t THE TEMpLE OF Tp R0$Y Cl(0$. ftfl* Souf; ITS POWERS, MIGRATIONS, AND TRANSMIGRATIONS. SECOND EDITION. Revised and Enlarged. By F. B. DOWD, HEMPSTEAD, TEXAS. SFP 101888 . r " For these things that appear delight us. but make the thing's that ar^pear hard to believe ; or the things that appear nob are hard to believe." —Hermes /£ 1888. ROSY CROSS PUBLISHING CO. SAN FRANCISCO, CAL. \ Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1SS2, by F. B. DOWD, Texas, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. Right of Translation Reserved. '?£$>\CCAmen-r CoOu SAN FRANCISCO: PRESS OF DEMPSTER BROS: 1333. CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION. PAGE. The Supernatural . CHAPTER I. Principles of Nature 20 CHAPTER II. Life 28 CHAPTER III. The Unnatural 33 CHAPTER IV. Body and Spirit .... 39 CHAPTER V. Mind 49 CHAPTER VI. ■ Divine Mind and Body \ . 61 CHAPTER VII. G ENERATION OF MlND 70 CHAPTER VIII. Attributes of Mind — Belief and Hope 79 CHAPTER IX. Knowledge — (Attributes of Mind — Continued) 90 CHAPTER X. Eaith and Knowledge 103 CHAPTER XL The Soul 113 CHAPTER XII. Migration .\m> Transmigration 127 CHAPTEB XIII. I'm: Wn.i , 140 CHAPTER XIV. The Voluntary and Involuntary Powers 159 CHAPTER XV. Will-Culture 165 CHAPTER XVI. S< >UL-PoWERS AND SPIRITUAL GrIFTS 194 CHAPTER XVII. Spirituality 215 CHAPTER XVIII. • • Rosicrucije" 226 DEDICATION. To John Heaney, of Buckley, Iroquois County, Illinois — him of the great soul, lofty mind, and loving heart — " Door of the Temple of the Rosy Cross " — are these pages most respectfully and lovingly dedicated, by The Author. PREFACE. To provoke thought, and thus lift the world out of the rut into which it has fallen, the following pages have been written. The soul is no common or vulgar thing; and all approximation thereto, in thought, must be transcendental. This work claims to contain the fundamental principles of all religion* — the philosophy of manhood, and the road leading to a true life and immortality, here, on this poor, much abused earth. " This is a matter-of-fact age," and " the day of miracles has passed. " That is. those things which unaccountably happen, which were formerly ascribed to God, have come a little nearer home, and are now ascribed to nature. What satisfaction there is in a name, especially to children! The superstition of the past, and of the stars, narrowed down to that of " the ape" and " the mud!' Instead of the facts of observation, I have attempted those of logic and common sense. Darwin and Huxley have narrowed the mind down to a contemplation of the mud (" protoplasm" ) but I call you to a contemplation of man and his possibilities. / came, and found this beautiful earth fanned by the breath of deadly poison, which men, in the very agony of breathing, call life. / go ; but in going, I would leave it a little purer for having been here. I am satisfied that man is the architect of* himself, and of all conditions, from " protoplasm" up; and it has been my effort to stir him upward to the creation of things worthy of himself. This year, 1881, is the close of an epoch in the world's history. It will, indeed, be sad, if we follow in the bloody track of our forefathers downward. We have now an opportunity, next year, of cutting loose the shackles that chain us to the corpse of the past. Shall we make the attempt? Reader, study these pages; the great ideas are merely shadowed, and are left crude and bare of detail, for you to clothe as your mind shall open to the grasping. Do not deny what I have written, without a full and clear comprehension of the ideas. It is not claimed that this work is wholly Rosicrucian. The sublime principles of this fraternity are not conveyed in this manner; but enough is given to enable the thoughtful and earnest searcher after truth to get a glimpse o\ the glory hidden, even now. as in the past. 1; is not the lond Bounding bells of a sabbath morning, nor the roaring gans and voices; neither is the high-toned oratory of the officiating priest, true worship: neither is it the means, however charming and gratifying, which move the infinite to the answering of prayer. Remember, " silenee is strength;'' noise confuses. It is "an empty sound," which silence comprehends not, or in the comprehension of it, - it. The unwavering, persistent, incomprehensible (by us) thought, is the sustaining and noiseless moving poAver of the universe; and he who hath most of it is the most prayer-answering God, and in and by virtue thereof he is the greatest prayer. F. B. DOWD. INTRODUCTION THE SUPEENATUEAL. In this matter-of-fact age the existence of God is seriously questioned by the greatest thinkers. The reason is obviously in the definitions which the religious world — more especially the Christian — gives to the term. The very nature of reason precludes the idea of the existence of a Thing above, separate and apart from the relationship of things. Eeason cannot transcend its own source,, That which is seen and known as nature — it being an infinitude of objects and phenomena — is considered as sufficient. And to reason and observation it does seem so. But if we under- take an analysis of this thing we call nature, we shall find it fully as remarkable and as contradictory as to suppose a Supreme Being as its maker. The antipathies of things show no one source. There seems, even to broad and deep reason, two principles at war with each other; equally so to the fool they appear. One cannot be the cause of the other — nor can they be self-adjusting and regulating. Why? Because to us — not even to our reason — no thing is self- existent nor self- supporting. Everything in existence is dependent upon something else. If there is an exception to this, it cannot be a Thing. If we pass by things in our thought, and descend to princi- ples, they also are dual and antagonistic. To suppose Good to be the principle, and evil its mere effect, is an absurdity, for one is as real as the other; and 10 INTRODUCTION. evil is as much the cause of good as good is the cause of evil. We are so constituted that definitions are a necessity of all growth, intellectual as well as physical. All nature is an ■it to define itself. But what is it that is defining itself in this warfare of elements — this clashing of interests ? Is it not something hidden away alike from feeling or observa- tion and reason? The things or principles that clash are patent — we think we know them. All are conversant therewith, from the 1 Dwest worm that crawls, to the loftiest intelligence; whether it be named pleasure and pain, or God and the Devil, or positive and negative. But that something — which is struggling up out of the rock, water, air, and mud, into forms of beauty, use and deformity— as if to make itself known in multitudinous ways — what of it ? Suppose we name it power! It is neither positive nor negative — neither good nor evil— but in the definition of itself becomes either good or bad, or indifferent. Power is that which supports all things, and we can well say it is neutral, for in itself there is no duality. But pause a moment and think; even power has its antagonist — weak- - ! Is there the iveakriess of nothing ? Is power limited to things, or even to principles ? Again : where can weakness be found save in things ? So power and weakness must be an attribute of things ; but where they come from is unknown. But what is a principled If we can grasp a principle we have a foundation upon which to stand. It is as easy to define a thing as a principle. A principle is that which is self- existent. There can be only one thing in existence that is not derived from something else. What if it be a formless and boundless ocean! having nothing that can bo predicated of INTRODUCTION. 11 things — neither fire nor that other thing that extinguishes fire; but perhaps a fire, by the side of which the sun is black — or a light the opposite of our daylight, by the side of which the night and the day are alike — in which worlds float like specks, or as aninialculae in water. We call good a principle, when it is only our tuay of estimating the phenomena of life. Think you there is any good where there is no sense to feel ? So good and evil, being only oar estimate, of that which we sense — it is our product and must belong to us — and ive are the principle after all. We judge by reason of sense. Then may not sense be that formless, unchangeable, infinite something that is not a thing — that hidden and undefinable fire whose sparks are our thoughts, and whose warmth is our life ? A fire, whose quenching by the Infinite will gives forms of matter in the cooling — to be fanned into a blaze by a breath of his life — things all luminous within, darkened outwardly as if by a contraction of the sense ? May not sense be the Infinite substance of all space ? in which thought is as the rolling of worlds — and it, pulsating with motions and emotions, whispers and voices that do not strike upon our dull senses — so stupid are we. Even our atmosphere pulsates as a breath, and the ether vibrates to every voice or thought, and the " aching void," far beyond all suns, worlds and universes — that void of nothingness where God is enthroned as " the over- soul" of all — even there the tremblings of thought and feeling meet an answer- ing response! What do we know after all ? We know this : It is sense that is trying to define itself in this contradictory manner we call nature. Out of it and into it come so-called princi- ples, laws and things — as the breath going out and coming in. It is the actor, the cause, the source of a mighty river called life. 12 [NTRODUOTION. There are other senses of which we have never dreamed — the unknown is beyond the known. How small and weak is the latter compared to the former! How small the possible in comparison to the impossible! Is the Supernatural the impossible ? Then how great and vast it must be! It is natural to grow in knowledge, but the things unknown are infinite — they are all in our igno- rance. How vast it is compared to our knowledge! Is Ignorance the Supernatural ? The light that flows from the sun is small compared to the limitless darkness that hovers around its radius. Is the DARKNESS the SUPERNATURAL ? The above is greater than the below. Is it to be wondered at that men have universally looked up to God ? However vast nature may be there is something still above it, which, although incomprehensible, still has an existence to every thinking mind. My nature is limited by my knowledge of myself and my relationship to others. So nature is a limited thing, as my mind is my limit. May not this nature, after all, be merely a mental product as the good and evil of it is? A mental product! not of one, or even of a race, but of all minds in unison! Is all nature outside of us, or is it tvithin, as a wondrous mystery hidden in our ignorance. Is not the impossible within us, the same as weakness, and ignorance, and darkness ? Education is nothing but the opening of a " door,' 1 or the lighting of a lamp in a dark place, through which things before unknown appear to us as the possible, and are very simple. The circumstances of our lives are all within us, as the possibilities of our natures, but hidden from us in our ignorance, till our acts flow out as a light, showing us INTRODUCTION. 1 3 merely a few things of the many still lying back in the infinite darkness of the unexplored beyond. The hidden is infinite. We are hidden from ourselves, and know not the wondrous powers lying back of our smallness. Even we are astonished at the wondrous skill of this thing we call man, which is but the supernatural revealing itself to us. It is very close to us — possibly it may be us ! hidden from us, as all things are hidden from the infant's closed eyes. I feel so, at least at times, when I forget the narrow limits of this life, and it is my effort herein to show what acts are the greatest lights in this infinite darkness of ignorance, so that peradventure some one more gifted than 1, may possibly surprise the Supernatural himself some day with the torch, lighted not by man. It may be an idle task to search for God, but he has given us questioning minds, and every instinct of nature prompts us to ask, " Who and what is God?" and I realize that the world grows by each apparent or pretended solu- tion of it. Possibly God joins himself to us in this way from out the shoreless darkness of our own natures. The first letters of God's alphabet is nature. They are multitudinous — for each object is a letter. Yv'hat is the word? " The word of God" is the sense of all these things when reduced back from the contradictions of multiplicity to one. It then becomes intelligible to sense of a limited capacity. For nothing less than infinity can comprehend the meaning of all things. But the sense of the finite mind is the same as that of the infinite mind. All things are in one, and exist in it and of it, but not feom it. In this infinite variety of things — this multiplicity of objects — this division of the one — the mind goes back in search of the first principle, the foundation from which 1 1 INTRODUCTION. they all spring. This infinite principle of power is sense* The vast oceans of space pulsate with sense. The worlds, suns, stars and objects of space are each and all held 'ether and kept in place by sense. All things are sus- Lded in an ocean of sense. Nay! things are sense — and isible, if the darkness would roll from off our souls. Sense is the only thing in existence that comprehends things. To comprehend is to enclose, or envelop. God reveals himself to the sense of things. In fact, he is sense itself. God exists not as an objective, but as a subjective being — not separate and apart from nature, but as the creative principle thereof, residing in ail and permeating all that is. In this view the supernatural becomes comprehensible. It 13 the soul of nature and objects: hence God is objectified in his works. He who looks for God as an object to worship will find many on the road to power, but he who looks for God within himself will feel the fullness of satisfaction and power, which God gives to all who love the good and true. That which is unchangeable is supernatural and eternal. In nature things are mutable. Matter may be divided till there is nothing left of it. Analyze a thing, and you have nothing left of it save a little dross. Take a chair for example. "What is it ? A few pieces of wood put together for use. Take it to pieces and the chair vanishes. Burn the wood and we have ashes. Melt the ashes and we have some other substances to which science gives names. But where and what is the chair ? Is it a mere name ? or is it a substance? It is an effect — a result of the combination of pieces of wood. If it is an effect, where and what is the --use? I answer, the chair was first an idea conceived in the mind of some man. and came out of the man, and was INTRODUCTION. 15 formed in matter for use. But the real chair is an idea, and hence it is as indestructible as man himself. The same is true of all things that man makes. They come out of man as the light of his intelligence illuminates the darkness of his ignorance, wherein infinity exists. Nature is matter, motion and space, but the sense of it is the supernatural. It interprets itself, as I am feebly try- ing to do. Each man must interpret for himself, and his interpretation will be himself merely, as the sense of his mind illumines the darkness within. Space is a vaccuum in which things exist in motion or in sense. It is the " over-soul," and comprehends or includes all. This is the supernatural. The sense of a thing gives it motion, and in motion things gestate, as in a womb, and grow, or become materialized. At the centre of things there are no things, neither is there any motion there. Perfection and stagnation exist at the centre. The centre is a vaccuum, and is the soul All worlds wheel around centres, and centres are souls, and souls are Gods. In God (" The Over- Soul" ) all things are possible — in nature, where soul is a centre, the impossi- ble exists, because here is ignorance, darkness and weakness. " He who limits things by his narrow sense is a fool," says Hargrave Jennings, one of England's great Rosicru- cians; and I say, whoever limits the possible shows his weakness and want of comprehension. We do not know what exists in nature. We know very little, and what little we know is a damage to us, save as it shows us our weakness and the power and infinitude of the possible. To return to ideas. We are as we think: ideas rule and govern all action and all growth. Ideas are souls — entities of all being- unchangeable and indestructible; they exist in the spirit; INTRODUCTION. the atmosphere is the spirit of the earth, and in it are the souls of vegetation having been evolved from the earth. They hover around, and when conditions are favorable they descend according to the law of attraction and affinity, and spring up in the soil as vegetation. Vegetation does not depend altogether upon seeds, it springs spontaneously from the earth. To illustrate: when a young man, my father burned several coal pits on one I during the winter; the next fall, in passing by, I saw ral plants, commonly called the Mullen, growing in the old coal bed. The Mullen 'plant was unknown in that part of the country previously. A man in Northern Iowa dug a well over one hundred feet in depth. The great pile of clay lay there in the sunlight and darkness, wept o^er by dew and rain, scorched in summer and froze in winter, till the next year it produced a crop of weeds that were not to be found anywhere in all the country round about. It is a well known fact to the pioneers of the wilderness of northern Pennsylvania (and, I suppose, to other woo 1- lands) that on a newly- cleared piece of woodland when the soil is killed by burning, "fire-weeds" spring up almost as thick as the hair on an animal's back. There is such a thing as chemical affinity; and the ear h being prepared by heat or in any other manner mak js " conditions'' for new or old forms of vegetation to come into existence. The earth's atmosphere is all alive wrf h i leas — ideas of vegetables, animals and men — all waiti g for favorable conditions to enable them to be born ir 3 existence. Ideas are infinite in number and variety, correspond^" j to all conditions from mineral up to man. They are 3 soul -life and volition of matter, and they enter into mat r at every point where conditions are favorable. A scientist told me the other day that a drop of nit :ic INTRODUCTION. 