Book Copyright Is" CSSSSOm- DEEQSIE .\^ Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2011 with funding from The Library of Congress http://www.archive.org/details/waytextbookforstOOdowd THE WAY A text book for the student of Rosicrucian Philosophy ^ By Freemax B. Dowd Author of '"'Temple of the Rosy Cross," Evolution" and "Immortality" Copyrighted 1917 by R. Swinburne Clymer Published at "Be\^rly Kaj.l" Quakertown, Pa. DEC 24 1317 ©CI.A4812T3 fiw 1 o DEDICATED TO OUR FAITHFUL STUDENTS THE WAY CONTENTS THE MAGI NATURE THE WAY OF LITE EXISTENCE THE LAWS OF LIFE LIFE AND FORM FATHER-MOTHER GOD AND SPIRIT THE SAVIOR LIFE CURSES CHRIST TO BECOME THE EGO I AM THE WAY ROLL OF HONOR Rev. Charles C. Brown Lewis P. Albrecht Dr. Edward H. Brown Frances K. McCurdy W. T. W. Gall Dr. M. C. Carpenter Marcia Greene Miss M. M. Gardner M. M. Powell Miss Ethel Savage Mathilde K. Glauner Dr. Henry J. Frank Catherine Cake E. E. Hartman George F. Hanselraan C. H. Smith John Donovan P. J. Ogilvie Daisy T. Grove Wm. Mathison F. A. Shoemaker S. Margaret Hardigan Charles H. Wolf Miss M. L. Verdier August Schultz Edward Bard&ley Rev. A. W. Witt Mrs. A. W. Witt Gertrude Cosgrove C. J. Clark ^ Gertrude Pelot Rev. J. C. Cake Jos. Maly Elizabeth K. Hosford Grace K. Morey Jos. A. Walter Elizabeth Walter Mrs. F. W. Pleister August Lundberg John C. Abel C. N. Searle Mrs. Marit Bramhall Clyde Barr Charles Gray Mrs. Emma Schmeiser Rose Mozzer Albert H. Brown W. C. Miller Lars Hansen Mrs. H. Savage Rufus Page THE WAY FOREWORD The Seventieth Annual Convocation of the educational de- partment of the Rose Cross Order, founded in America by Dr. P. B. Randolph in the year 1858, was called to convene on the twenty- fourth of October, 1917, to continue for a period of no less than two weeks. The reason the Convocation was called for this date was due to the desire that, on the night of All Souls, the Sacred Col- lege might be convened and that all present at the Convocation might take part in the services. On All Souls Night all were assembled in the Temple and services commenced with the Requiems and the solemn Invoca- tions, as taught by the Ancient Magi, which have been handed down faithfully from Master to Master up to the present time. At the conclusion of the services and before the Sacred Col- lege came to a close, the Order of Knighthood was conferred upon Dr. M. C. Carpenter and he became a member thereof. The Sacred College will hold solemn Mass for heroes at the front who may have lost their lives, on Thanksgiving night and also on Christmas eve. The Mass and Requiems will be of the nature of those held on All Souls Night, and the solemn Invoca- tions will be offered for the peace and repose of the soldiers who die for truth and liberty. All members of the Knighthood and the Sacred College are called upon to sacredly obey their vows. When the call was issued for the Convocation, it was 10 THE WAY ordered that in place of the usual course of instructions as given before the members present at the Convocations, the lectures should be based upon the manuscript prepared by Freeman B. Dowd shortly before he passed to the Beyond, and which had not yet been issued in book form. This manuscript which had been turned over to M. L. Gold- thwaite by F. B. Dowd for the purpose of publication, had been given us for that purpose some years ago, but we had received Hierarchic orders not to issue it in book form until ordered to do so, and for this reason it has been held intact instead of being published. However, when the call for the Seventieth Convocation was being prepared, orders were received that the manuscript should be used as a course of lectures before the Convocation and that it should then be issued in book form if it obtained the sanction of the entire assembly. Orders were obeyed, and it w^as voted that this would be F. B. Dowd's best book, better even than the book from his pen which had been recommended to an American student by a world famous Mystic-novelist early in the year. This book now before the reader, and entitled as it is ''The Way," was to have had another title and had F. B. Dowd lived to see its publication would not have been for general sale, but only given to the students of the teachers then under his authority. Times, however, make great changes, and the valuable work which only a few would have had the opportunity to study, is now to be had by all those interested in the true Rosicrucian Philosophy. THE WAY 11 We ourselves, think, that this book is of greater value than ''The Temple of the Rosy Cross," "Evolution" or "Immortality," his other three books. In passing, it is necessary to state, because of the accusa- tions that have been made, that the title "Temple of the Rosy Cross" was used by Mr. Dowd in 1884, and was original with him, and not, as some suppose, taken from an organization now using that title without at any time having obtained the right to use it. In short, the book "Temple of the Rosy Cross" had gone through four large editions before the said organization had ever been founded. Light — Life — ^Love There is virtually no benefit to be derived from the con- sideration of the Rosicrucian Order prior to its establishment in America by Dr. P. B. Randolph in the year 1858. The teachings of the Order, the system of instruction, in fact all that is germaine is identical with the system of instruc- tion followed by the Order in other countries prior, and after, the establishment of the American branch. The watchword of the American Order, used by no other Order in the world and coined by Dr. Randolph as Grand Master, more than seventy years ago were Light, Life and Love as the three most desirable things that man could wish in life. These same magical works are today the light of the Rosi- crucian Fraternity and mil continue to be the ke)Tiote to the true life as long as one true Rosicrucian lives in this world of matter and of fact, of pain and of sorrow, of love and of friendship. Contrary to the mistaken idea held by countless misinformed 12 THE WAY people, the Rose Cross Order does not establish Lodges since these lodges would be of little use except to breed discontent and misunderstanding. The Rose Cross is a mystical school, a school of esoteric teachings wherein the student is an individual, part of the whole, but in himself an entire law unto himself. He cannot be taught in a class with others, since he is an entity in himself. He must be considered as entirely distinct from all others and in this light must be instructed, trained, developed, towards Initiation. The "Crossing of the Threshold" is not a matter of Ritual, it cannot take place in groups, nor will any two be able to cross at the same time, because no two students will develop alike, nor in the same number of weeks, months, or years, and when the crossing does finally take place, no man witnesses it, because it is the Soul of the Neophyte, the Seeker, which alone is the can- didate and which alone must face the Terror of the Threshold. The Rose Cross Order in no wise condemn Ritualism, but in thundering tones it proclaims that Ritualism has nothing whatever to do with the Crossing of the Threshold, with the facing of the Terror, or with the Initiation and the Illumination of the Soul, and those who desire an inkling of what this Initia- tion means, might do well to study "Zanoni" by Lord Bolwer Lytton, the English Rosicrucian and writer who did his best to describe the ordeal of the Soul of man so that those who read might understand. Neophytes who take up the study of the Rosicrucian Phi- losophy should not expect to come to the Portals of the Thresh- old for a long time, nor by the help of any man, nor yet through THE WAY 13 the means of a Ritual, however sublime that Ritual might be, but should be made to fully understand that the Soul is not brought face to face with the Terror and therefore does not even enter the Threshold until such time as its final test is to take place and then no man is with the Neophyte, but he, like the man who truly prays, according to the teachings of Jesus, must enter his closet alone and there face the Terror and by right of his internal development, be able to face and to vanquish the Terror, and thus be permitted to "Cross the Threshold." This will mean his Initiation, the entering into fellowship with the Brothers of the Rose Cross. This is a slow process, for during the period of training, the light within the Soul of Man must ha,ve become awakened, and this Light must grow and become intense, until at length it bursts forth in glorious splendor with a dazzling Light, and the Neophyte, like Moses of old, can say: "This day have I been allowed to behold the Fire in the burning bush, and its Voice spake unto me." This is Illumination, this is the Initiation, and readily will the sincere Neophyte be able to understand that this can never be accomplished through Ritualism, and that crowds will not surround him, for was Moses not in the wilder- ness and alone when he had to face the Fire and to Listen to the Voice of the Fire? Like Moses, so must all men face the Terror alone and unaided except by their own interior develop- ment which alone can give them the strength to meet the struggle successfully. Transmutation is the Law that leads to Initiation and not Ritualism. 14 THE WAY Let it be understood that we do not have in mind the Ritualism of the Fraternities such as the ^lasons, the Knight Templars, or others of their class, for these do not claim to have an}1:hing to do with the souls of men except to help them through a code of ethics which should ennoble all men who subscribe to them. Our thoughts are only of the Occult Fraternities and their system of teachings. Let it be understood that the Rose Cross is not an external organization in any sense of the word, that it is not a Lodge in the usual sense, that while it has Convocations it is not the inner lessons which are communicated at such Convocations, but that only the Philosophy can be taught during these meetings and fraternal greetings exchanged. The work of the Rose Cross is esoteric and con- cerns the soul of each individual distinctly and separately and that all men who enter its portals must face their God alone. The Law ''He who knows does not talk." That is the motto or Law which governs every true Rosicrucian. He who claims to be a Rosicrucian, in the words of a great Master, is "one who knows not the truth." He who claims to be either an Liitiate, a Master, an Adept, or a Rosicrucian, is never such for no true Rosicru- cian will even admit, much less claim, that he is either an Initiate or a Rosicrucian. Some of us are humble workers in the field, but beyond this, and the authority' to teach which is vested in us, we neither claim or admit an}thing, and thus must it ever be, for the brag- THE WAY 15 gart has ever been shunned and despised and will ever be. To Will, to Know, to Dare, and to be Silent, these are the virtues of the true Brother, let all follow his example. Fraternally given, R. Swinburne Clymer. ^'Beverly Hall," Nov. 7th, 1917. 16 THE WAY INTRODUCTORY ! Magi is the name of a tribe of ]Medians, which not unlike that of Levi among the Israelites, were set aside for the manage- ment of the sacred rites, and for the preservation and propogation of the traditional knowledge. From the Medians, the institution of the Magi found its way, under Cyrus into Persia, and here rose to the very highest importance, while at the same time they extended their sphere of action. They were now not only "Keepers of the sacred things, the learned of the people, the philosophers and servants of God," but also Diviners, Mantics, Augurs, and Astrologers. They called up the dead by lawful formulas, w-hich were in their ex- clusive possession, or by means of cups, water, etc. They were held in highest reverence, and no transactions of importance took place without their advice. Hence their almost unbounded in- fluence in private and public life; and also, while the education of the young princes was in their hands, they were the com- panions of the reigning Monarch. The Medianites were a branch of the Persians, and hence belonged to the Aryan family. The word magic means miracle-working powers — and hence the "Magi" were a class of men who dealt vdth subtle spiritual or mental forces in contradistinction of physical force. Therefore they were the priests, rulers of kings and princes. It is useless to speculate about the origin of anything — all that exists develops from seed; and although the seed is very minute yet the fire of it is smaller still — in fact, it cannot be discovered. It is so with vegetation, animal species, races, languages, ideas. 18 THE ^^'AY tribes, sects, nations, and even words, or the names of things. All things grow, mature, bear fruit, decay, and finally die; but in d}-ing they give birth to something else. The Magi grew from some seed, sown someivhere, at some time; but histor}' is silent beyond the time of its introduction into Persia. There they were Fire Philosophers, but of the nature of this fire they were silent before the awful darkness of ignorance which spreads like a pall over the minds of men — things made to be ruled rather than to k7io''d.' — things fit only for toil and war. Is it unreasonable to suppose that the Magi had their incep- tion at the time when "the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were fair, and took wives of them?" They were miracle workers I They dealt with spirits, and the finer forces of things. It is an erroneous idea that only the vulgar ignorant believe in miracles. The more one knows, the greater is the awe and astonishment evoked by the miraculous display of forces which one meets at ever}' step. In vain is the oft repeated excuse that these things are natural sounded in ears that hear in the silence. It will do for the infant who is hushed to sleep by the monoto- nous lullaby of its mother ; but for the awakening mind the works of nature conceal a miracle-working power, an instantaneous, self-generating power, an intuitive, illuminating, light-flashing force, which the storm cloud opens itself to reveal to our astonish- ed senses. Does not our reason tell us that the power which can destroy a thing instantly can also produce it in like manner? The slow sjrowth of thinsfs merelv shows the infantile weak- ness of the life-producing forces in nature. Nature as a whole is unknown to us; we are best acquainted with such things as are in harmony with our own slowness of comprehension. It seems evident that the powers of generation have fallen from the instan- taneousness of thought to the slowly-mouldering minerals of the mountains. Knowledge is generated laboriously, by the slow evolution of experience and thought; but instantaneous knowing THE WAY 19 is a fact, although rare, and considered almost, if not quite, miraculous. Who knows the limits of nature? Or who has seen her at maturity? She hides her powers from us because of our stupid- ity; therefore the darkness in which her power is concealed is in our ignorance. As intimated, the Magi grew, flourished, and culminated, probably reaching their highest altitude in Chaldea long prior to the time of Abraham and the City of Ur; and the tribe was on its downward trend at the time history introduces it into Persia. Where now is it? Its altars are all broken; and the fires which burned constantly thereon are extinguished. Its temples are more fully lost than those of Babylon and Nineveh ! And yet they live today in the religious cult they left with the Jews, although it is defaced and mutilated almost beyond recog- nition. Their studies of the heavens show that they questioned God to His face ; and where are the answers they met ? Are they not left in stone on the banks of the Nile in Egypt ? Do not the three-sided Pyramids show forth the triune nature of God and of man? What is stone a s>Tnbol of, if it be not eternal dura- tion ? What means the pictured and sculptured Scarabei and the black- winged Beetle that meet you at every turn in old Egypt? The priesthood of Egypt and the Magi of Persia were the same, though differently named. They were the literati, and were the authors of the three chapters of Genesis, upon which is based the Christian belief in the fall of man. The cosmogony of the Jews was evidently written for people of little power of thought, children who are amused by stories and controlled by fear, people who had no hand in government, save that of being governed, and for whom a strong government was necessary. And to form such a government the forces of nature were invoked, and named the Elohim, who made all things and who govern by force, and whose representatives were the self-appointed priests who appointed the Kings that gov- 20 THE WAY erned. To such people, outside of the Magi, reason was un- known. To them an explanation of the laws of nature and the forces of creation would have been of no volume whatever. It were folly to more than hint at the existence of a primal substance out of which things are formed. To them, it was suffi- cient to assert the existence of the forces of nature prior to exist- ence, and to barely hint at the existence of nature save as a great darkness out of which light was invoked. These things could not be comprehended by the unthinking rabble, but the Magi knew the principles upon which they based each assertion; and while they wrote out the childish tale of creation in so simple a manner they kept close to philosophical and natural truth. To inspire fear, they invoked a slimy monster of the deep, a monster they knew, which abounded in the rivers, and devoured both man and beast — their enemy — as a tempter of man and an enemy of the Creator also, to provoke the Almighty to wrath. And when the awful anger of God burst forth in curses fearful to hear and grievous to be borne as the pains of toil, dis- ease, and sorrow, these things were real; and their reality stamped the story of creation, to the unthinking childish mind of the race, as the absolute truth, not to be questioned for a mo- ment. As such it has come down to us, as the expiring echo of the wisdom of the decaying Magi of Chaldea. It descended into Egypt, and was carried by them to Jerusalem, where it flourished or flickered for a season — to fall at the destruction of the temple into the Christian cult ; to mingle its poison with the inexpressibly lovely teachings of Him who said, "I say unto you that ye resist not evil," and who taught his disciples to pray to the tempter as "Our Father which art in Heaven." Fallen indeed are the Magi, fallen are the nations where they flourished, and fallen are the symbols they left, representing great truths — fallen into meanings they never had, and all through "the blind leading the blind." We are all "in the ditch." THE WAY 21 Man falls not so much through action as through the inaction of thought and the fear of his own thoughts. ^ ^ :^ The first books of the Bible are ascribed to Moses, the great lawgiver of the Jews. Whether he was the author or not is a matter of little moment; but the fact is quite evident that he was well versed in all the arts, sciences, wisdom, and magic of Egypt. As the adopted son of Pharoah's daughter, he had exceptional opportunities to become thoroughly trained in all their occult ways, which they had learned from the Chaldeans, who were an older people than the Egyptians, and from whom they undoubt- edly acquired all their knowledge, since Abraham taught them astrology. Moses was a Chaldean, as also were the Jews; and there is reason to think that the wisdom displayed by Moses, the magical works he did and attributed to the Lord God, were simply the work of spirits for whom Moses was the medium, and that the laws he made were simply the old, long-since-forgotten laws of the ancient Chaldeans, revealed to him by the spirit who had him in charge. The Adamites preceded the Chaldeans, who preceded the Egyptians, who were old and feeble upon the rise of the Medes and Persians. Of the magic of Moses there can be little doubt; and where the laws of magic are understood, it resolves itself in- to a system of dealing with spirits. What was the ark but a cabinet for the materialization of the spirit? And furthermore, of the nature of the controlling spirit, the Bible speaks very plainly, showing according to modem ideas what constitutes a true human being. Moses was woefully deficient. In fact, he was only a blood-thirsty demon, who, for his own glory, or to further his pet scheme of making a great nation of the Jews , deluged the beautiful land of Canaan in blood, and resorted to all manner of brutal and inhuman acts. From beginning to end the Old Testament is a record of magic. The tribe of Levi was set aside for magical purposes the 22 THE WAY same as the magi of Chaldea and Persia were. The ark, the tabernacle, the temple, the dress of the priests, the sacrifices, thd ceremonies, the magical instruments for conjuring, such as the "Urim and Thummim," all point to ceremonial magic as the Jewish religion. No man of sane mind can question the power of spirits; but modern experience shows that those who meddle with the affairs of men are earth-bound spirits, closely allied to the elements of man's animal nature, such as vanity, love of rule, praise, and the service and glory of men who are unfit, and therefore unable to rule themselves. The lofty and good spirits do not desire to be worshipped, but delight in being of service to man, knowing that he is here to learn to rule himself. In proof of this we have the record of the Christ, who set aside and fulfilled the laws of Moses, of magic, and of cere- monial worship, and substituted therefor the law of universal brotherhood. It is apparent that the controlling spirit of the Jews gradually changed after they became established; for the spirit who spoke through the mouths of the prophets claimed to be unchangeable, and took an interest in other nations, and was more consistent, not violating his own commandment, "Thou shalt not kill," by leading to the slaughters of both men and animals. Of course, the prophets had no way of identifying the spirit who ordered them to prophesy. They had to rely upon the word of the spirit; thus Jonah was made to preach a lie. The spirit who controlled Moses knew that, in order to hold control of the Jews, they must be prevented from dealing with other spirits; hence the law against dealing with familiar spirits. And it was that very thing which destroyed the Jewish nation. The priest- hood, their mediums, lost their power; and the people strayed after other Gods. Jehovah knew that there were other spirits, as great as, or even greater than himself, hence he was jealous. That he was one of the Magi is undoubtedly true, and that he has been THE WAY 23 incarnated on earth since, may be true; but, if he \Yas the gentle Jesus, the change in him was certainly miraculous. Bear in mind, gentle reader, that we have no unadulterated truth; for all these old traditions are the works of fallible men, and when they say the Lord said so and so, it is our privilege, and our duty, in our search for truth, to ask how they knew it was the Lord? In every case, a man, or a voice like that of a man, was the medium. The Hebrews descended from the ancient Chaldeans, a pre- historic people, that flourished before Eg}'ptian civilization. The Hebrew language is the same as the Chaldean, and un- doubtedly the account of the creation as contained in Genesis was originally theirs. Abraham was a learned Chaldean of the tribe of Eber. An astrologer was he, and one of the Magi, w^ho, under spirit-direc- tion, left the city of Ur and the land of his kindred to establish a new people and a new religion, the worship of one God. The Chaldeans had many gods; they worshipped the sex forces of nature, which they called El oh im, "El" being masculine, "oh"' being feminine, the syllable "im" indicating pluralit}\ The ancient manuscript of the Hebrew Scriptures has been tampered with, and changed to make it correspond to the Jewish, and more modern idea, of one God, a masculine Deity. The declaration, "let us make man in our image, and after our like- ness," certainly tells the truth as to plurality; and the words, "in our image," naturally suggest that they proposed making man in their nature, since they could have no other likeness, and no other way of manifesting power than in nature, wherein they existed. There can be no existence otherwise than in nature. Sex worship was once the universal religion; and the ser- vices to both male and female deities were equal in sacredness. So far as is known, the idea of the one male God and its corol- lary, male supremacy among mankind, originated with Abraham, the reputed father of the Jews, which started from what is now 24 THE WAY called a spirit communication. This spirit was e\-idently like mortals, limited in intelligence and power, since he had to test Abraham h}-pnotically by a pretended sacrifice of his son Isaac to ascertain his faith and belief. He also secured the obedience of Abraham by extravagant promises, which have never been ful- filled, saying, 'T will make thy seed as the dust of the earth," or *'the stars of heaven, which cannot be numbered;'' when in point of fact the Jews have never been a nation of any great numbers. Then again, this controlling spirit never claimed to be the God of any people but the Jews, and he was an angr}-, warlike, cruel, and jealous God, worse even than a savage human being. In ever}- instance where the manner of his manifestation is ex- plained, it was through some medium, or by a voice, or through some conjuring, as all ancient peoples were accustomed to do. It is a well kno\Mi fact to all occultists that when a true clair- voyant gazes steadily at an object, it becomes luminous, "as the burning bush that was not consumed," which Moses sav/. And clairaudience is a well kno^^'n power. Many instances can be cited where a voice is heard, sometimes issuing from the stomach, or "the left ear," or from any object, claiming to be this, that, or some other thing; and, strange as it may se^m, in several in- stances coming under my own observation, claiming to be God Himself. And in all cases is manifested an h}*pnotic power of control over the person who hears it. The seance at the burning bush was h}'pnotic throughout, in vrhich the spirit who gave his name as "I am that I am," comanced Moses of his power, ard gained absolute control over him, and yet he desired to kill him '*at the inn." Strange performance for a God! But remember that this narrative is a Jewish priestly tradi- tion, which, in spite of its e\'ident absurdit}', in many particulars holds a good portion of the world in its h}'pnotic grasp even to this day. The magic of Moses has never been equalled, if we except the Fakirs of India, whose performances have never been directed THE WAY 25 to bloody war. There can be no question as to the power of spirits, especially this one who called himself, "I am that I am." However much devout men may reverence this name, there is nothing more in it than any truly conscious man can claim for himself. What matters a name to him who truly exists? That he was and is an immortal being — the guardian angel of the Jewish people, he who loved them and hated all others — let the record attest ! And furthermore the universal acceptance, by the whole barbarous, uncivilized, cruel world, of the laws he gave the Jews shows their wisdom, and their adaptation to the needs of an undeveloped race; but these things are very far from dem- onstrating his title to Divinity, or to that of the Creator of the universe. He was too small in every way for that. 'T am" is common for any one to say of himself. Let us reason a little on creation. To create is to produce something from nothing. This is not claimed in Genesis. In the account of creation there were several things besides God in existence. There was darkness (1), the deep (2), the spirit (3), the waters (4). Now, it is a well known fact that water cannot exist without fire in it, which renders it limpid; and, wherever fire is, there is the source of light. Therefore, the materials for a universe were all at hand for God to fashion whatever he pleased therefrom — hence there is no creation, and never was. That which is called creation is the re-forming of the old things which are new to the ignorant. 26 THE WAY E In our search for truth it is well to examine carefully and fearlessly the nature of every claim, every assumption, every declaration, and every dogma, that is put forth for belief, since truth is buried deep beneath the nature of things — so deep, in- deed, that its voice is seldom heard, and when heard is a mere echo of something in nature that is too often considered by egotism as false and "misleading." There are no voices, no thoughts, no revelations, from any source but nature — since na- ture is all, around all, and in all. Nature is eternally the same; and the revelations that she, through some finite means, voices to us today are as true as those given to our forefathers ages ago. The trouble is, we do not understand nature or the language of the past. Truth is to be thought about and believed in, but never known save by the true, loving, and fearless, never found anywhere except in the nature of things. There is not, neither can there be, any other truth than natural truth. All truth is revealed by nature and in nature, but not all that is revealed is true. May it not be that some cannot bear the light of truth? To such, darkness and unreasoning superstition are preferable. But in the language of Paul, "Let us prove all things and hold fast that which is good" — since things are in nature revealing truth. Nature needs no definition, it defines itself in every object and phenomenon of existence. The nature of a thing is its mani- festation or its outward appearance. It, therefore, is the circum- ference, over-soul, or body, in which is concealed the womb, or generative soul, of the universe and of each individual thing. The center and the circumference are alike hidden from us ; but 28 THE WAY we are certain that things are forced from centers outwardly, as is the manner of birth, and also we know that the center draws upon the circumference for its vitalizing, or impregnation, as the earth draws upon the surrounding heavens. The soul is limited, it is not free, it is negative, the indivi- dualized thing, while the circumference or over-soul is unlimited, free, boundless, a moving positive power. Therefore, is nature dual, both positive and negative, male and female. The only way we can judge of the unknown is by what appears. Dark- ness is both external and internal; but the light of thought is within us — ^the impregnating principle of nature which moves the soul to generate and produce our existence, as our acts do fashion our lives. Universal nature is an unfathomable mystery, since it in- cludes an infinite multitude of natures, all differing from one another, her children. By a study of the great principles of nature we formulate opinions, which constitute the sum and substance of vs^hat we know of nature — these satisfy us, then why ask for more ? Of the nature of the creative principles, light and dark- ness, we know absolutely nothing more than that they are — and that they are two opposing forces, male and female, the parents of existence. Upon what little we know of light are predicated our ideas of the Father; while, on the other hand, our ideas of the Mother are derived from what we do not know of darkness. We call nature the Mother, forgetful of the fact that nature is both male and female, androgynous, a being we have very little conception of, one that hath power to be either male or female by its own volition. The earth is androgynous, male in winter, female in summer. She draws force into herself in winter which impregnates her for the summer's products. The alternation of day and night, of sleeping and waking, demonstrates this truth. Why wrangle about God, when all we know or think comes from the nature in us? Search as we may, w^e shall discover nothing but nature. We are constantly in contact with her, but THE WAY 29 what do we loiow of her? We know this — all things are in her, or she is in all things, which in our way of thinking are born from her, when, in fact, they are of and still in her. We know that all motion is in nature, and that it is a universal fermenta- tion whereby things clash and get terribly mixed, and that fer- mentation is produced by the opposition of heat and cold. The earth and our bodies represent nature, and their operations are the same as those of the nature in which we move and have our being. The earth is one vast globe of protoplasmic matter — an in- flammable substance, composed largely of cold water in v/hich fire is mingled. Or, it may be that matter is fire quenched, lying silent and cold in death, awaiting resurrection. A spark of unquenched fire left therein might, in the lapse of ages, "set the whole pot to boiling," fermenting, throwing out steam, spirit, life, which clothes the earth's surface with living things. Fire rises up in spirit through fermentation, and transforms itself into vegetation, animals, and human beings; but fire unchecked by water destroys all forms and all life. In order to check the fire of earth and to prevent a violent conflagration, it is bathed alter- nately in darkness and in light — a dual spirit, both positive and negative. For our purpose it suffices to suggest that nature exists for us through a fourfold conflict of forces, viz., heat and cold, light and darkness, and that these four are the principal constituencies of all that is, even to the least atom or the loftiest being. The powers, characteristics, or potencies that are ascribed to God, Brahm, Allah, Vishnu, or any other being, are all found in nature and constitute the force that impregnates matter, the mother, the waters of fermentation, which nature so kindly provides as the base of all motion, life, and sensation in every creature. Therefore is nature androgynous, containing both matter and fire, the male and the female, from whose cohabitation suns. 30 THE WAY planets, stars, worlds, and all animate and inanimate creatures are born. These four great principles manifest as the four kingdoms, mineral, vegetable, animal, man; the four elements, fire, water, earth, air; the four seasons, the four points of the compass; and in man, as body, mind, soul, and spirit. The highest knowledge attainable is self-knowledge, or a knowledge of one's own nature, which can be attained in no other way than in a study of these four principles as manifest in nature, the Over-soul of all existing things. To us, in our outward look at things, existence is born out of nature, the same