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PRACTICAL 
 OCCULTISM 
 
 BY 
 
 WALTER WINSTON KENILWORTH 
 
 BOSTON 
 RICHARD G. BADGER 
 
 THE GORHAM PRESS 
 
Copyright, 1921, by Richard G. Badger 
 
 All Rights Reserved 
 
 & 
 
 \C$ 
 
 Made in the United States of America 
 
 The Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A. 
 
 APR 13 1921 
 ©CU611703 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Apropos the Occult 7 
 
 Practical Occultism . .10 
 
 The Philosophical Ideal 10 
 
 The Mental Ideal and Psychic Control . . . .15 
 
 The Emotional Ideal 23 
 
 Psychic Development 24 
 
 The Nervous System 25 
 
 Interaction of Mind and Nerves 36 
 
 The Mind 39 
 
 Psychic Development and Mental Therapeutics . . 48 
 
 Psychic Suggestions 70 
 
 The Science and Secret of Hypnotism .... 103 
 
 The Development of Hypnotism 107 
 
 The Methods of Hypnotic Therapeutics . . .115 
 
 Physio-Psychical Conditions 116 
 
 The Drift of the New Psychology 120 
 
 Clairvoyance 122 
 
 Auras and Influences 130 
 
 Fate and Astrology 136 
 
 Karma 147 
 
 The Ways of Karma 156 
 
 The Spiritual Perception 162 
 
 Business and Concentration 177 
 
 3 
 
4 Contents 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Self-Education . . 185 ' 
 
 Changing Your Environment 193 | 
 
 Impressions and Intuitions 205 t 
 
 Comments on the Philosophy of Good and Evil . . 214 { 
 
 Philosophical Reflections on the Nature of Reality . 222 
 
 Deeper Meanings . ... 249 
 
 The Divinity of the Soul . . 265 
 
 The Highest Ideal 278 
 
 The Higher Call and Response . . . . . 287 
 
 Racial Disturbances and Self-Expression . . . 290 
 
 The Higher Self 293 
 
 Concerning the Eternal Omnipresent Self . . . 298 
 
PRACTICAL OCCULTISM 
 
PRACTICAL OCCULTISM 
 
 APROPOS THE OCCULT 
 
 We cannot revert our minds these days, but 
 we hear of the occult. Occultism, in various 
 forms, is becoming in a tremendous and may be 
 dangerous sense the fad of the world. The dan- 
 ger is evident in the important fact that the occult 
 is so glibly handled by those who know it 
 so little. There are those even like a child, 
 ignorantly playing with fire, employ occultism for 
 commercial and selfish purposes, and hourly curse 
 themselves through the law of reflection. They 
 invariably become neurasthenic. 
 
 Occultism, in no sense, signifies the tinkling of 
 astral bells, the gibberings of earthbound souls, 
 and similar mob-attracting phenomena. The 
 greatest occultist is the greatest child ; the greatest 
 occult vision, the vision of the spirit; the greatest 
 occult deed and rarest, the unselfish deed. Thrice 
 blessed by the Karmic Deities are such who, in 
 unison with the True White Brotherhood, per- 
 form the simplest act of kindness, and employ 
 
 frl 
 
8 Practical Occultism 
 
 the higher senses and the soul-faculties in a sim- 
 ple, humble spirit for the benefit of the fellow- 
 man. 
 
 The Samana Gotama, the Buddha, told his 
 Arhats and chelas never to perplex themselves 
 concerning four certain truths : one of these truths 
 was relative to the psychological powers which 
 evolve with soul-development. Another great 
 teacher, Bhagavan Sri Ramakrishna, instructed 
 his disciples that psychological phenomena, in 
 themselves, had a tendency to lead the seeker 
 after Truth in vaingloriousness from the noble 
 path leading to the goal. It is related that, on a 
 certain occasion, when a disciple said: "Master, 
 I have acquired the power to read the human 
 heart," he replied: "Shame on thee, boy, for fol- 
 lowing such practices." The learned Swamije 
 Vivekananda, who so ably taught the philosophy 
 of the Vedanta in this country and Europe, and 
 was a disciple of Bhagavan Sri Ramakrishna, ex- 
 plained in a simple manner in his "Raja Yoga" 
 those truths of psychology known to India for 
 countless generations. His book was the result 
 of the abnormal curiosity concerning the occult 
 he found rampant in this land. Personally he 
 never countenanced its practices. His religious 
 aim was higher. Yet, it is said of him, when a 
 
Apropos the Occult 9 
 
 Chicago millionaire ridiculingly insisted that he 
 display occult powers, he simply looked in the 
 man's eyes. Later the man declared: "In that 
 look, I felt as if my entire life lay like an open 
 book before the swami." 
 
 India, that land of enchantment and magic, has 
 produced also those sages who advised the people 
 to turn their gaze from occult distractions to the 
 vision of the Self and the Eternal. 
 
PRACTICAL OCCULTISM 
 
 The Philosophical Ideal 
 
 Practical occultism is a method of realizing the 
 deeper psychological and spiritual life potentially 
 existent within every creature, and which bears a 
 practical significance to the daily experience of 
 ordinary life. Higher truth, vision and life are 
 not only for the great and eventful occasion ; they 
 should as well serve in every moment, even the 
 most commonplace; for it is only as the psycho- 
 logical life becomes the normal every-day life that 
 the path can be trodden and the goal finally 
 reached. Above all, to understand such a prac- 
 tical view of occultism we must get away from 
 the obsolete, perverted conception of occultism 
 which obtained in those earlier days when inter- 
 pretation of the occult had its first apostolate in 
 the Blavatsky coterie. With the coming of 
 Oriental philosophers and psychologists to this 
 country, and with the efforts of scientific investi- 
 gators such as Muller, Carus, Rhys-Davids, 
 Oldenburg and others, a higher understanding of 
 
 10 
 
Practical Occultism 1 1 
 
 the truly occult was given expression. The 
 "sham" side, the element of the ominous and of 
 the mystery-mongering, was divested of its mean- 
 ing and influence and for it was substituted that 
 religio-psychological definition which is to-day 
 accepted by leading thinkers. 
 
 Occultism is the modern revelation and sym- 
 bolism of an ancient and well-guarded system of 
 psychological philosophy involving a knowledge 
 of psychology in comparison with which our mod- 
 ern psychology is relatively less fundamental. 
 Occultism finds its greatest significance in the 
 attainment of self-knowledge, that attainment 
 which was suggested by the Greek of Pre-Socratic 
 times. This self-knowledge is not merely a meta- 
 physical conception of the nature of man. It 
 has nothing to do with philosophy, for it is purely 
 psychological. It is a psychical discovery of the 
 essence and action of the mind and the control and 
 direction of the will in relation to it. 
 
 The mind is usually considered either as an in- 
 tangible abstract something having a nominal 
 existence while its real existence is confused with 
 the physical brain. There are even those who 
 think themselves enlightened who persist in such 
 a view. They speak of all thought as inseparably 
 dependent upon the action of the molecules of the 
 brain and the condition of the nerve centers. To 
 
12 Practical Occultism 
 
 them thought is but a secretion of the brain. This 
 opinion is of little importance apart from a 
 philosophical sense, but, in the light of any system 
 of metaphysical speculation, it becomes a divid- 
 ing line between the materialistic and spiritual 
 thought. 
 
 The average person accustomed, to viewing the 
 external perceptible universe as the solely existent 
 accords to it a greater reality than to his personal 
 self. The visible and the tangible are alone real 
 to him. The personal self is regarded as a 
 shadowy reflection of the actual, external world. 
 Naturally, his relation in conduct to such a theory 
 is expressive of the material attitude taken. It is 
 necessary to discuss the philosophical side of oc- 
 cultism because this is of singular importance and 
 because it is by it alone that occultism can be 
 understood and put into practice. So long as man 
 believes himself to be identified with the outer 
 world, so long as he believes he is under its pro- 
 vision and control, so long as he disbelieves in 
 the superior reality of himself, so long will he re- 
 main ignorant of the occult and unaware of the 
 great blessings and power which such knowledge 
 imparts. 
 
 In all activity the mind finds that it stands 
 apart from the world of phenomena. The per- 
 cipient self is distinct from the perceptible world. 
 
Practical Occultism 13 
 
 Occult teaching distinguishes and emphasizes the 
 comparative reality of the two and gives a per- 
 manence and reality to the percipient self that it 
 denies to the phenomena perceived by the self. 
 In Western thought the exact opposite position 
 has been maintained. The external sense-world 
 has been considered the sole reality, if not in 
 theory, at least in practice. The soul has received 
 only a quasi-importance. This extremely narrow 
 conception has marked its influence upon Western 
 religious sentiment so that, to the Western mind, 
 the soul, after it has separated from the body, is 
 definable only as something rather vaporous, airy 
 and abstract than real, and of more importance 
 and more vitally existent than the physical body 
 which was its instrument of expression during the 
 physical life. This has made the after-death 
 states of Christian conception so ridiculously 
 physical. The conception drawn in vital contrast 
 to the reality of sense experiences, gives man a 
 purely physical heaven and a purely sense life. 
 
 This dual conception of reality, of life and soul 
 is of vast occult meaning. If there is more of 
 concreteness to the outward arrangement of 
 things, then the inner soul has a relative existence 
 and importance in comparison with the practical 
 matter-of-fact circumstances we find in the world 
 of physical association. It becomes, as it were, 
 
14 Practical Occultism 
 
 subjected to the more real outward world and is 
 hopelessly controlled by it. 
 
 Occultism begins by affirming the existence of 
 the soul and asserts that it possesses a deep reality 
 and a permanence of life that cannot be ascribed 
 to anything different from itself. This being true, 
 the soul is free, free to express the latent divinity, 
 omniscience, power and bliss which form its 
 essence and true self. It will be unhampered to 
 inaugurate a spirit of self-control by which, in 
 turn, it will learn, little by little, to control the 
 outward condition of things. In this lies all the 
 1 disputation of occultism. 
 
 Occultism is the word used to designate the 
 evolution of those powers and that attenuation of 
 the moral consciousness which develop with the 
 growth of self-control and self-regulation, which 
 develop with the quest of Truth and the recog- 
 nition and the assertion of the spiritual and of the 
 superiority of the mind over anything with which 
 it may come into contact. By controlling the 
 lower self by the higher we control the substance 
 and the life-force which composes the lower 
 nature within. By controlling this substance and 
 life-force we control Nature itself, which moves 
 under the same law and is composed of the same 
 substance and force of which the ego itself is 
 composed. 
 
Practical Occultism 15 
 
 The Mental Ideal and Psychic Control 
 
 Since the birth of the human instincts the 
 majority of men have been concerned with what 
 happened outside of them. They have payed 
 attention to the forms, events, circumstances and 
 conditions which come under the heading of phe- 
 nomenal existence. Rarely did anyone make 
 effort to discover the mind which all these 
 material things affected and which, in turn, had 
 their meaning and existence through its percep- 
 tion. The Upanishads say it is in the nature of 
 the mind to peer out into the world of the senses. 
 It projects itself and the senses upon the phe- 
 nomenal world and, once this projection has taken 
 place, it becomes a fixed habit. The mind, actu- 
 ated by external impress, throws itself about the 
 cause of the impress and occupies itself solely with 
 what it has covered, little heeding the fact that it 
 itself is all that it perceives, that what it perceives 
 is only a mode of self-manifestation. It pays no 
 attention to the working processes which produce 
 the manifestation. It does not consider the mind 
 itself. It considers only that which is the symbol 
 of its activity. 
 
 Wise men, however, seeking self-knowledge 
 and immortality, have turned the mind upon itself 
 and therein found truths from which religion was 
 
1 6 Practical Occultism 
 
 born and the higher philosophy, from which were 
 born those spiritual perceptions and psychological 
 powers which are having their initiative develop- 
 ment in our modern clairvoyance and clairaudi- 
 ence. This is the central fact in all occultism — 
 the centralization of the mind upon itself. This 
 can be accomplished, however, only when the 
 mind has changed from that shiftless, crowded 
 condition which accentuates its normal activity 
 and when it has developed a condition of self- 
 possession, reflection and repose which manifests 
 in concentrated attention. It must be allowed to 
 fix itself upon one thing alone, that of self- 
 discovery. Other foreign strains of thought and 
 feeling must be ejected, so that the mind remains 
 absolutely and wholly busied with the task set 
 before it. 
 
 The soul of the mind is the only illuminative 
 power in the entire universe. It spreads its light 
 over objects and interprets and names the phe- 
 nomenal universe accordingly as its light casts 
 its varied brilliance and power, and accordingly 
 as its brilliance on some things contrasts with the 
 shadows its brilliance varies. It being the only 
 light, it is only by the mind that the mind can be 
 known, its field of activity explored, its past 
 changed into different characteristics, its present 
 ameliorated, its future specifically determined. 
 
Practical Occultism 17 
 
 When the mind sheds the brilliance that it imparts 
 to the external world on its own inner self, 
 then comes illumination and knowledge which 
 transcends the knowledge of the limited and of 
 the average person busied with what concerns the . 
 body. 
 
 One of the main factors in the leading to this 
 self-illumination through the illumination of the 
 mind is the fixedness of the mind as to the con- 
 viction that it possesses the power of reflection, 
 of throwing itself upon itself. This conviction 
 may come in several ways, but more particularly 
 by the invocation of psychic processes, then, too, 
 by philosophical meditation and discrimination. 
 These latter enable a man to determine what 
 reality is. He denies reality to this and to that 
 until he at last reaches the soul and, finding it 
 immovable, imperishable and deathless, accords 
 reality to it. By the continued practice of such 
 meditation the mind becomes fixed as to the prin- 
 ciple of reality. It has made effort to discover 
 reality in the phenomenal universe and discovered 
 that it could not be found in the fluctuations and 
 indecisions and complexities of matter. For the 
 real is changeless, established and simple. The 
 mind searches in its own depth by repeated con- 
 centration and finds that it, too, is changeable, 
 susceptible to the variations of mental influences, 
 
1 8 Practical Occultism 
 
 that it, too, is complex and unestablished. Finally 
 the mind, by insistent self-contemplation, reaches 
 the last path where mentality itself manifests, 
 reaches beyond mentality, beyond itself, and finds 
 that beyond itself is the Purusha, the everlasting 
 soul which has been confused with the mind, even 
 as the mind had confused itself with the material 
 limitations of Nature. There it recognizes 
 reality, and the mind filled to its depth with the 
 idea merges itself with the soul. It drops off into 
 the ocean of universal matter and force all those 
 things which constituted its bodily or mental for- 
 mation, and attains unto that which is unknowable 
 by finite mind, indescribable and supremely bliss- 
 ful. 
 
 This contemplation correspondingly involves 
 deep psychological states, states beyond the nor- 
 mal, those supernormal states which are feebly 
 suggested by trance and ecstasy. It requires self- 
 estrangement from all those circumstances and 
 conditions which can, in any way, disturb the 
 peace and equanimity of mind so necessary for 
 concentration of mind. One cannot be busied 
 about the myriad cares of social and business life 
 and, at the same time, centralize his mind upon 
 the finalities of existence. For this reason have 
 the sages retired into the silent places so as to 
 \e apart from the usual crowded situations of 
 
Practical Occultism 19 
 
 worldly experience. Not only is this applicable 
 to spiritual contemplation, but to contemplation 
 of any kind. Haeckel could not have written his 
 master-works unless he had the peace of his 
 Italian villa to assist in setting aside the distrac- 
 tions of the outer world. 
 
 Incidentally this contemplation leads to 
 abstraction of the mind, so that it becomes un- 
 aware of what may be happening about it. It is 
 so occupied with its ideal that it impersonates it. 
 This contemplation may, not at first, be directed 
 toward the high ideal of self-knowledge and self- 
 liberation. Of course that is the goal, but there 
 are numberless psychological states intermediate. 
 As an example, concentration on any subject 
 whatsoever will, if persisted in, turn the mind into 
 self-reflection and it will find itself on another 
 plane of existence to which its fixedness of 
 thought has carried it. As soon as one becomes 
 too concentrated, he loses sense perception on this 
 plane and finds himself sensibly percipient on 
 another plane, the psychic plane in which reside 
 disincarnate human intelligences. Further ab- 
 straction carries the thinker beyond this plane and 
 beyond and beyond until the highest planes in 
 the universe are reached. Such contemplation is 
 the secret of that spiritual ecstasy of which so 
 much is heard in the Roman Catholic Church. 
 
20 Practical Occultism 
 
 Any number of instances are recorded where 
 saints, rapt in devotional contemplation, were 
 translated beyond the normal, human plane into 
 the presence of disincarnate teachers living on in- 
 comparably higher planes. We need only men- 
 tion that paragon of philosophers, Saint Thomas 
 Aquinas, Saint Anthony of Padua, Saint Cath- 
 erine of Sienna, Saint Paul and others to assure 
 ourselves of these things. Then the Orient fur- 
 nishes us with any number of examples. Yet, it 
 does not require devotional contemplation to be- 
 come psychically percipient. The seances of 
 spiritualism afford ample examples, examples 
 which are indisputably true. All spiritualistic 
 "sittings" involve the concentration of those who 
 believe in the phenomena. In assisting this con- 
 centrating, singing is frequently employed. 
 
 Apart from the fact that contemplation shifts 
 consciousness from this to the immediately 
 superior and to higher and higher planes, it also 
 imparts unusual power of self-control and control 
 over the forces in Nature. The methods em- 
 ployed in this contemplation have been synthe- 
 sized by the Orientals and classified into one 
 grand science — Raja Yoga. But Raja Yoga with 
 all its accomplishments and attainments has its 
 initial basis in ordinary self-control. Each effort 
 at self-control is an effort at control of the mind, 
 for all moral uncertainties proceed from the mind 
 
Practical Occultism 21 
 
 and, placed under submission, places so much of 
 the mind itself under control of the will. That is 
 the goal in the psychic portion of contemplation, 
 the education and supremacy of the will over all 
 mental states. When this has become fixed there 
 will be no vacillation of the mind. What it de- 
 cides upon that will it accomplish. And its desires 
 will not any longer be whimsical and indeter- 
 minate. They will have been educated through 
 the higher understanding which deep thought 
 gives. 
 
 To the outward senses all things in the universe 
 are composed of solid, concrete substances, but 
 chemistry tells us that even the most impenetrably 
 hardened substances are in a perpetual state of 
 flux. No matter how concrete the substance, it is 
 composed of finer and finer substances until at 
 length the substances become so fine that they are 
 identical with thought and mind-stuff, which is 
 only a highly attenuated form of matter. Now, 
 if the initiate has once learned self-control, has 
 once learned to regulate and govern his thoughts, 
 determining how long they shall endure or if they 
 shall affect him whatever, he has also learned 
 how to control those finer physical substances 
 which are the same as thought. And, controlling 
 the finer states of any object, he controls that 
 object itself. This is the explanation of those 
 miraculous occurrences we read in Biblical and 
 
22 Practical Occultism 
 
 ecclesiastical accounts. The body is under control 
 of the mind and can be regulated to each and 
 every separate muscle and nerve. Call to mind 
 such persons whom you may know who have the 
 faculty of stopping perceptible beating of the 
 heart, or such who control the breath-forces that 
 they can stop breathing, and so forth. All such 
 feats are accomplished by the mind and lend ex- 
 planation to those more marvelous feats of levita- 
 tion and materialization which have puzzled the 
 most advanced of our scientists. 
 
 Furthered contemplation, familiarizing the 
 mind with the psychic plane, develops and special- 
 izes the psychic senses. Consciously or uncon- 
 sciously all psychics employ these higher senses 
 when they see or hear things at a distance. With 
 highly developed souls not only is sight and hear- 
 ing evolved, but also tactual sense. They can 
 exteriorize the tactual sense, and lift and touch 
 things physically separate from themselves. This 
 has been frequently attested to. 
 
 The methods of psychic control will also induce 
 these faculties. If one lives on a cereal diet for 
 any length of time, his senses will become evolved 
 into psychic perception. Hypnotism and other 
 psychic states will similarly invoke the unfoldment 
 of these higher senses. 
 
 These truths are a deviation, however, from the 
 
Practical Occultism 23 
 
 primary purposes of practical occultism which 
 seeks to educate not the psychic as much as the 
 spiritual senses and intuitions. The goal will not 
 be reached until the mind has discarded the vani- 
 ties of psychic evolution as being of importance 
 in themselves. They are only of importance as 
 they assist the soul in finding its true nature and 
 essence. 
 
 The Emotional Ideal 
 
 It is the emotional ideal which is alone signifi- 
 cant. As the soul grows in the attainment of 
 greater power, glory and wisdom, the greater 
 does its sympathy become, the greater its love. 
 It possesses power, but what, it asks, shall it do 
 with power? To use it would mean to emphasize 
 the personal and selfish. That is, to use it out of 
 vaingloriousness of heart. Using it for the best 
 interests is alone a reason for its operation. 
 
 Love and sympathy are the goal of all prac- 
 tical occultism and psychic effort. And initiating 
 these virtues into our lives we may arrive at the 
 greatest heights of occult development, even if we 
 are ignorant of those particular psychic methods 
 which develop the psychic senses. 
 
PSYCHIC DEVELOPMENT 
 
 The literature concerning the occult is sat- 
 urated with ideas of psychic development, par- 
 ticularly these days when so much attention is 
 directed to the psychic element in human nature. 
 With one or two exceptions, however, the vari- 
 ously presented systems are unintelligible in the 
 light of the higher occultism and the new psy- 
 chology, and those who are persuaded of these 
 systems are actuated more by a belief than by any 
 direct occult perception. There are many phases 
 of psychic development which, if scientifically 
 furthered, require a deep understanding of the 
 latest developed scientific conclusions, and with- 
 out this understanding the practitioner of psychic 
 methods is liable to ramifications of psycho- 
 physical disorder, for if the development is under- 
 taken in any uncertainty, there is most imminent 
 danger of mental eccentricities, if not insanities. 
 
 Psychic development, as it is modernly inter- 
 preted, is an effort on the part of an individual to 
 widen the area of consciousness and to develop 
 the faculties and intuitions of the subjective mind 
 
 24 
 
Psychic Development 25 
 
 with its suggestions of indefinite unfoldment of 
 the nature and power and divinity of the soul. 
 The modes by which this development is accom- 
 plished are both physical and psychical. They in- 
 volve the immediate development of those ele- 
 ments in the human body which, when aroused 
 into special activity and into a higher condition, 
 are suitable physical conduits for the expression 
 of the psychic faculties potential even in the most 
 primitive type. Among these elements are in- 
 cluded the nervous and respiratory systems, 
 especially as by these two almost the entire activi- 
 ties of the human body are carried on, either in a 
 principal or secondary fashion. The psychical 
 modes involved in the development are the in- 
 creased specialization of the faculties of normal 
 consciousness, such as the will and the concentra- 
 tive faculty, which in turn evolve themselves into 
 the higher activities of the supernormal conscious- 
 ness with its possibilities of intuition and their 
 manifestation. These have been the fundamental 
 requisites of all systems and cults which empha- 
 size the theory of psychic development. 
 
 The Nervous System 
 
 The cardinal principle, according to the oc- 
 cultists, in the development of the psychic con- 
 
26 Practical Occultism 
 
 sciousness is the expansion of the nervous system 
 in susceptibility to vibration. They assert that 
 as all of the physical motions, such as light and 
 heat, are conveyed to the mind through the action 
 of the nervous system, so psychic vibrations, 
 which are physical vibrations only acting beyond 
 the normal sensitiveness, can likewise be trans- 
 lated through the nervous system if it be de- 
 veloped and its impressionableness heightened. 
 Then they claim the possibilities of sense percep- 
 tion would be increased, allowing us to see and 
 hear and feel beyond the point of normal sight, 
 hearing and feeling. They term this develop- 
 ment accordingly clairvoyance, clairaudience and 
 the clair-intuitional senses. In this light much 
 of the dreamy, vague and imperfect attitudes of 
 occultism are dispensed with, and we understand 
 psychic development to be a scientific conception 
 of the specialization and the indefiniteness of 
 specialization of the normal senses. It might be 
 provisionally added that, in the terminology of 
 the occult sciences, the essence of all sense con- 
 sciousness is psychic. Our normal sense faculties 
 are really psychic faculties retarded in more per- 
 fect expression by the inhibitions of the gross 
 material body. Thus clairvoyance is not some- 
 thing essentially different from ordinary sight; it 
 is simply an elaboration of it, simply a develop- 
 
Psychic Development 27 
 
 ment in the degree. By confusing clairvoyance 
 and ordinary sight as two separate conditions has 
 arisen most of the misunderstanding. If we 
 should do away with the occult expressions and, 
 in their stead, speak of "increased sight," or 
 "psychic sight," it might be preferable. 
 
 The nervous system, therefore, being the prac- 
 tical, tangible, concrete, physical working basis 
 for the development of potential psychic facul- 
 ties, every special attention should be given it. In 
 the light of recent scientific speculation the 
 nervous system is a highly complex structure of 
 minor systems of nerve parts. It is a complexity 
 of complex nerve tissues of the most delicate fiber 
 and sensitiveness. Its development has taken un- 
 thinkable aeons. In far-distant periods of time, 
 at the very dawn of the evolutionary tendencies 
 toward the formation of the human body, the 
 nervous system was indefinitely simpler, even 
 different in the extreme from what it is at present. 
 The reason for this was that the subconscious 
 mind of the species was still in potential develop- 
 ment, and that the automatic activities now defi- 
 nitely carried on by the nervous system in an 
 unconscious manner were for the greater part 
 carried on consciously. In other words, our 
 primordial ancestors were as aware of what was 
 going on at their centers as at their periphery. 
 
28 Practical Occultism 
 
 But in the struggle for existence and in the attack 
 and in self-defence, in its methods of procuring 
 subsistence, and so forth, the consciousness of 
 the animal was gradually and more and more 
 fixedly centered at what was occurring at the 
 outermost tangents of its physical life. In the 
 ages of evolution this condition became more and 
 more decided. Meanwhile the digestive, repro- 
 ductive, respiratory and circulatory activities 
 which were previously carried on consciously by 
 ancestral life were gradually given over to an 
 automatic development which performed the cen- 
 tral duties with as active a diligence as was per- 
 formed by the animal in full consciousness when, 
 as previously stated, it was equally aware of what 
 was going on both at its periphery and at its 
 center. This automatic development in the un- 
 foldment became what in the higher species is the 
 nervous system. Herein lies the peculiar truth 
 which shall be reviewed in a later article — the 
 fact that psychic development, though not often 
 considered in that sense, has also to do with the 
 projection of normal consciousness into that phase 
 of mind known as the subconscious which regu- 
 lates the major portion of our body. The Raja 
 and Hatha Yogis of the Orient claim that this can 
 be readily accomplished, and that when once it is 
 accomplished the entire "I" is conscious in the 
 
Psychic Development 29 
 
 completeness, and that bodily and psychic dis- 
 tresses are forever banished. Mind, body and 
 subjective self are in equal vision before the all- 
 evolved consciousness. 
 
 As the development of the nervous system 
 proceeded through the various stages of inferior 
 human forms, greater and greater coherency and 
 heterogenity of life became visible. Yet the dis- 
 tinction between ourselves and man of the ter- 
 tiary period is incomparable, so accomplished has 
 been the unfoldment of the activity of the nerves. 
 And the neolithic man, the crude savage, unim- 
 paired by the thousand fold nerve pressure of 
 our heightened civilization, our acquired neces- 
 sities, stimulated desires and their satieties, 
 possessed only a semi-complex system limiting the 
 sphere of consciousness to the narrower and more 
 primitive forms of living, of thought and of feel- 
 ing. Gradually in long lapses of time and in in- 
 creased intricacy of life, the nervous system de- 
 veloped its potentialities into their present state. 
 Each fiber, each nerve part of the system repre- 
 sents a link in the concrete consciousness of the 
 sense and reflex mental experiences of the race's 
 ancestry, whether immediate or in the remote 
 beginnings of life, and in every genesis the 
 totality of these subconscious experiences are 
 hereditarily evolved in a manner as equally mys- 
 
30 Practical Occultism 
 
 terious as paternal and ante-paternal characteris- 
 tics and tendencies are transmitted to immediate 
 descendants. Thus from incipient evolutionary 
 conditions where muscular and structural develop- 
 ment were in greater need, the nervous system has 
 gradually unfolded to the present unimaginable 
 delicacy of feeling which we find in the healthy- 
 minded hyper-sensitives. But it has also de- 
 veloped with corresponding abnormalities in 
 modes of particular hysteria and neurosis of 
 which the primitive man knew relatively little, if 
 anything. Its receptivity is almost appalling. It 
 may be slightly comprehended in the diagnosis 
 o"f several psychic diseases, some of which affect 
 the senses in such a method that the scratching 
 of a pencil in the same room sounds to the sufferer 
 like the rumbling of a powerful engine, while the 
 striking of a match seems more dazzling than a 
 flash of lightning. Of course this is the abnor- 
 mal, the degenerated sensitiveness resultant from 
 physical disorder. But yet this exceptional, mis- 
 directed delicacy only strongly suggests that the 
 nervous system can be as favorably developed 
 and to as great an extreme along evolutionary 
 lines as it is possible of unfavorable development 
 in these certain forms of neurasthenia and in- 
 sanity. Abnormality of any description is simply 
 retrogression or retardation; normality, the 
 
Psychic Development 31 
 
 standard of evolution, at any given time, while 
 supernormality is only the anticipated appearance 
 of evolutionary forms and faculties. All that the 
 nervous system accomplishes is in the subconscious 
 mind of the race as former conscious, functional 
 experience in times antedating the evolution of 
 quadrupeds, and in times stretching beyond the 
 imagination. The present state of the nerves, 
 though in the normal, operative without the aid 
 of consciousness, is still affected by our conscious- 
 ness in processes of mental, psychic and bodily 
 relationships, but when psychic progression has 
 taken place, when the supersensorial has been 
 attained, then we can consciously perform what 
 evolution is now doing unconscious to direct sense 
 perception. We will then be able to take up nerve 
 development after a conscious fashion similarly 
 as we did in a conscious though undoubtedly in a 
 more instinctive manner when the race inhabited 
 inferior forms. The same statements are equal 
 of the automatic action which the sympathetic 
 and cerebro-spinal systems carry on. Every auto- 
 matic action of the body, every automatic reflex 
 motion operating without personal will or con- 
 sciousness, is builded on masses of sense experi- 
 ences, inferences and perceptions gained in the 
 infinite past of evolution which have subsided and 
 by innumerable rectilinear repetitions have be- 
 
32 Practical Occultism 
 
 come self-operative and self-functioning. It can 
 be readily understood that, if the normal con- 
 sciousness could enter the threshold of the sub- 
 conscious mind, the automatic actions of the body 
 could be directed and consciously supervised. We 
 could then regulate the beatings of our heart, the 
 degree of respiration and, generally speaking, 
 turn the currents of the body along the line of 
 continuous health and development. 
 
 Upon the nervous system is based the entire 
 physical man with his sensations and their possi- 
 bility of responsiveness, with his personality and 
 mental expression. The nervous system, in 
 respectivity, is, therefore, either the limiting or 
 expanding medium by which an Individual's per- 
 sonality is determined in each incarnation, the 
 particular nervous system being the sum-total 
 effect of causes existing in a past life when the 
 soul expressed itself either well or badly. For 
 every variation of experience at the time of death 
 becomes potential in subjectivity until it finds ex- 
 pression in the life following. For if our nervous 
 system, as we daily witness, be modified, de- 
 veloped or degraded by our mental relationship 
 with it, certainly the sum total of a life of such 
 blending must have an important meaning; it will 
 determine just how a future personality of an 
 Individual will find itself. You must remember 
 
Psychic Development 33 
 
 that in this universe nothing is lost, not an atom 
 of individuality, no matter whether that individu- 
 ality be greater than human, animal, floral, 
 mineral, or simply chemical. The individuality 
 may clothe itself in a new expression just as we 
 change our wearing apparel, but that change is 
 not a change of essence, but of form, of mode, of 
 degree, of qualitativeness. 
 
 The importance of the nervous system as the 
 first essential in psychic development may be seen 
 from the foregoing. It is also recognized by the 
 psychologist as the primary requisite and work- 
 ing factor in psychopathic treatment and in 
 psycho-physiological relationships of all charac- 
 ter. And in this same light is it also recognized 
 by the psychic adept, the initial steps of whose 
 development is found in the control and purifica- 
 tion of the nerve currents. Thus the seeker after 
 psychic progression will find himself advised to 
 direct the entire area of consciousness toward 
 rendering the body a fit conduit for psychic un- 
 foldment by adapting the bundle of nerves upon 
 which the body's wholeness depends, to the imme- 
 diate dispensation and regulation of the conscious 
 will. If we have once acquired that delicate 
 adjustment of the physical motions of the body, 
 then the most significant step has been taken. 
 
 The nervous system is the fundamental, bi- 
 
34 
 
 Practical Occultism 
 
 ological factor, the most important of all opera- 
 tions in the vertebrate body. All health and 
 disease, all mental and psychic well-being, all 
 individual progression and retrogression of being 
 is developed from its condition. By it we see, 
 hear, feel, taste, smell and are conscious of sense 
 perceptions, sense inferences and their ultimate 
 emotional and intellectual synthesis. It comprises 
 the complete expression of physical consciousness. 
 Now as all psychic development, as has been pre- 
 viously stated, is simply an anticipation of evolu- 
 tion in heightening the sense possibilities and 
 tlelicacy of nerve structure, the immediate and 
 initiatory step to take is to familiarize the mind 
 with the physiology of the nervous system and its 
 operations and influences on the mental, emo- 
 tional and psychic element in human nature. 
 When this is performed, the second condition is 
 to learn the methods and the psycho-physiological 
 variations by which nerve development is brought 
 about. Of course these things require a compe- 
 tent teacher, one who is master of psychology, 
 one who has experienced psychic development, 
 one who does not talk high-sounding phrases, but 
 knows and imparts his knowledge according to 
 the need. The misfortune is that in this country 
 so many alleged practitioners of psychic develop- 
 ment, psychopathic treatment and teachers of 
 
Psychic Development 35 
 
 these things have been allowed to inflict their 
 ignorance upon sensitive persons, eager and sin- 
 cere to further their spiritual progress, but who 
 have become semi-hysterics by following the un- 
 certain methods of self-styled interpreters. The 
 development of consciousness, the development of 
 concentration and the other intricate phases of 
 psychic development involve too serious uncer- 
 tainties in the way of possible psychic disorder to 
 be indiscriminately tampered with. Too much 
 stress cannot be laid upon this point. The final 
 necessity with regard to the development of nerve 
 susceptibility is a constant practice of the known 
 methods with the fullest intellectual awareness, 
 with the fullest attitude of consciousness, for 
 otherwise instead of development there will be 
 the genesis of abnormal tendencies with all the 
 variety of evils. A special word is suggested to 
 those who practice concentration. Remembering 
 that every thought is accompanied by a change 
 in nerve parts we can readily understand how 
 sporadic and indefinite concentration would lead 
 to the complete undoing of the nerves. They 
 should examine themselves with reference to their 
 concentrative practices and see if in this respect 
 they are included. 
 
36 
 
 Practical Occultism 
 
 Interaction of Mind and Nerves 
 
 In all sense perceptions there is an afferent 
 and efferent action of the nervous system. This 
 double activity comprises an attitude of conscious- 
 ness. When I see any object the primary im- 
 press is received by the retina of the eye, thence 
 carried by the sensory nerves to the brain and, 
 as this activity arouses a state of consciousness, 
 we have a sensation. The eye, however, is not 
 the real center of vision, and, in this respect, the 
 outward appearance deceives, for were the sen- 
 sory nerves absent, though one had a thousand 
 eyes, he would not see. This is equally true of 
 the sense affections and the sense organs of the 
 other senses. The sensory nerves are the basic 
 necessity of all sense perceptions, hence it can be 
 readily seen that a method which would purify 
 and evolve them would lead to a supernormal 
 sensitiveness which, in the occult, is called psychic 
 perception. 
 
 We have dwelt on the importance of the sen- 
 sory nerves, yet we shall now consider something 
 of even more particular importance. When the 
 sensory nerves carry physical impressions to the 
 brain, the action of the latter uses the nerves to 
 express the manner and intensity by which such 
 sense impressions were received. Here we come 
 
Psychic Development 37 
 
 to the double activity of the nerves. First, they 
 serve as vehicles through which physical motions 
 are transmitted to consciousness; secondly, they 
 serve as modes of the expression of consciousness 
 in reponse to sense impressions. The nerves are 
 very important, it is true ; yet the brain, the ulti- 
 mate goal of all nerve action and responsiveness, 
 is by far more important, for, at occasions, 
 though all processes of sense impressions and 
 nerve activity have been duly transmitted to the 
 brain, yet the latter gives no response. This is 
 because the brain is the determining factor in 
 all sense perception, and in this sense is incom- 
 parably more significant than the nerves. We 
 shall later see how the mind has to be purified 
 and brought under control just as the nerves, but 
 the processes are far more difficult and of a 
 more psychological significance. The purifica- 
 tion of the nerves is a condition which does nec- 
 essarily imply psychic development. Of course 
 it is the physical basis for it. But there are 
 numbers of schools of physical culture, especially 
 the Delsarte system, which insist on the purifica- 
 tion of the nerves as a sine qua non of physical 
 development. In the Orient there is a similar 
 system known as Hatha Yoga, by which the body 
 and the nerves are rendered almost of gigantic 
 power. But the control of the mind is a different 
 
38 Practical Occultism 
 
 matter. In the far East the system by which 
 this is accomplished is known as Raja Yoga. 
 The exponents of this system have reached the 
 very acme of psychic development. But to re- 
 turn from this digression to the importance of 
 the brain in sense correlations: the brain is the 
 physical mechanism for that particular phase of 
 consciousness known as mind. If the mind is 
 present, if it is concentrated on that which 
 sensory nerves report to it, then it is aware of the 
 object and the sensation, otherwise not. There- 
 fore, as the mind employs the nerves and the 
 organs of the body in its various blendings with 
 them it becomes essentially necessary to make the 
 body in every sense a powerful medium, so, that 
 when the mind has become aware of psychic 
 methods, the body will be in a fit position to 
 adapt itself to them. In using the expression 
 "powerful," there is no allusion to muscular and 
 structural largeness, simply to the specialization 
 of that indescribable something which is mani- 
 fested in the breath and life force of all beings, 
 and which is modulated by the condition of the 
 nerves. It requires an article in itself to explain 
 the nature of this vital force which keeps the 
 body alive. In India this force is called Prana. 
 It is not breath, but that which manifests itself 
 as breath. The nervous system, particularly the 
 
Psychic Development 39 
 
 spinal cord, is the storehouse and distributer of 
 this force. When it is under control we become 
 masters of our own bodies and of all things which 
 live and move through it — therefore of the entire 
 universe. We become merged in Omnipotence, 
 and this union is Raja Yoga. But this force is 
 the second consideration in psychic development 
 and shall be treated later. 
 
 The Mind 
 
 The synthesizing, correlating faculty by which 
 sense impressions are recognized and classed 
 through subject sense faculties is the mind. 
 From the moment of birth until the last lease of 
 life in the death sigh, the nervous system, as a 
 whole, is in constant activity, receiving and trans- 
 mitting sense relations, but the awareness of this 
 transmission is performed by the mind. When I 
 am looking at any object, my mind is in concen- 
 trated attention to the particular sensation which 
 a particular portion of the nervous system is re- 
 cording, but in the meantime the system, as a 
 whole, is transmitting other impressions of sound 
 or light, and so forth, which the mind, owing to 
 its fixedness of attention, fails to recognize. But 
 let the vibration of sound or light affect the 
 nerves in any particular intensity, the correspond- 
 
40 Practical Occultism 
 
 ence is of such impressiveness that it disturbs 
 the fixed attention and makes it conscious of the 
 innovating sensations. You must never forget 
 that the entire nervous system is in operation at 
 all times and that therefore every activity of 
 thought is indirectly telling in effect on every 
 nerve particle. To illustrate this more clearly: 
 You are at the opera, with the mind concentrated 
 on an intermezzo; the mind is aware only of a 
 sum-total of sound vibrations, yet, at the same 
 instance, the nervous system is at work register- 
 ing every note in perfect order, intensity, delicacy, 
 or fullness, as the case may be. Every particle 
 of the sum of the sound vibrations, even to the 
 slightest conceivable measurements, are properly 
 transmitted to the brain — to the mind. At the 
 same time the senses are sending impressions of 
 light, of color, of form and properly expressing 
 the reflex mental states in emotion. If the mind 
 were so remarkably developed that it could be 
 aware in the same moment of all these recorded 
 impressions, the area of its sense life and suscep- 
 tibilities would be immeasurably broadened. 
 And yet there is a subconscious instinctive recog- 
 nition of all these impressions. The idea is to 
 replace the instinctive by the attentive conscious- 
 ness. All depends upon the possibility of fixed- 
 ness of mind and the determination to become 
 
Psychic Development 41 
 
 conscious of as many sense impressions as pos- 
 sible. Of course the ultimum of any such effort 
 passes the imagination. For the sake of such 
 development many parents instruct their children 
 to remember as much as they can of what they 
 saw on passing a certain shop window — in other 
 words, to recall as many sight impressions as were 
 transmitted. In this way they develop the atten- 
 tive faculty, the memnonic faculty, the perceptive 
 faculty, and in general develop the entire con- 
 sciousness into a greater width and scope. 
 
 That the mind is the chief factor in all sense 
 operations is again witnessed in sleep when it 
 is temporarily separated from the earth plane 
 and consequently remains unaware of sense im- 
 pressions and physical contact with the exception 
 of such subjective impressions as rise from the 
 storehouse of memory and express themselves in 
 thought and emotion in the dream state. It is 
 here asserted that the true seat of sensation is 
 the mind, because it lends the mental meaning and 
 color and form to all sense vibrations, because it 
 is the receiving point of all sense perceptions, and 
 because, as has been said, were it not for its ac- 
 tivity the senses could transmit impression after 
 impression with no recognition by consciousness. 
 The fact that the mind comprises the faculties of 
 sensation, explains psychic and after death states 
 
42 Practical Occultism 
 
 when personality is completely severed from the 
 earth plane and the body lies as a lump of clay 
 while the person is still able to witness all the 
 phenomena of sense life, as Psychic Research 
 societies have conclusively shown. Were this not 
 true, life at the physical dissolution would be im- 
 possible, for all forms of consciousness are infal- 
 libly associated with sense experiences or what 
 is equal thereto. Some may object that at bodily 
 disintegration the nervous system is destroyed 
 and that the problem arises of how sensation can 
 be experienced without nerve transmission. In 
 reply it may be asked that how do we know 
 that nature in her infinite variableness has limited 
 sense experience and the expressions of conscious- 
 ness solely to physical brains and nervous sys- 
 tems? Moreover, our mental therapeuticions, 
 practitioners of hypnotism and similar psychic 
 methods and our psychologists have discovered 
 certain forms of consciousness unallied and, in 
 cases, diametrically opposed to the normal forms 
 of consciousness associated with nerve and brain 
 activity — and yet the newly discovered forms of 
 consciousness and the normal form comprise the 
 same individual. In support of this position Pro- 
 fessor William James has repeatedly asserted 
 that there are other modes of consciousness sep- 
 arated from the normal by the thinnest veils. 
 
