PSYCHOMETRY ITS SCIENCE AND LAW OF UNFOLDMENT IF 1286 G8 BY J. C. F. GRUMBINE L898 -opy 1 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, COPYRIGHT OFFICE, No registration of title of this book as a preliminary to copyright protec- tion has been found. '7>u^ & '$< Forwarded to Order Division (Date) p ^ (Apr. 5, 1901—5.000.) \J^ PSYCHOMETRY ITS SCIENCE AND LAW OF UNFOLDMENT BY J. C. F. GRUMBINE Instructor of the School of Psychical Sciences, Chicago. CHICAGO, ILL. : Published for the: Order of the White Rose 1898. TWO CO WES RECEIVED Library of Cengf«« % OffJea C f tfet 10 1900 Reglst«r of Copyright* Copyrighted. 1898. Right of Translation Reserved. Copyright Imperfect Claim, 4 VOt CONTENTS. PAGE 1. Introduction 7 2. Special Rules and Conditions to be Observed . 9 3. Mediumship and the Spiritual Gifts 12 4. The Soul its own Oracle and Law ..... 20 5. How to See and Perceive with the Interior or Spiritual Vision 24 6. Concentration and Centralization 31 7. Sittings. What they Signify 38 8. The Silence. The Voice. Divinity .... 44 / PKEFACE. The author of this unpretentious and condensed brochure maintains in the city of Chicago a School of Psychical Sciences where Psychometry, Clairvoyance, Inspiration, Psychopathy and Illumination are taught to regular classes. He is a public lecturer on Meta- physics and Divine Science, annually addressing large audiences in the principal cities of this country. The School of Psychical Sciences over which he presides was founded in 1893. It has steadily grown into a permanent and powerful educational institution. Through the mail by the university extension meth- od he has instituted the Post Office school of Psychical Sciences, a branch of the college, the largest of its kind in existence. In 1897 over six hundred pupils were enrolled. His practical experience in this new field of science has been possibly larger and more fruitful than any one person engaged in a similar work, and hence the "Teachings," or, as they are better known, his "System of Philosophy Concerning Divin- ity" should be seriously studied. It is of more than transient value to the world. What he teaches will have weight with those who have examined other pre- tentious systems of development and found them to be incomplete and insufficient. To be sure no one system can be perfect while all are helpful, but one may be superior to the other in that it is more pene- trative, reaches a larger number of minds, and fills a wider sphere of usefulness. 6 The author of this book is a recognized seer and is the founder of a new system of Philosophy — "The Philosophy of Divinity/ 5 the various branches of this great system in their order being: 1. Psychom- etry," a system of Philosophy concerning its law, nature and unfoldment. 2. "Clairvoyance/' idem. 3. "Inspiration," idem. 4. "Psychopathy/' idem. Each one of these systems will appear in book form, the four volumes to form the essence of the new cult. This treatise is sent out with a purpose and a mis- sion, and in no sense should it be regarded as exhaus- tive, or even as an abridgment of the main work on the subject. It is a text-book and as such it will be of use to the student of practical metaphysics. INTRODUCTION. The student of Occultism, Mysticism, Spiritual- ism and Theosophy, will receive with joy any rational and scientific exposition of the science of Psychome- try. What has been regarded as the lost mysteries are gradually being restored through the slow awak- ening and evolution of the interior or spiritual con- sciousness of man. The human light thrown upon the hitherto veiled Laws and seemingly impenetrable se- screts of the Spirit has ever been fractional and scant. Few clear and intelligible works on the subjects have been published, and these few, while intensely interest- ing and instructive, have been more or less ignorantly or adroitly mixed with Oriental phraseology, theo- sophical verbiage and mystic or cabalistic symbology, quite beyond the understanding of the ordinary and unilluminated minds of the uninitiated. The occult rubbish which is flooding the western world in these later years is unspeakably harmful to those who are reaching out through all possible ave- nues for the light of truth. Why this Babel, or how it is possible, is explained by the confused and differentiated mental states of mankind. All think but do not think alike nor wisely. All are led but are not led uniformly. The kaleidoscope of the human spirit is the scene of a pyschic drama where the Infinite within this mechanism is inspiring and shaping the finite, and where as a result ideas are continuously clothing themselves in the final type or fashion of Divinity. To observe and accept the re- 8 suits of Divinity as manifest in the objective world as facts and to proceed no further, or seeking for causes to be helplessly baffled or confused by the limi- tations of the senses, is disappointing as material science proves; but to perceive the cause immanent in the objective world as a subjective force or law is to enjoy illumination, the fruit of the Science which we here declare and explain. Illumination is not the product of ordinary processes of thought. It is thought and the source of thought, but is spiritual and not ma- terial in its origin and nature. Each one can and does receive illumination either consciously or un- consciously, and it should be as we believe it will be in the future, the source of all true guidance and im- perishable wisdom. We teach the Socratic method of education. "We ap- peal or resort to experience and experiment for collateral and corroborative inductions of what islatent and innate in each human soul. Hence the success of the student of Psychometry will altogether depend upon his will- ingness to be naturally led and not artificially devel- oped by the many popular educative and philosophi- cal systems of incubation now in vogue. To be in- fluenced truly is not to be a prey either to accident or incident or to be swayed by the thought of the world, but to feel the Divine Influence, to perceive the truth and order the conduct by the vox Dei. And the ob- ject of this treatise is to elaborate, simplify and verify a Rationale of Divinity by which each one who will may enjoy the light of the Spirit and profit day by day by a wisdom which is celestial as well as by a knowledge which is terrestrial. SPECIAL KITLES AND CONDITIONS. It will be wise to state briefly for the benefit of the student the rules which he should observe in the unfoldment of sensitiveness by which the science of Psychometry is realized. These rules are fundamen- tal and axiomatic. They are not at all to< be substi- tuted for the culture which is necessary for a correct reading of the soul or the casting of a psychiscope (a view of the soul). They are simply rules which the science both demands and fulfills. Follow and so far as possible obey them. First. Avoid eating animal food, especially on the day of sittings or days when you psychometrize. Have the organism inoperative and passive, so far as food and drink are concerned. Second. Cultivate negativeness to spiritual vis- ion by sitting three times a week in silent, solitary con- centration of spirit. When concentrating, do not think of one spirit or spiritual thing, but of the ob- ject in mind. Be positive and definite in this. This is attained by permitting the spirit to assert itself in the sphere of its divinity and by withdrawing from material things and interests, from the objective to ^ the subjective world. One-half hour at each seance will be sufficient. This will afford the benefit of the silence and permit the spirit to declare itself. Third. At all times be free of care and try to banish from the mind all worry about material things. Unfold a calm, serene spiritual consciousness, so that 10 impressions may be lucidly and correctly made and received, and vibratory waves of thought may touch and unfold you directly and in a way to be truly inter- preted. All thought is motion, and the form of thought expresses and reveals that peculiar motion. To sense, perceive or to become aware of this, the in- nermost must be at one with the outermost ; you must be concentrated and centralized so as to reflect in con- sciousness the image or vibration that inflows through and from the realms of causality. Fourth, Never psychometrize when you feel sick, moody, mentally disturbed or at all uncomfor- table. Centralize yourself first before you seek to penetrate the centre of other souls. Fifth. Have the room where you sit in order, clean and filled with sweet, fresh air. The fragrance of flowers adds materially to a high inspiration and an exalted and beautiful state of consciousness. Sixth. Music is a spiritual accessory and aids both the psychometrist and the spirit to equalize and polar- ize the attractive, repellant or mutual forces. This is only advised as an aid and not as a necessity. Interior harmony is the state of blessedness and the best means, all other things being equal, to successful psychometri- cal practice and results. Seventh. A short walk before and a rest one- half hour after the walk will be helpful and afford a good condition for psychometrization. Eighth. Avoid promiscuous