17 acid applied to a piece of fresh broken granite rock, revealed under the microscope numerous living beings similar to animalculse found in stagnant water. " This," said he, "proves that the solid rock is full of life." But it proves no such thing. It simply shows that the union of the acid with the rock produced motion there, and wherever there is motion there is a magnetic current, and forms having life spring into existence — not that they were any more in the reck than in the acid, or that of necessity they were in either. I hold that all forms are ideas materialized, that ideas are eternal, but forms are evanescent. The sunlight gives color to vegetation; color is an idea, but, although the foundation of color may reside in the mineral of plants, yet we all know that the sun develops it. A child develops in utero, but who does not know that the soul comes through the father? Matter is the mother; spirit is the father. In every atom of matter is a vacuum — else there would be no attraction — for matter crowds upon vacuum and hence takes form, and vacuum is the womb of matter, into which ideas are attracted whenever moved by a magnetic current. All life and organization are dependent upon this current, and this is dependent upon the formation of a magnet, or the union of the positive and negative, the acid and alkali, the father and mother. As spirit is the father, and as ideas (souls) come from the Father, so does spirit baptize matter, impregnating it. 'Gtod is a spirit." So the super- natural is a spirit, and will beget itself in matter whenever conditions are favorable. It is upon exactly the same principle as the generation of mosquitoes in stagnant water. Low weak forms are generated in low conditions. Ideas, being soul, are food for souls. Hence man grows s INTRODUCTION. in creative and original power through his reception of ideas. Ideas take root in the soil of man's mind according to its condition, exactly as vegetation springs up in the soil of the earth. If the soil be poor the vegetation will be inferior. If the mind be low and vulgar, the ideas attracted will be inferior; but ideas of whatever grade or kind are a creative power. There is a spontaneity of mind as well as of earth. That which springs up of itself is generally weeds, but the most delicious fruits are produced by effort — culture. The higher the culture, the nearer the approxima- tion to the supernatural. To show the road thereto is my object. Look you at the burrowing worm, and at the soaring eagle! Step up, slowly, laboriously, from the lowest form, step by step, to the highest form of life known on this planet — man. Do you stop here ? And because your poor sight sees no higher form will you deny its existence ? Do you see intelligence graded from the snail to the loftiest intellect, and then, by your narrow sense, limit gradation or power ? Behold the grass of the fields ! the lilies of the valley! Then look aloft, by day or by night, at the won- drous manifestation of an intelligent power, and blush in shame at your presumption. AVe grasp a little knowledge, a little of life, a little of spirit by the five senses, but the vital principles of science and of human action are only grasped by the loftiest reason. This is intuition. Are you a reasonable being, and yet limit God by denying him ? If so, your reason is of the lowest order; it is destructive; it is not GoD-like and creative. Analyze matter in the crucible of thought — dissect all forms with the scalpel of reason, and then when you are done with your work tell me what you know If your work has not inspired you with a love of the unknown mystery surrounding and dwelling within all things, you INTRODUCTION. 19 are an egotist. If you cavil at names you are a fool. Are you an artist ? Then take your inspirations from one who works eternally, and never makes a failure. Are you a mechanic ? Go study the suspension bridges the spider makes, and the comb of the honey bee, or the mechanism of a tree. I need not multiply words. Whatever you are, or whatever you aspire to be, the power is waiting for you — the patterns are spread out for your study. The supernatural is in all, and is subservient to our wishes. But it is our work to make conditions — these have no limit. There is no interference — you can be just what you like to be ; but growth is slow. Why hurry ? Is not eternity for us ? It is the hurry and worry of life that destroys power. Trouble and vexation destroy health and pleasure, and these are all there is of value. All things are suggestive, for they are ideas; they call us out or ourseivss to revel in the infinite. Is there no suggestion that comes to you, kind reader, of the superna- tural ? Is there no intuitive feeling that speaks to you of immortal undying power ? Do you not, in your better moods, long to drink at the fountain of life, pleasure and individuality ? If not, I am sorry for you. Ideas give fullness of life and pleasure — the greater the idea, the greater fullness and power. What idea is greater than the supernatural ? We talk glibly of the laws of nature, as if they were fixed and immutable ; but they are set aside by every habit which disgraces the race. Furthermore, modern times are rife with accounts of the dead appearing to the living, and of the living appearing as the dead: of levitation and the moving of substance without a motive power, etc., etc. The suspension of any one law of nature proves beyond all question that all are subject to the same power, and all may be suspended or rendered inoperative. CHAPTER I. PKINCIPLES OF NATTJKE. I believe in definitions ; but all definition is arbitrary. To define a thing is a creation. That nature exists is a certainty, but when we come to define it we shall find It not so simple. "We define things in order that we may understand each other. We speak of nature as if it was an entity — an individual thing. But the fact is, there are myriads of things and conditions in nature which are parts thereof. In all this diversity, there must be a something the intellect can seize upon as a fact upon which to stand while we search in this whirl of atoms and worlds for a stationary principle of being. To find that, which is common to all, is to find the real. If nature is divided into parts, it exists as a whole ; every part must have something common to the whole. To analyze a part is to analyze the whole, for the same laws inhere in an atom, as in a world. An atom exists by the same laws that the earth does ; and its modes of action are the same. The law whereby matter coheres and gathers together, is attraction. This is a binding force. But the law that dis- solves atoms, and throws them off, is the law of repulsion. These two — the positive and the negative — constitute the laws of motion. Everything exists by virtue of motion ; but there is a point where there is no motion. That point is the centre from whence motion takes its rise. . At the centre of the earth there is no up nor down, no positive nor negative ; it is simply vacant of these things — i. e. all things- exist here in solution, as it were — or conditionless. PRINCIPLES OF NATURE. 21 Things differ in nature. Shall we say, then, that nature does not exist because there are so many natures ? By no means : for there are two laws, acting in all conditions, which belong to that real nature which is the substratum. They flow out from it as the positive and negative flows from a magnet. As there is a neutral point between the positive and negative, a point where neither exists, so nature is a neutral ground lying between antagonistic forces. Nature may be likened unto a magnet, which, in itself, moves not, but sends out positive and negative forces. To a thing belongs motion and space ; without motion nothing could exist. It is motion that fills the void, and prevents nothing from asserting its sway. Things in motion must have space to move in ; so all things are triune in manifestation. A thing is composed of the visible and invisible ; one visible point is space in which it exists ; another is the thing itself ; but the third, or invisible point, is its motion. The earth and space surrounding it are visible, but its motions are invisible. It stands still, and we are always on the top. The soul of nature is motion, or rather, that which pro- duces motion. Hence, the third part of things, which is the most important part, is invisible. Matter, space and sense are the three things which constitute nature. Matter needs no definition. Space is known, and is relatively a vacuum ; but the sense thereof is known not by visibility. The relative proves the absolute, the same as a part proves the whole. A relative vacuum proves an absolute vacuum ; as relative sense proves an absolute sense. Existence is that which is visible, or that which comes en raport with visible things. The invisible and the un- known are the absolute. The nearer we approach the unknown the more we are entering the realm of power, and losing our hold on visible and tangible things. 22 PRINCIPLES OF NATUBli. The nature of a thing is its conditions, and these condi- tions are only its modes of action. As there are only two laws of action — if those laws are followed to their source we shall find nature herself totally stagnant and indifferent, as at the centre. The antagonists of nature are readily distinguished, — the male and the female, positive and negative, heat and cold, life and death, etc., etc. : wherever we look we find oppo- sites ; but the third, and most important part of everything is not so easily distinguished, and its existence often denied by pretended thinkers Body and mind are readily known, or matter and motion ; but the soul, or that which moves things is unknown. "We distinguish things by their differ- ence, but often fail to take into account that the conditions standing between, and incorporated into every atom of matter in existence, constitute the important factor of existence itself It is said that "Like attracts its like ;" that "Birds of a feather flock together," etc., etc. But this is a superficial view of this great subject. The great underlying principle of nature is, that opposites attract each other, and are bound together in inflexible chains. Like repels its like; but upon a close examination, things are not alike — they only resemble each other, and this little resemblance causes repulsion. The iceak is attracted to the strong. The sun holds the earth at arm's length by mere force, while the earth is attracted to the sun because it is the sun's child, and is growing upon nourishment the sun gives it. The sun is full, the earth empty — receptive. Atom piles upon atom, iron upon iron, wood fibre upon wood fibre, etc., but this is the law of growth, and not due to attraction solely, for growth is due to motion — attraction, repulsion, revolution. The sun PRINCIPLES OF NATURE. 23 pours upon our atmosphere a substance or force, of the nature of which we are totally ignorant. The near- est approach we can make to it is a prism of white light. This force produces such pressure upon the atmosphere as to cause heat in its passage through it. The first effect of this force is to strike a white light : as fire struck from flint by a blow, which becomes refracted or broken up in its passage through the atmosphere by reason of its resistance, thus refracted all the colors we know of are originated. This is the first form of matter, the first transmutation of spirit — the unknown into the known. But this transmuta- tion does not stop here ; light continues to condense upon vegetation, mineral, and all things in the processes of growth. All matter is but condensed sun light, and in its disintegration returns to its source, or at least goes into the atmosphere to be again hurled down into forms. Thus it may be seen that attraction or gravitation is the secondary principle in nature, as the feminine is in human nature ; and that evolution is secondary, while involution, repulsion or force are primary principles. We knew of seven colors, of all of which White is the Mother! What is the Father? Black, the Night! tho unfathomable, impenetrable darkness of spirit, out of which all things come. To illustrate: If it were possible to ascend to the outer edge of our atmosphere and gaze aloft? what would we behold? Nothing! An impenetrable black wall ! Why ? Because the human eye is constructed to see in our atmosphere, and not at all adapted to see in the ether which scientists teach lies between us and the sun ; — even supposing they knew, which they do not. So, from this darkness that " broods" over the deeps of creation — from out this abyss of spirit that overshadows all worlds, and that corresponds to the ignorance that overshadows all 2 4 TIUNCIPLES OF NATURE. minds — tlie iire of light is struck that is the life of all things — and is all things. As ignorance is darkness, so the night is in us, the cause of all our energy and intelligence. Light is a moving, creative force ; mind corresponds thereto. But light being struck out by the force of darkness, mind must originate from the ignorance in ourselves, or from that inertia or vacuum which is the centre of things. I am aware there is a class of thinkers who claim that there is no inertia, and that " nature abhors -a vacuum." This may be true, but it is far, very far, from evident. It is just as logical to claim that nature is " one vast whole," and that it is not made up of parts or conditions. I claim, that inertia is a condition in which no motion or life is vis- ible, or that is known ; and this is the dividing line between the two great contending powers, attraction and repulsion. Furthermore, I claim that a vacuum exists in matter — the source of its attractive and repulsive power, and that said vacuum is foreign to nature, i. e. a prisoner in conditions. Its efforts to free itself give rise to motions analogous to combustion. This is, indeed, the soul of things. That nature is a relentless, unfeeling, remorseless power, needs no argument. It moves on, regardless of the waste of worlds, or the sacrifice of life or forms. To nature, death is the same as birth, and it creates forms to destroy them. Xature suffers not, neither does she enjoy. Remove sen- sation from nature and it is neither good nor evil. The earth, water, air, electricity, the sun, moon and stars, with- out something to make comparisons, are all indifferently good or evil alike. There can be no good or evil save to things that suffer and enjoy. This indifference corresponds to ignorance, for PKINCIPLES OF NATURE. 25 out of indifferent nature comes all of life, even as knowl- edge springs from ignorance. Absolutely, nature exists only as sense, in which view we are nothing, and matter is nothing ; but we, as relative beings, know literally nothing of the absolute. Hence the folly of reasoning from an absolute standpoint. It is claimed, that evolution is the law of nature. This is partly true, for evolution is due to repulsion. Eepulsion is the first law of existence, and is the male principle, from which sprung the female principle, attraction. (See the allegory of Adam's rib.) All motion is circular ; and mat- ter thrown from a centre must return in time. There are no straight lines in existence. The returning current of a magnet is negative, or female. Revolution is the law of nature, inasmuch as it includes both repulsion and attraction. A circle is symbolic of eter- nity. The soul, in its efforts to free itself from conditions, projects a magnetic stream from itself, which describes a circle in its motion. As magnetism (or, more properly, spirit) moves in chaos — that part of the current which is negative or female — polarizes or combines matter from chaos — and thus peoples space with stars or worlds. The negative is the combining current. It is formative. The earth upon the same principle evolves spirit from itself, i. e., dissolves and throws off matter in a refined state, which in its return deposits the germs of vegetation, animals or man, upon and in the earth's surface, impreg- nating it, and they grow. Growth is simply motion or evolution of gross spirit from the material form, which constantly becomes more atten- uated and refined the further it is projected from the thing evolving it. Not an atom of matter is motionless ; it is being constantly stirred to its very center by the involution 26 PRINCIPLES OF NATURE. of spirit — or the unknown. Evolution! Indeed! It is not half of the truth. "What of involution? The earth, an unknown living creature, journeying through space, plunging eternally in a fathomless abyss, involved alternately in light and shadow, bathed in an ocean of influences, of stars and suns — is constantly evolving her atmosphere, and countless living, animate, conscious forms from herself. Apparently! I say apparently, for the fact is the opposite. Light is the Father, the earth is the Mother. Things descend as well as ascend. A child at birth, and prior thereto is involved in circumstances which slowly but most surely make the man and the woman. Evolved from the womb, but involved in the mother's love, in her influences, and the fathomless abyss of a strange and mysterious existence ! Surroundings most certainly deposit themselves upon us, as the sunlight and the dew does. There is revolution in everything. Birth (evolution), Growth (Involution), Decay (Revolution), Life {Circular Motion), from the unknown — a short journey — back to the unknown. Matter in combustion is life, but whence comes the light ? Like the light from a candle, refined matter is being evolved from natter, which radiates round about, and as constantly returns, bringing from the unknown something of the infinite to combine in forms of beauty and use. Transient and fleeting as these forms may be, they each and all contain souls struggling for freedom, and the ocean from whence they came, the stream of life, flows downward and not upward. God is above — but things being less are beneath. Causation is hidden in the bosom of mystery and the darkness of the impenetrable shadow; but effects follow the lights and flow on ever as worlds, suns, stars and human bein^. PRINCIPLES OF NATURE. 