Psychic Development 43 
 
 Again the life that we lead here on this plane 
 and the psychic life led on the planes immediately 
 above where death will place us are different in 
 the extreme. The one psychology calls objective, 
 the other, subjective. It is almost impossible to 
 definitely explain to the uninformed reader the 
 exact conditions which obtain on the psychic 
 plane. It would be as difficult as an attempt to 
 explain the conditions of civilized cities to life- 
 inhabitants of the wilderness. The sensations 
 experienced in the mortal casement of spirit, the 
 body, are more concrete, possess greater objec- 
 tivity, while psychic sensations, although the com- 
 parison is somewhat inadequate, are analogous 
 to dream sensations, only that the former possess 
 as unfailing an accuracy as the sensations re- 
 corded in the waking state of physical life. It is 
 impossible in a condensed article of this kind to 
 properly explain subjective sensation, yet a few 
 suggestions are a propos. In a preceding article 
 it has been said that on every plane of being the 
 lives that inhabit it are possessed of a medium of 
 transmission of the sense and objective experi- 
 ences which obtain there, corresponding in faculty 
 and functions to our nervous system. To us the 
 plane just above is the psychic, the subjective and 
 when we reach it, either through personal effort 
 in this life or by the death process, we at once 
 
44 Practical Occultism 
 
 commence to use this new sense correlating me- 
 dium. We will accordingly find that the psychic 
 plane is as real as the earth plane and that our 
 experiences are equal in consciousness to our ex- 
 periences here. Psychic development will enable 
 us to observe this plane by anticipating the death 
 process. Thus death, though it disintegrates our 
 bodily nerve system, yet it does not do away with 
 the possibility of sense perception. Again, thj 
 mind is the ultimate and determining factor in 
 all sense activities, and similarly as death de- 
 stroys the physical brain, the mere mechanism of 
 mind, yet it does not affect the latter itself, which, 
 owing to its rarer material composition, survives 
 the decay of the grosser, material, physical, com- 
 posite body. 
 
 Herein we have the Mendings of the mind and 
 of the nerves and the. Mendings of the nerves and 
 the mind. We have seen how the sensory nerves 
 convey material objects and sense impressions to 
 the brain and how, therefore, the mind is the 
 aim to which all sense faculties and physical rela- 
 tionships tend. Now the mind in its turn per- 
 forms as remarkable an operation in responding 
 to sense vibrations recorded by the nervous sys- 
 tem as the latter does in its field of action. All 
 the senses, in fact, all what nature labors for, is 
 to present opportunities to the mind to gain 
 
Psychic Development 45 
 
 higher and higher experiences, and the mind, 
 after it has synthesized these experiences, uses 
 them in determining greater sense and physical 
 truths, which, in time, lead to greater emotional 
 and mental criterions. Thus the race in periods 
 of inferior evolution employed its limited sense 
 knowledge in connection with innovating sense 
 experiences until, finally, we have arrived at the 
 present state, using as our ancestors past racial 
 knowledge to determine the essence and classifi- 
 cation of new phenomena. All that we are and 
 know to-day is linked bit by bit to all that the 
 race has been and known in every moment of 
 its indefinite past. The highest mathematical 
 concept is evolved by gradual transitions from 
 the most primitive methods of the perception of 
 quantities by the first manifestation of sense life, 
 as example in the polyp. And any psychic de- 
 velopment will be linked bit by bit to the highest 
 knowledge of the normal objective consciousness. 
 There is no suddenness or jump. It is all a mat- 
 ter of linear progression. 
 
 One of the great psychological principles in 
 psychic development which has received promi- 
 nent attention is that the mind is most intricately 
 systematized just as the parts of the nerve sys- 
 tem whose activities correspond with it are intri- 
 cately systematized. Somewhere in mental po- 
 
46 Practical Occultism 
 
 tentiality are the life experiences of this life and 
 of the lives which, since the beginning of time, 
 have labored for the development of our present 
 existence. Psychic development lays claim to 
 unearthing this potentiality and bringing back be- 
 fore the vision of consciousness the experiences 
 of the Past of the soul. Though potential, all 
 mental vibrations continue to exert their influence, 
 for nothing becomes motionless or inoperative, 
 and thus beyqnd or beneath the attentive con- 
 sciousness their influence manifests itself. With 
 every mental change, with every variation of con- 
 sciousness there corresponds a nerve change. If 
 a mental change is promotive the alternation in 
 neural activity will be promotive and pleasing; if 
 the mental change be discordant in any manner 
 it arouses inefficient neural activity productive of 
 pain. In the one case there is health — physical, 
 emotional, mental and psychic — and, in the other 
 case, there is the opposite. 
 
 The complex aggregate of promotive mental 
 changes of our life therefore determines the 
 normality of the nervous system and health; the 
 complex aggregate of discordant mental changes, 
 the abnormal drift of the system, together with 
 depletion of vitality and liability to functional 
 disorders. Here is the explanation of all the 
 relativities of life comprising all the physical, 
 
Psychic Development 47 
 
 mental and emotional states perceptible in con- 
 nection with the Mendings of the mind and the 
 body. 
 
 From this it may be inferred that optimism is 
 an essential element in psychic development, be- 
 cause with optimistic attitudes the activity of the 
 body will be in harmony, the mental and emo- 
 tional states will correspond in happiness of char- 
 acter and the entire man will be in greater recep- 
 tivity for the dawn of the psychic faculties. 
 
 Psychic development is a subject which includes 
 a number of important minor subjects, among 
 which are "concentration," "life-force," "studies 
 of psychic perception," and others. They will be 
 separately treated, the subject in each instance 
 receiving all possible elaboration and insight. 
 
PSYCHIC DEVELOPMENT AND 
 MENTAL THERAPEUTICS 
 
 Lecture Delivered in London, England, 1907 
 
 My friends, I am here to-night not to talk 
 New Thought to you solely. I shall not solely 
 .talk on Spiritualism, in fact, my discussion shall 
 be confined to no one system or cult. It shall 
 be all-embracing, all-inclusive. It shall be more 
 especially directed to those actual realities and 
 powers which lie stored up in the human brain 
 and which the latest scientific psychology has re- 
 vealed. It would be unjust in the extreme to talk 
 to you upon vague and indefinite subjects, sub- 
 jects which I should have to ask you to believe 
 rather than understand. The trouble to-day is 
 that so many of our platform lecturers entertain 
 their audiences with subjects that are so tinged 
 with the so-termed occult and the supernormal 
 that their hearers leave the audience hall with 
 less comprehension than on entering, and instead 
 of interesting they bore them to tears. Any dis- 
 cussion of psychic development, anything per- 
 
 48 
 
Psychic Development 49 
 
 taining to mental curative and psychic curative 
 processes should be handled in a direct, matter-of- 
 fact, easily understandable way. It is this I shall 
 attempt to-night in my lecture on Psychic Devel- 
 opment and Mental Therapeutics. 
 
 I am going to begin without any circumlocu- 
 tion, and the first point I shall consider shall be 
 the Nervous System, as it, among all other fac- 
 tors of the human body, essentially features in 
 the development of the psychic element in human 
 nature and likewise in the arrest and cure of 
 disease by power of mind. All health and disease 
 is directly or indirectly traceable to the action of 
 the nerves, and when your Christian Scientist or 
 New Thought exponent or your Mental Practi- 
 tioner operate their methods, they, knowingly or 
 unknowingly, do so by suggestion, that is, by dis- 
 tracting the patient's mind from the disease and 
 compelling him to center his mind on healthy- 
 minded thought. The new healthy mental atti- 
 tude quiets the action of the nerves, rests the sys- 
 tem, and Nature can more effectively do her work 
 of restoring the body to normal health. The 
 chief factor in psychic development, likewise, is 
 the purification of the nerves, thereby increasing 
 their susceptibility. When the nerves are under 
 control the mind is under control. You can hear 
 better, see better, feel better, and so on, and as 
 
50 Practical Occultism 
 
 the nerves are more and more controlled the bet- 
 tered sight grows into a sight beyond the every- 
 day sight, and this is called psychic sight. Then 
 you will see what others fail to see because their 
 nervous system is not susceptible to the fine vibra- 
 tions which your psychic practices have brought 
 you. The same holds good of all the senses. 
 And herein lies the secret of all the mystifying 
 discussion of clairvoyance, clairaudience, and so 
 on. These faculties lie in the development of 
 the every-day sense faculties, and this develop- 
 ment in turn is brought about by methods I shall 
 later discuss. In the cure of disease this develop- 
 ment is all-important, as it is by the nerves and by 
 the condition and activity of the nerves that most 
 of the workings of the body, such as digestion 
 and breathing and other processes, are carried on. 
 You are all aware that in a nervous state breath- 
 ing is hard, digestion irregular, and the blood 
 fevered. So the first step to take is to learn the 
 ways by which the nerves are disturbed, and by 
 knowing these ways we can avoid them. Also 
 we must learn the ways by which the nerves are 
 quieted and brought under control, and in this 
 knowledge about the disturbance and the better- 
 ment of the nerves lies the cure of disease and 
 the development of the every-day senses into 
 psychic senses. I can feel some of you asking 
 
Psychic Development 51 
 
 the question, How can you explain the cure of 
 functional disorders by quieting and bringing the 
 nerves under control? In answering this query 
 I am going to make one of the most important 
 statements of the evening, and I am asking your 
 attentive consideration. The greater number of 
 functional disturbances are brought about by an 
 impure, sickened condition of the nerves which 
 have lessened the vitality of the system and in- 
 vited functional disturbances. Of course, there 
 are some functional disorders which lie beyond 
 the present range of mental cure, but mental cure 
 will do a great deal in quieting the system so that 
 it becomes better fit to permit Nature to do the 
 curing work. In the highest sense every disease 
 can be cured, but not so much by what I should 
 call mental science as what I should call the dis- 
 play of the great, hidden soul-powers within the 
 inner self of every man and woman, yea, every 
 animal, plant or mineral. Because of the all- 
 presence of God, therefore His all-existence, He 
 is the soul of every one of us — no, even better 
 expressed, He is us. By concentrating the entire 
 mind and consciousness upon this supreme fact 
 the omnipotence of spirit is invoked and no ill, 
 no distress but what can be administered to by 
 the omnipotence within the soul. 
 
 But I wish to dwell upon the mental processes 
 
52 Practical Occultism 
 
 in more immediate range, processes more easily 
 learned and more readily applied. We have said 
 that the nerves were the essential factors in all 
 curative work or development. But these in turn 
 are controlled, consciously or unconsciously, by 
 the mental processes, by our minds. Science has 
 told us that every time we think there is a change 
 going on in our nervous system. Now you can 
 readily see how a bad thought, a pessimistic 
 thought, a thought of fear or a thought of worry 
 will make a sickening change in the nerves. And 
 if one persists in wrong-thinking, in pessimistic- 
 thinking, if one is ever at the point of fear, 
 of indecision, of worry, if one is continuously 
 disease-suspicious, the nervous system will be 
 shattered. You will have your nervous prostra- 
 tionist, with the long list of nervous disorders 
 mothering in turn various functional diseases. 
 It is a known fact that most people who are nerv- 
 ously affected are at the same time the victims 
 of stomach or heart disorders and other dis- 
 orders. They are liable to all conditions of 
 disease. And your insane patients, and the large 
 number of sanitarium patients are all the victims 
 of nervous diseases brought about through tre- 
 mendous worries and wrong mental attitudes. 
 Think right, think wholesome, healthy thoughts 
 is the first advice the applicant for cure of disease 
 
Psychic Development 53 
 
 and for psychic development will receive at the 
 hands of the teacher. Be optimistic in thought, 
 think high, spiritual thoughts and your nerves 
 will operate in a healthy way, making you phys- 
 ically high-spirited, just as you are on those ex- 
 ceptional days when the spring sun bathes you in 
 its magnetic warmth and enlivens every atom of 
 your body. You see, I am driving at one par- 
 ticular point in speaking of the nerves, and that is 
 that it is the mind which controls them absolutely 
 and either for the good or the ill of the entire 
 person. And in support of what I am saying you 
 may consult any book on psychology or any stu- 
 dent of nervous disorders. The mind is every- 
 thing, and with this in mind that great spiritual 
 master of the sixth century before Christ, the 
 great Buddha, announced to the world: "All that 
 we are is the result of what we have thought. 
 It is founded on our thoughts, it is made up of 
 our thoughts." 
 
 We thus come to the consideration of the in- 
 fluence of thought, and it will be an easy matter, 
 as every one of you before me have had experi- 
 ences which will bear out the truth of my state- 
 ment, that thought and its influence, that mental 
 attitudes govern our physical well-being, and, ap- 
 plied to the psychic nature, control its develop- 
 ment. But for the present I am going to leave 
 
54 Practical Occultism 
 
 psychic development out of consideration and 
 apply myself solely to disease and the cure of 
 disease as effected by mind. 
 
 In doing this I am going to give you every- 
 day examples. I will not confuse you with a 
 long, uninteresting discussion on the psychological 
 phases of thought. At any rate most of you de- 
 spise technical things and abstract mysteries as 
 much as I do. Let us come down to home facts. 
 Somebody has insulted you. The thought of this 
 disturbs your brain, it fevers your blood, it con- 
 tracts your muscles, it excites the nerves. Think 
 what just a thought has done. And you have 
 heard of cases where a man felt himself so in- 
 jured, he became so angry that he foamed at 
 the mouth, until his body could no longer stand 
 the pressure and the subject fell dead. A 
 thought killed him. Or refresh your memories 
 with incidents of people you have known who 
 have been frightened to death. And although 
 apart from the subject, it might be appropriate 
 to say that your children should never be fright- 
 ened by silly ghost stories and bugaboo tales. 
 The mother who permits such things is poisoning 
 the nerves and the life of her child. Worry, 
 too, has its influence on the body. It ages the 
 face, it draws circles and engraves wrinkles into 
 it. It turns the hair gray, and in highly special- 
 
Psychic Development 55 
 
 ized cases it gradually kills. All of you person- 
 ally know or have heard of people whose brains 
 became so wrecked with worry-thoughts as to 
 completely unbalance the mind, and in fits of in- 
 sanity have shot, hanged or stabbed themselves. 
 Grief also pays its disturbing part on the body. 
 Grief, especially protracted, disturbs proper cir- 
 culation, it rots the gray matter of the brain. 
 There have been cases where death or insanity 
 has followed persistent grief. All these condi- 
 tions are purely mental attitudes. 
 
 I have been talking rather generally. I will 
 be more definite. Worry is frequently accom- 
 panied by loss of weight. In the recent panic a 
 New York broker, whom I know, lost twenty 
 pounds in two weeks. Physicians examined him. 
 He was physically all right. It was depression 
 and fear that did the work. Anger flooding the 
 arteries of the brain may cause epilepsy, hysteria, 
 and hemorrhage, resulting frequently in apoplexy. 
 People of an irritable disposition are subjects of 
 frequent headaches. Right here it may be said 
 that irritability, nervousness, worry, morbid 
 fears, or any distressing mental attitude on the 
 part of mothers often directly influence the bodies 
 of their children, inducing various physical dis- 
 orders. Cases are recorded where anger, grief 
 or fright of the mother resulted in a chemical 
 
$6 Practical Occultism 
 
 change of the milk, poisoning, sickening, and 
 sometimes causing the death of her nursing in- 
 fant. Biliousness and constipation may be a 
 direct result of mental disorders. 
 
 The destructive power of thought is indefinite. 
 Its insidious killing force may be gradual or it 
 may be instantaneous. I know, of one case, a 
 negro in momentary fear of lynching, whose hair 
 grew gray and his finger-nails unnaturally long in 
 one night. I will not tire you with any further 
 descriptive instances of influences of wrong-think- 
 ing. But to bring you to a still clearer under- 
 standing of thought-power, let me cite the case 
 of a well-known scientist who investigated and 
 discovered the great force of thought. In an 
 effort to determine just in how far thought can 
 influence the body he built himself a table based 
 on excellently balanced measurements. He 
 danced a jig and then lay on the table. Natu- 
 rally the rush of the blood to the feet threw the 
 table downward in the direction of the feet. He 
 waited some time. Then he again laid himself 
 on the table and waited until the resultant dis- 
 turbance of the motion was quieted. The table 
 was perfectly balanced. Then he commenced 
 thinking about jigging. He concentrated his 
 whole mind on it. He thought of nothing else. 
 And to the surprise of attending students the 
 
Psychic Development 57 
 
 delicately balanced table bowed perceptibly in the 
 direction of the feet. A thought, physically un- 
 assisted, created an actual tipping of that table. 
 That is certainly wonderful, but there are even 
 more wonderful occurrences. A prisoner, sen- 
 tenced to be hanged, was, by permission of the 
 court, placed in the hands of the faculty of a 
 medical college for psycho-physiological investi- 
 gation. The prisoner was led blindfolded into 
 the operation room, placed on the table, and 
 then informed that the court had changed his 
 sentence from hanging to being bled to death. 
 The surgeons, taking a delicate instrument, 
 scratched the subject's arm and then trickled luke- 
 warm water from the point of irritation. The 
 prisoner was informed that he was slowly bleed- 
 ing to death. The thought focalized itself into 
 his consciousness. He actually believed that he 
 was dying. The belief commenced its work on 
 the circulatory system, decreasing the flow of 
 blood. Little by little the blood coursed slower 
 and slower through veins and arteries. Suddenly 
 the subject gasped, and before the physicians 
 could convince him of the wrong mental attitude 
 he was dead. The belief that he was dying killed 
 the man. A mere thought, yet its destructive in- 
 fluence was incalculable. A thought may be 
 something intangible, invisible and all of that, 
 
58 Practical Occultism 
 
 but, like electricity, magnetism, gravitation and 
 other hidden forces, its power is tremendous. 
 But similarly as these natural forces mentioned 
 may destroy or build up, so thought, which, in 
 fact, is a subtle physical, chemical force, can 
 also be a serviceable factor as well as destructive. 
 Fire will cook a meal as well as burn a child. 
 Thought may kill or drive to insanity, but it can 
 equally develop the brain and the life-forces, and 
 in as exact a ratio as its influence may be destruc- 
 tive. I have tried to give you some description 
 of the influence of thought. Naturally, because 
 of briefness of the allotted time, it must be partial 
 and indeterminate, but nevertheless some things 
 have been stated which, if followed up, will lead 
 to wide results. All that a lecturer can do is to 
 suggest. The hearer can take up the suggestion 
 and make the most of it. 
 
 Possibly the most simple method of bringing 
 the relationship of thought and body before you 
 will be to speak of some of those psychological 
 states in which we see the action of mind upon 
 nerves in an immediate and direct manner. I 
 need only speak of hysteria. In developed cases 
 of this affection we find some facts which are ex- 
 tremely to the point in our discussion. It is 
 known that the slightest variation of mental con- 
 dition will be immediately expressed in physical 
 
Psychic Development 59 
 
 workings. A hysteric is subject to loss of mem- 
 ory, partial paralysis of the body, blindness, 
 contractions, mutism, oedema, all of them affec- 
 tions not dependent on any discoverable lesion, 
 but on the defects of nervous co-ordination, char- 
 acteristic of hysteria. Such affections, even when 
 of long standing, may quite suddenly disappear 
 under hypnotic suggestion. The hysteric is even 
 liable to phantom tumors. Placed under hyp- 
 notic control, the patient frequently regains sight, 
 control over limbs, the tumors disappear, and so 
 on. This goes to show that hysteria causes ap- 
 parent functional disturbances when in reality 
 there is no disorder in the functional arrange- 
 ment. The trouble is to be looked for in the 
 nervous system, which, in this instance, is pecu- 
 liarly disarranged in its condition and activity. 
 
 Now, if we recall that nervous aberrations are 
 dependent on disordered mental conditions we 
 must look for hysteria, for St. Vitus' dance, for 
 epilepsy, for neurasthenia, for psychasthenia and 
 kindred diseases in the mind. What terrible 
 mental affliction has come into the person's life 
 which has so completely undone the physical? 
 Generally, we discover that some sudden fear, 
 some overwhelming sorrow, has almost destroyed 
 the brain and the nerve centers in the brain which 
 control locomotion and automatic motor activi- 
 
6o Practical Occultism 
 
 ties. The patient has lost control over the mind, 
 and we find loss of memory and of will. Where 
 the nervous disease is inherited, it is dependent 
 on various causes. At times it may be the 
 mother's condition, at others, the degeneracy of 
 vital stamina in the parents, upon which depends 
 normal activity of the nerves. Directly or in- 
 directly, therefore, these conditions depend on 
 the mind. 
 
 What most interests us about the hysteric is 
 the genesis and persistence of apparent functional 
 disorders, to which there is no reality save as 
 effected by the hysteric attitude of mind. Mind, 
 they are as real in outward appearance as normal 
 functional disorders and tumors, but they are not 
 real in a true sense, because upon suggestion they 
 disappear. This leads me to a very singular and 
 important idea. It is only an hypothesis, but it 
 is momentous even in so far. May not all func- 
 tional disturbances of the more real order in 
 some manner resemble the phantom functional 
 disorders of hysteria? May they also not be as 
 liable to suggestion in their cure? That there 
 have been cures of functional disturbances I 
 firmly believe. I doubt not for one instant that 
 Christian Science and the various therapeutical 
 cults of our day have made actual functional 
 cures, even as they were performed through the 
 
Psychic Development 61 
 
 suggestion of relics, pilgrimages and prayers in 
 earlier times. 
 
 A famous scientist has told us that, though we 
 may know the mechanical or chemical equivalents 
 of thought, we may never know what thought is. 
 He is in a measure correct. Thought, like elec- 
 tricity, manifests its power and influence, but, like 
 electricity, it remains an unknown quantity. It 
 is one of those finer forces of nature which escape 
 indefinite analysis or scrutiny. A knowledge of 
 its essence, however, is of minor importance as 
 compared with a knowledge and a practice of its 
 applications. You may not know what thought 
 is, but you can learn to control and modify it. 
 You are at liberty to think certain thoughts and 
 refrain from thinking others. It is as you 
 choose. At all events you are setting loose a 
 great physical or rather psychic force, for psychic 
 forces are subtle physical forces, indiscernible to 
 the normal senses, but perceived by the psychic 
 senses. You are invoking a great power, and 
 if you invoke it properly the results will be bene- 
 ficial in ratio to your power of invoking it. Im- 
 properly called forth it disturbs, creates inhar- 
 mony, as do all other physical vibrations. 
 
 And here I am persuaded to say something of 
 concentration. Concentration is the centraliza- 
 tion of consciousness upon a given thought or set 
 
62 Practical Occultism 
 
 of thoughts. It implies that you entertain special 
 thoughts to the exclusion of all other thoughts. 
 It means that for the time being you know noth- 
 ing save what your mind is concentrated upon. 
 And in proportion to your power to concentrate 
 will time escape you, and you will become un- 
 aware of the disturbance of surrounding condi- 
 tions. Like Archimedes you may become so 
 thoroughly concentrated that the passing of an 
 army will go unnoticed. Think of the vast phys- 
 ical good you could insure yourselves if you could 
 properly concentrate your mind upon sane, 
 healthy thoughts. You could make your body 
 almost unliable to physical disorders by bringing 
 the nerves, directly influenced by the mind, under 
 full control. Your vitality would be immeasur- 
 ably increased. Your body would become a fit 
 vessel to cross this ocean of life, a fit vessel and 
 habitation for the spirit. But concentration is 
 not an easy matter. It requires effort, painstak- 
 ing effort, effort of days and weeks, yes, months 
 and years. Practice little by little. If disturb- 
 ing thoughts, thoughts of worry, or fear, or 
 anger, cross your mind, suppress them. That is 
 the first step to concentration. Do not allow 
 every passing turn of thought to incommode you 
 and set your brain and nerves awhirl. If anger 
 comes, think opposite thoughts. If fear of 
 
Psychic Development 63 
 
 disease, use a pinch of Christian Science. Each 
 day retire into the silence of your being. Medi- 
 tate with fervor upon the strength of thought, 
 upon its power for good. Know that every time 
 you think thoughts of strength, of mental or spir- 
 itual uplifting, you are making an actual headway 
 against the odds of circumstances, whether 
 these circumstances be those of ill-health or men- 
 tal distress. Increase the time of your medita- 
 tions — from five minutes to ten minutes, and so 
 on, until finally you can remain in abstract medi- 
 tation for an indefinite length of time — just so 
 long as it pleases you. I am not advising you, 
 however, to concentrate the entire mind solely 
 upon things physical or material. But realize 
 that your mind is like a loadstone, if the com- 
 parison may be sustained. By concentration you 
 increase its magnetic power so that it attracts 
 to it that upon which it is centered. In occult 
 teaching this magnetization of the mind is stated 
 to be indefinite, and from attracting health, moral, 
 physical or psychic, from attracting happier con- 
 ditions, you may even attract physical objects. 
 You may, in time, say the seers of psychic proc- 
 esses, control the entirety of nature through this 
 tremendous power of concentration than which 
 there exists no greater in the universe. Like all 
 other physical or psychic motions, concentrated 
 
64 Practical Occultism 
 
 thought radiates its respective influence. Of 
 course there is such a thing as bad contraction 
 manifest, for example, in the insistency of per- 
 nicious habits of thought or conduct. They, too, 
 radiate influences, but in this instance it is destruc- 
 tive. Science tells you that there is no stopping 
 to a motion or loose force. It continues to vi- 
 brate and re-vibrate. If this happens to strike 
 you it will change many of the stray, vague, in- 
 sipid and imperfect thoughts that float through 
 the idle mind. Thoughts do radiate an influ- 
 ence, a decided influence, and the combined influ- 
 ence of the combined thought-process radiates 
 a combined influence which, in terms of the occult, 
 is called aura. An aura is the sum-total of the 
 mental impressions which vibrate about each per- 
 son. This explains why some people attract and 
 others repel you. Their auras, their thought- 
 processes are attractive or repellent as the in- 
 stance may prove. I wish you to dwell on this 
 particular thought. Some people who are called 
 psychics, that is, people who are more than nor- 
 mally sensitive, can see this aura. But I prom- 
 ised you not to go too deeply into the occult, 
 into things which I cannot prove to you without 
 going about yards of circumlocution. These are 
 simply some minor suggestions, but they are of 
 tremendous importance. 
 
Psychic Development 6$ 
 
 I am getting into the "Psychic Development" 
 part of my discourse. I have given ideas about 
 it all the way along. You will remember that 
 I characterized psychic sight and hearing as a 
 growth of the normal sight and hearing. They 
 are not something different. The psychic is sen- 
 sitive to physical vibrations, of which you are 
 unconscious, because your senses have not as yet 
 developed to the point where they can perceive 
 those subtler physical motions of which astral 
 bodies and vibrations are composed. You can 
 develop your nerves upon which your senses are 
 based, however, until they will be so sensitized 
 as to transfer those vibrations to your conscious- 
 ness. You will then be as aware of the world 
 of the departed, the psychic plane, as you are of 
 the one we inhabit. You will recognize those 
 who have gone before you and be enabled to 
 converse with them. You will be able to read 
 the thoughts of others, their desires, their mental 
 attitudes in general. You will be able to discern 
 that aura of which I previously spoke, the aura 
 which is placed about the statues, particularly the 
 head of the saints of the Roman Catholic church 
 and of the holy ones of various religions through- 
 out India and Thibet. In the realm of the 
 psychic, thoughts have form even as physical ob- 
 jects have on our earth-plane. You cannot see 
 
66 Practical Occultism 
 
 them in ordinary life, because they are com- 
 posed of those rarer ethers undiseernible by the 
 normal eye, but readily visible to the clairvoyant 
 vision* You will recognize the importance of 
 thoughts and come to a very careful selection of 
 your personal thoughts. You will be convinced 
 of the truth of immortality. The old supersti- 
 tions you formerly believed will become thor- 
 oughly eradicated. You will come into close 
 vision of great spiritual truths which have ever 
 been the nucleus of religion and religious aspira- 
 tion. You will more and more clearly under- 
 * stand the theosophical conception of the Brother- 
 hood of Man*by understanding how indelibly all 
 lives are associated in the physical and the 
 psychic. Thus your sympathies and emotions 
 will grow out of their personal limitations into 
 divinely universal sympathies. You will become 
 more and more in touch with the Heart of Being. 
 You will lose more and more the sense of the 
 merely personal with its retinue of selfish acts. 
 The spiritual side of your nature will develop 
 and the development will be in exact ratio to your 
 attitude in developing your psychic nature. As 
 long as you are selfish, so long will you be hin- 
 dered in the acquisition of psychic faculties, for 
 when occult power would be of assistance to you 
 in dubious circumstances, you might so employ it. 
 
Psychic Development 67 
 
 I have merely suggested some psychic truths. 
 You will notice that I have deliberately elimi- 
 nated from this discussion anything of the mys- 
 tery-mongering you so often meet with in the 
 charlatan type of occult exponents. I have not 
 dwelt upon any possible power that might accrue 
 to you through psychic development. I have 
 dwelt on the spiritual uplifting which would be 
 yours through psychic vision. You would come 
 into direct communication with those whose teach- 
 ings would advise you against all personal phases 
 of occult effort. They would bring to you spir- 
 itual truth, spiritual discernment, spiritual en- 
 couragement. The personal phases of psychic 
 development have meaning only as they are di- 
 rected toward the spiritual. When they are di- 
 rected toward personal aggrandizement in any 
 form they are unworthy. 
 
 One of the first requisites toward psychic de- 
 velopment is persistent optimism. That has a 
 wonderful effect on the nerves and makes the 
 body fit for the work of development. Use per- 
 sistent doses of suggestion to strengthen you 
 against disease in any form. Learn to breathe 
 correctly, for the life of the breath is developed 
 through proper breathing. And the life of the 
 breath is the force that vitalizes the body, the 
 same force which is all-pervading in that it is 
 
68 Practical Occultism 
 
 the same as the force that vivifies all nature. 
 Gain control of that force and you have made 
 a tremendous step toward the control of your 
 surroundings, ultimately of natural forces. 
 Breathe through^ the whole body. The trouble 
 is that most people breathe only from the chest. 
 They should at least breathe from the abdomen, 
 and through the nose. That is very important. 
 Breathing through the mouth is dangerous and 
 unnatural. Primitive peoples, savages, are never 
 guilty of this unnatural method of breathing. 
 .The animal world and these primitive types al- 
 ways breathe through the nose. After you have 
 practiced breathing in this correct manner, you 
 will find yourself breathing deeper in the central 
 portions of your body. Continue, and when you 
 inhale, you will find that you breathe in and 
 through every atom of your body. That is the 
 way to breathe. This breathing purifies the 
 nerves; it gives them powerful vitality and re- 
 sistance to disease. Sickness will be unknown to 
 you. You will find that your normal senses are 
 becoming vivified, and that you are developing 
 new senses. Remember that I am speaking in 
 terms of psychology. I am not unscientific. 
 Vivification of the normal senses is called hyper- 
 aesthesia in psychology, the development of new 
 senses heteraesthesia. 
 
Psychic Development 69 
 
 Actual practice will do more for you than 
 anything I might tell you. Intellectual under- 
 standing in these matters is of little consequence 
 as compared with one ounce of result from prac- 
 tice. When your nostrils become Sensitive to 
 fine perfumes, when you begin to hear things 
 from a distance, when you see objects remote in 
 space, when you grow to read the thoughts of 
 others, when you become sensitive to people's 
 auras — then you will know. Try the practices 
 mentioned above and you will find truth in all 
 that I am saying to you. 
 
 The new psychology has the assistance of the 
 exact sciences. We are not dealing in uncertain- 
 ties. Each day is bringing to light new phases 
 of psychological insight and discovery, and each 
 assertion of the occultists and the spiritual psy- 
 chologists is becoming verified in the light of the 
 new science. "Radiant matter" is not far from 
 astral matter, and the "N-ray" is almost visual- 
 izing thought. Spiritual truth will always assert 
 itself. Nothing can hinder its expression. And 
 of spiritual truth are the things which I have 
 been speaking. But it is personal psychic effort 
 that is needed, and with this suggestion of per- 
 sonal psychic effort I close. 
 
PSYCHIC SUGGESTIONS 
 
 The revelations of the ancient teachers of the 
 Orient, through their modern representatives and 
 the revelations of our present-day scientists con- 
 cerning mental and psychic phenomena, have 
 made the most profound impression on the think- 
 ing classes. Until a generation ago we had but 
 rarely witnessed these phenomena save in un- 
 classified, in unimportant and unnoticeable in- 
 stances. They created no general impression as 
 they now do. The time came, however, when 
 scientists began interesting themselves in these 
 super-normal experiences, presenting so many 
 complex psychological problems which they could 
 not ignore. Investigation after investigation 
 was carried on with this and that bearing, but 
 the ultimate consequence was that psychology has 
 become an almost new science, so many were the 
 discoveries and correlative inferences which 
 altered the old ideas of the mind and its phe- 
 nomena. Other branches of science, including 
 chemistry and biology, have likewise felt the reno- 
 vating influences of these discoveries. 
 
 70 
 
Psychic Suggestions 71 
 
 As an example of these influences we have 
 the discovery of a subjective mind separate in 
 essence, activity and possibilities from the normal 
 mentality of every-day life; we have the discovery 
 of the submissiveness of the entire nervo-muscular 
 and the vegetative systems to the action and di- 
 rection of subjective intelligence in such phenom- 
 ena as the cure of disease; we have, therefore, 
 the discovery of a larger ego, "the real individ- 
 ual," of which the personal, objective conscious- 
 ness is but a minor projection. We have the 
 discover^ 7 of tremendous psychic probabilities in 
 the manifestation of faculties over-stepping by 
 far the faculties and functions of the normal 
 powers of the mind and normal consciousness. 
 These discoveries alone warrant the earnest con- 
 sideration of any student of psychology in its rela- 
 tion to religion, because their ultimate effect on 
 that science in elaborating spiritual verities can- 
 not be too fully appreciated. In physics we see 
 the influence of these psychic manifestations in 
 the discovery of what might be called "radiant 
 matter" and of new psycho-physical forces sug- 
 gestive of still more important findings; in par- 
 ticular biology this influence is witnessed in the 
 discovery that the placenta in foetal development 
 is a respiratory rather than a nutritive factor. 
 The latter discovery evolved from the inferences 
 
72 Practical Occultism 
 
 of the late Dr. Jerome A. Anderson, of San 
 Francisco, who interpreted it through investiga- 
 tions in embryology in an effort to establish an 
 anatomical proof for belief in reincarnation. In 
 general biology certain scientists, influenced by 
 psychic phenomena in their researches, have fur- 
 nished scientific premises for spiritual belief by 
 confuting this particular error of materialistic 
 monism; "the idea that the specific guiding power 
 which we call 'life' is one of the forms of material 
 energy," and by proving that life is not liable 
 to the decomposition and change of material ele- 
 ments. 
 
 These psychic manifestations express them- 
 selves either in communication with unseen intel- 
 ligences, in a display of marvelous psychic powers, 
 such as telepathy, hearing, seeing at a distance, 
 exhibiting remarkable feats of memory, or in 
 exercising an almost miraculous power of the 
 mind over matter in the cure of disease, in the 
 regulation of form and the materialization of 
 objects by simple concentration of the mind. At 
 first these manifestations were taken with a grain 
 of salt and considered, in the main, as carried on 
 under the most complex and surprising trickery. 
 Undaunted by repeated fraudulent experiences 
 the scientists, however, continued their work of 
 investigation and, in time, developed such rigid 
 
Psychic Suggestions 73 
 
 scrutiny that all possibility of deception was 
 borne aside, and to-day there is no doubt as to 
 the certainty of the phenomena. 
 
 Before we digress at greater length, some un- 
 derstanding should be reached as to the nature 
 of psychic phenomena in general. The following 
 ideas are particularly suggestive: remembering 
 that every plane of Being — and we must rid our- 
 selves of the idea that the earth plane is the 
 only plane — and remembering that every plane of 
 dimensional space is accordingly subjective to be- 
 ings below it and objective to beings inhabiting it 
 and to the beings above it, while it, in turn, must 
 view the latter as subjective — then all planes, in 
 respectivity, are first of all objective and as real 
 in conscious experience as the earth plane. Now, 
 any casual projection of experiences of objective 
 planes becomes psychic and supernormal to beings 
 dwelling on planes immediately subordinate. 
 Here is an excellent illustration: We who live in 
 three-dimensional space are subjective to beings 
 living in two-dimensional space, while we, in turn, 
 are objective to ourselves and to the material 
 relations of this plane and objective to beings liv- 
 ing on the plane just above us. Any natural 
 objective experience of this earth plane, if pro- 
 jected upon bi-dimensional space, will at once 
 create a psychic, supernormal and subjective man- 
 
74 Practical Occultism 
 
 ifestation to the beings inhabiting it, while we, 
 who produce the phenomenon, readily understand 
 its operations. Take a string and pull it length- 
 wise through a wax tablet, then, while we would 
 see a string visecting the tablet, the insect, or 
 worm, with no understanding of height, would 
 be conscious only of a moving point. Again, 
 should the string be moved up and down in a 
 stationary point in the tablet, the two-dimensional 
 creature would see constantly changing particles 
 of string, while we would see the entire string in 
 all its height-measurements moving up and down. 
 Similarly all psychic phenomena which affect us 
 are respective in essence. Just as the amazed 
 two-dimensional creature could not understand 
 the phenomenon we projected into its sphere of 
 consciousness, so we at first were startled and 
 could not explain certain experiences which, until 
 the present, were mysterious and dreaded; and 
 just as the two-dimensional creature could not 
 see the operators and operations of the phenome- 
 non, being separated by the veils of dimension 
 and material relationships, so we, likewise, at first 
 fail to understand the operators and operations 
 of psychic and subjective phenomena where we 
 are concerned. Now, herein lies the entire es- 
 sence and explanation of Spiritualism. In Spir- 
 itualism, providing of course that scientific 
 
Psychic Suggestions 75 
 
 scrutiny is observed, we witness any number of 
 supernormal experiences — experiences which are 
 suggestive of intelligent operations and intelli- 
 gent operators who claim to live on planes im- 
 mediately above us and who likewise claim to be 
 disincarnate human beings who, by the transition 
 of death, have been relegated to the plane im- 
 mediately above us, the plane which is subjective 
 to us just as we, who live in three-dimensional 
 space, are subjective to bi-dimensional creatures. 
 The phenomena recorded are, of course, subjec- 
 tive to us, but owing to the persistent investiga- 
 tion on our part and owing to the persistent en- 
 deavors of the psychic beings above to make us 
 understand, and to come into communication with 
 us, these mysteries are gradually unravelling until, 
 in a short time, we shall come face to face with 
 those beings who claim to be the friends and 
 relations in our earth-experience, and who try, 
 with desperate energy, to show their survival of 
 bodily dissolution and who try to impress on our 
 consciousness the greater existence of Spiritual 
 Verities in contradistinction to the passing rela- 
 tionships of mortal life. Now, in regard to phe- 
 nomena other than spiritualistic, in what is 
 known as occult phenomena, in regard to super- 
 normal experiences effected by enlightened per- 
 sons on the earth-plane in processes akin to opera- 
 
76 Practical Occultism 
 
 tions effected by psychic beings in the manifesta- 
 tion of spiritualistic phenomena, they are due to 
 the fact that these persons have become psychi- 
 cally evolved to that point where they can indi- 
 vidually employ the methods of the beings liv- 
 ing in the psychic plane above us. They are sim- 
 ply acquainted with the interactions of the mate- 
 rial atoms and vibrations interblending our plane 
 and the psychic plane above us, and with this 
 knowledge they are enabled to produce these 
 supernormal phenomena as readily as they affect 
 the natural physical phenomena of daily experi- 
 ence. 
 
 So far we have explained the nature of ex- 
 ternal psychic phenomena; now we must reach 
 some conclusion concerning the nature of psychic 
 phenomena of inner consciousness from simple 
 telepathy and kindred experiences to the soul 
 trance-ecstasies, visions and spiritual intuitions of 
 the prophets and of the world's greatest mystics 
 and of the world's sublimest sages, such as Jesus 
 the Christ, Gotoma the Buddha, and Sri Rama- 
 krishna of Calcutta. All these phenomena, from 
 the minor psychic to the supreme soul-realiza- 
 tions, are to be ascribed to the workings of sub- 
 jective consciousness, either in its merest personal 
 aspects or in that particular Aspect where the 
 personal merges with the Impersonal and Univer- 
 
Psychic Suggestions 77 
 
 sal, of a subjective consciousness unimpaired by 
 physical impediment, and which, therefore, as is 
 scientifically known, is capable of seeing, hearing, 
 feeling, and otherwise cognizing sense impres- 
 sions, experiences and relationships indefinitely 
 placed either in time or in distance. 
 
 When the scientists declared the authenticity of 
 the phenomena, dissensions arose as to the ex- 
 planatory physical causes which effected them. 
 As is usual at the finding of new physical forces 
 and manifestations there were as many explana- 
 tions and hypotheses as there were scientists. 
 Every imaginable, possible and impossible theory 
 was set forth. Some ascribed them to unknown 
 electrical influences, some to undiscovered undu- 
 lations of vibratory force, some to inherent ani- 
 mal magnetism, and some to peculiar relations 
 between the mind and the finest conceivable parts 
 of matter. All but the most simple and the most 
 plausible explanations were given, but more re- 
 cent inquiry has placed them to one side and rele- 
 gated the cause to the very borders of spiritual- 
 ism and occultism, so that to-day both stand upon 
 a scientific basis and support their arguments 
 from scientific principles and discoveries. Many 
 of the investigators, who now incline toward the 
 spiritualistic and occult explanations, a decade or 
 two ago had no conception that their scientific 
 
7 8 Practical Occultism 
 
 pursuit would lead them as far as it has. They 
 expected some few physical discoveries, but al- 
 most with one effort they unearthed the scientific 
 foundation of the soul's immortality. Science 
 stood" uncovered before the great spiritual proba- 
 bilities with which it had come face to face, and 
 now its exponents are laboring with reverence 
 where once they discriminated with all the scrupu- 
 lousness and caution with which science considers 
 every new phenomenon. 
 
 Naturally the greatest psychological changes 
 followed and continued to follow in the wake of 
 these things. To discredit them is now scientific 
 * folly or the exhibition of an ignorance which rises 
 against everything it fails to comprehend, stig- 
 matizing it with a wholesale and meaningless de- 
 nial or attempted ridicule. But there is that 
 within all things affiliated with Truth which 
 crushes the greatest opposing force and asserts its 
 position in the face of seemingly impossible ob- 
 stacles. The development of scientific tenets 
 from occult and psychological phenomena was 
 fought inch by inch with all desperateness, as it 
 involved the most important religious alterations. 
 The two combating forces in this struggle were 
 the dogmatic religions and their constituents 
 backed by the dogmatic scientists on one side, 
 while on the other were the advanced philoso- 
 
Psychic Suggestions 79 
 
 phers, religious teachers, and a large number of 
 the foremost men of science. The outcome of 
 the struggle is self-evident. Evolution will as- 
 sert its way. 
 
 The changes that these influences necessitated 
 were first visible in a tremendous increase in the 
 following of Spiritualism. They were again vis- 
 ible in a tendency of the general public to follow 
 psychological religions teaching the possibility of 
 psychological and occult phenomena. Among 
 these religions are Theosophy, different Oriental 
 religions, variations of New Thought, and the 
 scores of present-day cults. The greater inter- 
 est, however, consequent upon psychological phe- 
 nomena, was the claim of individual development 
 along psychic lines, giving various soul-powers 
 and soul-consciousness in different planes of exist- 
 ence according to the development attained. 
 The preaching of these things by Raja Yoga ex- 
 ponents created the wildest sensation in this coun- 
 try. Raja Yoga, in various forms, became the 
 one thing which drew the thousands who thought 
 that the redemption of religion and of theological 
 facts lay along this line. Together with Raja 
 Yoga were dispersed the metaphysical specula- 
 tions concerning the reincarnation of the soul and 
 similar doctrines. 
 
 Now, if Life, like the omnipresent ether, is a 
 
80 Practical Occultism 
 
 cosmic fundamentalism which cannot be reduced 
 into the categories of material energies; if it is 
 antecedent and unsubjected to the dissipations of 
 motion and the integrations of inorganic matter; 
 if Life is an essence of quantitative and qualita- 
 tive constancy; if it is no unimportant, casual, 
 momentary arrangement associated with certain 
 relationships of matter, but utilizing these rela- 
 tionships in variation with evolutionary experi- 
 ence; if Life is^ something stable, unmodified by 
 molecular changes — and these hypotheses are the 
 latest deductions of science — then the claims of 
 JRaja Yoga are true, then the necessary corollary 
 of the soul's immortality follows and the corol- 
 lary that the manifestation of Life in personal- 
 ized consciousness must, at will and development, 
 transcend the limitations of time, space, and other 
 casual relationships to which the instrument of 
 the soul — the body — is subjected by reason of its 
 primary elemental, chemical and vegetal ele- 
 mental composition. It also follows that, for 
 these reasons, and that, with known methods, con- 
 sciousness, independent of material impediments, 
 is able to express itself in different phases and 
 planes of Being and in different phases of con- 
 scious experience. Here is the scientific basis 
 upon which the possibility of psychic development 
 and the otherwise seemingly wildest fancies of 
 
Psychic Suggestions 81 
 
 occult possibilities rest. It is necessary to be 
 technical, for without a technical, scientific inter- 
 pretation, the story of psychistry would seem a 
 story of improbabilities. 
 