influences and repul- sive magnetisms before concentration and seances for psychometrical experiments. Ninth. Learn to see and listen with the interior consciousness; always follow your best impressions. Never act impulsively. Submit everything to Divin- 1 11 ity, and when you feel able and ready, judge of or decide upon impressions correctly. Tenth. Write and speak of just what you receive and do not doubt your impressions until the error is exposed by the one for whom the psychiscope is given. Learn to rely upon your own guidance and divinity; then you will unfold and greater success will, day by day, be attained. Eleventh. Walk in the light of truth and love. Unfold the love life and light. Be spiritually, not carnally minded and desire, not anxiously but earnest- ly spiritual things, and as you aspire so you will re- ceive the rich and eternal treasures of the spirit. Twelfth. Be uniform in diet, sleep, and sittings for concentration as well as in exercise, recreations and diversions. Thirteenth. Always invoke the Over Soul or Supreme Spirit, and the spiritual nature will gradual- ly receive the effulgent and all-pervasive light which never was on land or sea. Fourteenth. Sit facing the east in a semi-dark- ened room and but for thirty minutes. Be punctual and uniform in the times and places of sittings. A sit- ting in total darkness once a week may aid in the out- ward recognition of clairvoyant development, which development is a corollary of the perception of all in- terior states of the soul. 12 LESSON I. MEDIUMSHIP AND THE SPIRITUAL GIFTS. It is not generally understood that niediumship and the spiritual gifts refer to organic function and psychic power, quite different in their office, expres- sion and planes of manifestation and expression. Neither mediumship nor the spiritual gifts are includ- ed in so-called standard works of psychology, chiefly because psychology deals with Divinity universally implied and not with Divinity individually applied. "Whatever has been the history and development of psychology, the human mind has not transcended the metaphysical affirmations or truths revealed by Plato and Aristotle, and while we teach that Plato's phil- osophy includes that of Aristotle, both defined the soul as their master Socrates defined it before them. Psychology is not originally a system of philosophy concerning Divinity. It may affirm both God and Spirit as immutable and eternal essences and teach the spiritual immanency of the universe, but so far as Divinity is concerned, the views of pronounced and accepted psychologists differ. One may hold to the immaterial and another to the material character of the cosmos, while still another may objectify or subjectify causality. The theological conception of the evolutionary character of the universe may trans- form Divinity into either an Intelligence or Law op- erating ex ma chin a or a causality governed by some indefinable Spirit. We hold on the other hand that in God we live, move and have our being, and that the 13 superior and inferior expressions of life, are not only integrally related but integrally permeated with and immanent in Divinity. All life is divine in and of itself. The objective and subjective planes and spheres of life are but relative conditions and states of the spirit's consciousness by which it realizes and ideal- izes itself. Spirit functions through organism, it ex- presses and idealizes itself through consciousness. Mind is the oracle of spirit through which spirit ex- presses its thought and life, while consciousness is its light by which it becomes aware of or perceives itself. The objective plane or hemisphere of the spirit could not exist or manifest were it not for spirit, as neither could the subjective spheres roll into definite, rational order of expression without spirit, but the spirit could be without either the objective or subjec- tive phases of its manifest and expressed life. The spirit as Divinity is central to all as well as supreme over any and all of its conditions and states. While in no sense do we affirm that any other order than the one which is ever "becoming" to quote Plato from his dialogue, Timseus, could be possible, we certainly do not mean that spirit must always perpetuate that order which is relative to its being to realize eternality and Divinity. We place mediumship just where function, structure, organism begins and cease as such, and it is a word which in spiritual science covers the ability of the spirit to use the body after it has passed through the change called death. As such it occupies a definite sphere in the order of life's operations, laws, principles and destiny. It expresses in one word that which the functions of the organic being interpret, without trespassing upon the dignity of causality. Its law and action are uniform with nature. Its phenom- 14 ena can be explained and investigated as any natural manifestation of life. Its office is none the less abso- lute as that which establishes the polarity of terrestrial and celestial affinities. Dynamically and chemically it is uniform in all of its operations. But it has to do with the ob- jective from a dual sphere of subjective causality. It works from within outwardly between two intelli- gent batteries. Its field is within the subjective out- wardly upon the objective. As such it relates or as- sociates one sphere to and with two corresponding hemispheres and shows in an order of phenomena, both unique and natural, what is real because ideal, material because spiritual, natural because divine. The uniform and neutral order of life is the exponent and revelator of what is here elucidated, but where the vision is sensuous or limited and the spirit beclouded, mediumship is a necessary help sug- gestively and analogically to a clear perception of the immanency of Spirit. All forms of life possess this capacity of medium- ship to a greater or less degree, and where it is ir op- erative it is still potential. It is dual in its expression, however, and hence is not confined to either the ob- jective or subjective field of its manifestations. Therefore we have physical and mental phases of mediumship and forms of manifestations. Both are natural and both have to do with functional, organic life. Whatever is possible and potential and more, within the sphere of existence is possible and potential through mediumship; the increase of capacity for ex- pression depending upon the exercise of celestial forces beyond human instrumentality and uses, as for instance levitation, instantaneous chemicalization as 15 in full formed materialization, and kindred spirit phe- nomena. All these phases under the operation of mediumship are dependent and automatic, and make the person who possesses any of them a medium. Quite different is it with all those who possess spiritual gifts and quite differently must the spirit- ual gifts be defined. Spiritual gifts are the natural possessions of all and are not functional nor organic. They inhere in spirit; therefore they can be expressed with or without the body as the case might be. This is true w T ith what is called the sixth sense and which we designate the one real sense of all senses, the spirit- ual perception, which interprets and defines all senses and their office and sensations. The hearing, tasting, smelling, even feeling, are subordinate to seeing, be- cause seeing leads to perceiving ; and the relation be- tween this so-called sense of sight or seeing and in- tuition is so delicate and unobtrusive that one passes 1 ;om the outer to the inner court of spirit without real- izing it. We would disparage the very popular fad of multiplying the number of the senses and would encourage the efforts of the seer and mystic as well as all students of the spirit to generalize or synthesize them under the head of the Spiritual Perception. Psychometry deals specifically with sensitiveness , but as six sensitiveness is centralized or polarized in the mind and apprehended through it by the spirit, a vision of the object and subject so sensitized being had, seeing is really the act of perception. Now all creatures have this sensitiveness and perception, some have a hyper-degree and super-abundance of it, while others have very little, yet all possess it. And it is because of it that Psychometry is an exact and demon- strable science. If possessed of five senses, mankind 16 could utilize them esoterically or spiritually as it em- ploys them materially; if it could feel after spirit, as Paul said certain of the Athenian poets were feeling after God, instead of seeking in signs and phenomena the evidence of being and destiny, Pcychometry would be the most popular science in all the world. If one could but realize that the spiritual part of man is the real although the ideal and divine part, that which is permanent, and the source of all that is mani- fest on the objective side of life, a new order of society and civilization would dawn upon the world. The spirit is central to all of its modes of expression and sources of inspirations or impressions. It is and be- cause it is, it orders and can order all that is potential but impotent within itself. This seems a paradox and is to those