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 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 

 METAPHYSICAL ESSAYS. 
 
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 By C POST. 
 
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 BOSTON, MASS.: 
 
 FREEDOM PUBLISHING COMPANY. 
 
 1895. 
 
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 COPYRIGHTED, 1895, 
 
 BY 
 
 HELEN WILMANS. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
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 THE FIRST CAUSE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 I will not say that we can understand the beginning 
 or first cause; but evidently it is easier to understand 
 that a Law, or Force, existed by which atoms were 
 drawn to coherence, than to believe that the atoms 
 came together without law. 
 
 It is easier to understand, and more reasonable to 
 believe, that there was a law, or force, by which the 
 primordial atoms were attracted to each other, thus 
 giving existence to forms, than that the atoms took 
 form without law, and afterwards became the creator 
 of law. Therefore it is easier to understand and more 
 reasonable to suppose that the first cause of all things 
 is law, or a force, inherent in atoms, than that "God" is 
 a form or a person from whom all law came. 
 
 Farther back than the law, or the creating force, 
 we cannot reach with our finite understanding; but 
 
4 THE *TRST CAUSE. 
 
 we can understand that the law by which atoms are 
 attracted to each other exists in the very nature of 
 the atom, and that it is coeval with the existence of 
 the atoms. We cannot understand that atoms existed 
 before the law existed; neither can we understand that 
 the law existed before the atoms. The atoms and the 
 law are co-existant. In other words the atoms exist, 
 and it is their nature to want to come into closer con- 
 tact with each other; and thus we prove the existence 
 of the law, and we also see that the one function of 
 the law is to attract. This simple fact will account 
 for all motion and all form, which is the result of 
 motion. 
 
 What is the attracting power then ? Why it is Love 
 and nothing else. The law of life is love. Love is 
 the compacting, the solidifying influence whose nature 
 it is to draw, and upon the drawing power of which 
 every form of life or every object in life has its or- 
 ganization. Force or law is impersonal; it exists 
 independently of organization, though it is the one 
 and only agent of organization. This law which is 
 without form or personality draws together and holds 
 in place all forms. 
 
 Forms are the effect of the action of the law. They 
 
THE FIRST CAUSE. 5 
 
 cannot exist without the law; it therefore follows that 
 "God" did not exist prior to the law, and that he did 
 not create the law. Therefore it is impossible logi- 
 cally to conceive that the first cause is a person, hav- 
 ing a form and the functions of individuality; and no 
 sillier idea ever existed than the belief in this personal 
 God and the creative power attached to him. The idea 
 was born of the utmost ignorance. It came from the 
 mind of an infantile race whose brain was not suf- 
 ficiently developed to project a logical conception in 
 relation to human growth or world growth. 
 
 Totally absurd therefore is the proposition that God 
 is a person, self existing but unchangeable, and gov- 
 erning the universe by edicts as unchangeable as him- 
 self. 
 
 If God is a person it is his changeableness that 
 would declare his personality. If he is a person, he 
 has established laws that must be for his own guid- 
 ance in the government of the universe; he must 
 think, devise, act in accordance with those laws; and 
 it is the very nature of thought and action to pro- 
 duce change. To think means to change; for thought 
 — whether we recognize the fact or not — is the force 
 that everlastingly changes, constructs and recon- 
 
6 THE FIRST CAUSE. 
 
 structs, tears down and builds up again, first in the 
 invisible thought sphere and then in the visible. 
 
 You who have been in the habit of thinking of God 
 as having a form do not conceive of him as doing 
 nothing. To think of him in this way would be 
 to reduce him to the level of a graven image or an 
 Egyptian idol. You do not think of his person as 
 one who having put the universe in harness and in 
 motion, sits down forever and simply lets the thing 
 run. You pray to him to both think and act; to do 
 this and to do that; to stay the plague, and turn aside 
 the lightning stroke; to do a thousand things, the 
 doing of which implies action on his part. 
 
 But thought precedes action. Thought resolves and 
 decides; to do a thing when one has not decided to do 
 it, is to do it by accident. Does God do things by 
 accident? If not, then if he acts at all, it must be by 
 intention. He decides to do, and then he does. 
 
 But before decision comes indecision. If this or 
 that was done by God, not by accident, but because 
 God had decided to do it, then there was a time when 
 he had not decided to do it, when he was undecided 
 whether he would do it or not. Is the God of your 
 conception a God of indecision? 
 
THE FIRST CAUSE. 7 
 
 "But," it is said, "God does not have to decide; does 
 not have to think; he knew everything and ordered 
 everything from the beginning, even to the prayers 
 that would be offered to him, and the manner of their 
 answering." But this again is reducing him to an 
 automaton; self made it is true, but still an automaton, 
 doing that which he himself provided at the first that 
 he should do; this state of things makes him a self- 
 created, self-regulating machine, acting without 
 thought or responsibility or present volition of will, 
 in obedience to a command to himself before he ceased 
 to think. 
 
 Or if this were not true, and if having personality 
 and form, God still thought and acted, then — I repeat 
 — his form must change from year to year and from 
 century to century, for thought produces action and 
 is action in and of itself, and it changes all things all 
 the time unceasingly. 
 
 And then again, a personal God must have limita- 
 tions. Personality implies form, and form is produced 
 by that which limits or holds it within certain boundary 
 lines. The very moment the idea of limitlessness oc- 
 curs to the mind, the idea of personality vanishes. 
 
 But what, some may ask, is the difference, or why 
 
8 THE FIRST CAUSE. 
 
 does it matter whether God or First Cause is a person 
 or a force? God is God in either case. In either case 
 is the power above all other powers — the creator and 
 fashioner of the universe — what odds, then, whether 
 we conceive this power to be possessed of a body or 
 not? 
 
 But it does make a difference. It makes the greatest 
 conceivable difference. It makes the difference which 
 exists between owning ourselves and being owned by 
 another; the difference between master and servant 
 between Life and Death. 
 
 If God has a form and is a person, and if he made 
 the law by which we exist, then are we wholly in his 
 power. Him must we obey forever, and forever must 
 his will be our will. We are his servants and he is our 
 master, and to him must we look for pleasure and for 
 pain, for reward or punishment, for life or for death. 
 If God is a person, his will is supreme; our wills are 
 subject; his will is free; our wills cannot be free; not 
 free to question the law; not free to question God. By 
 his will we exist, by his will we may die. By his will 
 the law of life came; by his will a law of death may 
 come. In all things are our wills subject to his will, 
 and since by his permission we exist, by his command 
 also may we be annihilated. 
 
THE FIRST CAUSE. 9 
 
 Not so of a Law. The existence — the very fact of 
 the existence of a Law by which Life first came to be, 
 makes it forever impossible that death should ever be. 
 
 For if Law is the cause of life, then death can only 
 be where Law is not; and if Law is the First Cause 
 death can never be; for the First Cause must be self- 
 existing and imperishable, and being so, and being the 
 cause of life, life once existing must always continue 
 to exist, and death is forever an impossibility. 
 
 This too: While to a personal God, a First Cause 
 having personality and an individual will — a personal 
 God who created the universe and man for his own 
 personal glory — while to such a God man must for- 
 ever bow down in worshipful obedience, towards Law 
 as the first cause, man stands in a totally different re- 
 lation, and may, by understanding it, make it his 
 servant. 
 
 For while man is nothing, and can do nothing out- 
 side of the law, yet may he through an understanding 
 of the law make its power his own; may compel the 
 law — even the law of which he is the creature — to 
 obey him. 
 
 Electricity is a law or a force in Nature. In Nature, 
 force and law are one; the law itself being the force 
 and the force the law. 
 
10 THE FIRST CAUSE. 
 
 Before men understood the law of electrical force 
 they supposed it to be a god. Thunder, they said, was 
 the voice of the God in anger, and the lightnings 
 the breath of his nostrils with which he consumed 
 his enemies; and they were the slaves and worshipers 
 of this suppositious god. Man has always made a god 
 of that of which he was afraid. 
 
 When man learned that thunder and lightning are 
 caused by electricity, and that electricity is a force or 
 law in Nature, then fear gave place to understanding, 
 and knowing the law of electricity, or so far as he 
 has learned it, he commands it, and is its master in- 
 stead of its slave. Instead of prostrating himself in 
 fear and trembling before it as an angry God, he 
 now stands calmly upright in the presence of a force 
 in Nature which he can control. Instead of humbly 
 craving to know the wishes of another he confidently 
 expresses his own desires. Instead of asking the will 
 of a god, he gives commands to the law, and the law 
 obeys him. The lightnings are chained. Through 
 knowing the law man has made himself master even 
 of the law itself, and bids it fetch and carry as he will. 
 
 The one is a slave, prostrate in the dust at the feet 
 of his God; the other stands majestically forth and 
 
THE FIRST CAUSE. 11 
 
 gives his commands to the Law, himself a god by 
 virtue of his acquired knowledge and power. 
 
 Yet the power and glory of the lightning is not less 
 because man has learned that it is a force and not a 
 person. On the contrary, to the perception of every 
 reasoning being, is its power and goodness and glory 
 magnified a thousand times by knowledge of it — by 
 the knowledge that though its power is sufficient to 
 rend the earth in twain, to thrust the oceans from 
 their beds, the stars from their orbits, yet so gentle is 
 it that a little child with chubby hand upon its mane 
 may guide it where he will. 
 
 Neither is man rendered less just or moral by his 
 change in his relationship from slave to master of the 
 lightnings, but the opposite. 
 
 Every faculty of his being, every attribute of his 
 nature, is enlarged and elevated and refined and im- 
 proved by the change. He is not only a wiser but a 
 better man, more noble, more just, more appreciative 
 of good in nature and in his fellow man as master of 
 the forces of nature, than he ever was or could be of a 
 being whose anger the lightnings represented. 
 
 And what is true of man and one law or force in 
 nature is equally true of man and all laws, the first 
 Great Law not excepted. 
 
12 THE FIRST CAUSE. 
 
 Looking upon God as a person who has created the 
 universe including man, for his own special benefit, 
 or glory, man sees in his creator a rightful master 
 whose ways he may not question, whose laws he has 
 no right to meddle with, no authority to direct, no 
 power to control. To such a creator man's whole 
 duty is expressed in the two words — unquestioning 
 obedience — which mean submission without seeking 
 to know either the law, the object of the law, or the 
 result likely to follow either obedience or a refusal to 
 obey. 
 
 Before the Law as first cause, before an impersonal 
 instead of a personal Force, man feels his relations 
 changed and himself free. Free to question, free to 
 act, free to command, free to climb to any heights, 
 free to prospect to any depths, free to aspire to any 
 good, to hope for anything, for all things that are in 
 the law, even the powers and goodness of the law 
 itself. 
 
 Yet more. As before a personal god it is man's duty 
 to bow in humble obedience, in the presence of an im- 
 personal force it is his duty to command. 
 
 If God is a person then man is for his use. 
 
 If God is an impersonal force then it exists for the 
 
THE FIRST CAUSE. 13 
 
 use of the highest personal expression of itself, which 
 is man. 
 
 Rights attach to persons. Impersonalities have no 
 rights. 
 
 As between man and a personal God, God has all the 
 rights and man has no rights, but only duties, the duty 
 of obedience. 
 
 As between an impersonal God or a force in Nature 
 and man, man has all the rights and God has none. 
 
 Rights attach only to beings possessed of the ability 
 to desire, to experience pleasure and pain, to like and 
 dislike. 
 
 If God is a person then he has desires, likes and 
 dislikes, and can know pleasure and pain, consequently 
 has rights, and as the Creator of all things can owe 
 no duty of obedience to any one or any thing; so man 
 the Creature can have no rights with relation to his 
 personal Creator but only the duty of obedience. 
 
 But if the Creative power be an impersonal force it 
 is without the ability to feel pleasure or pain, conse- 
 quently has no rights, these having passed to man 
 when he was endowed by the law with ability to know 
 pleasure and pain; while the duty of obedience, if the 
 word is longer a proper one* to use in this relation, is 
 
14 THE FIRST CAUSE. 
 
 now with the law, the relations of the two being re- 
 versed, leaving with man the right to command, and 
 with the Law the duty of obedience. 
 
 There is no blasphemy nor irreverence for the Crea- 
 tive power in all this. It is but a logical deduction of 
 the relations existing between man and the forces in 
 nature by which all things — man included — exist. 
 That both the premise and the reasoning are correct 
 is proven by every advance which man has made in 
 the understanding and control of the forces of nature 
 since his advent upon the earth. 
 
 Whoever understands the law may command it. 
 Whoever understands the forces of nature may control 
 nature. Do not men by knowing the law of hybridi- 
 zation produce new strains of flowers ? new vegeta- 
 bles? new fruits? Do they not control the lightnings 
 through a knowledge of the law of electricity, and 
 are not the powers of steam theirs to command through 
 a knowledge of the law which makes and controls 
 steam? Are not the powers of the mightiest rivers 
 man's, and do not the winds fetch and carry for him? 
 And when man shall have grown to a full knowledge 
 of the law which holds the planets in their orbits this 
 law also shall obey him, and he shall command it as 
 
THE FIKST CAUSE. 15 
 
 he compels the winds and the waves and the lightnings 
 to do his will now. 
 
 The right to command is the prize which nature ever 
 holds up before the eyes of her best loved children, 
 men, tempting them constantly to higher knowledge, 
 which means greater personal power. 
 
 It is the premium which Nature offers as a reward 
 to the courageous, the diligent,/ the hopeful, the pa- 
 tient, the persevering among the sons of men. It is the 
 reward of merit to those who dare most and climb 
 highest, who have most faith in themselves because of 
 so great faith in the possibilities of the Law; to those 
 who magnify the law by proving how great men may 
 become; who honor the law by earnestly seeking to 
 understand it that they may command it to the up- 
 building of self. These prizes are everywhere. Wher- 
 ever a law in nature is hidden there also is hidden the 
 prize for him who shall search out the law. In earth 
 and sea and sky are the prizes concealed. The thun- 
 ders tell of them; the sea raves of them; the inter- 
 stellar spaces are full of them. 
 
 The law is no niggard in the giving of rewards. 
 The law exists but for the service of man. The law 
 yields its power to him who most asserts his equality 
 
16 THE FIRST CAUSE. 
 
 with it by striving to understand it. It rewards him, 
 and him only who seeks to know and to command it. 
 In this faith have I sought truth, and in this knowl- 
 edge have I written. 
 
LIFE. 17 
 
 LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 That which we understand as life in its varied forms 
 6i plant and animal is but different forms of expres- 
 sion of the one life — the Law. 
 
 There is but one life, one law. Search the universe 
 of worlds and we find system after system each with 
 its separate planets revolving about their central sun, 
 and each system but one of many similar systems re- 
 volving about a common center, which center with its 
 greater systems revolves in turn about a still greater 
 center; until contemplating them we are lost in specu- 
 lative wonderment — as they are themselves lost in 
 infinitude. 
 
 Such is the law of the Magnitudes, and the Law of 
 the Minutia is the same. Every atom, every molecule, 
 even the particles of inter-stellar space are subject to 
 the same law; each is a planet in some system of 
 
18 LIFE. 
 
 worlds with its center of revolution about which it 
 continually whirls. 
 
 The law which governs the universe of worlds and 
 the universe of atoms is one and the same; it is the 
 one Life in motion, the one love seeking expression; 
 and all things that appear to us as wearing form are 
 its manifold manifestations. 
 
 It appears to me that the most expressive term for 
 use in speaking of this universal life or law is "Energy"; 
 giving it of course the scientific meaning. This uni- 
 versal Life or Law, or "Energy" permeates all things, 
 is in all things, is the life — the vital force of all 
 things. 
 
 Since it is impossible that anything less than the 
 whole can contain the whole, it is impossible to fully 
 comprehend, and difficult to find terms in which to ex- 
 press our understanding of the universal Life or 
 Energy; but again it appears to me that a good word 
 to express our conception of its workings is the term 
 "Automatic." It is of course much more than this, 
 for it is self-existing. It is that which always was, 
 and is indestructible. 
 
 It is that power which is, and it is all the power 
 there is. It is nature, and it is that principle in na- 
 
LIFE. 19 
 
 ture which causes the acorn to germinate and the tree 
 to put forth its leaves; and it is in the dead branch 
 equally with the springing shoot, the opening flower 
 or the ripened fruit. 
 
 In the living tree it is working to perfect the fruit 
 of that tree; in the dead branch it is just as certainly 
 working to produce some other form of expression 
 of itself; some vegetable or animal that shall be of a 
 higher organization, and hence a fuller expression of 
 itself — the one life, the universal Energy. Hence, I 
 say, it works automatically. Nothing hinders, noth- 
 ing delays. Nothing can interfere with its perfect 
 working to the one end for which it exists — which is 
 expression of itself. 
 
