
 into consideration the various subdivisions and modifica- 
 tions of these. 
 
 TYPES OF MAGICIANS. 
 
 First there is a type of man who possesses such iron deter- 
 mination and such entire confidence in himself and in his 
 power to dominate nature by the mere force of his spirit that 
 he gains his end by the mere determined insistance upon it. 
 He realizes that his will is the true motive force, and he 
 neither knows nor cares through what intermediary agencies 
 this will may work. He is careless and may even be quite 
 ignorant as to methods; he simply rides down all opposi- 
 tion, as it were, by brute force and does that which he wishes 
 simply through the tremendous force of his unalterable con- 
 viction that it can be done and shall be done. Such magi* 
 cians are very few, but they undoubtedly exist; and if not be- 
 nevolently inclined they may be exceedingly formidable. 
 They do not need a method by which to gain confidence, they 
 appear to possess it in their very nature. 
 
 "The second type of man gains the necessary confidence 
 to command from his very thorough knowledge of the sub- 
 ject with which he is dealing and of the forces which he is 
 employing. He may be called the scientific magician, for 
 he has made a close study of astral and mental physics, he 
 knows all about the different types of elemental essence and 
 the various classes of Nature Spirits, so that In every case 
 he is able to use exactly the most appropriate means to ob- 
 tain the result which he desires with the least possible exer* 
 tion or difficulty. His thorough familiarity with his subject 
 makes him feel perfectly at home with it and perfectly ca- 
 
MAGIC, WHITE AND BLACK. 95 
 
 pable of dealing with any possible emergencies which may 
 arise. Many such men also make a great study of appropri- 
 ate times and seasons as well as of appropriate forces; they 
 know exactly at what moment it will be easiest to produce a 
 certain result, and so they gain what they need with the least 
 possible expenditure. This whole question of times and sea- 
 sons and of periodical influences which wax and wane, is one 
 of extreme interest; but it would take us too far from the 
 main line of our subject if we were to plunge into that this 
 evening; for it would mean the opening up and the review of 
 the whole question of Astrology. It is sufficient for us for 
 the moment if we understand that there are times when, and 
 conditions under which, certain efforts can much more easily 
 be made, so that what can be done only with extreme diffi- 
 culty, or perhaps even cannot be done at all, at one time, may 
 be managed with comparative ease at another. This natu- 
 rally implies the existence of influences, planetary or other- 
 wise, which are acting upon and within our world; and the 
 exhaustive knowledge of all this and of their combinations 
 would naturally be necessary for the worker in practical 
 magic. 
 
 Another type of magician attains the confidence neces- 
 sary to insure obedience to his commands by means of faith 
 or devotion. He has so firm a faith in his leader or deity, 
 that he is absolutely certain that any command pronounced 
 in that name must be instantly obeyed. I am not speaking 
 merely of results which may be produced upon the mental 
 and upon the astral planes, but also of quite definite and 
 visible physical effects. You have only to read ecclesiastical 
 history to come across many kinds of exceedingly wonderful 
 cures of physical diseases w T hich have been produced through 
 just such determined efforts of faith as those to which I have 
 referred. The authenticated accounts of the cures at Lourdes 
 in France, and at Knock in Ireland, undoubtedly show that 
 a great many ills, even of purely physical type, will yield be- 
 fore determined faith. Any man who has in this way ob« 
 tained sufficient confidence will find his will so much 
 strengthened thereby that he will be able to produce the 
 most unexpected results. It should be remembered that it is 
 his own will which brings the satisfactory result — not the in- 
 tervention of the Greater One whose name he speaks. I 
 know quite well that many most earnest Christians would at- 
 tribute the bealing directly to Christ, in whose name it was 
 
96 MAGIC, WHITE AND BLACK. 
 
 performed; but deeper study of the subject will show them 
 that cures precisely similar and quite as astonishing have 
 been performed by equally earnest men in the name of Lord 
 Buddha, or in the name of Krishna, or of any other of the 
 great leaders and teachers of the world. It is the tremen- 
 dous faith that gives the power; in what or in whom is the 
 faith matters but little. The greater person whose name is 
 invoked may not ever be aware of the circumstances; al- 
 though if he does know and does in any way interfere we 
 may be sure that it will rather be by the strengthening of the 
 faith and will of his follower than by any special effort of his 
 own power. Yet another class consists of those who believe 
 in the efficacy of certain ceremonies, or of certain formulae. 
 For them and in their hands the formulae or the ceremonies 
 undoubtedly are effective; but in most cases it is not because 
 of any inherent virtue which the forms possess, but because 
 of the entire confidence of the magician that when he em- 
 ploys them the result must inevitably ensue. If you read 
 any account of the working of the medieval alchemists, you 
 will see that they certainly had very many of such ceremo- 
 nies, and that the majority of them would have considered 
 themselves incapable of obtaining their results without the 
 surroundings to which they were accustomed. They wore 
 robes of certain types, they used certain Kabalistic figures, 
 they waved round their heads swords magnetized for certain 
 purposes; they burnt certain drugs or sprinkled certain es- 
 sences. Now it is quite true that some of these things have 
 a certain potency of their own, but in the vast majority of 
 cases all that they do is to give perfect confidence to the per- 
 former and so to strengthen his will to the requisite point- 
 He has been told by his teachers or his scriptures that all 
 this paraphernalia is effective, and that in using it he will 
 certainly succeed. The man by himself might possibly waver 
 and feel frightened; but with the proper robes and signs and 
 weapons he feels so certain of success that he goes straight 
 through without hesitation. 
 
 A magician of any one of these types has at his disposal, 
 the forces of three levels — the mental, the astral, and the 
 etheric physical. All of these can be directed by the human 
 will, and in using any one of them a man will undoubtedly 
 set in motion certain vibrations in the others also. The sci- 
 entific magician will of course choose among these, and so 
 will save himself much exertion. Along the other lines it is 
 
MAGIC, WHITE AND BLACK. 9 7 
 
 probable that the performer nearly always sets in motion 
 very much more force and power, and very much more en- 
 ergy than is at all necessary for the object in hand; never- 
 theless he also attains his results, though it may be at the ex- 
 penditure of a great deal of superfluous disturbance and un- 
 necessary fatigue to himself. Without going into details, it 
 is not difficult to see how the man who understands would 
 make choice of his materials. If he were dealing with a man 
 of great intellectual development and keen receptivity on the 
 mental plane, it would obviously be better to approach him 
 on that level by means of definite thought, or through the 
 services of the Nature Spirits abiding there. If, on the 
 other hand, he were dealing with a man whose life was in- 
 tensely emotional, he would find it probably easier to ap- 
 proach him and to impress him along that line and conse- 
 quently he would send thought forms veiled in astral matter 
 or would employ the services of the lower type of Nature 
 Spirits whose bodies are built of the matter of that plane. 
 Again if he were dealing with a man of grossly material 
 type, one who had dipped very deeply into the physical 
 plane, it might obviously be better to employ the forces and 
 intelligences which clothe themselves most readily in phys- 
 ical matter. But in all these cases alike the motive power 
 at the back is simply the indomitable will of the operator, 
 through whatever channels he may find it best to work. 
 
 We find abundant traces of this magic of command in the 
 ceremonies connected with almost every religion in the 
 world. You may remember that in speaking of Buddhism I 
 drew your attention to a manifestation of it which appears in 
 the Pirit Ceremony ; and you will see many signs of it in the 
 accounts given to us of old Egyptian ceremonies. Indeed we 
 have obvious relics of it much nearer to us than that, for you 
 may see them appearing again and again in the ritual of the 
 Christian church. It is well known to all students of practi- 
 cal occultism that of all substances water is one of the most 
 easily influenced. It may very readily be induced to absorb 
 influences of this particular type, and will retain this un- 
 impaired for a long period of time. We see a close analogy 
 to this on the physical plane, for we know that water which 
 has stood uncovered in a bedroom during the night is totally 
 unfit for drinking purposes, because it has eagerly absorbed 
 into itself all the impurities cast off during the night from 
 the physical bodies of the sleepers. It is found that it may 
 
98 MAGIC, WHITE AND BLACK. 
 
 equally readily be charged with magnetism of any type, 
 either for good or evil purposes, as will be seen by the ac- 
 counts of various mesmeric experiments in almost any of the 
 books devoted to that subject. This fact seems to have been 
 perfectly well known to those who established the ceremo> 
 nies of the early Christian church. Even at the present day 
 upon entering any Roman Catholic church we find at the 
 door a stoup of holy water as it is called ; and it will be ob- 
 served that the faithful as they enter dip their fingers into 
 this water and make with it the sign of the cross upon their 
 foreheads or breasts. If interrogated as to the meaning of 
 this, they will tell us that it is in order to drive away from 
 them evil thoughts or feelings and to purify them for the 
 services in which they are about to take part. The ignorant 
 and boastful Protestant probably regards this as an instance 
 of degrading superstition; but, as usual, that shows only that 
 he knows nothing whatever of the subject. Any student of 
 occultism who will take the trouble to read in the Roman 
 prayer book the office for the making of holy water cannot 
 fail to be struck with the fact that here is undoubtedly a defi- 
 nite magical ceremony. For the purpose of the consecration 
 of holy water the priest is directed to take clean water and 
 clean salt; and he commences operations by a process which 
 is called the exorcising of the salt and the water. For this 
 purpose he has to recite certain forms which, though by 
 courtesy they are called prayers, are in reality adjurations 
 of the strongest type. He adjures the salt and the water 
 successively in the most determined language, commanding 
 that all evil influences shall be driven out from them and 
 that they shall be left perfectly clean and pure; and as ne 
 does this he is directed again and again to lay his hand upon 
 the vessels containing the salt and the water. Evidently the 
 whole ceremony is simply a mesmeric one, and the objection- 
 able influence, if there be any, would be very thoroughly 
 driven out by the time the priest had finished his devotions. 
 Then having purified his elements — having removed from 
 them anything that might be objectionable — he proceeds to 
 magnetize them vigorously for a particular and definite pur- 
 pose. Once more he recites the most determined adjura- 
 tion and is directed again and again as he uses these power- 
 ful words to make over the elements with his hand the sign 
 of the cross, holding strongly in the mind the will to bless. 
 This of course means that he is saturating both the salt and 
 
MAGIC, WHITE AND BLACK. 99 
 
 the water with his own magnetic influence specially charged 
 and directed by his will for this certain purpose — that wher- 
 ever this water shall be sprinkled all evil thought or feeling 
 shall be driven away before it. Then with one final effort 
 he casts the salt into the water in the form of a cross, and 
 the decoction is completed. 
 
 Now I have no doubt that there are many priests who sim- 
 ply go through all this ceremonial as the merest matter of 
 form, without putting any thought or strength into it. But 
 I also know that there are many others to whom the cere- 
 mony is intensely real — men who do throw very much 
 strength and force into their proceedings; and naturally in 
 their case the water is heavily charged with powerful mag- 
 netism and a very decided magnetic result is produced. I 
 myself have'very frequently performed this little ceremony 
 as a priest of what was called the Ritualistic Section of the 
 Church of England; and I can certainly testify that in my 
 own case I believed vividly in the efficacy of the operation, 
 and I have no doubt therefore that the water which I magnet- 
 ized was really effective for the purposes intended. Any 
 one who is physically sensitive may easily tell upon entering 
 a Catholic church and just touching the holy water with the 
 hand, whether or not the priest who consecrated it put real 
 strength and thought into his work. 
 
 Consecrated water is employed in many other of the 
 church's ceremonies. In baptism, for example, the water is 
 carefully blessed before the ceremony commences; and even 
 in the services of the Church of England you will still find 
 traces of this, for the priest prays that the water shall be 
 sanctified to the mystical washing away of sin, and as he 
 utters these words it is usual for him to make the sign of the 
 cross in the water which is to be employed. It will be re- 
 membered also that churches and burial grounds are espe- 
 cially consecrated or set apart for a holy purpose and there 
 also a special effort is made to scatter good influences so that 
 all who enter shall thereby be brought into a proper and de- 
 votional frame of mind. Almost every object utilized in the 
 service of the church was originally consecrated in the same 
 manner; the vessels of the altar, the vestments of the priest, 
 the bells, the incense — all had their special services of bless- 
 ing. In the case of the bells they were permeated with cer- 
 tain rates of vibration and a certain type of magnetism, the 
 idea being that the thoughts and feelings which these sug- 
 
100 MAGIC, WHITE AND BLACK. 
 
 gested should be spread abroad wherever the sound of the 
 bells traveled — a perfectly scientific idea from the point of 
 view of the higher occult physics. In the same way the in- 
 cense was especially blessed, in order that this blessing 
 might be showered wherever its perfume penetrated, and 
 that its scent might drive away all evil thoughts or influences 
 from the church in which it is used. 
 
 Mesmeric influence is again evident in the ceremony of 
 the ordination of priests ; for it will be remembered that not 
 only does the bishop lay his hands upon the head of the can- 
 didate, but all the priests who are present also converge 
 their forces upon him and lay their hands upon his head also. 
 Undoubtedly when all present were thoroughly in earnest 
 this would be no mere outward sign but would pass on from 
 one to the other an exceedingly strong influence of devotion 
 and loyalty and would help to confirm within the mind of 
 the newly ordained priest the confidence as to the powers 
 which had been given to him. The student of occultism can- 
 not but see that all these are manifestly survivals from a 
 time when practical magic was thoroughly understood in the 
 church. There is hardly a single ceremony among those 
 used either in the Greek, Roman, or the Anglican churches 
 which has not behind it some true occult significance, though 
 in these days so many people go through them merely as a 
 matter of form and never even think that there may be 
 something real and weighty behind them. In these older 
 days people were not only less skeptical but also less ignor- 
 ant and those who arranged the ritual of the church knew 
 very well what they were doing. 
 
 TALISMANS. 
 
 This leads us to consider the question of talismans. 
 There used to be a universal belief that a jewel or almost any 
 object might be charged mesmerically with good or evil in- 
 fluences ; and though this idea would in modern days be re- 
 garded as a mere superstition, it is nevertheless an undoubt- 
 ed fact that such influence may be stored in a physical ob, 
 ject, and may remain there for a very long period of time. A 
 man can undoubtedly pour his influence into such an object, 
 so that this definite rate of vibration will radiate from it pre- 
 cisely as light radiates out from the sun. Naturally the in- 
 fluence put into such an object might be either good or evil, 
 helpful or harmful. In very many cases such magnetic ac- 
 tion resembles that of a cordial — that is to say that it is 
 
MAGIC, WHITE AND BLACK. 101 
 
 highly stimulant; in other cases it is arranged for the special 
 purpose of calming and soothing the subject so that he may 
 overcome his fears or his agitation. Such a talisman may 
 be magnetized, for example, with the special object of 
 strengthening a man to resist a certain temptation — say 
 that towards sensuality; and there is no doubt whatever that 
 when properly charged it would have a very powerful influ- 
 ence in the direction intended. Here we have at once the 
 philosophy of relics. Every one of us has his especial rates 
 of mental and astral vibration, and any object which has 
 been long in contact with us will be permeated with these 
 rates of vibration, and capable of radiating them in turn, or 
 of communicating them with especial energy to any other 
 person who may wear the object or bring it into close con- 
 tact with himself. Anything therefore which has been in 
 close contact with some great saint or some especially devel- 
 oped person will bear with it much of his own individual 
 magnetism, and will naturally tend to reproduce in the man 
 or woman who wears it something of the same state of feel- 
 ing which existed in the man from which it came. I have 
 myself known of many instances in which such a talisman 
 was very effective — in which, for example, it was possible by 
 its means to calm and soothe persons prostrated by nervous 
 disease, so that they were enabled to gain the repose of 
 which they stood in such desperate need. We must never 
 forget also that in very many cases the faith of the wearer 
 in the talisman also comes into play and contributes its 
 quota to the result. If a person is impressively informed by 
 someone in whom he has perfect confidence that a certain 
 talisman will undoubtedly produce a certain result, then his 
 own firm expectation of that result tends very much to bring 
 it about; but nevertheless and quite apart from man's faith 
 in it, it is possible for a talisman to produce an effect even 
 upon those who do not know of its presence. When charged 
 by a really powerful mesmerist certain charms will retain 
 the magnetism for a very long period of time. I have myself 
 seen in the British Museum in London, Gnostic charms which 
 still radiated quite a powerful and perceptible influence, al- 
 though they must have been magnetized at least 1700 years 
 ago; and some Egyptian Scarabosi are still effective even 
 though they are much older than that. Naturally here also 
 it is possible to charge an objsct for evil as well as good; 
 and any one who will take the trouble to read Ennemoser's 
 
102 MAGIC, WHITE AND BLACK. 
 
 History of Magic will find various instances quoted therein. 
 
 Another side of the subject is that connected with charms 
 or mantrams. These are forms of words by means of which 
 certain occult results are supposed to be achieved. Here 
 also, as in the case of the talisman, definite effects are some- 
 times undoubtedly produced; and also as with the talisman 
 this result may be produced in either of two ways, or both 
 of them may contribute towards it. In the great majority of 
 cases the formula does nothing beyond strengthening the 
 will of the person who uses it, and impressing upon the mind 
 of the subject the result which it is desired to achieve. The 
 confidence of the operator that his formula must produce its 
 effect, and the belief of the subject that such effect will be 
 produced are frequently quite sufficient for the purpose. I 
 ought, however, to mention that there is a much rarer type 
 of mantram in which the sounds themselves produce a defi- 
 nite effect. Naturally each sound sets up a definite vibra- 
 tion, and an orderly succession of such vibrations following 
 one another according to the predetermined scheme, may be 
 so arranged as to evoke definite feelings or emotions or 
 thoughts within the man. Many of the Sanskrit mantrams 
 used in India are of this nature. It is obvious that in this 
 case the charm would be untranslatable, that it must be em- 
 ployed in the original language and that it must be correctly 
 pronounced by one who understands how it was intended to 
 be sounded. On the other hand it is not in the least neces- 
 sary for the success of such a mantram that the person who 
 uses it should understand the meaning of the words, or even 
 that the sounds should make intelligible words at all. In- 
 stances in which such succession of sounds do not make in- 
 telligible words will be found in some of the Gnostic writings. 
 
 It must never be forgotten that along whatever line the 
 magician works, by whatever means he obtains his confi- 
 dence, the forces at his command may be employed for evil 
 or for good according to the intention which lies behind 
 them. We have spoken chiefly of the pleasanter side of the 
 subject, dealing principally with cases in which the will o* 
 the operator was employed in order to help; but we must 
 not forget that there have been and are cases of evil will and 
 it is important for us to understand this, because of the fact 
 that such will may often be unconsciously exercised. That, 
 however, belongs to the practical application of the subject 
 to ourselves with which 1 hope to deal next week when 
 speaking upon the Use and Abuse of Psychic Powers. 
 
MAGIC, WHITE AND BLACK. 103 
 
 INVOCATION. 
 
 Let us turn now to the second type of magic, that which 
 works by invocation — that which does not command but per- 
 suades. It will at once be seen that this type of magic has 
 at its command fewer resources than the other. Here the 
 suppliant himself does nothing; he simply begs or bribes 
 some one else to do something. The thought form therefore 
 is not at his command nor are the various forms of forces 
 such as etheric pressure or the use of the elemental essence. 
 He confines himself to obtaining the services of definite liv- 
 ing entities whether human or nonhuman. Efforts in this 
 direction are made much more commonly than we might at 
 first sight suppose; for you will observe that whenever a 
 man tries to produce a result to obtain anything for himself 
 or to have facts or conditions modified by means of some 
 agency outside of the physical plane, he is in reality using 
 invocatory magic, although no such name may have ever 
 entered his mind. A very great deal of the ordinary kind of 
 prayer for selfish purposes is in reality an example of this. 
 I am of course speaking here only of that lower variety of 
 prayer to which alone the name can properly be applied — 
 that which definitely asks for something. The word prayer 
 is derived from the Sanskrit Prashna, through the Latin 
 Precor and is connected with the German Fragen; so that its 
 original and proper meaning can be only a definite request. 
 Very often people quite incorrectly apply the name of prayer 
 to what is in reality meditation or worship — the contempla- 
 tion of the highest ideal known to the worshiper and the en- 
 deavor to raise his own mind and heart upwards towards that 
 object of worship. But the more ordinary prayer for definite 
 and frequently for physical gains, is certainly an attempt to 
 draw down influences from higher planes to produce visible 
 results, and so comes clearly within our definition of magic. 
 It will frequently happen when two nations are engaged in 
 a war, that each of them will pray for its own success and 
 for the destruction of the opposing armies; and this is cer- 
 tainly an effort to enlist invisible forces upon its side. For* 
 tunately, however, this idea of calling in extraneous influ- 
 ences may be used in a good as well as evil way, and natu- 
 rally we find that many efforts are made in this way to in- 
 voke from above some help for the soul. 
 
 Perhaps the most striking instance of this is to be found ia 
 the life of the Brahman. The whole of that life is practically 
 
104 MAGIC, WHITE AND BLACK. 
 
 one continuous prayer ; for to every one of his acts, even the 
 smallest, a special form of petition is assigned. Though very 
 much more elaborate and detailed, it is somewhat on the 
 lines of the form which is given for us in certain Catholic 
 convents, where the novice is instructed to pray every time 
 that he eats that his soul may be nourished with the bread 
 of life; every time that he washes his hands to form the aspi- 
 ration that his soul also may be kept pure and clean; every 
 time that he enters a church to pray that his whole life may 
 be one long service; every time that he sows a seed, to think 
 of the seed of the word of God which is to be sown in the 
 first place in his own heart and which he in turn is then to 
 sow in the hearts of others; and so on. The life of the Brah- 
 man is precisely that life, except that it is on a very much 
 larger scale and is carried into very much greater detail. No 
 one can doubt that he who really and honestly carries out all 
 these directions must be very deeply and constantly affected 
 by it. 
 
 We shall observe that although the invocatory magician ig 
 much more limited in his field of action that the one who pro 
 ceeds to command, he has nevertheless the choice of several 
 classes of entities to whom his appeal can be directed. He 
 may beg help, for example, from Angels, from Nature Spir- 
 its, or from the dead. We know how frequently and how 
 readily our Roman Catholic friends invoke help from the 
 guardian angels whem they believe to be always about them. 
 That is undoubtedly an effort at invocatory magic, and it may 
 in many cases obtain a definite response; although whether 
 it does so or not, at any rate a result is produced by the con- 
 fidence of the one who offers the prayer in the efficacy of his 
 supplication. That is the good side of such magic; but it has 
 always a very real and very serious evil side. We shall find 
 that showing itself with painful prominence in the Voodoo 
 or Obeah ceremonies of the negroes. In these the magicians 
 are endeavoring to invoke outside aid in order to work evil 
 upon the physical plane; and it is unquestionable that they 
 sometimes meet with a considerable amount of success in 
 their nefarious efforts. I have myself seen a good deal of 
 this in South America, and am therefore able personally to 
 testify that results are produced along this most undesirable 
 line of activity. The same thing may occasionally be seen 
 in India, more especially among the hill tribes. There it is 
 by no means uncommon to find tribal gods worshiped. And 
 
MAGIC, WHITE AND BLACK. 105. 
 
 the worship very frequently takes the shape of propitiatory 
 sacrifies, in return for which the tribal deity undoubtedly 
 sometimes produce results upon the physical plane. You 
 will read, for example, of villages in which all goes well so 
 long as the village god receives his accustomed offerings; but 
 the moment that those regular meals are intermitted trouble 
 instantly manifests in some way or other. I myself heard of 
 one case in which spontaneous fires broke out in the various 
 huts of the village as soon as they neglected to look after 
 their tribal deity in the usual way. In such cases there is 
 undoubtedly an entity posing as the deity — an entity who en- 
 joys the worship paid to him or finds real pleasure and profit 
 in the sacrifices which are offered. It will be noticed that 
 such sacrifices are usually of two kinds, either there is a sac- 
 rifice of some living creature in which blood is poured out, 
 or else food of some kind, and preferably flesh food, is burnt 
 so that the fumes of it may arise. This distinctly implies 
 that the tribal deity is a very low grade of entity possessing 
 a vehicle upon the etheric portion of the physical plane — a 
 vehicle through which he can absorb these physical fumes 
 and either draw definite nourishment from them or expe- 
 rience pleasure from partaking of them. It may be taken a3 
 an absolutely certain rule that every deity under whatever 
 name he may masquerade, who claims blood sacrifices or 
 burnt sacrifices is only a Nature Spirit of an exceedingly low 
 type ; for it is only to such an entity that such abominations 
 could by any possibility be pleasing. 
 
 It will be remembered that in the earlier days of the Jew- 
 ish religion horrible holocausts of this nature were fre- 
 quently offered; but as we come down nearer to the present 
 age and the Jewish race has taken its place in civilization, 
 we find that such sacrifices have naturally been discontinued. 
 It is surely scarcely necessary to insist upon the fact that no 
 developed being of any sort, no angel or deva could for one 
 moment have exacted or consented to receive any form of 
 offering which involved death and suffering. No beneficent 
 deity has ever yet delighted in the foul scent and fumes of 
 blood; and the higher types of religion have consistently 
 avoided such horrors. 
 
 SELFISHNESS OF BLACK MAGIC. 
 
 The distinguishing characteristic of that evil side of Maghs 
 which has usually been called "black" is that its object is en- 
 tirely selfish. There are many cases in which it is nothing 
 
106 MAGIC, WHITE AND BLACK. 
 
 more than this — that is to say in which its object is not to 
 do evil for .evil's sake, hut simply to obtain for the possessor 
 of the powers whatever he may happen to desire at the mo- 
 ment. Much of the witchcraft of primitive tribes is of this 
 nature, and here also there is no doubt whatever that a cer- 
 tain measure of success frequently attends the efforts of the 
 magician. I have myself seen instances of this, and indeed 
 I once took the trouble to learn quite an elaborate ritual of 
 this nature, which, if put into practice, would have given me 
 the services of an entity which undertook to procure what- 
 ever its coadjutor might require. Not only would it furnish 
 him with boundless wealth, but it would also carry out his 
 wishes with regard to either his friends or his enemies. 
 From what I myself saw in connection with other practition- 
 ers, I know that these offers could certainly be made good 
 up to very high limits ; but the conditions required were such 
 that it would have been quite impossible for any right think- 
 ing man to go further into the matter. The ritual required 
 was quite easy of accomplishment, but the agreement with 
 the entity would have had to be cemented with human blood 
 in the first instance, and the creature would afterwards have 
 needed regular food involving the sacrifice of lower forms of 
 life. Much more of such magic exists in many parts of the 
 world than is usually suspected. On the other hand without 
 such horrors as were involved in the type just mentioned, 
 there are many very interesting developments of it. 
 
 It is no uncommon thing to find in the East men who 
 have inherited from their fathers the services of some non- 
 human entity, who in consideration of an occasional trifling 
 provision of food will perform small phenomena of various 
 kinds for the person to whom it is especially attached. Usu- 
 ally there are curious restrictions connected with the com- 
 pact. Almost invariably the human partner in this bond is 
 bound to give to no one the name or description of his unseen 
 coadjutor; and oddly enough in a large number of cases the 
 condition is attached that no money, or not more than a fixed 
 and nominal amount may ever be obtained by the coadjutor's 
 help or accepted for any exhibition of his peculiar powers. 
 I remember, for example, a man possessing such a partner 
 who was brought to me while in the East. In this case the 
 entity attached showed his power principally by bringing to 
 his human partner any objects that might be indicated, in 
 precisely the same way that such things are frequently 
 
MAGIC, WHITE AND BLACK. 107 
 
 brought at a Spiritualistic seance. Fortunately, however, 
 one of the stipulations which formed part of their agreement 
 was that the unseen partner should never be asked to bring 
 anything which was not honestly the property of his friend 
 on the physical plane; otherwise a system of wholesale rob- 
 bery would have been perfectly easy, and it would have been 
 absolutely impossible to trace or punish the thefts. The 
 example of this power which was shown to me was quite con- 
 clusive. I went with the magician into a fruiterer's shop and 
 bought a selection of fruit of various kinds, and had it laid 
 aside for me until I should send to fetch it. All that was re- 
 quired was that the magician should see the fruit, so that he 
 might know exactly what there was. Then driving directly 
 home with my magician — of course leaving the fruit behind 
 me in the shop — we asked whether he would be able to pro- 
 duce for us the various items of the purchase in any order 
 that we required". He seemed quite confident of this, and 
 indeed the result showed that his trust in his unseen friend 
 was fully justified. The man belonged distinctly to the lower 
 classes and seemed quite uneducated. He wore no clothing 
 whatever excepting a small loin cloth so that it would be ut- 
 terly impossible to suppose that he had somehow concealed 
 some fruit about his person. We sat upon a flat roof with 
 nothing but the sky above us, and yet each fruit as we asked 
 for it was instantly thrown down among us as though it had 
 fallen from that sky. In this way the whole of our purchase 
 was duly delivered to us, in the order in which we called for 
 it; and that although we were at a distance of some miles 
 from the shop in which it had undoubtedly been left. 
 
 ORIENTAL MAGICIANS. 
 
 Very many of the more inexplicable feats of the Indian 
 jugglers are performed under some such arrangement as 
 this. Of course I am perfectly aware that any clever Euro- 
 pean juggler can entirely deceive the eyes of the average 
 man and can produce results of the most wonderful nature 
 by methods which are entirely inexplicable to the untrained. 
 Nevertheless there are certain definite limits as to what can 
 be done in this direction; and for the production of many of 
 the feats of the occidental conjurer a considerable amount of 
 machinery is required, and often a particular position or ar- 
 rangement of his audience. The Oriental juggler has to 
 work under exceedingly different conditions. His perform- 
 ances are usually in the open air, even upon the stone pave* 
 
108 MAGIC, WHITE AND BLACK. 
 
 ment of a courtyard and in the midst of an excited crowd 
 which presses closely upon him on every side. It will read- 
 ily be seen that under circumstances such as those many of 
 the resources of his European competitor would not be avail- 
 able. No doubt most men have heard of the celebrated 
 mango trick in which a tree grows, or appears to grow, from 
 a seed before the eyes of the spectators, and even bears 
 fruit which is handed round and tasted. Then again there 
 is the basket trick in which a child is concealed under the 
 basket and then apparently cut to pieces, though when the 
 basket is raised it is found to be empty and the child comes 
 running in quite unharmed from behind the spectators. 
 And we read how in some cases a rope is thrown up into the 
 air and appears to remain miraculously suspended, the con- 
 juror himself, and usually one of his assistants, climbing up 
 the rope and disappearing into space. Now some of these 
 feats are manifestly impossible; and on inquiring more close* 
 ly into the matter we find that the phenomena described are 
 produced by means of what is commonly called glamor — a 
 kind of power of wholesale mesmerism without the usual 
 preliminaries of passes or of trance. That this is the way 
 in which some of these tricks are performed I have myself 
 proved by various experiments ; so that we need not consider 
 any of these under our present head of invocatory magic — 
 though it is possible that in some cases this power of glamor 
 is exercised not by the conjuror himself, but by the unseen 
 partner who has at his command the various resources of the 
 astral plane. Many tricks on a much smaller scale than the 
 above however, appear to be performed directly by the astral 
 coadjutor. I recollect, for example, a little experiment of 
 which I was a witness, which I think must have belonged to 
 this category. Once more our magician wore almost noth- 
 ing in the way of clothing, and therefore could not have con- 
 cealed about him any apparatus by which his marvels could* 
 be performed. I was asked to produce a silver coin and to 
 lay it upon the palm of my hand. I held it towards the ma- 
 gician who breathed upon it but did not touch it, and then 
 motioned me back to my seat some fifteen feet away. I was 
 then instructed to cover this coin with my other hand, and 
 as I did so the juggler began to mutter rapidly some incom- 
 prehensible words. Instantly I felt tne sense of something 
 exceedingly cold swelling between my hands and forcing 
 them apart. In a moment or two this curious cold mass be- 
 
MAGIC, WHITE AND BLACK. 109 
 
 gan to stir between my hands, and I opened them to see what 
 was there. To my horror I found that a huge black scorpion 
 had taken the place of the coin. Instinctively I threw him to 
 the ground, and after erecting his tail angrily he scuttled 
 away. Another man present went through exactly the same 
 performance, except that in his case as he opened his hands 
 a small but very active snake was found neatly coiled up be- 
 tween them. Now this was by no means a performance of 
 the same nature as the production of a living rabbit out of 
 one's hat by the ordinary juggler; for in this case the con- 
 jurer was some fifteen feet away, and the coin was obviously 
 a coin and nothing else after we had withdrawn far beyond 
 his reach. The result might have been produced by the 
 same power of glamor to which I have previously referred; 
 but certain circumstances connected with it make that to 
 my mind highly improbable, and I suspect it to be a case of 
 genuine substitution by some astral entity. 
 