27 All matter, all life, all forms, and all mind is involved in an unfathomable mystery, which enters into existence in the light, taking form as matter and thought. If this were not so, matter would become less and less by its action ; for light is but the consumption of matter. The evolution of matter is the involution of God, which increases as light increases. But oh ! the mystery of the night surrounding us ! Who can fathom its depths ? Who can explore infinitude ? Things reside in the shadow from which they come stealthily into the light for a little time — then steal away into the shadow again. Man with his torch gropes his way slowly and with cautious steps in the thick darkness, and anon some gro- tesque shape comes partially in view — then disappears as if the light had dissolved it. The darkness, rendered more intense by the presence of light, crowds around before and behind ; and upon the confines of light — in the twilight of being — the formless takes form, and such as can bear the light march in serried columns along with man. The light we carry is what we have learned. It enables us to see and define that which otherwise were formless. CHAPTER II. LIFE. To define life, is to live : for in our efforts to define a thing or principle, we unconsciously become like that which we attack. Analysis without definition is destruction. To define life is a herculean task. Life is a manifestation of something having power to feel which resides in an organ- ization. All things visible are simply effects of some hidden cause — causes are always hidden. The true mode of reasoning is from effects towards causes, which, receding as we advance, we only approximate. Life, as we understand it, is a result of the union of soul and spirit. It is impossible to tell what a thing is ; any word or name that expresses what we mean is the best we can do. The Word of God is the meaning of God ; and the word of Life is the significance thereof, which is the object of this book. It is the desire of every earnest person to know why we are here ; and in order to answer the question, it is better to explain modes of action than to multiply names. I look upon life as matter and spirit in union or in motion or sense ; for all motion is the cause of union of atoms. As I have said before, motion is the soul or sense of things. The laws of motion are the laws of combustion, for they are the same. Everything reminds us of the fire out of which we came, and to which all things return in the last analysis. LIFE. 29 To find a something common to all forms of matter — animate and inanimate — is to find that real nature I am trying to define ; that will be a fact as real as existence itself ; that fact is that which we feel and know. In other words, that perception of life which comes through the five senses, and not through that higher or intellectual sense. By virtue of these five senses the earth appears as an undulating plain, with the sun rising, moving over head, and setting at night. We are always on the top of the earth, and the heavens are above. No mode of reasoning can make us feel that we are half of the time underneath — or standing out sideways in space. That this is owing to our relationship to the earth I freely admit, but the knowledge we have gained through the exercise of the higher intellect sets aside the basic facts of existence, and proves them a delusion of sense. Now which is correct ? May not the facts of intellect be a delusion of sense, also? There is no absoluteness in man, save his existence. These same senses cause us to feel pleasure and pain. Are they real, or is it a delusion of sense? These senses tell us of the up and the down, and the reversal of ourselves is death. We instinctively love pleasure, which we call good, and elevate it as God. But we dread pain, and avoid it as the devil, which is low down and to be kept down, if possible. Reason as you will, sail around the globe, explore space and measure the stars, and then teach that there is no high and no low, no good nor evil, no up nor down ; but still common sense remains — as nature remains— a solemn protest against the light of the intellect as a guide to those deep and fundamental principles of existence ; which to be of any value must bring pleasure instead of pain. Human reason leads the soul to nothing ; while the universal instinct warns man of the evils of pain and death — as if 30 LIFE. : reative genius lias planted in man a something in which brute shares — that causes him to dread death, and to value life. And furthermore an instinct tells him of a nature long since forgotten, save in legend ; of the unnatural state in which he now lives, or rather suffers, and of a supernat- ural state to which he may attain. The common sense of atoms teaches them to lie still in their places in obedience to attraction, and the same teaches them to fly when set free by repulsion. The same laws make all things related, and all life one homogeneous whole. AYe are relative beings, and as such, logic, to be of any use, must be relative also. Common sense corresponds t j indifference or to inertia, because it is ignorance. But what is the knowledge worth which destroys common sense and the naturalness of things? That which destroys nature destroys happiness. YTho so bold as to assert that the wisdom of man adds to his happiness ? The first manifestation of nature is law or action, which is two-fold, as I have stated. This must be nature, which, as a cause, is superior to effects, as an artist is superior to his works. Man, as an effect of nature, is inferior ; but God, who is the Author of nature, is superior to all. Nature cannot be infinite, for it is particled, and is bounded and limited as a whole. There can be only one thing in exist- ence as an absolute entity. The word is superior to the letters composing it, but the sense is superior to both. Thoughts are letters of an un- known alphabet, nature is the word, God is the sense. That which destroys the word takes away the sense. The thought of the age is that there is no God ; such is the unnatural- ness of man. The life-principle is one homogeneous whole ; it cannot LIFE. 31 be particled ; it is the same in worm as in man. The little life of one thing is just ' as potent, and as great for that thing, as the greater life is for another. If the life of one thing is immortal, then all life is. But the life may be beaten out of a thing by processes, to be explained here- after, so that it, as a thing, has no self-supporting power. Everything is dual — "Male and female created he them," — darkness and light, ignorance and intelligence, cold and heat, evil and good, opposites, antagonists, all go hand in hand — inseparable. There is nothing known but has its opposite ; and one being given, the other may be found close at hand. Furthermore, the third thing, that which makes the triangle of imperfection, resides always within the two visible parts. Two things being placed side by side are said to be in contact ; but there is always something between them, which prevents them from becoming one, for absolute contact is oneness. That which separates things is condition. Distance is condition. If all things were in like condition, they would fuse and blend so that all form would be lost. This third thing — that is not a thing — this something intangible and immaterial, I call the soul of things ; for by virtue of it things exist and have motion. Distance is space, and space is a vacuum. Hence all forms have souls, for there is a condition or distance between all forms. That which is visible and tangible has its antag- onist or opposite. Its antagonist is that which destroys it, and not that which sustains it. Indifferent nature is antag- onized by life. All life which has volition preys upon and sustains itself by that which has no volition. This is very evident in herbivorous animals, but not quite so evident in the carnivora ; though when we stop to consider that the flesh of the sheep is due to vegetation, upon which it lives, it becomes evident how the wolf feeds upon vegetation 3 2 LIFE. which lias gone through a chemical change in the form of the sheep. After death all things are indifferent. Flesh is as indifferent after death as vegetation. Nature, then, being visible, has its visible antagonist. The antagonist of nature being life, the highest type of life calls for our attention: that is, man. CHAPTER III. THE UNNATURAL. What is man ? He is the highest form known, contain- ing in himself the greatest quantity of life, the most intel- ligence, the greatest will, the most creative power, and the only unnatural thing in existence. Indifferent nature corresponds to darkness, ignorance J weakness, want of power. The ancient philosophers called the earth "the egg of the night." Out of darkness all things come. Ignorance is the mother of all conditions ; in ignorance we begin this life, and struggle towards the light of intelligence ; from the miasmatic swamps of ignorance come all conditions that we war against. A certain form contains a certain amount of life, and wherever there is conscious life there is pain and pleasure. Life gives pleasure, but its deficiency causes pain. To in- crease life is the road to pleasure ; the deficiency of life causes the unnatural to appear, viz: pain. Indifferent nature is as full of life as it will contain, and we have no reason to suppose that there is pain or pleasure, therein. But to me nature seems in an ecstacy of growth and decay, and that man, by violation of laws, has fallen beneath the floor ecstatic, into an ocean of tears, whose waves alternately howl with storms of agony, or sing with zephyrs of melodious pleasure. But the moment consciousness came into existence, coupled with will and pow r er to act, having volition and freedom of action, that moment commenced the creation of conditions altogether different than had previously existed.. 34 THE UNNATURAL. I care not liow slow the process, — it takes ages to produce some things. Every worm that burrows in the earth, everything that crawls upon its surface, every bird that plucks a seed or eats a worm, every animal that crops the herbage of the plains, or that devours other animals, up to man, who tunnels the earth, plows the ground, or improves vegetation, fruits and animals ; he who scans the heavens, fathoms and bridges the oceans, and subdues and subjugates all other things, these are all creators — creators of con- ditions ; conditions wherein there is less of harmony, less of fullness of life. The action of will is exhaustive, especially its over action, which comes from ignorance of the laws of action. In our ignorance of the future we get an imaginative idea of some great good, to be derived from doing some certain thing. Immediately we set about it, and, being led captive by the object in view, regardless of heat and cold, hunger or thirst, pain or pleasure, we rush along till exhausted. Exhaustion is disease. It is unnatueal ! All disease is unnatural. It comes from action ! — the action of a Free AY ill. That man should be the most unnatural being in existence, comes not only from his freedom of action, but from his greater range of action, his greater power of thought, invention, imagination. If nature be considered indifferent, man antagonizes it in every particular. He is a being of thought, judgment, memory, imagination, craft, love and will. Pride and am- bition are his ruling traits. Many there be who claim that all things are natural; that there is no above or below nature ; that man cannot violate or go contrary to nature's laws. The inevitable conclusion derived from the foregoing is, that man is a mere machine, moving only as he is moved upon ; that there is no such thing as volition : no high, no low, no merit or de- THE UNNATURAL. 35 merit, no good, no evil. Any man with common sense knows such conclusions to be false. Why ? Because it is contrary to experience, and every- day facts of existence. By virtue of our organization, by virtue of the conditions cf our very existence, there exists the up and down, the high and low, etc., and any conclusions of logic, which set these mundane facts aside, are based on false premises. What a demon nature or God must be, to hold us responsible for the violation of laws, when we have no power to help ourselves. But, they assert further, that there is no violation of law ; that nature's laws cannot be broken. I simply say, Gentlemen, you know better. Do we not suffer for the violence we do to ourselves ? Most assuredly. Then why does nature, or God, necessity, or fate make us suffer for doing that which we cannot help doing ? Man is of necessity a law maker, and, in his ignorance, cannot conform to nature's laws. To conform to nature would be to revolve in an eternal circle ; but man, in striving for the new, breaks through the circle of ignorance and indifference, and gets hurt in so doing. Thus he be- comes diseased by his own act. I freely admit that he cannot help violating the law on account of ignorance, since his whole being is action, but each act or violation is a creation, and is more pleasing to man because it is his own. And furthermore, the ignorance we complain of is in ourselves, and not in surroundings. Thus we compel ourselves to act ; each act creates light, and light is the object of our existence. Evil is our teacher. It is wisely ordered that we should suffer ; for that increases action or light, to which we are responsible, and by which all are judged. We are nature, necessity, or fate. " Whatever is, is right ! " No, indeed ; the reverse is nearer the truth. There is nothing true to its condition ; if things were true and right, there would be no need of 36 THF UNNATURAL. improvement, and no possible room for it. There would be no foreshadowing of a better state of things: no aspira- tions, no longings, no heart-aches, no weariness of soul. There is little of right and truth in all things ; just enough to give us a taste of the good, and make us dissatisfied with our present condition, and spur us on to effort, to better it. No man can climb who is at the top of the ladder. Truth and right are far, very far, above us, but we get flashes and gleams of the glory occasionally, which show us where we stand on the ladder. Hideous, weird, fantastic shapes glare out of the darkness beneath, but above us is light, truth, knowledge, love, glory, harmony. Nature is harmony, but the unnatural is discord. Man is unnatural because he is less than nature. He pretends to love nature, but in reality he despises it. We are creatures of art. We are made up mainly of hereditary and acquired habits. These have become a second nature, which we admire. This second nature I call the unnatural. True, nature keeps along with us in our downward course, and fights manfully against disease ; restoring us in sleep,, and adapting itself to our vices and crimes. It is our voluntary powers which ruin us, but it is the involuntary which gives us what little health we have. When we forget ourselves in sweet sleep, nature asserts itself ; and even then the abnormal habits of our daily lives prevent her work. There is very little indifferent sleep. We are too intense ; the intensity of the day disturbs the night. Wg cannot forget that which we love : our daily avocations, our graspings, our hoarding up, our over-reach- ing of each other : these haunt us in our sleep. Nature must play second. Our natural habits we are ashamed of, and hide them away as we cover our nakedness. We take no lesson even from innocent childhood — glimpses of the THE UNNATUKAL. 37 kingdom of glory — but our earliest recollections are pointings of the finger of shame. To be dignified is the glory of civilization. To suppress natural laughter, and smile instead, is grand ; to " put the best side out," and to conceal the natural ; to pretend to be greater, or better than we are ; to think more of our looks, walk, manners, clothing, and the wealth we have robbed the poor of — this is civilization. To turn away from one poorly clad, not deigning an answer to a civil question ; to look coldly in the eye of a stranger, without speaking when accosted, because you have not been introduced : this is dignity ; this is fashionable. To bow down to kings, Popes, priests, and the nobility ; to shout and hurrah when they show themselves ; to toil to support them in their pomp and idleness ; to march in serried columns to deadly strife with each other ; to murder each other without enmity — this it is to be civilized. The earth is drenched with human gore, and her fair fields are rich with the bone-dust of humanity. The glory of one nation is the destruction of another. What for ? To perpetuate the damnable and unnatural idea that some men are better than others ; that some were made to rule while others were made to serve. Man has made this earth one vast pandemonium — a cesspool, out of which come malarial vapors and malarial beings, distorted in body, de- formed in mind, dwarfed in spirit. Look at the diabolical crimes — the fiendish actions of men, the wrong and outrage — at the deadly diseases con- stantly on the increase in type and malignancy- — and then say, if you can, that these things are natural. I cannot. Alas ! how we degrade nature or God in the bare idea. Not willing to assume the responsibility that nature puts upon him, he, ADAM-like, hides behind the fig leaves his naked- 88 THE UNNATURAL. Hess, and ascribes to fate, nature, chance or necessity the actions lie is ashamed of. " Forced into the world, forced through it, and forced out again, " he thinks force will bear the blame, suffer the penalty, and take all the responsibility of his actions ; while at the same time he is groaning under adversity, and suffering from disease resulting from his own acts, which he might have avoided with a little knowledge and self- control. The natural and the unnatural go hand in hand, as mat- ter and sense, body and mind, the voluntary and involun- tary, ignorance and knowledge — the same as the opposite poles of a magnet. Matter and mind are the two poles of an invisible mag- net. Mind is no more a result of matter than matter is a result of mind. They both exist, and are mutually depend- ent, not upon each other, but upon the magnet, or sense. In the magnet we glimpse the supeenatueal — in the magic MIRROR NATURE, INEETIA, INDIEEERENCE, as an IMAGE of the real reversed. For the real does not appear on the surface, in this whirl of atoms and worlds, and the awful saturnalia of human passions ; but far beneath the scum of civiliza- tion lies the mirror all fogged, and obscured from all eyes save those of the spirit. And even the spirit cannot per- ceive the real except as an image or symbol — thrown by perpetual motion upon the mirror of the mind. Nature lies far beneath this outward show, but God is above and com- prehends all. The real nature of man is covered with filthy rags — with which he has clothed himself. CHAPTER IV. BODY AND SPIKIT. Man is the ultimate, or fruit of the tree of life. The lower orders of animate creatures may be termed the roots, trunk, branches, leaves, etc., — but man is the fruit. Some say, "he is an epitome of the Universe." This is a mistaken idea. Men differ one from another as the lower animals differ, or the