 The instant that the branch ceases to receive more 
 of Life, that instant, without the slightest disturbance 
 to any other portion of the universal energy, without 
 jar or friction anywhere in all the universe, begins as 
 it were, automatically, the change to a new form of 
 life, or more correctly a reorganization of old forms. 
 For in fact life never leaves the branch for an instant, 
 not for any conceivable or inconceivable space of time. 
 If it is no longer the life of the branch, the branch 
 having recognized all of life possible to that form, the 
 
20 LIFE. 
 
 universal Life, intent upon giving itself, upon finding 
 further and higher expressions of itself, is compelled 
 by the law of its existence, the law by which, and in 
 which, it is, to change from the form of the branch 
 which could no longer receive or express more of it, to 
 some other form or forms which can. 
 
 If it were not to do this then Life itself would lose 
 a part of itself; then Life itself might die, Life which 
 is that power men call God. 
 
 This cannot be because there is no dying; that 
 which we call death being simply a change in the form 
 through which life obtains expression. 
 
 Thus life is constantly casting off old and taking on 
 new forms; new in relation to the individual, or the 
 species or both. What is true of the trees and plants 
 in this respect is true also of animal life, including man. 
 
 When the individual man has reached the limit of 
 his ability to give expression to the universal Energy 
 he dies, and the same with nations and races of men. 
 
 It is the immutable law of Life that he who will not, 
 or cannot, accept of more shall have less — for since 
 life cannot cease, even for an instant to give itself, 
 that form of organization which fails but for an instant 
 to receive more, must perish in order that a new form 
 
LIFE. 21 
 
 may take its place and by receiving life enable Life to 
 express itself. 
 
 The reverse truth of this proposition would appear 
 to be, that so long as man, or any other form of organi- 
 zation, continued to grow in ability to recognize life, 
 life might continue to flow into and sustain that form. 
 For since its sole purpose is to give itself, why should 
 it refuse to give when ability to recognize exists ? In- 
 deed it cannot; so long as any form of organization con- 
 tinues to increase in ability to comprehend the Law, 
 just so long must the law sustain that organization; 
 and in proportion as any organization continues to 
 grow into fuller recognition of life, just that long is 
 life compelled to flow to and sustain it; until arrived at 
 the point of intelligent comprehension of the law 
 which is spoken of as "being at one with God" it can 
 command the law; and can, by the exercise of its indi- 
 vidual will, change its form to suit its individual desires, 
 being no longer the servant but the master of the law. 
 
 Whether the individual ego retains its separate and 
 independent existence after the death of its visible 
 form is a question for speculation. 
 
 Since it is a different expression of the universal 
 energy from that of any other ego, it would appear 
 
22 LIFE. 
 
 that it might do so, especially so in the higher order 
 of expression as in man, when a broader consciousness 
 of both the individual and the universal life has been 
 reached. 
 
 A speculative thought purely, is that the ego of each 
 individual plant or animal may unite at the death of 
 its outward form with the ego of others of its own 
 order of intelligence and become one and the same 
 ego up to that period where it becomes sufficiently 
 conscious of its abilty to command the Law, to will 
 its continuance as an entirely separate and distinct 
 organization — the time when it may command as well 
 as obey the law. 
 
 We cannot of course conceive of the beginning of 
 the universal energy, but this does not appear to me 
 to preclude us from conceiving of the beginning of a 
 personal ego as expressed in man, or any of ihe lower 
 orders of animals or plants. 
 
 All the forms of life that exist are but varying ex- 
 pressions of the universal Life or Energy. Each has 
 its own ego, its particle of the One Energy, yet each 
 has a personality of its own and an organization which 
 changes with its increasing recognition of the source 
 of its being, until unable to recognize (hence to re- 
 
LIFE. 23 
 
 ceive) more of life, it must be reorganized through 
 what we call death. 
 
 The ego, however, may not perish with the outward 
 form. There seems to be the best of reasons for be- 
 lieving that it does not. But what becomes of it after 
 death? Does it return to the unseen life to become one 
 with another ego which has also lost what we call its 
 form, and so form a new and distinct ego possessed of 
 the experience and intelligence of the two, and thus be- 
 come a higher and better expression of the central ego 
 than when separate? Something, for lack of a better 
 simile, as two chemicals unite to form a new one. 
 
 If this is not supposable then what are we to think 
 of the lower orders? 
 
 Do they cease all existence as organized entities? 
 Can an ego be annihilated; become again an unex- 
 pressed part of the universal life? If so then what 
 assurance have we that it may not be true of man as 
 well as of the lower organizations? 
 
 It does not appear reasonable that it can be in 
 either case, since it would apparently mean loss; a 
 failure on the part of nature-life to accomplish its 
 work of growth in the visible sphere. It would be 
 effort lost, and in the economy of the Law there can- 
 not be such a thing. 
 
24 LIFE. 
 
 Is it not more reasonable and logical to suppose 
 that those egos which express less of the universal 
 life unite at the death of the outward form as sug- 
 gested, and so continue doing until, having arrived 
 at the point when a comprehension of the law has 
 become possible to them, there comes also the will, 
 accompanied by that saving faith in the perfection 
 of the law which enables them to retain their indi- 
 viduality; and is not this the beginning of true self- 
 hood and of immortality in the flesh ? 
 
 I see nothing in such a supposition antagonistic to 
 the accepted theory of evolution, from which stand- 
 point much of the argument upon metaphysical sub- 
 jects in what is called their practical application, 
 appears to be discussed. On the contrary it appears 
 to me to be in perfect accord with such theories of the 
 advancement from the lower to the higher forms of 
 physical life, and rather to add new weight to the 
 evolution of such theories. 
 
 As to the value of any or all such speculations as 
 these I leave each reader to judge for himself, with the 
 simple suggestion th^.t all truth of which we are pos- 
 sessed was but supposition once, and that any logical 
 assumption that seemingly gives us a clue to the road 
 
LIFE. 25 
 
 over which we have come in our upward climb must 
 be of value in our farther progress. 
 
 Truth cannot but be beautiful, and if it appears 
 not so to us, it is because of a veil over our eyes which 
 prevents us from seeing clearly. 
 
 Let us not therefore reject without investigation, 
 that which gives a reasonable assurance of being truth 
 because it does not harmonize with our previous con- 
 ception of the beauty of truth, but rather let us seek 
 a closer inspection, knowing that if it be truth indeed, 
 its beauty and goodness will speedily become apparent 
 to our eyes. 
 
26 INDIVIDUAL LIFE — UNIVERSAL ENERGY. 
 
 INDIVIDUAL LIFE— UNIVERSAL ENERGY. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Whatever may be the conclusions to which our spec- 
 ulations lead us with regard to the reincarnation of 
 either the lower or higher expressions of the universal 
 energy, the relation of the individual to the source of 
 all life remains the same. 
 
 An arm of the sea is not the sea, but as the smaller 
 body connected with the larger by a channel deep as 
 the deepest soundings of the larger can never be 
 emptied, so the individual ego, because of its connec- 
 tion with the universal life, can never cease to exist. 
 
 If the connection between the sea and its arm be 
 closed, the smaller body will in time lose its waters, 
 but only that through the process of nature they may 
 return to the parent body, the sea. 
 
 By the removal of a portion of its shore the arm 
 may cease to exist as an arm and become an unindi- 
 
INDIVIDUAL LIFE — UNIVERSAL ENERGY. 27 
 
 vidualized portion of the sea; an indistinguishable part 
 of it; but in no case can its waters be lost or destroyed. 
 
 May the human ego, at the death of the body, or 
 through a refusal, at any period of its existence to put 
 forth effort to preserve its connection with the source 
 of all life, or when it shall have made the full round 
 of existence necessary to complete its experience — 
 may an ego once individualized as in man, from any 
 cause return to the source of its begetting, lose its in- 
 dividuality in, and become an indistinguishable part 
 of the universal Life ? 
 
 If, as I have ventured to assert, the sole function of 
 the universal energy is to express itself, and if this 
 can only be done through individualized forms, as the 
 parent gives expression to its offspring, then the ab- 
 sorption or reabsorption into itself of an individualized 
 ego, while that ego yet continued to groiv, would appear 
 to be a mistake on the part of the universal life. 
 
 And especially would it appear a mistake if the ego 
 thus absorbed was one of its higher expressions; a per- 
 fect or comparatively perfected expression of itself? 
 
 Since the universal energy contains within itself 
 all that is, there can nothing be added to it by the ab- 
 sorption of an individualized ego, that being but one 
 expression of itself. 
 
28 INDIVIDUAL LIFE — UNIVERSAL ENERGY. 
 
 The whole cannot be increased by the addition of 
 its parts; and since it is through individualized egos 
 that expression and recognition are obtained by the 
 universal life, to have raised an individualized ego 
 through manifold incarnations to that condition of 
 p£ rf ectness where it is best capable both of expressing 
 and recognizing the source from whence it draws its 
 existence, and then to reabsorb it would appear to 
 human wisdom an illogical sequence and a foolish 
 thing to do. It would be the loss to the universal 
 energy of that expression of itself which gave it most 
 perfect recognition — the extinction of that which 
 through ages and cycles of time it had given itself to 
 upbuild, and at the very point where it best served the 
 purpose of its upbuilding. 
 
 Clearly there can be no destruction of the human 
 ego; no reabsorption of it by the universal energy 
 when once the ego has proved its ability to give ex- 
 pression and recognition thereto, or so long as it 
 continues to do so; to cease to love when love is 
 sweetest, to cease to live when life is most full, 
 most perfect, to be reabsorbed into and become an unin- 
 dividualized and unexpressed portion of life when the 
 beauty of individual life and expression is most clearly 
 
INDIVIDUAL LIFE— UNIVERSAL ENERGY. 29 
 
 discerned does not seem consistent with what we 
 know of the method of the law. 
 
 I am pleased to be able to believe that the more in- 
 telligent and thoughtful among the theosophists do 
 not accept the idea that the final and supreme reward 
 of those who, through obedience to the law, reach the 
 highest pinnacle of knowledge and goodness are reab- 
 sorbed into the universal life, but that they under- 
 stand, as we do, that the state or condition of Nervana 
 is that of having arrived at such perfect knowledge of 
 "God," the Law, the universal Life, as brings perfect 
 peace, perfect love — a condition or state where, with- 
 out ceasing to advance in knowledge and hence in 
 ability to give expression to the Law, our being is in 
 perfect harmony with it. A condition where the indi- 
 vidual ego sees so clearly its connection with the first 
 cause that all fear is banished, and a feeling of peace 
 which passeth our present ability to understand 
 settles down upon it and envelopes it. 
 
 It is such a perfection of the understanding as brings 
 to the ego equal confidence and respect for itself and 
 the source whence it came. Of the father as father 
 of itself, and of itself as the begotten of its father. It 
 is a perfected recognition of the greatness and good- 
 
30 INDIVIDUAL LIFE — UNIVERSAL ENERGY. 
 
 ness, the omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence 
 of the Law, both as master and as servant. It is the 
 knowledge that in serving we are served — that while 
 we obey we also command — the perfection of under- 
 standing which comes where, through labor and 
 through faith,, the individual ego has made itself mas- 
 ter of the universal energy. 
 
 This, and not the loss of this, not a return to an 
 impersonal existence is fitting reward for the soul that 
 conquers. 
 
 The reabsorption into the universal life, of that in- 
 dividualized ego which refuses to put forth effort for 
 its own upbuilding by the acquisition of knowledge of 
 the source of its existence, appears more reasonable, 
 more in harmony with our conception of justice and 
 of the Law. The contemplation of this latter propo- 
 sition was indulged in by Jesus of Nazareth, and 
 the parable of the talents was used as a means of im- 
 pressing it upon the minds of his disciples. 
 
 The servant who had the one talent indolently hid 
 it away, refusing to put forth any effort to add to that 
 which was given him. He had received a portion of 
 that which commands all things. He was an expres- 
 sion of the universal energy, of truth, of Law, of Life; 
 
INDIVIDUAL LIFE — UNIVERSAL ENERGY. 31 
 
 but he made no effort to add to what he had. He 
 garnered no truth, made no use of the energy which 
 was within him; made no attempt to keep open the 
 communication between himself and the sea of life 
 whence he drew life. He was declared an unprofitable 
 servant; and that which had been given was with- 
 drawn from him. Since he would not put forth an 
 effort to fit himself to receive more of life he must 
 take less, take none. From him who will not accept 
 more of that which the universal energy has to give, 
 namely itself, shall be taken that which he hath. 
 
 We grow by our efforts to recognize truth. "Life" 
 and "growth" are nearly synonymous terms. Noth- 
 ing continues long to live after it has ceased in some 
 manner to grow, and to this law the human ego is no 
 exception. Upon the first leaf of the statute books of 
 the gods is proclamation of the death sentence to be 
 executed upon all things both great and small that 
 shall fail, daily and hourly, to show forth the mag- 
 nificence and the munificence of the gods, and never 
 yet have they granted commutation of sentence to 
 any. 
 
 When the branch of a tree no longer possesses 
 enough of life to put forth new leaves in spring time, 
 
32 INDIVIDUAL LIFE — UNIVERSAL ENERGY. 
 
 it dies and drops from the parent stem. When the 
 tree itself ceases to put forth buds it dies, and its fibers 
 become food for other growths. As the law of the 
 miiiutia so is the law of the magnitudes; the law of 
 life and of death to the branch, the tree and the hu- 
 
 man ego is the same. 
 
 At least it would appear to follow logically, since 
 the purpose of the Law is to find expression for itself, 
 that the same law of change, of death, or what we call 
 death, would govern in the higher as in the lower ex- 
 pression, and that the ego which refused through lack 
 of faith, through imbibed or inherited prejudice, or 
 from any cause whatever to put forth an effort to 
 grow in knowledge of the truth should perish as to its 
 individuality — that all that gave it value, its life, 
 might return to the source of all life and thus be not 
 lost. 
 
 There is no room in the economy of nature for 
 death, and that which is stagnant is dead. 
 
 The universal life exists but to express itself, and 
 is inexorable in its demands for expression. If it were 
 possible. that any offshoot of itself, any of its children, 
 any individualized ego, could fail to continue to re- 
 ceive and express more of it, more of the truth, more 
 
INDIVIDUAL LIFE — UNIVERSAL ENERGY. 33 
 
 of life, it, like the dead branch must fall, and by the 
 same law, and with equal justice. And as the dead 
 branch returns to the earth in which it had its roots, 
 so the unfaithful ego must return whence it came and 
 become again an indistinguishable part of the uni- 
 versal life or law. 
 
 That this is in accord with theories of the old mys- 
 tics, of whose teachings the Bible is a very imperfect 
 and therefore comparatively valueless record, is as 
 easily proven from its pages as any one of the hun- 
 dreds of other theories that have been satisfactorily 
 argued and found acceptable to as many thousands of 
 people. 
 
 The pity of it is that the teachings of Jesus and of 
 his school of metaphysical philosophers have been so 
 evidently marred by the ignorance and prejudice, not 
 to use harsher terms, both of their biographers and 
 the translators, that nobody knows what they really 
 did teach, or what demonstrated facts they had to sus- 
 tain their teachings. 
 
 When priests and teachers of the different religious 
 dogmas shall have learned that truth is indeed the 
 one pearl of greatest price, and shall begin in earnest 
 to search for it, we may possibly arrive at some 
 
34 INDIVIDUAL LIFE — UNIVERSAL ENERGY. 
 
 knowledge of what those evidently great thinkers and 
 pure minds really did mean, and be the gainers thereby. 
 
 If, then, our premise and our reasoning is correct, 
 the relation of the individual ego to the universal 
 energy corresponds to that of the arm of the sea, 
 to the sea itself. It is a part of it and yet not it. It 
 draws its existence from it, and is as indestructible in 
 its essence, though not in its personality. 
 
 As the arm of the sea may lose its existence as such 
 by giving up its waters to be returned to the ocean, 
 its source and life, so the individual ego may lose its 
 personality, though its essence cannot be lost. 
 
 By shutting itself off from the parent body the arm 
 of the sea may lose its waters, may become stagnant 
 and perish by absorption and seepage, but its waters 
 will return by natural process to the ocean, the great 
 reservoir of waters. Even so it would appear that the 
 ego of man cutting itself off fruxii the ocean of life, 
 if such a thins: were possible, might perish as a human 
 ego through absorption into the source of all life. 
 
 Open the mind to the reception of new truth and the 
 truth will flow in. 
 
 Truth, Life, the universal energy, must give itself 
 in order that, by giving, it may find expression and 
 
INDIVIDUAL LIFE— UNIVERSAL ENERGY. 35 
 
 recognition of itself; and wherever the passage-way to 
 expression is open, there it enters even as the waters of 
 the sea fill the bay and the arms of the sea. 
 
 Shut the door to truth; put up the bars of superstition 
 and fear, nail them fast with the spikes of predjuice, 
 and heap about them the dogmas of a religion from 
 which the soul has fled, and you have barred out the 
 life receiving current of energy ; the tide from the ocean 
 of life can not enter, and stagnation and death, even 
 the death of the ego follows, or would follow if the 
 lack of effort were total and complete. 
 