 Another curious little case of the employment of this sort 
 of traditional magic by a man quite uneducated and entirely 
 ignorant of the methods by which it worked, came under my 
 notice some years later. It happened that I had received a 
 somewhat severe wound from which the blood was pouring 
 plentifully. A passing coolie hastily snatched a leaf from a 
 shrub at the roadside, pressed it for a moment to the wound 
 and muttered half a dozen words, and the flow of blood in- 
 stantly and entirely ceased. Naturally I asked the man how 
 he had done this, but he was quite unable to give any satis- 
 factory reply. All he could say was that this charm which 
 he was forbidden to disclose had been handed down in his 
 family for two generations, and his belief was that there was 
 a spirit of some sort summoned by the charm, who produced 
 the required result. I inquired whether the leaf selected had 
 any part in the success of his experiment, but he answered 
 that any leaf, or a fragment of paper or cloth would have 
 done equally as well. He evidently believed that the effect 
 was wholly due to the form of words employed; and it may 
 have been that it was his own confidence in this which en- 
 abled his will to produce the physical result. 
 
 In none of the cases which I have described was there any- 
 thing especially evil or selfish about the magic employed; 
 but I fear that there are very many instances in which the 
 work done in such ways is much less innocent. 
 
 Many of the witch stories of medieval times and the curi- 
 
110 MAGIC, WHITE AND BLACK. 
 
 cms supposed compacts with the devil were probably exam- 
 ples of the black art on a lower scale. All of this may be 
 paralleled in certain parts of the world at the present day; 
 and the wiseacres who dismiss all accounts of such things as 
 merely superstitious fancy are, as usual, speaking of that 
 which they do not in the least understand. There is, how- 
 ever, no need that any should be nervous with regard to such 
 performances, or should fear that they may be injured in 
 this way by those whose enmity they have incurred. No 
 doubt results are produced, for example, by the Voodoo or 
 Obeah enchantments among the negroes ; but it is very rarely 
 indeed that the practitioners are able to affect the incredu- 
 lous white man. There are cases in which this has been 
 done; but it should be remembered that it can only be done 
 when the evil from without finds something in the victim 
 upon which it can act. The man whose soul is pure and 
 strong cannot be touched by any such machinations. Thus 
 evil thoughts and practices denoted by envy and hatred may 
 work harm among odc of two lines. They may either pro- 
 duce fear in the victim and so throw him into a pitiable con- 
 dition in which disease and evil of many sorts may very 
 readily descend upon him. 
 
 SAFEGUARDS. 
 
 The man who is perfectly fearless would have a very much 
 greater capability of resisting all such things, precisely as 
 the man who has no fear of contagious disease is very much 
 less likely to be affected by it than the man who is always in 
 terror of it. Any clairvoyant who watches the conditions 
 produced both in the astral body and in the etheric part of 
 the physical vehicle by nervousness and fear will understand 
 quite well why this should be, and will see that the immun- 
 ity of the fearless man is quite readily explicable on purely 
 scientific grounds. Another and even more deadly way in 
 which such forces may act upon a person for evil is that they 
 may stir up within him vibrations of the same nature as their 
 own. So if the man has within himself the seeds of envy, 
 jealousy, hatred, sensuality, these feelings may be roused to 
 the point of frenzy and he may be induced in that way to 
 commit actions on which in his calmer moments he would 
 look with horror. But purity of thought guards a man en- 
 tirely from such dangers, and it is therefore quite unneces- 
 sary that any man should be nervous with regard to the ef- 
 fects which may be produced upon him by others. A very 
 
MAGIC, WHITE AND BLACK. Ill 
 
 far more real danger is that we may ourselves unconsciously 
 yield to such undesirable feelings with regard to other peo- 
 ple, and so may, without especial intention, be causing evii 
 results for them. That is a much more imminent peril, and 
 one against which we can perfectly guard ourselves only by 
 seeing to it that no thought of malice, or anger, of envy, or of 
 jealousy shall for an instant be allowed to harbor itself with- 
 in our hearts. 
 
 For the rest, the man who is pure and true gives no handle 
 for any evil influences to seize, no door for its entrance into 
 his heart. If his life and his thought be in harmony with the 
 Divine Will, then he may be very certain that no black ma- 
 gician in the world can harm him. Our danger is not in the 
 least that we shall be injured, but far more that by want of 
 control over ourselves, our own thoughts and desires, we may 
 sometimes do harm to others. This practical side of this 
 subject, however, belongs more especially to our topic for 
 next week, "The Use and Abuse of Psychic Powers." 
 
 Tangled Links in Life's Chain, 
 
 A Search and Research for Truth. 
 
 Pre=existence, Metempsychosis, Transmigration, Re= 
 
 incarnation, Re=embodyment, Re=births, 
 
 Ego=Rotation, by Dr. J. M. Peebles. 
 
 Poets are prophets. They are inspired. Some poet, unbe- 
 known to us, breathed these beautiful lines: 
 
 " 'Tis somewhere told in Eastern story, 
 
 That those who loved once bloomed as flowers 
 On the same stem, amid the glory 
 
 Of Eden's green and fragrant bowers; 
 And that, though parted oft by fate, 
 
 Yet when the glow of life is ended, 
 Each soul again shall find its mate, 
 
 And in one bloom again be blended." 
 
112 A SEARCH AFTER TRUTH. 
 
 This "Eastern story" teaching, so adapted to the Oriental 
 mind, of two mated souls blooming in paradisaic spheres as 
 flowers upon one stem, but becoming disunited during jarring- 
 incarnations, and then becoming re-united again in a love 
 pure and Platonian, is certainly a beautiful theme for con- 
 templation. If it be but a dream, it is a very enchanting one. 
 Evidently, it was the poet's purpose in the above rhythmic 
 lines to teach the soul's past pre-existence. 
 
 Remember at this point that it is only the uneducated, 
 lacking the finer elements of linguistic culture, that use the 
 words pre-existence and reincarnation interchangeably. 
 They are not synonyms. They are essentially different in 
 origin and import. 
 
 The pre-existence of the conscious, inmost spirit is consid- 
 ered to be one of the clearest, strongest evidences of the 
 soul's immortality. Few, with any philosophical insight, can 
 be induced to look upon immortality with but one end to it. 
 Few will contend that things particled and compounded, may 
 not by a superior force, be non-compounded and disinte- 
 grated; and few still will be bold enough to assert that the 
 interrelational acts of mortal parentage literally, magically 
 manufacture immortal souls! It is difficult to believe that 
 there is not something in conscious, regal-souled man that is 
 not the modern make-up of an all-too-often purposeless 
 chance-act. These thoughts lead directly to the reasonable- 
 ness of pre-existence. 
 
 EMERSON, THE GREATEST OF AMERICANS. 
 
 This poet-prophet whose centennial birthday was recently 
 remcmbered and honored by all English-speaking nations, 
 wrote: 
 
 "The Eastern-born Nazarene belonged to the true race of 
 prophets; he saw with open eye the mystery of the soul. 
 Drawn by its severe harmony, ravished with its beauty, he 
 lived with it and had his being there. Alone in all history, 
 he estimated the greatness of man. One man was true to 
 what is in you and me. He saw that God incarnates himself 
 in man, and evermore goes forth anew to take possession 
 of His world. Yet it is only in a 'jubilee of sublime emotion' 
 that Jesus can say, T am divine. Through me God acts; 
 through me speaks.' Churches are not built upon his prin- 
 ciples, but upon his tropes." 
 
 These are clear-cut, weighty words, bearing, indirectly at 
 least, upon incarnation and reincarnation. 
 
A SEARCH AFTER TRUTH. 113 
 
 WHAT IS REINCARNATION, OR RE-EMBODIMENT? 
 
 Considering definitions, this is a knotty question. What 
 cult is authorized to define it? Who is empowered to state 
 its fundamental principles and purposes? Is it the Kal- 
 muckian Lamas of Thibet; or the dreamy speculative Hin- 
 dus of India? Is there not something weak and servile in 
 drawing the philosophy of life, birth and death from the 
 childhood period of the world? Science thinks little of any 
 geological tree, and reason dignifiedly refuses to adorn her- 
 self in the old moth-eaten parchments of the East — the land 
 of myth and imagination. 
 
 ALLAN KARDEC AND REINCARNATION. 
 
 Coming down to modern times and inquiring what is rein- 
 carnation, the theories of it are as numerous, as different 
 and as far apart as the poles. Allan Kardec (whose real 
 name was Leon H. D. Rivail), one of its first, if not the first 
 advocate of it in the Western world, declared in his writings 
 that "spirits have not the choice of the world they are to in- 
 habit. . . Spirits animate men and women alternately. . . Many 
 souls of this earth are reincarnated in Jupiter. . . There are 
 still-born children who never had any spirit assigned them. — 
 The spirit is not reincarnated in the new body till birth. 
 The foetus has no soul.. .The body of an idiot may contain a 
 spirit that animated a man of genius in a preceding incarna- 
 tion. The idiot in the spirit state comprehends that its 
 chains of imbecility were expiatory. . . The moral qualities 
 that a man exhibits are those of the pre-existing spirit rein- 
 carnated in him. . . Several spirits sometimes seek at the 
 same time to incarnate in a body about to be born." All of 
 this, and much more of a similar character, is, as must be 
 admitted, but a series of assertions, devoid of even the show 
 of scientific demonstration. 
 
 It may not be amiss to here state that Allan Kardec was 
 not only a clever mesmerist, but a great student of Oriental 
 literature. His very being was saturated with the mysteries 
 of the East. One can readily then see the influence that this 
 aural-thought must have had upon his mediumistic sensi- 
 tiveness. It was my privilege to attend in 1870, some of the 
 seances he had organized in Paris. St. Louis was the al- 
 leged spirit-president. It is reported that three hours after 
 Allan Kardec's death, he dictated a message of affection 
 through M. Deslions, one of his writing mediums (see my 
 
114 A SEARCH AFTER TRUTH. 
 
 letter appearing in the Spiritual Universe, Chicago, Feb 17, 
 1870). It is needless to state that reincarnation, as taught 
 by Kardec, differed in some respects as widely from the Thi- 
 betan and Brahmanic theories of reincarnation, as do the 
 latter from the reincarnation promulgated by Theosophists 
 and some American Spiritists. The dogma seems to lack a 
 unitive basis. 
 
 HUMAN BEINGS RE-EMBODIED IN ANIMALS. 
 
 Many Brahmins, Buddhists and some Hindu Theosophists 
 believe in the reincarnation or transmigration of human be- 
 ings of the lower class into animals. This will not be de- 
 nied. Conversing with them in Bombay, Madras, Madura 
 and Tuticorin, and with Buddhists in Colombo and Kandy, 
 Ceylon, they personally assured me with emphasis, that the 
 baser and viler of human beings, would be re-embodied into 
 tigers, and jackals, and even serpents. This was their 
 karma. Here are some of my authorities : In the Colombo 
 "Buddhist," of September, 2, 1892, occur these words: 
 
 "The impressions of one's former life, or the 'accumulated 
 experiences' are regarded as potent factors in the determina- 
 tion of one's re-birth. For instance, if a man persistently 
 desire to eat animal food like a tiger, and longs to have the 
 appetite and strength of that animal, it is possible that he 
 may be born as a tiger; but from that circumstance it 
 should not be inferred that the nature of the tiger on this ac- 
 count will be improved." 
 
 A Hindu writer in the Lahore "Harbinger" says: 
 
 'There are some people who have done through the human 
 plane downward, — that is, they have reached the limit which 
 is contiguous to the plane of the lower animals. As the in- 
 fluence of their wicked actions tends to degrade them, they 
 pass on to the sub-human plane, which is occupied by the 
 lower animals. They will then appear in animal forms... 
 Our scriptures mention accounts of sages who passes into 
 the bodies of animals for a certain interval of time in expi- 
 ation of some sin." 
 
 Miss Catherine Christie, an excellent lady and Theosophist 
 of Dunnedin, New Zealand, when lecturing upon reincarna- 
 tion and karma, said in public and in words unmistakable, 
 that "the lower classes of the old Atlanteans were reincar- 
 nated into animals." and some Indian Theosophists affirm 
 that these karmic phenomena are still in process. Think of 
 this now-a-day phenomena of humanity reincarnated — re- 
 
A SEARCH AFTER TRUTH. 115 
 
 born again into brutality — the spirit back into a low, fleshly 
 animal vehicle! 
 
 In the above cases and many similar ones in the Oriental 
 scriptures metempsychosis, transmigration and reincarna- 
 tion may be measurably considered synonyms, that is to say, 
 men gravitating downwards to be reborn in and as animals. 
 Is not this retrogression, rather than progress through evo- 
 lution? 
 
 WHEN,AND WHAT THE METHOD OF REINCARNATION? 
 
 To the accomplishment of any rational result, there must 
 be substantial material, purpose and a well-directed energy. 
 Now then, how is reincarnation accomplished? What the 
 process? Does the Ego, the inmost spirit disrobe itself of 
 the "astral," rather the spiritual body, as a preliminary step? 
 Self-purposed, does it dart like a ray of light to the waiting 
 matrix? Does it come fleshward by choice, or is it physically 
 forced through generation, from spirit freedom to flesh im- 
 prisonment? 
 
 The Thibetans, Hindu adepts, medieval occultists, French 
 Spiritists and Theosophists all differ radically among them- 
 selves in defining the hypotheses and the methods. As 
 knowledge is said to be "the world's savior," it would be 
 most interesting to know if the descending Ego, that is, the 
 triad (Atma-Buddhi-Manas), enters the spermatazoon, or 
 ovum, at the interrelational moment, or at the quickening, 
 or at the birth, or at the seventh year. These have all been 
 designated the times — the diverse seasons for the reincarna- 
 tion planting. 
 
 In her "Epitome of Theosophy," the eloquent Mrs. Besant 
 informs us that these "incarnations are not single, but re- 
 peated, each individuality becoming re-embodied during nu- 
 merous existences in successive races, "..and she further 
 assures us that "this slow process is going on through count- 
 less incarnations." And all for what? Am I told "to get 
 knowledge"? But is this the only world in which to get 
 knowledge? Is it to "gain more experiences"? But who 
 would not prefer some experiences in climbing the mount- 
 ains of the moon, sailing on the canals of Mars, or travers- 
 ing the starry spaces? Am I further told that people are re- 
 incarnated to pay off some old karmic debts which they 
 were not conscious of contracting? The scriptural prodigal 
 son, symbol of humanity — justly suffering from hunger in a 
 far-off land, voluntarily returned to his father, and what did 
 
116 A SEARCH AFTER TRUTH. 
 
 the father do? Did he send him back, memoryless, after a 
 little devachanic rest at home, for more karmic experiences 
 in eating swine-refused husks? No, the father forgave him; 
 hut now-a-day reincarnation knows nothing of the divine 
 Fatherhood — nothing of forgiveness. In fact, the basic foun- 
 dation of this karmic-incarnation is retaliation. 
 
 REINCARNATION OPPOSED TO EVOLUTION. 
 
 The grand theory of evolution is accepted alike by scien- 
 tist, seer and sage. "Upward," exclaims the inspired poet, 
 "all things tend." Look at the formation of this planet — 
 first the flinty, igneous strata, then the mineral kingdom, 
 then the vegetable, then the animal, then the human as the 
 crowning earthly glory, then the flesh-disrobed, death-defy- 
 ing spirit, conscious and proudly aspirational. Now then, if 
 the vegetable does not reincarnate into the mineral, nor the 
 animal back into the vegetable, nor the human back into the 
 four-footed animal, why should the spirit reincarnate back 
 into the fleshly chains of mortality? This would be down- 
 right retrogression. It would be Ego-rotation from the flesh 
 back into the flesh — the turning back of the individualized 
 conscious spirit to the physical plane of being — a moral deg- 
 radation! It would be comparable to forcing the university 
 professor back to the old school-house to rectify some blun- 
 ders made in the multiplication table. 
 
 Conscious of this wondrous life, vibrant throughout this 
 illimitable universe, I look up at the stars and feel that I am 
 chained to matter — and must I ever and ever return to be 
 re-chained? I chafe under the thought. True, I can talk 
 through the air to New York, and direct letters by lightning 
 under the sea to Melbourne, but how much more — infinitely 
 more can I do when freed from this bondage of clayey earth- 
 liness, permitting me to explore the immensities, weigh the 
 mighty planets and exact from them their origins and their 
 biographies! Be this my destiny instead of being linked to 
 a cog on the revolving wheel of a heartless karmic, fleshly 
 fate. 
 
 NATURE REBELS AT REINCARNATION. 
 
 The green apples of summer time do not contradict the 
 ripened ones of autumn; but reincarnation, or re-embodi- 
 ment, does directly, squarely contradict evolution. Does the 
 yellowing corn seek a return to the husk? Does the win- 
 nowed wheat strive to reclothe itself in its cast-off chaff? 
 
A SEARCH AFTER TRUTH. 117 
 
 Does the winged butterfly hunt for and struggle to re-enter 
 the chrysalis shell? Does the newly hatched bird making 
 music in maple or elm, desire to be reincarnated into the old 
 shell and storm-shattered nest? Do spirits, freed from 
 fleshly aches and pains, desire to re-enter and re-wallow in 
 human ions, cells and viscera? The asking answers the 
 question — aye, more, it postulates the utter insufficiency of 
 anything terrestrial to satisfy the onward, upward march of 
 the soul, conscious not only of its consciousness, but of its 
 individuality and imperishable identity. 
 
 REINCARNATION AND THE INEQUALITIES OF LIFE. 
 
 The "inequalities of life" has become a stereotyped stock- 
 in-trade song with reincarnationists. Some have few oppor- 
 tunities. Some are born with little, others with great ca- 
 pacities. Some are born in poverty, others in palaces of the 
 rich. Well — why not? These temporary inequalities, seen 
 from the subjective and the eternal, in connection with the 
 absolute whole, are sublime in their philosophical bearings. 
 There is eternity for the play of progression. Inequalities, 
 diversities and differentiations are among nature's divinest 
 gifts. 
 
 Suppose there were an equality of all forest trees — say 
 weeping willows! Suppose the surface of the earth were 
 one vast plane of equality! What would the sturdy farmer 
 say? Suppose again that earth's millions born to-morrow — 
 and all time thereafter, were born at the same hour of the 
 day, under the same constellation, with the same disposi- 
 tions, with the same capacities and with the same tastes — 
 and that a taste for mechanics! This, in its broadest sense 
 would be equality — the much-harped "equality of life." How 
 would you like it? Would not every intelligent person say, 
 "monotony, monotony"? Certainly! And equality is little 
 more than another name for monotony, and monotony to a 
 thinking, stirring reformer, "would be hell!" Inequality, 
 every way considered, has its rich compensation. The 
 chief difference between the prince and the peasant, is tem- 
 poral, worldly, and physical environments. But the spirit- 
 ual is the real, and the spiritually toiling farmer, or soil- 
 handed mechanic, may be nobler at heart than the million- 
 aire aristocrat. Grave-dust, and the disillusioned life just 
 beyond, demonstrate this. 
 
 Lincoln was a rail-splitter, Garfield a mule-driver, and 
 General Grant a tanner-boy. Did they grumble about lacK 
 
118 A SEARCH AFTER TRUTH. 
 
 of opportunity, early poverty, and the "inequalities of life"? 
 If all men were born germinally temperate, well-balanced 
 and moral, there would be no work for great-souled reform- 
 ers. The optimistic thinker tires of this everlasting pessi- 
 mistic brawl of the lazy and the go-easy shiftless about the 
 "inequalities of life." When sounded to their depths, these 
 inequalities show not a scintilla of reason for reincarnation. 
 Inequalities exist now, and it is to be confidently hoped that 
 they will in the next and all future stages of existence. Was 
 it not Pope who wrote: 
 
 "Go teach eternal wisdom how to rule, 
 Then drop into thyself and be a fool." 
 
 IS RE-BIRTH THE ONLY METHOD OF PROGRESSION? 
 
 The prime reason offered for re-embodiment is based upon 
 the materialistic theory that only in this fleshly body and 
 narrow time-sphere can mortal man get experiences, prop- 
 erly unfold and round out a really regal character. This is 
 a proofless assertion — an irrational statement, and nothing 
 more! The sage returning to nursery life through this re- 
 incarnating gate of conception, would, in fact, be going back- 
 wards, crab-like, minus memory, to be Y^-born and re- 
 trained in a kind of childish kindergarten, somewhat com- 
 parable to a man equipped in boy's boots! This earth, it 
 should be remembered, is but a floating speck in the oceanic 
 realm of the mighty immensities, with other worlds more 
 advanced, possibly, than ours, and spheres more refined, and 
 zones more etheric and vastly better adapted to the educat- 
 ing, unfolding and spiritually rounding up of character, than 
 this ever-changing fog-land region of floods fvnd cyclones, 
 competitions, cruelties and shocking barbarities, we tempo- 
 rarily now inhabit. Then why return? Why come back to 
 be encased — re-encoffined in human flesh? Is it to finish up 
 undone work? This I could better do — infinitely better do, 
 it seems to me, as a freed spirit, by impressing, entrancing 
 and inspiring sensitives from my higher plane of life, than by 
 returning through uterine existence, a period of placenta 
 imprisonment, with the later accompanying teeth-cutting 
 aches and ills of childhood and temptations of youth up to- 
 wards manhood. If not a uterine confinement for the Ego, 
 then how, and when, and why? Demonstrations and reasons 
 are demanded. Speculations do not count. They are out of 
 court. 
 
A SEARCH AFTER TRUTH. 119 
 
 REINCARNATION NO PART OF SPIRITUALISM OR 
 ORIGINAL THEOSOPHY. 
 
 It must be admitted by all up-to-date readers and journal- 
 ists that reincarnation constituted no part of Modern Spirit- 
 ualism, nor of modern Theosophy, founded in the residence 
 of a prominent New York Spiritualist. This was an after- 
 attached tag imported from the Orient. Of "Isis Unveiled," 
 written after the foundation of this society, Col. Olcott wrote 
 as follows: "H. P. Blavatsky says most positively, 'We will 
 now present a few fragments of this mysterious doctrine of 
 reincarnation — as distinct from transmigration — which we 
 have from authority. Reincarnation, i. e., the appearance of 
 the same individual, or rather of his astral monad, twice on 
 the same planet, is not a rule in nature; it is an exception, 
 like the teratological phenomenon of a two-headed infant.' 
 The cause of it, when it does occur, she says, is, that the de- 
 sign of nature to produce a perfect human being has been in- 
 terfered with, and therefore she (Nature^ must make an- 
 other attempt. Such exceptional interferences, H. P. B. ex- 
 plains, are the cases of abortions, of infants dying before a 
 certain age, and of congenital and incurable idiocy. If rea- 
 son has been so far developed as to be come active and dis- 
 criminative, there is no reincarnation on this earth." 
 
 In commenting upon the above words of Madame Blavat- 
 sky, Col. Olcott says in his "Theosophist," Vol. Ill, No. 1: 
 
 "I believe that she wrote then (six years after the found- 
 ing of the Theosophical Society) as she did later, exactly ac- 
 cording to her lights, and that she was just as sincere in de- 
 nying reincarnation in 1876-78, as she was in affirming it 
 after 1882. Why she and I were permitted to put the mis- 
 statement into 'Isis,' and, especially, why it was made to me 
 by the Mahatma, I cannot explain, unless I was the victim of 
 glamor in believing I talked with a Master on the evening in 
 question. So let it pass." 
 
 Appropos to the above, Alexander Fullerton, New York, 
 secretary of the American Branch of Theosophists, wrote in 
 the July "Theosophist," 1902, as follows: 
 
 "H. P. Blavatsky must always remain the insoluble prob- 
 lem for Theosophists. Her marvelous powers and her 
 equally marvelous weaknesses, her inconsistencies, her in- 
 compatibilities, the palpable facts which contradict the nec- 
 essary facts — all make up a compound which can only be 
 partially described or imperfectly grasped, and which cannot 
 
12 A SEARCH AFTER TRUTH. 
 
 in the least be understood." On the contrary, her "incon- 
 sistencies," her "marvelous weaknesses," her contradictions 
 can be understood, when it is understood as a fact that she 
 was a spirit medium (not a spiritual medium, but a spirit me- 
 dium of the physical type, functioning on the earthly plane). 
 We are further informed by Mr. Fullerton (see "Theoso- 
 phist," July, 1902, Madras) that Mme. Blavatsky first ap- 
 peared as a "white magician" — the educated class of Hindus 
 say "black magician." So differ the East and the West. 
 
 Mr. Fullerton, writing further in the "Theosophist," of a 
 certain non-reconciliation, says: "Col. Olcott has demon- 
 strated that she knew nothing of reincarnation during her 
 years in America, and that neither of them ever heard of it 
 until they learned it in India, and yet it is the vital doctrine 
 of the Theosophic philosophy, which she must have studied 
 when in India before, also during her pupilship in Thibet. 
 She was an advanced practical occultist when she first 
 landed in the States." 
 
 The above statements constitute a trinity of remarkable 
 confessions: 
 
 1. Madame Blavatsky wrote both for and against the 
 dogma of reincarnation. 
 
 2. Neither Olcott nor Blavatsky ever heard of reincarna- 
 tion till they learned it in India, that Siva-land of fancy and 
 florid imagination. This being true, reincarnation should be 
 branded, "borrowed from India!" 
 
 3. Reincarnation is "the vital doctrine" of the Theosophic 
 philosophy. Be this remembered. 
 
 MY PERSONAL REINCARNATIONAL CAREERS. 
 
 As gravely as graciously have I been told at different timea 
 and in different countries by two or three spiritistic medi- 
 ums, and several clairvoyant Theosophists, that several 
 thousand years ago I was an Aryan adept, summering on 
 Ganges' floral banks ; on a second incarnating "round" I was 
 a sacerdotal priest officiating in one of the temples of Osiris 
 in ancient Egypt; on my third re-embodiment, I was Habak- 
 kuk, the old Hebrew prophet; on a fourth "round" I was 
 Herodotus, the Grecian historian and traveler; on my fifth 
 reincarnation I was Origen, the early Christian father; on 
 my sixth incarnation, I was Peter the Hermit, priest-ves- 
 tured, cross in one hand, sword in the other, storming 
 through and arousing all Europe in fieriest eloquence to rush 
 in maddened war-legions to the Holy Land and rescue the 
 
A SEARCH AFTER TRUTH. 121 
 
 tomb of Jesus from the unclean hands of unholy "infidels/ 1 
 these brown-skinned Islamic paynims. 
 
 All this may be true; but I've not a scintilla of proof of it. 
 Aye, more, I am rigidly skeptical about it. Think of it, — 
 after all this prolonged series of incarnations, posing as 
 Aryan adept, Egyptian priest, Hebrew prophet, Grecian his- 
 torian, early church father, and Peter the Hermit, here I am 
 plain, hard-working Peebles, plodding physician, writer and 
 author! Where now is evolution? Where the progression? 
 Surely, there's been none in my case. Where all those past 
 Oriental experiences of mine? Where those bygone memo- 
 ries? Where the cranial records of those achievements? 
 and what the benefit of all those vanished lessons? This, if 
 I understand anything about it, is a universe of uses. 
 
 I have been informed that Socrates was reincarnated in 
 Alfred the Great, David in Jesus, Elijah in John the Baptist, 
 Mary Queen of Scots in the late Countess of Caithness, a 
 Hyksos king in Col. Olcott, Solon, the Athenian legislator, 
 in two different California boys (so claimed by fond moth- 
 ers), all of which, while exciting and feeding a childish van- 
 ity, is to scientists and illustrious thinkers, little more than 
 snobbery -prattle, innocent of reason and void of a particle of 
 substantial proof. 
 
 CULTURED HINDU AUTHORITY UPON REINCARNA* 
 TION. 
 
 Consciousness, science, reason and a cultured judgment, 
 rather than marvel, mystery, and Brahmanical fables of rein- 
 carnating gods, must constitute the umpire concerning rein- 
 carnation. Neither the inductive nor the deductive methods 
 of reasoning sustain it. Often have I been told confessedly 
 by its devotees, "We cannot prove it, but we can feel it." 
 The feeling, the emotions are very unreliable guides. 
 
 "But I can remember some occurrences in one of my past 
 incarnations." 
 
 "Are you certain of it? Is it not rather hallucination, 
 dream imagination, or a morbid neurasthenia?" 
 
 "But I see places, and scenery, and monuments, looking 
 perfectly familiar to me; and yet I was never in that part of 
 the country before." 
 
 Quite ilkely; this is a common experience of sensitives. 
 My own case is a telling example. Often in far-off countries 
 I see mountains, rivers, temples, shrines, perfectly familiar 
 to me. "Had you not been there before?" Never in the 
 
122 A SEARCH AFTER TRUTH. 
 
 body. "How do you account for it?" Upon the rational 
 principle that accompanying invisible intelligences who had 
 lived in those lands, telepathically or psychically impressed 
 the perspective upon my mind — impressed it so clearly, 
 firmly that I seemed to have once lived there bodily. The 
 philosophy of these pre-phenomena has been confirmed to me 
 over and over again by the trance utterances of higher intel- 
 ligences. 
 