as the possible appears out of the impossible ; or, as out of the negative appears the positive, out of darkness, light, out of the formless, forms, out of matter, spirit, so, out of our ow^n natures, as out of our bodies, appears the manifestation of mind, soul, and spirit. The nature of man contains all there is of him ,and all that is possible for him to attain. If the truth were told, there is no beyond to nature. Even individualized man is an atom in nature, which, if spiritualized, becomes the universe. The infinite multiplicity of nature points unerringly to one universal family, with a father and a mother as the head and the author of all its component elements. To paraphrase the Scriptures, without assuming a beginning, let us read St. John thus : In Nature is Light and the Light is in Darkness, and the Light is Darkness; and they two are one in the things that are made, and there is nothing made that is not made by Light work- ing in Darkness. Thus is the truth made plain, that light is the father and darkness is the mother in which the father works for the produc- tion of all the natures that exist. Now, how does light produce things? By being absorbed in darkness or matter. This is a twofold process, called reflection, wherein light is drawn into a vortex — the human eye or the female yoni — and in turn thrown THE WAY 31 out again ; the push and the pull of all motion, the steps in walk- ing, the peristaltic action of the bowels, the beating of the heart, the succession of day and night, of the seasons, and of heat and cold, action and reaction always and in all things. Progress is never a continuous onward, upward motion. It starts in a whirl of the wind, or of worlds in space, or of desire in man. A resolution in man starts the four w^heels of his nature ■ — mind, soul, spirit, and body — to revolving. "Wheels within wheels" are they, which, moving, compel him to move out, taking steps, each step pushing and pulling around, growing, progress- ing and retrogressing, living and dying. As it is with worlds, so it is with atoms and man. As without the eye there is no light, so without the yoni there can be no birth. "The all-seeing eye" of nature emits the light from the darkness, or separates them, which separation is a fermentation in the mother, or matter, of w^hich the outward appearance or body of man is made, the out- ward wheel that contains the others. The body is a chariot in which the real man rides as one rides a bicycle. Spirit circles around the body as whirls the at- mosphere around the earth, and the motions of the feet and the hands suggest spirit wheels between, which enable us to run and to claw" our way through life. What is an effort of the will but an opening of the mind as one opens his eyes, to receive impres- sions from without? It is the whirl that draws power into us from — no one knows where unless it be from the darkness or ignorance of our natures. All that can be known is the nature of things ; and the power that creates and sustains us, which we agree to call God, must have a nature the same as all other things. We know of no nature that is perfect in intelligence and wis- dom. The mistakes of nature are apparent on every hand. Her care for individuals is weak and incomplete. She is universal in her love, a blind and headstrong force that holds all things to a dead level. This is evident in all things below man, and in man pere se there is no progress. An oyster of today is the same as it 32 THE WAY was millions of years ago, and so it is with man as a species. In- dividual change, but the race as a whole remains ever the same. While one part of it takes a step onward and upward, another part takes a step backward and downward. As with individuals so with nations, one thrives and grows, while another perishes. The step that pushes upward is neutralized by the one that pulls down, and the whirl that rushes the chariot along surely brings it back to its starting point — if there be such. From the individ- ual standpoint nature is unjust! But who made thee a judge? Thou fool, ignorance compels us to judge. This same nature we see in constant manifestation all around is mainly dark and obscuring to light, even as the body by reason of its opacity ob- scures the light of our small minds. Darkness is far in excess of light — the earth is dark, and the heavens above our atmosphere to us are black night. And so it is with ignorance, injustice, or evil ; they hold man in a whirl of necessity, deaf to his cries of mercy. It is safe to say that there is not a soul on earth that is free from a dark monster of some sort or kind. If light and darkness balanced each other there could be no motion, no fermentation, no genera- tion, and no existence. Life is a pearl of wondrous value hidden beneath mountains of what we, in the agony of living, call rub- bish. Nature is a tomb hewn in the solid rock wherein the dead Christ — the only ray of hope, life, and joy — awaits resurrection. The difference between intelligence and ignorance is all-appar- ent, and yet the line of demarcation cannot be defined. The former issues from the latter as a blaze issues from a kindled fire; and as a fire must be constantly fed in order that the light of it may be constant, so must the fires of mind be kept burning by the addition of such fuel as surrounds it. Evil burns. It produces combustion, agitation, explosion. The fires of mind are fed by the mysterious darkness or ignorance that surrounds it as an atmosphere. The mystery of nature expands and grows greater as the THE WAY 33 light of mind increases. The wondrous skill displayed in crea- tion is beyond expression; but the working of it reveals its im- perfections as to details. While a perfect system of motion is revealed as to Vv'orlds, suns, stars, and planets, the seasons re- sulting from such motion show a gradual development of im- perfect action. It is true that the seasons follow each other systematically and in order, but cold and heat are unequally distributed, the rainfall is haphazard, the fruit trees often bloom out of season. The earth is very prolific; but sometimes she withholds her fruits, and famine and pestilence result. Is it her fault, or have the forces in which she is suspended made a mistake? Furthermore, the relationship between mind and matter is strained, inharmonious, and imperfect. In other words, it is a false relationship, whereby an eternal conflict is established between them, each one striving for the mastery. The excess of matter smothers the fires of mind, while the excess of mind devours the body. It is true that the Ego is placed between them to control, to regulate, and to preserve harmony in their action and reaction upon each other; but it is impossible to do so owing to the want of balance between these two forces. There is no har- mony in nature save in absolute rest or cessation of motion. So long as motion exists there must be friction and waste ; and such must be, so long as necessity exists. W'eakness is as necessary as strength. Suppose all were great, good, holy, perfect, and none were vicious, hungr}', de- praved, or poor, all progress or upward motion must cease and universal stagnation ensue, speedily followed by a rush down- ward to oblivion and non-entity. In fact, the universe cannot be without v/ant, hunger, or a vacuum, upon the verge of which we momentarily stand in unconscious sleep or when at perfect rest. The wisdom in nature is unquestionable, so also is the lack of it. Is not a four-legged chicken or a two-headed calf a mistake ? How about the Siamese twins ? or the hosts of human 34 THE WAY beings that are deformed in body, mind, and soul? Is it not more reasonable to ascribe such to lack of judgment or control rather than to suppose a demoniac intent in the creative powers of nature? Is it not apparent that the wisdom of nature is in- drawn into her soul in order to make room in herself for existence to be? The evils of man's existence all come from his lack of wis- dom in externals; it is all centered in his soul, leaving his body deficient of that Vv'hich gives life and immortal power. Like nature, it is all in him, deep buried under the mistakes his na- ture lures him to make, even contrary to his own knowledge — mistakes which effort only can correct. Mistakes are painful, but pleasure arises from the effort we make in their correction. With- out pain there can be no pleasure, since pleasure comes from the subduing of pain. Nature is neither good nor evil; but her first-born was evil, as typified by the murderer Cain. Her first-born is animal life, the self, which has always been held as a sacrifice to the Lord, and which simply signifies that the animal nature is food for the inner man, that the passional nature must be controlled, indrawn, or sacrificed to expand or sustain a considerate, thoughtful, spiri- tual, or soul nature, which surrounds the soul or throne of the living God, who dwells therein. Nature is the mother of all things — that is, it is the sub- stance of which the forms of things are fashioned. Therefore, each thing is clothed with nature as a body or form, which fur- nishes sustenance for that which is embodied. Forms are made of and in nature, and not out of her. As there are many natures, so there is a multiplicity of her powers, the extent and the mag- nitude of which are inconceivable. W^herever a power exists, its nature is manifest whereby it may be known — these constitute existence, nature's family. In the Scriptures, nature is called "the deep," upon the face of which darkness rested or brooded, as a hen broods over her THE WAY 35 egg, producing heat whereby vapor or spirit is made to rise up or "move upon the face of the waters," as the Spirit of God moved. Thus was existence formed of nature, according to Genesis. Darkness is a synonym of mystery, and, therefore, of na- ture, vv'hile light is a synon}Tn of revelation, and, therefore, of God. Although we are in direct association with both, they are alike mysteries to us. We come out of the waters of darkness into light at birth ; and light comes out of darkness in the kind- ling of fire, and, in like manner, intelligence comes out of ignor- ance in the evolution of mind. In this manner do we know that in the beginning darkness rested upon the bosom of the deep, and that it is the spirit of the great God which we call nature. It is impossible to define nature, and this statement is equally true of darkness. It has no weight, form, or tangibility. We can neither v\'cigh, measure, nor handle it. It has no bounds and cannot be limited. Light reveals it to us as a spirit in which all things are hidden, and in which we delve and make discoveries. Darkness is the ghost of real things, of which children and the ignorant are afraid. It is the stronghold of vice and crimes untold, in it all things hide; and out of it comes what little we know — in fact, man himself is a child of darkness. It has no power of itself, and yet it contains all power. It is not an ele- ment, nor has man any use for it. It is always the same, an imponderable, immaterial, non-resisting something science de- clares to be "the absence of light," which is a mistake, since cats can see in it and light comes out of it, as is shown by combustion. Power, light, and things not only come out of darkness, but they are composed of darkness. All matter is more or less dark, showing that darkness by some mysterious process is trans- formed into matter, and that all objects are forms of darkness outwardly, although they may be lighted up within by the fires of life. Darkness is weak, and things that are weak fall down, as matter does to a center, and sleep, gaining strength. Thus 36 THE WAY does man retire to his soul and sleep when wearied, and draw new life from the darkness in himself. The darkness that sur- rounds the light of existence is boundless and infinite. It is a womb in which life feebly moves in process of incubation. Ignorance is mental darkness, and man has no use for it, albeit it is his nature, in which he must struggle while he lives. All his miseries come out of ignorance; they are his children, since he is wedded to it as a man is to his wife — with this differ- ence, that he cannot run away or get a divorce! It is a hot thing, this ignorance — out of it come all the hells that have ever been dream.ed of ! Every child that is born brings a fresh instalment of this infernal thing that never dies but is always being born. It is a night that we shudder to contemplate. Deceived by the little light that we have, we fail to realize that we are always folded in its embrace, always being slowly swallowed by this thing which has no sympathy, no conscience, no intelligence. It is a mill that grinds us fine — or rather, it is a force that compels us to grind and slay each other. By reason of our ignorance we do things that make us ashamed and that produce lust, avarice, w^ar, and enmity. It is the source of toil, rule, hatred, and the pain and the sorrow of maternity. We have no use for ignorance, and all our efforts are to get rid of it. All evil comes from it — it is the Devil. But from a higher point of view ignorance is necessary to our very existence. It is in and around us. In ourselves we love it as something angelic, but in others we despise it. We sleep in it when wearied, as an infant in its mother's arms. In fact, it is our mother, as the earth is. In it we take root and grow. It is our flesh, bones, and blood — we could not be without it. It is the mainspring of all action. Were it not wound up in the night of forgetfulness, v/e would speedily wear out. The ignorance of ourselves gives us courage to try. Did we know the black depths of our vveakness and ignorance, we would lose all faith and self- reliance, and cease all effort. By reason of it we are forced to THE WAY 37 ■ II I I . . ■ I I I II ■ I r IT -1 1-11 I iiwiiM 11 ■ fight for life, health, and what we need. Perhaps it is the burn- ing desires of ignorance that produce intelligence ! In any case our intelligence and our civilization all come from our ignorance. Were it not for our burning sins, salvation would not be possible. It is the beginning of progress, and the veil that hangs ever be- tween man and his destiny. Without it all nature would be bare of its garments of loveliness, the future could not be, and all things Vv^ould be certain, real, and eternally fixed and motionless. Ignorance is to man what the earth is to the sun. He works in it, he makes things grow out of it. We live in it as we do in our bodies, which we love and provide for, although we are ashamed of them at the same time. Curses rise out of ignorance — if we knew the use of evils, we could not curse or complain. Ignorance does not admit of comparison; it is the presence of light that reveals the deformity of things and makes us ashamed, wherefore we hide ourselves in garments and in pretense. Sin cannot be without the light of thought, whereat ignorance van- ishes as a ghost. We make mistakes by reason of ignorance — that is, we blunder in darkness, and must suffer for it. Why? To increase our power of thought — the light of all action. Undoubtedly, it is a fact that the superior attributes of life are latent in the lovv^er kingdoms and that they become active in man through culture. Egoism blinds us and shuts out love and truth. God enters man only through the lust of the animal part of him. All man's boastful superiority and power are merely a sublimation of his lower nature, a transformation of the animal instincts and passions upon which he is founded — the result of his own efforts in subduing, regulating, controlling, and incor- porating them into his own being. The animals are made for man; they are the twilight between a perfect day and an infinite night. They are the beginning of the dawn, they bear the torch of intelligence in the unerring light of instinct, a foreshadowing of intuition — instant knowing and instantaneous production. Man has a soul in his body, around which the animal kingdoms 38 THE WAY crowd and take form of becoming something higher, or perchance of crushing it out entirely. It is out of the night the animals come bearing man — the light of existence. Existence is the womb of night, and the things that are in it are for the perfecting of man. He is the foetus — not half formed yet — of that which eye hath not seen nor mind imagined, mysteriously concealed in the mother of all being, whose symbol is the unknown darkness. No form can be fashioned of light alone. All things are made of darkness by the working of light. The earth, with all that beautilies and ornaments its surface, is made of dark matter. Her monuments are of granite, which cost much ignorant labor and intelligent skill in construction. And so it is with the mental and the moral worlds. Our litera- ture, arts, and sciences, are mere studies of the forbidding, dark side of existence. Our morals are hewn out of the granite rock of evils that wall us in. All we know is carved out of our own ignorance — the stupid animals of which we are made. From conquering, the great soul goes on conquering; but the things requiring his energy, skill, and patience are the evils in himself. They are the curses that God put upon the work of his own hands in the dawn of creation. There is no easy road to the kingdom of power. Difficulties meet the traveler at every turn. He cannot go around or over or through them, neither can he set them aside or destroy them. To fight darkness is vain and foolish, since one beats mighty air; and ignorance driven from one place appears in another. There is only one nature but many forms of that nature, only one life but many forms of that life. Man is first ignorant, next animal, then intellectual, lastly spiritual; and in this transition from ignorance to spirituality there is nothing left behind him. The ignorance that surrounded him at birth has become his intelli- gence and his wisdom by acting upon the ignorance within him. It is true that this transfonnation of darkness into light is a painful operation, but the pain becomes less and less as the dark- ness recedes. THE WAY OF LIFE "I am the way, the resurrection, and the life." — Jesus. Predicating existence as infinite darkness, with a small fire burning therein, the radius of its light would describe a circle, containing light, and its source as the only obvious principles in surrounding darkness, since the circle made by the light is a non- progressive fixture, the limit of activity, and hence the law of all formation and of all beings whatever. Now since fire cannot bum without fuel, it is obvious that darkness is the fuel used in the production of light, the same as air rushing into a fire assists combustion. There are two things in this illustration that are stationary, viz., fire and the outer circle, or the center and its circumference, since fire can do no more than draw darkness to itself, whereby it becomes explosive, sending out light to fill the form of existence called the universe, and to make, and to fill with itself all the things that are made. Light is the Father of life, and from his bosom is life sent on its way in the semi-darkness of the universe to enter the things that are made in darkness, and of it as into a way that is dark and dreary, to illuminate, and to perfect things that are imperfect. Life is the moving principle of things; but the father of it is the form, or the circle, above described, through which life must enter the way of the thing to be perfected. Outside of the circle of existence no living thing can be, since there is the realm of cold death, wherein all known and unknown things are held in abeyance, or held back and prevented from entering existence, 40 THE WAY by taking on form in passing through one form into another, since the way of life is the passing of life from one father or form into another in search of perfection. Form, therefore, is that principle which takes a part from the whole, or which particles that which is homogeneous. Thus is spirit made into objective forms, by passing through the father form into the mother, wherein it is clothed, or rather gradually condensed into a form of its own, and becomes a law unto itself. Form is the law of being. Without form there could be no visi- bility of matter, no tangibility, no individuality of being. But, however important forms may be, in the individualizing of spirit and the peopling of the world and the establishing of the powers of government, and of all manner of institutions, form is not sentient being, any more than a book or code of laws is. There is an object embodied in forms of law; and although they are totally unconscious of what they contain, still they are all-power- ful for the control of that which they contain. Form is the law that governs the actions of things; for instance, the form of man, beast, or fowl determines its motions and the extent of its powers; and so it is with all forms of matter so far as cold can restrain heat, since forms are necessarily colder than what they contain. Life is the light emanating from matter; and, as there are count- less forms of matter, each one of which may be said to be a lamp, shedding some shade of light, it is obvious that life is scattered or broken into countless fragments, the tendency of which is to unite, and thus to form or create larger and more powerful forms of light and life. Without form things cannot exist ; therefore, it is the father of existence, and also of every individual thing, even of life itself, since life cannot be objectified without being confined in forms. It is the outline of all subjects, which it contains, as a book con- tains the subject matter that is the object of the book. When. God created the heavens and earth he made a form having an outside and an inside, the former being objective or masculine, THE WAY 41 that is, hard, inflexible, and strong, for the resistance of heat alike from within and of cold from without, the latter being feminine by reason of its being the opposite of the masculine. Or perhaps it Vvcre better understood if explained as follows: a barrel full of water cannot move in itself on account of its complete fullness, and the same is true as to perfect infinite power. It fills iinmensity with itself. There is no room in it for movement except as it makes room in itself, which it does by hugging itself, producing heat, which opens a vacuum in spirit, which is the all-seeing eye — the soul in which dwells the Ego, I, Myself, the consciousness of being an individual entity that feels, sees, knows, and that by the use of heat and cold makes a watery body, or form, in which to enter this watery plane of existence. Now, reader, this is a picture of your own creation — the vray in which life is individualized and becomes you, your- self, life in a form, which it is the mission of life to perfect and to save. Life is the only begotten son of God, no matter what form it is in ; but the first form it enters, upon coming into this vale of tears, is that of the serpent; and, from that, through successive reincarnations it ascends by the perfecting of forms until it arrives at a condition wherein the form it occupies is so nearly perfect that life can manifest through it in all its glory. This manifestation is known as the Christ Life; but it is the same life w'hich occupies the serpent form found in the foetus of every human being. Life is the creator of all forms which he occupies, and in which he makes his way as a worm cravv^ls in its blindness, or as an eagle soars in the light of its piercing eye. The resurrection is the rising up of consciousness from cold death, through the influence of heat, as is obvious in the begetting of ofi'spring, since as far as we know they all come from death. Therefore, the fire of passion is the power of the resurrection, out of which the serpent issues, as a thought issues from the burning mind, brain, and body of man in the production of life for our-. 42 THE WAY selves and offspring. Life, therefore, is begotten in us, and our souls are wombs in which it is conceived, or felt, and from which it is born or transformed into the consciousness of the forms that we dwell in ; and it is the things we feel, see, and con- tact that impregnate us with life, the same as the air we breathe, the food we eat, and the thoughts we think. In this manner do we sustain and make new, or transform, the bodies we occupy. Here is where intelligent eating, thinking, and drinking become involved whereby life becomes divided, or made to progress in two ways : the one inward, towards the soul or oneness of spirit ; the other outward towards cold death, in the scattering or divi- sion of itself by the propagating of other lives. We know of life only by the effects it produces in ourselves. We inhale cold air, which, in conjunction with heat, produces a free spirit, which by a further transformation becomes flesh, blood, and other constituents of our bodies in which life, with all its possessions, such as mind with its intelligence and conscious power, lies sleeping, awaiting resurrection. Life has three modes of expression, two of which have been alluded to as the outer and the inner : the former, leading to cold, is the father life; the latter, leading to heat, is the mother life; their mutual action and reaction upon each other opens another way between them. Therefore life has three modes or ways of expression, viz., the animal, the spiritual, and the intellectual; the latter being the off-spring of the two former, which are anti- podes, and hence masculine and feminine. The animal way of life needs little or no description. In few words, it is the life that divides and multiplies things, the life that propagates the species, that creates anger, enmity, war, avarice, and vice — a seething furnace wherein there is no rest. We know much of this way of life, we have sounded the depths of its woes ; but what do we know of its antipodal life, the father of it? Wliat do we actually know about spirit? We know that it is the essence of matter, the very vitals, or heat of it, in THE WAY 43 which is life. Spirit being driven out of matter can do no more than return to it, being forced to do so by the pressure of cold which congeals, or makes matter of it, as often as it essays to escape. Heat is the complementary^ of cold, in the spirit of which it dwells and works, in the making of the mother of life of it. Therefore, spirit has two aspects: one feminine, where heat works upward and outward from itself upon cold, to melt, soften, and make spirit-mother of it, for the generation of life which is fast locked in the bosom of cold, the father of it, from which its release is not possible save by the influence of heat, which, rising up, extracts life from cold, vital spirit, whose only action is the releasing or dropping down of germs of life stored in his infinite bosom for the impregnation of the mother spirit of himself As the cold of spirit has no outside, its only action is upon the mother spirit, the heat of himself. Herein is briefly stated the law whereby man creates him- self. It is your spirit which creates and sustains your body by the propagation of new flesh, and therefore, of new life, for you to use and abuse as you will. But what of you ? What are you? And how cam^e you here in the midst, if spirit does all this? I answer : You are a mere thought of a mind that is as blind and ignorant as you are; and you cannot see or know a solitary thing were it not for the father dwelling in you, and who conse- quently is yourself in proportion as you become conscious of his presence in yourself. Are you not a form? And what is mind, but a form of intelligence in you? You are, therefore, an outer form, which must needs look inward to your own mind for what intelligence you may need, and this looking within your own mind sets it to thinking. Truly you are blind ; but as all forms are empty they are hungiy for light; and, in the effort of looking within the back-windows of your soul, they open to admit the power which impregnates your inner mind and compels it to bring forth thoughts that you call your own — and so they are 44 THE WAY since they are the offspring of your blind, ignorant effort to satisfy your craving hunger for the sensation of feeling, whereby we know, as Adam knew Eve, by reason of which she bare pain (translated Cain), which she said was a man, or masculine prin- ciple, from the Lord. The outside of all forms is strong, hard, or masculine; and ever}^thing that reaches the inner must pass through the male, which of course necessitates a passing — or a birth of pain, the very beginning of sensation, which humanized is called Cain, the beginning of the human race. Pain is that which makes us think. It is the creative power of spirit, the force of gravity, which knocks us down and holds us down, till we rise up of our own volition. Being a thought of spirit, we are an emanation thereof, but not a part of it, nor a particle of divinity, but a thought emanating from, yet still connected with, source, since spirit cannot be divided, nor par- ticled. As thought is of the same nature as its source, it consists of the power called attraction, or love, and is constantly fed from, and by, its source, and therefore can never be deficient, or empty of that which constitutes it a thought of love. Conscious- ness is the Father of life ; but the Mother of it is the vibration of his unconscious spirit. Consciousness is the fire of spirit, with- out which spirit sleeps and upon its awakening pain is born. Consciousness is the only good. It is the father of all things. Without it you could not exist, and hence it is your father. You cannot act without consciousness, therefore your body is sleeping consciousness called matter. You wake up at birth, and your first manifestation was a cry of pain. Do you know the signifi- cance of pain? Your body is full of it. It is the beginning of your existence in your present form. Existence is and evidently always has been; but for us, in the limitation of sense, it begins and ends. Therefore the method of its beginning is worthy of earnest thought. The only way we can know this is by a study of the prin- ciple factors concerned in it; and in our thinking they are close at hand. Motion and rest are the father and the mother of exist- ence, and consequently of everything in it. In other words, life and death, consciousness and unconsciousness, seem to be at the very foundation of things. But this is merely a surface view of existence. A child seems to begin at its birth; but this be- ginning is a mere shadow, a fleeting show of consciousness, which flows on into youth, maturity, and old age, as one wave follov/s another on the ocean. Childhood is an existence, however fleet- ing it may be ; so also is manhood and old age. There is no per- manence — no fixture — no standing-place and no standard, whereby one can determine the nature of existence further than to declare that it consists of things in motion. Therefore, things being in motion, motion must be the m-other; and the things she carries in her womb are gestating for birth ! A child in utero is in existence as much as after its birth; but the nature of such existences differ very materially. We exist, and we have always existed, but not in the same manner or form as now. We descend from Father to Mother, and from her to the solid earth, by reason of force, which compels us to move on from one stage of being to another. We descend to the mother, by reason of force; and from the mother in like manner, therefore existence has four prime factors, viz.: Force (1); Motion (2); Forms (3); and the stuff they are made of (4). These four factors, therefore 46 THE WAY constitute existence; and, if any one of them be lacking, exist- ence cannot be. It is vain to ask for a first cause of anything. There is no first ! Motion springs from the union of positive and negative forces, which are equal in power if they were ever at rest; but, as it is the nature of force to exert itself, they never rest but strain at each other, giving and taking, pushing and pulling, slowly revolving around each other till the equilibrium of the forces is disturbed ever so little, whereat this circular motion in- creases to such an extent that the two forces are so far thrown apart as to burst the cell in which they exist into two other cells, each one as perfect as the original, and containing the same forces — the same as a child inherits from its parents. It is vain to ask how these two forces become locked together in cell formation. As well ask a particle of lodestone where it gets its power, or the seed of anything which sends force in two directions, up and down! We know of no self-existent thing. Everything descends from some pre-existent principle. Even existence is the effect of one preceding it. We are children of a previous race — ^possibly we are the same race slightly modified. As Jesus said: "I and my Father are one." If cause and effect are the same, then is existence a whirling round and round, as the wind does — a repetition of the one, and "nothing new under the sun," as Solomon said. We exist because we have previously existed. But how, why, and for what use, is all this display of power, matchless beauty, and glory ? It is not a vain display of Egotism to assert that all is for man, for his use, benefit and glory, if he only knows how to use them; for, if there is an intelligent being superior to man when he is at his best, these things can be of no use, benefit or glory to such being. Power cannot benefit itself — it is weakness and misery which are benefited. In view of the incomprehensible intelligence and power manifest in exist- ence, man, as we know him, is fallen far below — aye! even far below his own thought of it. THE WAY 47 Man is a spirit in nature ; and it is not the form that makes him man — he is man whether in a form or out. The nearest approximation to a definition of nature which is at all reason- able is, that it is the incomprehensible spiritual womb of the universe, in which all things are gestating as for birth. It is the infinite over-soul — a universal cell, inclosing, embracing, and overshadowing us with a canopy star-gemmed, and incompar- able in grandeur and beauty, calling us upward to an existence in a nature beyond the sun and stars, to the source of power. Do we not know that power is above us? The dropping rain, the falling dew, the burning sun-rays tell us so! The above is eternally the same, it is unchangeable — without beginning and without end — speaking always of immortality and glory. Its azure depths, stretching away beyond human conception, are full of super-conscious positive power, which descending, bap- tizes matter with a breath of itself, thus becoming natural. Spirit becomes form in nature. It does not enter into form as one enters a house, but it becomes form. Therefore all things are spirit in a different state or condition. It follows then that the law of Being and of Becoming is of propagation, and not of creation. Man does not create power or love. He simply propagates it in himself as nature does, and it grows. The whole universe is full of objects, which contain power in a greater or less degree of activity, which in the high- est manifestation is known as conscious life. The gigantic mountains of rock, earth, and mineral are full of sleeping power, around which spirit unceasingly whirls, moulding, softening, kneading, and rendering it into protoplasm — a cell-producing form of matter — in which conscious life first manifests. All matter is protoplasmic — that is, tending through decay to become protoplasm. Matter is composed of atoms, which are cells containing life, being unconscious or inert in solids, gradually becoming conscious as they become active in the pro- cesses of sublimation, whereby they become alive in protoplasm. 