 - x^ijfrX^gfr *^— 
 
36 OF MATTER, LIFE, MIND AND SPIKIT. 
 
 OF MATTER, LIFE, MIND AND SPIRIT. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Matter, in the commonly accepted meaning of the 
 word; is that alone which is visible or tangible, that 
 which can be perceived by the sense of sight or touch; 
 something that can be weighed or estimated. In fact 
 this is about the definition which the leading lexico- 
 graphers give of the word. A sufficient one for com- 
 mon use doubtless, but still one that gives very little 
 idea of what matter really is. 
 
 Nor does the materialist greatly improve upon it by 
 asserting that not only such objects as are tangible 
 are properly classed as matter, but that matter is all 
 that there is or can be proven to exist, unless he goes 
 further and explains more. Such definition is simply 
 the contradiction, without logical proof, of the asser- 
 tion of the Christian Scientist, that there is no matter, 
 
OF MATTER, LIFE, MIND AND SPIRIT. 37 
 
 but only spirit; that matter, so-called, is an illusion, 
 a chimera, "the baseless fabric of a dream." 
 
 Since the words ''matter" and "spirit" may be 
 purely arbitrary terms used by different individuals or 
 schools, and express their ideas or conceptions only, a 
 fuller definition of their accepted meaning must be 
 had before one may venture either to deny or affirm 
 the correctness of the position of either he who denies 
 the existence of matter, or he who denies the existence 
 of spirit. To me, matter appears to be the outward ex- 
 pression of the Law of the Universal Energy. 
 
 If so, then matter is in a sense all that there is, and 
 with proper interpretation of meaning the assertion 
 of the materialistic school of thinkers is correct; for a 
 thing and the expression of that thing can well be 
 said to be the same, since it is only through expression 
 that it becomes knowable. In this sense, at least, its 
 expression is it. 
 
 Matter exists wherever the Law — the Universal En- 
 ergy — has given expression to itself; and since there 
 is no spot or place where such expression is not made, 
 there is no place where matter is not. 
 
 What we call space is as much an expression of en- 
 ergy as are the planets that have their orbits within 
 
38 OF MATTER, LIFE, MINT) AST!) SPIRIT. 
 
 it; hence matter must fill space; or, to speak more 
 correctly, there is in reality no space, but only matter. 
 
 Matter exists wherever the Universal Energy has 
 found expression, and unless we can discover some 
 spot where energy or cause is not, we are compelled 
 to recognize the presence everywhere of matter. 
 
 Matter is omnipresent; it is everywhere, as much as 
 spirit, as the Law itself. 
 
 Not only is that matter which we commonly call 
 "tangible," as being subject to the so called law of 
 gravitation, but those finer (to our preceptions) ex- 
 pressions of the Universal Energy, which we call 
 mind and life, are equally matter. 
 
 The fact that we cannot discern the animalcula in 
 water with the naked eye does not disprove the exist- 
 ence of animalcula; neither does the fact that we can- 
 not perceive the atoms in a current of electricity prove 
 that it is not atomed — that it is not matter. 
 
 With a glass of sufficient magnifying power ani- 
 malcula may not only be seen in numbers in a single 
 drop of water, but their movements in search of food 
 or pleasure may be observed, and the different organs 
 of their bodies examined. What reason, then, have 
 we to suppose that those elements which are more 
 
OF MATTER, LIFE, MIND AND SPIRIT. 39 
 
 fluid than water, as electricity, magnetism, etc., are 
 not also not only particled, but their particles the 
 home of animated life? Clearly none. On the con- 
 trary, the more we investigate and reason upon the 
 subject the more plainly do we perceive that magni- 
 tudes are unknown to the Law; that as the ocean's 
 waters are but an accumulation of drops of liquid 
 matter, and the mountain ranges but an assemblage 
 of atoms in a more solid state, so is all life but an 
 aggregation of lives, and all matter but life expressed 
 in forms. 
 
 The cells that constitute the human body and the 
 body of all animals have an existence separate from, 
 though united, in the body; and each globule of blood 
 is a living entity, if not the home of other entities. 
 
 The facetious individual who asserted that — 
 
 "Fleas have other fleas to bite 'em, 
 
 And these have other fleas, ad infinitum/ ' 
 
 may not have been a discoverer of truth, but he was 
 most certainly a promulgator of it; for so far as 
 human research or reason can carry us there is no limit 
 to the minuteness of animated life, hence of material 
 form of matter; and reasoning upon this line we may 
 well come to the position of the materialist, that 
 u there is nothing outside of matter." 
 
40 OP MATTER, LIFE, MIND AND SPIRIT. 
 
 We must not, however, stop here, for we have yet 
 to examine and compare with what we have already- 
 discovered, the assertion of the Christian Scientist who, 
 instead of agreeing, appears to assert the exact oppo- 
 site; that so far from there being nothing but matter, 
 matter is nothing, and there is only spirit. 
 
 As I asserted in a former essay, there is no death. 
 
 Never for any conceivable or inconceivable space 
 of time does life, active, intelligent life, or effort cease 
 in any particle of matter. 
 
 The same instant that the branch ceases to appro- 
 priate life as a branch, that instant life in some other 
 form succeeds it. 
 
 The process of what is called fomentation has long 
 been known to be but the springing into life and ac- 
 tivity of animalcules, and is one of the common phases 
 and proofs of evolutionary law. 
 
 The necessity to the Universal Energy for expres- 
 sion renders it absolutely impossible that death (which 
 if it could exist would be the absence of Energy) 
 should ever be. 
 
 Matter, I repeat, is the outward expression of the 
 Universal Energy, and does not and cannot exist ex- 
 cept as such expression; and unless energy can die, 
 there can be no death of matter. 
 
OF MATTER, LIFE, MIND AND SPIRIT. 41 
 
 In their final analysis, Death and Life are one and 
 the same, for they each have, and can have but the 
 one signification common to both, namely, — change, 
 growth, — the change from one form of life or energy 
 to another form. 
 
 Again, since the Universal Energy is universal and 
 fills all things, is omnipresent, and being omnipresent 
 must everywhere give expression to itself, therefore 
 is matter omnipresent also; i. e., all that is is ma- 
 terial. 
 
 Mind and life are, equally with matter, expressions 
 of the law, the Universal Energy. They differ from 
 matter as the forces which feed the branch differ from 
 the branch; as the waters of ocean or river differ from 
 the ocean or river. 
 
 As the forces which feed the branch, and which are 
 drawn from the earth wherein the tree has its roots, 
 are material, so is life material. 
 
 As the waters of the ocean constitute the ocean and 
 is yet water, so does life constitute matter without 
 ceasing to be life. 
 
 Water cannot exist save in the form of drops. 
 
 The drops may be very small and we call them 
 moisture. They may be larger and ascend as mist, or 
 
42 OF MATTER, LIFE, MIND AND SPIRIT. 
 
 descend as rain. They may form springs, creeks, 
 rivers, the ocean, but they are still water, differing 
 only in their form of expression, — are water in differ- 
 ent arrangement, different relations. 
 
 In much the same way matter is life expressed in 
 different ways, in different forms. 
 
 Matter cannot come into existence except life be to 
 it both father and mother; be the creative power. 
 
 It cannot exist without life more than the ocean 
 or river could be without water. 
 
 Neither can life be, save it exist in matter, more 
 than water can exist without moisture. 
 
 Life and matter are equally expressions of the one 
 Universal Energy. Their source is the same, and they 
 are never separated. Life, like matter, is omnipresent. 
 Life and matter are one. They cannot be separated; 
 they are indivisible. 
 
 If they differ in forms or modes of expression, you 
 yet cannot take the one and leave the other, more than 
 you can take the water of the river and leave the 
 river, or take the ocean and leave the waters of the 
 ocean. 
 
 You cannot do so much; for if you took the water 
 of the river there would still remain its former chan- 
 
OF MATTER, LIFE, MIND AND SPIRIT. 43 
 
 nel; or if the water of the ocean be removed there 
 will remain its bed. But you cannot take life from 
 matter, neither matter from life, for both are parts of 
 infinity — of the Universal Energy, and it has no 
 shores, nor bed. 
 
 It is life, the same. 
 
 The river of life is without banks; the ocean of 
 matter without a bed and without shores. These can- 
 not be taken from the ocean of matter save it add to 
 the river of life ; neither from the river of life except 
 to place in the ocean of matter, and it is shore- 
 less. There are no banks between the two. The cur- 
 rent of the river of life runs only through the ocean 
 of matter, and ocean and river are one. 
 
 As the waters of ocean are a part of the ocean, and 
 their currents equally a part of both, each separate 
 yet all in one, so is life in matter, and mind in both, 
 and all in one. 
 
 Mind, life, matter — three in one, and that one 
 spirit, the Law, the Universal Energy, the first cause. 
 
44 THOUGHT. 
 
 THOUGHT. 
 
 CHAPTEK Y. 
 
 Thought appears in some manner to be dependent 
 upon form, organization. 
 
 So far as we have any evidence received from the 
 senses it is an emanation flowing from matter, arranged 
 in certain forms, its form depending upon the manner 
 of the organization and the firmness of the structure. 
 
 To state the same thing in reverse form I would say 
 that matter of a certain character and firmness, ar- 
 ranged in certain forms, generates thought, or at least 
 becomes capable of doing so when acted upon by the 
 will. 
 
 There is nothing particularly strange or new in such 
 supposition. 
 
 Matter in the form of a crystal, whether natural or 
 artificial, has long been known to exist as a force not 
 
THOUGHT. 45 
 
 unlike that of the magnet in some of its effects, al- 
 though unlike it in others; the crystal apparently 
 possessing some but not all the properties of the mag- 
 net; and these properties depend upon the manner of 
 the arrangement of its particles, rather than in the 
 matter of which its particles consist. 
 
 One does not have to be a phrenologist to perceive 
 that the ability to think is dependent in a measure at 
 least upon the arrangement of the brain. 
 
 Through all the animal race including man it ap- 
 pears as the invariable rule that heads of a certain 
 shape contain brains capable of greater power of 
 thought than of any other shape; and that, though the 
 power of greater thought may be shared in some slight 
 degree with other portions of the body, as the medulla 
 oblongata, or medula spinalis (spinal column) yet up- 
 on form and manner of arrangement of that of which 
 the form is composed, depends the power to evolve 
 thought. 
 
 Matter thus arranged in certain forms and possess- 
 ing perhaps certain qualities constitutes a thought 
 machine. Just as certain other matter arranged in 
 certain forms constitutes an electric machine. A think- 
 ing machine does not however necessarily evolve 
 
46 THOUGHT. 
 
 thought. It is simply capable of doing so when played 
 upon by the will. The will which has flowed in upon 
 the ego of the individual and which it is its to use to 
 the extent of its ability to comprehend its relations 
 to the infinite — the universal Ego. 
 
 We will to think. We will that thought should 
 move properly; go from us. We create thought or 
 evolve it by the action of the will upon the thinking 
 machine, the thought battery composed of certain 
 matter arranged in certain form, and possessing possi- 
 bly some peculiar chemical properties in the different 
 particles. Thought therefore has form, and the same 
 thought will doubtless possess the same form no mat- 
 ter by what thought machine it is evolved; just as the 
 same note of the chromatic scale has the same sound 
 no matter by whom it is struck. 
 
 By what laws thought is governed, by what forces 
 affected, or what the medium through which it makes 
 its impressions upon other forces is unknown to us, 
 but is not unknowable, and will sometime be known. 
 That it is a fluid not altogether unlike magnetism, 
 or electricity, or the force evolved by crystals is more 
 than possible, is probable. It possesses the same 
 power of passing through solids as is possessed by 
 
THOUGHT. 47 
 
 magnetism and the force emitted by crystals. Whether 
 it is at all limited by space in any degree is question- 
 able. Certainly the limits of our own globe are as 
 nothing to it, and in all probability its limit is only 
 that of the understanding and faith of the intelligence 
 and will that directs it. 
 
 Instances of thought transference, or the impressions 
 upon the brain of one person, of the thought sent forth 
 by another person, are not only numerously authenti- 
 cated but they are of such common occurrence that 
 no one who is at all observent can fail to notice 
 them in his daily intercourse with his fellows. The 
 only reason they have not been observed more com- 
 monly is because the possibility of their occurring has 
 never been entertained by the masses of the people, or 
 even admitted by the so-called scientists, until recently; 
 but anyone who feels sufficient interest in the matter 
 to do it, can easily prove the fact of thought trans- 
 ference for himself by noticing how frequently the 
 same form of thought is felt in the mind of himself 
 and his companion at apparently the same moment, 
 or in the one but so short a time before the other, that 
 the organs of speech of the one cannot put the thought 
 into words before the other brain has received it. 
 
48 THOUGHT. 
 
 In such cases the thought form may have originated 
 in the brain of one of the two persons present at 
 the moment, and been transferred to the other, or it 
 may have been a thought form emitted by a brain a 
 thousand miles distant, and have reached the two 
 brains at the same instant. 
 
 We are unquestionably surrounded by thought 
 forms by the thousand. We run against them daily 
 and hourly and momentarily. When the brain is 
 awake to such, they leave their impression upon our 
 mental perception. At other times they leave no im- 
 pression at all, or only such as is left by the thousands 
 of sounds (sound forms) that constantly reach our 
 ears, but not our conscious selves. 
 
 That we are influenced by the thoughts of others in 
 a degree is unquestionable. The only question is to 
 what degree? Doubtless the ability to receive im- 
 pressions is capable of cultivation; but we must believe 
 in the possibility before such cultivation can be had; 
 we do not attempt a thing, the possibility of doing 
 which, has never occurred to us. 
 
 But thought may do this. Thought does do this; 
 it may reach the unconscious mind, may reach the 
 mind of another without that other being conscious 
 
THOUGHT. 49 
 
 of it; without that other recognizing it; and may draw 
 a picture of itself, leave an impression of itself which 
 will affect the future actions of that other though he 
 be not aware of it; though indeed it do not show forth 
 at once, or for days or weeks. 
 
 We sleep, and waking have no remembrance of 
 having dreamed; days, possibly weeks afterwards there 
 suddenly comes to us the recollection of what seems 
 to have been a dream dreamed days and weeks before. 
 Possibly we dreamed it at the time we now think we 
 did. Possibly it was a thought form impressed upon 
 some portion of our thought machine of which, not 
 even our sleeping faculties took note at the time, but 
 which is suddenly ground out as it were by the ma- 
 chine because of lack of other thought forms to run 
 on; or because that portion of the brain upon which 
 the impression was made has just now been called into 
 action for the first time since the impression was made 
 upon it. 
 
 We know very little of the law governing thought 
 transference, but we know enough to give rise to a 
 goodly bit of speculation through which knowledge 
 is sure to come; and also to suggest the thought that 
 he who would be free from all guilt of wrong done to 
 
50 THOUGHT. 
 
 others, must not think wrong thoughts, and that those 
 who would help to purify the world must send forth 
 pure thoughts only. 
 
 Recognizing the fact that thought has form and 
 goes forth with the power to impress itself upon some 
 person or thing, one can readily understand and accept 
 (in its true significance) the saying of one of old that 
 not our acts only but our thoughts are recorded in the 
 book of judgment of the infinite, and that we must 
 be judged by them. 
 
 That thought has immense power over the body, no 
 one will deny. 
 
 Will is an impulse of the Universal Energy. It is 
 an attribute of the first great cause. Directed by the 
 individualized expression of itself — man — it aids in 
 the creation of thought and gives it aim. It gives to 
 thought such form as the thought chooses to claim. 
 It may carry the balm of healing love or the poison 
 of hate upon its wings. 
 
 This is not only a logical conclusion from the 
 premises, but a fact demonstrated in thousands of 
 individual cases, as well as in those of general applica- 
 tion, of which latter there is none more clearly appar- 
 ent than in the differing effect of differing thought of 
 
THOUGHT. 51 
 
 the purity and impurity of the sexes in their mutual 
 relations. 
 
 The old old idea that woman is impure in this rela- 
 tion even when protected by the license of the church 
 in marriage, and that for the impurity involved in 
 giving birth to a new life she must be subjected to a 
 ceremony of purification, this idea increasing in force 
 and intensity regarding her relations outside of mar- 
 riage, the teaching that the thought or desire is im- 
 pure in her, while less so or not at all in man, has had 
 its natural and inevitable results in the weak or un- 
 healthy condition of three women out of every four in 
 every country where such thought has obtained; while 
 in those countries where the race, being savage, has 
 thought no difference in the law of purity between the 
 sexes, women have escaped disease, as have practically 
 the male portion of all communities whether savage or 
 civilized. 
 
 Other evidence is to be found in the increase of 
 disease in about the same ratio as physicians and pa- 
 tent medecine advertisements; both being reminders 
 to the people to think diseased thoughts or thoughts 
 of disease, which thoughts take effect in the outer or 
 visible matter towards which they are directed in the 
 
52 THOUGHT. 
 
 human body; as witness again the number of physi- 
 cians who, making a specialty of any one form of 
 disease, themselves become the prey of that disease; 
 thus showing forth in their bodies the thoughts upon 
 which they so continually dwell. 
 