 Listen for a moment to the testimonies of enlightened 
 Hindus: 
 
 Lankal R. Bhose, a law-pleader and learned Hindu author, 
 thus writes: "Reincarnation, the legitimate child of trans- 
 migration (the latter is still the common belief in southern 
 India), held so tenaciously and almost universally by old 
 India, is on the declining plane. Psychology, as taught by 
 both the British and the French, is rapidly displacing the be- 
 lief by showing its irrationality and depressing influences 
 upon the superstitions in relation to animal, serpent and in- 
 sect life." 
 
 That eminent Hindu scholar and author, Protab Chunder 
 Mozoomdar, said in his great Lowell lecture; "Transmigra- 
 tion notoriously existed as an indispensable article of faith 
 among the sects of old Hinduism. In modern times, how- 
 ever, it is called reincarnation, and held by the more super- 
 stitious. Educated, free-thinking Hindus reject it as a fad- 
 ing, unreasonable relic of the past." 
 
 The Rev. Dr. Savage, of New York, the distinguished Uni- 
 tarian and Spiritualist, writes: "Reincarnation seems to me 
 a hopeless kind of doctrine any way you take it. It puzzles 
 me beyond expression; in so much as all the Hindus, all the 
 Buddhists are engaged with all their powers, all their philos- 
 ophies, all their religions, to get rid of being reincarnated; 
 while here we are picking it up as though it were a new find, 
 and something very delightful Before we take this novelty 
 up, would it not be worth while to find out why they are 
 working so hard to get rid of it?" 
 
 Among the general reasons for rejecting reincarnation by 
 scholars and savants, are the following: 
 
 1. It is not based upon one sound, solid, demonstrated 
 fact. 
 
 2. It denies, or sets at defiance, the great uplifing law of 
 evolution. 
 
 3. Its boasted "800,000,000 believers" are made up of 
 Brahmins, Buddhists, Chinese, Thibetans — who, as a whole, 
 
A SEARCH AFTER TRUTH. 123 
 
 are among the most ignorant, imaginative and superstitious 
 people on earth. 
 
 4. It degrades the spirit by bringing it rotatingly back 
 into the paralyzing meshes of earthly matter, instead of em- 
 phasizing its ascension from the human spirit to the spirit- 
 ual, the angelic, the celestial, the arsaphic, and onward still 
 from glory to glory. 
 
 5. It annihilates, or effectually stupefies memory during 
 long periods of Ego-rotation, which memory constitutes the 
 corner-stone of individuality and self-cognition. 
 
 6. It violates every analogy of nature, such as the upward 
 march from mineral to vevegtable, from vegetable to animal, 
 from birth to childhood, to manhood, to spirit untrammeled, 
 and thus onward to celestial realms and spheres beatific and 
 innumerable. 
 
 7. It is unjust and retaliative enough to discipline, or 
 painfully cause suffering to souls in this life, for wrongs done 
 in previous incarnations, and of which they have now neither 
 consciousness nor the least possible memory of committing. 
 
 8. It stifles the "sweet reasonableness" of human nature 
 by blasting its tenderest affections; for karma, or karmic law 
 allied to reincarnation, knows nothing of home, of mercy, of 
 forgiveness or sympathy. Its heartless voice to the sorrow- 
 ing sufferer is, "You sinned in a past incarnation. Now take 
 your stripes, baffetings and soul-crushing agonies, neither 
 complaining, nor rightfully demanding relief therefrom. 
 Take another repotting into human flesh. Try again in an- 
 other human body, under another name, in the slough of mor- 
 tality." 
 
 9. For mathematical exactness, inductive reasonings and 
 demonstrations, it substitutes Cagliostro occultism, specula- 
 tions and wild hypotheses which are as undemonstrable and 
 miraculously unreasonable, as they are unphilosophical. 
 
 10. It has no fundamental premises, no philosophy based 
 upon discovered and scientific admitted facts; but wobbling 
 about between the speculations of the East and the West, 
 mingling Hindu magic with medieval alchemy, it shadows 
 the mind with the relentless, hopeless eclipse of matter 
 through vast "rounds" of Ego-rotation. 
 
 11. This Oriental reincarnation dogma having been the 
 popular belief of India for thousands of years, has sunk the 
 Hindu masses into an almost hopeless condition of soul-para- 
 lyzing apathy. To this end Col. Olcott thus wrote: "The 
 best friends of India, her most patriotic sons, have deplored 
 
124 A SEARCH AFTER TRUTH. 
 
 to me the moral darkness and degradation of her people. 
 Native judges. . . .have lowered their white heads in shame 
 when they said that the vice of lying and the crime of per- 
 jury prevailed to a fearful extent. And the worst part of it 
 was that the moral sense was so far gone, that people con- 
 fessed their falsehood without a blush, and without an idea 
 thai they were to be pitied." What a comment upon the 
 fruits of reincarnation ! And how sad the thought that there 
 are dreamy, imaginative Englishmen and a few of our coun- 
 trymen trying to cram this theory into the minds of think- 
 ing, reasoning, wide-awake Americans! 
 
 12. It is opposed to physical science, to mental science, to 
 the spiritual philosophy, to the harmonial philosophy, and 
 to the direct testimonies of those exalted intelligences whose 
 radiance makes brilliant the hierarchies of the heaven of 
 heavens. That certain, earth-bound souls, and unprogressed 
 Hindu spirits teach this deplorable, depressing dogma, is ad- 
 mitted. They will outgrow this delusion in time, for "up- 
 ward all things tend." 
 
 IS THERE A RESIDUUM OF TRUTH IN REINCARNA- 
 TION? 
 
 Most assuredly there is — and so there is in Parseeism,, 
 Quakerism, and Mormonism. Joseph Smith was a clairvoy- 
 ant. He had and exercised spiritual gifts. Yes, there is a 
 germ of fact in reincarnation, because spirit is ever incarnat- 
 ing itself into matter. 
 
 1. Enlightened minds well know that the Gibraltar rock 
 of Spiritualism is Spirit — all-pervading and all-energizing 
 Spirit. Substance, invisible in its finer gradations, when 
 chemically manipulated and precipitated, becomes matter, 
 the subject of the sense-perceptions. And spirit interpene- 
 trates, incarnates and perpetually reincarnates itself into 
 matter. 
 
 2. A conscious spirit disrobed of gross materiality, dwell- 
 ing in some spiritual sphere afar of rich-blazoned splendors, 
 re-embodies, or in a sense, reincarnates temporarily when it 
 descends into the atmosphere of our earth and vestures itself 
 in such visible atoms, ions, molecules and refined elements 
 as it can manipulate for materialization, for the accomplish- 
 ment of some great purpose, something as the university pro- 
 fessor may descend from his collegiate chair, and donning 
 the foot-ball suit, teach the necessity of exercise and the 
 graces of muscular motion. 
 
A SEARCH AFTER TRUTH. 12 5 
 
 3. The aural emanations extend from persons from one to 
 five and even twenty-five feet. This is especially true of psy- 
 chics. They are enveloped in an odyllic cloud. Now then, 
 when a spirit approaches from some higher, brighter sphere 
 into the radius of this human aura, attaching itself thereto 
 and mingling therein, it in a sense, incarnates and reincar- 
 nates to impress for some end, unworthy or praiseworthy, 
 depending upon the degree of the spirit's unfoldment. 
 
 4. Again, an illustrious spirit intelligence, seer or sage, 
 afire with love and beneficence, looking upon this world of 
 struggle, competition and crime, may earnestly desire to en- 
 lighten and uplift humanity to a higher spiritual plane of 
 truth and purity; accordingly in the sacred impregnating- 
 planting of the pre-existing spirit, he projects a current, a 
 thrill, a thought-ray of light from himself into the sensitive 
 life-germ. This magnetic moulding ray purposely willed and 
 psychically perpetuated by this heavenly benefactor, be he 
 musician, mathematician, artist or poet, energizes, and 
 measurably molds the foetus, the infant, the child — the 
 heaven-impressed child — which is often pronounced "a great 
 genius." Here is the golden key that unlocking, rationally 
 explains reincarnation without puerility, speculation, Ori- 
 ental fable, or dreamy, Devachanic romance. 
 
 It is needless to say that I hold in high esteem my Aryan 
 brothers of the Orient. Many Hindu reincarnationists are 
 liberal,high-minded men. They are deductive reasoners. 
 They are docile, trusting and aspirational, and those that 
 know them best love them the most. One of these gentle- 
 men, English-educated, wrote me recently from Calcutta, 
 averring that "Spiritualism was old in India." My prompt 
 and pertinent reply was that India, since the historic period, 
 has not had nor enjoyed so much as a shadow of genuine, 
 philosophical Spiritualism; but it has had in profusion crude 
 spiritism, necromancy, obsession, occultism, Yogi-juggling 
 and black magic, all of which are as distant from true, ra- 
 tional Spiritualism as are the Mohammedan hells from the 
 brilliant heavens of seers and savants. Hindu and French 
 reincarnation, though the pronounced "vital doctrine" of 
 Theosophy, has no necessary relation to Spiritualism. 
 Neither has it any necessary relation to original modern The- 
 osophy, as founded in New York. 
 
 It is opposed to science as studied and elucidated by all 
 German and great English-speaking scientists. 
 
126 A SEARCH AFTER TRUTH. 
 
 It is opposed to the only legitimate inference derived from 
 the accumulated facts of psychic phenomena. 
 
 It is opposed to that philosophy which is the attainment of 
 truth by way of reason. 
 
 It is opposed to psychology, which is the analysis and clas- 
 sification of the functions and faculties of the mind as re- 
 vealed to observation and induction, and sanctioned by de- 
 duction. 
 
 It is opposed to that rigid logic, the inferences of which 
 are based upon solid premises and the fixed principles of na- 
 ture. 
 
 It is opposed to those axiomatic principles which show than 
 things existing with the same thing, co-exist with one an- 
 other; and that whatever is true of a whole class, is true of 
 whatever belongs to and is brought under the class, and the 
 class, the series, the races of human beings, come under the 
 class, the law — the law of evolution, which in its mighty, 
 majestic sweep, lifts all conscious human souls through meth- 
 ods inverse, diverse and often mysterious, upward and on- 
 ward, through the eternities — one grand purpose, one law, 
 one life, one brotherhood, and one destiny, and that soul-un- 
 foldment, ever aspiring yet never reaching absolute perfec- 
 tion and power. 
 
 Finally, Hindu reincarnation (a modified transmigration), 
 being injected into American thought, is only a hypothesis, 
 a baseless dream, a hazy speculation that fades away before 
 the ascending stars of science and philosophy, as do the 
 moistening, quivering dews before June's golden sunshine. 
 
Use and Abuse of Psychic Powers. 
 
 A Lecture Delivered Before a Chicago Audience by 
 C. W. Lead beater, the Great Psychic, 
 of London, England, 
 
 TRAINED AND UNTRAINED MAN— PSYCHIC POWERS- 
 USES AND ABUSES— MIND CURE— CLAIRVOYANCE- 
 POWER OF THOUGHT— THOUGHT FORMS— SENSI- 
 TIVENESS— SENSITIVENESS MISUSED. 
 
 Strictly speaking psychic powers mean the powers of the 
 soul because this word psychic is derived from the Greek 
 psuche, the soul. But in ordinary language this term is used 
 rather to imply what we in Theosophy should call the powers 
 of the astral body, or even in many cases those 
 pertaining to the etheric part of the physical body. To 
 speak of persons as ''psychic" generally means nothing 
 more than that they are sensitive — that they sometimes see 
 or hear more than the majority of people around them are 
 as yet able to see or hear. Though it is of course true that 
 this sight is a power of the soul, it is equally true that all the 
 powers which we display in physical life are also powers of 
 the soul, for our bodies, whether astral or physical, are after 
 all only vehicles. What is commonly termed "psychic 
 power" is then only a very slight extension of ordinary fac- 
 ulties; but the expression is also sometimes used to include 
 other manifestations which are as yet somewhat abnormal 
 among men, such as mesmeric power, or the power of mind 
 cure. Since the will is undoubtedly a quality of the ego, and 
 since that is the motive force both in mesmerism and in 
 mind cure, I presume that we can hardly object to the appli- 
 cation of this term psychic power in these cases. Very often 
 telepathy and psychometry are considered to come under the 
 
 127 
 
12 8 USE AND ABUSE OF PSYCHIC POWERS. 
 
 same head, although these in reality merely indicate a some- 
 what unusual sensitiveness to impressions from without. In 
 reality all of these powers of the soul are inherent in every 
 son of man, though they are developed as yet only in a few, 
 and are working only very partially even with them, unless 
 they have had the inestimable advantage of definite occult 
 training. 
 
 TRAINED AND UNTRAINED MAN. 
 
 In my lectures upon Clairvoyance I have very often had to 
 draw a decided distinction between the trained and the un- 
 trained man. Until we come to examine the matter practi- 
 cally we can have very little idea what an enormous differ- 
 ence the definite training in the use of such powers really 
 makes to the capacity of the man. Practically all those of 
 whom we commonly think of as psychic in this occidental 
 country are entirely untrained. They are simply persons 
 who possess a little of this higher faculty, which has been 
 born in them as a consequence of some efforts which they 
 have made to attain it in past lives — possibly as vestal vir- 
 gins in ancient temples, or possibly as practitioners of less 
 desirable forms of magic in medieval times. In most cases 
 in this life they have used such powers somewhat blindly, or 
 perhaps have made no conscious effort to use them at all, 
 but have rather been satisfied to accept whatever impres- 
 sions came to them. In India, and in other Oriental coun- 
 tries, these things have been scientifically studied for very 
 many centuries, so that there any one who shows signs of 
 such development is instructed either to repress its manifes- 
 tations altogether, or else put himself under the definite 
 training of those who thoroughly understand the subject. 
 The Indian mind approaches these problems from a totally 
 different point of view. To the Hindu more sensitiveness 
 seems an undesirable quality lest it should degenerate into 
 mediumship — a condition which he regards with the utmost 
 horror. To him these powers of the soul do not seem in the 
 slightest degree abnormal; he knows that they are inherent 
 in every man, and so he is in no way surprised at their occa- 
 sional manifestation. But he knows also that unless care- 
 fully trained and kept in perfect control they are very liable 
 to mislead their possessor in the early days of his experi- 
 ences. 
 
 The Indian student knows what he is doing in regard to 
 these matters, for they have all thoroughly classified thou- 
 
USE AND ABUSE OF PSYCHIC POWERS. 12 9 
 
 sands of years ago. There are many teachers in India who 
 will take a man and train him quite definitely, just as here a 
 man might be trained in athletics or in the practice of some 
 science. You will readily realize therefore that in Eastern 
 countries the whole thing is systematized in a way very dif- 
 ferent from that which prevails among us. All of those 
 whom here you call psychic and clairvoyant would be regard- 
 ed in the East as not very promising pupils. Indeed I be- 
 lieve that many of the Oriental teachers would rather not 
 undertake the development of a man who has already some 
 small amount of these psychic powers, because it is found 
 that such a man has usually much to unlearn, and is far 
 more difficult to manage and to train than one in whom as 
 yet no such faculties have manifested themselves. In the 
 East they have a thorough comprehension of all these things, 
 and therefore fewer mistakes are likely to occur among 
 them ; for with them a man is trained in the use of his facul- 
 ties from the first, and the possibility of error and miscal- 
 culation are clearly explained to him and therefore he is 
 naturally far less likely to fall a victim to them. 
 
 We know very well how in our Western countries clairvoy- 
 ance has a bad reputation, by reason of the fact that there 
 are many pretenders to its possession who are constantly un- 
 successful and blundering in their efforts. There may be 
 some of these who are simply and entirely impostors; but 
 I imagine that the majority have really some very partial de- 
 velopment of this faculty, although they have often entirely 
 misunderstood even the little that they have. Certainly no 
 man in the East would ever come before the public, or be 
 known in any way as a clairvoyant, until he had been trained 
 very far on the way, so that he had passed beyond all possi- 
 bility of the ordinary gross errors which are so painfully 
 common among so-called clairvoyants here. If you grasp 
 this fact, you will at once see how great is the difference be- 
 tween the trained and the untrained, and how very little re- 
 liance is usually to be placed upon the latter. 
 
 I know that most psychics among us feel themselves to be 
 infallible, and consider that the messages and impressions 
 which reach them come always from the very highest possi- 
 ble quarters; but the truth is that a very little common sense 
 and study of the subject would show them that in this they 
 are mistaken. No doubt it is to a certain extent gratifying 
 to one's subtle self-conceit to suppose that one has the ex- 
 
130 USE AND ABUSE OF PSYCHIC POWERS. 
 
 elusive power of communication with some great archangel; 
 but if one will but take the trouble to read the literature of 
 the subject it will soon become apparent that many hun- 
 dreds of other people have also had their private archangels, 
 and have nevertheless been very frequently grossly mis- 
 taken. Of course no trained man could possibly fall into 
 such an error as this; but then as I have said the vast ma- 
 jority of our psychics in Europe and America are simply en- 
 tirely untrained. Some of them may receive a certain 
 amount of guidance from dead people — "spirit guides," as 
 they are often called — but it is very rarely of a definite and 
 practical kind, and it usually tends much more towards me* 
 diumship and general sensitiveness than towards the gain of 
 definite control and self development. 
 
 I doubt very much whether any large number of our occi- 
 dental psychics would for a moment submit themselves to 
 the kind of training which the wiser teachers of the East 
 consider necessary. There a man has to try persistently, 
 patiently, over and over again at the very simplest feats 
 until he succeeds in producing his results neatly and per- 
 fectly; he is expected to build up his knowledge of higher 
 planes step by step from those with which he is already 
 familiar, and he is not encouraged in lofty flights which take 
 his feet away from the bed-rock of ascertained fact. Our 
 Western psychics would probably consider themselves much 
 injured if they were made to work laboriously at self-control 
 in the way it is always exacted as a matter of course in all 
 Oriental schools of development of these psychic powers. 
 
 I suppose that many people would include among psychic 
 powers Astrology, Palmistry and Phrenology. I think, how- 
 ever, that we are hardly justified in describing these as psy- 
 chic, because in all of them the theory is that the results are 
 obtained by deduction from matters of fact and of observa- 
 tion. The Astrologer ascertains the position of the stars at 
 any given moment, and from that he casts his horoscope or 
 sets up his figure, and after that it is supposed to be a mere 
 matter of calculation to discover what influences are at 
 work. In the same way the Palmist simply observes the 
 lines of the hand and then gives his delineation according to 
 the accepted rules of his science; and the same is done by 
 the Phrenologist from his examination of the varied configu- 
 ration of the skull. Of course I know that in all these sci- 
 ences the real proficiency lies in the capacity to balance the 
 contradictory indications and to judge accurately between 
 
USE AND ABUSE OF PSYCHIC POWERS. 131 
 
 them; and I am sure that many practitioners of these arts 
 are aided in such decision by impressions which come very 
 much nearer to psychic faculty. To these last perhaps we 
 might permit the name of psychic power, but hardly to the 
 sciences themselves; so that I think we may put them on one 
 side for the purposes of our lecture. It sometimes happens 
 that one who practices some of these arts is in the habit of 
 receiving impressions and communications from some astral 
 entity — impressions which very greatly assist him in judging 
 accurately from the facts put before him. In that case od- 
 viously such success as he may attain is not in consequence 
 of his own psychic powers, but of the additional discernment 
 which ordinary astral faculty gives to his departed helper. 
 
 In the same way it does not seem to me that mediumship, 
 should be recognized among psychic powers, or indeed con- 
 sidered properly a power at all. The man who is a medium 
 is not exercising power, but is on the contrary abdicating his 
 rightful possession of control over his own organs or prin- 
 ciples. It is essential for a medium that he should be one 
 whose principles are readily separable. If he is a trance or 
 a writing medium, that means that any astral entity may 
 readily take possession of his physical body and utilize either 
 the hand or the vocal organs, so that he is simply one who 
 can be very readily dispossessed by a dead man. If, on the 
 other hand, he is a materializing medium, whether the mate- 
 rializations are perfect and visible forms, or merely invisible 
 hands which touch the sitters at the seance, or play musical 
 instruments or carry small objects about, then the quality 
 which he possesses is simply that etheric or even physical 
 matter can very readily be withdrawn from his body and 
 used for the various operations of the seance. In any or all 
 of these cases it will be seen that the medium's part is to be 
 passive and not active, and that he may very readily be 
 seized upon and obsessed. So that it is very evident that he 
 cannot be described as possessing or using a power at all, 
 but simply as able to assume a condition in which he can 
 very readily yield himself to the power of others. 
 
 PSYCHIC POWERS. 
 
 It would seem then that we may reserve the title of 
 "psychic" powers for the definite use of will or of the astral 
 or etheric senses — that is to say that we may include genu- 
 ine and controlled clairvoyance, mind-cure, mesmerism, tel- 
 epathy and psychometry. A great deal of unconscious psy- 
 
132 USE AND ABUSE OF PSYCHIC POWERS. 
 
 chic power is also being constantly exercised, and of that I 
 shall speak later; but we will take the conscious exercise of 
 powers first. The conscious exercise of these powers is only 
 for the few among us at present. It is by no means uncom- 
 mon to find men who have considerable mesmeric capability; 
 and a very fair number of persons possess a good deal of 
 curative power along various lines ; but still as compared to 
 the total population these are only a very few. The uncon- 
 scious powers are possessed by all of us, and all of us are 
 using them to a greater or less extent. 
 
 To those then who possess and employ these conscious 
 psychic powers I would say that all of them may be used and 
 all of them may be abused, so that it is very necessary that 
 great care should be exercised with regard to them. There 
 is a very good general rule which is universally applicable 
 with regard to all such matters, and that is the rule of per- 
 fect unselfishness. If those who possess such powers are 
 using them in any way for personal gain, whether it be of 
 money or of influence, then that is distinctly an abuse. 
 These are truly powers of the soul; they are connected with 
 the advancement of man and with his higher development, 
 and it is for that higher development only that they should 
 be employed. That is a very important point for the person 
 possessing these powers to bear in mind; it is the only abso- 
 lutely safe rule that can be made for their use. 
 
 These are in all cases glimpses of the future of the human 
 race. If these higher powers which will one day come to 
 everyone of us are to be used by each man for himself, then 
 that future will be a very fearful one and a very dark one. 
 If, on the other hand, as these powers develop men learn to 
 use them for the uplifting and the helping of the race, then 
 that future will be a bright and a grand one. Our record 
 tells us that in the remote past there was a mighty race 
 which possessed those powers to the full; but that race, as a 
 whole used them wrongly, and in consequence that race dis- 
 appeared. We of the fifth root race must also in our turn 
 pass through the same trial, we must inherit the same pow- 
 ers. Their occasional appearance among us now is an earn- 
 est of the time when they will presently become universal, 
 when they will be widely understood and widely accepted. 
 
 The great question is whether having followed our prede« 
 cessors so far, we shall follow them to the end, whether 
 when we have developed these powers as they did, we also 
 shall abuse them as they did; for if we do that, then it is cer» 
 
USE AND ABUSE OF PSYCHIC POWERS. 133 
 
 tain that we shall also follow them in their destruction. Bui) 
 if, as may be hoped, we shall do somewhat better than they, 
 if there shall be a larger proportion who will use these pow- 
 ers for the good of mankind as a whole, then it may be that 
 the doom can be averted, and that the common sense and 
 public feeling of the majority will condemn and curb their 
 employment for selfish purposes But if ihat is to be, if we 
 are to have this larger proportion of those who understand 
 and who use their powers intelligently, it is certain that we 
 must begin now; now that these things are as yet only in 
 seed among us we must begin by using them unselfishly, and 
 we must put away altogether the idea of exploiting them for 
 the sake of the lower self. There is already very far too 
 great a tendency in this direction; the grasping avarice of 
 the ignorant leads them to employ every additional advan- 
 tage which they think they can gain, in order that they may 
 make a little more money, that they may obtain a little more 
 advancement or a little more fame for the wretched personal 
 self. The dawn of these higher faculties must never be cor- 
 rupted by such thoughts or such feelings as these. 
 
 We must remember that these higher powers involve 
 higher responsibility, that the man who possesses them is al- 
 ready in a different position, because he is already coming 
 within reach of higher possibilities in many directions. We 
 understand this very readily in other and more purely physi- 
 cal matters, and none of us would think of regarding the re- 
 sponsibility of the savage when he commits a murder or a 
 robbery as in any way equal to our own if we should fall into 
 the same crime. That is simply because we have a greater 
 knowledge than he, and so every one instinctively realizes 
 that more is to be expected from us. Obviously exactly the 
 same thing is true with regard to the question of this addi 
 tional knowledge — this knowledge that brings with it so 
 much more of power; for added power means added oppor. 
 tunity and therefore added responsibility. 
 
 USES AND ABUSES. 
 
 In previous lectures I have already explained the Theo- 
 sophical view with regard to mesmerism and mind cure, so 
 that I need not now repeat myself with regard to these sub- 
 jects. It is very easy to see how the former might be mis- 
 used — how it might be employed with great facility to domi. 
 nate the mind of a person and so to influence him unduly to 
 favor the operator. One hears sometimes of such cases in 
 
134 USB AND ABUSE OF PSYCHIC POWERS. 
 
 which a man desiring to obtain a position, or another one de- 
 siring to obtain money, will exercise undue mesmeric infiu« 
 ence and so get himself appointed to some place which he is 
 obviously unfitted to fill, or perhaps succeed in having money 
 given to him or left to him as a legacy when it should ob- 
 viously by ordinary canons of justice have passed into quite 
 other hands. It is quite common to see advertisements in 
 the papers of those who profess to teach mesmeric influences 
 avowedly with the intention that it shall be used in ordinary 
 business, in order that the person who uses it may in this 
 way get the better of the unfortunate man who came into 
 contact with him in the way of trade. It is at once obvious 
 that all these are very serious abuses; and I think that we 
 must certainly class with them that use of mesmeric power 
 which is so frequently exhibited in public — that which makes 
 the subject ridiculous in some one or other of many ways. 
 On the other hand there is no doubt that mesmerism may be 
 very usefully and profitably employed for curative purposes. 
 As I explained in my lecture on that subject it is usually 
 possible to withdraw from a patient such pains as those of 
 headache or toothache by means of a few passes without put- 
 ting him into a trance condition at all. Indeed I imagine 
 that a very large number of the ills to which flesh is heir 
 could be cured in this way without the use of the trance. 
 This latter should be used very sparingly, because it in- 
 volves domination of one man's will by another. Perhaps 
 almost the only case in which it is undoubtedly justifiable is 
 that of a surgical operation. We shall find many accounts 
 of its successful employment in such cases in the works of 
 Dr. Esdaile of Calcutta, and Dr. Elliotson of London. 
 
 MIND CURE. 
 
 One may see equally readily how easy it would be to mis. 
 use the power of mind cure. It is often employed simply aa 
 a means of making money; and it seems to me that wher- 
 ever that is done there is a terrible danger of impurity in the 
 motive and unscrupulousness in the practice. I know that 
 it will be said that those who devote the whole of their 
 time and strength to the curing of others must themselves 
 obtain their livelihood in some way, and that in this respect 
 mind cure stands on the same level as ordinary medicine. 
 I do not feel myself able to agree with this latter contention. 
 In the case of the ordinary doctor we all know that he has 
 passed through an expensive training in order to fit himself 
 
USE AND ABUSE OF PSYCHIC POWERS. 13 5 
 
 to deal with the especial needs of the human body; and we 
 all realize what it is that we are buying from him — the ser- 
 vices which his skill and experience enable him to place at 
 our disposal. But the mind-curist is often entirely ignorant, 
 and has undergone no preliminary training whatever; and in 
 any case he is using a power which cannot be measured upon 
 the physical plane, because it belongs in reality to some- 
 thing higher and less material. If such a practitioner has 
 no means of his own, and is devoting the whole of his time to 
 the work of curing diseases, there can be no objection to his 
 accepting any gift that a grateful patient may wish to make 
 to him in recognition of the help which he has given; but 
 it certainly seems to me that to fix a definite charge for serv- 
 ices of this nature is eminently undesirable and contrary to 
 the whole spirit of occult teaching. This is a matter whicb 
 every person must decide with his own conscience; but 
 it is assuredly a most dangerous thing to introduce any ele- 
 ment of personal gain into the utilization of powers which be* 
 long to these higher levels. It is certainly better to avoid in 
 this case the very appearance of evil. 
 
 CLAIRVOYANCE. 
 
 All this is true also of clairvoyance. Most undoubtedly 
 any faculty of that nature which a person possesses may be 
 used for good in a great many ways. For one who possesses 
 this faculty higher worlds lie partially open, at any rate 
 sometimes, and therefore this power may be used to learn. 
 For this purpose it is necessary that the clairvoyant should 
 make a very careful study of the literature of the subject, in 
 order that he may see what others possessing this faculty 
 have previously learnt, that he may be guided by their expe- 
 rience and may avoid the pitfalls into which some of them 
 have fallen. Naturally a clairvoyant who does not study the 
 subject, who makes no effort to verify his visions and to com- 
 pare them with the experiences of others, is liable to be very 
 seriously deceived, and by his wild predictions and descrip- 
 tions to bring the whole subject into discredit with those 
 who do not understand it. But for one who uses this power 
 with common sense and without self-conceit, in a scientific 
 spirit of investigation rather than with the hope of obtaining 
 personal gain from it, it may be a source not only of very 
 great pleasure but also of great advancement. Not only may 
 he obtain knowledge for himself — knowledge which he can 
 also pass on to his fellow man, but by its means he may also 
 
136 USE AND ABUSE OF PSYCHIC POWBRb. 
 
 learn to see when and how people need help, and to distin- 
 guish the way in which it can most successfully be given. 
 By its means he can often see where a kind word is especi- 
 ally needed, where a loving, comforting, strengthening 
 thought can be sent with the certainty of immediate result. 
 
 The clairvoyant has ac least a little more power for good 
 than his fellows if he will only watch for opportunities for 
 using it, if only he will think always of helping others rather 
 than of gaining anything for himself. Beautiful possibilities 
 open up before us when we think of the power that will be in 
 the hands of all in the not far distant future; the man who 
 is to some extent clairvoyant now is beginning already to reap 
 a little of the harvest of power for good which will come to 
 us all as the race advances. So that the clairvoyant who is 
 thoroughly unselfish and whose additional powers are care- 
 fully balanced by strong and robust common sense may do a 
 great deal of good in the world and may gain spiritual ad- 
 vancement for himself in the very act of helping his fellow 
 creatures. 
 