who are credulous enough to accept time-honored and venerated systems of education at the cost of intuitive wisdom and divine guidance. But recognizing the spiritual within and as greater than and enfolding and governing the material man, one can perceive how life can be in-wrought as well as out-wrought by attention to the spiritual impres- sions instead of the material sensations which are their forerunners and messengers. For such impres- sions are never false or misleading, while sensations often miscarry and lose their tone of vibration be- fore they reach their destined end. Impressions like thoughts are spiritualized and hence proceed at once to the spirit, while sounds, visions, odors, all sensations must be synthesized and analyzed by the mind before the accurate impression is received. Even then such an impression objectively conveyed (where the spirit depends absolutely upon the evidences of the senses), may be an error or give a false suggestion. Now the 17 spirit in the applied work or uses of psychometry should school itself to live in the spirit and allow the perception to gather up whatever is essential to its life and destiny; that is, it should rely upon the soul of things rather than upon the things themselves. And as these spiritual gifts as psychometry are natural and independent endowments of spirit, each one's duty is clearly defined. We should do our w T ork not by proxy or substitution which are forms of obsession, but by using our powers to be what Divinity intended us to be. If mediumship has to do altogether with the ob- jective man and the spiritual gifts with the subjec- tive man, the one refers to a dependent and the other to an independent phase of the human spirit. The one is unique and versatile organically and the other spiritually. The one may be said to be a function while the other is functionless. The one makes it possible for the spirit to cast a shadow, and hence to see through a glass darkly, the other makes it possible for the spirit to see face to face. Mediumship is a function which has a psychical correspondency and is delicately re- lated to the spiritual man; but it is not to be con- fused with the spiritual gifts or possessions. Medium- ship is inductive and not deductive in its sphere of use and operation, while the spiritual gifts are alto- gether deductive, that is, they inhere in the spirit not because of organism, nor mortality or immortality, but because of its eternality and divinity. Therefore psychometry, clairvoyance, inspiration and psycho- pathy are not the instruments of mediumship. 'Nor are the so-called spiritual senses, which is a misnomer, the result, product or function of mediumship. Clair- 18 voyance, as clear seeing, clairaudience, as clear hearing, clairsentience, as clear feeling, are the spirit's subliminal modes of manifesting con- sciousness, and are termed senses because they cooperate and correspond with the external processes of the psychic and organic apparatus. When, however, it is realized that it is not the organ of sense or the sense that produces or receives the sensation or report of it but the ego or entity, the limitation and office of the senses will be understood. Each sense has its sphere of use and its end, but that usefulness and end subserve the soul. Neither the sense of sight or clairvoyance are absolute, neither seeing things objectively or subjectively, through the natural or spiritual man are independent processes. The outer functions could not act without the inner, and the inner and outer, collectively and synthetically, could not act with one ultimate end ever in view, with- out the ego. And as the body is impotent and in- operative when the life principle is indrawn to spirit, so these senses cease in their activities. The material cosmos did not create them, but evoked them. They appeared from within the spirit as potential functions when the use and need were made manifest. Organs and functions imply absolute being as well as a phase of it as existence or embodiment. Latent in the spirit, these possessions await the wand of time. The magic of their operation is the fiat of their uses. They cease to be, disappear and are atrophied when the spirit has served its end through them. But these inherent pow- ers, such as the spiritual and independent gifts as psychometry, are more interior and belong to more subtle and subliminal planes and spheres of corre- spondencies. They are related to the spiritual rather 19 than to the sense realm; and have to do with etheric waves and essences and not with coarser forces and elements. Hence what they can do through the will of the ego, independent of mediumship or its states as the trance or any induced sphere of telepathy or suggestion is wonderfully demonstrated by the achievements of the psychometrist and seer.* These powers of the Divine man require no ma- terial world for their being or exercise. Through them one can converse with the denizens of the spirit- ual world and pierce the veil of sense and matter, be- come an adept and participate in the arcana of spirit. Nay, more than this, by them the adept can become aware of the eternality of soul, realize the universal Nirvana and trace in the fashion of his divinity all states of the soul. He can solve the secrets of history and civilization, magic and religion, science and illu- mination and perceive the "I am that I am" in the "I am what I am." He can perceive the cycles of his being and view the phantasmagoria of nature through which he ascends to his sublime heights. It will be given him to know, as well as understand, the signifi- cance of Ezekiel's wheel and how the Soul, centralized in Divinity and polarized in love, governs his micro- cosm as God rules the macrocosm and how Aries and Libra are the circumference and centre of a circle in which the finite and Infinite are one. * Vide Joseph K. Buchanan's " Manual of Psychometry " and Prof. Denton's " Soul of Things." Three Vols. 20 LESSON II. THE SOUL ITS OWN ORACLE AND LAW. It is not generally received by psychologists of the old school that metaphysics should be accorded any marked supremacy over physics, so far as divinity is concerned, the universe being admittedly pervaded by spirit. Yet we take the ground that soul and not man- ifest Soul is the oracle and law of divinity, and there- fore the source of its own attractions. And what we mean by this is that the soul as reality and essence has within itself the law of its government. "While no effort is here made to misprize or undervalue the knowl- edge which is acquired through the senses and to make it serve the soul in its recognition of its divinity, yet precedence is given to celestial rather than terrestrial sources of knowledge, and for the reason that the perception of the Saul is always unveiled to illumina- tion. God is omnipresent in the Soul. No mechan- ism of causality or law, automatically operative can be substituted for the Divine Presence eternally im- manent. The Divine Presence can never be other than omnipresent. It is not susceptible to vicarious representation or substitution. It is ever the One and Eternal. It is as has been written, the "I am that I am," which the finite soul can appreciate if it per- ceives the esoteric significance of the affirmation of Jesus which is a refutation of materialistic psycholo- gies — "Before Abraham was / am." The omnipres- ent Soul is ever eternal, whatever may be or have been its normal incarnations or re-incarnations. And 21 from this divinity potential and immanent in each form of life, whether recognized, perceived or affirmed or not, issues the intelligence which gives knowledge through consciousness of thought realized through its own mysterious processes from within and without the Soul. Should we affirm that the soul can never be objectified or externalized, we should not be guilty of heresy. For manifestation of Spirit is not objectifi-* cation nor externalization. The Spirit is never decen- tralized through its incarnations or manifestations. It is not in the least disturbed in its radiant sphere of divinity. Manifestation is but its reflection, not itself; it is but an apparatus which like the web of the spider is fashioned from within the being to reach an object or end. But the object and end are in and of the re- flection — all is of the essence and from divinity. Mat- ter is not an entity but a form of the Spirit's presence in all of its elementary and combined representations. And while there is a law for and of form and a knowl- edge acquired through the sense apparatus, that law and knowledge are what they are because of the Soul. In the Soul, as Plato taught, are the spheres of ideas, innate, immaculate, and perfect. Forms but express and unveil them, they do not create and procreate them. Thus numerals, letters, symbols, are vehicles of ideas — not ideas themselves. While it may be true that one thinks in and through language, there is no authority for affirming or credulously maintaining that ideas cannot be perceived in the sphere of pure form or ideality. There is a correspondency between all forms and the spirit which manifests them, as be- tween ideas and letters, but that correspondency Is susceptible