48 THE WAY Protoplasm differs in different substances, and produces differ- ent things according to its nature. The protoplasm of water produces mosquitoes, that of cheese and putrid flesh, worms, etc., etc. Wherever there is decay the processes of sublimation are going on preparing a receiver in which life can deposit itself and become some form of consciousness. Here, in a diffused or formless state, does life gather itself together, by concentration, and take the form of a cell, germ, or seed, which, by division, produces matter, which does not give up its life in the making and supporting of forms in any other way than by softening and dissolving, or becoming protoplasm. Food in the stomach imparts its life to the body only by becoming protoplasmic. The body of fruit and grain when softened is protoplasm, dead flesh softening in the sun becomes the same, out of which living things crawl. Cells con- taining life in some form — crawling, flying, swimming, walking, or merely vegetating — are formed in protoplasm. A hen's egg is a fair illustration : it contains protoplasm, with a minute germ in it, which, under favorable circumstances, produces a fowl. The earth is a cell, which the ancients called an ''egg of night." It is androgynous — that is, it fertilizes itself, as all primal cells do. In regard to this subject, Rev. Henry F. Os- borne, LL.D. — "Da Costa, Professor of Zoology, Columbia Uni- versity, Ex-President of the Marine Biological Laboratoiy Trustees" — in an article in Harper's Magazine for March, 1902, says: "Partheo genesis, or the development of a female egg, without the access of a male element or spermatozoon, had long been known among various lower types of animals, instances are to be found in the bees, social wasps, Bomhyx psyche, Daphnia, plant lice and others." A hen lays eggs without contact of a male, but they are not fertile and therefore will not produce. But we have many instances of androgynous animals among which are the Molusca Echinus, shell-fish, oysters, snails; they produce their kind but there are no males. And it is asserted THE WAY 49 that the sacred Black Beetle, or Scarabeus of ancient Egypt, fer- tilizes her own egg which she encloses in a ball of manure, and rolls it to some pool of water wherein she plunges it, leaving it to hatch. — Query, is this the origin of Baptism in water? — In view of these facts androgynous females are possible in the human race as well as among what we are pleased to call "the lower types." May it not be possible that the division of Love into male and female weakens the female power of generation, whereby intelligence is generated at the expense of love, intuition, health, power, and longevity? May it not be possible that these "lower types" — these white-blooded animals — are really purer than the human race? In reality what do we know of lije? It moves like a great wheel, round and round, one-half of it, or possibly a very small section of it, in the light, while the other part is deeply submerged in opaque darkness, into which forms of con- scious life are constantly being plunged as the wheel goes round. The little section of the wheel that is in the light is what we call conscious existence, while tliat part which is twilight is sub- conscious existence; but beneath the wheel, where there is no light, is unconscious existence. Furthermore, tlie over-soul of these, the surrounding area of life, is the infinite super-conscious existence or life. This fitful life we live in is mainly sub-con- scious. We sleep a part of our time, and most of those who sleep become almost entirely unconscious; then again, those who are wide awake in material things are asleep in spiritual things, and are therefore living in a sub-conscious existence or state of being. Man rises and sets as the sun does; and nations, races, peoples, governments, and worlds follow the same rule ! Who remembers what he has been, in the far away deep buried past of which we have no history? And yet, we were there! Life has its orbit as worlds have ; but who can compute its cycle ? It moves slowly up through mineral, to assume the form of soil; and from soil it becomes vegetable; from vegetable, animal; and then the vast 50 THE WAY universe of animal life centers itself in man... In doing this it has left nothing behind. It takes the spirit of all lower things to make man. We have left nothing behind but the jorm of those things we have been. We have in us the wolf, the hyena, the hog, tlie vulture, the sheep, the goat, the eagle, and monsters of the deep — all! all! are here, in these bodies, minds, and spirits, poisonous reptiles, the infusoria of water and air, and the white- blooded molusca, wherein life first became conscious, as it emerged from the waters of the great deep. All these, and more, are here combined to make the nature of man. Are we not sur- rounded by them all our lives ? Do they not influence us, form- ing our characters as the womb forms the child ? In fact do not these lower natures form the over-soul of humanity? And do they not constitute the nature of all men ? Yes I indeed 1 £ Spirit is perfect. It encloses all laws and the object of their existence. As spirit is boundless, it has no external laws. All lav;3 arc in spirit, one of which — the great first law of all bein;^ — is tlie law of attraction, the soul of spirit. All motion is according to law, and is governed by law% therefore law' must be the greatest of all. The function of law is to govern that which it is in. And, therefore, as law is for the government of the motion of spirit, it must be in motion, but still connected with spirit which moves. As motion presupposes an object for motion, such object must embrace and include in itself the motion and the law that produces it. But if law is the creator, the maker and the regulator of things, where does man come in? It is said God is spirit, but what is man ? Where does he come from, and what is his object in coming ? Is he made by law ? And is he made to be as he is, and to do as he does, by fixed, permanent, and immutable laws over which he has no control ? Or is he the prime moving factor of his own existence? Is he the law of attraction that objectifies and atomizes his own spirit into flesh, blood, and bones which rise up, walk, and speak, as no other thing can? Man evidently was the last thing to appear on this earth; and, therefore, the inference is that he is the inmost of the inmost of all the laws of his o\\ti being ; and hence he is the first and the last manifestation of the law of life on this earth. There are two modes or laws of being. The first is attraction, the law- of all involuntary life; it has to do only with the involving of life in the strange, uncouth, and wretched forms we meet on every hand. Such forms of life exist automatically, or because they 52 THE WAY must. The other is the law of volition, or the power to live be- cause they will live. The former is the father of the latter, as the animal is the mother of it. Man, as we know him, is made by laws that are made for him, in imitation of which he makes laws to govern others; but the true man — the man we do not know, but of whom we vaguely dream — is the law of himself, him who wills to be and is what he wills to be. Law is personified and objectified in material things by the will of man. Therefore the object of the creation of a thing is mirrored forth in the object that appears to us, since all objects express the laws that made them. Man has a mind so arranged as to reflect the laws that are in himself externally; and he sees that which he feels in himself as an object of love and worship outside and remote from himself. For which reason the feminine in ourselves is objectified, or reflected upon, in the mind until we worship that which is really in ourselves. And so i: is \\'ith the three great laws of our being. And so it is ^vith the fountain of power in ever}- living thing — ^the three laws above described as heat and cold, the mother and the father of motion, which is the life of things. DvNelling in man they are, by motion, projected outward and mirrored in the heavens above, and called '*the God-head" — Father, Son. and Holy Ghost — corresponding to cold, the strong outside, that which encloses things, wherein they are made into li\ing entities by heat, the Ghost, or spirit, of the immortal entit}* called man. Therefore it is obvious that cold is the outer law, or form of all government, in which is concealed the real object of govern- ment itself, that is, the protection of life. The most powerful, the most comprehensive and self-complete spirit kno"\,Mi is the heat of man; and cold is the body of it. Heat is not substance, neither is it substantial, nor subject to formation; but it is the ghost of substance that completely and wholly fills the entire man, for which reason it is called a whole, or '"the Holy Ghost'* — such is the changing of expression. ^ THE WAY 53 To be whole, is to be complete, perfect, holy. Heat is the feminine part of man; but cold is the body of it, the only part that can subdue, control, and limit her action to the production of only one other law — the inner law of liberty." — allegorically personified in Genesis as the serpent, who certainly took upon himself the liberty of disclosing the hidden secrets of the maker of the Adamic form. It is certainly worth while to consider the origin of law; and in order to do so vre must understand the origin of human, or man-made laws, because natural laws are personified in human laws. ]Man makes laws to govern unruly elements that constitute the tribe, nation, or the body politic, which stand in the same relation to the laws as our bodies do to our minds. Therefore, it is evident lavrs are the workins; of interior forces in the bodv politic, as it is in the hrnnan body. In other words, man makes the laws that govern himself; and they originate in himself, and not at all outside of himself. \\'e are not composed of outside influences at all, except only as they make the heat of fire burn more fiercely in us than is health-and-lif e-producing ; but, on the contrar}-, they consume us, and destroy our self-government. In the soul of man there dwells the principle of life, which Jesus called the Father. It is the origin of all that is, or that can be; and it is the same in all souls, or bodies, which grow, or are expressed, out of itself, as words are uttered, expressing the meaning of him who speaks. Our flesh is the word of our thought; therefore, thought is the Father of the spoken word which expresses the life in man, de- claring 'T am what I am, and I \\dll be what I will be."' Our flesh is the word of our thought; and, therefore, the words we speak constitute the way in which life moves in the making of our bodies. If we speak good words they make us feel good, which, of course, afi'ects our flesh and blood, as well as that of others. Therefore, the ^^T)^d that makes man an undying, immortal being 5 i THE WAY — the word that each one must utter for himself, the word that draws God into our flesh, and that makes Christ in, and of, each one of us — is the realization and the utterance of a life that is one with all life. It is impossible to conceive a center without a circumfer- ence; and it is also impossible to conceive of a universal spirit with a center, since the universal has no form or center. In order to arrive at truth we must keep in sight of what we know. It will not do to assume a character for spirit that we know noth- ing about. Spirit exists, and although it is invisible and im- ponderable, we know it the same as we know mind, which is also invisible. We know matter because it is visible, and appeals to our senses. It has weight, form, size, dimension, center and cir- cumference; we can measure, weigh, handle and use it, which we cannot say of mind or spirit, except so far as use is concerned. We use both mind and spirit, although we do not know the ex- tent or limit of either, or our power over them. The invisible has no limits, bounds, circumference or center; and spirit, being in- visible, has neither. Spirit, therefore, has no particular center, or soul; but all objects are centers in space, and have souls in them, out of which invisible spirit moves and circles, forming spheres around each, as God formed the heavens around the earth in the making of it. Obviously, mind and matter both exist ; and it is equally ob- vious that former grows out of the latter. And how do we know tliat spirit does not grow out of the latter, and how do we know that spirit does not grov.- out of mind the same as mind grows out of matter? By analysis, the coarsest of matter may be resolved into spirit, which is known to consist, as matter does, of different degrees of density, and of power, as, for instance, wind is spirit, and so is light, heat, steam, the aroma of flowers, electricity, anger, love, jealousy, or any subtle element which issues from matter, and which requires restraint in order to be of use. That which restrains and governs spirit is the law of it; THE WAY 55 and as the heat of matter is its spirit, so is cold the law that gov- erns both matter and its spirit. We know that the law of attrac- tion, or the affinity that atoms of matter have for each other, by reason of which they cohere, or embrace, is found only in matter; and hence it is a material law for the restraint and con- trol of its subtle spirit, the escape of which would deprive it of all life and power. Attraction is not the property of spirit, but it is the power of matter which draws spirit from cold, which is the great reservoir of vitality, energy, or life. For this reason, primal love is the law of life which controls and draws spirit into all forms of matter, to keep them full and complete with life and power. This is the law given to Adam, ''Thou shalt not'' — the law of the self and not that of the spirit, which is free to love, and to be what it wills to be and to do. Spirit is free, it is not law, it binds nothing, it restrains nothing, it loves freedom. Spirit is not love ; but it is the force that love sends out of the l^ody by an effort of the will in looks, speech, gesture, and action. Spirit is not a body of anything, neither is it lovely nor fascinating; but it makes those it dwells in attractive, beautiful, fascinating, or extremely ugly and repulsive, according as they are warm or cold. The force that makes spirit active and powerful is the law that exliausts, and causes a re-action, or an involuntary shrinking upon itself, as if cold. This is the law of weakness, lack of power, the law that turns the life of spirit back to its source for a fresh supply. This law is called sleep or death, wherein in- voluntary life becomes broken up in spirit, as dust in the wind. But the volitional life, the cool, tranquil life of considerate thought, makes its own law out of the cold of its own body. It is philosophically true that a unit, whether an object or the law of an object, cannot produce its kind without the help of another. Laws, like human beings, are male and female, and propagate their kind in like manner, the higher, stronger, and less receptive being the male; while the lo^ve^ law, the material 56^ THE WAY containing animal heat, is the female, or mother-law, which is expected, in the course of evolution, to produce a law that is superior to either parent. In this manner does the law of sleep receive vigor, which begets life, and darkness receive an impulse from surrounding light, which kindles the light of intelligence in itself, a light far superior to the light of day. Extending this symbol to include the laws that make man, as we know he is made, we perceive that the laws which combine to produce man are far inferior to those which in him combine to make the mortal body a law of itself, as well as a law in itself. That matter is a receptacle of intelligence is obvious from the fact that it is made intelligent by the presence of life in it, which is its body or law that controls it. Without life in matter it has no intelligence, and hence is not intelligent. The same is true in regard to cold. If it have no heat in it, it has no spirit, and hence is not spiritual, but remains the law that embodies, or gives, form to matter. The same applies to oxygen. If it have no hydrogen in it, it does not become water, but remains cold, while hydrogen makes water of cold, if it remain therein. Cold and heat are laws of life, the combining of which makes matter of cold, the body of life, while heat remains the inner law that generates it. The existence of one law proves another of a higher or lower nature; and the high law is the male, or begetting principle, which enters into the lower, and begets therein another law superior to itself. In this manner evolution, or eternal progress, alone is possible. The lower law is fixed and permanent; but the higher law is spiritual, that of the freedom of the human will. We are free to will as we please; but the body composed of cold, dead, and dying matter is the lower law which holds life in bondage until he makes another law upon wliich to step higher Whatever life does for you is done in your body for the purpose of making it a permanent habitation for his own in- dwelling, and for your own well-being. Without life you are nothing, with life you are a power for good. Man becomes im- THE WAY 57 mortal by rising step by step in the scale of power; and these steps are the laws he makes, by which to regulate his own con- duct. The lower law of your being is what you know of yourself. Upon this you must stand while scanning your past conduct. You find little to be proud of; but very much you are ashamed of, very much you would gladly forget if you could. You stand here, naked, before your maker, who asks you the why and the wherefore of your actions. The only witnesses are simply in yourself. The judge and the accusers are face to face with you in your own conscious soul, where all your failures, weaknesses, and the wrongs you have done to others are clamoring for a for- feiture of your title to life, as the only penalty equal to your abuse of the life of yourself, and of others. Before this court in your own soul, you cannot do otherwise than plead guilty; but a voice is heard before sentence is pronounced, asking for a stay of judgment upon the plea of irresponsibility of the self- confessed sinner. Said the speaker: "This form which stands before you this day is not guilty because it is not capable of either thought or action of itself. It is a mere machine in which life, or some Devil that has power, makes a temporary abode, and makes it think and act." I say that the power that makes this image violate the law alone is responsible for what is done, and the only thing that should be punished. This thing before us is scarcely worthy of the name of man, by reason of his ignorance and weakness. He does not know how to think, nor what to think of, nor how to resist temptation, by reason of his defi- ciences. Who made this form? And who makes it think and act ? You say he robbed you, sir ! of your liberty, or your proper- ty ? And you, sir ! say he took your life ! Admit it, for the sake of argument, but, sir, how came you to have life, property, or intelligence ? Are you not one of those fellows that make things ? And do you not know that you made him think bad thoughts, and steal, rob, and murder ? If you did not make his form, you 58 THE WAY have helped make it act by uniting with the force that is in him, which is of like nature unto your own. Who led this being into temptation? You, sir, who have things that he wants, and can't get. Is he responsible for what he does, if he is made to do as he does? "The woman that thou gavest to be with me, gave me of the fruit, and I did eat." "And I," said the woman, "was beguiled by the serpent," that you made, my Lord, and so it is up to you, w^ho make things, to shoulder the responsibility of the way things work. In taking the life of this image, now on trial here, what do you do to the image? You simply remove its power to enjoy and to suffer. And what do you do to the life of this image, if you make it get out ? Why ! you simply scatter the life into air, water, light, and uncounted myriads of maggots, crawling w^orms, and noxious vapors which exhale from putrid flesh. Who is responsible? You, who make things, or the things tKat are made to suffer, and do what they do not want to do? What good does it do to force life out of things ? It immediately springs up in something else. Life is the creator — it cannot be punished. It is up to you, who judge others; for by your judg- ment do you make the misery, want, and crime of those you judge. Charity does not judge, it finds an excuse for those who do wrong, therefore, it searches for the good that is the life of all, and in that little good does life beget a higher law, productive of a greater good, and higher power. In this manner is intelligence produced in ignorance, and intellectual life takes the place of animal life. But more prop- erly speaking, ignorance transformed becomes intelligence, or animal life becomes intellectual, or the life that is wholly due to will, or, speaking ethnologically, the transformation of the serpent of the human foetus into a human form, manifesting both animal and intellectual life, into a spiritual form manifesting intuitional or the Christ Life. There is but one life, ranging from the lowest, darkest, and most inert forms, up to the highest, brightest, and most power- THE WAY 59 ful form of life conceivable. And whatever we may believe about the descent of the Divine into animal human natures, or whatever we may think about God and his creations, and his "plan of salvation," etc., we absolutely know this irrefutable fact, that we all enter this world at the lowest ebb of the tide of life, and ascend toward its flood by steps that advance and recede, steps that carry us out into a boundless ocean of life, of Vv^hich we know nothing, a future life from which we, by introspection, look inward, at the past, making the living eternal now, upon which we stand, as upon solid ground. We stand today upon the life we lived yesterday, while we make today what we will be tomorrow. And whatever changes we may make in our surround- ings, our bodies, our minds, or our natures, consciously we are the same. The outer appearance merely gives to the inner, the newly- formed flesh pushes the old flesh out of its way, as the serpent changes his skin. This is verified in all womb formation. In the first place albumen is changed or transfonned into proto- plasm, called the placenta, in which the foetus is form.ed and of which it is composed, which in turn gives place to the worm-like or serpent formation, which is gradually transformed into a human being. I say transformed, because in each instance the change is complete from one form to another, except that, in approaching the human form, transformation is not entire, as the placenta is not all absorbed in the child-form. This is the law of evolution. A constant begetting, conception, and gestation is kept up in every living, breathing, thinking being, gradually producing new flesh, blood, bones, and form, which pushes off the old, exhausted, worn-out body in the same way that a child emerges from the placenta, or the serpent from his old skin. We do not stop growing vvhen born; and our grov/th in this animal life is as it were in another womb, from which we v/ill be born into another life, either higher or lower, warmer or cooler. The over-soul encloses each one qf us, as a 60 THE \\-AY womb does a foetus. It is cold above, below, and around us; but heat is within. Cold contracts upon us; and we respond in like manner, which causes the breath of life to rush in and out, as the diaphragm contracts and expands, from the action of heat within, and its reflex action from \s*ithout. Therefore, we are reflected beings, emotional by reason of internal heat, and, on the contrar}-. cool, calm, thoughtful, reasonable, tranquil beings, by reason of outer cold. Cold freezes even running water — aye, and hot water also. It is that force which fixes things, and renders them hard, solid, permanent. It is this which the Hebrew prophet, Isaiah, alluded to, in sa}-ing. Lo, I am God. and I change not, therefore. }e sons of Jacob, are ye not devoured/' Xow, ever}' htmian being is composed of these two antagonistic principles: cold issues from the li\'ing will; heat, from our burn- ing, devouring emotions. Ob\'iously, then, the will takes hold of the over-soul, the infinite reservoir of power, life, and its intelli- gence; while heat is kept separate from cold by the form it is confined in. and only coimects therewith through the will, as the embr.o is connected with the womb by the placenta. Will, therefore, is the power that regulates the action of both heat and cold, and hence is a greater law than that of attraction, which simply limits action to equilibration, considering will as the foundation, or mother, of another law of even a higher life than that of thought, or the intelligent consideration of phenomena. Let us ask ourselves what is the male coimterpan of the will, which shall, in the progress of the race, beget a higher law, or power, in the ^sill, than that which produces our power to think and reason. In other words, is there any power greater than mind? And if so, how can man acquire it? LIFE AND FORM All existing things depend upon form for power to appear. Without form we are nothing. As the pendulum of a dock depends upon, or hangs do\s'n from, the works, or machinen*, of the clock, and not directly from the outer frame work that sup- ports the mechanism, so is life dependent, not upon the frame called the body, but upon a form of work within the body, known as the soul. Unlike a clock that is wound up by seme outer intelligence, the works in the soul of man are continually wound up by its o"\^Ti motion, the same as the earth makes a magnet of itself by continually winding. Time and life are the same; and upon the life of the soul depend its time-keeping qualities and the durability' of the form it works in. Life works the same as the soul works, out of which it issues on its eternal way. A form is that which draws or gets life into itself. A vacuum in the air produces motion, and what is motion but life? And what is vacuum but a form ? And upon that form depends the swinging of life's pendulum, which, in time, takes steps as a man does — swinging his feet as he walks. There is no beaut}' or grace of motion without form, neither is there any progress without change of form. All motion originates within, at the ver}' center, which is like the turning of a wheel around a stationary axis, such axis being the original form of the circle the wheel makes in its revo- lutions. This to some may seem visionan,-; but no pendulum can sway from side to side, without the turning of a wheel, to which it is attached; and no man can take steps of progress with feet or vdth thought, unless a resolution be formed, or a wheel turneci in himself, which is ^'irtually the making of a form for his own 62 THE WAY indwelling. It is easy to understand the working of the elements in a body after its formation; but no one can comprehend the working of incorporeal elements, except by the assumption that they work in a spiritual form, which shows that creation is pri- marily mental, and that one is continually creating and re-creat- ing the form one lives in, by his own resolutions, or the revolution of the one great wheel of his own soul. To reduce this simile to what we know, let us call the axis around which the wheel revolves, and from which it receives its motion, or its life, the father, not of the wheel but of its life, while the wheel we call the mother, since it is that which moves, and in which life or motion is generated. The trouble with us is, we fail to see things as they really are, because w^e are always looking at the form or the face of the clock, instead of its interior formation. We see the motion and form of matter, but deny the prior existence of the power that forms and moves it; and in tlie consideration of this problem modern scientists have ad- vanced the idea of the spontaneous generation of matter, since it is a well recognized fact that matter and spirit are different names given to the appearance and non-appearance of the same things, since power underlies all phenomena. Power becomes visible in the material form of things, while it becomes \asible in spirit only by the motion of that which is invisible. By the use of the miscroscope, scientists have discovered an otherwise in- visible speck, or molecule, of albuminous matter, to which they have given the name Moneron, which is described by the cele- brated Dr. Haekel in his work, "The History of Creation," Vol. 1, p. 185 ff. He says: ''We have, before this, become acquainted with the simplest of all species of organisms in the Monera, whose entire bodies, when completely developed, consists of nothing but a semi-fluid albuminous lump. They are organisms which are of utmost importance for the theory of the first origin of life. Take the simple method of propagation of the Monera, by self- THE WAY 63 division, is, in reality, the most widely spread of all the different modes of propagation. A pinching-in takes place contracting the middle of the globule on all sides, and, finally, leads to the separation of the two halves. Each half, then, becomes rounded off, and now appears as an independent individual, which com- mences, anew, the simple course of vital phenomenon of nutri- tion, and propagation. When the moneron moves itself, there are formed on the upper surface of the little mucous globule shapeless finger-like processes, or very fine radiated threads. These are the so-called false feet, or pseudopodia." So much, by science, for the theory of spontaneous genera- tion. But science fails to reckon with that which encloses the Moneron, which is simply a seed planted in its surroundings, whatever such may be, either earth, water, air, or electric light of the over-arching blue sky. Heat lies dormant in cold, in matter it is wakeful, while in spirit it is fully aw^ake, and reaches its highest degree of activity and productive power. Hence, there is not an atom of matter, however small it may be, that does not contain some degree of heat imprisoned therein by its cold, or cool surrounding atmos- phere, the pressure of which causes a contractive operation to take place in the atom, described by Professor Haekel, in the case of a moneron, as a pinching-in of all sides of it, which, of course, is a concentration of the heat already in the atom, or moneron, and an impregnation of it with other heat forced into it by such pressure. Heat, when compressed to a certain point, re-acts upon the force which compresses it; and this re-action produces a vacuum between the opposing forces, which is like the world we live in — the mother of all manner of living things. Thus does every atom of matter breathe force from itself, which brings home that which it needs to replenish its internal heat, and its powers of acquisition of spirit, which it draws into itself, the same as any magnet does. For there is not an atom, or molecule of matter, that is not a magnet for the catching of 64 THE WAY spirits above, below, and all around us. '*Like attracts its like;'' and, in my dennition of spirit, I most emphatically disclaim any idea of attributing to it any super-natural powers whatever. On the contranvt has no more power than any organic being has viz., the power to sleep and the power to wake up again. In sleep do we not acquire vigor? And, what is vigoi but the power to make or create flesh, ner\''e5, bones, and muscles, by exercise? Spirit is nothing more nor less than acti%'e matter, while the grossest of inen matter is simply sleeping spirit — a net spread, a trap set and baited, to catch power in. Therefore, to the intelligent reader, heat and cold stand revealed as the creators, the father and the mother of the universe of things — the Elohim, in Hebrew parlance, who said to each other, '"let us make man in our image." No intelligent person can think that these words were spoken by one indi^*idual to another. But that the words are used to represent the agree- ment, or the af fin it}'. of one atom, liquid, gas, or mineral, for another, is apparent from the fact that such af&nit}' or agreement is the real creator in the things so dra^vn together, and that the factors are merely receptacles of creative power, used in and around them. We are aware that neither heat nor cold mani- fests intelligence. But where does the intelligence of natural things ccme from, if it is not a result, small it may be, that does not contain some degree of heat? That heat is the principle of animation is certain, and that it contains life and intelligence is also certain; but, in order to effect manifestation, there must exist something to be animated; and, for that reason, the most of life and intelligence are fast asleep lq that which we call matter. We can only approximately define intelligence, as the power of comprehension, which, so far as vre know, is limited to its creations, wherein it dwells, and out of which it manifests itself in search of more power, or some other creative uplifting potent force. By reason of our in- telligence do we become what we are. But do you imagine that THE WAY 65 our intelligence thinks, or walks, flies, or swims? No, but it makes our bodies move, walk, swim, or think, if we have brains, or fly, if v;e have wings; and, undoubtedly, it is the same power which causes a leaf to fly in the wind or swim on water. As to ourselves, we