 Again, the entire system of Raja Yoga and 
 all psychological phenomena have a common 
 scientific foundation. They are immediately as- 
 sociated with the scientific conceptions of the sen- 
 sitiveness of the nervous system and its power of 
 transmitting sense-impressions. It was discov- 
 ered that the nervous system was the chief opera- 
 tive factor in the manifestation of psychic facts, 
 and that the nervous system responded with 
 greater or less accuracy and greater or less sensi- 
 tiveness in exact ratio to its normal condition or 
 to its acquired development. There is the widest 
 difference between the nervous system of one per- 
 son and that of another. To illustrate, five 
 persons feel a certain sensation. They each feel 
 it in a different degree of sensitiveness. The 
 most highly strung, whose nerves are more defi- 
 nitely evolved, feels most intensely. He knows 
 more of the emotion and its essence because his 
 nerves are more highly strung, while the others 
 feel the emotion in declining proportion, so that 
 the last may only slightly feel what the first feels 
 with intense sensitiveness. Again, a sensation 
 may be experienced by a thousand persons, yet 
 
82 Practical Occultism 
 
 each of these persons will experience the sensa- 
 tion in a thousandfold, individually diverse varia- 
 tion of definiteness, of intensity, of difference in 
 sense-understanding and of other divergencies, so 
 that the lowest evolved of the number may inter- 
 pret in a diametrically different manner and with 
 an entirely different activity of the mind the 
 same sense-relation which might conterminously 
 affect the highest evolved of the number. To 
 the one the same sensation might afford intense 
 pleasure, while to the other the same sensation 
 would be painful in the extreme; in the one case 
 the same condition might produce an indifferent 
 State of the mind, while in the other the mental 
 state would be decidedly happy and inspired. 
 This difference is visible in tastes for music — one 
 class cannot understand even in the slightest de- 
 gree or appreciate grand opera, while popular 
 strains arouse their greatest enthusiasm, and vice 
 versa. Now, of course, all emotions are simply 
 the reflex condition of the mind in response to 
 sense-vibrations having, therefore, a nerve origin; 
 in fact every activity of consciousness is accom- 
 panied by nerve changes and discharges of nerve 
 parts in nerve systems, and to the differences in 
 structure, condition and activity of various per- 
 sonal nervous systems, whether animal or human, 
 are to be attributed the attractions and repulsions, 
 
Psychic Suggestions 83 
 
 the love and the hatred and the other complexi- 
 ties of life between beings and the differences of 
 their instinctive, emotional or mental capacities. 
 
 Where humanity is concerned it is the aim of 
 evolution to develop the psychic life and psychic 
 element and, for this reason, to render the nerv- 
 ous system more and more complex in structure, 
 for it is by the increased delicacy of the nervous 
 system — the medium through which sense-impres- 
 sions are received — that we, who live on the 
 earth plane, can hope to sense the experiences 
 which obtain on the psychic, subjective plane 
 above us. As matters now stand it is impossible 
 with the majority of human beings to receive 
 these impressions because the average human 
 nervous system is not yet so adapted, and because 
 it is in closer proximity to the world of instinct 
 rather than to the world of intellect and intuition. 
 
 But the secret of occultism is, that the nervous 
 system lies entirely within control, just as muscu- 
 lar and structural development lie within the con- 
 trol of the athlete, so that there is no reason why 
 we should be barred from coming into individual- 
 contact with the psychic plane if there is a desire 
 to further inquiry into the occult. We can in- 
 crease or decrease its susceptibilities beyond or 
 beneath the normal state," thus rendering it pos- 
 sible for the mind to perceive what is going on 
 
84 Practical Occultism 
 
 beyond or beneath this limited normal condition 
 and plane of consciousness. The line of psychic 
 development strengthens the nervous system, and 
 at the same time heightens its delicacy and sen- 
 sitiveness to sense-impressions in proportion to 
 the success attained. There is no limitation to 
 the possibilities of this development. It is sim^ 
 ply the anticipation of evolution and of its proc- 
 esses of adjustment, for, in a not far distant 
 period of time, the first stages of psycho-physio- 
 logical progression will manifest themselves in 
 the human form with a greater complexity of its 
 functions and organs. The ear will have become 
 so delicate in structure that it will respond to 
 vibrations which, at the present state of its de- 
 velopment, is impossible, save in the rare cases 
 of psychics from the ordinary medium to the en- 
 lightened sage, adept and saint. Vibrations of 
 sound and light, and associations of matter, of 
 which we are now unconscious from a sense point 
 of view, but which the X-ray and instruments 
 even more delicate prove exist, will then be trans- 
 mitted by the nervous system. The normal state 
 of the human nervous system renders us clair- 
 voyant and clairaudient on this plane of exist- 
 ence; therefore we can understand that its more 
 complex development would make us clairvoyant 
 and clairaudient on the plane just above us even 
 
Psychic Suggestions 85 
 
 as the intelligences living immediately below our 
 plane could see and hear us by the development 
 of the transmitting organ of their sense and per- 
 ceptive faculties. Increased development of the 
 nervous system with increased powers of mental 
 concentration and introspection would enable us 
 to see and hear and even be fully conscious on 
 planes of existence of which the loftiest imagina- 
 tion could but dream. This is the whole secret 
 of occult development. 
 
 In this universe everything is a matter of vi- 
 bration. The various manifestations of this vi- 
 bration go under different names and forms, 
 therefore we should remember that darkness and 
 light are only words, for where we leave off see- 
 ing on one end of a vibration of light, where it 
 is darkness for us, there the mole, the bat, the 
 owl, and many other creatures begin to see. 
 Similarly the eagle and other beings of superior 
 development of vision have only a normal light 
 where we are blinded by an intense light even as 
 our light of day is a blinding light to the owl. 
 Light and darkness have, in themselves, no real- 
 ity; they are simply modes of intensity of vibra- 
 tion. The same is true of all material arrange- 
 ments from the grossest to the finest; they are 
 simply modes of vibration, having no reality only 
 as they are variously interpreted in accordance 
 
86 Practical Occultism 
 
 with the variating consciousness of beings living 
 in variating phases and planes and in various 
 time-relations and space-dimensions of the cos- 
 mos. Now, could we psychologically attune the 
 nervous system to varied vibrations, we could see 
 and feel what is at present unseen and unfelt be- 
 cause of inferiority of nerve development. This 
 room would be full of new objects and new be- 
 ings, and in that state of consciousness our sense 
 of vision would likewise recognize new character- 
 istics of our every-day surroundings, for we 
 would sense them in the novelty of new dimen- 
 sions and vibrations. We must get rid of the 
 idea that on our side of life is activity of Being 
 and on the invisible a void and non-existence. 
 Science tells us that a void is impossible; that 
 every atom is a center of sentiency, and higher 
 spiritual teaching informs us that this diversified 
 sentiency is an expression of a Cosmic, Infinite 
 Sentiency of which Knowledge and Bliss are 
 the essence. 
 
 All that has been stated is unquestionably scien- 
 tific, and greater scientific progress will discover 
 greater psychological and spiritual truths. These 
 things are forcibly suggestive, yet they are only 
 the first principles of Raja Yoga, the science 
 which unearths the foundation of the mind and 
 nervous system, showing their interblending and 
 
Psychic Suggestions ' 87 
 
 the methods by which an ultimate conscious con- 
 trol of the entire body and mind may be possible. 
 It explains methods by which the mind can turn 
 into its very depths, as it were, and, by a process 
 akin to what we unconsciously exercise in or- 
 dinary memorizing, stir every experience the 
 brain has recorded — even the slightest — into ac- 
 tive, conscious vibration. The interpreters of 
 this teaching assert that the mind can perform 
 even a still more wonderful feat, that by a process 
 of extreme introspection it can disclose soul- 
 memories stretching far beyond our present ex- 
 periences into past incarnations. Belief in rein- 
 carnation is good, but a conscious knowledge of 
 past life is "better. The sages say that there are 
 processes by which we can remember past exist- 
 ences and their experiences if we once arouse the 
 depths of our minds. Memory is only a vibra- 
 tion; a recurrence of the vibration which previ- 
 ously had a more concrete form of expression, 
 but which has become fine in potential existence. 
 If enough of mental force is directed we can re- 
 call the faintest experience of our lives. This 
 is seen in the vision of great numbers of the 
 dying before whom every event of their passing 
 life is revealed. At the moment of death, how- 
 ever, they have begun the psychic life, which 
 enables them to perform a psychological feat 
 
88 Practical Occultism 
 
 which, for our normal consciousness to do, would 
 require long periods of psychic development. As 
 memory, therefore, is only a recurrent vibration, 
 that person who has attained the great heights 
 of psychic development can cross the border-land 
 of this life's limitations and become aware of 
 the life, the relationships, the experiences, the 
 merit and the demerit of the Past of his soul, and 
 is thus enabled to exercise adjustment for its 
 Future. 
 
 The higher forms of psychological and occult 
 phenomena embrace the miracles of the world's 
 Saints, of their mystic experiences and their re- 
 markable soul faculties and intuitions. The 
 developed in the practice of Raja Yoga claim al- 
 most unlimited power and unlimited possibilities. 
 The great tasks which they say they can perform 
 touch the uninformed hearer at first as being the 
 most absurd superstition, but a little careful con- 
 sideration and a knowledge of the latest scientific 
 discoveries concerning matter and force explain 
 their extreme probability. The wildest dream of 
 Oriental imagination has its basis in a range of 
 scientific facts which would startle the average 
 reader. Max Miiller uttered a spiritual verity 
 when he stated that imagination could "not exist 
 only as it had a tremendous foundation in the 
 facts of the universe. The revelations of science 
 
Psychic Suggestions 89 
 
 and its conclusions savor of the romance of the 
 "Arabian Nights," yet we know that they are 
 true. What, for instance, is the occult declara- 
 tion of the soul's immortality or the possibility 
 of psychological phenomena in comparison with 
 the statements of science as to the unthinkable 
 distances in space; that a pebble thrown into the 
 ocean necessitates an entire readjustment of its 
 unthinkable myriads of particles; that certain 
 magnetic needles on this earth cause a vibration 
 in the sun, millions upon millions of miles away; 
 that the vibrations of light travel with the incon- 
 ceivable rapidity of about one hundred and eighty- 
 six thousand miles a second; that we live at the 
 bottom of an ocean of ether which presses against 
 the surface of the earth billions of pounds to the 
 square inch, or that what appears to the eye a 
 solid concrete object is composed of minutest par- 
 ticles constantly in flowing motion. 
 
 These psychological truths and these semi- 
 occult, semi-scientific discoveries, have impressed 
 the greatest meaning on thousands of people 
 whose religious beliefs were tottering when they 
 were suddenly revived by the new psychology and 
 the religions which represented it. The Oriental 
 teachers, whose religion comprises these forms of 
 religio-psychic beliefs, were sought out for assist- 
 ance along the lines of psychic development. 
 
90 Practical Occultism 
 
 They were idolized by an enthusiastic following. 
 Everyone wanted to hear what they had to say, 
 and at first the audiences which attended their 
 lectures crowded the largest assembly places in 
 the country. Books treating of psychological 
 development were circulated broadcast through- 
 out the land. Societies were established to pur- 
 sue researches of the occult. Correspondingly 
 hundreds of soi-disant psychologists and teachers 
 of the Higher Truth, seeing the opportunity to 
 profit financially by the popular enthusiasm, rose 
 up in every third-rate city. They do not know 
 one word of Sanskrit nor Pali, yet they willingly 
 interpret the Vedas and Buddhist texts with so 
 many dollars an hour fluency, and discourse on 
 final metaphysical speculations without having 
 heard the first principles of Vedanta or Buddhist 
 logic. This is likewise true of our modern inter- 
 preters of ancient Egyptian and Persian mysteries. 
 For a considerable time this enthusiasm for 
 the occult held the widest sway and attention— 
 suddenly, however, it abated. It went as readily 
 as it came, but this was of no surprise to the 
 teachers; they apparently understood. It was one 
 of those frequent spasmodic waves of public en- 
 thusiasm which rise with portentous meaning and 
 subside after the shortest-lived period. There 
 was nothing stable about it. It was simply an 
 
Psychic Suggestions 91 
 
 American phenomenon. When the Oriental phi- 
 losophers came to this land, the majorities who 
 welcomed them expected a miracle and a discourse 
 on the occult for every courtesy offered. They ex- 
 pected to witness the greatest psychic phenomena, 
 and when none were displayed they grew im- 
 patient. The consequence was, that the admiring 
 thousands gave way to the small remnant com- 
 posed of earnest, devoted followers. The Orien- 
 tal teachers did not come to this land to perform 
 miracles or to hold and dupe the masses. The 
 message of a teacher is not to attract the mob, 
 but to voice Truth. The Eastern philosophers 
 came as the apostles of a new dispensation for 
 which they were willing to undergo the uncer- 
 tainty and possible danger attendant upon the 
 task. They knew, from the first, that their suc- 
 cess with the public was but temporary. They 
 understood the psychological conditions which are 
 always associated with innovating beliefs and 
 their characteristics upon the superstitiously- 
 inclined and novelty-seeking masses, and they 
 foresaw that their temporary success would be 
 followed by years of tedious, discouraging labor, 
 with only minor results. 
 
 From the very start the exponents of the 
 higher teaching counselled their hearers to sup- 
 press their desire for occult manifestation, stating 
 
92 Practical Occultism 
 
 that all power would be theirs when the soul had 
 awakened from its long dream of sense-life and 
 the pursuit of desire. They stated that knowl- 
 edge of any esoteric truth, or that mere psychic 
 development did not mean religion in the higher 
 sense. Naturally the interest waned. Those who 
 came to witness occult phenomena and to learn 
 the methods of occult development were dissatis- 
 fied when their curiosities were not appeased. 
 
 In the mind, of man there is stored up ghosts 
 of ancestral superstitions which are resurrected at 
 every new suggestion of the hidden and of the 
 supernatural. There is an old proverb to the 
 effect that the public in general readily falls prey 
 to wholesale trickery and that it is willing and 
 impatient to freely disburse at these occasions, and 
 it appears that the most bitter experiences serve 
 only to feed the fire of credulous curiosity. Ma- 
 dame Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott, respectively, 
 founder and president of the Theosophical So- 
 ciety, openly confessed that at different instances 
 they had fraudulently performed some of their 
 most striking phenomena, yet this society has 
 spread its branches into every important city. 
 Similarly, in spite of numerous expositions of 
 trickery in the cases of several prominent mediums 
 and hundreds of others, less important, their fol- 
 lowing has only been multiplied many times over. 
 
Psychic Suggestions 93 
 
 The cause of their success, however, in the face 
 of these conditions, is to be attributed to the in- 
 herent truth of the philosophy and the possibility 
 of the phenomena, which readily assert them- 
 selves, when their following is imperilled. An- 
 other reason for the decline in enthusiasm for the 
 occult was the hard work before the student who 
 desired even the slightest psychological develop- 
 ment. Strict dieting, renunciation of this pleasure 
 and that, earnest study, the stupendous task of 
 attaining proper concentration and control of the 
 mind, were thorns on the path and, for many, it 
 was by far too narrow, but fortunately, by reason 
 of these difficulties, it will never be desecrated. 
 Only lovers of truth, only the persevering and 
 courageous of soul, will be able to master the ob- 
 stacles and achieve the desired development. 
 
 It was believed that occult power could be had 
 at the slightest effort, and those who think no 
 farther than the purchase price, thought that 
 money could secure them entree in the circles of 
 the truly spiritual and occult who, in turn, would 
 be glad to impart the greatest psychological and 
 soul teachings. Their surprise was great when 
 they were informed that no money could buy the 
 teaching, for it is a matter not of buying and sell- 
 ing, but of individual progression. The student 
 has to familiarize himself with the methods and 
 
94 Practical Occultism 
 
 then labor with almost infinite patience, with 
 courage and painstaking ardor. The seeker after 
 the real must be actuated by the same spirit as the 
 scientific investigator. He must not be too credu- 
 lous or too skeptical, but, adhering to his methods 
 and practices, serve not a hair's breadth to the 
 right or to the left. He must strike mental blow 
 after blow until the task is solved and the wall 
 of ignorance scattered, revealing the newer knowl- 
 edge and the greater light. 
 
 Mere curiosity will never achieve these things. 
 Curiosity did not impel the great Giordano Bruno 
 to further and declare his great scientific dis- 
 coveries in the face of the combined opposition of 
 his time, in the face of the narrowest dogmatism, 
 and of condemnation and death. Curiosity can- 
 not stand such tests. If the spirit of inquiry which 
 guides the majority into occult investigation were 
 put to the test of martyrdom and social ostracism, 
 their number would be rarer. When your desire 
 to know is so sincere, so unselfish that you are 
 willing to give up all, even life and happiness, 
 then spiritual truth will flow to you from the four 
 quarters of space, and the Master will come to 
 teach. Otherwise time is wasted. The trouble in 
 America is, that people are curious, not sincerely 
 desirous of knowledge ; they desire entertainment, 
 not hard work, earnest persistence in searching 
 
Psychic Suggestions 95 
 
 after higher things which involve self-sacrifice, ex- 
 treme purity of conduct and patience and faith in 
 the very teeth of failure and ridicule. Psychic de- 
 velopment is not a matter of twenty-four hours 
 or twenty-four months; it is a matter of work, 
 work and work regardless of time, success or sac- 
 rifice, for it is a part of soul-development; and, 
 if we depend upon individual efforts to reach the 
 goal, it takes not only long periods of time, but 
 incarnations upon incarnations. All is in ratio to 
 our desire and perseverance. Some attain the 
 goal only after hundreds of lives of effort, while 
 others reach the same height within a short 
 period. 
 
 As we are discussing occult phenomena many, 
 unfamiliar with "occultism," will desire to know 
 what it sets forth. Occultism is in no sense any- 
 thing hidden, secret, or non-divulgible. Under 
 this atmosphere it has unfortunately labored 
 through the insinuations of mystery-mongers and 
 would-be exponents. This knowledge has nothing 
 in common with what might be inferred from the 
 meaning of the word. It is only hidden or, 
 rather, remains unmanifested, simply because the 
 time with regard to the most of us has not yet 
 arrived when we can realize these things through 
 normal consciousness. But all knowledge and all 
 power are in the depths of the soul, and when it 
 
96 Practical Occultism 
 
 is once aroused from its self-hypnotization of 
 weakness, death, sin, and relativity, there is noth- 
 • ing it does not know, nothing it cannot perform, 
 nothing of which it is not conscious. This knowl- 
 edge has been transmitted by the few to the few; 
 but now, with religious tolerance and broadmind- 
 edness of spirit, it will be spread over the entire 
 earth. Then alone can we hope for the great 
 panacea of all evil, whether racial or individual. 
 In this knowledge is embodied a consciousness 
 and a conscious activity of the subjective mind. 
 
 Science is now recognizing two minds, or, 
 .better said, two aspects of the same mind, the 
 former giving us material consciousness of the 
 surroundings and relationships of this plane of 
 life, for it is aware only of the present and re- 
 mains subject to all the changes and limitations 
 of bodily life and environment. The subjective 
 mind is the larger aspect; it is free from material 
 conditions and is not bound by material concep- 
 tions of time; but, above all, it is the receptacle 
 of soul-experiences, soul-power, and the true seat 
 of sensation. Now, all occult phenomena are 
 traceable to the workings of this higher mind. 
 This mind has a consciousness of its own, so to 
 speak, and its knowledge transcends the ordinary 
 methods of perception and inference. This 
 knowledge is truly soul-knowledge, and it mani- 
 
Psychic Suggestions 97 
 
 fests when reason has reached its highest climax. 
 This is the mystic religion when we are conscious 
 of the things we formerly believed and intellec- 
 tually recognized. The operations of the subjec- 
 tive mind are visible in states of hypnosis and 
 kindred psychic states, when the material mind 
 and bodily organs are to a greater or less extent 
 silenced into inactivity, thus giving the soul, the 
 reincarnating subjective mentality an opportunity 
 to display its intuitive faculties, its ramifications of 
 personality, its ability to penetrate the thoughts 
 of others, its powers of presaging the future, and 
 its wide knowledge which the patient, in normal 
 consciousness, could not possibly comprehend. 
 This is the tale of occultism — the revelations and 
 mysteries of the subjective mind. We want no 
 modes of psychistry which are not scientifically 
 founded, for what is scientifically false is spiritu- 
 ally false, and our duty is to avoid and condemn. 
 Any truth which has to be hidden or which can- 
 not face the broad daylight of intellectual criti- 
 cism and investigation is not occultism, but false- 
 ness. The day of concealed knowledge is past, 
 for the race has psychologically advanced where 
 it can partially understand. According to the 
 psychic development is the spirituality, the splen- 
 dor of soul progress and possibilities. The soul, 
 in its flight, comes in touch with greater and 
 
98 Practical Occultism 
 
 greater souls and reveals its true nature to itself 
 so that continued research may even lead to the 
 ultimate Eternal Truth. 
 
 This higher ideal of occultism assuredly failed 
 of practical interpretation in this country. We 
 have a general chase after the unusual with tem- 
 porary practices of breathing and concentration, 
 consequently, instead of having development, we 
 have undevelopment and, only too frequently, 
 neurasthenia. For the methods of psychological 
 development, if employed spasmodically, with in- 
 discrimination or under other improper condi- 
 tions, will lead to hallucination and even insanity. 
 The sages counsel against these dangers and say 
 that, because of misdirected development and in- 
 coherent practice, we have been burdened by the 
 revelations, hallucinations and superstitions of 
 religious reformers who have stumbled into 
 psychic states and brought forth half-truths. 
 Psychic practices should not be undertaken save 
 under the direction of a teacher who has travelled 
 the path, and is thoroughly familiar with the 
 numerous and intricate psychological problems 
 which are involved in Yoga, fixed concentration 
 with deep breathing and other psychic conditions. 
 
 The inquiry into the occult has the widest sep- 
 arated motives. Many there are who follow 
 every new interpreter of things occult and then, 
 
Psychic Suggestions 99 
 
 when interest pales, chase the latest fad. Some 
 there are who believe that occultism alone resides 
 in the unfrequented regions of India or in the 
 farthest recesses of Thibetan mountains. They 
 should learn that occultism is not a matter of 
 outward form, of respective places, of turbans 
 and Oriental robes; they should remember that 
 some of its greatest exponents may be found 
 among the humblest followers of Christian teach- 
 ing, and that the miracles and psychological 
 phenomena, recorded by the Christian churches, 
 have the same occult significance as those per- 
 formed in the remote regions of the East. The 
 visions of St. Catherine of Sienna, St. Anthony 
 of Padua, and the miracles of the Apostles and 
 the many saints of the church are as soul-inspiring 
 and as spiritual in their origin as the visions and 
 miracles of Oriental sages. "Mahatmas" can be 
 found in the West as well as the East. Another 
 class of occult devotees are those who seek a 
 knowledge of spiritual and psychic power from 
 motives of personal vanity, selfishness, and the 
 "I want to know and to be more than you" spirit. 
 These will never be privileged with this knowl- 
 edge, for the reason that their selfish nature 
 would employ it for personal, selfish purposes, 
 not for spiritual progress, and rarely, if ever, for 
 the benefit of their fellow-creatures. It is not 
 
ioo Practical Occultism 
 
 that they are personally denied this knowledge; 
 it is that the law of evolution does not reveal 
 the new knowledge, the new experience, the new 
 form and the new force until everything is 
 adjusted and no error is possible. 
 
 Until recently the world has either gaped in 
 wonder at psychic and occult manifestations, or 
 else violently persecuted those who practiced 
 them. The former is true of the East, the latter 
 of the West. There is also this difference, that 
 the thinkers of the East were the scientific prac- 
 titioners of psychic phenomena; they understand 
 the psychology involved, and by long periods of 
 racial and climatic convolutions, by individual 
 concentration and constant psychic effort, they 
 have developed such a sensitive, complex nerve 
 structure that they are able to peer into the super- 
 sensorial and witness the relationships between 
 mind and body. The extreme opposite is true of 
 Western occultism, barring, of course, religio- 
 psychologieal phenomena, which occur, not at the 
 instance of individual power, but at the invocation 
 of the omnipotence of Spirit. There are a host 
 of other phenomena, open to study, taking place 
 in the early history of our own country as well 
 as in European history, which were disconnected, 
 spasmodic, haphazard and beyond the control of 
 the individual. Those, so affected, were social 
 
Psychic Suggestions 101 
 
 outcasts, accused of witch-craft and doomed to 
 death. Rarely was science or philosophy brought 
 to bear on these things, and exceptions, such as 
 Nostradamus, Cagliostro, Paracelsus, and others, 
 only confirmed the normal condition. Happily, 
 however, these conditions have, for once and for 
 all, passed, and now, through advanced religious 
 attitudes and rapid scientific progress, we are at 
 the threshold of an era foreshadowing the great- 
 est psychological discoveries and consequent re- 
 moval of many important distresses which affect 
 the mind and otherwise hinder the development 
 of the soul. Where the mind is concerned there 
 is a particular reference to insanity and other 
 mental and psychic disorders, of which so little is 
 comparatively known at the present time. 
 
 Like all other national demonstrations, the 
 mania for the occult has outlived its enthusiasm, 
 so that now little attention is given to its claims 
 and possibilities. Of small importance, however, 
 is a knowledge of the principles, practices and 
 tenets of occultism to the general public, for what 
 they must know will be transmitted to them 
 by the investigations and discoveries of the 
 scientists. The only important thing is, that 
 we should never return to ancestral superstitions 
 and the limitations of dead beliefs, but it is with- 
 out doubt that the awakened intelligence of the 
 
102 Practical Occultism 
 
 people, as a whole, has forever rendered this im- 
 possible. Science and intelligence are, at the pres- 
 ent time, the teachers of the people, while once 
 they were instructed under the influence of super- 
 stition and intellectual blindness. In the instance 
 of occultism, as in all others, the people must be 
 taught and believe, but as long as science develops 
 higher forms of truth, and so long as their influ- 
 ence is felt, little does it matter whether the pub- 
 lic knows or does not know the occult or psycho- 
 logical origin. 
 
 
THE SCIENCE AND SECRET OF 
 HYPNOTISM 
 
 Of one thing we are assured — the general 
 public is taking a vital interest in the phenomena 
 recorded by the "New Psychology." This inter- 
 est has been largely furthered by the general 
 press. Every day or so strange menta-psychical 
 instances are recorded, instances presenting novel 
 and phenomenal phases of mind. The only un- 
 desirable feature of this interest is the fact that 
 the public becomes acquainted with these things 
 while the critical sense is, as yet, insufficiently de- 
 veloped. This is why we have two undesirable 
 aspects toward the new psychology and its phe- 
 nomena ; the one is supercilious dilettanteism with 
 supernatural mindedness, the other an unin- 
 structed Philistinism which blinds its eyes to 
 truth. For this reason the phenomena with which 
 the public comes into contact are unsymmetrical 
 and psychologically deformed. Thus half-truth 
 with distorted attitudes obtains. The phenomena 
 of which we speak are telepathy, or thought- 
 transference, mesmerism, hypnotism, clairvoy- 
 
 103 
 
104 Practical Occultism 
 
 ance, apparitions, planchette and automatic writ- 
 ing, trance and trance utterances. Of these the 
 most discredited, yet the most credit-worthy, is 
 indubitably that of hypnotism, that branch of the 
 new psychology which furnishes adequate oppor- 
 tunities for the study of the remarkable phases of 
 mind and remarkable psychological and therapeu- 
 tic phases. The reason why this science has not 
 come into earlier consideration is owing to the 
 materialistic and mechanical atmosphere in which 
 we live. It is the conduct of our age to discredit 
 and disregard anything incapable of being defi- 
 . nitely and tangibly and materially characterized. 
 It is only the external conditions, the practical and 
 work-a-day conditions of commercial and ordinary 
 life which is considered. All those higher intu- 
 itions and aspirations, all those supernormal men- 
 tal activities and feelings which belong to the 
 category of the psychological are slighted as of 
 little importance. The tide of Oriental mysticism, 
 of modern Spiritualism and the supernormal 
 teachings of the orthodox religions has stemmed 
 the destructive growth of this materialistic an- 
 tagonism to the psychological, and we are, there- 
 fore, finding an increasing number who are 
 particularly interested in the knowledge and con- 
 clusions to which psychological phenomena lead. 
 Hypnotism is derived from the Greek noun 
 
The Science and Secret of Hypnotism 105 
 
 "hypnos," which means sleep. In the terminology 
 of the psychological, however, hypnotism signifies 
 those sleep-induced states having their source in 
 suggestion or autosuggestion. It involves the 
 description and classification of the phenomena 
 and mentapsychical activities which these states 
 present. Ridding ourselves for the moment of 
 the strictly scientific interpretation and the 
 supernormal methods of hypnotism, and confining 
 ourselves to hypnotic phenomena inseparably con- 
 sidered, we find them occurring at all ages and 
 all times, and beyond the immediate discovery and 
 classification of the phenomena into a separate 
 science. 
 
 The earliest historic ages record the presence 
 of peculiar conditions of mind associated with cer- 
 tain unusual conditions of the body, during which 
 the subject was semi or wholly unconscious, and 
 during which the sub-conscious mind was in play, 
 giving evidences of superior knowledge and in- 
 sight, of heightened vision and hearing, of 
 prophecy, of discriminating advice, and of imperi- 
 ous command. Persons so affected were set 
 apart in the public opinion and were regarded as 
 supernormal, and as under the especial regard of 
 respective national deities were looked upon as 
 the messengers of the latter. The ancient Egyp- 
 tian and the Persian of pre-Cyrenian time had 
 
106 Practical Occultism 
 
 their inspired magi; the Hebrew had his God- 
 communicating prophets. The Greeks and the 
 Romans had their oracles and sybils, the Druids 
 and the ancient Germans their supernormally 
 gifted priests, but particularly priestesses; the 
 East Indians had their yogis; the Chinese and 
 Japanese their psychologically developed religious 
 teachers. The tide of these conditions continued 
 throughout the Middle Ages and characterized 
 themselves in the ecstasies of religious ascetics. 
 It has continued in our modern time and empha- 
 sized itself in Swedenborgian personalities. Then, 
 a^so, we have the history of many superior men 
 and women who were possessed of those phe- 
 nomenal characteristics which are cited in the new 
 psychology. Such were Socrates, Plato, and Joan 
 of Arc. The average type Highlander had his 
 "second sight." The medicine men of the Ameri- 
 can Indians are said to have been gifted with a 
 vision of future occurrences and therapeutic 
 power, and a notable instance of the typification 
 of these powers in the red man was that of Sit- 
 ting Bull, said to have had a prophetic discern- 
 ment of the approach and destruction of Custer's 
 command. 
 
 Thus we recognize the historically continuous 
 citation of the remarkable phenomena revealed 
 by modern psychological investigation. Previous 
 to four-score years ago these phenomena were 
 
The Science and Secret of Hypnotism 107 
 
 uncorrelated and unsynthesized and unclassified. 
 People so affected were considered as possessed of 
 supernatural powers and to have received this 
 power from external and invisible intelligences, 
 whether good or evil. 
 
 The Development of Hypnotism 
 
 In the early 70's of the eighteenth century a 
 distinguished German physician-philosopher and 
 occultist, Mesmer by name, came to some syn- 
 thetic and co-ordinating conclusions with reference 
 to the mentioned phenomena. He regarded them, 
 not in a supernatural but in a supernormal man- 
 ner. It was a very important demarcation, as it 
 forever drew the line between the supernatural 
 and the supernormal, and gave a scientific classifi- 
 cation to otherwise dissortedly interpreted phe- 
 nomena. From being superlatively considered as 
 religious phenomena they were relegated to their 
 proper psychological consideration. From being 
 interpreted as having their specific origin in ex- 
 ternal good or evil influences, they became con- 
 sidered as originating in psycho-physical influences 
 as yet little understood. The persistent investiga- 
 tion and the particular findings of Mesmer 
 resulted in some fortunate attitudes with refer- 
 ence to the phenomena, yet he did not in any sense 
 approximate the vital scientific conclusion of 
 
108 Practical Occultism 
 
 to-day. Mesmer is only to be thanked for hav- 
 ing separated the psychological from the super- 
 stitious. His theory was that persons physically 
 afflicted, particularly in a nervous sense, could be 
 relieved by passing magnets over affected parts. 
 Under this manipulation he discovered that many 
 of his patients sank into a profound lethargic 
 slumber during which somnambulistic phenomena 
 occurred. Mesmer was not by any means the 
 founder of modern hypnotic science, however. 
 He was mainly interested in that newly discovered 
 power through which disease could be cured. In- 
 cidentally he stumbled on to the fact of the 
 hypnotic sleep and the therapeutic value of it. 
 Yet Mesmer was not given any great credence. 
 The large body of scientists regarded his cures 
 as so much quackery. 
 
 The second exponent and explorer of hypnotic 
 phenomena was a Suabian priest, Gassner, who 
 used no magnets, but healed his patients by simple 
 imposition of the hands. It was coming into con- 
 tact with this priest that induced Mesmer to give 
 up his idea of the value of magnets and come to 
 an understanding that there was something else 
 than material substance which affected the body. 
 The curative influence was not considered to 
 radiate from the curative agent, and the force was 
 called "animal magnetism." The Marquis de 
 
The Science and Secret of Hypnotism 109 
 
 Puysegur, the pupil of Mesmer, furthered his 
 master's methods and more carefully observed the 
 magnetic sleep which was induced. Instead of the 
 passing of magnets over the body, the "Mesmer- 
 ists," as the followers of Mesmer were called, 
 impelled the hypnotic sleep by passes. The same 
 phenomena as now manifest in hypnotic sleep 
 were also manifested in those earlier days. These 
 phenomena included somnambulism, or sleep 
 walking, rigidity of body, anesthesia, or insensi- 
 bility to pain, amnesia, or loss of memory as to 
 what occurred during that sleep. The prac- 
 titioners of these methods likewise discovered that 
 their patients were amenable to suggestion and 
 would follow out the spoken and sometimes the 
 unspoken command. They also placed this sug- 
 gestive possibility to practical use in the eradica- 
 tion of vice and the education of nobler instincts. 
 The period of the Mesmerists lasted until the 
 middle of the nineteenth century. Meanwhile, 
 such able interpreters of the science as Petetin 
 Husson, Dupotet Elliotson in France and Eng- 
 land, and Esdaile in India, successfully carried on 
 the work and discovered new working methods 
 and new phenomenal phases of the formulating 
 science. 
 
 An English surgeon, Dr. Braid, who enjoyed 
 a high repute, now turned his attention to the 
 
no Practical Occultism 
 
 more and more interest-spreading phenomena. 
 He it was who developed the idea that patients 
 could be placed in the hypnotic sleep by methods 
 other than those employed by the early Mes- 
 merists. The persistent fixedness of the subject's 
 eyes upon a brilliant object, he asserted, was as 
 vital a means in calling the psychological phe- 
 nomena to life as were the usual passes. It was 
 he who first applied the term "hypnotism" to the 
 sleeping state of the patient, and he called the 
 phenomena "hypnotic phenomena." Braid's 
 analysis of the physiological states summarized 
 itself in what he considered a "profound nervous 
 change." In spite of these zealous efforts, how- 
 ever, Braid was not accorded scientific recogni- 
 tion. Hypnotism still labored under the accusa- 
 tion of quackery. This condition persisted until 
 the opening year of the last quarter of the nine- 
 teenth century. 
 
 At that time the work of Mesmer and Braid 
 drew the attention of several leading French phy- 
 sicians; among them were Liebeaut and Azam, 
 the former of Nancy, the other of Bordeaux. Yet, 
 however, in spite of their patient scientific effort, 
 in spite of their continuous pronounced observa- 
 tions and their continuous discoveries, they did not 
 draw that attention of the scientific world which 
 they so earnestly desired. It was not as yet the 
 
The Science and Secret of Hypnotism in 
 
 custom to openly assert any opinion concerning 
 peculiar phenomena or existential conditions of 
 hypnotism — it was not good scientific form. 
 
 Then came the turning point. The world- 
 famed Charcot appeared on the scene in 1887. 
 This man was possibly the most far-famed phy- 
 sician of France. His word on medical matters 
 was final. His theories on medical conditions 
 and values were the principles of the leading 
 medical schools of the nation. His great work 
 and eminent scientific research and discovery in 
 the realm of hypnotic forces and influences were 
 the result of an accident. Charcot was appointed 
 one of a committee of three to study the effect 
 of metallic spheres on the psychical element of 
 hysteria. It was in this casual work that he re- 
 discovered the findings of Mesmer and Braid. 
 The wards of the La Salpetriere clinic became the 
 greatest psychological center in Europe and drew 
 the attention of the French Academy. Charcot 
 was well-pleased with the specific discovery of his 
 specific task. Apart from the immediate dis- 
 covery of the influence of metallic disks in the 
 treatment of hysteria, he came into relation with 
 those same peculiar sleep states and somnambu- 
 listic phenomena which were noted by the Mesmer 
 school. Charcot was a man of eminent scientific 
 sincerity. Whatever he discovered in his own 
 
112 Practical Occultism 
 
 private avocation that he voiced. He now gave 
 to the world the knowledge of his experience in 
 psychological matters. The word of Charcot had 
 the greatest scientific value, consequently the de- 
 sire for investigation was advanced by foremost 
 thinkers. The scientific world now seriously con- 
 sidered what it formerly had rejected as quackery. 
 Hypnotism was now established. 
 
 In spite of his great understanding, however, 
 Charcot was blind to some very important facts 
 as to the nature and activity of hypnotism. For 
 the greater part his new work led him into an 
 affiliation with hysteric or otherwise nervously 
 disordered patients, and upon these he experi- 
 mented with some satisfactory, but equally with 
 other unsatisfactory results. It was he who in- 
 troduced what is known in the terminology of the 
 psychological as "massive stimulation." This 
 expression found manifestation in sudden excita- 
 tion of the patient's concentrated attention. 
 After having gained complete control over the 
 subject, through suggestive influences, Charcot, 
 or his pupils, would shock the mind by the sudden 
 sounding of a concealed gong, or otherwise by 
 the sudden flashing of a powerful light. This 
 shock always served to throw the patient into a 
 cataleptic trance. From this state of lethargy 
 somnambulism and even more alert states would 
 
The Science and Secret of Hypnotism 113 
 
 follow. In the modern interpretation, however, 
 this "massive stimulation" is emphatically re- 
 proved. It is by excitatory stimulation that ner- 
 vous persons have been brought to their affliction, 
 and to specialize this stimulation into a powerful 
 nervous shock is exceedingly undesirable. 
 
 Charcot's work was essentially therapeutic. 
 No attention was as yet given to the peculiar psy- 
 chological phenomena which associated them- 
 selves with the hypnotic sleep. In spite, however, 
 of his sincere attitude and of his tremendous re- 
 search, Charcot has left no great or valued im- 
 press on the science of hypnotism. He is only 
 to be honored by reason of the fact that his great 
 prestige gave weight and importance to hypno- 
 tism in the scientific world. 
 
 Interest was now specially furthered in the 
 domain of research. Now came the real deter- 
 mining scientist, Professor Bernheim, the greatest 
 psycho-physician of his time. He was the dis- 
 coverer of the extremely important fact, the fact 
 that persons with well-ordered nerves were as 
 amenable to suggestion as nervously disordered 
 persons. He removed the origin, condition and 
 activity of psychical states from the super- 
 naturally suggestive and the little-understood and 
 placed them in scientific category. He it was who 
 discovered the elemental factor in all psychic ac- 
 
>' 
 
 ii4 Practical Occultism 
 
 tivity, and he called that factor by the name it 
 has ever since had, "suggestion." Suggestion, he 
 maintained, was the conditioning factor in bring- 
 ing about hypnotic sleep and the later somnambu- 
 listic and psychical phenomena. He it was who, 
 also, first paid attention to the phenomena in- 
 volved in hypnotic states. He, moreover, claimed 
 that the hypnotic sleep differed in no wise from 
 the normal sleep, and that no foreign influence, 
 element or magnetism was the inducing factor of 
 psychic states. He claimed that all was to be 
 attributed to the little understood, the tremendous 
 power and influence of suggestion. This sugges- 
 tion was not something foreign to the mind; it 
 was an attribute of the mind itself. The hypno- 
 tist is only the agent, who, by his influence, places 
 the patient in such a state that he can use his 
 otherwise latent faculty for therapeutic and other 
 purposes. A far headway, pregnant with vast 
 and meaningful monitions culminated with Bern- 
 heim, and since other psychologists of the James, 
 Hyslop and Mitchell type have accentuated the 
 progressive expansion of this headway. 
 
 Thus we distinguish four separate and essential 
 climaxes in the evolution of hypnotism. The first, 
 that of the early Mesmerists; the second, that of 
 Braid; the third, that of Charcot and the Paris 
 school which represented his beliefs; fourth, the 
 
The Science and Secret of Hypnotism 115 
 
 period beginning with the investigations of Bern- 
 heim until the present, which we might speak of 
 as the beginning of a fifth, because of the momen- 
 tous discovery as to the source and explanation 
 of the psychological phenomena manifest both 
 within and without the province of hypnotism. 
 
 The Methods of Hypnotic Therapeutics 
 
 Were you at the psychological clinic of the 
 Nancy School for Psychological Investigation, or 
 were you at any other great psychological clinic 
 apart from that made famous by Bernheim, you 
 would note those peculiar methods employed in 
 hypnotization. The first step taken is the absorp- 
 tion of the subject's attention. In most cases this 
 is an easy matter. In frequent cases it is not. 
 Most of the visitors to psychological clinics are 
 hysterics or nervously affected persons. Many 
 of the visitors complain of continual headaches, 
 lack of sleep, nervousness. They are generally 
 believers in the efficacy of hypnotic assistance and 
 thus are fit subjects for treatment. The prac- 
 titioner cautions the subject to fix attention on a 
 given point. Soon the willingness of the subject 
 to be hypnotized asserts itself. The eyelids 
 quiver and droop, the practitioner then closes 
 them for a moment and sleep intervenes. He 
 
n6 Practical Occultism 
 
 then employs a number of passes above and about 
 the body, and then, after the patient has had fif- 
 teen or twenty minutes' sleep, he awakens the sub- 
 ject. The awakening is generally brought about 
 by a quick, prompt command. The awakened 
 patient asserts freedom from any trouble and as 
 much renewed vigor as though an entire night 
 had been spent in most invigorating sleep. In 
 this process the suggestion of the practitioner has 
 enabled the subject to employ individual sugges- 
 tive faculty, and this faculty has a powerful thera- 
 peutic value and immediately quiets the nerves. 
 •Practitioners of yoga claim that five minutes of 
 such psychological quiet and repose is capable of 
 adjusting most tired and strained conditions of 
 the body. They also say that whenever any cures 
 are performed by psychological process it is to be 
 accredited to the working of one of the principle 
 phases of this latent faculty. 
 
 Physio-Psychical Conditions 
 
 All hypnotic states are accompanied by peculiar 
 conditions of the body. The pulse, respiration 
 and temperature, however, remain unchanged. 
 They are amenable to suggestion. At times the 
 pulse or temperature may be respectively height- 
 ened or reduced, but all these pre-hypnotic physi- 
 
The Science and Secret of Hypnotism 117 
 
 cal conditions can be regulated to the normal 
 state. Peculiar conditions obtain in anaesthesia 
 and catalepsy. The hypnotic patient is liable to 
 the suggestion of anaesthesia, that is, it may be 
 suggested that the body will not feel pain and this 
 will occur. The skin may be pricked, and other 
 sense-inducing factors be applied, but the patient 
 remains insensible to their activity. It is known 
 that under the anaesthetic condition of hypnosis 
 serious surgical operations may be performed 
 without the slightest suffering. Catalepsy is a 
 strange rigidity of the body which obtains when 
 the subject has entered deep sleeping states. In 
 this condition any of the limbs may be placed in 
 a particular, even unusual position and they will 
 stay fixed. If the practitioner should pull down 
 an outstretched arm it would immediately spring 
 back to its condition. 
 