 It is not difficult to see that this is a power that may be 
 terribly misused. The additional information about others 
 which it puts in the hands of its possessor may be employed, 
 and unfortunately is employed sometimes, for personal gain, 
 for the gratification of curiosity and even for the levying of 
 blackmail. You see from this how essentially necessary it 
 is that the clairvoyant should possess the characteristics of 
 a gentleman, and where he belongs to the class which in The- 
 osophy we call the first-class pitri this is of course the case. 
 But unfortunately clairvoyance may be acquired by less de- 
 veloped souls who do not possess the instincts of the man of 
 delicate feeling, as you may very readily see by some of the 
 disgraceful advertisements which so frequently appear in 
 our papers. There you will see persons quite shamelessly 
 announcing that they are prepared to put clairvoyant power 
 (such as it is) at your disposal in order to help you to obtain 
 an unfair advantage over your fellows in some speculation — 
 that they will help you to rob other men under the pretext of 
 gambling or of betting on horse racing. In this way they are 
 pandering to the lowest passions of man, they are descend* 
 ing from what should be a higher and purer realm into the 
 foulest mud of the most degraded physical life. Nor are 
 these the only offenders, for you will often see announce- 
 ments from those who profess to teach clairvoyance or oc- 
 cult science of some sort in return for so many pounds or so 
 
USE AND ABUSE OF PSYCHIC POWERS. 13 7 
 
 many dollars. These unscrupulous practitioners are able to 
 live and to nourish simply because the public is as yet en- 
 tirely ignorant of the true conditions of all such teaching 
 You may take it as an absolutely certain rule that no true oc- 
 cultist has ever yet advertised himself, and that no true oc- 
 cultist has ever yet taken money for occult teaching or infor- 
 mation. The moment that a man advertises — the moment 
 that he takes money for any service which professes to be of 
 an occult nature — that moment he brands himself as having 
 no true occultism to give. True teaching along these lines 
 is to be obtained only from recognized schools of occultism 
 existing under the guardianship of the great Brotherhood; 
 and every pupil of these is absolutely forbidden to take 
 money for the use of any psychic power. So that all these 
 people condemn themselves, and bear this condemnation on 
 the very face of their announcements; and if they flourish 
 and grow fat upon the property of those whom they deceive, 
 the sufferers have only themselves to thank for the results 
 of their own foolish credulity. Once more I repeat that there 
 is one, and only one, absolutely safe rule with regard to the 
 use of all these higher faculties, and that is that they shall 
 never under any conditions be employed for any selfish or 
 personal object. 
 
 POWER OF THOUGHT. 
 
 Let us turn now from those powers which belong only to 
 the few to those others which all of us possess and are using, 
 even though we may be entirely unconscious of them. The 
 first and the greatest of these is the power of our thought. 
 Many a man has heard vaguely that thoughts are things, and 
 yet the statement has not conveyed to him any very real or 
 definite meaning. When he is fortunate enough to have de- 
 veloped clairvoyance to the level of the mental plane he will 
 be able very fully to bear testimony to the enormous import- 
 ance of the truth which is expressed in that statement. If, 
 utilizing the senses of the mental body, he looks out through 
 them at the mental bodies of his fellows, he will see how 
 thought manifests itself at that level and what results it pro- 
 duces. It is in the mental body or mind of man that thought 
 first manifests itself; and it shows itself to clairvoyant vis- 
 ion as a vibration arising in the matter of that body. From 
 the plates which I have published in "Man Visible and Invis- 
 ible" it may be seen what is the appearance of this mentai 
 body to the man who is able to see it — or rather what is indi- 
 
138 USE AND ABUSE OF PSYCHIC POWERS. 
 
 cated there is an attempt to present in section and on the 
 physical plane something of the higher and far grander and 
 wider impression which is really made on the sense at that 
 higher level by the appearance of that body. 
 
 If a man thinks while the clairvoyant is watching him, the 
 latter will see that a vibration is set up in the mental body 
 and that this vibration produces two distinct results. First 
 of all, like all other vibrations, it tends to communicate itself 
 to any surrounding matter which is capable of receiving it; 
 and thus, since the surrounding atmosphere is filled with 
 mental matter, which is very readily set in motion in re- 
 sponse to any such impulse, the first effect produced is that 
 of a sort of ripple which spreads out through surrounding 
 space, exactly as when a stone is thrown into a pond ripples 
 will be seen to radiate from that centre along the surface of 
 the water. In this case the radiation is not in one plane only 
 but in all directions, like the radiation from the sun or from 
 a lamp. It must be remembered that man exists in a great 
 sea of mental matter, just precisely as we here on the physi- 
 cal plane are living in the midst of the atmosphere, al» 
 though we so rarely think of it. This thought-vibation, there- 
 fore, radiates out in all directions, becoming less powerful in 
 proportion to the distance from its source. Again like all 
 other vibrations, this one tends to reproduce itself wherever 
 opportunity is offered to it; and as each variety of thought is 
 represented by its own rate of vibration, that fact means that 
 whenever this wave strikes upon another mental body it will 
 tend to provoke in it vibrations precisely similar to those 
 which gave it birth in the first place. That is to say from 
 the point of view of that other man whose mental body is? 
 touched by the wave, it tends to produce in his mind a 
 thought identical with that which had previously arisen in 
 the mind of the thinker. The distance to which such a 
 thought-wave would penetrate, the strength and persistence 
 with which it would impinge upon the mental bodies of oth- 
 ers, depends upon the strength and clearness of the original 
 thought. 
 
 The voice of a speaker sets in motion waves of sound in 
 the air which radiate from him in all directions, and convey 
 his message to all those who are, as we say, within hearing; 
 and the distance to which his voice can penetrate depends 
 upon its strength and the clearness of his enunciation. In 
 exactly the same way the strong thought will carry very 
 
USE AND ABUSE OF PSYCHIC POWERS. 139 
 
 much further than the weak and undecided one; but clear- 
 ness and definiteness are of even greater importance than 
 strength. But just as the speaker's voice may fail upon 
 heedless ears where men are already engaged in business or 
 in pleasure, so may a strong wave of thought sweep past 
 without affecting the mind of a man if he is already deeply 
 engrossed in some other line of thought. Very large num- 
 bers of men, however, do not think very definitely or strongly 
 except when in the immediate prosecution of some business 
 which demands their whole attention. Consequently there 
 are always very many minds within our reach which are 
 liable to be considerably affected by the thoughts which im- 
 pinge upon them; and we therefore are very distinctly re- 
 sponsible for the -thoughts which we send out and for the ef' 
 fects which they produce upon others. This is clearly a psy- 
 chic power which we all possess, which we are all constantly 
 exercising; and yet how few Of us ever think of it or the se- 
 rious responsibility which it involves. 
 
 Inevitably and without any effort of ours every thought 
 which we allow to rest within our minds must be influencing 
 the minds of others about us. Consider how frightful would 
 be the responsibility if this thought were an impure or an 
 evil one, for we should then be spreading moral contagion 
 among our fellow-men. Remember that hundreds and thou- 
 sands of people possess within them latent germs of evil — 
 germs which may never blossom and bear fruit unless some 
 force from without plays upon them and starts them into ac- 
 tivity. If you should yield yourself to an impure or unholy 
 thought, the vibration which you thus produce may be the 
 very factor which awakens a germ into activity and causes 
 it to begin to grow. Later it may blossom out into thoughts 
 and words and deeds of evil, and these in their turn may in- 
 juriously affect thousands of other men even in the far dis- 
 tant future. We see then how awful is the responsibility of 
 a single impure or evil thought. Very much harm is done in 
 this way, and done quite unconsciously ; yet there is no doubt 
 whatever that a heavy responsibility lies upon the man who 
 knows that he ought to have purified his mind, but has neg- 
 lected to do so. If it should ever happen to us, then, to have 
 an impure or evil thought arising within us, let us hasten at 
 once to send out a strong and vivid thought of purity and 
 goodness to follow hard upon the other vibration and so far 
 as may be, undo any evil which it may have done. 
 
 Most happily all this is also true of good thought as well 
 
140 USE AND ABUSE OF PSYCHIC POWERS. 
 
 as of evil; and the man who realizes this may set himself to 
 work to be a veritable sun, constantly radiating upon all his 
 neighbors thoughts of love and calm and peace. This is a 
 very grand psychic power, and yet it is one that is within the 
 reach of every human being — of the poorest as well as the 
 wealthiest, of the little child as well as of the great sage. 
 How clearly this consideration shows us the duty of control- 
 ling our thought and of keeping it always at the highest level 
 which is possible for us! 
 
 That, however, is only one of the results of thought. 
 Our clairvoyant watching the genesis of this thought would 
 see that it not only sets up this radiating and divergent vi- 
 bration, but that it also makes a definite form. All students 
 of Theosophy are acquainted with the idea of the elemental 
 essence that strange half-intelligent life which surrounds us 
 in all directions ; and they know how very readily it responds 
 to the influence of the human thought, and how every im- 
 pulse sent out from the mind-body of man immediately 
 clothes itself in a temporary vehicle of this essence. Thus it 
 becomes for the time being a kind of living creature, the, 
 thought-force being the soul and the elemental essence the 
 body. There may be infinite variety in the color and shape 
 of such thought-forms, or artificial elementals, as they are 
 sometimes called. Each thought draws round it the matter 
 which is appropriate for its expression and sets that matter 
 into vibration in harmony with its own; thus the character of 
 the thought decides its color, and the study of its variations 
 and combinations is an exceedingly interesting one. A list 
 of these colors with their signification is given in the book 
 which I have just mentioned, "Man Visible and Invisible," 
 and a number of colored drawings of various types of 
 thought forms will be found accompanying Mrs. Besant's ar- 
 ticle on the subject in Lucifer for September, 1896. In very 
 many cases these thoughts are merely revolving clouds of 
 the color appropriate to the special idea which gave them 
 birth; but in the case of a really definite form, a clear cut 
 and often very beautiful shape will be assumed. If the 
 thought be purely intellectual and impersonal — for example 
 if the thinker is attempting to solve a problem in algebra or 
 geometry — then his thought-forms and waves of vibration 
 will be confined to the mental plane. If, however, his 
 thought is of a spiritual nature, or is tinged with love and 
 aspiration or deep unselfish feeling, then it will rise upwards 
 
USE AND ABUSE OF PSYCHIC POWERS. 141 
 
 from the mental plane and will borrow much of the splendor 
 and glory of the Buddhic levels above. In such a case its in- 
 fluence is exceedingly powerful, and every such thought is a 
 mighty force for good which cannot but produce decided ef- 
 fect upon all other mental bodies within reach, if they con- 
 tain any quality at. all capable of response. If, on the other 
 hand, the thought has in it something of self or of personal 
 desire, at once its vibrations turn downward, and it draws 
 around itself a body of astral matter in addition to its cloth- 
 ing of mental matter. Thus then is a thought form capabla 
 of acting upon not only the minds but the astral bodies of 
 other men — that is to say, capable not only of arousing 
 thoughts within them but also of stirring up their feelings. 
 Here once more we see the terrible responsibility of sending 
 forth a selfish thought or one charged with low and evil mag- 
 netism. If any man about us has a weak spot within his na* 
 ture — and who has not? — then this selfish thought of ours 
 may find that weak spot and develop the germ into poisonous 
 fruit and flower. Once more, purely good and loving 
 thoughts and feelings will project their forms also, and will 
 act upon other men just as strongly in their way as did the 
 evil in the contrary direction; so that this opens before us a 
 spnere of usefulness, when once our thoughts and feelings 
 are thoroughly under the control of the higher self. 
 
 THOUGHT FORMS. 
 
 It may be useful for us to think a little more closely of thia 
 thought-form, and to note its further adventures. Often a 
 man's thought is definitely directed towards some one else — 
 that is to say, he sends forth from himself a thought of affec- 
 tion, of gratitude, or unfortunately it may sometimes be oJp 
 envy cr jealousy or of hatred towards some one else. Such 
 a thought will produce its radiations precisely as would any 
 other; but the thought form which it generates is imbued 
 with the definite intention, as it were, and as soon as it 
 breaks away from the mental and astral bodies of the thinker 
 it goes straight towards the person upon whom it is directed, 
 and fastens itself upon him. It may be compared not inaptly 
 to a Leyden jar, with its charge of electricity. If the man 
 towards whom it is directed is at the moment in a passive 
 condition, or if he has within him active vibrations of a 
 character harmonious with its own, it will at once discharge 
 itself upon him. Its effect will naturally be to provoke a 
 vibration similar to its own if none such already exists, or 
 
142 USE AND ABUSE OF PSYCHIC POWERS. 
 
 to intensify it if it is already to be found there. If the man's 
 mind is so strongly occupied along some other lines that it 
 is impossible for the vibration to find an entrance, thq 
 thought form hovers about him waiting for an opportunity to 
 discharge itself. \ 
 
 Unfortunately, however, at our present stage of evolution 
 the majority of the thoughts of men are probably self-cen- 
 tered, even when not actively selfish. They are often very 
 heavily tinged by desire, and in such cases they not only de- 
 scend into and clothe themselves with astral matter, but 
 they also tend to react upon the man who set them in mo- 
 tion. Many a man may be seen surrounded by a shell of 
 thought-forms, all of them hovering closely about him and 
 constantly reacting upon him. The tendency in such a case 
 is naturally to reproduce themselves — that is to say, to stir 
 up in him a repetition of the thoughts to which he has 
 previously yielded himself. Many a man feels this pressure 
 upon him from without — this constant suggestion of certain 
 thoughts; and if the thoughts are evil he frequently thinks 
 of them as tempting demons goading him into sin Yet they 
 are none the less entirely his own creation, and thus, as ever, 
 man is his own tempter. 
 
 Note on the other hand the happiness which this knowl- 
 edge brings to us and the enormous power which it places in 
 our hands. See how we can utilize this when we know (and 
 who does not?) of some one who is in sorrow or in suffering. 
 We may not be able to do anything for the man on the phys- 
 ical plane; there are often many reasons which prevent the 
 giving of physical help, no matter how much we may desire 
 to do our best. Circumstances often arise in which our 
 physical presence might not be helpful to the man whom wa 
 wish to aid; his physical brain may be closed to our suggest 
 tions by prejudice or by religious bigotry. But his astral and 
 mental bodies are much more sensitive, much more easily 
 impressible; and it is always open to us to approach these by 
 waves of helpful thought or of affectionate and soothing feel- 
 ing. Remember that it is absolutely certain that the results 
 must accrue; there is no possibility of failure in such an ef- 
 fort or endeavor to help, even though no obvious conse- 
 quence may follow on the physical plane. The law of the 
 conservation of energy holds good just as certainly at this 
 level as it does in our terrestrial mechanics, and the energy 
 which you pour forth must reach its goal and must produce 
 its effect. 
 
USE AND ABUSE OF PSYCHIC POWERS. 143 
 
 There can be no question that the image which you wish to 
 put before your friend for his comfort or his help will reach 
 him; whether it will present itself clearly to his mind when 
 it arrives depends upon first of all upon the definiteness of 
 outline which you have been able to give to it, and secondly 
 upon his mental condition at the time. He may be so fully 
 occupied with thoughts of his own trials and sufferings that 
 there is little room for any new idea to insinuate itself; but 
 in that case your thought simply bides its time, and when at 
 last his attention is diverted, or exhaustion forces him to sus- 
 pend the activity of his own train of thought, assuredly youra 
 will slip in and will do its errand of mercy. Exactly the 
 same thing is true at its different level of the strong feeling 
 of affection and friendliness which you may send out towards 
 a person thus suffering; it may be that at the moment he is 
 too entirely occupied with his own feelings, or perhaps too 
 much excited to receive and accept any suggestion from 
 without, but presently a time comes when the faithful 
 thought-form can penetrate and discharge itself, and then as 
 suredly your sympathy will produce its due result. There 
 are many cases where the best will in the world can do noth- 
 ing on the physical plane; but there is no conceivable case in 
 which either on the mental or the astral plane some relief 
 cannot be given by steady concentrated loving thought. 
 
 The phenomena of mental cure show how powerful thought 
 may be even on the physical plane, and since it acts so much 
 more easily on the astral and the mental we may realize very 
 vividly how tremendous a power is ours if we will but exer- 
 cise it. Remember always to think of a person as you wish 
 him to be; the image which you thus make of him will natu- 
 rally act powerfully upon him and tend to draw him gradu- 
 ally into harmony with itself. Fix your thought upon the 
 good qualities of your friends, because in thinking of any 
 quality you tend to strengthen its vibrations and therefore 
 to intensify it. It can never be right to endeavor to domi- 
 nate the thought and the will of another even though it may 
 be for what seems a good end; but it is always right to hold 
 up before a man a high ideal of himself and to wish very 
 strongly that he may presently be enabled to attain it. In 
 this way your steady train of thought will always act upon 
 those you love; and remember that at the same time it is act- 
 ing upon yourself also, and you can utilize it to train thought 
 power within yourself, so that it will become ever stronger 
 and more definite. 
 
144 USE AND ABUSE OF PSYCHIC POWERS. 
 
 If you know of certain defects or vices in a man's charac* 
 ter, then send to him strong thoughts of the contrary vir- 
 tues, so that these may by degrees be built into his character, 
 Never under any circumstances dwell upon that which is evil 
 in him, for in that case also your thought would tend to in* 
 tensify that evil. That is the horrible wickedness of gossip 
 and of scandal, for there we have a number of people fixing 
 their thought upon the evil qualities of another, calling to 
 that evil the attention of others who might perhaps not have 
 observed it; and in this way, if the evil already exists, their 
 folly distinctly acts to increase it, and if as is often the case, 
 it does not exist, they are doing their best to produce it. As- 
 suredly when we reach a more enlightened state of society 
 people will learn to focus their connected thought for good 
 upon others instead of for evil ; they will endeavor to realize 
 very strongly the opposite virtue, and then send out waves 
 of thought towards the man who needs their help; they will 
 think of his good points and endeavor by concentrating at- 
 tention upon them to strengthen him and help him through 
 them; their criticism will be of that happy kind which grasps 
 at a pearl as eagerly as our modern criticism pounces upon 
 an imaginary flaw. 
 
 SENSITIVENESS. 
 
 There is another psychic quality which all of us possess in 
 some degree, and that is the quality of sensitiveness to im- 
 pressions. You know that we all receive these impressions 
 at various times. As yet they are only imperfect and by no 
 means always reliable, but nevertheless they may be noted 
 and watched carefully, and used as training towards the de- 
 velopment of a more perfect faculty. Many a time they may 
 be useful in telling us where help is needed, where a loving 
 thought or word is required. When we see a person we may 
 sometimes feel radiating from him the influence of deep de- 
 pression. If you remember the illustration in that recent 
 book of mine of the man who was under the influence of de- 
 pression you will recollect how entirely he seemed shut in by 
 it, almost as effectively as the miser was shut in by his 
 prison-house of self-centered thought. If you recollect that 
 most impressive picture you will at once see what it is that 
 your thought can do for this man. It can strengthen his vi- 
 brations and help him to break these prison bars, to throvi 
 off their terrible weight and to release himself from the 
 heavy load that surrounds him. If you have received the im« 
 
USE AND ABUSE OF PSYCHIC POWERS. 145 
 
 pression of depression from him, be sure that there is some 
 reason for it, and that this is an opportunity for you. Since 
 man is in truth a spark of the Divine, there must always be 
 that within him which will respond to your strong, calm lov- 
 ing thought, and so he may be reassured and helped. Try to 
 put before him strongly the feeling that in spite of his per. 
 sonal sorrows and troubles the sun still shines above all, and 
 there is still much for which he ought to be^thankful, much 
 that is good and beautiful in the world. Often you will see 
 the change that is produced and this will encourage you to 
 try again, for you will learn that you are utilizing these psy- 
 chic powers which you possess — first your sensitiveness in 
 discovering what is wrong and then your thought in order to 
 help to put it right. 
 
 SENSITIVENESS MISUSED. 
 
 Yet this faculty of sensitiveness also may be misused. A 
 case in point would be if we allowed ourselves to be de- 
 pressed, either by our own sorrows and sufferings, or by com- 
 ing in contact with depression in others. The man who is 
 specially sensitive will often meet with much that is unpleas- 
 ant to him, especially if his lot is cast in a great city, or in 
 the midst of what is called modern civilization; yet he should 
 remember that it is emphatically his duty to be happy, and to 
 resist all thoughts of gloom or of despair. He should try his 
 best to imitate on the higher planes the action on the phys- 
 ical plane of the sun, which is so glorious a symbol of the 
 Logos. Just as that pours out its light and life, so should 
 he try to hold a steady, calm, serene center from which the 
 grace and the power from on high may be poured out upon 
 his fellow-man. In this way he may become in very truth a 
 fellow-worker with God, for through him and through his 
 reflection of it this divine grace and strength may reach 
 many whom directly it could not reach. The physical sun 
 floods down its life and light upon us, yet there may easily 
 be caverns or cellars into which that light cannot penetrate 
 directly; but a mirror which is upon the earth and upon the 
 level of the cavern or the cellar may so reflect these glorious 
 rays as that they may reach to the innermost extremity and 
 dispel the gloom and darkness. Just so it sometimes hap- 
 pens that man may make himself into a mirror for the divine 
 glory, and that through him it may manifest to those whose 
 eyes would otherwise remain blind to its glory. 
 
 Trouble and sorrow come at limes to us all, but we musti 
 not selfishly yield ourselves to them, for if we do we shall in- 
 
14 6 USE AND ABUSE OP PSYCHIC POWERS. 
 
 evitably endanger others; we shall radiate depression around 
 Us and intensify it among our friends. There is always 
 rnough sorrow and worry in the world; do not therefore self- 
 ishly add to it by mourning over your own share of the 
 trouble and the sorrow, but rather range yourself on the side 
 of God who means man to be happy— set yourself to en- 
 deavor to throw off the depression from yourself, so that you 
 may radiate at the least resignation and calmness, even if 
 you cannot yet attain to the height of positive joyousness. 
 Along this line also there is a great and splendid work for 
 everyone of us to do, and it lies close to our hands if we will 
 but raise them to undertake it. 
 
 Another way in which it would be possible for us to misuse 
 this qualification of sensitiveness would be to allow ours elves 
 to be so repelled by the undesirable qualities which we sense 
 in men whom we meet, that we should be unable to help 
 them when an opportunity is offered to us. Every good and 
 pure person feels a strong sense of instinctive repulsion from 
 that which is coarse and evil; and from this undoubted fact 
 a good deal of misapprehension has arisen. If you met soms 
 one coarse and vulgar you would feel that sense of repul- 
 sion; but you must not therefore conclude that every tims 
 you feel the sense of repulsion you have necessarily met with 
 that which is terribly evil. If we regard the matter simply 
 from the material level, the reason for the strong repulsion 
 between the man of pure mind and the man whose thoughts 
 and feelings are impure is simply that their vibrations are 
 discordant. Each of them has within his astral body some- 
 thing at least of matter of all the levels of the astral plane jj 
 but they have used it very differently. The good and the 
 pure man has persistently developed the finer type of vibra- 
 tions which work most readily in the higher types of astral 
 matter, whereas the man of impure thought has scarcely util- 
 izedthat part of his astral body at all, and has strengthened 
 and intensified within himself such vibrations as belong es» 
 pecially to the grosser type of matter. Consequently when 
 these two come together their vibrations are utterly inhar- 
 monious and produce a strong sense of discord and discom- 
 fort. So they instinctively avoid one another, and it is only 
 when the good man has learnt of his duty and his power to 
 help that he feels it incumbent upon him to try, even though 
 it be from a distance, to influence his inharmonious brother. 
 
 We have, however, to remember that two persons who ar« 
 in every way equally good and equally developed may never* 
 
USE AND ABUSE OP PSYCHIC POWERS. 14 7 
 
 theless be very far from harmonious. Although the differ* 
 ence between them may not be so extreme as that which we 
 have instanced, it may nevertheless be quite sufficient to pro. 
 duce a decided sense of inharmony and therefore of repul- 
 sion. It is therefore by no means safe to decide that, when 
 we feel a distaste for the society of a certain person, that 
 person is therefore necessarily wicked. This mistake' has 
 so very cften been made by good and well-meaning people 
 that it is worth while to emphasize it somewhat strongly. It 
 is true that such a feeling when decided does indicate a de- 
 gree of inharmony which would make it difficult to help that 
 person along ordinary lines, just as when we feel at first 
 sight a strong attraction to some one, we may take it as a 
 certain indication that here is one to whom we can be useful, 
 one who will readily absorb from us and learn from us. But 
 nevertheless it is also possible for us to overcome this feel- 
 ing of repulsion, and where there is no one else to give the 
 needed help it of course becomes our duty to do so. 
 
 All then should try to realize these psychic powers which 
 they already possess, and realizing them should determine 
 to use them wisely and well. It is true that the responsibil- 
 ity is great, yet let us not shrink from them on that account. 
 If many are unconsciously using these things for evil, then 
 all the more is it necessary that we who are beginning to un- 
 derstand a little should use them consciously and for good. 
 Let us then welcome all such powers gladly, yet never forget 
 to balance them with careful study and with sound common 
 sense. In that way we shall avoid all danger of misusing 
 them; in that way we shall prepare ourselves to use other 
 and greater powers as they come to us in the course of our 
 evolution — to use them always for the furtherance of the 
 great Divine Scheme and for the helping of our fellow-man. 
 
The "Scheme of Salvation" 
 
 Independent Thought and Research, Public Schools, 
 
 and Science Changing the Old Order of 
 
 Things, by H. V. Sweringen, M. D. 
 
 Although born and reared in the orthodox Christian 
 church, much of my instruction therein did not appeal 
 to my reason. Like many others I accepted it tacitly or 
 apparently, because I manifested no antagonism against 
 it. I did not care to rebel against the teachings of my 
 parents or be ostracised and considered a heretic or in- 
 fidel by my friends and acquaintances. To be a church- 
 member or church-goer was the principal requisite for 
 admission into society, no matter how often the theater 
 and ballroom or other questionable places of amusement 
 were frequented. But whenever I came to serious reflec- 
 tion upon certain dogmas of the church, the more I 
 thought of them, the less I thought of them, and the 
 sooner did I dismiss them from my mind. There seemed 
 to be nothing to them that I could grasp as a temporary 
 hold until a stronger one should present itself. There 
 is much, very much, that I do not understand, such as 
 electricity, wireless messages, the phonograph, astronom- 
 ical and geological problems, and so forth, but all of 
 them afford holding-on places or standing places of en- 
 couragement for further research, together with assur- 
 ances that satisfactory knowledge of their subjects will 
 ever and anon become imparted. 
 
 If I have a right to judge other people by myself, 
 by my own thoughts and reflections, there are thousands 
 upon thousands in the various churches who dare not 
 and will not entertain and mentally digest or discuss 
 
THE SCHEME OF SALVATION. 149 
 
 various orthodox teachings with any probability of their 
 final acceptance. People are thinking, even if they do 
 not all express their thought. This is an age of thought; 
 of independent thought. 
 
 We notice the manifestation of this fact among the 
 masses — the laities of the professions of law, medicine, 
 and theology. As physicians, we know that the average 
 patient is much more informed and gives evidence of 
 greater independent thought and research than was the 
 case even a quarter of a century ago. And the general 
 cry of preachers is, "How can we reach the masses?" 
 It being seemingly impossible for them to keep their 
 pews occupied as formerly. Thought! thought! Inde- 
 pendent thought and research, public school education, 
 scientific investigation, are changing the old orders of 
 things. 
 
 It is now extremely difficult for the average thinker 
 to accept the Christian scheme of redemption. The idea 
 that the God of this universe of worlds, the magnitude 
 of which staggers us in its contemplation, should devise, 
 concoct, or plan a scheme for the salvation of his 
 creatures from the effects of his failure in his original 
 design of creating a successful, happy world! 
 
 Indeed, the idea that an all-wise, all-just, all-good, 
 omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient God should have 
 made a failure in anything is unthinkable, as is also 
 therefore any "scheme" or "plan" he may devise to cor- 
 rect it. The fact is, that, if that failure should occa- 
 sion the loss of a single, solitary soul, the "scheme" 
 or "plan" of salvation adopted for its correction is itself 
 a failure, and would suggest the necessity of another 
 "scheme" for the redemption of its effects. 
 
 Our orthodox preachers teach us that about six thou- 
 sand years ago Adam and Eve, our first parents — al- 
 though science teaches us that man existed on the earth 
 hundreds of thousands of years before they were created 
 — fpJl from a condition of purity and perfection in which 
 God had created them, to one of sin and total depravity, 
 by an act of transgression which consisted in eating an 
 apple, the fruit of a tree they were forbidden to eat. 
 It seems, from this narrative, that the Lord God, who 
 forbade the eating of the apple, was a real personality, 
 who talked to our first parents face to face, and who 
 
150 THE SCHEME OP SALVATION. 
 
 walked in the garden (or rather his voice did) in the 
 cool of the day, calling, "Adam! Where art thou?" 
 This was after, the deed was done that consigns the great 
 masses of the human race to a hell of fire and brim- 
 stone — after the transgression of eating of the tree of 
 knowledge of good and evil was committed, when Adam 
 and Eve discovered their nakedness and the Lord God 
 kindly began to make coats of skins, by which to clothe 
 them. He then drove them out of the garden, and so 
 forth. Now upon this story the Christian religion is 
 founded. It is the principal, fundamental plank in the 
 orthodox platform. If, as science teaches, man has lived 
 on this earth hundreds of thousands of years before the 
 time of Adam and Eve, what effect does their transgres- 
 sion have upon their ancestors? Can it be said that 
 Jesus came to redeem mankind from a sin committed by 
 one who was not our first parent, the common father 
 of mankind? And why did Jesus postpone his coming 
 to redeem the human race from the effects of Adam's 
 sin full four thousand years, during which time millions 
 upon millions lived and died without the benefits of his 
 atoning blood? Will those who lived from Adam to the 
 time of the coming of Jesus and those which science 
 teaches lived long anterior to Adam — the pre-Adamic and 
 post-Adamic races of men, all share alike in the benefits 
 derived from the death, resurrection and ascension of 
 Jesus? If mankind existed long before the time of Adam, 
 how can it be- true that death is the direct result of 
 Adam's transgression? This whole story seems to me 
 weak, feeble, childish, foolish, unworthy the attention of 
 an intelligent paan, to say nothing of that of an all- 
 wise God. Perhaps I am not intelligent enough to grasp 
 or understand it, and shall be everlastingly condemned 
 for not accepting and believing it; but, if so, I cannot 
 help it. "As a man thinketh, so is he." "As the tree 
 falleth. so it lieth." This story may be one of the great 
 mysteries of Godliness. 
 
 Recently I heard a preacher from his pulpit say that 
 God was not a material personality to be seen and felt 
 and recognized as we recognize each other, and so forth. 
 I am aware that St. John informs us that God is a spirit, 
 and St. Luke tells us that a spirit has neither flesh nor 
 bones. It is a conundrum, then, how God walked in the 
 
THE SCHEME OF SALVATION. 151 
 
 Garden of Eden; made Adam from the dust; breathed 
 into his nostrils the breath of life; made coats of skins 
 to clothe the nakedness of Adam and Eve; walked with 
 Jacob and cursed the serpent together with doing many 
 other things difficult of doing without material or phys- 
 ical assistance. 
 