to an almost infinite, subliminal and spir- itual adaptation and purification or in a word, repre- 22 sentation. Thus mind through consciousness as the body through personality is being alchemized and ultimated. When we , affirm, then, that the soul is its own oracle and law, we mean that it is sufficient in itself. All divinity, love, wisdom, power, law are ever pres- ent and within it. It needs no government, no shrine or temple, no school, no oracle outside of itself — the external is the Babel of the world. The soul needs but to live consciously in the Divine Presence to real- ize all that we have claimed for it. It should perceive that as all growth is by the law of divinity which is within the soul, so all real unfoldment and exaltation of humanity is in and through the silence. Any basic effort or means to the throne is expedient but not sufficient. It is allowable and blameless but not God- like. It covers space and exhausts time but is super- ficial and hollow in its attainments. The commerce of the world, the standards of education, the criteria of success, the ideals of civilization, all are more or less shaped by the worship of the Golden Calf. "Great is Diana of the Ephesians" is still the popular saluta- tion and exhortation of the leaders of the world. Hence the inanity and lethargy of the State, society and Church. Everywhere there is the demand for and appeal to external authority; and to such instru- mentalities, vested in the powers and functions of State, society and church, are the masses of the people looking for all sorts of reform and every panacea for public and private injustice. When, therefore, we affirm that the soul alone is its oracle and law, that through it the logos is manifest, God speaks and in- spires, and conscience dictates the logos or will of the Divine, we speak ex cathedra. The time has come 23 when humanity should declare itself and lift from its lily of divinity the incubus of a popish and priestly usurpation of its prerogatives and domain. This it will do when once it awakens from the nightmare of the senses and catches a glimpse of the apostate harlot of the world that has stolen and usurped its throne and crown. The soul is the source of all infallibility. Each one has access to the truth. No one is denied the voice of God. Revelations like illuminations are for all peoples and races. The Cosmos is no respector of persons, neither is its law. The Divine Presence in- spires all creatures however lowly or exalted. Hence we can say without fear of denial that the universality and catholicity of Divinity fashions each one a god. Each as a spark of this incandescent flame or spirit of the cosmos is immanent with the Celestial spark and Illumination. To realize this is to understand the possibilities of the soul and to perceive the veils with- in veils which conceal the splendor of the angels and God. Psychometry as the science of the soul of things, as dealing with the Perception, discloses these unveiled and revealed essences and makes it possible for mankind to enjoy the spirit as well as its forms, to live in its presence as well as its manifesta- tions, to perceive its eternality as well as its mortality and immortality, to realize wisdom as well as knowl- edge, truth as well as science, love as well as under- standing and the inner, mystic circle where the light of spirit shines in calm and perfect harmony, as well as the rim and outer circumference of the world where all seems jargon, chaos and disintegration. y 24 LESSON III. HOW TO SEE AND PERCEIVE WITH THE INTERIOR OR SPIRITUAL VISION. The Spiritual or Clairvoyant vision comes under the immediate head of Psychometry inasmuch as it is a phase of the Soul's perception which is as the all- seeing eye. If it is maintained that the reason of the spiritual consciousness or subliminal self which we term the perception, in contradistinction, however, to perception or perceptions of the normal man, terms which are common and explicable in all standard books of psychology, is dual in its nature, that is, it con- tains the factor of power of seeing and the ability or capacity to realize all that is seen, we place the clair- voyant or spiritual vision in close relation to the per- ception. It is well to note here that the intuition or intuitions as well as conscience, which is the oracle and source of illumination, should not be confounded with the perception. The intuition should be defined as the Soul's capacity for divine wisdom, the intuitions the fruition of the perception, and as such they collective- ly stand for both knowledge and wisdom; it may be clearer to most students who are not familiar with the interior workings of the soul to designate intuitions the gathered and preserved wisdom of the Soul's past lives — it comprehends many states and experiences. It is in reality the voice of experience speaking from within the Soul — it is truth realized — it is not the truth nor all of the truth; it is truth and as such is a guide to the soul in all successive unfoldments. It 25 is, if the phrase will be pardoned, the resid- uum of intelligence, realized by actual tests and experiences, and hence is reason glorified into law. The ideation of the reason in any conscious state is tributary to it and affirms as well as confirms its rulings. The larger and integral consciousness in- cludes all states and conditions of the soul. The soul is not less than but all of itself. It contains every mode, phase, expression, form of its existence. Mem- ory, also, is not to be confined to or limited by any narrow and pedantic definition of its office. A psychol- ogy or a metaphysics that assures you that all that any one knows or may know of memory is its present phe- nomena may be scholastic, but the position is sciolistic, and is unworthy the name of a philosophy. There is a capacity to memory and a sphere of use, which is quite incomprehensible to those who dwell in and consider only the present phase and action of it. Memory really covers the whole surface and depth of being, extends into the illimitable spheres of divinity, com- prehends the past, present and future states of the soul and holds or retains the real and actual experiences and impressions of the soul. Thus intuition is the Being-because or the "because," which is the same as saying "I am that I am," which means I know that I am because I am conscious that I am; knowledge re- vealing the cause, consciousness revealing heing. The cause is the Divine reason for and of being which is truth. Hence any one can say truthfully through the intuition, "I know because." Illumination and per- ception are different, but deal with similar and not opposite modes of being. If the intuitions are wisdom acquired in previous states and are sufficient for guid- ance, so far as concurrent and recurrent events are 26 concerned, qualifying the soul to appreciate its his- tory, utilize its experiences, avoid its errors and mis- takes and overcome its temptations, in short, have a lucid and definite idea of its path and career, so that there can be no retrogressions and devolutions, if it is a base upon which the soul can build its celestial idea, and shape of or in itself the Nirvana of love, wisdom and peace, then, in the extended sense, profoundly far- reaching, illumination is as a seer to the unrealized ideal. It fulfills the book of intuition, not by de- stroying its authority but adding immeasurably to it and obtaining for or revealing to the soul, the neces- sity for both intuition and itself. Illumination is the father of all wisdom, and while there could be and is no intuition without illumination, for it is the warp and woof of all expressions of it, the next step to the logos, the difference between them is apparent to even the neophyte in spiritual science or theosophy. The perception is the entity centralized in the conscious- ness or the man in the dual capacity or role of human aifd divine, and it is by means of the perception that both illumination and intuition can be and are made to serve the office of the psychometrist. The percep- tion has access to its own radiant sphere of divinity by which it divines without the aid of sense or environ- ment or any external agency or aid, the palimpsest of the soul, its past history, present career and future destiny, and by which it is able to lucidly unveil or penetrate the soul of things; nature and human na- ture, the arcana of the universe, become an open book and nothing can be hidden from it. But mark, it is not here contended that all who proclaim themselves psychometrists are adepts; nor is it enforced that there are not veils which cannot be pierced by mortal 27 man, however proficient lie may be in his clairvoy- ance and spiritual perception. The ability is limited by its capacity, and it is the capacity which defines these veils of which we speak. Yet so far are the facts which we have affirmed true that we have no hesitancy in saying that even the capacity for lucidity is susceptible to a magnitude of expansion that the seemingly most preposterous claims for it may be realized. This will become more and more a con- viction as the perception is tested and the conditions formed for the most