 There are two notable stages in the hypnotic 
 process. First, the lethargic state; second, the 
 alert state. There are degrees in each; the for- 
 mer may range from mere drowsiness to deep 
 sleep. The latter may range from the simplest 
 manifestations of somnambulism to extended 
 writing, conversation or work which may be sug- 
 gested by the practitioner. What is peculiar in 
 the hypnotic processes is the loss of memory on 
 the part of the patient in regard to what trans- 
 
1 1 8 Practical Occultism 
 
 pires during sleep. The awakening of the subject 
 may be regulated from immediate obedience to 
 the sudden command of the practitioner to a com- 
 mand obeyable in five or ten minutes or in an 
 indefinite period of time. In the former case 
 there is no mystery ; in the latter there is. It im- 
 plies that the subject has a sub-conscious concep- 
 tion of time. This same condition occurs when 
 an individual through auto-suggestions awakens 
 at any given time of the night or morning. He 
 who has a definite conception of time values will 
 awaken at the time appointed, whether by him- 
 self or at the suggestion of the practitioner. He 
 who has no definite conception of time value, if 
 intended to awaken at a given time through auto- 
 suggestion, will be disturbed by repeated awaken- 
 ings. In the case of the hypnotic patient, there 
 will be sporadic attempts at the regaining of self- 
 consciousness, and in both cases the subject will 
 probably awaken some minutes before or after 
 the time set. 
 
 Another strange psychological fact accompany- 
 ing hypnotic direction is post-hypnotic suggestion. 
 In this instance the patient is told to perform 
 some act on awakening, or after some indefinite 
 period has elapsed. It is also suggested that he 
 have no cognizance of the plan. This suggestion 
 is invariably carried out, and at many times with 
 
The Science and Secret of Hypnotism 119 
 
 marvelous exactitude. Space prevents the inter- 
 polation of instances, but the reader may be re- 
 ferred to any of the authorized works on 
 psychology. These post-hypnotic suggestions 
 may be very complex, and in this sense are un- 
 usual phenomena. Then there is the unusual tele- 
 pathic condition between practitioner and patient. 
 This may be exceptionally pronounced. As an 
 example, a practitioner and an unbiased observer 
 may be in one room, while the patient and another 
 unbiased observer may be in a room a hundred 
 feet distant. In the experiment the practitioner 
 will scratch his hand with a pin and the sensation 
 will be experienced by the patient, which shows 
 the wonderful telepathic union and a suggestive 
 of clairvoyance and clairaudience which are the 
 specialized senses of the tactual sense. This 
 rapport may be carried to an unusual degree. In- 
 cidentally these thoughts give rise to the oddities 
 of the so-termed "willing game." Here the sen- 
 sitive is sent from the room and agrees to be 
 impressed with the collectively concentrative wish 
 of those who remain within the room to perform 
 some act, such as raising a certain piece of china 
 off the table. In a large percentage of instances 
 the feat is carried out. There are cases, how- 
 ever, where such conduct becomes associated with 
 unusual psychic conditions, as example, nervous 
 
120 Practical Occultism 
 
 agitation, excitement, possible faintness, even 
 syncope. 
 
 The Drift of the New Psychology 
 
 We are only on the borderland of psychological 
 discovery. Further research will certainly bring 
 the remaining shadows of psychological inquiry 
 into definite scientific light. We will come to un- 
 derstand the extraordinary relationship between 
 practitioner and subject; we will come to under- 
 stand the meaning, origin, process of activity and 
 essence of that indescribable something that we 
 call suggestion. At all events, inquiry into psychi- 
 cal affairs has resulted in a radical change of our 
 conceptions of the mind and soul, which shows 
 us that the mind is its own conditioning factor. 
 It shows that it possesses indefinite therapeutic 
 power. It shows us that latent within the sub- 
 conscious are faculties and qualities of mind far 
 above the normal, which later evolution will ren- 
 der normal, and which can even now be put into 
 practice by the wholesome influence of hypnotism. 
 It reveals to us the marvelous depths and dignity 
 of the human mind, and is suggestive of the truth 
 of those spiritual dogmas which appertain to the 
 existence and immortality of the soul, and kindred 
 dogmas. 
 
The Science and Secret of Hypnotism 121 
 
 We are on the threshold of eventful discoveries 
 which will ultimately have an important moral 
 bearing, but the greatest of all revelations which 
 the new psychology imparts is that of the ethical 
 value of suggestion. Suggestion is everything. It 
 is the dominating mental force which gives value 
 and existence to all perceptible phenomena. All 
 nature is but one vast external suggestion upon 
 which the mind centers itself in a myriad mani- 
 foldness. This leads us to the value of auto- 
 suggestion and of the freedom of the mind in 
 carrying out the mandates it pleases to give. 
 Auto-suggestion is a self-hypnotization in which 
 the mind is developed beyond its normal percep- 
 tion and range of thought. And auto-suggestion 
 is specifically defined as the highest manifestation 
 of the human will. 
 
 True it is that by the evolution of auto-sugges- 
 tion we become most powerful, the regulators of 
 our bodily, mental and psychical sanity and de- 
 velopment, the creators and masters of destiny. 
 
CLAIRVOYANCE 
 
 One may doubt the theory of clairvoyance at 
 first hearing, but he cannot doubt the hyper- 
 acuteness and varying in degree of normal per- 
 ception. Normal vision is based on many physi- 
 cal circumstances and thus enjoys a wide scale 
 of variation. Some persons are endowed with 
 limited vision only, while others, like the Ameri- 
 can Indian or the frontiersman, are possessed of 
 almost supernormal sight, so keenly developed 
 beyond the average is this particular sense. The 
 broad variableness of this sense is again manifest 
 in the unusual distinguishing faculty of the Cash- 
 mere girls. Where the European senses but the 
 primary colors, these people are capable of dis- 
 tinguishing two or three hundred shades beyond 
 the keenest perception of even the Scotch, noted 
 for their high development of vision. It can 
 hardly be said that there is a normal average of 
 degree of sight. Almost every person sees differ- 
 ently and in his respectively personal sense. No 
 two ever see the same object in the same degree 
 of clearness, interpretation, intensity, keenness 
 
 122 
 
Clairvoyance 123 
 
 and measurement. It is ever in the ratio of the 
 more or less extended. 
 
 There are various physical conditions which 
 may alter the range and field of sight, for ex- 
 ample, certain overwrought nerve centers may 
 entirely change the quality of vision. The devia- 
 tion from the normal is often noticeably special- 
 ized. Long illness will either sharpen to a point 
 of particular intensity or dull the acuteness of 
 vision. Sometimes this sense may be confused 
 with other senses. As a bearing illustration, we 
 have the case of a woman who had become ex- 
 tremely sensitive by reason of continued illness. 
 Her supernormal perception was frequently ex- 
 hibited, and, as a test, her physician rolled an 
 old-fashioned copper cent into several coverings 
 of tissue paper and then placed it in the patient's 
 hand. After an inconsequential conversation of 
 five or more minutes the patient said: "I wonder 
 what you are now doing with me." Then she 
 suddenly made a wry face with the remark: "I 
 know what it is; you have put a nasty piece of 
 copper in my hand." As she made the remark 
 she also commenced to wipe her mouth with her 
 handkerchief as if to eject some foreign unpleas- 
 ant substance. In other words, her sense of taste 
 had been confused with her sense of sight. The 
 coppery emanations from the coin had entered 
 
124 Practical Occultism 
 
 her system and, reaching the tongue, gave the un- 
 pleasant and supernormal taste. This is not a 
 degenerated form of perception. If we remem- 
 ber that the other senses have developed from 
 the sense of touch, we can understand how, under 
 certain abnormal physical states, the sense of sight 
 which has developed from the sense of touch may 
 become commingled with it in an indistinguishable 
 manner. 
 
 It is very appropriate to call to mind the 
 peculiar results and perceptions of certain 
 psychics who supernormally perceive not so much 
 with a sense of sight as by a sense, so to speak, 
 of touch. They, in a way, feel the presence 
 rather than see it. They are rather in a tactual 
 sense conscious of the specific descriptive charac- 
 teristics of the presence than conscious by any 
 process of vision. They use the words "I see." 
 They should say: "I am conscious of certain 
 phases of description of the person who is pres- 
 ent." 
 
 The variableness of degree in the normal sight 
 and the peculiar supernormality of this sense un- 
 der abnormal bodily conditions infers the exist- 
 ence of sight beyond the average, a sight more 
 evolved and more comprehensive because it more 
 thoroughly distinguishes and is more thoroughly 
 aware of the objects of our daily surroundings 
 
Clairvoyance 125 
 
 as well as conscious of perceptions beyond the 
 reach of the earth-plane. 
 
 This implies that sight is not a matter of bodily 
 adjustment to physical organs. The soul pos- 
 sesses the faculty of seeing without the physical 
 organs. Yet under the average, the organs are 
 the instruments for vision on this plane. They 
 are not absolutely controlled or limited by them, 
 however. As was inferred, certain dissociation 
 of nerve centers or a certain effervescence of the 
 sensorium may affect the sense of sight to a super- 
 normal degree, and, what is particularly signifi- 
 cant, to a wider activity and freedom. Instead 
 of inhibiting the normal activity of vision as 
 would naturally be expected, these hypersensitive 
 circumstances of the brain enlarge it. 
 
 Clairvoyance is a branch of telaesthesia, i.e., 
 exteriorization of the senses, so that they may go 
 beyond the boundaries of the body's immediate 
 periphery and become cognizant of impression 
 remotely placed either in time or distance. In- 
 stances of the telaesthetic phenomena have not 
 been wanting and have attracted the especial 
 attention and observation of the English Society 
 for Psychical Research. Most astounding phe- 
 nomena have been recorded which strike the 
 reader, unfamiliar with the inner psychic working 
 forces, as preternatural, if not superstitious. 
 
126 Practical Occultism 
 
 The possession of the clairvoyant faculty is in 
 no way significant of hysteria or distressed 
 nervous condition. As a matter of fact, some of 
 the most self-possessed and nervously-controlled 
 characters with whom history acquaints us have 
 been clairvoyant. The older school of psycholo- 
 gists, as an instance, believed that the Saint Joan 
 of Arc was hysteric. Investigation, however, has 
 substantiated the common-sense idea that a hys- 
 teric is incompetent to retain poise on a battlefield 
 and be leader of armies. The Saint was informed 
 of her great mission by superhuman intelligences 
 who spoke to her in the clairaudient sense and 
 manifested themselves to her clairvoyant vision. 
 The great philosopher Apollonius of Tyana, far- 
 famed and influential in his time, is accredited 
 with having clairvoyantly seen the murder of the 
 Emperor Domitian. It is said he was standing 
 in his pulpit preaching when suddenly he bowed 
 his head upon the rest and in a moment later 
 shouted : ''Strike ! Strike the tyrant I" The sur- 
 prise of the people caused him to explain his 
 vision. It tallied with the actual occurrence. 
 Certainly the founder of the Alexandrian school 
 of pre-Neo-Platonists cannot be classed as a hys- 
 teric. Swedenborg, the founder of his celebrated 
 spiritual philosophy, cannot be termed nervously 
 disordered. 
 
Clairvoyance 127 
 
 Clairvoyant vision was known to the ancients. 
 The classical historians of Greece and Rome men- 
 tion numbers of cases. Cicero speaks of them. 
 The visions of the augurs of Rome and the sibyls 
 of Greece possessed the clairvoyant faculty. The 
 prophetesses of Endor were renowned for their 
 telaesthetic sight. This phase of the subject need 
 not be emphasized, however, in view of the fact 
 that the average reader is individually familiar 
 with private and credit-worthy cases. 
 
 The literary and plastic arts may be said to be 
 intimately associated with the clairvoyant sense. 
 The poet historian or writer of romance who 
 creates his theme from the actualities of history, 
 to be accurate in his view and faithful in his de- 
 scription of scene or character, must in some sense 
 be in a clairvoyantly intuitive association with the 
 occurrences and personalities of which he speaks. 
 The Secret Doctrine tells us that all events are 
 treasured upon the astral records. If we pos- 
 sessed the faculty we could decipher every shadow 
 that was ever traced upon a stone, for it is a fact 
 scientifically recognized that each passing object 
 indelibly paints its shadow even on rock. Sim- 
 ilarly, every thought, word or deed is penciled on 
 the canvas of the universe, and, if one can trans- 
 late his consciousness to any given period of time 
 or any particular locality, he can come into direct 
 
128 Practical Occultism 
 
 consciousness with what the past has wrought. 
 This sense is not alone confined to the past. It 
 is equally true of the future. All things occur 
 by law. They exhibit themselves in a regular and 
 law-abiding order. They are foreshadowed and 
 can be seen with the clairvoyant vision. There- 
 fore, the poet, historian and similar workers, 
 especially if their works are treasured as master- 
 pieces, were assuredly in touch with the experi- 
 ences they cite. The artist, too, is possessed of 
 the clairvoyant vision. He subconsciously sees 
 the image he will paint or sculpture. 
 • All these things similarly appertain to the 
 faculty of clairvoyance. The possession of these 
 faculties is a rare occurrence. Yet in every indi- 
 vidual are these faculties stored in latency. They 
 will evolve at some particular period in the evo- 
 lution of the individual. In fact, they will be the 
 common property of the race at large when it 
 has reached several degrees of higher develop- 
 ment. They will be common property even as 
 ordinary sight and hearing were at one time ex- 
 ceptional, but are at present normal. 
 
 Those who would have further development of 
 their psychic senses are cautioned to do so under 
 proper psychological direction. They should seek 
 out a teacher acquainted with the methods of de- 
 
Clairvoyance 129 
 
 velopment. The danger is in going to such who 
 pose as knowers of psychological development 
 and who, for a paltry pittance, imperil the psychic 
 welfare of their clients. 
 
, AURAS AND INFLUENCES 
 
 There lingers about each person, about each 
 creature or object even, a peculiar condition, an 
 "atmosphere," so to speak, charged with the 
 many, multiple expressions of thought, feeling and 
 other individual characteristics which crowd our 
 lives. It is ever present, ever vibrating the per- 
 sonalisms of us unto others, radiating various 
 impressions which attract or repel according as 
 the susceptibilities of persons, circumstances or 
 things blend or do not blend with our own. 
 Though intangible and imperceptible to the senses, 
 its influence is tremendous in deciding sympathies 
 or antipathies. You may notice its workings in 
 almost every activity of daily life. You are in- 
 troduced to a new acquaintance and find that in- 
 stantaneously you are drawn or repelled according 
 as your experience varies. No words other than 
 those of formal courtesy have been exchanged; no 
 ideas or idiosyncrasies of character have been 
 exchanged or revealed; there is absolutely noth- 
 ing which you can rationally perceive as a cause 
 for the spontaneity of affection or lack of sym- 
 pathy as the case may be. You have made a new 
 
 130 
 
Auras and Influences 131 
 
 friend or have become exceedingly indifferent to 
 the new person in your life, and if asked why 
 you have taken this or that attitude, you could 
 not under any circumstance explain yourself. 
 What is the working factor in the suddenness of 
 your emotions? Again, you may come upon some 
 new scene or enter some strange house and with- 
 out any intelligence in the matter you like or dis- 
 like the newness of your surrounding. There is 
 no rational answer you could make to a query 
 concerning your feelings, yet you have them and 
 they are as decided in your consciousness as that 
 fire burns or flowers bloom. Your sense in these 
 things is purely intuitional. It is as much a psychic 
 characterization as the disclosure of your name or 
 the events of your life by a psychiatrist — for it is 
 from the stuff of intuition that all psychic knowl- 
 edge proceeds. Again in the case of persons you 
 have known for lengths of time, persons with 
 whose natures your associations have sensitized 
 you — you may walk in the room and without any 
 understanding in words or specific glances, and so 
 forth, you will find yourself knowing just how they 
 feel. You will sense if something has gone wrong, 
 or find yourself without cause elated by the mere 
 presence. 
 
 The possibilities of these "atmospheres" may 
 be seen in the conditions of places. Some places 
 
132 Practical Occultism 
 
 have soft, harmonizing influences, some sombre 
 and awe-inspiring, some places have exhilarating 
 influences, some forcibly repellant and nauseating. 
 You have your churches, your cemeteries, your 
 historic ruins, your theatres and places of amuse- 
 ment, your asylums, your places of filth and moral 
 discrepancies. There is no language, no immedi- 
 ate sense relations that these places convey. They 
 are purely associative with the nature and essence 
 of places. They are simple influences which ac- 
 custom themselves in harmony with different types 
 of character. 
 
 • These influences may be compared to the mag- 
 netic motions of loadstones; they may be com- 
 pared to the vibrations of odor or heat. They 
 are composed of fine fibres of matter and move 
 with the finest vibrations of force. They cannot 
 be touched or seen yet, though silent and obscure, 
 they make themselves felt with binding and con- 
 trolling force. These comparisons are only sug- 
 gestive, for the nature of influences is something 
 indescribable. Like all hidden forces they modu- 
 late in similar and dissimilar quantities respond- 
 ing or antagonizing each other, just as the tangible 
 concrete elements of the chemist vibrate in har- 
 mony or inharmony. And as our whole natures 
 are surrounded and radiate these influences there 
 is a correspondence between our likes and dis- 
 
Auras and Influences 133 
 
 likes of people and surroundings as between the 
 attraction and repulsions of chemical compounds. 
 
 Influences proceed from individual centers and 
 bear certain relations to centers external to them- 
 selves. Just as the magnet controls certain par- 
 ticles of matter with which it bears relation, so the 
 magnetic currents, the influences we emit range 
 out of our personal environment and affect the 
 lives and thoughts of others, and even the condi- 
 tions of the places and objects about us. If the 
 influences are powerful enough they can change 
 and direct conditions. If the influences are weak 
 and ill-directed, they fall before stronger and 
 direct influences. In this connection rises the idea 
 of personal magnetism and the exercise of the 
 control of one mind over another. 
 
 Personal magnetism is the synonym for forcible 
 influences, and hypnotism and control of others, 
 synonyms for power of stronger over weaker and 
 undeveloped influences. 
 
 In the opening paragraph it was stated that the 
 atmospheres or auras and the influences of which 
 they are composed are the expression of thoughts 
 and feelings and of other personalisms. The 
 thought that immediately presents itself for con- 
 centration is the tremendous necessity of render- 
 ing ourselves positive in thought, positive in emo- 
 tion, positive and well-governed in will, for in this 
 
134 Practical Occultism 
 
 manner we become centers of power, of personal 
 magnetism; in this manner we become less sus- 
 ceptible to stray, uncontrolled influences, less sus- 
 ceptible to vibrations of evil, of pessimism, and 
 of undesirable personal qualities of others which 
 are taken on by sensitive persons unable to con- 
 tain their feelings in a self-poised fashion. There 
 is the admonition to train our wills to such defi- 
 niteness and invariableness of decision that no 
 person or condition can vampirize on the life- 
 forces of the aura which envelops us, on its deli- 
 cacy of condition or on its personal qualities. 
 Thereby we become self-dependent and original; 
 we become forces of good, and our influences, 
 though never expressed in language, will make the 
 world better and more evolved. Time and dis- 
 tance have no effect on the working of influences, 
 for they operate as deep and as far as the very 
 gravitative force which binds in sympathy the 
 farthest suns with our own. Should you retire to 
 a cave remote as possible from human life, the 
 influences of your thought and life would reach 
 out and mirage themselves in a thousand-fold 
 distance and in a thousand-fold manner. 
 
 In conclusion, every thought of good, every 
 good emotion, every divine aspiration, every 
 glorious hope, every kind intention shall find its 
 way through the influence you radiate, and though 
 
Auras and Influences 135 
 
 the world never crown your efforts or your life, 
 your obscure work has in many places and in many 
 seasons uplifted the world. For similarly as a 
 pebble cast into the ocean displaces and readjusts 
 each individual particle of the great sea, so every 
 noble thought and influence shadowed by the soul 
 in the great ocean of Life modulates the whole 
 into a better expression. 
 
FATE AND ASTROLOGY 
 
 It has often been questioned whether humanity 
 is controlled by Fate or whether there is such a 
 thing as freedom of will. The problem has been 
 agitated from the beginning of philosophic specu- 
 lation. Great thinkers of different philosophical 
 systems have reasoned and had their say, but per- 
 haps the greatest understanding of this problem 
 has been brought about by the world's eminent 
 astrologers. 
 
 In an article of this kind it is impossible to in- 
 troduce the first principles of astrology. It is 
 conceded by a majority of the thinkers of the 
 present day that the personal experiences of indi- 
 viduals are influenced by stellar motions and as- 
 pects. It has been observed that the chemical, 
 mineral and vegetable kingdoms are governed, to 
 a greater or less extent, by stellar conditions. 
 Science, continuing further research, has arrived 
 at the specific conclusion that the animal and hu- 
 man world are likewise affected by the astrologi- 
 cal. We are considering astrology only in rela- 
 tion to the freedom of the personal will, granting 
 
 136 
 
Fate and Astrology 137 
 
 that the reader is acquainted with the main essen- 
 tials of the science. 
 
 The problem and the significance of the inter- 
 relation of Fate and astrology has as yet never 
 been solved to the satisfaction of the thinking 
 public as such. Generally speaking, however, all 
 philosophical systems maintain the freedom of the 
 will, at least in a relative sense, but they have 
 differed in their interpretation as to the particu- 
 lars which determine that freedom. In fact, the 
 majority of men have reasoned themselves into 
 a spacial acceptance of individual freedom, yet in 
 spite of ratiocination there has been the overhang- 
 ing doubt — a doubt which has been a serious 
 stumbling block, not only in a philosophical sense, 
 but also in a religious sense. So much depends on 
 the attitude taken toward this problem. If we 
 are absolutely and hopelessly controlled by an 
 inevitable Fate, then all our effort, our aspiration, 
 our morality, our belief and expression of free- 
 dom of will, of personal freedom, is a variegated 
 insult to the racial intelligence. On the contrary, 
 if we possess freedom of will, if personal assert- 
 iveness may overcome the barriers of Fate, if we 
 may successfully combat the inhibitions of the in- 
 evitable, then, indeed, is there a nobility in the 
 struggle of the human soul. This problem is the 
 most vital of all the problems which confront the 
 
138 Practical Occultism 
 
 intelligence of man, and it is doubtful whether 
 mere argument will ever successfully solve the 
 enigma. But, apart from what philosophy has to 
 say, the leaders of astrological science claim that 
 they have unravelled this intricacy to a greater 
 clarity than any of the speculative systems. They 
 say that they have arrived at their conclusions by 
 mathematical and astronomical calculations rather 
 than by unaided metaphysics. 
 
 To come to a clearer understanding we must 
 first of all define Fate and Free Will. Fate is 
 considered as a cosmic principle which binds and 
 controls the entire universe and, humanly con- 
 sidered, binds the will of man by producing cer- 
 tain fixed, unalterable and inevitable circum- 
 stances. Such circumstances are accidents, hap- 
 hazarded events, unlooked-for calamities and 
 similar events, apparently beyond any individual 
 control. It is considered as something which ren- 
 ders man more of an automaton than an independ- 
 ent free agent, and as the motive principle which 
 compels to every thought, act and variation of 
 consciousness. Freedom of Will is the decided 
 opposite. It is the inherent power believed in by 
 man himself by which his future may be directed 
 in accordance with certain plans entertained in the 
 present. Freedom of will implies the idea that 
 we can so govern ourselves that we become partly, 
 
Fate and Astrology 139 
 
 if not wholly, liberated from restraining influ- 
 ences. We shall now consider the relation of 
 these two, Fate and Free Will, to the science of 
 astrology. 
 
 Astrology as the symbolism of Fate is, accord- 
 ingly, believed to be a prophetic science which 
 gives expression to the decrees of the inevitable. 
 It is the "writing on the wall" registering the de- 
 cree of that invisible force which some philoso- 
 phers have called Necessity. Many, therefore, 
 hold that the cast of a horoscope at nativity is the 
 forecast of a necessary future which by the laws 
 of universal harmony must come to pass. They 
 hold that, provided the casting is accurate and 
 scientifically calculated, every foreshadowed cir- 
 cumstance must occur. This is partly true. Why 
 it is not wholly true we shall later see. 
 
 The famous astrologers of earlier times and 
 the foremost representatives of the science in our 
 day agree that the casting of the horoscope is 
 the casting of an individual's past, present and 
 future. They hold that a horoscope is the out- 
 ward presentation of the almost impassible barri- 
 ers and the almost necessary favorable circum- 
 stances which confront the subject. They say 
 that a horoscope is the visualization of the in- 
 visible law of causation as affecting and guiding 
 individual life. Yet they do not absolutely say 
 
140 Practical Occultism 
 
 so, for the grand initiates do not believe in a blind 
 law or Fate. They adhere to a conception which 
 is more in keeping with the dignity and the aim 
 and end of human effort, while at the same time 
 recognizing that intelligently governing Law 
 which binds causes to effects and effects to causes. 
 They see that certain foreshadowed favorable or 
 unfavorable conditions have a certain causal con- 
 nection. This causal connection, significant of an 
 unerring law, they call Karma. They know that 
 any circumstance which may affect individual life 
 is an effect of a cause which has its antecedent 
 .either in this or in a previous life, for it is a 
 dogma of science that nothing can occur in the 
 experience of individuality, human or otherwise, 
 but the cause of the occurrence is involved in the 
 attractive force of that individuality. So, there- 
 fore, when we find circumstances affecting persons 
 and can find no rational cause in the present life, 
 we must of necessity refer it to a former life in 
 which it was generated and has now come into 
 expression. 
 
 Thus it is the person and not the stars; it is 
 personal causation, not stellar combinations which 
 favor or jeopardize accordingly as the varying 
 presentation of the horoscope favors or disfavors. 
 We may consider the Law as the sustaining prin- 
 ciple of a sphere composed, of course, of two 
 
Fate and Astrology 141 
 
 hemispheres, one of these hemispheres being that 
 of good, the other of evil. The propelling force 
 which revolves that sphere is the Soul of Man. 
 Astrology is that science which possesses the prin- 
 ciple of presenting the changing conditions of that 
 sphere to the outward mental vision. This is true 
 of palmistry and other methods of divination, but 
 it is particularly true of astrology. The stellar 
 combinations, motions and aspects are, therefore, 
 not primary in determining those necessary events 
 which inevitably happen in human experience. In 
 fact, astrology has nothing to do with determina- 
 tion. It is only the presentation of the revolu- 
 tions of that sphere which we found to be sus- 
 tained by the Law and set to motion by the 
 sphere-mover Man himself. This is a particu- 
 larly fortunate illustration, for it is symbolic of 
 the freedom of the will of the sphere-mover — 
 Man. 
 
 Another point of view which may be taken with 
 regard to Fate, astrology and freedom of will 
 is the correlative thesis in science which considers 
 the molecular motions of the brain as generating 
 or not generating consciousness. We know that 
 with every attitude of consciousness we have a 
 molecular motion in the brain. Dissensions have 
 arisen as to whether this molecular motion actu- 
 ally brings forth states of consciousness or merely 
 
142 Practical Occultism 
 
 accompanies them, or, even more explicitly con- 
 sidered, is only the material working by which 
 pre-existing consciousness can manifest itself on 
 the earth-plane where brain movements accom- 
 pany states of consciousness. For the sake of 
 illustration, we will consider the brain movements 
 as representative of stellar movements, and per- 
 sonal will as the life and the consciousness which 
 associatively occurs with brain movements. Now 
 the same question arises in astrology as in science : 
 Is personal will nullified in the fact that stellar 
 motions accompany or determine personal events 
 as consciousness is alleged to be accompanied and 
 determined by molecular motions; or are stellar 
 motions only the material expression of causes 
 and effects independently determined by the per- 
 sonal will even as consciousness is claimed to pre- 
 exist independently of molecular motions, which 
 are considered only as the manifesting condition 
 of consciousness in this particular plane? Lead- 
 ing scientists of our day, those who have out- 
 grown the obsolete dogmatic materialism of sev- 
 eral decades ago, have in separate ways reached 
 the same conclusion that the soul is immortal, 
 independent of material environment, and pre- 
 existing in some form or other, and that its pres- 
 ent association with the brain is a limitation of 
 its greatest psychic power, freedom and manifold- 
 
Fate and Astrology 143 
 
 ness. Similarly, representative astrologers of this 
 and of all periods are of the opinion that personal 
 will is superior to Fate; that it has generated its 
 own Fate, and that it can modify it if it has at- 
 tained to any spiritual unfoldment. 
 
 In a relative sense, however, there is no doubt 
 that "our destiny is written in the stars." The 
 enlightened point of view is that this destiny is 
 self-woven. In this position lies the interpreta- 
 tion of Fate and astrology. Personal will is 
 absolutely free in its activity, but let that activity 
 have been once determined and there is no escap- 
 ing from its effects. The will has generated the 
 cause and by the inevitableness of law and har- 
 mony that cause must have its effect. From this 
 effect there is no escape. That is the definition 
 of destiny, this the definition of Freedom and the 
 Will. We see that man is the architect of his own 
 fate, the captain of his own soul, his own re- 
 warder, his own punisher. He himself is the gen- 
 erator of his birth and death tendencies, of his 
 associations and surroundings, of his loves and 
 his hatreds, of his weal and his woe. 
 
 It has been suggested that there is no escape 
 from the working out of a cause. This is true, 
 but like many other truths, only relative. An 
 effect must take place. That is certain. Were it 
 otherwise, there would be an infringement of the 
 
144 Practical Occultism 
 
 Law and the entire harmony of the cosmos would 
 be disturbed. But we know that the action of cer- 
 tain physical forces may be changed and modified 
 to the point of attentuation, so that the differences 
 in similarity between the first action of the force 
 and its later modified action may be essentially 
 different. A physical cause has been set in motion, 
 and there must, of course, be a physical effect. 
 Provided no radical conditions have been intro- 
 duced, there will be a root semblance between the 
 effect and the cause, but should some radical con- 
 dition be introduced we would have those remark- 
 able changes which occur in the laboratories when 
 one chemical combination is essentially changed 
 by the addition of a foreign substance. Applying 
 these thoughts to a study of astrological predic- 
 tions, the question arises whether a prediction 
 representative of an effect of personal causation 
 can be changed or modified. The answer is 
 affirmative. We can change and modify an event 
 which is yet to take place, even as the chemist may 
 produce changes in his formula. But to modify 
 an event which is yet to be, you must first of all 
 have a knowledge of that event. Now, it may 
 be the particular Karma of many people that they 
 remain ignorant of astrology, and thus ignorant 
 of their future. It is their self-woven fate to 
 ridicule the science and its interpreters who could 
 
Fate and Astrology 145 
 
 advise them of the approaching event. This par- 
 ticular Karma exercised a great influence a quarter 
 of a century ago, but at present, on account of 
 the advance in psychology and the scientific inter- 
 pretation of occultism, this Karma is less influ- 
 ential and the usefulness of astrology is being 
 recognized. But to return to the original thought, 
 to change any event, we must first realize its ap- 
 proach. Secondly, we must know how to change 
 it so that its influence becomes less harmful, or 
 so modified that good comes from the evil. In 
 other words, "a man must rule his stars," and 
 by ruling his stars is really meant ruling and 
 checking that personal will of causes and effects, 
 of circumstances and events which are fore- 
 shadowed in a horoscope. This leads us to a 
 moral consideration. Every evil aspect of the 
 stars has a certain moral significance. Remem- 
 bering that the personal will is the indirect factor 
 in the representation of an evil aspect, we must 
 attribute the evil to the personal will itself. Some- 
 where that personal will has erred; somewhere it 
 has deviated from the path; somewhere, through 
 moral discrepancy, it has unknowingly beckoned 
 the approach of the evil which it must now face. 
 Could we penetrate beyond the veil which ob- 
 scures one incarnation from another we could 
 discern the cause of the evil circumstance as an 
 
146 Practical Occultism 
 
 evil attitude of the personal will. We are reaping 
 in a later day what we have sowed in a day 
 previous. Hence the changing of an event implies 
 the changing of the personal will. The old say- 
 ing of the sages, "Do right and no evil can befall 
 you" is the secret. When you carry yourself into 
 the higher spiritual realm any approaching evil 
 aspect will of necessity be modified, even as 
 certain physical objects are modified by their 
 approach to more powerful forces. Redeem the 
 will and you bring it to a high plane where any 
 event that may befall is radically changed because 
 of the spiritual potency of the soul. Changing the 
 condition of the soul is one of the methods by 
 which an evil event becomes less harmful. Then 
 again, the soul may attain such splendor and de- 
 velopment that no matter what affects the body 
 it remains undisturbed. He who is master of him- 
 self is the master of Fate ; he who has conquered 
 himself has risen above Fate. He who has united 
 the mortal reflection with the celestial prototype; 
 he who has spiritualized the lower elements of his 
 nature and brought his appetites and passions into 
 subjection is independent of anything which may 
 occur in the temporary arrangement of things. 
 
KARMA 
 
 One of the greatest truths, a truth which, when 
 recognized, brings man to self-understanding and 
 self-dependence is the fact that nothing comes into 
 his life, either of joy or of pain, that is not the 
 effect of personal merit or demerit. The Law 
 acts impartially, unerringly, impersonally. If you 
 meet with selfishness, misunderstanding, ingrati- 
 tude, with love unrequited, sickness, misery or the 
 many thousand evils to which life is liable, know 
 that these conditions are the effects of causes set 
 in motion by yourself in some previous time and 
 place. Karma is the physical law of attraction 
 aestheticised. Nothing can come within the 
 range of magnetic motions aside from the cause 
 which is in the lodestone itself. Similarly, in the 
 realm of morals and their casual connection with 
 personal experience, no sorrow or joy can visit 
 the soul but that the inner cause of the experience 
 is the soul itself. That is a sane attitude. Every 
 thought, act of commission or omission, every 
 word, every possible expression of consciousness, 
 has a certain vibration which reaches forth from 
 
 147 
 
148 Practical Occultism 
 
 the soul gathering, in its wandering and in due 
 time, and returns the fruits of its activity to the 
 soul which called the vibration into life. This vi- 
 bration is a psychic vibration, but psychic vibra- 
 tions are only physical vibrations beyond the 
 normal perception. They have a physical value, 
 however, and, correspondingly as the expression 
 is evil or good, will the vibration affect us in a 
 physical as well as a psychic sense. This is a very 
 simple truth and very consistent. It is the only 
 rational conception of the relation of evil in gen- 
 eral, and of good and of evil as affecting us per- 
 sonally. 
 
 In sending forth evil or good vibrations, we 
 are making our choice. Thus we are the masters 
 of our own fate, the captains of our own souls, 
 and to blame a blind fate, hapless chance, inter- 
 ference of Providence, or anything else for our 
 troubles in life, is quite out of place. It is the atti- 
 tude of the whimpering child. It is unworthy the 
 dignity and self-dependence in the nature of man 
 as a free moral agent. Man is ever ready to 
 accredit to himself the praiseworthy things he 
 has done; he is ready to believe that he deserves 
 the fortunate things of life, but he rarely is ready 
 to discuss the flaw side of his life and he rarely 
 is ready to believe that he deserves the evil which 
 comes his way. He holds fast to health and pros- 
 
Karma 149 
 
 perity, but let the evil experience assert itself and 
 you find complaint of the injustice of fate. He is 
 willing to individualize his good luck, but never 
 his misfortune. But in the eyes of the Law, good 
 and evil are the same, in so far as both bear 
 results and both come to man as the direct answer 
 to his call, the direct result of causes of which he 
 is the dispenser. 
 
 Inseparably interblended is the Law of Karma 
 with Reincarnation. Together they explain why 
 children, without developed moral sense, are sub- 
 ject to the miseries and woes of life. They alone 
 explain why workers of evil have good-fortune, 
 prosperity and success, and they also explain why 
 people of eminent sanctity are burdened with the 
 many tribulations which frequently affect them. 
 Birth is regulated by the merit of the past life. 
 Good-fortune in the way of evil men and women 
 are the blessings of merit-worthy deeds, per- 
 formed either here or in a life previous, for no 
 soul is totally without some susceptibility to good. 
 The saint undergoes his suffering because he de- 
 serves it. Somewhere life-vibrations of evil were 
 sown by him and in this life they develop, and 
 suffering is the inevitable result. God cannot 
 be accused of injustice in creating some persons 
 physically deformed, others mentally disturbed, 
 others in miserable conditions, while some are 
 
150 Practical Occultism 
 
 created with most fortunate physical and aesthetic 
 surroundings. It is not God who sends forth 
 misery into this world. It is not God who pun- 
 ishes or rewards. It is man who, by merit-worthy 
 acts or by evil acts, as the case may be, generates 
 the causes which in time bring him weal or woe. 
 We can only explain, therefore, that all the evils 
 befalling us in this life are resultant effects 
 evolved from causes produced in a life previous. 
 It is not the intention, however, to digress into 
 Reincarnation. Besides ethical and moral rea- 
 sons for its truth, there are a host of physical 
 explanations and scientific reasonings which will 
 be discussed in a later article on the subject of 
 past lives. 
 
 Granted that Reincarnation is a physical and 
 spiritual fact, consider the number of lives past, 
 lives which bind us to other selves antedating the 
 birth of the solid portions of our world, perhaps, 
 too, of other worlds. Consider, also, the infinite 
 number of vibrations, good, evil or indifferent, 
 which are latent in the storehouse of the soul 
 which are to come into expression either in the 
 near or the remote future. The vibrations of 
 Karma are countless. When I speak, that is 
 Karma; when I look, breathe, taste, smell, feel, 
 desire, think, when I am happy, miserable, angry, 
 pleased, and so on continuously, all is Karma. 
 
Karma 15 l 
 
 When I perform all these various conditions of 
 consciousness, I am aware of them, but they 
 gradually become finer and finer. They are still 
 in existence, though beyond the plane of con- 
 sciousness, and continue to influence our life. We 
 may have forgotten them, but we are influenced 
 by them nevertheless. The heavier and more 
 forcible vibrations we remember with little effort, 
 the more vague and less important are recalled 
 with difficulty. At times a passing odor, a 
 similarity of scene, a particular daybreak or sun- 
 set, a certain similarity in facial expression will 
 recall a host of memories, — memories of child- 
 hood days, memories to which we attach no rela- 
 tive importance, memories of incidents unimpor- 
 tant, long-passed and long-forgotten, and in these 
 memories we re-live days gone by. It requires no 
 psychological hypothesis to verify this. It is 
 within the range of common everyday experience. 
 Naturally this gives a clearer understanding of 
 the workings of Karma, and we come to realize 
 the immortality, as it were, of the most trivial 
 thought and act. 
 
 Every act and every thought rebounds upon the 
 soul. Man is blessed or cursed by his deeds. 
 They give him happiness even though he dwell 
 alone in a forest; they bring him sorrow, even 
 though he be surrounded with luxuries and ex- 
 
152 Practical Occultism 
 
 travagances, with all that is desirable and enjoy- 
 able to safeguard his existence. 
 
 Karma is the only heaven and the only hell. 
 And Karma is evolved by the activities of the 
 mind. Correspondingly the Miltonic Satan calls 
 out: " Myself am hell!" The genius of Shake- 
 speare well knew the law. He says: "There is 
 nothing good or bad but that thinking makes it 
 so." It is our actions which pursue us, and, in 
 the symbolism of the Orient, either follow us in 
 pain "as the wheel follows the ox that draws the 
 carriage," or conversely vibrate in a "happiness 
 that like a shadow can never leave us." The 
 apologue is in place here which tells of a soul 
 newly arrived in the Elysian fields who is startled 
 by an apparition, a horrifying shape, which is 
 relentlessly in pursuit of him. In despair he turns 
 and asks, "What art thou?" The reply is given: 
 "I am thine own actions. Day and night I follow 
 thee." And justly might one in the higher re- 
 gions of Elysium, who finds himself followed by 
 a shape angelic, ask: "What art thou?" and 
 receive the answer: "I am thy good deeds ever 
 blessing your way." 
 
 When the fact of Karma once enters the mind 
 as a vital truth, character will be radically 
 changed. Nobody stands within range of a ven- 
 omous snake. That imperils life. Accordingly 
 
Karma 153 
 
 when convinced of the haunting specter and the 
 pain of evil deed and thought one will readily 
 avoid them, if not from a sense of duty, certainly 
 from a sense of self-preservation. It is ignorance 
 of the relationship between morals as effecting 
 pain or pleasure which causes the unenlightened 
 to indulge in unspeakable vices, leading to in- 
 sanity, if not worse physical conditions. But the 
 tide of evil will break upon the soul until that 
 recognition comes. 
 
 Apart from the understanding of Karma in 
 its working out of evil there is the working out 
 of good. To a greater extent, however, this good 
 is manifested not so much in the bestowal of 
 earthly treasures and pleasures as in the oppor- 
 tunity given the soul to ascend in the scale of Be- 
 ing to higher and ever higher planes. As for 
 physical welfare, it has been said that all things 
 should be added unto him who first of all sought 
 the higher path. Physical wants and necessities 
 will be administered so long as the individual 
 administers to the soul. Karma is the provider 
 of all things to those who place themselves in 
 harmony with it. 
 
 Karma is the secret of freedom of will, for 
 no matter how great the load of evil with which 
 we have burdened ourselves, it can be removed by 
 altering the states of the soul which in the past 
 
154 Practical Occultism 
 
 generated the evil. There is hope even for the 
 worst of sinners. We must remember that cnar- 
 acter is simply a bundle of habits, and that these 
 habits can be changed. It may take a less or 
 greater length of time, but changed they can be. 
 In this sense there is hope even for the damned. 
 Everlasting torture for a temporary act is incom- 
 patible with the idea of Karma. One suffers in 
 exact ratio and in intensity as was the ratio, inten- 
 sity and other factors accompanying the initial 
 force with which the evil act was performed. 
 Hells and heavens are states of existence which 
 endure after death for a longer or shorter time, 
 iDut they are essentially transient. There is no 
 stagnation in the order and perpetual progress of 
 life. It is ever the greater heights, the wider 
 understanding, the profounder wisdom and 
 power. And unto these the more complete under- 
 standing of Karma and the adaptation of its 
 workings into our daily experience inevitably 
 leads. 
 
 "As you sow, so shall you reap," say the sages. 
 "You may know a tree by its fruit," — in other 
 words : the fruit of the inner-life tree may be sor- 
 row, distress and affliction, or it may be joy, peace 
 and spiritual triumph, and from this, to some ex- 
 tent, the individual soul may be known and its 
 state diagnosed. But we should be extremely 
 
Karma 155 
 
 cautious in pronouncing judgment. A present 
 physical affliction is in all certainty the result of 
 some soul-aberration, yet as far as that soul is 
 concerned it may have cleared itself of taint, and 
 in the change of mental attitude rehabilitated and 
 established itself to a much higher condition, 
 while the body still bears the burden of affliction. 
 
THE WAYS OF KARMA 
 
 The more a man reflects upon the circumstances 
 of his life the more deeply is he impressed with 
 the truth that all his comings and all his goings, 
 however great or seemingly insignificant they may 
 be, have a definite, even moral purpose, in his un- 
 foldment. The reason why he is in a certain 
 place and the fact that he comes into relation with 
 certain persons and circumstances are purely psy- 
 chological, if that term may be used in the con- 
 nection, because through his experience with 
 persons and conditions his mind becomes more 
 complex and, in becoming more complex, also be- 
 comes more enlightened, for no matter how ap- 
 parently characterless our relations to life may be, 
 some deep and vital meaning is embodied. 
 
 As a man awakens to the higher perceptions 
 and comes to a recognition of the mental nature 
 of all occurrences, he is made vividly sensible of 
 the reasons for every single relation that touches 
 his life. If he is one portion of the world and 
 he is made to travel in another part, it is for some 
 reason that he discerns when his life in the new 
 
 156 
 
The Ways of Karma 157 
 
 relation has taken on certain definite proportions. 
 Therefore, it is well with us no matter where we 
 may be located. There is no need for impatience, 
 nor discontent, for the Almighty Will is directing 
 our lives to fullest service and expression. 
 