 It was by knowledge of the creative power of 
 thought, of the law by which thought finds expression 
 in outward form, that Jesus healed; and by this he 
 promised that those who believe should do greater 
 works than he had done. 
 
 Evidently Jesus expected that with the spread of a 
 knowledge of the truths which he taught, the thought 
 atmosphere would become clearer, and the number of 
 thought forms of disease and death become less nu- 
 merous and less powerful, while thoughts of the true 
 and good would become more so; and so in conse- 
 quence his followers would be able more easily to 
 demonstrate the truth of his teachings. Unfortu- 
 nately the people failed to understand; the priests and 
 the Pharisees poured forth too great a volume of 
 poisonous thoughts, of impure thoughts, of wrongly 
 formed thoughts, and the thought atmosphere became 
 thick and confusing, and the people could not under- 
 stand. Out of the confusion of thoughts sprang 
 
THOUGHT. 53 
 
 hundreds of religious creeds that have blessed or 
 cursed the race for centuries. 
 
 But forever is the truth stronger than error. Slowly 
 but surely the truth makes itself felt and heard. For 
 truth, unlike error, is immortal. The truth, like the 
 infinite first cause, cannot die. Men died, nations 
 perished, races became extinct or were lost by assimi- 
 lation with other races, but still the truth in obedience 
 to the law of its being, itself at once the law and its 
 expression, continued giving forth renewed expressions 
 of itself, until at last a race capable of understanding 
 is arising; the old and false is perishing, and the new 
 old truth becomes perceptible to the minds of men. 
 
 I say capable of understanding, as in its relation 
 to thought, human capacity does not necessarily in- 
 clude or imply the doing. If now as of old men close 
 their hearts and refuse to receive the light, then will 
 the truth not be made known to them, and they too 
 shall perish in their sins. (Ignorance) 
 
 For there is no compulsion in the matter. Men can 
 accept or reject as they choose. The orthodox people 
 are correct in saying that "God does not force anyone 
 to believe. " If only they had an enlightened idea of 
 what and who God is, they would have a great many 
 
54 THOUGHT. 
 
 truths of value to unfold to the people; but they so 
 persistently hold to a misunderstanding, and to a 
 system of maligning and destroying all who seek to 
 understand, that the truths which they have are as a 
 light under a measure. They are of no good to them- 
 selves or to the world. 
 
 In spite of them and their poor cramped ways, and 
 the distorted, deformed and decrepit thought forms 
 which they pour out upon the race in floods incessantly, 
 there is yet a hope for them and for all; aye a sure hope 
 of freedom to mankind in the certainty that truth is 
 immortal and must survive and that all mankind shall 
 know her; shall know her because, like her, they are 
 expressions of the Infinite. 
 
 I said that thought was evolved from a thought 
 machine, and that the machine was composed of 
 matter in certain form and relation etc. 
 
 None need argue from this that man is not immortal 
 or that the spirit, the intelligence or the will dies out 
 of the body. 
 
 If there is a spirit it also has a body, and if it be an 
 intelligent spirit it has a thinking machine and can 
 think and will and act. If a spirit can do none of 
 these things, or if it cannot do all of them, what is it 
 
THOUGHT. 55 
 
 better than a rock or a bucket of water? And if it 
 can do these things or any of them, then it has brains 
 and a thinking machine. 
 
 Electricity can no more be seen than spirit; but elec- 
 tricity is conceived to be matter; a very subtle fluid, 
 but still a fluid, therefore matter. 
 
 Magnetism has been proven, so say good authorities, 
 to possess ponderability and weight, and to give color 
 to water, perceptible to highly sensitive persons. 
 
 All things that are, are matter. All things that are, 
 are mind, spirit. 
 
 The difference is one of different proportion, and of 
 powers dependent upon the arrangement of the par- 
 ticles or the motion one upon another. Of this we 
 may feel assured; and assured of it we may carry for- 
 ward our investigations with some feeling of security, 
 since at the least our feet are standing on solid ground. 
 
 ■ >+ *&&8& 9 * 
 
56 OF THE WILL. 
 
 OF THE WILL. 
 
 CHAPTEK VI. 
 
 If there be friction between two objects there is re- 
 sulting a current of electricity. 
 
 Electricity is not actually created by friction, it is 
 only set free; made, as it were, alive, awakened, as 
 from sleep. 
 
 If, when friction occurs, the objects between which 
 the friction takes place have connection with the 
 earth, either direct or through other objects capable of 
 becoming conductors of electricity, no effect of the 
 electricity set free or awakened will be apparent. But 
 if the objects between which the friction is generated 
 be insulated, as with glass, which is a non-conductor 
 of electricity, then the electricity awakened by the 
 friction will remain in the objects insulated as stored 
 energy, or will pass but slowly through the medium 
 of the atmosphere to other objects, and to the earth. 
 
OF THE WILL. 57 
 
 By the friction of mind, or spirit, upon matter 
 (which is to say by the play of energy upon form) 
 Will is called into activity, awakened, set free. 
 
 I do not know that this illustration will make clear 
 to the mind of the reader that which is in my mind, 
 but I can think of no illustration more likely to do so. 
 
 If the object, the person or thing, through which 
 the Will is set free be not insulated; that is if it be 
 not sufficiently individualized, thus, as in the case of 
 electricity, there is no apparent manifestation of wilL 
 
 By being individualized, I mean a perception within 
 oneself of a consciousness of individuality; such a per- 
 ception of its separateness from the whole as enables 
 the individual Ego to think of itself as "I." 
 
 Arrived at this point the individual Ego becomes a 
 storage battery for Will, as the insulated object for 
 electricity. 
 
 Will is not created by the play of Energy upon 
 form, any more than electricity is created by friction. 
 Like electricity, Will is a force pervading all things. 
 It envelopes and permeates the rock equally with the 
 growing plant, the plant equally with the animal, the 
 animal the same as man. 
 
 But the rock has no consciousness of its individu- 
 
58 OF THE WILL. 
 
 ality, no conscious insulation from the whole. Energy 
 plays upon the rock and Will is awakened, but the 
 rock has no power to store it within itself. The rock 
 cannot say "I," "My," and the Will set free by the 
 friction of Energy within the rock diffuses itself 
 again and sleeps in the body of the Whole, of which 
 the rock is to itself an indistinguishable part. 
 
 The plant is a little more insulated than the rock. 
 It recognizes its own individuality in some slight de- 
 gree, and it retains enough of Will to enable it to push 
 its roots downward into the earth where they contend 
 with other roots for food; and to push its stem upward 
 into the light and air. It even stores enough of Will 
 power or force to enable it to reproduce itself in its 
 seed, but only that. The Ego of the vegetable form 
 says "I" but very faintly. 
 
 Man has a clearer conception of his individuality 
 than animal or plant or rock; hence is a more perfect 
 store house for Will; but he has not understood his 
 relation to the source whence Will comes; has not 
 perceived his connection with the Universal Will; the 
 immeasurable, inexhaustible fountain of Will; and so 
 has supposed that his supply was limited, that his store 
 house being small could contain but little, and that 
 once exhausted it could not be refilled. 
 
OF THE WILL. 59 
 
 When men arrive at Understanding and know that 
 Will is as universal as Law, and free as the play of 
 Energy upon what we call matter, then will they be- 
 gin to understand how great may be their exercise of 
 Will; how powerful they may be; how like unto the 
 gods in might. 
 
 Will is not Energy, but it is wherever Energy is. 
 Being the result of the play of Energy upon form and 
 both form and Energy being omnipresent, Will must 
 be omnipresent also. 
 
 Will is present in Energy as force in water. 
 
 If water be in a state of quiescence, force is not 
 apparent. But if water be in motion as running down 
 an inclined plain its force may be made clearly appar- 
 ent in the turning of machinery. 
 
 The force of the water may even be made to direct 
 the course of the water; yet will the water have lost 
 nothing; its force is exactly the same as before, and, 
 placed in the same relation to the same or another 
 machine will exhibit exactly the same force forever. 
 
 As the force of the water is not the water, so Will 
 is not Energy; but as force is awakened by the passage 
 of the water down the inclined plane, so is Will by the 
 passage of Energy through form. 
 
60 OF THE WILL. 
 
 Place a ram in the current of running water and it 
 will utilize the force of the water to direct the current 
 of the water; so also if the form through which En- 
 ergy plays be a Will Machine, if it be so individualized 
 as to be able to recognize its own powers, or to the ex- 
 tent that it recognizes its rightful authority, it may 
 dictate to Energy that form of expression it shall take. 
 
 Will is the corralled soul of the Infinite Life moving 
 within the consciousness of the finite; the voice of the 
 universal Ego speaking through the Ego of the indi- 
 vidual — the father through the son. 
 
 Man's ability to command Will and through it, all 
 things else, is limited only by his lack of f aitl: in him- 
 self and his ignorance of his true relation to the First 
 Cause. 
 
 Man cannot possibly become the Infinite, but in 
 this alone are his possibilities limited. 
 
 The arm of the sea can never become the sea, but its 
 tides rise to the same heights as those of its parent sea, 
 and the force hidden in their waters is the same. 
 
 Man's relation to the Infinite is that of the arm of 
 the sea to the sea; all of the waters that the arm can con- 
 tain flow into it; the powers of the tides of the ocean are 
 its powers. And it could utilize them all if it knew how. 
 
OF THE WILL. 61 
 
 The flow of Will awakened by the play of Energy 
 upon form differs from the tides of ocean in this, that 
 there is no ebb; the flow of Will is constant, steady, 
 eternal; and in proportion as men become insulated, in 
 proportion as they recognize themselves as expressions 
 of the Infinite, the Universal Energy, the sole desire 
 of which is for expression, which exists only that it 
 may give itself, in proportion as men recognize the 
 truth of their connection with the source of all power 
 and all life and all energy, do they command that 
 power. Command it through a knowledge of it, and 
 through obedience to it. 
 
 For being themselves the creatures of the Infinite, 
 the expression of it, they do but obey while command- 
 ing; even as the force which is in the water obeys the 
 water while being so exerted as to change the current 
 of the stream. 
 
 Conscious of his individuality and of his relationship 
 to the Universal Life, man becomes as one with it. 
 Through him it receives conscious recognition; through 
 it he receives power. Its Will becomes his Will, and 
 father and son are one; of one mind. 
 
 Thus does the Universal Oneness, u God," speak through 
 the human Ego, man, finding expression again through 
 
62 OF THE WILL. 
 
 that which it has already expressed, and adding in- 
 creased recognition of its own power and glory while 
 endowing man (its own highest expression of itself), 
 with the powers of rulership over all things. 
 
 All things under Him, and to the Son the rulership. 
 
 'OQi^er^ 1 
 
OF MATTER. 63 
 
 OF MATTER. 
 
 CHAPTER YII. 
 
 I have said of matter as generally recognized, that 
 it consists of those things which are taken cognizance 
 of by the senses, as having form, color, ponderability; 
 things we can touch and taste and handle; things we 
 can weigh and measure. 
 
 It is such matter that I now purpose to consider, 
 and I say of it that either it is not — as we had thought — 
 an obstacle to the passage of other and similar matter, 
 or that there is a law by which it can be dematerialized, 
 made volatile, destroyed as matter, and rematerialized 
 again, rendered dense, and given the same shape and 
 qualities in all respects as before, and this without 
 the aid of any mechanical contrivances. 
 
 Either case supposes the existence of a law of which 
 we know nothing further than the certainty of its 
 
64 OF MATTER. 
 
 existence; and even the possibility of the existence of 
 such a law will, of course, be denied and scoffed at by 
 most people. Yet it does exist, and we shall yet know 
 and command it. Its operation has been witnessed by 
 many; both among the scientific and the ignorant. 
 
 The cases in which I have myself witnessed the 
 operation of the law, made most clearly and unmis- 
 takably manifest, are two. I give them here, utterly 
 indifferent to the sneers of that class of persons who 
 prefer always to be the last rather than the first to 
 recognize a truth, and who think that if a certain thing 
 had been, their great grand parents would have known 
 it. 
 
 I make no pretense of understanding the law gov- 
 erning in these cases; I only know the facts; knowing 
 the facts I know the law exists by which the facts 
 became facts, and I give them with the same object 
 in view with which I have written this series of 
 speculative essays — namely the hope of setting others 
 to theorising, observing and investigating, to the end 
 that the race may come more fully into a knowledge 
 of the law of being. 
 
 The first instance that I desire to mention is the 
 repeated materialization, (I know of no better word 
 
OF MATTER. 65 
 
 for the expression of the fact) the materialization or 
 forming, or creating, of a piece of slate pencil on the 
 ■end of the finger of a person in a trance. 
 
 I do not now recall the name of this person; the 
 instance is of a date some years back; but I remember 
 all the details of the matter perfectly, as I wrote them 
 up for a paper with which I was at the time connected. 
 
 The person was what is called a "trance medium," 
 and the case occurred in the parlor of a reputable citi- 
 zen of one of our northern cities. 
 
 I have seen many trance mediums; a few people at 
 least in trances who were not mediums, and consider 
 myself fairly capable of judging whether a supposed 
 condition of trance is really such or not. 
 
 For the purpose in hand, however, it can make no 
 especial difference whether this person was in a state 
 of trance or not. I make the statement that this oc- 
 currence was by a person in what is commonly 
 called u a trance," or obsessed condition; the muscles 
 did not become rigid, or intelligence leave or appear to 
 be sleeping in the person, but a complete change in 
 the facial appearance took place; perspiration poured 
 from the face, and the voice changed from a natural 
 to a deeply gutteral tone. 
 
66 OF MATTER. 
 
 My position with relation to that of the medium 
 was directly in front; he sitting on a chair, I kneeling 
 on the carpet within easy hand reach of his hand, 
 which was thoroughly washed and wiped on a towel 
 supplied by the lady of the house, and the hand care- 
 fully examined by myself, holding it in my hand and 
 not afterwards touching any other portion of the per- 
 son or clothing of the medium, or any other object, 
 until the materialization of the pencil upon the end of 
 the index finger had repeatedly occurred, and been con- 
 sumed in writing upon a slate, as carefully washed and 
 examined as was the hand. The pencil kept renewing 
 itself; or rather as one piece of the pencil was 
 used up it was replaced by another piece, which 
 actually materialized under our most scrutinizing gaze 
 as we looked at the end of the medium's finger, where 
 it appeared to adhere as if it were a natural growth. 
 One of these pieces of pencil I removed from his finger 
 after watching it form there; and I had it in my 
 possession for months, frequently showing it to my 
 acquaintances. 
 
 The other case was quite different, and may perhaps 
 be thought more convincing, though the law in both 
 cases must have been the same. The medium in this 
 
OF MATTER. 67 
 
 case was a young man in my own employ as a printer 
 at the case. He was remarkable in no particular as a 
 man or a printer. Of a character rather too easily in- 
 fluenced by others he was companionable with what- 
 ever class of persons happened to be among his asso- 
 ciates in the composing room, and did his work and 
 lived the life of other printers. He exercised his 
 mediumistic power at the instance of any friend in 
 whom he had confidence, that he believed would not 
 make sport of him. I think he finally became a pub- 
 lic medium, but do not know his present address. 
 Many demonstrations unaccountable by any known 
 law of physics occurred at seances given at the request 
 of friends; but the one I wish particularly to mention 
 is this: Sitting in a room lighted by a lamp sufficiently 
 for reading or other ordinary occupations, sitting 
 between two other people each holding one of his 
 hands, and with a shawl thrown over their limbs and 
 brought up to their necks, an iron ring would be lifted 
 from the floor between them and placed upon the 
 medium's arm. 
 
 This could only occur by the dematerialization and 
 rematerializing of the iron, or by passing it through 
 the flesh and bones of the arm as through ether. 
 
68 OF MATTER. 
 
 I have repeatedly stood by the side of the trio of 
 whom this medium was one, have seen the motion of 
 the shawl caused by the ring being raised to the side 
 of the arm at the shoulder, and watched it slide down 
 the arm to the hand beneath the light covering of the 
 shawl; and have — after the removal of the shawl, and 
 the examination of the ring as it encircled the arm 
 at the wrist — the hand of the medium being all the 
 time clasped by that of the other sitters, and the re- 
 placing of the shawl — seen the movement of the 
 ring under the shawl reversed, and heard the fall of 
 the ring upon the carpet or floor beneath. 
 
 This in one instance was repeated quite a number of 
 times with a hub band from an old-fashioned wagon 
 picked up on the road, and taken to the medium by a 
 skeptic who could not possibly believe the occurrence 
 to be other than a trick. 
 
 The medium in this instance was not entranced, 
 though at other times he was subject to, or capable of, 
 becoming so; and the persons sitting with him were 
 like myself, people interested as investigators, and not 
 always the same persons; different persons being se- 
 lected for the test on different occasions. 
 