various orders of vegetables. The apple is a species of fruit, but there are many varieties of apples. However much men differ in looks, form; manners and dis- position, there is one peculiarity noticeable in all, viz: the correspondence to the lower orders. We all resemble, more or less, some variety of the lower orders ; and the less the resemblance the further is the removal therefrom. Some have the tiger, lion, vulture, hawk, eagle, sheep, goat, cat, lynx, ox, owl, serpent, various kinds of fishes, etc., etc., " ad infinitum" predominating. Some by their build and motions show that they have just come up out of the water — or, possibly, may be going back into it. Man is an epitome of the elements he has developed up through. We carry some- thing of what we have been along with us, viz : the spirit. And some men, having developed up through certain elements, are an epitome of those elements, but not of others. Elements are infinite ; but power is not based in elements, neither can immortality be predicated therein. Animals are but vegetables cut loose at the roots ; man differs from them only in degree. He has all that they have, and a little more, generally, in some directions ; but some animals are nearer human than some men. According to 40 BODY AND SPIRIT. Darwin, man lias descended from the ape. According to my notion, there is as much logic in saying that the ape is a degenerated man. " It is a poor rule that won't work both ways." If man ascends he also descends. We make distinctions, in our ignorance of principles, which, in reality, do not exist. If an animal can develop into a man, a man may go down to an animal. Progression is no more a law than retrogression. If man ever had a beginning, he certainly must have an end, no matter how long it may be delayed. If he progress eternally, he cer- tainly cannot always remain man. Progress means change, growth to better conditions, and conditions change the form and nature. If man never had a beginning, he can never have an end. But, suppose this idea to be true, and pro- gression without retrogression to be the law of being, is it not a little strange that man is no higher in the scale of being after having been eternally progressing ? Remember, the eternity of the past is the same as that of the future. "Why is he no greater, if he has always existed and been always growing? If he is merely an infant on this earth, is it logical to conclude that he will remain the same and still keep on growing eternally? The distinctions we make between things are merely arbitrary. Life is one. Man has no more right to immor- tality than the brute. Man, in his pride and egotism, claims for himself a special creation and existence after death, but denies it to the brute. This is not a logical deduction. Man is a name merely that we give to a manifestation of life to distinguish it from other manifestations. We make dis- tinctions to which we give names, which are very satisfactory to most men. Like the Arkansas man, who, when accosted by a traveler asking information about his way, instead of giving the information desired, cocked his hat over one eye, struck an attitude, and asked the traveler, "What mought BODY AND SPIRIT. 41 your name be, sir ?" Names are very satisfactory to child- ren, but lie who seeks for principles, cares little for names. But in order to convey ideas, and to be understood, and to distinguish one thing from another, names are important. " Man," then, is the name given to the highest type of life we are acquainted with on this earth, and the term body is applied to the visible part. But the real man is an idea — as much so as that represented by any piece of mechanism. (See definitions of ideas in previous parts of this work.) In order to a more perfect understanding of man and his powers, we will divide him into parts ; but the distinctions herein made are arbitrary, and do not really exist. Man is composed of body, mind, spirit and soul ; or in other words, the ego, the thought, and the thing thought of ; or power, motion, and the thing moved. But these things are an unity. There can be only one principle in existence. The mo- ment you admit two, one bounds and limits the other. Very suggestive of the positive and negative poles of a magnet. Laying all speculation aside, we do not know what " infin- ity " is, more than we know what man or anything else is. If we should, at some time, discover what it is, it would, after all, be only another name added to our vocabulary. I cannot find a name for " her who is nameless" that third thing — the mother of power and weakness, of God and of nature. The loftiest thought cannot go beyond the realm of things, for thought belongs to things. The most fertile imagination cannot find a field that does not exist, in which to revel. The insane is as real as the sane, although we may not think it desirable or healthy. Perhaps there are some who love insanity. "Who shall say that the dividing line between sanity and insanity is a fiction ? That dividing line — that neutral ground, is the body — matter. 4 2 BODY AND SPIRIT. Science is unable to tell us of all the substances that compose the human form. There is something which escapes the closest analysis, or the most subtile and search- ing thought. The scalpel fails to find the spirit ; so science fails to find aught but the dross of these bodies. There is a something hidden away in matter that holds each atom in its place ; aye ! and gives form to all atoms — which is master, and yet a prisoner ; lord, but yet a servant. There is a something in matter lying latent which is not heat nor flame, but which, when let loose, produces heat, flame and combustion. It is the " Fire"' the ancient Magi worshipped. It is not magnetism, nor the astral fluid, neither is it light, nor electricity ; for these are but effects of its freedom. There is a spark lying dormant in matter, which, when aroused by friction, decomposes all forms. If set in motion gently and by degrees, it refines matter and causes growth, attracting and repelling matter. If struck out by violence, it produces conflagrations and destruction. Worlds are sustained and destroyed by this spark of fire. It is a useful servant to man, but when it gets beyond his control it is a cruel and remorseless master. This Fire is the Spirit. It is in all things, and is the life thereof. In fact, things are but forms of spirit condensed. Life is a liberation of spirit. All matter evolves from itself an aura, peculiar to its condition. This aura is produced by the gentle motion of things, in growth and in death. All atoms are in motion, for spirit is ceaselessly active. Swedenborg says there is a sphere belonging to and sur- rounding all things. It is more perceptible in some things than in others. Baron Reichenbach instituted a series of experiments with various metals and stones which he sub- mitted to sensitive persons in a darkened chamber, and has written a work in which he claims the same thing as true, BODY AND SPIRIT. 43 £0 far as tested by him. This aura I term spirit, or a result of the action of that hidden fire, which has been worshipped in ancient days as God, in honor of which the eternal altar- fires were kept burning, and men bowed down to the sun and worshipped Him as the most perfect symbol of fire, or God. All matter is undergoing change, and this change is growth, and growth is life, and life is the freeing of fire or spirit. All matter is in a state of combustion ; some forms slowly, others with great intensity. This combustion may not be perceptible to our dull senses, but that only proves our blindness. Growth is the throwing off effete matter and taking on new. This is exactly the case with violent combustion. A burning pile throws off heat, smoke and flame, and draws to itself the atmosphere, which, rushing in, combines to increase the conflagration. This rushing in is but the baptism of matter with fire, which cannot exist without. The body may be likened to a furnace : it must be fed with fuel ; and the atmosphere must meet that fuel in the system, or no fire is kindled and no heat generated. The lungs are the bellows which fan the fires of life. The pores of the body are escape pipes. The atmosphere is the aura or spirit of the earth, and all things on the earth live by inhaling it. Thus it may be seen that the spirit of one thing may support another. Spirit absorbs spirit by combination, the same as fire ab- sorbs the atmosphere. The body may be likened to a horse- shoe magnet, or a combination of them. The legs are suggestive of one ; the arms of another. AYe are, in fact, a combination of mag- netic motors — or, possibly, a galvanic pile. May not our food furnish the alkali, the atmosphere the acid, the union of which sets free the spirit (fire) of food, causing motion^ 44 BODY AND SPIEIT. heat, combustion, growth and life? May not the liver cor- respond to the zinc, and the lungs to the copper plates of a battery ? Connected by acids and alkalis in the system, a current is evolved, which dissolves and decomposes food as fire does wood. The fire thus set free from food becomes the aura (spirit) of the organism in which it was set free. Thus our spirits are made up in part from that which we eat. There can be no combustion without the union of matter and atmosphere. That union is the fusion or blending of all forms into one, and that one is formless, viz, fire or spirit. Power resides in the formless. In the imponderables there is freedom, and without freedom there is no power manifested. To a spirit in bondage there is the darkness of matter, but a spirit set free is living light, an immortal fire, which consumes matter as the light of a lamp con- sumes oil. God is Fire, for " God is a Spirit, and they who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth." Matter is but fire that is quenched. All it needs is bap- tizing with a spark from God, and it begins to burn and glow with life as embers in a furnace glow with light. There is not an atom in the body that is not vibrating with the electric or magnetic fires which animate all things. It is, indeed, burning with a lurid and weird intensity truly amazing. And we might behold the grand and sublime spectacle if it were not for the obtuseness of our dull and materialistic senses. If once beheld, we would no longer wonder at the vast amount of fuel required daily to support this ethereal flame called life. The light emitted by these walking furnaces — these torches, these living machines — varies in intensity and volume, according to the nature and quality of the matter in combustion. Some lights are electric, radiating far and near ; so it is with some men. Others, again, are small, BODY AND SPIRIT. 45 and emit a soft, mild light. Others, again, give out only a spark ; but most bodies are so undeveloped that the fires of life smoulder, and emit nothing but a fitful gleam now and then, amid vast volumes of smoke. This light emitted by all living beings — nay ! by all things mundane and supermundane — is the spirit. It is the spirit of matter in combustion which constitutes the aura of plants, animals and men. The laws of combustion are the laws of the universe, and they are the laws of magnetism, — action and reaction, attraction and repulsion, an outgoing and incoming current — this is all. Hang a gold coin on the positive pole of a galvanic battery in a solution, and a piece of brass or copper on the negative pole in the solution, but not in contact with the coin, and the result is, the positive galvanic current dissolves the gold and carries it over to the negative, where it is de- posited upon the piece of brass. Electro-magnetic physi- cians know that they can increase the vital powers of any portion of the system by the application of the negative electrode thereto ; and that they can reduce the action of any part by the application of the positive. Thus it is demonstrated that matter is dissolved and car- ried from one part of the system to another, where it may^ be deposited, or even carried out of the body. Now, we know that the female principle is the productive, or the principle wherein matter is combined into forms of life, and that the masculine is the principle from which such life or matter comes in solution, as the gold from the positive electrode Every human being is a magnet, which evolves a positive force from itself, which dissolves and appropriates to the body material of various kinds from food, and conveys it to renew the decaying tissues, while it also repels and elimi- nates that which is devitalized. 4(3 BODY AND SPIKIT. But the negative principle or force is not evolutive, but receptive, in which the positive deposits its burden of spirit. Thus is the body constantly renewed by a process little thought of, viz : that of impregnation and gestation. All motion is magnetic ; and this is only another name given to the manifestation of fire — combustion. All things are in a state of combustion — some gently : this is growth and progress ; others with intensity, as a conflagration, in which the body is reduced to ashes, and the life of it back "to God who gave it." If attraction overbalance repulsion there is a slow com- bustion, a smouldering of the fire, in which other forms of matter appear (charcoal for instance). This is exactly the case with nature ; the half- extinguished fires of life pre- serve the form for a space of time. But notice the slow and certain change of form from infancy to old age, show- ing that repulsion is master after all. If repulsion over- balance attraction there is a rapid conflagration, and forms of matter disappear in smoke, vapor, heat and flame, to nothing — "not even to the blue sky." It is to attraction that childhood owes its ruby cheeks and lips, and its exuberance of life. The immortal fires sparkle in its eye, and glow in its soft and rounded flesh through which it shines, ere shame has come to crimson the cheek and brow with a more lurid light, with a more intense com- bustion, in which the forms of youth change rapidly. To repulsion we owe the lustreless eye, pallid cheek, the grey hairs and wrinkles of age ; aye ! the death of the body comes through excess of repulsion. A proper balance is marriage, in which more things are generated than has yet been dreamed of. The aura or spirit obeys the same laws. The positive contains the seminal principle, which it deposits, when it meets the negative, which immediately returns to the body BODY AND SPIRIT. 47 (the womb) with its new found treasure, with elements of spirit that combine in the system with positive elements, forming new blood, new tissue, new vigor. Violent combustion is destructive to forms of matter, but the compounds resulting therefrom are of incalculable value to mankind. The ashes of wood are a compound resulting from combustion, but how much of its chemical properties come from the atmosphere is not known ; nor is it known how much came from that invisible fire or spirit which resides in a negative state in the air we breathe and burn. Science, a great thing in the eyes of Professors, but is a mere infant as yet. It may be a promising baby, but it still needs nursing. The body is condensed aura or spirit, which liberated by motion flows around it as light flows from a candle, passing out positive and returning negative. The condition of the matter (body) in combustion deter- mines the brilliancy and power of the light. Of the constituent elements of the body, science says there are many, and goes on to name them. But, gentle- men, with all respect for your knowledge, your analysis and tests, your acids and crucibles, I must say I question your conclusions. Why ? Because a dead body is not the same as " a living one. The moment it is dead it is in another condition; the elements are changed and continue to change till there is nothing left of them. Analyze a dead bone, (you cannot analyze a live one), and you get com- pounds to which you give names ; but names prove nothing. In your crucible, retort and receiver the spirit of the universe is adding itself to your work; in fact, it is doing the work itself. You do not know how much of your own spirit enters into combination with the elements you are manipulating. Then why such a parade of knowledge ? 