ambitious experiments. The range of the soul's vision is limited only by infinity, and surely it will be but a logical sequence which all can expect to realize and enjoy, if we affirm in the spirit of prophecy that this perception will supercede the authority and use, and the claims and needs of Bibles. Literature and history will reveal their spirit and facts under the magic of this power and the races will reap the fruit of a new earth and a new heaven. The question of method is an important one; to know how to perceive and see with the interior or spir- itual vision is a philosophy, deep and divine. True, no one can understand the process by studying its ef- fects. He may learn its law of manifestation or its power of evolution, its modes and its forms of action, but its nature will still be a mystery. He must him- self become its master would he perceive its philoso- phy. Its experiments may startle and interest but will never instruct him. Hence narratives of psychometri- cal experiments are useful in drawing attention to the science itself, but a study of an endless series of ex- periments will not give one a knowledge of how the perception realizes them or the adept reveals them. Let it be remembered that when we use the word per- 28 ception in so broad a sense we wish the student to bear constantly in mind that the entity, "I am that I am/' through or by means of the perception achieves the result. There are three metaphysical conditions which are absolutely essential: meditation or reflection, concen- tration or centralization and spirituality. In the next lesson we shall consider at length the value of the second condition. Here we shall confine our teach- ing to the first and third of these most important con- ditions. To meditate or rather to reflect is not to think over a thought as the words are commonly used, but to let it soak into the deeper self, the subliminal and spiritual being, where it can be compared with its ideal correspondent. Emanuel Swedenborg follow- ing Plato taught the law of divine correspondencies. Not only did he fully substantiate but he elaborated Plato's affirmations. The Platonic teaching of the innateness of ideas, that each thing has a something in the spirit or spiritual world to which it is akin, that the thing is but the form of the idea which preexists in the human and divine mind, that a perfect harmony and correspondency is here in essence and form, being and manifestation, and that all thought is relative as phenomenally viewed, but absolute and imperishable as divinely perceived, shows to what an extent the real sort of meditation will lead and how the neophyte can find himself by its use and enjoyment entering the ideal and spiritual world and being where caus- ality opens to him the secret workings, psychical be- havior and divine order of the universe. For here he needs but to be reminded that the subtle and per- fect relation which admittedly exists between the or- ganism and the spirit, is uniform in the organism and 29 in spirit between its parts, and therefore to fade from sense into perception, from mind into the deeper con- sciousness of being, from thought as objectively fash- ioned and cognized to thought as ideally and divinely realized is the object and end of meditation. Con- cerning spirituality it need but be said that few will deny its efficacy in the search after the oracle of the soul or the light which lighteth every one that cometh into the world. If chastity brings to the spirit its sanc- tity and vision; if innocence is a mirror of a celestial state enwrapped in the trance of existence; if self- denial, bodily ablutions, pain are spiritual processes which lead to the state of resignation and blessedness, then an active, positive love of the good is in truth the path to paradise. Spirituality is more than moral rectitude and more than intellectual culture. It is of the spirit inasmuch as it is a divine and not a material state. It is the apotheosis. It is the life of all ethical affirmations. It is not assent to a moral code nor a life consistent with any ethical or philosophical teach- ings. It is the fruition of a divine immanency, a life of sacred compliance with the soul's prerogatives, a realization of the vision celestial. Whatever it is or is not, it is the transforming and translating power of life, and through it the interior spheres of being are opened up and revealed. For such is the mystery of its process and divine workings that no sooner is it expressed than it unveils what is hidden within the Holy of Holies, and brings to the consciousness a sweet and rare effluence of light which reveals hith- erto unknown and unperceived powers of being. Un- like mediumship which is functional, it discloses what is supremely potential and divine in all. Medium- ship governs the order and quantity of spirit mani- 80 festations; it governs their intrinsic quality and the re- liability and genuineness of their source. It ever qual- ifies the lucidity of mind and all mystic faculties as it plays an important part in establishing harmony of action and inter-operation among all the organs of the human frame. It reaches to the sphere of the per- ception, and, by the pure atmosphere which it brings, enables the pure in heart to discern spiritual things as well as penetrate the things of time and sense. And therefore it, as a means to the one end which is here set forth, to say nothing of its value and use in the conduct of mankind, cannot be too strenuously en- forced or too openly acknowledged. By the higher uses of meditation and spirituality, the perception will become awakened and in its awakening reveal its secrets, unveil its power and demonstrate its su- perior worth and divine mission in a world and to a people who are slow to use and enjoy the pearls which are cast at its feet. 31 LESSON IV. CONCENTRATION AND CENTRALIZATION. Concentration and centralization have important bearings upon all efforts to reacli interior states and subjective realizations of spirit. They refer as much to conditions as to process and are interrelated and in- terdependent. In fact one involves the other. He who knows how to truly concentrate understands how to centralize. One may be accurate in his judgments, methodical in his reasoning, logical in his thinking, and yet may not apply either concentration or cen- tralization to their highest uses; for the uses of them, to which we refer or as applied to the unfoldment of the perception, are metaphysical and spiritual. Much, if not everything in such applications, depends upon the ability of the neophyte to understand him- self. The reason why so few persons are capable of concentration and centralization, of realizing their centre in mind and spirit, of shutting out from the deeper realization of spirit whatever is of the super- ficial being as the sense realm, is that they do not have a clear and rational idea of the order of the soul's life and being. They fail to perceive that natural law applies to consciousness and being as well as to its forms and manifestations, and that order is the spirit's law of expression and unfoldment. They do not perceive that this law is the very nature of the spirit's being, and that to know one's self is to appre- ciate the revealments which the law gives to each one. Concentration and centralization imply law; indeed, they signify by derivation centres or a centre about, from and to which all thought plays in exact relation 32 of centre and circumference, and that to concentrate is to fix all thought upon a definite centre first, and then upon the or one centre where the thought of the work in view converges. In other words, it is to syn- the size all thought in one subject, and direct the mind through the will upon that subject, so as to shut out or exclude from this mental exercise any foreign or dis- tracting thought or object, and thus by holding the mind to the subject await the results which inevitably follow. Concentration is a mental exercise but it may be spiritually applied, for the higher we soar the more beneficial is concentration. Let it here be known that the trance which is a form of obsession, where the will of another by hypnosis or suggestion controls or governs the outward ego and for the time sets it at naught, is an illustration of concentration. A mesmerist performs his phenomena of som- nambulism, catalepsy and ecstacy by concentrating or fixing his will upon a sensitive subject and reducing him to the state herein described, where his will and not the will of the subject is the agent and active prin- ciple in all that occurs through his suggestion. The superficial or conscious trance is always clairvoyant and lucid, but it is none the less effective and useful. There are endless degrees of the trance and the neo- phyte is encouraged to perceive the uses of these multi- form and progressive spheres in order to appreciate not only the law of their expression but the variety in unity and the unity in variety, and above all to realize that the more lucid the trance the higher and more subliminal is its state. Hence illumination which is realized only when the ego is absorbed in the Infinite Being and where, though there is no form