 Could he have accomplished all these things without 
 the employment of material organs or physical means? 
 Is riot God represented in the Bible as both physical and 
 spiritual? Of course, such scriptural announcements as 
 "I have seen God face to face," and "No man hath seen 
 God at any time," must be reckoned with. We are told 
 that Jesus was God. If this be true, then God was seen 
 many times. He was a physical personality, and, accord- 
 ing to the Bible account, ascended bodily into heaven. 
 Now, are we to understand that God the Father is spirit 
 only, and God the Son (Jesus) was both body and spirit? 
 We are not informed as to the Holy Ghost on this point. 
 At least, I am not. We have, however, Bible evidence 
 tending to show that God the Father was a material, 
 physical being, and must have been seen as such by Adam 
 and Eve. How else can we interpret the story of the 
 Garden of Eden? 
 
 Ar.d so, this question of the "Scheme of Redemp- 
 tion" is so interwoven with considerations branching out 
 in every direction, involving so many self-evident absurdi- 
 ties, that the more it is studied, the more disposed the 
 student is to let it alone. There is no satisfaction in 
 studying or investigating it. One would naturally sup- 
 pose that religion and religious subjects would engage 
 the attention of the people everywhere and in every place, 
 as being of far greater importance and interest than any 
 other question in the world. But for some reason or 
 other these questions are let severely alone. Even the 
 pulpit of the present day steers clear of discussing the 
 "Fall of Adam," "Total Depravity," or the "Plan of Sal- 
 vation." It is high time the church was injecting into 
 itself something of interest, something to attract the at- 
 tention of its rapidly declining laity. 
 
 Now that the Right Rev. Bishop Fallows has discov- 
 ered the North Po'e of theology, we may expect that his 
 priority of discovery will be challenged by some Peary 
 
152 THE SCHEME OF SALVATION. 
 
 in the orthodox pulpit, and thus stir up an unusual inter- 
 est in church questions. 
 
 Spiritualism is not only the North Pole of theology, 
 but it is the South Pole, the sun, moon, and stars, the 
 equator, and the circumference, the comets, the all of 
 theology and Christianity. It is the Great Theological 
 Observatory, from which we take our bearings in every 
 direction, pertaining to the best, most important inter- 
 ests of mankind. It is the actual demonstrated evidence 
 and truth of a future existence. 
 
 But I am wandering away from the subject in hand, 
 that of the "Scheme of Redemption," the mere thought 
 of which "Scheme of Redemption" is suggestive of al- 
 most anything and everything else than that in which 
 the great Creator of this universe could be engaged. 
 Think of it! A scheme whereby the great God seeks 
 to mend, to patch up a most grievous, serious blunder 
 in the cosmic economy! What is this "scheme"? 
 
 We are told that 
 
 "In Adam's fall 
 We sinned all." 
 This, to start with, is unjust, unkind, and unreasonable. 
 The idea that one man's sin, eating forbidden fruit, 
 should entail such eternal suffering in an eternal hell 
 of fire and brimstone, is — well, I have no words in my 
 vocabulary sufficient to express my opinion of it, and 
 so we will let it pass. Then we are told that it required 
 the crucifixion, its consequent suffering and death of a 
 God-man, to cancel Adam's sin of eating the apple. 
 
 Our Presbyterian friends teach that God foresaw that 
 Adam would fall, and that posterity would be damned in 
 consequence, and therefore our heavenly Father selected 
 a few called the "elect," to be saved, while the many 
 will be lost. This is worse and more of it. Before this 
 saving of the "elect" "four hundred," however, it was 
 necessary that the life of Jesus should be sacrificed as a 
 vicarious punishment for Adam's eating of the apple. 
 Is it possible that the Presbyterian church teaches this 
 horrible doctrine? If God knew — and what did he not 
 know? — that Adam would fall, and that posterity would 
 be damned, could he not, being omnipotent, have pre- 
 vented such a terrible calamity from falling upon the 
 human race, the creatures of his creation? 
 
THE SCHEME OF SALVATION. 153 
 
 Other churches teach that the sufferings of Jesus se- 
 cured for us only constitutional pardon for our effects 
 of Adam's sin — of eating the apple. In order to secure 
 the lull advantage of Christ's sufferings, we must have 
 faith that Jesus died as a sacrifice for us, as a substitute, 
 and that, innocent as he was, he yielded to his punish- 
 ment for the sins of the whole world. And thus was the 
 innocent punished for the guilty, the original sin having 
 been ccmmitted four thousand years before, under cir- 
 cumstances of temptation it was impossible for Adam to 
 withstand. God not only placed Adam in the midst of 
 tempting surroundings, creating within him an ardent 
 desire for the fruit he forbade him to eat, but he created 
 a tempter (the snake) for the purpose of persuading 
 Adam to eat of the tree of knowledge. 
 
 Talk about a "Scheme of Salvation"! Who can read 
 this story of the Garden of Eden without concluding that 
 it was in that garden that the "Plan of Salvation" had 
 its rise, its beginnings? It was a "scheme" from the 
 very start. Adam did not know that he was disobeying 
 the command of God until after the deed was committed, 
 because it was not until he had eaten of the fruit of the 
 tree of knowledge of good and evil that his eyes were 
 openec 1 to an understanding of good and evil. He was 
 no more aware that he had committed a serious sin in 
 eating of the apple which Eve had given him, than he 
 was aware that he was minus a rib taken from him 
 while asleep by the Creator's most skillful surgery, which 
 was in itself a "scheme" of no small importance. In- 
 deed, every one of the Almighty's "schemes" prosecuted 
 in the Garden of Eden were successful as "schemes," 
 according to program apparently prepared in advance. I 
 am glad and proud of the fact that we have at the 
 head of this nation today as its President, a man who 
 repudiates all such "schemes of Redemption," and who 
 regards the object of Christ's life rather than his death, 
 to be the reconciliation of man to God. "Every man is 
 to die for his own sin." "To punish the just is not 
 good." 
 
 I cannot understand why the sufferings and death of 
 Jesus upon the cross were necesssary for the redemption 
 of the world. I would be very glad indeed if some good 
 Christian friend would explain to me and the readers oi 
 
154 THE SCHEME OP SALVATION. 
 
 The Progressive Thinker the necessity of Christ's death 
 upon the cross in order to save sinners. If salvation or 
 redemption was absolutely necessary, why did not Jesus 
 come and sacrifice himself at once after the sin of Adam 
 was committed? Why should four thousand years pass 
 away, and many generations of wicked people perish, 
 before Jesus came to die on the cross? Did it require 
 so long a period to perfect the "Scheme of Redemption"? 
 Did not God, according to the Bible, have that scheme 
 arranged even before Adam's fall? 
 
 Our Christian friends inform us that the death of 
 Christ was ordained before the foundation of the world, 
 and that man was originally created perfect and immor- 
 tal. Now, if it was ordained or pre-arranged by God that 
 Jesus the Son should die for the redemption of the world, 
 the transgressions of Adam and Eve were only a part of 
 God's plan. John tells us that Christ knew from the 
 beginning that Judas would betray him. Under these 
 circumstances man's free will and moral agency cuts no 
 figure at all in the premises. The "plan" was "cut and 
 dried" in the way God had instituted it, and Christ's 
 choosing any other man than Judas Iscariot would have 
 frustrated it. And so Jesus chose Judas, knowing at the 
 time that he would betray him. 
 
 The "plan of redemption" as established indicates 
 that man had but one course to follow, the one which 
 should ultimately lead to the sacrifice of Jesus. Are 
 we not then under many obligations to Judas? Without 
 his betrayal of Jesus the "plan of redemption" would 
 have been a failure. If the death of Christ was pre- 
 ordained, was not also "the fall of man"? Does not the 
 one depend on the other? "For as in Adam all die, so 
 in Christ shall all be made alive." I hope the reader 
 will be able to grasp the point I am trying to make, even 
 if seemingly I am unable to do so myself. It is because 
 1 am so lamentably tangled up in this peculiar, meta- 
 physical, theological riddle that I desire some good ortho- 
 dox Christian brother to help me straighten out the 
 kinks in it. It is a very important question, and we 
 should all make the efforts of our lives to understand it. 
 
 The fall of Adam, and the enmity it occasioned be- 
 tween God and man, are the causes assigned for the 
 necessity of or for the "scheme of redemption" involving 
 
THE SCHEME OF SALVATION. 155 
 
 the sufferings and death of Jesus on the cross. From 
 what we have already observed concerning Adam and 
 his surroundings in the Garden of Eden, it is not at all 
 surprising that he yielded to the manifold temptations 
 so apparently intentionally placed around him, and the 
 enmity thus engendered, if any resulted from it, could 
 not have been difficult of removal by a God of love. 
 If there is nothing but what came from God, the Creator 
 of everything, good and evil, the enmity could not have 
 been such as to lead to consequences so serious as the 
 sacrifice of his own son on the cross and of the millions 
 of the human race in endless perdition. The love and 
 wisdom and power of the Almighty could certainly have 
 devised a much better "scheme of redemption" than the 
 one we are considering, should the necessity for such a 
 scheme exist; one so successful that not a single, soli- 
 tary God-created soul or human creature would be lost 
 in the final reckoning; one that would include the safety 
 and well-being of the millions who lived and died before 
 the times of Adam and Christ. If no man can be saved 
 except those who believe in Christ, those who lived and 
 died before his coming could not, of course, have known 
 anything' about him to believe or disbelieve. If because 
 of this fact they are saved, where was the necessity for 
 the scheme of redemption? If ignorance of this scheme 
 will save from damnation, why should we send mission- 
 aries to the heathen to acquaint them with it? By re- 
 maining in ignorance of it, they will continue in inno- 
 cence, and every mother's son of them be saved, whereas 
 if we enlighten them upon it, a very considerable por- 
 tion of them will go to hell sure. It seems to me that 
 this is a pretty sound argument against missionaries. 
 
The Significance of Names. 
 
 A Scholarly Article on the subject of their Hidden 
 
 Meaning, by Walter Hudson Rinehart of 
 
 Wheeling, West Virginia. 
 
 The Tubingen school, which inaugurated what is 
 known as the Higher or Historical Criticism, has thrown 
 a searchlight on the authorship of the books comprising 
 what is called the Holy Scriptures, and its researches 
 have established the fact that many of these books are 
 not authoritative in that the authors are unknown, espe- 
 cially so as regards the names attached to them; but 
 this wonderful collection of books called the Bible still 
 exists as the greatest literary work the world has known. 
 The free reading and interpretation of the Bible has given 
 rise to innumerable sects, each of which advances text- 
 proofs to substantiate its claims to existence and 
 authority; but it seems to the writer, that, while inter- 
 pretations are many, there is a demand for what is 
 called the Lower Criticism, which deals with translation 
 and a scholarly treatment of the text, that by systematic 
 rules of interpretation we may arrive at some fair and 
 just conclusion of what this wonderful piece of literature 
 contains, and these rules of interpretation must be applied 
 by a school which is non-Christian if we are to have "an 
 honest interpretation." Indeed, it has been said there 
 never would be an honest translation until atheists take 
 it up, and do the work. 
 
 Many of us have long since learned the book is not 
 a miracle; was not "written by the finger of God," and 
 sent by an angel from Leaven for our edification and 
 guidance; but was composed and written by men — so- 
 called "Holy men, or old men who were moved by the 
 
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF NAMES. 157 
 
 Holy Ghost." Leaving out of consideration the mooted 
 question of inspiration, the writings of these men should 
 be interpreted by the same rule or rules as are applied 
 to any other human production, as for instance, a statute 
 law; and the fairest and most rational method to inter- 
 pret the will of the legislator is by exploring his intentions 
 at the time when the law was made, by signs the most 
 natural and probable. And these signs are either the 
 words, the context, the subject matter, the effects and con- 
 sequence, and the spirit and reason of the law. As to the 
 effects and consequence of the law, the rule is, that when 
 words bear either none or a very absurd signification, if 
 literally understood, we must a little deviate from the 
 received sense of them. Therefore, the law which en- 
 acted "that whoever drew blood in the streets should 
 be punished with the utmost severity," was held not to 
 extend to the surgeon who opened the vein of one in a 
 fit. — \ Elackstone. ) 
 
 The most universal and effectual way of discovering 
 the true meaning of a law, when the words are dubious, 
 is by considering the reason and spirit of it, or the cause 
 which moved the legislator to enact it. For when the 
 reason ceases, the law itself ought likewise to cease with 
 it.— (Blackstone.) 
 
 From this method of interpreting laws, by the reason 
 of them, arises what we call equity, which is defined as 
 "the correction of that wherein the law (by reason of 
 its universality) is deficient." — (Aristotle.) For since, 
 in law, all cases cannot be foreseen or expressed, it is 
 necessary, that, when the general decrees of the law come 
 to be applied to particular cases, there should be some- 
 where a power vested of defining those circumstances, 
 which, had they been foreseen, the legislator him- 
 self would have expressed. And these are the cases 
 which, according to Grotius, "The law does not 
 define exactly, but trusts to the judgment of a 
 good man;" that is, a spiritual man; or one 
 able to distinguish between what is literal and 
 what is figurative. And this leads up to the statement 
 of Judge Ladd in his article in No. 1135 of The Pro- 
 ressive Thinker — "Where the Council of Nice picked up 
 these names of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, no one knows." 
 
158 THE SIGNIFICANCE OF NAMES 
 
 Probably the easiest way to open this exposition is 
 quoting the words, "God is no respecter of persons." 
 Then why did the writers of the gospels give the names 
 of persons to them? Probably, in their perversity, they 
 wished to establish some authority for them. Oh, that 
 word "authority"! how some people love it! We may 
 get away from it some day. Each man is his own 
 authority; his own god. 
 
 Considerable light may be thrown on this subject by 
 saying the names are not of the authors, or those who 
 wrote them, but are the subjects of the books, just as 
 Genesis is so called from its treating of the generation, 
 that is, of the creation and the beginning of the world. 
 The Hebrews call it Beresith, from the word with which 
 it begins. The second book is called Exodus, from the 
 Greek, Exodos, meaning "going out," because it contains 
 the history of the going out of the children of Israel, 
 or Jacob, the supplanter (Jacob means supplanter) out 
 of Egypt. The book of Leviticus is so called because it 
 treats of the beginning of the priesthood. The book of 
 Numbers because it begins with the numbering of the 
 people. The book of Deuteronomy, which signifies a sec- 
 ond law, because it repeats and inculcates the ordinances 
 formerly given on Mt. Sinai, with other precepts not 
 given before. And it is here worthy of notice that the 
 Ten Commandments, which were destroyed by Moses 
 when he came down from the Mount, are in this book 
 renewed, and differ materially from the first set. Which 
 set is humanity bound to observe? 
 
 To save the reader the tedium of mentioning the 
 names of the books, it will be interesting to pass to Isaiah. 
 The Higher Critics tell us there were two Isaiahs, but 
 when one looks at the meaning of the word, from Isa, 
 variant of Isha, woman (Genesis ii. 25), and Jah, variant 
 of Jehovah, we perceive the name literally means Woman 
 of Jehovah; and, by reading the book, we discover a 
 description of the. church, not only at that time, but 
 prophetical of what the future church should be. What 
 matters who wrote it so long as we know it as a beauti- 
 ful prose poem prophesying the future of the, church and 
 of Christianity! Yes, prophesying, just as our modern 
 prophets, the poets, prophesy of the future by what is 
 
THE SIGNIFICANCE OP NAMES. 159 
 
 known of the past and present; for the ancient prophets 
 were of the same class as our modern poets. But this 
 brings us up to the gospels and their titles. Matthew 
 is the same as the Greek Matthias, and means, as a verb, 
 to learn, in the sense of being a disciple. Herein is re- 
 corded the beginning and selection of the disciples in 
 the new dispensation, and the book accords with the 
 book of Leviticus, wherein the priesthood was estab- 
 lished. The name of the man who is credited with the 
 authorship was Levi Matthew. The next book is cred- 
 ited to John Mark. John (Johannes) means bright, 
 bright mark. Mark is the English form of Marcus, from 
 the Latin, and means "the crushing thing," or "a large 
 hammer." The theme of the writer is "Judah is a young 
 lion;" and he depicts the Savior as the conqueror of 
 all Satanic powers, with a brevity and vividness which 
 add force to the heroic character portrayed. Luke is 
 Greek for "light," the god of day. The Latin is luceo, 
 lux, and so forth. Luke is a Lucifer, a light bearer, and 
 the opening sentence of the book might be paraphrased 
 thus: "Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set 
 forth in order a declaration of those things which are 
 most surely believed among us, it seemed good to me also 
 . to write and throw some light on those things 
 wherein thou hast been instructed, most excellent Theoph- 
 ilus, or lover of God." In other words, from his point 
 of view, the author wished to write another life of Christ, 
 or Jesus, shedding new light on some things concerning 
 the man Jesus which other reporters had overlooked or 
 omitted. Let us examine the meaning and significance of 
 Lucifer. In the thirteenth and fourteenth chapters of 
 Tsaiah the prophet took up the burden of Babylon, which 
 is the Greek form of Babel, symbolic of confusion (con- 
 fusion of tongues, or sects), and with a proverb, or taunt- 
 ing speech, said, "How hath the oppressor ceased! the 
 golden city (or exactness of gold) ceased! The Lord 
 -hath broken the staff of the wicked, and the scepter of 
 the rulers. He who smote the people in wrath with a 
 continued stroke, he that ruled the nations in anger, is 
 persecuted, and none hindereth." Pope Pius the Ninth 
 was deprived of temporal power and became a prisoner 
 in the Vatican in 1870. In 1900 Pope Leo XIII. was by 
 the supreme court of Italy made a subject of Italy, made 
 
160 THE SIGNIFICANCE OF NAMES. 
 
 amenable to the law courts, and thereby figuratively 
 "cut down to the ground." Up to 1900 the pope exer- 
 cised independent jurisdiction. And then <came to pass 
 the saying, "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer 
 (light bearer), son of the morning! how art thou cut 
 down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! 
 For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heav- 
 en, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. (A 
 brilliant star denoted an illustrious prince), I will ascend 
 above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most 
 High." Read the whole chapter and perceive how it fits 
 Rome like the paper on the wall; and also learn that Lu- 
 cifer was no angel fallen from heaven in the literal sense, 
 but a light-bearer, the systems of Judaism and Catholic- 
 ism united in Christianity, which bore the light of relig- 
 ion down through the ages. Heaven is symbolical of gov- 
 ernments and ruling powers; and truly there was war in 
 heaven, and yet is. 
 
 A free translation of Revelation xiii. 18 might be 
 made as follows: "Here is wisdom. Let him that hath 
 understanding count the number of the beast: for it is 
 the number of the Man of Sin, and his number is 666." 
 What or who is the Man of Sin, of error, or lawlessness? 
 To go back a little, Simon Peter, the hearkening or hear- 
 ing Peter, declares in Luke v. 8, "Depart from me; 
 for I am the man of sin, O Lord!" (Read the Greek 
 text.) In Mark viii. 3 3, Jesus rebukes Peter and calls 
 him Satan, or the Adversary. Peter is a pure Hebrew 
 word transliterated, and is not from the Greek "petros," 
 a rock, but means "opening," and can be found by con- 
 suming Young's Concordance under that word, so that in 
 Matthew xvi. 18 a new light is shed on the passage 
 which has caused so much contention in the past over the 
 establishment of the Church. Peter is from the Hebrew 
 P T R. (Pe, Teth, Resh; literally, the mouth of the 
 serpent man). The mouth of the serpent man fulfilled 
 the signature of his name in his "opening" sermon on 
 the daj- of Pentecost, and then and there started all 
 this trouble we have been experiencing since. And as 
 this "mouth of the serpent man" once denied his Lord 
 on the occasion of the "cock crowing," this old Mother 
 Hen has been teaching her brood of chickens ever since 
 that the Sun of Righteousness cannot rise in our hearts 
 
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF NAMES. 161 
 
 until this Cock of the Walk, this leader of the Church, 
 crows over his victory of the world, and all these 
 chickens are gathered under the wings of this old Mother 
 Hen. It is Peter that holds the keys that "open" the 
 gates of Heaven and Hell; and "the day of Christ shall 
 not come until that man of sin, of error, or lawlessness, 
 be revealed. And for this cause God sendeth them a work- 
 ing of error, that they should believe a lie; that they all 
 might be judged who believed not the truth, but had 
 pleasure in unrighteousness." (II Thess. ii. 11, 12, R. V.) 
 O this "Woman of Jehovah!" "She is arrayed in 
 purple and scarlet color, and decked with gold and pre- 
 cious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand 
 full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication; 
 and upon her forehead a .name written, Mystery, Babylon 
 the great, the mother of harlots and abominations of 
 the earth." And the "harlots" are those who came out of 
 her womb — the many sects of Christendom. "And here is 
 the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are moun- 
 tains, on which the woman sitteth. (Rome is built on 
 seven hills.) "The waters which thou sawest, where the 
 whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations 
 and tongues. . . . And the woman which thou sawest 
 is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the 
 earth." . . . "And their dead bodies," of the two wit- 
 nesses, the Jew and Christian, "shall lie in the street 
 of the great city, which spiritually (or figuratively) is 
 called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was cru- 
 cified." (Revelation.) If the mother is corrupt, what 
 becomes of the children? If the foundation is rotten, 
 what becomes of the superstructure?. I apologize to 
 Herbert Kaufman for the following very appropriate 
 lines entitled "The City of the Gilded Tear." 
 
 Babylon, O Babylon, 
 
 Shall the day be never done? 
 
 Shall thy course be never run? 
 
 Shall thy towers never fall? 
 Must we ever heed the call 
 To the revel in thy hall? 
 
 For uncounted, awful years 
 
 Have thy gemmed and painted dears 
 
 Drunk the wine whose dregs is tears! 
 
162 THE SIGNIFICANCE OF NAMES. 
 
 Soulless city of the night, 
 
 In thy false distorting light, 
 
 Right is wrong and wrong is right! 
 
 Vice berots the fruit you sell. 
 He who heeds the tales you tell, 
 Listening, finds the keys to Hell! 
 
 Thou wert old in Pharaoh's reign, 
 Old when Nero dealt in pain, 
 Old when Christ was born in vain! 
 
 Trojan Priam's walls are downed; 
 Caesar's Rome lies under ground; 
 But thy temples still abound! 
 
 Ever are thy spires near — 
 Shalt thou never learn to fear s 
 City of the Gilded Tear? 
 
Origin of the God Idea. 
 
 An Invention of Ignorant Man, to Account for what 
 
 he Saw, but could not Understand, by J. R. 
 
 Perry, of Wilkesbarre, Pa. 
 
 The God idea consists in a belief in a masculine per- 
 sonality who rules and regulates the world and all the 
 affairs of mankind. By some, this being consists of a 
 pure intelligence, free from any mixture of body or parts; 
 an oversoul, a something beyond and outside of matter 
 in any form. It is a conception founded on nothing, 
 as there can be only two things or conditions — one is 
 matter, something; the other is no matter or nothing. 
 Others believe that God is connected with matter just as 
 man is connected with it, only to an infinite extent. 
 
 The God idea is an undefinable quantity, a vague, neb- 
 ulous feeling of a something that is absolutely necessary 
 to believe in, to insure salvation, and although no two 
 persons have an idea that will agree upon what the belief 
 consists of, outside of the common one, that he is the 
 maker of heaven and earth, and is the constant, ever- 
 present ruler of them, yet great sects and cults of reli- 
 gion insist that this undefinable being answers prayers 
 and tbat he requires the worship of every person, and 
 final happiness cannot come to any human being with- 
 out it. 
 
 The Christian insists that no matter whether you can 
 have any idea of what a God is or not, you must pro- 
 fess and believe in one, or be cast outside the pale of 
 the church and lost. 
 
 The God idea has caused more strife, contention, blood- 
 shed and burning at the stake, and murder generally, 
 
164 ORIGIN OP THE GOD IDEA. 
 
 than all other wickedness in the whole earth; and all 
 this wickedness was brought about because people dif- 
 fered in their ideas on the subject of what God is, or as 
 to whether there is such a being at all or not. 
 
 When we consult our reasoning faculties, how absurd 
 such things seem! What virtue can there be in a belief 
 of something we cannot know anything about? And, 
 even if such a being existed, we cannot comprehend him. 
 And how absurd to think that he will forever damn and 
 eternally torment his children for the reason that they 
 are required to worship something they can absolutely 
 know nothing about. The only virtue consists in the 
 knowledge, and any belief not founded on knowledge can 
 be of no value. 
 
 The God idea is as old as the human family, and 
 can be traced back from the present to the earliest and 
 most ignorant people and tribes of men on the earth, 
 and the farther we go toward the primitive man, the 
 more ignorant and absurd the belief in such God and 
 gods appears; the more extravagant and contradictory. 
 
 It was impressed upon the earliest minds through ig- 
 norance and fear, and the hold it made was indelible, 
 and almost beyond the possibility of erasure; and hav- 
 ing been trasmitted from parent to child, and from na- 
 tion to nation, accounts for its almost universal belief, 
 so that the farther we go back into the realms of human 
 nature, the more gods we find, and the greater is the 
 variety. Superstition, therefore, is the primitive condi- 
 tion of the races of mankind; and, even to this day, the 
 more superstitious and ignorant a man is, or a class of 
 men are, the more tenacious their faith in some form of 
 god to be worshiped and believed in. 
 
 The God idea is a mental tegument which holds us 
 fast to the superstitions and ignorant notions of the 
 childhood of the human races; and until a general knowl- 
 edge of science and the laws of nature is understood, 
 this old idea will prevail. Even spirits believe who have 
 not outgrown it. When it is once generally known that 
 all the laws of nature act from inherent forces, and act 
 through the causes and antecedent causes of every event 
 in the universe, and that whatever takes place does so 
 for the reason that under the circumstances no other 
 thing could take place, then the idea of foreordination, 
 
ORIGIN OF THE GOD IDEA. 165 
 
 or any providential interference, will vanish from the 
 minds of men and women, and the world will be apt to 
 chaoge its belief in a God or gods, which is now so preva- 
 lent. 
 
 If it is a truth that all the operations of nature come 
 about by means of causes operating through natural law, 
 it must be seen that there is no use or necessity for the 
 God or gods believed in, and it will then appear quite 
 plain that those gods have been invented to account for 
 the things not understood by men, and therefore that 
 all gods are man-made ideas. There is absolutely no 
 need or room or use for any such man-made God in the 
 universe, for the reason that every phenomenon and 
 every thing which takes place in nature does so by the 
 force of and conditions operating at the time or before 
 they occur, the result of natural causes. 
 
 If a God of intelligence and almighty power gave 
 special attention to all natural operations, we would not 
 find the contradictions, cross purposes, and evils, which 
 fill the world. As it is, we find all sorts of antagonisms 
 acting in the forces of those natural laws, to the de- 
 struction of the peace and quiet and happiness of man- 
 kind, for which they are not to blame. The operations 
 of nature are anything but harmonious. We have floods 
 that destroy many thousands of poor victims, as in 
 parts of China today. We have tornadoes, cyclones, fam- 
 ines, epidemics of diseases; we have plagues such as the 
 black vomit of London, and it is on record that about 
 the same time, it traveled to the fjords of Norway, and 
 one of its villages was completely depopulated, not a 
 single solitary human being remained to tell the tale, 
 and only those of the neighboring districts escaped by 
 leaving all behind, and running away. The deadly miasm 
 filled the air, and all the gods of all the nations and 
 all the prayers of their worshipers could not stop the ter- 
 rible disaster. It is told to this day from parent to 
 child, and has been told for hundreds of years; and yet, 
 in spite of the impotency of their God or gods to stay 
 that plague, in that very district they have erected a 
 church in which the present residents and for hundreds 
 of years ago, are now worshiping. Such people are the 
 most patient, forgiving, and superstitious of the human 
 kind. The truth has been shown a million of times — 
 
166 ORIGIN OF THE GOD IDEA. 
 
 yes, always — that no God has ever interfered with the 
 operations of nature, and all the aid which man has 
 received has come from man's own efforts to understand 
 Nature and her defects, or the causes of such visitations. 
 
 The laws of Nature do not work for man in any 
 special way. They make microbes, bugs, mosquitoes, fleas, 
 lice, bacteria, and deadly germs of all kinds; in fact, 
 every kind of diminutive pests to annoy mankind. It 
 seems to be a gigantic chemical laboratory, in which 
 every atom of matter is utilized, in a state of eternal 
 unrest and commotion. It cannot be destroyed, and 
 cannot cease to move. Motion, life, and energy, are its 
 propelling forces, and they seem blind to all appeals and 
 cries for mercy. Nature has no more concern for man's 
 wants than man has for many of the animated pests 
 below him. It destroys men, women and children as 
 unconcernedly as a man would shovel an ant-hill over 
 the garden fence if it rose in his path during the night. 
 To look back at the preceding ages of the earth's opera- 
 tions, conveys to our minds the conditions that suggest 
 a gigantic slaughter-house. 
 
 In the saurian age, reptiles of all classes were in con- 
 stant warfare; a battle royal to the death. The seas 
 were constantly red with the gore of their conflicts, and 
 at last this continual strife destroyed the monster com- 
 batants as they died locked in each other's folds, and 
 in the grip of death. This has been the history of life 
 as it is written in the great book of geology, and the con- 
 flict still goes on. 
 
 Later products of animal life iseem to be no exception 
 to the rule. When man got a foothold upon this planet, 
 he was but the embodiment of all the conflicting forces 
 that preceded his advent, and the same slaughter of 
 tribes and nations has continued to this day. It is true 
 he has gained experience, and that has made him the 
 most intelligent competitor and destroyer on the face of 
 the earth, and he forces his opinions and dogmas and 
 religious notions to the extent of his individual and col- 
 lective ability. The moral conflicts have been just as 
 deadly as the dumb brute contests of the geologic ages. 
 The thousands of conflicting religions and ideas about 
 an imaginary God, who is supposed to control the works 
 of nature, answer prayer, and command the worshiper, 
 
ORIGIN OF THE GOD IDEA. 167 
 
 are just as bigoted and deadly today as they have been 
 in the past, except for the knowledge which science has 
 given us, and this conflict between the God idea and 
 science must continue until the victory is won by the 
 acquisition of a complete knowledge of Nature's pro- 
 cesses, and the old superstition about a special provi- 
 dence dispelled from the minds of men. This will be 
 done by the experience of mankind when they have been 
 fully educated to the facts of science. 
 
 When will the churches repent for the sins chey have 
 committed against mankind under the pretext of religion? 
 Wlien will they cease to laud to the skies a book that 
 records the most villainous practices of mankind? When 
 will they cease to beg the coin of the poor, to send to 
 the heathen of other lands, to be spent for the comforts 
 and luxuries they enjoy in those lands? When will the 
 churches cease to organize those great begging schemes 
 like the several lately organized? The layman's crusade 
 and now the Men's Forward Movement, all done to bolster 
 up the fast-decaying dogmas of the Christian Cause? 
 The great Layman's Movement, the Epworth League, the 
 Salvation Army, the Pillar of Fire, the American Volun- 
 teers, the Pietists, and dozens of other new-fangled reli- 
 gious movements, have the primary object to collect 
 money out of the industries of our nation, and in time 
 must deplete our resources and bring on a financial panic, 
 the like of which we have never yet seen. 
 