 In all cases the position of the hands of all of the 
 
OF MATTER. 69 
 
 sitters could be plainly discerned beneath the light 
 shawl covering them, and it would have been impossi- 
 ble for them to move or even unclasp hands without 
 communicating the movement to the shawl sufficiently 
 to be noticeable, much less could either of the three 
 have reached to the floor and lifted the ring without 
 being detected in the act. Besides which I repeatedly 
 stood, as I have before stated, by the side of the sitters, 
 and sufficiently close to see with distinctness the 
 movement of the ring beneath the covering as it 
 slippped over or through the arm at the shoulder, and 
 slid down the arm to the wrist. 
 
 The conclusion which I draw from these and other 
 similar demonstrated facts is this; not that matter so- 
 called does not exist; not that we are living a dream 
 simply; but that matter is of a character to be instantly 
 de-formed, disorganized, etherized, and again given 
 form and density through some law which we call 
 "occult" simply because we do not understand it. 
 
 Whether in the cases I have cited as coming under 
 my own observation, the formation or etherization of 
 matter was produced by an intelligence out of the 
 body, a spirit, or whether it was effected through the 
 willing of the medium and rendered possible by cer- 
 
70 OF MATTER. 
 
 tain conditions, magnetic or otherwise, growing out of 
 the peculiar condition of the medium, or of the persons 
 assembled, or of both, I do not pretend to say; for I 
 have not fully satisfied myself regarding it. I can 
 conceive it possible that the medium, having perfect 
 faith that a certain occurrence would take place, might 
 be in a condition — because of his faith — to exercise a 
 power of will sufficient to produce the expected effect, 
 and even to do this in ignorance of how it was done. 
 
 The act of willing, as I havg previously stated, does 
 not consist in an obstinate assertion that a certain 
 thing shall be, and which is usually accompanied by, 
 and really consists principally in, muscular tension, 
 (as exhibited in the setting of the teeth together, the 
 compression of the lips, and a more or less rigid appear- 
 ance of the whole body) but in an intelligent ordering 
 of a result, based upon a perfect faith in our right and 
 our ability to command it to take place. 
 
 The one is the concentration of Will, a positive force 
 in the individual; the other — the sending forth of Will 
 to perform a mission. 
 
 If we are to accept the statements contained in the 
 Bible as being true, and we may do so in so far as 
 they are sustained by sound logic, or consonant with 
 
OF MATTER. 71 
 
 known possibilities; if we are to accept the Bible as 
 evidence Jesus changed the wine into water, caused 
 those who were born blind to see, and new flesh to 
 instantly fill the cancerous sores of the lepers; and he 
 declared plainly that others should do these and greater 
 things, as indeed others have done. 
 
 Cases of instantaneous healing, through Mental or 
 Will treatment are constantly occurring, and have 
 constantly occurred ever since the race existed, or so 
 far back as we have any knowledge touching upon 
 these matters. 
 
 Old ladies, and sometimes young ones, and men, 
 have had what they called u the gift" of healing, and 
 could stop the flow of blood, remove the pain of a 
 burn, or dismiss a fever by — as they supposed — the 
 repetition of some form of words often of a religious 
 character, as a command in the name of Christ; in 
 others without any reference to any deity whatever. 
 And, in as much as the form used was different in 
 many cases, and with different persons, it is evident 
 that the particular phraseology of the language used 
 had nothing to do with it, but that it was an unen- 
 lightened exercise of Will made effective by a perfect 
 faith. 
 
72 OF MATTEK. 
 
 A similar case would be that of persons possessed of 
 peculiar or unusual magnetic powers resulting in the 
 production of phenomena commonly attributed to 
 spirits; the unconscious willing being made effective 
 in a degree by the perfection of faith. 
 
 The reader will not understand that I assert that 
 such is the cause of the phenomena referred to; I 
 only suggest the reasonableness, the possibility of the 
 production of such phenomena, basing my argument 
 upon the facts of other phenomena as the healing by 
 ignorant persons through apparently the same law. 
 
 But whether the phenomena is the result of an un- 
 enlightened exercise of the will made effective through 
 faith, or by a power possessed by disembodied spirits, 
 is of no special consequence at this time; the fact re- 
 mains the same; and the fact is, that what we call 
 matter is subject to a law through which it may be 
 organized or disorganized, formed into shape or ether- 
 ized without the aid of mechanical appliances. 
 
 If this can be done by an unintelligent application 
 of the will, it can be done much more effectively by 
 an enlightened will. If it can be done by the ignor- 
 ant through faith, blind except to the evidences of 
 the senses, it can be better done through a faith rest- 
 
' OF MATTER. 73 
 
 ing upon understanding. And if it can be done by 
 intelligences out of the body it can be done by intelli- 
 gences in the body, when we shall have acquired a 
 knowledge of the law through which it is done. 
 
 If any are inclined to assert that it is unreasonable 
 to suppose that intelligences in the body can become 
 possesssd of the power or knowledge of those out of 
 the body, I answer, that granting that the phenomena 
 referred to is the work of spirits, it appears to me as 
 much more reasonable that they should be endeavor- 
 ing thereby to excite those in the body to the acqui- 
 sition of similar powers through a searching out of 
 the law by which it is done, than that they should 
 simply be putting their own powers upon exhibition 
 for the less worthy purpose of showing what they 
 can do. Besides which, we have the production of 
 the same class of phenomena by those still in the 
 body, as instanced in the many cases of healing. 
 
 Again, lest I be misunderstood; I am not arguing 
 against the existence of spiritualistic phenomena; I 
 only assert that the power of an intelligence dis- 
 embodied of the mortal form can only be greater than 
 that of the intelligence embodied, by whatever ex- 
 perience or knowledge the disembodied has acquired 
 
74 OF MATTEK. 
 
 more than the other; and that as all law is knowable, 
 and as the lower is forever subject to the higher, mat- 
 ter must be and is subject to manipulation by forces 
 generated by the will and the mental faculties of man, 
 provided he acts with an understanding of the law 
 governing in the case. 
 
 All things are governed by law. Whatever an 
 angel or an archangel can do, that, man can do when 
 he shall have learned the law of doing. 
 
 Science and the schools are doing much to give en- 
 couragement to those who hold that matter is right- 
 fully subject to the powers of the mind and of will. 
 
 It is being taught in our highest temples of learn- 
 ing that all matter is not only particled, but that the 
 particles in all matter obey the same law of revolu- 
 tion as do the planets; that they are arranged in sys- 
 tems and are in constant revolution in obedience to 
 the law of attraction as are the planets; and that 
 such a thing as an absolutely solid body does not ex- 
 ist anywhere in the universe of worlds. 
 
 Accepting this theory as true, then in order to 
 change the relations of the particles of matter to each 
 other there has to be but the introduction of a new 
 force. The force may be sufficiently strong only to 
 
OF MATTER. 75 
 
 weaken the power of attraction which each of the 
 atoms has for the other atoms, or it may be strong 
 enough to cause their total disorganization, to cause 
 them to separate so far from each other that the 
 power which they possessed in our sight becomes dis- 
 solved and lost, to be reformed when the new or out- 
 side force is withdrawn. 
 
 Electricity is either a current of matter, or it is a 
 current in matter. 
 
 Considered as a current in matter, it probably con- 
 sists in the instantaneous reversal, in some way not 
 intelligible to us, of the poles of the particles of which 
 matter is constituted. How this can be, and electricity 
 itself yet be not matter, is quite as hard to understand 
 as how — being matter — it can yet be sent thousands 
 of miles in a second; sent even without wires to con- 
 duct it, across land and sea, as is now asserted by the 
 ablest electricians, and made to register the will of 
 him who directs it to the recognition of another, miles 
 upon miles away. 
 
 Such things, demonstrated before our eyes, compel 
 us to recognize matter as in a way differing from what 
 we had supposed it to be, and may well be accepted as 
 an evidence of the existence of other and yet more 
 
76 OF MATTER. 
 
 subtle forces through which matter may be made still 
 more obedient to the intelligence and will of man, un- 
 til matter and space shall cease to be obstacles to the 
 transmission of thought. 
 
 Indeed, the more we study and investigate the more 
 are we forced to the conclusion that all matter is but 
 the outward expression of our own mental concep- 
 tions; that matter is but energy set in motion; and 
 that as all thought, all expression of will, however 
 feeble, is yet a putting forth of energy; and as 
 thoughts like the musical notes are possessed of form, 
 that all matter, so called, is the creature of — not the 
 imagination in its commonly accepted meaning — but 
 of thought and will; that man has indeed and in 
 fact created his own surroundings, has given to mat- 
 ter its form, shaping it out of the eternal energy, and 
 that he can — through understanding — reshape it into 
 any form he likes. 
 
 This statement or theory which to some may, and 
 doubtless will appear both foolish and blasphemous, 
 has no such appearance to me. 
 
 On the contrary, it appears to me to be sustained 
 both by the fact of what is commonly called "phe- 
 nomena," and by logic having such well authenticated 
 phenomena for its base. 
 
OF MATTER. 77 
 
 I see nothing unreasonable in supposing man to be 
 the fashioner of things as they at present exist; while 
 to attribute them to an intelligence possessed of all 
 power and wisdom would seem rather an imputation 
 upon such a being's moral and intellectual character. 
 
 ■■ O^ . Q g» gVg" 
 
78 UNDERSTANDING, FAITH, DESIRE. 
 
 UNDERSTANDING, FAITH, DESIRE. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 I am not an advocate of a blind faith, but faith 
 founded upon evidence and clung to with the tenacity 
 with which a man lost at sea, and in the darkness, 
 clings to the plank which is alone between him and 
 the depths — such a faith is necessary in whomsoever 
 would possess understanding. 
 
 For understanding is the reward of an intelligent 
 faith honestly maintained. That is not faith in God 
 which clings to old traditions and teachings, without 
 having honestly, and without prejudice, sought dili- 
 gently to know the truth. Such, I say, is not faith in 
 God, but faith in the priests, faith in the translators, 
 and in the interpreters of those traditions. Such faith 
 will save no one, will bring no one within the inner 
 courts of the Temple of Life where u God," the Law, 
 
UNDERSTANDING, FAITH, DESIRE. 79 
 
 the great First Cause, speaks face to face with the 
 Egos of men. On the contrary such blind faith ex- 
 cludes, and must forever exclude, from the inner court. 
 
 But a faith founded upon such knowledge of the 
 Infinite as can be had by diligently and honestly seek- 
 ing knowledge without prejudice, or prejudging, (judg- 
 ing without evidence); such a faith honestly clung 
 to, although there come moments when the road by 
 which we first reached our faith may not seem clear 
 behind us; faith founded upon the knowledge that all 
 came from good, and hence all must be good; faith in 
 the eternal unswerving goodness of good, and in its 
 omnipresence; faith in one's self as an expression of 
 that good, and in one's consequent relation to it — such 
 a faith is worthy of being rewarded, and will not fail 
 to receive its reward in understanding. 
 
 For good, the father, the illimitable first cause of all 
 things, forever seeks to declare itself to its children, 
 and he who listens with open heart to receive shall 
 hear the still small voice declaring wisdom unto it. 
 
 Will is an emanation of the Infinite creative power, 
 and thought the unfolding of knowledge under the 
 direction of the will; but understanding comes of 
 listening to the voice of the source of all wisdom, of 
 
80 UNDERSTANDING, FAITH, DESIRE. 
 
 that Ego of the universe with which there is neither 
 beginning nor ending of days; which is and was and 
 ever will be all that is both knowledge and under- 
 standing. 
 
 He who would be wise must look within, for there, 
 diid there only, will each find the fountain of water 
 whose connection is with the source of waters. 
 
 And who is there will look within if he have not 
 faith that he shall find? Who will look within who 
 does not believe himself to be an expression of the all 
 good? Who will obey the prompting of the still 
 small voice, who does not believe it to be the voice of 
 the Infinite Life? 
 
 Conscience — men tell us — is a matter of education. 
 True, but educated of whom? Why, of the priests 
 and the makers of statutory law. 
 
 Show me a man whose conscience is educated by the 
 inner voice, who has sent his conscience to school to 
 his inner self, and I will show you a man upright in 
 all his dealings with his fellow men; a lover of his 
 race, and one having knowledge and an understanding 
 exceeding that of any priest taught man as far as the 
 sun exceeds the earth in brightness. 
 
 Reading may make a fall man, but reading alone 
 
UNDERSTANDING, FAITH, DESIRE. 81 
 
 will never make a wise one. Reading the thoughts 
 and ideas of another may be a help, will be a help to 
 one wise enough to understand the ideas he acquires 
 as helps; but only he will be truly wise, only he will 
 have understanding, who, when he has read goes aside, 
 and having pondered that which he has read, opens 
 then his heart to understanding, and with faith awaits 
 its coming; waits with faith in himself and in that of 
 which he is an expression; faith in the wisdom and 
 goodness of universal Being, and in himself as en- 
 dowed with ability to command a further expression 
 of that goodness and that wisdom. 
 
 Faith to command. As his faith is so shall it be 
 unto him. 
 
 Faith in the omnipotence, the omniscience, omni- 
 presence of good, and of all the term implies. 
 
 Faith in himself as willing to accept and treasure 
 the law and to live the law, therefore to command it. 
 For whosoever would give, shall receive. He who 
 obeys shall command the law. 
 
 For the law exists but to give expression to itself, 
 and as by faith in, and obedience to, the law cometh 
 understanding of the law, so by understanding comes 
 the right and the ability to command. 
 
82 UNDERSTANDING, FAITH, DESIRE. 
 
 Desire is the impelling force in the universal mind, 
 as in the individual Ego. It is the same in both, and 
 in both it prompts to action. The individual received 
 it from the universal, and in proportion as the indi- 
 vidual becomes insulated, or conscious of a separate 
 (though not discerned) existence, does desire manifest 
 itself. 
 
 The rock is but slightly insulated; it has very little 
 conscious individuality, and has correspondingly little 
 desire. So far as its manifestations are observable it 
 has but the one desire, to rest; to retain its connection 
 with, and indivisibility from the whole. 
 
 The vegetable growths have more; the lower animal 
 forms still more, and man most of all. Take from 
 man all desire and he would become as the rock, and 
 speedily return to the earth and to an indistinguish- 
 able part of the whole. 
 
 Desire is the instinct which leads the way until ex- 
 perience has brought knowledge and the ability to 
 reason; and following after knowledge comes wisdom 
 and understanding. 
 
 The child desires nourishment, searches for and finds 
 it. It desires the moon as a toy to play with, reaches 
 for it and finds it beyond its grasp; or it is impressed 
 
UNDERSTANDING, FAITH, DESIKE. 83 
 
 with the beauty of the flame and is burned in its ef- 
 fort to possess itself of it. In either case it acquires 
 experience, knowledge, and is prompted to search fur- 
 ther and learn more. Out of its desire to know why 
 the fire burned him he searches for the source of heat 
 and light. Because he desired the moon he invents 
 telescopes with which to bring it nearer that he may 
 examine it and learn of it, and in both cases, as in all 
 others, he is brought into a fuller knowledge of his 
 relation to First Cause. Desire is the germ whence 
 springs action; knowledge is its fruit. 
 
 If the fruit be bitter to the taste that does not prove 
 it evil. It only proves that the way to wisdom is 
 rough and mountainous, and that he who would reach 
 the goal must be steadfast, firm in his faith in the 
 goodness of Infinite Being. 
 
 Neither was there any sin in desiring that which 
 when eaten proved to be bitter to the taste. 
 
 The child that burned its hand by placing it in the 
 flame, the effects upon itself of which it did not un- 
 derstand, did not sin. The desire which prompted the 
 act on the part of the child was good; the fire itself 
 was not evil; neither was any sin committed. 
 
 Neither is there sin in the mistaken methods in 
 
84 UNDERSTANDING, FAITH, DESIRE. 
 
 which older children, men and women, seek for good. 
 
 Acting like the child in ignorance they learn wis- 
 dom by the pain which results from ignorance, and 
 through suffering gain knowledge. 
 
 If the effect of an action extended no farther than 
 to the life of the body, then indeed might men argue 
 that final judgment followed close upon the death of 
 the body; but as the effect of every act of the indi- 
 vidual must leave an impression upon the Ego, which 
 must remain with it as an experience until the end of 
 its existence, it cannot in fairness be judged until both 
 time and eternity shall have ended, and the effect of 
 the experience thus be finally known. 
 
 What men have ignorantly called sin is but the 
 natural and rightful mistakes of the human Ego in 
 its search for a knowledge of the infinite. Natural, 
 because mistakes cannot but result where ignorance 
 is, and rightful because prompted by desire which is 
 the impelling force back of all action; and as action is 
 necessary to progress, that which impels to action can- 
 not but be good. 
 
 It was the failure to understand this that suggested 
 the idea of a God moved by anger to wreak vengeance 
 upon the creatures of his own begetting. 
 