of catalepsy or unconscious consciousness, as the phrase goes, pres- ent, yet the highest and purest form and idealization 33 of the trance are experienced, can be cited as a perfect illustration of perfect concentration. The seer or adept, by suggestion through concentration, exalts himself — the deeper spiritual and divine being — and comes into possession of his god-given power. And therefore the person who can by the exercise of his own will, rather than by the exercise of the will of another, which is dangerous and pernicious in the extreme and in no sense helps him but renders him impotent and helpless at last, induce such an exalted state, so as to be able to say and know as Jesus put it, "I am in the Father and the Father in me," has suc- ceeded immeasurably above the one who has by nega- tiveness, which is the antithesis or absence of concen- tration, made himself a subject of a stronger and im- perious will and become either a medium, a catalep- tic or somnambule. We do not wish to imply that the office and work of a medium or somnambule are not useful, but to affirm that while the one is useful the other is superior and helpful beyond comparison. To be is the question of questions and how to be and to realize being is the important issue of life. Not to shun or escape but to realize and enjoy consciousness of spiritual unf oldment are the ideal and end of these teachings; and while it is true that he who loses his life will find it, it is true in the sphere and possession of Being and not in the sphere of obsession and uncon- sciousness or non-Being. Therefore to centre the mind upon the more interior consciousness is to become more lucid of and responsive to Being, for it is to real- ize that the greatest part and totality of being is the sphere of the greatest and total spiritual Being. It is to be aware, not only of organ, sense, faculty, mind, consciousness, intelligence, but of all that they imply and by releasing one's self from their thralldom, to en- 34 jo j the fullness of Divinity. Students have felt and so expressed themselves in our classes that these superior states and realizations of spirit could not possibly be normally obtained; and where we have taught that the trance as objectively applied and not as subjective- ly implied does not lead the consciousness of any one to Divinity, but rather submerges one phrase or mode of consciousness that uncon- sciously normally but conscious supernormally, the spirit may bask in its subjective state, we have pointed out the fallacy of their assumption. Such a process attempts to extemporize these states in the same way that a florist or an incubator forces the growth of a plant or fowl by artificial means. The end thus obtained is not a conscious possession because the per- son has given an exhibition of the trance and through it revealed what is eternal and permanent within him. He has simply had done through artificial means which produce hypnosis what is commonly done by the aver- age clairvoyant who pierces the veils of the future and reveals things which are surely about to take place. The order of one's life is divinely ordained — none can change it. One can reveal or have it revealed years before the actual events occur and become history. That is not realization through your own consciousness because realization has to do with conscious being normally and not with a knowledge received through catalepsy or mediumship. So that we can say further in explanation of this view of the subject that clair- voyant states which are the higher forms or modes of the trance are extremely useful because they do not transgress the prerogatives of being nor usurp the sov- ereignty of each one's will and divinity, but permit by lucidity each one to realize and enjoy the totality of Being. Thus, to concentrate truly is to centre the 35 thought of seeing and perceiving upon the Perception and exclude from the exercise all other thought. This can best be done not by aggressive, painful and laborious effort but by no effort at all save definiteness and fixity of thought. Negativeness is emptiness and inanity and leads to chaos, but definite and fixed purpose is recep- tivity. Xegativeness means the opposite of positive- ness and should not be confused with nor substituted for it. Positiveness is desirable and is active, conscious effort while in no sense is it destructive of receptivity and passivity. Passivity is explained by the phrase "he also serves who only stands and waits/' while receptivity means willingness to be led, taught or in- formed. In concentration the most effective results are attained when passivity and receptivity are made to act harmoniously with the positive, definite and fixed purpose or desire of the soul. Centralization is a deeper and diviner process and is psychical and be- longs to the interior actions and attitude of the soul. Concentration is its corollary but it depends upon cen- tralization for benefits. So spiritual is centralization that it is akin to both prayer and aspiration and can be best explained by the word consecration. It is to be- come soul-centred in contradistinction to any other centres which are incident to the soul's expression and unfoldment. Centralization is divine contemplation, interior reflection and meditation, egress from the world of effects into the world of cause, participation in the Divine Presence. This can be attained best by cultivating spirituality, devotion, ideality, beauty, love of spiritual things. Centralization should always precede and inspire concentration, but it can follow it as well as precede it, if the student concentrates when he centralizes and centralizes when he concentrates. Concentration without centralization will lead to re- 36 suits but they will not be of that lucid and superior character as follow the exercise of centralization. If to aspire is to receive the concomitant inspiration, then the motive in concentration is fulfilled by the motive in centralization. If in matters which are material a seer has easier access than the medium, then the neo- phyte who cultivates the sphere of divine light and lucidity by proving both a desire for and worthiness of them, can penetrate deeper the material or spiritual w T orid — because nothing is hidden from the spirit once divinely awakened. It scans the manifest and unman- if est world, its forms and essences, and the cosmos is an open book. This gave to Jesus and Swedenborg, to Plato and Hegel their superior illumination and quali- fied them to become evangels of universal theosophy. They were heirophants, and by centralization made concentration the mystic door to the arcana of Being. They lifted exterior and interior veils of matter and penetrated the spirit as successfully as they read psy- chiscopes of mankind. All states and conditions of man were pierced by them and while history does not give a record of their sacred doctrine by which they triumphed over matter and form, the key to it all must be sought in concentration and centralization as here set forth. It is not denied that those who unfold seer- ship, lucidity of vision and adeptship are seers; nor do we affirm that seers are not born. We have no hesi- tancy in saying that all who realize this mystic power are seers and possess the clairvoyant and psychometri- cal capacity. All possess it to a greater or less degree of expression, immanency and unfoldment and while it is very pronounced and defined in some, dormant in others and operative in a feeble way in the many and not always perceived or intelligible, it can be further unfolded through concentration and centralization. 37 In applying what we have here implied to very simple experiments, such as sensing the quality of objects as salt, mustard, sulphur by the sensitive nerves of touch, one should be free to open the soul to the interior sphere of divinity by centralization, that perfect free- dom from all care and material impediments or en- vironments which might obtrude upon and affect the lucidity of the Soul's perception; then, by concentrat- ing upon the one object to the exclusion of every other object from the mind, the best results will follow. Of course we are here dealing specifically with concen- tration and centralization as applied to experiments in psychometry. In other and more intricate as well as complex experiments where many qualities of sub- stances intermingle as when auras or magnetisms affini- tize or cross each other, attention must be paid to composite sensations and the mass should be analyzed and separated into its integral parts, each after its kind. Concentration should be here applied as to hold the mind to the general and particular results so that no element of the experiment may be lost. This is attained by patient and long practice and not by care- less and irrational methods. Concentration has to do with results of experiments only so far as they are a part of the exercise. It cannot affect or destroy the result except where it is dissipated or vagrant. In such experiments where persons are concerned and histories are revealed the psychometrist should become soul- centred and read the life from the subjective as well as objective side and unroll the palimpsest as well as the mental book or record. In all such experiments the success will largely depend upon the absoluteness of the three conditions treated of in this lesson and the preceding lessons. 