claim a little intelligence which gives us the power to swim in water; but we deny that a log of wood has any at all, when it has far more swimming powers than man has. How do we know that a log of wood does not think? It certainly is a particle of intelligence, since it shows it in its make-up. And, therefore, if intelligence, as a whole, thinks in creating things, then every atom of matter thinks; or the power to think and to do lies latent in every object, or atom, that exists; and latent power is what is called intelligence. That which is ignorant, weak, and imperfect thinks in order to become more intelligent; but a perfect thing needs no thought or movement, since it cannot change or grow to be better or worse; and, if, in our thought of it, we see it divided into particles of matter, we know in our souls that perfect intelligence is still as nearly perfect as ever, although deep buried in the mara — the illusion of senses. The image-making power in us is the creator ; and, by virtue of it, do we make of matter what we desire and will to make. This power makes flesh, blood, and bones of the stuff we breathe, eat, drink, and think of; for that which we imbibe goes to sleep in us, and in that sleep they are transformed by the power of heat into water, of which our bodies are made, in the cooling of it. It is easily perceived how, or in what manner, intelligence becomes material, in its formation of water, the solidifying of which, by the power of cold, constitutes gross metalic substance. As before stated, heat is the principle of all animation, and the very essence of it. In a material or chemical view, it is the rarest, lightest, and most inflammable, or explosive, of all known gases, and is called Hydrogen, the nature of which is feminine, since it is the consort of Oxygen, which is cold or masculine; and ee THE WAY they two are the father and the mother of water, the first-born, grossest, heaviest, and hence the lowest of all animate spirits, and the first form that spirits assume in descending, or becoming material animate beings. The earnest searcher for truth will ask, where does water come from? It certainly does not exist ani- mately, prior to the union of Hydrogen and Oxygen; and, hence, as it comes from them, it must exist in one of them in an inani- mate, or latent, condition, as it does in ice, in the absence of heat. Now ice forms above water; and hence there are two forms of water, one above the firmament, and another below it. In the ice above, cold resides; in the water below, is heat — the seed of all existing things carried for begetting and generation. Water mirrors the sun and the stars that shine above us ; and our bodies and brains are mainly made of it. Reflecting powers are they, in which we see things strange and new, and out of which they come trooping in seried columns — the ghosts of other times, long buried in us, as heat is buried in cold. The Universe is a fact. We know it exists, and also know that w^e are so constituted that we cannot think of it without con- ceiving it as a form, having limit, circumference, contour, and things moving in it. But what of this thing outside of it? We vainly answer that beyond the limit of the universe there is nothing. But we find the same thing surrounding every object that we know of, or can think of, and also filling all the spaces or crevices between things. In fact, we know that objects could not exist without this thing (which is not a thing) between them. It exists between all atoms of matter and all drops of fluid. Blood, tissues, flesh, nerves, and bones — all! everything! is cushioned upon this intangible nothing which makes no noise, and has no power of resistance, which is boundless, formless, and incomprehensible. Things cannot move without it, since it is the medium in which things communicate with each other. It has no power of repulsion. It is a universal womb which re- ceives every dead thing, and gives birth to all that live and move. THE WAY 67 May we not call it the over-soul, of v\-hich our souls are made? Or possibly it may be the spirit of heat which rises from the com- bustion of things that move, and which cools beyond the range of its influence, as things pass beyond our recognition. All things of the universe are moving, except the space in which they move, which is nothing, the same as a printed page has no sense for us, if the spaces, stops, and pauses are removed from it. Sense is the most important factor of the universe; but these things which move and have being — things which we see, handle and know — are all vessels in which it is contained, and in which it is measured, and its value determined by us. Things are material, and as measures of sense are valuable to us in the analysis of them, they are nothing on the way of becoming some- thing. Human beings are vessels of this sort. We become full of spirit by thinking, and give birth to strange and imknown things. Do not they all come from nothing and to it return at the end of a brief existence ? If we call nothing spirit, it proves nothing. >7ames are nothing. They merely announce the ap- pearance of something coming out of nothing. We know nothing of spirit further than that it is an emanation from matter like heat, vapor, steam, or the aroma of flowers, or the stench of filth. But matter is the thing that gives it power. Steam is powerless unless it is confined in some material form. A boiler, for instance, nor a himian spirit has any power if it be not limited to a body or form. Furthermore, it is the matter from which spirit ema- nates which gives it its peculiar aroma, its influence, and its different degrees of power. Note the difference between the light of an oil lamp and that of lectricity. Our bodies, like all matter, are subject to two conditions, viz., that of heat and cold. Of these we know nothing except their influence upon material things. Their combined action, we call the temperature of matter. They may be opposing spirits for all we know; but names are nothing and we think we know that they have no existence except in connection with this thing 68 THE WAY we call matter, of which we are made, and by reason of which we manifest, as parts of the universe. The analysis of things reveals nothing, since they pass co-ordinately outside and beyond what we are in search of. In vain we may search for life in these bodies which are all alive. If life is a thing, no one has ever found it or measured its pov.-er. It is immense — infinite, were it not for death, at which it merely halts on its eternal way — infinitely great in its power and intelligence, and infinitely small in its weakness and its want of wit. We are very apt to overlook the latter and declare that Life is all, and in all, or com- plete in itself, or self-creative and self-sustaining, forgetful of the fact that organized life is small when compared to that which is not so organized. Life is known only by the company it keeps; and from its association with material things we are bound to judge it from a material standpoint, which is to the efi'ect, that as the body is, so is the life it contains. The qualit}' of the body, therefore, determines the power of its life. Life grows from seed as trees do; and, hence, the body is "the tree of life," growing from its mother, the seed in which it is planted. Life is in the earth, and hence earth is the seed of ever}'thing that grows out of it, and that which grows produces seed of its kind or of a higher order than its own ; therefore, it is scarcely presumptuous to assume that life is the progressive principle, whose powers are without limit, hav- ing neither beginning nor end. That it sleeps sometimes, in things that scarcely move, is e\'ident, but that it ever dies is absurd. It comes into things from a long night's rest in cold dark earth, as one awakens from sleep with all one's powers intact, and on the alert for exercise. Out of the night of spirit comes the earth ; out of the earth comes life ; out of life comes mind ; out ^ of mind comes the daylight of spirit in the infinite expanse of which man is enthroned with the Christ, the sun of his glory shining in himself, and descending from himself to be the light and life of men. THE WAY 69 For the creation of things, life is both spiritual and ma- terial. The former is that which is incorporeal, or inorganic, without form, or power other than that of equilibration. The power of inorganic spirit is the opposite of motion — inertia. Sup- pose the universe to consist of nothing but spirit, the power of all atoms being equal. Of course, such spirit, or life, would be totally bereft of any motion whatever. All its power would con- sist merely of lying still; and that is exactly the case with inor- ganic life; and, were there nothing else than that, there vv^ould be no motion and no forms. But the introduction of heat disturbs the sleep of spirit ; and from its cold bosom water falls bearing a particle of spirit, which we call life, which speedily transforms the water into a body to dwell in, the outside of which is, in some degree, cold, like the father whence it came. The earth, and all it produces, is mainly water, made tan- gible and hard by surrounding cold ; and all these are prisons for the confinement and limitation of life's powers. Life expands as the body grows, and in time shows a little life, with almost no intelligence; but, by the operating of continually imbibing spirit, intelligence is borne into life wherein it is condensed, or concentrated, into a form of life called mind, which is the light and the life of organic spirit everywhere and in everything. I 70 THE WAY i 4 To imagine an epoch when foniis had no existence is to realize the existence of universal unbroken darkness, a condition preceding the existence of matter and mind — twins in a mother's womb. Darkness is the mother of all forms. They are born of her. They come out of her by the aid of light, as if they were eyes desiring to see. It is the nature of mind to give light, because mind is heat, the mother of fire. Matter is darkness made tangible by the external influence of cold, which is the counterpart, or consort, of darkness, and hence the father of matter, which is the foetus in even' womb. Obviously, it is the motion of the mother that causes the foetus to grow and imbibe heat from its mother, that eventually gives it power to move or struggle against its own body. Therefore, every foetus is dual — twin forces — in the womb of darkness, wherein all things sleep, awaiting the resurrection of life, which is heralded by a struggle that lights the fire of mind in the matter, or foetus, globular in form — a soul — which eventually becomes a living creature. All organic existence depends upon form, and it is the light shining in darkness that makes form of it, and in it, and it is the heat of matter that makes matter burn and light shine, and causes forms to become visible. Therefore, the first of all forms was a circle, or globe, of light and power, visible above to this day, called the heavens in scripture, and scienti- fically known ^s the over-soul, of which the soul of man is the counterpart. We have no reason to think that the laws of nature ever change; hence, things appear and disappear now as they have always done, and creation is only another name for growth. 72 THE WAY Therefore, the word creation is misleadins. as conve\*in? the idea that things are made from nothing. In this sense, there is no creation. Things that now exist have always existed in some other condition. The minds of today were dark ignorance a few years ago, and so with eyery visible thing. Things are hidden in darkness, or covered up with matter, as we cover up the dead; and the birth to life is but the resurrection of the dead — a coming out of darkness into life. In order to see. light is necessaiy; and the heat of matter does not bum in a disused or inorganic con- dition, such as darkness, both mental and physical, presents. Things are not created, it is their nature to be, and it is as reason- able to assume the pre-existence of eventhing as to assume it of one thing. The description is produced by laws, which are found only in that which is produced. The pre-existence of all effects is a foregone conclusion. Cause and enect are the same — the male and the female principles of existence. Man exists in seed before in the shape of a human being. .\nd how do we know that he did not exist as the ocean or that primordial night out of which we know he came, as the over-soul came, the ven* first object that was re- vealed, resurreaed, or bom from the one whole, or holy being, the mother of all, which we fail to know amthing about, owing to our exceedingly small souls and weak conception of things? To see. requires an eye, and light to see vriih] and the over-soul is that all-seeing eye, out of which shines the light of intelligence, as shines any light from the sun. .And as light bore the sun to its place at the center of our solar system, so does the light of our own intelligence bear us to the center of our own souls, him, who said to Moses: 'T am the things that I am made of. I am the ego. I am the body, mind, light, and a soul through which intelligence issues. I am the pronoun I, the eye that sees, feels, and knov.s." Made of the refuse-stuff, the weakest, meanest stuff, which was unfit for anv other puqx)se, if we may judge from his extreme weakness and THE WAY 73 ignorance, since not a being on earth is so deficient as he! The query naturally suggests itself: May it not be that man came by his own free-will to see what he could make of himself ? Not, however, as separate from all the rest, but as the heat of every atom of matter used in the structure of earth, sun, and stars I Constructing himself out of his own emanations. It certainly looks that way, since everything that breathes impregnates itself with the power to grow and become greater. Every individual carries his, or her, own father and mother within himself, the father being the soul, and the mother what the soul contains, which, as flint and steel strike fire out of each other, by contact or friction, produce the life of the individual. As previously stated, the laws of being are in each individ- ual thing; and, therefore, outside there is an infinite vista of inorganic life to be drawn upon and incorporated into him who desires, wills, and works to get and to use it. I dwell upon this subject because it is all-important to realize that one holds his own destiny in his own grasp. It is true that the over-soul is infinite in extent and in power; but it bends over us to protect us in the use of what little liberty and power we have. It is a misnomer to call the over-soul he or she, since it is simply a great reservoir of power held in reserve for our use, which be- comes cold and dark to us — the reverse of heat, the feminine or creative principle. Power is unchangeable, and is the same in small and weak things as in great and strong things, the same in father as in mother, differing only as to the quantity held in reserve by difference of form. It is the reserve force which is of greatest value in regard to forms ; and it is the solid compact forms which contain the most power and life, without reference to the use of it, since a reserve force is not in use, but is subject to call or command. Now, the outside forms of fruits, vegetables, etc., appear before the more valuable (except in use), or life- giving, parts appear; and this fact shows that the inner or mother of things is the reserve fotte here alluded to, and is of 74 THE WAY the same nature as that which the over-soul contains. There- fore, even^ fonn is a soul, in which, and beyond or back of our vie^^point, resides "She who is nameless," but who was, by our ancient Eg}^tian brothers of the Rosy-Cross, called "Isis, the mother of all the gods," whose veil none have heretofore been able to lift — but which I now declare to be the form of man, behind and in which she hides her face. To look behind, below, beyond, or within the human forms is to behold the secret and sacred fire which bums in the soul and produces all life. In the form is the "kingdom of God," or power, which, being ^^•ithout form, dark and imdsible even to itself, makes a light of itself, which reveals heaven as the first form, which, with its contents, is one, and would eternally remain one, were it not for the fact that light reveals itself, as well as the form it is in; and, since light is an irrepressible power, it has continued to reveal unnumbered dark objects, lamps not yet lighted, because undiscovered, and hence of no use. Light is the life, or spirit, of heat, which is the spirit of matter, which is the substance of darkness. In other words, darkness is the pall that covers the face of cold death — the power, which, being the prin- ciple of durability, unchangeableness, firmness, and protection, is t^-pified by the soul, or outside of things, as well as the soul in- side of things, which guards and protects that inward fire which bums therein as long as it is protected from the cold outside of it, since fire may be smothered by the ver>' things which make it burn. Too much fuel is equal to too little ; and hence an intelli- gent regulator of these two opposing forces, heat and cold, is necessar}' for the perpetuation of any form in which heat is con- fined. And right here is where man appears, as the power that can protect himself by the control of the ver}^ things which have given him form and appearance. It is the light of intelligence that enables us to see; and, so long as we remain in the darkness of ignorance, we get no life until we make it in ourselves, by our THE WAY 75 own efforts. If we cannot make the effort, we get no light, no life, nor power. The light of intelligence issues from the soul, which is the Ego — the *'I am" of each individual, a single eye, looking through two eyes, by reason of which everything appears dual, male and female, good and evil, father and mother. Form is a soul, a direct descendant of the over-soul, and is the visible part of each individual, which, by a further descent, becomes the inmost soul, the Ego, wherein the fire of conscious life is kindled. The over-soul is the all-seeing eye, the reverse of our eyes, since it is concave, an object plain to be seen above, enclosing the en- tire universe, and embracing every object and all phenomena in its field of vision; while our eyes are convex, and limited in vision, requiring constant readjustment of focus. The light of intelligence issuing from every part of the concave over-soul comes to a focus at the center of the area enclosed therein, where all the rays meet, and intelligence is embodied in the laws that govern the universe. Man descends from cold darkness in water through the influence of heat, which is virtually a resurrection from the tomb. Every object contains the law of its being, which are the father, the mother, and whatever their offspring may be. The air we breathe impregnates the body w^ith power to act; therefore, all our acts are our children, so also the things we see, and the sensations we feel impregnate us with thoughts of pleasure and pain, which are our offspring, which, borne into active existence, make us strong, or poison the formation of the life we must live. Therefore, it is obvious that all objects are most intimately re- lated, and naturally affect each other, making universal law by the union of individual laws. Man is the spirit, substance, or matter of which forms are made; and he is master of himself and what he contains and other things also, by reason of the free- dom and power of his will. Stripped of his possessions or his attributes, he is a naked, lifeless soul; but the moment a breath of life enters him, he clutches it as his own, and hence the 76 THE \\^\Y power of the body that acquires and uses things is a dual power, viz., heat and cold. Unlike material acquisitions, the real things that man acquires become himself. Therefore, we are led to conlude that the power called will, exists prior to the organization of the body, and is the power that draws the atoms together, and then charges them with life. Will, therefore, is the principal factor of being, motion, or life. Will is automatic power, moving matter as the heart moves, with an open-and-shut-movement, which movement may, and often is, interrupted by the excess of either heat or cold, its parents. Of course, the will is a spiritual faculty of man; and, as everything spiritual has its material counterpart, so has the will its counterpart in the feeling of weakness inherent in all material things. Will produces motion; and from motion comes conscious feeling, the first and greatest of the senses, out of which mind grows, as trees grow out of the ground. From weakness arises reverence in which the movements of will are retarded and diverted from their natural to an unnatural action, destructive of its freedom and its power. Looking upward, one perceives a section of the all-seeing eye, described above, the over-soul of this world; and each one of us has an over-soul peculiar to himself, known as his own mind, in which he exists, and which, being convex, outwardly gives him vision of external things, which entering in impreg- nate the body, and become parts of it. Therefore, our bodies are reflections of things of universal sense, drawn into us by our senses, and thoughts of our thinking. And as our minds are con- cave, they have the power of introspection or of examining and knowing every atom of the body — its nature and powers, how made and its source. We became physically large and powerful by external observation, because ever}1;hing one sees objectively is food for physical nature, which is essentially cold and ignorant. Who ever heard of the wisdom of ignorance ? And yet exist- ence has its foundation laid in ignorance, and all the wisdom THE WAY 77 known is forced into existence by its power. It cannot be said that cold or darkness is intelligent or that it, in conjunction with ignorance, can produce either directly or indirectly an object that manifests life and a degree of wisdom in its structure. The wisest lawgiver known was produced by parents totally ignorant of what they were producing. It is folly to talk about a superior being, in view of what we actually know. Neither the passions nor the intelligence that actuate the male and the female in the generative act can be said to be that of wisdom. The heat of blind passion is the only force involved in procreation; and this force is in the parties themselves, and not in some wise, intelli- gent power above and beyond natural law. The air we breathe, the food we consume for the heat they contain, to give us life, are as ignorant as can be imagined ; and the heat they produce in our blood and flesh shows no sign of wisdom until it manifests pov;er in forcing cold to give water wherein to hide itself and begin the work. 78 THE WAY "God is Spirit and they who worship Him must v/orship in spirit and truth." — Jesus. We know nothing of Spirit whatever, except in connection with matter. True, we are mental as well as material, but mind is dependent on the body. Our mind is an outgrowth of our physical nature and spirit; if there is any mind that belongs to organic matter it must be produced by the united action of those two principles. In fact, spirit is the offspring of mind and mat- ter. The first principle of existence is order, which we recognize as inertia, a lack of energy, or absolute rest — the entity of all being, the unit, seed, or spirit, of every existing thing — and every object is an image thereof. A unit cannot be conscious of any- thing but itself. That which is all, cannot be conscious of any- thing but itself, in which it exists as I exist in my body or as heat exists in cold. An infant is first conscious of its ovv^n body, which is conscious also, by reason of its presence, but in a less degree. It cannot laiow its own mother until after its birth, and then only in part; for in this manner only can consciousness be- come divided into parts and become many instead of one. Being material, we know spirit only from a material standpoint, until we become in a degree mental ; and then all we know of spirit is merely what we think we know. We know of the great pov/er of the universe to sustain and to destroy living things, in fact, to make things move, grow, live, suffer, enjoy, struggle, and die, regardless of the wishes or will of the things that suffer. And, by general consent, seeing individuals do things, we imagine that an individual also does the work of creation and we name it God, Brahma, Allah, Jove, Jehovah, Buddha, or what not, and make 80 THE WAY images of wood, stone, or other substance in commemoration of a wholly imaginary concept of mind, barely budded and just com- menced to grow out of material form. What do we know of spirit other than that it is the aroma of flowers, of fruits, grain, or of things we consum.e, which consists of several substances instead of one, which keeps us alive and which cannot, by any known process, be made an individual thing without combining it with something else, to limit or to confine it. No individual thing exists alone. Even man, the greatest of all known intelligent beings, exists only in his ideal of him- self, whether he is conscious of it or not. Every one is peculiar, nor would one exchange vv^ith another; and those peculiarities are spirits, in which we exist alternately as spirit and matter, or the visible body and the invisible. We exist in our own estimate of ourselves; and this estimate is an emanation, or spirit grow- ing out of the ego as a tree or plant grows from the planted seed. The ego is that primal principle referred to, and know^n by us, as order, the law of universal being. The ego is the energy or the vim of spirit rising as the life of seed rises in fruit or plant. Spirit concentrated without protection, like heat, evap- orates and disappears; and, hence, for its own protection, it is confined in a shell where it remains inwardly as the seed of spirit which is of itself formless. By this means is spirit made into atoms; and that which is formless and void, as the earth was prior to its organization, is made an individual thing In view of the wonderful and mysterious workings of things, mankind have been busy since time was in the making of their own thoughts into Gods, which they worship, about which they dis- agree; and, as if to settle the matter, Jesus declared God to be spirit or an emanation of matter when considered materially, or an emanation of mind when viewed mentally, such as anger, pride, disgust, jealousy, envy, hate, etc., etc., all of which are disorderly spirits which, therefore, cannot take form only as they enter into beings that are already formed. The spirits called THE WAY 81 Hope, Charity, Love, Mirth, and Good-Will are spirits gener- ated in the mind of man by a process of thinking and emanating therefrom in the work of creation. In view of these considerations, being without a logical and comprehensible definition of spirit, we have no idea of the nature of God in reality. The word od-force might be logically con- strued as the creator of the universe of forms, since statical elec- tricity — a force without motion, where order is supreme — is the seed of every form or system of forms that ever had being; and the Scripture would be far more intelligible, common-sensible, and natural, if expressed somewhat as follows : Presuming that the universe never existed, in the beginning there existed only that all-pervasive spirit, the original feminine force, the mother of magnetism, whose primal action is wholly inward upon her- self, until in the fulness of time she becomes pregnant and gives birth to spirit by an explosion, whereby the universe is born in it and not out of it; hence, the universe of material things is spiritual, the soul of spirit. In giving birth to the universe, spirit parted in twain, whereby light and life were set free, th.e former becoming the firmament of heaven above, the latter the darkness and mystery of material being here below in this earth's sphere, of which the eartli and other objects are made. Spirit finds voice at every birth, the voice of light and not of darkness, since light and intelligence are born from the anguish of spirit. There is nothing supernatural about spirit, nor its way of doing things; and there is nothing incomprehensible if we only had the sense to understand the voice of God, which speaks in ever}' longing soul. Light is masculine, darkness femi- nine; and light descending upon darkness impregnates every material with power to grow, live, and become, because life, with all that pertains to it, is already therein, awaiting resurrection. Creation is as much now as it ever was. Laws never change. Order is the first law and it is always first, an unchangeable auto-suggestion, or comniand; a command to us to let our light 82 THE WAY shine and for us to be. Order is the power that organizes many spirits into one; it is therefore not a spirit itself, but a law of spirit residing in it, as seed resides in fruit or grain. Without order not a thing can exist, it is therefore the seed of every material and mental thing, since a spiritual object is out of the question, except such as we are familiar with. Can anger, hate, avarice, etc., be objectified except in actions that we do? And so with all spirits, we imbibe them as we do food and water and air and ideas. They are formless, subtile, insinuating, elemen- tary powers that embody themselves in us, when invited in. Spirit fills the universe; but man fills spirit, which he uses as we do our bodies. There is no spirit known that man cannot use if he knows how, and has the will to do so. Spirit belongs to m^an, it is his servant. It obeys his every wish if he loves it with his whole soul, which draws it and fills itself full to its utmost capacity, as one fills his muscles w4th energy in preparing for an effort, and, when full, by an effort of the will (which is mere- ly a contraction of the soul), the pent-up spirit, like steam in a boiler, is forced out to do as commanded. Man is not mind, nor is he a spirit, since he possesses both, the same as he does his body or his limbs, his coat, or any other property. My soul is my own ; so is my spirit, my body, and my mind. I and my spirit are inseparable, we both came on this earth together. I, by my love of spirit, clothed myself with it, as the germ of life clothes itself in a shell in ripened fruit. My spirit then becomes my protector, as it has become my body, as a shell is around the seed of fruit. As my protector, it is my father, the over-soul that surrounds me ; and I am in him a mere germ, or seed, of what I will to be and to become. Thus, en- closed in my own spirit father I am borne by him into spirit mother that my spirit may draw to, since spirit is subject to the law of love, or attraction; and it isT who make the laws of my own being in proportion to my power over my spirit. Spirit is outside and eternally in motion, while I, the ego, am inside and THE WAY 83 eternally still, only as I am carried around in spirit. In the womb I made a body of my spirit according to what I love to have my spirit become. Love is not spirit, but is a sensation I feel when spirit enters me, I attract and I repel spirit, and there is not a spirit in existence — and the universe is full of them — that man cannot become master of and use as he pleases ; and he v/lio, from any cause, fails to control the spirits that make his body and mind is carried by them as a leaf is carried in the wind. ]Man becomes a monster spirit under the influence of his pas- sions, all of which are spirits though subject to control. We are made up of animal spirits, most of which are wild and untam.ed by reason of countless incarnations; for animal spirit may be brought into any shape or degree of depravity. But the spirit that issues directly from the ego is purity itself, althougli it may become impure by use. That spirit is under tlie influence of man is dem.onstrated by the universal practice of praying, be- seeching God to do for us. W'e praise God, expecting him to return the favor by blessing us in return. This is indeed v^ell enough since it affects our spirits, for we pray to ourselves and those who listen; and thus a multitude of spirits are influenced and united as one in purpose and in action. Nov/ such union of spirits is a seed from which grow forms of religion, societies, government, and animal and human forms; for, when gathered together, many spirits become one by reason of the order and system which cements them together, preparatory to explosion, projection, or manifestation of pov\'er for God. It is obvious, therefore, that all such combinations of spirit are images of that primal law of being which prompts one to declare " I am."' "Truly where tvv^o or more are joined together, there am I in the midst." And, in the union of the male and the female, I, the ego, am the seed that produces an animal or a human being. The germ of life is one; and it contains all that pertains to any and every manifestation of life whatever, and is the father of 84 THE WAY what grows from it, and is not the one who plants the seed. A grain of corn is the father of corn. Not the one who plants the corn is the father. Likev\'ise, the germ planted in the womb is the father of the child, no matter by whom or how it is planted, and it is a germ that leads in the production of ever}-thing. It is the only power around which spirit gathers; hence, Jesus was perfectly consistent in the instructions he gave for the prayer he taught his disciples to pray. He taught that the father is within. Heaven certainly is where the father is; and, when we pray to ''Our Father, who art in heaven," we address the intelligent germ of life, our creator, a power that belongs to us and dwells in us, where pleasure only can be — that germ of life which leads in even,- movement, tempting or otherwise, and which is the only power that can deliver us from the evils we are already in by reason of birth. The germ of life burns in our blood, leaps with joy in the thought of creation, and in the womb makes a body of water and darkness to dwell in. The source of life is an orb of diffused inorganic formless light that pervades universal darkness, drawn toe;ether and fashioned as the sun is : and the s^erm of life, after making a body that is dark inside as well as out, must needs let the light of itself shine out to make the body like itself; and the light shining out of this living germ impregnates the darkened, ignorant body, and out of it is born an organic form of light, known as the mind of man, or in other words, the sun, or the light, of man, which, by many transformations through all forms of darkness below the form of man, takes human form at last and becomes personal as the son of man — the light, life, and immor- tality of man, all of which exist in the germ of life called sperma- tazoon. A light in darkness attracts the very lowest form of spirit life, Vsherein they are consumed. St. Paul says, "Our God is a consuming fire.'' And as fire burns in every germ it makes a light in the womb which attracts. The ver}' lowest and weakest forms known, the first of all THE WAY 85 forms kno^n, are made of water, and are the creatures that ^y out of water — ^such as the light of the germ in the womb, wherein the body of an infant is being formed and in the light is con- sumed and transformed into the body. Now all material forms are mainly made of vs-ater; and even- infant grows in water, wherein swarms of spiritual li\'ing things unite for its composi- tion. The world is nothing more than a womb in which v.e are forming ourselves, and we have to use the material we attraa to ourselves to construct the body v.e live in. \A"e are made oi spirits, which are mainly blind and weak; but what povs'er of sight they have enters and becomes the mind of man. The mind in its infanc}- is weak, ignorant, obstinate and stubborn; and, as the father depends upon his son, the mind, to look to the wel- fare of the body, the house they Kve in, and as the body is auto- matic, constantlv deca^-ine and renev.insr itself when imcontroUed — and as the spirit is when not controlled or undisturbed by its ov\Ti light. But, as light is always mo\'ing and has not "where to lay its head," it is always ready to suggest improvements in its habitations., or introduces habits that soon make a \\Teck of its body, whereby it is no longer a fit habitation for annhing but for germs of destruction. The great creative principle imder- l}ing all creation and progress is the principle that imderlies all variation of mental action which has peopled the world vdih countless objects, no r^'o of which are alike in ever}' respect. The power that originates, and hence creates things, it seems to me as if it v\-ere the enon of one groping in darkness to make things without a pattern and without instruction. Considering the uncouth, repulsive, useless, and apparently deformed objects which meet us on our way — objects which seem to exist ^vithout any purpose or motive further than to annoy, disgust, and tor- ment something else — it seems as if power in its inianc}' must crawl before it can walk or swim in water or sjrow winss that enable it to ny in the air as mosquitoes, etc., showing how water becomes aUve, takes wings, makes eyes to see, and finally walks and thinks as men do. who in reality are made mainly of water with a modicum of the seed of life in it. There is not an atom of existing matter that does not con- tain a germ of life, since matter is a form or combination of spir- its: hence, matter is God. as Jesus declared to Philip, saying, "If you see me at any time, you have seen the Father." Therefore, we see God when we see each other or any manifestations what- ever. ^^'e know nothing whatever, except through the senses. We cannot think or reason vdthout sense; and the instinct of animals and intuition of man surely depend upon sense; therefore, all vre know of Spirit or God comes through the use of our senses. Man, being the unit, numeral "1," the pronoun 'T,** the Ego, or the unchanging consciousness of being, contains all or is all-con- scious, potentially — even without being embodied in any sense of the word. This virtually means that unless consciousness is embodied there can be no existence: and, as nothing exists out- side of consciousness, it (consciousness) is therefore the body of it (existence) ; and these tvro are mutually dependent upon each other for existence, and are known in scripture parlance as male and female, in the image of which all things are made. Some- thing with nothing is eternally wedded: and from their union spirit, out of which ever}"thing is fashioned, is continually being bom. Spirit cannot be produced by any other process than that cf wedlock, the joining together of two for the production of a third thing dwelling between the two. But the question arises. Hcv.