 If this befalls us to-day and another thing 
 occurs in our experience to-morrow it is for us 
 to recognize that it is the best that can happen to 
 us in our limited stage of development. Of 
 course, better things could happen to us and will 
 as we develop, but at any given stage of unfold- 
 ment what comes to us is great or small in exact 
 ratio to our present spiritual standing. It is best 
 for us at the time being. We may know this at 
 all times and seek rest in that knowledge. 
 
 There are certain truths in life which when 
 realized give us a sense of peace and perfection 
 of which nothing can rob us. Such a truth is the 
 fact that our lives are guided. If we recognize 
 the guidance and work with it, we increase our de- 
 velopment by that inestimable value of degree 
 which the will possesses when it works with a 
 current of purpose. If we follow the guidance, 
 the leading becomes quicker and the development 
 more and more complete in expression and per- 
 fection. Otherwise we must abide by the uses of 
 experience until we progress surely, but with 
 laborious struggle and in great lengths of time. 
 
158 Practical Occultism 
 
 The waves are apparitional. The circum- 
 stances of life are similar. The supreme reality 
 is the profound depth. The reality of our exist- 
 ence is the abysmal depth of the Godhead within 
 the soul. If we identify ourselves with the occur- 
 rences which affect the psychical man, we are 
 swayed to and fro, but uniting our consciousness 
 to the spiritual man we grow into the likeness of 
 the Indwelling One, of Him Whose name is un- 
 utterable. The things of time, the accidents of 
 fortune and the objects of desire become insignifi- 
 cant, seen in themselves and the spiritual man 
 takes a firm hold on this machine of individuality 
 and forces it upward and onward by the sweet rea- 
 sonableness of perfect faith and love. The indi- 
 viduality of man is a changing fact. The reality 
 through which individuality is seen is the reality 
 of The Imperceptible. The changing phenome- 
 non which we recognize as Mr. So-and-so exists 
 only in and through the supreme spiritual reality. 
 
 The woven destiny of karma which man makes 
 when he thinks or feels, or does, or desires loosens 
 its binding power when the personality is looked 
 upon as something distinct from the spiritual man 
 who changes the color of personality with each 
 new projection of his individuality. As an illus- 
 tration, the "I" always is, but the series of 
 changes through which it passes, such as birth and 
 
The Ways of Karma 159 
 
 death and the many occurrences of life thread 
 the recurring phenomenon of personality. But 
 the realization of this truth that personality is 
 but a machine which is constantly acted upon by 
 nature for the purposes of the recognition and 
 expression of the spiritual man is a gradual 
 process through which the mental outlook upon 
 life is visibly and completely transformed. If a 
 man thinks his life in sense expression, he will 
 know little of the life of the mind, and as he 
 merges his thought into the mind-world, the world 
 of sense will lose its intense attraction. In a man- 
 ner akin to this, a man is relatively insensate to 
 the things of sense and thought when he is alive 
 to the spiritual realities. 
 
 Personality is something we can shape. It is 
 like clay in the potter's hand. The potter is the 
 Immutable God within. The clay is the psychical 
 nature of life. The Immutable God is acting on 
 this bit of clay which we variously distinguish as 
 animal, vegetable, mineral, chemical, human and 
 divine life, and the result is a series of infinite 
 and magnitudinous changes. The majority of 
 men see the changing shapes of clay, both in their 
 lives and in the forms of life about them. They 
 never know The Potter. But it is for this pur- 
 pose that nature is progressing in a manner which 
 men of science have termed evolution. The 
 
160 Practical Occultism 
 
 Potter must be realized as the artificer, not as the 
 clay images He brings into being. Each soul is 
 That Potter at heart. As it realizes that truth, 
 he loosens his grasp on this relative life through 
 whose medium these images of clay are expressed 
 and knows himself as That. 
 
 Thus knowing, the soul cares not how the winds 
 of fortune may blow, nor does it concern itself 
 unduly with the things that make for the enlarge- 
 ment of sensuous existence. Dead to the things 
 of sense and sense-nourished thought, the soul, 
 resident on its own plane, lives the divine life of 
 the soul. There are certain psychological distinc- 
 tions in the caste and types of minds that are like 
 Chinese walls which separate those of one sphere 
 of mind from those of another, and that great 
 gulf of failure to comprehend also stands be- 
 tween. That is why neither the sense-living man, 
 nor the philosopher penetrates the wisdom of the 
 sage, and deem him the victim of hallucination* 
 and ignorance. 
 
 The growing distinction between the permanent 
 and the real and the impermanent and the unreal 
 elements of life will give a new value and a new 
 interpretation of life. Where once we accredited 
 supreme importance to the daily occurrence and 
 emphasized the momentary state of mind in which 
 we might have found ourselves, we will impose a 
 
The Ways of Karma 161 
 
 minimum value and ascribe the permanence of 
 any given condition and its beauty and its value 
 to the divine reality, seeking, changing and devel- 
 oping values in our most chance happening. We 
 will then know that if we travel a great distance 
 and visit many places our development lies 
 through such circumstances, and if we remain in 
 one place a great length of time, we may also 
 know that in the waiting there is a needed condi- 
 tion which is working itself into our life in the 
 great uses of the soul. Thus all things have a 
 kindred value. It matters not the prominence of 
 the position we may hold, nor does the obscurity 
 in which we may be placed affect the values of 
 soul. The main reason and the inner meaning is 
 alike the same in all conditions, whether high or 
 low, and that reason and meaning is the constant 
 growth of expression and the greater revelation 
 of the soul. 
 
 The outer accidents are relative and the sub- 
 stantial is the mental status. The outer is of as- 
 sistance in rendering the mental status clearer and 
 more spiritual, provided the mind rightfully re- 
 lates itself to the uplifting things in life. 
 
THE SPIRITUAL PERCEPTION 
 
 No matter how keen a man's reason may be, 
 no matter how discriminating his judgment, how 
 lucid his thoughts and how penetrating his insight, 
 he can never arrive at the truth of things by these 
 alone. There is but one method by which the 
 soul of things and their real life and the meaning 
 of their forms and influence may be appreciated. 
 This is by the educated feelings that arise in the 
 heart of man when his soul is attuned to the finer 
 and purer things of life. These feelings are feel- 
 ings of unselfishness, of sympathy, of genuineness, 
 of loyalty, of honesty, of integrity and of sin- 
 cerity. 
 
 Feeling is, after all, the only direct and immer 
 diate mode of perception. It is the only real 
 and actual means whereby consciousness becomes 
 related to the substance and the qualities of truth 
 as they are expressed in the laws and forms of 
 the universe; spiritual, mental, psychic and phys- 
 ical. Feeling is the most intimate connection be- 
 tween the sentient, self-conscious subject and its 
 object, be this animate or inanimate. 
 
 162 
 
The Spiritual Perception 163 
 
 Reason has developed from instinctive feelings 
 and their play in the physical area of expression, 
 but there are feelings that are above all forms 
 of logic and before whose onrushing certainty the 
 so-called truths of reason take speedy flight, for 
 reason, though important in the education of the 
 real thinker, does not completely and isolatedly 
 explain those rare forms of intuitive and aesthetic 
 feelings that compose whatever is inspirational, 
 supersensuous and truly beautiful in human life. 
 
 Sensation is the first manifestation of conscious 
 life, but as sensation, in the evolutionary course, 
 became and is constantly becoming more complex, 
 heterogeneous and more integrated, it becomes 
 more meaningful and the purpose and the design 
 behind nature is seen to have, in its divine fore- 
 sight, a great scheme in which the scene is gradu- 
 ally becoming more perfect and beautiful and 
 ever enlarging in perspective, color and quality, — 
 a great scheme in which, also, the intelligences 
 that people are developing with every new experi- 
 ence, and with every shifting and shading of the 
 scene. 
 
 The possibilities and susceptibilities of sensa- 
 tion are indefinite. They are not limited by the 
 boundaries or by the binding influences of time. 
 Space is infinite in its relations to consciousness 
 and is replete with endless myriads of forms and 
 
164 Practical Occultism 
 
 with planes upon which these forms develop into 
 more and more statuesque and complete propor- 
 tions to allow the soul of them to expand more 
 and more in the direction of self-illumination and 
 spiritual perception. 
 
 Nature has not absolutely conditioned the per- 
 ceptions of life within the boundary lines and the 
 area of experiences of five physical senses. Na- 
 ture does not need limit itself with regard to the 
 forms it builds for the inhabiting of different con- 
 sciousnesses. Nature contains within itself the 
 possibility of every possible combination, just as 
 the mathematical scale contains within itself the 
 potentiality of producing any number of different 
 sums, all partaking of the figures from 1 to o, or 
 better of two forms of figures. 
 
 The universe is infinite, infinite as to space and 
 infinite as to time. It is infinite in its relations 
 and infinite in the number of its myriad combina- 
 tions. Study for a moment the human face; 
 Notice that in each face nature has imprinted her 
 signal, differentiating stamp, so that no two faces 
 in the world are exactly alike. 
 
 Man, in the normal state of development, can 
 become conscious of the universe only with the 
 aid of extremely limited faculties, only with pov- 
 erty-stricken means of limited sense perception. 
 The universe is revealed to man in many forms, 
 
The^Spiritual Perception 165 
 
 but this revelation, no matter how extensive or 
 how numerous its presentations, can only be par- 
 tial, exceedingly partial, and the all-containing 
 and all-satisfying truth is as far from us as we 
 are from the realization of what we term the 
 soul. Just as we may satisfactorily analyze the 
 separate states of our consciousness, as we may 
 throw the light of reason upon the status of dif- 
 ferent workings of minds, so we can definitely ap- 
 preciate and comprehend the separate revelations 
 of the universe, but we find that the universe itself 
 escapes us, even as does our consciousness, be- 
 cause it is subjective. Just as consciousness is 
 subjective to any of its individual states, so the 
 universe, as a whole, is subjective to any of its 
 myriad revelations. 
 
 After all, the universe, in its revelations, can 
 never be anything but partial. For this reason 
 there is always knowledge beyond what is known 
 and there is also an infinite storehouse of possible 
 knowledge within the spirit of man himself. The 
 universe, being unlimited in the processes of its 
 revelations, is limitless also in its position as an 
 eternal source of knowledge and an eternal pro- 
 ducer of its objects of knowledge. For this rea- 
 son what is known is only partial knowledge and 
 there is always the immediately unknown before 
 the mind. 
 
1 66 Practical Occultism 
 
 No matter how great the knowledge many may 
 acquire, it is ever conditioned. The universe re- 
 veals itself in an endless series of combinations 
 and every new combination becomes a new object 
 of knowledge, and this revelation, co-extensive 
 with the infinity of space and time through which 
 it manifests, is also infinite. 
 
 Man with his conditioned modes of percep- 
 tion is unable to comprehend the universe. That 
 is why the great problems which have caused the 
 greatest minds of the race to ask and re-ask will 
 ever remain unsolved so far as the solution can 
 be brought before the world such as a scientific 
 solution could. Whatever answer exists to the 
 fundamental questions of life, it must be individ- 
 ual. Man seeks to know the universe. The 
 very fact of his seeking shows that something ex- 
 ists within the deeper strata of his being that 
 corresponds with the universe as such, for it is 
 impossible to conceive that nature should have 
 endowed man with the super-sensuous feeling that 
 something beyond the physical senses exists unless 
 a faculty of perceiving that super-sensuousness is 
 also potential in the heart of man. Where a 
 question may be asked there must be an answer. 
 Perhaps the answer cannot be formulated imme- 
 diately; neither have any of the answers of science 
 been suddenly revealed. There is a faculty be- 
 
* 
 
 The Spiritual Perception 167 
 
 longing to the realm of pure spirit and to the 
 spiritual portion of man's nature that is one with 
 the universe, but this faculty is something vastly 
 distinct from what is commonly understood as 
 mind. Reason is only a modification of it. Or- 
 dinary sensation is only a limited expression of it. 
 Possibly the extension of the human faculty, the 
 extension of reason and the spiritualization and 
 refinement of feeling may develop a super-normal 
 perception, an attenuated consciousness, a higher 
 range of susceptibility to external impressions 
 through which facts and truths, hitherto unre- 
 vealed and unknown, can be known and revealed. 
 It is exceedingly difficult to present the truth 
 to the ordinary sense-craving and sense-grasping 
 and sense-living mind that there are spiritual and 
 menta-psychical realities and truths beyond the 
 limited horizon of mere physical existence. The 
 statement of the man of spirit that the universe 
 is indefinite in extension and vibration, that in- 
 telligence and spiritual life exist from lowest 
 to human and from super-human planes upward is 
 met with the smile of the cynic or disbeliever. 
 Yet science is coming to recognize these very 
 things. Day after day she is delving into the 
 secret mysteries of the universe and discovering 
 an array of facts that must make the intelligent 
 man pause and reflect and believe that there are 
 
1 68 Practical Occultism 
 
 revelations still to come from the hidden springs 
 of the investigating mind and that until these 
 revelations are brought from their superior 
 heights, we can only hope. The morn of scien- 
 tific discovery is rich with the promise of a spir- 
 itual day in which the sun of new revelation shall 
 herald the supreme light. For in such a direction 
 does the tide of human thought point. 
 
 It is equal to circumstances that the disbeliever 
 reckons in error when he unreasonably discredits, 
 without investigating, statements upon which the 
 racial mind has centered its deepest thought and 
 through which its most cultivated feelings and its 
 aeon-developing civilization have been given life 
 and expression. It is wrong, miserably wrong, 
 to accept things with an unquestioning faith, but 
 it is far worse for the disbeliever to disbelieve in 
 an uncritical manner and in an uninformed way. 
 He who condemns without understanding the cir- 
 cumstances and the situations, the facts and phe- 
 nomena accredited to certain modes of life, can- 
 not be called wise. He alone has the right to 
 criticize who has reasoned along the lines of his 
 criticism and appreciates to the full the subject 
 matter discussed by him. Therefore, in relegat- 
 ing the conditions and realities of the spiritual life 
 to general sense growth, speaking of them as the 
 outcome, natural and physical, of life's upward 
 
The Spiritual Perception 169 
 
 and evolutionary trend, a man is liable to err be- 
 cause of the want of true information concerning 
 the meaning and the value of life in general. It 
 would be conceited in the extreme on the part of 
 any person to declare that we have reached the 
 acme of spiritual or intellectual insight into the 
 hidden and ultimate nature and essence of the 
 universe and life. 
 
 The biased mind can see nothing but the nega- 
 tive side of any hypothesis, and presuppositions 
 bias the mental tendencies so that it cannot see 
 the positive and complete side. A biased mind 
 in this sense has reference to the natural and un- 
 justified bias against the spiritual interpretation 
 of life. It is a sad state of affairs when prejudice 
 blinds the view. It is a sad state of affairs when 
 self-will blinds the rational sense and with inten- 
 tional deceit cries that no light exists. There 
 are these two — light and darkness — and the light 
 exists in itself and is seen by reason of its own 
 radiating glory, but darkness too exists, — only in 
 this sense, however, that in the inherent soul of 
 nature ignorance shuts out the perspective and 
 can be removed only by the bitter experience of 
 pain in the long lapsing of time. 
 
 Life is open, patent, clear. It is not confused 
 by logical terms nor blinded by the so-called light 
 of reason. There is only one, self-illuminating 
 
iyo Practical Occultism 
 
 light in the cosmos and this light is the light of 
 the soul. Whatever other light exists is only the 
 borrowed reflection of that spiritual and central 
 light. 
 
 A man does not reason when he observes natu- 
 ral phenomena. So far as he is concerned he is 
 satisfied that they exist, that they are, and no 
 array of argument could convince him that they 
 do not exist. That which is immediately percep- 
 tible by the senses is that which we call real. So, 
 if there are super-physical truths and phenomena 
 in life they should be perceived, not by the bor- 
 rowed light of intellect, but by the perfect vision 
 of- the soul. 
 
 Is such vision possible? Yes. Reason has its 
 important and appropriate position and sphere in 
 the schedule of perception, but reason does not 
 explain. After all reason leaves us as we were 
 before. Did not Sir William Hamilton say: "A 
 learned ignorance is the end of philosophy" ? 
 That which is of supreme importance to the indi- 
 vidual is personal and actual perception concern- 
 ing what others believe to be the truth and what 
 the individual himself believes is the truth. 
 
 Men may reach conclusions after conclusions, 
 but the trouble is that they will never reach the 
 same conclusion. If all philosophers reached the 
 same conclusion it would be well for the race in 
 
The Spiritual Perception 171 
 
 so far as it would believe that the truth had been 
 revealed, but this cannot be. In case the ultimate 
 truth should be declared to be this or that, man 
 could follow the corresponding course of con- 
 science and conduct. But the greatest system of 
 thought can only be incomplete, for though it may 
 have reached the veriest pinnacle of thought, that 
 which it declares to be the truth still remains sub- 
 jective, still hidden from view, still immersed in 
 a sea of doubt, and the conduct of a man will 
 bear this out through his irresolute and wavering 
 will. The goal is individual realization. 
 
 Feeling must work out the assertion of thought. 
 It must explain in terms of accurate and clear 
 vision the metaphysics of thought. Logic may 
 say what is truth, but feeling, alone, can make 
 truth tangible and provable. There is no ques- 
 tion that logic arrives at truth, but this truth is 
 theoretical. It is subjective, and to become liv- 
 ing and active and effective it must be brought 
 to the plane of practical, objective experience. 
 In other words, truth must be sensed and directly 
 perceived as man may perceive a table or chair 
 or anything that has form. 
 
 The mystery of truth is a mystery because it 
 cannot be rendered tangible in our lives. The 
 blindness of desire leads the mind into paths other 
 than mental or spiritual and thus it cannot rest 
 
172 Practical Occultism 
 
 on or earnestly desire the practical forms and 
 interpretation of truth. The mind is busied with 
 the thousand myriad things that are external to 
 itself. It does not ponder over its individual 
 mysteries. It is least concerned with its own life. 
 It has no consideration for truth outside of its 
 practical, economic area. 
 
 Truth, to the average man, is expressed in so 
 many commercial figures. It is not something 
 that is ideal, subjective, enlarging the scope of 
 feeling or refining the discrimination and judg- 
 ment of reason. Before the mind can hope to 
 perceive the truth concerning itself or the truth 
 concerning the outer arrangement of life it must 
 give up this fancied necessity of a complete phys- 
 ical consciousness. It must cease thinking that 
 this body-life is the only life and that the body- 
 cares are the only cares that should be attended to. 
 
 The mind must thread the broken thought of 
 spiritual life and endeavor to reach beyond that 
 which is passing, living for the moment, enduring 
 as the life of a shadow might endure. There 
 are radiant truths beyond the truths that concern 
 the life of the body or the needs that concern the 
 body. The mind must arouse the latent powers 
 it possesses. As it is, it is content to rest in the 
 commonplaceness of its barest effort. It would 
 rather stagnate amid the passing forms and the 
 
The Spiritual Perception 173 
 
 fleeting life of physical existence. Whatever 
 push or energy the mind has is the result of the 
 spur of pain, quickening the soul to the necessity 
 of utilizing its hidden faculties, imperatively im- 
 pelling it, by the force of circumstance, into wider 
 avenues of thought and expression. 
 
 Whatever presentation the universe may reveal 
 to us, it does so through feeling. The universe 
 is like a vast, infinite being that continually sur- 
 prises the limited mind of man with the appalling 
 manifoldness under which it expresses itself. 
 Feeling reacts upon this manifoldness, and 
 through this constant reaction knowledge is born. 
 This knowledge manifests in philosophy, chem- 
 istry, physics, embracing all the arts and sciences 
 and all philosophy. 
 
 When this vast cosmic being acts upon our lives 
 as a whole through those peculiar feelings com- 
 monly held as religious, it is very important just 
 what character these religious feelings assume, 
 what moral and intellectual character they may 
 embody and what value can be attached to them. 
 
 Religious feeling arises through the action of 
 the universe, in its general sense, upon the soul 
 of man. This feeling is as positive as any other 
 feeling; in fact, much more positive. We may 
 speak of the universal wholeness of God. The 
 term, to some extent, approaches the true concept 
 
174 Practical Occultism 
 
 of the cosmic whole. In ordinary manifestations 
 God or the Absolute, or whatever else the su- 
 preme principle of nature may be called, reveals 
 itself in any of the phenomena of nature from 
 the most crude, inferior and commonplace to the 
 most refined, spiritual and exalted. In a finite 
 sense it reveals itself in the thousand details of 
 human life and in the myriad aggregations of in- 
 animate matter. In its complete, absolute and 
 unlimited manifestation it superimposes the whole- 
 ness of its life and form upon the soul, and the 
 soul is thereby raised into a mode of special per- 
 ception and consciousness which necessarily dif- 
 fers, in every particular, from the usual modes of 
 perception and from the usual modifications of 
 the mind and consciousness. 
 
 That is why mystic feelings are incommuni- 
 cable. First of all, every feeling is incommuni- 
 cable. Still, it may be expressed to some extent, 
 but the ultimate value and reality of the mystic 
 feelings are too exalted to be forcibly and intel- 
 ligibly expressed because of the poverty of human 
 thought, for thought even is poverty-stricken in 
 conceiving the range and extent of mystic feelings, 
 and as thought is antecedent to language these 
 feelings are and can be only partially described. 
 
 One may peruse the devotional books of every 
 religion and even come into contact with living 
 
The Spiritual Perception 175 
 
 examples of the principles taught by devotional 
 books ; one may observe the mystic experiences of 
 the saint, yet he will always find that the mind 
 cannot grasp the super-physical element in religion 
 and that it cannot comprehend the momentous 
 value of spiritual life and feeling, for these things 
 are beyond ordinary sense experience and partake 
 of a nature that is more developed and expressive 
 than the nature of the mind itself. 
 
 The reality of all spiritual teaching must re- 
 main hypothetical so long as man seeks the reali- 
 zation of physical desires and gives the greater 
 part of his time and thought to the working out 
 of sensuous existence. One cannot serve Mam- 
 mon and the spiritual Self at the same time. 
 While physical desires have their appropriate and 
 consistent place in the order of being, they are 
 secondary to the all-important considerations of 
 spiritual life and expression. Man places all con- 
 sideration on the body. So long as this continues 
 he cannot see any light beyond the borrowed light 
 that gives color, life and form to physical nature. 
 
 The great men of the world accredit the mind 
 with a superior importance and value and exist- 
 ence than the value, importance and existence of 
 the body. The greatest men of the world, those 
 who have left their vital impress on the life of 
 nations and who have given the upward trend to 
 
176 Practical Occultism 
 
 civilization through the formation or rehabilita- 
 tion of racial morality, say that the supreme ex- 
 istence is that of the soul which manifests as mind 
 and body. It is the life of the soul which they 
 emphasize. It is the life of the everlasting soul, 
 free from the desolate bondage of body and the 
 feverish distempers of man's psychical constitu- 
 tion, that these spiritual giants champion. 
 
 The spiritual teachers say that if there is a 
 soul it must be known, sensed, nourished and de- 
 veloped, even as* the body and mind of man are 
 solicitously cared for. They ask man to place 
 importance on the inner life of the soul and to 
 regard as transient the accidents and happenings 
 of purely sensuous existence. Are they right in 
 requesting this? Have they reached the Abso- 
 lute Fact in life? Indeed, have they come to 
 the comprehension of the All-Sufficient Truth? 
 Have they then sensed the Infinite Presence? 
 
 It might be well if the soul stopped to consider, 
 stopped for a moment this ceaseless identification 
 of itself with the body and ponder over the ex- 
 istence of the Self within. 
 
BUSINESS AND CONCENTRATION 
 
 Our lives are the materialized expression of 
 our thought processes. We are always concen- 
 trating the mind, whether consciously or uncon- 
 sciously, on one thing or another. At times this 
 concentration is more definite and continued, and 
 consequently its results are more determined and 
 pronounced, than at others. The mind is con- 
 stantly drifting from one point to the other. 
 Never is it as steady as it should be, yet what 
 little steadiness there is is the secret of bur 
 progress and prosperity. 
 
 Leaving aside all other considerations and view- 
 ing concentration as it influences the commercial 
 life, we will be interested to know how this great 
 force energizes the business world. Centers like 
 Wall street, Chicago and Denver Boards of 
 Trade, when peopled by stock-brokers and finan- 
 cial speculators of every description, are filled 
 with enough concentrated force to disturb or ad- 
 just the mightiest conditions. These men, who 
 represent the financial and industrial conditions 
 of our country, men who wield the mighty sceptre 
 
 177 
 
178 Practical Occultism 
 
 of finance and commerce, are trained in concentra- 
 tive processes. Their minds are focalized power. 
 Their thoughts are effective agents in bringing 
 about the desired results. The force of thought 
 is greater than the force of Niagara, and a clair- 
 voyant would be awe-stricken on viewing the 
 thought-forces and thought-forms which escape 
 with such concentrative power. 
 
 The business world is an excellent field for 
 the attainment of self-control, self-mastery and 
 the ability to concentrate. In the struggle and 
 the tremendous competition personal feelings 
 must be repressed, personal antipathies set aside, 
 for to gain business success man must almost steel 
 his soul into emotional impossibility. There is 
 but one aim in business — financial success and the 
 aggrandizement of personal business. To reach 
 the same requires all the concentration that the 
 individual can possibly give. The business man 
 is possibly the busiest-minded of human beings. 
 His attitude of mind is the life or death of his 
 business. He is more absorbed in his respective 
 sphere than the most self-absorbed of the leaders 
 in the professional or artistic world. 
 
 To be successful in business is to be concen- 
 trated on nothing but business. This is by no 
 means derogatory, for the vocation of the busi- 
 ness man is as much a necessary part of the social 
 
Business and Concentration 179 
 
 scheme and as dignified as are the more special 
 callings of science and art. Without the business 
 man the social plan would be indeterminate. The 
 business man is the foundation rock upon which 
 is erected the temple of the larger humanity with 
 its music and its poetry. Therefore the concen- 
 tration of the mind along business lines is not 
 harmful. The Law has bequeathed as much 
 pleasure to the work of the business man as it 
 has to the work of the artist. 
 
 A private business possesses almost indefinite 
 possibility to arouse the higher faculties. It calls 
 for the deepest concentration. This is more ap- 
 propriate to those commercial features which are 
 operated on a speculative basis. When there is 
 a great rising or a great falling in quotations, the 
 mind of the business man is almost at fever-point 
 of concentration. The resultant effect on the 
 body can be frequently observed in the sudden 
 illnesses of a large percentage of our New York 
 and Chicago financiers. It is at least forcibly 
 suggested by the necessitated occasional retire- 
 ment of men of the Harriman type. Failure to 
 respond to the physical call for retirement was 
 the cause of the recent death of that chief of 
 commercial enterprise, the late Mr, H. H. Rogers. 
 His position as first vice-president of the Standard 
 Oil Company required a concentrated power equal 
 
180 Practical Occultism 
 
 to that of a score of minor business men. His 
 success was in ratio to his concentrative power, 
 and it was stupendous. Yet even as the greatest 
 natural forces wear out by spending their power 
 at a rapid rate, the mind of Mr. Rogers over- 
 whelmed the body. One of the greatest needs of 
 business men is that of relaxation, and though 
 advised repeatedly to follow this requisite, Mr. 
 Rogers failed to do so, with the consequence of 
 his demise. Men who have climbed the upper- 
 most round of the ladder of commercial great- 
 ness, who control millions and millions of dollars 
 and the life opportunities of thousands of people, 
 need not be advised with regard to concentrative 
 methods in the pursuit of their business. They 
 instinctively recognize these methods and apply 
 them with the greatest possible diligence. Con- 
 centration is as much a part of their lives as the 
 round of daily physical necessities. They show 
 inclinations and tendencies to these qualities be- 
 fore they have yet attained to manhood. Mr. 
 John D. Rockefeller was an accomplished man 
 of business at a time when most young men are 
 getting a definite conception of their vocation in 
 mind. Before the age of thirty-five he was the 
 leader among the ring of leaders of that earlier 
 period. But a business genius, like an artistic 
 
Business and Concentration 181 
 
 genius, must be born. Men of the Rockefeller 
 type are few and far between. 
 
 The methods of the capital financiers embrace 
 every suggestion in the way of concentration that 
 might be given to the subordinate man of busi- 
 ness. They can assimilate in their business ex- 
 perience and methods on a smaller scale what 
 these giants of commerce operate in titanic revo- 
 lutions. 
 
 Concentration implies so many things that it 
 is a difficult matter to speak of any one as par- 
 ticularly important, because they are all impor- 
 tant. A few suggestions, however, will lead to 
 further speculation. When the mind is concen- 
 trated it becomes insensate to what is going on 
 around it. The business man, especially in his 
 earlier struggle, must affiliate himself with naught 
 but his business. He cannot alienate his mind 
 into other paths. His concentration must lead 
 him to an enthusiasm which defies all contrary 
 suggestions. It is at the height of enthusiasm 
 that the artist and the poet, the writer and the 
 social reformer accomplish their highest task. It 
 is at the height of enthusiasm that the business 
 man turns his greatest successes. It essentially 
 follows in contrast that the waning of this enthusi- 
 asm is undesirable. It should not be a haphazard 
 
1 82 Practical Occultism 
 
 state of mind, but one which is persistent enough 
 to remain high-pitched and resonant in fullness 
 of tone in the face of adverse circumstances. The 
 men who are the owners of millions know this 
 secret: Like the gamblers of Monte Carlo they 
 will not allow any diffident mental attitude to ex- 
 ternalize. They put up the "bluff." Inwardly 
 they desperately fight any mental condition which 
 would lead to self-depreciation and lack of self- 
 confidence. Their enthusiasm is ever buoyant, 
 ever aspirant, ever idealistic, ever optimistic. It 
 fights with death-desperateness, gaining inch by 
 inch and ultimately attaining its purpose. 
 
 ' Of tremendous occult importance is the neces- 
 sity of being calm-minded and unworried. There 
 are plenty of occasions when critical circumstances 
 arise in business relations which in the average 
 instance upset the mind of the commercial man, 
 but the secret lies in gracefully meeting the situa- 
 tion. If allowed to do so the mind easily slips 
 backward from the desirable point. It is far 
 more easy for the mind to concentrate itself along 
 the lower lines, lines of distress and worry, than 
 to keep at a normal level, but in keeping at a 
 normal level is the salvation of the commercial 
 man. After a thing has fallen down, it is a 
 harder task to rebuild. It is easier to descend 
 from a mountain than to climb a mountain, but 
 
Business and Concentration 
 
 183 
 
 it is only the view the ascent gives that is worth 
 anything whatever. Accordingly in business 
 methods, when crowded conditions make their ap- 
 pearance, the mind gives way under them and it 
 is a difficult task to get back to that normal en- 
 thusiasm and well-centered concentration which 
 is the power by which business is propelled. 
 
 Therefore, he who would achieve the desired 
 result in matters of commerce and finance must 
 learn how to control the mind. If it seeks to 
 wander, if it seeks lower channels of expression, 
 it is immediately necessary to gather all the poise 
 and equilibrium which will serve as resisting 
 power to the unsettled and dissipated mental 
 state. Then is the time for wakefulness, the 
 time to gather all the mental strength that can be 
 safely employed without injury to the body. If 
 on these occasions the mind is steady, firm in 
 purpose, prepared to meet the ill-favored condi- 
 tion with every equity of temper, the difficulty 
 will be abridged. Following this trying condition 
 it is well to thoroughly relax. Then is the appro- 
 priate time for vacation, for vacation should not 
 be a matter of convention, but of mental and 
 physical necessity. 
 
 Renewed enthusiasm, redissipated, is worse 
 than no enthusiasm. A normal, steady, level, prac- 
 tical state of mind is better than fitful starts and 
 
184 Practical Occultism 
 
 letting go. Concentration is the power by which 
 nervous worry over business matters can be suc- 
 cessfully overcome. Concentration can alone 
 give that thoroughness of mentality which adds 
 force and importance to inter-relative business. 
 
SELF-EDUCATION 
 
 There can be no self-help without self-knowl- 
 edge and there can be no self-knowledge without 
 a continuous self-education. Man must know his 
 powers before he can use them. He must under- 
 stand his weaknesses before he can overcome 
 them, for we all have weak points as well as 
 strong ones. 
 
 To know ourselves we must endeavor to keep 
 account of ourselves, to study and try to under- 
 stand the various impulses which apparently with- 
 out any consideration on our part sway us hither 
 and thither in the great arena of life. True self- 
 comprehension arises when a man has come face 
 to face with himself, when he looks into the mir- 
 ror of his conduct and from the image therein 
 shadowed draws a faithful mental picture of what 
 he is, of what his limitations, opportunities, fac- 
 ulties, talents, advantages, disadvantages, tenden- 
 cies and inclinations consist. He must get at the 
 rock-bottom of his character, so to speak, and find 
 for himself the truth, the knowledge and the 
 power dormant within the deeper strata of indi- 
 vidual life. 
 
 185 
 
1 86 Practical Occultism 
 
 But to do this a man must be sincere with him- 
 self. He must be able to make a clear study of 
 himself. He must have learned the art of pure 
 criticism. He must be brave enough to delve into 
 the mysteries, spiritual and psychological, that ini- 
 tiate the spirit of a man into the wayward or 
 rational paths of human life. He must stand 
 erect and squarely come to a self-reckoning in 
 which neither injustice nor over-examination have 
 play, but impartiality, soundness of mind and per- 
 spicacity of discrimination and judgment are 
 brought to serve the great purpose of self-illumi- 
 nation. 
 
 There is a torch at the disposal of every indi- 
 vidual. Shedding the light of that torch upon 
 the nature of personality, the individual is brought 
 to a comprehensive perspective of the secret, un- 
 derlying life of this fleeting, sensuous, desire-bred 
 and desire-fancied life. Apart from the momen- 
 tous relations between the external and the inter- 
 nal man, there are hosts of obstacles and trials 
 that must be successfully confronted ere a man 
 can hope to master himself or appreciate the full 
 light of the Indwelling One Who stands at the 
 background of every individual existence as its 
 living soul and moving force. 
 
 These momentous relations between the exter- 
 nal and the internal man embody the warp and 
 
Self-Education 187 
 
 the woof of life's mysterious veils that separate 
 this plane of perception from superior planes, that 
 darken and blind the extended spiritual vision and 
 cast a pall of self-belittlement over the true nature 
 of the immortal man, subject to no limitations, 
 resident, at will, on all planes, knowing all things, 
 sensing all things, living and existing through all 
 things, human or superhuman, inanimate or ani- 
 mate. 
 
 A man must learn to define the outlines of his 
 true character. He must sense the boundaries 
 that inhibit the otherwise unhampered vision of 
 the awakened sight. So long as a man declares 
 himself to be this or that, he is this or that which 
 presents itself as a living, sentient object in his 
 mind, for all things, thoughts as well as words 
 and deeds have living potency and come from the 
 realm of the unknown with as great a realism of 
 life and form as the so-called solid objects about 
 us. 
 
 Who and what is the real man? Knowing 
 him, self-help will dawn from the crystal, ever- 
 lasting heights. Knowing him, self-knowledge 
 will flow through the flood-gates of the awakened 
 mind. The real man cannot be identified with 
 passing shadows. Above limitations he cannot 
 be identified with their binding force and hinder- 
 ance. 
 
1 88 Practical Occultism 
 
 Getting at the facts of life means coming into 
 relations with truths and realities hitherto unre- 
 vealed, for there are myriads of truths and reali- 
 ties that are, as yet, only theoretical. Man sees 
 them as ideals, but before they become actualities 
 they will have to assume a more definite and con- 
 crete shape. 
 
 Truth is imperceptible in its absolute sense. 
 Man sees it personified and worships it, but the 
 spiritual and supreme ideal of truth is always sub- 
 jective and only the subjective portions of man's 
 nature can become consciously related to it. The 
 ideals of truth or of goodness are far beyond the 
 'realm of the material and the coarse physical. 
 They are of the spiritual and mental planes of 
 being. 
 
 We cannot see the greatness of the sun or 
 fathom its burning light and power because of 
 the enormous distance between us and that great 
 body. In a similar sense and by comparison, 
 probably the human intellect is at too remote an 
 angle of perception to fully distinguish the splen- 
 dor and the marvelousness of truth in and for 
 itself. It must be projected, as it were, in char- 
 acter before it is realized as an active reality and 
 influence. Let us get closer to the radiant sun 
 of truth. Opening our eyes to its wonderful 
 vista, let us raise the external stature of the soul 
 
Self-Education 189 
 
 to its supreme level and greatness. Let us ac- 
 quire the piercing sight of the eagle. That bird, 
 with ease sees the fiercest burning, brilliant rays 
 of the sun. Its eyes are not blinded by the great 
 light, nor is it timid to soar into the great, white 
 empyrean. 
 
 Self-education consists in a masterful self-ana- 
 lyzation. Such an analysis, however, is largely 
 philosophical. It depends largely upon a knowl- 
 edge of the reality of the soul. Once the soul 
 is conscious of the fact that it is all, supreme, 
 deathless, unchangeable and perfect, once it has 
 sensed the infinity of its nature and realized the 
 deeper feelings of the heart, it will react upon 
 itself in such a way that its entire activity will ex- 
 press itself in a continuous self-revelation. 
 
 Knowledge and education are internal facts and 
 their development is followed largely along in- 
 ternal processes. All that books and teachers can 
 do is to show us what to do to gain knowledge, 
 but we have to set ourselves to the task. If we 
 earnestly desire education, our minds would be 
 like magnets drawing to themselves the external 
 things that correspond to the internal desires. 
 Knowledge is not a quality of the soul. It is 
 the nature and the essence of the soul. External 
 stimuli strike against the soul and it reacts in the 
 form of knowledge. 
 
190 Practical Occultism 
 
 The greatest fact that can be proclaimed before 
 the world, the fact that all must some day come 
 to realize is the knowledge-life-and-bliss nature of 
 the soul. Life and knowledge and bliss are not 
 accidents of the soul, but they are its essence. 
 The mind embraces its own ideal and in the em- 
 brace bliss is born. And as the objects of bliss 
 are more and more closely related to the being of 
 man he loves them with graduating intensity. A 
 man loves his friend better than a stranger, his 
 relations better than strangers, his wife better 
 than these, his children equally as his wife, but 
 better than these he loves his self, the conscious- 
 ness of his soul. There is an inner man clothed 
 in this physical venture of decay. He is not dis- 
 turbed by death, but is subject to the fluctuations 
 of the mental ocean. This the soul regards more 
 than all others. 
 
 The more we explore the inner life, tKe nearer 
 we approach the blissful Self. Realizing that 
 Self, the nature of bliss itself is realized. All this 
 outer seeking for happiness is then seen to have 
 been useless and fruitless, for the only object and 
 the only being that could have attracted was the 
 Blissful Self resident throughout all time and 
 space. 
 
 When a man knows he is a soul, he knows that 
 he is not the body and his life will shine forth 
 
Self -Education 191 
 
 in this knowledge. When a man knows that the 
 true existence within him is not that of the chang- 
 ing mind, he will come to realize that behind this 
 body and this mind, behind change and imper- 
 fection there is a life which is one with the crea- 
 tive spirit of mind and form, beyond these, and 
 therefore the life that is ever free and blissful. 
 
 The Supreme Godhead within voices with in- 
 finite power: "I never had death or fear. I have 
 no difference of caste or creed. I had neither 
 father nor mother, nor birth nor death, nor friend 
 nor foe, for I am the Existing-Knowledge-Bliss 
 Absolute, I am the Blissful One, I am the Blissful 
 One. I am bound neither by virtue nor by vice, 
 by happiness nor by misery. Pilgrimages and 
 books and the Vedas and all these ceremonies can 
 never bind me. I do not eat; the body is not 
 mine, nor the superstitions that come to the body, 
 nor the decay that comes to the body, for I am 
 Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute, I am the 
 Blissful One, I am the Blissful One." 
 
 Of course, here the Spiritual Unit of the soul 
 is speaking. The soul filled with realization is 
 speaking, not the fluctuating life of mind and 
 sense. The Infinitely Pure and Perfect One is 
 voicing the true character of His endless being. 
 "Thou art That Supreme Existence" cannot be 
 spoken of the changing personality. That is the 
 
192 Practical Occultism 
 
 mistake so many students of the Vedanta make. 
 While in the supreme sense we are the One Per- 
 fect Life of the universe, while we are the Over- 
 Soul, it is a "we" that has lost the consciousness 
 of mere sensuous existence and of the carnal mind 
 nourished therefrom. 
 
 Self-education implies many, many facts, facts 
 of pain for the most part. Through the dual 
 forms of experience man garners the knowledge 
 that elevates him from limited to better things, 
 Every sorrow is a bright link in the chain of teach- 
 ing. Education means to draw out. The very 
 word in its original meaning embodies the acme 
 of the philosophical signification of knowledge. 
 To educate is to draw out, — draw out the latent 
 knowledge that resides in the soul. Another 
 word that gives the proper interpretation is to 
 discover. To discover the mind means that one 
 by one the veils of ignorance and sense that cover 
 the mind are removed and eventually the mine of 
 knowledge is bared to view with its untold wealth 
 in grasp. 
 
 He is the seer who has educated his mind into 
 a proper conception of Self. He is the deathless 
 one, for he is dead to every thought save the 
 thought of the superpersonal and infinite Godhead 
 within. 
 
CHANGING YOUR ENVIRONMENT 
 
 One of the greatest facts to be ever remem- 
 bered is that we have it within our power to 
 change our environment. No matter how much 
 you are apparently under its control, you have 
 within the depth of the soul the power to annihi- 
 late what is hampering your growth. The soul 
 may rise supreme over everything. There is 
 nothing that can cause it harm, once its sense of 
 personal freedom has been awakened by the touch 
 of discrimination and understanding. These 
 truths have been the source of the great hope and 
 the great triumph of those whom history tells 
 us have been most sorely tried. In the face of 
 seeming despair they held fast to that larger faith 
 which blesses the believer with the enlightenment 
 of soul and the realization of its power. 
 
 The first step in making a change in undesirable 
 environment is to become firm-minded, so that 
 the variations of the disturbing condition may not 
 affect you. The whole summary of the woes of 
 man is the succumbing, the giving up to unpleas- 
 ant circumstances the very first moment they ap- 
 
 193 
 
194 Practical Occultism 
 
 pear. "Principiis obsta," said the Roman poet. 
 "Resist beginnings" and half the victory is yours. 
 "What can't be cured must be endured" is a false 
 proverb. There is nothing but what can be cured 
 provided we are acquainted with the methods of 
 cure and have the necessary determination of will 
 to carry out the methods to success. Had great 
 men of Caesarian types for one moment recog- 
 nized that certain things were incurable the map 
 of Europe would to-day have a different appear- 
 ance than it has. The initiative step is the step 
 of resistance, the step that asserts mental superi- 
 ority over coming troubles, the step that changes 
 * the current of seeming trouble so that from dis- 
 turbance comes harmony, from ill, good. 
 
 Placing yourself in vibration with any circum- 
 stance or force means that you recognize the ex- 
 istence of that force. It implies that you set a 
 value on it and that this value has a relative im- 
 portance to your judgment and will. As this 
 value increases, you allow a greater significance 
 to the thing valued than to yourself. In other 
 words, you underrate yourself. You make a cir- 
 cumstance or force superior to your individual 
 effort, with the result that you become subordinate 
 to the fluctuations of its influence. In every rela- 
 tion there is first the external circumstance, then 
 the person who is to be affected by the conditions 
 
Changing Your Environment 195 
 
 of that circumstance. There is a definite distinc- 
 tion. This distinction fades, however, as the 
 person allows the force of vibration to assert it- 
 self even in the slightest degree. The person 
 commences to personalize the force and he is, in 
 ratio, overcome by it. 
 
 That is the secret of environmental influence. 
 If the thought is kept in presence that we are 
 something entirely distinct from anything that 
 may come into our experience, we are free from 
 the bondage of its influence. It is only as we 
 identify ourselves with what affects us that we 
 become slaves and lose our pristine birthright of 
 soul-freedom. 
 