 When you fill a man's head with a lot of religious 
 nonsense, distract his mind from his earthly business, 
 and make his disordered and affrighted soul shiver and 
 quake from the fear of death and hell, you destroy all 
 his interest in life, he quits business, and joins the cru- 
 sade of bigotry and superstition, to fight for the Lord, 
 his Lord. 
 
 The present unrest of the churches is a psychological 
 crusade against the science and intelligence of the world. 
 They feel that something must be done to arrest the 
 onward march of criticism and unbelief. They find that 
 they must cover up their dogmas and differences, and 
 unite to gain a hearing from the disbelieving and skep- 
 tical masses. They are the symptoms of disease and 
 ultimate dissolution, or it may mean the bloody con- 
 flicts renewed, that have cursed the world in the past. 
 
168 ORIGIN OF THE GOD IDEA. 
 
 Why will people pray and worship an ideal being of 
 which, from the nature of things, they can know noth- 
 ing? They will tell you "they feel his presence, and 
 know that their Redeemer lives," and so forth. This 
 feeling arises from their religious enthusiasm, and is 
 usually a worked-up state of the feelings under some 
 religious gatherings and unusual excitements. The truth 
 is, that, under such conditions, the mind is affected by 
 a sort of religious frenzy, or psychological force, pervad- 
 ing the excited congregation, and persons are not fully 
 responsible for the things they say and do and feel, un- 
 der such circumstances. The Turk, the Hindu, the China- 
 man, the Christian, and each' one of the others,- claim- 
 ing such close intercourse with Deity, has a substantially 
 different feeling, and gives out a different expression, ac- 
 cording to his education and religious belief, showing 
 conclusively that the manifestation arises from his own 
 personal mental condition, and that the cause must be 
 from within his own peculiar organism, and that all 
 such claims can be no evidence of the existence of any 
 such Deity. 
 
 The truth is, that under a strictly scientific test, we 
 can not mentally feel a God any more than we can see 
 one, taste one, smell one, touch one, or recognize one in 
 any possible way. When persons work themselves up 
 into a religious frenzy, to that extent they are weakening 
 their intellectual perceptions, and rendering themselves 
 liable to any hallucination that may accompany a disor- 
 dered and frenzied state of the mind. 
 
 There are from fifteen to eighteen hundred million 
 human beings on the earth. They are commanded to 
 pray, to pray always. Suppose each did this, as com- 
 manded, what sort of a bedlam would the world be? 
 What folly! When we know that not a drop of rain, a 
 fiake of snow, a blast of air, or even the movement of 
 a feather, can be, or ever has been, changed by prayer! 
 When things have happened on account of prayer, it has 
 always been the work of men, or some sentient being, 
 who answers prayer. No providence ever interferes with 
 the operations of natural law. Even if we assumed that 
 a supreme intelligence existed, we have no evidence that 
 Nature is controlled by such extraneous power. 
 
 It is more than probable that all minds are the result 
 
ORIGIN OF THUi GOD IDbA. 1G9 
 
 of the evolutions of nature, and as man may be the 
 result, an indestructible being, the future world may 
 contain intelligences of very advanced conditions, and 
 yet all their progress would consist of a more perfect 
 knowledge of universal nature and the refined material 
 imagery of their exalted states; of a refined material ex- 
 istence. Should matter cease to exist or become diffused 
 into the ethereal element, there would be nothing for 
 mind to impinge upon, and existence would have to end. 
 There is absolutely nothing that man, or the soul of man, 
 can learn but the laws, forces, and operations of ma- 
 terial being, and those things that are in operation 
 around, within and about himself. I imagine he will 
 have an eternity in which to study them, and after he 
 has gone the length and depth, and breadth, and the 
 fourth dimensions of matter and its laws, he will fail 
 to find any God, and more especially an orthodox God. 
 The God idea was an invention of ignorant man, used 
 to account for things he beheld but could not under- 
 stand, and as science explains and demonstrates the 
 laws, facts, and truths of life, so will the God idea 
 depart 
 
Man's Inner Light, the Sun. 
 
 Some Thoughts by William Borrman as to why 
 
 Hoses, as it is Alleged, Told the Stories 
 
 Chronicled by Him in the Bible. 
 
 \s the sun is to vegetation, so is the inner light to 
 the life of man. This is a very good comparison. It 
 remains for us only to find the essence, the true meaning 
 of this comparison. 
 
 The inner light of man can not perform; it can only 
 influence the objective mind, and through the mind the 
 body, to perform. Its first function of this inner light is 
 to set the mind to think, and then the body to act. 
 
 It is entirely separate of the performing strength and 
 the faculties of the body for performing. The former 
 is magnetic, the latter electric. This duality makes one 
 whole, the entire life of man. This we are able to per- 
 ceive with little effort. Now, of the sun we believe it 
 is the performing energy — "heat energy" — that produces 
 all motion, vegetation, and life on earth. We learn this 
 with the very first lessons in natural history in our 
 schools. The sun heats the earth, is the common say- 
 ing of humans. But when this sun is the inner light 
 for the planets and the material life upon them, includ- 
 ing men, then it can not be the heat that does the per- 
 forming. The sun's light must be something else as per- 
 forming energy. It must be "influence" with qualities for 
 enlightening, persuading, directing and adjusting for and 
 by this performable strength. "Influence and energy," 
 this duality is the essence of all life in its organic state. 
 But men are endowed with a duality of influence (or in- 
 ner light), namely, objective and subjective. The ob- 
 jective resulting from the magnetical influence of the 
 
MAN'S INNER LIGHT, THE SUN. 171 
 
 sun's light, the subjective resulting from the finer spirit 
 of the universe centered in the perception of God, the 
 universal spirit. The perception of this universal spirit 
 we have put in the word "Love" (or Goodness). This 
 later light, this light of Love, God, or Goodness, can 
 only manifest itself, when the former is well established 
 through solution and education. You may call this civ- 
 ilization, if this is more plain to the mind. 
 
 It is through this duality of influence of inner light 
 (the objective and the subjective) that so many mistakes 
 are made even by strong minds by their philosophical 
 narration and the conclusions drawn therefrom. Mr. 
 Schellhaus, in a late narrative printed in The Progress- 
 ive Thinker, dwells at some length on the objective and 
 subjective qualities of the mind; and, although he does 
 not bring his conception out to its fullness, he plainly 
 perceives this duality of thought. The seeming of a 
 reality, springing from the subjective mind, can become 
 a probable fact, through reason of the objective mind pro- 
 ducing analytical or mathematical proofs. It seemed to 
 me, too, that it could not be true that the belief that the 
 sun heats the earth was a fallacy. Today I see how absurd 
 it is to uphold this belief. When we compare the loss 
 of light rays from parallel to parallel on our globe 
 through slant, with the loss of heat, we find that the 
 loss of heat is just double to the loss of light. For in- 
 stance. On the parallel of forty degrees, which cuts 
 through parts of the state of New York, there is a loss 
 of twenty per cent on light rays through slant, while there 
 is a loss of heat of about forty per cent as compared 
 with the light and heat at the equator. What has become 
 of the other twenty per cent? 
 
 I would not give here all the mathematical proofs, 
 as it would fill hundreds of pages. I simply mention this 
 here in regard to the "seeming." It shows the recipro- 
 cal function of each part of the human mind, the ob- 
 jective and the subjective. D. W. Hull does not think of 
 this duality of the human inner light by criticising the 
 story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. This 
 story sprung from the objective part of the inner light 
 of Moses, just the same as a nice little tale from the 
 objective thought of our mothers today is told their chil- 
 dren. And very properly so. The whole of the Jewish 
 
172 MAN'S INNER LIGHT, THE SUN. 
 
 tribes with which Moses had to deal were children in 
 their intellect. Probably they asked him how the world 
 was made, how men were created, and how sin came into 
 the world. This subjective thought directed him to tell 
 it to them according to their perception, and just as he 
 was able to invent. Later when he spoke, directed by 
 higher universal light, he proclaimed: "A thousand years 
 are by thee like one day,' and doing so he brought the 
 tale he had told about the creation into a different light, 
 into light shining from his spirit. But so real as for 
 the child is the fairy tale, so real was for the Jewish 
 tribes at that time the story of Moses. They could not 
 digest solid food, so he had to feed them with milk. 
 And there are many of us today that need milk more than 
 solid food. To many the story of Moses is better than 
 the explanations of the scientist. It is not Spiritualism 
 slighting the old. It is Spiritualism finding the new, the 
 highei. the better. It is not Spiritualism taking away 
 from the children the milk, when they are not able to 
 digest solid food; it is Spiritualism to bring the solid 
 food into their reach, so they may try it and gradually 
 learn to eat and digest it. When they become used to 
 it, they will long for it and abandon the old, but behold 
 it in a kind memory. 
 
 Criticising is judging; but while the first command- 
 ment of the spirits is Love, the second is "judge not." 
 Criticising should only be done in the line of correcting 
 with the ever-guiding aid of love. What would my chil- 
 dren answer me if I told them their mother had told 
 them fibs when they were young? Or what would they 
 say if I would criticise their mother's fairy tales which 
 they have still in their mind after they are more than 
 twenty years of age? 
 
 A critic in the nature of ridicule always is wrong, 
 even if caused by the best of motives. Remember, even 
 fairy tales have their existence. They go from generation 
 to generation, even in our materialistic time. Do not al- 
 ways believe that things you can disprove by one part of 
 your mind are wrong; they are often very right and 
 proper when seen by the other part of the inner light. 
 Our maxim should be to make the new newer, and let 
 the old dissolve itself, which it will do, if there is no 
 life in it. 
 
MAN'S INNER LIGHT, THE SUN. 173 
 
 In the material life we do not criticise the old loco- 
 motive, but we behold it in kind regard, because it was 
 the greatest thing in days of the past. Moses teaching 
 of the creation was allegorical. It was through parables, 
 the same as Christ taught; parables of the simplest and 
 most beautiful kind. Great religious creeds made up 
 of uneducated people are taught today through alle- 
 gorical paintings and statues. Such teaching is better 
 than no teaching at all. It is through the beauty of such 
 allegorical productions that the same civilized man gets 
 the first inspiration, the first ray of light into his soul. 
 It is the kernel planted that burst forth and grows ac- 
 cording to its cultivation. If it only brings a meager 
 fruit, it is better than no fruit at all. 
 
 Spirits can think wings on themselves, can think 
 themselves into any garment or position they please. 
 Why then should such spirits like Moses, still living in 
 tne body, not think themselves a garden of Eden with 
 Adam and Eve in it? Wings are a perception resulting 
 from the sight of wings possessed by birds. The garden 
 of Eden may have been the result of the sight of a 
 beautiful natural garden. If we hold the wings of angels 
 as facts, what cause have we to hold the allegorical teach- 
 ings of Moses or the fairy tales of our mothers as un- 
 real? Every idea has its existence; and, so long as these 
 ideas are expounded for the betterment of humanity, 
 we should find no fault. They will dissolve themselves 
 as soon as they become unreal or untenable. Far from 
 criticising the teaching and stories of Moses to an ignor- 
 ant people, I marvel at his beautiful allegorical percep- 
 tions. The perceptions of a beautiful garden with all 
 kinds of fruits and flowers and lawns, with a tree of 
 light, life, and justice in its center, brings the allegory 
 pretty near to what the most enlightened Spiritualists 
 tell us today about the great "Central Influence" reach- 
 ing into every human heart, not alone as the "Inner 
 Light" for life, but as a restraint from lust, greed, and 
 other evils, which are necessary for the elevation of 
 man. This all makes it plain to us how careful we should 
 be in our opinion over the opinions of those who were 
 before us. It is an ill habit to throw out our chest 
 and proclaim, "Father, I thank thee that I am so much 
 better, so much wiser, so much more spiritual than the 
 
174 MAN'S INNER LIGHT, THE SUN. 
 
 old folks." Remember what you have today you have 
 through them. So make the new newer, and leave the 
 old alone, and those that believe in the old. You hold 
 at the present all the conclusions of a Helmholz, Newton, 
 Tyndall, Thompson, and many others for facts, so far 
 as they have been furnished the proofs through their ex- 
 periments. So interesting and so seemingly correct have 
 these proofs been carried out, and so careful the conclu- 
 sions drawn by the minds of the above-named men, that 
 the books, expounding and illustrating the results, are the 
 text-books today in all the higher schools and colleges 
 inciting our youths with such scientific enthusiasm for 
 the objective material triumph that the spiritual light is 
 crowded out of their souls. Now, all these so truly 
 proven facts are so easily to disprove, that not even a 
 shade of truth is left on them. As far as "abstract 
 natural science is concerned" the results have not even 
 an allegorical value. To the one that would point to 
 the great achievements in the last century, I answer, 
 they are experimental achievements, and many of them 
 are evidently obtained by such experiments and search 
 for proofs in other lines. By Newton, it is the only 
 perception that there is a natural gravitation of real 
 vaUie, but he has not furnished us with the cause, nor 
 the ultimate result of this gravitation. Only under a 
 great reluctance I have written these later sentences, 
 but I could not refrain from it, as I feel they are neces- 
 sary to more enlighten the whole. 
 
From Floating Nebulae to Life. 
 
 Every Body in the Universe Owes its Origin to 
 
 riolecular Action, to the Law of Mechanics, 
 
 By Judge Parish B. Ladd. 
 
 From out the hidden recesses of inert matter, nature 
 is ever producing the germs from which a living uni- 
 verse is evolved — childhood, tt» ushering in of celestial 
 and terrestial life; where, for a time, all is activity, 
 then rest and decomposition, out of which other lives 
 are evolved. 
 
 No subject of greater moment to the scientist, the 
 scholar, the Freethinker, the seeker after knowledge of 
 man's origin, than the source of life, which, in its widest 
 sense, includes the birth of worlds. 
 
 The origin of the heavenly bodies will first be in 
 order, after which, life on our earth. The reader must 
 not be surprised to learn that in gravitation lies the 
 secret of the origin of worlds, and the life of plants and 
 animals on our earth. The births of worlds and ani- 
 mals are but different phases of vital action. Life, so far 
 as we know, is eternal; it will never have an end. Death 
 is but change; a change of form. Each is but the counter- 
 part of the other; both the result of chemical action. 
 A knowledge of life on our earth involves the study of 
 astronomy, geology, paleontology, zoology, new botany, 
 embryology, comparative anatomy, and physiology, as all 
 relate to the source and development of life. The vital 
 energy which permeates the universe, life in its broadest 
 sense, applies to the universe, in its limited sense, to our 
 earth. It begins with the bioplasm, the vitalized cell, 
 found in the ovum of animals, and the ovule of plants. 
 
176 PROM FLOATING NEBULAE TO LIFE. 
 
 The boundless worlds, with their suns, come into being 
 from the vitalized nebulae, possessing a nucleus. Under 
 the law of gravitation, one, on looking through the tele- 
 scope, sees Nature busy in her vast laboratory, busy in the 
 process of world making; there he sees the germ, the 
 ceil, the celestial nucleus, and all their moves in the 
 process of evolving worlds; all from nebulae, without 
 thought, purpose or design. 
 
 Turning the telescope to the south he will see two 
 bright spots, near the south pole, Magellanic clouds, 
 called nebeculae, the larger covering a space of forty-two 
 square degrees. 
 
 Sir John Herschel found those to be patches of nebu- 
 losity, in every stage of development; there appeared 
 luminous matter, which no power of the instrument could 
 resolve, up to perfectly developed stars, like those seen 
 in the milky way; rich star clusters were there found; 
 nebulae of various shapes and density everywhere abound, 
 with globular clusters in every stage of condensation. 
 
 The spectroscope has shown this matter to be neither 
 fluid nor solid, but gaseous vapors; some in a very dif- 
 fused condition, others in more condensed form, some 
 of these, said Sir John, are assuming spherical and oval 
 shapes; others seem to pass by slow gradations to 
 elipses of various forms, sometimes in straight lines. 
 Thus illustrating the process of evolving worlds in bound- 
 less space, from luminous matter in its most diffused 
 forms. This is just what one sees through the micro- 
 scope, in the formation of living beings in the micro- 
 scopic cell. 
 
 Nature's process is the same, whether in making man 
 or in evolving worlds. The nebulae of which these celes- 
 tial forms are composed, is seen, first, to assume a 
 strictly spiral form, followed, as in the microscopic cell, 
 by a protoplastic germ. 
 
 A number of double and multiple nebulae have been 
 observed in process of forming double and multiple 
 stars; which, as seen, are revolving around each other, 
 with no common center. Surrounding these stars are to 
 be seen nebulae of an atmospheric appearance; the 
 greatest amount of nebulae is generally found in the 
 regions where there are but few stars. Where the stars 
 are in immense clusters, they seem to have used up 
 the nebulae in their vicinity. 
 
PROM FLOATING NEBULAE TO LIFE. 177 
 
 The author of "Unfinished Worlds" says, "That man 
 should ever have been able to penetrate these unknown 
 depths of space, and there behold visible evidence of 
 vast aggregations of matter being moulded and fash- 
 ioned into new suns and future systems, was a vision to 
 which no philosophic dreamer in olden times ever ven- 
 tured to point. 
 
 These were the times and things which man, in his 
 childhood and supine ignorance, laid hold of to build 
 up a system of gods and religions. Some of these new- 
 born stars have been seen, from time to time, to change 
 their color; to blaze up, then diminish and finally disap- 
 pear. Probably nebulae in the first stages of formation, 
 being dispersed by the excessive heat of suns, dying in 
 their infancy, like most animals on our earth. 
 
 The well-known star, Sirius, has changed its color 
 .from red to white during the last two thousand years; 
 it may be growing old, soon to die and become a dark 
 body. The star, Argus, rose from a dim light, reached 
 its full brilliancy January 2, 1838, blazed up March, 1843, 
 and diminished to a mere speck in 1867. 
 
 The variable stars — that is, those which are subject 
 to the law of mutability — number over one hundred. 
 Astronomers tell us of a number of stars, which, for a 
 time, became extremely brilliant, then slowly faded and 
 finally disappeared. 
 
 All celestial bodies which reflect their own light are 
 suns, in various stages of development; all dense masses 
 of glowing gas, enveloped with an atmosphere, or, more 
 properly speaking, a photosphere, which, like the 
 body of the planet, exists in a state of incandescence; 
 the spots on the surface of our sun are solar storms, 
 sometimes covering spaces thousands of miles in extent. 
 They unquestionably exert a great influence on our earth. 
 Neptune and Uranus are still in their childhood, both 
 in a gaseous form, and this is, in all probability, true of 
 Jupiter; dense vapors, says Newcom, are all -that hide 
 its interior. 
 
 Comets are celestial babies yet in their swaddling 
 c'othos, traveling in search of resting places; they 
 always have attracted special attention, owing to their 
 eccentricity; they come from without as well as within 
 our solar system, and travel with little regard to the 
 known laws which govern other heavenly bodies. Like 
 
178 FROM FLOATING NEBULAE TO LIFE. 
 
 the microscopic protoplasm, they all have a well-defined 
 nucleus, which is located in the head, from which seem 
 to come the orders for the body's movements. Some of 
 them disappear to be seen no more, die in their infancy. 
 
 In 1846, when the Biela comet made its appearance, 
 its moves, for a time, were regular; on January 13 
 it split in two distinct bodies, each having its own nu- 
 cleus. 
 
 This is just what the little microscopic nucleus, in 
 the protoplasmic cell, does; in both cases the vital move- 
 ments are the same. A new birth has ushered in a celes- 
 tial child in one case; and a terrestrial one in the other. 
 In each case the germ of life divides, two lives take the 
 place of the one. In each case, the nucleus, by the law 
 of chemical affinity, attracts to itself surrounding mole- 
 cules, which enter into and unite through the numerous 
 interspaces of the exterior, when, by the law of condensa- 
 tion, the exterior, in the part of the least -resist- 
 ance, is pushed out. An oblong body is the result, a 
 part of the germ following the elongated body, where it 
 sets up a counter attraction. Each center, whether in the 
 nebulae, or in the microscopic bioplasm, pulls its adja- 
 cent molecules toward itself, until there appears a clos- 
 ing of the sac, and a separation takes place. 
 
 Thus the nebulae, like the microiscopic cell, sends out 
 its asters, around which other nebulae are attracted; 
 yet, for a time, the celestial child, like the protoplasm, 
 maintains close relations by the interchange of spores. 
 The tail of the comet, like the molecules of the bioplast, 
 obeys the law of attraction, and follows the nucleus. The 
 Biela comet, on approaching the sun, apparently lost a 
 portion of its tail. The intense heat of the sun is sup- 
 posed to have scattered the vaporous matter until it be- 
 came invisible. It is on this theory that so many new- 
 born worlds seemingly disappear, some permanently, 
 others only to re-appear. 
 
 It will be remembered, it was this comet which so 
 frightened the Christians that the Pope issued a bull to 
 drive it from the heavens; but as young as this child was, 
 like Luther, it defied the Pope and his bull. 
 
 Let. us now lay aside the study of astronomy, return 
 to our little earth, and see what biology has to say about 
 life on our planet. But first, the earth itself from in- 
 fancy to the first appearance of life thereon. 
 
FROM FLOATING NEBULAE TO LIFE. 179 
 
 Kant was the first, followed by Laplace and Hersehel, 
 to set forth the theory, which has since ripened into true 
 science, that the whole universe, in the countless 
 aeons of the past, consisted of gaseous chaos in 
 different conditions of density; that all, originally, 
 formed one homogeneous mass; that no celestial 
 bodies then existed; that all was in a nebulous state of 
 extreme tensity; that this tenuous matter commenced 
 to move; that in places the nebulous matter was heavier 
 than in others; that, at the several centers of the more 
 solid matter, what is called attraction, commenced to 
 pull or push this nebulous matter toward the heavier 
 mass; at the center a nucleus of more dense matter was 
 formed; toward which the nebulae in the immediate 
 vicinity, by the law of gravitation, rushed on to join the 
 nucleus. As it could not move in a straight line under 
 the lesistance of other particles, its course necessarily 
 became spiral, thus presenting the nebulous matter as 
 seen in the nebulae, and in numerous drawings taken 
 therefrom, all moving in a circle toward the common 
 center. This is just what is seen through the micro- 
 scope in the little protoplastic cell. 
 
 Thus it will be seen that nature, whether forming 
 worlds or building microscopic organisms on our earth, 
 works by the same process. In this way the countless 
 billions of suns and their satelites come into being; 
 worlds innumerable in boundless space, with not an eye 
 to behold the stupendous grandeur, no ears to hear, no 
 wish, will or thought to guide; no living unit to dream 
 of life to be; no thought, purpose or design; nature, 
 one harmonious whole, ever moving on the fathomless 
 deep. The living heavens aid life on our earth, the re- 
 sult of matter and force. 
 
 The man of today stands forth in his boasted majesty, 
 but comparative nothingness, and sees through the tele- 
 scope the same natural mechanical forces at work creat- 
 ing new worlds, some or all to be peopled by men and 
 other animals; all to be evolved from dead matter to 
 moving and living organisms under the great "law of 
 chemical affinity and universal gravitation. 
 
 Under the theory of Kant, now generally accepted, 
 there arose a separation of this gaseous matter, which 
 has since been going on and giving birth to new worlds, 
 just as we shall learn by and by with the microscopic 
 
180 FROM FLOATING NEBULAE TO LIFE. 
 
 atoms which form a protoplasm, and later, the bioplast 
 — the impregnated germ, or nucleus, which propagates 
 by simple division, as did our sun, by giving off his 
 satellites, and these planets by throwing off their moons. 
 This simple division has given rise, and is giving rise, 
 to an endless plurality of worlds — multitudes of heaven- 
 ly organisms, children of this nebulous ether. 
 
 Under this theory, as applied to the heavens, the cen- 
 tripetal force attracts the rotating particles, bringing 
 them nearer and nearer to the nucleus, while the cen- 
 trifugal force tends to throw them into a straight line. 
 In other words, the two forces compel the outer nebulae 
 to lag behind, ending in a separation of the gaseous mat- 
 ter, leaving the outer to form one or more centers of its 
 own, around which, rings, at first, break up into separate 
 planets. In this way our moon, and those of other plan- 
 ets, were formed. This ring or rings of Saturn are but 
 nebulous matter, which, in time, will, in obedience to the 
 law of attraction and repulsion, separate into one or 
 more moons of their parent. 
 
 By the process of condensation all celestial bodies be- 
 come molten masses of burning fluid. All such bodies, 
 in their infancy, are suns, reflecting their own light and 
 heat, throwing out a photosphere composed of liquids 
 and molten fluids. As the planet cools, metallic vapors, 
 possessing more specific gravity than aqueous, are more 
 readily, drawn toward the center of attraction. In time, 
 all the metallic vapors descend to, and form a part of the 
 body of" the planet, leaving none other than aqueous 
 vapors outside of the solid body. At this stage the 
 planet is crusting over; a solid shell is being formed, 
 as with our earth at this time. As to our earth, we must 
 understand that for countless ages after it had crusted 
 over, its heat was mostly derived from the fiery mass 
 of burning fluid within the body. Such was its condi- 
 tion in the remote past. 
 
 How long our earth remained in a gaseous state, and 
 how long thereafter in a fluid condition, before it crusted 
 over, no reliable conjecture can be made. All we can 
 say is, it must have been countless millions of years. It 
 is believed by scientists that when the crust first formed, 
 it covered the entire surface; this must have been, from 
 time to time, rent and broken up in parts, if not in 
 whole, for this breaking is still going on; but the time 
 
FROM FLOATING NEBULAE TO LIFE. 181 
 
 came when the crust had so thickened and so cooled as 
 to permit of the production of the flora and fauna. For 
 a long time, as shown by geology and paleontology, the 
 climate must have been uniform, or nearly so, the sur- 
 face deriving its heat from the interior of the planet. 
 It was during these ages that the earth was so densely 
 covered with vegetation, and a little later with animals. 
 At firs! there was too much carbon in the air for ani- 
 mal life. This was the support of the vegetable king- 
 dom. 
 
 While a large quantity of carbon was the life of 
 plants, it was the death of animals. Animal life could 
 not have existed on our earth until the vegetable had 
 taken up and absorbed most of the carbon, which went 
 to make our vast coal-beds. 
 
 This brings me to the point where animal life on our 
 earth comes up for discussion. Where and how did ani- 
 mal life make its appearance? But two ways have ever 
 been suggested. The so-called Mosaic account, and the 
 law of spontaneous generation, which means living mat- 
 ter, organic beings from inorganic dead matter. But it 
 is said that all or nearly all scientists have given up the 
 theory of spontaneous generation. This is only partly 
 true, for today nearly all are coming back to spontaneous 
 generation. In fact, they never had, only to regret that 
 they ever departed therefrom. As to the so-called Mosaic 
 account, it is dead and buried. It died when the cunei- 
 form v,ritings were unearthed in the ruins of the cities of 
 Babylon. Besides, that story was in violation of com- 
 mon sense, and in conflict with all the sciences. The 
 man of today would possess more courage than brains 
 by iDvoking that childish account in support of the origin 
 of life on our earth. 
 
 The fundamental properties of every natural body 
 are matter, outside of force, which the ignorant call God, 
 a pure myth, which has ever been the source and founda- 
 tion of the most of human ills. 
 
 If the reader of this article has followed its teach- 
 ings with as much interest as I have pursued the authori- 
 ties from which it is made up, then will I be duly com- 
 pensated for my labor. A little more along this line, 
 and it must be closed. 
 
 In an almost fathomless research, the sciences, as I 
 find them, show not the slightest difference in the pro- 
 
182 PROM FLOATING NEBULAE TO LIFE. 
 
 cess of birth and development of man and the rest of 
 the living world below him, which, with slight varia- 
 tion, applies equally to plants. All life comes from the 
 ovule — the egg, which, first divided in halves, then subdi- 
 vided until the egg becomes one mass of minute cells 
 and out of this seemingly structureless aggregation a 
 budding process is first seen. The fetal man has com- 
 menced life on the same plane with all the animal world 
 below him; first he is a nucleated little cell, surrounded 
 with a plasm. At the commencement of -life the brains 
 of all animals are about the same. In man's fetal transit, 
 the brain takes on, and fina^y possesses one by one, that 
 of all the lower forms of life; it is only in the latter 
 stages of development that he passes the ape. The ovum- 
 egg of all mammals, at an early stage, undergoes the pro- 
 cess of segregation; on each side of the tube, formed by 
 such segregation, a furrow rises and grows until it laps 
 over the tube, leaving it hollow, to be filled with the 
 spinal cord; at first, both ends are pointed; in time, one 
 develops into an orb for the coming brain; at the other 
 end intestines appear, while the heart, lungs and liver 
 occupy the middle. 
 
 In early life, the man, the dog, the tortoise, the 
 chicken, all present the same appearance. All are born, 
 live and feed alike. The man, in his process of develop- 
 ment, finally leaves all other animals, and launches on 
 the ocean of life to finish his journey alone, as master 
 of the animal world. Thus every body in the universe 
 owes its origin to molecular action — to the law of me- 
 chanics, the human body being no exception; all are 
 composed of molecules; the process which builds up 
 terrestrial and celestial bodies is the same; all start life 
 as a single nucleated piece of bioplasm; all live, grow, 
 and die in obedience to the one law, the law of gravita- 
 tation, inherent in all forms of matter. 
 
 The millions of suns and their satellites, ever moving 
 in boundless space, are but aggregations of homogeneous 
 atoms possessing the inherent power of attraction. In 
 this way nature collects properties having the unknown 
 power of affinity for each other, and calls to her aid the 
 law of attraction and chemical combination, as the non- 
 intelligible source of formulating life on our earth and 
 the birth of worlds. 
 
Did Jesus Ever Live? 
 
 Ignored by Historians, And Even by the Early 
 
 Christian Authors, as Declared by 
 
 Dr, H. V. Sweringen. 
 
 I do not know that I ever was so much surprised 
 previously as I was on reading the announcement of the 
 Mangasarian-Crapsey Debate, or rather the question 
 that was to be discussed by those gentlemen, viz., "Re- 
 solved, that the Jesus of the New Testament is an His- 
 torical Personage." I had always known that the Deity 
 or Divinity of Jesus was not accepted by very many 
 people, including church members, but that there never 
 was such a personality as that of Jesus, I do not remem- 
 ber of ever having heard seriously affirmed. I have read 
 of crucified Saviors, sixteen of them, by Persey Graves, 
 and of many characters in history resembling that of 
 Jesus of Nazareth, but that the latter existed only in 
 myth or legend I did not know was so seriously enter- 
 tained until I read this debate which led me to make 
 further inquiry concerning it. 
 