4 s BODY AND SPIRIT. We don't yet know the first letter of the alphabet of science. Take a tnb of earth and weigh it; then in it plant a seed After a time you will have a tree; remove the tree, and again weigh the tub of earth, and see how much less it weighs. You will find that the tree is made up almost entirely from the atmosphere; which, indeed, is the spirit of the earth. Forms are a condensation of the invisible. The earth is none the less for having produced inanimate and animate things. A mother is not made less by child- bearing. The light of a lamp is not lessened by lighting other lamps. The human brain is not reduced by giving thought and ideas to the world, but its capacity is increased thereby. It is said that "man is like a candle: when the light goes out he is no more." I do not agree to this. Light is an effect of combustion; so is the manifestation called life. But light is greater than oil, as spirit is greater than matter, or as motives are greater than acts. CHAPTER V. THE MIND. We have many so-called sciences of mind, prominent among which is phrenology. This is recognized as a science by most thinkers. The brain is recognized as the organ of the mind, and mind i3 treated of as an entity — the Soul. I regard mind as an effect of organization. It is a something the soul has developed to enable it to come in contact with, and to handle matter. The idiot has no mind, but he has the power to suffer and enjoy. Now, it cannot logically be held that sense is mind, or that instinct is mind ; infants have no mind, but they have the capacity to develop mind. Thus mind is a thing that grows and dies Kke a vegetable. Mind is a manifestation of the soul, com- posed of various powers or faculties. My mind is a machine I have made. It belongs to me, as my body or my coat belongs to me. It is my property. I may be robbed of it as I may be of my money. True ! When my mind is gone I am driven back, as it were, to a condition where sense remains, but memory, reason, judgment and will are not. Mind is to me what the rudder is to a ship. By the use of it I sail my frail bark over the stormy seas of this life. Without it I am drifting like a piece of drift-wood wherever the waves toss me. As a man without property is con- sidered nobody, so man without a mind is, in fact, a cipher. As sense is the first manifestation of the soul, mind is the second, and the body is the third. But to observation 50 THE MIND. the reverse seems to be true, inasmuch as the body seems first) mind second, and the soul blank. Sense surrounds the soul as the atmosphere surrounds the earth, and constitutes a sensorium upon which all things are photographed, all sounds vibrated, all thoughts and emotions reflected. It is sense which separates things, holds each atom and each body in place, and establishes the relationship governing. It is the sense of a thing which constitutes it a thing. "Without sense things could not exist. Without feeling there is no contact. Without hearing, no sound ; without light, no colors, no beauty, no deformity. Sense does all things : it is God. The awakening of our dull senses is like unto an egg in incubation. The soul is the germ. The sense is the beautiful arrangement and adjustment of vital elements hermetically sealed up in a shell (body). Without this sealing up, this isolation or in- sulation, this partition between us and God, we could not exist. These bodies stand guard over our souls to preserve indivi duality. They are our preservation from the Infinite. The lightnings are chained down, bottled up, suspended in liquid form in the egg, as fire quenched by water in wood, coal, or storm-cloud. These bodies are important. Their quality varies, according to the power contained therein, as the shells of eggs vary. They subserve the end of solidi- fying the fire into organic life. When that is accomplished the shell becomes rotten, and the fully-developed chick w r orks its way out, into a new life, or, rather, another stage of the same life, for there is only one life — the life of sense or of God. " Except a man be born again, he cannot see the King- dom of God." "The Kingdom of God" is only another and higher stage of life, and no man can enter it save through the gestation and birth of a Divine Body. THE MIND. 51 Ah. ! the mysteries of being. Thou insignificant egg ! Thou holdest in solution the incomprehensible mystery of God and eternity ! In thy darkened chambers God is waiting ! Thy spherical form speaks of revolution as the primal law of all being! " Hermetically sealed" — so secure from curious eyes, so full of " the elixir of life," and yet so fragile ! Thou art the flame-tip liquified ! Pure, beautiful thing ! Containing in thyself infinity, soul, mind, body and spirit ! What doth thy hatching signify if it be not immortality ? Thy wings speak of flight and liberty, thy lungs of inspiration, thine eyes of light, beauty, im- mortality and the beholding of it. Thy instinct speaks of intuition and all knowing ! Even the hovering of the Hen over thee typifies the "brooding" care, and life-giving power of the Holy Spirit ! Art thou evolved from the " black muck," thou pure, white thing ? Can mud see ? or can it make eyes like thine ? Can it think ? or can it evolve a thought or a thing capable of thought ? Or, rather, didst thou not descend, little chick — as descends the glory of the night — from the " mystery of the shadow ?" As an egg in incubation receives heat, first in the shell, and secondly in the albumen, so do impressions come to the mind through the body by contact with the outer world. The heat which causes growth of vegetation, animals and men comes from without, and it is through pressure, con- tact or impressions. Nature is to man what the hen is to the egg. Physical contact is required to warm up and in- fluence things that have little sense ; but to those who have mind, there is a spiritual contact or impact, far more potent and far-reaching. It is considered that man has five senses : feeling, hear- ing, seeing, smelling and tasting. But I claim that there are many faculties of the mind, and only one sense. Sense is nearest the soul, the mind comes next. Through the 52 THE MIND. mind the sense receives the fire which quickens the germ in. the soul, or the egg. Sense may be said to be feeling. We see a lovely flower — we feel pleasure. If it be some horrible sight we are pained. We may see it at a distance, but the effect is the same. We come in contact with that which we see, hear and smell, as much as we do by taste or touch. We see sights that electrify us. We hear sounds that startle and urge us- to action, as much as if we had been struck a blow. We come in contact with things and phenomena at a distance by sight and hearing, of things nearer by touch and smell- ing, but it is all feeling after all. The nerves of taste are only a little more acute than those of the hands. W T e smell the aroma of a rose, and we know it is near, although it may be hidden. We are in contact with the rose, for we have received something from it that has made an impres- sion upon us. Its spirit has met ours, and entering in, has added some fuel to the fire burning within. New combi- nations have been formed within us, and the rose has added its fire to ours. Our spirits glow with a purer light from the contact of love and beauty. All things grow by pressure, contact or impressions. The impressions we receive in our journey through life, from the gentle caress of love to the discord and clash of opposing conditions, are but for the reception of that Divine fire we worshipped in the past. Each object we meet imparts its fire; each experience we- have, from the joys of a mother's heart to the despair of the hopeless, is from the pressure mother nature gives, as she warms and hatches her brood. If we live properly we grow stronger and stronger in all that makes the true man, till the rotting shell (his body) bursts, and we fly away to realms of immortal life. Pressure comes by attraction, and this produces growth THE MIND. 53 by the gentle heat generated thereby; but the contact which conies by force is from repulsion, and is death by conflagration. Fire struck out by force is destructive. By attraction we receive what we need, but by force more than we need, and often that which is sickening. Ask the pale, sickly mothers of the land if this is not God's truth! There is a mental or spiritual contact of things, whose limit is unknown. It is not possible for us to think of a thing, principle or state of being that does not exist somewhere, within or without the domain of " nature." To think of a thing intensely is to see it in the mind; and this sight is clairvoyance. To see a thing is to feel it; this is contact, pressure, impressions. The pressure upon the brain of a thinker shows the power of thought and its contact. The pleasure he feels in giving birth to that which he hopes will do the world a great good, shows the baptism with fire we read of in the Scriptures. Thought is the lightning's flash. It penetrates. It is the sunlight. It warms and gives color to life. It dwells in all things, for all things are suggestive of thought. They provoke us to think. If we will not think, they send the plague, the famine, and a slow decay. There are some rotten eggs in every nest. Thought calls us out from our- selves, from our knowledge of our weakness and follies — and then we are great. To dwell in thought among the stars is to be in contact with the Gods, and to receive from them what otherwise we should not have. Thought is a stimulant : it intoxicates. To be drunk with thought is to provoke mirth, like any drunken man. The sun illumines a little space on the earth, but the darkness is before and behind, and all around. Like a coward it flees away as the sun approaches, and like a 54 THE MIND. coward it follows close behind, as follows the past upon the present. We cannot stand still: we must move on. The little thought we have Hashes out into the darkness before and behind. Memory* looks back at the gloom of almost for- gotten joys, and from the dim twilight of the past come the ghosts of evil deeds. Our weakness and follies appear gigantic. They are alive and active, but the little good we have done is scarcely perceptible — is feeble, is crowded back, like a small boy in a crowd. Thought flashes a ray of hope — of prescience; and the world follows its light with a deathless trust. For it, they tax themselves to build churches and to support an army of priests. For this ray of light, this spark of Divine fire, they go hungry and in rags, patiently. AYho shall say there is not a pressure here, a contact as close as that of matter, impressions that move the souls of mankind? We gain knowledge, laboriously, in the collection of facts; but these facts must be digested by the mind before they can be of use. Thought, reason, analysis, are the stomach of the mind. Here the fire is extracted from facts, as life is from food in the physical stomach. Doubt is indigestion. He who digests the facts and phenomena of life, and still doubts the immortality of man, has mental dyspepsia. He does not get the fire, and consequently his spiritual nature lacks warmth. He who properly digests the facts of life grows warm and tender, and stronger in his trust towards others. He dreams of immortality, for its fact is impressed on his mind. In his dreams the mind becomes telescopic, and he sees that which the doubter scoffs at. But, nevertheless, he grows stronger and stronger in his belief. Long years ago I became very much interested in clair- voyance. I wished to attain the power. I read much and THE MIND. 55 thought more. Sat in " circles," used magnets, insulated stools, galvanic bandages; in fact, exhausted all the methods within my reach, but with the exception of a few " clouds" and " flashes of light," my spiritual sight remained obscured. It was late one stormy night in winter, in the little cottage on the hill, overlooking "the father of waters," that, after having lain on a couch for an hour as usual, with a huge magnet in contact with my head, I retired to bed, feeling sad and low-spirited. I lay for a time listening to the moaning and wailing of the winds, and pondering upon the subject which at that time engrossed my entire being. All at once I became conscious of a presence in my room. It was intensely dark to the natural eye, but I saw clearly an old man, tall and majestic, with a lofty brow, deeply plowed with thought-lines; mild, gentle expression, long, white beard, and hair that fell on his shoulders. He held in his hand a brass rim, inclosing a circular glass. He held it up and asked me to examine it. I did so and found it a mirror. He called my attention to the fact that it not only reflected objects, but retained the images impressed there- on. " This," said he, " is the human mind, which ordi- narily has the power of Reflection and Retention" (memory). He then pressed his thumbs upon the glass holding the rim with his fingers. It sunk with much difficulty under the pressure to the depth of the rim. The glass then seemed a shade smaller, but was still inclosed as before by a brass rim. I looked in the dish-like mirror, and it seemed clouded; and strange, fanciful objects flitted across its surface. Again he applied the pressure, and with some effort the disk became deeper. Again I looked; the clouds had partially disappeared, and dimly seen, deep down in the mirror, as if in the far distance, a lurid light sent fitful gleams across the surface in the mirror. Said he: "The mind, like this mirror, has the power of elongation. Like 56 THE MIND, this, the two first sections are very difficult to start; but ise accomplished, and the rest come easily." And he shoved rim after rim out to the number of seven, and then bade me look. I looked, and lo! the wonders of the universe were revealed. The light was clearer than the brightest I ever saw. The ineffable glory of creative prin- ciple Hashed like lightning upon my brain. I could not bear the steady flame, and turned my wondering eyes to the face of "the stranger." He smiled, and said: " The mind has a telescopic power, little known to mortals. When once attained, there are no secrets that may not be dis- covered." And then he and the "Magic Mirror" were gone. But I have not forgotten the lesson. In these pages, if you can comprehend the ideas, you will find a verification of its truth, and the guide-posts on the road to power. We can never know a thing or princi- ple except by contact therewith. Ideas grow in the mind as vegetation grows in the earth. Thoughts are the letters of a word ; the word is part of a sentence. A complete sentence or a combination of incomplete sentences, con- tains an idea. The word is the beginning of speech, or the first material- ization of an idea. Hence St. John says, " In the beginning was the Word." Now we may think and think till we are exhausted, but if we conceive no idea, and think it out to a clear and perfect definition, it will do us no good ; it is like a plant struck by frost, or withered by drouth. But if, in cur analysis of facts, we conceive an idea — no matter how vague — and dwell upon it in thought, it gradually takes form and grows to maturity. Maturity is a perfected idea. When an idea is matured in the mind it enters into the soul, and becomes an integral part of the thinker, and he is changed thereby. We are changed by our thoughts. That which leads us THE MIND. 57 upward towards the good is expansive ; hence, creative of power : but that which is debasing leads downward, and is contraction, hence destructive to power. The soul expands by fire, but contracts for want of it. Fire is power ; and weakness is for want of it. It will be seen from the fore- going that the mind occupies an important position. Everything that reaches the soul must pass through it in the form of ideas. For the soul is an idea itself, and nothing can enter the soul that is foreign to it. Fire is the spirit in which ideas reside. If man were natural, there could be no progress, for he would be in a state of indifference. But, being unnatural, he is progressive and intense — i. e., insane in his mind. The real appears to him as unreal, and the unreal as the real. From this cause he looks upon the body as the man, and the mind as the effect of the body — like "the blaze of a candle" — and laughs at the idea of a soul or spirit. This state of the mind is termed natural. I call it unnatural. But we cannot help being unnatural on account of our ignorance. Ignorance always blunders — weakness always falls. The first act of the natural was a fall, for he was ignorant. When fallen he struggles to stand erect, for he has knowledge of an erect posture. The unnatural is pro- gressive. The mind is not a thing, but rather a law or mode of action of the soul. It is a duality — " two in one." The natural and rational are the two, which, united in harmony, are the Divine One. The Divine is first of all — the sen- sorium of the soul, as evidenced by the intuition and inno- cence of childhood, and the instinct of animals, etc. From it comes all that exists. In the creation of man instinct was suspended by a reversal, or depolarization of it, in which it was dissolved as it were and scattered, and became the seeds of many THE MIND. faculties. Each and every faculty of the mind has instinct as its foundation. This scattering or division of instinct may have been, and undoubtedly was, a slow process, occupying many ages. Man is the only thing that comes into existence totally helpless, totally blank of intelligence: hence it must have culminated in his creation. The tossing waves of instinct, torn from the depths of creation's ocean, tossed to mountain heights, and beaten to froth, subsided in a great calm! Anon, a breath of the Infinite fanned the great deep, and man sprang into being ! This calm is a great rest of nature as she gathers her forces for another effort: it is the soul as it expands; the vacuum that provokes motion. The tornado was coming; all nature held its breath in expectancy! It came in the shape of mind. Ever since its advent there has been no more calm. From sun to sun, from star to star, from pole to pole, from centre to circumference, there is agitation. Nature seems torn from her moorings. Her steady and quiet ways seem broken in upon as by a God. She is all turned topsy turvy. And she, good dame, has joined in the mad revelry, as at her own nuptials. Nature seems to have departed from her usual methods ; an innovation has been made, as if the absent Lord had returned, or a god had descended! From this point — from this great calm, this rest and expansion, this birth — work is the law. The first effort was a failure because there was no guide, no knowl- edge. A failure ! Such a thing was unknown to nature. Astonished and bewildered, the soul shrinks and collapses in giving the awful thing birth ! A failure ! If being forced back from multiplicity to unity — if being compelled in n new creation to go back to the starting point — indifferent sense — to work outward again to multiplicity — if this be a failure, then man is a failure. And every man who weeps THE MIND. 59 over the weaknesses, follies and sufferings of poor benighted humanity, recognizes it as such. Every man who has an idea of improving the race knows there is something wrong. But nature, like an over-indulgent mother, says to her child: "It is no failure, my child; try again." And sink- ing herself in her great love for him, becomes the involun- tary powers of her child. For her spoiled child she bears patiently every abuse. She breathes for him while he sleeps. She labors as he directs ; while he, visionary that he is, is busy building castles in the air. She walks, if he says walk; he takes no thought of the distance or the steps: all he has to do is to direct her. If he fails to point the way, through forgetfulness, she goes astray, for she seems to be blind ; but she keeps on walking till he says stop. If, in his perversity, he takes up some habit that will eventually ruin him, she adapts herself to his whim, and carries it on without his volition, even to his death ; when he forgets it, she reminds him of it. In his sleep she still labors for him to restore the waste of his unnatural life ; still whispering, " Try again." If he hates, she keeps it in his mind. If he resolves to commit some crime, she assists him as readily as to do a good act, always whispering, " Try again." If an incurable disease attacks her child, she fights for him while he directs, and in the manner that he directs, but when he loses control she joins forces with the adversary to hurry on the work of dissolution. Even in death she reminds him of his habits. Nature seems to be a blind force, an indifferent thing, if it be a thing. She knows nothing, feels nothing; she simply furnishes us with the power to think and feel, whispering, " Try again!" It is no fiction, — the fall of man, — but it is an allegorical representation of a truth: or, in other words, the effort of a 60 THE MIND. great mind to explain the