UNDERSTANDING, FAITH, DESIRE. 85 
 
 If any will follow such premise to its logical se- 
 quence he cannot fail of perceiving that if it is a sin 
 to make a mistake in the search for happiness or for 
 good, then "God" himself is as much a sinner as any 
 of his mistaken creatures; for if the mistaken act of 
 the creature in his search for happiness be fit cause 
 for anger — which is not happiness but the opposite — 
 then it was a mistake on the part of "God" to make a 
 being capable of making a mistake; and the proof lies 
 in the supposed fact that "God" was angry; hence was 
 a sufferer through his own act. 
 
 Out of this false idea of sin and an angry "God" 
 that visits vengeance upon his creatures has grown 
 the revengeful spirit in man, and the long train of 
 consequent sufferings. 
 
 Had men known "God" as the impersonal First 
 Cause, essentially good because it is good to be; good 
 in action because good in essence, and because to 
 create is good; the life of the universe from which 
 all life came — had men understood this, they would 
 not have taken revenge upon their fellows for wrongs 
 done them; they would not have whipped and scourged 
 and burned and slain their fellow men for "God's" 
 sake, but instead would have sought to lift them up 
 
86 UNDERSTANDING, FAITH, DESIRE. 
 
 out of darkness into light, out of ignorance into 
 knowledge. Had men understood this our whole sys- 
 tem of jurisprudence had been different; the rack and 
 the torture chamber with all its instruments of horror 
 had never been; then had men not been burned at the 
 stake for opinion's sake, or women hanged as witches; 
 neither would prisons for the punishment of criminals 
 have existed as to-day, and in all former ages since men 
 first conceived the idea of a God of vengeance, a jealous 
 God and one subject to fits of anger; but instead there 
 had been places where perchance any who were violent 
 might be detained, but where in love they were in- 
 structed in wisdom's way, instead of in hatred and in 
 anger made the subject of revenge by society. 
 
 It was a fearful mistake, the mistake that men made 
 in their conception of God; and fearfully has the race 
 of men suffered because of it; but it was not a sin and 
 like the child who suffered for its ignorance and learned 
 wisdom from placing its hand in the flame so will men 
 learn, are learning that mistake in their conception of 
 First Cause. 
 
 Desire in itself is good, always good, and it is a mis- 
 take on the part of society to attempt to restrain the 
 action of any of its members where the act affects only 
 
UNDERSTANDING, FAITH, DESIRE. 87 
 
 the actor; each soul has the right to the experience to 
 be gained by its mistakes. 
 
 Only when the individual becomes dangerous to so- 
 ciety by his acts may society rightfully deprive him 
 of his liberty to express his desires in acts; and then 
 its right to do so is limited to such restriction as will 
 prevent injury to itself or its members. It possesses 
 no right to punish; and the idea of punishment should 
 be eliminated from our minds, and the word expunged 
 from our vocabulary. 
 
 c^T9^e^f^9^r^-» 
 
88 GOD AND THE DEVIL, OR GOOD AND EVIL. 
 
 GOD AND THE DEVIL, OR GOOD AND EVIL. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 A belief in some power greater than, and outside of 
 themselves, is universal among men. The highly civil- 
 ized, the ignorant and the savage alike recognize the 
 existence of a First Cause, the effects of which are 
 clearly apparent to their senses, but the location of 
 which they cannot fix, and the purposes of which they 
 do not understand. 
 
 They know that they themselves exist; they see about 
 them the various objects in nature; but how or why 
 they came into existence they do not know, and of 
 most, it may truthfully be said, they have never earnestly 
 sought to know. 
 
 Themselves, they have been accustomed to look upon 
 as the creatures of a First Great Cause; creatures be- 
 gotten or called into existence for some purpose which 
 
GOD AND THE DEVIL, OR GOOD AND EVIL. 89 
 
 they could not understand if they tried, or which, per- 
 haps, it was not intended by their creator that they 
 should know; so they have been content without seek- 
 ing to know, and have rested upon some half formed 
 belief that the power that called them into existence 
 would attend to any further necessary business and 
 supply them with such information regarding them- 
 selves and the laws governing their own lives and the 
 life of the universe as was proper for them to learn. 
 
 Being themselves possessed of form, and regard- 
 ing themselves as created beings, they conceive the 
 power which created them to possess form also; and 
 as form carries with it the idea of place the imag- 
 ination was called upon to assist in fixing upon an 
 abiding place, a location, a home, for this First Cause, 
 and so far succeeded as to give it a name carrying with 
 it the impression of form and place, though the locality 
 of the place could not be fixed upon. 
 
 The name given to First Cause, and to the place of 
 its abiding, differs among different people as their 
 manner of speech differs. 
 
 To the native American Indian the cause of all 
 things is simply the Great Spirit, and His abiding 
 place the Happy Hunting Grounds. By English speak- 
 
90 GOD AND THE DEYIL, OR GOOD AND EVIL. 
 
 ing people the First Cause is called God, and his location, 
 heaven or the heavens; but to the minds of both the 
 savage and the civilized man admission to this spot, 
 wherever it may prove to be, is impossible to man ex- 
 cept he approach it through the door of death. 
 
 But if men have been unable to locate heaven fur- 
 ther than to give it a name, they have also been un- 
 able to agree as to what the joys of heaven consist in. 
 
 To the followers of Mahomet, to be admitted to 
 heaven is to enter upon an eternity of sensual pleasures. 
 To the native Indian it is to be engaged forever in 
 hunting and fishing, without fear of suffering from 
 hunger or thirst. To more civilized men sensual 
 pleasures, or those to be found in the chase and 
 slaughter of wild animals, appear insufficient to satisfy 
 their high demands, and they have conceived happiness 
 to be attainable in other ways. Man's reverance for 
 authority, the result of generations of obedience to the 
 laws of society and to those who rule society, has be- 
 gotten or kept alive in him the idea that this First 
 Great Cause, this power to which he owes his existence 
 and to which in imagination he has given a form and 
 an abiding place — that this power which he has named 
 God desires not only obedience, but that kind of sub- 
 
GOD AND THE DEYIL, OR GOOD AND EVIL. 91 
 
 servieney and worship which has been found pleasing 
 to earthly kings; and Christians have peopled heaven 
 with the spirits of the dead who are to spend an eternity 
 of ages in singing the praises of heaven's king, and 
 in all conceivable ways and words declaring their own 
 unworthiness and extolling the greatness and power 
 and glory of him whom they worship. 
 
 It is true that during recent years there has crept 
 into the minds of some of the people the idea that as 
 man is possessed of other faculties than that of rever- 
 ence, some other occupation than that of worship may 
 be desirable during a portion of eternity, and they have 
 ventured to suggest that a part of the endless ages 
 may be spent in the doing of good; but in the main 
 the entire human family may be safely included in 
 the two classes; those who expect to spend an eternity 
 of years in savage sports and sensual pleasures, and 
 those who expect to spend it in the worship and glori- 
 fication of a being not unlike themselves in form whom 
 they call God. 
 
 In every age of the world, however, there have been 
 a few to whom it has been given to know the truth. 
 To know that "God" is without form save as the universe 
 of worlds has form, and that there is no personality 
 
92 GOD AND THE DEVIL, OR GOOD AND EVIL. 
 
 who desires that men should prostrate themselves be- 
 fore him or belittle themselves, thinking thus to glorify 
 him. They have learned, too, that heaven is not a 
 locality, but a condition, and that its distance from 
 men is not measured by miles or by furlongs but by 
 the ability of the minds of men to recognize the true 
 law of being. 
 
 That the race of men have not known the truth is 
 not the fault of the truth, or of the Law of being. The 
 Law has always existed and has always knocked at the 
 door of the understandings of men seeking entrance; 
 has always waited, ready to flow in whenever the bar- 
 riers which prevented were taken down. 
 
 As the waters of the ocean surrounding a continent 
 fill every crack and cranny along its shores, so truth 
 flows in upon the brains of men wherever there is a 
 crack in their ignorance, or the rocks of their super- 
 stition are broken down. 
 
 As the walls of a dungeon bar out the rays of the 
 sun, so does the ignorance of men shut out the truth, 
 which, if permitted to enter, would wash clean the 
 brain and illumine the minds of men until they should 
 know Law as it is, and themselves as they are. 
 
 Not once only but many times have men been born 
 
GOD AND THE DEVIL, OR GOOD AND EVIL. 93 
 
 into the world so pure of heart and so strong of pur- 
 pose that they have opened the door of their understand- 
 ing, and truth has flooded their beings, and they have 
 truly known u God"; have known him as the impersonal 
 Law of being. 
 
 The world has called these illumined beings Saviours 
 or Christs, and such indeed they were to all who under- 
 stood and accepted their teachings. But always their 
 followers have been few. By the many have they been 
 crucified. 
 
 Yet has the truth proclaimed by them compelled 
 some slight recognition from the many, but so im- 
 perfectly have they understood the truth that they 
 have quarrelled among themselves over its meaning, 
 and have builded a half thousand different religious 
 sects upon as many different interpretations of it, each 
 far from the other and farther yet from the truth. 
 
 Each of these many sects possesses some particles 
 of the truth, sufficient to keep it alive for a time, just 
 as a bit of moisture seeping through a dam may nourish 
 a tuft of coarse grass or a bit of moss at its foot; but 
 they have failed miserably in grasping the whole truth, 
 else had the world been flooded with it and the race of 
 men ere this had been redeemed. 
 
94 GOD AND THE DEVIL, OR GOOD AND EVIL. 
 
 For such failure, however, man is not to blame. 
 Neither is the Law. 
 
 Had man been wise; had a knowledge of all truth 
 been born with him, there had remained no truth hidden 
 for him to search out. As he was not born with a 
 knowledge of truth, but in ignorance of it, he has no 
 way of acquiring it but by searching, and his ignorance, 
 even of the way in which to search, cannot be charged 
 against him as a sin or a crime. Ignorance was with 
 him at his birth and for his birth mark man is not re- 
 sponsible. 
 
 He has forever striven with his ignorance and sought 
 to overcome it. From the first moment of his life man 
 has struggled towards the light; often to seemingly 
 little purpose, always by devious and round-about 
 paths; often lost in the fogs and mists of wrong 
 thinking; often going back for a time over ground 
 already bearing the marks of his own torn and bleed- 
 ing feet, but always looking, always longing for the 
 light of truth and for the joy and peace which some- 
 things tells him is to be found only in its possession. 
 
 And all the time truth was about him — was at his 
 side; above, below, within him. 
 
 For truth is everywhere. 
 
GOD AND THE DEVIL, OR GOOD AND EVIL. 95 
 
 Man is blind, and in his blindness being unable to see 
 the unerring workings of the Law he made the mistake 
 of thinking he was in a place where no Law existed. 
 
 Did men but realize that the Law is everywhere and 
 always present they would not fail to open the doors 
 of their heeirts that this Truth might enter and illumi- 
 nate their being and cause them to be one with It. 
 
 The sun may be shining never so brightly, but to 
 the man who lies with closed eyes because he thinks 
 it yet night, the sun might as well not be shining. 
 
 The Law might as well not exist as to exist to him 
 who will not seek to learn the harmony of its action. 
 
 I know, of course, that those who call themselves 
 Christians profess to believe that God (the Law) is 
 omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent which means 
 that He is everywhere present at all times, and 
 that he possesses all power and all wisdom; but their 
 belief is not sufficiently strong to make this seem 
 an actuality to them, and they do not therefore act upon 
 or reason from it. 
 
 They farther discredit their belief that God ( the Law ) , 
 is everywhere present at all times by asserting the ex- 
 istence of a devil with at least temporary power, nearly 
 or quite equal to that of "God," whose authority he 
 
96 GOD A1SD THE DEYIL, OR GOOD AND EVIL. 
 
 disputes; and that this devil, if not actually omnipresent 
 also, will certainly appear instantly on invitation. 
 
 Now it is evident that where "God" is, the devil can- 
 not be. The two cannot occupy the same place at the 
 same time, and either we must cease to believe in the 
 omnipresence of ¥t God" or we must deny in toto the 
 -existence of the devil. For if "God" is everywhere 
 there is no place left for the devil to be in, and if the 
 devil is somewhere then there is a place where u God" 
 is not. 
 
 Let us not cease to believe in the omnipresence of 
 God (the Law) but rather deny the devil (evil) out of 
 existence. 
 
 Such a course is safest to most of us and altogether 
 the most satisfactory, and it cannot be very hard to do 
 now that the revisers of the Testament have abolished 
 hell. They have done their duty, now let us do ours. 
 With the devil and hell out of the way the greatest 
 obstacle in the way of knowing the Law will have been 
 removed, and the way for truth to enter our minds will 
 be made plain. 
 
 Do you remember what Jesus said of truth? 
 
 He said, u The truth shall make you free." To be 
 free is the first step in the direction of light. 
 
GOD AND THE DEVIL, OR GOOD AND EVIL. 97 
 
 No man can serve two masters, and to fear is to serve. 
 
 Whoso is afraid of the devil has the devil for master, 
 and cannot serve "God" with his whole heart and mind 
 and strength. 
 
 Let us then kill the devil and be free to serve u God." 
 
 It is not a difficult thing to do, to kill the devil. He 
 has no existence except in the imagination of men. 
 
 Being, in their ignorance, unable to account for 
 things which appeared to be the opposite of good men 
 imagined that there must be a principle of evil as well 
 as a principle of good; and as they could not well un- 
 derstand how a principle or power that was without 
 form could act, they conceived that the principle of 
 evil, which they imagined to exist must have form, so 
 they give it a form and called it a devil. 
 
 Do you see the connection between the words evil 
 and devil? 
 
 Evil is understood to refer to a principle, or an effect, 
 opposed to, or the opposite of good. When men in 
 imagination gave to the supposed principle of evil a 
 bodily form they changed the form of the word ex- 
 pressing the principle of evil so as to distinguish in 
 speech between the principle and the person, and by 
 adding a letter made of evil — devil. 
 
 So also of the word good. 
 
98 GOD AND THE DEVIL, OR GOOD AND EVIL. 
 
 Good signifies everything which attaches to the 
 meaning of the word "God" except bodily form. The 
 word "God," then, is a contraction of the word good 
 and came into use, probably, when men in their ignor- 
 ance conceived that the principle or law of Good was 
 embodied in a form and had a location or place, thus 
 in their imagination making space or room for the 
 devil. Or perhaps his belief in a devil first argued to 
 man the necessity of giving form to "God. 1 ' Having 
 conceived that the devil existed, man must, to be log- 
 ical, conceive that there was somewhere a place where 
 he existed; and having reasoned thus far the next 
 logical step in the arrangement was that u God" was 
 also limited both as to locality and to power, and so to 
 "God" he assigned one corner of the universe (the 
 upper) while the devil took the other, or lower corner. 
 
 And with this suppositious devil came a thousand 
 resulting miseries. 
 
 For do you know what fear does? 
 
 Fear u makes cowards of us all" and I know of noth- 
 ing of less value to the world than a coward. 
 
 Fear does more than make cowards of us. It causes 
 sickness and deformity; it breeds fevers; it opens the 
 door to epidemics, and feeds them when they come. 
 Yea, it kills. 
 
GOD AXD THE DEVIL, OR GOOD AXD EVIL. 
 
 It kills the body and paralyzes the hearts and brains 
 and souls of men. It is a thing to be hated of all men 
 and women who desire health and strength and beauty 
 and happiness and long life, or who desire to know the 
 truth and to live it. 
 
 Remove all fear from out the brains of the race of 
 men, and one half of all the sickness and sorrow in the 
 world will depart that same hour. Give in place of 
 fear a perfect faith in Good, together with an under- 
 standing of the law, and the other half will follow, 
 and men will be at peace — at one with the Law and 
 will live in the body forever — or until by the power 
 and goodness of Good they are transformed as it is as- 
 serted in the Bible shall be in the last day. 
 
 Let us then kill the devil. Let us bury him so deep 
 beneath the sods of conviction that he will never find 
 a resurrection or cause us to fear again. 
 
 Who began the creation? Who was before the 
 world was. or man? 
 
 Was it the devil? Was it a principle, or power, of 
 evil ? 
 
 No. It was the principle or law, of Good. The Law 
 was at the beginning. Before the world was, the Law 
 was. 
 
100 GOD AND THE DEVIL, OR GOOD AND EVIL. 
 
 This is the Bible account and it is fully sustained by 
 logic. 
 
 Good or "God" must have begun the creation from 
 the simple reason that it is good to create. 
 
 The power, the desire, the will to create — the act of 
 creating is good — and not evil. 
 
 By creating I mean the calling into existence; the 
 bringing of form out of chaos; the organizing of dis- 
 organized elements; the creating as of a world — this I 
 say is good and proves that the creating power was 
 good. 
 
 Before the creation of the world then, Good was, and 
 Good only, and Good created. 
 