 Tho only historical proof upon which Rev. A. S. 
 Crapsey, D. D., depends for his or the affirmative side 
 of the question, is a passage in the fifteenth book of the 
 forty-fourth chapter of the Annals of Tacitus, referring 
 to the burning of Rome, in the time of Nero, who was 
 suspected of being the incendiary. "Tn order to deflect 
 suspicion from him, he ascribed the burning of Rome 
 to those people who were abhorred for their crimes, and 
 commonly called Christians," says Tacitus, who in the 
 modera editions of his "Annals" further states, although 
 the statement is claimed to be an interpolation, spurious, 
 and so forth, that "The founder of that name was 
 
184 DID JESUS EVER LIVE? 
 
 Christus, who, in the reign of Tiberius, was punished as a 
 criminal by the procurator, Pontius Pilate. This per- 
 nicious superstition, thus checked for a while, broke out 
 again, and spread not only over Judea, the source of 
 this evil, but reached the city also; whither flow from 
 all quarters all things vile and shameful, and where they 
 find shelter and confessed themselves of that sect; after- 
 ward, a vast multitude were detected by them, all of 
 whom were condemned, not so much for the crime of 
 burning the city, as for their hatred of mankind. Their 
 executions were so contrived as to expose them to derision 
 and contempt. Some were covered over with skins of wild 
 beasts, and torn to pieces by dogs; some were crucified. 
 Others, having been daubed over with combustible 
 materials, were set up as lights in the night time, and 
 thus burned to death. Nero made use of his own gar- 
 dens as a theater on this occasion, and also exhibited 
 the diversions of the circus, sometimes standing in the 
 crowd as a spectator, in the habit of a charioteer; at other 
 times driving a chariot himself, till at length these men, 
 though really criminal, and deserving exemplary punish- 
 ment, began to be commiserated as "people who were 
 destroyed, not out of regard to the public welfare, but 
 only to gratify the cruelty of one man." 
 
 The foregoing is the passage upon which Rev. Crap- 
 sey depends for his contemporaneous historical proof 
 that Jesus really lived as a person. If I remember cor- 
 rectly, it is the only proof he cites, for he makes no 
 reference to Josephus' "Antiquity of the Jews," evidently 
 believing that the reference to Jesus in his book is an 
 interpolation and grossly spurious. Tacitus wrote the 
 foregoing, if he wrote it at all, in the reign of Trajan, 
 about forty years after the burning of Rome, which took 
 place in July, 64, A. D., at which time Tacitus was a 
 mere youth. 
 
 But does it not seem very strange indeed that no 
 other historian of that age refers to Jesus or to Tacitus' 
 reference to him in the language quoted? Not one to 
 my knowledge, of the Christian fathers, quotes Tacitus' 
 reference to Jesus, not even excepting Tertullian, who 
 was well acquainted with his writings. Clement of Alex- 
 andria was particularly interested in the matter, and 
 made a compilation of all the recognitions of Christ and 
 Christianity, and the writings, of Tacitus furnished no 
 
DID JESUS EVER LIVE? 185 
 
 recogrHion of them at the beginning of the third century, 
 Origen certainly would have made use of such data in his 
 debate with Celsus had they existed. In the fourth cen- 
 tury, Eusebius cites all the evidences of Christianity 
 obtainable from Jewish and Pagan sources, but does not 
 refer to Tacitus. Indeed he is not referred to by any 
 Christian author until the fifteenth century, when but one 
 copy of the "Annals" existed, and this copy,. it is claimed, 
 was -made seven hundred years before, or six hundred 
 years after the time of Tacitus. This single copy was in 
 the possession of a Christian, and the Lord only knows 
 what was done with it. He may have appointed himself 
 a committee of one to revise it. The severe criticisms 
 of Christianity contained in this copy of the Annals do 
 not disprove its Christian orign. No ancient witness was 
 more desirable than Tacitus, but his introduction at so 
 late a, period would make rejection certain unless 
 Christian forgery could be considered out of the question. 
 In the writings ascribed to Tacitus are some believed 
 to bo those of Quintilian. The terrible orgies of Nero 
 do not read like Tacitus. No subject at this time was 
 punished on account of religious belief without violating 
 the Roman laws. The inhuman treatment of Christ- 
 ians by Nero is not sustained by the New Testament. 
 
 It certainly is passing strange that so few if any of the 
 persons who lived at the same time that Jesus lived, 
 and wrote the history of their times, should know so 
 little, and say so little, and write so little about a man 
 who raised the dead, who arose from the dead himself 
 and ascended into Heaven before the eyes of a multitude. 
 I can't understand it any more than Napoleon Bonaparte 
 could when he asked JohannVon Herder, "Did Jesus 
 Christ ever live, or must we put him on the shelf among 
 the myths?" 
 
 Is it not passing strange that the many books 
 written by the early Christians, some of them giving 
 curious and queer details of the life and habits of Mary 
 and of Jesus from the latter's unique conception to his 
 crucifixion, should never have uttered a word about 
 him? Is it not equally strange that concerning 
 the most remarkable event in the world, the church held 
 a council over these books, and voted them all spurious 
 and forgeries to be repudiated "by all who love the 
 Lord"? And so they were voted apocryphal and scornfully 
 
186 DID JESUS EVER LIVE? 
 
 cast out of the Bible, though written by Christians 
 with the enthusiasm of devotees for the edification of 
 the church and the conversion of the gentiles. 
 
 Is it not very strange indeed that the historians of 
 the first and second centuries were seemingly ignorant 
 of and unconscious that Jesus had lived in the Roman 
 empire? The very custodians of the church merely re- 
 peated his name parrot-like, seemingly making no effort 
 whatever to add to the traditions concerning him. 
 
 Paul never saw Jesus; but he, it seems, did record 
 some rumors he heard about him twenty-five years or 
 more before the evangelists Matthew, Mark, Luke and 
 John had written a word. He made no effort, it seems, 
 to verify these rumors or to add to them. Is it not as- 
 tonishing that Paul never saw Jesus when both were 
 in Jerusalem at the same time? Neither did Fathers 
 Clemens, Ignatius, Polycarp, Barnabas, Papias, Hermas. 
 Clement, Origen, Eusebius, Justin, or Jerome make any 
 effort apparently to add a single fact to what had already 
 been reported by Paul and the compilers of the gospels. 
 
 The fathers of the church of the second century 
 seemed to have mentioned their Lord in an apologetic 
 manner. They seemed to take more interest in other 
 peoples's saviors and miracle-workers than in their own, 
 as the earlier Jews erected altars to Baal, Ashtoreth, 
 and the heathen gods. Justin, the great martyr of the 
 early Christian church, in his apology to the emperor, 
 said, "Our Jesus was born of a virgin, and so were 
 your Castor and Perseus. Our Jesus cast out devils, 
 and so did your Esculapius." 
 
 The officers of Rome in Judea were certainly neg- 
 lectful of their duty, which was to report to Rome in 
 writing every mouth, but none of them had anything 
 to say of Jesus or his crucifixion. Felix Antonius was 
 the Roman procurator in Jerusalem twenty years after 
 the crucifixion, and the priests report that he "trembled" 
 when Paul preached, but in his monthly reports he makes 
 no mention of either Jesus or Paul. 
 
 Herod Agrippa lived a quarter of a century in Jeru- 
 salem as king, but it seems he did not know that Jesus 
 lived there the generation before. 
 
 Herod Autipas was tetrach, and is said to have tried 
 Jesus. Luke tells us that "he saw all of these things," 
 but he never said a word about them. How strange! 
 
DID JESUS EVER LIVE? 187 
 
 All of these officers and. authors were citizens of the 
 same empire as Jesus. 
 
 Marcus Aurelius, who was one of Rome's emperors, 
 denounced Christianity as a fable, and the Emperor 
 Julian still later wrote an elaborate "Refutation of 
 Christianity." 
 
 Porphyry wrote fifteen volumes against Christianity, 
 and declared its founder a myth. 
 
 Plotinus, who lived in the second century, left many 
 volumes of history and morals, in which not a single 
 reference is made to Christ. 
 
 Philo Judeus was born in Alexandria about the same 
 time when Jesus was born in Bethlehem. He was prob- 
 ably in Jerusalem at the very time assigned to the cru- 
 cifixion, but his books do not reveal that he ever 
 heard of it. 
 
 Juvenal, the Roman poet, traveler, moralist, and 
 satirist, wrote in the next generation after Christ, but 
 seemingly never heard of him. 
 
 Lucian lived in the beginning of the second or in the 
 close of the first century A. D. He was a scholar, 
 traveler, poet and satirist, and lived for a time in Jeru- 
 salem. He left behind him several volumes, in which not 
 one word is said about Jesus. 
 
 Pausanius lived in the second century A. D., traveled 
 through Syria, and left ten books on history. He seems 
 never to have heard of Jesus. 
 
 Josephus was born in Jerusalem about the time of the 
 crucifixion. His father was a member of one of the 
 great priestly families of the city. He was a scholar, 
 statesman, and most industrious author, leaving twenty 
 books of history to those who should come after him. 
 A great part of his life was spent in Jerusalem. He was 
 at one time governor of Galilee, and was present with 
 Titus at the siege of Jerusalem. So true was he to 
 his history that he pays the greatest attention to the 
 minute detailing of very small events, those which most 
 historians would entirely ignore. He relates almost 
 everything except the one important piece of news — that 
 of the crucifixion and ascension of Jesus. He never dis- 
 covered that such a man as Jesus had ever lived, an 
 omission so awfully significant that pious Christians 
 thought it not sinful, but really doing the cause of Christ- 
 ianity a wonderful service, to forge and sandwich into 
 
188 DID JESUS EVER LIVE? 
 
 the text of the "Antiquities of the Jews" a page of tes- 
 timony to the crucifixion of Jesus, which is so poorly 
 executed that it has been discarded long ago even by 
 the church as a forgery. Some zealous Christian was 
 no doubt inspired by the seventh verse of the third chap- 
 ter of Romans. But such zeal and euthusiasm is sure 
 sooner or later to react upon the Christian and his cause. 
 And so the same may he said of the sentence in Tacitus 
 which Rev. Dr. Crapsey refers to in his debate with Mr. 
 Mangasarian, although it is not so plain a forgery or 
 , interpolation. It does, however, interrupt the narrative, 
 disconnecting two closely related statements. 
 
 In all the Roman records there is to be found ab- 
 solutely no evidence that Christ was put to death by 
 Pontius Pilate. This sentence in Tacitus, if genuine, 
 is the most important evidence in pagan literature. That 
 it existed in the works of the greatest and best known 
 of Roman historians, and was ignored or overlooked by 
 Christian apologists 1360 years, is hard to believe. It 
 is questionable whether Tacitus wrote the sentence, "The 
 founder of that name was Christus, who, in the reign of 
 Tiberius, was punished as a criminal by the procurator, 
 Pontius Pilate." The fact that at this late day the 
 historicity of Jesus should be doubted by such a man as 
 Mangasarian, who was for years pastor of John Wana- 
 maker's Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, and now 
 pastor of an independent free-thought church in Chicago, 
 is certainly one of no small significance. What will the 
 end be? What are we coming to? The very idea that 
 such an important corner-stone in the foundation of 
 Christianity should thus be disturbed so rudely 
 is one extremely difficult of entertainment. It is most 
 emphatically repudiated by the orthodoxy in which I was 
 raised, and will be obliged to "wait a time with patience," 
 considerable patience, while we investigate the subject 
 still further, before we can accept it. 
 
 But I want to know for myself and not for another, 
 whether or not I have entertained, all these years past, 
 a delusion, an error, a mistake, in regard to the personal 
 existence of Jesus the Christ. Did he really live, move, 
 and have his being on the earth in the time in which 
 Paul and Josephus lived? Have we not a right now to 
 demand of the Christian pulpit a settlement of this ques- 
 tion, now that Christ's historicity is doubted? Surely 
 
DID JESUS EVER LIVE? 18 9 
 
 I have no interest whatever in any attack upon Christ- 
 ianity, for I was raised in the orthodox church, and my 
 sympathies are very naturally with her. But they are 
 more pronounced and far greater in the cause 
 of truth, no matter where my discoveries may 
 strike. In looking up this question, I have, of course, 
 made free use of authorities. It could not be otherwise 
 in the treatement of a question that is historical in 
 character. I have made frequent quotations from W. A. 
 Croffut, Ph. D., whose researches are most valuable. I 
 also have consulted other authorities without giving their 
 names, or always giving the quotation marks to their 
 utterances. It is understood then that very little of the 
 foregoing is original with me. My interest, zeal and 
 enthusiasm are all contained in my great and 
 only desire to have this question settled if possible in or- 
 der to keep it from ever and anon recurring to harass our 
 posterity. All such questions should be settled now. It 
 is so surprising that it was not settled for ever at the 
 Council of Nice or before. I never dreamed that the 
 historicity of Jesus was not settled, or that there could 
 be any facts or arguments introduced against it. 
 
 Is there anything wrong in my asking the reader, 
 whoever he may be, his opinion on this question, what he 
 knows about it, and whence his proofs and knowledge? 
 It is not my purpose to confuse or embarrass any person 
 whatever. I am simply a child sitting at the feet of the 
 theological teacher, asking to be instructed. If it is the 
 duty of the pastor to instruct, to feed his. lambs, 
 I shall be made satisfied. The question is not a 
 secret one, for the confessional, the whole of Christian- 
 ity is interested in it, and I hope that the answer, from 
 wheresoever it comes, will be scattered as broadcast as 
 this article may be. 
 
 Suetonius wrote voluminously the history of emperors, 
 but says not one word of Jesus, the great martyr of the 
 emperors. 
 
 Plutarch, born about the date of the crucifixion, wrote 
 more than a hundred lives of distinguished men, but 
 never mentioned his countryman and fellow-citizen, Jesus 
 of Nazareth. I cannot understand it. I cannot under- 
 stand it. What does it all mean, my reader? What does 
 it all signify? 
 
 Jesus was not mentioned by the historian Cornutus; 
 
190 DID JESUS EVER LIVE? 
 
 by Lucan, his friend; or by Persius Flaccus, his pupil, 
 who wrote historical works still extant; or by Probus 
 Valerius, his biographer. 
 
 Pliny the elder, born A. D., 2 3, never mentioned 
 Jesus, though he finished the great Roman history of 
 Aufidius in thirty-seven volumes, which dealt largely with 
 events in Palestine, and left more than a hundred other 
 bookis. He was an expert authority on earthquakes, but 
 he did not make any note, even from hearsay, that the 
 walls of the temple were "rent in twain," and the rocks 
 were sundered, when the man of sorrows expired. 
 
Philosophy in Sentences. 
 
 Speak to the Earth, and it shall Teach Thee, is 
 
 the Belief of Henry Morrison Tefft 
 
 of Norwich, N. Y. 
 
 It is only to a few, in comparison to the untold mil- 
 lions that have inhabited the earth, that we owe our 
 philosophy, our science, our religions. We are living 
 in times of independent thought. It has been brought 
 about by heroic souls who dared face obloquy, endure 
 ostracism, and be called heretic, fanatic, and treated as 
 men whose teachings were unsafe to follow. This is true 
 in both church and state. The pulpit is continually grow- 
 ing more and more liberal. Clergymen refuse to be 
 bound hand amd foot by some creed made hundreds of 
 years ago. The press, both secular and religious, are 
 every year taking a wider view, speaking more and more 
 for the people and less and less for some particular sect, 
 party or section of the country to which they belong. 
 The influence that party organs and sectarian newspapers 
 have over the minds of their readers is declining. 
 Politically, socially, religiously, everything seems to be 
 unsettled. 
 
 "Just before us," says a writer, "are momentous 
 events. Signs portending flash athwart the social sky. 
 Uneasy sensations course the industrial fabric. Amid 
 plenty, the fear of disaster is a nightmare. Confidence 
 in old maxims is falling. Fealty to party is shaking. 
 The giant Public is feeling about it for the reason for 
 this sensation." The time is coming when there will 
 be no use for a statesman that cannot and dare not rise 
 
192 PHILOSOPHY IN SENTENCES. 
 
 above his party and speak for all parties, classes and con- 
 ditions of society. 
 
 Theological doctrines are undergoing great change. 
 The world pays but little attention to the profession a 
 man makes, nor to the doctrines and beliefs to which he 
 subscribes; it is the life he lives to which attention is 
 directed. Some people can live a Christian life without 
 the aid of church, and some cannot. Some people would 
 be honest, religious, god-like, if they had never heard 
 of a Bible. There is a religion higher than ever was 
 taught in the ritualism of any church, a prayer holier 
 than ever was printed in any book, a creed that knows no 
 language to express. There is a great deal more of 
 "the form of prayer" than there is of "the spirit of 
 prayer." God speaks to me with joy in a song, with 
 beauty in a flower, with tenderness in a dewdrop, with 
 sadness in a tear. It does not require any set 
 form of words to approach the Infinite Presence. 
 
 "Without star or angel for their guide, 
 Who worship God shall find him." 
 
 Old ideas, old beliefs, are giving way. A feeling of 
 uneasiness and unrest pervades the thinking, meditative 
 public mind. The wise and the learned are looking after 
 a universal system of Christian belief— one founded upon 
 science, reason, judgment and common sense. Difficult 
 problems can no longer be explained by miracles. There 
 is no God that can violate a law of nature. He cannot 
 stop a cyclone until it has run its course, nor quench a 
 rain-storm until the foundation is exhausted. I am a 
 firm believer in the church as an institution and in the 
 Bible as a book. The highest state of civilization cannot 
 be maintained without both. Men can disagree in regard 
 to the teachings of the former and as to the interpreta- 
 tion of the latter without condemnation of either. The 
 world has never been without its prophets. We have 
 no wiser men now than they had in ancient times. Wis- 
 dom is old. Henry George once said, "We are not in- 
 creasing in intellectual stature — we are only taller by 
 reason of the high pedestal upon which we stand. We 
 are higher by reason of all progress, learning and civil- 
 ization of the past." 
 
 No one knows where a single thought, idea or prin- 
 ciple originated, nor how many times it has been kneaded, 
 
PHILOSOPHY IN SENTENCES. 193 
 
 turned, or mixed. One man gathers up the experiences 
 and the experiments of a dozen others, weaves them into 
 a single thread, and it becomes a cable and carries a 
 message beneath oceans from continent to continent; or 
 it becomes a telephone and sends a whisper around the 
 world in a moment of time. 
 
 The mind of man is infinite. It is a part of God. 
 Some one has said that "man is a condensed recapitula- 
 tion of the whole story of creation." Our knowledge is 
 gathered from what we read. We cannot be otherwise 
 than borrowers, plagiarists. "Out of Plato," says Emerson, 
 "coine all things that are still written or debated by men 
 of thought." Men in all ages have drawn from the same 
 fountain of truth. We do not originate. We appro- 
 priate. Man cannot make a law: he can only use it. 
 Nature furnishes the materials, man claims them. Nothing 
 has ever been added to or taken from the universe. 
 
 Evolution is not creation. Progress is discovery; 
 using old material, old ideas, in a new way. The primal 
 elements and principles have always existed; the power 
 has ever been the same. The material is old, but its uses 
 and combinations are new. Nature is the mother of all 
 true art. She is the author of all religions: they come 
 in reponse to a divine call. But art can only faintly 
 imitate nature. No architect can build upon so magni- 
 ficent a scale, no artist can paint so delicately, no deco- 
 rator can adorn with so much beauty. 
 
 According to Holy Writ, even Solomon's glory was 
 surpassed by the lilies of the field. The poet says — 
 
 "As Sheba from the wise King's throne 
 
 Passed home in proud array, 
 The hills to mock at Solomon 
 
 Spread Autumn in her way." 
 
 The visible works of man perish, dissolve, and pass 
 away. 
 
 "So fleet the works of man, back to the earth again; 
 Ancient and holy things fade like a dream." 
 
 You can write your books, but they will be destroyed; 
 you can build your monuments, but their existence in 
 infinite time will be momentary. The most magnificent 
 palace that money can erect will vanish and be forgotten. 
 The fame of the greatest man will die out so that not 
 
194 PHILOSOPHY IN SENTENCES. 
 
 even an echo will remain of his greatness. What is the 
 final goal of mankind? Why so much failure and so 
 little success? The wisest man is only an interrogation 
 point. He asks questions, but answers none. There are 
 certain characteristics in the human family that seem to 
 be universal; yet every person has an individuality that 
 no other represents. 
 
 Man's history does not commence with his birth. It 
 dates farther back. The child is patterned before it comes 
 into the world. The ideals, the aspirations and hopes of 
 the parents enter into its very conception. Robert Louis 
 Stevenson says, "Not only do our character and talents 
 lie upon the anvil and receive their temper during genera- 
 tions, but the very plot of our lives' story unfolds itself 
 on a scale of centuries, and the biography of the man 
 is only an episode in the epic of a family." 
 
 Most lives are dwarfed; they are never fully develop- 
 ed. The majority of mankind are mere phonographs — 
 voicing what other people say. Their lives are empty, 
 their intellects stupefied, and their minds made barren 
 by too much time spent in running after the amusements, 
 frivolities and outward displays of life. 
 
 "Couldst thou in vision see 
 Thyself the man God meant, 
 
 Thou nevermore wouldst be 
 The man thou art — content." 
 
 Each person's work is a part of himself. It is said 
 of Charles Lamb that "Almost everything he wrote was 
 in some measure confessional, autobiographic. And tha'o 
 is why he lives in our hearts today." In art, oratory, of 
 composition, there are no duplicates. No one can deliver 
 a speech but the man who made it. No one can read an 
 article but the one who wrote it. Claude Debussy once 
 said that he did not attend the theatre when his com- 
 positions were to be rendered, for "The interpretation 
 is a 1 ways so different from what I mean it to be; not in 
 the singers, but in the general interpretation." The 
 reader, the hearer, the interpreter, can never fully put 
 himself into another's place. The multitude only see that 
 which is apparent to the senses — the outside drapery and 
 dressing of life. We can only enjoy those things that 
 nature and education have qualified us to appreciate. The 
 
PHILOSOPHY IN SENTENCES. 195 
 
 heart often has to interpret what the eye sees and the 
 ear hears. 
 
 There is a moral grandeur as well as a physical grand- 
 eur. There is a spiritual beauty as well as a material 
 beauty. There is poetry in movement, in sound and in 
 grace of action as well as in words. 
 
 We find in this world just what we are looking for. 
 
 If it is wealth, we secure it; if it is glory, we attain 
 it; if it is the higher and nobler enjoyments, such as 
 come from the study of science, philosophy and art, these, 
 too, will be realized. There is no such thing as obstacle 
 or failure to a determined soul. 
 
 "The wise man rules his stars; the fool obeys them." 
 
 We cannot always tell by what spirit we are moved 
 or what impels us to action. Our moods change without 
 will or volition on our part, and they are governed by no 
 known law. Sadness and gladness follow each other, take 
 possession of our thoughts, and hold them captive by 
 their presence. But no one can spare any of his ex- 
 periences if he rightly utilizes them. They all enter 
 into and form a part of his education. 
 
 We never fully comprehend the present; it needs per- 
 spective. There are certain hours in our lives that are 
 worth more to us than weeks and months at others. We 
 have no language in which to express our deepest feel- 
 ings. The sentimental value of an act or of a word may 
 be more helpful, uplifting, and inspiring than the real 
 value. Words become oracles, looks, benedictions. 
 
 "The past is always holy — every heart 
 
 Holds something that has grown to be divine; 
 
 What haunts there are where memory walks apart! 
 Each common place has some invisible shrine." 
 
Menace of the Christian Cross. 
 
 A Symbol of Barbarism, Placed in the Path of 
 
 Progress, Blocking the Way for Freedom 
 
 and Human Advancement. 
 
 The symbol of the cross, as presented to the world 
 by the Christian churches through its prelates and rep- 
 resentatives, has not only enslaved the human mind, but 
 misled the world. Thus, through the machinery of the 
 church and its hirelings, its form has been gradually and 
 deeply impressed upon the mind of all persons who have 
 been induced or constrained to accept the creeds, dogmas 
 or theories upon. which the Christian religion rests. 
 
 Hence the symbol of the Cross has so long and per- 
 sistently been held up before the world, and falsely asso- 
 ciated with man's religious nature, that mankind has 
 come to look upon it as a sacred if not a holy object. 
 History shows most conclusively that the cross as a symbol 
 reaches back of the so-called Christian era; and to a 
 far distant period, when the conception of civilization 
 itself existed in the embryo of time, only as a dream to 
 be realized in the future. Its great antiquity has been 
 made perfectly evident, not only by mundane history, 
 but a wonderful array of evidence coming from promi- 
 nent minds in spirit life, whose earthly history marks 
 the past centuries and ages of the nations who have 
 peopled our earth. 
 
 But that the symbol of the cross was seized upon 
 by the crafty fabricators of the Christian religion, as an 
 important factor in the propagation of the same, is 
 equally evident. They have adopted the false theories 
 of the so-called cross of Christ, which appeals only to 
 the selfish part of man's nature, that they might the 
 more easily and surely capture and hold the unsuspect- 
 ing mind under their control. 
 
MENAGE OP THE CHRISTIAN CROSS. 197 
 
 The secret of the continuance of the theories of the 
 Christian religion, and the so-called cross of Christ, as 
 formulated by the doctrines of the Church for so long 
 a period, lies not in the fact that these theories and the 
 ground-work of that religion rest upon the basis of truth, 
 but rather in the fact that a cunning and wily priest- 
 hood have gathered from the archives of the past many 
 gems of truth and inspiration which had been impressed 
 upon the mind of the seers and prophets of old (who 
 in modern times are called mediums), and these crafty 
 fabricators combined and arranged these fragments of 
 spiritual truth in the dark background of the creeds, 
 dogmas and false teachings of the Church. Gems of 
 spiritual truth are ever bright, and all the more brilliant 
 is the effect when set in the dark ground-work of error. 
 The devotee beholds the brilliancy of the gems, and 
 stops not, nor is he allowed to reason, but accepts that 
 which he cannot comprehend, dreaming that the bright- 
 ness -which radiates from the teachings of the church is 
 not of it, but emanates from borrowed lights gathered 
 from the fruitage of the ages, previous to the Christian 
 church, and its creedal religion. When this symbol, as 
 set forth by the Christian church, is associated with the 
 finer and spiritual qualities of the human mind, and when 
 the so-called teachings connected with the cross are al- 
 lowed to vitiate our religious natures, as has been the 
 case in the past history of the rise and flow of the contam- 
 inating stream of dogmatic - Christianity, it becomes all 
 the more dangerous as a means to mislead the unin- 
 itiated. 
 
 The representatives of the church, through their cun- 
 ningly devised fables and the manipulation of the so- 
 called sacred histories of the prehistoric age, adopting 
 that which served their purposes, and rejecting the bal- 
 ance, Lave with an unswerving purpose held the more 
 negative and unsuspecting classes of minds under their 
 power. They also have pressed these false theories of 
 the cross home upon the minds by the force of authority 
 as well as by sophistry until through dogmatical teach- 
 ings from generation to generation, and from age to 
 age, it has become so embodied in the religious nature 
 and sympathies of the human mind that it has produced 
 a mcrbid and sickly mental condition which is indeed 
 
198 MENACE OF THE CHRISTIAN CROSS. 
 
 deplorable, since it follows the soul to spirit life, and 
 weighs it down under dark conditions for years and 
 centuries. And right here we wish to call the special at- 
 tention of many who consider themselves progressive, 
 and claim to be in the advance ranks of progress, to the 
 fact that at the same time they either allow or require 
 their children to become members of Christian Sunday 
 schools, thus impressing false theories upon the tender 
 consciousness .of the child, which will require years, and 
 in some cases perhaps centuries, to eradicate. (There 
 is abundant proof as to this fact coming from the spirit 
 world, as well as from our own experience.) Observation 
 proves that many parents persist in this cruel and un- 
 natural course, while they acknowledge their entire dis- 
 belief in the Christian religion. 
 
 Another great mistake is made when parents send 
 their children to Roman Catholic schools and institutions 
 of learning, under the mistaken idea that superior ad- 
 vantages are found there for the instruction of the young. 
 Nothing could be more fatal to the interests of our off- 
 spring than this gross mistake. And, furthermore, many 
 parents have lost their children under the influence of 
 these Catholic institutions by their being persuaded to 
 join them, thus entirely forsaking their parents and 
 friends. Particularly are pupils sought after by the rep- 
 resentatives of these institutions who have property, or 
 are to become heirs to property, which invariably finds 
 its way into the coffers of the religious hot-beds of 
 error. Many victims have we met who have thus lost 
 their children past recovery, and more fully lost them in 
 this life than if they had passed beyond the gate of 
 death. Notwithstanding all the light and experience 
 which has been brought to bear upon these grave and 
 unfortunate mistakes, there are many who are unwise 
 enough to continue to commit them. 
 
 This Christian symbol, the cross, ever repulsive, by 
 reason of the murderous purpose for which it was cre- 
 ated and used, meets us at every turn. At the church, 
 the cemetery, in jewelry, the world over, also in the lit- 
 erary world, it enters largely into all Christian books and 
 literature, which are crowded with fabulous stories of 
 the cross of Christ, the sentiment of which is unworthy 
 to be tolerated by mortal man. Who can, without preju- 
 
MENACE OF THE CHRISTIAN CROSS. 19 9 
 
 dice, observe the extensive and most universal exhibition 
 of the cross, and not come to the conclusion that there 
 is method and deep design in keeping it continually be- 
 fore the eyes of the people as an ever-present object to be 
 deeply impressed upon the faculty of memory? So coni- 
 p^tely has it been woven into the minds of the devotees 
 of the church that they have blindly accepted whatever 
 dogma or absurdity may have been presented to them 
 by the priests and religious teachers of the past as well 
 as in the present generation. 
 
 Gold and power have also been the incentive to hold 
 this vast fabric of false teaching, the web of which has 
 been woven year by year down the ages of the past, and 
 dyed m blood of millions of innocent and helpless vic- 
 tims. Think of the designs that would be displayed 
 upon frirfs fabric as the soul is unfolded in the spiritual 
 light of the future. Think of the forms and shapes of 
 human suffering, both mental and physical, which will 
 be engraved thereon, and then let us answer the ques- 
 tion for ourselves, whether under the light of the pres- 
 ent day we have any use for this monstrosity, the symbol 
 of the cross, as bearing upon religious sentiment or any- 
 thing connected with the progress of the race. 
 
 Let us consider the object more closely for a moment, 
 and ponder its uses. In the dark ages, when what is 
 called Christianity was foisted upon the world by a time- 
 serving priesthood, the cross was used as an instru- 
 ment of torture to slowly drive human life from the 
 body; in a word, for man to murder his brother man 
 in the most cruel and horrible manner. But, notwith- 
 standing this fact, we find it today not only a special 
 object of consideration, but an idol of the people, sur- 
 rounded with all the glory and importance that can be 
 ascribed to a God by virtue of human languages, or the 
 works of art. The eloquence of the orator has been 
 exhausted in discourses on the cross of Christ, while 
 scholastic minds have delved in lore, sacred and profane, 
 so-called, to invent new theories, speculations and soph- 
 istries, to present to the devotees all of which have 
 tended the more fully to mystify and enslave them. The 
 act of crucifixion combines all that is horrid, repulsive 
 and sickening to the last degree. One has said that 
 "distance lends enchantment to the view." May not 
 
2 00 MENACE OF THE CHRISTIAN CROSS. 
 
 this tragedy of the cross be the strongest and most 
 powerful illustration of the idea, as the devotee in imag- 
 ination peers back through distant centuries? In view 
 of all this, behold how the false teachings pertaining to 
 the cross and the Christian scheme of salvation com- 
 bined with the religious sentiment have led the world 
 astray. The cross, having become the object of devo- 
 tion, and a thing of worship, the Deity has been charged 
 with tbe responsibility of patronizing this terrible instru- 
 ment of torture upon which to crucify his innocent and 
 only son. 
 