 A practical interpretation of these things in- 
 volves the necessity of a man paying close obser- 
 vation to what comes into his life. He must be 
 ready at whatsoever cost to see the danger-line. 
 Most men, owing to the glitter of that line and 
 its seductive power, are blinded in discriminat- 
 ing at what point undesirable environment ap- 
 proaches. It is essential to place a secure and 
 true value upon those actions which may lead us 
 into a new environment. If they are prompted 
 by selfishness no matter in what form, we may 
 assure ourselves that we are entering a thorny 
 pathway. By selfishness is meant those modes of 
 conduct which result in harm to others or imply 
 
196 Practical Occultism 
 
 a moral infringement or moral omission. Now, 
 if such circumstances have been in the foreground 
 of any change we are about to make, we can know 
 that the change will place us in an uncomfortable 
 position. This is one of the important rules to 
 be put into practice in the discrimination of what 
 is to be good or evil environment. Of one thing 
 we can trust, that a change made with spiritual 
 intent can never lead to harm. The path may be 
 dark and the way indiscernible, but leading will 
 come, and with the leading, freedom from ob- 
 struction, realization of the intended purpose, and 
 the joy of such realization. These truths are 
 relative to future environment. They are also 
 relative to present environment by the adoption 
 of reflex processes. Our present environment is 
 directed by our past motives in changing the past 
 environment for the present. 
 
 There is no question but that the changing of 
 any environment expressly depends on the change 
 of our mental attitudes. The mentality is the 
 qualifying factor in determining any environment. 
 For what to one is an unpleasant, intolerable, 
 loathsome environment may to another be the 
 most desirable and pleasing. The difference is a 
 matter of opinion, of mental attitudes. This is 
 only suggestive in so far as it reminds us of the 
 possibility of brightening distressing and dark 
 
Changing Your Environment 197 
 
 surroundings by seeking for the lights which the 
 environment clouds. Beneath the most pitiable 
 environment is often buried a great spiritual or 
 mental treasure or a lesson or readjustment which 
 we fail to see, being too occupied with the wor- 
 ries of the temporary disquiet. When sorrows 
 and trials come, we can often find great relief in 
 adjusting the mind so that it searches the good 
 and blinds itself to the evil. Such is the spirit of 
 resignation which frequently changes environment 
 by changing the mind to bear in the hope that 
 the fluctuations will bear fruit rather than barren- 
 ness. Such is the Christian attitude. 
 
 In connection it might be said that a hopeful 
 mental state, a confident trust in those higher as- 
 sistant forces which ever come to the aid of him 
 who is self-watchful and self-governed, is neces- 
 sary. As long as one does right, as long as the 
 spiritual is emphasized, as long as inner harmony 
 is asserted, there is not the slightest danger of 
 being overwhelmed in the hard battles which we 
 so often encounter. It is self-evident that when 
 a high attitude of mind is held it attracts high 
 and helpful forces, the success of whose assistance 
 may be relied on. Such mental states have saved 
 many from disconsolate thought and enabled them 
 to conquer through their mental states and their 
 hopes in higher forces when, had they relied 
 
198 Practical Occultism 
 
 upon themselves, would have miserably failed. 
 
 At times persistence of environment signifies 
 stultification of the mind and degeneracy of 
 soul. Such environment occurs when the material 
 is more at play than the higher mental and ethical. 
 There is but one thing to do in these conditions — 
 change the environment even if it leads to dis- 
 tressing material situation and affliction. Great 
 minds who have occasionally found themselves in 
 environment where they could not exercise their 
 mental faculties are particularly forcible in their 
 denunciation of deterioriating environment and in 
 their plea for the redemption of mind and soul. 
 Nietzsche, that persecuted philosopher whose 
 writings are now more deservedly recognized, 
 says: "Choice of one's surroundings. — Let us be- 
 ware of living amongst those in whose presence 
 we can neither observe a dignified silence nor 
 communicate our loftier thoughts. We thereby 
 grow dissatisfied both with ourselves and our sur- 
 roundings; we even add to our distress the dis- 
 pleasure of feeling ourselves always plaintive. 
 We should live where we are ashamed to speak 
 of ourselves, and have no need to do so. But 
 who thinks of such things. We speak of our 
 'fate/ make a broad back, and sigh, 'Woe to me, 
 ill-starred Atlas!' " 
 
 Environment, accordingly, is the limiting or 
 
Changing Your Environment 199 
 
 developing condition by which the mind and the 
 emotions are educated. It behooves him in quest 
 of self-unfoldment to select or change his environ- 
 ment in accordance with his higher interests. En- 
 vironment is one of the specific factors in organic 
 evolution and shall ever be. Its adequate im- 
 portance in evolving the mind and soul, therefore, 
 can not be too definitely pronounced. "We are 
 all victims of environment" is a mistake, however, 
 at least in this age of New Thought and of higher 
 discernment of things spiritual. We are the 
 choosers and the makers and the changers of en- 
 vironment, if we will be. But the "if is the true 
 stumbling-block. No, this does not by any means 
 imply that the vastly operative law of Environ- 
 ment can be changed. It is a fixed, universal law, 
 and law is unchangeable. It is that the prescrip- 
 tions, the modifying circumstances of the law may 
 be changed as we change, and it is in the choice 
 of the change wherein we are free and responsible. 
 In a previous paragraph it was stated that plac- 
 ing yourself in vibration with any circumstance is 
 the recognition of the existence of that circum- 
 stance. This is certain, not only in an evil, but 
 in a good sense. Many orthodox thinkers have 
 challenged the exponents of the New Thought, 
 asking how they explain the actual changing of 
 conditions by the appliance of respective methods. 
 
200 Practical Occultism 
 
 In reply, it may be suggested that, in a chemi: 
 sense, any environment may be expressed in phys- 
 ical terms, for, looking at one side, everything 
 is physical and physically evolved and active. 
 You may reduce an environment to a certain 
 chemical statement. In the same light a person 
 may be said to consist of certain chemical constitu- 
 ents. Now, no one doubts the influence of one 
 chemical activity on another. That material 
 which possesses the greatest force will assert the 
 dependence of the weaker. In the entire realm 
 of chemistry there is no force which has shown 
 greater physical importance and influence than the 
 force of mind, the force which is becoming daily 
 more and more recognized as the final and su- 
 preme force in the universe. Accordingly, in the 
 change of environment, if greater, if mental force 
 be utilized, the environment must change and the 
 person remain free. It is pure physical science. 
 We shall appreciate this fact in a more desirable 
 sense when we come to know the material sub- 
 strata of mind, that thought is rarefied matter, 
 and has a physical as well as psychical influence. 
 
 Again, the desire for change is more specific 
 in evolutionary ends than the determining influ- 
 ences of any present environment. Slowly but 
 infallibly has the desire for change added wings 
 to the bird, feet to the quadruped and civilization 
 
Changing Your Environment 201 
 
 to man. The desire is the father to the birth of 
 the new. In this lies the occult importance of 
 desire. It is desire, concentrated and one-pointed, 
 persistent and deathly tenacious, which conquers 
 the limitations of any environment, be it ever so 
 galling. When the thought or rather the knowl- 
 edge of the power and the creative influence of 
 desire is a mental fact, there is no boundary to 
 the efforts and success of him who wishes to 
 change his environment. Simple as is the state- 
 ment, — he can. Desire is the manifestation of 
 the will in activity. The more this activity be- 
 comes specialized the more definite and satisfac- 
 tory are the results. Thus, placing yourself in 
 vibration with any condition means allowing the 
 mind to come into contact with it. Successfully 
 placing yourself in vibration means throwing the 
 balance of influence in favor of the mental, and 
 thus, by invoking the greatest of forces, freeing 
 yourself from undesirable environment or forcing 
 the desirable. 
 
 Indifference to the vibrations of evil environ- 
 ment has been considered as one of the main fac- 
 tors in its amelioration and change. Why is this? 
 If we resume the physical illustration and view 
 disturbed mental attitudes as forms of rare mat- 
 ter, we readily understand how they invite and 
 add to the influence of evil conditions. Indiffer- 
 
2c: Practical Occultism 
 
 ence means the highest form of activity, — non- 
 resistance. Le: the circumstance throw its worst 
 influence about you, it can in no way cause you 
 hurt if your mind remains undisturbed. You 
 invoking self -control, the highest of mental forces, 
 and against it the waves of bad vibrations beat 
 and beat until they have exhausted their com- 
 bative force. By this illustration we can also 
 comprehend that much-abused commandment of 
 the Christ in which He bids us "not to resist e 
 It iocs not mean that you affiliate yourself with 
 eviL On the contrary, it means that you e: 
 the greatest control and discrimination. 
 
 .There is the greatest psychological value in 
 the knowledge that one pes 5 esses the power to 
 change environment. It imparts a sense of free- 
 dom, of superiority, of transcendence to human 
 nature which nothing else can give. Should this 
 knowledge ever become established as a fact in 
 the ra: !al ronsciousness, it would be of ines- 
 timable value in presenting new conditions for the 
 betterment of the race at large. Nature has 
 tried in many various ways to impress upon the 
 human brain its absolute freedom in evolution. 
 Occasionally she has introduced such radical 
 methods as a French Revolution or a Protestant 
 Reformation to teach Man that he can free him- 
 self from depressing environment, if he so 
 
Changing Your Environment 203 
 
 chooses. Nature becomes weary of simply ac- 
 centuating the thought that we are free. She 
 sometimes throws us on our own resources, con- 
 fronts us with Necessity and "Necessity is the 
 mother of invention." 
 
 The culture and development of some of the 
 moral and mental faculties require an environ- 
 ment in which we do not so frequently find our- 
 selves. Yet the culture of the mental and the 
 moral is the duty which the Law places upon the 
 shoulders of him who would be foremost in the 
 rank and file of evolution. The crowded mate- 
 rial environment, often pampered by the greatest 
 of luxury, has been renounced by those who have 
 recognized the necessity of personal evolution. 
 They have weighed in the balance the material 
 comfort and the higher spiritual and have chosen 
 the latter. Men of this description are the re- 
 ligious sages of every religion. They are men of 
 the description of Napoleon, whose thought was 
 barely centered on the trappings of his position. 
 His mind was solely occupied with his purpose. 
 It is not wealth or position which are of them- 
 selves to be condemned. It is only the affiliation 
 and identification of the mind with these sur- 
 roundings which is not wanted. The Oriental 
 mind, proficient in all things, has centered its 
 great religion of Karma Yoga about this thought. 
 
204 
 
 Practical Occultism 
 
 Karma Yoga has to do with man's conduct and 
 action. Identification with work means that we 
 net the good or e*vil results of work. Non-attach- 
 ment to our experience means that we are beyond 
 both good and evil, have reached the goal for 
 which all spiritual energy strives. It follows, 
 therefore, that though there are instances where 
 the change of environment is a difficult matter, 
 yet we can rise above its influence by keeping our 
 mind in control and self-centered to one purpose. 
 This is not Stoicism, simply regulation of thought 
 and control of desire. We must remember that 
 proper understanding and effort can actually 
 change the circumstances under which we live and 
 can rule them to our higher advantage. 
 
IMPRESSIONS AND INTUITIONS 
 
 Often in life we find ourselves confronted with 
 circumstances requiring quickness of decision, the 
 adaptation of the entire combative qualities of 
 our nature against the odds of circumstances; we 
 find ourselves compelled to a spontaneity of dis- 
 cernment, an exceptional presence of mind; and, 
 unfortunately and only too frequently, we find 
 that we are unequal to the occasion; we find our 
 rational self undecided, we find it deserting us in 
 the hours when its vision and activities are most 
 needed; we find ourselves in desperate need and in 
 desperate lack of circumstantial necessities. In 
 this black hour, in this hour when often life and 
 fortune are at stake with little at our command 
 to withstand the destructive influences, there has 
 arisen in our frequent experience strange feelings 
 and stranger impressions which we could never 
 harbor in the area of our normal consciousness. 
 These impressions come as answers to the wants 
 of the soul in the turmoil of anxieties and the tur- 
 moil of need; they come as adequate and exact 
 answers telling of the course to adopt, and the 
 
 205 
 
206 Practical Occultism 
 
 requirements to face, and give us a glimpse of 
 the approaching triumph over the conflicting cir- 
 cumstances. 
 
 You may notice these things in the suddenness 
 of direction and command in the word of a gen- 
 eral turning imminent defeat into victory; you 
 may notice it in the suddenness of decision, where, 
 by an intuition, calamities have been avoided in 
 national or civic affairs. Coming to the more 
 simple and conventional phases of life, you may 
 notice them in occurrences when the proper thing 
 is intuitively done in sudden illness saving life; 
 you may notice it in the rationally unaided im- 
 pressions, which, if followed, turn points of dis- 
 advantage into advantage, and so forth. 
 
 In spite of our matter-of-fact, practical work-a- 
 day, even skeptical, outlook on life; in spite of 
 our general waiving aside of the rationally in- 
 tangible and the psychically suggestive, we never- 
 theless have had our moments when we have 
 come to face with the situation previously de- 
 scribed. We may laugh at the credulous attitudes 
 of those who are persuaded of the mystical and 
 the psychical; we may shout our disbelief in all 
 things occult to the clouds, and yet, if we are sin- 
 cere with ourselves, we must confess to occasions 
 when we have been persuaded by the strayest and 
 most unintelligible impressions which seemed to 
 
Impressions and Intuitions 207 
 
 fit in when we otherwise would have thrown up 
 our hands in despair. Yet it is not of necessity 
 that these intuitions and impressions should in- 
 variably accompany the sadder circumstances of 
 our experience; they do not exclusively present 
 themselves in instances where pressure is brought 
 to bear upon the soul, or rise when we are help- 
 lessly cornered by uninviting visitations. 
 
 The stray intuitions which come into our life 
 are suggestive of a wider range of expression 
 from which they proceed, suggestive of a faculty 
 of which they are but incoherent phases. Their 
 development and the accompanying development 
 of the faculty would lead to marvelous results, to 
 the evolution of what, in the occult, is known as 
 the "higher manas" in psychological terms, the 
 subjective mind with its thousand-fold variety of 
 faculty and superiority over the normal mind and 
 consciousness of objective life. It would lead 
 to the development of that higher and powerful 
 self within each of us which meets all the trials 
 and tribulations of the normal self with equal 
 serenity and triumph. These intuitions may 
 come as sporadic but definite warnings of the soul 
 discountenancing the objective self in the practice 
 of moral uncertainties ; they may come as glimpses 
 which, later evolved, educate the soul into higher 
 aspects of truth; they may come as soul-instruc- 
 
208 Practical Occultism 
 
 tions in the hour of soul-suicide and depressions, 
 reminding the lower self of the immortal nature 
 and spiritual transcendency of the higher self over 
 the passing calamities and indecisions which come 
 as trials to strengthen and fortify. They may 
 come as intuitional ties binding the soul in ardent 
 friendship with the new personality in our ex- 
 perience; they may come as faintest impressions 
 re-vibrating unto the soul something unifying in 
 the past life of two souls, causing them either to 
 love or hate ; they may come as symbols of future 
 occurrences, as notes of meaningless sadness and, 
 laf:er, this sadness evolves into the separations or 
 losses of friends or belongings. 
 
 All these variations of intuitional manifesta- 
 tions have certain attributes giving them a com- 
 mon origin, a common significance of soul and a 
 common working order whereby an understand- 
 ing may be reached of their generic nature. In 
 the first they are never witnessed in the common- 
 place or unimportant by-ways of our life ; they do 
 not appear in the trivial and the ordinary. They 
 manifest in the solemn and the silent, in the im- 
 portant and the exceptional, in the dangerous cir- 
 cumstance and the undecided moments of soul. 
 They come when there is need only, when a con- 
 dition arises when the soul is unequal to occasions 
 and where its defeat may mean retardation or 
 
Impressions and Intuitions 209 
 
 perhaps retrogression. They are particularly 
 unique in that they shine forth in suddenness and 
 almost constantly when the mind has been par- 
 alyzed into inaction and exhaustion through hours 
 of persistent and brain-racking effort to break 
 down barriers of opposition, of uncertainty, and 
 so forth. When the mind has turned over its 
 last thought, when it has weakened into absolute 
 despair, then it is receptive, and in these moments 
 of receptivity and objective silence of mind, the 
 higher self with its intuitions and impressions, 
 enters the threshold of normal consciousness and 
 resuscitates the lower with the higher poise of 
 the greater self. They bring it quietness and pa- 
 tience, and then suddenly flash the especial intui- 
 tion of the circumstance across the brain. Yet 
 these intuitions do not occur to the mind and soul 
 alone. They may affect the body. Frequently, 
 and in the experience of most of us, there have 
 been cases where an intuition saved life. The 
 daily journals cite any number of them. Only 
 recently in the city of Trenton, N. J., a man was 
 saved from a falling building by following a sud- 
 den impulse to cross the street. Then there are 
 specific instances where by following intuitions 
 the right thing has been done at the right time in 
 the burning of houses, in burglarious attack, and 
 so forth. Intuitions of a lower class may be 
 
210 Practical Occultism 
 
 found advising the normal consciousness in serious 
 business transactions where a feeling, seemingly 
 irrational and antagonizing the promising side of 
 a circumstance, may result in success and increased 
 material fortune. 
 
 The nature of intuition defies reason in the 
 explanation. It partakes of something intangible 
 and imperceptible to objective consciousness, 
 something which in the accuracies of rational con- 
 sciousness is not to be found, for it is beyond rea- 
 son. It is something suggestive of a faculty more 
 in the immediate keeping with Truth, truer in its 
 expression and more direct in its perception. It 
 partakes of that larger method of discernment 
 which does not stop at every immediate turning of 
 thought as does reason; it reaches conclusions by 
 flashes. Those who have experienced these 
 things in life are aware of the truth of the asser- 
 tion. They have seen that obedience to an im- 
 pulse, to an intuition, to an impression is asso- 
 ciated with happy findings, and that when they 
 have discountenanced these psychic meanings they 
 have accordingly suffered. 
 
 Intuition, it must be observed, is a faculty not 
 solely enjoyed by human beings. It is to a great- 
 er or less degree enjoyed by the lower creatures. 
 It might be safely stated that the majority of 
 vertebrated animals, particularly the domesti- 
 
Impressions and Intuitions 211 
 
 cated species, live intuitive lives in the complete- 
 ness. They form their likes and dislikes, their 
 sympathies and their antipathies with a remark- 
 able intuitiveness that we frequently notice in the 
 house pets. They intuitively sense danger, sepa- 
 ration, coming death, and so forth. Their in- 
 tuitions are often the means whereby serious trou- 
 ble is averted to their owners. The relationships, 
 for instance, between the dog and its master is 
 intuitive in the extreme. Its intuitive faculty is 
 in many cases so developed that it readily under- 
 stands the plans of the master when he is dis- 
 cussing them. He cannot rationally understand; 
 it is simple intuition. 
 
 Intuition, according to the occultists, is a fac- 
 ulty of the subjective mind, of the larger ego with 
 its higher discernment, its wider view, its more 
 unselfish view, its more accurate and unbiased at- 
 titudes. It is never false. Its flashes are cri- 
 terions of certainty, of moral seership, of deep 
 vision in the practical values of even work-a-day 
 life. We should never discredit its expression. 
 
 Affiliated, as it is, with the higher self, the 
 development of the intuitional faculties and their 
 consequent assistance in life, will depend in every 
 particular upon the development of those ele- 
 ments of our objective consciousness which are 
 more intimately blended with the higher self. 
 
212 Practical Occultism 
 
 And these links between the subjective and the 
 objective are the moral side of our nature, the 
 higher rational side, the possibilities of concen- 
 tration of the mind along the nobler ways, the 
 spirit of unselfishness. The larger ego within us 
 is the more spiritual, and by the development of 
 the spiritual elements in the objective self a bond 
 is established which will be strengthened in a ratio 
 of continuous relationship, until, finally, as the 
 objective self becomes entirely spiritualized, it 
 becomes absorbed within the greater self. Then 
 intuition will be the guiding star in every way of 
 life. Reason will have been set aside for direct 
 perception. For there is a spiritual phase of in- 
 tuition, not only that which concerns itself with 
 the mortal needs of man. There is that phase 
 which seeks the path of the soul, the untrammeled 
 path which leads to the realization of spiritual 
 truths and spiritual vision, the path which, if trod- 
 den, leads the soul into the understanding of its, 
 inner glories and powers, its infinite variableness 
 of expression, its divine essence, its imperishable 
 identity with the sublime spiritual power back of 
 nature and consciousness itself. When this high- 
 er mode of intuition is persistently sought, when 
 the effort becomes a permanent activity of the 
 soul, greater and greater vistas of soul possibili- 
 
Impressions and Intuitions 
 
 213 
 
 ties and soul heights open, and the glory of the 
 consummation of these things is such "of which 
 no eye hath ever seen or of which no ear hath 
 heard." 
 
COMMENTS ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 GOOD AND EVIL 
 
 No matter where we direct our attention we 
 iind two forms of sensations : those which are 
 classed as the good, the pleasing, and those which 
 are classed as the evil and the painful. Probably 
 the entire complexities of life could come under 
 this dual heading. Good and evil are only intel- 
 lectual terms for their physical counterparts, 
 pleasure and pain. These dual conceptions have 
 given rise to a dual interpretation of life, the 
 one representing the principle of good, the other 
 the principle of evil, both embodied in respective 
 systems of thought — the Philosophy of Good and 
 the Philosophy of Evil. 
 
 This digression into physical explanations is 
 necessitated in order to depart from the erroneous 
 methods of considering these philosophies in an 
 historical light whence repeated confusions and 
 differences have ever arisen. To gain a proper 
 intellectual survey of their origin we must con- 
 sider on what physical and sense premises they 
 have been exploited. 
 
 214 
 
Philosophy of Good and Evil 215 
 
 It is scientifically known that all ideas have 
 their evolutionary origin in the indefinite, in- 
 coherent, simplest rudimentary forms of the sen- 
 sations of the earliest beginnings of Life, gradu- 
 ally increasing in definiteness, coherency, gradu- 
 ally unfolding correspondingly more and more de- 
 cided psychological relations until finally, through 
 the interchangings of complex sensations and re- 
 sponsive complex conditions of mind, the hetero- 
 geneity of thought and emotion is attained. In 
 this manner, through immense lapses of time, the 
 physical ideas of space, of duration and succes- 
 sion of events, and the religious and philosophical 
 conceptions of absoluteness of being have been 
 evolved. Our infinitely intricate civilization, to- 
 gether with its totality of thought and feeling, 
 is therefore founded on the commencements of 
 sensation of the first particles of Life, developing 
 with the suppression of the gaseous conditions of 
 the earth's surface. Every thought and feeling 
 that we entertain, including the idea of good and 
 evil, have their ancestral tracings in the sense 
 experiences of the animalculae and protozcea, and 
 even farther, into the primary condition of things. 
 
 Reasoning from this physical basis, the first 
 advantage which either of the philosophies will 
 possess over the other is in a deeper reality in 
 conscious experience and knowledge. Returning 
 
216 Practical Occultism 
 
 to our sense deductions, it is evident that pain is 
 the greater physical reality. The sensation of 
 pain is associated with the agonies of contraction 
 of muscles and tension of nerves, and, naturally, 
 the impression of the painful sensation makes 
 an indelibly greater emotional and mental reality 
 in brain consciousness than does the sensation of 
 pleasure, which is accompanied with the exhilarat- 
 ing experiences of physical relaxation. Pain, be- 
 ing the deeper event in the facts of bodily and 
 mental life, it follows that the philosophy of its 
 causes and operations will have a deeper psycho- 
 logical influence and a deeper philosophical con- 
 viction than the Philosophy of Good. 
 
 If the Philosophy of Good is considered from 
 an ethical point of view, the first investigation to 
 be made is on what permanent ideas of right and 
 wrong it establishes itself. Right and wrong are 
 the ethical expressions through racial experience 
 of the influences of physical pain and pleasure, of 
 good and evil, as they affect the majorities and 
 the race generally. These expressions change 
 with the varying experiences and conceptions of 
 ages and times as to what is right and what is 
 wrong. They possess no stability, for what to- 
 day is virtue, generations hence may be considered 
 viciously degraded forms, just as we recall the 
 moral conceptions of ancestors from completely 
 
Philosophy of Good and Evil 217 
 
 different points of view than were originally 
 ascribed. Here again, right has its ultimate 
 physical bearings in that which is physically or 
 emotionally pleasing to the greatest number, 
 while what is pleasing to a minor number is con- 
 versely termed "wrong." This is the solution of 
 the great problems of ethics, the tracings of ani- 
 mal sensation racially modified, and intellectually 
 and ethically evolved to higher expressions, 
 There is no absolute condition of right and of 
 wrong, because innovations of evolutionary 
 methods and the gaining experience of Man, as 
 a race, will alter every new conception of the two. 
 Ethically, therefore, the Philosophy of Good and 
 the Philosophy of Evil are equal in significance, 
 the former possessing no superiority from logical 
 inferences. 
 
 The emotional influences of the two philoso- 
 phies is witnessed in their respective force in char- 
 acterizing motives for conduct. Religion has, for 
 the greater part, embodied these influences and 
 expresses them in her promises of good, pleasing 
 conditions, both here and hereafter, for right con- 
 duct, and in her threats of evil, painful conditions, 
 both here and hereafter, for wrong conduct. 
 She presents a heaven of physical pleasures and 
 sensorial good and a hell of physical torment and 
 sense evils — all having physical findings. Again, 
 
2l8 
 
 Practical Occultism 
 
 the hope of reward and the threat of punishment 
 are factors in civic relations for conduct. Which 
 has the greater influence over the emotional ele- 
 ment in human nature, the idea of heaven or hell, 
 the idea of reward or punishment? If we re- 
 member the argument of the inferiority of 
 pleasure as a physical fact, and the greater mean- 
 ing of pain, we need not digress into ramifications. 
 The philosophical reasonings concerning good 
 and evil are of greater importance, however, and 
 especially to-day, when a system of thought em- 
 bracing good and denying evil is exerting so much 
 attention. The unprejudiced thinker understands 
 that, in this world of diversity, every phenomenon 
 is subject to change and relativity. There is no 
 fixedness from which could be inferred any estab- 
 lishing principle concerning the relationships of 
 cosmic forces and their expressions unless we dare 
 to scientifically nullify this manifoldness of nature 
 into a physical, unifying principle, then into an in- 
 telligent, unifying principle, and finally into an im- 
 personal, unqualified, immutable and unknowable 
 principle. The philosopher, therefore, recognizes 
 that good and evil have their origin, limitations 
 and endings in the relative and the changeable. 
 We must either take this position or else deny 
 our sense experiences which inevitably show us the 
 passing and temporal even in the greatest of all 
 
Philosophy of Good and Evil 219 
 
 phenomena, and of course we must similarly deny 
 all intellectual inferences arising from our sense 
 perceptions- — in other words, we must deny our 
 personal existence. This is the position of Chris- 
 tian Science, which, in spite of its idealism versus 
 realism, cannot explain the origin of matter, error 
 and evil which the Eddy philosophy evidently 
 came to dispense with by a simple, meaningless 
 denial. Everything, to some extent, is a matter 
 of suggestion, and it may be that if they continue 
 to think and think that there is nothing but Good, 
 evolution will, by a paradoxically retrogressive 
 process, undo its work of bodily formation and 
 resultant sensorial development and leave the be- 
 lievers bodiless, sensationless, everything-less. 
 They will be physical nonentities and spiritual en- 
 tities, but how they explain existence without sen- 
 sation or consciousness passes the most imagina- 
 tive fancy. Again, in her imperative categories, 
 Mrs. Eddy has unfortunately forgotten to explain 
 "why" error and evil should exist even if only 
 as a shadow in some unimaginable fashion along- 
 side of the omnipresence, omnipotence and om- 
 niscience of Spirit. 
 
 Adherents to this one-sided philosophy say that 
 it is possible for the intellect to comprehend Good 
 in the abstract as an unquestionable and absolute 
 principle. To this it may be replied that it is 
 
220 Practical Occultism 
 
 possible for the intellect to comprehend Evil in 
 the abstract as an unquestionable and absolute 
 principle. To identify God with Good is to say 
 that we know something about Him. What can 
 we know of an impersonal Being without qualities, 
 who would be instantly limited and rendered finite, 
 should finite, mortal intelligence discover His 
 attributes. Just as our Self of selves forever es- 
 capes analysis, it being the Analyzer of its own 
 states of consciousness, so is that Imperishable 
 Being, the Self of existence, beyond the simpler 
 understanding of creatures, for It is the Eternal, 
 Omnipresent Subject. The theory of supremacy 
 of Good is not new. It is a modern plagiarism 
 and a modern adaptation of Platonic philosophy. 
 From a numerical point of view the Philosophy 
 of Evil possesses a larger constituency than the 
 Philosophy of Good, and exerts a wider racial 
 importance, for it is the practical, every-day 
 philosophy of the teeming millions of the East 
 and a growing following of Western thinkers, 
 who incline towards the conceptions of Schopen- 
 hauer and the school of German and French 
 pessimists. 
 
 Is Life ethically good or is it ethically evil? 
 Good and pleasure have their indefinite sources 
 in the personalities of the selfish and the pleasing. 
 Arguing over intellectual uncertainties can never 
 
Philosophy of Good and Evil 221 
 
 persuade the philosopher that Good is much else 
 than the expression of a tremendous cosmic sel- 
 fishness and unrest which finds its outlet in the 
 alternations of the universe. 
 
 As in physical experiences there is a tendency 
 towards least resistance, and so in mental experi- 
 ences the system of the philosophically Good is 
 the mode of this his tendency. To argue with the 
 leaders or representatives of these cults is useless, 
 for they reason in a circle and thus avoid the 
 otherwise stumbling-block of logic and of material 
 facts as defined by our conscious experience. Life 
 is too short to listen to word-mincers; they are 
 simply philosophical gymnasts who might as easily 
 disprove what they prove while using the same 
 methods of argumentation. 
 
PHILOSOPHICAL REFLECTIONS 
 THE NATURE OF REALITY 
 
 ON 
 
 All knowledge, all science, is based on the or- 
 der and the aggregate of human experience from 
 the primary sense observations of uncivilized man 
 to the complex sense intuitions of the highest de- 
 veloped humanity assisted by the mathematical 
 accuracies and unerring measurements in the vari- 
 ous departments of science. That which comes 
 under immediate sense perception, and that which 
 is equal at all times to the common experience of 
 every individual of the race as a species, has al- 
 ways been and always will be the basis of all 
 reality, and wherever an effort has been made 
 to establish some new phase of reality, there has 
 also been an appeal to past experience, so as to 
 point out the feasibility of the new. If you want 
 to prove some new theory it can be done only 
 by referring to a host of old, accepted-as-reality 
 theories, which, in turn, are founded on the earli- 
 est of sense conclusions corresponding to certain 
 realities in nature which are invariable in their 
 order, persistent and recurring with perpetual pre- 
 
 222 
 
Philosophical Reflections 223 
 
 eision, such as the changes of the seasons, the 
 alternations of day and night, the phenomena of 
 birth and growth, decay or death. Even in the 
 animal world there is an instinctive recognition 
 of a fundamental reality based on law-abiding 
 and continuously repeating occurrences in the 
 outer world, in accordance with which any num- 
 ber of creatures instinctively make preparations 
 for phenomena at times happening in a compara- 
 tively distant future. This, for example, is in- 
 stanced in the migration of many bird species an- 
 ticipating the arrival of different seasons. 
 
 In man this recognition of the persistence and 
 recurrence of certain phenomena, constituting the 
 reality in nature, is highly specialized, and the 
 instinctive fore-knowledge of the season on the 
 part of birds is eclipsed, through unthinkable 
 aeons of evolution, by the fore-knowledge of 
 planetary motions on the part of the astronomer 
 — and yet the latter faculty is only an extension of 
 the degree in perception of the former. Thus 
 the first and essential phase of reality is the 
 perceptible reality in nature common to all beings 
 and to which all beings agree. 
 
 The complete aggregate of sense experiences 
 and corresponding sense knowledge is, therefore, 
 strict reality and strict truth. We have seen how 
 the animal world has foresight of natural events 
 
224 Practical Occultism 
 
 and how it prepares itself accordingly. Such a 
 process might be provisionally termed "instinctive 
 reasoning," for it is the adaptation, no matter 
 how primitive, of intelligence to facts which are 
 out of immediate sense observation, out of the 
 immediate range of sight or touch or any of the 
 senses — facts which are presaged. In man this 
 "instinctive reasoning" has been developed to an 
 incomparable degree. "Instinctive reasoning" is 
 instinctive inference from certain given facts; it 
 involves the classification of phenomena and 
 variating attitudes of consciousness with regard 
 to them; it is the evolutionary commencement of 
 that which has reached its greatest possibility in 
 human nature — reason as embodied in philosophy. 
 Philosophy is therefore the activity of reason 
 in associating and classifying phenomena, not in 
 the limited sense that the animal classifies occur- 
 rences in its narrow vicinity and area of conscious- 
 ness, but in a sense universal which reviews the 
 general as well as the particular, which observes 
 the occurrences of nature not only on the plane 
 of the earth but in the farthest distances of space. 
 Thus the instinctive, the instinctive and the semi- 
 rational and the rational are intimately blended. 
 With this latter thought in view, the argument 
 of many materialistic schools that sense observa- 
 tion is the only means of knowledge and that all 
 
Philosophical Reflections 225 
 
 speculation from sense premises is vain, is incon- 
 ceivable. The very inferences of philosophy 
 which they are condemning are the outgrowth of 
 the immediate sense inferences involved in the 
 simplest acts of consciousness, such as that I know 
 if I put my hand on a heated surface I infer that 
 it will be burned. Just as the calculations of the 
 astronomers are elaborate sense inferences, so the 
 highest speculations of the philosopher are simi- 
 larly elaborate inferences having their ultimate 
 basis in the realities we observe in the external 
 world. 
 
 Philosophy is accordingly the synthesized con- 
 ception of human knowledge based, in turn, on 
 the sense realities objective to consciousness. 
 The system of thought which violates this aggre- 
 gated knowledge, partializing it into the errone- 
 ous or superstitious either through ignorance or 
 through policy, is adjudged less or more crude 
 as it is compared with systems of thought kindred 
 in origin. The philosophy which, to the best of 
 its ability, exercises a rational and scientifically 
 discriminating attitude to the entirety of human 
 knowledge is compared in surpassing order until 
 that system of thought is considered which most 
 satisfactorily agrees with the aggregate of human 
 experience and most satisfactorily answers the 
 queries of the mind concerning the world- 
 
226 Practical Occultism 
 
 problems and the relation of humanity to them. 
 All human experience is based on the relation 
 of consciousness through the senses with the ex- 
 ternal world, the relation of consciousness with 
 what is not consciousness. This is the primary 
 truth, the specific origin and common element in 
 all philosophy; but at the same time it is their 
 point of divergence, for in the different interpre- 
 tation of this primary truth, in the difference of 
 viewpoint of this reality, are engendered such 
 extremely separated attitudes as materialistic 
 monism, qualified aspects of materialistic monism, 
 variations of idealism ranging from the vagaries 
 * of the distorted metaphysics we see about us even 
 at present unto more possible and definite ideal- 
 istic conceptions, until at length we come to the 
 sublime spiritual monism embodied in the teach- 
 ings of the early Christian mystics, of the Bud- 
 dhists and the Brahmans, of the Eleusinian, Mi- 
 thraic and Samothracian mystics of antiquity, and 
 of the followers of the new psychology and the 
 later science of to-day. But the primary truth — 
 the relation of consciousness to what is external 
 to it, to what is not consciousness — is present in 
 every philosophy as a necessary fundamentalism. 
 Even deniers of the existence of matter and sense 
 experience affirm the existence, even though in a 
 negative sense, of something extraneous to "spirit- 
 
Philosophical Reflections 227 
 
 ual" consciousness which stands in relationship to 
 it and is called "mortal mind" or some kindred 
 mental abortion. Yet in the extreme they are 
 not to be criticised, for in the end they are right 
 — not in their final attitude, but in their respective 
 sectarian attitude, in which light even materialism 
 is correct. All partial views of the universe are 
 true in a partial light; it is only when the sup- 
 porters of this and that partial view universalize 
 it as the final expression of truth that they are 
 guilty of the absurd and merit the contempt of 
 the true philosopher. Truth is final and uni- 
 versal. It is a fixed principle and voices itself 
 to the human mind in continuously developing as- 
 pects until finally, according to the receptivity of 
 the most evolved group of the race, it indelibly 
 blends itself with the mind and voice of man. As 
 truth is one and final, therefore, in the end, all 
 partial views must merge into the highest con- 
 ception of truth. Partial views are bred of igno- 
 rance, of sectarianism, of the personal and the 
 selfish. When these are removed, the partial 
 evolves into the unsectarian and the universal. 
 Truth knows itself in all forms, and, even as the 
 bee sips only the honey of the flower, the disciple 
 of truth only selects truth, leaving the form to 
 the dispensations of the temporary. 
 
 Reality and truth, then, are inseparable. One 
 
228 Practical Occultism 
 
 is the complement of the other; one infers the 
 other; where one is found the other must be. 
 Reality, as has been previously stated, is the sum- 
 total of human experience; truth, in its objective 
 sense, the highest synthesized inference from that 
 sum-total. Reality is the perfect symbol of the 
 knowable universe, and, understanding its generic 
 nature, we understand the infinitesimal number 
 of problems and truths and principles which it 
 embraces — all subordinate to the solution of the 
 essence of reality itself. Therefore in the dim 
 Aryan forests, ages upon ages ago, the sage, leav- 
 . ing particulars to the scrutiny of our present cen- 
 tury with its microscopic and telescopic measure- 
 ments — centering his mind on generalizations and 
 the ultimate, universal reality, asked: "What is 
 that, knowing which, this entire universe shall be 
 known?" Or, again, even as the Zoroastrian 
 youth of old asked of Ahuramazda : "What, O 
 Ahura, is the nature of the permutations of life 
 and death; what is the nature of reality; what, O 
 Ahura, am I who ask this of Thee?" In these 
 queries of the sages of the ancient days we observe 
 the same mental attitude which has characterized 
 humanity ever since the dawn of the rational in- 
 stinct and has persisted throughout the ages until 
 the present time and will persist as long as man 
 thinks. There is the same question: What is 
 
Philosophical Reflections 229 
 
 the external world and what is the world of con- 
 sciousness and what constitutes reality? An ulti- 
 mate criterion of truth regarding these queries 
 can alone give an establishing principle whereon 
 to found a consistent system of thought and a 
 correspondingly consistent system of ethics — a 
 criterion of truth which in its invariableness and 
 everlasting certainty will equal the invariableness 
 and everlasting certainty of that principle which 
 has shadowed its truth in the unerring laws of the 
 universe. 
 
 In the attempt to solve the nature of reality as 
 far as that is possible to human intelligence, two 
 things are to be taken into consideration — exter- 
 nal nature and the inner consciousness manifest 
 everywhere, which is asleep in the chemical, min- 
 eral and vegetal element, which dreams in the 
 animal, which has awakened in man, and which 
 is gradually and gradually more evolved in the 
 range of intelligence above man. The two ques- 
 tions present themselves — what reality do we find 
 in the objective world of phenomena? what reality 
 in the subjective world of consciousness? Or 
 does, perhaps, the nature of reality transcend both 
 the objective and the subjective; is, perhaps, what- 
 ever reality in these two only a finite, evanescent 
 reflection of a deeper and vaster reality which 
 fathers their expression, which interpenetrates 
 
230 Practical Occultism 
 
 them in every centre of their life, and, constitut- 
 ing their sole existence, constitutes likewise the 
 sole existence, the sole truth, the sole reality 
 throughout illimitable space and illimitable mind. 
 The materialists say that reality exists alone in 
 the objective world of our senses and sense sur- 
 roundings, that reality is comprised in the real 
 things we feel, see, hear and so forth; the ideal- 
 ists say that it exists solely as Mind Universal — 
 that everything , tangible and concrete is but an 
 evolved symbol of a more permanent idea; abso- 
 lute spiritual monists say that it is neither the 
 objective nor the subjective which embodies real- 
 ity; that reality implies the changeless, the eter- 
 nal, the unconditioned, and that therefore we can- 
 not find it either in the dominion of matter or 
 mind, both of which are subject to change, to 
 modification, both of which have a beginning in 
 the relative, the temporary, and must therefore 
 disintegrate at the disintegration of the causal 
 principles which have projected the phenomenal 
 universe ; that both are the outcome of evolution, 
 and therefore that both will have their ending in 
 the workings of dissolution. 
 
 In this last position we have the assertion of 
 a reality which does not deny whatever reality 
 there is in the temporary arrangements of things 
 either subjective or objective, which, in fact, in- 
 
Philosophical Reflections 231 
 
 eludes them, while at the same time nullifying 
 them into an ultimate reality above all limitations 
 which is their true manifesting cause, and, there- 
 fore, alone worth the final attentions of the 
 philosopher. As this attitude is most all-inclusive 
 and most possible, it is best to proceed accord- 
 ingly. 
 
 An examination into the external world will 
 lead us to some very interesting conclusions. We 
 shall see that while the phenomenal world is real, 
 it is so only in a relative sense. Observations 
 of consciousness will terminate in a similar find- 
 ing. The existence of both consciousness and the 
 world will be seen to be naught in comparison 
 with a larger existence which includes them — 
 which is them. 
 
 We hear so much about sense realities and the 
 imperative necessity of remembering at all times 
 that concrete objects exist. Now let us see just 
 in how far reality does exist in objective life. 
 What do we know of the universe external to con- 
 sciousness? Only the sensations resulting from 
 the interactions of the outside world with con- 
 sciousness, and the rational inferences evolved 
 through associating and classifying these sensa- 
 tions at first into simple, semi-complex, then into 
 complex, general and finally into universal truths 
 regarding the operations of that which is the 
 
232 Practical Occultism 
 
 "not-self" of consciousness. How real, though, 
 and how all-inclusive are our sensations from 
 which we draw our philosophies? The latter 
 have been continually modified by the better un- 
 derstanding of sense experiences. At first the 
 thunder, the lightning and other phenomena were 
 interpreted crudely as being the work of agents 
 back of nature, and the philosophy and theology 
 of those times was according. Later, natural 
 events were more properly interpreted, and we 
 had the philosophy of the seventeenth, eighteenth 
 and nineteenth centuries. Now when science tells 
 us that all we know of nature is the sensations we 
 ' receive, psychology takes the advance of the sci- 
 ences and philosophy assumes the position that 
 phenomenal reality exists only as modes of con- 
 sciousness^ — the position which the Buddha 
 avowed five centuries before the advent of the 
 Christian era. 
 
 What do we know of any object? Only what 
 the limited number of Hvq senses report to the 
 brain, or, even more accurately stated, only the 
 resultant action in the form of knowledge of the 
 operations of external pressure. The external vi- 
 bration has wrought an impression in the brain 
 and called forth a state of consciousness, and 
 this state of consciousness, this reflex activity of 
 the mind in responding to sense vibrations, is the 
 
Philosophical Reflections 233 
 
 only knowledge we possess of the external con- 
 dition which has shadowed itself on the retina of 
 the eye or on the receptacle of any of the senses, 
 and which has been carried to the mind through 
 the activities of the sensory nerves and contermin- 
 ous molecular changes in the brain. The only 
 reality so far is the mental consciousness. But, 
 it is objected, the object itself has any number 
 of real-objective aspects and vibrations of which 
 we cannot become conscious owing to the limita- 
 tions of our nervous system. Remembering that 
 all that we know of any object is simply the re- 
 sultant sensation, then any increased number of 
 aspects and vibrations of an object would only be 
 so many increased degrees in the possibility of 
 sense perception and states of consciousness. For 
 the sake of illustration: Supposing we were pos- 
 sessed of four additional senses with respective 
 organs, their functions and with respective nerve 
 operations, then any of the objects we see every 
 day would be presented to our minds from nine 
 rather than five points of view — the area of con- 
 sciousness and the possibility of sensation would 
 be added to by four degrees. Or, considering the 
 matter in a different light, supposing we were 
 limited to but four or two senses, then we could 
 become conscious of an object only in a double or 
 treble fashion — in other words, the area of con- 
 
234 Practical Occultism 
 
 seriousness and sensation would be limited in ratio. 
 Creation presents itself in myriads of expressions 
 according to the nature and limitations and ex- 
 pansions in the area of consciousness. Although 
 we have given previous instances, take the case 
 of a man blind from birth gaining his sight in 
 later life, the undeveloped condition of the new 
 faculty would make him at first see things in an 
 exactly opposite view from ourselves. To him 
 spheres would be cubes and other dimensions of 
 form would correspondingly appear different. 
 His eyes, as yet unaccustomed to assistance by the 
 muscular and tactual senses, would be unaware 
 • either of distance, shape or solidity, as the only 
 impressions of which the retina would take cog- 
 nizance would be those of color and indirectly of 
 superficial extension. For this reason, like the 
 child, he might stretch forth his hand for the 
 moon. 
 