 And when Good had created there then was Good 
 and that which Good had created and only these, and 
 both the creator and the created were good; and from 
 good can not evil spring; hence evil as an active living 
 principle never had an existence and can not have; 
 hence cannot have a form; hence there can be no devil 
 either now or at any future time. 
 
 Do you still ask whence came evil into the world? 
 
 It is born of the imagination, and it exists in no 
 other place. 
 
 You look about you and you see a thousand things 
 which you pronounce evils. 
 
GOD AND THE DEVIL, OR GOOD AKD EVIL. 101 
 
 Poverty and sickness and old age and all that these 
 mean to men and women — these are upon every side 
 of us — these are the sights upon which we daily look. 
 
 And are not these evils? 
 
 And crime, is not that evil? 
 
 Again I say these are only seeming evils. They are 
 not so in very truth. Good is everywhere and always 
 present. Evil is nowhere and has no existence. These 
 things seem to be because men are ignorant of the law 
 of Good, and because of their disbelief in Good. Evils 
 are born of man's imagination. They are images float- 
 ing before the eyes in the darkness. They are ghosts 
 born of ignorance and fear, and are only seen by those 
 who have forgotten or who have not yet learned that 
 men cannot by any possibility separate themselves 
 from Good. 
 
 Because man fears these things they appear to be. 
 Because he has not faith in the good they rise up be- 
 fore him. 
 
 Evil comes to man because he believes in evil, gave 
 it a form and bowed down his heart in fear before it — 
 bowed down before the devil, an idol — or image — of 
 his own creation. 
 
 I Bay that these things we call evils are the creatures 
 
102 GOD AND THE DEVIL, OR GOOD AND EVIL. 
 
 of our own imaginings. There is positively no living, 
 or active principle of evil anywhere. Not in heaven, 
 nor on earth, neither in the waters under the earth is 
 there any power which can either do evil or beget it. 
 
 Evil has no existence. It did not exist at the begin- 
 ning of creation; it was not created; it does not exist. 
 That it appears to do so is due solely to our false reason- 
 ing and to our failure to preceive the presence of good. 
 
 What darkness is to the natural eye that evil is to 
 the eye of the understanding. We shut ourselves up 
 in a dungeon and say, "The sun gives forth no light. 1 ' 
 We close our natural eyes and say, "The world is a 
 blank and void, I see nothing.'' We close our eyes 
 and say, u The sun has gone down; darkness has come." 
 
 Just so do we close the eyes of our understanding 
 and say, "Good is departed; evil has come." 
 
 We wall ourselves in with the rocks of ignorance 
 and the mortar of superstition and say, U I cannot see 
 the Good. It is not here/' 
 
 Not long since a man begged for a crust and lodging 
 at a farm house not far from New York City, and died 
 a few hours later of cold by the road side. Yet he 
 owned one of the finest hotels in New York, arid was 
 possessed of a million of dollars in his own name. He 
 
GOD AND THE DEVIL, OR GOOD AND EVIL. 103 
 
 thought himself poor and a beggar, but he was insane. 
 His poverty was of his imagination only. 
 
 I do declare to you now that your poverty is no more 
 real than was this man's, and that if you could believe 
 as firmly in good as you do in evil — if you could but 
 recognize the presence and power of Good to its fullest, 
 your poverty would flee from you as the frost from the 
 heat of the sun, and you would be rich, not alone in 
 spiritual things, but in all things needed for bodily 
 comfort. 
 
 "Seek first the kingdom of heaven and all these 
 things shall be added unto you." 
 
 Who of you believe the Bible to be inspired of Him 
 whom you worship as "God" can believe, while yet you 
 are in poverty, that you have understood or worshiped 
 aright? 
 
 I tell you that Jesus knew the law and understood 
 its workings, and he meant what he said; meant ex- 
 actly that and nothing more or less. 
 
 He meant that if you could understand and realize 
 that Good, or "God," is forever and always around and 
 about and within you; and that you are therefore living 
 within the kingdom of "God" and not in the kingdom 
 of the devil; in the kingdom or realm of Good and 
 
104 GOD AND THE DEVIL, OR GOOD AND EVIL. 
 
 not of evil, that all things which are desirable for the 
 body ; health, beauty, wealth, — "all these things" should 
 come to you, or be added to you. 
 
 He meant you to understand that it is the law of 
 nature, of Good, that to those who understand the law,, 
 and cling to it, and believe in it, and refuse to believe 
 in evil, Good alone can come; and I tell you that the 
 law is perfect, and its workings are perfect, and there 
 is no possibility that evil of any kind, or any semblance 
 of evil, can come to him who believes in the law with 
 his whole heart, and his whole mind, and his whole 
 strength. 
 
 It could not be the law of Good if it were not per- 
 fect, and it could not be perfect if it ever failed in its 
 workings, even in the slightest degree. 
 
 Obey the law of Good perfectly, in perfect faith, and 
 your reward is certain. Nothing can interfere to pre- 
 vent it. 
 
 No one else can so violate the law as to rob me of 
 that which is mine under the law, if I fail not in my 
 obedience to it. Though I stand alone, or though you 
 stand alone, and though the whole world come up 
 against us and seek to slay us and to rob us of that 
 which is ours, yet shall we not be harmed in so much 
 
GOD AXD THE DEVIL, OR GOOD AND EVIL. 105 
 
 as one hair of our heads, neither shall anything which 
 is ours be taken from us. 
 
 I say this with a full knowledge and understanding 
 of the laws of what men call political economy, the 
 effect of which, upon the production and distribution 
 of wealth, has been my study for years. 
 
 The law of Good is the first law, and it is sufficient 
 to all who reside wholly within the kingdom of Good. 
 The root of the law of Good and all its branches and 
 its fruit are within the kingdom of Good, this kingdom 
 into which all may enter who deny evil, or eschew it, 
 and believe in and cling to Good alone. 
 
 The law of economics has its root in the kingdom of 
 Good, but its branches reach over into the realm of 
 seeming evil, where men live, and the fruit is formed 
 there and eaten there. Obedience to the law of true 
 economics would enable men to gather far better fruit 
 than is now gathered from it; and eating such, men 
 would be prompted to seek the spot whence the root 
 springs, and so be led within the kingdom of Good, 
 where is the perfect fruit of the perfect law of Good, 
 and where no other law is needed and no other drops 
 its fruit within the kingdom. 
 
 To him who believes alike in Good and in evil, Good 
 and evil alike come. 
 
106 GOD AND THE DEYIL, OR GOOD AND EVIL. 
 
 Poverty is to those who believe in poverty; sickness 
 to those who believe in sickness; death to those who 
 belie ve in death; a devil and hell to those who believe 
 in a devil. 
 
 Aye, and riches, and health, and hope, and heaven 
 to those who believe in the Good alone, and who know 
 the law and obey it. 
 
 C* M * G* *L&>&^* 
 
INFLUENCE OF FEAR UPON INDIVIDUALS. 107 
 
 INFLUENCE OF FEAR UPON INDIVIDUALS. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 The effects of sudden fright upon the physical and 
 mental powers of the individual are well known to all 
 physicians, and in fact to nearly everybody. Indeed, 
 nearly everyone has experienced something of these 
 effects in his own person. 
 
 Who is there who has not at some time, in some 
 lonely spot, in a dim light, and among deepening 
 shadows started and turned pale at sight of some hid- 
 eous object, half fact and half fancy, which seemed 
 suddenly to start up before him ? 
 
 Only an instant, perhaps, did the fear sway him, and 
 was then indignantly put down by a dominating will 
 power and an intelligent recognition of the surround- 
 ings and the facts. 
 
 Or if not from such cause, then a fright from sud- 
 deL'y finding himself in imminent danger from a 
 
108 INFLUENCE OF FEAR UPON INDIVIDUALS. 
 
 maddened animal, a frightened horse, the threatened 
 overturning of a vehicle, or one of a hundred other 
 possible accidents. Who, I ask, has not felt the sud- 
 den thrill of fear, from some such cause, and noted its 
 effects. The quick rush of blood to the heart, the in- 
 creased action of that organ in its effort to return the 
 blood through its natural channels to the extremeties, 
 the feelings of suffocation or choking which followed, 
 the confusion of ideas, the mental effort necessary to 
 overcome, and the bodily weakness which followed 
 when the danger was safely past? 
 
 With many people a fright produces fainting. The 
 blood ceases to circulate, or nearly so. The muscles 
 relax, the vital organs refuse to perform their functions, 
 mental faculties appear to be numbed and the person 
 falls to the ground. Death by fear is by no means an 
 unknown thing, while cases where the hair has turned 
 white in a few hours from the same cause are frequently 
 asserted and commonly accepted as true — are, I think, 
 well authenticated. 
 
 Now if such are the results of a sudden or severe 
 fright upon the individual; if fear weakens the muscles, 
 confuses the mental faculties and disarranges the whole 
 physical and mental man, what must be — what is the 
 effect upon the race, upon the mental, moral and phys- 
 
INFLUENCE OF FEAR UPON INDIVIDUALS. 109 
 
 ical health of the race — of thousands of years of fear- 
 ing; of creeds based on fear; of teachings which fill 
 the minds of the people from tenderest infancy to the 
 infancy of old age with fear in its every shape and 
 form? 
 
 Is it not reasonable to suppose that the physical 
 powers of men have been lessened and their bodies 
 rendered less symmetrical, beautiful andstrong by these 
 ages of fearing? 
 
 It certainly is. 
 
 And not only that, but their mental faculties and 
 moral natures have suffered equally with their physical 
 natures. 
 
 Fear of evil has produced the effect of evil. 
 
 Fear of the devil has actually done for the race all 
 that an actual devil could have done had he had an 
 existence. It has tortured the minds of millions as 
 nothing else could have tortured them — tortured them 
 until they have grown permanently deformed and mis- 
 shapen — until deformity has become to them as symme- 
 try and they have ceased to struggle for a knowledge 
 of truth. 
 
 The mind, like the body, if held in an unnatural 
 position for long accommodates itself to its environ- 
 ments. Kindly nature, when she can no longer hope 
 
110 INFLUENCE OF FEAR UPON INDIVIDUALS. 
 
 thereby to correct, sweetly stills the warning pain by 
 fitting the twisted limb and the warped mind to the 
 stocks which hold and deform it. 
 
 The hell of Dante and of Luther have been the hells 
 of all just in proportion as they have believed in them, 
 and their tortured minds, misshapen, have finally 
 hardened in the form into which they were drawn by 
 the racking hand of Fear. 
 
 And only when Fear shall be removed by knowledge 
 of the Truth can Love with softening touch straighten 
 their crooked minds and limbs and make them whole. 
 
 Through all the ages man has been the slave of fear. 
 Can the mind and soul of a slave grow and expand 
 naturally ? 
 
 Since time began for man fear has been man's mas- 
 ter. That man is what he is in spite of the tor- 
 turings of fear, in spite of his belief in evil, is 
 proof sufficient of his divine origin. What he would 
 now be had he known from the birth of the race 
 that in no possible way can he separate himself from 
 the living fountain of perpetual Good, and that fear, 
 therefore, is wholly without cause for being, only those 
 intelligences can know, who, having conquered fear, 
 have so come into a fuller knowledge of the Law and 
 are therefore at one with It. 
 
INFLUENCE OF FEAR UPON INDIVIDUALS. Ill 
 
 If such intelligences there be they are but what all 
 might now be, had the race from its birth believed only 
 in Good and rejected a belief in evil. 
 
 Fear has darkened the soul, paralyzed the mind, 
 weakened the body and filled the whole man with all 
 manner of loathsome disease and with the seeds of 
 death. We are a race of pigmies when we should have 
 been a race of giants, and the devil is to blame for it, 
 the devil who does not and never did exist. 
 
 It is true what one of old taught, that man must 
 give himself wholly to Good if he would be saved. Yet 
 no one can do that who believes in the devil. To one 
 who believes in the existence of evil a perfect faith in 
 the omnipotence and omnipresence of good is im- 
 possible. 
 
 If evil exists then there is need to watch against its 
 coming, and if there be need to watch then there is 
 cause to fear, and he who fears evil can not trust 
 wholly in the Good. 
 
 The time will come when men, ceasing to fear evil 
 through a recognition of the omnipresence of Good, 
 will be freed from the debasing slavery of fear. 
 
 Then, indeed, will they know "God" (Good) and be 
 at one with Him. 
 
112 love: selfishness. 
 
 LOYE: SELFISHNESS. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Love and selfishness have the same root. 
 
 Selfishness is the claim for recognition of its indi- 
 vidualized condition put forward by the individualized 
 Ego conscious of its individuality. 
 
 Love is the recognition by the individualized Ego of 
 the indivisibility of the Universe. 
 
 It is its recognition of the fact that it is but a portion 
 of a whole; and that, while it possesses an existence 
 as an individual entity, it is yet not separated from the 
 whole, and that whatever affects the whole or any part 
 thereof affects every other part, itself included. It is 
 the spirit's perception of its oneness with the universal 
 Life Principle. 
 
 Selfishness is desire, born of ignorance of the law, 
 for benefits to self regardless of, or detrimental to the 
 
love: selfishness. 113 
 
 happiness of others. Love is selfishness awakened to 
 the knowledge that seeming benefits are only such in 
 fact when shared with others. It is the recognition 
 of the "I" of its own indissoluble connection with 
 every other "I" and with the source of all things. 
 
 The recognition may be very imperfect, may indeed 
 be an intuitive recognition, rather than one clearly 
 -defined. 
 
 There appears to be such a thing as unconscious 
 consciousness, if I may use a seemingly contradictory 
 phrase. Impressions, information, knowledge of truth, 
 come to every soul, and like Will are either stored, or 
 pass out because there is no insulation of that into 
 which it flows. Often, there remains some portion of 
 truth with the individualized Ego not immediately 
 recognized, or not clearly recognized, but always seek- 
 ing to become so. 
 
 It prompts to action even when no consciousness of 
 its presence, or but a very dim one, exists with the 
 individual prompted. When action resulting from 
 such promptings appears to us to have been wise we 
 say, "It came of intuition." We say, "The person had an 
 intuitional perception of the truth" or, "The knowledge 
 was intuitional." 
 
114 love: selfishness. 
 
 It is this intuitive knowledge of its indissoluble 
 connection with the whole, which transforms selfish- 
 ness in the individual into love. Love is self desiring 
 to please that portion of itself which it recognizes as 
 existing in another. 
 
 The intuition may be weak, the recognition by the 
 Ego, of its relation to other Egos and to the Whole 
 may be very imperfect and love extend to but a small 
 portion of the Whole; but to a few persons or things; 
 but however circumscribed or limited it may be, it is 
 to that extent a recognition of the indissoluble con- 
 nection between that individual Ego and all other 
 Egos, and of the Whole. 
 
 Love is essentially selfish. It cannot possibly be 
 otherwise, for it is an element of selfhood, and is possi- 
 ble only to such expressions of the Universal Life as 
 have become sufficiently individualized to recognize 
 their wants. 
 
 It cannot be an attribute of the Universal Life for It 
 has no wants. It is conscious neither of pleasure nor of 
 pain. It is without desire save only that form of desire 
 which is necessity — the necessity of giving expression 
 to itself. 
 
 But the moment that an expression of the Universal 
 
love: selfishness. 115 
 
 Energy becomes conscious of its own individuality that 
 moment it becomes conscious of having wants. 
 
 It wants space in which to exist; wants room in 
 which to expand and grow, wants food to nourish it, 
 and as it becomes still more individualized it becomes 
 conscious of a new impulse — it loves. 
 
 Heretofore its desires have been wholly disconnected 
 from any thought of others. Xow its desires have 
 expanded to include others. Then it desired to receive 
 good directly in its own person. Xow it asks that 
 good come to it through others. 
 
 It has awakened to a consciousness of its relation to 
 other parts of the whole, to other entities. It can no 
 longer be happy of itself; it must obtain a portion of 
 its happiness through others. Its desire is still for its 
 own happiness, but it can no longer be happy except 
 the whole of which it is a part, is happy. 
 
 Or if not the whole then that portion of the whole 
 with which it recognizes its connection. For the whole 
 is composed of parts, and as the blood in the human 
 body pulses through every member of the body so that 
 no one portion can be said to be quite healthy while 
 another is consumed with disease, so no individualized 
 Ego can be perfectly at ease while any other member 
 is diseased. 
 
116 love: selfishness. 
 
 Love is the reaching out of the individual Ego to- 
 wards itself in others. 
 
 It is the longing of the body for rest in its members, 
 or of one member for rest in all. 
 
 It is selfishness in the higher plane of Being recog- 
 nizing the extreme foolishness of selfishness upon the 
 lower plane. 
 
 That in the Universal Life which, though wholly 
 for self, yet compels it to give of itself in order that 
 it may find itself, evoluted in the individual Ego into 
 love is still compelled to give in order that it may en- 
 joy- 
 
 Upon a less metaphysical plane of expression the 
 fact that love is but selfishness grown wise is, I think, 
 readily perceived. 
 