life we live — the principles of being. The acts we do, furnish the light of experience. The man who trusts in himself and walks out boldly gains the most. He who trnsts in God, although the happiest, gains the least knowledge. If we fall and hurt ourselves, we have the freedom to climb up again. And though we may not climb back to the same place, we may go higher. Ever since the " fall," man has been scaling the precipices of his weaknesses and failures. The. point I call your attention to is this : All acts have their beginning and incep- tion in the mind. Hence all violation of law, with their attendant pain, disease, weakness, and death, spring from mind. All violation is a creation. Hence all creation is a MENTAL PEODUCT. As acts flow from the mind, so matter flows from the mind; for acts materialized are matter. This being so, the more Divine the mind is, the greater will its creative power be. The evolution of matter from itself having any quality or form, or the dissolving of matter already formed, by the suspension of atomic laws, is logical, and within the range of man's power, as a Divine Being. As a creator, all creation is in his grasp, and he is therefore the architect of himself, and his heavens or his hells. The conception of a thing is the beginning of its growth. Hell grows out of our minds: so also does heaven; but hell is largest. So also a Divine body may be grown by conception, gestation and birth in the mind. Hell is fed by our desires to see our enemies suffer, and from a spirit of retaliation and revenge. CHAPTER VI THE DIVINE MIND AND BODY. The natural mind is the common mind. It receives its- impressions through the five senses ; or, in other words, wholly from external nature. To it belong observation, memory and reflection. All things of this mundane sphere reflect themselves upon the mind as in a mirror. This mind grows and expands by the collection of facts, but the con- clusions of it are material as the facts themselves. For this reason the natural mind cannot conceive of a spiritual or future state of existence ; its utmost powers enable it only to reach the plane of knowledge, or the manipulation of matter. The knowledge gained by it is the sciences and philosophy of material things ; it adapts man to this " bread- and-butter" life. Its analysis is destructive ; hence to it belongs doubt, skepticism, unbelief, and the impossible ; pride, lust, hate, fear, avarice, deceit and invention are its controlling powers. The interior of this mind being closed up, there is no reflection from any other way than from without. The soul is denied, because it cannot be seen or handled ; its presence is unfelt, by reason of the hardness and opacity of the natural — or, more properly, the unnatu- ral mind. It cannot feel from within, but is constantly drawn outward by sight, sound and contact. It is the " wide- awake" mind. Its highest faculty is the invention of machinery, building of railways, cities, etc. — all of a mate- rial character. But it is progressive, inasmuch as it expands. 62 DIVINE MIND AND BODY. by its stretch after tlie new, and its effort to perfect that which it conceives. Conception is always superior to the production. The true artist fails to come up to his ideal, because the colors in his mind are pure, while the colors of his picture, being a compound of matter, are dead. It is a mere material thing, void of soul. If he could, by looking at the canvass, project from his mind the picture he sees in his mind, pro- ject the colors from himself — without brush, paints or pencils — on the canvas, it would come up to his ideal. This power does not belong to the natural nor to the rational, but to the Divine Mind. The Divine mind does not exist to the natural mind, because it cannot come in contact therewith. The natural develops into the rational, which expands to the Divine. The natural, by expansion, opens the interiors, through which impressions come from the unknown. If these im- pressions are not rejected the mind becomes luminous. This illumination is rationality. Impressions from within awaken the mind as with a new life, and it gradually turns within— thus reversing itself. This is the beginning of magnetiza- tion, which is a turning inward of the eyes and the sight — the beginning of the glory. The natural may be compared to the flint, and objects to the steel. The fire struck out is a mere spark, which van- ishes away and is lost ; but the rational is a steady flame, flowing from the Divine, making malleable and luminous the entire man. Seeds deposited in the earth first soften, then enlarge, before the germ can come forth. The natural mind is the seed planted in the soil of the body, but the rational is the tree ; the fruitage is the Divine ; which, indeed, grows not out of the ground, but descends, as the Spirit, to bless all who partake thereof. This is the bread DIVINE MIND AND BODY. 03 that comes down from Heaven, of which if a man eat he shall not die. To the rational belongs the innocency of childhood, with its simplicity and credulity. Instead of sagacity there is intuition ; instead of deduction there are visions and revela- tions. One might naturally think that rationality came with age ; and so it would, if there was no retrogression. Our daily lives cloud the surface of the mind with a film, through which the flint scarce penetrates ; hence there is no fire evolved by the friction incident to this life. "We become insulated during the mad rush for wealth, and the magnetism that gives growth and expansion passes by us. The real age and life of a man dates from his con- scious progress in the good and pure The real death dates from the time one becomes conscious of being bad, and does not forsake his evil ways. There are some children who are older in soul-growth than some old men or women. There are some persons who retrograde from earliest child- hood ; others progress for some years, then turn down- wards ; others, again, are bad in early life, then suddenly, or slowly, turn to progress upward. We may pity the old person who is hard. Progress softens the mind, and thus the whole man expands. The Divine mind is first ; next is the rational ; the last and outermost is the natural. The natural corresponds to matter, the rational to spirit, the Divine to soul. The Divine mind is the sensorium of the soul, which surrounds it as a translucent film, which expands and contracts. Attraction expands it ; repulsion contracts it It is the sensorium that is the seat of consciousness ; the events of life are all pho- tographed upon it. All the emotions that are experienced give color to it. The various strains of music and discord leave their impression on it. The voiceless universe affects it also. What we have been in previous states of existence 64 DIVINE MIND AND BODY. is brought forward by the sensoriurn. into this life ; and the sound of the voice, the build of the body, the facial expression, the laugh, the color of the eyes — all these, and more, tell what we have been doing, and what we have been in the long eternities of the past. Upon the inner surface of the sensoriurn ideas exist — in the " Holy of Holies," wherein God's voice is heard. Upon its outer surface symbols of those ideas are projected, which, descending into the rational according to its condi- tion, as descends the ovarian egg, there becomes impreg- nated by the nature of things. The nature of things is the spirit of things, viz : Fire. The spirit dies in the impreg- nation, and is born (after gestation) into the natural mind reversed — i. e., instead of being spiritual it is material. It is a mere reflection of the Divine mind, a reversed image, as your face in a mirror. For this reason we get no abso- lute truth. Ideas are reversed and distorted from having been impregnated by the spirit of what has been. In the same manner spirit i3 changed into matter, and becomes part and parcel of these bodies. For instance^ you have a wound ; the pain is a telegram to the sensoriurn of the soul ; the idea to restore, though unconscious to you, is immediately projected by the soul into the sensoriurn, or Divine mind, where it meets spirit and is impregnated, and, descending, deposits life in the form of new matter in the wound. Thus are the injured tissues fed, like a child in embryo, till the parts are restored. But there is a decay of the injured parts before and during restoration. How tenderly and carefully we nurse and dress an nicer, thus causing it to give way to new and healthy flesh. Mat- ter is but spirit reversed. Substance is substantial ; it does not change, but spirit and matter do change in becoming reversed. The decayed matter of an ulcer is the return to spirit, and matter in formation is spirit condensing : which DIVINE MIND AND BODY. 65 is effected by that third and incomprehensible thing — the soul. These material bodies are but an ulcer, so to speak, upon a Divine and substantial body, which the soul is striving to free therefrom. But in most of us this Divine part is destroyed, swallowed up, eaten through and through as by ulceration. The substance of the Divine body is an idea of it. Matter, without an idea, falls or lies dormant ; but with an idea it rises up and walks erect as man. Aye ! and with an idea of it he rises up to be a god. Ideas revolve in cycles of time as worlds revolve in space. Hence, "there is nothing new under the sun." We get a glimpse of the Divine in childhood and in first love. But the fog soon — alas ! too soon — rises and obscures the sud. In the reversal of ideas the external, or the last, appears to be first. Causation appears on the surface of things, and life and mind seem as the effect of matter. Beligious ideas are of the soul ; its symbols — being pro- jections thereof — are reversed images which the world wor- ships. The esoteric is lost in the rubbish of the exoteric, as the soul is lost in matter. But it flows on in cycles, vast in extent, and gradually works out of the rubbish, and asserts itself as miracle. The age of miracle is near at hand ! The cycle of the soul is nearly completed ! Already we can see the first dim twilight of the rising sun ! From the worship of the Divine — the one, the first math- ematical number — we have gone down to the number nine in the absurdity of addition, and now in that constellation we worship many gods — our forefathers. But the absurd nine will pass away, and the next cycle will be the union of the Immortal 1 — symbol of creation and the beginning — with (10) symbol of the soul. The Father and the Mother at last united, the Son (the Divine mind) will appear on this 66 DIVINE MIND AND BODY. earth. Thus we revolve in a numerical circle froin one back to one again. The idea of heredity carries us back to our forefathers, and we lay the blame of our follies upon them ; but they wont back to Adam ; Adam laid the blame on the devil ; the devil lays the blame on God, who created and educated him for that purpose. Thus in thought man makes God out a demon, inferior to the lowest of humanity in sympathy, and superior to the devil in cold malignity. What absurdity ! "Why not accept what we knoiv as the truth ? W^e know that our acts make and unmake us, and that w T e suffer and enjoy through our own acts. What I am, my acts in this life and other stages of existence have made me. I am but an action, and every act I do, adds to, or diminishes my po wer to create, to enjoy, to suffer, and to be. I am the numeral one — the first and the last. When, in the progress of life the soul expands to the outermost being, and becomes the over-soul instead of the inner, then shall the Father (Spirit) be one with the Mother (ooulj, and the Divine mind (the Son or sun, symbol of Divine light and knowledge,) shall illumine the night of matter, and all secrets which lurk in darkness shall stand out in their naked deformity. " Then shall no one say to his neighbor, know ye the Lord, for all shall know him, from the least to the greatest." This is the Trinity, and the real significance of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Spirit, the Father, God ; Soul, the Mother, Holy Ghost ; Mind, the only begotten Son of Spirit or of God. The union of spirit and soul is typified by marriage ; creation is typified by children, as the son or mind begotten. As an idea reversed or dwarfed becomes monstrous, this idea of the Trinity, Divine as a symbol, has been rendered DIVINE MIND AND BODY. 67 unnatural by the loss of its divine intent, and doubly damned by the enforcement of unnatural statute laws. The natural becomes the rational by development, and the same is true of the rational. Many there be who do not believe in the Divine. To me Divinity is the noblest and best part of humanity — a beacon light, far above us, luring us upward and onward to real manhood and God- hood. All rationality is negative, but naturalness is positive. The spirit flows out and in. As it flows out it dissolves and carries away effete or dead matter into the atmosphere, when it becomes the life of something else ; this is a posi- tive current. As it flows in it brings with it the spirit of other things, with which it has mingled in its revolutions around the body ; for, like everything in motion, it revolves. In this mingling the spirit becomes negative, and returns to the body ; so all spirit that builds up the waste of the body is negative. The negative is feminine, and all formation takes place therein. Rationality is the negative mind. All art and mechanism is due to rationality. All aggressive acts and destruction is due to the positive or natural mind (as I have termed it in this chapter for the sake of simplicity). The Divine mind is that incomprehensible and out-of-the-way mind — that third thing, standing guard between the two, wherein they meet and become one. Now, this meeting of the spirit with matter, and its transformation from spirit into matter, is a strange and mysterious thing. The spirit itself is not life, but it con- tains the germ which comes to life in the third- thing, which contains in itself the power of generation. Mind is the connecting link between matter and spirit — hence it is in the mind that transformation is effected. This mind becomes Divine by unf oldment, which, indeed, is nothing more than a union of the natural with the 88 DIVINE MIND AND BODY. rational. In the way we look at things from without, the Divine is evolved, but in reality the Divine contains the natural in itself, and is first in the order of creation. There is Divinity in all things, as there is life in all. T \Ye speak of the mind as a thing, having an organ, the brain, and a location therein, but we know of no such thing. The mind may, and probably does, come to a focus in the brain as a great centre of perception ; but I have good grounds to maintain that it occupies every atom of the body — even to the toe-nails and hair ; and that it surrounds the soul, separating the spirit from it, and that it is the great laboratory of the Infinite, in which spirit is trans- formed, and matter receives its quickening power, and is transfigured, transposed, or rendered up to the Infinite as an incorruptible substance. Jesus was in possession of the Divine mind. It was not possible for Him to be sick, to suffer pain, or to die, save as He willed it. He did not die, only in appearance ; neither did His body ascend, only in appearance, but was trans- posed. This transposition is a vanishing away out of sight. Read of the transposition of Philip, in Acts viii, 39-40. Andrew Potts, of Harrisburg, Pa., told me — and the samt» was corroborated by several truthful men who witnessed it — that he vanished out of the sight of his friends at the depot, when they were about to take the cars for a town six miles down the road, and that when the cars arrived at that station he was already there, talking with a friend who was waiting for the train to escort the friends to his house, Jesus' life and death was to show mankind that he was the same as they, and to show them the possibilities of human nature. A teacher, to be acceptable, must not be too far removed from his pupils. Had Jesus manifested the powers of a God, vanished from the cross, etc., He would have converted the Jewish nation in a day, and they DIVINE MIND AND BODY. 69 would have worshipped Him as God. But what good would that have done ? Lo ! the world has been worshipping Gods for countless ages, and some portion has been worshipping Jesus ever since His crucifixion, but what good has it done ? The Doctrines of Jesus are sublime in their truth and simplicity — but very much, of the most value, has never been penned. It has been urged against him that he taught that which, if practiced, would subvert civilization. On the contrary, it would redeem mankind from barbarism and idolatry, and make men civilized in place of semi- savage. " Greater works than these shall ye do, because I go to the Father." " By their fruits shall ye know them." " These signs shall follow those that believe" Who believes? CHAPTER VII. GENEEATION OF MIND. It is the weakness of matter which compels it to lie dor- mant and still in one place; this it is which causes it to fall down when not supported. Gravitation is only another name for weakness. So it is with mind. That which is under law is weak, and the more materialistic the mind is the weaker it is, and the more bound by law. Mind is law, but the thing moved and governed is matter. To fulfill the law, then, is to perfect the mind, and the matter under it; for law makes matter, and imparts every quality to it — motion, weight, buoyancy, etc. To the perfected mind all mundane things are under, or inclosed in it, as a large circle incloses smaller ones. There is no such thing as perfecting nature — it is already perfect. Neither can an imperfect thing generate a perfect thing. The imperfect changes by rising up to, and receiving the perfect within itself. Thus the wise man works through nature, not against it; and mastering its modes, methods, laws and minds, transcends them all; and looking back, becomes a spectator rather than an actor. This is the fulfilment of law, or in other words, the being filled full of mind. For as we ascend in the scale of power, we become more and more involved, or enveloped in GENEKATION OF MIND. 71 mind, which, penetrating through and through, illuminates the spirit, and gives buoyancy and fluidity, or malleability, to the matter composing the body; thus connecting it with other matter, to influence, control, mould and fashion it for use, as one uses his hands. In order to pass from one nature, or mode of existence ? into another, generation and birth are necessary. This involves a