38 LESSOR v. SITTINGS, WHAT THEY SIGNIFY. The word "sitting" or "sittings/' unless associated with the word silence, have an ambiguous and often- times misleading meaning. Indeed, the average "sit- ting" of the neophyte is one so opposed to the object for which it is originally created that it becomes not only useless but in many instances positively harmful. To sit has usually been rather a negative occupation, in which nothingness and emptiness of mind, rather than preoccupation of mind or a definite and conscious aim have been conceived and entertained. Consequently the student is warned against any such negativeness or attitude to spirit in the desire to attain any psychical unfoldment or realization. To sit as the word literally signifies is to become immovable, to enter into a con- dition of rest or repose ; in other and plain words, it is to settle down, so as to be able to enjoy tranquillity, equipoise, harmony, which are the very opposites of disturbance, discontent and action. Indeed, the words sitting, satisfaction, Saturn, Saturday, all have their origin in kindred words which though given a various definition imply a like meaning. For instance, while Saturn and Saturday come from the past parti- ciple of sero, to sow, and sitting springs from the word sino, to place something, the meanings of the two words are strikingly identical. That which is sown is placed and when placed in a certain position or location it remains there for a definite time and end. To sow spiritually is really to know how to sit; or in plain 39 words, so to place one's self as to be able to -unfold as the Latin words sera and satum imply. Therefore, when it is understood that a sitting is a preliminary step to an end, a means for growth and realization, such words as inanity, negativeness, relaxation, emptiness of mind, should never be associated with or made to express the object of sitting. To sit thus is not to annihilate individuality, consciousness, concentration and centralization, not to depolarize being in any or- ganic sense, but to prepare the foundation and condi- tions for the growth and expression of that which is inner, essential and divine and which in no other way, except by sitting as this word is here used, can be real- ized. A sitting therefore has to do with the silence in- asmuch as it is a metaphysical attitude producing a physical correspondency or conformity. It has to do with the spirit and its divine contents or possessions. It subjectifies the mind by inducing passivity and re- ceptivity and conforming the body to the end which it has in view. It is not a mere physical exercise or form but a spiritual service ; it is not a mere fashion in which the spirit of the individual is only superficially inter- ested but it is a spiritual (not simply mental) state, preparatory to the deeper and diviner work which follows it and wdiich depends upon it. In medium- ship where a sensitive is seeking to express any phase of materialization or inspiration, sittings are more automatical and mechanical. The spirit is in a way suspended or set at naught, while that of another is made operative; the body or organism of the sensitive becoming the mechanism through which the chemists on the excarnate side of life are seeking to relate them- selves to physical or sub-mental and sub-spiritual environments. In such an experiment it is desired and 40 expected that the sensitive not only depolarize the thought or concentration of the thought of conscious control or self-possession, but become negative, rather than receptive, that the operators on the excarnate plane may adjust and perfect their instrument and. do their work. This is far from being the case in sittings for the realization of the independent power of the spirit. While help is afforded by spirit guides, the object of the sitting is for personal, individual and independent realization of divinity and not to inspire aid or cooperation from extraneous sources. In other words, it is to form psychical conditions which will al- low growth, not by any plan of incubation or auxiliary means, as when the seed is put in the earth and nour- ished by light, heat and water, it grows. In and of itself, the seed unfolds all that is possible and potential within it, because the seed is a divine entity, capable of material and spiritual expression. Thus, the object of sittings as here set forth is to prepare the soil, make it moist with spirit that the involuted and enfolded germ of divinity may uncover its blossom and arise into whatever expression is desired. But to attain the object of sittings the conditions elsewhere set forth (Lesson IV) must be absolutely enforced and main- tained. There is here no desire to belittle the cooperative aids afforded the student by exalted guides; they will assist and be loyal to the collective interests of the faithful, so dear to us all. We do not and should not wish to afford them less than the best opportunity for the realization of the ideal and the divine. No guide wishes to obsess or usurp the prerogatives or throne of another's being, but rather to aid all in reaching sov- ereignty and when it is said that each one can realize 41 the divine powers within him, it is in no sense true that one becomes thereby segregated and isolated. Indeed, it should follow that each, because one of all and each because one through all, should become divinely un- folded, where all forms of substitution such as obses- sion cease to be necessary and where the unity of the two worlds is realized in the sphere of divinity which comprehends all worlds and modes of being in all worlds, which is the realization of the apotheosis. Time and place, in such sittings are important only so far as they subserve the needs of the individual. They are useless considerations to any one who can enter into the silence any time and make conditions anywhere. To those who must adapt themselves to time and place because of material duties and inter- ests, the law is none the less stringent and inviolate. Even when sittings must condition or lead to silence rather than silence condition, evoke or dictate sittings, it should not be forgotten that subjective states are al- ways preferable to objective forms of spiritual com- munion. To sit that one may realize silence is a diffi- cult task, because it shows that the individual expects material conditions of rest or quiet to yield what can only be attained by mental effort or receptivity. N"o amount of absence of noise or presence of quiet, can create the silence. The silence like Spirit and all of its celestial and terrestrial states is uncreate. It must be realized not by material conformity or uniformity and any suggestion which may grow out of them, but altogether by recognition and affirmation of it. The silence must first be recognized and then affirmed, and though one may live in a condition of nature "like unto death," that would not afford one the key to, but rather would be an imperfect symbol of the Silence. The Si- 42 lence is not the spiritual correspondent of death — that is life; the Silence is the spiritual correspondent of action, thought, expression — it is the sphere in which the spirit realizes its subliminal and celestial powers, states, intuitions and illuminations. Therefore, while the neophyte is the choser of both times and places, these are not to be magnified as the essentials. It can be said, however, upon astro-psychical grounds that while any time and place is the time and place for receptivity, yet it is true that as Solomon expressed it, there are times and seasons for all things under the sun. This fact does not in the least set at naught the law of the Silence, nor disprove what we have already taught concerning it. It adds to its dig- nity by showing that even nature subserves it and impresses most solemnly upon man the idea which it reveals. A mind that cannot concentrate under the most crucial tests can scarcely be expected to do so where there is no necessity for effort, because concen- tration, as the opposite of distraction, dispersion and insanity presupposes adeptship; and adeptship is the ability which one has perfected for concentration and centralization. Yet, such times and places as remove from the mind the thought of chaos and suggest cosmos are not indeed to be misprized nor their value underestimated. Yet even such conditions will prove unavailing, if the neophyte refuses to recognize and affirm the Silence, as a state rather than a condition and something subjectively realized and not object- ively demonstrated or created. To sit, therefore, with the growing day is what is implied in the Solomon, or the man of the Sun, and to so sit that one may realize the significance of light, materially applied and spirit- ually implied. We should suggest, as in the first prin- 43 ciples which are given in the special rules and condi- tions to be observed, that the quality of aspiration and receptivity should have the precedence over length or quantity of times for sittings. But, if after entering the Silence, at such an hour and place when and where the spirit is prepared to enjoy its divine privileges and prerogatives, the time were to be considered, we should advise the morning hour between ten and eleven. The reason will be per- ceived in the sittings. By living in the Silence the universal Spirit Presence, reveals to the attentive spirit the divine power whereby the beatitudes of the Christ become realities in the soul life of humanity, and whereby the book of life is unrolled as a scroll. 