 We love another, and because of that love we say we 
 sacrifice this pleasure or submit willingly to that loss 
 in order to give that other person pleasure or prevent 
 him or her from sustaining loss. Yet where we ex- 
 amine closely into our motives we find that not to have 
 done as we did would have caused us to enjoy less 
 pleasure than to do it. 
 
 We are generous and give to one in need that which, 
 if the need had not existed, we could have expended 
 
love: selfishness. 117 
 
 to please ourselves alone; but at the last analysis we 
 find that since the call to give was made upon us, not 
 to have given would have caused us greater loss of 
 pleasure than to give. Unconsciously, or without 
 putting it into words, we recognize our connection 
 with another part of ourselves, another member of the 
 body of which we also are one of the members, and 
 have given ease to it in order that its dis-ease might no 
 longer cause a lack of ease in us. That other to which 
 we gave is a part of a whole of which we also are a 
 part, and love for it was but love of self. 
 
 "Love thy neighbor as thyself," takes on a new 
 meaning when seen in this light. 
 
 We cannot possibly love another as we love ourselves 
 unless we recognize him as a part of ourselves. 
 
 The very essence of selfhood, of individuality, is love 
 of self; a desire to gratify wants which do not exist 
 outside of a self conscious existence. 
 
 Self wants. 
 
 An entity but little individualized, as a rock, a shell, 
 a crystal, has no wants because it has no consciousness 
 of an existence apart from the Whole. 
 
 But a tree has wants, and it reaches out its branches 
 and asks the sun and the rain and the dew to satisfy 
 
118 love: selfishness. 
 
 them. It sends its roots down into the earth in search 
 
 of that which will satisfy its want of nourishment. 
 
 And the tree loves; it loves at least itself; it loves 
 to live and clings to life. 
 
 Break its roots and it sends out other roots. Denude 
 it of its branches and it sprouts other branches. 
 
 It flowers, and its blossoms lift up their heads and 
 plead for fructification that the life of the tree may 
 be continued through its seed when it can no longer 
 maintain its own individual existence in its present 
 form. 
 
 The tree loves and through its pistils and its stamens 
 gives hint of its unconscious recognition of its citizen- 
 ship in a universe of the Whole. 
 
 Animals love, not their mates alone or their offspring, 
 but in a degree varying in different individuals and 
 different orders others of their order and of other 
 orders. 
 
 Human beings love, and in proportion as they rec- 
 ognize the u Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood 
 of man 11 in that same proportion do they love all things. 
 For love is the recognition of just that relationship 
 between the Universal Ego and a single expression of 
 it; is the recognition of the fact that we are one with 
 
love: selfishness. 119 
 
 the Law of life and one with our neighbor; one with 
 all things that are; and that perfect peace, perfect 
 ease, perfect happiness cannot come to us save it come 
 to others also. 
 
 When men shall have learned how great a truth this 
 is then will all unholy strife cease among the children 
 of men, for all will do unto others as doing unto them- 
 selves. 
 
120 THE VALUE OF THE NEW FAITH. 
 
 THE VALUE OF THE NEW FAITH. 
 
 CHAPTEK XII. 
 
 I cannot close this series of essays without a word 
 regarding the value of these new ideas; new, yet old; 
 ideas so new to the many that they have not yet con- 
 sidered whether or not they shall accept them as being 
 true, yet, dating from their first acceptance by think- 
 ing men as old, aye, older, than any written history of 
 of the race. 
 
 He whom men call the Christ taught them. But 
 centuries before theNazarene publicly proclaimed them 
 from the temple, or quietly instructed his disciples re- 
 garding them as they traveled the dusty highways, or 
 sat at rest beneath the trees in Palestine, Buddha 
 taught them. 
 
 Whether Jesus gained knowledge of them through 
 missionaries or merchants who came to Palestine from 
 
THE VALUE OF THE NEW FAITH. 121 
 
 the farther East, or whether great thoughts and 
 glimpses of the divine truth came to him in the silences, 
 flowing in upon a mind and heart open to receive them 
 is of no consequence to us. Not the slightest. 
 
 Neither is it of use to speculate as to how or why a 
 knowledge of the truth never came to the great mass 
 of those who constitute the human race, save as know- 
 ing the obstacles that prevent a spread of the light we 
 may be the better able to remove them. 
 
 Ignorance is at the base of all things which men 
 call evil. 
 
 Ignorant men thinking themselves wise, thinking 
 they can get good for themselves, get liberty for them- 
 selves, peace and pleasure and happiness for themselves 
 by denying like good to others, scheme and work and 
 combine among themselves for that purpose. 
 
 It was unquestionably a combination of political 
 and ecclesiastical forces or elements that planned and 
 finally effected the killing of Jesus, for he taught both 
 m political and a spiritual economy, each equally obnox- 
 ious to the ruling elements in the political and com- 
 mercial, and in the theological world. 
 
 Recognizing the existence of matter as apparent to 
 the senses, and of man's physical relation thereto, he 
 
122 THE VALUE OF THE NEW FAITH. 
 
 sought to teach men how to so use the lower as to make 
 it a stepping stone to the higher life; declaring all 
 men and women to be entitled to equal opportunities, 
 and denouncing as a violation of the economic and 
 moral law certain practices and customs by which the 
 masses were kept in poverty and ignorance; and so do- 
 ing offended both church and state, the politician and 
 the creedist; those whose fields were fertilized in the 
 sweat of the poor man's brow, and those who wielded 
 power and influence through appeals to the fears and 
 superstitions of men. 
 
 Then as now the great majority of men and women 
 farmed out their right to think. 
 
 The right of some to be better born than others was 
 a part of the creed alike of church and state. The 
 king was king by divine right; the priest was called by 
 the voice of a personal God, and no man might dispute 
 their right to rule and to teach and lead. 
 
 Moses had led out of bondage and made a mighty 
 nation of a race, that, at the exodus must have exceeded 
 in besotted ignorance and superstition, the negroes of 
 the Southern States at the time of their emancipation. 
 
 He had taught them a knowledge of certain economic 
 laws and of how to so take advantage of them as to en- 
 
THE VALUE OF THE NEW FAITH. 123 
 
 rich themselves at the expense of every people with 
 whom they came in contact, and had declared to them 
 that these laws were from God, and given to them as a 
 specially favored people whom God wished thereby to 
 give an advantage over others. 
 
 So long as they observed those teachings and re- 
 frained from preying upon each other, the Jews in- 
 creased in wealth and power as in numbers. It was 
 largely their knowledge of economic laws that made 
 them great as a nation; it is the same knowledge that 
 has preserved them great as a people through centuries 
 of persecution. 
 
 Himself a Jew and instructed in Jewish law and 
 wisdom, Jews understood and appreciated to their fullest 
 the value upon the physical plane, of the economic 
 laws of Moses; but, whereas Moses had prescribed rules 
 of conduct and taught laws of political economy tend- 
 ing to build up one race and nation largely at the ex- 
 pense of all others, Jesus taught that all men were 
 brethern: and that the law was equally applicable to 
 all, thereby offending all who sought to gain wealth 
 at the expense of their fellows, but especially so the 
 Jews who had been taught that as a favored people 
 they were authorized by God to plunder others than 
 
124 THE VALUE OF THE XEW FAITH. 
 
 Jews, and had learned through Moses the way in which 
 it could be most easily done. 
 
 The more selfish among the Jews had already vi- 
 olated the law which forbade them from taking advan- 
 tage of other Jews, and had long been in the habit of 
 applying their knowledge of economic laws equally in 
 dealing with Jew and gentile, and had suffered rebuke 
 for it at the hand of their priests; but now came Jesus 
 declaring that not only to the Jews, but to all men 
 equally was the law applicable, which was equivalent 
 to forbidding the over-reaching of the heathen in 
 business, and was a virtual assertion that so much, at 
 least, of the law proclaimed by Moses as permitted, 
 was not from God. 
 
 It is very little wonder that priest and people alike 
 cried out for his life. 
 
 He was condemning at once the teachings of the 
 priests, and the practices by which the most wealthy 
 and influential among the Jews added to their wealth. 
 
 Neither is it surprising that after seeing him mur- 
 dered they proceeded to nullify the effect of his teach- 
 ings. 
 
 Yet for some centuries a church organization was 
 maintained that held with considerable closeness and 
 
THE VALUE OF THE NEW FAITH. 125 
 
 tenacity to the truths which he taught. The spiritual 
 or mental law of healing was observed and practiced, 
 and the economic law enforced regarding the holding 
 of land and the taking of usury (interest). 
 
 But gradually a perception of the truth, together 
 with the power which comes with such perception, 
 faded from among them as the influence of the more 
 wealthy and less spiritual increased, until finally the 
 church ceased to be a teacher of either spiritual or 
 ecomonic truth, and became instead the red-handed 
 promulgator of a creed. 
 
 Promulgator of a creed or creeds it is to-day; and 
 if not red-handed it is because there is no longer 
 strength in its right hand to wield the sword or heap 
 fagots about the stake; and without this, and without 
 the power which knowledge of the truth gives, it is 
 fast sinking into the state of coma which precedes 
 final dissolution. 
 
 It will doubtless revive for a brief space before it 
 finally expires, and make one fierce struggle for con- 
 tinued existence; but, despising the truth, controlled 
 by ideas of expediency, pandering to the rich, appeal- 
 ing to the selfish interests, the fears and superstitions 
 and hatreds of men, instead of searching for and de- 
 claring the law, (which is love) it will fail. 
 
126 THE VALUE OF THE NEW FAITH. 
 
 Already its days are numbered; its power for good 
 departed; its value even as a kind of police force to 
 hold the more ignorant members of society in check 
 (for which purpose it is at present upheld by many 
 who do not believe in its tenets) its value as a police 
 force is virtually nil, and the next generation will 
 witness its burial with scant ceremony and small con- 
 course of mourners. 
 
 To take its place and do the work it might have done 
 comes the new old Truth with proclamation of a higher 
 law of life and of living; of a grander future for the 
 race, a nobler, purer and happier life for the individual; 
 a life to be spent in freedom; not in a closed heaven 
 from whose parapets the saved may watch the writh- 
 ings of the lost what time they are not required to play 
 the harp and sing songs of eulogy before a God of 
 nature so low as to take pleasure in flattery and the 
 abasement and suffering of his creatures; but made free 
 through knowledge of the truth, and an existence of 
 continued growth through truth to higher truths, 
 through love to greater love, through obedience to the 
 law to command of the law. 
 
 For this new old Truth lifts men up, not upon the 
 cross, but by the ladder which leads to heaven; lifts 
 
THE VALUE OE THE NEW FAITH. 127 
 
 them up into a knowledge of their own worth; of 
 their likeness in all things to the source whence they 
 sprang — their likeness in power, in goodness, in possi- 
 bility of greater knowledge. 
 
 It applies to men the same rule of love by which 
 our more enlightened instructors of children now seek 
 to control and direct their pupils, in place of the rule 
 of hate and brute force by which our schools were 
 managed a generation or two ago. This latter rule 
 was the logical outgrowth of a belief in a personal 
 God, creator and ruler of the universe, who punished 
 his subjects for failure either to hear of, believe in or 
 abase themselves before him declaring themselves 
 worms, himself worthy of endless praise even while 
 he inflicted the most horrid of tortures upon the 
 creatures of his own begetting. 
 
 The Truth makes free, and freedom is beyond all 
 price. It is what the political economists properly 
 designate as "priceless;" its value is so great that there 
 is nothing with which to compare it; for Truth is all 
 there is and when we have Truth we have all. 
 
 This is not a figure of speech merely. It is actually 
 and practically a fact, that he who possesses truth, that 
 is — understands the Law — may command (therefore 
 possess) all things. 
 
123 THE VALUE OF THE NEW FAITH. 
 
 That this is so is proven by the fact that in such 
 proportion as we do understand the law or know truth 
 we do command. 
 
 By knowledge of the law of electricity we command 
 the lightnings; by understanding acoustics we an- 
 nihilate space and speak with friends a hundred miles 
 away. 
 
 The laws of electricity and of acoustics are no more 
 knowable than the law of mental healing of the body, 
 or the law by which matter may be dematerialized, or 
 through which the consciousness may be in one place 
 while the body remains in another. 
 
 All things that are, are subject to law, and man as 
 the highest expression of the law is rightfully master 
 of all things below him, even the law itself, made so 
 by his ability to understand and willingness to obey 
 the law. 
 
 There is nothing to which he may not rightfully 
 aspire. That which in his ignorance of the way that 
 leads to peace and happiness he now most of all de- 
 sires — namely, to get wealth and honor and power at 
 the expense of his fellow men — is the ball and chain 
 preventing his more rapid progress. 
 
 Know the truth, which is to obey the law, having 
 
THE VALUE OF THE NEW FAITH. 129 
 
 faith in it and in yourself as an expression of the law, 
 and all things else shall be added. Wealth, power, 
 (over the lower forms of matter including your own 
 body) peace, health, happiness, all these will come to 
 all men in proportion as all men know the truth and 
 live it. 
 
 And sorrow and suffering: — even the agonies of the 
 imaginary hell of the heathen Christians shall come 
 to all men until they have learned the truth — come to 
 them not as a punishment meted out by an angry God, 
 but as the inevitable result of the breaking of the law, 
 or a refusal to know truth ; not in condemnation for 
 sin; but as the result of ignorance. 
 
 To tread upon thorns, to eat of a poisonous fruit is 
 not sin, but to learn of their effect through experienc- 
 ing them is to choose a smoother path and more nour- 
 ishing food. 
 
 Not all of truth is known, nor ever will be. 
 
 It is truth's greatest virtue, its feature of supreme 
 beauty that it increases as our knowledge of it increases, 
 just as. by increased power in the lens of a telescope 
 do the heavens show forth a greater number of suns 
 to our vision. 
 
 All truth is knowable. But truth is also infinite. 
 
130 THE VALUE OF THE NEW FAITH. 
 
 Only in proportion as we can comprehend the infinite 
 can we know truth. There is nothing hidden, yet are 
 our minds too weak to comprehend all. 
 
 And if all truth were known to men there would 
 come death to the race — for life is progress, advance- 
 ment, growth. When there is no more room for 
 growth there comes stagnation, and stagnation is death. 
 
 We may not know all truth, but we can continue to 
 glean truth from the field to which all are invited, 
 of whose bounties nothing is reserved, and so gleaning 
 we may continue to live and to grow — grow in wisdom, 
 in beauty, in strength, in goodness, in an understand- 
 ing of the law, in all things that can in any way add 
 to our happiness. 
 
 And these new old truths of which I have been 
 writing point the way. I offer them as truths, but 
 not as entire truth. 
 
Tt>e Blosson) o^ bt)^ Cer)burv. 
 BY HELEN WILMANS. 
 
 This is a Mental Science book. It is all about the possibilities 
 of human power; the power vested in human development. It is 
 at once a mighty revelation and a mightier prophecy. Such a 
 book is inestimable in its capacity to unfold native mental ability 
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 self trust. The absence of self trust is self defeat every time. Its 
 absence is the curse of the race. It is neither poverty nor disease 
 nor oppression that curses us; it is the want of self confidence that 
 does it. The man who has self trust goes up head; those who 
 lack it take their places below him and stand, usually, where the 
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 S. McDonald, Terre Haute, Ind., says of it: 
 
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 Attractively bound in cloth. Price 81.00. Address Ada W. 
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Tl>eHoir)e Course 19 MepbalScieix-' 
 
 — :o: — 
 BY HELEN WILMANS. 
 
 — :o: — 
 
 The most essential thing I know of for the uplifting of humanity, 
 and for healing all its distresses of sickness, weakness, deformity 
 and poverty, is a knowledge of the science of mind: a knowledge 
 of what mind is and what it can do. 
 
 I am now offering for home study a complete course of lessons 
 upon this most essential subject. There are twenty of these les- 
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 lows: 
 
 1 . Omnipresent Life . 11. The Power Above the Throne . 
 
 2. Thought, the Body Builder. 12. The King on His Throne. 
 
 3. Our Beliefs. 13. Mental Science a Race Move- 
 
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 4. Denials. 14. Mental Science Incarnate in 
 
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 5. Affirmations. 15. Personality and Individuality. 
 
 6. The Soul of Things. 16. "The Stone that the Builders 
 
 Reiected. ' 
 
 7. Faith, Our Guide Through 
 
 the Dark. 17. A Noble Egoism the Founda- 
 
 tion of Just Action. 
 
 8. Spirit and Body are One. 18. Recognition of the Will the 
 
 Cure of Disease. 
 
 9. Prayer and Self-Culture. 19. Practical Healing. 
 10. The Power Behind the 
 
 Throne. 20. Posture of the Will Man. 
 
 The price of these lessons has been reduced from $25.00 to 85.00. 
 Students have the privilege of sending 81.00 at a time and getting 
 four lessons. Send for descriptive circular to 
 
 ADA WILMANS POWERS, 
 168 Humboldt Ave., Boston, Mass. 
 

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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