sleep. The spirit worlds are of this nature. In order to go beyond them — to the realm of absolute power, the germs of the mind must be ripe. We are here for the purpose — some of us, at least — of generating mind; not merely to spend a few years in amassing wealth, or in toiling to support bodies. Those in whom the mind is not half generated remain in this nature to try it over and over again. Unripe germs will not grow. To pass into the nature or " Kingdom of God" a regeneration is necessary, because it is an incom- prehensible nature to this finite mind —hence the entire man must be re-made. The body is of no account. Mind is that which determines. Some minds are of no account. Fate determines. The truly generated mind may, and dees, regenerate the man, and endow him or her with supernatural power and immortal life, here on this earth. That which ensues at the death of the body is simply generation, and not a regen- eration; for in the regeneration the body is changed in quality consciously, by the joining to it of the Divine Mind. There is no sleep or trance in this ; it is effort ; not physical, but mental effort, in the destruction of things that disturb the harmony. There are many enemies to human progress, prominent among which are the following of a downward or retro- gressive series, which are antagonized by an upward or GENERATION OF MIND. progressive series. They may properly be termed Pow- ers — one of Light, the other of Darkness. Powers of Light Powers of Darkness. \ 1. Revelation. ( 1. Ignorance. ( 2. Joy. ( 2. Sorrow. \ 3. Temperance. j 3. Intemperance. ( 4. Continence. ( 4. Concupiscence. \ 5. Justice. j 5. Injustice. ( 0. Communion. j G. Covetousness. \ 7. Truth. ] 7. Deceit. ( 8. Good. \ 8. Envy. \ 9. Light. j 9. Fraud. ( 10. Life. \ 10. Wrath. — Hermes. Kevelation may be known by its imparting a great satis- faction, rest, or joy to man. Joy is prolific, since it is the feminine of ideas. As Revelation drives away ignorance, so joy drives away sorrow — or prepares the mind to resist sorrow, and to be self-sustaining in its completeness — to stand calm and tranquil amid life's changing scenes, and be content and happy despite adversity. Temperance in all things is revealed as the source of health, and immediately is seized upon by the mind, and when it has grown apace, Continence, the feminine of it, is evolved. And they two drive away Intemperance and Concupiscence. "When this is accomplished the mind is as clear as a pol- ished mirror. The turbid waters of selfishness and lust have subsided, and Justice, stripped of vindictiveness, stands revealed as mercy, and becomes the ruling power of the mind. Then comes Communion, the feminine of Justice, and Injustice and Covetousness flee away. There is now no feeling of "mine and thine" left in the mind. All things are pure and all things are common. The com- munion of the sexes, of races, of spirits, angels and Gods, GENERATION OF MIND. 73 is effected, and the mind trembles with its fullness upon the confines of absolute truth or oneness of being. The soul has now ascended to the seventh sphere, and is pregnant with male and female twins — "the Truth of Good, and the Good of Truth" which in due time are born into the conscious mind, whereupon deceit and envy take their departure. In the light of truth all distinctions and differ- ences disappear, and all things are good. But this light reveals another light — dimly seen at first — far away upon the backgrounds of the soul, fitful and fleeting, obscured by passing shadows, it grows brighter and comes nearer — an immortal light in the centre of which is the germ of another life — of an immortal substance called "the Tree of Life." It slowly enters into the mind, and descending from thence enters into and transforms the changeable matter into a substance at once homogeneous and not particled. The man is no longer in light and in life, but light and life are in him. The Infinite is no longer without and far away, but it is within ; not divided and separated from, but the integral part of all being, tangible, visible and intelligible. The impossible does not belong to this life, and flees away upon its approach, or is not. The darkness and ignorance which form the background of the soul, in which we are hidden from ourselves, has been withdrawn, and we are revealed as the Over-soul itself, containing all life and forms within. "We are no longer involved in law or mind, for we contain all of these, and are conscious thereof. And we use them as we now do our hands and feet. Man is master of all his soul embraces. This is the proper generation of mind, wherein the body and spirit are regen- erated. To such, death is not, for death is a weakness. The intuitions of a ripened mind are as broad and deep as i I GENERATION OF MIND. the universe, but those of a small or an unripe mind are weak and shallow. Hence the necessity of mutual culture — not in the acqui- sition of earthly knowledge, but in the effort to grasp creative power — philosophy, astronomy, etc., in their broad- est and deepest aspects. Philosophy is the highest of all studies. It wings the soul. Truth is so little known that it is folly to waste words in argument ; but speculate, think, entertain and master all ideas thereto ; imagine, grasp at the Infinite Mind, and bring it into yourself, for in the effort the mind expands, stretches out and grows. What if you accept an error to- day ? You can change your opinion to-morrow ! Above all things beware of fossilization. Had Jesus healed the whole world in a day, it would have been sick again in a few weeks, if not days. He did not teach worship, but manhood, as a Divine thing. He taught salvation as flowing from works, and not from his merits or blood, or from the worship of him, or anything else but principle. He taught the influence and value of belief ; and also of several kinds of baptism — of water, of fire, and of the Holy Ghost ; and also of a baptism which he should undergo at his death. We are left to conjecture what baptism he meant when he said, "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved," etc. (See Mark xvi, 10, 17, 18.) But we are not left in doubt in regard to its being the baptism with water, for the Christian world has been "sprinkled," "poured," and "plunged" in water for eighteen hundred and eighty-two years ; and where are the "signs" he said should follow as an evidence of salvation ? He said he was the bread of life ; to eat thereof was to be immortal. Now, the truth is, he was teaching the same thing I am trying to illustrate, and his ignorant apostles, or FENERATION OF MIND. some one else, have got it mixed up and distorted, in order to deify him. He said the bread of life came from heaven ; and also that "the Kingdom of God is within you." He also spoke of another birth, and of sight, as a result of that birth. Baptism with water is a symbol of purification in order to the reception of another Baptism, viz, that of fire. The Baptism with water is typical of the softening and the making tender (as a seed) the natural mind, so that it may expand or revolve in its growth towards rationality. The softened, tender, sympathetic, opening mind, inhales the fragrance of another life, and it buds, blossoms and bears fruits which are a blessing to all. Its blossoms are a sight of the kingdom of God, and its fruit is the entering into the spirit of all truth, and the birth of a Divine Body, indestructible and eternal. Bathing assists the will in the healing of the body, and in the subduing of the heat of passion. Water opens the pores of the body — belief opens the mind ; the first for the reception of magnetism (spirit), the latter for the reception of ideas, which are, indeed, of the soul (Holy Ghost). This is the building up of a divine body of a supernatu- ral substance, from the atmosphere of a thought- world. We need not die, if we only know how to live. But what can we say of a world of men who think of nothing but vanity, and for the serious part of life hire the thinking of it done ? The thoughts doled out from millions of pulpit- grinders every seventh-day are but the effluvia of the past, the exhalations of the dead. Y/hat kind of substance do they furnish for a dying world? Is this the "bread of life?" Is there a spark of original fire in it ? He who depends upon books for his inspiration h but an exhumer of the dead. The heavens are as open to-day as when Isaiah, gazing aloft, said, " Lo, I am God ! and I change not; therefore, ye sons of Jacob, are ye not 76 GENERATION o:' KIND devoured." The Bame power is waiting for us to reacli up and take that exist ed in the olden time for him they nailed upon the cross. The tables of the Infinite are spread and loaded, but no one will be compelled to partake. Help yourselves, is the universal law. At the tomb of Lazarus, in view of a body lying stark and dead, with the smell of death, and the mould of the grave on his pallid lips, with eyes that gazed the Infinite out of countenance with their unflinching audacity, He of the magic TT7ZZ said, "If a man believe in me he shall not die." Did he mean physical death ? Most assuredly he did. Take this as corroborative : in speaking to the Jews at an- other time he said, " Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead ; but I am the bread of life which came down from heaven, of which, if a man eat, he shall not die," — meaning the same death the fathers died in the wilderness, viz: physical death. And yet, in the face of these positive declarations of the Inspired One, the pulpit organs grind out a spiritual explanation. They make Jesus' work apply to a future state, when he intended it wholly for this life. The Hermetic Philosophers, the Alchemists, and the Rosierucians, have all believed in and taught the doctrine of eternal youth, and sought for the "philosopher's stone," and the " elixir of life ;" and Jesus taught that life was within the Kingdom of heaven, which " is within you ; " and laid the foundation-stone, Belief. The fakirs of India cause a shrub to grow out of the ground, blossom, bear its fruit, and ripen it, all in one short hour. And it is no phantom fruit, for it is passed around and divided among the bystanders, who eat thereof. Scores of travelers have witnessed this feat, and many have written of it, but my authority is a gentleman of veracity who was born and reared in India. It is done under circumstances GENERATION OF MIND. 77 which utterly preclude the idea of jugglery or trick of any kind. They know and say it is the power of the will that does it. But there is no growth to their power. Why ? Because they have no higher ideas of human powers than the manipulation and production of things. They are not a progressive people. They are at their highest point. It remains for the Anglo- Saxon race to go higher ; for it is a higher race. Jesus said, "Greater works than these shall ye do, because I go to the Father." And it would have proved true had they made the conditions. It remains for us to make the conditions, which are, to work for that baptism with the Holy Ghost and with fire, viz: the union of spirit and soul. Water makes the body soft, tender and pure. Baptism is to be submerged, swallowed up in the spirit, which is the beginning of a new life with wondrous powers, generative of new matter — a divine essence, superior to death and dis- solution, which in appearance resembles this body, but which, in fact, is not mortal. It was this body which Jesus, Moses, Elijah, Philip, Enoch and several Bosicrucians of the olden time are reputed to have had. This was why Jesus said, " I will lay my life down ; you cannot take it" This Divine body may die, if corrupted by the desire to die. Thus St. John could live, notwithstanding he was plunged into a cauldron of boiling oil, till he desired to die. The Divine body is not a spiritual body, hence it is no apparition, or materialized form dependent upon a medium and conditions. It is totally subject to the will, and as it is projected from the mind, it may be drawn back into the mind again, and thus disappear. Or it may change and become some other form. This was why the Disciples failed to recognize Jesus on the way to Emmaus. "He appeared to them in another form," says Mark. But when he had blessed the bread and broke , s GENERATION OF MIND. it, he was himself again, they recognized him, and then he disappeared At another time he stood in their midst, and as they doubted, he said, "Feel my flesh and bones, for ye know a spirit hath not flesh and bones." The doctrine of the metempsychosis of the soul is as true as it is old. All things are in the divine mind, and are projections thereof by Divine Will and Love. Hence, man, when he rises to the Divine, has the same powers, so far as he is concerned, as an individual. Thus, he may clothe the naked, feed the hungry, heal the sick, raise the dead, walk upon the water, still the tempest, or visit the GoD-worlds at will. AY hen that good time comes we will not need to take thought for to-morrow. Then we can " give to every one that asks," and "he that would borrow" we need not "turn away." Then " whatsoever ye shall ask shall be granted," not because ye ask in anybody's name, but because then we may say with Jesus, " I and my Father are one." Then there shall be no high and no low, but as brothers we shall dwell together, and the nations shall learn war no more. Then shall "the lamb and the lion lie down together," and " the knowledge of the Lord cover the earth as the waters cover the great deep." Then good-bye to mammon and to a civilization whose glory is "an eye for an eye and a tooth [for a tooth," — "whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." CHAPTER VIII. ATTKIBUTES OF MIND. That which, can be ascribed to the mind is an attribute thereof. We have to do now only with a few. In my view, all things mundane may be attributed to mind, but distinct- ions are necessary to illustration. All attributes of the mind are dual — "Male and female created he them." They antagonize each other; one leads upward, the other down- ward — or inward and outward. All development is in expansive curves, from one to many; then in contractive curves, back to one again, of a higher or lower order. Nothing moves in direct lines. The expansion of the soul is her effort to gather power; her contraction is her effort to use that power. This is focaliza- tion. All power, to be of use, must be focalized. Intellect is the eye of the soul, which must be focalized in order to attain clear sight. The rays of the sun in diffusion gently warm, and bring out many hidden forms from the earth; but in concentration, fire is evolved, which consumes or obliterates these same forms of matter which were evolved by its gentle rays. Even the granite moun tain would vanish away as a vapor, if the light of the sun was all turned upon it. Yea, more! even the solid, beau- tiful earth would evaporate into the imperceptible — not even into blue sky — if the sun's forces were all turned upon it. localization is the destruction of the old, and the birth of the new. Intellect corresponds to the sun, not only in 80 ATTRIBUTES OF MIND. Form, but in power. It is to mind what the sun is to the earth. Its darkness is ignorance, its light is the birth and life of many things. The diffusion of its light causes the mind to radiate into many channels, or attributes, in the growth of which the soul is expanded. But soul is not satisfied with this ; and when it is dis- satisfied it begins to contract itself for another and a mightier effort ; it turns all its power upon one point of the darkness, which, like an opaque night, surrounds it, and pierces through — as a burning of it into another life, or another method of this one. This is the begetting of another intellect (intuition) from this old one, which has been con- sumed, or left behind as a charred and blackened ruin. The door of intuition once opened, there is no more use for observation, memory, thought or reason; its light pene- trates the depths of all mystery; language becomes auto- matic; and, without thought or effort, ideas flow in as the waters of a mighty river; all reasonable needs are suppHed as if by magic. To such, if any there be, I can say, with Jesus, ;i Take no thought of what ye shall say, neither take heed for to-morrow. ?? Man, considered as a whole, is the focus of all forces beneath and above him. The essential qualities of all animation are in him, and find their focal point in the mind; hence the mind is composed of instincts, disunited or at war with each other, the harmonious union of which is the beginning of a new order or genus. Intuition is instinct humanized. It is a mistaken idea that mind suffers. Intellect simply knows or investigates — it does not feel. There is no such thing as mental suffering. The soul is sense and hence it feels — it is simply a power and being limited, confined, imprisoned — and sensing its condition exerts its power to jape. To provide for its comfort and protect itself it ATTRIBUTES OF MIKD. 81 created the animal propensities — these are the lower or blind attributes of mind. The social, are of a little higher order — then come the poetical, inventive and imaginative-^ next intellect, or an attempt to see into the true relationship and adaptation of things and the laws governing. . But soul soon wearied of this outward panorama or " side show'* of existence, and turned the intellect within upon itself. This is focalization. All the attributes of the mind were concentrated or united into one grand power higher and superior to intellect, viz, Prescience. The soul is of " The Father" — and when its intellectual powers have attained the highest perfection, the soul not satisfied with anything less than its pre incarnate state, becomes exalted over its past successes and creates a new class of attributes out of the union of all of a lower nature. Thus were the moral attributes created — love, justice, devotion, hope, etc., etc. Thus have grown the attributes, from the exercise of which, all the various religions of the world have originated. Thus, by turning within and studying one's own nature does man become truly great and GoD-like. This is con- centration. The soul suffers and enjoys. We scarcely know what intuition is. There is plenty of sagacity and instinct in the world, but very little intuition. To it belong all the spiritual gifts we know of. Intuition is the seed of the tree of life. All seeds attract heat, moist- ure, etc., before they can project the shrub or tree; hence, the first law of intuition is attraction, which is the feminine, or the law of all mediumship. All