- can consciousness (it being the first and the only individual existence) multiply itself since Egos are infinite in number, all proceeding from this one? To meet this quer}- men have sup- posed deity to be dual, or hermapdrodite in person, one side male and the other side female; but this does not explain the method for creation as we know it to exist under the unchangeable laws of nature. Nature produces all things within herself \\-ithout help from any external power so far as can be kno\Mi; and the inference is logical that a perfectly natural man has the same THE WAY 87 power of producing and reproducing his love sensations and his ov.Ti life in himself in like manner. It is an incontrovertible fact that even as vre now are, we do, by our thoughts, produce sensations of pleasure, pain, disgust, and jealousy, and also destroy the same, in ourselves, by our own volition. The Ego, being absolute power, is non-com^bustible. A fire cannot burn by reason of the nothingness of its cold sur- roundings; but the Ego, having everything in itself except cold, is that v/hich divides the heat of itself from the limitless cold body it is in. Therefore, that action of heat upon cold is neces- sary by the way of the Ego, from which she is inspired in the pro- duction of light. The Ego is neither masculine nor feminine; but it divides cold, which is masculine, from heat, which is femi- nine, whereby vibration or motion is produced for the creation of the light "that light eth everyone that cometh into the world"-^ the maker of everything that is made, matter and spirits included. Now, this is exactl}' what happens to ever}^ individual who has arrived at the age of discretion. We beget ourselves in our own bodies by our thinking, planning, and doing; but we are hardly ever conscious of what we are doing in this respect. Automatic- ally our cold, calculating outside nature is constantly active in the work of begetting in our sympathetic soul what we shall be in some future time; but we have power by virtue of the Ego in the soul to interfere in this automatic work and to beget what we wish ourselves to be in some future time. Spirit does not sense or laiow, it moves only in the obedience of the will of the Ego that never moves nor grows old; hence, v/hatever is done is done in the spirit of doing. God is spirit, the spirit that surrounds the Ego and is the soul in which it dwells. The soul is love, and its function is the restraint of spirit which flows from the heat of passionate love. The soul, therefore, is cold. As previously stated, the Ego comes into this world a mere seed accompanied by its own spirit, or the various spirits that it has lived in prev- ious lives, ranging from the lowest that water produces up to the 83 THE WAY highest denizens of the air that fly the highest and see the farthest, out of which the power of man to produce and to know is derived. The lowest and weakest things that are made of and in water have spirits in them, by which they see, fly, and know the little games they play of annoying and increasing the nerv- ous action of things greater than they. They seem to realize that they are the very beginning of mental power, which it is their mission to beget in the blood of animal and man. Water is mother spirit, the first spirit that took form on earth, and of which all forms are largely composed. Stagnant or dead water is full of life ; and the form of man is mainly stagnant water, which breeds merely weakness and helpless ignorance, which needs fer- tilizing in order to be productive. Our bodies are surely femi- nine ; and in them one may beget one's own immortality ; for the father dwells in the souls of those who think and believe in him who declares 'T am what I will to be." THE SAVIOR Of all things, man at birth is the weakest and the most help- less; but at maturity he is the most self-sustaining and inde- pendent. As an infant he needs help in all his ways. As a man he looks mainly to himself, helps himself, seldom asking others for help. His motto is, "Help Yourself." The self-made man is one to be proud of. Such are originals. They do not follow after others, they make customs and laws that govern. Such are great warriors; and from them have arisen Kings, rul- ers, saviors and worship. Saviors and Gods. It is ignorance and weakness that needs help. "Those that are wtII need not a physician." "Those that are not lost need no savior." From this we arrive at the truth that knowledge is the true and only savior. This certainly was the teaching of Jesus. "If ye abide in my word (instructions), ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." According to the Christ, therefore, freedom is to be desired above all things. Knowledge and truth are mere steps in the ladder of human achievement. Nature is the foundation upon which this ladder stands ; and we may safe- ly conclude that nature has created no want without a supply close at hand. In fact, want is of the soul, and is termed femi- nine, while that which supplies deficiencies is mind, the mascu- line consort of Soul. In order to arrive at the true meaning of w'ords it is necessary to understand the difference between a noun, the name we give the first principle of beings and an adjective, or qualifying word, used to express some quality of the noun. Xow, mind is the name we give to a center or form of intelli- gence, which is another name given to the formless spirit of man 90 THE WAY which exists inorganically, as life exists without any form what- ever. Therefore, form depends upon life, while life is self-sufii- cient and self-supporting. There can be only one infinite prin- ciple — and that is, nothing, which lies outside of and around all power, intelligence, light, life, darkness, ignorance, or any con- ceivable principle or lack of it whatever. We can chase matter back into nothing, but farther than this we cannot go. Can it be possible that organic matter, the objects v/e see, handle and measure, and even we ourselves are standing upon the brink of nothing, the great deep spoken of in Genesis, in which the earth was Vv^ithout form and void of signifi- cance, and upon whose face "The Darkness was," in which God dwelt ere time had being, and before things were made of things that already "was!" St. John thus declared: "In the beginning v/as the word, and the word was with God, and the word w^as God. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. Ail things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made. And the word was made flesh and dwelt among us." A word materially considered is merely a sound, but spiritually considered it is the forerunner of infinite intelli- gence, the conductor of spirit into material conditions. It is therefore the creator of the universe, and all that is in it. In Genesis it is declared, "God created the heavens and the earth;" but St. John, who was a Jew and therefore familiar with the Hebrew ideas of God and creation, shows that God simply formed or organized spirits that already existed, first, into the heavens, and afterwards, into the globe on which we live, by the word which spoke light and life into existence. Now we must consider that the laws of nature are immutable or unchangeable; and that which "was" in the beginning re- mains the same now as then, the Same God, the same deep, and the same darkness upon its "face" which hides the great God from us, and the w^aters in the deep. Water is the first form of matter, and of spirit; the dividing line between nothing and THE WAY 91 scmething; the first creation of Light; that which follows the electric flash of the storm cloud; the voice which spoke magnetic spirit into being, and of which material things are mainly com- posed; that which represents the numeral nine; the end of silence and the beginning of speech; the union of nothing with something numerically called 10; the beginning of another series of the same numbers; the invisible made \'isible; the im- probable made probable; and the silent Ego finds voice, and speaks the word that makes everj,-thing that is made of the things that are not made, the darkness, the spirit, and the waters that were in the deep before light was bom of its mother; "the dark- ness that was on the face of the deep'' wherein "the spirit of God moved'' in the making of worlds, suns, stars, li\ing things, and still moves on the face of the waters in the deep, of all wombs where li\dng things grow and take form. What do we know of God then, who never appears, but whose spirit moves upon us to make cur water}- forms alive by his word ? Jesus said, "God is spirit,'* but what do we know of spirit? So far as we know, it is an emanation from some form of matter, both living and dead. A spirit is the influence of one thing upon another, and hence is not a thing unless it be in some form, v»-hen it gives character, or qualit}-, to the form it occupies. Eor instance, anger is a spirit; but it is nothing except in the person who gives it being, who is said to be an angr\- or bad man. And the same is true in regard to God, good, love, hate, or any spirit v,hatever. Spirit is not an entity because it has no form of itself. For vvhich reason the Jews were not to make any likeness of their God, v.-ho said of himself, ''The Lord, thy God is a jealous God" — that is, he was a being filled with the spirit called jeal- ousy. Where are the Gods? This v.-ord, God, is badly abused. We know nothing of God except what we find in ourselves. A spirit is a human attribute about the same as love, good, anger, or any emotion or expression of man is known to be. These words are names we give to what we feel, and are conscious of 92 THE WAY knowing. Is there any spirit greater than consciousness ? Spirit does not move unless it be forced to do so by man who dwells in it, or in whom it may find lodging. Spirit "is the most subtle of all the beasts of the field, that the Lord God has made.'' It is inen power, the body of conscious Being known as the Ego in maTi and all intelligent beings. There are three grades of con- sciousness: the first is the mental power of knowing; the second is a substratum of consciousness underhing and composing the body out of which the first takes :5 rise; while above and sur- rounding all is the super- conscious over-soul with which sub- conscious matter, of which the form of man is composed, is imited in mutual love, and from whose embrace man, the maker of all subliminary iieings is evolved. ^lan. therefore, by virtue of his parentage is the conscious Ego of a sub-conscious form, which is his mother, or womb in which he is gestating for birth: and in doing so he makes other things by the magnetic spirit emanate from himself. For the body is a magnet in which the Ego dwells, an invisible sun whose radiating spirit is truth ; for be it under- stood that the Ego is an absolutely true form of conscious spirit without beginning and without end, a perfect sphere, emitting the truth or intelligence which he, or they, speak into existence — since they are all alike. Things that are true ronam the same. Tne sun and the planetory system tell a true stoTv of existence; but they are not ab5olu:e"-; :rue, or motion would cease to be. From the fact that there is no perfect thing, we deduce the further fact that the world fell from perfect power to abjea weak- ness in all the things that are made; for in the making of things the word becomes the inmost of that which is made. Ever}* true object is spherical, that is, without limbs, angles, or comers. And the same is true in regard to the objective motion of light : to be true it must describe a perfect circle, which the electric discharge from a storm-cloud shows is never done because of the weakness of its source and the opposition of the atmosphere spirit of dark- THE WAY 93 ness wherein it moves. The electric flash, although heralded by a perfect sound, does not describe a perfect circle, nor is it a true representation of the magnetic life "which makes all the things that are made" — not that the word that speaks light into being is untrue or false, but that it is weak, and hence unable to fill the entire universe. We do not know but that possibly the word may have exhausted itself in creating "the heavens and the earth," and therefore was unable to create anything perfect and true thereafter. However that may be, there are no perfect things now known. Every object is an imperfect entity emitting weak- ness from itself, while the spirit that issues from a perfectly true entity is called the truth of the Christ, a spirit that makes mor- tals more true and deathless. Truth, like the atmosphere, has life in it. And whoever imbibes it is made alive. Every atom of the body is made per- fect in form, place, and functions, if the idea that forms it is true. Now every spoken word — nay, every thought, the father of words, whether uttered or not — has an influence upon the spirit that makes the form of man, in its processes of formation. An atom of matter is the beginning of the appearance of man on earth ; but he is a spirit form before he is an atom of matter. The idea that intelligence is limited to a form called mind, man, bird, fish, spirit, God, or any conceivable thing, is the height of absurdity. Intelligence is spirit of which we know little beyond the fact that it is moved to organize itself into germs of material things by the image-making power of man before an atom of matter is made. The first law of being is order, and perfect man is that law. He is a law to himself, an intelligent law whose word is as good as himself. The creative power of love is motion, a law that is born of love, and hence a blind force, as blind as she. In the beginning, the law of motion compels the spirit word to describe a perfect circle of magnetic light back to its source. This is the first and the only perfect manifestation of the word 94 THE \\'AY that in the beginning \Yas with God and that was God, and was and still is ''the maker of all the things that are made." The form of man is first made of spirit or compounded of one part Hydrogen Gas to eight parts of Oxygen Gas — the father and the mother of v;ater, the first materialization of spirit of which subconscious flesh is mainly made. If any doubt exists in regard to the subconsciousness of the body, watch the conscious worms crawl out of it after the death of it. These two gases and spirits just upon the verge of becom- ing material, where hydrogen is almost ready to speak in thunder tones from the cold oxygen-charged storm-cloud as it becomes water, which falling in rain drops become living things in pond, gutter, or living blood 1 Between these two spirits dwells the Ego, the life of things; and it is he (the Ego) who utters "the word which makes all the things that are made, and which became flesh and dv;elt among us," according to St. John, in speaking of the man Jesus. This is an important statement, since it declares that the creator may, under some circumstances, become the thing he makes; and if so in one instance it shows the operation of universal, immutable, unchangeable law. For if a word ever became a human being, it has never ceased to do so, however inarticulate or false it may become in the speaking of it. Speech is a matter of culture, and words make the progress of the race. The sound of the voice tells of the soul and of him vdio dwells therein. The spirit of a man goes out in his words, and they may defile him. The Ego is absolutely true and without a shadow of friction in his motion since he never moves or changes in form ; and the word he speaks is his spirit and is as true as himself. It moves without noise or friction, and hence produces no pain or disease; on the con- trar}', it is a breath of life and healing. Wherever it goes as light, the spirit of the sun does. Spirit is an emanation from an entity, like the sun or some center of energy, such as living being, or a burning pile. A word may be such a center if it be THE WAY 95 spoken from a true, earnest, honest soul; but if it be not so cen- tered it is spirit without an object or soul in it, which may be made to engage in business where truth is at a discount. What can be said of the commercial word of the world as it now is? It is an article of commerce, is bought and sold like any article of value ; in fact, the false word is of far greater worth generally speaking than the simple naked word of truth. "And the word became flesh." Is it not as true in regard to false and trifling words as to the word that said "Let their be light," or, "I am the light that lighteth every one that cometh into this world," as Jesus said, "I, the Ego, am such light as eye hath not seen, nor thought of man portrayed." It is obvious, therefore, that ones vv^ords are very essential to the healthy action of his body. May it not be that the mag- netic spirit of living beings issues with greater force in sound than in any other force? The first thing a babe does is to cry out with a loud voice to release the spirit which has been at work in it for the previous nine months, giving it form and power. The human body is a magnet; and every expression of it gives free- dom to magnetic spirit which speaks, and works, making things. Was it not magnetic or electric light that God spake into being long before the sun was made? Is this not what Jesus meant in saying, "I am the light that lighteth every man that cometh into this world?" Can man live without it? It makes us light- hearted and full of joy, and was undoubtedly the light which Jesus referred to in speaking of the body's being made full of light. Do we not electrify ourselves by the sound of the voice? The body is made of subconscious spirit, and responds readily to every suggestion made to it. And Jesus spoke to the bodies of the sick as much as he did to their minds. Vve have the same influence upon the ignorant stuff we are made of as God had upon darkness when he commanded light to be. Every word we utter, every thought we think, sends magnetic spirit into our bodies to give pleasure, health, and life, in place of pain, weak- 96 THE WAY ness. and death. The spirit called the Christ, whom Jesus called the Father, is the same magnetic spirit that begets childxeiL Not did he mean himself in saying, *'I am the way, the resurrection, and the life." But he meant the Father — the Ego — from whom he derived all his power, the same as we do at the present time. Am I not the ^o in my soul as much as I am this body, which is called by my name ? The body needs sa\'ing from its weakness, pains, diseases, and danger of going all to pieces at death the same as any machine does when worn ouL Man is a compound being, made up of parts, anyone of which may become defective, and thus impair ihe czi ::::; ci the whole thing. Of course, the father who made it cannot be lost; but he may lose some part of his work through careless management of his son whom he has placed in charge of i:. This requires a little explanation. The one who has charge of the machine of many parts is a mere reflec- :i::i c: ihe father (or the life of the machine) an image reflected in the mirror called the mind. If the mind is in any manner cefeeuve the power and life of the machine will be correspond- ingly defective in its image, and the machine works badly. Now this image is what is called man, who, by sympathy, assumes the title of his father. Man is in fact the exact image of his father, even to the n:»ii.e, T am:" for the similacrum of power has a shade of its origin in ii. As pr: ;usly stated, the Father is magnetic spirit; and the image man is also magnetic in a less degree with the further capacity of acquiring more from the Father. The image-making power of man is in his soul, which is t}-pically and materiaih expressed as the womb in woman, in whose secret and vei.ti releases :he work of creation is carried on. This is the shrine before which men and gods do worship, *'but never may lift the veil of Isis without the shedding of blood;'' since behind this veil dwells the savior of the race whose blood contains the magnetic spirit which is the life of all who believe Ln it. It is obvious, therefore, that this image-making THE WAY 97 power (the imagmatioii) is the feminine principle in the S(mi1, which draws the soul and the body to herself, sioce it is the femi- nine nature to clasp and to embrace, as the over-soul does, all that she loves. The refraction of light shovrs the unreliability of all re- flections, and this is true as to those we make of the father. The nature of the outer, or masculine, of anything is to yield to its own inner-force. To give, is the masculine law of being, for which reason Jesus commanded, "Give to ever\'one that asketh, and he that would borrow of thee, turn not away." "And to him who takes thy coat, give also thy cloak. Resist not, but return good for eviL" The inner reflects the outer, as mind renecis and carries what it sees to the scml, where it is moulded a: : :. i.g to the fancy of her who is the imagination of man. Thu = i : r - :: r become what he will by the image he makes of the father in his own mind and scul. Life is free — ^it must make its own way. It Tcyr r :: ' : e itself; but it may lose its way in the image it makes c: : -7 : : er :h:.t begets all life. Life and light are the same, vii the father, the reflection of which is the con- i .-_;:. ir : ::illed the Ego; but refraction makes images of otter things besides the Ego, and stray rays of light may pro- duce ; . ns in the soul that grow into ruling forces, such as a husband often is to the wcsnan who loves him instead of the Ego in herself. See the curse put upon Eve. Salvation is an indi- vidual work; and the Sa^'io^ is in our souls if we truly reflect the father into thenu 93 THE WAY LIFE Nature produces things in itself, never out of itself, because there is no outside of nature any more than there is to nothing, ignorance, or darkness. We see intelligence manifested by light; but the light always shines from darkness, or from objects tliat are more or less dark. Science declares that darkness is the absence of light; but the query arises, how can light issue from darkness as it does from dark objects that are in combustion, such as a match or any dark torch ? Nature hides all her opera- tions in darkness, the shadow of herself, as light nocals the power of darkness, so does intelligence nocal the power of ignorance, which is to mind what the body is to man, viz., something to dv;ell in and hide from others of the same kind. It is said "knowledge is power;" but (and marvelous in- deed is the statement!) the power of ignorance cannot be esti- mated, nor itself at all comprehended, not even when it appears to us in forms that burn with light. Marvelous, also, and beyond comprehension is the statement that material life and intelli- gence, darkness, matter, and ignorance are synon}Tnous terms, meaning the myster}' of being, which is revealed, in part only, by light and life — male and female principles — whose action and reaction in ignorance, darkness, and matter produce all manifes- tation. Of these three, matter only is tangible and corporeal, and hence the substance or body of things that are made of the other two, which are not made at all but which are self-existent, and infinitely extended. There is no limit to darkness or ignorance; but the former bounds and limits mundane things, while the latter limits the manifestation of the life and light of things. Light nocals the power of matter to become spirit and to move, 100 THE WAY while life nocals the power of the body to become a conscious, living thing, capable of becoming an immortal entity. Light is the principle called intelligence, which is that of growth, or be- coming, while life is the principle of unchangeable, conscious being. As extended and all-pervasive as darkness may be, it contains light, with its feminine counterpart life-hidden within, to its most remotest bounds, and to its most minute productive source. Light makes material things of darkness. If I am asked to explain how darkness can be made solid, like rocks or coal, 1 can only call attention to the fact that water is made of gases which are but slightly more material than darkness. All power dv/ells in darkness, and light and life give it birth and show it to the world. Darkness is self-existent, it cannot be made. It fills infinite space, and in it is light and life. As light dwells in darkness, so dwells life in light. Darkness being the body, mind is the light in it, and the life of man is in his mind, buried in a night of ignorance far more densely dark than was ever seen by mortal eyes. As material light is necessary for physical existence, so also is the light of mind, or of thought, necessary for a spiritual or mental existence; but the latter is wholly dependent upon the former, the same as light depends upon darkness to shine in, or of thought for something to think about, for its manifestation of life. The light alluded to is that which God spake into being in the dawn of creation, viz., the magnetic light which gives life to offspring of every kind, and which of course is the Father in Heaven, the conscious Ego hidden in the darkness of our bodies and minds. "Call no man father on earth, one is your father," in your own soul, from which you grew, as a tree grows from an acorn. The only way by which light can become a unit or particle, is by the way of begetting itself in its own mother, the darkness out of v.'hich it comes; and the same is true in regard to life dwelling in light, it is one homogeneous, unpartable, whole-com- THE WAY 101 plete, and perfect in its own self -consciousness, which can in no possible manner become atomized or individualized except in being begotten in its own ignorance by the light it is in. We grow out of the ground, by sending up something not planted. In this manner does ignorance embody all animal life, out of w^hich intelligence is manifested. Where ignorance exists there is life and sometimes intelligent life; but life never is without ignorance because it is always in it, as one is in his body. Life may not be intelligent; but it is ahvays ignorant; it is born so it is the way of life, from which it can never escape- — struggle against ever so much. Ignorance is the circumference, "the jumping-off place," the end of existence. Ignorant w^e cease to be, because there is no law or order in ignorance; and man exists by the harmonious working together of many parts, each one of w^hich must be a law to itself by virtue of the life it contains, since life is law and order, and all that pertains thereto is Deific, the Ego in all conscious living things. Life, as we see it, mani- fests in countless objects, of all sizes, shapes, and powers, every one of which is materialized in its own ignorance; therefore, all, every object, is, in a sense, Deific, and each one represents Deity. If in doubt of this proposition, consider nature's ways, and learn. She works from within outward by the expansion of her life; hence everything that is made is life, either awake or awaking from sleep. Is it not a fact that sleeping things grov/ faster than those that are moving ? Nature becomes things while she sleeps ; and the things she becomes gradually aw'ake out of their sleeping natures, which they carry, as forms or ways in which life moves and sleeps. Therefore all life is natural and all that nature does for it is done through sleep, as that is the way in which life visits its home. Life is the heart-blood of nature; and the Ego is the heart that keeps it circulating. Beyond nature there is nothing; but, in the life of the nature of things, buried deep in its own ignorance, is a mental universe that remains to be explored. It cannot be formed an^^vhere but in yourself; it is yourself, since 102 THE WAY you are ignorant of this wonderful body you dwell in, of its uses, and the purposes of it. It is said to be evil, full of temptation, pain, disease, and death. No one knows the good of it; but all know the evils of it. The body knows nothing, can do nothing; and yet we can do nothing without it. Neither can the mind understand without ignorance, any more than light can shine without darkness to shine in. Heat dwells in, and works in ignorance of the body, for the production of life and the light of it. Ignorance is nothing, how then can heat dw^ell and work in it? We may ask the same question about the vacuum in a gun-barrel, which is nothing and cannot exist without the barrel outside of it, nor is the gun-barrel and the vacuum in it of use without a change in it, which, by its explosion, shows the way in which dark matter becomes light and life. It is by magnetic explosion that sparks of bright living matter are evolved; and, although such sparks die in the cold darkness surrounding, they never return to their source but remain atoms of ignorant matter containing heat for another explosion. Now the soul is a vacuum, the feminine principle in the body (gun barrel) of every person; and life is feminine, hence it is the vacancy surrounding all as the over-soul, and dwelling in each, as part of soul of everything. Thus it is obvious how nothing, or ignorance, becomes something, a part of each individual; and an important part it is, since no sound, no speech, or expression of life can be without an explo- sion of force and a discharge of magnetic spirit. Such is loiown as the birth of animal and human life, and we may well conclude, of spirit life also. Life is all, and in all ignorant things. It is the feminine principle, or the inmost soul of things, and may be otherwise expressed as Desire, the principle of hunger, thirst, or want. Desire is the ruling power of man, and therefore is life, as repre- sented by organic being known as the Ego. Desire is the power in the Ego that sustains and perpetuates the machinery of man; hence it is the very foundation, the subconsciousness, or body, of THE WAY 103 him stored up with magnetic spirit. A man is what his spirit is; and, as life is the spirit of man, and, without being organized, it has no desire or other pov/er except the power to move and thus to prepare by expansion a vacancy like an empty stomach, soul, or womb, in which desire is produced, and an organization of itself into the lowest conceivable forms of life is effected. The wind has life in it, but it has no intelligence or directing power ; and the same is true in regard to life or any spirit that is not a form of some kind. Desire cannot exist without a vacancy of some sort, and a vacancy is an empty stomach, a womb, or a soul, wherein