 All knowledge of the outer world, therefore, is 
 founded on the quality of sensation which arises in 
 the area of consciousness at external physical con- 
 tact. This is the extreme of science. As Pro- 
 fessor Ziehen puts it: "These facts reveal the 
 obvious error of former centuries, first refuted by 
 Locke, though still shared by naive thought to- 
 day, that the objects we see about us themselves 
 are colored, warm, cold, etc. As external to con- 
 
Philosophical Reflections 235 
 
 seriousness, we can only assume matter, vibrating 
 with molecular motion and permeated by vibrat- 
 ing particles of ether." The ideas of space and 
 the perception of qualities such as color, heat, 
 form, dimension, etc., are all educated concep- 
 tions of consciousness, for the baby, if in pain, has 
 no idea of the locality of pain. Likewise it is only 
 by the development of consciousness that it be- 
 comes aware of its body as distinguishable from 
 other objects. And the life of the baby is a com- 
 pendium of the indefinite conscious experience of 
 the race as a whole which it underwent in its 
 primary life and when it inhabited inferior forms. 
 Further examination into the nature of external 
 pressure will support the view that sensations are 
 all that we know of the phenomena about us. 
 In what does this external pressure consist which 
 has produced a state of consciousness? Merely 
 in modes of motion and the intensities of these 
 modes. Given a certain intensity of vibration of 
 air and you have sound, another intensity in the 
 undulations of ether and you have light and color 
 variations. The modifications of motion as they 
 affect consciousness ultimately give rise to the per- 
 ception of the entire phenomena of the external 
 world. The external world consists of simple 
 motions — the inner, psychic world of sensations 
 and their associative operations ; and, through the 
 
236 Practical Occultism 
 
 evolution of these sensations into complex sensa- 
 tions, percepts and concepts, qualities are super- 
 imposed on these external motions. Thus the 
 delicate green of the trees, the azure of the skies, 
 the songs of the birds, the perfume of flowers, 
 the forms of mountains, dales, rivers and stars, 
 is the echo in the soul of soundless, colorless, 
 formless motions without. Our sense experience 
 rebels at the relegation of the beautiful in nature 
 to motion, but what is sense experience other than 
 the mother of deception? Unassisted sense ex- 
 perience tells us that the moon is, of itself, light- 
 imparting, that the sun moves, that the horizon 
 kisses the flat surface of perspectives, that the 
 stars are small points of light, that the earth is 
 flat, and the list of deceptions could continue to 
 the indefinite. Reason has corrected these no- 
 tions, and science and psychology have likewise 
 proven that external phenomena are not what 
 they appear 1 - — that they are only exciting causes 
 of effects which appear in our conscious life as 
 sensations. Thus the seeming reality of objects 
 and the entire objective world fade into nothing- 
 ness, leaving only sensation and the exciting causes 
 of sensation, waves of motion. This we know, 
 but how certain motions are translated into sen- 
 sations is inexplicable. This is the great gap in 
 
Philosophical Reflections 237 
 
 the science of life which, up to the present, re- 
 mains insolvable. We have reached the point 
 where we realize that, in its undeveloped state, or 
 rather, as unaffected by consciousness, nature is 
 simply motion. It is only by consciousness that 
 the variations of matter and motion are inter- 
 preted as objects and qualities of objects. And 
 for this reason an eminent authority has said: 
 "Matter is simply the permanent possibility of 
 sensation." Therefore the phenomenal world 
 has but two permanently real aspects — the one 
 of exciting causes in the form of motions; the 
 other, states of consciousness. Ultimately we 
 shall see how even these blend into a higher sub- 
 jective unity. For the medium by which external 
 physical contact is modulated into sensation — on 
 our plane of being, the nervous system — is also 
 the product of motion, and as this medium in 
 every atom of its composition is the concrete 
 results of changes in consciousness, we get a 
 partial glimpse of the unity of consciousness, with 
 its medium of relationship in various planes of 
 the universe, and finally, of the unity of conscious- 
 ness with all forms and forces, all vibrations of 
 motion, which alone exist in the area of its per- 
 ception. This latest thought is the argument for 
 the hypothesis of science that every atom of the 
 
238 Practical Occultism 
 
 universe is a particle of sentiency, and that the 
 sum-total of this sentiency is the Absolute Exist- 
 ence, the Absolute Reality we call God. 
 
 In another phase in the examination into the 
 external world we observe the previously men- 
 tioned medium by which consciousness and the ex- 
 ternal vibrations come in contact. We find that 
 the most important feature in the morphology of 
 any organism, whether of the earth-plane or of 
 any plane of the universe, is, without question, 
 the transmitting medium of sense perceptions 
 whereby sense impressions and reflex sensations 
 are coherently synthesized and correlated. This 
 medium is the means by which the spirit of any 
 form can come into vibration and sense contact 
 with respective plane relationships and their ex- 
 periences — by which, in other words, it can live. 
 By the qualitative development of this medium is 
 measured the standard of its physical, emotional 
 and psychical probabilities. In every dimension 
 and vibration of life there is a kindred medium 
 for the transmission of sense experiences and their 
 parallelisms, and, on planes respectively lower or 
 higher, this medium, in a greater or less suscepti- 
 bility, similarly serves as an instrument through 
 which the universe's myriads of spirits can evi- 
 dence consciousness and gain evolutionary experi- 
 ences. Though apart from the subject, it might 
 
Philosophical Reflections 239 
 
 be suggested that according as this medium in its 
 susceptibility overlaps the normal faculties of con- 
 sciousness on its respective plane of operation 
 either to the plane above or the plane below, we 
 have the phenomena of spirit communication, 
 whether the communication be between entities 
 resident on the earth-plane and the plane of the 
 departed or between entities resident on Mars 
 and its psychic, subjective plane, or entities in any 
 other space dimension. Without this medium no 
 relative life were possible. It is through it that 
 the qualities of any object, including color, size, 
 form and so forth, are interpreted to conscious- 
 ness, so that, according as this medium is service- 
 able in different vibrations of life, and according 
 to its respective condition and activity, the same 
 object will appear in an extremely manifold 
 variety. As an instance of this take any of the 
 hundreds of objects surrounding us and let it be 
 perceived by beings living in bi-dimensional space 
 or by beings with different conceptions of length, 
 breadth or of thickness, or by beings living in 
 different aspects of matter and force, or, again, 
 by beings with even higher developed understand- 
 ing of form and the qualities of form and of di- 
 mension than is possessed by human beings — and 
 who will limit the possibilities under which matter 
 and force present themselves and the endless 
 
240 Practical Occultism 
 
 variety of perception — then such an ordinary ob- 
 ject as a stone would radiate in an almost infinite 
 variableness of aspects so that the mind pauses in 
 wonder at the idea. A two-space creature would 
 see it .as a flat object; we would see it in its height, 
 length and breadth ; a fish would see it as exagger- 
 atedly elongated with more or less depreciation 
 of thickness; beings living on the plane above us, 
 in fourth-dimensional space, although to us the 
 stone is opaque, to them it would be transparent 
 and possess only the barest appearance of solidity. 
 Thus the various aspects would continue as long 
 as beings with a different medium of transmission 
 • of sense objects would observe the stone. And 
 here it might be stated that even the most com- 
 monplace object is immortal. What right have 
 we to say that when we shatter a glass vessel we 
 have destroyed that which is the essence or even 
 that which was its physical cause ? What have we 
 destroyed? Only the appearance of that object 
 in tri-dimensional space. And, if we remember 
 that any object is but a sense consciousness of an 
 exciting cause, a physical motion, what right have 
 we to say that we have destroyed the possibility 
 of the perception of that motion in other modes 
 of life? Destroy it in this mode, and, were you 
 clairvoyant, you could discern it on the plane im- 
 mediately above. When we have destroyed any- 
 
Philosophical Reflections 241 
 
 thing it is only the effect of a certain cause, which 
 is beyond our grasp, and this cause remains and 
 vibrates as a certain effect in some other aspect 
 of matter and force. We have destroyed the 
 form, the phenomenal appearance of that which 
 has manifested itself on our plane as a glass, but 
 we have not annihilated the spirit, so to speak, of 
 that object. Again, that very glass vessel must 
 at some time appear in the same shape and other 
 qualities which it possessed previous to its shat- 
 tering. Take a pair of dice and throw them. 
 They fall in a certain order. Continue and you 
 find that order changing, yet the time must come, 
 though it may be after immense intervals, when 
 the initial order will again appear. Thus with 
 the entire world and its phenomena. These 
 bodies we have, these surroundings, these same 
 conditions, will renew themselves — with the only 
 difference that other consciousnesses will be 
 affected, while by the processes of nature we shall 
 have been placed in different states of life. 
 Science has demonstrated the mathematical truth 
 of the absolute indestructibility of matter and 
 force. Place certain chemicals on certain sub- 
 stances and they change their appearance from 
 solids to liquids, from liquids to gaseous sub- 
 stances, from gases to ethers — here is where the 
 present measurements of science, but not of 
 
242 Practical Occultism 
 
 nature, cease — from ethers to the next finer state 
 of state and thus continuously. Now all the while 
 the essence, the soul of the object has remained 
 associated with the variating form, manifesting 
 itself alternately in different aspects of matter 
 as different chemicals were used to change its 
 form. Again, take certain chemical preparations, 
 and the object returns from ethereal vibrations 
 to the gases, from the gases to the fluids, from 
 the fluids to the solids, completing the circle, and 
 finally presenting the same essence and the same 
 form that was previously subjected to chemicali- 
 zation. On this idea is founded the physical basis 
 Qf immortality. Of course we cannot conceive 
 immortality without the possession by immortal 
 consciousness of a body and a medium of sense 
 relations corresponding in faculty and function 
 to the faculty and function of the nervous system. 
 By the experience of death, which is nothing else 
 than the complete dechemicalization of the body 
 into its causal elements, in other words, into those 
 rarer states of matter adaptable to ethereal vibra- 
 tions, but which require grosser evolution to 
 manifest themselves on the physical earth plane — 
 we have, by the persistence of matter and force, 
 the necessary hypothesis of a body accompanying 
 the departing spirit into the realms of the in- 
 visible. We have seen how by chemical processes 
 
Philosophical Reflections 243 
 
 the essence of objects are accompanied by vac- 
 ating form — from the solid into the liquid, from 
 the liquid into the gaseous, from the gaseous into 
 the ethereal, from the ethereal into the next 
 higher association. Similarly at death the useless 
 gross body, subject to putrefaction, is discarded 
 by the spirit for an ethereal counterpart of the 
 body which is frequently seen hovering over newly 
 made graves. As the spirit progresses, this 
 ethereal body, by reason of its proximate connec- 
 tion with the physical body, is also subject to dis- 
 integration, leaving the spirit possessed finally of 
 what is known in occult sciences as the astral 
 body — the body of the subjective mind which 
 evolves itself into the gross body at reincarnation. 
 The astral body is visible in psychic experiences 
 from those of the ordinary medium to the experi- 
 ences of a Joan of Arc or the experiences cited in 
 Biblical instances. 
 
 In the preceding paragraphs we have observed 
 the nature of objects and the objective world at 
 large and found them to be, in so far as we know, 
 simply states of consciousness resulting from the 
 pressure of extraneous physical contact. What 
 this physical contact is we do not know, but as 
 all the processes of the universe tend toward ulti- 
 mate unity, it is certain that in some way the ob- 
 jective and subjective world blend into a unity — 
 
244 Practical Occultism 
 
 even if that unity is the state of latency which 
 obtains before the disturbance of the cosmic 
 equilibrium, when all forms and forces, all causal 
 laws and cosmic principles have become static. 
 We have observed the existence of the medium, in 
 our case the nervous system, by which conscious- 
 ness and the external vibrations are related, and 
 have seen that this medium, in every bit of its 
 structure, is the composite of states of conscious- 
 ness just as in the case of the nervous system each 
 nerve particle represents a mental impression of 
 racial experience in the ancestry, so that, could 
 evolution undo its work, the disintegration of 
 nerve particles would be accompanied by the re- 
 appearance of past states of sense consciousness 
 from the earliest sensations of earliest forms unto 
 the present moment. We have seen how this 
 medium and the solid form of the body melt into 
 rarer states according to the changes which con- 
 sciousness experiences at death. And occult 
 teaching states that, as the soul progresses into 
 the highest spheres and that as the states of con- 
 sciousness become more and more advanced, more 
 and more separated from the gross expression of 
 sense desires and their indulgence, more and more 
 separated, even, from the merely intellectual and 
 psychic, when they become more and more 
 spiritual until the acme of spiritual consciousness, 
 
Philosophical Reflections 245 
 
 intelligence and bliss is realized, the body which 
 encases the soul becomes more and more rare in 
 the composition of its elements, rarer than ether, 
 rarer than the finest conceivable or existing states 
 of matter, until at length it fades entirely from 
 existence, leaving the liberated soul formless, 
 bodiless, leaving it as it was before the founda- 
 tion of the universe — one with the Illimitable and 
 the Imperishable which it eternally was, but which 
 it failed to perceive because of veils of illusion. 
 
 Not in the objective world is reality — not in 
 the sphere of relative consciousness, with its sen- 
 sations of the ordinary doings of life, the sensa- 
 tions of its struggles for existence, of its weal or 
 its woe, its sins or its virtues. 
 
 It is not force which is reality, but that which 
 manifests itself as force ; it is not matter which is 
 reality, but that which manifests itself as matter; 
 it is not sensation, life or consciousness which 
 form reality, but that which expresses itself 
 through them. It is the background, the white 
 canvas, along which this picture show of the uni- 
 verse is moving with its myriad expressions and 
 personalities, which is reality, not the shifting 
 phenomena on the canvas. 
 
 All these variations of sense perception and the 
 inferences therefrom should teach us that in their 
 final bearings all objects are embodied in a divine 
 
246 Practical Occultism 
 
 reality. For the essence of all things remains the 
 same — the form through which it expresses itself 
 alone changes. The essence is the eternal subject 
 in all phenomena ; the form, the variating symbol 
 which changes with the less or greater manifes- 
 tation of the essence. What is this essence, 
 eternal in its nature, which permeates all objects? 
 In the terms of reason, Herbert Spencer has 
 proved its utter unknowableness. In the terms of 
 spiritual philosophy, it is the All-Spirit which 
 manifests itself ever-present and in strange vari- 
 ableness of beauty, no matter what form it as^ 
 sumes. It accompanies the changes of form, and 
 is the guiding Intelligence which develops the 
 minutest atom as well as the mightiest central 
 suns. All forms are its habitations, and in all 
 modes of life it proves its equal supremacy by 
 reason of the fact that it is. 
 
 Though we had a million senses, there would 
 still remain something unperceived, something of 
 which we could not be conscious, something which 
 would be perpetually subjective. Ultimately, 
 therefore, even as with our own consciousness, ob- 
 jects in their entirety are unanalyzable. Like our 
 own states of consciousness, we may analyze the 
 material states of objects, but, in reality, those 
 very material states are our own mental states ris- 
 ing in reaction to something we believe to be 
 
Philosophical Reflections 247 
 
 external to ourselves. But as, in truth, our men- 
 tal states are identical with our consciousness — 
 being only modes of its expression — so, in like 
 manner, all associations of matter and force are 
 only material symbols of that special Unknowable 
 Subjectivity in which our consciousness also 
 blends and which religion perceives as "That" or 
 Supreme Being, or Personalized God, and which 
 science conceives as that Abstract Unknowable- 
 ness. And in support of this position the famous 
 statement of Spencer might be given, which em- 
 bodies the idea that the energy which is mani- 
 fested throughout the knowable universe and the 
 external pressure which calls forth sensation is 
 the same energy which wells up in us as conscious- 
 ness, thus ascribing to the universal principle the 
 same condition of being and intelligence, only in- 
 finitely extended and purified, as is witnessed in 
 the consciousness of Man. And herein lies the 
 material, matter-of-fact background of such 
 spiritual verities as "Thou are That," the dogma 
 of omnipresence, the dogma of the intrinsic unity 
 of all forms and all forces, all states of conscious- 
 ness, and all phenomenal and objective reality in 
 Something which transcends everything and yet 
 is everything, Something which antedates, by 
 eternity, the projection of universes, and Some- 
 thing which outlives, by eternity, their dissolution, 
 
248 Practical Occultism 
 
 Something which, for lack of better expression, 
 we feebly call Spirit, Unconditioned, Absolute, 
 World-Soul, and so forth. This is the Supreme, 
 and, in fact, the only Truth; this is Silence and 
 True Peace which underlies the immensities, the 
 realization of which is the attainment of the 
 Christ-Spirit, the liberation of the soul from the 
 bondage of finalities and the relative, the falling 
 from the eyes of the soul of all conceptions of the 
 changeable universe and the consciousness only 
 and absolute of the existence of Spirit. This is 
 Nirvana. 
 
DEEPER MEANINGS 
 
 The external is little compared with the inter- 
 nal. It is the internal nature of things from 
 which the external develops. It is the hidden 
 source that is the true source. It is the invisible 
 well-spring of truth that matters. It is the foun- 
 tain of causes with which the soul should be con- 
 cerned. It does not center attention on the inter- 
 nal, however. It is only unconsciously concerned 
 with seeking and realizing the internal. Man 
 seeks the internal whenever he reaches forth to 
 secure that which is external. As the soul grows 
 in knowledge it realizes that the full meaning of 
 anything visible is its invisible essence. That in- 
 visible essence embodies itself in everything. 
 
 Strange as it may seem, the real nature of the 
 universe is invisible. The rose is potential in the 
 seed. It is there in all its beauty and glory, but 
 invisible. Yet were it not there it could not 
 develop. The greatness, or the genius of a 
 Napoleon is involved within a bit of protoplasm. 
 It is hidden, invisible. Later it develops, assum- 
 ing visible and tangible appearance. 
 
 249 
 
250 Practical Occultism 
 
 The things that concern man's deepest life are, 
 all of them, invisible. Truth, goodness, beauty, 
 adorableness, loveliness and all other noble quali- 
 ties are, in truth, abstract. They are embodied 
 and become perceptible when a man aspires to 
 spiritual heights and, in the aspiration, realizes 
 these things, Man takes the spiritual and makes 
 it physical. For example, man becomes good; 
 that is, he makes the ideal of goodness a con- 
 creteness, a thing that one can sense. In its abso- 
 lute condition; goodness is too high for mortal 
 cognizance. Man could not appreciate ideals in 
 and for themselves. Therefore, he worships 
 J:hem in their personified state. The Christ-like 
 character would remain ever ideal, ever abstract, 
 did not a supreme soul like that of Christ give 
 form and definiteness to it. 
 
 In the realm of science and invention, truth first 
 exists in the ideal. The ideal scientist gives years 
 of thought to a subject. Finally the concentra- 
 tion becomes so intense that it takes on a mental 
 form ; that is, from out the innumerable thoughts 
 there must arise an image corresponding to the 
 nature of the subject reflected upon. This image 
 is in the subconscious mind. There it is nurtured, 
 until, at last, the conscious mind becomes recep- 
 tive to its workings and realizes the image as a 
 thing of beauty, or a thing of truth. Time and 
 
Deeper Meanings 251 
 
 again we hear great men of science speak of their 
 discoveries as if they were intuitions. They speak 
 with the authority of prophets. It is a question 
 whether all forms of discovery of truth are not 
 intuitive and inspirational. Of course, it is un- 
 doubtedly true that the greatest discoveries of 
 truth are the discoveries of things related to the 
 soul. Yet, in the last analysis, all things are 
 related to the soul and every discovery, however 
 named or however employed, is, in some form or 
 other, serviceable to mankind, whether this ser- 
 vice be negative or positive. If it is negative it 
 comes into the experience of the race as what we 
 call evil, but even evil is a necessary factor in the 
 development of cosmic purposes. True dis- 
 covery, of whatever description, is sacred and it 
 is likewise revealed. 
 
 The scientist is, in his special way, a priest. 
 His utterances are sacred utterances, and his 
 works benedictions to mankind as much as the 
 voice and the work and the service of the anointed 
 priest. Viewed from some points, life itself is 
 religious. Every act, however characterless and 
 however vague, has a moral meaning, developing 
 a sense of good or a sense of evil, developing, 
 also, the rewards of good and the punishments of 
 evil. The truths that science discovers are all 
 hidden truths. The devotion of the scientist to 
 
252 Practical Occultism 
 
 his work is a religious devotion and from the 
 fervor of his devotion the incense of humanitarian 
 sympathy rises and from sympathy the powers to 
 relieve distress and to bring education closer and 
 closer to the dawning mind. Not a book-learned 
 education, however, but an education that pre- 
 sents itself in a better knowledge concerning the 
 uses of life and a better and more sensitive and 
 more artistic appreciation of the beauties and 
 wonders of life. 
 
 No scientist who deeply enters into his work 
 can fail to pause in rapture and in wonder at the 
 divinity his special science reveals, for, indeed, the 
 limitations of any science exceed and ever exceed 
 the increasing knowledge of the investigator and, 
 in this respect, each special science is truly divine. 
 The farther a man goes in any branch of science, 
 the more subtle become the forms into which he 
 investigates. The farther he goes, the more 
 metaphysical does his science become, until 
 physics and metaphysics brush elbows, finally 
 merging into the unit of a single, all-comprehen- 
 sive and all-pervading truth. 
 
 There are many things in philosophy of which 
 the mind is not yet informed. The mind is gradu- 
 ally expanding, and as it expands to greater and 
 greater proportions, its conceptions of truth be- 
 come more extensive and true. The revelations 
 
Deeper Meanings 253 
 
 it receives become more faithful and more truth- 
 portraying. The more the mind investigates, the 
 more it must investigate. The farther the quest 
 of the mind, the farther its search after that 
 quest. The dream of knowledge, like the dream 
 of life itself, is endless. The concourse of all 
 scientists could only give a theory, and a theory 
 is always metaphysical. Only after much experi- 
 mentation do theories become facts. The entire 
 concensus of all scientists would merge into a 
 question, into a hesitancy and into a doubt. The 
 ultimate nature of the mind is dubious concerning 
 the objects of knowledge. The infinite accuracy 
 and the painstaking energy of the mind pushes a 
 question so far that it becomes metaphysical, so 
 that even demonstrable presentations of truth 
 lose their influential signs and become hypotheti- 
 cal. The nature of the mind is circular, and for 
 this reason it always questions and always will 
 question and never know in certain truth. The 
 exploited facts concerning nature become myths 
 when the minds of later scientists are set to work- 
 ing. Even the law of gravitation has been put 
 to the test. 
 
 The passing strangeness of life, of knowledge, 
 of truth, of reality, of illusion, of certainty, of 
 uncertainty, of quest and lack of interest — all 
 these are workings of something which is inde- 
 
254 Practical Occultism 
 
 scribable, something behind nature, yet not un- 
 natural, something above the mind and yet not 
 distinct from the mind, something which is of the 
 soul, co-existent with the soul, yet transcended by 
 the soul. All manifestation is of the soul, be that 
 manifestation what we call life, be it what we call 
 death, be it what we call knowledge, be it what we 
 call ignorance, be it what we call truth, be it what 
 we call error. So far as reason and spiritual dis- 
 crimination — all these things are but names of the 
 different motions through which the soul passes 
 on its onward superphysical and spiritual way, 
 for the goal is spiritual, for the goal is beyond 
 the senses and beyond thought, yea, beyond the 
 utter and final description of man. 
 
 The psychological definition of any state of 
 consciousness is in ratio to the amount of intelli- 
 gence involved, and as feeling is always co-exten- 
 sive with consciousness, the highest state of the 
 soul would be an endlessness of consciousness, 
 both in variation and extension, a knowledge co- 
 extensive with all possible objects of knowledge, 
 including, therefore, the universe, and a corre- 
 spondence in feeling which, being the composite of 
 the infinite in life and knowledge, would also par- 
 take of the supremacy of their character. That 
 is, the sum-total of all definitions regarding feel- 
 ing would be bliss, sheer expansion of feeling to 
 
Deeper Meanings 255 
 
 the uttermost possibilities, that is to the infinite. 
 Thus God is the synthesis of life, knowledge and 
 bliss. Endless in life, knowledge and spiritual- 
 ized, divine feeling, he is imminent in every fibre 
 of life, every grain of knowledge, the essence of 
 every object of knowledge, the manifestation of 
 all things, the potential in the universe, — and also 
 the basis and meaning of every feeling. 
 
 That is the deeper meaning of Godhead, the 
 significance embodied in the name God and in His 
 existence. Therefore, whatever is real, true and 
 substantial, positive and abiding in the nature of 
 each individual soul is also real, true and eternal 
 in the nature of God. He is all in all. To de- 
 scribe Him as less would do away with our con- 
 ception of Divinity, with our conception of the 
 Supreme. He, embodying Himself, embodies all. 
 He, Self-conscious, is the consciousness of all 
 selves. He, knowing, is the knowledge and also 
 the knowledge-discovering faculties and qualities 
 of all beings. He is the super-sensuous God who 
 is whatever is. 
 
 This meaning is a worthy meaning of God. 
 This God is beyond the molten images of clay to 
 which we bow down. It is the Idol and the Ideal 
 of the soul. It is the soul. Whatever import may 
 be attached to the soul must also be attached to 
 God. He is working through the eyes that see. 
 
256 Practical Occultism 
 
 It is He that is working through the mouth that 
 tastes, the heart that beats, the nose that smells, 
 the organs that carry on the bodily functions. 
 He is the entire body. Though men are unaware 
 of these truths, they exist, just as the sun exists, 
 though the darkness of night and the orientation 
 of the sun renders its vision impossible to one-half 
 the world. 
 
 Whatever exists in nature exists in a partial 
 sense. That is why nature is indescribable. What 
 the whole of nature is composed of escapes our 
 most patient and diligent analysis. Whatever is 
 real in nature, therefore, escapes our just investi- 
 gation. As nature is partially revealed, as there 
 is the boundless, infinite potential still waiting to 
 be shadowed forth in the cosmos as new worlds, 
 new suns, new solar systems, as there is the end- 
 less, still pregnant within the infinite womb of 
 nature, so the Highest Truth, the Boundless 
 Truth, the Unnameable Truth is, though its reve- 
 lations must be partial. No one revelation truly 
 contradicts another. The inner meaning blends 
 with the inner meaning of all truth. That is the 
 unifying point where discords merge into a har- 
 monious whole. 
 
 Supreme and unique, all-containing and won- 
 drous, omni-present and omni-working is That 
 Which men have termed Truth. Supreme, be- 
 
Deeper Meanings 257 
 
 cause it is all in all. Whatever exists is, really, 
 a concrete message of the super-physical truth. 
 Whatever is, is a manifestation of truth. What- 
 ever must be, will be a revelation in the physical, 
 or in the mental, in the psychic, or in the spiritual, 
 a revelation of the truth which presents itself in 
 ways innumerable and in forms varied as the 
 changes in the sky. 
 
 It is the reality that man is seeking. "What is 
 the real?" is his constant cry. "What is real?" 
 he asks. Indeed, "What is real?" Nothing exists 
 in the outward order which does not change, and 
 change means non-persistence, and non-persistence 
 means unreality. So within ourselves whence the 
 query of truth finds origin, wherein the query of 
 truth finds meaning; from within ourselves must 
 come the answer, from within ourselves the defini- 
 tion, from within ourselves, the light and the re- 
 deeming grace to know. A sorry world and a 
 gloomy spiritual outlook greets him whose query 
 fails to find any solution. The seeker stops seek- 
 ing and, giving up his life to the pursuits of the 
 senses and to the follies of the passing states of 
 things, sinks into the animal existence which seeks 
 not, nor discovers, but is subject for its progress 
 alone to the blind urge of instinct. 
 
 Man is a god, but his divinity is one that must 
 be asserted. The Olympian heights where he 
 
258 Practical Occultism 
 
 asserts his ground must be the heights if the 
 divinity he boasts shall remain in the picturesque 
 glory of the empyrean. It is the deeper meaning 
 which must be emphasized. The outer meaning is 
 liable to misinterpretation and misconception. 
 We interpret meanings to things that give forth 
 no meanings and solemnly set ourselves to the 
 task of naming things that are nameless, because 
 they are non-persistent, because they are unreal. 
 
 Life must mean something different to us than 
 we are accustomed to understand it. It must have 
 more extensive expression and fuller meaning. I,t 
 is the deep meaning which we must seek. That 
 deep meaning, once we are awakened to it, will 
 make us mount the glorious staircase of life in 
 a way triumphant, surmounting, overwhelming 
 everything in the path by the sweet irresistibleness 
 of our love and knowledge. The hidden springs 
 of life are springs of purity, of divinity, of bliss 
 and of exaltation of soul. When we get at the 
 bottom-rock facts of life, when we have traced 
 the source and fathomed the reasons of virtue and 
 goodness, when we comprehend the general and 
 spiritual meaning of goodness, of truth and of 
 beauty, in and for themselves, then we shall have 
 resurrected ourselves to sublimest heights of soul. 
 Then, indeed, we shall have heard the chorus of 
 
Deeper Meanings 259 
 
 the morning stars and listened to the Voice of 
 the Silence, which is the Voice of God. 
 
 Little mortals we, here in the vale of tears. 
 Crying children in the dark, spoiled children, 
 wishing for the things that we should mercilessly 
 discard, ignorant of our ways and not understand- 
 ing the serene, passionless calm and the strength 
 of the calm that comes from control and purity, 
 we wander through the great spaces of life and 
 through its great lapses of time, characterlessly, 
 aimlessly, meaninglessly, empty-handed, cheated, 
 defeated, miserable, — and all this is illusion. 
 Pain, and pain only can teach the understanding 
 and the mysterious teachings of experience. 
 
 Guide us amid the gloom. "O Shiva help the 
 visionary ! O Shiva help the blind, for the night 
 is darkest darkness and the moonlight is ob- 
 scured." That is the prayer which the soul should 
 send from its depths to the heights spiritual. 
 Fathomless, profound beyond understanding, the 
 everlasting soul alone is true. It alone is real. 
 Thou art the soul. The soul alone is. This is 
 the true, this is the immortal doctrine. This is the 
 real, this the self-sufficient truth. This is the one 
 fact beyond all facts, the supreme, the only, the 
 all-important, the essential, the bliss and peace be- 
 stowing consciousness. "Arise, thou that sleepest 
 
260 Practical Occultism 
 
 the sleep of the spiritual death ! Arise, thou bliss- 
 ful one and declare thy true nature I" 
 
 The meaning of life is spiritual. There can be 
 no other meaning. The spiritual interpretation 
 alone explains. The spiritual interpretation alone 
 satisfies the searching, longing soul. "Arise, thou 
 effulgent soul!" The Vedas, the Bible, all scrip- 
 tures, whatever their character, their age and 
 description, tell the priceless story of the one and 
 only truth, the truth that makes men free, the 
 truth that they are the soul ; not the body, but the 
 soul; not the mind, but the soul; not the psychic 
 constitution, but the soul. It is the deathless, 
 because it is the changeless entity. It is the real, 
 because at all times the same. The soul is pristine 
 in perfection, in glorious purity, in strength un- 
 conquerable, in bliss all containing, in truth all- 
 revealing. Thou art thy soul. Not that the soul 
 is a part of man's nature; not that it is a quality 
 of his being, but that it is the soul which alone is. 
 Whatever a man is, he is the soul. That alone is 
 real, because that is he. Yet even that "he" is, 
 in the ultimate, phantasmical. The soul must die 
 to egoism and in this death find its real "Ego" 
 which is the Cosmic, Universal Ego of God. 
 
 Stainless, pure and holy, sublime, unendingly 
 matchless, incomparable, like the sky in extension 
 and like the sun in radiance and glory, the self- 
 
Deeper Meanings 261 
 
 revealed soul is one with the source of light and 
 life, of truth and knowledge, of all that is, of 
 all that is not, of the supreme and infinite source 
 of life. Boundless and unnameable, transcending 
 the understanding and life of creatures is that life 
 beyond the senses, that life beyond the mind. 
 Thought and matter are both aspects of the same 
 condition, but there is something beyond matter, 
 something infinitely beyond mind. That Some- 
 thing is the Divinity, the divine nature residing in 
 man, which is the truth of man, the life of man, 
 the power of man, the glory of man, the peace of 
 man, the benediction, the bliss, the ecstasies, the 
 aspiration of man. 
 
 Enduring throughout and beyond all time, ex- 
 tending throughout and beyond all space, free, 
 fearless and divine, — that is the nature of the 
 soul. Let occur what may, let rivers form into 
 seas and oceans, overflowing their shores, make 
 havoc with the earth; let darkness cover the earth 
 and let the earth roll into a gaseous nothingness, 
 the soul lives on and on, nor can the destruction 
 or the disintegration of everything physical affect 
 it. Let the mind cease its query, let the arguments 
 and the ratiocinations of mind cease, let the entire 
 mental status pass into formlessness and expres- 
 sionlessness of unawakened thought, still the soul 
 shines, still lives the soul and nothing can hurt or 
 
262 Practical Occultism 
 
 harm it. Fire cannot burn it, water cannot 
 dampen it, nor can the sword cleave it. It is the 
 imperishable; it is the indestructible. 
 
 Awake ! Arise ! Declare, O soul, thy strength. 
 For men are gods in embryo and the Promethean 
 fire is rekindled by the breath of God. In the 
 spaciousness of time and in the all-inclusiveness of 
 space dwells the truth, the knowledge that we are 
 immortal, not in the sense that we simply survive 
 bodily disintegration. That were a poor immor- 
 tality, indeed. What the soul must arrive at is 
 deathlessness, the condition in which this relative 
 life and this relative death are meaningless terms, 
 where the soul possesses the consciousness of its 
 'eternality and formlessness. Formless, it is be- 
 yond space ; thoughtless, it is beyond time. It is 
 beyond the combinations that form in space and 
 the mind-waves that combine in time. It is seed- 
 less of tendencies that cause the renewed expres- 
 sion of physical life in which the soul is identified 
 with body or, where the superstition is less crass, 
 with mind. 
 
 Salvation is his who redeems himself. No one 
 can redeem another. From within ourselves must 
 come the redeeming strength. From within our- 
 selves must proceed the courageous strength that 
 masters difficulties and lustily and successfully 
 
Deeper Meanings 263 
 
 assails the ignorance that would crush the rising 
 soul. Omnipotence is with the soul, the omnipo- 
 tence of the divinity of the Supreme. It need 
 stand in fear of nothing. It is powerful and can 
 command all conditions, once it awakens to its 
 sense of soul proportions, once it awakens to the 
 consciousness that within itself is the life that 
 causes suns to revolve in space with the propelling 
 power of universal force, that within itself is the 
 knowledge that causes men to know, and that 
 keeps, in mysterious balance and hidden from the 
 physical perception, the realm of mind. 
 
 We are on the way. It may be long, but it is 
 not endless. It may be tedious, but its tediousness 
 is infinitely repaid with the great knowledge and 
 the great realization that the soul wins in over- 
 coming. 
 
 It is time to rouse our slumbering conscious- 
 ness. We are alive on but one side of our nature, 
 the menta-physical side. There are other sides 
 to the nature of man, but, above all, there is the 
 spiritual side. Understanding and revealing this 
 side, all other sides are revealed by him. "Glory 
 to Man is the highest, for Man is the Master of 
 things," sang a great seer-poet. But this Man 
 and this Manhood is the statuesque man of 
 spiritual proportions. It is the divine size of the 
 
264 Practical Occultism 
 
 Inner Man, the Man of God, upon whom the 
 Spirit of the Supreme has breathed the undying 
 life and the undying light. 
 
 We need only beckon, and truth shall serve us. 
 We need only ask, and we shall receive. We need 
 only knock, and the gates of the heavenly city 
 of soul shall open. The beatific vision shall then 
 unfold and the soul of man be thrilled through 
 and through, thrilled with the ecstasy and the 
 glorious perception that, from beginningless time 
 and throughout the eternity of eternities, in and 
 beyond the days and nights of Brahm, it has ever 
 been one with the Heart of the Universe, one with 
 the World-Soul, one with all things that make 
 for endless knowledge, life and bliss. 
 
THE DIVINITY OF THE SOUL 
 
 Transcendent heights are utterly beyond the 
 ordinary human perspective and yet they are to 
 be attained. Such is the paradox and destiny of 
 life. The thought of Godhead must be super- 
 seded by a consciousness of Godhead. The 
 ability to soar into that empyrean of glory, to- 
 wards which the intellect of man points, is di- 
 vinity. Man's highest thought must become his 
 highest feeling. Perception of a truth is greater 
 than the mere thinking of it and thus the trans- 
 lation of our idea of Godhead into the realm of 
 our perfect consciousness of the divinity is what 
 is necessary. It is only through the glorious haze 
 of the centuries and through the ardent loyalty of 
 a devoted discipleship that we understand incar- 
 nations, but incarnations themselves must have 
 sensed a deeper and far vaster divinity than that 
 which presents itself to the disciple's mind in their 
 manifestation of divinity. The consciousness of 
 divinity possessed by the Buddha must have gone 
 supremely beyond the consciousness of his disciple. 
 A great man is ever infinitely greater in his own 
 
 265 
 
266 Practical Occultism 
 
 nature than can be appreciated. What the critic 
 perceives and praises, the truly great know and 
 feel. 
 
 It is for that which the great of soul strive that 
 must be our aim. Mere discipleship is not all that 
 is demanded. What we are called upon by the 
 very exigencies of our souls to do is to reach the 
 same goal and attain unto the same height as the 
 Sons of Men, whom we worship, have come to. 
 Divinity manifests itself in strength, not in 
 struggle, or if in struggle, a struggle which over- 
 comes and which sweeps aside the clouds of 
 spiritual and emotional unrest and allows the 
 glory of the light divine to penetrate through and 
 through the being of the soul. Divinity is the 
 birthright and the ultimate heritage of the man 
 who is sincere, be that sincerity great or small. 
 What is wanted is a pre-eminent sincerity. Can 
 we be sincere? If we are sincere then we may be 
 assured that nothing can lastingly stand in our 
 way. Mistakes we may make in trying to touch 
 the throne of the eternal, but in that effort even 
 our mistakes are divine. 
 
 Divinity embodies itself and is made manifest 
 in the purity of the saints who have sensed the 
 immeasurable. Purity is the outward expression 
 of the crystal depths of the soul of the Infinitely 
 Pure One and of the Stainless One. It is the in- 
 
The Divinity of the Soul 267 
 
 terpretation in the language of great thoughts and 
 great emotions of what exists unlimited and un- 
 thinkably sublime in that which is the eternally 
 blessed and holy and which man worships in his 
 highest mental and spiritual flights. Only the 
 pure in heart attain unto the consciousness that 
 is the divine. 
 
 He does exist and He is the One and Single 
 Soul in this universe and He appears as many 
 and varied. He is the changeless essence in this 
 dying world. Imperishable is He, for He has 
 realized that which can neither decay nor grow 
 long or be increased in any direction, for it dwells 
 not in the forms of space nor does it rest in time. 
 It knows only eternity and is eternity. Ever since 
 the dawn of historic insight we find men praising 
 the Transcendent. The heart of man is as correct 
 in its sensing and longing for the infinite as it is 
 correct and sincere in its longing and love for 
 the beautiful. The mind and heart of man have 
 placed that which is called God far beyond all 
 common measurements. He is called the Perfec- 
 tion of all relative perfections. He is the sun and 
 the moon and the radiance of the stars. Greater 
 than He there is nothing. This the heart of man 
 has felt for scores and scores of centuries. This 
 the mind of man has perceived through the inter- 
 minable lengths of time during which both the 
 
268 Practical Occultism 
 
 mind and heart of man have endeavored to know 
 the mystic glories of the beyond. 
 
 Divinity is the sum-total of all expression. 
 Than it there never was nor can be anything. It 
 is the source of all that is describable in terms of 
 measure, although it is measureless. It is every- 
 where and yet nowhere. It is indefinable and yet 
 it is the most defined fact in life. It is the most 
 perceptible while appearing as the most imper- 
 ceptible fact. The mind of man has seen the be- 
 yond in thought, in time, in form, and yet it 
 doubts though knowing that all doubt is foolish, 
 for the mind could not think the impossible. The 
 very fact of the thought itself necessitates the pos- 
 sibility of its expression. Ideas are if anything 
 more actual than that we call facts. Ideas are 
 the true facts. Therefore our thought concerning 
 the infinite is also, and in an intense sense, our 
 experience of the infinite. The educated mind 
 realizes that what it perceives in the thought- 
 world is as real if not more so than that which it 
 perceives in the world of form. 
 
 Only that which we can perceive is true and 
 what we perceive through the medium of our in- 
 telligence is also true, for intelligence is but one 
 mode of perception, for it is but one form of ex- 
 pression of the essence man names soul. The 
 very thought of God is our surety that He is. 
 
The Divinity of the Soul 269 
 
 The entire human heart cannot lie in its instincts. 
 Could it, then the measurements of our science 
 fail at perception just as much as our measure- 
 ments of religious experience. We must take 
 everything that the human heart has sensed and 
 everything the human mind has thought and dis- 
 cern the fact though it may be ever so burdened 
 by the rubbish of credulence and superstition. In 
 the long run, folk-lore becomes science, and 
 science folk-lore, in turn. Science is only the de- 
 scription of the infinite through our external and 
 internal relations with it. The infinite is on all 
 sides. It is whether it is perceived or unper- 
 ceived. It can only be said that it is. Divinity 
 is and we must be that very divinity by reason of 
 being aware that it is and that it is the highest fact 
 which we have been able to discover, the supreme 
 fact explaining all other facts of our experience 
 that stand otherwise in paradoxical relations. 
 
 Great truths are never realized in small efforts 
 and there is no great effort without a great aspira- 
 tion. The truth of the divinity of all life and 
 expression and of every individual soul, however 
 inferior the expression of the divine, is the very 
 highest truth of which we are conscious and all 
 other truths can stand only in secondary meaning 
 to it. No one can soar beyond the divine. At his 
 highest he can only become one with it, for the 
 
270 Practical Occultism 
 
 divineness of things is the last and greatest fact 
 that can be mentioned regarding them. The work 
 of man and his aspiration should be to perceive 
 that divineness. Now that we know that divinity 
 is in, throughout and beyond nature, our duty is 
 to become conscious of it in the fullest sense of the 
 word, but, as high as the thought of divinity is 
 above all other thoughts, so must be the life of 
 that man who aspires to the realization of that 
 thought. We may condemn morals as we will 
 and, if we choose, trace the idea of morality to 
 the development of the tribal custom and to fear, 
 but nevertheless all that is great in human achieve- 
 ment is the result of the following out of the 
 nobler instincts that are inseparably bound to our 
 conception of morality. As light and darkness 
 are but variations in our possibility at perceiving 
 the same force which is expressed in light and 
 darkness, so good and evil are but variations that 
 our educated consciousness makes between the 
 difference in degrees of the same mental and emo- 
 tional unit-force that is thus dually expressed. 
 Still we are bound to admit that light so far as 
 our sense perception reaches, is more pleasing and 
 more useful than the darkness and that the quality 
 of goodness is a shining and spiritual quality as 
 compared with the darkness and death of evil. 
 We may condemn all morals, but in spite of our 
 
The Divinity of the Soul 271 
 
 condemnation we know that it is only through a 
 highly specialized moral consciousness that we can 
 ever sanely and legitimately hope to understand 
 in terms of emotion what we call divinity in the 
 terms of thought. Therefore we must pay rigid 
 attention to our moral discernment and follow it 
 implicitly. 
 