inspiration, prophecy, healing, clairvoyance, clairaudience, psychometry, and all other spiritual manifestations, come by attraction. I am aware it is a physical condition; but the body is affected by our mental states as a thermometer is affected by heat and cold. Attraction depends upon attention. As a tender mother nurses and cares for her only child by OZ ATTRIBUTES OF MIND. unwearied watchfulness and attention, so are the gifts of the Spirit obtained and perfected. Intuition is the seed of the tree of life, and the various attributes of the mind which lead to gifts of the Spirit are its trunk and branches. The loftiest mind has not yet fathomed the depth and height, and multiplicity of spiritual gifts. They are all attributes of the mind, which, ascending spirally in cycles from the natural to the rational, at last bask in the bosom of the Divine mind. It is all within, waiting the baptism of fire, which comes by action. " Dead here, slumbering there, latent in all save a few," we look upon it as miracu- lous; as a manifestation especially ordered by Deity for a favored few. Mediums arrive at a certain stage of development, and there stop; then wonder why the gifts gradually die. (See chapter on Mediumship). The mind is a trinity in unity; that is, it is animal, mental and moral. The external mind corresponds to physical nature, and is called the animal; the intellect corresponds to fire — the spirit; the moral corresponds to the soul. There are seven attributes of the mind, each imparting a certain quality peculiar to itself. They have their antago- nists, as follows : Experience, I. II. Belief /\ Unbelief, II. III. Hope / \ Fear, III. IV. Knowledge / \ Ignorance, IV. V. Trust. / \ Distrust, V. YI. Love. / \ Jealousy, VI. VII. "Will. / V Reverence, VII. To the mind belongs quantity and quality. Quantity gives momentum, but quality gives elasticity and buoyancy. The attributes of the mind each has its antagonist, as shown in the above diagram. They both grow out of experience. ATTRIBUTES OF MIND. 83 but they are as opposite as day and night in the influence they exert upon us. Each exists by opposing the influence of its opposite; the life of one is the disease and death of the other. There is not life enough in the mind to feed them both to fullness, so they strive with each other for the "lion's share." The fundamental principle of this life is experience. To it belong observation, memory, thought and investigation. "We all begin and end with experience; if we try, we can not escape it; we must experience something. The exper- iences of some, however, are as trivial as that of a root which grows in the ground; according to the experience, so is the growth. We revolve in circles in our growth. Every experience is a circle — a triangular circle, of which belief, hope and knowledge are the angles. Knowledge is the ultimate of every act, of every experience, and is two-fold in its effects, viz: good or bad. It either adds to or diminishes, human happiness. The nature of the knowledge gives its effect, i. e., it imparts a certain quality to the mind conducive to happiness or misery. That which imparts rest, peace and tranquility, is conducive to health and happiness ; but that which causes dissatisfaction, unrest and agitation, conduces to disease and unhappiness. BELIEF AND HOPE. The great fundamental principle of Christianity is " Be- lieve, or you will be damned." This presupposes that man has power to believe as he likes. This is undoubtedly a truth as regards some men, while there are others who are controlled entirely by evidence, or, at least, by what appears as evidence to them. To convince a man of a truth, it must appear to him as a s I ATTRIBUTES OF MIND. psychological power. It must appear so fascinating as to carry his will captive through his love; then the evidence supporting it will appear very plain and logical. When the antagonist of belief overbalances belief, i, e., when persons are of a skeptical, doubtful, incredulous turn of mind, they are, as a general thing, not easily influenced ; they are in- flexible, and become fixed in opinions to which they become devoted. This devotion is the same out of the church as in. It closes the mind upon all sides, save the one through which -they look. They become bigoted in their one idea, which is a creed they are bound to sustain. Unbelief is the begin- ning of strife. It is a contradiction, and strife is sickening. The unnatural man fights for his opinions and against the opinions of others ; but the natural man loves repose, and is indifferent to opinions of others. Strife is of hell, and perhaps it is good for the unnatural but there is no health or life therein. Now, unbelief, being a negation or contradiction, it has within itself the spirit of agitation, which sets in motion discordant mental elements, antagonizing belief, which is of the soul — of intuition — the condition of childhood. The spirit of belief is that of child- ish innocence and credulity — of trust, hope and confidence. Hence it is peaceful and restful to the soul — so expansive. He who does not believe in immortality fails to do so be- cause he feels not the pulsating heart of God within him- self. Let him who believes keep silent till he knows the truth and can demonstrate it, if he desires good results to himself. I do not believe in strife, but let those who do, join battle. That a man cannot believe except from evidence, is true; but one man receives evidence from without, while another feels it within. We cannot accept a thing as truth except it be in harmony icith our inmost feelings. He who really ATTRIBUTES OF MIND. 85 believes in God believes in bis own power to become God- like ; but be wbo believes in tbe devil knows of bim, for be feels him within. We all instinctively believe in tbat wbicb we love. We believe in tbat wbicb barmonizes witb lis. Mental assent is no belief ; it may be forced out by fear, or love of appear- ance, or popularity, or gain, but tbe real belief is wbat we live. In view of tbis, Paul says, "As a man tbinketb, so is be." Belief is tbe fundamental principle of soul-growtb. Tbe credulous man stands bigber spiritually tban tbe in- credulous. Wby? Because all growtb and real power, depends upon tbe absorption of Divine fire, and belief opens tbe pores. All magnetizers are aware tbat belief and fear cause receptiveness. Fear is based upon belief. Tbo beliof in tbe " barmful Gods " bas diseased mankind tbrougb tbe cold, malarial influence of fear. We do not fear tbat wbicb we know ; it is tbe unknown we dread. True belief also gives bope, and bope casts out fear and imparts cheerful - ness. Belief in tbat wbicb we fear is not a belief, but an apprebension tbat tbe tbing threatened, tbougb unknown, may be true. Tbis apprebension or fear creates a trembling and quaking as of an ague. It is disease. He wbo believes in bimself reposes in bimself, and acbieves success ; but be wbo doubts bimself is afraid of bis sbadow, and acbieves notbing. Acbievement is tbe acquirement of knowledge — as ricbes. But be wbo acbieves notbing, knows notbing, and is poor ; bence be is dissatisfied witb bimself and otbers. He wbo knows least of bimself trusts bimself tbe least, and is afraid and doubtful. As of bimself, so of otbers. We judge otbers by ourselves. He wbo bas tbe most trust and confidence in otbers bas tbe best and bigbest knowledge — first of bimself, secondly of otbers. He wbo knows tbe most of money knows tbe ATTRIBUTES ov MIND. least of mankind. He trusts money, but not manhood, for his knowledge leads him to distrust mankind. Knowledge gives confidence or destroys it. Woe be to him whose knowledge diminishes his trust. Remove the little confi- dence we have in each other, and all friendship and socia- bility would cease. Nations and governments could not exist, and progress would be at an end. Confidence is the diviner part of us. It is the child-nature — that which is •' of the kingdom of heaven." Woe to him who has little or no confidence in mankind, for he has none in God. Sleep is sweet to the trustful soul, for God dwells within, and bars the door of darkness through which devils creep when we are off our guard. I have heard men boast of their doubts, of their unbelief and in- credulity. But to me it is an evidence of smallness of mind. Religion has become the laugh and grimace of the world, by reason of the want of comprehension of its votar- ies, and of the unbelievers. He who worships symbols is an idolater, and rightly pro- vokes the mirth of others ; but there is something sublime in principles w T hich always commands respect. The under- lying principle of all religion is the same, and is as old as humanity. True, out of this principle — this fire- faith of the olden time — have grown up dwarfed and hideous forms of religion, at war one with the other, as man wars with maiij or nation against nation. But the principle is still Divine, and universally breathes of the brotherhood of man, and the Fatherhood of God. Who is there who, in contemplating the wonders of crea- tion, has not felt the leaping of flame thoughts, as if in rapture — the kindling of a divine fire within that leaped and glowed with a fervent heat, melting our hardness of nature, our skepticism and unbelief in the wisdom of cre- ative genius ? Ah ! who has not gone hence from this closet ATTRIBUTES OF MIND. 87 of worship feeling like a coward, humbled and we^k as the publican and sinner who smote upon his breast, and cried, " Father, forgive me, a sinner ! " I repeat, it is the small- minded, weak man, who quenches the fires of his own soul by his doubt and skepticism. To gaze aloft at the stars and rear not out of your own soul a spiritual temple of principles for the guidance of life's actions — for the use of mankind — and instead, only spend our time in tearing down the house wherein our neighbor worships, is unworthy of manhood. Power is that which builds anew — not that which destroys. It takes genius to build an edifice, but a rat might undermine and topple it to the ground. Doubt, skepticism and unbelief are so many walls surrounding us, isolating and insulating us from each other, and keeping us far from the realms of power. In proportion as we know a person to be truthful do we trust ; the love for truth is natural ; and it is our nature to believe in truth; and whenever we find it, w r e trust it, and hope for its increase and perpetuity; and when we know of it w T e love it, and will its spirit to be ours. Belief, hope, knowledge, trust, love and will, are all of kin to truth, and he who cultivates these graces shall yet be filled with righteousness. Hope is based in belief. "It is an anchor to the soul.*' In proportion as I believe a thing do I hope for its truth. In proportion as I believe in others do I hope for their health and prosperity. We rest in our hopes. The grave looks less desolate to the hopeful soul. Cheerfulness and smiles are hope's children The unbelieving are the hope- less and the dissatisfied, he who believes in nothing, hopes nothing; the hopeless are the desperate. Which road will you follow, dear reader, for the truest knowledge? Do doubts and skepticism stand in your way, and choke and S^ ATTRIBUTES OF MIND. strangle belief? Destroy them, then, by not paying atten- tion to their croaking. Forget your "doubt by keeping in your mind and constantly before your eyes that which you love, or that which you would like to believe in and be. It is by the attention we bestow upon little things in the mind that makes impassable mountains of them; forget, or refuse to behold them, and they become mole hills. Have you an enemy — one whom you can scarce endure ? You know no good of him. This feeling does not make you happy — better destroy it speedily. Visit him in his prosperity and in his affliction frequently ; talk with him ; interchange ideas with him ; enter into his life-plans and hopes. In process of time you will find some weakness in him that will arouse your pity, which is not far from friend- ship. The ingredients necessary for success in this is, first, a desire on your part to bring about the result, if for noth- ing else than your own peace of soul ; second, a belief in your ability to accomplish what you undertake ; third, a cheerful hope of success ; fourth, a true knowledge of your- self — of your self-control and psychological power, and of extraneous means to affect him physically, such as gifts, or good and unobtrusive acts. My word for it, before you are done with your man you will be surprised at the amount of good feeling and friendship that will be developed between you. Perhaps he fancies you have done him a wrong. If you can possibly find some flaw in yourself, go and accuse yourself to him, and beg his pardon ; accuse yourself for the very things you know he is guilty of, but never accuse or upbraid him. But if you do this with doubt and unbe- lief in your heart of any good in him, your eyes will look your distrust, and he will be driven away from you as from a reptile. Control begins at home. Consider the value of friendship, and the evils growing out of enmity. Meditate upon your enemy, and when thus ATTRIBUTES OF MIND. 89 wrapped in thought, with your attention fixed upon him, lo ! your spirit flashes like the lightnings to him, and min- gles with his spirit, thus leaving an impression for either good or evil, just as you feel. Tour belief in yourself is of importance here, for if you doubt yourself, and the Good God who dwells alike in you and your enemy, your prayers fall far short of the mark, and you will find your will weak and your mind scattering. Know you not that the same creative power called him into existence that did you ? Dare you question the purposes and wisdom of the creator ? "Why do you hate or dislike him ? Because he does different than you wish him to ! Because he is not as you wish him to be I Ah ! It is the same old story, " Great I and little you." Better by far "pluck the motes out of your own eyes" be- fore you essay to sit in judgment upon your neighbor. When you judge others you are judging God, and yourself, for God is in all and is all. Then ponder these things well, my friend, for " Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." Woe to him who thinks wrathfully of others. There is no divinity in wrath. God could not be Infinite if all things were alike ! If you are good show your goodness by increasing the good. That is our work. Believe in all things, because they are of the Father — you know not but your enemy was given to try you ! Can you stand the test ? Wrath piles up wrath as wood piled on a fire, but "gentle blows kill the devil." Which road will you follow, reader, belief or unbelief — in order to make the most of yourself ? Which leads to power? CHAPTER IX. ATTBIBITES OF MIND.— Continued. KNOWLEDGE. It is said that " knowledge is power." This may be so in one sense, but let us examine and see wherein it is true. There are different kinds of knowledge, some of which are a destructive power. The knowledge of this world is based on facts gathered through experience. All the facts known have reference to matter, and things related thereto. So the relationship of things is the sum total of human knowl- edge as founded on facts. Is destruction power ? It is not reasonable to call that power winch destroys health and happiness; in fact, weakness is a more fitting name for it. Of course, there is force manifested in destruction; but it cannot be said to come from knowledge. To illustrate: In the construction of an edifice, some mistake, blunder, or oversight, leaves a defect in some important part, and after a time, in some manner — even in the settling of the building it falls to the ground, and in a moment the labor of years, notwithstanding the knowledge of many skilled artisans, may be ruined tb rough the weak- Qess of ignorance. Shall we say, then, that ignorance is power ' J . It would be just as logical as to say that knowledge is power, unless it can be shown that knowledge has some real I lasting benefit to confer. Is such the fact ? Is there al in our much-boasted knowledge? *s happiness and health is of more importance to him KNOWLEDGE. 91 than anything else in existence; and that which will confer the greatest amount of these upon the greatest number must be real power. It is claimed by the church that the knowledge of God will do this. This, indeed, might be the case if there was any such knowledge in existence. We know nothing whatever of God ! Nature we see every day, but all any one actually knows of it could be put in a very small compass. All we know is that which happens under our immediate observation. That which happens in one place may be known to a few persons in that locality, but that which happens in another place is unknown to them. So, it is easily seen that that which any one person actually knows of nature and its phenomena is very small. The most of what we think we know is mere hearsay. In the sciences even, we shall find the same weakness. Chemistry is based upon experiments made during past centuries to the present date, which experiments, indeed, illustrate wonderful mysteries. But what is really known save the effects of certain combinations ? A person learns how to produce the phenomena, and to repeat the names, etc., of the chemicals and the products, and he forthwith imagines he possesses a wonderful amount of knowledge and is immediately dubbed " Professor." The bulk of the knowledge is in a long catalogue of names intended to mystify the ignorant to the glory of the " Professors." It is certainly a great thing. For gunpowder was invented; forthwith war became a " science." "Military tactics" are a great thing! The possession of this knowl- edge helps a man up wonderfully! To be "major," or "general," or "colonel," is to be up in the clouds! They tread upon the earth as if they disdained it; butchers, pilla- gers, ravish ers! the destroyers of peaceful homes! What a power! The science of government is buili upon the blood ye have shed. What a store of knowledge it takes to be a 92 KNOWLEDGE. legislator, governor, president or king! To make laws to hang the lowly, and to enable those who have knowledge to escape. Look yon at the vast sums of money spent yearly to keep the government of even one State running. (Now, we are not regretting the money, but are thinking of the aching limbs and backs that toil year in and year out to support this cursed display of knowledge.) For w T hy does this government system exist ? So that millions of soldiers may be kept in worse than idleness; so that hosts of the so-called great may live without toil; so that the ill-gotten gains of the rich may be guarded, and th