motion originates, and life begins to unfold, whatever powers may be slumbering within. We know that life exists and works without any conscious- ness of itself or of what it is doing. Wind, water, and food all contain unconscious life, which is the substance, the ignorance, or the oil that burns to make the light of reflection, whereby un- conscious life is impregnated and made to produce the conscious- ness of man. The mysteries of being that are hidden from man are in his own soul, of which he is ignorant; therefore whatever is discovered or learned by us is already in us, merely waiting for our recognition of it. That is the meaning of the saying of Jesus in regard to prayers, "Pray, believing that ye have already received what ye ask for;" for all that we can ever have or be is lying latent in the unconscious life which we call our bodies. We know nothing of the lives we have lived in the infinite past, nor do we know of the lives we shall live in the endless future; for life is eternal, and man, as its highest and greatest production, is entitled to duration if he desires and wills to work for the same. Desire is in and of the flesh, wherein every reflec- tion or thought takes root and grows as a tree does, bearing life as its fruit. The Ego works in ignorance, without instruction, and N^dthout patterns. Its work is altogether imaginary. That 104 THE WAY is why so many grotesque and hideous looking objects meet us at the beginning of our world history. We know no Ego only as we find it in living things; but, since it is a fixed, unchange- able rule of action, we conclude that it represents all that is, and that, therefore, it is related to and dependent upon all for its inspiration, hence it is the inspiration power of man. But, as life is not a result of law, but is lavy' itself, its work is not limited by fixed rules, but it reflects as man the uncertain reflection of itself in its own guess-work of creating the lower animal life, which was made prior to that of man. Instinctive life, therefore, is what we call the Ego of man. It is the source of intuition and inspiration, as well as of all rash and hasty action, or of action not directed by thoughtful reflection. Vv'hat does the tree of life and root of knowledge spoken of in the Biblical stor}' of the Garden of Eden signify ? The apprehension is there expressed that man, by the acquisition of twofold knowl- edge, became possessed of the power to find the way to the tree of life, and, partaking of its fruit, to live forever. Now we have partaken of the fruit of knowing, and we think we know good and evil. But really, what do we know of the good of life or the evils of deatli ? If to know good and evil is Godlike, it certainly is no great thing to be God, since the beasts of the field know pain and pleasure. It is more consistent with our notion of things to suppose that God-power consists in knov/ing the good of Evil, since he is the author of both and certainly must know what they are for. Were man not a limited being there could be no progress; and, if there were only one spirit or one thing in existence, there could be no motion or life. Therefore, from the fact that some things are better (in our estimation) than others, we arrive at the truth that evil is as much a necessity to man as Good, since existence cannot be Vv^ithout the two, and since two cannot exist without a third thing between them to separate and to regulate the opposing forces. That which is above acts' upon that which is beneath, which in turn rises up; and, by contact, as by flint and steel, fire that burns in earth, suns and stars, as well as in human blood, and passions, a force, which is both good and evil, is produced. As cold falls and heat rises, so are the wheels of creation made to revolve, and living things are propagated. This is the great law whereby life is forced into mortal bodies; but that which is beneath, and therefore less than that which is above, is called evil because it receives the force that produces the fire in human life. But which is best, is left for him to say Vv'ho resides between these two forces and furnishes the fire, which is the light on life's eternal way. Who is this then, who calmly stands between opposing forces, an unprejudiced spec- tator and judge of all differences between good and evil, the strong and the weak, the rich and the poor, the fortunate and the unfortunate, the high and the low, or the male and the female of every manifestation of life, since life never exists in any man- ner unless it be visibly dual? But life is invisible as well as visible, since all objects are surrounded and separated from others of like visibility by space, which contains far more and greater life than the things we see, 106 THE WAY since objects cannot exist without space around as well as within them. Space is nothing; but it contains the creator of something called things; and that is the consciousness which in organic form is known as the Ego, out of which life issues by the way of motion, sensation, thought, and intelligence. It is absurd to suppose that creative genius is satisfied with the present order of things. Even weak man would make things better if he could; and this aspiration is always found in the weakest, lowest, and those who have the least and feel the most. 'Tt is the under dog which vrants to get up." He that has had enough of miser}- is full — pregnant and ready to be delivered — and that which is born of misery is certainly an improvement. Herein is visible the fundamental principle of evolution, viz., the natural superiorit}' of offspring to parentage. If man was as he should be, every child would be superior to its visible or material parents; for the Creator of offspring is in realit}' the conscious fire evolved by the contact, friction, or embrace, of the two opposing forces, called male and female; and fire cannot be said to be either one or the other, but superior to both, since it is light — the maker of all that is made. If it was the law that offspring should always be superior to the parent, the journey of life would be direct, continuous, and without incentive to efi'ort and the development of energy, thought, or feeling; and, therefore, nature has wisely placed ob- stacles in the vray of life's progress, which causes the electric force, the life of man, to move in any other way than in a direct manner, which results in the complete filling of the universe w^th one fiash of light, and the life it produces. Any reflection of light from its true or direct course increases its vibrations, the effect of which is to increase friction and the sensations or off- spring of life. Now this is just what the writer of Genesis was tr\ ng to explain by the stor}^ of the Garden of Eden. Of course no sensible person thinks God ever cursed the things he had made in the manner stated; but ever}'one who feels the pains of evil THE WAY 107 and of maternity knows of their potency and disease-producing power. But God, or no God, these curses exist in the very nature of things, and, in spite of the misery and the evils they produce, the spectator, he who stands between the one who suffers and the one who causes the pain, knows the good of the evils we feel. He knows that evils are simply spurs to produce greater efforts on our part to overcome the obstacles, thereby increasing power of thought. He who feels the most, thinks the most; and he who thinks the deepest, climbs the highest and sees the good of every evil and every curse that afflicts humanity. It is written that for "Adam's sake" the ground was cursed; surely, toil, sweat, and misery are good for the ignorant if sensa- tion and thought are productive of more life. Who can doubt that this is the way that the Ego — He who is eternally conscious — takes to increase the range of such consciousness? Remember, we, in no vv^ay, assume the Ego, to be more than a reflection of the perfect whole ; and the two — the male and female — are the means of such reflection. The female, being less than the male, is that in which such reflex takes form for another incarnation, or is drawn into the Ego to increase its power. Now this is the point upon which the immortality of man hangs. Man is an automatic reflex of life, which takes up and continues the reflection of itself according to the mother or the mind that receives it; and, hence, the condition of the mother, the mirror, the mind, or the Vv^omb, wherein it continues the formation of itself, is of vital importance to the image that is in process of formation, since she can make a material being of it or she can convey it to the Ego, v/hich is the father of it, since the Ego is made more powerful by the life it receives from the feminine or mother principle. That which is above contacts the over-soul, wherein life, in a subcon- conscious state, awaits re-incarnation. The greatest, most over- whelming force of the world is from above ; and it descends to the lowest by way of the male to that which needs such force to 108 THE WAY enable it to become full of what it needs, and that is the human soul, whose prototype is the womb of woman, considered by all as the Holy of Holies, behind whose veiled entrance rests the conscious I, the Ego of all life, whose reflex in matter was called Eve in the Scriptures, because "she is the mother of all living." Now the natural tendency or desire of an}thing forced from its home is to return thereto if left free ; and a ray of light obeys the same law, whether it be called Eve or her thought, if the ser- pent be considered as her thought. It sprang from the Ego in her soul, producing a reflection in her ignorance, which would have returned to the Ego had it not found lodging in Adam, where it grew the experiences that enabled Adam to know Eve, whereby she conceived and bore Cain, a man from the Lord. The consciousness that became the Ego of Cain was that of both sexes, and would have gone to the Ego in her soul to in- crease her power and freedom had her desires remained as they were before Adam knew her. Self-love is the first instinct of all living things ; but, whenever this love is drawn from the Ego out- wardly to any object whatever, the Ego loses its freedom and be- comes a slave to that which is loved. This was the curse put upon Eve: "Thy desires shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee." The law is, "Love the Lord thy God with all thy mind, might, and strength" — that is to say, with all the love thou hast — and this being self-love is Egotistic love. "And thy neighbor as thyself" is the same thing, which perfects individ- uality and makes one free. There is no question as to the value of this law. If everyone loved the life in himself in preference to the sensations produced by the actions of such life upon ex- ternal things, there would be no avarice or slavery in existence. It is the reversion of this natural love to that which is foreign that is destructive to the health and welfare of the race. And the imaginary locating of God as a power separate and apart from the soul itself is the same as any other object of worship, viz., idolatry. But the peopling of the world, and the multiplica- THE WAY 109 tion of women's conceptions, and the conceptions of the mind of man, makes man a creator indeed of himself and others. On this mundane plane of being, two things are necessary in order to create motion, viz., a large and a small force; and as force cannot be measured except by forms of matter, the large form may be supposed to fill the universe, and the small force to be an atom of the the same thing in the midst of the other or larger form. Now size makes them different from, and hence antagonistic to, each other. Now the larger force, which per- vades and fills all space, is the law of Equilibrium, or a centri- petal force, a force that draws to a center, that concentrates spirit into forms of matter which it embraces with all its power, since it is masculine, and loves the center as the feminine or weaker part of himself, and his love makes her warm and full of his power. Now pressure long continued by a large, strong thing upon a weaker produces resistence; and, if the weak has any life- power in itself, it will turn, wriggle, and twist to relieve and to protect itself. Thus is the law of motion created, and worlds formed and moved to produce living things by love, according to the law of generation as manifested in the propagation of man and animals. The first law being love, the second law is the movement of matter in the generation of a third law that makes matter wriggle, twist, and turn in its effort to be free. This law is the great serpentine law of repulsion, allegorically called the serpent in Genesis, but by St. John called the word "that in the beginning was with God, and which was God, and all things were m_ade by him, and without him there was nothing made, that was made; in him was life, and life was the light of men." There is nothing more repulsive than a serpent; and for that reason the serpent was chosen as a fit representation of the law of opposition to the universal law of harmonious rest, which existed under the law of attraction, or love. The function of attraction is to gather vital force into body, mind, and muscle preparatory to action. It fills us full of life and power; but it 110 THE WAY never pushes out or strikes a blow. It is, in fact, the law of non- resistence which produces no progressive movement, but on the contrary produces a whirl whereby more life is accumulated, to the point of explosion, or birth of the force of repulsion, or the serpent, which is the first and only begotten of the law of love. Laws are produced as human beings are produced ; they are con- ceived and born of the necessities of life; but there would be no progress, no improvement of condition, were it not for the viola- tion of law. The reader must bear in mind that we are talking of the very beginning of things, and existence had its infancy as well as everything that is formed. A child in the womb is a serpent prior to being a child. By this we know that the serpent is what Jesus claimed to be, viz., the way of life and the resurrection from death, which, of course, requires motion, the beginning of which is by wriggling, twisting, and turning as worms do, and as a growing foetus in the womb does. We are certain that the fullness of love makes us move, and motion makes us feel, and feeling makes us think, and thinking makes us see that the serpent is a spiritual sense in motion, the spirit of the Ego. The old Rosicrucian adage, "The above is the same as the below," is correct in view of the fact that from the view-point of the soul any direction from the soul is up, and above is the over-soul, infinite virility, or cold; and the center, being a smaller, weaker, finite soul, is of like nature; and, deprived of its freedom, immovable, helpless, cold, burning with an irrepressible desire to return to its home in the over-soul, she exhales from herself the spirit of her fire, which spirit is the moving force of the universe, which, in the womb, takes or assumes the form of a serpent, the first material thing that can lift up its head and look heaven in its face. The serpent is an emanation, a moving spirit, from the Ego of its mother — a reflection called man because it becomes man by transformation, or by being born into another sphere, or plane of being. In this plane there is reflection from without as well THE WAY 111 as from the Ego, for which reason he is an infant of external reflections until he is able to think for himself; hence, man is almost wholly made up of things that are external to him — things that he feels, sees, thinks about, and knows. So it is obvious that the life of man is dependent upon what he imbibes from without, rather than from the Ego in his own soul; hence it is perfectly natural that the reflection from within should be divested to that which is outward, and the life reflected within takes the form of that which is desired or loved. This is just what the curse put upon Eve, and the serpent, signifies ; for they are intimately connected. In the first place, the serpent was cursed with enmity placed between them and they produced. Now enmity is the death of life; and, since life is magnetic, it is readily seen how enmity weakens and destroys the life of man. The next curse upon woman was in the multiplication of her sorrows and her conceptions by the diversion of her desires from the Ego of herself to her husband, who is external, and hence her opposite, or stronger reflection, which, of course, bears rule over her. Now these curses are all in the make-up of man; and they are obstacles to his attainment of a greater and a more complete life. From a spirit reflection of the Ego of the mother, the ser- pent in the womb is transformed into a human form, being con- scious of being one life, one thing only. Now, if spirit is the only substance in the womb, how can that substance become human? The only possible answer is, by its own conceptions or the conceptions of the mother in which it. is confined. Now, that which conceives is the thing that grows; and, although the mother may change in size, she is not trans- formed by such change, but remains still mother, capable of pro- ducing more offspring, while the foetus is gradually transformed by the continuous reception of more spirit. It is obvious, then, that conception is simply reception, while the begetting is merely the act of supplying that which is received. Every growing ob- ject is conceptive by nature, and that which moves and thus com- 112 THE WAY pels it to conceive is surrounding force, which compels all objects to fill up — become pregnant, and bear fruit. As a mother can conceive and bear several offspring at one time, so does the foetus in the womb conceive of the life of many things besides that of the serpent. For instance, man has the spirit of many of the lower order in himself, and they never got there unless they were conceived and grew as his flesh did. The tiger, the lion, the Milture, and the eagle are all in him, different forms of the same spirit, since spirit is die wood which begets and makes all that is made by virtue of its pressure upon that vrhich is inflam- mable and explosive. The imagination is the conceptive or the receptive power of soul, mind, and womb; and this is only another name for the Ego, or the serpent, which makes a magnet of all things. Life is only partially organic, and that which is not organized into forms is far greater than that which is organized, and ever}' one who has a will and power of thought can draw from inor- ganic life whatever he or she may desire, and thus re-create or build him or herself anew and keep new as long as desired; but bear this in mind, immortal life cannot be had from anything but yourself. All reflections of external things simply increase the serpentine, or power of the curses, in us, while the Ego, un- thought of and imrecognized, loses power of reflection and sleeps. Thus we make external, physical, decaying beings of ourselves; while, by pursuing the opposite course, we fill ourselves to over- flowing with an inner magnetic life, which creates new flesh and blood as we need it. As the serpent is an outward expression of an inward fire, and becomes man by its continuous outward movement, so may it be indrawn by a reversal of cur soul's desires and the serpent may be deprived of the poison of enmit}', which is destroying us. In this condition of our desires and loves, external things cease to afi'ect us, and the serpent becomes transformed into an imdying life called the Christ. We have power to take all the enmit}* out of ourselves, if we vrill not nurse it by reflecting the evils of life into our souls. CHRIST There is only one life but many states or conditions of that life. For instance, the life of a female is the same as that of the male, of a worm, the same as that of an Eagle, or of an angel, the same as that of a devil, or of a god. The difference is merely a matter of power, determined by the form it manifests in and from. Therefore, the life of a serpent is the same as the life called Christ. If the former be that of motion, agitation, or unrest, the latter is the opposite of it, viz., that of tranquility, joy, peace, rest. This truth is expressed in the life of man: in childhood, youth, middle age, until decrepit old age, it is like the troubled sea, never at rest; and even death merely forces it out of one thing into another, and the form it occupies gives it name, the same as a husband gives his name to his wife. Wher- ever life is, there is conception, generation and regeneration tak- ing place. As one day follows another, so does the life of one form take its character from a preceding form. Therefore the serpent life is the creative life, moving up tlirough every form, from the lowest crawling thing to that which soars aloft, or that which walks en two feet; and this changing of form changes the character and pov\-ers of that which occupies the form, whether such changes take place slowly or rapidly. This is life trans- formed by the changing of forms it occupies, whether it be one form or more, or in one year or a thousand years. The same life makes the serpent in the w^omb of woman that makes mosquitoes in a pond of water, since life is the word that in the beginning was God, and still is God, the creator and transformer of all forms. If, as theology claims, he was cast out of Heaven by the violation of the Divine command, it was not a change of place 114 THE WAY but a change of condition, or a transformation from a state of rest and perfect satisfaction to a condition of unrest and work in the creation of progressive life rather than one of eternal stagnation. He was not cast out of Heaven ; for he remains in every soul, where his Kingdom is, as Jesus declared, saying, '"The Kingdom of God cometh not by obser\'ation, nor is it here nor there, for, lo, it is within you." To be out of Heaven is to be out of health, ease, or comfort. The feminine nature, as previously explained, is the soft, tender, inner part of ourselves, out of which the mind is evolved; and the mind is what is meant by the word Eve "the mother" of the serpent, or life. The importance of knowledge as the most direct way of life is shown in the word of God saying, "Xow therefore, seeing they have become as one of us by the use of knowledge — and lest they by its further use find out how to live forever.'' They were cast out of a state of blissful ignorance and cast into a state of uncertainty, requiring use of all the knowledge they possessed, or could acquire; and to prevent the acquisition of the right kind of knowledge the conceptions of the mind were multiplied to the confusion of all calm reflection which leads to peace, and gro\\th of tlie tree of life. The tree of knowledge grows from seed the same as any tree does. Ideas grow in the mind from seed blo\^Ti by the wind, or planted by any other force, such as a thought, or an emotion, since all moving things cause reflections in the mind v.'hich enable us to see the way of life more clearly. The acme of all human knowledge is that of the self, and self-knowledge grows from a conception of one's self in himself. This arises from a thought one thinks about himself, which, by continuous thinking, produces some kind of self-knowledge. We derive cur knowledge of ourselves from what we have done; for they have cast their reflections into our souls where they are made flesh. In our secret thoughts we know ourselves, since such thoughts are of the soul, where life resides. The body is made alive by life, and life is the thoughts we think. Thus do THE WAY 115 we make ourselves by the thoughts we think from a contemplation of the Ego and the soul, wherein it is planted, with all the in- finite possibilities flowing therefrom, with which the ever»active serpent, his only son, connects him. Is not an acorn transformed into a tree ? And is not the acorn father of the tree ? The germ that makes the child is the father, and as the germ becomes tlje ct\ild and then the man, it is plainly sure that a man is his own father. The Ego is a conscious germ of life which in the womb makes, compels, or forces the body of man, beast, bird, or reptile to grow out of it. Man is a mere form containing life, which gets into it only by the way of conception. We cannot think unless we have something to think about, and conception draws life into us, which makes us think that the life is our own, since it is the nature of life to be the thing it occupies; but we cannot conceive all of life at once, we conceive it only in part, accord- ing to our capacity to contain it, while the whole universe of life crowds upon us asking for entrance. The elements that crowd upon and enter us beget life in us. Life cannot die, nor be lost in any other way than to be our loss. If it goes out of form it is lost to the form that claims to own it. To be conscious of life you must know it; and in order to have it you must conceive it as you can hold it; for you must remember you are but a small, weak reflection of a power that fills the immensity of time and space, all of which is yours if you can conceive it. My life is my father — my God — and there- fore we are one in form only, because I am lacking in the prin- ciple of greatness. We are sick or in pain because more life is striving to enter us than we can contain; and, unless the form of our lives grows greater through the conception of more and greater life, this form will lose the life it now claims as its own. Nothing belong to us except by possession; and our life only grows greater' by our conception of greater uses of it, for without use we certainly lose what we think we have. To per- 116 THE WAY feet the form, then, is to perfect the manifestations of the life in such forms; and in order to perfect it one must keep it con- tinually full of life, whereby it is made to grow in its power of conception until there shall be no darkness or secret places there- in where the serpent-life may hide. The salvation of man, therefore, is physical; and it wholly depends upon the life of it, which is mainly made up of reflec- tions about looks, dignit}-, wealth, business, or the struggle to get and to keep things that perish in the use of them. It has taken a long time to light the lamp of life in you — and what kind of light is it? Made up as it is of such reflec- tions as cause unrest, toil, avarice, competition, strife, snd enmity — the very things that obstruct the way of life everlasting (which is a reflection of the Ego) and that increase and prolong the life of the serpent and prevent its return to the father's house, whence he originally came and to which he longs to return, as is e\4- denced by the pressure which compels things to fall away from life for the want of it. As man depends upon life for his exist- ence, and all that pertains thereto, its presen'ation is of vital im- port to us, and as man is made of parts by reflections that are fleeting, and needing to be controlled, law is a necessary of his being in order that the form may be perfect in its representing of the Ego, which is one, and, if one part disobeys the law, or for any reason gets out of order, the form \^ill fail in its work and will need to be repaired if possible. Now, in the case of man, the law that made him is certainly responsible for the way he operates. It is declared in the Scrip- tures that man was made of matter; and, as we know he is a hol- low or vacant form, and, as he is said to be male and female, the male part is the strong, coarse outside part, which, like a gun- barrel, can withstand the shock of an explosion from within, while the female part is the inner receptible part from which explosions come. Crudely expressed, man, as a unit, is like a self -charging and self-firing gun : the outside visible part corres- THE WAY 117 ponds to the body which determines the sex and gives the name man to the inner vacancy, as well as to the outer strong part, which makes an explosion from ^vithin possible. Before sound was, universal silence existed; and that silence exists today as space; or the outside of forms exist, which move not, nor make a sound unless forced to do so. Ever}1;hing is made to exist according to law, and that law is invisible to the things that are made, nor is the law manifest except by the way of that which is made. Life exists, but it exists only in that which is not life. If the report of a gun exists prior to the explosion thereof, it cer- tainly exists in all that help make it, viz., the gunbarrel, the vacancy in it, and the charge that explodes — to say nothing of the outside force that is broken open and made to speak and move to vast distances, producing conditions which are new and prev- iously unkno'^Ti. From this it is known that a single cause can- not be — not a word spoken, nor motion made, which does not return to its source; and, in obedience to the same law, a reflec- tion from the Ego, like a spoken word, must return, after expressing its full meaning to him who utters it. And so it is with the serpent life of man. \Mien it has done its work of creating and perfecting the individual into whom it was trans- formed in the womb and in the circumstances it has been forced to work in, it begins a counter or opposite conformation of the entire being, effected by heartfelt sorrow for misconduct, and a radical change of thought and action requiring internal reflection upon one's conscious life — the Ego, or the Deit>' in one's own soul. We, as external things, make our own deities by our own words and actions; hence, it is obvious that the Ego contains, and is made up of, the life each one has lived; and, therefore, in order to reform the whole man, he must consciously return to his soul, the very way he came — that is, he must live his life over again in his mind to find the good of the acts he has com- mitted. There is no man li\^ng that has not done things which jtA-.-J---^ '^..yr, v. .- ■t;.,l...iy:,:,,- 118 THE WAY he wishes he had done differently or had not done at all, and of which he is ashamed, and which he considers evil. But in look- ing back we sometimes find that our evil deeds have produced great good for us, which we would scarcely part with for any consideration; and good thus found is kin to the all-good, the Ego, of every life — known as the Christ, the forgiving principle of God himself. It resuires no great knowledge to know good and evil, since the beasts of the field know what is good or not good for them to eat; but to know the good of evil is an antidote for every poison, a cure for every ill, a pardon for every sin; it is, in fact, the high- way to immortality — the knowledge that the Gods alone possess. Some things move and live without being conscious of what they do, showing that to know is greater than life; in fact, it is the father of life, and hence has power to control it and to direct its creations, and the retrospection of one's past life is in response to a command from the conscious Ego to life to compel it to retrace its steps and to perfect itself so that whatever form it is made to occupy will be deathless and unchangeable, except from within. The life of a man that turns to seek its source must of necessity carry all its previous experiences along with it unless he cuts loose from them, which is accomplished by finding the good of the lives he has lived. All his passions, his loves, ambitions, prides, hopes, fears, enmities, jealousies, etc., etc., are the spirits of the myriads of lives he has lived in. Insect, fowl, reptile, and animal, as well as human forms, he has occupied, producing disease and death. All these must be indrawn, and made one with the life of him who aspires to immortality, since no form of life can be left out. As we have seen, the mother is in things and all her aspirations are good, because she is the mother of life, whether it be a good or an evil spirit. It is life that forms our bodies and that prompts all our acts, hence life alone is responsible. But life is in the form ; and, as before stated, that which is in is mother, and as such it is made THE WAY 119 to suffer. The heart, lungs, liver, intestines, the blood, the brains, and even the mind — all of which are different forms of mother — cannot vvork or produce without life, which is the gen- erative principle of consciousness — the father of life and consort of the mother. It is obvious that neither life, its mother, nor its father, are, in any sense of the word, material beings, but that, on the contrary, they are purely imaginary. Which brings up the thought that possibly this despised power in man must be in some way connected with the origin of things. The idea of being suggests form, since without form nothing exists ; and there is no power that can make something from nothing, except the imagi- nation, or the power of reflection in man. It is the feminine or conceptive principle in man. It is that which works in nothing, as life vv'orks in a vacant v;omb into which it is forced at concep- tion and compelled to make a human being of itself. Nature is purely an imaginary thing, and so is the mind of man; and yet they exist as the nature of an individual exists, made up of what he imagines himself to be, and which he is made by the working of the mother in nothing, which is the same as life in that it has no form. It is said that knowledge is power ; but if we may judge from v/hat v/e see the imagination of man has created more things, both good and evil, than can be enumerated. It leads thought even, and is the inspiration of the word, the origin of poetry, taste, literature, religion and beauty. But it is nothing after all compared with what we know. Do we not know that conscious- ness is not a thing? But it is the greatest power known. And the Ego, although it sees and knows, is simply the consciousness of being something — we know not what. Call it man if you like; but he is nothing but a form which is far from being perfect, and which may be changed at any time from within, but never from w^ithout itself. There can be no existence without form, and the first of a,ll forms is a form made of spirit in nature. Nature and Spirit are one and the' same, with this difference : 120 THE WAY Nature is unchangeable and immovable, while spirit is always moving in nature, and hence, is the mother who creates things from nature. A man's nature is like his body: it encloses him, by reason of which man is mother, while the nature of man is the serpent transformed into human form. The soul is a form of spirit, made by the incessant whirl of spirit in the nature of body whereby a vortex, void of spirit, is formed, into which the dregs of spirit fall, subside, or settle, as the cinders, or ashes, of a fire become cool, inert, and material. In other words, by violent motion, excessive heat and fire are produced in the spirit, since spirit is combustible and inflam- mable as wood and oil are, which has a tendency to refine the nature of man, sending the finest to make up the soul, while the coarse subsides in cooling and becomes bones, flesh, blood, etc., of the body — all that we know of the substance of spirit or of its substantiality. This vortex in the human form is the soul, the home of life — a reservoir of magnetic spirit, the most subtile of all the elements — ^that which pulsates, and, whirling, forms a vacuum in itself, wherein worlds form and whirl also. Of this subtile agent — this power which makes and moves everything that has form, and without which man cannot exist — we know almost nothing. It dwells in the coarsest and the finest of mat- ter where iron is — both in metal and also in blood — and for all we know it makes both, as well as the mountains where it sleeps, and the living forms in which it makes the blood leap for joy and blush with conscious pleasure as it runs. Magnetism is the life of things, and the soul is its workshop, where it makes what the body needs, the same as the womb in a woman makes her offspring. Motion purifies everything, and the blood that turns back to the heart is made purer as it runs — that is, it be- comes more magnetic, the nearer it approaches the heart. The same is true in regard to the life that turns back to retrace the physical way by which it became the thing it is. The word Christ is a Greek word meaning life. It is the same as the THE WAY 121 Hindoo name, Krishna, which means life. The Hindoo name for God, Life, (Krishna) on account of its power and indestructi- bility (seeing how little we get of it on earth) has always been loved and worshipped as the creator. Man has concluded that by some process or other, life can be made deathless — in some other world — ^but not here. And in trying to fit themselves for some other world they neglect life in this. This has been the case with poor, down-trodden, weak and enslaved India — the Magic land of philosophy and religion. But they have mistaken the way of life : they have sought the way to emancipate life from the body instead of perfecting the body so that life can remain in it. They long since discovered that the way of life is far greater in mind than in matter, and have tried to sever the connection of man with his body and its actions as far as possible. In this, by the practice of God and other vitio to us unknown, they have succeeded in demonstrating the power of man to perform wonders, such as the fakirs and other devotees do, for the edification of gaping crowds, with no other earthly use, while they starve and they die as others do. If religion and philosophy cannot teach how to live on this earth free from disease, pain, and death, until we go hence from choice and from our own volition, they are not worthy of the name. It is true that the way of life is mental; and, in our efforts to live mentally while here, our main object should be the care and perfection of the body in all its essentials. Mind is a matter of generation in and from the material we are made of, and the beginning of it is the conception of what we need. If we need more life, we must look to the nourishment of the body in connection, especially with its actions, whereby it is purified: the spirit of it is to be separated from the gross, the good from the bad, the coarse from the fine, forming new flesh and blood, bone and tissue continually. In this manner we make and un- make ourselves by our thoughts, desires, and motions; and in so doing we impart qualities to our make-up, which we recognize 122 TKZ V.'AY as good, bad, and indinerent, which qualities belong alike to souls, spirits, minds, and bodies, but they are never separate. There is some good in ereiy bad, and scane bad in ereiy good. The indifferent is that part of us which is neither good n:: : :. i because it has no motion and no interest in what we do. It is, hovrever. iJe i::: .ciiiz, from this matter-of-fact plane of being into another plane where pain, disease, and death have no place. A ]:l:.