 If man can insult and blaspheme the author of his 
 being, surely this crime against the great father of life 
 is its masterpiece. In view of the terrible purposes which 
 called into existence the Christian cross, and the fearful 
 wrongs perpetrated upon so many human beings by its 
 use, it would hardly seem possible that as an emblem, 
 it could be so woven into human sentiment as we behold 
 it today. The story of the cross has been and still is 
 forced upon the attention of the mind. From infancy 
 to old age, its hideous form has been made to haunt the 
 soul with a murderous thought, and human blood is the 
 only consideration that has any proper relation to this 
 horrid unshapsly thing — the Christian cross. It seems 
 incredible that such an uncouth object, invented for such 
 a terrible purpose, could become so prominently inter- 
 woven with human life, and its religions; but when we 
 consider that it has been carefully and insidiously im- 
 pressed upon the mentality through the dark lingering 
 centuries of the past, by those whom the world looked up 
 to as teachers, not expecting, when they asked for bread, 
 they would receive a stone — nay, it is not so strange that 
 the unlearned and unsuspecting should be so led astray 
 by the fabulous theories and dogmas connected with the 
 mind, and thereby subjugating the many to a few, for the 
 gratification found in selfishness and a thirst for power, 
 to do evil rather than good. 
 
 The church powers in this as well as spirit life, who 
 have manipulated the story of the cross with such per- 
 sistent efforts, are only waiting and watching for the 
 opportunity and hour which will enable them to supplant 
 the eagle, the emblem of American liberty, with the cross, 
 the emblem of bigotry and mutual slavery, knowing 
 
MENACE OF THE CHRISTIAN CROSS. 2 01 
 
 full well that popery — Catholicism — is gradually declin- 
 ing in its temporal power in the older countries, where it 
 rose to the zenith of its power in the centuries past. It 
 now looks with covetous eye on this young republic as the 
 only hope for continued life. There is evidence and testi- 
 mony enough on this point to demonstrate this fact to all 
 who will observe the signs of the times, and carefully 
 analyze the drift of events pertaining to this important 
 question. It is not the question with the magnates of the 
 church, shall we have this country under our control? 
 but when! On January 18, 1882, a spirit came to us 
 through a medium, and said, among other things, that 
 the founders and fathers of the republic in spirit life 
 hoped to be able to save it from destruction, but I will 
 prevent it if possible." We asked him what he meant by 
 this. He replied, "I am opposed to free government." 
 In addition to, and in connection with, these statements, 
 we would here mention a fact which is not generally 
 known, viz.: that we have already a crowned head of the 
 church in this country, to whom, as a potentate of the 
 church, a part of the citizens of the United States, even 
 now, pay their highest allegiance. But in the event of a 
 possible national revolution that might affect the church, 
 there can be no doubt, with the light and knowledge re- 
 flected from the past history of the movements of the 
 church, as to the course that would be pursued in such 
 a crisis by a crowned head, or the vicar of the Pope and 
 his subjects in this country. 
 
 The hour comes swiftly on, when the American people 
 of this young but giant republic, on whose banner rests 
 the bright star of civilization, must answer this most im- 
 portant and vital question: Shall the cross — the emblem 
 of bigotry and subjugation of the masses — supplant the 
 American eagle, the emblem of our nation's freedom? 
 Will the people awake to the question of national exist- 
 ence, or will they wait until our republican form of 
 government is undermined by that deadly power which 
 drove our forefathers from their homes across the sea, 
 to this western shore, where, through blood, toil, and sac- 
 rifice, they laid the foundation of a government dedicated 
 to freedom — a monument to liberty, and equal rights to 
 all? B. B. HILL. 
 
Joan of Arc a Spiritual Medium. 
 
 Savior of France, Murdered by Roman Cathoilc 
 
 Priests, "the Mitered Slaves of England," 
 
 Stated by Dr. H. V. Sweringen. 
 
 Inasmuch as prominent Catholics of Chicago and else- 
 where have indignantly resented the charge made hy 
 Professor M. M. Mangasarian in his lecture on Joan of 
 Arc, that she was burned at the stake by the Catholic 
 church, which has made her a saint, it is well that more 
 or less of her history should be made known to present 
 generations. 
 
 In the April, May, and June numbers of Harper's 
 Monthly Magazine for 1895 is a very interesting and 
 faithful account of her, written by one of her own- play- 
 mates, the Sieur Louis de Conte. These personal recol- 
 lections of De Conte were written in the year 1492, when 
 he was eighty-two years of age. He was the page and 
 secretary of Joan, and was with her from the beginning 
 until the end. He was reared in the same village with 
 her, played with her every day when they were little 
 children together. He fought at her side in the wars, and 
 said — 
 
 "To this day I carry in my mind, fair and clear, 
 the picture of that dear little figure, with breast bent to 
 the flying horse's neck, charging at the head of the 
 armies of France, her hair streaming back, her silver mail 
 plowing steadily deeper and deeper into the thick ot 
 the battle, sometimes nearly drowned" from sight by toss- 
 ing heads of horses, uplifted sword-arms, wind-flown 
 plumes, and intercepting shields! I was with her to 
 the end; and when that black day came whose accusing- 
 shadow will lie always upon the memory of the mitered 
 French slaves of England who were her assassins, and 
 
JOAN OF ARC A SPIRITUAL MEDIUM. 203 
 
 upon France, who stood idle ana essayed no rescue, my 
 hand was the last she touched in life." 
 
 But I can do no more than to give to the reader the 
 translator's preface. These Personal Recollections hy 
 the Sieur Louis De Conte were translated out of the 
 ancienl French into modern English from the original 
 unpublished manuscript in the National archives of 
 France, by Jean Francois Alden, in 1894. 
 
 The translator's preface is as follows: 
 
 "To arrive at a just estimate of a renowned man's 
 character, one must judge it by the standards of his 
 time, not ours. Judged by the standards of one century, 
 the noblest characters of an earlier one lose much of 
 their luster; judged by the standards of today, there 
 is probably no illustrious man of four or five centuries 
 ago whose character could meet the test at all points. 
 But the character of Joan of Arc is unique. It can be 
 measured by the standards of all times without misgiv- 
 ing or apprehension as to the result. Judged by any 
 of them, judged by all of them, it is still flawless; it 
 is still ideally perfect; it still occupies the loftiest place 
 possible to human attainment, a loftier one than has 
 been reached by any other mere mortal. 
 
 "When we reflect that her century was the brutalest, 
 the wickedest, the rottenest in history since the dark- 
 est ages, we are lost in wonder at the miracle of such a 
 product from such a soil. The contrast between her and 
 her century is the contrast between day and night. She 
 was truthful when lying was the common speech of men; 
 she was honest when honesty was become a lost virtue; 
 she was a keener of promises when the keeper of a 
 promise was expected of no one; she gave her great 
 mind to great thoughts and great purposes when other 
 great minds wasted themselves upon pretty fancies or 
 upon poor ambitions; she was modest and fine and deli- 
 cate, when to be loud and coarse might be said to be uni- 
 versal; she was full of pity when a merciless cruelty 
 was the rule; she was steadfast when stability was un- 
 known, and honorable in an age which had forgotten 
 what honor was; she was a rock of convictions in a 
 time when men believed in nothing, and scoffed at all 
 things; she was unfailingly true in an age that was 
 false to the core; she maintained her personal dignity 
 
2 04 JOAN OF ARC A SPIRITUAL MEDIUM. 
 
 unimpaired in an age of f awnings and servilities; she 
 was of a dauntless courage when hope and courage had 
 perished in the hearts of her nation; she was spotlessly 
 pure in mind and tody when society in the highest places 
 was foul in both — she was all these things in an age 
 when crime was the common business of lords and 
 princes, and when the highest personages in Christendom, 
 the Roman Popes, vicegerents of God, representatives 
 of heaven upon earth, sole authorized agents and pur- 
 veyors of salvation, only infallible models of human per- 
 fection, were able to astonish even that infamous era 
 and make it stand aghast at the spectacle of their atro- 
 cious lives, black with unimaginable treacheries, butch- 
 eries, and bestialities. 
 
 "She was perhaps the only entirely unselfish person 
 whose name has a place in profane history. No vestige 
 or suggestion of self-seeking can be found in any word 
 or deed of hers. When her great work was done, she was 
 offered rewards and honors; but she refused them all, 
 and would take nothing. All she would take for herself 
 — if the king would grant it — was leave to go back to 
 her village home, and tend her sheep again, and feel her 
 mother's arms about her, and be her housemaid and 
 helper. The selfishness of this unspoiled general of vic- 
 torious armies, companion of princes, and idol of an ap- 
 plauding and grateful nation, reached but that far and 
 no further. 
 
 "The saving of the French crown and nation, accom- 
 plished by her, is incomparably the greatest achievement 
 in human history, when one considers the conditions un- 
 der which it was undertaken, the obstacles in the way, 
 and the means at her disposal. Caesar carried conquest 
 far, but he did it with the trained and confident veter- 
 ans of Rome; Napoleon swept away the disciplined 
 armies of Europe, but he began with patriot battalions 
 inflamed and inspired by the miracle-working new breath 
 of Liberty breathed upon them by the Revolution; but 
 Joan of Arc, a mere child in years, ignorant, unknown, 
 and without influence, found a great nation lying in 
 chains, helpless and hopeless under an alien domination, 
 its treasury bankrupt, its soldiers disheartened and dis- 
 persed, all spirit torpid, all courage dead in the hearts 
 cf the people through long years of foreign and domestic 
 
JOAN OP ARC A SPIRITUAL MEDIUM. 205 
 
 outrage and oppression, their king cowed, resigned to 
 his fate, and preparing to fly the country; and she laid 
 her hand upon this nation, this corpse, and it rose and 
 followed her. She broke its chains, she led it to vic- 
 tory, she set it free, and it remains so to this day. 
 
 "And for all reward, the French king, whom she had 
 crowned, stood supine and indifferent while French 
 priests took the noble child, the most innocent, the most 
 lovely, the most adorable the ages produced, and burned 
 her alive at the stake! 
 
 "The details of the life of Joan of Arc form a biogra- 
 phy which is unique among the world's biographies in 
 one respect: It is the only story of a human life which 
 comes to us under oath, the only one which comes to us 
 from the witness-stand. The official records of the great 
 trial of 1431, and of the process of rehabilitation of a 
 quarter of a century later, are still preserved in the na- 
 tional archives of France, and they furnish with remarka- 
 ble fullness the facts of her life. The history of no 
 other life of that remote time is known with either the 
 certainty or the comprehensiveness that attaches to hers. 
 
 "The Sieur Louis de Conte is faithful to her official 
 history in his Personal Recollections, and thus far his 
 trustworthiness is unimpeachable; but his mass of added 
 particulars must depend for credit upon his own word 
 alone." 
 
 The foregoing is the translator's preface to the Sieur 
 Louis de Conte's contribution to the history of Joan of 
 Arc. In this history the fact is made plain that she 
 was burned at the stake by French Catholic priests. 
 How the Hon. John Gibbons, judge of the circuit court 
 of Chicago, can now acquit the Catholic church of all 
 blame for her death, can only b3 explained on the theory 
 that those French priests did not constitute the Catholic 
 church. They were, however, its regularly ordained 
 priests and bishops, a cardinal being among them, and 
 lepresentatives or delegates of the Catholic church. The 
 entire faculty of the Catholic University of Paris also 
 pronounced against her, and there is no record of any 
 excommunications or other condemnation of the priests 
 by the Pope for their brutal murder of peerless Joan of 
 Arc, the hem of whose garments they were unworthy 
 to touch 
 
206 JOAN OF ARC A SPIRITUAL MEDiCJM. 
 
 If the Pope only is the church, as the absolutists and 
 ultramontanists in it are laboring hard to establish him, 
 no word of condemnation or regret ever was expressed 
 by the one reigning at the time of which we write, and 
 therefore, it is logical to conclude that her church is 
 responsible for her cruel death, notwithstanding the fact 
 that that same church has now canonized her as a blessed 
 saint. 
 
 Joan of Arc was a natural-born medium, possessed of 
 the gifts of clairvoyance and clairaudience, gifts very 
 dangerous to the possessor at a time when the church 
 was engaged in burning witches and heretics. As a little 
 scrap of history upon this subject, and a reference to 
 where a most exhaustive account of it can be had, by 
 one who was a playmate of Joan, and, therefore, reliable, 
 the reader had better cut this out for future reference, 
 for the topic will ever and anon demand attention to 
 refute Catholic church denial. 
 
Our Next Step Forward. 
 
 Call of the Age is For First=Hand Information Con= 
 
 cerning Our Spiritual Being and Destiny, 
 
 Declares W. J. Colville, 
 
 No intelligent and observant student of the manifest 
 signs of this present day can possibly fail to note the 
 extreme unrest prevailing everywhere, coupled indubita- 
 bly with a widespread and intense desire to fathom as 
 deeply as possible the mysteries of the usually unknown 
 aspects of our universe. Many causes are alleged to 
 be at the root of the prevalent discontent which possesses 
 so many well-to-do people, for it is not chiefly those who 
 are inadequately supplied with worldly goods who mani- 
 fest this token. Poverty, difficulty of finding suitable 
 employment, and many other altogether external causes 
 undoubtedly operate to produce dissatisfaction among 
 those hard presssed by outward circumstances; there- 
 fore social and political remedies may well be recom- 
 mended and employed when distress is clearly due to 
 outward conditions, but legislation is powerless to stem 
 the tide of spiritual perturbation or to quench the thirst 
 of those whose aspirations are for clearer insight into 
 their own mystical interior. Spiritualism, Theosophy, 
 Occultism, Mysticism, and many other less easily desig- 
 nated schools of thought are now endeavoring to answer, 
 to an extent hitherto unknown and formerly undemanded, 
 the manifest call of the age for first-hand information 
 concerning our spiritual being and the destiny of the 
 individual after physical dissolution. 
 
 As all sorts and conditions of people take an equally 
 active interest in much that is generally designated psy- 
 chical investigation, it is by no means surprising that 
 the most conflicting theories are in constant and active 
 
2 OS OUR NEXT STEP FORWARD. 
 
 circulation and that much mental confusion results there- 
 from. It may sound contradictory to assert that there 
 is in reality no absolute conflict between opposing theories, 
 but such is essentially the case. It is because our points 
 of view are commonly so narrow, as well as so diverse, 
 that we think there is no reconciliatory philosophy. 
 When wider outlooks and deeper reasonings than usual 
 prevail, we shall find it to be quite self-evident that every 
 theory may be relatively correct and yet no theory be 
 absolutely all-including. 
 
 No intelligent student of psychic phenomena who has 
 enjoyed much diversified experience can fail to see how 
 easily an author like Monsignor Hugh Benson may gather 
 together the disagreeable material which he has dramat- 
 ically utilized in his unpleasant novel, The Necromancers. 
 But on the other hand it is quite as easy to discover the 
 sources whence eulogies of Spiritualism derive their sus- 
 tenance. The fact is that psychic experiences range over 
 such an extremely extensive mental territory that they 
 include the sublime and the horrible; the uplifting and 
 the degrading; the comforting and the terrifying; and 
 all other varieties recorded in print or recited on the 
 platform. Unbalanced writers and speakers when touch- 
 ing this fertile and attractive theme are almost certain 
 to exhibit partisanship in such marked degree as to ren- 
 der their conclusions so one-sided as to be eventually un- 
 sound, even when no facts have been definitely falsified. 
 Monsignor Benson sees danger and insanity ahead of 
 all who toy with Spiritualism. Many Spiritualists indig- 
 nantly rebut his accusations and point enthusiastically to 
 the blessings they have derived from practices very 
 nearly allied to those which he vociferously condemns. 
 The unprejudiced and non-partisan outsider may well 
 say, let the battle be fought to the sweet or bitter end 
 by the interested parties; but so curt a dismisssal of an 
 exciting controversy indicates indifference rather than 
 interest, and it is not possible for deeply interested per- 
 sons to steer entirely clear of the discussion. Wise mid- 
 dle ground can easily be taken, provided we are neither 
 hysterical nor fanatical, and it is only clear-headed, rea- 
 soning men and women who are ever likely to arrive at 
 anything like a sane decision concerning the merits and 
 demerits of so large and difficult a case. On one side we 
 
OUR NEXT STEP FORWARD. 209 
 
 hear a great deal about seducing spirits, obsession, and 
 much else that is hideously uncanny, and we must not 
 forget that many Spiritualists are quite as much con- 
 vinced of obsession as are any Roman Catholics; but 
 all Spiritualists ceclare that we can enjoy communion 
 with pure and wise spiritual helpers if we approach the 
 unseen spheres in the rightful manner, though sometimes 
 very nazy notions are entertained as to what mental con- 
 ditions are necessary for the evolution of the beneficent 
 results desired. The subject is now so largely before the 
 public, and so many theories are freely ventilated, that 
 it is safe to say the time has fully come for a review of 
 the entire situation from the broadest and sanest stand- 
 point possible, and every one who is truly interested in 
 clearing away prevailing misapprehensions may well en- 
 deavor to lend an earnest hand in the clearing process. 
 As many false inferences are often inadvertently 
 drawn from well-ascertained phenomena, and the sad fact 
 has often to be chronicled that sensitive persons are ac- 
 cused of fraudulent practices when they are entirely inno- 
 cent — it has become highly essential to pursue investiga- 
 tions into the complexity of our human nature to an 
 extent positively bewildering to the average reader. The 
 Society for Psychical Research, being constituted almost 
 exclusively of well-educated men and women, including 
 many distinguished specialists, has quite inevitably an- 
 noyed and perplexed many sincere Spiritualists and others 
 who desire very simple and straightforward explanations 
 of all phases of psychic phenomena. But however anx- 
 ious painstaking scientific investigators may be to gratify 
 this natural desire, they find themselves quite unable to 
 do so by reason of the complicated character of the phe- 
 nomena they observe and the frequent general unrelia- 
 bility of sensitives who manifest at times, quite undenia- 
 bly, their possession of unusual powers or gifts. The 
 theories of dual, and even multiple, personality industri- 
 ously exploited in certain quarters often seem vague and 
 unsatisfying, and they fail to account for a considera- 
 ble portion of arresting phenomena of special interest to 
 men of the calibre of Sir Oliver Lodge, who often makes 
 good a case for simplicity of statement, and has often said 
 that he is convinced that even though it may be but occa- 
 sionally, and then under certain difficulties, we do get real 
 
210 OUR NEXT STEP FORWARD. 
 
 communications from human entities who have passed 
 through the change called death. 
 
 Though complex theories, suggested by learned men 
 who are authorities in certain fields of scientific investi- 
 gation, are always interesting and worthy of careful con- 
 sideration, a far simpler view of phenomena taken by a 
 so-called "man in the street" may be after all more nearly 
 true, for the more we study the workings of the universe 
 the more convinced must we become that there is. no 
 unnecessary complexity anywhere, but that everything is 
 run on the simplest lines possible, compatible with the 
 perfect execution of an entirely harmonious plan. Such 
 at least is the view taken by Professor Alfred Russel 
 Wallace in his magnificent work, The World of Life, and 
 by many other distinguished naturalists who study nature 
 at first hand. 
 
 A false idea of what constitutes dignity leads many 
 people to suppose that, if there is any real communica- 
 tion with unseen spheres of intelligent entities, it must 
 all be of a very serious and almost formidable character, 
 whereas from all the evidence we can gain we are led 
 to conclude that the Bishop of London was quie justified 
 when he said we had no valid ground for imagining that 
 we should be inwardly different five minutes after physical 
 dissolution from what we were five or ten minutes earlier. 
 It is sach sayings as these which serve, at least in some 
 slight degree, to clear away much of the unnaturalness 
 of conventional notions concerning the unseen universe. 
 Why there should be fear of unseen influences per se is 
 rather difficult to explain, unless we admit that dread 
 of the unknown, simply because it is unknown, is an 
 almost universal human experience. Judging by all ac- 
 counts of actual or alleged spiritual visitants through 
 the literature of many ages, we can only surmise that 
 they were usually accustomed to appear nearly in ordi- 
 nary human guise, and very often if their appearance dif- 
 fered in any way from the ordinary it was far more 
 beautiful and attractive. "Young men clad in white and 
 shining raiment" constitutes a familiar Biblical descrip- 
 tion of angels, and such a description carries nothing 
 alarming with it, but quite the reverse. 
 
 Nowhere in Sacred Scriptures does there seem to be 
 any suggestion made that we are at the mercy of diabol- 
 
OUR NEXT STEP FORWARD. 211 
 
 ical entities unless, as in the case of "lying prophets," 
 we have opened ourselves to infernal influx, by encour- 
 aging in ourselves those dispositions which render our 
 own state congenial to those deceiving entities, who may 
 readily co-operate with us in mischief if our own desires 
 and general tendencies are mischievous. With celestial 
 angels, or any class of intelligences far beyond our pres- 
 ent levels, we have probably but little to do so far as our 
 consciousness is concerned, and most of us can sympa- 
 thize heartily with the sentiment expressed by Dr. Joseph 
 Parker (for over thirty years minister of the City Tem- 
 ple, London) who shortly after the transition of his be- 
 loved wife said publicly that he cared far more to know 
 that he could communicate with Emma Parker than with 
 a whole host of unknown angels. Considering the source 
 whence that remark proceeded, it is extremely significant, 
 for Dr. Parker represented Evangelical Christianity, the 
 advocates of which are usually supposed to look askance 
 at all that is allied with Spiritualism. The truth of the 
 matter is that human instincts in time of real emotion 
 are far too strong to be suppressed by aught that is 
 unreasonable in codified theology; it therefore comes 
 to pass, that, when suffering from a deeply felt bereave- 
 ment, practically every one has the same feeling about 
 the desirability of helpful and comforting spiritual com- 
 munion. The altogether baseless assumption that we are 
 radically changed by dropping the robe of flesh receives 
 no support whatever from any logical scientific inference, 
 nor can it be sustained by an appeal to aught that is 
 reasonable or edifying in religion. Swedenborg's declara- 
 tions concerning the perfect naturalness of the "world of 
 spirits'' are quite creditable, though many inferences de- 
 lived from even so great a seer's clairvoyance may be 
 inaccurate if we assume that conditions immediately fol- 
 i owing physical dissolution are as long-continuing as peo- 
 ple often conclude. Very much, indeed, depends upon our 
 general view of the inside of human nature, when we 
 soberly discuss what must be the next step immediately 
 following our present physical existence; and it is always 
 exactly at this point that the roads divide, separating 
 optimistic from pessimistic theorizers. Where there is 
 no definite knowledge and people insist upon theorizing, 
 they cannot do other than base their conclusions upon 
 
212 OUR NEXT STEP FORWARD. 
 
 the views of human nature which they definitely enter- 
 tain; for this reason it must of necessity follow that, 
 if it be granted that we simply continue to live, minus 
 our discarded physical envelope, the manner of our exist- 
 ence must be an outgrowth of our interior condition. 
 
 Nothing can be truer or simpler than the phrase found 
 in widely circulating Jewish liturgies (vide American 
 Union Prayer Book): "Death does not annihilate the 
 spirit, but liberates it." Now the question instantly 
 arises, who or what is that spirit that is liberated? We 
 are probably in most instances possessed of much more 
 interior goodness than is outwardly exhibited, and, were 
 we given all possible opportunity for manifesting that 
 latent goodness, we should surprise all our neighbors by 
 appearing at a much greater advantage than we appeared 
 when surrounded by trying and conflicting terrestrial lim- 
 itations. We should not be intrinsically any better or 
 nobler than before, but our formerly concealed nobility 
 would be revealed. In like manner also, if it be sup- 
 posed that we have secreted vicious tendencies within us 
 during an earthly life-time, which for prudential reasons 
 we did not allow to manifest, our post-mortem condition 
 would appear far inferior morally to our previous outward 
 manifestation on earth. 
 
 A fair consideration of the foregoing will throw much 
 needed light on what is often difficult to understand in 
 the writings of Swedenborg and in the testimonies of 
 other earlier and later seers. Communion with spiritual 
 entities must depend very largely indeed upon interior 
 sympathy, and very little, if at all, on the fact of previous 
 acquaintanceship, for actual outward associations are not 
 always provocative of friendship, but often quite the re- 
 verse. To catch even a single intelligible glimpse of what 
 must be the chief regulating factor in spiritual inter- 
 course, we must imagine a state of society in which rela- 
 tionships are immensely more voluntary than they can 
 generally be on earth at present, and we must also take 
 into account the obvious inference that distance as we 
 know it on earth is not spiritually a separating barrier. 
 That eminently philosophic writer, Dr. John James Garth 
 Wilkinson, used a singularly expressive phrase, while 
 seeking to explain Swedenborg, when he said that in the 
 spiritiiLi world we could not be conscious of "stated 
 
OUR NEXT STEP FORWARD. 213 
 
 places," as on earth, but that we should find ourselves 
 in "spaced states." To simplify that profound saying 
 and put it into quite common-place language, we may say 
 that societies in a spiritual state of existence are consti- 
 tuted through the manifest operation of what Goethe 
 called "elective affinity." When this consideration re- 
 ceives something like the amount of attention its im- 
 portance deserves, we shall soon be able to account for 
 the many apparent discrepancies which baffle inquirers 
 very early in their physical investigations. What one 
 communicating entity declares is well known in the spirit 
 world, another knows nothing whatever about, and the 
 iyro in psychical research quite naturally asks who is to 
 be believed. When we advise the acceptance of the testi- 
 mony of all alike as a simple record of individual experi- 
 ence, be is at first mystified and cannot understand how 
 such widely conflicting testimonies can be unified, but 
 after submitting the case to sober philosophic reasoning 
 he soon comes to the decision that every testimony may 
 be true to the actual experience of the testifier, who 
 cannot speak for others than himself and those whose 
 similar condition causes them to share his experiences. 
 Take as an illustration the widely conflicting testi- 
 monies offered concerning animals and no animals in spirit 
 Hfe. At first it seems incredible that contradictory declar- 
 ations are alike true, but it may yet be discovered that 
 these opposite testimonies come, in the one case, from 
 those who have such sympathy that they perceive animals 
 and enjoy association with them, and, in the other case, 
 from those who have no sympathy with animals and 
 therefore see nothing of them. We all know that much 
 that gives great pleasure to some people on earth is a 
 source of annoyance to others, and, had. all these differ- 
 ent pei sons an entirely free hand to regulate their sur- 
 roundings, their respective environments would be widely 
 diverse. Supposing now that they can and do regulate 
 their surroundings in spirit life to a far greater extent 
 than they ever found it possible on earth — seeing that 
 the matter of the astral realm is far more pliable than 
 the much grosser matter of the physical plane, and this 
 also applies fully to the relative transportability at will 
 of our astral and physical bodies respectively — the case 
 is quite easily established for the equal veracity of dif- 
 
214 OUR NEXT STEP FORWARD. 
 
 ferent testifiers, describing their own relative and neces- 
 sarily very limited experiences after physical dissolution, 
 it is only from higher spheres, where intelligence is much 
 more extensive, that we can derive information so wide- 
 embracing that it solves riddles instead of creating puz- 
 zles, and though the very highest circles surrounding this 
 planet — and indeed comprising its widest spiritual region 
 — are accessible to all who provide necessary conditions 
 for consciously approaching them, it is only with com- 
 parative rarity that our aspirations rise into such exalted 
 states as to make communion with them a known fact in 
 our psychical experience. 
 
 A very definite word needs frequently to be uttered 
 concerning the pros and cons of common methods of at- 
 tempting communion with unseen entities, for there are 
 said to be grave dangers confronting all who rashly seek 
 to peer through the mystic veil which hides the spirit 
 world from ordinary mundane vision. It can never be 
 desirable to subject one's self blindly and unreservedly 
 to unknown forces, and it must always be dangerous to 
 seek any kind of intercourse with the spirit world for 
 unworthy and unrighteous ends; but, that point settled, 
 there still remains a very wide uncertain territory where 
 we need to exercise reasonable caution, but where we may 
 Jearn to make investigations profitably as well as safely, 
 provided our intentions are invariably upright and we 
 never permit ourselves to yield foolishly to promptings 
 from the unseen, as though whatever proceeded from a 
 mysterious region was necessarily of great importance 
 and altogether trustworthy. Ordinary clairvoyance, psy- 
 chometry, and kindred demonstrations of limited medium- 
 istic capacity are not now as definite as we hope they will 
 become in the near future, and many of them are of only 
 very slight evidential value. There are, however, many 
 instances occurring where some very useful light is thrown 
 on psychic matters, and many more where comparatively 
 trivial incidents have served to pave the way for much 
 more important results that quickly followed. 
 
 Let us picture a scientific man, hard-headed and 
 avowedly agnostic, but fair-minded, consulting a clair- 
 voyant with a view to recovering his favorite dog which 
 has strayed from home. Many people entertain such 
 stilted and stupid notions about the spirit world that 
 
OUR NEXT STEP FORWARD. 215 
 
 they seem to be quite shocked at the idea of using clair- 
 voyance for any such mundane purpose, quite forgetful, 
 if they respect the Bible, that so great a prophet as 
 Samuel in no way rebuked young men who inquired of 
 him as to the whereabouts of missing donkeys. Our 
 agnostic inquirer may be a very kind-hearted, truth-seek- 
 ing man who is actuated by two noble motives when he 
 consults the seer, one of which is to find the lost animal, 
 which may be suffering, and in danger from the emissaries 
 of vivisectors, and the other a sincere desire to test the 
 claims of clairvoyance with a view to proving, if possi- 
 ble, that there really is a psychic faculty of which he 
 has heard much, but which he has never yet seen demon- 
 strated.. Our advice to the clairvoyant is to find the 
 dog, if possible, and we stoutly maintain that to do so 
 is to perform a lawful and even praiseworthy act. But 
 should any one approach a clairvoyant seeking to make 
 mischief in a family or in any way obtain information to 
 the detriment of others, if that clairvoyant wishes to 
 attract only safe and desirable psychic influences, a point- 
 blank refusal must at once be given. 
 
 Moral aspects of any case are always far more import- 
 ant than physical, and as our relation with unseen enti- 
 ties is primarily and ultimately based in the realm of in- 
 tention, if we resolve always to act with honorable mo- 
 tives only, and to serve upright causes exclusively, we 
 can go forward with psychical investigation loyally and 
 fearlessly, because we have unreservedly consecrated 
 whatever gifts or endowments we possess to the service 
 of righteousness, which must ever include the genuine 
 scientific enlightenment of the whole human race. 
 
IAN 2 1912