44 LESSOR VI. THE SILENCE. THE VOICE. DIVINITY. Ik" the preceding lesson we dwelt upon the con- trast between sittings and the Silence which, compara- tively speaking, truly defined the phrase, "sitting in the silence'' as a spiritual state and not a material con- dition of inertia or unconsciousness. It will be necessary to dwell upon the word silence in a more extended metaphysical and meta-mental way, in order to have the student perceive the relation which exists between the Silence and the variety of modes of sub- consciousness, such as the trance and the clairvoyant form of illumination and perception which oftentimes either precede or follow both concentration and cen- tralization through the Silence. The Silence is not a law to or of itself. It is a dependent state and is sub- ject to and governed by the will. True, the Silence like health, harmony, joy, wisdom, love, oneness, are essential states of being; they cannot be created nor produced. They are of being and are to be realized. Nevertheless, while this is so, it must be remembered that all states are conscious only through and not inde- pendent of the will. The will deifies these states, that is, makes them personal or an individual, conscious, divine possession. The will puts these absolute states into service. All states lie enfolded within being but the word will like the word expression signifies realiza- tion. Realization is not possible without will. "I am that I am" or "I will to be that I am," are in a sense equivalent phrases; but it is through the latter that 45 one perceives or realizes the former. "I am that I am" is a statement of absolute being and it is unques- tionably true that the Divinity or entity realizes its eternality per se, but while this is true of Absolute Being or Divinity, where there are no intervening or intermediate veils existing between the Soul's states, or separating one sphere or mode of consciousness from another, as may be illustrated by the sub and hyper states of consciousness, yet the order of the Soul's apotheosis must not be lost sight of. One cannot real- ize the logos either as applied through the vehicle of the natural man or as implied in the spheres of the spiritual or celestial man, save by will. Absolute con- sciousness is absolute choice and volition to realize it, already possessing it. Hence where the silence is con- ceded to be a primal, unchanging, eternal state of being, it is also true that it must be realized by the law of its being; and here is where both the will and the logos unite, the logos being the will of the Infinite Divine, immanent in the finite divine, while the will as here set forth is the executive capacity and power for its realization and enforcement. The Silence thus becomes a conscious state by which consciousness itself becomes awakened, and by its awakening the spheres and powers which lie potentially within it become openly perceived. It will be apparent that the word sphere is a mys- tical word, susceptible to an esoteric definition. Like the circle it is comprehensive and incomprehensive, paradoxical as the statement is, having a circumfer- ence, limited only by manifestation and a centre illim- itable in expression. Within the latter appear all the circles or wheels spoken of by Ezekiel in his prophecies and not only is the square but the circle as used ijn 46 mystic Masonry within the sphere of its divinity. One is its content and two is its dual phase of expression, yet the odd and even numbers are of one in one, as Pythagoras taught in his secret doctrine. Each par- ticular or individual sphere within the universal sphere has its trance or veil, its objective and subjective phases of expression and this is the reason why the Silence is the sphere of the Soul's realizations. There can be no concentration nor centralization without making trances, which literally means transits, or passings from one sphere to another, and indeed so even in thought or states of spiritual being. Hence, to enter into the Silence is to close the door to that which is opposed to it or, to use metaphysical language, that which is its material correspondent or counterpart. It is to be, not appear to be; it is to realize being, not mingle in its phenomenal aspects; it is to know and enjoy reality and not communicate with forms only; it is to exalt the soul to its inner court of being and there abide and not act through vehicles and reside in the temporal and corruptible. It is in short to be God-like, or better still to be of God in the realization of the Divine Immanency and Illumination and not to live as a shell fish, in the under currents of the enfolding and over Soul of the universe. Thus the trance, not as an- nihilating but expressing consciousness, not as obsess- ing but as aiding in the possession of being, not as lim- iting but revealing the soul, is helpful in all work of spiritual unfoldment. It will here be noticed that we speak of the trance not as producing death or a state of unconscious consciousness, a state which is the ab- sence of a normal consciousness while the soul lives in a hypersphere of being separated from its body or is operation upon 8 ub-consciously by an extraneous being; 47 for the trance which destroys even so much as a nor- mal consciousness through an excarnate spirit control is never to be sought, nor is it ever to be preferred to spheres of conscious illumination which is our defini- tion of the results of the trance as we employ the word. It is its spiritual and mystical signification. A mystic and a seer are men and women who know how to close and open the lips and the eyes as the words themselves mean by derivation. And to close the lips and eyes not as in death but with a conscious awaken- ing to deeper, higher, diviner states is the realization of this ecstatic, illuminated state. It is through and in the Silence where the Voice is heard, the vox Dei. This is the mystical meaning of the "voice in the wilderness" and its pleading, pathetic command, "prepare ye the way of the Lord." For it is in the openness of the soul where the Christ is per- ceived and realized and where the voice is heard. There- fore the Silence is not to be confounded with any lim- ited sphere or plane of sense perception or understand- ing, but it to be likened to an infinite area of possi- bility and opportunity, which the word openness alone describes. It is as a wilderness, a virgin domain that is untouched and unopened but one covered, over- shadowed and permeated by the Adorable One whose voice is heard from afar; and it is here where the way is prepared for the Divine Recognition, Baptism, Re- generation and Illumination, and where all flocks be- come united under the guidance of the one Lord or Shepherd. Need it be said that it is here also where Divinity becomes a realization; for as Paul expressed it, carnal things are carnally discerned and experi- enced, but spiritual or divine things are spiritually or divinely perceived. It is here where the eyes and ears 48 are opened and one becomes clothed with the Sun. It is here where the keys to the scriptures are received and one reads the sacred writings understandingly, be- cause it is here where the baptism becomes one of fire and one is able to speak with tongues of fire and inter- pret life's book aright. The inner man is born, the divine consciousness is awakened, the spiritual percep- tion is quickened, the oracle of the soul, the intuition, and the oracle of Divinity, the conscience henceforth reveal the deep things of God. Wisdom touches the understanding with its celestial flame of truth, and love opens the book of life to the unwritten and unre- vealed law of good. And here in this inner realm of spirit the divine sci- ence of psychometry restores the palimpsest of the Soul, its past life and record, opens the present and re- veals the future, giving to men the key to divination, prophecy and seership, but above all, teaching him how to realize and enjoy the divine in the fullness of time. This is indeed the more excellent way of life and being which is realized by aspiring for and unfold- ing the best gifts or powers, and it is a way sufficient in itself, without the need of college, church or state, without the need of philosophies, religions or magna charta, without the need of mediumship, a way de- fined by intuition and illumination, through the oracle of the Soul which is the oracle of the Voice and the oracle of the Divine. All other aids, because such, will fail. The Soul's powers are alone sufficient for at- taining and realizing Guidance, "Wisdom, Love, Power, Illumination, Peace. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 022 172 018