-r ;: 7" r is not a place to which one may go, but it is 3. : :r 1: :z which may be attained on ihis einh or any other where life has 2. rerfer: form to dwell and move in. As prqxjsterous as this s:i:eziez: r-ii; rppear to be, the truth of it is ver!f ef '7 :hr l:::"e e /j^^:^- of magnetism, and by the won- derful ioiievemciiii cf liic xajdrs and Rahats of India. If half is true that is told (and vouched for) of their feats, they can make themselves proof against pain and pleasure, and live in an unconscious state for an indefinite length of time, and then take up life ag2.iz aS if no time had elapsed although they had been buried in the ground and a crop of oats had grown over the place "here .t ere furied. I az: z:: vouching for the truth of such tales ; but we know that life can exist without being con- scious, and also we know that the area of bodily consciousness is limited to the nervous system, and that the bcnes. gristles, hair, and nails en ile dngers and toes are wholly unizr-ious, and also :i.i: rrst of the operations of the body in healLQ are per- fcnrei ur. : insdously. From this, we may safely assume that ccr.s:: .:.LrSS is more an evidence of an imperfect condition raiT-tr :ii:^ a perfectly harmonious condition of man. Consciousness is hidden in the darkness of material things, and only the mc:i;r. :f such things can set it free. Xow, motion exists only in the movement of some: r.; r^ies itseK. since consciousness is not conscious of itself imless it be embodied, and then the body is known as the self into which conscicKisness is transformed, whereby the dull matter of the body is made to feel and to grow, or to evolve what is hidden therein. THE Vv^AY 123 All growth is a transformation of that which is apparently nothing to something, or of invisibility to visibility and tangi- bility, or from ignorance to conscious knowing. All growth is transformation, rather than evolution, since there is no emana- tion from nature; but it has power to transform itself from per- fect rest into a spirit that cannot rest. In other words, nature is masculine, or cold, unfeeling vital power, which becomes femi- nine or weakness by the relaxation of the control of its own heat. This truth is obvious in our own experience: we become weak and effeminate when we allow the heat of passion to burn and to consume our strength. Now, souls differ in magnitude and in power; and the greatest, the strongest, the best, carry the most life, make the largest orbit, and live the longest; for all souls lose their life as they lose the heat they contain, by excessive vibration, owing to their proximity to the source of all heat whence they arise. Fire is the combustion of dark matter; and the force that makes fire burn causes all motion, and the existence of all souls, which are sparks emanating therefrom, which assume form and qualities that effect all material things. Nature transforms itself into every existing object; but the object does not emanate from, but remains in, nature, as much so as if it had not been changed. Nature contains all things; and in her operations she first transforms herself; or, by a revolution or by reversion, she becomes what appears to us as altogether superior to nature, while at the same time all that exists is in nature. Even matter (her first-born) is as mysterious and as incomprehensible as nature herself, containing all that nature contains, except cold, which is above — the masculine of it — but still as natural as the heat matter contains. Things and forces change conditions with each other; but nothing ever escapes nature; for when one is born he, she, or it has a nature bom with it that is its over-soul, or all-seeing, all-comprehensive I, which, 124 THE WAY reflected in the human soul, is the Ego, the highest natural man yet produced, through which nature transforms herself in per- fecting life and the race. The matter of which we are composed, or endowed with, consists of certain qualities or qualifying in- fluences, which make our bodies what they are. TO BECOME To be is greater than to become, since we recognize our pres- ent ignorance and weakness. To become requires change, and change is the growth and ultimate transformation of that which desires to become into that which we desire to be. There can be no sane person who does not desire to become greater, stronger, and better than at present; and such desire reveals to us tlie powers, or the qualities, that "Keep the way" of life — to help or to retard our progress therein. There are no straight lines in existence. Every moving object or force must conform to the shape or contour of the round earth; hence, sparks of fire containing heat describe part of a circle or orbit w^hile they burn, which they complete as they lose heat in returning to their source in cold matter. Just so it is with the human soul that desires to become greater. Like a spark of fire we are projected from passion — burning material conditions — a germ of deathless life, borne in water, the body of it, which by some mysterious process becomes flesh in the mother, womb, in which, and of which, forms are made which are subject to change, and ultimate transformation into that which life desires. The great fundamental and tran- scendental law of nature and of her only son — her very life — is that of the power of transformation, or of becoming what we desire or will to be, desire being feminine power, the will being masculine. Nature transformed becomes visible, tangible in all objects, and intelligent in some. Nature, being inorganic, can do nothing directly, but must produce that which can do for her what she desires; hence, she transforms herself into spirit, which, in turn, 126 THE WAY by transformation, or concentration of its fonnless, intangible substance, becomes matter, of which things are made. But in all such changes life is the prime moving force, a spark of which makes the heat in matter, from which we learn that life makes its own mother. This may sound strange from the fact that the form called woman is said to be the mother of her offspring — and so she is, in an outer or material sense — but the real truth is that life never leaves its mother, since the germ of life that is projected into the womb is carried in a watery spirit-mother to its destination, where it does the work of clothing the germ with a body, more or less perfect, according to the good or the bad qualities of the spirit-mother, of which such body is composed. Woman is merely the work-shop in which life makes the material garment it wears, most of which comes from its past actions, which follow it as part of itself. Life is the way — an orbit of the soul in w^hich it moves round and round, as the world does, from start to finish, which it never finds, an orbit that starts in the heat of man's material form, as sparks leave a burning fire, to rise and to fall as they cool into ashes, material of another nature, to start again, and to return again and again, always moving in an orbit of life without end. The one who comes into this world is a spark — a mere reflection of lives lived prev- iously, which follows the soul as a child its parent, to be absorbed by the light of life, as insects are, becoming the material of which the body is made. The material section of the orbit of the soul is a very small fraction of it, since, by the death of its form, or end of its ap- pearance on earth, it is immediately transformed into an astral or mental body, in which life is in less bondage, and has power to change its orbit and to live another life on earth. Many are of the opinion that, because we are forced into this world, forced through it, and forced out of it again and again, we have no volition or choice in the matter any more than a leaf blown by the wind; consequently, those who believe this THE WAY 127 are fatalists, trusting in some unknown foreign power to force them to become something, of which they know nothing and have no interest in becoming. This idea is nonsense when viewed from a natural view-point, since it contradicts every natural instinct of the human soul. If we know anything, we know that we must depend upon our ov/n efforts for what we get and use, and if there is any force about it, that force is surely in ourselves. We have power to resist any and every external force, but almost no power over the forces that are in ourselves. We grow outward whether we will or not. The body moves without thought, will, or any atten- tion whatever; therefore, it must be a machine that moves auto- matically by internal mechanism when once wound up, and the will is the power that winds it. It is said in the Scripture, "As a man thinketh in his soul, so is he," showing that by our own reflections, by our own thinking, are we made as we are; and, if so, our own thinking can make us whatever we desire to become, provided we think the right kind of thoughts — thoughts that will produce what we desire, since thoughts are seeds, from which molecules of matter form themselves into better or worse flesh, bones, tissues, and brains, whereby the power of life is increased by the kind of thoughts we think. If we have no volition we cannot think as we will. Let us honestly examine this idea for the truth of it. It is a fact that nature does not exist as an individual thing or force, but as many forces, each one having a function peculiarly its own. For instance, there is a force of nature called love, the function of which is to draw, accumulate, protect, and cherish the things it acquires, and it can do nothing else. It has no power to divide, scatter, weaken, or destroy any- thing, not even its deadly enemy, which is an opposite force just as natural as love, whose only function is to divide, weaken, scatter, and destroy the accumulations of the former, even the power of love itself; and it is utterly impossible for these forces to manifest contrary to their own natural impulses. It is need- 128 THE WAY less to speak of the vast mukitude of natural forces that are obWous to all, each one of which has a function of its own to which it is limited. It is as impossible for pride to be humilit}* as it is for black to be white, "vsithout a total and complete trans- formation of its nature. It is the nature of fire to burn, the nature of life to live and to make things alive, since life is a spark from Nature's great internal forces, '"'whose worm dieth not, and whose fire is not quenched.'' What is man but a worm, begotten by fire in the waters of nature, as foetus that produces a human being. Life is the fire that heat makes in, and forces out of, matter, whose first appear- ance in a form of its own is that of a worm, in which is manifest the primal laws of nature — ^male and female — the power to shrink or to draw heat in (as cold does water to freeze it or to concentrate its power), to make itself alive with power to push and to pull, or to crawl along and increase its power to the point of sensation, out of which evolves the power to stand erect, to look upward and to think. A spark of fire is as truly fire as an ocean of it can be. It contains in a minute form all that a universe of fire contains, and it is the same with a spark of life. The aU- life is not all if a spark of it is absent from it, and it is the same with nature, which, being divided into many natures, has no existence as one, further than as the consciousness of every part of it. It follows then that the power of volition, or of voluntary life and movement, is inherent as much in a small way as in a large, so far as its sphere of action extends, if no farther than itself. A spark can bum itself out as well as a large fire can bum a house. The fact is, a thing moves of itself, primarily only in one manner — that is, upon itself, by drawing \'ital force into itself to become impregnated and to grow larger or more outward. But the power to resist impregnation is in ever}- li\'ing thing, and not a foreign force at all. Now this power of resistance is as truly a part of nature as THE WAY 129 the power to breathe is, since it forces outward that which it has drawn in. Does this prove that the power of resistance can overcome and thwart the laws of nature ? Not at all, since nature supports both forces; and, although repulsion is evolved from attraction, it is evidently a greater law than its mother, as a thing is greater than the seed it is evolved out of. According to the law of evolu- tion, that which grows may become greater than its source, as a stream grows greater the farther it runs, and as a spark may produce a conflagration if it doesn't die. The idea is that the life in man may become greater by the exercise of its own powers to resist its own father, who is negative and helpless in the seed as any negative thing can be. The cause of all power is around us; but it is as negative as the body of man is. And the fire of life is supported by the body it is in, by impregnation from our surroundings, according to our own wishes and efforts. As a child controls its feelings, so do we control and use the forces of nature, which constitute the impregnating principle of nature, to make ourselves what we wish to become. The forces of nature, being external to us, are to be imbibed and consumed by our own fire. Souls differ as bodies and dispositions do, and consequently some stay longer on this earth than others; and the life lived will describe a larger orbit than those who die young, such as insects and most animals, showing that wisdom, intelligence, and moral qualities tend to prolong life. Every soul that is born has a nature born with it, which is composed of three qualities, viz., good, bad, and indifferent, previously described, which give character and disposition to all that are bom. Now these qauli- ties are brought into existence from universal nature by past lives, which follow the soul eternally, until drawn into the soul and transformed into good, which is life. Heat, the mother of life, dwells and works in the soul and the spirit, of which souls, bodies, and minds are made. 120 THE WAY The two great qualities of matter — good and evil, weakness and strength, heat and cold, light and darkness, male and female — are creative principles of nature. The law of growth is: the negative absorbs the positive; the female takes the male; the weak absorbs strength; ignorance absorbs knowledge, etc., etc. There can be no evolution without involution preceding it, any more than birth can precede impregnation. In view of this principle of transformation, Jesus declared, "Except ye become as a little child ye cannot enter the Kingdom of power." A child is a t}^e of weakness, ignorance, and receptivity. It im- bibes intelligence and strength as it does food and air. Just so with the evolution of a tree from the germ of an acorn, or of a human being from the male spore. In the ground or in the vv^omb, the weak, helpless, negative germ is made alive and active by absorbing the positive elements of heat, light, and moisture, which enable it to transform itself from a germ to a tree or a human being, as the case may be, since the same law operates in the development of everj'^thing. Education is the transformation of ignorance into knowledge wherein it becomes a working mother for the conception of greater power. Civilization grows out of barbarism — that is, barbaric conditions become civilized conditions by reversion. It is by this same law that life moves on its way from one form to another, or man from a clod of earth becomes God-like, or the serpent in man becomes the Christ. The steps of eternal progress, by which man rises from nothing to something, are made by the transformation of his weaknesses and the evils which keep the way of his life into his very life itself, whereby it becomes his savior. Evil becomes good by transformation; and the only way whereby one can be trans- formed into the pure and the good, is by conception, by which he is in the way to be "born again." The test of true manhood is what we conceive ourselves to be. No man conceives himself to be worse than he really is; and herein is his only hope of be- coming better than he now is. THE WAY 131 Matter is inconceivable except in connection with some form. Neither can a form be conceived without containing mat- ter of some sort. Nor is it possible to conceive of matter as one thing only, since w^e know it exists as many things and we cannot conceive contrary to our senses. In order to become greater, our present nature must be transformed into such nature as we con- ceive; for the mother that conceives and works to perfect such conception is in our very flesh and bones; and the father — the begetting principle — still remains in us the same as he was when he begot our present nature, for he cannot change of his own voli- tion, since he is an involuntary power, having no choice or volition. He is the vir of all living beings wliich run riot in human blood, firing it with deadly passions possessing neither reason nor pity ; but he has power to move the mother of flesh and bones to the conception of good and evil, the two great qualities of spirit and matter which compose all living beings. That which tempted Eve by suggesting the possibility of attaining a perfect life through disobedience is called the Serpent, the worm that dieth not, and the fire whose life is not quenched, he who in the beginning taught Eve the value of liberty and that the way of life lies in the denial of all affirmations or laws which restrict liberty, and prevent the evolution of good. The nature of an individual is his form or body, and the elements of that nature are results of our previous lives. We, therefore, are born from what we have done, born of our own actions, since the past is intimately related to the present; hence, the only true progress is in letting go of the bad and clinging to the good that makes us what we now are. This is what Jesus meant in saying, "If thy hand offend thee, cut it off;" for the organs of the body are parts of our nature objectified. This merely signifies the internal warfare that must rage in the soul of those who aspire to become greater, stronger, and better than at present. To arise from a low nature to a higher one, requires a continual culture of the inner man, which consists in the trans- 132 THE WAY formation of the darkness of this present nature into the light of a new one. There is some fire in every nature ; and the harder it is, the more it contains, and the heavier the blows necessar}' to strike a spark of transforming light therefrom. Our enemies are all in ourselves; and the only way to destroy them is to love them to death! Love is the death of passion and the birth of light, which purifies and transforms the darkness of nature into that which is pure, beautiful, and good; and as the nature changes so does tlie body conform thereto. In this manner only can man become immortal; for a nature, a soul, and a form are necessar}' to the individuality of life. THE EGO Said Jesus, "God is Spirit." But the question is, what is Spirit ? This question is not answered by its reversal. The word God was undoubtedly derived from the union of a consonant and a vowal sound: the "O" being feminine; the "D" being guttural, or masculine, a self-contained force, the heat that a cloud contains in a cold or electric state prior to an explosion or a sound accompanied by a flash of lightning, an expression of "Od" — the word that in beginning was with "G," and therefore was "G-od." Sound is in heat as heat is in cold, or cold in water, and water in a cloud that speaks in thunder tones, and in lighting the universe. Cold is the outside, or form of heat; and heat makes water of it, which is the first form that spirit assumes in rising from death to become life, since water, the first appearance of spirit as matter, by a farther condensation under the combined influence of heat and cold, becomes the form of man, and of things that live. Heat gives life to spirit, and cold is the death of it. Heat is in spirit while cold is outside, and therefore the form or body of it. Thought is a formless, indefinable spirit, of which ideas are made. It seems absurd to say that an idea is a collection of thoughts unless a single thought is first formed in the mind, when it becomes material in form, at the same time retaining its function of being a light in darkness, as I am an idea of my- self in my body, or light in the darkness of my mind. There- fore, I am whatever I think myself to be; and to change my way of thinking is the transformation of my entire being. All forms, everything that is made, is made of spirit. Hence, m 134 THE WAY all laws are laws of spirit and made in forms of spirit, and nowhere else, since all — even nothing — is spirit in some form or other; and, by the contraction of itself, spirit becomes dual in form — that is, by contraction it makes a form of itself in itself, which we call the Ego in the soul of man. Spirit, being con- sciousness, is not conscious until it becomes conscious in some form of itself. Spirit, being knowledge itself, cannot know un- less it be in some conscious form. And the same may be said of mind also; for, although it is made of the most subtile spirit known, it cannot think or express its thought unless it be first organized in some brain. It is ver}^ difficult to understand, and far more difficult to explain, how one spirit can become two or more spirits. Matter can readily be divided, but spirit is indivisible; but, as it is all, it is full of itself and is therefore infinitely great in its own estimation, since there is nothing but itself to judge. Spirit, there- fore, is circumscribed, surrounded, and limited by its estimate of itself, in which it dwells as in a body, from which it cannot escape, because its estimate is the deathless, immortal body of it. Now the estimate of spirit is common to every grade of spirit, from the highest to the lowest, from the coarsest of matter to the most ethereal spirit, or thought of it; for spirit is mind as well as body. The nature of spirit is to be free; but unrestrained spirit loses itself and its power of motion, as the power of steam, the spirit of water, is lost in the open air. By reason of the body, spirit retains its power and becomes full of its estimate of itself, which, centering in the soul, is known as the Ego, the undying, moving principle of spirit — the life of it. Spirit is a self-sufficient principle. It says, I am, this is mine, my body, my mind, my life, my soul, my God, etc.; and what it doesn't own it will not get. Hence it is the whole self, the I that sees, the I that knows, and the I that thinks it knows ; and it is the same in an atom as in the whole circumfer- ence. It is that in the soul which appears outward. as body, THE WAY 135 plant, shrub, bush, or tree. And it was this which spake to Moses from out the bush that burned but was not consumed. Form is a magic thing that is full of magnetic spirit, the life of things gestating in its mother nature, the two hierographically represented by the symbols "A" and "M," declaring to the world, I am that which is, was, ever will be. The Ego in the soul is an unchangeable entity, having neither beginning nor end, a center of consciousness, as the soul is a center of spirit, and as the heart is the center of the nervous system of man, each having in itself the power of attraction and repulsion, the father and the mother, who organize from spirit, the life of soul, mind, and body; and, if that life was retained in the mature man as it is in children, fulfilling its function of the evolution of indi- vidual life powers, and not as now dissipated in the production of offspring, the body of man, like the burning bush, would glow with the fervor of fire and would bum eternally without being consumed. But as it is, we scatter life, as chaff before the wind, in the contact, the wear and the tear, the pain and disease inci- dent to the friction of empty souls, minds, nerves, muscles, and bodies, in the effort of pretending to live a few short years on this earth. The power of life and growth is in form and not outside of it. As spirit is formless, in order to have a form it must make one of itself. Now spirit is both cold and warm — forces that act and react upon each other through spirit, which separates them, whereby spirit is made to burn as oil burns in a lamp, the light of which is the form of the spirit that burns. Warm spirit evap- orates, disappears; but cool, calm, tranquil spirit breeds life in itself, the very nature of which is to form a cell, or soul, around itself for its own protection, since cold death is a continual men- ace to it. Now the universe is the soul of nature, containing nothing but spirit in which life dwells, continually forcing spirit to work, as mother w^crks, in the making of things. As bubbles rise up in the fertne'ntatidn of yeast so do forms of life arise in spirit, 136 THE WAY since matter cannot produce till some part of it becomes spirit. Everything that is made is made by reflection; and that which is made is primarily in that which reflects, or looks upon it. Therefore, every material object is a reflection in nature, or mind, of I, the Ego, the eye that sees. To see requires the con- centration of the light of mind radiating from him who sees. Without such concentration there can be no reflection, no thought, and no making or objectifying of the things seen in the mind. Now those things seen in the mind must depend upon perfect concentration for perfection of form and its reflection outwardly. That is why so many imperfect machines are made — the inventor sees dimly, "as through a glass darkly," according to St. Paul. Now that which is in the mind dimly is seen negatively, or as almost nothing at all; but, by persistent looking at it, reflecting upon it, that which is negatively seen grows plainer, more posi- tively visible, until the inventor can lay his hand on it, and reproduce it as a positively useful thing. It is, therefore, obvious that our positive, tangible, material existence is derived wholly from things that exist negatively in us, the same as a tree is said to exist in an acorn before it is planted. The question may be raised as to how a man can exist in himself before he grows, as a tree in an acorn. Now this implied objection applies only in part; for, although the foundation of the tree may be in the acorn, as the consciousness of man is in the germ of life before the man is begotten or the seed planted, nevertheless, the tree and the man depend upon the concentration, reflection, and com- bination of external forces to enable the tree, or man, to form himself. Therefore the tree is not all in the acorn, any more than man is all in the germ out of which he grows. ''Let us make man in our own image." Now, "our image" is that which we make in the progress of thinking. It is ours because we make it, the same as any property; and to make man in our image is to put man in our image and mould him to fit it in every particu- lar. Man sustains the Siame relatidn to the image as the seed in THE WAY 137 an acorn does to the shell it is in. Now, the germ in an acorn is consciousness in a negative, unmanifested, invisible, unknown condition; and it is the same in regard to the germ out of which man grows. Is a seed or a tree conscious ? No, but the seed is conscious- ness ready to grow, or to become conscious; therefore, conscious- ness is the seed of that v/hich becomes conscious. Consciousness is the good that is in things, it is there in a negative state until we partake of it in eating, drinking, breathing, thinking, or in any manner whereby it can enter and make us conscious by its presence. It is the image in us that becomes a living soul by reason of our breathing, and not the od-force, of which all images, or imaginary, negatively-existing things are made. Thought is formless substance in a negative or an un- developed condition, like the heart of a tree in the seed of it, or the inside ring of an onion, or like the soul in a man, out of which other souls grow, as rings grow in the formation of a tree from the image of it contained in its seed. Every form is a soul with another soul in it, the substance out of which a tree, or the form of fruit is made in a more interior soul — the germ of all growth. The soul of man is an image in another soul, the soul of the universe, the heavens surrounding this earth, as the solar system does, or as the bark surrounds a tree. Such is the soul — an Eidolon — ghost of reality, made manifest in dust, as the image of Adam was made. A soul in the over-soul was the com- mencement of human life on this earth; and the power that made him was the Eidolon of all the conscious beings which had lived and died on earth prior to the advent of man, such as were in harmony v/ith each other and were willing to unite in opening a way in themselves for man to enter and to become the ruler of this earth. Consciousness cannot die. It merely withdraws from the body when it becomes unfit to be longer a habitation for it. Gautama claimed that consciousness was carried in a seminal rain from Nirvana — the abtfde df the blessed — when the growing 138 THE WAY earth has attained the condition suitable for the existence of of man; but the Chaldeans, a people of equal antiquity with the Hindoos, made the descent of man something altogether different from that of any other conscious being. They held that the physical nature of man, like all animals, grew out of the ground, but that his mind descended as a breath of Od into a receptacle prepared for its reception, as the Buddhists have a lotus flower, on a pond of water, in full bloom ready to catch the falling seminal-rain from Nirvana, the abode of the blessed dead who have inhabited a previous world. The ideas are obviously similar although the phraseology is altogether different; a seminal-rain means life falling in water, while a breath of life means life in a breath of air, drawTi into the image prepared for its reception. Buddha had no God or supreme being at the head of crea- tion. Everything developed naturally, while with the Hebrews, God did everything in supernatural manner — that is, according to the way the Chaldean ideas have been handed down to us in the Hebrew Scriptures, provided cur translation is correct. We are mainly interested in the effort to find the truth of their ideas, and not the way they are expressed; as previously explained, a soul is a receptacle and one soul may contain one or more souls of an entirely different nature; and, as the image was a hollow form, it contained another soul which became alive when a breath of life was received from Od, which was, and still is, the soul of every atom of which forms are imaged forth, or made visible. This plane of being is made up of forms. Remove forms and nothing remains. Remove the light from forms, and they cast no shadow and show no color; but light in a form shines through, and shows an Eidolon, or faint similacrum of itself, mingled v/ith some part of the form it illumines and passes out of. Without form there is no creation, no order, no system, no beauty, no magnitude, no grandeur, no senses in anything, since there v;ould be nothing to contain them. The fallacy of estab- lishing the existence of a supreme being by mathematics is evi- THE WAY 139 dent from the f ollovang consideration : Number one is supposed to contain all other numbers which emanate therefrom. Now, No. 2, being an emanation from No. 1, contains two ones, or its ovrn value and that of No. 1 also. And No. 3 contains not only its ow^n, but the value of those that precede, and all that foilovv'S after it, thus showing the last number as the greatest of all, and the first number as the least. The absurdity deduced is certainly apparent; but, considering existence as ever}1;hing that is — every one as equal in value to every other one, no first, no last, no beginning or end, no life or death — such an existence obviously would not be the existence wt enjoy, or desire to attain to. This existence is based upon two opposing principles — the great and the small, good and evil, weakness and strength, light and dark- ness, male and female. And, coming to the individual, we find, as opposing principles, the Ego and the form he is in, the latter, with its infinite display of atoms, every one of which is a spirit, corresponding to the infinite number of Emanations of number One, the Jewish God of the Universe, the I am — the Ego, who essays to rule the body and succeeds about as well as Jehovah has succeeded with the Jewish people. This is a world of competi- tion — "the life of trade" — and of everj'thing else; for without op- position no effort is necessar}''^ no clashing of interests, no volcani explosions of pent-up energy, no friction and no heat, no gestaiion and birth of living beings. This is a positive existence wherein we think we know what we are about. The other is a dream- land, a negative existence in the minds of men — that border-land of nothing out of which the imagination conjures things which astonish us. That there is an existence of Equality — where there is no high or low, and no strife, is an Eidolon of what will be in the evolution of perfect man. But this is not the work of the Ego — net what I am, but what I will be — the voice of the mother of I am — in the beginning of a new race of true human beings. 