 The very idea of morality is conterminous with 
 our idea of the approach to the divine. AH im- 
 morality is the outgrowth of, and is performed in, 
 selfishness, and selfishness means separateness, 
 and there can be no separateness in divinity, for 
 divinity is universal. It is a whole and has no 
 parts. It is the climax of unselfishness or of self- 
 lessness. The greatest selflessness is the means 
 through which the transfiguration of Self occurs, 
 and the transfiguration of the selfish into the un- 
 selfish self is the means through which we have 
 become divine. Those Children of Bliss whom 
 man has called divine have represented the highest 
 in selflessness and through their very selflessness 
 they have accomplished more and affected to an 
 infinitely greater extent the heart of man than the 
 greatest secular heroes whose efforts manifest the 
 greatest forms of selfishness. The really divine 
 person works for the sake of the work and thus 
 works for the good of himself in working better 
 for the good of all. 
 
272 Practical Occultism 
 
 Ideas are not perceptible in themselves except 
 to a very great seer who knows that ideas are real 
 and that ideas rule. In the ordinary sense an 
 idea is visible only through its emotional manifes- 
 tation. When an idea arouses the will and the 
 will arouses the emotional faculties then only may 
 the idea be spoken of as real. This great idea of 
 divinity that man has been entertaining and wor- 
 shipping from immemorial time is perceivable in 
 its essence and truth only by such who have passed 
 into the border of the strenuous desire where the 
 idea is visualized in the emotional experience, and 
 such persons were the saints and prophets of re- 
 ligion. Isaiah and Jeremiah and Christ and 
 Buddha perceived what men believed. They real- 
 ized the things concerning which man has been 
 speculating in innumerable philosophies. That 
 realization must be ours. Not until it is ours can 
 we speak of divinity or know that we are divine. 
 With open hearts and open minds, with sincerity 
 of attitude and purity of intention, let us advance 
 with speed and strength on that path which shall 
 lead us to the rich comprehension and actual per- 
 ception of that which we have sensed as the di- 
 vine. 
 
 Only the great in soul realize the great in the 
 aspiration of the human heart. The portals of 
 the mind are thrown open and the waters of reve- 
 
The Divinity of the Soul 273 
 
 lation are surging through the opened channel 
 and overwhelm in bliss and knowledge the soul 
 of the aspirant. A man is great only as his 
 thought is great. He is great in heart only as he 
 attempts to realize what he thinks. We have 
 been talking of the divine and speculating for cen- 
 turies on the nature of the divine, but we have 
 given least attention to the necessity of realiza- 
 tion. What are words, what tones of commen- 
 taries on the divine when the divinity forever re- 
 mains hidden? Shall this be so always? Shall 
 we never know? These same questions were 
 asked by every soul that hoped to reach a greater 
 level of spiritual experience. Men have been 
 searching for the divine when they knew that all 
 search for the divine in any world, other than 
 that of their own soul, was futile. If there is 
 divinity in the universe then we are all divine and 
 not in the pretty frame of a beautiful metaphor, 
 but in the vastness of an all-absorbing truth. For 
 this reason we exist that the divine in us can be 
 made manifest. We have discovered the exist- 
 ence of the divine, now is the time to attain it. 
 Our argosies of soul have set sail on the great sea 
 of spiritual experience and we must treasure the 
 truths that we observe along the great passage- 
 ways of life. We cannot repeat too frequently: 
 "There is no divinity other than that which man 
 
274 Practical Occultism 
 
 has sensed and what man has dimly sensed that 
 he can definitely realize. We are that divine. We 
 are that divinity. Let us break the barriers of 
 selfishness and attain to that which is the second- 
 less, the pure, the strong, the holy and the true." 
 Our educated emotions carry us whither our 
 thoughts can never go. We might think endlessly 
 of Mozart's symphonies, but we would never 
 understand. Only the music itself can make us 
 feel. In a sense, similar only, the feeling of di- 
 vinity can make us know the divine. We may 
 speculate and speculate and never get anywhere, 
 but aspiration and devotion to our chosen ideal 
 will give sight to our spiritual blindness and make 
 us hear, where at present we are deaf. The mag- 
 nificence of the sun never dawns on us save as 
 we see it in all its splendor. The ocean is only a 
 name until we see it and can listen to its thunder- 
 ing roar. All great things are vague until they 
 are seen, and the greatness of the soul will never 
 dawn on us until we realize that we are the soul. 
 Now the glories of the forms of God are known 
 to us. The time shall come when we shall see 
 Him as He is. The divinity of our soul is called 
 by all possible variety of name. It is called the 
 nameless and the formless, the unknowable and 
 the indescribable. So it is with the man born 
 blind. He can never sense the splendors of the 
 
The Divinity of the Soul 275 
 
 firmament. To him they are forever unknowable, 
 forever undescribable and forever formless. But 
 can his sight be given to him he shall see that 
 which he now fails to see and he shall experience 
 the joy of his sight. When that which is now 
 formless assumes form in thought or form in the 
 soul then will the soul experience the Vision 
 Beatific, and whereas it previously thought about 
 the divine and aspired to it, it now is divine. 
 
 Let us make our thought of the divinity of life 
 the more intense by calling it frequently to our 
 concentrated mind. That will strengthen our de- 
 sire to manifest the divine. That will make us 
 anxious in our struggle to overcome and make us 
 also successful. We will no longer stand idle in 
 the world of aspiration, but seek evermore to gain 
 more and more unselfishness, more and more 
 purity, more and more strength which are the 
 qualities which when perfected make a man con- 
 scious of who he is. We who know all things do 
 not know ourselves, and yet that is the first word 
 of wisdom for him who would be wise. We may 
 know nature and have measured her tracings, but 
 what doth it profit us if we have not known our- 
 selves. Only the great see the necessity of effort. 
 The small are carried by the whirlpool of their 
 small hopes into the vortex of the constantly 
 small, but the great desire to close their ears to 
 
276 Practical Occultism 
 
 the sounds of the worldly crash and shut their 
 eyes to the petty struggle of the petty. The 
 worm wots not of the mountain, nor the mountain 
 of the sun, nor the sun of the vastness of space, 
 but in the march of the One through the many 
 and of the ultimate realization of the One in the 
 many and as the One even the worm must be- 
 come the God and the blade of grass manifest the 
 divine. Such is the law of divinity that everything 
 manifest the divine from the highest god to the 
 lowest sinner. There is neither the high place 
 nor the low place to the great, for both the high 
 and the low are their foot-stool and they sit 
 mighty and glorious in the unspeakable and un- 
 thinkable peace of that which is ever God. 
 
 And the voices of the gods thunder throughout 
 the universe: "Call yourself by no name other 
 than God. Tell yourself day and night that you 
 are none other than the God in Whom you believe 
 and to Whom you have offered sacrifice and be- 
 fore Whom you have prostrated yourself, for the 
 God of gods is the God of your own imperishable, 
 changeless and deathless soul. Live the God and 
 be the God in Whom you believe. Then you 
 shall become one with Him. In fact you are He 
 and He is you. Know this and be free forever." 
 Aspiration, devotion, unswerving loyalty to and 
 love for the Highest will render us conscious of 
 
The Divinity of the Soul 277 
 
 and make us that Highest. When we have 
 touched the Highest in our individual souls we 
 shall have realized and we shall be the divinity of 
 which we dream. 
 
 "Oh ! Man the Infinite Dreamer dreaming 
 finite dreams." 
 
THE HIGHEST IDEAL 
 
 The greatest of all ideals is the ideal of self- 
 expression. The inner, cosmic essence of this 
 highest of ideals has given birth to the entire 
 universe with its endless variety and its trans- 
 forming processes, processes which have their be- 
 ginnings in the workings of blind forces and 
 blinder atoms and culminate into the divinest of 
 creatures, the incarnation of the very Supreme. 
 
 The restlessness and uncertainty, the dissatis- 
 faction we find everywhere in nature, the conflict- 
 ing circumstances of natural forces, and the differ- 
 ences we find in the animal and human life, are 
 not a vicious discontent with their fate and experi- 
 ence, as much as the instinctive attitude in nature 
 toward barriers which inhibit growth, larger at- 
 tainment, greater perfection, increase of self- 
 expression. In fact, we might sum up the entire 
 non-moral and immoral conditions in the cate- 
 gory of the barriers to self-expression, for every 
 sin is the symbol of a prevention toward more 
 lofty conduct, prevention which may rise through 
 
 278 
 
The Highest Ideal 279 
 
 inheritance from ancestors or through an environ- 
 ment which hinders the soul by cramping its pos- 
 sibilities for achievement. 
 
 Self-expression has a dual significance, one join- 
 ing itself to the temporary dispositions of the 
 lower self which comes into being at every rein- 
 carnation, and the other joining itself to the 
 higher, divine interests of the Eternal Self of 
 which the lower self is the finite manifestation. 
 
 The secondary significance, the significance of 
 the expression of the lower self, is witnessed in the 
 practice of such moral obligations as strengthen 
 the soul in its higher effort, as permit it to become 
 unselfish, selfless in order that the manifestation 
 and the glory of the Higher Self may shine forth. 
 We witness this secondary significance associated 
 with great moral effort and achievement in the 
 lives of the very greatest of the sages. They have 
 climbed the great ladder of spiritual progress 
 from its lowest to its highest rung. They have 
 frequently stumbled into moral misgivings and 
 errors throughout the many incarnations, but each 
 life renewed was another opportunity, another 
 success, and a higher attainment. The finale of 
 such effort resulted in their reaching the goal, 
 manifesting the Divine within so that they became 
 one with Spirit, became great religious reformers, 
 
280 Practical Occultism 
 
 rehabilitating the old belief or bringing new reve- 
 lation from the eternal source of all Truth — the 
 Inner, Higher, Divine Self. 
 
 Too many mistake the ideal of self-expression. 
 They understand it to be the realization of their 
 passing, day-dream of power and fame, of wealth 
 and lust. But that is not true self-expression 
 which harms another, and the realization of pas- 
 sions in any form is not self-expression but self- 
 repression. For all that is done by the individual 
 is done to himself. The one who is harmed by 
 the satisfaction of another's base desire is injured 
 indeed, but he who is the actuator of harm doubly 
 suffers, for the harm in its journey from the soul 
 has gained force, and this added force rebounds 
 with tremendous power upon him who has set it 
 loose. 
 
 That which is truly unselfish is truly self-expres- 
 sive. And that which is essentially unselfish is 
 expressive of the higher evolutionary type, the 
 highest type of the high expression to which 
 nature has attained in the many ages of the past. 
 What is more in the order of evolution, more, 
 also, in keeping with what is unselfish than the 
 mother-love which readily imperils life for off- 
 spring. We find such conduct even in the lowest 
 of the animal species, but in man it reaches its 
 greatest climax, for in many cases there is not 
 
The Highest Ideal 281 
 
 the slightest instinctive selfishness. We can easily 
 understand how mothers suffer death for their 
 children. That is instinctive. Even mothers are 
 indirectly selfish. But when we find a hero 
 jeopardizing himself to certain death for the life 
 of a stranger, we are struck with a more convinc- 
 ing unselfishness. The form of this unselfishness 
 rises higher and higher until it affects the religious 
 element in human nature. For religion men, 
 women, even children, willingly suffer torture, 
 exile, martyrdom. The highest type of this spirit 
 is witnessed in the great renunciation of the Mas- 
 ters who forsake all earthly possessions to teach 
 the Word. 
 
 Thus what is apparent self-repression, self- 
 jeopardizing, self-annihilation is the very essence 
 of self-expression, for it is the rooting of the 
 selfish self which craves and riots in its craving. 
 Thus, likewise, what is apparent self-expression in 
 the furtherance of selfish ambition unmindful of 
 suffering to others is self-limitation, self-destruc- 
 tion. One phase of these circumstances has given 
 us the signers of Independence, the social, political 
 and other reformers, introducers of the racially 
 more self-expressive; it has given us the moral 
 and religious heroes of the world, its greatest 
 spiritual geniuses. The other phase has given us 
 Alexanders, Caesars, Napoleons, wielders of 
 
282 Practical Occultism 
 
 great power and the spillers of much blood; it 
 has given us the scheming, self-interested man of 
 politics, the unscrupulous men of high finance 
 whose single word stretches the price of living al- 
 most beyond the purchase of the millions of the 
 poor. 
 
 Yet the efforts of the lower expressive have 
 been of benefit in so far as they have contrasted 
 themselves with the efforts of the nobler and the 
 higher. The shade of difference has made many 
 aware and ashamed of the smallness and the sel- 
 fishness of their lives and brought them to an 
 understanding of what is self-expressive. Accord- 
 ingly, we find men who have attained to question- 
 ably-acquired wealth, giving and giving millions to 
 charitable organizations which have been formu- 
 lated for the protection of the misery, the squalor 
 and poverty which are caused through the unsal- 
 able, money-fevered policies of these very men in 
 the day of their earlier and more selfish manhood. 
 
 The day of modern enlightenment is making 
 us understand the true brotherhood of all life, and 
 this ideal of brotherhood thoroughly realized will 
 necessitate the weeding of selfish instincts in the 
 interests of the larger number. All life, no mat- 
 ter how humble in expression, is bound by indis- 
 soluble ties. All life is one. The entire human 
 
The Highest Ideal 283 
 
 species is but one great individual, and it contrasts 
 itself with all other species as something separate 
 and distinct. Yet it is not so. The human 
 species, especially in a physical sense, is intimately 
 related to the higher vertebrated types, to the 
 mammals. It partakes of the physical necessities 
 and modes of organic function and development. 
 It is related to it by all the senses and the instinc- 
 tive emotions. In turn, the higher animal types 
 are indiscernibly affiliated with lower species, and 
 these, again, with lower and lower until we come 
 to the lowest manifestation of life potentially lat- 
 ent in chemical atoms. 
 
 This understanding of the unity and ultimate 
 identity of all life will lead to a desire for the 
 attainment of the ideal of the truly self-expressive 
 which is the truly unselfish. When we come to 
 recognize the point where our life blends with 
 ancestral types which are indistinguishable from 
 the animal species we will exclaim with Tennyson 
 in his praise of that preacher of the Unity of Life : 
 
 u Sweet St. Francis of Assisi, would that he were 
 
 here again; 
 He who in his catholic wholeness used to call the 
 
 birds and flowers 
 Brothers, sisters — and the beasts whose pains are 
 
 hardly less than ours." 
 
284 Practical Occultism 
 
 And the great founder of the Franciscan recluses 
 is but one of the myriad of religious men and 
 women who recognize the same sacredness in all 
 life and who, therefore, are unselfish toward all 
 life. ■ Instances are cited in history where men 
 have welcomed death rather than slay. When 
 one has reached that stage of spiritual unfold- 
 ment where they follow the precept of the 
 Buddha : 
 
 "Kill not — for Pity's sake — and lest you slay 
 The meanest thing upon its upward way." 
 
 they have attained to much, for the first percep- 
 tion of the Spirit is through the vision of the 
 unity of identity and the brotherhood of all life. 
 One of the immediate blessings which follows 
 this larger attitude is that it will be recognized 
 by the very animals themselves. They will recog- 
 nize the kindnesses and the harmlessness of your 
 nature and will never fear or disturb you. There 
 are any number of observations where religious 
 sages who make the jungles their abode are un- 
 harmed even in the closest proximity to the blood- 
 thirsty tiger, and there are bronzes in which the 
 artist features the ascetic in meditation with a 
 tiger standing close by. In the Roman Catholic 
 Church we find pictures of St. Francis surrounded 
 by the beasts of the forest, his frequent abiding- 
 
The Highest Ideal 285 
 
 place. We have spoken of the influence of auras 
 and how we are affected by their atmosphere. 
 Animals who are largely intuitive frequently show 
 a higher sensitiveness to auras than we. They 
 sense the wrong mental attitude of fear or that of 
 enmity and act accordingly. When the spirit in 
 man is developed he radiates an atmosphere of 
 kindness and thus has dominion over all animals, 
 as the Spirit from the beginning had ordained. 
 The higher teaching admonishes us to see our 
 little brothers in all creatures, brothers younger in 
 the spirit who are destined to evolve into the 
 human expression after the karma of the animal 
 nature has been worked out. We are admonished 
 to treat them with great consideration, for then 
 they will part ways with their more ferocious, 
 brutal emotions which bind them in the animal 
 world. In return they will respond with love and 
 kindness, for they crave kindness and thoughtful- 
 ness as much as we. 
 
 In this manner we are born to higher expres- 
 sion, true self-expression. It is through these 
 ideas and the adherence to them that we broaden 
 our views and our emotions. We become unat- 
 tached to our separate, personal interests, for our 
 interests have grown from the limited into the 
 more inclusive, and we take the whole of nature 
 in our heart and in our thought. We will not 
 
286 Practical Occultism 
 
 treat the lower creatures with the abuse of the 
 cabman to his horse. We will grow to regard 
 them with a same fondness with which we regard 
 the domesticated pet. 
 
 We witness, however, the direct opposite of 
 these things in our daily experience. The ma- 
 jority of men governed by passion and desire, by 
 interest and self, are not unselfish. The increased 
 pressure of social and economic troubles have in- 
 tensified the scramble after the dollar and the 
 few golden balls upon which the world sets value. 
 The hurry and skurry of our modern life and the 
 nervousness and mental excitement all about us 
 .render the most of us too keyed-up to the per- 
 sonal and the selfish. They are bound to make 
 us self-concentrated, but it is only by breaking 
 these conditions that we can become unselfish and 
 give birth to larger self-expression. We must 
 ignore the too strenuous material tie which fetters 
 the soul, else "we pay too high a price for the 
 whistle" of material comfort. We sacrifice the 
 higher and the permanent for the sake of the 
 lower and impermanent. We cut short the ex- 
 pression of soul for the expression of bodily 
 comforts and luxuries. Let the spiritual under- 
 standing of the value of life, of the sanative and 
 self-preservative value of the understanding sink 
 
The Highest Ideal 287 
 
 into the soul and it will immediately renounce all 
 holds on the evanescent and insignificant. 
 
 The Higher Call and Response 
 
 All men recognize in their inner nature a some- 
 thing which calls out of the depth for the expres- 
 sion of the best within. This call ranges from the 
 socially redeeming, the simple humanitarian, the 
 artistic, the inventive, the scientific, the literary, 
 the philosophical, or, best of all, the spiritual. 
 All men find themselves hearing one or another 
 modulation of this call. It commences its utter- 
 ance in the early youth and manhood and gives 
 intuition of the vocation to be followed and the 
 necessary ambition and talents. This is the call 
 which, if heeded, leads to the perfect expression 
 of self; which, if unheeded, curses its ignorer with 
 the woes of life. This call, in a degree of intelli- 
 gence and spiritual evolution, is the manifestation 
 of the highest evolution of our personal nature 
 and, followed, places the feet of the reincarnating 
 soul upon the proper path. It is the call of most 
 self-expressive. Those who adapt themselves to 
 this call in every life-journey are given greater 
 opportunities and higher talents until at length 
 the highest vision is presented to the worthy soul 
 
288 Practical Occultism 
 
 and it becomes possessed of the highest knowl- 
 edge. 
 
 No matter how humble may be the call of the 
 soul, it is the most worthy, and if a man or a 
 woman responds to the call, he is giving to the 
 world the very best that is in him. Nature has 
 made the following of the call an easy task be- 
 cause she has added the pleasure of the respective 
 work together with the pure joy of achievement. 
 You will find men of minor intelligence, as an ex- 
 ample the average artisan, taking the greatest 
 pleasure in his work. He receives as much joy 
 and pride from following his trade and takes as 
 active an interest in it as does the man of high 
 finance or the holder of an eminent political office, 
 indeed, he gets more of life and self-expression 
 from it than does the more favored. 
 
 Self-expression invariably implies a vocation of 
 some kind, because self-expression embraces the 
 development of the mental, and that is brought 
 about by allowing the mind to take an active in- 
 terest in that to which it is inclined. In keeping 
 with this thought, therefore, parents are coun- 
 selled to permit their children every opportunity 
 for the expression of their mental, inventive or 
 practical genius. The young boy toying with his 
 self-constructed engine is not concerned with any- 
 thing whimsical. It is the intuition of the child 
 
The Highest Ideal 289 
 
 working out in a crude fashion the possibilities of 
 great talents. You will find that the child has its 
 greatest happiness in following its intuitions, 
 verifying the fact that nature inseparably blends 
 self-expression with joy. 
 
 We cannot criticise any so long as they are 
 uttering the highest symbol of their possibilities. 
 Their talents may be of a lower order than the 
 high intellectual, but because of their response to 
 the higher call their souls are possessed of the 
 highest beauty of the soul, the beauty of self- 
 expression. 
 
 Such who are fevered with the ideal of self- 
 expression have the greatest freedom. No bar- 
 riers are too constraining, no difficulties too great 
 to overcome for him who wills that nothing but 
 the best within shall shine forth. The soul has 
 the quality to tone down all unevenness which 
 hinders development as much as the river forces 
 its way through the rockiest mountains by the 
 processes of erosion. The soul partakes of the 
 omnipotence and freedom of Spirit as it allies 
 itself with its higher self, and all obstacles fall 
 before its path like dense shadows before bril- 
 liant light. 
 
290 Practical Occultism 
 
 Racial Disturbances and Self -Expression 
 
 Passing from the individual to the race at large, 
 we find how mankind as such has successfully 
 striven against seemingly insurmountable barriers 
 in the great effort of self-expression. It has con- 
 quered natural forces; it has fertilized deserts; 
 it has peopled and civilized the wildest, weirdest 
 and most distant regions of the earth. It has 
 mastered those ancestral emotions which draw 
 the line of stringent distinction between the ani- 
 mal and human; it has developed the mental, 
 psychic and spiritual elements in its gradual mas- 
 tering of self. 
 
 It has also shed rivers of blood, perpetrated 
 most dire emotional cataclysms, upset much of 
 what has been attained in the effort to realize a 
 new ideal; it has alternations of unspeakable ex- 
 tremes; it has been subjected to frenzies, melan- 
 cholies and exaltations during the course of its 
 progress. 
 
 But we are not to misconstrue these happen- 
 ings as a blot in the development. Dissatisfac- 
 tion, revolution, redistribution, bloody reforms, 
 are all in order at definite periods, and we dis- 
 cover that from the seething mass of insurrection 
 and mental and emotional uncertainties, from the 
 strife and the conflict, from the temperamental 
 
The Highest Ideal 291 
 
 tangents of racial psychological experience, a new 
 Mankind has been born, even as the child is born 
 through maternal suffering. Nature has as one 
 of its principles, the oft-quoted proverb, "The 
 end justifies the means." An earthquake is set 
 in motion that poisonous and cramped internal 
 conditions may be adjusted and the face of the 
 earth beautified. Stellar clashes and eccentricities 
 of orbits are all required in the great problem of 
 cosmic evolution. Similarly where humanity is 
 concerned, there is frequent need for great soci- 
 ological, religious, political and economic up- 
 heavals, arousing the depth of human emotion, 
 awakening the depth of human intelligence that a 
 newer, freer, more racially expressive circum- 
 stance may be introduced in the life of the race. 
 The French Revolution, the American Revolu- 
 tion, the great wars of history, the great clashes 
 involving religion and industry are all emotional 
 incidents where we see humanity at its best. For 
 then the lethargy and stagnation which often as- 
 sc f r itself is removed for the expression of higher 
 racial qualities and achievements. 
 
 Even as the individual rises and falls in the 
 great battle of life, even as he must overcome 
 conflicting conditions, even as he must surmount 
 impassable paths of self-unfoldment, so the race 
 equally undergoes trying states, but it is only as it 
 
292 Practical Occultism 
 
 triumphs over barriers that higher civilization is 
 attained. 
 
 Socialism and kindred political and industrial 
 disturbances which history records are the utter- 
 ances of great racial dissatisfaction with the ex- 
 isting order of things, an assertiveness of newer 
 ideals which struggle to express themselves 
 against the tyrannous rule of long-standing ideals 
 which have outgrown their need and are pestifer- 
 ous in their present existence. To battle with the 
 innovating ideal is a futile task. We may rant 
 and rant against the feasibility of the new ideal, 
 we may persecute its champions, we may heap 
 ridicule on its adherents, but if it possesses the 
 inherent evolutionary virtue, it triumphs in spite 
 of the most combined opposition. A revolution 
 is the outward expression of inner racial dissatis- 
 faction. Of course, it introduces terrible condi- 
 tions, but all achievement is founded on suffering 
 and woe. It is only by the death of the old that 
 the new is born. It is only by the giving-up of the 
 long-used that the new serviceable idea can be of 
 racial assistance. It is only by the repression of 
 the lower that the higher can come into expres- 
 sion. 
 
 The spectator of human affairs, therefore, im- 
 personally observes the trend of all things with 
 equal complacency, knowing that all, in the ulti- 
 
The Highest Ideal 293 
 
 mate, is for the welfare and development of the 
 race. He does not grow excited at the sight of 
 bloodshed and bitter dissensions, for he under- 
 stands that these will finally lead to higher things. 
 
 The Higher Self 
 
 But as the goal of all human effort is the 
 spiritualization of the race through the growth 
 and maintenance of larger racial ideals, so all in- 
 dividual effort, after having passed through the 
 lower stages of self-expression, will concern itself 
 with the expression of the higher self. All great 
 religious teachers, all renouncers of the worldly 
 and temporal have reached their lofty position 
 through aeons of achievement in lower ideals. 
 They have had possessions and wealth, power and 
 fame, luxury and the numerous deceits of the 
 flesh, and have grown to an understanding of the 
 folly and the vapidness, of the superficiality and 
 misery of these things, and have learned to avoid 
 them. In lives past, they have been kings, owners 
 of great possessions, enjoyers of emotional char- 
 acteristics, but having passed through these stages 
 and found that "All is vanity and vexation of 
 spirit," they have accordingly adjusted their lives 
 and mental attitude. 
 
 They have made the Great Renunciation which, 
 
294 Practical Occultism 
 
 to the worldly, is presumptuously impractical, but 
 to the spiritually unfolded, the very ecstasy of joy 
 and the only conduct worth while, worthy of the 
 dignity of man and the dignity of spirit. 
 
 Renunciation of all that to which the minor self 
 clings is the primary step in the divine expression 
 of the Eternal Self. All religious sages have 
 practised this renunciation at some stage of their 
 development, and, in the last stages of earth life 
 have made renunciation their constant practice. 
 All leaders of religious reformation have been 
 such renunciators, and their followers have fol- 
 lowed in their footsteps. But all these sages have 
 once been in the low position which characterizes 
 the majority. They also have once been children 
 in the spirit, uninstructed and ignorant of the 
 greater way and the larger truth. They have 
 served in the menial position, climbing therefrom 
 to larger duties and higher responsibilities until 
 their efforts were crowned with attainment and 
 high self-expression.. For this reason they fully 
 sympathize with the weak, undisciplined charac- 
 ter who raises the heart in veneration and affec- 
 tion to them. They surround those who call, and 
 satisfy the spiritual needs of such who ask. They 
 are present when there is need, and we can depend 
 on them, for they are messengers of the Spirit, 
 
The Highest Ideal 295 
 
 and their duty and joy is spiritual assistance to 
 others. 
 
 In this lies the true spirit of self-expression and 
 the attainment of that high ideal. Service is the 
 secret; service, the duty; service, the bliss; ser- 
 vice, also, the reward. Self-repression, self-for- 
 getfulness, are the vows which the soul takes when 
 it desires to give the best within. And in this ser- 
 vice and expression, in the recognition of the 
 unity of all life, and the brotherhood of all beings 
 and creatures, of all things, is the partially mani- 
 fested love which permeates every atom of the 
 universe and every atom of life. The soul merges 
 itself in love, in the love that is Spirit, in the love 
 that is God. It is love that is the ultimum of 
 all self-expression, because it is the expression of 
 the Divine Self whose essence is love and light. 
 The outer symbols of this love are human sym- 
 pathies, charity and service. 
 
 Before the soul commences the greatest vision 
 of which it can possibly perceive; in the silence 
 and the calm of the soul which has reached the 
 goal, there passes the vision of perfect love, and 
 in that love the soul finds the Beloved, which, in 
 its many lives, it had idealized and adored in 
 the human face and in natural beauty. It sees 
 its Beloved in all things, — in the depths of the 
 
296 Practical Occultism 
 
 heart and as the essence of Self. Herein lies the 
 vision : 
 
 Love throbs at the heart of the atom, drawing 
 like elements to their own; love throbs in the 
 great combinations of atoms, such as the moon 
 and the stars and the mighty suns, causing them 
 to respond in wondrous sensitiveness and exact- 
 ness to those natural forces which are the outward 
 symbol of the loves and affinities of the stellar 
 souls, of the divine beings whose bodies are the 
 worlds in space. Love throbs at the center of 
 the earth in its continued formation, and that love 
 manifests in the conception and birth of all living 
 "beings who inhabit the face of the earth. Love 
 throbs in the animal world from the instinctive, 
 momentary passion to the life-long mating of the 
 higher type, as the lion; love enfolds all the earth 
 and brings forth the radiant beauties and the 
 utilities of earth life. 
 
 The soul can see naught but manifested love. 
 It passes from the world of sense to the higher 
 emotional world. There it finds the beginnings 
 of self-sacrifice; it sees the commencings of self- 
 repression in the interests of the many; it sees the 
 noble efforts of the heroines and heroes of all ages 
 whose will has advanced the world into higher 
 proportions, and in all things recognizes the In- 
 
The Highest Ideal 297 
 
 finite Love of which all these are the higher but 
 evanescent phases. 
 
 Deeper and deeper rises the vision of the soul. 
 From being without, it now pictures the very 
 within of the soul itself. There love is reflected 
 and the soul sees its love for humanity, its self- 
 expression mirrored in translucent beauty. The 
 last glimmering of the vision passes beyond the 
 horizon of thought and sense feeling, passes into 
 the Great Beyond where the Unconditioned God 
 resides in the majesty of pure divinity. The soul 
 loses sight of all external vision, and alone sees 
 the Beloved who is the fervor and essence of love. 
 And in its soul it sees that Infinite Love as its 
 Self. 
 
 Such is the goal of the highest Self-expression, 
 such the achievement of what is most desirable, 
 most worthy, most marvelous, most divine. 
 
CONCERNING THE ETERNAL OMNI- 
 PRESENT SELF 
 
 There is but One Infinite Reality in this fleet- 
 ing alternation of life and death; there is but One 
 Imperishable Substrate in this perpetual evolu- 
 tion and disintegration of countless solar systems ; 
 there is but One Eternal Truth in the immensities 
 of the universe. It is the Omnipresent Spirit. 
 
 What is meant by Omnipresence? It is meant 
 that should you travel even with the inconceiv- 
 able rapidity of light and thought, throughout 
 endless time in the shoreless ocean of space, at 
 every point of your unthinkable journey there 
 would be u He at whose command the wind blows, 
 fire burns, flowers bloom, stars shine, and Death 
 stalks upon the earth." He is the soul of your 
 soul and my soul, and the soul of all Existence. 
 "He is infinitely larger than the largest, and in- 
 finitely smaller than the smallest. He pervades 
 the infinite space and also resides in the minutest 
 atom of atom. He also dwells in the innermost 
 sanctuary of the soul of every man and woman. 
 Whosoever realizes that Divine Omnipresence, 
 
 298 
 
Concerning the Eternal Omnipresent Self 299 
 
 whose image the individual soul is, unto him 
 comes eternal peace and perpetual bliss, unto none 
 else, unto none else." Stretch forth your hand 
 He is there; gaze into the immeasurable expanse 
 of the heavens, He, the Lord, is present. "That 
 immortal Brahman — Spirit — is before, that Brah- 
 man is behind, that Brahman is right and left. 
 It has gone forth below and above. Brahman 
 alone is all this. It is the best." Such has been 
 the teachings of our orthodox churches; the teach- 
 ings of the sages of the East and West. Like 
 many other great truths it has merely passed the 
 surface of the life of man immersed in the 
 pleasures of the senses and occupied with the per- 
 ishable and the transitory. Should it visit the 
 depths of the heart it would instantly transform 
 the human into the Divine. Omnipresence im- 
 plies omniscience, for as He is everywhere, He 
 knows All. Omnipresence implies even a still 
 greater truth, extremely difficult to comprehend, 
 and a truth which has caused more theorizing and 
 misunderstanding than any other. It is this: 
 Omnipresence means omniexistence, for if the 
 Lord is everywhere there can be no room for any 
 other existence. Should anything have any ex- 
 istence besides Him, it would immediately render 
 Him finite. The Lord is everything the intellect 
 can know or imagine. He is the Knowable and 
 
300 
 
 Practical Occultism 
 
 the Unknowable; He is both Being and Non- 
 Being; He is the Universe and what is not this 
 Universe; He is both Light and Darkness, and 
 as He Himself says in the Scriptures, He is both 
 Good and Evil. For he is the poison of the 
 snake, the viciousness of vicious things, the de- 
 stroying power in nature as well as its vivifying 
 principle. Realizing this, many, nations have 
 adopted in their mythology a god personifying 
 that aspect of Spirit, as well as a god from whom 
 all blessings flow. The Lord is all the various 
 permutations of Being; He is our body, mind 
 and soul; He is the matter, intelligence and soul 
 • of this universe. He is Spirit. These thoughts 
 of course do away with our little personal, selfish 
 self. But for it is substituted an Infinite Self. 
 This is the dizzy acme of philosophical specula- 
 tion and necessitates the deepest concentration. 
 Sometime or other, either in this or a future exist- 
 ence, these things will have to be realized, and 
 the sooner the better. Some fear that these 
 things involve loss of individuality. To them 
 the scientist says, "Your dream of bodily individ- 
 uality is absurd. The substance of which the 
 farthest sun is composed and the substance of 
 which your body is composed is the same. Forms 
 are simply so many aggregations of particles, dif- 
 ferentiated only by Space. Into One Imperish- 
 
Concerning the Eternal Omnipresent Self 301 
 
 able Essence, and into One All-Permeating Life 
 all forms and forces are reducible." To them 
 the psychologist will say, "All differentiations of 
 consciousness, all modification of thought and 
 emotion are simply so many manifestations of 
 One Infinite Background of Intelligence and Con- 
 sciousness through which this universe exists, and 
 exists as differentiated, and as many." Thus in- 
 dividuality of body, of life, of consciousness, of 
 intelligence, as understood by many of us, is un- 
 real. Through scientific ignorance many of us 
 fail to realize the Unity of Life and the Unity 
 of Matter. It exists however, as certainly as 
 the rotation of the earth and the ether which 
 presses against the surface of the earth millions 
 of pounds to the square inch. We do not sense 
 these things in daily life, but science and mathe- 
 matics have proved them for us. As certainly as 
 these things are true is the declaration of the 
 Spirit true that the Substance, the Force, the Life 
 and the Intelligence of the scientists are simply so 
 many modifications of One, Beginningless, Cause- 
 less, Endless Essence. It is of neither gender. 
 As It is the Self of All, the thinkers of India 
 have called it Self or Brahman. In referring to 
 It they use the pronouns "It" and "That." For 
 the sake of simplicity, however, they frequently 
 use the masculine pronouns. They say that this 
 
302 Practical Occultism 
 
 is the Impersonal Spirit which has been person- 
 alized and worshipped under such names as Je- 
 hovah, Father, Jupiter, Ahuramazda, Ra, Gitchee 
 Manito, and so forth. To the mystics of the 
 world even this universe is that Self. They say 
 that Spirit is the cause, and world is the effect. 
 They say that therefore they are the same. 
 Karya-karanabheda. They illustrate this for in- 
 stance by saying that if we do not view the thing 
 called cloth as such, but only as it is composed 
 of its cause — threads running lengthwise and 
 crosswise — it can be seen that the Reality even 
 of cloth is Spirit. For the threads are composed 
 "of threads still finer, and these, in turn, of still 
 finer threads, and so on and so on until finally 
 we come to the most infinitesimal part of 
 threads perceptible. These, they say, are iden- 
 tical with their ultimate essence, color vibrations, 
 these with the air, the air with the ether, the 
 ether with Brahman or Spirit. When asked what 
 is real in this world, they invariably reply Spirit, 
 because everything can be ultimately identified 
 with It. 
 
 These ideas were the meaning of Jesus the 
 Christ's words when he said: "I and my Father 
 are One." He saw but One Individual. "Thou 
 art That," say the Vedas. Try and grasp these 
 thoughts. Your life will be changed. When 
 
Concerning the Eternal Omnipresent Self 303 
 
 you realize them, your lower nature, purified from 
 Desire and Worldliness, will merge with the 
 ecstasy of perfected sages into that One Infinite 
 Self — the Divine within — which is the Self of all 
 living Beings. "He is our mother; He is our 
 father; He is our beloved friend; He is our 
 wealth and learning; He is also the shadow dark- 
 ening our path." Whom then shall we hate; 
 whom shall we fear? Everything is Self, our 
 Self. Everything seen, everything heard, every- 
 thing felt and imagined become transformed by 
 our vision of Self. Through soul ignorance we 
 divide the One Self into many. When the veils 
 of ignorance and separateness are removed "by 
 the grace of the Creator, then the mortal becomes 
 Immortal, all doubts vanish," and the soul finds 
 that through its indefinite incarnations and chang- 
 ing personalities, there has at all times dwelt in 
 its innermost sanctuary the Self. This eternal 
 Self knows no separateness. It is above all limi- 
 tations. Through His own power of Maya (illu- 
 sion), and for His own inscrutable reasons, the 
 Lord from time to time projects Himself in this 
 universe with its seeming difference, separate- 
 ness and manifoldness. He likewise causes it to 
 involve and become only potential. Similar to 
 the fire which has a potential existence in every 
 piece of wood, so when the "night of Brahma" 
 
304 Practical Occultism 
 
 arrives, when the cosmic force which has pro- 
 jected these universes has been spent, they will 
 merge into a potential existence in the All-absorb- 
 ing Spirit. This is the great cosmic rest, the equi- 
 librium of science. These things about us which 
 our senses tell us are so real and solid, will then 
 gradually fade into states less solid, becoming dis- 
 integrated and invisible in the expanse of the 
 ether, and finally reduced to a static condition. 
 Forms, forces, space, ether, time, the law of cause 
 and effect, all these worlds will have vanished. 
 We are prepared for this dissolution of objective 
 re.ality by the dissolution we daily witness about 
 us. From the invisible, bodies are projected and 
 into the invisible they disappear. Nothing which 
 is truly real can ever change. It would be hard 
 therefore, to logically call this world of constant 
 change, of passing things, of illusion, real. The 
 Spirit of it is eternally the same. It is with us 
 now, interpenetrating every atom. It does not 
 only permeate every atom, but It is likewise the 
 reality, the manifesting power of every atom, the 
 reality of our thoughts, the reality of our senses 
 and their experiences, nay even of our very souls. 
 There is nothing but It. It is Self Universal. 
 When we have realized That, for us there is no 
 death, no change, no relativity, no coming and 
 going, no subjection to this desire and that — for 
 
Concerning the Eternal Omnipresent Self 305 
 
 what should we want having That which is all? 
 There will then be no reincarnation, for the Spirit 
 in the man will then shine forth. It knows Itself 
 as Spirit, as Unborn, Ancient, Everlasting, free 
 from birth and death. The body is born and 
 dies; the mind changes perpetually. But the 
 Spirit is not born, neither does it die or change. 
 It has no need for incarnation, for what should 
 It desire; what should It become? It is all in all. 
 It is the worshipper and what is worshipped. 
 Where is the place It is not? What is there be- 
 side It? It is the lowest and the highest. Noth- 
 ing exists outside of Its All-embracing Existence. 
 It knows nothing of the distinctions man makes 
 through ignorance, through fear, through passion, 
 through envy, through selfishness, through lack 
 of discrimination between the real and the unreal. 
 It can see no difference between the highest God 
 and the most miserable creature. It sees only 
 a difference of manifestation for It is the Spirit, 
 the Reality of that God and that creature. It 
 knows Itself, only as Itself. 
 
 It — the Spirit — is unsearchable by any methods. 
 It is imperceptible by the senses. The mind can- 
 not grasp It; it can only reason the necessity of 
 Its absolute existence. It is the unthinkable. It 
 is Spencer's Unknowable. No argument will 
 avail. How then can It be realized? "He 
 
306 Practical Occultism 
 
 whom the Self chooses, by him the Self is gained," 
 the Vedas declare. The Spirit in us realises ex- 
 ternal, objective knowledge through the senses 
 and through the intellect. But these means of 
 knowledge are included in this universal net of 
 illusion. How then can the Imperishable Spirit 
 be discerned? The third means of knowledge 
 possessed by the Spirit is the illumination It mani- 
 fests when the heart is pure, when the senses 
 through self-control are dormant, when the in- 
 tellect has ceased to wander in vain argument — in 
 other words when Raja Yoga, union with the 
 Divine Self, has been effected. It realizes that 
 wnat the senses and the mind had perceived as 
 different is one in Essence with Itself. It sees 
 that It is both Subject and Object; that Infinite 
 Knowledge and Infinite Being are One. It knows 
 Itself as that Brahman, that Spirit, that Divine 
 Being, that Unconditioned Self, that World-Soul 
 which is Existence, Knowledge, Bliss-Absolute. 
 Its essence is Immeasurable Love. 
 
 The paths which lead to this Supreme Goal are 
 numerous. Do not think the Lord has inclosed 
 His infinite love and mercies within the narrow 
 boundaries of any one system of thought, ethics 
 or religion. Away from "the oldness of the let- 
 ter," as St. Paul says. The Lord permeates all 
 religions. The form, the doxology, the symbol- 
 
Concerning the Eternal Omnipresent Self 307 
 
 ogy of a religion, its liturgy, and so forth, are 
 the outgrowth of religious need varying at dif- 
 ferent periods of the race's development. The 
 Lord has given the nations of antiquity, the 
 Chinese, the pre-Aryan races, a chance for reali- 
 zation even as He has given us teachings in His 
 incarnation as the Christ. This fact should make 
 us impartial when dealing with the spirit of a 
 religion. We should not condemn. Objection- 
 able forms of religion perish along the line of 
 least resistance, while the survival of the fittest 
 is obtained. Evolution works here similarly as 
 it does everywhere, in displacements and readjust- 
 ments. We should always remember that the 
 form of a religion is nothing, and that its Spirit 
 is everything. All forms vanish when the Spirit 
 has been attained. They are only a means to an 
 end — realization of Self. This is the goal of re- 
 ligion. It is religion in the highest sense. For 
 souls such as the Christ, the Buddha, St. Francis 
 of Assissi, St. Theresa of Jesus, and other great 
 souls who have realized Self and communed with 
 the Divine, what use is there for rituals, particu- 
 lar places of worship, prescribed rules, bibles, 
 and so forth? They are, as the apostle says, 
 "living temples of the Holy Ghost (Spirit). " 
 They are one with the Source of all Truth and 
 Holiness. 
 
308 Practical Occultism 
 
 The first and indispensable requisite for reali- 
 zation is a sincere desire. This desire should 
 not be the haphazard result of a passing emotion. 
 It should be real. Sri Ramakrishna, India's 
 latest incarnation of the Supreme, telling his fol- 
 lowers of this desire, likened it to the desire of 
 the drowning man to be rescued from imminent 
 death. When the desire is that sincere then you 
 will see the Lord; you will know, "I and My 
 Father are One"; you will attain realization. 
 All religious aspirants have felt this desire. The 
 mind, also, should know nothing but good. It 
 should reflect nothing but the Spirit. It should 
 radiate purity. Christ Himself said: "Blessed 
 are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." 
 When Jesus the Christ used the word see he 
 meant what was implied. He was not guilty of 
 double-meanings. Grasp the promise. With 
 this mental attitude, with this first step towards 
 the Goal, the sorrows of life, its bodily cares and 
 anxieties will be forgotten. An emotion akin to 
 ecstasy will be the condition of the soul. The 
 soul will unswervingly witness the All-Presence, 
 the Infinite Bliss of the Master. 
 
 * 038.8. 
 

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