140 THE WAY (i I To define the Ego is to define Existence. It is the principle in man that makes him conscious that he exists. To say it is the principle of life, is to say it is the principle that moves things — that which is opposed to inertia, or universal stagnation. It simply signifies to be conscious. It therefore is a fit representa- tion of the fi.rst of all creative power dwelling in each and every living form. The scriptural story of the serpent is an effort to show the beginning of intellectual life as distinguished from sensuous or instinctive life, such as the animals have. Sensuous life is emo- tional, or a life whose principal law or mode of action is that of feeling or sensation. As sensuous life is the ultimate of vege- table life, as that is the out-growth of mineral or magnetic life, so is intellectual life the out-growth of body, law, mode, or man- ner in which life manifests its pov^'cr. Now, as life in the form of a snake was the first animate form of life that was able to crav/l out of water onto dry land, it is not surprising that the serpent should be considered the first-born of that sensuous life which is "the mother, in which, and out of which, all things take root and grow." Considering, further, that the human form is composed mainly of water and that the germ or living sperma- tozoon, the impregnating principle of all human mothers, is borne from the male to the female in water, and that it grows in the waters of the womb, in the first instance to the form of a reptile, and next to the human form, having in its make-up all the life we know of — in consideration of this, it is not at all surprising that the serpent has been universally accepted as a symbol of life and wisdom. 142 THE WAY Considering still further, that man contains the germs of all life in himself, no matter how uncouth or repulsive his form may be, it is not at all strange that the breath of life that God breathed into Adam, whereby he became a living soul — a sensuous being — should also conceive the idea of being more than a thing having power to feel. In view of these facts it is not strange that the old Chaldean authors of the Edenic story should have conceived the idea that the pioneer of all sensuous life on earth was and is also the pioneer or creator of a higher life — one which has no limit or lav/s other than such as it creates for its own use. We have in the serpent something material and tangible for the senses to grasp as the connecting link between a sensuous or a vegetable life, which has no freedom of choice or selection save what its blind senses lead it to use, and a life whose crowning glory is its freedom to choose what it shall do and what it shall be. Life can exist without consciousness, the same as matter or spirit may exist without motion, or mother exist without produc- ing offspring; but consciousness cannot exist except in connec- tion vv^ith some kind of mother, since it is the receptive principle in mother which attracts germs of life to her, for her impregna- tion, and in the case of a human being it is that which makes us think and become full of ideas. Being in existence, everything is feminine, and therefore under the laws of existence of nature ; and while there is only one life there are many forms of that life, and each form is a law to what it contains, limiting, controlling, and directing whatever energy the form contains and calls its own. Life is infinite, in- divisible power; therefore, while it is embodied in different forms, it is not isolated from the life of other forms, since they all connect wherever the Ego (the consciousness of being one) departs, which is where the law of individuality inhering in the form is broken up, and the form thereby rendered unable to control and to use the life it loves so fondly, which is the case with all laws that are dead or outgrown. Now the consciousness THE WAY 143 of individuality inheres in all forms, however great or small they may be; and each one has embodied in it the consciousness of its O'.vn being, which is a germ capable of drawing to itself the power to grow and to transform itself, or to change the law or the form of its existence, wherever circumstances permit. Con- sciousness, therefore, is the soul, the inmost of every object; and the image called xA.dam, had an unconscious soul or empty womb within, ready to be impregnated by a breath of life, dravm into it by the Od-force of the dust, the form or the law its being was made of. Now, it is well known that the first form life assumes in the womb of woman is that of a serpent, which in time is transformed into that of a human being. It is obvious, there- fore, that the breath of life that was breathed into Adam v;as the same life that Jesus declared himself to be ; and that life, arising as it did from the source of all purity and power, was, and still is, the Christ, regardless of the form it is confined in. Now the feminine principle is the heat in every form; and it is that magnetic heat which makes the inner astral, magnetic mind and soul — body of all such as truly think, and love the Christ in themselves, even if it be in the serpentine form. Every thoughtful progressive person knows that there is a perfect man somewhere, in existence. Were it not for this conception, in- dividual progress could not be ; and the Christ in the soul is con- ceived by our ovrn thoughts, our loftiest aspirations of what we ourselves desire to become. We become conscious according to our thoughts; in other words, we impregnate ourselves by thinldng, since consciousness is more sensitive or feminine than any other attribute of being. This shows that the great mother of our being is controlled by our thoughts, and is made to pro- duce as part and parcel of ourselves the very thing we think the most about and love the best. This verifies the saying: "As a man thinketh in his heart so is he."' Thoughts are of the mmd, consciousness is of the heart, or the soul. This item is important. Whatever we think about becomes conscious in us ; and the things 144 THE WAY that we ponder and dwell upon the most persistently stay with us the longest This outer shell that is named Tom, Dick, or Harry is merely a protection of the mother and the life working in her. It is called the father of what she produces; but such is not true in the real significance of the word, for he also is feminine in his relationship to sunxxmding spirit, which passing through him sustains the mother and the life he merely feeds and protects, while all his power, intelligence, and life is but a reflex from what he contains. The form of man is not the real perfect man, but is the con- necting link between sensuous life and a higher or more intelli- gen'.lv creative life, one that has power to complete the image of man, of which sensuais life has only laid the foundation. That which limits power is the body of man, or the form that contains the man himself; and man is that intelligent principle which has a purp>ose in being what he is, and in doing what he does. The anima ls have this principle to a limited extent; but, so far as is known, man is the only being that has any conception of a future or a higher life, which he owes to the breath of life that enables him to make things out of nothing. All the power and intelli- gence that the form manifests is from the man dwelling inside the form, and that man is feminine — that is to say, man contains the germ of all possibilities, l3i^g latent in his soul, from which he draws what he needs by virtue of his inherent weakness, since he is nothing but a soul, an empty vortex, were it not for the breath of life constantly breathing in and out of him. Without weakness, man cannot exist as man; and, without harmony between weakness and strength, there can be no perfect consciousness, no perfect man. Freedom is above; and the powers that make for freedom are in the psychic senses which create mind, wherein intellectual life takes its rise from sensuous, or animal life. There are soul senses, which coimect man with spiritual things, as well as material senses connecting with material things. THE WAY 145 and "love lies at the foundation" — ^the Mother of life. But who or what his father is may be a question wdth some; but it seems to me that the same power that begets and sustains life in an individual is the same that begot life in nature. The power that sustains and imparts life and vigor to things that need it is will, the very antithesis of love, which, being feminine, shows that will is masculine — the very source of firmness, unsympathetic hardness, and unchanging stability, of which male man, as we knov/ him, is a typical representative. Therefore, the law of creation, dwelling in all animate things, may be briefly expressed as — I-will-love — the triune Godhead surrounding ever}' soul in every person. Therefore, the power of salvation "is at hand" — the foundation upon which to build immortality in these bodies if we will, and love, wisely. Will begets wisdom — in love ; and wisdom, the greatest sense of the soul, is the Christ Spirit, when at home in the soul — but it is for purposes of multiplying life on earth in all manner of forms, and of sensations, passions, individual peculiarities, etc., etc. Life has become on earth, and in human flesh, the very reverse of what it is in the over-soul, and in the human soul; from a form of light, life has become the dark matter of all phy- sical forms. Ignorance must create from itself, since it has no pattern as a guide. Do not forms differ? And where is a pattern to be found for the countless differences? Genius originates from one's own soul, and whatever is made is drawn from himself, hence he is what he makes. God spake light into existence, and the word was himself, and there was nothing made that was not made by the word, and therefore, all things are the word made manifest, and the light in becoming manifest is transformed into forms of darkness — combustible matter that must burn in order to become light again. Light is the germ of life, which will beget in his own body — the fathom- less darkness of his spouse. The old Chaldean language, from which the Bible was de- 146 THE WAY rived, was made up solely of natural objects, each letter or v*^ord having a specific meaning. Thus life was a fish or a serpent, the most subtile of all created things. To them it was a symbol of creative wisdom, it was the earthly representative of the great pulsating will of Existence; therefore, they worshipped the ser- pent as the male — the begetting principle — by which life is prop- agated on earth. Phallic, or serpent, worship was once uni- versal; and Moses was well schooled in all its magic rites and ceremonies, whereby they invoked and compelled the attention and co-operation of the secret occult forces of nature, of which the serpent was chief, as shown at the burning bush, and the healing of the plague-stricken in the wilderness by merely lifting up his image for the afflicted to look at. Although Moses used the serpent in his government of the Jews, he knew full well that back of the serpent was a greater being of whom the serpent was a mere representative, from whom he derived all his power; and in framing his laws he endeavored to prevent the Jews from wor- shipping the symbol instead of the unseen reality in the human soul — with what success the reader may determine for himself. The serpent in the foetus of woman becomes the body of man. This is a transformation of the subtile, invisible, living spirit into human form. And that is what Jesus of Nazareth was — the serpent in human form — the same as everyone. Consciousness in a certain forai is called man. In other forms it has other names. But consciousness is always the same, regardless of the form it occupies; and the serpent is the chief principle, since he is the subtile light. Sun, or changing mind of man, the thoughts of which make the body. Everything pertaining to mundane existence is the reverse of cosmic being, for the simple reason that the latter cannot be defined, seeing that we are within, like the center in a circle, and can perceive only that which is illumin- ated by facing its creations, all else being dark, obscure, mys- terious. This negatively-existing consciousness manifests on earth and in man as the sense of self-satisfaction, and of super- THE WAY 147 iority, as declared through the lips of Isaiah in describing the nature of the Jewish God as follows: "Lo I am God, and beside me there is none else, I form the light, and I create darkness. I make peace and I create evil. I the Lord do all these things," Furthermore, there is no better definition of the Ego— the ser- pent God— than that given by Moses in the Old Testament. He is proud, jealous, angry, revengeful, warlike, fond of praise, unjust, punishing children to the fourth generation for the sins the parents commit long prior to their conception, hardening the heart of Pharoah on purpose to show forth his power— and for glory. The fact is this, the Jews did not believe in a universal father God. On the contrary, their God was especially for them. He was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and of no one else. He made the law, "Thou shalt not kill," and then en- couraged his chosen people to slaughter innocent women and children. He is changeable, repented that he had made man, admitting that he had made a mistake, showing his serpent nature. He loved Jacob, although he knew him to be a thief who had robbed Esau of his birth-right, and resorted to magical arts to rob his father-in-law of his cattle. But why multiply? His character is the reverse of what Jesus taught. Wrath and vengeance are no evidence of wisdom, nor is the poison of the serpent any evidence of the wisdom he symbolizes and embodies deep buried beneath many layers of repulsive appearances that he has power to shed in due time, as we know he does. I will, love, wisdom, is the motto of every progressive being. But such is not the Jewish law, the law given to Adam forbade the acquisi- tion of knowledge, and therefore it is the law of ignorance, bond- age, slavery. Sensuous life is non-progressive. But intellectual life has no bounds. It means absolute freedom and eternal progress, hence it is a plain contradiction of the first law of being, viz., love or attraction, which is the fountain main-spring, or body, in which will works to beget power. Bear in mind this important truth, viz., the laws that govern one thing govern all; 148 THE WAY and therefore the law of propagation applies as well to spiritual as to material things, and hence I assert that will working in love begets life, even without a corporeal existence. As a vacuum is a necessity' of motion, or the cause of attrac- tion, it is plain that attraction, or love, is the weakest of all known things. Is there anything weaker than nothing? And what does emptiness, hunger, and want suggest but weakness? Things fail for w'ant of strength. Will is strength but love is vreakness. If love was strength, will-power would be repelled from it, and there would be no propagation, since love cannot produce without strength, and will gives strength to the weak- ness of love. Now, will is the power in seed that makes it grow Vv'hen planted, and seed contains life otherwise known as the Ego, the soul of man, which Jesus claimed to be. Seed grows from weakness to strength, from the embr}'onic serpent, symbol of wisdom, to the form of man, whereby to manifest in some degree that intelligence and wisdom which a germ of life con- tains in fullness and completeness. Love is the principle of accumulation, getting and keeping. It centralizes energy and thus makes souls. It is therefore the feminine or propagative principle par excellence, but it never gives. Giving is the crossing — contradictor}' or denial of the power and right of the law of restraint, or affirmation. To affinii is to fix and establish as a law; and its opposite is the mental power of denial which, in the Scriptures, is allegorically called the serpent — a power in the mind of Eve that said to her, "Yc shall not surely die, for God doth know that in the day thou eatest thereof then shall your eyes be opened, and ye shall become as God, knowing good and evil." Here is a plain contradiction, or denial, of an affirmation, or law of being, and the introduction of the law of freedom to take its place. This allegory- is an effort to explain the beginning of intellectual life, the life of freedom and of progress, as opposed to that of the slavery of sensuous love — tlie introduction of wise love — a love that can see, instead THE WAY 149 of a blind love, whose eyes are closed. How man came to be what he now is, is an unsolved problem. I do not think that man is a special creation as set forth in the Bible. It seems to me far more logical to think that his weakness at birth results from the weakness and degeneracy of man in his efforts to be free by improving upon the sexual instincts of sensuous life. It is reasonable to suppose that as man evolved from the animal kingdom and increased in freedom from experiences he must have learned, that he had power over the female to divert her desires from her ov/n instincts to those of her husband, and as his instincts know no limit when unrestrained, sexual excesses pro- duced degeneration, and retrogression of the creative powers in- herent in sensuous life, to the extent of almost destroying the in- stinctive power of the germ of life in gestation, with the result of producing helpless offspring. Although we have the animal creation in our composition, it has, in a measure, lost power, which we are slow to regain. In the animal kingdom the female rules her own body, not so in human life, the female sells her- self, or gives herself away. Wisdom is the highest of all life's attributes, and the love that is free, must be a wise love. The crossing, otherwise called the "crux," or the crucifixion, of the law of love gives freedom to life by the death of the serpent body — the shedding of the skin, or appearance of the serpent and revealing the Christ, or free spirit-body entombed therein. Life becomes free only by the fulfilling of the lav/ of love, or of accumulation. Too much of a good thing is as fatal as too little. Therefore the law is, "give to everyone that asks of thee, and he that would borrow of thee turn not thou away." These were the words of the Christ speaking through the lips of the Serpent Jesus. "By their works shall ye know them." And by his works we know that Jesus w^as the serpent most of the time of his active life. I am fully aware that the serpent is called Satan, or the Devil, but there is ao devil except human devils — and these the 150 THE WAY Christ within casts out, as the serpent sheds his skin. That Jesus was both human and Divine, as every reasonable man is, seems to be true. From his mind he was human, manifesting the serpent when he cursed the fig-tree, whipped the brokers out of the Temple, insulted the Aristocrats by calling them hypocrites and declaring prostitutes as superior to them, and made hatred of parents a necessity of his followers; while from his soul ha manifested the divine — the Christ life — which is essential to health and a true and immortal life to be lived here and now on this earth. As the story of the Garden of Eden is certainly an allegory, it may be that the story of Jesus is also an allegory. We know the first to be a myth; and, as the latter is a continuation of the same theme, its character is undoubtedly the same. We know nothing of an absolute ruler of the universe only as we know it in ourselves, as the unchanging consciousness of being, which manifests as the Ego — which reflected in the mirage of the body-— the mind — which we see as a suggestive power greater than we ourselves, which Jesus called the Father who did the works that he himself was known to do. The works he did that he ascribed to the Father were greater than ordinary man can do; and when asked about it he declared that the power came from a greater life than he himself, although he claimed to be, in a lesser degree, the same life. Stripped of all priestly cant and pretense, the whole subject of power stands revealed as life, and nothing but life; and the only way to acquire power is to get more life. The methods by which it is acquired are plainly indicated as coming through our mental aspirations, which draw from the over-soul by means of our weakness, childlike trust and belief. If there is any value in crucifixion it certainly is ours by being done in our own souls in the acquisition of more power and a greater life, rather than in the death of what we already have. \\'c are already dead — let us come to life by learning how truly to live. There is no truth in the idea of a general resurrec- tion, and a day of Judgment. There is no resurrection except THE WAY 151 birth, and no Judgment of your actions except your own. God is in you if anywhere; and, when you forgive yourself for what you have done, you can rest assured that God has also forgiven you — for then are you and God agreed — and harmony is the only atonement. You are self-sufficient, proud, strong, and arro- gant by reason of the serpent in your flesh. He must be humili- ated, made weak, lifted up and out of his skin, and your weak life must be indrawn and united with your greater life — the Father in your own soul — and "greater works shall ye do because I, the ego, go to the Father." All life comes to our love through the will, or our willing- ness, which is the turning of the other cheek when smitten, or the giving what you have to those who ask, or doing good for evil. This indeed is the crossing — crossifying, or crucifying, of our natural instincts. It is impossible to crucify the Christ since intellectual life cannot suffer or die. Jesus, the outer man, was crucified in order to give freedom to the inner man — the Christ. Death is merely the indrawing of the life from its outer cover- ing like the recoil of the flesh from the contact of fire. That which causes pain, only shows our incompleteness, or the small- ness undeveloped, or unripe condition of the life or serpent in us. God does not suffer, neither does the Christ — the son of life itself. When his "time was fully come" — ^when the serpent in the man Jesus was fully grown, and ready to shed his skin — then was he crucified, and not before. He who is full of the Christ spirit cannot suffer pain, be sick, or die. But he cannot be full of the Christ spirit so long as the serpent is coiled around him; and, so long as the mind is fixed upon mundane things, the serpentine coils of life will not relax or let go. The power of Christ, or the intellectual life, is the will — the volitional power of man — only a small fraction of which actuates an individual, while will "per-se" — that which is not individualized — extends infinitely beyond creative bounds. T6 be what you will to be, is to haVe all power; but to be power 152 TKE WAY itself is to be embodied will wherein only is absolute freedom, which cannot be acquired by amthing less than a perfect man. Will, therefore, being superior to sensation, is the deathless principle of life: and, hence, it is the father of it, while desire, or love, is its mother. It follows, therefore, that culture, or the acquisition, cf will is to be desired above all things — and herein is the value of the weakness of love — the mother of life — ^manifest. Surely, weakness supers in giving birth to will, which is the only way of life to freedom and p>ower. Sickness, pain, disease, and death have no place in the strong will, of which the serpent is its lowest manifestation in the mother of life. The Ego is the serpent coiled up in the soul of ever}- per- son, and from himself issues the poison of himian life. But vain is the idea that he can be killed. He is deathless, for all creation rests upon him. He is the big I. and all else is the little you. Is there amthing more contemptible than a senseless Egotist? One who is a boasting bragart — one who loves praise and never tires of self-laudation? .\nd yet we. as pretended followers of the Christ, worship just such a being — and our lives are moulded in a mother poisoned by such slime as his praises. No wonder we are like him — it is the way of life I THE WAY 153 ^Sim 154 THE WAY FUNDAMENTAL LAWS THE ROSE CROSS ORDER For sixty-eight years the Exalted Fraternity of the Rose Cross has met in Sacred Convocation, teaching its neophytes some of the mysteries, and giving them a part of its sacred phil- osophy. This has always been done in secret session, none of the work being allowed to reach the public. During the entire month of June, 1916, the members were again convened in Sacred Convocation. Not only was the secret work conducted as in all preceding Convocations, but lectures, prepared for the Order, were given twice daily. At this Convocation the members voted to publish the les- son-lectures in book form, a certain sum of money being donated by them for this purpose. Many members of the Order were present, several of them coming from foreign countries, others from distant points in the United States. They came to meet each other, to receive the Mystic Degrees and to hear the lectures. MANY HUNDRED DOLLARS WERE PAID OUT BY SOME OF THEM FOR THE PRIVILEGE OF RECEIVING WHAT WE OFFER YOU IN BOOK FORM FOR LESS THAN THE COST OF PUBLICATION. Contents A complete report of the place, and the conferring of the Ancient Degrees "Sons of Osiris." THE GREAT SEAL. For the first time the mystic meaning and significance of the Gi'eat Seal of the United States. This lecture was prepared by Grace Kincaid Morey, a graduate of Oberlin College, who has given many years to the subject. At the request 156 THE \\-AY of legislators, preparations are now being made to issue this lec- ture in booklet form for circulation among senators and members of Congress. A SOUL sciEXCE PRIMER. A lecture covering the funda- mental teachings of the Order of the Illuminati. Thousands of copies of this lecture have been issued in booklet form. It deals convincingly with the four-fold nature of man — Body, Mind, Spirit and Soul. CODE or ETHICS. An outline of a system of instructions for the young, that each child may reach its highest development. SEN'. A question asked throughout the ages. X^'hat consti- tutes sin is ansvrered according to the standards of the Illu- minati. REixcARXATiON. An Outline of what the Order teaches about this great subject. EVOLUTION. The reason of Reincarnation. ixiTiATiON. ^^llat it accomplishes and the teachings of the Order in reference to it. Other Chapters: TELE SECOND C02^IIXG OF CHRIST. AUTHORITY NTRSUS IXDRTDUALITY. PRAYER. BODY, MIND, SPIRIT, SOUL. INV'OCATION OE THE HIERARCHIES. A most important sub- ject for the consideration of the occult student. THE SONS OF OSIRIS. Their work and teachings. A book of 205 pages. Printed on best book paper and beautifullv bound. PRICE $1.25. THE ROSE CROSS COLLEGE The Rose Cross Order held its annual Convocation for 1916 during the month of June. Early in July it became necessar>' THE WAY 157 to call a special Convocation of the Fraternity for the month of October. During the time the Convocation was in extra session, lec- tures were given on subjects of interest and development to those present. Before the Convocation closed it voted that a certain amount of money should be contributed towards the publication of these lectures in book form, to be sold at a reasonable rate to those interested in the great Order, their philosophy and teach- ings. Contents KNIGHTS OF CHR^AXRY, or Order of the Holy Grail. This chapter contains in detail, information concerning the principles and teachings of the Order. Combined with this will be found the mystic interpretation of the storr, "Eros and Psyche," and of ";>.ierlin," one of the Knights of King Arthur's Round Table. TEMPLE DEDICATION SERVICE of the Church of Illumination. For the first time this is given in full, and worth the price of the book to seekers of the Mystic — of Soul Illumination. THE MAGI. A dissertation of the teachings, and the pro- ceedings of the Order of the ^lagi, and "Priests of ^lelchizadek." Those interested in Magian philosophy will profit in the study of this chapter. Lectures OUR WORK. It is imperative that the Illuminati work, not only for the good of the student, but for humanit}' in general. THE CHURCH OF ILLUMINATION. \^'hat Illumination means to the student and to humanity. \Yhat it stands for, and what it teaches. SUCCESS AND F.AiLL'RE. The reason why men and women succeed or fail. Worth the attention of every human being. THE ALL-SEEING EYE. All students of thc occult are inter- 158 THE WAY ested in the inyster>- of the All- Seeing Eye. A broad glimpse of the svTnbolic meaning is given in this chapter. EUGENICS. A comprehensive view of the system of Eugenics taught by the Sacred College. The misen-, as well as happiness, of the world is found in the use or abuse of the creative function. Occult students know the desirability of knowledge on this sub- ject. OBEDIENCE. It is hard for the students of the \^'^stem hemisphere to comprehend the full meaning of this word. It is of extreme importance that instruction be implicitly obeyed during period of development. Reasons given. THE CHiasT BIRTH. Illumination and the Christie Birth have one and the same meaning. A student may reach Illumina- tion if he obeys instructions. THE TO^^T.'R OF THOUGHT. It is impossible to doubt the power of thought. The subject demands serious study that an understanding of the power may be reached. This is a partial list of the contents of the book. 216 large pages, printed on the best book paper and beau- tifully bound in cloth. $1.25 per copy. ORDER AT ONXE. THE SACRED COLLEGE THE AN'CIEXT MYSTERIES The title of this latest book of interpretations will cause the Occult Student more than a thrill of interest. In it will be found the stories of the Knights of Chivalry of the time of King Arthur and the Round Table, and the relation they bear to the Mysteries of the Ancients. The stories of the Knights of the Routid Tabk have never THE WAY 159 ceased to exercise a spell over the reader. In them are found the ICnights who personified the extremes of good and evil and all the intermediate passions. To the ww-initiated, these stories combine human action with the inhabitants of the unseen worlds, with charms and in- carnations. But to the Initiated these tales take on a deeper significance. The M3'Steries and Mythologies they contain are so many keys by which are unlocked strange truths. Besides the interpretations already mentioned, there is an, intensely interesting chapter on Pope's ''Rape of the Lock.'* Pope, a Rosicrucian, placed many occult truths before his read- ers, knowing full well that only the initiated would gain more than a superficial meaning. All the interpretations in this volume are written by a Rosi- crucian in the light of Rosicrucian Lore. Contents THE FETE OF THE ROSES. The Easter or June Festival of the Church of Illumination. Given for the first time. THE RAPE OF THE LOCK. An Interpretation. THE SANGREAL, OR HOLY GRAIL. Its Mystic meaning. SIR GALAHAD. The Icssou he teaches us. SIR GAWAIN. SIR LAUNCELOT. The most faithful of the Knights. SIR PERCEVAL. SIR BOHORT. SIR LAUNCELOT RESUMED. SIR GALAHAD RESUMED. SIR agrivain's TREASON. A Deep Lesson for all students. MORTE d'ARTHUR. The contents of this book formed the instructions given be- fore the students of the Sacred College convened in Sacred Con- vocation during the months of May and June, 1917^ 6^V -7 iB. - e 160 THE WAY Printed on extra fijie 80-lb. book paper, beautifully bound in silk cloth, gold back and side stamp. A real book for the student. $1.25 per copy. ORDER AT ONXE. Address all orders to PHILOSOPHICAL PUBLISHING CO. '•Beverly HaU'' Quakerto'^iMi, Pa. XoTE — A complete catalog of all our publications is in the hands of the printers If interested, let us know so that we may book you for a copy of it.